THE PRINCIPLES OP RANK AMONG ANIMALS. 



27 



point by the greater numerical proportion of limbs set off 

 from head-service to locomotion, from man clown to crusta- 

 ceans. In the same way there is a descent of grade from 

 the vertical face of man, first by a leap to the prognathous 

 anthropoids, then through the typical short-jawed carnivores 

 and the long-jawed herbivores, reaching an extreme in 

 whales and the hairy ant-eaters. It is obvious that man 

 stands alone in perfect cephalization. 



8. Kank has a relation to food. The limbs of the true 

 flesli-eaters must assist the jaws in securing and holding 

 prey, notably in the typical feline family. Fru'ther, the 

 nervous system and active muscles must be more developed, 

 for the capture of prey. Moreover, animal food is more 

 stimulating, more concentrated ; there is none of the con- 

 stant low work of feeding on vegetation, nor a corresponding 

 predominance of the digestive system and work, consumptive 

 of energy. Fruits, except the pulpy, are also concentrated 

 food, but in a less degree. The quadrumana are frugi- 

 vorous, and they use their fore-hands in eating ; but so do 

 squirrels, more deftly, and sitting erect. Man as omnivorous, 

 is quite apart from the creatures next below him. At first 

 glance he might seem to sink to a parallelism with omnivorous 

 rats and swine ; but he rises above all in the scale, not only 

 as the "cooking animal," but as one with a sovereign mind 

 to intellectualize all flavours and savours, while his body 

 royally appropriates all edible good. 



9. Comparative hugeness of size, an accompaniment usually 

 of huge eating, has been remarked as a sign of low grade, 

 with more or less exception ; it is rather a frequent con- 

 comitant than strictly a criterion. The Paradoxical frog of 

 South America in its larval stage is five times the size of 

 the adult ; and some marked decrease is not imcommon in 

 passing from the lower larval condition. The enormous 

 monsters of the prime were not high in the scale ; and the 

 bulkiest creature of the deep, now, is a degraded mammal. 

 The giants of tradition were gross. Even the huge crystal 

 is coarse and impure. In art the Herculean human figure 

 is represented with no great cephalic development. Man's 

 compactness and delicacy of organization agree with his 

 mental supremacy, and remove him far from that ogre of 

 big bony ridges and all-crushing muscle, the highest ape. 



10. Kate of growth comes in here, both prenatal and 

 postnatal, and as connected with the amount of parental 

 skill and care required. Ill weeds grow apace ; solid wood 



