he reins of law, and trusted
to do the right thing from innate feeling instead of outside compulsion.
And, trusting in the future full development of the altruistic
sentiment, we can hopefully look forward to a time in which the moral
law will exist alone, conscience become the controlling force in human
actions, and government let fall the whip which it has so long held in
threat over the shrinking back of man.

XIII

MAN'S RELATION TO THE SPIRITUAL

The purpose of this work has been to trace the evolutionary origin of
man, in his ascent from the lower animal world to his full stature as
the physical and intellectual monarch of the kingdom of life. But to
round up the story of human evolution it seemed necessary to consider
man from the moral standpoint, and it now appears equally desirable to
review his relations to the spiritual element of the universe. Having
dealt with the development of man as a mortal being, we have now to
regard him as a possibly immortal being.

This outlook into the supreme domain of nature lifts us, for the first
time in our work, definitely above the lower world of life. There is
nothing to show that the animals below man have any conception of the
spiritual. It is true that there are various statements on record which
seem to indicate in some animals, the horse and the dog, for instance, a
dread of unseen powers, a recognition of some element in nature which is
invisible to the eyes of man. But what these facts indicate, what
influences affect the rudimentary intellect of these animals in such
instances, no one is able to say. Though some vague recognition of
powers or existences beyond the visible may arise in their narrow minds,
it does not probably pass beyond the level of instinct, and doubtless
lies almost infinitely below man's conception of the spiritual. In this
stage of intellectual development, then, we have to do with a condition
which seems to belong solely to man, or has but a germinal existence in
the lower organic kingdom.

In fact, primitive man may well have been as devoid of the conception of
a realm of spirit as was his anthropoid ancestor. The lowest savages of
to-day are almost, if not quite, lacking in such a conception, and are
destitute of anything that can fairly be called religion. Where apparent
religious ideas exist among them we cannot be sure to what extent they
have been infused by civilized visitors, or how far ardent missionaries,
in their anxi