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Updated: May 17, 2025
If it has made itself master of the general evolution idea, then descent, even in its most gradual, continuous, monophyletic form, affects it not at all. It can then look on, perhaps not with joy, but certainly without anxiety, at Dubois’ monkey-man and Friedenthal’s chimpanzee.
There could not be any thing much more hideous than his appearance, even when allowances were made for the disfiguring effects of the spirit in which he had been preserved. He was entirely covered with hair, and not wrinkled and bare in front like the smaller Chimpanzee; and it was for some time supposed, that this was the Ingheena reported by Mr. Bowdich.
"He won't stay at the cabin, but roam from place to place -and there is no telling what he'll do with our things." "Don't forget the reward that has been offered," said Giant. "If we can find the chimpanzee we can get that as well as the reward for the lion."
In your mind's eye turn him round, so as to put his backbone in a position inclined obliquely upwards and forwards, just as in the next three diagrams, which represent the skeletons of an Orang, a Chimpanzee, a Gorilla, and you find you have no trouble in identifying the bones throughout; and lastly turn to the end of the series, the diagram representing a man's skeleton, and still you find no great structural feature essentially altered.
As to the ape-like skull of Engis Cave, and the human skeleton found near Dusseldorf in a cavern, we think it would not be difficult to find full as bad skulls on living shoulders, and equally bad forms in skeletons now walking about. To us they are no evidence that the first man was a gorilla or a chimpanzee, nor does his or Darwin's argument convince us that all vertebrates were once fishes.
The carpus of the Orang, like that of most lower apes, contains nine bones, while in the Gorilla, as in Man and the Chimpanzee, there are only eight. But, in some of the lower apes, the hand and foot diverge still more from those of the Gorilla, than they do in the Orang.
But there are authenticated stories of chimpanzee intelligence which give it a high standing in this respect among the lower animals. The emotional nature of the ape is also highly developed. It displays an affection equal to that of the dog, and a sympathy surpassing that of any other animal below man.
But these empty talents, of course, are not really signs of a profound intelligence; they are, in fact, merely superficial accomplishments, and their acquirement puts little more strain on the mental powers than a chimpanzee suffers in learning how to catch a penny or scratch a match.
Möbius has described interesting observations concerning the mental life of the chimpanzee. But this, like all of the work previously mentioned, is rather in the nature of casual testing than thoroughgoing, systematic, and analytic study. In addition to the above reports, there are a few concerning the behavior of apes which have been especially trained for purposes of exhibition.
Once in a generation, a Wallace may be found physically, mentally, and morally qualified to wander unscathed through the tropical wilds of America and of Asia; to form magnificent collections as he wanders; and withal to think out sagaciously the conclusions suggested by his collections: but, to the ordinary explorer or collector, the dense forests of equatorial Asia and Africa, which constitute the favourite habitation of the Orang, the Chimpanzee, and the Gorilla, present difficulties of no ordinary magnitude: and the man who risks his life by even a short visit to the malarious shores of those regions may well be excused if he shrinks from facing the dangers of the interior; if he contents himself with stimulating the industry of the better seasoned natives, and collecting and collating the more or less mythical reports and traditions with which they are too ready to supply him.
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