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RELIGION AND MORALITY 149
base of all the science of to-day, is founded on a general, eternal, and unalterable law — on the law of the struggle for existence, and the survival of the httest ; and that, therefore, each man to attain his own and his group^s welfare should try to be that ' nttest,' and to make his group such, in order that not he or his group should perish, but some other, less lit.
However much some naturalists, frightened by the logical consequences of this law and by their applica- tion to human life, may try to perplex the matter with words, and to exorcise this law — their etforts only make still more evident the irresistibility' of that law, which rules the life of the whole organic world, and, there- fore, that of man regarded as an animal.
Since I began writing this article, a Russian transla- tion has ap|»eared of an article by Mr. Huxley, com- osed of a speech on Evolution and Ethics* delivered y him to some English Society. In this article the learned Professor — like our well-known Professor Beketof and many others who have written on the same subject, and with as little success as his predeces- sors — tries to prove that the struggle for existence does not infringe morality, and that side by side with the acknowledgement of the struggle for existence as a fundamental law of life, morality may not merelv exist, but even progress. Mr. Huxley's article is full of all kinds of jokes, verses, and general views on ancient religion and philosophy, and is consequently so florid and complicated that it is only with great effort that one is able to reach its fundamental thought. That thought, however, is as follows : The law of evolution runs counter to the moral law ; this was known to the ancient Greeks and Hindus. The philosophy and reli;don of both those peoples brought them to the doctrine of self-renunciation. That doctrine, the author thinks, is not correct ; the correct one is this : A law exists, which the author calls the cosmic law, in
- Huxley's Romanes LfCture. delivered in 159-J, and
conraiued in Evolution aiui Eihics, issued by Macmillan and Go.
