218 THE STRUCTURE OF MAN 
great opposition. It was not accomplished without a struggle, in 
which every inch of the already occupied territory had to be 
painfully fought for; and the extraordinary tenacity with which 
certain favourable positions once attained are clung to, is seen in 
the fact that some of them are still taken up by the organism 
as dim reminiscences of the past, perhaps only during fcetal life. 
These ancient ancestral pictures,—for such indeed they are—are 
eloquent witnesses of a time long since past. They keep our 
vision clear, when we have, as in this present case, to be impartial 
judges of ourselves. | is 
As Testut appropriately says: Let us not unjustly reproach 
anatomists with lowering Man, with drawing him down from his 
high position: it is true that Anatomy does rank Man in the 
class of the Mammalia, but it places him in the highest order 
of that class, that of the Primates; and although it cannot 
entirely separate him from these, it gives him the highest possible 
position among them. Anatomy not only makes Man the most 
perfect of Primates, but also proclaims him first of the foremost 
of all living beings.’ As Broca has said: “That may well suffice 
for his ambition and his glory.” I cannot do better than 
conclude with the following words of the last-named author, which 
are no less worthy of consideration :—“ Pride, which is one of the 
most characteristic traits of our nature, has in many minds 
prevailed over the calm testimony of reason. Like those Roman 
Emperors who, intoxicated with their universal power, ended by 
denying their manhood, and by believing themselves to be 
demigods, so the king of our planet pleases himself with the 
thought that the nature of the vile animal which is subject to 
his caprices cannot have anything in common with his own. 
The proximity of the monkey is to him inconvenient; he is no 
longer satisfied to be the king of animals, he desires that an 
immense unfathomable abyss should separate him from his 
subjects; and, sometimes, turning his back on the earth, he takes 
refuge, with his endangered majesty, in the nebulous sphere of the 
Reign of Man. But Anatomy, like that slave who followed the 
triumphal car, repeating the words ‘Memento te hominem esse, 
comes to agitate him in this self-admiration, and reminds him 
that reality, visible and tangible, links him with the animals.” 
1 [Cf., however, Minot, ‘‘Is Man the Highest Animal” ?— Proc. Americ. Assoc. 
for the Advancement of Science, 1881, p. 240.] - 
