Ancestors.—In the first instance human ancestors may be considered, and a family tree drawn for any one child; from which he will learn how large a number of persons combine to form his ancestry. The tree can also represent the converging effect of inter-marriages, so that ultimate descent from a common ancestor is not an impossibility, if the facts of biology and ethnology point in that direction—as it appears they do. The probable though remote relationship existing between all the branches of the human family may be suggested by an inverted tree descending from some remotest ancestor: for whom Noah is as good a name as any other.
Rose.—The doctrine of the ascent of man may be found in some cases to conflict with early religious teaching. If so, offence and iconoclasm should be carefully avoided; and if the teacher feels that he can conscientiously draw a distinction, between the persistent vital or spiritual essence of man, and the temporary material vehicle which displays his individual existence amid terrestrial surroundings, he may with advantage do so. The second or higher aspect of the origin of man is dealt with in Clause XII. The history and origin of the spiritual part of man is unknown, and can only be rightly spoken of in terms of mysticism and poetry: the history of the bodily and much of the mental part is studied in the biological facts of evolution.
The doctrine of the ascent of man, properly regarded, is a doctrine of much hope and comfort. Truly it is an unusual item in a child’s creed; but it is, I think, a helpful item: it explains much that would otherwise be dark, and it instils hope for the future. For in the light of an evolution doctrine we can readily admit—(1) that low and savage tendencies are naturally to be expected at certain stages, for an evanescent moment; and (2) that having progressed thus far, we may anticipate further—perhaps unlimited—advance for mankind.
The fact that each individual organism hastily runs through, or reduplicates, a main part of the series of stages in the life-history of its race, is a fact of special interest and significance; notably in connection with the trials and temptations of human beings during their effort to cleanse away the traces of animal nature. The severity of the contest is already lessening, and both the individual and the race may look forward to a time when the struggles and failures are nearly over, when the unruliness of passion is curbed, when at length we
“. . . hear no yelp of the beast, and the man is quiet at last
As he stands on the heights of his life with a glimpse of a height
that is higher.”
Gradual Processes.—The slowness and precariousness of evolution may be indicated; and the possibility of descent or degeneration, as well as of ascent and development, must be insisted on. A genealogical tree can be drawn laterally, to illustrate the origin of any set of animals—both those risen and those fallen in the scale—from some, possibly hypothetical, common ancestor. The dog on the one hand, and the wolf or jackal on the other, may serve as easy examples of ascent and descent respectively, and of relationship between higher and lower species, or even genera, without direct or obvious connection. The horse and the bear may serve as examples of distant relationship; birds and reptiles as another; and we may point out that at each stage of inheritance some of the progeny may ascend a little in the scale, and some descend a little.
Presently the sponge of time may wipe out the common ancestry at the root of the lateral tree, and nothing be left but some of its ascending and some of its descending branches,—all suited to their environment and so continuing to live and flourish, each in its own way; but so apparently different, that relationship between them is a matter of inference, and is sometimes difficult to believe in. The example of the caterpillar and butterfly, however, of the tadpole and the frog, etc., can be used to remove incredulity at extraordinary and instructive transmutations—transmutations which in the individual represent rapidly some analogous movements of racial development in the history of the distant past. The degradation of certain free-swimming animals, such as ascidians, which in old age become rooted or sessile like plants, can be pointed to as typical, and, indeed, a true representation of what has gone on in a race also, during long periods of time. The rapid passage of the embryo through its ancestral chain of development should be known, at any rate to the teacher; and in general the greater the teacher’s acquaintance with natural history, the more living and interesting will be the series of lessons that can occasionally be given on this part of the clause.