readers of The Origin of Species accepted it with
their reason; but their emotions, which are the ground of conduct, were
untouched. Philip was born a generation after this great book was
published, and much that horrified its contemporaries had passed into the
feeling of the time, so that he was able to accept it with a joyful heart.
He was intensely moved by the grandeur of the struggle for life, and the
ethical rule which it suggested seemed to fit in with his predispositions.
He said to himself that might was right. Society stood on one side, an
organism with its own laws of growth and self-preservation, while the
individual stood on the other. The actions which were to the advantage of
society it termed virtuous and those which were not it called vicious.
Good and evil meant nothing more than that. Sin was a prejudice from which
the free man should rid himself. Society had three arms in its contest
with the individual, laws, public opinion, and conscience: the first two
could be met by guile, guile is the only weapon of the weak against the
strong: common opinion put the matter well when it stated that sin
consisted in being found out; but conscience was the traitor within the
gates; it fought in each heart the battle of society, and caused the
individual to throw himself, a wanton sacrifice, to the prosperity of his
enemy. For it was clear that the two were irreconcilable, the state and
the individual conscious of himself. THAT uses the individual for its
own ends, trampling upon him if he thwarts it, rewarding him with medals,
pensions, honours, when he serves it faithfully; THIS, strong only in
his independence, threads his way through the state, for convenience'
sake, paying in money or service for certain benefits, but with no sense
of obligation; and, indifferent to the rewards, asks only to be left
alone. He is the independent traveller, who uses Cook's tickets because
they save trouble, but looks with good-humoured contempt on the personally
conducted parties. The free man can do no wrong. He does everything he
likes--if he can. His power is the only measure of his morality. He
recognises the laws of the state and he can break them without sense of
sin, but if he is punished he accepts the punishment without rancour.
Society has the power.

But if for the individual there was no right and no wrong, then it seemed
to Philip that conscience lost its power. It was with a cry of triumph
that he seized the knave