252 THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 
ceedingly humble extraction. It only adds to the 
glory of his later achievements that he should have 
lived in a cabin, have spent his young manhood split- 
ting rails and running a flat-boat, and have gained 
his education almost unaided from a few books and 
much meditation in front of a log fire. 
That the greatest military General on the Union 
side of the Civil war should have been the son of 
a country tanner, and as a boy, not over-shrewd in 
the matter of bargains, adds to the glory of his later 
life. The simplicity of his childhood gives new lus- 
ter to the power with which he led the forces of a 
nation to victory, and then went to a battle no less 
noble in his long fight for honor while suffering from 
disease and approaching death. Why then should 
we feel that such beginnings in the lower world are 
too humble for man? Why do we think his present 
superiority diminished by his lowly origin? Why 
can we not see that precisely the reverse is true? The 
more humble the level from which he sprang the 
more gloriously creditable is his present position. 
Instead of being ashamed of having risen from the 
brute, it should be the glory of man that he has so 
sprung. His chief superiority lies in the fact that 
while they have remained where they are, he has so 
completely outdistanced them as to have placed a 
gap between himself and them that seems almost 
