III. Spiritual or Moral Development.
In examining this subject, we first inquire (Sect. α) whether there is any connection between physical and moral or religious development; then (β), what indications of moral development may be derived from history. Finally (γ), a correlation of the results of these inquiries, with the nature of the religious development in the individual, is attempted. Of course in so stupendous an inquiry but a few leading points can be presented here.
If it be true that the period of human existence on the earth has seen a gradually increasing predominance of higher motives over lower ones among the mass of mankind, and if any parts of our metaphysical being have been derived by inheritance from preëxistent beings, we are incited to the inquiry whether any of the moral qualities are included among the latter; and whether there be any resemblance between moral and intellectual development.
Thus, if there have been a physical derivation from a preëxistent genus, and an embryonic condition of those physical characters which distinguish Homo—if there has been also an embryonic or infantile stage in intellectual qualities—we are led to inquire whether the development of the individual in moral nature will furnish us with a standard of estimation of the successive conditions or present relations of the human species in this aspect also.
a. Relations of Physical and Moral Nature.
Although men are much alike in the deeper qualities of their nature, there is a range of variation which is best understood by a consideration of the extremes of such variation, as seen in men of different latitudes, and women and children.
(a.) In Children. Youth is distinguished by a peculiarity, which no doubt depends upon an immature condition of the nervous center concerned, which might be called nervous impressibility. It is exhibited in a greater tendency to tearfulness, in timidity, less mental endurance, a greater facility in acquiring knowledge, and more ready susceptibility to the influence of sights, sounds and sensations. In both sexes the emotional nature predominates over the intelligence and judgment. In those years the character is said to be in embryo, and theologians in using the phrase, “reaching years of religious understanding,” mean that in early years the religious capacities undergo development coincidentally with those of the body.
(b.) In Women. If we examine the metaphysical characteristics of women, we observe two classes of traits—namely, those which are also found in men, and those which are absent or but weakly developed in men. Those of the first class are very similar in essential nature to those which men exhibit at an early stage of development. This may be in some way related to the fact that physical maturity occurs earlier in women.
The gentler sex is characterized by a greater impressibility, often seen in the influence exercised by a stronger character, as well as by music, color or spectacle generally; warmth of emotion, submission to its influence rather than that of logic; timidity and irregularity of action in the outer world. All these qualities belong to the male sex, as a general rule, at some period of life, though different individuals lose them at very various periods. Ruggedness and sternness may rarely be developed in infancy, yet at some still prior time they certainly do not exist in any.
Probably most men can recollect some early period of their lives when the emotional nature predominated—a time when emotion at the sight of suffering was more easily stirred than in maturer years. I do not now allude to the benevolence inspired, kept alive or developed by the influence of the Christian religion on the heart, but rather to that which belongs to the natural man. Perhaps all men can recall a period of youth when they were hero-worshipers—when they felt the need of a stronger arm, and loved to look up to the powerful friend who could sympathize with and aid them. This is the “woman stage” of character: in a large number of cases it is early passed; in some it lasts longer; while in a very few men it persists through life. Severe discipline and labor are unfavorable to its persistence. Luxury preserves its bad qualities without its good, while Christianity preserves its good elements without its bad.
It is not designed to say that woman in her emotional nature does not differ from the undeveloped man. On the contrary, though she does not differ in kind, she differs greatly in degree, for her qualities grow with her growth, and exceed in power many fold those exhibited by her companion at the original point of departure. Hence, since it might be said that man is the undeveloped woman, a word of explanation will be useful. Embryonic types abound in the fields of nature, but they are not therefore immature in the usual sense. Maintaining the lower essential quality, they yet exhibit the usual results of growth in individual characters; that is, increase of strength, powers of support and protection, size and beauty. In order to maintain that the masculine character coincides with that of the undeveloped woman, it would be necessary to show that the latter during her infancy possesses the male characters predominating—that is, unimpressibility, judgment, physical courage, and the like.
If we look at the second class of female characters—namely, those which are imperfectly developed or absent in men, and in respect to which man may be called undeveloped woman—we note three prominent points: facility in language, tact or finesse, and the love of children. The first two appear to me to be altogether developed results of “impressibility,” already considered as an indication of immaturity. Imagination is also a quality of impressibility, and, associated with finesse, is apt to degenerate into duplicity and untruthfulness.
The third quality is different. It generally appears at a very early period of life. Who does not know how soon the little girl selects the doll, and the boy the toy-horse or machine? Here man truly never gets beyond undeveloped woman. Nevertheless, “impressibility” seems to have a great deal to do with this quality also.
Thus the metaphysical relation of the sexes would appear to be one of inexact parallelism, as defined in Sect. I. That the physical relation is a remote one of the same kind, several characters seem to point out. The case of the vocal organs will suffice. Their structure is identical in both sexes in early youth, and both produce nearly similar sounds. They remain in this condition in the woman, while they undergo a metamorphosis and change both in structure and vocal power in the man. In the same way, in many of the lower creation, the females possess a majority of embryonic features, though not invariably. A common example is to be found in the plumage of birds, where the females and young males are often undistinguishable.[[48]] But there are few points in the physical structure of man also in which the male condition is the immature one. In regard to structure, the point at which the relation between the sexes is that of exact parallelism, or where the mature condition of the one sex accords with the undeveloped condition of the other, is when reproduction is no longer accomplished by budding or gemmation, but requires distinct organs. Metaphysically, this relation is to be found where distinct individuality of the sexes first appears; that is, where we pass from the hermaphrodite to the bisexual condition.
[48]. Meehan states that the upper limbs and strong laterals in coniferæ and other trees produce female flowers and cones, and the lower and more interior branches the male flowers. What he points out is in harmony with the position here maintained—namely, that the female characters include more of those which are embryonic in the males, than the male characters include of those which are embryonic in the female: the female flowers are the product of the younger and more growing portions of the tree—that is, those last produced (the upper limbs and new branches)—while the male flowers are produced by the older or more mature portions—that is, lower limbs or more axial regions.
Meehan’s observations coincide with those of Thury and others on the origin of sexes in animals and plants, which it appears to admit of a similar explanation.
But let us put the whole interpretation on this partial undevelopment of woman.
The types or conditions of organic life which have been the most prominent in the world’s history—the Ganoids of the first, the Dinosaurs of the second, and the Mammoths of the third period—have generally died with their day. The line of succession has not been from them. The law of anatomy and paleontology is, that we must seek the point of departure of the type which is to predominate in the future, at lower stages on the line, in less decided forms, or in what, in scientific parlance, are called generalized types. In the same way, though the adults of the tailless apes are in a physical sense more highly developed than their young, yet the latter far more closely resemble the human species in their large facial angle and shortened jaws.
How much significance, then, is added to the law uttered by Christ!—“Except ye become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” Submission of will, loving trust, confiding faith—these belong to the child: how strange they appear to the executing, commanding, reasoning man! Are they so strange to the woman? We all know the answer. Woman is nearer to the point of departure of that development which outlives time and peoples heaven; and if man would find it, he must retrace his steps, regain something he lost in youth, and join to the powers and energies of his character the submission, love and faith which the new birth alone can give.
Thus the summing up of the metaphysical qualities of woman would be thus expressed: In the emotional world, man’s superior; in the moral world, his equal; in the laboring world, his inferior.
There are, however, vast differences in women in respect to the number of masculine traits they may have assumed before being determined into their own special development. Woman also, under the influence of necessity, in later years of life, may add more or less to those qualities in her which are fully developed in the man.
The relation of these facts to the principles stated as the two opposing laws of development is, it appears to me, to be explained thus: First, that woman’s most inherent peculiarities are not the result of the external circumstances with which she has been placed in contact, as the conflict theory would indicate. Such circumstances are said to be her involuntary subserviency to the physically more powerful man, and the effect of a compulsory mode of life in preventing her from attaining a position of equality in the activities of the world. Second, that they are the result of the different distributions of qualities as already indicated by the harmonic theory of development; that is, of the unequal possession of features which belong to different periods in the developmental succession of the highest. And here it might be further shown that this relation involves no disadvantage to either sex, but that the principle of compensation holds in moral organization and in social order, as elsewhere. There is then another beautiful harmony which will ever remain, let the development of each sex be extended as far as it may.
(c.) In Men. If we look at the male sex, we shall find various exceptional approximations to the female in mental constitution. Further, there can be little doubt that in the Indo-European race maturity in some respects appears earlier in tropical than in northern regions; and though subject to many exceptions, this is sufficiently general to be looked upon as a rule. Accordingly, we find in that race—at least in the warmer regions of Europe and America—a larger proportion of certain qualities which are more universal in women; as greater activity of the emotional nature when compared with the judgment; an impressibility of the nervous center, which, cæteris paribus, appreciates quickly the harmonies of sound, form and color; answers most quickly to the friendly greeting or the hostile menace; is more careless of consequences in the material expression of generosity or hatred, and more indifferent to truth under the influence of personal relations. The movements of the body and expressions of the countenance answer to the temperament. More of grace and elegance in the bearing mark the Greek, the Italian and the Creole, than the German, the Englishman or the Green Mountain man. More of vivacity and fire, for better or for worse, are displayed in the countenance.
Perhaps the more northern type left all that behind in its youth. The rugged, angular character which appreciates force better than harmony, the strong intellect which delights in forethought and calculation, the less impressibility, reaching stolidity in the uneducated, are its well-known traits. If in such a character generosity is less prompt, and there is but little chivalry, there is persistency and unwavering fidelity, not readily interrupted by the lightning of passion or the dark surmises of an active imagination.
All these peculiarities appear to result, first, from different degrees of quickness and depth in appreciating impressions from without; and, second, from differing degrees of attention to the intelligent judgment in consequent action. (I leave conscience out, as not belonging to the category of inherited qualities.)
The first is the basis of an emotional nature, and the predominance of the second is the usual indication of maturity. That the first is largely dependent on an impressible condition of the nervous system can be asserted by those who reduce their nervous centers to a sensitive condition by a rapid consumption of the nutritive materials necessary to the production of thought-force, and perhaps of brain-tissue itself, induced by close and prolonged mental labor. The condition of over-work, though but an imitation of immaturity, without its joy-giving nutrition, is nevertheless very instructive. The sensitiveness, both physically, emotionally and morally, is often remarkable, and a weakening of the understanding is often coincident with it.
It is necessary here to introduce a caution, that the meaning of the words high and low be not misunderstood. Great impressibility is an essential constituent of many of the highest forms of genius, and the combination of this quality with strong reflective intelligence, constitutes the most complete and efficient type of mind—therefore the highest in the common sense. It is not, however, the highest—or extremest—in an evolutional sense, it is not masculine, but hermaphrodite; in other words, its kinetic force exceeds its bathmic.[[49]] It is therefore certain that a partial diminution of bathmic vigor is an advantage to some kinds of intellect.
[49]. Bathmic force is analogous to the potential force of chemists, but is no doubt entirely different in its nature. It is converted into active energy or kinetic force only during the years of growth: it is in large amount in acceleration, in small amount in retardation.
The above observations have been confined to the Indo-European race. It may be objected to the theory that savagery means immaturity in the senses above described, as dependent largely on “impressibility,” while savages in general display the least “impressibility,” as that word is generally understood. This cannot be asserted of the Africans, who, so far as we know them, possess this peculiarity in a high degree. Moreover, it must be remembered that the state of indifference which precedes that of impressibility in the individual may characterize many savages; while their varied peculiarities may be largely accounted for by recollecting that many combinations of different species of emotions and kinds of intelligence go to make up the complete result in each case.
(d.) Conclusions. Three types of religion may be selected from the developmental conditions of man: first, an absence of sensibility (early infancy); second, an emotional stage more productive of faith than of works; thirdly, an intellectual type, more favorable to works than to faith. Though in regard to responsibility these states may be equal, there is absolutely no gain to laboring humanity from the first type, and a serious loss in actual results from the second, taken alone, as compared with the third.
These, then, are the physical vehicles of religion—the “earthen vessels” of Paul—which give character and tone to the deeper spiritual life, as the color of the transparent vessel is communicated to the light which radiates from within.
But if evolution has taken place, there is evidently a provision for the progress from the lower to the higher states, either in the education of circumstances (“conflict,”) or in the power of an interior spiritual influence “harmony,”) or both.
β. Evidence Derived from History.
We trace the development of Morality in—First, the family or social order; second, the civil order, or government.
Whatever may have been the extent of moral ignorance before the Deluge, it does not appear that the earth was yet prepared for the permanent habitation of the human race. All nations preserve traditions of the drowning of the early peoples by floods, such as have occurred frequently during geologic time. At the close of each period of dry land, a period of submergence has set in, and the depression of the level of the earth, and consequent overflow by the sea, has caused the death and subsequent preservation of the remains of the fauna and flora living upon it, while the elevation of the same has produced that interruption in the process of deposit in the same region which marks the intervals between geologic periods. Change in these respects do not occur to any very material extent at the present time in the regions inhabited by the most highly developed portions of the human race; and as the last which occurred seems to have been expressly designed for the preparation of the earth’s surface for the occupation of organized human society, it may be doubted whether many such changes are to be looked for in the future. The last great flooding was that which stratified the drift materials of the north, and carried the finer portions far over the south, determining the minor topography of the surface and supplying it with soils.
The existence of floods which drowned many races of men may be considered as established. The men destroyed by the one recorded by Moses are described by him as exceedingly wicked, so that “the earth was filled with violence.” In his eyes the Flood was designed for their extermination.
That their condition was evil must be fully believed if they were condemned by the executive of the Jewish law. This law, it will be remembered, permitted polygamy, slavery, revenge, aggressive war. The Jews were expected to rob their neighbors the Egyptians of jewels, and they were allowed “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” They were expected to butcher other nations, with their women and children, their flocks and their herds. If we look at the lives of men recorded in the Old Testament as examples of distinguished excellence, we find that their standard, however superior to that of the people around them, would ill accord with the morality of the present day. They were all polygamists, slaveholders and warriors. Abraham treated Hagar and Ishmael with inhumanity. Jacob, with his mother’s aid, deceived Isaac, and received thereby a blessing which extended to the whole Jewish nation. David, a man whom Paul tells us the Lord found to be after his own heart, slew the messenger who brought tidings of the death of Saul, and committed other acts which would stain the reputation of a Christian beyond redemption. It is scarcely necessary to turn to other nations if this be true of the chosen men of a chosen people. History indeed presents us with no people prior to, or contemporary with, the Jews who were not morally their inferiors.
If we turn to more modern periods, an examination of the morality of Greece and Rome reveals a curious intermixture of lower and higher moral conditions. While each of these nations produced excellent moralists, the influence of their teachings was not sufficient to elevate the masses above what would now be regarded as a very low standard. The popularity of those scenes of cruelty, the gladiatorial shows and the combats with wild beasts, sufficiently attests this. The Roman virtue of patriotism, while productive of many noble deeds, is in itself far from being a disinterested one, but partakes rather of the nature of partisanship and selfishness. If the Greeks were superior to the Romans in humanity, they were apparently their inferiors in the social virtues, and were much below the standard of Christian nations in both respects.
Ancient history points to a state of chronic war, in which the social relations were in confusion, and the development of the useful arts was almost impossible. Savage races, which continue to this day in a similar moral condition, are, we may easily believe, most unhappy. They are generally divided into tribes, which are mutually hostile, or friendly only with the view of injuring some other tribe. Might is their law, and robbery, rapine and murder express their mutual relations. This is the history of the lowest grade of barbarism, and the history of primeval man so far as it has come down to us in sacred and profane records. Man as a species first appears in history as a sinful being. Then a race maintaining a contest with the prevailing corruption and exhibiting a higher moral ideal is presented to us in Jewish history. Finally, early Christian society exhibits a greatly superior condition of things. In it polygamy scarcely existed, and slavery and war were condemned. But progress did not end here, for our Lord said, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when He, the spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth.”
The progress revealed to us by history is truly great, and if a similar difference existed between the first of the human species and the first of whose condition we have information, we can conceive how low the origin must have been. History begins with a considerable progress in civilization, and from this we must infer a long preceding period of human existence, such as a gradual evolution would require.
γ. Rationale of Moral Development.
I. Of the Species. Let us now look at the moral condition of the infant man of the present time. We know his small accountability, his trust, his innocence. We know that he is free from the law that when he “would do good, evil is present with him,” for good and evil are alike unknown. We know that until growth has progressed to a certain degree he fully deserves the praise pronounced by Our Saviour, that “of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Growth, however, generally sees a change. We know that the buddings of evil appear but too soon: the lapse of a few months sees exhibitions of anger, disobedience, malice, falsehood, and their attendants—the fruit of a corruption within not manifested before.
In early youth it may be said that moral susceptibility is often in inverse ratio to physical vigor. But with growth the more physically vigorous are often sooner taught the lessons of life, for their energy brings them into earlier conflict with the antagonisms and contradictions of the world. Here is a beautiful example of the benevolent principle of compensation.
1. Innocence and the Fall. If physical evolution be a reality, we have reason to believe that the infantile stage of human morals, as well as of human intellect, was much prolonged in the history of our first parents. This constitutes the period of human purity, when we are told by Moses that the first pair dwelt in Eden. But the growth to maturity saw the development of all the qualities inherited from the irresponsible denizen of the forest. Man inherits from his predecessors in the creation the buddings of reason: he inherits passions, propensities and appetites. His corruption is that of his animal progenitors, and his sin is the low and bestial instinct of the brute creation. Thus only is the origin of sin made clear—a problem which the pride of man would have explained in any other way had it been possible.
But how startling the exhibition of evil by this new being as compared with the scenes of the countless ages already past! Then the right of the strongest was God’s law, and rapine and destruction were the history of life. But into man had been “breathed the breath of life,” and he had “become a living soul.” The law of right, the Divine Spirit, was planted within him, and the laws of the beast were in antagonism to that law. The natural development of his inherited qualities necessarily brought him into collision with that higher standard planted within him, and that war was commenced which shall never cease “till He hath put all things under His feet.” The first act of man’s disobedience constituted the Fall, and with it would come the first intellectual “knowledge of good and of evil”—an apprehension up to that time derived exclusively from the divinity within, or conscience.[[50]]
[50]. In our present translation of Genesis, the Fall is ascribed to the influence of Satan assuming the form of the serpent, and this animal was cursed in consequence, and compelled to assume a prone position. This rendering may well be revised, since serpents, prone like others, existed in both America and Europe during the Eocene epoch, five times as great a period before Adam as has elapsed since his day. Clark states, with great probability, that “serpent” should be translated monkey or ape—a conclusion, it will be observed, exactly coinciding with our inductions on the basis of evolution. The instigation to evil by an ape merely states inheritance in another form. His curse, then, refers to the retention of the horizontal position by all other quadrumana, as we find it at the present day.
2. Free Agency. Heretofore development had been that of physical types, but the Lord had rested on the seventh day, for man closed the line of the physical creation. Now a new development was to begin—the development of mind, of morality and of grace.
On the previous days of Creation all had progressed in accordance with inevitable law apart from its objects. Now two lines of development were at the disposal of this being, between which his free will was to choose. Did he choose the courses dictated by the spirit of the brute, he was to be subject to the old law of the brute creation—the right of the strongest and spiritual death. Did he choose the guidance of the Divine Guest in his heart, he became subject to the laws which are to guide—I. the human species to an ultimate perfection, so far as consistent with this world; and II. the individual man to a higher life, where a new existence awaits him as a spiritual being, freed from the laws of terrestrial matter.
The charge brought against the theory of development, that it implies a necessary progress of man to all perfection without his coöperation—or necessitarianism, as it is called—is unfounded.
The free will of man remains the source alike of his progress and his relapse. But the choice once made, the laws of spiritual development are apparently as inevitable as those of matter. Thus men whose religious capacities are increased by attention to the Divine Monitor within are in the advance of progress—progress coinciding with that which in material things is called the harmonic. On the other hand, those whose motives are of the lower origin fall under the working of the law of conflict.
The lesson derivable from the preceding considerations would seem to be “necessitarian” as respects the whole human race, considered by itself; and I believe it is to be truly so interpreted. That is, the Creator of all things has set agencies at work which will slowly develop a perfect humanity out of His lower creation, and nothing can thwart the process or alter the result. “My word shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” This is our great encouragement, our noblest hope—second only to that which looks to a blessed inheritance in another world. It is this thought that should inspire the farmer, who as he toils wonders, “Why all this labor? The Good Father could have made me like the lilies, who, though they toil not, neither spin, are yet clothed in glory; and why should I, a nobler being, be subject to the dust and the sweat of labor?” This thought should enlighten every artisan of the thousands that people the factories and guide their whirling machinery in our modern cities. Every revolution of a wheel is moving the car of progress, and the timed stroke of the crank and the rhythmic throw of the shuttle are but the music the spheres have sung since time began. A new significance then appears in the prayer of David: “Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish Thou the work of our hands upon us: the work of our hands, O Lord, establish Thou it.” But beware of the catastrophe, for “He will sit as a refiner:” “the wheat shall be gathered into barns, but the chaff shall be burned with unquenchable fire.” If this be true, let us look for—
3. The Extinction of Evil. How is necessitarianism to be reconciled with free will? It appears to me, thus: When a being whose safety depends on the perfection of a system of laws abandons the system by which he lives, he becomes subject to that lower grade of laws which govern lower intelligences. Man, falling from the laws of right, comes under the dominion of the laws of brute force; as said our Saviour: “Salt is good, but if the salt have lost his savor, it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast forth and trodden under foot of men.”
Evil, being unsatisfying to the human heart, is in its nature ever progressive, whether in the individual or the nation; and in estimating the practical results to man of the actions prompted by the lower portion of our nature, it is only necessary to carry out to its full development each of those animal qualities which may in certain states of society be restrained by the social system. In human history those qualities have repeatedly had this development, and the battle of progress is fought to decide whether they shall overthrow the system that restrains them, or be overthrown by it.
Entire obedience to the lower instincts of our nature ensures destruction to the weaker, and generally to the stronger also. A most marked case of this kind is seen where the developed vices of civilization are introduced among a savage people—as, for example, the North American Indians. These seem in consequence to be hastening to extinction.
But a system or a circuit of existence has been allotted to the civil associations of the animal species man, independently of his moral development. It may be briefly stated thus: Races begin as poor offshoots or emigrants from a parent stock. The law of labor develops their powers, and increases their wealth and numbers. These will be diminished by their various vices; but on the whole, in proportion as the intellectual and economical elements prevail, wealth will increase; that is, they accumulate power. When this has been accomplished, and before activity has slackened its speed, the nation has reached the culminating point, and then it enters upon the period of decline. The restraints imposed by economy and active occupation being removed, the beastly traits find in accumulated power only increased means of gratification, and industry and prosperity sink together. Power is squandered, little is accumulated, and the nation goes down to its extinction amid scenes of internal strife and vice. Its cycle is soon fulfilled, and other nations, fresh from scenes of labor, assault it, absorb its fragments, and it dies. This has been the world’s history, and it remains to be seen whether the virtues of the nations now existing will be sufficient to save them from a like fate.
Thus the history of the animal man in nations is wonderfully like that of the type or families of the animal and vegetable kingdoms during geologic ages. They rise, they increase and reach a period of multiplication and power. The force allotted to them becoming exhausted, they diminish and sink and die.
II. Of the Individual. In discussing physical development, we are as yet compelled to restrict ourselves to the evidence of its existence and some laws observed in the operation of its causative force. What that force is, or what are its primary laws, we know not.
So in the progress of moral development we endeavor to prove its existence and the mode of its operation, but why that mode should exist, rather than some other mode, we cannot explain.
The moral progress of the species depends, of course, on the moral progress of the individuals embraced in it. Religion is the sum of those influences which determine the motives of men’s actions into harmony with the Divine perfection and the Divine will. Obedience to these influences constitutes the practice of religion, while the statement of the growth and operation of these influences constitutes the theory of religion, or doctrine.
The Divine Spirit planted in man shows him that which is in harmony with the Divine Mind, and it remains for his free will to conform to it or reject it. This harmony is man’s highest ideal of happiness, and in seeking it, as well as in desiring to flee from dissonance or pain, he but obeys the disposition common to all conscious beings. If, however, he attempts to conform to it, he will find the law of evil present, and frequently obtaining the mastery. If now he be in any degree observing, he will find that the laws of morality and right are the only ones by which human society exists in a condition superior to that of the lower animals, and in which the capacities of man for happiness can approach a state of satisfaction. He may be then said to be “awakened” to the importance of religion. If he carry on the struggle to attain to the high goal presented to his spiritual vision, he will be deeply grieved and humbled at his failures: then he is said to be “convicted.” Under these circumstances the necessity of a deliverance becomes clear, and is willingly accepted in the only way in which it has pleased the Author of all to present it, which has been epitomized by Paul as “the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ.” Thus a life of advanced and ever-advancing moral excellence becomes possible, and the man makes nearer approaches to the “image of God.”
Thus is opened a new era in spiritual development, which we are led to believe leads to an ultimate condition in which the nature inherited from our origin is entirely overcome, and an existence of moral perfection entered on. Thus in the book of Mark the simile occurs: “First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear;” and Solomon says that the development of righteousness “shines more and more unto the perfect day.”
δ. Summary.
If it be true that general development in morality proceeds in spite of the original predominance of evil in the world, through the self-destructive nature of the latter, it is only necessary to examine the reasons why the excellence of the good may have been subject also to progress, and how the remainder of the race may have been influenced thereby.
The development of morality is then probably to be understood in the following sense: Since the Divine Spirit, as the prime force in moral progress, cannot in itself be supposed to have been in any way under the influence of natural laws, its capacities were no doubt as eternal and unerring in the first man as in the last. But the facts and probabilities discussed above point to development of religious sensibility, or capacity to appreciate moral good, or to receive impressions from the source of good.
The evidence of this is supposed to be seen in—First, improvement in man’s views of his duty to his neighbor; and Second, the substitution of spiritual for symbolic religions: in other words, improvement in the capacity for receiving spiritual impressions.
What the primary cause of this supposed development of religious sensibility may have been, is a question we reverently leave untouched. That it is intimately connected in some way with, and in part dependent on, the evolution of the intelligence, appears very probable: for this evolution is seen—First, in a better understanding of the consequences of action, and of good and of evil in many things; and Second, in the production of means for the spread of the special instrumentalities of good. The following may be enumerated as such instrumentalities:
1. Furnishing literary means of record and distribution of the truths of religion, morality and science.
2. Creating and increasing modes of transportation of teachers and literary means of disseminating truth.
3. Facilitating the migration and the spread of nations holding the highest position in the scale of morality.
4. The increase of wealth, which multiplies the extent of the preceding means.
And now, let no man attempt to set bounds to this development. Let no man say even that morality accomplished is all that is required of mankind, since that is not necessarily the evidence of a spiritual development. If a man possess the capacity for progress beyond the condition in which he finds himself, in refusing to enter upon it he declines to conform to the Divine law. And “from those to whom little is given, little is required, but from those to whom much is given, much shall be required.”
SCIENTIFIC ADDRESSES.