II EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 61 



settlement should ever take place. Arrears might 

 stand over as a sort of ' hanging gale ' ; a period 

 of celestial happiness just earned might be suc- 

 ceeded by ages of torment in a hideous nether 

 world, the balance still overdue for some remote 

 ancestral error. ^ 



Whether the cosmic process looks any more 

 moral than at first, after such a vindication, may 

 perhaps be questioned. Yet this plea of justifica- 

 tion is not less plausible than others ; and none 

 but very hasty thinkers will reject it on the 

 ground of inherent absurdity. Like the doctrine 

 of evolution itself, that of transmigration has its 

 roots in the world of reality ; and it may claim 

 such support as the great argument from analogy 

 is capable of supplying. 



Everyday experience familiarizes us with the 

 facts which are grouped under the name of here- 

 dity. Every one of us bears upon him obvious 

 marks of his parentage, perhaps of remoter rela- 

 tionships. More particularly, the sum of tenden- 

 cies to act in a certain way, which we call 

 " character," is often to be traced through a long- 

 series of progenitors and collaterals. So we may 

 justly say that this ' character ' — this moral and 

 intellectual essence of a man — does veritably pass 

 over from one fleshly tabernacle to another, and 

 does really transmigrate from generation to 

 generation. In the new-born infant, the character 

 of the stock lies latent, and the Ego is little more 



