The First Appearance of the Idea of the ‘Missing Link’
Orang-outang, sive homo sylvestris. or, the anatomy of a pygmie compared with that of a monkey, an ape, and a man. To whichis added, a philological essay concerning the pygmies, the cynocephali, the satyrs, and sphinges of the ancients. Wherein it will appear that they are all either apes or monkeys, and not men, as formerly pretended.
London: Printed for Thomas Bennet...and Daniel Brown, 1699.
Full Description:
TYSON, Edward. Orang-outang, sive homo sylvestris. or, the anatomy of a pygmie compared with that of a monkey, an ape, and a man. To whichis added, a philological essay concerning the pygmies, the cynocephali, the satyrs, and sphinges of the ancients. Wherein it will appear that they are all either apes or monkeys, and not men, as formerly pretended. London: Printed for Thomas Bennet...and Daniel Brown, 1699.
First edition of this landmark of comparative anatomy. Quarto (10 1/2 x 8 inches; 267 x 201 mm). [12], 108, [2], 58, [2, publisher’s ads], [4, blank] pp. Complete with all eight folding engraved plates by M. Vander Gucht after William Cowper, and two pages of publisher's advertisements.
Bound be Bayntum in newer speckled blind-paneled brown calf. Spine lettered and stamped with gilt. Red morocco spine label. Edges speckled brown. Blind dentelles. Colophon with small repair and crease, title-page with corner renewed, not affecting text. Title-page with old ink signature. Plates with some reinforcement along folds, and with a few small creases and chips. Plates 2, 3 and 5 are trimmed approximately one-eighth of an inch short on fore-edge margin, just barely affecting images. Overall a very good copy.
“Comparative zoology was largely forgotten between the publication of the writings of Aristotle and the revival of the study of comparative anatomy at the end of the sixteenth and during the seventeenth century by writers such as Fabricius, Ruini, Perrault, Grew and Blasius. Edward Tyson, physician at Bridewell and Bethlehem Hospitals, was the first to publish monographs on the subject, the chief of which is the book on the orang-outang, with illustrations and a chapter on muscles supplied by the physician William Cowper. It is the earliest important study in comparative morphology.
Up to this time little was known of the higher anthropoid apes and their anatomy. Tyson compared the anatomy of men and monkeys, and he placed between them what he thought was a typical pygmy-it was, in fact an African Chimpanzee, the skeleton of which survives to this day in the Natural History Museum in London. The chimpanzee first appeared in zoological literature in 1625 and was described by Dr. Tulp (of Rembrandt's 'Anatomy Lesson') while the orang-outang, mentioned in 1658, was first scientifically described by Camper in 1778 and 1782".
Tyson's work is less important for its anatomical descriptions than for the fact that he established a new family of anthropoid apes standing between monkey and man, and recognized that man was probably a close relative of certain lower animals. Popularized as the 'missing link', the theory that man shares some remote common ancestry with the apes was not clearly expounded until the publication of Huxley's 'Man's Place in Nature' in 1863 and Darwin's 'Descent of Man' in 1871. Tyson did not for see the theory of evolution; but his work contributed substantially to its formulation and in the sense that he was a forerunner of Blumenbach, Buffon, Huxley and Darwin. In literature Sir Oran Haut-Ton in Peacock's novel 'Melinncourt' 1817, and the orang-outang in Shelley's 'Queen Mab', derive from Tyson-even if at second hand.
Norman Library 2120. Printing and the Mind of Man 169. Wing T3598.
HBS 69441.
$7,500.
Price: $7,500.00
Item #69441