Bisbee daily review., 1907-07-19
MANS LEGACY FROM BRUTE
 INSTINCTS
Denver Preacher Declares That Prize Fighting hgcaIis' and Shows Degeneracy of All of Our Morals"

DENVER, Colo. July 1S.-The Rev. Henry w. Pinkham decried the ten | dency toward animalism in a strong | sermon at Bethany Baptist church. He said in part:
 An editorial writer in a Denver | daily recently discussed at length l The Fascination of Prize Fighting What is appearing now from this writer's pen. in regard to possible l strife between our country and Japan i might be entitled The Fascination of | War Some months ago in cOnnec- ] ton with the Thaw case, there came | from the same editorial fountain page after page that could have been very properly headed The Fascina- | tion of HarlOtry.' The three tops are but variations of one theme which might be set forth as follows: How l Delightful is it to be a Brute,' Prize | fighting, harlotry and war appear powerfully to the lower elements of human nature. Their survival to the l present day and their tOleration by a 1 civilization that calls itself Christian show the tremendous influence of mankind's inheritance from the brute ancestry.
 | If we should apply to the lower an- imals the terms of morality, we | should say that nutrition and repro ductiOn of the brute's supreme ideals of duty The preservation of a species depends on its loyalty to these ideals. Only those animals tbat get food for 1 themselves, fighting for it when nee essaTy and that reproduce themselves abundantly, have any chance to in. herit the earth Nature has coupled with the two primary appetites- concerned with nutrition and with eprCductiOn-her keenest rewards in physical pleasure and her severest penalties in physical pain. By the process of natural selection she coupled primitive men. as well as an
 imals to obey the commands record
 ed in Genesis, to be fruitful and mul tiply, and to eat freely of the fruit O1 the garden. To primitive meI, as tt
 the brutes, the food supply was ab
 sCIutely limited: those who would sur vive must often fight for something to eat. Fighting was no doubt then a duty although the word duty can net properly be used of a period pre-
 Ceding the development of morality as We know it.
 Modern civilized man has gotten far above his savage ancestors, and cannot without guilt live their life of obedience to the strongest appetites. With the development of agriculture and the arts, the means of subsist- ence may be increased indefinitely. Nutrition and reproduction are of vastly less urgency as compared with the other human interests than they were hundreds of generations ago Animal prOpensities are not sufficient guide for the civilized man of today
 Yet these pTopensities are immensely strong in all of us Where is one that
 born Of woman. altogether can escape
 from the lower world within him
 moods of tiger ald of ape?' The pri mary duty of personal morality is the
 conquest of the lower nature by the higher. the subOTdinatiOn of the tiger
 and the ape within us to the human
 within us Undoubtedly there is Q
 genuine basis in Oul nature for every sin to which we are tempted. Sir
 tastes gOOd-therein lies it's charm
 But sin is not best. He who lives
 the life of appetite IEverts to Q iOwel ] SldSE Cl ENDiullOE anu CldllllS c E'lftAF among the beasts. The patrons Ot prize fighting and of harlotry enrol
 themselves among the brutes.
 The love of the prize fight indi
 cates moral degeneracy.
 The war spirit may be regarded
 with greater respect. War as the
 means, reluctantly adopted after some
 ample warning, of setting free an Op pressed people, or war for the pur pose of ending war and establishing 2
 stable peace is one in whose justified ? tion something can be said. It is the eXultation of war. as the noble and
 glorious against which Christian
 ethics must protest. That is the es pecially deplorable element in the present discussion of possible strife with Japan. Certain newspapers are
 representing our great nation as 8
 big bully, proud of it's muscles and
 ready to fight any new schoolboy that : appears. l cannot believe for a mo ment that there will be a war with Japan Unless our country had
 sought earnestly to avert it, such .
 war would be our condemnation. And
 even if Japan should be the aggressol the Christian sentiment of this na
 tion would protest against the spirit
 of vengeance and would plead in the f If Q dr aconci1