Lect. IX.] OUR FOREFATHERS, 209 



Is this, then, " the be all, and the end aU " of organic 

 life upon the planet ; or will the races that become the 

 noblest turn round, go clean contrary to their pro- 

 genitors, the blood of their feUow-men becoming precious 

 in their sight ? If this should take place, and the finer 

 kinds of Men, rich in strength and life, and all the 

 means and appliances of life, should spare the poor and 

 needy, and save the souls of the needy, then this 

 counter-evolution will be a revolution indeed. 



History throws some light upon this dark problem, 

 our Celtic, Saxon, and Danish forefathers, the Wolves 

 and Bears and Eagles of the race in these northern parts, 

 — Men who surnamed themselves by the names of those 

 cruel creatures, — had, after a time, the sentiment of 

 mercy ingrafted into their wild minds ; some at least of 

 their descendants show us how rich are the results. 



I have broken my scientific tether, and have got, 

 somehow, into the region of ethics. I am sure that you 

 wiU sympathise with me, for I was thinking of what 

 Man would be likely to come to, ultimately, on mere 

 necessitarian theories of evolution. If we all were mere 

 biologists, pure and simple, then any lament over the 

 destruction of low tjrpes, or any sentimental care for the 

 poor and the afflicted, would be absurdly out of place in 

 our observations and deductions. But in most of us there 

 is a strange mixture of the natural and the mystical — of 

 the child's joy in finding facts and drawing inferences, 

 and the old man's sorrowful reflection that his days upon 



