vidence that the most selfish of all human
passions will eventually be brought under control--under such control that
the present cause of wellnigh all human suffering, the pressure of
population, will be practically removed. And there is psychological
evidence that the human mind will undergo such changes that wrong-doing,
in the sense of unkindly action, will become almost impossible, and that
the highest pleasure will be found not in selfishness but in
unselfishness. Of course there are thousands of things to think about,
suggested by this discovery of the life of ants. I am only telling the
more important ones. What I have told you ought at least to suggest that
the idea of a moral condition much higher than all our moral conditions of
today is quite possible,--that it is not an idea to be laughed at. But it
was not Nietzsche who ever conceived this possibility. His "Beyond Man"
and the real and much to be hoped for "beyond man," are absolutely
antagonistic conceptions. When the ancient Hebrew writer said, thousands
of years ago, "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways," he could
not have imagined how good his advice would prove in the light of
twentieth century science.

CHAPTER IX

THE NEW ETHICS

Before leaving the subject of these latter-day intellectual changes, a
word must be said concerning the ethical questions involved. Of course
when a religious faith has been shaken to its foundation, it is natural to
suppose that morals must have been simultaneously affected. The relation
of morals to literature is very intimate; and we must expect that any
change of ideas in the direction of ethics would show themselves in
literature. The drama, poetry, romance, the novel, all these are
reflections of moral emotion in especial, of the eternal struggle between
good and evil, as well as of the temporary sentiments concerning right and
wrong. And every period of transition is necessarily accompanied by
certain tendencies to disintegration. Contemporary literature in the West
has shown some signs of ethical change. These caused many thinkers to
predict a coming period of demoralization in literature. But the alarm was
really quite needless. These vagaries of literature, such as books
questioning the morality of the marriage relation, for example, were only
repetitions of older vagaries, and represented nothing more than the
temporary agitation of thought upon all questions. The fact seems to be
that in s