Summary and Conclusion 413 



conduct in its highest phases still contains necessities and 

 motives and impressions and responses of low order similar 

 to those of lower life, and in fact persisting as the inheri- 

 tance from life of that degree. 



Therefore conduct is not, in the present transition, to be 

 valued by any assumed standard of a perfection of morality; 

 but is by nature rewarded or compensated by comparative 

 consequences, having regard to the participation in it of all 

 creatures related and organized with the actual performer. 

 In this uncertain light an individual must conduct himself 

 aright by his own conscience because that is the only 

 available guide, the only expression of his complex motive. 

 His conduct is the activity of the immortal ego individual- 

 ized in him, allied and sharing with his lineage, and his 

 race, and his humanity, in a proportionate interest, which 

 assures inevitable justice in final effect to the whole; and 

 promises in evolution increasing justness toward every part. 

 In the natural law of conduct, justice is a principle which is 

 estabhshed for the life of the world in its unity; but not 

 for each unit in its complexity. The subjection of matter 

 to life is a process which is indefinitely incomplete and im- 

 perfect. By evolution it is continually advancing, and by 

 the latest evolution, which is the perception of morality, 

 this process is restoring to humanity the unity of co-op- 

 erative altruism. In this unity is the promise of justice 

 for the individual, such as is now made evident for the 

 whole, — and the prospect for the race, of a future which 

 shall transcend the present, as this is seen to rise above 

 the past. 



Thus the study of evolution, in geological and biological 



