Now, it flashed upon me a dozen years or so ago--after thinking about
this manner in which man originated--that man occupies certainly just as
exceptional a position as before, if he is the terminal in a long series
of evolutionary events. If at the end of the long history of evolution
comes man, if this whole secular process has been going on to produce
this supreme object, it does not much matter what kind of a cosmical
body he lives on. He is put back into the old position of theological
importance, and in a much more intelligent way than in the old days when
he was supposed to occupy the centre of the universe. We are enabled to
say that while there is no doubt of the evolutionary process going on
through countless ages which we know nothing about, yet in the one case
where it is brought home to us we spell out an intelligible story, and
we do find things working along up to man as a terminal fact in the
whole process. This is indeed a consistent conclusion from Wallace's
suggestion that natural selection, in working toward the genesis of man,
began to follow a new path and make psychical changes instead of
physical changes. Obviously, here you are started upon a new chapter in
the history of the universe. It is no longer going to be necessary to
shape new limbs, and to thicken the skin and make new growths of hair,
when man has learned how to build a fire, when he can take some other
animal's hide and make it into clothes. You have got to a new state of
things.
After I had put together all these additional circumstances with regard
to the origination of human society and the development of altruism, I
began to see a little further into the matter. It then began to appear
that not only is man the terminal factor in a long process of evolution,
but in the origination of man there began the development of the higher
psychical attributes, and those attributes are coming to play a greater
and greater part in the development of the human race. Just take this
mere matter of "altruism," as we call it. It is not a pretty word, but
must serve for want of a better. In the development of altruism from the
low point, where there was scarcely enough to hold the clan together, up
to the point reached at the present day, there has been a notable
progress, but there is still room for an enormous amount of improvement.
The progress has been all in the direction of bringing out what we call
the higher spiritual attributes. The feeling was now more strongly
impressed upon me than ever, that all these things tended to set the
whole doctrine of evolution into harmony with religion; that if the past
through which man had originated was such as has been described, then
religion was a fit and worthy occupation for man, and some of the
assumptions which underlie every system of religion must be true. For
example, with regard to the assumption that what we see of the present
life is not the whole thing; that there is a spiritual side of the
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