k 



THE QUESTION RESTATED 



ance of sexual and parental functions ; the main- 

 tenance of such family groups involved the set- 

 ting up of permanent reciprocal necessities of 

 behaviour among the members of the group ; 

 in this way the ultimate test of right and wrong 

 action came to be the welfare of the commu- 

 nity, instead of the welfare of the individual ; 

 the long process of social evolution thus inau- 

 gurated has all along reacted upon individual 

 evolution, by increasing the power of mental 

 representation and nourishing sympathy at the 

 expense of egoism ; and thus, through one and 

 the same endlessly complicated plexus of causes, 

 has arisen the historic Man, with his Intellect 

 and his Moral Sense. Yet endlessly complicated 

 as the process has been, we see that it is through- 

 out definable as the gradual substitution of 

 adjustments that are relatively indirect, het- 

 erogeneous, and highly organized, for adjust- 

 ments that are relatively direct, homogeneous, 

 and slightly organized. 



Thus we have fulfilled all the requirements 

 laid down in the concluding chapter of our Pro- 

 legomena. We have found a hypothesis which 

 is based upon properties of matter and princi- 

 ples of dynamics that have previously been es- 

 tablished ; which appeals to no unknown agency 

 and invokes no unknown attribute of matter 

 or motion ; and which, accordingly, contains no 

 unverifiable element. This hypothesis has been 

 169 



