Summary and Conclusion 411 



ceive to be the foundation for liberty of action, and con- 

 sequently for freedom of conscience, and we therefore 

 recognize in personal conscience, the supreme and final ex- 

 pression of that which guides voluntary energy on the 

 part of the individual. 



We recognize that the acquirement of high organization 

 is, in any creature, the result of a long accumulation through 

 heredity of organs and habits and abilities, from time to 

 time added to the stock; and we see that this process still 

 continues, and that it results in not merely a continued adap- 

 tation to circumstances; but more than this, when active, 

 it produces a more complex and higher organization, in 

 which however the simpler and older persist as the ground- 

 work. By study in the fields of biology and embryology 

 we see that with every new birth the creature, whether 

 human or other, returns to the primitive simplicity of a 

 single cell and develops a body anew upon the old habits 

 with certain changes. These changes may be accidental 

 or casual, or they may be the effects of activity and environ- 

 ment, but in either case, they are at first tentative, and are 

 later adopted into the hereditary habit only when they are 

 proven beneficial, by the survival of many possessors, and 

 by the continued use of them. 



Then we have discovered that the effect of conjugation 

 and sex union upon such variations, is a distribution of any 

 established benefits among all the race, or at least among 

 those in local contact; and thus a preservation to the race 

 of uniformity of organization. The effects of the same 

 process upon conduct, are thus to promote co-operation, and 

 to make possible effective conduct units composed of many 



