Man in the Light of Evolution 



lation." These are only scant extracts from the 

 remarkable essay published almost fifty years 

 ago.i 



Thus in many ways these grand conceptions 

 of duty, fidelity, heroism, and unselfishness tend 

 to become more and more deeply ingrained in 

 the life and structure of the individual and of 

 society, and to spread and gain a universal 

 sway. Because of our deep confidence in these 

 truths and their practically universal acceptance 

 in some form and to a greater or less extent, 

 some have compared them to axioms. 



*' At the end of every demonstration," says 

 Mr. Fiske, " we must reach an axiom for the 

 truth of which our only test is the inconceiva- 

 bility of its negation." But why cannot I con- 

 ceive of the negation of an axiom? Says Mr. 

 Fiske again : " Our minds being that which in- 

 tercourse with environment has made them 

 (both their own intercourse and that of ancestral 

 minds), it follows that our indestructible beliefs 

 must be the registry of that intercourse, must be 

 necessarily true, not because they are independ- 



1 See Bushnell, H., "Christian Nurture," Chapter VIII, 

 pp. 202, 207. 



142 



