2 EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



There is a visible feeling of relief on the part 

 of the hoary transgressor of the laws of God as 

 he earnestly urges his questions and finally presses 

 the answers to their logical conclusion. 



"Are you sure, my little Ivan? You are not 

 making fun of me? No immortality not the 

 least scrap of immortality?" 



"Nothing!" 



"That is to say an absolute zero? Not even 

 the fraction of a fraction?" 



"Absolute zero !" 



"But then then everything is permitted 1 

 Ivan, everything is allowable?" 



"Yes, father, everything is permitted." 



"Hush let's not say that aloud. Let us 

 keep that as our secret, my son." 



There is the terrible logic that has produced 

 the lust and cruelty, the bloodshed and injustice 

 of the modern as of the ancient paganism. The 

 practical conclusions of that same reasoning on 

 the part of the rich have been the oppressive in- 

 dustrialism and the godless excesses of ill-gotten 

 wealth; while on the part of the poor they have 

 led to the deeds of anarchism and the orgies of 

 bloody revolutions. From this same argument 

 were begotten the Nietzschean madness and the 

 Bolshevist dream with its awakening in hunger, 

 loot and murder : a new tyranny for the old. 



If there is no God then everything is per- 

 missible, everything is allowable. Nothing more 



