The Relations of Moral Philosophy to Speculation Concerning the Origin of Man [pp. 288-302]

MORAL PHILOSOPHY AND THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 289
families and of nations permanent records of the results accomplished? When the matter is considered in this light, it is plain
that no one doubts that the influence of surrounding circumstance does much to modify the physical conformation of individuals and of families. Some of the more humorous aspects
appearing amid the lights and shades of social life are recognized
in this way. A change from the country to the city is a mere
change of situation, but it brings to view a want of adaptation,
which by and by vanishes from observation as the result of
changes induced by environment. Conversely, a change from
the city to the country places family life under the fresh, bright,
and stimulating influences of nature, which, alas! remain unknown, or are only occasional and flitting experiences, in the history of other families. The physical results-to speak meanwhile of no other, for these afford the matter of consideration
here-are manifest; and as they are recognized by all, we may
say that we are all less or more evolutionists in our view of the
diversity of physical characteristics appearing among us.
Such concurrence, however, as to the moulding power of outward circumstances, tho it sustains in some degree an evolution
theory, goes but a little way towards affording the effective support desired. What has been thus acknowledged is mere variation in physique, and deportment, and expression of countenance, appearing in the history of individuals. And all this is
compatible with a thorough-going denial of the theory of Evolution in its essential nature as a theory of the evolution of higher
forms of organized existence from those of a lower order.
Whenever we have to pronounce upon a theory which suggests that the highest order of physical life is merely a development from a lower, and that also from a still lower, and so on
until we have reached germinal forms of microscopic minuteness, there are hosts of questions of great difficulty to be dealt
with before we can approach any general conclusion. There
are questions of evidence, and questions as to the conditions of
legitimate thought, which carry us far adrift upon an ocean of
investigation, in comparison with which ordinary courses of observation seem but as a series of pleasure-sails on a smooth and
narrow river.
What the Evolution theory offers as the key to the corn
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