DIVINITY HALL LECTURES.

Professor Shaler delivered an intensely interesting lecture last evening to a full audience. So distinct, he said, are the fields of work of the theologian and the naturalist, that he had with difficulty found a topic of common interest-the Evolution of Altruism. Sympathy, the basis of altruism, seems a very natural thing, yet it is hard to explain. The lecturer asked his hearers to assume that man is descended from the lower animals in his body, and in some at least of his mental faculties. He then traced the gradations of altruistic qualities (those which are not based on personal profit) through the various phases of animal life. In the lowest life no evidence is apparent that the creature realizes the existence of anything outside itself. In higher forms we discern the germ of the nervous system, and later, a keen appreciation of the outer world. But no trace is visible of sympathy, ("the going out of the mind into fields of life beyond it self"), until we reach those animals in which the sexes are distinguished. The sexual and parental instinct is the beginning of sympathy. In the lower forms in which this instinct is distinguished, it is but momentary, and the offspring is self-supporting from the first. As we ascend we see the young more and more helpless, and drawing more and more care from the parent. The next phase of sympathy is that for the tribe, which we reach in the ant. The ants in each hill cooperate in labor; but their sympathy does not extend to ants of other hills. The sympathy for the species is the next step in development. This is best seen among domestic animals in the pig of the southern forests, where a cry of distress from one of them calls hundreds of others to his assistance. The highest development of sympathy is seen in the monkey. Then comes the lower man. From them to the higher man the development is marvelous, introducing paternal love, love of the tribe, love of the Creator, (which in the lower men is only fear), universal sympathy with mankind, and in the last century sympathy with animals and love for nature.

It is hard to account for this development of sympathy, or altruism. The doctrine of selection may apply in the parental instinct, as those having this instinct strongest would take best care of their offspring; but the wildest advocate of selection could not claim to account for the higher forms or altruism, extending to the whole world and beyond it. This higher development rests on an influence not visible in natural laws.

Having reached this step the study of altruism is outside the field of the naturalist. The lecture believed that the spirit of Christianity rests on these old altruistic motives; and that it also fosters them, towards fellow beings, and towards the Supreme Being.

Self-consciousness is peculiar to man. It results in a sense of loneliness, and in the realization of sin. It may be escaped by liquor or opium, sinking the man to the animal state; or by religion, raising him above self-consciousness. The method Christianity officers to accomplish this, is the cultivation of altruistic motives. "Love the Lord thy God with all thy soul and with all thy might and thy soul and with all thy might and thy neighbor as thyself." As altruism, or unselfishness increases, death loses its fears. It will be said in future centuries, that in this age men begin to think less about death.

The key to education must be in the line of altruism, teaching men to go outside and stay outside themselves. It is not safe to start the intellectual life in the study of physical science; education should begin with the humanities.