44 



class, as we might infer when we perceiye how alike they are 

 in form and structure in that class, as you see displayed in the 

 diagrams before you. But, when we show the identity 

 thus in Man and other Mammalia, let it not be supposed 

 that we are only adding another fact to the number of late 

 raked up to degrade the human species. 



Indeed, it has recently become a common objection to 

 anatomical pursuits, that they tend to lead to views calcu- 

 lated at once to outi-age our common faith and our common 

 sense. The objection is of so little weight that it can 

 never permanently support itself, simply because such 

 doctrines are not founded on the truth ; that is to say, as 

 our law wisely words it, " The whole truth, and nothing 

 but the truth." It is a very old and sage proverb that " a 

 lie stands on one leg, and the truth on two ;" and every 

 casuist well knows that more error is propagated in the 

 shape of mere literal or half truths, than by point blank 

 misstatements, as may be seen well illustrated in Fielding's 

 prose epic, " Tom Jones," by Coleridge, in that excellent 

 series of essays called the " Friend, " and more recently by 

 Tennyson in some lines specially on the subject. I said, as 

 to the anatomical facts and doctrine, " raked up," because 

 in the very same shape they were rife and vulgar about half 

 a century since, having been imported into England, chiefly 

 from the Continental EncyelopseJists, and known here un- 

 der the name of materialism ; and this, because it at- 

 tempted to reduce our judgment of man's nature, simply to 

 a question of material structure— of mere brute anatomy 

 —and thus to confine the evidence to nothing but a half 

 truth. It seems amazing that sincere and conscientious 

 philosophers— as I believe they are— should descend thus 

 to reproduce a mass of stale, flat, and unprofitable facts and 

 doctrine, as if they were fresh and new discoveries ! And 

 still more remarkable is it that those philosophers, in at- 

 tempting thus to degrade mankind, should not perceive that 

 they are only dealing with a half truth. 



Even granting its literal accuracy in all respects— which 



