{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_34716/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_34716","id":"gutenberg_34716","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34716","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Natural theology","Theism"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by Juliet Sutherland, Louise Pattison and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                 THROUGH NATURE\n                     TO GOD\n\n                       BY\n\n                   JOHN FISKE\n\n    _Soyez comme l'oiseau pos\u00da pour un instant\n        Sur des rameaux trop fr\u0155les,\n    Qui sent ployer la branche et qui chante pourtant,\n        Sachant qu'il a des ailes!_\n\n    VICTOR HUGO\n\n                 [Illustration]\n\n               BOSTON AND NEW YORK\n          HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY\n          The Riverside Press, Cambridge\n\n                      1900\n\n\n\n\n         COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY JOHN FISKE\n\n               ALL RIGHTS RESERVED\n\n\n\n\n        TO THE BELOVED AND REVERED MEMORY\n                  OF MY FRIEND\n\n              THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY\n\n            THIS BOOK IS CONSECRATED\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nA single purpose runs throughout this little book, though different\naspects of it are treated in the three several parts. The first part,\n\"The Mystery of Evil,\" written soon after \"The Idea of God,\" was\ndesigned to supply some considerations which for the sake of conciseness\nhad been omitted from that book. Its close kinship with the second part,\n\"The Cosmic Roots of Love and Self-Sacrifice,\" will be at once apparent\nto the reader.\n\nThat second part is, with a few slight changes, the Phi Beta Kappa\noration delivered by me at Harvard University, in June, 1895. Its\noriginal title was \"Ethics in the Cosmic Process,\" and its form of\nstatement was partly determined by the fact that it was intended as a\nreply to Huxley's famous Romanes lecture delivered at the University of\nOxford in 1893. Readers of \"The Destiny of Man\" will observe that I have\nhere repeated a portion of the argument of that book. The detection of\nthe part played by the lengthening of infancy in the genesis of the\nhuman race is my own especial contribution to the Doctrine of Evolution,\nso that I naturally feel somewhat uncertain as to how far that subject\nis generally understood, and how far a brief allusion to it will\nsuffice. It therefore seemed best to recapitulate the argument while\nindicating its bearing upon the ethics of the Cosmic Process.\n\nI can never cease to regret that Huxley should have passed away without\nseeing my argument and giving me the benefit of his comments. The\nsubject is one of a kind which we loved to discuss on quiet Sunday\nevenings at his fireside in London, many years ago. I have observed on\nHuxley's part, not only in the Romanes lecture, but also in the charming\n\"Prolegomena,\" written in 1894, a tendency to use the phrase \"cosmic\nprocess\" in a restricted sense as equivalent to \"natural selection;\" and\ndoubtless if due allowance were made for that circumstance, the\nappearance of antagonism between us would be greatly diminished. In our\nmany talks, however, I always felt that, along with abundant general\nsympathy, there was a discernible difference in mental attitude. Upon\nthe proposition that \"the foundation of morality is to ... give up\npretending to believe that for which there is no evidence,\" we were\nheartily agreed. But I often found myself more strongly inclined than my\ndear friend to ask the Tennysonian question:--\n\n    \"Who forged that other influence,\n    That heat of inward evidence,\n    By which he doubts against the sense?\"\n\nIn the third part of the present little book, \"The Everlasting Reality\nof Religion,\" my aim is to show that \"that other influence,\" that inward\nconviction, the craving for a final cause, the theistic assumption, is\nitself one of the master facts of the universe, and as much entitled to\nrespect as any fact in physical nature can possibly be. The argument\nflashed upon me about ten years ago, while reading Herbert Spencer's\ncontroversy with Frederic Harrison concerning the nature and reality of\nreligion. Because Spencer derived historically the greater part of the\nmodern belief in an Unseen World from the savage's primeval world of\ndreams and ghosts, some of his critics maintained that logical\nconsistency required him to dismiss the modern belief as utterly false;\notherwise he would be guilty of seeking to evolve truth from false-hood.\nBy no means, replied Spencer: \"Contrariwise, the ultimate form of the\nreligious consciousness is the final development of a consciousness\nwhich at the outset contained a germ of truth obscured by multitudinous\nerrors.\" This suggestion has borne fruit in the third part of the\npresent volume, where I have introduced a wholly new line of argument to\nshow that the Doctrine of Evolution, properly understood, does not\nleave the scales equally balanced between Materialism and Theism, but\nirredeemably discredits the former, while it places the latter upon a\nfirmer foundation than it has ever before occupied.\n\nMy reference to the French materialism of the eighteenth century, in its\ncontrast with the theism of Voltaire, is intended to point the stronger\ncontrast between the feeble survivals of that materialism in our time\nand the unshakable theism which is in harmony with the Doctrine of\nEvolution. When some naturalist like Haeckel assures us that as\nevolutionists we are bound to believe that death ends all, it is a great\nmistake to hold the Doctrine of Evolution responsible for such a\nstatement. Haeckel's opinion was never reached through a scientific\nstudy of evolution; it is nothing but an echo from the French\nspeculation of the eighteenth century. Such a writer as La Mettrie\nproceeded upon the assumption that no belief concerning anything in the\nheavens above, or the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth, is\nworthy of serious consideration unless it can be demonstrated by the\nmethods employed in physical science. Such a mental attitude was natural\nenough at a time when the medi\u0160val theory of the world was falling into\ndiscredit, while astronomy and physics were winning brilliant victories\nthrough the use of new methods. It was an attitude likely to endure so\nlong as the old-fashioned fragmentary and piecemeal habits of studying\nnature were persisted in; and the change did not come until the latter\nhalf of the nineteenth century.\n\nThe encyclop\u0160dic attainments of Alexander von Humboldt, for example,\nleft him, to all intents and purposes, a materialist of the eighteenth\ncentury. But shortly before the death of that great German scholar,\nthere appeared the English book which heralded a complete reversal of\nthe attitude of science. The \"Principles of Psychology,\" published in\n1855 by Herbert Spencer, was the first application of the theory of\nevolution on a grand scale. Taken in connection with the discoveries of\nnatural selection, of spectrum analysis, and of the mechanical\nequivalence between molar and molecular motions, it led the way to that\nsublime conception of the Unity of Nature by which the minds of\nscientific thinkers are now coming to be dominated. The attitude of mind\nwhich expressed itself in a great encyclop\u0160dic book without any\npervading principle of unity, like Humboldt's \"Kosmos,\" is now become\nwhat the Germans call _ein ueberwundener Standpunkt_, or something that\nwe have passed by and left behind.\n\nWhen we have once thoroughly grasped the monotheistic conception of the\nuniverse as an organic whole, animated by the omnipresent spirit of God,\nwe have forever taken leave of that materialism to which the universe\nwas merely an endless multitude of phenomena. We begin to catch glimpses\nof the meaning and dramatic purpose of things; at all events we rest\nassured that there really is such a meaning. Though the history of our\nlives, and of all life upon our planet, as written down by the\nunswerving finger of Nature, may exhibit all events and their final\npurpose in unmistakable sequence, yet to our limited vision the several\nfragments of the record, like the leaves of the Cum\u0160an sibyl, caught by\nthe fitful breezes of circumstance and whirled wantonly hither and\nthither, lie in such intricate confusion that no ingenuity can enable us\nwholly to decipher the legend. But could we attain to a knowledge\ncommensurate with the reality--could we penetrate the hidden depths\nwhere, according to Dante (_Paradiso_, xxxiii. 85), the story of Nature,\nno longer scattered in truant leaves, is bound with divine love in a\nmystic volume, we should find therein no traces of hazard or\nincongruity. From man's origin we gather hints of his destiny, and the\nstudy of evolution leads our thoughts through Nature to God.\n\nCAMBRIDGE, March 2, 1899.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n    THE MYSTERY OF EVIL\n\n    I. _The Serpent's Promise to the Woman_                        3\n\n    II. _The Pilgrim's Burden_                                     8\n\n    III. _Manich\u0160ism and Calvinism_                               14\n\n    IV. _The Dramatic Unity of Nature_                            22\n\n    V. _What Conscious Life is made of_                           27\n\n    VI. _Without the Element of Antagonism there\n    could be no Consciousness, and therefore\n    no World_                                                     34\n\n    VII. _A Word of Caution_                                      40\n\n    VIII. _The Hermit and the Angel_                              43\n\n    IX. _Man's Rise from the Innocence of Brutehood_              48\n\n    X. _The Relativity of Evil_                                   54\n\n\n    THE COSMIC ROOTS OF LOVE AND SELF-SACRIFICE\n\n    I. _The Summer Field, and what it tells us_                   59\n\n    II. _Seeming Wastefulness of the Cosmic Process_              65\n\n    III. _Caliban's Philosophy_                                   72\n\n    IV. _Can it be that the Cosmic Process has no\n    Relation to Moral Ends?_                                      74\n\n    V. _First Stages in the Genesis of Man_                       80\n\n    VI. _The Central Fact in the Genesis of Man_                  86\n\n    VII. _The Chief Cause of Man's lengthened Infancy_            88\n\n    VIII. _Some of its Effects_                                   96\n\n    IX. _Origin of Moral Ideas and Sentiments_                   102\n\n    X. _The Cosmic Process exists purely for the\n    Sake of Moral Ends_                                          109\n\n    XI. _Maternity and the Evolution of Altruism_                117\n\n    XII. _The Omnipresent Ethical Trend_                         127\n\n\n    THE EVERLASTING REALITY OF RELIGION\n\n    I. \"_Deo erexit Voltaire_\"                                   133\n\n    II. _The Reign of Law, and the Greek Idea of\n    God_                                                         147\n\n    III. _Weakness of Materialism_                               152\n\n    IV. _Religion's First Postulate: the Quasi-Human\n    God_                                                         163\n\n    V. _Religion's Second Postulate: the undying\n    Human Soul_                                                  168\n\n    VI. _Religion's Third Postulate: the Ethical Significance\n    of the Unseen World_                                         171\n\n    VII. _Is the Substance of Religion a Phantom, or\n    an Eternal Reality?_                                         174\n\n    VIII. _The Fundamental Aspect of Life_                       177\n\n    IX. _How the Evolution of Senses expands the\n    World_                                                       182\n\n    X. _Nature's Eternal Lesson is the Everlasting\n    Reality of Religion_                                         186\n\n\n\n\nTHE MYSTERY OF EVIL\n\n\nI am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light, and create\ndarkness; I make peace, and create evil. I the Lord do all these\nthings.--ISAIAH, xiv. 6, 7.\n\nDid not our God bring all this evil upon us?--NEHEMIAH, xiii. 18.\n\n[Greek: Ouk eoike d' h\u0155 physis epeisodi\u02d8d\u0155s ousa ek t\u02d8n phainomen\u02d8n,\nh\u02d8sper mochth\u0155ra trag\u02d8dia.]--ARISTOTLE, _Metaphysica_, xiii. 3.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n_The Serpent's Promise to the Woman_\n\n    \"Your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing\n    good and evil.\" _Genesis_ iii. 5.\n\n\nThe legend in which the serpent is represented as giving this counsel to\nthe mother of mankind occurs at the beginning of the Pentateuch in the\nform which that collection of writings assumed after the return of the\nJews from the captivity at Babylon, and there is good reason for\nbelieving that it was first placed there at that time. Allusions to Eden\nin the Old Testament literature are extremely scarce,[1] and the story\nof Eve's temptation first assumes prominence in the writings of St.\nPaul. The marks of Zoroastrian thought in it have often been pointed\nout. This garden of Eden is a true Persian paradise, situated somewhere\nin that remote wonderland of Aryana Va\u0170jo to which all Iranian tradition\nis so fond of pointing back. The wily serpent is a genuine Parsee\nserpent, and the spirit which animates him is that of the malicious and\ntricksome Ahriman, who takes delight in going about after the good\ncreator Ormuzd and spoiling his handiwork. He is not yet identified with\nthe terrible Satan, the accusing angel who finds out men's evil thoughts\nand deeds. He is simply a mischief-maker, and the punishment meted out\nto him for his mischief reminds one of many a curious passage in the\nbeast epos of primitive peoples. As in the stories which tell why the\nmole is blind or why the fox has a bushy tail, the serpent's conduct is\nmade to account for some of his peculiar attributes. As a punishment he\nis made to crawl upon his belly, and be forever an object of especial\ndread and loathing to all the children of Eve.\n\nWhat, then, is the crime for which the serpent Ahriman thus makes bitter\nexpiation? In what way has he spoiled Ormuzd's last and most wonderful\ncreation? He has introduced the sense of sin: the man and the woman are\nafraid, and hide themselves from their Lord whom they have offended. Yet\nhe has been not altogether a deceiving serpent. In one respect he had\nspoken profound truth. The man and the woman have become as gods. In the\nHebrew story Jehovah says, \"Behold the man is become as one of us;\" that\nis to say, one of the Elohim or heavenly host, who know the good and the\nevil. Man has apparently become a creature against whom precautions need\nto be taken. It is hinted that by eating of the other tree and acquiring\nimmortal life he would achieve some result not in accordance with\nJehovah's will, yet which it would then be too late to prevent.\nAccordingly, any such proceedings are forestalled by driving the man and\nwoman from the garden, and placing sentinels there with a fiery sword\nwhich turns hither and thither to warn off all who would tread the path\nthat leads to the tree of life. The anthropomorphism of the story is as\nvivid as in those Homeric scenes in which gods and men contend with one\nanother in battle. It is plainly indicated that Jehovah's wrath is\nkindled at man's presumption in meddling with what belongs only to the\nElohim; man is punished for his arrogance in the same spirit as when,\nlater on, he gives his daughters in marriage to the sons of the Elohim\nand brings on a deluge, or when he strives to build a tower that will\nreach to heaven and is visited with a confusion of tongues. So here in\nEden he has come to know too much, and Ahriman's heinous crime has\nconsisted in helping him to this interdicted knowledge.\n\nThe serpent's promise to the woman was worthy of the wisest and most\nastute of animals. But with yet greater subtlety he might have declared,\nExcept ye acquire the knowledge of good and evil, ye cannot come to be\nas gods; divine life can never be yours. Throughout the Christian world\nthis legend of the lost paradise has figured as the story of the Fall of\nMan; and naturally, because of the theological use of it made by St.\nPaul, who first lifted the story into prominence in illustrating his\ntheory of Christ as the second Adam: since by man came death into the\nworld, by man came also the resurrection from death and from sin. That\nthere is truth of the most vital sort in the Pauline theory is\nundeniable; but there are many things that will bear looking at from\nopposite points of view, for aspects of truth are often to be found on\nboth sides of the shield, and there is a sense in which we may regard\nthe loss of paradise as in itself the beginning of the Rise of Man. For\nthis, indeed, we have already found some justification in the legend\nitself. It is in no spirit of paradox that I make this suggestion. The\nmore patiently one scrutinizes the processes whereby things have come to\nbe what they are, the more deeply is one impressed with its profound\nsignificance.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Isaiah li. 3; Joel ii. 3; Ezekiel xxviii. 13, xxxi. 8, 9.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n_The Pilgrim's Burden_\n\n\nBut before I can properly elucidate this view, and make clear what is\nmeant by connecting the loss of innocence with the beginning of the Rise\nof Man, it is necessary to bestow a few words upon a well-worn theme,\nand recall to mind the helpless and hopeless bewilderment into which all\ntheologies and all philosophies have been thrown by the problem of the\nexistence of evil. From the ancient Greek and Hebrew thinkers who were\nsaddened by the spectacle of wickedness insolent and unpunished, down to\nthe aged Voltaire and the youthful Goethe who felt their theories of\nGod's justice quite baffled by the Lisbon earthquake, or down to the\natheistic pessimist of our own time who asserts that the Power which\nsustains the world is but a blind and terrible force without concern\nfor man's welfare of body or of soul,--from first to last the history of\nphilosophy teems with the mournful instances of this discouragement. In\nthat tale of War and Peace wherein the fervid genius of Tolstoi has\ndepicted scenes and characters of modern life with truthful grandeur\nlike that of the ancient epic poems, when our friend, the genial and\nthoughtful hero of the story, stands in the public square at Moscow,\nuncertain of his fate, while the kindly bright-faced peasant and the\neager pale young mechanic are shot dead by his side, and all for a silly\nsuspicion on the part of Napoleon's soldiery; as he stands and sees the\nbodies, still warm and quivering, tossed into a trench and loose earth\nhastily shovelled over them, his manly heart surges in rebellion against\na world in which such things can be, and a voice within him cries\nout,--not in the mood in which the fool crieth, but with the anguish of\na tender soul wrung by the sight of stupendous iniquity,--\"There is no\nGod!\" It is but the utterance of an old-world feeling, natural enough to\nhard-pressed and sorely tried humanity in those moments that have come\nto it only too often, when triumphant wrong is dreadfully real and close\nat hand, while anything like compensation seems shadowy and doubtful and\nfar away.\n\nIt is this feeling that has created the belief in a devil, an adversary\nto the good God, an adversary hard to conquer or baffle. The feeling\nunderlies every theological creed, and in every system of philosophy we\nfind it lurking somewhere. In these dark regions of thought, which\nscience has such scanty means for exploring, the statements which make\nup a creed are apt to be the outgrowth of such an all-pervading\nsentiment, while their form will be found to vary with the knowledge of\nnature--meagre enough at all times, and even in our boasted time--which\nhappens to characterize the age in which they are made. Hence,\nwell-nigh universally has philosophy proceeded upon the assumption,\nwhether tacit or avowed, that pain and wrong are things hard to be\nreconciled with the theory that the world is created and ruled by a\nBeing at once all-powerful and all-benevolent. Why does such a Being\npermit the misery that we behold encompassing us on every side? When we\nwould fain believe that God is love indeed, and love creation's final\nlaw, how comes it that nature, red in tooth and claw with ravine,\nshrieks against our creed? If this question could be fairly answered,\ndoes it not seem as if the burden of life, which so often seems\nintolerable, would forthwith slip from our shoulders, and leave us, like\nBunyan's pilgrim, free and bold and light-hearted to contend against all\nthe ills of the world?\n\nEver since human intelligence became enlightened enough to grope for a\nmeaning and purpose in human life, this problem of the existence of evil\nhas been the burden of man. In the effort to throw it off, leaders of\nthought have had recourse to almost every imaginable device. It has\nusually been found necessary to represent the Creator as finite either\nin power or in goodness, although the limitation is seldom avowed,\nexcept by writers who have a leaning toward atheism and take a grim\npleasure in pointing out flaws in the constitution of things. Among\nmodern writers the most conspicuous instance of this temper is afforded\nby that much too positive philosopher Auguste Comte, who would fain have\ntipped the earth's axis at a different angle and altered the\narrangements of nature in many fanciful ways. He was like Alphonso, the\nlearned king of Castile, who regretted that he had not been present when\nthe world was created,--he could have given such excellent advice!\n\nIn a very different mood the great Leibnitz, in his famous theory of\noptimism, argued that a perfect world is in the nature of things\nimpossible, but that the world in which we live is the best of possible\nworlds. The limitation of the Creator's power is made somewhat more\nexplicitly by Plato, who regarded the world as the imperfect realization\nof a Divine Idea that in itself is perfect. It is owing to the\nintractableness and vileness of matter that the Divine Idea finds itself\nso imperfectly realized. Thus the Creator's power is limited by the\nnature of the material out of which he makes the world. In other words,\nthe world in which we live is the best the Creator could make out of the\nwretched material at his disposal. This Platonic view is closely akin to\nthat of Leibnitz, but is expressed in such wise as to lend itself more\nreadily to myth-making. Matter is not only considered as what Dr.\nMartineau would call a \"datum objective to God,\" but it is endowed with\na diabolical character of its own.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n_Manich\u0160ism and Calvinism_\n\n\nIt is but a step from this to the complicated personifications of\nGnosticism, with its Demiurgus, or inferior spirit that created the\nworld. By some of the Gnostics the Creator was held to be merely an\ninferior emanation from God, a notion which had a powerful indirect\neffect upon the shaping of Christian doctrine in the second and third\ncenturies of our era. A similar thought appears in the mournful question\nasked by Tennyson's Arthur:--\n\n    \"O me! for why is all around us here\n    As if some lesser god had made the world\n    And had not force to shape it as he would?\"\n\nBut some Gnostics went so far as to hold that the world was originally\ncreated by the Devil, and is to be gradually purified and redeemed by\nthe beneficent power of God as manifested through Jesus Christ. This\nnotion is just the opposite to that of the Vendidad, which represents\nthe world as coming into existence pure and perfect, only to be\nforthwith defiled by the trail of the serpent Ahriman. In both these\nopposing theories the divine power is distinctly and avowedly curtailed\nby the introduction of a rival power that is diabolical; upon this point\nParsee and Gnostic are agreed. Distinct sources are postulated for the\nevil and the good. The one may be regarded as infinite in goodness, the\nother as infinite in badness, and the world in which we live is a\nproduct of the everlasting conflict between the two. This has been the\nfundamental idea in all Manich\u0160an systems, and it is needless to say\nthat it has always exerted a mighty influence upon Christian theology.\nThe Christian conception of the Devil, as regards its deeper ethical\naspect, has owed much to the Parsee conception of Ahriman. It can hardly\nbe said, however, that there has been any coherent, closely reasoned,\nand generally accepted Christian theory of the subject. The notions just\nmentioned are in themselves too shadowy and vague, they bear too plainly\nthe marks of their mythologic pedigree, to admit of being worked into\nsuch a coherent and closely reasoned theory. Christian thought has\nsimply played fast and loose with these conceptions, speaking in one\nbreath of divine omnipotence, and in the next alluding to the conflict\nbetween good and evil in language fraught with Manich\u0160ism.\n\nIn recent times Mr. John Stuart Mill has shown a marked preference for\nthe Manich\u0160an view, and has stated it with clearness and consistency,\nbecause he is not hampered by the feeling that he ought to reach one\nconclusion rather than another. Mr. Mill does not urge his view upon the\nreader, nor even defend it as his own view, but simply suggests it as\nperhaps the view which is for the theist most free from difficulties and\ncontradictions. Mr. Mill does not, like the Manich\u0160ans, imagine a\npersonified principle of evil; nor does he, like Plato, entertain a\nhorror of what is sometimes, with amusing vehemence, stigmatized as\n\"brute matter.\" He does not undertake to suggest how or why the divine\npower is limited; but he distinctly prefers the alternative which\nsacrifices the attribute of omnipotence in order to preserve in our\nconception of Deity the attribute of goodness. According to Mr. Mill, we\nmay regard the all-wise and holy Deity as a creative energy that is\nperpetually at work in eliminating evil from the universe. His wisdom is\nperfect, his goodness is infinite, but his power is limited by some\ninexplicable viciousness in the original constitution of things which it\nmust require a long succession of ages to overcome. In such a view Mr.\nMill sees much that is ennobling. The humblest human being who resists\nan impulse to sin, or helps in the slightest degree to leave the world\nbetter than he found it, may actually be regarded as a participator in\nthe creative work of God; and thus each act of human life acquires a\nsolemn significance that is almost overwhelming to contemplate.\n\nThese suggestions of Mr. Mill are extremely interesting, because he was\nthe last great modern thinker whose early training was not influenced by\nthat prodigious expansion of scientific knowledge which, since the\nmiddle of the nineteenth century, has taken shape in the doctrine of\nevolution. This movement began early enough to determine the\nintellectual careers of eminent thinkers born between 1820 and 1830,\nsuch as Spencer and Huxley. Mr. Mill was a dozen years too old for this.\nHe was born at nearly the same time as Mr. Darwin, but his mental habits\nwere formed too soon for him to profit fully by the new movement of\nthought; and although his attitude toward the new ideas was hospitable,\nthey never fructified in his mind. While his thinking has been of great\nvalue to the world, much of it belongs to an era which we have now left\nfar behind. This is illustrated in the degree to which he was influenced\nby the speculations of Auguste Comte. Probably no two leaders of\nthought, whose dates of birth were scarcely a quarter of a century\napart, were ever separated by such a stupendous gulf as that which\nintervenes between Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer, and this fact may\nserve as an index to the rapidity of movement which has characterized\nthe nineteenth century. Another illustration of the old-fashioned\ncharacter of Mill's philosophy is to be seen in his use of Paley's\nargument from design in support of the belief in a beneficent Creator.\nMill adopted this argument, and, as a professed free-thinker, carried it\nto the logical conclusion from which Paley, as a churchman, could not\nbut shrink. This was the conclusion which I have already mentioned, that\nGod's creative power has been limited by some inexplicable viciousness\nin the original constitution of things.\n\nI feel as if one could not be too grateful to Mr. Mill for having so\nneatly and sharply stated, in modern language and with modern\nillustrations, this old conclusion, which after all is substantially\nthat of Plato and the Gnostics. For the shock which such a clear, bold\nstatement gives to our religious feelings is no greater than the shock\nwith which it strikes counter to our modern scientific philosophy.\nSuppose we could bring back to earth a Calvinist of the seventeenth\ncentury and question him. He might well say that the God which Mr. Mill\noffers us, shorn of the attribute of omnipotence, is no God at all. He\nwould say with the Hebrew prophet, that God has created the evil along\nwith the good, and that he has done so for a purpose which human reason,\ncould it once comprehend all the conditions of the case, would most\nsurely approve as infinitely wise and holy. Our Calvinist would ask who\nis responsible for the original constitution of things if not the\nCreator himself, and in supposing anything essentially vicious in that\nconstitution, have not Plato and the Gnostics and the Manich\u0160ans and\nMr. Mill simply taken counsel of their ignorance? Nay, more, the\nCalvinist would declare that if we really understood the universe of\nwhich humanity is a part, we should find scientific justification for\nthat supreme and victorious faith which cries, \"Though he slay me, yet\nwill I trust in him!\" The man who has acquired such faith as this is the\ntrue freeman of the universe, clad in stoutest coat of mail against\ndisaster and sophistry,--the man whom nothing can enslave, and whose\nguerdon is the serene happiness that can never be taken away.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n_The Dramatic Unity of Nature_\n\n\nNow in these strong assertions it seems to me that the Calvinist is much\nmore nearly in accord with our modern knowledge than are Plato and Mill.\nIt is not wise to hazard statements as to what the future may bring\nforth, but I do not see how the dualism implied in all these attempts to\nrefer good and evil to different creative sources can ever be seriously\nmaintained again. The advance of modern science carries us irresistibly\nto what some German philosophers call monism, but I prefer to call it\nmonotheism. In getting rid of the Devil and regarding the universe as\nthe multiform manifestation of a single all-pervading Deity, we become\nfor the first time pure and uncompromising monotheists,--believers in\nthe ever-living, unchangeable, and all-wise Heavenly Father, in whom we\nmay declare our trust without the faintest trace of mental reservation.\n\nIf we can truly take such a position, and hold it rationally, it is the\nmodern science so apt to be decried by the bats and owls of orthodoxy\nthat justifies us in doing so. For what is the philosophic purport of\nthese beautiful and sublime discoveries with which the keen insight and\npatient diligence of modern students of science are beginning to be\nrewarded? What is the lesson that is taught alike by the correlation of\nforces, by spectrum analysis, by the revelations of chemistry as to the\nsubtle behaviour of molecules inaccessible to the eye of sense, by the\nastronomy that is beginning to sketch the physical history of countless\nsuns in the firmament, by the pal\u0160ontology which is slowly unravelling\nthe wonders of past life upon the earth through millions of ages? What\nis the grand lesson that is taught by all this? It is the lesson of the\nunity of nature. To learn it rightly is to learn that all the things\nthat we can see and know, in the course of our life in this world, are\nso intimately woven together that nothing could be left out without\nreducing the whole marvellous scheme to chaos. Whatever else may be\ntrue, the conviction is brought home to us that in all this endless\nmultifariousness there is one single principle at work, that all is\ntending toward an end that was involved from the very beginning, if one\ncan speak of beginnings and ends where the process is eternal. The whole\nuniverse is animated by a single principle of life, and whatever we see\nin it, whether to our half-trained understanding and narrow experience\nit may seem to be good or bad, is an indispensable part of the\nstupendous scheme. As Aristotle said, so long ago, in one of those\ncharacteristic flashes of insight into the heart of things in which no\none has ever excelled him, in nature there is nothing that is out of\nplace or interpolated, as in an ill-constructed drama.\n\nTo-day we can begin to realize how much was implied in this prophetic\nhint of Aristotle's, for we are forced to admit that whatever may be the\nfunction of evil in this world, it is unquestionably an indispensable\nfunction, and not something interpolated from without. Whatever exists\nis part of the dramatic whole, and this can quickly be proved. The\ngoodness in the world--all that we love and praise and emulate--we are\nready enough to admit into our scheme of things, and to rest upon it our\nbelief in God. The misery, the pain, the wickedness, we would fain leave\nout. But if there were no such thing as evil, how could there be such a\nthing as goodness? Or to put it somewhat differently, if we had never\nknown anything but goodness, how could we ever distinguish it from evil?\nHow could we recognize it as good? How would its quality of goodness in\nany wise interest or concern us? This question goes down to the bottom\nof things, for it appeals to the fundamental conditions according to\nwhich conscious intelligence exists at all. Its answer will therefore\nbe likely to help us. It will not enable us to solve the problem of\nevil, enshrouded as it is in a mystery impenetrable by finite\nintelligence, but it will help us to state the problem correctly; and\nsurely this is no small help. In the mere work of purifying our\nintellectual vision there is that which heals and soothes us. To learn\nto see things without distortion is to prepare one's self for taking the\nworld in the right mood, and in this we find strength and consolation.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n_What Conscious Life is made of_\n\n\nTo return to our question, how could we have good without evil, we must\npause for a moment and inquire into the constitution of the human mind.\nWhat we call the soul, the mind, the conscious self, is something\nstrange and wonderful. In our ordinary efforts to conceive it, invisible\nand impalpable as it is, we are apt to try so strenuously to divorce it\nfrom the notion of substance that it seems ethereal, unreal, ghostlike.\nYet of all realities the soul is the most solid, sound, and undeniable.\nThoughts and feelings are the fundamental facts from which there is no\nescaping. Our whole universe, from the sands on the seashore to the\nflaming suns that throng the Milky Way, is built up of sights and\nsounds, of tastes and odours, of pleasures and pains, of sensations of\nmotion and resistance either felt directly or inferred. This is no\nghostly universe, but all intensely real as it exists in that intensest\nof realities, the human soul! Consciousness, the soul's fundamental\nfact, is the most fundamental of facts. But a truly marvellous affair is\nconsciousness! The most general truth that we can assert with regard to\nit is this, that it exists only by virtue of incessant change. A state\nof consciousness that should continue through an appreciable interval of\ntime without undergoing change would not be a state of consciousness. It\nwould be unconsciousness.\n\nThis perpetual change, then, is what makes conscious life. It is only by\nvirtue of this endless procession of fleeting phases of consciousness\nthat the human soul exists at all. It is thus that we are made. Why we\nshould have been made thus is a question aiming so far beyond our ken\nthat it is idle to ask it. We might as well inquire whether Infinite\nPower could have made twice two equal five. We must rest content with\nknowing that it is thus we were created; it is thus that the human soul\nexists. Just as dynamic astronomy rests upon the law of gravitation,\njust as physics is based upon the properties of waves, so the modern\nscience of mind has been built upon the fundamental truth that\nconsciousness exists only by virtue of unceasing change. Our conscious\nlife is a stream of varying psychical states which quickly follow one\nanother in a perpetual shimmer, with never an instant of rest. The\nelementary psychical states, indeed, lie below consciousness, or, as we\nsay, they are sub-conscious. We may call these primitive pulsations the\npsychical molecules out of which are compounded the feelings and\nthoughts that well up into the full stream of consciousness. Just as in\nchemistry we explain the qualitative differences among things as due to\ndiversities of arrangement among compounded molecules and atoms, so in\npsychology we have come to see that thoughts and feelings in all their\nendless variety are diversely compounded of sub-conscious psychical\nmolecules.\n\nMusical sounds furnish us with a simple and familiar illustration of\nthis. When the sounds of taps or blows impinge upon the ear slowly, at\nthe rate of not more than sixteen in a second, they are cognized as\nseparate and non-musical noises. When they pass beyond that rate of\nspeed, they are cognized as a continuous musical tone of very low pitch;\na state of consciousness which seems simple, but which we now see is\nreally compound. As the speed of the blows increases, further\nqualitative differences arise; the musical tone rises in pitch until it\nbecomes too acute for the ear to cognize, and thus vanishes from\nconsciousness. But this is far from being the whole story; for the\nseries of blows or pulsations make not only a single vivid fundamental\ntone, but also a multifarious companion group of fainter overtones, and\nthe diverse blending of these faint harmonics constitutes the whole\ndifference in tone quality between the piano and the flute, the violin\nand the trumpet, or any other instruments. If you take up a violin and\nsound the F one octave above the treble staff, there are produced, in\nthe course of a single second, several thousand psychical states which\ntogether make up the sensation of pitch, fifty-five times as many\npsychical states which together make up the sensation of tone quality,\nand an immense number of other psychical states which together make up\nthe sensation of intensity. These psychical states are not, in any\nstrict sense of the term, states of consciousness; for if they were to\nrise individually into consciousness, the result would be an immense\nmultitude of sensations, and not a single apparently homogeneous\nsensation. There is no alternative but to conclude that in this case a\nseemingly simple state of consciousness is in reality compounded of an\nimmense multitude of sub-conscious psychical changes.\n\nNow, what is thus true in the case of musical sounds is equally true of\nall states of consciousness whatever, both those that we call\nintellectual and those that we call emotional. All are highly compounded\naggregates of innumerable minute sub-conscious psychical pulsations, if\nwe may so call them. In every stream of human consciousness that we call\na soul each second of time witnesses thousands of infinitely small\nchanges, in which one fleeting group of pulsations in the primordial\nmind-stuff gives place to another and a different but equally fleeting\ngroup. Each group is unlike its immediate predecessor. The absence of\ndifference would be continuance, and continuance means stagnation,\nblankness, negation, death. That ceaseless flutter, in which the\nquintescence of conscious life consists, is kept up by the perpetual\nintroduction of the relations of likeness and unlikeness. Each one of\nthe infinitesimal changes is a little act of discrimination, a\nrecognition of a unit of feeling as either like or unlike some other\nunit of feeling. So in these depths of the soul's life the arrangements\nand re-arrangements of units go on, while on the surface the results\nappear from moment to moment in sensations keen or dull, in perceptions\nclear or vague, in judgments wise or foolish, in memories gay or sad, in\nsordid or lofty trains of thought, in gusts of anger or thrills of love.\nThe whole fabric of human thought and human emotion is built up out of\nminute sub-conscious discriminations of likenesses and unlikenesses,\njust as much as the material world in all its beauty is built up out of\nundulations among invisible molecules.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n_Without the Element of Antagonism there could be no Consciousness, and\ntherefore no World_\n\n\nWe may now come up out of these depths, accessible only to the plummet\nof psychologic analysis, and move with somewhat freer gait in the region\nof common and familiar experiences. It is an undeniable fact that we\ncannot know anything whatever except as contrasted with something else.\nThe contrast may be bold and sharp, or it may dwindle into a slight\ndiscrimination, but it must be there. If the figures on your canvas are\nindistinguishable from the background, there is surely no picture to be\nseen. Some element of unlikeness, some germ of antagonism, some chance\nfor discrimination, is essential to every act of knowing. I might have\nillustrated this point concretely without all the foregoing explanation,\nbut I have aimed at paying it the respect due to its vast importance. I\nhave wished to show how the fact that we cannot know anything whatever\nexcept as contrasted with something else is a fact that is deeply rooted\nin the innermost structure of the human mind. It is not a superficial\nbut a fundamental truth, that if there were no colour but red it would\nbe exactly the same thing as if there were no colour at all. In a world\nof unqualified redness, our state of mind with regard to colour would be\nprecisely like our state of mind in the present world with regard to the\npressure of the atmosphere if we were always to stay in one place. We\nare always bearing up against the burden of this deep aerial ocean,\nnearly fifteen pounds upon every square inch of our bodies; but until we\ncan get a chance to discriminate, as by climbing a mountain, we are\nquite unconscious of this heavy pressure. In the same way, if we knew\nbut one colour we should know no colour. If our ears were to be filled\nwith one monotonous roar of Niagara, unbroken by alien sounds, the\neffect upon consciousness would be absolute silence. If our palates had\nnever come in contact with any tasteful thing save sugar, we should know\nno more of sweetness than of bitterness. If we had never felt physical\npain, we could not recognize physical pleasure. For want of the\ncontrasted background its pleasurableness would be non-existent. And in\njust the same way it follows that without knowing that which is morally\nevil we could not possibly recognize that which is morally good. Of\nthese antagonist correlatives, the one is unthinkable in the absence of\nthe other. In a sinless and painless world, human conduct might possess\nmore outward marks of perfection than any saint ever dreamed of; but the\nmoral element would be lacking; the goodness would have no more\nsignificance in our conscious life than that load of atmosphere which we\nare always carrying about with us.\n\nWe are thus brought to a striking conclusion, the essential soundness of\nwhich cannot be gainsaid. In a happy world there must be sorrow and\npain, and in a moral world the knowledge of evil is indispensable. The\nstern necessity for this has been proved to inhere in the innermost\nconstitution of the human soul. It is part and parcel of the universe.\nTo him who is disposed to cavil at the world which God has in such wise\ncreated, we may fairly put the question whether the prospect of escape\nfrom its ills would ever induce him to put off this human consciousness,\nand accept in exchange some form of existence unknown and inconceivable!\nThe alternative is clear: on the one hand a world with sin and\nsuffering, on the other hand an unthinkable world in which conscious\nlife does not involve contrast.\n\nThe profound truth of Aristotle's remark is thus more forcibly than ever\nbrought home to us. We do not find that evil has been interpolated into\nthe universe from without; we find that, on the contrary, it is an\nindispensable part of the dramatic whole. God is the creator of evil,\nand from the eternal scheme of things diabolism is forever excluded.\nOrmuzd and Ahriman have had their day and perished, along with the\ndoctrine of special creations and other fancies of the untutored human\nmind. From our present standpoint we may fairly ask, What would have\nbeen the worth of that primitive innocence portrayed in the myth of the\ngarden of Eden, had it ever been realized in the life of men? What would\nhave been the moral value or significance of a race of human beings\nignorant of sin, and doing beneficent acts with no more consciousness or\nvolition than the deftly contrived machine that picks up raw material at\none end, and turns out some finished product at the other? Clearly, for\nstrong and resolute men and women an Eden would be but a fool's\nparadise. How could anything fit to be called _character_ have ever been\nproduced there? But for tasting the forbidden fruit, in what respect\ncould man have become a being of higher order than the beasts of the\nfield? An interesting question is this, for it leads us to consider the\ngenesis of the idea of moral evil in man.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\n_A Word of Caution_\n\n\nBefore we enter upon this topic a word of caution may be needed. I do\nnot wish the purpose of the foregoing questions to be misunderstood. The\nserial nature of human thinking and speaking makes it impossible to\nexpress one's thought on any great subject in a solid block; one must\nneeds give it forth in consecutive fragments, so that parts of it run\nthe risk of being lost upon the reader or hearer, while other parts are\nmade to assume undue proportions. Moreover, there are many minds that\nhabitually catch at the fragments of a thought, and never seize it in\nthe block; and in such manner do strange misconceptions arise. I never\ncould have dreamed, until taught by droll experience, that the foregoing\nallusions to the garden of Eden could be understood as a glorification\nof sin, and an invitation to my fellow-men to come forth with me and be\nwicked! But even so it was, on one occasion when I was trying, somewhat\nmore scantily than here, to state the present case. In the midst of my\nendeavour to justify the grand spirit of faith which our fathers showed\nwhen from abysmal depths of affliction they never failed to cry that God\ndoeth all things well, I was suddenly interrupted with queries as to\njust what percentage of sin and crime I regarded as needful for the\nmoral equilibrium of the universe; how much did I propose to commit\nmyself, how much would I advise people in general to commit, and just\nwhere would I have them stop! Others deemed it necessary to remind me\nthat there is already too much suffering in the world, and we ought not\nto seek to increase it; that the difference between right and wrong is\nof great practical importance; and that if we try to treat evil as good\nwe shall make good no better than evil.\n\nWhen one has sufficiently recovered one's gravity, it is permissible to\nreply to such criticisms that the sharp antithesis between good and evil\nis essential to every step of my argument, which would entirely collapse\nif the antagonism were for one moment disregarded. The quantity of\nsuffering in the world is unquestionably so great as to prompt us to do\nall in our power to diminish it; such we shall presently see must be the\ncase in a world that proceeds through stages of evolution. When one\nreverently assumes that it was through some all-wise and holy purpose\nthat sin was permitted to come into the world, it ought to be quite\nsuperfluous to add that the fulfilment of any such purpose demands that\nsin be not cherished, but suppressed. If one seeks, as a philosopher, to\nexplain and justify God's wholesale use of death in the general economy\nof the universe, is one forsooth to be charged with praising murder as a\nfine art and with seeking to found a society of Thugs?\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n_The Hermit and the Angel_\n\n\nThe simple-hearted monks of the Middle Ages understood, in their own\nquaint way, that God's methods of governing this universe are not always\nfit to be imitated by his finite creatures. In one of the old stories\nthat furnished entertainment and instruction for the cloister it is said\nthat a hermit and an angel once journeyed together. The angel was in\nhuman form and garb, but had told his companion the secret of his\nexalted rank and nature. Coming at nightfall to a humble house by the\nwayside, the two travellers craved shelter for the love of God. A dainty\nsupper and a soft, warm bed were given them, and in the middle of the\nnight the angel arose and strangled the kind host's infant son, who was\nquietly sleeping in his cradle. The good hermit was paralyzed with\namazement and horror, but dared not speak a word. The next night the two\ncomrades were entertained at a fine mansion in the city, where the angel\nstole the superb golden cup from which his host had quaffed wine at\ndinner. Next day, while crossing the bridge over a deep and rapid\nstream, a pilgrim met the travellers. \"Canst thou show us, good father,\"\nsaid the angel, \"the way to the next town?\" As the pilgrim turned to\npoint it out, this terrible being caught him by the shoulder and flung\nhim into the river to drown. \"Verily,\" thought the poor hermit, \"it is a\ndevil that I have here with me, and all his works are evil;\" but fear\nheld his tongue, and the twain fared on their way till the sun had set\nand snow began to fall, and the howling of wolves was heard in the\nforest hard by. Presently the bright light coming from a cheerful window\ngave hope of a welcome refuge; but the surly master of the house turned\nthe travellers away from his door with curses and foul gibes. \"Yonder\nis my pig-sty for dirty vagrants like you.\" So they passed that night\namong the swine; and in the morning the angel went to the house and\nthanked the master for his hospitality, and gave him for a keepsake\n(thrifty angel!) the stolen goblet. Then did the hermit's wrath and\ndisgust overcome his fears, and he loudly upbraided his companion. \"Get\nthee gone, wretched spirit!\" he cried. \"I will have no more of thee.\nThou pretendest to be a messenger from heaven, yet thou requitest good\nwith evil, and evil with good!\" Then did the angel look upon him with\ninfinite compassion in his eyes. \"Listen,\" said he, \"short-sighted\nmortal. The birth of that infant son had made the father covetous,\nbreaking God's commandments in order to heap up treasures which the boy,\nif he had lived, would have wasted in idle debauchery. By my act, which\nseemed so cruel, I saved both parent and child. The owner of the goblet\nhad once been abstemious, but was fast becoming a sot; the loss of his\ncup has set him to thinking, and he will mend his ways. The poor\npilgrim, unknown to himself, was about to commit a mortal sin, when I\ninterfered and sent his unsullied soul to heaven. As for the wretch who\ndrove God's children from his door, he is, indeed, pleased for the\nmoment with the bauble I left in his hands; but hereafter he will burn\nin hell.\" So spoke the angel; and when he had heard these words the\nhermit bowed his venerable head and murmured, \"Forgive me, Lord, that in\nmy ignorance I misjudged thee.\"\n\nI suspect that, with all our boasted science, there is still much wisdom\nfor us in the humble childlike piety of the Gesta Romanorum. To say that\nthe ways of Providence are inscrutable is still something more than an\nidle platitude, and there still is room for the belief that, could we\nraise the veil that enshrouds eternal truth, we should see that behind\nnature's cruelest works there are secret springs of divinest tenderness\nand love. In this trustful mood we may now return to the question as to\nthe genesis of the idea of moral evil, and its close connection with\nman's rise from a state of primeval innocence.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\n_Man's Rise from the Innocence of Brutehood_\n\n\nWe have first to note that in various ways the action of natural\nselection has been profoundly modified in the course of the development\nof mankind from a race of inferior creatures. One of the chief factors\nin the production of man was the change that occurred in the direction\nof the working of natural selection, whereby in the line of man's direct\nancestry the variations in intelligence came to be seized upon,\ncherished, and enhanced, to the comparative neglect of variations in\nbodily structure. The physical differences between man and ape are less\nimportant than the physical differences between African and South\nAmerican apes. The latter belong to different zo\u00f7logical families, but\nthe former do not. Zo\u00f7logically, man is simply one genus in the\nold-world family of apes. Psychologically, he has travelled so far from\napes that the distance is scarcely measurable. This transcendent\ncontrast is primarily due to the change in the direction of the working\nof natural selection. The consequences of this change were numerous and\nfar-reaching. One consequence was that gradual lengthening of the\nplastic period of infancy which enabled man to became a progressive\ncreature, and organized the primeval semi-human horde into definite\nfamily groups. I have elsewhere expounded this point, and it is known as\nmy own especial contribution to the theory of evolution.\n\nAnother associated consequence, which here more closely concerns us, was\nthe partial stoppage of the process of natural selection in remedying\nunfitness. A quotation from Herbert Spencer will help us to understand\nthis partial stoppage: \"As fast as the faculties are multiplied, so fast\ndoes it become possible for the several members of a species to have\nvarious kinds of superiorities over one another. While one saves its\nlife by higher speed, another does the like by clearer vision, another\nby keener scent, another by quicker hearing, another by greater\nstrength, another by unusual power of enduring cold or hunger, another\nby special sagacity, another by special timidity, another by special\ncourage.... Now ... each of these attributes, giving its possessor an\nextra chance of life, is likely to be transmitted to posterity. But\" it\nis not nearly so likely to be increased by natural selection. For \"if\nthose members of the species which have but ordinary\" or even deficient\nshares of some valuable attribute \"nevertheless survive by virtue of\nother superiorities which they severally possess, then it is not easy to\nsee how this particular attribute can be\" enhanced in subsequent\ngenerations by natural selection.[2]\n\nThese considerations apply especially to the human race with its\nmultitudinous capacities, and I can better explain the case by a crude\nand imperfect illustration than by a detailed and elaborate statement.\nIf an individual antelope falls below the average of the herd in speed,\nhe is sure to become food for lions, and thus the high average of speed\nin the herd is maintained by natural selection. But if an individual man\nbecomes a drunkard, though his capabilities be ever so much curtailed by\nthis vice, yet the variety of human faculty furnishes so many hooks with\nwhich to keep one's hold upon life that he may sin long and flagrantly\nwithout perishing; and if the drunkard survives, the action of natural\nselection in weeding out drunkenness is checked. There is thus a wide\ninterval between the highest and lowest degrees of completeness in\nliving that are compatible with maintenance of life. Mankind has so many\nother qualities beside the bad ones, which enable it to subsist and\nachieve progress in spite of them, that natural selection--which always\nworks through death--cannot come into play.\n\nNow it is because of this _interval_ between the highest and lowest\ndegrees of completeness of living that are compatible with the mere\nmaintenance of life, that men can be distinguished as morally bad or\nmorally good. In inferior animals, where there is no such interval,\nthere is no developed morality or conscience, though in a few of the\nhigher ones there are the germs of these things. Morality comes upon the\nscene when there is an alternative offered of leading better lives or\nworse lives. And just as up to this point the actions of the forefathers\nof mankind have been determined by the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance\nof pain, so now they begin to be practically determined by the pursuit\nof goodness and avoidance of evil. This rise from a bestial to a moral\nplane of existence involves the acquirement of the knowledge of good and\nevil. Conscience is generated to play a part analogous to that played by\nthe sense of pain in the lower stages of life, and to keep us from wrong\ndoing. To the mere love of life, which is the conservative force that\nkeeps the whole animal world in existence, there now comes gradually to\nbe superadded the feeling of religious aspiration, which is nothing more\nnor less than the yearning after the highest possible completeness of\nspiritual life. In the lower stages of human development this religious\naspiration has as yet but an embryonic existence, and moral obligations\nare still but imperfectly recognized. It is only after long ages of\nsocial discipline, fraught with cruel afflictions and grinding misery,\nthat the moral law becomes dominant and religious aspiration intense and\nabiding in the soul. When such a stage is reached, we have at last in\nman a creature different in kind from his predecessors, and fit for an\neverlasting life of progress, for a closer and closer communion with God\nin beatitude that shall endure.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[2] Biology, i. 454.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nX\n\n_The Relativity of Evil_\n\n\nAs we survey the course of this wonderful evolution, it begins to become\nmanifest that moral evil is simply the characteristic of the lower state\nof living as looked at from the higher state. Its existence is purely\nrelative, yet it is profoundly real, and in a process of perpetual\nspiritual evolution its presence in some hideous form throughout a long\nseries of upward stages is indispensable. Its absence would mean\nstagnation, quiescence, unprogressiveness. For the moment we exercise\nconscious choice between one course of action and another, we recognize\nthe difference between better and worse, we foreshadow the whole grand\ncontrast between good and bad. In the process of spiritual evolution,\ntherefore, evil must needs be present. But the nature of evolution also\nrequires that it should be evanescent. In the higher stages that which\nis worse than the best need no longer be positively bad. After the\nnature of that which the upward-striving soul abhors has been forever\nimpressed upon it, amid the long vicissitudes of its pilgrimage through\nthe dark realms of sin and expiation, it is at length equipped for its\nfinal sojourn\n\n    \"In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.\"\n\nFrom the general analogies furnished in the process of evolution, we are\nentitled to hope that, as it approaches its goal and man comes nearer to\nGod, the fact of evil will lapse into a mere memory, in which the\nshadowed past shall serve as a background for the realized glory of the\npresent.\n\nThus we have arrived at the goal of my argument. We can at least begin\nto realize distinctly that unless our eyes had been opened at some time,\nso that we might come to know the good and the evil, we should never\nhave become fashioned in God's image. We should have been the denizens\nof a world of puppets, where neither morality nor religion could have\nfound place or meaning. The mystery of evil remains a mystery still, but\nit is no longer a harsh dissonance such as greeted the poet's ear when\nthe doors of hell were thrown open; for we see that this mystery belongs\namong the profound harmonies in God's creation. This reflection may have\nin it something that is consoling as we look forth upon the ills of the\nworld. Many are the pains of life, and the struggle with wickedness is\nhard; its course is marked with sorrow and tears. But assuredly its deep\nimpress upon the human soul is the indispensable background against\nwhich shall be set hereafter the eternal joys of heaven!\n\n\n\n\nTHE COSMIC ROOTS OF LOVE AND SELF-SACRIFICE\n\n\n    O abbondante grazia, ond' io presunsi\n      Ficcar lo viso per la luce eterna\n      Tanto, che la veduta vi consunsi!\n    Nel suo profondo vidi che s' interna,\n      Legato con amore in un volume,\n      Ci\u02db che per l' universo si squaderna.\n\n    DANTE, _Paradiso_, xxxiii. 82.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n_The Summer Field, and what it tells us_\n\n\nThere are few sights in Nature more restful to the soul than a daisied\nfield in June. Whether it be at the dewy hour of sunrise, with blithe\nmatin songs still echoing among the treetops, or while the luxuriant\nsplendour of noontide fills the delicate tints of the early foliage with\na pure glory of light, or in that more pensive time when long shadows\nare thrown eastward and the fresh breath of the sea is felt, or even\nunder the solemn mantle of darkness, when all forms have faded from\nsight and the night air is musical with the murmurs of innumerable\ninsects, amid all the varying moods through which the daily cycle runs,\nthe abiding sense is of unalloyed happiness, the profound tranquillity\nof mind and heart that nothing ever brings save the contemplation of\nperfect beauty. One's thought is carried back for the moment to that\nmorning of the world when God looked upon his work and saw that it was\ngood. If in the infinite and eternal Creative Energy one might imagine\nsome inherent impulse perpetually urging toward fresh creation, what\ncould it be more likely to be than the divine contentment in giving\nobjective existence to the boundless and subtle harmonies whereof our\nworld is made? That it is a world of perfect harmony and unsullied\nbeauty, who can doubt as he strolls through this summer field? As our\nthought plays lightly with its sights and sounds, there is nothing but\ngladness in the laugh of the bobolink; the thrush's tender note tells\nonly of the sweet domestic companionship of the nest; creeping and\nwinged things emerging from their grubs fill us with the sense of\nabounding life; and the myriad buttercups, hallowed with vague memories\nof June days in childhood, lose none of their charm in reminding us of\nthe profound sympathy and mutual dependence in which the worlds of\nflowers and insects have grown up. The blades of waving grass, the\nfluttering leaves upon the lilac bush, appeal to us with rare\nfascination; for the green stuff that fills their cellular tissues, and\nthe tissues of all green things that grow, is the world's great\ninimitable worker of wonders; its marvellous alchemy takes dead matter\nand breathes into it the breath of life. But for that magician\nchlorophyll, conjuring with sunbeams, such things as animal life and\nconscious intelligence would be impossible; there would be no problems\nof creation, nor philosopher to speculate upon them. Thus the delight\nthat sense impression gives, as we wander among buttercups and daisies,\nbecomes deepened into gratitude and veneration, till we quite understand\nhow the rejuvenescence of Nature should in all ages have aroused men to\nacts of worship, and should call forth from modern masters of music, the\nmost religious of the arts of expression, outbursts of sublimest song.\n\nAnd yet we need but come a little closer to the facts to find them\napparently telling us a very different story. The moment we penetrate\nbelow the superficial aspect of things the scene is changed. In the\nfolklore of Ireland there is a widespread belief in a fairyland of\neternal hope and brightness and youth situated a little way below the\nroots of the grass. From that land of Tir nan Og, as the peasants call\nit, the secret springs of life shoot forth their scions in this visible\nworld, and thither a few favoured mortals have now and then found their\nway. It is into no blest country of Tir nan Og that our stern science\nleads us, but into a scene of ugliness and hatred, strife and massacre.\nMacaulay tells of the battlefield of Neerwinden, that the next summer\nafter that frightful slaughter the whole countryside was densely covered\nwith scarlet poppies, which people beheld with awe as a token of wrath\nin heaven over the deeds wrought on earth by human passions. Any summer\nfield, though mantled in softest green, is the scene of butchery as\nwholesale as that of Neerwinden and far more ruthless. The life of its\ncountless tiny denizens is one of unceasing toil, of crowding and\njostling, where the weaker fall unpitied by the way, of starvation from\nhunger and cold, of robbery utterly shameless and murder utterly cruel.\nThat green sward in taking possession of its territory has exterminated\nscores of flowering plants of the sort that human economics and\n\u0160sthetics stigmatize as weeds; nor do the blades of the victorious army\ndwell side by side in amity, but in their eagerness to dally with the\nsunbeams thrust aside and supplant one another without the smallest\ncompunction. Of the crawling insects and those that hum through the air,\nwith the quaint snail, the burrowing worm, the bloated toad, scarce one\nin a hundred but succumbs to the buffets of adverse fortune before it\nhas achieved maturity and left offspring to replace it. The early bird,\nwho went forth in quest of the worm, was lucky if at the close of a day\nas full of strife and peril as ever knight-errant encountered, he did\nnot himself serve as a meal for some giant foe in the gloaming. When we\nthink of the hawk's talons buried in the breast of the wren, while the\nrelentless beak tears the little wings from the quivering, bleeding\nbody, our mood toward Nature is changed, and we feel like recoiling from\na world in which such black injustice, such savage disregard for others,\nis part of the general scheme.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n_Seeming Wastefulness of the Cosmic Process_\n\n\nBut as we look still further into the matter, our mood is changed once\nmore. We find that this hideous hatred and strife, this wholesale famine\nand death, furnish the indispensable conditions for the evolution of\nhigher and higher types of life. Nay more, but for the pitiless\ndestruction of all individuals that fall short of a certain degree of\nfitness to the circumstances of life into which they are born, the type\nwould inevitably degenerate, the life would become lower and meaner in\nkind. Increase in richness, variety, complexity of life is gained only\nby the selection of variations above or beyond a certain mean, and the\nprompt execution of a death sentence upon all the rest. The principle of\nnatural selection is in one respect intensely Calvinistic; it elects\nthe one and damns the ninety and nine. In these processes of Nature\nthere is nothing that savours of communistic equality; but \"to him that\nhath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away even\nthat which he hath.\" Through this selection of a favoured few, a higher\ntype of life--or at all events a type in which there is more life--is\nattained in many cases, but not always. Evolution and progress are not\nsynonymous terms. The survival of the fittest is not always a survival\nof the best or of the most highly organized. The environment is\nsometimes such that increase of fitness means degeneration of type, and\nthe animal and vegetable worlds show many instances of degeneration. One\nbrilliant instance is that which has preserved the clue to the remote\nancestry of the vertebrate type. The molluscoid ascidian, rooted\npolyp-like on the sea beach in shallow water, has an embryonic history\nwhich shows that its ancestors had once seen better days, when they\ndarted to and fro, fishlike, through the waves, with the prophecy of a\nvertebrate skeleton within them. This is a case of marked degeneration.\nMore often survival of the fittest simply preserves the type unchanged\nthrough long periods of time. But now and then under favourable\ncircumstances it raises the type. At all events, whenever the type is\nraised, it is through survival of the fittest, implying destruction of\nall save the fittest.\n\nThis last statement is probably true of all plants and of all animals\nexcept that as applied to the human race it needs some transcendently\nimportant qualifications which students of evolution are very apt to\nneglect. I shall by and by point out these qualifications. At present we\nmay note that the development of civilization, on its political side,\nhas been a stupendous struggle for life, wherein the possession of\ncertain physical and mental attributes has enabled some tribes or\nnations to prevail over others, and to subject or exterminate them. On\nits industrial side the struggle has been no less fierce; the evolution\nof higher efficiency through merciless competition is a matter of common\nknowledge. Alike in the occupations of war and in those of peace,\nsuperior capacity has thriven upon victories in which small heed has\nbeen paid to the wishes or the welfare of the vanquished. In human\nhistory perhaps no relation has been more persistently repeated than\nthat of the hawk and the wren. The aggression has usually been defended\nas in the interests of higher civilization, and in the majority of cases\nthe defence has been sustained by the facts. It has indeed very commonly\nbeen true that the survival of the strongest is the survival of the\nfittest.\n\nSuch considerations affect our mood toward Nature in a way that is\nsomewhat bewildering. On the one hand, as we recognize in the universal\nstrife and slaughter a stern discipline through which the standard of\nanimate existence is raised and the life of creatures variously\nenriched, we become to some extent reconciled to the facts. Assuming,\nas we all do, that the attainment of higher life is in itself desirable,\nour minds cannot remain utterly inhospitable towards things, however\nodious in themselves, that help toward the desirable end. Since we\ncannot rid the world of them, we acquiesce in their existence as part of\nthe machinery of God's providence, the intricacies of which our finite\nminds cannot hope to unravel. On the other hand, a thought is likely to\narise which in days gone by we should have striven to suppress as too\nimpious for utterance; but it is wiser to let such thoughts find full\nexpression, for only thus can we be sure of understanding the kind of\nproblem we are trying to solve. Is not, then, this method of Nature,\nwhich achieves progress only through misery and death, an exceedingly\nbrutal and clumsy method? Life, one would think, must be dear to the\neverlasting Giver of life, yet how cheap it seems to be held in the\ngeneral scheme of things! In order that some race of moths may attain a\ncertain fantastic contour and marking of their wings, untold thousands\nof moths are doomed to perish prematurely. Instead of making the\ndesirable object once for all, the method of Nature is to make something\nelse and reject it, and so on through countless ages, till by slow\napproximations the creative thought is realized. Nature is often called\nthrifty, yet could anything be more prodigal or more cynical than the\nwaste of individual lives? Does it not remind one of Charles Lamb's\nfamous story of the Chinaman whose house accidentally burned down and\nroasted a pig, whereupon the dainty meat was tasted and its fame spread\nabroad until epicures all over China were to be seen carrying home pigs\nand forthwith setting fire to their houses? We need but add that the\ncustom thus established lasted for centuries, during which every dinner\nof pig involved the sacrifice of a homestead, and we seem to have a\nclose parody upon the wastefulness of Nature, or of what is otherwise\ncalled in these days the Cosmic Process. Upon such a view as this the\nCosmic Process appears in a high degree unintelligent, not to say\nimmoral.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n_Caliban's Philosophy_\n\n\nPolytheism easily found a place for such views as these, inasmuch as it\ncould explain the unseemly aspects of Nature offhand by a reference to\nmalevolent deities. With Browning's Caliban, in his meditations upon\nSetebos, that god whom he conceived in his own image, the recklessness\nof Nature is mockery engendered half in spite, half in mere wantonness.\nSetebos, he says,\n\n                        \"is strong and Lord,\n    Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs\n    That march now from the mountain to the sea;\n    Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,\n    Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.\n    Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots\n    Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off;\n    Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm,\n    And two worms he whose nippers end in red;\n    As it likes me each time, I do: So He.\"\n\nSuch is the kind of philosophy that commends itself to the beastly\nCaliban, as he sprawls in the mire with small eft things creeping down\nhis back. His half-fledged mind can conceive no higher principle of\naction--nothing more artistic, nothing more masterful--than wanton\nmockery, and naturally he attributes it to his God; it is for him a\nsufficient explanation of that little fragment of the Cosmic Process\nwith which he comes into contact.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n_Can it be that the Cosmic Process has no Relation to Moral Ends?_\n\n\nBut as long as we confine our attention to the universal struggle for\nlife and the survival of the fittest, without certain qualifications\npresently to be mentioned, it is difficult for the most profound\nintelligence to arrive at conclusions much more satisfactory than\nCaliban's. If the spirit shown in Nature's works as thus contemplated is\nnot one of wanton mockery, it seems at any rate to be a spirit of stolid\nindifference. It indicates a Blind Force rather than a Beneficent Wisdom\nat the source of things. It is in some such mood as this that Huxley\ntells us, in his famous address delivered at Oxford, in 1893, that there\nis no sanction for morality in the Cosmic Process. \"Men in society,\" he\nsays, \"are undoubtedly subject to the cosmic process. As among other\nanimals, multiplication goes on without cessation and involves severe\ncompetition for the means of support. The struggle for existence tends\nto eliminate those less fitted to adapt themselves to the circumstances\nof their existence. The strongest, the most self-assertive, tend to\ntread down the weaker.... Social progress means a checking of the cosmic\nprocess at every step and the substitution for it of another, which may\nbe called the ethical process; the end of which is not the survival of\nthose who may happen to be the fittest, in respect of the whole of the\nconditions which exist, but of those who are ethically the best.\" Again,\nsays Huxley, \"let us understand, once for all, that the ethical progress\nof society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in\nrunning away from it, but in combating it.\" And again he tells us that\nwhile the moral sentiments have undoubtedly been evolved, yet since\n\"the immoral sentiments have no less been evolved, there is so far as\nmuch natural sanction for the one as for the other.\" And yet again, \"the\ncosmic process has no sort of relation to moral ends.\"\n\nWhen these statements were first made they were received with surprise,\nand they have since called forth much comment, for they sound like a\nretreat from the position which an evolutionist is expected to hold.\nThey distinctly assert a breach of continuity between evolution in\ngeneral and the evolution of Man in particular; and thus they have\ncarried joy to the hearts of sundry theologians, of the sort that like\nto regard Man as an infringer upon Nature. If there is no natural\nsanction for morality, then the sanction must be supernatural, and\nforthwith such theologians greet Huxley as an ally!\n\nThey are mistaken, however. Huxley does not really mean to assert any\nsuch breach of continuity as is here suggested. In a footnote to his\nprinted address he makes a qualification which really cancels the group\nof statements I have quoted. \"Of course,\" says Huxley, \"strictly\nspeaking, social life and the ethical process, in virtue of which it\nadvances toward perfection, are part and parcel of the general process\nof evolution.\" Of course they are; and of course the general process of\nevolution is the cosmic process, it is Nature's way of doing things. But\nwhen my dear Huxley a moment ago was saying that the \"cosmic process has\nno sort of relation to moral ends,\" he was using the phrase in a more\nrestricted sense; he was using it as equivalent to what Darwin called\n\"natural selection,\" what Spencer called \"survival of the fittest,\"\nwhich is only one part of the cosmic process. Now most assuredly\nsurvival of the fittest, as such, has no sort of relation to moral ends.\nBeauty and ugliness, virtue and vice, are all alike to it. Side by side\nwith the exquisite rose flourishes the hideous tarantula, and in too\nmany cases the villain's chances of livelihood are better than the\nsaints. As I said a while ago, if we confine our attention to the\nsurvival of the fittest in the struggle for existence, we are not likely\nto arrive at conclusions much more satisfactory than Caliban's\n\n    \"As it likes me each time, I do: So He.\"\n\nIn such a universe we may look in vain for any sanction for morality,\nany justification for love and self-sacrifice; we find no hope in it, no\nconsolation; there is not even dignity in it, nothing whatever but\nresistless all-producing and all-consuming energy.\n\nSuch a universe, however, is not the one in which we live. In the cosmic\nprocess of evolution, whereof our individual lives are part and parcel,\nthere are other agencies at work besides natural selection, and the\nstory of the struggle for existence is far from being the whole story. I\nhave thus far been merely stating difficulties; it is now time to point\nout the direction in which we are to look for a solution of them. I\nthink it can be shown that the principles of morality have their roots\nin the deepest foundations of the universe, that the cosmic process is\nethical in the profoundest sense, that in that far-off morning of the\nworld, when the stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy,\nthe beauty of self-sacrifice and disinterested love formed the chief\nburden of the mighty theme.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n_First Stages in the Genesis of Man_\n\n\nLet us begin by drawing a correct though slight outline sketch of what\nthe cosmic process of evolution has been. It is not strange that when\nbiologists speak of evolution they should often or usually have in mind\nsimply the modifications wrought in plants and animals by means of\nnatural selection. For it was by calling attention to such modifications\nthat Darwin discovered a true cause of the origin of species by\nphysiological descent from allied species. Thus was demonstrated the\nfact of evolution in its most important province; men of science were\nconvinced that the higher forms of life are derived from lower forms,\nand the old notion of special creations was exploded once and forever.\nThis was a great scientific achievement, one of the greatest known to\nhistory, and it is therefore not strange that language should often be\nemployed as if Evolutionism and Darwinism were synonymous. Yet not only\nare there extensive regions in the doctrine of evolution about which\nDarwin knew very little, but even as regards the genesis of species his\ntheory was never developed in his own hands so far as to account\nsatisfactorily for the genesis of man.\n\nIt must be borne in mind that while the natural selection of physical\nvariations will go far toward explaining the characteristics of all the\nplants and all the beasts in the world, it remains powerless to account\nfor the existence of man. Natural selection of physical variations might\ngo on for a dozen eternities without any other visible result than new\nforms of plant and beast in endless and meaningless succession. The\nphysical variations by which man is distinguished from apes are not\ngreat. His physical relationship with the ape is closer than that\nbetween cat and dog, which belong to different families of the same\norder; it is more like that between cat and leopard, or between dog and\nfox, different genera in the same family. But the moment we consider the\nminds of man and ape, the gap between the two is immeasurable. Mr.\nMivart has truly said that, with regard to their total value in nature,\nthe difference between man and ape transcends the difference between ape\nand blade of grass. I should be disposed to go further and say, that\nwhile for zo\u00f7logical man you can hardly erect a distinct family from\nthat of the chimpanzee and orang, on the other hand, for psychological\nman you must erect a distinct kingdom; nay, you must even dichotomize\nthe universe, putting Man on one side and all things else on the other.\nHow can this overwhelming contrast between psychical and physical\ndifference be accounted for? The clue was furnished by Alfred Russel\nWallace, the illustrious co-discoverer of natural selection. Wallace\nsaw that along with the general development of mammalian intelligence a\npoint must have been reached in the history of one of the primates, when\nvariations of intelligence were more profitable to him than variations\nin body. From that time forth that primate's intelligence went on by\nslow increments acquiring new capacity, while his body changed but\nlittle. When once he could strike fire, and chip a flint, and use a\nclub, and strip off the bear's hide to cover himself, there was clearly\nno further use in thickening his own hide, or lengthening and sharpening\nhis claws. Natural selection is the keenest capitalist in the universe;\nshe never loses an instant in seizing the most profitable place for\ninvestment, and her judgment is never at fault. Forthwith, for a million\nyears or more she invested all her capital in the psychical variations\nof this favoured primate, making little change in his body except so far\nas to aid in the general result, until by and by something like human\nintelligence of a low grade, like that of the Australian or the Andaman\nislander, was achieved. The genesis of humanity was by no means yet\ncompleted, but an enormous gulf had been crossed.\n\nAfter throwing out this luminous suggestion Mr. Wallace never followed\nit up as it admitted and deserved. It is too much to expect one man to\ndo everything, and his splendid studies in the geographical distribution\nof organisms may well have left him little time for work in this\ndirection. Who can fail to see that the selection of psychical\nvariations, to the comparative neglect of physical variations, was the\nopening of a new and greater act in the drama of creation? Since that\nnew departure the Creator's highest work has consisted not in bringing\nforth new types of body, but in expanding and perfecting the psychical\nattributes of the one creature in whose life those attributes have begun\nto acquire predominance. Along this human line of ascent there is no\noccasion for any further genesis of species, all future progress must\ncontinue to be not zo\u00f7logical, but psychological, organic evolution\ngives place to civilization. Thus in the long series of organic beings\nMan is the last; the cosmic process, having once evolved this\nmasterpiece, could thenceforth do nothing better than to perfect him.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n_The Central Fact in the Genesis of Man_\n\n\nThis conclusion, which follows irresistibly from Wallace's theorem, that\nin the genesis of Humanity natural selection began to follow a new path,\nalready throws a light of promise over our whole subject, like the rosy\ndawn of a June morning. But the explanation of the genesis of Humanity\nis still far from complete. If we compare man with any of the higher\nmammals, such as dogs and horses and apes, we are struck with several\npoints of difference: _first_, the greater progressiveness of man, the\nwidening of the interval by which one generation may vary from its\npredecessor; _secondly_, the definite grouping in societies based on\nmore or less permanent family relationships, instead of the indefinite\ngrouping in miscellaneous herds or packs; _thirdly_, the possession of\narticulate speech; _fourthly_, the enormous increase in the duration of\ninfancy, or the period when parental care is needed. Twenty-four years\nago, in a course of lectures given yonder in Holden Chapel, I showed\nthat the circumstance last named is the fundamental one, and the others\nare derivative. It is the prolonged infancy that has caused the\nprogressiveness and the grouping into definite societies, while the\ndevelopment of language was a consequence of the increasing intelligence\nand sociality thus caused. In the genesis of Humanity the central fact\nhas been the increased duration of infancy. Now, can we assign for that\nincreased duration an adequate cause? I think we can. The increase of\nintelligence is itself such a cause. A glance at the animal kingdom\nshows us no such thing as infancy among the lower orders. It is with\nwarm-blooded birds and mammals that the phenomena of infancy and the\ncorrelative parental care really begin.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\n_The Chief Cause of Man's lengthened Infancy_\n\n\nThe reason for this is that any creature's ability to perceive and to\nact depends upon the registration of experiences in his nerve-centres.\nIt is either individual or ancestral experience that is thus registered;\nor, strictly speaking, it is both. It is of the first importance that\nthis point should be clearly understood, and therefore a few words of\nelementary explanation will not be superfluous.\n\nWhen you learn to play the piano, you gradually establish innumerable\nassociations between printed groups of notes and the corresponding keys\non the key-board, and you also train the fingers to execute a vast\nnumber of rapid and complicated motions. The process is full of\ndifficulty, and involves endless repetition. After some years perhaps\nyou can play at sight and with almost automatic ease a polonaise of\nLiszt or a ballad of Chopin. Now this result is possible only because of\na bodily change which has taken place in you. Countless molecular\nalterations have been wrought in the structure of sundry nerves and\nmuscles, especially in the gray matter of sundry ganglia, or\nnerve-centres. Every ganglion concerned in the needful adjustments of\neyes and fingers and wrists, or in the perception of musical sounds, has\nundergone a change more or less profound. The nature of the change is\nlargely a matter of speculation; but that point need not in any way\nconcern us. It is enough for us to know that there is such a change, and\nthat it is a registration of experiences. The pianist has registered in\nthe intimate structure of his nervous system a world of experiences\nentirely foreign to persons unfamiliar with the piano; and upon this\nregistration his capacity depends.\n\nNow the same explanation applies to all bodily movements whatever,\nwhether complicated or simple. In writing, in walking, in talking, we\nare making use of nervous registrations that have been brought about by\nan accumulation of experiences. To pick up a pencil from the table may\nseem a very simple act, yet a baby cannot do it. It has been made\npossible only by the education of the eyes, of the muscles that move the\neyes, of the arm and hand, and of the nerve-centres that coordinate one\ngroup of movements with another. All this multiform education has\nconsisted in a gradual registration of experiences. In like manner all\nthe actions of man upon the world about him are made up of movements,\nand every such movement becomes possible only when a registration is\neffected in sundry nerve-centres.\n\nBut this is not the whole story. The case is undoubtedly the same with\nthose visceral movements, involuntary and in great part unconscious,\nwhich sustain life; the beating of the heart, the expansion and\ncontraction of the lungs, the slight changes of calibre in the\nblood-vessels, even the movements of secretion that take place in\nglands. All these actions are governed by nerves, and these nerves have\nhad to be educated to their work. This education has been a registration\nof experiences chiefly ancestral, throughout an enormous past,\npractically since the beginnings of vertebrate life.\n\nWith the earlier and simpler forms of animal existence these visceral\nmovements are the only ones, or almost the only ones, that have to be\nmade. Presently the movements of limbs and sense organs come to be\nadded, and as we rise in the animal scale, these movements come to be\nendlessly various and complex, and by and by implicate the nervous\nsystem more and more deeply in complex acts of perception, memory,\nreasoning, and volition. Obviously, therefore, in the development of the\nindividual organism the demands of the nervous system upon the vital\nenergies concerned in growth must come to be of paramount importance,\nand in providing for them the entire embryonic life must be most\nprofoundly and variously affected. Though we may be unable to follow the\nprocesses in detail, the truth of this general statement is plain and\nundeniable.\n\nI say, then, that when a creature's intelligence is low, and its\nexperience very meagre, consisting of a few simple perceptions and acts\nthat occur throughout life with monotonous regularity, all the\nregistration of this experience gets effected in the nerve-centres of\nits offspring before birth, and they come into the world fully equipped\nfor the battle of life, like the snapping turtle, which snaps with\ndecisive vigour as soon as it emerges from the egg. Nothing is left\nplastic to be finished after birth, and so the life of each generation\nis almost an exact repetition of its predecessor. But when a creature's\nintelligence is high, and its experience varied and complicated, the\nregistration of all this experience in the nerve-centres of its\noffspring does not get accomplished before birth. There is not time\nenough. The most important registrations, such as those needed for\nbreathing and swallowing and other indispensable acts, are fully\neffected; others, such as those needed for handling and walking, are but\npartially effected; others, such as those involved in the recognition of\ncreatures not important as enemies or prey, are left still further from\ncompletion. Much is left to be done by individual experience after\nbirth. The animal, when first born, is a baby dependent upon its\nmother's care. At the same time its intelligence is far more plastic,\nand it remains far more teachable, than the lower animal that has no\nbabyhood. Dogs and horses, lions and elephants, often increase in\nsagacity until late in life; and so do apes, which, along with a higher\nintelligence than any other dumb animals, have a much longer babyhood.\n\nWe are now prepared to appreciate the marvellous beauty of Nature's\nwork in bringing Man upon the scene. Nowhere is there any breach of\ncontinuity in the cosmic process. First we have natural selection at\nwork throughout the organic world, bringing forth millions of species of\nplant and animal, seizing upon every advantage, physical or mental, that\nenables any species to survive in the universal struggle. So far as any\noutward observer, back in the Cretaceous or early Eocene periods, could\nsurmise, this sort of confusion might go on forever. But all at once,\nperhaps somewhere in the upper Eocene or lower Miocene, it appears that\namong the primates, a newly developing family already distinguished for\nprehensile capabilities, one genus is beginning to sustain itself more\nby mental craft and shiftiness than by any physical characteristic.\nForthwith does natural selection seize upon any and every advantageous\nvariation in this craft and shiftiness, until this favoured genus of\nprimates, this _Homo Alalus_, or speechless man, as we may call him,\nbecomes pre\u0170minent for sagacity, as the mammoth is pre\u0170minent for bulk,\nor the giraffe for length of neck.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n_Some of its Effects_\n\n\nIn doing this, natural selection has unlocked a door and let in a new\nset of causal agencies. As Homo Alalus grows in intelligence and variety\nof experience, his helpless babyhood becomes gradually prolonged, and\npasses not into sudden maturity, but into a more or less plastic\nintermediate period of youth. Individual experience, as contrasted with\nancestral experience, counts for much more than ever before in shaping\nhis actions, and thus he begins to become progressive. He can learn many\nmore new ways of doing things in a hundred thousand years than any other\ncreature could have done in a much longer time. Thus the rate of\nprogress is enhanced, the increasing intelligence of Homo Alalus further\nlengthens his plastic period of life, and this in turn further\nincreases his intelligence and emphasizes his individuality. The\nevidence is abundant that Homo Alalus, like his simian cousins, was a\ngregarious creature, and it is not difficult to see how, with increasing\nintelligence, the gestures and grunts used in the horde for signalling\nmust come to be clothed with added associations of meaning, must\ngradually become generalized as signs of conceptions. This invention of\nspoken language, the first invention of nascent humanity, remains to\nthis day its most fruitful invention. Henceforth ancestral experience\ncould not simply be transmitted through its inheritable impress upon the\nnervous system, but its facts and lessons could become external\nmaterials and instruments of education. Then the children of Homo\nAlalus, no longer speechless, began to accumulate a fund of tradition,\nwhich in the fulness of time was to bloom forth in history and poetry,\nin science and theology. From the outset the acquisition of speech must\ngreatly have increased the rate of progress, and enhanced the\nrudimentary sociality.\n\nWith the lengthening of infancy the period of maternal help and\nwatchfulness must have lengthened in correspondence. Natural selection\nmust keep those two things nicely balanced, or the species would soon\nbecome extinct. But Homo Alalus had not only a mother, but brethren and\nsisters; and when the period of infancy became sufficiently long, there\nwere a series of Homunculi Alali, the eldest of whom still needed more\nor less care while the third and the fourth were arriving upon the\nscene. In this way the sentiment of maternity became abiding. The cow\nhas strong feelings of maternal affection for periods of a few weeks at\na time, but lapses into indifference and probably cannot distinguish her\ngrown-up calves as sustaining any nearer relation to herself than other\nmembers of the herd. But Femina Alala, with her vastly enlarged\nintelligence, is called upon for the exercise of maternal affection\nuntil it becomes a permanent part of her nature. In the same group of\ncircumstances begins the permanency of the marital relation. The\nwarrior-hunter grows accustomed to defending the same wife and children\nand to helping them in securing food. Cases of what we may term wedlock,\narising in this way, occur sporadically among apes; its thorough\nestablishment, however, was not achieved until after the genesis of\nHumanity had been completed in most other respects. The elaborate\nresearches of Westermarck have proved that permanent marriage exists\neven among savages; it did not prevail, however, until the advanced\nstage of culture represented by the Aztecs in aboriginal America and the\nNeolithic peoples of ancient Europe. As for strict monogamy, it is a\ncomparatively late achievement of civilization. What the increased and\nmultiplied duration of infancy at first accomplished was the\ntransformation of miscellaneous hordes of Homines Alali into organized\nclans recognizing kinship through the mother, as exemplified among\nnearly all American Indians when observed by Europeans.\n\nThus by gradual stages we have passed from four-footed existence into\nHuman Society, and once more I would emphasize the fact that nowhere do\nwe find any breach of continuity, but one factor sets another in\noperation, which in turn reacts upon the first, and so on in a\nmarvellously harmonious consensus. Surely if there is anywhere in the\nuniverse a story matchless for its romantic interest, it is the story of\nthe genesis of Man, now that we are at length beginning to be able to\ndecipher it. We see that there is a good deal more in it than mere\nnatural selection. At bottom, indeed, it is all a process of survival of\nthe fittest, but the secondary agencies we have been considering have\nbrought us to a point where our conception of the Struggle for Life must\nbe enlarged. Out of the manifold compounding and recompounding of\nprimordial clans have come the nations of mankind in various degrees of\ncivilization, but already in the clan we find the ethical process at\nwork. The clan has a code of morals well adapted to the conditions amid\nwhich it exists. There is an ethical sentiment in the clan; its members\nhave duties toward it; it punishes sundry acts even with death, and\nrewards or extols sundry other acts. We are, in short, in an ethical\natmosphere, crude and stifling, doubtless, as compared with that of a\nmodern Christian homestead, but still unquestionably ethical.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\n_Origin of Moral Ideas and Sentiments_\n\n\nNow, here at last, in encountering the ethical process at work, have we\ndetected a breach of continuity? Has the moral sentiment been flung in\nfrom outside, or is it a natural result of the cosmic process we have\nbeen sketching? Clearly it is the latter. There has been no breach of\ncontinuity. When the prolongation of infancy produced the clan, there\nnaturally arose reciprocal necessities of behaviour among the members of\nthe clan, its mothers and children, its hunters and warriors. If such\nreciprocal necessities were to be disregarded the clan would dissolve,\nand dissolution would be general destruction. For, bear in mind, the\nclan, when once evolved, becomes the unit whose preservation is\nhenceforth the permanent necessity. It is infancy that has made it so.\nA miscellaneous horde, with brief infancies for its younger members, may\nsurvive a very extensive slaughter; but in a clan, where the proportion\nof helpless children is much greater, and a considerable division of\nlabour between nurses and warriors has become established, the case is\ndifferent. An amount or degree of calamity sufficient to break up its\norganization will usually mean total ruin. Hence, when Nature's travail\nhas at length brought forth the clan, its requirements forthwith become\nparamount, and each member's conduct from babyhood must conform to them.\nNatural selection henceforth invests her chief capital in the enterprise\nof preserving the clan. In that primitive social unit lie all the\npotentiality and promise of Human Society through untold future ages. So\nfor age after age those clans in which the conduct of the individuals is\nbest subordinated to the general welfare are sure to prevail over clans\nin which the subordination is less perfect. As the maternal instinct\nhad been cultivated for thousands of generations before clanship came\ninto existence, so for many succeeding ages of turbulence the patriotic\ninstinct, which prompts to the defence of home, was cultivated under\npenalty of death. Clans defended by weakly loyal or cowardly warriors\nwere sure to perish. Unflinching bravery and devoted patriotism were\nvirtues necessary to the survival of the community, and were thus\npreserved until at the dawn of historic times, in the most grandly\nmilitant of clan societies, we find the word _virtus_ connoting just\nthese qualities, and no sooner does the fateful gulf yawn open in the\nforum than a Curtius joyfully leaps into it, that the commonwealth may\nbe preserved from harm.\n\nNow the moment a man's voluntary actions are determined by conscious or\nunconscious reference to a standard outside of himself and his selfish\nmotives, he has entered the world of ethics, he has begun to live in a\nmoral atmosphere. Egoism has ceased to be all in all, and altruism--it\nis an ugly-sounding word, but seems to be the only one\navailable--altruism has begun to assert its claim to sovereignty. In the\nearlier and purely animal stages of existence it was right enough for\neach individual to pursue pleasure and avoid pain; it did not endanger\nthe welfare of the species, but on the contrary it favoured that\nwelfare; in its origin avoidance of pain was the surest safeguard for\nthe perpetuation of life, and with due qualifications that is still the\ncase. But as soon as sociality became established, and Nature's supreme\nend became the maintenance of the clan organization, the standard for\nthe individual's conduct became shifted, permanently and forever\nshifted. Limits were interposed at which pleasure must be resigned and\npain endured, even certain death encountered, for the sake of the clan;\nperhaps the individual did not always understand it in that way, but at\nall events it was for the sake of some rule recognized in the clan,\nsome rule which, as his mother and all his kin had from his earliest\nchildhood inculcated upon him, _ought_ to be obeyed. This conception of\nought, of obligation, of duty, of debt to something outside of self,\nresulted from the shifting of the standard of conduct outside of the\nindividual's self. Once thus externalized, objectivized, the ethical\nstandard demanded homage from the individual. It furnished the rule for\na higher life than one dictated by mere selfishness. Speaking after the\nmanner of naturalists, I here use the phrase \"higher life\" advisedly. It\nwas the kind of life that was conducive to the preservation and further\ndevelopment of the highest form of animate existence that had been\nattained. It appears to me that we begin to find for ethics the most\ntremendous kind of sanction in the nature of the cosmic process.\n\nA word of caution may be needed. It is not for a moment to be supposed\nthat when primitive men began crudely shaping their conduct with\nreference to a standard outside of self, they did so as the result of\nmeditation, or with any realizing sense of what they were doing. That\nhas never been the method of evolution. Its results steal upon the world\nnoiselessly and unobserved, and only after they have long been with us\ndoes reason employ itself upon them. The wolf does not eat the lamb\nbecause he regards a flesh diet as necessary to his health and activity,\nbut because he is hungry, and, like Mr. Harold Skimpole, he likes lamb.\nIt was no intellectual perception of needs and consequences that\nlengthened the maternal instinct with primeval mothers as the period of\ninfancy lengthened. Nor was it any such intellectual perception that\nbegan to enthrone \"I ought\" in the place of \"I wish.\" If in the world's\nrecurrent crises Nature had waited to be served by the flickering lamp\nof reason, the story would not have been what it is. Her method has\nbeen, with the advent of a new situation, to modify the existing group\nof instincts; and this work she will not let be slighted; in her train\nfollows the lictor with the symbols of death, and there is neither pity\nnor relenting. In the primeval warfare between clans, those in which the\ninstincts were not so modified as to shift the standard of conduct\noutside of the individual's self must inevitably have succumbed and\nperished under the pressure of those in which the instincts had begun to\nexperience such modification. The moral law grew up in the world not\nbecause anybody asked for it, but because it was needed for the world's\nwork. If it is not a product of the cosmic process, it would be hard to\nfind anything that could be so called.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nX\n\n_The Cosmic Process exists purely for the Sake of Moral Ends_\n\n\nI have not undertaken to make my outline sketch of the genesis of\nHumanity approach to completeness, but only to present enough salient\npoints to make a closely connected argument in showing how morality is\nevolved in the cosmic process and sanctioned by it. In a more complete\nsketch it would be necessary to say something about the genesis of\nReligion. One of the most interesting, and in my opinion one of the most\nprofoundly significant, facts in the whole process of evolution is the\nfirst appearance of religious sentiment at very nearly the same stage at\nwhich the moral law began to grow up. To the differential attributes of\nHumanity already considered there needs to be added the possession of\nreligious sentiment and religious ideas. We may safely say that this is\nthe most important of all the distinctions between Man and other\nanimals; for to say so is simply to epitomize the whole of human\nexperience as recorded in history, art, and literature. Along with the\nrise from gregariousness to incipient sociality, along with the first\nstammerings of articulate speech, along with the dawning discrimination\nbetween right and wrong, came the earliest feeble groping toward a world\nbeyond that which greets the senses, the first dim recognition of the\nSpiritual Power that is revealed in and through the visible and palpable\nrealm of nature. And universally since that time the notion of Ethics\nhas been inseparably associated with the notion of Religion, and the\nsanction for Ethics has been held to be closely related with the world\nbeyond phenomena. There are philosophers who maintain that with the\nfurther progress of enlightenment this close relation will cease to be\nasserted, that Ethics will be divorced from Religion, and that the\ngroping of the Human Soul after its God will be condemned as a mere\nsurvival from the errors of primitive savagery, a vain and idle reaching\nout toward a world of mere phantoms. I mention this opinion merely to\nexpress unqualified and total dissent from it. I believe it can be shown\nthat one of the strongest implications of the doctrine of evolution is\nthe Everlasting Reality of Religion.\n\nBut we have not time at present for entering upon so vast a subject. Let\nthis reference suffice to show that it has not been passed over or\nforgotten in my theory of the genesis of Humanity. In an account of the\nevolution of the religious sentiment, its first appearance as coeval, or\nnearly so, with the beginnings of the ethical process would assume great\nimportance. We have here been concerned purely with the ethical process\nitself, which we have found to be--as Huxley truly says in his\nfootnote--part and parcel of the general process of evolution. Our\nhistorical survey of the genesis of Humanity seems to show very forcibly\nthat a society of Human Souls living in conformity to a perfect Moral\nLaw is the end toward which, ever since the time when our solar system\nwas a patch of nebulous vapour, the cosmic process has been aiming.\nAfter our cooling planet had become the seat of organic life, the\nprocess of natural selection went on for long ages seemingly, but not\nreally at random; for our retrospect shows that its ultimate tendency\nwas towards singling out one creature and exalting his intelligence.\n\nNow we have seen that this increase of intelligence itself, by entailing\nupon Man the helplessness of infancy, led directly to the production of\nthose social conditions that called the ethical process into play and\nset it actively to work. Thus we may see the absurdity of trying to\nseparate the moral nature of Man from the rest of his nature, and to\nassign for it a separate and independent history. The essential\nsolidarity in the cosmic process will admit of no such fanciful\ndetachment of one part from another. All parts are involved one in\nanother. Again, the ethical process is not only part and parcel of the\ncosmic process, but it is its crown and consummation. Toward the\nspiritual perfection of Humanity the stupendous momentum of the cosmic\nprocess has all along been tending. That spiritual perfection is the\ntrue goal of evolution, the divine end that was involved in the\nbeginning. When Huxley asks us to believe that \"the cosmic process has\nno sort of relation to moral ends,\" I feel like replying with the\nquestion, \"Does not the cosmic process exist purely for the sake of\nmoral ends?\" Subtract from the universe its ethical meaning, and nothing\nremains but an unreal phantom, the figment of false metaphysics.\n\nWe have now arrived at a position from which a glimmer of light is\nthrown upon some of the dark problems connected with the moral\ngovernment of the world. We can begin to see why misery and wrongdoing\nare permitted to exist, and why the creative energy advances by such\nslow and tortuous methods toward the fulfilment of its divine purpose.\nIn order to understand these things, we must ask, What is the ultimate\ngoal of the ethical process? According to the utilitarian philosophy\nthat goal is the completion of human happiness. But this interpretation\nsoon refutes itself. A world of completed happiness might well be a\nworld of quiescence, of stagnation, of automatism, of blankness; the\ndynamics of evolution would have no place in it. But suppose we say that\nthe ultimate goal of the ethical process is the perfecting of human\ncharacter? This form of statement contains far more than the other.\nConsummation of happiness is a natural outcome of the perfecting of\ncharacter, but that perfecting can be achieved only through struggle,\nthrough discipline, through resistance. It is for him that _overcometh_\nthat the crown of life is reserved. The consummate product of a world\nof evolution is the character that _creates_ happiness, that is replete\nwith dynamic possibilities of fresh life and activity in directions\nforever new. Such a character is the reflected image of God, and in it\nare contained the promise and potency of life everlasting.\n\nNo such character could be produced by any act of special creation in a\ngarden of Eden. It must be the consummate efflorescence of long ages of\nevolution, and a world of evolution is necessarily characterized by slow\nprocesses, many of which to a looker-on seem like tentative experiments,\nwith an enormous sacrifice of ephemeral forms of life. Thus while the\nEarth Spirit goes on, unhasting, yet unresting, weaving in the loom of\nTime the visible garment of God, we begin to see that even what look\nlike failures and blemishes have been from the outset involved in the\naccomplishment of the all-wise and all-holy purpose, the perfecting of\nthe spiritual Man in the likeness of his Heavenly Father.\n\nThese points will receive further indirect illustration as we complete\nour outline sketch of the cosmic process in the past. It is self-evident\nthat in the production of an ethical character, altruistic feelings and\nimpulses must co\u00f7perate. Let us look, then, for some of the beginnings\nof altruism in the course of the evolution of life.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\n_Maternity and the Evolution of Altruism_\n\n\nFrom an early period of the life-history of our planet, the preservation\nof the species had obviously become quite as imperative an end as the\npreservation of individuals; one is at first inclined to say more\nimperative, but if we pause long enough to remember that total failure\nto preserve individuals would be equivalent to immediate extinction of\nthe species, we see that the one requirement is as indispensable as the\nother. Individuals must be preserved, and the struggle for life is\nbetween them; species must be preserved, and in the rivalry those have\nthe best chance in which the offspring are either most redundant in\nnumbers or are best cared for. In plants and animals of all but the\nhigher types, the offspring are spores or seeds, larv\u0160 or spawn, or\nself-maturing eggs. In the absence of parental care the persistence of\nthe species is ensured by the enormous number of such offspring. A\nsingle codfish, in a single season, will lay six million eggs, nearly\nall of which perish, of course, or else in a few years the ocean could\nnot hold all the codfishes. But the princess in the Arabian tale, who\nfought with the malignant Jinni, could not for her life pick up all the\nscattered seeds of the pomegranate; and in like manner of the codfish\neggs, one in a million or so escapes and the species is maintained. But\nin the highest types of animal life in birds and mammals--with their\nfour-chambered hearts, completely arterialized blood, and enhanced\nconsciousness--parental care becomes effective in protecting the\noffspring, and the excessive production diminishes. With birds, the\nnecessity of maintaining a high temperature for the eggs leads to the\nbuilding of nests, to a division of labour in the securing of food, to\nthe development of a temporary maternal instinct, and to conjugal\nalliances which in some birds last for a lifetime. As the eggs become\neffectively guarded the number diminishes, till instead of millions\nthere are half a dozen. When it comes to her more valuable products,\nNature is not such a reckless squanderer after all. So with mammals, for\nthe most part the young are in litters of half a dozen or so; but in\nMan, with his prolonged and costly infancy parental care reaches its\nhighest development and concentration in rearing children one by one.\n\nFrom the dawn of life, I need hardly say, all the instincts that have\ncontributed to the preservation of offspring must have been favoured and\ncultivated by natural selection, and in many cases even in types of life\nvery remote from Humanity, such instincts have prompted to very\ndifferent actions from such as would flow from the mere instinct of\nself-preservation. If you thrust your walking-stick into an ant-heap,\nand watch the wild hurry and confusion that ensues when part of the\ninterior is laid bare, you will see that all the workers are busy in\nmoving the larv\u0160 into places of safety. It is not exactly a maternal\ninstinct, for the workers are not mothers, but it is an altruistic\ninstinct involving acts of self-devotion. So in the case of fish that\nascend rivers or bays at spawning time, the actions of the whole shoal\nare determined by a temporarily predominant instinct that tends towards\nan altruistic result. In these and lower grades of life there is already\nsomething at work besides the mere struggle for life between\nindividuals; there is something more than mere contention and slaughter;\nthere is the effort towards cherishing another life than one's own. In\nthese regions of animate existence we catch glimpses of the cosmic roots\nof love and self-sacrifice. For the simplest and rudest productions of\nNature mere egoism might suffice, but to the achievement of any higher\naim some adumbration of altruism was indispensable.\n\nBefore such divine things as love and self-sacrifice could spring up\nfrom their cosmic roots and put forth their efflorescence, it was\nnecessary that conscious personal relations should become established\nbetween mother and infant. We have already observed the critical\nimportance of these relations in the earliest stages of the evolution of\nhuman society. We may now add that the relation between mother and child\nmust have furnished the first occasion for the sustained and regular\ndevelopment of the altruistic feelings. The capacity for unselfish\ndevotion called forth in that relation could afterward be utilized in\nthe conduct of individuals not thus related to one another.\n\nOf all kinds of altruism the mother's was no doubt the earliest; it was\nthe derivative source from which all other kinds were by slow degrees\ndeveloped. In the evolution of these altruistic feelings,\ntherefore,--feelings which are an absolutely indispensable constituent\nin the process of ethical development,--the first appearance of real\nmaternity was an epoch of most profound interest and importance in the\nhistory of life upon the earth.\n\nNow maternity, in the true and full sense of the word, is something\nwhich was not realized until a comparatively recent stage of the earth's\nhistory. God's highest work is never perfected save in the fulness of\ntime. For countless ages there were parents and offspring before the\nslow but never aimless or wanton cosmic process had brought into\nexistence the conscious personal relationship between mother and child.\nProtection of eggs and larv\u0160 scarcely suffices for the evolution of true\nmaternity; the relation of moth to caterpillar is certainly very far\nfrom being a prototype of it. What spectacle could be more dreary than\nthat of the Jurassic period, with its lords of creation, the oviparous\ndinosaurs, crawling or bounding over the land, splashing amid the mighty\nwaters, whizzing bat-like through the air, horrible brutes innumerable,\nwith bulky bodies and tiny brains, clumsy, coarse in fibre, and\ncold-blooded.\n\n    \"Dragons of the prime,\n    That tare each other in their slime.\"\n\nThe remnants of that far-off dismal age have been left behind in great\nabundance, and from them we can easily reconstruct the loathsome picture\nof a world of dominating egoism, whose redemption through the evolution\nof true maternity had not yet effectively begun. For such a world might\nCaliban's theology indeed seem fitted. Nearly nine tenths of our\nplanet's past life-history, measured in duration, had passed away\nwithout achieving any higher result than this,--a fact which for\nimpatient reformers may have in it some crumbs of consolation.\n\nFor, though the mills of God grind slowly, the cosmic process was aiming\nat something better than egoism and dinosaurs, and at some time during\nthe long period of the Chalk deposits there began the tremendous\nworld-wide rivalry between these dragons and the rising class of\nwarm-blooded viviparous mammals which had hitherto played an\ninsignificant part in the world. The very name of this class of animals\nis taken from the function of motherhood. The offspring of these\n\"mammas\" come into the world as recognizable personalities, so far\ndeveloped that the relation between mother and child begins as a\nrelation of personal affection. The new-born mammal is not an egg nor a\ncaterpillar, but a baby, and the baby's dawning consciousness opens up a\nnarrow horizon of sympathy and tenderness, a horizon of which the\nexpansion shall in due course of ages reveal a new heaven and a new\nearth. At first the nascent altruism was crude enough, but it must have\nsufficed to make mutual understanding and cooperation more possible than\nbefore; it thus contributed to the advancement of mammalian\nintelligence, and prepared the way for gregariousness, by and by to\nculminate in sociality, as already described. In the history of creation\nthe mammals were moderns, equipped with more effective means of\nensuring survival than their oviparous antagonists. The development of\ncomplete mammality was no sudden thing. Some of the dinosaurs may have\nbeen ovoviviparous, like some modern serpents. The Australian duck-bill,\na relic of the most ancient incipient mammality, is still oviparous; the\nopossum and kangaroo preserve the record of a stage when viviparousness\nwas but partially achieved; but with the advent of the placental mammals\nthe break with the old order of things was complete.\n\nThe results of the struggle are registered in the Eocene rocks. The\nancient world had found its Waterloo. Gone were the dragons who so long\nhad lorded it over both hemispheres,--brontosaurs, iguanodons,\nplesiosaurs, l\u0160laps, pterodactyls,--all gone; their uncouth brood quite\nvanished from the earth, and nothing left alive as a reminder, save a\nfew degenerate collateral kin, such as snakes and crocodiles, objects\nof dread and loathing to higher creatures. Never in the history of our\nplanet has there been a more sweeping victory than that of the mammals,\nnor has Nature had any further occasion for victories of that sort. The\nmammal remains the highest type of animal existence, and subsequent\nprogress has been shown in the perfecting of that type where most\nperfectible.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\n_The Omnipresent Ethical Trend_\n\n\nWith the evolution of true maternity Nature was ready to proceed to her\nhighest grades of work. Intelligence was next to be lifted to higher\nlevels, and the order of mammals with greatest prehensile capacities,\nthe primates with their incipient hands, were the most favourable\nsubjects in which to carry on this process. The later stages of the\nmarvellous story we have already passed in review. We have seen the\naccumulating intelligence lengthen the period of infancy, and thus\nprolong the relations of loving sympathy between mother and child; we\nhave seen the human family and human society thus brought into\nexistence; and along therewith we have recognized the necessity laid\nupon each individual for conforming his conduct to a standard external\nto himself. At this point, without encountering any breach of continuity\nin the cosmic process, we crossed the threshold of the ethical world,\nand entered a region where civilization, or the gradual perfecting of\nthe spiritual qualities, is henceforth Nature's paramount aim. To\npenetrate further into this region would be to follow the progress of\ncivilization, while the primitive canoe develops into the Cunard\nsteamship, the hieroglyphic battle-sketch into epics and dramas,\nsun-catcher myths into the Newtonian astronomy, wandering tribes into\nmighty nations, the ethics of the clan into the moral law for all men.\nThe story shows us Man becoming more and more clearly the image of God,\nexercising creative attributes, transforming his physical environment,\nincarnating his thoughts in visible and tangible shapes all over the\nworld, and extorting from the abysses of space the secrets of vanished\nages. From lowly beginnings, without breach of continuity, and through\nthe cumulative action of minute and inconspicuous causes, the\nresistless momentum of cosmic events has tended toward such kind of\nconsummation; and part and parcel of the whole process, inseparably\nwrapped up with every other part, has been the evolution of the\nsentiments which tend to subordinate mere egoism to unselfish and moral\nends.\n\nA narrow or partial survey might fail to make clear the solidarity of\nthe cosmic process. But the history of creation, when broadly and\npatiently considered, brings home to us with fresh emphasis the profound\ntruth of what Emerson once said, that \"the lesson of life ... is to\nbelieve what the years and the centuries say against the hours; to\nresist the usurpation of particulars; to penetrate to their catholic\nsense.\" When we have learned this lesson, our misgivings vanish, and we\nbreathe a clear atmosphere of faith. Though in many ways God's work is\nabove our comprehension, yet those parts of the world's story that we\ncan decipher well warrant the belief that while in Nature there may be\ndivine irony, there can be no such thing as wanton mockery, for\nprofoundly underlying the surface entanglement of her actions we may\ndiscern the omnipresent ethical trend. The moral sentiments, the moral\nlaw, devotion to unselfish ends, disinterested love, nobility of\nsoul,--these are Nature's most highly wrought products, latest in coming\nto maturity; they are the consummation, toward which all earlier\nprophecy has pointed. We are right, then, in greeting the rejuvenescent\nsummer with devout faith and hope. Below the surface din and clashing of\nthe struggle for life we hear the undertone of the deep ethical purpose,\nas it rolls in solemn music through the ages, its volume swelled by\nevery victory, great or small, of right over wrong, till in the fulness\nof time, in God's own time, it shall burst forth in the triumphant\nchorus of Humanity purified and redeemed.\n\n\n\n\nTHE EVERLASTING REALITY OF RELIGION\n\n\n    Here sits he shaping wings to fly;\n    His heart forebodes a mystery:\n    He names the name Eternity.\n\n    That type of Perfect in his mind\n    In Nature can he nowhere find,\n    He sows himself on every wind.\n\n    He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend,\n    And through thick veils to apprehend\n    A labour working to an end.\n\n    TENNYSON, _The Two Voices_.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\"_Deo erexit Voltaire_\"\n\n\nThe visitor to Geneva whose studies have made him duly acquainted with\nthe most interesting human personality of all that are associated with\nthat historic city will never leave the place without making a\npilgrimage to the chateau of Ferney. In that refined and quiet rural\nhomestead things still remain very much as on the day when the aged\nVoltaire left it for the last visit to Paris, where his long life was\nworthily ended amid words and deeds of affectionate homage. One may sit\ndown at the table where was written the most perfect prose, perhaps,\nthat ever flowed from pen, and look about the little room with its\nevidences of plain living and high thinking, until one seems to recall\nthe eccentric figure of the vanished Master, with his flashes of shrewd\nwisdom and caustic wit, his insatiable thirst for knowledge, his\nconsuming hatred of bigotry and oppression, his merciless contempt for\nshams, his boundless enthusiasm of humanity. As we stroll in the park,\nthat quaint presence goes along with us till all at once in a shady walk\nwe come upon something highly significant and characteristic, the little\nparish church with its Latin inscription over the portal, _Deo erexit\nVoltaire_, i. e. \"Voltaire built it for God,\" and as we muse upon it,\nthe piercing eyes and sardonic but not unkindly smile seem still to\nfollow us. What meant this eccentric inscription?\n\nWhen Voltaire became possessor of the manor of Ferney, the church was\nbadly out of repair, and stood where it obstructed the view from certain\nwindows of the chateau. So he had it cleared away, and built in a better\nspot the new church that is still there. It was duly consecrated, and\nthe Pope further hallowed it with some relics of ancient saints, and\nthere for many a year the tenants and dependents of the manor assembled\nfor divine service. Nowhere in France had Voltaire ever seen a church\ndedicated simply to God; it was always to Our Lady of This or Saint\nSo-and-so of That; always there was some intermediary between the devout\nsoul and the God of its worship. Not thus should it be with Voltaire's\nchurch, built upon his own estate to minister to the spiritual needs of\nhis people. It should be dedicated simply and without further\nqualification to the worship and service of God. Furthermore, it was\nbuilt and dedicated, not by any ecclesiastical or corporate body, but by\nthe lord of that manor, the individual layman, Voltaire.\n\nThis, I say, was highly characteristic and significant. It gave terse\nand pointed expression to Voltaire's way of looking at such things.\nChurch and theology were ignored, and the individual soul was left alone\nwith its God. The Protestant reformers and other freethinkers had\nstopped far short of this. In place of an infallible Church they had\nleft an infallible Book; if they rejected transubstantiation, they\nretained as obligatory such doctrines as those of the incarnation and\natonement; if they laughed at the miracles of medi\u0160val saints, they\nwould allow no discredit to be thrown upon those of the apostolic age;\nin short, they left standing a large part, if not the larger part, of\nthe supernatural edifice within which the religious mind of Europe had\nso long been sheltered. But Voltaire regarded that whole supernatural\nedifice as so much rubbish which was impeding the free development of\nthe human mind, and ought as quickly as possible to be torn to pieces\nand cleared away. His emotions as well as his reason were concerned in\nthis conclusion. Organized Christianity, as it then existed in France,\nwas responsible for much atrocious injustice, and in neighbouring lands\nthe Inquisition still existed. Ecclesiastical bigotry, the prejudice of\nignorance, whatever tended to hold people in darkness and restrain them\nfrom the free and natural use of their faculties, Voltaire hated with\nall the intensity of which he was capable. He summed it all up in one\nabstract term and personified it as \"The Infamous,\" and the watchword of\nthat life of tireless vigilance was \"Crush the Infamous!\" Supernatural\ntheology had been too often pressed into the service of \"The Infamous,\"\nand for supernatural theology Voltaire could find no place in his scheme\nof things. He lost no chance of assailing it with mockery and sarcasm\nmade terrible by the earnestness of his purpose, until he came in many\nquarters to be regarded as the most inveterate antagonist the Church had\never known.\n\nYet among the great men of letters in France contemporary with Voltaire,\nthe most part went immeasurably farther than he, and went in a different\ndirection withal, for they denied the reality of Religion. Few of them,\nindeed, believed in the existence of God, or would have had anything to\ndo with building a house of worship. It is related of David Hume that\nwhen dining once in a party of eighteen at the house of Baron d'Holbach,\nhe expressed a doubt as to whether any person could anywhere be found to\navow himself dogmatically an atheist. \"Indeed, my dear sir,\" quoth the\nhost, \"you are this moment sitting at table with seventeen such\npersons.\" Among that group of philosophers were men of great\nintelligence and lofty purpose, such as D'Alembert, Diderot, Helv\u00datius,\nCondorcet, Buffon, men with more of the real spirit of Christianity in\ntheir natures than could be found in half the churches of Christendom.\nThe roots of their atheism were emotional rather than philosophical. It\nwas part of the generous but rash and superficial impatience with which\nthey disowned all connection whatever with a Church that had become\nsubservient to so much that was bad. Their atheism was one of the fruits\nof the vicious policy which had suppressed Huguenotism in France; it was\nan early instance of what has since been often observed, that\nmaterialism and atheism are much more apt to flourish in Romanist than\nin Protestant countries. The form of religion which is already to some\nextent purified and rationalized awakens no such violent revulsion in\nfree-thinking minds as the form that is more heavily encumbered with\nremnants of obsolete primitive thought. Moreover, the rationalizing\nreligion of Protestant countries is commonly found in alliance with\npolitical freedom. In France under the Old R\u00dagime, the Catholic religion\nwas stigmatized as an ally of despotism, as well as a congeries of\nabsurd doctrines and ceremonies. The best minds felt their common sense\nshocked by it no less than their reason. No very deep thinking was done\non the subject; their treatment of it was in general extremely shallow.\n\nThe forms which religious sentiment had assumed in the Middle Ages had\nbecome unintelligible; the most highly endowed minds were dead to the\nsublimity of Gothic architecture, and saw nothing but grotesque folly\nin Dante's poetry. They seriously believed that religious doctrines and\necclesiastical government were originally elaborate systems of fraud,\ndevised by sagacious and crafty tyrants for the sole purpose of\nenslaving the multitude of mankind. No discrimination was shown. They\nwere as ready to throw away belief in God as in the miracles of St.\nColumba, and to scout at the notion of a future life in the same terms\nas those in which they denounced the forged donation of Constantine. The\nflippant ease with which they disposed of the greatest questions, in\ncrass ignorance of the very nature of the problem to be solved, was well\nillustrated in the remark of the astronomer Lalande, that he had swept\nthe entire heavens with his telescope and found no God there. A similar\ninstance of missing the point was furnished about fifty years ago by the\neminent physiologist Moleschott, when he exclaimed, \"No thought without\nphosphorus,\" and congratulated himself that he had forever disposed of\nthe human soul. I am inclined to think that those are the two remarks\nmost colossal in their silliness that ever appeared in print.\n\nVery different in spirit was the acute reply of Laplace when reminded by\nNapoleon that his great treatise on the dynamics of the solar system\ncontained no allusion to God. \"Sire,\" said Laplace, \"I had no need of\nthat hypothesis.\" This remark was profound in its truth, for it meant\nthat in order to give a specific explanation of any single group of\nphenomena, it will not do to appeal to divine action, which is equally\nthe source of all phenomena. Science can deal only with secondary\ncauses. In the eighteenth century men of science were learning that such\nis the case; men like Diderot and D'Alembert had come to realize it, and\nthey believed that the logical result was atheism. This was because the\nonly idea of God which they had ever been taught to entertain was the\nLatin idea of a God remote from the world and manifested only through\noccasional interferences with the order of nature. When they dismissed\nthis idea they declared themselves atheists. If they had been familiar\nwith the Greek idea of God as immanent in the world and manifested at\nevery moment through the orderly sequence of its phenomena, their\nconclusions would doubtless have been very different.\n\nTo these philosophers Voltaire's unshaken theism seemed a mere bit of\neccentric conservatism. But along with that queer and intensely\nindependent personality there went a stronger intellectual grasp and a\nmore calm intellectual vision than belonged to any other Frenchman of\nthe eighteenth century. In the facts of Nature, despite the lifeless\npiecemeal fashion in which they were then studied, Voltaire saw a\nrational principle at work which atheism could in nowise account for. To\nhim the universe seemed full of evidences of beneficent purpose, and\nmore than once he set forth with eloquence and power the famous\nargument from design, which is as old as Xenophon's Memorabilia, and\nwhich received its fullest development at the hands of Paley and the\nauthors of the Bridgewater Treatises. There is thus yet another\nsignificance added to the little church at Ferney. Not only was it the\nsole church in France dedicated simply to God, and not only was its\nbuilder a layman hostile to ecclesiastical doctrines and methods, but he\nwas almost alone among the eminent freethinkers of his age and country\nin believing in God and asserting the everlasting reality of religion.\n\nIt is therefore that I have cited Voltaire as a kind of text for the\npresent discourse; for it is my purpose to show that, apart from all\nquestions of revelation, the light of nature affords us sufficient\nground for maintaining that religion is fundamentally true and must\nendure forever. It appears to me, moreover, that the materialism of the\npresent day is merely a tradition handed down from the French writers\nwhom Voltaire combated. When Moleschott made his silly remark about\nphosphorus, it was simply an inheritance of silliness from Lalande. When\nHaeckel tells us that the doctrine of evolution forbids us to believe in\na future life, it is not because he has rationally deduced such a\nconclusion from the doctrine, but because he takes his opinions on such\nmatters ready-made from Ludwig B\u0158chner, who is simply an echo of the\neighteenth century atheist La Mettrie. We shall see that the doctrine of\nevolution has implications very different from what Haeckel supposes.\n\nBut first let me observe in passing that in the English-speaking world\nthere has never been any such divorce between rationalism and religion\nas in France, and among the glories of English literature are such\ndeeply reverent and profoundly philosophical writings as those of Hooker\nand Chillingworth, of Bishop Butler and Jonathan Edwards, and in our own\ntime of Dr. Martineau. Nowhere in history, perhaps, have faith and\nreason been more harmoniously wedded together than in the history of\nEnglish Protestantism. But the disturbance that affected France in the\nage of Voltaire now affects the whole Christian world, and every\nquestion connected with religion has been probed to depths of which the\nexistence was scarcely suspected a century ago. One seldom, indeed,\nhears the frivolous mockery in which the old French writers dealt so\nfreely; that was an ebullition of temper called forth by a tyranny that\nhad come to be a social nuisance. The scepticism of our day is rather\nsad than frivolous; it drags people from long cherished notions in spite\nof themselves; it spares but few that are active-minded; it invades the\nchurch, and does not stop in the pews to listen but ascends the pulpit\nand preaches. There is no refuge anywhere from this doubting and testing\nspirit Of the age. In the attitude of civilized men towards the world in\nwhich we live, the change of front has been stupendous; the old\ncosmology has been overthrown in headlong ruin, attacks upon doctrines\nhave multiplied, and rituals, creeds, and Scriptures are overhauled and\ncriticised, until a young generation grows up knowing nothing of the\nsturdy faith of its grandfathers save by hearsay; for it sees everything\nin heaven and earth called upon to show its credentials.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n_The Reign of Law, and the Greek Idea of God_\n\n\nThe general effect of this intellectual movement has been to discredit\nmore than ever before the Latin idea of God as a power outside of the\ncourse of nature and occasionally interfering with it. In all directions\nthe process of evolution has been discovered, working after similar\nmethods, and this has forced upon us the belief in the Unity of Nature.\nWe are thus driven to the Greek conception of God as the power working\nin and through nature, without interference or infraction of law. The\nelement of chance, which some atheists formerly admitted into their\nscheme of things, is expelled. Nobody would now waste his time in\ntheorizing about a fortuitous concourse of atoms. We have so far spelled\nout the history of creation as to see that all has been done in strict\naccordance with law. The method has been the method of evolution, and\nthe more we study it the more do we discern in it intelligible\ncoherence. One part of the story never gives the lie to another part.\n\nSo beautiful is all this orderly coherence, so satisfying to some of our\nintellectual needs, that many minds are inclined to doubt if anything\nmore can be said of the universe than that it is a Reign of Law, an\nendless aggregate of coexistences and sequences. When we say that one\nstar attracts another star, we do not really know that there is any\npulling in the case; all we know is that a piece of cosmical matter in\nthe presence of another piece of matter alters its space-relations in a\ncertain specified way. Among the coexistences and sequences there is an\norder which we can detect, and a few thinkers are inclined to maintain\nthat this is the whole story. Such a state of mind, which rests\nsatisfied with the mere content of observed facts, without seeking to\ntrace their ultimate implications, is the characteristic of what Auguste\nComte called Positivism. It is a more refined phase of atheism than that\nof the guests at Baron d'Holbach's, but its adherents are few; for the\nimpetus of modern scientific thought tends with overwhelming force\ntowards the conception of a single First Cause, or Prime Mover,\nperpetually manifested from moment to moment in all the Protean changes\nthat make up the universe. As I have elsewhere sought to show, this is\npractically identical with the Athanasian conception of the immanent\nDeity.[3] Modern men of science often call this view of things Monism,\nbut if questioned narrowly concerning the immanent First Cause, they\nreply with a general disclaimer of knowledge, and thus entitle\nthemselves to be called by Huxley's term \"Agnostics.\" Thirty-five years\nago Spencer, taking a hint from Sir William Hamilton, used the phrase\n\"The Unknowable\" as an equivalent for the immanent Deity considered _per\nse_; but I always avoid that phrase, for in practice it invariably leads\nto wrong conceptions, and naturally, since it only expresses one side of\nthe truth. If on the one hand it is impossible for the finite Mind to\nfathom the Infinite, on the other hand it is practically misleading to\napply the term Unknowable to the Deity that is revealed in every\npulsation of the wondrously rich and beautiful life of the Universe. For\nmost persons no amount of explanation will prevent the use of the word\nUnknowable from seeming to remove Deity to an unapproachable distance,\nwhereas the Deity revealed in the process of evolution is the\never-present God without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground, and\nwhose voice is heard in each whisper of conscience, even while his\nsplendour dwells in the white ray from yonder star that began its\nearthward flight while Abraham's shepherds watched their flocks. It is\nclear that many persons have derived from Spencer's use of the word\nUnknowable an impression that he intends by means of metaphysics to\nrefine God away into nothing; whereas he no more cherishes any such\nintention than did St. Paul, when he asked, \"Who hath known the mind of\nthe Lord, or who hath been his counsellor?\"--no more than Isaiah did\nwhen he declared that even as the heavens are higher than the earth, so\nare Jehovah's ways higher than our ways and his thoughts than our\nthoughts.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[3] _The Idea of God as affected by Modern Knowledge_, Boston, 1885.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n_Weakness of Materialism_\n\n\nJust here comes along the materialist and asks us some questions, tries\nto serve on us a kind of metaphysical writ of _quo warranto_. If modern\nphysics leads us inevitably to the conception of a single infinite Power\nmanifested in all the phenomena of the knowable Universe, by what\nauthority do we identify that Power with the indwelling Deity as\nconceived by St. Athanasius? The Athanasian Deity is to some extent\nfashioned in Man's image; he is, to say the least, like the psychical\npart of ourselves. After making all possible allowances for the gulf\nwhich separates that which is Infinite and Absolute from that which is\nFinite and Relative, an essential kinship is asserted between God and\nthe Human Soul. By what authority, our materialist will ask, do we\nassert any such kinship between the Human Soul and the Power which\nmodern physics reveals as active throughout the universe? Is it not\ngoing far beyond our knowledge to assert any such kinship? And would it\nnot be more modest and becoming in us to simply designate this ever\nactive universal Power by some purely scientific term, such as Force?\n\nThis argument is to-day a very familiar one, and it wears a plausible\naspect; it is couched in a spirit of scientific reserve, which wins for\nit respectful consideration. The modest and cautious spirit of science\nhas done so much for us, that it is always wise to give due heed to its\nwarnings. Let us beware of going beyond our knowledge, says the\nmaterialist. We know nothing but phenomena as manifestations of an\nindwelling force; nor have we any ground for supposing that there is\nanything psychical, or even quasi-psychical, in the universe outside of\nthe individual minds of men and other animals. Moreover, continues the\nmaterialist, the psychical phenomena of which we are conscious--reason,\nmemory, emotion, volition--are but peculiarly conditioned manifestations\nof the same indwelling force which under other conditions appears as\nlight or heat or electricity. All such manifestations are fleeting, and\nbeyond this world of fleeting phenomena we have no warrant, either in\nscience or in common sense, for supposing that anything whatever exists.\nThis world that is cognizable through the senses is all that there is,\nand the story of it that we can decipher by the aid of terrestrial\nexperience is the whole story; the Unseen World is a mere figment\ninherited from the untutored fancy of primeval man. Such is the general\nview of things which Materialism urges upon us with the plea of\nscientific sobriety and caution; and to many minds, as already observed,\nit wears a plausible aspect.\n\nNevertheless, when subjected to criticism, this theory of things soon\nloses its sober and plausible appearance and is seen to be eminently\nrash and shallow. In the first place, there is no such correlation or\nequivalence as is alleged between physical forces and the phenomena of\nconsciousness. The correlations between different modes of motion have\nbeen proved by actual quantitative measurement, and never could have\nbeen proved in any other way. We know, for example, that heat is a mode\nof motion; the heat that will raise the temperature of a pound of water\nby one degree of Fahrenheit is exactly equivalent to the motion of 772\npounds falling through a distance of one foot. In similar wise we know\nthat light, electricity, and magnetism are modes of motion, transferable\none into another; and, although precise measurements have not been\naccomplished, there is no reason for doubting that the changes in brain\ntissue, which accompany each thought and feeling, are also modes of\nmotion, transferable into the other physical modes. But thought and\nfeeling themselves, which can neither be weighed nor measured, do not\nadmit of being resolved into modes of motion. They do not enter into the\nclosed circuit of physical transformations, but stand forever outside of\nit, and concentric with that segment of the circuit which passes through\nthe brain. It may be that thought and feeling could not continue to\nexist if that physical segment of the circuit were taken away. It may be\nthat they could. To assume that they could not is surely the height of\nrash presumption. The correlation of forces exhibits Mind as in nowise a\nproduct of Matter, but as something in its growth and manifestations\noutside and parallel. It is incompatible with the theory that the\nrelation of the human soul to the body is like that of music to the\nharp; but it is quite compatible with the time-honoured theory of the\nhuman soul as indwelling in the body and escaping from it at death.\n\nIn the second place, when we come to the denial of all kinship between\nthe human soul and the Infinite Power that is revealed in all\nphenomena, the materialistic theory raises difficulties as great as\nthose which it seeks to avoid. The difficulties which it wishes to avoid\nare those which inevitably encumber the attempt to conceive of Deity as\nPersonality exerting volition and cherishing intelligent purpose. Such\ndifficulties are undeniably great; nay, they are insuperable. When we\nspeak of Intelligence and Will and Personality, we must use these words\nwith the meanings in which experience has clothed them, or we shall soon\nfind ourselves talking nonsense. The only intelligence we know is\nstrictly serial in its nature, and is limited by the existence of\nindependent objects of cognition. What flight of analogy can bear us\nacross the gulf that divides such finite intelligence from that\nunlimited Knowledge to which all things past and future are ever\npresent? Volition, as we know it, implies alternative courses of action,\nantecedent motives, and resulting effort. Like intelligence, its\noperations are serial. What, then, do we really mean, if we speak of\nomnipresent Volition achieving at one and the same moment an infinite\nvariety of ends? So, too, with Personality: when we speak of personality\nthat is not circumscribed by limits, are we not using language from\nwhich all the meaning has evaporated?\n\nSuch difficulties are insurmountable. Words which have gained their\nmeanings from finite experience of finite objects of thought must\ninevitably falter and fail when we seek to apply them to that which is\nInfinite. But we do not mend matters by emptying terms taken from the\ninorganic world rather than from human personality. To designate the\nuniversal Power by some scientific term, such as Force, does not help us\nin the least. All our experience of force is an experience of finite\nforces antagonized by other forces. We can frame no conception whatever\nof Infinite Force comprising within itself all the myriad antagonistic\nattractions and repulsions in which the dynamic universe consists. We\ngo beyond our knowledge when we speak of Infinite Force quite as much as\nwe do when we speak of Infinite Personality. Indeed, no word or phrase\nwhich we seek to apply to Deity can be other than an extremely\ninadequate and unsatisfactory symbol. From the very nature of the case\nit must always be so, and if we once understand the reason why, it need\nnot vex or puzzle us.\n\nIt is not only when we try to speculate about Deity that we find\nourselves encompassed with difficulties and are made to realize how very\nshort is our mental tether in some directions. This world, in its\ncommonest aspects, presents many baffling problems, of which it is\nsometimes wholesome that we should be reminded. If you look at a piece\nof iron, it seems solid; it looks as if its particles must be everywhere\nin contact with one another. And yet, by hammering, or by great\npressure, or by intense cold, the piece of iron may be compressed, so\nthat it will occupy less space than before. Evidently, then, its\nparticles are not in contact, but are separated from one another by\nunoccupied tracts of enveloping space. In point of fact, these particles\nare atoms arranged after a complicated fashion in clusters known as\nmolecules. The word _atom_ means something that cannot be cut. Now, are\nthese iron atoms divisible or indivisible? If they are divisible, then\nwhat of the parts into which each one can be divided; are they also\ndivisible? and so on forever. But if these iron atoms are indivisible,\nhow can we conceive such a thing? Can we imagine two sides so close\ntogether that no plane of cleavage could pass between them? Can we\nimagine cohesive tenacity too great to be overcome by any assignable\ndisruptive force, and therefore infinite? Suppose, now, we heat this\npiece of iron to a white heat. Scientific inquiry has revealed the fact\nthat its atom-clusters are floating in an ocean of ether, in which are\nalso floating the atom-clusters of other bodies and of the air about\nus. The heating is the increase of wave motion in this ether, until\npresently a secondary series of intensely rapid waves appear as white\nlight. Now this ether would seem to be of infinite rarity, since it does\nnot affect the weight of bodies, and yet its wave-motions imply an\nelasticity far greater than that of coiled steel. How can we imagine\nsuch powerful resilience combined with such extreme tenuity?\n\nThese are a few of the difficulties of conception in which the study of\nphysical science abounds, and I cite them because it is wholesome for us\nto bear in mind that such difficulties are not confined to theological\nsubjects. They serve to show how our powers of conceiving ideas are\nstrictly limited by the nature of our experience. The illustration just\ncited from the luminiferous ether simply shows how during the past\ncentury the study of radiant forces has introduced us to a mode of\nmaterial existence quite different from anything that had formerly been\nknown or suspected. In this mode of matter we find attributes united\nwhich all previous experience had taught us to regard as contradictory\nand incompatible. Yet the facts cannot be denied; hard as we may find it\nto frame the conception, this light-bearing substance is at the same\ntime almost infinitely rare and almost infinitely resilient. If such\ndifficulties confront us upon the occasion of a fresh extension of our\nknowledge of the physical world, what must we expect when we come to\nspeculate upon the nature and modes of existence of God? Bearing this in\nmind, let us proceed to consider the assumption that the Infinite Power\nwhich is manifested in the universe is essentially psychical in its\nnature; in other words, that between God and the Human Soul there is\nreal kinship, although we may be unable to render any scientific account\nof it. Let us consider this assumption historically, and in the light of\nour general knowledge of Evolution.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n_Religion's First Postulate: the Quasi-Human God_\n\n\nIt is with purpose that I use the word _assumption_. As a matter of\nhistory, the existence of a quasi-human God has always been an\nassumption or postulate. It is something which men have all along taken\nfor granted. It probably never occurred to anybody to try to prove the\nexistence of such a God until it was doubted, and doubts on that subject\nare very modern. Omitting from the account a few score of ingenious\nphilosophers, it may be said that all mankind, the wisest and the\nsimplest, have taken for granted the existence of a Deity, or deities,\nof a psychical nature more or less similar to that of Humanity. Such a\npostulate has formed a part of all human thinking from primitive ages\ndown to the present time. The forms in which it has appeared have been\nmyriad in number, but all have been included in this same fundamental\nassumption. The earliest forms were those which we call fetishism and\nanimism. In fetishism the wind that blows a tree down is endowed with\npersonality and supposed to exert conscious effort; in animism some\nghost of a dead man is animating that gust of wind. In either case a\nconscious volition similar to our own, but outside of us, is supposed to\nbe at work. There has been some discussion as to whether fetishism or\nanimism is the more primitive, and some writers would regard fetishism\nas a special case of animism; but it is not necessary to my present\npurpose that such questions should be settled. The main point is this,\nthat in the earliest phases of theism each operation of Nature was\nsupposed to have some quasi-human personality behind it. Such phases we\nfind among contemporary savages, and there is abundant evidence of\ntheir former existence among peoples now civilized. In the course of\nages there was a good deal of generalizing done. Poseidon could shake\nthe land and preside over the sea, angry Apollo could shoot arrows\ntipped with pestilence, mischievous Hermes could play pranks in the\nsummer breezes, while as lord over all, though with somewhat fitful\nsway, stood Zeus on the summit of Olympus, gathering the rain-clouds and\nwielding the thunderbolt. Nothing but increasing knowledge of nature was\nneeded to convert such Polytheism into Monotheism, even into the strict\nMonotheism of our own time, in which the whole universe is the multiform\nmanifestation of a single Deity that is still regarded as in some real\nand true sense quasi-human. As the notion of Deity has thus been\ngradually generalized, from a thousand local gods to one omnipresent\nGod, it has been gradually stripped of its grosser anthropomorphic\nvestments. The tutelar Deity of a savage clan is supposed to share with\nhis devout worshippers in the cannibal banquet; the Gods of Olympus\nmade war and love, and were moved to fits of inextinguishable laughter.\nFrom our modern Monotheism such accidents of humanity are eliminated,\nbut the notion of a kinship between God and man remains, and is rightly\nfelt to be essential to theism. Take away from our notion of God the\nhuman element, and the theism instantly vanishes; it ceases to be a\nnotion of God. We may retain an abstract symbol to which we apply some\nsuch epithet as Force, or Energy, or Power, but there is nothing\ntheistic in this. Some ingenious philosopher may try to persuade us to\nthe contrary, but the Human Soul knows better; it knows at least what it\nwants; it has asked for Theology, not for Dynamics, and it resents all\nsuch attempts to palm off upon it stones for bread.\n\nOur philosopher will here perhaps lift up his hands in dismay and cry,\n\"Hold! what matters it what the Human Soul wants? Are cravings,\nforsooth, to be made to do duty as reasons?\" It is proper to reply that\nwe are trying to deal with this whole subject after the manner of the\nnaturalist, which is to describe things as they exist and account for\nthem as best we may. I say, then, that mankind have framed, and for long\nages maintained, a notion of God into which there enters a human\nelement. Now if it should ever be possible to abolish that human\nelement, it would not be possible to cheat mankind into accepting the\nnon-human remnant of the notion as an equivalent of the full notion of\nwhich they had been deprived. Take away from our symbolic conception of\nGod the human element, and that aspect of theism which has from the\noutset chiefly interested mankind is gone.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n_Religions Second Postulate: the undying Human Soul_\n\n\nThat supremely interesting aspect of theism belongs to it as part and\nparcel of the general belief in an Unseen World, in which human beings\nhave an interest. The belief in the personal continuance of the\nindividual human soul after death is a very ancient one. The savage\ncustom of burying utensils and trinkets for the use of the deceased\nenables us to trace it back into the Glacial Period. We may safely say\nthat for much more than a hundred thousand years mankind have regarded\nthemselves as personally interested in two worlds, the physical world\nwhich daily greets our waking senses, and another world, comparatively\ndim and vaguely outlined, with which the psychical side of humanity is\nmore closely connected. The belief in the Unseen World seems to be\ncoextensive with theism; the animism of the lowest savages includes\nboth. No race or tribe of men has ever been found destitute of the\nbelief in a ghost-world. Now, a ghost-world implies the personal\ncontinuance of human beings after death, and it also implies identity of\nnature between the ghosts of man and the indwelling spirits of sun,\nwind, and flood. It is chiefly because these ideas are so closely\ninterwoven in savage thought that it is often so difficult to\ndiscriminate between fetishism and animism. These savage ideas are of\ncourse extremely crude in their symbolism. With the gradual civilization\nof human thinking, the refinement in the conception of the Deity is\nparalleled by the refinement in the conception of the Other World. From\nValhalla to Dante's Paradise, what an immeasurable distance the human\nmind has travelled! In our modern Monotheism the assumption of kinship\nbetween God and the Human Soul is the assumption that there is in Man a\npsychical element identical in nature with that which is eternal. Belief\nin a quasi-human God and belief in the Soul's immortality thus appear in\ntheir origin and development, as in their ultimate significance, to be\ninseparably connected. They are part and parcel of one and the same\nefflorescence of the human mind. Mankind has always entertained them in\ncommon, and so entertains them now; and were it possible (which it is\nnot) for science to disprove the Soul's immortality, a theism deprived\nof this element would surely never be accepted as an equivalent for the\ntheism entertained before. The Positivist argument that the only worthy\nimmortality is survival in the grateful remembrance of one's fellow\ncreatures would hardly be regarded as anything but a travesty and trick.\nIf the world's long cherished beliefs are to fall, in God's name let\nthem fall, but save us from the intellectual hypocrisy that goes about\npretending we are none the poorer!\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n_Religions Third Postulate: the Ethical Significance of the Unseen\nWorld_\n\n\nOur account of the rise and progress of the general belief in an Unseen\nWorld is, however, not yet complete. No mention has been made of an\nelement which apparently has always been present in the belief. I mean\nthe ethical element. The savage's primeval ghost-world is always mixed\nup with his childlike notions of what he ought to do and what he ought\nnot to do. The native of Tierra del Fuego, who foreboded a snowstorm\nbecause one of Mr. Darwin's party killed some birds for specimens,\nfurnishes an excellent illustration. In a tribe living always on the\nbrink of starvation, any wanton sacrifice of meat must awaken the wrath\nof the tutelar ancestral ghost-deities who control the weather. Notions\nof a similar sort are connected with the direful host of omens that dog\nthe savage's footsteps through the world. Whatever conduct the\nnecessities of clan or tribe have prohibited soon comes to wear the\naspect of sacrilege.\n\nThus inextricably intertwined from the moment of their first dim dawning\nupon the consciousness of nascent Humanity, have been the notion of\nDeity, the notion of an Unseen World, and the notions of Right and\nWrong. In their beginnings theology and ethics were inseparable; in all\nthe vast historic development of religion they have remained\ninseparable. The grotesque conceptions of primitive men have given place\nto conceptions framed after wider and deeper experience, but the union\nof ethics with theology remains undisturbed even in that most refined\nreligious philosophy which ventures no opinion concerning the happiness\nor misery of a future life, except that the seed sown here will\nnaturally determine the fruit to be gathered hereafter. All the\nanalogies that modern knowledge can bring to bear upon the theory of a\nfuture life point to the opinion that the breach of physical continuity\nis not accompanied by any breach of ethical continuity. Such an opinion\nrelating to matters beyond experience cannot of course be called\nscientific, but whether it be justifiable or not, my point is that\nneither in the crude fancies of primitive men nor in the most refined\nmodern philosophy can theology divorce itself from ethics. Take away the\nethical significance from our conceptions of the Unseen World and the\nquasi-human God, and no element of significance remains. All that was\nvital in theism is gone.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\n_Is the Substance of Religion a Phantom, or an Eternal Reality?_\n\n\nWe are now prepared to see what is involved in the Reality of Religion.\nSpeaking historically, it may be said that Religion has always had two\nsides: on the one side it has consisted of a theory, more or less\nelaborate, and on the other side it has consisted of a group of\nsentiments conformable to the theory. Now in all ages and in every form\nof Religion, the theory has comprised three essential elements: first,\nbelief in Deity, as quasi-human; secondly, belief in an Unseen World in\nwhich human beings continue to exist after death; thirdly, recognition\nof the ethical aspects of human life as related in a special and\nintimate sense to this Unseen World. These three elements are alike\nindispensable. If any one of the three be taken away, the remnant cannot\nproperly be called Religion. Is then the subject-matter of Religion\nsomething real and substantial, or is it a mere figment of the\nimagination? Has Religion through all these weary centuries been dealing\nwith an eternal verity, or has it been blindly groping after a phantom?\nCan that history of the universe which we call the Doctrine of Evolution\nbe made to furnish any lesson that will prove helpful in answering this\nquestion? We shall find, I think, that it does furnish such a lesson.\n\nBut first let us remember that along with the three indispensable\nelements here specified, every historic Religion has also contained a\nquantity of cosmological speculations, metaphysical doctrines, priestly\nrites and ceremonies and injunctions, and a very considerable part of\nthis structure has been demolished by modern criticism. The destruction\nof beliefs has been so great that we can hardly think it strange if\nsome critics have taken it into their heads that nothing can be\nrescued. But let us see what the doctrine of evolution has to say. Our\ninquiry may seem to take us very far afield, but that we need not mind\nif we find the answer by and by directing us homeward.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n_The Fundamental Aspect of Life_\n\n\nI often think, when working over my plants, of what Linn\u0160us once said of\nthe unfolding of a blossom: \"I saw God in His glory passing near me, and\nbowed my head in worship,\" The scientific aspect of the same thought has\nbeen put into words by Tennyson:--\n\n    \"Flower in the crannied wall,\n    I pluck you out of the crannies,\n    I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,\n    Little flower,--but if I could understand\n    What you are, root and all, and all in all,\n    I should know what God and man is.\"\n\nNo deeper thought was ever uttered by poet. For in this world of plants,\nwhich with its magician chlorophyll conjuring with sunbeams is\nceaselessly at work bringing life out of death,--in this quiet vegetable\nworld we may find the elementary principles of all life in almost\nvisible operation. It is one of these elementary principles--a very\nsimple and broad one--that here concerns us.\n\nOne of the greatest contributions ever made to scientific knowledge is\nHerbert Spencer's profound and luminous exposition of Life as the\ncontinuous adjustment of inner relations to outer relations. The extreme\nsimplicity of the subject in its earliest illustrations is such that the\nstudent at first hardly suspects the wealth of knowledge toward which it\nis pointing the way. The most fundamental characteristic of living\nthings is their response to external stimuli. If you come upon a dog\nlying by the roadside and are in doubt whether he is alive or dead, you\npoke him with a stick; if you get no response you presently conclude\nthat it is a dead dog. So if the tree fails to put forth leaves in\nresponse to the rising vernal temperature, it is an indication of death.\nPour water on a drooping plant, and it shows its life by rearing its\nhead. The growth of a plant is in its ultimate analysis a group of\nmotions put forth in adjustment to a group of physical and chemical\nconditions in the soil and atmosphere. A fine illustration is the spiral\ndistribution of leaves about the stem, at different angular intervals in\ndifferent kinds of plants, but always so arranged as to ensure the most\ncomplete exposure of the chlorophyll to the sunbeams. Every feature of\nthe plant is explicable on similar principles. It is the result of a\ncontinuous adjustment of relations within the plant to relations\nexisting outside of it. It is important that we should form a clear\nconception of this, and a contrasted instance will help us. Take one of\nthose storm-glasses in which the approach of atmospheric disturbance\nsets up a feathery crystallization that changes in shape and\ndistribution as the state of the air outside changes. Here is something\nthat simulates vegetable life, but there is a profound difference. In\nevery one of these changes the liquid in the storm-glass is passive; it\nis changed and waits until it is changed again. But in the case of a\ntree, when the increased supply of solar radiance in spring causes those\ninternal motions which result in the putting forth of leaves, it is\nquite another affair. Here the external change sets up an internal\nchange which leads to a second internal change that anticipates a second\nexternal change. It is this active response that is the mark of life.\n\nAll life upon the globe, whether physical or psychical, represents the\ncontinuous adjustment of inner to outer relations. The degree of life is\nlow or high, according as the correspondence between internal and\nexternal relations is simple or complex, limited or extensive, partial\nor complete, perfect or imperfect. The relations established within a\nplant answer only to the presence or absence of a certain quantity of\nlight and heat, and to sundry chemical and physical relations in\natmosphere and soil. In a polyp, besides general relations similar to\nthese, certain more special relations are established in correspondence\nwith the eternal existence of mechanical irritants; as when its\ntentacles contract on being touched. The increase of extension acquired\nby the correspondences as we ascend the animal scale may be seen by\ncontrasting the polyp, which can simply distinguish between soluble and\ninsoluble matter, or between opacity and translucence in its\nenvironment, with the keen-scented bloodhound and the far-sighted\nvulture. And the increase of complexity may be appreciated by comparing\nthe motions respectively gone through by the polyp on the one hand, and\nby the dog and vulture on the other, while securing and disposing of\ntheir prey. The more specific and accurate, the more complex and\nextensive, is the response to environing relations, the higher and\nricher, we say, is the life.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\n_How the Evolution of Senses expands the World_\n\n\nThe whole progression of life upon the globe, in so far as it has been\nachieved through natural selection, has consisted in the preservation\nand the propagation of those living creatures in whom the adjustment of\ninner relations to outer relations is most successful. This is only a\nmore detailed and descriptive way of saying that natural selection is\nequivalent to survival of the fittest. The shapes of animals, as well as\ntheir capacities, have been evolved through almost infinitely slow\nincrements of adjustment upon adjustment. In this way, for instance, has\nbeen evolved the vertebrate skeleton, through a process of which\nSpencer's wonderful analysis is as thrilling as a poem. Or consider the\ndevelopment of the special organs of sense. Among the most startling\ndisclosures of embryology are those which relate to this subject. The\nmost perfect organs of touch are the _vibriss\u0160_ whiskers of the cat,\nwhich act as long levers in communicating impulses to the nerve-fibres\nthat terminate in clusters about the dermal sacs in which they are\ninserted. These cat-whiskers are merely specialized forms of such hairs\nas those which cover the bodies of most mammals, and which remain in\nevanescent shape upon the human skin imbedded in minute sacs. Now in\ntheir origin the eye and ear are identical with _vibriss\u0160_. In the early\nstages of vertebrate life, while the differentiations of dermal tissue\nwent mostly to the production of hairs or feathers or scales, sundry\nspecial differentiations went to the production of ears and eyes.\nEmbryology shows that in mammals the bulb of the eye and the auditory\nchamber are extremely metamorphosed hair-sacs, the crystalline lens is a\ndifferentiated hair, and the aqueous and vitreous humours are liquefied\ndermal tissue! The implication of these wonderful facts is that sight\nand hearing were slowly differentiated from the sense of touch. One can\nseem to discern how in the history of the eye there was at first a\nconcentration of pigment grains in a particular dermal sac, making that\nspot exceptionally sensitive to light; then came by slow degrees the\nheightened translucence, the convexity of surface, the refracting\nhumours, and the multiplication of nerve-vesicles arranging themselves\nas retinal rods. And what was the result of all this for the creature in\nwhom organs of vision were thus developed? There was an immense\nextension of the range, complexity, and definiteness of the adjustment\nof inner relations to outer relations; in other words, there was an\nimmense increase of life. There came into existence, moreover, for those\nwith eyes to see it, a mighty visible world that for sightless creatures\nhad been virtually non-existent.\n\nWith the further progress of organic life, the high development of the\nsenses was attended or followed by increase of brain development and the\ncorrelative intelligence, immeasurably enlarging the scope of the\ncorrespondences between the living creature and the outer world. In the\ncase of Man, the adjustments by which we meet the exigencies of life\nfrom day to day are largely psychical, achieved by the aid of ideal\nrepresentations of environing circumstances. Our actions are guided by\nour theory of the situation, and it needs no illustration to show us\nthat a true theory is an adjustment of one's ideas to the external\nfacts, and that such adjustments are helps to successful living. The\nwhole worth of education is directed toward cultivating the capacity of\nframing associations of ideas that conform to objective facts. It is\nthus that life is guided.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nX\n\n_Nature's Eternal Lesson is the Everlasting Reality of Religion_\n\n\nSo as we look back over the marvellous life-history of our planet, even\nfrom the dull time when there was no life more exalted than that of\nconferva scum on the surface of a pool, through ages innumerable until\nthe present time when Man is learning how to decipher Nature's secrets,\nwe look back over an infinitely slow series of minute adjustments,\ngradually and laboriously increasing the points of contact between the\ninner Life and the World environing. Step by step in the upward advance\ntoward Humanity the environment has enlarged. The world of the\nfresh-water alga was its tiny pool during its brief term of existence;\nthe world of civilized man comprehends the stellar universe during\ncountless \u0160ons of time. Every stage of enlargement has had reference to\nactual existences outside. The eye was developed in response to the\noutward existence of radiant light, the ear in response to the outward\nexistence of acoustic vibrations, the mother's love came in response to\nthe infant's needs, fidelity and honour were slowly developed as the\nnascent social life required them; everywhere the internal adjustment\nhas been brought about so as to harmonize with some actually existing\nexternal fact. Such has been Nature's method, such is the deepest law of\nlife that science has been able to detect.\n\nNow there was a critical moment in the history of our planet, when love\nwas beginning to play a part hitherto unknown, when notions of right and\nwrong were germinating in the nascent Human Soul, when the family was\ncoming into existence, when social ties were beginning to be knit, when\nwinged words first took their flight through the air. It was the moment\nwhen the process of evolution was being shifted to a higher plane, when\ncivilization was to be superadded to organic evolution, when the last\nand highest of creatures was coming upon the scene, when the dramatic\npurpose of creation was approaching fulfilment. At that critical moment\nwe see the nascent Human Soul vaguely reaching forth toward something\nakin to itself not in the realm of fleeting phenomena but in the Eternal\nPresence beyond. An internal adjustment of ideas was achieved in\ncorrespondence with an Unseen World. That the ideas were very crude and\nchildlike, that they were put together with all manner of grotesqueness,\nis what might be expected. The cardinal fact is that the crude childlike\nmind was groping to put itself into relation with an ethical world not\nvisible to the senses. And one aspect of this fact, not to be lightly\npassed over, is the fact that Religion, thus ushered upon the scene\ncoeval with the birth of Humanity, has played such a dominant part in\nthe subsequent evolution of human society that what history would be\nwithout it is quite beyond imagination. As to the dimensions of this\ncardinal fact there can thus be no question. None can deny that it is\nthe largest and most ubiquitous fact connected with the existence of\nmankind upon the earth.\n\nNow if the relation thus established in the morning twilight of Man's\nexistence between the Human Soul and a world invisible and immaterial is\na relation of which only the subjective term is real and the objective\nterm is non-existent, then, I say, it is something utterly without\nprecedent in the whole history of creation. All the analogies of\nEvolution, so far as we have yet been able to decipher it, are\noverwhelming against any such supposition. To suppose that during\ncountless ages, from the seaweed up to Man, the progress of life was\nachieved through adjustments to external realities, but that then the\nmethod was all at once changed and throughout a vast province of\nevolution the end was secured through adjustments to external\nnon-realities, is to do sheer violence to logic and to common sense. Or,\nto vary the form of statement, since every adjustment whereby any\ncreature sustains life may be called a true step, and every\nmaladjustment whereby life is wrecked may be called a false step; if we\nare asked to believe that Nature, after having throughout the whole\nround of her inferior products achieved results through the accumulation\nof all true steps and pitiless rejection of all false steps, suddenly\nchanged her method and in the case of her highest product began\nachieving results through the accumulation of false steps; I say we are\nentitled to resent such a suggestion as an insult to our understandings.\nAll the analogies of Nature fairly shout against the assumption of such\na breach of continuity between the evolution of Man and all previous\nevolution. So far as our knowledge of Nature goes the whole momentum of\nit carries us onward to the conclusion that the Unseen World, as the\nobjective term in a relation of fundamental importance that has\ncoexisted with the whole career of Mankind, has a real existence; and it\nis but following out the analogy to regard that Unseen World as the\ntheatre where the ethical process is destined to reach its full\nconsummation. The lesson of evolution is that through all these weary\nages the Human Soul has not been cherishing in Religion a delusive\nphantom, but in spite of seemingly endless groping and stumbling it has\nbeen rising to the recognition of its essential kinship with the\never-living God. Of all the implications of the doctrine of evolution\nwith regard to Man, I believe the very deepest and strongest to be that\nwhich asserts the Everlasting Reality of Religion.\n\nSo far as I am aware, the foregoing argument is here advanced for the\nfirst time. It does not pretend to meet the requirements of scientific\ndemonstration. One must not look for scientific demonstration in\nproblems that contain so many factors transcending our direct\nexperience. But as an appeal to our common sense, the argument here\nbrought forward surely has tremendous weight. It seems to me far more\nconvincing than any chain of subtle metaphysical reasoning can ever be;\nfor such chains, however, invincible in appearance, are no stronger than\nthe weakest of their links, and in metaphysics one is always uneasily\nsuspecting some undetected flaw. My argument represents the impression\nthat is irresistibly forced upon one by a broad general familiarity with\nNature's processes and methods; it therefore belongs to the class of\narguments that survive.\n\nObserve, too, that it is far from being a modified repetition of the old\nargument that beliefs universally accepted must be true. Upon the view\nhere presented, every specific opinion ever entertained by man\nrespecting religious things may be wrong, and in all probability is\nexceedingly crude, and yet the Everlasting Reality of Religion, in its\nthree indispensable elements as here set forth, remains unassailable.\nOur common-sense argument puts the scientific presumption entirely and\ndecisively on the side of religion and against all atheistic and\nmaterialistic explanations of the universe. It establishes harmony\nbetween our highest knowledge and our highest aspirations by showing\nthat the latter no less than the former are a normal result of the\nuniversal cosmic process. It has nothing to fear from the advance of\nscientific discovery, for as these things come to be better understood,\nit is going to be realized that the days of the antagonism between\nScience and Religion must by and by come to an end. That antagonism has\nbeen chiefly due to the fact that religious ideas were until lately\nallied with the doctrine of special creations. They have therefore\nneeded to be remodelled and considered from new points of view. But we\nhave at length reached a stage where it is becoming daily more and more\napparent that with the deeper study of Nature the old strife between\nfaith and knowledge is drawing to a close; and disentangled at last from\nthat ancient slough of despond the Human Mind will breathe a freer air\nand enjoy a vastly extended horizon.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nL'ENVOI\n\n\nYesterday, when weary with writing, and my mind quite dusty with\nconsidering these atoms, I was called to supper, and a salad I had asked\nfor was set before me. \"It seems, then,\" said I aloud, \"that if pewter\ndishes, leaves of lettuce, grains of salt, drops of vinegar and oil, and\nslices of eggs, had been floating about in the air from all eternity, it\nmight at last happen by chance that there would come a salad.\" \"Yes,\"\nsays my wife, \"but not so nice and well dressed as this of mine\nis!\"--KEPLER, _apud_ Tait and Stewart, _Paradoxical Philosophy_.\n\n\nELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED\nBY H. O. HOUGHTON AND CO.\n\nThe Riverside Press\n\nCAMBRIDGE, MASS., U. S. A.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WRITINGS OF JOHN FISKE\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nTHE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA\n\n    _With some Account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest.\n    With a steel portrait of Mr. Fiske, many maps, facsimiles, etc.\n    2 vols. crown 8vo, gilt top, $4.00._\n\nThose who care for geography and for primitive culture will doubtless\nfind this \"Discovery of America,\" as we have found it, one of the most\nagreeable and instructive books on both those topics that have appeared\nin a good many years.... The book brings together a great deal of\ninformation hitherto accessible only in special treatises, and\nelucidates with care and judgment some of the most perplexing problems\nin the history of discovery.--_The Speaker_ (London).\n\n\nOLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS\n\n    _2 vols. crown 8vo, gilt top, $4.00._\n\nMr. Fiske's \"Old Virginia and Her Neighbours\" adds another to those\nvaluable and delightful studies of our early history which are fast\napproaching the completeness and adequacy of a comprehensive history of\nthe beginnings of the American people. History has rarely been invested\nwith such interest and charm as in these volumes.--_The Outlook_ (New\nYork).\n\n\nTHE BEGINNINGS OF NEW ENGLAND\n\n    _Or, the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and\n    Religious Liberty. Crown 8vo, $2.00._ Illustrated Edition.\n    _Containing Portraits, Maps, Facsimiles, Contemporary Views,\n    Prints, and other Historic Materials. 2 vols. 8vo, gilt top,\n    $4.00._\n\nHaving in the first chapters strikingly and convincingly shown that New\nEngland's history was the birth of centuries of travail, and having\nprepared his readers to estimate at their true importance the events of\nour early colonial life, Mr. Fiske is ready to take up his task as the\nhistorian of the New England of the Puritans.... The last chapters give\na broad and fair account of the history of the time, but it is easy to\nsee that in his choice of facts, the author has exercised a large power\nof selection,--a selection which we may note is wonderful in its\nunfailing accuracy of estimate. As he is busy with the progress towards\ncivil and religious liberty which culminated in the Revolution, his\nfacts are chosen to illustrate that progress.--_Boston Daily\nAdvertiser._\n\n\nTHE AMERICAN REVOLUTION\n\n    _With Plans of Battles, and a Steel Portrait of Washington. 2\n    vols. crown 8vo, gilt top, $4.00._ Illustrated Edition.\n    _Containing about 300 Illustrations. 2 vols. 8vo, gilt top,\n    $8.00._\n\nThe reader may turn to these volumes with full assurance of faith for a\nfresh rehearsal of the old facts, which no time can stale, and for new\nviews of those old facts, according to the larger framework of ideas in\nwhich they can now be set by the master of a captivating style and an\nexpert in historical philosophy.--_New York Evening Post._\n\n\nTHE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE\n\n    _In Riverside Library for Young People. With Maps. 16mo, 75\n    cents._\n\nJohn Fiske's \"War of Independence\" is a miracle.... A book brilliant and\neffective beyond measure.... It is a statement that every child can\ncomprehend, but that only a man of consummate genius could have\nwritten.--MRS. CAROLINE H. DALL, in the _Springfield Republican_.\n\n\nTHE CRITICAL PERIOD OF AMERICAN HISTORY, 1783-1789\n\n    _With Map, Notes, etc. Crown 8vo, gilt top, $2.00._ Illustrated\n    Edition. _Containing about 170 Illustrations. 8vo, gilt top,\n    $4.00._\n\nThe author combines in an unusual degree the impartiality of the trained\nscholar with the fervor of the interested narrator.... The volume should\nbe in every library in the land.--_The Congregationalist_ (Boston).\n\nAn admirable book.... Mr. Fiske has a great talent for making history\ninteresting to the general reader.--_New York Times._\n\n\nA HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES FOR SCHOOLS\n\n    _With Topical Analysis, Suggestive Questions, and Directions for\n    Teachers, by F. A. Hill, and Illustrations and Maps. Crown 8vo,\n    $1.00, net._\n\nIt is doubtful if Mr. Fiske has done anything better for his generation\nthan the preparation of this text-book, which combines in a rare degree\naccuracy, intelligent condensation, historical discrimination, and an\nattractive style.--_The Outlook_ (New York).\n\n\nCIVIL GOVERNMENT IN THE UNITED STATES\n\n    _Considered with some Reference to its Origins. With Questions\n    on the Text by Frank A. Hill, and Bibliographical Notes by Mr.\n    Fiske. Crown 8vo, $1.00, net._\n\nIt is most admirable, alike in plan and execution, and will do a vast\namount of good in teaching our people the principles and forms of our\ncivil institutions.--MOSES COIT TYLER, _Professor of American\nConstitutional History and Law, Cornell University_.\n\n\nOUTLINES OF COSMIC PHILOSOPHY\n\n    _Based on the Doctrine of Evolution, with Criticisms on the\n    Positive Philosophy. In two volumes, 8vo, $6.00._\n\nYou must allow me to thank you for the very great interest with which I\nhave at last slowly read the whole of your work.... I never in my life\nread so lucid an expositor (and therefore thinker) as you are; and I\nthink that I understand nearly the whole, though perhaps less clearly\nabout cosmic theism and causation than other parts.--CHARLES DARWIN.\n\nThis work of Mr. Fiske's may be not unfairly designated the most\nimportant contribution yet made by America to philosophical\nliterature.--_The Academy_ (London).\n\n\nDARWINISM, AND OTHER ESSAYS\n\n    _Crown 8vo, gilt top, $2.00._\n\nIf ever there was a spirit thoroughly invigorated by the \"joy of right\nunderstanding,\" it is that of the author of these pieces.... No less\nconfident and serene than his acceptance of the utmost logical results\nof recent scientific discovery is Mr. Fiske's assurance that the\nfoundations of spiritual truths, so called, cannot possibly be shaken\nthereby.--_The Atlantic Monthly_ (Boston).\n\n\nTHE UNSEEN WORLD\n\n    _And Other Essays. Crown 8vo, gilt top, $2.00._\n\nTo each study the writer seems to have brought, besides an excellent\nquality of discriminating judgment, full and fresh special knowledge,\nthat enables him to supply much information on the subject, whatever it\nmay be, that is not to be found in the volume he is noticing.--_Boston\nAdvertiser._\n\n\nEXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST\n\n    _Crown 8vo, gilt top, $2.00._\n\nAmong our thoughtful essayists there are none more brilliant than Mr.\nJohn Fiske. His pure style suits his clear thought. He does not write\nunless he has something to say; and when he does write, he shows not\nonly that he has thoroughly acquainted himself with the subject, but\nthat he has to a rare degree the art of so massing his matter as to\nbring out the true value of the leading points in artistic relief....\nThe same qualities appear to good advantage in his new volume, which\ncontains his later essays on his favorite subject of evolution.--_The\nNation_ (New York).\n\n\nMYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS\n\n    _Old Tales and Superstitions interpreted by Comparative\n    Mythology. Crown 8vo, gilt top, $2.00._\n\nMr. Fiske has given us a book which is at once sensible and attractive,\non a subject about which much is written that is crotchety or\ntedious.--W. R. S. RALSTON, in _The Athen\u0160um_ (London).\n\n\nTHE DESTINY OF MAN\n\n    _Viewed in the Light of His Origin. 16mo, gilt top, $1.00._\n\nOne is charmed by the directness and clearness of his style, his simple\nand pure English, and his evident knowledge of his subject.... Of one\nthing we may be sure: that none are leading us more surely or rapidly to\nthe full truth than men like the author of this little book, who\nreverently study the works of God for the lessons which He would teach\nhis children.--_Christian Union_ (New York).\n\n\nTHE IDEA OF GOD\n\n    _As Affected by Modern Knowledge. 16mo, gilt top, $1.00._\n\nThe vigor, the earnestness, the honesty, and the freedom from cant and\nsubtlety in his writings are exceedingly refreshing. He is a scholar, a\ncritic, and a thinker of the first order.--_Christian Register_\n(Boston).\n\n\nTHROUGH NATURE TO GOD\n\n    _16mo, gilt top, $1.00._\n\nCONTENTS: _The Mystery of Evil_; _The Cosmic Roots of Love and\nSelf-Sacrifice_; _The Everlasting Reality of Religion_.\n\nThis book discusses, in Mr. Fiske's large and luminous way, the\nimportant subjects indicated in the contents. It falls in the same group\nwith his \"Idea of God\" and \"Destiny of Man,\" which have been an\ninspiration and a source of strength and light to a multitude of\nreaders.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[asterism] _For sale by all Booksellers. Sent by mail, postpaid, on\nreceipt of price by the Publishers_,\n\nHOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.\n\n_4 Park Street, Boston; 11 East 17th Street, New York._\n\n\n<pre id=\"pg-footer\">","title":"Through Nature to God","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":31590}