MAMMALIA. 757 



Order XII. Bimana. 



Incisor, canine, and molar teeth even, contiguous; molars equa- 

 bly enamelled ; incisors four on each side. Feet pentadactylous, 

 anterior limbs furnished with hands; nails all flat, broad. Gait 

 erect. 



Family XL VI. Erecta. (Characters of the order.) 



4 1—1 5—5 



Homo L. (Incisor teeth ^ , canines ^j r , molars \ — p ; Dental 



f in .2-2 1-1 2-2 3-3 ^^, 



formula Owen, i. ^—^ , c. ^-— ^ , p. ^— ^ ' i^- 333 = ^2). 



Sp. Homo ftainens L. (Nosce te ipsum). 



Altlioiigli man as a moral and reasoning creature is raised far 

 above the animals, yet when his bodily structure is contemplated, 

 no characters can be indicated which remove him from the class to 

 which he is here referred. Man is distinguished from animals by 

 an erect gait, for which even the monkeys that cori-espond to him 

 most nearly in corporeal structure are unfitted, and which with 

 him is the only natural one, since by it he preserves the free use 

 of his hands. His hand is more unrestricted in the motion of the 

 fingers, and is for him an instrument of instruments, as it was named 

 by Aristoteles\ The brain has a great preponderance over the 

 nerves and the spinal cord, of which the large amplitude of the 

 human cranium as compared with the face is a consequence; man 

 has the largest facial angle. 



Man is further distinguished from animals by speech. All, even 

 the least civilized peoples, have a language; it is the embodiment 

 of the reason of man ; words are forms of human thoughts ; lan- 

 guage is thus as much a property of man as is his understanding, 

 although it may, no less than his understanding, be developed, 

 enlarged and cultivated. Through it man possesses a history, a 

 tradition of experience; a progressive education, which is imparted 

 by this tradition to succeeding generations. 



^ 7/ 5^ Xdp ioLKev elvM o^x ^f ipyavop dXXa TroXXd" icri 'yap uffTrepel Spyavov vpb 

 6pyavu)v. De partibus Anhnal. iv. 108. Compare on the hand, as evincing design, 

 the elegant Bridgewater treatise of the eminent physiologist Sir Charles Bell. 



