Page:The Negro a menace to American civilization.djvu/23

Rh Hominidæ as quoted above from the Century Dictionary. So far as man's place in nature is concerned, it epitomizes the case as stated by anatomists the world over for the last half-century or more. It obviates the necessity of my pointing out what Sir Richard Owen has said on the subject, or Professor Huxley, or Darwin, or Gegenbaur, or hundreds of other biologists who have personally and exhaustively examined for years the material upon which such an opinion is based. It puts man and mankind squarely in the group Mammalia where he belongs, and classifies him accordingly. His speech, his civilization (whatever that may mean), and his present progress (if in reality man is progressing mentally, morally and physically) and all that separates him from any other animal in general, and from the higher apes in particular. Anatomically, structurally, he is no better fitted to do what he is doing in the world, than is the gorilla in the forests of darkest Africa physically qualified to lead its particular life. Furthermore, man is subject to the same diseases and injuries that the simians are, or even in some cases the mammals below them. He will eat and live upon anything that any other animal will eat, be it cooked or uncooked. He is insectivorous, carnivorous — indeed, omnivorous. He will thrive upon insects, snails, corn, the slain animals, young and old, of other genera than his own, as well as those of his own species. His young are born just as the young of many other mammals are, and for many weeks, in utero, they cannot be with certainty distinguished from fœtal gorillas. In fact, and taken as a whole, man's reproduction, from the time he courts the female, until the time the young shift for