Vertehrata — Man. 9 



animal creation, not merely as the first in the first rank, but 

 as constituting an order of himself, into which no other genus 

 is worthy of being admitted, and as exhibiting a fabric that 

 we cannot but regard as the most perfect model of animal or- 

 ganization. 



In surveying this model, the first thing that arrests our at- 

 tention is that most remarkable and striking peculiarity con- 

 nected with, and dependent upon, structure, by which man is 

 at one glance distinguished from all other animals whatever, 

 and elevated, as it were, on an eminence which they can never 

 attain, namely, that of his upright or erect posture, through 

 means of which, while other animals look prone upon the 

 ground, we raise our face to heaven, to contemplate the 

 throne of God. Ovid, the sweetest of Latin poets, has de- 

 scribed this distinguishing attribute of man in language pecu- 

 liarly felicitous : 



Pronaqne cum spectant animaiia caetera terrain 



Os honiini sublime dedit, coelumque tueri 



Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus. — Metam, i. 



Milton also, the loftiest and most sublime of British bards, 

 whose epic rank and dignity is second only to that of Homer 

 and of Virgil, has been equally felicitous with Ovid in his de- 

 scription of the dignity of the human form : 



Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall, 

 God-like erect, with native honour crowned. 

 In naked majesty, seemed lord.s of all. 



Paradise Lost, book iv. 



Of this noble and dignified structure, the portion that claims 

 our first notice is the head, the capital that crowns the fabric. 

 Its elevated position ; its ample expansion of countenance, — the 

 index of the operations of mind ; its rounded and globular 

 form ; its comely covering of hair, hanging in the unadorned 

 simplicity of nature, or modified by the contrivances of art; 

 and its serving as the seat of almost all the organs of sense; 

 are prerogatives that entitle it to our peculiar consideration. 



If we look at its elevated position, we shall find that the 

 head assumes, as it were, the post of honour, being placed 

 above all the other portions of the fabric, and hence giving 

 the necessary elevation to the organs with which it is fur- 

 nished, particularly to the organs of vision, by which we can 

 thus command a wider and more extended view of the glories 

 of external nature. Had man been destined to walk or to 

 stand on all-fours, as some philosophers have presumed that 

 he originally was, he would have been in a worse predicament 

 than even any of the quadrupeds, whose look, though prone, 



Third Series, Vol. 6. No. 31. Jan, 1835. C 



