" Carl Vogt would not write thus. To him no man is honored
who does agree with him, and any man who believes in God he execrates.
In 1871, Mr. Darwin ventured on the publication of his "Descent of Man."
In that work, he endeavors to show that the proximate progenitor of man
is the ape. He says "there is less difference of structure between the
two, than between the higher and lower forms of apes themselves." Not
only so, but he attempts to show that the mental faculties of man are
derived by slight variations, long continued, from the measure of
intellect possessed by lower animals. He even says, that there is less
difference in intelligence between man and the higher mammals, than
there is between the intelligence of the ant and that of the coccus,
insects of the same class.[7]
In like manner he teaches that man's moral nature has been evolved by
slow degrees from the social instincts common to many animals. (pp. 68,
94) The moral element, thus derived, he admits might lead to very
different lines of conduct. "If men," he says, "were reared under the
same conditions as hives-bees, there can hardly be a doubt, that our
unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to
kill all their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile
daughters; and no one would think of interfering. (vol. i. p. 70)
"Lower animals, especially the dog, manifest love, reverence, fidelity,
and obedience; and it is from these elements that the religious
sentiment in man has been slowly evolved by a process of natural
selection.
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