Man's Place in Nature and Other Essays Part 7

Not only, however, does Man occasionally possess thirteen pair of ribs,[27] but the Gorilla sometimes has fourteen pairs, while an Orang-Utan skeleton in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons has twelve dorsal and five lumbar vertebrae, as in Man. Cuvier notes the same number in a _Hylobates_. On the other hand, among the lower Apes, many possess twelve dorsal and six or seven lumbar vertebrae; the Douroucouli has fourteen dorsal and eight lumbar, and a Lemur (_Stenops tardigradus_) has fifteen dorsal and nine lumbar vertebrae.

The vertebral column of the Gorilla, as a whole, differs from that of Man in the less marked character of its curves, especially in the slighter convexity of the lumbar region. Nevertheless, the curves are present, and are quite obvious in young skeletons of the Gorilla and Chimpanzee which have been prepared without removal of the ligaments. In young Orangs similarly preserved, on the other hand, the spinal column is either straight, or even concave forwards, throughout the lumbar region.

Whether we take these characters then, or such minor ones as those which are derivable from the proportional length of the spines of the cervical vertebrae, and the like, there is no doubt whatsoever as to the marked difference between Man and the Gorilla; but there is as little, that equally marked differences, of the very same order, obtain between the Gorilla and the lower apes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 15.--Front and side views of the bony pelvis of Man, the Gorilla and Gibbon: reduced from drawings made from nature, of the same absolute length, by Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins.]

The Pelvis, or bony girdle of the hips, of Man is a strikingly human part of his organization; the expanded haunch bones affording support for his viscera during his habitually erect posture, and giving s.p.a.ce for the attachment of the great muscles which enable him to a.s.sume and to preserve that att.i.tude. In these respects the pelvis of the Gorilla differs very considerably from his (Fig. 15). But go no lower than the Gibbon, and see how vastly more he differs from the Gorilla than the latter does from Man, even in this structure. Look at the flat, narrow haunch bones--the long and narrow pa.s.sage--the coa.r.s.e, outwardly curved, ischiatic prominences on which the Gibbon habitually rests, and which are coated by the so-called "callosities," dense patches of skin, wholly absent in the Gorilla, in the Chimpanzee, and in the Orang, as in Man!

In the lower Monkeys and in the Lemurs the difference becomes more striking still, the pelvis acquiring an altogether quadrupedal character.

But now let us turn to a n.o.bler and more characteristic organ--that by which the human frame seems to be, and indeed is, so strongly distinguished from all others,--I mean the skull. The differences between a Gorilla's skull and a Man's are truly immense (Fig. 16). In the former, the face, formed largely by the ma.s.sive jaw-bones, predominates over the brain case, or cranium proper: in the latter, the proportions of the two are reversed. In the Man, the occipital foramen, through which pa.s.ses the great nervous cord connecting the brain with the nerves of the body, is placed just behind the centre of the base of the skull, which thus becomes evenly balanced in the erect posture; in the Gorilla, it lies in the posterior third of that base. In the Man, the surface of the skull is comparatively smooth, and the supraciliary ridges or brow prominences usually project but little--while, in the Gorilla, vast crests are developed upon the skull, and the brow ridges overhang the cavernous...o...b..ts, like great penthouses.

Sections of the skulls, however, show that some of the apparent defects of the Gorilla's cranium arise, in fact, not so much from deficiency of brain case as from excessive development of the parts of the face. The cranial cavity is not ill-shaped, and the forehead is not truly flattened or very retreating, its really well-formed curve being simply disguised by the ma.s.s of bone which is built up against it (Fig. 16).

But the roofs of the orbits rise more obliquely into the cranial cavity, thus diminishing the s.p.a.ce for the lower part of the anterior lobes of the brain, and the absolute capacity of the cranium is far less than that of Man. So far as I am aware, no human cranium belonging to an adult man has yet been observed with a less cubical capacity than 62 cubic inches, the smallest cranium observed in any race of men by Morton, measuring 63 cubic inches; while, on the other hand, the most capacious Gorilla skull yet measured has a content of not more than 34-1/2 cubic inches. Let us a.s.sume, for simplicity's sake, that the lowest Man's skull has twice the capacity of that of the highest Gorilla.[28]

No doubt, this is a very striking difference, but it loses much of its apparent systematic value, when viewed by the light of certain other equally indubitable facts respecting cranial capacities.

The first of these is, that the difference in the volume of the cranial cavity of different races of mankind is far greater, absolutely, than that between the lowest Man and the highest Ape, while, relatively, it is about the same. For the largest human skull measured by Morton contained 114 cubic inches, that is to say, had very nearly double the capacity of the smallest; while its absolute preponderance, of 52 cubic inches--is far greater than that by which the lowest adult male human cranium surpa.s.ses the largest of the Gorillas (62-34-1/2 = 27-1/2).

Secondly, the adult crania of Gorillas which have as yet been measured differ among themselves by nearly one-third, the maximum capacity being 34.5 cubic inches, the minimum 24 cubic inches; and, thirdly, after making all due allowance for difference of size, the cranial capacities of some of the lower Apes fall nearly as much, relatively, below those of the higher Apes as the latter fall below Man.

Thus, even in the important matter of cranial capacity, Men differ more widely from one another than they do from the Apes; while the lowest Apes differ as much, in proportion, from the highest, as the latter does from Man. The last proposition is still better ill.u.s.trated by the study of the modifications which other parts of the cranium undergo in the Simian series.

It is the large proportional size of the facial bones and the great projection of the jaws which confers upon the Gorilla's skull its small facial angle and brutal character.

But if we consider the proportional size of the facial bones to the skull proper only, the little _Chrysothrix_ (Fig. 16) differs very widely from the Gorilla, and in the same way as Man does; while the Baboons (_Cynocephalus_, Fig. 16) exaggerate the gross proportions of the muzzle of the great Anthropoid, so that its visage looks mild and human by comparison with theirs. The difference between the Gorilla and the Baboon is even greater than it appears at first sight; for the great facial ma.s.s of the former is largely due to a downward development of the jaws; an essentially human character, superadded upon that almost purely forward, essentially brutal, development of the same parts which characterizes the Baboon, and yet more remarkably distinguishes the Lemur.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 16.--Sections of the skulls of Man and various Apes, drawn so as to give the cerebral cavity the same length in each case, thereby displaying the varying proportions of the facial bones. The line _b_ indicates the plane of the tentorium, which separates the cerebrum from the cerebellum; _d_, the axis of the occipital outlet of the skull. The extent of cerebral cavity behind _c_, which is a perpendicular erected on _b_ at the point where the tentorium is attached posteriorly, indicates the degree to which the cerebrum overlaps the cerebellum--the s.p.a.ce occupied by which is roughly indicated by the dark shading. In comparing these diagrams, it must be recollected, that figures on so small a scale as these simply exemplify the statements in the text, the proof of which is to be found in the objects themselves.]

Similarly, the occipital foramen of _Mycetes_ (Fig. 16), and still more of the Lemurs, is situated completely in the posterior face of the skull, or as much further back than that of the Gorilla, as that of the Gorilla is further back than that of Man; while, as if to render patent the futility of the attempt to base any broad cla.s.sificatory distinction on such a character, the same group of Platyrhine, or American monkeys, to which the _Mycetes_ belongs, contains the _Chrysothrix_, whose occipital foramen is situated far more forward than in any other ape, and nearly approaches the position it holds in Man.

Again, the Orang's skull is as devoid of excessively developed supraciliary prominences as a Man's, though some varieties exhibit great crests elsewhere (see p. 39); and in some of the Cebine Apes and in the _Chrysothrix_, the cranium is as smooth and rounded as that of Man himself.

What is true of these leading characteristics of the skull, holds good, as may be imagined, of all minor features; so that for every constant difference between the Gorilla's skull and the Man's, a similar constant difference of the same order (that is to say, consisting in excess or defect of the same quality) may be found between the Gorilla's skull and that of some other ape. So that, for the skull, no less than for the skeleton in general, the proposition holds good, that the differences between Man and the Gorilla are of smaller value than those between the Gorilla and some other Apes.

In connection with the skull, I may speak of the teeth--organs which have a peculiar cla.s.sificatory value, and whose resemblances and differences of number, form, and succession, taken as a whole, are usually regarded as more trustworthy indicators of affinity than any others.

Man is provided with two sets of teeth--milk teeth and permanent teeth.

The former consist of four incisors, or cutting teeth; two canines, or eye-teeth; and four molars, or grinders, in each jaw--making twenty in all. The latter (Fig. 17) comprise four incisors, two canines, four small grinders, called premolars or false molars, and six large grinders, or true molars, in each jaw--making thirty-two in all. The internal incisors are larger than the external pair, in the upper jaw, smaller than the external pair, in the lower jaw. The crowns of the upper molars exhibit four cusps, or blunt-pointed elevations, and a ridge crosses the crown obliquely, from the inner, anterior, cusp to the outer, posterior cusp (Fig. 17 _m^2_). The anterior lower molars have five cusps, three external and two internal. The premolars have two cusps, one internal and one external, of which the outer is the higher.

In all these respects the dent.i.tion of the Gorilla may be described in the same terms as that of Man; but in other matters it exhibits many and important differences (Fig. 17).

Thus the teeth of man const.i.tute a regular and even series--without any break and without any marked projection of one tooth above the level of the rest; a peculiarity which, as Cuvier long ago showed, is shared by no other mammal save one--as different a creature from man as can well be imagined--namely, the long extinct _Anoplotherium_. The teeth of the Gorilla, on the contrary, exhibit a break, or interval, termed the _diastema_, in both jaws: in front of the eye-tooth, or between it and the outer incisor, in the upper jaw; behind the eye-tooth, or between it and the front false molar, in the lower jaw. Into this break in the series, in each jaw, fits the canine of the opposite jaw; the size of the eye-tooth in the Gorilla being so great that it projects, like a tusk, far beyond the general level of the other teeth. The roots of the false molar teeth of the Gorilla, again, are more complex than in Man, and the proportional size of the molars is different. The Gorilla has the crown of the hindmost grinder of the lower jaw more complex, and the order of eruption of the permanent teeth is different; the permanent canines making their appearance before the second and third molars in Man, and after them in the Gorilla.

Thus, while the teeth of the Gorilla closely resemble those of Man in number, kind, and in the general pattern of their crowns, they exhibit marked differences from those of Man in secondary respects, such as relative size, number of fangs, and order of appearance.

But, if the teeth of the Gorilla be compared with those of an Ape, no further removed from it than a _Cynocephalus_, or Baboon, it will be found that differences and resemblances of the same order are easily observable; but that many of the points in which the Gorilla resembles Man are those in which it differs from the Baboon; while various respects in which it differs from Man are exaggerated in the _Cynocephalus_. The number and the nature of the teeth remain the same in the Baboon as in the Gorilla and in Man. But the pattern of the Baboon's upper molars is quite different from that described above (Fig.

17), the canines are proportionally longer and more knife-like; the anterior premolar in the lower jaw is specially modified; the posterior molar of the lower jaw is still larger and more complex than in the Gorilla.

Pa.s.sing from the old-world Apes to those of the new world, we meet with a change of much greater importance than any of these. In such a genus as _Cebus_, for example (Fig. 17), it will be found that while in some secondary points, such as the projection of the canines and the diastema, the resemblance to the great ape is preserved; in other and most important respects, the dent.i.tion is extremely different. Instead of 20 teeth in the milk set, there are 24: instead of 32 teeth in the permanent set, there are 36, the false molars being increased from eight to twelve. And in form, the crowns of the molars are very unlike those of the Gorilla, and differ far more widely from the human pattern.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 17.--Lateral views, of the same length, of the upper jaws of various Primates. _i_, incisors; _c_, canines; _pm_, premolars; _m_, molars. A line is drawn through the first molar of Man, Gorilla, _Cynocephalus_, and _Cebus_, and the grinding surface of the second molar is shown in each, its anterior and internal angle being just above the _m_ of _m^2_.]

The Marmosets, on the other hand, exhibit the same number of teeth as Man and the Gorilla; but, notwithstanding this, their dent.i.tion is very different, for they have four more false molars, like the other American monkeys--but as they have four fewer true molars, the total remains the same. And pa.s.sing from the American Apes to the Lemurs, the dent.i.tion becomes still more completely and essentially different from that of the Gorilla. The incisors begin to vary both in number and in form. The molars acquire, more and more, a many-pointed, insectivorous character, and in one Genus, the Aye-Aye (_Cheiromys_), the canines disappear, and the teeth completely simulate those of a Rodent (Fig.

17).

Hence it is obvious that, greatly as the dent.i.tion of the highest Ape differs from that of Man, it differs far more widely from that of the lower and lowest Apes.

Whatever part of the animal fabric--whatever series of muscles, whatever viscera might be selected for comparison--the result would be the same--the lower Apes and the Gorilla would differ more than the Gorilla and the Man. I cannot attempt in this place to follow out all these comparisons in detail, and indeed it is unnecessary I should do so. But certain real, or supposed, structural distinctions between man and the apes remain, upon which so much stress has been laid, that they require careful consideration, in order that the true value may be a.s.signed to those which are real, and the emptiness of those which are fict.i.tious may be exposed. I refer to the characters of the hand, the foot, and the brain.

Man has been defined as the only animal possessed of two hands terminating his fore-limbs, and of two feet ending his hind limbs, while it has been said that all the apes possess four hands; and he has been affirmed to differ fundamentally from all the apes in the characters of his brain, which alone, it has been strangely a.s.serted and re-a.s.serted, exhibits the structures known to anatomists as the posterior lobe, the posterior cornu of the lateral ventricle, and the hippocampus minor.

That the former proposition should have gained general acceptance is not surprising--indeed, at first sight, appearances are much in its favour: but, as for the second, one can only admire the surpa.s.sing courage of its enunciator, seeing that it is an innovation which is not only opposed to generally and justly accepted doctrines, but which is directly negatived by the testimony of all original inquirers, who have specially investigated the matter: and that it neither has been, nor can be, supported by a single anatomical preparation. It would, in fact, be unworthy of serious refutation, except for the general and natural belief that deliberate and reiterated a.s.sertions must have some foundation.

Before we can discuss the first point with advantage we must consider with some attention, and compare together, the structure of the human hand and that of the human foot, so that we may have distinct and clear ideas of what const.i.tutes a hand and what a foot.

The external form of the human hand is familiar enough to every one. It consists of a stout wrist followed by a broad palm, formed of flesh, and tendons, and skin, binding together four bones, and dividing into four long and flexible digits, or fingers, each of which bears on the back of its last joint a broad and flattened nail. The longest cleft between any two digits is rather less than half as long as the hand. From the outer side of the base of the palm a stout digit goes off, having only two joints instead of three; so short, that it only reaches to a little beyond the middle of the first joint of the finger next it; and further remarkable by its great mobility, in consequence of which it can be directed outwards, almost at a right angle to the rest. This digit is called the "_pollex_," or thumb; and, like the others, it bears a flat nail upon the back of its terminal joint. In consequence of the proportions and mobility of the thumb, it is what is termed "opposable"; in other words, its extremity can, with the greatest ease, be brought into contact with the extremities of any of the fingers; a property upon which the possibility of our carrying into effect the conceptions of the mind so largely depends.

The external form of the foot differs widely from that of the hand; and yet, when closely compared, the two present some singular resemblances.

Thus the ankle corresponds in a manner with the wrist; the sole with the palm; the toes with the fingers; the great toe with the thumb. But the toes, or digits of the foot, are far shorter in proportion than the digits of the hand, and are less moveable, the want of mobility being most striking in the great toe--which, again, is very much larger in proportion to the other toes than the thumb to the fingers. In considering this point, however, it must not be forgotten that the civilized great toe, confined and cramped from childhood upwards, is seen to a great disadvantage, and that in uncivilized and barefooted people it retains a great amount of mobility, and even some sort of opposability. The Chinese boatmen are said to be able to pull an oar, the artisans of Bengal to weave, and the Carajas to steal fishhooks, by its help; though, after all, it must be recollected that the structure of its joints and the arrangement of its bones, necessarily render its prehensile action far less perfect than that of the thumb.

But to gain a precise conception of the resemblances and differences of the hand and foot, and of the distinctive characters of each, we must look below the skin, and compare the bony framework and its motor apparatus in each (Fig. 18).

The skeleton of the hand exhibits, in the region which we term the wrist, and which is technically called the _carpus_--two rows of closely fitted polygonal bones, four in each row, which are tolerably equal in size. The bones of the first row with the bones of the forearm form the wrist joint, and are arranged side by side, no one greatly exceeding or over-lapping the rest.

The four bones of the second row of the carpus bear the four long bones which support the palm of the hand. The fifth bone of the same character is articulated in a much more free and moveable manner than the others, with its carpal bone, and forms the base of the thumb. These are called _metacarpal_ bones, and they carry the _phalanges_, or bones of the digits, of which there are two in the thumb, and three in each of the fingers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 18.--The skeleton of the Hand and Foot of Man reduced from Dr. Carter's drawings in Gray's "Anatomy." The hand is drawn to a larger scale than the foot. The line _a a_ in the hand indicates the boundary between the carpus and the metacarpus; _b b_ that between the latter and the proximal phalanges; _c c_ marks the ends of the distal phalanges. The line _a' a'_ in the foot indicates the boundary between the tarsus and metatarsus; _b' b'_ marks that between the metatarsus and the proximal phalanges; and _c' c'_ bounds the ends of the distal phalanges; _ca_, the calcaneum; _as_, the astragalus; _sc_, the scaphoid bone in the tarsus.]

The skeleton of the foot is very like that of the hand in some respects.

Thus there are three phalanges in each of the lesser toes, and only two in the great toe, which answers to the thumb. There is a long bone, termed _metatarsal_, answering to the metacarpal, for each digit; and the _tarsus_, which corresponds with the carpus, presents four short polygonal bones in a row, which correspond very closely with the four carpal bones of the second row of the hand. In other respects the foot differs very widely from the hand. Thus the great toe is the longest digit but one; and its metatarsal is far less moveably articulated with the tarsus, than the metacarpal of the thumb with the carpus. But a far more important distinction lies in the fact that, instead of four more tarsal bones there are only three; and that these three are not arranged side by side, or in one row. One of them, the _os calcis_ or heel bone (_ca_), lies externally, and sends back the large projecting heel; another, the _astragalus_ (_as_), rests on this by one face, and by another, forms, with the bones of the leg, the ankle joint; while a third face, directed forwards, is separated from the three inner tarsal bones of the row next the metatarsus by a bone called the _scaphoid_ (_sc_).

Thus there is a fundamental difference in the structure of the foot and the hand, observable when the carpus and the tarsus are contrasted; and there are differences of degree noticeable when the proportions and the mobility of the metacarpals and metatarsals, with their respective digits, are compared together.

The same two cla.s.ses of differences become obvious when the muscles of the hand are compared with those of the foot.

Three princ.i.p.al sets of muscles, called "flexors," bend the fingers and thumb, as in clenching the fist, and three sets--the extensors--extend them, as in straightening the fingers. These muscles are all "long muscles"; that is to say, the fleshy part of each, lying in and being fixed to the bones of the arm, is, at the other end, continued into tendons, or rounded cords, which pa.s.s into the hand, and are ultimately fixed to the bones which are to be moved. Thus, when the fingers are bent, the fleshy parts of the flexors of the fingers, placed in the arm, contract, in virtue of their peculiar endowment as muscles; and pulling the tendinous cords, connected with their ends, cause them to pull down the bones of the fingers towards the palm.

Not only are the princ.i.p.al flexors of the fingers and of the thumb long muscles, but they remain quite distinct from one another throughout their whole length.

In the foot, there are also three princ.i.p.al flexor muscles of the digits or toes, and three princ.i.p.al extensors; but one extensor and one flexor are short muscles; that is to say, their fleshy parts are not situated in the leg (which corresponds with the arm), but in the back and in the sole of the foot--regions which correspond with the back and the palm of the hand.

Again, the tendons of the long flexor of the toes, and of the long flexor of the great toe, when they reach the sole of the foot, do not remain distinct from one another, as the flexors in the palm of the hand do, but they become united and commingled in a very curious manner--while their united tendons receive an accessory muscle connected with the heel-bone.