The Whence and the Whither of Man / A Brief History of His Origin and Development through Conformity to Environment; Being the Morse Lectures of 1895

And thus man rises above appetite, above prudential considerations, and becomes a free and moral agent. And family and social life bring him into new relations, press home upon him new duties and responsibilities, every one of which is a new motive compelling him to rise above self. And thus the unselfish, altruistic emotions have made man what he is, and are in him, ever advancing toward their future supremacy. But some one will say, This is a very pretty theory; it is not history. But the perception of truth and right is certainly a fact, the result of ages of development. And the very highest which the intellect can perceive is bound to become the controlling motive of the will. It always has been so. It must be so, if evolution is not to be purely degeneration. Thus only has man become what he is. And the voice of the people demanding truth and justice, whenever and wherever they see them, is the voice of God promising the future triumph of righteousness. For it is proof positive that man's face is resolutely set toward these, as his ancestors have always marched steadily toward that which was the highest possible attainment.

We find thus that there is a sequence in the motives which control the will. The first and lowest motives are the appetites, and here the will is the mouthpiece of the bodily organs. Then fear and a host of other prudential considerations appear. The lowest of these tend purely to the gratification of the senses or to the avoidance of bodily discomfort. But they originate in the mind, and that is a great gain. But the higher prudential considerations take into account something higher than mere bodily comfort or discomfort. Approbation and disapprobation are motives which weigh heavily with the higher mammals. The lower prudential considerations are purely selfish. The higher ones, which stimulate to action for fellow-animals or men, show at least the dawn of unselfishness. And the altruistic motives, which stimulate to action for the happiness and welfare of others, predominate in, and are characteristic of, man. The human will is slowly rising above the dominance of selfishness. With the dawn of the rational perception of truth, right, and duty, the very highest motives begin to gain control. And the will becomes more and more powerful as the motives become higher. It is almost a mis-use of language to speak of the will of a slave of appetite. He is governed by the body, not at all by the mind.

The man who is governed by prudential considerations, and is always asking, Will it pay? is the incarnation of fickleness, instability, and feebleness. The apparent strength of the selfish will is usually a hollow sham. But truth, right, and love are motives stronger than death. And the will, dominated by these, gives the body to be burned. The man of the future will have an iron will, because he will keep these highest motives constantly before his mind.

In the preceding lectures we have traced the sequence of functions and have found that brain and mind, not digestion and muscle, are the goal of animal development. In this lecture we have attempted to trace a corresponding series of functions in the realm of mind. We have found, I think, that there has been an orderly and logical development of perceptions, modes of action, and finally of motives in the animal mind. Let us now briefly review this history and see whether it throws any light on the path of man's future progress.

Most of the sensory cells of the animal minister at first to reflex action, and there is thus little true perception. The stimuli which have called forth the reflex action may result afterward in consciousness; but until brain and muscle have reached a higher grade, this could be of but slight benefit to the animal. Perception and consciousness are exercised mainly in the recognition and attainment of food. When the animal begins to show fear, we may feel tolerably certain that it has been conscious of past experience of danger and remembers these experiences. But the sense-organs are all the time improving, whether as servants of conscious perception or of reflex action, and the development of the higher sense-organs, especially of the eyes, has called forth a higher development of the brain. The brain continually develops both through constant exercise and through natural selection. Through the higher and more delicate sense-organs it perceives a continually wider range of more subtile elements in its environment. And the higher the sense-organ the more directly and purely does it minister to consciousness. The eye, when capable of forming an image, is almost never concerned in a purely reflex action.

From the constant recurrence of perceptions and experiences in a constant order the animal begins to associate these, and when he has perceived the one to expect the other. Out of this grows, in time, inference and understanding. The mind is beginning to turn its attention not merely to objects and qualities, but to perceive relations. And thus it has taken the first step toward the perception of abstract truth. And if it has the æsthetic perception and can perceive beauty, we have every reason to believe that the same faculty will one day perceive truth and right. But on the purely animal plane of existence these powers could be of but little service, and we can expect to find them developed only very slightly and under peculiar surroundings. And in this connection it is interesting to notice the great results of man's training and education in the dog. For the wolf and the jackal, the dog's nearest relatives, if not his actual ancestors, are not especially intelligent mammals. Compared with them the dog is a sage and a saint.

The earliest form of action is the reflex. This is independent of both consciousness and will. The only conscious voluntary action of the animal is limited mainly or entirely to the recognition and attainment of food. The motive for the exertion of the will is the appetite, and the will is the slave or mouthpiece of the body. Far higher than this is the stage of instinct. Here the animal is conscious of its actions and new motives begin to appear. But the animal is guided by tendencies inherited from its ancestors. The will has, so to speak, advisory power; it is by no means supreme. But with a wider and deeper knowledge of its environment, with the memory of past experiences, carried by the higher locomotive powers into new surroundings, brought face to face with new emergencies outside of the range of its old instincts, it is compelled to try some experiments of its own. It begins to modify these instincts, and in time altogether does away with many of them. It has risen a little above its old abject slavery to the appetites, it is slowly throwing off the bondage to heredity. New emotions or motives have arisen appealing directly to the individual will. The heir has been long enough under guardians and regents, it assumes the government and can rightly say, "L'état, c'est moi."

But a greater problem confronts it; can it rise above self? The animal often seems absolutely selfish. Can the unselfish be developed out of the selfish? This seems at first sight impossible. And the first lessons are so easy, the first steps so short, that we do not notice them. Reproduction comes to the aid of mind. The young are born more and more immature. They begin to receive the care of the parent. The love of the parent for the young is at first short lived and feeble. But it is the genuine article, and, like the mustard-seed planted in good soil, must grow. It strengthens and deepens. Soon it begins to widen also. Social life, very rude and imperfect, appears. And the members of this social group support, help, and defend one another. And doing for one another and helping each other, however slightly and imperfectly, strengthens their affection for one another. The animal is still selfish, so is man frequently, but it is in a fair way to become unselfish, and this is all we can reasonably expect of it.

For these are vast revolutions from reflex action to instinct, and from instinct to the reign of the individual will, and from appetite to selfishness on the ground of higher motives, and from immediate gratification to prudential considerations. And the crowning change of all is from selfishness to love. And each one of them takes time. Remember that the Old Testament history is the record of how God taught one little people that there is but one God, Jehovah. Think of the struggles, defeats, and captivities which the Israelites had to undergo before they learned this lesson, and even then only a fraction of the people ever learned it at all. As the prophet foretold, so it came to pass. Though Israel was as the sand by the sea-shore, but a remnant was saved.

But while we seek to do full justice to the animal, let us not underestimate the vast differences between it and man. The true evolutionist takes no low view of man's present actual attainments; in his possibilities he has a larger faith than that of the disbeliever in evolution. In intelligence and thought, in will power and freedom of choice, in one word, in all that makes up character and personality, man is immeasurably superior to the animal. These powers raise him to a new plane of being, give him an indefinitely higher and broader life, and his appearance marks a new era. He alone is a moral, responsible being, to a certain extent the former of his own destiny and recorder of his doom, if he fails. This gives to all his actions a peculiar stamp of a dignity only his. What he is and is to be we must attempt to trace in another lecture. But to one or two characteristic results of his progress we must call attention here.

The principal subject of man's study is not so much the things which surround him as his relation to them and theirs to each other. His environment has become really one, not so much one of tangible and visible objects as of invisible relations. And these will demand endless investigation. The more he studies them the more wonderful do they become. The vein broadens and grows indefinitely richer the deeper he searches into it. We find thus the purpose of the intellect; it is to study environment.

And now a little about motives. The animal begins with appetite, and some animals and men never get any farther. And yet how easily this appetite for food is satiated! We all remember our experiences as children around the Thanksgiving or Christmas table. What a disappointment it was to us to find how soon our appetite had forsaken us, and that we had lost the power of enjoying the delicacies which we had most anticipated. And over-indulgence often brought sad results and was followed by a period of penitential fasting. And the appetites for sense gratification must always lead to this result. They not only crave things which "perish with the using;" temporarily at least, often permanently, the appetite itself perishes with the gratification.

But what of the appetite, if you will pardon the expression, for truth and right? All attainment only strengthens it; and, instead of enslaving, it makes men ever more free. And yet what a power there is in the appetite for truth and righteousness? In obedience to it man gives his body to be burned, or pours out his life-blood drop by drop for its attainment, and rejoices in the sacrifice. There are victims to appetite: there are only martyrs to truth. This soul hunger for truth and right, growing more intense as the soul is filled with the object of desire, is the only one capable of indefinite development and dominance of the will. This must be and is the mental goal of animal development, if man has a future corresponding in length at all to his past. Otherwise the history of life becomes a "story told by an idiot." For its satisfaction is the only one which never causes satiety, and of which over-indulgence is impossible. All others lead only to a slough of despond, or the deeper and more treacherous slough of contentment, beyond which rise no delectable mountains or golden city.

And now in closing let me call your attention to one thought of practical vital importance.

According to the theory which we have agreed to adopt, higher species have arisen through a process of natural selection, those species surviving which are best conformed to their environment. And this applies to man as well as to lower animals. All knowledge is in man, therefore, primarily, a means by which he may conform to environment, survive, and progress. But conformity includes more than mere knowledge of environment. A man might have all knowledge, and yet refuse to conform; and then his knowledge could not save him from destruction. For conformity alone gives survival. Conformity in man requires an effort of the will. It is intelligent, but it is also voluntary action. And knowledge is a necessary means of conformity because through it we see how we may conform, and because it furnishes the motives which stimulate the will to the necessary effort.

Now, that faculty of the intellect which is dominant in man, and which has raised him immeasurably above the animal, and made him man, is the rational intelligence. If there is any such thing as a law of history or as continuity in evolution, man's future progress must depend upon his clearer vision and recognition of the perceptions of this faculty. Through it man perceives beauty, truth, and goodness, and attains knowledge of himself as a person and moral agent, and recognizes his rights and duties. Of all this the animal is and remains unconscious; indeed he is not yet a moral being and person in any proper sense of the word.

Inasmuch as the rational perception is the dominant faculty in man, it must perceive the lines along which he is to conform. Truth, right, and duty must be his watchwords. These are to be the rules and motives of all his actions. He cannot live for the body, but for something higher, the mind. This was proven before man appeared on the globe. He is to be a mental, intelligent being. But he is not to be governed by appetite or mere prudential considerations. These are animal, not human motives. These are not to be disregarded any more than digestion can be safely disregarded by man. But they are not to be his chief motives. He must subordinate these to the higher motives furnished by right and duty. Man is not merely a mental but a moral being. If he sinks below this plane of life he is not following the path marked out for him in all his past development. In order to progress, the higher vertebrate had to subordinate everything to mental development. In order to become man it had to develop the rational intelligence. In order to become higher man, present man must subordinate everything to moral development. This is the great law of animal and human development clearly revealed in the sequence of physical and mental functions.

Must man be a religious being also? This question we must try to answer in a future lecture.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Romanes: Animal Intelligence, pp. 490, 498.

[5] These experiments have been continued with most interesting and valuable results by Dr. G.H. Parker, of Harvard University.

[6] Mr. James Freeman Clarke has stated this better than I can. "We may state the law thus: 'Any habitual course of conduct changes voluntary actions into automatic or involuntary (i.e., reflex) actions.' By practice man forms habits, and habitual action is automatic action, requiring no exercise of will except at the beginning of the series of acts. The law of association does the rest. As voluntary acts are transformed into automatic, the will is set free to devote itself to higher efforts and larger attainments. After telling the truth a while by an effort, we tell the truth naturally, necessarily, automatically. After giving to good objects for a while from principle, we give as a matter of course. Honesty becomes automatic; self-control becomes automatic. We rule over our spirit, repress ill-temper, keep down bad feelings, first by an effort, afterwards as a matter of course.

"Possibly these virtues really become incarnate in the bodily organization. Possibly goodness is made flesh and becomes consolidate in the fibres of the brain. Vices, beginning in the soul, seem to become at last bodily diseases; why may not virtues follow the same law? If it were not for some such law of accumulation as this, the work of life would have to be begun forever anew. Formation of character would be impossible. We should be incapable of progress, our whole strength being always employed in battling with our first enemies, learning evermore anew our earliest lessons. But by our present constitution he who has taken one step can take another, and life may become a perpetual advance from good to better. And the highest graces of all—Faith, Hope, and Love—obey the same law." See James Freeman Clarke, Every-Day Religion, p. 122.

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CHAPTER VI

I have attempted to show that animal development has not been an aimless drifting. Functions developed and organs arose and were perfected in a certain order. First the purely vegetative organs appeared, and the animal lived for digestion and reproduction; then came muscle and it brought with it nerve. But these were not enough; the brain had all the time been gradually improving, and now it becomes the dominant function to which all others are subordinated. The experiment was fairly tried. Mere digestion and reproduction are carried to about the highest perfection which can be expected of them in worms and mollusks. The bird tried what could be done with digestion ministering to locomotion guided by the very keenest sense-organs and controlled by no mean brain. Even this experiment was not a success. But one organ remained, the brain, and on its mental possibilities depend the future of the animal kingdom. Vegetative organs and muscle have been tried and found wanting.[7]

We have followed hastily the development of mind. The mind began its career as the servant of digestion, recognizing and aiding to attain food. Action is at first mainly reflex. But conscious perception plays an ever more important part. The animal is at first guided by natural selection through the survival of the most suitable reflex actions, then by inherited tendencies, finally by its own conscious intelligence and will. The first motives are the appetites, but these are succeeded by ever higher motives as the perceptions become clearer and more subtile relations in environment are taken into account. Governed first purely by appetites, the will is ever more influenced by prudential considerations, and finally shows well-developed "natural affections." It has set its face toward unselfishness.

Digestion and muscle, as well as mind, have persisted in man. He is not, cannot be, disembodied spirit. And in his mental life reflex action and instinct, appetite and prudence, are still of great importance. But the higher and supreme development of these powers could never have resulted in man. They might alone have produced a superior animal, never man. His mammalian structure found its logical and natural goal in family and social life. And even the lowest goal of family life is incompatible with pure selfishness, and as family life advanced to an ever higher grade it became the school of unselfishness and love. And social life had a similar effect.

Moreover, man as a social being early began to learn that he could claim something from his fellows, and that he owed something to them. If he refused to help others, they would refuse to help him. This was his first, very rude lesson in rights and duties. Love, duty, and right have ever since been the watchwords of his development and progress. We have not yet considered, and must for the present disregard, the value and efficiency of religion in aiding his advance. At present we emphasize only the historical fact that man has not become what he is by a higher development of the body, nor by giving free rein to appetite, nor yet by making the dictates of selfish prudence supreme. And if there is any such thing as continuity in history, such modes and aims of life, if now followed, would surely only brutalize him and plunge him headlong in degeneration. He must live for right, truth, love, and duty. In just so far as he makes any other aim in life supreme, or allows it to even rival these, he is sinking into brutality. This is the clear, unmistakable verdict of history, and we shall do well to heed it.

But granting all that can be claimed for this sequence, have not the lower forms whose anatomy we have sketched—worm, fish, and bird—halted at various points along this line of march? Yet they have evidently survived. And if they have found safe resting-places, cannot higher forms turn back and join them? In other words, is not degeneration easier than advance and just as safe? What is the result if an animal tries to return to a lower plane of life or refuses to take the next upward step? Generally extermination. The very classification of worms in a number of small isolated groups, which must once have been connected by a host of intermediate forms, is indisputable proof of most terrible extermination. They did not go forward, and the survivors are but an infinitesimal fraction of those which perished. Let us take an illustration where palæontology can help us. The earth was at one time covered with marsupial mammals. Some advanced into placental forms. The great mass remained behind. And outside of Australia the opossums are the only survivors of them all. And this is only one example where a thousand could be given. Place is not long reserved for mere cumberers of the ground. There are so few exceptions to this statement that we might almost call it a law of biology.

Let us see how it fares with an animal which retreats to a lower plane of life. A worm, rather than seek its own food, becomes a parasite. It degenerates, but still is easily recognized as a worm. A crustacean tries the same experiment, though living outside of its host instead of in it. It sinks to a place even lower, if possible, than that of the parasitic worm. A locomotive form becomes sessile. It loses most of its muscles and the larger part of its nervous system; and even the digestive system, which it has made the goal of its existence, is inferior to that of its locomotive ancestors and relatives. But to the vertebrate these lowest depths of stagnation and degeneration are, as a rule, impossible. From true fish upward parasitism and sessile life are practically impossible. Here stagnation and degeneration mean, as a rule, extinction. Of all the relatives of vertebrates back to worms only the very aberrant lines of amphioxus and of the tunicata remain. Of the rest not a single survivor has yet been discovered. And yet what hosts of species must have peopled the sea. The primitive round-mouthed fishes have practically disappeared. The ganoids survive in a few species out of thousands. The amphibia of the carboniferous and the next period and the reptiles of the mesozoic have disappeared; only a few feeble degenerate remnants persist. And this was necessarily so. Each advancing form crowded hardest on those which occupied the same place and sought the same food, that is, the members of the same species. And the first to suffer from its competition were its own brethren. Death, rarely commuted into life imprisonment, is the verdict pronounced on all forms which will not advance. And does not the same law of advance or extinction apply to man? What is the record of successive civilizations but its verification?

Notice once more that as we ascend in the scale of development natural selection selects more unsparingly and the path to life narrows. It is a very easy matter for the lowest forms to get food. Indeed the plant sits still and its food comes to it. And the battle of brute force can be fought in a multitude of ways—by mere strength, by activity, by offensive or defensive armor, or even by running into the mud and skulking. It is harder to gain knowledge, and yet many roads lead to an education. Colleges are by no means the only seats of education. And many totally uneducated men have college diplomas. And life is, after all, the great university, and here the sluggard fails and the plucky man with the poor "fit" often carries off the honors.

And when it comes to righteousness there is only one right, and everything else is wrong. "Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat: Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." Therefore "strive to enter in at the strait gate." And remember that "strive" means wrestle like one of the athletes in the old Olympic games.

If you wish to climb the Matterhorn many paths lead up the lower slopes, and a stumble here may cost you only a sprain. And I suppose that several paths lead to the base of the cone. But thence to the summit there is but one path, and a misstep means death. Pardon these quotations and illustrations. They are my only means of at all adequately presenting to you a scientific man's conception of the meaning of the struggle for life. The laws of evolution are written in blood and bear the death penalty. For

There would seem therefore to be going on a process of natural selection. Natural selection seems to select more unsparingly and the struggle for life—or even existence—to grow fiercer as we advance from lower forms to higher in the animal kingdom.

But the theory which we have agreed to accept teaches us that these survivors are those which or who have conformed to their environment and that they have survived because of their conformity. And what do we mean by environment? And does not man modify his environment? Certainly he changes by irrigation a desert into a garden. He carries water against its tendency to the hill-top. But he has learned to do this only by studying the laws which govern the motions of fluids and rigorously obeying them. He must carry his water in strong pipes and take it from some higher point, or must use heat or some means to furnish the force to drive it to the higher point. He cannot change a single iota of the law, and gains control of the elements only by obedience to their laws. Electricity is man's best servant as long as he respects its laws, but it kills him who disobeys them. But does not man make his own surroundings in social life? He merely enters upon a new mode of life; and if this new mode be in conformity with the eternal forces and laws of environment man prospers in this new mode of life and conforms still more closely.

There is, indeed, but one environment, but the lower animal comes in contact with, and is affected by, but a small portion of its elements. Form and color were in the world before the animal had developed an eye, but up to this time these could have but little effect on animal life. Light vibrations were present in ether long before the animal by responding to them made them any part of its own true environment. There is vastly more in environment than man has yet discovered, and he will discover these elements only by obedience to their laws.

Environment includes ultimately all the forces and elements which go to make up our world or universe. It is an exceedingly general term. I might say that under the environment of certain wheels, springs, and spindles, which we call a Jacquard loom, silk threads become a ribbon worthy of a queen. Is Nature and environment only a huge divine loom to weave man and something higher yet? One great difference is evident. Under normal conditions the silk must become a ribbon. But protoplasm can fail to conform and become waste. Environment is a very hard word to define, and our views concerning it may differ.

One thing, however, seems to me clear and evident. If each successive stage in the ascending series is selected or survives on account of its conformity to environment there must be some element or power, something or somewhat in environment specially corresponding in some way to, or suited to drawing out, the characteristic of this ascending stage on account of which it survives. The forces and elements of environment make and work against those at each stage who wander from the right path, and for those who follow it. And thus natural selection arises as the total result of the combined working of all these forces. They all unite in one resultant working along a certain line, and natural selection is the effect of this resultant. In the stage represented by hydra the forces of environment combine in a resultant which works for digestion and reproduction and the best development of their organs. But as the animal changes he comes into a new relation or occupies a new position in respect to these forces. New elements in the old environment are beginning to press upon him. And the resultant changes accordingly. He may be compared to a steamer at sea which raises a sail. The wind has been blowing for hours, but the sail gives it a new hold on the ship. Steam and wind now combine in a new resultant of forces. From worms upward environment manifests itself through natural selection as a power working for muscular force and brute strength or activity.

But soon natural selection ceases to select on the ground of brute force. After a time environment proves to be a power making for shrewdness. And when the mammal has appeared the resultant of the forces of environment impels more and more toward unselfishness, and when man has appeared environment proves to be a "power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness." But what shall we say of an environment which unmasks itself at last as a power making for intelligence, unselfishness, and righteousness? Someone may answer it is a host of chemical and physical forces bringing about very high ends. That is very true, but is it the whole truth? The thinking man must ask, How did it come about, and why is it that all these forces work together for such high moral and intelligent ends?

We face, therefore, the question, Can an environment which proves finally and ultimately to be a power not ourselves making for righteousness and unselfishness be purely material and mechanical? Or must there be in or behind it something spiritual? Shall we best call environment, in its highest manifestation, "it" or "him?"

The old argument of Socrates, as on the last day of his life he sits discoursing with his friends, still holds good. He is discussing the same old question, whether there is anything more than force, material, mechanism in the world. He says that one might assign as "the cause why I am sitting here that my body is composed of bones and muscles; that the bones are solid and separate, and that the muscles can be contracted and extended, and are all inclosed in the flesh and skin; and that the bones, being jointed, can be drawn by the muscles, and so I can move my legs as you see; and that this is the reason why I am sitting here. But by the dog, these bones and muscles would long ago have carried me to Megara or Boœtia, moved by my opinion of what was best, if I had not thought it more right and honorable to submit to the sentence pronounced by the state than to run away from it. To call such things causes is absurd. For there is a great difference between the cause and that without which the cause would not produce its effect."

If there is no intelligence or love of truth in the cause, how can there be anything higher in the effect? And if Socrates had been only bone and muscle, he ought to have run away.

Our problem stands somewhat as follows: We have given protoplasm, a strange substance of marvellous capacities, which we call functions, and possessing a power of developing into beings of ever higher grades of organization. Environment proves to be a combination of forces working for the higher development of functions in a certain orderly sequence. And every lower function in the ascending line demands the development of the next higher. Digestion demands muscle, and muscle nerve, and nerve brain. We shall soon see that mammalian structure had to culminate in the family, and the family demands unselfishness and obedience. Environment therefore proves from the beginning to have been unceasingly working for the highest end; never, even temporarily, merely for the lower. For we have seen that environment works most unsparingly against those who, having taken certain of the steps in the ascending path, fail to continue therein.

But in order to attain this highest end for which it has always been working, an immense number of subsidiary ends have had to be attained. These are not merely digestion and brain, but a host of others: e.g., in vertebrates, vertebræ of the right substance, position, form, arrangement, and union. And in the ascending line, for whose highest forms it has continually worked, the difficulties of attaining each subsidiary end have been successively solved, and through this host of subsidiary ends the animal kingdom has advanced straight to its goal of intelligence and righteousness. Now the whole process is a grand argument for design. But I would not emphasize the process so much as the end attained. This especially, when attained by conformity to that environment, demands more than mere mindless atoms in or behind that environment. Can we call the ultimate power which makes for righteousness "it?" Can we call it less than "Him, in whom we live and move and have our being?"

The history of life is a grand drama. "Paradise Lost" and Shakespeare's plays are but fragments of it. But without intelligence they could never have been composed; without a choice of means and ends they could never have been placed upon the stage. Does the plot of this grander drama of evolution demand no intelligence in its ultimate cause and producer? Is the succession of steps, each succeeding the other in such order as to lead to truth and right and continual progress toward a spiritual goal, is this plot possible without a great composer who has seen the end from the beginning? Could it ever have been executed upon the stage of the world, and perhaps of the universe, without an executing will?

Now I freely grant you that this is no mathematical demonstration. Natural science does not deal in demonstrations, it rests upon the doctrine of probabilities; just as we have to order our whole lives according to this doctrine. Its solution of a problem is never the only conceivable answer, but the one which best fits and explains all the facts and meets the fewest objections. The arguments for the existence of a personal God are far stronger than those in favor of any theory of evolution. But we very rightly test the former arguments, indefinitely more rigidly and severely, just because our very life hangs on them. On the other hand, we should not reject them as useless, because they are not of an entirely different kind from those on which all the actions and beliefs of our common daily life are based. There is a scepticism which is merely a credulity of negations. This also we should avoid.

We have considered a few of the reasons for thinking that, with the material, there must be something spiritual in environment, that if the woof is material the warp is God. Here we need not delay long. Blank atheism seems to be at present unpopular and generally regarded as unscientific. The so-called philosophic materialism of the present day seems to be in general far nearer to pantheism than to the old form of materialism which recognized only atoms and mechanism. Atheism as a power to deform the lives of men has, for the present, lost its hold, and even agnosticism is respectful. The materialism against which we have to struggle is not that of the school, but of the shop, of society, of life. There are comparatively few now who avow a system of philosophy making mindless atoms their first cause.

But there is a far grosser, more deadly materialism of the heart and will. It sits unrebuked in the front pews of our churches and controls alike church and parish, caucus and legislature. It calls on us all to fall down and worship, promising the world if we obey, the cross if we refuse. And we bow to it; and that is all it asks, for a nod on our part makes us its slaves. It is the idolatry of money, position, shrewdness, learning—in one word, of success. It takes all the strength out of our morality, loyalty and obedience to God out of our religion, and makes cowards and liars of us, who should be heroes. It makes our religion a byword with honest unbelievers. And if they are honest scientific minds, waiting for evidence of the practical value of our religion, why should they believe, when we live so successfully down to the religion which we would scorn to openly profess? Our fathers may have been narrow or straight-laced; they were not cross-eyed from trying to keep one eye on God and the other on the main chance. What is the use of whispering, "Lord, Lord," Sundays, if we shout, "Oh, Baal, hear us," all the rest of the week. Let us at least be honest, and "if Baal be god, follow him," and avow it. And worst, and most hideous, of all, we are not so much hypocrites as self-deceived. Let us not forget the old Greek doctrine of Ate, goddess of judicial blindness, sent down only upon those who were living the unpardonable sin of indifference.

But supposing that there is in environment something more and other than material, can we possibly know anything about it?

I am in a boat near the mouth of a river. The boat is tossed by the waves, driven by currents of wind, and now and then temporarily turned by eddies. I seem to look out upon a chaos of apparently conflicting forces. But all the time the wind and tide are sweeping me homeward. Now the wind, which sometimes indeed does shift, and the great tidal wave are steadily bearing me in a certain direction, though wave and eddy and gust may often make this appear doubtful to me. So, underneath all waves and eddies of environment, there is a great tidal wave, bearing man steadily onward; and I gain a certain amount of valid knowledge of environment from the direction in which it is bearing me.

Let us change the illustration. Man survives as all his ancestors have survived before him, through conformity to environment. Environment has therefore during ages past been continually making impressions upon him. And he can draw valid inferences concerning the one power, which must underlie the apparent host of forces of environment, from the impressions which these have left upon the structure of his mind and character. By studying himself he gains valid knowledge of what is deepest in environment. For man is the most completely and closely conformed thereto of all living beings.

But man is a religious being. This is a fact which demands explanation just as much as bone and muscle. Now no evolutionist would believe that the eye could ever have developed without the stimulus of light acting upon the cells of the skin. Place the animal in darkness and the eye becomes rudimentary and disappears. Could a visual organ for seeing moral and religious truth have ever originated in the mind of man had there been no corresponding pulsation and thrill of a corresponding reality in environment? Is not the one development just as improbable or inconceivable as the other?

And this is the reason that, when man awakened to himself and his own powers, he knew that there was and must be a God. "Pass over the earth," says Plutarch; "you may discover cities without walls, without literature, without monarchs, without palaces and wealth; where the theatre and the school are not known; but no man ever saw a city without temples and gods, where prayers and oaths and oracles and sacrifices were not used for obtaining pardon or averting evil." Given man and environment as they are, and a belief in God is a necessary result. But you may ask, if we are to worship a personal God, why might not a conscious and religious hydra, with equal right, worship an infinite stomach, and the annelid a god of mere brute force?

There stands in Florence a magnificent statue by Michel Angelo. A human figure is only partially hewn out of the stone. He never finished it. If you could have seen the master hewing the chips with hasty, impatient blows from the shapeless block, you would have been tempted to say that he was but a stonecutter, and but a hasty workman at that. Even now we do not know exactly what form and expression he would have given to the still unfinished head. But no one can examine it and hesitate to pronounce it a grand work of a master-mind. In any manifestly incomplete work you must judge the purpose and character and powers of the workman or artist by its highest possibilities, just so far as you have any reason to believe that these possibilities will be realized. You must look at the rudely outlined heroic human figure in the block of stone, not at the rough unfinished pedestal, if you would know Michel Angelo. So in the hydra and the annelid you must look at the possibilities of the nervous system before you or he think that digestion and muscle are all.

Once more the highest powers dawn far down in the animal kingdom. There are traces of mind in the amœba, and of unselfishness in the lower mammals. If there were a goal of human development higher and other than unselfishness, wisdom, and love, we should have seen traces of it before this. But have we found the faintest sign of any such? Moreover, remember that a function continues to develop about as long as it shows the capacity for development. And during that period environment is a power making for its higher development. But is there any limit to the possible development of the three mental activities mentioned above? I can see none. Then must we not expect that environment will always make for these? And will environment ever manifest itself to man as the seat or instrument of a power possessing higher faculties other than these? Man must worship a personal God of wisdom, unselfishness, and love, or cease to worship. The latter alternative he never yet has been able to take, and society survive under its domination. So I at least am compelled to read the finding of biological history.

But let us grant for the sake of argument that man contains still undeveloped germs of faculties capable of perceiving and attaining something as much higher than wisdom and love as these are higher than brute force. You will answer, this is not only inconceivable, it is impossible. Still let us grant the possibility. We notice, first of all, that it is against the whole course of evolution that these faculties should be other than mental, and what we class under powers pertaining to our personality. For ages past evidently, and no less really from the very beginning, evolution has worked for the body only as a perfect vehicle of mind, and for this as leading to will and character. And human development has led, and ever more tends, as Mr. Drummond has shown, to the arrest, though not the degeneration, of the body. It is to remain at the highest possible stage of efficiency as the servant of mind. These higher powers will thus be mental and personal powers. And how has any and every advance to higher capabilities been attained in the animal kingdom? Merely by the most active possible exercise of the next lower power. This is proven by the sequence of physical and mental functions. We shall attain, therefore, any higher mental capacities only by the continual practice of wisdom and love. That is our only path to something higher, if higher there shall ever be. But if we find that the God of our environment is a God of something higher than love and righteousness, will these cease to be characteristics of his nature and essence? Not at all.

I have learned, perhaps, to know my father as a plain citizen. If I later find that he is a king and statesman, with powers and mental capacities of which I have never dreamed, do I therefore from that time cease to think of him as wise and kind and good? Not in the least. I only trust his love and wisdom as guide of my little life all the more. And shall not the same be true of God though he be king of all worlds and ages? It becomes unwise and wrong to worship God as the God of might only when we have found that he is a God also of something higher and nobler, of love; and after we have perceived this fully and worship him as love, we rest in the arms of his infinite power.

But now that the work has gone thus far, we can see that all development must take place along personal, spiritual lines; and are compelled to believe in a spiritual cause who knew the end from the beginning. And man's farther progress depends upon his conformity to this spiritual environment. And what is conformity to the personal element in our environment but likeness to him? This is my only possible mode of conformity to a person—to become like him in word, action, thought, and purpose, and finally in all my being. Very far from a close resemblance we still are. But we are more like him than primitive man was; and our descendants will resemble him far more closely than we. And thus man, conscious of his environment, and that means capable of knowing something about God, knows at least what God requires of him, namely, righteousness, love, and likeness to himself; or, as the old heathen seer expressed it, "to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before God." Man is and must be a religious being. And he conforms consciously. Thus to be more like God he must know more about him, and to know more about him he must become more like him. The two go hand in hand, and by mutual reaction strengthen each other. I will not enter into the most important question of all, whether we can ever really know a person unless we have some love for him. The facts of evolution seem to me to admit of but one interpretation, that of Augustine: "Thou hast formed me for thee, O Lord, and my restless spirit finds no rest but in thee." Granted, therefore, a personal God in and behind environment, however dimly perceived, and conformity to environment means god-likeness; for conformity to a person can mean nothing less than likeness to him.

Some of you must, all of you should, have read Professor Huxley's "Address on Education." In it he says, "It is a very plain and elementary truth that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for unknown ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well the highest stakes are paid with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmated—without haste, but without remorse.

"My metaphor," he continues, "will remind some of you of the famous picture in which Retzsch has depicted Satan playing at chess with man for his soul. Substitute for the mocking fiend in that picture a calm, strong angel, who is playing for love, as we say, and would rather lose than win—and I should accept it as an image of human life."[8]

This is a marvellous illustration, and in general as true as it is beautiful and grand. But that "calm, strong angel who is playing for love, as we say, and would rather lose than win," is certainly a very strange antagonist. Is it, after all, possible that our clear-eyed scientific man has altogether misunderstood the game? Is not the "calm, strong angel" more probably our partner? Certainly very many things point that way. And who are our antagonists? Look within yourself and you will always find at least a pair ready to take a hand against you, to say nothing of the possibilities of environment. "Rex regis rebellis." Our partner is trying by every method, except perhaps by "talking across the board," to teach us the laws and methods of this great game. And calls and signals are always allowable. The game is not finished in one hand; he gives us a second and third, and repeats the signals, and never misleads. Only when we carelessly or obstinately refuse to learn, and wilfully lose the game beyond all hope, does he leave us to meet our losses as best we may.

Let us carry the illustration a step farther. Who knows that the game was, or could be, at first taught without talking across the board? I can find nothing in science to compel such a belief, many things render it improbable. Grant a personality in environment to which personality in man is to conform and gain likeness. Environment can act on the digestive and muscular systems through mere material. But how can personality in environment act on personality in man except by personal contact or by symbols easy of comprehension according to its own laws? Some method of attaining acquaintance at least we should certainly expect.

But some of you may ask, How can any theory of evolution guarantee that anything of the present shall survive in the future? It is continually changing and destroying former types. The old order of everything changes and passes away, giving place to the new. But is this the whole truth? Evolution is a radical process, but we must never forget that it is also, and at the same time, exceedingly conservative. The cell was the first invention of the animal kingdom, and all higher animals are and must be cellular in structure. Our tissues were formed ages on ages ago; they have all persisted. Most of our organs are as old as worms. All these are very old, older than the mountains, and yet I cannot doubt that they must last as long as man exists. Indeed, while Nature is wonderfully inventive of new structures, her conservatism in holding on to old ones is still more remarkable. In the ascending line of development she tries an experiment once exceedingly thorough, and then the question is solved for all time. For she always takes time enough to try the experiment exhaustively. It took ages to find how to build a spinal column or brain, but when the experiment was finished she had reason to be, and was, satisfied. And if this is true of bodily organs we should expect that the same law would hold good when the animal development gradually passes over into the spiritual. And what is human history but the record of moral and religious experiments, and their success or failure according as the experimenters conformed to the laws of the spiritual forces with which they had to do?

We need not fear that our old fundamental beliefs will be lost. Their very age shows that they have been thoroughly tested in the great experiment of human history and found sure. Modified they may be; they will be used for higher purposes and the building of better characters than ours. They will not be lost or discarded. We too often think of nature as building like man, with huge scaffoldings, which must later be torn down and destroyed. But in the forest the only scaffolding is the heart of oak.

We have seen that the sequence of functions in animal development has culminated in man's rational, moral nature. He alone has the clear perception of the reality of right, truth, and duty. The pursuit of these has made him what he is. His advance, if there is any continuity in history, depends upon his making these the ruling motives and aims of his life. He must continually grow in righteousness and unselfishness, if he is not to degenerate and give place to some other product of evolution. Moreover, as these moral faculties are capable of indefinite, if not infinite, development, they must dominate his life through a future of indefinite duration. For the length of the period of dominance of a function has always been proportional to the capacity of that function for future development. These can never, so far as we can see, be superseded, for no rival to them can be discovered. We have found in them the culmination of the sequence of functions.

We have attempted to show in this lecture that reversal of this grand sequence has always led to degeneration, or, in higher forms, far more frequently, to extinction. As we ascend, natural selection works more, rather than less, unsparingly. And as advance depends upon conformity to environment, and as the highest forms must be regarded as therefore most completely conformed, we gain our most adequate knowledge of environment when we study it as working especially for these. For these have been from the very beginning its far-off, chief aim and goal. Viewed from this standpoint, environment proves to be a host of interacting forces uniting in a resultant "power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness," and unselfishness.

Inasmuch as man's rational moral nature, his personality, is the result of the last and longest step toward and in conformity to environment, these powers correspond to that which is at the same time highest, and deepest, and most fundamental in that environment. This power which makes for righteousness is therefore to be regarded as personal and spiritual rather than material. It is God immanent in nature. And it is mainly to this personal and spiritual element in his environment that man is in the future to more completely conform. Conformity to this element in man's environment does not so much result in life as it is life; failure to conform is death. And the pressure of environment upon man, compelling him to choose between life through conformity and non-conformity with death, can be most naturally and adequately explained as the expression of his will. We know what he requires of us.

Our knowledge of him is very incomplete, but may be valid as far as it extends. And it would seem to be valid, for it has been tested by ages of experiment. The results of this grand experiment have been summed up in man's fundamental religious beliefs. And farther knowledge will be gained by more complete obedience to the requirements already known. The evidence, that these fundamental religious beliefs will persist, is of the same character as that upon which rests our belief in the persistence of cells and tissues. The one is rooted in the structure of our minds; the other, in the structure of our bodies. But, after all, only will can act upon will, and personality upon personality. It remains for us to examine how man was compelled by his very structure to develop a new element in his environment, conformed indeed to the laws of his old environment, but better fitted to draw out the moral and spiritual side of his nature. And in connection with this study we may hope to gain some new light on the laws of conformity.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] See chart, p. 310.

[8] Huxley: Lay Sermons and Addresses, p. 31.

[TABLE OF CONTENTS]

CHAPTER VII

We are too prone to think that soil and climate, hill-side or plain, mountain and shore, temperature and rainfall, constitute the sole or the most important elements in human environment. Every one of these elements is doubtless important. Frost, drought, or barrenness of soil may make a region a desert, or dwarf the development of its inhabitants. Mountaineer, and the dweller on the plain, and the fisherman on the shore of the ocean develop different traits through the influence of their surroundings. In too warm a climate the human race loses its mental and moral vigor and degenerates. This is undeniable.

But, though one soil and climate and set of physical surroundings may be more conducive than another to the development of heroism, truthfulness, unselfishness, and righteousness, no one is essential to their production or sure to give rise to them. Moral and religious character is a feature of man's personality, and our personality is moulded mainly by the men and women with whom we associate. A man is not only "known by the company which he keeps;" he is usually fashioned by and conforms to it. As President Seelye has well said, "The only motive which can move a will is either a will itself, or something into which a will enters. It is not a thought, but only a sentiment, a deed, or a person, by which we become truly inspired. It is not the intellect, but the heart and will, through which and by which we are controlled. It is not the precepts of life, but life itself, by which alone we are begotten and born unto life.

"Now, there are two ways in which living power, personal power, the power of a will, may enter a soul and give it life; the one is when God's will works upon us, and the other when our wills work upon one another. God's will may directly penetrate ours, enabling us to will and to do of his good pleasure; and our own wills, thus inspired, may be the torch to kindle other wills with the same inspiration. It is in only one of these two ways that a human soul can be truly inspired; and, without a true inspiration, no amount of instruction, whether in duty, or life, or anything else, will change a single moral propensity."[9]

Even though a Lincoln may rise above his hereditary position or his surroundings, they are the school in which he is trained; the gymnasium in which his mental and moral fibre is strengthened. Family and social life form thus the element of man's environment by which he is mostly moulded, and to which he most naturally and completely conforms. Let us therefore briefly trace the origin of this new element of man's environment, and then notice the effect upon him of conformity to its laws, and see whither these would lead him.

We have already seen that intra-uterine development of the young was being carried ever farther by mammals, and we found one explanation of this in the fact that each mammalian egg represented a large amount of nutriment, and that the mammal had very little material to spare for reproduction. Very possibly, too, the newly hatched mammals were exposed to even more numerous and greater dangers than the young of birds. Even among lower mammals the young is feeble at birth. But the human infant is absolutely helpless. And the centre of its helplessness is its brain. Its eyes and ears are comparatively perfect, but its perceptions are very dim. Its muscles are all present, but it must very slowly and gradually learn to use them. Its language is but a cry, its few actions reflex. The new-born kitten may be just as helpless, but in a few weeks it will run and play and hunt, and after a few months can care for itself. Not so the child. It must be cared for during months and years before it can be given independence. Its brain is so marvellously complex that it is finished as a thinking and willing and muscle-controlling mechanism only long after birth. This means a period of infancy during which the young clings helplessly to the mother, who is its natural protector. And during this period the mother and young have to be cared for and protected by the male. And the period of infancy and the protection of the female and young are just as truly, though in far less degree, characteristic of the highest apes as of man.

I can give you only this very condensed and incomplete abstract of Mr. John Fiske's argument; you must read it for yourself in his "Destiny of Man." And as he has there shown, this can have but one result, and that is the family life of man. And we may yet very possibly have to acknowledge that family life of a very low grade is just as truly characteristic of the higher apes as of lower man. And thus the family life of man is the physiological result of, and rooted in, mammalian structure.

And the benefits of family life are too great and numerous to even enumerate. First of all the family is the school of unselfishness. All the love of the parent is drawn out for the helpless and dependent child, and grows as the parent works and thinks for it. And the child returns a fraction of his parents' love. Within the close bond of the family the struggle for place and opportunity is replaced by mutual helpfulness; and this doing and burden-bearing with and for each other is a constant exercise in the practice of love. And with out this mutual love and helpfulness the family cannot exist.

And slowly man begins to apply the lessons learned in the family to other relations with partners, neighbors, and friends. Slowly he discovers that an entirely selfish life defeats its own ends. A voice within him tells him continually that love is better than selfishness and ministering better than being ministered unto. It dawns upon him that it is against the nature of things that other people should be so selfish and grasping; a few begin to apply the moral to themselves, and a few of these to act accordingly.

And what a change the few steps which man has taken in this direction have wrought in his life. Says Professor Huxley: "In place of ruthless self-assertion it demands self-restraint, in place of thrusting aside or treading down all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect, but shall help his fellows; its influence is directed not so much to the survival of the fittest as to the fitting of as many as possible to survive. It repudiates the gladiatoral theory of existence."

It is a vast change from the "gladiatorial theory" to that of "mutual helpfulness." Call it a revolution, if you will. Revolutions are not unheard of in the history of the animal kingdom any more than in human history. We have seen, first, digestion and reproduction on the throne of animal organization, then muscle, and finally brain. Each of these changes is in one sense a revolution.

A little before the summer solstice the earth is whizzing away from the sun; a few weeks later it is whizzing with equal rapidity in almost the opposite direction. In the very nature of things it could not be otherwise. But so silently and gradually does it come about that we never feel the reversal of the engine; indeed the engine has not been reversed at all. Very similar is the change of the struggle of brute against brute to that of man for man. Indeed human development seems now to be almost at such a solstice where the power that makes for love is almost exhausted in opposing the tendency toward selfishness. We shall not always stay at the solstice; soon we shall make more rapid progress. And unselfishness like the family relation is firmly rooted in mammalian structure.

And man owes almost everything to family life. First the child gains the advantage of the parent's experience. He is educated by the parent. In a few formative and receptive years he gains from the parent the results of centuries of human experience. The process is thus cumulative, the investment bears compound interest. And yet this is peculiar to man only in degree. Have you never watched a cat train her kittens? And the education of the child in the savage family is very incomplete.

The family is the first and fundamental of all higher social and political unities. And without the persistence of the family the larger social unit would become an inert mass. All the individual ambition, all desire for family advancement, must be retained as still a motive for energetic advance. And all the training which social life can give reaches the individual most effectively, or solely, through the family. Society without the family would be like an army without company or regimental organization. Thus the very existence, not only of training in love and mutual helpfulness, but even of society itself as a mere organization, depends upon the existence and improvement of family life. And as so much depended upon and resulted from it, it could not but be fostered and improved by natural selection. The tribe or race with the best family life has apparently survived. But all social animals have some means of communicating very simple thoughts or perceptions. The simplest illustrations of this are the calls and warning cries of mammals and birds. It is not impossible that the higher mammals have something worthy of the name of language. But man alone, with his better brain and better anatomical structure of throat and mouth, and the closer interdependence with his fellows, has attained to articulate speech. And this again has become the bond to a still closer union.

Now our only question is, How does social life enable and aid man to conform to environment? We are interested not so much in his happiness as in his progress. It helps and improves the body by giving him a better and more constant supply of more suitable food, and better protection from inclemency of the weather, and in many other ways. Baths and gymnasia are built, and medical science prolongs life. Yet make the items as many as you can, and what a long list of disadvantages to man physically you must set over against these. Many of these evils will doubtless disappear as society becomes better organized, but some will always remain to plague us. We pamper or abuse our stomachs, and dyspepsia results. We live in hot-houses, and a host of diseases are fostered by them. Indeed it would be hard to count up the diseases for which social life is directly or indirectly responsible. Social life becomes more and more complicated, and our nervous systems cannot bear the strain. Medical science saves alive thousands who would otherwise die, and these grow up to bear children as weak as themselves. We are looking now at the physical side alone; and from this standpoint the survival of the invalid is a sore evil. Now society will and must become healthier; we shall not always abuse our bodies as sinfully as we now do. Still, viewed from the standpoint of the body alone, the best, as it seems to me, which we can claim, is that social life does no more harm than good.

What has social life done for man intellectually? Much. It gives him schools and colleges. But are our systems of education an unmixed good? How many of our schools and colleges are places where men are stuffed with facts until they have no time nor inclination to think? They may turn out learned men; do they produce thinkers? And how about the spread of knowledge? Is it not a spread of information? And most of what goes forth from the press is not worthy of even that name, or is information which a man had better be without. We are proud of being a nation of readers. And reading is good, if a man thinks about what he reads; otherwise it is like undigested food in the stomach, an injury and a curse. A dyspeptic gourmand is helped by "cutting down his rations." In our mental disease we need the same course of treatment. Let us read fewer books and papers and think more about what we do read.

Society may foster original thinking; it is none the less opposed to it.