Mental Evolution. 
1880.] 
557 
are obliged to deny, for it is absolutely fatal to their 
hypothesis. 
The analogy between Mental Evolution and Organic Evo- 
lution might be carried a step farther. I allude to the 
influence of Natural Selection. If there is one department 
of Mind more than another which is supposed to be in a 
peculiar manner not the product of Evolution, it is the 
moral faculties ; yet it would not be difficult to show that 
they are just as much the result of Evolution with Natural 
Selection as anything else in the whole of biological science 
— and fortunately it is so, for it is the certain and sole 
guarantee of their ultimate supremacy, though the quality 
of the morality may be very different from what commonly 
goes by that name, and, instead of the angry and vociferous 
dogmatism of conflicting creeds, which is an unmixed curse, 
it will be a product of the still small voice of Natural 
Selection, and an unmixed blessing. The former had to 
precede the latter, just as the Stone Age had to precede 
the Iron, just as Savagery had to precede Civilisation : there 
is just as little doubt in the one case as in the other which 
of the two Natural Selection will seize hold of. 
As the proofs of Mental Evolution are precisely similar 
to those of Organic, so likewise are the arguments employed 
against it. Indeed there is but one answer possible in either 
case, viz., Special Creation, which means that there are 
organisms without parents, thoughts without motives. The 
former hypothesis has, in a wonderfully brief space of time, 
been completely routed along the whole line; even the poor 
BaCteria — the last shred of a theory once so wide that it 
included every species past and present — have at last had to 
give up their claim to any special intervention on their 
behalf. 
The latter hypothesis, however, still holds its ground, but 
is a product not of the common sense of mankind, which 
always aCts on the belief engendered and verified by the 
constant experience of their own feelings, and what they see 
in others, that thoughts and actions are always the outcome 
Gf motives : indeed the whole business of life is based upon 
that supposition, so that the burden of proof rests entirely 
with those who maintain a contrary opinion, and clear and 
distinct evidence must be given of thoughts arising without 
motives, — an exploit which may reasonably be presumed to 
be impossible but which nevertheless is absolutely essential 
to any effective opposition to Mental Evolution, just as evi- 
dence of an organism not being the product of a previous 
organism would be necessary to disprove Organic Evolution. 
