If we are correct in this interpretation of the language quoted, we do not see how the emotional part of human nature can, in any general sense, be said to be allied to unity. The passions are the basis of all human agitation and conflict, and have been the cause of all the wars which have engaged mankind during the past ages of the world. In the early periods of history the selfish emotions have preponderated over the benevolent. Hatred, ambition, avarice, have been superior to love, humility, and charity. It is more than doubtful whether, even now, the selfish passions of the human race are not still in the ascendant.
It may be said that, in the long run, the emotions tend to harmony, and that the coöperative and benevolent feelings are continually approaching their final and complete triumph. This is undoubtedly true; but it is wholly attributable to the progress of the human intellect, which, day by day, is demonstrating that man's emotional and moral nature can find its highest enjoyment and its most perfect development only in the complete subordination of the selfish and unsocial passions, to those which promote universal toleration and brotherhood.
But if Mr. Freeland is wrong in the position that the primary tendency of the passions is to unity, he seems to us equally far from scientific truth when he asserts that intellect is 'disrupting' in its tendency, and that science is primarily 'disturbing.' It is true the intellect has the analytical faculty; but it is equally true that the opposite faculty of generalization is that which most strongly characterizes it and distinguishes reason from instinct. So far from analysis being the earliest predominant tendency of the intellect, almost all its most familiar and ordinary acts are those of synthesis. In all the phenomena of perception, the separate sensations are combined by an act of the judgment into the concrete ideas of form and substance, while the highest and most permanent characteristic of science is in the comprehensive attainment of general laws.
The simple truth of the whole case is, that the affections or passions of men are the motive powers which impel them to action in every field of human affairs. The intellect, on the contrary, dominates these motive powers by its faculty of unfolding truth, foreseeing consequences, exploring the path of practicable progress, and illuminating the objects of rational desire to humanity. In the passions of men we have the two antagonistic forces--the attraction and repulsion--the centripetal and centrifugal tendencies--which ever antagonize each other, and through all the conflicts and agitations of mankind, are tending to eventual harmony. The moral faculty is a mere standard of right and wrong, which, of course, remains comparatively fixed and permanent through all the ages. The changes of opinion and action, in the sense of morality, are due wholly to the difference of knowledge at successive periods. Just as the intellect is capable of determining the bearing and consequences of human action, and of fixing the intention with reference to such consequences, will the moral character of such action be pronounced, more or less correctly, according to the degree of enlightenment of the parties concerned.