14 
MEN AND APES. 
with those enormous paws at their extremities ; its short, bowed, and tottering legs, unable to 
support the huge body without the help of the arms ; the massive jaw-bones and protruding 
face, put the creature at an unappreciable distance from humanity, even though it is repre- 
sented in an attitude as similar to that of the human being as the organization of the bones 
will permit. Any one who could fancy himself to be descended, however remotely, from such 
a being, is welcome to his ancestry. 
Contrast with the skeleton of the gorilla, that of man. Light in structure, and perfectly 
balanced on the small and delicate feet ; the slender arms, with their characteristic hands ; the 
smooth and rounded 
skull ; the small jaw- 
bones and regular teeth, 
all show themselves as 
the framework of a be- 
ing whose strength is to 
lie in his intellect, and 
not in the mere brute 
power of bone and mus- 
cle. There seems to be 
a strange eloquence in 
form , which speaks at 
once to the heart in lan- 
guage that can only be 
felt, and is beyond the 
power of analysis to re- 
solve. Thus, the con- 
trasted shapes of these 
two frames speak more 
forcibly of the immeas- 
urable distance between 
the two beings of which 
they form a part, than 
could be expressed in 
many pages of careful 
description. Strength 
for strength, the ape is 
many times the man’s 
superior, and could rend 
him to pieces in sin- 
gle combat. But that 
slender human frame 
can be so intellectually 
strengthened, that a single man could destroy a troop of apes, if he so desired, and without 
offering them the possibility of resistance. 
One great cause of the awkward bipedal walk of the monkey tribes, is the position of the 
orifice in the skull, through which the spinal cord enters the brain. In the human skull this 
orifice is so placed that the head is nearly equally balanced, and a considerable portion of the 
skull projects behind it ; but in the lower animals, this orifice — called the “ occipital foramen ” 
— is set so far back, that the whole weight of the brain and skull is thrown forwards, and so 
overbalances the body. 
Another cause is seen in the structure of the hind limbs These members are intended 
for progression among the branches of trees, and are so formed that, when the animal uses 
them for terrestrial locomotion, it is forced to tread, not upon their soles, but upon their sides,, 
The muscular calves, which brace the foot and limb, are wanting in the Quadrumanous 
animals ; and even when they are standing as uprightly as possible, the knees are always 
SKELETON— MAN. 
SKELETON— GOKILLA. 
