HUMAN RESEMBLANCES TO LOWER LIFE. ^ 



neighbours, the quadrupeds, is pointed out, we must be bordering 

 on despair when zoology teaches us the plain fact that, as regards the 

 general type of our body, it is that common alike to fish, frog, rep- 

 tile, fowl, and quadruped. If we are to wring our hands because it is 

 suggested that man's place in nature is seriously impugned by the 

 revelations of zoology concerning his near alliance with other quad- 

 rupeds, we should be prepared to clothe ourselves in sackcloth when 

 the truth creeps out, that not merely are our bodies built up on the 

 common "backboned" plan, but that the bones in the body and 

 limbs of frog, reptile, and bird, find their obvious reflex in the 

 skeleton of creation's lord. 



Suppose, for example, that we examine the body of a fish. We 

 find its nervous system brain and spinal marrow enwrapt within a 

 bony tube, formed by the skull and spine the latter chain of bones 

 forming, as every one is aware, a salient feature of vertebrate life at 

 large. The nervous system, just noted, is further observed to lie in 

 che back region of the animal. The digestive apparatus of the fish, 

 again, is situated in the middle line of its body, whilst the heart lies 

 lowest as the fish swims. Above the digestive system, and below the 

 spine, we should lastly find a second nervous system, named the 

 4i sympathetic." This latter apparatus consists essentially of a double 

 chain of nerves and nerve-masses, and reminds us somewhat of the 

 nervous belongings of the shrimp and butterfly. Now this disposi- 

 tion of matters, it need hardly be remarked, is peculiar to no one 

 fish. It is seen in its plain details in every member of that class, 

 here and there showing elaboration, or, on the other hand, exhibit- 

 ing simplification, but preserving intact throughout, all the essentials 

 which constitute it a veritable type or plan. The frog-class exhibits 

 a like build of body. Every frog or newt resembles the fishes in the 

 placing of its nervous system, in the situation of its heart, in the con- 

 stitution of its spine, digestive apparatus, and sympathetic nerves. 

 So also with the cold-blooded reptiles, and with the warm-blooded 

 birds. However far removed these animals may appear to be from 

 the fish, the one type seen in the latter, remains as that which is 

 paramount in the denizens of earth and air. And, last of all, coming 

 to the quadrupeds or mammals, highest of the children of life, we 

 can discern in them the same build of body seen in fish and fowl. 

 We discover that man, in virtue of all his characters, falls naturally 

 to be included within the quadruped class, and remains as at once 

 " the paragon of animals," and head of this group. In this position, 

 man is, therefore, an undoubted " mammal," and shares firstly all the 

 purely essential characters of the group, with forms so lowly as the 

 " duck-billed water-mole" (Ornithorhynchiis} of Australia, or its 

 neighbours the kangaroos, and also with mammals of highly elaborated 

 nature, such as the bats and the apes. But along with the host of 



