to our own in all but one particular, namely, that theirs appear to be
fixed while ours are continually changing. But most likely we overrate
both the fixed character of theirs, and the instability of our own.
Changes in the politics of an oyster may easily escape the notice of
a man in the midst of some vast revolution (as he thinks it) of human
affairs, some vast revolution which proves in the end to be nothing
more than a change of names. For mankind the acquisition of language
has indefinitely quickened the movement of ideas, but where language is
without the aids of writing and printing, as among savage tribes, and
where the language itself is an imperfect instrument of thought, the
same routine seems to prevail from generation to generation. Fashion in
dress changes but slowly when the dress itself is nothing but a girdle;
and the fashions of the mind change with as little facility when ideas
and wants, and the means of expressing the one and gratifying the
other, are all alike few and extremely simple.
So simple are the wants and ideas of the savage, so little above those
of the elephant and the ape, that Mr. Wallace finds himself driven
to the conclusion that the savage ‘in his large and well-developed
brain possesses an organ quite disproportionate to his actual
requirements--an organ that seems prepared in advance, only to be
fully utilized as he progresses in civilization.’ But anything _quite
disproportionate_ to its actual place in nature cannot have been
produced according to the theory of development. This theory therefore
Mr. Wallace deems and declares inapplicable to the brain and mind of
man. In support of his view he adduces several circumstances both of
man’s bodily and mental constitution, which he considers this theory
incapable of explaining. He maintains that natural selection will not
account for those rudiments of logical, moral, and æsthetic faculties
which are to be found in uncivilized man; for the nakedness of the
human skin, though hair upon the back would be of essential service to
the unclad savage; for the absence of prehensile power from the human
foot, a power which he thinks would be useful, or for those perfections
of hand and voice which he thinks would be useless, to uncultivated
human beings. The inference he draws ‘from this class of phenomena is,
that a superior intelligence has guided the development of man in a
definite direction and for a special purpose, just as man guides the
development of many animal and vegetable forms.’
In this illustration he overlooks the circumstance that man’s selection
is after all nothing more nor less than part and parcel of natural
selection. In his argument from the various uses and powers of the hand
and brain, which could have been of no service to men in a wild state,
he neglects the consideration that what is selected through being
useful in one direction may incidentally become useful in another.
Had he employed his usual ingenuity on the question of man’s hairless
skin, he might have seen the possibility of its ‘selection’ through its
superior beauty or the health attaching to superior cleanliness. At
any rate it is surprising that he should picture to himself a superior
intelligence plucking the hair from the backs of savage men, (to whom
according to his own account it would have been useful and beneficial)
in order that the descendants of the poor shorn wretches might, after
many deaths from cold and damp, in the course of many generations take
to tailoring and dabbling in bricks and mortar. In regard to the voice
he makes an assertion which is surely impossible for himself or any one
else to prove, namely, that ‘savages certainly never choose their wives
for fine voices.’ But upon this assertion the whole of his argument
about the voice depends. And as for the stress which he lays upon the
rudimentary moral and æsthetic faculties of savages, we have shown that
numbers of other animals likewise have rudimentary moral faculties,
while Mr. Wallace himself makes it probable that many have a taste for
colour[40], and that ‘their powers of vision and their faculties of
perception and emotion must be essentially of the same nature as our
own[41].’
Truly in one sense every variation is prepared in advance, only to be
fully utilized in the future progress of the creature that varies.
Every variation, I doubt not, is so prepared in advance by a superior
intelligence, but under the general laws which that intelligence
has ordained, and not by a special interference. The real progress
of each creature, within the spheres at least of consciousness and
intelligence, would seem to consist in its growing capacity for
perceiving and understanding, for entering into fellowship with, beings
superior to itself. In mental powers the dog and the horse become more
and more like man, the closer and the more continuous the intercourse.
Could they learn our language or we theirs, the progress might be
indefinitely hastened. In the general progress onwards and upwards,
man, it may be believed, then first became the indisputable lord and
chief over his fellow animals, when his reason had so far advanced
that he could comprehend the idea of God, when his reason had grown
into a capacity of hearing the divine voice, which since then, not by
interference with physical conditions, but by intercourse of mind with
mind, has led him forward step by step from darkness into twilight,
from the twilight is still leading him forward, as his eyes become able
to bear it, towards the beauty of the rosy-fingered dawn; and just as
those of the lower animals are considered the most intelligent which
make the most successful efforts at intercourse with man and at serving
him, so, by a true analogy, may the philosopher deem those men and
those races of men to be furthest on the path of enlightenment who know
most of God and serve Him best.
HUMAN NATURE AND BRUTE NATURE.[42]
A poor slave, named Androcles, escaped from his master into a sandy
desert. While there a lion came suddenly upon him, and by signs made
him understand that it was in an agony of pain. This the slave was
able to relieve by extracting a large thorn from its paw and by gentle
treatment of the wound. From this time the lion shared its prey with
the man, till Androcles, pining for human society, and facing even
death to regain it, at length gave himself up to his master. It so
happened that the slave was sent to Rome to be exposed to wild beasts
at the same time that the very lion which he had befriended was
sent thither, among many others, to supply the cruel sports of the
amphitheatre. The moment came when Androcles was to be torn in pieces.
A huge famished lion rushed forth in fury upon him; then paused, crept
gently towards him, and ended by fawning upon him with caressing
movements. It was the lion he had known in the desert.
This is no fable, but a piece of well-known history; and the sequel is
equally well-known, that the applause and admiration of all beholders
at this wonderful instance of fraternity between man and beast, at this
marvellous exemplification of the powers of memory and gratitude in a
wild animal, secured the lives both of slave and lion.
Had this been recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures, in that noble and
reverent phraseology which so often leaves out of sight all secondary
causes as by comparison insignificant, and ascribes all that is good
and wonderful directly to God, there can be little doubt that it would
have borne a striking resemblance to the miracles wrought in favour of
Elijah and Daniel; when for the one God commanded the ravens to feed
him, and the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning and
bread and flesh in the evening; and for the other God sent his angel
and stopped the mouths of the lions even in their den, and they did him
no hurt. Explain these miracles as you will, and the kindred one quoted
by St. Peter, or accept them all without explanation as occurrences
out of the course of nature and beyond our comprehension, it still
follows from the language of the sacred writers that they at least
supposed these brute creatures capable of intelligence, an intelligence
sufficient to receive the divine commands and to avoid, so far as they
might, opposition to God’s will. For how else could there be any moral
teaching in the circumstance that ‘the dumb ass speaking with man’s
voice forbad the madness of the prophet?’ How else can the miracle seem
anything else or anything better than a piece of puerile conjuring?
But this faculty, which the sacred writers therefore attribute to the
brutes, the faculty of hearing and obeying the voice of God, is the
basis of the highest intelligence, the basis of all true morality and
religion.
That which we are now concerned to prove is, that human reason is an
outgrowth and development of a faculty common to the whole animal
creation; that we are the heirs of the past in fact, as we are
inheritors of the future in hope; that an incalculable multitude of
small advantages acquired in successive generations has brought man to
his present vantage-ground of superiority; and that this very footing
of advantage has now become in its turn simply the starting-point for
future improvement to an estate indefinitely higher and better. It may
well be impossible in a few minutes’ discourse to do more than indicate
the bare outline of the proof; and even this might seem inappropriate
to the time and place, did we not hope to show further that these
opinions, startling or even dangerous as they may seem to some, give
support to high principles of humanity, and are in accordance with the
course and progress of God’s revelation of Himself to mankind.
It is well established that the human body in all its parts corresponds
to the structure of certain of the lower animals. When first discovered
this was extremely shocking to the sentiments of mankind, shocking
to their pride, but shocking also to their religious sentiment,
because they had been accustomed to speak of the ‘human form divine,’
to represent the supreme God, ‘Jehovah, Jove, or Lord,’ as wearing
the form and acting with the members of a man, and because in the
writings sacred alike to the Jew and to the Christian, they found it
written that God created man in His own image; in the image of God
created He him.’ They did not stop to enquire what sort of creation
was intended or what sort of likeness. They failed to observe that
the vague indefinite notion they entertained of a bodily likeness was
inconsistent with the Christian’s cardinal doctrine of the Incarnation,
according to which it is not man that wears the form of God, but God
that took upon him the form of man.
It will now for a time perhaps seem equally shocking that the mind
of man, which alone is left him for the divine resemblance, should
notwithstanding have been developed from the mind of a brute creature,
or if not developed, at any rate framed upon the same type and pattern.
A broad line has till lately been drawn between reason and instinct,
instinct appearing in a large number of instances to do or even to
surpass the work of reason, but within an exceedingly limited sphere,
and according to a fixed invariable course. Ingenious and thoughtful
men, however, taking their opinions not from hearsay and tradition, but
founding them on careful observation of the works and ways of God in
nature itself, have now shown the baselessness of this ancient estimate.
The bird building its nest does not follow an invariable rule,
but accommodates itself to circumstances, to the materials of the
locality, to the requirements of defence, as man does with his own
habitations. There is no proof that the bird builds untaught by its
elders, or that it does not improve by practice. Since wasps have been
known to construct their nest out of paper, itself a fabric of human
invention, it is impossible they can have chosen their material by an
original instinct. The cells which various bees construct attain to
various degrees of perfection, and imperfections may be found in the
most perfect. It has indeed been a curious fancy for men so long to
entertain, that though they were created in the image of God to have
dominion over the lower creatures, yet those creatures without reason,
without teaching, without the God-likeness, should be able to surpass
them, by a miracle or a mystery, in the accuracy or perfection of their
works.
The pursuit which man in a low state of civilization has ever thought
most noble is that of war. The essence of war lies in the combination
of forces and the choice of opportunity. Of both these the lower
animals are known to be capable. Their armies resemble human armies in
following leaders, in posting sentinels, in carrying off captives, in
making slaves. Creatures that are very weak combine not unfrequently
to repel or to destroy an antagonist immensely too strong for their
individual efforts. That rooks and other animals try, and execute
justice upon, offenders against the laws and customs of their society
is probable, if it cannot be absolutely proved.
The objection is sure to be urged that if the dumb animals have the
progressive plastic intelligence which is thus claimed for them,
it ought, in the innumerable generations which have existed, to
have attained to something far higher than there is any pretence
for thinking it to have done. But this objection leaves important
considerations out of sight. It is true here, as in so many cases,
that to him that hath shall more be given. The intelligence of man
reached a point not all at once but by degrees, at which it was able
to invent helps and appliances for its own benefit and improvement,
and thenceforward its strides were more rapid and its distinction from
lower intelligences more marked. Cancel the art of printing, cancel
the signs of the alphabet, cancel the forms of articulate language,
and with each one of these steps you will thrust back and degrade, not
perhaps every single human intellect, but certainly the whole mass
and average of human intelligence. There is no need to ask or answer
the question whether thought without language is possible: without
language thought cannot move, it has no grasp upon the world; it may
flicker for a moment in the mind that kindles it, as a light under a
bushel, but it cannot shine before men that they may see its goodness
and glorify their Father in heaven. We see the proof of this in races
of men that have no printed books, no symbols for writing, and but
feeble imperfect languages. Civilization is wanting to them; their
worship is degraded; in their habits and general morality they rise but
little above the brute creation. Moreover, century after century they
continue without making any apparent improvement or advance. Contrast
or compare with these the lower animal creation, and it will be found,
if not in its separate members, still in the whole group, not to fall
so infinitely below humanity as human beings have long been pleased to
imagine: for the lower animals can be taught to recognize man as their
superior and friend, though his mind is beyond their comprehension,
and a similar recognition is exactly what we men have to attain to in
regard to God; they can be taught by pleasure and pain, motives by
which we ourselves both in childhood and in age are taught, motives by
which God Himself declares that He teaches us, if we are to believe His
word.
That they are capable of our virtues has been shown in a notable
instance; that they are capable of our follies is clear in the
conspicuous vanity of the peacock; and no weakness cleaves more
pertinaciously to the human mind than this of vanity, which is often
found combined even with the noblest intellect. That they are
influenced by feelings like ours may be learned from the gay plumage
of the bird of Paradise, acquired under the same influence of the
preference and admiration of others, for which fair women wear fair
raiment, and for which the soldier, at extra risk to his life, is clad
in scarlet.
According to a principle now well known, the earlier the period of life
the greater the resemblance is likely to be between creatures akin to
one another. Hence we may explain the phenomenon that some children,
throughout their childhood prone to causeless mischief and stubborn
resistance, become at length reasonable and self-controlled men. As
for the child, so for the brute, a future of enlightened reason and
self-control may be in store. The largest and most generous minds are
now beginning to contemplate the possibility of an immortal destiny
for all animals whatsoever. To my own mind, as doubtless to many of
yours, such a conception has often seemed fanciful and ridiculous,
as the greatest and best notions often do to minds that are narrow
or unexpanded by a wisdom higher than their own. So it was that the
gossips and philosophers of Athens mocked when they heard of the
resurrection of the dead, though St. Paul was preaching only the
resurrection of human beings. To extend this belief in the resurrection
to all the animate creation is to extend our conception of the power
and the goodness of God, to make easy many things that otherwise seem
appallingly difficult in regard to His justice and His mercy. Does
it seem a thing impossible with you that God should raise the dead?
Is the Lord’s arm shortened that it cannot save, whether it be man,
or the worm that Scripture deems his fitting emblem? Or, as the Jews
were jealous that the Gentiles should be saved, are we jealous that
for creatures which we slaughter, trample on, enslave, and crowd out
of existence, happiness and life should yet be in store as well as for
ourselves?
Be willing to believe that language, reason, spiritual insight, which
is the reason elevated to the capacity of knowing God--be willing to
believe that these have been gradual acquisitions to humanity, and the
whole course of God’s Providence will at once stand out in a clearer,
purer light. Supposing the soul of man thousands of years back to have
been precisely what the soul of man is now, its requirements and its
aptitudes must have been the same then as they are to-day, so that
if the doctrine of the Trinity is essential now, it must have been
essential then, when it had not been revealed. On the same supposition,
too, either the record of God’s will in the earliest portion of the
Bible is incredibly defective, or the record of it in the completed
canon of Scripture must be charged with bewildering superfluity.
But God has not dealt so with His children. He has given them their
heavenly food as they were able to bear it. First by allegory and
parable He unfolds His will, as a father tells his little ones the
stories which they love to hear, minding ever within the stories and by
means of the stories to present the truth, the lessons of the beautiful
and the upright. The earliest revelation of God presents Him in the
simplest form, the easiest for us to understand, as the Great Patriarch
of mankind. Along with this revelation came simple commands and
prohibitions, the requirements of external sacrifice, the promise and
warning of temporal rewards and punishments. The law of retaliation, an
eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, seems brutal now, but it is the
beginning of a noble education. It says indeed, ‘Do to others as they
have done to you,’ but then in regard to injuries it bids you exact
no more than you have suffered, instead of taking a brutal revenge by
repaying the injury tenfold: and in regard to benefits it bids you
never forget to be grateful. From it springs the higher and better law,
of doing to others, not as they have done to you, but as you would
have them do to you. Without these beginnings the human mind could
never have comprehended or received the highest education--that we are
not only to forgive but to love our enemies. The system of material
sacrifices trained men to a capability of understanding and of offering
the sacrifice of the heart; the outward cleansings demanded by the law
led them by degrees to recognize the need of inward purity. By the law
came the knowledge of sin. Not till man knew that sin was sinful could
he either wish for or receive a Saviour. Hence it was that Christ came
not at the beginning, but only in the fulness of time. The gift of the
Holy Ghost was not outpoured till men in part were ready to receive
it. That it is still bestowed with so sparing a hand is not the fault
of God’s liberality, but of our backwardness to believe in God, to
commune with Him, and thereby to grow up into His likeness. We are the
mirror in which the divine image shines, if only the mirror can be made
to receive the requisite brightness.
To know that sin is sinful is to become conscious of the will of God,
to become conscious of a good and perfect will to which our own ought
to be conformed. Not to know this will is to be still brutish; to know
it only by the teaching of others is to be still among the things of
a child; to know it of oneself, which is in other words to know it by
the teaching of the Holy Ghost, who alone can implant the doctrine with
unfailing demonstration and enable us to receive His discipline,--this
at length is to be a man made in the image of God. For the fear of
the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and to depart from evil that
is understanding; and to love God with all the heart and all the
understanding and all the soul and all the strength, is the single aim
as it is the crowning effort of the highest and purest intelligence.
To be able to pray to God is the glory of reason; to do it, is the
safeguard of life.
THE LAPSE OF TIME.
The divergence of opinion between scientific and unscientific persons
is scarcely anywhere more conspicuous than in their measurements of the
age of the world we live in. A popular impression still prevails that
the old beldame earth, as Hotspur calls it, is about six thousand years
of age. A little margin is sometimes allowed. By an exercise of heroic
liberality a period of ten or twelve thousand years is occasionally
conceded for the earth’s existence. Any chronology discontented with
these ample limits comes within the domain of rash and dangerous
speculation. Some, indeed, who would fain conciliate all parties, are
willing to extend the bounds on certain conditions. They will grant a
large extra slice of time, provided that during that period the earth
was a shapeless uninhabited lump, or if inhabited, not inhabited by
men. ‘Come, now,’ says the cheap-jack, ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do with
you; I’ll throw you in another five thousand years; fifteen thousand
years! and take the lot. What! not do? I’ll make it twenty thousand.
Now, I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you: I’ll make it five-and-twenty
thousand years, and if that won’t satisfy you, you aren’t worth arguing
with.’
What scientific men think of the cheap-jack’s offer it is the object of
this essay to consider.