402 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



one person, he will next be apt to commend him- 

 self by similar conduct to other persons, if their 

 standard happens to be the same. Whether good 

 behaviour purchases favour or simply succeeds in 

 evading penalties is at first immaterial. All that 

 is required, under whatever sanctions, is that some 

 standard of good or bad shall arise. No abstract 

 sense of duty, of course, here exists ; no perfect 

 law ; it is a purely personal and local code ; but 

 the word duty has at least received a first imper- 

 fect meaning ; and the Father, in some rough way, 

 forms an external conscience to those beneath 

 him. 



Such is the tentative theory of the advocates 

 of Evolutional Ethics. It may or may not be 

 a possible account of the rise of a sense of 

 obligation, but it is certain that it does not 

 account for the whole of it. Why, also, that 

 particular thing should be elicited under the 

 circumstances described is an unanswered question. 

 In attempting to trace its rise, no rationale ap- 

 pears of its origin ; all proofs, in short, of its 

 evolution take for granted its previous existence. 

 A latent thing has become active ; an invisible 

 thing has become apparent. In one sense a rela- 

 tion has been created, in another sense a quality 

 in that relation has been revealed. A new experi- 



