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true foundation of the moral idea considered objectively : the 
capacity of perceiving the order which they involve is its 
foundation considered subjectively. The origin of the moral 
sense is found only in the origin of the soul itself. 
But here we come into the presence of the philosophy of 
“ evolution " as it makes one of its formidable points. 
Mr. Herbert Spencer, in a letter to John Stuart Mill, says : 
“ There have been, and still are, developing in the race 
certain moral intuitions/' — “ these moral intuitions are the 
results of accumulated experiences of utility, gradually organ- 
ized and inherited." These same “intuitions/' — like, for 
example, “the intuition of space" in an individual, — “have 
arisen from organized and consolidated experiences of all 
antecedent individuals who bequeathed to him their slowly- 
developed nervous organizations." The “moral intuition," 
according to Mr. Spencer, is only a state of nerve matter. 
His account of “ the ego " is curiously in keeping with this 
notion. He says, “ Either the ego is some state of 
consciousness, simple or composite, or it is not. If it is not 
some state of consciousness, it -is something of which we are 
unconscious — something, therefore, which is unknown to us — * 
something, therefore, of whose existence we neither have nor 
can have any evidence — something, therefore, which it is 
absurd to suppose existing. If the ego is some state of 
consciousness, then, as it is ever present, it can be at each 
moment nothing else than the state of consciousness present 
at that moment." * Here is philosophy every way worthy of 
the theory of evolution ! 
It may be tried on our conception of the philosopher him- 
self. Firgt of all, then, the only substance recognized is nerve. 
What is called the “ organization " of this substance is the 
result of a process which reaches from Adam downwards, or, 
if you will, from the first “ pre- Adamite " man, or from some 
“ primordial cell " of vastly more ancient birth ! Probably 
some similar unit would call this almost infinitely elaborated 
unit of nerve Mr. Herbert Spencer ; but, if he did, he would 
soon, we hope, find out that he must not call it Mr. Spencer's 
“ ego," — that is, Mr. Spencer himself! My ego is just myself 
and Mr. Spencer's ego is just himself ; and, as he teaches, 
neither ego is anything — for he insists that it is only a state of 
consciousness. It is not even a permanent state, it is only 
that of a moment — the ego of one moment being one, and that 
of the next moment another ! I confess that reading such 
philosophy makes one hunger for a grain of common sense. 
* Principles of Psychology, p. 618 . 
