Here, without any doubt, man is indeed the first of the organisms, when one tries to place in linear series all those which move on our planet. It is, also, not his relative position in the living world that it is difficult to discover; it is what we may call his true place. What is, in other terms, the value of the differences which separate man from other mammalia? and at what distance is he from the animal that immediately follows him in this linear series which we are supposing? To examine what man is with respect to the highest orders of mammalia, and in a more general manner, to animals, is the primordial question which presents itself in anthropology. It seems at first sight that it would suffice, in order to settle it, to throw a glance on this complete body, formed of the same anatomical elements, absolutely submitted to the same exigences of development, nutrition, and reproduction, as animals. Ought not all this to make us think that we were not altogether made of so immaterial a substance as the philosophers have generally been satisfied to believe? This has not been the case. Two systems—two theories, are before us. The one pretends that man is but the first among animals, that he issimilar to them in the clear and precise sense in which this term is taken in geometry, designing qualities, which may differ ad infinitum, but which still may be comparable. Another system, supported by the most illustrious names, makes of man a sort of special entity, differing from other organised beings by the distinct and clear nature of his intelligence. It is an opinion adopted and defended to the last by a learned man, to whose memory we cannot, en passant, prevent ourselves from rendering the homage which is his due, Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. We find in the second volume of his Histoire Naturelle Générale, almost a return to Cartesian ideas. According to him animals do not think, they possess only that sensibility that plants have not. And the celebrated naturalist agreed with the adoption of a human kingdom, appearing as the crowning-point of the organic and inorganic kingdoms, and as distinct from the second as this is from the third. Before proceeding further, we may be permitted to make one preliminary remark. We may thus declare it:— Proposition.—Man nearly approaches the Anthropomorphous Apes in his Physical Organism. Whether one is a partisan or not of the “Human Kingdom,” this resemblance is a fact which it will be in no person’s ideas to contest. And it is not merely in the external forms; we find it even greater if, going to the foundation of the facts, we give our attention to the essential parts composing the body,—to the anatomical elements,—to those delicate particles visible only in the microscope, and which always show, among animals of the same group, a marvellous uniformity. It is here where, if not an impossibility, at least a sort of contradiction presents itself to the defenders of the “human kingdom;” for there are two organisms, scarcely different, at the service of two directing powers, of two intelligences absolutely and radically dissimilar. Doubtless all the forces of organised matter are not known to us, but does not this resemblance, though even a superficial one, surprise us; and does it not seem that every organism constituted directly by reason of the influences which it is qualified to receive or to transmit, ought to vary like these influences, and in the same proportion? It is very easy to admit that there is more distance between the intelligence of man and that of the anthropomorphous apes, than between the intelligence of these last and that of the smooth-brained squirrel, and that at the same time the immense distance is only marked in the first case by very superficial variations of the organ of intellectual manifestations, whilst, in the second case, this lesser distance is explained by enormous differences.

The enfant terrible of French letters, Jean-Nicholas-Arthur Rimbaud (1854-91) was a defiant and precocious youth who wrote some of the most remarkable prose and poetry of the nineteenth century, all before leaving the world of verse by the age of twenty-one. More than a century after his death, the young rebel-poet continues to appeal to modern readers as much for his turbulent life as for his poetry; his stormy affair with fellow poet Paul Verlaine and his nomadic adventures in eastern Africa are as iconic as his hallucinatory poems and symbolist prose. The first translation of the poet's complete works when it was published in 1966, Rimbaud: Complete Works, Selected Letters introduced a new generation of Americans to the alienated genius—among them the Doors's lead singer Jim Morrison, who wrote to translator Wallace Fowlie to thank him for rendering the poems accessible to those who "don't read French that easily." Forty years later, the book remains the only side-by-side bilingual edition of Rimbaud's complete poetic works. Thoroughly revising Fowlie's edition, Seth Whidden has made changes on virtually every page, correcting errors, reordering poems, adding previously omitted versions of poems and some letters, and updating the text to reflect current scholarship; left in place are Fowlie's literal and respectful translations of Rimbaud's complex and nontraditional verse. Whidden also provides a foreword that considers the heritage of Fowlie's edition and adds a bibliography that acknowledges relevant books that have appeared since the original publication. On its fortieth anniversary, Rimbaud remains the most authoritative—and now, completely up-to-date—edition of the young master's entire poetic ouvre.

This is the third out of eight projected volumes making available to the public the contents in the collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities in one of Canada’s most prestigious museums. Here are presented a variety of metal objects (mostly bronze figurines, medical instruments, brooches, weaponry and a lead sarcophagus), the small collection of jewelry and the ancient gems and seal stones (mainly Roman) some still set in rings. Ce volume est le troisième de la série de huit volumes projetés qui vise à publier la collection des antiquités grecques et romaines d’un des grands musées canadiens. Nous présentons ici des objets métalliques très variés (surtout des statuettes de bronze, des instruments médicaux, des épingles, des armes et un sarcophage de plomb), un petit nombre de bijoux et de gemmes anciennes (surtout romaines) certaines encore serties dans une bague.