44 ETHICAL ASPECTS OF EVOLUTION 



species ? Or is it based on some ground or other which in 

 any intelligible sense of the word can be called reasonable ? 



A very short answer to this question can be given at once. 

 If the history of evolution has been the equal growth of 

 opposites, this formula will certainly include positive and 

 negative values. There will remain no balance over when 

 either is subtracted from the other, and the positive value 

 of life, as a general abstraction, will be zero. But if we 

 consider particular lives, the value of each will be propor 

 tionate to the balance of positive value which it has realized. 

 Or, if a more general statement be insisted on, it may be 

 said that life is valuable in proportion to the greatness of 

 the positive values which it offers us the prospect of realizing. 

 The life of a free man is of more value than the life of a slave. 

 Here, however, it must be remembered that, in offering 

 positive values, life at the same time offers negative values 

 in the same proportion, and what the actual resultant 

 balance of value shall be is a matter which (from the point 

 of view of ethics) depends entirely for each man on himself. 



Before proceeding further, it is necessary first to qualify 

 what has been said already, and then to limit its effect. 

 The qualification is this : it is not to be understood that 

 advance on both sides is exactly equal for every short period 

 of time taken at haphazard. In the history of the individual 

 despondency alternates with hope ; the lively pleasures of 

 growth are succeeded by the sober balance of middle age, 

 and that, again, by the torpor of decay, or the pangs of a 

 violent dissolution. Much also depends on the natural 

 disposition. One man differs from another in his sensitive 

 ness, not only to both generally, but also to either separately, 

 and either pain or pleasure may predominate in the total 

 sum of his experience. So it seems to be with nations. The 

 same nation is not always equally prosperous, but has its 

 vicissitudes, its expansion, and its ultimate extinction ; 

 and one nation differs from another in its natural capacity 

 for enjoyment or for suffering. The conclusion at which 

 we have arrived holds good only for extended periods, and 

 on a general survey of mankind, and has no mathemati- 



