142-(112) GEADATIOIST in ANIMAL lite. 



Solomon in all his glory could not have, witnessed in 

 his palace-halls such an array of personal magnificence 

 as may be seen in our modern saloons, simply because he 

 had not made the acquaintance of a certain degraded 

 worm which now confers fortunes upon an army of silk 

 merchants, and makes the most brilliant robe for woman- 

 kind. 



My last point comes nearer home. How is the rank 

 of man affected by these modern views ? The ten- 

 dency of recent biological study is certainly to assign to 

 man's nature as an animal, — to his physical frame, in 

 some respects, a lower position than the highest among 

 animals. He is inferior to the dog and many other 

 mammals in scent. The eagle and carrion-vulture sur- 

 pass him much in keenness of vision ; the owl and the 

 lynx in hearing, and the ostrich in digestive powers. 

 Then he is decidedly primitive and old-fashioned in sev- 

 eral points of his organism. He belongs to a type that 

 stopped progressing, ages ago, in geological history, while 

 other types had been improving by specialization. That 

 you may realize that I am not misrepresenting the posi- 

 tion of biologists, I quote from among many passages of 

 high authority the following words of Prof. Cope, of 

 Philadelphia. He says : "Man is plantigrade, has five 

 toes, separate carpals and tarsals, a short heel, and 

 rather flat astralagus, and neither hoofs nor claws, but 

 something between the two. In his teeth, his character 

 is thoroughly primitive. He possesses, in fact, the orig- 

 inal quadri-tuberculate molar, with but little modifica- 

 tion. His structural superiority consists solely in the 

 complexity and size of the brain." 



Prof. Packard says : "Man's limbs are of the primi- 

 tive type so common in the eocene period." 



With all respect for the opinions of these, and other 

 eminent zoologists, and with all desire to exercise due 

 deference for their judgment, I find it impossible to ac- 

 cept these views, at least, to the full extent of their 

 apparent meaning. Is there not some flaw in a judgment 

 which assigns a low rank to a plantigrade anatomy of the 

 foot, when it requires us actually to believe such an ab- 

 surdit}^ as that the stiff, unwieldly hoof of the horse, 

 adapted to but one limited condition of walking-sur- 

 face, and the rapacious claws of the beast of prey, are 



