EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



normally bring a balance of pain over pleasure, the 

 saving of life would be criminal, the "giving of 

 one's life for others" would be an abominable 

 selfishness, murder would be the highest virtue, 

 and Napoleon, therefore in effect the saint of 

 saints. Whoso is unprepared to admit these con- 

 clusions is ipso facto committed to a denial of pes- 

 simism. 



Having found the simple principle that unifies 

 all our conceptions of evi^ toothache, death, self- 

 indulgence we may now consider the future of 

 moral evil. 



In the last chapter we saw reason to believe, 

 despite the Nietzscheans, that altruism is an in- 

 alienable law of organic nature. 



But even this is not an adequate expression of 

 the faith that is in the evolutionist ; for he believes 

 not only in the permanence of altruism, but in its 

 ultimate triumph. The student of the Principles 

 of Ethics finds cause to believe human nature, 

 thank Heaven, not being the same in all ages 

 that men will one day become so adapted to the 

 social environment that right conduct will be as 

 natural as is the act of breathing by reason of the 

 adaptation of the respiratory apparatus to the 

 atmospheric environment. The unbounded prej- 

 udice which attends the efforts of academic criti- 

 cism has caused Herbert Spencer's prediction to 

 be called "somewhat dreary"; and exponents of 

 the free-will theory and the punishment -reward 

 morality see little to please them in the prospect 

 296 



