Chap. XXI. General Summary. 619 



They possessed hardly any arts, and like wild animals lived on 

 what they could catch ; they had no government, and were 

 merciless to every one not of their own small tribe. He who has 

 seen a savage in his native land will not feel much shame, if 

 forced to acknowledge that the blood of some more humble 

 creature flows in his veins. For my own part I would as soon 

 be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his 

 dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper, or from 

 that old baboon, who descending from the mountains, carried 

 away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished 

 dogs — as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, 

 oifers up bloody sacrifices, practises infanticide without remorse, 

 treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted 

 by the grossest superstitions. 



Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, 

 though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the 

 organic scale ; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of 

 having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hope for a 

 still higher destiny in the distant future. But we are not here 

 concerned with hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our 

 reason permits us to discover it ; and I have given the evidence 

 to thebestofmyabihty. We must, however, acknowledge, as it 

 seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy 

 which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends 

 not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with 

 his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements 

 and constitution of the solar system — with all these exalted 

 powers — Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp 

 erf his lowly origin. 



