CHAP, xin DARWINISM IN ETHICS ALEXANDER 135 



things, mutually incompatible, mutually repulsive. 

 Was there ever an ideal with a lower programme 

 than that of the supreme Teacher, "Not to destroy, 

 but to fulfil " ? The point may be illustrated by 

 a quotation from John M'Leod Campbell : " An early 

 member of the Society of Friends, writing to a 

 brother who was a Roman Catholic, says, 'Your re- 

 ligion and my religion must be the same, in so far 

 as we have religion, for there is but one religion.' 

 This true and deep word," adds Campbell, "we are 

 gradually learning to understand." May we not even 

 more confidently say the same thing of moral ideals ? 

 There is but one ideal. The various forms in which, 

 historically, the ideal presents itself are not distinct and 

 rival species, but elements in the final synthesis yearn- 

 ing aspirations after it sketches, rough and rude at 

 the best, yet instinct with life, and all representing one 

 great pattern seen in the mount. "Would an ideal kill 

 another ideal if it could? I do not ask, would an 

 idealist kill an idealist ? That indeed is " another story" ; 

 but does the ideal itself aim at extermination and 

 destruction? Mr. Alexander tells us that the rivals 

 often blend in a " compromise." Surely, once again, 

 the victory of truth is no compromise between opposite 

 extremes, but something higher than either, in which all 

 that is best in both the rivals lives on and flourishes. 

 And the tertium quid at least may be due to a victory 

 of truth. 



We conclude then that the application of Darwinism 

 to competing moral ideals breaks down all along the 

 line. For, first, what is described to us is not a process 

 of natural selection by means of a struggle for existence ; 

 and, secondly, so far as Mr. Alexander does assimilate 

 moral ideals to competing organisms, he falsifies the 



