This comparison has been admirably conducted by Huxley and Broca.82 The latter has set himself the task of investigating, solely as a descriptive anatomist and zoologist, regardless of all dispute as to principle, and undisturbed by the doctrine of Descent, whether the anatomical constitution of man, as compared with that of the ape, justifies, on general zoological principles, the union of the two in a single order-Primates. Huxley proves that the anthropomorphous apes (gibbon, chimpanzee, orang, gorilla) differ from the lower apes much more than from man; and that if we are obliged to assume the reciprocal consanguinity of the apes, the common derivation of the anthropomorphous apes and man is at least equally natural.

Between the peripheral members of the systematic groups of monkeys-for instance, between the American Sahuis and the Old-World Pavians and Anthropomorpha -notable differences exist in the constitution of the limbs and other parts of the skeleton, together with the soft parts belonging to them, in the muscles especially, as well as in dentition and the structure of the brain. It is false to call apes quadrumana, for within the order of the apes the contrast between hand and foot makes its appearance in its essential anatomical attributes, and in the anthropomorphous apes, in the gorilla especially, it is almost as distinct as in man.

Lucä, the anatomist renowned for his careful measurements of the cranium, imagines that he has discerned a highly important demarcation between man and the ape. In the ape, the three bones forming the axis of the skull, the basi-occipital bone, and the two sphenoid bones, lie almost in a line, whereas in man there.

is a double flexure of this axis; moreover, in the apes the angles increase with age, which in man decrease, and vice versa. Likewise in man the occipital foramen becomes more horizontal with age, more vertical in the ape. But all this shows only, what the doctrine of Descent asserts, that the two series, ape and man, diverge from one another, and that the youthful individuals are more alike than the older ones,-that the ape as he grows becomes more bestial; man, as the riddle of the sphinx already intimated, more human. The flexure of the basal bone and the horizontal position of the occipital foramen occasions the upright gait, wherewith the differentiation between hands and feet is completed. This flexure of the cranial axis may therefore still be emphasized as a human character, in contradistinction to the apes; the peculiar characteristic of an order can scarcely be elicited from it; and especially as to the question of Descent, this circumstance seems in no way decisive.

Not only as regards hand and foot, but also in dentition and brain, the anthropomorphous apes approach man much more nearly than they do the inferior widenosed monkeys of the New World. These, have six molar teeth, and their brain displays the imperfections of the brain of the lemurs and rodents. Like the monkeys of the Old World, on the contrary, the anthropomorphous apes possess five molar teeth, and every portion of the human brain, even to the hippocampus minor, is likewise present. The dispute as to this insignificant portion of the brain, which R. Owen claimed as an exclusively human characteristic, possesses a merely historic interest, since,

in conjunction with the posterior corner of the lateral ventricle, it has been exhibited by a number of distinguished anatomists in the orang and chimpanzee.

Thus, for those who will not relinquish their hope of finding specific distinctions between the brain of man and ape, there remain only the furrows and ridges on the surface of the cerebrum, the so-called convolutions of the brain. But here, again, it is in vain to look for fundamental differences, unless the chief stress is to be laid upon the circumstance that in the human embryo the folds commence in the frontal, in the apes in the supraorbital lobes. The constant convolutions common to all human brains are seen in the orang and chimpanzee. These convolutions are lost, or rather exist in less perfection, in the apes approaching the Anthropomorpha ; they are totally absent in the Ouistitis. But so great is the resemblance of the brain of the two apes mentioned, with that of man, that, as Broca says, "it requires the eye of an experienced anatomist to discriminate, in drawings reduced to the same dimensions, their brain. from the human brain, especially if the object of comparison selected, be the brain of negroes or Hottentots, which are more simple than those of white men." · A desperate attempt to rescue a specifically human cerebral character was made by the lamented Gratiolet, the anatomist, of Paris. Man was to be distinguished by the so-called transitional or bridging convolutions. These transitional folds are convolutions, by which the posterior lobes of the cerebrum are joined to the anterior and lateral portions. But Broca has lucidly demonstrated that it is the same with this as with other characteristics, and that the transitional folds in

the orang, for instance, are far more like those of man than of the chimpanzee, and that the differences which exist can at the most have the value of specific or generic characters.

The distance between the lower and higher apes is far greater than between the latter and man; and if the consanguinity of the entire apedom is decisive in favour of Darwinistic views, there can be the less doubt of the kindred connection of the Old-World apes to mankind. But the form of the mature skull and of the dentition (to lay a stress upon these organs), preclude the idea. that the direct ancestors of man are to be found among the apes now living. The cheap jest, produced with so much glee, of inquiring why we do not behold the interesting spectacle of the transformation of a chimpanzee into a man, or conversely, of a man by retrogression into an orang, merely testifies the crudest ignorance of the doctrine of Descent. Not one of these apes can revert to the state of his primordial ancestors, because, except by retrogression-by which a primordial condition is by no means attained-he cannot divest himself of his acquired characters fixed by heredity; nor can he exceed himself and become man; for man does not stand in the direct line of development from the ape. The development of the anthropoid apes has taken a lateral course from the nearest human progenitors, and man can as little be transformed into a gorilla as a squirrel can be changed into a rat. Man's kinship with the apes is, therefore, not impugned by the bestial strength of the teeth of a male orang or gorilla, or by the crests and protuberances on the skulls of these animals. A renowned zoologist, one of the few who adhere to the

old belief, has taken the useless trouble of proving that the skull of the orang could not possibly be transformed into the human head. As if the doctrine of Descent had ever asserted such nonsense! The bony skull of these apes has reached an extreme, comparable to that of our domestic cattle. But this extreme appears only gradually in the course of growth, and the calf knows little of it, but possesses, as we have already mentioned, the cranial form of its antelope-like ancestors. In the present antelopes, and likewise in goats and sheep, this form, transitory in the calf, has remained stable. Now, as the youthful skull of the anthropomorphous apes exhibits, with undeniable distinctness, a descent from progenitors with a well-formed and still plastic cranium, and a dentition approximating to that of man, the transformation of these parts in conjunction with the brain, the latter by reason of its persistently small volume, has, as it were, struck out a disastrous path, while in the human branch, selection has effected a higher conservation of these cranial characters.

With this falls also the objection recently raised by the venerable Karl Ernest v. Baer, that it is inconceivable how, from the monkey's feet, arranged for climbing and grasping, the human foot, adapted for flat treading and walking, should be evolved in the struggle for existence. The tendency to oppose the big toe to the others, that is, to a prehensile foot, is known to be a human attribute, and this tendency is certainly inherited. How far the capacity for climbing may have been developed in the primordial ancestors, is as much unknown as these primordial ancestors themselves. Thus the aptitude in climbing shown by most of the present monkeys is only remotely