78 "THE COMING OF MAN 



variety in amount, form, structure and grouping. Their 

 capacities for experiment and improvement are many, great 

 and not easily exhausted. The dynasty held the throne for 

 ages. The era of personality has only begun. We know not 

 what we shall be. But the possibilities of mental evolution 

 are unlimited; they may be infinite. The dynasty of person- 

 ality is secure and permanent. No other system or power in 

 the body can dispute its place and right. 



Every lower dynasty needed, stimulated, and thus ushered 

 in the reign of the next higher power; and then became sub- 

 servient to it.^ Every higher power begins its career as serv- 

 ant of the lower; then evolution becomes revolution, and the 

 yoke of the lower is thrown off. The reign and dominance 

 of the higher does not stop or hamper the development of the 

 lower function; it maintains and improves it, while it con- 

 trols and may limit it. The digestive system attains its high- 

 est development not during its period of supremacy, but in 

 its service of muscle and brain. 



The same is true of the muscles. They are not as bulky 

 and powerful in man as in many lower animals. But they 

 are numerous, complex and varied. Of course, all our mus- 

 cles have their place and use. But man's chief advantage lies 

 not in the size of his heavy fundamental muscles of back and 

 shoulder or thigh, but in the fine accessory muscles of his 

 fingers guided by the exceedingly complex accessory brain- 

 centers. These contribute the fine complex movements. An 

 ape would make hard work of playing a violin. It is hardly 

 accurate to speak of " arrest of the body " in man, though its 

 day of supremacy is past. It becomes continually finer, bet- 

 ter adapted to higher uses and nobler ends discovered by the 

 thinking brain. 



Yet, outside of certain centers in the brain, the organ of 

 mind, the bodily changes between higher apes and man are 

 few and hardly noticeable. Physically man remains one 

 cosmopolitan species under all stimuli to variation. His in- 

 telligence has increased by leaps and bounds. Whether his 



3 T. 57. 



