LINXEAX SOCIETY OF LOXDOX. 



Herbert Spencer finds the answer to his question by invoiiiug 

 evolution and the strucrgle for life as its motive cause : — 



•0&-' 



" Slowly, but surely, evolution brings about an increasing 

 amount of happiness : all evils being but incidental. By 

 its essential nature, the process must everywhere produce 

 greater fitness to the conditions o£ existence ; be they what 



they may The universal and necessary tendency 



towards supremacy and multiplication of the best, applying 

 to the organic creation as a whole as well as to each species, 

 is ever diminishino; the damage done — tends ever to main- 

 tain those most superior organisms which, in one way or 

 other, escape the invasions of the inferior, and so tends to 

 produce a type less liable to the invasions of the inferior. 

 Thus the evils accompanying evolution are ever being self- 

 eliminated. Though there may arise the question — Why 

 could they not have been avoided ? there does not arise the 

 question — Why were they deliberately inflicted ? Whatever 

 may be thought of them, it is clear that they do not imply 

 gratuitous malevolence." (ibid. pp. 354:-5.) 



The author of this remarkable pamphlet takes different ground 

 iu seeking for his answer. Mauy will think — in spite of the 

 narrow and aggressive spirit which disfigures the passage, — that he 

 takes higher ground. In the attacks of the germs of disease upon 

 man he sees no hand of God, but — 



'^ rather the astonishing, strange uncoraprehended 



workings of some mightier power in almighty Xature 

 infinitely beyond the weak, punv, priest aborted rudiments 

 of perception, dawning in the infant brain of Man : carrying 

 out a grand design of unfathomable profundity, in which an 

 atom is as mighty as a mass, a second as significant as a 

 thousand years, and the smallest being in the universe of as 

 much importance in the stupendous scheme as lordly Man, 

 himself, with all his presumption, arrogance and self conceit 

 thick upon him — leading us to exclaim with Hamlet^ in 

 immortal Shakespeare : 



' There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, 

 Than are dreamt of in thy philosophy ! ' " 



(p. 36.) 



I do not propose, on the present occasion, to discuss the history 

 of the ideas which have been quoted from the booklet. Any such 

 consideration is better deferred until the authenticity of the date 

 has been tested by every possible means. It is, however, appro- 

 priate to say at once, concerning what is perhaps the most 



