EVOLUTION AND THE AFTER-LIFE, 59 



peared with improved organs of sense to receive impressions irom 

 this better outer workl, improved modes of action, and above all in 

 place, and superior to all in function, an organ of intelligence was 

 added. The old methods of soul-manifestation continue; both reflex 

 and instinctive action find their appropriate place in the higher organ- 

 ization ; but they are not sufficient for the numerous and complex re- 

 lations which now existed between the creature and the outer world ; 

 then the cerebro-spinal system comes into being, consciousness becomes 

 perfected, intelligence established, and reason dawns. 



Again, ages elapsed in gradual changes, until at length man, the 

 crowning excellence, appeared an upright form, a powerful brain, a 

 soul capable of tracing causes, and even seeking to find out the First 

 Cause. He was the first to place an ideal his highest conception of 

 good before himself, and say, " Now for this will I strive ;" the first 

 of all the long line of sentient beings to aspire after a higher life ; 

 the first to say v/ithin himself, "I shall die," or ask, witli ever-increas- 

 ing interest, "Shall I live as^ain?" 



And what is the relation of science, especially as rejjresented by 

 the doctrine of evolution, to this asi:)iration after a future life ? The 

 objections raised against the doctrine by the religious Avorld the un- 

 instructed part, at least are that it banishes Deity and tends to 

 materialism. 



If by banishing Deity is meant that conception of him which par- 

 ticular sects or peoples have obtained, and are eacli desirous that all 

 the world should have, the objection may or may not have founda- 

 tion ; but, if it is meant that the doctrine shuts out a great first and 

 adequate cause for all the grand and orderly series of events and ex- 

 istences in Nature, nothing could be further from the truth. The 

 desire to seek for causes is one .of the developments of the human 

 mind, increasing in direct ratio with the increase of intelligence. 

 Brute intelligence exhibits no such desire. The savage mind does not 

 rise far into that sphere of intelligence which demands causes ; it is 

 only as a higher reasoning power dawns that analysis commences, and 

 causes are sought after; and the higher the intelligence and stronger 

 the power of reason, the more imperative the demand for causes, and 

 the more perfect the comprehension of them. 



What is true of causes in general is true in a still greater degree of 

 remote causes, and of a first cause; and hence that which we should 

 expect to occur is found to be the fact, namely, that the scientific men 

 of the present time, the well-developed and well-cultivated minds in 

 all departments of learning, but especially in physical science, are the 

 ones most fully established in an intelligent belief in an adequate first 

 cause. The time is past in which the feeblest artificial works found 

 upon the surface of a single planet, even to the fiiut-hewn weapons of an 

 unknown race, must have assigned for them a competent originator, and 

 yet man himself, with liis complex organization, the long line of organ- 



