102 



APE. 



countries where apes reside, there are very few 

 animals of the habits of which in a state of nature we 

 know so little. The fault has lain in the structure 

 of apes not being studied with reference to their own 

 haunts and habits in a state of nature, but to fine 

 out what species has the greatest resemblance to 

 man. This is trifling, certainly ; but it is any thing 

 but philosophic trifling. Structural resemblances to 

 man can be traced in many animals in the sloths 

 for instance, and the bats nay, even in the whales, 

 the bones of whose swimming paws have a very 

 considerable resemblance to those of the human arm 

 and hand. 



At best, the tracing of such analogies is waste ol 

 time; and at worst it leads, almost as a matter of 

 necessity, the ignorant to materialism, inasmuch as it 

 tends to show that the only superiority of man over 

 the other animals is what the parties in question call 

 a superior organisation. Now, in the rational view 

 of the matter, there is no superior organisation. Each 

 animal has to perform certain functions specifically 

 different, if the animals can be considered as different 

 species ; and in each the organisation is better fitted 

 for the performance of its own function than that of 

 any other animal ; and therefore as regards that func- 

 tion, which may be considered as the purpose of the 

 animal in nature, its organisation is higher than that 

 of any other. What the animal does, and how it is 

 organised for the doing of it, are the valuable points 

 in the natural history of any one animal, be it of 

 what class, order, family, genus, or species it may ; 

 and to find out how the function and the organisation 

 vary together, as we pass from species to species, is 

 the valuable point in the comparison of one with 

 another. 



When we pursue our observations and analogies 

 in this way, the conclusions at which we arrive are 

 of the greatest practical utility. In one respect, we 

 find out the means which are best adapted for the 

 accomplishment of purposes ; and as the purposes of 

 animals, that is the actions which they perform, are 

 absolutely countless, there is not a difficulty we can 

 meet with in any mechanical art, in which we shall 

 not get assistance from the structure and functions 

 of animals, if we seek it with due knowledge and 

 without prejudice. Again, if, along with the organ- 

 isation, and the functions which that organisation 

 performs, we take the dispositions of the animals, 

 and the circumstances which promote most their 

 health and duration, we ascertain the capabilities of 

 the animals, the uses to which we may apply them, 

 as their flesh for food, their skins or the appendages 

 of them for clothing, their strength for labour, and 

 their docility for other services. Such are the prac- 

 tical results of the proper study of animals ; and when 

 arrived at by proper means, that is by careful obser- 

 vation and unbiassed inference, no results can be 

 more valuable. 



But when, as has been very generally done in the 

 case of the apes, we quit the proper ground of natu- 

 ral history, and seek for analogies where, in the na- 

 ture of things, no analogy can possibly be found, we 

 not only destroy the proper usefulness of natural 

 history, but we turn it into a source of the most per- 

 i-icious error, because it is error which leads us to a 

 misunderstanding of our own nature. 



If, in proportion as the apes approximate to man in 

 ttie structure of their bodies, they also approximate to 

 man in the actions which of themselves they are capa- 



ble of performing, then it is impossible to prevent 

 this question from arising to all persons, especially 

 young persons, who are in the anxious pursuit of 

 knowledge and truth : " If other animals approxi- 

 mate to man in capacity, in proportion as they 

 approximate to him in organic structure, tmd if the 

 superiority of man depends on his organisation, what 

 possible use can there be for mind in man for an 

 immortal spirit totally and essentially different from 

 all else in the animated creation?" And if the pre- 

 mises are admitted, the answer is irresistible : 

 " There is no use for such a mind ; and by the re- 

 ceived law of nature that ' nothing is made in vain,' 

 no such mind can by possibility exist." Such is the 

 doctrine even now broached under the real or pre- 

 tended authority of names, sounding enough to give 

 currency, and, among the ignorant, reception as truth, 

 to any error! This, however, is a cruel deception, 

 and the responsibility cannot be got rid of by that 

 "easy virtue," whose plea of justification maybe that 

 it is " feeding the hungry and clothing the naked." 



The grand natural history argument for mind in 

 man, and when properly stated it is quite conclusive, 

 is, that of itself and without the mind to guide it, his 

 organisation does not appear fit for any one thing. 

 Go to the whole of the animal tribes, from the ape 

 to the animalcule, and say whose place, if he had no 

 mental resource, man could supply. Make yourself 

 master of all his anatomy, understand the motions of 

 every bone, and the action of every muscle, then say 

 in what part of wild nature you w ould place him, so 

 that he would, without mental resource, act his part 

 better than any other creature which is there already, 

 or even half as well as some one or other of them? 

 You find all the animals allocated and peculiar, the 

 jest fitted for their localities, and fitted for them 

 without any instruction : man is fit for nothing till he 

 s taught ; but with teaching he becomes equally fit 

 'or all things. This is a difference not of degree 

 only but of kind ; and it bars all useful comparison 

 Between man and the other animals. The length of 

 the Thames to the length of a summer's day is not a 

 more absurd comparison than that of man to an ape. 



The group at the bottom of plate APES, in which 

 he burin of Thomas Landseer has brought out the 

 brm and the expression with equal force and truth, 

 contains the two species with which the description 

 of naturalists above alluded to have shown the great- 

 est disposition to claim kindred. Some have pre- 

 erred the metaphysical cut of the chimpansee, others 

 he demure looks of the orang-utan ; and from the 

 attitude in which the artist has placed him, as if he 

 vere the judge in a cause or the arbiter in a dispute, 

 ic looks very wise ; though others again may prefer 

 he grave and wigged visage of the black gibbon. 

 But all these differences of appearance are indications 

 of differences in the habits and haunts of the animals, 

 and of nothing more, 



The distinguishing characters of the true apes are, 

 laving neither tails nor cheek pouches. Their teeth 

 re the same in number as in man, and their incisive 

 nd grinding both resemble those of man in form, 

 jut the canines are large and prominent, and in the 

 ull-grown animals scarcely less formidable than the 

 :orresponding teeth of beasts of prey. All the paws 

 for it is incorrect to call them hands) consist 01 four 

 ingcrs and a thumb. The latter member is, how- 

 ver, very small, sometimes without a nail, and can- 

 lot, in all of the species, be said to perform the tune- 



