102 ANIMAL LIFE AND HUMAN PROGRESS 



concerning the zoological position of Man forms a study but 

 little inferior in interest, and one that must be followed before 

 we can rightly appreciate the position of the problem to-day. 

 I would say that, as an introduction to any research work, it is 

 essential that the worker should realise how the atmosphere of 

 thought, wherein he was reared, came to be formed about his 

 subject. It is essential to know how we slid into, or how we 

 were forced into, the opinions we hold to-day. With regard to 

 the zoological position of Man it is, I think, correct to say that 

 in part we have been pushed, and in part we have slid, into our 

 present opinions. 



It is this aspect of the question that I wish to outline very 

 briefly to you. 



Over 300 years before the Christian era Aristotle had started 

 upon the never-ending work of classifying animal forms. We 

 may picture how any pioneer of this enterprise would have 

 set about his business. He would have started, beyond a 

 doubt, by setting side by side in his scheme those animals 

 which appeared to him to be most alike ; the whole psychology 

 of the systematist, whether he lived 300 B.C. or in A. p. 1918, 

 demands a classification by likeness to form the basis of any 

 ordered arrangement. Order is created only by the adoption 

 of such a method. But something more than mere order is 

 achieved at the same time, for the assumption that likeness 

 implies kinship is a very natural one. Man is so accustomed to 

 observing likeness between related forms, that it is but natural 

 for him to regard very similar forms as being nearly related to 

 each other. From Aristotle to Linnaeus is a passage of 2000 

 years, and in the passing of this time great strides have been 

 made in classification : everv known member of the animal 



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kingdom has been put into its appropriate place, and the result 

 is an ordered array of animals classified by their likenesses, 

 their likenesses always being regarded as an expression of their 

 kinship. 



Similarity of form has ever demanded proximity in the 

 scale, and similarity in common experience argues relationship. 

 But even the earliest of the systematists (and to Aristotle this 

 credit must certainly be given) saw that something beyond 



