268 
sophy ” ; and because they disliked intellectual pursuits, “ their 
legs and heads became fixed earthwards, as most suited to their 
nature ; — hence arose the race of quadrupeds and centipedes 
The lowest tribe of fishes and oysters are represented as sprung 
from the greatest dunces among men : and hence, argues the 
Grecian sage, “ after this manner, both formerly and now, 
animals migrate into each other, experiencing their changes 
through either the loss or acquisition of intellect or folly.” * 
89. It is curious to observe how the cosmological specu- 
lations of the present day have reversed the philosophy 
of the mightiest intellects of ancient times. Whereas 
Pythagoras and Plato contend that fishes and oysters have 
sprung from the greatest dunces among men, we find these 
very animals named by our modern philosophers as the lineal 
ancestors of mankind. From Mr. Darwin we learn that 
the first of our prehistoric ancestors were Ascidian tadpoles, 
who, he says, were “ the parents of a group of 'fishes as lowly 
organized as the lancelet; and from such fish ” have gradually 
been evolved “the new and the old world monkeys; and from 
the latter, at a remote period, man, the wonder and glory of 
the universe, proceeded.”! Professor Andrew Jackson Davis, 
who may be regarded as the Darwin of the United States, very 
positively asserts that “ Man was originally an oyster or clam, 
from which he has progressed to his present condition in the 
following way. The oyster produced a tadpole, which produced 
a quadruped, which produced a baboon, which produced an 
orang-outang, which produced a negro, who produced a white 
man.”! 
40. Plato, however, lias promulgated another theory respect- 
ing the original condition of mankind, at which it may be well 
to glance, as it will put us in possession of the singular extrava- 
gances which the ancient philosophers permitted themselves to 
broach in their various theories relating to creation. It is true, 
as Plato places the following ideas in the mouth of Aristo- 
phanes, to whose comedy on the Birds I have already alluded, 
we may suppose that he was caricaturing some fond theory of 
* Plato’s Ti/nueus, § 111. t Darwin’s Descent of Man, i. 2 1 2. 
X Principles of Nature, by A. J. Davis, p. 12*2. It is satisfactory, however, 
to believe that the tide is turning respecting the Darwinian creed. Dr. John 
Arnold, in the Preface to his Genesis and {Science, observes that “ the ignomini- 
ous defeat of the able materialistic developist, Carl Vogt, at the recent Ktutt- 
gardt conference of German naturalists by an immense majority, is certainly 
a sign that the reaction has fairly commenced, and that in less than ten years 
Darwinism, which falsely ascribes to nature what really belongs to culture, 
will be only remembered as one of the delusions of the past.” 
