n. 



EVOLUTION AND ETHICS. 

 [TJie Romanes Lecture, 1893.] 



Soleo enim et in aliena castra transire, non tanquam 

 transfuga sed tanquam explorator. (L. Ann^i SENECiE 

 Epist. II. 4.) 



There is a delightful child's story, known by 

 the title of " Jack and the Bean-stalk," with 

 which my contemporaries who are present will be 

 familiar. But so many of our grave and reverend 

 juniors have been brought up on severer intellec- 

 tual diet, and, perhaps, have become acquainted 

 with fairyland only through primers of compara- 

 tive mythology, that it may be needful to give an 

 outline of the tale. It is a legend of a bean- 

 plant, which grows and grows until it reaches the 

 high heavens and there spreads out into a vast 

 canopy of foliage. The hero, being moved to 

 chmb the stalk, discovers that the leafy expanse 

 supports a world composed of the same elements 

 as that below, but yet strangely new; and his ad- 

 ventures there, on which I may not dwell, must 

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