378 SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



limits in its specific range, then suddenly expanded to the 

 widest. Man occupies the whole earth ; he is not only the 

 finishing stroke, but he excludes a successor. 



Consider, lastly, man's erect attitude. When the fish, the 

 earliest representative of the type which embraces man, 

 was introduced into the waters of the Devonian seas, the 

 vertebral axis was hung in a horizontal position, and the 

 animal was not endowed with even the power to raise the 

 head by bending the neck. Many of the Carboniferous 

 fishes acquired this power, but they remained suspended 

 in the element of lowest vital relations. The Triassic and 

 Jurassic Enaliosaurs, while they continued to inhabit the 

 water, breathed the air, and held the head habitually a lit- 

 tle elevated. The Crocodilians to these endowments added 

 the power to crawl upon the ground. The Deinosaurs of 

 the Cretaceous Age walked upon the land with the body 

 elevated above the ground, but the head remaining nearly 

 horizontal. The birds assumed an oblique position of the 

 spinal axis ; and most of the Tertiary mammals, which fol- 

 lowed them, could carry their attitudes from the horizontal 

 to the semi-erect. The higher monkeys lived normally in 

 a sub-erect position, but still supporting themselves by the 

 four extremities. Man first and alone assumed a perpen- 

 dicular attitude, and turned his countenance toward heav- 

 en, and talked with the Being who formed him. 



"Prona cum spectent animalia castera terrain, 

 Os homini sublime dedit ; coelumque tueri 

 Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus." 



It is evident no farther progress can be made in this di- 

 rection. The elevation of the spinal axis has reached a 

 mathematical limit ; the consummation of organic exalta- 

 tion is attained. 



These various considerations concur in justifying the as- 



