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THE MORALITY OF
NATURE

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BY
ROBERT WILLIAMS GIBSON

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON

XTbe Ikntcherbocfter press

1923

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Copyright, 1923

by

Robert Williams Gibson

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Made in the United States of America

To

MY CHILDREN

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FOREWORD

A MAN now of mature years, who began his reading when
the epoch-making works of Charles Robert Darwin were
new books, has been privileged to share in a marvellous
period of human advancement.

The new discoveries in those sciences which explore the
prehistoric past of the world, and especially those which
pertain to the progress of life have promoted that central
idea expressed by the word evolution from the status of a
theory to that of an established principle — a necessary part
of the educational equipment of any thinking man.

He who does not recogiiize evolution today is in the same
class with those who do not believe that the earth is round.
These are no longer questions to be argued, they are facts
which are established in proofs so convincing that a little
reading is all that is needed to make them clear.

To provide that little reading in regard to evolution is one
of the purposes of this book. It is treated last because it is
here only accessory to the chief arguments which precede it;
but a reader who so desires may go over this explanation of
evolution first. It is broad and general rather than of de-
tailed completeness. It will not satisfy the biologist any
more than a landscape-painter's view of a forest scene would
satisfy a botanist ; but it has advantages nevertheless.

The prime purpose of this work is the consideration of
Man as a participant in this great Evolution forward and
upward.

It seems surprising that while so many scientists are

iv Foreword

elucidating their profoundly impressive facts, so few — one
might say none — of them go beyond the facts and discuss
their meanings and consequences. Yet it is natural. This
regard for objective truths to the exclusion of anything
which cannot be demonstrated is in its sphere a fine quality,
and is indeed the distinguishing characteristic of modern
science. But after all it is not everything. It is the material
body of wisdom — the spirit is more elusive. Induction is a
different function of the intellect in which our western
civilization is deficient as compared with the oriental.

It still remains for us to assimilate the facts, and to evoke
those new dreams and hopes which tomorrow shall be truths
and laws. We must infer and reason and think out changes
in our concepts of things which we call spiritual and psycho-
logical— we must use our deductive powers and imaginations
— our emotional aspirations — we must study this new
knowledge and try to understand its meaning and its
promises ; and above all we must try to understand our-
selves— self-realization is the Divine achievement.

This present effort falls short of what is to be desired,
but the absence of better is its excuse.

R. W. G.

January, 1923.

CONTENTS

BOOK I
THE ORIGIN OF MORAL CONDUCT

CHAPTER

I. — Introductory — The New Knowledge

II. — Conduct ....
III. — Responsibility in Relation to Nature
IV. — Relation to Animate Nature
V. — Individuality .
VI. — Associated Responsibility
VI I. — Elementary Morality .
VIII. — Heredity ....
IX. — Environment and Variation
X. — The Function of Death
XL — Justice in Death .
XII. — The Conduct Unit
XIII. — Compensations
XIV. — Time and Consequence
XV. — Unity of Life
XVI. — Potential Immorality .
XVIL — Life's Value and Aim .

PAGE

3

8

14
24

32

39
46

54
63

71
82
102
107
112
122
128
134

vi Contents

BOOK II
MORALITY OF THE DUAL LIFE

CHAPTER PAGE

I. — Co-operation Instinctive .... 141

II. — ^Altruism Fundamental .... 150

III. — Dependent Life 159

IV. — Specialized Life 164

V. — Altruism a Conscious Ideal . . . 169

VI. — Destructive Rivalry 172

VII. — Associated Motives Multiplex . . . 178

VIII. — Moral Motive 188

IX. — The Goal of Aspiring Morality . . . 194

X. — Variable Ideals 201

XI. — Variable Organization .... 208

XII. — Authority 214

XIII. — The Altruistic Type of Government . 219

XIV. — Emancipation of Belief .... 238

XV. — Education 244

XVI. — Conscience 250

XVII.— Faith 257

XVIII. — Conclusions 262

BOOK III
LIFE IN EVOLUTION

I. — Conduct in Evolution 273

II. — Evolution is Progress 281

Contents

Vll

CHAFTBR

III. — Time and the Geological Record
IV. — Change is Normal
V. — Descent of Man
VI. — Physical Limitations .
VII. — The Biological Record
VIII. — Karyokinesis .
IX. — Embryology
X. — Effects of Environment
XI. — Distribution of Heredity
XII. — Evolution of Sex .
XIII. — Distribution by Sex
XIV. — Multicellular Bodies .

XV. — The True Ego
XVI. — Aspiration in Evolution is Morality .
XVII. — Today is Always the Day of Evolution
XVIII. — Humanity in Limited Privilege
XIX. — Human Consciousness .
XX. — Free Activities
XXI. — Organization ....
XXII. — Summary and Conclusion

PAGE
289

316
319
325
332

339
346
350
358
364
369
374
381
384
390
395
401
404

The Morality of Nature

BOOK I
The Origin of Moral Conduct

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY THE NEW KNOWLEDGE

Moral conduct is a system evolved under the stress of
experience for the benefit of the individual and the race.

The wonderful discoveries of modern science and es-
pecially those of Biological Science throw new light of
distinctive value upon the old great questions of the nature
and destiny of life and upon its obligations and duties and
privileges. And in that light many things are clearly seen
as material realities which have hitherto appeared only as
imperfectly understood intuitions or in the guise of laws
proclaimed by supernormal wisdom.

The effect of these new revelations upon older knowledge
is necessarily twofold. First it must deny or correct, as all
new wisdom does, that which is erroneous or imperfect in
old beliefs and laws; and next, it must apply its new truths
in reconstructive effect. But it is a much easier and a much
speedier process to destroy than to reconstruct. A single
blow shattering an obsolete dogma of religion or a law of
moral conduct may involve in the wreck a whole train of
dependent beliefs; and this destruction may be doubly un-
fortunate when as sometimes occurs, the new truth is able to
afford support to the old, were it only properly apprehended.

It is the purpose of this work to present some discussions

3

4 The Morality of Nature

of these newer view points, in such a way, and with such sug-
gestions, as will help the constructive reasoning of the reader.
It is believed that a real need exists and a true desire pre-
vails, for more familiarity with the new science, which now,
instead of being general, is unintentionally made the privilege
of a class, by the technicality of its expression. Both in
research and in philosophy the doctors use vocabularies and
one might almost say languages, which are unintelligible to
all but the initiated, and there is a peculiar prejudice in favor
of objective facts and an aversion to inference and inductive
reasoning.

So startling destructive truths are presented with a brevity
which carries them the farther because of its faultiness, and
the fair and true import of them is left unexpressed, partly
because such understanding demands longer time, and partly
because it is not strictly due from the scientific source, but is
properly the work of another type of reasoning, namely the
philosophic and metaphysical.

It is intended, therefore, to address ordinary people in
language as ordinary as possible ; and to interpret some parts
of the technical facts which bear upon the special subject,
which is the conduct of humanity in evolutionary aspect, its
beginnings in animal life, and its promotion to and by
morality. A scientific and reasoned basis for conduct is
thus presented, without any trespass upon or any appeal to,
supernaturally inspired authority. It is not assumed to dis-
cuss the value of knowledge coming from sources other than
normal. The possibility of the existence of such a source
would be conceded in a pursuit of the philosophical idea
which underlies this work, which leads to the conception of

Introductory — The New Knowledge 5

an Absolute of unknowable nature as the finality, and a First
Cause equally unknowable as the prime of all things. But
this is an effort to reason causes and effects, and is limited
in its consideration to the things of normal nature.

The great central truth, among the many revealed by
modern science is the immortality of the natural life of the
egoplasm, and it is around this dominating fact that all this
argument is arranged. The fact that every new life is but the
continuing part of the old germ-plasm which has the potency
to grow a new reproduction of the elaborate body, a living
offshoot which does not die when the parent dies — this simple
fact is destined to profoundly alter our concepts of morality.
Although this astounding discovery has been some time an-
nounced, it has not yet begun to receive the attention which
its amazing import demands. The activities of life in this
qualification and in the correlative one of cumulative heredity
are found to be subject to a system of compensation of con-
duct in material things, which hitherto has been completed
only by appeal to external adjustment. In this subjection a
morality prevails which is inevitable, and which imposes
itself upon the theist and the atheist with equal force; and
which therefore neglects for the present their point of
difference.

The main thread of this argument therefore reasserts
the importance of heredity; and if this line of thought is
correct the effort will furnish its own apology, since the
transmission by age to youth, of certain deductions from
experience; which was the first purpose of this work, is the
final phase of hereditary transfer. And it is tendered in full
recognition of the reader's need of and right to his individu-

6 The Morality of Nature

ality. Communicated belief cannot pretend to be a substi-
tute for personal experience and preception ; but it serves as
a base for that highest phase of studentship, and as an expres-
sion of that oldest of old facts in heredity; that moral knowl-
edge is received by youth from age because it can accumulate
in no other way.

There is no attempt here to announce any new discovery
in natural or psychological science. Assertions in these sub-
jects when made are rather quoted as being of established
truth; or else as frank hypotheses; and there is no apology
offered for the repetition of truths well known of old, or of
those newly revealed by modern research ; because all such are
presented, not to declare them, but only to use them as a basis
for reasoning. A general apology is made for the free use of
newly published knowledge without separate quotation of
authority. This liberty is taken because it is not as announce-
ments of science but as arguments in morality, that these
things are presented. It is sought to avoid controversy and
to make affirmation in a confessedly imperfect form, without
demonstrations. Those who work in these matters know
better than any others, the transitory nature of wisdom and
its liability to correction. Where so much is hypothesis and
where the positive is so frequently superseded, it would be
futile to build in a pretense of stability.

Ethical inquiry follows paths, not only of logic, but those
of natural impulse and sentiment, in a belief that impulses
inborn and inherited did not arise without reason, and
therein it arrives at some conclusions different from those
which philosophy attains by logical synthesis. The common
aspirations of men sometimes lead to ideals which are by

Introductory — The New Knowledge 7

the wise called illogical. Yet if they are productive and
operative in actual life we may find them entitled to a place
in any discussion of conduct and none the less worthy in
being indefinable. Humanity declines to accept as the only
alternative to a theology which is outgrown, a materialism
which denies imagination, and which would restrict all
future time to its own present conceptions.

In this endeavor to follow where ideals lead, there must
be no intention to evade reason, or to fear the logic of any
argument or fact. If the study develops conclusions differ-
ent from those in vogue the difference lies often in the point
of view and not in a conflict of facts. The preference (or
prejudice it may be called) of the present review is con-
fessedly for reasoning which admits ideals, yet the problems
arising in matter are to be viewed with due materialism.

The thing attempted is the search for valuable inferences
in regard to facts already known ; and these facts are mar-
shalled in a progressive series beginning in observation and
analysis of the very old and very simple, and leading up-
ward to the successively higher developments with their
early and remote consequences. The point of view may
prove in some respects to be at profound interest and of
convincing force.

CHAPTER II

CONDUCT

Conduct is for a human being the choice of what he
will do and what he will not do, the action and way of living
of the individual in relation to others and to the universe.
The basis of right conduct is self-interest of the most far
seeking kind. It is more than mere endurance or deport-
ment; it comes of the will and intejligence, and of an atti-
tude of activity not like that of the lower creatures of mere
sentience, which is one of responsive submission. Yet this
intelligent volition is not the faculty of humanity only.
In its inferior phases it indicates to lower life the course
of all voluntary action. Conduct is the behavior of a
creature, which, when several courses of deeds are possible,
selects and does that which it prefers, instead of accepting
the one which is most obvious.

The existence of very primitive creatures is simply the
passive acceptance of all things that happen, and of their
consequences, and whether an event brings life and susten-
ance, or whether it brings death; no difference is made in
the behavior of the creature; the effects appear in due fol-
lowing of the cause, in a sequence which could not be
changed.

In contrast with this way of existing, the creatures which

8

Conduct 9

possess intelligence, even in its dawn, act in the face of cir-
cumstances, in purposeful effort to modify them, and so
avoid undesired results and gain those sought for. This
control of action is Conduct. A definition of it may be
further settled by examination of its fundamental motives.

The conception of conduct as a definable factor in the
natural activities of life implies the necessity of some dis-
coverable method or system governed by natural law; and
the continued order and growth of that system, if such is
discovered, invites inquiry in regard to its power and its
origin and ends. Especially when men disavow control, as
now in evolution of freedom, and seek satisfaction in im-
pulsive liberty of action, it is needful to know what, if any-
thing, determines the value of conduct.

As seen in its simplest forms the purpose of conduct
is to influence events by deeds of volition, so as to achieve
results which seem to the doer to be advantageous. Whether
good effects follow any particular deed will depend upon the
knowledge or wisdom of the doer, but it must be allowed
that the intent and purpose of any conduct or act, is to
attain something desired.

Conduct ^hich achieves the^ things needed to maintain
life and happiness, is good conduct. It is good and right
because it is thus successful and not because it has been
directed by some person in authority who has declared it
good and right. If such an authority ceases, the conduct will
still be good if it succeeds in a world where there are many
difficulties and dangers. But success does not always attend
human efforts. They may be inadequate or defective and
so fail, or may be overpowered by accident. Such conduct

10 The Morality of Nature

is not to be called bad. The bad results are incidental, aod
although they may overcome the value of the good, it is
manifestly a deficiency of good which characterises the con-
duct. It is not evil conduct of an opposite and irreconcil-
able quality, but good conduct of insufficient power.

Bad or evil conduct is, broadly speaking, the willful
doing of things injurious to others or to oneself. But
it is seldom indeed that evil is done for its own sake, even
by those condemned as bad. There is always some object
sought, which might, under some circumstances be per-
missible ; such as personal benefit or gratification, but which
is attained now by a course involving injury to others or to
oneself out of proportion to the benefit achieved.

It is easily seen that an early advantage, gained by con-
duct which entails later harmful consequences, is not to
be described as good, unless the benefit is greater than the
injury, and of course it is quickly perceived that a good
action may be at first involved with deprivation or injury,
which in the end will more than repay the loss, in its advan-
tages.

The desire to conceive and carry out action, with a true
estimate of its effects, so as to achieve a result primarily
desired, is the active guiding force in conduct, and the
need of regulating the conception and governing the action
justly, so that undesirable effects shall not occur is the
restraining force, and of this couple of forces a resultant
is sought, which shall take into consideration both ; not only
viewing the immediate act and the first results, but beyond
these, shall consider the long chain of consequences which
will or may follow.

Conduct II

An intelligent being conducting himself and governing
his actions by the highest motives, will still be limited, how-
ever, by his inability to foresee consequences beyond a certain
distance. This distance will be greater or less, according
to his mental power and experience. He will be limited
similarly, after he has more or less clearly conceived his
desire, in his knowledge of how to perform it; and again
in his physical capacity to execute the plans which he may
prepare. Yet, notwithstanding these limitations, the im-
pulse to action remains, and the restraining influence is
still felt, and action of some sort cannot be evaded, except
by taking refuge in a passive attitude. But passive inaction,
when activity would benefit it, must be a neglect of the
opportunity. Inaction in such cases evidently is to be
regarded as conduct. It involves responsibilities, just as seri-
ously as does activity. Therefore it becomes clear that it is
not possible for any individual to evade the demand for
conduct or to escape the consequence of conduct. Every
creature is confronted by life problems and facts presenting
questions which it may avoid by retreat, or may solve, or
may ignore. According to the course selected certain events
will occur, and they will be thus made different from what
they might have been, and in that difference there will arise
benefit or injury. The will and power used wrongly will
produce harm, and the neglect of their use may permit
harm. Equally true it is that the power rightly exercised
will induce benefits, and its neglect will let those benefits
pass by.

Upon these experiences and assumptions may be founded
a definition of conduct as the action and way of living of a

12 The Morality of Nature

creature having volition, in relation to other creatures and
to the universe. From this arises the axiom that the pur-
pose of conduct is to achieve advantages or benefits and the
postulate, good conduct is that which finally produces ad-
vantageous or beneficial results.

And a general definition of bad conduct may be that by
which the object desired is achieved at a cost of injury in
excess of its value.

And to this broad conception of the quality of the con-
duct as judged by its results, must be added, if the right and
wrong of voluntary action is to be considered, a regard for
the motives. Although the fundamental value and goodness
of conduct are decided by its actual success or failure, yet
in intelligent human beings who may be concerned in the
results there will be usually a consideration of the intention
at the bottom of the activity — human resentment of in-
jury will be less when it appears to be accidental and not
intended, and human resentment is one of the active forces
in the environment which every individual must regard.
Motive is one of the early stages of conduct, a preparation
for the activity which is to follow, and in an estimate of
rightness of action, motive or intention will be a factor to
modify the result.

And following this question of motive will appear others.
Is conduct, as right or wrong, compensated by anything
transcending the mortal life? If so, is the result, or the
motive, the criterion of right or wrong? And in natural
sequence arises the query — What is the way and manner of
compensation for conduct of right or wrong character?

Conduct 13

Answers to these questions can be found in natural and
demonstrable facts, apart from any dicta or dogma of
superior or inspired knowledge, in the results of conduct
good or evil according to its worth.

CHAPTER III

RESPONSIBILITY IN RELATION TO NATURE

Observation of life in any stage of organization will
show that the great priniciple upon which actual conduct is
based and in which its comprehension is to be sought is
Responsibility. Responsibility is the condition of liability
for the consequences of all action and inaction. Every event
or happening, whether of animate nature, or inanimate,
becomes a source or center from which successive events
arise, or from which these are influenced, by the primary
force; until, little by little, its effect ceases to be perceptible.
Even after that the impulse continues for a time, long or
short, or indefinite. For example, a boulder falling dis-
lodged by a storm, may block a stream and then may be-
come an obstruction or dam, and raise the stream's level
above it, so as to change the shores and even compel the
running water to take a new course around it, and this may
in turn cause erosion of a bank which will wash into the
water, and surcharge it with minerals; and from such a
change it may happen that soil of a certain kind is deposited
in a place where hitherto there has been only soil of other
kinds; and this deposit, being covered up, may become a
geological specimen to be preserved for ages by its burial.
It is evident that for some time to come this region would

14

Responsibility in Relation to Nature 15

be subject to many modifications arising from this natural
episode of a falling boulder.

The things which thus occur to inanimate nature are the
involuntary outcome of previous events, the necessary effects
of preceding causes. Inanimate nature is purely passive,
effect follows cause and becomes in turn new cause leading
to some other consequences. The action of living creatures
with will power, and desires, and freedom and force to
execute them, is exerted for the purpose of changing the
natural sequence of effects from their causes, and thus
shaping events more to the liking of the creature so acting ;
or for changing its own attitude toward such events in a
manner to modify the results to itself. Every living being
so exercising the privilege of intelligent life, each one who
interposes his action, and causes himself, or the current of
natural things, whether purposely or otherwise, to take a
course different from what it would have taken, (and to
modify a single thing is to modify the current of events) —
every creature doing the smallest act of volition, thereby
incurs a responsibility for the consequences of his act. This
responsibility is not the limited one which the word irre-
sponsible sometimes implies in human stipulation, bu^ is full
and complete and inevitable. There is no lessening of the
responsibility because of the lack of power of the indi-
vidual to bear it. This burden is to test the value of the
conduct in question by the exact result.

The purpose of man's conduct is to overcome the hostil-
ities of environment by right direction of his will and
power. He cannot annul these forces but he must meet
them. And in the privilege of thua opposing his will and

1 6 The Morality of Nature

act, and changing the world current for his own desires, "he
is not separated or emancipated from the world hostility.
He is still an item in the passive objects of nature, and as
such is subject to forces arising beyond his control, just
as was the rock, which in the previous example was described
as falling by natural accident. His responsibility includes
care for all such things, — his manner of opposing adverse
circumstances is just as much his conduct as is his manner
of meeting favorable conditions. His ability to modify
occurrences around him relieves him from the aggressions
of these occurrences only to the extent that he successfully
uses that ability. The rain will fall on him as it would on the
rock unless he secures shelter; the bank will slide beneath
him and deposit him in the stream, as mercilessly as it would
dispose of inanimate weight, if he remains in the place of
danger without opposing it by his power of action. His
place in nature is thus one of subjection to all the natural
laws and all their consequences, and he is equipped with an
organization of will and power, normally enabling him to
maintain his existence among these adverse conditions by
his active efforts, and he is liable to consequences of failure
if his efforts fall below the necessary efficiency. His sur-
roundings may become more adverse by accident or by
natural change, and he may have to increase his efforts in
order to prevent injury. Or conditions may become easier
and he may be benefitted, and may decrease his efforts.
But no such changes will afford him a cessation of effort.
Nature toward any creature stands as the hunting field of
life from which that creature must gather his needs by his
own work and at his own risk. His conduct in this quest

Responsibility in Relation to Nature 17

determines how much he receives and how long his par-
ticipation continues. It is evident that this responsibihty
governs not only mankind, but all living things from the
beginning of volition, and even earlier. There is a liabil-
ity to harmful occurrences in those most primitive lives
which have no will or intelligence and to which all events are
as accidents. The simple protozoon happening to be where
natural surroundings become unfavorable, and having no
alternative, dies or languishes while another similar crea-
ture nearby lives in prosperity. Without choice the latter
receives the beneficial consequences of his position although
not apparently merited as a result of action; and the other
dies, as if suffering a penalty for being in a place of
danger. Here although obviously no responsibility can
accrue in the moral sense later implied by the word, yet
relentless nature distributes life and death according to
facts which make it appear to be by hazard.

So too when a somewhat higher phase of life is in ques-
tion, and a primitive animal with some power of locomo-
tion seeks to escape a danger, yet fails; it seems to pay a
penalty for lack of speed, and however high in the scale
of life an organized creature may stand, it is liable to this
same destruction by catastrophe. Therein is seen that the
responsibility which begins with volition carries along
with it, the same primitive liability to destruction. It is only
lessened in degree because of the privilege of the dawning
will and power to move. This power lessens the danger
only a little, yet appreciably, and makes the creature more
fit to contend with its difficulties, and those more fit sur-
vive and those less fit are destroyed. This survival is the

1 8 The Morality of Nature

demonstration of the law of responsibility. For even in the
protozoon the power to move implies under certain condi-
tions the duty to move, and to move aright, and the responsi-
bility for moving aright, or not moving; and the manner of
meeting this responsibility is one of the beginnings of
conduct, the enforced law of living which tends to increase
benefits and reduce misfortunes according as it is good or
bad. The natural consequences of the conduct befall this
creature as inevitably for this simple decision, as they do the
most powerful beast or the most subtle human reasoner.
Higher in the scale of life, volition is seen to be much
more effective in enabling the creature to escape destruc-
tion or injury, for not only is the power to move more
effective, but many other capacities aid the animal in self-
preservation. The senses are acute, vision, even in early
development, assumes importance, and flight is thereby
made more effective, and hearing, taste and smell all warn
creatures of higher organization of danger. Armor, such
as shells, and cold resisting furs ; ponderous mass and
strength defend some against hurt, — and the use of these
things is always assisted by volition. The oyster shuts its
shell and opens it according to a judgment of its own, for
which it is responsible, and in which error may have seri-
ous consequences. And reascending the scale, some ani-
mals are found to be marvelously equipped in the higher
species. Birds which could not endure the rigors of a
frozen winter migrate to a warmer climate, affording a
wonderful example of the triumph of volition and power
for action over the catastrophe of nature. Beasts which
live in lands of hard winter contrive without migrating to

Responsibility in Relation to Nature 19

house and shelter themselves for that season. Insects which
singly might be impotent, practice the valuable aids of asso-
ciation and organization, and so on.

Where these habits prevail they are always exercised with
the same impulse for their use, which is self-preservation
and betterment, in short the achievement of benefits, the
neglect of which involves suffering, perhaps in the extreme.

These facts show plainly that responsibility for actions,
and liability for consequences, as the basis for conduct,
apply to life in all grades. It is evident that although the
higher animals endowed with superior intellect and powers,
can make a more effective contest against adverse circum-
stances and calamitous accidents ; yet the difference between
them and the lowest wielders of will is only of degree. The
original liabilities are not abolished, and the relief from
them is only conditional ; and it depends upon the use of
the greater powers, which necessitates greater wisdom.
The responsibility is of the same nature as before, but in-
volved in a more complicated form, and with opportunities
for greater service.

And continuing upward in the review of animal life
mankind is found in the same predicament. Even his
reasoning power and language, and historic memory and
mathematical forecast, have not made an end of his sus-
ceptibility to nature's injuries and still less to her cataclysms.
He earns his greater freedom, approaching immunity, by
cultivation and vigilant use of his abilities. The cessation
of his work speedily brings the end of his privilege. Heat
and cold and wet and wind ; or any one of them, abase him
as quickly as it would a worm without brains, when he

20 The Morality of Nature

fails to secure himself. So somewhere between the two
possible extremes, of his fullest preeminence, and his utter
extermination ; he stands in a place which is the consequence
of his free will and actions, of the sum of all the conse-
quences, of all his thoughts and deeds. This sum includes
motive only as part of the process of action. It is obviously
by results that conduct entails consequence.

These are simple facts clearly seen in nature and easily
expressed. From them may be deduced that at least in some
phases and cases conduct tends, even if it does not always
appear, to bring to pass its own compensation — in beneficial
results for good conduct and evil results for bad conduct.
The imperfect appearance at times of the truth of this rule
is due to a prevalence in many cases of confusing things
which do not really contradict it, but which are of un-
known values.

This obscurity is, however, of very great effect when
the conduct of highly organized creatures is considered.
And especially it is so when the complex activity of hu-
manity is concerned in the social units of many individuals.

Then there are impulses and actions so much involved
one with another that occurrences cannot be readily traced,
as effects of particular causes, and conduct cannot be
charged clearly with its proper results. It may then seem
that actions which should be considered bad according to
simpler experience, do in practice result beneficially to the
actor; and actions presumably good may appear to bring
injury. And in this apparent failure of the law previously
accepted, there is produced a doubt and sometimes even an
entire disbelief, of its effectiveness; so that a well inten-

Responsibility in Relation to Nature 21

tioned being finds himself convinced that there is in fact
no connection between the values of his conduct, according
to that standard; and the benefits or injuries produced by
it. At this point materiahsm seems to deny his dawning
moral belief and to destroy his ideals, whatever they were,
and to substitute nothing in their place except his own view
of merely individual preference.

It thus becomes necessary to try to unravel the tangle
of the many mixed actions by the many differently impelled
human units if we are to find any law governing them. And
it is natural to first investigate the instinctive belief in
morality, which is evidently a mixture of experiences and
of ideals, and to follow the inquiry in a supposition that the
old law of responsibility persists, even in this obscurity;
and that failure to perceive it is due not to its disappearance
but only to a lack of perception.

To formulate and emphasize a principle it is well to recite
axioms. In this way emphasis can be laid upon the fact
that the highest and latest rules are based upon the simplest
and earliest.

It appears then, that elementary conduct and principles
of conduct are necessary and common to all life, and are
persistent in more complex circumstances; and that simple
conduct of man and of complex creatures, is under the
same governance as equally simple conduct of earlier, or of
any creatures. The complexity appears to arise not as a
substitute for the simple, to displace it, but as an addition
to it, overlaying it without lessening, but rather increasing,
its former importance, when more is built upon it.

In studying collective conduct where many partake in

22 The Morality of Nature

activity and in consequences, many contradictions appear.
Some are real, and show opposing forces ; some are matters
of expression rather than of fact. For example, an act
done by one on behalf of another person may be said to in-
volve that other in the responsibility, and so to contradict the
theory of individual liability. Yet analysis shows that two
actions are then involved, first the original deed, which is
the act of the doer, although offered to the use of another;
and second, its rejection or acceptance by the other, which
is a separate act. The two individuals are thus responsible,
not jointly for one deed, but separately for two distinct
things. Every action which is applied toward a fellow
being, will thus involve him in a related act of conduct, but
not in the same kind of responsibility.

And so too when more than one individual is involved
in the joint perpetration of a deed, even if it is directed to-
wards inanimate nature for its object, there is finally a
fraction or an influence separately attributable to any one
of them, even if it is not capable of abstraction in words and
speech. It is clear that in nature where effects follow
causes; the thing that the individual actually does, is in
question as an operating cause. The deed counts, although
it may not have been intended, and although it may not be
itself discernible; and although it may be revealed only
imperfectly in the consequences at a later time. It must be
admitted as part of the proposition of liability that the true
extent and value of an action cannot always be susceptible
of expression, nay more, may not be discoverable now or at
any time, yet it may become clear that the action does pro-
duce its consequences, and that they balance the real account

Responsibility in Relation to Nature 23

with equity. This comprehension can (and does) arise in
a behef that the obscured operations of nature are under
laws which can be known in visible facts and can be thence
inferred as continuing. With this belief a rule is naturally
sought first in the primary facts because they are simple, and
is applied to the secondary and later happenings which are
complex.

The individual in the relation to inanimate nature, reveals
conduct in its elementary form. The use of energy guided
by volition of will against the inertia and momentum of
matter in the beginning neglects any considerations of duty
and morality or obligation except toward self. Such an
attitude is not in practice possible, yet it is a valuable con-
ception. It is an attitude based upon the theory scarcely
disputable that life must begin its contest with non-living
environment, before it becomes crowded enough to create
a contest with other life of its own kind.

The law of responsibility based upon this primitive atti-
tude of life towards inanimate nature, with self alone con-
cerned, is one of those standards persisting in which the
old principle is not displaced by complications, but only
qualified and further defined. The law thus found to cover
both man and microbe, is seen to be uniform and not any-
where inconsistent with higher law. There is more of the
higher later law applicable to the man, and less to the mi-
crobe ; so that the primitive is relatively less ; but what there
is of it for the small, is equally true for the great.

CHAPTER IV

RELATION TO ANIMATE NATURE

The study of the relations between an individual and
his animate surroundings, shows him involved in a com-
plex of restraints, yet still impelled by legitimate self-inter-
est as a fundamental motive. Conduct which provokes the
anger of associates is bad conduct because it is inexpedient
and conversely conduct which meets with general approval
is good conduct because it promotes success.

Animal existence is and must be maintained in contact
with animate nature as well as with inanimate. Animal
life depends for sustenance upon organic material and
food, and even the vegetable creation compels a view of, and
regard for, its community in character, different from those
due to inorganic matter and the so called elements. But
being without volition vegetable life is still almost passive
under the action of the animal, and although responsive, its
response involves him in no duties such as his fellow beings
impose. The share which these forces take in man's en-
vironment may amount to hostility but not to rivalry.

It is different in regard to other animals. An animal,
whether human or brute, is confronted by others of his own
kind, and by still more of other kinds, and their action to-
ward him is not passive. They evince desires as he does;

24

Relation to Animate Nature 25

some of them in competition with his; and their mutual
actions and reactions are much more interdependent than
those which arise in the passive creation.

Toward the individual initiating effort of any kind, the
animate life around him is still part of the general world;
of the environment or setting in which he maintains him-
self, but in this part there will be not the passive acceptance
of such of his acts as do not directly excite it, there will
arise an activity against him or for him which will strongly
affect his achievements. The opposition of a creature of
similar and equal powers, may balance and neutralize his
particular effort, or the cooperation of that creature, doubl-
ing the power, may make possible things which could not be
done alone. So that in estimating and counting the value
of any intention on the part of a living being there arises
the need to consider the opinion and probable action of
others who may be interested. And even in very lowly
orders of beings, where no moral duty can be lodged, there
is a necessary consideration for others which is brought
about by experience. A predatory insect will resent the
near presence of a rival when it has prepared a trap or a
web — and the other, knowing the consequences of inter-
ference, will retire from an intrusion which would result in
harmful quarrel. And so too, among associates, the desire
to share in spoil captured, is qualified and restrained even
among those of little intelligence, by the knowledge that the
possessor will fight, and so for fear alone possession is wisely
allowed to be ownership. This may be seen in the conduct
of creatures in regard to food, in different species and under
diverse conditions, where intelligence is small and no ethical

26 The Morality of Nature

sense could be looked for, so that this simpler explanation
forces itself. It is evidently to be ascribed to a respect for
the will and power of the other one, which is implanted in
the mentality of any individual who has been subjected to
repeated experiences proving that power. Observation
shows that such respect is acquired by the education and
memory of circumstances, when instinct does not provide
it; and when instinctive, it is simply the same education
transmitted by heredity from parents who learned it earlier.

Responsibility for an act is therefore seen to include a
liability not only for those consequences which it produces
as desired in passive nature, but also answerability to other
creatures who may resent the act, or on the other hand may
be delighted by it. But the simple statement of the prob-
lem, with only one or a few of other creatures involved, is
almost as theoretical as the idea of passive nature with no
fellows present. For in real life countless thousands of
creatures, of necessity participate in the consequences of
any act; and according to their various capacities they all,
from the microbe to the man, do their little or large share
in opposing or accelerating it.

A consideration of this joint interest of an unknown num-
ber of all creation in the act of one member is revealed by
the attitude of very simple creatures. The worm which
hides in a hole in the ground does so, not only to avoid the
sunshine, but to evade the hunter bird; for him to emerge
at inopportune time is dangerous and he knows it, and in
his method of life he takes account of birds, and of their
comings and goings, because a disregard for them would be
disastrous. And he does this with a fair degree of success

Relation to Animate Nature '^i

although his intelligence is very lowly. And in higher de-
gree, the bird in his turn considers his neighbors of all
species in arranging his way of living. He is as watchful
as the worm to evade enemies ; but having more intelligence,
he discriminates and does not flee from friends but will
learn to distinguish ofifences and favors. And in his gre-
garious life he continually yields way or gives up a share
of benefit when others of right demand it. And it is very
evident that the reason for all these things lies in a con-
sideration for the consequences of refusing, in other words
in a knowledge of harm likely to arise to him, not in a
knowledge of the morality, or even of the benefit, of his
conduct as conduct, but simply a regard for consequences
to him, of one act or another, which he remembers in the
past and considers for the present.

All this simple life which is so very familiar that its facts
are within the comprehension of children, shows the basic
facts concerning conduct, and their simplicity affords the
clearest demonstration of that principle of responsibility
which makes the individual answerable, even in matters
which are suggested for him or imposed upon him by
others, and in which others are also interested. So far as
his action, or his proportionate share in any action, is con-
cerned, he stands alone. All other creatures separate them-
selves from him and group themselves together with, and as
part of, the general scheme of nature which is his world
environment ; his setting in the universe. A wrong deed by
him will bring its penalty, and upon him it will fall ; a false
step may take him to destruction. And his fellows around
him, even those acting harmoniously and in joint benefit

28 The Morality of Nature

must have separate self -care, each one watching his own
risks and taking his own precautions. The preservation of
harmony has not removed the threats of a hostile environ-
ment, each still faces danger, with the power and need for
exertion so that he may survive separately, or by his partici-
pation in collective activity. In short he is responsible for
the consequences of his acts, and in the count of those con-
sequences there must be included the actions toward him
of his associates. The self -regarding motive of this con-
duct is not inconsistent with, and does not make it repugnant
to, those higher principles which moral ethics develop. They
are engrafted upon it to further it, not to overcome it. In
the conception of the duties of a mortal individual self there
is a confusion of ideas which will clear up only upon careful
analysis. Primitive conduct shows in its earliest forms a
type of self-love which is free from any stigma. There is
no other motive, until associated life confers benefits which
create a duty towards others. Then and not until then can
selfishness appear as an immoral or wrong motive. As it
thus begins, and as it continues in higher conduct, selfishness
is the disregard of the debt and obligation to others, which
exists simultaneously with the primitive duty to self. But
this primitive duty to self does not disappear then or at any
later time. It persists as the prime motive of life. It is
not selfish. It gives full due regard to others and only a
due regard to self, while selfishness has undue regard for
self. There is no clearly recognized word in the language
for this motive, and the lack is one of the causes of mis-
understanding. The word self-love makes the proper dis-
tinction from "selfish," of conduct seen in the light of the

Relation to Animate Nature 29

due regard for self, distinguished from selfish conduct which
has undue regard for self. This proper element in the con-
duct motive may be called self regard. In the beginning
self regard and selfishness are one and the same. The
fundamental purpose is for self and the primitive animal
impulse is absolutely and simply selfish because it is utterly
ignorant of the presence or existence of other factors than
the direct first desire, and in the effort at the execution of
this desire it is in the beginning unreasoning and unwaver-
ing. It succeeds or fails. It is only later in gregarious life
that there develops a perception of something more. When
growing and crowding life brings creatures of common
origin into actual contact, there is enforced and imposed
upon those creatures mutual relations of some kind. The
necessity of living in contact compels some modification of
the independence. If the ancestral community of purpose
continues it will organize these separated individuals into a
cooperative unit which practices the primal self-regard as
a whole, but in so doing limits the right of self in its mem-
bers. The two kinds of self appear, one applying to the
racial life in brotherhood, and the other to the single indi-
vidual. If the single individual now persist in a regard
for self alone, aggression arises, and thus two types of
relationship begin. But even when the persisting individual
self becomes unduly selfish there is a continual corrective
influence which may preserve at least partial harmony.

The opposition of another activity which is provoked by
a distasteful act begins to be taken into account as a factor
to be considered. The intended action, it then appears,
must be so taken as to avoid such opposition. The original

30 The Morality of Nature

sense of responsibility for one's own success or failure,
which still prevails, prompts a desire to conciliate or defer or
modify the action. Some of its benefits may be given up in
order to attain a portion. Or action in concert may be
taken so that if several are concerned each does part and
all are gratified. And so arises a sense of duty to others to
the extent of recognizing the others force; and perceiving
the value of mutual support. This evidently is not in the
beginning a result of human moral impulse or of a high
intelligence, for even where the organism is of so low a type
that anything like declared agreement is impossible, yet
obviously disagreement which impedes the business in view
is so injurious that both may suffer. Then in comparative
or competitive life the peaceable would benefit more and live
longer than the needlessly disputatious, and so among the
most unintelligent creatures there would develop a more
harmonious life by the operation of the law of survival,
without any conscious sense of harmony or of duty.
Again self-interest appears as the motive. The beginning
of duty is in self-interest. Fundamentally the con-
duct is good or bad for no other reason than that
it benefits the individual. Still this benefit is what consti-
tutes its goodness, and when the individual becomes asso-
ciated with others, even in the intimate relations of human
social organization and family ; the principle does not change,
for although several may participate in joint action as an
enlarged self and in that part have joint responsibility, yet
each also remains, in regard to other parts of the conduct,
in opposed attitude toward the others, separated from them
with his special share of consequences in which they may not

Relation to Animate Nature 31

share. It must not be supposed that this argument denies
the rightness of altruistic acts — on the contrary unselfish
conduct is often of the highest benefit to the doer as well
as to the intended beneficiary. It facilitates cooperation and
organization for united action. It is in fact an activity of
the larger associated unit, working to the advantage of that
unit, even when to the sacrifice of the individual.

But even in the higher phases of conduct when the
mystery of altruism is concerned there remains apparent the
isolation of the individual in his own aura and in the meshes
of his own web of consequences, from which even love
and self-sacrifice, cannot remove him. Individual responsi-
bility is seen to be at the base of the law of conduct and
to persist in its entire structure.

CHAPTER V

INDIVIDUALITY

The facts which show clearly the simple individual im-
pulses and motives, and the immediate consequence in bene-
fit or loss, of the conduct of creatures of primitive type,
have their parallels in the fundamental life action of higher
animals. It is true of man, as of the lowest creatures, that
to continue existence he must procure and absorb food,
and in doing so must exercise proper care for its suitability.
Just as the shell fish would suffer for an error in this
regard, so would the man suffer. For the shell fish this
may be nearly the whole business of his life, and the chief
of his impulses; and may thus inspire nearly all of his con-
duct, while for the man it may be but one motive among
a thousand others ; yet it is evident that the addition of all
the other motives has not lessened the force of this primitive
one. It is almost surprising that the most advanced in-
tellectual life is still so thoroughly subject in such an un-
mitigated way to this early obligation of animalism, and to
others as imperative, which the philosopher still shares with
the frog. It becomes apparent that the direct personal
responsibility; the opportunities to profit, and the liabilities
to suffer, by individual action, remain unavoidable factors
of conduct, even when a complex system of other action
has been added.

32

Individuality 33

Humanity prompted by generosity and by all the virtues ;
or by greed and all the vices; may confuse the issues of im-
pulses, so that responsibility for action is hopelessly ob-
scured, yet there will certainly continue that undercurrent
of essential indispensable life action, which the principle of
direct personal self-interest still governs, although obscured
by the other considerations. Selfish conduct may be masked
in circumstances so complex as to seem to make the doer
superior to the consequences of wrong doing, but it is really
still under the same law. It may be readily observed that
to those of dull perception it seems easy to evade responsi-
bility, while to others more intelligent, it is revealed that
evasion is less easy. The sense of responsibility thus seems
to be often a question of the degree of mental power to
unravel the web of future effects. As soon as the reasoning
capacity is equal to an understanding of any given chain
of events, responsibilty is again revealed. But it must be
admitted that there will always be in human action a power
to evoke circumstances greater than the power to understand
them, a power to do and cause, greater than the ability to
foresee effects. And in this limitation there often lies the
erroneous belief that at times things can be done which will
result, not as they ought, but as they are willed. It must
be admitted, that individuals can and do escape in this
manner, consequences, as far as they see them, and to that
degree and distance they may be exempt. At a later stage
the small value of this apparent success will be more evident.
The apparent evasion of the primitive rule in a confusion
of others is satisfactory only to the intelligence of limited
view.

3

34 The Morality of Nature

To form a conception of the individual nature of the
conduct of several creatures, a separation of an act into
parts may be imagined. For example, the recipient of an
assistance rendered by another, acts himself in accepting the
help, and in the manner of acceptance and in the degree of
wisdom in it. If one person acting for himself gives alms
and stands accountable for so doing, the other person, he
who received them, has acted too for himself and with
entirely different responsibility. He may have begged with
falsehood or with cowardice, or. on the other hand, he may
have only, by misfortune, lost his independence, and may
have been honest and reluctant in taking aid. These are
matters of his conduct, and for them the giver is not
answerable.

A^ain in the case of what mav be called controlled con-
duct, a man may be nearly powerless to choose his course,
by reason of his subjection to forces administered by others,
and vet he mav be responsible for his previous actions, by
which he allowed himself to become thus subject to control.
If a man is compelled by his association with others to com-
mit an act commonly considered criminal, when he knows
better, and is disinclined, he may possibly be in part ab-
solved of that act, but clearly he might still be chargeable
with error in having joined that association. The impelling
influences of others will often make them the apparent
authors of a controlled action which is to be considered as
at least partially chargeable to the individual because of his
lack of independence. In such cases the control is really
only a certain portion of that surrounding universe, the
hostile environment against which the individual must con-

Individuality 35

tend; his failure to meet its attacks being his own risk.
If a man yield to the temptations of vicious company and
indulge in excesses to the neglect of useful work, it is
apparent that he will bear in his body the consequent loss
of health and fortune just as if he had chosen the conduct.
His case in yielding to the temptation is not materially
different from that of another man who is tempted to
indolence by inanimate nature, by luxurious sunshine and an
enervating climate. It is at his own risk that he encounters
these inducements — they are outside of him and around
him and whether of human origin or otherwise, his conduct
when he meets them is his own affair, although a share of
the responsibility for developing such conditions may rest
upon others.

Similarly if one man commit a direct crime against an-
other, robbery for example, we have in regard to the robber
a thing done by him for which he is responsible for himself,
not, be it observed, solely to his victim, but, through the
laws of nature, to all nature and to himself. It is his
responsibility, his deed, and he is answerable for it and
for the consequences. The man robbed unites with his
peace loving neighbors and collectively they assail the rob-
ber and destroy him. But immediate consequences fall upon
the victim who is robbed. Here is a distinction less easy
to define. The victim, has, in the operation of non-psycho-
logical nature, no remedy against the other, however just
his claim may be under moral or human laws. He is him-
self answerable for the way in which he wards off all such
antagonisms, and secures compensation. This robber is one
of the adversities to be fought just as are disease and storm.

36 The Morality of Nature

In fact, the robber's action is a crime, only if, and because,
he is a member of a society or a race, in which property, as
a right, has been estabhshed by mutual agreement. It is
no crime for a vulture to take part of the prey of another,
nor for the shepherd to take the fleece from his sheep, nor
for a starving tiger to attack a man. Injury to the victim
does not alone constitute the criminality of an act. There
is no crime unless the motive and knowledge of the doer is
criminal, and no wrong unless the injury is opposed to duty.
Even then the situation of the victim is essentially the same,
whether crime, or accident, or natural impulse, have brought
about the event. The conduct of an assailant may provoke
resentment and he may be overwhelmed in retributive jus-
tice; yet the conduct of his victim may not even be involved
in that chain of circumstances. The victim, however great
the consequence of the crime may be, is not thereby re-
instated. He is injured as he might have been by wild
beasts, and his conduct is in question in the same way as it
would then have been, which is in regard to his efforts to
save himself, and their effective value and goodness. His
conduct is in question. Under this stress of circumstances
with what ability does he act and with what measure of
success? He was an individual, isolated in responsibility
and situated in an adverse hostile world, and the assailant
was in a separate isolation with a different environment.
The two were in no sense participants in single or similar
conduct where the penalizing of one must be a compensa-
tion to the other.

Any action to be reviewed as an effect of conduct must
therefore be viewed from a different standpoint for each

Individuality 37

individual concerned. To the doer only, or a participant,
it involves responsibility as a prime act. To any other of
the objects of the deed it is one of the incidents of the out-
side world, of his environment, and to any such, the ques-
tion of conduct develops, not on the lines of the deed, but
on the lines of his attitude toward it.

In this is seen that natural responsibility involves no
scheme of restitution until higher phases of morality appear.
Responsibility as the thing is meant here is with the doer,
the consequences which fall upon others may be resented by
them, and by a new activity may be brought back upon the
original doer, by action and conduct of the victims, not in
an undoing of the first act — that is impossible — but in an
execution of secondary acts to compensate those whose
interests were affected, or whose impulses were provoked.
It is incumbent upon him who is injured to find allies and
organize with them for the remedying of the injury.

Assuming then the expediency of calling all the effects
of conduct consequences, there arises the need of separately
classifying those effects which are to be considered as repre-
senting the interests of humanity and of nature at large as
opposed to the individual. These effects may be called
compensations. The results of selfish volition, it has been
seen, often involve others in their consequences. And the
securing of compensations by those affected are to be re-
garded as secondary effects of the original conduct which
react upon the doer to his disadvantage and regulate the
conduct and give origin and effect to law.

The man who has been robbed unites with his peaceloving
neighbors and they agree to aid each other in securing their

38 The Morality of Nature

proper possessions. Together they overwhelm the wrong-
doer in the name of justice and if possible restore the stolen
property or other damage. And so the selfish individual
finds himself in an environment artificially hostile and if
his intelligence gives him clearness of view he is restrained
from his selfishness.

CHAPTER VI

ASSOCIATED RESPONSIBILITY

In the primitive natural view conduct appears as good
or bad only in a comparative sense. It is first judged in
proportion to the benefit or injury secured by the acting
individual; and any one action may be good or may be bad
according to its effect, which will depend upon environment
as well as upon its initial character. There is in this evi-
dently no absolute of goodness or badness, nor even any
possibility of recognition of a fixed standard of virtue ; nor
any ground for a grouping of acts into the two classes of
good and evil. It is at first all a question of expediency.
The moral law has not any visible force in these conditions.
But these conditions pertain only to a life solitary in a
sphere of action. Such a life is possible only in a transitory
condition, yet it is just in this transitory phase that the
principle develops which underlies moral conduct. The
lowest life principle begins in a solitude of unconscious-
ness from which consciousness dawns, having only respon-
siveness akin to chemical reaction, without volition, and
being far below the possession of intention or will. And
when these things, volition and will, become evident, there
also appears as a thing simultaneously established, the asso-

39

40 The Morality of Nature

ciated life of others, which is a necessary accompaniment
or condition to their development. The fundamentally
selfial principle of the conduct survives; it is never super-
seded and can never be evaded and never ignored; but the
self principle is overlaid by other requirements, which, be-
cause of their radical difference of origin maybe to be
styled opposing principles. The question of right and wrong
conduct for creatures living in company include, as has been
seen, not only those of wise or unwise attitude toward the
outer world, considered as a hostile environment, but others
having in view good or bad relations with the associated
company, which may lead to a better achievement in the
advantages of joint action instead of opposed action.
Courses are changed for these reasons from directly self-
ish motives to selfial ones indirectly selfish and partly co-
operative. They are still adopted, however, as a means to
an end; and that end is self-satisfaction; now desired for
a community, but still the same one sough., m the primary
impulse of the individual who had regard solely to his own
benefit. His activities are however now linked with those
of others, in such a way as to obscure the issue, and in this
obscurity it may become difficult to believe that the old
principle continues in force. It seems at times, in human
consideration, that self-preservation is sin, and self-sacrifice
is virtue, and that right and wrong divide on these lines.
The issue is thus confused in the multiplication of impulses.
The beginning of the new element can always be seen, be-
cause it is perpetually renewed. The earliest stages of con-
duct can be seen in operation today as at the dawn of
ethical law. The forms in which will is newly achieved; and

Associated Responsibility 41

the associated life newly accomplished, are always in sight;
and in them conduct appears to take form anew. We may
review in lower life now the same evolution in which our
own arose. We may see first mere impulse arising in cir-
cumstances which impel a sensitive organism, and cause it
to react in volition; and then, by survival of the best kind
of conduct, volition appears which is distinctly selective,
and restrains activities again to things usually acceptable to
others. There is in these preferences a frequent giving up
of suggested acts which would be unsupported by fellows
or distasteful to them ; and a favoring or adoption of other
acts because though less desired they are approved by those
associated. The sacrifice of one's own choice is made be-
cause the energy needed to persist in it has been found too
great to make the result profitable to the individual — and the
accord is given because the act in question can be done with
smaller expenditure of power. Now this agreement is seen
operating in very primitive life without consciousness of
its advantage, or even of its existence. This grade of con-
duct does not need a perception of benefits. It does not
need even highly developed instinct, such as that of the
migrating swallow, to organize the first racial association;
and still less does it need the disciplinary habits of the deer
or wild cattle or wolves. In these animals the question of
motive is likely to be confused only a little less than in man
and to be attributed incorrectly to a dawning reasoning
power. To see the purer, clearer source of this social motive
a still lower intellectual capacity should be studied. Observe
for example a shoal of little fish, so young that they have
scarcely got their definite fishlike form. They exhibit,

42 The Morality of Nature

already well developed, an instinct for associated life and
for agreement and for concerted action. Even this is not
the lowest life in which such harmony could be studied, for
such habits begin in the lowest creatures as soon as pros-
perity causes crowding ; and prevail wherever such crowding
continues. But in a creature like the fish we find an en-
lightening study because the habit exists clearly established
with a very low order of intelligence (especially low in the
young of fish). And there it is combined with a well-de-
veloped physical structure easily observed. Everyone knows
the life of those little inch long things. They appear in
shoals which show continual losses ; they are chased by larger
fish and their weaklings are caught. They swim into shallow
water and frequent the shores, evidently to avoid these
enemies; and doubtless to find suitable food for themselves.
But in all their vicissitudes they keep together, not apparently
because of any distinct control or leadership, since, however
much the shoal may be broken up into smaller groups, each
group never fails of the instinct to move collectively. It is
clear that the desire for action in agreement is mutual and
common to all. Yet some leadership is shown in each group,
a natural result of inequality in the general effort. Move-
ment is chiefly flight for self-preservation, and in this flight
the swiftest naturally come to the front, and, as naturally,
the others follow. The appointment of a leader is automatic,
but the act of following is instinctive. But observe the
obedience of this instinctive impulse. All follow to the ut-
most of their ability. And when some fail through acci-
dent or impotence, and lose the desired contact, those who
thus separate, if more than one, still look to and follow

Associated Responsibility 43

someone promoted by new circumstance to the conspicuous
place. In all this motion there is little interference. Each
one in turn yields a little to prevent collision. There is har-
monious concerted action. Assume in one individual an
occasion to act alone and selfishly, or better observe one
when accident causes such a separation. The solitude is
evidently distasteful and unpleasant and the greatest effort is
made to recover company.

Now this characteristic love of the society of one's kind
seen simply in this lowly grade is evident at some times or
ages in various degrees of development in all grades of
animal life, and a little reflection will show that it is the
broad early expression of a great principle of association
which persists into the higher life as the foundation of al-
truism. In man the instinct is notably strong, as might be
expected of a race individually defenceless and weak. In
the higher brutes it characterizes the non-combative species
and even some aggressive kinds. The cattle and deer and
fowls, and insects such as bees and ants, show many gre-
garious developments. Observe how all of them will form
a crowd for instinctive purpose and follow a leader little
known and chance appointed, and failing him, will follow
another. Or note how in the deeper motives, men physically
situated in separation and apart ; are still prone to be guided
by the intellectual influence of such as find themselves, or
put themselves, in front; sometimes as in the case of the
fishes, with more readiness than discretion. And see how
all the other creatures of this habit, horses and wasps, dogs
and sparrows, all actively keep the same association impulse
and live by it. Evidently it is a persistent impulse as well

44 The Morality of Nature

as an early one. On the other hand there are animals
notoriously averse to it. Certain species of the carnivora
are in this aversion most conspicuous. Their only associ-
ating instincts seem to be those incidental and necessary to
the sexual and the reproductive habits. They enjoy but a
minimum of its benefits, but still these creatures serve to
show the universality of the instinct, for even they do not
dispense with it. They show its least development, but not
at all its negation.

The aggressive species of animals, in their system of con-
duct, and the aggressive groups among animals whose sys-
tem is mixed, illustrate again the fact that the old primary
necessity of self-preservation and self -maintenance also per-
sists. The idea of self is not removed ; it is extended. The
extension of the conception of self changes so that it includes
others in a larger unit. This is the principle of association
which makes a new standard of conduct and gives a clue to
the understanding of the mystery of altruism. The theory
of it is very different from that idea that self as the evil
interest must be suppressed; and that self-abnegation is
a virtue in the abstract. Such a notion is an over reaching
ideal which is seen to be false. It is not supported by ob-
servation of actualities. In the test of real life experience
refutes perpetually that assumption. What the facts of
life seem to show is that as associated life advances there
develop two units of action, the unit of separate or indi-
vidual action which continues but becomes restricted to
certain things ; while other matters concern the new enlarged
unit of many associates, in other words a new self which
includes a number (continually growing) of cooperating

Associated Responsibility 45

creatures. But even these are still, as in the original primary
self, standing in opposition to a hostile world, and each of
them is still justified in, nay more dependent on, efforts to
overcome its hostility by the self -preserving activities.

CHAPTER VII

ELEMENTARY MORALITY

We have seen that in the beginning gregarious beings
organize in the larger units of cooperating numbers, simply
because this course is more beneficial and because it favors
and promotes those who practice it.

But when among such creatures, the system is definitely
settled and all are committed to that way of living, then an
individual who profits by the joint conduct comes under
obligations to the community, and loses his original right
of isolated selfish actions. There is not only a benefit for
himself which induces him to act in common with others
in regard to present action, but there is advantage to him
already acquired by the association and enjoyed by him,
which it is his duty to compensate by supporting that system.
Now if he could become aware of that obligation, and could
then act according to it, that would evidently be a simple
phase of moral conduct. But in animals of intelligence so
small as to be unaware of their own motives, such conduct
must be moral in a different way if it is moral at all. A
little consideration will show that conduct may be moral
according to the proper meaning of the word irrespective
of whether the actor is aware of the reasons for it or of
the benefit in it. In man conscientious action opposed to

46

Elementary Morality 47

probability of selfish advantage is counted moral although
it may be, and often is, purely instinctive. Therefore similar
instinctively right conduct on the part of the animals de-
serves to be called moral in its own degree. And when this
view is accepted the beginning of morality can be clearly seen
in certain inferior creatures, who unconsciously found such
morality in an instinctive obedience to an impulse which is
present in them because it has been proven advantageous to
their ancestors and has established certain habits.

To return to observation, consider the situation and action
in life, of a swallow, a creature whose conduct is highly
instructive ; and is available because known to nearly every-
body. The swallow is defenceless, small, weak and sensitive,
yet highly developed, beautiful, graceful, sociable, devoted
to duty, affectionate, and may be fairly called moral in the
degree of morality which is instinctive. Swallows organize
in great communities for migration, and settle in their
territory in amity, yet not without disputes for desirable
home sites. Then they pair in admirable partnership, two
individuals working devotedly in the hard work of building
a home, relieving the labor with gaiety of demeanor and
with song; and in time of trouble, when they most need
cheer, they know how to keep it. Time spent in watching
them is not wasted, nor is the work of telling of it. There
is nothing more instructive in a search for the principles of
conduct, than the actions which produce a swallow's nest
and brood in the spring time. First the place is tentatively
chosen because it is liked, but is not hastily adopted. It is
discreetly tested by several days of visiting and scrutinizing,
and by night watches in the proposed spot itself. Then, if

48 The Morality of Nature

it seems to be free from danger (and friendly humanity is
not counted dangerous) the work begins; and hour after
hour, Httle by little, the materials are brought by miles of
flight, with hours of work, and with singing and feeding
moments in between. And something in their relations with
their fellows protects the work of these birds when they are
absent; and something gives them the advantage of amity
with other birds who live nearby. When they are at home
or when they are out on a joint quest, their property is
sacred; the moral sense prevails among them and most of
their bird friends in a very high degree. The two are ready
with devotion unlimited to fight in defense of the nest
against any assailant. The whole colony, less devotedly
perhaps, but still with self-sacrifice, will fight for their
people's territory. Communal ownership of territory and
individual ownership of a home, with consequent rights of
property are facts established. Instead of that imperfect
morality which fails to stigmatize robbery or assault, which
prevails among some creatures of higher intelligence; these
have well-marked distinctions of this kind, none the less
moral because they are elementary. But these little folk
are utterly unconscious of their motives. In this uncon-
sciousness they enjoy decision; they are free from the
confusion which often befogs reasoned conduct. They do
naturally whatever they do. They do it unhesitatingly and
promptly; and when it succeeds, as it generally does, it is
convincingly right. The work continues into the labors of
parenthood and the impressive lesson continues in the moral-
ity of the associated action, as seen in the pair working with
self-sacrifice almost to the limit of endurance and risk, and

Elementary Morality 49

as seen in the family relations of those who were reared
here last season and who now reluctantly are made to
find their separate, but nearby places, and as seen in the
clan relations of those who only slightly know one another,
and who will collect their new families and migrate together.
This conduct is moral in the best sense of the word, except
only for self-knowledge. Yet we see still persisting in it
the primitive altitude of self-defence against externals. Here
is a life of peace, yet the fight is ever ready. Here self is
lost sight of in duty and affection, yet remembered in an
instant with a narrower or wider significance, including one
or two or perhaps a dozen individuals, when externals
become hostile. Is it not clear that this conduct is of the
same nature as human conduct ; and that the latter is higher
only by the superposition of laws one upon another, the
complex on the simple, the advanced upon the rearmost.
The swallows' conduct differs from that of lower life, by
added law, and not by any reversal or extinction of laws
or of the principles of law.

Compare the conduct under like circumstances of a human
being. Grant that his intellect is not only more advanced
in capacity, but comprehends mental processes different in
nature from those of the swallow, notably that conscious
contemplation of his own existence and of his mind and
workings; and a foreknowledge by inference, from observa-
tion of conduct and of some of its consequences. But in all
this is it not true that the causes and motive which prompt
the swallow also prompt the man, that they produce in him
effects and action similar in nature, although affected by
new conditions? This is exactly the same need of, and

50 The Morality of Nature

use for, labor and devotion; and they are applied in
the same way for the same purposes; although civilization
may invent and append certain modifications of law, and
arrange the exchange of labor, and the transfer of it, and
of property, between individuals. All that simply means
that in the simpler life a duty must be done, and in the
complex its doing may be procured instead, which is clearly
an extension again of the conduct unit and not an annul-
ment of the principle. And again in the establishment of
the obligation to respect property rights by which the
swallows enjoy the use of their nests undisturbed by their
own kind (though not, be it marked, by all nature) there
is evident in rudimentary form the same principle which
underlies the property conventions of man.

Now if human action is so closely related to that action
of lower nature, human conduct is presumably governed by
laws fundamentally similar, but extended to meet new
conditions. Such similarity and extension would still permit
of the coexistence of laws entirely apart from those of
nature, that is to say of supernatural laws, yet these need
not have the efifect of nullifying the natural law common to
all creatures; on the contrary the supernatural might be
of higher effect and yet still operate in the same direction
as the natural. There is no ground for a supposition that
supernatural law must be violated by including man under
natural law. The inclusion of humanity and nature gener-
ally in the same law and under the same administration of
it; suffering the same consequences and compensations to
attain similar benefits, does not preclude the possibility of
the assumption that man also enjoys a distinct and separate

Elementary Morality 51

privilege in regard to a knowledge of supernatural existence.
Such an existence and such a privilege are not the subjects
of this study except to observe whether they overrule the
natural law to such an extent as to reverse or annul it,
and that does not seem to be the case. Although there are
many things in which supernatural or Divine control appears
to act by means not in accord with natural law, these are
exceptional, and it seems that these exceptions, even if
their truth be admitted, are inadequate to show a reversal
or annulment of natural law. The mast that they appear
to show is a misunderstanding of or a temporary suspension
of, or emancipation from, established rules, and they only
reinforce the strength of these rules by the surprise caused
in the interference.

Therefore it is necessary to accept as evidently true the
proposition that human conduct, although differing from
that of inferior nature, and enjoying privileges under laws
higher in grade, is still subject to fundamental laws of lower
grade, which govern and include humanity in the same
scheme with the rest of the universe. Thus the former
assumption that earlier laws persist and are supplanted but
not superseded is again supported. And it becomes clear that
the foundation of morality of the unconscious, instinctive
kind, lies in its usefulness and benefit; first for the indi-
vidual who secures in it support and assistance, and second
for the newer and larger units of activity which are the
associations of families or groups, which find themselves
flourishing because they have cultivated a system of co-
operation.

In this original purpose human conduct is of the same

52 The Morality of Nature

law and nature and origin as animal conduct. And human
morality is the same as the simple morality of the swallows.

But in attributing morality to creatures not conscious of
duty we provoke the question; How do they come to do
these things and to do them so well ? They are so usual that
they seem to be unavoidable; yet a moment's thought will
recall that many animals lack this degree of associative
capacity. Why do these birds, without conscious foresight,
prepare for eventualities so wisely? Why do they act so
harmoniously in the things where harmony is valuable, and
so independently where independence is good? These
actions are not the result of mere accident. Other things in
their experiences have doubtless prompted injurious in-
stincts. Among the good events some have happened which
were not so good and these have not persisted among them.
Sometime fighting has happened, why is that now so in-
frequent and harmony so frequent.

Briefly these good habits, which arise first as variations
of simpler behavior are retained because they prove bene-
ficial; and are then cultivated by use for the same reason;
and are made general and permanent by the processes of
natural selection ; and survival of the fittest whose fitness is
in the adoption and use of these beneficial methods. A
discussion of beneficial variation of conduct is to be found
in special studies, and so will not be undertaken here. At
present, however, it is necessary to observe and inquire into
that operation of nature by which the beneficial habits of
living things are preserved against the interruption of
Death. The conduct based upon experience could not con-
tinue and become habitual from one generation to another

Elementary Morality 53

except for a principle putting these generations into a sort
of continuity of life and conduct.

Such a principle is heredity and its general process and
function must be appreciated in order to arrive at an
understanding of the law of conduct.

CHAPTER VIII

HEREDITY

The fact that in forms of life lower than the human,
and lacking conscious perceptions of cause and effect, there
exists and operates a system producing moral conduct,
yet not dependent upon instructive leadership, nor upon a
law given in revelation, invites further inquiry as to the
origin of such system. The same source supplies similar
inspiration to all grades of life. Doubtless it supplies it
with fullest effects in the highest grades, although the
clearest view of it is to be found in the lowest, where the
causes reveal themselves more directly.

And so again to seek a truth in its simplest phase, know-
ing that its essence is the same there as elsewhere, let obser-
vation recur to the simple gregarious animals which live in
amity, instinctively associating in groups, and acting in
concert, and rejoining the organized groups when sepa-
rated, and evidently obeying a sense of obligation in that
conduct. Why do they do it? It has been noted that it is
a survival of conduct which has been preferred or promoted,
by a natural method of selection for fitness. But that is
an incomplete explanation. How do the young of a new
generation come to perform these beneficial actions. They
are endowed with the instinct for them when too young to

54

Heredity 55

have learned wisdom by experiences. Their habits are
seen to be estabhshed before they have come near to an
enemy. It is clearly a qualification received before birth,
something given by the parents along with the physical
body, in short an inherited instinct ; a transmitted knowledge
acquired by generations of ancestors and not originated
anew by these young but only maintained by their own
circumstances. It becomes necessary for this study, that
the general law of heredity be considered, and reviewed in
a general way. It must be explained, without an extended
recital of authority, that a form or habit or ability can be
thus passed down from parent to offspring in well developed
form. Omitting here the proofs, which are fully given in
works accessible to any reader, it is desirable to present a
clear conception of this important fact of nature, because it
is a fundamental element of the law of conduct. Therefore
a few familiar examples may be noted.

Observe the activities of a brood of chickens newly
hatched. These little creatures have none of that helpless
infancy, during which some other birds and young animals
have to learn how to eat, how to walk, and even how to see.
The blind kitten and puppy need to learn these things under
the parents' tuition, but the chicken we see step from the
shell with open eyes, and in a few minutes acquire the
ability to balance itself upon a single foot, and to distinguish
and pick up food. These abilities may need a stimulus, as
of the food, to prompt the function, but the powers are
there well formed and transmitted by ancestors, some of
whom, in the earlier remote past, first learned how to do
these things. The more slowly developing dog, when he

56 The Morality of Nature

begins to run about, shows at once the watching aptitudes
for which his race is admired. The young cat, before it
has seen an animal suitable for prey, will crouch and creep
in consummate practice of the style of attack of the natural
hunter. These things make heredity self evident. We may
simply know that the capacities are inherited by these
animals, because they do them easily, just in the way that
their parents did; while some other creatures cannot do
them until laboriously taught.

These examples of heredity illustrate abilities which may
fairly be called recent when compared with other powers of
such animals. They are quoted first because their newness
shows cause and effect nearly connected. It may be noted
easily in regard to new habits, that they are evidently used
by the new generation for purposes discovered or invented
by some ancestor, who lived in the conditions which made
them useful. The chicken is a good example of recent
variation. It is one of a species of animals which generally
has the power of flight, and therefore is able and accustomed
to nest in trees, difficult of access to most enemies. But it
appears that when certain species of fowls under man's
protection nearly lost the power of flight by disuse, and
were compelled to nest in places accessible to snakes and
rats and such enemies, there was evidently a great dis-
advantage in the helplessness of slowly maturing nestlings.
The sooner they could stand and run the better their chance
of survival. In a nest of several fledglings those slow to
acquire this strength were often lost and those quickest
survived. Now these stronger running birds would produce
stronger running offspring because of the simple law of

Heredity 57

heredity by which the offspring is patterned after the parent.
This law is still a mystery in its workings, but its effects are
well known. The effect upon one generation, of weeding
out of weaklings as above noted, would perhaps be small,
but when the same process is repeated generation after
generation that effect accumulates rapidly.

This fact is well known to breeders and fanciers of fowls
who are able to take peculiar individuals, such for example
as those of a special coloring, and by accumulating the
selection through many generations to make it pronounced
and fixed. This is easily understood. It is however a little
more difficult to comprehend that every form in existence,
and every capacity, and every habit of life is originally the
result of a building up of such small acquirements. Yet
this is the fact and it must be realized. The principle of
heredity not only takes care of the transmission of the
recently fixed things; but it is the director of the oldest of
the old characters. Therefore the constancy in type of the
whole bodily structure of any animal is due to heredity.
For example, a horse always possesses hoofs, which are
practically single-toed feet; it never is found with five-toed
feet, with claws like a tiger's. Yet the five-toed form is
just as usual in nature. And similarly each part of an
animal's equipment, body and limbs or wings, and lungs,
or gills, or whatever they may be, are always proper ac-
cording to the equipment of its ancestry. All this seems to
be necessarily so, but that seeming is only because it is con-
stantly so. Why should not horses be born with five-toed
feet with claws or with two or five legs? Trees of any
species grow with varying number of branches, one with

58 The Morality of Nature

ten and another with seventeen or more, according to
environment. Why does not environment produce in a horse
or cow such variabiHty in the matter of legs? It is simply
because the mechanism of heredity holds the young to the
pattern of the ancestry. It is well known that it is because
all the form, and all its attributes, size, shape, material and
all others are minutely regulated, controlled and governed
by a heredity principle which is marvellously exact. And
although we are generally more interested in the vagaries of
heredity, that is to say in the transmission of unusual things,
it is really in the common repetition of forms and patterns
in the constancy of a usual type, that heredity is so
wonderful.

Heredity enables a creature to produce offspring patterned
after itself, and its recent ancestors, with constancy of type
and without loss of any valuable and settled acquisition,
and yet enables it to abandon slowly anything which by
long disuse has proven certainly useless.

The qualities and abilities acquired under the stimulus of
environment are thus secured to the race by the principles
of heredity. In humanity and in most of the animal species
these effects are distributed and equalized among all the
individuals of a species by the action of sexual propagation.
Without this a difference or improvement acquired by the
variation of one individual would remain in the offspring
of that individual and would not affect the offspring of any
other. But by the dual origin of character in sex every
such variation must be shared in the next generation with
some other individual and the two heredities combined, and
these again with others so that in ten generations over five

Heredity 59

hundred heredities are combined, or to put it another way,
each individual alive has received in ten generations of
ancestry over five hundred different strains of character, and
in twenty generations over five hundred thousand indi-
viduals are involved as ancestors; with the evident con-
sequence that many of them must be in some relationship,
and that a few centuries serve to disperse any character
among a whole race within the geographical limits. Thus
while a new ability may be a family property for a short
time, it soon becomes a tribal or national or racial one if
it is of value to survive. And again a new disability or lack
of capacity is soon corrected by the influx to the blood of
the corrective surplus of other strains.

It is seen in biology that the qualities and capacities and
organs are the result of continued additions and improve-
ments in a cumulative growth under the law of heredity.
This fact, when conduct is in question, places the beneficial
results in a positive or real group, and harmful or defective
results in a negative or deficient group. A good inheritance
is mainly a sufficient equipment of tested organs and capaci-
ties in actual efficiency, and a bad inheritance is a group in
which some such are lacking, or imperfectly endowed. In
other words bad inheritance is not usually an endowment of
actual positive evil, but rather a partial omission of some
things, in an equipment which in the main is good. When
we consider how much of good heredity is still perceptible
in the person known to be defective, this becomes more
clear. The proper working of all the organs of assimila-
tion, locomotion, propagation, etc., the proper form and
coloring of all the limbs and features and adornments, the

6o The Morality of Nature

proper sense perceptions and reasoning powers, may all be
present in a bad heredity, which is bad only in a loss of one
particular instinct, for which a tiny group of brain cells is
responsible. This condition may seem to be an utterly
depraved heredity evil, yet the fact is that the correction of
that one deficient tiny group of cells, either by growth or
by surgical operation, or by reeducation, may be all that
is needed to perfect the individual. Millions of inherited
qualities in that individual are good, while only one was
bad, and that badness is not positive badness but merely
insufficiency of active goodness.

Here is where the dual or sexual method of reproduc-
tion operates in a process of redistribution which actually
realizes the aspirations and hopes of the instincts for union.
In biological nature it is actually true that two characters
add their good qualities and deduct their bad in the total
of reproduction. The deficiency of each creature is nearly
always remedied wholly or in part by the equipment in that
regard of the other of the opposite sex which is naturally
selected by affinity and instinct, and evils are repaired in the
next generation if the deficiencies be simple; and if not
simple then they are reduced so that a few more generations
will eliminate them. For example an excessively timid
person will frequently ally with one of courage in the
instinct for protection, and the offspring will be more
normal. An error of greed or acquisitive instinct is likely to
seek and find a complement in an unusually generous nature.
A weak reasoning power will worship a strong one. And
usually some qualities of great worth will compensate the
union for any defect introduced. And so error is often

Heredity 6i

eliminated and forgiven in the offspring of a natural alli-
ance. And even in those less simple cases where an evil is
found to be not merely a deficiency but a perversion or
misdirection of some positive capacity to evil action, there
is usually a cause in a deficiency in the restraining or govern-
ing faculties, which makes it amenable to the same law of
cumulative replacement. Many failures in physical and
mental processes are now attributed to disturbances in the
nutrition; to failure of some organ which ought to remove
poisonous waste products, which omission allows toxic
substances to affect the nerves or brain or will, much as
drugs will affect them. It is easy to see how a defective
organ of elimination may be remedied by the addition of a
healthy heredity and so seem to overcome a positive evil.
Even when the evil capacity is positively transmitted it is
found under Mendel's law of heredity to pass to only a
limited number of offspring and so to be in course of extinc-
tion by natural selection. And it must be remembered that
many qualities called evil are merely conventionally and
temporarily evil because of man's present customs. Exces-
sive meekness or excessive courage might well be virtues
under other circumstances. Such qualities may recur in-
opportunely in heredity under laws of reversion and varia-
tion. Nature is always experimenting under changes of
environment, and when changes of environment are frequent
and abrupt, nature is called upon for sudden adaptation.
Then many reversions are produced. Instincts long dormant
may be awakened by the removal of a restraining instinct
more recent. Even such an emotion as blinding anger
may reappear as a virtue; and may suddenly again meet

62 The Morality of Nature

an environment of Christianity where it is called a sin.
Many so-called errors in heredity are in fact perfectly legiti-
mate and right cultivations under nature's law. The utter
disregard of any rights of property except those of posses-
sion by force, which is shown by militant savages, is not
in them a wrong or bad heredity. It is right in its own
environment, and becomes wrong only when the environ-
ment changes, and better motives become safe and livable
and more beneficial.

The great facts of heredity in regard to conduct are that
it is a vehicle ai good qualities, and of beneficial habits and
organs ; and that the transmission of deficiencies is remedied
by the union with different natures which are indicated by
natural affinity.

CHAPTER IX

ENVIRONMENT AND VARIATION

In observation of animal life it appears that by a process
of heredity, the form and structure and physical nature
generally, of any creature, is an equipment received from
ancestors who have found it advantageous, and therefore
have prospered and cultivated it, and transmitted to de-
scendants. The mysterious method of transmission will be
further studied in later chapters upon evolution. But it is
desirable now to seek for an understanding of how such
structure and equipment begin and how they come into
being, as matters to be thus tested and appreciated and
exercised and transmitted. We have already seen their
existence but now it is desirable to know their origin; as
the origin and transmission of new phases of conduct is
obviously involved, being inseparably connected with the
use and exercise of those physical gifts.

We find that all that an animal possesses in the way of
bodily structure and equipment, is shaped and patterned
after some of its ancestors, with unfailing and amazing
accuracy ; in its minutest details, such as number of scales,
and patterns of coloring, as well as in the greater features
and general form. It should be noted that many ancestors,
not simply two parents — contribute these influences. Now

63

64 The Morality of Nature

we want to understand how these ancestors — the several
creatures who showed pecuHarities among a uniform general
species — came to acquire those characters. To do so let us
see how the descendants, the young living now under
observation, proceed to acquire new characters. And by
character let it be understood that conduct, or way of using
a physical structure, may be meant, and discussed, at the
same time as the actual physical structure.

The beginning of a new character seems to be usually a
novelty which is in biological study called a variation. Just
why a variation appears is not evident. It is possible that
in the multiplication of former heredities by sexual or other
conjugations, the mere physical elements in the chromosomes
may develop purely fortuitous novelties, by new combina-
tions of old factors. But a belief more in accord with the
known righteousness of nature, is that visible variations are
the product of unrecognized pre-existing conditions and
causes, which have worked to this result although we do
not yet perceive the connection. Or to put that belief into
more scientific words it may be surmised that variations are
produced by the action of the environment upon previous
inheritance. Or it may well be that variation is the rule
of nature and uniformity of type the exception, maintained
only in uniform environment.

By environment we mean all and every one of the things
which make up the world or universe in which the creature
lives, or that part of it which afifects him.

It is well known that environment, as modified by the con-
duct of the creature, decides which variations shall be
preserved. That is to say, the conduct of a creature in using

Environment and Variation 65

its equipment is tested by its success in the midst of the
environment, which is usually hostile in greater or less
degree. Now the equipment in question is mainly inherited
from ancestors who have previously tested it. This is
visibly true. But there are also seen in this equipment, from
time to time appearing, new things not previously known in
ancestral equipment, and however they may have originated
they immediately come under the test of use; and if they are
useful they are likely to become permanent, by exercise and
by cultivation, and by the survival or preferment of those
creatures possessed of them.

That they arise in part by chance is not incompatible
with our knowledge of nature's methods. We see the in-
stinct of animals exercised in efforts for what must be called
chance results. And in fact there are few acts or processes
in nature which promise results with absolute certainty. So
that to achieve a thing it may become necessary, even with
volition to aid, to try experimentally several different acts,
and seize for development the one giving greatest oppor-
tunity. And much more is experiment usual, when volition
does not aid the action.

Consider for example the method of a spider in con-
structing such a web as we sometimes see bridging a space
not accessible' to its power of locomotion, as when between
bushes on opposite sides of a brook. The animal resting
upon the foliage on one side perceives perhaps the general
proximity of the support opposite, and throws out a line of
its web to be carried by the wind. Now when we see it
later definitely attached, and supporting the finished net
upon some prominent twig we might suppose that twig to

66 The Morality of Nature

have been chosen by the spider. But in fact the web
carried by the wind could not be directed by choice. The
first Hne perhaps failed, and another was tried, and fell
inappropriately, and still another; and at last one caught
upon a place which was an opportunity worth seizing. Thus
we see three or four efforts for chances tried and only one
successful. And so it may properly be in nature's variations
of structure. Many may be futile. Yet just as the spider's
efforts were all based upon its experienced habit, so may
the variations of natural forms be based upon previous
things promising probable success, although never certain.

Thus we see that environment offers many promptings,
more or less favorable, or more or less hostile and difficult.
These impulses stimulate effort, and the creature responds
to them, and some of these responses succeed and if often
repeated, are permanently adopted. Some of these new
forms and new habits become hereditary or are hereditable
at once. Therefore, it is evident that the environment of
one period affects the previous heredity, and these two
factors together, that is old heredity as the main force and
new environment as a minor force make the heredity of the
next period. So when we discuss heredity and environment,
they must not be treated as unrelated forces, but as two
parts or stages of natural influence under a common law.
A creature at birth, without experience, is a product of
heredity chiefly. Environment has done little to him.
Heredity still continues after that to affect him in great
degree, but from the time his own life begins it is also
affected by environment. If this latter is different from
that of his ancestors it is likely to change him, or to develop

Environment and Variation 67

changes latent in him, but if it is the same, it is likely to
confirm him in the same heredity. If life is full of variety,
as it is with progressive creatures, environment will proba-
bly promote change in structure and habits rapidly, but if life
is monotonous and constant to former conditions, the
environment will make little new impression.

Now consider these influences as applied to humanity,
as to all other creatures, and further consider them as affect-
ing habits and conduct, as well as structure and physique;
and the life of the previously studied simple beings will
clearly illustrate their results.

Gregarious creatures are observed as habitually profiting
by habits of association, which have become so necessary
that an individual acting independently is at a disadvantage.
He loses his share in the collective wisdom and power of
observation. The shoal of young fish has a hundred eyes,
and when one eye sees danger the whole shoal profits by
the alarm. Similarly when food is near all share in many
discoveries. One creature of gregarious kind, cut ofif from
its fellows, with but one tiny intelligence and one small
judgment, is so obvious an example of misfortune in any
species, that it is a favorite ob-ject of sentimental human
sympathy. It suffers always, and often it dies. This
obedience to the newly acquired gregarious habit is there-
fore established as good conduct because of its being bene-
ficial; the disregard of the habit is bad conduct because of
its being injurious. The benefit and injury are mainly for
the individual, although the phase of life observed is
gregarious ; the consequences to him are great, to the others
in mass they are minute and may be of small account, but

68 The Morality of Nature

still they are important in principle. There is found a
power for self-preservation reposing in the aggregation
which does not exist in any individual. The abnormal
creature which deserts the association does so at his peril;
he may die; in fact it can be seen that many do so die; a
shoal of a thousand little fish is reduced to a hundred before
they complete their first year.

But when the habit is established we have noted that all
depend upon it, and by desertion a creature not only doe;s
ill for himself; he deprives the association of parti of its
strength. A variation of conduct appears involving a ques-
tion of right and wrong in an act formerly free from that
question. First independent action appears to be wrong
upon the simple test of profitableness. And in considera-
tion of the fact that the privileges of the association were
inherited side by side with liability for services to mutual
support, it again appears to be wrong in a moral sense.
Here then arises the primitive phase of a new conduct
called duty, a variation in conduct not arising by chance,
but as a logical consequence of previous activity. It takes
its place however provisionally. The question under trial
is the value to the individual, of a certain support or assist-
ance by others of his kind, which is afforded in mutual
relations requiring from him a return support of the
aggregation, by his contribution in services. Now the
answer to this trial is usually in favor of this variation.
In nature the creatures achieving this conduct generally
survive by it, and consideration of the greater unit becomes
more necessary; and thenceforth the habit is maintained and
cultivated, and the earlier death of all who violate it tends

Environment and Variation 69

more and more to confirm the conduct as habitual in those
who survive.

Obviously a variation of habit is often accompanied by
a variation of physical formation, a variant of habit o,r
conduct may precede and cause a corresponding variant of
form, or it may follow as a consequence of such a change.
For example, a species of fowl finding a new environment,
safer and with more abundant food than the old, will neglect
and perhaps abandon its old habits of flight. Then in disuse
the wings degenerate, and they assume in course of time, by
survival of such changes through several generations, a
changed hereditary character, while possibly the legs acquire
greater strength. This is a change which is perceivable
in our own period, and is fully described by observers of
the subject, and it is typical of what is constantly occurring
and unquestionably always has been prevalent.

In comparison with human conduct the merely expedient
habit must be distinguished from the conscious purpose of
man's intelligent action, which is a comparatively recent
acquisition of humanity; and which produces variation in
quite a higher sphere of action, because it is selective and
voluntary. The primitive law of experimental benefit, how-
ever, still affects man in his lower nature, just as it always
did since it first arose in his primitive ancestors, when they
lived the life which we now observe in animals of that low
grade. The progenitors of mankind before the psychological
age were governed and varied and modified by this simpler
law of expediency. It is still part of the fundamental law of
conduct, and can be observed still effecting change in human
physique and human habits by the same processes. The

70 The Morality of Nature

higher sphere of activity has taken not this place but a higher
place, and apparently this is the logical course of progress in
the moral law. Yet as we observed in other studies the
law of the lower sphere seems to persist and not to be
superseded, and the heredity and variation of humanity
seem to be related to environment under laws which comprise
the lower with the higher.

And so humanity in its wisdom and these creatures in
their utter unconsciousness of the law, live alike in indi-
vidual responsibility for conduct and endure alike the
consequences, even death, of error. And it is by this
interposition of death that the law is maintained and con-
tinued, and the new conduct variation ends if unfit, or
becomes habitual and hereditary if fit, and serves to increase
the resisting power of the life possessing it.

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CHAPTER X

THE FUNCTION OF DEATH

The process of survival of the fittest, illustrates the
seemingly cruel methods of nature. It does not seem to
agree with human conceptions of justice, but as it persists,
and cannot be overlooked, it demands our effort to under-
stand it. Is there a just law governing this method of
correction of individual error by summary death, and this
achievement of progress (or sometimes perhaps of mainte-
nance) in the powers and functions of the race, by the death
sentence of those who fall short in the race achievements?

In the lowly forms of life the extended operation of
death as a factor in this plan of development is amazing.
Many species of fish have attained to a considerable develop-
ment of co-operative action and mutual support, and some
have well marked individual obligations of an altruistic
nature (such for example as clan defense and nest building),
yet these instincts do not serve, as they seem to do with
many other species, to prevent a prodigal expenditure of life
which seems to be waste. While the birds, to insure the
perpetuation of their kind habitually guard their nests,
and tend their eggs, and teach their young, and so almost
entirely prevent loss of life under normal conditions, and
raise to an age of efficiency nearly all their offspring ( fore-
shadowing in this the capacities of higher life), the fishes

71

12 The Morality of Nature

meet the onslaught of hostile nature, not by resenting it,
but by continually increased effort to supply the life de-
manded. They produce eggs so abundantly that when the
greater number is lost in death there are still enough left
to stock the waters. In fact this life stream is so lavishly
supplied that the suppression of most of it becomes a
necessity, for the world could not support all these creatures
if they lived. And they achieve in this way the desired
result, and their generations succeed one another, and keep
the places accustomed to them filled to the normal degree,
quite as well as if a lesser number were produced and better
preserved. Doubtless there is behind this difference of
method, a difference in the impulse of necessity, such as
the continuing need in these earlier lower types of a capacity
for more rapid adaptation, or for flight, or for more prompt
recovery from castastrophic destruction. But an important
truth is revealed which is this — That generally the increase
of intelligence, and the development of cooperation, tend
to make this lavish sacrifice unnecessary, by substituting for
it methods of preservation. It is forcibly evident that
death thus dealt and ordered is a process quite different from
an imposition of a mere penalty or punishment. The view
so regarding it is based upon examples which seem plausibly
to sustain it but which conceal the true function. Where
life is well guarded, death sometimes occurs as a consequence
of the failure to sufficiently guard it, and hence it might
appear that such a failure is to be suspected as the secondary
cause of death, whenever it occurs prematurely. In fact this
conception does prevail and its prevalence leads to the
erroneous belief that individual life is a natural right, and

The Function of Death 73

that its continuance is pledged or guaranteed to good con-
duct and to sufficient vigilance. The weakness of this
theory is shown in its utter failure in face of catastrophe.
Death by accident always, and death by disease often, seems
to be injustice of the most tyrannical kind. And yet they
occur. A system of ethics in which the function of death
is regarded as individual punishment, breaks down when its
support is most needed. But when we study the problem in
simpler form, we see that death is a means of modification
and development of the race life so that it may change
as environment changes.

Punishment may cause an earlier instead of a later, con-
clusion of an already limited activity; that is to say a modi-
fication of the time element of the pre-determined life factor.
But even premature death is not fundamentally a punish-
ment in the natural system of law. Often it is mere
fortuitous happening, a thing belonging to the chaos
preceding life. It appears rather that the removal of death
from this category of chance and its establishment as an
avoidable punishment, is to be the effect of reason and
civilization coming into operation when consciousness
makes life intelligent. The tendency of humanity is to
reduce more and more the liability to premature death.
Thus one of the primitive incentives to good conduct
acquires greater capacity, and the reduction to a minimum of
this liability is an ideal of intelligent civilization. As such
the process is the erection of reason's conception of justice
to the individual, in opposition to the unreasoning force of
the environment.

But evidently the element of uncertainty in the enjoyment

74 The Morality of Nature

of individual life is one which, however it may be reduced
in degree, cannot be eliminated altogether, without ending
the scheme of adaptation. In other words, a full guarantee
to the individual, of life of full term, is consistent only with
a system no longer needing progressive selection but crystal-
lized into inactive perfection; a Nirvana of repose in perfect
virtue without change, such as is imagined in idealized unity
by certain philosophical argument. But this speculative
conception is metaphysical in its extent. It is mentioned here
only to show how inconceivable is such an alternative, as
compared with a continuance of the prevailing natural law
of conduct; when the universal prevalence of continuity, as
against terminality, is brought to mind. It may be imagined
that death will always be, as now, for the mortal body the
simple withdrawal of a privilege granted temporarily and
never guaranteed. It is the end of a life, which, for the
single individual, whether it lasted a century, or a moment,
has been a loan, a gift, to be held and relinquished as
circumstances may require; and always as a terminable
trust and not as a guaranteed possession. Such a conception
of the nature of death is induced by the life history of those
species low in the scale of evolution, in which life is so
lavish that premature death is inevitable for the great
majority. When this primitive aspect is comprehended, it
can be applied to the more complex relations of life and
conduct in higher grades, and it will be found not only con-
sistent but explanatory of many obscurities. But after
eliminating the notion that death is always a process of
penal retribution we are still lacking an understanding of its
necessity.

The Function of Death 75

What then is the chief function of the death of the
individual as seen to occur in man? Is it not still for him
as it is for those simple existences in which only elementary
conduct prevails, a corrective process freely and lavishly
applied to eliminate defects and to develop more perfect
forms by survival and preference, and to provide con-
tinuously for adaptation to new conditions?

Let us again refer to the previously studied heredity.
The life capacity of any individual creature is founded, as
we have seen in an inheritance of acquired habits and abili-
ties, and of structure to make these abilities effective. These
are of the past. The present individual is a link connecting
that past with a future, the life to come of his kind. The
individuals of the next generation will be the offspring of
some of these present. But which of these present are to be
so honored ? The answer to that question is nature's award
of consequences and compensations. Each of these creatures
of inherited capacity is under trial, in its one individual life,
with the obvious result of elimination of those least capable.
From infancy it progresses toward maturity, and all that
progress is a probation, testing its probable fitness to con-
tinue its race. The fitness under test is not only that of the
individual preserving himself, but of the family and nation
and race in part responsible for his preservation. It is not
fitness as an egotist imagines it ought to be ; it is the fitness
which actually does survive. Some survive, and these,
which thus prove capacity at least comparatively fit, with
other groups similarly tested and reduced, constitute the
groups that mature, and which in due course are permitted
to produce young having the qualities and tendencies of

76 The Morality of Nature

these selected parents. Obviously the character of the mass
of the maturing generation is changed by the weeding out
process. As an aggregate it is not just what it was in its
greater numbers at birth. Many have died, because of active
error, others simply have failed to maintain their existence
under the adversities of circumstances. Some deaths have
perhaps happened because of changed conditions for which
only a few subjects were by nature fitted. But for what-
ever reasons, some were lost, and others, the survivors who
have succeeded, are obviously in some degree qualified. Now
this different qualification, whether it be little or great will
continue if its cause continues, and will impress itself by
heredity upon the next generated offspring. Usually, but
not always, the impress is infinitesimally small in the case
of creatures which enjoy circumstances changing slowly,
and calling for little change in themselves. Most of the
losses by death, in such creatures, must therefore be ascribed
to only comparative inferiority, which is not a fault as faults
are defined by human codes, but is still failure. It is the
kind of failure shown by nine seedlings when a gardener
sows ten seeds and leaves only the strongest plant to grow,
and plucks out the others to make more room. In nature's
process the circumstances are fortuitous instead of
being directed, and the preference is less abruptly declared,
and the most fit are not always the strongest — nor the rich-
est— nor the greediest. In an age of wealth which encour-
ages unprincipled men and sterile women poverty may be an
advantage, and the poor and ignorant may become the
most fit and may survive to inherit the earth. The survivors
who produce young for the new generation, will be those

The Function of Death ii

whose lives have been maintained by relative successful
ability and conduct until maturity was reached. But further
than this, beyond mere maturity in many species of animals
(and with compensation in others) the creatures which con-
tinue life longer, will naturally produce more young than
those short lived of the same race, and so the number of
progeny will be nicely proportioned to the degree of fitness.
Among the young of the creatures distinguished by nature
as fit enough to survive, some will be more fit than others,
and will live longer. It is obvious that in the beginning some
must be endowed better than others, some are the offspring
of parents who only just managed to survive with weak and
injured structure; while others are of those whose career
was prosperously easy. Therefore equality is not found and
is not to be expected between these individuals. Even from
birth any family or tribe of seemingly similar creatures
carries the greatest variety of destinies. There may be an
approximate equality in the opportunity and environment,
but even that is not absolute, for some creatures are visibly
called upon to meet changing conditions which impose a new
test of adaptability, while others are not so tried.

In this review of well-known facts there is nothing new.
It is quoted to be recognized as a factor of great import in
the study of consequences of conduct. It shows that the
life action of a creature determines and demonstrates first
its ability — not its right — to survive; and next the extent
to which its offspring (if any) shall go forth as part of the
next generation of its kind. It shows that starting with
unequal equipment, some individuals are successful and live
to the extreme span, and (other things equal) produce many

78 The Morality of Nature

young. And others who reach maturity may still fail early
and leave scant posterity, and these offspring are tainted with
disabilities inherited. Others again fail even sooner and
die early and die without offspring. And of these some
suffer for error or failure of their own, but many merely
end a line of failing life inherited, and almost hopeless
chances of retrieval, because of failure by parents, while
others from the same parents may be free from such taint.
This seemingly complicated operation is not dependent upon
consciousness or morality or intelligence. It occurs in lower
life just as effectively as in humanity. A fish, because of
imperfect energy in the face of adversity, may fail to reach
the sheltered waters usually needed for safe spawning and
hatching of the eggs. Then it may well be that the young
'develop badly, and ill nourished; or that they suffer other-
wise, while constitutionally they are well fitted to prosper.
These endure the consequences of insufficiency or error,
which may however be light enough to permit recovery.
But suppose that a similar lack of energy be repeated in the
next season, or in the next generation, then the ill effects
are obviously accumulated, and under such a ban there is
serious loss. We see in fact exactly such cases, in all races,
including the human, wherein a tribe or group of creatures
become fewer in numbers and only the fittest survive. And
in some changing circumstances there occurs extreme dif-
ficulty where none are able to live and the branch of the
race in that place is extinguished. And on the other hand
we see in some cases a diminution of numbers under changed
environment, followed by a rapid refilling of the vacancies
as soon as adaptation supplies a form qualified for the new

The Function of Death 79

conditions. When enemies or accidents or diseases over-
whelm a number of individuals with apparent absence of
justice, this process will operate more severely upon those
less qualified to resist or avoid the attack, and will, in the
survivors who escape, increase the average of ability of the
race to resist that particular hostility, and therefore will
develop the quality which is beneficial — Unavoidably we
are compelled to consider the race as well as the individual.
Death appears therefore as the means of giving to a life
of unsuccessful effort or of less successful effort a pro-
portionately short term of tenancy and to the successful or
more successful effort a proportionately long term or
tenancy. Thus death operates for justice, not only in sum-
mary fashion but with effect proportionate and corrective.
In a broad view it ceases to be regarded as a mere penalty
for individual conduct, yet it still stands as a liability.
Although the result is to be the elimination of those least
fit and preservation of those more fit, the test of fitness being
still, as at first revealed, self -maintenance in a surrounding
world of conditions more or less hostile, and the reward
being still a tenure of life depending upon continued ability
to maintain it and transmit it. This privilege to transmit
it, is the door to a justice which to one life is apparently
not promised. By that door an indefinite extension is
offered as the consequence of continued fitness. Death
therefore appears to be the necessary precedent to change
the means by which life is compensated. By it is seen
access to a system of reward for conduct with a just ap-
preciation of varying shades and degrees of goodness. If
death did not occur to remove the less fit material structures

8o The Morality of Nature

there could not be room for the establishment of improve-
ment. In other words there could be no progress in fitness.
Therefore when one among the living races of primitive
creatures develops or acquires the power to discard its
inferior structures by death, it acquires a stupendous ad-
vantage over those still clinging to the original immortality
which denied them that advantage; and it will be seen in
later studies of evolution that this power to reject structure
made inferior by age and obsolescence, is a fundamental
superiority of the multicellular creature over the primitive
unicellular.

Death appears in two distinct forms. Primarily death
appears not as the necessary end of life but only as an
accident, or as an ending of some of the separate lives when
a limited environment becomes inhospitable. And even this
kind of death rarely occurs in primitive conditions without
a production of spores or seeds or other means of succession,
which can await more favorable circumstances.

The great function of death is an adaptation by which
life of small organization achieves the possibility of great
and elaborate organization, promoting the death principle
to a higher sphere and using it for the liberation of life
from the structure which is doomed to age and decay beyond
repair, so that it, the life, may be endowed anew; and for
the removal of structures even before age and decay, when
they are of insufficient excellence, as compared with others,
in the face of difficult environment. This great function of
death further enlarges under the operation of the natural
law of survival for fitness, and makes possible more than the
renewal of the structure. It opens the way for a continued

The Function of Death 8i

improvement of the structure and for its advance in every
successive regeneration, to a higher capacity under the con-
tinued stimulus of life responding to environment. This
conception of the function of death evokes the theory that
perfect fitness in an unchanging environment would, if
achieved, end the usefulness of death, at the same time that
it ended its probability.

The death inflicted by the hostility of nature is not in-
tended to be just or compensatory to the individual, but it
is the original cause of stimulus against which all the func-
tions of life are arrayed; and as it cannot be annulled, it is
to be met and countered by adaptation, in which justice and
compensation are attained or promoted for succeeding
generations. The primary death before mentioned applies
to higher mortal structures just as it applies to the poten-
tially immortal. The adoption of death as a regular avenue
to progress does not annul its original function, but adds to
it. Death continues, in late as in early evolution, to remove
many individuals of apparently high ability and merit, acting
as part of the originally hostile environment. In this en-
vironment life itself, by the mere exuberance of increase,
produces new conditions of hostility, and progress promises,
not a cessation of it, but an increasingly effective resistance
to it.

6

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CHAPTER XI

JUSTICE IN DEATH

In the wide range of possibilities made accessible by the
instrumentality of death there is such variety of compensa-
tion for conduct that a clue appears to guide us to an under-
standing of nature's justice. It begins to be evident that it
is not a justice which recognizes any paramount importance
of the mortal individual. If we give up this preconceived
idea, and try to perceive the actual working of nature, a new
idea emerges which still harmonizes with that human con-
ception of justice which has been found by instinct and
reason. This newer idea compels a reformed concept of the
object and purpose, to which justice applies. Let us examine
this proposition in detail, and to begin let us see how the
death which is so regardless of the individual is related to
the larger units — to the combinations and successions of
individuals.

We see first that as the effects are broken up and dis-
tributed, conduct and consequence are better proportioned.
They no longer produce a superlative reward on the one
hand, and an irrevocable condemnation on the other; alter-
natives of life and death with no intermediate thing. Time
comes into the equation. There is revealed a variable dura-
tion of consequence. Life as a lease of privilege contingent
upon ability to hold it, is granted to one or to few or to

82

Justice in Death 83

a greater number as the reward for fitness in different
degrees; and a shortened or weakened renewal is held by
few or fewer successors, as a consequence of less fitness and
ability, yet there always remains, so long as some survive, a
possible hope of re-establishment. The reward may be short
or indefinitely prolonged and the punishment may be
mercifully alleviated and withdrawn. But this view of
the consequences of conduct, this appearance of just and
equitable proportion takes shape and becomes evident only
when several individuals of successive generations are con-
sidered at one time, as a unit, in relation to any given act or
piece of conduct. It is evident that at the first consideration
of things beyond the single life of the single individual; at
the first appearance of consequences as a debt to be paid
because previously incurred, there appear, involved in the
responsibility of the individual, certain others who are or
were interested with him, and who did or actually do share
with him normal consequences of his acts. And in the vary-
ing closeness of this interest the kinfolk, that is to say, the
progenitors and the progeny, the former who made him
what he is, and the latter who will be what he makes, are in
most cases the closest in alliance. These taken together con-
stitute the lineal group which might be called the kinfolk
unit of conduct. Now it may well be that this kinfolk unit
receives an award of consequences in just proportion to its
conduct. There may be needed many generations or few
to complete the cycle of award, or it may develop in one. It
is a variable unit, this kinfolk, sometimes certain conduct
may embrace only two successive generations of individual
lives, at other times many more, at times possibly hundreds.

84 The Morality of Nature

In the midst of this vagueness, however, certain facts
arise and stand unavoidable before us. It becomes clear
that conduct which is not necessarily compensated in a single
life of any one generation, may have consequences in the
lives of his progeny. And in extension of the conception
it becomes clear that the death which awaits an individual
may be very different from that extreme penalty for con-
tinued unfitness which involves extermination of the line and
its root and branches. The penalty of individual death,
when it is a penalty, is after all a light one in comparison
with the penalty of tribal or racial extermination, as we see
proven in the primitive forms where life and death are so
prodigally dispensed. There a group composed of a family
of three or four generations involved in the same conduct
responsibility, may number thousands, nay hundreds of
thousands of individuals, each with his little separate re-
sponsibility as well as his share in the unit of cooperation.
Suppose, that a lake almost depopulated by accident, by
diversion of a water course, or by drought, is soon after-
wards again made habitable ; and thus affords an exceptional
opportunity for the few surviving and enormously prolific
fish to increase. A few individuals will produce thousands
of offspring and these will next season produce thousands of
thousands — all of one great family in almost identical joint
interest. Now of what relative gravity to this family unit
is the loss of one individual little fish, or of a score, or even
of a hundred. Doubtless it is a real loss of some extent;
and to that extent it is possibly a penalty; but only a pro-
portionate penalty? And if, on the other hand, the loss is of
the abnormal ones, and if the survivors — those more worthy,

Justice in Death S5

establish thereby a fitter character in the race, then what is
the loss suffered by this race folk unit?

Evidently this greater unit, if it has suffered loss at all
has lost only in proportion to its conduct. And if the loss
was in consequence only of the acts of the individuals taken,
then the remainder has actually gained in its standard of
efficiency. The same principle evidently applies in the affairs
of other races, and to situations not so cleared of confusing
circumstances, as this specially selected example. Like other
fundamental laws, this one can be seen reaching upward
through the highest development of life, even to the sphere
of humanity, although there it is hidden by a multitude of
other factors.

Turn from the life which is not sacred, from the fish
that swarm and die in millions, to higher phases of a life
which is better valued. Study the intermediate degrees
ascending the scale in their greater use of conduct and voli-
tion. Consider for example the animals which nurse and
care for their young; and so achieve the relief of their race
from some of the death losses that the fishes meet. Some of
these animals are also surprisingly prolific, notably the de-
fenseless ones, such as rabbits, mice, squirrels, and all the
small creatures upon whom larger ones levy toll in the hunt
for food. Here may be studied that kind of death which,
when called accidental, appears to be unavoidable and of ab-
solutely despotic control. Yet a race of this degree, or even
a certain limited number of kin of this race ; when considered
as a conduct unit, appears to lose some members and preserve
others, according to a law which changes the race or kin and
makes them more fit to resist the adverse circumstances.

86 The Morality of Nature

This prolific race, still equipped by nature with powers of
rapid reproduction, opposes to such an attack not only its
output of offspring, but the higher equipment and education
of offspring; and the attack itself has the effect of selection.
Those who survive and escape once are those most able to
survive and escape again. And the offspring of these who
find the way of escape, become the parents of young to
whom they transmit some of their ability. Then the shyness,
the timidity of such creatures, in which they scamper to cover
upon the sight of enemies, which was not original or neces-
sary with them, becomes instinctive even from birth; it is
the instinct of a strain or kin, which has been selected by the
hunting in which all but the shy were killed.

And selection can develop the very opposite qualities in
the same class of animals. For example, the squirrels and
birds in the public parks of a kindly people, survive in greater
numbers than the natural food would support, because they
are fed by human friends, and so creatures of a wild race,
which in the forests of the same country a few miles distant,
has developed a strain of its most shy members, as the fittest
for conditions there ; has produced here a group so selected
for confidence, that they will walk fearlessly up to a man and
beg for favors. Here the shy do not prosper nor get suf-
ficient food, the tame ones thrive because their life is the
most fit, while the timid starve. Now we recognize that the
development of either or both of these opposite qualities in
full degree of usefulness to the race is accomplished by the
way of death — and in this function death acts with justice.
It is not usually possible to take a mature, shy wild animal,
who has lived by fear and tame him even by kindness. There

Justice in Death 87

are, however, some few in the variations of temper natural
to animals, which have a small degree of this capacity, and
when it proves to be the beneficial kind of conduct, these
and their offspring survive, changing the inheritance of habit
slowly, little by little, a family slightly tame being slightly
encouraged and increased; and another very wild being
slowly crowded out by shortened lives and fewer progeny.
Here again death is to the individual a consequence of con-
duct which is unfit for its surroundings, perhaps innocently
because the surroundings have changed, yet by nature this
lack of fitness is treated in the same way as if it had been
the creature which had changed and had become responsibly
deficient. The purpose (if such a word may be used, regard-
ing a process like this) is beneficent and just toward the race,
as appears in a very few generations. Let it be noted that
the severity of the system is lessened in many races subject
to vicissitudes, by their having a quicker adaptability, a
quality which enables them very rapidly to expand and util-
ize any particular character in demand, and this process is
greatly helped by the short-lived fecundity which such
animals enjoy.

Thus there is unfolded another principle, which is this.
The death which has an appearance of injustice is working
with other things to raise the race out of that injustice. And
as we study higher conduct and higher life we find the in-
justice getting less and less, although even the highest still
live under the same law. Consider such wild creatures as
deer. They guard and teach their young, and they produce
comparatively few. It is not necessary to the race that many
should be lost. Yet some are lost. In winter's snows, when

88 The Morality of Nature

food is scarce and when hunting animals, including man, are
hungry for meat, the young, and sometimes the old, die in
numbers. Yet we see readily that the death of the weak is
likely to happen first, and the survivors will be those best
able to continue the race under the same circumstances. So
that in this class of animal life is found a proj ortion of death
to population which is lessened by the improvement in con-
duct, and which is coming distinctly nearer to our conception
of an award justly adapted to conduct. There is apparently
in the balance of the factors, much more effect due to the
growing power to prevent death, and to reduce thereby the
need for a production by birth of excessive numbers. There
appears, however, a limit to these benefits of prevention, and
death is seen to be still a necessary process. If the upward
improvement is to go on, there must be a weeding out, so that
these left are, in ability, not an average of those born, but a
higher selection of them. In this the race meets and provides
for new conditions as they appear, and the new conditions
always beget competition in ability. The qualities inherited
as acquired by ancestors under their circumstances are not
specially adapted for the present new circumstances. These
must be met by new abilities. They are regarded and de-
veloped by the favoring of such variations as prove bene-
ficial, and the rejection of such as have not the beneficial
trait. Since these creatures have no power to reason about
the future, they must retain the method of experimental trial,
and therefore the retention of a habit of variation is
necessary.

The deer in a forest vary in regard to their love of
locality, some may have a very small range and a great

Justice in Death 89

liking for a particular home mountain or lake, while others
are travellers and wander far. Now suppose that the ad-
vance of civilization brings men to the neighborhood, and
the deer are driven out. Obviously that strain which has been
always wandering and has adaptable habits, will now endure
the migration more easily, and though all may suffer losses,
yet the home depending creatures will lose most. After that
again, losses may eradicate the weakness, and thereupon the
race will be fitted again for wandering life, or for its new
territory, by the selection of the most suitable from among
its old numbers, and by the production of many young so
that a few may be selected to survive under the new con-
ditions. It is easy to suppose (or even to observe) that such
a trial can make a valuable difference in the character of a
herd of deer in even a few seasons, and a very considerable
change can occur in several generations.

It becomes clear that this eliminating function of death
in the meeting of changed environment, by change in the
race habits and conduct, cannot be rejected or dispensed
with. It is a regular and general function for all life. We
have studied it in the lower forms of animal life where it
may be regarded with less emotion and with clearer under-
standing. We see its real value and necessity there less
blinded by our instinctive repugnance. The sentiments which
have such strong hold upon humanity are based upon those
consequences which are more intensely felt, because closer
and more specialized, but not because they are the most im-
portant consequences. Death of one's own kin is a wound
to cause grief, while death of one's neighbors' kin may be
considered with a less emotion, and death of far away hu-

90 The Morality of Nature

man beings of other races causes only a reflection of regret.
And so that idea of death which is repugnant in human af-
fairs, becomes less so when brutes are considered, and ap-
pears as a commonplace process among very inferior ani-
mals. And there is something of an instructive correctness of
estimate in this. To those lower creatures which afford our
best examples for the study of this subject death means little,
they and their parents, their clan, their race, regard with en-
tire apathy their decimating losses ; they live their little lives,
and it does not matter much how long. A fish who lives
seven days and dies, or a fly who lives seven days and dies,
simply live and cease to live. What does it matter to the fish
that he was only one-thousandth part mature, while the fly
was of ripe age.

But higher animals, to whom death matters more, feel the
loss instinctively. They mourn, and their feelings are not of
empty sentiment, they are the result of perceptible loss ; and
their mourning is the expression of knowledge of the loss.

And among the higher animals the action of death in
modifying the race is much less severe. It does not so fre-
quently operate in the extinction of individual life, except
in the earlier years of age. At this period there is still a
stern selection, based upon the worth and wisdom of race
and family, more than upon those of the creature. Fitness
is more the production of cultivation and purpose, and relies
less upon accidental variation than before, yet when produced
the fitness is variable and much of it is rejected as insuf-
ficient— as when resistance to disease is lessened by over
luxurious manner of living.

And when human reason assumes control of inferior life

Justice in Death 91

it acts through the same natural method. Animals which are
bred and cared for because of their usefulness to man, cattle,
horses, dogs, and such like, show the same action of nature
under the high guidance of reason. In these cases human
intelligence wards off a large part of nature's hostility, sup-
plying food and shelter and protection from enemies, yet in
return demanding just as nature does, the maintenance of
certain desired hereditary qualities of the stock unimpaired
and the improvement of those undesired. And to this end
death is the recognized agent. Those having the character
preferred are fostered, some good enough are permitted to
survive with them, and these alone continue the race, the
others are exterminated or allowed to exist for what little
time and value they can present in inferior capacity. Nor
can this death be called punishment or penalty. Those lives
were called into being and permitted because of a certain
need for a surplus number from which to select, for use in
that way, in proportion to their usefulness. And even the
cattle and sheep produced for food, with still smaller pros-
pect of living complete lives — because in their vast num-
bers only a few are so chosen — even these creatures enjoy a
span of life which would not have been at all, except for that
destiny which ends it. They were not of their own making,
with a right to a life of old age, nor were even of their clan's
making, with a right to nature's allotment of a span of life.
What number of sheep would enjoy life in this land, if men
ceased to eat mutton, or to clothe themselves with wool?
They would have had no existence at all but for man and his
need of them. To man they were indebted for the oppor-
tunity to live a short life. And between a short life or none

92 The Morality of Nature

at all, between short life or non-being, it can only be sup-
posed that their greater happiness is in life. But beyond this
mere brief enjoyment of a short life, they fulfilled a greater
mission, even the rejected ones. The clan or family was put
into possession of selected sires and dams not of chance
quality, but the pick of all this great number. Had the
selection been made by nature, in preferring those best for
a wild life, the process would have been essentially the same
as that instituted by man, preferring those suited to a tame
life. Man is thus seen after all as only part of the hostile
environment of nature as regarded by these individuals. His
action in disregard of animal life and death does only a
fragment of what nature does, in her normal development of
all creatures, as man is a fragment indeed of nature.

And observe the appearance of the larger conduct unit,
the race life of the stock, which, responding to this environ-
ment, flows exuberantly to supply the demand, accepting the
offer of great numbers of short lives as readily as in other
cases the offer of small number of longer lives.

In the case of those creatures desired not for food but for
special qualifications, as the horse for speed, or the dog for
hunting capacity, the rejection of a few in the earlier genera-
tions serves to establish the many that follow in a fitness
which gives them immunity. The race loses a few members
to exterminate an undesirable strain or quality; if these had
survived their progeny would have diluted the quality of the
stock even more than their numbers strengthened it ; and man
would no longer foster them as a race. After their rejection
every birth to the stock becomes valuable. Clearly the re-
moval of those members was not a loss to the race but a gain.

Justice in Death 93

And as man impresses the brutes with his standards raised
alongside those of nature, so he impresses his own kind. In
fact humanity is, toward individual man part of the environ-
ment; a fraction of surrounding nature, just as it is toward
the brutes and just as it was toward the lowest life. These
are unaware of the interference, while man sees environ-
ment modified, in kinship, and humanity, and moral obliga-
tion, and perceives its meaning in part, although still in a
very small part.

The function of death as a way of removal of less suitable
creatures, and as a means of making room for others, is not
however, recklessly used by nature. When a race, whether
of humanity or of brutes, has achieved a fair occupation of
a certain place; and when opportunity and conditions re-
main substantially settled, and free from liability to great
destruction by enemies or accidents, there seems to be a
general tendency to avoid this lavish expense of reproduc-
tive effort. It seems to be endured as long as it affords
escape from evils ; but it is not practised as of any virtue in
itself.

Some creatures enjoy safety or partial safety; while others
of the same race suffer terrific drain upon their populations,
inflicted by predatory animals, or by parasites, or by diseases.
These favored creatures are enabled or allowed to maintain
their numbers in proper relation to their space and food
supply, without any such expenditure or sacrifice. As soon
as their increase fills the territory and their life becomes
equal to the opportunity, then reproduction is discouraged
and lessened and a balance of population is reached with a
lesser output, proportioned to the lesser opportunity. At the

94 The Morality of Nature

same time the individual life period lengthens in the greater
security, and this further reduces the need for new births.
Then it appears that the individuals most fit to survive and
dominate the conduct in this favoring environment, will be
not selected by vigilance in accident, or by fleetness of flight,
but by suitability to these new conditions of peaceful crowd-
ing, in which an aptitude for life in common unity will count
for most. The lineage most favorable for survival will not
be the most prolific, when the race against destruction has
been superseded by a contest in self-improvement. Then the
family will prevail which produces the best equipped mem-
bers, rather than the greatest number. The strength of a
lineage may be expressed as the power of the individual
multiplied by the number of individuals. The most prolific
family may fail to establish a single one in normal security ;
while one transmitting life to smaller numbers may secure
for every one of them survival and advanced ability; and the
strength of this group may thus be greater. The smaller
numbers of progeny of the higher animals is thus seen to be
not a failing of nature in the less virile condition. It is a
demonstration of promotion to a higher conduct in higher
conditions, which come into controlling importance, al-
though the lower influences still have effect in lessened im-
portance.

The process of elimination among crowded populations
may be, and in fact is, more severe upon the lineage most
prolific, and the achievement, as expressed in the sum of lives
established, and in their terms, and values in worthiness;
may be and in fact is, less than is reached by those families
which obey the natural promptings when numbers are suf-

Justice in Death 95

ficient, and seek the preservation of lineage by superiority of
quality, and not by merely numerical strength.

Then the adaptation to closer association, by cultivation
of its peculiar methods of cooperative life, will enable a con-
tinued increase, by reducing the evils of crowding and
developing its benefits.

Thus association begins to appear as a constructive force,
while the mere competition by numbers for survival of the
fittest, is a form of destructive contest.

It is evident therefore that although failure in the primi-
tive contest for racial improvement by an abundant increase
and severe selection from that increase, is a weakness in face
of the greater vitality of other races, and will entail conse-
quences toward extinction in the comparison when primitive
conditions govern, yet there is a limit of value in this method.
This limit appears when outer hostility becomes less im-
portant than the crowded condition which destroys oppor-
tunity. Then nature lessens the demand for productiveness
and imposes a demand for progress in quality.

The superiority of man to the rest of creation does not
remove or exempt man from the operation of these processes
by which all nature is ruled. On the contrary, for him it adds
to these a great number of higher demands and ordinances.
As will appear from mature study, the addition of the al-
truistic motive, and those of conscious reasoning, to the
impulses of conduct in man, still further impels him to avoid
needless sacrifices to death, and urges upon him more than
upon other animals, a preference for that phase of life
which seeks to maintain itself by organization in mutual
support, rather than that resting upon competition for sur-

96 The Morality of Nature

vival. This higher conduct arises under the old law of
natural survival, but man enjoys a perception of its value
and effect as well as the intrinsic reward.

Still man's fitness in life is measured by results and not
by ideas. In achieving results he has to reckon not only
with humanity but, with the universe at large, and his con-
duct is directed toward all things, to be valued in due propor-
tion to its effect. Therefore, the artificiality of conditions,
although it may soften them, does not exempt any of them
from consideration, and man's civilization does not lift him
out of the old liabilities, nor does the quality, good or bad,
false or true, of another man's interference justify his dis-
regard of that. Man remains subject, as all animal life, to
that same liability to apparent injustice to the individual. Not
exemption, but only an understanding of it, and contest with
it, is found in the perception of the multiple conduct unit.
The raising of the unit from the size of an individual to that
of an association of kin, or race, any number of people or of
generations, variable according to the conduct in question,
does not end the question. The question in nature, in re-
gard to social man, as to the rest of life, the question always
recurring is, which lives are best among all these, in suita-
bility to time and place; but the answer of the race entrusted
to the individual, is not of his own being and time solely,
the answer demanded of him is partly stated already when
that existence is first entrusted to his keeping by his ances-
tors, and it is only a little further stated when he in turn
transmits it to his posterity. So that we see responding, not
the one individual but a line of life which is temporarily
represented in his person, and in others of his kin.

Justice in Death 97

We may deduce from these observations certain laws.
There seems to be in active operation in nature a clear and
regular beneficial effect in the selection, by actual life test,
of a required number of lives from a greater number, al-
ways more creatures than are needed to survive. The death
of the individual in old age at the end of a normal period of
life, with offspring inheriting his abilities, permits of the use
of an elaborated body structure without enslavement to that
structure; but with possibility of renewal of it with normal
progress in favoring conditions. And the death of a number
of individuals before maturity, permits a utilization of the
variations which are experimental forms of body struc-
ture, and the preference of those most fit to survive enables
the race to meet what may be termed abnormal conditions.
When the struggle for existence, and for continuation of
species, proceeds actively with only the primitive phases of
instinct in operation, then those most successful in main-
taining themselves in adverse circumstances, are those most
lavish of life and death. It seems that a habit of production
of many more than the normal loss by age, is the primitive
provision for abundant variation, to be used in overcoming
adversities and establishing new types to resist them.

But conduct variation is needed, not only to change the
racial qualities to meet new adversities, but to establish such
new habits as may be made more profitable than the old;
and to accomplish changes in the race which, in the same
environment, may adapt it to higher ways of living. The
higher mode of life may be instinctive as in animals and un-
conscious ; or it may be reasoned as in mankind, and may be
self imposed and idealistic. It remains true, however, that

98 The Morality of Nature

in the imperfection of the reasoning of humanity, there is
continued though lessening need of the methods of experi-
ment and survival; and therefore of selection by premature
death. All progress is change and much progress means
much change. In the need for much change there is need
of much selection, and therefore of much rejection; while
in conditions less disturbed there is less variation, less selec-
tion, and therefore less rejection in failure and death, and
consequently less change and progress.

The chief effect of humanity's intelligent foresight upon
this general law is that there will be more of selective pur-
pose in conduct, and less of blind experiment. There will
be less of a wasteful exuberance of life, and less of the
corrective premature death after birth, which balances the
exuberance in experimental conduct. This difference is
visible in human selection. Each individual surviving be-
cause of fit qualities transmits them to descendants whose
kin strength is measured by this quality, as well as by num-
bers; and this strength is reached and declared more by
constructive than by destructive process.

The fitness of a family or race measured by the prosperity
of its succession, in highly civilized life, is not always found
to be greatest where offspring are most numerous. It is
obvious first that reduction by mortality is heaviest where
reproduction is most prolific and that it is the number sur-
viving to fruitful maturity which counts rather than the
number born. And of those surviving it is the strength of
well educated, well trained and organizable units that counts
for power ; rather than the mere numerical strength of dis-
cordant and socially useless individuals. An aptitude for

Justice in Death 99

social co-operation comes to be worth more than brute
strength of the individual. It is not in reliance upon mere
experimental fecundity that humanity properly progresses,
but in appreciation of a higher kind of life which shall
necessitate less of the correction by death. In the sterility
of those not deserving successors or not suited for the sacri-
fice of parenthood, there is a more humane eradication of
them and their deficiency than in rebirth and premature
death: and in the gradual displacement of self-indulgent
races and strains and families, by others which have the
natural impulses and affections, there is a more inevitable
governance, than in the superseding migration and conquest ;
by which countries are repeopled in the processes of conscious
aggressive survival.

The efforts of humanity to resist and oppose death, and
the instinctive abhorrence of it by man and by the emotional
animals seem to be founded in a power to overcome it. Al-
though under the natural law of experimental variation,
primitive race life takes advantage of the opportunity given
by death, for a selection of individuals, promoting the fittest,
yet instinctive altruism and reasoning wisdom continually
operate to enable higher life to foresee weakness instead of
awaiting its development, and to alleviate or prevent its
existence instead of exterminating it. This is where the
morality of intelligent human nature differs from the
morality of unreasoning brute nature.

In the course of the growth of human love and wisdom
there arises an ideal of repugnance to death which is the
instinctive outcome of activity against death. Reasoned con-
duct is forever cultivating foresight, and avoiding death by

100 The Morality of Nature

a right selection of conduct, and thus is continually lessen-
ing the need of correction by death. And simultaneously the
reasoning power is so increasing the knowledge of environ-
ment and the power to organize in specialized co-operation
against it, that the ability to cope with the hostility comes
not only to a few, surviving out of a number, but it belongs
to all, even to the weakest, and by altruistic perception is
extending even to the visibly deficient. It becomes clear that
unity of purpose with qualified strength is for humanity more
important than greater strength without unity. And man,
with increasing perception, becomes aware of the racial unity
and sees that for him, as for all life, the injustice of death as
one of the hostilities of nature appears to operate against the
individual only. Death is not only just but is beneficial in
regard to the race. When a conduct unit of several indi-
viduals such as a family or race is considered there occurs
no such injustice. From this we must infer, that it is for
such a unit that nature's process operates, and we must be-
lieve that our view of the prime importance of the individual
is wrong. There are many other evidences that such is
indeed the case.

On the other hand it may be argued that the effect of
humanity and of human reason is to gradually acquire for
the individual that degree of justice which at first belongs
only to the race. The visible result of that progress, in
which reason overcomes environment, is to extend immunity
to the weak, and to save them by the strength of the strong,
and instead of exterminating them for weakness, to produce
the desired variation and progress by selective conduct in
foresight. This is a recognition of a cumulative principle

Justice in Death loi

in nature, in which advance is more by constructive than by
destructive processes.

Under this impulse we see the question of due compensa-
tion of conduct, and especially the awards of life and death
in that compensation ; pointing to groups and associations of
persons rather than to individuals. The better understanding
of this new higher conduct unit must be attempted.

CHAPTER XII

THE CONDUCT UNIT

The study of the consequences of conduct has led to the
belief that the justice of these consequences appears only
when a number of individuals are considered in their joint
responsibility for them.

If this belief is well founded, and if there is a unit charge-
able for certain activities and the results, it is evident that
for each different activity of civilized mankind there must
be a different unit of conduct, comprising those jointly en-
gaged in it. It is clear that in the complexity of modern life
there is no possibility of ultimately analyzing and valuing
such co-operative conduct. But we may form a general idea
of its nature and of the composition and co-operation of
some of the natural groups of persons.

The most obvious alliance in responsibility is that of
parent and children and children's children. Parents and
children evidently stand in joint concern as to the conduct
of either; and the consequences of the parent's conduct,
whether good or bad, will fall not only upon the parent
but upon the child for many years of childhood. Efforts to
alleviate this law fail to obliterate it. The child is dependent.
Until maturity the separate responsibility of the child can
hardly be said to appear. There is some responsibility of

102

The Conduct Unit 103

course, in proportion to independence of action, but even
that is not separate, the consequences of it will be shared by
the parent. When a child suffers sickness or injury, even as
a result of its own act, the parent suffers, not merely mental
or sympathetic suffering, as when a neighbor is injured, but
actual physical loss. The death of a child is a real loss,
harder than the loss of a hand or a foot or a limb, it is a loss
of so much flesh and blood that lately lived and was part
of the parent. This material relation is made more clear as
the machinery of evolution is studied. It is part of the foun-
dation of the joint responsibility of parent and child. Now
when does that joint responsibility cease? For how long
are parent and offspring linked in conduct? When do they
become independent? If the parents' responsibility ceases
at some time, such as at the child's maturity, or at the
parents' senility or death, does not even then the child's
responsibility continue the same line of activities with the
account still unbalanced? In other words, is not each indi-
vidual answerable indefinitely, for things done by his parents
and ancestors, even after they are gone? Visibly and posi-
tively he is. If a parent should evade duties, the consequence
of that evasion falls upon the offspring. Every man and
woman, every animal alive, stands alive by virtue of the
success of a line of ancestors; and enjoys what he has of
life, strength, stature, beauty, health, reason, wisdom, and
all of it; by their deeds, as qualified by their misdeeds and
omissions, which lessen the benefits transmitted. But even
if he has but a minimum of these things; only enough to be
barely alive; he is indebted for that, and is responsible for
it, until in turn he relinquishes it and some of his descent

104 The Morality of Nature

take up the trust. Now with this point of view, individual
responsibility becomes a different thing. It affects a com-
pounded being of the individual and offspring. And the co-
partnership is an organization of which the members cannot
stand alone. It permits of separate or lone action, at times
it compels it, but at all times benefits and burdens are to be
met, which were not of that creature's separate making, and
at all times his acts are originating benefits and burdens
which he will not meet, but which his offspring will. And
this relationship evidently extends indefinitely into all the
life of humanity and perhaps even beyond. As brothers
and cousins are related so in lesser degree are all others con-
cerned in conduct, so that the remote relationship which we
know exists to unite a nation, is just as remotely binding
them in consequences of conduct. But we must not think
this supersedes responsibility. In any particular action or
class of actions there is an inner and outer circle, a single
creature or group for whom the action is taken, and all the
rest of the world on the other side. It is still the individual
in the derivative sense of the word, in comparison with the
rest of creation, but now it becomes evident that most fre-
quently that indivisible unit consists of an allied group in-
stead of a single being: this group being small for some
affairs and large for others. The smallest group is that in
which individual action is qualified only by the inclusion of
such family as the individual belongs to. He may be inter-
ested entirely alone, he may be with parents and grand-
parents, or with children and grandchildren, or one with all
of these, the normal man will inevitably be linked with both
past and future to some degree and for some time. Thus the

The Conduct Unit 105

conduct unit, in its normal form appears as the group of
related individuals indebted to the past and to the future;
holding in trust the successful issue of generations of proven
life, operating it for a limited period under their own voli-
tion, and passing it, with their own conduct's additions, to
new generations present and to come. This then is the con-
duct unit which death chastises, and yet raises up, which
adversity strengthens by developing resistance which turns
tyranny to justice by compensations, and which makes true
the seeming contradictions of nature.

This conduct unit as thus perceived lives two lives, its
individual life in each creature, which each or any one con-
trols, and which it may end; and its race life, which does
not end until all its members fail, each and every one, and
which therefore no one controls but only influences, for al-
though this offshoot or that may prove bad, or may yield
to error, or fail under adversity, yet a sturdy growth of a
sound branch may grow into the place not only with restored
effect, but normally with improved effect.

Instinctive knowledge of the inseparable nature of the
lives in the direct line from parents to offspring, is visible
in all the habits of and customs recognized in the laws of
people of every degree of civilization. If there should be
needed any justification for occasional human forget fulness
of this joint responsibility, it might be made in the fact that
it is so strongly asserted in nature that man can do nothing
by intellect to increase its force. It is more probable that
intellectual reason fails utterly when in comparison with this
instinct. It would seem that there is error in the theory that
all men are born equal; and another in the mistaken charity

io6 The Morality of Nature

which asserts that the sins of the fathers are not upon the
heads of the children. It is true that altruism may modify
the consequences to others of a man's individual acts yet it
is clear that any benefit or loss must in secondary ways
affect his successors. It may appear that an individual can
evade in his own life consequences not desired, by action
which throws them into the future. He cannot thus escape
nature's law, but is in fact, putting it into operation.

CHAPTER XIII

COMPENSATIONS

Let us now consider the application of these perceptions
of nature's attitude toward a compound unit of human con-
duct. Under this system of compensations let us study a
supposed family, a family of only average natural advan-
tages. Let this group be imagined as consisting of parents,
one or two children of these parents, and grandparents, of
the direct line and previous generation ; and as connections
one or two other adult persons, who are brothers or sisters
to these parents. This is a small family, enjoying little of the
advantage in the large clan support which favors some others
who have many ramifications and alliances. It must be
recollected first that the present position in the world of
this Httle group of persons is chiefly due to their ancestors.
Do they show in their comparatively small numbers a lesser
power for mutual assistance, and a greater liability to serious
percentage of loss in accident or epidemic than larger clans
do? It is evident that a loss of, say, three individuals in a
great catastrophe would be more disastrous to a clan of
eight persons than it would be to a clan of forty. On the
other hand there are some ofifsetting advantages possible in a
compact affectionate alliance of a few highly qualified per-
sons which a larger clan may miss and in some environment

this smaller number may better develop all the opportunity.

107

io8 The Morality of Nature

But what it is first necessary to note is not the quantity or
profitableness of this situation, but its actual reality and its
effect. The fact that here is a family with only a few
adults in the active generation is a fact to begin with which
they did not and do not control. It was settled and remains
settled by the lives of ancestors, in conduct of which the
living share many consequences good and bad. And in these
consequences there is a general approximate compensation.
Possibly conditions have compelled or suggested this small
number. They may have passed through vicissitudes, such
as epidemic disease, and thus it may be that the small family
is a selection of survivors who enjoy a compensating im-
munity gained in that way; and represent a conquest over
environment.

Another possibility is that in some national or clan stress
or in some crisis demanding altruistic sacrifice, this family
has lost members for the good of the nation. In that case
compensation is much more remote and complicated. It may
be partly made in gain of nobility of character and be recog-
nized by public appreciation. But its chief value must be
sought in the extended conduct unit of national size. Then
the sacrifice appears as a race payment for the benefits which
have been received in advance, in several generations of se-
curity of life for which, and for future continuance, a peri-
odic payment is needed.

Thus the conduct unit, as a product of the past, is found
in possession of qualities which, under certain circumstances,
are a compensating and growing credit; and it is a matter of
common knowledge that such circumstances and conse-
quences do really occur abundantly.

Compensations 109

But it is possible that the parents and forefathers of
this small conduct unit gave it that numerical weakness with-
out just cause. Possibly these people long enjoyed affluence
and opportunity and simply yielded to the temptations of
indolence and luxury and neglected natural duties and in-
stincts, showing a lack of ambition and force, and losing
hold of the world by mere inactivity.

But such possibilities need not be exhaustively examined.
It suffices to show that obviously the elements of the visible
situation of this group of persons, their numbers, their pros-
perity or their poverty, are not the only things to consider.
Equally important factors are their history and their ten-
dency. What they are is not to be learned by an examination
of them and their environment. There is needed an in-
spection of the facts that led to their present position and all
of these factors go to determine what will be the impress they
will make upon their circumstances.

It is common knowledge that families do for several gen-
erations show continuous tendencies, purposes and policies,
and whether magnanimous, constructive, idealistic, produc-
tive or destructive, virtuous or criminal, or what not, these
qualities do tend to reappear in succeeding offspring; the
transmission may pass over certain generations to reappear
later.

The main fact pointed by this study is that the family
in its equipment of constitution, temperament, character and
education, as well as in its physical numbers and quality and
fortune, is largely what the forefathers, in their contest
with their surroundings, have made it. That is its new start-
ing point, although the time and place of such a start have no

no The Morality of Nature

definition, and may not be absolutely clear. From this un-
defined point it proceeds to use the equipment, adding to it
as it goes. Now observe how the conduct in question, that
which uses and adds to the heredity, is normally the work of
several individuals combined in community of purpose. And
observe too how in that purpose the different members of
the association bring different qualities which extend the
ability of the whole. The grandparents we may suppose
still aid by the counsel of their greater experience although
they are no longer in control. The younger parents in the
prime of energetic action, with children of their own, are
normally the managers. The children with emotional inex-
perience, and with almost helpless dependence, still supply
unconsciously the incentives to moral altruism. Such a
family in possession of good health and intelligence and with
active, prosperous surroundings in a civilized progressive
country, is an association of specialized abilities which bene-
fits each one of its members. Together they possess and earn
more than their physical needs, and they therefore are ac-
cumulating more or less surplus. Care and anxiety are not
demanded; nature is seen to be very tolerant of mistakes
conscientiously made. But for errors deliberately chosen,
in defiance of conscience and of instinct and reason, the con-
sequences can be seen to fall upon the unit including their
lineal descendants in approximately just measure. If for
dissipation's sake they neglect to educate their children, then
they may secure passing pleasure; but these children, part
of their living conduct unit of their own flesh and blood,
will suffer. If by neglect, for indolence sake, the health of
the children is lowered, then they may gain ease, but their

Compensations 1 1 1

next generation will endure the bad consequences. If for
selfish motives they evade the labors and sacrifices of bearing
children, then even more will their posterity suffer. For
worse than inheriting a deteriorated life it will be cut off
from life entirely.

But in the normal life, growing in strength and health,
they become rich and yet remain natural, and then these ad-
vantages and possibilities pass on to the younger ones, who
receive increased power together with the wisdom needed for
its use.

If with wealth they cultivate conscience and wisdom, then
that wealth is worth much to their young, while if riches are
transmitted without moral strength they are a curse and a
burden. In any case it becomes clear that there is in this
visible process of compensation, an indication of a syste-
matic law which study of the individual life does not reveal.
In this system the life of today stands responsible in a joint
accountability of many persons, but it is still liable, and is
inevitably continuing an old account of responsibility. In
short the present generation impresses the lineage, the con-
duct unit, by its conduct, just as previous generations formed
it for transmission to them. And in the wider relations of
humanity, conduct shows similar causes and effects; it is
clear that innumerable generations and unnumbered rela-
tions are involved in the compensations just as are the four
or five here in view. And it may also be considered as an
evident truth that the further this law is traced the more
these effects will be found to be established in a compensatory
justice.

CHAPTER XIV

TIME AND CONSEQUENCE

There are many deficiences in the human constitution as
well as many virtues which are founded in ancestral acts or
habits established very long ago. Some are of times more
remote than the development of intellect ; things of physical
structure which persist because under the general law of
persistence they are estimated to be more valuable than
would be the readier variation under a less conservative law.
The science of evolution shows that much of the animal
character of the simpler phases of conduct, which reveals
a common source of motive with animal life, exists also in
bodily structure ; and a relationship is preserved or only
partly abandoned, which may be resumed upon occasion for
the preservation of existence. It is (for example), part of
known experience that when compelled, either by individual
mishap, or by tribal reversion, to descend again to savage
habits, men of civilization may soon resume more primitive
aspect and development. The cultivated taste for cooked
food, the nervous regard for details, even the acquired con-
ceptions of the higher authority in conduct, are quickly
dropped for the then more useful, although less advanced,
animal ideals. The savage and the animal persist in the
present individual. This persistence of consequences of

Time and Consequence ii3

conduct of a thousand years ago, shows that a thousand
generations bear upon his present responsibihty. And look-
ing forward there are in his present Hfe sacrifices to con-
ceptions of future demands which may be dawning ideals,
or may be only personal prejudices; but which are equally
gifts to the future; and to balance them more or less, there
are possibly drafts anticipating the future, by which his
conduct may reap too hasty profit to-day, such as that in
which men of a civilization too rapid and trustful, may in
temporary success, forget the assaults of barbarism, until
their sons are found defenseless. In all these things there is
an extension again and again backward, and again forward,
so that in the deepest, greatest matters, the time involved
is extended indefinitely, just as in previous discussion the
number of individuals concerned was found to be extended
indefinitely; and all work rests upon a basis lost from view
in the depths of the unknown past and aims at a goal invisi-
ble in the remotest future.

Beside the lapse of time evidently necessitated to work
out conpensation for great matters, there is a less evident
long deferred compensation for trivial things of which the
influence is so slight that only cumulative eflFect is percep-
tible. Yet it is clear that however small the consequences,
they are not lost.

There are therefore many acts of which the due conse-
quences or compensation cannot be expected until after
many ages ; and many acts are to be considered as persisting
results consequent upon the conduct of preceding ages. So
that there is always a proportion of conduct and activity
of which there is no visible need or which may be without

114 The Morality of Nature

visible compensation. Necessarily then the search for a
visible compensation for every act must be given up. It is
sufficient if the things which are apparent, establish a prin-
ciple of compensation, and if this principle in turn convinces
by its steadfastness. Then we may fairly infer that beyond
the limit of memory and foresight the same law prevails.

This extension of the chain of causes and effects of con-
duct backward and forward indefinitely, is therefore not a
figure of speech or a romance of idealism. Even though
it comes to the door of the infinite and questions the future
in eternity, it is dealing with realities. The inferences, de-
ductions and consequent action, are based upon actual deeds
in the natural law. And in this short review of them it is
the previous experience of facts which is appealed to. The
question is not whether certain things are well known or
unknown; it is what do known things mean and whither
do they lead. And the answer is to be found in observations
of things as they are, and as we know them although with
knowledge admittedly imperfect.

These examples are chosen because they are real. They
are common experiences. There is no question of the truth
of these possible occurrences. These few demonstrate before
our eyes that conduct produces consequences which fall upon
many generations at once, and upon many successive genera-
tions in time, but more than that they go far to show that
this distribution of compensations is, by direct effect, and
by deferred effect, finally made up in complete proportion
to the worth of the conduct. If there is in the direct effect
an imperfect justice, it is perfected in the deferred effects.
If there is in conduct a little error, there will follow a

Time and Consequence 115

little evil effect. If the errors are great the effects are great
in proportion. If the conduct is successful it produces profit,
and if more successful, more profit, or of longer continu-
ance, so it is not for the present to definitely state what is
beneficial or good conduct and what bad; it can only be
decided by results which are often too remote to be visible.
The general definition of good conduct, as that which pro-
duces benefit, is enough to become the text for an inquiry
whether there is a law or system by which such conduct
can be studied, and especially whether such a system con-
tains anything to confirm the instinctive separation of con-
duct into two kinds, one kind impelled by a lower volition
of selfish character, and the other by a higher impulse
founded in morality.

Already it appears that such a compensating system has
in it the potency of automatic operation. Its provisions are
carried out and its laws enforced without new external im-
pulse or control, that is to say without the need of any pater-
nal supervision, or of the intervention of any higher authority
to maintain the course of Nature as originally impelled.

There is also becoming apparent the inevitableness of
these consequences. There can be no evasion. There is
strictly no penalty. The consequences are not punishments ;
they are rewards in less or greater values. Inactivity simply
encounters inconsequence and nothing; and nothingness is
the end; while any sufficient degree of activity secures its
corresponding extent of advantage, and thus it continues
with all possibilities.

It becomes evident that as was premised goodness and
badness of conduct are relative terms ; the badness is simply

ii6 The Morality of Nature

a deficiency or negation or absence of good in accomplished
fact. Purpose is only an activity preparatory to other chief
activity, and, so, as conduct, it is in a subordinate grade to
that of achievement. All conduct will purpose the achieve-
ment of a certain desired effect; and the desire, if sane and
successful, will be for, and will achieve, a beneficial effect
in some part; although there may be another part of the
consequences which is bad but undesired, and which is per-
petrated, and its effects incurred, in order to reach the chief
aim. Now this undesired part taken alone might be seen
as injurious and therefore as bad; and yet it may in the
volition of the actor be justified by the net value of the result.
Therefore good conduct may evidently be compounded of
its positive or plus goodness, and a negative or minus quan-
tity, to be deducted therefrom. And to further confuse the
issue, it appears possible to foresee only imperfectly the
consequences of any act, and the extent of such foresight
differs in different invididuals, so there are many acts doubt-
ful in value, and often there is no possibility of deciding
absolutely whether a doubtful act is good or bad. The con-
sequences will decide and award compensation accordingly,
but even this award will not be definitely ascertainable or
perceptible. It may be argued with some advantage that
all sanely conceived conduct which succeeds is to that degree
good, and that its goodness is proportionate to the wisdom
of its successful purpose; and that badness of conduct is
found in unsuccessful action; and that evil only exists as
the action of unbalanced volition or insanity. It is well to
realize that in the natural final test fitness, and success in the
ultimate achievement of benefit are the only standards, and

Time and Consequence 117

these must vary as often as conditions vary. This does not
mean that any action will be necessarily good because it
succeeds in its prime purpose. Far from that, such con-
duct as selfishness, by provoking opposition, or by alienating
friendships, may cause losses far exceeding the gains and
thus giving net results by which the conduct is quickly
known to be bad. In this test of fitness, its consideration
for a conventional code may apply, and make conduct fit or
unfit, even when that code is imperfect or in error; for pro-
vided the law therein stated is effectivly enforced, it is evi-
dent that such a code is one of the things to be counted with
along with the other elements of environment. The fitness
or goodness or justifiability which any certain action might
have, if codes did not exist, is a hypothetical quality. Truly
fit conduct takes account of all circumstances, and will adjust
itself to the effective value of a disputed law or custom,
much as it would govern itself in contact with the opposi-
tion of nature. If the code is clearly wrong then principle
and conscience may under some circumstances demand oppo-
sition, but opposition is not right conduct if not productive.
It is not a duty to resist when that course is impotent and
self -destructive; the opposition called for even against error
is effective opposition, which perhaps can only be accom-
plished by deference for a time to superior force. Then on
the other hand there is always the possibility that the chal-
lenged code is in the main right, or that being wrong, it is
still less wrong and more acceptable than the alternative
offered in opposition; or it may be that the conservative
habit of the majority maintaining the code, has a right to
delay even a reform which would be equally right.

ii8 The Morality of Nature

If any code or law is effective under liberal institutions
of government or of social custom, there is presumption
that it is right, not always as representing an unalterable
truth, but simply as representing the consensus of opinion
of its expediency. A code of conduct demands respect at
all times, as the expression of the generally accepted opinion,
toward which any individual owes deference and refuses
it at his peril.

There is serious responsibility attaching to the individual
whose egotism sets him in a minority opposition to the
desires of his fellows, and who even if supported by some
hypothetical right, is certainly committing the primitive error
of disrespect, a fault which nature reproves in man as in the
very lowest creatures.

From these considerations it appears that while the natural
law of conduct cannot be codified, it will yet operate by
any code, in its due value, as part, with other things, of the
environment; and there is nothing in their evanescence to
prevent codes being valuable as provisional instruments. On
the contrary they are necessary as the stipulations by which
a member may know his duty in a community, and they are
even more needed when the higher organization of human
beings seek to act in harmony according to the wisdom of
the wisest. But the rightness of a code or law does not
arise in the fact that it is uttered by authority. No thing is
right merely because it is commanded by a teacher, nor is
any act wrong because a teacher or law giver has forbidden
it. If it is right it is because it is beneficial to the doer or
his associates. If it is wrong it is because it is harmful to
the doer or his associates. The lawmaker only puts into

Time and Consequence ii9

words certain facts which he has discovered or learned by
investigation, which will be beneficial to the people he thus
leads. He merely voices the facts of nature; he does not
dictate or make them. And if he assumes to command, it
is because he feels that his confidence will help his fellows.
When Moses uttered the ten commandments to the Israelites
from Mount Sinai it was his purpose to induce them to do
what he knew was good for them and their race. The com-
mandments were right because they would have that good
effect and not simply because they were uttered as coming
from God. That they were so uttered was because that was
the customary method of appeal to the people of a patriarchal
age. To them any statement or law which was not sup-
ported by divine or patriarchal authority was not likely to
have attention. Just as boys in a school would refuse to
study subjects suggested by any others than their regular
masters, so these tribal people would respect only the ad-
vice which came from their known authorities. And who
shall say that the wisdom of Moses was not a gift from God
as it appeared to these simple and ignorant people. To-day
reason and fact behind a law are employed to argue its
worthiness, because our people are a reasoning and fact-
loving people ; but a law which is not based upon the work-
ings of nature will not stand the test of experience, whether
it be promulgated by a modern legislature or by a patri-
archal Moses. The laws which do stand are not made by
these authorities, they are merely voiced by them. In the
morality of nature they are right only when they are bene-
ficial to the people who obey them.

Laws which are promulgated by persons in power with-

120 The Morality of Nature

out the true Tightness of beneficial effect, soon become obso-
lete, as witness the dictatorial laws of the reign of terror
in France, and conversely any laws or rules of conduct
which have been accepted and respected by many genera-
tions of mankind must surely have behind them the forces
of nature with her rewards and penalties. To deny these
established rules is to refuse to heed warnings of danger.

It is evident that the rightness of conduct depends upon
time and place, as well as upon any intrinsic value and per-
sonal circumstances; so that even when certain action has
been found and declared to be right, a change in any of the
factors, time, place or circumstance, may disturb its right-
ness; and this fact operates to lessen the value of any so
called absolute standards of good and bad conduct, and to
reduce the status of any such fixed standard, to that of an
approved convention or code. And just as the value of an
individual conduct varies in accord with environment, so
the value of aspiring motive varies, and the moral ideas
change in rightness or wrongness. Conscience and practice
therefore demand that justice shall be qualified by mercy,
which is humanity's concession of the variable righteous-
ness of absolute truth. Truth is the vehicle of knowledge,
but when knowledge is responsibility and suffering, there
may be as much injury done by truth as by the imposition
of physical pain; and on the other hand a suspension of
this severity may be as righteous and altruistic a deed as the
assumption of a material burden. These are self-evident
facts by which action may be tested, for a realization of
its need of timeliness.

Time thus appears, not only as a factor for producing

Time and Consequence 121

the justice not immediately evident, but as a continual pro-
ducer of new consequences, and new perceptions of them,
which prevents any present age from being self-sufficient.

A contemplation of this never ceasing evolution tempts
the mind into the field of speculative philosophy; but re-
straining it to a hold upon knowable things, there is still
enough within reach to tax the capacity of the human in-
tellect. In fact it may be safely assumed as an ultimate
reason against fixity in the standards of conduct, that the
due conception of the subject will always tax the intellect to
the utmost; because of its infinite nature; as opposed to
the still finite although always extending, powers of the
human mind. The limit of knowledge then is not in the
philosophy of conduct, but in the smallness of quantity and
quality of it which humanity is able to perceive and under-
stand. The argument of any such philosophy can not pro-
fess to see the end, but only to ascertain the direction, or
tendency, of results which are infinite in their possibilities.
The perception of the remote and complex effects which is
the knowledge of morality, must, by its own nature, be ever
enlarging.

CHAPTER XV

UNITY OF LIFE

The many facts which have been cited and studied show
that the primary desire for self preservation, to which the
will and freedom minister, is itself an impulse sufficient to
evolve a law of conduct with the distinct consequences, for
good conduct, of continued efficient life; and for defective
conduct a life force reduced but continuing, if deserved,
until the reserve or credit is exhausted. Thus appears in
natural morality the definition of good conduct as that which
continues life. And it has been seen that the life thus re-
ferred to is not only the limited individual life but the
greater unit which includes this, that is the lineal or race
life which is potentially limitless and undying.

The conduct unit, in an extended sense of the words,
meaning more than one person included in consequences,
is a conception essential to an understanding. The absence
of a word by which this conception can be named is proof
that it is an unfamiliar and unusual one, and the stress
generally laid upon the responsibility of the individual
originating action, is more in accord with the customary
view than is this latter argument. The physical constitution
of this larger conduct unit as it appears in the life of nature
must be examined to see if its attitude in conduct is under-
standable. Such an examination reveals not merely a justi-

133

Unity of Life 123

fiable working hypothesis but a simple comprehensible fact.
Physiological science reveals the individual in exactly the
complex form which a study of conduct appears to indi-
cate. The science of the evolution of species and varieties
of animal life, leads from questions of detail, back to pri-
mary laws, and to fundamental nature. This science reveals
in convincing evidence, visible at any time, the way in which
nature works to produce the physical forms of life, and it
is found to be the same way in which the details of conduct
are compensated and minute advantages of fitness rewarded.
The continuation or extinction of the life term is the way
in which for all past ages evolution has advanced material
life to higher physical forms, while the compensation for
conduct has proceeded. Acts and consequences accumu-
lating in error or in right, which may exterminate life or
extend it now, operate under a law which always was.
Ever since life began there has been the same continued
rewarding of the fittest by the lease of life. But this reward
was not bestowed upon creatures who merely suffered it.
These promoted to the higher grades were not passively but
actively fit. As we see now, they became and continue fit
by changes of activity which suited their environment of
conditions and circumstances, as well as by persistence in
things they inherited which continued to be beneficial. The
changes are proven to have occurred, both in the circum-
stances and the creatures, not only by inference from their
present condition of progress ; but by the positive geological
records of fossilized life covering countless ages. Knowl-
edge of this continual change comes down from all times,
and in all ways, to show it to be perpetual.

124 The Morality of Nature

And it is also shown to be enormous in accomplishment.
Life structures, such as shells, have been counted one by
one into new islands and mountains, while atoms and cells
have been marshalled into new hordes of life and new
organisms. Natural conditions have slowly altered from
tropical to polar and from affluent to arid while, step by
step, living things have altered their habits and forms, and
changed to meet the new demands. Animals living on land
have become specialized to live in the sea, and those of the
sea to live on dry earth. And always these things have
been done in additions of minute successes, in the continued
effort to become more fit, and most fit, to survive. The
chief thing needed in the average mental conception to
comprehend this story is a true appreciation of time. It is
merely a matter of arithmetic to show that a mountain
could be built of so many million grains of sand, and there
is no difficulty in the belief that one grain of sand could
come to the place in question every day, but there is a reluc-
tance to believe that so many million days could have passed
while the mountain grew in that slow manner. Yet all
philosophers of all ages agree in attributing to the first
cause of things, infinite ages of time, in which days and
epochs and eons, are as almost equal quantities. Now
modern sciences show these ages as realities still proceeding,
today being one of them equally potent with any day gone
by, when things we now know were being created. It is
necessary to imagine the possibility, and then to recognize
the fact, that time has passed, in measures so vast, that no
process of change which we see to occur, can be limited in
extent or in effects. Its nature may be bounded and all its

Unity of Life 125

evolutions controlled by immutable laws, but within those
laws any extent of alteration is possible and is always
possible, and change may be, and often is repeated, until
the original form is lost.

This great principle, if recognized, leads easily to the
belief in the unity of life. It becomes clear that life in any
form may have become the source of life in any other form,
and that is to say in all other forms. And the utter absence
of life except as derived from previous life, leads to the
inevitable conclusion that all life is from one old source, or
origin, whether now continuing or closed. The wonderful
uniformity of constitution and structures of all life must be
held to prove until refuted, that all terrestrial life is related
by deriviation from an original form. What that original
form was or is does not matter here. The mystery which en-
shrouds it is no greater for the human mind than would be
any cause which could be put antecedent to it. Even the
question whether a cause continues, and whether in form
and places beyond human ken the marvel of life's beginning
is a daily fact; or whether having once appeared in single
materialization, this rests as a feat accomplished ; this is out-
side of the present argument. It seems more in harmony
with nature's laws as known, to suppose that what has hap-
pened once may under similar conditions happen again, and
there is nothing in such a supposition repugnant, but it is
not necessary. The supposition that the beginning of life
was a creative fiat, proceeding from a preceding cause, would
make equally acceptable the belief that all thus proceeds
from a single source of infinite possibilities.

What is essential to this study is the certain fact that even

126 The Morality of Nature

if there is continued origin of life, that origin is in a primi-
tive form similar to the previous primitive forms, and all
higher life is evolved from primitive form of similar origin
whether old or new. Now the forms most primitive in our
knowledge and understanding are still marvellously com-
plex. The older view of these, as being without structure or
specialization, is untenable now; for even a single cell, the
unit of organization of this life matter, develops internal
and external differences and aptitudes which must mean
divisibility into simpler form, and these simpler forms of
life, even if not the lowest possible, are low enough to
explain the phenomena of conduct. In them life action as
the primary conduct appears stripped of nearly all its com-
plexities. The power of high development by evolution
which must be supposed to exist potentially in them, is yet
dormant ; either because they are new or because the condi-
tions under which they have lived, have continued always, as
in the beginning, constant enough to call for no change.
This view is favored by the fact that such life appears
chiefly in places and circumstances which might well be so
constant, and may well have been just as now through all
the geological ages known to man. But whether these are
survivals or new evolutions, there they are, the creatures
whose substance contains the germ of potential life which
all the life of the world illustrates in repetition of the same
process. These primary creatures grow, and as they become
larger than normal, a portion of their substance separates
and becomes another distinct individual, the original con-
tinuing then as two; and so this goes on indefinitely unless
interrupted by abnormal circumstances. These creatures

Unity of Life 127

do not die as a necessary eventuality. Of course if condi-
tions become insupportable they are killed, changes of na-
tural environment may bring them more or less of food or
of heat or light, or may introduce some new element, and
they may perish; or they may show the earliest phase of
adaptation and thus develop new varieties. But, their cir-
cumstances normally continuing, they continue to live in-
definitely, and death has in that state of affairs no function
and does not appear. It is under such changeless circum-
stances that we now find them. They are as we see them
today the same creatures that lived at the dawn of life.
They are the dawn of life able to live to all eternity.

CHAPTER XVI

POTENTIAL IMMORTALITY

The modern science of biology shows all life including
the human to be the product of evolution of the undying
protoplasmic cell.

The organized life which, by the process of evolution
developed out of the fundamental living cell, still maintains,
as in the innermost fountain of its being, the same growing
and subdividing, never ending substance of life; not merely
a principle or spirit or hypothetic ego, but a self-increasing
living substance, in a cell organization which does not die,
except when some of it is killed by adverse conditions. The
better part of it in fact is not killed, but lives from century
to century and age to age, and all that now lives has so lived
from the beginning.

Human beings, in common with other creatures with
specialized organs, those of digestion and locomotion, and
of other faculties, appear to have acquired these as results
of cultivation of aptitudes, which may have been experi-
mental at first. It is the part of the science of evolution
to explain these things to show that these organs were
developed in variation, selection and survival. But it is
to be emphasized in the study of conduct that the persisting
ego of the creature, the master plasm and its offshoot germ-

128

Potential Immortality 129

plasm, still demonstrates by observable fact the continuity
of undying life. It is as if this egoplasm merely clothed and
armed itself with added organs and limbs and structures;
with their functions, abilities and desires; putting them on
for its better maintenance, and casting them off when they
are old and worn out, and making new ones so that it enjoys
perpetual youth. Indeed this expression, seemingly roman-
tic, is the best description findable of the very fact. In
all animals this life plasm is the ego; the essence of being,
and the essential of reproduction. Whether the process be
complicated by sex or not, the germplasm growing and
subdividing, and growing still, issues from the old physical
structure from time to time, carrying only the smallest frac-
tional abstract or fragment of its hereditary structure
needed for the new start or the change; and proceeds to
build by its inherited powers, a similar structure for itself;
new and young and oftentimes better than the old. In some
forms of life the issue of the germ from the old body is the
end of the use of that old body; the parts of the divided cells
which remain being abandoned at once with the deserted
structure, as we see in many plants, and some animals, when
reproduction is the final and exhausting effort of the individ-
ual life of the somatic body. But in the life where repro-
duction is frequent, and in those forms in which it is sexual,
there is the same continuity of life; although the undying
substance, the germplasm, continues its life partly in the
parent body and partly in that of the offspring; there is the
same discarding of the old structure and making of a new.
The new maybe is begun and is built to a nearly complete
condition within the old, as is the mammalian offspring

130 The Morality of Nature

within the parent; and the parent structure so abandoned
by part of the germplasm, continues active and effective for
a long time afterward. The grand natural truth visible to
the eye of science is that the ego substance does not die, but
puts out branch after branch, each one a portion of itself,
and of its continuous life power and substance.

This descent of the undying germplasm is irrespective of
the principle of sex; that is to say it occurs whether repro-
duction is sexual or asexual. In the lowest phases of life
there are many examples of reproduction without sex. The
function of sex is secondary. It is a later acquisition, serv-
ing to combine in descent the germplasm of two strains with
the result of finally combining many strains, so that any
desirable qualities shall be distributed throughout the race.
The effects thus attained are in the study of conduct of
amazing importance, but they do not change the principle
of the continuity of life. The sexual descent of the germ-
plasm may be briefly described as the uniting of two half
cells recently divided, one half cell from each parent com-
bining their inherited substances and qualities to make a
new cell, which then from its new unity proceeds to sub-
divide itself again and again to develop the new structure
for the ego. This ego will surround and equip itself with
the bodily flesh, bones, organs and skin, made by inherited
ability in the form and pattern of the ancestry of two parents
instead of one. It still remains the undying ego.

Now it becomes comprehensible how and why the conduct
unit includes more than one creature. This line of germ-
plasm issuing from a parent and making alliance with
another, passes into its independent life and activity, but

Potential Immortality

i.^i

is always the same ego of the same substance with the par-
ents. And when the parent in the normal course of nature
emits and establishes several offspring, they are each actual
severed portions of the same life plasm, a part of which
remains in the older creature ; and when this older structure
is killed, or, being worn out, dies, the part of that life lost
in it is insignificant ; the greater part, the strength of it, has
gone out, and, in anticipation of the coming failure, it has
established itself in the present organism of new generation,
in other numerous structures new and young, so that when
death may eventually come, it shall be too late to destroy.

Thus human life is potentially immortal. It continues in-
definitely so long as the individuals to whom it descends
manifest sufficient ability and knowledge to withstand the
difficulties of the outside world, and to transmit the trust
to natural successors. The failure to thus transmit it is not
only the end of an individual life, it is the end of a line of
continuous life which began in the remote past where history
and legend, and even knowledge had not begun. Normal
death in old age, or even death in adversity or accident, of
a life leaving issue, is but a process of nature for beneficial
ends; but death without issue is the extinction of that line;
and is usually a consequence of failure or error, extermi-
nating at once that particular error, and the creature who
committed it.

Here are in material natural history the two diflferent
lives, and the two different deaths, which the study of con-
duct showed as the subjects and objects of motives and con-
sequences : the life of the individual which is merely a ten-
ancy of destructible material, and the lineal life which is

132 The Morality of Nature

potentially immortal, which passes from one structure to
others, and involves all in the same interests, responsibilities
and consequences ; and v^hich ends only in those lines penal-
ized in comparative inefficiency. And death also stands re-
vealed in dual form, the first being merely the final subsidence
of a w^orn-out machine already abandoned by the life plasm,
and the other being annihilation of the race life itself.

The facts thus discovered in lowest life are found (when
once comprehended) to be the same in all life even to the
highest forms. The discussion of them is the discussion of
a universal law of potential immortality. The value of this
potential immortality of the Greater Life can be understood
only if it be thus traced backward through its history. The
view forward of its future is only a possibility, a thing
which may or may not be, a speculation, but backward is
the fact accomplished, unalterable and undoubtable. This
life in the man who stands deciding what he will do with
it, came to him through a series of ancestors, no one of
whom failed in all the ages from the beginning. It is a
commonplace honor, for every creature alive has the same
antiquity of origin, but it is nevertheless stupendous. Not
one forbear failed. Some succeeded better than others, and
some doubtless nearly lost the hold on life. Through them
one by one, each in turn responsible, the stream has
descended, at times flowing strong in prosperity, at others
running low in the shadow of destruction, through ages and
ages flowing forward, budding, breaking into new lines,
into new forms, arising from, and surrounded by extinct
types and wrecked structures ; with error and failure to this
side and that, this line has come down to this age carrying

Potential Immortality i33

the life trust thus far to each one of us who Hve. All this
is certain fact. And of those to come who are not yet in
being, of them this at least can be said that all such as do
come will be of parts of these same ancient lines which are
being now selected from us here ; selected for fitness by their
now operating, responsible acts, to triumph in this real im-
mortality.

At this moment, as at all others, the commonplace action
of every creature conscious or unconscious, is registering
in its natural consequences its title to continue life, or its
failure, and loss of that heritage from millions of successful
ancestors.

CHAPTER XVII
life's value and aim

Investigation thus discovers a further explanation of
conduct in the revelation of a physical relationship among
all individuals of a race in proportion to their community of
descent.

Conduct is now seen as an evolution beginning in the
simple form of sole isolated responsibility of a single celled
creature, responding to irritation, or other stimulus, with-
out volition. In the outset of this simplicity conduct may
affect only the one creature in question, but as the descen-
dants in evolution from this individual extend their relations
according to their growing powers and motives, so their
conduct extends in its complexity of the motives of many
creatures in concert, and extends too in its complex effects
upon many in concern.

And so when we attempt to review the extent of the
causes of human conduct, and to discover the extent of its
effects, we find ourselves in communication with all the rest
of nature in an interdependence inseparable. And thus we
learn and see that this dependence is not only of activity,
but the activity itself parallels the physical constitution and
its history, whose complexity it truly reflects.

This history, now so complex, is found to be the con-
tinuing story of a life ruled in a unity of principle, and con-

134

Life*s Value and Aim i35

tinuing without break in a series of changes normally as-
cending the scale of progress without dying, and using death
only as a means of rejecting inferiorities and renewing suc-
cesses.

This potential immortality is so far thus revealed as a
material reward or achievement, by long continued labor,
which, stretching far into the ages, may yet not seem to
inspire life with any nobility worthy to be considered in
comparison with the struggle.

In the mind contemplating itself to the exclusion of
others, the question arises which has often come up before.
Is it worth while? Is this life of struggle worth living?
To this there are in nature many answers. The first is that
for the place of every individual whose courage fails because
he thinks life is undesirable, there are a hundred aspirants
who are ready because they think it is desirable, and a
thousand unborn seeking room. This is not nature's threat
from authority any more than it is an invitation to suicide.
It is a calm self-statement of an elementary law. The right
to live is earned by fitness; and willingness is the first ele-
ment of fitness. For the faint-hearted there is in nature
always oblivion without condemnation and without recourse.

This is the answer of matter to the materialist. It is the
same answer which nature makes to life without mind. It
throws the question back upon the intellect which framed
it. Such a question does not occur until intellect and con-
sciousness of self overcome the older dispensation.

It is to be observed that it is not the unconscious or the
poor, or the weak, or the hardly used, who ask this ques-
tion of life's worth. These are always brave. They have

136 The Morality of Nature

courage fresh from trials which they have survived. It is
the spoiled, the over-favored and self-loving, those to whom
the world has been so kind that they imagine themselves
entitled to continued and increasing support. These are they
who do not value life, and who are fortunate if they are to
be only tried and disciplined by adversity. For in adversity
a cure will be discovered.

Answers assuring the value of life are the purpose and
foundation of morality, which in declaring the value of
conduct must declare also the relations of conduct to life.
Such a declaration may present itself to an individual in
a multitude of ways, but the form desired by the intellect
which asks the question, is found by the way of continued
reasoning search in that morality of nature, which shows
itself as the normal fulfillment of natural law. The future
which cannot be foreseen may be inferred from the cer-
tainties of the past. The intellect and aspirations of man
as he now exists, have been evolved from primitive life
under a law of compensation for conduct, and that law may
be trusted to continue to operate, and to evolve a future
for man correspondingly elevated, even sublime, beyond his
present power to understand or criticize; and a knowledge
of such a possibility and a faith in his ability for its achieve-
ment, may inspire his efforts.

This is the phase of the study of conduct, especially hu-
man, as distinguished from that which is common to all
animal life. The self-investigating, self-conscious race
stands apart from all the rest in its reasoning knowledge
of good and evil and its aspirations and idealization, and in
its power to study in advance the way and the goal. There

Life's Value and Aim i37

may be emotional perception and instinctive regard for
morality in unintellectual life without self -perception; a
morality of love and faith, which persists, and is in no
wise lowered, by understanding. But that knowledge of
good and evil which constitutes human morality is a con-
scious foreknowledge and purpose, while the emotional af-
fection for good is an unconscious surviving affinity.

The intellectual morality must build upon this without
superseding it — must explain it and in such explanation en-
large it. The function of morality is the perception of the
value of conduct in its remote effects, and any true growth
must extend or clarify it. There can be no growth achieved
in a lessening or narrowing of perception. Therefore the
search in reason for an understanding of conduct must not
be destructive of previous instinctive perception, but con-
structive in its own wider field. Renewed effort must be
made to follow these inquiries into the sphere of that greater
life, where those relations of dual nature may be further
comprehended. Life must be viewed as not only the func-
tion of an individual creature, but in great part the function
of a phase of being which inspires several individuals at once
with a community of interest.

BOOK II
Morality of the Dual Life

139

CHAPTER I

CO-OPERATION INSTINCTIVE

The moral conduct of intelligent humanity refers to life
in a dual aspect — to two phases of life so distinct that in
some cases they seem to make opposite demands.

The individual life — the personal self — demands its own
preservation and gratification, while something outside of
it, something belonging to remote time and to wider hori-
zons, requires service even to the sacrifice of the individual
desires — and this greater demand is the natural impulse
which, when it is conscious, we call morality; its voice is
conscience and its purpose is immortality. It is in fact the
race life, the life of offspring and kin and posterity, of which
the individual is only a small part, acting for the larger en-
tity as a soldier acts for the army to which he belongs, risk-
ing his individual existence in enterprises by which, when
successful, the larger unit will benefit, and so benefit all its
surviving members and affiliations.

The previous studies of the conduct of humanity, and of
the lower life which leads up to the human, resulted in the
clear perception of a general scheme or system in nature
by which all activity produces consequences in due proportion
and with a promise of justice. It was seen that man's po-
sition in the scheme is not a separate or fundamental re-

141

142 The Morality of Nature

sponsibility, but one which differs from that of simpler Hfe
only in the enjoyment of the highest and newest phases, of
a system of development which continues. It appeared that
the chief visible effects of conduct are the success or the
failure of its purpose to maintain the life exercising it. In
the course of this exercise, or practice, experiences and
abilities and habits are added to the knowledge of the crea-
ture, and transmitted as attributes of its material substance,
by heredity, to be enjoyed or endured by offspring. This
continuation of consequences is seen to be indefinite in dura-
tion. The material substance so transmitted does not die,
but continues to grow and add experiences, with potential
immortality. In this, and in the simultaneous growth of
conduct, the increase of complexity accompanies a com-
munity of interest in consequences, among many individuals.
The lineage in direct line of descent, and the family, and
tribe, and the race, are each seen as units of activity in higher
conduct, sharing its responsibilities. The mind is thus led
to an examination of this higher conduct, and of the greater
life unit in whose interest it operates; and to a study of the
relations between this greater undying unit, and the mortal
individual, exercising separate discretion and will.

The material benefit and reward for fit and proper con-
duct, which is a continued lease of existence, with potential
immortality is, evidently an essential privilege of all life;
and is enjoyed by humanity in common with the brutes, and
even the plants of the field. The law governing this con-
tinuing process is automatic and self-sustaining and operates
entirely independent of any knowledge or consciousness on
the part of the creatures governed.

Co-operation Instinctive i43

But when humanity in evolution achieved conscious intro-
spection, and began to acquire the knowledge of good and
evil, there arose a difference of motive, which is seen to be
as radical as was the first dawn of will, or the earliest un-
conscious concession to altruism. In the history of humanity
it almost appears that this new difference has been construed
to mean even more than it should, and has been allowed to
lead man to an assumption that he not only possessed higher
knowledge and laws, but also enjoyed immunity from those
lower and older. This was not really the case. Here again
comes, with the new mandate, the need for a repetition of the
injunction that the new is added to the old and does not sup-
plant it.

Let us inquire what is the first effect of self-consciousness.
In what way does the introspection of man's mind by which
he differs from the brute, first lead him into a human career.
Is it at once a full perception of good and its worth, and a
wholesome knowledge that evil is deadly? Far from this
there is to be seen only a small and gradual growth of the
appreciation of good, and with it a persistence of wrong do-
ing, and consequent death, which is amazing. The effect of
this knowledge of evil, and foreknowledge of death, upon
the conduct of humanity is at first only partial and sur-
prisingly small. We may see in barbarous races a stoic dis-
regard of death which is little different from the absolute
ignorance of it shown by the lower animals. Then little by
little there appears in some people a cultivated belief in a
hereafter as a compensation for suffering, which may be an
intuitive perception or may be intellectual wisdom. This
offers to the individual life an added value in an aspiration

144 The Morality of Nature

to something better than mortal circumstance permits, and
seeks to counterbalance the evil instead of removing it.
It is difficult to know which laws of nature are prevailing,
when in this erratic conduct of partly civilized man, dawning
reason thus intervenes, and instinct fails. There is however
one great law perceptibly triumphant in the chaos, and that
is the law of collective responsibility. Nature is seen com-
pensating the acts of associated conduct by consequences
visited upon the aggregate. In this the conduct unit, which
in earlier study we observed enlarged to cover families and
kinsfolk, is seen further extended. While the individual still
strives with others, and the lineal kin-life or clan struggles
with others of its like, yet in other acts all are bound together,
and are jointly responsible, as a tribe, in comparison with
other tribes. And barbaric tribal conduct, such as a destruc-
tive sacrifice of life, brings its retribution as well as com-
pensations to the tribe, and thus penalizes the actors as well
as the victims.

It required many thousand generations of human reason
in barbaric form to raise it to humanity, but this long con-
tinued endurance of barbaric habit did not prove it to be
finally beneficial. In comparison with similarly primitive
conduct, it may show relative fitness, but this suggests only
a comparative benefit subject to correction. When we see
that later civilization finds barbaric conduct repulsive, and
see that in later codes and standards, early customs are
superseded, we may be assured that progress and advance-
ment are due to the later perceptions, and that the earlier
were successful only because they were not then tested in
comparison with the better. This may explain why the con-

Co-operation Instinctive i45

sciousness of life and fear of death were not potent factors
in the conduct of unciviHzed man, and did not become so
even in his early civihzation, until his elevation to a higher
intellect had been accomplished by another impulse which we
call morality. In the search for a historical beginning of
this impulse many sources are discovered. The early mani-
festation was like other growths, the result of many varia-
tions in responsiveness. In some individuals there was
abrupt and startling revelation of wisdom and cultivation of
it. The education of the lower intelligence by the higher, as
by a prophet inspired, characterized the new growth.
Prophetic wisdom, however, does not reveal the source of the
impulse ; it only illustrates its workings. It is the operation
of the impulse in the productive stage, to organize humanity
for co-operation. The beginning of the wisdom there demon-
strated, is to be sought farther back. It is in fact shown
by history to begin in those very faults which 'first nullify
the advantages of consciousness. The establishment, in bar-
baric humanity, of the tribal unit was at first unconscious,
and the conduct was experimental, each association or tribe
maintaining itself, or destroying itself, according to its con-
duct among other tribes. In fact this was but the continua-
tion of the same principles of conduct variation, and survival
of the fittest, which we saw in individual life, and the
application of them to the larger units of organized indi-
viduals. The survival of some of these units, proven to be
comparatively the best by the fact that they survive, appears
clearly based upon the old law, without much modification by
a foreknowledge of consequences. There were many varia-
tions of aggressive conduct with rudimentary perception of a

146 The Morality of Nature

higher quaHty, before the distinctly best mode of action was
pointed out by increasing frequency of its survival. The
chief element of value to determine this survival seems to
be capacity for association, the same natural impulse seen
long before among some animals, but in man advanced to a
higher degree. And the distinguishing characteristic of this
advancement in humanity appears to be conscious altruism.
The ability to organize in largest units, and to establish com-
munities of greatest power, is developed not by the selfish
method of destroying rivals, but by the constructive method
of increasing the acting unit of force. While the aggressive
races cultivate strength by destroying the weak, and so
promote those who can best destroy their fellows, the gre-
garious prefer those who will tolerate others, even in weak-
ness, and promote those who can effect the most organization
for the common good. And so of human kind the blood-
thirsty tribe proceeds with its development in the way of self-
destruction, and the gentle tribe by its way of multiplying
preservation, each in its own sphere. It is not necessary that
they should come into collision to make the comparison
effective, yet if collision occurs the organization of the
pacific unit does generally prevail against the disruptive im-
pulses of the other. Nor is it necessary that there should be
any knowledge or conscious selection in the conduct. Na-
ture awards her compensations for deeds and not for inten-
tions. The actions prompted by unreflecting instinct are,
when right, equally effective with those reasoned by intellect ;
in fact we may often suspect as ancient philosophy did, that
they are even more moral and acceptable, because of their
seat in mere unreasoned faith.

Co-operation Instinctive i47

Thus we find that in different places at the same time,
or in different times at the same place, there may arise two
or more races which are under trial to survive or to disap-
pear, without knowledge of the test, or of one another. They
will respond in accord with the instincts of the creatures
and the conditions of their environment.

And generally the survivors are the pacific and organiz-
ing races, which grow rapidly to superior strength in com-
parison with the destructive and aggressive races, whose
growth is necessarily slower. It is evident that barbaric
conduct has its greatest value for humanity in the primitive
struggle of the few against the many, in the fight for life
of man in small families or clans against nature alive and
armed. In these circumstances every man to survive must
be a fighter, and, like the carnivora, he will behave even to
his fellowman, in that way which is compelled by his manner
of living. He stands suspicious and aloof. But he will
associate with his own blood whom he can trust and so
achieve in numbers new strength for survival. For him the
practice of altruism beyond his kin and offspring is danger-
ous, and distrust is safety, yet altruism is kept alive in the
instinctive care of family, which it must be noted induces
the sacrifice of self in even carnivorous beasts. Man endures
this life of aggression when it is imposed by environment.
But he instinctively tempers it by so much of association as
proves beneficial, and evidently any success attained by this
way of living, which shows itself in growth of his tribe,
will impel him and his successors to accept more and more
the restraints, and to adopt more and more the strengthening
ideals of co-operation.

148 The Morality of Nature

The early response of such human beings (when it is un-
conscious) must evidently be based upon inherited impulses
since the same conditions visibly permit different responses,
and since the lack of conscious selection of reasoning, which
is so noticeable in the activities of primitive men, shuts out
any appreciating consideration of the future. When we see
savages of one tribe respecting one another, so as to permit
the cultivation of land, and the production of destructible
crops and stock, while another tribe in the same continent
procures these properties only by raids, and holds them only
by force, while their environment is practically the same,
then we must attribute their respective ways of life to in-
stinctive impulse, which can only be so persistent in them by
reason of heredity. This control is equally indicated for the
harmonizing impulse, and for the aggressive. The search
for the beginning of these opposing impulses carries us back
from man to animal life, and in that to lowest forms, below
any possible intellectual origin, and equally clearly below any
religious inspiration. Down in the most elementary rela-
tions of simplest life we find harmony without aggression
and learn that this high virtue is not to be found as a
product of humanity or as an invention of humanity's new-
found wisdom. It is only the appreciation of it which is
new and distinctly human, and able to place it with affinity
to the divine aspiration. The co-operative motive has its
roots in the lowest problems of life. It does not matter
whether this lowliness is observed in the life today raising
from genesis, or the life recorded for our reading by which
our own development was reached. It was and is the same
for both. Although the world is changed by the higher

Co-operation Instinctive H9

creatures in their own perceptions, yet to the primitive animal
of this day which these higher ones ignore, the world might
be in the Palaeozoic stage. The student is forced to the con-
viction that if humanity and all the highest evolutions of life
were swept away in cataclysm, these lowly trustees of vitality
would not only resume, but continue the march upward, and
do over again what was done before, with only such differ-
ences as environment might entail.

CHAPTER II

ALTRUISM FUNDAMENTAL

The cohesion of humanity in the larger conduct units or-
ganized for co-operation in industry and in government and
social activities, depend upon a spirit of mutual trust and
support which is in fact the elemental form of altruism.
This is not a new impulse, however, it is the reassertion of
the original unity of life. In nature, life does not appear
simply as the possession of a privileged individual, — that is
its lesser aspect. The greater is seen as a property of an
undying ego forever broadening into a race-stream of many
in community. This community is a consequence of the
fundamental unity of life descending from a common origin;
and altruistic organization is its self-expression, and moral-
ity is the due regard for the interests of this greater life.
The grandest idealized altruism is not a creation of humanity
and of the intellect nor a special revelation to man. It is a
cultivation or development in nobler form of a thing which
began in the beginning and which is shared by all living
creation. The aspect of it which is distinctly human is the
later conscious knowledge of its moral function and value,
a knowledge which is reached by inductive reasoning, and
consequently can only appear after the evolution of mind.
The contrast between altruism and aggression arises in the
contest of primitive life against life, for survival by greater
fitness, when a limited environment is occupied by two crea-

150

Altruism Fundamental 151

tures compelled by it to contend for the superiority which
is not possible for both. At its inception the aggression of
one life which destroys the other, is compared with the
tolerance of two others in which both survive in harmony.
The two systems of conduct thus contrasted differ in their
unit of activity, but each seeks self-preservation and both are
self serving fundamentally. But the thing we are seeking,
the principle of altruistic association, is evidently already
beginning in the life which fills an environment to crowding
before any contest is necessary. It would appear that the
altruistic motive is a natural and original enlargement of
the unit of the selfish fundamental motive, and that the
aggressive impulse is the secondary or subsequent motive.
The simple tolerant phase of altruistic conduct is the collec-
tive activity normal to living creatures of any fixed type,
and of equal and similar development, in an environment of
abundance; and the aggressively selfish motive is only later
imposed by circumstances generating differences and enforc-
ing rivalry, and is not adopted until those circumstances
arise, and then is assumed only provisionally with a sus-
tained tendency to return to altruistic methods whenever
liberal environment makes it possible, and to limit and reduce
the competition always to the degree unavoidable. Life thus
seems to begin in ideal innocence and to end in ideal perfec-
tion. It is consistent with the known facts relating to the
upward tendency of evolution, as well as with the conception
of a compensating justice, proceeding to establish final right-
ness, by the law of conduct. It is not repugnant to humanity
to trace back to such a source a principle by which wrong or
evil appear to be simply the negation, or absence, or defi-

152 The Morality of Nature

ciency, of a first method of the prime impulse, which is right.
This is the general theory which was indicated by a survey
of practical conduct, and it again appears in response to the
philosophical question.

The physiological facts too are in accord. The earliest
individual life in the form of a living cell, which in favor-
able and unchanging conditions grows and subdivides and
becomes two similar cells, does not thereby evoke any antago-
nism or competition between them. They are, when newly
formed, of the same matter, in the same quality and quantity,
as when they were one. The growth reached is a conse-
quence of favorable circumstances which existed before, and
which still continue. The mutual interest which one-half has
with the other, the moment before division, is unaltered so
long as circumstances are unaltered. Whatever benefits one,
will also benefit the other, and the two thrive at least as
equally as if they had remained united. And the early de-
velopments of life in these lower orders show that when
differences do result from environment, so that union gives
advantage, there arises a process of reuniting of these
separated individuals, which is direct and positive evi-
dence of the continuing mutual interest. This is the process
of conjugation by which two single-celled creatures combine,
not in an act of destructive absorption, by one of the other,
but in the preservation of the qualities and characters of
both.

The earliest conduct may well be of such co-operative
character as to promote the interests of a race producing it.
An attitude in which the circulation and absorption of the
nutriment-bearing water is secured without obstruction to

Altruism Fundamental i53

others, is one of the simplest forms of activity and volition.
Thus the prosperity of a growing colony in this beneficial
arrangement would surpass that of a colony not using it.
Such advantage would be stereotyped in the joint use of the
newly acquired power of secretion of structure making
material. The corals exemplify this process. In this lowly
life there is a considerable development of function. There
is social alliance evolved to distinct system. And yet there
is between the members of this colony no such rivalry as in
later forms appears to be indispensable. But mere associa-
tion in equality of function does not develop altruism; it
prepares the way for it. There is the possibility of differ-
ent degrees of benefit in the different situation of individuals
in the colony. And already, as in the case of the corals, the
use of structures needing renewal and permitting of growth
only by superposing new upon old, has made necessary the
individual death. Circumstances have arrived in which
rivalry might have developed. Each individual might have
established itself in an effort to prevent the use of its struc-
ture as a foundation for others of later time, and so might
have enjoyed a longer period of individual life. This habit
is in fact discoverable in some other creatures. But these in
review, accept an individual life with a term of predestined
brevity, for the sake of the higher growth it affords to the
race. They have abandoned the potential immortality of
the individual, for the privilege of renewal and growth of
the structure; and in that structure they abandon the un-
inhabitable parts, by a transfer of the life germ continually
upward to the new, maintaining thus the potential immor-
tality of the lineage. There is a possibility of rivalry be-

154 The Morality of Nature

tween colonies in their greater or less profit of more or less
favorable conditions, but this is passive not aggressive active
rivalry. So far as the elementary activities are concerned
each individual is bound into the community. The identity
of interest is as complete as in the two prospective halves of
the ripening protozoon before division, and more so than
those halves after division. Any injury to or death of an
individual of this colony is an injury to all neighbors, just
as any injury to or death of a limb of a tree is an injury to
the tree. The whole resources of the organization so far
as they are available are concerned in preventing or repair-
ing such injury. In brief an evolution is visible in which
the prime altruistic principle is potent, and the advancement
of self at the expense of others is still undeveloped.

But the argument will suggest itself that every growth
upward of a new individual upon an old in this colony is a
raising of self at the expense of others. To a superficial
view it may appear so. If the new individual were of
foreign origin it would be so; at times perhaps it is so.
But it is not so when, in normal development a parent buds,
and produces offspring, and plants the bud upon its own
structure, transferring part of its own germplasm to a
position of new advantage, along with others of that new
generation. The transfer thus observed is an activity of the
old generation, not of the new. It is a self-sacrificing
episode rather than a self-seeking one, because the mature
creature controls the process and not the infant. But the
self thus sacrificed is only the inferior vitality of the other
self which is promoted. And the principle is equally well
illustrated in the human life of simple savages in a tropical

Altruism Fundamental i55

climate and generous environment. They grow together,
being the similar offspring of a common stock, without
need or thought of aggression.

It seems that the fundamental altruism thus first becomes
visibly effective, as a transfer of advantages from the parent
to the offspring, and a joint support in those advantages by
the co-related offspring. In parenthood and brotherhood
there is thus evolved the principle which underlies all the
later complexities of such relationships, modified by the
struggle for survival, which arises when environment be-
comes hostile, or overcrowding leads to competition for
benefits not sufficient for all.

In all the development of higher organizations which
advanced animal life presents, so long as it continues itself
by parentage and birth, and at all times and circumstances,
so long as individual death remains as the method of relief
from worn-out organs, there persists and survives this fund-
amental interdependence as a primary requisite for survival ;
a stream which disappears at times from view but still per-
sists beneath the surface. As altruism it reappears so source-
like, and in springs of such purity, and in such abrupt
contrast with surroundings, that it is a pardonable mistake
to believe it a new inspiration.

When circumstances have imposed upon a species the
extreme of offensive and destructive impulse, as, for ex-
ample, in the solitary armed carnivorous beasts, there still
persists in motherhood the purest devotion and self-sacrifice.
And again, when in retrogression, or vicious perversion, of
humanity, a higher life is depraved into a disregard in all
other relations, there is a surviving instinct often apparent

156 The Morality of Nature

in this sacred function of reproduction, which is the one
tie to noble ideals.

And even in those species where apparently the offspring
are abandoned to fate by parents who never recognize a
duty toward them (as we saw in a study of the fishes) a
tremendous effort is made, at the cost of the individual
parents, to place the offspring in favorable circumstances,
according to inherited instinct. The thousands of fish which
make long journeys at terrible risks to deposit their spawn
in their native waters high up in a river of innumerable
dangers, these creatures are fulfilling the same purpose as
the coral polyp which reaches out and plants its young
upon the apex of its own structure.

In all species where there is any sign of upward evolution
this prime impulse persists. It is to be seen in the highest
of brutes as well developed as in primitive man, and there
even better than in man of barbarism or retrograde civi-
lization. Its function in simple humanity provides a test
for the individual unselfishness by which the race self pre-
vails. Man unarmed is defenseless in isolation, and depends
for self maintenance upon the co-operative altruistic union
in which his race was so evidently evolved. Therefore one
of the highest functions of sex is this perpetual preservation
of individual sacrifice. At man's birth, nay before his
conception, the question of self abnegation is raised, and
put to his progenitors, and the answer is life or death to
the new born or prospective offspring. In nature's dispensa-
tion no one of these helpless scions can survive, unless a
mother responds to the demands of nature for self-sacrific-
ing devotion. This demand is the test, not only of fitness in

Altruism Fundamental i57

the offspring, but of fitness first in the parent. Refusal or
neglect cuts the thread of Hneage without punishment of
the individual unborn or unconscious; but with final judg-
ment upon that branch of the lineage, and its qualities, as
this culprit individual has become possessed of them. And
so with other things pertaining to reproduction, such as the
absolute dependence of the mother upon the help of others,
during the period of self-immolation, and the dependence
upon her helpmate during even longer time; and, more re-
motely, the interdependence of both in sacrifices to make the
home in which young can be reared. All these things are
gateways to life at which entry is gained only by passing
tests of altruism. In these tests the race is weeded and
selected, and those unfit are turned aside by their own
preference for other things, and the survivors are those
qualified to subordinate the self of individualism to the
greater self of the organized aggregate.

Thus it appears that altruism is not properly a reversal
of the principle of self-preservation but only a preference
for that self-preservation which acts by unity of the sub-
divided life, instead of by activity of separate individuals
in disuniting rivalry. And the reason why this method of
organized unity is preferred is not that sacrifice is desired
for its own sake, but it is that self-preservation is better
effected in the strength of the greater unit so promoted, than
it is in the lesser strength of the smaller individual unit. It
is still the benefit of the conduct unit which makes an activ-
ity right. It is the same regard for self-preservation and
self -development in happiness, but it refers to a different self
which is the greater self of the greater life.

158 The Morality of Nature

The motive and method of co-operative altruism is seen
therefore to be fundamental and native to life and not a
late reversal of an opposite prime motive.

Its rightness still rests upon the necessity and value of
self-preservation and its demonstration is in its actual sur-
vival in comparison with the opposite system.

CHAPTER III

DEPENDENT LIFE

In a consideration of the physical and material advantage
of a character developed by evolution, it is perhaps of small
consequence how the character originated, whether in acci-
dental variation, or as logically produced novelty. But in
any study of the psychological nature of man, and especially
of the aspirations which address the future by forming
ideals, an understanding of the source of the impulse is of
high value.

When, in the confusion of relations which the civilized
world assumes, an appeal is made to reason for a decision
upon a certain act, it may be quite impossible to assemble
the innumerable conflicting factors in the problem ; and then
a knowledge of the basic principle involved, may be as an
inspiration. Thus altruistic action which is apparently erra-
tic, or in unaccountable contradiction of the law of self-pres-
ervation, may stand clearly revealed in this light, and be
perceived as a logical virtue. And even granting that con-
duct under the altruistic impulse, may be, like other kinds,
sometimes in error, and may put forth efforts which fail,
yet it must be seen that the impulse in its general purposes
and effects is not only good, but is the part of essential good
which is human morality.

The mutual support and co-operation cultivated by repro-

159

i6o The Morality of Nature

ductive sacrifice, extends in lessening force through all the
looser relationships. So we may trace, from the parental
sacrifice, a succeeding stage in the brothers' common inter-
est, first as joint beneficiaries in it, and next as mutual minis-
ters of it, and further as grateful supporters of its source.
In fact the relations of offspring of the same parent do, by
mere similarity and propinquity, first compel, and after-
wards suggest by habit, the same mutual sacrifice in a lesser
degree. And relationships which are of lesser bond con-
tinue the impulse which natural selections and survivals test
and prove, and in approval encourage.

In this process the performance of certain functions by
the way of sacrifice becomes part of the hereditary neces-
sities of the race. Organs are developed which prepare and
mature, and in due time provoke, desires and yearnings, and
eventually conduct, which in self-sacrifice returns to the race
what is first received from it. This necessity of sacrifice
of the lesser life of the individual self, is accounted for in
the perception that it is the fulfillment of a trust. There
may arise accidental circumstances which may prevent a
transmitting directly of the obligations of lineage, but which
do not release the creature from consequences. There are
impulses which were implanted by heredity which, if sup-
pressed in their prime activities, will seek opportunity else-
where. And when the physical processes are thus diverted,
the psychological impulse craves outlet. In this natural
desire arises that wonderful incomprehensible altruism
which applies its forces with unreasoning devotion to fellow
humanity; not knowing logic or cause, but feeling only the
sacred right of its origin; and when in error, still sacred

Dependent Life i^i

in the discovery of new usefulness in its blindest efforts.
It is the perception and utilization of this altruism by the
self-consciousness of humanity which makes it a human
virtue. In elementary form the subversion of the sexual
and parental and brotherly instincts, and their suppression
by circumstances, are afflictions which must be resisted and
overcome, or suffered in serious disadvantage; and which, if
continued, usually mean extermination. There arise in
evolution variations in exception to this normal course, as
for example in the life of bees and certain other insects, in
which individuals are directly appointed to lives of sacrifice.
The workers or neuters of these species, although they seem
to be potentially perfect for transmission of life, are de-
prived by their association of the opportunity, and limited
to a life of ministry to the community. The justice of such
a dispensation must be sought in the fact, previously noted,
that the alternative to this life would be oblivion. If we sup-
pose the creature questioned, as to the acceptance or rejec-
tion of such a life, the offer would take the form of an
invitation on one hand to a life of subordinate opportunity,
or on the other hand to no life at all. Obviously nature is
not indebted to an unborn creature for a right to live, and
still less for any special privileges. Any degree or duration
of life granted is a gift in which the creature is a trustee
and debtor and not a creditor. So it appears that the self-
sacrifice of incomplete neuters or workers is really com-
parable to their discharge of a debt or obligation to the
race, in which the individual is the beneficiary, to the extent
of his enjoyment, of the life afforded him for the purpose
of his office, and without which he would not have existed.

1 62 The Morality of Nature

In the same class come all those incomplete lives of sub-
ject animals bred under control and predestined for domes-
tic work or for sacrifice as food. The flocks and herds are
not normal children of nature mistreated by man and de-
prived of their lives and birthrights; they are the abnormal
product of man's natural influence. They are indebted to
him for the few years of life and happiness which they
enjoy; and this state of indebtedness cannot be reversed
and become creditorship, upon the plea that they are granted
less than they might be capable of enjoying. This argument
is a statement of facts visible. The millions of beasts which
lead their placid lives in a civilized country would never
have been without man, and would cease to be if man dis-
appeared. The millions which will roam the fields twenty
years from now, are yet unborn ; and they will never be born,
unless they are to be protected and cared for by man, for
this limited life of subjection.

Now this light upon the position, in nature's scheme of
compensation, of lives predestined to service, affords a bet-
ter understanding of much of human activity. While such
sacrifice is far below the highest, in an ideal sense, yet it is
useful in the human organization of co-operative society, as
is proven by its occurrence; and, when it does appear, it is
undoubtedly governed by the natural law that the life thus
devoted to the race, is to that degree the gift of the race,
just as truly as the life which transmits itself again to the
race.

There are among the lives most valuable to the race many
which are thus so developed at the expense of the lineal
energy. Indeed the two conditions go hand in hand. In the

Dependent Life 163

event of a disability for procreation, there is frequently a
full development of the energy and vitality which would
have been expended in that function; and this and the in-
stincts rising with it find acceptable work in devotion to
other purposes of related nature, as when an unmarried
woman gives herself up to hospital nursing. Similarly the
inherited development in a high degree, of a faculty which is
offered to, or demanded by, the general interest, will often
suppress or supplant to some degree the instincts for duties
of lineage; and the physical labor will draw force from the
more natural functions. This we see in the man so absorbed
in scientific research that he ignores marriage and neglects
his individual interests. Thus the original impulse persists
in a new form, and when circumstances demand it develops
into dependent activity instead of the normal.

When such work achieves, as it often does in a division
of specialized labor, the advantage of the race, and when the
impulse of the brotherly instinct extends its scope beyond
physical brotherhood to a wider relation, it stands as the
natural expression of general altruism. Then in conscious
perception of its benefits humanity rises apart from the
rest of nature, by adopting altruism and its law, as one of
the general guides for conduct, even where the benefit is
not obvious.

CHAPTER IV

SPECIALIZED LIFE

It becomes apparent that a rule of conduct if established
as a principle by fitness for race survival, and received in
good faith as a guide to mortality, is not to be abandoned
for expediency, or used only as a way of access to benefits
deferred. The conception of a principle of moral human
conduct, as compared with a mere law of animal life, is that
humanity has by reason of intelligence an abiding faith in
the principle, which carries it through situations of doubt,
or of evident immediate damage, with a steadfastness of
purpose which is reposed upon a knowledge of values higher
than those visible at the moment. The natural law does not
appeal. It simply awards consequences and allows free
choice. But the human intellectual aspiration appeals in
communicated sentiment. In consciousness and language
it cries for the brotherly support of that common good which
arose in the primitive absolute community of interest. It
is an appeal for a return toward that community of interest
which was neglected only under compulsion, and is now to be
more and more resumed upon opportunity.

The faithful and instinctive adherence to the principle

thus described provokes new phases of its action. It seems

that reason is not to be the supreme guide but is to be co-

164

specialized Life 165

ordinated with the earlier accepted instinctive principle. It
would follow therefore that errors, or what in reason would
be considered errors, are pardonable. As a matter of fact
that is the practice. All humanity pardons errors of altruis-
tic sacrifice when they are sincere, and even pardons other
offences because they are instigated in this motive. And
in theory the life (or portion of a life) which is devoted to
others has already relinquished, or left unassumed, the
prime function of normal life, which is its self-preservation
and transmission in lineage, and cannot be held individually
physically responsible for error in the way that normal life
is, for it cannot be corrected by a deprivation or disability
in what has already been relinquished.

It seems that the altruistic life, and even that part of a
life otherwise selfish, which is sincerely altruistic, is the
product of the community, or of an enlarged conduct unit;
and to the community falls the care and responsibility as
well as the profit of such conduct. The aggregate so organ-
ized may demand or accept sacrifices from individuals, and
their performance may become a duty if demanded, or a
virtue if offered; but the acceptance of the service in either
case is an assumption by the organization of responsibility
for the conduct, and for the consequences to the community.
If the conduct is in error the community suffers; if it is
beneficial the benefit accrues, as was intended, to the com-
munity. Therefore, the preservation of the worker is the
benefit of the community. Such is clearly the theory which
explains so far as any theory can explain, the facts as ob-
served. It places the obligation of estimating and valuing al-
truistic effort upon the community, and not upon the worker.

i66 The Morality of Nature

It Is clear that to demand or accept help is the privilege only
of necessity, and its appropriation by selfishness is a wrong,
even when the help is freely given in virtue. The economic
value of altruism consists in the net final gain of efficiency.
There is no advantage in a mere shifting of labor from one
to another unless its burden is thus lessened. The change,
to be beneficial, must be one in which the new worker can
perform the task more easily with equal results, or if less
easily, then with greater results. The doing for another
what he sorely needs and yet cannot do for himself (as min-
istry in sickness) is the ideal social altruism; but to do what
another does not need, or what he could better do alone, is
but a misjudged effort. The principle is established in
ultimate greater good, and although it is often superior to
a regard for immediate results, its sentimental value rests
upon its final physical advantage. Altruism is the supporter
of faith and hope and justice and truth as well as of charity,
and in the upward evolution of human conduct it can be
seen ever reaching out for more recognition. In superla-
tive shyness typical of its unarmed weakness, it shrinks
back from bad faith at the same time that it advances
heroically to self-sacrifice for a cause which reciprocates its
brotherhood.

With the conception of conduct as the activity of an
organized society, it is observable and easily understandable
that a lineage may gather strength by the preparation of
sister lives, subordinated as aids to the main life current. A
family already numerous, when variation changes fortui-
tously the development of certain individuals, may use them
in a new capacity, which may prove beneficial to the family

Specialized Life 167

in the natural process of unconscious selection, and thus
add to the group of persons constituting the family, a hered-
ity tending to produce, beside the normal descendants,
others not normal, who are valuable for ability in this minis-
try. Men, and more often women, are thus produced in
civilized life who by inherited instinct, willingly reHnquish
the privileges of bearing in their own bodies the continuity
of the lineage; and others are excluded in unwilling dis-
ability or inferiority of those functions, yet many of these
live noble lives to the great profit of their kin.

Let us look at this from the ancestor's view point. Sup-
pose that in a conscious ambition to found a great family a
wise man could direct his posterity, and in the exercise of
that power suppose he designed for them an organization of
specialized individuals, some of whom should perform one
work and others another work, — and so carry further, the
kind of specialization shown in sex function. It is quite
conceivable that from his point of view the production of
certain celibates, for the benefit of the lineage, with duties
accessory to the reproductive strain, would be an economy
of life force, and a profit to the clan, and, from his point
of view, such a differentiation might be made without any
injustice in the fact that the race life current was cut off
in that individual, in service to the lineage. And especially
could this purpose be justified if the lives thus diverted were
those least competent to perform normal full function.
Now this, which we have thus imagined as a conscious plan,
is what in fact occurs as unconscious evolution, and the re-
lations involved are seen justified, so far as justification
appears at all, in the sisterhood of descent, and the unit)'

i68 The Morality of Nature

of purpose, of an organization of many persons constituting
a unit of life greater than that of the individual, wherein
men and women devote their labor to the benefit of society,
that is to say, not to their own offspring, but to the offspring
of others. This justification of a condition carries with it
however a duty of sacred obligation of persons toward the
individual life thus devoted. The sacrifice to others places
in them and their organization, the responsibility; and visi-
bly as well as figuratively, the acceptance of such service
without gratitude, and without reciprocating protection, is
a depravity which not only cuts off the service, but which
reacts in a loss of that kind of co-operative ability and
benefit.

The obvious effect of this understanding of the recipro-
cal privileges and duties of altruistic organizations, is a
desire in justice to lessen the burdens upon any willing indi-
vidual, and seek for its fair distribution. And in distribu-
tion, the principle showing most value is the free will of
the worker, which increases efficiency. In this purpose
advancing humanity repels that type of organization wherein
some members are subjected to others under compulsion.
Although the physical advantages of organization under
compulsion appeal to humanity as well as to wider nature,
in the transition phases of association; yet they are repug-
nant to the higher desires, and are superseded by the volun-
tary altruistic method in its proven greater benefits, when
voluntary specialization comes into being.

The cultivation of the principle of equality of interest,
reveals it as superior to mere unity of interest without
equality.

CHAPTER V

ALTRUISM A CONSCIOUS IDEAL

It is not illogical to suppose that a high function of
human aspiration is the formation of ideals, not immediately
adopted as guides, but put out as tentative variations of the
conduct motive, to be tested by experience just as were
always all variations ; but which will be superior to accidental,
or to physically casual variation; and will find more rapid
paths upward, by the reasoning consciousness.

But the test which these ideals receive is still measured
in terms of material prosperity. The highest phases of hu-
man endeavor toward co-operation make for that prosperity,
in the encouragement of good faith between man and man,
and in the cessation of destructive aggressiveness, and in the
adoption of united effort for mutual advantage, instead
of predatory effort for comparative elevation. In this way
there arises a more efficient type of organization, which
permits of unity of purpose in larger and more powerful
units; so that although the altruism of humanity is funda-
mentally the same as that of nature generally, yet it seems
to be only in humanity that there is conscious recognition
of its worth. Only the intellect of man, and only of highly
developed man, seems to show the conscious control of

action with knowledge of consequences. This evolution does

169

170 The Moralit}^ of Nature

not appear as a higher altruism. It is a development of in-
tellect, to a degree which affords a higher appreciation of
altruism. No doubt the attainment of such intellect has
become possible only by a previous or simultaneous cultiva-
tion of altruism; for intellect is essentially a thing of gre-
garious life in co-ordinated effort, and such life is necessarily
altruistic at least in part. Yet the truest altruism may be
evolved by casual variation and become habitual in instinct,
and be practiced without a high degree of intellect. Indeed
in this age of reason it is observable that the purest altruistic
conduct, is an unreasoning triumph of instinctive conscience,
over those arguments of intellect which suggest selfishness.
The ordinary mind does not produce nor even promote
altruism. The tendencies of over cultivated intellect are to
self absorption, and to suppression of natural instincts. Nor
does altruism necessarily produce mind. Observe the highly
developed altruism of the domestic hen or the wild swallow,
evinced with an amazing deficiency of brain power. In-
tellect is inherited capacity to infer, while altruistic instinct
is inherited inference.

But when mental capacity has been cultivated to the
degree which can appreciate, and realize in advance, the value
of the simultaneously growing instinctive altruism, there
arises a new conscious motive in conduct which may well
be considered the highest and most moral impulse. And it
seems (one must always hesitate here to claim surer knowl-
edge) that man is the only creature thus uplifted. While
all animate creation shares with him the rights and duties
of continued life by fitness, it seems that to mankind only
is it given to know or even to ask, what constitutes that

Altruism a Conscious Ideal 171

fitness. All may live by right doing, or die in error, but to
man alone is granted the warning knowledge in advance
that his conduct determines his fate. In this knowledge lies
the incentive to a study of morality. It reveals early in the
study the fact that it is only the beginning of wisdom. The
perception that there is a law of conduct and the knowledge
that it governs, is still immensely removed from the knowl-
edge of what it is. That is the superlative wisdom which
may well be the ultimate prize. But with the first dawn of
the moral sense as an aspiring ideal, comes an appreciation
of right conduct ; and especially of that which is not based
on self-interest, and most especially of that which involves
self-sacrifice. So that altruism is closely linked with all
moral perception. The appreciation of sacrifice at once
promotes such conduct, first by commendation of fellows, an
award of which is instinctively welcomed; and secondly by
material help and maintenance, against consequences which
the self-sacrifice might have incurred, but which associates
will ward ofif, because of their instinctive gratitude, as well
as because of an intellectual desire for the cultivation of the
principle, as a most valuable factor in associated conduct.

CHAPTER VI

DESTRUCTIVE RIVALRY

Having studied thus the evidences of origin, and sur-
vival, of the principle of the co-operative instinct, it becomes
necessary to turn back once more to the primitive beginnings
of conduct to see what is the value of the opposing force, the
predatory impulse.

Activity is visibly prompted by a variety of impulses,
so that conduct comes of a mixture of motives, even in the
highest phase, and in morally lower forms its resort to
aggression and to disruptive activity is instinctive and un-
controlled. We have observed that in very simple forms life
does continue under the original impulse, in which the off-
spring of an individual, forming a colony of similar origin
and volition, remain primarily in unison. We have traced
the course of an association in which altruistic activity per-
sisted even when growth in prosperity caused crowding,
and compelled some change of habit and provoked rivalry.
Another colony may continue to maintain its individual life
when crowding occurs, by the simple expedient of cannibal-
ism; or by the expulsion or desertion, or neglect, of the
surplus of weaklings. And this other development of con-
duct can also be seen successfully meeting conditions of
environment in such way as to maintain the race life. But

172

Destructive Rivalry i73

its operation is negative in the main; it arrives at the salva-
tion of the race by a method wasteful and improvident. The
other method of encouraging the increase is evidently likely
to produce colonies of thousands while this is guarding its
hundreds. Later when higher forms of physical organs are
found developed by both of these types these organs assume
shapes in each according to the life led. Predatory crea-
tures are ranged, mailed and armed on one side, and peace
loving creatures, defenseless except by flight, on the other.
These latter are already compelled by their inheritance to
continue their lives in the associated relations for which
alone they are fitted, isolation is danger as well as dis-
comfort; while continued cultivation by survival and selec-
tion, of habits of tolerance of one another, confirms more
and more this destiny as higher organization is reached.
Yet from time to time a reversion in variation or admixture,
or a new development in environment, will create new cir-
cumstances in which the other type is needed. So when we
observe the ways of well established, highly organized ani-
mals, whose conduct is understandable, we see all degrees
of mingled habit and equipment persisting, and we see their
behavior to be compounded of all the previous phases
selected and combined according to environment. For ex-
ample, the wide plains where sheltering concealment and
treacherous attack are difficult, have their herds of large and
comparatively peaceful cattle, horses, deer, and the like, fleet
for escape, and social for organized life, and in those quali-
ties finding sufficient safety against all enemies but man. But
in the forests the inviting opportunities for shelter are also
those for concealment and ambush, and here the strong

174 The Morality of Nature

destructive beasts of prey maintain themselves, and con-
tinue to force upon such gregarious creatures as remain
their neighbors the defensive habits of concealment, as well
as those of flight and association. And here some degree
of armed force, which almost all creatures resort to in
extremity, is cultivated, even by many whose race life is
preferably harmonious. And in the sea and the air the two
types may be seen similarly mingled.

Now in all these circumstances, observation of animals
whose life we can comprehend and watch, reveals the asso-
ciated or gregarious creatures in the ascendancy, not only
in numerical majority, but really and in fact the growing
occupants of the best parts of the earth, while the predatory
types exist as parasites or scourges when in their extreme
form; and thus heavily penalized; or they increase slowly
by mixed conduct, when, despite destructive habits, their
partially gregarious life is procuring them some advantage.
Observe the natural numbers of deer, of cattle, of rabbits,
of squirrels and the rest of the harmless and gregarious
creatures of land, and in the air the flocks of swallows,
pigeons, ducks and gulls and other birds; and in the water
the shoals of salmon, and herring, cod and mackerel and
the thousand big and little unarmed fishes. And then re-
mark the lions and tigers and leopards of the solitudes, and
count their small numbers, necessarily limited, and obviously
lessening, and note the probability of extermination which
awaits them; and see the eagles and hawks of the air and
the sharks and alligators of the waters, all of which are
by their own lives prevented from becoming numerous in
the full sense of the word, even under the most favoring

Destructive Rivalry i75

circumstances. And note the dependence of these predatory
creatures. They cannot exist alone, without the defense-
less populations to whom they are parasitic; while these
alone, without the fighters, are not only potential for inde-
pendence, but are seen to be greatly benefitted by relief from
the incubus when such relief occurs.

Therefore we see that the natural sustaining impulse to
a groNvth of altruism or the consideration of others, consists
in the continued surviving success of association. If this
association develops an impure form and is involuntary or
forced, its success, although checked, still means increase of
efficiency; and greater impulsion toward mutual conduct is
probable; yet the long persistence of a system of organiza-
tion by force is visibly possible. It may be demanded by
its prevalence in surrounding circumstances, in which case
it will not probably come into close comparison with the
purer altruistic fife of other distant tribes, but will work its
own destiny in due course, or yield perhaps to others of its
own type, or to nature; or evolve itself into higher form,
as we have seen possible. But there is clearly shown the
expectation that sooner or later when the time is ripe it
must alter, or yield place to those who have changed, and
have elsewhere cultivated higher powers.

In a world of limited extent with increasing population
destructive competition is a temporary or transitional
method of advancement which, when a certain status is
reached can perhaps retain it, but cannot provide for growth
— while the other system of co-operation provides for con-
tinued adaptation with increase of numbers, in compara-
tively indefinite progress.

176 The Morality of Nature

This is the elementary view of the foundation of the
strength of civiHzed conduct against barbaric. While the
imperfect barbaric altruism may make possible a triumph
over all rivals, it is not self sustaining, but the higher altru-
ism accomplishes an enormous enlargement of the unit, with
corresponding gain in power, which has no limit in its
possibility. This does not apply to modern civilization
only, civilization in its dawn was evidently thus impelled
by a natural crowding of people in prosperity, some of
whom, doubtless enjoying advantages of freedom from
barbaric aggressors, grew into a certain degree of altruism
as unconsciously as do the other gregarious creatures. The
opinion that this growth preceded any recognition of it,
is not only credible, but it is in accord with observations still
possible, but fast disappearing before the march of modern
world conquest. When, during recent historic times, new
people who had known little of any outside world were dis-
covered, it was almost invariably shown that those of great
numbers were always associated in habits of altruism; and
that barbarism of blood thirstiness and aggression was co-
incident with smaller and restricted tribal development.
The numerous populations of tropical islands were usually
friendly. The great oriental peoples remained idealists and
altruists even when their vast populations were dominated
by alien warriors; and it may well be that these warriors
were the servants and saviors of the peaceful faith, and not
of their own aggressive power. On the other hand the
predatory Arabs of the near east, the head hunters of the
farther eastern islands, and the warriors of the North Amer-
ican Continent, which is today called west, were found in

Destructive Rivalry i77

disunited tribes and clans, even in that land of abundance
where they had free opportunity for swarming and for
nation building.

And we see further that these races of death dealing, self-
asserting, strong armed, fearless warriors disappear in ex-
tinction, while the law-making, peace-loving, neighbor-lov-
ing, altruists, survive. Even though their altruism is
imperfect it is in comparison with aggression the greater
power. But obviously the offensive conduct of aggressors
impels even peace-loving peoples to fight in self-defense,
because purely altruistic conduct in the face of oppression is
as disastrous as weakness or incompetence; and then the
accumulated resources, the mutual support, and the con-
sciousness of right, give them overwhelming advantage. In
fact we see the most successful aggression illustrated when
an altruistic race is roused to warlike action by necessity;
or even when ill-judged impulse leads it into false ambitions.
But these temporary departures from the habitual conduct
do not conceal the fact that it is in the methods of peace
that strength is accumulated and in those of war it is dissi-
pated and wasted.

CHAPTER VII

ASSOCIATED MOTIVES MULTIPLEX

By circumstances which we may consider fortuitous,
these two rival systems of conduct, the co-operative and the
aggressive, are thus produced from a source originally
single. They are launched each separately, by life succeed-
ing under separate and different conditions. Thenceforth
they may meet again and contend, blend and compare, to
influence the evolution of conduct, each in due proportion.
The selective process of survival favors the combination of
the two, which, at any particular time and place, will best
endow life for the mixed conditions then and there prevail-
ing. Under this regime there may be an obligation at one
place, upon the individual happening there, to choose be-
tween aggressive action towards others on one hand, and the
suffering of injury or death by himself and his kin, through
the aggressions of others; and the use of force under these
circumstances becomes his right, unless higher obligations
toward higher conduct units overrule it. At the same time
in another place, where aggressive action has been succeeded
by the higher tolerance, and by a greater unit of activity;
such conduct might be a crime which would entail evil con-
sequence. Therefore it appears that conduct has a fit or
unfit character, consequent upon the conduct of the fellow

178

Associated Motives Multiplex i79

creatures of the individual in question. Here is another
evidence of the mutual interest in activities which makes
logical both the sacrifices of altruism, and the control of
conduct by common consent of many in association. It is
seen to be essential to the system of associated conduct,
that all, or at least a preponderating and workable majority,
should coincide in a united conception of duties and ideals.
The evident waste of effect shown by sacrifice not desired
or appreciated, such as the attempts of a higher or different
civilization to persuade belief on the part of a lower bar-
barism, or of some unrelated culture, exemplifies the transi-
tory nature of definitions of conduct, and their local and
limited character. Inasmuch as fitness, and increase of
fitness, not for another's environment, but for one's own
circumstances, are the tests of conduct, and of its cultiva-
tion, it is clear that any standard which is foreign, and igno-
rant of those circumstances, may produce evil rather than
good; that is to say, injury rather than benefit, even if it is
in its own highest nature right; unless that standard is so
widely set up that it is generally understood and accepted
by all those associated in the responsibility. And in a self-
evolved culture the same consensus is needed ; an individual
cannot elevate himself indefinitely, by the comprehension or
practice of conduct ideally better than that of his neighbors.
Such progress is feasible only within certain limits, after
which it is necessary that the community become associated
in the ideals, in order that their value may be developed
without reversion to hostility of attitude. The idea of
personal right in property, for example, is accepted as being
beneficial in its stimulation to progress by industry, and to

i8o The Morality of Nature

the production of wealth, with a consequent independence
of necessity, affording the opportunity for cultivation of the
intellect, and for exploration of science. But it can be
carried on in effectiveness only so far as the force and
numbers of the community continue to find beneficial; or so
long as outside aggressive forces and numbers remain either
inferior or acquiescent. Wealth which by misuse or super-
fluity provokes the cupidity of others to the point of attack,
is not a benefit but an evil to its owner, whether the others
thus provoked are right or wrong, and whether they are
of the owner's race, or of an invading barbarism. And even
without open hostility as a consequence, wealth may be so
exaggerated as to incur the disadvantages of a disunited
membership, and loss of cohesion in the community.

And similarly on the other hand the social right of com-
mon enjoyment of advancing prosperity by industry, can
be developed only so far as will still enable the aggregate
to recognize the natural principle of individual responsi-
bility, and of due personal title in the products of effort;
and of support with its consequent stimulation, of any
superior skill and enterprise, by superior rewards. There
is only a passing interest in equality as an incentive to con-
duct. Equality of interest ceases to be a question or factor
if the community fails or ceases to produce unequally any-
thing to be interested in.

It becomes clear that the successful conduct which relates
itself to its associates, can advance but little without pro-
portionate advance by those associates. It may be expressed
in other words that the benefits of altruistic civilization,
attained by reciprocal support, can be cultivated only by

Associated Motives Multiplex i8i

mutual interest and participation. It Can be inferred con-
versely that the progress of a community is promoted by
the separate progress of its members; and that so long as
the interdependence remains unbroken, the individual bene-
fit, and even an elevation of a few to superior reward, is
advantageous to all; to those not so elevated as well as to
those visibly successful; because of the stimulus to activity.

The toleration which is thus seen to grow rather than to
disappear, as the organization enlarges, reveals the essen-
tially voluntary nature of the association. The activities
which are promoted in nature to this survival in fitness, are
the voluntary activities. A moment's thought suffices to
reach a perception of the greater efficiency of voluntary
activity, as compared with involuntary. Even if well organ-
ized and well controlled, a conduct unit of enforced and
unwilling individuals is seen, wherever found, to be of less
capacity than a unit of equal size and equal organization, of
willing unity. And to this efficiency there must be added
the effect of the preference, rooted in nature, for conduct
of one's own choosing, as a means to comfort and happiness,
which is after all the chief purpose of effort.

A union which begins and remains as a voluntary com-
bination, evidently allows a retention by the individuals of
much of their original judgment and independence; potential
even if not exercised, and this original character persisting,
is in fact a continuing factor in human association. The
persons coming together relinquish so much of their old
nature of individual freedom, as is necessary to the union;
and no more. They organize for such conduct as is neces-
sarily the conduct of a greater corporation; and for such

1 82 The Morality of Nature

conduct as the greater phase of the dual life performs more
efficiently than the lesser or individual phase. But for
all matters which the individual does properly and better by
himself, they reserve freedom, or claim freedom if it has
been lost. And for all conduct of all kinds, that in union
as well as that in solitude, they reserve so much freedom as
shall make all lawful acts voluntary and not controlled by
others, but only by the individual perceptions.

In these principles appears the reason and necessity for
that retardation which sometimes seems to oppose progress
by undue regard for ignorance. Such delay is often a
concession to the higher law of unity of purpose, by a lower
law of immediate value, which value is only deferred in
order to avoid disaster in too precipitate action. Reform
proceeding by education is seen to produce voluntary co-
operation, and thus to be more permanent, as well as more
probably right, than enforced and violent reconstruction.

We may reason that the adoption of altruism does not
involve a cancellation of the primary law of self-preserva-
tion, but really an effort toward the maintenance of that law
and right, by the added efficacy of the consent and assistance
of others. The natural effect of altruism is reciprocal bene-
fit. If the virtue of an effort for another were in the doer
alone, then all the tyranny of oppression, and fetish sacri-
fice, and of inquisition, might be justified; but if the good-
ness lies in the benefit as perceived and appreciated by the
object, then his unwillingness must be sufficient to pro-
nounce the effort defective. There follows inevitably the
right of the object, the person benefited, to accept or reject,
encourage or decry, such action, according to his own per-

Associated Motives Multiplex 183

ceptions. If his perception of good is at fault, it must
first be improved by education, so that the action will be-
come acceptable. Here lies the need of discussion and agree-
ment, upon the desirability of such benefits as are suggested
by the intellectual motives of conduct, previous to their
actual operation.

The attitude of self -governance as a persisting factor in
conduct is one which could not entirely disappear, even in
the highest of motives, so long as life depends upon econom-
ical efficiency. Suppose that eff'ort for others is a virtue,
good in itself, even if made without the consent or desire of
the object; then we would promote a system of activity on
behalf of certain creatures, by others who knew less of their
needs — while these in turn must labor for their benefactors,
of whose wants they are ill-informed. Each group will thus
be concerned most in the business of which its experience is
least, and such a system would be absurd. Moreover, it is
essentially intolerant, while true altruism is essentially
tolerant. It is common knowledge that those who seek to
enforce benefits upon others are least inclined to have others
direct them. Such activity is in fact the gratifying of
egotism and not of altruism. The goodness of help is
perceived to be measured in its acceptability; and that too
in terms of the understanding of the object.

In associated conduct the activities thus proceeding, in
balance between the active impulse to sustain and benefit
one's self and the restraint imposed by regard for one's
neighbor, are the results of these two forces maintained in
equilibrium. The normal conduct is that which obeys both
in due proportion. The neighbor enjoys part of the bene-

1 84 The Morality of Nature

fit« which secures his co-operation and assistance in the work ;
and in his turn he contributes a share of his advantages, as
the price for tolerance and help. It being of course perceived
that such sharing is not direct and stipulated, but is indirect
and voluntary, and expressed in the confidence and faith of
the participant, as much as in the deeds of the community.
Altruism ofifers benefit without previous stipulation of price.
Even the idealized altruism, which is the abstract of such
conduct, presented by specialized ability or authority, can
be perceived to reach its highest expression in those deeds
which one does for another because that other, while desiring
them, is unable to do them for himself. The need of the
needy makes an action altruistic, which would without it be
dictatorial; and the comparatively high ability of the doer
makes conservative and economical, what would without it
be wasteful. It remains possible that unselfish sacrifice, even
if undesired, may be admirable; and it is possible that efforts
for others, even when wasteful of work in proportion to
results, may yet be of virtue. But such examples do not
show the true high worth of altruism. If no valuable
results at all appeared these efforts would still have a right
to respect as the product of a virtue which is instinctive
and necessarily unreasoning, and therefore, even in error,
lovable. But it is in the showing of a net and final balance
of benefit over expenditure that conduct proves itself good,
and it is in this respect that altruism inspires man with the
instinct and capacity for association. The end is sought at
times by individual action, for benefit in which all shall
share; and at others, by collective work, for benefits which
each in turn shall enjoy according to need; but in either case

Associated Motives Multiplex 185

the value is in results better enabling the individual, and
every individual, to achieve his own proper purposes.

Altruism under the test of nature's uses is seen to be a
principle in conduct, originating in the division of a life-
stream into many individuals, in the separation of the ego
or conduct subject, into more than one individual, so that it
may specialize its parts and gain elasticity, which in this
principle is done without loss of unity of purpose, and the
principle is seen graduating into a precept, when reason
endows man with a knowledge of its benefits.

The benefits are the organization of greater and higher
units of the collective activities of the mutually interested
creatures, who, although putting aside undue rivalries among
themselves, are still banded in the greater self-interest of
their association for its self-preservation.

Thus a new creature appears; an incorporation of the
greater phase of the dual life, a creature which can change
and renew its form, and can retain perennial youth, and to
which death is only the transfer of life from old structures
to new ones. And this creature is an entity capable of
being aggressive to all the outer world. The outsiders
whose aggressiveness can be reconciled, and who will enter
the community of interest, are welcomed to embrace that
relation, but the peaceful essence of its alliance still permits
its engagement in active warfare with environment including
the predatory foes of an irreconcilable nature. It offers in
collective strength protection to the weak individual of its
own brotherhood,

A demonstrating example of this attitude is the war of
altruistic humanity against disease, which rightly aims at

1 86 The Morality of Nature

the extermination of those creatures of bacterial nature,
whose parasitic Hfe depends upon injury to the higher
organism. The right and reason of the persistence of the
aggressive self is in this example very clear; and it can be
understood as sustaining right of the same nature in less
clear cases. An all embracing altruism is impracticable
until the time of infinite perfection.

We find therefore that the civilized co-operative union is
properly based on the old restraining respect for one's
neighbors' desires, developed into voluntary considerateness,
and become a habit, and thus impressed upon self-interest
in varying degrees ; and the greater and the purer the nature
of this considerateness, the greater the capacity of the
creatures exercising it for the organization of their
associated units of conduct. The extent of this influence is
in fact the measure of civilization and progress, and of
human elevation toward perfection. The principles of
growth in cumulative knowledge inspire units of the race
life cohering in associated conduct; and growth enables the
life to include larger and larger units, and to govern them
more purely.

Any conduct of an individual in this dual life therefore
is a complex activity, of the one person, and of an extended
co-operating organization of persons, linked in sympathetic
union of that greater life. And evidently the conduct may
afifect either a single or a multiple life or the activity may
be produced in a joint operation of all of these interests at
once, in varying degree of participation : human action is of
that complex nature; the act of a person, done for himself,
will usually have also some effect upon his lineal life; and

Associated Motives Multiplex 187

conversely action for lineal life will necessarily affect the in-
dividual; and again either will probably have a less direct,
but still important, effect upon many associated lives, in al-
most infinite degrees of interest. There is little or no action
which a civilized person can properly claim to be his own
affair in which others have no concern. The altruistic
temperament will be thoughtful of others, consciously or
unconsciously in every act.

CHAPTER VIII

MORAL MOTIVE

We have earlier noted a probability that the first applica-
tion of the striving human intellect to a knowledge of good
and evil may have been in a recognition of the value of
altruism — already existent as a surviving instinct — and an
adoption of it as a rule of conduct, and as the foundation of
a consequent code of morals. That is to say the beginning of
that progress which raised humanity out of mere animalism
was a perception of a good principle in self-sacrifice, and an
adoption of it as a virtue apart from any visible gain and
above any animal instinct, and even above the temporary
arguments of self-interest.

This beginning of morality would establish the main issue
as a contest between the forces of advancement and those
of retrogression. It points to the suppression of the activity
of aggression, and the development of the notion of
harmony, and the marshalling of the power of an unseen
right, growing in effective struggle against visible, forceful,
present error. It is the foreknowledge of good in the re-
moter consequences, even as far removed as those called
spiritual; and the knowledge of evil in those nearer grati-
fications which would sacrifice the future. Such an idealiza-
tion may have made clear to the faith of moral man, the

i88

Moral Motive 189

principle which modern science reveals now as founded in
his physical nature.

The evolution of this principle into a moral law is a
natural growth. It visibly takes that form anew, in the
family, when it has become lost in the larger world. For
ages the maternal instinct alone, fought off a hostile world,
in solitary knowledge of the great wisdom. And then the
father, as lover first, and father afterwards; and then the
brother, sister, son and daughter, learned in weakness the
value of affectionate strength; and the knowledge spread
through many degrees of instinctive perception of the worth
of community, opposed to outer hostility; and enlarging
until beyond the family, first the clan, and then the tribe
and nation, were in some degree included in its brotherhood ;
and at last the instinct is defined by intellect, and its in-
fluence for good is recognized and formulated.

The measure of world civilization is in the extent of this
influence. The process is shown to be far short of com-
pletion now. The present age in which many individuals
are still held to moral laws by a major force instead of by
their own personal perception; and in which tribes are by
brotherhood bound into nations, and yet those nations
remain in armed repulsion; is not civilized to the degree of
its capability, although it is doubtless advancing as fast as
is permitted by persistence of habits long practiced. The
opposition of these backward elements is founded on legiti-
mate conservative instincts, which adhere to customs by
which they have profited, even when they seem to profit
less, acting of course upon the basis of experience which has
often shown cause for change to be evanescent, and untrust-

190 The Morality of Nature

worthy. That which changes too easily will have no perma-
nence, for it must be ready to change again. Such a course
is right for a barely established vagrant life, and for rapidly
evolving progress in new conditions. The march of a high
civilization must usually be measured and sure, and without
haste; and so even the methods of force, and of evil must
exist until not only the intelligent few, but the controlling
majorities, are convinced of their lesser value. They have
not only the power, but also the inherent right to exercise
that power, according to their own consciences and intellects,
in the working out of their own destinies. Their duty to a
better informed wisdom is only so much as that wisdom can
convince them of, and no more. Their change must be
accomplished by education and conviction; not by force or
even over persuasion.

For this reason the actual condition of humanity at any
time is of less import than the trend and direction; and even
the velocity of movement is not to be considered without
reference to its moment, and weight, and permanence. The
goal is so far away that time is, as it always was, available
without limit. Progress continues. Disorder and war and
epidemics of crime do not arrest it. Despite all these con-
tradictory facts, and notwithstanding a seeming rejection of
religious precept, the world is advancing.

The present stage of human civilization is visibly proceed-
ing in accord with this method of development. The rapid
growth of democracy evidences the ascendancy of the volun-
tary principle. It may be inferred that the principle which
inspires the higher successful conduct, is really established
as a law superimposed upon those previously constituted. It

Moral Motive 191

is to be believed that the goal of human progress is the
continued intellectual preferment, of harmonious associated
action, over antagonistic rivalry, or in other words the
purposed supplanting, as a standard of fitness, of the de-
structive activity exercised selfishly, by the constructive
action exercised altruistically. The survival of the fittest
proceeds undisturbed, but the conditions change as numbers
increase, and what was right becomes wrong, and fitness
takes new forms. The chief factor is no longer physical
force, but the organizing impulse.

The goal thus presented is not a finality ; it is a continuing
advance, oscillating perhaps in the never ended ebbing and
flowing of the tides of evolution. It is continued advance-
ment which is in sight, and not the end. For so far as we
can see, the goal is to be always a new height, which, once
attained, will enlarge the powers of vision to distances before
unknown. To express the thought without symbol or simile ;
it is a self-evident fact that the increase of human wisdom to
which we now aspire, and which we can now formulate and
reach out for, and attain, will when attained, increase again
the aspirations and the power to achieve.

This growing activity which looks to the future for
reward instead of to the present, learns always more how to
see into the future. Just as the life we achieve by our present
feebly executed altruism, is higher and richer, and more
successful than that formerly attained without it, and as the
new knowledge is an inspiration toward continued effort;
so the future will always promise, and the promise will
always inspire.

The evolution of conduct is as naturally and positively

192 The Morality of Nature

upward, from lower to higher forms, as is the evolution of
physical structure.

And parallel with the achievement of moral ideals set up
by the knowledge of good and evil, and which is a gratifica-
tion of mind even in its instinctive process; there comes that
for which they are originally conceived, before they are
perceived ; which is the material benefit and prosperity. We
may see on every side in the higher civilization a triumph
of material good over material evil which is amazing. The
ever active hostility of nature is softened and warded off in
the higher civilization so that storm and frost, and heat and
hunger, and enemies and wild beasts, and in some measure
disease and accident, no longer terrorize or even affright
those who enjoy all that their racial humanity can do for
them. The children and the aged; under the protection of
those who are strong and fortunate, are guarded against
these formerly bitter trials. To those who successfully
realize modern possibilities, these evils, formerly dominant,
are as outer things, heavy upon those less fortunate, and
sufficiently familiar only to stimulate pity and help. And the
most fortunate workers who thus protect them, enjoy the
same immunity in different forms and degree, in their
mutual service and support of association. Now this truth
stands true of certain persons, in spite of all the suffering
that remains unchanged for others; and it is the result of
altruistic co-operation, in spite of all the contradictory hard-
ness of heart elsewhere, that without pity strips the defense-
less to clothe itself and its progeny, in a parasitic luxury.

By even small example the fact is established that the
civilization of altruism can do all these things; and it stands

Moral Motive i93

visible to our eyes that more and more in this direction is
possible, and is daily done. Comfort and health are being
awarded to greater numbers by it; and life itself, the life of
the individual, is being extended in years as it is being in-
creased in happiness. Now it is appreciably possible that at
some future time, instead of a favored few, all or nearly
all, should reach this prosperity. Thousands now, of
ordinary people, enjoy that degree of physical well being,
and moral wisdom and liberty and opportunity, which a
little while ago came only to a few who were great. So it
is to be seen that this is a still living progress. Then again
the sacrifices made by those who bear the brunt of injustice
become, in civilized progress, continually less. It is begin-
ning to be understood that useless sacrifice is not a benefit,
but is an error which nature never demands, and that the
selfishness which demands sacrifice, or strength which com-
pels it, must give place to a regard for the weak, for whom
sacrifice is necessary.

So the wisdom which detected the value in sacrifice will
apply that value for its fullest effects, and will suppress
waste of it as earnestly as it would oppose neglect of it.
And the end of this purpose will be to make a minimum of
sacrifice sufficient for the maximum of benefit. In other
words the purpose is not only to achieve the greatest bene-
fit, but to do it with the least possible inefficiency of effort,

and to apply it with the broadest equity.
13

CHAPTER IX

THE GOAL OF ASPIRING MORALITY

The tendency and visible progress of moral civilization
toward greater and fuller realization, and therein still greater
understanding, gives birth to an aspiration worthy of con-
tinued life, a fitting goal for our potential immortality. In
the unperceived heights to which we may aspire, for our
lineal selves in their own flesh and blood ; are possibilities of
a humanity developed toward perfection, beyond the scope
of our imagination, in its attainments, and virtues and
attributes. We cannot describe or define that which is to
eventually transcend our present power to imagine; but we
can look, with a hope approaching certainty, to that next
eminence, which is the beacon of our present system, and
is within the perception of our limited intellect. Even
granting the possibility that our philosophy, of intellectual
altruism, may be superseded by a better system, as far
superior to this as this is above that of survival of experi-
ment, and destruction of unfitness, yet, without appreciation
of this unknown advance, we may seek much of progress in
the direction already begun. We can believe in the logical
sequence of upward evolution to grandest things; because
we have no difficulty in believing in the already achieved

lesser things, which are now to be seen; and because belief

194

The Goal of Aspiring Morality i95

is, and has been, reposed with advantage, in aspirations less
assured than this. We can see not only that the prevaiHng
effects of the action of associated humanity under the system
of conduct which we call conscious altruism is rapidly up-
ward, but that it may indefinitely continue upward. We see
the individual life not only extended in duration and in-
creased in security against the hostile environment, but we
can be assured that this extension, and this increase, can
continue; and will spread, moreover, to benefit more and
more of the world's populations. In mere enlargement of
scope of what already exists we have, in our perfect com-
prehension, a feasible and worthy development of earthly
civilization; in the raising of all mankind out of the afflicting
power of hunger and exposure, persecution and war, tyranny
and injustice, ignorance and bigotry. These things are
today practically in process of subjugation. They are no
longer terrors for those who are established in the comforta-
ble protection of the power of a free civilized nation. A
few years ago that was not so. It is now only partially so,
for those preferred, and in a limited degree. In a few
years more it will arrive surely (except for the possibility of
catastrophe which is always over us, but which the life of
the world has survived for all the ages) that millions will
enjoy this immunity which has now been achieved for thou-
sands. Injury by cold and storm and famine and flood and
other manifestations of nature's hostility too, is almost
eliminated in the protected civilized life. The proportion of
that loss is so small among old people and children, and those
in care of altruistic civilization, — housed in dry and warm
homes and fed by the aid of railroads — that they live and

196 The Morality of Nature

die with an almost entire immunity from the natural catas-
trophes which weakened and decimated their pioneer fore-
fathers. The accidents which prevail occur in the course of
voluntary competitive life, and these are only too considera-
ble. Yet though they call for care they make even now a
mere fractional reduction of the good which palliates them.
The list of evils overcome needs to be extended, and the
extension proceeds. From natural hardships it advances to
accident and disease. It is strange that it should be so, yet
industry and love which can achieve and bestow, almost
surely, protection against other ills; has least effect against
disease. Energy and wealth, used selfishly or altruistically,
do not afiford the power to secure immunity against those
plagues which all men endure. Yet even here the thing not
yet done is begun, and its end is quite conceivable. We may
hope, because we can see it possible, that disease organisms
can be exterminated in the same manner as are the other
predatory parasites, the tigers and the smaller vermin. In
the broader method of altruism, by which those enjoying the
power and opportunity, aid the neighbor who is prostrate,
and destroy his enemy, there is now a prospect of the
eradication of evils, which was never visible in selfish
motives. Before this new mode of attack this old enemy
will go down as the others have. It is no mere figure of
speech to call this warfare against disease, a new mode of
attack; for although self-sacrificing aid to the sick is older
than humanity, yet the aid was purely defensive, an act of
love, directed where the love was bestowed and not else-
where. But in the new altruistic organization the activity
is not only in defense of one's own lineal life, but of all

The Goal of Aspiring Morality i97

humanity. The line thus extended to better guard the
weak, reaches in a mighty circle which protects also those
promoting it, and thus becomes an increase of social
efficiency.

We can therefore believe that as physical advantages come
to be further added to the lives of all men, in the way they
are now partially achieved for a few men; so also mental
power and psychological understanding will increase, and
comprehension of the universe will be extended.

The mind of man perceives facts, and grasps definitions,
and solves problems, which a little time ago were not only
unapproached, but which would have been uncomprehended
if perceived. We can believe that in a few years more,
things will be defined which are now unthinkable, and will
be substituted for many conceptions now disappearing. The
capacity which is trained and expressed in mathematical
reasoning, produces results in a knowledge of the universe,
before which the unexplained continually explains itself.

The light of this knowledge is no longer the secret power
of a jealous caste. It is shed upon all humanity so that all
may follow the leaders who carry it forward. Not
figuratively but actually, the illumination of modern science
and reasoning is for all, and so partakes of the loftiness of
moral progress. In this light some things appear imperfect
which lately were held up as examples of wisdom; and, what
is more to the purpose than the exposure of error, other
things long known as guiding impulses are shown to be of
eternal authority. For every old moral law overthrown by
modern science, there are a score re-established in newer
form.

198 The Morality of Nature

In such enlightenment man perceives man and attracts
man, so that milHons share an understanding which a few
years since was only dawning in the minds of a few hundred.
It is in fact the primitive principle of universal relationship,
brought to light again, after having been obscured and
dimmed by ages of ferocity. It is not our creation, nor
even our discovery; it is merely our preception of oppor-
tunity to cultivate our inheritance. And we know that this
knowledge is not sterile or purposeless; we see its effects.
Who can face this upward movement of humanity and
venture to limit the future by his little share of present
knowledge ? Who then can bind the present to the inherit-
ance from the past? Surely the reward of faithfulness is
beyond description.

This inheritance is a stewardship, and the only accounting
of it that will prevail, will be a showing of it, not barren,
but with products and profits added to its physical and in-
tellectual abilities, to maintain the upward progress. The
whole purpose of conduct thus enlarges its field, even while
the continued maintenance of life in the face of a hostile
environment, remains always the prime need of each present
moment, without prospect of change. The things that
change are the manner of resistance, and the means of
maintaining hfe; and the perception of them, and of the
consequences. The overcoming of opposition by altruistic
co-operation, does not abolish the promise of achievement
of conditions of still greater good, and does not invite
merely greater enjoyment. It demands the rise of the
organization of life into higher and higher forms genera-
tion by generation, as a qualification for sharing in the

The Goal of Aspiring Morality i99

higher hfe thus reached. Thus we can see that progress
is not only present and certain, but it is exacting of effort
for participation in its reward. It is more than a privilege ;
it is a duty, to be actively pursued. The consequence of
neglect of this duty is unfitness, which brings decay and
weakness and, if continued, a passionless, merciful extinc-
tion of the faithless and faltering, in race suicide.

Nature is thus seen to present to each human being for
the due exercise of his volition and will, compensating
awards for activities not immediately effective.

A belief that this award of compensation is not a sufficient
inducement, and that conduct ignoring it will be more satis-
factory, is permitted; and such action is entirely feasible.
It is not forbidden in nature, to appropriate an undue part,
or all, of the energy and substance and privilege, inherited
from the lineage, to the selfish consumption of the individual
trustee. Such action is in his option. It is tolerated
temporarily, in view of the automatic consequence that such
a perversion carries, to the dual life perpetrating it. If the
individual life appropriates what, in the general opportunity,
is due to be transmitted to successors of his kind, the evil
extirpates itself in a minimum of time, and with a minimum
of trouble, by the deprivation which the lineal life suffers
in the impoverished successors, or in the absence of any
succession ; then the death and end of the unworthy strain
makes room for something better.

And the consequence of sufficient good action, according
to the variable standard of relative fitness, is continued
lineal life, through each individual. When the upward
movement shall have achieved all that is noble and worthy in

200 The Morality of Nature

our present aspirations and shall aspire to things still higher,
our own flesh and blood in our own form and resemblance
idealized, shall be there, and shall enjoy the result of our
right conduct; holding that privilege so long as by right
conduct they continue fit and worthy.

And the degree of this our participation will be accord-
ing to our degree of fitness of individual life, and according
to the rightness of its subordination to the higher phase of
its dual nature, to that higher immortal phase of life which
is the being of the true ego.

CHAPTER X

VARIABLE IDEALS

Humanity, as it exists, is found to be an aggregate,
seeking unity in organization, obeying impulses due to the
fact that its members are co-related in a common origin, as
of one species; and governed by the same natural laws.
During centuries and ages, generations and races have
pursued different courses of evolution under differing
circumstances; and have reached such different conditions
that it is scarcely credible that the same law has applied to
all. The variations, cultivated in obedience to necessity,
have been by nature chosen for preference in survival under
entirely different environments, and even under different
natural systems. And the result of this long continued
growth in separate series, is a number of distinct schools
or variants of morality. The codes and conduct developed
in some places by success, are methods of life which in
another place have been by nature suppressed for failure.
The things which prevail in any one country are different
from those dominating in another ; manners which represent
the progress of centuries in isolation, stand insufficient
when that isolation gives way to a wider contact with other
humankind.

In the sudden extension of human travel, and interchange

201

202 The Morality of Nature

of knowledge, all the nations of the earth are enabled for the
first time in history, and probably for the first of all times,
to observe one another, and to compare the purposes and
effects of their ways of living. Some are revealed as pos-
sessed of ethical ideas of such old establishment, that in
their very excellence there is torpor, others are seen endowed
with a restless energy and variability which have achieved
so far momentum rather than profitable position. And
others again are found deficient and utterly wanting in the
comparison, or irredeemably committed to a wrong course
of activity.

Still others are evidently blank, as tablets upon which
no writing appears, of which some are receptive and ready
for new impressions and new responses, and others, equally
blank, are incapable of receiving impression. These
primitive men may be examples of persistence of the earliest
types, or they may be evolutions of a newer primitive type,
or they may be regressive races reverting from higher to
primary conditions. There is probability that those per-
sistent in barbarism, are so not only because of environment,
but because of an inherent incapacity for higher develop-
ment, which hitherto has been no bar to their occupation of
their territory, simply because in the abundance of the
world's space there was room for them and their wasteful
system. There is probability that the strains of humanity
which show superior intellectual capacity now, are those
which were differentiated from inferiority in the remote
past of human evolution, and are not merely temporary
beneficiaries of better opportunity. This view is in harmony
with that afforded by the broader view of the descent of

Variable Ideals 203

man, indicating that humanity as a race was differentiated
from other animal Hfe, in a period long antecedent to the
appearance of the nearest present species of brutes. Just
as the relationship of man to the ape is utterly indirect, and
only through an ancestor very remote from both, so the
relationship between Aryan man and the unrecognized
savage is remote, in a common source of the distant past.
Even then the difference was probably first one of aptitude,
and not of condition or attainment. That aptitude which has
produced improvement continues; and will continue to pro-
duce it; and the lack of aptitude persists, and will persist, to
prevent progress.

These surmises, although not in themselves conclusive,
are in harmony with observable facts. The great divisions
of mankind, racial, national, and political, show, as we have
noted, utterly different standards of conduct; and yet their
progressive evolution, when visible, indicates a common
law. They have systems of morality so much at variance,
that each one restricts the authority of that wisdom, to its
own sphere of action. The peoples which have attained
foremost rank and power in simultaneous development of
justice, and morality and social science, do not yet apply
these principles to the highest and largest units of conduct ;
but still engage in destructive armed combat to settle by
force the matters upon which nationally they become rivals,
and in doing so individuals of each race, or even of each
differing opinion of the same race, perpetrate, with con-
fidence of righteousness, deeds which they have stigmatized
as crimes when used between lesser units.

Moreover the teachers, whose specialized duty it is to

204 The Morality of Nature

discover and announce right and wrong, differ in the extreme
in their review of this war conduct ; according to the degree
of their allegiance to the higher humanity and remoter
motives, or their instinct for emotions immediately im-
pelling; and still more they differ, according to the beliefs,
and creeds and dogmas, to which they are committed by
prejudice and by allegiance in religious and political
organizations.

These well known facts present visibly in actual life that
idea which forced itself forward in the study of principles,
that there is in practice no fixed standard of conduct. Yet
the progress of humanity shows a certain grand orderly
movement, producing a condition which is far different
from what would be expected from chaotic disregard of all
attempted standards.

The contradictions lie chiefly in the alternating ascendancy,
in environment, of the two great systems of self preserva-
tion; the constructive, and the destructive. It appears that,
although a nation of people may so far realize the brother-
hood of its members, as to suppress much of the open
practice of predatory selfishness among themselves ; yet in
some cases it has not achieved a sufficient understanding of,
and sympathy with, the neighboring nation, to permit it
to enjoy any apparent advantage, if by force it can secure
it for itself. And usually there is a persistence of the
repulsion until it is mutual ; because its too rapid disappear-
ance on either side, would open the way to destroying
aggression of the other. It is impossible for a pacific nation
to live in peace if an aggressive neighbor attacks or
threatens.

Variable Ideals 205

Therefore in the practical efforts for self-preservation the
resort to armed force is imposed, even upon those despising
it, so long as it is persisted in by others. But it is observable
that the results of the comparisons thus provoked, are
most amazingly in favor of the conduct most constructive
and least aggressive. It is not only to be seen now, but it
is recorded in all history, that the peoples who have best
cultivated their powers in industry and commerce, and in
mutual support and trust, have thereby secured for them-
selves elements of strength, enormously greater and more
enduring than the essentially aggressive qualities they have
relinquished. The savage disregard for suffering, which
is lost, is more than offset by the value of the civilized
alleviation of a soldier's hardships. The barbaric stoical
endurance of slaughter in defeat is balanced by the civilized
practice of surgery and medicine. The ignorance of arms
of the million workers, is made up by their skill, and by
their scientific equipment, and altruistic support, for the
specialized soldiers. And in the contests of nations when
reaction has measured strength with progression, that is to
say when a predatory people has engaged in contest with a
co-operative people, the higher principle has always pre-
vailed, other things being equal. Even in cases, which have
occurred, where the power of government and control of a
mixed nation has passed to a militant people by their con-
quest of an industrial people, it has often been done without
displacement of the civilization; and may in some cases be
regarded as an endowment of, or an adoption by, that civili-
zation, of a somewhat exotic piece of militant machinery for
its better protection, as happened in the Chinese acceptance

2o6 The Morality of Nature

of the Manchu rulers. History shows examples of the entire
absorption in a peace-loving people of a hostile invader
whose characteristics have been serviceable for a time, only
to disappear in the subsequent amalgamation. The Norman
conquest of Saxon England was an example of this fusion.

We see then in the hostilities between nations, not always
examples of conduct in accord with the wisdom of this
generation, but often examples of a persisting but declining
system of the past. The reluctance with which human
nature abandons methods which have been established by
success, makes this contest long and possibly endless ; for
the tolerance of the altruistic system, will extend even toward
the enemies of its association; and permit, perhaps with
instructive wisdom, the existence of opposition which is
entitled to respect. The new humanity of altruistic type
does not however depend upon its own strength alone. As
we have seen, the system of its enemies is in its nature
limited; predatory life, when relieved of its incentives, tends
to revert to peace, and to the enjoyment of peace ; and with
the example and precept of neighboring altruism, that ele-
ment in any race which has best preserved the instinct of
harmony, will quickly leaven the mass when opportunity is
presented. Hence it arises that the nations change rapidly
by internal impulse in an age of rapid evolution; and, some-
times without violent disorder, and at other times with much
trouble, the people divert the energies of conduct into new
paths.

Now it is a curious yet self-evident truth that in a rapid
progressive upward development, the most conservative con-
duct, which has been the most reliable, ceases to be perfect.

Variable Ideals 207

The reluctance to change which has many times been virtu-
ous in its refusals of invitations from the beaten path,
becomes error at last. When this opposition to novelty is
allied with a selfish love of power, which often develops in
the exercise of it, there arises the situation where new
wisdom stands in rebellion before the old. It is equally true
that in decadent times, popular loss of wisdom will leave
the established moral rules and their ministers in an isola-
tion of superiority, from which influence has departed. In
both cases there is breaking up or separation into opposing
groups, with loss of sympathy between the old leaders of a
community and its less conservative elements.

CHAPTER XI

VARIABLE ORGANIZATION

Mankind is thus found to be grouped and partially united
in racial and national aggregates, which often lack com-
munity of interest, and are divided themselves by differences
of purpose, which may arise in many ways, but which when
no other cause exists will develop in the unavoidably un-
equal wisdom of individuals.

It can therefore be said that these inequalities are neces-
sary conditions of the system as it exists, and not mere
removable incidents in opposition to it. External opposition
when overcome could be ended, but this internal opposition
continually reappears. And as this opposition frequently
imposes new forms upon the older ones, it evidently denotes
an experimental variation of conduct in these greater units,
with possibly the same functions as pertain to the variation
perceived in individual conduct. These aggregates are thus
in process of comparison just as the lesser ones are, and
the fittest are surviving, in natural preference over the
others. Here too the process of selection is becoming less
destructive, in that altruistic contact invites change by con-
version to its methods, and conduct is purposed as well as
experimental. Yet it remains true as before that in the

absence of adaptation the old law of consequence still solves

208

Variable Organization 209

the problem by the destruction of the unfit. We may see
in this chaotic mixture of activities, an evolution which is
still proceeding by law, and that law is the same as was
visible in smaller things. Here also becomes apparent a
constitutional difference in capacity. Two natures, equally
impelled by the competitive advance, may be seen, one capa-
ble of elevation and the other only of destruction. In long
established, persistent heredity, one may have latent
tendencies toward the higher life, which circumstances have
restrained ; and the other may have its character based upon
a persistent and hitherto successful use of the predatory, or
of some other methods which are obsolete. So a race of
mild, pacific savagery, despite its abject backwardness, en-
joys some degree of opportunity because of its pacifism, and
to some extent secures a share in the succession, as we see in
the case of the negroes in America, while the war-loving,
barbaric nation, refusing to participate in what it despises —
the warrior Indian — goes down into oblivion. The situation
is still that of survival of the fittest, but it is according to
some law of fitness which changes and has changed, and
which is not declared in any permanent standard code. All
the standards and codes which exist to aid and control
the individual stop short of assumption of authority over
the world units. And moreover great efforts to extend the
influence of the stronger codes have not succeeded in making
them universal. The imperfect successes of these efforts
show, that universality of standard is as impossible as
permanence of standard. What is right at one time may be
wrong at another, is an obvious truth paralleled by the other,

that what is right at one place may be wrong at another. It
14

210 The Morality of Nature

may even arise that, as between two courses of nearly equal
value, one is right on one place, simply because of some
convention to which men make concessions in mutual respect.
So it occurs that nations of equal cultivation may properly
differ as to details of conduct; and if equals so differ, it is
clear that those unequal must present points of greater dif-
ference; and these differences operate to limit the proper
scope of any human laws which have been evolved under
limited conditions. But although we detect the absence
and impossibility of unity, we may still trace much similarity
of purpose and much community of ideals and some uni-
formity of expression. There are cardinal virtues common
to all the great codes which are generally promoted to a
nearly undisputed permanence. Such for example are the
ideals supporting truth, justice, duty, faithfulness, pity,
respect for life, philanthropy and liberty; and love, which
includes all these and more. Yet even these cannot be im-
posed upon inferior people in the same form accepted by the
superior race or condition of men. The attempts in com-
pulsory elevation to morality have failed in regard to these
highest virtues as well as in lesser ones. And on the other
hand the most successful extensions of higher civilization
into lower, has been done in a tolerance of imperfection in
the degree of culture; and insistence chiefly upon the aim
and direction of the development, a practice of tolerance to
teach tolerance.

It is also clear that right conduct, as perceived by wisdom,
can be imposed upon ignorance only in the negative function
of restraining what is wrong; which is in fact the exercise
of the common collective right to oppose injurious activities ;

Variable Organization 211

that right which we perceived as making the beginning of
responsibihty when voHtion first appeared. In this right it
is competent for the collective wisdom to declare precepts
against murder and theft and perjury, and, either by a
strong leader, or by a common activity, it may make its
opposition to these and other crimes more or less effective,
and so in part purge the community of them; but it cannot
by any such means compel active virtues. It cannot make
the man love truth who is deterred from lying only by fear
of penalty; nor can it induce one to give aid to the helpless
by the same means adopted to prevent him from robbing
the weak. These altruistic things are the product of long
continued voluntary thought which breeds conviction, and
the most that the advanced can do is to educate, and lead
up, those degraded or delayed, step by step, beginning at the
bottom, where the teacher must descend to the position of
the pupil. This process is in fact visible in all the successful
efforts at control by superior intellect, and there appears in
it a power and effect immensely greater than in those other
means wherein force demands compliance with laws not
understood, and even insists upon impossible mental percep-
tions ; under penalties and punishments.

In the organization of the great social units which show
the most unity, the underlying principle, the influence which
comes nearest to a world-wide scope, is that of the teacher
making this altruistic descent to the lower level of his
pupils. A consideration of this attitude finds it to be based
upon a recognition of the right of the governed to certain
privileges of his own position, however low. Not a theoreti-
cal concession of right is here meant, but an actual state of

212 The Morality of Nature

affairs in the world, wherein we can see successful propaga-
tion of good by the exercise of this individual right; and
a stable, natural progress of humanity, in ways, and at levels,
below the scope of the makers of codes. We see co-operative
commercial civilization, through its eager practice of trade
and industry, attended by barely enough moral teaching to
deny its own vice, securing domination over barbarisms of
all styles and strengths, by meeting them on their own level
and touching them with the almost unconscious higher
abilities and higher desires, and we see these desires grow
into ambitions, and acquire self-sustaining power, so that
new units arise and races are blended, or work side by side.
And while this growth of commerce and commercial mutual
interest has extended until the whole world now feels it, even
to the remote corners, so that there is no longer any country
unknown to it, the old missionary efforts seeking to devise
a standardized goodness of conduct, and to impose it upon
the world, have turned from arms and conquest by which
such conversion was once hoped, and has come to seek
alliance with the commercial and utilitarian motives.

The true followers of false prophets have fallen but little
farther than the false followers of true prophets; for
similarly the internal affairs of the nations have escaped the
former compulsion toward formulated moralities, and the
religious power, which was supreme and vindictive in this
regard, has become a mere protest; while the functions it
failed to perform are replaced by a striving and searching
for knowledge amid the wrecks of moral authority, and by
instinctive revivals of emotional memories.

And yet out of this disorder, which seems to the old

Variable Organization 213

philosophy to be degradation, there is rising a continuous
rapid evolution toward higher ideals and better achievement.
The liberated humanity of today lives in a perception of
good and evil which is growing, and is immensely greater
than it knew under tutelage. It perceives the lawful
authority exercised a few generations back as a perversion
of power, and regards the still subject peoples as needing
emancipation as the first step toward elevation, even while
these others still hold steadfastly to their faith which is
superior to their wisdom.

It is not surprising that in this transition there are
appearances of error. It is only in accord with natural
law and precedent, that with great change of circumstance,
there arise great activities in experimental variations, from
which only a few will be selected for survival, and of which
many may be regressive, and even bad. It is natural too
that many individuals, and many associations, failing that
control which custom has taught them to expect from
authority, and lacking perceptions of their own, should err
in the simple blindness of free ignorance, and follow only
their own desire as a guide, in those matters which no
longer appear to concern others. The surprising thing in
all this is that the turmoil unbridled is usually obedient,
in part at least, to an unknown law ; the associations and
clans and nations of many different standards are usually
evolving the same new ideals ; and even the violent champions
of liberty, in declaring their people free, usually join in a
new concept of authority.

CHAPTER XII

AUTHORITY

The evolution of greater units of conduct from smaller
ones, is perceptible in all the history of civilization, as an
effect of increase of capacity. The ability to effectively com-
bine by which a nation organizes and acquires solidarity, is
an ability which arises in morality, and which grows and
enlarges only in proportion as that morality develops. The
higher forms of association, and the new forms of morality,
are evolved together necessarily ; because the moral principle
creates greater cohesive force, and therefore enables the
increase of numerical strength ; and this again stimulates and
in fact compels a continued responsive progress, as a means
of maintenance. The relationship thus discoverable in the
facts of complex and intellectual conduct, is found to have
its source in physical and primitive needs. The simple
organization of the family, the parents with the brood of
immature young, is the natural early type and pattern, of
an organization directed by the wisdom of those obviously
superior, and united by unavoidable dependence. That this
organization is moral cannot be disputed. The arbitrary
character of the government is, in the beginning, just as
normal as is the control of the somatic body by the mentally
qualified person. And when the family enlarges, and in-

214

Authority 215

eludes several related broods under autocratic patriarchal
control, it may still retain an essential moral character. The
heredity of the governed is then the direct product of the
governor, their needs and physical ambitions are but re-
newals of his, and when morality assumes form, that form
first appears in the conduct of experienced age, and is trans-
mitted from age to youth as naturally, and received as
readily, as are the baser bodily habits. Education in the
home, of the child by the parent, is in fact an extension of
heredity itself. It is the supply, to certain physical capaci-
ties, of the knowledge most exactly suited to those capacities,
which no other than the parent can have. That knowledge
is the experience of a life organism of certain peculiar indi-
viduality, and the offspring which has those same peculiari-
ties, profits by and needs, that experience, more than any
other experience.

Therefore so far as this parental and patriarchal control
can extend over its own heredity, and so long as heredity
continues to need extension by education; such control is
and will ever remain essentially despotic in nature, although
qualified more and more, as the rights of others in a com-
munity, mingle with and modify even parental rights.

But this despotism remains moral only so long as its base
rests in heredity; and the paternal sympathies and infantile
needs show community of origin and of purpose. When
many families enlarge into environment of new conditions
and new contacts, that sympathy lessens, and new ones arise
of the same nature, but of different condition; and a union
of these many clans is no longer a group of dependents, with
a naturally superior leader, but an association of such groups

2i6 The Morality of Nature

with many equal leaders. Then, only the persistence of
habit maintains the form already established, by the promo-
tion of that leader comparatively best, or presumed to be
best, or the one strongest and most ambitious; and he con-
tinues to exercise authority of that same despotic character
which he feels and believes to be moral, but he exercises it in
relations where its morality no longer has the same physical
basis in the same degree as of old. It is true that in a lesser
degree consanguinity makes a governor more fit and accepta-
ble. Experience and history clearly show the normal right-
ness of racial sympathy between a people and their kings
or priests or leaders. But the wrongness which appears as
this stage enlarges, can be seen to consist in its emergence
from the scope of all that real superiority which made
partriarchal despotism beneficial. Parental authority has
then not disappeared ; it remains autocratic and yet moral, as
before, but only as before in its limited sphere. The tribal
unit of conduct enlarging into a nation has become too
diversified for that method of government, and it fails to
secure unity of action.

But the evolution of higher modes of co-operation is
shown by history to be a slow and painful process of experi-
mental variation and survival. The perception of a new way
of beneficent rightness may come to the wisest and the most
sympathetic minds soon after the need appears, but it is not
available until the greater number and greater forces of all
those concerned come to believe in it, and it is not stable
and efifective until such a majority has it so rooted in
experience and heredity that the belief is natural and
instinctive.

Authority 217

The history of the pohtical and religious life of nations
has been better preserved, of course, than the records of
activity of the smaller aggregations of humanity. The com-
mon familiarity with the progress of mankind, in the practice
of national organization, makes it available as example. We
may study in that phase the general principles by which all
such aggregates acquire cohesion and harmony of purpose,
and so become conduct units, although it must be remembered
that between the small and simple definite organizations,
such as the family, and the large and complex — but still
comprehensive — national organizations there are an infinite
number of true units influencing conduct by their corporate
harmony, which overlap so that their effects are not readily
comprehended. For example the associations and congre-
gations of certain persons in societies and clubs for specified
purposes, are effective in their own activities; and yet so
diversified as to be impossible of general definition or de-
scription. Then again the inner groups of persons for
governmental and political purposes — the great partizan and
municipal and commercial and educational organizations —
and the combinations and unions of men in their special in-
dustrial capacity — all these and many more are examples of
effective conduct units in which the human individual loses
his identity, and gains a place pertaining to his racial and
continuous nature.

The evolution of these organizations is however coincident
with that of the greater ones which we may study in history,
and is more or less evident in the general record where it
appears that they tend to agree in type with the govern-
mental. In fact a modern democratic nation is like a club

2i8 The Morality of Nature

in which the members have agreed to certain rules for the
general good. Any new applicant for membership must
agree to abide by these rules, as a condition for his admission
to the benefits which the older members have accumulated.
He has no right in a share in them unless he will contribute
to their support according to his ability.

CHAPTER XIII

THE ALTRUISTIC TYPE OF GOVERNMENT

In all the variety and confusion of ideas in regard to the
standards of conduct, and means for their promulgation and
enforcement, there is to be recognized one factor, or element
of authority which dominates the modern social evolution of
mankind, and which is generally conceded and asserted when
other authority is challenged, especially as to the problems
of civil government. This factor is the right of a people to
be governed as desired by its greater numbers, that is to say,
by a majority of its qualified membership. The advocates
of this principle sometimes limit its present expression to a
demand for protection of the individual from misgovern-
ment by a too aggressive power. This protection is secured
by a constitutional restriction of the functions of govern-
ment, so as to preserve to the individual certain stipulated
liberties. But the fully evolved idea usually formulates a
supreme authority inherent in the people as an organized
aggregate, to be expressed by the majority, and vested in
their chosen representatives.

There is no newness in this idea, it is in fact the direct
product of the primary need, that any individual shall have
regard for the effective opinion of his neighbors. Humanity
in association evolves this idea anew, out of its instinctive
action, whenever necessary, and perfects it into practical

219

220 The Morality of Nature

forms differing according to the customs then and there
prevalent. Therefore, when any complexities of form, which
may have been allowed to accrue under a system of semi-
predatory civilization, are becoming obsolete, and are yield-
ing to higher ideals of altruistic co-operation, we see a gen-
eral reference back to these first principles, sometimes in
search of a merely convenient organization, and sometimes
as revealing the true understanding of the moral source of
authority, upon which those with claims to independence,
may dispute with older control.

The consent of the governed to any operation of govern-
ment is asserted to be not only a matter of policy, which
may be exercised for the attainment of wise action, accord-
ing to the will or power of the people or the governor, but
it is claimed to be a necessary foundation for any right act
of governmental control, because the righteous source of
all such authority is in the desires of the people themselves,
not as a mere privilege, but as the essence of rightness. In
this view, what a social aggregate desires, is right because
the aggregate has the only intelligence, and the only in-
stinct, physically qualified to prescribe its conduct according
to its inherited capacity and structure. The opposition to
this claim naturally comes chiefly from those established in
authority by ancient usage; and in different places it rests
in different titles. Some of these are based upon a former
acceptance or choice of leaders by the people. Such title is
practically of the same type and principle as the radical one,
unless it be so old as to be obsolete. But those titles which
really raise the issue in full force seek to establish for some
superior wisdom, a right to impose its conduct upon others

The Altruistic Type of Government 221

of less wisdom, whether they desire it or not. This is indeed
a well defined question. It cannot be denied that authority
which emanates from the people, and is to be somewhere
personified, may be by them entrusted to a constitutional
king, or even to an unlimited autocrat; if the majority find
that course desirable. There is nothing in the principle of
popular will which demands that it shall be carried into prac-
tice only under the forms usually called democratic. But
there is in the principle an essential need that the authority,
conferred no matter where, shall be sustained by continuous
support or consent; and this forbids, or at least discredits,
any transfer of that authority which endeavors to restrain
the inherent rights of future generations. It therefore denies
the existence of a vested right, in any governmental powers
derived from the past, and assumed to control the present.
Rulers are prone to fortify themselves in power by the
personal use of privileges intended to be official. This is
strangely true of the institution, even when the office is
elective and limited ; and much more is it true when the title
is hereditary, and a family lineage is interested in it as a
vested right and possession ; and most strongly does the same
tendency develop in regard to an imperial or autocratic
power, however transmitted. The weakness of human nature
is seldom proof against the vanity which sees its eminence
justified by its personal qualities ; and fails to ascribe it to
the ideal which it is employed to personify.

Then the need of occasional reversion to aggressive con-
duct, which a world environment of imperfect development
imposes from time to time, helps visibly to keep alive the
belief in, and perhaps too the reality of, individual leader-

222 The Morality of Nature

ship. Aggression is essentially individual conduct; and its
organizations are extensions and magnifications of individual
power enlarged by the blind obedience of accessory energy.
Even when soldiers voluntarily enter military service, it is,
of necessity, service ; and they subject themselves to arbitrary
direction and surrender all individuality of motive, until
especially directed to resume it for certain acts. And it is
to be seen that apart from reversions, such as the military
organization, there are mingled with the voluntary conduct,
various persistent phases of individual conduct, which re-
main embedded in human nature and are necessarily destruc-
tive to the end. The continued presence of injurious and
unintelligent life in lower organisms — the vermin, and
disease-breeding creatures — cannot be received with any
other conduct than unforgiving hostility. And higher
species, even including humanity, still produce creatures of
this naturally predatory type, whose manner of living oper-
ates in such fundamental difference that it cannot be recon-
ciled, and must needs be overpowered. So that from day
to day even the best intentioned men are called upon to pre-
vent, or to help to prevent, wrong doing, by force. And
for such purposes the most pacific communities are obliged
to exercise a certain amount of interference, and to main-
tain a sufficient armed force.

It appears that this persistence of oflfense, and the neces-
sity of meeting it by force, is made the chief excuse for the
persistence of governmental leadership and control, at times
when all evidences of superior governmental wisdom have
vanished; but the force which a nation maintains for its
own defense against enemies external and internal, is neces-

The Altruistic Type of Government 223

sarily under the control of its government; and when that
government is autocratic the force becomes easily subser-
vient to personal ambitions, and is used in that interest in-
stead of those for which it was established.

As against this condition or tendency there is set up in
modern political reform, certain corrective popular rights
ranging from that of frequent revision of election, to that
of revolution; which is seen to be a necessary incident of
progress and advancement in many instances where opposi-
tion has been too long delayed. The forms of government
generally known as democratic provide for continual re-
freshing of the governing impulse, by frequent reference
back to the people for renewed authority, and sometimes even
constitutionally forbid in advance the right to retain power,
even with consent of the governed, beyond a limited time.
This system regulates in small normal frequent efforts, while
revolution corrects by large abnormal efforts. Yet the
powers exercised by the chief officer of a republic may be as
great as those pertaining to a king; and the occasional refer-
ence to popular will may be now, as it was of old, necessary
to the continuation in the kingship; still there is, in theory
and practice, a difference based upon the traditions of the
respective offices. The democracy is headed by an executive
not personally invested with authority except to put into
effect the mandates of the people when concurred in by
himself; while the king is conceded to hold office on account
of superior wisdom and fitness, or because of divine
authority related to patriarchal right.

The form given to authority by intellectual man, as an ex-
pression of his latest evolution in morality, limits it to what

224 The Morality of Nature

is necessary for the purpose of organization; and evidently
ignores or annuls all question of right by superiority,
whether of individual wisdom or of divine inspiration, or of
inherited function. It transfers not right but only power,
and leaves the right in the people irremovable.

This is seen to be a process in harmony with that pre-
vious observation of altruistic culture, which indicated that
control or government cannot successfully compel active
virtues, but can only forbid aggressions. In this effort gov-
ernment represents, not the responsible individual desiring
a leader, or teacher, to control or direct his conduct ; but it
represents the aggregate of his neighbors; whose wishes he
must tolerate in order to secure their consent, and who thus
express to him their wishes. He, the individual governed,
still enjoys liberty, and choice of his own conduct, for his
own benefit, except so far as it is agreed that his neighbors'
rights are to limit them through governmental restraint.

Thus the function of true or altruistic democracy differs
greatly from that of a society in which the individual trans-
fers his liberties and rights to a common fund of activities,
and looks to a paternal government not only for restraint
from wrong but for direction in right action. This theory,
even if put into practice in an elective form of government,
would still encourage, or at least permit, the supposition that
something wiser than the abstract popular wisdom forms the
basis of authority; and would admit of a vacant place in
the structure which divine or inspired wisdom, and there-
fore authority, would properly fill. Or in case it merely
theorized the transfer of the collective wisdom to an elective
government of limited power; it would, in its assumption of

The Altruistic Type of Government 225

governmental right to control right action, be socialistic,
rather than democratic. But that view is undoubtedly high-
est, in the morality of evolution, which is induced by the
altruistic considerations. Liberty is moral, in the value
which lies in the fact that the responsible individual knows
his needs and capacities, better than any other creature can
know them. Altruism is voluntary itself, and concedes vo-
lition to others. It allows to each one that he is better able
to judge and decide, than any other creature (not excepting
even a government or its agent), his own proper course of
private conduct. The idea of moral democracy is therefore
the minimum of control, and that only in negative expres-
sion ; preventing things injurious to the community. This
is all that human wisdom justifies, in its latest and highest
practice of politics.

The progress of the democratic idea in favor of the re-
striction of the governing power to the function of restrain-
ing men from activities injurious to the community, tends
inevitably toward a lessening of its authority as a moral
control, yet it does not always lessen its influence toward
morality. Leadership remains natural to it, in relation to
matters necessitating unified collective action of the aggre-
gate. But in these the function of government is not always
to lead in its own wisdom, but it is often to find a speciaHzed
leader; as when, for war, a general is found, who is prefer-
ably not the chief executive. So too the social organization
for research work, prefers a specialist who is withdrawn
from the business life because of his peculiar ability. Al-
though many activities continue to be the proper duties of
the executive government, they are becoming more strictly

IS

226 The Morality of Nature

bound to certain limits stated in the authorizations, and are
evidently reposed in officials merely for the sake of con-
venient unification. The quality sought for such executive
office is conscientious fulfilment of duty, and not inspired
superior wisdom, and not even judicial capacity. In nearly
all modern national constitutions judicial authority is placed
apart, with emphasized purpose to deny it to the executive.
And in legislative wisdom there is a peculiar quality de-
manded. Wisdom, either intellectual or emotional, must be
the kind of wisdom which is understood by those for whom
it exists, and who wield the power of election. Such wisdom
as is not understood, is rejected. Wisdom, to be acceptable
and to be made effective in action, must be so near the level
of that of the community as to be within its perception,
although it may be still above it in the matter of conception.
Thus the liability of modern democracy to put into practice
conduct lower in quality than the best, is, after all, right ac-
cording to that principle discovered in study of altruistic
motives, which requires due consideration for, and patient
tolerance of, the desires of others, even when they are be-
lieved to be wrong.

As a mere matter of expediency this secures to a true
democracy, a stability of government which cannot exist
when a wide gap extends between the understanding of the
people, and that of the governing power. As a mechanical
process this limitation of power to a goodness understood by
the people, would abolish the need and the right of revolution,
if the machinery of representation could be made as auto-
matic as is the design.

Beyond and below this lies another democratic principle,

The Altruistic Type of Government '22']

which imposes on governmental activity a duty, revealed in
previous study as an altruistic factor in associated conduct.
This is the duty of free education. Its expediency lies in
its power to keep people and government in harmony. Its
beneficence is in the fact of its distribution of the advan-
tages of knowledge, to those who are unable alone to achieve
them. The work of exterminating ignorance is practiced
by altruistic government with the same advantage as the
extermination of disease, and is an extension of the same
co-operative principle, just as that was an extension of the
idea of united action against beasts of prey. And its place
in social science, as a concept of duty, is only a little different
from the place it begins to take as an expedient for the
general good. A perception of this kind of good, arising
out of existing practice, and not above the ideals of a people,
is therefore, in actual life, found to be the strongest quality
of leadership applicable to free peoples. But clearly this is
evolution of a self-government, far removed, and essentially
different, from government or education by supreme wisdom
of divine origin. Clearly too, it would be absurd for a people
to look for any divinely supreme guidance through that
power which it daily proceeds more and more purposely, to
hold under its own control. So it comes to be settled that
religious teaching must be separated from the educational
program of the government, and there is no moral education
by the nation, or state, or municipality; it is left, as a depart-
ment of religious teaching to the various churches; and is
free and not compelled, following the rule, perceived in
altruism generally that aid must be acceptable; and it is
most unfortunately ineffective in consequence.

228 The Morality of Nature

In modern life the present condition of moral teaching, in
persisting alliance with religious precepts; produces a tran-
sient and deplorable weakness. Control in morality is then
inconsistent with religious liberty and is unacceptable. Pub-
lic education of the non-religious character which is found
acceptable, is step by step denuded of the old morality, and
administered with no substitute. Thus we see one of the
necessary links in the chain of progress removed. The link
which connects inherited capacity for right action in modern
activity by a due training of that capacity is done away with.
And this occurs at a time when public education is so es-
teemed that private and parental training are restrained and
neglected. Such obliteration of moral teaching can only re-
sult in a loss of social cohesion. The human instinct and
reason, and even conscience itself, operate most effectively
when the lineal and racial life build upward continuously,
and this lack of continuity is seriously injurious at the
present time. In moral education, progress must be made
by energies arising in the sphere of personal conscience, free
from coercion, and this kind of progress can be aroused only
by education.

These considerations, with others commonly known and
equally strong, show that the modern conception of demo-
cratic gvernment as it has grown in the minds of free people,
does not successfully cover the field relating to moral educa-
tion and control. Although the paternal governments which
are being replaced, were all more or less linked with duties or
assumptions of that kind ; political progress thus withdraws
this moral aid from many individuals who need it, and al-
though all this is done in the effort and with the effect of

The Altruistic Type of Government 229

benevolence, there is a visible and real deprivation of assist-
ance upon which many emotional natures continue to de-
pend; and we see this need imperfectly supplied, by religious
associations. The functions of government thus limited are
not however, and cannot be entirely divorced from the regu-
lation of morality. It is still a recognized duty, especially
of the local and municipal governments, to support and
prosecute research and to disseminate knowledge, and
generally to make effective the co-operative desires of the
association, so,me of which relate to practical morality
separated from religious beliefs. This involves the actual
performance of such activities as are necessarily the conduct
of the entire aggregate.

The national and state governments obviously must care
for the relations with other nations; and the final enforce-
ments of the awards of justice, and maintenance of law
among their own citizens; and must provide for continual
adaptation and revision and extension of the codified law to
keep it in harmony with changing circumstance and to pro-
vide for growth and progress according to the advancing
ideas of the people. But the tendency is to direct and limit
the latitude of the executive government, even in these things
which cannot be taken from it, by a written constitutional
agreement in which the final authority is vested or rather
is found in the qualified citizens.

In regard to the question of qualification for citizenship
there is definite tendency toward a recognition of sane
maturity as sufficient. This is the function of a steady al-
truistic progress in the removal from the list of disabling
conditions; those of poverty, and ignorance, and faith, and

230 The Morality of Nature

servitude. The disability of female sex, which has been
classed with that of immaturity, is also disappearing. It
arises in the ancient instinctive prejudice in favor of coer-
cion, which belongs to patriarchal control ; and it is continued
by the prejudice in favor of strictly logical reasoning, which
materialistic philosophy induces. But it utterly fails in the
light of altruistic philosophy, which recognizes inherited
emotion, and instinct and conscience and love, as equalling
logic as factors of human conduct. Difference of sex is
visibly being removed from the question of qualification for
citizenship; and obviously a recognition of the feminine
quality of wisdom is the reason.

The disability of infancy separates itself on other lines.
The immature individual remains under the natural influence
of a parent, and therefore a voice granted to obedient minors
would only increase the power of a parent; while to the
disobedient it would encourage ignorance.

The disability in racial difference is an important question
which tends to reassert itself. It has been generously lessened
and removed under the impulse of broad humanitarian feel-
ing; and this action has shown its complexity by conse-
quences evil as well as good. It cannot be doubted that to
admit into the management of an organization, persons un-
qualified for the conduct required in it, is a serious loss to
the community, without the gain proffered to the individual.
The gain he really makes is purely selfish, or is perhaps even
a gain for his own different system of conduct, with a loss to
the interests of his benefactors. Such questions as the admis-
sion to full privilege of the unassimilable races of other color,
are in the borderland where self-preservation has its prime-

The Altruistic Type of Government 231

val right of assertion. Altruistic generosity which endan-
gers the performer fails in its remoter purposes, and it is just
the remoter and final purposes which morality considers.
There is in this aspect of political right not only a concrete
example of human conduct in process of evolution, but one
of that class which proves the Tightness at times of motives
of expediency.

It appears that this question of expediency will always be a
factor in political organization, and the qualification in racial
heredity is therefore decided separately for each case as it
develops. Racial unity, or at least harmony, is seen as a
necessary element of civilization of any kind; but more
essential in the civilization of brotherhood than in any other.
The brotherhood of all mankind is to be reached by a
brotherhood of great communities, and not by a brotherhood
of individuals. The function of government in the promo-
tion of universal brotherhood, thus applies to itself, and to
units like itself, and, of right as well as in visible practice,
cultivates brotherly relations between governments; while
it permits the individuals, and minor corporations, to act
upon their free and more familiar knowledge of their own
necessities in brotherhood, and their own ethical estim^ate of
them.

While it is becoming more and more evident that col-
lective action is more effective than isolated action, and it is
self-proving in experience that the larger the unit which co-
operation can organize in mutual confidence, the more effec-
tive it becomes ; yet there is in moral purpose a most emphatic
separation of this rightness of constructive combination,
from the wrongness of its use in aggressive and destructive

232 The Morality of Nature

rivalry. The truth that cooperation is a progressive and
moral power for activity, runs parallel v^ith the other truth,
often forgotten, that it is power resting upon justice and
unselfish tolerance; a power brought into being by these
qualities, and utterly impossible in a system of oppression
and coercion. Therefore, cooperative organizations which
take advantage of a civilization which has given them being,
and strength, and a free field ; and then proceed to use that
strength to coerce others, are retrogressive. Such putting
of the immediate benefits in the way of the remoter greater
benefits is evidently sordid and immoral, and consequently
we see that it still rests with the governing power to assert
the common law and statutes against coercion by combina-
tions and unions. Differences which formerly arose between
individuals, now arise also between corporations and indi-
viduals in regard to the old rights. Justice, and freedom
from oppression, and enjoyment of property, and citizenship,
and common liberties in the community, are therefore newly
defined by the legislative branch of the government in laws,
which are interpreted by the judicial branch, and adminis-
tered by the executive branch. But the social and industrial
organization proceeds to seek efficiency in emancipated ac-
tivities under a government, not controlling them, but secur-
ing to them liberty to control themselves, with due regard for
others, under the law common to all. Thus paternal govern-
ment is properly left to the parent, and social activity to the
societies which create it, and commercial and industrial
organization and initiative to the units arising out of the
necessities. But each and every one of these units remain
subject willingly and beneficially to the higher interests of

The Altruistic Type of Government 233

the nation; and liable to instant check when in its own pur-
poses it trespasses upon the rights of others. Beyond this
check, which is itself constitutionally defined in the laws of
justice, the government has no right moral function.

Such is the typical character, briefly expressed, of the kind
of government which humanity creates more or less perfectly
when the altruistic impulse controls. This impulse, and this
type are mingled of course, in practice, with many other
impulses, and many other fragmentary types ; so that gener-
ally speaking every government, and every minor organiza-
tion, shows actual conduct partaking of many or all types in
different actions.

The various ideals of activity of a progressive nature
complicate action as much as do the various established
prejudices. Some communities, renouncing the despotic
control of patriarchal form, seek to put in its place equally
despotic control by the social aggregate, believing socialism
the best organization for productive activity. Others, shak-
ing off paternal government, give less heed to production, and
ultimate results, and look only to a present enjoyment in
common of the existing goods which are now unequally
distributed, and which the community is by them supposed
to properly own for equal distribution. And others again
having lively perception of the value of knowledge as ex-
pressed in products, see benevolence in that form of coopera-
tion which faithful ignorance and controlling wisdom can
achieve; and so they would distribute justly not the wisdom,
but the produce, by means of the old paternalism more
benevolently administered.

One of the advantages of organized cooperative activity

234 The Morality of Nature

— as compared with that individually controlled — is that it
permits of regard for many principles at once, so that each
may be proportionately observed by specialized units, and
may be submitted to the test of selective survival. But to
secure this advantage the essential principle is liberty. It is
in this invitation to progress that the altruistic, liberty-
granting motive seems to take foremost place in the world's
organizing methods. The increase of capacity for organiza-
tion, achieves the material reward in the efficiency attending
greater and higher units of action, whether national, social or
industrial. And a decrease or neglect of the capacity for
organization is attended promptly by a loss of efficiency in
the machine, and a lessening of its material rewards. In
other words the happiness, comfort, wealth, and elevation
of the life of a community is in due proportion to its altruis-
tic faculty of combining its activities in mutual support, with
the least possible internal resistance.

It is an unavoidable inference from facts to be noted in
a review of humanity in its largest conduct units, that the
highest governmental authority procurable by humanity, is
simply the consensus or net sum, or aggregate, of that of all
the individuals; and the highest expression of it is found in
the sympathetic wisdom of representative leaders, whose
ideas are expressive of the ideals of the people. The manner
of choosing these representatives is a question of custom and
convention. A choice by numerical majority is expedient,
for the stability consequent upon the physical support, which
stands behind an authority thus delegated; and is based
altruistically in concession by any superior intellect, of the
right of an inferior to understand the governing wisdom;

The Altruistic Type of Government 235

and also upon the evident fact in practice that conscientious
choice, freed from personal interest, as intended in demo-
cratic election, is usually purer if not wiser, than the highest
wisdom of interested power. This concession carries with
it the necessity that the understanding of any proposed
action, presumed to be wiser than that prevalent, shall be
imparted to the community by educational methods, as a pre-
liminary to the execution of that action ; a course essentially
different from that provided under the older system, in which
presumably right action was imposed by coercion upon an
associated people, in the light of such wisdom as lay with the
governing power. It may be noted that a personal govern-
ment, even autocratic, may have much of the virtue found
in democracy, if it be readily changeable, and if the people
governed have the right of advance public knowledge of
public acts, so that the governor shall know and consider the
wishes of the governed. Such a system is merely a lower
development of the democratic idea; taking instinctive ac-
tion, instead of reasoning its method. The essence of altru-
istic political reform lies in its difference with the old claim
of a sacred right possessed by one individual or caste, to
direct another or others by coercive control. And the evo-
lution of resistance to this control, shows mankind standing
upon the individually free conscience as the right, and upon
collective responsible power, as the final authority.

Yet there are conditions attaching to the exercise of this
power. The electoral right is to be recognized as a trust.
It is no more an irresponsible privilege than is that of the
elected representative. If wielded corruptly or otherwise
irresponsibly it is void, under the regulations adopted gener-

236 The Morality of Nature

ally, by self-governing people. Therefore, the right rests
in certain functions of the individual, as distinguished from
certain other functions, but barring the motives which w^ould
permit the power reposed in him to be exercised by others,
he is free to perpetrate right or wrong, good or evil, in
truth or error, according to his own wisdom. His position
in this responsibility is clearly one in which his success de-
pends upon his fitness for it, which implies familiarity with
its conditions. When his responsible position has been
created by himself or by his forefathers, he has in his ex-
perience and heredity and education the needed understand-
ing of it. But when it has been imposed upon him ; or even
procured for him, without the previous creation of a legiti-
mate desire of his own for it, there is in the privilege only a
possibility ; an experimental opportunity to do good, without
any natural probability.

The benefits of political liberty then depend upon right
perceptions and conduct by the individual, looking toward
his own self-preservation and happiness, with altruistic re-
gard for all humanity so far as that regard is acceptable.
Thus democracy, the most recently evolved system of or-
ganized human conduct, is seen in all parts returning upon
the responsibility of the individual, and deriving authority
from individual wisdom.

This system, like all others, is subject to change and is
in fact tolerant of co-existent systems having parallel author-
ity. It is not conceivable that a system which imposes upon
its wisest members the duty of regard for others, would de-
bar them finally from accepting wisdom of any other source
from which it might appear. The attitude of altruistic

The Altruistic Type of Government 237

democracy is receptive. It organizes for action upon all the
wisdom within reach, recognizing its need for still more, and
not assuming to define what part is needed and what is
superfluous. Thus the belief or opinion of any constituent
member is added to the common fund for such subsequent
digestion as may seem due to it, without any test of ortho-
doxy except the common consent. The individual stands in
the exercise of this right as the equal to any other man in
that share in the highest evolution of human conduct. There
is in this equality an isolation typical of the natural attitude
at all times and places of unavoidable responsibility, and there
is, in the submission to majority rule, the conduct typical
of the perpetual regard for fellows in mutual support.

CHAPTER XIV

EMANCIPATION OF BELIEF

In the actual development of national life the sources
which still supply and cultivate the knowledge of moral
benefits, do so with steadily decreasing support from the
temporal power; and positive authority over belief and
thought has, in higher civilization, entirely disappeared. Re-
ligious compulsion ceased with the first concessions made by
dictatorial control to the advance of altruistic freedom. And
this does not appear as a loss to religion. It is natural that
the teachers of modern morality should, early in the growth
of liberty, perceive the inconsistency of imposing undesired
aid upon an individual; and so be among the first to relin-
quish the practice. Yet the religious institutions cling to
coercive methods. It seems as if the champions of patriar-
chal government had consented to abolish this power re-
luctantly, and only in order to retain popular support in other
directions. The service rendered to a paternal government
by a controlled moral religion is properly educational; in
which it teaches people the rightness, real or imaginary, of
the action taken by the executive; and conversely, it repre-
sents to the executive the right course as regards the people.
Now when the teachers lose or relinquish their control of the
people, a government which valued them only for that con-
trol has no further use for them; and inclines rather to
sustain the subject people in their independence, while it

238

Emancipation of Belief 239

seeks to influence them by other means. And, on the other
hand, a government which confessedly derives its morahty
from a free people has no sympathy with any sort of moral
education which can only be imparted by dictation. Thus
the control of religion disappears in either case.

The governments constituted in democratic fashion give
attention as much as ever to the restraint of such conduct as
is offensive to the majority of right living members of the
community, but they seek less, and even lessening, control of
a class of actions which seem to concern the performer alone,
although this includes many which nevertheless have much
to do with his attitude toward his fellows. Broadly this
distinction may be stated as an increasing restraint upon
defined crime with a decreasing regard for moral sins not
charted upon the statutes. This is a logical result of the
growth of respect for the individual, which demands for him
liberty in his beliefs and freedom from restraint for any but
definite and well-founded offences. But in thus defining
offences for legal restriction, there is left a wide void where
lie many offences against morality. Most of these rest by
custom upon the same authority as the various theological
beliefs now in serious doubt. And with these there go also
those failings which consist not in positive ill doing, but in
a deficiency of affirmative virtues of altruistic character,
impossible of correction in compulsion or restraint.

Then again there are many offences of clearly illegal
nature, which are ignored because they are small, and because
it would clog the machinery of justice to attend to all of
them. This condition is exaggerated by the persistence of
the antique methods and privileges attaching to the adminis-

2^0 The Morality of Nature

tration of justice, inherited from the ancient authority. An
exclusive caste devoted to old forms, which yields most re-
luctantly to the demand for change, is tolerated under the
influence of the conservative instinct. But this fostering in
reverence, in any field of effort, of an established usage after
it becomes obsolete, permits temporarily a very imperfect
realization of the new purposes; for the sake of sureness in
the advance. In the civil law courts of modern life this is
seen abundantly. The actual administration of justice is not
in its methods properly representative of civilized wisdom.
It is slow and expensive and wasteful of the citizens' time.
The visible progress in it, however, tends to correct errors of
omission, and continually improves the quality of justice, and
the degree in which it is accessible to daily life; and tends
also toward a further assurance of liberty in morality with-
out state control. The democratic law naturally moves in the
same direction as the sense of the people, omitting religion
from the things it may control ; and does so knowingly upon
principle and not out of inability to do otherwise.

We thus see not only the executive and the legislative but
the judicial departments of government relinquishing all con-
tact with religious matters ; and we see the educational cul-
ture of morality, abandoned by government, devolving upon
institutions whose machinery was created under a system
becoming obsolete; and whose authority is discredited by
the loss of temporal power formerly enjoyed, as well as by a
too obvious obsolescence. And it seems that this transition,
like many others, involves difficulties not proper to either
the new or the old conditions.

It does not appear that the exclusion of morality and re-

Emancipation of Belief 241

Hgion from among the things to be legally controlled is due
to any lessened appreciation of these subjects. Many of the
institutions devoted to them persist, in unofficial status, with
an activity, and with a popular support, as sincere and as
effective as before, and even in some cases with reviving in-
fluence, as they come closer in touch with the aspirations of
their congregations.

The exclusion of religious morality is due to a lack of
popular agreement, and to a want of uniformity of public
opinion, wherein public service becomes impossible, since
public control must needs offend some, in any effort to serve
others.

Respect for individual right and opinion makes it now
impossible to induce general compliance with any ancient
sectarian customs in which a large number of the people have
lost confidence. The old forms and expressed standards
of morality, as they exist in those codes, have their living
principles so inseparably mingled with obsolete law and
dogma; that agreement is no longer expected. Thus the
situation of doctrinal organization, becomes analogous with
that reached by a physical structure, which needs regenera-
tion rather than repair.

Such a process is natural and not necessarily a misfor-
tune. There is indication of a young morality legitimately
succeeding the old, and there is every evidence that it will
crystallize into concrete form. The general desire for de-
clared standards of conduct which arises in their usefulness
as vehicles of educational precept, exists in altruistic phil-
osophy just as in coercive, but mutability is demanded. The
specialized aptitudes of the teacher, whether he be a maker
16

242 The Morality of Nature

of dictionaries or a priest, tend now as before, to develop
too much faith in the codes he has made or adopted, so that
he refuses to beHeve them imperfect or transient. All re-
ligions visibly tend, in cultivation, toward elaborate theolo-
gies, devised in the effort to defend indefinitely, and
maintain perpetually, precepts which are properly of fugitive
value, and must in time need regeneration.

This tendency to fossilize in structure is not peculiar to
any age or to any cult. It is seen in philosophy as in religion,
and is equally evident in the civil law. It is clearly a failing
of humanity at large, and may well be attributed to the same
natural necessities which establish death and re-birth in all
forms of Hfe.

It appears therefore, natural and normal, that rigidity
which has so long persisted in control of the moral codes,
now needs readjustment almost amounting to reconstruction ;
and calls for eradication of error which almost threatens
collapse.

The saving factors are however powerful for reconstruc-
tion. There is still alive the persistent aspiring faith which
revives in new form with better ideals when imperfect ones
expire ; there is the instinct for altruism which is the funda-
mental virtue of the morality of evolution; and is the same
altruism which was imparted to humanity in the greatest
faith known to the world. It has preserved its essence in
reverence through all vicissitudes; and now holds to it un-
swervingly while forms and doctrines fall to pieces. The
instinctive sacrifice of love, which is greater if forbidden,
continues to attach itself to its old ideals, and to reach out
for new interpretations, and to achieve its own reward.

Emancipation of Belief 243

Truly there is a heritage in which the character of morahty
is long founded so that it need not be called untried. The
change demanded is in fact one of purification and extension
rather than of rejection.

CHAPTER XV

EDUCATION

The situation of a free citizen of a modern nation is in
regard to morality abnormally difficult and responsible.
The human being thus proceeding unguided and with faith
swerving from the old revelations, stands in this matter in
a position of isolation without cooperative support. Un-
less he can perceive his destiny, and influence it by his will,
he must suffer. He will not be relieved from the moral
law of Nature because of any present ignorance or past
confusion in regard to it. Consequences still accumulate
upon his every action, and he is fortunate if he knows this
and realizes the duty of a search for such law as can be
understood. This search was never more active than now,
and never more modest. It is proceeding in a reverent
consciousness of the narrowness and littleness of the scope
of understanding, and with the confession that even this
little scope, discovers but a changeable truth.

The complexity of life and the frequent need for prompt
action make it impossible to survey and discuss, in the light
of reason, all the motives and consequences of a proposed
act, and so reach a judgment of its right or wrong character.
Intellect and understanding, aided by memory of experi-
ences, and by educational knowledge of the experience of
others, all go to make clearer the law of conduct, and the
consequences, and even to establish determinations and habits

244

Education 245

fitted for certain contingencies; yet as against the limitless
possibilities of circumstances which arise moment by
moment, such reasoning is often useless. The trained in-
tellect of the court of judges, bearing upon a question stated
in simple form, requires many days of reasoning under
favorable conditions, to decide the right or wrong of it. It
is not possible for a human being face to face with an
emergency to exercise the power of reason as a guide to
conduct. And we have seen that the laws of democratic
government teach, and care for, only that which the com-
munity demands, in restraint or for common benefit, and
leave untouched lawful activities and the guidance of the
individual in his own concerns. And the religious and
moral teachers, although still in active effort, are in their
ancient standards often far removed from sympathetic
understanding of these concerns, by their desire to teach
great principles. Where then shall the individual look for
guidance in the little things which constitute daily life?
And especially the new daily life which is unlike the old.

Associated life is not an immediate result of the meeting
of units. It is not a spontaneous, or even rapid amalgama-
tion by inorganic affinity. It is a slowly evolved intricate
organization, requiring many successive generations of indi-
viduals, and many long lineages in which to develop.

The individual sharing the benefits of this organization
does so by contribution to the common fund of experience
and enjoyment of the accumulated wisdom derived from
that experience. His access to this accumulated wisdom is
traceable in three chief ways which are heredity, education
and conscience; the two last named being in some sense

246 The Morality of Nature

extensions or specializations of the first. It is apparent that
in his own experience he will normally extend the knowl-
edge which he receives, and transmit an abstract of the
thus increased total to his successors.

Heredity has been already noticed in the study of elemen-
tary conduct and responsibility, and a knowledge of its
workings must be presupposed. As it affects the present
subject it is in general, the fixing, for the benefit of the
lineage, of habits and abilities and physical structures ac-
quired by the individual, and the abandonment of such as
cease to be beneficial. By fixing advantages in the lineage,
is meant the equipment of its successive individuals with the
advantages thus secured. The wonderful repetitions of
structure and abilities, can only be mentioned here as ob-
servable facts, of which the study is only just touched upon
by modern knowledge. But the understanding of it is made
easier, by the new perception that these successive individuals
are not newly made lives, but only the same continuing life,
deserting a structure which it made for itself, and making,
by repetition of the process, another better and newer. It
is however the fact and not the method which concerns us
here. It is seen that such structure as is found useful and
good in sufficient continuance of time, and is cultivated by
use, persists and is transmitted, from father to son, and
so on. This applies to the organs of intellect, and to the
aptitudes and abilities for conduct dependent upon them.
This heredity, already seen as an instrument of comparison
for right activity, assumes new importance as the vehicle
or the transmission of the higher powers of voluntary
conduct.

Education 247

Parental education is evidently a process securing con-
tinuity of that particular intellectual work for which the
physical structure of the offspring is simultaneously adapted.
Education in its primary form thus appears as an extension
of heredity. The normal lineage, presenting the greater
life in co-existent generations, constitutes a unit which
enjoys the cooperation of maturity and age and youth. It
maintains itself by a develpoment which does not lose con-
tinuity in the death of the successively aging individuals.
The intellectual growth of the parent, the products of his
knowledge and experience are, by education grafted upon
aptitudes in the son especially able to receive them; and
normally they are especially suited to his conditions, although
in times of migration and change, these advantages are
lessened, both in fact and in value, and mere adaptability
may become a better quality than any settled habit. But
this is transitory variation. The main stream of knowl-
edge, descending through the generations is continuous, and
presents to each the experience of the one preceding it, and
continues in education the benefit of heritage so long as the
older individual retains reasoning power, and the younger
remains receptive. Obviously infancy and youth so de-
pendent as that of humanity, is but badly equipped if its
aptitudes molded in one type are trained in another which is
foreign, or are not trained at all. We know that the de-
pendence upon training of a human infant, is such that
without example and assistance, speech and morality and
reason do not develop. It is evident that if the existence
of these faculties depends upon education their quality must
still more certainly be so dependent. Broadly then it is the

248 The Morality of Nature

physical structure and organs and aptitudes which are in-
evitably inherited, and these limit the possible intellect by
their capacity, original and of growth; but they do not
transmit the intellectual heritage. This is imparted sepa-
rately by the process of education — the primary and funda-
mental elements being derived from the parents who are in
control of the tenderest and most impressionable years; and
the more complex and artificial being superimposed by the
community creating them, chiefly through its machinery
of public education. Thus the individual in maturity be-
comes heir to the accumulated store of selected knowledge,
first of his lineage, and next of his race ; and to that knowl-
edge he proceeds to add his own experiences, and to take
his place in the organized aggregation of his fellows.

It is evident that in a democracy where patriarchal au-
thority is weakened, the teaching of the essential altruistic
morality must become a matter of public concern. And
even more is this apparent when a population born of for-
eign parents, often of very moderate education, is growing
up with the public schools as their only source of knowledge.
Under such circumstances it is undoubtedly incumbent upon
the government to undertake the duty of teaching morality
apart from religion. The supposition that morality is a
religious subject is incorrect. Religion is a relationship
toward the Supreme Being. Morality is a relationship of
a man towards his fellows and the material universe. The
ancient religions, notably the Hebrew, the Buddhist and the
Confucian, covered the subject of morality chiefly because
the wisdom which was competent to express one was also
needed for the other. They taught also sanitation which

Education 249

in these days we are accustomed to see elsewhere cultivated.
Moses was not only a teacher of religion and morality; he
was governor and lawmaker and judge and health officer.
But we have ceased to look for all these faculties in one
authority, and as we have cared for education in other
sciences, so should we care for education in Morality and
Law.

Some of the energy and time given to the making of laws
should be diverted to the duty of teaching them to those
who are expected to obey, and especially to teaching their
rightness, and their foundation in a purpose useful and
beneficial to the law-abiding citizen.

It is not just to those who have few to advise them that
they should be presumed to know the laws. They are
entitled to be informed; that is to say to be taught, and it
is amazingly negligent that a community which wishes its
members to live in obedience to law, should fail to take the
most obvious first step toward that end, which is to explain
to its children what that law is, and why it is. A course in
morality in the lower grades and a brief course in the edicts
of the criminal and civil codes, in the upper grades of the
public schools, would save much of the expense incurred
for police and justice and jails.

It is becoming more and more apparent that jails and
the fear of jails do not succeed in reforming wrongdoers
and do not successfully deter the juvenile delinquents who
will soon become mature criminals. It is clear that some
other system of prevention of crime is urgently needed.

Everything indicates that the remedy is education in
morality imparted to the children in their earliest lessons.

CHAPTER XVI

CONSCIENCE

The modern civilized community which has achieved
conditions approximating those lately reviewed, that is to
say a condition tending toward or culminating in altruistic
democracy, consists of individuals allied in groups, each
representing a strain or lineage normally continually grow-
ing in knowledge and ability. These groups are inter-related
by blood, and bound by common intellectual training, and
by political association, in varying degrees, so that knowl-
edge is diffused sufficiently to sustain a general community
of understanding, and to these individuals, duly qualified
by correctness of motive, has been traced the authority
which defines right, and sustains the organization in that
right.

There is to be found in every and all of these reforming
communities a marked appreciation of independence of
thought. Their appreciation of liberty has sometimes arisen
in circumstances from which independent protest could be
the only way of release, and their emancipation from con-
trol has found new uses for that aptitude for independence,
and a continued respect for personal convictions.

This respect goes so far that it allows and recognizes a
right of freedom from subjection to any but the most neces-

250

Conscience 251

sary of conventions, and it is extended occasionally to
grant immunity from the penalties and obligations even of
established and accepted codes. The distinction necessary
to procure for conduct this consideration is not in the con-
duct, but in the motive. The motive must be one of con-
science. When a responsible human being sincerely believes
a religious declaration, his fellows in altruistic association
are inclined to grant him all possible presumption of right,
and even strain their customs to permit him to act accord-
ing to his belief. Non-conformity to custom is, in effect, a
form of that tendency to variation, out of which has arisen
the most valuable of new institutions; and we still perceive
in its workings the creation of benefits, by unexpected suc-
cesses of things first supposed by opponents to be useless or
impossible.

Conversely the conscientious scruples in which individuals
have protested against control, have been so frequently jus-
tified by riper wisdom, that they have generally provided
the impulse which has procured that emancipation of religion
from the dictation of the state, which has been surveyed in
previous chapters.

An authority quite different from anything granted to
selfish interest, is therefore accorded to that impulse which
is expressed through conscience. While self-interest is
admitted as a just motive, it applies to the affair of the
individual; and the community, if not opposed to it, is not
greatly interested. But conscience is a motive, in which the
individual may be opposed to the community, and then is
so placed by disinterested convictions, feelings, and beliefs,
which are not of his own making or control, but which are

252 The Morality of Nature

the product of affections and emotions; and of heredity and
education; distinguished from his logical reason and self-
interest and arising in something apart.

The community recognizes in this motive a thing superior
to the conscious intellect of the individual evincing it.

This conscience is the function of some power which in
practice invests the human being with a moral authority
for his own actions, which is a proper test of their rightness,
and which, exercised in collective wisdom of democracy, re-
veals at once the authority and guide and restraint of govern-
ment. This is the faculty which, having upset the old codes,
still reserves the right to upset the new ; and bases that right
upon the fact that it established them in a knowledge never
perfect, but always aspiring toward perfection.

Conscience is not authority itself; it is a connecting link
between man and the infinite. Its beginning is in the first
volition of the first life. Its possible development is not
limited except in the full understanding of absolute good,
which may be considered as its ultimate unattainable end.
Conscience is not infallible, although it is unfailing. Its
power at any time will depend upon the plane of attainment
in all knowledge from which the individual views his pur-
poses, and by all knowledge is meant unconscious knowledge
as well as that which is conscious. Conscience is the belief
of the greater immortal ego.

The search for a fixed describable goodness, as the ob-
ject of the authority in conscience, is therefore as futile as
that for a fixed code of active conduct. Nay, more so, be-
cause the compiling of codes, for the guidance of others, in
government and education, is justified by the acquiescence of

Conscience 253

immaturity in relatively superior wisdom. But even this
does not constitute a right to suppress the conscience of
maturity when in application to personal religion, whether
based in comparative knowledge or in ignorance. The
conscience thus privileged is then a faculty of a different
value in every person.

The differences, which do not constitute a right of the
superior to control, may, however, imply a duty to impart
the knowledge for the common good. The degree of altru-
ism shown in the educational sharing of wisdom will de-
termine the homogeneousness of the association, and of
course identity and harmony of purpose will increase, as
differences of conviction thus disappear. It appears that
conscience, although not to be forced, is still amenable to
conviction by reason. It is common knowledge that later
education strongly influences conscience, and in so doing
modifies and extends the previously acquired faculty. Simi-
larly individual reflection, and reasoning upon one's own
experiences and perceptions, will build up more of this
power of discernment, and found habits upon them. But
these later acquisitions are less stable and less trusted than
the older ones. They are tentative and experimental at first,
and are acccepted more fully when proven by experience,
until they become settled and habitual and, in final form,
instinctive. Here then is found the origin of the older judg-
ments of conscience. They are simply those which have be-
come intuitive, by ancient, and continuing, and repeated
experience; that is to say which have continued in use so
long, as reliable guides to the conduct by which ancestral
generations have survived, that they are the ready involun-

254 The Morality of Nature

tary inferences of the mental machinery from the causative
event. They have become automatic, in the same way that
the processes of walking or of breathing have become in-
voluntary, although in lesser degree, because of less age and
greater diversity. The method of preservation and trans-
mission is a study in evolution. It must be assumed here
that such a method does indeed physically link and unite all
the ancestral generations with that now existing. The pro-
cess of natural selection, as now understood, could alone
evolve conscience, and further could explain its two forms of
judgment, one intuitive and instantaneous, and the other
reasoning and receptive. The continued survival of those
individuals most fit in their perception of what is right, and
the corresponding rejection of those creatures less able to
perceive it, will evidently select creatures of certain aptitudes
and preferences for that line of conduct, even if their prefer-
ences are fortuitous. These, when they are psychological
faculties, will indubitably be accompanied by a certain physi-
cal organization, which heredity will carry forward, and so
endow new generations with the capacity ; and even some of
the perception itself. Then later association develops this
faculty (as any other) in extension of the heredity, in the
manner seen in previous observations of heredity and educa-
tion. The inherited aptitude is charged with the parents'
experience, and their inherited wisdom; and then the com-
munity wisdom is added in greater volume but with lesser
force; and upon this the new personal experience builds self-
formed convictions. And clearly those perceptions which
are oldest, and longest fixed in conscience by heredity, can
only be those relating to long enduring and fundamental

Conscience 255

goodness or value. Hence their instant readiness as well
as their deep-seated persistence. Some of them antedate rea-
son itself. And clearly too, the more recent acquirements
are of a lesser rightness, usually less positive, as well as
less rapid in action. There are apparent exceptions to this
last observation, in such zeal as a reformer may show in new
action against overwhelming forces, evinced with all the per-
sistence of the oldest instincts. But it will generally be seen
that such fights are really only new in form, or application
to the particular issue; while intrinsically they are of the
most ancient origin. For example the self-sacrificing con-
tests for new forms of religion, are really efforts on behalf
of that old principle of liberty which goes with secret
thought. And again the revolutionary struggle for a new
government may be but a recrudescence of old ideas of
liberty many times previously cultivated, and only recently
suppressed.

Conscience is for the intellectual being what instinct is
to the lower animal. It is in fact instinct with the products
of self-conscious reasoning superimposed. It is a summary
of all heredity, and of all education, and of all idealized
effort in aspiration, applied in response to circumstances.
It is intuition enlarged, so that its rapidity of decision is
preserved and is further influenced by the innate desire for,
and recognition of, rightness. It is a faculty cultivated by,
and necessary in, a hostile environment, wherein questions
of vital import must be answered without hesitation. Con-
science is good because the hostility is evil. Intuitive con-
science solves instantaneously problems of right and wrong,
which, if submitted to reason and logic; would require such

256 The Morality of Nature

time and effort as to render the decision useless. Conscience
in this function affords an impression of right and wrong,
the sum collected in instinct from all past experiences. But
it is rapid only when compelled. It is modified by present
knowledge, and takes account of so much of reason as time
and circumstances permit it. It stands clear of wrong, even
when in error, for its rightness is not in any absolute quality,
or in any standard, but in its own sincerity of effort and
intention. It rests upon the things which have endured so
long that their impulse has become habitual, and therefore,
if certain things of environment change, conscience is right
to distrust them. Its function is ultimate good, and it does
not require justification by present success. Conscience is
conservative. It belongs to all time, and covers all at present
desired of the future, by memories of all worth remember-
ing in the past. It is the involuntary act of perception of
obscure right and wrong, which was acquired in continued
voluntary acts of conscientiousness. Its cultivation is part
of the highest development of human understanding in that
it relates to the things so remote as to be imperceptible to
the cruder sensibilities ; and it operates with a wideness of
view unattainable by reasoned logic. Conscience is the
never sleeping mentor of morality.

Freedom of conscience is one of the most precious rights
which a democracy can secure for its citizens; and con-
versely it is a privilege for which a liberty-loving people will
preserve its altruistic government from the domination of
bureaucracy and from dictatorship of every kind.

CHAPTER XVII

FAITH

Faith is the sister of conscience. Faith is the intuitive
acceptance of the Tightness of another person or being, just
as Conscience is the acceptance of the intuitively seen Tight-
ness in one's self. Faith enables an immature judgment to
achieve the heights of conduct indicated by a greater one. It
is a manifestation of educational power. Receptivity of edu-
cational ideas is the natural attitude of psychological imma-
turity in the youth of highly cultivated beings. It is the mental
counterpart of the physical aptitude, which is inherited. And
it is observable that in certain natures the receptivity remains
active in mature life. Now when such a nature is addressed
by appeals which convince overwhelmingly, there is at once
apparent all the strength of belief; and all that activity of
conscience which goes with older knowledge. It is in fact
a repetition in later life, of the confidence of the child in the
supreme wisdom of the parent. The effectiveness of such
control (for such it is) depends, first, upon the physical apti-
tude of the pupil, and next upon the fitness, and the disin-
terested sincerity, of the teacher, which appeals emotionally
to the deep-rooted instincts of altruism. The instinct for
faith is formed in beings well endowed physically, who per-
ceived their inferiority in judgment and are ready to enlarge

it by attachment to superior wisdom. Such creatures sur-
17 257

25^ The Morality of Nature

vive by their fitness in securing benefits, just as other crea-
tures survive by securing physical protection. And in the
survival there is the rational development of that mental
attitude which made it possible; which is the aptitude
for faith. There is also a great influence for the conser-
vation of faith as a qualification for survival, in the
sexual relations; and equally of those species in which
one sex is distinctly differentiated from the other in general
strength, and power of defense. Here again an instinct
developed by survival, in life much lower than the
human, persists into humanity with strength not lessened
by the acquirement of intellect, but ennobled therein;
and with importance not decreased but intensified.
In the great dependence of motherhood and infancy the
situation of helplessness, which we formerly saw necessitat-
ing sacrifice and perpetuating altruism, must evidently also
maintain faith and faithfulness. For these virtues, which
hold individuals together in goodwill in ordinary life,
are the grand indispensable virtues of that alliance in which
the greater life of the lineage acquires periodically its new
tenement of flesh. But the confident trust in the bestowal
of necessary aid and protection, is only a minor part of the
function of faith, as cultivated in the marital union of hu-
man beings. The possession of intellect, and the knowledge
of good and evil, adds to the instinctive desires of animal
nature, an appreciation in humanity, of qualities higher
than the purely physical, and indeed sometimes developed
at the expense of the physical. The mysterious attraction
in which a man and a woman find impulse to that supreme
association which shall mingle their natures in their off-

Faith 259

spring, is much more than the merely animal affection or
attraction of affinities. It is for each a conscientious act of
faith, if the highest degree of happiness is to be attained.
For evidently the absence of faith and the presence of dis-
trust not only lessen the happiness of these individuals, but
they lower the strength of the alliance as a means of regen-
erating their heredity, and so neglect the remoter and more
moral purpose, and degrade the process of procreation from
its human possibilities in evolution of virtue, to a lower
plane where passion and animal qualities dominate. It
follows that faith, meaning that form of it which gives one
person confident happiness, by a leaning upon the loyal sup-
port or alliance of another, is a quality cultivated and evolved
by the sexual alliance. If there be any advantage in it, there
should be, according to the laws of evolution, a visible sur-
vival favoring those who practice it. And such is undoubt-
edly the case. Although the perpetuation of a race may be
possible without it, and although reproduction is to some
extent so effected, yet the added qualification arising in the
aptitude for this virtue, and for its supplement, which is
trustworthiness, are sufficient, in the selection by nature, to
give an ascendancy to the races of men thus favored.

But the aptitude for faith is not fundamentally a sexual
virtue. Although thus kept alive and transmitted to off-
spring it is cultivated in all the relations of life and becomes
in secondary form a facility for education, and thereby a
means of participation in the benefits of such wisdom as is
not logically understood.

And the aptitude for faith is not to be considered as be-
longing especially to one sex as a complement of trust-

260 The Morality of Nature

worthiness in the other. The tendency to differentiate sex-
ually, and to specialize virtues which are thus developed, is
generally accompanied by a physical redistribution of all
aptitudes to both sexes. Although some exceptions of
course exist in regard to aptitudes specialized in one sex
it is the function of sex to continually merge these differ-
ences. Thus faith and truth and love and courage and pride
and persistence, and the civilized perceptions of such quali-
ties as appreciation of music, or of color, or beauty of form,
which may be most naturally acquired and cultivated by one
sex are, through union, transmitted to both. Beside the
differences arising in environment and operating in greater
force, appears the fact that in the descent by sex, the whole
race which began its similarities in a community of origin, is
continually reunited by alliances. Sex thus maintains in
evolution the community of character necessary for the ac-
tivity of faith, as well as selective exclusion of faithlessness.
There is thus a physical compulsion of that distribution of
attainments which altruism shows to be desirable.

Faith, like other virtues, exists for its beneficence, for
the sake of the good it will bring to those who practice it, and
thus it becomes a necessary part of the character of any race
civilizing in altruism. And although it is a direct aid to
unity of purpose, as thus developed, yet it is evidently of an
even deeper benefit as an educational factor. In its direct
action it merges in the faculty of conscience, and is not a
separate source of authority or of new inspiration. It is the
means by which conscience is rapidly endowed with per-
ceptions. The knowledge commanded by the individual in-
tellect is slow, but the knowledge by faith when a greater

Faith 261

sympathetic intellect inspires confidence by its altruistic atti-
tude is immediate. This is however a manner of influence
of belief lacking in the stability which true full education
secures. It is a provisional adaptation for securing unity in
those conditions of inequality which it is the purpose of
altruism to remove. It is properly used, by the higher in-
telligence as a vehicle for education in that permanent
reasoned knowledge, for which it makes the mind ready;
and in which the pupil's conscience escapes control, and
becomes independent in its own wisdom, and then does in
knowledge the things first learned by faith.

But faith has another form, lower than that sublime and
perfect trust, which is the bond by which communities be-
come possible and upon which all organization depends.
This is faith by the individual in the sense of duty of his
fellows, single in personal relations, and collective in the
aggregated activities. Faith of this order is the virtue
which makes industry and commerce constructive and cumu-
lative, instead of destructive and retrogressive. Good faith
adds to organized power, and bad faith lessens organized
power, and the organizing power, at the same time. Every
act of mutual trust in commerce or industry achieves not
only an intended gain, but is a new added strength to the
community in its development of power to act in unison in
future; and every act of deception is not only the injury
intended, but it is a detriment to the community ; which be-
comes less powerful and less efficient by the loss of harmony
and destruction of confidence. Faith is the complement of
altruism. Moral conduct must always be dependent upon
faith.

CHAPTER XVIII

CONCLUSIONS

It is not necessary to the present purpose to analyze ex-
haustively the elements of conduct. It is preferred to reach
an early conclusion by a sufficiency of evidence. Admitting
then an imperfection, it is submitted now that enough has
been done to make evident the fundamental value of conduct
in consequential effects, which are just, in relation to the
continuous greater life which enjoys them, and the establish-
ment of Morality as the perception of these consequences.

The general review of the natural impulses of active life
in the world, and of the attitude toward environment of the
creatures enjoying voluntary action, leads to the inevitable
belief, that conduct is subject to a system of natural law,
which has been evolved at the same time, and from the
same sources, as the activity itself ; and that there is an un-
avoidable relation between all conduct and its consequences,
which compensates good or bad action. In fact the award of
this compensation in its final completeness, is the thing which
decides what is good and what is bad. This decision is a
process operating in nature, with only that degree of super-
natural control, or wisdom, which is evidenced in the original
principle of energy of progressive evolution and of life. But
while it does not appear that additional supernatural control
is needed to complete a judgment of any conduct, yet on the

262

Conclusions 263

other hand it does not appear that supernatural control is
deniable. The discoverable facts simply make conduct ac-
countable in a certain way without it, and seem to indicate
that this accountability is of the same nature as the super-
natural is conceived to have; yet the secrets of the source
of energy and of the origin of life, lie beyond our knowl-
edge with infinite possibilities still unrevealed by nature.

There appears in this unknown point of departure all the
potentiality of eternal supernatural control, as unqualified
as if the control reappeared at every subsequent act. And
the idea of a regulating function, primarily imparted as the
essence of the life, and self-sustaining in all evolution with
it, is in harmony with a conception of an Almighty God,
which is higher than the conception resting on the belief,
that a divine wisdom continually controls action by necessary
repeated personal intervention, which is characteristic of an
intelligence of lesser prescience.

But even though the intervention of supernatural power is
a possible unknown factor, and though that unknown factof
remains unpresentable except in supernatural terms, yet the
understandable and purely natural system, which appears
as resting upon it, can, and now does, provide for a com-
pensation of conduct. To facilitate the study of these infer-
ences, they are now collected into a series and declared, in
such order as to show the relationship by which they make
a system. This order is somewhat different from that in
which they discover themselves to experience, and different
again from that in which they offer aid to right conduct.
In systematized order these principles may be recited as
follows :

264 The Morality of Nature

First, The impulse which produces in matter the Hfe of
the world reveals a progressive quality and power forever
higher than any conception or definition now within human
reach, and therefore in finality unknowable.

Second, In the process of this unknown power, there is
visible, continual progress in the activities of matter, from
unconscious reaction, toward perfection of conduct con-
sciously conceived. This is a progress under knowable laws,
which proceeds by the continued addition of experience, and
by survival of successful conduct, which is called evolution.

Third, The evolution of humanity with self-conscious
understanding, still proceeds, and is accountable under the
same impulse which empowers all lesser life for its lower
progress.

Fourth, Humanity having achieved self-consciousness ac-
quires added power, and added accountability, and a new
incentive in ideality; and any degree of progress in organi-
zation, and any new knowledge of natural laws, or of the
good and evil made distinguishable by them, is always an
endowment from which aspiration reaches for still higher
ideals, therefore the future will at all times promise an ad-
vance which passes beyond the conceptions of any present
period.

Fifth, Life thus progressing in organization is continu-
ously living through the generations, by the undying survival
of the actual physical plasma or life substance, which, apart
from any supernatural endowment except its fundamental
condition of life, is in its nature potentially immortal.

Sixth, Death, penal and retributive in the extreme, is the
death in sterility in which the life plasm dies without issue

Conclusions 265

and the lineage becomes extinct. Death, primitive and par-
tial, by which the lineage is weakened, is proportionate to
the insufficiency of activity against environment, but is
corrective, and selective of survivors in cumulative beneficial
effect.

Seventh, Exhaustion or decay of the bodily structure, and
hostility of environment, causing injury of its materials,
necessitate the repeated abandonment of old structure, and
the transfer of the lineal life plasm to new bodies; and this
transfer originates and develops altruistic sacrifice, which
arises in the gift of advantage from parent to offspring.

Eighth, Normal death of the individual is not a penalty
nor is it a break of the greater life. Death is the natural
method for a necessary periodic rejection of structures de-
fective or obsolete, from change of environment, or by age
and decay, usually structures from which the greater or im-
mortal life has, in normal circumstances already passed into
its newer forms.

Ninth, The preservation of the greater or lineal life is the
fundamental motive of moral conduct, and is the justifica-
tion or right, of self-preservation by the individual, which
is therefore restrained, for ultimate benefit, by a regard for
the rights and activities of others mutually interested.

Tenth, The consequence of right conduct is enjoyment
continued of the greater life of the lineage, with participa-
tion in its higher achievements, and with, for self-conscious
humanity, a prospect of future participation in conditions
higher than imagined in any present conception; and extend-
ing toward the infinite.

Eleventh, The consequence of wrong conduct in the ex-

266 The Morality of Nature

treme, is extinction of life; and of wrong in lesser degrees
is a proportionate delay, or a lessening of power in the
contest with the hostile environment, in which the lineal life
may be numerically weakened ; or its term may be shortened
or threatened, pending relief by increase of virtue; and a
consequence of minor degree of wrong is the delaying of
the attainment of higher conditions.

Twelfth, The lineal life in its immortality is thus the true
ego and subject of conduct. The race life, originally in uni-
son, and later divided into separate individuals as a result
of growth, is naturally allied in a primal community of in-
terest, which affords the foundation for altruistic associ-
ation, in successively higher organizations of cooperative
unity.

Thirteenth, The limitation of opportunity, begetting in
growing communities a competition for advantage, causes
some to enter into destructive rivalry, and then into preda-
tory habit, in a struggle for survival, which, as a system
of conduct, may be temporarily successful.

Fourteenth, In the progress consequent upon growth
predatory life is self -limited by its own destructiveness, while
altruistic life continually increases its adaptability, and en-
larges the capacity of its environment.

Fifteenth, The primitive phase of parental devotion ex-
hibits that principle of preference of the lineal life before
that of the individual, which secures continuity of existence.

The superior vitality of the altruistic type of the greater
or lineal life constitutes an ability for survival, which over-
balances the destructive value of the opposing system of
aggressive self -maintenance.

Conclusions 267

Sixteenth, Human conduct In successful life is thus physi-
cally based on an altruism which is natural in a being of
defenseless and perishable structure, and which is indicated
and conserved in a helpless infancy, and in the sacrifice of
motherhood. Humanity is only predatory and aggressive
under the compulsion of adverse circumstances, or in the
habitual fear of that compulsion.

Seventeenth, The power which in high development per-
ceives the far reaching effects of conduct, and in that con-
scious knowledge qualifies the present impulse, and thus
founds morality, is a complex of inherited emotions and
instinctive perceptions and of education and reason called
intuition and conscience.

Eighteenth, The degree of perception of the more remote,
as well as of the immediate, effects of conduct, is the
measure of the quality and perfection of morality; and this
perception is necessarily imperfect, and right conduct is a
comparative term.

Nineteenth, The intellectual perception of morality, and
of the virtue of altruism in conduct, is the basis of human
organization for mutual support in the struggle against
hostile environment. The practice of altruistic cooperation
has achieved the organization of higher units of activity,
in many degrees; in which human individual life acts with
collective force, and with participating profit. This power
for organizing in harmonious unity achieves material and
moral benefit, and leads toward ideals beyond reason's pres-
ent ability tp define.

Twentieth, Right conduct, being that which has fitness
for the contest with circumstance, therefore changes as con-

268 The Morality of Nature

ditions change and is not to be permanently defined by any
fixed standards. Conduct is good only by fitness in com-
parison with other conduct under the test of survival of the
most fit.

Twenty-first, Codes and other standards of conduct exist
properly only for the mutual limitation of activity, to pre-
vent injury to others; and for the educational transmission
of knowledge, and for the declaration of accepted laws of
morality and of convention, which are subject to continued
revision.

Twenty-second, Veneration for codes and respect for
authority is a virtue, properly balanced and corrected by
regard for independent conscience, which is the sense of
right and wrong by an intuitive knowledge, or sub-conscious
memory summarized instinctively. In this independent con-
science lies the faculty of progress by variation of conduct-
standards; and the right to change or continue such
standards.

Twenty-third, Conscience is therefore the human author-
ity for individual activity, whether self-controlled, or im-
posed, or imposing others. Its rightness is not in any abso-
lute quality, but in its sincerity in guidance of conduct which
at the given time and place is the best discernible to the
individual concerned. But conscience still owes altruistic
concession to others, whose perceptions are based upon
other experiences, and in cooperative activities must defer
to the collective conscience, which is a mutual cultivation
having regard for mutual benefit.

Twenty-fourth, Conduct is thus governed and compen-
sated, in a just reward of proper consequence to all the acts

Conclusions 269

of life; covering every motive and result, however simple
or complex. All differences of degree of goodness, receive
consideration of value in terms of quantity, or are- compen-
sated in terms of time; the greatest reward being continued
life in progressive fitness through all time.

Twenty-fifth, The award of compensation for conduct,
whether beneficial or injurious, is made to the life of the
lineage ; and such of it as comes into the control of an indi-
vidual is a property in trust, which, however, is at his dis-
posal. In his discretion he can appropriate the life to the
use and enjoyment of his somatic body ; or he can conserve
it and its endowment, to the continuing lineage by which he
receives it. The right guidance of the performance of this
trust, without undue appropriation, is the function of
morality.

The elucidation of these principles, by analysis of conduct
as it is practiced, ends the work properly within the scope
of this effort. There is still lacking a promised explanation
of the imperfectly stated facts in evolution, by which hered-
ity and material immortality, endow the life plasm of the
lineage; and this must needs receive a separate treatment,
which will in a sense complete the ground needed for a broad
conception of the conduct motive.

BOOK III
Life in Evolution

271

CHAPTER I

CONDUCT IN EVOLUTION

The purpose of this, the third section of the inquiry into
the morality of nature is to present in plain language cer-
tain facts selected from the announcements of the explorers
in Geological and Biological Science, and to show in these
facts a real and physical basis for the principles of moral
conduct previously discussed. The newly found truth of
physical evolution has recently received most amazing con-
firmation and assurance in newest biological discoveries.
Indeed these things, visible to our eyes and convincing to
our minds, entirely change the aspect of life, from that af-
forded to the philosophers who gave us the old cosmic and
moral systems. They are not generally known, are not fully
understood by the everyday reader. They are so new, and,
as usually presented, so abstruse and unclear, that they re-
main to a great extent the mysteries of a learned class. Yet
these new facts are of the very foundation of our being, and
the basis of our motives and purposes in conduct. That is
why they are here presented anew. It is done as simply as
possible, in a continuation of the method of directing atten-
tion to knowledge already at the disposal of the average
reader, and suggesting certain aspects and meanings belong-
ing to it; and by deducing from the scientific parts of such
i8 273

274 The Morality of Nature

knowledge, the Inferences which concern us all. It is not a
study of geology or biology which is here desired, but a
study of morality, to which biology is a needed stepping
stone.

The preceding analysis of conduct has shown a definable
natural system or order, which compensates voluntary ac-
tivity. It appears that the effect and purpose of conduct is
primarily the preservation of life, and secondarily, still to
this same end, the acquisition of abilities and powers suited
for the contest with a hostile environment. Upon these
main facts others depend which may be summarized as
follows.

Changes in environment compel changes in conduct and
in equipment, and, for these purposes a process of renewal,
and of change, or evolution, of the physical organization is
acquired by the creature; these are the functions of propa-
gation in likeness, of variation, and selection, and of death.

The break in that existence which is transmitted from
parent to offspring; is only a suspension of somatic activi-
ties, and not a break in the activity of the life plasm itself,
which is potentially immortal. The break is, for the soma-
tic body, bridged by heredity; and even in the physical
organization which does die, progress is continuous. The
conduct of this ever changing, ever progressing life is duly
compensated by its greater or lesser success in achievement
of racial fitness. The most fit races renew indefinitely their
lease of potential immortality, by reproduction of a suffi-
ciency of numbers ; and the less fit races suffer, by individual
weakness, and by extinction of life in many branches, in
the consequences of imperfect conduct. The transmission

Conduct in Evolution 275

of life to structures thus selected and preferred, is therefore
determined by the conduct achieved by the structures.

It appears further that in this evolution of conduct there
are two dominating factors, characterizing types — coopera-
tive, which is to be viewed as the fundamental productive
factor; and aggressive, which is a provisional destructive
factor. These two meet, in the contest for comparative su-
periority. Conduct begins altruistically in the harmonious
early life of creatures in association, and selfishness arises
from rivalry in overcrowded or antagonistic environment,
and persists only under that condition. All conduct is a
direction, or control, of activities showing a mingling in
different degree of these two motives ; in which the tendency
is ever to return toward the primitive unity of purpose, be-
cause it is the most beneficial and successful of the two
systems. The preferment and re-establishment of this su-
perior system is progress in the evolution of conduct, in that
it facilitates the achievement of life maintenance. This
progress is restrained by the persistent hostility of rival
organisms, which is reaction. Reaction arises anew in
nature so that although in part overcome by goodwill, or
exterminated as irreconcilable; it is ever recurrent. But as
part of a hostile environment it is seen acting with nature's
circumstances, as an incentive to alliance and brotherhood
between those related in the higher system.

The ultimate theoretical purpose of altruistic progress in
conduct, which is the completion of the unifying effort, and
the ending of all antagonisms in a perfected organization,
is at infinite distance; therefore the practical aim appears
as the inclusion in the alliance of relationship, the greatest

276 The Morality of Nature

possible number; and the maintenance of hostility toward
the least possible number; so, that self-preservation shall be
accomplished, not only in a most perfect phase, but with
the least possible waste of effort.

It appears also that all these phases of conduct develop
naturally under survival and selection without self -con-
sciousness, and when conscious mental power is attained
and is applied to a consideration of conduct, it produces a
new motive superimposed upon all the old ones without can-
celling them. In self-knowledge, and perception of cause
and effect, it becomes possible for, and therefore incumbent
on, man, to conduct himself with foresight of consequences;
instead of in a blind persistence of habit, which is corrected
only in survival after suffering. It appears this foresight
is the knowledge of good and evil; in it lies the perception
of morality. Morality requires the foregoing of any present
advantage to the individual which entails injury to the
greater or racial life, or a loss to the higher organization
of humanity; and the preferring of such activities as
promise ultimate greater benefit, rather than those of tran-
sient lesser gratification. The development of moral sense
results in the recognition of certain principles as guides to
right conduct, to be followed when the full consequences
are not to be foreseen. These principles are more enduring
than individual motives, yet, as rightness of conduct de-
pends upon conditions which change; it must change with
them; and therefore the precepts, and even the principles,
are subject to change accordingly. It appears therefore
that a fixed standard of conduct is not attainable except in
ultimate perfection; and that humanity, prompted by the

Conduct in Evolution 277

desire for good, must continually seek it in the perceptions
and conditions proper to its own generation. In spite of
occasional reaction there results an accumulation of under-
standing, which is progressive not only in its manner of
moving, but also in the things achieved; and finally this
continued elevation of the goal to which conduct aspires, and
of the system and method by which it is approached, are,
in their nature, of infinite possibilities, in continuing eleva-
tion of moral purpose and the approach toward ultimate
perfection.

The principles thus discovered, although affording no
fixed standards or rules, are yet calling for allegiance to
higher ideals beyond present comprehension, and this alle-
giance is the essence of moral progress.

The identity of interest of the many related individuals
and the continuity of their lives, was inferred rather than
proven by consideration of conduct. There is however a
physical basis of proof of the facts which were stated in the
earlier study, and which may here be taken up for detailed
investigation.

A study of human conduct shows clearly that the acts of
the individual, and the consequences of them, which are not
explained sufficiently by observation of that individual alone,
extend into, and influence other individual lives in two dis-
tinct relationships. First it is seen, that a co-interest or
share by many others in the direct consequences of action,
becomes a material consideration in the impulses as soon as
volition appears — and secondly, there is found a joining in
physical responsibility with the present individual, of many
individuals in direct lineal descent, past and future. This

278 The Morality of Nature

relationship of successive lives leads to the perception of
their real identity, and thus a view of continuous life in
many successive generations is seen, and suggests a solution
of the problem of the law of conduct. The life which ap-
parently begins and ends without logical completeness, and
without justice or sequence, is seen to be but a fragment of
a greater life in which all these qualities appear. We there-
fore proceed to examine more deeply this new aspect of man-
kind. To understand human conduct we must understand
humanity physically as well as psychologically, and the in-
quiry extends into that wide field of biological science in
evolution, where the unit of activity is a race or species, and
the terminable life time is an era.

Here we find life to be potentially immortal in actual
material continuity, and we find its immortality to be the
consequence or reward of certain conduct which we call
right conduct. But we find much more. It becomes clear
that life, thus continued in right living, reaches into higher
and always higher physical phases, and with each phase
becomes eligible for further promotion.

This revelation can be found and read without any in-
spired assistance. It stands in the natural world as the
essence of its life's normal function, independent of any
supernatural force, unless we so call the original and con-
tinuing fiat of life.

In Evolution nature writes the open book in which the
physical element of this knowledge appears. The evolution
of life-forms is the repeated adoption, by an undying living
substance, of changed organizations and capacities, suited
to changing conditions, and their retention in apparent sta-

Conduct in Evolution 279

bility so long as they remain the best suited. It is the con-
tinued activity of a principle by which living matter, in its
organization, preserves always the beneficial results of its
past experience; and, starting from these as a base, adapts
itself to new conditions by adding new abilities to the old.
By its operation a creature at any time is always the product
of its original self and all the succession of its former selves,
and of its present environment. It must be perceived that
the environment alone does not evolve the creature. Were
it so all would be alike in like environment. What makes
the new creature is the environment plus all the previous ex-
periences of the life in question, plus the life itself. Thus,
in the same environment, many different creatures arise
because they stand in it with many different pasts. One,
with a long successful past plus the present, is a very differ-
ent creature from another, with a barely surviving past, plus
the same present. Evolution is thus cumulative in effect,
and in this fact lies its power of progress and inspiration.
By it progress is addition and not substraction, and is,
normally, from lower to higher forms and capacities. A
creature in evolution is potential for future conditions, with-
out being committed or destined to any of them. In this
last quality evolution is entirely different from the develop-
ment which is the execution of a previous plan; as when a
plant arises from a seed; or when a colony of old type rises
from an individual of that type. In these cases the process
of development is along foreordained lines, and is nature's
repetition of a previous operation, because the new condi-
tions are sufficiently similar to the old to promise success
of former acts. This is not evolution in the special sense.

280 The Morality of Nature

although there may be some small element of evolution
superimposed upon it. Evolution is always and inevitably
new because it always adds. It is the product of what was
new yesterday into what is newer today; and its tomorrow
is never determined until that morrow comes. It seeks fit-
ness for the future only by grasping fitness in the present;
and the fitness arrives usually because the future comes re-
lated to the present just as the present is related to the past.
Such a conception of the purposes of higher conduct leads
to a conception of a scheme or system whose laws are as far
and long reaching as the life they regulate; that is to say
potentially immortal ; and less only than the infinite.

CHAPTER II

EVOLUTION IS PROGRESS

The word Evolution has come to mean, in modem
biology, especially the process in nature by which higher
forms and more complex organizations of life are attained,
through the changes in the life organism, which builds up
or accumulates its new characteristics. Evolution physical
is the result of efforts to better maintain and improve exis-
tence. At times conditions more or less variable or hostile
stimulate this activity, at other times when the environment
of a race may remain favorable and nearly constant, this
stimulus seems to disappear. At other times crowding by
increasing numbers causes competition among individuals,
each striving for maintenance or self -advancement. Under
these different incentives variations appear ; and are adopted
and cultivated, and fixed by use, so that new useful features
are made permanent, and old useless ones are abandoned;
and the creature slowly changes, and in the long course of
ages new varieties and new species are evolved and estab-
lished.

281

282 The Morality of Nature

This process is proven beyond question by modern science.
There are still some persons who dispute it, but they are
those who do not study. It is to be examined here as an
established foundation upon which to base philosophic
reasoning in regard to conduct.

In the course of this destiny in evolution, humanity pur-
sues a career from a beginning unknown to an end unknown.
Our knowledge of the present and recently past portions of
the sequence, is a comparatively exact science; and it is a
science of causation, and so we may extend it by logical
inference backward into the remoter past, and forward into
the farther future.

Man does not enjoy alone the privileges of this progress.
All nature participates in it under laws which appear to be
universal. But man stands as a creature which has emerged
from the lower degrees, and who has attained, in psychology,
a plane so much higher, that to careless inspection it appears
as a different dispensation. Yet the law can be found only
as one law for all. It may be that man owes his superiority
to a beginning, or an early favor, not encountered by his
lesser rivals, the remoteness of all the beginnings is such
that only the dimmest of light reveals it, in the uncertainty
of conjecture. But uncertainty is not in nature a ground
for rejection or disbelief. Evolution is a process itself based
always upon uncertainties. The impulses which prompt new
and higher activities, and which adopt and confirm new
forms and organizations, are seldom infallible. They are
the successes selected by actual trial, from innumerable other
impulses which failed. And this is just as true of human
intellectual impulse as of animal impulse. Although the

Evolution is Progress 283

intellect does give a judgment in advance which is better
than unreasoned instinct, yet it is often in error.

The exact sciences reach only to a very limited volume of
knowledge. Reasoning and logic by induction achieve only
few absolute certainties. They operate with a degree of
wisdom small in relation to the absolute; and so unreliable
that it seems to be part of the natural course that it shall be
perpetually supplanted; and so small that always the un-
known will stand away farther and greater.

But the mystery of the greater future knowledge is not
simply a fascinating metaphysical marvel, the fact that new
knowledge waits still unknown, stands before us as a condi-
tion to be faced every new day, and indeed, it is so faced.
And notwithstanding the inability of philosophers to tell us
what is coming, we who live on, do so by meeting the onrush
of existence as best we may, according to our ability, using
such fragmentary understanding of it as we can get. In
the absence of positive knowledge, we must and do act upon
beliefs, with more or less faith, and with more or less wis-
dom. These beliefs vary in force and in usefulness, from
the grandest inspirations, revealing mainsprings of life,
down to the merest guesses of badly formed impulse. But
such as they are they are the basis of human conduct.
Therefore the absence of perfect knowledge of all things
does not relieve man, nor any living animal, from the
necessity of decision and action, nor from the consequences
of his conduct. He must proceed or stand still, upon such
wisdom as he finds available. Conduct, therefore, cannot
look for or demand infallible guidance, nor can the knowl-
edge of it, or of its laws, be exact knowledge. If considered

284 The Morality of Nature

as a science, it is the least stable of all sciences, always sub-
ject to change, in anything and everything except only its
basic principle, which is life dependent upon right doing.

The laws under which evolution erects upon this basis,
consequences of accumulating value, are evidenced therefore
in a process which is comparative rather than exact, and
aspiring rather than wise. The right doing by which a
creature continues to live while environment varies, results
in a growth in experience, which is imperfect knowledge,
of an unstable, fast changing nature; and in this growing
knowledge, the possible upward progress shows no depen-
dence upon exactness, and no tendency to become fixed. A
philosophy which pretends in the light of any day's knowl-
edge, to define or declare the value of the abolute good, is
evidently absurd; for tomorrow will always add new ex-
perience and knowledge, and leave the old imperfect. And
a philosophy which seeks benefit only in things which are
provable, is more absurd ; because it ignores the greater part
of human motives; which are not conclusions, but are only
desires taking effect in hope or in faith. A philosophy which
can help humanity to live, cannot afford to deal with only
a part of human impulses, it must treat of all, and must
give the due consideration to every factor.

This truth becomes more clear when the higher con-
sequences of conduct are viewed, in the progress of evo-
lution of life forms, as they rise adapting themselves to
conditions, by continued increase of efficiency. This rise
is being accomplished now as always before. It is being
achieved by civilized man and by barbaric man; and by
living creatures, in world's known and unknown; by vege-

Evolution is Progress 285

table life in its lower order, and in short by all life. It is
curiously evident that, in evolution, the surviving changes,
compelled or secured by hostility of environment, are neces-
sarily changes for the better in fitness for that environment ;
since any change for the worse is penalized, and if bad
enough is exterminated, and upward progress is the normal
progress.

It is difficult to understand the far-reaching import of the
continuance of the uplifting evolution principle, when applied
to the past and future of progress. Man must recognize
himself not as a stable, enduring entity, but as a thing chang-
ing like a mist wreath, or a cloud without form. The hopes
of future beatitude that man has put into words from time
to time, have never been near to adequate expression of the
promotions which await him; and they never will, for
every advance develops a higher perception of those to be.
Man, as man, may, nay must, now believe that his succession
will be as far above him, as he is above the cave dweller
whose dawning intellect reaches only the beginning of
reason. In the face of the revelations of recent science, it
is idle to deny or ignore the fact that modern man is really
the successor, through evolution, of a progenitor of lower
animal type. Notwithstanding the prejudices against such a
belief, resting upon misreadings of the crystallized truths
of older revelation, all the realities discoverable show that
civilization fades away in a backward review, wave by
wave, lessening in degree, although with some startling
interruptions — until its beg'inning appears in barbarism.
And behind this barbarism is animalism down to its
beginning.

286 The Morality of Nature

But this backward view toward lowest beginnings
means that from them there has been a vast progress to the
higher present, and above all it means equally a hope for
a still higher future.

Dogma may continue to assert the inability of humanity
to change, yet in dogmatic evidence, as elsewhere, human
progress is recorded, and to the meanest intellect it is open
and accessible. In historic review of humanity's religious
beliefs, each of which may be taken as a conservative ex-
pression of the best perceptions of infinite wisdom, of its
time and place ; there is to be seen continued progress, which
must be in man's growing capacity, since it cannot be argued
that the Divine source has improved. The civilization of
Christianity, with its basic principle of brotherhood in active
altruism ; is vastly superior to the previous Theisms of ag-
gressive type, with their bloodthirsty justice of retribution.
Yet this type of Theism evolved a Monotheism which was
noble compared with the Polytheistic beliefs and the Pan-
theistic cultures of self-indulgence with a basis in sensuality;
and even that stood high over the preceding supersti-
tions which worshipped idols with service of slaughter. The
great religions of the East, Brahminism and Buddhism,
show, in their own historic places, advances over the previous
ancient wisdom, resembling that of Christianity over
Paganism. And even Islamism which appears with defects
which belong to the ante-Christian period, was better in
its theology than the idolatry which preceded it.

And again in regard to natural philosophy, and to the
exact sciences founded in truth or logic and acute percep-
tion, the present age surpasses all the historic past. It is

Evolution is Progress 287

probably true that inspiration and intuition are today less
effective, relatively, than they have been; but that is a
temporary condition, due to the revolutionary progress in
objective knowledge, which has upset and discredited so
much of subconscious inference; but which will, without
doubt, become the basis for a higher inspiration in due
course.

All the records, and they are many, show that older wis-
dom was usually lesser wisdom, not only in that it ignored
some subjects later studied; but it was also wisdom of
lower order in that it showed an intellectual power of lesser
training, producing beliefs, and approving errors, which to
later thought were obviously wrong ; and even in the limited
light then available should have been rejected.

For example, the minds which could continue to attribute
the supernatural control of all things, to the erratic lunatics
of the Greek Mythology, or to the childish deities of Egypt,
are obviously and incontestably inferior to those of even
the populace of today. And the priests of those cults
would appear as children when placed beside those who in
Israel, recognized a justice-dealing Jehovah. We recognize
certain principles of wisdom as being old, and remaining
common to all breeds, as elements of their strength ; but the
weaknesses in old beliefs measure the intellectual grade of
their teachers, more clearly than the truths do. The great
truths, noble wherever found, some of which all ancient
religions possessed, are true today, and some are no better
understood today. It is not to be said that old belief was
without true value; on the contrary it is clear that the old,
was, when new, usually better than its preceding belief.

288 The Morality of Nature

But In the admixture of truth and errors which always
makes the fact, the examples of error characterize the
mental power of the races and show the old lower status,
and thus prove progress. It must be conceded that progress
is not regular and even; that an epoch-making wave may
reach abnormally high, and be succeeded by a recession;
and so on. It is even possible that these visible oscillations
are as ripples borne upon a larger series of waves ; that a
previous era has seen civilization higher than ours, which
has passed to leave only an inheritance in a physical brain-
power of men. It may even be granted that cataclysms
of nature at some time may have affected life so overwhelm-
ingly as to spare only men whose intellectual ability was
great for the task of self -saving. But such is not probably
true. The geological record is consistent in the evidence
that the progress of evolution was fairly even, and that
man appeared after the earth had assumed the present degree
of stability of conditions, which permitted of his develop-
ment in a series of advances. Perhaps the best place in
which to commence a study of evolution is in the Geological
record. But what a stupendous prospect is there opened to
our view ! It is idle to contemplate the geological periods
with a pretense to comprehend their age but we must make
an effort to realize their immense capacity.

CHAPTER III

TIME AND THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD

In approaching evolution we must be prepared to contem-
plate time of vast duration. Let us begin the consideration
of time in its relation to ourselves; and note first the effects
upon our physical nature, of the events of five thousand
years, as they can be observed in history. In this time we
find that some races have progressed from barbarism to
high intellect, with some changes of head shape and of facial
expression; partly perhaps procured through admixture
with other blood, while other races have changed so little
that they seem to have remained essentially the same. There
are men living today who would serve as models for the
portrait-like baked clay art of thousands of years ago.
These have stood still. Some muscular forms and bone
structures have changed slowly under changing conditions,
and some are almost constant. But the change is little and
the constancy is great. The resemblances of races astonish
as much as the differences. We see that the descendants of
ancient civilization, for example the modern Greeks or
Italians, have, in common with the black African savage,
a bone structure which their vastly different lives have
differentiated only in a moderate degree. They have ac-
quired differences, yet when we regard the probability that
19 289

290 The Morality of Nature

they have been developing apart for ten thousand years, or
perhaps fifty thousand years, the differences are trifling
compared with the similarities. The knowledge reached by
observers of the effect of changed conditions upon men and
animals, and even our common observation of their effects
upon our own race folk, prove that such changes do occur.
Yet we see that in the historic duration time does very little
in comparison with what was done before historic time
began.

Now let us inquire how long it must have taken to so
differentiate from a primitive stock, the black African on
one hand, and the white, pure blooded Saxon on the other.
Or, if we believe that they are not of similar stock with
common origin, let us inquire how long it must have taken
to produce each of them from two somewhat similar original
stocks, under somewhat similar environment. Whichever
way the similarity is caused, we ask now only a question of
time; the two handed, five fingered, erect walking man of
black skin is undeniably related in his descent, either through
a similar environment and law, or from a common ancestor,
with the two handed, five fingered, erect walking white man.
These men are both recently evolved, in comparison with
the reptile, as geology proves. But measured by man's
time and remembering what five thousand years has done,
what a stupendous age is needed to breed the white stock,
or the black, one from another; or both from the brown,
or whatever it was.

Well, that time has been as freely and easily available as
the few hours of yesterday were available for our work.
What matters time in eternity? We men stop to think of

Time and the Geological Record 291

time, when something is to be done, because our time is
limited; but all things done in evolution, are done without
prevision or regard for the next deed, or the next need,
or the time for it. Each cause does its own work, and no
day is considered, and no morrow is provided for, and no
future is foreseen. There is a common error in the suppo-
sition that by evolution, nature in one age prepares for the
next. No bit of evolution ever appeared except to meet
already existing circumstances. In this there is no anticipa-
tion. To produce a white or a black man was no part of
nature's scheme until those colors arose in the circumstances
which made those colors beneficial. A man is black today,
not because it is now best for him, but because in the past
it has been good for him.

Now if these details of color and so on are the work of
ages, enduring hundreds of thousands of years; how long
has it taken to settle, in each slow changing type, the bone
structure, the muscle plan, the digestive organs, the skin
and the hair coverings of man. We may fairly say it must
have been many hundred times as long.

The chief obstacle to a clear conception of evolution is
the misunderstanding of time. The human mind in ordinary
habit measures time by a scale so small that it is incapable
of expressing the periods in which evolution works. It is
as if an ant should describe the Atlantic in terms of its own
foot lengths. The Mundane Era of seven or eight thousand
years is a mere foot length of the geological. Wise men
have said in many languages, that a thousand years are but
as yesterday, in the work of creation, and we all repeat it
with poetic concession, while we let its meaning slip awaj.

292 The Morality of Nature

Now the newest revelations of modern wisdom tend to make
emphatic repetion of this old truth in its most extreme
form as a Hteral fact.

In order to understand the scheme of the world evolu-
tion a thinker must get an emancipation from the day and
year and century and epoch in which he lives, and review
time as a ground or matrix in whose infinity a period of
great length and a period of small length are alike infinitely
little.*

The time of geological record taxes the comprehension.
In a serial list of the species of life which have been found
in fossils preserved in the earth, man appears only as the
occupant of a single period in a single recent group. His
period of presence is so small comparatively, that varying
phases of it are ignored, and below him are ranged, in space
many times the size of his space, a series of many hundreds
or preceding species of animals and plants. These fossil
remains all lie in the earth in their order, so that the older
beds of earth have older and simpler forms of animals ; that
is to say the beds of earth which must have preceded new
beds, because they lie underneath, and because they contain
the material out which new beds were evidently made; also
contain the animals out of which the newer animals were
made. The more simple in evolution lie beneath and the
more complex above.

The facts of evolution are accessible, and they are too
important and too amazing to be carried in a mere sum-

* Recent estimates of the age of the existing archaean rock structure
of the earth place it at fourteen hundred million years, and the dura-
tion of life at eight hundred million years; and the age of mammals
at sixty-five million years.

Time and the Geological Record 293

mary. For a reasoned understanding of life and conduct,
they must be known in a fullness accessible only by appre-
ciative study. The modern sciences treating of biology
aflford a volume in which we may learn the general adapt-
ability and flexibility of all life forms. We find organized
living things continually changing in form by variations
which are without end. We find these variations often re-
jected after a brief tolerance. Some have served a purpose
which has ended. Some have served apparently no purpose
or have even been detrimental. Others have been beneficial
and we see them recurring, and growing in use ; descending
to offspring from parent, to be tried again in a new genera-
tion. And then after many generations we see such new
features apparently settled and confirmed, in the type which
is normal. So long as they are profitable, these new fea-
tures may be expected to continue ; yet we see that hundreds
of generations can only provisionally fix any form. The
length of neck and foreleg of the giraffe is the inheritance
of innumerable generations of tree-feeding ancestors; yet
it would, we know, slowly disappear if tree feeding ended,
and if innumerable generations of progeny found bush feed-
ing good, they would develop again the moderate neck from
which it was formed. And so it is of the fleet-running ma-
chinery and way of living of the deer or horse, which
could lapse into the inactive habit of the cow, if many gen-
erations of lethargic life made the fleetness useless. So
again of the strong winged birds, the carrier pigeon and
partridge and wild duck. Their flight is for their way of
life; and their wings, which make it possible, would be-
come as weak as those of tame fowls, in even a few genera-

294 The Morality of Nature

tions of disuse. These abilities of animals are acquired as
the product of needs, and are in evolution sustained by the
same causes which made them, only to be relinquished when
they cease to be useful. The flight of the pigeon and the
speed of the horse we see year by year increasing even be-
yond nature's standard as man's urging permeates the in-
centive. And as they can be developed, so too we know
the cow could be evolved into the fleeter type of its wild
stock, if man or nature made it advantageous to its racial
life, and so we know the hen and the farm duck could be
bred into strong flying fowls, if such habits were demanded
as necessary to fitness.

The most notable effects of evolutionary changes under
the special influence of man are perhaps seen in the amazing
variation of the dog. Animals of this species vary in size
at least a hundred fold, yet the dog of a pound weight and
another of a hundred pounds, are of the same fundamental
type, and preserve biological likeness as creatures of one
original stock, although they have reached such differences
that cross breeding is impossible. But this question of cross
breeding is no longer an acceptable means of defining dif-
ference of species. Many different species, as by man
classified, can breed together, and have fertile progeny; and
many specimens of admittedly single species cannot. The
fact is that fertility in sexual union as a test of species,
indicates a newer classification, and does not aid the old
methods. Many so called different species merge one into
the other imperceptibly; and others, where the differences
are perceptible, a link which has become extinct, has pre-
viously connected them. The similarities of certain sheep

Time and the Geological Record 295

and goats, are as striking as the difference of the dogs. The
carnivora again, illustrate the imperfection of artificial
classification, the leopards and tigers and their kind, show
many creatures but a little apart, which are fertile in union.
The differences, which in historic time under man's obser-
vation, have been seen to arise or merge or disappear, in the
form and organization of animal life (and even more in
vegetable), are such, that it is clear that distinct species do
so arise, and probably have always so arisen. The lack
of continuity, in the existing, and in the geological series,
is easily understood. The forms which were transitory,
being produced by fast changing circumstances, would most
probably disappear, while those which were sustained by
environment long lasting, became more numerous and en-
during, and so more likely to leave enduring records. These
were only a few of the many experimental forms, those
selected by nature out of many experiments; and preferred
because they fitted their conditions, like seed cast upon cul-
tivated ground. Between these favored forms were many
whose fugitive efforts were only stepping stones from one
type to another; and in their quick disappearance we have
lost the evidence of relationship. Such a process still con-
tinues, or would continue if circumstances favored it. Sup-
pose for example that all the varities of living dogs were
exterminated by human custom or demand, except very
large and very small; and no dogs were bred except the
mastiffs and the toy terriers ; and suppose that the influences
which discriminated against the medium sized animals con-
tinued to operate against any new tendency toward such
size. These two types of dogs, already fairly established,

296 The Morality of Nature

would appear in a very few generations as species more dis-
tinct than many of those now so classified.

Now with this glimpse of the evolutionary process in liv-
ing types still in mind, let us turn to the geological record.
This again invites most faithful search, yet we can only
allude to the essential features, and must assume a familiar-
ity with the subject on the part of the student. The gener-
ally well known position of the rocks of the earth's crust is
a wonderful inspiration for, or confirmation of, the argu-
ments of evolution.

Of course the evolution of inanimate matter is the
primary record of this great object lesson. The masses of
ancient stone, deposited by the primeval seas, upon parts of
the earth then covered by water, to be later raised into hills
and plains; are plainly the direct descendants of the still
more ancient granites, which were formed when the melting
furnace of energy cooled enough to change them from
fluid to solid condition. And still later rocks are as surely
seen to be built of the debris of the intermediate ones, which,
once beneath seas, had risen again to where torrential rivers
tore them from the new made hills, and spread them in the
beds of lakes and oceans. Alternate rising and falling of
the land seems to have been repeated many times, so that
over and over again the land at the borders of continents
was submerged. It is probable that in the early ages of
cataclysmic action, this work was done more violently and
more rapidly than now, but it is not necessarily so, time
was not lacking, and haste has no place in evolution. Fragile
things preserved show that delicate forms lived and grew,
and were overwhelmed and buried, without destructive

Time and the Geological Record 297

violence, in many places. Moreover, the earliest life is
entirely fragile. Be that as it may, we see today a process
of the same nature. Although it appears that there are
mountains which were never submerged and oceanbeds never
laid dry, that the ridges of great continents hold their places,
and the depths of the great oceans; yet the fragments of
granite debris which continually drift from the highest
mountains need only time to abase them; and the seas to
which they drift are not infinitely capacious, and in due
course must become less deep, even from this cause, which
is not alone in that effect. Natural action, which continues
or interrupts the process, does much now by gentle force.
At places it is well established that the land is slowly, quietly
sinking, perhaps a foot in a century; so that human intelli-
gence has not perceived it until a few years ago; and only
now do we realize that even that rate, in a thousand
centuries, would submerge many a country into a geologic
laboratory. Some of these places so sinking, are on a shore
where great rivers carry the detritus of a continent. There
we may and do see the process of rock making. The sea,
where, a little time back (geologically speaking) was shore,
is now filling almost as fast as it sinks with a blanket of
earth-debris. And upon this will be piled more and more,
until a pressure of millions of tons, and a heat which that
pressure generates, will renew the solidity of the mass, to
be perhaps slowly raised again to Alpine crags, and to begin
anew the gravitating journey. Now the sand so settling
at this day in the stillness of bays and lagoons, is full of liv-
ing things, and of their shells and skeletons. They are being
covered up day by day. When they reappear, in thousands

298 The Morality of Nature

of years, they will show to the intellectual beings, in actual,
visible form, what the life of this age was; and it will be
different from the prevailing life; as we know because
the life thus revealed now, by old remains, is different from
ours. This story of elementary geology is simple but is
not to be passed as waste of time. It leads to marvels.

The simplicity of the process being realized, its reliability
can be felt; and the fact now to be emphasized can be con-
sidered with less doubt. This fact is that in the beds of
debris, which are revealed older and older, as we go deeper
and deeper; the life relics are found to be, in backward
progress, simpler and simpler. These older beds would of
course present most frequently durable forms; if fragile
and durable were mixed in similar proportion. Yet as we
pass from one strata to another some of the most durable
forms disappear first. We find in certain deposits great
bones and teeth, and moulds of scales, and prints of feet,
relics of the ancestors of elephants and elk and bears and
other modern animals and fishes, and deeper we find bones
again more primitive, the bones of quadrupeds of lizardlike
form, and of birds also lizardlike, but there are no more
of the massive bones of elk and elephants nor anything like
them. And again deeper we find reptiles, with wings and
without them, but no more mammals. And then still deeper
the earth is full of fish forms, with and without vertebrae,
and of many forms of motile organ, but never a wing or a
leg — and deeper still are shell fish and worms, and creatures
of simplest form; and deepest of all, where the sediment
lies in oldest beds, upon the Archean fire made rock; the
eozoon which is known only vaguely, from a mass of sup-

Time and the Geological Record 299

posed shell substance. A consideration of this sequence
drives the unprejudiced observer to the conclusion, that the
reason the later forms, such as the quadruped skeletons, are
not found in the old debris which has preserved crustaceous
shells and worm molds, must be that there were none there to
be preserved. No other theory is presentable. If there had
been any such forms they must have endured in some places,
among the many which reveal more fragile things. Yet
there are no such examples. It cannot be that we are mis-
taken as to their possible contemporary existence, or their
comparative durability among the crustaceans and worms.
These early types persisted, with some modifications, which
do not affect their geological durability, and we find them
later along with mammalian relics. We find that after
lizards appear, lizards of one kind or another continue, and
lead up to the lizards we now see alive; which are not in
detail the same, but are clearly descendants, modified as
we have seen living forms can be modified. And so we see
each form persist for some time, and merge in others nearly
resembling it. A reference to bird forms as the most strik-
ing example may close this discussion. The birds are, in
fossil records, traceable backward until their ancestors ap-
pear with only the beginning of bird form as we know it.
They are seen as lizardlike creatures whose feathers are al-
most as scales and whose wings are but aids to leaping.
Such forms are only remotely like our birds, but when these
things are found coincident with the disappearance of birds
which approximated to these lizards, we may suppose that
they are the progenitors of the birds. Let us examine the
possible alternatives. If the birds, which appear at a certain

300 The Morality of Nature

stage of geological history, and are never discoverable in
earlier stages were not produced from creatures of earlier
stage, how were they produced. Was it by direct miracu-
lous creation? And if the direct miraculous creation be
supposed, why is there the close relationship and similarity
to some type and form previously existing? And why is
it that always the new form is of complexity a little greater
than that in the previous forms ? But even the supposition
of a miraculous creation does not preclude the idea that the
new form might be made by a perfecting addition to an
older one. This theory could fall in with the facts. The
fault in such a theory is that the new miracle is superfluous
and useless, when the far older miracle of original creative
force stands evident and undeniable.

Reviewing the history written in the rocks chronologically
we may summarize it thus. Beginning with early life which
has left no fossils there arose a sea-life of algae and shell
fish whose remains are the first recognizable. And mark well
the fact that there is no relic of any other life discoverable
in this old strata.

The shell fish of simple forms are followed by others
more elaborate, crustaceans with means of locomotion.
Then appear primitive fishes, followed by amphibious ani-
mals which are the first to leave any trace of life on the
land. Life evidently began in the sea, and the later land
life was evolved from it when sea animals came out of the
water, and gradually took to more and more of land life,
until they were able to live entirely out of the water. These
amphibians were followed by animals of terrestrial habits
which began to show the bone-structure of more recent

Time and the Geological Record 301

times. At the same time plants and trees appear, and insects.
Next the amphibians develop into forms known to us by fos-
sils of great land reptiles. The trees and plants become more
advanced and early primitive types of mammals and of
birds appear. The mammals become more numerous and
more highly developed as the reptiles become fewer and
smaller. And at last animals and plants of modern types
are found in the latest era (and not earlier) ; and in the
latest period of that era remains of man appear, together
with those of existing species of animals and plants.

Between the distinct orders are found numerous forms by
which they merge one step from another; the later from the
earlier — just as today we may see the amphibious frog
develop from the distinctly aquatic tadpole. There are
however many gaps where no links connect. This is to be
expected. The record has been often destroyed or sus-
pended for long ages. One of these gaps occurs between
man and the highest of other mammals. The apes and
monkeys do not supply the connecting \\i\k. Man, erect
standing and fast running, upon feet which are radically
different from hands, with large development of hip and
thigh, and comparatively small power of arm, is of struc-
ture widely different from the nearest ape, and the intellec-
tual faculties of even the lowest races of men show a still
greater gap. It is notable that man appears somewhat
abruptly in the geological record, and very late. This might
well be due to his having developed for ages in some
favorable place, such as a large island comparatively free
from enemies ; a land such as might have preceded some
of the Australasian archipelagoes, where the relics have not

302 The Morality of Nature

yet been explored. It is to be supposed that much light will
in future be thrown upon this question. Meantime we find
nothing to deny the possibility of man's origin in evolution
from a lower form of life — nothing necessitating a miracu-
lous intervention by a Deity who desired to change his
original mandate.

From such a supposition therefore we return to our
geological evidence and finally regard the marshalled array
of life forms, progressing in advancing types of higher and
higher organization, broken by losses but never by reversals ;
and we accept the conviction that all the later life is
descended from the earlier, and all the more complex life
is evolved from the simpler, partly in a direct upward evo-
lution and partly in specialization indirectly without novelty
of structure. The change whether constructive or merely
adaptive was made by a growth so slow that it cannot be
perceived in one generation or even in a hundred, and yet
the thousands of generations needed, occupy in the record
only a short chapter. Yet why should this slowness perplex ;
one does not see the tree grow, yet it is two feet high for
the father, and a hundred feet for his grandchild, and the
child does not disbelieve when the grandfather says, 'T
planted that tree two feet high."

It is not to be doubted that all the characteristics of
animal life, including those of humanity have been slowly
formed by each generation adding to an accumulating hered-
ity, an imperceptible trifle, as the tree adds to its form by
new growth. The enormous time needed for the develop-
ment of present man from his earliest humanity, is a mere
trifle of time in that of the geological record; and the evo-

Time and the Geological Record 303

lution of that earliest human type from primal life, is the
work of a stupendously greater time; and yet this is truly
but as a yesterday, in the time available for nature's creation.
If this conception of time can be mastered the way is
open to a comprehension of evolution.

CHAPTER IV

CHANGE IS NORMAL

After the idea is adopted that all time is available, a
belief in evolution may be regarded as depending more upon
the question whether any change is possible, than upon the
later questions as to the effects of change. If the student can
observe, first, that infinitesimal change does occur ; and next,
that such changes can accumulate, for many generations as
easily as for two; then evolution may become clear to him.
A study of any recent science books can convince one of
these facts. It may be briefly noted that changes, to become
fixed (as far as anything is ever fixed), must be long per-
sistent, and that fixed or established characters are slow or
quick to change, according as they are long ago, or recently,
acquired. And further it follows that nothing is stable
absolutely, but that it is only a question of new need,
whether new change shall be adopted. Now the occurrence
of change is an observable fact. Investigators differ as to
how the changes arise, whether by mere accidental varia-
tion or whether by response of the creature to the demands
of environment, but it is generally agreed, and undoubtedly
true, that among the changes so begun, those which persist,
and which therefore now concern us, are those which enable
a creature by increased ability, to maintain life; sometimes

304

Change is Normal 305

to maintain it against growing adversity, or against compe-
tition of its own kind; sometimes to promote it or maintain
it better under nearly constant circumstances. If the effect
of a change is beneficial, the creature will prosper more for
it, and those deficient in it will prosper less; and so two
groups may be formed, and separated, except as they merge
by the interbreeding which sexual reproduction provides. In
time many or all of the race or group will have produced,
or adopted by blood relationship, the improvement, and it
will become established by persistent use and need; and
those who have it not, will either lapse into separate place
as an inferior variety, or will become extinct if it is of vital
value. Another fact corelated is that disuse of an endow-
ment for a long continued time will, by withdrawing the
stimulus of activity from it, allow it to deteriorate and even
to disappear. Examples are abundant showing a kind of
progress in certain desired abilities, obtained by a morpho-
logical change which is regressive. The foundation of the
single-toed foot of the horse by exaggerated development of
one toe of each foot, into strength and hardness of material,
is at the sacrifice of the others, which, being unused, become
slowly atrophied, generation by generation, until some dis-
appear from external view altogether. Geological specimens
of horses of antecedent form are well known, and they
afford examples of the transitional form of foot, when
the toes were not so fully transformed, the change being in
course of evolution. Also familiar is the change in the
human foot under civilization. It is well known that
savages, and even some civilized people, use the foot bare,
and with much use of the toes for prehensile and grasping

306 The Morality of Nature

purposes as in climbing; while other men of the less gen-
erous climates having for some few centuries used boots,
and ceased to make prehensile use of toes, have atrophied
and modified them to a perceptible degree. They still serve
as a flexible terminal of the foot collectively, and still have
for that service much effect, but their separate activity in
grasping is markedly less.

The natural weather resisting coverings of the body too,
the skin and hair, have lessened in effectiveness of that sort,
in proportion as they have been protected, and the skin has
gained in sensitiveness. The muscular development of jaws
and neck, and the bones to which those muscles are attached,
have become smaller and more refined, as their usage be-
comes less rough. All these things show a waning of certain
powers and structures which however must still be called
upward evolution. And in the higher animals, including
man, there is of course continuing evolution of constructive
effect. The brain size and capacity have been greatly in-
creased in those races of men which have intellectual
eminence.

Now if these changes can be visibly made in the historic
period, what may be supposed to happen when that period
shall have been repeated a hundred times, and what shall we
expect of a hundred thousand such periods. That is exactly
what we must consider. That is what has occurred, and is
now recurring. In the ages we see these small changes
adding item by item, and then epoch by epoch, until no
doubt whatever is possible that all the present creatures of
life have been so cultivated from the simplest forms. It
becomes evident that man's period upon earth is a long and

Change is Normal 3^7

unknown one, although as man of his present form, it is a
recent period indeed. A thousand feet height of geological
strata of rocks and sands and earths lie in plain view for
us in many places. Man's part of that section would be
in fair proportion only a few feet at the top. Below that
small depth not only man but all the present existing forms
of life disappear, and forms that are found, such as three-
toed horses and gigantic elk and mastodons, following the
relics of creatures in transition from aquatic habit to those
of dry land, show that changes of enormous import have
occurred as mere incidents, in a world of continuous change.

And while these changes occurred in the forms of living
things which are preserved in the earth deposits, and these
earth deposits themselves were accumulating in amazing
depths and thickness, it can be seen by the manner in which
life relics lie in them, that life which then existed led an
existence not wholly unlike the present ; that is to say there
was peace and plenty for fragile things; and long periods
passed without catastrophe or violence, so that gentle cur-
rents drifted over delicate shells, and wings of butterfly
texture flew in summer airs, and foliage opened and flowers
bloomed where storms were as tolerable as now. Things as
frail as ourselves lived and died, and were covered by drift-
ing sands, in a manner which could only come to pass slowly,
in a world of self -sufficient nature, which was not a mere
world of violent formative process looking to our period,
but was then living its own fair destiny as the world is
doing now.

Lastly let us face the full truth which we have so far only
looked at afar. The age upon age and change upon change

3o8 The Morality of Nature

have been sufficient in duration and extent, since life first
appeared, to develop every form in existence, by different
lines of succession; from the simplest possible microscopic
unit — some invisible molecule of carbon and hydrogen and
nitrogen and oxygen and some other things unknown —
v^hich became colloid and cell and polyp, and fungus and
plant, and worm and vetebrate, and man, by simple growth
in evolution, and we of proud vain humanity are merely
one of the products of that process. An understanding of
our life and own right to live can then be sought in this
conception of what we are.

CHAPTER V

DESCENT OF MAN

It is not to be supposed however that man or other highly
evolved forms are necessarily descended from lower forms
which are now existing or even from those geologically
known. This is a popular mis-conception of evolution
which has done much to mislead. If we could trace back-
ward the ancestry of man, to a time when his mental
development might be approximately like that of the
monkeys of this age, we would probably find him differing
as much from monkeys of either that or this period, as he
does now. The bone structure of man is that of a tailless
curved-spine creature, which has walked and run erect upon
upright thighs, and grounded feet, for many, many gen-
erations; while most monkeys are crouching, four handed
creatures of flexed thighs, and with necessary tails, and
usually incapable of a truly erect attitude or of speedy walk,
while even the tailless apes which can stand nearly erect,
have the long arms and distinct arboreal fitness of monkeys
generally, utterly different from that of ground walking
humans. The human foot and leg are more characteristic
(in their indication of most ancient erect walking habit)
of humanity, than the hand or even than the head. Both
hand and head approximate in the highest apes and lowest
humans, but the human foot has no such parallel. Man's

309

3IO The Morality of Nature

fleetness and grace in erect movement, and his sheer inability
for quadrupedal motion, indicate long-established bipedal
habit. His general aesthetic subtlety of form indicate an evo-
lution of muscular machinery to the stage of a finished prod-
uct. And those things are supported by his very deficiencies,
in their indication of the relative antiquity of the human
form, in its present typical character. On the other hand the
monkeys, by their lack of aesthetic quality in form, and by
the variations in this form, and its responsiveness to en-
vironment, shows relationship between their numerous
varieties, and, in that relationship, a gulf of separation from
humanity. The Simians generally are new and responsive
rapidly evolving creatures, of very imperfect development.
Far from being possible ancestors of humanity they repre-
sent a growth which probably began its present cycle long
after humanity was established. It is probable that in the
age of the early mammals a creature already acquiring the
habit of a frequently erect posture (as the bears of today
have done) left two lines of descendants one which rapidly
perfected the upright attitude and evolved the human species,
and the other which became confirmed tree climbers, and
developed the Simian varieties.

We see in man and in monkey many points of resem-
blance, which are morphologically similar, because of their
remote origin in somewhat similar ancestry.

So too we may see in the horse and in certain other
quadrupeds great similarity of general form and habit,
which might suggest near relationship, and yet differences
in the foot and head lead us far, far back in the geological
record, where they were still unlike.

Descent of Man 311

We have noted that many forms which appear in the
very old geological record, continue to the present day with
comparatively small change, as, for example, the arthro-
poda whose modern representatives show some species little
advanced from those of paleozoic times. And below these
in the scale, there are now living many one-celled creatures,
of a simplicity of organization which must be regarded as
little above the beginning. When we are looking to these
early forms for light upon the subject of the origin of
species we soon frame a question. Are these elementary
organisms perpetually newly created, or are they per-
sisting old forms? Is it possible that the laws of evolution
still inspire matter with life in its most elemental condition,
when certain combinations supervene? We are almost en-
tirely ignorant of life simpler than the single organized
cell, but our ignorance is no evidence of its non-existence.
On the contrary we have proof of a life, by its results, which
is entirely outside of our power of sensory observation, by
microscope or otherwise. Therefore if life were now so
evolving in matter, in single colloid units of a few hundreds
or thousands of chemical molecules, they would not be per-
ceived by us until they had achieved a larger organization;
even if their sphere of activity were one of which we have
cognizance. On the other hand if there arose only once, the
combination of matter and of the fiat of life, from which
all existing life is derived, and which has now become im-
possible of repetition, because of cessation of necessary
conditions — all of which may be — then we would still be
unable to know whether the fundamental form persisted
pure. It is quite conceivable that protoplasm might continue

312 The Morality of Nature

growth without evolution or development beyond certain
limits, in an environment absolutely constant and changeless.
And it is quite conceivable that life in less primitive form,
might reach a certain stage of organization, which suited
conditions so continuous as to provoke no further advance.
Such seems to be a plausible hypothesis. It is evident
that even when a group of creatures, meeting new environ-
ment, rises in it to new organization, it may still leave behind
many of the old form not so stimulated. So that whether
life does or does not begin anew, elementary life may be
ever present, to supply new evolution in new problems of
environment. Highly organized forms may therefore be
products of ancestries of very different lines. Geology
proves that a certain development of life cannot be older
than a certain age; but it is silent as to the life's origin
within that age. Applying this argument to the hypothetical
descent of man it suggests that his ancestry does not run
through all previous known forms, even though those forms
arrange themselves in a series apparently leading up to it.
It is clearly true that evolution is not a single series; that
its great divisions are in fact separate dependencies; it is
further true that many links and precedents are missing.
Now it may also be true that of the ancestry preceding the
known human series, so much is lost that the early species
are not recognizable, although they may be comparatively
prevalent in primitive forms. It is possible now, today,
that a primitive type which has been dormant for ages in
almost unchanging environment, may be started by new
conditions into a career of evolution comparatively rapid,
and may produce an organization superior, for these new

Descent of Man 313

conditions, to all its rivals of older ancestry, and superior to
any possible development of old ancestry. It is not only
possible but highly probable, therefore that humanity arose
in such a series, of late or comparatively new creation, of
which few members survived, and of which the survivors
all merged, and which is related to the other mammalians
only through a lost species of most primitive type antedating
most existing forms. This would help to account for man's
isolation in the animal world; and although it is not, in
present light, to be proved, it is possible enough to justify
the repugnance instinctively felt toward brute life, when
close relationship is urged by a precipitant philosophy.
There is every indication that types present resemblances,
not only because of actual racial connection, but because
of recurrence of similar conditions, which, in the same life
substance, cause similar results.

The time involved in the process of evolution being un-
limited, and without definite end, is seen to be productive of
changes equally unlimited and indefinite. After types of
structure have been established in certain systems and with
certain features, the activity in response to environment has
proceeded in a secondary phase of modifying effect, to
specialize the features but with less creative energy. It is
to be supposed that common and general forms of struc-
ture arise as a natural outcome of the life energy, in re-
action of certain elements to a given position in certain
environments. The vertebrate structure for example is
apparently a necessary result of a skeleton building habit
newly acquired in a nerve threaded body, and with the same
materials, available in similar conditions, it is to be believed

314 The Morality of Nature

that a new impulse in evolution from similar simple forms,
would anew produce a vertebrate structure. Therefore
the possession of a spine need not indicate a close relation-
ship to all other creatures with spines. And similarly,
though in less forceful manner, it may be said of a four-
legged form, that it is to be reached many separate times
by the elimination of limbs to the minimum of stability; and
so other such forms may be unrelated. Of course if all
life be referred back to one primal germ or fiat, then all are
related in that; and all subsequent forms of similar appear-
ance are more nearly related. But on the other hand the
dawn of life, the endowment of certain elements and mole-
cules, when they come together, with the power of assimila-
tion and growth, may have occurred at many times and
places and may be occurring now.

Therefore, it is possible, even with a single germ original
ancestry, that the evolution of ape and man diverged before
the establishment of present resemblances ; and indeed it is
possible that the divergence was from the primal type of
vertebrate life. If, under like circumstances, like forms
will be evolved from like precedent, equally it is evident that
under circumstances slightly differing, forms slightly dif-
fering will be produced. Therefore a resemblance which is
not perfect, may be the product, not of recent relationship,
but of partial similarity of circumstance. We must concede
it possible even that different races of humanity may have
arisen from ancestrally different sources, wherefrom life
progressed to similar results because of similar stimuli. A
study of elementary organization of simple forms, from
those of one cell into those of earliest multicellular com-

Descent of Man 315

binations, shows that even in the manner of dividing and
allying the smallest groupings, there arise differences which
limit the destinies of all generations. It may well be that
when first a creature achieves the triumph of grouping eight
or more descendant cells about itself in somatic subjection;
it is decided forever whether its descendants can have a
vertebrate or a spineless structure; or some other evolution
in a simple stage may similarly necessitate a four-limbed
form or a many limbed, and later again some development
of nerve ganglion may determine forever a capacity for
intellect. But such problems in evolution are the subject of
its special research. We seek now to recognize the exis-
tence and general nature of this great process, rather than
its details.

Two things may now be formulated together as of vital
effect. The first is that all growths, changes and develop-
ments from a primal life germ to the most complex could
be accomplished by changes of evolution such as are now
prevailing, if only sufficient time is allowed. And the
second concession is that time measures are of absolutely
no consequence in the creation scheme. Time was, and is,
available in all the most amazing duration, so that it becomes
not only possible to imagine creation arising in that manner,
but it appears incontestably certain that it did so arise, and
that it now continues. We may thus realize that the high
endowment of man does not overpass the possibilities of this
process, but more than that we may believe that in its con-
tinuance humanity is destined to attain a far higher position.

CHAPTER VI

PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS

The first aspect which we have, of evolutionary creation
of the Hfe forms of the natural world, is of course that of
the life around us. Our questions first arise in regard to
things that are visible or perceptible, ourselves included.
Whence come they, and we, and whither do we all go? The
answers are not first approached at the beginning; we seek
to reach the beginning, by studying first the present, and
then the next earlier ; and backward from that to the next,
until we seem to have reached a point which might be a
starting point. Then on this starting point we arrange our
knowledge chronologically, or at least consecutively, so that,
in cause and effect, the laws and series of laws appear, and
lead up again to the present ; and then we conceive of these
laws operating in similar sequence onward into the future,
until we imagine what seems to be an end.

Such has been usually the natural method of objective
philosophy and reasoning, and such it probably will be at
all times. A knowledge of the past of this kind, gave to
our civilization the old conception of the creation, and from
this starting point the prevailing knowledge led through a
historic system to what was then the present, to be revised
and developed into the basis of the aspirations of prophetic

316

Physical Limitations 317

faith in regard to the future, and thus to become the founda-
tion for a law of conduct. A growth of knowledge of this
kind too, has been the base of the structure of the modern
sciences generally.

Now a characteristic of this evolution of knowledge is
that its every increase shows not only a fuller understanding
of the present, and of that part of the past which was
recently the present, but it repeatedly shows the point where
a beginning was imagined was not the true place of begin-
ning, but was the position of a highly evolved product, from
some beginning much more remote than had been supposed ;
so that the real beginning recedes and goes again into
mystery. The Hebrew story of the creation of man stands
in marvellously true, — not absolutely true, — relation to that
time from which it was reasoned; but in its first incident
later wisdom sees not the beginning, but a climax, of the
human evoluion in the world; and the briefly described
events which preceded it, stretch back into a past of time
incredibly long, now found to be effective ages, where early
knowledge saw only preliminary incident. And so, in
natural science, the elementary nature of the material world
had explanations time after time, in terms sufficing for
the age producing them, but each time has been followed
by another, which has learned that the things termed ele-
ments were not fundamental, but were resolvable into simpler
and earlier things, so that they stood, not as the beginnings,
but as advanced forms of matter. The simple minds
which ascribed primal value to fire, water, earth and air,
or those which later so named sulphur, mercury and salt,
were no more wrong in their day than are, and will be.

3i8 The Morality of Nature

those defining elements in present and later days. There
have been, in many ages, philosophical perceptions of the
fact that the elemental is only in the infinite, and is through
absolute unity, and yet always, in objective work, we must
think that our farthest view backward is nearer the begin-
ning. Let us at least learn the nature of evolution so far as
to see its immensity. Then we will not seek to know and de-
clare the beginning and end of all things, but only a modest
yet marvellous addition to our perception of the present.

CHAPTER VII

THE BIOLOGICAL RECORD

After geology and comparative anatomy had thrown the
Hght of convincing scientific knowledge upon the before
accepted story of the creation, and had given a new impetus,
and a new standpoint, for research, progress became rapid
indeed. The methods of miscroscopic exploration opened
to the view a wider field of physical structure, and the
wonders of chemistry and chemical energy grew in cor-
responding sequence. Then, aided by these, arose the
modern science of biology, so broad in its aim that the
ancient comparative anatomy becomes a mere sub-depart-
ment within its comprehensive study of the forms, functions,
and descent of living beings.

Although the creation of later higher species of living
things, by evolution from lower ones, is so well and so
clearly explained by the special works of research, yet in
the domain of earlier vital phenomenon there is less light.
This science is more recent, and the field is more vast. The
questions regarding the derivation of multicellular life out
of the single cell, and of the organization of the cell from
the primitive protoplasm, and of the generation of proto-
plasm in the dawn of life; are all in a stage where great
blanks break the story, and make it incoherent. So too,

319

320 The Morality of Nature

in the parallel search for the mechanism of heredity, and
for the determination of sex, and for the nature of psycho-
logical phenomena, and of consciousness, there are only the
beginnings of sure knowledge. Yet these broken begin-
nings give a structure of fact, which it is fair to fill with
reasoned hypothesis, so that the general meaning may be
brought out. We are here seeking the ethical import of
biology, and not exact biological science for itself. In this
effort we may occasionally use a provisional theory to get
a comprehensive grasp of the subject. The unity of com-
pleteness can be realized in this and in no other way. The
postulate thus used to complete the story of biology where
facts temporarily fail, is confessedly to be supplanted by
sure knowledge in due course.

The great achievement of biology and that at which we
must approach it, is the revelation of the all composing
cell.

Living matter, above the stage of the primal shapeless
masses, is found to be, always and without exception,
organized into form as a cell. Every such living thing is
a cell, or is built up of a number of cells. No life appears
except as a cell, arising from a parent cell, and for a com-
pound creature, multiplying into cells of greater or less
number, until its ordered form is reached. This is a simple
statement of well-established fact. A human being and a
protozoon are alike examples of the fact. It has been
calculated that the human body is constructed of twenty-
six thousand billion cells, all descendants from the original
one, which was, in the beginning, organized in the same
plan as the protozoon whose one cell is its maturity-form.

The Biological Record 321

as well as its germ- form. In each the new individual begins
existence as a single microscopic egg cell or germ cell, which
in one case is the complete creature, while in the other it
divides and sub-divides repeatedly, to build up its structure,
patterned after that of its ancestors, and so regenerates a
complete creature.

It is not surprising that when this marvellous fact was
ascertained, it was supposed that the primary unit of
organized life was seen. The cell was so hailed. Yet now,
in a little time, it appears that the cell itself is not primary,
but is a complex organization. It has parts, and these parts
have separate functions. It has structure and history, and
heredity, within its tiny wall, not only for itself, but for
the complex individual creature, which its egg substance is
to breed. And so we look again for the elemental unit.
And as yet we do not find it; but must seek it by paths
indicated by analogy, inference, aspiration, desire. Mean-
time we study the still imperfectly known cell, which is
marvellous enough to arrest attention, and to constitute a
real point of departure, from which new views are possible.
It is in fact in these new views, that this present era of
hfe study is founded.

The scheme of nature, as revealed in the organization of
the cell, is emphatically evolutionary. Heredity in all its
complex completeness is contained in the substances and
functions of a single cell ; or, when sexual duality is in
view, in two half cells of similar species. Whatever appears
in the young elaborated physique of a highly specialized
creature, came to it through the mechanism and chemistry
of a cell. That it was compounded of two parents, and so

322 The Morality of Nature

is of two-cell origin, is a secondary feature. There is really
only one cell in question, although it is composed of two
half cells in the sex process. The fundamental process of
reproduction is asexual, and still prevails without sex in
many cases. Sex is a system of merging and distributing
of inheritance, adopted because it promotes homogeneity
of race; and thus is an element of strength, but it is not
fundamental to reproduction.

The cell is visible in many examples. Some single-celled
creatures, and some egg cells of compound creatures, en-
larged with masses of nutritious substance, and some
structure cells are easily visible to the unassisted eye; other
germs and structure cells are so small that the best micro-
scopes fail to reveal them, and some are known to exist only
by the fact that their work is evident, as when, in suitable
fluids, they are cultivated by the introduction of infected
fluid, and that they are there, and have dimensions, is shown
by the fact that they can be filtered out. These small
microbes stand, in relation to the largest cells, as different
in size as do the small creatures to the large, in general
animal life. But a great number of the cells of which
current life is composed, are of such size that they are just
visible when separated ; and these under the microscope can
be seen well enough to enable their internal structure to be
studied. They are of all shapes ; they may lie in close con-
tact in honeycomb forms or be drawn into long fibres, or
even into branches, but the fundamental solitary form is
spherical. They are composed of protoplasm, a colloid or
jelly-like living compound, which is supposed to be the
basic life substance. This in the cells is usually found to

The Biological Record 323

be separated into two principal parts, one known as the
cytoplasm, which is the bulk of the cell, and the other the
nucleus, which is a more specialized portion lying within
the other. There is also an internal center or focus faintly
distinguishable, called the centrosome, and the whole is
enclosed in a sort of wall or skin. Such is a typical cell.
There are many which this description does not cover
because of variable and abnormal conditions, but this
illustrates the general type.

All living bodies are cells or are built up of cells. The
invisible microbe of one cell only, and the human being
of uncountable millions and the whole scale of living crea-
tion is thus constructed. The growth may, however ap-
propriate the aid of nonliving secreted structure, such as
shells and frames of indurated matters, which in a certain
sense are not living although produced and maintained by
hfe.

The process by which an animal or plant grows, is simply
by the continued subdivision of the cells of its substance,
each of which enlarges to a certain ripeness, and then divides
into two, each of which continues to enlarge and divide until
its destiny is fulfilled. This fulfillment of destiny varies
greatly. It may be that a specialized cell such as one bud-
ding in the skin growth of an animal, is pushed into external
wear and injury, and is destined merely to resist for a time
and die sterile, and fall away, to give place to the new
which a nearby parent cell emits in continuing fertility,
until old age ends its powers. On the other hand some
cells thus dividing in growth, and preserved in the securest
recesses of the body, are endowed with all the heredity of

324 The Morality of Nature

the creature, and all its new experiences; capable of re-
producing all or any part of the complete form, ready to
issue in due time and build a new body like the old, to
become its own offspring. These are the germ cells.

No cell exists except as a bud or division from a previous
cell. The cells live, not by a new life, but only by inheritance
of a material portion of the old life. If the life stops it
stops forever. The cell substance continues to live and
grow, because it has the power of assimilation; that is, it
can enlarge and enrich itself, by taking food material from
a suitable nutritious substance in contact with it, and chang-
ing that material to its own composition. In this continued
addition arises the power of growth.

CHAPTER VIII

KARYOKINESIS

Normal cells, when full grown and mature, have a
marvellous method of division known as Karyokinesis or
indirect division. Some have a less usual method which is
called Amitosis or direct division. This latter may be
dismissed after being briefly mentioned. It is a mere split-
ting in halves, of a bulk or form which is mature, or has
become too large or too extended for its position and its
constitution, without particular regard for the quality of
the two halves. This is a crude mechanical division. In
nature it is found only in such places as make it probable
that it is a degenerate or decadent process, of cells losing
their ancestral force, and becoming specialized for a simple
function without need of successors. It is a process ignor-
ing heredity, and may thus belong to conditions either
before heredity begins, or after it is exhausted. In a skin
or membrane where destruction is sure, and replacement
must depend upon an inner supply, such a production may
economically occur.

But in general, and wherever cell production occurs in
an environment favoring continuance, or necessitating con-
tinuance, the indirect division occurs which is called Karyo-
kinesis. This is the marvellous method, revealed by modern
microscopy. The centrosome, which seems to be the focus

325

326 The Morality of Nature

of the internal tie or bonding forces ; divides into two parts
which pass and stand one on each side of the nucleus. They
seem to pull the nucleus apart. The nucleus arranges itself
for division by grouping its chief substance (called the
chromatin) into short sections called chromosomes, of
definite number for each different species. This substance
becomes a long cord which breaks into the sections — always
four or six or twelve or whatever the racial number may be.
These, like little strings of beads, divide as if each bead
was split sideways to make two parallel thinner strings, then
each half string goes opposite ways, so that the two centro-
somes get exactly half of each bead or knot of nuclear sub-
stance; not one half in number only, but half of each sec-
tion, and half of every single bead or knot, so that any
quality peculiar to one knot is divided equally; for every
such knot. Then the whole cell divides, by becoming of
dumbbell shape, with a half centrosome and half nucleus in
each bulb, and by separating in the middle. Each centro-
some and nucleus becomes independent, and there are two
new cells. Now it has been seen and shown that the division
of the nucleus, thus wonderfully adjusted, awards to each
new cell its absolutely fair share of the heredity. That is to
say, that the parent cell is endowed with and transmits
certain capacities to do certain work, and to produce certain
tissues in certain shapes; not only to reproduce itself, but,
in due course to produce various successive changing forms
unlike itself, to suit special duties; and thus to build up the
various parts of a body, in case the parent cell had such a
body. For example the cells performing the regular func-
tion in the limb of a salamander, which usually grow thigh

Karyokinesis 327

tissues to replace those worn out; can, if the leg is cut off
there, grow and produce a whole new leg, and they do it
by a power of control which is ascertained to be carried by
the chromosomes. This inheritance of development is thus
carefully divided, and a due proportion of every endowment
is passed on. Each particle of chromatin is a germ for a
definite growth. And thus the new part is built up or re-
paired and maintained and in some cases renewed. And in
the case of the full and complete egg, which is the germ
cell for the whole body structure, all the subordinate parts
of the heredity are included, and provided in its chromo-
somes.

To understand this better let us consider the course of
cell growth from the beginning of an individual life. The
segmenting egg of a frog, or of a bird for example, is a
single small cell supplied and served with a mass of
nutritious matter, which makes the aggregate comparatively
large. It has been fecundated by sexual process; after it
had discarded half of its own nucleus, it received a half
nucleus from a male sperm, which was a half cell of diminu-
tive size, which entered its substance. Now, in suitable
environment, chiefly depending upon a condition of ener-
gizing warmth, the germ cell divides, in the manner de-
scribed as Karyokinesis; but the two cells resulting, remain
in contact instead of separating into independence as they
would do if of single celled species. Each new cell divides
again, and each of these, acting under the regulation of the
chromosomes ; and as they divide generally in the direction
of the free ends, they form a symmetrical mass or "morula"
which is a bunch of cells something resembling a mulberry.

328 The Morality of Nature

This is the beginning of the structure of the new animal.
Now each of these cells has been awarded an equal share of
the nuclear treasure of heredity ; and each is qualified in the
same way as was the original germ cell, to construct a com-
plete animal. Up to a certain point this is true. It is
found that upon removal of part of this morula of some
species, the remainder can (if nutrition and environment
are right) produce a complete animal. So each cell at this
stage is capable of producing any or all parts. The dif-
ference in the cells is not real but potential, it depends upon
what will happen to them to produce differing demands.
But now arises a new development. One of the cells divides
differently, and this begins a new series limited to a
specialized heredity to make a specialized structure — cells
no longer fully endowed but only partially. And then the
embryo takes special form, with its outer group and inner
group and middle group of cells; and its special organs
arise. Certain cells having for many divisions been pro-
duced to build up on one stage of the plan, another length
from the string of beads is selected and used for another
part of the plan, and so on, until the whole structure is done.

Now it is ascertained, not merely supposed, that these
chromosomes (which have been compared to strings of
beads) contain all that is needed to determine the form-plan
of the growing embryo, provided suitable conditions permit.
How this is done is still mystery. Several theories have
been offered, and doubtless there is some of the real in each
of them, but the question is still awaiting answer, and
speculation is still permissible.

It is well established that the heredity of living cells is

Karyokinesis 329

transmitted by the nuclear chromatin, in a succession of
predetermined events; each group of events controlled by
a segment or cluster of that substance which we have likened
to a bead on a string; so that when all the beads split down
the center and the string becomes two strings, then each
string has all the qualities of the parent. Quantity seems to
be provided by power of assimilation and growth, that is,
each beadlike group constituting a nucleus, seems to have
the power of growth by assimilation to replace in cell size,
the loss by division, enough to resume a size permitting of
new division. Next it is observed that this growth power
runs a definite course; and the end of that course is reached,
after a regular development, constant for all members of
a species. For example a certain species divides so many
times (perhaps sixteen) without change of character, the
nucleus distributing each time all the same chromatin quali-
ties ; and although size is perhaps not evenly maintained there
is growth CO prevent too great depreciation. One cell
becomes two then each becomes two; making four. These
four are arranged usually as four soft balls would lie in close
contact on a table; then each of these four divides, this
time in the table plane and producing upward and down-
ward, taking the line of least resistance for equal division;
and making a doubled plane group of eight cells, then each
again divides outward and there are sixteen. Now at this
stage (in some types) the new development appears. All
of the sixteen cells divide again; but one of them does so
by parting the nucleus so that the descendant cell takes, not
a split half of every knot or bead, but a portion only of
the length of the string- It may well be that the first knot

330 The Morality of Nature

is now exhausted in this last divided cell; and the heredity
proceeds with the remainder. And then as it goes on, in
the process of division each descendant resumes the splitting
of such beads as it receives, but they are no longer "whole-
creature" cells, capable of producing a complete creature if
separated, but they are specialized to produce only certain
parts of the growing organization. And so certain cells
begin to constitute a part called the epiblast or outer
structure; and others the hypoblast, and others later a
mesoblast. The first, in general purpose is external; it
produces the structure of bones, muscle and skin; the second
the intestinal glands and membranes ; and the last, combining
with the others, the internal glands and linings. But the
special study of this development must be left apart as
pertaining to biological science. We are concerned with
moral science and so it suffices to direct attention to the
manner in which this building up of the body begins, and
to state that it proceeds to the end in the same way.
Divisions continue, accumulating enough of a certain sort
of cell, and then a branch arises which has in it less power.
Note that it is not more or new power, but less. It is
specialized not by a gain, but by the loss of part of the
grand total of power, and by a consequent devotion to the
remaining functions which are transmitted to it. And so
at the last, as the structure is nearing completion, the cells
then dividing are mere somatic cells, which can produce
only their own local substances ; skin cells which divide into
skin and nothing else, or perhaps into specialized forms of
it, such as claws, nails or scales, which are modifications,
and may have not been distinctly differentiated.

Karyokinesis 33i

Here at the end of the series may be found one of the
secrets of evolution. These cells, which make the most
recent features, are susceptible of modification by environ-
ment more rapidly than the earlier cells of the middle of the
division process. The early cells must develop as their
ancestors did; they are committed to that purpose, by
heredity established so long that they cannot change, but
the latest cells, which specialized recently when the structure
was near completion, may vary much in development, and
may even show longer or shorter continuation of division
development, as conditions give impulse. Such latest cells
are not necessarily the external cells of the skin or hair.
Those of nerves and brain and of interior membranes in-
clude late developments of this class. Broadly speaking the
development is most set and unchangeable in its earlier
stages and most variable in its latest.

CHAPTER IX

EMBRYOLOGY

The discovery of this biological development of complex
living bodies from the single germ cell soon demanded the
attention of other sciences; and embryology especially con-
cerns the manner in which, at different stages, the growing
embryo still incomplete, simulates the general structure of
completed creatures of earlier species, and of less complex
form.

It was noticed that when the development of the egg of
a fowl, was interrupted and examined at a very early stage
where the original germ cell had divided only a few times,
the embryo resulting might be compared with certain living
things whose life history goes no farther. Thus there is a
stage in the chicks' growth, when the original germ has
segmented until it has produced a bell-shaped globe open at
one end, having outer cells of one kind and inner cells of
another kind. This is the description of the complete
creatures of the early metazoa, and the similar metazoan
structure is arrived at in a similar way.

To express it in other words it was found that when a
simple metazoan, or any similar creature whose organs are
still primitive, reaches its early maturity, it has gone through
changes, in subdivision and growth of cells, arising from

332

Embryology 333

the germ cell ; just the same as is done by the embryo fowl
or some other higher forms, up to that stage of develop-
ment. The difference is that after those changes the simpler
animal comes to the end of its growth energy; stops, and
ripens so to speak, and advances no further in development ;
while the more highly endowed animal at the same stage has
only begun its growth; and it pushes on, and adds its
acquisitions in more and more complex forms, until the one
first considered is entirely lost to view. We find mature
creatures of one cell, of four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two,
sixty-four, and so on, indefinitely and less regularly, ac-
cording to the number of times the germ cell's descendants
divide. But every creature of a large number of cells, must
reach that growth by evolution through simpler forms which
resemble those of some creatures of smaller cell number.

The striking parallelism of this series of developing
forms, with that other series revealed by geological chro-
nology, is evident and fascinating. And it induces reflec-
tion upon the other parallel series of present living creatures
whose mature forms may be arranged in series so as to
nearly coincide.

There is seen a revelation of resemblance of the complex
living creature to the simpler lower ones, and again to the
old and extinct ones. These immature embryological forms
are recognized as repetitions of form of an old, and some-
times of an extinct, geological species, and again are seen
as approximations to existing surviving lower species of
similar class.

The resemblance however is not found to be always
exactly referable to the living lower organisms. Nor is it

334 The Morality of Nature

quite comparable to those found in the geological record.
But it becomes evident that these embryologic forms are
the results of modified repetitions, one after the other, of
those forms which have been evolved in the past by the
ancestors of the animal, some of whom have become extinct,
and have left no record except in this way. The germ or
egg cell of every animal starts as a single cell, constituted
just as its primal ancestor was, but with all later ancestry
added in its chromatin, and it unfolds its heredity by begin-
ning with the first or primitive form and adding the sub-
sequent, to become at last an organism like its modern
parent. It repeats, in its embryology, the life history of its
race, from the time when a one cell organization was all
that the race had attained, up to the time when it left the
body structure of its immediate parent. When it first
divides and becomes a two-celled embryo, it resembles that
remote ancestor who was mature as a two-celled creature;
and then as a four and eight and sixteen celled embryo it
still makes over again what its ancestors were and so on
to the end. And when all that is done, it may add a character
acquired by itself. To better understand what this means,
we may compare some present examples of late evolution,
with other early ones. Living fowls (which are chosen
for example, because of quick responsiveness to environ-
ment and visibility of its effects) resemble their parents and
their race inevitably and unchangeably in certain matters
which the parents found continuously essential. They have
bodies, organs, limbs, heads, brains, etc., all of early evolu-
tion and existing according to rules long established. But
the forms may be changed in regard to matters not so

Embryology 335

essential. They may have a smaller and degenerate form
of any feature not continuing necessary. For example
the wings of domestic fowls, may be produced smaller and
degenerate, in offspring of parents who never use those
wings, and if no loss arises from that degeneracy it will
continue. But still wings will persist many generations.
They have been the valuable heritage of the creature so
long, that early in the development of the chick from the
egg, the wings began to grow, representing the proportionate
earliness in the evolution of the race which acquired wings,
and evolved them into strong and large organs by necessity
for self-preservation. What has so long been cultivated will
require corresponding length of time to eliminate. Yet it
is only a matter of time. If the wings are entirely disused
they will in time disappear. Or, if useless as wings, the
limbs may be converted to such other use as is found and
proved beneficial. Many new features appear by this trans-
formation of very old ones. The feet of the duck have
become swimming appliances and in some diving fowl even
the wings have been adapted to use as fins for swimming
under the surface.

But when we consider a very recently attained character,
as for example a new color of the plumage, or even a new
shape and size of feathers, or of feet, or of claws, we find
even greater adaptability. The offspring may vary con-
siderably from the last parent. A condition of variability
arises when in cessation of need of some character, there
is no corresponding new necessity settled. There may be
then a relaxing of recent control of heredity, with much
unregulated variation, instead of an addition or a substitu-

336 The Morality of Nature

tion of a new acquirement. There may be a freaklike loss
of color, or a freedom in many novelties of color; or an
abnormal length or shortness of tail, or of claw, because
regularity in such things is no longer governed by disabili-
ties. It is disputed how these variations arise ; but they are
evident, and their permissiveness is perceived. Perhaps
they are revived results of experiences long past ; reversions
they are called. It may well be that a character, long ago
acquired by an ancestor as a consequence of environment,
and duly recorded in the heredity, may wait for several
generations before its effect completes the chain of in-
fluence back to the prime cell, and outward again to the
germ cell, and so to somatic result. But in fact such novel-
ties do appear, and sometimes a novelty proves useful. A
shortened tail avoids dirt and disease, or a long claw in-
creases defensive power, or a brilliant color attracts con-
sorts or pleases man, and the new character is fostered,
and those individuals in which it appears, share an ad-
vantage. They collect and increase in number, and mate
together, and when both parents have such distinction many
offspring inherit it, and after several generations the devia-
tions from it become the exception and disappear, and the
new feature becomes constant and fixed. Consider the
pure black plumage of certain domestic fowls. It is fairly
reliable — it breeds nearly true to type — yet it is a new type,
obtained by the elimination from the germ of the chro-
matin qualities which bred the normal wild coloring, and
the substitution of another chromatin quality. Back of a
certain time all the ancestors of this fowl lacked this aspect
of color. Something has been added to or taken from the

Embryology 337

heredity of the fowl. The egg, when hatched, will develop
just as did all ancestors until those of a few generations
back; but then at the end of the series of changes there
appears a chick or perhaps, in later mature plumage, a hen,
with black feathers, no red, no speckled, but all pure black.
That plumage-color tendency has been added to the germ
heredity of the egg, during those last few generations, and
imposed upon the life history of the previous ancestry.
Still the germ was not changed in any preceding develop-
ments. In all other matters it unfolds over again just what
the ancestors underwent. The recentness of the character
is revealed in its liability to easy abandonment. Being a
newly acquired heredity it is not hard to eradicate. What
was done by ten generations can be undone by ten others.
But if it continues advantageous it will not be undone ; but
will become more and more confirmed. And in that way, at
times long past, all the characteristics of the fowl were
experimentally added and then built up and confirmed.
The character of the feathers themselves, of the wings and
legs ages back ; of the general form long ages back ; and still
farther back, in a remote past when neither legs nor wings
had begun, the circulatory system, the nerves, the stomach
and digestive organs, succeeded, as evolutionary improve-
ments upon the organization of the bunch of associated cells,
which clung together in mutual support as a primitive
growth, a bell-shaped metazoa drifting in a primeval lagoon.
Thus we see that the primitive creatures grow, in their
few hours of full development, in exactly the same way as
the higher creature grows in the first few hours of its longer
career. And of course we may see other creatures which

338 The Morality of Nature

illustrate many stages of evolution between these extreme
forms, showing the same method of growth; and differing
only in regard to the length of time, and degree of organiza-
tion, which they reach before they stop in their maturity, to
begin over again. We see all living creation arranging itself
in a number of such lines of evolution, each line producing
different series of changes, and different species; in the
varying complexity of its type. And further we see that
all these creatures are still changing as environment changes.
They are adapting themselves by change of two kinds,
first, changes to meet new different conditions, which
changes may be toward less complexity or more com-
plexity as required, but which is normally upward toward
more complexity; and second, by change due to acquire-
ment of new character, in order to better meet continuing
conditions ; which second change is normally a progress to
a higher type by the addition of the newly acquired thing
to those previously possessed. Now these facts of embry-
ology support and extend those of geology, and together
they induce as a fair and convincing deduction, the belief
that the higher creatures have reached their present form
by progressive evolution from earlier forms, closely related
to the primitive forms now seen, and that the process is
still in operation.

CHAPTER X

EFFECTS OF ENVIRONMENT

Let us give further attention to life in its primitive cell
organization. We have available for examination, descrip-
tions of natural processes, made by expert scientific men,
and these are more enlightening than our own research
would be. They show among other facts that there are
still living a great number of single-celled creatures, some
animal, some vegetable, some of a simplicity not describable
as either; and that they all have definable characteristics
which have heredity of a certain degree of constancy. Geo-
logical observation provoked the interesting question; are
these new creatures now in process of evolution, or are they
old, of types fixed, in a heredity which keeps them to, or
near to, constancy. If they are old and are evolving, so that
they are to be the elaborated higher animals and plants of
future time, how is it that they have not proceeded farther
on that course? Part of the answer is immediate. It can-
not be doubted that they are in process of evolution. Nothing
in nature is fixed. These creatures are the most responsive
of all, to environment, which is the evolution impulse. The
methods of modern germ culture, by which some of the
bacteria are deprived of their dangerous character, prove
this. That notable change is brought about by a change of

339

340 The Morality of Nature

the environment in which they Hve, which promptly evokes,
not only the desired changes of character, but produces visi-
ble changes in form and habit as well. It is true that a
return to former environment will reproduce approximately
the former character, but even that shows continued flexi-
bility. It is more than probable that some of these bacilli
are permanently changed, in continued variation. Certain
germ diseases, for example, have less virulence now, than
in the historic past, and this is probably due to a modification
of the bacteria, as well as to improved sanitation for the
human victim. It is clear that just as the changes in life
character are due to change of environment, so the only
way by which a species is preserved unchanged, is by contin-
uance of unchanging environment. After reaching an
adaptation to environment nearly perfect, and a balance
between production and destruction which prevents over-
crowding, or habits by which overcrowding is endured and
relieved (such as spore producing habit), a creature may
continue without change, and so without progress.

But when environment changes, the creature changes;
and if the same changed condition persists, the correspond-
ing change in the creature continues or increases; and as
soon as it reaches a certain definition it becomes a part of
the heredity, and is transmitted to offspring, we may assume,
by a new addition to, or change in, the recent substances of
the nucleus. A particle of protoplasm has been added to the
chromosome series, which is a self -registering heredity sam-
ple, of what was current when the feature was formed. And
in the redevelopment of that chromosome, when that particle
is reached it will react again as it does now. Now there is

Effects of Environment 341

nothing in this which necessitates a determinant or control
of the future form ; no piece of specialized protoplasm which
foreshadows or compels a structure like that which l^efore
accompanied it, with the alternative of not developing. If
that were so the development would be independent of
environment except for the preservation of life and presen-
tation of nutrition. This condition, when reached by act-
ually developing forms of offspring, such as the newly
hatched bird, and the rooting plant cutting, can be perfected
only in one way foreordained. These have old characters,
many times reaffirmed, and it is safe for the creature to com-
mit itself to them, with little or no doubt as to their continu-
ing reliability, and they have therefore relative permanency.
But even this is only relative to environment. And the
relation is very dependent in the newest and latest heredity
acquirements. Protoplasm here is not committed to any
form or habit or course of development except by the law
that under certain conditions which occurred once, and are
now recurring, it will do again what it did before ; because
it is impossible for it to do otherwise. It is subject now,
as then, to certain laws, before which its previous perform-
ance, and its "soon-to-be" performance, are as if they
were coincident. The only thing which can appear as a
determinant, and compel a repetition of the former effect,
is the repetition of the former cause, which is the similar
environment ; and the only thing which normally makes the
sequence of cause and effect take a different course, is a
difference of causal environment. The protoplasmic germ
is steadfast only in responsiveness, not in its one response.
If a different environment should present itself and if the

342 The Morality of Nature

change is not too abrupt, the seemingly steadfast germ
shows a different evolution. This then is one source of
variation. Change of stimulus, or change of activity, awake
the latent responsiveness of the germ-plasm, to new effort
which is the basis of adaptability. It is for this reason that
every higher animal species having constancy, secures it by
a preserved environment. The conditions must remain na-
turally constant for the external budding, single-celled crea-
ture, or those of vegetable structure; but the highly devel-
oped animal guards them for its historical embryology, and
preserves historical environment to preserve constancy of
development. For this reason the mammalian germ is de-
veloped in the womb, deep and secure in the structure of the
parent; where conditions for the rapid reminiscent growth
of embryonic life, are preserved, as they were when that
embryo was a primitive thing. The fish eggs can continue
to fertilize in open exposure to the sea, and the sea urchin
can even fecundate in little more than sea water itself. Birds
and reptiles produce eggs which are fertilized and partially
developed, with an organized egg structure, to carry yolk
food, and suitable medium and environment, during a long
and elaborate process of growth outside the body of the
parent. When warmth is applied the morphology is then
determined, not by the germ cell alone but in part by its
prearranged nutritive environment. And in mammals this
destiny of development is fulfilled under the influence of the
environment provided by the structure and secretions of the
parent.

The method by which evolution reaches this situation is
revealed by embryology. It is seen that by the time that the

Effects of Environment 343

structure of segmenting and multiplying cells reaches the
stage of the gastrula, which is the spherical bell with an
interior cavity; the full qualification of the life-plasm re-
mains only in a few cells, the others having lost some of the
abilities, and become specialized for certain duties. The fully
qualified cells continue to divide, and they produce germ cells,
which are in fact part and continuation of the original life-
plasm. Now some of these gastrulae allow the germ cells
to issue like buds upon the outside of the bell, while others
adopt the habit of budding them upon the inside surface.
So long as all this life remained aquatic (as all life was
originally) the differences of these two habits would be
chiefly in the protection to offspring afforded by the inward
budding, and missed by the outward. While on the other
hand the outward budding creatures would enjoy a method
of colony growth, by which the bud could remain attached ;
while the inward produced buds must obviously detach them-
selves. And so both systems prevailed and founded many
species. But later, when organized creatures began to leave
the waters or were left by them a new difference appeared;
as may be studied at this day, among animals of these early
types. Those of external buds could not carry on their
process of budding except by remaining immersed, because
the heredity of their germ-plasm could not be developed
except in its aquatic environment. But those of internal buds,
by the simple device of closing the cavity could retain the
needed fluid medium and preserve the bud during periods
of land exposure. So it became possible for them to be
amphibious and to return to the water occasionally and there
to deposit eggs which had been internally fertilized and de-

344 The Morality of Nature

veloped. And later again another difference arises. There
were some creatures which developed the gastrula form by
first forming a hollow sphere, and then turning one half of
it into the other half so that the structure not only had a bell
hollow, but a shell of the bell which was hollow; and some
of these creatures budded inside the hollow shell so that
when the egg issued from that first protection it was not
emitted entirely but was lodged in the bell. Obviously such
creatures were able to adapt this second lodgment and to
make a second type of preserved environment, in which the
egg might fully develop through its final marine stages of
growth, without any return to the water at all; and with-
out the limitations of the helpless stage of the independent,
yet dormant egg.

Some of these creatures were able to become entirely ter-
restrial, and at the same time to remain viviparous, and to
enjoy in their early stages those facilities for development
of offspring which mark the mammalian animals, and dis-
tinguish them from those others whose late development is
perforce in a natural environment where accidental qualities
are many and the constant qualities few. Thus we find
heredity, fixed by a conservation of ancient environment,
still liable to variation in changing circumstances, but un-
changed so long as those circumstances remain constant. A
germ-plasm therefore reproducing accurately and inevitably
the highly organized heredity structure of a race, does so,
not by fettering its substance with absolutely controlling
atoms, but by preserving in its somatic body, not only the
life-plasm which made it, but also the conditions under
which it formerly arose.

Effects of Environment 345

And evidently the apparent persistence of certain ancient
simple forms shows, and is accounted for, in a persistence
(or at least the very slow change) of their environment;
and at the same time their flexibility under change, shows
that there may have been many broods and families of their
output, led away from the old stock and evolved into related
forms, in new environments in which they in turn became
settled, when the new environment became, and remained,
settled. Thus there are logical reasons for approximate
constancy of type as well as for variability of type and there
is no denial of evolutionary change to be found in the fact
that some species do not change. Environment influences
heredity either for steadfastness or for change.

CHAPTER XI

DISTRIBUTION OF HEREDITY

In this flexible and responsive life it would seem that
under changes of circumstance there would be such rapid
variation that no types would remain and a confusion of
forms would result. In fact there is a bewildering change-
ability. But there is a process which saves it from confu-
sion. This is conjugation; that is to say the blending of
two individuals in which slight differences have appeared,
which still permit, or even accentuate, the affinity of simi-
larity of racial origin. In its beginning conjugation is not
sexual, although it is a simple phase of a similar principle.
Mystery still shrouds the story of its causes, but some of
the associated facts are coming to light. Doubtless the
chemistry of protoplasm will in due time reveal the nature
of those energies of attraction and repulsion, which are
indicated by active life; and possibly these energies will
prove to be, as some students assert, of a nature related to
electro-magnetic energy. There is a method in it which in-
dicates polarity, and suggests a force which, like electro-
magnetism, produces repulsion between poles or conditions
which are alike, and attraction between poles or conditions
which are opposites. The higher evolutions of sex impulse,
in which the sex repels its like and attracts its unlike, seem

346

Distribution of Heredity 347

to be so actuated. But even in the early forms it is still ob-
scure. Cells divide, as they grow in size with suitable nutri-
tion and conditions, and each half cell obviously remains
divided, and becomes independent, because of a continua-
tion of the causes which made it separate. Whether because
of a mechanical rupture by its bulk surpassing its cohesive
machinery, or because of polarity of a chemical generation
of repelling forces in its particles, for some reason it divides,
and in making thousands of divisions, it becomes part of
its nature to divide by habit. It is apparent that the habit
of dividing as a consequence of unwieldy growth, might
arise in masses of protoplasm; even before the organized
cells existed ; and the separation might be maintained so long
as the substances were alike; and might cease when differ-
ence arose, and attraction ensued. Then masses or cells
would coalesce and blend, becoming one mass or cell by
complete fusion ; the impulse to combine being in that certain
kind of unlikeness which induces a chemical affinity, or a
polarity. This fusion is perceived to be not a combination
in which one destroys or consumes the other. There are of
course such consuming absorptions, in which one cell digests
another; but we consider now a mutual act in which all
possessed is added; the bulk and the abilities, and especially
the heredity, with constructive accumulation, by affinity, and
not by destructive appropriation.

This simple conjugation is observed and known as a fact;
and it is a very important fact. Its simplicity has attracted
attention less than the more elaborate union of sexual na-
ture ; yet it is probably the precedent to sexual union. There
is in all higher cellular life, a curious prevalence of even

348 The Morality of Nature

numbers in the units of the nuclear substance, which are
called chromosomes. These small groups of chromatin sub-
stance which control the heredity, are of variable numbers
from two or four in some species, to a hundred or more in
others, but the number is always the same in a species, and
it has seemed mysterious that the number is always an even
number; so that in certain conditions it can be divided into
two half cells, as a preliminary to the union of one half cell
with another half. Now this circumstance can be supposed
to arise in a pre-established habit of conjugation, as a con-
dition precedent to sexual ability.

It is not to be supposed that sex is an original necessity,
in fact there are even now prevalent various other modes
of reproduction ; and in one-celled creatures sex is obviously
of only partial potency, and may be expected to reach only
preliminary form. This preliminary form may well be the
adoption of the doubled nucleus as the normal; that is to say
the stage at which a cell has most stability. The cell arises
as the organization of protoplasm with a nucleus. This
occurs while that protoplasm is repeatedly dividing in growth
of mass of uniform character, and repeatedly reuniting when
affinities arise. Now an observed rudimentary cell may
present itself, at the stage resulting from a division of
former protoplasm ; or it may present a mass, at the stage of
the recent addition of two former cells. When we observe
the descent of one cell from a parent, the obvious origin by
division seems to efface the other possibility. But if we
consider that the protoplasmic mass arose first, by the addi-
tion of an assimilated unit to a pre-existent unit, it is still
more obvious that the fundamental process may be one in

Distribution of Heredity 349

which addition precedes division. It is fair to assume that
in the primitive proto-cell which is invisible, conjugation
generally precedes division; and that the normal constitu-
tion of a cell about to divide is that of a cell recently conju-
gated of two, or of many more with a minimum representa-
tion of two.

It is not necessary to suppose that this method is at first
inevitable. If it is considered to be possible, and if it occurs
and shows advantage, in competition with other methods,
then it would survive them. And if it did (as seems likely)
open the way to the great advantage of sexual reproduction,
then its survival, and evolution above other forms, is easily
understood; and when we consider also its primitive value
in the cumulative efifect of simple conjugation, its value is
again apparent. And finally the first noted result, the distri-
bution of acquired character and the unifying effect among
the species, is of high consequence and will appear later in
a new aspect still more important. It is the mechanism by
which a multitude of creatures may preserve uniformity of
desires and purposes, in collective mutual activity, and thus
it is at the root of a race heredity.

CHAPTER XII

EVOLUTION OF SEX

There is noted a cumulative effect of heredity which is
attained by the simple conjugation of single cells as exam-
ined in the last chapter. When two cells approach and amal-
gamate, after a difference of experience which induces in
them an affinity or attraction, it is clear that some of their
properties are added, and not merely averaged.

Observation of conjugations and especially of hybrid
unions; indicates that if one creature has a heredity which
is a chain of ten experiences, and the other a chain which
records eleven, then the resulting heredity of the combined
cell is eleven experiences; the first ten which were alike in
both (because they are creatures of the same order or race)
and the last, or eleventh, which was recently acquired by one,
being a new evolution still in experimental stage. The stu-
dent who has not access to biology of primitive life, can see
this process of added heredity in common domestic animals.
It can be observed, for example, when the young appear
possessed of certain character of recent development, which
was possessed by one parent and not by the other. Thus
the possession of horns by cattle or sheep may be the result
of one parent's heredity even when bred with another defi-
cient in them. The effort to breed hornless cattle has suc-

350

Evolution of Sex 351

ceeded only by selection of parents both hornless. And other
examples will easily be found to show that heredities are
usually added in fusion. This is an important principle be-
cause it is the essence of progress in evolution. It is this
which makes successive generations higher in organization
and not merely fitter in low organization. It is by such addi-
tions that we see species rise in the scale of ability instead
of merely changing from one to another function.

It is important to our study to note that when conjugation
occurs, any progress which has been achieved in heredity
on one side more than on the other, is not lost. It may be
diluted ; it may be continued in a certain number of the off-
spring, and if it is not continuously useful it may be over-
ruled, but if it is not too abnormal, it is preserved experi-
mentally. Conjugation then endows all the species which
practice it, with a distribution of the sum total of the heredi-
ties of all individuals. That is to say it works toward that
end, but the degree of achievement is of course limited and
various. Yet it is seen to be effective enough, when taken
together with the unifying effect of similarity of circum-
stances, to keep definite types dominant in certain locations.
Evidently there is in this process the influence against con-
fusion which we desired to find — all valuable variations and
differences tend to preserve themselves, not separately, but
by immediate distribution to, and amalgamation with, the
whole race, or at least with those parts which are in possible
contact.

Let us again note in single-celled life the possibilities of
conjugation. Evidently union of two cells may produce
bulk greater than usual. So in due course when the union

352 The Morality of Nature

becomes complete and the unlikeness ceases to induce attrac-
tion by polarity or by chemical affinity, either of which may
be neutralized by complete union; the capacity for size and
form are overstrained, the habit or law of the structure is
asserted, and the mass is again subdivided. This is also a
fact in biology which may be observed in nature. Division
normally follows after a conjugation. It may be a simple
division into two equal parts or it may be, as is sometimes
seen, a breaking up into many minute parts or spores. The
first might be inferred as most likely to follow the conjuga-
tion of two youthful cells, and the latter as likely to result
from a union of mature cells, although this inference refers
rather to a riper knowledge of types, than to any special
examples.

The difference of polarity, or of chemical quality, which
provokes conjugation, can arise in several ways. We have
noticed differences derived from a variation of experience
and heredity. But there are other impulses. As division
arises from excessive growth so conjugation is to be ex-
pected to be promoted by innutrition or loss of bulk. And
so it appears. Circumstances may so weaken the solidarity
of the cell that its bonds relax while its substance remains
vital. When by reason of maturation or exhaustion, or in-
sufficiency of nutrition, or other conditions adverse and yet
not destructive, the individual cells cease growth and
dwindle, there are obviously several possibilities according to
which their faculties may be affected. They may suspend
all activity and conserve a dormant energy. Some do this.
They may continue the habitual division with exhausting
effect, as some do, in divisions which are unequal. This

Evolution of Sex 353

kind of division is very important as it is one which is later
adapted to high functions, in higher forms of heredity, and
always precedes sexual conjugation. It seems to show that
the impulse to divide continues in the centrosomes, and is,
under some circumstances inoperative toward the cytoplasm
or general mass; even while the nucleus is submissive and
responsive to the last degree of endurance.

It appears in some cases that lack of nutrition, or per-
haps its exhaustion into the nucleus, extinguishes the cyto-
plasm and under these conditions the nucleus still divides
as impelled by the centrosomes. In the cell of scant and ex-
hausting cytoplasm, the centrosome still has energy to divide,
and to exercise its repulsion of its like; which continues to
the last possible division of the duplex nucleus into two
similar duplex nuclei; and then, when the centrosome di-
vides once more, the doubled chromosomes have no mole-
cular surplus to act upon; they are exhausted and instead
of separating themselves in the double form, they simply
split into the ultimate single primitive units; so that a cell
which usually shows four chromosomes, will in these final
divisions show only two chromosomes for each resultant cell.
The cell stands disrupted into four parts, each with the fun-
damental single chromosomes, constituted with the mini-
mum number of divisible units necessary for its molecular
character. This final unit appears as a result of exhaustion,
or of maturity, under conditions varying from that
normality which continues life without change. But there
arises from it, in the wonderful possibilities of natural selec-
tion, a function which raises life to a new plane. This func-
tion is sex.

354 The Morality of Nature

This finally reduced cell, which is a mere spore, acquires
in this reduced condition a reduced susceptibility to injury.
Such spores endure cold and heat and other abnormal cir-
cumstances which would destroy the active cell. But in ad-
dition it acquires by its minuteness transportability, which
sometimes we see developed by actual motile organs. In
this capacity it more readily finds new environment, which
may perchance be better than the old, for its special faculties
and failings, and it may find there others of similar consti-
tution, with whom it may conjugate in the former duplex
organization, and so may resume activity in a new cycle.
But beyond all these advantages there appears one which is
destined by its superiority to become most important. This
is the advantage to such a spore-like cell, of finding one of
its own kind which is still endowed with an excess of the
cytoplasm in which this cell is deficient; one which has ex-
perienced an abnormal surfeit of prosperity and is therefore
complementary to this one sufifering the results of a surfeit
of activity. There are such cells and the encounter does
happen. In some cells a similar divisioa occurs, with a vari-
ation, under circumstances which may seem to be quite dif-
ferent, and yet must have relationship. The cells which
exist under abnormally favorable circumstances and are
favored in highest nutrition, with no destructive adversity
of external conditions, also reach at last a maturity some-
what similar except in one regard. The cell at the end of
many divisions, like those recited above, in which the last
of its former chromosomes remains in one quarter number,
is of abnormally large cytoplasmic size. This condition
seems to arise in a loss of the normal relationship between

Evolution of Sex 355

nucleus and cytoplasm and centrosome; which consists in
some disturbance of the chemical affinities. The centrosome
persistently dividing as before, and carrying with it the
nuclear divisions, fails to divide the cytoplasm, which is in
this case an abnormally large mass of the cell ; and so a divi-
sion occurs, sometimes stimulated by the male cell, wherein
the half nucleus leaves the parent cell stripped of all mass;
a mere fragment denuded. Then the half which remains,
still a duplex nucleus, splits into single elements, and one
group of these single chromosomes is also ejected, while
simultaneously the last duplex spore ejected splits into two
singly constituted spores. Thus the abnormal great cell
stands with single chromosomes; after producing three
spore cells resembling those of the exhausted cell. It would
seem that in both cases the dividing act is due to a loss of
chemical affinity between the centrosome nucleus and cyto-
plasm, but in the small cell the cytoplasm has lost its ener-
getic character (perhaps alkalinity) while in the large cell it
seems to be the nucleus which is changed (having lost per-
haps active acidity). This inference is in harmony with the
facts that follow. We have seen that the escaped nuclei
of the small cell became errant or motile. Sometimes be-
cause of mere infinitesimal size, sometimes by use of actual
cilia or motile organs, they wander from the old placement ;
and when they arrive in the vicinity of a great cell, as some
do, there appears an attraction which is very different from
the older conjugating force. They unite with a more in-
tense activity, not merely to add their heredity in a common
fund and produce a cell capable of simple division, but to
renew the vital functions of the whole historic nucleus, and

356 The Morality of Nature

repeat all its ancestral constructive work, re-endowed with
the duplex constitution. Some mysterious cause has reduced
the cells to germs; has endowed one germ, the sperm, with a
nucleus of male activity, and the other, the egg, with a cyto-
plasm of unexpended female nutrition; and between them
appears an affinity as of acid for a base, or as the positive
for negative electro-force.

Now this difference constitutes the sex functions of all
sexual living things, from the most primitive, where sex
begins, up to the highest orders known. The process is
alike in the sea urchin, in the worm ascaris, and in the human
being, in its essential features of cell maturity, cell reduction
and cell union.

Everywhere the germ cell arriving at maturity develops
these singled, less complete forms, which are male and errant
under some circumstances; probably those of activity and
difficulty ; or female and dormant under other circumstances,
generally when environment is abnormally inviting. This
mode of reproduction prevails, however, not because it is
the sole possible mode, but because it has proven so advan-
tageous in comparison with all others, that it has well nigh
displaced them in the forms of somatic organization of life,
by survival in greater fitness. Its first advantage is doubt-
less in the specializing of the functions of the two sexes, a
mere division of labor.

We see its great distinctions from the simpler conjuga-
tion and redivision, to be twofold — firstly it achieves a
fundamental reduction of the chromosomes which, upon
reunion, causes not a single redivision but a historic reminis-
cent development — and secondly it promotes and prefers

Evolution of Sex 357

union, not of closely similar fundamental germs, but of
those circumstantially different; that is to say sexually dif-
ferent.

It is not intended that this description should be taken as
the life history of any particular single-celled species. It
is an abstract presenting the typical features of a primitive
form of sex. The Algae present such an endless variety of
methods of reproduction, both sexual and asexual, that
almost every possible experiment seems to be proceeding
even now; and the student who desires concrete examples,
can find them in abundance, in the biological study of that
order.

The process is fundamentally the same whether it be the
activity of the single celled Algae or of the germ-cell of a
highly evolved multicellular being. In the latter case it has
become the only method of reproduction, because it is evi-
dently the only method which could accomplish the elaborate
transmission of heredity upon which high evolution depends.
In the fully developed sex process, normal to the viviparous
animals, including mankind, the large or egg cell becomes
a "resting" cell as soon as it is mature, and it loses the
power to divide in asexual reproduction, which some of
the single celled creatures retain. But it remains equally
true in all species that the beginning of a new individual, is
in the segmentation and development of a single minute
germ-cell, which builds up all the rest of the body.

CHAPTER XIII

DISTRIBUTION BY SEX

The function of sex in cell organization can hardly be
over-estimated. It is difficult to imagine the possibility of
a multicellular body without it. The function of mere con-
jugation is of simpler import — as must be more clearly
shown.

After the evolution of the life of single cells, in which
a great development is visible, there appears to arise an
abrupt and stupendous departure, an evolution into radically
different possibilities. This great step upward in evolution
must necessarily be first made possible, by pre-existing de-
velopments in the one-celled species. Its essential new thing
is the association of many cells in mutual dependence instead
of in competitive rivalry. This is called the great step in
evolution because it is the beginning of division of labor and
of specialized abilities, and it is thus the physiological basis
of altruism. As soon as a living cell divides and there are
two side by side, there develops the question whether they
are allies or rivals. If rivals, they repel and oppose one
another, and must remain one-celled creatures. Even con-
jugation makes but a one-celled creature, and subsequent di-
vision two or more such creatures. And association in
colonies is only an alliance of similar efficiencies, with
specialization only of position, and not in the heredity. But

358

Distribution by Sex 359

in the new phase, cells associate in mutual support, with
specialization of function which is not lost, but is, by sexual
heredity, transmissible and cumulative. The degree of asso-
ciation of single cells may at first amount to nothing more
than tolerance, and may be so slight that a little crowding
upsets and destroys it. On the other hand it may soon be-
come so close and so habitual that it is necessary for exis-
tence. Examples of both habits are found. There are to
this day single-celled creatures making no sign of associated
action, beyond the mere submission to propinquity, which
becomes in due time unendurable ; and there are others whose
habit of crowding is so necessary that it is difficult to recog-
nize their single-celled existence. There are vegetable forms
which show inherited specialization, preliminary to the
greater advance. The direction of the great step is deter-
mined when a number of cells in close association, become
fitted for different duties, still having a common purpose,
and then by habit become settled in those duties, and by
heredity confirmed in them, so that none others are de-
manded of them. Let us imagine that a cell just divided or
budded from a parent cell, should, for some reason, remain
in contact with it. Perhaps because it afforded more sta-
bility to a form floating in water, or resting on the bottom
of a water pool; a few creatures in which such contact arose
by chance, might be so benefited as to evolve a new variety.
Perhaps there is a yet undiscovered system by which such
advantageous variations are stimulated, instead of being
merely survivals of accident. In either case we have, in fact,
two-celled creatures. That is to say creatures composed of
one prime cell and another associated cell. This conception

360 The Morality of Nature

suggests that two cells might begin such an alliance because
they were unequal; and one, the primary, had produced an
offspring of inferior power, which was thus unable to launch
into independence ; and which, to preserve its existence at all,
must remain in alliance. It is not to be supposed that a
primitive creature selects a course for its activities; when
a question arises in nature, if it is one of any consequence,
it appears in many cases; and is answered by many re-
sponses, and some of the answering creatures die and their
solution is pronounced wrong, while others survive and their
solution is found to be right.

Thus it arose that some combinations of two cells found
their experiment beneficial, and cells issuing subordinate
cells, prospered thereby. Now these subordinate cells need
not be sterile. The impetus of division, established in habit
as earlier studies revealed, impels the continued division un-
til nutrition or affinities fail, or heredity is fulfilled. The
master cell also, must be imagined to itself produce other
issues of equal or subordinate cells. So that in time the
master cell would be possessed of a number of attendant
cells doing accessory service. These accessory cells, as ob-
served in nature, are called somatic cells ; that is, body mak-
ing cells, as distinguished from the master cells, which are
the germ-plasm or self -perpetuating cells. The somatic cells
are qualified only for subordinate work, while the germ cells
are portions of the immortal germ-plasm, and are qualified
to issue germ cells with all the heredity of the life-plasm.
The somatic cells receive only a part of the inherited chro-
matin qualities, while the germ cells receive all of them.
Thus the latter alone are capable of becoming new master

Distribution by Sex 361

cells and founding new associations, the former can only
continue the growth for which they are specialized. Such a
dififerentiation also proceeds in other ways. Suppose an-
other case. Before any subordinate cell arises, there occur
several divisions of the prime cell, producing equally quali-
fied cells, eight, or sixteen or thirty-two in number, all of
which remain associated; and then and not till then the
somatic subdivision begins and some of these cells produce
attendant cells of the only partly qualified type. This process
is observed in nature ; that is to say actual living germ cells
can be seen to divide in this manner. Several species form
thus the bunch of cells called a "morula," any one of which
is capable for a time of being promoted to the functions of
separate life and if favored by environment can become a
separate complete individual. But in normal development
one of the early cells, the ninth or the seventeenth, or what-
ever the habit may demand, shows a lesser endowment and
instead of taking equal and symmetrical place with the
others, begins the formation of a new substance of lesser
degree.

Meantime all the cells continue to divide, and in due
course nearly all are appointed, in the same way, to special
duties and lesser dignity. There is, however, one line in
which, by direct succession and division, the original, fully
endowed, germ-plasm is continued. This line of cells divides
always in the germ fashion, that is by full Karyokinesis,
until maturity, and then at last it divides as we remarked
in the evolution of sex and a sex cell appears. The germ-
plasm is a mass of protoplasm growing in line direct, sur-
rounding itself with descendants specially limited to sub-

362 The Morality of Nature

ordinate mortal careers, ministering to the preservation and
service of this line of master cells. There is thus in actual
physical fact, in the visible history of all mortal creatures,
which we may see and know, a direct perpetuation of ma-
terial protoplasm; not a spirit or soul, but material sub-
stance, which has never died, and which continues to propa-
gate itself in this body of subordinate cells until the body is
mature, and which then, when the first maturity foretells
deterioration, begins to issue from that body by the reducing
divisions of the sexual import, and to begin a new cycle of
energy, and in reunion, to make for itself new bodies like
the old, modelled upon all its previous experiences in many
generations, and including its newest acquirements in pro-
gressive evolution. Such is the germ-plasm which is im-
mortal so long as it is successful, and progressive so long
as it is right in action.

Now this high organization of cells into the construction
of large and complex bodies, of cells in association, by which
a living cell makes for itself marvellous specialized machin-
ery or activity, is made possible by sex ; because, although a
simple species of such organized life can theoretically con-
tinue without sex, by the primal method of asexual fission;
yet it is by sexual distribution that the newly acquired
qualities of individuals are extended to others, and made the
common property of a species. Sexual reduction and union
provide a means of regeneration, in a new grand cycle,
specially available for the accumulation of inherited pro-
gress. This the germ-cell appropriates to its own sphere,
leaving the simpler asexual conjugation and division to the
lower structural sphere.

Distribution by Sex 363

The asexual division can thus be allotted to the somatic
sphere of duty when the function of distribution of heredity
is assumed elsewhere. The new order of creatures must
distribute its heredity by amalgamation, if it is to build up
a harmonized community. Without conjugation, experience
and evolution would be individual; and as environment
varied, so all individuals would vary ; and each line of hered-
ity be a species to itself, incapable of organization into col-
lective action. After the devotion of ordinary division to
body construction the function of sex therefore includes the
distribution to the use of the whole species, of the progres-
sive heredity of all its members; with a result of harmonious
participation in the results of experience, and continued
similarity in structure and habits.

CHAPTER XIV

MULTICELLULAR BODIES

We have seen that heredity adds the experiences of many
generations of animals, and preserves their results, to the
germ-plasm, which continues its life through successive
generations of bodies, composed of many specialized cells.
Let us now compare with the facts lately noted, the cor-
responding process in embryonic life of higher evolution.

These mortal bodies are built up of somatic cells thrown
off by the master cells, in the human body construction, as in
lower types. The germ-cell is compounded of two half cells,
the large, abundantly nourished, female element called the
ovum, and the minute bare male element, the sperm, each of
which has been reduced, in expiring activity by a final act of
self-isolation, to singleness of chromosomes. These half
cells each carry an exact record or specific for their heredity,
that is to say a condensed compound of material molecules,
which has been accumulated during innumerable generations
of ancestors; which, if it can be induced by renewed energy
under similar environment, will unfold or develop, and re-
peat the acts of cell evolution, which those ancestors per-
formed. That is to say it will reproduce the structure-mak-
ing which is registered in it, just as if every act in succession,
had been recorded by the placing of a sample of the proto-
plasm which accomplished and endured that act.

364

Multicellular Bodies 365

But we have seen that although each half cell carries its
complete record it cannot act upon that record alone. It has
come to the end of its self divisibility atomically, or of its
energy ; so that it cannot again divide. But, in experiencing
this deprivation, it appears to have gained a new faculty.
Before it split up into ultimate units, it had no power to
unfold its heredity. It had then a doubled nucleus and
doubled centrosome, and when provoked to division, it merely
divided into two similar nuclei, each of which took its share
of cytoplasm and made one new cell. But never did it divide
into more than two cells. Now, however, each half cell has
only a half nucleus and there is between these half nuclei
a tremendous attraction of affinity. They amalgamate in
conjugation of opposite sexes.

The division which ensues is not the simple division which
followed the conjugation of similar cells. It is a precipitate
growth in the abnormal cyto-mass of the egg, of the new nu-
cleus, so phenomenal that over and over again its substance
is halved, in a succession of divisions. The energy developed
is incomparably greater than that seen in the division of cells
in ordinary growth. It may be surmised to be proportionate
to the great chemical unlikeness of the two elements, male
and female, which have been preparing in different environ-
ment for a long period. In this rush of growth the cells
divide in a new way, which engenders the somatic series.
Taking first each a full share of all the nucleus they form a
"morula" or bunch of cells just as did the protozoan ancestor
in whose body the first bead of the nucleus was saved. Now
presumably, this activity is first evolved in one of the chro-
mosomes, which is thus growing and dividing and controlling

366 The Morality of Nature

the division; an actual continuing portion of the same pro-
toplasm which did that act of division ages ago, when that
act comprised the whole of its consequence, when it made
a creature whose heredity ended in that act. And the reason
it does this same thing now is simply because it is now the
same substance acting in the same environment. The fact
that later many other things are going to be done does not
affect this idant any more than a similar fact would have
done in the time of its first ancestor. That fact is to be
cared for by another idant, of those others which lie as beads
upon the string. What this first one does is strictly its own
affair. It therefore divides the germ cell so many times,
and each time it passes on a due share of the nucleus. (The
activity of the division may be ascribed to the centrosome
but the distribution is controlled by the chromatin). Then
that explosion of energy, operating in all these new cells,
having fulfilled the function of the first idant, passes to the
second. This is one which was first acquired when the
morula of all-germ cells utilized some of them, in disuse of
their full purposes, in subordinate service ; and when natural
selection and survival preferred them; and preserved germs
from the favorably placed cells among them. When that
occurred the "variation" or acquired character became fixed
and its constancy became recorded in the nucleus. Now
just how this recording was done is much in dispute, but it
may be surmised that in the body of all organized animals,
there is continued simple conjugation of cells, proceeding be-
tween some of those related and having a normal likeness.
In this way a somatic cell, an offshoot of the germ or of the
master cell, might pass through certain generations in its

Multicellular Bodies 367

special function; and produce successors at the decline of its
vitality, which were changed enough to have affinity with the
germ from which they arose, and to be acceptable for con-
jugation with it. In fact many cells are observed to coalesce
in such a way as to suggest this ; although their union has
been often ascribed to mere functions of nourishment, or
even to destructive competition. It may well be that a gen-
eral system prevails that final singled cells and polar bodies,
instead of being wasted, are returned to their center of
origin selected by affinity of a prime germplasm cell, of a
somatic center leading to the germ ; and then by simple con-
jugation, their fulfillment of function, together with a record
of all newly acquired function, is made due part of the
germplasm and of its heredity.

The germ, obedient to cause, records and transmits such
somatic things as it makes or causes. It will not transmit
a character caused to the somatic body externally. An ampu-
tation is not transmitted because it does not affect the germ-
plasm, or, if it does, may be surmised to rather provoke an
effort at repair, in a limited local healing of a wound. But
let a difference of length of a limb or such structure arise in
the germ or life-plasm, or even in its structure centers, and
let this be repeated a few times, in a selection of such self-
caused cases, and let it next be presented in both sexes, and
it will, and visibly does, become transmitted and soon fixed.
Examples abound of the heritability of an abnormal number
or size of fingers in man, as well as of the non-heredity of
surgical effects. A character thus acquired may be new, an
addition to the old; or it may be a mere change of an old
character, as when an animal acquires a length of limb con-

368 The Morality of Nature

ducive to greater speed or endurance. It appears necessary
to allow long periods of continued variation to establish any
such form as is entitled to be called new.

The question of the cause of variation may be passed with
brief mention, as not essential to the present study. The
moral aspect of evolution depends upon the fact that varia-
tions appear, and are added to the heredity, and so consti-
tute a possibility of upward progress as a consequence of
right conduct ; this is a fact which can be established without
discovery of the source of variation.

CHAPTER XV

THE TRUE EGO

The great contribution of Biology to the study of Moral-
ity is the revelation that the egoplasm — the true ego — is con-
tinuously living — the same physically visible substance that
lived from the dawn of life, in a succession of individuals,
generation after generation. The germ-plasm which issues
from the body or develops within the mother body, is not the
product of that body, but is the producer of it. The germ
cell must be a portion of the original germ-plasm, because
that is the only part of the parent which is competent to pro-
duce it. The body cells are not competent ; they are qualified
only to produce the special kind of cells like themselves. It
is of course true that the germ-plasm is nurtured and modi-
fied by the somatic cells ; it is probable that the experiences
of the somatic cells are conveyed to the germ cells and ab-
sorbed by them to continue the heredity. It is also true that
the germ-cells perform certain somatic functions, but the
germ-plasm, the true ego, is the master-plasm, which is con-
tinuing its own physical living substance in the shelter of the
body it has made, which is destined to die ; while the ego-
plasm continues in new bodies potentially immortal.

It is not necessary to suppose that there is a special gland
or organ where the germ-plasm is resident. In fact it is
24 369

370 The Morality of Nature

known that in some species of animals the germ-cells form
certain internal parts of the structure, and so act as somatic
cells, but they differ from the somatic cell in the fact that
they retain the full endowment of the germ-plasm. In the
human body the germ-plasm is probably involved in the sub-
stance of several organs of initial vitality, where it continues
to develop under the influence of its somatic dependents,
receiving through the circulation impressions and records of
their experiences, and making new responses; and at last,
in the laboratories of the specializing sex organs, resolving
itself into the ovum or sperm cells according to its present
determinants. Then, in case the normal fertilization occurs,
there begins again the construction of a new body in the
manner previously studied. The early divisions produce
cells of full germ power, and these produce the specialized
somatic cells of limited power.

In due time each and every descendant cell, engaged upon
the structure building, must be supposed to come to the
end of its energy at about the end of its duties. Those
branch germ-plasm cells which emit the formative cells are
apparently usually extinct when the human body reaches
old age, while evidently the cells of lower order are still
active, and some must remain active through old age, for
even then the skin and tissues continue growth and renewal.

It must be especially recalled that in all this development
one line at least of cells has continued always fully endowed.
When the first germ cell divided into two, at least one of
these proceeded in a line unchanged ; destined to maintain the
continuous full functional life of all its kind; and this proto-
plasm, which must be considered as the human being proper,

The True Ego 371

the immortal substance which the rest of the structure is ap-
pointed to serve, sets off in due course a portion of itself to
be the next master of a new body. It is very noteworthy
that the setting off of a new germ-cell for the next genera-
tion, is done in some cases by the master-plasm in the em-
bryo, long before that embryonic development is complete.
This is a necessary consequence of the recapitulation of the
race history. The unfolding heredity of the master-plasm at
some time reaches that idant which was formed when the
race ancestor first set off a special germ-cell, that is to say
when instead of budding or dividing at places not specialized,
it developed the germ-function in one specially suitable part
of its substance. Now the human germ at the corresponding
period; when it is an embryo of this same primitive type,
sets off a germ-branch for the new body, and it begins to
differentiate the special organs needed to preserve it, when
the main structure is not one quarter complete. The lesson
of this is that the germ is not made by the structural body,
as was long supposed, but the structure is made by, and for,
the germ. The germ-plasm (human or of any other species)
is not a substance prepared by a body so that the body may
repeat itself, but the germ is a strand of the life-plasm, the
ego, making a new body for itself. It precedes and pro-
duces that body at its primitive beginning, and when the
body is born, the new germ lies in the receptacle of its own
making, continuing its own immortal destiny.

Even before birth of the new infant body, the future germ
within it is being endowed with heredity as the body is com-
pleted. In the human species the body is well-nigh com-
pleted within the parent, so that the end of the first great

372 The Morality of Nature

period of the structure-building age, is almost coincident
with birth. Before that some of the somatic cells have ful-
filled their mission, and have returned with their new record
of heredity. The original germ has developed its master-
plasm which is the ego, and some of the new germ-cells are
actually set apart.

Then the structure being complete in form, the next great
period supervenes; that of growth. For twenty years or
more of man's life there is still production of energy in ex-
cess of expenditure, and cells continue to multiply, and con-
jugate, and gain experience. But in less than that time
exhaustion begins in some places. The master-plasm, re-
ceiving and renewing exhausted worker cells, shows the
effect upon itself in the maturing of the first of its germ-
cells; and there issues the first of the nuclear life-plasm, in
sexual form, equipped to renew the cycle, if the affinity of
opposite sex is found ; but at the end of its energy, and mor-
tal, if left single. And from that time onward, for forty or
more years, the master-plasm continues to issue from the
slowly wearing body, cell by cell, as its immediate abiding
place becomes less tenable, and to make for itself new bodies
better than the old; better because of added abilities gained
in added experience, and preserved in added heredity.

Thus is realized and self -perceived the true ego of human-
ity, a lineal life linked with many branches of descendants;
a greater life in the enjoyment of continuous development,
as a just consequence of right conduct, in a material existence
potentially immortal. And this career is the promise of
evolution.

The next great step upward in the evolution of Humanity

The True Ego 373

is to be the development of the consciousness of this greater
ego, by which man will recognize himself as a being living
life after life in continued regeneration, and in potential im-
mortality. That will be as marked an advance as he achieved
when his individual self -consciousness raised him above the
brutes.

CHAPTER XVI

ASPIRATION IN EVOLUTION IS MORALITY

The specialized somatic function of dependent cells and
the new capacities of life in organization, evidently mark
the appearance of a great principle upon which rests the
whole system of co-operative life. This first stage shows it,
in relations of necessary interdependence, replacing the old
independence and achieving immense new powers thereby.
And co-operation, when of life organized in conscious activ-
ity, and evolved into high order to combine individuals as
the low order combines cells, is morality; and this is a force,
or rather a virtue in the application of force, which applies
to higher and still higher units. We see, as one of the results
of sex, not only in humanity but in all life, the evolution of
the power to co-operate in the altruistic virtues of duty, af-
fection and devotion. These are the forerunners of that
organization of individuals into the higher units of family,
clan and nation, which begin in comparatively low animal
types, and reach only partial completeness even in humanity.
Evidently the unit of activity is still growing under human
civilization. Where now a clan of a few hundred act in uni-
son, there is to be, in the fulfilment of this evolution, a nation
of many millions; and where many nations now strive,
there is to be unity in alliance, founded in extension of the
basic co-operative principle. It is this principle, and its

374

Aspiration in Evolution is Morality 375

evident present incomplete development, which makes evolu-
tion of such import to the moralist. The stupendous conse-
quences produced by each step in that direction which past
life has taken, are only suggestive of what may be expected
from it. And noteworthy in this connection is the clear ma-
terial foundation of the principle, in the fundamental biologi-
cal substances and processes of human nature, and the
manner in which that principle, resting on purely material
value, rises in evolutionary development into a high charac-
ter, which if not spiritual, is certainly, in purport, at one
with spiritual aims, and may be looked to as a means of lift-
ing animal nature into phases of what is called spiritual value.

We see that alliance which is based upon sex, developing
virtues of almost ideal character, courage and devotion,
honor and faith, affection and gratitude, and self-effacing
altruism, and sacrifice ; and calling out in turn duty and unity
and co-operative power. All these things appear in evolution
to grow normally into larger capacity. As they appear in
conduct in the lesser individual life they are understood to be
human virtues, but in their unseen possibilities of evolution
they are of almost divine nature and capacity. Just as the
human life is revealed, as not only noble, but as becoming
nobler; so is human conduct seen to be not only lofty, but
as soaring continually higher.

It is evident that life in evolution is forever reaching to-
ward a higher future. Life of little consciousness, and of no
self-consciousness, has no care for yesterday, and no thought
of tomorrow ; yet even this in normal evolution is rising in
scale by inherent forces upward. Although the conditions
may, in changing, make sometimes for a preference of a

376 The Morality of Nature

lower type of organization, yet this is abnormal ; and even
when it happens that lower type remains reminiscent of a
higher past. The normal change is upward for many rea-
sons, the chief being that biological evolution adds exper-
iences and qualifications — it plants the new upon the old,
not in the place of them ; and another is, that the aggregate
life is part of the environment of the individual of that same
type. The individuals are in competitive rivalry (not neces-
sarily destructive) which stimulates and prefers every higher
qualification; and they are again in a conjugating organiza-
tion which distributes all such gains, and creates a greater
unit of the same life, of which the strength is numerical.
This strength is limited and determined only by the degree
of perfection of the organization; in other words by its
capacity for size, in its faculty for co-operative activity.
Progress in this faculty, is the essential effect of altruism,
while it is in turn productive of more altruism.

The rule then of upward progress is an automatic and
fundamental one. It is a function of all vitality, and not the
mere privilege of self-knowing, conscious virtue. Progress
is inherent in the life-plasm. Its power to assimilate and
grow is a power to store up energy, and to expend it in a
form co-ordinated to the larger unit of organization. And
the perception of, and desire for, the highest results of this
progress in cumulative benefit by organization, is the essence
and power of morality in nature. Morality is the handmaid
of life, and not the dictator.

The heredity of a unit of conduct thus grows in import.
From being a single cell reserve, it becomes a many-celled
power, and from this, enlarges to become a power for many

Aspiration in Evolution is Morality 377

individuals in concerted action. Much of the heredity of
an individual is, in fact, seen to be, not to the individual
advantage; and this is the apparent inconsistency of the
scheme of life justice. It compels a morality which may
demand self-sacrifice often, and even self-immolation at
times, in order that a benefit may accrue to the larger unit
represented in the lineage, the family, the nation or the race.
That is to say there arise circumstances when the reserve of
inherited power with which a creature is endowed, — that
power which he received by no individual merit, but out of
the ancestral and collective strength, and which he holds
only as a trustee of the lineage in collective strength, — this
reserve is demanded of him, and he gives it upon demand.
But he who gives is the ego of lineal life, acting in the
individual who seems to be sacrificed.

The birthright of every creature above the scale of the
protoplasmic unit, represents a bestowal of something upon
the individual, which is the gift of individual life, of the
fundamental privilege; and it represents also a secondary
trust gift of heredity; a gift accumulated by all the ancestors
of this creature, not for his sole use, but for the use of all
of their descendants. Therefore if the normal individual is
to be considered as a conduct unit, he receives this gift of
heredity as a thing to be dutifully enjoyed, and transmitted
not smaller than received, but greater by his added experience
and conduct.

The unconscious performance of this duty of added pro-
gress as it is shown in lower life, reveals its essential import-
ance. The self-conscious life of humanity perceives this
law not with any emancipation from it, and not as a permis-

378 The Morality of Nature

sion to evade it, but with an added responsibility to observe
it better in the knowledge. The perception is a mandate to
a higher duty and an insight to farther privilege. It is the
foundation for hope in every time of a sense of unfitness;
and for triumph in every sacrifice. The neglect of it is
penalized by its own consequences. In a world where co-
operative life is building up always, in progressive evolution,
to neglect this principle is to lose the advantage of mutual
support. Even to stand still in it is to lose the coming award
of its benefits, when those who have not stood will be allied
in their merit.

It is true that every one of these trustees has freedom.
Liberty is part of the trust in the highest phases of co-opera-
tion. As is clearly shown in the study of conduct of the lesser
or individual life, controlled activity is less effective than free
activity. Forced co-operation is less effective than volun-
tary co-operation; and when, in due course, free unity of
purpose appears, even if only an accidental variation of con-
duct, its superiority gives it precedence. Thus liberty is
added by evolution to the hereditary trust, and the fulfillment
of duty becomes in its highest form voluntary, and not a
mere obedience to a control or direction. This recent addi-
tion to the strength of humanity, which is made evident in
freedom of conscience, and religious emancipation, and in
political liberty, is to be regarded as a new responsibility
of self-knowing life. It imposes the duty of self-control so
that the social machine shall keep and use its great power.
It exemplifies too the reality of progress as a still living im-
pulse, and emphasizes the need of not only good work, but
of better and continually improving work.

Aspiration in Evolution is Morality 379

In short it shows us that the regressive phase of evolu-
tion has after all its place in the scheme. It is the lot of
those creatures who are outstripped by their fellows. We
have seen among the simplest living creatures some which
stand still, apparently since the dawn of life, while others
which once were like them proceed upward. We see some
others who, reaching upper grades, not only fail to continue,
but degenerate. Degeneracy of inherited form has not been
reviewed biologically here, because it is so complex a sub-
ject, and because its general effect as a process of nature
can be sufficiently described as regression. It is a slow re-
versal of the cumulative progress of evolution; which may
again reverse, for even such regression may be a path into
an upward evolution of new character.

This sketch of the trusteeship of biological heredity, built
upon a primary observation of life of low consciousness,
and carried thence into human aspects, shows again in evolu-
tion, what appeared in the lesser life; the super-position of
one law upon another. Conduct controlled continues in part,
and another part is emancipated, but not the whole. The
law of free conduct is added to, and does not displace, the
law of controlled conduct. Whether the control partially
escaped, is the unseen environment of the blind, dumb con-
sciousness of lowly life, or whether it is the control of hu-
manity by human wisdom so great as to take supernatural
aspect, and to compel faith from lesser intelligence, there
is never such emancipation from control as to leave conduct
irresponsible. There is simply a transfer of control from
one place of issue to another. In the first case it transfers
from the unreasoned happening of chemical reactions, to the

38o The Morality of Nature

volition of a reasoning intelligence; and in the second from
instinctive reliance upon the reasoning intelligence of a
leader, to a judgment by the reasoning intelligence of the
performer. But the idea, which will at times arise, that
liberty means conduct uncontrolled, is a mere aberration of
impulse. It is one of those happenings which make it seem
that variation is accidental, because it is a variation which
frequently appears, in spite of the repeated proof that it is
inevitably self -corrective. Perhaps its recurrence is due to
the fact that the remedy applied by nature is not usually a
cure or palliation, but extirpation.

CHAPTER XVII

TODAY IS ALWAYS THE DAY OF EVOLUTION

We have seen that even in the self-conscious intelHgence
which distinguishes man, the primitive conduct still persists
in part, and the higher conduct develops as an added faculty ;
and the higher law becomes more complex by including the
lower. Evolutionary progress of early phase is thus modi-
fied without being superseded, and life still evolves its new
phases strictly subject to present necessities. And, although
there seems to be a marvellous adaptation to future needs,
in the organization produced at any age or period; yet it
becomes clear that this is still accomplished by impulses
which exist independent of any pretense to foresight, or
even to preparation ; which are the human privileges of con-
sciousness. There is, in all natural and acceptable environ-
ment, a continuity which is more or less reliable. The
building upon a past which has endured for some time, is
done always in and for the present; and it fits the future
because the future is a continuation of that same sequence.
The present is always considered. If change of conditions
has appeared, that change is represented in the evolution as
soon as it is present, but never until then. But this is not
to be confused with that development which is a repetition
of cycles or periods. In nature the unreasoning creature

381

382 The Morality of Nature

does develop in advance many things in preparation for
coming needs. The warm blooded animal grows fur, and
stores nutriment, as winter approaches. The embryo in the
egg, and the parent producing the egg, show certain transi-
tional activities anticipating others to come. But these are
all repetitions of things which have been done before. This
is redevelopment of a formerly established course of be-
havior, now being repeated to suit circumstances which are
repeating. But in evolution we are specially limiting refer-
ence, to that which produces new things, new actions, and
new forms. Some of them suit new conditions ; but it is as
surely true that some of them do not, and this is the
ground for supposing that these are produced without fore-
sight or any anticipatory value. All these variations are as
results of the past; all are affected by the present; some
will be valuable in the future; but the present value is the
standard by which it is decided which variations are to be
added to the heredity and which abandoned. Never is a
new thing biologically adopted in the face of present disad-
vantage, because of a possible future benefit. The possi-
bility of the future is never so great a factor, as the cer-
tainty of the present; or the still greater certainty of the
past. Even the facility for variability, which seems to pre-
vail in certain species, as a provision for a frequently chang-
ing environment, is not anticipation, but is obviously a
product of the frequently changing past. In brief, the new
results of biological evolution are produced by past and
present life and environment, and not by prescience of the
future.

This is so invariably true of life not self-conscious, that

Today is Always the Day of Evolution 383

it affords a lesson to self-conscious or human motives. Hav-
ing in view the principle so often and so well supported
elsewhere that progress builds up without displacing, it
appears true that the ability to anticipate the future should
not be used to give that view undue importance. The pres-
ent is still the time of action. It is true as ever that the
past is gone, and its character, even if to be better known,
is never to be changed. It is still true that the future can
only be imperfectly foreseen. Our efforts to look into it
are after all only the same efforts in conscious doing, which
lower life makes unconsciously. We still must proceed
supposing that the sequence and consequence which have
been and are, will continue in the same way. That is the
only method reason has of seeing the future, and it does not
modify the conduct motive, except that it perceives its exis-
tence, and its base. It remains true as before that knowing
the past, and expecting a future according to it, the proper
conduct, the conduct upon which life depends, is that most
perfectly adapted to the present environment by rightness
and fitness. We cannot live next year unless we first live
today. Our gift enables us to anticipate the consequences
of our conduct only by perceiving the law of its relation to
the future, and not by perception of that future itself. We
add an uncertain view of the future to our motives, but this
in no sense justifies a disregard for the present. Although
consequences will in part rest in the future, yet for activity,
today is always the day of evolution.

CHAPTER XVIII

HUMANITY IN LIMITED PRIVILEGE

In a final reference to the methods of biological evolu-
tionary production of the higher living organisms, it seems
well to note the occasional revolutionary activity in an other-
wise continuous change. We have already observed the
radical change in the nature of that progress, which occurred
when sexual conjugation enabled the germ-plasm to associ-
ate with it descendant cells of specialized duties to build up
complex bodies. In this there was a new departure, involv-
ing possibilities which before then had not appeared.

Then again when the appearance of self -consciousness in
man, gave him the knowledge of his relations to others and
to the universe; and thus, in part, the knowledge of the
universe itself; and awakened the aspirations of psychologi-
cal reasoning, there was another entirely new phase of ad-
vance. It is not to be supposed that a new impulse was
originated. It was the old impulse, which had always been
active, reaching a new aspect, and endowing matter with
powers of new form. The life in matter reached a stage
which was, for it, radically new.

And again in that same direction of intellectual percep-
tion, the guidance of human activities by more of intellect,
and less of materialism, and of remoter and moral purposes,

384

Humanity in Limited Privilege 385

instead of nearer and baser impulses, enables the associated
action of larger and larger numbers of men; and so achieves
the great and greater effectiveness of human power, in civil-
ization, as compared with that power uncivilized, or as
against the brute powers, and the naturally hostile environ-
ment. This too, the activity in free and voluntary unison,
is a new phase, and marks an era in social organization.

And in biology there are other instructive facts of the
same kind which show that the basis of all such evolution is
in a common law. There are long enduring types, running
into innumerable changes, of close relationship; which are
seen bursting into a comparatively sudden evolution of a
new type, as if by some new impulse. The appearance of
the vertebrata for example after long evolution of inverte-
brates, is seen in the geological record to have opened up
a new morphology. And embryology too supports this
evidence, with a discontinuous, or two-phase development,
which has even suggested its possible origin in an alternat-
ing species. The symmetrical and axial motive of form,
beginning in an old type, reaches therein a certain definition
(the gastrula) and yet later this disappears in a new axial
symmetry arising within it. It appears that a revolutionary
variation came into sudden preference. It seems as if that
impulse then rapidly achieved the main character of its
new creation, and as if then the creative power entered upon
a long series of selective and of merely adaptive variation.
There are now few evidences of present evolutions of origi-
nal features in vertebrate life forms. There is active modi-
fication of limbs and organs and of things which the past
has already established in a kind of completeness.

25

386 The Morality of Nature

It seems probable that a distinct impulse under new en-
vironment, giving great new advantage, develops a general
plan of structure quickly, and then submits it to long con-
tinuing modifications by which adaptation to environment is
preserved and increased. But the discontinuous character
of the chain of related forms, shows that many such results
were of transient value ; and the separate genealogies of the
great divisions of animals, clearly show the existence of sev-
eral plans of structure of almost unrelated origin.

There are, moreover, in the embryology of animals, reve-
lations of origin, which would never be suspected from the
present status of the mature animal. It appears clearly in
these cases that evolution upon a certain plan, has proceeded
to a certain position, and then has changed completely.
Sometimes progress toward a high type is revealed in the
early development, only to be succeeded by a backsliding
into low conditions; as for example in the Tunicata which
begin life much as do the higher animals ; and develop organs
which later degenerate and disappear. Then again em-
bryology discovers developments which follow a certain
plan, in symmetry of a certain kind, and then abandon that
form, for a later evolution of an entirely different symmetry,
reaching a high grade of structure by giving up the one first
begun and taking another. There are many well known
examples of larval life in which a creature, perhaps fish-
like and water breathing, abandons organs well developed,
and begins anew the structural work found wanting in new
circumstances. These facts show that there is no privilege
of type, even in high evolution, except by continued efficiency
and fitness, and that no type or order of structure is perfect

Humanity in Limited Privilege 387

and final, but all fitness is to be maintained in relation to
environment, which is itself liable to change.

High organization is an equipment reached under certain
conditions, and prepared for such conditions, but if other
conditions ensue there must be prompt response in the pro-
duction of other organization. Only by this course of con-
tinued fitness is survival possible.

It must be noted too that the consequences of fitness or
unfitness, are graduated in most wonderful way, to material-
ize the value of the activities of the individual considered as
a trustee of his race, and not as an isolated mortal. Fitness
inherited is an equipment granted at birth, the accumulation
of reward for ancestral right action. With this the indi-
vidual normally secures a term of life, conditioned only upon
a compliant, and almost automatic, obedience to the tradi-
tions and instincts of his kind. But mere submissive re-
sponse does not mean progress. If conditions remain favor-
able, such response may secure continued life in the position
and degree inherited. But if the conditions change then
some active adaptation is necessary, even to maintain the
inherited position in the scale. The lack of this activity
will induce or permit degeneracy, that is, the loss by atrophy
of organs no longer exercised, without the evolution of any
new ones to replace them. The activity thus demanded is
not necessarily self-conscious; the variation of lower life
may perhaps arise from conduct which we can call good;
it may arise as a consequence of that goodness, or it may
not ; but in either case its survival visibly rests in a selection,
by circumstances which premiate the adaptable forms, at
the expense of those not adaptable; and it must be recalled

388 The Morality of Nature

that environment must be considered changed so as to call
for variation, when increase of numbers of living competi-
tors makes the struggle for survival keener, even though
the outer circumstances continue favorable. Thus even great
prosperity may require upward evolution, in a contest where
not merely the fit, but only the fittest, of races can continue
to exist. The great difference between the lower conduct
under this impulse, and the higher conduct of humanity, is,
that the former must venture into variations without any
conscious purpose or foresight, while man with his con-
sciousness of self and of motive, and of cause and effect,
and with his perception of moral consequences, can shape
his conduct according to a previously seen and probably
good course.

It is not clear, however, that the unconscious variation
of the lower grade is mere accident. Although we do not
now fully perceive the law, there may well be one by which
the right activity in one circumstance, does give a beneficial
direction as well as increased energy to the variable heredity.
For humanity an indication of rightness evidently lies in the
moral perceptions, and this encourages a belief in this as the
only natural guide, which is not justified. Non-psychologi-
cal life without it, may be and probably is, advancing by
variations which are well ordered in a lower plane.

One achievement of morality is the higher type of activ-
ity in the great units of human organization, in the nations
and races, and alliances of nations. This achievement con-
sists largely in the growth of freedom of conduct as com-
pared with compelled conduct. Political liberty is not merely
political. We have seen that it is a moral evolution, of

Humanity in Limited Privilege 389

which the Tightness Hes in the increased efficiency of the
social machine; and that the individual energies, conducted
aright in freedom, are capable of higher achievement than
the same energies would be in the same course under com-
pulsion. Now this phase of progress we see effectively and
rapidly proceeding; so that, as its influence spreads, civilized
men become in co-operation stronger against the adversities
of nature and of barbarism. This advance is an intellecual
evolution, that is to say a variation, by increase and spread
of mental power of perception. Morality of that kind which
begets right conduct, in subjects under the influence of faith
and love, with but small intellectual capacity, may exist and
operate in a controlled type of patriarchal conduct, but the
right conduct of freedom, arising in the cultivation of intel-
lectual power in all the subjects of it, instead of in a few
masters or leaders, is obviously a higher type which pre-
serves the previous one, within a grander unit of greater
capacity.

When we consider these tendencies we must perceive that
the present activity of human evolution is directed less to
the grosser physical equipment, and more to that qualification
which separates man from all the rest of nature by a wide
pre-eminence, that is the mental power of self-conscious
morality; and the perception of it. And at the same time
we must see that there is nothing in this pre-eminence, which
justifies satisfaction with it as a permanent condition, or
which promises the endurance of its privileges except in
continued growth.

CHAPTER XIX

HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS

The advances seen as the products of past evolution indi-
cate the progress to be expected in the future. Human
progress is characterized by its being a self-recognized pro-
gress. It is an intellectual advance, which begins when the
intellect first perceives itself, with a realizing sense of what
it is. This perception or as it is sometimes called, "apper-
ception," begins and continues a conduct motive radically new
as compared with the older ones, just as we saw in historic
biology new material motives made radically new structures.

The recognition of self, is a perception of the separate-
ness, or difference between self and others, and it therefore
necessarily includes a recognition of others, and leads to
a knowledge of their points of similarity, as well as their
points of difference. Now, without entering into a psycho-
logical view of this mental power, we may study in it the
persistence of very important evolutionary laws. We may
observe that in discovering one's self to be a reasoning,
thinking creature, one also discovers the similar life qualifi-
cations of others ; and understands that the world is not
merely a compound of only two parts, the thing which
perceives being one part, and the aggregate of things among
which it lives, being the other part. It is learned that every

390

Human Consciousness 391

other conscious being in the world also divides the world
thus; but only the self-conscious beings know that they do
it. Animal consciousness knows the world in its way, but
the human mind not only knows the world, but knows that it
knows it. Now in this there is a new birth of perception,
recognizing community of interest, and a new motive to
co-operative conduct.

And instead of merely possessing a set of impulses aris-
ing from heredity and education and experiences, all of
which things are impulses based upon the past, this new
self -consciousness begins a mind which concerns itself with
a future that is not the near future which mere volition and
will have in view, which is about to become present ; but the
remote future where last final consequences will develop ; and
in which the other minds will participate, as they now
participate in the consideration of it. All this is, however,
subject to the earlier law that new and higher principles are
built upon or added to the old and do not supersede them
or nullify them. It is thus seen that not only is the old
principle of co-operative activity reaffirmed, but it enters into
a new and higher phase. The self-conscious mind may
select conduct, with foreknowledge of the true path, instead
of following blindly all avenues, and finding survival only
in a few, as does the consciousness of lower order. With
this possession it becomes possible to face the forces of
nature and the hostilities of environment, and to shape a
collective course or policy by which these hostilities may be
mitigated, and some of them, which arise in destructive
competition, may be ended entirely. The evils of destruc-
tive rivalry are now seen, by the perception of the fact

392 The Morality of Nature

that the rival human being is an equal and fellow; then it
becomes possible to cease the destructiveness of rivalry and
substitute co-operative agreement, and this alone terminates
a large part of the hostile environment. Nor does it over-
look the fact that hostility of environment continues in
nature, nor the other fact that a stimulus to improvement
arises in adversity. It does not disavow self-preservation,
but discovers a new and higher way of self-preservation;
the way of alliance in construction, instead of contest by
destruction; and if it relinquishes the cultivation in evolution
of destructive power, it does so only to take up the evolu-
tion of a co-operative power which is more effective.

That this latter power is more effective is proven by its
triumph and survival in trial. In the present partial and
imperfect adoption of the co-operative motive by intellectual
humanity, there has arisen a power which, in comparison
with that of the more brutally impelled races, is overwhelm-
ing and convincing. And even for the aggressive efforts
at self-preservation in rivalry, the races most effective are
those which have, among themselves, best evolved the prin-
ciple of co-operation; and the successfully destructive ones
are those which have modified their policy by a considerable
development of its opposite. Further, this compounding of
motive is evident in all grades of organization; none is pure,
but each has character only by a preponderance of this quality
or that, in a mixture of all.

So it is clear that the graduation into intellectual life is
imperfect, like other evolutionary changes, and it is after all
not an escape from more primitive law, but a recognition of
jiew and higher expressions of the same law,

Human Consciousness 393

Therefore, as this intellectual and moral evolution builds
up co-operation into higher phases, it does so by bringing
into self-knowing and known relations, larger and more
complex units, whose component individuals still act under
earlier law in simple conduct, while governed by new law
in their organized being.

The complexity is a result of progress, and in its varia-
bility is a means toward more progress. The appearance
of an inspiration for its highest practice and definition,
and the cultivation of that highest desire in ideals of altru-
ism, is one of those variations which arise purposeful and
conscious, in psychological humanity, to better perform the
same things which in lower life are fortuitous or casual and
unperceived.

But although different in origin these variations of con-
duct under psychological impulse, are in nature tested by
the old standard, still unchanged, which is that of value
for the purpose of self-preservation. The survival of the
fittest is still the final result of the comparison of this
variant in conduct with others ; but it is a question of fitness
which includes defensive power as needed for present main-
tenance, and which proceeds against any unit organized for,
and acting in, destructive contest ; by opposing a unit organ-
ized in mutual cohesion, and acting preferably in extended
co-operation. The triumph of the co-operative principle is
as evident in human evolution by race contest, as it was in
the biological evolution of multicellular animals. Of
families, tribes and nations, or whatever units may be com-
pared, that is the strongest which has the least destructive
impulse, and the greatest co-operative impulse. Among units

394 The Morality of Nature

of equal co-operative impulse, that one is the strongest which
has the greatest capacity for organization, and the most
unity of purpose when organized.

This superior strength is available and effective in defense,
and even in aggression, when so applied under compulsion,
by the still active forces of older type ; but much more is it
effective in its particular mutual purposes.

Now in this view the struggle for existence may cease
to mean aggressive self -maintenance by the actual abase-
ment of rivals, and appear as an equally effective mainten-
ance in comparative superiority by higher evolution of self.
The survival of the fittest is evidently an abiding law, but
it does not forever mean fitness by destructive capacity.
Physical force is a provisional qualification which suffices
in a life lacking intellect, or wherein co-operation is slight;
but which goes down into disuse when mind discovers the
value of mutual alliance, and of unity of purpose ; and mar-
shals the overpowering numbers of its new units of conduct.

This is the tendency which promises to promote humanity
to higher attainments by future evolution acting in the
same way that prevailed in the past, as revealed in the
geological and biological records.

CHAPTER XX

FREE ACTIVITIES

And again the intellectual power helps to establish a
higher efficiency in co-operation by enabling its activity to
be free. That great organized co-operation of nature, which
biology discovers in the grouping of cells in ordered func-
tions to make up a complex and powerful body, has been
carried to a high and perhaps to the highest effective evo-
lution of that type. In size and armed strength certain
great animals have reached probably the limit of power
of that kind, and yet have yielded place, in struggles with
much weaker creatures, co-operating in the militant struggle
for existence. And the best armed of them have failed,
or are now failing, probably from the very excellence of
their equipment, in a function which is outclassed by the
higher one. It is not to be suggested that pacific conduct
is new. It has been seen that pacific co-operation is primal,
and precedes the struggle for existence, which begins when
crowding makes rivalry. In the beginning the growth of
life in a generous and extensive world is not a struggle,
but an enjoyment of prosperity, in which the hostility is
external, and is due to changes of natural conditions, such as
heat and cold, and violence of elements and such like events,
disturbing the peaceful field in which new life is growing.

395

396 The Morality of Nature

This may still be observed in the growth of single-celled
life. We may know that there are creatures which never de-
parted from the pacific co-operative principle, to take up
the aggressive and destructive one. This motive always
has governed many races of gregarious peaceful creatures,
who have maintained themselves at least as successfully as
the militant. Therefore there is nothing new in the pacific
mode of action, it is the oldest. The new function now to
be looked to for future progress is the reasoning, in knowl-
edge conscious of the value of this mode, and of its relations
to itself. In this endowment it becomes possible to unite
in mutual support thousands upon thousands of persons, act-
ing under the guidance of a moral purpose. This means
the creation of a new conduct creature, operating in a new
sphere. It is greater and also higher, than that co-operation
by similarity of instinct, such as is shown by the gregarious
animals.

Instinct develops altruistic action in high degree. But
the gregarious harmony is based only on the past, and
presents a successful survival of fitness. The new form
of altruistic co-operation frames its purposes in the future,
exercising the new power in addition to the old.

Thus we find man with moral consciousness able to organ-
ize units of conduct in a high order, which we may still call
new, because it is even now but partially established, the
order of free moral unity of purpose. But we still see hu-
manity engaged in conduct and in organizations of mixed
types, partly free and partly compelled. Conduct is still
partly self -controlled and partly governed by superior force;
but the supplanting of the older method by that of self-con-

Free Activities 397

trol and freedom is no longer an empty ideal, it is a rapidly
growing reality. When we consider the political and moral
liberty of the democratic and progressive nations, and their
freedom of conscience, and the respect for individuality;
and above all, when we observe the essentially altruistic
faith, by which the stupendous industrial and social work
of these nations is done; in the contest with the hostility,
not only of other men, but of nature; and the adversities of
climate and disease — it is clearly apparent that we are in
the process of an evolution of morality in a phase to be
called new. It is because of its freedom and general willing-
ness, that we fail to appreciate much of what is here called
altruistic faith. The daily life of the millions of laborers
and traders, and even of the so-called sordid workers, calls
for the exercise of altruism, and depends upon a high faith
reposed in others. The miner and the sailor go into positions
where a breach of trust by others, would expose them to
death, and those others of their class know it, and do as
they should. The engine driver running at headlong speed
in the darkness, trusts his life to those who guard the track
and signal his course; and more than that, the passengers,
who have no class affiliations with these guardians, and no
knowledge of them except the racial and social impersonal
knowledge ; show the same confidence which is almost never
disappointed. The traders deliver their possessions, and
take a word or a signature, in pledge of a faith which rarely
fails. All these things are done in liberty, and depend upon
free altruism, self -controlled by reason, and not by fear.
No great population can be organized in militant compul-
sion, and compelled to do these things. The operation in

398 The Morality of Nature

joint trust, and upon mutual credit, are not to be forced.
They can be done perfectly and fully, only in the free willing
confidence of the co-operative conduct motive. It as neces-
sary to the ordinary work as it is to the loftier sacrifices.
We know the value of the altruism of charity and of
medicine, and of devotion to science or to patriotism, but
we often overlook the fact that modern civilization de-
pends in its daily routine upon a sense of duty, which is a
new order of morality, because it is self-governed and free,
and cannot be compelled.

The value of liberty lies partly in the greater efficiency of
the energy of free units, and partly in the greater oppor-
tunity it affords for variation and progress. The first
benefit, efficiency, arises in the fact that labor done to
accomplish a purpose concurred in by the worker, is more
enjoyable and energetic, and better qualified, than would be
a labor desired by some controlling mind and forced upon
the laborer. Where men are free to select their work there
will be a certain degree of special fitness for the work; and
in the division of labor among specialized laborers, which
we have seen in biology to be an evolutionary process,
this special fitness is a necessary thing for the organization
of the great units of Humanity. It is obviously an im-
perfect allotment of work if special duties are imposed
upon those specially unfit. A certain gain arises in the
separation of functions, even without specialization of
powers, but efficiency is clearly advanced to a higher grade,
by such special qualification ; and happiness and gratification
of just desires follow.

Whether this is a benefit of moral nature will depend

Free Activities 399

upon the labors in question, but it can be accepted that in
any effort for morality, an increase of efficiency is an in-
crease of moral power.

The secondary benefit is also distinctly moral. The
opportunity for variation, which lies in freedom of conduct,
and- especially in liberty of conscience, is a way to moral
progress. There is moral goodness in active conduct
directed by faith, provided the faith attaches itself to worthy
influences; and there may be moral goodness even in
obedience without faith. But these moral efforts, although
they may produce good results as the fruits of their existing
order of things, must rely, for any advance into higher
order, upon progress on the part of the few leaders; while
the experiences, and aptitudes, and knowledge, in practical
inheritance, arise and develop in the performer or worker.
Thus this first unit of activity, which is composed of a
number of separate beings combined under control, is not
responsive to its own experiences, and is not likely to be
improved or advanced, unless a less efficient unit is in
immediate comparison; while freedom secures more varia-
tion in response to experience, and therefore more new pro-
gress, at a loss of some unity for purposes which are passing.
Thence it appears reasonable that in certain matters of
established type, as in military operations, great unity is
still preserved by strict control; and upon occasion the vol-
untary submission to control is seen to be still practiced.
Thus the newer free process amplifies the old, and in liberty,
as in other things, conduct remains a complex of all motives
in process of evolution.

The further study of this subject reaches into a philo-

400 The Morality of Nature

sophical aspect. We may close it by a recognition of the
ideal of free altruistic democracy, as the highest aspiration,
and its existing experimental organization as the highest
examples, of the process of evolution, by which matter (and
in the present study living matter) progresses in function
from simplicity and generality, to complexity and specialty;
while at the same time consciousness advances from a
passive response to an active volition, and to intelligent
control of the matter it inhabits, and so restores unity by
progress in organization.

CHAPTER XXI

ORGANIZATION

The great universal motive which impels evolution is
organization. Under this governance the impulse which
appears as energy works always for order. It is not a
crude impulse under which worlds clash in cataclysm, but
an inspired one which prevents clash by system, building up
complexities out of heterogeneous chaos. — And in the subtle
regulation of life the same system prevails. The simple
beginnings combine always in disciplined union, to make new
organized entities of higher functions.

The study of biology and especially of embryology is so

fascinating that it continually appeals to the mind as a

pursuit worthy for its own sake. Yet we must remember

that here it is under observation only as a means to an end.

We entered this wonderful field of thought only to garner

a harvest of special purpose, which is the better knowledge

of human evolution and destiny, as a guide to morality. It

is true that modern biology offers, in its marvels, more of

this information than any other science does, and this is a

reason for a somewhat protracted study of them ; yet it is

clear that we are not here able to extend that study to any

degree of completeness, although such a purpose will find

a vast and always growing opportunity and reward.
26 401

402 The Morality of Nature

The rise of life in evolution can be marked as a series
of progressive steps in organization.

Association of protoplasmic units causing organization
of the cell with the heredity principle. Then great evolu-
tion of unicellular life.

New association of cells, some in vegetative altruistic
alliance; and others in aggressive and destructive compe-
tition. Then great evolution of associations.

New organizations of cells in somatic alliances, arising
from the altruistic, with specialized functions and with in-
creased complexity. Then great evolution of multicellular
Hfe.

New organization of these new somatic creatures in
co-operation, and competition of those so organized, with
those unorganized, and survival of those in co-operative
alliance, establishing species. Then great evolution of
species.

Selection and preferment by survival, of the higher species,
in organizations of specialized individuals in mutual support,
and especial preferment of those guided by an instinct of
altruism in greater or less degree. Then great evolution of
instinctive animal altruism, chiefly parental and tribal.

And lastly: The achievement of consciousness of self,
and of relations with others, by the higher types of man-
kind; and the recognition of morality as a guide; and of
altruism as a principle of morality enabling liberty of con-
science and freedom of conduct. Then great evolution of
human organization in political and social units in new and
higher spheres of conduct.

The conscious altruism of the last phase; the highest

Organization 403

system of conduct arising among men; is based upon the
same physical principle of conjugation by which benefits are
generalized in lowest life; and rising thence it shares the
motives of lower life, until it differs in being recognized, and
responsively inspired, by a self -knowing consciousness, en-
abling a perception of consequences.

Thus there may be traced a continued growth of the
all-prevailing principle of organization ever promoting asso-
ciation for co-operative activity, which stands revealed as
the great and dominating conduct motive, not only of hu-
manity, but of all life; increasing in value as it ascends the
scale and presumably to increase indefinitely toward an ideal
unity. Organization is the expression of the law of the
first cause, working from the inert and simple unity which
is primal, toward the active and complex unity of harmony
which is to be perfect and final in infinite time.

CHAPTER XXII

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

The preceding pages attempt to show certain facts, evi-
dent in the modern sciences of evolutionary research, which
are of stupendous import in the consideration of human
conduct. Some of them must modify greatly our concep-
tions of the rightness and wrongness of conduct, and will
give a new aspect to our oldest ideas of morality.

The most important truth thus newly revealed is the
immortality of the germ-plasm. It is seen, in wonderful
significance, that the material substance which, in the egg
or germ, ceases alliance with a mature body, and emanci-
pates itself to regenerate a similar body, is part of the
same substance which began the life evolution of its race
in the far remote past; and which has had, in all the inter-
vening ages, continuous life uninterrupted by death. And
following this truth comes the corollary, that in the equally
remote future the material substances then living will be
those which shall have continued from now on, in that
immortal progress.

It may be objected to this inference, that new life may
arise in a new series. This cannot be affirmed or denied,
yet it must be assumed that new life, if possible, must arise

404

Summary and Conclusion 405

in its most primitive form ; and rise by the same evolution,
of capacity from potentiality to realization.

And it is of great moment that, in the present status of
this highly developed life-plasm; its fundamental form, that
in which it reappears at each new birth; is the same form
that it possessed in the long past earlier stage of its organi-
zation as a single living cell. The germ-cell today, at the
beginning of each new generation, presents itself stripped
of all the somatic body, bared of all the past, and having
only the structure and substance of the single-celled immortal
creature, which it was millions of years before, and which
it now is again; except that within it, carried in minute
differentiation of the protoplasm of its nucleus, is a mys-
teriously condensed record of its ages of experience; a
treasured heredity, to be used by it in perpetuating its ability,
and in restoring the material machine, by which its existence
may be continued.

Now all this is simple fact. We have used some few
imagined links to connect up some of our imperfect chains
of positive knowledge, but there is no such weakness in this
particular chain. The potential immortality of the germ-
plasm is a proposition based upon observable undeniable
fact.

Next it is important to note that this immortality is not
absolute, but only potential. Matter is not guaranteed in
life perpetual by natural law, but only empowered. Con-
tinued enjoyment of life is not a certainty, but it is a possi-
bility, which depends upon the way in which that life
maintains itself, in the face of hostile circumstances.

Every living thing stands a testimony to the fact that it,

4o6 The Morality of Nature

and all its ancestors, one after another in direct line, have
succeeded in preserving the gift of life, from primeval
origin, through the ages, to this day. The question of its
future continuance and perpetuation now rests for answer
with that living thing who is the present trustee of the gift.

But beside the possession of this life-gift in potential
immortality, every being of high organization is possessed,
by inheritance, of an ability to construct a body, by which
it may exercise great future extension and specialization of
its primary powers. This constructive ability has been
slowly added to it, little by little, by ancestors who have
succeeded in doing, from time to time, something more than
the mere maintenance of existence; and have accumulated
a surplus as the product of their energy; and have trans-
mitted, it, with the evident possibility of its being still further
improved, and still longer transmitted.

Therefore it appears that the conduct of an individual,
which was before examined in the light of the lesser or
individual life, and was found to lack there completeness of
scheme, is to be considered as applying to the continuous
life of this substance which is the real owner of the body,
and the real responsible ego.

In this light an individual human being stands not as a
short-lived fugitive creature, empowered to beget other
similar short-lived irresponsible offspring; but as an ever
living creature, in possession of a destructible body, which
he is enabled to discard and renew periodically, because of
its destructibility. In life thus viewed, it is possible to trace
a chain of consequences by which all conduct is compensated,
not in a system of reward and punishment such as that

Summary and Conclusion 4^7

by which humanity seeks, by intelHgent intervention, to make
just, a natural sequence which seems to be inherently lacking
justice; but as a law of cause and effect, self-adjusting, and
inevitably just. Under this law, continued life potentially
immortal is the consequence of certain conduct, and death
and extinction the consequence of other conduct. The
conduct sustaining life must therefore be called good, and
that which fails less good. And the conduct which sustains
and uplifts life perpetually is the most good. This best
conduct is moral, whether instinctive or reasoned, and the
perception of it is morality. Conduct may therefore be of
imperfect morality, because of insufficient regard for remote
consequence, or may lack goodness, and be relatively bad,
because of ill effects. But such conduct is not necessarily
evil conduct. Evil conduct must be worse than imperfect
where none is perfect. Evil conduct must be the bad conduct
which is injurious positively, with a purpose and intent
which wilfully disregards morality.

Life continuing is an endowment of positive and not
negative nature, whatever its degree or form. The possessor
of life of any grade, is one who has received, and is receiv-
ing, that much of surplus, of positive over negative, and may
receive more, not as a right, but as a privilege. Some we
see receive much of that privilege, and others little; some
receive it of high degree, and others of low. Yet all are
recipients and therefore debtors. None are creators or
creditors, except toward their own posterity. Thus it ap-
pears that the enjoyment of life, for a time or for all time,
does not come with any title guaranteed, but only with a
permissive equipment; which, having sufficed for all gen-

4o8 The Morality of Nature

erations, in all ancestors, is now presumably sufficient for the
creature in the present. With this equipment the success or
failure of the creature is given in his charge, and all the
life extant upon the earth is that which has maintained itself
upon these terms, in the face of besetting difficulties such
as hostile environment, and competing rivals.

And we see that while some creatures succeed and pros-
per, others of the same race, fail and die, because they happen
into environment which is too difficult for them. This,
which appears to be an injustice if argued in relation to the
lesser life of the individual, is made evidently just and con-
sistent by the fact, established by study of the greater life
in evolution, that the two groups (that which lived and that
which died) were but two parts of the same creature. One
part received much ; but the other, preserved to receive more,
was comparatively better qualified, in being more favorably
established, to continue a racial life which was equally
represented in either.

The development of the argument of universal justice
must be referred however to the province of philosophy. It
has sufficed now, from analytic study, to point out that evo-
lution, which rewards in the descendant, conduct accom-
plished by the ancestor, indicates clearly that the justice
evident in the greater life, is and must be, imperfect or
incomplete toward the lesser or individual life, because of
its relations subordinated to the larger units, and this is as
we inferred from a search for justice in individual conduct.

But if we contemplate a conduct unit of living matter
extended so as to include in one judgment the several indi-
viduals of the same lineage, and the many branches of the

Summary and Conclusion 409

same germ-plasm — we find that such units of greater life do
receive, in the consequences of their conduct, a compensation
which is just; and this, we perceive, consists in the continu-
ing, and improving, ability to live. We perceive that it is idle
to protest, in terms of our human judgment, against a law
of conduct which made us what we are, and gave us all the
intelligence we possess ; and we therefore must accept the
success and endurance of this conduct, as proof of its right-
ness. This law continues to govern, and promises, in its
operation, to so increase these gifts of knowledge that we
shall, in our future wisdom, see in its growing justice, an
improvement toward perfection always approaching the
absolute. It is profoundly interesting to note, that the ten-
dency and effect of all progress by evolution and its aids,
is to bring this natural justice nearer to the ideal; and to
make it surer for the smaller units, and even for the indi-
vidual. Human reason, rising in the scale, tends to secure
for each individual, by the machinery of civilization, a due
share of the benefits and effects of the general conduct.
Justice is now available for individual persons, which
formerly pertained only to powerful families ; and is found
for families, with an effect which, until lately, only nations
could enjoy. In other words the imperfections of natural
justice toward the individual, which appear in the nature of
the non-psychologic life; are parts of the natural hostility
of environment, and are in course of eradication by intel-
lectual evolution ; and the whole course of evolution must be
regarded as a process still in progress, and with at present
only an imperfect result.

We have observed moreover that the progress, in the

410 The Morality of Nature

evolution of lower life without self -consciousness and
morality, is achieved by the trial of many variations, and
by the extermination of the unsuccessful, and the survival
of the successful ; and also that the variations in this stage
cannot be definitely attributed to any foresight, but only to
a right reaction to environment then present, evinced with a
presumption that it will continue. We have further observed
that the achievement of consciousness of self, and a knowl-
edge of relations with others, and of cause and effect, and,
in short, of good and evil, is in fact a realization of the
probabilities of the future as well as of the present; and
we see in that a means achieved, whereby conduct may be
varied for progress not merely in blind experiment, but
in reasoned prospect of its benefits; and we see that an ex-
tension of the previously recognized idea that conduct ulti-
mately beneficial is moral conduct, leads to the idea that an
increased perception of the effect of conduct, is an increased
power for morality.

But that increase of power or potentiality is not to be
confused with the question of achievement. Intellect is a
means to morality, and an enlargement of perception ; but
it is not morality, nor does it even enlarge morality, unless
the greater perception is translated into volition and energy
and moral accomplishment.

And we see that the greatest of this wisdom is still far
short of perfection, and is therefore not infallible. And
that the least of it is still that which has so far sufficed to
enable its living possessor to survive, and by which he has
a right and duty to guide his own activity. This right and
duty, even when pertaining to inferior capacity, we per-

Summary and Conclusion 411

ceive to be the foundation for liberty of action, and con-
sequently for freedom of conscience, and we therefore
recognize in personal conscience, the supreme and final ex-
pression of that which guides voluntary energy on the
part of the individual.

We recognize that the acquirement of high organization
is, in any creature, the result of a long accumulation through
heredity of organs and habits and abilities, from time to
time added to the stock; and we see that this process still
continues, and that it results in not merely a continued adap-
tation to circumstances; but more than this, when active,
it produces a more complex and higher organization, in
which however the simpler and older persist as the ground-
work. By study in the fields of biology and embryology
we see that with every new birth the creature, whether
human or other, returns to the primitive simplicity of a
single cell and develops a body anew upon the old habits
with certain changes. These changes may be accidental
or casual, or they may be the effects of activity and environ-
ment, but in either case, they are at first tentative, and are
later adopted into the hereditary habit only when they are
proven beneficial, by the survival of many possessors, and
by the continued use of them.

Then we have discovered that the effect of conjugation
and sex union upon such variations, is a distribution of any
established benefits among all the race, or at least among
those in local contact; and thus a preservation to the race
of uniformity of organization. The effects of the same
process upon conduct, are thus to promote co-operation, and
to make possible effective conduct units composed of many

412 The Morality of Nature

individuals, united in harmony of purpose. The power of
these greater units as compared with that of the lesser units
lacking co-operation, is shown by the survival of species of
animals achieving them ; and, especially among mankind, by
the ascendency of the races so actuated, as compared with
those practicing more generally destructive or aggressive
rivalries.

In this we have perceived that the continued function of
evolution is the procurement of greater and greater power
for the preservation of life, by the raising of organization
into higher and higher phases. The sex process we find
promoting first the multicellular body structure as an indi-
vidual organization; and then the many associated individ-
uals as a social organization under instinctive altruism. The
intellectual power we find promoting still higher organiza-
tion, by perceiving in advance remoter benefits of greater
worth, and setting them above immediate benefits of lesser
worth, and so appreciating morality; and again we see that
self-conscious intellect increases effectiveness, by making
for liberty; and that all of these intellectual things are ad-
vances, and are adopted into the progressive evolution, be-
cause they make for the preservation of life, and prove it
by the survival of those creatures which evolve them, just
as did the physical advances.

And lastly we recall that there is in general conduct a
persistence of the earlier responses and impulses, which are
not entirely superseded by the later motives and desires,
but which still remain among the factors in the conduct of
life, and still affect the lower strata of conduct of higher
acquirement. And in consequence it appears that human

Summary and Conclusion 413

conduct in its highest phases still contains necessities and
motives and impressions and responses of low order similar
to those of lower life, and in fact persisting as the inheri-
tance from life of that degree.

Therefore conduct is not, in the present transition, to be
valued by any assumed standard of a perfection of morality;
but is by nature rewarded or compensated by comparative
consequences, having regard to the participation in it of all
creatures related and organized with the actual performer.
In this uncertain light an individual must conduct himself
aright by his own conscience because that is the only
available guide, the only expression of his complex motive.
His conduct is the activity of the immortal ego individual-
ized in him, allied and sharing with his lineage, and his
race, and his humanity, in a proportionate interest, which
assures inevitable justice in final effect to the whole; and
promises in evolution increasing justness toward every part.
In the natural law of conduct, justice is a principle which is
estabhshed for the life of the world in its unity; but not
for each unit in its complexity. The subjection of matter
to life is a process which is indefinitely incomplete and im-
perfect. By evolution it is continually advancing, and by
the latest evolution, which is the perception of morality,
this process is restoring to humanity the unity of co-op-
erative altruism. In this unity is the promise of justice
for the individual, such as is now made evident for the
whole, — and the prospect for the race, of a future which
shall transcend the present, as this is seen to rise above
the past.

Thus the study of evolution, in geological and biological

414 The Morality of Nature

and embryological sciences, supports and confirms the con-
ceptions of the moraHty of nature, which were founded
on a study of conduct.

THE END

INDEX

CAPITALS INDICATE HEADINGS

Abandonment of old bodies, 265
Abilities added, 142; imperfect, 11;

special, no
Ability use of, 16
Abnormal responsibility, 244
Abundance, 151
Absolute, 5
Absolute good, 284
Absorption, consuming, 347
Absorption of invaders, 206
Acceptance of help, 34
Acceptable wisdom, 226
Accessory body, 129
Accident, primary death an, 80
Accidental, is variation, 388
Achievements, 192
Acquired characters, 58
Acquirement of habits, 64
Activity is of the present time, 381 ;

religious, 241
Accumulating development, 57
Accumulating knowledge, 248
Accumulation, 279
Adaptability, 89, 293; quickened by

short-lived fecundity, 87
Adaptation, 75; without foresight.

Adoption of militant rulers, 205
Adoption of self-sacrifice motive,

188
Advance, human proceeding, 389;

way of, 123
Advancement, freedom promotes,

399

Advantage in death, 80
Advantages of sex, 356; to offspring,

154
Adversities, 35
Adversity, 392; a cure, 136
iEsthetic quality in form, 310
Affection, 49

Affectionate strength, value of, 189
Affinities, 259, 346

Affinity, natural, 62

Afflictions no longer terrors, 195

Affluence and neglect, 109

Aged guarded, 192

Age of the earth, 292

Aggression, 146; favors personal

rule, 222; needs altruism, 155
Aggression, transitional, 175
Aggressive growth not necessarily.

Aggressive impulse, 172

Aggressive life, self-destructive, 146

A>j;gressive rivalry, 231

Alga;, 357 ^

Alien warriors, 176

All circumstances considered, 117

Alliance of cells, 360

Alliances of creatures, 402

Allied groups, 104

Allies, 37

Alteration of conditions, 124

Alternatives, life or oblivion, 161

Altruism, 161, 163, 267

Altruism a Conscious Ideal,

Book II, Chap. V, 169
Altruism, aggression still needs, 155;

is voluntary, 168
Altruism Fundamental, Book II,

Chap. II, 150
Altruism not of intellect, 170; sex

maintains, 156
Altruistic acts, 31
Altruistic control is negative, 225
Altruistic, freedom is, 182
Altruistic government, typical char-
acter of, 233
Altruistic Type of Government,

Book II, Chap. XIII, 219
Amalgamation, 351; of heredities,

363
Ambitions, 223
Amitosis, 325

Amputation not transmitted, 367
Ancestors all have succeeded, 406;

position due to, 107

415

4i6

Index

Ancestral pattern, 63

Ancestral virtues, 112

Ancient religions and morality, 248

Ancient rocks, 296

Ancient superiority, 202

Anger, 61

Animal character resumable, 112

Animal existence, 24

Animals, 85; morality in, 52, 54

Answer of matter, 135

Anticipation, none, 291

Antique methods, 240

Antiquity of life, 132

Anxiety not demanded, 1 10

Any change is possible, 125

Apes, 309; relationship to, 203

Apology, 6

Appeal, 164

Apperception, 390

Aptitudes completed by education,
247; cultivation of, 128; trans-
mitted, 246

Arabs, 176

Armed combat, 203

Armed force, 174

Armed strength of animals, 395

Arms, resort to, imposed, 205

Arthropoda, antiquity of, 31 1

Ascendancy of gregarious life, 174

Ascending progress, 135

Aspiration, 169; for higher ideals,
264

Aspiration in Evolution is
Morality, Book III, Chap. XVI,

374
Aspirations, 159
Aspiring, life is, 375
Assimilation, 324
Assistance, 229
Associated Motives Multiplex

Book II, Chap. VII, 178
Associated Responsibility, Book

I, Chap. VI, 39
Associates, advance of, 180
Association adaptation to, 95; needs

morality, 40; of cells, 358, 402;

success of, 175; unintelligent, 41;

without similarity, 34
Attack, effects of, 86
Attendant cells, bodymaking, 360
Attitude, Nature's, 107
Authority, Book II, Chap. XII,

214
Authority does not make rightness,

1 18; purpose of, 224; the final, 235
Autocrat, 221
Autocratic government, 223

Automatic law, 142

Avenue to progress. Death as an, 81

Axial forms, 385

B

Bacteria, 339

Bad, heredity of neglect, 109
Bad is that which is injurious, 12
Badness a deficiency of good, 59
Balance of account, 116
Barbaric conduct, 176
Barbarism right in its place, 147
Barbarous races, 143
Beasts in subjection, 162
Beatitude, hopes of, 285
Bees, limited to ministry, 161
Beginning of morality, 188
Beginning recedes, 317
Beginning the, how reached, 316
Belief in upward evolution, 194;

liberty of, 239; must act on, 282
Beneficence of faith, 260
Beneficial change, 305
Benefit, 9, 12; desired, 116; in faith,

260; to peaceable, 30
Biological Record, Book III,

Chap. VII, 319
Biology shows all conduct mixed,

379
Birds, 47, 56; gregarious, 174; eggs

of, 342; guard nests, 71
Birth, a creature at, 66
Blanks in the stoiy, 319
Blending of motives, 1 78
Blind efforts, 161
Bodies, mortal, 364
Body-building is co-operation, 374
Body-plasm assexual, 362
Boulder falling, 14
Brahminism, 286
Brain capacity, 306; cells, 331
Branch of lineage cut-off, 157
Breeding, 294
Brotherhood, 29, 160; extends to

race, X04; of mankind, 231
Buddhism, 286
Budding of germ-cells, 343
Burdens, 166

Cannibalism, 172
Capacities, inherited, 56
Capacity for organization, 394
Cardinal virtues, 210
Cataclysm, 149

Index

417

Catastrophic destruction, 72

Catastrophies, 195

Cattle, controlled life of, 91; of

plains, 173
Cause and effect, 407; in all events,

15

Cause of variations, 368

Celibates, 167

Cell, 128, 320; division, 347; hered-
ity, 326; reduction, 356

Centrosome, 325, 353

Chance, 65

Changeable rightness, 267

Change all powerful, 308

Change is Normal, Book III,
Chap. IV, 304

Change is normally addition, 338;
normal, toward complexity, 338;
recurring, 306

Changeless environment, 312

Changes enormous, 1 24

Changing, man is, 285

Characters experimental, 337

Chemical unlikeness, 365

Chemistry, 319

Chickens, 55

Child-bearing, evasion of, ill

Child is dependent, 102

Children supply incentives, no

China, 206

Choice of action, 8

Christianity, 286

Chromatin, 326

Chromosomes, 326

Chromosomes repeat former activ-
ity, 365

Citizenship, 229

Civilization, 385; comes of morality,
189; does not end question of
fitness, 96; in its dawn, 176

Civil law courts, 240

Clan-unit gains by specialization,
166

Clubs, 217

Codes and laws, 268 ; not universal,
209; to be regarded, 117

Codes valuable, 118

Coercion unacceptable, 228

Cohesion of humanity, 1 50

Cohesive strength, 214

Collective conduct divisible, 22

Collective movement, 42

Collective responsibility, 144

Colloids, 311

Color, 335

Combinations, 232

Commendation, 171

Commerce civilizes, 212

Commercial faith, 261

Common enjoyment, right of, 180

Communism, 233

Community, 150, 250; care by, 165;

of interest, 137, 391
Comparative goodness, 39
Comparative inferiority, 76
Compensated, is conduct, 12
Compensating awards of Nature^

199
Compensations, Book I, Chap.

XIII, 107
Compensations, 35; automatic, 115;

of conduct, 268; system of, 5
Compensatory Justice, in
Complex circumstances, 21
Complexity of motives, 134; social

obscures, 20; of the cell, 321
Compulsion, 168; of virtues im-
possible, 211; religious, 238
Concealment, 173

Conception of self enlarges unit, 44
Concepts altered, 5
Concession in self-interest, 30
Conclusions, Book II, Chap.

XVIII, 262
Conduct, Book I, Chap. II, 8
Conduct, 4 ; addresses environment,

8; compensated to race, loo;

definition, 8; good and bad, 9;

inaction is, 1 1 ; is imder a law, 262 ;

moral, 3; of many types, 233;

present phase, 402
Conduct in Evolution, Book III,

Chap. I, 273
Conduct-Unit, The, Book I, Chap.

XII, 102
Conduct-unit, 122; differs for each

act, 104
Confidence cannot be compelled, 397
Confirmation in science, 414
Confusion of forms, 346
Conjugation, cumulative effect of,

350; simple, 347
Conscience, Book II, Chap. XVI,

250
Conscience, 141, 267, 268; freedom

of, 411; impels reform, 251; is

independent, 252; rapid, 255
Conscientious motive, 251
Conscious altruism, 146
Conscious foreknowledge, 137
Conscious ideals, 169
Conscious, moral altruism, 393
Consciousness fitness of, 393;

human, 143

4i8

Index

Consensus, 234

Consent of governed, 220

Consequences, 70; dispersed, 83;
of right, 265; of wrong, 265; re-
gard for, 26; unavoidable, 115

Conservative instincts, 189

Considerateness, 186

Constancy of development, 342; of
environment, 341 ; of type, 57, 58

Constitution, 219

Constitutional limits, 229

Constructive action, 191

Constructive motive powerful, 205

Continued origination of life, 126

Continuing life of ego-plasm, 369

Continuity reliable, 381

Contradiction of law, apparent, 159

Contradictions, seeming of Nature,

105

Control, governmental, 222, 225;
is egotism, 183; not an excuse, 34;
of activity, 9; of religion, 239; pa-
ternal limited, 215; self, 232

Controlling majorities, 190

Convictions, 251

Co-operation aptitude for, 98

Co-operation grows, 374

Co-operation in higher phases, 392;
is morality, 374; Natural, 148

Co-operation Instinctive, Book
II, Chap. I, 141

Co-operative conduct, 102, 180

Co-partnership with offspring, 104

Corals, 153

Corporate self still selfish, 185

Correction, 144

Corrective influence, 29

Corrective process, 75

Courage, excessive, 61

Courts of law, 240

Creation, old concept of, 316

Crime, prevention of, 249

Crimes, 211

Cross-breeding, 294

Cruelty of Nature, 71

Crystallized perfection, 74

Cultivation, 170; of aptitudes, 128

Cumulative effects, 113, 279

Cumulative effects of conjugation,
350

Custom clogs law, 2

Cytoplasm, excess of, 354

D

Daily life of workers, 397
Dawn of life, 127, 311

Death changes surviving qualities,
76; eliminates defects, 75; in-
dispensable, 89; individual, not
punitive, 72 ; is just to the race, 87 ;
is selective, 265; not reckless, 93;
not a penalty, 265; of unworthy,
199; too late to destroy, 131

Deaths, two different, 131

Deception detrimental, 261

Decision, 48

Deer, 87

Defensive concealment, 174

Deficiencies, 60; ancestral, 112;
replaced, 60

Deficiency, 10

Definable natural system, 274

Definition of good conduct, 115

Degeneracy, 379, 387

Democracy delegates power not
right, 224; growth of, 190; mod-
em, 218; not only altruistic gov-
ernment, 235

Democratic nations, 397

Dependence, 157; of predatory
creatures, 175

Dependent, child is, 102

Dependent Life, Book II, Chap.

111,159

Dependent life the gift of the race,

162
Deposits of bones, 298
Deprivation of assistance, 229
Descended from earlier life, 302
Descent of Man, Book III, Chap.

V, 309
Desires provoked by organs, 160
Destiny in evolution, 282; of life, 3;

potentiality is not, 279
Destruction, 72
Destructive impulse, 155
Destructive Rivalry, Book II,

Chap. VI, 172
Destructive rivalry, 266
Destructive truths, 4
Deterioration, 305
Determinants, 341
Development not evolution, 279;

of egg, 332; repeats race history,

334; slow, 143
Dictator, morality is not, 376
Differences proper, 210
Different duties of cells, 359
Different standpoints, 36
Diflfiicult position, 244
Diffusion of knowledge, 250
Direct-division of cells, 325
Disability, 230

Index

419

Discretion, 269

Disease, to be exterminated, 196;
war against, 185

Disinterested convictions, 251

Dispersal in just consequence, 83

Disputed law, 117

Dissipation consequences of, no

Distribution by Sex, Book III,
Chap. XIII, 358

Distribution, by sex, 411; of ac-
quired characters, 58; of heredity,
328, 351

Distribution of Heredity, Book
III, Chap. XI, 346

Distrust is safety, 14.7

Disiinion unavoidable, 208

Disuse and deterioration, 305

Divine authority, 223

Divine control, 51

Divine right, 227

Divine wisdom, 263

Division a consequence of growth,
347; of cells, 325, 347, 352; of
labor, 358 ; of labor, sex aids, 356

Dog for hunting, 92; variation of,
294

Dogma, 286

Dogmas, obsolete repel, 241

Dominating conduct motive, 403

Dormant energy, 352

Doubled nucleus, 348

Doubt, 164

Duality of life, 186

Duration of consequences variable,
82

Duty, 30; is for benefit, 68; of edu-
cating, 227; progress is, 199;
sense of, 397; to support system,
46

E

Earliest life peaceful, 152

Earliest stages of ethical law, 40

Educating, duty of, 227

Education, Book II, Chap. XV,
244

Education, 183, 215

Educational service, 238

Education and conscience, 253;
an extension of heredity, 247; by
faith, 259; completes aptitudes,
247; is unification, 227; moral,
neglected, 228; must condescend,
211

Effects of Environment, Book
III, Chap. X, 339

Efficiency, 166; of voluntary activ-
ity, 181

Effort purposeful, 9

Efforts, blind, 161 ; value of, 36

Egg-cell, 364

Egg heredity, 327; of frog, 327

Ego, the true, 200, 252, 369

Ego-plasm, 128; continuous life of,
369; immortal, 5

Egotism, 183

Egotist's idea of fitness, 75

Election, 223

Electoral right a trust, 235

Elemental hostility, 395

Elemental, perception of, 318

Elementary life, 312

Elementary Morality, Book I,
Chap. VII, 46

Elementary relations, harmonious,
148

Elevation of the few, 181

Elements, 317

Emancipation of Belief, Book
II, Chap. XIV, 238

Embryo, 328; simulates ancestors,
332; sets germ, 371

Embryology, Book III, Chap. IX,
332

Embryology confirms evolution, 338

Embryonic conservation of environ-
ment, 342

Emergency, 245

End not seen, 121

Endowment, life is, 407

Enduring beliefs truest, 254

Enemies, 93

Energy dormant, 352; of cell, end of,

370

Enjoyment of short life, animal, 92
Enlarged self, 44
Enormous changes, 124
Environment, 8, 64; does not evolve

creature, 279; embryonic, 342;

imposes habit, 172; is hostile, 15;

response to, 340; to be overcome,

195
Environment and Variation,
Book I, Chap. IX, 63

Epiblast, 330

Epidemic disease, 108

Equality, 180, 237; not found, 77;
theory, 105

Equipment, ancestral, 63; for peace-
ful life, 94; of animals, 18

Eradication, 99

Erect posture, 310

Errant nuclei, 354

420

Index

Error, 213

Errors pardonable, 165

Escape from consequences illusory,

33

Essence of being, 129

Eternal authority, 197

Ethical law, 40

Evasion, 33; impossible, 115

Evasions, iii

Events, all, are causes and effects,
14; conduct modifies, 15; made
different, 11

Evidence of conjugation, 367; suffi-
ciency, 262

Evidences, simple, of heredity, 56

Evil conduct, 407

Evils overcome, 196

Evolution, 278; always new, 280;
comprehension of, 303; now pre-
vailing, 31 5; of conduct is upward,
192

Evolutionary aspect of conduct, 4

Evolution is Progress, Book III,
Chap. II, 281

Evolution of Sex, Book III,
Chap. XII, 350

Evolutions different, 201

Exceptions to normal, 161

Exhaustion cell, 352

Existence in geological times, 30

Existing circumstances, 291

Expediency, 69, 164

Experience, 11, no; personal, 6

Experiences, 370; with facts, 114

Experimental variation, 208

Experiment, less of, 98

Experiments, Nature's, 61

Extension of scope, 195

Extension (of time) backward and
forward, 114

Extermination of unsuccessful, 410 ;
root and branch, 84

Extinct animals, 333

Extinction of aggressive races, 177

Extinction of faithless, 199

Exuberance of increase, 81

Failure, apparent, of law, 21; of
armed strength, 395; to teach, 249

Faith, Book II, Chap. XVII, 257

Faith, 397; a vehicle for education,
261; enables, 257; is of physical
sympathy, 257; redistributed by
sex, 260

Faithless, extinction of, 199

Family, 142; a small, 107; jointly
responsible, 103; unit, 107

Father and son, 246

Favored few, 193

Fecundated cell, 327

Fecundity, 87

Fellows not passive, 24; unsup-
ported by, 41

Female cells, 354

Fight, 48

Fighting compelled, 177

Final authority, 235; no type, 386

Finality, goal is not a, 191

First cause, 5; law of, 402

Fish, instincts of young, 41; shoal
of, 67; spawning, 78, 156; waste
of life of, 71

Fishes, gregarious, 174

Fission, 347

Fit conduct co-operative, 180

Fitness changes, 87, 209; in cohesion,
393; is first for today, 383; of
altruism, 1 70; takes new forms, 191

Fitter, survivors are, 76

Fittest, reward of, 123; survival of,

52, 145
Fixed, nothing in Nature, 339
Fleetness and grace, human, 310
Flexibility, 345
Flight disused, 56, 69
Foot, human, 305, 309; of horse, 305
Force, 222; right or a crime, 178
Foreign standard of conduct, 179
Foreknowledge, 137
Foresight absent in early progress,

381 ; human, 388; selective lessens

need of death, 98
Former activity repeated by germ,

365
Form, government of, 58; plan in

chromosomes, 328
Forms of cell, 322
Formulated moralities, 212
Fossils, 292; sequence of, 300
Fowl, egg development of, 332
Free Activities, Book III, Chap.

XX, 395
Free choice, 164
Free conduct, law of, 379
Freedom, 388; makes efficiency, 181 ;

of conscience, 256, 41 1 ; often errs,

213
Free ign^^rance, 213
Fugitive forms, 295
Full heredity, 327
Function of Death, Book I, Chap.

X,7i

Index

421

Fundamental altruism, 1 55

Fusion, 347; of cells, 347

Futile variations, 66

Future, 391, 404; a sublime, 136;

inferred, 383; promises of, 265;

regard for, 113; reward, 191;

rights of, 221

Gaiety of birds, 47

Gastrula, budding of, 343

Geological record still growing, 297

Geological times similar to present,
307

Geology and embryology, 338

Germ-cell single, 321; division pre-
cipitate, 365

Germ-plasm, 129 (see also Ego-
plasm) ; constructs new body for
itself, 130; continues part in
parent body, and part in new, 1 30 ;
location of, 369; takes sex, 362;
the unchanged, 361 ; undying, 362

Gift in trust, life is, 161

Goal indescribable, 194; not visible,
191

Goal of Aspiring Morality,
Book II, Chap. IX, 194

God, personal intervention by, 263

Good and bad, 262; is that which is
beneficial, 12

Good conduct, 407

Goodness relative, 39

Governed, the privileges of , 211

Governing restraining not com-
pelling, 224

Governmental duty, 248 -

Governmental control, 222

Government relinquishing control,
240; to maintain liberty, 232

Governor not a judge, 226

Govern, right to, 219

Graduated effects of death, 79

Gratification of just desires, 398

Gratifications, evil in, 188

Great contribution, the, 369

Greater corporations, 185

Greater life, the, 132, 372

Greater self of greater life, 157

Greater unit of life, 122, 142

Greatest benefit, 193

Gregarious animals, 54

Gregarious creatures, 174

Gregarious habit, 67

Groups, 102, 104

Growth, 324, 372; cumulative, 59;

of cell causing division, 347; not
necessarily aggressive, 153
Guidance in little things, 245; not
infallible, 283

H

Habit, 1 72 ; and form, 69

Habits, 56; selected for benefit, 67

Handmaid of life, 376

Harmony, 403

Haste, march of civilization without,
190

Haste, none, 296

Headhunters, 176

Hebrew story of creation, 317

Help, 34

Heredity, Book I, Chap. VIII, 54

Heredity, 5, 245; belongs to race,
377; of chromatin is responsive-
ness, 341

Heredity, part, 328

Heritability of variations, 367

Heretage of continued life, 132

Heterogeneous motives, 204

Higher conduct selfial, 44

Higher phases of organization, 412;
phases reached, 278

History explained by biology, 339;
in the rocks, 300; race repeated in
development of germ cell, 334

Home, liking for, 89

Hope, 284

Horns of cattle, 350

Horse, evolution of foot of, 305;
for speed, 92

Hostility is reaction, 275; of death,
81; of Nature softened, 192

Human being proper, 370

Human body, cells of, 320

Human Consciousness, Book III,
Chap. XIX, 390

Human distinction, 310

Human foot, 305, 309

Human foresight, 388

Human knowledge, 170

Human morality based on spon-
taneous, 49

Human organizations, 402

Human participation in Nature, 95

Human record, 301

Humanity extends justice to in-
dividuals, IOC; in evolution, 264;
in primitive liabilities, 19; late or
new, 313 ; one of many species, 308

Humanity in Limited Privilege,
Book III, Chap. XVIII, 384

422

Index

Humanity's strength is social, 99
Humanity under complex motives,

69
Hypoblast, 330

Idant, 366

Idealization, 136

Ideals, 210, 277; tentative, 169

Ignorance extermination of, 227

Illogical ideals, 7

Imagination, 7

Immortality, 5, 278; of germ-plasm,

404
Immortality, potential, 131, 142
Immunity against plagues, 196
Imperceptible life, 311
Imperfect abilities, 1 1
Imperfect knowledge, 319
Imperfection, tolerance of, 210
Impress of experiences upon germ,

370
Improvement of structure, 79
Impulse, 6, 160
Impulsive liberty, 9
Inaction is conduct, 1 1
Inanimate Nature passive, 15
Incomplete lives, 162
Inconceivable alternative, 74
Increase of numbers, 388
Indefinitely answerable, 103
Indefinite progress, 195
Independence, 34; increases, 250
Independent, conscience is, 252
Indian warriors, 209
Individual answerable, 27
Individual body an accessory, 129
Individual life a tenancy, 131
Indi'^ndual purposes, 185
Individual responsibility persists, 27
Individual self, 23
Individuality, Book I, Chap. V.,

32-
Indolence consequences of , no
Industrial faith, 397
Inevitable consequences, 15
Inexorable law, 106
Infallible, conscience is not, 251
Infancy, disability of, 230; needs

training, 247
Inference, 254; inherited, 170; of

future, 383
Inferiority, 76
Infinite ages, 124
Infinity, 318
Inheritance, 327; implies duty, 68;

Inherited altruism unreasoning,

1 60; habits, 55; inference, 170;

tendencies, 109
Injurious, 12
Injury, wilful, is evil, 10
Innocence, 151
Innocent, conscience is, 256
Innutrition, 352
Inseparable lives, 105
Inspired morality not antagonized

by Nature, 50
instinct, 164; and reason, 255;

instinct transmitted knowledge,

55

Instinctive altruism , 396

Instinctive animal altruism, 402

Instinctive belief, 2 1

Instinctive morality, 47

Instincts, 161, i64;of fish, 41

Institutions, religious, 229

Intellect and education, 248; per-
ceives fitness of altruism, 170;
slow action of, 245

Intellectual future, 391

Intellectual power, 389

Intellectual progress, 197

Intent, 9

Intention, 12

Interdependence of relations, 102

Interest, joint, 26

Interference, 25

Internal opposition, 208

Intervention, Divine, 263

Intrinsic value of rightness, 120

Introductory, Book I, Chap. I, 3

Introductory to Book III, 273

Intuition, 267; enlarged, 255

Invaders, 206

Involuntary inferences, 254

Irresponsibility self-destructive, 380

Islamism, 286

Is life worth living, 135

Isolation, 173; man's, 313

Israel, 287

Issue, the obscured, 40

Jails, 249

Joint interest, 26

Judge or governor, 226

Judicial authority, 226

Justice, death's, not for individual,

81
Justice in Death, Book I, Chap.

XI, 82
Justice in greater life, 408, 409 ; is for

race-unit, 83; purpose of, 87; to

individuals, 94, 100, 409

Index

423

K

Karyokinesis, Book III, Chap.

VIII, 325
Karyokinesis, 361
Kin a conduct- unit, 83
Kinfolk-unit, 83
King, 221
Knowledge, altruistically shared,

197; comparative, 284; educated,

248; in advance, human, 170; of

death, 90; the new, 3

Lake depopulated, 84

Land sinking, 297

Large units of conduct, 108

Late characters most changeable,

335

Later discernments less trusted, 253

Later fossils more durable, 299

Lavish life, 72

Law, 37; conduct is under a, 262;
inevitable, 106; inevitably just,
407; is old, 123; of compensation,
136; of compensatory justice, 1 1 1 ;
of evolution one for all, 282 ; of the
first cause, 402 ; rests on altruistic
regard, 226; search for, 244

Laws, and codes, 117; are warnings
of facts, 120; certain deduced, 97;
forbidding crimes, 211; obsolete or
respected, 120; old, re-established,
197; supernatural, 51

Leaders, 43, 339

Length of life, animals disregard,
90

Lessened need of death, 99

Liabilities primitive persist, 19

Liability for consequences, 14

Liberated humanity, 213

Liberty, 232, 234; does not mean
uncontrol, 378, 380; in beliefs,
239; promotes fitness, 398

Life, all from one origin, 125;
antiquity of, 132; becoming
nobler, 375; is a loan or trust, 74,
161; is it worth living, 135; not
guaranteed, 405; of individual
extended, 193; origin of, 125;
predatory or altruistic, 266; sur-
viving, 200

Life in Evolution, Book III, 271

Life-plasm immortal, 274; precedes
structure, 371

Life-producing principle, 264

Life's Value and Aim, Book I,

Chap. XVII, 134
Like conditions evolve like forms,

.314
Limited term of government, 223
Limits constitutional, 229
Lineal life, 266, 269, 277
Lineal unity, 105
Links, many missing, 312
Little things, guidance in, 245
Lives of sacrifice, 161
Living fowls, 334
Location of germ-plasm, 369
Long time involved, 113
Lost species, 313
Love, 242
Lowest forms of life do not die, 127

M

Maintenance, 171 ; of law, 229
Majority, 179; choice, 234; right of,

219
Male and female, 356; cell produc-
tion, 353
Mammalian offspring, 129
Mammals, womb of, 342
Man a product of evolution, 308;
maintained by mutual support,
95; not immune, 143; of science,
1 63 ; suffers as lower creatures for
error, 32
Manchu rulers of China, 206
Man's action part of Nature's, 92
Man's ancestry, misconception of,

309

Many series, 312

Master-cells, 360; plasm, 571

Material machine, 405

Material prosperity, 169

Material reward, 135, 142, 234

Maternal instinct, 189

Matrix, time a, 292

Matter, 23; answer of, 135; subjec-
tion of, to life, 413

Mathematical reasoning, 197

Meekness, excessive, 61

Men guided by leaders, 43

Mental and physical interdepend-
ent, 61

Mental power, 11, 389

Mentor of morality, 256

Merging and distributing by sex,
322

Mesoblast, 330

Metazoa, egg development of, 332

Microscopy, 319

424

Index

Militant rulers, 205

Military control, 399

Million days, 124

Minimum of control, 225

Minimum of liability, 73

Ministry in sickness, 166

Minority opposition, 118

Minute successes, 124

Miracle, second superfluous, 300

Misconception of man's ancestry,
309

Missionary efforts, 212

Misunderstanding of time, 291

Mixed conduct, 379

Mixture of motives, 172

Modem democracy, 218

Modification, 73

Modify environment, to, 391

Monkey ancestry, 309

Monotonous life, 67

Moral agencies old , disorganized ,228

Moral civilization growing, 189

Moral conduct, 3

Moral law natural, 189

Moral Motive, Book II, Chap.
VIII, 188

Moral neglect transitional, 241

Moral sense of birds, 48

Moral value of altruism, 150

Morality, 276; a guide, 137; bom of
association, 44; elementary, 46;
distinct schools of, 201; estab-
lished, 262; founded in benefit,
51; measure of, 267; not religion,
248; of both instinct and reason,
164; power for, 410; teaching of,
248

Morality of the Dual Life,
Book II, 139

Mortal bodies, 364

Mortal life, a fragment of greater,
278

Morula, 327, 361

Moses, 119, 249

Motherhood, 157, 258

Motile nuclei, 355

Motive, primitive persists, 69

Motives, 12; blend in right con-
duct, 178

Mourning of higher animals, 90

Multicellular Bodies, Book III,
Chap. XIV, 364

Multicellular life, 402

Mundane era, 291

Mutability, 293; a principle, 241

Mutual relations, 30

Mythology, Greek, 287

N

National organizations, 217

Nations armed, 189; relations ofj
229

Natural right, life not a, 72

Natural selection of moral conduct,
52

Nature compensates, 263; cmelty
of, 71 ; humanity part of, 134;
Nature's experiments, 61; seem-
ing contradictions, 105

Necessity, 166

Neglect of moral education, 228

Neighbors, 179

Nerve cells, 331

Nests, 71

New aspect, 404

New character in time heritable,
336; character slowly settled, 368;
chromatin not specialized, 341;
conditions met by new abilities,
88; evolution possible, 311; facts
foundation of morality, 273;
habits, 56; habits, some, inherit-
able, 66; impulse, 385; knowledge,
the, 3; the, needs general assent,
216; things experimental, 65;
units of pacific consciousness,
396

Next generation, germ for, 371

Nirvana, 74

No fixed standards, 204

Non-conformity to custom, 251

North American Indians, 176

Normal group, 105

Normal life rewarded, iii

Normal Nature, 5

Norman Conquest of England, 206

Nucleus, doubled, 348

Nursing, 163

Nutrition disturbances of, 61

O

Obedience, 42, 399

Object the, of altruism, rights of,

182
Obligation sense of, 54
Obligations to community, 46
Observable, change is, 304
Oblivion, 161

Obsolescence, death removes, 80
Obsolete dogmas, 241
Offense persistent, 222
Offenses against morality, 239
Official privileges, 22 1

Index

425

Offspring, 104, 154; of others, 168;
relations of, 160; whose, will sur-
vive, 75

Old character transmitted, 57

Older judgments, 253

Opportunity, greatest, 65

Opposite qualities useful, 86

Opposition, 25; consideration for,
29; to codes, 117

Options, 199

Order of free unity, 396

Order of principles, 263

Orderly progress, 204

Organization, Book III, Chap.
XXI, 401

Organization, 146; by faith, 261;
human, 267; humanity seeking
unity in, 201 ; in higher phases,
412; makes complex conscious-
ness, 393; perfect, is purpose, 275;
principle of, 374; purpose of au-
thority, 224; works for order, 401

Organizations owe support, 232

Organized society, activity of, 165

Organizing impulse chief factor, 191

Organs special for reproduction, 371

Oriental peoples, 176

Origin of life, 125

Origin of Moral Conduct, Book
I, I

Origin of variation, 64

Others interested, 25; recognition of,

390

Over favored, 136
Ovum, 370
Ownership, 48

Pacific conduct, 396

Pacific earliest life is, 152

Pacific savagery, 209

Pacific survive, 146

Pantheism, 286

Parallel, embryology with geology,

333
Parasitic luxury, 192
Pardonable errors, 165
Parentage altruistic, 154
Parental education, 247
Parents and children, 102
Participate, several, 30
Participation, mutual, 181
Passive endurance, 8
Paternal control moral, 214
Paternalism, 233
Patriarchal control, 215

Peaceable, benefit to, 30

Peace-loving neighbors, 35

People authority in, 223

Perception, enlarging, 121; limited,
121; of death, 99; of elemental
always changing, 317; of higher
progress, 376; of value of moral
motive, 188

Perfection, 74; development toward,
194

Perpetual youth, 129

Persistence, 143; of aptitudes, 203;
of primal motives, 49 ; of primitive
conduct, 381 ; of savagery, 112

Persisting ego is immortal, 129

Persist, simple laws, 21

Personal ambitions, 223

Personal experience, 6

Personal rulers, 219

Personal self-interest, 33

Philosophic principle, 403

Philosophic wisdom advances, 286

Physical basis of control, 216

Physical force, disuse of, 394

Physical Limitations, Book III,
Chap. VI, 316

Physical progress, 351

Physical specialization, 358

Physical well-being of thousands,

193
Plagues, 196

Plants, reproduction of, 129
Plumage, 335, 336
Polar bodies, 367
Polarity, 347
Political liberty, 388
Polytheism, 286
Popular control socialistic, 225
Popular expression, methods of, 223
Population, 195

Positive and negative goodness, 116
Positive endowment, life is, 407
Possession, 25

Possibilities of altruism, 192
Possible change, 304
Posterity suffers for evasions, in
Potential Immortality, Book I,

Chap. XVI, 128
Potentiality is not destiny, 279
Potentially immortal, 131, 264
Potent, today equally, 124
Poverty an advantage, 76
Power not right delegated, 224; to

do, 33
Predatory enemies, 93
Predatory life, 172; life self -limited,

174

426

Index

Predatory type, 222

Preference, individual, 21; of lineal
life, 266

Preparation for needs, 382

Present, 381 ; the perception of, 318

Present age, 189

Present environment, 382

Present fitness, 280

Present phase of conduct, 402

Preserved environment, 342

Presumption of rightness in codes,
118

Previous studies leviewed, 141

Primal motives, 49

Primary ethics persist, 40

Primary unit, 321

Primeval origin, 406

Primitive conduct, 29; persists, 381

Primitive forms of life, 126; lives, 17

Primitive principle, 198

Primitive responsibility is, 17

Primitive the, is explanatory, 74

Primitive view, 39

Principle, all-prevailing, 403; es-
tablished, 114, 164

Principles, 40; twenty-five, 264

Privilege, life is, 407

Privileges of the governed, 211;
relinquished, 165

Problems, 11

Procreation and faith, 259

Producer, not product, is germ-
plasm, 369

Product of evolution, 308

Progeny, 94; consequences to, 84

Progress, 286; a biological function,
376; by education, 228; continues,
190; death provides for, 73; im-
perative, 377; in conduct, 264;
is exacting, 199; means change, 98

Progressivestepsinorganization,402

Prolific animals, 85

Promises, 265

Proof, physical basis for, 277

Property, right in, 179; sacred, 48

Prophet inspired, 145

Prospect, 265

Prosperity, 169, 388; gained by
altruism, 234

Protection, 168

Protest idle, 409

Protoplasm, generation of, 319

Protoplasmic cell, 128

Protoplasmic units, 402

Protozoa, 18

Provisional instruments, codes are,
n8

Provocation in wealth, 180

Psychological impulse, 160

Psychological reasoning, 384

Psychological understanding in-
creases, 197

Public concern in teaching morality,
248

Public education, 228

Public schools, morality in, 249

Punishment, 73

Punishments, consequences not, 115

Punitive death, 72

Purification demanded, 243

Purpose, harmony of, 253 ; is benefit,
9; supposed in specialization, 167

Purposes, 384

Q

Qualifications, evolution adds, 376
Qualities inherited fiom past, lo8
Quality superiority of, 95

R

Race-heredity, 349

Race-life, 105, 141, 409; justice
comes to, loi

Race, Nature's justice for, 83

Race-neglect, punished, no

Race-rights not to be ignored, 231

Racial disability, 230

Realities of experience, 114

Reason, 164, 384; effect of, 73; in-
sufficient guide, 245; not at once
potent, 144

Reasoned basis, 4

Rebellion of new wisdom, 207

Receptivity, 257

Reciprocating protection, 168

Recognition of worth, 169

Reconstruction assured, 242

Reconstructive effects, 3

Recording fraction of cell, 370; of
acquired character, 366

Recurring change, 306

Reduction cell, 356

Re-establishment of old laws, 197

Reform, 251 ; political, 235

Refreshing of governing impulse,
223

Regeneration, 81, 241, 373; by germ-
piasm, 362

Regression, 379

Regressive change, 305

Regular type inherited, 57

Regulating function, 233

Index

427

Relations, 102; between nations, 229

Relationship, 134

Relation to Animate Nature,

Book I, Chap. IV, 24
Religions, ancient show intellectual

grade of teachers, 287; show

progress, 286
Religion still patriarchal, 238
Religious compulsion, 238
Religious institutions, 229
Religious teaching, 227
Relinquished function, 165
Remedial, death is, 80
Reminiscent development, 356
Remote future, 404
Remote inheritance, 112
Remote past, 404
Remote purposes, 384
Remoter consequences, 188
Removal again to race, 85
Representatives, 219, 234
Reproduction, 5, 371 ; of plants, 129
Reptiles, 342
Republic, 223
Reserved, germ cell is, 371
Resources, 177

Respect for power of others, 26
Responsibility for wrong not toward

victim, 35
Responsibility in Relation to

Nature, Book I, Chap. Ill, 14
Responsible ego, 406
Responsiveness in heredity, 341
Resting cell, 357
Restitution, 37

Restraining by government, 225
Restraining forces, 10
Restraint governmental, 224, 239
Restraints, 24, 38, 210
Results, 20; of conduct, evolution

shows, 281; proportionate to

rightness, 114
Retardation of progress, 182
Retrogression, 232
Revelation, 145
Reversions, 336
Revolution, 223
Revolutionary change, 384
Revolutionary struggle, 255
Reward beyond description, 198;

material, 135; of fittest, 123; the

material, 142
Right and wrong, 404
Right based in heredity, 236
Rightness not intrinsic, 179
Right of democracy, 226
Right prime impulse is, 152

Right rests on fitness, 220
Rights, individual limited, 224
Rights of property, 48, 50
Right to govern, 219
Robbery, 35
Rocks, history in, 300
Rulers are personal, 221
Running birds, 56

Sacrifice, 141; a function of in-
herited forces, 160; altruistic,
108; may be in error, 159; in
reproduction, 156

Safety reduces death, 98

Scale, time, small, 291

Science, confirmation in, 414; is
illumination for all, 197

Scientific research, man of, 163

Secondary acts, 37

Sectarian teachers, 241

Seedlings selected, 76

Segmentation repeats, 332

Selection by survival, of deer, 89;
human, is natural, 90; in survival,

Self-conscious self-evolution, 394

Self-control, 378

Self -corrective, selfishness is, 199

Self-defence, 177

Self-interest, 8

Self -investigating race, 136

Selfishness is undue self-regard, 28;
optional, 199; penalized, 38; self-
corrective, 199

Self-love, 28

Self-preservation, 265; by altruism,
158; capacity for, 18; impulse of,
122

Self-recognized progress, 390

Self-regard imperative, 28; not
selfish, 28

Self-sacrifice demanded, 377

Self-unit expands, 29

Sense of duty, 397

Sequence of forms, 300; of fossils,
300

Service test of, 65

Sex, 353; disability of, 230; function
of I 58, 356, 363; function second-
ary, 130; maintains altruism, 156;
maintains faith, 258; remedies
deficiencies, 60

Sexless reproduction, 322

Sexual differences, 355

Sexual reproduction, 347

428

Index

Shapes of cells, 322
Shell fish, 32
Shifting burdens, 166
Shyness instinctive, 86
Sickness, ministry in, 166
Simians, 310
Similarities, 363
Simple, upward from, 7
Simplicity of many forms, 311; to

complexity, 400
Sincerity, 257; respected, 250
Single-celled creatures, 339
Sinking of land, 297
Sin, separated from crime, 239
Sins of the fathers, 106
Sister lives, 166
Skill, 180
Skin-cells, 330
Skin changes, 306
Slow action of intellect, 245
Slowness acceptable, 302 ; of change,

289
Smaller numbers of progeny, 94
Small part of man in geological

record, 307
Social alliance, 153
Social complexity, 20
Social instinct the basis of higher

conduct, 43
Socialism, 233

Socialistic type of government, 225
Social units diversified, 217
Societies, 217
Society, 165
Solitary habits, 174
Solitudes, animals of the, 174
Somatic cell, germ cell emits, 365;

record acts, 367; functions of

germ cells, 370
Source of authority, 220
Source of rightness is Nature, 118
Specialization, gain by, 166; physi-
cal, 358
Specialized animals changing, 124
Specialized cells, 323, 328
Specialized labor, 163
Specialized leadership, 225
Specialized Life, Book II, Chap.

IV, 164
Specialized teachers, 241
Species, 295; establishment of, 402
Sperm nuclei, 365
Spider, methods of, 65
Spiritual value, 375
Spoiled, the, who fear, 136
Spontaneous variation tiansmitted,

367

Spores, 352

Squirrels, fearless in paiks, 86
Stability of government, 226
Standard not possible, 413
Standards, 116; not fixed, 39, 276;

progress upsets, 206
Steadfastness, 164, 345
Sterile women, 76
Sterility humane eradication, 99
Strength in mutual support, 205;

vital, 94
Strongest not always fittest, 76
Structure cells, some mature, 370
Stiuggle, is life worth the, 135
Subjection, 162; to laws, 16; to

others, 34
Sublime future, 136
Subordinate cells, 360
Subversion of instincts, 161
Success, 9
Successful survive, 410; use of

ability, 16
Successive generations, 83
Suffering not compensated, 35
Sufficiency of evidence, 262
Summary and Conclusion, Book

III, Chap. XXII, 404
Superfluous miracle, 300
Superiority, 95, 151, 202; denied,

224
Superior skill, 180
Superior wisdom, 221
Superlative wisdom, 171
Supernatural control, 262
Supernatural laws, 51
Support, 259

Supposition of purpose, 167
Suppressed impulses, 160
Suppression of life necessary, 72
Surplus accumulating, 1 10
Survival, conscience is a, 254;

morality compared foi, 146; by

continued fitness, 386; of fittest,

71,75, 191, 393; of variations, 201
Survive, who will, 75
Surviving variation, 349
Swallows, conduct of, 47
Synopsis, 274
System, none immutable, 236; of

compensations, 5
Systems, two contrasted, 151

Teaching of laws, 249
Technicality of expression, 4
Temporal power, loss of, 240

Index

429

Temporary departures, 177

Temporary privilege, 74

Ten commandments, 119

Tendencies, 109; of cultivation, 170

Tendency toward unity, 275

Tentative ideals, 169

Term of government, 223

Terrestrial habit, 344

Test for survival, 147; we are now
in the, 133

Theism, 286

Theologies, 242

Thought, independence of, 250

Thousands of years, 291

Time and Consequence, Book I,
Chap. XIV, 112

Time and the Geological
Record, Book III, Chap. Ill,
289

Time, appreciation of, 124; avail-
able, 190, 290; extension, 114; un-
limited, 315

Today equally potent with past,
124; fitness for, 383

Today is Always the Day of
Evolution, Book HI, Chap.
XVIl, 381

Toleiance, 181, 183; extending, 206;
habits of, 173; of imperfection,
210

Toleration, 146

Torpor in excellence, 202

Toxic products, 61

Trade, 212

Traders, faith of, 397

Tradition, governmental, 223

Training, 247

Transitional aggiession, 175

Transitory nature of definitions, 179

Transmission of acquired character,

58; . .

Transmission of variations, 367
Transportability, 354
Trees, nests in, 56
Trend of movement, 190
Tribe, 142
True democracy highest evolution,

400
True ego, 200

True ego is that of greater life, 372
True Ego, The, Book III, Chap,

XV, 369
Trust a, fulfillment of, 160
Trust, faith is, 258
Trust, life is a, 74, 269
Truths, two in evolution, vital, 315
Tunicata, 386

Twenty-five principles, 264

Two types of conduct, 275

Type of altruistic government, 223

Type regular, 57

Types definite, 351

Typical features, abstract of, 357

U

Ultimate eflfects, 116

Uncertain future, 383

Uncertainty, 282

Unconscious morality, 46

Understanding, 197

Undying ego, 130

Undying germ -plasm, 362

Unfixed heredity, 331

Unicellular life, 402

Uniformity, 349

Unintelligent association, 41

Unions, 217, 232

Units enlarge with broader morality,

214
Units larger, 393
Units of activity, 374
Units of lineage, family tribe, 142
Unity, 413

Unity by education, 182
Unity by faith, 261, 397
Unity of Life, Book I, Chap. XV,

122
Universal motive, 401
Universe, knowledge of, 197
Unlimited time, 289
Unreasoning devotion, 160
Unseen results still real, 22
Unseen right, 188
Unworthy, 199
Upsetting of standards, 206
Upward progress in all life, 285
Useful animals bred by man, 91
Useful new things, 65
Useless sacrifice, 193

V

Value in sacrifice, 193

Value of support, 68

Vanity, 221

Variable Ideals, Book II, Chap.

X, 201
Variable Organization, Book II,

Chap. XI, 208
Variation, 342

Variation, freedom promotes, 234
Variation, needed for higher life, 97

430

Index

Variation, not accidental, 388
Variations, 64, 367, 368
Variations, amalgamated, 351
Variation the rule, 64
Varied life promotes rapid change,

67
Vertebrata, 385
Vertebrate structure, 314
Victim of wrong, 35
Violent champions, 213
Virtue, 39

Virtue, not to be compelled, 211
Virtues, ancestral, 112
Virtues, distributed, 260
Virtues, evolution of, 375
Visible need, 113
Vision enlarges, 191
Vocabularies unintelligible, 4
Volition, 8, 225, 380
Voluntary, altruism is, 168
Voluntary association and activities,
.181

W

Waning of certain powers, 306
War conduct, 204
Warnings, laws are, 120
Waste, 276

Wasteful methods, 173
Watch dog, 56

Weaklings, expulsion of, 172

Wealth or poverty, 76

Wealth, value of, in

Wealth which provokes, 180

Weeding out, death a, 88

Whence come we, 316

Wliither going, 316

Why morality in animals, 52, 54

Will, 19

Wings of fowls, 335

Wisdom, 171; habitual inherited,
245; not infallible, 410 ; sees re-
sponsibility, 33; to be acceptable,
226

Workers, good faith of, 397

Work of birds, 48

World-contact new, 202

World population, 195

Worth, 169

Wrongdoing, persistence in, 143

Yesterday, a thousand years but as,

291
Young, fitness of the, 77
Youth and age, 6

Zeal in new actions, 255

T<?

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