The Churches and Modern Thought: An inquiry into the grounds of unbelief and an appeal for candourPhelips, Vivian
Religion
The Churches and Modern Thought: An inquiry into the grounds of unbelief and an appeal for candour
Phelips, Vivian
Rationalism
Dentition.--In the natural history of mammals the teeth play
an important part as a means of determining differences and
relationships. "Everyone knows the milk teeth and the permanent
teeth of man. The anthropoid apes bear in this respect an astonishing
likeness to man. The number (thirty-two in the adult), the form and
general arrangement of the crown, are identical in man and anthropoid
apes. The differences are to be found only in minor details." [159]
"But the fact must not be lost sight of that all these differences
are less pronounced than those which exist between the dentition of
anthropoid apes and that of all other monkeys." [160]
The Foot.--Anti-evolutionists have laid great stress on the difference
between the foot of a man and that of an anthropoid ape. But it is
clearly shown by Huxley that in all essential respects the hinder
limb of the gorilla terminates in as true a foot as that of man,
[161] and "that, be the differences between the hand and foot of man
and those of the gorilla what they may, the differences between those
of the gorilla and those of the lower apes are much greater." [162]
The Sacrum.--"In monkeys, as a whole, the sacrum is composed of
three, or rarely four, vertebræ, while in anthropoid apes it contains
five--that is to say, just as many as in man." [163]
The Skull.--Here the differences are more marked; but again we must
remind ourselves that, as regards the osteology, Professor Huxley tells
us that "for the skull, no less than for the skeleton in general,
the proposition holds good that the differences between man and the
gorilla are of smaller value than those between the gorilla and some
other apes." [164]
The Brain.--Several distinguished zoologists at one time insisted on
the absence in all monkeys of certain parts of the brain peculiarly
characteristic of man, but now it is unanimously accepted that
the parts of the brain in question are "precisely those structures
which are the most marked cerebral characters common to man with the
apes. They are among the most distinctly simian peculiarities which
the human organism exhibits." [165]
The difference between the brain of the orang and that of man is a mere
difference of degree, and not of kind; and most students of comparative
psychology now admit that the intellectual faculties of animals differ
from those in man in degree only, not in their essence. Replying to
his opponents, Professor Huxley compares the brain of man and that
of ape with two watches, one of which will, and the other will not,
keep accurate time. He exclaims: "A hair in the balance-wheel, a little
rust on a pinion, a bend in a tooth of the escapement, a something so
slight that only the practised eye of the watchmaker can discover it,
may be the source of all the difference." [166]
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