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PROFESSOR HENRY WEBSTER PARKER. 



The fact that an infant gorilla is very like a human child, but 

 that the resemblance fades as both approach maturity is a most 

 instructive fact, and admits of being generalized, proving that the 

 animal series is not linear. The embryonic dog (not to speak of 

 the apes) is vastly more like the earlier pre-natal stages of man 

 than are the mature individuals. We may even remark that up 

 to the age of adolescence the negro, the Australian black fellow, 

 etc., seem quite equal to our own race, but afterwards fall more 

 and more into the background. 



We shall, perhaps, best understand the position of man with 

 relation to the anthropoids if we consider him as the head of a 

 distinct ascending series. 



THE AUTHOR'S REPLY. 



The discussion has interested me much. I am aware that I left 

 abundant room for the additional suggestions, for I had confined 

 myself most strictly to the topic announced, and condensed all to 

 the utmost — not touching, for example, on the many past or present 

 schemes of classification, genealogical or other, except in some 

 reference to man's place in any scheme — and man was not brought 

 into the paper until its close — in fact, it was the intellectual 

 interest of the principles themselves that first prompted the essay, 

 not a desire to seek and expound practical rules (which are not to 

 be confounded with general principles) for tabulating the animal 

 kingdom ; indeed, this is not a matter of mere rules, but of the 

 complete study of organisms. 



Mr. Slater's valuable remarks are of the nature of corrigenda. 

 In reply I would say that a linear arrangement of all animals is 

 too obsolete to need disavowal, especially in a paper that deals 

 with principles only, not tabulations. In regard to the word 

 " quadrumana," it may be granted that it is not the best in the 

 light of Anatomy ; it remains as true as ever that the extremities 

 of all the simian limbs are hand-like. As to squirrels, I grant 

 that instead of the words " more deftly," it would have been 

 clearer and more correct to say " as deftly in manipulating food." 

 The last criticism by Mr. Slater seems to overlook the complete 

 phrase used — " physical and mental " ; also the long development 

 of man, his mental development, under favourable circumstances, 

 extending to old age. 



