Dogmatic theology teaches that man was created from the dust of the earth, and that he at once fell heir to an estate of physical and psychical habitudes which were God-like in character; scientific investigation, on the contrary, demonstrated the fact that man’s inception begins in bathybian protoplasm and culminates, as far as his general physical organism is concerned, in the last link of an evolutionary chain that reaches back and back, through countless eons of ages, to the very beginnings of life.
The History of Life written upon the rocky frame-work of this gray and hoary old world, declares that man’s physical being is but the result of the laws of evolution. He did not spring into being, like the sea-born Venus, a creature of physical grace, and strength, and beauty; nor did the sacred flame of an inborn intelligence at once illumine his countenance. For thousands of years, the forbears of the present civilized homo sapiens were but slightly above the Alalus (ape-like man) of Haeckel in point of personal pulchritude; and for thousands of years, the ancestors of the civilized man of to-day were savages, with all the psychical traits of primitive peoples.
Social ethics are as much the result of evolutionary growth as is man himself. Civilization, which is but another name for ethical culture, is the outcome of the inherited experiences of thousands of years. These experiences were the results of law, and that law can be embraced in one comprehensive word—evolution.
Now, one of the most noticeable facts in biological history is the tendency that animal structures or organisms, under certain circumstances, have toward atavism or reversion to ancestral types. Not only is this to be observed in the physical organisms of animals, but also in their psychical beings as well.
Atavism is invariably the result of degeneration, as I will endeavor to demonstrate later on in this paper.
I believe that we are rapidly hurrying toward a social cataclysm, beside which the downfall of the Roman Empire, the destruction of ancient Egyptian and Babylonian civilizations, and the bloody days of the French Revolution will sink into utter insignificance. I believe, also, and think that I can demonstrate the truthfulness of my belief, that the inciting cause of this social revolution will not be found in those citizens of the United States of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic parentage, but that it will be observed among our Slavonic, Teutonic, and Latinic citizens. But, in order to furnish a parallel (from which you may draw your own conclusions), before I enter fully into the discussion of this part of my subject, I wish to review, very briefly, certain historical epochs.
When the first conquerors of Egypt, about whom history can tell us so little, first occupied the fertile valley of the Nile, the country, in all probability, was inhabited by negroes. The conquering race drove out or enslaved the native population and founded the ancient kingdom of Egypt. This kingdom waxed strong and mighty until, at the time of Rameses the Great, more than three thousand two hundred years ago, it was the most powerful monarchy in the whole world. The mighty son of Ra, Meiamoun Ra, or Rameses, as he is most generally styled, was a warrior and a statesman. He led his victorious troops north, east, and west, conquering nations as he went, until he dominated and brought into a state of vassalage over two-thirds of the then known world.
Wealth flowed into his kingdom from all the surrounding countries, consequently, luxury, with its never-failing associate, debauchery, made its appearance, and the decadence of this mighty kingdom set in.
It is true that many Pharaohs reigned after Rameses, and that the monarchy maintained its greatness for a long period of time, but luxury had taken hold on the Egyptians at the time of their greatest prosperity and had sown the seeds of degeneration, which flourished and grew apace, until the emasculated and effeminate people yielded up their independence to the conquerors, and passed out of existence as a nation forever.
The Roman people, under the leadership of their ancient heroes, was a nation of hardy warriors and husbandmen. That preëminent military genius, Julius Cæsar, had carefully fostered this warlike spirit in the bosoms of his compatriots, and, by a series of brilliant campaigns, had made the Roman nation the most powerful on the face of the globe. The Roman legions were not only victorious on land, extending their conquests into Iberia, farther Gaul, and still farther Britain, but the Roman triremes also swept the Mediterranean, from the Pillars of Hercules to the shores of Syria and Egypt. Wealth poured into the country from all sides, and the people reveled in a boundless prosperity.