546 NATURE CROWNED IN MAN 



birds and mammals are the highest animals, since it is 

 difficult to show that they excel insects in differentiation and 

 integration, the plummet and square with which we meas- 

 ure progress ? It cannot be that it is simply because they 

 are superficially likest man, for birds are on an entirely 

 different line. The reason is that in birds and mammals 

 there is the fullest expression of what may be called the 

 general trend of evolution, and of what we hold as of supreme 

 value: (1) freedom, individuality, mastery of fate, a power 

 of triumphing over the inorganic, intelligent resourcefulness, 

 and (2) consciousness, possessed joyousness, satisfaction in 

 work and family. So as to Man, scientifically regarded, he 

 is the highest organism because of his all-round excellence 

 of differentiation and integration, and especially because he 

 has far and away the best brains. But on broader grounds 

 Man excels all masterpieces in the realm of organisms be- 

 cause in him there is the fullest expression of what evolution 

 seems to make for, and because he is Nature's only inter- 

 preter. 



2. The Probable Phylogeny of Man. 



The story of the Ascent of Man as told us by an expert 

 like Prof. Arthur Keith is very impressive. During the 

 Early Eocene ages, perhaps three million years ago, when 

 grass was beginning to spread like a garment over the earth, 

 there emerged an arboreal race of Mammals, the Primates, 

 differentiated from other orders in digits and teeth, skull 

 and brain. From this stock there diverged in the Eocene, 

 first the New World Monkeys and then the Old World 

 Monkeys, leaving the main line (from our point of view) 

 none the worse. ^Eons passed and the main stem, feeling 

 its way towards the light, gave off in the Oligocene the 



