CHAPTER XXXI 



PRIMATES APES AND LEMURS 



IN the Primates we reach the highest and most complex form 

 of mammalian life. The animals included in this group are readily 

 divided into two divisions, namely (i) the Lemuroidea, or Lemurs, 

 and (2) the Anthropoidea, or Apes and Man ; for though for purposes 

 of classification it is permissible to assign Man to a special family 

 (Homo), he and the Apes are not separable into diverse orders 

 among the Mammalia. The differences of structure between 

 the lowest of the Apes and the higher are far greater than those 

 which exist between Man and any Anthropoid Ape ; indeed, in 

 their expressions of mental activity, intellectual or emotional, 

 the Anthropoid Apes in some respects come very near the lowest 

 existing types of the human race. 



While it is impossible to regard any of the existing species 

 of Anthropoid Apes as in the direct line of human ancestry, it 

 is equally impossible to establish any fundamental distinction in 

 physical structure between Man and the Anthropoid Apes. Generic 

 differences there are in abundance, but they establish only a differ 

 ence of degree, and not of kind. The leading feature in the evolu 

 tion and separation of Man from amongst other animals is un- 

 doubtedly the relatively enormous size of his brain, and the 

 consequent increase in its activity and ability to store up individual 

 experience what Sir E. Ray Lankester has so aptly described 

 as its " increased educability." Year by year, piece by piece, 

 the evidence of the steps by which Man gradually emerged from 

 the terrestrial animal population, which is so strictly controlled 

 and moulded by natural selection, is being brought to light, and 

 undoubtedly those links in the chain which connects " civilised " 

 Man with his humbler anthropoid ancestors, which are still re- 

 quired for its completion, will eventually be discovered. 



The forests of Madagascar, of Western and Eastern Africa 



399 



