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the most suitable reflex actions, then by inherited tendencies, finally by its own conscious intelligence and will. The first motives are the appetites, but these are succeeded by ever higher motives as the perceptions become clearer and more subtile relations in environment are taken into account. Governed first purely by appetites, the will is ever more influenced by prudential considerations, and finally shows well-developed "natural affections." It has set its face toward unselfishness.

Digestion and muscle, as well as mind, have persisted in man. He is not, cannot be, disembodied spirit. And in his mental life reflex action and instinct, appetite and prudence, are still of great importance. But the higher and supreme development of these powers could never have resulted in man. They might alone have produced a superior animal, never His mammalian structure found its logical and natural goal in family and social life. And even the lowest goal of family life is incompatible with pure selfishness, and as family life advanced to an ever higher grade it became the school of unselfishness and love. And social life had a similar effect.

man.

This

Moreover, man as a social being early began to learn that he could claim something from his fellows, and that he owed something to them. If he refused to help others, they would refuse to help him. was his first, very rude lesson in rights and duties. Love, duty, and right have ever since been the watchwords of his development and progress. We have not yet considered, and must for the present disregard, the value and efficiency of religion in aiding his adAt present we emphasize only the historical

vance.

pru

fact that man has not become what he is by a higher development of the body, nor by giving free rein to appetite, nor yet by making the dictates of selfish dence supreme. And if there is any such thing as continuity in history, such modes and aims of life, if now followed, would surely only brutalize him and plunge him headlong in degeneration. He must live for right, truth, love, and duty. In just so far as he makes any other aim in life supreme, or allows it to even rival these, he is sinking into brutality. This is the clear, unmistakable verdict of history, and we shall do well to heed it.

But granting all that can be claimed for this sequence, have not the lower forms whose anatomy we have sketched-worm, fish, and bird-halted at various points along this line of march? Yet they have evidently survived. And if they have found safe restingplaces, cannot higher forms turn back and join them? In other words, is not degeneration easier than advance and just as safe? What is the result if an animal tries to return to a lower plane of life or refuses to take the next upward step? Generally extermination. The very classification of worms in a number of small groups, which must once have been connected by a host of intermediate forms, is indisputable proof of most terrible extermination. They did not go forward, and the survivors are but an infinitesimal fraction of those which perished. Let us take an illustration where paleontology can help us. at one time covered with marsupial mammals. Some mained behind. And outside of Australia the oposadvanced into placental forms. The great mass resums are the only survivors of them all. And this is

isolated

The earth was

only one example where a thousand could be given. Place is not long reserved for mere cumberers of the ground. There are so few exceptions to this statement that we might almost call it a law of biology.

Let us see how it fares with an animal which retreats to a lower plane of life. A worm, rather than seek its own food, becomes a parasite. It degenerates, but still is easily recognized as a worm. A crustacean tries the same experiment, though living outside of its host instead of in it. It sinks to a place even lower, if possible, than that of the parasitic worm. A locomotive form becomes sessile. It loses most of its muscles and the larger part of its nervous system; and even the digestive system, which it has made the goal of its existence, is inferior to that of its locomotive ancestors and relatives. But to the vertebrate these lowest depths of stagnation and degeneration are, as a rule, impossible. From true fish upward parasitism and sessile life are practically impossible. Here stagnation and degeneration mean, as a rule, extinction. Of all the relatives of vertebrates back to worms only the very aberrant lines of amphioxus and of the tunicata remain. Of the rest not a single survivor has yet been discovered. And yet what hosts of species must have peopled the sea. The primitive round-mouthed fishes have practically disappeared. The ganoids survive in a few species out of thousands. The amphibia of the carboniferous and the next period and the reptiles of the mesozoic have disappeared; only a few feeble degenerate remnants persist. And this was necessarily so. Each advancing form crowded hardest on those which occupied the same place and sought the same food, that is, the members of the same species. And the first to

suffer from its competition were its own brethren. Death, rarely commuted into life imprisonment, is the verdict pronounced on all forms which will not advance. And does not the same law of advance or extinction apply to man? What is the record of successive civilizations but its verification ?

Notice once more that as we ascend in the scale of development natural selection selects more unsparingly and the path to life narrows. It is a very easy matter for the lowest forms to get food. Indeed the plant sits still and its food comes to it. And the battle of brute force can be fought in a multitude of waysways— by mere strength, by activity, by offensive or defensive armor, or even by running into the mud and skulking. It is harder to gain knowledge, and yet many roads lead to an education. Colleges are by no means the only seats of education. And many totally uneducated men have college diplomas. And life is, after all, the great university, and here the sluggard fails and the plucky man with the poor 'fit" often carries off the

honors.

"But where shall wisdom be found?

And where is the place of understanding?

The gold and the crystal cannot equal it:

And the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold.
No mention shall be made of corals or of pearls:
For the price of wisdom is above rubies."

"Wide is the

And when it comes to righteousness there is only one right, and everything else is wrong. gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat: Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto

life, and few there be that find it." Therefore "strive to enter in at the strait gate." And remember that “strive” means wrestle like one of the athletes in the old Olympic games.

66
'I saw

also that the Interpreter took Christian again by the hand and led him into a pleasant place, where was built a stately palace beautiful to behold; at the sight of which Chrisgreatly delighted. He saw also, upon the top thereof, certain persons walking, who were clothed all in gold. said Christian, May we go in thither ?

tian was

Then

'Then the Interpreter took him and led him up toward the door of the palace; and, behold, at the door stood a great company of men, as desirous to go in, but durst not. There also sat a man at a little distance from the door at a table-side, to take the name of him that should enter therein; he saw also that in the door-way stood many men in armour, to keep it, being resolved to do to the men that would enter what hurt and mischief they could. Now was Christian somewhat in amaze. At last, when every man started back for fear of the armed men, Christian saw a man of a very stout countenance come up to the man that sat there to write, saying, Set down my name, Sir; the which when he had done, he saw the man draw his sword, and put an helmet upon his head, and rush toward the door upon the armed men, who laid upon him with deadly force; but the man, not at all discouraged, fell to cutting and hacking most fiercely. So after he had received and given many wounds to those that attempted to keep him out, he cut his way through them all, and pressed forward into the palace, at which there was a pleasant voice heard from those that were within, even of those that walked upon the top of the palace saying:

"Come in, come in ;

Eternal glory thou shalt win.'

'So he went in, and was clothed in such garments as they. "Then Christian smiled, and said, I think verily I know the meaning of this."-Bunyan's, Pilgrim's Progress, p. 44.

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