I. Note how the beginning the chapter builds on the IDEAS of the previous ones:

II. Based on the above, recall the most important question philosophy asks:

PART TWO: CHAPTER XXX -- DARWIN

Hilde awakens and beings to read....

III. HMS Beagle--1831-1836 to study nature in South America

A. Origin of Species and Descent of Man: Although Darwin for personal reasons involving the death of his daughter, and the apparent harshness of nature drifted toward agnosticism, he undoubtedly would have been horrified at how his idea were presented:

• He argued evolution was a theory; not a scientific fact.
• He never suggested that his theory was incompatible with intelligent design.
• He certainly would have abhorred the perversion of his ideas which culminated in the doctrines of Hitler.

Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life and from use and disuse: a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved

From Origin of Species

The moral faculties are generally and justly esteemed as of higher value than the intellectual powers. But we should bear in mind that the activity of the mind in vividly recalling past impressions is one of the fundamental though secondary bases of conscience. This affords the strongest argument for educating and stimulating in all possible ways the intellectual faculties of every human being. No doubt a man with a torpid mind, if his social affections and sympathies are well developed, will be led to good actions, and may have a fairly sensitive conscience. But whatever renders the imagination more vivid and strengthens the habit of recalling and comparing past impressions, will make the conscience more sensitive, and may even somewhat compensate for weak social affections and sympathies.

The moral nature of man has reached its present standard, partly through the advancement of his reasoning powers and consequently of a just public opinion, but especially from his sympathies having been rendered more tender and widely diffused through the effects of habit, example, instruction, and reflection. It is not improbable that after long practice virtuous tendencies may be inherited. With the more civilised races, the conviction of the existence of an all-seeing Deity has had a potent influence on the advance of morality. Ultimately man does not accept the praise or blame of his fellows as his sole guide, though few escape this influence, but his habitual convictions, controlled by reason, afford him the safest rule. His conscience then becomes the supreme judge and monitor. Nevertheless the first foundation or origin of the moral sense lies in the social instincts, including sympathy; and these instincts no doubt were primarily gained, as in the case of the lower animals, through natural selection.

The belief in God has often been advanced as not only the greatest, but the most complete of all the distinctions between man and the lower animals. It is however impossible, as we have seen, to maintain that this belief is innate or instinctive in man. On the other hand a belief in all-pervading spiritual agencies seems to be universal; and apparently follows from a considerable advance in man's reason, and from a still greater advance in his faculties of imagination, curiosity and wonder. I am aware that the assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for His existence. But this is a rash argument, as we should thus be compelled to believe in the existence of many cruel and malignant spirits, only a little more powerful than man; for the belief in them is far more general than in a beneficent Deity. The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator does not seem to arise in the mind of man, until he has been elevated by long-continued culture.

From: Descent of Man

These paragraphs are not generally known. What are the implications for the development of Sophie and Hilde in relation to the Major?

B. survival of the fittest and natural selection

C. struggle to survive / adaptation

D. environment (today: heredity)

E. role of God? How do the above selections apply to the creator-created relationship we have been tracing?

F. Social Darwinism--Spencer and Sumner's doctrines popularized Darwin economically setting up a dialectic. Later, the Financial Advisor will share some reflections at the party.

G. DNA

IV. Conversation interrupted by Adam and Eve--why are they here? (p. 412)

V. How did the universe and life begin?

A. Faust and Thomas Hardy's writings conclude the chapter:

B. Examine the poem on page 421--What dialectic is established? Consider the bliss of experience vs. one's (inevitable?) oblivion. Does the concluding poem on page 422 offer a synthesis? One of Shakespeare's Sonnets does:

Sonnet #18

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

D. ARE THE TWO BOTTLES PRESENT ?