II 



EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 



[The Romanes Lecture, 1893] 



Soleo enim et in aliena castra transire, non tanquam transfuga 

 sed tanquam explorator. (L. ANN.EI SENECA EPIST. II. 4.) 



THERE is a delightful child's story, known by 

 the title of " Jack and the Bean-stalk," with 

 which my contemporaries who are present will be 

 familiar. But so many of our grave and reverend 

 juniors have been brought up on severer intellec- 

 tual diet, and, perhaps, have become acquainted 

 with fairyland only through primers of comparative 

 mythology, that it may be needful to give an out- 

 line of the tale. It is a legend of a bean-plant, 

 which grows and grows until it reaches the high 

 heavens and there spreads out into a vast canopy 

 of foliage. The hero, being moved to climb the 

 stalk, discovers that the leafy expanse supports a 

 world composed of the same elements as that 

 below, but yet strangely new ; and his adventures 

 there, on which I may not dwell, must have com- 



