THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 85 



dictated by malevolence quite untenable. A vast multi- 

 tude of pleasures, and these among the purest and the 

 best, are superfluities, bits of good which are to all 

 appearances unnecessary as inducements to live, and are, 

 so to speak, thrown into the bargain of life. To those 

 who experience them, few delights can be more en- 

 trancing than such as are afforded by natural beauty, or 

 by the arts, and especially by music; but they are 

 products of, rather than factors in, evolution, and it is 

 probable that they are known, in any considerable de- 

 gree, to but a very small proportion of mankind. 



The conclusion of the whole matter seems to be that, 

 if Ormuzd has not had his way in this world, neither 

 has Ahriman. Pessimism is as little consonant with the 

 facts of sentient existence as optimism. If we desire to 

 represent the course of nature in terms of human thought, 

 and assume that it was intended to be that which it is, 

 we must say that its governing principle is intellectual 

 and not moral; that it is a materialized logical process, 

 accompanied by pleasures and pains, the incidence of 

 which, in the majority of cases, has not the slightest 

 reference to moral desert. That the rain falls alike upon 

 the just and the unjust, and that those upon whom the 

 Tower of Siloam fell were no worse than their neighbours, 

 seem to be Oriental modes of expressing the same con- 

 clusion. 



In the strict sense of the word "nature," it denotes 

 the sum of the phenomenal world, of that which has 

 been, and is, and will be; and society, like art, is there- 

 fore a part of nature. But it is convenient to distinguish 

 those parts of nature in which man plays the part of 

 immediate cause, as something apart; and, therefore, 

 society, like art, is usefully to be considered as distinct 



