Chap. XXL AND CONCLUDING REMARKS. 405 



bloody sacrifices, practises infanticide without remorse, 

 treats bis wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is 

 haunted by the grossest superstitions. 



Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having 

 risen, though not through his own exertions, to the 

 very summit of the organic scale ; and the fact of his 

 having tlius risen, instead of having been aboriginally 

 placed there, may give him hopes for a still higher 

 destiny in tbe distant future. But we are not here 

 concerned with hopes or fears, only with the truth as 

 far as our reason allows us to discover it. I have given 

 the evidence to the best of my ability ; and we must 

 acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his 

 noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most 

 debased, with benevolence which extends not only to 

 other men but to the humblest living creature, with his 

 god-like intellect which has penetrated into the move- 

 ments and constitution of the solar system — wath all 

 these exalted powers — Man still bears in his bodily 

 frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin. 



