And
in addition he is man,--that is, reasonable and free, susceptible
of education and improvement. Man enjoys as many names as
Jupiter; all these names he carries written on his face; and, in
the varied mirror of nature, his infallible instinct is able to
recognize them. A serpent is beautiful to the reason; it is the
conscience that finds it odious and ugly. The ancients as well
as the moderns grasped this idea of the constitution of man by
agglomeration of all terrestrial potentialities: the labors of
Gall and Lavater were, if I may say so, only attempts at
disintegration of the human syncretism, and their classification
of our faculties a miniature picture of nature. Man, in short,
like the prophet in the lions' den, is veritably given over to
the beasts; and if anything is destined to exhibit to posterity
the infamous hypocrisy of our epoch, it is the fact that educated
persons, spiritualistic bigots, have thought to serve religion
and morality by altering the nature of our race and giving the
lie to anatomy.
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