Heads and Tales

Christopher North on the Whale 316

FOOTNOTES:

[1] There are many anecdotes in this book not included in this list, which gives however, the principal.

HEADS AND TALES.

MAN.

In this collection, like Linnæus, we begin with man as undoubtedly an animal, as opposed to a vegetable or mineral. Like Professor Owen, we are inclined to fancy he is well entitled to separate rank from even the Linnæan order, Primates, and to have more systematic honour conferred on him than what Cuvier allowed him. That great French naturalist placed man in a section separate from his four-handed order, Quadrumana, and, from his two hands and some other qualities, enrolled our race in an order, Bimana. Surely the ancients surpassed many modern naturalists of the Lamarckian school, who would derive him from an ourang, a chimpanzee, or a gorilla. One of them has nobly said--

"Os homini sublime dedit, coelumque tueri."

Our own Sir William