170 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



consideration the whole structure of man, including his 

 mental faculties, have followed Blumenbach and Cuvier, 

 and have placed man in a separate order, under the title of 

 the Bimana, and therefore on an equality with the orders of 

 the Quadrumana, Carnivora, etc. Recently many of our 

 best naturalists have recurred to the view first propounded 

 by Linnaeus, so remarkable for his sagacity, and have placed 

 man in the same order with the Quadruman, under the 

 title of the Primates. The justice of this conclusion will 

 be admitted; for in the first place, we must bear in mind 

 the comparative insignificance for classification of the great 

 development of the brain in man, and that the strongly- 

 marked differences between the skulls of man and the 

 Quadrumana (lately insisted upon by Bischoff, Aeby and 

 others) apparently follow from their differently developed 

 brains. In the second place, we must remember that 

 nearly all the other and more important differences between 

 man and the Quadrumana are manifestly adaptive in their 

 nature, and relate chiefly to the erect position of man; such 

 as the structure of his hand, foot and pelvis, the curvature 

 of his spine, and the position of his head. The family of 

 seals offers a good illustration of the small importance of 

 adaptive characters for classification. These animals differ 

 from all other Carnivora in the form of their bodies and in 

 the structure of their limbs, far more than does man from 

 the higher apes; yet in most systems, from that of Cuvier 

 to the most recent one by Mr. Flower,* seals are ranked 

 as a mere family in the order of the Carnivora. If man 

 had not been his own classifier he would never have thought 

 of founding a separate order for his own reception. 



It would be beyond my limits and quite beyond my 

 knowledge even to name the innumerable points of struct- 

 ure in which man agrees with the other Primates. Our 

 great anatomist and philosopher. Prof. Huxley, has fully 

 discussed this subject,! and concludes that man in all parts 

 of his organization differs less from the higher apes than 

 these do from the lower members of the same group. Con- 

 sequently there "is no justification for placing man in a 

 distinct order.'"' 



In an early part of this work I brought forward various 

 facts, showing how closely man agrees in constitution with 



* " Proc. Zoolog. Soc," 1863, p. 4. 



\ " Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature," 1863, p. 70, et passim. 



