TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 285 



systematic value, for the simple reason that, as may be 

 concluded from what has been already said respecting 

 cranial capacity, the difference in weight of brain between 

 the highest and the lowest men is far greater, both rela- 

 tively and absolutely, than that between the lowest man 

 and the highest ape. The latter, as has been seen, is 

 represented by, say, twelve ounces of cerebral substance 

 absolutely, or by 32 : 20 relatively ; but as the largest 

 recorded human brain weighed between 65 and 66 ounces, 

 the former difference is represented by more than 33 

 ounces absolutely, or by 65 : 32 relatively. Regarded 

 systematically, the cerebral differences of man and apes 

 are not of more than generic value his Family distinction 

 resting chiefly on his dentition, his pelvis, and his lower 

 limbs. 



Thus, whatever system of organs be studied, the com- 

 parison of their modifications in the ape series leads to 

 one and the same result that the structural differences 

 which separate Man from the Gorilla and the Chimpanzee 

 are not so great as those which separate the Gorilla from 

 the lower apes. 



But in enunciating this important truth I must guard 

 myself against a form of misunderstanding, which is very 

 prevalent. I find, in fact, that those who endeavour to 

 teach what nature so clearly shows us in this matter, are 

 liable to have their opinions misrepresented and their 

 phraseology garbled, until they seem to say that the 

 structural differences between man and even the highest 

 apes are small and insignificant. Let me take this oppor- 



The argument, that because there is an immense difference 

 between a Man's intelligence and an Ape's, therefore there must 

 be an equally immense difference between their brains, appears 

 to me to be about as well based as the reasoning by which one 

 should endeavour to prove that, because there is a " great gulf " 

 between a watch that keeps accurate time and another that will 

 not go at all, there is therefore a great structural hiatus between 

 the two watches. A hair in the balance-wheel, a little rust on a 

 pinion, a bend in a tooth of the escapement, a something so slight 

 that only the practised eye of the watchmaker can discover it, may 

 be the source of all the difference. 



And believing, as I do, with Cuvier, that the possession of articulate 

 speech is the grand distinctive character of man (whether it be 

 absolutely peculiar to him or not), I find it very easy to comprehend, 

 that some equally inconspicuous structural difference may have been 

 the primary cause of the immeasurable and practically infinite 

 divergence of the Human from the Simian Stirps. 



