The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1876-01-14
EVOLUTION OF THOUGHT.

EVOLUTION OF THOUGHT.
DIR. Holmes, in making some passing
remarks on the subject of Darwinian-
ism, suggests that if we receive that
theory, women can no longer be taunted
with having brought on humanity the
traditional curse. The idea, though it
may perhaps startle, and for moment
cause some hearts to throb with fear
against the straight-laced jacket of
creeds founded on the traditional
curse" is yet fraught with possible
promise for womankind.
Science has waged valiant warfare in
its struggle for recognized existence;
has met, warred with, and vanquished at
every step the prejudices and bigotry of
men, and to this untiring energy and
zeal does it owe the vantage-ground it
holds to-day. This is not more true of
science than of any interest recognized
as growing power, and hence the fierce
battles that the leaders of the woman
movement have so often and so repeat
edly fought.
A recent writer declares that not until
the "time-worn views concerning wom-
ans connection with the fall of man,
and hence with all of human suffering;
not until the clergy shall cease to incul-
cate the idea that women are not to
stand equal with men, will feminine
mind yield its possible fruit to the vint-
age of thought"
1t must be plain to the understanding
of all who think upon the matter, that
if the struggle for happiness continues
to be the motive force of human activ-
ity; if the utilitarian idea of the great
est good to the greatest number consti-
tutes the keystone of the ethics of the
future; if in the something that will in
due time replace the crumbling struct-
ures of superstition we approximate
toward the ideal of perfect morality,
then coming generations must see wom-
anhood in true light-not as the curl
GUS daughters of over-curious Eve,
whose eilly-controlledc curiosity prompted
her some thousands of years ago to an
act of disobedience which in some mys-
terious, undefinable way entailed for
evermore a curse upon her daughters,
but as rational, intelligent beings, each
accountable for her own acts, and these
acts, whether good or bad, not chargea-
bic especially to the fact that she is a
woman, but that she is a human being.
This social development which is to
give US a broader heritage of opinions,
higher thought-levels, is no institution
of miracles, which in day may blossom
and put forth perfect fruit.
In the childhood of civilization, with
its demand for mere physical force, its
savageism which estimated physical
force above all other power, we can read
lily understand the unequal position in
which women were placed; but the ad-
vancement, steady and slow, of the intel
lectual and moral forces, has revealed a
yet greater strength and shows the util-
ity of different orders of power. If we
look for a miracle in these things
either past or to come-we shall look in
vain; if we look for steady progress,
the logical sequence of steady develop
ment, we shall find it in the past, and a
double portion in the future. With,
therefore, an abiding faith in this fu-
ture, that Utopia of human dreams, we
lay aside doubts, fears, and perpIexities,
and resting in the shadow of the rock of
reason, put off the vague superstitions
that have come down to US from that
dim far distant shadowy time
"When yet the yet young earth was younger
yet"