SUPERFICIAL OBJECTIONS. 285, 
even the most kindred creature; and, moreover, that 
this peculiar nature is his most peculiar property, whether 
he received it as a ready-made gift, or worked it out 
laboriously from a lower condition in tens of thousands 
of years. But if his present constitution is not in the 
slightest degree injured by his (assumed) animal origin, 
neither can his aims and tasks, his endeavours and voca- 
tions—in short, his whole future—be any other than, from 
his entire nature, he must imagine and believe it to be. 
Or must the cultivated portion of mankind be really so 
profoundly dismayed by the idea of descending from 
apes, that in despair at the impossibility of maintaining 
and improving the civilization, which by no means fell 
into their lap like ripe fruit, but which was painfully 
acquired, they would abandon their business and pur- 
suits, their forms. of law and government, their arts and 
‘sciences, and sink to the level of the Australian bush- 
men—that they would let go that by which they had 
raised themselves so far above the apes, and by which 
they are constantly raising themselves still higher, merely 
because it was once difficult to raise themselves above 
these apes even by a hairs breadth? But what man 
destined by nature for a ruler, would have refused to 
grasp the crown because his father was a hind? Or 
what born Raphael would have forsworn palette and 
pencil, because his parent had. been a sign-painter ? 
Mankind, like each individual, will use and improve its 
powers because it has them, not because it has obtained 
them from hither or thither.” 
We give these transient fireworks their due, but we 
require more profound arguments whence to derive the 
final verdict. To the votaries of the doctrine of Descent, 
