Translated From The French. The Unity Of The Human Race. This is one of a series of popular discourses given at the Imperial Asylum of Vincennes, France, by A. de Quatrefages, member of the Institute, and Professor of Natural Science. After some preliminary remarks to his audience, he proceeds to the question, What is man? "It is not difficult to perceive that man is neither a mineral nor a vegetable, neither a plant nor a stone. But is he an animal? Not likely, when we reflect upon all his attributes. "None of you would like to be compared to those animals who feed on grass, to the hog who wallows in the mire, nor to the dog, in whom man has found the qualities of both friend and companion; nor further, to the horse, though he were as celebrated as the famous Gladiator. "Man is not an animal. He is distinguished above the brute creation by numerous and important attributes. We have only to consider his intellectual capacity, the power of articulation, which gives to every people a special language, the capacity to write, which reproduces language; the aid of the fine arts, to explain and materialize the conceptions of his imagination. He is also distinguished above animals by two fundamental characters which belong solely to him. Man is the only organized and living being who has the abstract sentiment of both good and evil, the only being in whom there exists a moral sense, the only one who believes in a future state, and who recognizes the existence of beings superior to himself, having influence upon him for good or evil. It is this two-fold conviction which grasps and holds the great truths which are called religion. {68} "At a later period I will return to these two questions of morality and religion, not as a theologian, but as a naturalist. At present I limit myself to this fact, that man, however savage he may be, shows signs of morality and religion that are not found in any animal. Consequently, man is a being apart, separated from animals by two great distinctions which are his own, and also by his incontestable superiority. There the difference ceases. With regard to his body, man is nothing more or less than an animal. Apart from some differences of form and disposition, he is no more than equal to the superior animals that surround us. If we take for comparison those that assimilate to our general form, anatomy shows us that our organs are the same as theirs; we find in them muscle for muscle, nerve for nerve, that is found in man himself. Physiology, in turn, has demonstrated that, in the body of man, the organs, the muscles, the nerves, have the same animal functions.