““Certainly it's a rare glimpse into the lives of the Secular Ancients. They don't seem as bad as the Dominion histories make them out to be. Though clearly they were imperfect." "I don't deny that they were imperfect," Julian said in a distant voice. "I'm not uncritical of the Secular Ancients, Adam. They had all sorts of vices, and they committed one sin for which I can never bring myself to entirely forgive them." "What sin is that?" "They evolved into us," he said.””
![“Given the sin of impiety through which they [the Romans] sinned against the divine nature [by idolatry], the punishment that led them to sin against their own nature followed… I say, therefore, that since they changed into lies [by idolatry] the truth about God, He brought them to ignominious…” quote by Thomas Aquinas](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/89c/thomas-aquinas-837_abandoned_given-the-sin-of-impiety-through-which-t_1913074.jpg)
![“Perhaps no order of mammals presents us with so extraordinary a series of gradations as this [step by step, from humans to apes to monkeys to lemurs] - leading us insensibly from the crown and summit of the animal creation down to creatures, from which there is but a step, as it seems, to the…” quote by Thomas Huxley](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/f0b/thomas-huxley-1183_animal_perhaps-no-order-of-mammals-presents-us_3051.jpg)
![“Organized religion has a part in the evolution of personal religion. It is the material upon which personal religion is grafted, but the process of grafting must be individual. Every human soul must, through thought, prayer, and study, cultivate his [sic] own religion to suit himself.” quote by Lily Montagu](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/7f3/lily-montagu-82141_evolution_organized-religion-has-a-part-in-the-evo_7761.jpg)