54 THE OEIGIN OF MAH 



published twenty years ago. I have just found in a 

 book recently published by a prominent English writer 

 words along the same line, only more comprehensive. 

 The corroding influence of Darwinism has spread as 

 the doctrine has been increasingly accepted. In the 

 American preface to " The Glass of Fashion " these 

 words are to be found: " Darwinism not only justifies 

 the sensualist at the trough and Fashion at her glass ; 

 it justifies Prussianism at the cannon's mouth and Bol- 

 shevism at the prison-door. If Darwinism be true, if 

 Mind is to be driven out of the universe and accident 

 accepted as a sufficient cause for all the majesty and 

 glory of physical nature, then there is no crime or vio- 

 lence, however abominable in its circumstances and 

 however cruel in its execution, which cannot be justi- 

 fied by success, and no triviality, no absurdity of Fash- 

 ion which deserves a censure: more — there is no act of 

 disinterested love and tenderness, no deed of self-sac- 

 rifice and mercy, no aspiration after beauty and excel- 

 lence, for which a single reason can be adduced in 

 logic." 



To destroy the faith of Christians and lay the foun- 

 dation for the bloodiest war in history would seem 

 enough to condemn Darwinism, but there are still two 

 other indictments to bring against it. First, that it 

 is the basis of the gigantic class struggle that Is now 

 shaking society throughout the world. Both the capi-- 

 tallst and the labourer are Increasingly class conscious. 

 Why? Because the doctrine of the "Individual effi- 

 cient for himself " — ^the brute doctrine of the " sur- 

 vival of the fittest " — Is driving men into a life-aud- 



