other conclusion. Man is undoubtedly the most perfect of all animals,
but he is so solely in respect of characters in which he differs from
all the monkey tribe--the easily erect posture, the perfect freedom
of the hands from all part in locomotion, the large size and complete
opposability of the thumb, and the well developed brain, which enables
him fully to utilize these combined physical advantages. The monkeys
have none of these; and without them the amount of resemblance they have
to us is no advantage, and confers no rank. We are biased by the too
exclusive consideration of the man-like apes. If these did not exist
the remaining monkeys could not be thereby deteriorated as to their
organization or lowered in their zoological position, but it is doubtful
if we should then class them so high as we now do. We might then dwell
more on their resemblances to lower types--to rodents, to insectivora,
and to marsupials, and should hardly rank the hideous baboon above the
graceful leopard or stately stag. The true conclusion appears to be,
that the combination of external characters and internal structure which
exists in the monkeys, is that which, when greatly improved, refined,
and beautified, was best calculated to become the perfect instrument
of the human intellect and to aid in the development of man's higher
nature; while, on the other hand, in the rude, inharmonious, and
undeveloped state which it has reached in the quadrumana, it is by no
means worthy of the highest place, or can be held to exhibit the most
perfect development of existing animal life.--_Contemporary Review_.

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[JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTS.]