ORGANIC EVOLUTION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2497, 22 January 1902, Page 15

ORGANIC EVOLUTION.

When, during the course of physical evolution, the ocean has become sufficiently cool for the existence of protoplasm, minute living organisms appeared on its surface. These increased in size, varied in many directions, and, m time, discovered the bottom of the sea, on which they established themselves, changing from swimming to crawling creatures. Gradually these organisms managed to live in safety among the rough waters of the sea coast, and then they =prcad over the land. First the plants and then the animals, which came to feed on the plants

Once established on land and breathing air, improvements in the circulatory system of the higher animals became possible. The purified blood was kept separate from the impure blood, and increased rapidity of physiological processes heated the body, so that in the birds and mammals a stream of mire, warm blood was poured upon the bran. Tims stimulated, the brain developed rapidly, and the physiological evolution thus inaugurated has reached such a height in man as to place him mentally apart from the icst of the animal kingdom.

Biological evolution differs from physical evolution in being brought about by the transmission of bodily variations from one generation to another But in psychological evolution mind je not transmitted from parent to offspring, only the organ in which it is to be manifested. Intelligence depends not only on tho structure of this organ, but on early associations and education, by which means the wisdom of one generation is handed down to the next.

Psychological evolution consists of two parts. The first is intellectual, and is found in all the higher animals, as well as in man. The second is ethical, and is exclusively human

Intellectual evolution, like biological evolution, is due to competition between different individuals, and the action of selection. We probably see the fir=t germs of ethical evolution in parental affection, which, among gregarious animals of sufficient intelligence, widened into social sympathy, and this, in man, gave rise to the social or civic virtues This advance also appears to have been — or, at any rate, may liavt? been — due to selection, and the result was the emergence of what is called utilitarian morality. Morality in the strict sense of the term — that is, formal morality — alao appears to have arisen from sympathy, but not by means of -selection. The long and constant use by man of formal morality has made it instructive, and has thus given rise to the conscience.

How sympathy gave ri-p to the conscience is a difficult problem about which we know very little at present; for few people ha\e taken up the study of ethics from an observational basis. But the process, as deecribed by Darwin, evidently implies a considerable intellectual capacity, and, what is still more important, the exercise of free-will ; for no onp. could regret following a lower impulse unlf>=, l-o felt that he had the power to clioosp a higher one. Ethical development, therefore, could onJy commence at a stage far above the highest apes, and, probably, above the earlier forms of man. Meantime, while this giowtii of sympathy was taking place, the evolution of religion — as ah each/ doscubed — would have been going on and the priest would have assumed a position of great importance It is he who would draw up tho standard of light and wrong, and thus morality would be rpinforced and stimulated by the religious feel.ug.

It therefore appears that ethical and religious development were at first separate, but quickly coalesced, until, in Clmstian countries, they are completely blended. But this mutual dependence is not so pronounced every where. It is not possible to give even the slightest outline of ethical evolution without questioning tho religious element. The important point to remember is that ethical development i-> dvi, to a conflict of wishes in the individual himself, and is possible only becau-e man has the power of choosing one of tlic-se wishes and acting upon it; that is, to the e\cri hp of free-will.

Xow, v. c car.uot think that the I'vulu tioiury piopp-^, of which I lia\o given you n. mere sketch, 1- confined to the oaitli alone. We mud suppo>p that, whatever may be tho object for which the i-olar system was called into existence, it is for the same purpose that the \<irious stellar systems exist ; .md, in all probability, long after the eun !•> cold and dark, othei stellar each m iLs turn, will take up the do\elopnient of 'ifi' and mind. But they also m time will become cold and lifo]p->=, until, at la-t, tlie process, t-o far as it i-> connected with the material universe, will be over. But is it not possible that evolution may still go on .if tor hfp haf por^hed? This is a point to which I .'.ill return presently.