124: THE RELATIONS OF MAN 



is no existing link between Man and the Gorilla, but do 

 not forget that there is a no less sharp line of demarca- 

 tion, a no less complete absence of any transitional form, 

 between the Gorilla and the Orang, or the Orang and the 

 Gibbon. I say, not less sharp, though it is somewhat nar- 

 rower. The structural differences between Man and the 

 Man-like apes certainly justify our regarding him as con- 

 stituting a family apart from them ; though, inasmuch as 

 he differs less from them than they do from other families 

 of the same order, there can be no justification for placing 

 him in a distinct order. 



And thus the sagacious foresight of the great lawgiver 

 of systematic zoology, Linnaeus, becomes justified, and a 

 century of anatomical research brings us back to his con- 

 clusion, that man is a member of the same order (for which 

 the Linnsean term Pelmates ought to be retained) as the 

 Apes and Lemurs. This order is now divisible into seven 

 families, of about equal systematic value : the first, the 

 Antheoplni, contains Man alone ; the second, the Ca- 

 taehlni, embraces the old world apes ; the third, the 

 Platyehini, all new world apes, except the Marmosets ; 

 the fourth, the AEcropiTHEcrNi, contains the Marmosets ; 

 the fifth, the Lemttrini, the Lemurs— from which Chei- 

 romys should probably be excluded to form a sixth dis- 

 tinct family, the Cheieomyini ; while the seventh, the 

 Galeopithecini, contains only the flying Lemur Galeo- 

 pithecus, — a strange form which almost touches on the 

 Bats, as the Cheiromys puts on a Kodent clothing, and 

 the Lemurs simulate Insectivora. 



Perhaps no order of mammals presents us with so ex- 

 traordinary a series of gradations as this — leading us in- 

 sensibly from the crown and summit of the animal crea- 

 tion down to creatures, from which there is but a step, as 

 it seems, to the lowest, smallest, and least intelligent of 



