1 855.] Anthropoid Apes, a?id their relations to Man. 4 1 



between the representation of the genus troglodytes in that continent, 

 and that of the genus pithectis in the great islands of the Indian 

 Archipelago, is very close and interesting. As the troglodytes 

 gorilla parallels the pithecus Wurmbii, so the troglodytes niger 

 parallels the pithecus morio, and an unexpected illustration has 

 thus been gained of the soundness of the interpretation of the 

 specific distinction of that smaller and more anthropoid orang. 



It is not without interest to observe, that as the generic forms of 

 the quadrumana approach the himanous order, they are represented 

 by fewer species. The gibbons {hylobates) scarcely number more 

 than half-a-dozen species ; the orangs {pithecus) have but two 

 species, or at most three ; the chimpanzees {troglodytes) are repre- 

 sented by two species. 



The unity of the human species is demonstrated by the constancy 

 of those osteological and dental characters to which the attention is 

 more particularly directed in the investigation of the corresponding 

 characters in the higher quadrumana. 



Man is the sole species of his genus, the sole representative of his 

 order ; he has no nearer physical relations with the brute-kind than 

 those which flow from the characters that link together the primary 

 (unguiculate) division of the placental sub-class of mammalia. 



Professor Owen trusted that he had furnished the confutation of 

 the notion of a transformation of the ape into man, which had been 

 anticipated by the old author to whom he had referred at the outset, 

 and strongly recommending his writings to those of his hearers who 

 might not be acquainted with them, he concluded by quoting the 

 passage referred to. 



" And of a truth, vile epicurism and sensuality will make the 

 soul of man so degenerate and blind, tliat he will not only be con- 

 tent to slide into brutish immorality, but please himself in this very 

 opinion that he is a real brute already, an ape, satyre or baboon ; 

 and that the best of men are no better, saving that civilizing of 

 them and industrious education has made them appear in a more 

 refined shape, and long inculcate precepts have been mistaken for 

 connate principles of honesty and natural knowledge ; otherwise 

 there be no indispensable grounds of religion and vertue, but what 

 has hapned to be taken up by over-ruling custom. Which things, 

 I dare say, are as easily confutable, as any conclusion in mathe- 

 matics is demonstrable. But as many as are thus sottish, let them 

 enjoy their own wildness and ignorance ; it is sufficient for a good 

 man that he is conscious unto himself that he is more nobly de- 

 scended, better bred and born, and more skilfully taught by the 

 purged faculties of his own minde."* 



[R. O.] 



* Henry More's "Conjectura Cabbalistica," fol. (1662)— p. 175. 



