The Conduct Unit 105 



conduct unit, in its normal form appears as the group of 

 related individuals indebted to the past and to the future; 

 holding in trust the successful issue of generations of proven 

 life, operating it for a limited period under their own voli- 

 tion, and passing it, with their own conduct's additions, to 

 new generations present and to come. This then is the con- 

 duct unit which death chastises, and yet raises up, which 

 adversity strengthens by developing resistance which turns 

 tyranny to justice by compensations, and which makes true 

 the seeming contradictions of nature. 



This conduct unit as thus perceived lives two lives, its 

 individual life in each creature, which each or any one con- 

 trols, and which it may end; and its race life, which does 

 not end until all its members fail, each and every one, and 

 which therefore no one controls but only influences, for al- 

 though this offshoot or that may prove bad, or may yield 

 to error, or fail under adversity, yet a sturdy growth of a 

 sound branch may grow into the place not only with restored 

 effect, but normally with improved effect. 



Instinctive knowledge of the inseparable nature of the 

 lives in the direct line from parents to offspring, is visible 

 in all the habits of and customs recognized in the laws of 

 people of every degree of civilization. If there should be 

 needed any justification for occasional human forget fulness 

 of this joint responsibility, it might be made in the fact that 

 it is so strongly asserted in nature that man can do nothing 

 by intellect to increase its force. It is more probable that 

 intellectual reason fails utterly when in comparison with this 

 instinct. It would seem that there is error in the theory that 

 all men are born equal; and another in the mistaken charity 



