significance; on the other, things are according to their origin, differentiated only by the fortuitous inclination of a balance which has honoured some in relation to circumstance, while leaving others to take inferior rank. The difficulty The difficulty in substantiating the latter position, which is the favoured one of science, is no trifling one, in view of the fact that the secret of the origination of life is as yet as closely hidden within the mystical region of the unknown, even to the priests within the very shrine of science, as is that margin of the unverifiable, which the thoughtful and earnest man is scorned for occupying by a rational faith rather than by a defiant agnosticism.

Are the many relations of man to the animals to be slightly regarded, in order that the one relation of physical organisation shall be made prominent? Are a host of "great broad facts to pass for nothing, simply because the horse," a faithful humble companion, much nearer than a mocking mimic, " does not ape man in external appearance? Is the harmony they imply between man and the domestic animals, the harmony of use and variety, to be overlooked by the scientific naturalist because it puts him out of those first leading strings of the human mind, similarities of form? If it be so, he must continue for ever to be a dictionary-maker, and an order of men must be instituted for the investigation of nature."

"The mental qualities of the domestic animals show precisely the same thing as their natural groupings. In them alone do we recognise an analogy with the highest qualities of the human mind. All animals, indeed, manifest peculiar faculties, tending to self-preservation and to the perpetuation of their species; and some,

as the monkey, alternately amuse and disgust us by their cleverness, cunning, and perverse limitations. But the domestic animals, properly so called, have one distinguishing trait, the power of yielding obedience to a being higher than themselves, which power practically is the representation of wisdom. Such a power no animal can exhibit which is not either domesticated or domesticable."

With regard to this matter of domestication, however, the argument seems to lose reference to the matter of man's inherent relation to the animal world, when we consider that animals have little personal relation to man unless he makes it. Perhaps the robinredbreast shows a tendency to domestic attachments-no doubt in great part inherited-but certainly no wild horse or elephant seeks domestication. He must first be bribed and cajoled by man's intellect, so immeasurably removed from his own as regards quality, or must be entrapped by that puny master whose power to the animal intelligence, were it gifted with analysis, must seem nothing short of magical.

What purpose any animal has in himself, out of relation to man, is as great a problem of creation as are the destiny and status of man himself, and the meaning of his life. But animals must have some purpose on their own plane, and out of reference to ours. Countless myriads of creatures live out their busy life in the ocean depths, with such idiosyncracy that no stretch of fancy can connect their life in any way with man's. They are even outside the beautiful Adamite picture of man's replenishing the earth and subduing it. How shall man subdue a million-million invisibles at the bottom of the sea? In this aspect man is scarcely even the crown of

the animal kingdom-he is out of relation with it. Man is only in part within that kingdom after all. He is the prince, but not the absolute king; not the true monarch who works invisibly, holding his domain even within the smallest atomic entity of his universe.

We shall have to come back to the old idea of a plan in creation, and rest in some kind of faith in the old childlike way, which is after all more like the world's highest and most poetical ideal, than is the new arrogance. An unseen hand holds the balance, and stops the rude haste even of the favoured scions of natural selection. As Professor Bowen observes in the North American Review for November, 1879: "The anthropoid apes are assumed to be highly developed species of monkeys, but they certainly seem to have gained no advantage in the battle of life over their lower competitors competitors through their superior organisation, but rather to have lost ground in the struggle, since they are relatively so inferior in numbers that they appear to be in some danger of extinction. Through being more prolific, less dainty in feeding, and abler to support changes of climate and other altered conditions of life, the monkeys evidently have the better chance of survival. But the higher apes certainly will not be crowded out of life merely by the greater numbers of those below them, since they are abundantly able to protect themselves against such encroachment. Here, again, the balance of opposing tendencies seems to keep the relative numbers in the competing species within definite limits, without permitting the complete triumph of either party. In many cases the existence and the greater fecundity of the inferior races is a condition of the survival of those above them, who are thus supplied with their neces

sary food. Thus the carnivora of Central Africa are more developed and more tenacious of life than the herbivorous animals on which they prey; the latter are thus prevented from multiplying unduly, though their entire extinction, of course, would be fatal even to their antagonists."

As the plan and purpose of human life differs so essentially from that of any animal group whatever, may we not fairly conclude that the physiological resemblances mark the point at which we most nearly touch the animal world? Man has come into nature; there must be therefore a point of contact between the form he takes, and some form in Nature's repertory. He owes parentage to God, the ape to Nature, who is a servant only, and only nurse to man. Two lumps of clay, though one may contain within it a jewel of gold, the other a jewel of silver, will, if brought sharply into contact from opposite points, show very similar surfaces on the planes of contact. Here is an animal form, close to it is a form which has been converted to different purposes, and drawn to a different plane. The animals may be made into friends by man, but they are not relations. Their souls belong to a different sphere of life and activity. God is man's true relation; Nature his friend, not his relation, save in part, and for a time. The laws which the highest of brute animals follow are essentially different from ours, being infinitely simpler. Man has qualities which so inordinately transcend the machinery of life's daily detail-all-sufficient as it is for the brute-that it becomes a rational necessity to predicate for humanity a future, either by an indefinite transfiguration of earth to the level of his need, or by a prolongation of the life of the individual under

circumstances more plastic and sublimated. As civilised man has his circle, where the actors who amuse and excite form a separate class, so in all spheres may be one department devoted to sheer imitation and amusement. In nature's sphere the chattering ape is the low comedian, representing the jocose side of nature's heart; the singing bird, to carry out the allusion, is the representative of joy, a more lofty religious quality.

To conclude such unscientific speculation, what is the lowest and

most brutal man, as compared with the highest anthropoid ape? They have no resemblance. The ape is perfect after his kind; the man is an emptiness, a region which the neglectful soul is not governing aright. He must be judged, and indeed judges himself, in spiritual struggles of what we may vaguely know as thousands of years. To judge him by one small visible fragment of his career taken in isolation, is to estimate him inadequately, and therefore judge unfairly.

K. C.