156 Evolution not Revolution. 



still remains true that in moral character I am 

 what I make myself. On stepping-stones of their 

 dead selves men rise to higher things ; and 

 neither our ability to do this, nor the conscious 

 ness of that ability implied in the freedom of the 

 will, is affected in any way by evolution. 



But surely, it will be objected, evolution does 

 mean revolution in our views of human nature, 

 if it makes moral rules a mere social utility. I 

 admit the conclusion, but reject its premises. 

 For, as I have already urged, the facts of human 

 life will not allow us to interpret morality as a 

 mere accidental arrangement whereby our animal 

 ancestors came out victorious in the struggle for 

 life. I do not deny that morality would, as a 

 matter of fact, be useful to any society practising 

 it in the war of all against all- in the struggle for 

 life. That it is useful is clear from the readiness 

 with which people follow Hamlet s advice to his 

 mother and assume a virtue when they have it 

 not. But if morality be nothing more than mere 

 social utility, a mere device which enabled man s 

 ancestors to kill out rival groups, I fail to under 

 stand how there has arisen in man a conscience 

 which makes cowards of us all ; a remorse which 

 drives a Lady Macbeth to madness, and a Judas 

 to suicide; a sense of eternal right so strong that 



