THE STORY OF THE BODY'S CONSTITUTION 3 



If the body of a man be similarly bisected, we note 

 precisely the same arrangement of the great systems 

 of his body. The back bone and skull lie in the back 

 region, the digestive system occupies the centre of 

 the body, and the heart lies below. Man, if placed 

 in the same position as the fish or the dog and pro- 

 ceeding on his hands and knees, is seen therefore to 

 represent a precisely similar type and build of body 

 to that of all his vertebrate neighbours. The fact 

 that man, as it has been remarked, is an animal 

 which has taken to walking on his hind legs, makes 

 no alteration in the disposition of those great sys- 

 tems of organs. When we speak of man's heart lying 

 to the front of his body, we merely mean that it does 

 so because he is a two-legged and erect animal, 

 instead of being a four-legged and therefore hori- 

 zontally placed creature. This remarkable uniformity 

 of build of body in the case of back-boned animals 

 is represented in the case of types of the animal 

 kingdom of lower grade than the Vertebrates them- 

 selves, so that we awaken to the knowledge of the 

 fact that each animal, whatever be its rank in the 

 scale, does not show a body built on a type or plan 

 peculiar to itself. On the contrary, it shares that 

 plan with a larger or smaller number of other 

 animals which constitute its so-called "type" or sub- 

 division of the animal world at large. Man is there- 

 fore distinctly of the animal kingdom, and not 

 outside it. 



MAN'S SPECIAL FEATURES. Whatever special 

 features are found to characterise the human being 

 are simply to be regarded as developments of the 

 common type just described. In other words, we 

 may safely assume that what is specially human 

 reposes on the animal scaffolding peculiar to the 



