II EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 51 



through sentient beings, there arises, among its 

 other manifestations, that which we call pain or 

 suffering. This baleful product of evolution in- 

 creases in quantity and in intensity, with advancing 

 grades of animal organization, until it attains its 

 highest level in man. Further, the consumma- 

 tion is not reached in man, the mere animal ; nor 

 in man, the whole or half savage ; but only in 

 man, the member of an organized polity. And 

 it is a necessary consequence of his attempt to live 

 in this way ; that is, under those conditions which 

 are essential to the full development of his noblest 

 powers. 



Man, the animal, in fact, has worked his way 

 to the headship of the sentient world, and has 

 become the superb animal which he is, in virtue 

 of his success in the struggle for existence. The 

 conditions having been of a certain order, man's 

 organization has adjusted itself to them better 

 than that of his competitors in the cosmic strife. 

 In the case of mankind, the self-assertion, the 

 unscrupulous seizing upon all that can be grasped, 

 the tenacious holding of all that can be kept, 

 Avhich constitute the essence of the struggle for 

 existence, have answered. For his successful pro- 

 gress, throughout the savage state, man has been 

 largely indebted to those qualities which he shares 

 with the ape and the tiger ; his exceptional 

 physical organization ; his cunning, his sociability, 

 his curiosity, and his imitativeness ; his ruthless 



E 2 



