Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- I Man's Place in Nature as affected by the Copernican Theory
- II As affected by Darwinism
- III On the Earth there will never be a Higher Creature than Man
- IV The Origin of Infancy
- V The Dawning of Consciousness
- VI Lengthening of Infancy and Concomitant Increase of Brain-Surface
- VII Change in the Direction of the Working of Natural Selection
- VIII Growing Predominance of the Psychical Life
- IX The Origins of Society and of Morality
- X Improvableness of Man
- XI Universal Warfare of Primeval Men
- XII First checked by the Beginnings of Industrial Civilisation
- XIII Methods of Political Development, and Elimination of Warfare
- XIV End of tie Working of Natural Selection upon Man. Throwing off the Brute-Inheritance
- XV The Message of Christianity
- XVI The Question as to a Future Life
- References
VIII - Growing Predominance of the Psychical Life
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- I Man's Place in Nature as affected by the Copernican Theory
- II As affected by Darwinism
- III On the Earth there will never be a Higher Creature than Man
- IV The Origin of Infancy
- V The Dawning of Consciousness
- VI Lengthening of Infancy and Concomitant Increase of Brain-Surface
- VII Change in the Direction of the Working of Natural Selection
- VIII Growing Predominance of the Psychical Life
- IX The Origins of Society and of Morality
- X Improvableness of Man
- XI Universal Warfare of Primeval Men
- XII First checked by the Beginnings of Industrial Civilisation
- XIII Methods of Political Development, and Elimination of Warfare
- XIV End of tie Working of Natural Selection upon Man. Throwing off the Brute-Inheritance
- XV The Message of Christianity
- XVI The Question as to a Future Life
- References
Summary
Let us note one further aspect of this mighty revolution. In its lowly beginnings the psychical life was merely an appendage to the life of the body. The avoidance of enemies, the securing of food, the perpetuation of the species, make up the whole of the lives of lower animals, and the rudiments of memory, reason, emotion, and volition were at first concerned solely with the achievement of these ends in an increasingly indirect, complex, and effective way. Though the life of a large portion of the human race is still confined to the pursuit of these same ends, yet so vast has been the increase of psychical life that the simple character of the ends is liable to be lost sight of amid the variety, the indirectness, and the complexity of the means. But in civilized society other ends, purely immaterial in their nature, have come to add themselves to these, and in some instances to take their place. It is long since we were told that Man does not live by bread alone. During many generations we have seen thousands of men, actuated by the noblest impulse of which humanity is capable, though misled by the teachings of a crude philosophy, despising and maltreating their bodies as clogs and incumbrances to the life of the indwelling soul. Countless martyrs we have seen throwing away the physical earthly life as so much worthless dross, and all for the sake of purely spiritual truths.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Destiny of ManViewed in the Light of his Origin, pp. 62 - 65Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009First published in: 1884