Man's Place in Nature, and Other EssaysHuxley, Thomas Henry
Science
Man's Place in Nature, and Other Essays
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Apes; Ethnology; Human beings -- Origin; Indo-Europeans
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 mass 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.
[Illustration:
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
space 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 classificatory 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.
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