In 1699, Edward Tyson published the influential work, Orang-Outang, sive Homo Sylvestris, which established for the first time a theoretical argument for the comparative study of anatomy among different species. Tyson based his investigation on the ‘great Agreement’ that natural historians had observed between men and chimpanzees, but which could be studied more systematically in Tyson's time, because of advances in the practice of dissection and anatomy. Drawing from observations made during a dissection of an ape that he performed in the preceding year, Tyson set out to compare the anatomies of chimpanzees and humans, commenting:

Tyson's work thus attempts to address implications that arise from recognition of the ‘resemblance of all the parts’ between man and chimpanzee – a recognition made possible only through relatively innovative comparative studies.