5 i 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



sciousness, at all explained or enforced. To a certain extent this feel- 

 ing was itself a justification of resistance to the claims of evolution to 

 be regarded as a sufficient history of the creation of man. The evolu- 

 tionists had claimed to be able to make clear to its possessors the mys- 

 tery of conscience ; and if reasonable men asserted that, so far as they 

 were concerned, the sense of mystery remained, it was clear that the 

 last word on the subject was not yet spoken. 



I am certainly very far from thinking that the last word will be 

 spoken for some time to come, but I make bold to believe that it is 

 possible to throw further light upon the subject without at ail depart- 

 ing from the general principle of evolution to which I have for long 

 given such intellectual adherence as was in my power. Let us, then, 

 begin by endeavoring to understand what were the precise features in 

 the power called conscience, which seemed to intuitional thinkers to 

 baffle and defy the explanations of the evolutionists. 



Their general point of view may be fairly expressed by the state- 

 ment that the conscience must have had an existence prior to the con- 

 ditions out of which it was supposed to have been evolved. Drawn 

 out in detail, this statement contains the three following propositions : 



1. Conscience is instantaneous that is, innate in its origin, and 

 therefore not to be accounted for by the supposition that by degrees it 

 was impressed upon the mind from without. It bears so strong a 

 resemblance to the other faculties, the senses and emotions, that, like 

 them, it must have formed part of the original constitution of man. 

 When examined it seems to testify that it is in no sense a composition, 

 not made up of long and varied experiences, but the result of a single 

 creative act, or at any rate the instantaneous product of certain condi- 

 tions brought for the first time into relation with each other. In other 

 words, the length of time postulated by evolutionists for the develop- 

 ment of man is not granted them in the case of conscience. We shall 

 see presently whether they really require it. 



2. Conscience is instantaneous that is, intuitional in its opera- 

 tions, and therefore not to be accounted for by the action and reaction 

 of social relationships. Had there been but one man, that one man 

 would have been able to say, " I must do this ; " and, again, there must 

 have been a sense that it was right to combine for social purposes of 

 mutual help and comfort before men could have conceived the idea of 

 doing so. The notion that I ought to act in a certain way toward my 

 neighbor is, if not a primary, at least a very easy one, whereas the no- 

 tion that I ought to act in a certain way, because it is for his or our 

 advantage, seems prima facie a much later one. There is, in short, a 

 correlation between the conscience and an external rightness, which is 

 just as natural, as rapid, as unaffected by later relationships, as is the 

 correlation between the eye and light. In primeval man the conscience 

 detects, however dimly and imperfectly, morality in actions just as the 

 eye detects shape and color in objects. Social and civilized life may 



