CHAPTER XV 

 ORDER: PRIMATES. LEMURS, MONKEYS, AND MAN 



THIS group, which has given birth to the lord of Creation, might 

 from its earliest inception be described as the Handed Mammals, 

 the beasts whose fore paws were more or less developed into 

 that great agent of the brain, the hand. In this group there 

 was also from the earliest times a tendency to use the hind limbs 

 as the principal supports of the body, and even the main agents 

 of locomotion, so that a more or less erect position might be 

 assumed, and the extremities of the fore limbs be left free to 

 grasp, to examine, to fight, 1 to manipulate, and to throw. This 

 tendency, which is pointing to inconceivable results in producing 

 man, originated very far back in the history of the Mammalia. 

 An inclination in the same direction may even be observed in 

 Amphibians, and this nascent differentiation between hand and 

 foot was, no doubt, continued through those early forms of 

 reptile which connect the Amphibian with the Mammal. Such 

 primitive types of Marsupial as the opossums of America 

 and the phalangers of Australasia (which last, except in their 

 very specialised dentition, are strongly suggestive of the lemur) 

 may be mentioned as early foreshadowings of the Handed 

 Mammal. 



The Primates, as an order, date back to very early times, 

 perhaps to the end of the Secondary Epoch. They seem to 



1 The galago, an African lemur, boxes with its hands like a man. Most 

 apes and monkeys fight with their hands as much as with their teeth. 



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