TAILS 
HE late Richard Jefferies once defined man 
as “an animal with arms.” The definition, 
so far as it goes, is a good one, for it is to his 
arms, quite as much as to his superior brain, 
that man owes his present supreme position at the head 
of animal creation. 
So much has been written regarding the large brain 
of man that the other factor which has contributed to 
his triumph is in danger of being utterly neglected. 
The arms and brain of man are the two physical 
necessities to him as a species; take away either, and 
he becomes something else. To endeavour to decide 
which of the two organs is the more useful would be as 
futile as to attempt to prove that the right wheel is 
more essential to a dog-cart than the left. 
Consider what a helpless creature man would be 
were his arms replaced by a second pair of legs. We 
human beings would still be dwellers in caves, living in 
terror of the lion, the tiger, the wolf, and the wild boar. 
On the other hand, arms, without a suitable brain, will 
not make a man; for monkeys have arms. 
Since the rest of the animals do not possess these 
organs, they must be very helpless creatures as com- 
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