CHAPTER IX 



AUTHORITIES IN SUPPORT 



Darwin's Remarkable Admissions-Atheists and ultra-Hu- 

 manitarians Kant's Testimony David Hume as a 

 Witness Some Modern Thinkers Letters from Cor- 

 respondents. 



W^HEN I commenced this argument I had no 

 idea what remarkable and welcome support my 

 conclusions would gather from the works of some 

 of the greatest thinkers of the past, such as Des- 

 cartes, Kant, and David Hume. I was even un- 

 aware that Darwin had partially enunciated the 

 basis of my argument. 



Perhaps some explanation of my ignorance, es- 

 pecially my ignorance of Descartes' ancient theory 

 that animals are mere automata, may not be un- 

 interesting, because, curiously enough, it arose 

 from the fact that I had unwittingly adopted 

 Descartes' own method for arriving at truth. 



As a boy I was a greedy devourer of books 



which might throw a light upon the mysteries of 



natural history; but it was not until I had read 



Darwin's " Origin of Species " and " Descent of 



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