THE BODY OF MAN. 287 



of the bodily substratum extending beyond the limits 

 of mere variability. Even on the assumption that the 

 mind forms its own organ, the brain, the specific idea 

 of man would necessarily have consisted in bodily im- 

 provement, as contrasted with the supposed rigidity of 

 the animal organism. For, in principle, it is the same 

 whether changes take place perceptibly in arms and legs, 

 or imperceptibly to the eye, in the molecules of the 

 brain. We are, therefore, only retrieving the shortcom- 

 ings of philosophy when we attribute to the bodily muta- 

 bility of man the extension which accrues to it from the 

 applicability of the doctrine of Descent to the particular 

 case. 



The bodily accordance betwixt man and animal leaves 

 the doctrine of Descent so little to desire, that the ap- 

 prehension of Mephistopheles lest grovelling humanity 

 should finally be alarmed at his likeness to the Deity, 

 might far rather be applied to his likeness to the animal. 

 The human body, like the body of every animal, points 

 in its evolution to an elaboration from the undifferen- 

 tiated to the specialized form. The general distribution 

 of the body and the development of the several organs 

 is common to man and all mammals, and in the earlier 

 stages of the embryonic state to all vertebrate animals, 

 and indicates this general kinship. The existence there- 

 fore of a discoidal placenta (unless we prefer a special 

 reiterated new creation of this organ of development, in 

 which the Creator adhered to the pattern of the placenta 

 of the lemurs, rodents, insectivora, bats, and apes) reduces 

 us to the alternative that in the natural and to us un- 

 known development of man, chance, or some quite 

 different chain of causes, led in this case, as in the other. 



