Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1878-03-15

/ II lLt utkruutt prefer lllt I'N w
We know but that it is well they should
| Extinction is before them the sooner. We
have learned to face terrific facts here and
among other facts we have faced the circum-
stance that God puts an end TO an incorrigi-
bly, wicked family i'll this world. These sub
| tie laws by which supreme affections are de-
| termined are the sitting machine of the Dl-
| vine Powers And subtle as the laws are dis
cussed foolishly i'll parlor, in pulpit, in press
and on the platform, degraded age after age
by vice, prated about only too supertcially
| by poetry, they nevertheless have retained
their sanctity All around the globe the
word that bushes humanity quickest. next
after the name of God, is the name of first
love Such is the fact of human experience
and when stand here to assert that the
Divine indications in this particular are not
given out at random, that where a supreme
affection is granted, there n Divine indica-
ton of duty is to be dlscerned You will find
the better part Of the philosophy of the globe
on my side, you will find the better part of
poetry on my side. OF what have the best
singers loved to tell Ills oftenest, if it be not
of the supreme affection? Where is there
anything so hallowed inside the whole range
of secular discussion, as this unspeakable
theme? God grant that the spirit of our
German fathers. who found, according to
Tactus, something celestial in woman, who
revered her responses and buried the adul-
terer alive in the mud, and whipped the
adulteress through the streets, may he the
permanent principle Of our Anglo-Saxon
civilization ; for, if 1t be not, | foresee only
the fate of Rome for the sins of Rome, only
the fate of Sardanapalus Tor the sins OF Sal-
danapalus, only the fate OF every nation that
has violated these subtle laws, only the fate
thet comes inexorably to a luxurious age
when it loses its purity and falls into such
callousness that it cannot discern Gods
touch IN these supreme natural indications
of his will.
$. Even We're this method successful, there
would repain in the lower portion of the
race majority of beings of inferior minds
of which heredity would perpetua;e the def
ciencies. What shall be done with that low
er portion of humanity? Is the problem
concerning its improvement by hereditary
descent yet insoluble
y. Many writers hold that physically and
morally superior race united with ali inferior
one, lowers itself without raising the other,
so that all such alliances are a loss TO civili-
Zation.
The question is, whether such marriages
are justified by the subtle indications of
which l have been speaking with bated
breath. If they are not, beware how you
cross the current OF Gods purposes in natu
raj law You say the current is not very
swift here. But ii it is Il current God urges
on, no matter how slowly it moves, it carries
with 1t the intinities and the eternities, and
you must not try to stem the force of what is
deeper than all thought can sound and more
powerful than Imagination can measure.
Slight indications, you say The superior
has naturally II supreme affection for the
superior and not for the inferior. In that
law there has been explosive power, too.
My feeling is that TIE instinct of the poets is
right, and that the severest philosophical
thought on this topic is right. Each pro-
claims precisely what many writers do, i'll the
name of exact historical investigation. that
usually there is aphysical and a moral dete-
rioration IN the case supposed. The inferior
race is not lifted as much as the higher is
lowered, when the difference in the level of
the two is great originally.
TO- The application of the laws of heredi-
tary descent to human improvement s,there-
fore, beset with great natural difficulties,
and will continue to be so, until, by other
means than the laws OF heredity, the intel
lectual, and especially the moral, averages of
merit in the human family shall be greatly
heightened
Dana in his geology raises the question
whether being better than man is 10 sue
coed the human race on this planet Superior |
to any form of life now on the globe, what |
will be that future creature, as much better |
than man as he is better than the brutes |
which be follows in the line of development |
We know, as Agassiz has Taught us, that the |
rish and the serpent have horizontal spinal |
but that the highest animal organ
lsms below our own have spinal columns III |
oblique position, and that ut last man has at
tanned the erect attitude and so has fulfilled
the possibilities of his anatomical structure. |
But there are those who say that just as in
past geological ages, there were premonitions
IF better things to come, so in this last geo
ogical age. in the filling up of mans spirit
lal capacities, in the descent upon him of IL
power not lis own, there is prediction per
ectly parallel to many prophecy made in
he geological ages that have gone by, of a
world in which superior being will appear,
md of which the law Will be righteousness.