90 



FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 



sipation, stimulation, tricks on the nervous system of 

 any sort whatever give only a counterfeit happiness. 

 Subjective joys are followed by subjective misery. 

 There is "no pleasure in them." "The very fiends 

 weave ropes of sand rather than taste pure hell in idle- 

 ness." 



There is a wild joy in " Nature red in tooth and 

 claw " that is not found in static life. And while higher 

 development brings higher pleasures, these bear the 

 same relation to self-activity. The pressure of envi- 

 ronment gives only pain in itself. Ennui is chronic 

 pain. Nature's warning against the dry rot of functional 

 inactivity. To enjoy life, man or animal must be doing, 

 working, thinking, fighting, loving, helping — something 

 positive. And no thought or feeling of the mind is com- 

 plete till it has somehow wrought itself into action. 



VI. Altruism. — Another of the great forces in or- 

 ganic development is mutual help, or altruism. Where 

 organisms come into any sort of relation one with an- 

 other, there must be some conditions more favourable 

 than others. The law of altruism is the expression of 

 the best relation of one organism to another of its own 

 kind or type. The words good, better, are expressive 

 of human affairs. They are subjective terms, referring 

 to the welfare of the individual. In the general sense, 

 that is good which makes more or higher life possible. 

 That is good in Nature which " gives life more abun- 

 dantly." It is good to " make two blades of grass grow 

 where only one grew before." It is good also to make 

 possible the growth of a specialized and highly adapted 

 form, where only creatures of a lowly organization had 

 existed before. Altruism is the expression of the per- 

 manence of mutual respect and mutual forbearance. 

 The rule we call golden is the expression of strength as 

 well as of right. It is not true that "might is right" 



