70 ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 



malia or Plan tee ; while, finally, a countryman of our own arrogates to 

 his fellows so high a place in the aristocracy of nature as to deny that 

 mankind can be thought of zoologically at all. 



From the conception of man as a genus of Primates to the refusal to 

 conceive of him as a subject of zoological investigation, is a wide range of 

 opinion — so wide, indeed, as to include all possible views ; for in the pre- 

 sent state of science, no one is likely to propound the idea that man is 

 only a species of some genus of ape. Ingenious and learned men have held 

 all the doctrines which have been mentioned ; great men have held some 

 of them ; and, therefore, it is more than probable that the question at 

 issue, if we put the problem in this way, is in reality more one of opinion 

 as to the right method of classification and the value of the groups which 

 receive certain names, than one of fact. But, after all, it is the latter 

 question which really interests science ; and, therefore, it seems to me, 

 that some service may be done by setting about the inquiry in a different 

 way — by endeavouring, in fact, to answer the question — What is the 

 value of the differences observed between man and the lower animals, as 

 compared with the differences between the lower animals themselves ? 

 Are the differences between man and the apes, for example, as great as 

 those between the ape and the fish? or are they rather comparable to 

 those between the ape and the bird ; or, to take a less range, to those be- 

 tween the ape and the Marsupial ; or, to occupy a lower stand still, to 

 those presented by the ape, and, say, the Pachyderm : or, after all, are 

 the differences no greater than those which obtain between different ge- 

 nera of the Quadrumana ? 



These are questions which can plainly enough be settled indepen- 

 dently of all theoretical views. Differences of structure can be weighed 

 by the mind, as definitely as differences of gravity by the balance ; nor 

 can any dialectic skill refine them away. It will save trouble, if the 

 attempt be made to answer the last question first — Are the structural diffe- 

 rences between man and the Quadrumana no greater than those between 

 the extreme genera of the Qnadrumana ? If, as I shall endeavour to 

 show, this question can be demonstrably answered in the affirmative ; — 

 if it can be proved beyond doubt, that whether we consider the skeleton, 

 the muscles, the brain, or the other viscera, man is far less distant from 

 Troglodytes or Pithecus, than these apes are from the Lemur, and still 

 more from the Galeopitheeus or the Cheiromys, the other queries will 

 need no separate solution. I have hardly any new facts to bring for- 

 ward, nor any need to advance such. Thanks to the researches of Du- 

 vernoy, Tiedemann, Isidore St. Hilaire, Schroeder van der Xolk, Vrolik, 

 Gratiolet, Professor Owen, and others, all the elements of the problem 

 have long since been determined. It is only necessary to range the ad- 

 mitted facts side by side, in order to show that there is no escape from 

 the conclusion. 



And, first, with respect to the differential characters presented by the 

 brains of the chimpanzee and orang from that of man on the one hand, 

 and those of the lowest quadrumana on the other. I begin with this 

 question, because it was my misfortune, at the last meeting of the British 



