THE INFLUENCE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORY. 38/ 



fall of man is now either alleg^orised, or has given place to the 

 more scientific theory of the gradual ascent of man — with im- 

 portant consequences to ethical science. In the light of this 

 wider truth our attitude towards sin and moral evil, and our treat- 

 ment of them, have undergone great modification. The theor>' 

 of religious exclusiveness also has had to give way before the 

 study of the religious history of mankind and the wider revelations 

 of truth which comparative religion, the progress of science, and 

 the evolution of the human mind have brought to view, with the 

 result that our ethical relationship and duties towards so-called 

 heathen races have undergone considerable modification. 



On the other hand, there have been great positive gains. 

 The spiritual and idealistic view of life, so far from quaking under 

 our feet through the discoveries of science, has been based on 

 stronger foundations than ever. One can hardly realise now the 

 despairing state of mind which fifty years ago regarded material- 

 ism as triumphant, and looked upon the universe as summed up 

 in the words, " Evolution " and " Law." The old mysteries 

 remain. We are as far as ever from knowing the constitution 

 of the atom, or from fathoming the mystery of the Energy which 

 binds its elements together. As ever, we stand in the midst of 

 " an Infinite and Eternal energy from which all things proceed." 

 That is the mystery of philosophy, of ethics, and of religion. He 

 would be a bold man who would say that the theory of evolution 

 has solved that mystery or has plucked out its heart. The 

 theory of evolution, valuable as it is, is helpless here. It knows 

 only a succession of phenomena. It simply brings together the 

 objective facts of life, and leaves them unrelated to each other by 

 any binding principle of moral intelligence. Idealism furnishes 

 that binding principle. Here, then, is where the spiritual view 

 of life gains its standing-ground, and it is ground which is firm 

 as a rock. Let us see what it builds on this foundation. 



Evolution, I have said, gives us a mere succession of pheno- 

 mena. Ethics and philosophy examine these phenomena, and 

 try to appraise their value. They see that the facts or phenom- 

 ena which science and evolution present to the intelligence of 

 man are facts which not only have a varying value, but which, 

 in the changes which they manifest, betoken a definite principle 

 and purpose at work — a purpose which seems to demand that 

 progress shall proceed from the simple to the complex, that is, 

 from the physical to the psychical and the ethical. These 

 changes are obviously the result of an interpenetrating spirit or 

 principle of life which manifests order, intelligence and will, for 

 without intelligence there would be no progress. It is idle to 

 assert, as some evolutionists have done, that these increments 

 of spiritual power, rising from the simplest cell to man, have 

 accrued, as it were, out of nothing, or merely as a result of the 

 interplay of blind forces. Out of nothing, nothing can come. 

 The meaning of the universe, or such meaning as we can discern 

 here, must be read, not in the dim beginnings of life, but in its 

 potencies, as manifested in its most highly evolved types. To 

 sav that the slowly-evolving increments of consciousness are so 

 infinitesimal that they do not count is to shut one's eyes to the 



