498 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



I do not see how the original assertion can survive after this ad- 

 mission has been made. Practically the last cancels the first. If 

 the ethical process is a part of the process of evolution or cosmic 

 process, then how can the two be put in opposition? Prof. Huxley 



says : — 



" The struggle for existence, which has done such admirable 

 work in cosmic nature, must, it appears [according to the view he 

 opposes], be equally beneficent in the ethical sphere. Yet, if that 

 which I have insisted upon is true; if the cosmic process has no sort 

 of relation to moral ends; if the imitation of it by man is inconsistent 

 with the first principles of ethics; what becomes of this surprising 

 theory?"— P. 34. 



But when we find that the hypothetical statement, " if the cosmic 

 process has no sort of relation to moral ends," is followed by the posi- 

 tive statement that " the cosmic process " has " a sort of relation to 

 moral ends," we may ask, " what becomes of this surprising " criti- 

 cism? Obviously, indeed, Prof. Huxley cannot avoid admitting 

 that the ethical process, and, by implication, the ethical man, are 

 products of the cosmic process. For if the ethical man is not a 

 product of the cosmic process, what is he a product of? 



The view of which Prof. Huxley admits the truth in note 19 is 

 the view which I have perpetually enunciated: the difference being 

 that instead of relegating it to an obscure note, I have made it a 

 conspicuous component of the text. As far back as 1850, when I 

 did not yet recognize evolution as a process co-extensive with the 

 cosmos, but only as a process exhibited in man and in society, I con- 

 tended that social progress is a result of " the ethical process," saying 

 that — 



" the ultimate man will be one whose private requirements coincide 

 with public ones. He will be that manner of man who, in spontane- 

 ously fulfilling his own nature incidentally performs the functions 

 of a social unit; and yet is only enabled so to fulfil his own nature, 

 by all others doing the like." — Social Statics, " General Considera- 

 tions." 



And from that time onwards I have, in various ways, insisted 

 upon this truth. In a chapter of the Principles of Ethics entitled 

 " Altruism versus Egoism," it is contended that from the dawn of 

 life altruism of a kind (parental altruism) has been as essential as 

 egoism; and that in the associated state the function of altruism be- 

 comes wider, and the importance of it greater, in proportion as the 

 civilization becomes higher. Moreover, I have said that — 



