THE ORIGIN OF MAN 103 



mere order and kinship was expressed in schemes of classifica- 

 tion. It was obvious that some forms were simpler, less 

 organised, " lower " than others, while some were obviously 

 " higher " and more nearly akin to Man, and it only required 

 the completion of a scheme of classification to light up the 

 alluring concept of the " Scale of Life." This is a definite 

 stage, and an important one, in the evolution of our ideas. 

 In 1643 Sir Thomas Browne caught the notion and termed it 

 the " stair or manifest scale of creatures rising not disorderly 

 or in confusion." Edward Tyson, the anatomist, in 1699 dealt 

 boldly with the idea, and placed his chimpanzee upon a stair 

 above the monkey, and Man a stair higher than the chimpanzee, 

 and then to round off the whole he placed the angel on the step 

 next above. 



Charles Bonnet, in 1750, elaborated the idea to its utmost 

 and included all naturally occurring objects, animal, vegetable 

 and mineral, within this glorified echelle des etres. Charles 

 White of Manchester pubhshed it in 1799 under the guise of 

 " regular gradations." In his " gradations " Charles White 

 placed the negro definitely below the white man, and gave him 

 the position of a transition form between the monkey and the 

 European. For England this was to seal the fate of the work ; 

 for just at that time any attempt to lower the zoological posi- 

 tion of the negro was to run counter to the anti-slavery agita- 

 tions on behalf of the African, and White's book was a failure 

 so far as concerns the progress of thought. 



But in France the idea was destined to grow, and in its 

 growth it took on a newer phase. The French zoologists 

 recognised how Httle was the difference between two neigh- 

 bouring animals in the scale, how little was the modification 

 that marked one step above or one step below, how stable was 

 the underlying basal type, how infinitely subtle its minute 

 modifications. There was, as the phrase of the time had it, 

 " a unity in variety " not unlike the conception of Plato of 

 " a unity of design," and this trend of thought was crystalhsed 

 by the saying of ^fitienne Geoffrey that " philosophically there 

 is only a single animal." From France the idea returned 

 to England, and under the guidance of Robert Knox, the 



