EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



mammalia, and even of consciousness in its low- 

 est recognizable forms that the world of living 

 things is closely and necessarily interrelated; so 

 that conscious morality, or the modification of 

 conduct by the consideration that others may be 

 affected by it, found in the facts of the organic 

 world the necessary condition for its development 

 the fact that no individual organism is inde- 

 pendent of its fellows. Thus, to consider morality 

 from the lowest stand-point of mere physical utility, 

 without any reference to its spiritual value, to the 

 nobility it evokes, to the supreme achievements of 

 love or heroism, we may see that the evolution 

 and persistence of morality is explicable by some 

 such theory as the survival of the fittest. All the 

 conditions of the environment despite the more 

 obvious and plausible advantages of pure selfish- 

 ness, have favored the survival of this most fit and 

 noble thing. To put it on the lowest ground, mo- 

 rality pays " honesty is the best policy " because 

 union is strength, and without morality there can 

 be no union. This principle may be illustrated 

 even in a somewhat paradoxical way ; for the bur- 

 glar is more likely to succeed, and will prefer to 

 work, with a fellow whom he can trust, showing 

 the value of a moral element even in the conduct 

 of an immoral enterprise. When rogues fall out, 

 honest men come by their own. 



Leaving, then, those who say that morality is 

 the child of faith, and that "Christianity is the 

 only hope for the world," as if Christianity or 

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