ETHICS 297 



inhabitants. . . . This would be infinitely larger in pro- 

 portion to the Roman Empire than is the earth in pro- 

 portion to the Universe. If there be a personal being 

 who has created all things and who sustains them by 

 the force of his will, it is antecedently incredible that 

 such a being would assume the form of one of his 

 humblest creatures, and would allow himself to suffer 

 an ignominious death while thus transformed, in order 

 to save these creatures from his own eternal venge- 

 ance." ^ 



The author concludes his book with the following 

 sentiments : — 



(13) "Men are turning with disgust from the dark 

 jungles and miasma-laden valleys of supernaturalism 

 to the sunny plains and green hill-sides of Nature, il- 

 lumined with the light of Science, and glowing with t/ie 

 ever-expanding influence of universal brotherhood and 

 love. . . Theology may perish, but humanity will survive, 

 and will work out its salvation from ignorance and wrong 

 not with the aid of mystic doctrines and narrow religious 

 dogmas, but through the magic power of science, joined 

 with tJie wondrous force of human self-sacrifice and lovey^ 

 The reader will note that the sentences italicised are en- 

 tirely due to Christianity alone. 



I now propose to make some comments upon the 

 passages quoted and numbered. 



To begin with his preliminary observation, I do not 

 know whence the author obtained his idea of "millions 

 of years for the human race ". Man could not have ap- 

 peared earlier than the Pliocene epoch at most, judging 

 by analogy with other mammalian animals all of the 

 preceding or Miocene epoch being now extinct, whereas 



1 Op. cit., p. 197. 2 op. cit., 228. (My italics.) 



