The same post that brought the enclosed brought Dana's pamphlet on
the same subject. (162/1. The pamphlet referred to was published in
"Silliman's Journal," Volume XXV., 1863, pages 65 and 71, also in the
"Annals and Magazine of Natural History," Volume XI., pages 207-14,
1863: "On the Higher Subdivisions in the Classification of Mammals." In
this paper Dana maintains the view that "Man's title to a position by
himself, separate from the other mammals in classification, appears
to be fixed on structural as well as physical grounds" (page 210). His
description is as follows:--
I. ARCHONTIA (vel DIPODA) Man (alone).
II. MEGASTHENA. III. MICROSTHENA.
Quadrumana. Cheiroptera.
Carnivora. Insectivora.
Herbivora. Rodentia.
Mutilata. Bruta (Edentata).
IV. OOTICOIDEA.
Marsupialia.
Monotremata.)
The whole seems to me utterly wild. If there had not been the foregone
wish to separate men, I can never believe that Dana or any one would
have relied on so small a distinction as grown man not using fore-limbs
for locomotion, seeing that monkeys use their limbs in all other
respects for the same purpose as man. To carry on analogous principles
(for they are not identical, in crustacea the cephalic limbs are brought
close to mouth) from crustacea to the classification of mammals seems
to me madness. Who would dream of making a fundamental distinction in
birds, from fore-limbs not being used at all in [some] birds, or used as
fins in the penguin, and for flight in other birds?
I get on slowly with your grand work, for I am overwhelmed with odds and
ends and letters.
LETTER 163. TO J.D. HOOKER.
(163/1. The following extract refers to Owen's paper in the "Linn. Soc.
Journal," June, 1857, in which the classification of the Mammalia by
cerebral characters was proposed. In spite of the fact that men and apes
are placed in distinct Sub-Classes, Owen speaks (in the foot-note of
which Huxley made such telling effect) of the determination of the
difference between Homo and Pithecus as the anatomist's difficulty. (See
Letter 119.))
July 5th, 1857.
What a capital number of the "Linnean Journal!" Owen's is a grand paper;
but I cannot swallow Man making a division as distinct from a chimpanzee
as an Ornithorhynchus from a horse; I wonder what a chimpanzee would say
to this? (163/2. According to Owen the sub-class Archencephala contains
only the genus Homo: the Gyrencephala contains both chimpanzee and
horse, the Lyencephala contains Ornithorhynchus.)
LETTER 164. TO T.H. HUXLEY. Down [February?] 26th, 1863.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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