VERTEBRATES: BACKBONE AND BRAIN 99 







Even if the testimony of some of these witnesses is 

 not as strong as many think, and we have misunder- 

 stood several of them, they are too numerous and their 

 stories hang too well together not to impress an in- 

 telligent and impartial jury. But what if it is all true ? 

 What if, as some think, our millionth cousin, the tiger 

 or cat, is anatomically a better mammal than I ? His 

 teeth and claws and magnificent muscles are of small 

 value compared with man's mental power. 



What a comedy that man should work so hard to 

 prove that his chief glory is his opposable thumb, or 

 a few ounces of brain matter ! Man's glory is his mind 

 and will, his reason and moral powers, his vision of, 

 and communion with, God. And supposing it be true, 

 as I believe it is true, that the animal has the germ of 

 these also, does that cloud my mind or obscure my 

 vision or weaken my action ? It bids me only strive 

 the harder to be worthy of the noble ancestors who 

 have raised me to my higher level and on whose buried 

 shoulders I stand. Whatever may have been our ori- 

 gin, whoever our ancestors, we are men. Then let us 

 play the man. If we will but play our part as well as 

 our old ancestors played theirs, if we will but walk and 

 act according to our light one -half as heroically and 

 well as they groped in the darkness, we need not worry 

 about the future. That will be assured. 



Says Professor Huxley : " Man now stands as on a 

 mountain-top far above the level of his humble fellows, 

 and transfigured from his grosser nature by reflecting 

 here and there a ray from the infinite source of truth. 

 And thoughtful man, once escaped from the blinding 

 influences of traditional prejudice, will find in the lowly 

 stock whence man has sprung the best evidence of the 



