312 THE STRUCTURAL EVIDENCE OF EVOLUTION. 



It is said that a sense of justice could not be derived from 

 no sense of justice ; that it could not have been derived from the 

 state of things which we find in the animals, because no animal is 

 known to exhibit real justice ; and that objection is valid as far 

 as it goes. 1 suspect that no animal has been observed to show a 

 true sense of justice. That they show sympathy and kindness, 

 there is no question ; but when it comes to real justice, they do 

 not display it. But do all men display justice ? Do all men 

 understand justice ? I am very sure not. There are a good many 

 men in civilized communities, and there are many tribes, who do 

 not know what justice is. It does not exist as a part of every 

 mental constitution. I never lived among the Bushmen, and do 

 not know exactly what their mental constitution is ; but in a gen- 

 eral way the justice of savages is restricted to the very smallest 

 possible circle — that of their tribe or of their own family. There 

 is a class of people who do not understand justice. I do not refer 

 to people who know what right is, and do not do it ; but to the 

 primitive state of moral character, in which, as in children, true 

 justice is unknown. I call attention to the fact, because some 

 of our friends have been very much afraid that the demonstration 

 of the law of evolution, physical and metaphysical, would result 

 in danger to society. I suspect not. The mode in which I under- 

 stand this question appears to me to be beneficial to society, rather 

 than injurious ; and I therefore take the liberty of appending this 

 part of the subject to its more material aspect. 



I refer to another topic, that is to the nature of life, and the 

 physical basis of life. The word '* life " is so complex that it is 

 necessary to define it, and so to define it away that really the word 

 "life" does not retain its usual definition. Many phenomena of 

 life are chemical, physical, mechanical. We have to remove all 

 these from consideration, because they come within the ordinary 

 laws of mechanical forces ; but we have a few things left which 

 are of a different character. One is the law of growth, which is 

 displayed in the processes of embryonic succession ; secondly, the 

 wonderful phenomena of sensibility. Those two things we have 

 not yet reduced to any identity with the ordinary laws of force, 

 though we know of their dynamic equivalency. In the phenome- 

 na of embryology the phenomena of evolution are repeated, only 

 concentrated in the early stages through which animals have to 

 pass. So whatever explains the general phenomena of evolution 

 explains the phenomena of embryology. 



