CHAPTER XXII 

 GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY 



THERE are two things, said Kant, which 

 fill me with awe because of their sub- 

 limity, — the starry heavens above us, 

 and the moral law within us. From the modern 

 point of view there is interest as well as instruc- 

 tion to be found in the implied antithesis. 

 While in the study of the stellar universe we 

 contemplate the process of evolution on a scale 

 so vast that reason and imagination are alike 

 baffled in the effort to trace out its real signifi- 

 cance, and we are overpowered by the sense of 

 the infinity that surrounds us ; on the other 

 hand, in the study of the moral sense we con- 

 template the last and noblest product of evolu- 

 tion which we can ever know, — the attribute 

 latest to be unfolded in the development of psy- 

 chical life, and by the possession of which we 

 have indeed become as gods, knowing the good 

 and the evil. The theorems of astronomy and 

 the theorems of ethics present to us the process 

 of evolution in its extremes of extension and 

 of intension respectively. For although upon 

 other worlds far out in space there may be 

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