_Man's Rise from the Innocence of Brutehood_
We have first to note that in various ways the action of natural
selection has been profoundly modified in the course of the development
of mankind from a race of inferior creatures. One of the chief factors
in the production of man was the change that occurred in the direction
of the working of natural selection, whereby in the line of man's direct
ancestry the variations in intelligence came to be seized upon,
cherished, and enhanced, to the comparative neglect of variations in
bodily structure. The physical differences between man and ape are less
important than the physical differences between African and South
American apes. The latter belong to different zo÷logical families, but
the former do not. Zo÷logically, man is simply one genus in the
old-world family of apes. Psychologically, he has travelled so far from
apes that the distance is scarcely measurable. This transcendent
contrast is primarily due to the change in the direction of the working
of natural selection. The consequences of this change were numerous and
far-reaching. One consequence was that gradual lengthening of the
plastic period of infancy which enabled man to became a progressive
creature, and organized the primeval semi-human horde into definite
family groups. I have elsewhere expounded this point, and it is known as
my own especial contribution to the theory of evolution.
Another associated consequence, which here more closely concerns us, was
the partial stoppage of the process of natural selection in remedying
unfitness. A quotation from Herbert Spencer will help us to understand
this partial stoppage: "As fast as the faculties are multiplied, so fast
does it become possible for the several members of a species to have
various kinds of superiorities over one another. While one saves its
life by higher speed, another does the like by clearer vision, another
by keener scent, another by quicker hearing, another by greater
strength, another by unusual power of enduring cold or hunger, another
by special sagacity, another by special timidity, another by special
courage.... Now ... each of these attributes, giving its possessor an
extra chance of life, is likely to be transmitted to posterity. But" it
is not nearly so likely to be increased by natural selection. For "if
those members of the species which have but ordinary" or even deficient
shares of some valuable attribute "nevertheless survive by virtue of
other superiorities which they severally possess, then it is not easy to
see how this particular attribute can be" enhanced in subsequent
generations by natural selection.[2]
These considerations apply especially to the human race with its
multitudinous capacities, and I can better explain the case by a crude
and imperfect illustration than by a detailed and elaborate statement.
If an individual antelope falls below the average of the herd in speed,
he is sure to become food for lions, and thus the high average of speed
in the herd is maintained by natural selection. But if an individual man
becomes a drunkard, though his capabilities be ever so much curtailed by
this vice, yet the variety of human faculty furnishes so many hooks with
which to keep one's hold upon life that he may sin long and flagrantly
without perishing; and if the drunkard survives, the action of natural
selection in weeding out drunkenness is checked. There is thus a wide
interval between the highest and lowest degrees of completeness in
living that are compatible with maintenance of life. Mankind has so many
other qualities beside the bad ones, which enable it to subsist and
achieve progress in spite of them, that natural selection--which always
works through death--cannot come into play.
Now it is because of this _interval_ between the highest and lowest
degrees of completeness of living that are compatible with the mere
maintenance of life, that men can be distinguished as morally bad or
morally good. In inferior animals, where there is no such interval,
there is no developed morality or conscience, though in a few of the
higher ones there are the germs of these things. Morality comes upon the
scene when there is an alternative offered of leading better lives or
worse lives. And just as up to this point the actions of the forefathers
of mankind have been determined by the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance
of pain, so now they begin to be practically determined by the pursuit
of goodness and avoidance of evil. This rise from a bestial to a moral
plane of existence involves the acquirement of the knowledge of good and
evil. Conscience is generated to play a part analogous to that played by
the sense of pain in the lower stages of life, and to keep us from wrong
doing. To the mere love of life, which is the conservative force that
keeps the whole animal world in existence, there now comes gradually to
be superadded the feeling of religious aspiration, which is nothing more
nor less than the yearning after the highest possible completeness of
spiritual life. In the lower stages of human development this religious
aspiration has as yet but an embryonic existence, and moral obligations
are still but imperfectly recognized. It is only after long ages of
social discipline, fraught with cruel afflictions and grinding misery,
that the moral law becomes dominant and religious aspiration intense and
abiding in the soul. When such a stage is reached, we have at last in
man a creature different in kind from his predecessors, and fit for an
everlasting life of progress, for a closer and closer communion with God
in beatitude that shall endure.