l motives--"but because 'right
is right'"--an appeal to a blind unreasoning instinct, and a prohibition
to question its authority. We are told that for practical purposes it
matters little whence this absolute imperative rule originates. Was
there ever a more unpractical and short-sighted assertion! Convince men
that the dictates of conscience are those of fear or selfishness, that
they are all mere animal instincts, that they are anything less than
divine, and who will care for Mr. Laing's appeal to blind faith in the
"rightness of right"?

As long as Christian tradition lives on, as it will for years among the
masses, the effects of materialist ethics will not be felt; but as these
new theories filter down from the few to the many, they will inevitably
produce their logical consequences in practical matters. No one with
open eyes can fail to see how the leaven is spreading already. Still the
majority act and speak to a great extent under the influence of the old
belief, which they have repudiated, in the freedom of man's will and the
Divine origin of right. It is quite plain that Mr. Laing has either
never had patience to think the matter out, or has found it beyond his
compass. Having thus established morality on a foundation independent of
religion and of everything else, making "right" rest on "right," he
assumes the prophetic robe, and on the strength of his seventy years of
experience and philosophy poses as a _Cato Major_ for the edification of
the semi-scientific millions of young persons to whom he addresses his
volumes. We have a whole chapter on Practical Life, [24] on
self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, full of portentous
platitudes and ancient saws; St. Paul's doctrine of charity, and all
that is best in the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, is liberated
from its degrading association with the belief in a God who rewards and
punishes.[25] We are "to act strenuously in that direction which, after
_conscientious_ inquiry, seems the best, ... and trust to what religious
men call Providence, and scientific men Evolution, for the result," and
all this simply on the bold assertion of this sage whose sole aim is "to
leave the world a little better rather than a little worse for my
individual unit of existence." [26]

And here we may inquire parenthetically as to the motive which urges Mr.
Laing to throw himself into the labours of the apostolate and to become
such an active propagandist of agnostici