The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-10-26
The Sunday Journal has the largest and
best circulation of any Sunday paper in In
diana. Price three cents.
THE LAW OF PROGRESS.

I'LL LAW OI RON"bS1'
The teaching that the earth was made for
man. that all forms of force and matter are
his servants, that the race has an infinitely
long and happy future awaiting it, is the
opening and the closing chapter of the popu-
lar text books on nature.
This theory is also extended to the stellar
snaces. and enthusiastic writers about "other
worlds than ours have peopled the planets
with inhabitants like earth's, existing under
, the same general conditions. Even the peo-
pie to the square mile have been estimated,
and proper number of astronomers supplied
with powerful telescopes, are thrown in, who
study our earth as our star-ga study the
drearv wastes and lava beds of the moon.
But the fact is, things, upon the whole, are
not what they appear to be. The whole his
tory of man shows that the first conceptions
and conclusions as to the essential facts and
happenings of nature have been false. Man
is really onlya part of nature; stands within,
is biased in Judgment and wrong in conclus-
1OHS. Ills SCl6uCO heec away OSO4 " SAAN'iisS
ing science. The ancients believed, and the
majority of men still believe, the sun and
stars revolved about the earth. The paradox
of the earth's shape has been great bugbear
It seems fiat, while it is really
spherical, and the eternal wonder has
to be explained to every child.
@ Lo1;o e., 10 of tho aaptb
the antiquity of man and other species of
animals, with the early theories of the winds
and tides, of marine currents, of fire, of
gravitation, of invisible gases, of chemical
union. The whole course of growth in nat
ural knowledge is marked by Elusive decep-
tons and paradoxes. The beliefs of one age
very slowly have realities superseded appear
ances Such is the history of human progress
in so apparently simple thing as the phenom-
ena of nature.
Man has spent thousands of years in learn
ing to Glitch his wagon to the stars that is,
to make the current of physical phenomena
comfort The greatest lesson he has learned
is that the natural and evolutionary processes
of nature are sufficient explanation and cause
of all that is, including himself; that he is a
part and not the whole; that if the earth is
not what he would have it, at least his will
has something to do with the shaping of
events 1t is curious thing, that while man
has become intelligent in the explanation of
natural phenomena, he has ruled out the
superstitious and supernatural from the
great provinces of force and mat
ter from celestial mechanics from
physical and chemical changes, and in biology
from the old view of the permanence of
species and the origin of man.
This law of elimination should also be car
ried into social phenomena The natural pro-
cesses are sufficient also to account for and
control the social order and state. The per-
feet social state-the laws relating to property,
to family association, to racial mingling to
wors hip and religious belief-these can only
NC SCbllON eilOi AOAi9 NliiiO dilu LlltOu tApCI4-
ence. Republics are new in human govern
nlent; so is religious liberty. Whether one
race is as good as another before the law and
in the eyes of God and man is one of the great
problems now before the Christian world.
The methods which have been so successful in
settling the problems and paradoxes of natu-
~ Ia N,1I s,NLa Il.
spheres. The old paradoxes, both theological
and metaphysical, as well as social, will proba-
rbly be dethroned. The problem now is to
so guide the vast and but partially organized
social fOrces-the family the school, the
church and the state-that they may do the
work for which they were established They
have each basis in nature. Experience
warrants the belief and deep conviction
that they will insure the amelioration of the
race and secure the highest good of the ind-
Yidual. One of these forces is not more i'm
portant than another. There is sphere for
each. They must be kept to the track, deal
with the present, and support and interact
one with the other. No party or candidate
whose life or theories violate the sanctities of
the home OF the church, can hope to succeed
There are some things established in social
life as well as in natural science. The states
man who has ignored or defed the great laws
of social life has put himself in the way of the
tempest, and will go down with obloquy and !