A VINDICATION OF SCIENTIFIC ETHICS. 331 



We need not trouble ourselves, then, with considering how the 

 lowest types of humanity will act under the supposed regime ; what 

 we are concerned with is the effect likely to be produced upon the 

 mass of society. As regards men in general, will natural morality 

 exert a sufficient regulative force ? To this question I should be in- 

 clined to answer unhesitatingly yes, provided only proper means be 

 taken to bring the new system home to people's understandings. No 

 one will pretend that the theology now in possession exerts all the 

 regulative influence that could be desired. For one thing, it can not 

 make itself believed by large multitudes ; and, in the second place, 

 very many of those who do believe it, or who profess to do so, are far 

 from leading edifying lives. Every leading religious denomination 

 has numerous representatives in our jails and penitentiaries, as official 

 documents show ; while, if we turn to the records of the insolvency 

 courts, we shall find ample evidence that men can be at once zealous 

 supporters of a church and sadly inexact to say the least in money 

 matters. Why do I mention these things ? Surely not to cause any 

 one pain, but simply to show how the question stands. Some people 

 aro-ue as if we had now a perfect regulative system, which the new 

 opinions are in danger of disturbing. But no ; we have a very imper- 

 fect regulative system, upon which it is hoped a great improvement 

 may be made. Theologians have, for some time past, been sensible 

 of the shortcomings of the old teaching, for they have been trying to 

 oraft upon it the idea of the naturalness of the rewards and punish- 

 ments to be meted out to right- and wrong-doers respectively. We 

 hear now that sinners will not be overtaken by any external penalties, 

 but will be left to the simple and inevitable consequences of their own 

 misconduct. They would not be happy, we are told, in heaven, be- 

 cause their characters are not adapted to that abode of bliss ; and, 

 upon the whole, therefore, they are better off on the other side of the 

 great gulf. How all this can be reconciled with the teaching of the 

 Bible, where hell is represented, not as prepared by the sinner for 

 himself, but as prepared by God for the devil and his angels, and 

 heaven, in like manner, as something specially prepared for the right- 

 eous, who there enjoy a felicity with which the sufferings of this pres- 

 ent time are not worthy to be compared, it is not for me to say. One 

 thing is clear, however, and that is, that such glosses as these are 

 recognitions of and concessions to the principle of development. 

 Heaven, according to this hypothesis, is the developed life of right- 

 eousness, and hell the developed life of moral rebellion ; but, though 

 theology may dally with this view, it can never do more than dally 

 with it ; it can never make it its own, seeing that the text of the 

 Bible so plainly declares the cataclysmal nature of the change which 

 takes place at death. But, if theology has to dally with develop- 

 ment, how much better founded, and how much better adapted for 

 acting upon men's minds, must a system be which, from first to 



