CHAPTER 3 • HOW DOES MAN DIFFER 



FROM OTHER LIVING THINGS? 



1 What is the same in other animals as in ourselves? 



2 How can we compare the human body with plants? 



3 Are the insides of other animals like our own ? 



4 Which animals are least like human beings? 



5 Have any animals exactly the same number of bones as we 



have ? 



6 Do drugs act on other animals as they do on us? 



7 Are there any sicknesses that are the same for animals and for 



people ? 



8 Can animals reason ? 



9 Have any animals as much brain as human beings? 



10 Some animals have keener hearing or keener smell than we 

 have: are any of our senses keener than those of other 

 animals ? 



What a piece of work is a man! 



how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! 



in form and moving how express and admirable! 



in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! 



the beauty of the world! the paragon of animalsl— Hamlet, Act II, Scene ii 



Each person is one of many billions of natural objects that make up our 

 world. Each one is in a sense unique: there is no exact duplicate of him 

 anywhere. Yet, different as one person is from the next, there is the class 

 "human beings". Certain qualities and characteristics we all have together, 

 and among all the many classes of objects man stands out distinct. 



To ask how man differs from other living things is to recognize that 

 man in many ways resembles other living things. Is man then like a fish, 

 or like a flower? What is it that all living things, including man, do? 

 Which living things are most like man ? What is unique about mankind ? 



What Living Things Are Most Like Man? 



Basis for Comparison' Our notions of "life" come to us from what we 

 ourselves do and experience. It is therefore most helpful, in order to get 

 our bearings, to compare ourselves with those forms of life that resemble 

 us most — the vertebrates, i.e., animals that have a backbone. 



iSee No. 1, p. 59. 

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