68 ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 



right of kingship over nature ; nor lower the great and princely dignity 

 of perfect manhood, which is an order of nobility, not inherited, but 

 to be won by each of us, so far as he consciously seeks good and avoids 

 evil, and puts the faculties with which he is endowed to their fittest 

 use. 



Important or unimportant in its final results as it may be, however, 

 there can be no doubt that the controversy as to the real position of man 

 still exists ; and I have therefore thought that it would be useful to 

 contribute my mite towards the enrichment of the armoury upon which 

 both sides must, in the long run, be dependent for their weapons, by 

 endeavouring to arrange and put in order the facts of the case, so far 

 as they consist of the only matters of which the anatomist and physio- 

 logist can take cognizance — I mean facts of discernible structure and of 

 demonstrable function. If any one assert that there are other orders 

 of facts which enter into this question, but which are distinguished by 

 being neither demonstrable nor discernible, all that can be replied is, 

 that science is incompetent either to affirm or deny his proposition, con- 

 fined, as she is, to the humble, if safe, region of observation and of 

 logic. 



No one denies, I believe, that there are multitudes of analogies and 

 affinities of structure and function connecting man with other living- 

 beings. Man takes his origin in an ovum similar in form, in size, and 

 in structure to that whence the dog or the rabbit arise. The physical 

 process which determines the development of the embryo within that 

 ovum ; the successive stages of that development ; the mode in which 

 the human foetus is nourished within the maternal organism ; the pro- 

 cess of birth ; the means provided by nature for the due supply of nu- 

 triment after birth : are essentially alike in all three cases. Compare 

 the bony frame-work, the muscles, the great vessels, the viscera, of man, 

 the dog, and the rabbit, and the demonstration of a pervading unity of 

 plan in all three is one of the triumphs of modern science. 



The most certain propositions entertained by the human physiolo- 

 gist, those upon which the scientific practice of the healing art depends, 

 are largely, or wholly, based on the results of experiments on animals. 

 The poison which hurts them does not leave us unscathed; and we share 

 with them two of the most terrible diseases with,. which mortal beings 

 are afflicted, glanders and hydrophobia. Nor can any impartial judge 

 doubt that the roots, as it were, of those great faculties which confer on 

 man his immeasurable superiority above all other animate things, are 

 traceable far down into the animal world. The dog, the cat, and the 

 parrot return love for our love, and hatred for our hatred. They are ca- 

 pable of shame and of sorrow ; and though they may have no logic nor 

 conscious ratiocination, no one who has watched their ways can doubt 

 that they possess that power of rational cerebration which evolves rea- 

 sonable acts from the premises furnished by the senses — a process, be it 

 observed, which takes fully as large a share as conscious reason in hu- 

 man activity. There is a unity in psychical as in physical plan among 

 animated beings; and the sense of this unity has been expressed in such 



