158 DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION 



these and other orders of mammaha is one to which the 

 lemurs, monkeys, and apes are assigned, because all 

 these forms agree in certain structural respects that 

 place them apart from the other mammalia, in the same 

 way, for example, that the races of white men may be 

 recognized as a group distinct from the black and red 

 races. But comparative studies, prosecuted not only 

 by those who have been forced to adopt the evolutionary 

 interpretation, but also by believers in special creation 

 like Linna3us and Cuvier and other more modern oppo- 

 nents of evolution, have shown that the peculiar qual- 

 ities of this order are shared by the human species. 

 Indeed, the name of primates was given to this section 

 by Linnaeus himself, because the human body found a 

 place in the array which begins at the lower extreme 

 with the lemurs and the monkeys and ends with man 

 at the other end. Again it is found that no separate 

 order of mammals exists to include only the genus 

 Homo. 



To one unacquainted with the facts of vertebrate 

 comparative anatomy, the distinguishing character- 

 istics of the primates seem to be trivial in nature. It 

 is surprising to find how insignificant are the details 

 to which appeal must be made in order to draw a line 

 between our own division of mammalia and the others. 

 It is well to review them as they are given in the stan- 

 dard text-books of comparative anatomy. Primates 

 are eutheria, or true mammalia possessing a placental 

 attachment of the young within the parent. The first 

 digits, namely, the ^^ great toe " and the ''thumb," are 

 freely movable and opposable to the others, so that the 

 limbs are prehensile and clasping structures ; usually 



