The Descent of Man

ne at all, undoubtedly, so far as it goes, affords
fair evidence in favour of Gratiolet's hypothesis,
that the posterior sulci appear before the
anterior, in the brains of the Platyrrhini. But, it
by no means follows, that the rule which may
hold good for the Platyrrhini extends to the
Catarrhini. We have no information whatever
respecting the development of the brain in the
Cynomorpha; and, as regards the Anthropomorpha,
nothing but the account of the brain of
the Gibbon, near birth, already referred to. At
the present moment there is not a shadow of
evidence to shew that the sulci of a chimpanzee's,
or orang's, brain do not appear in the
same order as a man's.
Gratiolet opens his preface with the aphorism:
"Il est dangereux dans les sciences de conclure
trop vite." I fear he must have forgotten this
sound maxim by the time he had reached the
discussion of the differences between men and
apes, in the body of his work. No doubt, the