274 ON THE STUDY OP BIOLOGY x 



should advocate their views. Don't suppose that 

 I am saying this for the purpose of escaping the 

 responsibility of their beliefs; indeed, at other 

 times and in other places, I do not think that 

 point has been left doubtful; but I want clearly 

 to point out to you that for my present argument 

 they may all be wrong; and, nevertheless, my ar- 

 gument will hold good. The biologists tell us that 

 all this is an entire mistake. They turn to the 

 physical organisation of man. They examine his 

 whole structure, his bony frame and all that 

 clothes it. They resolve him into the finest par- 

 ticles into which the microscope will enable them 

 to break him up. They consider the performance 

 of his various functions and activities, and they 

 look at the manner in which he occurs on the 

 surface of the world. Then they turn to other 

 animals, and taking the first handy domestic ani- 

 mal — say a dog — they profess to be able to dem- 

 onstrate that the analysis of the dog leads them, 

 in gross, to precisely the same results as the analy- 

 sis of the man; that they find almost identically 

 the same bones, having the same relations; that 

 they can name the muscles of the dog by the 

 names of the muscles of the man, and the nerves 

 of the dog by those of the nerves of the man, 

 and that, such structures and organs of sense as 

 we find in the man such also we find in the dog; 

 they analyse the brain and spinal cord and they 

 find that the nomenclature which fits the one an- 



