Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/69

Rh with improved organs of sense to receive impressions from this better outer world, improved modes of action, and above all in place, and superior to all in function, an organ of intelligence was added. The old methods of soul-manifestation continue; both reflex and instinctive action find their appropriate place in the higher organization; but they are not sufficient for the numerous and complex relations which now existed between the creature and the outer world; then the cerebro-spinal system comes into being, consciousness becomes perfected, intelligence established, and reason dawns.

Again, ages elapsed in gradual changes, until at length man, the crowning excellence, appeared—an upright form, a powerful brain, a soul capable of tracing causes, and even seeking to find out the First Cause. He was the first to place an ideal—his highest conception of good—before himself, and say, "Now for this will I strive;" the first of all the long line of sentient beings to aspire after a higher life; the first to say within himself, "I shall die," or ask, with ever-increasing interest, "Shall I live again?"

And what is the relation of science, especially as represented by the doctrine of evolution, to this aspiration after a future life? The objections raised against the doctrine by the religious world—the uninstructed part, at least—are that it banishes Deity and tends to materialism.

If by banishing Deity is meant that conception of him which particular sects or peoples have obtained, and are each desirous that all the world should have, the objection may or may not have foundation; but, if it is meant that the doctrine shuts out a great first and adequate cause for all the grand and orderly series of events and existences in Nature, nothing could be further from the truth. The desire to seek for causes is one of the developments of the human mind, increasing in direct ratio with the increase of intelligence. Brute intelligence exhibits no such desire. The savage mind does not rise far into that sphere of intelligence which demands causes; it is only as a higher reasoning power dawns that analysis commences, and causes are sought after; and the higher the intelligence and stronger the power of reason, the more imperative the demand for causes, and the more perfect the comprehension of them.

What is true of causes in general is true in a still greater degree of remote causes, and of a first cause; and hence that which we should expect to occur is found to be the fact, namely, that the scientific men of the present time, the well-developed and well-cultivated minds in all departments of learning, but especially in physical science, are the ones most fully established in an intelligent belief in an adequate first cause. The time is past in which the feeblest artificial works found upon the surface of a single planet, even to the flint-hewn weapons of an unknown race, must have assigned for them a competent originator, and yet man himself, with his complex organization, the long line of