Half Hours With Modern Scientists: Lectures and Essays

by Thomas Henry Huxley; George F. Barker; E. D. Cope; James Hutchison Stirling; John Tyndall

Man and the chimpanzee were in Linnæus’ system only two species of the same genus, but a truer anatomy places them in separate genera and distinct families. There is no doubt, however, that Cuvier went much too far when he proposed to consider Homo as the representative of an order distinct from the quadrumana, under the name of bimana. The structural differences will not bear any such interpretation, and have not the same value as those distinguishing the orders of mammalia; as, for instance, between carnivora and bats, or the cloven-footed animals and the rodents, or rodents and edentates. The differences between man and the chimpanzee are, as Huxley well puts it, much less than those between the chimpanzee and lower quadrumana, as lemurs, etc. In fact, man is the type of a family, Hominidæ, of the order Quadrumana, as indicated by the characters of the dentition, extremities, brain, etc. The reader who may have any doubts on this score may read the dissections of Geoffroy St. Hilaire, made in 1856, before the issue of Darwin’s Origin of Species. He informs us that the brain of man is nearer in structure to that of the orang than the orang’s is to that of the South American howler, and that the orang and howler are more nearly related in this regard than are the howler and the marmoset.

The modifications presented by man have, then, resulted from an acceleration in development in some respects, and retardation perhaps in others. But until the combination now characteristic of the genus Homo was attained the being could not properly be called man.

And here it must be observed that as an organic type is characterized by the coëxistence of a number of peculiarities which have been developed independently of each other, its distinctive features and striking functions are not exhibited until that coëxistence is attained which is necessary for these ends.

Hence, the characters of the human genus were probably developed successively; but few of the indications of human superiority appeared until the combination was accomplished. Let the opposable thumb be first perfected, but of what use would it be in human affairs without a mind to direct? And of what use a mind without speech to unlock it? And speech could not be possible though all the muscles of the larynx but one were developed, or but a slight abnormal convexity in one pair of cartilages remained.

It would be an objection of little weight could it be truly urged that there have as yet no remains of apelike men been discovered, for we have frequently been called upon in the course of paleontological discovery to bridge greater gaps than this, and greater remain, which we expect to fill. But we have apelike characters exhibited by more than one race of men yet existing.

But the remains of that being which is supposed to have been the progenitor of man may have been discovered a short time since in the cave of Naulette, Belgium, with the bones of the extinct rhinoceros and elephant.

We all admit the existence of higher and lower races, the latter being those which we now find to present greater or less approximations to the apes. The peculiar structural characters that belong to the negro in his most typical form are of that kind, however great may be the distance of his remove therefrom. The flattening of the nose and prolongation of the jaws constitute such a resemblance; so are the deficiency of the calf of the leg, and the obliquity of the pelvis, which approaches more the horizontal position than it does in the Caucasian. The investigations made at Washington during the war with reference to the physical characteristics of the soldiers show that the arms of the negro are from one to two inches longer than those of the whites: another approximation to the ape. In fact, this race is a species of the genus Homo, as distinct in character from the Caucasian as those we are accustomed to recognize in other departments of the animal kingdom; but he is not distinct by isolation, since intermediate form’s between him and the other species can be abundantly found.

And here let it be particularly observed that two of the most prominent characters of the negro are those of immature stages of the Indo-European race in its characteristic types. The deficient calf is the character of infants at a very early stage; but, what is more important, the flattened bridge of the nose and shortened nasal cartilages are universally immature conditions of the same parts in the Indo-European. Any one may convince himself of that by examining the physiognomies of infants. In some races—e.g., the Slavic—this undeveloped character persists later than in some others. The Greek nose, with its elevated bridge, coincides not only with æsthetic beauty, but with developmental perfection.

This is, however, only “inexact parallelism,” as the characters of the hair, etc., cannot be explained on this principle among existing races. The embryonic characters mentioned are probably a remnant of those characteristic of the primordial race or species.

But the man of Naulette, if he be not a monstrosity, in a still more distinct and apelike species. The chin, that marked character of other species of men, is totally wanting, and the dentition is quite approximate to the man-like apes, and different from that of modern men. The form is very massive, as in apes. That he was not abnormal is rendered probable by approximate characters seen in a jaw from the cave of Puy-sur-Aube, and less marked in the lowest races of Australia and New Caledonia.