228 LECTURE VIII. 



the human kingdom. In order to avoid the word conscience, 

 which is frequently taken in too restricted a sense, I call morality 

 that quality which furnishes man with the above notions, just 

 as we term sensibility that quality which perceives impressions. 



"There are other allied conceptions which are found 

 in all, even the smallest and most degraded, societies of 

 man. Everywhere man believes in another world different 

 from ours, in mysterious beings of a higher nature, which 

 must be feared or worshipped; in a future life after the 

 destruction of the bodyj in other words, the notions of a 

 deity and a future life prevail as generally as those of good 

 and evil. However faint these ideas may be, they everywhere 

 give rise to important facts. From such notions arise a 

 number of habits and usages which, even among the most 

 savage peoples, are the equivalents of the greater manifesta- 

 tions among civilised peojiles. 



" Never has anything similar or analogous been observed in 

 animals ; we find, therefore, in the existence of these concep- 

 tions a second character of the human kingdom, and designate 

 the sum of the qualities which furnish man with these notions, 

 — religiousness." 



So far Quatrefages. As will be perceived, he is more in 

 accordance with the facts than his late colleague, Geoffrey ; for 

 he acknowledges that the animal possesses all the intellectual 

 faculties, — that it thinks, considers, communicates with its 

 fellows ; in short, that the mental qualities are the same as in 

 man, and differ only in degree. But according to him, mo- 

 rahty and religiousness are something perfectly distinct and 

 new ; and as they occut- only in man, they form an essential 

 character, which distinguishes him from the brute. Let us 

 examine these assertions. 



We shall assume, for a moment, that what Quatrefages 

 terms religiousness is found among all peoples, without excep- 

 tion ; still, this would not prove it to be a new mental quality 

 in man. It would simply prove that man forms ideas concern- 

 ing certain phenomena which he cannot fathom, which the 

 animal, from its inferior mental capacity, is not induced to 

 take into any consideration. The idiotic cretin takes no 



