Improvableness of Man.
For the creation of Man was by no means the creation of a perfect being.
The most essential feature of Man is his improvableness, and since his
first appearance on the earth the changes that have gone on in him have
been enormous, though they have continued to run along in the lines of
development that were then marked out. The changes have been so great
that in many respects the interval between the highest and the lowest
men far surpasses quantitatively the interval between the lowest men and
the highest apes. If we take into account the creasing of the cerebral
surface, the difference between the brain of a Shakespeare and that of
an Australian savage would doubtless be fifty times greater than the
difference between the Australian's brain and that of an orang-outang.
In mathematical capacity the Australian, who cannot tell the number of
fingers on his two hands, is much nearer to a lion or wolf than to Sir
Rowan Hamilton, who invented the method of quaternions. In moral
development this same Australian, whose language contains no words for
justice and benevolence, is less remote from dogs and baboons than from
a Howard or a Garrison. In progressiveness, too, the difference between
the lowest and the highest races of men is no less conspicuous. The
Australian is more teachable than the ape, but his limit is nevertheless
very quickly reached. All the distinctive attributes of Man, in short,
have been developed to an enormous extent through long ages of social
evolution.
This psychical development of Man is destined to go on in the future as
it has gone on in the past. The creative energy which has been at work
through the bygone eternity is not going to become quiescent to-morrow.
We have learned something of its methods of working, and from the
careful observation of the past we can foresee the future in some of its
most general outlines. From what has already gone on during the historic
period of man's existence, we can safely predict a change that will by
and by distinguish him from all other creatures even more widely and
more fundamentally than he is distinguished today. Whenever in the
course of organic evolution we see any function beginning as incidental
to the performance of other functions, and continuing for many ages to
increase in importance until it becomes an indispensable strand in the
web of life, we may be sure that by a continuance of the same process
its influence is destined to increase still more in the future. Such has
been the case with the function of sympathy, and with the ethical
feelings which have grown up along with sympathy and depend largely upon
it for their vitality. Like everything else which especially
distinguishes Man, the altruistic feelings were first called into
existence through the first beginnings of infancy in the animal world.
Their rudimentary form was that of the transient affection of a female
bird or mammal for its young. First given a definite direction through
the genesis of the primitive human family, the development of altruism
has formed an important part of the progress of civilization, but as yet
it has scarcely kept pace with the general development of intelligence.
There can be little doubt that in respect of justice and kindness the
advance of civilized man has been less marked than in respect of
quick-wittedness. Now this is because the advancement of civilized man
has been largely effected through fighting, through the continuance of
that deadly struggle and competition which has been going on ever since
organic life first appeared on the earth. It is through such fierce and
perpetual struggle that the higher forms of life have been gradually
evolved by natural selection. But we have already seen how in many
respects the evolution of Man was the opening of an entirely new chapter
in the history of the universe. In no respect was it more so than in the
genesis of the altruistic emotions. For when natural selection, through
the lengthening of childhood, had secured a determinate development for
this class of human feelings, it had at last originated a power which
could thrive only through the elimination of strife. And the later
history of mankind, during the past thirty centuries, has been
characterized by the gradual eliminating of strife, though the process
has gone on with the extreme slowness that marks all the work of
evolution. It is only at the present clay that, by surveying human
history from the widest possible outlook, and with the aid of the habits
of thought which the study of evolution fosters, we are enabled
distinctly to observe this tendency. As this is the most wonderful of
all the phases of that stupendous revolution in nature which was
inaugurated in the Creation of Man, it deserves especial attention here;
and we shall find it leading us quite directly to our conclusion. From
the Origin of Man, when thoroughly comprehended in its general outlines,
we shall at length be able to catch some glimpses of his Destiny.