Recent Developments in European Thought — John Shaqi
Recent Developments in European Thought
Philosophy
Recent Developments in European Thought
Civilization; Progress
At any rate, the anti-intellectualism which M.
Bergson and his disciple, Professor Carr, seem to regard as fundamental
will have to go, unless different and better grounds can be found for
it. I must leave it to others to judge of the adequacy of this apology.
FOR REFERENCE
Varisco, _The Great Problem_ (Macmillan).
Varisco, _Know Thyself_ (Macmillan).
Aliotta, _The Idealistic Reaction against Science_ (Macmillan).
Bertrand Russell, _Our Knowledge of the External World_ (Open Court
Publishing Co.).
Bertrand Russell, _The Problems of Philosophy_ (Home University
Library).
A.N. Whitehead, _The Principles of Natural Knowledge_ (Cambridge Press).
G.E. Moore, _Ethics_ (H.U.L.).
W. McDougall, _Philosophy_ (H.U.L.).
A.N. Whitehead, _Introduction to Mathematics_ (H.U.L.).
III
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN EUROPEAN THOUGHT ON THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION
F.B. JEVONS
The living beings that exist or have existed upon the earth are of kinds
innumerable; and, in the opinion of man, the chief of them all is
mankind. Man, for the simple reason that he is man, is anthropomorphic
in all his judgements and not merely in his religious conceptions; he
holds himself to be the standard and measure in all things. If his right
so to regard himself were challenged, if he were called upon to justify
himself for having taken his foot as a unit of measurement, or his
fingers as the basis of his system of numbers, he might reply that
anything will serve as a standard for weights and measures, provided
that it never varies, but is always the same whenever referred to. But
the reply, valid though it is, does not do full justice to man: it
leaves room for the suspicion that a standard is something chosen by man
in a purely arbitrary manner and without reference to the facts of
nature. If that were really the case, then man's conception of himself
as superior to the other animals on earth might be but a prejudice of an
arbitrary kind. When, however, we consider, from the point of view of
evolution, the place of man among the other animals that occupy or have
occupied the earth, it is indubitable that the human organism is in
point of time the latest evolved and the human brain is in point of
complexity and efficiency the most highly developed. Further, the
evidence of embryology goes to show that the organism which has
eventually become human became so only by passing through successive
stages, each of which has its analogue in some of the existing forms of
animal life. Those forms of animal life exist side by side; and if we
conceive them to be represented diagrammatically by vertical lines,
differing in height according to their degree of evolution, the line
representing the human organism will be the tallest, and may be
considered to have become the tallest by successive increments or stages
corresponding to the height of the various other parallel vertical
lines.
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