The Whence and the Whither of Man - A Brief History of His Origin and Development through Conformity to Environment; Being the Morse Lectures of 1895

John Mason Tyler

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• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 23
• Langue: English

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The Whence and the Whither of
Man, by John Mason Tyler
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Title: The Whence and the Whither of Man
Author: John Mason Tyler
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Language: English
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WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF MAN***
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THE WHENCE AND THE
WHITHER OF MAN
A BRIEF HISTORY OF HIS ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT
THROUGH CONFORMITY TO ENVIRONMENT
Being the Morse Lectures of 1895
BY
JOHN M. TYLER
PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY, AMHERST COLLEGE
New York
Charles Scribner's Sons
1896
Morse Lectures
1893—THE PLACE OF CHRIST IN
MODERN THEOLOGY. By Rev. A.M.
Fairbairn, D.D. 8vo, $2.50
1894—THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN. By Rev.
William Elliot Griffis, D.D.
12mo, $2.00.
1895—THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF
MAN. By Professor John M. Tyler.
12mo, $1.75.TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ix

CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM: THE MODE OF ITS SOLUTION 1
The question. — The two theories of man's origin. — The argument
purely historical. — Means of tracing man's ancestry and history. —
Classification. — Ontogenesis and Phylogenesis.

CHAPTER II
PROTOZOA TO WORMS: CELLS, TISSUES, AND ORGANS 32
Amœba: Its anatomy and physiology. — Development of the cell. —
Hydra: The development of digestive and reproductive organs, and of
tissues. — Forms intermediate between amœba and hydra:
Magosphæra, volvox. — Embryonic development. — Turbellaria:
Appearance of a body wall, of ganglion, and nerve-cords.

CHAPTER III
WORMS TO VERTEBRATES: SKELETON AND HEAD 55
Worms and the development of organs. — Mollusks: The external
protective skeleton leads to degeneration or stagnation. — Annelids
and arthropods: The external locomotive skeleton leads to temporary
rapid advance, but fails of the goal. — Its disadvantages. —
Vertebrates: The internal locomotive skeleton leads to backbone and
brain. — Reasons for their dominance. — The primitive vertebrate.

CHAPTER IV
VERTEBRATES: BACKBONE AND BRAIN 81
The advance of vertebrates from fish through amphibia and reptiles to
mammals. — The development of skeleton, appendages, circulatory
and respiratory systems, and brain. — Mammals: The oviparous
monotremata. — Marsupials. — Placental mammals. — Development
of the placenta. — Primates. — Arboreal life and the development of
the hand. — Comparison of man with the highest apes. —
Recapitulation of the history of man's origin and development. — The
sequence of dominant functions.

CHAPTER V
THE HISTORY OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT AND ITS SEQUENCE
113
OF FUNCTIONS
Mode of investigation. — Intellect. — Sense-perceptions. —
Association. — Inference and understanding. — Rational intelligence.
— Modes of mental or nervous action. — Reflex action, unconscious
and comparatively mechanical. — Instinctive action: The actor is
conscious, but guided by heredity. — Intelligent action. — The actor is
conscious, guided by intelligence resulting from experience or
observation. — The will stimulated by motives. — Appetites. — Fear
and other prudential considerations. — Care for young and love of
mates. — The dawn of unselfishness. — Motives furnished by the
rational intelligence: Truth, right, duty. — Recapitulation: The will,
stimulated by ever higher motives, is finally to be dominated by
unselfishness and love of truth and righteousness. — These rouse the
only inappeasable hunger, and are capable of indefinite development.
— Strength of these motives. — Their complete dominance the goal of
human development.

CHAPTER VI
NATURAL SELECTION AND ENVIRONMENT 152
The reversal of the sequence of functions leads to extermination,
degeneration, or, rarely, to stagnation. — Natural selection becomes
more unsparing as we go higher. — Extinction. — Severity of the
struggle for life. — Environment one. — But lower animals come into
vital relation with but a small part of it. — It consists of a myriad of
forces, which, as acting on a given form, may be considered as one
grand resultant. — Environment is thus a power making at first for
digestion and reproduction, then for muscular strength and activity, then
for shrewdness, finally for unselfishness and righteousness. — An
ultimate "power, not ourselves, making for righteousness," a
personality. — Our knowledge of this personality may be valid, even
though very incomplete. — Religion. — Conformity to the spiritual in or
behind environment is likeness to God. — The conservative tendency in
evolution.
CHAPTER VII
CONFORMITY TO ENVIRONMENT 177
Human environment. — The development of the family as the school of
man's training. — The family as the school of unselfishness and
obedience. — The family as the basis of social life. — Society as an aid
to conformity to environment by increasing intelligence and training
conscience. — Mental and moral heredity. — Personal magnetism. —
Man's search for a king. — The essence of Christianity. — Conformity
to environment gives future supremacy, but often at the cost of present
hardship. — Conformity as obedience to the laws of our being. —
Environment best understood through the study of the human mind. —
Productiveness and prospectiveness of vital capital. — Faith.

CHAPTER VIII
MAN 210
Composed of atoms and molecules, hence subject to chemical and
physical laws. — As a living being. — As an animal. — As a vertebrate.
— As a mammal. — As a social being. — As a personal and moral
being. — The conflict between the higher and the lower in man. — As a
religious being. — As hero. — He has not yet attained. — Future man.
— He will utilize all his powers, duly subordinating the lower to the
higher. — The triumph of the common people.

CHAPTER IX
THE TEACHINGS OF THE BIBLE 241
Subject of the Bible. — Man: Body, intellect, heart. — God: Law, sin,
and penalty. — God manifested in Christ. — Salvation, the divine life
permeating man — Faith. — Prayer. — Hope. — The Church. — The
battle. — The victory. — The crown.

CHAPTER X
PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION 278
The struggle for existence. — Natural selection. — Correlation of
organs. — Fortuitous variation. — Origin of the fittest. — Nägeli's
theory: Initial tendency supreme. — Weismann and the Neo-
Darwinians: Natural selection omnipotent. — The Neo-Lamarckians. —
Comparison of the Neo-Darwinian and the Neo-Lamarckian views. —
"Individuality" the controlling power throughout the life of the organism.
— Transmission of special effects of use and disuse. — Summary.

CHART SHOWING SEQUENCE OF ATTAINMENTS AND OF 309
DOMINANT FUNCTIONS

PHYLOGENETIC CHART OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM 310

INDEX 311
CHAPTERS: Introduction, I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, Index
FIGURES: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
INTRODUCTION
[ix]In the year 1865 Professor Samuel Finley Breese Morse, to whom
the world is indebted for the application of the principles of electro-
magnetism to telegraphy, gave the sum of ten thousand dollars to
Union Theological Seminary to found a lectureship in memory of his
father, the Rev. Jedediah Morse, D.D., theologian, geographer, and
gazetteer. The subject of the lectures was to have to do with "The
relations of the Bible to any of the sciences." The ten chapters of this
book correspond to ten lectures, eight of which were delivered as
Morse Lectures at Union Theological Seminary during the early
spring of 1895. The first nine chapters appear in form and substance
as they were given in the lectures, except that Chapters VI. and VII.
were condensed in one lecture. Chapter X. is new, and I have not
hesitated to add a few paragraphs wherever the argument seemed
especially to demand further evidence or illustration.One of my friends, reading the title of these lectures, said: "Of
man's origin you know nothing, of his future you know less." I fear that
many share his opinion, although they might not express it so
emphatically.
It would seem, therefore, to be in order to show that science is
now competent to deal with this question; not that she can give a final
and conclusive answer, but that we can reach results which are
[x]probably in the main correct. We may grant