Being happily free from all real, or imaginary, personal interest in the
results of the inquiry thus set afoot, we should proceed to weigh the
arguments on one side and on the other, with as much judicial calmness
as if the question related to a new Opossum. We should endeavour to
ascertain, without seeking either to magnify or diminish them, all the
characters by which our new Mammal differed from the Apes; and if we
found that these were of less structural value, than those which
distinguish certain members of the Ape order from others universally
admitted to be of the same order, we should undoubtedly place the newly
discovered tellurian genus with them.

I now proceed to detail the facts which seem to me to leave us no choice
but to adopt the last mentioned course.

It is quite certain that the Ape which most nearly approaches man, in
the totality of its organization, is either the Chimpanzee or the
Gorilla; and as it makes no practical difference, for the purposes of
my present argument, which is selected for comparison, on the one hand,
with Man, and on the other hand, with the rest of the Primates,* I shall
select the latter (so far as its organization is known)--as a brute now
so celebrated in prose and verse, that all must have heard of him, and
have formed some conception of his appearance. I shall take up as many
of the most important points of difference between man and this
remarkable creature, as the space at my disposal will allow me to
discuss, and the necessities of the argument demand; and I shall
inquire into the value and magnitude of these differences, when placed
side by side with those which separate the Gorilla from other animals
of the same order.

[Footnote] *We are not at present thoroughly acquainted with