188 



THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE. 



hopelessly and forever. The Birds took one road, the 

 Vertebrates another ; the Vertebrates kept to the 

 ground, the Birds took to the air. The consequences 

 of this expedient in the case of the Birds were fatal. 

 They forever forfeited the possibility of becoming 

 human. For observe the cost to them of the aerial 

 mode of life. The wing was made at the expense of 

 the hand. With this consummate organ buried in 

 feathers, the use which the higher Vertebrates made 

 of it was denied them. Birds have the bones for a 

 hand, could have had a hand, but they waived their 

 right to it. When it is considered how much Man 

 owes to the hand it may be conceived how much they 

 have lost by the want of it. Had Man not been a 

 " tool-using animal," he had probably never become 

 a man ; the Bird, partly because it placed itself out of 

 the running here, has never been anything but a Bird. 

 To one organism only was it given to keep on the 

 path of progress from the beginning to the end, and 

 so fulfil without deviation or relapse the final purpose 

 of Evolution. 



