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The Universal Kinship
The Universal Kinship
By J. Howard Moore Instructor in zoology, Crane Manual Training High School, Chicago ‘A Sacred Kinship I would not forego Binds me to all that breathes.’ — Boyesen. Chicago Charles H. Kerr & Company 56 Fifth Avenue 1906 To my dear mother and father who have done so much for me in the long years that are past and gone...
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Preface
Preface
The Universal Kinship means the kinship of all the inhabitants of the planet Earth. Whether they came into existence among the waters or among desert sands, in a hole in the earth, in the hollow of a tree, or in a palace; whether they build nests or empires; whether they swim, fly, crawl, or ambulate; and whether they realise it or not, they are all related, physically, mentally, morally—this is the thesis of this book. But since man is the most gifted and influential of animals, and since his r
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The Physical Kinship
The Physical Kinship
‘Like the Roman emperors, who, intoxicated by their power, at length regarded themselves as demigods, so the ruler of the earth believes that the animals subjected to his will have nothing in common with his own nature. Man is not content to be the king of animals. He insists on having it that an impassable gulf separates him from his subjects. The affinity of the ape disturbs and humbles him. And, turning his back upon the earth, he flies, with his threatened majesty, into the cloudy sphere of
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I. Man an Animal.
I. Man an Animal.
But man is an animal . It was away out there on the prairies, among the green corn rows, one beautiful June morning—a long time ago it seems to me now—that this revelation really came to me. And I repeat it here, as it has grown to seem to me, for the sake of a world which is so wise in many things, but so darkened and wayward regarding this one thing. However averse to accepting it we may be on account of favourite traditions, man is an animal in the most literal and materialistic meaning of th
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II. Man a Vertebrate.
II. Man a Vertebrate.
Man is a vertebrate animal. [1] He has (anatomically at least) a backbone. He belongs to that substantial class of organisms possessing an articulating internal skeleton—the family of the fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Most animals have some sort of skeleton, some sort of calcareous contrivance, whose business it is to give form and protection to the softer parts of the organism. Some animals, as the starfishes, have plates of lime scattered throughout the surface parts of the
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III. Man a Mammal.
III. Man a Mammal.
Man is a mammal . He belongs to the most brilliant and influential of the five classes of vertebrates—the class to which belong so many of his associates and victims, the class to which belong the horse, the dog, the deer, the ox, the sheep, the swine, the squirrel, the camel, the unattenuated elephant, and the timid-hearted hare. To this class belong also the lion, the tiger, the kangaroo, the beaver, the bear, the bat, the monkey, the mole, the wolf, the ornithorhynchus, and the whale—in short
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IV. Man a Primate.
IV. Man a Primate.
Man is a primate . There are four divisions in the order of primates—lemurs, monkeys, apes, and men. But the most interesting and important of these, according to man, is man. Man is a primate because, like other primates, he has arms and hands instead of fore-legs. And these are important characteristics. It was a splendid moment when the tendencies of evolution, pondering the possibilities of structural improvement, decided to rear the vertebrate upon its hind-limbs, and convert its anterior a
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V. Recapitulation.
V. Recapitulation.
The anatomical gulf between men and apes does not exist. There are, in fact, no gulfs anywhere, only gradations. All chasms are completely covered by unmistakable affinities, in spite of the fact that the remains of so many millions of deceased races lie hidden beneath seas or everlastingly locked in the limy bosoms of the continents. There are closer kinships and remoter kinships, but there are kinships everywhere. The more intimate kinships are indicated by more definite and detailed similarit
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VI. The Meaning of Homology.
VI. The Meaning of Homology.
The similarities and homologies of structure existing between man and other animals, and between other animals and still others, are not accidental and causeless. They are not resemblances scattered arbitrarily among the multitudinous forms of life by the capricious levities of chance. That all animals commence existence as an egg and are all made up of cells composed of the same protoplasmic substance, and all inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, and are all seeking pleasure and seeking to
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VII. The Earth an Evolution.
VII. The Earth an Evolution.
The world now knows—at least, the scientific part of it knows—that these things are not true, that they are but the solemn fancies of honest but simple-minded ancients who did the best they could in that twilight age to explain to their inquiring instincts the wilderness of phenomena in which they found themselves. The universe is a process. It is not petrified, but flowing. It is going somewhere. Everything is changing and evolving, and will always continue to do so. The forms of life, of conti
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VIII. The Factors of Organic Evolution.
VIII. The Factors of Organic Evolution.
The animal kingdom represents one of the two grand branches of the organic universe. It has been evolved—evolved in a manner as simple and straightforward as it is revolting. It has all been brought about by partiality or selection . Generations of beings have come into existence. The individual members of each generation have differed from each other—differed in size, strength, speed, colour, shape, sagacity, luck, and likelihood of life. No two beings, not even those born from the same womb, a
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IX. The Evidences of Organic Evolution.
IX. The Evidences of Organic Evolution.
That the forms of life to-day found on the earth have come into existence by the evolution of the more complex forms from the simpler, and of these simpler forms from still simpler, through the ever-operating law of Selection, is a necessary conclusion from the following facts: 1. The existence in the animal world of all grades of structures, from the humblest possible protozoan, whose body consists of a single simple speck, to the most powerful and complex of mammals. There are estimated to be
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X. The Genealogy of Animals.
X. The Genealogy of Animals.
Life originated in the sea, and for an immense period of time after it commenced it was confined to the place of its origin. The civilisations of the earth were for many millions of years exclusively aquatic. It has, indeed, been estimated that the time required by the life process in getting out of the water—that is, that the time consumed in elaborating the first species of land animals—was much longer than the time which has elapsed since then. I presume that during a large part of this early
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The Psychical Kinship
The Psychical Kinship
‘I saw, deep in the eyes of the animals, the human soul look out upon me.’ ‘I saw where it was born down deep under feathers and fur, or condemned for awhile to roam four-footed among the brambles. I caught the clinging mute glance of the prisoner, and swore that I would be faithful.’ ‘Thee, my brother and sister, I see and mistake not. Do not be afraid. Dwelling thus and thus for awhile, fulfilling thy appointed time—thou too shalt come to thyself at last.’ ‘Thy half-warm horns and long tongue
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II. Evidences of Psychical Evolution.
II. Evidences of Psychical Evolution.
That mind has evolved, and that there is a psychical kinship, an actual consanguinity of feelings and ideas, among all the forms of animal life is proved incontestably by the following facts: 1. The evolution of mind is implied by the fact of the evolution of structures. ‘I hold,’ says Romanes, in the introduction to his great work on ‘Mental Evolution,’ ‘that, if the doctrine of organic evolution is accepted, it carries with it, as a necessary corollary, the doctrine of mental evolution.’ It ma
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III. The Common-sense View.
III. The Common-sense View.
But it is not necessary to be learned in Darwinian science in order to know that non-human beings have souls. Just the ordinary observation of them in their daily lives about us—in their comings and goings and doings—is sufficient to convince any person of discernment that they are beings with joys and sorrows, desires and capabilities, similar to our own. No human being with a conscientious desire to learn the truth can associate intimately day after day with these people—associate with them as
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IV. The Elements of Human and Non-human Mind Compared.
IV. The Elements of Human and Non-human Mind Compared.
The analysis of human mind and the comparison of its elements or powers with the powers of non-human mind corroborate the conclusions already arrived at through observation and deductive inference. The chief powers of the mind of man are sensation , memory , emotion , imagination , volition , instinct , and reason . All of these faculties are found in non-human beings, some of them developed to a much higher degree than they are in man, and some of them to a much lower. Sensation is the effect p
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V. Conclusion.
V. Conclusion.
It is enough. The ancient gulf scooped by human conceit between man and the other animals has been effectually and forever filled up. The human species constitutes but one branch in the gigantic arbour of life. And all the merit and all the feeling and all the righteousness of the world are not, as we have been accustomed to aver, congested into this one branch. And all of the weakness and deformity are not, as we have also been anxious to believe, found elsewhere. The reluctance of wrinkles and
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The Ethical Kinship
The Ethical Kinship
One of the wisest things ever said by one of the profoundest philosophers of all time was the warning to the seeker after truth to beware of the influence of the ‘idols (or illusions) of the tribe’ by which he meant that body of traditional prejudices which every sect, family, nation, and neighbourhood has clinging to it, and in the midst of which and at the mercy of which every human being grows up. The Golden Rule is not exemplified by the conduct of any considerable number of the inhabitants
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II. EGOISM AND ALTRUISM.
II. EGOISM AND ALTRUISM.
Egoism is preference for self, partiality toward that part of the universe bounded by one’s own skin. It may consist simply of regard for self, but with regard for self is usually associated enmity toward others. Egoism manifests itself in such qualities of mind as selfishness, cruelty, intolerance, hate, hardheartedness, savagery, rudeness, injustice, narrowness, and the like. It is the primal impulse of the living heart. Enmity is older and more universal than love. Enmity constituted the very
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III. The Ethics of the Savage.
III. The Ethics of the Savage.
The ethics of the savage is, almost without exception, purely tribal in its extent. A marked distinction is everywhere made by primitive peoples between injuries to persons inside the tribe and injuries to those outside the tribe. Crimes which are looked upon as felonious when committed by a savage against the members of his own tribe may be regarded as harmless, or even highly commendable, when perpetrated on those outside the tribe. Acts are not judged according to their intrinsic natures or r
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IV. The Ethics of the Ancient.
IV. The Ethics of the Ancient.
But the doctrine that each petty tribe is the centre of the world and the only real and important people in the universe, and that all others are mere nobodies, is not peculiar to primitive peoples. Ethnocentric ethics—the ethics of amity toward their own tribe or state, their own clique or kind, and the ethics of enmity toward outsiders—has been manifested to a greater or less extent by the peoples of all times and of all degrees of enlightenment. Every people that has ever existed has had its
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V. Modern Ethics.
V. Modern Ethics.
But the peoples of the ancient world are not the only human beings who have suffered from the psychological bequests of savages. Modern states and peoples, notwithstanding their far-flung professions of righteousness, manifest, though in a somewhat weakened form, the same ethnic prejudices and the same senseless antipathies as those displayed by the ancients. Remnants of the primitive tribal morality are found in the moral habits and conceptions of every people, however emancipated they may imag
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VI. The Ethics of Human Beings Toward Non-human Beings.
VI. The Ethics of Human Beings Toward Non-human Beings.
But the most mournful instance of provincial ethics afforded by the inhabitants of the earth is not that furnished by the varieties of the human species in their conduct toward each other, but that afforded by the human race as a whole in its treatment of the non-human races. Human nature is nowhere so hideous, and human conscience is nowhere so profoundly inoperative, as in their disregard for the life and happiness of the non-human animal world. With the development of the representative power
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VII. The Origin of Provincialism.
VII. The Origin of Provincialism.
Human provincialism, all of it, is the consequence of a common cause— the provincialism of the savage . Back of the provincialism of the savage is, of course, the antecedent fact of primordial egoism. The savage is the common ancestor of all men, and as such has imparted to all men their general characters of mind and heart. Everything that grows, whether it be a tree, a human being, a grass blade, or a race, grows from something. This something, this germ or embryo from which each thing springs
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VIII. Universal Ethics.
VIII. Universal Ethics.
If to do good is to generate welfare, then to cause welfare to a horse, a bird, a butterfly, or a fish, is to do good just as truly as to cause welfare to men. And if to do evil is to cause unhappiness and illfare, then to cause these things to one individual or race is evil just as certainly as to cause them to any other individual or race. And if to put one’s self in the place of others, and to act toward them as one would wish them to act toward him, is the one great rule—the Golden Rule—by w
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IX. The Psychology of Altruism.
IX. The Psychology of Altruism.
The growth of altruism in the world has been largely cotemporaneous with the growth of the power of sympathy . Sympathy is the emotion a being has when by means of his imagination he gets so actually into the place of another that his own feelings duplicate more or less the feelings of that other. It is the ability or the impulse to weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who are glad. Sympathy is the substance and the only sure basis of morality—the only tie of sincere and lasting mutu
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X. Anthropocentric Ethics.
X. Anthropocentric Ethics.
Anthropocentricism, which drifted down as a tradition from ancient times, and which for centuries shaped the theories of the Western world, but whose respectability among thinking people has now nearly passed away, was, perhaps, the boldest and most revolting expression of human provincialism and conceit ever formulated by any people. It was the doctrine that man was the centre about whom revolved all facts and interests whatsoever; and Judaism and its two children, Christianity and Mahometanism
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XI. Ethical Implications of Evolution.
XI. Ethical Implications of Evolution.
The doctrine of organic evolution, which forever established the common genesis of all animals, sealed the doom of anthropocentricism. Whatever the inhabitants of this world were or were thought to be before the publication of ‘The Origin of Species,’ they never could be anything since then but a family . The doctrine of evolution is probably the most important revelation that has come to the world since the illuminations of Galileo and Copernicus. The authors of the Copernican theory enlarged a
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XII. Conclusion.
XII. Conclusion.
All beings are ends; no creatures are means . All beings have not equal rights, neither have all men; but all have rights . The Life Process is the End — not man , nor any other animal temporarily privileged to weave a world’s philosophy. Nonhuman beings were not made for human beings any more than human beings were made for nonhuman beings. Just as the sidereal spheres were once supposed by the childish mind of man to be unsubstantial satellites of the earth, but are known by man’s riper unders
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