182 ETHICAL ASPECTS OF EVOLUTION 



When we inquire what are the relative claims on our obedi 

 ence of any two of them when brought into conflict, we must, 

 in order to obtain an accurately quantified solution, first 

 exactly determine the value of each, with reference to their 

 common final end, that is to say, the continued existence 

 of the nation. This, however, is impossible. Neither the 

 tendencies themselves, nor their values in the present, 

 admit of exact measurement, and it is out of our power 

 to predict the conditions under which they will be called 

 on to act in the future. All we can do is to deduce from our 

 knowledge of the past what appears to be the most probable 

 opinion for the immediate future ; while we are conscious 

 that, as the future never exactly reproduces the past, and 

 as, though variations may with confidence be expected, 

 their nature and direction can never be foreseen, our opinion 

 will never have more than a rough and general probability. 

 Such reasonable probability will justify the assumption 

 that all three forms of authority are indispensable ; that 

 neither the household, nor the civil government, nor religion, 

 can be done away with without depressing the community 

 below that minimum of adaptation which is necessary for 

 its continued existence. Further than this it seems rash to 

 proceed. Our ground fails us when we attempt to deter 

 mine the relative strength at which each form of authority 

 should be maintained. In some ages there may be a dis 

 position to make light of the claims of religion ; but when 

 we reflect that the continued preservation from an excep 

 tionally remote antiquity of races like the Jews and the 

 Hindus is due mainly to a minute and unquestioning 

 obedience to the precepts of their religions, we should 

 hesitate to agree. All we can say with some approach to 

 certainty is, that the equilibrium between the different 

 classes of obedience should be so far maintained that no 

 one of them should acquire the power to extinguish either 

 of its rivals. The doctrine of passive obedience to the 

 civil government; when used, as it was by Hobbes, as an 

 engine of aggression against the Church, and the attitude 

 of the Church towards the Empire in the middle ages, 



