FEOM THE EVOLUTION PHILOSOPHY. 29 



tionist replies, Though the moralization of the nervous 

 system the natural process of ethical reformation that 

 has been operating all along and that will continue to 

 operate in the future as it has in the past. What we call 

 1 ' conscience " is, so to speak, but the moral thermometer 

 that marks the progress of this process a process that 

 must go on until the development of mankind is complete. 



And now note that this theory places ethics on a much 

 more secure basis than does the Christian doctrine of post- 

 humous rewards and punishments. While recognizing, for 

 instance, that the blessings of heaven and the dread of 

 hell have exerted great influence over men as ethical agents, 

 the philosophical evolutionist can see no cause for alarm 

 should they ever cease entirely to exercise that authority. 

 Elsewhere I have hinted at the notion that, in some form or 

 other, the hopes and fears bound up with the great mystery 

 of death may ever remain with the human race as a power 

 for good; but even if this suggestion turns out to be 

 utterly valueless, we need give ourselves no serious concern 

 about results ; for, as extra-mundane hopes and fears consti- 

 tute but one of the many forces of ethical evolution, the lapse 

 of a single agency cannot stop the whole moral machinery. 

 Quite on the contrary, as fast as one force fails a new one 

 is slowly evolved to take its place ; meanwhile the process 

 of moralization goes on with more or less activity, and 

 surely it must be conceded that the emotions thus 

 engendered, manifesting themselves as they do in spon- 

 taneous aversions to wrong- doing, furnish us with the 

 safest moral sanctions possible. 



" But," it will be said, " what does the philosophical 

 evolutionist propose to do with men who persist in their 

 evil ways in spite of his theory of ethics." He can do 

 nothing but exert all possible influence to reform them ; 



