II THE CLASSIFICATION OF MAN 95 



as members of one order. And if any new animal 

 were discovered, and were found to present no 

 greater difference from the Kangaroo or from the 

 Opossum, for example, than these animals do from 

 one another, the zoologist would not only be 

 logically compelled to rank it in the same order 

 with these, but he would not think of doing 

 otherwise. 



Bearing this obvious course of zoological 

 reasoning in mind, let us endeavour for a moment 

 to disconnect our thinking selves from the mask 

 of humanity; let us imagine ourselves scientific 

 Saturnians, if you will, fairly acquainted with 

 such animals as now inhabit the Earth, and em- 

 ployed in discussing the relations they bear to a 

 new and singular " erect and featherless biped," 

 which some enterprising traveller, overcoming the 

 difficulties of space and gravitation, has brought 

 from that distant planet for our inspection, well 

 preserved, may be, in a cask of rum. We should 

 all, at once, agree upon placing him among the 

 mammalian vertebrates ; and his lower jaw, his 

 molars, and his brain, would leave no room for 

 doubting the systematic position of the new genus 

 among those mammals, whose young are nourished 

 during gestation by means of a placenta, or what 

 are called the " placental mammals." 



Further, the most superficial study would at 

 once convince us that, among the orders of 

 placental mammals, neither the Whales, nor the 



