276 RETROGRESSIVE MAN. 



LECTUKE IX. 



RETROGRESSIVE MAN. 



1. The human race is characterised by the great varieties 

 which exist between different peoples. The question is not 

 unfrequently asked, Was not man originally savage ? Was 

 he at one time near the brutes ? I believe that man was not 

 originally savage, and that the less civilised races are not 

 undeveloped, but degraded forms. 



2. Man, in virtue of possessing a spiritual element, stands 

 alone amonQ-st the organised beings of the globe. The exist- 

 ence of this element associates the being possessing it with 

 the spiritual world. An organism adapted to a spiritual end 

 and capable of acting in space in the most perfect manner, must 

 be more highly developed than one not so adapted. Man's 

 body is formed on a rectangular system — that is, he can extend 

 his limbs so as to place them at right angles to each other. 



3. The results of our inquiry are — 1st, the psychical prin- 

 ciple in man and animals, although immaterial, is distin- 

 guished from the spiritual in man by the immutability of its 

 powers and attributes, and is especially adapted to each 

 species. The pneuma, or spiritual element in man, also 

 immaterial, and only recognisable by its manifestations 

 through consciousness, is strictly co-ordinate with man's 

 sphere of action on earth and his future destination. It is, 

 nevertheless, subject to his will. Not only is the individual 

 economy of the animal strictly provided for, but by the same 

 agency the purpose of the animal in creation is secured. 



4. Man's capabilities of existing over the entire globe, and 



