Scientific Method in Biology
9781465592934
201 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
IT is through the gradual and harmonious development of intelligence with that element in our nature that we name conscience that the human race passes from lower to higher states of civilization. In pursuing our ideals, conscience is our instinctive monitor of right and wrong. Our great naturalist, Darwin, laid down as a law of evolution that 'the moral sense, or conscience, is by far the most important of the differences between man and the lower animals. Duty—“ought”—is the most noble of all the attributes of man.' Victor Hugo, with the prophetic insight of genius, calls conscience ‘that modicum of innate science with which each one is born.’ The growth of human conscience, in its perception of justice and in its sympathetic relation to creation, is the surest measure of individual and national progress. Various intellectual theories may be formed as to the origin and growth of conscience. It may be held to be intuitive—springing up as inevitably as the instinctive feelings born with the natural relations of life; or it may be looked upon as gradually evolved—the ‘result of countless experiences of fear, love, utility, transmitted through generations.’ But however originating, conscience is a positive and potent fact. It is, indeed, the mightiest factor in social life. It is the great controller of selfhood. It enlarges human character and guides human conduct. The deepening of this principle through the growth of justice and sym- pathy marks an advancement in the type of humanity. Increasing respect for life is one of the clearest signs of growing conscience. Our reverence for the principle of life grows with our enlarging intellectual perception of its universality and its unlimited power of development. As life is marked by activity, and cannot remain stationary, so conscience shares this law of life. It must inevitably advance or retrograde. The degradation as well as the development of conscience may be seen amongst us in the midst of our present civilization. It is contrary to the most rudimentary element of conscience to feed upon one’s kind, and cannibal tribes who devour their captives represent the lowest type of humanity; even the dogs of the Arctic voyager will endure the slow agony of starvation for days before their human taskmasters can compel them to eat the flesh of their companions. The well-known naturalist, Mr. W. H. Hudson, states that wolves, when pressed with hunger, will sometimes devour a fellow-wolf; as a rule, however, rapacious animals will starve to death rather than prey upon one of their own kind.
