278 Evolution of Morals. 



ter of the moral law with all natural laws, and the logical 

 inference that though discovered inductively and through 

 experience, it is universal in its scope and operation, un- 

 limited by social conventions or individual intelligence. As 

 the law of gravity operated eternally before its discovery 

 and definition by Newton, so the condition of things ex- 

 pressed by the moral imperative has operated during the 

 entire course of human history and biological evolution. 

 The scientific law of conduct is found to be the statement 

 of a fundamental and a priori condition of the highest 

 development of individual character and social activities. 

 The impulse to right action appears in truth as a "categori- 

 cal imperative," not alone in the consciousness of man, but 

 in the constitution of the universe — operating in man to 

 create the individual conscience, and everywhere revealing 

 itself as the condition precedent to all social and moral ad- 

 vancement, on which individual character and harmonious 

 communities depend. "The rule of right, the symmetries 

 of character, the requirements of perfection, are no provin- 

 cialisms of this planet : they are known among the stars ; 

 they reign beyond Orion and the Southern Cross ; they are 

 wherever the Universal Spirit is ; and no subject-mind, 

 though it fly on one track forever, can escape beyond their 

 bounds." * 



As all moral acts are life-promoting acts, it is the essen- 

 tial nature of immorality to be destructive — suicidal. The 

 penalty of evil conduct is the instant and immediate atrophy 

 of character ; if persisted in, it is both moral and physical 

 death. Salvation, therefore, is rationally identical with 

 character-building; but character means more than mere 

 goodness ; it means fulness of life, — the cultivation of 

 every manly and womanly faculty, — the devotion of the 

 life to human welfare. 



Evolutionary ethics respects the individual. It makes 

 perfection of individual character the supreme end, seeing 

 that thus only can society be perfected. Society is indeed 

 regarded as an organism,! but the individual is to society 



* Martineau's A Study of Religion. 



t The social organism differs from the lower forms of organic life in an impor- 

 tant particular : — in the latter, the cell, or unit, appears to exist for the sake of 

 the organism ; while in the former, the organism appears to exist for the sake 

 of the individual or unit. In all organisms, however, the perfection of cell-life 

 appears to go along with the perfection of the organic structure. The resem- 

 blances between social and organic growth seem to be sufficiently striking t<> 

 justify the use of the term " social organism." 



