Intellectuality and concurrent. As the tribe grows into the nation, the tribal duty is inherited by the larger power, and as, in course of time, the nation extends into an empire, it receives ampler homage, and almost as a deity is worshipped by symbol and invoked as a living presence. We see, therefore, that Naturalism embodies in morality those convenient rules of social order which are created by expediency but which have no mystical obligation. The society of the present is the slave of its past. The habit and custom, the thought which appears so modern, are all ghosts of the dead. The opinions of to-day in their recurring ebb and flow are swayed by the cold satellite of an all-but-forgotten history. If this were true we should expect that social morality would maintain the pace of intellectual growth, but this is certainly not the case. If the law of evolution in morals followed the development of species we should anticipate a higher standard in the old world than in the new. The old world has enjoyed opportunities for intellectual culture denied to the new. America and Australia have suffered intellectually from their isolation, as they are behind the older continents in the variety of their fauna and flora. But the discovery of the new world revealed a morality which compared favourably with the old. The personal and social life in Central America, Mexico, and Peru, would have held its own with the contemporaneous life of the states on this side of the Atlantic. The family life of the Aztec of the sixteenth century was a model for the European. China and Japan to-day are no strangers to domestic virtues of a high order. Even the Indian of North America has a fairly reputable code of morals. Filial piety, truthfulness, purity of life, self-denial, are not the peculiar possessions of any particular people or time. Races that have excelled in courage have ignored their aged and weaker members. Personal chastity has rarely been enforced by law, but yet has been valued and practised under inferior civilisations. There are, of course, variations due to local custom which must be regarded as exceptional. Marriage, for example, is a fast chain in one country, in another a slight fetter dissolved at will. Polygamy and polyandry are frequently deviations forced upon the community by particular conditions. In addition to this, a a coarse life must not be confounded with an immoral one. The indecency of the savage which offends our taste by no means implies a vicious propensity. On the other hand, it is historically notorious that people of high intellectual attainment have been addicted to the worst forms of vice, and have fallen victims to their own moral deterioration. If we fail to find a growth of morality corresponding to the physical and intellectual development of the race, we are bound to challenge a theory which denies any suggestion or impulse other than that of experience and surroundings in the evolution of the moral sense. Even if it be asserted that the morality of Naturalism concerns the relation of the individual to the State, and has nothing to say to his own. personal, ethical consciousness, it is a delusion to suppose that anyone can become a law unto himself without injuring the community of which he forms a part. There is no non-conducting material between himself and others. The drunkard or the unclean is unable to keep his public duties immune from his private taint. In the general deterioration his weakened efficiency will deduct something appreciable from from the common fund. There is, therefore, clearly a place for religious motive supplementary to the law which punishes for social offences. But Naturalism refuses to recognise any higher motive than loyalty to the public good, or any cause and effect beyond those which are pre-determined. We are the slaves, not the free men, of Evolution; we are bound to obey; yet we dream that we are free. Are we justified in attributing one result uniformly to the same Naturalism and cause ? Or are we indeed able to determine the cause? If our intention be concentrated upon the horses which draw the chariot of the sun, shall we not lose the vision of Apollo, the Charioteer ? A hive of intelligent bees, safely mustered for the night, hear a tap on the wooden roof. One bee, and one only, is sent outside to reconnoitre. He does not return; the noise is repeated; another messenger is sent; and of him no more is seen. The law is unfailing in its operation, and a Spencerian bee will explain that if a tap be heard on the top of the wooden box, and a bee go out to investigate the cause, that bee never returns. These are the facts. All else lies beyond bee reason. But if half a dozen bees had gone out to explore, the five survivors would have discovered that a tomtit had settled on the roof of the hive, and finding that a tap on the wood brought out a bee, continued the experiment until he had finished his supper. There is so much in life that suggests hypotheses other than those within the immediate range of physical science. We also know something of deviation. Both in the vegetable and in the animal world we have modified colour and form. We are conscious that, whatever be the range of Determinism, our own actions have a certain play, an area in which free will may be exercised; but we are also conscious that external influences hinder our liberty of choice. Our position in life has been settled in its larger features by birth and circumstance. We may be European, born into a given country, into a certain class, with associations and sympathies ready made, white men immune against certain diseases, and susceptible to others. Yet we know that we can modify the effect of these conditions. A mere child, in the centre of a plank, with a comparatively small exercise of muscular force, can raise and lower the two ends of the see-saw. But the child may easily pass under a governing power that deprives him of any further control of the movement. Again, we challenge Naturalism upon variations in the law of physical evolution. The world of Naturalism is a dwelling-place for those physically fitted to their surroundings, apart from moral considerations. It is not always the best, but sometimes the worst, that wins. The good man with weak lungs has to give way to the brute with a fine constitution. Meekness and gentleness go to the wall under physical disabilities. But the dragon, the huge saurian of the tertiary period, wallowing in slime, equipped with formidable weapons for mastery, has failed to hold its own, and disappears from later geological history. Survival is therefore a question of mental ability and of moral quality. At any rate, it is remarkable that the small mammal, man, which has at last acquired the lordship of earth, summons religion to his aid in order to perfect his moral sense. Naturalism Irrational. Surely Naturalism becomes irrational when it deduces exclusively a universal law from phenomena. For physical development often reaches a dead end, as if it wandered into a blind alley from which there was no escape. The bee or the beaver apparently are cases of arrested intelligence. There is a selective process at work in the physical world which suggests early evolutionary experiments, modified by a subsequent judgment that determines the final direction of successful evolution. There are yet dark continents within the sphere of physical science which remain uninvestigated. The outline of an island has been traced, but much of its interior remains unmapped. The Curve of There is a still graver objection Life. to the adoption of Naturalism as a substitute for religion. Science accepts a curve of life which returns upon itself, an ellipse which is bound to be ultimately completed. But is there any idealism in this monotonous circulation of cause and effect? The weariness |