AUTHOEITIES IN SUPPORT 



" Cogito: ergo sum' 9 "I think: therefore I 

 have conscience existence," was the basis of Des- 

 cartes' argument. " I have conscious existence : 

 therefore I know that I come of God," is the con- 

 clusion of my own. 



And because Descartes, living so long before 

 the dawn of the truth of Evolution, could merely 

 aver that animals had been finally created as mere 

 automata, the acceptance of his teaching, with its 

 inexorable logical consistency, undoubtedly led to 

 cruelty in practice: whereas I have perfect con- 

 fidence that no such consequence will follow from 

 the proper understanding of the truth in its newer 

 shape, that it is God within us which has raised 

 us above the other animals, though they are ris- 

 ing, too. 



Take my own case. Years ago, when I still be- 

 lieved that animals suffer as we do, I used a gun 

 for sport. Now, though I do not condemn the 

 sportsman whose mind permits him to enjoy the 

 sport of killing, because he is not yet enlightened 

 by the truth, I cannot shed blood, except of neces- 

 sity and with regret. 



Sir Edwin Arnold, after years of intense and 

 sensitive study of Buddhism a religion which may 

 be described as a mystic blend of Christianity 

 with evolution gave us in poetic phrase the 

 maxim, as I hold that it will be, of the re- 

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