{"product_id":"mans-place-in-nature-isbn-9780375758478","title":"Man's Place in Nature","description":"Thomas H. Huxley was one of the first supporters of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, and he did more than any other writer to advance its acceptance among scientists and nonscientists alike. His most famous book,\u003cb\u003e Man’s Place in Nature\u003c\/b\u003e, published only five years after Darwin’s \u003cb\u003eThe Origin of Species\u003c\/b\u003e, offers a compelling review of primate and human paleontology, and is the first attempt to apply Darwin’s theory to human beings. As compelling a piece of analysis now as it was 140 years ago, \u003cb\u003eMan’s Place in Nature\u003c\/b\u003e is a must for every science lover’s library.Thomas H. Huxley was born in Ealing, near London, in 1825. A stint as an assistant surgeon aboard the H.M.S. Rattlesnake, a Royal Navy frigate assigned to the Australian and New Guinea coasts, solidified his interest in naturalism, and his research earned him a place next to leading scientists of his day, such as Charles Lyell, Joseph Hooker, and Charles Darwin. He died in 1895.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStephen Jay Gould is the Alexander Agassiz professor of zoology and professor of geology at Harvard and the Vincent Astor visiting professor of biology at New York University. Recent books include \u003cb\u003eFull House\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003cb\u003eDinosaur in a Haystack\u003c\/b\u003e, and \u003cb\u003eQuestioning the Millennium\u003c\/b\u003e. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and New York City.\u003cb\u003eI: On the Natural History of the Man-like Apes\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAncient traditions, when tested by the severe processes of modern  investigation, commonly enough fade away into mere dreams: but it is  singular how often the dream turns out to have been a half-waking  one, presaging a reality. Ovid foreshadowed the discoveries of the  geologist: the Atlantis was an imagination, but Columbus found a  western world: and though the quaint forms of Centaurs and Satyrs  have an existence only in the realms of art, creatures approaching  man more nearly than they in essential structure, and yet as  thoroughly brutal as the goat's or horse's half of the mythical  compound, are now not only known, but notorious.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have not met with any notice of one of these Man-like Apes of  earlier date than that contained in Pigafetta's \"Description of the  kingdom of Congo,\"* drawn up from the notes of a Portuguese sailor,  Eduardo Lopez, and published in 1598. The tenth chapter of this work  is entitled \"De Animalibus quæ in hac provincia reperiuntur,\" and  contains a brief passage to the effect that \"in the Songan country,  on the banks of the Zaire, there are multitudes of apes, which afford  great delight to the nobles by imitating human gestures.\" As this  might apply to almost any kind of apes, I should have thought little  of it, had not the brothers De Bry, whose engravings illustrate the  work, thought fit, in their eleventh \"Argumentum,\" to figure two of  these \"Simiæ magnatum deliciæ.\" So much of the plate as contains  these apes is faithfully copied in the woodcut (Fig. 1), and it will  be observed that they are tail-less, long-armed, and large-eared; and  about the size of Chimpanzees. It may be that these apes are as much  figments of the imagination of the ingenious brothers as the winged,  two-legged, crocodile-headed dragon which adorns the same plate; or,  on the other hand, it may be that the artists have constructed their  drawings from some essentially faithful description of a Gorilla or a  Chimpanzee. And, in either case, though these figures are worth a  passing notice, the oldest trustworthy and definite accounts of any  animal of this kind date from the 17th century, and are due to an  Englishman.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first edition of that most amusing old book, \"Purchas his  Pilgrimage,\" was published in 1613, and therein are to be found many  references to the statements of one whom Purchas terms \"Andrew  Battell (my neere neighbour, dwelling at Leigh in Essex) who served  under Manuel Silvera Perera, Governor under the King of Spaine, at  his city of Saint Paul, and with him went farre into the countrey of  Angola;\" and again, \"my friend, Andrew Battle, who lived in the  kingdom of Congo many yeares,\" and who, \"upon some quarell betwixt  the Portugals (among whom he was a sergeant of a band) and him, lived  eight or nine moneths in the woods.\" From this weather-beaten old  soldier, Purchas was amazed to hear \"of a kinde of Great Apes, if  they might so bee termed, of the height of a man, but twice as bigge  in feature of their limmes, with strength proportionable, hairie all  over, otherwise altogether like men and women in their whole bodily  shape.* They lived on such wilde fruits as the trees and woods  yielded, and in the night time lodged on the trees.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis extract is, however, less detailed and clear in its statements  than a passage in the third chapter of the second part of another  work-\"Purchas his Pilgrimes,\" published in 1625, by the same  author-which has been often, though hardly ever quite rightly, cited.  The chapter is entitled, \"The strange adventures of Andrew Battell,  of Leigh in Essex, sent by the Portugals prisoner to Angola, who  lived there and in the adioning regions neere eighteene yeeres.\" And the sixth section of this chapter is headed-\"Of the Provinces of  Bongo, Calongo, Mayombe, Manikesocke, Motimbas: of the Ape Monster  Pongo, their hunting: Idolatries; and divers other observations.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This province (Calongo) toward the east bordereth upon Bongo, and  toward the north upon Mayombe, which is nineteen leagues from Longo  along the coast.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This province of Mayombe is all woods and groves, so overgrowne that  a man may travaile twentie days in the shadow without any sunne or  heat. Here is no kind of corne nor graine, so that the people liveth  onely upon plantanes and roots of sundrie sorts, very good; and nuts;  nor any kinde of tame cattell nor hens.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"But they have great store of elephant's flesh, which they greatly  esteeme, and many kinds of wild beasts; and great store of fish. Here  is a great sandy bay, two leagues to the northward of Cape Negro,*  which is the port of Mayombe. Sometimes the Portugals lade logwood in  this bay. Here is a great river, called Banna: in the winter it hath  no barre, because the generall winds cause a great sea. But when the  sunne hath his south declination, then a boat may goe in; for then it  is smooth because of the raine. This river is very great, and hath  many ilands and people dwelling in them. The woods are so covered  with baboones, monkies, apes and parrots, that it will feare any man  to travaile in them alone. Here are also two kinds of monsters, which  are common in these woods, and very dangerous.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The greatest of these two monsters is called Pongo in their  language, and the lesser is called Engeco. This Pongo is in all  proportion like a man; but that he is more like a giant in stature  than a man; for he is very tall, and hath a man's face, hollow-eyed,  with long haire upon his browes. His face and eares are without  haire, and his hands also. His bodie is full of haire, but not very  thicke; and it is of a dunnish colour.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"He differeth not from a man but in his legs; for they have no calfe.  Hee goeth alwaies upon his legs, and carrieth his hands clasped in  the nape of his necke when he goeth upon the ground. They sleepe in  the trees, and build shelters for the raine. They feed upon fruit  that they find in the woods, and upon nuts, for they eate no kind of  flesh. They cannot speake, and have no understanding more than a  beast. The people of the countrie, when they travaile in the woods,  make fires where they sleepe in the night; and in the morning when  they are gone, the Pongoes will come and sit about the fire till it  goeth out; for they have no understanding to lay the wood together.  They goe many together, and kill many negroes that travaile in the  woods. Many times they fall upon the elephants which come to feed  where they be, and so beate them with their clubbed fists, and pieces  of wood, that they will runne roaring away from them. Those Pongoes  are never taken alive because they are so strong, that ten men cannot  hold one of them; but yet they take many of their young ones with  poisoned arrowes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The young Pongo hangeth on his mother's belly with his hands fast  clasped about her, so that when the countrie people kill any of the  females they take the young one, which hangeth fast upon his mother.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"When they die among themselves, they cover the dead with great heaps  of boughs and wood, which is commonly found in the forest.\"*\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt does not appear difficult to identify the exact region of which  Battell speaks. Longo is doubtless the name of the place usually  spelled Loango on our maps. Mayombe still lies some nineteen leagues  northward from Loango, along the coast; and Cilongo or Kilonga,  Manikesocke, and Motimbas are yet registered by geographers. The Cape  Negro of Battell, however, cannot be the modern Cape Negro in 16ƒ S.,  since Loango itself is in 4ƒ S. latitude. On the other hand, the  \"great river called Banna\" corresponds very well with the \"Camma\" and  \"Fernand Vas,\" of modern geographers, which form a great delta on  this part of the African coast.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow this \"Camma\" country is situated about a degree and a half south  of the Equator, while a few miles to the north of the line lies the  Gaboon, and a degree or so north of that, the Money River-both well  known to modern naturalists as localities where the largest of  man-like Apes has been obtained. Moreover, at the pres-ent day, the  word \"Engeco,\" or \"N'schego,\" is applied by the natives of these  regions to the smaller of the two great Apes which inhabit them; so  that there can be no rational doubt that Andrew Battell spoke of that  which he knew of his own knowledge, or, at any rate, by immediate  report from the natives of Western Africa. The \"Engeco,\" however, is  that \"other monster\" whose nature Battell \"forgot to relate,\" while  the name \"Pongo\"-applied to the animal whose characters and habits  are so fully and carefully described-seems to have died out, at least  in its primitive form and signification. Indeed, there is evidence  that not only in Battell's time, but up to a very recent date, it was  used in a totally different sense from that in which he employs it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor example, the second chapter of Purchas' work, which I have just  quoted, contains \"A Description and Historicall Declaration of the  Golden Kingdom of Guinea, \u0026amp;c. \u0026amp;c. Translated from the Dutch, and  compared also with the Latin,\" wherein it is stated (p. 986) that-\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The River Gaboon lyeth about fifteen miles northward from Rio de  Angra, and eight miles northward from Cape de Lope Gonsalvez (Cape  Lopez), and is right under the Equinoctial line, about fifteene miles  from St. Thomas, and is a great land, well and easily to be knowne.  At the mouth of the river there lieth a sand, three or foure fathoms  deepe, whereon it beateth mightily with the streame which runneth out  of the river into the sea. This river, in the mouth thereof, is at  least foure miles broad; but when you are about the Iland called  Pongo, it is not above two miles broad. . . . On both sides the river  there standeth many trees. . . . The Iland called Pongo, which hath a  monstrous high hill.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe French naval officers, whose letters are appended to the late M.  Isidore Geoff. Saint Hilaire's excellent essay on the Gorilla,* note  in similar terms the width of the Gaboon, the trees that line its  banks down to the water's edge, and the strong current that sets out  of it. They describe two islands in its estuary;-one low, called  Perroquet; the other high, presenting three conical hills, called  Coniquet; and one of them, M. Franquet, expressly states that,  formerly, the Chief of Coniquet was called Meni-Pongo, meaning  thereby Lord of Pongo; and that the N'Pongues (as, in agreement with  Dr. Savage, he affirms the natives call themselves) term the estuary  of the Gaboon itself N'Pongo.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is so easy, in dealing with savages, to misunderstand their  applications of words to things, that one is at first inclined to  suspect Battell of having confounded the name of this region, where  his \"greater monster\" still abounds, with the name of the animal  itself. But he is so right about other matters (including the name of  the \"lesser monster,\") that one is loth to suspect the old traveller  of error; and, on the other hand, we shall find that a voyager of a  hundred years' later date speaks of the name \"Boggoe,\" as applied to  a great Ape, by the inhabitants of quite another part of  Africa-Sierra Leone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut I must leave this question to be settled by philologers and  travellers; and I should hardly have dwelt so long upon it except for  the curious part played by this word \"Pongo\" in the later history of  the man-like Apes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe generation which succeeded Battell saw the first of the man-like  Apes which was ever brought to Europe, or, at any rate, whose visit  found a historian. In the third book of Tulpius' \"Observationes  Medicæ,\" published in 1641, the 56th chapter or section is devoted to  what he calls Satyrus indicus \"called by the Indians Orang-autang, or  Man-of-the-Woods, and by the Africans Quoias Morrou.\" He gives a very  good figure, evidently from the life, of the specimen of this animal,  \"nostra memoria ex Angola delatum,\" presented to Frederick Henry,  Prince of Orange. Tulpius says it was as big as a child of three  years old, and as stout as one of six years: and that its back was  covered with black hair. It is plainly a young Chimpanzee.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the meanwhile, the existence of other, Asiatic, man-like Apes  became known, but at first in a very mythical fashion. Thus Bontius  (1658) gives an altogether fabulous and ridiculous account and figure  of an animal which he calls \"Orang-outang\"; and though he says \"vidi  Ego cujus effigiem hic exhibeo,\" the said effigies (see Fig. 6 for  Hoppius' copy of it) is nothing but a very hairy woman of rather  comely aspect, and with proportions and feet wholly human. The  judicious English anatomist, Tyson, was justified in saying of this  description by Bontius, \"I confess I do mistrust the whole  representation.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is to the last mentioned writer, and his coadjutor Cowper, that we  owe the first account of a man-like ape which has any pretensions to  a scientific accuracy and completeness. The treatise entitled,  \"Orang-outang, sive Homo Sylvestris; or the Anatomy of a Pygmie  compared with that of a Monkey, an Ape, and a Man,\" published by the  Royal Society in 1699, is, indeed, a work of remarkable merit, and  has, in some respects, served as a model to subsequent inquirers.  This \"Pygmie,\" Tyson tells us, \"was brought from Angola, in Africa;  but was first taken a great deal higher up the country;\" its hair  \"was of a coal-black colour, and strait,\" and \"when it went as a  quadruped on all four, 'twas awkwardly; not placing the palm of the  hand flat to the ground, but it walk'd upon its knuckles, as I  observed it to do when weak and had not strength enough to support  its body.\"-\"From the top of the head to the heel of the foot, in a  straight line, it measured twenty-six inches.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese characters, even without Tyson's good figures (Figs. 3 and 4),  would have been sufficient to prove his \"Pygmie\" to be a young  Chimpanzee. But the opportunity of examining the skeleton of the very  animal Tyson anatomised having most unexpectedly presented itself to  me, I am able to bear independent testimony to its being a veritable  Troglodytes niger,* though still very young. Although fully  appreciating the resemblances between his Pygmie and Man, Tyson by no  means overlooked the differences between the two, and he concludes  his memoir by summing up first, the points in which \"the  Ourang-outang or Pygmie more resembled a Man than Apes and Monkeys  do,\" under forty-seven distinct heads; and then giving, in  thirty-four similar brief paragraphs, the respects in which \"the  Ourang-outang or Pygmie differ'd from a Man and resembled more the  Ape and Monkey kind.\"Modern Library Science; Stephen Jay Gould, series editor","brand":"Modern Library","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301269360869,"sku":"NP9780375758478","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780375758478.jpg?v=1767732225","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/mans-place-in-nature-isbn-9780375758478","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}