CHAPTER XIV.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION.

BEFORE attempting to draw a conclusion from the various considerations contained in the foregoing chapters it will be a convenience briefly to sum up those to which we have already arrived, in an order somewhat different, but for our present purpose more direct, than that employed in the con

text.

The history of Evolution divides itself into two epochs: The first, in which the principle of natural selection had its own way unchecked in the world; the second, throughout which the principle of natural selection has been in a great measure defeated by the more or less conscious efforts of man.

During the first epoch the principle of the survival of the fittest put man at the head of the predatory system. This system tended to divide animals into those who hunted and those who were hunted. The former tended automatically to improve their weapons of attack; the latter continued automatically to improve their weapons of defence or flight. Ferocity was the quality developed in the

one, and fear that developed in the other. But the ferocity that served to put the great carnivora at the head of the predatory system served also to render individuals of the same species unfit for social life. The great carnivora, therefore, are solitary animals. On the other hand, the intelligence which enabled man by the use of tools to make himself more dreaded than the strongest of the carnivora made it also possible for man to accommodate himself to social life. The exactions of social life put upon him the necessity of self-restraint, and through self-restraint gradually developed qualities that tended to differentiate him from other animals more characteristically than any mere increase in cerebral development. In other words, man became different from the lower animals more by virtue of his moral than by virtue of his intellectual qualities. Gradually the pleasure that attends the exercise of any self-improving faculty converted the arduous exercise of self-restraint under the compulsion of fear, into a willing exercise of self-restraint under the stimulus of love of approbation. Meanwhile there gradually developed in man's mind a faculty of attaining abstract ideas, and out of that faculty sprang speculation regarding his origin and mission. These and other kindred questions have been defined as religious. Religion created a new set of motives which, acting in co-operation with the exactions of social life, gradually converted the qualities which man derived from his savage ancestors into virtues which are characteristically opposed to

those from which they are derived. Thus passion became converted into love, which has been shown to be so different from passion as almost to exclude it. Fear became converted into reverence, ferocity into courage; reverence being respect without fear, and courage nerve without ferocity. A study of the development of passion and ferocity into love and courage demonstrates the large part which human effort has played in the transformation. Now this human effort has been directed against the animal instincts-that is to say, against those qualities which, through the process of Evolution, had put man at the head of the predatory system. One of the tendencies, therefore, of man's effort has been to diminish his ability to hold his own in the struggle for existence; for love in the advance of civilisation tends to degenerate, through luxury, into lasciviousness, and courage to disappear with the disuse of ferocity.

But man did not confine his efforts against Nature to moral qualities alone. As his knowledge of Nature increased he became more and more able to distinguish between those forces of Nature which contributed to his advancement and those which threatened his survival. He learned how to utilise the very forces of Nature which tended to destroy him, and has succeeded in violating some of the fundamental principles of Evolution without as yet exhibiting any fatal symptom of degeneration. On the contrary, not only does he still maintain his place at the head of the animal kingdom, carnivo

rous and other, but his supremacy seems to be more and more finally and absolutely determined. Today man's whole existence is a tribute to what human effort can do in its battle with Nature. This battle is admirably compared by Prof. Huxley to the struggle of man with adverse conditions in the familiar process of horticulture.* The essential fact to be kept in mind in studying the progress of man in relation to the principles of Evolution is that the principles of Evolution, as observable in the development of the lower animals, can in no way be applied to the development of man; for man is capable of counteracting Nature in two ways: First, by his intelligence, and, second, by his faculty of choice.

By his intelligence he utilises the very forces which prove deadly to the lower animals. By his faculty of choice, or by his faculty for creating the greater inclination, he is able, by efforts of his own, to encourage in himself the development of motives diametrically opposed to those which are the product of the struggle for existence; and if we are to believe the testimony of our consciousness, he is developing a faculty which can deliberately refuse to follow the more attractive inclination in order to obey the dictates of a sentiment, obedience to which is attended by disappointment, without any prospect of thereby avoiding future pain or enjoying future pleasure.

* Huxley's Essays, Prolegomena to Evolution and Ethics.

Whether this so-called faculty of choice exists is questioned by those who regard man as the slave of the greater inclination. This theory would make the Creator himself the slave of his greater inclination, and proceeds upon the assumption that every effect is caused. In assuming that every effect must be caused, it fails to take into account the fact that we have no explanation to give for the creation of force or matter, for the creation of life, for the creation of consciousness, and that these great appearances were, so far as we know, uncaused.

If the faculty of consciousness came into the world uncaused, why not the faculty of choice?

But even if it be impossible to maintain the existence of a faculty of choice in man, it cannot be disputed that man has a faculty by effort of his own to contribute to the making of his greater inclination. If, then, he can make his greater inclination, he is the master of that very determining factor of which the determinists endeavour to make him the slave. To say of man that he is the slave of an inclination of which he is master, is to juggle with words. If man is master of his greater inclination, he can, by his own efforts, gradually so develop the religious inclination as to make it continuously superior to the animal. When he attains this he has attained perfection.

The word religious just used requires explanation. Religions have differed not only in their origin but in their nature. It is difficult to find