24 THE PRESENT CONDITION 



are found to be made in very much the same sort of 

 fashion. And if I were to make a transverse section 

 of the Dog, I should find the same organs that I have 

 already shown you as forming parts of the Horse. 

 Well, here is another skeleton — that of a kind of Lemur 

 — you see he has just the same bones ; and if I were 

 to make a transverse section of it, it would be just the 

 same again. In your mind's eye turn him around, so 

 as to put his backbone in a position inclined obliquely 

 upwards and forwards, just as in the next three dia- 

 grams, which represent the skeletons of an Orang, a 

 Chimpanzee, a Gorilla, and you find you have no 

 trouble in identifying the bones throughout ; and lastly 

 turn to the end of the series, the diagram representing 

 a man's skeleton, and still you find no great structural 

 feature essentially altered. There are the same bones 

 in the same relations. From the Horse we pass on 

 and on, with gradual steps, until we arrive at last at 

 the highest known forms. On the other hand, take 

 the other line of diagrams, and pass from the Horse 

 downwards in the scale to this fish ; and still, though 

 the modifications are vastly greater^ the essential frame- 

 work of the organization remains unchanged. Here, 

 for instance, is a Porpoise ; here is its strong backbone, 

 with the cavity running through it, which contains the 

 spinal cord; here are the ribs, here the shoulder-blade; 

 here is the little short upper-arm bone, here are the 

 two forearm bones, the wrist-bone, and the finger-bones. 

 Strange, is it not, that the Porpoise should have in 

 this queer looking affair — its flapper (as it is called), 

 the same fundamental elements as the fore-leg of the 

 Horse or the Dog, or the Ape or Man ; and here you 

 will notice a very curious thing — the hinder limbs are 



