154 Spiritual Evolution of Society 



they are proving their disbelief in the hypothesis of 

 Darwin and Malthus, and by their thoughts and actions 

 have declared their entire rejection of the basis on 

 which these theories were founded ? We do not think 

 we have had a better instance of the limitation of the 

 human intellect than in this particular history of an 

 exploded theory ; " man, proud man," asserts from 

 generation to generation his particular theory of the 

 working of the Universe, only to find it wanting when 

 weighed in the balances. In the latter half of the 

 nineteenth century all men of scientific attainment 

 were of necessity materialists, and woe betide the 

 reputation of any who did not conform. To-day, how 

 different ! No doubt there will be many reactions 

 towards it, but there is every indication that we are at 

 the parting of the ways ; we see ahead " the fair be- 

 ginning of a time/' the beliefs and theories of which 

 shall be founded on the impregnable rock of Truth, all 

 the more firm and sure that man has come to doubt the 

 absolute greatness and finality of his own very im- 

 perfect intellect. 



Nietzsche may be said to be the great philosophic 

 protagonist of the Darwinian standpoint. He regrets 

 bitterly the changed condition of things — the world no 

 longer ruled by the " Uebermenschen," the supermen, 

 who had gained their ascendancy by pure force and 

 fitness and are fast losing their predominance. This 

 drives him to despair ; he rails against the relinquish- 

 ment of power by the ruling caste, who have been 

 seduced by the beliefs and sentiments of our civilisa- 

 tion into conceding their domination to a democracy 

 of whom they are the natural superiors. That is to say, 

 he looks upon Christianity as the absolute negation of 

 natural law, and therefore the most malign influence 

 among men, which can only result in the destruction of 

 the human race by a process of degeneration which 



