20 EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



life is not seldom deduced from the lower animals 

 themselves. If God does not exist and man is but 

 an evolutionary development of the ape, or a near 

 cousin to him, derived from a common primitive 

 stock, it is but natural that he should turn to the 

 simple life of his ancestral race and so regain the 

 unhampered freedom and the unconventional 

 liberty of which Christianity has robbed him by 

 its matrimonial laws and other "immoral" re- 

 strictions. Often the great bulk of modern social 

 works is consistently devoted to investigations 

 into the "morality" and social practices of the 

 apes in an African jungle, or other bestial so called 

 ancestry of man in order to remodel our moral 

 code. 



The promoters of materialistic evolution can 

 evidently not admit any unchanging laws of 

 morality. According to the hading Socialist 

 authorities upon this subject, everything is moral 

 in the present state of society that advances the 

 cause of the social revolution. When this has 

 been accomplished a new morality will arise. 

 Other modern writers are equally consistent in 

 denying the existence of any unalterable principles 

 of morality. "Morality is a purely human mat- 

 ter," says the Harvard professor, B. M. Ander- 

 son, expressing the general consensus of his class. 

 "It grows out of the needs and interests of men. 

 What is good at one time and place is not neces- 

 sarily good at another time and place. There 



