A lecture on the red corpuscles of the blood of vertebrates : with some remarks on man's place in nature.

  • Gulliver, George, 1804-1882.
Date:
[1868]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture on the red corpuscles of the blood of vertebrates : with some remarks on man's place in nature. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    5/10 (page 45)
    I do not—we must perceive that no correct judgment of such questions can be hoped for without a due considera- tion of the entire evidence, in the light of the full and comprehensive truth ; and this includes the moral or psychological nature of man, as well as his mere structural or physical form. Thus considered in the light of the whole truth and nothing but the truth, we cannot avoid the conclusion that man is separated from the highest ape, as from all other brutes, by a gulf so utterly impassible, that any attempt to bridge it over by anatomical facts and speculations must ever he simply preposterous. In short, without questioning the sincerity, or truthful- ness so far as it goes, of those philosophers who confine their researches to this kind of materialism, we may cer- tainly conclude, as to “ Man’s position in Creation,” or “ Man’s place in Nature,” that it is exactly where he has always found himself, and where his Maker put him, Lord of Creation—“ with those thoughts that wander through eternity,”—at the head of all animated creatures, and elevated above the highest of them to an immeasurable extent. Nor shall we be led to any other opinion by the demonstration, now to be given, of the identity in structure between the red corpuscles of man and those of other mammalia. And so we may go on our way, rejoicing that a right pursuit of anatomical science will certainly lead us to “ look through nature up to nature’s God,” and as surely never afford the slightest proof that it is now, or ever was, any part of His design to develope an ape or any other beast into a man. After a description of the three well-known chief proxi- mate constituents of the blood, of which the red corpuscles form such a remarkable part, the lecturer remarked that it is usual in these inquiries to describe first the structure and then the function. But as the practical British mind ever meets one at the threshold with the question, “ What’s the the use of ’em,” we will mention this briefly now, and point