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About Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885 | View Entire Issue (March 1, 1879)
52 HKI.KUON AND CIVILIZATION. von. vni. , . orallofthu miscclhuicous collection of magazines anil papers found in llie read ing room. Of tlio objects already mentioned il ought to be remembered by the student that his regular term work is unquestion ably of the most importance; yet it is a poor plan to be on intimate terms with Virgil or Horace, and scarce know the master minds of to-day whose iniluence is felt so strongly on the pulse of our public life. For one lo bo up with the times, it will be by the aid of Hint mirror of passing events, the newspaper; the earnest persons in the reading room gathered around the morning papers, show, if not the truth, at least a belief in the truth of what I am saying. But attractive as this work id to many of the readers, il is quite possible, indeed quite common, to give an undue importance to the newspapers. Twenty minutes over a newspaper are sullicient to make it one's own, both news and edi torials; and in the abundance of maga zines there is little more than temporary interest. D. II. W. .m. llELrGION AND CIVILIZATION. The Church has never lacKed advocates who attempt, by garbled history and col lected facts, to show that civilization is the legitimate and inevitable result of her parental care. These misguided cham pions have the advantage of existing prejudices, and not unfrequcntly, by bub stituting feeling for fact and eloquent fiction for arguement, do they receive the applause of an u lire Heeling populace. The scope of the question, however, and the importance of the issue, demand the cool, intrepid logic of facts. But few questions are frought with greater inter est or more important results than the inquiry into the successive steps by which man has raised himself from the state oi primitive savagery to the slate of comparative civilization in which wo now lind him. When the results shall have been reached it will become our duty to increase, as far as may be, those inlluences by which this change has been wrought and to decrease, if possible, Ihoso by which it has been opposed. The question before us is capable of two distinct and independant solutions, ouch corroborating the other. One may bu called psychological, the other historical. The intellectual development of a race re sembles in many respects that of a child. At first the chief characteristics of each are imagination and credulity. Indeed in Ibis regard the race can scarcely yet bo said to have finished its childhood. Il may be interesting as well as instructive to follow the mental steps' by which the race advances from one stage of civilza lion to the next. The initial step in every case must of necessity be to doubt the propriety of prevailing customs, lo cidl into queslson the justice of existing laws, lo demand proof of the correctness of received opinions. It is idle to talk of improvement so long as ancestral customs are regarded witli sacred reverence; legal advancement is impossible so Jong as the laws are believed to bi perfect; it is ab surd to talk of intellectual development while men behold with horror anything that tends to overthrow the opinions of their fathers. In other words the first stop toward the advancement of civiliza tion is to become sceptical. This general doubt as to the truth of what exists, uatu rally leads to inquiry, sometimes with no higher motive than to overthrow the cher ished faith of the more crcdulus, but more frequently for the noble purpose of arriving at the truth. The path of in quiry, though leading through poverty and opprobrium, though obstructed by the stake and gibbet, though often obtained with tlie blood of those who dared to leave the well beaten tracts of the Fathers, yet leads at last to knowledge; and know ledge is Hie sole motor of civilzation. If the foregoing is correct, which I think cannot be successfully denied, we then have the inevitable Sorites, that sccpti- mUWMWNNHM