Indiana American. [volume] (Brookville, Ind.) 1865-1872, 1867-12-20


age in one of Souths sermons: "An Aris-
totle was but the rubbish Of an Adam.
and Athens but the rudiments OF Para.
disc" This'isa pretty rhetorical way Of
putting an utterly groundless fancy which
has possessed the mind or man for sgoe,
and which is the Foundation, not OF Chris
tianiiy, bat Of the Jewish aud Christian
religions. Bred in the strictest orthodox
faith and having to this day never read a
free thinking book, | can not help seeing
that If Adam Is to be taken as represen-
tative Of primitive man, and Paradise as
the name Of mans primitive habitstion,
tho movement from Adam 10 Ariaotlo,
from Paradise to Athens, was not dawn
ward, but slowly and painfully upward.
All the significant facts 10 the history Of
every race shows that IL improved from
the very time Of its FIRST sppearance,f all
though In some cases very sluggishly or
ftfully, and in others only up TO a certain
point; aud, consequently, that mankind
has made progress fron the beginning. The
Dark ages we're an eclipse of the cigiliza.
ton of Rome and Greece; but they were
the darkness before the dawn Of day upon
a wider horizon. within which were all the
higher races OF the earth. Human nhture
has not always been tho same. lis essence
is the same, but il has grown with the
lapse oftime, aud has been developed by
self culture. OF the race, as a WHOLE the
Intellectual capacity has increase, and the
moral sense becomes finer as the world
grows older. Il The amelioration Of human
society is due less to the conviction or the
conversion Of individuals than TO this de-.
velopment OF human nature. Tho signs
Of this development appear drst in indi--l
yduals, sometimes in not more than one
or two, in whom the effects Of the change
which is taking place are so strong that
that they can not be concealed; then others
6nd that they are not like those who have
gone before them, and most OF those
around them; this discovery spreads as
new generations take the places Of old
ones. and Humanity has new birth. The
man of a certain race in one age is differ
ent creature from the man of the same
race in a previous age. The man animal
is distinguished from tho brute animal
chiefly by this capacity Of development
and change of nature. But as the earlier
races of brute animals have passed away
before new races OF finer organization. so
it would seem as if,there must have been
races of men who passed away before those
who now rule the world. The remains of
some Of these yet exist upon the earth.
The Mongol and the Negro are but human
sauris us who reached long ago-yet in the
history of man but a little while-ther
full development, and are nov moral
fossils. Other races have the capacity of
continuing the progress of development
which began in them when some Of those
had already reached the point at which,
for ce pturies, they have stopped. There
was never Fall of Man. Man began at
his lowsst-mentaIly. morally, and be-
lisye, even physically, aud has risen.
There never was Golden Age; but there
may be one hereafter. Aristotle was
nearer it than Adam; and We are nearer
than A rstotle. 1t is the console niiousness
of his capabilities, and of how far short he
has yet fallen of them, which, in the en-
deavor to reconcile the possible with the
actual condition of the race, has led man
to the invention of Jewish Fall aud the
Gentle Golden Age. 1t is because have
seen and felt this almost ever since | be-
gan to think independently that in spite
of my admiration of the poetical beauties
of the paradise Lost" have never been
able to read it with interest hardly With
patieuce- Its subject seems to me absurd
ly irreconcilable with the dictates OF com
mon sense aud the facts of history. But
my reverence for Christianity is not there
by disturbed; for let all this be as it may,
what has it to do with the teachings of the
Sermon on the Mount?-[ NebukOe, in
Galaxy. OFT af