XV 
DARWINISM APPLIED TO MAN 
451 
Asia and the larger Malay Islands. These last are far less like 
man than the other three, one or other of which has at 
various times been claimed to be the most man-like of the 
apes and our nearest relations in the animal kingdom. The 
question of the degree of resemblance of these animals to 
ourselves is one of great interest, leading, as it does, to some 
important conclusions as to our origin and geological antiquity, 
and we will therefore briefly consider it. 
If we compare the skeletons of the orang or chimpanzee 
with that of man, we find them to be a kind of distorted 
copy, every bone corresponding (with very few exceptions), 
but altered somewhat in size, proportions, and position. So 
great is this resemblance that it led Professor Owen to 
remark: “ I cannot shut my eyes to the significance of that 
all-pervading similitude of structure—every tooth, every bone, 
strictly homologous—which makes the determination of the 
difference between Homo and Pithecus the anatomist’s diffi¬ 
culty. 
The actual differences in the skeletons of these apes and 
that of man—that is, differences dependent on the presence 
or absence of certain bones, and not on their form or position 
—have been enumerated by Mr. Mivart as follows :—(1) In 
the breast-bone consisting of but two bones, man agrees with 
the gibbons; the chimpanzee and gorilla having this part 
consisting of seven bones in a single series, while in the 
orang they are arranged in a double series of ten bones. (2) 
The normal number of the ribs in the orang and some gibbons 
is twelve pairs, as in man, while in the chimpanzee and gorilla 
there are thirteen pairs. (3) The orang and the gibbons also 
agree with man in having five lumbar vertebrae, while in the 
gorilla and the chimpanzee there are but four, and sometimes 
only three. (4) The gorilla and chimpanzee agree with man 
in having eight small bones in the wrist, while the orang and 
the gibbons, as well as all other monkeys, have nine. 1 
The differences in the form, size, and attachments of the 
various bones, muscles, and other organs of these apes and 
1 Man and Apes. By St. George Mivart, F.R.S., 1873. It is an 
interesting fact (for which I am indebted to Mr. E. B. Poulton) that the 
human embryo possesses the extra rib and wrist-bone referred to above in 
(2) and (4) as occurring in some of the apes. 
