The Destiny of Man: Viewed in the Light of his Origin

ReligionFor centuries, scripture and theology were the focus of prodigious amounts of scholarship and publishing, dominated in the English-speaking world by the work of Protestant Christians. Enlightenment philosophy and science, anthropology, ethnology and the colonial experience all brought new perspectives, lively debates and heated controversies to the study of religion and its role in the world, many of which continue to this day. This series explores the editing and interpretation of religious texts, the history of religious ideas and institutions, and not least the encounter between religion and science.

The Destiny of ManIn 1884, American historian and philosopher John Fiske published The Destiny of Man, which discussed humanity’s origin, destiny and place in the universe. A leading populariser of Darwin’s theory in the United States and influenced by Herbert Spencer, Fiske considers views of human progress via evolutionary social change and the harmony between science and religion. The Destiny of Man is composed of sixteen chapters that anticipate philosophical questions from a typical non-scientific audience: the origins of atheism, the shifting hierarchal positions of humanity through history as proposed by Copernicus and later by Darwin, human brain size, and the ‘dawning of consciousness’ as a result of the growth and development of moral sentiment and inventiveness through natural selection. Interestingly, at the end of the book, Fiske discusses the historical power relationships of ruling governments and predicts that as humans evolve and become more civilised, war will eventually end.

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The Destiny of ManViewed in the Light of his Origin

John Fiske

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THE DESTINY OF MANVIEWED IN THE LIGHT

OF HIS ORIGIN

BY JOHN FISKE

LonUonMACMILLAN AND CO.

1884

To

MY CHILDREN,

MAUD, HAROLD, CLARENCE, RALPH,ETHEL, AND HERBERT,

Efjis ISssag

SS LOVINGLY DEDICA TED.

PREFACE.

AVING been invited to give an ad-dress before the Concord Schoolof Philosophy this summer, upon

some subject relating to the questionof immortality there under discussion, itseemed a proper occasion for putting to-gether the following thoughts on the ori-gin of Man and his place in the universe.In dealing with the unknown, it is wellto take one's start a long way within thelimits of the known. The question of afuture life is generally regarded as lyingoutside the range of legitimate scientificdiscussion. Yet while fully admitting this,one does not necessarily admit that thesubject is one with regard to which weare forever debarred from entertaining anopinion. Now our opinions on such tran-

vi Preface.

scendental questions must necessarily beaffected by the total mass of our opinionson the questions which lie within thescope of scientific inquiry; and from thispoint of view it becomes of surpassing in-terest to trace the career of Humanitywithin that segment of the universe whichis accessible to us. The teachings of thedoctrine of evolution as to the origin anddestiny of Man have, moreover, a verygreat speculative and practical value oftheir own, quite apart from their bearingsupon any ultimate questions. The bodyof this essay is accordingly devoted tosetting forth these teachings in what Iconceive to be their true light; while theirtranscendental implications are reservedfor the sequel.

As the essay contains an epitome of myown original contributions to the doctrineof evolution, I have added at the end ashort list of references to other works ofmine, where the points here briefly men-tioned are more fully argued and illus-

Preface. i)ii

trated. The views regarding the progressof human society, and the elimination ofwarfare, are set forth at greater length ina little book now in the press, and soonto appear, entitled " American PoliticalIdeas."

PETERSHAM, September 6, 1884.

CONTENTS.

I. Man's Place in Nature as affected by the

Copernican Theory . . . u

I I . As affected by Darwinism . . . 18

I I I . OH the Earth there will never be a Higher

Creature than Man . . . .26

I V . The Origin of Infancy . . . 35

V. The Dawning of Consciousness . . 42

VI. Lengthening of Infancy and Concomitant

Increase of Brain-Surface . . . 5 /

VI I . Change in the Direction of the Working

of Natural Selection . . . . 58

VII I . Growing Predominance of the Psychical

Life 62

IX. The Origins of Society and of Morality . 66

X. Improvableness of Man . . . 7/

XI. Universal Warfare of Primeval Men . JJ

XII . First checked by the Beginnings of Indus-

trial Civilisation . . . . .81

X I I I . Methods of Political Development, and

Elimination of Warfare . . . 85

x Contents.

X I V . End of tie Working of Natural Selection

upon Man. Throwing off the Brute-

Inheritance . . . . . . p6

X V . The Message of Christianity . . .104

X V I . The Question as to a Future Life . .108

THE DESTINY OF MAN.

I.

Man's Place in Nature, as affected by theCopernican Theory.

HEN we study the Divine Comedyof Dante — that wonderful bookwherein all the knowledge and

speculation, all the sorrows and yearnings,of the far-off Middle Ages are enshrined inthe glory of imperishable verse — we arebrought face to face with a theory of theworld and with ways of reasoning aboutthe facts of nature which seem strange tous to-day, but from the influence of whichwe are not yet, and doubtless never shallbe, wholly freed. A cosmology grotesqueenough in the light of later knowledge, yetwrought out no less carefully than the

12 The Destiny of Man.

physical theories of Lucretius, is employedin the service of a theology cumbrous inits obsolete details, but resting upon funda-mental truths which mankind can neversafely lose sight of. In the view of Danteand of that phase of human culture whichfound in him its clearest and sweetestvoice, this earth, the fair home of man,was placed in the centre of a universewherein all things were ordained for hissole behoof: the sun to give him light andwarmth, the stars in their courses to pre-side over his strangely checkered destinies,the winds to blow, the floods to rise, or thefiend of pestilence to stalk abroad over theland, — all for the blessing, or the warning,or the chiding, of the chief among God'screatures, Man. Upon some such concep-tion as this, indeed, all theology wouldseem naturally to rest. Once dethroneHumanity, regard it as a mere local in-cident in an endless and aimless seriesof cosmical changes, and you arrive at adoctrine which, under whatever specious

The Destiny of Man. 13

name it may be veiled, is at bottom neithermore nor less than Atheism. On its met-aphysical side Atheism is the denial ofanything psychical in the universe outsideof human consciousness ; and it is almostinseparably associated with the materialis-tic interpretation of human consciousnessas the ephemeral result of a fleeting collo-cation of particles of matter. Viewed uponthis side, it is easy to show that Atheismis very bad metaphysics, while the materi-alism which goes with it is utterly con-demned by modern science.1 But our feel-ing toward Atheism goes much deeperthan the mere recognition of it as philo-sophically untrue. The mood in which wecondemn it is not at all like the mood inwhich we reject the corpuscular theory oflight or Sir G. C. Lewis's vagaries on thesubject of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Weare wont to look upon Atheism with un-speakable horror and loathing. Our moralsense revolts against it no less than ourintelligence ; and this is because, on its


practical side, Atheism would remove Hu-manity from its peculiar position in theworld, and make it cast in its lot with thegrass that withers and the beasts that per-ish ; and thus the rich and varied life ofthe universe, in all the ages of its won-drous duration, becomes deprived of anysuch element of purpose as can make it in-telligible to us or appeal to our moral sym-pathies and religious aspirations.

And yet the first result of some of thegrandest and most irrefragable truths ofmodern science, when newly discoveredand dimly comprehended, has been tomake it appear that Humanity must berudely unseated from its throne in theworld and made to occupy an utterly sub-ordinate and trivial position ; and it isbecause of this mistaken view of their im-port that the Church has so often and sobitterly opposed the teaching of suchtruths. With the advent of the Coper-nican astronomy the funnel-shaped Inferno,the steep mountain of Purgatory crowned


with its terrestrial paradise, and those con-centric spheres of Heaven wherein beati-fied saints held weird and subtle converse,all went their way to the limbo preparedfor the childlike fancies of untaught minds,whither Hades and Valhalla had gone be-fore them. In our day it is hard to realizethe startling effect of the discovery thatMan does not dwell at the centre of things,but is the denizen of an obscure and tinyspeck of cosmical matter quite invisibleamid the innumerable throng of flamingsuns that make up our galaxy. To thecontemporaries of Copernicus the new the-ory seemed to strike at the very founda-tions of Christian theology. In a universewhere so much had been made without dis-cernible reference to Man, what became ofthat elaborate scheme of salvation whichseemed to rest upon the assumption thatthe career of Humanity was the sole ob-ject of God's creative forethought and fos-tering care ? When we bear this in mind,we see how natural and inevitable it was


that the Church should persecute suchmen as Galileo and Bruno. At the sametime it is instructive to observe that, whilethe Copernican astronomy has becomefirmly established in spite of priestly op-position, the foundations of Christian the-ology have not been shaken thereby. Itis not that the question which once sosorely puzzled men has ever been settled,but that it has been outgrown. The spec-ulative necessity for man's occupying thelargest and most central spot in the uni-verse is no longer felt. It is recognized asa primitive and childish notion. With ourlarger knowledge we see that these vastand fiery suns are after all but the Titan-like servants of the little planets whichthey bear with them in their flight throughthe abysses of space. Out from the awfulgaseous turmoil of the central mass dartthose ceaseless waves of gentle radiancethat, when caught upon the surface ofwhirling worlds like ours, bring forth theendlessly varied forms and the endlessly

The Destiny of Man. ip

complex movements that make up whatwe can see of life. And as when God re-vealed himself to his ancient prophet Hecame not in the earthquake or the tem-pest but in a voice that was still and small,so that divine spark the Soul, as it takesup its brief abode in this realm of fleetingphenomena, chooses not the central sunwhere elemental forces forever blaze andclash, but selects an outlying terrestrialnook where seeds may germinate in si-lence, and where through slow fruition themysterious forms of organic life may cometo take shape and thrive. He who thuslooks a little deeper into the secrets of na-ture than his forefathers of the sixteenthcentury may well smile at the quaint con-ceit that man cannot be the object of God'sCare unless he occupies an immovable posi-tion in the centre of the stellar universe.

2

II.

Man's Place in 'Nature, as affected by

Darwinism.

HEN the Copernican astronomywas finally established through thediscoveries of Kepler and Newton,

it might well have been pronounced thegreatest scientific achievement of the hu-man mind ; but it was still more than that.It was the greatest revolution that hadever been effected in Man's views of hisrelations to the universe in which he lives,and of which he is — at least during thepresent life — a part. During the nine-teenth century, however, a still greaterrevolution has been effected. Not onlyhas Lyell enlarged our mental horizon intime as much as Newton enlarged it inspace, but it appears that throughout thesevast stretches of time and space with which


we have been made acquainted there aresundry well-marked changes going on.Certain definite paths of development arebeing pursued ; and around us on everyside we behold worlds, organisms, andsocieties in divers stages of progress ordecline. Still more, as we examine therecords of past life upon our globe, andstudy the mutual relations of the liv-ing things that still remain, it appearsthat the higher forms of life — includingMan himself — are the modified descend-ants of lower forms. Zoologically speak-ing, Man can no longer be regarded as acreature apart by himself. We cannoterect an order on purpose to contain him,as Cuvier tried to do ; we cannot evenmake a separate family for him. Man isnot only a vertebrate, a mammal, and aprimate, but he belongs, as a genus, to thecatarrhine family of apes. And just aslions, leopards, and lynxes — different gen-era of the cat-family — are descended froma common stock of carnivora, back to


which we may also trace the pedigrees ofdogs, hyaenas, bears, and seals ; so the va-rious genera of platyrrhine and catarrhineapes, including Man, are doubtless de-scended from a common stock of primates,back to which we may also trace the con-verging pedigrees of monkeys and lemurs,until their ancestry becomes indistinguish-able from that of rabbits and squirrels.Such is the conclusion to which the scien-tific world has come within a quarter of acentury from the publication of Mr. Dar-win's " Origin of Species ;" and there isno more reason for supposing that thisconclusion will ever be gainsaid than forsupposing that the Copernican astronomywill some time be overthrown and theconcentric spheres of Dante's heaven re-instated in the minds of men.

It is not strange that this theory ofman's origin, which we associate mainlywith the name of Mr. Darwin, should beto many people very unwelcome. It isfast bringing about a still greater revolu-


tion in thought than that which was her-alded by Copernicus ; and it naturally takessome time for the various portions of one'stheory of things to become adjusted, oneafter another, to so vast and sweeping achange. From many quarters the cry goesup, — If this be true, then Man is at lengthcast down from his high position in theworld. " I will not be called a mammal,or the son of a mammal! " once exclaimedan acquaintance of mine who perhaps hadbeen brought up by hand. Such expres-sions of feeling are crude, but the feeling isnot unjustifiable. It is urged that if manis physically akin to a baboon, as pigs areakin to horses, and cows to deer, then Hu-manity can in nowise be regarded as occu-pying a peculiar place in the universe ; itbecomes a mere incident in an endless se-ries of changes, and how can we say thatthe same process of evolution that has pro-duced mankind may not by and by producesomething far more perfect ? There was atime when huge bird-like reptiles were the


lords of creation, and after these had been" sealed within the iron hills " there camesuccessive dynasties of mammals; and asthe iguanodon gave place to the great Eo-cene marsupials, as the mastodon and thesabre-toothed lion have long since van-ished from the scene, so may not Man byand by disappear to make way for somehigher creature, and so on forever ? Insuch case, why should we regard Man asin any higher sense the object of Divinecare than a pig ? Still stronger does thecase appear when we remember that thosecountless adaptations of means to ends innature, which since the time of Voltaireand Paley we have been accustomed tocite as evidences of creative design, havereceived at the hands of Mr. Darwin avery different interpretation. The lob-ster's powerful claw, the butterfly's gor-geous tints, the rose's delicious fragrance,the architectural instinct of the bee, theastonishing structure of the orchid, are nolonger explained as the results of contri-


vance. That simple but wasteful processof survival of the fittest, through whichsuch marvellous things have come into be-ing, has little about it that is analogous tothe ingenuity of human art. The infiniteand eternal Power which is thus revealedin the physical life of the universe seemsin nowise akin to the human soul. Theidea of beneficent purpose seems for themoment to be excluded from nature, and ablind process, known as Natural Selection,is the deity that slumbers not nor sleeps.Reckless of good and evil, it brings forthat once the mother's tender love for herinfant and the horrible teeth of the raven-ing shark, and to its creative indifferencethe one is as good as the other.

In spite of these appalling arguments theman of science, urged by the single-heartedpurpose to ascertain the truth, be the con-sequences what they may, goes quietly onand finds that the terrible theory must beadopted; the fact of man's consanguinitywith dumb beasts must be admitted. In


reaching this conclusion, the man of sci-ence reasons upon the physical facts withinhis reach, applying to them the same prin-ciples of common-sense whereby our every-day lives are successfully guided ; and he isvery apt to smile at the methods of thosepeople who, taking hold of the question atthe wrong end, begin by arguing about allmanner of fancied consequences. For hisknowledge of the history of human think-ing assures him that such methods havethrough all past time proved barren ofaught save strife, while his own bold yethumble method is the only one throughwhich truth has ever been elicited. Topursue unflinchingly the methods of sci-ence requires dauntless courage and a faiththat nothing can shake. Such courageand such loyalty to nature brings its ownreward. For when once the formidabletheory is really understood, when once itsimplications are properly unfolded, it isseen to have no such logical consequencesas were at first ascribed to it. As with


the Copernican astronomy, so with theDarwinian biology, we rise to a higherview of the workings of God and of thenature of Man than was ever attainablebefore. So far from degrading Humanity,or putting it on a level with the animalworld in general, the Darwinian theoryshows us distinctly for the first time howthe creation and the perfecting of Man isthe goal toward which Nature's work hasall the while been tending. It enlargestenfold the significance of human life,places it upon even a loftier eminencethan poets or prophets have imagined, andmakes it seem more than ever the chiefobject of that creative activity which ismanifested in the physical universe.

III.

On the Earth there will never be a Higher

Creature than Man.

N elucidating these points, we mayfitly begin by considering thequestion as to the possibility of the

evolution of any higher creature than Man,to whom the dominion over this earth shallpass. The question will best be answeredby turning back and observing one of themost remarkable features connected withthe origin of Man and with his superiorityover other animals. And let it be borne inmind that we are not now about to wanderthrough the regions of unconditional possi-bility. We are not dealing with vaguegeneral notions of development, but withthe scientific Darwinian theory, which al-leges development only as the result ofcertain rigorously defined agencies. The

The Destiny of Man. 2j

chief among these agencies is Natural Se-lection. It has again and again been illus-trated how by the cumulative selection andinheritance of slight physical variationsgeneric differences, like those between thetiger and the leopard, or the cow and theantelope, at length arise; and the guid-ing principle in the accumulation of slightphysical differences has been the welfareof the species. The variant forms on eitherside have survived while the constant formshave perished, so that the lines of demar-cation between allied species have grownmore and more distinct, and it is usuallyonly by going back to fossil ages that wecan supply the missing links of continuity.In the desperate struggle for existence nopeculiarity, physical or psychical, howeverslight, has been too insignificant for nat-ural selection to seize and enhance; andthe myriad fantastic forms and hues of an-imal and vegetal life illustrate the seemingcapriciousness of its workings. Psychicalvariations "have never been unimportant


since the appearance of the first faint pig-ment-spot which by and by was to translatetouch into vision, as it developed into thelenses and humours of the eye.2 Specialorgans of sense and the lower grades ofperception and judgment were slowly de-veloped through countless ages, in com-pany with purely physical variations ofshape of foot, or length of neck, or com-plexity of stomach, or thickness of hide.At length there came a wonderful moment— silent and unnoticed, as are the begin-nings of all great revolutions. Silent andunnoticed, even as the day of the Lordwhich cometh like a thief in the night,there arrived that wonderful moment atwhich psychical changes began to be ofmore use than physical changes to thebrute ancestor of Man. Through furtherages of ceaseless struggle the profitablevariations in this creature occurred oftenerand oftener in the brain, and less often inother parts of the organism, until by andby the size of his brain had been doubled


and its complexity of structure increaseda thousand-fold, while in other respects hisappearance was not so very different fromthat of his brother apes.3 Along with thisgrowth of the brain, the complete assump-tion of the upright posture, enabling thehands to be devoted entirely to prehensionand thus relieving the jaws of that part oftheir work, has cooperated in producingthat peculiar contour of head and facewhich is the chief distinguishing mark ofphysical Man. These slight anatomicalchanges derive their importance entirelyfrom the prodigious intellectual changesin connection with which they have beenproduced ; and these intellectual changeshave been accumulated until the distance,psychically speaking, between civilized manand the ape is so great as to dwarf in com-parison all that had been achieved in theprocess of evolution down to the time ofour half-human ancestor's first appearance.No fact in nature is fraught with deepermeaning than this two-sided fact of the

jo The Destiny of Man.

extreme physical similarity and enormouspsychical divergence between Man and thegroup of animals to which he traces hispedigree. It shows that when Human-ity began to be evolved an entirely newchapter in the history of the universe wasopened. Henceforth the life of the nas-cent soul came to be first in importance,and the bodily life became subordinated toit. Henceforth it appeared that, in thisdirection at least, the process of zoologicalchange had come to an end, and a processof psychological change was to take itsplace. Henceforth along this supreme lineof generation there was to be no furtherevolution of new species through physicalvariation, but through the accumulation ofpsychical variations one particular specieswas to be indefinitely perfected and raisedto a totally different plane from that onwhich all life had hitherto existed. Hence-forth, in short, the dominant aspect of ev-olution was to be not the genesis of spe-cies, but the progress of Civilization.


As we thoroughly grasp the meaning ofall this, we see that upon the Darwiniantheory it is impossible that any creaturezoologically distinct from Man and supe-rior to him should ever at any future timeexist upon the earth. In the regions ofunconditional possibility it is open to anyone to argue, if he chooses, that such acreature may come to exist; but the Dar-winian theory is utterly opposed to anysuch conclusion. According to Darwinism,the creation of Man is still the goal towardwhich Nature tended from the beginning.Not the production of any higher creature,but the perfecting of Humanity, is to bethe glorious consummation of Nature'slong and tedious work. Thus we sud-denly arrive at the conclusion that Manseems now, much more clearly than ever,the chief among God's creatures. On theprimitive barbaric theory, which Mr. Dar-win has swept away, Man was suddenlyflung into the world by the miraculous actof some unseen and incalculable Power act-


ing from without; and whatever theologymight suppose, no scientific reason couldbe alleged why the same incalculablePower might not at some future moment,by a similar miracle, thrust upon the scenesome mightier creature in whose presenceMan would become like a sorry beast ofburden. But he who has mastered theDarwinian theory, he who recognizes theslow and subtle process of evolution as theway in which God makes things come topass, must take a far higher view. He seesthat in the deadly struggle for existencewhich has raged throughout countlessaeons of time, the whole creation has beengroaning and travailing together in orderto bring forth that last consummate speci-men of God's handiwork, the Human Soul.

To the creature thus produced througha change in the direction in which naturalselection has worked, the earth and mostof its living things have become graduallysubordinated. In all the classes of theanimal and vegetal worlds many ancient

The Destiny of Man.

species have become extinct, and manymodern species have come into being,through the unchecked working of naturalselection, since Man became distinctivelyhuman. But in this respect a change haslong been coming over the face of nature.The destinies of all other living things aremore and more dependent upon the will ofMan. It rests with him to determine, to agreat degree, what plants and animals shallremain upon the earth and what shall beswept from its surface. By unconsciouslyimitating the selective processes of Na-ture, he long ago wrought many wild spe-cies into forms subservient to his needs.He has created new varieties of fruit andflower and cereal grass, and has rearednew breeds of animals to aid him in thework of civilization ; until at length he isbeginning to acquire a mastery over me-chanical and molecular and chemical forceswhich is doubtless destined in the futureto achieve marvellous results whereof to-day we little dream. Natural selection

3


itself will by and by occupy a subordinateplace in comparison with selection byMan, whose appearance on the earth isthus seen more clearly than ever to haveopened an entirely new chapter in the mys-terious history of creation.

IV.

The Origin of Infancy.

UT before we can fully understandthe exalted position which theDarwinian theory assigns to man,

another point demands consideration. Thenatural selection of psychical peculiaritiesdoes not alone account for the origin ofMan, or explain his most signal differencefrom all other animals. That difference isunquestionably a difference in kind, but insaying this one must guard against mis-understanding. Not only in the world oforganic life, but throughout the knownuniverse, the doctrine of evolution regardsdifferences in kind as due to the gradualaccumulation of differences in degree. Tocite a very simple case, what differences ofkind can be more striking than the differ-ences between a nebula, a sun, a planet


like the earth, and a planet like our moon ?Yet these things are simply examples ofcosmical matter at four different stages ofcooling. The physical differences betweensteam, water, and ice afford a more famil-iar example. In the organic world the per-petual modification of structures that hasbeen effected through natural selection ex-hibits countless instances of differences inkind which have risen from the accumu-lation of differences in degree. No onewould hesitate to call a horse's hoof differ-ent in kind from a cat's paw ; yet a hoofis made up of five claws grown togetherand furnished with a nail in common. Themost signal differences in kind are wont toarise when organs originally developed fora certain purpose come to be applied to avery different purpose, as that change ofthe fish's air-bladder into a lung which ac-companied the first development of landvertebrates. But still greater becomes therevolution when a certain process goes onuntil it sets going a number of other proc-

The Destiny of Man.

esses, unlocking series after series of cau-sal agencies until a vast and complicatedresult is reached, such as could by no pos-sibility have been foreseen. The creationof Man was one of these vast and compli-cated results due to the unlocking of vari-ous series of causal agencies ; and it wasthe beginning of a deeper and mightierdifference in kind than any that slowly-evolving Nature had yet witnessed.

I have indicated, as the moment atwhich the creation of mankind began, themoment when psychical variations becameof so much more use to our ancestorsthan physical variations that they wereseized and enhanced by natural selection,to the comparative neglect of the latter.Increase of intellectual capacity, in connec-tion with the developing brain of a singlerace of creatures, now became the chiefwork of natural selection in originatingMan ; and this, I say, was the opening ofa new chapter, the last and most wonder-ful chapter, in the history of creation. But

The Destiny of Man.

the increasing intelligence and enlargedexperience of half-human man now set inmotion a new series of changes whichgreatly complicated the matter. In orderto understand these changes, we mustconsider for a moment one very importantcharacteristic of developing intelligence.

The simplest actions in which the ner-vous system is concerned are what we callreflex actions. All the visceral actionswhich keep us alive from moment tomoment, the movements of the heart andlungs, the contractions of arteries, thesecretions of glands, the digestive opera-tions of the stomach and liver, belong tothe class of reflex actions. Throughoutthe animal world these acts are repeated,with little or no variation, from birth un-til death, and the tendency to performthem is completely organized in the ner-vous system before birth. Every animalbreathes and digests as well at the begin-ning of his life as he ever does. Contactwith air and food is all that is needed, and

The Destiny of Man. $g

there is nothing to be learned. These ac-tions, though they are performed by thenervous system, we do not class as psychi-cal, because they are nearly or quite un-attended by consciousness. The psychicallife of the lowest animals consists of a fewsimple acts directed toward the securingof food and the avoidance of danger, andthese acts we are in the habit of classingas instinctive. They are so simple, sofew, and so often repeated, that the ten-dency to perform them is completely or-ganized in the nervous system beforebirth. The animal takes care of himselfas soon as he begins to live. He hasnothing to learn, and his career is a sim-ple repetition of the careers of countlessancestors. With him heredity is every-thing, and his individual experience isnext to nothing.

As we ascend the animal scale till wecome to the higher birds and mammals,we find a very interesting and remarkablechange beginning. The general increase


of intelligence involves an increasing vari-ety and complication of experiences. Theacts which the animal performs in thecourse of its life become far more numer-ous, far more various, and far more com-plex. They are therefore severally re-peated with less frequency in the lifetimeof each individual. Consequently the ten-dency to perform them is not completelyorganized in the nervous system of theoffspring before birth. The short periodof ante-natal existence does not affordtime enough for the organization of somany and such complex habitudes andcapacities. The process which in thelower animals is completed before birth isin the higher animals left to be completedafter birth. When the creature begins itslife it is not completely organized. In-stead of the power of doing all the thingswhich its parents did, it starts with thepower of doing only some few of them ;for the rest it has only latent capacitieswhich need to be brought out by its in-


dividual experience after birth. In otherwords, it begins its separate life not as amatured creature, but as an infant whichneeds for a time to be watched andhelped.

V.

The Dawning of Consciousness.

ERE we arrive at one of the mostwonderful moments in the history

J of creation, — the moment of thefirst faint dawning of consciousness, theforeshadowing of the true life of the soul.Whence came the soul we no more knowthan we know whence came the universe.The primal origin of consciousness is hid-den in the depths of the bygone ete-rnity.That it cannot possibly be the product ofany cunning arrangement of material par-ticles is demonstrated beyond peradventureby what we now know of the correlation ofphysical forces.4 The Platonic view of thesoul, as a spiritual substance, an effluencefrom Godhood, which under certain con-ditions becomes incarnated in perishableforms of matter, is doubtless the view


most consonant with the present state ofour knowledge. Yet while we know notthe primal origin of the soul, we havelearned something with regard to the con-ditions under which it has become incar-nated in material forms. Modern psychol-ogy has something to say about the dawn-ing of conscious life in the animal world.Reflex action is unaccompanied by con-sciousness. The nervous actions whichregulate the movements of the viscera goon without our knowledge ; we learn oftheir existence only by study, as we learnof facts in outward nature. If you ticklethe foot of a person asleep, and the foot,is withdrawn by simple reflex action, thesleeper is unconscious alike of the irrita-tion and of the movement, even as thedecapitated frog is unconscious when adrop of nitric acid falls on his back and helifts up a leg and rubs the place. In likemanner the reflex movements which makeup the life of the lowest animals are doubt-less quite unconscious, even when in their


general character they simulate consciousactions, as they often do. In the case ofsuch creatures, the famous hypothesis ofDescartes, that animals are automata, isdoubtless mainly correct. In the case ofinstincts also, where the instinctive ac-tions are completely organized before birth,and are repeated without variation duringthe whole lifetime of the individual, thereis probably little if any consciousness. Itis an essential prerequisite of conscious-ness that there should be a period of delayor tension between the receipt of an im-pression and the determination of the con-sequent movement. Diminish this periodof delay and you diminish the vividness ofconsciousness. A familiar example willmake this clear. When you are learningto play a new piece of music on the piano,especially if you do not read music rapidly,you are intensely conscious of each groupof notes on the page, and of each group ofkeys that you strike, and of the relationsof the one to the other. But when you


have learned the piece by heart, you thinknothing of either notes or keys, but playautomatically while your attention is con-centrated upon the artistic character of themusic. If somebody thoughtlessly inter-rupts you with a question about Egyptianpolitics, you go on playing while you an-swer him politely. That is, where you hadat first to make a conscious act of volitionfor each movement, the whole group ofmovements has now become automatic, andvolition is only concerned in setting theprocess going. As the delay involved inthe perception and the movement disap-pears, so does the consciousness of theperception and the movement tend to dis-appear. Consciousness implies perpetualdiscrimination, or the recognition of like-nesses and differences, and this is impossi-ble unless impressions persist long enoughto be compared with one another. Thephysical organs in connection with whoseactivity consciousness is manifested are theupper and outer parts of the brain, — the


cerebrum and cerebellum. These organsnever receive impressions directly fromthe outside world, but only from lowernerve-centres, such as the spinal cord, themedulla, the optic lobes, and other special'centres of sensation. The impressions re-ceived by the cerebrum and cerebellumare waves of molecular disturbance sentup along centripetal nerves from the lowercentres, and presently drafted off alongcentrifugal nerves back to the lower cen-tres, thus causing the myriad movementswhich make up our active life. Now thereis no consciousness except when molecu-lar disturbance is generated in the cere-brum and cerebellum faster than it can bedrafted off to the lower centres.5 It is thesurplus of molecular disturbance remain-ing in the cerebrum and cerebellum, andreflected back and forth among the cellsand fibres of which these highest centresare composed, that affords the physicalcondition for the manifestation of con-sciousness. Memory, emotion, reason, and


volition begin with this retention of a sur-plus of molecular motion in the high-est centres. As we survey the vertebratesub-kingdom of animals, we find that asthis surplus increases, the surface of thehighest centres increases in area. In thelowest vertebrate animal, the amphioxus,the cerebrum and cerebellum do not existat all. In fishes we begin to find them,but they are much smaller than the opticlobes. In such a highly organized fish asthe halibut, which weighs about as muchas an average-sized man, the cerebrum issmaller than a melon - seed. Continuingto grow by adding concentric layers atthe surface, the cerebrum and cerebellumbecome much larger in birds and lowermammals, gradually covering up the opticlobes. As we pass to higher mammalianforms, the growth of the cerebrum be-comes most conspicuous, until it extendsbackwards so far as to cover up the cere-bellum, whose functions are limited to theconscious adjustment of muscular move-


ments. In the higher apes the cerebrumbegins to extend itself forwards, and thisgoes on in the human race. The cranialcapacity of the European exceeds that ofthe Australian by forty cubic inches, ornearly four times as much as that bywhich the Australian exceeds the gorilla ;and the expansion is almost entirely in theupper and anterior portions. But the in-crease of the cerebral surface is shown notonly in the general size of the organ, butto a still greater extent in the irregularcreasing and furrowing of the surface.This creasing and furrowing begins tooccur in the higher mammals, and in civ-ilized man it is carried to an astonishingextent. The amount of intelligence iscorrelated with the number, the depth,and the irregularity of the furrows. Acat's brain has a few symmetrical creases.In an ape the creases are deepened intoslight furrows, and they run irregularly,somewhat like the lines in the palm ofyour hand. With age and experience the

The Destiny of Man.

furrows grow deeper and more sinuous,and new ones appear ; and in man thesephenomena come to have great signifi-cance. The cerebral surface of a humaninfant is like that of an ape. In an adultsavage, or in a European peasant, the fur-rowing is somewhat marked and compli-cated. In the brain of a great scholar,the furrows are very deep and crooked,and hundreds of creases appear which arenot found at all in the brains of ordinarymen. In other words, the cerebral surfaceof such a man, the seat of conscious men-tal life, has become enormously enlargedin area ; and we must further observe thatit goes on enlarging in some cases into ex-treme old age.6

Putting all these facts together, it be-comes plain that in the lowest animals,whose lives consist of sundry reflex ac-tions monotonously repeated from gener-ation to generation, there can be nothing,or next to nothing, of what we know asconsciousness. It is only when the life


becomes more complicated and various, sothat reflex action can no longer determineall its movements and the higher nerve-centres begin to be evolved, that the dawn-ing of consciousness is reached. But withthe growth of the higher centres the ca-pacities of action become so various andindeterminate that definite direction isnot given to them until after birth. Thecreature begins life as an infant, with itspartially developed cerebrum representingcapabilities which it is left for its individualexperience to bring forth and modify.

VI.

Lengthening of Infancy, and Concomitant

Increase of Brain-Surface.

|HE first appearance of infancy inthe animal world thus heraldedthe new era which was to be

crowned by the development of Man.With the beginnings of infancy therecame the first dawning of a conscious lifesimilar in nature to the conscious life ofhuman beings, and there came, moreover,on the part of parents, the beginning offeelings and actions not purely self-regard-ing. But still more, the period of infancywas a period of plasticity. The career ofeach individual being no longer wholly pre-determined by the careers of its ancestors,it began to become teachable. Individual-ity of character also became possible atthe same time, and for the same reason.

$2 The Destiny of Man.

All birds and mammals which take care oftheir young are teachable, though in veryvarious degrees, and all in like mannershow individual peculiarities of disposition,though in most cases these are slight andinconspicuous. In dogs, horses, and apesthere is marked teachableness, and thereare also marked differences in individualcharacter.

But in the non-human animal world allthese phenomena are but slightly devel-oped. They are but the dim adumbrationsof what was by and by to bloom forth inthe human race. They can scarcely besaid to have served as a prophecy of therevolution that was to come. One genera-tion of dumb beasts is after all very likeanother, and from studying the careers ofthe mastodon, the hipparion, the sabre-toothed lion, or even the dryopithecus, anobserver in the Miocene age could neverhave foreseen the possibility of a creatureendowed with such a boundless capacityof progress as the modern Man. Never-

The Destiny of Man.

theless, however dimly suggestive was thisgroup of phenomena, it contained thegerm of all that is preeminent in human-ity. In the direct line of our ancestryit only needed that the period of infancyshould be sufficiently prolonged, in or-der that a creature should at length ap-pear, endowed with the teachableness, theindividuality, and the capacity for prog-ress which are the peculiar prerogativesof fully-developed Man.7 In this directline the manlike apes of Africa and theIndian Archipelago have advanced far be-yond the mammalian world in general.Along with a cerebral surface, and an ac-companying intelligence, far greater thanthat of other mammals, these tailless apesbegin life as helpless babies, and are un-able to walk, to feed themselves, or tograsp objects with precision until theyare two or three months old. These apeshave thus advanced a little way upon thepeculiar road which our half-human fore-fathers began to travel as soon as psychi-

The Destiny of Man.

cal variations came to be of more use tothe species than variations in bodily struc-ture. The gulf by which the lowest knownman is separated from the highest knownape consists in the great increase of hiscerebral surface, with the accompanyingintelligence, and in the very long durationof his infancy. These two things havegone hand in hand. The increase of cere-bral surface, due to the working of naturalselection in this direction alone, has en-tailed a vast increase in the amount ofcerebral organization that must be left tobe completed after birth, and thus has pro-longed the period of infancy. And con-versely the prolonging of the plastic pe-riod of infancy, entailing a vast increasein teachableness and versatility, has con-tributed to the further enlargement of thecerebral surface. The mutual reaction ofthese two groups of facts must have goneon for an enormous length of time sinceman began thus diverging from his simianbrethren. It is not likely that less than a


million years have elapsed since the firstpage of this new chapter in the history ofcreation was opened : it is probable thatthe time has been much longer. In com-parison with such a period, the whole re-corded duration of human history shrinksinto nothingness. The pyramids of Egyptseem like things of yesterday when wethink of the Cave-Men of western Europein the glacial period, who scratched pic-tures of mammoths on pieces of reindeer-antler with a bit of pointed flint. Yetduring an entire geologic aeon before theseCave-Men appeared on the scene, " a beingerect upon two legs," if we may quotefrom Serjeant Buzfuz, "and wearing theoutward semblance of a man and not of amonster," wandered hither and thitherover the face of the earth, setting hismark upon it as no other creature yet haddone, leaving behind him innumerabletell-tale remnants of his fierce and squalidexistence, yet too scantily endowed withwit to make any written disclosure of his

$6 The Destiny of Man.

thoughts and deeds. If the physiologicalannals of that long and weary time couldnow be unrolled before us, the principalfact which we should discern, dominatingall other facts in interest and significance,would be that mutual reaction between in-crease of cerebral surface and lengtheningof babyhood which I have here described.

Thus through the simple continuanceand interaction of processes that began farback in the world of warm-blooded animals,we get at last a creature essentially differ-ent from all others. Through the compli-cation of effects the heaping up of minutedifferences in degree has ended in bring-ing forth a difference in kind. In the hu-man organism physical variation has well-nigh stopped, or is confined to insignificantfeatures, save in the grey surface of thecerebrum. The work of cerebral organi-zation is chiefly completed after birth, aswe see by contrasting the smooth ape-likebrain-surface of the new-born child withthe deeply-furrowed and myriad-seamed


surface of the adult civilized brain. Theplastic period of adolescence, lengthenedin civilized man until it has come to covermore than one third of his lifetime, is thusthe guaranty of his boundless progressive-ness. Inherited tendencies and aptitudesstill form the foundations of character ; butindividual experience has come to count asan enormous factor in modifying the ca-reer of mankind from generation to gener-ation. It is not too much to say that thedifference between man and all other liv-ing creatures, in respect of teachableness,progressiveness, and individuality of char-acter, surpasses all other differences ofkind that are known to exist in the uni-verse.

VII.

Change in the Direction of the Working ofNatural Selection.

' N the fresh light which these con-siderations throw upon the prob-lem of man's origin, we can now

see more clearly than ever how great arevolution was inaugurated when naturalselection began to confine its operationsto the surface of the cerebrum. Amongthe older incidents in the evolution of or-ganic life, the changes were very wonder-ful which out of the pectoral fin of a fishdeveloped the jointed fore-limb of themammal with its five-toed paw, and thencethrough much slighter variation broughtforth the human arm with its delicate andcrafty hand. More wondrous still werethe phases of change through which therudimentary pigment-spot of the worm, by


the development and differentiation of suc-cessive layers, gave place to the variously-constructed eyes of insects, mollusks, andvertebrates. The day for creative workof this sort has probably gone by, as theday for the evolution of annulose segmentsand vertebrate skeletons has gone by, —•on our planet, at least. In the line of ourown development, all work of this kindstopped long ago, to be replaced by differ-ent methods. As an optical instrument,the eye had well-nigh reached extreme per-fection in many a bird and mammal agesbefore man's beginnings; and the essentialfeatures of the human hand existed alreadyin the hands of Miocene apes. But differ-ent methods came in when human intelli-gence appeared upon the scene. Mr. Spen-cer has somewhere reminded us that thecrowbar is but an extra lever added to thelevers of which the arm is already com-posed, and the telescope but adds a newset of lenses to those which already exist inthe eye. This beautiful illustration goes to

6o The Destiny of Man.

the kernel of the change that was wroughtwhen natural selection began to confine it-self to the psychical modification of our an-cestors. In a very deep sense all humanscience is but the increment of the powerof the eye, and all human art is the incre-ment of the power of the hand.8 Visionand manipulation, — these, in their count-less indirect and transfigured forms, arethe two cooperating factors in all intellect-ual progress. It is not merely that withthe telescope we see extinct volcanoes onthe moon, or resolve spots of nebulouscloud into clusters of blazing suns ; it isthat in every scientific theory we frame byindirect methods visual images of thingsnot present to sense. With our mind'seye we see atmospheric convulsions on thesurfaces of distant worlds, watch the giantichthyosaurs splashing in Jurassic oceans,follow the varied figures of the rhythmicdance of molecules as chemical elementsunite and separate, or examine, with theaid of long-forgotten vocabularies now


magically restored, the manners and mor-als, the laws and superstitions, of peoplesthat have ceased to be.9 And so in art thewonderful printing-press, and the enginethat moves it, are the lineal descendantsthrough countless stages of complication,of the simple levers of primitive man andthe rude stylus wherewith he engravedstrange hieroglyphs on the bark of trees.In such ways, since the human phase ofevolution began, has the direct action ofmuscle and sense been supplemented andsuperseded by the indirect work of the in-quisitive and inventive mind.

VIII.

Growing Predominance of the Psychical Life.

!|ET us note one further aspect ofthis mighty revolution. In itslowly beginnings the psychical

life was merely an appendage to the lifeof the body. The avoidance of enemies,the securing of food, the perpetuation ofthe species, make up the whole of thelives of lower animals, and the rudimentsof memory, reason, emotion, and volitionwere at first concerned solely with theachievement of these ends in an increas-ingly indirect, complex, and effective way.Though the life of a large portion of thehuman race is still confined to the pursuitof these same ends, yet so vast has beenthe increase of psychical life that thesimple character of the ends is liable to belost sight of amid the variety, the indirect-


ness, and the complexity of the means.But in civilized society other ends, purelyimmaterial in their nature, have come toadd themselves to these, and in some in-stances to take their place. It is longsince we were told that Man does not liveby bread alone. During many genera-tions we have seen thousands of men, ac-tuated by the noblest impulse of whichhumanity is capable, though misled by theteachings of a crude philosophy, despisingand maltreating their bodies as clogs andincumbrances to the life of the indwellingsoul. Countless martyrs we have seenthrowing away the physical earthly life asso much worthless dross, and all for thesake of purely spiritual truths. As withreligion, so with the scientific spirit andthe artistic spirit, — the unquenchablecraving to know the secrets of nature, andthe yearning to create the beautiful inform and colour and sound. In the high-est human beings such ends as these havecome to be uppermost in consciousness,


and with the progress of material civiliza-tion this will be more and more the case.If we can imagine a future time when war-fare and crime shall have been done awaywith forever, when disease shall have beenfor the most part curbed, and when everyhuman being by moderate labour can se-cure ample food and shelter, we can alsosee that in such a state of things the workof civilization would be by no means com-pleted. In ministering to human happi-ness in countless ways, through the pur-suit of purely spiritual ends, in enrichingand diversifying life to the utmost, therewould still be almost limitless work tobe done. I believe that such a time willcome for weary and suffering mankind.Such a faith is inspiring. It sustains onein the work of life, when one would other-wise lose heart. But it is a faith thatrests upon induction. The process of ev-olution is excessively slow, and its endsare achieved at the cost of enormous wasteof life, but for innumerable ages its direc-


tion has been toward the goal here pointedout; and the case may be fitly summedup in the statement that whereas in itsrude beginnings the psychical life was butan appendage to the body, in fully-devel-oped Humanity the body is but the ve-hicle for the soul.

IX.

The Origins of Society and of Morality.

NE further point must be con-sidered before this outline sketchof the manner of man's origin

can be called complete. The psychicaldevelopment of Humanity, since its ear-lier stages, has been largely due to thereaction of individuals upon one anotherin those various relations which we char-acterize as social.10 In considering theorigin of Man, the origin of human soci-ety cannot be passed over. Foreshadow-ings of social relations occur in the animalworld, not only in the line of our own ver-tebrate ancestry, but in certain orders ofinsects which stand quite remote fromthat line. Many of the higher mammalsare gregarious, and this is especially trueof that whole order of primates to which

The Destiny of Man. 6j

we belong. Rudimentary moral senti-ments are also clearly discernible in thehighest members of various mammalianorders, and in all but the lowest membersof our own order. But in respect of defi-niteness and permanence the relations be-tween individuals in a state of gregarious-ness fall far short of the relations betweenindividuals in the rudest human society.The primordial unit of human society isthe family, and it was by the establish-ment of definite and permanent familyrelationships that the step was takenwhich raised Man socially above the levelof gregarious apehood. This great pointwas attained through that lengthening ofthe period of helpless childhood whichaccompanied the gradually increasing in-telligence of our half - human ancestors.When childhood had come to extend overa period of ten or a dozen years — a periodwhich would be doubled, or more thandoubled, where several children were bornin succession to the same parents — the


relationships between father and mother,brethren and sisters, must have becomefirmly knit; and thus the family, the unitof human society, gradually came intoexistence.11 The rudimentary growth ofmoral sentiment must now have receiveda definite direction. As already observed,with the beginnings of infancy in theanimal world there came the genesis inthe parents of feelings and actions notpurely self-regarding. Rudimentary sym-pathies, with rudimentary capacity forself-devotion, are witnessed now and thenamong higher mammals, such as the dog,and not uncommonly among apes. But asthe human family, with its definite re-lationships, came into being, there mustnecessarily have grown up between itsvarious members reciprocal necessities ofbehaviour. The conduct of the individualcould no longer be shaped with sole ref-erence to his own selfish desires, butmust be to a great extent subordinated tothe general welfare of the family. And in


judging of the character of his own con-duct, the individual must now begin torefer it to some law of things outside ofhimself; and hence the germs of con-science and of the idea of duty. Suchwere no doubt the crude beginnings ofhuman morality.

With this genesis of the family, theCreation of Man may be said, in a certainsense, to have been completed. The greatextent of cerebral surface, the lengthenedperiod of infancy, the consequent capacityfor progress, the definite constitution ofthe family, and the judgment of actionsas good or bad according to some otherstandard than that of selfish desire, —these are the attributes which essentiallydistinguish Man from other creatures. Allthese, we see, are direct or indirect resultsof the revolution which began when natu-ral selection came to confine itself to psy-chical variations, to the neglect of physi-cal variations. The immediate result wasthe increase of cerebrum. This prolonged

jo The Destiny of Man.

the infancy, thus giving rise to the capac-ity for progress; and infancy, in turn, orig-inated the family and thus opened the wayfor the growth of sympathies and of eth-ical feelings. All these results have per-petually reacted upon one another until acreature different in kind from all othercreatures has been evolved. The creaturethus evolved long since became dominantover the earth in a sense in which none ofhis predecessors ever became dominant;and henceforth the work of evolution, sofar as our planet is concerned, is chieflydevoted to the perfecting of this last andmost wonderful product of creative energy.

X.

Improvableness of Man.OR the creation of Man was by nomeans the creation of a perfect be-ing. The most essential feature of

Man is his improvableness, and since hisfirst appearance on the earth the changesthat have gone on in him have been enor-mous, though they have continued to runalong in the lines of development thatwere then marked out. The changes havebeen so great that in many respects theinterval between the highest and the low-est men far surpasses quantitatively theinterval between the lowest men andthe highest apes. If we take into ac-count the creasing of the cerebral surface,the difference between the brain of aShakespeare and that of an Australiansavage would doubtless be fifty times


greater than the difference between theAustralian's brain and that of an orang-outang. In mathematical capacity theAustralian, who cannot tell the number offingers on his two hands, is much nearerto a lion or.wolf than to Sir Rowan Ham-ilton, who invented the method of quater-nions. In moral development this sameAustralian, whose language contains nowords for justice and benevolence, is lessremote from dogs and baboons than froma Howard or a Garrison. In progressive-ness, too, the difference between the low-est and the highest races of men is no lessconspicuous. The Australian is moreteachable than the ape, but his limit isnevertheless very quickly reached. All thedistinctive attributes of Man, in short,have been developed to an enormous ex-tent through long ages of social evolution.

This psychical development of Man isdestined to go on in the future as it hasgone on in the past. The creative energywhich has been at work through the bygone

The Destiny of Man.

eternity is not going to become quiescentto-morrow. We have learned something ofits methods of working, and from the care-ful observation of the past we can foreseethe future in some of its most general out-lines. From what has already gone on dur-ing the historic period of man's existence,we can safely predict a change that willby and by distinguish him from all othercreatures even more widely and more fun-damentally than he is distinguished to-day. Whenever in the course of organicevolution we see any function beginningas incidental to the performance of otherfunctions, and continuing for many ages toincrease in importance until it becomes anindispensable strand in the web of life, wemay be sure that by a continuance of thesame process its influence is destined toincrease still more in the future. Such hasbeen the case with the function of sympa-thy, and with the ethical feelings whichhave grown up along with sympathy anddepend largely upon it for their vitality.

J4 The Destiny of Man.

Like everything else which especially dis-tinguishes Man, the altruistic feelings werefirst called into existence through the firstbeginnings of infancy in the animal world.Their rudimentary form was that of thetransient affection of a female bird ormammal for its young. First given a defi-nite direction through the genesis of theprimitive human-family, the developmentof altruism has formed an important partof the progress of civilization, but as yet ithas scarcely kept pace with the general de-velopment of intelligence. There can belittle doubt that in respect of justice andkindness the advance of civilized man hasbeen less marked than in respect of quick-wittedness. Now this is because the ad-vancement of civilized man has beenlargely effected through fighting, throughthe continuance of that deadly struggleand competition which has been going onever since organic life first appeared onthe earth. It is through such fierce andperpetual struggle that the higher forms of

The Destiny of Man.

life have been gradually evolved by naturalselection. But we have already seen howin many respects the evolution of Man wasthe opening of an entirely new chapter inthe history of the universe. In no respectwas it more so than in the genesis of thealtruistic emotions. For when natural se-lection, through the lengthening of child-hood, had secured a determinate develop-ment for this class of human feelings, ithad at last originated a power which couldthrive only through the elimination ofstrife. And the later history of mankind,during the past thirty centuries, has beencharacterized by the gradual eliminatingof strife, though the process has gone onwith the extreme slowness that marks allthe work of evolution. It is only at thepresent day that, by surveying human his-tory from the widest possible outlook, andwith the aid of the habits of thought whichthe study of evolution fosters, we are en-abled distinctly to observe this tendency.As this is the most wonderful of all the

The Destiny of Man.

phases of that stupendous revolution innature which was inaugurated in the Crea-tion of Man, it deserves especial atten-tion here; and we shall find it leading usquite directly to our conclusion. Fromthe Origin of Man, when thoroughly com-prehended in its general outlines, we shallat length be able to catch some glimpsesof his Destiny.

XL

Universal Warfare of Primeval Men.

N speaking of the higher altruisticfeelings as being antagonistic tothe continuance of warfare, I did

not mean to imply that warfare can everbe directly put down by our horror of cru-elty or our moral disapproval of strife.The actual process is much more indirectand complex than this. In respect ofbelligerency the earliest men were doubt-less no better than brutes. They weresimply the most crafty and formidableamong brutes. To get food was the primenecessity of life, and as long as food wasobtainable only by hunting and fishing,or otherwise seizing upon edible objectsalready in existence, chronic and universalquarrel was inevitable. The conditions ofthe struggle for existence were not yet

j8 The Destiny of Man.

visibly changed from what they had beenfrom the outset in the animal world.That struggle meant everlasting slaughter,and the fiercest races of fighters would bejust the ones to survive and perpetuatetheir kind. Those most successful primi-tive men, from whom civilized peoples aredescended, must have excelled in treach-ery and cruelty, as in quickness of wit andstrength of will. That moral sense whichmakes it seem wicked to steal and murderwas scarcely more developed in them thanin tigers or wolves. But to all this therewas one exception. The family suppliedmotives for peaceful cooperation.12 With-in the family limits fidelity and forbear-ance had their uses, for events could nothave been long in showing that the mostcoherent families would prevail over theirless coherent rivals. Observation of themost savage races agrees with the compar-ative study of the institutions of civilizedpeoples, in proving that the only bond ofpolitical union recognized among primitive

The Destiny of Man* jg

men, or conceivable by them, was thephysical fact of blood-relationship. Illus-trations of this are found in plenty farwithin the historic period. The verytownship, which under one name or an-other has formed the unit of politicalsociety among all civilized peoples, wasoriginally the stockaded dwelling-place ofa clan which traced its blood to a commonancestor. In such a condition of thingsthe nearest approach ever made to peacewas a state of armed truce ; and while thesimple rules of morality were recognized,they were only regarded as binding withinthe limits of the clan. There was no rec-ognition of the wickedness of robbery andmurder in general.

This state of things, as above hinted,could not come to an end as long as menobtained food by seizing upon edible ob-jects already in existence. The supply offish, game, or fruit being strictly limited,men must ordinarily fight under penalty ofstarvation. If we could put a moral inter-


pretation upon events which antedatedmorality as we understand it, we shouldsay it was their duty to fight; and the rev-erence accorded to the chieftain who mur-dered most successfully in behalf of hisclansmen was well deserved. It is worthyof note that, in isolated parts of the earthwhere the natural supply of food is abun-dant, as in sundry tropical islands of thePacific Ocean, men have ceased from war-fare and become gentle and docile withoutrising above the intellectual level of sav-agery. Compared with other savages, theyare like the chimpanzee as contrasted withthe gorilla. Such exceptional instanceswell illustrate the general truth that, solong as the method of obtaining food wasthe. same as that employed by brute ani-mals, men must continue to fight like dogsover a bone.

XII.

First checked by the Beginnings of Industrial

Civilisation.

UT presently man's superior intel-ligence came into play in suchwise that other and better meth-

ods of getting food were devised. Whenin intervals of peace men learned to rearflocks and herds, and to till the ground,and when they had further learned to ex-change with one another the products oftheir labour, a new step, of most profoundsignificance, was taken. Tribes whichhad once learned how to do these thingswere not long in overcoming their neigh-bours, and flourishing at their expense, foragriculture allows a vastly greater popula-tion to live upon a given area, and inmany ways it favours social compactness.An immense series of social changes was

6


now begun. Whereas the only conceiva-ble bond of political combination had here-tofore been blood-relationship, a new basiswas now furnished by territorial conti-guity and by community of occupation.The supply of food was no longer strictlylimited, for it could be indefinitely in-creased by peaceful industry; and more-over, in the free exchange of the productsof labour, it ceased to be true that oneman's interest was opposed to another's.Men did not at once recognize this fact,and indeed it has not yet become univer-sally recognized, so long have men per-sisted in interpreting the conditions ofindustrial life in accordance with the im-memorial traditions of the time when themeans of subsistence were strictly limited,so that one man's success meant another'sstarvation. Our robber tariffs — miscalled" protective " — are survivals of the bar-barous mode of thinking which fitted thea°;es before industrial civilization besran.But although the pacific implications of


free exchange were very slowly recog-nized, it is not the less true that the be-ginnings of agriculture and commercemarked the beginnings of the greatestsocial revolution in the whole careerof mankind. Henceforth the conditionsfor the maintenance of physical life be-came different from what they had beenthroughout the past history of the animalworld. It was no longer necessary formen to quarrel for their food like dogsover a bone ; for they could now obtain itfar more effectively by applying theirintelligence to the task of utilizing theforces of inanimate nature; and the dueexecution of such a task was in no wiseassisted by wrath and contention, butfrom the outset was rather hindered bysuch things.

Such were the beginnings of industrialcivilization. Out of its exigencies, con-tinually increasing in complexity, haveproceeded, directly or indirectly, the artsand sciences which have given to modern


life so much of its interest and value. Butmore important still has been the work ofindustrial civilization in the ethical field.By furnishing a wider basis for politicalunion than mere blood-relationship, itgreatly extended the area within whichmoral obligations were recognized as bind-ing. At first confined to the clan, theidea of duty came at length to extendthroughout a state in which many clanswere combined and fused, and as it thusincreased in generality and abstractness,the idea became immeasurably strength-ened and ennobled. At last, with the riseof empires, in which many states werebrought together in pacific industrial re-lations, the recognized sphere of moral ob-ligation became enlarged until it compre-hended all mankind.

XIII.

Methods of Political Development, and Elimi-

nation of Warfare.

jjHIS rise of empires, this coales-cence of small groups of men intolarger and larger political aggre-

gates, has been the chief work of civil-ization, when looked at on its politicalside.13 Like all the work of evolution, thisprocess has gone on irregularly and inter-mittently, and its ultimate tendency hasonly gradually become apparent. Thisprocess of coalescence has from the outsetbeen brought about by the needs of in-dustrial civilization, and the chief obstaclewhich it has had to encounter has beenthe universal hostility and warfare be-queathed from primeval times. The his-tory of mankind has been largely made upof fighting, but in the careers of the most


progressive races this fighting has beenfar from meaningless, like the battles ofkites and crows. In the stream of historywhich, beginning on the shores of theMediterranean Sea, has widened until inour day it covers both sides of the At-lantic and is fast extending over the re-motest parts of the earth, — in this mainstream of history the warfare which hasgone on-has had a clearly discernible pur-pose and meaning. Broadly considered,this warfare has been chiefly the struggleof the higher industrial civilization in de-fending itself against the attacks of neigh-bours who had not advanced beyond thatearly stage of humanity in which warfarewas chronic and normal. During the his-toric period, the wars of Europe have beeneither contests between the industrial andthe predatory types of society, or contestsincident upon the imperfect formation oflarge political aggregates. There havebeen three ways in which great politicalbodies have arisen. The earliest and low-


est method was that of conquest withoutincorporation. A single powerful tribe con-quered and annexed its neighbours with-out admitting them to a share in the gov-ernment. It appropriated their militarystrength, robbed them of most of thefruits of their labour, and thus virtuallyenslaved them. Such was the origin of thegreat despotic empires of Oriental type.Such states degenerate rapidly in militarystrength. Their slavish populations, ac-customed to be starved and beaten or mas-sacred by the tax-gatherer, become unableto fight, so that great armies of them willflee before a handful of freemen, as in thecase of the ancient Persians and the mod-ern Egyptians. To strike down the ex-ecutive head of such an assemblage of en-slaved tribes is to effect the conquest orthe dissolution of the whole mass, andhence the history of Eastern peoples hasbeen characterized by sudden and giganticrevolutions.

The second method of forming great


political bodies was that of conquest withincorporation. The conquering tribe, whileannexing its neighbours, gradually admit-ted them to a share in the government.In this way arose the Roman empire, thelargest, the most stable, and in its bestdays the most pacific political aggregatethe world had as yet seen. Throughoutthe best part of Europe, its conquests suc-ceeded in transforming the ancient preda-tory type of society into the modern in-dustrial type. It effectually broke up theprimeval clan-system, with its narrow ethi-cal ideas, and arrived at the broad concep-tion of rights and duties coextensive withHumanity. But in the method upon whichRome proceeded there was an essentialelement of weakness. The simple deviceof representation, by which political poweris equally retained in all parts of the com-munity while its exercise is delegated to acentral body, was entirely unknown to theRomans. Partly for this reason, and partlybecause of the terrible military pressure to


which the frontier was perpetually ex-posed, the Roman government became adespotism which gradually took on manyof the vices of the Oriental type. Thepolitical weakness which resulted from thisallowed Europe to be overrun by peoplesorganized in clans and tribes, and forsome time there was a partial retrogres-sion toward the disorder characteristic ofprimitive ages. The retrogression was butpartial and temporary, however; the ex-posed frontier has been steadily pushedeastward into the heart of Asia ; the in-dustrial type of society is no longer men-aced by the predatory type; the primevalclan-system has entirely disappeared as asocial force; and warfare, once ubiquitousand chronic, has become local and occa-sional.

The third and highest method of form-ing great political bodies is that of federa-tion. The element of fighting was essen-tial in the two lower methods, but in thisit is not essential. Here there is no con-

go The Destiny of Man.

quest, but a voluntary union of small po-litical groups into a great political group.Each little group preserves its local inde-pendence intact, while forming part of anindissoluble whole. Obviously this methodof political union requires both high in-telligence and high ethical development.In early times it was impracticable. Itwas first attempted, with brilliant thoughephemeral success, by the Greeks, but itfailed for want of the device of representa-tion. In later times it was put into opera-tion, with permanent success, on a smallscale by the Swiss, and on a great scaleby our forefathers in England. The co-alescence of shires into the kingdom ofEngland, effected as it was by means ofa representative assembly, and accompa-nied by the general retention of localself-government, afforded a distinct pre-cedent for such a gigantic federal unionas men of English race have since con-structed in America. The principle offederation was there, though not the name.

The Destiny of Man. gi

And here we hit upon the fundamentalcontrast between the history of Englandand that of France. The method by whichthe modern French nation has been builtup has been the Roman method of con-quest with incorporation. As the ruler ofParis gradually overcame his vassals, oneafter another, by warfare or diplomacy, heannexed their counties to his royal do-main, and governed them by lieutenantssent from Paris. Self-government was thuscrushed out in France, while it was pre-served in England. And just as Romeachieved its unprecedented dominion byadopting a political method more effectivethan any that had been hitherto employed,so England, employing for the first timea still higher and more effective method,has come to play a part in the world com-pared with which even the part played byRome seems insignificant. The test ofthe relative strength of the English andRoman methods came when England andFrance contended for the possession of

g2 The Destiny of Man.

North America. The people which pre-served its self-government could send forthself-supporting colonies ; the people whichhad lost the very tradition of self-govern-ment could not. Hence the dominion ofthe sea, with that of all the outlying partsof the earth, fell into the hands of men ofEnglish race; and hence the federativemethod of political union — the methodwhich contains every element of perma-nence, and which is pacific in its very con-ception — is already assuming a swaywhich is unquestionably destined to be-come universal.

Bearing all this in mind, we cannot failto recognize the truth of the statementthat the great wars of the historic periodhave been either contests between the in-dustrial and the predatory types of societyor contests incident upon the imperfectformation of great political aggregates.Throughout the turmoil of the historicperiod—which on a superficial view seemssuch a chaos — we see certain definite

The Destiny of Man.tendencies at work; the tendency towardthe formation of larger and larger politicalaggregates, and toward the more perfectmaintenance of local self-government andindividual freedom among the parts of theaggregate. This two-sided process beganwith the beginnings of industrial civiliza-tion ; it has aided the progress of industryand been aided by i t ; and the result hasbeen to diminish the quantity of warfare,and to lessen the number of points atwhich it touches the ordinary course ofcivilized life. With the further continu-ance of this process, but one ultimate re-sult is possible. It must go on until war-fare becomes obsolete. The nineteenthcentury, which has witnessed an unpre-cedented development of industrial civiliza-tion, with its attendant arts and sciences,has also witnessed an unprecedented dimi-nution in the strength of the primevalspirit of militancy. It is not that we havegot rid of great wars, but that the relativeproportion of human strength which has


been employed in warfare has been re-markably less than in any previous age.In our own history, of the two really greatwars which have permeated our wholesocial existence, — the Revolutionary Warand the War of Secession, — the first wasfought in behalf of the pacific principleof equal representation; the second wasfought in behalf of the pacific principleof federalism. In each case, the victoryhelped to hasten the day when warfareshall become unnecessary. In the fewgreat wars of Europe since the overthrowof Napoleon, we may see the same prin-ciple at work. In almost every case theresult has been to strengthen the pacifictendencies of modern society Whereaswarfare was once dominant over the face ofthe earth, and came home in all its horriddetails to everybody's door, and threatenedthe very existence of industrial civiliza-tion ; it has now become narrowly confinedin time and space, it no longer comeshome to everybody's door, and, in so far


as it is still tolerated, for want of a bet-ter method of settling grave internationalquestions, it has become quite ancillary tothe paramount needs of industrial civiliza-tion. When we can see so much as thislying before us on the pages of history, wecannot fail to see that the final extinc-tion of warfare is only a question of time.Sooner or later it must come to an end,and the pacific principle of federalism,whereby questions between states are set-tled, like questions between individuals,by due process of law, must reign supremeover all the earth.

XIV.

End of the Working of Natural Selection upon

Man. Throwing off the Brute-Inheritance.

S regards the significance of Man'sposition in the universe, this grad-ual elimination of strife is a fact

of utterly unparalleled grandeur. Wordscannot do justice to such a fact. It meansthat the wholesale destruction of life,which has heretofore characterized evolu-tion ever since life began, and throughwhich the higher forms of organic ex-istence have been produced, must pres-ently come to an end in the case of thechief of God's creatures. It means thatthe universal struggle for existence, hav-ing succeeded in bringing forth that con-summate product of creative energy, theHuman Soul, has done its work and willpresently cease. In the lower regions of


organic life it must go on, but as a deter-mining factor in the highest work of evo-lution it will disappear.

The action of natural selection uponMan has long since been essentially di-minished through the operation of socialconditions. For in all grades of civili-zation above the lowest, "there are somany kinds of superiorities which sever-ally enable men to survive, notwithstand-ing accompanying inferiorities, that naturalselection cannot by itself rectify any par-ticular unfitness." In a race of inferioranimals any maladjustment is quickly re-moved by natural selection, because, owingto the universal slaughter, the highestcompleteness of life possible to a givengrade of organization is required for themere maintenance of life. But under theconditions surrounding human develop-ment it is otherwise.14 There is a wideinterval between the highest and lowestdegrees of completeness of living thatare compatible with maintenance of life.

7

g8 The Destiny of Man.

Hence the wicked flourish. Vice is butslowly eliminated, because mankind has somany other qualities, beside the bad ones,which enable it to subsist and achieveprogress in spite of them, that naturalselection — which always works throughdeath — cannot come into play. The im-provement of civilized man goes on main-ly through processes of direct adaptation.The principle in accordance with which thegloved hand of the dandy becomes whiteand soft while the hand of the labouringman grows brown and tough is the mainprinciple at work in the improvement ofHumanity. Our intellectual faculties, ourpassions and prejudices, our tastes andhabits, become strengthened by use andweakened by disuse, just as the black-smith's arm grows strong and the horseturned out to pasture becomes unfit forwork. This law of use and disuse hasbeen of immense importance throughoutthe whole evolution of organic life. WithMan it has come to be paramount.


If now we contrast the civilized man in-tellectually and morally with the savage,we find that, along with his vast increaseof cerebral surface, he has an immenselygreater power of representing in imagina-tion objects and relations not present tothe senses. This is the fundamental in-tellectual difference between civilized menand savages.15 The power of imagina-tion, or ideal representation, underlies thewhole of science and art, and it is closelyconnected with the ability to work hardand submit to present discomfort for thesake of a distant reward. It is also closelyconnected with the development of thesympathetic feelings. The better we canimagine objects and relations not pres-ent to sense, the more readily we cansympathize with other people. Half thecruelty in the world is the direct result ofstupid incapacity to put one's self in theother man's place. So closely inter-relatedare our intellectual and moral natures thatthe development of sympathy is very con-

wo The Destiny of Man.

siderably determined by increasing widthand variety of experience. From thesimplest form of sympathy, such as thepainful thrill felt on seeing some one in adangerous position, up to the elaboratecomplication of altruistic feelings involvedin the notion of abstract justice, the de-velopment is very largely a developmentof the representative faculty. The verysame causes, therefore, deeply groundedin the nature of industrial civilization,which have developed science and art,have also had a distinct tendency to en-courage the growth of the sympatheticemotions.

But, as already observed, these emotionsare still too feebly developed, even in thehighest races of men. We have mademore progress in intelligence than inkindness. For thousands of generations,and until very recent times, one of thechief occupations of men has been to plun-der, bruise, and kill one another. Theselfish and ugly passions which are pri-


mordial — which have the incalculablestrength of inheritance from the time whenanimal consciousness began — have hadbut little opportunity to grow weak fromdisuse. The tender and unselfish feelings,which are a later product of evolution, havetoo seldom been allowed to grow strongfrom exercise. And the whims and prej-udices of the primeval militant barbarismare slow in dying out from the midst ofpeaceful industrial civilization. The coarserforms of cruelty are disappearing, and thebutchery of men has greatly diminished.But most people apply to industrial pur-suits a notion of antagonism derived fromages of warfare, and seek in all manner ofways to cheat or overreach one another.And as in more barbarous times the herowas he who had slain his tens of thou-sands, so now the man who has madewealth by overreaching his neighboursis not uncommonly spoken of in termswhich imply approval. Though gentle-men, moreover, no longer assail one an-


other with knives and clubs, they still in-flict wounds with cruel words and sneers.Though the free - thinker is no longerchained to a stake and burned, people stilltell lies about him, and do their best tostarve him by hurting his reputation. Thevirtues of forbearance and self-control arestill in a very rudimentary state, and ofmutual helpfulness there is far too little

among men.Nevertheless in all these respects some

improvement has been made, along withthe diminution of warfare, and by thetime warfare has not merely ceased fromthe earth but has come to be the dimlyremembered phantom of a remote past,the development of the sympathetic sideof human nature will doubtless becomeprodigious. The manifestation of selfishand hateful feelings will be more and moresternly repressed by public opinion, andsuch feelings will become weakened bydisuse, while the sympathetic feelings willincrease in strength as the sphere for


their exercise is enlarged. And thus atlength we see what human progress means.It means throwing off the brute-inherit-ance, — gradually throwing it off throughages of struggle that are by and by tomake struggle needless. Man is slowlypassing from a primitive social state inwhich he was little better than a brute,toward an ultimate social state in whichhis character shall have become so trans-formed that nothing of the brute can be de-tected in it. The ape and the tiger in hu-man nature will become extinct. Theologyhas had much to say about original sin.This original sin is neither more nor lessthan the brute-inheritance which everyman carries with him, and the process ofevolution is an advance toward true salva-tion. Fresh value is thus added to humanlife. The modern prophet, employing themethods of science, may again proclaimthat the kingdom of heaven is at hand.Work ye, therefore, early and late, to pre-pare its coming.

XV.

The Message of Christianity.

OW what is this message of themodern prophet but pure Chris-tianity ? — not the mass of theo-

logical doctrine ingeniously piled up byJustin Martyr and Tertullian and Clementand Athanasius and Augustine, but thereal and essential Christianity which came,fraught with good tidings to men, from thevery lips of Jesus and Paul! When didSt. Paul's conception of the two men withinhim that warred against each other, theappetites of our brute nature and the God-given yearning for a higher life, — whendid this grand conception ever have somuch significance as now ? When havewe ever before held such a clew to themeaning of Christ in the Sermon on theMount ? " Blessed are the meek, for they


shall inherit the earth." In the cruel strifeof centuries has it not often seemed as ifthe earth were to be rather the prize of thehardest heart and the strongest fist ? Tomany men these words of Christ have beenas foolishness and as a stumbling-block,and the ethics of the Sermon on the Mounthave been openly derided as too good forthis world. In that wonderful picture ofmodern life which is the greatest work ofone of the great seers of our time, VictorHugo gives a concrete illustration of theworking of Christ's methods. In the saint-like career of Bishop Myriel, and in thetransformation which his example works inthe character of the hardened outlaw JeanValjean, we have a most powerful com-mentary on the Sermon on the Mount.By some critics who could express theirviews freely about " Les Miserables " whilehesitating to impugn directly the authorityof the New Testament, Monseigneur Bien-venu was unsparingly ridiculed as a man ofimpossible goodness, and as a milksop and

io6 The Destiny of Man.

fool withal. But I think Victor Hugo un-derstood the capabilities of human nature,and its real dignity, much better than thesescoffers. In a low stage of civilizationMonseigneur Bienvenu would have hadsmall chance of reaching middle life.Christ himself, we remember, was cruci-fied between two thieves. It is none theless true that when once the degree ofcivilization is such as to allow this high-est type of character, distinguished by itsmeekness and kindness, to take root andthrive, its methods are incomparable intheir potency. The Master knew full wellthat the time was not yet ripe, — that hebrought not peace, but a sword. But hepreached nevertheless that gospel of greatjoy which is by and by to be realized bytoiling Humanity, and he announced ethi-cal principles fit for the time that is com-ing. The great originality of his teaching,and the feature that has chiefly given itpower in the world, lay in the distinctnesswith which he conceived a state of society

The Destiny of Man. toy

from which every vestige of strife, and themodes of behaviour adapted to ages ofstrife, shall be utterly and forever sweptaway. Through misery that has seemedunendurable and turmoil that has seemedendless, men have thought on that graciouslife and its sublime ideal, and have takencomfort in the sweetly solemn message ofpeace on earth and good will to men.

I believe that the promise with which Istarted has now been amply redeemed. Ibelieve it has been fully shown that so farfrom degrading Humanity, or putting it ona level with the animal world in general,the doctrine of evolution shows us dis-tinctly for the first time how the creationand the perfecting of Man is the goal to-ward which Nature's work has been tend-ing from the first. We can now see clearlythat our new knowledge enlarges tenfoldthe significance of human life, and makesit seem more than ever the chief object ofDivine care, the consummate fruition ofthat creative energy which is manifestedthroughout the knowable universe.

XVI.

The Question as to a Future Life.

PON the question whether Hu-manity is, after all, to cast in itslot with the grass that withers

and the beasts that perish, the whole fore-going argument has a bearing that is byno means remote or far-fetched. It is notlikely that we shall ever succeed in mak-ing the immortality of the soul a matter ofscientific demonstration, for we lack therequisite data. It must ever remain anaffair of religion rather than of science.In other words, it must remain one of thatclass of questions upon which I may notexpect to convince my neighbour, while atthe same time I may entertain a reasonableconviction of my own upon the subject.16

In the domain of cerebral physiology thequestion might be debated forever without


a result. The only thing which cerebralphysiology tells us, when studied with theaid of molecular physics, is against thematerialist, so far as it goes. It tells usthat, during the present life, althoughthought and feeling are always manifestedin connection with a peculiar form of mat-ter, yet by no possibility can thought andfeeling be in any sense the products ofmatter. Nothing could be more grosslyunscientific than the famous remark ofCabanis, that the brain secretes thoughtas the liver secretes bile. It is not evencorrect to say that thought goes on in thebrain. What goes on in the brain is anamazingly complex series of molecularmovements, with which thought and feel-ing are in some unknown way correlated,not as effects or as causes, but as con-comitants. So much is clear, but cerebralphysiology says nothing about another life.Indeed, why should it ? The last place inthe world to which I should go for in-formation about a state of things in which

no The Destiny of Man.

thought and feeling can exist in the ab-sence of a cerebrum would be cerebralphysiology!

The materialistic assumption that thereis no such state of things, and that the lifeof the soul accordingly ends with the lifeof the body, is perhaps the most colossalinstance of baseless assumption that isknown to the history of philosophy. Noevidence for it can be alleged beyond thefamiliar fact that during the present lifewe know Soul only in its association withBody, and therefore cannot discover disem-bodied soul without dying ourselves. Thisfact must always prevent us from obtain-ing direct evidence for the belief in thesoul's survival. But a negative presump-tion is not created by the absence of proofin cases where, in the nature of things,proof is inaccessible.17 With his illegiti-mate hypothesis of annihilation, the mate-rialist transgresses the bounds of experi-ence quite as widely as the poet who singsof the New Jerusalem with its river of life

The Destiny of Man. in

and its streets of gold. Scientifically speak-ing, there is not a particle of evidence foreither view.

But when we desist from the futile at-tempt to introduce scientific demonstrationinto a region which confessedly transcendshuman experience, and when we considerthe question upon broad grounds of moralprobability, I have no doubt that men willcontinue in the future, as in the past, tocherish the faith in a life beyond the grave.In past times the disbelief in the soul'simmortality has always accompanied thatkind of philosophy which, under whatevername, has regarded Humanity as merelya local incident in an endless and aimlessseries of cosmical changes. As a generalrule, people who have come to take sucha view of the position of Man in the uni-verse have ceased to believe in a futurelife. On the other hand, he who regardsMan as the consummate fruition of crea-tive energy, and the chief object of Divinecare, is almost irresistibly driven to the be-

ii2 The Destiny of Man.

lief that the soul's career is not completedwith the present life upon the earth. Diffi-culties on theory he will naturally expectto meet in many quarters ; but these willnot weaken his faith, especially when heremembers that upon the alternative viewthe difficulties are at least as great. Welive in a world of mystery, at all events,and there is not a problem in the simplestand most exact departments of sciencewhich does not speedily lead us to a tran-scendental problem that we can neithersolve nor elude. A broad common-senseargument has often to be called in, wherekeen-edged metaphysical analysis has con-fessed itself baffled.

Now we have here seen that the doc-trine of evolution does not allow us to takethe atheistic view of the position of Man.It is true that modern astronomy shows usgiant balls of vapour condensing into fierysuns, cooling down into planets fit for thesupport of life, and at last growing coldand rigid in death, like the moon. And


there are indications of a time when sys-tems of dead planets shall fall in upontheir central ember that was once a sun,and the whole lifeless mass, thus regainingheat, shall expand into a nebulous cloudlike that with which we started, that thework of condensation and evolution maybegin over again. These Titanic eventsmust doubtless seem to our limited visionlike an endless and aimless series ofcosmical changes. They disclose no signsof purpose, or even of dramatic ten-dency ;18 they seem like the weary workof Sisyphos. But on the face of our ownplanet, where alone we are able to surveythe process of evolution in its higher andmore complex details, we do find distinctindications of a dramatic tendency, thoughdoubtless not of purpose in the limitedhuman sense. The Darwinian theory,properly understood, replaces as muchteleology 19 as it destroys. From the firstdawning of life we see all things work-ing together toward one mighty goal, the

8

H4 The Destiny of Man.

evolution of the most exalted spiritual qual-ities which characterize Humanity. Thebody is cast aside and returns to the dustof which it was made. The earth, somarvellously wrought to man's uses, willalso be cast aside. The day is to come,no doubt, when the heavens shall vanishas a scroll, and the elements be meltedwith fervent heat. So small is the valuewhich Nature sets upon the perishableforms of matter ! The question, then, isreduced to this : are Man's highest spirit-ual qualities, into the production of whichall this creative energy has gone, to dis-appear with the rest ? Has all this workbeen done for nothing ? Is it all ephem-eral, all a bubble that bursts, a visionthat fades ? Are we to regard the Crea-tor's work as like that of a child, whobuilds houses out of blocks, just for thepleasure of knocking them down ? Foraught that science can tell us, it may beso, but I can see no good reason for be-lieving any such thing. On such a view

The Destiny of Man.

the riddle of the universe becomes a riddlewithout a meaning. Why, then, are we anymore called upon to throw away our beliefin the permanence of the spiritual elementin Man than we are called upon to throwaway our belief in the constancy of Na-ture ? When questioned as to the groundof our irresistible belief that like causesmust always be followed by like effects,Mr. Mill's answer was that it is the resultof an induction coextensive with the wholeof our experience ; Mr. Spencer's answerwas that it is a postulate which we makein every act of experience;20 but the au-thors of the " Unseen Universe," slightlyvarying the form of statement, called it asupreme act of faith, — the expression ofa trust in God, that He will not " put us topermanent intellectual confusion." Nowthe more thoroughly we comprehend thatprocess of evolution by which things havecome to be what they are, the more we arelikely to feel that to deny the everlastingpersistence of the spiritual element in Man

n6 The Destiny of Man.

is to rob the whole process of its meaning.It goes far toward putting us to perma-nent intellectual confusion, and I do notsee that any one has as yet alleged, or isever likely to allege, a sufficient reasonfor our accepting so dire an alternative.

For my own part, therefore, I believe inthe immortality of the soul, not in thesense in which I accept the demonstrabletruths of science, but as a supreme act offaith in the reasonableness of God's work.Such a belief, relating to regions quite in-accessible to experience, cannot of coursebe clothed in terms of definite and tangiblemeaning. For the experience which alonecan give us such terms we must await thatsolemn day which is to overtake us all.The belief can be most quickly defined byits negation, as the refusal to believe thatthis world is all. The materialist holdsthat when you have described the wholeuniverse of phenomena of which we canbecome cognizant under the conditions ofthe present life, then the whole story is

The Destiny of Man. ny

told. It seems to me, on the contrary, that

the whole story is not thus told. I feel

the omnipresence of mystery in such wise

as to make it far easier for me to adopt the

view of Euripides, that what we call death

may be but the dawning of true knowledge

and of true life. The greatest philosopher

of modern times, the master and teacher

of all who shall study the process of evolu-

tion for many a day to come, holds that

the conscious soul is not the product of a

collocation of material particles, but is in

the deepest sense a divine effluence. Ac-

cording to Mr. Spencer, the divine energy

which is manifested throughout the know-

able universe is the same energy that wells

up in us as consciousness. Speaking for

myself, I can see no insuperable difficulty

in the notion that at some period in the

evolution of Humanity this divine spark

may have acquired sufficient concentration

and steadiness to survive the wreck of ma-

terial forms and endure forever. Such a

crowning wonder seems to me no more

/ r8 The Destiny of Man.

than the fit climax to a creative work thathas been ineffably beautiful and marvel-lous in all its myriad stages.

Only on some such view can the rea-sonableness of the universe, which stillremains far above our finite power of com-prehension, maintain its ground. Thereare some minds inaccessible to the classof considerations here alleged, and perhapsthere always will be. But on such grounds,if on no other, the faith in immortality islikely to be shared by all who look uponthe genesis of the highest spiritual quali-ties in Man as the goal of Nature's creativework. This view has survived the Coper-nican revolution in science, and it has sur-vived the Darwinian revolution. Nay, ifthe foregoing exposition be sound, it isDarwinism which has placed Humanityupon a higher pinnacle than ever. Thefuture is lighted for us with the radiantcolours of hope. Strife and sorrow shalldisappear. Peace and love shall reign su-preme. The dream of poets, the lesson

The Destiny of Man i ig

of priest and prophet, the inspiration of thegreat musician, is confirmed in the light ofmodern knowledge; and as we gird our-selves up for the work of life, we may lookforward to the time when in the truestsense the kingdoms of this world shall be-come the kingdom of Christ, and he shallreign for ever and ever, king of kings andlord of lords.

REFERENCES.

C. P., Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, 1S74; U. W., The Unseen

World, 1876; D., Darwinism and Other Essays, 1879; E. E.,

Excursions of an Evolutionist, 1884.

1. C. P. ii. 432-451.2. C. P. ii. 89-91.3. C. P. ii. 318-321; D. 45.

4. U. W. 40-42; D. 65-74; E. E. 278-282, 327-

336.

5. C. P. ii. 154-159-6. C. P. ii. 133-135.7. D. 45-48; E. E. 306-319.8. C. P. ii. 310.9. E. E. 109-146.

10. C. P. ii. 284-323.11. C. P. ii. 342-346, 358-363.12. C. P. ii. 202-208.13. C. P. ii. 213-224.14. C. P. ii. 334.15. C. P. ii. 312-315.16. U. W. 54; E. E. 289-291.

References. 121

17. U .W. 47-50; D. 75.18. D. 96-102.19. C. P. ii. 406.

20. C. P. i. 45-71, 286; ii. 162; U. W. 6; D. 87-

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The Destiny of Man: Viewed in the Light of his Origin

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