268 The Morality of Nature 



ditions change and is not to be permanently defined by any 

 fixed standards. Conduct is good only by fitness in com- 

 parison with other conduct under the test of survival of the 

 most fit. 



Twenty-first, Codes and other standards of conduct exist 

 properly only for the mutual limitation of activity, to pre- 

 vent injury to others; and for the educational transmission 

 of knowledge, and for the declaration of accepted laws of 

 morality and of convention, which are subject to continued 

 revision. 



Twenty-second, Veneration for codes and respect for 

 authority is a virtue, properly balanced and corrected by 

 regard for independent conscience, which is the sense of 

 right and wrong by an intuitive knowledge, or sub-conscious 

 memory summarized instinctively. In this independent con- 

 science lies the faculty of progress by variation of conduct- 

 standards; and the right to change or continue such 

 standards. 



Twenty-third, Conscience is therefore the human author- 

 ity for individual activity, whether self-controlled, or im- 

 posed, or imposing others. Its rightness is not in any abso- 

 lute quality, but in its sincerity in guidance of conduct which 

 at the given time and place is the best discernible to the 

 individual concerned. But conscience still owes altruistic 

 concession to others, whose perceptions are based upon 

 other experiences, and in cooperative activities must defer 

 to the collective conscience, which is a mutual cultivation 

 having regard for mutual benefit. 



Twenty-fourth, Conduct is thus governed and compen- 

 sated, in a just reward of proper consequence to all the acts 



