The Descent of Man. 169 



ed in the development of a race capable of ethical action, 

 and with hopes and longings after the ideal and the 

 supreme. This points to a yet higher development and 

 a superior race. The pointers are all in one direction 

 in regard to the future of life and its functions. I 

 cannot believe, either, that life is limited to this globe. 

 The scientific cosmogony of the present day forbids us to 

 regard the earth as the center of the universe, either in a 

 physical or a moral sense. It is not impossible that we may 

 yet know something of life on other planets. Even if there 

 is no truth in Sir William Thomson's theory that the germs 

 of life were originally brought to this earth by meteors, 

 these have already shown us, in their occasional loads of 

 carbon, something in confirmation of the existence of life in 

 other worlds than ours. 



The source of all the progressive mental evolution of 

 man is sensation and experience. The pressure of human 

 society upon each individual is the origin of ethical intelli- 

 gence, of the knowledge of the rights of others ; while the 

 •social life and the family relation have developed the be- 

 nevolent sentiments and the affections. The combination 

 of the knowledge of right and wrong with the benevolent 

 sentiments, constitutes the mainspring for ethical action, 

 inspiring the doing of right and justice. The history of 

 human evolution is therefore the history of the develop- 

 ment of the human mind. And the human mind is but a 

 small fragment of the universal mind. The development 

 has been along fixed lines. No new material has been cre- 

 ated. That which we behold in Nature's final product was 

 involved in Nature from the beginning. 



From the point of view of the biologist, as to the rela- 

 tion of mind to matter, we observe that mind everywhere 

 manifests itself in correlation with material conditions, and 

 we must conclude that mind is a property of the substance 

 which exhibits it. On its ethical side, we observe that 

 the ordinary way in which man has learned to do the 

 right has been a destructive or violent way. The strug- 

 gle for existence is a method which involves suffering for 

 the individual, but its final results are beneficent. But 

 thought and prudence will keep man ahead of the destruc- 

 tive forces. The result of human experience in various 

 lines has been the accumulation of a body of pure ethics, 

 which when rightly understood will be interpreted as an 



