Scientific Sophisms. 223 



mythical compound, are now not only known 

 but notorious." 1 



Of these "creatures approaching man in 

 essential structure," yet " thoroughly brutal," 

 the gorilla was once supposed to be the chief. 

 But the day of De Chaillu is over ; " because, in 

 my opinion, so long as his narrative remains in 

 its present state of unexplained and apparently 

 inexplicable confusion, it has no claim to 

 original authority respecting any subject what- 

 soever. It may be truth, but it is not 

 evidence." 8 



The comforting opinion that we had, as men, 

 a cerebral distinction, is also now (alas !) no 

 more. For we are now assured by Prof. 

 Huxley, in direct contradiction to the reiterated 

 declarations of Prof. Owen, that " so far from 

 the posterior lobe, the posterior cornu, and the 

 hippocampus minor being structures peculiar to 

 and characteristic of man, as they have been 

 over and over again asserted to be, even after 

 the publication of the clearest demonstration of 

 the reverse, it is precisely these structures which 

 are the most marked cerebral characters com- 

 mon to man with the apes. They are amongst 

 the most distinctly Simian peculiarities which 



1 " Man's Place in Nature," p. I, 

 Ibid,, p. 54. 



