COMMON THINGS MAN. . 



in a striking point of view all that we have in common with the 

 rest of the animal kingdom, they render manifest not less con- 

 spicuously those which set us apart from, and exalt us above 

 them. So profoundly impressed was the greatest of modern 

 naturalists with the force of the evidence of man's superiority, 

 derived merely from his physical organisation, that he maintained 

 that, even according to the rigorous principles of inductive 

 science based on physical and mechanical phenomena, without 

 taking into consideration the possession of the reasoning faculty, 

 man ought to be classified, not as a species of the order of verte- 

 brated animals, but as an order apart, distinct from and independent 

 of all other parts of organised nature, and presenting the anoma- 

 lous example of being the sole genus of his order and the sole 

 species of his genus.* 



Nevertheless, our physical organisation differs but little in 

 appearance from that of a considerable number of Mammifers,f 

 that is, of the animals which suckle their young. The functions of 

 nutrition with us and with them are alike, and the structure of 

 the organs of sense present but few distinguishing peculiarities. 

 Yet man is placed immeasurably above all other organised beings, 

 a superiority which he owes, not altogether to the gift of reason 

 and of language, but also, in a great degree, to the mechanical 

 conformation of his members. 



2. Physiologists have traced a general relation between the 

 degree of intelligence manifested by different organised beings, 

 and the volume and structure of the brain, not only when species 

 is compared with species, but when individual is compared with 

 individual : and some have pretended to push this induction even 

 so far as to connect different parts of the brain with different 

 faculties, passions, and tendencies, founding their conclusions 

 partly on observations of the human brain in connection with the 

 development of human character, and partly on the analogies 

 observable between the human brain, passions, and tendencies, 

 compared with the brain, passions, and tendencies of inferior 

 animals. Hence has arisen that new branch of inquiry claiming 

 a place in physiological science under the name of Phrenology. 



However questions of this order may be decided, it has never 

 been doubted that the brain is the organ of intelligence, thought, 

 and feeling. It is the centre of the nervous system, and is con- 

 nected with all parts of the body by thousands of nervous 

 filaments. 



3. Some notion of the manner in which these diverge from the 

 brain and from all parts of the spinal cord, and ramify over all 



* Cuvier. 



t From mamma, a " pap, or teat," and/ero, " I bear." 

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