Conclusion. 197 



and human society but a gradual evolution from that 

 of the higher mammals. But scientific research can- 

 not be hampered by such aprioristic theories; if they 

 are incompatible with facts, they are to be abandoned. 

 It is an undeniable fact, that between the soul of man 

 and that of the brute there yawns a chasm, which 

 cannot be bridged over by any evolutionistic specula- 

 tion. 1 Man is, as a matter of fact, the only being in 

 the visible universe, who is gifted with reason, with 

 a spiritual soul, and with morality. On account of 

 the essential difference between sensitive and spiritual 

 life, it is simply impossible, that in the course of 

 nature an animal should ever develop into man. True, 

 we can daily witness, how from instinctive sensations 

 children gradually arrive at spiritual reasoning; but 

 this development is possible only because from the 

 outset the soul of the child is a sensitivo-spiritual soul. 

 The development of its spiritual faculties must be 

 preceded by sensitive instincts, because these furnish 

 the foundation and the materials for the spiritual 

 faculties. The animal, however, which never mani- 

 fests spiritual faculties, cannot be credited with any- 

 thing beyond a sensitive soul, which is essentially dif- 

 ferent from the sensitivo-spiritual soul of man, and 

 which makes the animal, be it ape or ant, a being 

 devoid of reason, and belonging to a lower order! 



Hence, so-called popular animal psychology, which 

 denies the essential difference between the human 

 spirit and the animal soul, and which appeals in favor 



*) Even evolutionists like Wallace have we'll understood this, and 

 therefore they protest against applying Darwinism to the psychic part 

 of man. Cf. Wallace, "Darwinism." 



