8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



from the interference of man and the workings of Nature plus 

 such interference in a word, of the cosmic and the ethical has 

 to be insisted on. Nature has achieved certain results, though by 

 slow, blundering, and (Montesquieu notwithstanding) extrava- 

 gantly wasteful methods. Her processes, however, with all their, 

 to us, ruthless cruelty and prodigality, have, in the rough average 

 of cases, made for what rather metaphorically, perhaps Mr. 

 Spencer has called " fullness of life " ; and such increasing full- 

 ness of life may therefore be described to borrow a teleological 

 phrase, though I do not myself accept the teleological implication 

 as the " end " of evolution. And here it is that reason steps in 

 and seeks, within the limits everlastingly imposed by cosmic condi- 

 tions, to find means helping to the same great " end " now a true 

 rational end which, while at least as effective as the methods 

 employed by Nature, shall be no longer characterized by what in 

 the " acquired dialect of morals " (to use Huxley's phrase) we have 

 learned to call Nature's indifference and brutality. Man, then, 

 by reason of his intelligence, has great power of tampering with 

 the cosmic order ; and how far it is wise to do this and just where 

 the proper compromises have to be made remain to-day among 

 the most difficult of the social problems which we have to face, 

 though in view of the foregoing discussion we may lay it down 

 as a general principle that the ethical process should be allowed 

 to interfere with the cosmic process only when the " end " afore- 

 said may be more adequately, perfectly, and economically secured 

 thereby. At any rate, we must admit that Goethe was right 

 when he said that it is man's privilege to " distinguish, elect, and 

 direct," * and Arnold when he wrote, " Man must begin, know 

 this, where Nature ends." f 



Returning from this digression, we will consider for a moment 

 the evolution of the moral code as above defined. 



When I described the earlier and outward regulative codes of 

 conduct as pre-ethical codes I did not simply mean that in the 

 sequence of human affairs they actually came before the moral 

 code itself. The relationship is closer and more vital than such a 

 statement would imply. My full meaning is that the pre-ethical 

 codes have all along combined to establish and maintain the 

 social conditions, in the absence of which no observations of 

 cause and effect in conduct could have been made and registered 

 in the absence of which, therefore, the moral criterion strictly 

 so called would never have arisen. As out of the primordial 

 ceremonial code arose the codes we call religious and political, so 

 out of these combined has gradually emerged and differentiated 

 the moral code proper, as with that consolidation of social life to 



* Das GoUliche. \ Sonnet : In Harmony with Nature. 



