CIVILISATION AND PROGRESS. Auckland, November 6

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 418, 9 November 1889, Page 5

CIVILISATION AND PROGRESS. Auckland, November 6

Owjno to the pre-engagement of the Choral Hall, Mr U-ullher's second lecture under this heading was given on Sunday night in the Lome-street Hall, which was well tilled. After some recapitulatory remarks the lecturer proceeded to treat of the intellectual factor in the onward march of civilisation and progress, and said that one of the saddest things we could see was the dread displayed towards the intellect and its po^er. As an illustration, going back to the time of fche Reformation, ho said, we find Luther using such terms as — " that beast reason," though it was palpable that without the working of reason that mighty movement would have been impossible. Were we asked to draw a distinction between the lower animals and ourselves, we should at once point to the greab development in man of the brain and intellectual power. We should also point with a feeling of pride to the long list of heioes which lay behnid us and the various fields of knowledge in which the intellect shows itself. In philosophy, science, poetry, no matter what we liked to take, we set forth the sovereigns who had reigned in these great fields. Yet whilst we recognised all this there was, nevertheless, a sort of dread — a nameless horror, which seemed to come over people when we ventured to assert the power of the intellect, and they warned us that we weie on dangerous ground. Whilst recognising tho importance of the religious, yet he would assert that the greatest factor in civilisation and progress was the intellect and its power. A few centuries back the sanitary condition of Europe was appalling and the rate of mortality from this cause terribly high. In the year 1348 out of the 100 millions which formed the population of Europe, 25 millions were swept away by .the pestilence called the Black Death. People then ti.ought that life was sent direct from the Almighty and that they could not help themselves. In these clays we found the greatest atten tion paid to the study of sanitwry matters ; not a day patsed without the # daily press touching on the subject. Now*, what had brought about this great change ? None would say that it wasourmoralsense--itvras because men had worked no longer looking at some book or other, but gone to nature and studied her. But it was not alone in this field of material comfort that the intellectual fore© had shown itself. Looking back some centuries, wo found one great dominant church, whose decrees were received as final. Men doubted at their extreme peril, for that church found it necessary to enforce its decrees and dogmas at the stake and the rack. Among many others he might mention the name of Bruno, who died a ctuel death, not for having transgressed the moral law, but for simply having dared to assert the right of the human intellect to think for itself. But horrible as this was, there was a darker and sadder side to ifc, namely fche repressive influence extending through the whole of society by which the lesser men had no chance of intellectual development. In our days (though still existing in a social and moral sense) persecution had become a thing of the past, and that notwithstanding the existence of the same old dogmas and creeds. What had brought this about? Ifc was again the spread of intellectual influence. Coining to the religious factor in civilization, the lecturer said that none had done more for fche promotion of agriculture in the dark ages than the monks, who, in spite of pillaging barons, had done invaluable service in draining marshes, clearing and reclaiming ; but directly religion attempted to crush fche progress of thought, then her influence on civilization was gone and she became reactionary. The result was fchafc we saw a sort of gulf between religion and science instead of the two working together for fche universal good of mankind, and one of the greatest problems of fche age was how to reconcile the two. The lecturer concluded by saying that his nexfc address would treat of be factor of gorernmenfc in civilisation.