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.