CLASSIFICATION AND CKEATION. 71 



breathe through lungs ; but they differ from all 

 other Vertebrates in their mode of reproduction, 

 bringing forth living young, which they nurse 

 with milk. Even in the lowest members of this 

 highest group of the Vertebrates, at the head 

 of which stands Man himself, looking heaven- 

 ward it is true, but nevertheless rooted deeply in 

 the Animal Kingdom, we have the dawning of 

 those family relations, those intimate ties between 

 parents and children, on which the whole social 

 organization of the human race is based. Man 

 is the crowning work of God on earth ; but 

 though so nobly endowed, we must not forget 

 that we are the lofty children of a race whose 

 lowest forms lie prostrate within the water, hav- 

 ing no higher aspiration than the desire for food ; 

 and we cannot understand the possible degrada- 

 tion and moral wretchedness of Man, without 

 knowing that his physical nature is rooted in all 

 the material characteristics that belong to his 

 type and link him even with the Fish. The 

 moral and intellectual gifts that distinguish him 

 from them are his to use or to abuse ; he may, if 

 he will, abjure his better nature and be Verte- 

 brate more than Man. He may sink as low as the 

 lowest of his type, or he may rise to a spiritual 

 height that will make that which distinguishes 

 him from the rest far more the controlling ele- 

 ment of his being than that which unites him 

 with them. 



