There can be but one answer. It is self-knowledge--(which involves in a sense the abandonment of self). Man has to become conscious of his destiny--to lay hold of and realise his own freedom and blessedness--to transfer his consciousness from the outer and mortal part of him to the inner and undying. The cat cannot do this. Though perfect in its degree, its interior unfoldment is yet incomplete. The human soul within it has not yet come forward and declared itself; some sheathing leaves have yet to open before the divine flower-bud can be clearly seen. And when at last (speaking as a fool) the cat becomes a man--when the human soul within the creature has climbed itself forward and found expression, transforming the outer frame in the process into that of humanity--(which is the meaning I suppose of the evolution theory)--then the creature, though perfect and radiant in the form of Man, still lacks one thing. It lacks the knowledge of itself; it lacks its own identity, and the realisation of the manhood to which as a fact it has attained. In the animals consciousness has never returned upon itself. It radiates easily outwards; and the creature obeys without let or hesitation, and with little if any _self_-consciousness, the law of its being. And when man first appears on the earth, and even up to the threshold of what we call civilisation, there is much to show that he should in this respect still be classed with the animals. Though vastly superior to them in attainments, physical and mental, in power over nature, capacity of progress, and adaptability, he still in these earlier stages was like an animal in the unconscious instinctive nature of his action; and on the other hand, though his moral and intellectual structures were far less complete than those of the modern man--as was a necessary result of the absence of self-knowledge--he actually lived more in harmony with himself and with nature,[13] than does his descendant; his impulses, both physical and social, were clearer and more unhesitating; and his unconsciousness of inner discord and sin a great contrast to our modern condition of everlasting strife and perplexity. If then to this stage belongs some degree of human perfection and felicity, yet there remains a much vaster height to be scaled. The human soul which has wandered darkling for so many thousands of years, from its tiny spark-like germ in some low form of life to its full splendor and dignity in man, has yet to come to the _knowledge_ of its wonderful heritage, has yet to become finally individualised and free, to know itself immortal, to resume and interpret all its past lives, and to enter in triumph into the kingdom which it has won.