96 The Morality of Nature 



vival. This higher conduct arises under the old law of 

 natural survival, but man enjoys a perception of its value 

 and effect as well as the intrinsic reward. 



Still man's fitness in life is measured by results and not 

 by ideas. In achieving results he has to reckon not only 

 with humanity but, with the universe at large, and his con- 

 duct is directed toward all things, to be valued in due propor- 

 tion to its effect. Therefore, the artificiality of conditions, 

 although it may soften them, does not exempt any of them 

 from consideration, and man's civilization does not lift him 

 out of the old liabilities, nor does the quality, good or bad, 

 false or true, of another man's interference justify his dis- 

 regard of that. Man remains subject, as all animal life, to 

 that same liability to apparent injustice to the individual. Not 

 exemption, but only an understanding of it, and contest with 

 it, is found in the perception of the multiple conduct unit. 

 The raising of the unit from the size of an individual to that 

 of an association of kin, or race, any number of people or of 

 generations, variable according to the conduct in question, 

 does not end the question. The question in nature, in re- 

 gard to social man, as to the rest of life, the question always 

 recurring is, which lives are best among all these, in suita- 

 bility to time and place; but the answer of the race entrusted 

 to the individual, is not of his own being and time solely, 

 the answer demanded of him is partly stated already when 

 that existence is first entrusted to his keeping by his ances- 

 tors, and it is only a little further stated when he in turn 

 transmits it to his posterity. So that we see responding, not 

 the one individual but a line of life which is temporarily 

 represented in his person, and in others of his kin. 



