220 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [CHAP. 



acceptance of a dogma which is not only incapable of proof, 

 but is opposed to the commonly-received opinion of man- 

 kind in all ages ? Ancient literature, sacred and profane, 

 teems with protests against the successful evil-doer, and 

 certainly, as Mr. Button observes, 16 " Honesty must have 

 been associated by our ancestors with many unhappy as 

 well as many happy consequences, and we know that in 

 ancient Greece dishonesty was openly and actually asso- 

 ciated with happy consequences. . . . when the concen- 

 trated experience of previous generations was held, not in- 

 deed to justify, but to excuse by utilitarian considerations, 

 craft, dissimulation, sensuality, selfishness." 



This dogma is opposed to the moral consciousness of 

 many as to the events of their own lives ; and the author, 

 for one, believes that it is absolutely contrary to fact. 



History affords multitudes of instances, but an example 

 may be selected from one of the most critical periods of 

 modern times. Let it be granted that Louis XVI. of 

 France and his queen had all the defects attributed to 

 them by the most hostile of serious historians; let all 

 the excuses possible be made for his predecessor, Louis 

 XV., and also for Madame de Pompadour, can it be pre- 

 tended that there are grounds for affirming that the vices 

 of the two former so far exceeded those of the latter, 

 that their respective fates were plainly and evidently just ? 

 that while the two former died in their beds, after a life of 

 the most extreme luxury, the others merited to stand forth 

 through coming time as examples of the most appalling 

 and calamitous tragedy ? 



This theme, however, is too foreign to the immediate 

 matter in hand to be further pursued, tempting as it is. 

 But a passing protest against a superstitious and deluding 

 dogma may stand a dogma which may, like any other 

 dogma, be vehemently asserted and maintained, but which 

 16 Macmillan's Magazine, No. 117, July, 1869. 



