. Brehm's Life of animals : a complete natural history for popular home instruction and for the use of schools. Mammalia. Mammals; Animal behavior. Zhe Bpes an£> flfoonkess. FIRST ORDER: AGLER calls the Apes trans- formed Men, thereby but giving utterance to the opinion of all nations, ancient as well as modern, w h re h have had anything to do with these strange creatures. Pretty nearly the reverse of his words would correspond to the scientific opinion of to-day ; which is that it is not the Apes that are transformed Men, but that the latter are more perfectly devel- oped cousin
. Brehm's Life of animals : a complete natural history for popular home instruction and for the use of schools. Mammalia. Mammals; Animal behavior. Zhe Bpes an£> flfoonkess. FIRST ORDER: AGLER calls the Apes trans- formed Men, thereby but giving utterance to the opinion of all nations, ancient as well as modern, w h re h have had anything to do with these strange creatures. Pretty nearly the reverse of his words would correspond to the scientific opinion of to-day ; which is that it is not the Apes that are transformed Men, but that the latter are more perfectly devel- oped cousins of the former. The Egyptians and Hindoos seem to have been the only people among the ancients who exhibited any affection for this animal. The old Egyptians chis- eled the likeness of the Ape in indestructi- ble porphyry and modeled the images of their gods in its similitude, and the ancient Hindoos inaugurated the practice, which their descendants •still follow, of building houses and temples for the Monkeys. Solomon imported Monkeys from Ophir, and the Romans kept them as pets, dissected them in anatomical studies, and matched them against wild beasts, but never established very friendly relations with them, and, like Solomon, never thought them to be anything else than animals. The Arabians go a little further : the}' think them Men who, for their sins, have been condemned by Allah to bear the form of Apes, their outward appearance seeming to them to be a curious blending of devil and Man. Our own manner of thinking is not very different from that of the Arabians. Instead of recognizing them as our next of kin we only see in them caricatures of ourselves, and condemn them without mercy, finding only those kinds attractive that show the least likeness to a human being, while those in which the likeness is more distinct excite our disgust. Our aversion to the Apes is based as well on their physical as their mental traits. They resemble Men both too much and too little. Wh
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjecta, booksubjectmammals
