32 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. 



than has Aristotle. Yet no one can pretend that he 

 was actuated by theological prejudice in arriving at the 

 conclusions he did arrive at. It is quite otherwise with 

 the most prominent advocates of the bestiality of man 

 That doctrine has again and again been declared to be, 

 for them, a necessary doctrine. They speak truly ; for 

 to establish the separate and essentially distinct nature 

 and origin of man, is practically to refute the me- 

 chanical theory of the universe. With the proclamation 

 of man's essential rationality, the folly of the main- 

 tainers of that theory is simultaneously proclaimed. 



Thus the assertion of man's bestiality is the very 

 artiadus stantis vel cadentis eccelsicB for the whole school 

 which numbers amongst its followers, Darwin, Haeckel, 

 Vogt, Huxley, Herbert Spencer, Tyndall, and Prof. Lan- 

 kester. But it is very different as regards their opponents. 

 We, at least, are by no means bound, in the interest of 

 any Church or system, to maintain that an essential 

 difference of nature and origin does exist between 

 man and brute. We are free, the most Ultramontane 

 Catholic is absolutely and entirely free, to hold that 

 the saint and the philosopher, the faithful hound and 

 the tormenting parasite, all possess a fundamentally 

 common nature, and that an analogous immortal des- 

 tiny awaits them all. This we do not believe ; but 

 our disbelief is grounded upon science and philosophy 

 alone, and theological convictions have no part or share 

 therein. 



Again, as to early man, the most fervent Catholic, 

 who deems that man has an essentially distinct nature, 

 is none the less absolutely and entirely free to hold that 



