128 PROF. H. LANGHORNE ORCHARD, M.A., B.SC., ON 
matter, we have ho guarantee as to the validity of their 
conclusions, and therefore none as to the reality of our know- 
ledge. 
Are our greatest certainties illusions ? — Nor is it satisfactory 
to be asked to believe'* * * § that things about which our certainty 
is greatest, e.g., personal identity and free-will, are illusions- 
because they are inexplicable on any principle of evolution. 
Assertion is not explanation. To say that human will “ arises ” 
as a physiological modification of matter, is a statement tending, 
to produce in the credulous that confusion of thought of which 
it is an indication. 
Evolutionists seek to derive the Moral and Religious from the 
Unmoral and Unreligious. — Is evolution more successful in 
“ explaining ” moral and religious faculties ? These also are 
supposed to somehow “ arise ” out of that which is devoid of 
them, and without apparent or proved affinity. Moral 
intuitions, “ innate perceptions of right,” are said to be 
results of accumulated experiences of utility by the race, 
results transmitted by heredity through nervous modifications- 
According to Stephen,! “ we may probably trace the germs of 
the moral instincts down to the associations of animals.”! 
Darwin considers that “ the appreciation of justice ” is a factor 
in the “ evolution ” of conscience. On which it has been well 
remarked that for such appreciation there must be the prior 
existence of conscience. 
Character is supposed to be determined by environment, 
moral character by social environment — “ As every man is 
born and brought up as a member of this vast organization 
(the social organism), his character is throughout moulded and 
determined by its peculiarities, the only difference between 
morality and custom is in its wider application.”! The great 
moral basis is held to be the principle of self-preservation,, 
whether of the individual or of society, and “ Morality is the 
fruit of a gradual evolution of the organic instinct continued 
through many generations ; . . . the feeling of moral obligation 
an abstract sentiment which has developed as abstract ideas 
in general do.” Conduct “ is virtuous so far as it is the mani- 
* Evolutionists, compelled by exigencies of their position, do so 
inform us. 
t Science of Ethics. 
I Stephen should have recognised that the difference to be accounted 
for is one not of degree but of kind. 
§ Idem. 
