230 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



lished on purely prudential grounds, the same holds good of rela- 

 tions between human beings themselves. Men begin to perceive 

 that, even from a purely personal point of view, peace is prefer- 

 able to war. If war is unhappily still prevalent, it is at least not 

 war in which every clan is fighting with its neighbors, and where 

 conquest means slavery or extirpation. Millions of men are at 

 peace within the limits of a modern state, and can go about their 

 business without cutting each other's throats. When they fight 

 with other nations they do not enslave nor massacre their prison- 

 ers. Taking the purely selfish ground, a Hobbes can prove con- 

 clusively that everybody has benefited by the social compact 

 which substituted peace and order for the original state of war. 

 Is this, then, a reversal of the old state of things a combating of 

 a " cosmic process " ? I should rather say that it is a development 

 of the tacit alliances, and a modification so far of the direct or in- 

 ternecine conflict. Both were equally implied in the older condi- 

 tions and both still exist. Some races form alliances, while others 

 are crowded out of existence. Of course, I cease to do some things 

 which I should have done before. I don't attack the first man I 

 meet in the street and take his scalp. The reason is that I don't 

 expect that he will take mine ; for, if I did, I fear that even as a 

 civilized being, I should try to anticipate his intentions. This 

 merely means that we have both come to see that we have a com- 

 mon interest in keeping the peace. And this, again, merely means 

 that the alliance which was always an absolutely necessary condi- 

 tion of the survival of the species has now been extended through 

 a wider area. The species could not have got on at all if there 

 had not been so much alliance as is necessary for its reproduction 

 and for the preservation of its young for some years of helpless- 

 ness. The change is simply that the small circle which included 

 only the primitive family or class has extended, so that we can 

 meet members of the same race on terms which were previously 

 confined to the minuter group. We have still to exterminate and 

 still to preserve. The mode of employing our energies has 

 changed, but not the essential nature. 



Morality proper, however, has so far not emerged. It begins 

 when sympathy begins ; when we really desire the happiness of 

 others ; or, as Kant says, when we treat other men as an end and 

 not simply as a means. Undoubtedly this involves a new principle 

 no less than the essential principle of all true morality. Still I 

 have to ask whether it implies a combating or a continuation of a 

 cosmic process. Now, as I have observed, even the animal mother 

 shows what I have called a de facto altruism. She has instincts 

 which, though dangerous to the individual, are essential for the 

 race. The human mother sacrifices herself with a consciousness 

 of the results to herself, and her personal fears are overcome by 



