16 THE HUMAN SPECIES 



A fuller account is given by the English writer Bartholomaeus, 

 surnamed Anglicus, in the fifth volume of his Encyclopaedia, De 

 genninis rerum coelestium, terrestmuin et internarum proprietati- 

 bus et de variarum remm accidentibus (1258-1260). Encyclo- 

 paedias comprising human anatomy and physiology were also 

 compiled by the French author Vincentius Bellovacensis (died 

 1264), the Englishman, Alexander Neckam, and his friend, 

 Alfred de Seresbel, and by the Dutchman, Thomas Cantimpra- 

 tensis, whose bulky comprehensive work, De naturis rerum, 

 was later issued in a smaller edition, in the German language, 

 revised by the Canon of Regensburg, Konrad v. Megenberg ; 

 the work in this form became the first German Natural History 

 and was very frequently published. The first part of this 

 Book of Nature 1 deals with " Man in his common nature ". 



We may pass over the specialists in human anatomy of the 

 latter part of the Middle Ages and the subsequent scientific 

 regeneration of Europe, since they occupied themselves mainly 

 with a close study of the human body itself rather than with 

 theories of man's place in Nature. The founders of modern 

 Zoology, on the contrary (Gessner, Aldrovandi, Swamer- 

 damm, Ray, etc.), were content to compile zoological works, or 

 to publish studies of minutiae without establishing any relation 

 between man and the lower animals. This state of things was 

 completely changed when the great reformer Linnaeus sub- 

 jected the whole world of organisms to observation and exam- 

 ination. He it was, too, who in his zoological system placed 

 at the head of the mammalia the order of anthropomorphous 

 animals (later styled Primates or "chief of animals") wherein 

 man was classified with the Simiae and Prosimiae. This system 

 was revised and man's place more clearly defined by Blumen- 

 bach and Cuvier. They subordinated the order of Quadra- 

 mana (four-handed animals), comprising Simiae and Prosimiae, 

 to the order of Bimana headed by Man, since in man's case 

 alone did they admit the possession of two hands. In Huxley's 

 opinion this view is false, as the apes also have but two hands. 



The majority of authors towards the end of the last century 

 subdivided the Primates into three classes : (a) Prosimiae, (b) 

 Simiae, (c) Man. 



1 Edited by Dr. Franz Pfeiffer. Stuttgart, 1861. 



