64 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



But Anthropology should descend much lower than the animals 

 when it would enlighten us completely. Vegetables are not animals, 

 any more than animals are man. But men, animals, and vegetables, 

 are all organized and living beings. They are distinguished from min- 

 erals, which are neither the one nor the other, by certain general 

 facts common to all. 



All organized beings have a limited duration ; all are born small 

 and feeble ; during part of their existence, all grow and strengthen, 

 then decrease in energy and vitality, sometimes also in size ; finally 

 all die. Throughout life, all organized and living beings need nourish- 

 ment. Before death, all reproduce their kind by a seed or an egg (we 

 speak here of species, not of individuals), and this is true even of those 

 which seem to come directly from a bud, from a layer, from a graft, 

 etc. ; for from bud to bud, from layer to layer, from graft to graft, we 

 can rise to the seed and to the egg. Finally, then, all organized and 

 living beings have had a father and a mother. 



These grand phenomena, common to all living beings, and conse- 

 quently to man, imply general laws which control them, and which 

 must therefore govern man as well as the plant. 



Science every day confirms this conclusion, which might have been 

 reached by reason alone, but which may now be regarded as a fact 

 of experience. And I believe I need not dwell here, to make you 

 understand the magnificence of this result. 



As for me, I find it admirable that man and the lowest insect, that 

 the king of the earth and the lowliest of the mosses, are so linked to- 

 gether that the entire living world forms but one whole where all har- 

 monizes in the .closest mutual dependence. 



From this community in certain phenomena, from this subjection 

 to certain laws equally common, results a consequence of the highest 

 importance. Whatever questions concerning man you may have to 

 examine, if they touch upon any of these properties, of these phenom- 

 ena common to all organized and living beings, you must interrogate 

 not only animals, but vegetables also, if you would reach the truth. 



When one of these questions is put and answered, to make the 

 answer good, to make it true, you must bring man under all the gen- 

 eral laws which rule other organized and living beings. 



If the solution tends to make man an exception to general laws, you 

 may affirm that it is bad and false. 



But also, when you have resolved the question so as to include 

 man in these great general laws, you may be certain that the solution 

 is good, that it is true, and really scientific. 



With these data, and these alone, we will now consider the second 

 question of Anthropology, and here it is : 



Are there several species of men, or is there but one, including 

 several races ? 



To be understood, this question requires some explanation. 



