Responsibility in Relation to Nature 21 



tioned being finds himself convinced that there is in fact 

 no connection between the values of his conduct, according 

 to that standard; and the benefits or injuries produced by 

 it. At this point materiahsm seems to deny his dawning 

 moral belief and to destroy his ideals, whatever they were, 

 and to substitute nothing in their place except his own view 

 of merely individual preference. 



It thus becomes necessary to try to unravel the tangle 

 of the many mixed actions by the many differently impelled 

 human units if we are to find any law governing them. And 

 it is natural to first investigate the instinctive belief in 

 morality, which is evidently a mixture of experiences and 

 of ideals, and to follow the inquiry in a supposition that the 

 old law of responsibility persists, even in this obscurity; 

 and that failure to perceive it is due not to its disappearance 

 but only to a lack of perception. 



To formulate and emphasize a principle it is well to recite 

 axioms. In this way emphasis can be laid upon the fact 

 that the highest and latest rules are based upon the simplest 

 and earliest. 



It appears then, that elementary conduct and principles 

 of conduct are necessary and common to all life, and are 

 persistent in more complex circumstances; and that simple 

 conduct of man and of complex creatures, is under the 

 same governance as equally simple conduct of earlier, or of 

 any creatures. The complexity appears to arise not as a 

 substitute for the simple, to displace it, but as an addition 

 to it, overlaying it without lessening, but rather increasing, 

 its former importance, when more is built upon it. 



In studying collective conduct where many partake in 



