76 THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF MAN 



rectly or indirectly receive orders. It can say to every 

 other organ in the body, " Starve that I may live." It 

 is the seat of thought and will. The other portions of 

 the brain report to it what they have gathered of vision 

 or sound ; it explains the vision or song or parable. 

 It is relieved as far as possible from all lower and 

 routine work that it may think and remember and 

 govern. The vertebrate built for mind, not neglecting 

 the body. 



Every trait of vertebrates is a promise of a great fut- 

 ure. Its internal skeleton gives it the possibility of 

 large size. This gave it in time the victory in the 

 struggle with its competitors, as to whether it should 

 eat or be eaten. It is vigorous and powerful, for all its 

 organs are at the best. It gives the possibility of la- 

 ter, on land, becoming warm-blooded, i.e., of maintain- 

 ing a constant high temperature. It is thus resistant 

 to climate and hardship. In time its descendants will 

 face the arctic winter as well as the heat of the tropics. 



But it has started on the road which leads to mind. 

 The greater size is correlated with longer life. The 

 lessons of experience come to it over and over again, 

 and it can and must learn them. It is the intelligent, 

 remembering, thinking type. The insect had begun to 

 peer into the world of invisible and intangible relations, 

 the vertebrate will some day see them. This much is 

 prophecied in his very structure. He must be heir to 

 an indefinite future. 



You have probably noticed that the vertebrate dif- 

 fers greatly from all his predecessors. The gulf 

 between him and them is indeed wide and deep. His 

 origin and ancestry are yet far from certain. But an 



