Excerpt from Genetic Philosophy<br><br>Rousseau, the champion of naturalism, has said, that the condition of him who reflects is an anti natural condition, and the man given to reflection is a depraved animal. 1 Regarded merely as an animal, a reflecting being may be depraved, but this depravity may not be incompatible with pre eminence in another order of creatures, in which the animal nature is subordinated to intelligence. The thinker may be, by virtue of his thought, less perfect as an animal, but Rousseau could not deny that it is man's thought which determines his rank in the scale of being. And, whether we prefer the sensuous com placency of the purely animal condition or the anti natural state of conscious reflection, the fact re mains that, in the process of development, Nature rises from inorganic elements to organic life, and.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.