1 56 PROGRESS IN ZOOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE xn 



contemporary with most of us in this room, for he died as 

 lately as 1840, although his first work on the subject, De 

 generis humani varietate nativa, was published three years 

 before the death of Linnaeus, too late, however, to influence 

 the work we are now speaking of. The scientific study of 

 the natural history of man is therefore, we may say, but one 

 century old. To what it has grown during that time you are 

 probably aware. Scarcely an important centre of civilisation 

 in the world but has a special Society devoted to its cultivation. 

 It forms by itself a special department of the Biological 

 Section of our Association a department of such importance 

 that on this occasion no less distinguished a person than a 

 former most eminent President of the whole Association was 

 thought fit to take charge of it. From him you will doubtless 

 hear what is its present scope, aim, and compass. I need only 

 remind you that except the one cardinal point of the zoological 

 relation of man to other forms of life, which Linnaeus appears 

 to have appreciated with intuitive perception, all else that 

 you will now hear in that department was not dreamt of in 

 his philosophy. 



As might naturally be supposed, apes and monkeys have, 

 for various reasons, attracted the attention of observers of 

 nature from very early times, and consequently Linnaeus was 

 able to give rather a goodly list of species of these animals, 

 amounting to thirty-three ; but of their mutual affinities, and 

 of the important structural differences which exist between 

 many of them, he seems to have had no idea, his three 

 divisions being simply regulated by the condition of the tail, 

 whether absent, short, or long. 



We now know that the so-called Anthropoid or man-like 

 apes, the gorilla, chimpanzee, orang, and gibbons, form a 

 group apart from all the others of such importance that 

 everything related to their history, structure, and habits has 

 been most assiduously studied, and there is now an immense 

 literature devoted to this group alone. Nothing could better 

 illustrate the advances we have made in a hundred years, than 

 the contrast of our present knowledge of these forms with that 

 of Linnaeus. It is true that, as shown in the most interesting 

 story of the gradual development of our knowledge relating to 



