in the struggle for survival. The only vertical mammal at last succeeded
in standing erect--man. The upright position freed him from the
necessity of using his hands as means of support in walking; he was
able, therefore, to oppose the thumb to the other four fingers, to seize
hold of objects and to fashion tools; and it is well known that the
hands are great promoters of the intelligence. This same position gave
to the lungs, trachea, larynx, and mouth an aptness for the production
of articulate speech, and speech is intelligence. Moreover, this
position, causing the head to weigh vertically upon the trunk,
facilitated its development and increase of weight, and the head is the
seat of the mind. But as this necessitated greater strength and
resistance in the bones of the pelvis than in those of species whose
head and trunk rest upon all four extremities, the burden fell upon
woman, the author of the Fall according to Genesis, of bringing forth
larger-headed offspring through a harder framework of bone. And Jahwé
condemned her, for having sinned, to bring forth her children in sorrow.

The gorilla, the chimpanzee, the orang-outang, and their kind, must look
upon man as a feeble and infirm animal, whose strange custom it is to
store up his dead. Wherefore?

And this primary disease and all subsequent diseases--are they not
perhaps the capital element of progress? Arthritis, for example, infects
the blood and introduces into it scoriæ, a kind of refuse, of an
imperfect organic combustion; but may not this very impurity happen to
make the blood more stimulative? May not this impure blood promote a
more active cerebration precisely because it is impure? Water that is
chemically pure is undrinkable. And may not also blood that is
physiologically pure be unfit for the brain of the vertical mammal that
has to live by thought?