144 Contemporary Evolution. 



logical consequences fatal also to the second, and that a 

 Deus unus et remunerator once admitted, an antecedent 

 probability for a revelation must be conceded. 



Examples of popular materialistic science teaching have 

 been elsewhere given by the present writer, * and their 

 tendencies pointed out. 



The teaching cited appeared capable of being summed 

 up as follows : 



" I. Temporal happiness is the one rational aim of life. 



"II. A postive belief in God and a future life is an 

 unwarrantable superstition. 



"III. Virtue and pleasure are synonymous, for in root 

 and origin they are identical. 



" IV. Men are essentially but brutes, no differences of 

 kind dividing them. 



"V. The Cause of all things has not personality, and 

 consequently neither feeling, nor intelligence, nor will. 



"VI. All who pretend to teach religion are impostors 

 or dupes. 



"VII. Our physical science teachers are the supreme 

 exponents of truth, and the ultimate arbiters of all actions. 



"VIII. There is no such thing as real merit or demerit, 

 as all our actions are absolutely determined for us, and free 

 will is the most baseless of delusions." 



Amongst the most recent manifestations of scientific 



* See " Lessons from Nature" (Murray, 1876), chap, xiii., pp. 386- 

 403- 



