28 A THEORY OF LIFE DEDUCED 



development whereby, through the influence which, the ever 

 changing conditions of social life are continuously exerting 

 upon the human nervous system, men, so to speak, grow 

 into morality, somewhat as the sapling develops into a 

 tree, other than this natural process of the moralization of 

 the nervous system, the philosophical evolutionist has no 

 special theory of ethics, no particular scheme of moral 

 reformation to advocate or defend. Convinced as he is 

 that the present moral advancement of the human race has 

 been achieved through the working of natural forces, still 

 in operation, he insists that by this same process mankind 

 will be brought to higher and higher planes of ethical 

 development. 



The limits of this article forbid a more detailed exposi- 

 tion of what I take to be the true evolutionary theory of 

 ethics. The subject, however, is one of such overshadowing 

 importance that I must add an illustration which I trust 

 may make any further elucidation unnecessary. At that 

 period in the world's history when wars were habitual, 

 murder was quite a common occurrence ; but as fast as 

 indiscriminate warfare ceased, the altered social conditions 

 consequent upon decreased aggression gradually gave birth 

 to a sense of human fellowship, until, through the influence 

 of such further changes as were involved in the progress of 

 civilization, the average man of to-day has acquired an 

 internal aversion to committing murder, is so constituted 

 nervously as to shrink from the very thought of it. Now 

 what has already taken place with respect to murder will as 

 certainly happen in other cases of wrong-doing. Surely 

 there is nothing in the nature of things to confine this 

 inward shrinking from evil deeds to any particular form of 

 crime. To the question, then, How is the ethical regenera- 

 tion of man to be accomplished ? the philosophical evolu- 



