Finally, from the point of view of evolutionary ethics, not only the desire of great love, excluding all else, but monogamy itself has been attacked. This purely scientific line of thought has at present no conscious part in the utterances of what is called the “new immorality,” all the less as the scientific reasoning lays stress upon the point that _if_ mankind is to abandon monogamy, which has possessed such enormous advantages, then this must be done with a conscious purpose, to further the development of the whole race, not the passions of individuals. But if this evolutionistic reasoning be conceded, then it will result in a transformation of society’s view of love’s freedom of choice, both in the direction of extension and of limitation. Much of what is now called the “new immorality” may then appear as the unconscious self-protection of the race against a degeneration forced upon it by the customs and arrangements of society. Against the future claims of evolutionism, however, the conviction asserts itself that personal love, the great creation of culture, will not disappear; and thereby the danger of polygamy is removed. It must therefore continue to be love’s selection which will occasion the ethical “adulteries” just alluded to, but it will be a love determined by the point of view of the ennobling of the race. At present the claims of evolution in this respect have scarcely begun to be perceived, still less have they succeeded in exercising a transforming influence on moral opinion, which will perhaps one day apply in this connection Plato’s saying: that what is useful is fit, and what is hurtful is shameful. Where good reasons exist for not outwardly dissolving the marriage, the right may perhaps be admitted which even now a man or woman has here and there appropriated: that of becoming a father by another woman, or a mother by another man, since they themselves have a passionate longing for a child and are eminently suited for parentage, but have been deprived of its joys because the wife or husband has been wanting in these possibilities.