10 



CHAPTER I. 



THE HUMAN KINGDOM. 



ABOVE inorganic matter, plants, and animals, is placed 

 Man. 



Here, without any doubt, man is indeed the first of the or- 

 ganisms, when one tries to place in linear series all those which 

 move on our planet. It is, also, not his relative position in 

 the living world that it is difficult to discover ; it is what we 

 may call his true place. What is, in other terms, the value of 

 the differences which separate man from other mammalia ? and 

 at what distance is he from the animal that immediately follows 

 him in this linear series which we are supposing ? To examine 

 what man is with respect to the highest orders of mammalia, 

 and in a more general manner, to animals, is the primordial 

 question which presents itself in anthropology. It seems at 

 first sight that it would suffice, in order to settle it, to throw a 

 glance on this complete body, formed of the same anatomical 

 elements, absolutely submitted to the same exigences of devel- 

 opment, nutrition, and reproduction, as animals. Ought not 

 all this to make us think that we were not altogether made of 

 so immaterial a substance as the philosophers have generally 

 been satisfied to believe ? This has not been the case. 



Two systems two theories, are before us. The one pre- 

 tends that man is but the first among animals, that he is similar 

 to them in the clear and precise sense in which this term is 

 taken in geometry, designing qualities, which may differ ad 

 infinitum, but which still may be comparable. 



Another system, supported by the most illustrious names, 

 makes of man a sort of special entity, differing from other 

 organised beings by the distinct and clear nature of his intelli- 



