286 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



of their existence than the lowest physical organisms. 

 They will long continue to accept as actual historical 

 events some tales of the supernatural birth of extra- 

 ordinary personages in the far and misty past, or to 

 insist that after all there may be " something in" the 

 theory of reincarnation invented to solve the moral 

 and material problems of the universe at a period when 

 imagination ruthlessly overtopped reason and know- 

 ledge was limited indeed. And when even these relics 

 of primeval ignorance and archaic speculation shall 

 have been gathered to the limbo of vain and discarded 

 opinions the stories enshrined in literature, adorned 

 by genius and entwined with the dearest and most 

 generous affections of the individual and the race will 

 survive, imperishable until humanity itself shall pass 

 away. 



