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Show 104 But in enunciating this important truth I must guard myself against a form of In is understanding, which is very prevalent. I find, in fact, that those who endeavour to teach what nature so clearly shows us in this matter, arc liable to have their opinions misrepresented and their phraseology garbled, until they seen1 to say that the structural differences between man and even the highest apes are small and insignificant. Let me take this opportunity then of distinctly asserting, on the contrary, that they are great and significant; that every bone of a Gorilla bears marks by which it might be distinguished from the corresponding bone of a Man ; and that, in the present creation, at any rate, no intermediate link bridges over the gap between Homo and Troglodytes. It would be no less wrong than absurd to deny the existence of this chasm; but it is at least equally wrong and absurd to exaggerate its n1agnitude, and, resting on the admitted fact of its existence, to refuse to inquire whether it is wide or narrow. Remember, if you will, that there is no existing link between Man and the Gorilla, but do not forget that there is a no less sharp line of demarcation, a no less complete absence of any transitional form, between the Gorilla and the Orang, or the Orang and the Gibbon. I say, not less sharp, though it is somewhat narrower. The structural differences between Man and the Man-like apes certainly justify our regarding him as c?nstituting a family apart from them; though, inasmuch as he differs less from them than they do from other families of the same order, there can be no justi·fication for placing him in a distinct order. And thus the sagacious foresight of the great lawgiver of _systematic zoology, Linnreus, becomes justified, and a cen-:tury of anatomical research brings us back to his conclusion, that man is a member of the same order (for which the Linnroan term PRIMATES ought to be retained) as the Apes and Lemurs. This order is now divisible into seven families, of about equal systematic value: the first, the ANTHROPINI, contains Man alone; the second, the CATARHINI, mnbraccs, 105 the old world apes; the third, the PLATYRHINI, all new world apes, except the Marmosets; the fourth, the ARCTOPITHECINI, contains the Marmosets; the fifth, the LEMUitiNI, the Lemurs -from which Cheiromys should probably be excluded to form a sixth distinct family, the CHEIROMYINI; while the seyenth, the GALEOPITHECINI, contains only the flying Lemur Galeopithecus,-a strange form which almost touches on the Eats, as the Cheiromys puts on a Rodent clothing, and the Lemurs simulate Insectivora. Perhaps no order of mammals presents us with so extraordinary a series of gradations as this-leading us insensibly from the crown and summit of the animal creation down to creatures, from which there is but a step, as it seems, to the lowest, smallest, and least intelligent of the placental Mammalia. It is as if nature herself had foreseen the arrogance of man, and with Roman severity had provided that his intellect, by its very triumphs, should call into prominence the slaves, admonishing the conqueror that he is but dust. These are the chief facts, this the immediate conclusion from them to which I adverted in the commencement of this Essay. The facts, I believe, cannot be disputed ; and if so, the conclusion appears to me to be inevitable. But if Man be separated by no greater structural barrier from the brutes than they are from one another-then it seems to follow that if any process of physical causation can be discovered by which the genera and families of ordinary animals have been produced, that process of causation is amply sufficient to account for the origin of Man. In other words, if it could be shown that the Marmosets, for example, have arisen by gradual modification of the ordinary Platyrhini, or that both Marmosets and Platyrhini are modified ramifications of a primitive stock-then, there would be no rational ground for doubting that man might have originated, in the one case, by the gradual modification of a man-like |
