isa-normaladvance-1903-00002

Description:	THE NOEMAL ADVANCE.Lear, a fool only in the incident of wearing thecoxcomb and in name, declares of Lears faithlessdaughters, Goneril and Began, that they are likeas two crabs, he affirms only the most general resemblance. They are alike only in their faithlessness, disloyalty and ingratitude to their father andking but the form, quality and heartlessness oftheir infidelity mark each as a genuine individual.Individuality, then, is everywhere- in nature andspirit, and it challenges us to such reasonable explanation as we may offer.Let us concede at once that the law of causation obtains here, as everywhere else, in the worldsof nature and spirit. No individual, thing or being is a product of chance—a mere fortuitouscoming together of atoms and forces, a hap-haz-ard blending of influences. Every phenomenon inthe universe, every being of whatsoever grade inthe whole sphere of reality, is a product of influences, forces, causes competent to produce it. Every hill, valley, mountain, lake, sea, tree, planet,everything in the whole world of nature must bethought of as an effect of forces and causes capable of producing it. Every phase of animal lifewhich the universe exhibits is a standing witness tothe universality of law and the all-prevalence offorces and causes adequate to the production of results. Every human being, too, in every qualityand aspect of his nature1—physical, mental, moraland spiritual—is an effect. Some combination ofinfluences, causes, forces must explain every characteristic of his nature. Modern thought andscholarship eliminate from the whole world ofreality every vestige of chance. Nothing comes tous except by the operation of causes adequate toproduce it and which must, when understood, beaccepted as the explanation of its being. Humancharacter and the individuality of human life inno way are to> be regarded as exceptions to thissway of cause and law. The operation of the influences which produce results in national and individual life may lie too deep for human analysis they may escape our most persistent, penetrating,painstaking efforts to understand them. None theless, we must, by the nature and constitution ofour thinking, accept the great truth that causation, law, coherence, system and unity prevail inevery sphere of nature.How, then, shall we account for this endless variety of human character? How shall we explainthe individual characteristics of men? Is it possible to offer any reasonable, satisfactory explanation of the subtle, hidden qualities of mind andheart, of motive and moral purpose, which constitute pre-eminently the individuality of humancharacter? Dealing, of course, with secondarycauses onlv, and having in mind onlv normal typesof men, our ouestion is, what arc the causes, influences and forces that operate to produce individual character? Are the varying qualities ofintellect, understanding, memory, imagination,reasoning power, moral acuteness and strength,aesthetic capacitjf, religious devotion, and all elements of individuality susceptible of reasonable,satisfactory explanation ? What causes and influences operate to produce these and other elements of individual character?In the enumeration and brief treatment of theseinfluences let us first set down m the list thatsubtle, potent, little understood but far-reachine:fact of heredity. Of this the world may as yethave very little exact scientific knowledge. Indeed, the specific laws of this great factor in allindividualistic life remain for the most part tobe discovered and formulated but the fact is oneof almost universal observation. The investigator,the scholar, the thinker and the most illiterateman of common observation all alike witnessthroughout the vegetable, animal and humanworlds the phenomena of heredity. Like begetslike, Blood will tell, may not be, are not, generalizations of unvarying and universal correctness and validity, but the large amount of truthin these aphorisms is a fact patent to the mostsuperficial observer. All agriculture horticulture,all breeding and raising of stock, however unscientifically conducted, rest fundamentally upon theuniversally observed fact that, wherever life exists, things tend strongly to produce theirownkind. Men do not gather grapes of thorns, orfigs of thistles. Every human being is in somedegree the product of his entire ancestral line.What his parents were in every element of theirbeing, his grand parents, his great grand parents,and bis whole line of ancestry, to some extent,must 1)6 taken into account in any effort to ex-
Source:	http://indstate.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/isuarchive/id/33727
Collection:	Indiana State University Archives

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