Now of all the Mammalia, or animals which suckle their young, those whose structure brings them closest to man are the apes or monkeys, and among these the catarrhine or near-nostrilled apes of the Old World, and among these the group called anthropoid or manlike, which inhabit tropical forests from Africa to the Eastern Archipelago. By now comparing their skeletons, it will be seen that in any scale of nature or scheme of creation these animals must be placed in somewhat close relation to man. No competent anatomist who has examined the bodily structure of these apes considers it possible that man can be descended from any of them, but according to the doctrine of descent they appear as the nearest existing offshoots from the same primitive stock whence man also came.

Professor Huxley’s Mans Place in Nature, in which this anatomical comparison is made, contains a celebrated drawing displayed here as the readiest means of showing how the anthropoid apes correspond bone for bone with ourselves. At the same time, it illustrates some main points in which their bodily actions are unlike ours.