they are a later growth. Self-consciousness must
have become prominent at a certain stage in the evolutionary process.

How it all arose is a legitimate problem for genetic psychology, but to
the plain man it is a puzzle; our ancestors invented legends to account
for it--legends of apples and serpents and the like; but the fact is
there, however it be accounted for. The truth embedded in that old
Genesis legend is deep; it is the legend of man's awakening from a
merely animal life to consciousness of good and evil, no longer obeying
his primal instincts in a state of thoughtlessness and innocency--a
state in which deliberate vice was impossible and therefore higher and
purposed goodness also impossible,--it was the introduction of a new
sense into the world, the sense of conscience, the power of deliberate
choice; the power also of conscious guidance, the management of things
and people external to himself, for preconceived ends. Man was
beginning to cease to be merely a passenger on the planet, controlled
by outside forces; it is as if the reins were then for the first time
being placed in his hands, as if he was allowed to begin to steer, to
govern his own fate and destiny, and to take over some considerable
part of the management of the world.

The process of handing over the reins to us is still going on. The
education of the human race is a long process, and we are not yet fit
to be fully trusted with the steering gear; but the words of the old
serpent were true enough: once open our eyes to the perception and
discrimination of good and evil, once become conscious of freedom of
choice, and sooner or later we must inevitably acquire some of the
power and responsibility of gods. A fall it might seem, just as a
vicious man sometimes seems degraded below the beasts, but in promise
and potency a rise it really was.

The oneness between ourselves and Nature is not a thing to be deplored;
it is a thing to rejoice at, when properly conceived. It awakens a kind
of religious enthusiasm even in Haeckel, who clearly perceives but a
limited aspect of it; yet the perception is vivid enough to cause him,
this so-called Atheist, to close his _Confession of Faith_ with words
such as these:--

"Now, at last, it is given to the mightily advancing human mind to
have its eyes opened; it is given to it to show that a true
knowledge of nature affords full satisfaction and inexhaustible
nourishment not only for its sea