W. B. DWIGHT. 143-(113) 



actually superior to the refined anatomy of the wonder- 

 ful foot of man, adapted for use on every variety of sur- 

 face, which he may be disposed to tread, or to climb ? As 

 for the geological argument derived from the fact that 

 the plantigrade type was prevalent at an earlier age than 

 the digitigrade, this is one of the cases, above alluded to, 

 where the reasoning from geological history must be used 

 with much caution. As has already been shown, special- 

 ization may be carried so far as to degrade. When the 

 types of plantigrade feet, or of tuberculated teeth were 

 reached, it may well be, that these constituted the high- 

 est types, and that all specialization beyond this, as that 

 of lifting the heel into the air, has been a specialization 

 which did not elevate, but lowered the type. 



There is, however, a point which has an important 

 bearing on the value of the disparaging views of man's 

 grade above quoted. Such views are narrowly technical 

 and zoological, and physical. They ignore entirely the 

 psychological nature of man. They are thus not de- 

 rived from the study of man as a whole. They take but 

 a small and inferior .part of him, and on this fragmen- 

 tary evidence a verdict is declared, in entire disregard 

 of the organic and vital connection of this part with the 

 other. Man is a complex being. He is made up of phy- 

 sical, and also of very high and dominating moral and 

 intellectual powers with which the physical part is, in 

 this life, inextricably woven. Zoologists have elected 

 to restrict their professional study to the physical and 

 material alone. This is their special and only field ; 

 they decline to consider the higher nature of man since 

 that is psychology and not zoology nor biology. 



Now this is without doubt, for the most part, a neces- 

 sary and proper division of scientific work. The field is 

 so vast, that for any effective work, in the study of 

 facts, it must be divided up among specialists limited to 

 a narrow field. This is perfectly legitimate : but, when 

 such a specialist undertakes to decide the larger phil- 

 osophical questions affecting that subject as a icliole, of 

 which he is looking at only a part, then he is using his 

 restricted field in an unwarranted way. and is more 

 likely to reach error than truth. This tendency is grow- 

 ing, in all modern fields of special study, for a specialist 

 to undertake to philosophize and generalize from facts 



