The jewel and its casket : an address / delivered by George Black.

  • Black, George
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The jewel and its casket : an address / delivered by George Black. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of the Sea upon his back from which it was impossible he could ever free himself ; to tie a leaden weight about his neck and sink him in the depths of despair. Most of those I am addressing, all I hope, will yield a ready response to the statement that behind all the phenomena of life there lies a great First Cause, a Mighty Intelligence who ealled into existence our own and every other world circling in space, “ by whom all things consist.” This much most of us will grant, and many of us who believe that knowledge is not confined to the merely physical aspect of things, or even to the mental, but may also be acquired in a deeper and more spiritual domain, will look upon this Being as Love,*’and ealling} him,“ God,’ will associate {all that is, holy and ‘good ‘with his name. But now we come to a point where the ways are divergent. Man’s appearance upon this planet is shrouded in mystery, and where facts are wanting speculation is rife. I was reading a pamphlet some time ago by Mr. Howard Moore, of Chicago, entitled “Why I ama Vegetarian.” He is a pro- nounced evolutionist and recognising the oneness of life and the interdependence of it he has been led to abandon the use of flesh-meat as an article of diet. Ido not think that any spiritual idea enters into his conception of evolution ; there is nothing of any great originating or controlling force at work in the matter with which he deals: he treats of it en- tirely from the materialistic plane. | This, of course, he has a perfect right to do, but it might have been as well both for himself and the cause he advocates if the enunciation of his own beliefs had been accompanied by a greater show of mod- esty, by respect for those who differ from him, and by the employment of more temperate language. Without the least hesitation he tells us “that the first appearance of life on this planet dates back fifty million years ago, and consisted of little bits of protoplasm
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