in 1881, from which I quote the following: "I have no practice in
abstract reasoning, and I may be all astray. Nevertheless, you have
expressed my inward conviction, though far more vividly and clearly
than I could have done. But then, with me, the horrid doubt always
arises _whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed
from the lower animals, are of any value, or are at all trustworthy."_
Again he says (p. 528), in another letter written to Sir C. Lyell:
"Grant a simple archetypal creature, like the mud-fish or lepidosiren
(mud eel) with five senses and some vestige of mind, and I believe
natural selection will account for the production of every vertebrate
animal, including, of course, man."

Observe that this language is very definite. It says that the mind of
man, with all its wonderful attributes and faculties, was evolved from
the mind of the lower animals--and he goes as low as the mud-fish and
the eel that live in the slime of the swamps. Now, whoever wishes to
believe such a preposterous assumption can do so. He is able to believe
almost anything, and to disbelieve everything. Mr. Darwin himself says
he looks upon man's convictions as of no value, because they are the
convictions of a mind derived from the mind of lower animals; nor can
one blame him for being skeptical. Our point, however, is that there is
such a tremendous difference between the intellectual and moral
faculties of man and the barely instinctive impulses of the lower
creatures, that no one can see any connection between the two, unless
there is some serious defect in his own mental or moral perceptions.
Every instinct and conviction of the human mind rises in indignant
repudiation of the theory of man's descent.

There are even among thoroughgoing Darwinians some who draw the line at
this (necessary) application of the development idea. Wallace says, at
the conclusion of his defense of Darwinism: "The faculties of man could
not possibly have been developed by means of the same laws which have
determined the progressive development of the world in general, and
also of man's physical organism"--the human body. He finds in the origin
of Mind clear indications of "an unseen universe--a world of spirit, to
which the world of matter is altogether subordinate." (_"Darwinism,"_ p.
320.) Yet the development of mind through merely physical forces is
upheld to the present day by the majority of evolutionists. The doctrine
is even fo