"MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE. 141 



had foreseen the arrogance of man, and with Roman severity had provided 

 that his intellect, by its very triumphs, should call into prominence the 

 slaves, admonishing the conqueror that he is but dust." THOMAS HUXLEY 

 (1863). 



AMONG those zoological facts which afford us points of 

 support in researches into the pedigree of the human race, 

 the position of Man in the Mammalian class is one of the 

 most important and fundamental. Much as zoologists have 

 long disagreed in their opinions as to Man's particular place 

 in this class, and especially in their ideas of his relation to 

 the most nearty related group, that of the Apes, yet no 

 naturalist has ever doubted that Man is a genuine Mammal 

 in the whole structure and development of his body. Every 

 anatomical museum, every manual of Comparative Anatomy, 

 affords proof that the structure of the human body shares 

 all those peculiarities which are common to all Mammals, 

 and by which the latter are definitely distinguished from all 

 other animals. 



Now, if we examine this established anatomical fact 

 phylogenetically, and in the light of the Theory of Descent, 

 we arrive immediately at the conclusion that Man is of a 

 common stock with all the other Mammals, and springs 

 from a root common to them. The various characteristics 

 in which all Mammals coincide, and in which they differ 

 from all other animals, are, moreover, of such a kind, that a 

 polyphyletic hypothesis appears in a special degree inad- 

 missible in their case. It is inconceivable that all existing 

 and extinct Mammals have sprung from several different 

 and originally separate root-forms. We are compelled, if 

 we in any way acknowledge the Theory of Evolution, to 

 assume the monophyletic hypothesis, that all Mammals, 



