THE GORILLA. 19 
and not to band together in large herds as do the baboons and other quadrumanous 
animals. If they were to unite, and to understand the principle of combination, they 
could speedily depopulate any country that was inhabited by men who were not possessed 
of fire-arms, and were unable to construct defences. 
But, fortunately for those human beings who are within reach of these terrible 
animals, the adult ape is one of the most dull and stupid creatures imaginable ; sulky, 
ferocious, and given solely to its own animal appetites. 
Here is a sketch of one of the lowest and least 
developed of human beings, probably the very 
lowest of the human race. This little man, who 
belongs to the same country as the Gorilla, hardly 
attains even to the same stature, and in muscular 
proportions is a very pigmy. Yet that in mere 
animal form the Bushman is infinitely higher than 
the ape, is evident from the contrast displayed by 
the two figures; while, if the comparison be ex- 
tended to the mental endowments, the impassable 
barrier that exists between the two beings, exhibits 
itself in the most unmistakeable manner, 
Modern zoologists have done rightly in refusing 
to admit mankind into the same order with beings 
so infinitely below them, as are even the very 
highest of the apes. The unprogressive animal 
is restricted to a narrow circle of thought and 
reason, and is totally devoid of that great privi- 
lege of human nature which we call by the name 
of aspiration. Man ever proceeds onwards and * 
upwards, anticipating something beyond that which 
he possesses, while the brute creation remain in 
the same course of life in which they were origi- 
nally placed. The records of geological experience, 
show that Simiadie of gigantic stature existed on 
earth ages before the creation of human beings. 
Relics of these creatures have been found in various BUSHMAN. 
parts of the globe, and even in the tertiary 
formations of our own island. Apes were, therefore, at least contemporary with mankind ; 
but while men have progressed, the apes have stood still, and always will stand still 
as long as they remain upon earth. The ape which saw the light in the year B.c. 
4,000, was not a whit behind its descendant of the year A.D. 1859 in intellect or 
civilization ; ; and if the order were to be continued for twenty thousand years longer, 
the last ape would be not a step nearer civilization than the primeval pair. Within 
its own little circle of life, many of its bodily senses are far more acute than those 
of man, and its bodily powers greater; but there ends the advantage. The animals 
are only partial and individual in their existence, restricted to a small sphere of life, 
and often confined within a very limited portion of the earth. These very limits 
place the animals at an immeasurable distance ‘from man, who spreads himself over 
the entire earth, enduring with equal ease the fierce rays of the tropical sun, or 
the icy blasts of the arctic gales, and accommodating himself, through the agencies 
which his intellect projects, to these totally dissimilar modes of life. 
