Summary and Conclusion 409 



same germ-plasm — we find that such units of greater life do 

 receive, in the consequences of their conduct, a compensation 

 which is just; and this, we perceive, consists in the continu- 

 ing, and improving, ability to live. We perceive that it is idle 

 to protest, in terms of our human judgment, against a law 

 of conduct which made us what we are, and gave us all the 

 intelligence we possess ; and we therefore must accept the 

 success and endurance of this conduct, as proof of its right- 

 ness. This law continues to govern, and promises, in its 

 operation, to so increase these gifts of knowledge that we 

 shall, in our future wisdom, see in its growing justice, an 

 improvement toward perfection always approaching the 

 absolute. It is profoundly interesting to note, that the ten- 

 dency and effect of all progress by evolution and its aids, 

 is to bring this natural justice nearer to the ideal; and to 

 make it surer for the smaller units, and even for the indi- 

 vidual. Human reason, rising in the scale, tends to secure 

 for each individual, by the machinery of civilization, a due 

 share of the benefits and effects of the general conduct. 

 Justice is now available for individual persons, which 

 formerly pertained only to powerful families ; and is found 

 for families, with an effect which, until lately, only nations 

 could enjoy. In other words the imperfections of natural 

 justice toward the individual, which appear in the nature of 

 the non-psychologic life; are parts of the natural hostility 

 of environment, and are in course of eradication by intel- 

 lectual evolution ; and the whole course of evolution must be 

 regarded as a process still in progress, and with at present 

 only an imperfect result. 



We have observed moreover that the progress, in the 



