The Mammalia are also warm-blooded and breathe through lungs; but
they differ from all other Vertebrates in their mode of reproduction,
bringing forth living young which they nurse with milk. Even in the
lowest members of this highest group of the Vertebrates, at the head
of which stands Man himself, looking heavenward it is true, but
nevertheless rooted deeply in the Animal Kingdom, we have the dawning
of those family relations, those intimate ties between parents and
children, on which the whole social organization of the human race is
based. Man is the crowning work of God on earth; but though so nobly
endowed, we must not forget that we are the lofty children of a race
whose lowest forms lie prostrate within the water, having no higher
aspiration than the desire for food; and we cannot understand the
possible degradation and moral wretchedness of Man, without knowing that
his physical nature is rooted in all the material characteristics that
belong to his type and link him even with the Fish. The moral and
intellectual gifts that distinguish him from them are his to use or to
abuse; he may, if he will, abjure his better nature and be _Vertebrate_
more than Man. He may sink as low as the lowest of his type, or he may
rise to a spiritual height that will make that which distinguishes him
from the rest far more the controlling element of his being than that
which unites him with them.
Pages:
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209