ZOOLOGY. 



The instinct or docility of the Orang Otang exhibits 

 however, many instances of sagacity more remarkable, and 

 if speech had not been denied them, would have served to 

 have filled up a more exact gradation of the human race, 

 from man to the brute. How infinitely does the divine gift 

 of reason elevate the faculties above the animal creation, 

 independent of the anatomical differences, which Dr. 

 Tissot, the first who anatomized the Orang Otang, has so 

 ably pointed out. The chief differences in the form of the 

 skull are the following, the upper part is smaller and 

 lower than in man, the brains much less in quantity, 

 the occiputal aperture much smaller, the nose flatter, and 

 the ears more prominent; we may also add to this that he 

 cannot walk so erect, owing to a particular disposition of* 

 the muscles of the thighs. The Oran£ Oians; in his wild 

 state is a melancholy, unsocial animal, either incapable or 

 unwilling to urate himself to those of his own race, 

 unlike the generality of the monkey kind, a difference, 

 which is very providentially appointed, since his strength 

 and numbers might in that case have been obnoxious to 

 man. As it is, he fills up that space in the chain of anima- 

 ted nature which gradually descends from the European to 

 the Negro, and from the Negro to the Brute, and is calcu- 

 lated by his deficiencies of intellect, to raise in the mind 

 the warmest gratitude for those wonderful attainments and 

 advantages, which the light of reason and revelation can 

 alone impart. 



