THE PRINCIPLES OP RANK AMONG ANIMALS. 



25 



be noted that among birds the order Grallatores, for example, 

 is of a pronounced type, but depends on nakedness of leg 

 and proportion of parts ; " it does not appear susceptible," 

 says the leading American ornithologist (Dr. Coues), ''of 

 further, or any very exact definition." Indeed, he speaks of 

 the great primary division of birds into Aerial, Terrestrial, and 

 Aquatic, as "a broad generalization upon the sum total of all 

 the exhibitions that recent birds make in their modes of 

 life"; the three sub-classes are "insusceptible of definition 

 by characters of more than the slightest morphological 

 importance." Why, then, the effort to abolish the classifi- 

 catory gulf between man and the apes, unless it be a fashion 

 and preconception that will not take all the facts and 

 principles into view? He may even agree with them "bone 

 for bone and muscle for muscle," but his plan of life, use of 

 organs, and ideal of type, are as diverse as a thrush from an 

 auk, to say the least. It does not hinder, but rather helps 

 the argument, that savages live a brute life. The naturalist 

 must take the best representatives of a species and as they 

 are, howsoever they reached their degree of physical or 

 other perfection. Origin is a matter aside, and no theory of 

 it, unless it be weak, requires a confusion of distinctions. It 

 may be added, incidentally, that the ideal, as in typical bird, 

 fish or insect, is recognized in classification just as much as 

 thirty or a hundred years ago. 



4. Variety and development of tissues and organs are 

 plainly among the prime criteria of rank. Differentiation is 

 a great law of progress, — with the qualification here that, if 

 the total individual, man or honey-bee, is specialized for the 

 sake of the community, "the individual withers and the 

 world is more and more." As it concerns man's place in 

 nature, his great mass of brain is measurable, and his delicacy 

 of feature and hand, adapted to human functions, is ob- 

 servable. There has been an effort to refer his superiority 

 almost wholly to the acquirement of articulate speech. But, 

 taking natural science on its own ground, there must be in 

 the organic as in the inorganic a vast amount of structure 

 beyond the reach of microscope; and, taking materialism 

 on its own ground, there must be some great differences of 

 occult organization to account for non-attainment by the 

 anthropoids of that mighty instrument of progress, language 

 proper, and the rationality it implies. The crypto-anatomy, 

 if matter be all, must have peculiarities of more importance 

 than likeness in the gi'oss or the micro-anatomy. If matter 



