90 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



tributory animals are almost recognizable. Here, 

 for example, is a stage at which the embryo in its 

 anatomical characteristics resembles that of the 

 Vermes or Worms. As yet there is no head, nor 

 neck, nor backbone, nor waist, nor limbs. A 

 roughly cylindrical headless trunk — that is all that 

 stands for the future man. One by one the higher 

 Invertebrates are left behind, and then occurs the 

 most remarkable change in the whole life-history. 

 This is the laying down of the line to be occupied 

 by the spinal chord, the presence of which hence- 

 forth will determine the place of Man in the 

 Vertebrate sub-kingdom. At this crisis, the eye 

 which sweeps the field of lower Nature for an 

 analogue will readily find it. It is a circumstance 

 of extraordinary interest that there should be living 

 upon the globe at this moment an animal repre- 

 senting the actual transition from Invertebrate to 

 Vertebrate life. The acquisition of a vertebral 

 column is one of the great marks of height which 

 Nature has bestowed upon her creatures ; and in 

 the shallow waters of the Mediterranean she has 

 preserved for us a creature which, whether degen- 

 erate or not, can only be likened to one of her 

 first rude experiments in this direction. This 

 animal is the Lancelet, or Amphioxus, and so 

 rudimentary is the backbone that it does not 



