CH. xxii.] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY. 325 



of the universe in terms of our own human nature, as if the 

 highest symbols intelligible to us were in reality the highest 

 symbols, nevertheless it can in no way influence or modify 

 our science. To us the development of the noblest of human 

 attributes must ever remain the last term in the stupendous 

 series of cosmic changes, of which the development of plane 

 tary systems is the first term. And our special synthesis of 

 the phenomena of cosmic evolution, which began by seek 

 ing to explain the genesis of the earth and its companion 

 worlds, will be fitly concluded when we have offered a 

 theory of the genesis of those psychical activities whose 

 end is to secure to mankind the most perfect fulness of 

 life upon this earth, which is its dwelling-place. 



The great philosopher whose remark has suggested these 

 reflections would not, however, have been ready to assent to 

 the interpretation here given. Though Kant was one of the 

 chief pioneers of the Doctrine of Evolution, having been the 

 first to propose and to elaborate in detail the theory of the 

 nebular origin of planetary systems, yet the conception of a 

 continuous development of life in all its modes, physical and 

 psychical, was not sufficiently advanced, in Kant s day, to 

 be adopted into philosophy. Hence in his treatment of the 

 mind, as regards both intelligence and emotion, Kant took 

 what may be called a statical view of the subject; and 

 finding in the adult civilized mind, upon the study of which 

 his systems of psychology and ethics were founded, a number 

 of organized moral intuitions and an organized moral sense, 

 which urges men to seek the right and shun the wrong, 

 irrespective of utilitarian considerations of pleasure and pain, 

 he proceeded to deal with these moral intuitions and this 

 moral sense as if they were ultimate facts, incapable of 

 being analyzed into simpler emotional elements. Now as 

 the following exposition may look like a defence of utili 

 tarianism, it being really my intention to show that utili 

 tarianism in the deepest and widest sense is the ethical 



