EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



onciler, the via media, the truth which combines 

 the half-truths seen and distorted by extremists of 

 all parties. 



In proceeding to the subject which gives its 

 title to this chapter, let us first note the existence 

 of a school of thought to which the phrase evolu 

 tion of morality appears meaningless. This, of 

 course, is the idealist school, which regards con 

 sciousness as the prime, primitive, and only essen 

 tial fact of existence. All other things existing 

 only in consciousness divine or human, the latter 

 being a semi-insulated portion of the latter it is 

 plain that the laws and principles of morality must 

 be given in consciousness consciousness, which is 

 distinguished from all other entities by having no 

 antecedents. If this be granted, it is obviously ab 

 surd to speak of the evolution of morality ; for, as 

 Spencer somewhere says, &quot; If the idealist be right, 

 evolution is a dream.&quot; 



The evolutionary ethics, on the contrary, natural 

 ly follows from the evolutionary psychology which 

 teaches that the human consciousness, like all 

 other known phenomena, has antecedents, is not 

 exempt from the law of universal causation. Ac 

 cordingly, it teaches that the laws of morality are 

 no more arbitrary or accidental than the laws of 

 motion or gravitation, and that there is, therefore, 

 a profoundly real sense in which Emerson was right 

 when he said that the &quot;universe is moral.&quot; If this 

 be true, can any other fact so welcome be conceived ? 



254 



