58 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS. n 



not only became synonymous with justice, but the 

 positive constituent of innocence and the very 

 heart of goodness. 



Now when the ancient sage, whether Indian 

 or Greek, who had attained to this conception of 

 goodness, looked the world, and especially human 

 life, in the face, he found it as hard as we do to 

 bring the course of evolution into harmony with 

 even the elementary requirements of the ethical 

 ideal of the just and the good. 



If there is one thing plainer than another, it 

 is that neither the pleasures nor the pains of life, 

 in the merely animal world, are distributed ac- 

 cording to desert; for it is admittedly impossible 

 for the lower orders of sentient beings to deserve 

 either the one or the other. If there is a gener- 

 alization from the facts of human life which has 

 the assent of thoughtful men in every age and 

 country, it is that the violator of ethical rules 

 constantly escapes the punishment which he de- 

 serves; that the wicked flourishes like a green 

 bay tree, while the righteous begs his bread; that 

 the sins of the fathers are visited upon the chil- 

 dren; that, in the realm of nature, ignorance is 

 punished just as severely as wilful wrong; and 

 that thousands upon thousands of innocent beings 

 suffer for the crime, or the unintentional trespass 

 of one. 



Greek and Semite and Indian are agreed upon 



