4 



Resemblance of Man 



investigation have had to be abandoned for their inaccuracies. 

 Newer and better methods have been adopted in their stead, 

 and the science is steaddy rising from an empirical to a scientific 

 platform. 



Its Method. — Comparison. 



Anthropology must begin by comparing man with the lowest 

 animals, or rather the lowest forms of life, be they animal or 

 vegetable. 



Evidence from tlie Stages of Development of the Hitman 

 Individual. 



The human animal, then, in common with the lowest organ- 

 isms, must originate in an ovum, or egg. In the compass of a 

 spherical bag, with semi-fluid contents, and measuring not more 

 than 120th of an inch in diameter, lies the elements of that 

 wonderful being, Man, the lord of creation ! 



The ovum, fertilised and supplied with nourishment, grows 

 or increases in bulk, and divides and subdivides its substance 

 into a mass of cellular tissue after the same manner as a plant. 

 The tissue at length, instinct with life, becomes depressed so as 

 to form a groove, the future seat of the spinal cord and brain. 

 The edges of this groove curl up, meet and unite, and the cerebro- 

 spinal tube is formed. The same happens on the other side of the 

 ovum — a tube becomes formed by the curving under of the rest of 

 the egg-tissue till they meet and unite. Thus the future animal 

 consists simply of a double tube. The walls of these tubes 

 originate next by an alteration of their character here and there, 

 called " differentiation," the various structures which they are 

 destined to enclose and protect, namely, the spinal cord and 

 brain in the posterior tube, and the heart, lungs, and abdominal 

 viscera in the front tube ; while the partition dividing the one 

 tube from the other is the seat of the bony structure which 

 distinguishes him as belonging to the category of vertebrate 

 animals. 



Without entering into all the minutiaj of development, it may 

 be stated that the various stages through which his frame passes 

 during embryonic development are remarkable for their analogy 

 to conditions of organisation at which animals lower in the scale 

 have been arrested. Thus, for example, his skeleton is first 

 fibrous, or cartilaginous, a condition which the lowest members 

 of the vertebrate kingdom never get beyond, namely, Amphioxus, 

 or the Lancelot, and the Lamprey. His brain gets sketched out 

 as theirs into three parts — fore-brain, mid-brain, and hind-brain. 

 His heart, also, like theirs, starts as a single chamber, or swell- 

 ing upon a tube. In his neck there are found apertures, or slits 



