106 THE ABBEST OF THE BODY, 



vision, would be content to await the possible attain- 

 ment of an equal perfection by his descendants some 

 million years hence ? Is there not here a conspicuous 

 testimony to the improbability of a further Evolution 

 of the sense of Sight in civilized communities — in 

 other words, another proof of the Arrest of the 

 Animal? What defiance of Evolution, indeed, what 

 affront to Nature, is this ? Man prepares a compli- 

 cated telescope to supplement the Eye created by Evo- 

 lution, and no sooner is it perfected than it occurs to 

 him to create another instrument to aid the Eye in 

 what little work is left for it to do. That is to say, 

 he first makes a mechanical supplement to his Eye, 

 then constructs a mechanical Eye, which is better 

 than his own, to see through it, and ends by discard- 

 ing, for many purposes, the Eye of Organic Evolution 

 altogether. 



As regards the other functions of civilized Man, 

 the animal in almost every direction has reached 

 its maximum. Civilization — and the civilized state, be 

 it remembered, is the ultimate goal of every race and 

 nation — is always attended by deterioration of some 

 of the senses. Every man pays a definite price or 

 forfeit for his taming. The sense of smell, compared 

 with its development among the lower animals, is in 

 civilized Man already all but gone. Compared even 

 with a savage, it is an ascertained fact that the civil- 

 ized Man in this respect is vastly inferior. So far as 

 hearing is concerned, the main stimulus — fear of sur- 

 prise by enemies — has ceased to operate, and the 

 muscles for the erection of the ears have fallen into 

 disuse. The ear itself in contrast with that of the 

 savage is slow and dull, while compared with the 



