120 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



trast the theories of George Eliot in her gospel of renuncia- 

 tion as worked out in *' Romola," or the attitude of " non- 

 resistance of evil " as urged by Tolstoi, with the '* Over- 

 Man " of such a writer as Nietzsche, — because in the latter 

 we have the gauntlet thrown down to thousands of years of 

 ethical experience or tradition. 



Of almost equal interest would be the debates concerning 

 the relationship between the individual and society ; whether 

 society exists for man or man for society. We may have a 

 standpoint amounting to anarchistic individualism on the part 

 of Herbert Spencer, or we may have whole treatises such as 

 the two volumes by Jhering, written practically to establish 

 the point that society is sovereign, that it makes the law, and 

 that it is for the individual to fit in here as the spoke fits into 

 the wheel. 



The final outcome of all this discussion on the practical 

 side will be of tremendous value for mankind, but the real 

 good of it you and I will not live to see. 



In this whole statement, I have endeavored for the most 

 part, to keep my personal convictions in the background, and 

 I offer only one in conculsion, and it may be in the form of 

 a prophecy. 1 cannot help thinking that ere long a reaction 

 is to set in. The doctrine of evolution has been pushed too 

 far, or tried as a key to solve too many problems. In its 

 later form it was so new and striking that we had to expect 

 that it would be employed in every possible way. The 

 scholar in ethics has been inclined to run wild with it, as per- 

 haps also the student in the physical sciences, — although on 

 this latter point I should not venture to speak. 



For a time it has seemed to unsettle every point in ethical 

 science. There has been too much biology mixed in with the 

 discussions in this department of research. I look for a still 

 greater reaction in favor of the school of Idealists. It is 

 my opinion that more rather than less will be made of con- 

 science among the next generation of scholars, and that the 

 subjective side is to assert its rights to more recognition. 



But in this you are at once conscious that I am confessing 

 myself in favor of those Idealists, and showing my personal 



