THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY 51 



of the term " the Struggle for Existence " must be modified. 

 " Struggle " becomes preponderatingly " peaceful co-operative 

 endeavour." 



Let us then, for the sake of clearness, make the necessary 

 discriminations in every case by emphasising everywhere the 

 difference between a life of honest labour and what this involves 

 in health and in capacity of survival, and a life of mere self- 

 regarding expediency and what this, contrariwise, involves in 

 disease, in antagonism, in impoverishment. 



Some of Darwin's formulas, therefore, are susceptible of new 

 or modified interpretations. Indeed, when tested afresh in the 

 light of the facts concerning Symbiosis, they may be said actually 

 to provoke those very interpretations for which I have contended. 

 The " Natural Selection " of " the most favoured races in the 

 Struggle for Existence " becomes the " selection," or rather 

 " survival " of " the most useful," when once it is clearly estab- 

 lished that the balance of " favour " in the cosmic scales inclines 

 towards those whose protoplasm is the best endowed ; and this 

 is a consequence of widely useful work and its capitalisation 

 in the heritage of the germ. My modification of Darwin's theory 

 thus differs from that of Samuel Butler, who posits an antithesis 

 of " Luck or Cunning " and also from Herbert Spencer's view 

 that " inheritance of acquired characters " is an alternative to 

 crude " Natural Selection " by struggle. I reject, in short, 

 all " non-moral " hypotheses on the ground that they can at best 

 give us only very partial presentments of the truth. Neither 

 " luck," nor " cunning," have, in my opinion, produced the 

 result of Evolution. Useful work, coupled with the principle of 

 " live and let live " has been and is the most potent law of 

 progress. Looking across the ages with a comprehensive glance, 

 I can detect no other agency capable of such achievements 

 as we see. A thesis of this character is obviously sweeping and 

 important enough to deserve further examination. The reader 

 will indeed demand more evidence to show that this equitable 

 principle of " live and let live " has really operated throughout 

 as persistently and consistently as it is here alleged to have 

 done. He will also urge that there are other criteria of 

 morality besides those of usefulness, and he will ask whether 

 they apply as aptly as do those of bio-social usefulness. 



The answer in either case is in the affirmative. 



For material to go upon we cannot do better than to turn first 



