186 THE SPEECH OF MONKEYS. 



tem of organs we want, the anatomical differences which 

 separate man from the highest apes of the Old World 

 are smaller than those which are to be found between 

 higher and lower apes. No wonder that all honest 

 zoologists have long ago given up the hope of finding a 

 true characteristic in order to separate Homo sapiens^ 

 from Homo Satyr us and Homo Lar. 



During the last ten or twenty years some moie en- 

 deavors have been made to establish a final separation 

 by means of the differences in the construction of the 

 brain. It seemed only natural that this seat of all the 

 higher qualities, the seat of intelligence and of the most 

 eminent " human " attributes, morality, love, etc., 

 should be more fully developed than in any animal, or 

 that it should possess parts or specifications not found 

 elsewhere. An English zoologist, Owen, was especially 

 obstinate in pointing out one particular place of the brain 

 which has been proved to be the seat of speech, and 

 which he could not find in any ape. This effort has also 

 failed, for all these parts have recently, after more care- 

 ful investigation, been found, in rudiments only, in the 

 lower tribes of monkeys, better developed and plainly 

 visible in the higher ''groups. This fact will be of some 

 importance in the course of this lecture as soon as I shall 

 mention the ability of monkeys to speak. Huxley again, 

 who was an enthusiastic partisan of the theory that men 

 could not claim any anatomical superiority over the 

 highest animals, formulated the following sentence, 

 which up to the present date has not been contra- 

 dicted : As if Nature wanted to show the impossibility 

 of establishing in the most prominent organ a divid- 

 ing line between man and apes, it has given to the latter 

 animals a nearly complete series of gradations in the 

 forms and sizes of the brains, beginning with specimens 

 which are little higher than those of a rodent up to such 

 as are scarcely different from the brain of man. And it 



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