THE HUMAN ANIMAL ECONOMY. 175 



unintelligible in our own species; and are still more in- 

 applicable to the case of brutes. 



The clitoris and the nymphee have been supposed pe- 

 culiar to the human female, as well as the hymen : the 

 latter, indeed, are generally absent in the mammalia; but 

 Blumenbach * informs us that a lemur, which he kept 

 alive for many years, had them very closely resembling the 

 human. The clitoris seems to be universally found in the 

 mammalia: it is very large in the monkey kind, and in the 

 carnivora ; and Blumenbach f saw it of the size of a fist 

 in a balaena boops stranded on the coast of Holland. 



CHAPTER VII. 



Peculiarities in the Animal Economy of the Human Species — gene- 

 ral extension over the Globe. Man naturally omnivorous — 



his long infancy and slow developement — hence suited to the 

 social state. 



In the diversity of the regions which he is capable of in- 

 habiting, the lord of the creation holds the first place among 

 animals. His frame and nature are stronger and more 

 flexible than those of any other creature; hence he can 

 dwell in all situations on the surface of the globe. The 

 neighbourhood of the pole and the equator, high moun- 

 tains and deep valleys, are occupied by him : his strong 

 but pliant body bears cold, heat, moisture, light or heavy 

 air; he can tlirive any where, and runs into less remarkable 

 varieties than any other animals which occupy so great a 

 diversity of abodes: — a prerogative so singular, that it must 

 not be overlooked. 



The situations occuj)ied by our species in the present 

 times extend as far as the known surface of the earth. The 



* Liff. ciLi).2\. i Ibid 



