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future retribution , and his immortal destiny , are all indeed sufficiently attested , and taught by an authority which none of us dispute or presume to set aside . But we propose to address our attention at present to what nature and observation teach us , apart from revelation .
The accomplished Dugald Stewart admits that animals have the power of reflection , but denies them that of abstraction . And he distinguishes between those intellectual processes which can , and those which cannot be carried on without the use of signs for our ideas , Moreover , restricting the term reason to the power of discovering a series of means subservient to a particular end , he / does not consider it to be essentially connected with the faculty of generalization , or
with . the use of signs ; and while he allows that animals are sometimes observed to employ a long train of means for the accomplishment of a special purpose , he marks this essential distinction between man and the brute— -that in the latter we find nothing analogous to those intellectual processes which lead the mind to general conclusions , and which imply the use of general terms . " Those powers ,
therefore , " he adds , " which enable us to classify objects , and to employ signs as an instrument of thought , are , so far as we can judge , peculiar to the human species . " This very plausible hypothesis is , however , open to the objection that it is not purely inductive . "We have no proof that " signs' ' essential to generalization , nor do we know how much is conveyed by the language oi
brutes . ; But there is one faculty possessed by man , and fully developed iu his history , which cannot exist in the brute . A very superficial acquaintance with the history of our race reveals tons the striking fact that man is capable , on the one hand , of indefinite advance and improvement in science and art , and , on the other hand , that he is liable to successive and unlimited debasement
and degradation . The history of man is not a history of advancement , as many would flatter themselves it is . That the present is an age of rapid advancement in the civilized portion of mankind , there can be no question ; but past history testifies also to alternate advancement and decline , so forcibly and truthfully , that he who would expect nothing but improvement for the future has yet to learn much of the science of human nature . Look at the north of Africa—once
the most populous , and doubtless the most civilized portion of the globe . What is it now ? Look at Egypt—once renowned for its wisdom and science , the school of art , the land of pyramids , temples , and literature , the country from whence the ancient Greeks derived their philosophy , and the Eomans their knowledge . Eor anything we can tell , Egypt might have once even surpassed us in those civilized arts of which we now so proudly boast . And on what
principle shall we dare to assert that we shall not , like her , be one day reckoned among the nations that have lost their glory and again become low ? That a capability of improvement always and everywhere exists must , however , bo fully admitted ; and this admission is
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Untitled Article
future retribution , and his immortal destiny , are all indeed sufficiently attested , and taught by an authority which none of us dispute or presume to set aside . But we propose to address our attention at present to what nature and observation teach us , apart from revelation .
The accomplished Dugald Stewart admits that animals have the power of reflection , but denies them that of abstraction . And he distinguishes between those intellectual processes which can , and those which cannot be carried on without the use of signs for our ideas , Moreover , restricting the term reason to the power of discovering a series of means subservient to a particular end , he / does not consider it to be essentially connected with the faculty of generalization , or
with . the use of signs ; and while he allows that animals are sometimes observed to employ a long train of means for the accomplishment of a special purpose , he marks this essential distinction between man and the brute— -that in the latter we find nothing analogous to those intellectual processes which lead the mind to general conclusions , and which imply the use of general terms . " Those powers ,
therefore , " he adds , " which enable us to classify objects , and to employ signs as an instrument of thought , are , so far as we can judge , peculiar to the human species . " This very plausible hypothesis is , however , open to the objection that it is not purely inductive . "We have no proof that " signs' ' essential to generalization , nor do we know how much is conveyed by the language oi
brutes . ; But there is one faculty possessed by man , and fully developed iu his history , which cannot exist in the brute . A very superficial acquaintance with the history of our race reveals tons the striking fact that man is capable , on the one hand , of indefinite advance and improvement in science and art , and , on the other hand , that he is liable to successive and unlimited debasement
and degradation . The history of man is not a history of advancement , as many would flatter themselves it is . That the present is an age of rapid advancement in the civilized portion of mankind , there can be no question ; but past history testifies also to alternate advancement and decline , so forcibly and truthfully , that he who would expect nothing but improvement for the future has yet to learn much of the science of human nature . Look at the north of Africa—once
the most populous , and doubtless the most civilized portion of the globe . What is it now ? Look at Egypt—once renowned for its wisdom and science , the school of art , the land of pyramids , temples , and literature , the country from whence the ancient Greeks derived their philosophy , and the Eomans their knowledge . Eor anything we can tell , Egypt might have once even surpassed us in those civilized arts of which we now so proudly boast . And on what
principle shall we dare to assert that we shall not , like her , be one day reckoned among the nations that have lost their glory and again become low ? That a capability of improvement always and everywhere exists must , however , bo fully admitted ; and this admission is