Notes

Abstract

THE Romanes lecture at Oxford was delivered on May 27 by Dr. Inge, Dean of St. Paul's, before a large audience, by whom the lecturer's brilliant epigrams and trenchant criticism of conventional catchwords were evidently much appreciated. Dealing with the “idea of progress,” the Dean made it clear that he had no belief in any natural law of continued progress in the sphere of morals or intellect, or even of physical organisation. The conception of such a law was, in fact, of comparatively recent growth, and had no foundation in the thought of antiquity or of the Middle Ages. At the same time he would not deny a temporary improvement of the race in fulfilment of a finite purpose, though he found little or no evidence of any advance during the historical period in either physical organisation or morals. The results of accumulated experience must not be confounded with a real progress in human nature. Dean Inge would scarcely be concerned to deny that the emergence of rational humanity from previous non-human conditions deserved in some sort the name of “progress,” but he saw no warrant for the belief that such “progress” would be continued indefinitely under the domain of natural law. Huxley had pointed out in a previous Romanes lecture that ethical improvement ran counter to the process of cosmic evolution. Progress was a task for humanity, not a law of Nature. Civilisation was a disease that had hitherto been invariably fatal. The ancient civilisations had fallen by the attacks of outer barbarians; “we breed our own barbarians.” But progress was possible for the individual, if not for the race, and hope was not only a virtue, but also a solid fact.