Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/750

732  type; the whole brain only weighed sixteen ounces. The internal organs in man, although not subject to great variations, still are sometimes found abnormal. The liver may be divided into a number of lobes, as is seen in the gorilla. This is called a degraded liver. The spleen is often deeply notched and multiple, as in the case in some of the lower animals, and the uterus is occasionally double; an arrangement which is the normal one in the mare, raccoon, rabbit, and other animals. It is double in the human foetus up to the fourth month, and frequently a trace of this bifid condition is seen in adult life.

I could multiply, ad infinitum the variations in human anatomy which have their corresponding normal condition in the lower animals, but I think I have described a sufficient number of examples to show how common these animal resemblances are in man. On what theory can we account for their existence, except that they are reversions to some pre-existing and lower type? This is the only logical conclusion to which the study of morphology leads us, and "to take any other view," says Darwin, "is to admit that our own structure and that of all the animals around us is a mere snare laid to entrap our judgment."



DO not plead guilty to taking a shallow view of human nature, when I propose to apply, as it were, a foot-rule to its heights and depths. The powers of man are finite, and if finite they are not too large for measurement. Those persons may justly be accused of shallowness of view who do not discriminate a wide range of differences, but quickly lose all sense of proportion, and rave about infinite heights and unfathomable depths, and use such like expressions, which are not true and betray their incapacity. Examiners are not, I believe, much stricken with the sense of awe and infinitude when they apply their foot-rules to the intellectual performances of the candidates whom they examine; neither do I see any reason why we should be awed at the thought of examining our fellow-creatures as best we may in respect to other faculties than intellect. On the contrary, I think it anomalous that the art of measuring intellectual faculties should have become highly developed, while that of dealing with other qualities should have been little practiced or even considered.

The use of measuring man in his entirety is to be justified by exactly the same arguments as those by which any special examinations are justified, such as those in classics or mathematics; namely, that every measurement tests, in some particulars, the adequacy of the previous education, and contributes to show the efficiency of the man 