[75.1] As if it were the destiny of modern philosophers to pervert the wisdom of the ancients into ridiculous caricature, so we find in reference to this matter Helvetius in a well-known passage saying seriously that if horses had had hands they would have been men, and if men had had hoofs they would have been horses! In this way the ingenious fool always makes a knife out of every instrument to cut his own fingers. [75.2] See this point stated more formally in Hegel, _Encyclopädie_, 50. [81.1] Darwin, by the use of the term _selection_, turned _accident_ into _design_, and was the first to do so.--Stirling on Protoplasm (Edinburgh, 1869), p. 69. [85.1] Stirling on Protoplasm, p. 33. [86.1] The opposite and characteristically modern view of the origin and character of religious duties may be stated most shortly in a sentence from a distinguished modern thinker:-- “If there be a God, then man bears relations to Him, _and his duties to God are of a private nature, and therefore not of interest to the State, and in no way coming under the jurisdiction of Science_. And what the duties are which man owes to God can only be ascertained by a _Revelation_, for they cannot be discovered experimentally.” There are two propositions here essentially anti-Socratic, and, in my opinion, essentially false:--(1.) That religion belongs to man only as a private individual, and not as a citizen. This is a favourite idea of the most recent times, and has its only root in the fact that on account of the growth of a certain stout and stubborn individualism in Christian Churches it has been found practically impossible to make Christian men combine socially for the performance of any religious function. This difficulty, however, belongs not to the nature of religion, but to the imperfection of moral culture in our existing ethical associations called Churches. The social recognition of the Supreme Father still remains as much an ideal in modern times as it was a real in ancient times. The ancients sacrificed in this matter the individual to the State; we, for the glorification of the individual, allow the State to sit shorn of one of its greatest glories. Whatsoever a man is bound to do as a moral being individually, he is bound to do socially, _if it be possible_. The so-called Voluntary system is a mere shift to save the trouble and shirk the difficulty which narrow-minded Christians feel in working together to give a national expression to common religious feelings and common religious convictions.