THE RELIGION OF NATURE 



religion at last go hand-in-hand, because the self- 

 consciousness evolved in man is his likeness to God, 

 \nd the foredestined end of his evolution is to 

 reproduce God upon the earth, I shall not have 

 written idly. 



Having thus briefly explained the grounds on 

 which we are justified in concluding that self-con- 

 sciousness begins with man and is not possessed 

 by the higher animals of other classes, I will now 

 answer the last and most difficult question of all, 

 namely, how, if I am right in saying that no other 

 animal than man is self-conscious, did self-con- 

 sciousness begin in man? 



I do not at all admit that failure to answer this 

 question would invalidate my argument. Having 

 produced evidence to show that man is self-con- 

 scious and other animals are not, inability to ex- 

 plain the origin of these facts would not affect 

 their reality. But it is not in any way difficult 

 to answer the question satisfactorily : and I regard 

 it as the best evidence of the complete soundness 

 of my argument, that it almost' automatically 

 answers every question and satisfies every objec- 

 tion raised against it. 



The answer is that man alone of all animals ac- 

 quired the ability to take concerted action with his 

 fellows towards a common end. We sometimes 

 witness conduct which looks like concerted action 



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