APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 49 



he originates identical in the early stages of his 

 formation identical in the mode of his nutrition 

 before and after birth, with the animals which lie 

 immediately below him in the scale Man, if his 

 adult and perfect structure be compared with theirs, 

 exhibits, as might be expected, a marvellous likeness 

 of organisation. H e resembles them as they resemble 

 one another he differs from them as they differ from 

 one another. 



If a man cannot see a church, it is preposterous to 

 take his opinion about its altar-piece or painted 

 window. 



Perhaps no order of mammals presents us with so 

 extraordinary a series of gradations as this ' leading 

 us insensibly from the crown and summit of the 

 animal creation down to creatures, from which there 

 is but a step, as it seems, to the lowest, smallest, and 

 least intelligent of the placental Mammalia. It is as 

 if nature herself 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. 



If Man be separated by no greater structural 

 barrier from the brutes than they are from one 

 another then it seems to follow that if any process 

 of physical causation can be discovered by which the 

 genera and families of ordinary animals have been 

 produced, that process of causation is amply sufficient 

 to account for the origin of Man. 



1 This alludes to a foregoing enumeration of the seven families of 

 PRIMATES headed by the ANTHKOPINI containing man alone. 



E 



