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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    ception of Evolution or Development in its biological aspects. Darwin commenced the investigations which resulted, finally, in the preparation of the “Origin of Species,” twenty years prior to its publication,— before Mr. Spencer had begun his career as an author. Mr. Spencer’s acquaintance and friendship with “George Eliot” lie also thought worthy of note. As to Spencer’s conception of the Absolute as Unknowable, Mr. Chadwick had always felt that, even according to Mr. Spencer’s own definitions, though unknown it was at the same time well- known ; though hidden from us in its totality it was revealed in the entire phenomenal universe, where the method of its operation was open to our study. Mr. Thomas Gardner : — The really essential features of Mr. Spencer’s system have been lucidly presented by the essayist, and his criticism has also been judicious. Although I confess myself a devout follower of Mr. Spencer, I cannot bring my mind into subjection to his views as to the powers and province of government, and think that the “ laissez-faire ” system which he so confidently advocates is not always the best for a community or nation. I think there is not a little wisdom in the words of Edmund Burke, when he said, “Be- fore I congratulate a people on having obtained their liberty which will allow them to do as they please, I think it would be well to wait and see what it will please them to do.” I must confess that my bent of mind inclines me to sympathize more, in the matter of government, with the fervid aspirations of John Buskin than with the colder reflections of Herbert Spencer. Although no one has written on the subject of ethics in a sim- pler and clearer manner than Mr. Spencer, it has been his fate to be, whether wittingly or unwittingly, grossly and widely misun- derstood ; and it was ref resiling to listen, to-night, to an exposition of his views on this crowning work of his life, wherein the really noble and tender sentiment underlying Mr. Spencer’s speculation has been sympathetically presented. I am certainly of the opin- ion that the basis of his philosophy is a profoundly religious one, and look upon the attitude of the Agnostic, when confronted with the shadow of an unknowable and infinite deity, as pre-eminently reverential and worshipful. It is, I think, beyond question that all deep religious emotion finds its birthplace in a mystic region ; and surely, in the noble range of the Evolution philosophy, there is a mystic region large enough to satisfy the aspirations of the most devout dreamer : in fact it is beyond the bounds of all time and space.