Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/347

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We have in these verses the expression of a passionate desire for conformity to a divine ideal, and the question is, whether we can expect any approach to the same earnestness in pursuit of such excellence or elevation of character as the evolution philosophy indicates as attainable. If allowance be made for the solemnity imparted to the above utterance by the momentous character of Christian beliefs, I see no reason why the moral enthusiasm of humanity should not flow in as full tide through the new channel as through the old. After all, there are but few in every generation who are fired by an intense desire for the highest holiness; and some, it must be remembered, who appear to have very lofty spiritual ambitions, give occasion for the remark that they might better have aimed at humbler achievements. We may, therefore, reasonably hope that, when once it is understood where the hopes of humanity lie, there will be no falling off, to say the least, in the number of those who will strive after nothing short of the highest ideal their minds are capable of conceiving.

In conclusion, let us see what answer can be given to certain specific objections that have been made by able writers to Mr. Spencer's theories on this subject. "The Bystander" thinks that Mr. Spencer's indignation "against Jingoes and their political burglaries; against Fifeshire militiamen who, so long as they are sent to war, are ready to fight on either side; against Christian bishops who lend their sanction to invasion of Afghanistan," is, upon his own principles, unscientific; inasmuch as all these might retort that their actions were the natural product of their particular stage of development. To this I reply that Mr. Spencer's indignation is the measure of his own moral development, and signifies his instinctive recoil from courses of conduct which show the moral sense in a very backward state. Even when we understand how bad actions have come to be performed, and are prepared to make allowances for the perpetrators, we shrink from and denounce them none the less. We surely should allow the philosophers some common human privileges. As to the supposed answer of the burglarious Jingo, the unprejudiced militiaman, and the filibustering bishop, it is in