138 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



animals still perfecting their mechanism and put- 

 ting all his physical powers and senses to the 

 shame. It is nothing to him to be distanced in 

 nimbleness by the deer: has he not his bullet? 

 Or in strength by the horse : has he not bit and 

 bridle ? Or in vision by the eagle : his field-glass 

 out-sees it. How easily we talk of the body as 

 a thing without us, as an impersonal it. And 

 how naturally when all is over, do we advertise 

 its irrelevancy to ourselves by consigning its bor- 

 rowed atoms to the anonymous dust. The fact 

 is, in one aspect, the body, to Intelligence, is all 

 but an absurdity. One is almost ashamed to have 

 one. The idea of having to feed it, and exercise 

 it, and humour it, and put it away in the dark 

 to sleep, to carry it about with one everywhere, 

 and not only it but its wardrobe — other material 

 things to make this material thing warm or keep it 

 cool — the whole situation is a comedy. But judge 

 what it would be if this exacting organism went 

 on evolving, multiplied its members, added to its 

 intricacy, waxed instead of waned ? So compli- 

 cated is it already that one shrinks from contem- 

 plating a future race having to keep in repair an 

 apparatus more involved and delicate. The prac- 

 tical advantage is enormous of having all improve- 

 ments henceforth external, of having insensate 



