MISSING FACTOR IN CURRENT THEORIES 25 



Other in ministration. One begets competition, self- 

 assertion, war ; the other unselfishness, self-efface- 

 ment, peace. One is Individualism, the other, 

 Altruism. 



To say that no ethical content can be put into 

 the discharge of either function in the earlier 

 reaches of Nature goes without saying. But 

 the moment we reach a certain height in the de- 

 velopment, ethical implications begin to arise. 

 These, in the case of the first, have been read into 

 Nature, lower as well as higher, with an exaggerated 

 and merciless malevolence. The other side has 

 received almost no expression. The final result is 

 a picture of Nature wholly painted in shadow — a 

 picture so dark as to be a challenge to its Maker, 

 an unanswered problem to philosophy, an abiding 

 offence to the moral nature of Man. The world 

 has been held up to us as one great battlefield 

 heaped with the slain, an Inferno of infinite suffering, 

 a slaughter-house resounding with the cries of a 

 ceaseless agony. 



Before this version of the tragedy, authenticated 

 by the highest names on the roll of science, 

 humanity was dumb, morality mystified, natural 

 theology stultified. A truer reading may not wholly 

 relieve the first, enlighten the second, or re-instate 

 the third. But it at least re-opens the inquiry; and 



