290 TJFE OF PROFESSOR TTTTXLEY CHAP. XII 



at Oxford his Romanes Lecture, on " Evolution and 

 Ethics," a study of the relation of ethical and 

 evolutionary theory in the history of philosophy, the 

 text of which is that while moraHty is necessarily a 

 part of the order of nature, still the ethical principle 

 is opposed to the self-regarding principle on which 

 cosmic evolution has taken place. Society is a part 

 of nature, but would be dissolved by a return to the 

 natural state of simple warfare among individuals. 

 It follows that ethical systems based on the principles 

 of cosmic evolution are not logically sound. A study 

 of the essays of the foregoing ten years will show 

 that he had more than once enunciated this thesis, 

 and it had been one of the grounds of his long-standing 

 criticism of Mr. Spencer's system. 



The essence of this criticism is given in portions 

 of two letters to Mr. F. J. Gould, who, when pre- 

 paring a pamphlet on " Agnosticism writ Plain " in 

 1889, wrote to inquire what was the dividing line 

 between the two Agnostic positions. 



As between Mr. Spencer and myself, the question is 

 not one of " a dividing line," but of entire and complete 

 divergence as soon as we leave the foundations laid by- 

 Hume, Kant, and Hamilton, who are my philosopliical 

 forefathers. To my mind the "Absolute" philosophies 

 were finally knocked on the head by Hamilton ; and the 

 "Unknowable" in Mr. Spencer's sense is merely the 

 Absolute redivivus, a sort of ghost of an extinct philosophy, 

 the name of a negation hocus-pocussed into a sham thing. 

 If I am to tallc about that of which I have no knowledge 

 at all, I prefer the good old word God, about which there 

 is no scientific pretence. 



