FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   >>  
es in man and the higher apes, that they are disposed after the very same pattern in him, as in them. Every principal gyrus and sulcus of a chimpanzee's brain is clearly represented in that of a man, so that the terminology which applies to the one answers for the other. On this point there is no difference of opinion. Some years since, Professor Bischoff published a memoir (70. 'Die Grosshirn-Windungen des Menschen;' 'Abhandlungen der K. Bayerischen Akademie,' B. x. 1868.) on the cerebral convolutions of man and apes; and as the purpose of my learned colleague was certainly not to diminish the value of the differences between apes and men in this respect, I am glad to make a citation from him. "That the apes, and especially the orang, chimpanzee and gorilla, come very close to man in their organisation, much nearer than to any other animal, is a well known fact, disputed by nobody. Looking at the matter from the point of view of organisation alone, no one probably would ever have disputed the view of Linnaeus, that man should be placed, merely as a peculiar species, at the head of the mammalia and of those apes. Both shew, in all their organs, so close an affinity, that the most exact anatomical investigation is needed in order to demonstrate those differences which really exist. So it is with the brains. The brains of man, the orang, the chimpanzee, the gorilla, in spite of all the important differences which they present, come very close to one another" (loc. cit. p. 101). There remains, then, no dispute as to the resemblance in fundamental characters, between the ape's brain and man's: nor any as to the wonderfully close similarity between the chimpanzee, orang and man, in even the details of the arrangement of the gyri and sulci of the cerebral hemispheres. Nor, turning to the differences between the brains of the highest apes and that of man, is there any serious question as to the nature and extent of these differences. It is admitted that the man's cerebral hemispheres are absolutely and relatively larger than those of the orang and chimpanzee; that his frontal lobes are less excavated by the upward protrusion of the roof of the orbits; that his gyri and sulci are, as a rule, less symmetrically disposed, and present a greater number of secondary plications. And it is admitted that, as a rule, in man, the temporo-occipital or "external perpendicular" fissure, which is usually so strongly marked a f
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   >>  



Top keywords:

chimpanzee

 
differences
 

brains

 
cerebral
 

disputed

 

admitted

 
present
 

gorilla

 

hemispheres

 

organisation


disposed

 
organs
 

remains

 

affinity

 

investigation

 

important

 

dispute

 
demonstrate
 

anatomical

 

needed


greater

 

number

 

secondary

 

plications

 

symmetrically

 
orbits
 
excavated
 

upward

 
protrusion
 

temporo


strongly
 

marked

 

fissure

 

perpendicular

 
occipital
 

external

 

frontal

 

details

 
arrangement
 

similarity


wonderfully

 
fundamental
 

characters

 

turning

 

highest

 
absolutely
 

larger

 
extent
 

question

 

nature