PRIMITIVE MAN. 3G3 



of classification, and condescend, with some great 

 zoologists of our time, to regard nature with the eyes 

 of mere anatomists, or in the same way that a brick- 

 hiyer's apprentice may be supposed to regard distinc- 

 tions of architectural styles, we can arrive at no other 

 conclusion. Let us imagine an anatomist, himself 

 neither a man nor a monkey, but a being of some 

 other grade, and altogether ignorant of the higher 

 ends and powers of our species, to contemplate merely 

 the skeleton of a man and that of an ape. He 

 must necessarily deduce therefrom an ordinal distinc- 

 tion, even on the one ground of the correlations and 

 modifications of structure implied in the erect position. 

 It would indeed be sufficient for this purpose to 

 consider merely the balancing of the skull on the neck, 

 or the structure of the foot, and the consequences 

 fairly deducible from either of them. Nay, were such 

 imaginary anatomist a derivationist, and ignorant of 

 the geological date of his specimens, and as careless 

 of the difi'erences in respect to brain as some of his 

 human confreres , he might, referring to the less 

 specialised condition of man's teeth and foot, conclude, 

 not that man is an improved ape, but that the ape 

 is a specialised and improved man. He would be 

 obliged, however, even on this hypothesis, to admit that 

 there must be a host of missing links. Nor would 

 these be supplied by the study of the living races of 

 men, because these want even specific distinctness, 

 and diff'er from the apes essentially in those points on 

 which an ordinal distinction can be fairly based. 



