Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/381

* EVOLUTION. 333 EVOBfUTION. germs of morality, or the right relations between man and man, gradually evolved. As the population of a given tribe or aggre- gate ni tribes increased, there ensued a differ* n tiation of the trades and arts, a separation into political and religious classes, and finally a de- gree of civilization, of which the Egyptian type was the earliest, in which an alphabet gradually replaced hieroglyphics, and a complicated reli- gious ceremonial and theology superseded savage riles. The new man, with his moral nature en- hanced, his imagination aroused, his memories of the past handed down by poets and scalds, his thoughts turning upward and away from ani- mal existence, became gradually, in the noblest specimens of his race, actuated by entirely new Bets of ideas, and the factors of bis moral devel- opment began to act with increasing force. Religious Evolution. Besides the purely mural factors, all through the course of man's development the religious feelings were constantly active and growing. The lowest savage prac- tices religious rites, worships material emblems of a higher or supreme power, or fetishes which stand for a rude idea of worship (protection from the ills of life), while the most primitive man has some slight conception of a future life. Yielding to his murderous instincts, the earliest fratricide or thief, reflecting on his crime, would experience self-accusing feelings of remorse, and there would follow the expiation for the crime, or the feeling that one may be saved from the re- sults of wrongdoing by propitiating the higher powers. The functions of the earliest physician, theologian, and philosopher were combined in the first 'medicine man,' and primitive theology also held the germs of primitive science. At first gross and materialistic conceptions of religion prevailed. Nature-worship was succeeded by polytheism, and this by monotheism. Theology has gradually been purified; genuine religion, be- sides the worship of goodness or God, has devel- oped love for man, and the factors in religious evolution have been faith, hope, and charity, and an increased observance of the 'golden rule.' Summary and Conclusion. Life appears to have been a necessary and inevitable result of inorganic or cosmic evolution. It came into be- ing on our planet in the most natural way as soon as the temperature of the originally super- heated planetary mass became sufficiently low- ered, and the gaseous matter had been condensed into a universal sea. It arose by the action of physico-chemical laws, through what we call spontaneous generation, the materials for the for- mation of the first hit of living protoplasm being ready at hand. When once formed, motion, change, and the action of the primary factors, ex- erted through a great length of time, resulted in the differentiation or divergence of characters, and specialization went on, conditioned by and dependent on the increasing changes in the in- ternal structure and physical geography of the globe. Variation was most probably neither fortuitous nor by chance, but was due to changes in the environment, and therefore was necessarily in di- rect relation with such changes, resulting in the wonderful adaptation, variety, beauty, and har- mony reigning through the organic world. Putting together all the facts of geology and biology observed during the past century, a few of the more observant and thoughtful naturalists have, by the inductive method, to some extent worked oui the mechanism oi evolution, The theory is I working one. indi pen abb research. Still, we know only in pari the guid- ing, controlling cause. Tl to t»i ome- thing more than the action of the physical tors and natural election which we cannot fathom. There has evidentlj been all throu the process a mollifying power, the nature of which science has iioi yet gra ped. The striking fad in the whole course of evolution is that progress has been along cert i eful and beneficent lines; that the ill-fitted, inadapted, degenerate, useless, however useful ai first, have had to make way for higher forms better adapted to continually (hanging and improving condi- tions. Intelligence, mind, order, harmony, sys- tem, and good, rather than bad conditions, have resulted from and operated since the original chaos when physical force, energy, alone pre- vailed. There is a constant tendency -ecu in lhe evolution of the more favored human races toward improvement intellectual, moral, and spiritual. Epoch-making men, the highest repre- sentatives of our race, have shaped the age in which they lived, and in various directions given this and that impetus to the upward progress. There has been a directive force through it all, which has controlled and led life-forms along definite paths. Natural selection alone, or the action of the primary factors, cannot entirely account for it. The universe, our world, life, and nature, were not self-evolved. It seems to be a reasonable induction that a self-conscious power and will outside of, and yet immanent in. matter, gave the first impress to the nascent universe, what we call natural laws being the mode of working, and in some unknown way providing the germs of self-progress along improving lines. The evolution theory and its implications, therefore, immeasurably enhance our conception of Deity, and suggest most strongly that there is a divinity which has shaped pur ends. The outcome of the whole is optimism, hope, giving the certitude that man's future will brighten, and that as the ages roll on life will be far more worth living than even now. History of the Evolution Theory. Aristotle (B.C. 384-322) may be regarded as the father of the theory of descent, although Kmpedocles has been credited with the conception. The latter taught in a vague way the fact of the gradual succession of life-forms from the less to the more perfect, though he did not claim any ge- netic relation, but believed that they were sepa- rately created. The wonderfully comprehensive mind of Aristotle, who was the first anato- mist, conceived of a genetic series, of a chain of being from polyps to man; he perceive. 1 the won- derful adaptation in nature, the principle of the physiological division of labor, and regarded lifo as the function of the organism, not as a sepa rate principle. He recognized the fact of hered ity, atavism, and believed in the inheritance of mutilations. The nearest approach which the didactic poet Lucretius made to the evolution idea is to be found in his account of the development of the faculties and arts among the human races. Saint Augustine (a.d. 354-130) spoke of the creation of things by series of causes, and Thomas Aquinas (1226-74) expounded and upheld Saint