S-ciENTiFic Lectures. 229 



ing work of God on earth ; but tliongh so noblj endowed, we must 

 not forget that we are the lofty children of a race whose lowest forms 

 lie prostrate within the water, having no higher aspiration than the 

 desire for food ; and we cannot understand the possible degradation 

 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 

 ^ifts that distinguish him fi'om them are his to use or abuse ; he may, 

 if lie will, abjure his better nature and be vertebrate 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 those which distinguish him from the 

 rest far more the controlling element of his being than that which 

 unites him with them." 



