2i6 evolution: the ages and tomorrow 



that the evolution of the mind-matter continuum can pro- 

 gress in the conscious aspects of intellect. The highest learn^ 

 ing and hence the highest knowledge can come only through 

 the cooperative efforts of many individuals spread out in 

 space and along the line of time. This principle has been 

 stressed from the beginning, namely, that the cooperative 

 life of mutual aid is an absolute requirement for understand-- 

 ing. The basic ethic of the animal kingdom consists of mu- 

 tual helpfulness, an urge for the companionship of others, 

 and the close association through which experience is 

 shared. It is an ethic that nature, beginning with the inti- 

 macy between parent and offspring, strives to perfect. As 

 an ethic it rises to high levels in the eventual organization 

 of configurations through which the innate psychic quality 

 of the cosmos may find a fuller expression. We may, then, 

 judge an ethic through the criteria of the evolution of mu- 

 tual aid and of understanding. That which leads to higher 

 levels is relatively good; that which does not is relatively 

 evil. 



Within wide latitudes the ethics of a culture have little 

 bearing on the mere survival of that culture; hence one would 

 feel that emphasis on the criterion of understanding is very 

 necessary if the culture is to reach a high level. As long as 

 there is some mutual aid and some level of unconscious and 

 conscious controls, the culture survives. Numerous primitive 

 societies, many with brutal and "false-to-fact" orientation, 

 are still with us. Or, the values of a society may be exceed- 

 ingly gentle, peace-loving to a high degree, yet so definitely 

 stupid and fixed in patterns of superstition as hardly to be 

 desirable. Even a great culture like that of India has survived 

 in spite of a central doctrine of the transmigration of souls 

 which has led its believers into the great social injustice of 

 the "untouchable" castes and an almost complete ignoring 

 of the problems of this world in favor of a mystical progress 

 in the hereafter toward Brahman. 



