Essays Upon Some Controverted Questions — John Shaqi
Essays Upon Some Controverted QuestionsHuxley, Thomas Henry
Religion
Essays Upon Some Controverted Questions
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Science
10. The results of the process of evolution in the case of man, and in that
of his more nearly allied contemporaries, have been marvellously different.
Yet it is easy to see that small primitive differences of a certain order,
must, in the long run, bring about a wide divergence of the human stock
from the others. {47} It is a reasonable supposition that, in the earliest
human organisms, an improved brain, a voice more capable of modulation and
articulation, limbs which lent themselves better to gesture, a more perfect
hand, capable among other things of imitating form in plastic or other
material, were combined with the curiosity, the mimetic tendency, the
strong family affection, of the next lower group; and that they were
accompanied by exceptional length of life and a prolonged minority. The
last two peculiarities are obviously calculated to strengthen the family
organisation, and to give great weight to its educative influences. The
potentiality of language, as the vocal symbol of thought, lay in the
faculty of modulating and articulating the voice. The potentiality of
writing, as the visual symbol of thought, lay in the hand that could draw;
and in the mimetic tendency, which, as we know, was gratified by drawing,
as far back as the days of Quaternary man. With speech as the record, in
tradition, of the experience of more than one generation; with writing as
the record of that of any number of generations; the experience of the
race, tested and corrected generation after generation, could be stored up
and made the starting point for fresh progress. Having these perfectly
natural factors of the evolutionary process in man before us, it seems
unnecessary to go further a-field in search of others.
11. That the doctrine of evolution implies a former state of innocence of
mankind is quite true; but, as I have remarked, it is the innocence of the
ape and of {48} the tiger, whose acts, however they may run counter to the
principles of morality, it would be absurd to blame. The lust of the one
and the ferocity of the other are as much provided for in their
organisation, are as clear evidences of design, as any other features that
can be named.
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