The Goal of Aspiring Morality i99 



higher hfe thus reached. Thus we can see that progress 

 is not only present and certain, but it is exacting of effort 

 for participation in its reward. It is more than a privilege ; 

 it is a duty, to be actively pursued. The consequence of 

 neglect of this duty is unfitness, which brings decay and 

 weakness and, if continued, a passionless, merciful extinc- 

 tion of the faithless and faltering, in race suicide. 



Nature is thus seen to present to each human being for 

 the due exercise of his volition and will, compensating 

 awards for activities not immediately effective. 



A belief that this award of compensation is not a sufficient 

 inducement, and that conduct ignoring it will be more satis- 

 factory, is permitted; and such action is entirely feasible. 

 It is not forbidden in nature, to appropriate an undue part, 

 or all, of the energy and substance and privilege, inherited 

 from the lineage, to the selfish consumption of the individual 

 trustee. Such action is in his option. It is tolerated 

 temporarily, in view of the automatic consequence that such 

 a perversion carries, to the dual life perpetrating it. If the 

 individual life appropriates what, in the general opportunity, 

 is due to be transmitted to successors of his kind, the evil 

 extirpates itself in a minimum of time, and with a minimum 

 of trouble, by the deprivation which the lineal life suffers 

 in the impoverished successors, or in the absence of any 

 succession ; then the death and end of the unworthy strain 

 makes room for something better. 



And the consequence of sufficient good action, according 

 to the variable standard of relative fitness, is continued 

 lineal life, through each individual. When the upward 

 movement shall have achieved all that is noble and worthy in 



