All animals, all plants are only the modifications of an animal, of a vegetable origin.… Man is the knot which unites the Divinity to matter, which links heaven and earth. This ray of wisdom and intelligence which shines in his thoughts is reflected upon all Nature. It is the chain of communication between all beings. All the series of animals [he adds in another place] present only a long degradation from the proper nature of man. The monkey, considered either in his exterior form or in his interior organization, resembles only a degraded man; and the same suggestion of degradation is observed in passing from monkeys to quadrupeds; so that the primitive trend of the organization is recognized in all, and the principal viscera, the principal members are identical there.[664] Who knows [observes elsewhere the same writer] who knows if in the eternal night of time the sceptre of the world will not pass from the hands of man into those of a being more worthy of bearing it and more perfect? Perhaps the race of negroes, today secondary in the human specie, has already been queen of the earth before the white race was created.… If Nature has successively accorded the empire to the species that it creates more and more perfect, why should she cease today.… The negro, already king of animals, has fallen beneath the yoke of the European; will the latter bow the head in his turn before a race more powerful and more intelligent when it enters into the plans of Nature to ordain his existence? Where will his creation stop? Who will place the limits of his power? God alone raises it and it is His all-powerful hand which governs.[665] These striking passages full of forceful ideas, which appear new, and which would merit being better known, contain only a small part of the things taught in the ancient mysteries, as I shall perhaps demonstrate later. 36. … _Thou who fathomed it. O wise and happy man, rest in its haven. But observe my laws, abstaining from the things Which thy soul must fear, distinguishing them well; Letting intelligence o’er thy body reign._