L PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
these have always reacted upon languages, institutions, and arts, and 
largely led them in their courses of progress. Because of their opin- 
ions, men are willing to work together, and thus have common designs. 
There have been many opinions and many systems of philosophy. Of 
all that have existed, but few remain in the highest civilization. A 
careful analysis of the facts relating to the growth of opinions re- 
veals this truth, that opinions also are invented, and that the final 
survival of the few has been due to the human act of choice in the 
selection of the truth. Opinions, therefore, have been developed by 
invention and choice in the struggle to know. 
Fifth. Opinions are formed as the direct activities of the Mind. 
Languages, institutions, and arts have arisen through the action of 
the mind and the exercise of other corporeal functions. All these 
activities, therefore, are dependent upon the mind. On the other 
hand, these objective activities react upon the mind, so that mental 
operations are controlled thereby. Through the exercise of the 
mind in the prosecution of activities it is developed. These 
mental activities are perception and comparison, or reflection, as it 
is more usually called. The subjective evolution of the mind is 
therefore the product of the objective evolution of activities. 
These five great classes of activities are interdependent in such a 
manner that one is not possible without the others; they arise to- 
gether, and their history proceeds by a constant interchange of 
effects. All the five classes of activities react upon man as an ani- 
mal in such a manner that his biotic history subsequent to his 
differentiation from the lower animals is chiefly dependent thereon. 
The evolution of man as a being superior to the beast is therefore 
due to the organization of activities. 
It has been shown that man does not compete with the lower 
animals for existence. In like manner, man does not compete with 
man for existence; for by the development of activities men are 
interdependent in such a manner that the welfare of one depends 
upon the welfare of others ; andas men discover that welfare must 
necessarily be mutual, egoism is transmutted into altruism, and 
moral sentiments are developed which become the guiding princi- 
ples of mankind. So morality repeals the law of the survival of 
the fittest in the struggle for existence, and man is thus immeasur- 
ably superior to the beast. In animal evolution many are sacrificed 
for the benefit of the few. Among mankind the welfare of one 
depends upon the welfare of all, because interdependence has 
been established. 
