THE HUMAN FORM. 



43 



is said to differ less in body from an ape than 

 an ape from a monkey. Thus the fixed shape 

 of the animal kingdom seems to have been 

 essentially attained, the life-stuff no longer 

 responding to the formative artist Psyche, or 

 very slightly. The outer plasticity of the 

 Human Form appears to have culminated 

 and rounded itself out to a finish. It should 

 be here noted that some lower animal shapes 

 of the far-away past have shown themselves 

 very persistent, enduring all the changes of 

 the geologic ages till the present without any 

 essential change of form. An oft-cited case 

 is the Brachiopod Liitf/ula, which, starting in 

 the Cambrian era, is still found today. In 

 like manner, the common crayfish, whose ori- 

 gin goes back to the Carboniferous era, re- 

 tains essentially the same shape it had then, 

 even with changed habits. So in the line of 

 animal evolution there have been strains of 

 dogged persistence of form quite from the 

 beginnings of life. Other humble cases might 

 l>e cited, prophetic, as it were, of the coming 

 rigidity of the highest physical shapes. But 

 the main evolutionary stream of animality 

 has shown the aforesaid plasticity till the 

 Primates are reached. 



Is man ever to attain the point at which 

 he may be able to control his shape by con- 

 trolling the conditions which determine it? 



