472 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



words good and bad have come to be specially associated with acts 

 which (respectively) further the complete living of others and acts 

 which obstruct their complete living. 



We approach now the heart of the matter. "We have seen how 

 conduct has been evolved in the various races of living creatures, from 

 the lowest to man the highest. We have learned how closely related 

 are men's ideas of good and bad to that which is the chief end of all 

 conduct — the preservation and extension of life. And we have found 

 that while the conception of rightness and wrongness is not very 

 marked in relation to conduct affecting self -life, it becomes clear and 

 obvious in relation to conduct affecting the life of offspring, and at- 

 tains its greatest definiteness and as it were emphasis in its application 

 to conduct affecting the lives of others. Where the rules determining 

 right and wrong in regard to the life of self, of offspring, and of oth- 

 ers, come into conflict, as they must until social relations become per- 

 fect, the right in regard to self mostly gives way to right in regard to 

 offspring, and both usually give way to right in regard to the rest of 

 humankind. But in Mr. Spencer's words (I quote them with empha- 

 sis, because he has been so preposterously and indeed wickedly charged 

 with teaching a very different doctrine) " the conduct called good rises 

 to the conduct conceived as best, when it fulfills all three classes of 

 ends at the same time.'* 



But now the vital question of all comes before us. 



We conceive as good or bad such conduct as conduces or the re- 

 verse to life and the fullness of life, in self and others. But is conduct 

 of the one kind really good or conduct of the other kind really bad ? 

 Though good or bad with reference to that particular end, and though 

 held to be right or wrong because that end is actually in view among 

 men, may not conduct be differently judged when the nature of that 

 end is considered ? In other words, the question comes before us. Is life 

 worth living ? We need not take either the optimist view, according 

 to which life is very good, or the pessimist view, according to which 

 it is very bad. But each one of us from his experience as regards his 

 own life, and from his observation (often most misleading, however) 

 on the lives of others, may be led to hold that on the whole life is 

 good, or that on the whole it is bad. Of course, in the very theory of 

 the evolution of conduct, or rather in the series of observed facts 

 demonstrating the evolution of conduct, we see that life and the full- 

 ness of life are fought for throughout nature as if they were good. 

 In the highest race the love of life in self, which assumes that the life 

 of others also is good, has attained its highest expression. " Every- 

 thing that a man has he will give for his life," is a rule established 

 rather than shaken by exceptions and the attention directed to such 

 exceptions. Yet the mere fact that life is fought for by all, and that 

 the struggle for life has been so potent a factor in the development of 

 life, does not in itself prove life to be an actual good. Death comes 



