392 A SHABBY-GENTEEL THEORY. 



all that is lovely in human nature has its origin in the 

 lower kingdom. The philosophic spirit of inquiry may 

 be traced to brute curiosity, and that to the habit of 

 examining all things in search of food. Artistic genius 

 is an expansion of monkey imitativeness. Loyalty and 

 piety, the reverential virtues, are developed from filial 

 love. Benevolence and magnanimity, the generous 

 virtues, from parental love. The sense of decorum 

 proceeds from the sense of cleanliness ; and that from 

 the instinct of sexual display. The delicate and ardent 

 love which can become a religion of the heart, which 

 can sanctify and soften a man's whole life; the affection 

 which is so noble, and so pure, and so free from all sen- 

 sual stain, is yet derived from that desire which impels 

 the male animal to seek a mate ; and the sexual 

 timidity which makes the female flee from the male 

 is finally transformed into that maiden modesty which 

 not only preserves from vice, but which conceals beneath 

 a chaste and honourable reticence, the fiery love that 

 burns within; which compels the true woman to pine 

 in sorrow, and perhaps to languish into death, rather 

 than betray a passion that is not returned. 



There is a certain class of people who prefer to say 

 that their fathers came down in the world through 

 their own follies than to boast that they rose in the 

 world through their own industry and talents. It is 

 the same shabby-genteel sentiment, the same vanity 

 of birth which makes men prefer to believe that they 

 are degenerated angels, rather than elevated apes. In 

 scientific investigations such whims and fancies must 

 be set aside. It is the duty of the inquirer to ascertain 

 the truth, and then to state it as decisively and as 

 clearly as he can. " People's prejudices" must not be 

 respected but destroyed. It may, however, be worth 



