We have come to the point
where we are beginning to see that we may safely depart from
unreasoning routine, and, with perfect freedom of thinking in
science and in religion, with new methods of education that shall
train our children to think for themselves while they interrogate
Nature with a courage and an insight that shall grow ever bolder
and keener, we may ere long be able fully to avail ourselves of the
fact that we come into the world as little children with
undeveloped powers wherein lie latent all the boundless
possibilities of a higher and grander Humanity than has yet been
seen upon the earth.
II
THE PART PLAYED BY INFANCY IN THE EVOLUTION OF MAN
The remarks which my friend Mr. Clark has made with reference to
the reconciling of science and religion seem to carry me back to
the days when I first became acquainted with the fact that there
were such things afloat in the world as speculations about the
origin of man from lower forms of life; and I can recall step by
step various stages in which that old question has come to have a
different look from what it had thirty years ago. One of the
commonest objections we used to hear, from the mouths of persons
who could not very well give voice to any other objection, was that
anybody, whether he knows much or little about evolution, must have
the feeling that there is something degrading about being allied
with lower forms of life.
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