394 LESSONS FROM NATURE. [CHAP. XIII. 



He may enjoy, perhaps, a well-informed satisfaction in contemplating 

 mere material phenomena that vary with conditions, as the all of this 

 universe, or he may even experience an elevation into the moral sub 

 lime when he points to his future in the rock, in the form of those 

 bones and other remains of a Pithe.cus intelliyens, which, in all proba 

 bility (he reflects), no subsequent intelligence will ever handle but 

 monkey is the pass-word ! Sink your pedigree as man, and adopt for 

 family tree a procession of the skeletons of monkeys then superior 

 enlightenment radiates from your very person, and your place is fixed 



a place of honour in the acclamant brotherhood that names itself 



advanced ! So it is in England at present ; this is the acknowledged 

 pinnacle of English thought and English science now. Just point in 

 these days to the picture of some huge baboon, and suddenly before 

 such enlightenment superstition is disarmed, priests confess their 

 imposture, and the Church sinks beneath the hippocampus of a 

 gorilla.&quot; The Secret of Hegel, Preface, p. xxxi. 



These words express truly enough a state of opinion still 

 but too widely prevalent in England. We need not be 

 without hope, however, that ere long a more general dif 

 fusion of a truer philosophy will cause the essential differ 

 ence between the psychical natures of man and of brutes 

 to be more clearly apprehended. Then a belief in the 

 bestiality of man will very soon pass away into the limbo 

 of discarded physical superstitions. 



It would indeed be well if some of those who so reck 

 lessly advocate popular teaching, such as that we have called 

 attention to, would ponder over the utterances of continental 

 infidels, in order that they might see the logical outcome 

 of those same popular teachings ; for it is continental writers 

 who most fearlessly develop their principles to their full 

 results. 



Guillaume Marr, a journalist of Lausanne, in a general 

 report addressed to the Conseil d Etat some years ago, dared 

 to assert as follows : 



&quot; Faith in a personal and living God is the origin and the funda 

 mental cause of our miserable social condition The true road to 



liberty, to equality, and to happiness, is atheism. No safety on earth, 

 so long as man holds on by a thread to Heaven. Let nothing hence 

 forward shackle the spontaneity of the human kind. Let us teach 

 man that there is no other God than himself; that he is the Alpha 



