Introduction 



By John F. Fulton 



ANIMALS having physical form akin 

 X\. to that of man have always stirred 

 human curiosity. Among various peo- 

 ples these manlike creatures are held in 

 deep reverence; even today in India the 

 Hanuman langur, and in Egypt the Ham- 

 adryas baboon, are still regarded as sacred. 

 The anthropoids, on the other hand, may 

 be feared and hated, and primitive tribes 

 have attempted systematically to extermi- 

 nate them as they would the members of a 

 hostile tribe. 



Although man and kindred creatures 

 seem logically to fall into a homogeneous 

 group, no one prior to the gifted Linnaeus 

 had the courage, when sorting out the ani- 

 mal kingdom, to group man with ape and 

 monkey. In the first edition of Systema 

 naturae (1735) man. Homo, was placed with 

 his kin, Simia and Bradypus, in a group 

 designated "Anthropomorpha." In his Lap- 

 land diary under the date of July 11, 1732, 

 there is an illuminating entry which gives 

 the basis of this grouping: 



But to decide concerning our own species. If 

 we contemplate the characters of our teeth, 

 hands, fingers, and toes, it is impossible not to 

 perceive how very nearly we are related to 

 Baboons and Monkeys, the wild men of the 

 woods. In as much therefore as these are found 

 to be carnivorous, the question is decided with 

 respect to ourselves.* 



Linnaeus at this time (1732) was only 25 

 years of age. Fifteen years later in a letter 

 to Gmelin (February 14, 1747) he throws 

 further light on the subject in confessing 

 his fear of the theologians: 



* See Allen, F. H., Science, 1941, 93: 183. 



It would not please, if I placed the man 

 among the anthropomorphous; but man knows 

 himself. Let us abandon words, I do not care 

 what words we use; but from thee, and from 

 the whole world I want an answer to this: 

 What is the difference between man and ape, 

 difference which would be based on natural 

 history? Most definitely I see no difference. I 

 wish some one could show me even one dis- 

 tinction! Should I call a man 'ape' or an ape 

 'man,' all the theologians would be after me. 

 Yet, for the sake of science, I should have done 

 it.t 



In the celebrated tenth edition oi Systema 

 naturae published in Stockholm in 1758, 

 Linnaeus adopted the Latin term "Pri- 

 mates" to designate the first order of mam- 

 mals. The name implies superiority of this 

 group of creatures over the other members 

 of the animal kingdom, but Linnaeus was 

 careful, within the new order, not to ar- 

 range ascendant families. He placed empha- 

 sis upon teeth as a feature distinguishing 

 primates from other forms, and he origi- 

 nally defined a primate as "a quadruped 

 with four parallel incisors, single canines, 

 two pectoral mammae, hands (rather than 

 paws), two complete clavicles, and an ar- 

 boreal habitat." He recognized that some 

 had tails, but that others lacked this ap- 

 pendage, and he arranged his forms in 

 groups according to such structural peculi- 

 arities, without implication that one group 

 is higher than another. 



Dr. Ruch has followed Linnaeus in 

 adopting the term "primate," and in the 

 title of his bibliography he has introduced 

 a new and useful derivative "Primatology." 



t Hrdlicka, A., Science, 1940, 92: 605. 



[xi] 



