Man's Place in NatureKnown as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his impassioned defense of evolutionary theory, Thomas Huxley published this, his most famous book, just a few years after Darwin's The Origin of the Species. Unlike Origin, this book focuses on human ancestry and offers a concise, nontechnical survey of the state of mid-nineteenth-century knowledge about primate and human paleontology and ethology. Man's Place in Nature concurs with Darwin's assertion of the absence of a physiologic and psychic structural line of demarcation between humans and apes. Huxley ventures further than Darwin, however, by making the first attempt to apply the principles of evolution directly to the human race (an issue that Darwin skirted). Despite Huxley's acknowledgements of the wide gulf represented by the human capacity for rational speech and language, some Victorian readers were scandalized by the application of Darwinian theory to humans and by Huxley's evidence of the fundamental similarities between the human brain and the ape brain. A landmark of scientific progress, this immensely readable book reflects the stylistic gifts that made its author a popular public speaker. |
Contents
ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MANLIKE APES | 9 |
ON THE RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS | 71 |
ON SOME FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN | 139 |
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Common terms and phrases
adult anatomical anatomist angle animal arms Available in U.S. Baboon basicranial axis Battell bones brain Buffon called CATALOG OF DOVER cavity cerebellum cerebral cerebral hemispheres cerebrum characters Chimpanzee cranial cranium cubic inches Cuvier differences distinct DOVER BOOKS E. A. Wallis Budge Engis exhibits existence facial feet figure flexor foot fossil four frontal sinuses germinal vesicle Gibbons Gorilla ground GUSTAV STICKLEY H. A. Guerber habits hand hippocampus hippocampus minor human skull illustrations incisors Lemur length less limbs lower apes lumbar lumbar vertebrę male mammals man-like Apes molars Monkey muscles Natural History Neanderthal Negro observed Orang Orang-Utan organization orthognathous panzee photographs Pongo possess posterior cornu posterior lobe present Professor Owen prognathous proportion protuberance Pygmie race remarkable resemble respecting ridges Savage side skeleton skull species structure supraciliary surface suture teeth termed thumb tion toes trees Tulpius Tyson vertebrę yelk young