 In such men the impulse to
evil deeds dies unfulfilled, and the penalty for wrong-doing within
themselves may be more severe than that which the community would
inflict. In the souls of such men sits a spiritual tribunal by which
evil thoughts are tried and punished before they can develop into evil
acts.

This consideration of the development of the moral principles and dogmas
has been necessarily brief. In what direction it is leading must be
evident to all, and we can with assurance look forward to a condition of
human society in which conscience will have become a stronger element of
the intellect than now, the sense of moral obligation a more prevailing
sentiment, and legal restriction a less necessary governmental
requirement.

Of all the isms of the day altruism is far the noblest and most
promising. In this opponent of selfism, this regard for the rights and
happiness of others equally with our own, we find the link which binds
together the two halves of the moral principle. The love sentiment on
the one hand, the sense of duty on the other, meet and combine in the
zeal of altruism, for which a truly developed conscience is merely
another term. Those who have the good of others strongly at heart, who
are truly Christian in a practical realization of the brotherhood of
mankind, can safely be set free from all the reins of law, and trusted
to do the right thing from innate feeling instead of outside compulsion.
And, trusting in the future full development of the altruistic
sentiment, we can hopefully look forward to a time in which the moral
law will exist alone, conscience become the controlling force in human
actions, and government let fall the whip which it has so long held in
threat over the shrinking back of man.




XIII

MAN'S RELATION TO THE SPIRITUAL


The purpose of this work has been to trace the evolutionary origin of
man, in his ascent from the lower animal world to his full stature as
the physical and intellectual monarch of the kingdom of life. But to
round up the story of human evolution i