Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/465

 PHILOSOPHICAL BIOLOGY 459

in this very matter of the factual and logical^ t. e., the objective and snbjective relation of the attributes or traits of organisms to one an- other and to the whole.

We now return to the problem of defining the word man. By the time any normal child is four or five years old he is in possession of the raw materials of a fairly comprehensive and entirely reliable des- cription^ a less extensive^ but still unequivocal, definition^ and the first of the essentials of a classification of man. He positively knows some of the attributes which distinguish a man from a house or a rock; some of those which distinguish him from a tree; probably some of those which distinguish him from a fly; probably^ too, some of those which distinguish him fiom a chicken; and almost certainly some of those which distinguish him from a dog, a cat, a cow, and a horse. In a word, he has the raw material for the synoptic description and classification of man; that is, for the synoptic meaning of the word man.

Attention should here be called to the fact that the synoptic classi- fication of man as elementary biological instruction presents it is apt to be slighted at its two ends. Too frequently, the beginning is made with:

Kingdom, Animdlf and runs on:

Province, Metazoa.

Phylum, Vertebrata.

Glass, Mammalia.

Order, Primates.

Genus, Homo. . . and ends with

Species, Sapiens.

The point of criticism is that the super kingdom, the Empire (if our terminology must retain its ancient monarchic coloring), is not constantly enough included at the broad end; and at the narrow end the subspecies or variety is more frequently slighted than it ought to be; and from the very apex the individual is almost entirely ignored.

^^ Empire, Living Being, or Orgainsm, or Bios^^ ought to be always included as the logician's genus generalissimum; and, at the other end, " Individual, Eleanor, Ezra,'' etc., ought to be always included as the logician's species specialissima, or infirma species.

The synoptic description, definition and classification of man would then be : any natural body which is multicellular has a vertebral column, suckles its young, habitually walks erect on its hind limbs and uses its fore limbs for prehension, and talks rationally. And this is, too, both a biological and a logical meaning of the word man.

It is desirable to raise the question at this point as to the differ- ence between the biological and the logical meaning of the term man. The kernel of the difference seems to me statable thus: The briefest possible biological meaning of the word spreads it out, as one might say, evenly over the whole living world, while the briefest possible

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