find that the existence of man as an intelligent being, endowed with certain high faculties, among which is a certain degree of the power of creating new objects, can not be accounted for without the hypothesis of a creator, still less can we account for the existence and phenomena of Nature, which has in itself no degree of the creating power, without the same hypothesis. KOSMICOS. Stop where you are. Why do you separate man from Nature? Have you yet to learn that man is a part of Nature? I suspect you have, after all, been reading the book of Genesis for something more than a hypothesis, and that you have adopted the notion that God made Adam a living soul. Put away all the nursery-stories, and come down to the "hard-pan" of actual facts, which show by an overwhelming array of evidence that man had a very different origin. SOPHEREUS. You know, my friend, that I never learned any nursery-stories, and therefore I have none to unlearn. It may be my misfortune, but I find myself here in the world in mature years, studying the phenomena of life, without having had any early teaching, but with such reasoning as I can apply to what I observe, and to what science, history, and philosophy can furnish to me. I belong to no church, to no sect, to no party, and I have not even a country. I am a citizen of the world, on my travels through it, learning what I can. Now, what are your facts? Let us get down, as you say, upon the "hard-pan," and make it as hard as you please. KOSMICOS. First answer my question: Why do you separate man from Nature? SOPHEREUS. I know very well that in a certain sense man is a part of Nature. But it is necessary to contemplate man apart from all the rest of Nature, because we find that he is endowed with intellect, and we have very good and direct evidence that his intellect is an actor; and we know that he is endowed with consciousness, and we have very good and direct evidence that, by introspection, he becomes aware of his own consciousness, and what it is.