Chap. I. 
HOMOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. 
13 
are repaired by the same process of healing ; and the 
stumps left after the amputation of his limbs occa- 
sionally possess, especially during an early embryonic- 
period, some power of regeneration, as in the lowest 
animals . 6 
The whole process of that most important function,., 
the reproduction of the species, is strikingly the same 
in all mammals, from the first act of courtship by the 
male 7 to the birth and nurturing of the young. Mon- 
keys are born in almost as helpless a condition as our 
own infants; and in certain genera the young differ 
fully as much in appearance from the adults, as do our 
children from their full-grown parents . 8 It has been 
urged by some writers as an important distinction, that 
with man the young arrive at maturity at a much later 
age than with any other animal : but if we look to the* 
races of mankind which inhabit tropical countries the 
difference is not great, for the orang is believed not to* 
be adult till the age of from ten to fifteen years . 9 Man 
man’s North American Journal of Science,’ vol. xvii. p. 305, lias seen 
a dog suffering from tertian ague. 
6 I have given the evidence on this head in my ‘ Variation of' 
Animals and Plants under Domestication,’ vol. ii. p. 15. 
' “ Mares e diversis generibus Quadrumanorum sine dubio dignoscunt. 
“ feminas humanas a maribus. Primum, credo, odoratu, postea aspectu. 
“ Mr. Youatt, qui diu in Hortis Zoologicis (Bestiariis) medicus animal- 
“ ium erat, vir in rebus observandis cautus et sagax, hoc mihi certissime 
“ probavit, et curatores ejusdem loci et alii e ministris confirmaverunt.. 
“ Sir Andrew Smith et Brelim notabant idem in Cynocephalo. Illus- 
“ trissimus Cuvier etiam narrat multa de hac re qua ut opinor nihil 
“ turpius potest indicari inter omnia hominibus et Quadrumanis com- 
“ munia. Narrat enim Cynocephalum quendam in furorem incidere 
“ aspectu feminarum aliquarum, sed nequaquam accendi tanto furore 
“ ab omnibus. Semper eligebat juniores, et dignoscebat in turba, et 
“ advocabat voce gestuque.” 
8 This remark is made with respect to Cynocephalus and the an- 
thropomorphous apes by G-eoffroy Saint-Hilaire and F. Cuvier, ‘Hist. 
Nat. des Mammiferes,’ tom. i. 1824. 
9 Huxley, ‘ Man’s Place in Nature,’ 1863, p. 34. 
