78 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS. n 



it was six-and-twenty centuries ago, there is no 

 ground for wonder if it presents indications of a 

 tendency to move along the old lines to the same 

 results. 



We are more than sufficiently familiar with 

 modern pessimism, at least as a speculation; for I 

 cannot call to mind that any of its present votaries 

 have sealed their faith by assuming the rags and 

 the bowl of the mendicant Bhikku, or the cloak 

 and the wallet of the Cynic. The obstacles placed 

 in the way of sturdy vagrancy by an unphilosoph- 

 ical police have, perhaps, proved too formidable 

 for philosophical consistency. We also know 

 modern speculative optimism, with its perfectibil- 

 ity of the species, reign of peace, and lion and 

 lamb transformation scenes; but one does not hear 

 so much of it as one did forty years ago; indeed, 

 I imagine it is to be met with more commonly at 

 the tables of the healthy and wealthy, than in the 

 congregations of the wise. The majority of us, I 

 apprehend, profess neither pessimism nor optim- 

 ism. We hold that the world is neither so good, 

 nor so bad, as it conceivably might be; and, as 

 most of us have reason, now and again, to discover 

 that it can be. Those who have failed to experi- 

 ence the joys that make hfe worth Uving are, prob- 

 ably, in as small a minority as those who have 

 never known the griefs that rob existence of its 

 savour and turn its richest fruits into mere dust 

 and ashes. 



