of life and conduct put forward by Nietzsche, and by a good many
biological philosophers, would take natural selection, and its bearing
upon the animal nature of man, as the sole test of efficiency and
ethical value. But this interpretation of man's life disregards the
achievements of evolution itself for the sake of pinning its faith to
the humble beginnings of the organic process.

After this long enquiry into the nature and scope of natural
selection, we should be better prepared to understand the degree and
kind of ethical significance which can be rightly assigned to the
theory of evolution. In the first place let us consider the now
familiar claim that man must be taken as part of the cosmos, and that
man's conduct must be regarded and studied in its place in the cosmic
process. At the time when it was first made this claim may have seemed
a startling one; but I think that we must admit that, keeping to their
own ground and using the instruments that are theirs by right, the
evolutionist writers have succeeded in showing man's connexion with
the animal kingdom and with organic life generally, and thus his place
in the whole cosmic process. The claim must therefore be admitted.

But if man is part of the universe, then the universe is not
intelligible apart from man, and the cosmic process is not fully
understood unless we also have an understanding of human activity.
This, therefore, is the counter-claim that I would suggest. The course
and method of evolution, or of the 'cosmic process'--to use Huxley's
term--is imperfectly described if the methods and principles of human
action are left out of account.

No doubt the reply may be made, as the reply has been made, that after
all man occupies but a minute space in the cosmos, that he is but an
insignificant speck on an unimportant planet. But, if this is at all
meant to imply that we may safely leave the peculiarities of human
activity out of account, then I say that the suggestion hardly
deserves consideration. Surely the assumption is too gross and
unwarrantable that material magnitude is the standard of importance,
or that the significance of man's life can be measured by the size of
his material organism. We must therefore never delude ourselves with
the idea that we have a full account of the cosmos or the cosmic
process unless we have taken account of the peculiarities of man's
nature and man's activity.

In the second place, the discussion of the princi