Note on the Resemblances and Differences in the Structure and the Development of the Brain in Man and Apes by Thomas Henry Huxley;Charles Darwin
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page 9 of 16 (56%)
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to approach this family in other respects, viz. the lower members
of the Platyrrhine group." So far as the structure of the adult brain is concerned, then, the very considerable additions to our knowledge, which have been made by the researches of so many investigators, during the past ten years, fully justify the statement which I made in 1863. But it has been said, that, admitting the similarity between the adult brains of man and apes, they are nevertheless, in reality, widely different, because they exhibit fundamental differences in the mode of their development. No one would be more ready than I to admit the force of this argument, if such fundamental differences of development really exist. But I deny that they do exist. On the contrary, there is a fundamental agreement in the development of the brain in men and apes. Gratiolet originated the statement that there is a fundamental difference in the development of the brains of apes and that of man--consisting in this; that, in the apes, the sulci which first make their appearance are situated on the posterior region of the cerebral hemispheres, while, in the human foetus, the sulci first become visible on the frontal lobes. (76. "Chez tous les singes, les plis posterieurs se developpent les premiers; les plis anterieurs se developpent plus tard, aussi la vertebre occipitale et la parietale sont-elles relativement tres-grandes chez le foetus. L'Homme presente une exception remarquable quant a l'epoque de l'apparition des plis frontaux, qui sont les premiers indiques; mais le developpement general du lobe frontal, envisage seulement par rapport a son volume, suit les memes lois que dans les singes:" Gratiolet, 'Memoire sur les plis cerebres de |
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