The Whence and the Whither of Man: A Brief History of His Origin and Development through Conformity to Environment; Being the Morse Lectures of 1895Tyler, John M. (John Mason)
Religion
The Whence and the Whither of Man: A Brief History of His Origin and Development through Conformity to Environment; Being the Morse Lectures of 1895
Tyler, John M. (John Mason)
Evolution
We have seen that the sequence of functions in animal development
has culminated in man's rational, moral nature. He alone has the
clear perception of the reality of right, truth, and duty. The
pursuit of these has made him what he is. His advance, if there is
any continuity in history, depends upon his making these the ruling
motives and aims of his life. He must continually grow in
righteousness and unselfishness, if he is not to degenerate and give
place to some other product of evolution. Moreover, as these moral
faculties are capable of indefinite, if not infinite, development,
they must dominate his life through a future of indefinite duration.
For the length of the period of dominance of a function has always
been proportional to the capacity of that function for future
development. These can never, so far as we can see, be superseded,
for no rival to them can be discovered. We have found in them the
culmination of the sequence of functions.
We have attempted to show in this lecture that reversal of this
grand sequence has always led to degeneration, or, in higher forms,
far more frequently, to extinction. As we ascend, natural selection
works more, rather than less, unsparingly. And as advance depends
upon conformity to environment, and as the highest forms must be
regarded as therefore most completely conformed, we gain our most
adequate knowledge of environment when we study it as working
especially for these. For these have been from the very beginning
its far-off, chief aim and goal. Viewed from this standpoint,
environment proves to be a host of interacting forces uniting in a
resultant "power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness," and
unselfishness.
Inasmuch as man's rational moral nature, his personality, is the
result of the last and longest step toward and in conformity to
environment, these powers correspond to that which is at the same
time highest, and deepest, and most fundamental in that environment.
This power which makes for righteousness is therefore to be regarded
as personal and spiritual rather than material. It is God immanent
in nature. And it is mainly to this personal and spiritual element
in his environment that man is in the future to more completely
conform. Conformity to this element in man's environment does not so
much result in life as it _is_ life; failure to conform is death.
And the pressure of environment upon man, compelling him to choose
between life through conformity and non-conformity with death, can
be most naturally and adequately explained as the expression of his
will. We know what he requires of us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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