MAN'S SUPERIORITY. 



exceeds the flight of the swiftest bird and equals the rapidity of 

 the tempest. 



So far, then, from having reason to repine at his helpless and 

 defenceless organisation, he is indebted to those apparent defects 

 for the greatest of his attainments ; for it is certain, that if he 

 had possessed natural organs of defence, attack, and locomotion, 

 and natural protection for his body at all analogous to those which 

 have been provided so generally for the inferior species, he would 

 have lost that strong stimulus which has urged him on to such 

 stupendous and almost incredible achievements. Nor is this 

 observation novel. At a much earlier epoch in the progress of 

 the human race, and ages before the great discoveries had been 

 made which will render for ever memorable the last hundred 

 years, Galen observed, that if man had possessed the natural 

 clothing and defence of the brute, he would never have been an 

 artificer, nor protected himself with a cuirass, nor fabricated the 

 sword or ^spear, nor invented the bridle, nor mounted a horse, nor 

 hunted, the beast. Neither would he have followed the arts of 

 peace, nor constructed the pipe and the lyre, nor erected houses 

 or palaces, nor temples to the gods ; nor would he have made 

 laws, nor invented letters by which he would hold communion 

 with the wise of antiquity, conversing at one time with Plato, at 

 another with Aristotle, and at another with Hippocrates. 



22. The possession of the faculty of language necessarily 

 infers the instinct of sociability, and man cannot live alone. He 

 seeks the society of his kind, and belongs to the class which 

 naturalists call gregarious. The advantages derived from this 

 habit of association are infinite ; without it, indeed, man, instead 

 of being as he is, the monarch of nature, would be amongst the 

 most miserable of animals, and would assuredly soon disappear 

 from the earth. But by association every individual strengthens 

 and supports others, and is strengthened and supported by them. 

 Each cultivating some special faculty or power in a higher degree 

 than his fellows, renders it serviceable to them, and receives in 

 return equivalent services from those who have cultivated other 

 powers in which he is deficient ; and thus conies into play that 

 vast principle of material production and social felicity known as 

 the division of labour. 



Like all other gregarious animals, man is naturally frugivorous, 

 or made to live on fruit and vegetables. This is a conclusion not 

 resting solely upon the analogy observable between man and 

 other gregarious species, but supported by the characters of his 

 organs of nutrition. The teeth of carnivorous species (fig. 16) are 

 peculiarly formed for tearing and masticating the flesh which 

 constitutes their proper food. The canine teeth are largely 



F 2 67 



