Ixii INTRODUCTION 



this order are not uninteresting. He recognised the families 

 of edentates, rodents, and Chiroptera, and referred genera 

 to these families, on the whole with fair accuracy. He also 

 recognised the marsupials, under the name of Pedimana. 

 His highest, or " quadrumanous," family corresponds to 

 our Primates. But the remainder of the exunguiculate 

 mammals are divided into tardigrade, plantigrade and 

 digitigrade, according to their method of walking. The 

 tardigrade or slow- walker contains the solitary ^enus of the 

 sloth, which Lamarck thus separated from the edentates, 

 although placing it in contiguity with that group. The 

 plantigrade and digitigrade mammals are those which walk 

 respectively on their whole feet, or on their toes. Lamarck 

 thus had no conception either of the Carnivora or of the 

 Insectivora. The Carnivora he divides up among the planti- 

 grades and digitigrades. The Insectivora fall to the family 

 of plantigrades, with the exception of Galeopithecus, which 

 he somewhat excusably referred to the Chiroptera. The 

 anthropoid apes are represented by the " Pongo " and the 

 " Orang," both very vague genera. There were said to be 

 two species of Orang, the Orang of the Indies, and the Orang 

 of Angola, the latter no doubt being the Chimpanzee. 



It is not quite clear how Lamarck thought that man was 

 related to the animal scale. Throughout the work he con- 

 stantly refers to man and animal in antithetical terms. He 

 did not regard man as an animal, in the same sense as other 

 animals ; but he perceived that by confining his attention 

 entirely to a study of structure, man might be classified as 

 one family of mammals. This family he calls " Bimanous," 

 and divides into six varieties — Caucasian, Hyperborean, Mon- 

 golian, American, Malayan, and Ethiopian or Negro. 



It appears highly probable that Lamarck recognised the 

 common origin of man and other animals, but that he did 

 not venture to proclaim it. He elaborates a hypothesis as 

 to how man might have developed, if he were only distinguished 

 from other animals by his structure and organisation. Ac- 

 cording to this hypothesis, the evolution of man would be 



