218 galton.org
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Inquiries into Human Faculty
I refer to them in corroboration of the previous assertion that our relations
with the unseen world are different to those we are commonly taught to
believe.
In our doubt as to the character of our mysterious relations with the
unseen ocean of actual and potential life by which we are surrounded, the
generally accepted fact of the solidarity of the universe—that is, of the
intimate connections between distant parts that bind it together as a
whole—justifies us, I think, in looking upon ourselves as members of a
vast system which in one of its aspects resembles a cosmic republic.
On the one hand, we know that evolution has proceeded during an
enormous time on this earth, under, so far as we can gather, a system of
rigorous causation, with no economy of time or of instruments, and with
no show of special ruth for those who may in pure ignorance have
violated the conditions of life.
On the other hand, while recognising the awful mystery of conscious
existence and the inscrutable background of evolution, we find that as the
foremost outcome of many and long birth-throes, intelligent and kindly
man finds himself in being. He knows how petty he is, but he also
perceives that he stands here on this particular earth, at this particular
time, as the heir of untold ages and in the van of circumstance. He ought
therefore, I think, to be less diffident than he is usually instructed to be,
and to rise to the conception that he has a considerable function to
perform in the order of events, and that his exertions are needed. It seems
to me that he should look upon himself more as a freeman, with power of
shaping the course of future humanity, and that he should look upon
himself less as the subject of a despotic government, in which case it
would be his chief merit to depend wholly upon what had been regulated
for him, and to render abject obedience.
The question then arises as to the way in which man can assist in the
order of events. I reply, by furthering the course of evolution. He may use
his intelligence to discover and expedite the changes that are necessary to
adapt circumstance to race and race to circumstance, and his kindly
sympathy will urge him to effect them mercifully.
