4o6 The Morality of Nature 



and all its ancestors, one after another in direct line, have 

 succeeded in preserving the gift of life, from primeval 

 origin, through the ages, to this day. The question of its 

 future continuance and perpetuation now rests for answer 

 with that living thing who is the present trustee of the gift. 



But beside the possession of this life-gift in potential 

 immortality, every being of high organization is possessed, 

 by inheritance, of an ability to construct a body, by which 

 it may exercise great future extension and specialization of 

 its primary powers. This constructive ability has been 

 slowly added to it, little by little, by ancestors who have 

 succeeded in doing, from time to time, something more than 

 the mere maintenance of existence; and have accumulated 

 a surplus as the product of their energy; and have trans- 

 mitted, it, with the evident possibility of its being still further 

 improved, and still longer transmitted. 



Therefore it appears that the conduct of an individual, 

 which was before examined in the light of the lesser or 

 individual life, and was found to lack there completeness of 

 scheme, is to be considered as applying to the continuous 

 life of this substance which is the real owner of the body, 

 and the real responsible ego. 



In this light an individual human being stands not as a 

 short-lived fugitive creature, empowered to beget other 

 similar short-lived irresponsible offspring; but as an ever 

 living creature, in possession of a destructible body, which 

 he is enabled to discard and renew periodically, because of 

 its destructibility. In life thus viewed, it is possible to trace 

 a chain of consequences by which all conduct is compensated, 

 not in a system of reward and punishment such as that 



