THE NEW MORALITY 



THE tendency of the Evolution Theory, 

 as it penetrates human thought, is to rub 

 out lines — the old lines of formal classi- 

 fication. We no longer now put in a class apart 

 those animals which have horns or cloven hooves, 

 because we find that continuous descent and close 

 kinship weave relations which are not bounded 

 by horns or hooves. And, for a not dissimilar 

 reason, modern thought, based on the theory 

 of evolution, is tending to rub out the hard and 

 fast lines between moral Right and Wrong — the 

 old formal classifications of actions as some in their 

 nature good, and some in their nature bad. 



The Eastern, or at least Indian, thought and 

 religion rubbed out these lines long ago. Its 

 philosophy indeed was founded on a theory 

 of Evolution — the continuous evolution or 

 emanation of the Many from the One. It 

 could not therefore regard any class of beings 

 or creatures as essentially bad, or any class of 

 actions as essentially wrong, since all sprang 

 from a common Root. The only essential evil 

 was ignorance (avidya) — that is, the fact of the 



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