that in the world.

LAMARCK; DARWIN; SPENCER.--The Frenchman Lamarck in the eighteenth
century had already conceived this idea; Darwin, purely a naturalist, set
it forth clearly, Spencer again stated it and drew from it consequences of
general philosophy. Thus, to Spencer, the evolutionist theory contains no
immorality. On the contrary, the progressive transformation of the human
species is an ascent towards morality; from egoism is born altruism because
the species, seeking its best law and its best condition of happiness,
perceives a greater happiness in altruism; seeking its best law and its
best condition of happiness, perceives that a greater happiness lies in
order, regular life, social life, etc.; so that humanity raises itself to a
higher and yet higher morality by the mere fact of adapting itself better
to the conditions of the life of humanity. Morality develops
physiologically as the germ becomes the stem and the bud becomes the
flower.

As for religion it is the domain of the unknowable. That is not to assert
that it is nothing. On the contrary it is something formidable and
immense. It is the feeling that something, apart from all that we know,
surpasses us and that we shall never know it. Now this feeling at the same
time maintains us in a humility highly favourable to the health of the soul
and also in a serene confidence in the mysterious being who presides over
universal evolution and who, no doubt, is the all-powerful and eternal soul
of it.



CHAPTER IX