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About Torch of reason. (Silverton, Oregon) 1896-1903 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 26, 1899)
“ TRUTH BEARS THE TORCH IN THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH.” — Lucretius VOL. 3. The Hymns of Old. SILVERTON, OREGON, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1899. Social animals are impelled part ly by the wish to aid the members of BY J . E. H . their community in a general man ner, but more commonly to perform T s a r s , lover of m v soul, O, let me certain definite actions. Man is to th y bosom fly, In sp ires ten th o u san d e v e ry d a y , • impelled by the same general wish X a lth o u g h it is a lie. to aid his fellows; but has few or In sp ires ten th o u san d to sleep in faith , i w hile w ork a ro u n d neglected lies; no special instincts. He differs al In sp ires ten th o u sa n d frig h te n ed souls so from the lower animals in the to h u n t for m ansio ns in th e skies. power of expressing his desires by B u ddha, B rah m a, M ahom et, S m ith , in spire ten th o u sa n d ju st th e s a m e ; : words, which thus become a guide T hen why should we still p ray and sing to aid required and bestowed. The a Je su s C h ris ti’s holy(?) n am e? 0 , w aste n o t m u sic’s sacred love on fool motive to give aid is likewise much ish a n c ie n t h e a th e n m y th . modify d in man; it no longer con A re n o t our m inds too precious goods to sists solely of a blind instinctive tra m p le u n d e r foot like th is? impulse, but is much influerced by Com e, ye sin n e rs, poor an d needy, weak the praise or blame of his fellows. an d w ounded, sick and sore, G ive u p your god-and-devil w o rsh ip ; O, The appreciation and the bestowal give it u p forever m ore. Com e to tr u th and love an d w isdom ; of praise and blame both rest on com e to know ledge and be free. sympathy; and this emotion is one 0 , le t th e to rch of reason guide you of the most important elements of n e a re r to h u m a n ity . the social instincts. Sympathy, though gained as an instinct, is al Natural Origin of Morality. so much strengthened by exercise As all men desire their BY CHARLES DARW IN, M .A .,L L .D .,F.R .S. or habit. own happiness, praise or blame are à moral being is one who is bestowed on action and motives ac capable of reflecting on his cording as they lead to this end; * past actions and their mo and as happiness is an essential tives—of approving of some and part of the general good, the great disapproving of others; and the fact est-happiness principle indirectly that man is the one being who cer serves as a nearly safe standard of tainly deserves this designation is right and wrong. As the reason the greatest of all distinctions be ing powers advance and experience tween him and the lower animals. is gained the remoter effects of cer The moral sense follows, firstly, tain lines of conduct on the charac from the enduring and ever-present ter of the individual and on the nature of the social instincts; sec general good are perceived; and ondly, from man’3 appreciation of then the self-regarding virtues come the approbation and disapprobation withir. the scope of public opinion of his fellows; and, thirdly, from and receive praise and their op the high activity of his mental fac posites blame. But with the less ulties, with past impressions ex civilized nations reason often errs, tremely vivid; and in these latter and many bad customs and base respects he differs from the lower superstitions come within the same animals. Owing to this condition scope and are then esteemed as of mind, man cannot avoid looking high virtues and their breach as both backward and forward and heavy crimes. The moral faculties are generally comparing past impressions. Hence after some temporary desire or pas and justly esteemed as of higher sion has mastered his social in value than the intellectual powers. stincts, he reflects and compares But we should remember that the the now weakened impression of activity of the mind in vividly re such past impulses with the ever calling past impressions is one of present social instincts; and he the fnndamental though secondary then feels that dissatisfaction which bases of conscience. This affords all unsatisfied instincts leave be the strongest argument for educat hind them,and he therefore resolves ing and stimulating in all possible to act differently for the future — ways the intellectual faculties of and this is conscience. Any in every human being. No doubt a stinct permanently stronger and man with a torpid mind, if his so more durable than another gives cial affections and sympathies are rise to a feeling which we express well developed, would be led to by saying it ought to be obeyed. good actions, and may have a fair A pointer dog if able to reflect on ly sensitive conscience. But what his past conduct would say to him ever renders the imagination more self, I ought (as indeed we say of vivid and strengthens the habit of him) to have pointed at that bare, recalling and comparing past im and not have yielded to the passing pressions will make the conscience more sensitive, and may even some temptation of hunting it. what compensate for weak social affections and sympathies. The moral nature of man has reached its present standard partly through the advancement of his reasoning powers and consequently of a just public opinion, but espe cially from his sympathies having been rendered more tender and widely diffused through the effects of habit, example, instruction and reflection. It is not improbable that after long practice virtuous tendencies may be inherited. Ul timately man does not accept the praise or blame of his fellow's as his sole guide, though few escape this influence, but his habitual con victions, controlled by reason, af ford him the safest rule. Neverthe less, the first foundation or origin of the moral sense lies in the social instincts, including sympathy; and these instincts no doubt were pri marily gained, as in the case of the lower animals, through natural selection.—[Descent of Man. Unknowable—Another Name for Unreal. BY W. H. MAPLE. can not comprehend lim itless space, but he is cog nizant of it—he knows that it is. He can not comprehend in finity, but mathematics brings it to light as surely as it does the exist ence of a thousand pebbles. He can not comprehend endless suc cession, but he can find it to be a fact. He cannot know all things, but he can know some things and know that he knows them, and know also that it is possible for him to know other and still other things, being limited only by op portunity. And it is impossible for him to set a limit to his own power to know by any independent vo lition of his own, as it is impossible for him to know any one thing by reason of any such volitionary power. He knows what is reflected by his mental faculties and he can not know anything else; and hence he can not know that a reality not known is unknowable. It is common with theological writers of an advanced type to speak of the “how” and the “why” of natural things. They say that science has the “how” to deal with, and religion the “why”—that sci ence has for its object the explana tion of the immediate causes of phenomena but that it is left, largely at least, to supernatural revelations to account for the pur an NO. 42. pose of things. They insist, by inference, that nothing exists ex cept bv reason of a pre-existing purpose of something else. Now it seems much more rational to admit the existence of things, absolutely, unqualifiedly. Existence itself is before purpose, and requires no apology for its be ing. Hence there can not have been purposes before a being (a something). Things are, and with the excep tion of some of the works of man and of other finite intelligences, if such exist, there is no reason why for their being. The writer’s position is, there fore, that the “how,” the modus op- erandi of things being knowable without limitation, and there being no “why” for natural things (with the above exception), there is no fact in nature but what the intel lect of man is competent (the op portunity being given) to know. If it is claimed that simple exist ence, or being, is a fact and an un knowable fact, it is perhaps a suf ficient reply to say that substance or essence, however conceived of, is known by its properties—its char acteristics, and that simple being, in the sense of substance without character, is probably not a fact. This seems so, for how better can we arrive at the idea of complete nonentity than by eliminating from matter all its known proper ties? It is most evident that to take from matter the one quality of extension is to destroy it; and to take from force the idea of influ ence exerted is to annihilate force; so that it must be illogical to speak of a supposed thing that is reduced to nonentity in the very effort to conceive of it, as an actuality. The mind is adapted to know realities, and realities have proper ties making them objects of knowl edge—making them knowable; and hence a thing supposed to be a real ity, but found to have no knowable nature, is necessarily discarded by the mind (if the mind is not under duress) as a false conception and as not existing at all as a verity. The “unknowable” is possibly only another name for unreal. Knowledge is of, or concerning nature’s methods, and nature’s methods are all knowable. To go further than this, and to say that back ol and anterior to na ture there existed a finitude of pur poses in the mind of an infinite personal intelligence, is without rea son and without results. It is simply an attempted explanation for what needs no explanation, in that it resolves itself into seeking a reason for existence—an excuse for being, when being must necessarily be (and is, even in this attempt to account for being) accepted as a first tiuth.—[No “Beginning.”