A VINDICATION OF SCIENTIFIC ETHICS. 333 



" I want a principle within 

 Of jealous, godly fear, 

 A sensibility to sin, 

 A pain to feel it near. 



" I want the first approach to feel 

 Of pride or fond desire, 

 To catch the wandering of my will, 

 And quench the kindling fire. 



" Quick as the apple of an eye, 

 God, my conscience make ! 

 Awake my soul when siu is nigh, 

 And keep it still awake." 



We have in these verses the expression of a passionate desire for 

 conformity to a divine ideal, and the question is, whether we can expect 

 any approach to the same earnestness in pursuit of such excellence or 

 elevation of character as the evolution philosophy indicates as attain- 

 able. If allowance be made for the solemnity imparted to the above 

 utterance by the momentous character of Christian beliefs, I see no 

 reason why the moral enthusiasm of humanity should not flow in as 

 full tide through the new channel as through the old. After all, there 

 are but few in every generation who are fired by an intense desire for 

 the highest holiness ; and some, it must be remembered, who appear 

 to have very lofty spiritual ambitions, give occasion for the remark 

 that they might better have aimed at humbler achievements. We may, 

 therefore, reasonably hope that, when once it is understood where the 

 hopes of humanity lie, there will be no falling off, to say the least, in 

 the number of those who will strive after nothing short of the highest 

 ideal their minds are capable of conceiving. 



In conclusion, let us see what answer can be given to certain spe- 

 cific objections that have been made by able writers to Mr. Spencer's 

 theories on this subject. " The Bystander " thinks that Mr. Spencer's 

 indignation " against Jingoes and their political burglaries ; against 

 Fifeshire militiamen who, so long as they are sent to war, are ready to 

 fight on either side ; against Christian bishops who lend their sanction 

 to invasion of Afghanistan," is, upon his own principles, unscientific ; 

 inasmuch as all these might retort that their actions were the natural 

 product of their particular stage of development. To this I reply that 

 Mr. Spencer's indignation is the measure of his own moral development, 

 and signifies his instinctive recoil from courses of conduct which show 

 the moral sense in a very backward state. Even when we understand 

 how bad actions have come to be performed, and are prepared to make 

 allowances for the perpetrators, we shrink from and denounce them 

 none the less. We surely should allow the philosophers some common 

 human privileges. As to the supposed answer of the burglarious Jingo, 

 the unprejudiced militiaman, and the filibustering bishop, it is in sub- 



