The Making of a Man

by James W. Lee

Writers of a certain school have sought to minify man’s place in nature. They say, as Dr. Joseph Leconte well declares, that he is very closely connected with, and forms a most insignificant part of, nature—that he has no kingdom of his own, but belongs to the animal kingdom; that in the animal kingdom he has no department of his own, but belongs to the department of the vertebrates—along with birds, reptiles, and fishes; that in the department of the vertebrates he has no privileged class of his own, but belongs to the class of the mammals, along with four-footed beasts; that in the class of mammals he has no titled order of his own, but belongs to the order of primates, along with monkeys and baboons. His conscience is but the resultant of fear and instinct, slowly deposited through the years of his evolution. Its imperiousness is self-constituted. Its scepter it has usurped, and, from the exhalations of its own rising cowardice, it has woven the purple robes which constitute the badge of its authority. His morality consists of rules imposed by his own prudence, and which have no sanctions beyond the opinions of his class or tribe. His religion is determined by the physical conditions which surround his life—his geographical situation, the nature and configuration of his soil, his climate, and his food. Thus man is simply a natural product, while the civilization which he has produced is as much determined by the physical conditions surrounding his life, as the leaves and dates of the palm are determined by the physical conditions surrounding that tropical tree. The hopes and the trials, the courage and the sacrifice of the best men, as well as the ambitions and motives of the worst, are put on a level with the damps and winds. The one class is entitled to no more credit for what is noble and heroic, than is rain for nourishing the crops; while the other deserves no more rebuke for what is base and ignoble, than the lightning for striking the Church and killing the people. The love which expresses itself in monuments to commemorate the deeds of the good and the great, and the condemnation which lifts itself into jails to confine the criminal and the outlaw, have, in the last analysis, the same meaning. There is no sacred significance or obligations rooted in divine sanctions, in either the monuments or the jails. Both are but fickle phases of the passing spirit.

The convictions of Moses, reproducing themselves in the government, laws, literature, morality, and religion of a great people, conserving them through the ages as examples of order and health, have no more meaning than the sap which rises in some monarch of the forest, to express itself in leaves and fruit. The conceptions of duty, which nerved the heart and inspired the courage of the Apostle Paul, leading him to plant churches in Asia Minor, to become the seeds of modern civilization, were as completely natural as the rising of the waters of some mountain spring, to flow over silver sands to the sea. The music of Beethoven, the visions of Raphael, were but as the vapor in the light of the morning sun, beautiful, perhaps, as the rainbow, but going out with the setting day. Whatever of emotion or conscience they embodied, signified no more than the colors of the peach bloom, or the notes of the falling cascade. However esteemed the valor that risked life to break the reign of oppression and murder, it was but a varying form of the heartless ambition that sought in strength to make it prevail. The patriotism of Leonidas, giving up his life to save his country, and the insane act of Nero, swathing Christians in tar to light his feast, were forward and reverse movements of the same human spirit; both natural, and both as unmoral as the electricity that now strikes to destroy, and now burns the malaria to save. No difference is made between poison in the fangs of snakes, and mercy in the hearts of men.

Back of nature there is no purpose, and in its manifold combinations and adaptations there is no design. It is only a vast aggregate of unresting atoms, striking one upon another, and without intention and without purpose, forming pairs, clusters, and groups, and thus assuming the shapes we see. Why there happens to be order instead of chaos hangs on the uncertain turn of luck.

II.

If there is mind in the universe, and if there is purpose in the order and movements of the earth, then man is the culmination of that purpose, and with reference to him was the order constituted and the movements determined. If there is naught but matter and force, and these exist without any directing or co-ordinating mind, then all things are without intention and without reason. There is nothing good or bad. Nothing is right or wrong. All things are reduced to a meaningless level of indifference. But matter and force bear witness to mind. Matter is here we know; and matter has not only form, extension, impenetrability, for its qualities, but indestructibility. Take the matter that enters into the composition of the earth. The amount of it is fixed and definite. It may be expressed in pounds weight. Since the beginning, not an atom has been added to it, or taken from it. Its presence here is to be accounted for. It either determined its own existence, and the exact amount, in pounds weight of that existence, or it was determined by some principle or power outside of itself, or within itself, called mind. If it determined itself to be, then it is intelligent, for self-determination and self-action are the essential characteristics of mind. Then intelligence is retained by being transferred from something called mind to something called matter. But it has never been claimed that matter is intelligent. Then it is not self-active or self-determining, and waits on mind for its existence and its movements.

Matter as plainly bears testimony of the existence of mind, as to the existence of itself. It is easier to believe that the earth has taken the globular form and the circular motion by the determinations of mind, than to believe that through its own determinations it has assumed a circumference of twenty-five thousand miles, and the regular task of wheeling on its axis every twenty-four hours.

Not only is it impossible to account for the exact amount of matter making up the earth’s size and weight, without assuming the power of a co-ordinating, determining mind; but a still greater task is upon us, to account for the sixty odd original elements, out of which all things in nature are formed without mind. These elements differ in quantity, quality, specific gravity, and affinity. What determined their number, their tendencies, and affinities? Why something more than sixty; no more, no less? Why so much of some, so little of others? We must either conclude that they determined themselves—that they held a convention before they existed, and resolved upon taking form and motion, or else we must believe that they were determined by some power, other than themselves—by mind. If by their own motion, oxygen, and iron, and gold are what they are; then the elements have the power of self-action and self-determination, and are therefore intelligent.

The collocations these elements form are more difficult still to be accounted for without the agency of mind. Figures piled up to the sun are not able to express the possible combinations they are capable of assuming. The possible combinations of even twenty-four letters of the alphabet could not be expressed in literature, filling the world with books. Much greater must be the number of combinations of the original elements—the alphabet of creation. It is to be remembered, too, that they disagree on more of their sides than they agree. They are by no means equally congenial. Friendships and unions between them are formed in accordance with the most exact rule and affinity. Does it not seem, then, that combinations formed by chance would be mutually incompatible, neutralizing, and destructive? Would they not forever ferment in ungoverned chaos? Yet we see them dwelling together in the utmost unity, like seeking like, and in the bonds of law and harmony, uniting in compound, mineral, vegetable, animal, and the body of man himself.

Were there as many of the letter a, as there are atoms of oxygen; and as many of the letter b, as there are atoms of hydrogen; and were the letters of the alphabet to be increased in proportion to their use, until they should equal the atoms of all the elements which enter into the composition of the globe; how long would it take these letters, stirred by some force like the winds, to assume the form of such a poem as Paradise Lost? We cannot believe that all these letters, stirred by an unseen force through infinite ages, would ever form a sensible verse of poetry, or a rational verse of prose. It is as difficult to understand how the letters of the alphabet could ever get into the rhythm of Paradise Lost, without Milton’s mind, as to understand how unconscious elements took the form of mountain, sea, grove, and globe; round, articulate, and law abiding, without a great co-ordinating mind.

The physical forces and energies bear indubitable testimony to the existence of mind, not only outside of themselves, but in themselves and through themselves. We have the force of gravitation, the power which bodies have of attracting one another in proportion to their mass, and inversely as the squares of their distance; in other words, that power which bodies have of getting up mutually aggregative motion, unless prevented by some other power of an opposite nature. A body suspended in the air is attracted toward the earth by the force of gravitation. A lump of sugar held over a cup of tea, attracts into itself the water of the tea cup. This is done by the force known as capillarity. A piece of iron left exposed attracts the particles of oxygen in the atmosphere. This is done by the force known as chemical affinity. Why do bodies attract one another in proportion to their mass and inversely as the squares of their distance? Why does a lump of sugar, held close over a cup of water, attract the particles of water into itself? Why does a piece of iron in the atmosphere attract to itself the oxygen? We are told it is because of gravitation, capillarity, and chemical affinity. How happens it that these forces have methods of action known as gravitation, capillarity, and chemical affinity? They either determined themselves to have them and to act in accordance with them, or else some power other than themselves determined these methods of action for them.