Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/577

Rh we to conclude? Simply this, that the moral education of the race so far has been lamentably defective, that it has not sufficed to bring the lower impulses under subjection to the higher, that it has not taught the love of virtue for its own sake, that it has left men enslaved to purely personal hopes and fears and without any conception of the larger life in society—a life regulated by justice and sweetened by good-will—which is really attainable in greater or less degree by every normally constituted human individual. The evolution philosophy is, in a certain sense, a régime of freedom; and if a certain society, at a certain date, is found to be unfitted for it, we conclude, not that the régime of freedom is bad in itself, but that the society is backward and undeveloped. It is no condemnation of parliamentary institutions to say that they are not suited to Caffres or Malays. If it should be said that the doctrine of evolution is as much unsuited even to the most advanced societies of to-day as parliamentary institutions are to Caffres or Malays, we might reply, "The more's the pity, seeing the doctrine has come into the world, and has apparently come to stay." We should prefer, however, to traverse the assertion, and to say that the ready acceptance which is being given to the doctrine is primary evidence of its being suited to the needs of at least a large section of the community. Some may take it and abuse it, as they would any other doctrine, converting it, as certain sectaries a couple of centuries ago did the Christian doctrine of justification by faith, into a scheme of antinomianism. But this does not do away with the fact that the doctrine has an intellectual attraction for nearly all the more advanced minds, and that these therefore may reasonably be supposed to have some power of adapting themselves to it. In all periods of transition allowance must be made for the disorders incident to the unsettlement of men's minds. At the period of the Reformation these disorders were of the most alarming kind—far more alarming than anything we have to contemplate at the present moment. The duty of the hour, therefore, for those who accept the new ideas, is to face whatever may be the difficulties of the situation boldly, and to apply themselves to developing-and demonstrating all the useful truths that are deducible from the theory of evolution. The time has come to throw upon men in a distinct and emphatic manner the full responsibility for their own actions. Heretofore the teaching has been that unless men held to certain special doctrines and theories, they could not be expected to live pure or righteous lives; and under this teaching much moral weakness has been engendered. Today it is in order to proclaim to one and all that they must settle their opinions with themselves; but that, whatever they may think there is only one line of conduct that befits a man born into a civilized society, and that is a conduct marked by self-restraint, and a care for the good of the whole social organism. The prophets of evil are doing evil, and that continually. They are helping on that relaxation of morality which they deplore, seeing that they deny all moral authority to principles not founded on their own special dogmas. There is great need of an organized effort to antagonize the mischievous effect of their writings by preaching hope where they preach despair, and the progress of humanity through increasing knowledge where they announce the dissolution of all social bonds through the advent of a philosophy which has the misfortune of not being theirs.

Everybody nearly has been reading that wonderful tale of imaginary adventures, "King Solomon's Mines"; but perhaps not very many have noted the most startling and extraordinary fact recorded in it, one in comparison