of the brain and mental faculties, as far as advantage is concerned.
Therefore in determining the position of man in the natural or
genealogical system, the extreme development of his brain ought not to
outweigh a multitude of resemblances in other less important or quite
unimportant points.
The greater number of naturalists who have taken into consideration the
whole structure of man, including his mental faculties, have followed
Blumenbach and Cuvier, and have placed man in a separate Order, under
the title of the Bimana, and therefore on an equality with the orders
of the Quadrumana, Carnivora, etc. Recently many of our best
naturalists have recurred to the view first propounded by Linnaeus, so
remarkable for his sagacity, and have placed man in the same Order with
the Quadrumana, under the title of the Primates. The justice of this
conclusion will be admitted: for in the first place, we must bear in
mind the comparative insignificance for classification of the great
development of the brain in man, and that the strongly-marked
differences between the skulls of man and the Quadrumana (lately
insisted upon by Bischoff, Aeby, and others) apparently follow from
their differently developed brains. In the second place, we must
remember that nearly all the other and more important differences
between man and the Quadrumana are manifestly adaptive in their nature,
and relate chiefly to the erect position of man; such as the structure
of his hand, foot, and pelvis, the curvature of his spine, and the
position of his head. The family of Seals offers a good illustration of
the small importance of adaptive characters for classification. These
animals differ from all other Carnivora in the form of their bodies and
in the structure of their limbs, far more than does man from the higher
apes; yet in most systems, from that of Cuvier to the most recent one
by Mr. Flower (4. Proceedings Zoological Society, 1863, p. 4.), seals
are ranked as a mere family in the Order of the Carnivora. If man had
not been his own classifier, he would never have thought of founding a
separate order for his own reception.
It would be beyond my limits, and quite beyond my knowledge, even to
name the innumerable points of structure in which man agrees with the
other Primates. Our great anatomist and philosopher, Prof. Huxley, has
fully discussed this subject (5. Evidence as to Man s Place in
Nature, 1863, p. 70, et passim.), and concludes that man in all parts
of his organization differs less from the higher apes, than these do
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