116 THE ABBEST OF THE BODY. 



crown of the long past eternity^ and the highest pos- 

 sible fruit and crown ; to be the last victor among the 

 decimated phalanxes of earlier existences, and to be 

 nevermore defeated ; to be the best that Nature in her 

 strength and opulence can produce ; to be the first of 

 that new order of beings who by their dominion over 

 the lower world and their equipment for a higher, 

 reveal that they are made in the Image of God — to be 

 this is to be elevated to a rank in Nature more exalted 

 than any philosophy or any poetry or any theology 

 have ever given to Man. Man was always told that 

 his place was high ; the reason for it he never knew 

 till now ; he never knew that his title deeds were the 

 very laws of Nature, that he alone was the Alpha and 

 Omega of Creation, the beginning and the end of 

 flatter, the final goal of Life. 



Nature is full of new departures ; but never since 

 time began was there anything aj^proaching in impor- 

 tance that period when the slumbering animal, Brain, 

 broke into intelligence, and the Creature first felt that 

 it had a Mind. From that dateless moment a higher 

 and swifter progress of the world began. Henceforth, 

 Intelligence triumphed over structural adaptation. 

 The wise were naturally selected before the strong. 

 The Mind discovered better methods, safer measures, 

 shorter cuts. So the body learned to refer to it, then 

 to defer to it. As the Mind was given more to do, it 

 enlarged and did its work more perfectly. Gradually 

 the favors of Evolution — exercise, alteration, dif- 

 ferentiation, addition — which were formerly distrib- 

 uted promiscuously among the bodily organs — were 

 now lavished mainly upon the Brain. The gains 

 accumulated with accelerating velocity ; and by sheer 



