Evolution and Ethics | Page 4

years, has been much directed to the bearing of modern scientific
thought on the problems of morals and of politics, and I did not care to
be diverted from that topic. Moreover, I thought it the most important
and the worthiest which, at the present time, could engage the attention
even of an ancient and renowned University.
But it is a condition of the Romanes foundation that the lecturer shall
abstain from treating of either Religion or Politics; and it appeared to
me that, more than most, perhaps, I was bound to act, not merely up to
the letter, but in the spirit, of that prohibition. Yet Ethical Science is, on
all sides, so entangled with Religion and Politics that the lecturer who
essays to touch the former without coming into contact with either of
the latter, needs all the dexterity of an egg-dancer; and may even
discover that his sense of clearness and his sense of propriety come into
conflict, by no means to the advantage of the former.
I have little notion of the real magnitude of these difficulties when I set
about my task; but I am consoled for my pains and anxiety by
observing that none of the multitudinous criticisms with which I have
been favoured and, often, instructed, find fault with me on the score of
having strayed out of bounds.
Among my critics there are not a few to whom I feel deeply indebted
for the careful attention which they have given to the exposition thus
hampered; and further weakened, I am afraid, by my forgetfulness of a
maxim touching lectures of a popular character, which has descended
to me from that prince of lecturers, Mr. Faraday. He was once asked by
a beginner, called upon to address a highly select and cultivated
audience, what he might suppose his hearers to know already.
Whereupon the past master of the art of exposition emphatically replied
"Nothing!"
To my shame as a retired veteran, who has all his life profited by this
great precept of lecturing strategy, I forgot all about it just when it
would have been most useful. I was fatuous enough to imagine that a
number of propositions, which I thought established, and which, in fact,
I had advanced without challenge on former occasions, needed no

repetition.
I have endeavoured to repair my error by prefacing the lecture with
some matter--chiefly elementary or recapitulatory--to which I have
given the title of "Prolegomena" I wish I could have hit upon a heading
of less pedantic aspect which would have served my purpose; and if it
be urged that the new building looks over large for the edifice to which
it is added, I can only plead the precedent of the ancient architects, who
always made the adytum the smallest part of the temple.
If I had attempted to reply in full to the criticisms to which I have
referred, I know not what extent of ground would have been covered by
my pronaos. All I have endeavoured to do, at present, is to remove that
which seems to have proved a stumbling-block to many--namely, the
apparent paradox that ethical nature, while born of cosmic nature, is
necessarily at enmity with its parent. Unless the arguments set forth in
the Prolegomena, in the simplest language at my command, have some
flaw which I am unable to discern, this seeming paradox is a truth, as
great as it is plain, the recognition of which is fundamental for the
ethical philosopher.
We cannot do without our inheritance from the forefathers who were
the puppets of the cosmic process; the society which renounces it must
be destroyed from without. Still less can we de with too much of it; the
society in which it dominates must be destroyed from within.
The motive of the drama of human life is the necessity, laid upon every
man who comes into the world, of discovering the mean between
self-assertion and self-restraint suited to his character and his
circumstances. And the eternally tragic aspect of the drama lies in this:
that the problem set before us is one the elements of which can be but
imperfectly known, and of which even an approximately right solution
rarely presents itself, until that stern critic, aged experience, has been
furnished with ample justification for venting his sarcastic humour
upon the irreparable blunders we have already made.
I have reprinted the letters on the "Darkest England" scheme, published
in the "Times" of December, 1890, and January, 1891; and
subsequently issued, with additions, as a pamphlet, under the title of
"Social Diseases and Worse Remedies," because, although the clever
attempt to rush the country on behalf of that scheme has been balked,
Booth's standing army remains afoot, retaining all the capacities for

mischief which are inherent in its constitution.