HUXLEY OX THE RELATIONS OF MAX TO THE LOWER ANIMALS. 67 



Such are the more salient points of Dr. Calori's paper, a translation 

 of which I have thought it better to lay before the reader. There re- 

 mains no longer any necessity to discuss the question whether this am- 

 phibia is a larval form ; but still there is much to be done in reference to 

 its organs of respiration in its early life. From finding the lungs in 

 the young axolotl in a complete state of acatylectesis, while the tissue is 

 be; utifully developed in those of adult form, I am led to believe that 

 branchial respiration is that of youug life, while the older animal be- 

 comes as equally dependent for respiration on its lungs. 



IX. — On the Zoological Relations of Man w^ith the Lower 

 Animals. By Professor Huxley, F. R. S. 



As the biological sciences have grown in breadth and in depth, and as 

 successive generations of naturalists have succeeded in penetrating fur- 

 ther and further into the arcana of nature, the questions — In what re- 

 lation does the thinker and investigator stand to the objects of his inqui- 

 ries ? What is the tie which connects man with other animated and 

 sentient beings ? — have more and more forcibly pressed for a reply. 



jlSTor have responses been wanting; but, unfortunately, they have 

 been diametrically opposed to one another. Theologians and moralists, 

 historians and poets, impressed by a sense of the infinite responsibilities 

 of mankind, awed by a just prevision of the great destinies in store for 

 the only earthly being of practically unlimited powers, or touched by 

 the tragic dignity of the ever-recurring struggle of human will with cir- 

 cumstance, have always tended to conceive of their kind as something 

 apart, separated by a great and impassable barrier, from the rest of the 

 natural world. 



On the other hand, the students of physical science, discovering as 

 complete a system of law and order in the microcosm as in the macro- 

 cosm, incessantly lighting upon new analogies and new identities be- 

 tween life as manifested by man, and life in other shapes, — have no less 

 steadily gravitated towards the opposite opinion, and, as knowledge has 

 advanced, have more. and more distinctly admitted the closeness of the 

 bond which unites man with his humbler fellows. 



A controversy has raged between these opposed schools, and, as 

 usual, passion and prejudice have conferred upon the battle far more 

 importance than, as it seems to me, can rationally attach to its issue. 

 For whether, as some think, man is, by" his origin, distinct from all 

 other living beings, or whether, on the other hand, as others suppose, 

 he is the result of the modification of some other mammal, his duties 

 and his aspirations must, I apprehend, remain the same. The proof of 

 his claim to independent parentage will not change the brutishness of 

 man's lower nature ; nor, except to those valet souls who cannot see 

 greatness in their fellow because his father was a cobbler, will the de- 

 monstration of a pithecoid pedigree one whit diminish man's divine 



