332 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



last, assumes development, and which is not checked in its expo- 

 sition and application of natural laws by any stereotyped creed or 

 text? 



In the new system we really have the reconciliation of self-interest 

 and duty, for we see self-interest merging into duty, and we see duty 

 bringing the highest rewards that self-interest could desire. To say 

 that this system will be powerless for regulative purposes is to take a 

 thoroughly unnatural view of human nature. It is to assume some 

 tendency in man to evil, over and above the promptings of the self- 

 protective instinct. Now, this surplusage of evil in human nature I, 

 for one, strenuously deny. Every man comes into the world with a 

 problem to solve, upon the solution of which his whole course in life 

 depends ; and that problem is the due balancing of higher and lower 

 instincts in the interest of higher life. To suppress the lower at the 

 bidding of the higher would, as Mr. Spencer shows, be to suppress 

 life itself. This would be casting aside the problem, not solving it. 

 What is important to remember is, that in the lower there is nothing 

 essentially bad, and that the conflict between lower and higher goes 

 on in the region of purely personal desires before it is carried into the 

 region of social relations. An enlightened interpretation of self-inter- 

 est in regard to personal matters is thus a preparation for enlightened 

 and worthy action in the social region. For example, the man who 

 has strenuously controlled appetite in the interest of health, and who 

 has realized the satisfaction and happiness that come of doing so, 

 will be better fitted to control selfish, in the interest of social, im- 

 pulses than one who had never learned to control appetite at all. He 

 comes to this higher test fortified by self -conquest, and with an in- 

 creased sense of the dignity and worth of life prepared, moreover, 

 to believe that the path of true happiness is an ascending one. Let 

 these truths for they are truths be believed and taught ; let men 

 see the path along which their moral development has lain in the 

 past, and along which it must lie in the future, and we shall have 

 little reason to regret the lures and terrors of the old theology. 

 Either this, or there is some radical flaw in the constitution of things, 

 by reason of which they tend to corruption a belief which some 

 may hold on theological grounds, but which I venture to say would 

 never commend itself to any unbiased intelligence, irreconcilable, 

 as it is, with the actual existence of good in human nature and human 

 institutions. 



The question, however, may finally be asked whether a naturalistic 

 system of morals will ever excite the enthusiasm, ever create the same 

 intense longing after purity of heart, that has been produced under the 

 influence of the Christian creed. Will it ever show us the " quick- 

 eyed sanctity " which Dr. Newman mentions as a peculiar fruit of the 

 Spirit ? Will it ever call forth such a pleading for fuller and higher 

 spiritual life as we find in Charles Wesley's hymn : 



