io6 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 



properties peculiarly his own. According to the 

 facts, he has come into the world in a manner 

 identical with that of all other animals, and has 

 been endowed with like nature and destiny. Man 

 has never manifested a warmer or more indelicate 

 enthusiasm than the enthusiasm with which he 

 has appreciated himself. And with the same 

 ardour with which he has praised himself he has 

 maligned and misrepresented others. Man has 

 set himself up as the supreme judge and executive 

 of the world, and he has not hesitated to award to 

 himself the lion's share of everything. He has 

 ransacked his fancy for adjectives with which to 

 praise himself, and driven his inventive faculties 

 to the verge of distraction in search of justification 

 for his crimes upon those around him. Every 

 individual bent on deeds of darkness first seeks in 

 his own mind justification for his purposed sins. 

 And it is a caustic comment on the character of 

 human conviction that no enthusiastic criminal 

 from the marauder of continents to the kitchen 

 pilferer ever yet sought unsuccessfully at the 

 court of his conscience for a sinful permit. It 

 was an easy matter, therefore, for man aided as 

 he was by such an experienced imagination to 

 convince himself that all other animals were made 

 for him, that they were made without feeling or 

 intelligence, and that hence he was justified in 

 using in any way he chose the conveniences so 

 generously provided by an eccentric providence. 



But Darwin has lived. Beings have come into 

 the world, we now know, through the operation of 



