14 THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY NATURAL SELECTION. 



indeed, even to the hog. Monkeys may be tamed, but can- 

 not, even in countries of which they are denizens, be domes- 

 ticated ; so that in this respect they rank, not only below 

 all our domestic cattle, but even below our ordinary poultry. 

 In this last regard, it may be added, that they bear no likeness 

 to man, who even as a savage is a domesticated creature. 



The apes are incapable of storing knowledge, and, like ordi- 

 nary brutes, are one and the same from generation to genera- 

 tion. Is there not in the brain of man and of the lower animals 

 something too subtle for anatomy ever to reach? No one 

 alleges that there is any difference in the material properties 

 of the brain of the sagacious and faithful dog and that of the 

 gluttonous and untameable wolf, or in that of the cunning 

 and untameable fox. Anatomy detects no difference in the 

 brains of the docile horse, the wilful ass, or of the zebra 

 incapable of domestication. The brain of a man is not by 

 anatomy distinguishable from that of a woman, although the 

 intellect of man be usually superior to that of woman, while 

 many women far excel the generality of men. No anatomist, 

 I presume, would assert that the brain of Newton could be 

 distinguished by its form or structure from that of an illiterate 

 peasant, or even from the brain of a savage that could count 

 no hiofher than the lino;ers of one of his own hands. 



The theory of development by profitable variation makes 

 the family of apes the nearest approach to the variation 

 which ends in man : but it is silent about the gradations in 

 the apes themselves ; and there are above a hundred distinct 

 species of them, not one of which is common to Africa, 

 America, Asia, and the Asiatic islands. 



The nearest approach to man, however, is asserted to be 

 found in what are called the anthropoid or man-like monkeys ; 

 cliiefly, it may be presumed, because like man they have no 

 tails, for it would be difficult to discover any better reason. 

 The anthropoid apes are four in number, and in the order of 

 precedence given to them they are as follows : the gibbon, 

 the chimpanzee, the orang-utan, and the gorilla. But even 



