60 EVOLUTION AND MAN S PLACE IN NATURE 



be sustained. A claim for the ape, warranting a much 

 higher place in the scale of organism, would require 

 us to indicate functions of the one life which are not 

 performed as well in the life of the other. There is 

 considerable contrast in posture, and in locomotion, 

 as in the life of an animal constantly climbing trees, 

 (squirrel, monkey, or ape), compared with that of an 

 animal of similar structure, but habitually moving on 

 the surface of the ground. 



Let us next take comparative structure of ape and 

 man. In what respects, apart from form, is the ape 

 inferior to man ? In everything in internal structure 

 and in function, in which the dog is inferior. In what 

 is the ape superior ? Only in muscular power. Not 

 withstanding this superiority, in which many animals 

 equal the ape, the brain of the lowest savage of the 

 human family is in structure greatly in advance of 

 the highest ape. 1 In man, there is inferior muscular 

 proportions with superior brain ; in the ape, superior 

 muscular power with inferior brain. A theory of 

 natural selection by accumulation of slight modifica 

 tions of structure has a clear answer as to the origin 

 of the difference in form between the ape and the 

 dog; but the theory has no such clear answer as to 

 the origin of the difference of intelligence between the 

 ape and man. 



In the field of comparative research, the rational 

 life of man is the outstanding event for which there is 

 no adequate scientific explanation. The perplexity 

 for the theory of natural selection is that anatomical 

 structure and physiological law, fail to provide for the 

 higher functions. Hitherto, we have been able to trace 



1 Huxley s Man s Place in Nature, p. 102. 



