APES 



fingers are half closed and he walks on his knuckles, which 

 are bent under at the second joints ; the toes also, except 

 the great toe, or thumb, of the hind foot are also bent 

 under so that he walks on them and the outside of the 

 foot and heel. In this respect, therefore, it is seen that 

 he is at once inferior to man, and that it requires no 

 argument to be adduced in order to separate the gorilla 

 from the human race, nor is any great power of discern- 

 ment necessary to distinguish him. Numerous other 

 peculiarities can be pointed out : the coarse, strong, 

 grasping heavy paws ; the short and ill-developed thumb ; 

 the want of flexibility in the fingers, v^hich are joined 

 together as by a web from the second joint, renders 

 the performance of the multifarious duties of a hand 

 utterly impossible. These easily-observed differences are, 

 however, not the most important ones. The greatest 

 dissimilarity which attracts our attention is to be observed 

 in the form of the skull, and in the development of the 

 brain and the nerve system ; the small size of the brain, 

 as compared with the weight and bulk of the animal, 

 when considered relatively in connection with man, shows 

 so marked a contrast that the utter want of intelligence is 

 no longer a matter of surprise. 



There is one thing well worthy of notice respecting the 

 gorilla, chimpanzee, and ourang — it is that the brain in 

 the young animals appears larger in proportion to their 

 youthful condition, but as soon as the shedding of their 

 first set of teeth sets in the bones of the face, together 

 with the jaws, enlarge to a certain extent, the permanent 

 teeth are developed of a much larger size than the former 

 ones, and the brain appears not only to be checked in its 

 growth, but from the increased thickness of the skull in 

 the adult the brain seems to be cramped in a smaller 

 space. 



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