286 ON THE RELATIONS OF MAN 



tunity then of distinctly asserting, on the contrary, that 

 they are great and significant ; that every bone of a Gorilla 

 bears marks by which it might be distinguished from the 

 corresponding bone of a Man ; and that, in the present 

 creation, at any rate, no intermediate link bridges over the 

 gap between Homo and Troglodytes. 



It would be no less wrong than absurd to deny the 

 existence of this chasm ; but it is at least equally wrong 

 and absurd to exaggerate its magnitude, and, resting on 

 the admitted fact of its existence, to refuse to inquire 

 whether it is wide or narrow. Remember, if you will, 

 that there is no existing link between Man and the Gorilla, 

 but do not forget that there is a no less sharp line of demar- 

 cation, a no less complete absence of any transitional form, 

 between the Gorilla and the Orang, or the Orang and the 

 Gibbon. I say, not less sharp, though it is somewhat 

 narrower. The structural differences between Man and 

 the Man-like apes certainly justify our regarding him as 

 constituting a family apart from them ; though, inasmuch 

 as he differs less from them than they do from other 

 families of the same order, there can be no justification for 

 placing him in a distinct order. 



And thus the sagacious foresight of the great lawgiver 

 of systematic zoology, Linnaeus, becomes justified, and a 

 century of anatomical research brings us back to his con- 

 clusion, that man is a member of the same order (for 

 which the Linnaean term PRIMATES ought to be retained) 

 as the Apes and Lemurs. This order is now divisible 

 into seven families, of about equal systematic value: the 

 first, the ANTHROPINI, contains Man alone ; the second, 

 the CATARHINI, embraces the old-world apes ; the third, 

 the PLATYRHINI, all new-world apes, except the Mar- 

 mosets ; the fourth, the ARCTOPITHECINI, contains the 

 Marmosets ; the fifth, the LEMURINI, the Lemurs from 

 which Cheiromys should probably be excluded to form a 

 sixth distinct family, the CHEIROMYINI ; while the seventh, 

 the GALEOPITHECINI, contains only the flying Lemur Galeo- 

 pithecus, a strange form which almost touches on the 

 Bats, as the Cheiromys puts on a rodent clothing, and the 

 Lemurs simulate Insectivora. 



Perhaps no order of mammals presents us with so extra- 

 ordinary a series of gradations as this leading us insensibly 

 from the crown and summit of the animal creation down 

 to creatures, from which there is but a step, as it seems, 



