OBJECTIONS TO THE EVOLUTION ETHICS. 377 



glory. And Falstaff's practical conclusion as regards 

 this species of honour "I'll none of it" would be likely 

 enough to become the general one, as regards both duty 

 and honour under a general acceptance of the new ethics, 

 especially if there was no promised payment in their 

 service of an immediate and tangible kind. 



But, on the evolution theory of the origin of moral 

 sentiments, how shall we explain the fact that men up 

 to the present pursue truth regardless of results, contend 

 for justice, are ready to incur danger in defence of the 

 down-trodden, to efface themselves for others, or to die 

 for duty ? And why should our species, deluded, if 

 science has truly gauged its character as essentially self- 

 asserting and selfish, ever and anon, and not less in our 

 own than in former ages, make such passionate and pro- 

 digious efforts to enthrone truth and right in some more 

 perfect form in the earth, or in their own society efforts 

 repeated again and again, and in which individuals have 

 dashed themselves to pieces in pursuit of a glorious but 

 impossible goal ? Nay, why should the apostles of the 

 scientific faith furnish us themselves with such bright 

 examples of the contrary of their moral teaching ? Why 

 should some of them furnish us with the best examples 

 in our days of the devotion of the martyrs of the past to 

 truth, if they do not believe the interest of truth to 

 transcend every other? A Socrates, and a Giordano 

 Bruno, we can understand how they could devote their 

 lives and give their blood rather than betray the sacred 

 cause of truth, because they believed that the interest of 

 truth transcended the supposed adverse interest of all 

 human societies and institutions ; but our evolutionists, 

 who, like Darwin, Spencer, and Huxley, follow truth 

 regardless of consequences, and yet accept the utilitarian 

 ethics, which founds truth on its social utility, what shall 



