THE ARREST OF THE BODY 147 



exalted as to form the foundation for an incon- 

 ceivably loftier super-organic order. The moment 

 an organism was reached through which Thought 

 was possible, nothing more was required of matter. 

 The Body was high enough. Organic Evolution 

 might now even resign its sovereignty of the world ; 

 it had made a thing which was now its master. 

 Henceforth Man should take charge of Evolution 

 even as up till now he had been the one charge of 

 it. Henceforth his selection should replace Natural 

 Selection ; his judgment guide the struggle for life ; 

 his will determine for every plant upon the earth 

 whether it should bloom or fade, for every animal 

 whether it should increase, or change, or die. So 

 Man entered into his Kingdom. 



Science is charged, be it once more recalled, with 

 numbering Man among the beasts, and levelling his 

 body with the dust. But he who reads for himself 

 the history of creation as it is written by the hand 

 of Evolution will be overwhelmed by the glory and 

 honour heaped upon this creature. To be a Man, 

 and to have no conceivable successor ; to be the 

 fruit and crown of the long past eternity, and the 

 highest possible fruit and crown ; to be the last vic- 

 tor among the decimated phalanxes of earlier exist- 

 ences, and to be nevermore defeated ; to be the best 

 that Nature in her strength and opulence can produce; 



