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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 August 2010
After traversing the whole Animal Kingdom from its very lowest grades, and having arrived at Man, who confessedly stands at the head, and is the only visible king and lord of all the rest, it will be expected that I should devote a few pages to the world's master.
Baron Cuvier, with great propriety, places him by himself in a separate Order, distinguished from that which succeeds it, in his system, by the significant appellation of Bimane, indicating that his two hands are the instruments by which he subdues and governs the planet that he inhabits; by which also he is enabled to embody his conceptions, and, as it were, to convert his thoughts into material subsistences.
I shall consider him both physically and metaphysically; physically, as to his actual position, and as to his action upon his subjects and property, whether vegetable or animal; and metaphysically as to his connection with that world, to which his mind or spirit belongs. When I say that Man stands at the head of the creation, I do not mean to affirm that he combines in himself every physical attribute in perfection that is found in all the animals below him; for it is manifest to every one, that many of them far exceed him in the perfection of many of their organs, and in their qualities of various kinds.
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