66 ON THE PLACE OF MAN IN THE SCALE OF BEING. 



tinguished from all other animals, by the equality in the length of all his teeth, 

 and by the equally close approximation of them all in each jaw. Even the 

 anthropoid Apes have the canine teeth longer than the others, and an interval 

 in the line of teeth in each side of the jaw, to receive the canine teeth of the 

 opposite jaw. This is more evident in the adult than in the young animal. 

 The vertical position of the Human teeth, on which one of the most charac- 

 teristic features of the human face the prominent chin depends, is also 

 quite peculiar; and is intimately connected both with his erect attitude, and 

 with the perfection of the hands, by which the food is divided and conveyed 

 to the mouth. He has no occasion for that protrusion of the muzzle and lips, 

 which, in animals that seize their food with the mouth only, is required to pre- 

 vent the face from coming into general contact with it. The absence of any 

 weapons of offence, and of direct means of defence, are remarkable charac- 

 teristics of Man, and distinguish him from other animals. On those to whom 

 Nature has denied weapons of attack, she has bestowed the means either of 

 passive defence, of concealment, or of flight. Yet Man, by his superior rea- 

 son, has not only been enabled to resist the attacks of other animals, but even 

 to bring them under subjection to himself. His intellect can scarcely suggest 

 the mechanism which his hands cannot frame ; and he has devised and con- 

 structed arms more powerful than those which any other creature wields, and 

 defences so secure as to defy the assaults of all but his fellow-men. We find, 

 on comparing the brain of Man with that of the lower Mammalia, that, as 

 might have been anticipated, its proportional dimensions are much greater, and 

 its structure more complex. The former part of this statement is easily veri- 

 fied by an examination of the cranium alone, comparing tbe size of its cavity 

 with that of the face. The amount of the facial angle, taken after the man- 

 ner of Camper, affords a tolerably correct indication of the relative sizes of 

 these parts. In Man, the facial angle is, in the average of Europeans, 80 ; 

 in Negroes, it is about 70. In the adult Chimpanzee (which approaches in 

 this respect nearest to Man), the facial angle is only 35 ; and in the Orang, it 

 is no more than 30. In other animals it is still less, except when it is in- 

 creased by the prominence of large frontal sinuses, or by the comparative 

 shortness of the jaws. In regard to the structure of the brain, we shall here 

 only remark generally, that the Encephalon of Man far exceeds that of the 

 highest Quadrumana, in the size of the cerebral hemispheres, in the com- 

 plexity and development of its internal parts, and in the depth and number of 

 its convolutions. 



69. Man cannot be regarded as distinguished from other Mammalia, how- 

 ever, either by acuteness of sensibility, or by muscular power. His swiftness 

 in running, and agility in leaping, are inferior to that of other animals of his 

 size, the full-grown Orang, for example. The smallness of his face, compared 

 with that of the cranium, shows that the portion of the nervous system distri- 

 buted to the organs of sense, is less developed in him than it is in most other 

 animals ; and the small proportional size of the ganglionic centres, with which 

 these organs are immediately connected, is another indication of the same fact. 

 Accordingly, he is surpassed by many in the acuteness of his sensibility to 

 light, sound, &c., but he stands alone in the power of comparing his sensa- 

 tions, and of drawing conclusions from them. Moreover, although none of his 

 senses are very acute in his natural state, they are all moderately so, which is 

 not the case in other animals ; and they are capable (as is also his swiftness of 

 foot) of being much improved by practice, especially when circumstances 

 strongly call for their exercise. This power of adaptation to varieties in 

 external conditions, which makes him to a great extent independent of them, 

 is manifested in other features of his structure and economy. He is capable 

 of sustaining the lowest as well as the highest extremes of temperature and 



