The Evolution of JliiiiL 195 



to think. The pain and agony endured by our progenitors 

 has attuned our systems to a thrill of pain at the sight of 

 another's sufferings. On seeing a fellow-being suffer we 

 mentally picture ourselves in the same state. This evokes 

 a quiver of pain in us that is an incessant impulse teaching 

 mercy and leniency. To be cruel is to punish ourselves. 

 As every step of progress is taken toward greater defluite- 

 ness, this trait is likely to be a growing one, keeping pace 

 with advancing civilization. Our minds will become keener 

 in appreciating the suffering of our fellows.* This will 

 heighten our j^ain at another's agony, and increase our joy 

 when able to' relieve the same. Nature thus seems bound 

 to lay upon us her lash for wrong-doing until the race is 

 willing to clasp hands as a common brotherhood. Such is 

 the Gospel according to Evolution. The sense of right and 

 wrong as mental traits is seen to exist in domestic animals, 

 but with nothing like the definiteness nor heterogeneity it 

 has in ourselves. The more intelligent the being, the more 

 numerous the shades of wrong-doing that can be perceived. 

 Our morality transcends that of the savage, as his in turn 

 transcends that of the brute. f The evolution of Mind being, 

 as before pointed out, an increase in correspondence between 

 itself and the universe around it, the ethical as})ect thereof 

 would seem to be the coming one for future adjustments. 

 At the very basis of known mental life, every act seeks to 

 avoid pain and increase comfort, t Each new mental power 

 is a help in this direction. 



On ascending above simple physical life to the intellectu- 

 al, we perceive everything conspiring for the same common 

 aim. Life is only worth living when it gives more pleasure 

 than pain. The growth of intellect enables us to avoid 

 many forms of ])ain, and the synthesis of pleasurable feel- 

 ings of many kinds heightens joy. The highest form of 

 such synthetic products is love. The elemental form of 

 love appears in every pleasure of every kind, but its high- 

 est manifestation is altruistic. When intellect has become 

 fully wedded to unselhsh love, the ideal man will have ap- 

 peared. § Then happiness will be at its maximum, and the 

 soul-felt desires of millions of generations will have been 

 heard as prayers and answered as facts. Love is the high- 



* Spencer's Data of Ethics, p. 249 (1880). 



t Fiske's Cosmic Phil<)S()i)liv, Vol. 2, p. 350. 



t Spencer's I'sycholofry, Vol. 1, p. 284, § 127 (1872). 



§ Spencer's Data of Ethioe, p. 149 (1880). 



