as the Apes and Lemurs. This order is now divisible into seven
families, of about equal systematic value: the first, the ANTHROPINI,
contains Man alone; the second, the CATARHINI, embraces the old-world
apes; the third, the PLATYRHINI, all new-world apes, except the
Marmosets; the fourth, the ARCTOPITHECINI, contains the Marmosets; the
fifth, the LEMURINI, the Lemurs--from which 'Cheiromys' should probably
be excluded to form a sixth distinct family, the CHEIROMYINI; while the
seventh, the GALEOPITHECINI, contains only the flying Lemur
'Galeopithecus',-- a strange form which almost touches on the Bats, as
the 'Cheiromys' puts on a rodent clothing, and the Lemurs simulate
Insectivora.

Perhaps no order of mammals presents us with so extraordinary a series
of gradations as this--leading us insensibly from the crown and summit
of the animal creation down to creatures, from which there is but a
step, as it seems, to the lowest, smallest, and least intelligent of
the placental Mammalia. It is as if nature herself had foreseen the
arrogance of man, and with Roman severity had provided that his
intellect, by its very triumphs, should call into prominence the
slaves, admonishing the conqueror that he is but dust.

These are the chief facts, this the immediate conclusion from them to
which I adverted in the commencement of this Essay. The facts, I
believe, cannot be disputed; and if so, the conclusion appears to me to
be inevitable.

But if Man be separated by no greater structural barrier from the brutes
than they are from one another--then it seems to follow that if any
process of physical causation can be discovered by which the genera and
families of ordinary animals have been produced, that process of