主题：【野狐禅】关于古人类学的散笔1 -- 水风

Am I satyr or man?

Pray tell me who can,

And settle my place in the scale.

A man in ape's shape,

An anthropoid ape,

Or monkey deprived of his tail?

The Vestiges taught,

That all came from naught

By "development," so called, "progressive;"

That insects and worms

Assume higher forms

By modification excessive.

Then Darwin set forth

In a book of much worth,

The importance of "nature's selection;"

How the struggle for life

Is a laudable strife,

And results in "specific distinction."

Let pigeons and doves

Select their own loves,

And grant them a million of ages,

Then doubtless you'll find

They've altered their kind,

And changed into prophets and sages.

Leonard Horner relates,

That Biblical dates

The age of the world cannot trace;

That Bible tradition,

By Nile's deposition,

Is put to the right about face.

Then there's Pengelly

Who next will tell ye

That he and his colleagues of late

Find celts and shaped stones

Mixed up with cave bones

Of contemporaneous date.

Then Prestwich, he pelts

With hammers and celts

All who do not believe his relation,

That the tools he exhumes

From gravelly tombs

Date before the Mosaic creation.

Then Huxley and Owen,

With rivalry glowing,

With pen and ink rush to the scratch;

'Tis Brain versus Brain,

Till one of them's slain,

By JOVE! it will be a good match!

Says Owen, you can see

The brain of Chimpanzee

Is always exceedingly small,

With the hindermost "horn"

Of extremity shorn,

And no "Hippocampus" at all.

The Professor then tells 'em,

That man's "cerebellum,"

From a vertical point you can't see;

That each "convolution"

Contains a solution

Of "Archencephalic" degree.

That apes have no nose,

And thumbs for great toes,

And a pelvis both narrow and slight;

They can't stand upright,

Unless to show fight,

With 'Du Chaillu,' that chivalrous knight!

Next Huxley replies,

That Owen he lies,

And garbles his Latin quotation;

That his facts are not new,

His mistakes not a few,

Detrimental to his reputation.

"To twice slay the slain,

By dint of the Brain,

(Thus Huxley concludes his review)

Is but labour in vain,

Unproductive of gain,

And so I shall bid you 'Adieu'!"

Zoological Gardens, May, 1861

GORILLA