The analogies between the Apes and Man are so striking and so numerous, and their intelligence, at least in the largest genera, is so superior to that of other animals, that, without admitting the opinion of the ancient naturalists who considered them to be degraded or degenerate men, nor that of certain modern writers, who look upon Man as an improved Ape, one cannot fail to recognize between them and us a species of kinship--though it may be very difficult to distinguish the character and the degree--which imposes itself upon the understanding and the sentiment of every impartial and attentive observer. The most impassive hunters who have killed Orangs, Gibbons, Chimpanzees, and Gorillas, acknowledge that they have never been able to conquer a painful impression--almost, as it were, a feeling of remorse--when contemplating the semi-human agony of their victims. This impression, though they may have succeeded in persuading themselves to the contrary, is not the effect of an empty or ridiculous sensibility. Everything in nature has its _raison d'être_--its motive of existence; the relations between the organism and the faculties are constant and undeniable; and I find it difficult to believe that the Creator can have formed without object or purpose beings so extraordinarily similar to man, unless this physical resemblance corresponds to a more or less definite moral analogy. The illustrious and devout Linné, whom no one will suspect either of materialism, or of forgetfulness of the dignity of man, has ranked the Anthropomorphes in his genus _Homo_, with MAN, whom he specifically distinguishes by his wholly exceptional faculties, and whom he denominates _Homo sapiens_, that is, "the wise," or more correctly speaking, the "thinking man." I must add that Linné at a later period renounced this quasi-assimilation, and that modern zoologists have unanimously rejected it.[175] In the age of Linné, the apes of which we speak were but imperfectly known. Even now-a-days our information upon the subjects of their intelligence, manners, and habits, is defective and fragmentary. The individuals whom we have retained in captivity have died while very young, and it is impossible to say whether their early mildness and intelligence would have proved as transitory in them as in the Macaucos and the Cynocephali, who, as they advance in years, display the most brutal instincts. In their adult state, the Anthropomorphic Apes have not been really studied. Travellers have penetrated into their forests only to attack them with rifle-balls, and have told us but little of the manner in which they comport themselves. As for the details collected from natives inhabiting their vicinity, they are so contradictory, and mixed up with so much which is fabulous, that it is impossible to draw any conclusions from them in reference to the habits of these animals.