DARWIN. 123 



from a crowd of astonished dogs as from a savage who 

 delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, 

 practises infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like 

 slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest 

 superstitions. 



" Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having 

 risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very 

 summit of the organic scale ; and the fact of his having 

 thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed 

 there, may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the 

 distant future. But we are not here concerned with 

 hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our reason 

 allows us to discover it. I have given the evidence to 

 the best of my ability ; and we must acknowledge, as it 

 seems to me, that man, with all his noble qualities, with 

 sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevo- 

 lence which extends not only to other men, but to the 

 humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which 

 has penetrated into the movements and constitution of 

 the solar system with all these exalted powers Man 

 still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his 

 lowly origin." 



The reception accorded to " The Descent of Man " 

 was more excited than that of "The Origin of Species." 

 The first large edition was quickly exhausted, and dis- 

 cussion or ridicule of the book was the fashionable re- 

 creation. Mr. Punch, week after week, reflected passing 

 opinion. One of his Darwinian ballads on our ancestors 

 is worth quoting from : 



" They slept in a wood, 

 Or wherever they could, 



