160 ETHICAL ASPECTS OF EVOLUTION 



admits of no variations, it must necessarily be of the greatest 

 generality and elevation, in order that it may maintain its 

 authority through many ages of change ; and in this way 

 it is always far superior to the unwritten codes of social 

 morality ; though they, as we have seen, are on a higher 

 level than the average individual conscience of their own 

 environment. Its institutions and its precepts bear to 

 distant times the imprint of the sublime character of its 

 founder. 



On the other hand, the agency which is indispensable 

 for the maintenance of a religious system, besides being 

 liable to the ordinary corruptions of human nature, is 

 continually and necessarily influenced by the special interests 

 of its position ; and those are often opposed to the material 

 and the ethical interests of the community at large. Even 

 when they are legitimate, they will tend to suppress the 

 healthy movement of thought, and when they are allied to 

 moral corruption, they give rise to a class of conflict of which 

 the case of Savonarola affords a conspicuous example. 

 A man may be called on to decide whether he will comply 

 with the commands of his religion conveyed to him by its 

 accredited head, or the commands of his own conscience. 



Yet another point of difference may be noted. Every 

 religion contains a more or less complete cosmology, em 

 bracing, in addition to its ethical system, a theory of the 

 government of the universe, its origin, its past history, 

 and its ultimate destiny. These two sides, the ethical and 

 the cosmological, must harmonize one with the other, and 

 the ethics of religion will have in view a definite cosmical 

 end ; a concept with which the conscience has no acquain 

 tance and no concern. Thus, the hierarchy of moral 

 qualities will be rearranged in compliance with the needs 

 of the system as a whole. To take one illustration : the 

 Civitas Dei will assign a higher rank to the virtue of obedi 

 ence to ecclesiastical superiors than may usually be allowed 

 to it. But what more than anything else regulates the 

 appreciation of the various moral qualities are the views 

 which relate to the final end of existence, and the value of 





