Charles Morris

“ Those who have the good of others strongly at heart, who are truly Christian in a practical realization of the brotherhood of mankind, can safely be set free from all the reins of law, and trusted to do the right thing from innate feeling instead of outside compulsion. And, trusting in the future full development of the altruistic sentiment, we can hopefully look forward to a time in which the moral law will exist alone, conscience become the controlling force in human actions, and government let fall the whip which it has so long held in threat over the shrinking back of man. ”

“ To say that they have been products of evolution is not to invalidate them. Much that is true and solid has arisen through evolution. To say that they lack scientific evidence is not to question their validity. Many of the subjects with which they deal lie beyond the reach of scientific evidence. Science has hitherto dealt strictly with the physical; it has made almost no effort to test the claims of the spiritual. In fact, the highest of these claims, that of the existence of a deity, must lie forever beyond its reach. God may exist, and science grope for Him through eternity in vain. ”

“ In short, the great abyss which was of old thought to lie between the languages of man and the lower animals has largely vanished through the labors of philologists, and we can trace stepping-stones over every portion of the wide gap. The language of man has not alone been evidently a product of evolution, but also one of development from the vocal utterances of the lower animals; and the man-ape, in its slow and long progress from brute into man, seems to have gradually developed that noble instrument of articulate speech which has had so much to do with subsequent human progress. ”

“ When this phase of evolution is reached, we cease for the first time to deal with species and genera in the mass and begin to deal with individuals, who now emerge from the general group and stand above and apart like great signal posts on the highway of progress. ”

“ So far as his physical form is concerned, man became practically completed ages ago, as the supreme effort of nature in the moulding and vitalizing of matter. When the arena of the struggle for existence became transferred from the body to the mind, variation in the body, once so active, rapidly declined; and with the full employment of the intellect in the conflict with nature, physical evolution ceased, except in minor particulars, and the organic structure of man became practically fixed. The human animal, therefore, as a physical species, has reached a stage of permanence. ”

“ Why did the man-ape gain a length of arm not the best suited to its arboreal habitat? Why, in fact, do changes in physical structure ever take place? How does an animal succeed in passing from one mode of life to another, when during the transition period it is imperfectly adapted to either, and therefore at a seeming disadvantage in the struggle for existence? The study of animal development has given rise to certain difficult problems of this character, some of which have been solved by showing that the supposed disadvantage did not arise, or that it was balanced by some equal advantage. ”

“ This is the outgrowth of instinct, not of thought; the development of that principle of attraction which manifests itself in all nature, and which, when associated with consciousness, becomes what we know as love, affection, or sympathy. It is a powerful and pervading force in all matter, intelligent and unintelligent, and in conscious beings falls naturally among the emotions. Like all the passions, it is instinctive in origin, though it may come under the control of the intellect as the mind develops. In the lower animal world it is manifested as a vigorous attraction, the sexual. ”

“ The evidences of man's former existence upon the earth are multitudinous, but any extended consideration of them is aside from our purpose, which is merely to show that the proofs of man's descent found in his physical structure are strengthened by evidences which he has left strewn behind him in his long march down the ages. Only a single conclusion can be drawn from these vestiges of man excavated from caves and gravels, namely, that they indicate a gradual and steady progression upward from a very low condition, while they nowhere give evidence of the traditional fall of man. ”

“ The standing of the whole is dependent upon the thoughts and acts of the few, from whom the general mass receive new ideas and gain new habits. The existing intellectual and industrial position of mankind is very largely a result of ideas evolved by individuals age after age, and preserved as the mental property of the whole. Destroy the books and works of art and industry of any community, cut off its intellectual leaders, remove from the general mind the results of education, and it would at once fall back to a low level and be obliged to begin again its slow climb upward. ”

“ The question has often been asked, if man has descended from an ape ancestor why is it that no traces of this ancestral form have been found in a fossil state? If man has gone through such an extended course of development, why has he left no remains? ”

“ The beginning of the use of clothing, of artificial shelter, and of fire formed one of the most vital periods in the history of human evolution. Coincident with them was the production of a much greater variety of implements than had been previously possessed, and many of these much superior to the older and ruder forms. The struggle with the glacial cold had roused man's mind out of its old sluggishness, and brought it actively into operation in devising means of counteracting the perils of his situation and fitting him to the new conditions of existence. ”

“ He is feared and avoided by the largest and strongest beasts of field and forest. He does not fight defensively, but offensively, and whatever his relation to his fellow-man, he admits no equal in the world of life below him. He is the only animal that has made a struggle for lordship. The gorilla is said to attack the lion and drive it from its haunts. If it does so, it is not with any desire for mastery, but simply to rid itself of a dangerous neighbor. The battle for dominion has been confined to man, and in the winning of it no small degree of mental development must have taken place. ”

“ But the autocracy of wealth still holds its own, and is growing more and more formidable, and against this the wave of opposition is now rising. Everywhere man is earnestly and sternly demanding an equitable distribution of the productions of nature and art. What the outcome of this demand will be it is impossible to say. It must inevitably lead to some readjustment of the wealth of mankind; but only the slow process of social evolution can decide what this shall be. ”

“ Love and law rule the universe. It is this second moral element, that of law, which we have next to consider. Inductive morality had its origin in experience; it assumed the form of social restriction, then of fixed law and precept, and culminated in the sense of duty—a conscientious avoidance of that which was thought to be wrong, and an earnest desire to do what was looked upon as right. ”

“ The purpose of this work has been to trace the evolutionary origin of man, in his ascent from the lower animal world to his full stature as the physical and intellectual monarch of the kingdom of life. But to round up the story of human evolution it seemed necessary to consider man from the moral standpoint, and it now appears equally desirable to review his relations to the spiritual element of the universe. Having dealt with the development of man as a mortal being, we have now to regard him as a possibly immortal being. ”

“ The result is a state of unrest, discontent, and more or less active opposition, which constitutes a condition of permanent conflict, a deep dissatisfaction with existing institutions abnormal to a justly organized society. War has become in great measure useless; but the scaffolding from which it built up the edifice of civilization remains, and stands as a tottering ruin threatening to engulf mankind in its fall.
Ever since the triumph of autocracy in the Roman empire, the masses of mankind have steadily protested against an inequality that is [204] alien to the natural rights of man. ”

“ In both cases the main agency was in all probability that of conflict. Both ape and man, as we take it, developed through some form of warfare. In the former case it was warfare with the animal kingdom; in the latter it was warfare with the conditions of nature and with hostile man. Each of these has been potent in its effects, and to each we owe the completion of a great stage in the evolution of man.
In the tropics, the home of the anthropoid apes of to-day and, probably, of the animal we have named the man-ape, war between man and nature scarcely exists. Nature is not hostile to man. ”

“ The whole of nature's influences, in new and often adverse situations, have been brought to bear upon man's mind, and as the result we have civilized man as contrasted with the anthropoid ape. And the end is not yet. The era of war in man's development is near its close, and a new era of peace, under conditions of advanced mental and physical activity, seems about to begin. Its outcome no man can predict, but it may far surpass in beneficial results all that has gone before, and carry man upward to an extraordinarily elevated mental plane. ”

“ There is nothing that has had more to do with the mental progress of the human race than facility in the communication of thought, and in this vocal language is the principal agent and in the fullest measure is the instrument of the mind. Human speech has, in these modern times, become remarkably expressive, indicating all the conditions, relations, and qualities, not only of things, but of thoughts and ideal conceptions. And the utility of language has been enormously augmented by the development of the arts of writing and printing. ”

“ If we seek for some turning-point, some stage of progress, in which the man-ape fairly emerged into man, perhaps it would be well to select that which we have now reached, that in which the animal in question, which had hitherto used the objects of nature in their natural form, first gained the idea of manufacture and began to shape these objects by the use of tools. In truth, the dividing line between man-ape and man was imperceptibly fine. Various points of demarcation might be chosen, each founded on some important step in evolution. ”

“ If the doctrine of the direct creation of man had been originally presented in our own day, proof of the assertion would have been at once demanded, and the only evidence admissible would have been that of witnesses of the act of creation. There could, of course, have been no human witnesses, as there would have been no preceding human beings, and witnesses not human have, in the present day, no standing in our courts. As the case stands, however, the doctrine arose in an age when man did not trouble himself about evidence, but was content to accept his opinions on authority ”

“ It requires no strain of the imagination to admit the existence of a new constituent of the atmosphere. It requires a great strain to admit the existence of a new constituent of the universe, a vast spiritual substratum to the domain of matter. Religion, with its ideal tests, has long maintained this to be a fact. Science, with its rigid material tests, sternly questions it, and demands that the existence of an inhabited spiritual realm shall be incontestably proved by scientific evidence before it can be accepted. ”