We have further proof in the stem-history of the soul, which we gather from the comparative psychology of the lower and higher mammals, and of savage and civilised races. Modern ethnography shows us in actual existence the various stages through which the mind rose to its present height. The most primitive races, such as the Veddahs of Ceylon, or the Australian natives, are very little above the mental life of the anthropoid apes. From the higher savages we pass by a complete gradation of stages to the most civilised races. But what a gulf there is, even here, between the genius of a Goethe, a Darwin, or a Lamarck, and an ordinary philisthine or third-rate official. All these facts point to one conclusion: the human soul has only reached its present height by a long period of gradual evolution; it differs in degree, not in kind, from the soul of the higher mammals; and thus it cannot in any case be immortal. That a large number of educated people still cling to the dogma of personal immortality in spite of these luminous proofs, is owing to the great power of conservative tradition and the evil methods of instruction that stamp these untenable dogmas deep on the growing mind in early years. It is for that very reason that the Churches strive to keep the schools under their power at any cost; they can control and exploit the adults at will, if independent thought and judgment have been stifled in the earlier years. This brings us to the interesting question: What is the position of the "ecclesiastical evolution" of the Jesuits (the "latest course of Darwinism"), as regards this great question of the soul? Man is, according to Wasmann, the image of God and a unique, immaterial being, differing from all other animals in the possession of an immortal soul, and therefore having a totally different origin from them. Man's immortal soul is, according to this Jesuit sophistry, "spiritual and sensitive," while the animal soul is sensitive only. God has implanted his own spirit in man, and associated it with an animal soul for the period of life. It is true that Wasmann believes even man's body to have been created directly by God; but, in view of the overwhelming proofs of our animal descent, he leaves open the possibility of a development from a series of other animals, in which case the Divine spirit would be breathed into him in the end. The Christian Fathers, who were much occupied with the introduction of the soul into the human embryo, tell us that the immortal soul enters the soulless embryo on the fortieth day after conception in the case of the boy, and on the eightieth day in the case of the girl. If Wasmann supposes that there was a similar introduction of the soul in the development of the race, he must postulate a moment in the history of the anthropoid apes when God sent his spirit into the hitherto unspiritual soul of the ape.