The Whence and the Whither of Man Part 11

This is the motto of all great parties in Church and State. Still social life has undoubtedly fostered thought. We think vastly more and better than primitive man; still we have much to learn. Society puts the experience of centuries at the service of every individual.

Poor and unsatisfactory as are our modes of education, they are a great blessing intellectually and will become more helpful.

And, after all, the friction of mind against mind in social life--provided social intercourse is this, and not the commingling of two vacua--is a continual education of inestimable advantage. And all these advantages would without language have been absolutely impossible. Intellectually our debt to society is inestimable.

And how does social life aid man morally? I cannot help believing that primitive society was the first school of the human conscience.

It was a rude school, but it taught man some grand lessons.

The primitive clan would seem to have existed as a rude army for the defence of its members and for offensive operations against enemies. Individual responsibility on the part of its members was slight for offences against individuals of other clans, or against the G.o.ds. For any such offence of one of its members the whole clan was held, or held itself, largely responsible. If one man sinned, the clan suffered. It could not therefore afford to pardon wilful disobedience to regulations made by it or its leaders. Its very existence depended on this strict discipline. And much the same stern discipline has to be maintained in our modern armies or they become utterly worthless.

Furthermore, man, as a social being, is very ready to accept the estimate of his actions placed upon them by his fellows. It is not easy to resist public opinion now. The tie of cla.s.s or professional feeling is a tremendous power for good and evil. It must have been almost irresistible in that primitive army, which summarily outlawed or killed the obstinately disobedient. But all obedience was lauded and rewarded. It had to be so. And if the tribe was worthy to survive, because its regulations were better than those of its rivals, or perhaps as nearly just and right as were well possible, it was altogether best and right it should be so. The voice of the people was, in a very rude, stammering way, the voice of G.o.d. And those who survived became more and more obedient, and found themselves, when disobedient, feeling debased, and mean, and unworthy, as their fellows considered them. And all this feeling tended to develop a conscience in the individual answering to the estimates and regulations of the community.

And remember that the primitive religion is a tribal religion. The G.o.ds felt toward a man just as his neighbors did. A public opinion of this sort is irresistible, and a man's conscience and estimate of himself and his actions must conform to it. But you may say a man may grant that this opinion is in a sense irresistible, and find himself very miserable and unhappy under its condemnation. But he would not feel remorse; this is a very different feeling. Possibly it may be. I am not so sure. But what I am interested in maintaining is that the condemnation of one's fellow-men puts more vividly before one's eyes, and emphasizes, the condemnation of one's own self. It may often be a necessary step in self-conviction. And what is most important, even in our own case, the condemnation of our fellows often brings with it self-condemnation.

Try the experiment, as you will some day, of following a course of action which you feel fairly confident is right, but which all your neighbors think is foolish and wrong. See if you do not feel twinges within you which you must examine very closely to distinguish from twinges of conscience. If you do not, I see but one explanation--you are conscious that G.o.d is with you, and content with this majority.

But in the case of primitive man G.o.d was always on the side of one's tribe.

Now this does not explain the origin of man's conception of right; it presupposes such a conception in some dim form. I do not now know why right is right or beauty beautiful. I only know they are so.

Where or when either of these perceptions dawned I do not know. But, given some such dim perception, I believe that primitive human society gave it its iron grip on every fibre of man's nature.

Before the animal could safely be allowed to govern itself intelligently it had to serve a long apprenticeship to reflex action and instinct. And man's moral nature had to undergo a similar apprenticeship to tribal regulation and tribal conscience. Only slowly was instinct modified and replaced by intelligent action. And how this old tribal conscience persists. Often for good, although there it were better replaced by an individual conscience working for right. But how slowly you and I learn that there is a higher responsibility than to party or cla.s.s. How often my vote and action are controlled, not by my own conscience, but by the opinion of my fellows, or the feeling that, if my party suffers defeat, G.o.d's work will suffer at the hands of my opponents. And what is all this but the survival in a very degenerate form of the old tribal conscience of primitive man? And he knew, and could know, nothing better: I can and do.

But society slowly works for unselfishness. The love learned in the family manifests itself in ever-widening circles; it must do so if it is the genuine article. It works for neighbors and friends, then for the poor and helpless of the community. Then it spreads to other communities and nations. For genuine love recognizes no bounds of time or place. Slowly we learn that we are our brother's keepers, and that the brotherhood cannot stop short of the human race.

Goodness and kindness radiate from one, perhaps unknown, member of the community to his fellows, and thence all over the world. And the world is the better for his one action.

Primitive society was thus the best possible school of conscience; and the family and it are the great school of unselfishness. But society is even more and better than this. It is the medium through which thought, power, and moral and religious life can spring from man to man. This is its last and culminating advantage: it is that for which society really exists.

For, in the close bonds of family and social life, a new possibility of development has arisen based upon articulate speech. We might almost call it a new form of heredity, independent of all blood-relationship. Progress in anatomical structure in the animal kingdom was slow, because any improvement could be transmitted only to the direct descendants of its original possessor. But in all matters pertaining to or based upon mind, a new invention, or idea, or system becomes the property of him who can best appreciate it.

The torch is always handed on to the swiftest runner. Thus Socrates is the true father of Plato, and Plato of Aristotle. Whoever can best understand and appreciate and enter into the spirit of Socrates and Plato becomes heir to their thoughts and interprets them to us.

And the thought of one man enriches all races and times.

But a great teacher like Socrates is not merely an intellectual power. "Probe a little deeper, surgeon," said the French soldier, "and you'll find the emperor." Napoleon may have impressed himself on the soldier's intellect; he had enthroned himself in his heart.

"Slave," said the old Roman, Marius, to the barbarian who had been sent into the dungeon to despatch him, "slave, wouldst thou kill Cains Marius?" And the barbarian, though backed by all the power of Rome, is said to have fled in dismay. Why did he run away? I do not know. I only know that I should have done the same. One more instance. Some thirty years ago the northern army was fleeing, a disorganized mob, toward Winchester. Early had fallen upon them suddenly in the gray of the morning, and, while one corps still held its ground, the rest of the army was melting away in panic. Then a little red-faced trooper came tearing down the line shouting, "Face the other way boys; face the other way." And those panic-stricken men turned and rolled an irresistible avalanche of heroes upon the Confederate lines. What made them turn about? It was something which I can neither define nor a.n.a.lyze--the personal power of Sheridan. It is the secret of every great leader of men. Now Sheridan had imparted more than information to these men. Is it too much to say that he put himself into them? From such men power streams out like electricity from a huge dynamo.

Now society furnishes the medium through which such a man can act.

You have all met such men, though probably not more than one or two of them. But one such man is a host. They may be men of few words.

But their very presence and look calls out all that is good in you; and while you are with them evil loses its power. Says the gay and licentious Alcibiades, in Plato's "Banquet" concerning Socrates:

"When I heard Pericles or any other great orator, I was entertained and delighted, and I felt that he had spoken well. But no mortal speech has ever excited in my mind such emotions as are excited by this magician. Whenever I hear him, I am, as it were, charmed and fettered. My heart leaps like an inspired Corybant. My inmost soul is stung by his words as by the bite of a serpent. It is indignant at its own rude and ign.o.ble character. I often weep tears of regret and think how vain and inglorious is the life I lead. Nor am I the only one that weeps like a child and despairs of himself. Many others are affected in the same way."

These men are the real kings. Their power for good, and sometimes for evil, is inestimable. And the great advantage of social life, as a means of conforming to environment, is the medium which it furnishes to conduct the power of such men. Man's last effort toward conformity to environment, the struggle for existence in its last most real form, is the life and death grapple between good and evil.

For here good and evil, righteousness and sin, come face to face in spiritual form; "we wrestle not with flesh and blood." Life is more than a game of chess or whist; it is a great battle; every man must, and does, take sides; he must fight or die. And the real kings of society are, as a rule, on the side of truth, and aid its triumph.

For one essential condition of such leadership is the power to inspire confidence in the love of the king for his willing subject.

A suspicion of selfish aims in the leader breaks this bond. The hero must be self-forgetful. This is one reason for man's hero-worship, and the magnetic, dominant power of the hero. But evil is essentially selfish and can gain and hold this kingship only as long as it can deceive. And these kings "live forever." Dynasties and empires disappear, but Socrates and Plato, Luther and Huss, Cromwell and Lincoln, rule an ever-widening kingdom of ever more loyal subjects.

And society will have leaders; men may set up whatever form of government they will, they are always searching for a king. And this is no sign of weakness or credulity. Man's desire for leadership is only another proof of the vast future which he knows is before him, and into which he longs to be guided. The wiser a man is, the more he desires to be taught; the n.o.bler he becomes, the more whole-souled is the homage which he pays to the n.o.blest. Is it a sign of weakness or ignorance in students, of adult age and ripe manhood, to flock to some great university to hear the wisdom and catch the inspiration of some great master? When Jackson fell Lee exclaimed, "I have lost my right arm." Was Jackson any the less for being the right arm to deal, as only he could, the crushing blows planned by the great strategist?

But is not man to be independent and free? Certainly. But he gains freedom from the petty tyranny of robber-baron or boss, and from the very pettiest tyranny of all, the service of self, only as he finds and enlists under the king. Serve self and it will plunge you in, and drag you through, the ditch, till your own clothes abhor you.

You are free to choose your teacher and guide and example. But choose you will and must. I am not propounding theories; I am telling you facts. Whether for better or worse man always does and will choose because he must. Look about you, look into yourselves.

Have you no hero whom you admire and strive to resemble? no teacher to whom you listen? You must and do have your example and teacher.

Is he teaching you to conform to environment, or leading you to be ground in pieces by its forces all arrayed against you?

The Carpenter of Nazareth stood before Pilate. "And Pilate said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice." And Pilate would not wait for the answer to his question, What is truth? and the Jews chose Barabbas.

Would you and I have acted differently? The answer of our Lord to Pilate contains the essence of Christianity. "You a king," says Pilate in astonishment; "where is your power to enforce your authority?" And our Lord's answer seems to me to mean substantially this: Roman legions shall suffer defeat, rout, and extermination; and Roman power shall cease to terrify. All its might must decay.

But "everyone that is of the truth" shall attach himself to me with a love which will brave rack and stake. All your power cannot give a grain of new life. I can and will infuse my own divine life, my own divine _self_, into men. And this new life is invincible, immortal, all-conquering. I have infused myself into a few fishermen, and they will infuse _me_ into a host of other men. Thus I will transfigure into my own character every man in the world, who is of the truth, and therefore will hear my voice. All the power of Rome cannot prevent it, and whatever opposes it must go down before it.

Christianity is the contagion of a divine life. Society is the medium through which it could and was to work. Greece had prepared the language necessary for its spread. Roman power had built its highways and levelled all obstructions.

"A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts."

But, you will object, the grandest kings have had, as a rule, the fewest loyal subjects. The prophets and seers are stoned. Elijah stands alone on Carmel and opposed to him are more than a thousand prophets of Baal, with court and king at their head. Heroism does not pay, and heroes are few. Right is always in a hopeless minority.

Let us look into this matter carefully, for the objection, even if overstated, certainly contains a large amount of truth.

Let us go back to two forms having much the same grade of organization: both worms. One of them sets out to become a vertebrate, building an internal skeleton. The other forms an external skeleton and becomes a crab. To form its skeleton the crab had only to thicken the cuticle already present in the annelid. It had to modify the already existing parapodia and their muscles, changing them to legs. The external skeleton gave from the start a double advantage--protection and better locomotion. Every grain of thickening aided the animal in the struggle for existence in both these ways. The very fact that the skeleton was external may have rendered it more liable to variation, because it was thus exposed to continual stimuli. And the best were rapidly sifted out by Natural Selection. The change and development went on with comparative rapidity. In the mollusk the change was apparently still more easy and the development still more rapid.

But the development of an internal skeleton was more difficult and slower. It was of no use for the protection of the animal, and only gradually did it become of much service in locomotion. Being deep-seated it very possibly changed all the more slowly.

Furthermore, a cartilaginous rod, like the notochord, even fully developed, hardly enabled the animal to fight directly with the mail-clad crab. The internal skeleton had to become far more highly developed before its great advantages, and freedom from disadvantages, became apparent. The mollusk and crab were working a mine rich in surface deposits although soon exhausted. The vertebrate lead was poor at the surface, and only later showed its inexhaustible richness. It looked as if the vertebrate were making a very poor speculation.

Whether this explanation be true or not, a glance at a chart, showing the geological succession of occurrence of the different kingdoms, proves that in the oldest palaeozoic periods there were well-developed cuttlefish and crabs before there were any vertebrates worthy of the name. If any were present, their skeleton was purely cartilaginous and not preserved.

I think we may go farther, although in this latter consideration we may very possibly be mistaken. We have already seen that the progress made by any animal may be measured more or less accurately by the length of time during which its ancestors maintained a swimming life. The ancestors of the coelenterates settled to the bottom first. Then successively those of flatworms, mollusks, annelids, and crabs. All this time the ancestors of vertebrates were swimming in the water above. Food was probably more abundant, certainly more easily and economically obtained by a creeping life, on the bottom. But thither the vertebrate could not go. There his mail-clad compet.i.tors were too strong for him. Those which settled and tried to compete in this sort of life perished. We may have to except the ascidia, but they paid for their success by the loss of nearly all their vertebrate characteristics. The future progress of vertebrates depended upon their continual activity in the swimming life. And they were forced by their environment to maintain this.

Otherwise they might, probably would, never have attained their present height of organization. Certainly at this time you would have found it hard to believe that the victory was to fall to these weaker and smaller vertebrates.

Let us come down to a later period. Reptiles, mammals, and birds are struggling for supremacy. Of the power and diversity of form of these old reptiles we have generally no adequate conception. The forms now living are but feeble remnants. There were huge sea-serpents, and forms like our present crocodiles, but far more powerful. Others apparently resembled in form and habit the herbivorous and carnivorous mammals of to-day. Others strode or leaped on two legs. And still others flew like bats or birds. They were terrible forms, with coats of mail and powerful jaws and teeth.

And they were active and swift. When we look at them we see that the vertebrate, though slow in gaining the lead, is sure to hold it. The internal skeleton gave fewer advantages at the start; its greatest superiority had lain in future possibilities.

But which vertebrate is heir to the future? It would have been a hard choice between reptile and bird. I feel sure that I, for one, should not have selected the mammal, a small, feeble being, hiding in holes and ledges, and continually hard put to it to escape becoming a mouthful for some huge reptile. And yet the persecution, the impossibility of contending by brute strength, may have forced the mammal into the line of brain-building and placental development. The early development of mammals appears to have been slow. Palaeontology proves that they were long surpa.s.sed by reptiles and birds. But the little mammal had the future. The battle was to go against the strong.

Once again. The arboreal life of higher mammals would seem to be most easily explained by the view that they were driven to it by stronger carnivorous mammals having possession of the ground. Brain was good, for it planned escape from enemies. But it did not give its possessor immediate victory over muscle, tooth, and claw in the tiger. That was to come far later with the invention of traps and guns. Brain gave its possessor a sure hold of the future, and just enough of the present to enable it to survive by a hard struggle.

And the same appears to have been true of primitive man.

Thus all man's ancestors have had to lead a life of continual struggle against overwhelming odds and of seeming defeat. It was a life of hardship, if not of positive suffering. The organ which was to give them future supremacy, whether it was backbone, placenta, or brain, could in its earlier stages aid them only to a hardly won survival. The present apparently, and really as far as freedom from discomfort and danger is concerned, always belongs to forms hopelessly doomed to degeneration or stagnation. Crabs, not primitive vertebrates, were masters of the good things of the sea; and, in later times, reptiles, not mammals, of those of the land.

Any progressive form has to choose between the present and the future. It cannot grasp both. I am not propounding to you any metaphysical theories, but plain, dry, hard facts of palaeontology; explain them as you will.

And here we must add our last word about conformity to environment; and it is a most important consideration. Conformity to environment is not such an adaptation as will confer upon an animal the greatest immunity from discomfort or danger, or will enable it to gain the greatest amount of food and place, and produce the largest number of offspring. Indeed, if you will add one element to those mentioned above, namely, that all these shall be attained with the least amount of effort, they insure degeneration beyond a doubt. This is the conformity of the bivalve mollusk. The clam has abundance of food, enormous powers of reproduction, almost perfect protection against enemies, and lives a life of almost absolute freedom from discomfort, and the clam is really lower than most worms.

If an animal is to progress, it must keep such a conformity ever secondary to a still more important element, namely, conformity or obedience to the laws of its own structure and being. This second element the mollusk and every creeping stage neglected, and the result of this neglect was stagnation or degeneration. Activity was essential to progress from the very structure and laws of development of the animal, while a great abundance of food was not.

A life of ease, for the same reason, necessarily results in degeneration.

But you will ask, What becomes of Mr. Darwin's theory of evolution, if obedience to the laws of individual being is more important than conformity to external conditions? Both are evidently necessary, and they are not so different as they may seem at first sight. They are really one and the same. Bringing out the best and highest there is in us, is the only true conformity to that which is deepest and surest and most enduring in our environment. That in environment which makes for digestion is almost palpable and tangible, that which makes for activity less so perhaps; but that which makes for brain and truth and right is intangible and invisible. We easily fail to notice it; and, unless we take a careful view of the course of development in the highest forms of life, we may be inclined to deny its existence. But it is surely there, if man is a product of evolution.

Each successive stage of animal life is not the preceding stage on a higher plane, but the preceding stage modified in conformity to the environment of that from which it has just arisen. Says Professor Hertwig[A]: "During the process of organic development the external is continually becoming an integral part of the individual. The germ is continually growing and changing at the expense of surrounding conditions." Every stage thus contains the result of a host of reactions to a ruder and older portion of environment. And the higher we go the more has the original protoplasm and structure been modified as the result of these reactions.

[Footnote A: Hertwig: Zeit- und Streitfragen, p. 82.]

We have seen clearly that environment must be studied through its effect upon living beings. Viewed from any other standpoint it appears to be a myriad, almost a chaos, of interacting, apparently conflicting, forces. The resultant of some of these is shown by the animal at any stage of its development. And as the animal advances, the resultant determining its new line, or stage, of advance, includes new forces, to which it has only lately become sensitive.

And thus the human mind, as the last and highest product of evolution, mirrors most adequately the resultant of all its forces.

If we would know environment we must study ourselves, not atoms alone, nor rocks, nor worms.

Extremely sensitive photographic plates, after long exposure, have proven the existence of stars so dim and far-off as to be invisible to the best telescopes. Man's mind is just such a sensitive plate; it is the only valid representation of environment.