Darwinism in Ethics. 149 



society could exist to deal out these political, so 

 cial, and religious sanctions, unless it rested on a 

 moral basis, the evolutionist does not explain. 

 And one may, therefore, be pardoned for seeing 

 here only another of the countless attempts to de 

 rive morality from ideas and institutions which 

 already presuppose it. The varepov Trporepov is 

 the bane of evolutionary ethics. Naturally 

 enough, the sentiment produced by the terrors of 

 ancient law, politics, and religion, will decay with 

 the cessation of its causes ; and as Mr. Spencer 

 identifies this sentiment with, moral obligation, one 

 can understand how he reaches the paradox that 

 the &quot; sense of duty, or moral obligation, is transi 

 tory.&quot; In another way the same conclusion is 

 reached by M. Guyau, who follows Darwin. Con 

 science is the social instinct, he says, and the scien 

 tific spirit is the great enemy of blind instincts ; 

 it illuminates them, and in the flood- tide of light 

 dissolves them ; what habit has made, reflection 

 unmakes ; and nothing can save morality when 

 conscience has met the doom of every instinct 

 dissolution under scientific reflection. &quot; Pan, the 

 nature-god, is dead ; Jesus, the man-god, is dead ; 

 there remains the ideal god within us, duty, which 

 is also, perhaps, destined one day to die.&quot; But the 

 irrefragable reply to these oracular prophecies is 



