“In truth, our common origin with the brutes being taken for granted, why should we not enjoy in common with them the right to gratify every instinct? Social inequalities are the product of laws and conventionalities willed by the rich and powerful. In the natural and primitive state of things they did not exist; why not proceed then to a general leveling of the existing social order?
“Such an origin of the human race being assumed, the existence of the soul and a future life becomes a myth invented by the priests of the various religions. With this inconvenient restraint removed, there remains no alternative save to aspire to the acquisition of all the pleasures of life; and for him who lacks the wherewithal to procure them for himself there remains no other recourse than to seek them by means of violence or strategy. Hence anarchy. In this supposition, morality no longer possesses that sole, true, and efficacious sanction which religion alone can furnish; it amounts to nothing more than the resultant of the evolution of the individual’s perfections and their coördination to the well-being of his race and of society. But if, by reason of retarded evolution, the social instincts have not progressed to the point of repressing the individual or egoistic instincts, what guilt will there be in the delinquent who lapses into the most atrocious crimes? Hence free will is another myth that positive psychology and the science of moral statistics have already been at pains to explode.
“And behold the suffering, the unfortunate, and the dying deprived of their sole consolation, the last hope which faith held out to them, and society reduced to an inferno of desperadoes and suicides! I could go on showing in this way, to what a pass the evolutionistic theories bring society and the individual.” (“La teoria dell’ evoluzione e le sue applicazioni,” p. 46.)
GLOSSARY
Abiogenesis: The discredited hypothesis that life may originate spontaneously in lifeless matter, i.e., apart from the influence of living matter.
Adaptation: (1) The reciprocal aptitude of organism and environment for each other; (2) a structure, modification of structure, or behavioristic response enabling the organism to solve a special problem imposed by the environment; (3) the process by which the organism’s adjustment to the environment is brought about.
Allelomorphs: Genes located opposite each other on homologous chromosomes and representing contrasting characters; they are separated during meiosis according to the Mendelian law of segregation, e.g. the genes for red and white in Four o’clocks which when united give rise to pink, and when segregated, to red and white flowers respectively, are allelomorphs of each other.
Alluvial: Pertaining to the Alluvium, which consists of fresh-water deposits of the Pleistocene and Recent series, to be distinguished from the Diluvium which consists of older Pleistocene formations.
Amino-acids: The chemical building-stones of the proteins—organic acids containing one or more amino-groups (—NH2) in place of hydrogen, e.g., amino-acetic acid, CH2·NH2·COOH.
Amnion: A membranous bag which encloses the embryo in higher vertebrates. The lower vertebrates, namely, fishes and amphibia, have no amnion and are termed “anamniotic.” The reptiles, birds, and mammals which possess it are termed amniotic vertebrates.