THE MORAL STANDARD. ii 



perativeness, the peculiar sanctity and importance of the ethical 

 code ? What, in other words, are the remote emotional tenden- 

 cies involved in the treatment of conduct from the evolutionary 

 point of view here assumed ? 



I regard this matter as of especial moment on account of the 

 recent contention of Mr. Balfour (1) that practically " no moral 

 code can be effective which does not inspire, in those who are 

 asked to obey it, emotions of reverence ; and (2) that practically 

 the capacity of any code to excite this or any other elevated emo- 

 tion can not be wholly independent of the origin from which 

 those who accept that code suppose it to emanate." * I assent 

 to both these propositions, while I most distinctly join issue with 

 the writer in his inference that by the precepts of the naturalistic 

 moral code the higher emotions, which he rightly holds as fun- 

 damentally necessary, can not possibly be called forth. 



The gradual decline of the older theology will, I am con- 

 vinced, bring with it no decadence in our feelings of awe, rev- 

 erence, sacredness, mystery, but simply a transference of these 

 feelings from the so-called supernatural to the natural from the 

 power manifested in miracle to the power revealed in law. And 

 thus, by a gradual but inevitable process of adjustment, will it 

 be without possibility of question, when the naturalistic ethics 

 of the future shall have taken the place of the supernaturalistic 

 ethics of the past. Of the moral ideal it may thus be said that it 

 " decomposes but to recompose " with fuller beauty and richer 

 meaning. Rooted fast and deep in the very constitution and 

 conditions of life, itself part of the everlasting order of cosmic 

 growth, written on no tables of stone to be broken or crushed 

 under foot, graven on no page of human fashioning to be torn 

 or obliterated or otherwise destroyed, the moral law thus indeed 

 reveals itself as the eternal law the utterance and the declara- 

 tion through the universe itself of that power of which this 

 throbbing world of life and sense and thought is, after all, but 

 the garment and partial expression. Over the unshaken founda- 

 tions of such a faith as we can thus make our own, the tides of 

 time and change wash and curl in vain. Creeds and specula- 

 tions, precepts and philosophies, pass away and are forgotten, 

 but such a faith indeed endureth forever. 



That to affiliate ethical principles in this way upon natural 

 law adds immeasurably to the deep and terrible responsibilities 

 with which life is coming to confront the modern man, must be 

 acknowledged. From no other point of view does the high seri- 

 ousness of conduct, the imperiousness of duty, the strenuousness 

 of living, become so emphatic ; in no other way are we forced to 



* The Foundations of Belief, p. 13. 



