ANTHROPOCENTRIC ETHICS 319 



when compared with the enormous lapse of time 

 during which the planet was slowly cooling and 

 solidifying preliminary to the existence of life. 

 And the entire life of the planet — inconceivably 

 vast as it is — is as nothing compared with that 

 eternity, that duration without beginning or close, 

 during which the sidereal millions have undergone, 

 and are destined to continue to undergo, their 

 countless and immeasurable transformations. 



It is about as profound to suppose that the 

 earth and its contents, and the suns, stars, and 

 systems of space, were all made for a single species 

 inhabitating an obscure ball located in a remote 

 quarter of the universe as it is to suppose that the 

 gigantic body of the elephant was made for the 

 wisp of hair on the tip of its tail. Man is not the 

 end, he is but an incident, of the infinite elabora- 

 tions of Time and Space. 



XI. Ethical Implications of Evolution. 



The doctrine of organic evolution, which forever 

 J established the common genesis of all animals, 

 \ sealed the doom of anthropocentricism. What- 

 ever the inhabitants of this world were or were 

 thought to be before the publication of 'The 

 Origin of Species,' they never could be an)^hing 

 since then but a family. The doctrine of evolution 

 is probably the most important revelation that 

 has come to the world since the illuminations of 

 Galileo and Copernicus. The authors of the 

 Copernican theory enlarged and corrected human 

 understanding by disclosing to man the compaia- 



