Coleman, followed in it by other Orientalists, presents the seventh avatar of Vishnu in the most caricatured way.[581] Apart from the fact that the _Ramayana_ is one of the grandest epic poems in the world--the source and origin of Homer’s inspiration--this avatar conceals one of the most scientific problems of our modern day. The learned Brahmans of India never understood the allegory of the famous war between men, giants, and monkeys, otherwise than in the light of the transformation of species. It is our firm belief that were European academicians to seek for information from some learned native Brahmans, instead of unanimously and incontinently rejecting their authority, and were they, like Jacolliot--against whom they have nearly all arrayed themselves--to seek for light in the oldest documents scattered about the country in pagodas, they might learn strange but not useless lessons. Let any one inquire of an _educated_ Brahman the reason for the respect shown to monkeys--the origin of which feeling is indicated in the story of the valorous feats of Hanoumā, the generalissimo and faithful ally of the hero of Ramayana,[582] and he would soon be disabused of the erroneous idea that the Hindus accord deific honors to a monkey-_god_. He would, perhaps, learn--were the Brahman to judge him worthy of an explanation--that the Hindu sees in the ape but what Manu desired he should: the transformation of species most directly connected with that of the human family--a bastard branch engrafted on their own stock before the final perfection of the latter.[583] He might learn, further, that in the eyes of the educated “heathen” the spiritual or _inner_ man is one thing, and his terrestrial, physical casket another. That _physical_ nature, the great combination of physical correlations of forces ever creeping on toward perfection, has to avail herself of the material at hand; she models and remodels as she proceeds, and finishing her crowning work in man, presents him alone as a fit tabernacle for the overshadowing of the Divine spirit. But the latter circumstance does not give man the right of life and death over the animals lower than himself in the scale of _nature_, or the right to torture them. Quite the reverse. Besides being endowed with a soul--of which every animal, and even plant, is more or less possessed--man has his immortal _rational_ soul, or _nous_, which ought to make him at least equal in magnanimity to the elephant, who treads so carefully, lest he should crush weaker creatures than himself. It is this feeling which prompts Brahman and Buddhist alike to construct hospitals for sick animals, and even insects, and to prepare refuges wherein they may finish their days. It is this same feeling, again, which causes the Jaïn sectarian to sacrifice one-half of his life-time to brushing away from his path the helpless, crawling insects, rather than recklessly deprive the smallest of