WILL THERE BE AN ANIMAL SUPERIOR TO MAN? sll 



that the column of organic succession is complete in man. 

 The lower forms, gradually and regularly ascending from 

 base to summit, constitute the shaft of the column ; but in 

 man we have a sudden expansion, an ornateness of finish, 

 an incorporation of new ideas, which designate him as the 

 capital and completion of the grand column of organic ex- 

 istence. 



Consider, in the third place, man's unlimited geograph- 

 ical range. When the first animals were introduced upon 

 the earth, they found the ocean encompassing it on every 

 side, and creating a uniformity of physical conditions which 

 enabled them to range through every latitude and longi- 

 tude. In later ages, as the continents, with their mountain 

 ranges, became differentiated from the terrestrial mass, and 

 diverse climates were called into existence, we find that 

 animals were restricted to successively narrower limits. 

 Not only did the growing differentiation of the different 

 regions of the earth lead toward the restriction of the 

 faunas, but there is something in higher organisms them- 

 selves which specializes them in their adaptations, and un- 

 fits them for so wide a range, even with external conditions 

 unchanged. Thus, as animal life advanced upward, it be- 

 came more narrowed in the range of its species. The spe- 

 cies in possession of the earth immediately previous to man 

 were more restricted than any of their predecessors. It 

 would certainly be expected from all these analogies that 

 man, on his appearance, would be limited to the narrowest 

 bounds of all. What is the fact? Man overleaps all bar- 

 riers. Climates, mountains, oceans, deserts, form no imped- 

 iments to his migration. He, the first of all animals, has 

 literally extended over the whole earth, and fulfilled the 

 command to take possession, to use, and to enjoy. What 

 does this signify, if not that man is the completion of the 

 series ? Animal existence, first narrowed to the smallest 



