56 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 



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Even purely intellectual progress brings about 

 its revenges. Problems settled in a rough and 

 ready way by rude men, absorbed in action, 

 demand renewed attention and show themselves 

 to be still unread riddles when men have time to 

 think. The beneficent demon, doubt, whose name 

 is Legion and who dwells amongst the tombs of 

 old faiths, enters into mankind and thenceforth 

 refuses to be cast out. Sacred customs, venerable 

 dooms of ancestral wisdom, hallowed by tradition 

 and professing to hold good for all time, are put 

 to the question. Cultured reflection asks for their 

 credentials ; judges them by its own standards ; 

 finally, gathers those of which it approves into 

 ethical systems, in which the reasoning is rarely 

 much more than a decent pretext for the adoption 

 of foregone conclusions. 



One of the oldest and most important elements 

 in such systems is the conception of justice. 

 Society is impossible unless those who are asso 

 ciated agree to observe certain rules of conduct 

 towards one another ; its stability depends on the 

 steadiness with which they abide by that agree 

 ment; and, so far as they waver, that mutual 

 trust which is the bond of society is weakened 

 or destroyed. Wolves could not hunt in packs 

 except for the real, though unexpressed, under 

 standing that they should not attack one another 

 during the chase. The most rudimentary polity 

 is a pack of men living under the like tacit, 



