The Universal KinshipMoore, J. Howard (John Howard)
Philosophy
The Universal Kinship
Moore, J. Howard (John Howard)
Evolution; Human beings; Sociology
The doctrine of organic evolution, which forever established the
common genesis of all animals, sealed the doom of
anthropocentricism. Whatever the inhabitants of this world were or
were thought to be before the publication of ‘The Origin of
Species,’ they never could be anything since then but a _family_.
The doctrine of evolution is probably the most important revelation
that has come to the world since the illuminations of Galileo and
Copernicus. The authors of the Copernican theory enlarged and
corrected human understanding by disclosing to man the comparative
littleness of his world—by discovering that the earth, which had
up to that time been supposed to be the centre and capital of
cosmos, is in reality a satellite of the sun. This heliocentric
discovery was hard on human conceit, for it was the first broad hint
man had thus far received of his true dimensions. The doctrine of
evolution has had, and is having, and is destined to continue to
have, a similarly correcting effect on the naturally narrow
conceptions of men. It tends to fry the conceit out of us. It has
been impossible since Darwin for any sane and honest man to go
around bragging about having been ‘made in the image of his
maker,’ or to successfully lay claim to a more honourable origin
than the rest of the creatures of the earth. And if men had accepted
the logical consequences of Darwin’s teachings, the world would
not to-day—a half-century after his revelation—be filled with
practices which find their only support and justification in
out-of-date traditions. But logical consequences, as Huxley
observes, are the official scarecrows of that large and prolific
class of defectives usually known as fools. The doctrine of
evolution is accepted in one form or another by practically all who
think. It is taught even in school primers. But while the _biology_
of evolution is scarcely any longer questioned, the _psychology_ and
_ethics_ of the Darwinian revelation, though following from the same
premises, and almost as inevitably, are yet to be generally
realised. Darwin’s revelation, like every other revelation that
has come to the world, is perceived most tardily by those working in
departments where the phenomena are the most intangible and
complicated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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