26 
MAMMALIA. 
from all other creatures in his upright gait, and in the admirable 
construction of his hands; which enable him to perform actions 
and form instruments with such nicety. These, in connection 
with his intellectual faculties, have qualified him to make dis¬ 
coveries beyond this earth. 
The specific distinction betwixt man and all other animals, 
consists in his upright posture, and the bones of his legs and 
arms being so constructed, that it is impossible for him to walk 
on his four extremities; the great length of the thigh bone would 
bring the knee in contact with the ground, and the short inflexible 
structure of his feet disqualify him for this sort of action : the 
arms being so far separated from the central line and the articu¬ 
lations of the shoulder joints, together with their distance from 
each other, show that he could not support himself in a hori¬ 
zontal position ; the muscle which acts as a binder betwixt the 
shoulders, is small in man compared to that of other animals : 
his head is heavier, and the vertebrae and muscles of the neck 
weaker, so that he could not support it in this position : in the 
quadrumina, the arteries which supply the brain are subdivided, 
while in man they are entire, and would in the horizontal 
position consequently flow with such force and rapidity, as soon 
to produce stupor. Man is the only true biped, his feet being 
exclusively formed for walking, and his hands for higher and 
more varied purposes: in one particular they differ widely from 
those of all other animals, namely, in the structure of the thumb, 
which being entirely independent from the fingers in its'action, 
gives it a facility and power in grasping, greatly superior to the 
chimpanse, which approaches nearest to man in conformation. 
But what raises man far above every other creature, is his 
brain. Several of the inferior animals, as the elephant and 
whale, have brains larger in absolute size than man ; several 
species of monkeys, and in the sparrow, canary, linnet, and red¬ 
breast, the brain is larger in proportion to the size of the body 
than in him. But man is distinguished from the inferior 
creatures by the possession of several cerebral parts, which are 
wanting in them. For example, in man there are certain con¬ 
volutions lying transversely in the upper region of the brain, 
under part of the parietal bones ; and also a variety of convolu¬ 
tions in the anterior lobe, which do not present themselves in 
the brains of the inferior animals. In the human species, these 
