We have seen that the sequence of functions in animal development has culminated in man's rational, moral nature. He alone has the clear perception of the reality of right, truth, and duty. The pursuit of these has made him what he is. His advance, if there is any continuity in history, depends upon his making these the ruling motives and aims of his life. He must continually grow in righteousness and unselfishness, if he is not to degenerate and give place to some other product of evolution. Moreover, as these moral faculties are capable of indefinite, if not infinite, development, they must dominate his life through a future of indefinite duration. For the length of the period of dominance of a function has always been proportional to the capacity of that function for future development. These can never, so far as we can see, be superseded, for no rival to them can be discovered. We have found in them the culmination of the sequence of functions.
We have attempted to show in this lecture that reversal of this grand sequence has always led to degeneration, or, in higher forms, far more frequently, to extinction. As we ascend, natural selection works more, rather than less, unsparingly. And as advance depends upon conformity to environment, and as the highest forms must be regarded as therefore most completely conformed, we gain our most adequate knowledge of environment when we study it as working especially for these. For these have been from the very beginning its far-off, chief aim and goal. Viewed from this standpoint, environment proves to be a host of interacting forces uniting in a resultant "power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness," and unselfishness.
Inasmuch as man's rational moral nature, his personality, is the result of the last and longest step toward and in conformity to environment, these powers correspond to that which is at the same time highest, and deepest, and most fundamental in that environment. This power which makes for righteousness is therefore to be regarded as personal and spiritual rather than material. It is God immanent in nature. And it is mainly to this personal and spiritual element in his environment that man is in the future to more completely conform. Conformity to this element in man's environment does not so much result in life as it is life; failure to conform is death. And the pressure of environment upon man, compelling him to choose between life through conformity and non-conformity with death, can be most naturally and adequately explained as the expression of his will. We know what he requires of us.
Our knowledge of him is very incomplete, but may be valid as far as it extends. And it would seem to be valid, for it has been tested by ages of experiment. The results of this grand experiment have been summed up in man's fundamental religious beliefs. And farther knowledge will be gained by more complete obedience to the requirements already known. The evidence, that these fundamental religious beliefs will persist, is of the same character as that upon which rests our belief in the persistence of cells and tissues. The one is rooted in the structure of our minds; the other, in the structure of our bodies. But, after all, only will can act upon will, and personality upon personality. It remains for us to examine how man was compelled by his very structure to develop a new element in his environment, conformed indeed to the laws of his old environment, but better fitted to draw out the moral and spiritual side of his nature. And in connection with this study we may hope to gain some new light on the laws of conformity.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Huxley: Lay Sermons and Addresses, p. 31.