274 ON THE STUDY OF BIOLOGY s 



should advocate their views. Don't suppose that 

 I am saying this for the purpose of escaping the 

 responsibility of their beliefs ; indeed, at other 

 times and in other places, I do not think that 

 point has been left doubtful ; but I want clearly 

 to point out to you that for my present argument 

 they may all be wrong ; and, nevertheless, my 

 argument will hold good. The biologists tell us 

 that all this is an entire mistake. They turn to 

 the physical organisation of man. They examine 

 his whole structure, his bony frame and all that 

 clothes it. They resolve him into the finest parti- 

 cles into which the microscope will enable them 

 to break him up. They consider the performance 

 of his various functions and activities, and they 

 look at the manner in which he occurs on the 

 surface of the world. Then they turn to other 

 animals, and taking the first handy domestic 

 animal say a dog they profess to be able to 

 demonstrate that the analysis of the dog leads 

 them, in gross, to precisely the same results as the 

 analysis of the man ; that they find almost identi- 

 cally the same bones, having the same relations ; 

 that they can name the muscles of the dog 

 by the names of the muscles of the man, and 

 the nerves of the dog by those of the nerves of 

 the man, and that, such structures and organs of 

 sense a,s we find in the man such also we find in 

 the dog ; they analyse the brain and spinal cord 

 and they find that the nomenclature which fits, 



