CHARACTERS OF MAN 



characters are put before the reader in the course of 

 this book. The only remaining order of existing mammal 

 is that of the whales, the Cetacea, of which the common 

 porpoise is the only type that has ever been exhibited 

 at the Zoological Gardens. We shall therefore omit 

 them in the present book. 



ORDER PRIMATES : MONKEYS AND MAN 



It is not our business here to enter into psychological 

 distinctions between man and the apes. That depart- 

 ment of enquiry is not zoology at all. What we are 

 concerned with is to show that man and apes are not 

 separable into diverse orders among the mammalia, 

 although it may be permissible to assign to man a 

 special family for his own enjoyment. Even this 

 amount of separation might be objected to, and on 

 grounds by no means trivial. Let us consider what are 

 precisely the differences which mark out man as dis- 

 tinct from the highest apes, the orang, gorilla, and 

 chimpanzee. Prof. Haeckel has pointed out that four 

 characters, and four only, define men. Firstly the 

 erect gait, secondly the slight structural modifications 

 which have rendered necessary or are rendered neces- 

 sary by this upright posture, thirdly the faculty of 

 speech ; and, lastly, the faculty of reason. With the 

 two latter characters we have nothing to do here ; 

 they are outside the province of the zoologist. As to 

 the former, the erect attitude of body is at least ap- 

 proached in the anthropoid apes ; the gibbon will run 

 for some distance upon its legs, and the gorilla shows 

 a distinct difference from the chimpanzee, otherwise 

 so nearly akin, by certain modifications connected 

 with its less aboreal life. No ape, however, perpetually 

 walks upon its hind limbs only ; it is to man alone that 

 nature " os sublime dedit vultusque attollere ad astra." 



IQ 



