CHAPTER XXII. 



GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY. 



There are two things, said Kant, which fill me with awe 

 because of their sublimity, — the starry heavens above us, 

 and the moral law within us. From the modern point of 

 view there is interest as well as instruction 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 significance, and we are over- 

 powered by the sense of the infinity that surrounds us ; on 

 the other hand, in the study of the moral sense w6 contem- 

 plate the last and noblest product of evolution which we 

 can ever know, — the attribute latest to be unfolded in the 

 development of psychical 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 modes of exist- 

 ence irameasurabl}'- transcending Humanity, yet these must 

 remain unknowable by us. And while this possibility should 

 be allowed its due weight in restraining us from tlie vain 

 endeavour to formulate the infinite and eternal Sustainer 



