LIFE OX THE EARTH. 133 



uii des plus profonds problemes sur quoi notre raisou 

 pent s'exercer.' Taking the simplest view of the rela- 

 tions involved in this problem, we may speak of man 

 as the head of the living creation ; the latest, probably, 

 certainly the loftiest, in that long series of existences 

 which we follow downwards till animal life is lost in 

 the lower organisms of the vegetable world. But this 

 is a feeble outline of all that the question involves. 

 Within the wonderful series just denoted lie whole 

 volumes of facts, inviting or almost compelling research 

 into the connexion of the human being with creatures 

 lower in the scale of life. The careless thinker may 

 let his reason go to rest on this admitted human supre- 

 macy. The philosopher, looking on the dog crouched 

 at his feet, sees in him an animal with organisation 

 variously akin to his own with intelligence, memory, 

 feelings, and passions of the same kind, however differ- 

 ing in degree and manner of use with appetites and 

 necessities of life similar also, though more in subordi- 

 nation to instinct and hereditary habits of the species. 

 The idle spectator gazes on the anthropoid ape with 

 mere merriment at this mockery of human form and 

 gesture. The man of deeper thought cannot stand in 

 face of these creatures without some feeling of awe in 

 the contemplation of that mysterious scheme of crea- 

 tion which has brought them thus near to himself in 

 the scale of animal beings. 



Pascal says : ' II est dangereux de trop faire voir 

 a rhomine combieu il est egal aux betes, sans lui 

 montrer sa grandeur. II est encore dangereux de lui 

 trop faire voir sa grandeur sans sa bassesse.' The can- 



