TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY. 101 



draws an excellent illustration from the evolution 

 of the eye out of a mass of jelly which becomes 

 responsive to light. The question is not, What 

 did the eye come from ? but, Does it really see ? 

 Has it life-relations with reality? Similarly the 

 real question at issue about conscience is not, 

 Did it come ultimately from something which is 

 non-moral ? but, Is it a moral faculty correspond- 

 ing to a moral environment? If we are to accept 

 evolution, we must believe that everything is what 

 it may become, not what it has been. To prove 

 that, at a certain stage of development, the embryo 

 of a man is indistinguishable, even to the practised 

 embryologist, from that of a dog, carries us no way 

 at all towards proving the identity of creatures 

 which in their perfect form are so different. 



It is here that Dr. Martineau seems to us to go 

 beyond Professor Green. He is more fearless in 

 his attitude towards evolution. Professor Green 

 throughout shrinks from admitting the possibility 

 of the evolution of the moral from the non-moral. 

 Dr. Martineau is content to fix attention on the 

 reality of the development, and to emphasize the 

 fact that "each increment contributed by fresh 

 differentiation constitutes a discovery, and connects 

 us by one added link of truth with the real scene 

 of our existence." We can indeed " undress the 

 moral intuition," and lay aside fold after fold of 

 its disguise till we discover nothing at last but 



