Introductory — The New Knowledge 5 



an Absolute of unknowable nature as the finality, and a First 

 Cause equally unknowable as the prime of all things. But 

 this is an effort to reason causes and effects, and is limited 

 in its consideration to the things of normal nature. 



The great central truth, among the many revealed by 

 modern science is the immortality of the natural life of the 

 egoplasm, and it is around this dominating fact that all this 

 argument is arranged. The fact that every new life is but the 

 continuing part of the old germ-plasm which has the potency 

 to grow a new reproduction of the elaborate body, a living 

 offshoot which does not die when the parent dies — this simple 

 fact is destined to profoundly alter our concepts of morality. 

 Although this astounding discovery has been some time an- 

 nounced, it has not yet begun to receive the attention which 

 its amazing import demands. The activities of life in this 

 qualification and in the correlative one of cumulative heredity 

 are found to be subject to a system of compensation of con- 

 duct in material things, which hitherto has been completed 

 only by appeal to external adjustment. In this subjection a 

 morality prevails which is inevitable, and which imposes 

 itself upon the theist and the atheist with equal force; and 

 which therefore neglects for the present their point of 

 difference. 



The main thread of this argument therefore reasserts 

 the importance of heredity; and if this line of thought is 

 correct the effort will furnish its own apology, since the 

 transmission by age to youth, of certain deductions from 

 experience; which was the first purpose of this work, is the 

 final phase of hereditary transfer. And it is tendered in full 

 recognition of the reader's need of and right to his individu- 



