Herbert Spencer says that such is the evident tendency.  He does not say, nor is it at all probable, that there will be in future humanity such physiological specialization as would correspond to the suppression of sex among ants, or to the bringing of women to the dominant place in the human world, and the masculine sex to an inferior position.  That is not likely ever to happen, for reasons which it would take very much too long to speak of now.  But there is evidence 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 spite of everything, moral feeling was never higher at any time in Western social history than it is at present.  The changes of thought have indeed been very great, but the moral experience of mankind remains exactly as valuable as it was before, and new perceptions of that value have been given to us by the new philosophy.