I have termed this evolution of the feelings out of which the primitive
bonds of human society are so largely forged, into the organized and
personified sympathy we call conscience, the ethical process. So far as
it tends to make any human society more efficient in the struggle for
existence with the state of nature, or with other societies, it works
in harmonious contrast with the cosmic process. But it is none the less
true that, since law and morals are restraints upon the struggle for
existence between men in society, the ethical process is in opposition
to the principle of the cosmic process, and tends to the suppression of
the qualities best fitted for success in that struggle.