The Destiny of Man

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The Destiny of Man

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Title: The Destiny of Man Viewed in the Light of His Origin
Author: John Fiske
Release Date: December 6, 2005 [EBook #17239]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE DESTINY OF MAN
VIEWED IN THE LIGHT OF HIS ORIGIN
BY
JOHN FISKE

TWENTIETH EDITION.
BOSTON
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
1893

Copyright, 1884,
BY JOHN FISKE.

TO
MY CHILDREN,
MAUD, HAROLD, CLARENCE, RALPH, ETHEL, AND HERBERT,
This Essay
_IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED._

PREFACE.
Having been invited to give an address before the Concord School of
Philosophy this summer, upon some subject relating to the question of

immortality there under discussion, it seemed a proper occasion for
putting together the following thoughts on the origin of Man and his
place in the universe. In dealing with the unknown, it is well to take
one's start a long way within the limits of the known. The question of a
future life is generally regarded as lying outside the range of legitimate
scientific discussion. Yet while fully admitting this, one does not
necessarily admit that the subject is one with regard to which we are
forever debarred from entertaining an opinion. Now our opinions on
such transcendental questions must necessarily be affected by the total
mass of our opinions on the questions which lie within the scope of
scientific inquiry; and from this point of view it becomes of surpassing
interest to trace the career of Humanity within that segment of the
universe which is accessible to us. The teachings of the doctrine of
evolution as to the origin and destiny of Man have, moreover, a very
great speculative and practical value of their own, quite apart from their
bearings upon any ultimate questions. The body of this essay is
accordingly devoted to setting forth these teachings in what I conceive
to be their true light; while their transcendental implications are
reserved for the sequel.
As the essay contains an epitome of my own original contributions to
the doctrine of evolution, I have added at the end a short list of
references to other works of mine, where the points here briefly
mentioned are more fully argued and illustrated. The views regarding
the progress of human society, and the elimination of warfare, are set
forth at greater length in a little book now in the press, and soon to
appear, entitled "American Political Ideas."
PETERSHAM, September 6, 1884.

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 the Working of
Natural Selection upon Man. Throwing off the Brute-Inheritance. XV.
The Message of Christianity. XVI. The Question as to a Future Life.

THE DESTINY OF MAN.

I.
Man's Place in Nature, as affected by the Copernican Theory.
When we study the Divine Comedy of Dante--that wonderful book
wherein all the knowledge and speculation, all the sorrows and
yearnings, of the far-off Middle Ages are enshrined in the glory of
imperishable verse--we are brought face to face with a theory of the
world and with ways of reasoning about the facts of nature which seem
strange to us to-day, but from the influence of which we are not yet,
and doubtless never shall be, wholly freed. A cosmology grotesque
enough in the light of later knowledge, yet wrought out no less
carefully than the physical theories of Lucretius, is employed in the
service of a theology cumbrous in its obsolete details, but resting upon
fundamental truths which mankind can never safely lose sight of. In the
view of Dante and of that phase of human culture which found in him
its clearest and sweetest voice, this earth, the fair home of man, was