4. The following section was prepared for this Cy- clopoMiia by the late Dr. Harbaugh just before his death. We print it as he left it, though it hivolves a little repetition of what has been given above.
-Oawfopwew*.— This word, related primarily to the sphere of organic life in the natural world, has also <iome to perform important service in science, especial- ly in psychology, philosophy, theology, and history. In the earlier stages of science g^erally, the data and
phenomena were classified and arranged acoording to the outvard peculiarities which they presented. In time, however, and especially under the influence of Christianity, as the key to the deepest life of the world, scientific thinking felt itself urged to a deeper appre- hension of all kinds of phenomena. The mechanical and outward in systematising accordingly had to give way to the determining power of mere inward prhid- ples.
Thus it has come to pass that while science, so far as it has been apprehended and advanced by non- Christian thinking, has been, for the most part, satis- fied with the word progreUy science grounded in the distinctively Christian principle has found the word development indispensable. The word, as thus used, presupposes a distinctive theory of the essence of Christianity, and so also of the Church, its history and its dogmas, as well as of affiliated sciences, such as psychology and philosophy. It finds inadequate the view of the essence of Christianity which resolves it into the idea of doctrine^ as in Supranaturalism ; so also the view which makes it only an ethical force, law, or rule of life, as set forth in the school of Kant and by Rationalism ; and so, moreover, the concep- tion that it is, in its essential character, a mere power of redemption operative in the epihere of reJiffious feeL inffy aocording to Schleiermacher and the Mystics. Admitting and appreciating all these as secondary and dependent, it holds that Christianity is primarily and essentially a Uf e^-tho divine-human life of its founder, Jesus Christ— wMch becomes the deepest life of renew- ed humanity, of history, and of science (see Ullman, Distinctioe Charadm' and Ettence of Chrietianitt/), Life being essentially orpcutic, it must have the word development to indicate that unfolding from a germ- like inward principle which is the distinctive charac- teristic of organic life. To the genetic processes in- volved in the activities of life it applies the word de- velopment. *^ This idea of an organic, steadily im- proving development of humanity, acconling to a wise, unalterable plan of Providence, is properly as old as Christianity, meets us in many passages of the New TesUment (Matt, xiii, 81, 82; Ephes. iv, 12-16; Co- loss, ii, 19 ; 2 Pet ill, 18), and in occasional remarks of the early fathers, such as Tertullian and Augustine ; and was brought out in the 18th century with peculiar emphasis and freshness by the genial Herder, in his * Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Humanity* (784), so highly valued by the gifted historian of Swit- serland, John von MfiUer" (see Herder's SdmmtUche Werke, ear Phil, und Gesch. Theil iii, § 74 sq.). " The more mature and philosophical conception of it, how- ever, and the impidse which it gave to a deeper and a livelier study of history, are due especially to the phi- loeophy of Schelling, and, still more, of Hegel. With Hegel, all lifo and thought is properly development, or a process of organic growth, which he calls Aufhe- bung~4hat is, in the threefold sense of this philosoph- ical term so much uesd by him, (1.) an abolition of the previous imperfect form (an aufkeben, in the sense of iolleir$) ; (2.) a preservation of the essence (conserm vare) ; and (8.) an elevation of it to a higher stage of exietence (elevarey (Dr. SchaTs History of the Apotl. Church, p. 90, 91).
The conception of development has, however, also been carried out of its proper Christian sense, and per- verted to the service of anti- Christian systems of thought. Thus Pantheism, laying hold upon some in- sufficiently guarded point in the Hegelian theory, has employed it in its scheme. The one school of Hegel, denyhig with him the existence of a personal God, as the creator of all principles of created life, proposes to account for all animated existence by a theory of de- velopment starting in matter, ideas, or thought (all of which, however, it leaves vague and floating), holding that nature through successive upward gradations ul- timately reaches self-consciousness in the human spir-
DICKEY
786
DICKSON
Several of his writings have been translated into other langaages; one even into Chinese. In a scientific point of view, his writings are of no great value.
Dickey, John M., a Presbyterian minister, was bom in York District, S. C, Dec 16, 1789. After overcoming many difficulties, he completed his theo- logical studies, was licensed in 1814, and became min- ister of White River church, near Washington, Davis County, Ind. When ordained in 1817 he joined the Salem Presbjrtery, and devoted much time as a volun- tary missionaxy to destitute places. In 1819 he re- moved to Lexington, Scott County, supplied the church of Graham, and was installed over Pisgah and Lex- ington. He subsequently visited the valley of the Wabash and the central part of Indiana, where he or- ganized three churches. From 1885 his labors were confined, with little exception, to the Pisgah church, which his health obliged him to resign in 1847, when he became an agent for the American Tract Society. He died Nov. 21, 1849. He published A ffisUny of the Predryterian Church, Indiana (1828), and A Series qf Letter* addressed to his friends. — Spiague, AmuUe, iv, 514.