CHAPTER I 



CONDUCT IN EVOLUTION 



The purpose of this, the third section of the inquiry into 

 the morality of nature is to present in plain language cer- 

 tain facts selected from the announcements of the explorers 

 in Geological and Biological Science, and to show in these 

 facts a real and physical basis for the principles of moral 

 conduct previously discussed. The newly found truth of 

 physical evolution has recently received most amazing con- 

 firmation and assurance in newest biological discoveries. 

 Indeed these things, visible to our eyes and convincing to 

 our minds, entirely change the aspect of life, from that af- 

 forded to the philosophers who gave us the old cosmic and 

 moral systems. They are not generally known, are not fully 

 understood by the everyday reader. They are so new, and, 

 as usually presented, so abstruse and unclear, that they re- 

 main to a great extent the mysteries of a learned class. Yet 

 these new facts are of the very foundation of our being, and 

 the basis of our motives and purposes in conduct. That is 

 why they are here presented anew. It is done as simply as 

 possible, in a continuation of the method of directing atten- 

 tion to knowledge already at the disposal of the average 

 reader, and suggesting certain aspects and meanings belong- 

 ing to it; and by deducing from the scientific parts of such 

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