APES 
fingers are half closed and he walks on his knuckles, which 
are bent under at the second joints ; the toes also, except 
the great toe, or thumb, of the hind foot are also bent 
under so that he walks on them and the outside of the 
foot and heel. In this respect, therefore, it is seen that 
he is at once inferior to man, and that it requires no 
argument to be adduced in order to separate the gorilla 
from the human race, nor is any great power of discern- 
ment necessary to distinguish him. Numerous other 
peculiarities can be pointed out ; the coarse, strong, 
grasping heavy paws ; the short and ill-developed thumb ; 
the want of flexibility in the fingers, v/hich are joined 
together as by a web from the second joint, renders 
the performance of the multifarious duties of a hand 
utterly impossible. These easily-observed differences are, 
however, not the most important ones. The greatest 
dissimilarity which attracts our attention is to be observed 
in the form of the skull, and in the development of the 
brain and the nerve system ; the small size of the brain, 
as compared with the weight and bulk of the animal, 
when considered relatively in connection with man, shows 
so marked a contrast that the utter want of intelligence is 
no longer a matter of surprise. 
There is one thing well worthy of notice respecting the 
gorilla, chimpanzee, and ourang — it is that the brain in 
the young animals appears larger in proportion to their 
youthful condition, but as soon as the shedding of their 
first set of teeth sets in the bones of the face, together 
with the jaw^s, enlarge to a certain extent, the permanent 
teeth are developed of a much larger size than the former 
ones, and the brain appears not only to be checked in its 
groAvth, but from the increased thickness of the skull in 
the adult the brain seems to be cramped in a smaller 
space. 
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