bodily structure and nature are altogether distinct from
those of animals, and have had a different origin; while the facts are
just what we should expect if he has been produced by descent with
modification from some common ancestor.

_The Animals most nearly Allied to Man._

By universal consent we see in the monkey tribe a caricature of
humanity. Their faces, their hands, their actions and expressions
present ludicrous resemblances to our own. But there is one group of
this great tribe in which this resemblance is greatest, and they have
hence been called the anthropoid or man-like apes. These are few in
number, and inhabit only the equatorial regions of Africa and Asia,
countries where the climate is most uniform, the forests densest, and
the supply of fruit abundant throughout the year. These animals are now
comparatively well known, consisting of the orang-utan of Borneo and
Sumatra, the chimpanzee and the gorilla of West Africa, and the group of
gibbons or long-armed apes, consisting of many species and inhabiting
South-Eastern Asia and the larger Malay Islands. These last are far
less like man than the other three, one or other of which has at various
times been claimed to be the most man-like of the apes and our nearest
relations in the animal kingdom. The question of the degree of
resemblance of these animals to ourselves is one of great interest,
leading, as it does, to some important conclusions as to our origin and
geological antiquity, and we will therefore briefly consider it.

If we compare the skeletons of the orang or chimpanzee with that of man,
we find them to be a kind of distorted copy, every bone corresponding
(with very few exceptions), but altered somewhat in size, proportions,
and position. So great is this resemblance that it led Professor Owen to
remark: "I cannot shut my eyes to the significance of that all-pervading
similitude of structure--every tooth, every bone, strictly
homologous--which makes the determination of the difference between
_Homo_ and _Pithecus_ the anatomist's difficulty."

The actual differences in the skeletons of these apes and that of
man--that is, differences dependent on the presence or absence of
certain bones, and not on their form or position--have been enumerated
by Mr. Mivart as follows:--(1) In the breast-bone consisting of but two
bones, man agrees with the gibbons; the chimpanzee and gorilla having
this part consisting of seven bones in a single series,