Evolution : popular lectures before the Brooklyn Ethical Association.

Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Evolution : popular lectures before the Brooklyn Ethical Association. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    borers therein. We appreciate and admire the work of the scientist who increases the stock of human learning in any of its departments. Agassiz, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Wal- lace, and all the host of them, awaken our gratitude and command our reverence. But though we have traveled much in these realms of gold, “And many goodly states and kingdoms seen,” profounder emotions are stirred when we contemplate Mr. Spencer and his work. We think no longer of the ingen- ious mechanisms and marvelous adaptations of nature; the wonderful order, the many beauties, the curious things re- vealed and displayed for our observation and study. Bath- er, it seems as if barriers were suddenly thrown down, and a vision opened of boundless knowledge and exhaustless being. Then, our past experience becomes merely the arch where-thro’ “ Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades Forever and forever when we move.” Then feel we, rather, “Like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken.” Or, again, like Cortes, “When with eagle eyes He stood at the Pacific, and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise, Silent upon” that “peak in Darien.”* * Besides what comes from the personal knowledge of the writer, the author- ity for statements of facts in the foregoing essay may be round ifi two articles on Herbert Spencer and his works in the “ Popular Science Monthly,” one in the issue of November, 1874, the other in the issue of March, 1876, both by the late Prof. Edward L. Youmans, and also in the paper entitled “Herbert Spen- cer and the Doctrine of Evolution,” in Cazelles’ “Evolution Philosophy,” pub- lished by D. Appleton & Co. in 1875. The writer wishes furthermore to ac- knowledge his indebtedness to Miss Eliza A. Youmans for several valuable suggestions.