Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/397

 THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIENCE 381

than an act of drunken debauchery would imply. From the highest standpoint the voice of conscience would speak the same with reference to either experience.

It would seem, therefore, as if it were only in the middle period of the evolution of conscience that we must turn to the science of sociology for explanation as to its history. Our rela- tion to a social medium has been an essential step in the pro- cess. But in its highest form ethical law is not dealing with social relationships. Its one exaction is that each man shall keep his spiritual nature untarnished. This is what I should understand by speaking of it as "the law of one's own being." In doing this we shall, as a matter of course, recognize and obey the codes of law which connect us with our fellows. In acting against one another, by injuring one another, we should be lapsing to the stage of the brute. Spiritual forces would act as one force ; competition there would have no meaning. Among souls, brotherhood would be the natural thing.

If I am right, then the story of evolution would tell us, as the last, crowning feature of all, that the kernel or core of all religions points in the same way : To thine own self be true. In the highest sense of the word, it would mean the same thing as being true to one's God, and true to one's fellow-men ; because it would mean being true to the soul or to the highest self.

WALTER L. SHELDON. ST. Louis.