Page:Evolution of Life (Henry Cadwalader Chapman, 1873).djvu/247

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ANTHROPOLOGY.
181


organization lower than the lowest of existing savages; that the different races of men have descended from a common stock; and that the physical, mental, and moral improvement of man is the necessary consequence of the Evolution of Life.

The doctrine of the Evolution of Life has this, then, in its favor: that it is a comprehensive theory of Life,—a theory on which can be based a scientific Ethics and a scientific Politics; and as all happiness depends on duty to one's self (Ethics), and therefore duty to one's neighbor (Politics), it follows that a theory which offers a basis for the development of these social sciences must immeasurably benefit mankind.

"To thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee."