Now suppose, once more, this knowledge and conformity be complete, and the ideal of humanity be attained, and from this final and highest position we look back over the whole ground. Shall that be called evil which from the very nature of a moral being and the laws of evolution was obviously the necessary condition of attaining the goal? Shall we not from this final position call it a good in disguise? Evil, doubtless, it seems to us who suffer and stumble and mayhap fall by the way; but shall the mishap of the individual be weighed as an equivalent against the evolution of the race and the attainment of its goal? Ah! there is the rub. It is all well enough to talk of sacrificing the _physical_ individual to the race, but not so the _spiritual_. If we believe in the immortality of the human spirit, if we do indeed stand related to God in the manner explained in Chapter IV, then moral evil in the individual has an entirely peculiar and an eternal significance--then the individual human spirit has an infinite worth and can not be sacrificed to the race; for the evolution of the race itself is only in order to the perfecting of individual human souls. What shall we say now? I answer: The sacrifice is not necessary. There is in the realm of morals _alone_ a way of escape--a saving element which redeems the individual without violating the law. Let me explain. It will, I think, be admitted by all that _innocence_ and _virtue_ are two very different things. Innocence is a _pre-established_, virtue a _self-established_, harmony of spiritual activities. The course of human development, whether individual or racial, is from innocence through more or less discord and conflict to virtue. And virtue completed, regarded as a condition, is holiness, as an activity, is spiritual freedom. Not happiness nor innocence but virtue is the goal of humanity. Happiness will surely come in the train of virtue, but if we seek primarily happiness we miss both. Two things must be borne steadily in mind: virtue is the _goal of humanity_; virtue can not be given, it must be _self-acquired_.