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SOCIOLOGY. 
conform, and in discovering means of conforming to them under all 
variations of seasons and circumstances—we have abundant scope for 
intellectual progress. ”* 
Regarding morality—that is, in greater power of self regulation— 
Mr. Herbert Spencer says : “ Right conduct is usually come short of 
more from defect of will than defect of knowledge. To the due 
co-ordination of those complex actions which constitute human life 
in its civilised form, there goes not only the pre-requisite—recognition 
of the proper course; but the further pre-requisite—a due impulse to 
pursue that course. And on calling to mind our daily failures to fulfil 
often-repeated resolutions, we shall perceive that lack of the needful 
desire, rather than lack of the needful insight, is the chief cause of faulty 
action. A further endowment of those feelings which civilisation is 
developinginus—sentiments responding to the requirements of the social 
state—emotive faculties that find their gratifications in the duties 
devolving on us—must be acquired before the crimes, excesses, diseases, 
improvidences, dishonesties, and cruelties, that now so greatly diminish 
the duration of life, can cease.” f 
A gifted poet of our day, who is essentially the Poet of Evolution 
—the author of the “Light of Asia”—has caught the spirit of the 
master, and has given in that remarkable and beautiful work a picture 
of evolution in lines that cannot fail to be appreciated by all who 
recognise its operations:— 
li: iK ij-. t- if if 
Marking—behind all modes, above all spheres, 
Beyond the burning impulse of each orb— 
That fixed decree at silent work which wills 
Evolve the dark to light, the dead to life, 
To fulness void, to form the yet unformed. 
Good unto better, better unto best. 
By wordless edict; having none to bid. 
None to forbid; for this is past all gods 
Immutable, unspeakable, supreme, 
A Power which builds, unbuilds, and builds again. 
Ruling all things accordant to the rule 
Of virtue, which is beauty, truth, and use. 
So that all things do well which serve the Power, 
And ill which hinder; nay, the worm does well 
Obedient to its kind ; the hawk does well 
Which carries bleeding quarries to its young; 
The dew-drop and the star shine sisterly, 
Globing together in the common work ; 
And man who lives to die, dies to live well 
So if he guide his ways by blamelessness 
And earnest will to hinder not but fielp 
All things both great and small which suffer life.t 
* “ Principles of Biology,” vol. ii., p. 496. 
+ “Principles of Biology,” vol. ii., p. 497. 
I The “ Light of Asia.” By Edwin Arnold, C.S.I. 9th ed., 1882, pp. 169, 170. 
