process is a part of the process of evolution. We agree that the struggle for life needs to be qualified when the gregarious state is entered, and that among gregarious creatures lower than man a rudiment of the ethical check is visible. We agree that among men the ethical check, becoming more and more peremptory, has to be enforced by the society in its corporate capacity, the State. We agree that beyond that qualification of the struggle for life which consists in restricting the activities of each so that he may not trench upon the spheres for the like activities of others, which we call justice, there needs that further qualification which we call beneficence; and we differ only respecting the agency by which the beneficence should be exercised. We agree in emphasizing, as a duty, the effort to mitigate the evils which the struggle for existence in the social state entails; and how complete is this agreement may be seen on observing that the sentiment contained in Prof. Huxley's closing lines is identical with the sentiment contained in the last paragraph of the Principles of Ethics. Obviously, then, it is impossible that Prof. Huxley can have meant to place the ethical views he holds in opposition to the ethical views I hold; and it is the more obviously impossible because, for a fortnight before his lecture, Prof. Huxley had in his hands the volumes containing the above quotations, along with multitudinous passages of kindred meanings. But as this erroneous belief is prevalent, it seems needful for me to dissipate it. Hence this letter.
The closing lines of this last paragraph were regarded by Prof. Huxley as tacitly charging him with an unacknowledged adoption of my views. It did not occur to me when writing them that they could be so interpreted. My intention was simply to show that he had abundant opportunity for seeing at first hand what my views were, and had therefore the less reason for presenting his own similar views as though they stood in opposition to mine.
