Sometimes the reaction to environment is relatively
simple and uniform. In this case we feel that
we can attain without great difficulty to what may
be regarded as a satisfactory knowledge of the nature
of the creature studied. The conception of that
nature appears to be rather definite and unequivocal.
When it is once attained, we speak with some assurance
of the way in which the creature will act in this
situation or in that. If, however, the capacities
are vastly more ample, and the environment to which
this creature is adjusted is greatly extended, the
difficulty of describing in any unequivocal way the
nature of the creature becomes indefinitely greater.
Is it possible to contemplate man without being struck
with the breadth and depth of the gulf which separates
the primitive human being from the finished product
of civilization? What a difference in range of
emotion, in reach of intellect, in stored information,
in freedom of action, between man at his lowest and
man at his highest! Can we describe in the same
terms what is natural to man everywhere and always?
For the filthy and ignorant savage, absorbed in satisfying
his immediate bodily needs, standing in the simplest
of social relations, taking literally no thought for
the morrow, profoundly ignorant of the world in which
he finds himself, possessing over nature no control
worthy of the name, the sport and slave of his environment,
it is natural to act in one way. For enlightened
humanity, acquainted with the past and forecasting
the future, developed in intellect and refined in feeling,
rich in the possession of arts and sciences, intelligently
controlling and directing the forces of nature, socially
organized in highly complicated ways, it is natural
to act in another way. And to each of the intermediate
stages in the evolution of civilization some type
of conduct appears to be appropriate and natural.
Whither, then, shall we turn for our conception of
man’s nature? Shall we merely draw up a
list of the instincts and impulses which may be observable
in all men? Shall we say no more than that man
is gifted with an intelligence superior to that of
the brutes? To do this is, to be sure, to give
some vague indication of man’s original endowment.
But it can give us little indication of what it is
possible for man, with such an endowment, and in such
an environment as makes his setting, to become.
And what man becomes, that he is.
If man’s nature can be revealed only through
the development of his capacities, it is futile to
seek it in a return to undeveloped man. The nature
of the chicken is not best revealed in the egg.
And, as man can develop only in interaction with his
environment, we must, to understand him, study his
environment also.
CHAPTER IX
MAN’S MATERIAL ENVIRONMENT
Copyrights
A Handbook of Ethical Theory from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
