SYSTEM OF NATURE. 
0 
as convenience of considering the human frame a model, 
the departures from which, manifested in the diversified 
forms of animals, afford characters of distinction: still 
this rigid comparison of analogous parts does not hold 
good beyond certain limits, as in the abnormal or distal 
groups each individual appears to draw its more ob¬ 
vious characters from some nearer model. The great 
superiority of man consists not, however, in general 
structure; the ascendancy he has gained over other ani¬ 
mals, — a great evidence of superiority, — is one of in¬ 
tellect only, and the result of the quantity and structure 
of his brain : “ no quadruped approaches him in the mag¬ 
nitude and convolutions of the hemispheres of the brain: 
he is the only example of his genus, or even order: ”•— 
C. R. A.*—he is, by his superior intelligence, the monarch 
of the animal kingdom. Placed therefore in the centre, 
he is of necessity approached by the various families of 
monkeys, &c., the structural similarity of which to the 
model frame of man is often striking. “ Their intestines 
are very similar to those of man; like him also they have 
eyes directed forward, and mammae placed on the chest.” 
— C. R. A. But the most important point of similarity, 
because an approach to that peculiar intelligence which 
places man on the throne of the animal kingdom, appears 
to be in the brain, which has “ three lobes on each side, 
the posterior of which covers the cerebellum, and the tem¬ 
poral fossa is separated from the orbit by a bony par- 
* Cuvier’s ‘ Regne Animal.’ I have invariably preferred availing 
myself of observations contained in works of acknowledged authority, 
when such observations express my own views, the passages which I 
think particularly striking being printed in italics. 
