44 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS i 



nature, their dose of original sin, is rooted out by 

 some method at present unrevealed, at any rate 

 to disbelievers in supernaturalism, every child 

 born into the world will still bring with him the 

 instinct of unlimited self-assertion. He will have 

 to learn the lesson of self-restraint and renuncia 

 tion. But the practice of self-restraint and re 

 nunciation is not happiness, though it may be 

 something much better. 



That man, as a political animal, is sus 

 ceptible of a vast amount of improvement, by edu 

 cation, by instruction, and by the application of his 

 intelligence to the adaptation of the conditions 

 of life to his higher needs, I entertain not the 

 slightest doubt. But, so long as he remains liable 

 to error, intellectual or moral ; so long as he is 

 compelled to be perpetually on guard against the 

 cosmic forces, whose ends are not his ends, without 

 and within himself; so long as he is haunted by 

 inexpugnable memories and hopeless aspirations ; 

 so long as the recognition of his intellectual limita 

 tions forces him to acknowledge his incapacity to 

 penetrate the mystery of existence ; the prospect 

 of attaining untroubled happiness, or of a state 

 which can, even remotely, deserve the title of 

 perfection, appears to me to be as misleading an 

 illusion as ever was dangled before the eyes of poor 

 humanity. And there have been many of them. 



That which lies before the human race is a 

 constant struggle to maintain and improve, in 



