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he expected, there the fertile, populated plains, and fur-
ther on the mountains. When some great discovery is made
the world is surprised afterwards that it was not accepted at
once, and even on those who acknowledge its truth the effect
is unimportant. The first readers of The Origin of Species ac-
cepted it with their reason; but their emotions, which are the
ground of conduct, were untouched. Philip was born a gen-
eration 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 him-
self. 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 wan-
ton 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

0 Of Human Bondage