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
As this passage was published in 1699, M. I. G. St. Hilaire is clearly
in error in ascribing the invention of the term "quadrumanous" to
Buffon, though "bimanous" may belong to him. Tyson uses "Quadrumanus" in
several places, as at p. 91.... "Our _Pygmie_ is no Man, nor yet the
_common Ape_, but a sort of _Animal_ between both; and though a _Biped_,
yet of the _Quadrumanus_-kind: though some _Men_ too have been observed
to use their _Feet_ like _Hands_, as I have seen several."
[30] See the note at the end of this essay for a succinct history of the
controversy to which allusion is here made.
[31] I say _help_ to furnish: for I by no means believe that it was any
original difference of cerebral quality, or quantity, which caused that
divergence between the human and the pithecoid stirpes, which has ended
in the present enormous gulf between them. It is no doubt perfectly
true, in a certain sense, that all difference of function is a result of
difference of structure; or, in other words, of difference in the
combination of the primary molecular forces of living substance; and,
starting from this undeniable axiom, objectors occasionally, and with
much seeming plausibility, argue that the vast intellectual chasm
between the Ape and Man implies a corresponding structural chasm in the
organs of the intellectual functions; so that, it is said, the
non-discovery of such vast differences proves, not that they are absent,
but that Science is incompetent to detect them. A very little
consideration, however, will, I think, show the fallacy of this
reasoning. Its validity hangs upon the assumption, that intellectual
power depends altogether on the brain--whereas the brain is only one
condition out of many on which intellectual manifestations depend; the
others being, chiefly, the organs of the senses and the motor
apparatuses, especially those which are concerned in prehension and in
the production of articulate speech.
A man born dumb, notwithstanding his great cerebral mass and his
inheritance of strong intellectual instincts, would be capable of few
higher intellectual manifestations than an Orang or a Chimpanzee, if he
were confined to the society of dumb associates. And yet there might not
be the slightest discernible difference between his brain and that of a
highly intelligent and cultivated person. The dumbness might be the
result of a defective structure of the mouth, or of the tongue, or a
mere defective innervation of these parts; or it might result from
congenital deafness, caused by some minute defect of the internal ear,
which only a careful anatomist could discover.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account