322 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



understanding passes through the same phases, and 

 reaches the same goal. We have adduced witnesses 

 to confirm our own observation from history and 

 ethnography in general, apart from any bias for a 

 religious and scientific system. We believe that in this 

 way alone there can be any true progress in the science 

 which we have undertaken to consider in this essay. 



The result of the inquiry shows that by a slow 

 yet inevitable evolution man rose from his primeval 

 condition of error, illusion, and servitude to his fellow 

 man, to that degree of truth and liberty of which he 

 is capable : he was so made that he necessarily 

 advanced to the grand height which has been attained 

 by the most laborious and intelligent of the human 

 race. He rises higher, and is more sensible of his own 

 dignity, in proportion as he becomes, within the limits 

 of his nature, the artificer of his own greatness and 

 civilization. While many peoples have become ex- 

 tinct, others have, owing to their natural incapacity, 

 remained in a savage and barbarous condition, while 

 others again have attained to a certain amount of 

 civilization, but their mental evolution has stopped 

 short. Our own race, originally, as I believe, Aryo- 

 Semitic, for it is possible that these two powerful 

 branches were derived from a common stock, has 

 persisted without interruption in spite of many adver- 

 sities and revolutions, and has displayed in successive 

 generations the progress of general civilization, and 

 the goal which man is able to reach in his highest 



