The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1877-02-07

progress. This in the individuals develop
ment, in which case, however, il is not, strict
ly speaking, true to say that the higher has
been developed ont Of the lower, for the lower
and the higher spring alike from deeper
source. They are both the unfolding Of what
lay mysteriOusly folded up in the germ before
any manifestation of the individual life had
appeared. So the facts teach us and so a
sound philosophy would declare. But though
we might regard graduation here as equivalent
to progress, this by no means proves that il is
such elsewhere. There is n graduation in the
colors of the prism; but it would be absurd
to call this progress in any such sense as
though one color had grown out e another.
In like manner graduation Of species does not
involve a progress Of species, and we only
confuse ourselves if We confound the two
Because system Of nature can be presented,
in the contemplation of which we pass, by
regular and successive steps, from the lowest
and simplest structure 10 the highest and
most complex, it by no means follows that the
higher has proceeded from the lower, or that
either has been evolved out Of the other. In
natural history no such graduation can yet be
represented. There are broad gaps which re-
quire prodigious leaps of the imagination to
span. Darwin urges that these gaps are APP
paTent-not real. Butthe ease with which
graduation becomes translated into progress,
and the readiness with which the mistake is
made to prove the transmutatiou of species, is
somewhat surprising TO one who thinks close
ly. The imagination, not to say the fancy,
would seem to have more prominent part to
play in these processes than faculty of rigor-
Gus logic. In the assignment of the links
which are fancied TO connect man, through the
anthropoid apes, with the orangoutang and
gibbon, it is argued that q perfect graduation is
sufficient warrant for the inference that
man has, in process of time, been evolved
from the monkey. Now the postulate here is
only fancy. The graduation is so far from
perfect-indeed, it is SO grossly imperfect ex-
eept in certain superficial chsracteristics-that
the most accomplished naturalists declare that
man is the sole species of his genus, and the
sole representative Of his order and sub-class"
1t has been shown conclusively that a monkey
of the highest grade is none the less monkey
and none the more q man than one of the
lowest 1t has also been shown that in the
most salient characteristics Of the two, there
is an inverse order of development which not
only destroys the graduation but renders it
impossible that the higher should ever have
descended from the lower. And if we pass
from the anatomical and physiological quail
ties to the higher psychological distinctions,
we find difference which cannot be bridged
by degrees, though extended to infnitY.
But even if there are men SO sunk in a saw
age state that the difference between them and
the people of the highest civilization seems
greater than than which divides some mon
keys from others, we have at least just as
good reason for saying that the lowest has
degenerated from the highest, as that the
highest has been developed from the lowest
The history of men is full of instances of de-
If we weigh it simply by number,
whether of years or Of nations, or of indivi-
iuals, degeneration and decay vastly prepon-
ierzte. Where is now the civilization of Tyre,
and of Carthage, and Babylon, and Nineveh
And where are the arts that built the Great
Pyramids and Baalbec2 All over the world
We have evidence of tendency among ma
ions and men to sink away from civilization |
INTO barbarism; but history does not show an |
Of a nation rising by its own efforts |
rom barbarism to civilization. Says Darwin |
n his latest book: "a To believe that man was |
civilized, and then suffer utter
degradation in so many regions, is to take |
,itiably low view of human nature" But,
Ilasi this is exactly the view which the sad |
acts of history oblige US to take; and we
must square our views of human nature to the
ctual facts of the case, whether or not it
would better suit our desires and our theories
o have them otherwise History gives un-
numbered cases of downward tendency, but
lot a single instance of self-evolyed pro-
Tess This is the simple truth of history,
which makes all such discussions as Darwin's
the descent of man as false to fact
S they are abhonent to philosophy"