THE
NATURAL HISTORY REVIEW:
A
Quarterly Journal of Biological Science.
Reviews.
I.—St. Hilaire ok the Systematic Position op Man.
Historem Naturelle Générale des Règnes Organiques, par M. Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire. Tome II. 1e partie. 1856.
The author of this elaborate work, whose comparatively early death has so recently been deplored by the scientific world, devotes a long and carefully written chapter to the consideration of the place and dignity of man in the universe—and more especially to the discussion of the proposition, that mankind should be regarded as a distinct kingdom of nature, the "Règne humain," equal in rank to the mineral, the vegetable, or the animal Kingdom—a proposal which, singularly enough, appears to have originated with the great scoffer, Voltaire.
One might be disposed to distrust the sincerity of a vindication of the dignity of man from the author of "La Pucelle"—but no such suspicion can attach to the similar conclusion of a pains-taking zoologist, and as the chapter which M. St. Hilaire wrote upon this subject appeared in 1856—in the pre-Darwinian epoch in short— it may be instructive to consider both the data and the deductions of an author whose studies had been especially directed to the apes, and who published his conclusions before the din of recent battles arose. We therefore propose to give a brief summary of M. St. Hilaire's views, interpolating here and there, perhaps, a commentary of our own, but, for the most part, leaving the distinguished French Zoologist to speak for himself.
After enumerating the opinions of the various authors who up to 1855 had ventured to assign to man his place in the Systema Naturæ, M. St. Hilaire says:—
