Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/328

318 would not do to admit that evolution had produced an organ for which there was no use, and thus bring causation to an untimely and inglorious end. As well say that an eye was not made to see, or a leg to walk, and that the use of them did not contribute to fit their possessor for adaptation to his environment.

Mr. Spencer was too good a logician to be caught in a trap like this. On the other hand, he finds use for the full developed conscience, and shows that malefactors are unfit and will not survive the ordeal of the social compact. Whether Mr. Spencer has been successful in following the order of nature and pointing out how things came to be, is a matter about which speculators will differ, but there is one consolation for those who are not content to sit down and wait for the Spencerian evolution to correct social aberrations, he could not make man different from what he is whatever his ancestry or the genesis of his being. We know that man's volition and consequent action can, and does, influence and determine conditions favorable and unfavorable to his welfare. He can go up or go down with respect to his normal, physical, or mental constitution. He can be happy or he can be miserable in conformity to the doctrine of evolution and without violating a single law of his nature. This may seem to some to involve a paradox, but we should bear in mind that natural laws can not be violated; that what is termed a violation is merely passing from the operation of one law to that of another.

A person basks in the morning sun and feels an invigorating and agreeable warmth, while the vertical rays at noon diminish his strength and give him pain, both states being in harmony with natural laws, though the latter produces abnormal conditions. Without gravitation our present material existence would be unthinkable; without a proper observance of it, destruction surely awaits us.