252 THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 



ceedingly humble extraction. It only adds to the 

 glory of his later achievements that he should have 

 lived in a cabin, have spent his young manhood split- 

 ting rails and running a flat-boat, and have gained 

 his education almost unaided from a few books and 

 much meditation in front of a log fire. 



That the greatest military General on the Union 

 side of the Civil war should have been the son of 

 a country tanner, and as a boy, not over-shrewd in 

 the matter of bargains, adds to the glory of his later 

 life. The simplicity of his childhood gives new lus- 

 ter to the power with which he led the forces of a 

 nation to victory, and then went to a battle no less 

 noble in his long fight for honor while suffering from 

 disease and approaching death. Why then should 

 we feel that such beginnings in the lower world are 

 too humble for man? Why do we think his present 

 superiority diminished by his lowly origin? Why 

 can we not see that precisely the reverse is true? The 

 more humble the level from which he sprang the 

 more gloriously creditable is his present position. 

 Instead of being ashamed of having risen from the 

 brute, it should be the glory of man that he has so 

 sprung. His chief superiority lies in the fact that 

 while they have remained where they are, he has so 

 completely outdistanced them as to have placed a 

 gap between himself and them that seems almost 



