and future Prospects. 5493 



with almost equal certainty, the male egg should precede the female ? 

 Anatomy shows us that varieties of forms in the interior structure of 

 man are exceedingly common, and yet that there is a law to which 

 Nature most generally adheres even in such varieties. Retrograde 

 developments, also — i.e. developments of inferior forms — are ex- 

 ceedingly common, perhaps most frequently in man ; and here it may 

 be worth while, before proceeding to higher considerations, to larger 

 generalizations, at least in the history of animal beings, to consider the 

 question of Man himself, and his relation to other animals. 



Is Man an episode in creation ? At first sight he seems to be so, 

 for he is the only animal directly antagonistic of all that lives, adverse 

 to his own interests. Now this includes nearly the entire of Nature's 

 grand scheme in the construction of the animal and vegetable world : 

 of the wild as it came from her hands he is the merciless antagonist. 

 But this great question has been treated of elsewhere, and, in so far as 

 we know, the view offered in that work has not been refuted. Of the 

 original species placed on the earth by Nature man selects those 

 adapted by their inherent nature to be useful to him. Sociability is 

 one of the more remarkable of the qualities these species exhibit, but 

 it is not the cause of domesticity, as some have supposed,* for vast 

 numbers of animals are sociable without being thereby domesticable; 

 all the antelopes, for example, the zebra and quagga, numerous species 

 and genera of birds, the seals and dolphins, and many others, all strictly 

 sociable, but not domesticable ; whilst of those he has succeeded in 

 domesticating only a few have admitted of those changes which 

 domestic slavery is assumed to occasion, namely, the formation of 

 breeds. The ass remains nearly unchanged, so does the camel and 

 the lama, the elephant and some others. His most remarkable con- 

 quests in this way are the ox, the horse and the dog; but the question 

 is still an open one, in how far the domestic breeds of these animals 

 are derived from one or from several distinct species. As man is 

 sociable and domestic, these qualities might be presumed deeply to 

 influence his character, to have effected alterations, aided by other 

 circumstances, on his physical structure and moral character; and if 

 the hypothesis be admitted that he is of one species, then all the 

 various forms he presents over the earth must be attributed to these 

 causes. Now the identity of human nature is a grand proposition, as 

 to which all great historians, statesmen and philosophers are agreed, 

 from Herodotus and Xenophon to Voltaire and Gibbon. But the same 

 may be said of most large natural families or genera, as of antelopes, 

 for example, and buffalos ; we do not, however, affirm from this only 

 that these genera are composed of a single species : on the other hand, 

 it has been remarked that all other species of animals have neighbours 

 or relations (" voisines ou de consanguines"), whilst man has not. 

 I know, however, of but one anatomist! who denies the existence of 

 any anthropomorphous apes, that is, who asserts that the supposed 

 resemblance between man and apes arises merely from an incorrect 



* Fleurens. \ Myself. 



