WILL THE BE BE AN ANIMAL SUPEBIOB TO MAN? 375 



to the main bodies of land. In the glacial epoch, however, 

 a phenomenon occurred which, so far as we know, was un- 

 precedented in its universality. The whole northern por- 

 tion of both continents was covered by glaciers, whose ef- 

 fects were felt in America to the Ohio River, and whose 

 debris were borne, in the next epoch, to the Gulf of Mexico. 

 This sudden extension of the range of geological activity 

 was something paralleled by the release of the human spe- 

 cies from those restraints which confined all preceding an- 

 imals within narrow limits, and constituted, like that, an 

 indication that a full pause had been reached in continent- 

 al preparations — as when the* sculptor, after having devel- 

 oped singly, with time and care, the individual features 

 of his work, subjects it finally to that general treatment 

 which imparts the smooth and finished surface. 



Lastly, it may be added that vertebrate development 

 both points toward man and attains its consummation in 

 man. The earliest fish which moved in the waters of the 

 Paleozoic seas embodied, in its osteological organization, a 

 prophecy of man ; the Mesozoic reptile still pointed onward 

 toward man ; the Tertiary monkeys were a higher summit 

 of vertebrate organization from which the yet higher Alp 

 of human structure was still pointed to, illumined by the 

 rising dawn of the modern world. In the skeleton of man 

 we have, at last, the fulfillment of the prophecies of ages. 



Man stands in the focus of all the conceptions embodied 

 in past history. We are as little authorized to allow that 

 the course of development is destined to advance beyond 

 him, as to deny that it has furnished intimations, in all 

 ages, that it was destined to reach to him. 



Consider, in the second place, man's superiority over the 

 brutes. Among the myriads of animals which populated 

 the earth during the cycles of geological history, suprem- 

 acy was the reward only of superior force. Man gains su- 



