CHAPTER VII 



THE ETHICS OF RATIONALISM AND CHRISTIANITY 



With regard to ethics and their origin, Haeckel regards 

 psychology as a branch of physiology, and invents a 

 form of protoplasm which he calls " neuroplasm " or 

 nerve-plasm, as the organic source of it. 



The author of Mr. Balfour s Apologetics does not 

 touch upon this physical origin of ethics, but remarks 

 that, " The human heart has a deep reverence for justice, 

 love and mercy — a reverence which in higher natures is 

 instinctive, and which has been engendered in the whole 

 race, in varying degrees of strength, by millions of years 

 of family and social life." ^ 



The following are passages dealing with ethics : — 



(i) "If Rationalism may be said to include a religion 

 at all, one half of it at least consists of ethical truths and 

 ideals, and no impartial observer would deny that leading 

 Rationalists have been distinguished by an intense devo- 

 tion, both in conduct and in precept, to the great moral 

 principles which embody the highest wisdom and the 

 loftiest aspirations of the race." ^ 



(2) " The moral law has grown out of the needs of 

 man, and springs from the human heart. That man 

 should do justice, love mercy, speak truth, and help his 

 needy and suffering fellows, are injunctions which are 



' 0/. c»/., p. 29. ""Ibid. 



(294) 



