166 ON CKRTAIN MODERN VIEWS 



of such a being as Man to identify him in origin with the brutes, be- 

 cause the bony and muscular system may, to a certain extejit, corres- 

 pond in both. If man was destined to inhabit this earth in the char- 

 acter of an animal, how could we expect that he should be utterly 

 diverse from every other living being on its surface ? 



Now upon the subject of cranial capacity, if there are 52 cubic 

 inches of diiference between that of the largest and the smallest human 

 skull (probably that of an idiot), which can be found, and only 27^ 

 between this smallest human and the largest quadrumanal — the weight 

 of whose body may have been double that of the owner of the small 

 human one — what a proof this is of the vast superiority, proportionally, 

 of the capacity of human crania ! Let us change the arrangement 

 provided for us and compare the highest human, 114 cubic inches, with 

 the highest quadrumanal, 34^) and we find the difference to be 79^ 

 cubic inches. This is a great superiority in point of cranial capacity 

 over the brutes. Next let us look at the conformation of the crania. 

 themselves. Man's towering over his visage, and presenting a large 

 surface in proportion to his facial development — the Ape's retreating^ 

 behind, and not properly above his face at all. What if the dentition 

 of the highest Apes differs less from Man than it does from the lower 

 and lowest Apes, when the highest Ape possesses canines which are 

 absolute tusks, and those of the Cynocephalus, or Baboon, rival the 

 tusks of the Boar ? As to the hind limb of the Gorilla being termi- 

 nated, not by a hand, but by a true foot, Prof. Huxley has to acknow- 

 ledge that, though, as in Man, every Ape, Monkey, and Lemur, pos- 

 sesses a flexor brevis, an extensor brevis, and a peronseus longus, yet in 

 the Gorilla, and much more in the lower Apes, there is a different ar- 

 rangement in the insertion of the muscles. But if the presence or ab- 

 sence of certain muscles, or the arrangement of certain bones are to 

 decide us in pronouncing on an organ, whether it is a hand or a foot, 

 some regard ought certainly to be paid to function. If, speaking with 

 strict anatomical precision, the termination of the hind extremity of 

 the Gorilla is a foot, yet it is a strong prehensile organ, which the 

 foot of Man is not. It was this prehensile character which caused 

 Tyson to apply the term " Quadrumana " to such creatures, and 

 whatever may be the osteological and muscular arrangement of the 

 foot of the Ourang, it is evident from its conformation and use that 

 it is de facto a hand. 



Nor is it easy to assent to Prof. Huxley's assertion, that the cere- 



