218 THE STRUCTURE OF MAN 



great opposition. It was not accomplished without a struggle, in 

 which every inch of the already occupied territory had to be 

 painfully fought for ; and the extraordinary tenacity with which 

 certain favourable positions once attained are clung to, is seen in 

 the fact that some of them are still taken up by the organism 

 as dim reminiscences of the past, perhaps only during fcetal life. 

 These ancient ancestral pictures, for such indeed they are are 

 eloquent witnesses of a time long since past. They keep our 

 vision clear, when we have, as in this present case, to be impartial 

 judges of ourselves. 



As Testut appropriately says : Let us not unjustly reproach 

 anatomists with lowering Man, with drawing him down from his 

 high position : it is true that Anatomy does rank Man in the 

 class of the Mammalia, but it places him in the highest order 

 of that class, that of the Primates ; and although it cannot 

 entirely separate him from these, it gives him the highest possible 

 position among them. Anatomy not only makes Man the most 

 perfect of Primates, but also proclaims him first of the foremost 

 of all living beings. 1 As Broca has said : " That may well suffice 

 for his ambition and his glory." I cannot do better than 

 conclude with the following words of the last-named author, which 

 are no less worthy of consideration : " Pride, which is one of the 

 most characteristic traits of our nature, has in many minds 

 prevailed over the calm testimony of reason. Like those Eoman 

 Emperors who, intoxicated with their universal power, ended by 

 denying their manhood, and by believing themselves to be 

 demigods, so the king of our planet pleases himself with the 

 thought that the nature of the vile animal which is subject to 

 his caprices cannot have anything in common with his own. 

 The proximity of the monkey is to him inconvenient ; he is no 

 longer satisfied to be the king of animals, he desires that an 

 immense unfathomable abyss should separate him from his 

 subjects ; and, sometimes, turning his back on the earth, he takes 

 refuge, with his endangered majesty, in the nebulous sphere of the 

 Eeign of Man. But Anatomy, like that slave who followed the 

 triumphal car, repeating the words ' Memento te homineru esse,' 

 comes to agitate him in this self-admiration, and reminds him 

 that reality, visible and tangible, links him with the animals." 



1 [Cf., however, Minot, "Is Man the Highest Animal"? Proc. Arncric. Assoc. 

 for flit Advancement of Science, 1881, p. 240.] 



