THE EVOLUTION OF HIGH WAGES. 751 



I will now attempt to deal witli the well-intentioned but very- 

 malignant dogma of Maltlms, and also witli tlie yet more important 

 and admitted truths presented by Darwin and Wallace, from the 

 point of view of an idealist. I know not bow else to discriminate 

 between one who holds the views which I shall attempt to present 

 and one who regards man and his functions purely as a materialist 

 giving regard to physical influences only. 



So far as I comprehend the propositions submitted by either of 

 these great leaders in scientific thought, their theories are all based 

 upon the material conditions which govern man considered as one 

 of the animals. If we deal with the existence of animal life as a 

 stage in the conversion of forces by which the universe exists, we may 

 fully admit that the animal is dominated by the forces of Nature. 

 There may have been a development of species perhaps from a single 

 germ. There has been a survival of one species of animal while 

 others disappear. There has been an adaptation of animal life to 

 the varying conditions of climate and soil in the long geologic ages. 

 There has been a survival of the physically strongest of particular 

 species. There has been a survival of the more intelligent species. 

 Yet there is no evidence of the progressive development of intelli- 

 gence or of experience in any existing species of animal except man- 

 kind. The dams built by the beavers in the far Northwest, of 

 which Professor Agassiz computed the age at nearly two thousand 

 years, as I remember, by the growth of the peat bogs that had 

 gradually filled the lakes which the beavers created, were made in 

 the same way that the beavers build their dams at the present time. 

 There has been no variation, no progress. The beaver of the present 

 generation to all intents and purposes corresponds to the beaver of 

 two thousand years ago. True, the students of natural history have 

 proved slight variations, slight adaptations and slight modifications 

 in specific groups of animals, but as yet the one distinction remains 

 which separates man from all other animals. None but men are 

 endowed with progressive wants and with the mental capacity to 

 secure their supply. 



If it is held, as some naturalists may allege, that this statement 

 is too strong, it may be admitted that there has also been a survival of 

 species and of members of species whose brain measurement is to-day 

 larger than in former periods which come within observation, and 

 that there has been an increase of intelligence as distinguished from 

 instinct. There are also members of particular species like beavers, 

 who under certain conditions develop the power to build dams, and 

 who under other conditions have not developed that power. Yet the 

 fact remains that these slight variations, occurring in periods of almost 

 geologic time, have no correspondence with the progress of mankind. 



