Читать книгу The Origin of Thought and Speech онлайн

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The endeavour to prove that man has descended from a creature not originally man has deeply stirred our generation, and the greater number amongst us only yielded to a natural repugnance in repulsing the idea with indignation. However, because this inward feeling tells us that a proposition is false, it does not necessarily follow that it is so; in looking at it more closely, we have to admit that many humiliating facts are accepted by us without demur. We are not scandalised at the notion of being composed of the same chemical elements as the inferior animals, nor do we revolt against the injustice of the circumstances and restraints imposed upon all by the facts of birth and death; but this unreasoning submission has no more rational basis than the revolt of our feelings, in presence of the assumption, that an animal only was our ancestor. The notion that animals so dissimilar as the monkey, the elephant, the bird, fish, and man could have proceeded from the same parentage seems too monstrous to be true; from the scientific point of view this feeling is of no value; in the face of all the assertions of our moral convictions science, as such, remains immovable; the only weapon admitted in a scientific encounter is fact opposed to fact, argument to argument. Moreover, any appeals which can be made to our pride, our dignity, our piety, would be equally wide of the mark, so long as proof is lacking that man possesses something which has no existence in lower animals either actually or potentially.