II 



EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 



[The Romanes Lecture, 1803] 



Soleo enim et in aliena castra transire, non tanqnam transfuga 

 scd tanquam explorator. (L. ANN^I SENECA EPIST. II. 4.) 



THERE is a delightful child s story, known by 

 the title of &quot; Jack and the Bean-stalk,&quot; with 

 which my contemporaries who are present will be 

 familiar. But so many of our grave and reverend 

 juniors have been brought up on severer intellec 

 tual diet, and, perhaps, have become acquainted 

 with fairyland only through primers of comparative 

 mythology, that it may be needful to give an out 

 line of the tale. It is a legend of a bean-plant, 

 which grows and grows until it reaches the high 

 heavens and there spreads out into a vast canopy 

 of foliage. The hero, being moved to climb the 

 stalk, discovers that the leafy expanse supports a 

 world composed of the same elements as that 

 below, but yet strangely new ; and his adventures 

 there, on- which I may not dwell, must have com- 



