The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (mini ebook reader .TXT) π
The Egyptians were islanders, cut off from the rest of the world by sand and sea. They were rooted in their valley; they lived entirely upon its fruits, and happily these fruits sometimes failed. Had they always been able to obtain enough to eat, they would have remained always in the semi-savage state.
It may appear strange that Egypt should have suffered from famine, for there was no country in the ancient world where food was so abundant and so cheap. Not only did the land produce enormous crops of corn; the ditches and hollows which were filled by the overflowing Nile supplied a harvest of wholesome and nourishing aquatic plants, and on the borders of the des
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on the same pattern as those of the lower animals. To procure
food; to obtain a mate; and to rear offspring; such is the real
business of life with us as it is with them. If we look into
ourselves we discover propensities which declare that our
intellects have arisen from a lower form; could our minds be
made visible we should find them tailed. And if we examine the
minds of the lower animals, we find in them the rudiments of
our talents and our virtues. As the beautiful yet imperfect
human body has been slowly developed from the base and hideous
creatures of the water and the earth, so the beautiful yet
imperfect human mind has been slowly developed from the
instincts of the lower animals. All that is elevated, all that
is lovely in human nature has its origin in the lower kingdom.
The philosophic spirit of inquiry may be traced to brute
curiosity, and that to the habit of examining all things in
search of food. Artistic genius is an expansion of monkey
imitativeness. Loyalty and piety, the reverential virtues, are
developed from filial love. Benevolence and magnanimity, the
generous virtues, from parental love. The sense of decorum
proceeds from the sense of cleanliness; and that from the
instinct of sexual display. The delicate and ardent love which
can become a religion of the heart, which can sanctify and
soften a manβs whole life; the affection which is so noble, and
so pure, and so free from all sensual stain, is yet derived
from that desire which impels the male animal to seek a mate;
and the sexual timidity which makes the female flee from the
male is finally transformed into that maiden modesty which not
only preserves from vice, but which conceals beneath a chaste
and honourable reticence the fiery love that burns within;
which compels the true woman to pine in sorrow, and perhaps to
languish into death, rather than betray a passion that is not
returned.
There is a certain class of people who prefer to say that their
fathers came down in the world through their own follies rather than
to boast that they rose in the world through their own industry
and talents. It is the same shabby-genteel sentiment, the same
vanity of birth which makes men prefer to believe that they are
degenerated angels, rather than elevated apes. In scientific
investigations such whims and fancies must be set aside. It is
the duty of the inquirer to ascertain the truth, and then to
state it as decisively and as clearly as he can. Peopleβs
prejudices must not be respected but destroyed. It may,
however, be worth while to observe, for the comfort of weak
souls, that in these new revelations of science human nature is
not in any way degraded. A womanβs body is not less lovely
because it was once a hideous mass of flesh. A womanβs modesty
is not less noble because we discover that it was once a mere
propensity, dictated, perhaps, by the fear of pain. The beauty
of the mind is not less real than the beauty of the body, and
we need not be discouraged because we ascertain that it has
also passed through its embryonic stage. It is Natureβs method
to take something which is in itself paltry, repulsive, and
grotesque, and thence to construct a masterpiece by means of
general and gradual laws; those laws themselves being often
vile and cruel. This method is applied not only to single
individuals, but also to the whole animated world; not only to
physical but also to mental forms. And when it is fully
realised and understood that the genius of man has been
developed along a line of unbroken descent from the simple
tendencies which inhabited the primeval cell, and that in its
later stages this development has been assisted by the efforts
of man himself, what a glorious futurity will open to the human
race! It may well be that our minds have not done growing, and
that we may rise as high above our present state as that state is
removed from the condition of the insect and the worm. For when
we examine the human mind we do not find it perfect and mature;
but in a transitional and amphibious condition. We live between
two worlds; we soar in the atmosphere; we creep upon the soil;
we have the aspirations of creators and the propensities of
quadrupeds. There can be but one explanation of this fact. We
are passing from the animal into a higher form; and the drama
of this planet is in its second act. We shall now endeavour to
place the first upon the stage, and, then passing through the
second, shall proceed to speculate upon the third. The scene
opens with the Solar System. Time uncertain; say, a thousand
million years ago.
INTELLECT
THAT region of the universe which is visible to mortal eyes has
been named the solar system: it is composed of innumerable
stars, and each star is a white hot sun, the centre and
sovereign of a world. Our own sun is attended by a company of
cold, dark globes, revolving round it in accordance with the
law of gravitation; they also rotate like joints before the
fire, turning first one side, and then the other, to the
central light. The path that is traced by the outermost planet
is the limit of the sunβs domain, which is too extensive to be
measured into miles. If a jockey mounted on a winner of the
Derby had started when Moses was born, and had galloped ever
since at full speed, he would be by this time about half the
way across, Yet this world seems large to us, only because we
are so small. It is merely a drop in the ocean of space. The
stars which we see on a fine night are also suns as important
as our own; and so vast is the distance which separates their
worlds from ours, that a flash of lightning would be years upon
the road. These various solar systems are not independent of
one another they are members of the same community. They are
sailing in order round a point to us unknown. Our own sun,
drawing with it the planets in its course, is spinning
furiously upon its axis, and dashing through space at four
miles a second. And not only is the solar system an organ of
one gigantic form; it has also grown to what it is, and may
still be considered in its youth. As the body of a plant or
animal arises from a fluid alike in all its parts, so this
world of ours was once a floating fiery cloud, a nebula or
mist, the molecules of which were kept asunder by excessive
heat. But the universe is pervaded by movement and by change;
there came a period when the heat declined, and when the atoms
obeying their innate desires rushed to one another, and,
concentrating, formed the sun, which at first almost filled the
solar world. But as it cooled, and as it contracted, and as it
rotated, and as it revolved, it became a sphere in the centre
of the world; and it cast off pieces which became planets,
satellites, attendant stars, and they also cast off pieces
which became satellites to them. Thus the earth is the child,
and the moon the grandchild of the sun. When our planet first
came out into the world it was merely a solar fragment, a chip
of the old star, and the other planets were in a similar
condition. But these sunballs were separated from one another,
and from their parent form, by oceans of ether, a kind of
attenuated air, so cold that frost itself is fire in
comparison. The sun burning always in this icy air is gradually
cooling down; but it parts slowly with its heat on account of
its enormous size. Our little earth cooled quickly, shrank in
size β it had once extended to the moon β and finally went
out. From a globe of glowing gas it became a ball of liquid
fire, enveloped in a smoky cloud. When first we are able to
restore its image and examine its construction, we find it
composed of zones or layers in a molten state, arranged
according to their weight; and above it we find an atmosphere
also divided into layers. Close over the surface vapour of salt
was suspended in the air; next, a layer of dark, smoky, carbonic
acid gas; next, oxygen and nitrogen, and vapour of water or
common steam. Within the sphere, as it cooled and changed,
chemical bodies sprang from one another, rushed to and fro,
combined with terrible explosions; while in the variegated
atmosphere above, gas-hurricanes arose and flung the elements
into disorder. So sped the earth, roaring and flaming through
the sky, leaving behind it a fiery track, sweeping round the
sun in its oval course.
Year followed year, century followed century, epoch
followed epoch. Then the globe began to cool
upon its surface. Flakes of solid matter floated on the molten
sea, which rose and fell in flaming tides towards a hidden and
benighted moon. The flakes caked together, and covered the ball
with a solid sheet, which was upraised and cracked by the tidal
waves beneath, like thin ice upon the Arctic seas. In time it
thickened and became firm, but subterranean storms often ripped
it open in vast chasms, from which masses of liquid lava
spouted in the air, and fell back upon the hissing crust.
Everywhere heaps of ashes were thus formed, and the earth was
seamed with scars and gaping wounds. When the burning heat of
the air had abated, the salt was condensed, and fell like snow
upon the earth, and covered it ten feet thick. The Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans, lying overhead in the form of steam, descended
in one great shower, and so the primeval sea was formed. It was
dark, warm, and intensely salt; at first it overspread the
surface of the globe; then volcanic islands were cast up; and
as the earth cooled downwards to its core, it shrivelled into
folds as an apple in the winter when its pulp dries up. These
folds and wrinkles were mountain ranges, and continents
appearing above the level of the sea. Our planet was then
divided into land and water in the same proportions as exist at
the present time. For though land is always changing into
water, and water is always changing into land, their relative
quantities remain the same. The air was black, night was
eternal, illumined only by lightning and volcanoes; the earth
was unconscious of the sunβs existence; its heat was derived
from the fire within, and was uniform from pole to pole. But
the crust thickened; the inner heat could no longer be felt
upon the surface; the atmosphere brightened a little, and the
sunβs rays penetrated to the earth. From the shape, the
altitude, and the revolutions of our planet, resulted an
unequal distribution of solar heat, and to this inequality the
earth is indebted for the varied nature of its aspects and
productions. Climate was created: winds arose in the air;
currents in the deep; the sun sucked up the waters of the sea,
leaving the salt behind; rain-clouds were formed, and fresh
water bestowed upon the land. The underground fires assisted
the planetβs growth by transforming the soils into crystalline
structures, and by raising the rocks thus altered to the
surface; by producing volcanic eruptions, hot springs, and
other fiery phenomena. But the chief architect and decorator of
this planet was the sun. When the black veil of the earth was
lifted, when the sunlight entered the turbid waters of the
primeval sea, βan interesting eventβ took
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