This selective process
will be largely moulded by the public opinion of their country and age,
emphasising some precepts and ignoring others, and the code will be the
expression of the average morality of the time. If this clumsy and
uncertain fashion of finding a rule of conduct does not suit us, we
must be willing to exert our intelligence, to take a large view of the
evolutionary process, and to deduce our moral precepts at any given
stage by applying our reason to the scrutiny of this process at that
stage. This scrutiny is a laborious one; but Truth is the prize of
effort in the search therefor, it is not an unearned gift to the
slothful and the careless.
This large view of the evolutionary process shows us that it is best
studied in two great divisions: the first from the savage to the highly
civilised man who is still working primarily for himself and his family,
still working for private ends predominantly; and the second, at present
but sparsely followed, in which the man, realising the supreme claim of
the whole upon its part, seeks the public good predominantly, renounces
individual advantages and private gains, and consecrates himself to the
service of God and of man. The Hindu calls the first section of
evolution the Prav[r.
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