314 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 



some time. It seems incredible that the planet 

 will drag along in disgrace this way forever. The 

 men of Europe and America are not so primitive 

 as the junglemen, and the junglemen are superior 

 in some respects to the quadrupeds and reptiles, 

 and this gives reason for a little hope. But wlieuy 

 that is the question, when will it he ? In what 

 distant time will the Golden Dream of our prophetic 

 hours come to this poor darkened larva of a world ? 

 Ages upon ages after our little existences have 

 gone out, and the detritus of our wasted bodies 

 has wandered long in the labyrinths of the sod 

 or been sown by aimless gusts over our native 

 hills. 



X. Anthropocentric Ethics. 



Anthropocentricism, which drifted down as a 

 tradition from ancient times, and which for cen- 

 turies shaped the theories of the Western world, 

 but whose respectability among thinking people 

 has now nearly passed away, was, perhaps, the 

 boldest and most revolting expression of human 

 provincialism and conceit ever formulated by any 

 people. It was the doctrine that man was the 

 centre about whom revolved all facts and interests 

 whatsoever; and Judaism and its two children, 

 Christianity and Mahometanism, were responsible 

 for it. Everything, according to this conception, 

 was interpreted in terms of human utility. Every- 

 thing was made for man — including women. The 

 sun and moon were luminaries, not worlds, hung 

 there by the fatherly manufacturer of things for 



