LAUGEL'S PROBLEMS OF NATURE AND LIFE. 353 



lives. Among the insects it is common to find those 

 propagating life perish as soon as this function is ful- 

 filled. We cannot explain these things, but must admit 

 their reality. 



Still less can we with our reason confront another 

 problem of much deeper interest viz., the relation 

 of man to the other forms of animal creation peo- 

 pling the earth. Surrounded on every side by living 

 beings using them, consciously or unconsciously, 

 as food, and even inhaling them with every breath 

 this question inevitably and closely presses upon human 

 thought. In one point (and that the very important 

 doctrine of derivation) it comes into contact with 

 the Darwinian theory, and carries much of present 

 and future controversy with it in this connexion. But 

 there are other and less equivocal modes of viewing 

 the relation of Man to other animals. The simplest is 

 that which regards him as the head of the living crea- 

 tion 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 series just 

 denoted he whole volumes of facts, inviting or almost 

 compelling research. The careless thinker may let his 

 reason go to sleep on this admitted human supremacy. 

 The philosopher, looking on the dog crouched at his 

 feet, sees in him an animal with organisation variously 

 akin to his own, and some senses even more perfect 

 with intelligence, memory, feelings, and passions of the 

 same kind, however differing in degree and manner of 



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