EDITOR'S TABLE. 



269 



tofore wisdom has been largely won 

 through suffering; but we may hope 

 that, with the wider establishment and 

 recognition of sound principles of con- 

 duct, this will more and more cease to 

 be the case. There does not seem any 

 very good reason why men might not 

 be taught to love right conduct just as 

 they may be, and are, taught to prefer 

 temperate and wholesome to intemper- 

 ate and unwholesome eating and drink- 

 ing. To tell the truth an advance of 

 science is more wanted to-day in the 

 sphere of conduct than in the mechan- 

 ical arts. We could get on very well for 

 the next quarter of a century without 

 traveling any faster, or without any fur- 

 ther cheapening of cotton goods; but 

 every day we feel directly or indirectly 

 the need of greater wisdom in the con- 

 duct of life ; for daily we suffer either 

 through our own errors or those of 

 others. Ancient codes of ethics are 

 very well some of them at least as 

 far as they go ; but it will be a good day 

 for the world when it is universally 

 recognized that the true canons of con- 

 duct are dedncible by sound reasonings 

 upon the facts of life and the relations 

 of individuals, and that, so deduced, 

 they have the highest authority that 

 any moral code can possess. 



A SCIENTIST, BUT NOT A 

 PHILOSOPHER. 



AMONG the papers contributed to the 

 World's Congress of Religions was one 

 by Sir William Dawson, of Montreal, 

 entitled Religio Scientife (the Religion 

 of Science). This eminent geologist 

 never loses an opportunity of attacking 

 the doctrine of evolution, and it is not 

 surprising, therefore, that he should 

 have done so on this occasion. No evi- 

 dence has ever been afforded, however, 

 that Sir William Dawson has taken 

 proper pains to ascertain what evolu- 

 tion, as understood and taught by the 

 leading believers in the doctrine, means. 

 Speaking of man's moral nature, he 



says : " On this point a strange confu- 

 sion, produced apparently by the doc- 

 trine of evolution, seems to have affect- 

 ed some scientific thinkers, who seek to 

 read back moral ideas into the history 

 of the world at a time when no mun- 

 dane moral agent is known to have been 

 in existence. They forget that it is no 

 more immoral for a wolf to eat a lamb 

 than for a lamb to eat grass." Now, it 

 would be simply impossible for any one 

 who had read even so brief a treatise as 

 Spencer's Data of Ethics with any atten- 

 tion to have made such a remark. Let 

 any one to whom that treatise is in the 

 least familiar try to imagine Spencer 

 forgetting that "it is no more immoral 

 for a wolf to eat a lamb than for a lamb 

 to eat grass " ! A man with Sir William 

 Dawson's reputation should really not 

 commit himself in this way. Not only 

 is there not one word in Spencer's writ- 

 ings to indicate that he thinks it im- 

 moral for a wolf to eat a lamb, but his 

 whole method of treating the subject of 

 the development of morality shows that 

 he utterly repudiates such a view. What 

 Spencer does attempt to do is to prove 

 that the conduct we now call moral must 

 be regarded as a development from con- 

 duct to which it is impossible to apply 

 the term. He traces for us in the most 

 careful manner every stage of the pro- 

 cess ; and if Sir William Dawson would 

 undertake to point out where the line of 

 succession fails, or, to express it other- 

 wise, where the evolution of one stage 

 from that immediately preceding it has 

 been incorrectly assumed, he would then 

 be grappling seriously with the ethical 

 side of the doctrine of evolution. To 

 do this, however, lie would have to study 

 Mr. Spencer's Principles of Ethics with 

 careful attention, and this would prob- 

 ably not be agreeable to him. It would 

 be easy to note other points in Sir Wil- 

 liam's address to which, from a scientific 

 point of view, exception might be taken. 

 Our purpose, however, on the present 

 occasion is sufficiently served by show- 

 ing that this really able geologist allows 



