46 EVOLUTION AND MAN S PLACE IN NATURE 



formation of human organism and that of the lower 

 animals, from the germ to the fully-developed embryo. 

 We have always classified man as animal/ we have 

 always attributed to ourselves vital organs akin to 

 those of the lower animals; but now we know that 

 the method of building up the human organism 

 is that followed in building up the organism of the 

 lower animals. The induction is complete which 

 assigns to man his place in Nature as a consti 

 tuent member of a harmonious scheme of organised 

 existence on the earth. Nothing can be allowed to 

 detract from the vast conception of unity of life on 

 the earth, to which embryology has conducted us. 



From this point, our representation of the charac 

 teristics of human life must begin. It follows from 

 what has been said that the beginning is physiological. 

 Allowing that vital organs belong to us as to the ani 

 mals, their functions are the same ; so it must be with 

 the sensori-motor system ; so with the special senses ; 

 and, so far, with the brain also. There is nothing new 

 to be proclaimed in all this. We merely state the 

 commonly received view, accepted in every age, on 

 the evidence of ordinary observation. The important 

 advance to be recorded has come from progress of 

 anatomico-physiological science, disclosing internal 

 structure and its functions. No one, indeed, ever 

 thought of suggesting that organs and functions of 

 special sense were fundamentally different in animals 

 and in men. The similarity of structure and of func 

 tion has all along been too obvious to give room for 

 such a representation. So long as we speak of organism, 

 organs and their functions are fundamentally alike in 

 man and in animal. Whether there is in human life 



