K. E. VON BAER. — PHILOSOPHICAL FRAGMENTS. 231 



the antagonistic relation of respiratory organs and vascular 

 system ; — it appears wherever there are any manifold variations. 

 If we regard the different forms of Mammalia, we find for one 

 series of organs other affinities than for another. If we consider 

 the development of the animal part, which we may most readily 

 estimate by the skeleton, the Bats are very different indeed from 

 all the proper quadrupeds. We must suppose that they form 

 the most aberrant order. With respect to their digestive organs, 

 they resemble the Insectivora. Pallas, who in the Zoographia 

 Rosso-Asiatica unites the Bats closely with the Mole, appears 

 therefore to me to be as fully justified as Tiedemann, who about 

 the same time, in his ' Zoology,' separated them widely. For the 

 same reasons, Tiedemann unites the Seal with the Dugong, 

 while by Pallas they are widely separated. The one has regarded 

 the extremities, the other the teeth. What do such facts prove, 

 except that the different organic systems vary in different modes ? 

 The Mole and the Bat seek the same prey, the one in the air, 

 the other in the earth. Their motor organs therefore differ 

 according to the place of their residence. The Dugong and the 

 Seal are both aquatic, and have fin-like extremities, but what 

 they seek is totally different; so are their dentition and their 

 stomachs. 



Under such circumstances, does not an approximation to Man 

 give for every organic system a different series of animals ; and 

 if this be so, are not " retrogressions'' without meaning? In 

 truth, Man is only in respect of his nervous system, and of that 

 which is connected with it, the highest form of animal. His 

 erect progression is only a consequence of the greater develop- 

 ment of his brain, since we find everywhere that the more the 

 brain preponderates over the spinal cord, the more it raises itself 

 above it. If this remark be well founded, all corporeal distinc- 

 tions between Man and other animals may be reduced to cerebral 

 development ; and in that case the pre-eminence of man is only 

 a partial, although the most important one. One must be com- 

 pletely prejudiced, in fact, not to see that the stomach of the 

 Ruminant, which changes grass into chyle, is more perfect than 

 the stomach of Man. — (p. 242.) 



