376 The Morality of Nature 



lower type of organization, yet this is abnormal ; and even 

 when it happens that lower type remains reminiscent of a 

 higher past. The normal change is upward for many rea- 

 sons, the chief being that biological evolution adds exper- 

 iences and qualifications — it plants the new upon the old, 

 not in the place of them ; and another is, that the aggregate 

 life is part of the environment of the individual of that same 

 type. The individuals are in competitive rivalry (not neces- 

 sarily destructive) which stimulates and prefers every higher 

 qualification; and they are again in a conjugating organiza- 

 tion which distributes all such gains, and creates a greater 

 unit of the same life, of which the strength is numerical. 

 This strength is limited and determined only by the degree 

 of perfection of the organization; in other words by its 

 capacity for size, in its faculty for co-operative activity. 

 Progress in this faculty, is the essential effect of altruism, 

 while it is in turn productive of more altruism. 



The rule then of upward progress is an automatic and 

 fundamental one. It is a function of all vitality, and not the 

 mere privilege of self-knowing, conscious virtue. Progress 

 is inherent in the life-plasm. Its power to assimilate and 

 grow is a power to store up energy, and to expend it in a 

 form co-ordinated to the larger unit of organization. And 

 the perception of, and desire for, the highest results of this 

 progress in cumulative benefit by organization, is the essence 

 and power of morality in nature. Morality is the handmaid 

 of life, and not the dictator. 



The heredity of a unit of conduct thus grows in import. 

 From being a single cell reserve, it becomes a many-celled 

 power, and from this, enlarges to become a power for many 



