354 LAUGEL'S PROBLEMS OP NATURE AND LIFE. 



use with appetites and necessities of life similar also, 

 though more in subordination to instincts and here- 

 ditary habits of the species. The idle spectator gazes 

 on the anthropoid ape with mere merriment at this 

 mockery of human form and gesture /u/u/q/uara TVJS 

 av0pa>7TLvr]s a)rjs as Aristotle calls it. .The man of 

 deeper thought cannot stand in face of these creatures 

 without a certain feeling of awe, in the contemplation 

 of that mysterious scheme which has brought them 

 thus near to himself in the scale of being. 



Pascal says, ' II est dangereux de trop faire voir a 

 rhomine combien 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 caution 

 is chiefly needed for philosophers, since to mankind at 

 large familiarity disguises this great wonder of the 

 world of life. How few fairly accost the question, 

 Whence and why this astonishing profusion and variety 

 of animal existence, not solely that now under our 

 eyes, but what has been entombed during uncounted 

 ages in the rocks beneath our feet ? ' It cannot for 

 a moment be contended that the great scheme of 

 creation had Man solely in view. These innumerable 

 vestiges of life, at periods far antecedent to his own 

 time on earth, might alone suffice to disprove this. 

 Equally is it negatived by our knowledge of existing 

 life. It would not be too much to affirm, were such 

 vague affirmation worth having, that not one-hundredth 

 part of the animal creation, counted by species, has any 

 direct relation or ministry to Man. He is at the sum- 

 mit of the series, and in his highest cultivation far 



