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Show 70 eaters, nor the carnivorous Cats, Dogs, and Bears, still less the Rodent Rats and Rabbits, or the Insectivorous Moles and Hedgehogs, or the Bats, could claim our 'Homo' as one of themselves. There would remain then, but one order for comparison, that of the Apes (using that word in its broadest sense), and the question for discussion would narrow itself to this-is Man so different from any of these Apes that he must form an order by himself? Or does he differ less from them than they differ from ?ne another, and hence must take his place in the same order with them ? Being happily free from itll real, or imaginary, personal in~ terest in the results of the inquiry thus set afoot, we should proceed to weigh the arguments on one side and on the other, with as much judicial calmness as if the question related to a new Opossum. We should endeavour to ascertain, without seeking either to magnify or diminish them, all the characters by which our new Mamrnal differed from the Apes; and if we found that these were of less structural value, than those which distinguish certain members of the Ape order from others universally admitted to be of the same order, we should undoubtedly place the newly discovered tellurian genus with them. I now proceed to detail the facts which seem to me to leave us no choice but to adopt the last mentioned course. It is quite certain that the Ape which 1nost nearly approaches man, in the totality of its organization, is either the Chimpanzee or the Gorilla; and as it makes no practical difference, for the purposes of my present argument, which is selected for comparison, on the one hand, with Man, and on the other hand, with the rest of the Primates,* I shall select the latter (so far as its organization is known)- • We are not at present thoroughly acquainted with the brain of the Gorilla, and therefore, in discussing cerebral characters,. I shall take that of the Chimpanzee as my highest term among the Apes. 71 as ·a brute now so celebrated in prose and verse, that all must have heard of him, and have formed some conception of his appearance. I shall take up as many of the most important points of difference between man and this remarkable crea~ ture, as the space at my disposal will allow 1ne to discuss, and the necessities of the argument demand ; and I shall in .. quire into the value and magnitude of these differences, when placed side by side with those which separate the Gorilla from other animals of the same order. In the general proportions of the body and limbs there is a remarkable difference between the Gorilla and Man, which at once strikes the eye. The Gorilla's brain-case is smaller, its trunk larger, its lower limbs shorter, its upper limbs longer in proportion than those of Man. I find that the the vertebral column of a full grown Gorilla, in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, measures 27 inches along its anterior curvature, from the upper edge of the atlas, or first vertebra of the neck, to the lower extremity of the sacrum; that the arm, without the hand, is 31 i inches long; that the leg, without the foot, is 26 t inches long ; that the hand is 9! inches long; the foot II! inches long. In other words, taking the length of the spinal column as 100, the arm equals 115, the leg 96, the hand 36, and the foot 41. In the skeleton of a male Bosjesman, in the same collection, the proportions, by the same measurement, to the spinal column, taken as 100, are-the arm 78, the leg 110, the hand 26, and the foot 32. In a woman of the same race the arm is 83, and the leg 120, the hand and foot remaining the same. In a European skeleton I find the arm to be 80, the leg 117, the hand 26, the foot 35. Thus the leg is not so different as it looks at first sight, in its proportions to the spine in the Gorilla and in the Manbeing very slightly shorter than the spine in the former, and between / 0 and t longer than the spine in the latter. The |
