202 THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE v 



beauty, or by the arts, and especially by music; 

 but they are products of, rather than factors in, 

 evolution, and it is probable that they are known, 

 in any considerable degree, to but a very small 

 proportion of mankind. 



The conclusion of the whole matter seems to 

 be that, if Ormuzd has not had his way in this 

 \vorld, neither has Ahriman. Pessimism is as 

 little consonant with the facts of sentient exist- 

 ence as optimism. If we desire to represent the 

 course of nature in terms of human thought, and 

 assume that it was intended to be that which it 

 is, we must say that its governing principle is in- 

 tellectual and not moral; that it is a materialized 

 logical process, accompanied by pleasures and 

 pains, the incidence of which, in the majority of 

 cases, has not the slightest reference to moral 

 desert. That the rain falls alike upon the just and 

 the unjust, and that those upon whom the Tower 

 of Siloam fell were no worse than their neigh- 

 bours, seem to be Oriental modes of expressing the 

 same conclusion. 



In the strict sense of the word " nature/' it 

 denotes the sum of the phenomenal world, of that 

 which has been, and is, and will be; and society, 

 like art, is therefore a part of nature. But it is 

 convenient to distinguish those parts of nature in 

 which man plays the part of immediate cause, as 

 something apart; and, therefore, society, like art. 



