534 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



step by step, gradation by gradation, from man at the summit to 

 specks of animated jelly at the bottom of the series ; so that the idea 

 of Leibnitz and of Bonnet that animals form a srreat scale of being- 

 in which there is a series of gradations from the most complicated 

 form to the lowest and simplest that idea, though not exactly in the 

 form in which it was propounded by those philosophers, turns out to 

 be substantially correct. More than this, when biologists pursue 

 their investigations into the vegetable world, they find that they can 

 in the same way follow out the structure of the plant from the most 

 gigantic and complicated trees through a similar series of gradations 

 until they arrive at similar specks of animated jelly, which they are 

 puzzled to distinguish from those which they reached by the animal 

 road. 



Thus they have arrived at the conclusion that a fundamental uni- 

 formity of structure pervades the animal and vegetable worlds, and 

 that plants and animals differ from one another simply as modifica- 

 tions of the same great general plan. 



Again, they tell us the same story in regard to the study of func- 

 tion. They admit the large and important interval which, at the 

 present time, separates the manifestations of the mental faculties ob- 

 servable in the higher forms of mankind, and even in the lower forms, 

 such as we know them, mentally from those exhibited by other ani- 

 mals ; but, at the same time, they tell us that the foundations or rudi- 

 ments of almost all the faculties of man are to be met with in the 

 lower animals ; that there is a unity of mental faculty as well as of 

 bodily structure, and that here also the difference is a difference of 

 degree and not of kind. I said "almost all" for a reason. Among 

 the many distinctions which have been drawn between the lower creat- 

 ures and ourselves, there is one which is hardly ever insisted on, 1 but 

 which may be fitly spoken of in a place so largely devoted to art as 

 that in which we are assembled. It is this, that, while among various 

 kinds of animals it is possible to discover traces of all the other facul- 

 ties of man, especially the faculty of mimicry, yet that particular 

 form of mimicry which shows itself in the imitation of form, either 

 by modeling or by drawing, is not to be met with. As far as I know, 

 there is no sculpture or modeling, and decidedly no painting or draw- 

 ing, of animal orio-in. I mention the fact in order that such comfort 

 may be derived therefrom as artists may feel inclined to take. 



If what the biologists tell us is true, it will be needful for us to 

 get rid of our erroneous conceptions of man and of his place in Na- 

 ture, and substitute for them right ones. But it is impossible to form 

 any judgment as to whether the biologists are right or wrong unless 

 we are able to appreciate the nature of the arguments which they 

 have to offer. 



One would almost think that this was a self-evident proposition. I 



1 1 think that Prof. Allman was the first to draw attention to it. 



