Keuka College - Kiondaga Yearbook (Keuka Park, NY)

Page 33 text:

THE COLLEGE RECORD. 13 revelation of the methods employed to obtain the triumph of the designs of the Eternal; it can tell the truth only. God is not divided against himself; he cannot say one thing in nature and its opposite in Revelation; therefore, in so far as he has spoken through nature, that communication is an in- fallible expression of His Will and it should excite our rev- erence and gratitude. The Recall is the foundation of the evolutionary hypoth- esis. It lies at the base of that cardinal principle, natural selection, or survival of the fittest. It is nature's favorite weapon and is wielded without regard to sentiment or pity. Both plant and animal life are subject to this culling pro- cess. Among any family of plants the presence of a weak and puny one threatens the hardihood of the whole, for, if permitted to survive, the deficient one might spread its con- stitution al weakness throughout the species. To prevent this catastrophe the Recall is employed. The weak plant is stamped out and rendered impotent to perpetuate its de- fects. Thus, when the individual of any species is disqual- ified for this great struggle for existence, nature exacts a toll, — extinction. Again, for example, if among animals, whose horns are their chief weapons of defence, the rudi- ments of horns failed to develop in any animal, it would lack the necessary means of defending itself and would quickly succumb to any enemy seeking its life. This judgment of unfitness which nature passes upon un- likely progeny, may seem harsh, but it is justified upon the assumption that the survival of such a one might furnish opportunity to transmit its weakness to its offspring, and, through them, bring about in time the deterioration and con- sequent extinction of the whole tribe. Throughout nature there is a terrible struggle; on the one hand there is a tend- ency to the reversion to a less perfect type, and on the other hand there is a tremendous effort to keep the species pure. We have no adequate conception of the fierceness of this com- petitive conflict; the hopelessness of the struggle of the unfit; the bright prospects of the fit; the weeding out of incompet-

Page 32 text:

12 . THE COLLEGE RECORD. Space, teacher of music at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania ; Ida Wright, '11, and Emma Patterson, '10, of Winfield, New York ; Hazel Brigham, '11, of Richford, N. Y. ; Edith A. Palmer, '11, who is to teach science next year at Ticon- deroga, N. Y. ; Irene E. Paul, '10, of Silver Creek, N. Y. ; Mrs. John Zimmerman, '08, of Bradford, N. Y. ; Matie Green, who works in the State Hospital at Binghamton, N. Y. ; Scott Manzer, of South Gibson, Pa. ; Leon Beach, teacher of manual training at Waverly, N. Y. ; U. Boyd Blatchley, '11, who teaches agriculture at Newark Valley, N. Y. ; John Tomer, of Rochester ; Florence Gleischmann, of Geneva, and Maurine McPherson, who graduated this year from Hiram College. THE MORAL RECALL. r PHE prominence which the Recall, as a political device, has assumed in recent years renders it highly improb- able that anyone is ignorant of the principle which it in- volves. The antipathy of many people to the recall is not based upon a disbelief in the justice or efficacy of this instru- ment, but rather in the method of its application. A super- ficial observation of life shows that it is one of the most com- mon phenomona with which we are conversant. Throughout the range of human activity, in art, business, industry and the professions, a certain standard of excellence is essential to success. Those who meet the requirement inevitably suc- ceed; those who fall below the standard are recalled. It is the operation of the old law that to him that hath shall be given; to him that hath not shall be taken away that which eineth to have. Because of Christian training and beliefs the majority of people instinctively feel that morality is of supreme import- ance and infinite worth, and that the failure to achieve the moral life constitutes an irreparable loss. In this address we are to brace this fundamental truth from the viewpoint gained [from a knowledge of the evolutionary process in so doing wetrace tin; Will of an Infinite Creator. Nature is a vast library, id which we read the writing of God. It is a

Page 34 text:

14 THE COLLEGE RECORD. ents, the selection of those equipped to strengthen and help the species. I have been impressed again and again with the fact that the Kecall is not simply a biological formula, but that it is also an ever present factor in the moral realm or higher life of man just as it is in the lower order of nature. Indeed there are foreshadowings of ethical significance in the mater- ial base of the world. Mr. Huxley once said, The cosmic process has no sort of relation to moral ends, to which Mr. John Fiske makes answer, I think it can be shown that the principles of mor- ality have their root in the deepest foundation of the uni- verse; that the cosmic process is ethical in the profoundest sense; that in that far off morning of the world when the stars sang together and the Son of God shouted for joy, the beauty of self-sacrifice and disinterested love formed the chief burden of the mighty theme. He argues that while much in nature seems revolting and cruel, it is justified, be- cause, through it all, nature is seeking the evolution of the moral faculty. He concludes, that one is forced to believe that from the beginning of the cosmic process there has been no breach in continuit}7; that the moral idea runs like a line of gold through the whole process. Substract from the uni- verse its ethical meaning and nothing remains but an unreal phantom, the figment of false metaphysics. Below the sur- face of the din and clashing of the struggle for life we hear the undertone of a deep ethical purpose as it rolls in solemn music through the ages, its volume swelled by every victory, great and small, of right over wrong, till, in the fulness of time, it shall burst into the triumphant chorus of humanity purified and redeemed. Newman Smyth shows that evolu- tion indicates intelligence and, from the evidences of altruism in nature, reasons that morality is elemental, structural, constitutive in nature; that nature simply will be moral. Henry Drummond believes that an ascending energy is in the universe, and that the whole moves on with mighty idea of anticipation. The aspiration in the human mind and hear! is but the evolutionary tendency of the universe be-