OBJECTIONS TO THE EVOLUTION ETHICS. 371 



and in doing so he had everywhere examples to copy 

 from, in the ants, the bees, and other social animals 

 existing around and practising the virtues of industry, 

 disinterested labour, courage, and others necessary for the 

 good of the community. Morality, in fact, was an inven- 

 tion, to which men, as well as other social animals, were 

 driven by the necessity for it, and encouraged to improve, 

 by the utility of it. It was an invention, and like all 

 such, susceptible of improvement from age to age, as 

 suited better to the altered social needs of men. More- 

 over., it was susceptible of variation, as suited to the 

 somewhat different social conditions of different people. 

 It was not precisely immutable, as the former moralists 

 represented it. The habits of veracity which suited one 

 community with a particular moral nature and physical 

 environment, would not equally suit another community; 

 and hence, to tell the truth, might be honoured in one 

 society and but lightly esteemed in another. But never- 

 theless, some virtues were necessary for all ; and amongst 

 these a minimum at least of what we reckon the cardinal 

 virtues veracity, justice, charity were indispensable 

 for the continuance of any, even the most incoherent, 

 kind of social union. 



On this account, certainly, Virtue, if she was not the 

 earthly and baseborn child of fear and selfishness, as 

 Hobbes had characterized her, had these at least as 

 important constituent elements, and shaping factors when 

 she first appeared in the primitive human world. The 

 story of her heaven-descended origin was a pleasant 

 poetic fiction of later ages, invented by self -deluded but 

 well-intentioned enthusiasts, the founders of religions, 

 and encouraged by crafty and politic rulers and priests 

 in their own interests, by moralists and poets in behalf 

 of the general interests of society. It was a fiction 



