Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon].

  • Robert Chambers
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    276/408 page 268
    mere analogy. Mr. Swainson therefore considers our race as standing apart, and forming a link be- . tween the unintelligent order of beings and the angels! And this in spite of the glaring fact that, in our teeth, hands, and other features grounded on by naturalists as characteristic, we do not differ more from the simiade than the bats do from the lemurs—in spite also of that resemblance of ana- logy to the ourangs which he himself admits, and which, at the least, must be held to imply a certain relation. He also overlooks that, though there may be no room for man in the circle of the simiadee, (this, indeed, is quite true,) there may be in the order, where he actually leaves a place entirely blank, or only to be filled up, as he suggests, by mermen!* Another argument against his arrangement is, that it leaves the grades of classification very much abridged, there being at the most seven instead of nine. But serious argu- ment on a theory so preposterous may be con- sidered as nearly thrown away. I shall therefore at once proceed to suggest a new arrangement of * Mr. Swainson’s arguments about the entireness of the circle simiade are only too rigid, for fossil geology has since added new genera to this group and the cebide, and there may be still far- ther additions. .
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