AUTHOR^ S PREFACE. 3 



marsh-trefoil of credulity and the poisonous water-hemlock of 

 calumniation grow, they deserve no attention. 



M. Frederic de Rougement, one of the champions of Prussia, 

 in Neufchatel, has relieved his oppressed heart by an in- 

 dignant outcry, under the title, Man and the Ape, or Modern 

 Materialism. This publication has, I believe, been translated 

 into German, and published by the Missionary Society of Neuf- 

 chatel. Whoever takes an interest in it, may read the history of 

 a storm in a tumbler of water, and how the indignation of the 

 faithful of Neufchatel, caused by my lectures, subsided after 

 hearing the prelections of Rougemont. 



Rougemont and myself are old acquaintances. More than 

 twenty years ago I saw him mount the rostrum — " the Deluge" 

 under his arm — to refute Dubois de Montpereux and Agassiz, 

 who looked upon Noah's flood as a local phenomenon of 

 Armenia. I then heard him at a public lecture explain the 

 creation of Eve from Adam's rib, and why God, in his infinite 

 wisdom, had selected the rib in particular, and no other part 

 of Adam's body. " He took no piece of the head — woman 

 would then have had too much intelligence ; he took no piece 

 of the legs — woman would have been too much on the move ; 

 he took a piece near the heart, that woman should be all 

 love" ! 



It would, perhaps, have required more profound inves- 

 tigations than Rougemont can command to refute my views 

 from a sc'entific standpoint. He preferred, therefore, to make 

 an attack on Materialism on general grounds. The description 

 of the monstrous doctrines of this modern aberration is taken 

 from the book of a certain Boehner. At first I imagined this 

 to be a misprint for Biichner, when, to my astonishment, I 

 found that it was the production of a parson, directed against 

 Materialism. This appears to me as if one were to take Luther's 

 doctrines from the works of Eck and then proceed to confute 

 them. 



It is written altogether in the old manner. The world, 

 history, morality, the whole structure of moral order perishes — 

 just as during the ages of superstition ; only ratthng skeletons 

 have by M. de Rougemont been advantageously replaced by 



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