8 TYPES OF ANIMAL LIFE 



leading forms contained in each, commencing with the 

 Old World family, and especially with the species belong- 

 ing to it which are most like ourselves the anthropoid 

 apes. 



First of these, in popular estimation, stands the famed 

 gorilla. Our knowledge of this largest of apes, knowledge 

 both ordinary and scientific, is due to Americans. It was 

 really discovered by Dr. Thomas Savage, who, with the 

 assistance of a missionary named Wilson, procured mate- 

 rials sufficient to enable Prof. Jeffries Wyman to describe 

 important parts of its anatomy. (See the Boston Journal 

 of Natural History, vol. iv. 1843-4, and vol. v. 1847.) 

 That absurd dogma which has been defined and decreed 

 by leading agnostics, the dogma that "every man receives 

 microscopic justice in this world," can be pretty well re- 

 futed by the history of physical science. In geography 

 we have one notable instance. Christopher Columbus, 

 with a hardihood now difficult to realise, sailed across an 

 utterly unknown ocean and discovered a new Continent, 

 which, nevertheless, has not been named after him, but 

 after his imitator, Amerigo Vespucci. In another branch 

 of science we often hear something about galvanism, and 

 sometimes use the term. That curious kind of force 

 received its name from Galvani, who called attention to 

 it in 1789; but Swammerdam had discovered it one 

 hundred and thirty years earlier. 



The last biological novelty is the hypothesis that every 

 organism, however long or short its life may be, contains 

 an immortal substance, transmitted from generation to 

 generation, and from century to century. Every one 

 now couples with this idea the name of Prof. Weismann, 

 ignoring the fact that the same doctrine was publicly 

 taught by poor old Sir Richard Owen half a century 

 ago. 



