The truth would appear to be that the law is present in environment, but hard to read; but it is stamped upon our structure and being so deeply and plainly that the dullest of us cannot fail to read it.  We learned the fact of gravitation the first time that we fell down in learning to walk, long afterward we learned that its law guided earth and moon.  And it is the presence of this law within us, and our own knowledge that we are conscious of it, that makes man without excuse.  But conformity to that which is deepest in environment often, always, demands non-conformity to some of the most palpable of surrounding conditions.

There is no better statement of the ultimate law of conformity than the words of Paul:  “Be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

And this difference is exactly what I have been trying to put before you.  The mollusk conformed, but the vertebrate conformed in a very different way, and was transformed, “metamorphosed,” to translate the Greek word literally, into something higher.  And let us not forget that man conforms consciously and voluntarily, if at all; he is able to read in himself and environment the law to which lower forms have been compelled unconsciously to conform.

These facts merely illustrate a great law of life.  No man’s eye, much less hand, can grasp the whole of the present and at the same time the future.  Rather what we usually call present advantage is not advantage at all, but the first step in degeneration.  If one will be rich in old age he must deny himself some gratifications in youth; his present reward is his self-control.  If a man will climb higher than his fellows he must expect to be sometimes solitary; his reward is the ever-widening view, though the path be rougher and the air more biting than in their lower altitude.  If he point to heights yet to attain, the majority will disbelieve him or say, “Our present height was good enough for our ancestors, it is good enough for us.  Why sacrifice a good thing and make yourself ridiculous scrambling after what in the end may prove unattainable?” If you discover new truths you will certainly be called a subverter of old ones.  And this is entirely natural.  The upward path was never intended to be easy.

Read the “Gorgias” of Plato, and let us listen to the closing words of Socrates in that dialogue:  “And so, bidding farewell to those things which most men account honors, and looking onward to the truth, I shall earnestly endeavor to grow, so far as may be, in goodness, and thus live, and thus, when the time comes, die.  And, to the best of my power, I exhort all other men also; and you especially, in my turn, I exhort to this life and contest, which is, I protest, far above all contests here.”  You must remember that Callicles has been taunting Socrates with his lack of worldly wisdom and the certainty that in any court of justice he would be absolutely helpless because of his lack of knowledge of the rhetorician’s art:  “This way then we will follow, and we will call upon all other men to do the same, not that which you believe in and call upon me to follow; for that way, Callicles, is worth nothing.”