Now, I have not the most remote intention of impugning the Professor’s honesty. I give him credit--full credit--for high purpose, and for high courage. “These poor brothers of ours,” says he, “have tails, it is true, and they have not the hypocampus major; but let me ask you, Monsieur le Duc, or you, Monseigneur the Archbishop, will you dare to affirm on oath that you yourself are endowed with a hypocampus major or minor? Are you prepared to stand forward and declare that the convolutions of your brain are of the regulation standard--that the medullary part is not disproportioned to the cineritious--that your falx is not thicker or thinner than it ought--and that your optic thalami are not too prominent? And if you are not ready to do this, what avails all your assumption of superiority? In these--they are not many--lie the alleged differences between you and your caged cousins yonder.” Thus speaks, or might speak, the Professor; and, I repeat, I respect his candour; but still I would venture to submit one small, perhaps ungenerous doubt, and ask, Would he, acting on the noble instincts that move him, vote these creatures an immediate and entire emancipation, or would he not rather wait a while--a few years, say--till the habit of sitting on chairs had worn off some of the tail, and a greater familiarity with society suggested not to store up their dinner in their jaws? Would he like to see them at once take their places in public life, become public functionaries, and ministers, and grand cordons? Would he not rather, with that philosophy his country eminently teaches, say, “I will do the pity and the compassion. To me be the sympathetic part of a graceful sorrow. To posterity I bequeath the recognition of these poor captives. Let them be liberated, by all means; but let it be when I shall be no longer here to witness it. Let others face that glorious millennium of gorilla greatness.” I am afraid he would reason in this fashion; it is one thing to have an opinion, and to have what Frenchmen call the “courage of your opinion.” He would say, “If Nature work surely, she works slowly; her changes are measured, regular, and progressive. With her there are no paroxysms; all is orderly--all is gradual It took centuries of centuries to advance these poor creatures to the point they occupy; their next stage on the journey is perhaps countless years away. I will not attempt to forestall what I cannot assist. I will let Time do its work. They are not ill-treated, besides; that large creature with the yellow eyebrows grinned at me very pleasantly this morning, and the she-ourang-outang was whipping her infant most naturally as I came by.”