"man's place in nature.'' 441 



of but a single order, that of the Apes. All the character- 

 istic peculiarities, distinguishing Vertebrates from the other 

 six tribes, distinguishing Mammals from the other forty 

 classes, and distinguishing Apes from the remaining two 

 hundred orders of the animal kingdom, are also present 

 in Man. Turn and twist as we may, we cannot escape this 

 anatomical and systematic fact. Quite recently this very 

 fact has led to the liveliest discussion, and has occasioned, 

 especially, many disputes about the specific anatomical 

 relationship of Man to Apes. The most astounding views 

 on this "ape question," or "pithecoid theory," have been 

 uttered. It will therefore be well to examine it closely 

 once more at this point, and to separate the essential from 

 the non-essential in it. 



We will start from the undisputed fact, that Man, at all 

 events, — whether his special blood-relationship to Apes is 

 acknowledged or denied, — is a genuine Mammal, is a Pla- 

 cental Mammal. This fundamental truth can be so easily 

 proved at any moment by investigations in Comparative 

 Anatomy, that it has been unanimously acknowledged since 

 the separation of the Placental from the lower Mammals 

 (Touched Animals, or Marsujrialia, and Beaked Animals, or 

 Ornithostoma). But, from this, every logical adherent of 

 the doctrine of development at once draws the conclusion, 

 that man is descended from one and the same common 

 parent-form, together with all other Placental Animals, from 

 the progenitor of the Placentalia, just as, further, we must 

 necessarily suppose a common mammalian ancestral form 

 of all the various Mammals (Placentalia), Pouched Animals, 

 and Cloacal Animals (Monotremata) ; but by this the greaf,, 

 all-agitating main question of man's place in nature is 



