Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1905-02-22
Words of Praise.
CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE

ED FROM PAGE ONE
martial field to which he gave his
earnest thought and his best endeavor.
During his life science made wonder
full advances. The doctrine of evolu-
tion was announced and became
generally accepted and it came to be
that eminent men in. intellectual life
announced that force acting upon the
atoms accounted for the material,
world, and that the doctrine of evolu-
tion was all-sufficient to account for
animal life and even for man. The
belief in God was said to spring from
ancestor worship and the belief in a
future life was delusion. know
that the seeming contest between
science and religion earnestly occupied
Mr.. Eaton's thoughts. He searched
after truth with honest mind and any
thing that to his judgment was es-
tablished as true he accepted, con-
fident that each truth must accord
with every other truth and that all
men would come TO know that God
ruled the universe. All scientists now
admit that the field of science is
limited, and the great apostle of
evolutionary philosophy has declared
that there is nothing more certain
than that there is power behind the
universe from which has come all this
is, but that what that power is is I'M
movable. That power unknown to
Herbert Spencer is the God whom Mr.
Eaton knew and worshipped. Accord
ing to evolution life is the continuous
adjustment of internal to external
relations. This fairly defines animal
life, but evidently it falls far short OF
defining life manifested in man; for,
to 60 no further, it may be truthfully
urged THAT under the Influence OF
feelings or principles which belong to
the noblest part Of his being man does
not change in correspondence with
external circumstances, but, on the
contrary. acts in such manner as to
cause, if it may be, external clrcum-
stances to change in.correspondence
with his feelings or principles. The
highest that has been claimed in re-
ference to the animal world is that a
few animals can reason, and that this
is true to limited lextent admit,
but no animal has ever given sign OF
the knowledge..::o of good and evil, Of
veneration, of purity Eof conduct, OF
honestly .honoTl or religion. These
terms refer to Wholesale of human
life which is not touched by the term
treason" and which..may be said to be
as much higher Ethan reason as reason
is higher than assimilation. No animal
possesses thought orlhope of future
life but from the earliest times man
kind have looked to an existence after
death. have believed that this life does
not end all. Evolution cannot account
for this, for evolution takes cognlzance
only of the upward growth, it looks to
a past lower than the present and to
continuous better correspondence of
plants, animals and man to their
earthly surroundings. It's doctrine,
in brief, is the survivalIof those types
best fitted to live on earth, and accord
ing to this theory manlcan know moth
ing or aspire to nothing that has not
come Iwithin the experience of the
race. But a future life is not part
of that experience, and..upon the basis
of evolution alone, it is something that
man cannot think of, much less be-
lieve in. But that he does think of it,
that he does believelin:it, we ALL know.
This belief, this aspiration must there
fore have come to man from aspiritual
source, it was not begotten by the
material world. If the force that is
behind all the phenomena of life is re-
sponsible for all that is it must also be
responsible for this belief in future
life. Somehow, man, the masterpiece
of creation, has got himself welded to
the belief that all things here have re-
lations which lie in a world that is be-
hind the shadow of death. This belief
has been at the root of his highest en-
deayor and of his keenest pain. Now
Nature through all her orders appears
to have made all creatures contended
with the conditions of their life. The