EXTENSIONS OF DARWINISM 301 



or beast, should be treated as moral offences and as social 

 crimes; while all who profess religion or sincerely believe in 

 the Deity — the designer and maker of this world and of every 

 living thing — should, one would have thought, have placed 

 this among the first of their forbidden sins, since to deface 

 or destroy that which has been brought into existence for the 

 use and enjoyment, the education and elevation of the human 

 race, is a direct denial of the wisdom and goodness of the 

 Creator, about which thej so loudly and persistently prate and 

 preach. 



Yet during the past century, which has seen those great ad- 

 vances in the Tcnowledge of Nature of which we are so proud, 

 there has been no corresponding development of a love or rev- 

 erence for her works ; so that never before has there been such 

 widespread ravage of the earth's surface by destruction of 

 native vegetation and with it of much animal life, and such 

 wholesale defacement of the earth by mineral workings and 

 by pouring into our streams and rivers the refuse of manufac- 

 tories and of cities; and this has been done by all the greatest 

 nations claiming the first place for civilisation and religion ! 

 And what is Avorse, the greater part of this waste and devas- 

 tation has been and is being carried on, not for any good or 

 worthy purpose, but in the interest of personal greed and 

 avarice; so that in every case, while wealth has increased in 

 the hands of the few, millions are still living without the bare 

 necessaries for a healthy or a decent life, thousands dying 

 yearly of actual starvation, and other thousands being slowly 

 or suddenly destroyed by hideous diseases or accidents, directly 

 caused in this cruel race for wealth, and in ahuost everv case 

 easily preventable. Yet they are not ])revented, solely be- 

 cause to do so would somewhat diminish th(^ })rofits of the 

 capitalists and legislators who are directly responsible for this 

 almost world-wide defacement and destruction, and virtual 

 massacre of the ignorant and defenceless workers. 



The nineteenth century saw the rise, the development, and 

 the culmination of these crimes against God and man. Let 



