EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



which the genius of Herbert Spencer has finally 

 solved. In controversion of the theory which 

 has been upheld by so many religions, that the 

 pleasurable is evil and deleterious, and vice versa, 

 Spencer has demonstrated that the pleasurable 

 is normally correlated with health, and that the 

 painful brings disease and ultimately death. Plain- 

 ly, pain is none other than dis-ease. 



Once this principle is grasped, the problem is 

 solved. The very fact that we wish to live, that 

 there is a struggle for life at all, implies a balance 

 of pleasure over pain. Further, the law of natural 

 selection is seen, despite Tennyson's indictment 

 of nature as "red in tooth and claw," to be benefi- 

 cent; for the fittest are necessarily the happiest, 

 and the survival of the fittest necessarily means 

 the survival of the happiest, the extinction of 

 those least fitted for happiness. To question this 

 conclusion is to question that health and happi- 

 ness are correlated. It is thus a necessary part 

 of the constitution of sentient things, and has ever 

 been so, that pleasure has predominated over pain. 

 This fact is a refutation of, at any rate, complete 

 pessimism. 



Let us now look to the future, and inquire into 

 the grounds for expecting an amelioration of phys- 

 ical evil pain, disease, and death. 



Though it need not be doubted that scientific 



discovery which teaches us to dose bacilli with 



carbolic acid, and so forth can be subsumed under 



the law of evolution, and though much might be 



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