300 THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT, 
morally elevated man, is no common property of all 
mankind. 
Man alone, and all men, are supposed to have a con- 
science. We consider, on the contrary, that conscience, 
which is known to be utterly lost in many individuals 
of even the most civilized nations, is, like moral will, 
a result of education in some few races and tribes. Fear 
of detection after a bad action, is not conscience; and 
that well-trained dogs have sensations of conscientious 
shame far superior to the animal terror of savage 
cannibals after they have wrought the murder of their 
fellow-men, it is impossible to deny. Of this, evidence 
in profusion is accumulated in the anthropological com- 
pilations of Waitz. 
That a consciousness of the Divine existence is a 
fundamental property of all men, we likewise hold in 
question. It is, again, an established phrase that the most 
barbarous nations are guided by emotions and cravings, 
however obscure, towards the unknown God. This 
assumption is as old-as the well-known attempt to prove 
the existence of God, “ De guo omnium natura consentit, 
id verum esse necesse est” (That in which all intuitively 
agree, must necessarily be true). How often has this 
saying of Cicero been thoughtlessly repeated? This idea 
of God is, however, as little intuitive as the discrimination 
of good and evil by the conscience. Others maintain 
the contrary. Thus Gerland says of the Australians : * 
“The statement that Australian civilization indicates a 
higher grade is nowhere more clearly proved than here 
(in the province of religion), where everything resounds 
like the expiring voices of a previous and richer age; 
but we in no way receive the impression that we are 
