DR. TH. NEUMANN. 183 



apes we find the belief that the latter are the forefathers 

 of the human race. Some Indian tribes trace their ori- 

 gin back to the ape god Hanuman and prove their state- 

 ment by pointing out that tail-like prolongation of the 

 back-bone which, as they say, the princes only had pre- 

 served as an unmistakable sign of their origin. Similar 

 traditions are found among the wild tribes of the Malay 

 Archipelago and on the Sunda Islands, where we are told 

 that the offspring of two apes were sent down into the 

 plains, where they learned to till the soil, to raise corn 

 and rice, and to eat, that then their tails and the hair 

 which covered their whole bodies disappeared gradual- 

 ly, that they began to speak and to people the earth. 



On the other side, it is amusing to study the con- 

 tinuous but ever failing efforts of scientists to find de- 

 cisive differences in the constitution of man and ape. 

 Old faithful Linna3us, although thoroughly believing and 

 scripture-proof, was honest enough to give evidence to 

 the utter failure in his efforts to find any marked and 

 decisive differences between the two. When he 

 arranged his system of the Animal Kingdom, he was 

 bound to place man in the very same group with the 

 anthropoid or man-like apes,'and called this group then 

 Primates, the first or the princes of the animal realm. 



Later other anatomists were convinced that they had 

 found something which would really draw a dividing line. 

 They pointed out the so-called four-handedness of the 

 apes in opposition to two-handed man. This character- 

 istic seemed indeed to stand, and for some time the 

 natural histories taught us that apes had four hands, 

 man only two, and that both groups had consequently 

 to be kept apart. It came from the fact that apes are 

 able to use their big toes as we do our thumbs, as grasp- 

 ing organs, and that indeed they scarcely make any 

 difference in the use of either. 



Even this small difference, however, did not stand any 



139 



