38 THE NEANDERTHAL SKULL. 



dogma of evolution which has yet appeared : 

 but whether it will stand the test of a 

 critical examination remains to be seen. 

 About the same time that Mr. Canning had 

 evolved his brilliant idea from his inner 

 consciousness, Professor OKEN, of Zurich, 

 plunged deeper into the recesses of the new 

 philosophy, and determining to trace the 

 origin of man further back than to vege- 

 tables, or even the primeval point, took one 

 step more backwards, and announced as his 

 peculiar discovery that man's earliest an- 

 cestor was in reality NOTHING ! His opinion 

 is expressed in the following way : 



" The highest mathematical idea is that 

 ZERO = 0- Zero is itself nothing. Mathe- 

 matics are based upon nothing, and 

 consequently arise out of nothing. The 

 Eternal is the nothing of Nature. There 

 exists nothing but nothing ; nothing but the 

 Eternal. Man is God wholly manifested. 

 God has become man. Zero has become 

 4-. For God to become real, He must 

 appear under the form of the sphere ; God 

 is a rotating globe. The world is God 



