PROFESSOR VIRGHOW AND EVOLUTION 399 



ical solid without perceptible loss of motion." This would 

 sound very cogent, but it would be very vain. Equally 

 vain, in my opinion, is Mr. Martineau's contention that 

 we are not justified in modifying, in accordance with ad- 

 vancing knowledge, our notions of matter. 



Before parting from Professor Knight, let me commend 

 his courage as well as his insight. We have heard much 

 of late of the peril to morality involved in the decay of 

 religious belief. What Mr. Knight says under this head 

 is worthy of all respect and attention. "I admit," he 

 writes, "that were it proved that the moral faculty was 

 derived as well as developed, its present decisions would 

 not be invalidated. The child of experience has a father 

 whose teachings are grave, peremptory, and august; and 

 an earthborn rule may be as stringent as any derived from 

 a celestial source. It does not even follow that a belief in 

 the material origin of spiritual existence, accompanied by 

 a corresponding decay of belief in immortality, must nec- 

 essarily lead to a relaxation of the moral fibre of the race. 

 It is certain that it has often done so. 1 But it is equally 

 certain that there have been individuals, and great histor- 

 ical communities, in which the absence of the latter belief 

 has neither weakened moral earnestness nor prevented de- 

 votional fervor." I have elsewhere stated that some of 

 the best men of my acquaintance men lofty in thought 

 and beneficent in act belong to a class who assiduously 

 let the belief referred to alone. They derive from it 

 neither stimulus nor inspiration, while I say it with re- 

 gret were I in quest of persons who, in regard to the 



1 Is this really certain? Instead of standing in the relation of cause and 

 effect, may not the "decay" and "relaxation" be merely coexistent, both, per- 

 haps, flowing from common historic antecedents? 



