an from the apes and other
primates. Human nature is animal nature, and human structure is animal
structure, for nowhere can final and absolute differences be found. This
does not mean that no differences appear, for it would be absurd to
contend that man and the apes are identical in every respect; but it does
mean that the resemblances are fundamental and comprehensive, and any
details of dissimilarity are in the degree of complexity only. The supreme
place in nature attained by man is therefore due to progressive evolution
in the nervous system. The other systems have degenerated to a greater or
less degree, but such regressive changes are more than compensated for by
the superior control exerted by the improved brain. In purely physical and
mechanical respects, the human body is a degenerate as compared with a
gorilla; the arm of the latter is more powerful than the lower limb of the
former, while the gorilla's chest is more than twice as broad as the
human, and more than four times as capacious. It is not through superior
physique, but by superior ability to direct the activities of his body,
that man excels in the struggle for existence with the lower animals.

* * * * *

Moreover, the human body is a veritable museum of rare and interesting
relics of antiquity. This characterization is justified by those vestigial
and rudimentary structures that represent organs of value to human
relatives among the lower animals, though they play a less active part at
the present time in human economy. There is scarcely a single system that
does not exhibit many or fewer of these rudimentary structures, but only a
few need be specified. As compared with those of the apes, the human
wisdom teeth are degenerate; in the gorilla they are cut at the same time
as the other molars; and in the lower human races they come through the
gums in early youth, while in the more advanced Caucasic races they are
cut only in later life or not at all. The reduced vermiform appendix of
man, a source of much ill health, is another structure that is a
counterpart of a relatively larger and useful part of the digestive tract
in the lower primates and other animals. Furthermore, the human tail is a
reality, not a fiction. Now and then an individual is born with a tail
that may reach a length in later life of eight or ten inches; such
structures are, of course, abnormal. But in every normal human being there
is a series of