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ORDER I. BIMANA. 



THIS ORDER CONSISTS OF BUT ONE SPECIES MAN. 



A CONSIDERATION OF THE CLAIM OF MAN TO BE REGARDED 

 AS THE TYPE OF A DISTINCT ORDER. 



THE example of Aristotle, who excluded Man from the pale of the 

 animal kingdom, has not wanted followers in the present age. Ray, Bris- 

 son, Pennant, Vic d'Azyr, Daubenton, Tiedemann, and Swainson, have 

 protested, more or less strongly, against his introduction into an arrange- 

 ment of the brute Mammalia.* On the other hand, Linnaeus, and the 



* Mr. Swainson, after urging the " innate repugnance, disgust, and abhorrence, in every human 

 being, ignorant or enlightened, savage or civilized, against the admission" of any relationship between 

 Man 'and the lower orders of Mammalia, proceeds to say : " Now, the very first law, by which to be 

 guided in arrangement, is this, that the object is to be designated and classified by that property 

 or quality which is its most distinguishing or peculiar characteristic. This law, indeed, is well under- 

 stood, and has only been violated by systematists, when they designate Man as an animal. Instead 

 of classing him according to his highest and most distinguishing property, REASON, they have selected 

 his, very lowest qualities, whereby to decide upon the station he holds in the scale of creation. 

 Because, as an infant, he has suckled at the breast of his mother, he is to enter into the class of 

 animals called Mammalia ; and, because he has nails upon his fingers and toes, he is to be placed 

 ' among the unguiculated animals ;' and, because'some of the Apes have an hyoid bone (os hyoides, a 

 bone common to all Mammalia, though differently modified in each group), Man is to be classed with 

 them in the same group. What are all these but secondary characters, totally unfit to designate his 

 true peculiarities. There is yet another argument against forcing Man to enter within the zoolo- 

 gical circle, furnished by the theory upon which that very hypothesis is built. We know that every 

 being in creation has at least two, if not three, relations of affinity ; and that these are independent 

 of innumerable relations of analogy. We know, also, that relations of affinity can only be determined, 

 where the object under consideration forms a link in an almost uninterrupted chain of beings which 

 gradually approach to it on one side, and as gradually recede from it on the other. Now, to prove 

 that Man forms a part of the animal circle, it is necessary to shew, either that he is linked to them 

 by these two series of affinities, or, that there is, at least, no great hiatus between him and animals. 

 Yet, neither of these conditions for establishing an affinity, ;strictly so termed, has been complied 

 with ; on the contrary, the writers in question are obliged to admit the greatness of the gulf between 

 Man and the Orang-outan, the nearest relation, erroneously termed an affinity, which they can dis- 

 cover, to Man. But where is the class to which we are related on the other side of the circle 1 where 

 is the double affinity ? If this cannot be made out, if Man alone, of all the created beings on this 

 earth, stands thus isolated, his relation to the Orang-outan proves to be one of mere analogy. Were 

 it otherwise, and we admitted this resemblance to be an absolute affinity, the presumed type of the 

 animal kingdom would contradict the first great law of natural classification: Man would then 



