Читать книгу The Origin of Thought and Speech онлайн

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It is a matter for regret to have to acknowledge the fact that the union of a profound knowledge, combined with true sincerity in research, is insufficient to endow the world with a well established truth. The world is too hasty in accepting or rejecting a new system before giving itself the trouble to divide the system into two parts, one of which can be placed at once amongst evident truths, whilst the other must be subjected to minute investigation and close testing. Precisely after this manner does Darwin’s work lend itself to a division into two parts, the former is the history of the formation and gradual development of the organic world, represented by plants and animals, including man (The Origin of Species), but it is also the history of the formation and gradual development of man considered as a being composed of body and spirit (Descent of Man). In the author’s mind this portion of the subject is closely connected with the former.

At first sight it would appear that a tribunal, which was quick to distinguish truth from error in this teaching, had not been found. Certainly scientific materialism has no voice in the matter, since its mission is only to deal with material and actual facts; and when from the facts accumulated conclusions are deduced as applied to origins, this would be out of its sphere, and the conclusions reached can only be arbitrary; thus Darwin’s theory not being found free from the taint of idealism, it was condemned without trial. Religious dogmatism did not show itself any more capable of deciding the question, for this dogmatism, whose domain is faith, considered that due reference was not made to Divine intervention, and concluded that the theory was only judged by the light of science, and thus condemned it unheard. But all condemnation, which cannot prove itself to be just, has no scientific value, only one tribunal is competent of judging and solving the question, and that is the science of language, it alone possesses documentary evidence. The exact point at which the animal ceases and man begins can be determined with precision since it coincides with the beginning of the “Radical Period” of language, and language is reason.