144-(114) GRADATION IF ANIMAL LIFE. 



drawn from his special part of a subject, regardless of 

 its essential and organic dependence on the facts per- 

 taining to other parts of the same general subject. 



Applying these remarks to the point under discussion. 

 In man the moral and intellectual faculties dominate, 

 and have required for their due exercise and predomin- ( 

 ance, certain modifications in the physical organism. — 

 His psychological and his physical nature are so inex- 

 tricably interwoven, that while one may very judiciously 

 be studied separately from the other, none of the higher 

 philosophical questions concerning man can be worthily 

 discussed which are not based on the study of man as a 

 whole, including his psychological, as well as his phy- 

 sical being. It follows that the restricted zoological 

 sense in which the views of man's rank have been for- 

 mulated, implies so fragmentary and partial a basis of 

 comparison, that it is, to say the least, unsafe. 



Let me illustrate this point more specifically. In the 

 narrow, zoological views of grade, man has been said to 

 rank low in so far as he is plantigrade, remembering 

 that this type is also associated with more or less her- 

 bivorous habits implying tuberculated teeth. 



Now when the higher psychological, and teleological 

 conditions are considered, i. e., when the reasons for 

 this structure are considered, is it always certain that an 

 animal which stands on the tips of its toes ranks higher, 

 as zoologists affirm, than one who stands on the flat of its 

 foot ? Would man, taking him as a w7wle, really rank 

 higher if he could walk on the tips of his toes, or still 

 higher, if like a horse he could stand only on one toe \ 



Why is man plantigrade \ I answer, Because his very 

 eminence as the most cephalized, only erect being, make 

 it necessary, since he stands on two feet alone, that the 

 heel should be firmly planted on the ground, i. e. planti- 

 grade. I fail to see how this arrangement, contrived ex- 

 pressly to secure him the most noble, erect position, can 

 be a degradation. 



Again as to the fact that the senses in man have seemed 

 to have come to a stand-still in their progressive develop- 

 ment at a lower point than those of many brutes in whom 

 the specialization has continued much farther. Is this 

 really degradation \ No, for it is a teleological arrange- 

 ment fitted to his higher intellectual capacity. A dog is 



