FOOTNOTES: [83] P. 46. [84] P. 78. [85] See, in contradistinction to Ree's theory of vanity, Sigwart's admirable essay on this subject, contained in his "Kleine Schriften." [86] Dr. Ree appears to depart from his general theory here and identify sympathy with morality. A REVIEW OF EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS PART II INTRODUCTION Twenty years ago, any one about to deal with moral science from the standpoint of the Theory of Evolution, might have deemed it necessary to preface his work with a statement of cogent reasons for the assumption of such a standpoint. At a time when Theology saw in Darwinism only a weapon of the anti-theological party, and when even many scientists were not yet decided as to the worth of the new ideas, the right of the student to make use of them in psychological and ethical investigations might have been a subject for dispute. Yet even in the beginning the attitude of apology was assumed oftener without, than within, English-speaking countries, for the very reason that exactly among the race from which Darwin sprang, the warfare of his conception of animate nature with older systems was fiercest. At the present date, the attitude of opinion is changed in all countries. The Theory of Evolution has few, if it can be said to have any, enemies among the students of science. "With Louis Agassiz died the last opponent of Darwinism deserving scientific notice," says Haeckel.[87] Theology itself has ceased from extreme hostilities, and many theologians have even found in the idea of Evolution an argument with which to defend teleological doctrine. The present opponents of Darwinism as applied to psychology and ethics rather contest its special worth for these provinces than deny its validity in them. Nevertheless, a universal acceptance cannot be claimed for the theory; and since ethics is, above all other sciences, the one that should most desire to persuade rather than to alienate,--and this the more, the stronger its conviction of its own truth,--it may be well to state or restate some of the reasons which justify, from almost all modern standpoints, at least a tentative application of the ideas of Evolution to ethical theory. Such a statement, or restatement, must be an attempt to demonstrate the validity of the theory in this province, and to give some good reasons for supposing, _a priori_, that a survey of ethical questions from the point of view it furnishes may be of ethical utility. The proof of such utility can be found, ultimately, only in the results of the investigation itself.