EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



And the sunlight clasps the earth, 

 And the moonbeams kiss the sea: 



What are all these kissings worth, 

 If thou kiss not me?" 



But, of course, it will not do, except in poetry, to 

 attribute to oxygen and nitrogen let alone argon, 

 the supine a "sweet emotion." Merely recog- 

 nizing the truth, which, as far as I know, still re- 

 quires expression, that the necessity of morality 

 of the just interrelation of individual with indi- 

 vidual is a necessary inference from the fact 

 that the universe is not many, but one, that "all 

 things by a law divine, in one another's being 

 mingle," let us consider the lowest and most 

 primitive forms of living matter and see whether 

 the germs of morality are to be found in the germs 

 of life. 



According to Spencer, as we have already seen, 

 they are to be so found; from the dawn of life 

 altruism has been no less essential than egoism. 

 The simplest living cell that divides, and loses its 

 individuality in two new individuals, is already 

 shadowing forth the sublimest acts of human self- 

 sacrifice. At every succeeding stage we find the 

 scope and the mere utilitarian importance of self- 

 sacrifice increasing in the worker -bee, in the 

 vertebrate kingdom with ever-increasing emphasis, 

 until we arrive at man, not one solitary example 

 of whom has ever lived for seven days without the 

 indispensable aid of morality. Thus I not merely 

 deny that morality is a product of man, but assert 

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