THE HUMAN FACTOR. 303 



the apex should rise to the grade of man, the Orient would be 

 the theater of its display. 



Man seems signalized as the last term in the series of or-/ 

 ganic improvements. His erect attitude gives us an intima- 

 tion. The first vertebrate swung horizontally in his native j 

 element. The Amphibian could slightly elevate his head. , 

 The Reptilian head could be raised to a higher angle ; and the 

 highest reptiles could rise on four feet, or even ambulate as 

 bipeds though withal, in an awkward way ; but all reptiles 

 dragged a cumbrous tail prone on the ground. The Bird 

 perched in an oblique attitude, and raised the head for an 

 outlook ; but when he swam through the air, he took the at- 

 titude of a swimming fish. The Ape could clumsily stand on 

 two feet, and wield a weapon with his hands ; but the very 

 shape of the foot, and the unmuscular legf* show that Nature 

 never designed him for a habitual biped. Man alone, finds 

 the upright attitude quite natural and comfortable. Here has I 

 been a progressive upward inclination of the spinal axis./ 

 Vertical in man, the progress comes to a limit. This crite- 

 rion is not suited to index any further improvement. We 

 infer that no further improvement will present itself to 

 be indexed. 



The same inference is sustained by man's cosmopolite adap- j 

 tations. From the beginning of life on the earth, the range 

 of individual species has been narrowing. The Brachiopods 

 and Trilobites of the Cambrian ranged through wider seas 

 than those of the Carboniferous. Land animals, when they 

 appeared, were fenced within still stricter limits; and when 

 the mammals came upon the theater of being, each species 

 almost each genus was assigned to a particular corner of one 

 continent. Under this law of progressive restriction of faunal 

 range, man should have been shut in a narrower field than 

 any of his predecessors. He is not. On the contrary, all re- j 

 strictions are removed. Man ranges over every continent and 

 through every clime. No conditions are too hard; no diffi- 

 culties insurmountable. Nature seems to have reached a 

 point where a new policy is inaugurated. The shackles are 



