I see no limit to the extent to which intelligence and will, guided by sound principles of investigation, and organized in common effort, may modify the conditions of existence for a period longer than that now covered by history. And much may be done to change the nature of man himself. The intelligence which has converted the brother of the wolf into the faithful guardian of the flock ought to be able to do something towards curbing the instincts of savagery in civilized men.
In the long struggle pain and sorrow are inevitable. The aim of man is not to escape these, but rather to earn peace and self-respect. To this he added a special point, in a letter of 1890:—
If you will accept the results of the experience of an old man who has had a very chequered existence—and has nothing to hope for except a few years of quiet downhill—there is nothing of permanent value (putting aside a few human affections), nothing that satisfies quiet reflection, except the sense of having worked according to one's capacity and light, to make things clear and get rid of cant and shams of all sorts. That was the lesson I learned from Carlyle's books when I was a boy, and it has stuck by me all my life.
The animal world, then, having the principle of its existence in a state of war, society was created by the first men who substituted the state of mutual peace for the state of mutual war. The object of society was the limitation of the struggle for existence. That shape of society most nearly approaches perfection in which the war of individual against individual is most strictly limited. Happiness and freedom of action are restricted to a sphere where they do not interfere with the happiness and freedom of others; the common weal becomes an essential part of individual welfare. In short, even if under the most perfect conditions "Witless will always serve his master," man aims to escape from his place in the animal kingdom, founded on the free development of the principle of non-moral evolution, and to establish a kingdom of Man governed upon the principle of moral evolution. For society not only has a moral end, but in its perfection social life is embodied morality. Moral purpose is "an article of exclusively human manufacture—and very much to our credit."
To society, then, its members owe a vital debt; for society, the work of the ethical man, has slowly and painfully built up around us a fabric of defence against barbarism, the work of the non-ethical man. This debt we are bound to repay by furthering in ourselves the good work of human fellowship, and by striving to improve the conditions of our social life; and the means thereto are self-discipline, self-support, intelligent effort, not unreasoning violence with its disruption of the defences against anarchic barbarism.
Yet if society, in making life easier, multiplies the species in excess of the means of subsistence, it raises up within itself, in the intensest form, the unlimited struggle for existence. "This is the true riddle of the Sphinx, and every nation which does not solve it will, sooner or later, be devoured by the monster itself has generated."
Improvement there has been during the historical period: with goodwill and clear thought Huxley looked for ever-accelerating improvement, though contemporary civilizations seemed neither to embody any worthy ideal nor even to possess the merit of stability. In the atmosphere of plain verity, where, as he said, "my business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations," he confidently looked for the hopes of the future; but were it not so, he solemnly declared—
If there is no hope of a large improvement of the condition of the greater part of the human family; if it is true that the increase of knowledge, the winning of a greater dominion over Nature which is its consequence, and the wealth which follows that dominion, are to make no difference in the extent and the intensity of want, with its concomitant physical and moral degradation among the masses of the people, I should hail the advent of some kindly comet which would sweep the whole affair away as a desirable consummation.
In the matter of personal conduct he rejected the notions that the moral government of the world is imperfect without a system of future rewards and punishments, and that such a system is indispensable to practical morality. "I believe," he said, "that both these dogmas are very mischievous lies."
There is no need for future compensation because, so he firmly believed, "the Divine Government—if we may use such a phrase to express the sum of the 'customs of matter'—is wholly just….But for this to be clear we must bear in mind what almost all forget, that the rewards of life are contingent upon obedience to the whole law—physical as well as moral—and that moral obedience will not atone for physical sin, or vice versâ." Thus he could declare "the more I know intimately of the lives of other men (to say nothing of my own), the more obvious it is that the wicked does not flourish, nor is the righteous punished." "The gravitation of sin to sorrow is as certain as that of the earth to the sun, and more so—for experimental proof of the fact is within reach of us all—nay, is before us all in our own lives, if we had but the eyes to see it." Nevertheless—