Diversions of a NaturalistLankester, E. Ray (Edwin Ray), Sir
History
Diversions of a Naturalist
Lankester, E. Ray (Edwin Ray), Sir
Natural history
Though we necessarily compare man with the highest existing apes, we
must not suppose that the man-like ape from which the earliest ape-like
men developed was in fact a gorilla or a chimpanzee. The survival
of the gorilla and chimpanzee at this day necessarily implies that
they were not the actual ancestral forms which became modified and
superseded in the course of man's development. Very probably the ape
(the creature more ape-like than man-like, of which more anon) from
which man took his direct descent had already developed a plantigrade
foot--that is a foot of which the sole is placed on the ground for
support, as it is in gibbons, baboons, and bears, but not in most apes,
nor in cats, dogs, sheep, and horses! And probably the hands of that
ancestral ape were already used more dexterously in consequence, and
the dog teeth were less needed either in fighting or in breaking up
food and so had become smaller.
This reflection brings us to the differences between the teeth of a
man and those of apes. The face of apes is drawn forward so as to
approach in form the "muzzle" of a dog. It is far less muzzle-like
in the more man-like apes than in the dog-faced baboons, and in the
least civilized living races of man is much less prominent--what is
called "prognathous"--than in the highest existing apes. In civilized
living races of man it is markedly reduced, so that in the habitual
carriage of the head, with the eyes looking forward over a horizontal
plane at right angles to the vertical or upright body, the front
border of the jaws, in which the chisel-like incisor teeth are set,
usually projects but very little beyond the brow or forehead. In Greek
sculpture and other examples regarded by us as types of "beauty," the
jaws do not project at all. Such a face is called "orthognathous."
This modification of the shape of the face is due to the progressive
dwindling in the size of the front part of the jaw and its teeth in
the series dog, ape, less-civilized man, highly-civilized man, and is
accompanied by an increase in the size of the front part of the brain.
The number of the teeth and their arrangement in groups are identical
in man and the apes. The most important difference is in the size of
the front teeth, and especially in the size of the "corner" teeth (one
on each side above and below), also called eye-teeth, dog-teeth, or
"canines." In the highest apes, as in all monkeys, the canine teeth
are very large, and even tusk-like in the males, projecting above the
horizonal line formed by the crowns of the other teeth. This projecting
of the canine teeth results in their not meeting one another point
to point when the jaws are closed, but necessitates one, the lower,
shutting in front of the other, and a space is left in the row of
teeth, both in the upper and the lower jaw, for this interlocking of
the great canines. It is called a "diastema." Man stands in strong
contrast to the apes in this respect. His canines do not project beyond
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