h
gives it a relative vitality, is borrowed from truth and from the correct
system; and that all those who oppose the present fundamentals of morality,
and especially of Christian morality, in a thousand ways live upon and
consume the possessions which they owe to the same influences against which
they contend.

But to whatever relative height the moral nobility of single advocates of
ethical naturalism may rise, it is not able, at least not from its own
principles, to produce thoroughly moral and truly cultivated characters;
such are only produced where that which forms the character, {393} flows
out of a spring of life whose origin is _above_ nature and its series of
causes.

From this we see that for the most part a very low idea of personality, a
very low derivation of the motives of human action, is found in the works
of Darwinistic moralists--as, _e.g._, we have seen in the works of Haeckel
that to him the idea of a personality of God is inseparably connected with
the idea of capricious arbitrariness, and that he derives all actions of
all men from the motives of egoism.

But we also see, from still more common evidences, the fact that some of
the very highest blossoms and noblest fruits of human virtue, as they ripen
on the ground of Christian morality, are not even acknowledged, much less
required, by ethical naturalism. We think particularly of the virtues of
_love_, of _self-denial_, and of _humility_. Certainly, we do not deny that
men who are inclined toward naturalism can and do possess love to a certain
degree, but the highest exemplification of love, the love of enemies in the
fullest sense of the word--not only compassion on the battle-field, but the
full, forgiving, blessing love which renders good for evil, and even
intercedes for a personal enemy, although he may be the intentional and
successful destroyer of our whole earthly happiness--such a love may
perhaps be demanded and admired by a naturalistic moralist under the
imposing influence of the presence of such a love and in unconscious
dependence on the motives of Christianity which surround him; but he will
never be able to show from what point of his system it is to be deduced. On
the other hand, it is easy to show him more than one point of his system
which, far from requiring such love, {394} stigmatizes it as simple
foolishness. Such a fruit only ripens under the care of him who gave his
life for us while we still were enemies, and under the