THE GORILLA. 



and not to band together in large herds as do the baboons and other quadrumanous 

 animals. If they were to unite, and to understand the principle of combination, they 

 could speedily depopulate any country that was inhabited by men who were not 

 possessed of fire-arms, and were unable to construct defences. 



But, fortunately for those human beings who are within reach of these terrible 

 animals, the adult ape is one of the most dull and stupid creatures imaginable ; sulky, 

 ferocious, and given solely to its own animal appetites. 



Here is a sketch of one of the lowest and 

 least developed of human beings, probably the 

 very lowest of the human race. This little 

 man, who belongs to the same country as the 

 Gorilla, hardly attains even to the same stature, 

 and in muscular proportions is a very pigmy. 

 Yet that in mere animal form the Bushman is 

 infinitely higher than the ape, is evident from 

 the contrast displayed by the two figures ; 

 while, if the comparison be extended to the 

 mental endowments, the impassable barrier 

 that exists between the two beings, exhibits 

 itself in the most unmistakeable manner. 



Modern zoologists have done rightly in refus- 

 ing to admit mankind into the same order with 

 beings so infinitely below them, as are even the 

 very highest of the apes. The unprogressive 

 animal is restricted to a narrow circle of thought 

 and reason, and is totally devoid of that great 

 privilege of human nature which we call by the 

 name of aspiration. Man ever proceeds on- 

 wards and upwards, anticipating something 

 beyond that which he possesses, while the brute 

 creation remain in the same course of life in 

 which they were originally placed. The rec- 

 ords of geological experience, show that 

 Simiadae of gigantic stature existed on earth 

 ages before the creation of human beings. 

 Relics of these creatures have been found in va- 

 rious parts of the globe, and even in the tertiary 



formations of our own island. Apes were, therefore, at least contemporary with man- 

 kind ; but while men have progressed, the apes have stood still, and always will stand 

 still as long as they remain upon earth. The ape which saw the light in the year B. c. 

 4,000, was not a whit behind its descendant of the year A. D. 1859 in intellect or civiliza- 

 tion ; and if the order were to be continued for twenty thousand years longer, the last 

 ape would be not a step nearer civilization than the primeval pair. Within its own 

 little circle of life, many of its bodily senses are far more acute than those of man, and 

 its bodily powers greater ; but there ends the advantage. The animals are only partial 

 and individual in their existence, restricted to a small sphere of life, and often confined 

 within a very limited portion of the earth. These very limits place the animals at an 

 immeasurable distance from man, who spreads himself over the entire earth, enduring 

 with equal ease the fierce rays of the tropical sun or the icy blasts of the arctic gales, 

 and accommodating himself, through the agencies which his intellect projects, to these 

 totally dissimilar modes of life. 



BUSHMAN. 



