The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-07-14


ton he taught that everything origin
ated in single sphere. held together
by Love, but Hate crept in and caused
disoords. This view held that there
were graded creatures from man TO
God.
This Introduction will go TO show
that the idea of evolution is old. 1t is a
scheme that makes no bounds, but
( takes in all forms,
Evolution is mans desire for unity.
1t is what made monotheism and its
conceptions in the present time are as
grand as the grand conception of the
one god of the Hebrews.
1 shall not speak of the mystic con-
ceptions; how the human soul made as
cents through 10, Il, IA, II, 20 circles up
to God. Everything is a part Of every
thing else.
Smelling, the German philosopher,
was a pretty good evolutionist. His
conception was a very crude one. He
thought that everything developed
from a sort of primeval matter, every
thing struggling up to mind His Sc
ries was matter, chemism, body, mind,
will. art and Christianity.
Oakham's book on evolution shows
how simple even intelligent men may
be in their ideas. First it deals with
the Emphatic system in crinoids, and
considers the development of this sys-
tenn as the beginning of all.
Then came the Venus system in the
muscles; then the brachiopOds in which
the heart was most prominent. Then
the lungs. The bones began way down,
then nerves. A crude conception, ut
terly inadequate and misleading, but
useful in showing how absurd men
may become in the trying to get the
world together in unity. Hegel might
be called an evolutionist He tried to
knit together the ideas of the former
PHILOSOPHERS.
We all connect evolution nowadays
with Darwin and Herbert Spencer, per-
haps. Darwins work began just at the
time when naturalists had classified all
the common animals. Species had been
determined. How did these species
originate? Did God create them as
Agassiz said?
Darwin spent his time in showing
that species always changed. His grant
work was to show how all these ami
mails developed, and then how man did
not differ from other animals. Herbert
Spencer tried to show that it applied to
all forms of matter and of human So
ciety. He has written the story of the
world from the cosmic gas to the high
est human society.
Won Beyers demonstrated that the
embryo of any animal tends to repeat
the whole history Of the species. Growth
is a very intense story of the develop
ment of the animal. Heckel attempted
TO give us a pedigree of human life
from it's. beginning in the primitive
worm.
Some people think that evolution is
in direct line, but that is not the case.
There are side branches.
Drummond has gone back to the old
standpoint of Smelling. Darwin has
very little to say of the evolution of
the soul. Spencer, while he gives a
number of formulate, does not give any
discussion to satisfy the curiosity he
has aroused in this line. AS we mature
we get interested in things further
away.
Mind develops by reflex action, be-
ginning with instinct and passing
through all the stages to the highest
form of thought.
Drummond began to revise Smelling
in this way. The old idea of evolution
was very humiliating To think we
We're developed from apes was distaste-
full and seemed to upset the idea of re-
Igion. Drummond has given much
hope to doubling man. College meta
Tnorphoses men. A man at college
must think for himself and it is a
dangerous process. Drummond shows
that a man can be an evolutionist and
be Christian. I think it shows more
that man must be an evolutionist to be
the highest type of Christian. The idea
of the struggle for existence is selfish
Drummond's writing on the develop
ment of the mother and of the father
is beautiful. After that came the evo-
luton of the families. Those families
live best in which is self sacrifice He
shows that the greatest thing that
makes for the survival of the family
is the thought Of working for others. 1t
places Christianity as the very law of
animal life.
We have many stories about the age
of the world. The world is no doubt in
the opinion of those who have studied
the idea, very old, having required i'm
mense time to reach its present stage.
- have spoken in this general way,
because want TO discuss in the fol-
lowing lectures the evolution of the
human soul. Every anatomist knows
that we have not a tissue which is not
represented in lower animals, but they
have not discussed the development of
the soul. We shall discuss it from the
standpoint that the ego, the soul, grew
out of other states just as our body
was evolved from protoplasm.
A species is kind. of stage in evolu-
ton. Until We have a general concep-
tion of the evolution of the human soul
we can have no logical plan of educa-
ton.
l like tc define education in a broad
way as simply environment. An educa-
tional system in large sense is simply
an environment. History is so full OF
ups and downs that you have to take
a long iook to see. progress. The philos-
ophy is education based on evolution
Heretofore it has been based or
a few speculative conceptions. We are
all branches of the same family tree
You, |, the lowest animal, are ali alike
People talk of narrow specialsm, but
since Darwin, thought has killed mar
row specialism.
The philosophy of education is the
largest philosophy that there is. Larg.
er than craftsmanship and religion, fol
it will include these.
If we belong to that elite of optomists
We have to believe that the best thingt
past is raught to the history of tht
past is nought to the history of the flu
ture. The optimis. is the only true T,hl.