300 THE DOCTRINE 07 DESCENT. 



morally elevated man, is no common property of all 

 mankind. 



Man alone, and all men, are supposed to have a con- 

 science. We consider, on the contrary, that conscience, 

 which is known to be utterly lost in many individuals 

 of even the most civilized nations, is, like moral will, 

 a result of education in some few races and tribes. Fear 

 of detection after a bad action, is not conscience ; and 

 that well-trained dogs have sensations of conscientious 

 shame far superior to the animal terror of savage 

 cannibals after they have wrought the murder of their 

 fellow-men, it is impossible to deny. Of this, evidence 

 in profusion is accumulated in the anthropological com- 

 pilations of Waitz. 



That a consciousness of the Divine existence is a 

 fundamental property of all men, we likewise hold in 

 question. It is, again, an established phrase that the most 

 barbarous nations are guided by emotions and cravings, 

 however obscure, towards the unknown God. This 

 assumption is as old as the well-known attempt to prove 

 the existence of God, " De qiio omniinn natiLva couseutit^ 

 id verum esse necesse est " (That in which all intuitively 

 agree, must necessarily be true). How often has this 

 saying of Cicero been thoughtlessly repeated .'' This idea 

 of God is, however, as little intuitive as the discrimination 

 of good and evil by the conscience. Others maintain 

 the contrary. Thus Gerland says of the Australians : ^" 

 " The statement that Australian civilization indicates a 

 higher grade is nowhere more clearly proved than here 

 (in the province of religion), where everything resounds 

 like the expiring voices of a previous and richer age ; 

 but we in no way receive the impression that we are 



