IN MODERN SCIENCE. 



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If ^ny one thinks that this is an exaggerated 

 picture of the effects of agnostic evolution as 

 applied to man, I may refer him to the study 

 of Herbert Spencer's recent work The Data 

 of EthicSy which has contributed very much to 

 open the eyes of thoughtful men to the depth 

 of spiritual, moral, and even social and political, 

 ruin into which we shall drift under the guid- 

 ance of this philosophy. In this work the data 

 of ethics are reduced to the one consideration 

 of what is "pleasurable" to ourselves and 

 others, and it is admitted that our ideas of 

 conscience, duty, and even of social obliga- 

 tion, are merely fictions of temporary use un- 

 til the time shall come when what is pleasurable 

 to ourselves shall coincide with what is pleas- 

 urable to others ; and this is to come, not out 

 of the love of God and the influence of his 

 Spirit, but out of the blind struggle of oppos- 

 ing interests. It has been well said that this 

 system of morals — if it can be dignified with 

 such a name — is inferior, logically and prac- 

 tically, not only to the "supernatural ethics" 

 which it boastfully professes to replace, but to 

 the ethics of Aristotle and Cicero, and that " it 

 will not supersede revelation, nor is it likely to 

 displace the old data of ethics, whether Greek, 



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