Man's Place in Nature and Other Essays Part 5

As the Orang shelters itself with a rough coverlet of leaves, and the common Chimpanzee, according to that eminently trustworthy observer Dr.

Savage, makes a sound like "Whoo-whoo,"--the grounds of the summary repudiation with which M. Du Chaillu's statements on these matters have been met is not obvious.

If I have abstained from quoting M. Du Chaillu's work, then, it is not because I discern any inherent improbability in his a.s.sertions respecting the man-like Apes; nor from any wish to throw suspicion on his veracity; but because, in my opinion, so long as his narrative remains in its present state of unexplained and apparently inexplicable confusion, it has no claim to original authority respecting any subject whatsoever.

It may be truth, but it is not evidence.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] REGNUM CONGO: hoc est VERA DESCRIPTIO REGNI AFRICANI QUOD TAM AB INCOLIS QUAM LUSITANIS CONGUS APPELLATUR, per Philippum Pigafettam, olim ex Edoardo Lopez acroamatis lingua Italica excerpta, num Latio sermone donata ab August. Ca.s.siod. Reinio. Iconibus et imaginibus rerum memorabilium quasi vivis, opera et industria Joan. Theodori et Joan.

Israelis de Bry, fratrum exornata. Francofurti, MDXCVIII.

[2] "Except this that their legges had no calves."--[Ed. 1626.] And in a marginal note, "These great apes are called Pongo's."

[3] _Purchas' note._--Cape Negro is in 16 degrees south of the line.

[4] Purchas' marginal note, p. 982:--"The Pongo a giant ape. He told me in conference with him, that one of these Pongoes tooke a negro boy of his which lived a moneth with them. For they hurt not those which they surprise at unawares, except they look on them; which he avoyded. He said their highth was like a man's, but their bignesse twice as great. I saw the negro boy. What the other monster should be he hath forgotten to relate; and these papers came to my hand since his death, which, otherwise, in my often conferences, I might have learned. Perhaps he meaneth the Pigmy Pongo killers mentioned."

[5] Archives du Museum, tome x.

[6] I am indebted to Dr. Wright, of Cheltenham, whose paleontological labours are so well known, for bringing this interesting relic to my knowledge. Tyson's granddaughter, it appears, married Dr. Allardyce, a physician of repute in Cheltenham, and brought, as part of her dowry, the skeleton of the "Pygmie." Dr. Allardyce presented it to the Cheltenham Museum, and, through the good offices of my friend Dr.

Wright, the authorities of the Museum have permitted me to borrow, what is, perhaps, its most remarkable ornament.

[7] "Mandrill" seems to signify a "man-like ape," the word "Drill" or "Dril" having been anciently employed in England to denote an Ape or Baboon. Thus in the fifth edition of Blount's "Glossographia, or a Dictionary interpreting the hard words of whatsoever language now used in our refined English tongue ... very useful for all such as desire to understand what they read," published in 1681, I find, "Dril--a stone-cutter's tool wherewith he bores little holes in marble, &c. Also a large overgrown Ape and Baboon, so called." "Drill" is used in the same sense in Charleton's "Onomasticon Zoicon," 1668. The singular etymology of the word given by Buffon seems hardly a probable one.

[8] Histoire Naturelle, Suppl. tome 7eme, 1789.

[9] Camper, OEuvres, i. p. 56.

[10] Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap. Tweede Deel. Derde Druk. 1826.

[11] "Briefe des Herrn v. Wurmb und des H. Baron von Wollzogen. Gotha, 1794."

[12] See Blumenbach, "Abbildungen Naturhistorichen Gegenstande," No. 12, 1810; and Tilesius, "Naturhistoriche Fruchte der ersten Kaiserlich-Russischen Erdumsegelung," p. 115, 1813.

[13] Speaking broadly and without prejudice to the question, whether there be more than one species of Orang.

[14] See "Observations on the external characters and habits of the Troglodytes niger, by Thomas N. Savage, M.D., and on its organization, by Jeffries Wyman, M.D.," Boston Journal of Natural History, vol. iv., 1843-4; and "External characters, habits, and osteology of Troglodytes Gorilla," by the same authors, ibid., vol. v., 1847.

[15] "Man and Monkies," p. 423.

[16] "Wanderings in New South Wales," vol. ii. chap. viii., 1834.

[17] Boston Journal of Natural History, vol. i., 1834.

[18] The largest Orang-Utan, cited by Temminck, measured, when standing upright, 4 ft.; but he mentions having just received news of the capture of an Orang 5 ft. 3 in. high. Schlegel and Muller say that their largest old male measured, upright, 1.25 Netherlands "el"; and from the crown to the end of the toes, 1.5 el; the circ.u.mference of the body being about 1 el. The largest old female was 1.09 el high, when standing. The adult skeleton in the College of Surgeons' Museum, if set upright, would stand 3 ft. 6-8 in. from crown to sole. Dr. Humphry gives 3 ft. 8 in. as the mean height of two Orangs. Of seventeen Orangs examined by Mr. Wallace, the largest was 4 ft. 2 in. high, from the heel to the crown of the head. Mr. Spencer St. John, however, in his "Life in the Forests of the Far East," tells us of an Orang of "5 ft. 2 in., measuring fairly from the head to the heel," 15 in. across the face, and 12 in. round the wrist. It does not appear, however, that Mr. St. John measured this Orang himself.

[19] See Mr. Wallace's account of an infant "Orang-utan," in the "Annals of Natural History" for 1856. Mr. Wallace provided his interesting charge with an artificial mother of buffalo-skin, but the cheat was too successful. The infant's entire experience led it to a.s.sociate teats with hair, and feeling the latter, it spent its existence in vain endeavours to discover the former.

[20] "They are the slowest and least active of all the monkey tribe, and their motions are surprisingly awkward and uncouth."--Sir James Brooke, in the "Proceedings of the Zoological Society," 1841.

[21] Mr. Wallace's account of the progression of the Orang almost exactly corresponds with this.

[22] Sir James Brooke, in a letter to Mr. Waterhouse, published in the proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1841, says:--"On the habits of the Orangs, as far as I have been able to observe them, I may remark that they are as dull and slothful as can well be conceived, and on no occasion, when pursuing them, did they move so fast as to preclude my keeping pace with them easily through a moderately clear forest; and even when obstructions below (such as wading up to the neck) allowed them to get away some distance, they were sure to stop and allow me to come up. I never observed the slightest attempt at defence, and the wood which sometimes rattled about our ears was broken by their weight, and not thrown, as some persons represent. If pushed to extremity, however, the _Pappan_ could not be otherwise than formidable, and one unfortunate man, who, with a party, was trying to catch a large one alive, lost two of his fingers, besides being severely bitten on the face, whilst the animal finally beat off his pursuers and escaped."

Mr. Wallace, on the other hand, affirms that he has several times observed them throwing down branches when pursued. "It is true he does not throw them at a person, but casts them down vertically; for it is evident that a bough cannot be thrown to any distance from the top of a lofty tree. In one case a female Mias, on a durian tree, kept up for at least ten minutes a continuous shower of branches and of the heavy, spined fruits, as large as 32-pounders, which most effectually kept us clear of the tree she was on. She could be seen breaking them off and throwing them down with every appearance of rage, uttering at intervals a loud pumping grunt, and evidently meaning mischief."--"On the Habits of the Orang-Utan," Annals of Nat. History, 1856. This statement, it will be observed, is quite in accordance with that contained in the letter of the Resident Palm quoted above (p. 16).

[23] On the Orang-Utan, or Mias of Borneo, Annals of Natural History, 1856.

[24] Notice of the external characters and habits of Troglodytes Gorilla. Boston Journal of Natural History, 1847.

II

ON THE RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS.

Multis videri poterit, majorem esse differentiam Simiae et Hominis, quam diei et noctis; verum tamen hi, comparatione inst.i.tuta inter summos Europae Heroes et Hottentottos ad Caput bonae spei degentes, difficillime sibi persuadebunt, has eosdem habere natales; vel si virginem n.o.bilem aulicam, maxime comtam et humanissimam, conferre vellent c.u.m homine sylvestri et sibi relicto, vix augurari possent, hunc et illam ejusdem esse speciei.--_Linnaei Amoenitates Acad. "Anthropomorpha."_

The question of questions for mankind--the problem which underlies all others, and is more deeply interesting than any other--is the ascertainment of the place which Man occupies in nature and of his relations to the universe of things. Whence our race has come; what are the limits of our power over nature, and of nature's power over us; to what goal we are tending; are the problems which present themselves anew and with undiminished interest to every man born into the world. Most of us, shrinking from the difficulties and dangers which beset the seeker after original answers to these riddles, are contented to ignore them altogether, or to smother the investigating spirit under the featherbed of respected and respectable tradition. But, in every age, one or two restless spirits, blessed with that constructive genius, which can only build on a secure foundation, or cursed with the mere spirit of scepticism, are unable to follow in the well-worn and comfortable track of their forefathers and contemporaries, and unmindful of thorns and stumbling-blocks, strike out into paths of their own. The sceptics end in the infidelity which a.s.serts the problem to be insoluble, or in the atheism which denies the existence of any orderly progress and governance of things: the men of genius propound solutions which grow into systems of Theology or of Philosophy, or veiled in musical language which suggests more than it a.s.serts, take the shape of the Poetry of an epoch.

Each such answer to the great question, invariably a.s.serted by the followers of its propounder, if not by himself, to be complete and final, remains in high authority and esteem, it may be for one century, or it may be for twenty: but, as invariably, Time proves each reply to have been a mere approximation to the truth--tolerable chiefly on account of the ignorance of those by whom it was accepted, and wholly intolerable when tested by the larger knowledge of their successors.

In a well-worn metaphor, a parallel is drawn between the life of man and the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into the b.u.t.terfly; but the comparison may be more just as well as more novel, if for its former term we take the mental progress of the race. History shows that the human mind, fed by constant accessions of knowledge, periodically grows too large for its theoretical coverings, and bursts them asunder to appear in new habiliments, as the feeding and growing grub, at intervals, casts its too narrow skin and a.s.sumes another, itself but temporary. Truly the imago state of Man seems to be terribly distant, but every moult is a step gained, and of such there have been many.

Since the revival of learning, whereby the Western races of Europe were enabled to enter upon that progress towards true knowledge, which was commenced by the philosophers of Greece, but was almost arrested in subsequent long ages of intellectual stagnation, or, at most, gyration, the human larva has been feeding vigorously, and moulting in proportion.

A skin of some dimension was cast in the 16th century, and another towards the end of the 18th, while, within the last fifty years, the extraordinary growth of every department of physical science has spread among us mental food of so nutritious and stimulating a character that a new ecdysis seems imminent. But this is a process not unusually accompanied by many throes and some sickness and debility, or, it may be, by graver disturbances; so that every good citizen must feel bound to facilitate the process, and even if he have nothing but a scalpel to work withal, to ease the cracking integument to the best of his ability.

In this duty lies my excuse for the publication of these essays. For it will be admitted that some knowledge of man's position in the animate world is an indispensable preliminary to the proper understanding of his relations to the universe--and this again resolves itself, in the long run, into an inquiry into the nature and the closeness of the ties which connect him with those singular creatures whose history[25] has been sketched in the preceding pages.

The importance of such an inquiry is indeed intuitively manifest.

Brought face to face with these blurred copies of himself, the least thoughtful of men is conscious of a certain shock, due perhaps, not so much to disgust at the aspect of what looks like an insulting caricature, as to the awakening of a sudden and profound mistrust of time-honoured theories and strongly-rooted prejudices regarding his own position in nature, and his relations to the under-world of life; while that which remains a dim suspicion for the unthinking, becomes a vast argument, fraught with the deepest consequences, for all who are acquainted with the recent progress of the anatomical and physiological sciences.

I now propose briefly to unfold that argument, and to set forth, in a form intelligible to those who possess no special acquaintance with anatomical science, the chief facts upon which all conclusions respecting the nature and the extent of the bonds which connect man with the brute world must be based: I shall then indicate the one immediate conclusion which, in my judgment, is justified by those facts, and I shall finally discuss the bearing of that conclusion upon the hypotheses which have been entertained respecting the Origin of Man.

The facts to which I would first direct the reader's attention, though ignored by many of the professed instructors of the public mind, are easy of demonstration and are universally agreed to by men of science; while their significance is so great, that whoso has duly pondered over them will, I think, find little to startle him in the other revelations of Biology. I refer to those facts which have been made known by the study of Development.

It is a truth of very wide, if not of universal, application, that every living creature commences its existence under a form different from, and simpler than, that which it eventually attains.

The oak is a more complex thing than the little rudimentary plant contained in the acorn; the caterpillar is more complex than the egg; the b.u.t.terfly than the caterpillar; and each of these beings, in pa.s.sing from its rudimentary to its perfect condition, runs through a series of changes, the sum of which is called its Development. In the higher animals these changes are extremely complicated; but, within the last half-century, the labours of such men as Von Baer, Rathke, Reichert, Bischof, and Remak have almost completely unravelled them, so that the successive stages of development which are exhibited by a Dog, for example, are now as well known to the embryologist as are the steps of the metamorphosis of the silkworm moth to the school-boy. It will be useful to consider with attention the nature and the order of the stages of canine development, as an example of the process in the higher animals generally.

The Dog, like all animals, save the very lowest (and further inquiries may not improbably remove the apparent exception), commences its existence as an egg: as a body which is, in every sense, as much an egg as that of a hen, but is devoid of that acc.u.mulation of nutritive matter which confers upon the bird's egg its exceptional size and domestic utility; and wants the sh.e.l.l, which would not only be useless to an animal incubated within the body of its parent, but would cut it off from access to the source of that nutriment which the young creature requires, but which the minute egg of the mammal does not contain within itself.

The Dog's egg is, in fact, a little spheroidal bag (Fig. 12), formed of a delicate transparent membrane called the _vitelline membrane_, and about 1/130 to 1/120th an inch in diameter. It contains a ma.s.s of viscid nutritive matter--the "_yelk_"--within which is inclosed a second much more delicate spheroidal bag, called the "_germinal vesicle_" (_a_). In this, lastly, lies a more solid rounded body, termed the "_germinal spot_" (_b_).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 12.--A. Egg of the Dog, with the vitelline membrane burst, so as to give exit to the yelk, the germinal vesicle (_a_), and its included spot (_b_). B. C. D. E. F. Successive changes of the yelk indicated in the text. After Bischoff.]