MAMMALIA. HI 



of articulate sounds, and thereby has constructed language, which 

 enables him to communicate his ideas to his fellows. These 

 qualities are possessed by every known race of men. He differs 

 from all other creatures in his upright gait, and in the admirable 

 construction of his hands ; which enable him to perform actions 

 and form instruments with such nicety. These, in connection 

 with bis intellectual faculties, have qualified him to make dis- 

 coveries beyond this earth. 



The specific distinction betwixt man and all other animals, 

 consists in his upright posture, and in the bones of his legs and 

 arms being so constructed, that it is impossible for him to walk 

 on his four extremities ; the great length of the thigh bone would 

 bring the knee in contact with the ground, and the short inflexible 

 structure of his feet disqualify him for this sort of action : the 

 arms being so far separated from the central line and the articu- 

 lations of the shoulder joints, together with their distance from 

 each other, show that he could not support himself in a hori- 

 zontal position ; the muscle which acts as a binder betwixt the 

 shoulders, is small in man compared to that of other animals : 

 his head is heavier, and the vertebrae and muscles of the neck 

 weaker, so that he could not support it in this position : in the 

 quadrumina, the arteries which supply the brain are subdivided, 

 while in man they are entire, and would in the horizontal 

 position consequently flow with such force and rapidity, as soon 

 to produce stupor. Man is the only true biped, his feet being 

 exclusively formed for walking, and his hands for higher and 

 more varied purposes : in one particular they diifer widely from 

 those of all other animals, namely, in the structure of the thumb, 

 which being entirely independent from the fingers in its action, 

 gives it a facility and power in grasping, greatly superior to the 

 chimpanse, which approaches nearest to man in conformation. 



But what raises man far above every other creature, is his 

 brain. Several of the inferior animals, as the elephant and 

 whale, have brains larger in absolute size than man ; several 

 species of monkeys, and in the sparrow, canary, linnet, and red- 

 breast, the brain is larger in proportion to the size of the body 

 than in him. But man is distinguished from the inferior 

 creatures by the possession of several cerebral parts, which are 

 wanting in them. For example, in man there are certain con- 

 volutions lying transversely in the upper region of the brain, 

 IV. 2t 



