324 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 



have just seen, has as little foundation in reason as it 

 has historical justification under the searching modern 

 criticism of the sacred books of different peoples. 



And as for the fact of conscience, continues the 

 evolution moralist, the feeling of duty and moral obli- 

 gation now existing in men, upon which so much stress 

 is laid by intuitional moralists and theological advocates, 

 this, so far as it is a real fact (though it is far from being 

 a universal one), admits of a quite natural explanation. 



So far as it is a fact, it can be naturally accounted 

 for ; though in reality conscience is to be found in all 

 degrees, from its almost non-existence to its very 

 moderate average amount, and up to the high and very 

 exceptional degree that makes the hero and martyr 

 accept death rather than be false to it. The existence 

 of the sentiment of duty is admitted, as also its occasional 

 intensity; but even in the extremest case, no super- 

 natural cause or origin is necessary. Conscience, we 

 know from science and history, has grown from the zero- 

 state to its present limited degree and range in the 

 average individuals of civilized communities ; we know 

 already the natural causes of its commencement, and 

 the natural history of its genesis and development is not 

 far to seek. The explanation of the present fact of a 

 developed conscience in man is simply this : Man being 

 naturally a social animal, the social conscience has been 

 worked into the species by ages of dearly purchased 

 experience, the results of which were handed on from 

 generation to generation by inheritance. This experience 

 it was that, ever enforcing the lesson evident enough, 

 one would have supposed, without it of its absolute 

 necessity, not merely for the general social weal, and to 

 save it from internal dissolution, but still more pressingly 

 to save it from destruction by external antagonist tribes,, 



