EVOLUTION OF MORALS.* 



"Virtue is the adherence in action to the nature of things, and the 

 nature of things makes it prevalent.' " 



Ralph Waldo Emerson : Spiritual Laws. 



It has been tersely said that "the moral is the measure 

 of heaUh." This is true not only of man, but of ideas, of 

 institutions, of religions, and of philosophical systems. 

 These, too, are rightly regarded with suspicion if found 

 wanting when subjected to the moral test. A system of 

 thought doubtless finds its ultimate sanctions in evidences 

 appealing to the intellect ; but any apparent deficiencies on 

 the ethical side, affecting the guidance of conduct and the 

 development of character, should justly subject its claims 

 to renewed and rigid scrutiny. That only is completely 

 reasonable which is sane, healthy, moral. 



It is precisely on this ground that the Evolution philos- 

 ophy has been most violently assailed by its critics. This 

 fact, however, should not of itself create distrust of the 

 essential validity of the philosophy. Such assaults have 

 been the common fate of all new systems of thought, since 

 man began to drop the plummets of his reason into the 

 ocean-depths of his physical and psychical being and envir- 

 onment. To the conservative mind, the new and untrodden 

 path always seems full of dangers. The turn-pike road of 

 the fathers is the safe and narrow way. The engineer who 

 sets out through the wilderness to survey a path for the 

 iron rails, is committing an act of sacrilege and impiety. 

 Seeing that this is so, it behooves us nevertheless to look 

 well to the ethical foundations of this new doctrine of 

 Evolution. The welfare of men and of kingdoms may depend 

 upon their stability and strength. 



The present age is a period of transition. Old sanctions 

 are being undermined. Man fronts the Universe and the 

 problems of life in a new attitude. The revolution in thought 

 through which we are passing has been well termed, by 



* Copyright, 1889, by The New Ideal Publishing Co. 



