Chapter 1602

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The mental barrier between man and ape, characterized by Huxley as an “enormous gap, a distance practically immeasurable” (! !) is, indeed, in itself conclusive. Certainly it constitutes a standing puzzle to the Materialist, who relies on the frail reed of “natural selection.” The physiological differences between Man and the Apes are in reality—despite a curious community of certain features—equally striking. Says Dr. Schweinfurth, one of the most cautious and experienced of Naturalists:

“In modern times there are no animals in creation that have attracted a larger amount of attention from the scientific student of nature than these great quadrumana [the anthropoids], which are stamped with such a singular resemblance to the human form as to have justified the epithet of anthropomorphic.... But all investigation at present only leads human intelligence to a confession of its insufficiency; and nowhere is caution more to be advocated, nowhere is premature judgment more to be deprecated than in the attempt to bridge over the mysterious chasm which separates man and beast.” (Heart of Africa, i., 520. Ed., 1873.)