66 No Purpose of Equality. CHAP. 



start equally in the conflict, or to bring all to an 

 equality when it is ended. On the contrary, Creative 

 purpose aims not at the highest average of ex- 

 cellence, but at the highest degree and the greatest 

 variety of excellence. 



The same laws and agencies of progress which 

 we have seen to prevail in the world of organic life, 

 prevail also in political, moral and spiritual life 

 not merely analogous laws and agencies, but the 

 same. It is one of the most familiar truths, that 

 in human society all improvement begins from 

 individuals ; a new truth never dawns at first on a 

 multitude ; when it has made itself known to a few, 

 it has still to struggle for general reception ; and in 

 the world of human thought and action, as in the 

 world of organic life, progress is due to free com- 

 petition and the victory and preservation of the 

 best. It is only in virtue of this principle that 

 freedom can be justified. The ever-repeated argu- 

 ment against freedom is that when the mass of 

 mankind have attained it, they do not know how 

 to use it aright ; and this may be true ; but freedom 

 is none the less right and good. As, in the organic 

 world, very many more seeds are produced than 

 can be matured, so, in the human world, an im- 

 mensely large proportion of effort is, and must be, 

 wasted. But it is only by permitting freedom of 

 effort in all directions, with its unavoidable con- 

 comitant of waste, that any valuable results can be 



