50. In our present translation of Genesis, the Fall is ascribed to the influence of Satan assuming the form of the serpent, and this animal was cursed in consequence, and compelled to assume a prone position. This rendering may well be revised, since serpents, prone like others, existed in both America and Europe during the Eocene epoch, five times as great a period before Adam as has elapsed since his day. Clark states, with great probability, that “serpent” should be translated monkey or ape—a conclusion, it will be observed, exactly coinciding with our inductions on the basis of evolution. The instigation to evil by an ape merely states inheritance in another form. His curse, then, refers to the retention of the horizontal position by all other quadrumana, as we find it at the present day.
2. Free Agency. Heretofore development had been that of physical types, but the Lord had rested on the seventh day, for man closed the line of the physical creation. Now a new development was to begin—the development of mind, of morality and of grace.
On the previous days of Creation all had progressed in accordance with inevitable law apart from its objects. Now two lines of development were at the disposal of this being, between which his free will was to choose. Did he choose the courses dictated by the spirit of the brute, he was to be subject to the old law of the brute creation—the right of the strongest and spiritual death. Did he choose the guidance of the Divine Guest in his heart, he became subject to the laws which are to guide—I. the human species to an ultimate perfection, so far as consistent with this world; and II. the individual man to a higher life, where a new existence awaits him as a spiritual being, freed from the laws of terrestrial matter.
The charge brought against the theory of development, that it implies a necessary progress of man to all perfection without his coöperation—or necessitarianism, as it is called—is unfounded.
The free will of man remains the source alike of his progress and his relapse. But the choice once made, the laws of spiritual development are apparently as inevitable as those of matter. Thus men whose religious capacities are increased by attention to the Divine Monitor within are in the advance of progress—progress coinciding with that which in material things is called the harmonic. On the other hand, those whose motives are of the lower origin fall under the working of the law of conflict.
The lesson derivable from the preceding considerations would seem to be “necessitarian” as respects the whole human race, considered by itself; and I believe it is to be truly so interpreted. That is, the Creator of all things has set agencies at work which will slowly develop a perfect humanity out of His lower creation, and nothing can thwart the process or alter the result. “My word shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” This is our great encouragement, our noblest hope—second only to that which looks to a blessed inheritance in another world. It is this thought that should inspire the farmer, who as he toils wonders, “Why all this labor? The Good Father could have made me like the lilies, who, though they toil not, neither spin, are yet clothed in glory; and why should I, a nobler being, be subject to the dust and the sweat of labor?” This thought should enlighten every artisan of the thousands that people the factories and guide their whirling machinery in our modern cities. Every revolution of a wheel is moving the car of progress, and the timed stroke of the crank and the rhythmic throw of the shuttle are but the music the spheres have sung since time began. A new significance then appears in the prayer of David: “Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish Thou the work of our hands upon us: the work of our hands, O Lord, establish Thou it.” But beware of the catastrophe, for “He will sit as a refiner:” “the wheat shall be gathered into barns, but the chaff shall be burned with unquenchable fire.” If this be true, let us look for—
3. The Extinction of Evil. How is necessitarianism to be reconciled with free will? It appears to me, thus: When a being whose safety depends on the perfection of a system of laws abandons the system by which he lives, he becomes subject to that lower grade of laws which govern lower intelligences. Man, falling from the laws of right, comes under the dominion of the laws of brute force; as said our Saviour: “Salt is good, but if the salt have lost his savor, it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast forth and trodden under foot of men.”
Evil, being unsatisfying to the human heart, is in its nature ever progressive, whether in the individual or the nation; and in estimating the practical results to man of the actions prompted by the lower portion of our nature, it is only necessary to carry out to its full development each of those animal qualities which may in certain states of society be restrained by the social system. In human history those qualities have repeatedly had this development, and the battle of progress is fought to decide whether they shall overthrow the system that restrains them, or be overthrown by it.
Entire obedience to the lower instincts of our nature ensures destruction to the weaker, and generally to the stronger also. A most marked case of this kind is seen where the developed vices of civilization are introduced among a savage people—as, for example, the North American Indians. These seem in consequence to be hastening to extinction.
But a system or a circuit of existence has been allotted to the civil associations of the animal species man, independently of his moral development. It may be briefly stated thus: Races begin as poor offshoots or emigrants from a parent stock. The law of labor develops their powers, and increases their wealth and numbers. These will be diminished by their various vices; but on the whole, in proportion as the intellectual and economical elements prevail, wealth will increase; that is, they accumulate power. When this has been accomplished, and before activity has slackened its speed, the nation has reached the culminating point, and then it enters upon the period of decline. The restraints imposed by economy and active occupation being removed, the beastly traits find in accumulated power only increased means of gratification, and industry and prosperity sink together. Power is squandered, little is accumulated, and the nation goes down to its extinction amid scenes of internal strife and vice. Its cycle is soon fulfilled, and other nations, fresh from scenes of labor, assault it, absorb its fragments, and it dies. This has been the world’s history, and it remains to be seen whether the virtues of the nations now existing will be sufficient to save them from a like fate.
Thus the history of the animal man in nations is wonderfully like that of the type or families of the animal and vegetable kingdoms during geologic ages. They rise, they increase and reach a period of multiplication and power. The force allotted to them becoming exhausted, they diminish and sink and die.
II. Of the Individual. In discussing physical development, we are as yet compelled to restrict ourselves to the evidence of its existence and some laws observed in the operation of its causative force. What that force is, or what are its primary laws, we know not.
So in the progress of moral development we endeavor to prove its existence and the mode of its operation, but why that mode should exist, rather than some other mode, we cannot explain.
The moral progress of the species depends, of course, on the moral progress of the individuals embraced in it. Religion is the sum of those influences which determine the motives of men’s actions into harmony with the Divine perfection and the Divine will. Obedience to these influences constitutes the practice of religion, while the statement of the growth and operation of these influences constitutes the theory of religion, or doctrine.
The Divine Spirit planted in man shows him that which is in harmony with the Divine Mind, and it remains for his free will to conform to it or reject it. This harmony is man’s highest ideal of happiness, and in seeking it, as well as in desiring to flee from dissonance or pain, he but obeys the disposition common to all conscious beings. If, however, he attempts to conform to it, he will find the law of evil present, and frequently obtaining the mastery. If now he be in any degree observing, he will find that the laws of morality and right are the only ones by which human society exists in a condition superior to that of the lower animals, and in which the capacities of man for happiness can approach a state of satisfaction. He may be then said to be “awakened” to the importance of religion. If he carry on the struggle to attain to the high goal presented to his spiritual vision, he will be deeply grieved and humbled at his failures: then he is said to be “convicted.” Under these circumstances the necessity of a deliverance becomes clear, and is willingly accepted in the only way in which it has pleased the Author of all to present it, which has been epitomized by Paul as “the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ.” Thus a life of advanced and ever-advancing moral excellence becomes possible, and the man makes nearer approaches to the “image of God.”
Thus is opened a new era in spiritual development, which we are led to believe leads to an ultimate condition in which the nature inherited from our origin is entirely overcome, and an existence of moral perfection entered on. Thus in the book of Mark the simile occurs: “First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear;” and Solomon says that the development of righteousness “shines more and more unto the perfect day.”
δ. Summary.
If it be true that general development in morality proceeds in spite of the original predominance of evil in the world, through the self-destructive nature of the latter, it is only necessary to examine the reasons why the excellence of the good may have been subject also to progress, and how the remainder of the race may have been influenced thereby.
The development of morality is then probably to be understood in the following sense: Since the Divine Spirit, as the prime force in moral progress, cannot in itself be supposed to have been in any way under the influence of natural laws, its capacities were no doubt as eternal and unerring in the first man as in the last. But the facts and probabilities discussed above point to development of religious sensibility, or capacity to appreciate moral good, or to receive impressions from the source of good.
The evidence of this is supposed to be seen in—First, improvement in man’s views of his duty to his neighbor; and Second, the substitution of spiritual for symbolic religions: in other words, improvement in the capacity for receiving spiritual impressions.
What the primary cause of this supposed development of religious sensibility may have been, is a question we reverently leave untouched. That it is intimately connected in some way with, and in part dependent on, the evolution of the intelligence, appears very probable: for this evolution is seen—First, in a better understanding of the consequences of action, and of good and of evil in many things; and Second, in the production of means for the spread of the special instrumentalities of good. The following may be enumerated as such instrumentalities:
1. Furnishing literary means of record and distribution of the truths of religion, morality and science.
2. Creating and increasing modes of transportation of teachers and literary means of disseminating truth.
3. Facilitating the migration and the spread of nations holding the highest position in the scale of morality.
4. The increase of wealth, which multiplies the extent of the preceding means.
And now, let no man attempt to set bounds to this development. Let no man say even that morality accomplished is all that is required of mankind, since that is not necessarily the evidence of a spiritual development. If a man possess the capacity for progress beyond the condition in which he finds himself, in refusing to enter upon it he declines to conform to the Divine law. And “from those to whom little is given, little is required, but from those to whom much is given, much shall be required.”