30 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 



call to mind that any of its present votaries have 

 sealed their faith by assuming the rags and the bowl 

 of the mendicant Bhikku, or the cloak and the wallet 

 of the Cynic. The obstacles placed in the way of 

 sturdy vagrancy by an unphilosophical police have, 

 perhaps, proved too formidable for philosophical con- 

 sistency. We also know modern speculative op- 

 timism, with its perfectibility of the species, reign 

 of peace, and lion and lamb transformation scenes ; 

 but one does not hear so much of it as one did 

 forty years ago ; indeed, I imagine it is to be met 

 with more commonly at the tables of the healthy and 

 wealthy, than in the congregations of the wise. The 

 majority of us, I apprehend, profess neither pessimism 

 nor optimism. We hold that the world is neither so 

 good, nor so bad, as it conceivably might be ; and, as 

 most of us have reason, now and again, to discover that 

 it can be. Those who have failed to experience the 

 joys that make life worth living are, probably, in as 

 small a minority as those who have never known the 

 griefs that rob existence of its savour and turn its 

 richest fruits into mere dust and ashes. 



Further, I think I do not err in assuming that, 

 however diverse their views on philosophical and 

 religious matters, most men are agreed that the 

 proportion of good and evil in life may be very 

 sensibly affected by human action. I never heard 

 anybody doubt that the evil may be thus increased, 

 or diminished ; and it would seem to follow that 

 good must be similarly susceptible of addition or 

 subtraction. Finally, to my knowledge, nobody 



