Vertehrata — Man, 15 



inefficient, and too little suited to be put in opposition to the 

 fingers, to bear a comparison with that of man. The two 

 hinder limbs are composed of the thighs, the legs, and the 

 feet. The thighs extend from the hip to the knee, the legs 

 from the knee to the ancle, and the feet from the ancle to the 

 tips of the toes. Each foot is composed of a imtatarsus^ or 

 body, constituting what we call the back and sole of the foot, 

 which terminates in five toes, — the great toe, the little toe, and 

 the three middle toes, — all placed upon the same level, so that 

 the great toe cannot be opposed to the other toes, as the thumb 

 is opposed to the fingers of the hand; a conformation evi- 

 dently in keeping with the erect posture proper to man, as 

 being calculated to enable him to stand or to walk firmly on 

 the soles of his feet, and to leave his hands and arms at li- 

 berty ; whereas the hinder limbs of apes may be said to end in 

 hands rather than in feet, and to have palms and prehensile 

 fingers rather than soles and toes, which, when placed upon 

 the ground, rest, not on a broad and flat surface, like the sole 

 of the human foot, but merely on the exterior edge of the or- 

 gan, and hence present no proper basis of support to uphold 

 the fabric in an upright position. Thus man is the only two- 

 Imnded animal that exists j for apes are in fact four-handed, 

 as the foregoing detail exhibits them, and are hence duly en- 

 titled to the epithet Quadrumana^, by which they are now de- 

 signated, and by which the difficulty that puzzled Linnaeus has 

 been at length overcome : " Nullam characterem hactenus 

 eruere potui, Jtnde Homo a Simla internoscatur\ f — ' I have 

 hitherto been able to discover no mark by which men may be 

 distinguished from monkeys.' 



If other proofs were wanting to show the superiority of men 

 to monkeys, it would be easy to adduce them. They are de- 

 stitute of speech ; they are destitute of intellect. What is this 

 owing to ? Camper, who dissected an ourang-outang, found 

 in the front part of the neck two bags, or cavities, communi- 

 cating with the trachea, which seemed to him to be incom- 

 patible with distinct articulation J. After all, it is doubtful 

 whether the bags in question form an absolute bar to speech. 

 Mr. Lawrence thinks they do not, and regards the total inca- 

 pability of apes to generalize their ideas, or to pursue a conse- 

 cutive train of thought, as being the only true bar that lies be- 

 tween them and speech. Thus the grand cause of their inability 

 to form a spoken or articulate language is placed beyond the 

 reach of anatomical detection, and is apparently owing to their 

 want of intellect. Sir Charles Bell regards their inability to 



* Cuvier, Regne Anim., Mamiiial. f Quoted by Blumenbach. 



: Griffith's Suppl. Hist, of Man, i. 235. [See also Dr. Jeffnes*s paper, 

 uhi sup., p. 184, 185. — Edit.] 



