ii THE CLASSIFICATION OF MAN. 95 



And if any new animal were discovered, and were 

 found to present no greater difference from the 

 Kangaroo or from the Opossum, for example, than 

 these animals do from one another, the zoologist 

 would not only be logically compelled to rank it 

 in the same order with these, but he would not 

 think of doing otherwise. 



Bearing this obvious course of zoological rea- 

 soning in mind, let us endeavour for a moment to 

 disconnect our thinking selves from the mask of 

 humanity; let us imagine ourselves scientific Sa- 

 turnians, if you will, fairly acquainted with such 

 animals as now inhabit the Earth, and employed 

 in discussing the relations they bear to a new 

 and singular " erect and featherless biped," which 

 some enterprising traveller, overcoming the dif- 

 ficulties of space and gravitation, has brought 

 from that distant planet for our inspection, well 

 preserved, may be, in a cask of rum. We should 

 all, at once, agree upon placing him among the 

 mammalian vertebrates; and his lower jaw, his 

 molars, and his brain, would leave no room for 

 doubting the systematic position of the new genus 

 among those mammals, whose young are nour- 

 ished during gestation by means of a placenta, or 

 what are called the " placental mammals." 



Further, the most superficial study would at 

 once convince us that, among the orders of 

 placental mammals, neither the Whales, nor the 

 hoofed creatures, nor the Sloths and Ant-eaters, 



