,#-.A<^-- ■lu ■&M-^mimm^%£^k%im ENGLISH EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS A THESIS Presented to the Faculty of Cornell University IN Fulfillment of a Part of the Require- ments for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, May, 1895 BY MELBOURNE STUART READ HAMILTON, N. Y. REPUBLICAN PRESS 1902 ENGLISH EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS A THESIS Presented to the Faculty of Cornell University IN Fulfillment of a Part of the Require- ments for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, May, 1895 BY MELBOURNE STUART READ sometime scholar and fellow in the sage school of philosophy, CORNELL university ^'o^ -TH E HAMILTON, N. Y. REPUBLICAN PRESS 1902 6T13 PREFACE It is not altogether satisfactory to publish a thesis nearly seven years after writing it. The problem is presented of maintaining practically the same arguments and conclusions which were then held, and at the same time to be true to one's present thought. In the solution of this difficulty, there has been a partial rearrangement of the material, and the concluding chapter of each part has been somewhat modified. Yet the thesis remains prac- tically as it was at first presented. The slight modifica- tions are, it is hoped in the direction of real progress in thought in the intervening years, and the writer has no intention of disowning his product. A present writing de novo would furnish, however, a somewhat different work, especially taking into account, and profiting by, several important works on various phases of the subject which have more recently appeared. Chapters I, II, III, V, VI, and VII are in part expository and in part critical, while Chapters IV and VIII are intended to mark an ad- vance and to be suggestive of doctrine. The writer has departed somewhat from the usual cus- tom in not using quotation marks, and in not giving page and line references in exposition. The works referred to are so well known, and the exposition carried on to such an extent, that even though the language of the original has been used constantly, it would seem unnecessary and even pedantic to formally credit the references. I wish to acknowledge my deep obligation to President Jacob Gould Shurman, my teacher and inspirer in ethical study, while this thesis was being prepared. I also wish to express my appreciation of the leniency of the Cornell 99729 Preface University Faculty in allowing postponement of publica- tion so long. The writer would not have availed himself of this, had it not been for the exacting duties of a general chair of Philosophy. Melbourne Stuart Read Colgate University Hamilton, New York March, 1902 CONTENTS. PAGE PART I. — The Moral Ideal. Chapter i. Herbert Spencer's doctrine of the Moral Ideal, 3 Chapter ii. Leslie Stephen's doctrine of the Moral Ideal, 18 Chapter hi. Charles Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley, 32 Chapter iv. Comparison of Ends, and relation of the doctrine of Evolution to the Moral Standard, ... 37 PART II. — The Conscience. Chapter v. Darwin's theory of the origin of Con- science, 62 Chapter vi. Spencer's theory of the origin of Con- science, "^2 Chapter vii. Stephen's theory of the origin of Con- science, 82 Chapter viii. The development of the Moral Con- sciousness, 89 ^ PART I THE MORAL IDEAL From the earliest period of ethical speculation, the question of the summum bonum or highest good for man has been the central problem in the minds of moral philos- ophers. In fact, moral philosophy had its rise in the consciousness of mankind directly from the deep question- ing of the human heart as to what is worth while in life; and which phases of life are of most value. The question "Is life worth living?" early arose in the minds of m^n, and either in this direct form, or in the form of a careful weighmg of the values of life in the search for the highest good, it has never ceased to be of vital interest. True, in the modern or Christian age, the problem is presented with a different aspect; but the fundamental meaning is the same. The modern strenuous temper seeks to know the content of its duty. "What ought I to do?" is the problem of the moral life. This difference of temper and of moral aim is a characteristic difference between the lateirresponsible youth of the world, and the early respon- ble manhood of our own later centuries. And yet, as we have just said, the meaning of the questioning of the human heart is the same, and the search is for that which is ethi- cally best. And as the philosopher is merely one who pushes a little further the common questionings of men, so the explicit problem of the moral philosopher becomes an inquiry into the nature of the highest good and the mean- ing of the moral law. When the light of the doctrines of evolution began to illumine the world's thought, it became clear that the 2 English Evolutionary Ethics almost world-old questions of morals would have to be asked again, in the hope of a more satisfactory answer than had heretofore been given. Viewing life as he doesin the great extent of its history in the universe,it would seem especially fitting that the verdict of the evolutionist should be listened to with respect. The classic evolutionistic answers to the problems of morals were brought out by two notable English writers, Herbert Spencer and Leslie Stephen. The work of the former is The Principles of Ethics, and that of the latter The Science of Ethics. In the first part of this work it is the object to present an exposition of the doctrine of the Moral Ideal, as brought out by these representative evolutionary moralists, to- gether with critical estimates of the same; and, in addi- iton.to show in general the place of the evolution doctrine in the matter of the moral standard. Incidental reference will be made to other evolutionary writers as supplemen- tarv to the main classical treatises. CHAPTER I HERBERT SPENCER's DOCTRINE OF THE MORAL IDEAL For Spencer the subject matter of ethics comprehends the laws of right living at large. It goes beyond the con- duct commonly considered as right and wrong, and includes all conduct that furthers or hinders, directly or indirectly, the welfare of self and of others. It may then be considered as a part of conduct at large, which is con- cerned with acts adjusted to ends. In fact, Spencer thinks we must so consider it, if we are to get a true view of morality. It is only in relation to the whole that we can know the part, and the whole of which ethical conduct is a part is the conduct of all animal organisms. Looked at thus extensively, logically speaking, it would seem as though Spencer might not lay the proper stress on the intension of moral conduct. It is only fair, how- ever, at the outset, to remark that Spencer's attempt is to find out thereal meaningof the moral life, to make explicit its full content. In order to get an intelligent view of con- duct as a whole, says Spencer, we must look at it under the light of evolution. Along with the evolution of struc- ture and of function has gone the evolution of conduct. In its highest stages this evolved conduct is that displayed by the highest type of being — man. When conduct is most highly evolved in man, its characteristic traits are the highest ethical ideals. Looking at the evolution of conduct in its course from the lowest organism to the most highly developed man in the most highly developed society, we see that conduct, or the purposeful adjustment of acts to ends is but poorly carried out in the lowest life. As it rises in the scale it becomes better adapted to the welfare of self and off- 4 English Evolutionary Ethics spring. Finally, when social life becomes necessary, as in man, when man is forced to live more and more in the presence of his fellows, we find conduct fitted in the high- est degree to the welfare of self, offspring, and fellowmen. Here conduct gains its highest ethical sanction. Non-ethical conduct is good or bad according as it results in success or failure in adjustment of acts to the end in view. The same is true of moral conduct, says Spencer, though it is not always seen on account of complication of ends, welfares of self, offspring, and fellowmen. Viewed as conducing to welfare of self, the act is good which furthers self preservation. As conducing to welfare of off- spring, acts are good that bring about this end. Most clearly is conduct seen to be good when, in considering the welfare of others, acts are so adjusted as to produce the end required. Hence in moral conduct as in non-moral that is good which is best calculated to bring about the ends desired. As the evolution of life reaches its highest pitch when it achieves the greatest totality of life in self, offspring, and fellowmen so, says Spencer, enunciating his doctrine of the good, conduct, good as producing either of these ends, becomes best when it produces them all at one and the same time. Spencer views moral conduct in many ways, physically, biologically, psj^chologically, and sociologically. In his biological view he considers not only the physiological side but also, what is more important, the psychical changes which accompany physical changes in the organ- ism. These psjchical states act as stimuli and guides for the proper performance of function. It has come to pass in the course of evolution, says Spencer, that pleas- urable actions are on the whole beneficial to theorganism, while painful acts are injurious. In no other way could life have evolved. Those to whom pleasurable actions brought injury must have been eliminated. Even before feeling life, Spencer observes, the process of connection be- tween acts and results must have been established; and ( The Moral Ideal 5 the feeling life has but carried on the same process. Not only do we see that life could have been evolved on these principles alone, but this, together with the fact that de- veloped creatures are kept alive at present by pursuit of the pleasurable and avoidance of the painful, puts it be- yond question, Spencer thinks, that pleasure-giving acts sustain life while pain-giving acts lower vitality. The difficulty that there are mischievous pleasures and beneficent pains in human life, is explained by showing that the latter are endured and the former foregone for the sake of greater pleasure to come. That this has to be done rests upon the fact, plainly observable all through the course of evolution, that partial misadjustments of feel- ings to requirements have arisen, and readjustments have had to be made. Biologically defined then, says Spencer, ideal moral con- duct is a balance of functions which are so adjusted as to maintain and make up complete life. When these function- ings are not altogether pleasurable in actual life, there is misadjustment and derangement caused by change of conditions. With complete adjustment of men to their environment, however, actions will be right when they conduce to immediate pleasure and future happiness. The spontaneous exercise of all one's functions in this ideal so- cial state will be the fulfilling of the law toward self, off- spring, and fellowmen; and this will be accompanied by its due quantum of pleasure. Spencer now seeks to give moral conduct a fuller mean- ing by a further evaluation of the totality of life which is, sofar,the end. Is life worth livmg? he asks. Hasevolution been a mistake? Answers to these questions will be given differently by the optimist and by the pessimist. If exis- tence is undesirable, then the furtherance of life is bad. If desirable, then good. Where then shall we find a common meeting ground for optimist and pessimist in regard to the good and bad ? Spencer answers, both agree that life is good or bad according as it does or does not produce a 6 English Evolutionary Ethics surplus of agreeable feeling. If either admits immortality then the discussion is given with due regard to such exten- sion of life. Thinking of as good either a pleasurable state of consciousness, an agent proximate or remote that brings about such a state, or any conduct that brings with it more happiness than misery, we must say that the good is universally the pleasurable. This is Spencer's second enunciation of his doctrine of the good. That all do not recognize this, Spencer attributes to their substituting the means for the end. He then pro- ceeds to show that all non-hedonistic systems of ethics rest upon a hedonistic basis. Spencer is thus a thorough-going hedonist. The ultimate moral aim, he holds, must be a desirable state of feeling by whatever name it may be called. For, he says, pleasure is as much a necessary form of moral intuition as space is a necessary form of intellec- tual intuition. In criticising various methods of ethics, Spencer finds in them a great lack of the idea of causation. Nowhere is this more evident than in ordinary utilitarianism from which Spencer's hedonism is considerably divergent. The utilitarian makes observations of results of various forms of conduct as to whether these results are good or bad. Thus, by induction, we formulate our good and bad con- duct as resulting in certain consequences. The inference is that these relations always hold good. This relation does not amount to recognition of causation in its fullest sense. This Spencer calls empirical utilitarianism, and his own he calls rational. Spencer holds that we must first find out the laws of life and conditions of existence, and then deduce from these what kinds of actions produce happiness, and what, pain. These deductions are laws of conduct and must be followed irrespective of direct hedo- nistic value. The pleasure-pain calculus holds to a certain extent, but throughout the large part of our conduct it must bereplaced by other guidance. This we must remem- ber is a matter of means not of end for Spencer. That The Moral Ideal 7 happiness is the supreme end is beyond all question true, says Spencer, for this is the concomitant of the highest life which every theory of moral guidance has distinctly or vaguely in view. Other theories are concerned with the means, not with the end, which now we find to be happi- ness, i. e. surplus of agreeable feeling. For a hedonistic theorv of the moral ideal, as indeed for any other, the question of the place of egoism and altru- ism in the moral life has always been of great importance. Spencer seeks to throw some light on the problem from the evolution of life point of view. Egoism he says is an ultimate principle of conduct. Self preservation under the law that each shall receive the benefits and evils of his own nature is the first principle of evolving life. On the other hand excessive altruism tends to its own elimina- tion, causing the less altruistic to survive, and working destruction to self and offspring. Yet altruism is no less essential in the evolution of life than egoism. Whatever action, conscious or unconscious, says Spencer, involves expenditure of individual life to the end of increasing life in other individuals is essentially al- truistic. This of necessity has always been exhibited, in pre-conscious life, parental life, and social life. The only possibility of ethical conduct is a compromise C between pure egoism and pure altruism. Pure egoism would result in social dissolution. Pure altruism, the ideal of the utilitarians, is subjected to a severe criticism by Spencer, who regards it as a violation of the just rights of the individual. Pure altruism becomes less and less prac- ticable as society advances to perfection, as it will have less and less occasion for exercise. To yield up normal pleasure, says Spencer in defence of egoism, is to yield up so much life, and the question arises to what extent this may be done. If the individual is to continue living, he must take certain pleasures and avoid the pains of non- fulfillment of function. Egoism and altruism are essential. General happiness is to be achieved mainly by the adequate 8 English Evolutionary Ethics pursuit of their own happiness by individuals, while recip- rocally, the happiness of the individual is to be achieved in part in the pursuit of general happiness. This com- promise between egoism and altruism has been slowly establishing itself in society. This statement of the case by Spencer is in purely hedonistic terms. As this compromise, however, seems to imply a perma- nent antagonism between the two, Spencer proceeds to consider their conciliation. This is brought about by the development of sympathy, which must advance as fast as conditions permit. The main condition is that S3-mpathy be of a pleasurable rather than a painful sort. When the conditions of life require that any class of activities shall be relatively great, there will arise a relatively great pleas- ure accompanying that class of activities. S\-mpathetic activities become more and more essential to the welfare of society. The scope for altruistic activities will not ex- ceed the desire for altruistic satisfactions. Such altruistic gratification, though in a transfigured sense egoistic, will only be so unconsciously. As the occasion for self-sacrifice disappears, altruism will take on the alternate form of sym- pathy with the pleasures of others produced by their suc- cessful activities. As Spencer puts it in another place, there has been aris- ing from the beginning such constitution in each creature as entailed egoistic gratification in performing altruistic action. There gradually evolves, with the evolution of a higher life, an organic altruism which, in relation to a certain limited class of other beings, works to the effect of making what we call self-sacrifice not a sacrifice in the ordinary sense of the word. It is an act which brings more pleasure than pain, an act which has for its accom- paniment an altruistic gratification which outweighs the egoistic gratification lost. This, otherwise stated, implies that as the altruistic gratification becomes egoistically expressed, egoism and altruism coalesce. The pursuit of The Moral Ideal 9 the altruistic pleasure has become a higher order of ego- istic pleasure. This is clearly an expression of the nature of the moral ideal in hedonistic terms, in which the two phases of the hedonistic idea, egoism and altruism, are brought together by means of the life process. In Spencer's treatment of Justice and of Beneficence, we get a further insight into his conception of the ethical end. The highest conduct is that which conduces to the greatest length, breadth, and completeness of life. If we assume the preservation and prosperity of the species to be desirable, whatever tends to this takes precedence in order of obliga- tion. Now in order to this preservation and prosperity there must be conformity to the law that benefits must be directly proportioned to the power of self-sustentation; second, that during early life benefits must be proportional in the reverse order; and, third, when the welfare of the species calls for any amount of sacrifice on the part of the individual, it must be given. The exact carrying out of the first law, the fundamental idea of justice, is much more easily attained as life advances and becomes more highl3' organized. This law is modified by the idea that the spheres of action are mutual!}'- bounded. This results in the formula, "Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man." This formula is easilj^ deducible, says Spencer, from the conditions to be fulfilled, viz., the maintenance of life at large; and, secondly, the maintenance of social life. The authority of such a fundamental ethical notion as that of justice is, for Spencer, its conduciveness to the promotion of the greatest totality of life in self, offspring, and fellow- men. The same may be said of beneficence. The laws of jus- tice come first in the development of individual and social life, and it is onl}- at a late stage, that, in order for life to be most highly developed, beneficence is introduced. Justice is the more important and must be guaranteed by society, 10 English Evolutionary Ethics while beneficence is a matter of private ethical concern. Beneficent conduct has its justification initsconduciveness to the maintenance and prosperity' of society. This ulti- mate sanction has for Spencer another aspsct, viz., that such beneficent conduct is conducive to happiness, special or general. From the evolutionary point of view the one implies the other. The highest ambition of the beneficent man will be to have an unselfish share in the attainment of the evolution of humanity, the making of man. Thus according to Spencer, from the point of view of evolving life, its evolution means increase of life in self, offspring, and fellows. Conduct bringing about this end is good, conduct hindering it is bad. The death of the weaker is only justified in that it gives more life on the whole to the stronger. The end prescribed is the greatest possible amount of life, brought about by the most com- plete, varied, numerous, and perfect adjustment of all means to this end. When this end is consciously sought for, conduct becomes moral. He is evil, wicked, immoral who acts so as to hinder positively or negatively the ac- complishment of this end. This is S]:>encer's first way of enunciating the ethical standard. We have seen, however, that he makes a transition from this standard of evaluation to that of pleasurable consciousness, to a truly hedonistic statement of the moral ideal. It is necessary to examine whether this tran- sition is justifiable, whether these two ends are necessarily connected. This may be said to be the crux in Spencer's conception of the good. Spencer's finding an agTcementas to the summum bonum between optimist and pessimist obvscures the problem. Though both desire pleasure and absence of pain, this does not settle the question as to whether the world pro- cess does produce a surplusage of pleasure over pain. If the pessimist's answer be a true one, that the life process brings a surplusage of pain over pleasure, then the end according to the evolutionist, increase of life in each and The Moral Ideal 11 all, and that of the hedonist, pleasure, are contradictory. The more life, the greater surplusage of pain over pleasure. The attainment of one end sacrifices that of the other. The good may be the pleasurable, but the evolution of life process defeats it. Even if we find most men holding tac- itly or avowedly that the final j ustification for maintaining life can only rest upon the reception from it of a surplus of pleasurable over painful feeling, this does not settle the question as to whether life does or does not produce such surplusage of agreeable feeling. The evolution process brings about its end, more life; it may also defeat in so doing, the hedonistic end. Spencer seeks to make good his point bj'^ proving the pessimistic view absurd, by establishing the necessity of the optimistic view. This attempt we have already traced in Spencer's "Biological View." Fit connections between acts and results must establish themselves in living things even before consciousness arises. These connections get even better established, when sentienc}' comes to the aid of struggling unconscious life. Conscious life inevitably seeks the pleasurable, and those creatures which are so unfortunately constituted as to find pleasure in the life-destroying are eliminated. Hence the deduction that the life preserving or increasing and the pleasure giving tend more and more to coincide. When evolution has reached its highest there will be an absolute coincidence. At this stage there is such a coin- cidence that pain has only to be undergone for the sake of a greater pleasure to come. Hence, in the long run, the life preserving and the pleasure giving are coincident, and the two ends fuse together. As Spencer's conclusions as to the dual nature of the ethical end depend thus entirely upon his doctrine of the part played by feeling tone in life's evolution it will be well to examine this position carefully. It would be dif- ficult, in fact impossible, to point out where in the scale of 12 English Evolutionary Ethics development feeling life began to appear. But we may certainly say that it was long after organic structures were making good their claim to exist by appropriate activities with respect to their environment. When that which Spencer calls feeling came into existence, there were already existing certain organic habits enabling creatures more or less successfully to survive. In so far as these orgatiized activities and tendencies are really well adapted for the actors' preservation — well. In so far as with changing environment they are not really well adapted, they are bad, and in so far are eliminated with the disap- pearance of their possessors. The very fact of living marks these organisms as having organized sets of activi- ties which they do follow, and are by their make up bound to follow, and which are more and more conducive to suc- cess in life's struggle. Feeling tone is then not a necessity in organic adjust- ment. It is indeed difficult from a biological point of view to see why feeling life should arise if it were merely to commend these activities already organized. But Spencer finds feeling life present and proceeds to make it for these organisms the one guide for conduct. It would be difficult to discover the time in their evolution at which organisms had arrived at this stage. The prob- ability is that there would be no utter abandonment of the old well tried ways even at the seductive beckoning of a pleasurable organic tremor. To say that feeling became the sole guide, and that those organisms whose pleasur- able activities happened to coincide with the old organiz- ed life-preserving lines of conduct were preserved, while those organisms who were so unfortunately constituted as to have pleasure in other lines of action than these, were eliminated, is a proposition that it would be difficult to prove by a sober inquiry into the facts of developing life. Even admitting at this early time a certain coinci- lence between the life conserving and the pleasure giving, /this does not show that the former would give way to the The Moral Ideal 13 latter in cases of conflict, nor that the latter becomes the sole guide for conduct. For the explanation of the facts of evolving life this sud- den change of guidance is neither necessarj'- nor adequate. No doubt the organism is continually adjusting itself to its environment in order to live. It uses its habitual ac- tivities, and in addition to these, in part breaking up the old nervous circuits, makes new adjustments. As soon as consciousness dawns there is some awareness of the strug- gle, a dim awakening to immediate ends and means. This new adjusting will not be always pleasant. Habits are hard to break. The reaching out for pleasure and the shunning of pain does not completely tell the tale. The animal's life is not always a path of pleasure nor a more or less blind attempt to make it so. It is true that in order to persist the organism must perform life conserv- ing activities. These are not always pleasurable. And, stupid though the organism may be, we have no evidence that it must always perform the pleasantest action. Life preserving actions are performed whether attended with agreeable feeling tone or not. And even when these actions are agreeable there is no evidence to show that it is this psvchological experience which necessitates the activities of the organism. They lie deeper than that. Just because the individual is a biological organism will it make its way in its environment. Admitting here for a moment Ideological considerations, the end is life at any cost not agreeable feeling at any cost. It is probably true that for the individuals who survive there is considerable of pleas- ure in the performance of life preserving activities. But unless we admit that sentient organisms find their whole being in seeking and finding agreeable feeling states, we cannot come to the conclusion that the struggle necessi- tates a coincidence between the life conserving and the pleasure giving. The environment must be mastered by the organism. The feeling life maybe a more or less reli- able guide. That it is the one ruling force does not appear. 14 English Evolutionary Ethics As Darwin says, In many instances it is probable that instincts are persistently followed from the mere force of in- \ heritance without the stimulus of either pleasure or pain. Nor is it clear that when we ascend in the organic scale to man we find an organism always determined in his activities by pleasure-pain considerations. Spencer assumes that human beings universally seek the pleasur- able and avoid the painful. Instinctive, impulsive, and ideo-motor activities have no doubt in the consciousness attending them certain affective elements. The end or purpose of such activities biologically speaking is the pos- session of certain objects, and psychologically speaking the pleasure element is often very small ; while the most pleasant and the most life giving do not always coincide. In voluntary conduct the end is never pleasure in the abstract. It may be the idea of a condition of the self which, in prospect, is pleasantly toned, and the pleasant toning may be the chief constituent part of the psychosis. Usually, however, the end is not chiefly affective but is the idea of the self as possessingsomewhat. The guide is not the pleasantness, but the object as expressing the needs of the self, while the agreeableness of the outcome is not the determining factor in the volition. It is impossible to give feeling that dominant place in the evolution of life, either in the human or pre-human stage, which Spencer ascribes to it. And if it does not have this absolute domination, it is impossible to show that by this time in the process a coincidence has been established between those acts which organism performs for greater fullness of life, and those acts which are most pleasure-giving. Even on Spencer's own assumption the pleasurable has not always been the life conserving, for pleasurable conduct has often led to elimination. It is a question of how far this process has already progressed. May it not be that even at this late stage in the process human beings are so constituted that in many cases, if not in the majority, the \ The Moral Ideal 15 pleasurable is the hurtful. Seeing this, human beings may take advantage of the process, and undergo enough of the painful life-conserving experience to save them from elimi- nation. Pleasure and pain are largely relative terms. Let us suppose those in whom life-conserving conduct is most painful to be eliminated. Then if the natures and environ- ment of beings remain constant, sentient life would on the whole be more pleasurable than that preceding. This of course is subject to the possibility that the evo- lution of life has not reached that stage where the pleas- urable overbalances the painful. But do the natures of living beings, and does environment, remain the same through countless ages? Hardly so, especially on an evo- lutionist hypothesis. It is highly possible that the relation between sentient life and environment by the variation of the life factor, or the environment factor, or both, is so changing that, while the most painful is all the while being eliminated, the whole of sentient life may be going downin the pleasure-pain scale, i. e., becoming more painful. The principle calls only for the elimination of the most painful. In spite of this ever active principle, life may begetting more and more painful all the while, it only being required that life cannot be as painful as it might have been were the principle not operating. Life may then not be so far evolved that with the most of the human race at present life conserving conduct is not more painful than pleasur- able. On account of changes in environment, and of the sentient life, and of a naturally more exacting estimate of the pleasurable, and a greater sensitiveness to the painful, even admitting all the while the most painful to be elimi- nated, the whole of life may be going down in the feeling scale. Spencer relies for further proof of his conclusion on what he considers phenomena of present life. Thesego toshow, he holds, that pleasure increases vitality and pain lowers it. This is an a posteriori proof while the former might be called a priori. The former stated that the laws of the 16 English Evolutionary Ethics evolution of life being such and such, the state of things at present must be so and so. We have found reason to think that the a priori principle may as well have led to A'^ery different results as to the result at which Spencer arrived. He then is thrown back on empirical proof, viz., that every pleasure raises the tide of life and every pain lowers it. Whether at the present stage of existence pleasure and pain as stimulators of activity play a very important role in the maintenance, furtherance, or destruction of life mav be a matter of doubt. The organism seems to be so con- stituted that it reacts from any feeling influence with any serious interference either with its continuance or elimina- tion. Life goes on and elimination takes place without much regard to the abetting or hindering effect of feeling tone. In any case the argument would only go to show, that a pleasure has a more vitalizing effect than a pain. It does not show that a vast deal of life conserving activ- ity ma3' not be neutrally or somewhat painfully toned, nor that a vast deal of pleasurable conduct may not be life destroying. It shows merely partial coincidence. The life of each and all was the good from the point of view of evolving life. Life lost was an evil. Thatconduct was evil which lessened life. The destruction of lower and vv^eaker finds its justification from this point of view in its conduciveness to higher strength and fuller life. The highest good the summum honum was the greatest total- ity of life in each and all. This is the test of good from the point of view of the evolution of life. People in general, urges Spencer, can only think this true if life at the same time means pleasurable life. This is, however, let us re- peat, not a deduction from the process of evolving life, but a hedonistic view of life, which Spencer tries to put into the evolutionary standard. The fundamental principles of the two views of the good are different. Life says the one, pleasure says the other. The}' may partially coincide, but their goals are different. Spencer has failed to show a necessary connection betw^een the good from an evolu- The Moral Ideal 17 tion of life point of view, and the good from the point of view of the hedonist. Completeness of life in each and all, is what Spencer leaves us with so far as his evolutional principles go. The hedonistic good may be the only tena- ble moral end, but biological evolution neither necessitates it nor has a word to sav in its favor. CHAPTER II LESLIE Stephen's doctrine of the moral ideal Society, says Stephen, is not a mere aggregate of indi- viduals but an organic growth. While its properties can be studied separately and cannot be inferred directly from the characters of the component individuals, we cannot fully describe the social organism by an a priori method. We can only show how different parts of the structure mutually imply each other and how that, given the whole, the part could not be otherwise. By this is gained the simple recognition that there must be laws, and discover- able laws, of social growth which are essentially relevant to the investigation. Every organism whether social or individual represents the product of an indefinite series of adjustments between the organism and its environment. Every permanent property represents a correspondence between the organ- ism and some permanent conditions of life. The evolution theory shifts the ethical problem by re- cognizing the sense in which the evolution of history is the solution of the problem. It tells us how to solve the prob- lem, and by it we may gain conclusions concerning the na- ture and conditions of the ethical problem which, Stephen thinks, may fairly be called scientific. The problem which Stephen sets before himself then is to discover the scientific form of morality. His data are actual moral sentiments and the part they play in the process of evolution. It is rather actual morality than an ideal moral code that is to be the subject matter of a science of ethics. After this statement of the ethical problem Stephen elaborates his theory of motives as a preliminary to his statement of the nature of the moral law. His position The Moral Ideal 19 is that of the psychological hedonist, modified to fit in with the evolutionary doctrine. Conduct is determined by feeling. It is a scientific fact that we avoid pain as such, and seek pleasure as such. An}^ other alleged motive must be commensurate with pleasure or pain, and is in fact but a pain or pleasure high- er or lower in kind. Human actions fall under the law of determination by feeling. This feeling to move us must be present. If it seems to be a pleasure to come that is the motive, it is really a foretaste of that pleasure, it is representative. The will is always determined by the actual painfulness or pleas- antness at the moment of choosing. Volition moves in the path of least resistance. The pro- cess of willing consists in rehearsing the two modes of conduct which present themselves to the mind and follow- ing the easiest, i. e., pleasantest. In so far as we are rea- sonable we are affected by representative pleasures as well as by those near at hand. In a struggle between any two lines of conduct, Stephen goes on to say, there are both reason and emotion on both sides. Yet the more reasonable the individual the more will those emotions rule him, which have a view to the future. These emotions result in time in a fixed habit which may act without calling the emotion into consciousness. The power here is in the hidden emotion and not in the intel- lectual habit. The feelings are not superseded by reason as we advance in the scale, but the method of activity is more complex. Laws of conduct cannot be deduced from the conception of reasonableness or consistency. Any kind of conduct will satisfy that condition if the objective reason be converted into the subjective cause for the action. Yet the development of reason implies more than a mere superiority in the adaptation of means to ends. Intellec- tual and emotional development going on together, new sets of emotions call for satisfaction as the capacity for satisfying desires becomes greater. Yet however different 20 English Evolutionary Ethics the feelings thev are somehow commensurable. Each person will have some tendency stronger than any of the others. His reason will subordinate others to this, and bring about a certain unity in the result. If we seek to discover which type of conduct is the most reasonable, we have to find our answer in the evolution theory. In everv reasoning agent each impulse is subordinated to the whole. Ever}' such agent represents a certain type. So long as the end and the conditions are fixed we can give a precise meaning to the word type. Yet even in the case of the animal where there is no such fixity, we may describe his activity in holding his own against the surrounding pressure and the active competition of innumerable rivals, his altering himself and to a certain extent his environ- ment, his working for success in the struggle, as a slow elaboration of types. The process of evolution must at every moment be a process of discovering a maximum of efficiency, and this by the acquisition of certain general qualities in the individuals. And yet, as before intimated, the reason of conduct is always its quality in pleasure-pain terms. We maj' view conduct either as painful or pleasurable, or as conducive or non-conducive to the permanent existence of the agent. A man will do what pleases him, and if he is to live must do what is good for him. The useful in the sense of pleas- ure-giving must approximately coincide wnth the useful in the sense of life-preserving. This, holds Stephen, is a fun- damental evolutionistic doctrine. The agent that delights in states which generally have pernicious consequences is in so far self-destructive. So far as any agent takes pleasure in conduct conducive to his preservation he has a better chance for survival. An instinct deeply seated then is presumably useful. The process by which the correlation of pernicious and painful acts is worked out is one which by its very nature takes many generations. Races survive in virtue of the com- pleteness of the correlation. An instinct grows and decays The Moral Ideal 21 not so much on account of its effects on the individtial as on the effects on the race. The animal which on the whole is better adapted for continuing its species will have an advantage in the struggle, even though it may not be so well adapted for pursuing its own. Hence it will be neces- sary to consider the relation between the race and the in- dividual, and what modification this relation will neces- sitate in the principles already laid down. We must look on society not only as a mechanical aggre- gate, but more especially as an organized virhole. We can- not distinguish as ultimate, qualities as useful to the race, and as useful to the individual. Man is both an mdividual and a social product, and every instinct both social and self-regarding. It is only in degree that we may speak of social and individual instincts. Man's conduct is deter- mined by the social factor, as well as b}' inherited tenden- cies, and depends more or less directly upon the co-operation of others. In viewing society as an organism we must take into ac- count the implied division of functions, and those qualities developed through the social union which are not immedi- ately dedaciblefrom the properties of the individual without reference to that union. The race forms the social organism or tissue. The typical organism is that which is best fitted for all the conditions of life, or in other words which has the strongest vitality. It is preferable to use the term tissue, as the race lacks the real unity of an organism highly developed. It is of a lower type which consists of mutually connected parts spreading out independently, in dependence upon external conditions, and capable of indefinite extension not of united growth. The unity which we attribute to it consists in this, that every individual is dependent upon his neighbors, and thus every modification arising in one part is capable of being directly propagated in every other part. The social evolution means the evolution of a vStrong social tissue; the best type is the type implied by the 22 English Evolutionary Ethics strongest tissue; and the correlation between painful and pernicious, pleasurable and beneficial, is to be understood by interpreting the pernicious and the beneficial with ref- erence to the tissue, whilst painful and pleasurable refer to the instincts generated in the socialized being. It is the vigorous tissue which prevails in the struggle, and fitness for forming such tissue is the criterion of a successful elab- oration of the type. Society is to be regarded then, according to Stephen, as an organic structure, dependent for its existence upon the maintenance of certain relations between its members, more complicated in proportion to the complexion of the whole. Its development implies, therefore, the development of customs in the race, and habits in the individuals. There must then be certain rules of conduct which are observed by all in order that corresponding rules may be observed by each. To trace the development of the society, then, is to trace the development of the custom. If we could ex- tend habit to cover any mode of conduct which can be brought under any general formula, and is practical under assignable conditions, we might apply it to conduct which must continue as life continues, and to that which implies in addition to life a particular state of desire and aversion in the living being. What is true of habit, Stephen holds, is also true of cus- toms. The whole social structure must rest, in the last resort, upon theexistence of certain organic customs which cannot be explained from without. They depend for their force and vitality' upon the instincts of the individual as modified by the social factor. Considering society from the scientific point of view, we see what is implied in a law. It implies a certain social structure and a certain type of character in the members of that society. To every kind of association of the mem- bers there corresponds some kind of custom and therefore of law. The social organism is at once means and end. It develops qualities in the individual not essential to him, The Moral Ideal 23 by means of the social pressure. These are however of use to society. The end must be considered as the society capable of maintaining itself in the general equilibrium. The social properties developed may be regarded, either as the condi- tions of social vitality, or as laws imposed upon individual members. Hence we must find these social qualities. The moral law defines some of the most important character- istics so developed, and is, therefore, a statement in part of the qualities in virtue of which society is possible. The law of nature has but one precept, "Be strong." Nature has but one punishment, decay, culminatingin death or extirpation; and takes cognizance of but one evil, the weakness which leads to decay. The great law "Be strong" has two main branches, "Be prudent" and "Be virtuous." The one takes the individual into account pri- marily, the other society. Is morality prudence? Is pru- dence morality ? Can both be resolved into right reason or into a desire for happiness? In what sense has the moral code a reference to the welfare of the society ? The latter question would be answered could we but deduce the particular laws of conduct from the laws of nature, and then show which of these laws coincide with the moral law, and why. The difficulty is that the moral law cannot be accurately codified. The virtues may, however, be roughly classified thus: first, "Be strong," or "All weak- ness is an evil," second, "Be temperate" or "All excess is an evil," third, "Be truthful" or "All falsehood is an evil," and, finally, socially considered, "All injury to our fellows is an evil." Courage, once a primary virtue, is now regarded merely as one manifestation of a character which is fitted for all the requirements of social existence. Likewise in regard to the virtues of temperance and chastity, the moral law condemns those qualities in respect of which the individual deviates from the type prescribed by the condi- tions of social welfare. The virtue of truth grows slowly, but is a condition of societv's welfare. The external rule 24 English Evolutionary Ethics becomes "Lie not," and has an approximate correspond- ent in the internal rule, "Be trust worth}'." The latter is of course the higher. The social virtues, the last in the series, are justice and benevolence. These do not really conflict, for the command, "Be benevolent," carries with it the condition that your benevolence should be regulated by reason, and therefore should not benefit one man at the expense of the societ3^ The command " Be just" carries with it in the same way the condition that, whatever func- tion you are discharging, or in whatever capacity you are acting, you must be animated by public spirit, that is, by motives coincident with the dictates of a reasonable benev- olence. Thus in any case the conclusion is that the moral law prescribes a type of character which includes amongst its manifestations a desire to discharge all the social func- tions, and which therefore implies fitness to form part of a sound social state. The author next considers happiness as the criterion of moralitj'. It is an essential part of the evolution theory that the two characteristics of useful conduct, the agent's happiness and his preservation, coincide. There must be a correlation between the pernicious and painful on the one hand, and on the other hand, between the beneficial and the agreeable. By appljang this principle to the social organism, we have come to the conclusion that the devel- opment of the society implies the development of certain moral instincts in the individual, so that he finds pleasure or pain in what is socially beneficial or pernicious. If we ask why does a man act so and so, we must always an- swer, because it is pleasant. This is the reason of his conduct. But why is such a course pleasant? Becausehis character is so constituted. Stephen's task is now to show the connection between the evolutionistic and the utilitarian view of the moral ideal. We have to justify morality both as happiness giving and as life-preserving. For, says Stephen, the end must always be happiness either of self or others, and we The Moral Ideal 25 have already seen that the moral is the life preserving. The very principle of evolution implies that there must be at least an approximate coincidence, and there is no appa- rent a priori season why the coincidence should not be indefinitely close. The rules which formerly appeared as conditions of maintaining the vigor of the race, will now appear as conditions of securing its happiness. We have to inquire how the two are related. Utihtarianism being the system which endeavors to construct the moral rule exclusively from the principleof happiness, Stephen frankly states that his problem is to ask what modification must be imposed upon this system in order to make it square with the theory here adopted. The utilitarian erred by regarding society as an aggregate of units instead of as an organism. The utilitarian seeks the greatest happiness of the greatest number. While utilitarianism lays down happiness as the criterion, evolutionism lays down as the criterion the health of society. These necessarily tend to coincide. The conditions might conceivably be laid down, either by saying that the various social functions are discharged, and the relation between the social organs maintained in a certain equilibrium, or by trying to sum up the various modes of conduct which produce happiness to its various members ; but we only get a tenable and simple law when we start from the structure which is itself a unit. Only the evolutionist view gives us the true total view of morality as the health of the organism. The organism grows as does the individual. The moral instincts of the society correspond in the same w^ay to the social develop- ment, and express at every instant the judgment formed of the happiness and misery caused by corresponding modes of conduct. As the}' become organized, the whole society becomes moreefficiently constituted, and its stand- ard of happiness also modified. We may, therefore, say that at any period the utilitarian judgment must be satis- fied. Now why should a man be virtuous? The answer 26 English Evolutionary Ethics depends upon the meaning we give to the term virtuous. A man is virtuous or the reverse, so far as he does or does not coniform to the type defined by the healthy condition of the social organism. The problem is to find a scientific basis for the act of conduct. The sanction must supply the motive power by which individuals are lo be made virtuous. What is the relation between virtue and happi- ness? We have to ask these questions: first, whether the virtuous man as such is happier than the vicious; second- ly, whether it is worth while on prudential grounds for the vicious to acquire the virtuous character; thirdly, whether it can be worth while in the same sense for the vicious man to observe the external moral law? The ordinary man regards health as the first, most essential, and most efficient condition of happiness. Upon the evolutionist doctrine the whole process of nature im- plies a correlation between the painful and the pernicious, and an elaboration of types in which this problem is solved by an ever increasing efficiency and complexity of organi- zation. The typical or ideal character then at any period of development corresponds to the maximum of vitality. This type represents the happiest, it would seem, as well as the strongest. The typical man is so far the happiest. He is not only the virtuous man but he who obeys the great law of nature, " Be strong." Happiness is also correlated with such admirable qual- ities as beauty, strength, intellectual vigor, aesthetic sensibility, prudence, industrv. There is no reason for supposing negative virtue only, to coincide with happi- ness. We must include with abstinence from immoral conduct, positive morality and the qualities above named. There is a necessary connection between virtue and happi- ness, inasmuch as there is a necessary connection between virtue and total efficiency, and as virtue forms a necessary part of efficiency. Are the good happier than the bad ? There are occasions when we have to choose between two The Moral Ideal 27 masters. This way is the path of duty, that is the path of happiness. We may as well try to square the circle, says Stephen, as to show an absolute coincidence between happiness and virtue. In fact they do not coincide. For the virtuous man his own happiness is not his sole ultimate aim, and the clearest proof that a given action will not contribute to it will therefore not deter him from action. We cannot say that morality and prudence are always coincident. In exhorting a man to be virtuous we really exhort him to develop his nature upon the lines which the experience of the race has conclusively proved to coincide with the gene- ral conditions of social and individual welfares. This is to exhort him to acquire a quality of character which, under normal conditions, and in the vast majority of particular cases, will make him happier because better fitted for the world in which he lives, capable of wider and more enduring aims, and susceptible to motives which will call out the fullest and most harmonious play of all the faculties of his nature. But it is also to exhort him to acquire a quality which will in many cases make him less fit than the less moral man, for getting the greatest amount of happiness from a given combination of circumstances. Moral precepts then are the statement of the conditions of social welfare, the sum of the preservative tendencies of society. The end is the health of the organism, and the vital forces of this organism are its moral rules and senti- ments. The truly virtuous man is thet3'pical man whose character conforms to the conditions of social vitality. In this treatmentof Stephen's we have a fuller statement of the meaning of Spencer's totality'' of life in self, offspring, and fellowmen. The individual's life is full of meaning just because of the social reference. In the complex activities of this society, or in man's participation in them we find man's highest good. He lives his life to the full in all the ways which are of use to himself and especially to society. Whether these activities be strictly of the moral sort com- 28 English Evolutionary Ethics monly so-called, or whether they are the exercise of man's intellectual, eesthetic, and social nature in general, they make up for the man his realization of the good, the healthy functioning of the whole. Stephen, however, like Spencer, holds to a dual conception of the good. It is not enough that the individual's good be found in all the various activities which make up the richness of his life, it must also be expressed in hedonis- tic terms. Stephen is a hedonist, historically, as well as an evolutionist. "J. S. Mill" he says, "was the Gamaliel at whose feet I sat." The moral ideal, though inade- quately expressed by the older utilitarians, must still be described in hedonistic terms, though given a fuller mean- ing by the evolutionistic doctrines. The first necessity in estimating the value of Stephen's doctrine, as indeed was the case with Spencer, is to find whether he is justified in finding this close and necessary relation between the hedonistic and evolutionistic ends. If we find that this union is unnecessary, and even unjus- tifiable, it will then remain to examine the validity of the purely evolutionistic description of the good, as expressing the essence of those facts of morals the discussion of which belongs to the province of the ethicist. As an evolutionist Stephen holds that the individual must develop first, conduct that makes for his own pres- ervation, and, secondly, that conduct which makes for the preservation of the tribe. This is simply what the process requires of him if he is to survive as an individual in a tribe which survives. Whatever motives he has must motive him in these directions. Again as a psychological hedonist, Stephen holds, that all individuals must be motived by pleasure and pain. In the preceding chapter we have examined this view as put forth by Spencer. We were led to reject it as being only a part explanation of the motivation of conduct. It is not sufficiently a guide, not clearly enough a sole guide, to warrant that correlation between the pleasurable and the The Moral Ideal 29 life-preserving which Stephen regards as an essential part of the evolution theory. This contention removed we have no reason a priori {or supposing any such thorough going relation between the evolutionistic standard and the hedo- nistic standard as Stephen insists upon. The chief claim that Stephen makes upon the individual after all is that he shall act morally or at least so that the social organism may be sustained. Stephen goes so far as to say that both the preservation and the happiness are for society not for the individual. The coincidence between happiness and virtue are only approximate. It is not at all certain that the individual will be happy if virtuous. If very virtuous he will miss the greatest amount of hap- piness. The race as a whole is happier the greater the morality of its individual components. There being no necessity then of coincidence between the welfare of the race and the happiness of the individual, we have no reason other than an empirical one for supposing a coincidence between evolutionistic and hedonistic ends according to Stephen's treatment. Stephen himself for- sakes his fundamental hedonistic principle that the individ- ual must be a pleasure seeker. This cannot satisfy the thorough going hedonist. Life conserving conduct is only a good for him in so far as it produces happiness. Ere he can accept the evolutionist criterion he must be sure that a faithful observance of life-preserving conduct will be as a matter of fact the best means towards procuring the greatest happiness. This is in no sense guaranteed on a priori grounds. The indi- vidual in the struggle acts from other motives as well as pleasure-pain, and there is no guarantee that self and race preserving conduct will be that which brings to the indi- vidual the greatest amount of pleasure. The question is still at issue. Is conduct good because it is happiness giving or because it is life conserving? Nor does Stephen make out an extremely good case for their coincidence u,pon a posteriori grounds. The organ- 30 English Evolutionary Ethics ism must be healthy, and the individuals must be exponents of the condition of the organism's vitality. It is not guar- anteed that this will result most happily for the individual, nor in the greatest amount of agreeable feeling for the race. Stephen's sanctioning this criterion of conduct by its pleas- ure-giving properties, is again to beg the whole question. This cannot be its sanction, if pleasure is not the clear product of the conduct. And in the facts of the develop- ment experience this w^ould be a doubtful sanction from the point of view of the evolutionist. It would seem then as if it were a real forcing of the position to connect hedonism with the evolutionistic inter- pretation. The two are not necessarily connected. It has not been shown that the two are not incongruous. One is led to a considerable doubt as to the possibility of giv- ing conduct the title good from the two standards at the same time. Even supposing that virtuous or life conservingconduct does on the whole bring a surplusof pleasure, it is certainly a huge assumption to say that as a consequence does vir- tuous conduct find herein its justification. Any method of ethics would admit more or less of an agreement, but this does not warrant the hedonist in holding up his standard as a measure of the worth of thie morahty of the evolutionist, a statement of the conditions of social vigor. The task proves too great for Stephen as for Spencer to make morality essentially that conduct which is at once the condition of the vitality of the social organism, or of the greatest totality of life in each and all, and also that which makes for the greatest amount of agreeable feeling. Logically for Stephen we are obliged to leave behind, the hedonistic demands in our evaluation, and accept as his position that of the evolutionist, regarding as the good, the healthy social organism. The term organism is much more convenient to express our conception of society than is the older mathematical description of society as an aggregate of units. It brings The Moral Ideal 31 out the relation and interdependence between the constitu- ent members of society which was taken but Httle into the account by the older conception. Yet of course the term is methodological and will be retained merely as long as it is useful as an hypothesis. It is a useful term borrowed from biology, cind while it is probably but temporary it has proved an excellent hypothesis for purposes of scien- tific description. The term healthy is borrowed from the individual or- ganism, and indicates that condition of the individual when all functioning is fullest and most harmonious. When we apply this term to the social organism, that is to the number of individuals acting now as individual units and now almost as a social unit, we find it expressing that condition in the society and in the several members, when the functioning is fullest in each individual, and when the functionings of the individuals are most harmonious, thus making possible the greatest totality of life in all concerned. The conditions of this health of the organism, which for Stephen are the moral laws of society, are therefore the conditions of the greatest totality of life in each and all. There can be no doubt that this method of describing the same end as that set forth by Spencer and by Darwin, is a great advance upon the statements by these writers. The endeavor to show clearly those fundamental principles of action, which members of society must observe in order to work together harmoniously for the general good and development of all, is a necessary step, and consistently taken by Stephen. Whether to this evolutionist end the term moral can be legitimately applied must next be discussed. CHAPTER III CHARLES DARWIN AND THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY In addition to the doctrines laid down by Herbert Spencer and Leslie Stephen, it is only just to speak of the doctrines of two other great evolutionists, Darwin and Huxley. Darwin's conception of the ethical end is very different from the hedonistic conception of Spencer and Stephen, It is somewhat crude in its statement but it conveys the real essence of the good from the strictly evolutionistic point of view. It is referred to incidentally in that chapter of the De- scent of Man in which the development of the moral sense is discussed. In the case of the lower animals, he says, it seems much more appropriate to speak of their social instincts as having been developed for the general good, rather than for the general happiness of the species. Then jfoUows his famous definition of the general good, as the rearing of the greatest number of individuals in full vigor and health with all their faculties perfect, under the con- ditions to which they are subjected. And as the social instincts both of man and the lower animals have been developed by nearly the same steps, it would be advisable to take as the standard of morality the general good or welfare, rather than the general hap piness. Darwin thus does not think of agreeable feeling in self and others as being the goal of moral effort. Biologically and sociologically there is something more important than that. It agrees practically with the purely evolutionistic statements of the ideal according to Spencer and Stephen, the greatest totalit}' of life in length and breadth in self and others, and the health of the social organism. The Moral Ideal 33 The only criticism to be made of this frank and clear statement by Darwin of the ideal from the evolutionistic point of view, must be made by inquiring carefully whether or not such an ideal can express the real meaning of our moral life, whether there is such an agreement between the evolutionistic and the ethical points of view, whether in fact they coalesce. This discussion will be taken up in the next chapter. Huxley's argument proceeds along different lines, and far from making the evolution process the great promoter of happiness and morals, bitterly arraigns the process from the moral and happiness-producing standards. Professor Huxlev delivered the Romanes Lecture for 1893. He chose for his subject "Evolution and Ethics," and in this lecture defines his position as to the relation between the two. It is especially interesting coming as it does so late, and from one of the greatest scientists and evolutionists of our time. Man the animal has worked his way to the headship of the sentient world, and has become the superb animal which he is, in virtue of his success in the struggle for ex- istence. For his successful progress as far as the savage state, man has been largely indebted to those qualities which he shares with the ape and the tiger. But as man has advanced these deeply ingrained qualities have become defects. He would be only too pleased to see the ape and the tiger die. These qualities are branded by ethical man as not reconcilable with ethical principles. The cosmic process is evolution, it is full of wonder and beauty, and at the same time full of pain. What is the bearing of these facts on ethics ? Is there a sanction for morality in the ways of the cosmos ? In Hindostan and in Ionia in the ancient days men sought to make existence intelligible, and to bring the order of things into harmony with the moral sense of man. He looked the world and human life in the face, and found it as hard as we do to brina; the course of evolution into 34 English Evolutionary Ethics harmony with even the elementary requirements of the ethical ideal of the just and good. The pains and pleasures in the animal world are clearly not apportioned according to desert. Likewise in human life the violator of ethical rules constantly escapes the punishment which he deserves. Ignorance is punished as severely as wilful wrong, and the innocent is made to suffer. Edipus,pure of heart, brought his own headlong ruin ; and Hamlet, blameless dreamer, was dragged into a world out of joint. Brought before the tribunal of ethics, the cosmos might well seem to stand condemned. The conscience of man revolted against the moral indifference of nature, and the microcosmic atom should have found the illimitable microcosm guilty. The problem was fought out both in India and by the Stoics, and by the Tiber as by the Ganges ethical man admits that the cosmos is too strong for him. Cosmic nature is no school of virtue, but the head quarters of the enemy of ethical nature. This ideal wise man was incompatible with the nature of thmgs, and destroying every bond which binds him to the cosmos, he seeks salvation in abso- lute renunciation. Evolutionary moralists are probably on the right track in tracing the origin of our moral sentiments by a process of evolution, but as the immoral sentiments have no less been evolved, there is so far as much natural sanction for the one as for the other. Cosmic evolution may teach us how the good and evil tendencies of man may have come about, but in itself it is incompetent to furnish any better reason why what we call good is preferable to what we call evil than we had before. Another fallacy evolutional ethics holds is the notion that man in society must look to the process of survival of the fittest to help them toward perfection. "Fittest" has a connotation of best, and about "best" there hangs a moral flavor. In cosmic nature what is fittest depends on the conditions. Men in society are undoubt- edly subject to the cosmic process. The strongest, the The Moral Ideal 35 most self-assertive, tend to tread down the weaker. But social progress means a checking of the cosmic process at every step, and the substitution for it of another which may be called the ethical process; the end of which is not the survival of those who may happen to be the fittest in respect of the whole of the conditions which exist, but of those who are ethically the best. The practice of that which is ethically best involves a course of conduct which is in all respects opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of ruthless self- assertion it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside or treading down all competition, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect but shall help his fel- lows; its influence is directed not so much to the survival of the fittest, as to the fitting of as many as possible to survive. Laws and moral precepts are directed to the end of curbingthe cosmic process and remindingthe individual of his duty to the community. If the cosmic process has no sort of relation to moral ends, if the imitation of it by man is inconsistent with the first principles of ethics, what becomes of the theory that would apply the evolution or cosmic process to society? The ethical process must not only not imitate the cosmic process, it must not even run away from it, it must combat it. Ethical nature may count upon having to reckon with a tenacious and powerful enemy as long as the world lasts. But, on the other hand, there is no limit to the extent to which intelligence and will, guided by sound principles of investigation and organized in com- mon effort, may modify the conditions of existence for a period longer than that now covered by history. To do this we must cast aside the childish notion that escape from pain and sorrow is the proper object of life. This estimate of the relation between evolution and ethics by the great biologist, is, of course, diametrically opposed to that of Spencer and Stephen and even to that of Darwin. And so far as an argamentum ad hominem goes we may invoke it as of equal import with these others. 36 English Evolutionary Ethics In the next chapter it will be seen that while Huxley here expresses a fundamental truth, overlooked by the other writers, yet his position is an extreme one and not to be accepted without considerable modification. It may be added just here that Huxley's contentions and even Dar- win's have not been given that prominent place in the discussion of evolutionary ethics which their great impor- tance demands. CHAPTER IV COMPARISON OF ENDS, AND RELATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION TO THE MORAL vSTANDARD. § 1. Morality from the point of view oi the Evolution- ist End. The evolution of life affords as its principle of explana- tion an end which the phenomena of life and conduct all the while exhibit, and which they exhibit to an even greater extent as the process goes on. Inshowingthe end of the process, this method of explanation also exhibits the means towards this end. Life and conduct may then be viewed as end and means, and may in so far be explain- ed. The means which are successfully used in the life process, which tend most to achieve the end, and least to retard it, will of course from this point of view be called good, the opposite, bad. Good and bad conduct then of this sort are means towards a definite end, which end we may call the meaning of the life process. What then is the end, the meaning of the process? It is impossible in this essay to attempt a discussion of the metaphysical truth or meaning of the world process con- sidered as an evolution. Evolutionism as a metaphysical creed is already having fruitful results, but it cannot be applied at this stage to determine the relation between morality and life in general considered as evolving. Life and conduct here claim to be considered for themselves. Ever since life first made its appearance on the scene, the world has been a theater on which life's game has been played. From the first those who possessed life have struggled to preserve it. Death has been life's instrument. Pain and suffering, pleasure and joy, have had their minor 38 English Evolutionary Ethics parts. Those possessing life as the process went on have sought to keep what life they had, and to increase it. Then they have propagated this life in offspring; and, lastly, have sought to increase it in fellow men. This lesson we have been so well taught by Spencer, Darwin, and Stephen, that at this time to mention it is to accept it. The struggle has been for life. Severe as it has been, especially in its first stages, elimination, destruction, and death have but made possible the further life. As the pro- cess went on, the feature of increasing life become predominant. This is the most prominent feature of the process. The triple formula of Spencer, Darwin, and Ste- phen — the greatest totality of life in self and others, the rearing of the greatest number of individuals with all their faculties perfect, the vitality of the social organism — may be taken as indicating the end of the process. It is the supreme end, and from this standpoint the highest good. All that is, or has been, a means to this end is rel- atively good. Conduct tending towards this end is good conduct ; conduct tending to retard it is bad conduct. We have then to consider what sort of conduct comes under these heads. As we have before intimated, any other criterion is here out of place. Even the standard of the hedonist does not apply. Pleasure, in so far as it furthers life, is good ; in so far as pleasurable conduct is life-destroying, is it bad. Likewise, pain is bad in so far as it destroys life, good in so far as it furthers it. Death itself, though bad in so far as it means loss of life on the whole, is a good in so far as it tends to further other life. Any habit or instinct, emotion or sentiment, is good or bad in so far as it tends to bring about or to retard this end. Under this latter heading come the moral life and senti- ments of the community. Morality forms one grand means in the furtherance of life ; and, from the evolution- ist point of view, morality in this finds its raison d'etre. Here morality is nothing for its own sake, because it is The Moral Ideal 39 worthful only as a means towards the absolutely worth- ful end. In so far as it is a means to this end, is it good. In so far as it neither helps nor retards it, is it indifferent. In so far as it retards the end, it is an evil. Stephen's great service in the field of evolutionist ethics has been to show that the conditions of vitality of the social organism are its moral maxims. Moral deeds and senti- ments, we have been taught, are, on the whole, conducive to the greatest totality of life in self and others. We need not consider here his further contention that this conduciveness is the criterion of their moral worth. The life process is absolute in its own sphere, is for it- self, and is a fact. It has its own ends to serve, and for their furtherance uses the best means it knows. The worthful means are preserved, those not worthful risk elimination. The process must accordingly be interpreted from the standpoint of its own end. When we seek to label the process moral or immoral, we are simply en- deavoring to apply a foreign category which to it is mean- ingless. From its own point of view it simply cares not for such spiritual distinctions. It has used means which we would call non-moral, and means which we would call immoral, but it has also used moral principles, even reckoning them as the sine qua non of its vitality. The social organism must live, and must increase, must have its greater totality of life, and it uses morality as a means towards their end. Looked at from this point of view, the life process is both non-moral and immoral, as well as moral. Yet this is merely from the moral standpoint and is not evolu- tion's own. The process has been as it has been; and it has come to recognize the worth of conduct which we call moral, and from its experience testifies to the worth of morality. From the process we may see what morality has done for life. Morality may be absolute or relati vis- tic in itself, but from this point of view it exists to serve life's purpose. In so far as the process tells us to what 40 English Evolutionary Ethics use morality may be put, does it tell us something about morality, does it define virtue. The life process tells us that moral principles are the very conditions of society's vitality ; and thus is a fruitful source of study for the moralist, for it tells him more about morality and its uses than without it he could know. The conditions of successful life, of health in the social organism, are largely what we call moral principles. The process speaks out loudly for morals. These it cannot do without at the present stage of development. It can do without pleasure if needs be, though pleasure is welcome in so far as it helps on the process. Evolving life has its own game to play. Biologically and sociologically we have seen what its manifest end is. It uses the means best suited to its purpose. These are of course various, at one time non-moral, at another immoral, yet at a late stage most frequently moral. It values one of these as higher than another, as it can yield the process better service. Life itself, at first physical, develops also the mental and the moral. If life is to be most complete, physical, mental and moral faculties must be the most perfect pos- sible. These functionings are in themselves on a footing of equality. A good process of digestion, a good piece of mathematical reasoning, a deed of justice or of kindness, are by themselves on a par. For the life process they can- not be said to differ qualitatively. If they are not equal in value, their value must be considered qualitatively, and as a means to further activities. It is not possible from the outside to make any comparison between these kinds of functioning. The process exhibits them as forms of its life and as parts of its end. Yet each is for the whole a means. When we consider the physical as the most impor- tant, it is at a time when the whole life is mainly physical. Only as the physical is kept up are the others possible, and they would be the first to be given up, as they were the last to appear on the scene. If what we call immoral conduct should at any time conduce to more complete The Moral Ideal 41 functioning of the whole organism, individual or social, then it would become the valuable. If the mental were a serious drawback in life's struggle for preservation and increase, it would tend to be gotten rid of. Mental and moral, as well as physical functioning, have been useful in the process, all these sorts of life being in a way means to each of the others. Time was when lower mentality than that which at present exists sufficed for the purpose which the process had immediately in view. In the past, at a lower stage of society, the same factors were not the essential conditions of existence as now. Morality did not play so large a part. Injustice, cruelty and ruthless self-assertion were predominant characteristics. These were in fact conditions of existence. Life had to be increased and preserved, no matter what the means. As the process went on, how- ever, the main features of our moral law became more and more essential to the growth of this life, till now it is im- possible to think of society without them. Just here we may notice Mr. Huxley's views which have been expounded in the last chapter. He found as we saw an essential antagonism between the cosmic process and the moral order. He views the process as a whole, and there finds principles at work which are simply non-moral and immoral. The ethical process must combat the cos- mic process. Mr. Huxley fails to do justice to the moral, found in the later stage of the process, to the race in its social human stage. He finds that the whole process is working out its own end in its own way, and because this is not the embodiment all the while of a moral ideal, he condemns the process. This view must be combined with that of the other evolutionary ethicists. The process is for itself, and has its own game to play. The category of morality- simply does not apply to the process as such. It has a category of its own. Yet incidentally we may look at its morality, or its opposite of moralit}'; and he who 42 English Evolutionary Ethics wishes to view it either way may find much ground for his arguments. We find the truth of Huxley's contention when we look at a part of the means the process has all along used, and especially in what we know as the lower forms of life. We see the truth of Stephen's contention, when we consider that on the whole what we call moral principles are the conditions of sociality as such. Each errs by taking a partial view in order to force a theory that is blind to a part of the facts. The whole process does not exhibit morality as such, for that is not its method, nor its aim, so far as we can learn. Nor does the process as such exhibit the opposite of morality, for this is neither its method, nor its aim. Its aim is simpl}' something else; and its methods moral, non-moral and immoral. A priori, there is no reason to call one better than the other. The one that helps the process most is best; and Stephen has taught us our lesson too well not to recognize that, at present, the process recognizes the moral as best, as a matter of fact. Conditions may change. The non-moral and the im- moral may again play a larger part than the moral, as they did long aons ago. Morality is at the mercy of the process; and, if the greater life demands it, morality must take up a subordinate position, or maj'hap be eliminated altogether. Yet in this study we are not called upon to consider life except in a period of evolution. It is not in order to discuss here whether the whole process is a con- tinuous evolution, or a process having recurrent periods of evolution and dissolution. We are merely viewing the evolution of life, and while we may conceive of the condi- tions of life as radically changing, yet we are not called upon to view the life process in any light but as a contin- uation of what has been. In this process, as we have seen, life grows. So long as the conditions of life do not radi- cally change, we must conceive of there being the same end or meaning of the process. The means to this end may change. Morality may be used more or less. The The Moral Ideal 43 process maybe depended on to use the best means at hand suited to its purpose. Yet if the process progresses in the manner in which it has started, it would seem that morality stands a better chance for preservation and growth, even than it has had. Morality has slowly but surely developed in the process, has become of more and more use to the process. Even within historic times there has been immense development in morality in fineness and extent, and the decline of its opposite. Thus we are warranted in saying that it will probably grow more and more. As mental and moral life have for a long time been growing, it is probable they will so continue to grow. Physical man, though not perfect, is comparatively so when we consider his mental and moral development. Yet these latter are progressing at a more rapid rate than the physical ; and it is probable that life will, as in the past, tend more and more to develop along mental and moral lines. This, however, is warranted only by matter of fact. There is no reason inherent in the process why just this turn of the development should take place. No warrant, thatis in the process viewed as anevolutionof life process, whatever may be its ultimate metaphysical meaning or final purpose. Different conditions would produce differ- ent phases of life; and radically different conditions might bring partial or total defeat to the life's struggle. If the process continues, however, as it has gone on, and is now going on, we may hopefully look forward to greater men- tal and moral development. It is quite beyond the scope of this essay to search for the principle which exhibits itself in the evolution of life in just the form it has taken. Natural selection and direct adaptation to environment may or may not be sufficient for an explanation. Evolution of life, however, has noth- ing for us but the fact that the process has been as it has been. Morals have arisen to great prominence, but if we raise the question, why ? we have only the answer that 44? English Evolutionary Ethics the process saw fit to use them for its purpose. The evo- lutionist end, biologically and sociologically, is its own, is greater totality of life, while morality is for it one of its means, though indeed the most important. § 2. The evolution of life process from the point of view of morality. We have seen in what light morality appeared from the point of view of the evolution of life process. We must now take our stand on morality, and see what meaning the process has for it. There the criterion was success in helping on the process. The process was primary, was all important. All else was thought of in the light of means, and was good, bad or indifferent, according to its usefulness. Here the point of view is changed. Morality is here primary, fundamental, and all important. In its own sphere it is the sole arbiter of the worth of conduct. It now sits as judge of the world process. Morality must here be considered in itself. From its own standpoint it is absolute, just as the life process is absolute from its own point of view. All else must here be judged from the point of view of morality. In so far as any thing is moral, it is here a good ; bad, in so far as immoral ; and indifferent, so far as non-moral. Moral ideas, so far as this consideration goes, are self based. The question of the worth of morality is here out of place. This question does not arise and cannot legitimately arise purely as a question of morals. Morality is absolutely the one good, from its own point of view. The question of its happiness producing or of its life-pre- serving qualities is irrelevant. Moral Hfe, moral conduct, and moral ideas, are for themselves. Their end is their existence. In so far as the life process exhibits morality, is it to be called good. We must inquire in how far this process ex- hibits such morality. We have seen that the end of the Hfe process is not coincident with morality. It does not exist for morality's sake. From the moral point of view The Moral Ideal 45 the earlier stages of the life process are ruthless and cruel. Wholesale slaughter is one of the great means toward the end of the process. This is abhorrent to the ethical nature. Suffering and pain mark life's progress at every stage. The ethical is not only ignored, but deeds are perpetrated that are the very reverse of moral. Deceit, tyranny and cruelt\^ are successful qualities in the early life struggle. In so far as this mass of deeds, the opposite of moral, is carried on in the process, so far must the process be pro- nounced immoral. It is needless to recount here any further the immoral conduct that has led to life's preserva- tion. Nor need we but glance at the enormous amount of conduct, the opposite of moral, that has been in the pro- cess, but has not helped on its end. Even the unsuccessful, unmoral variations that have been in the process might well condemn it from the moral point of view. But it is not only in the early stages that morality passes its sen- tence of condemnation. In all stages of the process, wher- ever life is advanced by cruelty and cunning, by the infliction of pain and suffering, by the harshness of conduct guided not by moral standards, there must morality place the stamp of its disapproval. All conduct that has been is a part of the life process. Part has been successful or directed towards the end of more life, and part has been unsuccessful, has tended to the decrease of life. But in both these series, in life's process, wherever in the past or present is found evil and cunning, wherever cruelty stalks with ruthless step, whatever is or has been immoral, cruel, unjust, malevolent — these parts of the process stand con- victed from a moral standpoint. This was anticipated in our discussion in the previous section. We saw that life's process had been helped on by immoral and non-moral conduct, as well as by that which was moral. For its use of immoral means the process is worse than non-existent, from the moral point of view. The vast non-moral set of means is simply indifferent to the moral judiciary. If the account stopped here, the 46 English Evolutionary Ethics world process or life process might well be called bad. But our past considerations have shown us another phase of the process. Not only have the non-moral and the im- moral been used in life's evolution, but also the moral. From the first the individual has been developing charac- teristics that soon pass into virtues. Altruism soon appears. Justice beginsits rule. While in the strictest sense nothingcan be called moral until we come to man's willed conduct, yet as we have freely labelled theconduct just con- sidered, as immoral, from thefact that if performed by any being capable of moral distinctions it would be called im- moral, so this conduct we must designate as moral, which if performed by a moral agent would receive the name. Long before we get to human life, courage, kindness, care for offspring, and benevolence abound. Morality in so far commends the process. Wherever unsuccessful variations have been of the moral sort, and we must think of a large number as being so at first, there morality sets its seal of approval. It commends the process that produced them, and condemns that process when it causes their elimina- tion. But as the life process went on, it used morality more and more to accomplish its ends. So much so, indeed, that the fundamental conditions of the existence of society are its moral principles. Here the process is at its best from morality's standpoint, for it is the means of morali- ty's growth. It is acknowledged here to be useless to endeavor to label the process either good or bad morall3^ In so far as it has been immoral, it is bad. In so far as it has pro- duced morality, is it good. Where shall a measure be found to reckon up its moralities and its evils? And if reckoned up how measure the one with the other, the absolutely good, and the absolutely bad? The process has fought moralit}', has been indifferent to it, and has helped it on. Morality in its turn has had to fight the process, has ig- nored it, has welcomed it as its accessory. W^e have the different ends or points of view clearly before us. Life is The Moral Ideal 47 the watchword of the one, morality that of the other. What is relatively good to each we have seen. Morality is of course a part of the whole life process. Huxley, as we have seen, contends that the ethical process is essentially the foe of the cosmic process. This is not answered as some have tried to answer it by the assertion that morality is a part of the cosmic or life process. The essence or spirit of the part may be in antagonism to the essence or spirit of the whole. The process is, as we have repeated, in part the opposite of moral, as well as in part moral. Now as there is much in the process that is opposed to moralit}^ is there anything in morality that is not of service in the process ? Can all morality be considered in the light of helping on life's process ? As morality is absolute for itself, just as the life process is for itself, and as the latter has phases the opposite of moral, so may we a priori expect morality to have phases the opposite of life preserving. This we shall see to be borne out bv the facts. In the first place for immoral useful activity and conduct, the ethical process would substitute moral activity and conduct which would of course not be useful, but at this point, life-destroying. It tends to replace all immoral conduct by moral conduct. In doing this it goes beyond, in its striving to fulfill itself, what is of use to the life pro- cess. To see this in the social human stage we have only to mention what our morality demands in the case of the extremely weak, the insane, the physically and mentally incapable. The life process, ever seeking more life, bids its true votaries leave ^these to take care of themselves, and bids those who would care for them, and help eke out their miserable existence, to apply their energies to the propagation and nourishment of those in whom life phy- sically and mentally is strong, and who will thus be able to give the world greater mental and physical life in self and offspring. From the life process point of view the demands of our ethical nature in the treatment of such 48 English Evolutionary Ethics cases are both absurd and detrimental. To care for these is right morally, but wrong biologically and sociologically. This conduct may be benevolence and justice gone wrong, for the uses of the cosmic process, but not so from moral- ity's outlook. It is intelligent not blmd. The existence of this sort, the perpetuation of this incapable life in off- spring, in so far defeats the aim of the process, for it in so far prevents their place being taken by a physically and mentally vigorous life. True, the cosmic process may be the stronger, and in the end force the elimination of these weaklings ; but in so far as it uses its energies in this way is it a loss to the process as a whole. Here, then, ethical process and cosmic process are at war. In the struggle for life as it still is even at this late stage, while, in the main, success both for the race and for the individual depends on the living of moral principles, yet neither must be too good if they would succeed. The man whose moral nature is most highly developed who may be a moral reformer, may be best from an ethical standpoint, but from the life standpoint, he will not be as successful as the man who is moderately moral and who can at the appropriate time call in mere prudence in the place of high souled morality. So, too, the society that has within itself an extremely highly developed moral sense is apt in its struggle with other societies to be seri- ously handicapped. Moderate morality is what the life process uses as its means. If the ethical nature of either the individual or the race seeks to go beyond this, it must combat the process, its life is a constant struggle. Moral life is not satisfied with moderate morality. Ever before ethical man rise higher ethical ideals. Ever is he striving to reach these ideals. As he approaches them ever higher do they rise, and he in turn eagerly follows on. These ideals are beyond the real, the life process and actual moral attainment. Man's ethical nature is ever in the stage between the actual and the ideal, and hence his moral nature ever makes demands on him that the life The Moral Ideal 49 process does not justify. This is the never ceasing struggle between the ethical process and cosmic process. To a great extent the two processes agree. Each is a great means to the other. The cosmic process reckons the ethical process as its chief means, and as an important part of itself. The ethical process recognizes that the life process is to a great extent moral, and in so far commends it. But the moral goes beyond the real, and hence is in continual warfare with it. It would seem as though the cosmic process were more and more making use of the moral, and in so far the two processes are agreeing more and more. We can see a growing coalescence between the two. Spencerthinksof a time when both shall agree. Yet as we look at the nature of moral life, we must doubt that ever a perfect agreement will arise. It is as we have said the nature of the ethical to set up ideals, and to strive for these ; and, so long as it does, so it will not agree with the life process. When it ceases to be so, when the life process has caught up with the moral, when the ethical nature of man has ceased to set up its ideals, then will it cease as such to be moral. Its very life is a contending for ideals which the life process does not exhibit. True the life pro- cess has attained much in the way of morals. In so far morality commends it. So long, however, as morality has its ideals for which it struggles, so long w^illit in part con- demn the life process, and combat it. Nor must we forget that there is alwaj'S a possibility of the parting of the w^ays. In conclusion, if it be objected that this method of con- trasting the moral with the cosmic process is a begging of the question as to the meaning of morality, it may be said that it certainly is a huge assumption to limit the meaning of morality to what is of use in the struggle. It has been sought here to make only that distinction in scientific principle which the facts of experience call for. 50 English Evolutionary Ethics § 3. Morality and the evolution of life process from the point of view of happiness. Following out the line of argument in the preceding sec- tion of this chapter, a few remarks as to the moral process and the cosmic process and their relation to the hedonic ideal may be made. This maj' be done more freely on account of the close historical connection between hedon- ism and evolutionism as shown above, because morals are judged by many on account of their productiveness of agreeable feeling, and also because the endless quarrel between optimist and pessimist is here involved. In this section we may use the terms pleasure and hap- piness interchangeably, as denoting what Spencer calls agreeable feeling. And, after all, when any distinction is made between them, it is because of some real difference between the objective conditions of the feeling, as for instance, higher activities as opposed to lower, or a har- monious organization of activities instead of a lawless impulsive exhibition of the same. Pleasure and happiness, qua hedonistic, that is, regarded as states of feeling are of the same sort, and have merely a quantitative evaluation of difference. Logically, and, as we shall see, in reality, in a category different from those discussed in the preceding sections, comes the hedonistic standard. As the moral process and the life process w^ere absolute in their own domains, so happiness in its sphere. From this point of view, on this method of evaluation, pleasure is the good, pain the bad. Anythingthat conduces to pleasure is good, anythingthat hinders the obtaining of pleasure and abets pain, is bad. Accordingly, from this point of view, morality is good or bad according as it does or does not bring a surplus of agreeable feeling. So, the life process, greater totality of life in length and breadth, is good or bad according as there is or is not in it a surplusage of pleasure over pain. In ordinary judgments this view is probably taken more The Moral Ideal 51 than any other. Life is most frequently praised or con- demned on this basis. And even ethical scientists in the interests of the hedonistic theory, starting as Spencer does with the assumption that agreeable feeling is the only good, and the opposite the only evil, regard it as so much the worse for the facts of the moral life, if they do not har- monize with their theorv. Yet as the other points of view were in a way methodo- logical, so this may be as justifiably so regarded. The life process has its methods, purpose, ideals and criterion of evaluation. The moral process has its ideals and its meth- ods, and its own unique method of evaluation. And though the connection is, of course, very intimate between morality and the production of happiness, and also be- tween the health of the social organism and its height of agreeable feeling tone, yet a hedonistic evaluation has its ideals, and its criterion, and as vigorously applies them as the other processes do theirs. The first question then becomes, how does the life pro- cess appear from the hedonistic standpoint ? Of course it would be impossible, and the attempt rather presumptu- ous, to give a full discussion hereof the claims of optimism and pessimism. A few points may be brought out, how- ever, which are especially relevant to our purpose. We have seen that a priori the life process warrants neither interpretation. On Spencer's hypothesis that life was evolved by each creature performing the conduct most pleasurable under the given circumstances, and when this conserved life, well ; and, when not, ill ; even on this sup- position we found that a theory of pessimism might be concluded from resultant facts, though indeed life would not be the most painful possible. But this hypothesis we found was not justifiable, and, hence, an a priori solution of the problem impracticable. The life process as a matter of fact has produced innu- merable and incalculable pains, and has indeed abounded in pleasure. It seems to favor pleasure indeed, in that a 52 English Evolutionary Ethics moderate amount of it is better for vitality than is pain. Or at least pleasure is in some measure the index of growth, pain, of destruction. In the earlier stages of sentient life, pleasures and pains count for but little. Affective con- sciousness has grown more and more intense, and still grows, as we ascend to man, to civilized man, and to man still more highly civilized. Pleasureand pain are both more intensive, and greater in extension, as the life process goes on, as activities become more subtle and complex, and as the number of sentient beings increases. It may be called a mark of growing life, of greater totality of life in length and breadth in each and all, that affective consciousness, painful and pleasurable, is on the increase. The life process as it is studied by the evolutionist has certainl}^ added much evidence for the use of both optimist and the pessimist, but seems to have contributed little to- wards a final settlement. A vital connection is in part established between the life-giving and the pleasurable. The process abounds in pleasurable activities, and a view of these but confirms the optimist in his view of life at present and during historic times. On the other hand, the unutterable cruelty and pain, attending advancing life, the desolation and woe that are everywhere the attend- ants of progress, the struggle for life and the survival of those who are cunning and powerful enough to survive, these phases of the process the more confirm the pessimist in his interpretation of life and its meaning. While it is true that the hedonistic criterion becomes of greater importance as the life process goes on, yet it can hardly be said that the process is at one with the hedon- istic ideal. The life process cares not for pleasure-pain distinctions. It is as such neither productive of pleasure nor of pain. Its end and means is simply different from the end and means which the optimist hedonistic would see in it. In so far as the process produces pain, in so far as its very nature causes pain directly' in the attainment of its end, or indirecth' as it has unsuccessful painful vari- The Moral Ideal 53 ations, in so far must it be condemned from the hedonistic standpoint. In so far as the life process produces agreea- ble feeling, in so far does the hedonist commend the life process. The question next arises as to the worth of morality from the happiness point of view. Ultimate ethical theory has waged its battles about this point with so much zeal and with such a conflict of opinions concerning the issue, that it would be going too far in this essay to attempt a complete estimate of the relation between happiness and morals. Yet the question is a legitimate one, in this line of argument and a few suggestions may be made. The question may first be asked in how far does moral- ity promote agreeable feeling and not its contrary. Mor- ality and the moral process we have come to look at as self-existent, and as fundamental in human nature as affec- tive consciousness, or the desire for it. On a priori grounds then we are not led to reduce the one to the other. That is to say, we cannot observe as a matter of moral intui- tion, Spencer's naive and dogmatic statement to the contrary, that conduct is moral or the reverse according as it does or does not promote a surplusage of agreeable feeling. Of course all would agree that happiness both for the individual and society depends very largely upon moral conduct. For the individual moral conduct is a great means towards this achievement of a happy life undisturbed by pains. This the Epicurean saw. Of course it cannot be denied that agreeable feeling is produced likewise by con- duct non-moral and even by conduct immoral. It has never been shown either in theory- or in livingthat greater amount of agreeable feeling for the individual could not be produced by a judicious combination of conduct not moral with the great mass of moral conduct. In fact if it is agreeable feeling that men are seeking, it is quite prob- able that they must not use the moral exclusively. Men do not do so with such an ideal, and to assume that they are 54 English Evolutionary Ethics mistaken in their choice of means is not a real criticism of their position. On the contrary to be truly moral, and not in any way immoral, to live the real essence of virtue, to struggle after ideals that man has not yet attained, this high standard of living which morality pronounces most praiseworty, must bring pain, must cut off those practising it from a great amount of pleasure, must be in so far condemned on hedonistic ground. Stephen the hedon- ist says, that the attempt to make happiness and virtue coincide is hopeless, and that to be happy one should be good, but not too good. There is indeed pain in such a struggle. To relegate such conduct to fanatics and mar- tyrs is a mistake. It is what every highly moral man endures purely for the sake of morality, and not for agree- able feeling, nor is the latter its product as over against a greater product which might have been attained in some other way. This conduct is a fact of every day life, and its object is to work out one's moral nature. Though there is a tendency on the part of the evolu- tionary writers to seek a harmony between the goal of the life process and the ideal of egoistic hedonism, notably in Spencer, yet most modern hedonists find the meaning of the moral law in the utilitarian formula or its equivalent. Much can be claimed for this standard as a measure for morals. The great virtue of benevolence finds it content largely in promoting this end. If the members of a social group are immoral, the happiness of the community will be lessened. Yet it is not easily shown that, provided certain virtues are in the main lived out carefully, a greater amount of agreeable feeling in all might not be attained by such a prudential combination of phases of conduct as was mentioned in the preceding paragraph. But though the coincidence between moral conduct and the individual's happiness is great, and still greater be- tween moral conduct and the happiness of all, yet we can- not say that herein moral conduct finds its justification, that it exists solely as a means to this end. These hedon- The Moral Ideal 55 istic standards may be indices of moral conduct, not its content. It is of the greatest worth on its own account, in conduct and character. Moral conduct is for the most part approved of from the hedonistic point of view, though in a measure condemned when too strenuous in its growth and exercise. And yet on the other hand, from the hedonistic point of view, we cannot failto commend a certain measureof conduct which is considered by the moral consciousness as not moral, perhaps as immoral. Morality is for happiness a good, just as it was for the life process a good. It is the greatest aid to both happi- ness and promotion of life that these non-moral processes know. Yet it must be in a small measure an evil, for it is not always wholly in accord with these standards. We thus see that in their factual relations, as in method logically, there is a divergence between the three standards up to which conduct may be measured. § 4-. Evolution and the Moral Ideal. We cannot speak, therefore, of a coincidence between the moral order and the natural order, nor interpret either as consisting in the promotion of a surplusage of agreeable feeling. The evolution of life process both values and un- dervalues morals. Morality both commends and wages war upon the cosmic process. The three ends, or processes striving to achieve those ends, are thoroughly disparate. Each process is both absolute with respect to itself and relativistic with respect to the others. The facts of each may be made the groundwork of a science. Ethics, the science of morals, will not as a true science admit of explanation from the principles of any other science. Its last word will not consist in the exploitation of a foreign category. The hedonistic attempt has been always to explain the worth of life and moral conduct by a single principle, agreeable feeling. In so far the attempt is to be commended, 56 English Evolutionary Ethics its motive being, in ethical theory, to come to a scientific unification of a multitude of facts. Without attempting a thorough criticism of hedonism as an ethical theory, we may at least question its adequacy upon the foregoing considerations. The evolutionistic explanation, in attempting to super- sede the utilitarian, seeks a thorough going fundamental principle, which will be at once the recognition of the reign of law and of cause and effect, and an interpreter of good and bad conduct. From such a principle the good and bad may even be deduced. At least it becomes an ideal stand- ard of measurement and explanation. The observable direction of the life process becomes the moral ideal, and the means employed, the moral laws which become to the individual a threatening imperative. In the first place we may say that if such a fundamental principle could be found, and if rules of conduct werededu- ciblefrom it, such rules would be rules of the cosmic process rather than of the moral order. No doubt they would in large measure coincide, but the great lack of coincidence would be sufficient to condemn them for purposes of ethi- cal explanation. We may agree that such phrases as the greatest totality of life in each and all, and the health of the social organism, express the fundamental observable principle or evident goal of the life process. When however we have as deduc- tions from such principles the so called moral laws, we find that they are hardly deduced after all, but cited in a gen- eral way and fitted in to their place and office as in great measure promotive of the end. They are useful of course, but it is not their meaning to be essentially such. We do not find a patient attempt at deduction of cosmic principles, and then a genuine critical comparison with the facts of moral experience to test agreement. Scientific accuracy and explanation certainly demand such a proce- dure. The evolutionistic method in its enthusiasm over its discoveries has not in ethics been sufficientlv careful to The Moral Ideal 57 test its conclusions by the facts of experience ; and cer- tainly, if conclusions do not agree with these facts, we can hardly say, so much the worse for the facts. Again, the principle of explanation is not drawn from the facts of morals, but is an analogical hypothesis drawn from biology, and in a measure from sociology. The at- tempt to interpret the moral ideal by means of a biological and sociological principle meets in fact of explanation as great difficulties as in logical method. So far as these evolutionary writers have gone, we must conclude that the moral end or ideal must be a question of morals, and its place cannot be taken by a concept borrowed from an- other science. If the secret of the worth of life is to be described as a greater totality of life in each and all, this must come as a revelation from the facts of morals, and not, for proof at least, from biological and sociologi- cal considerations. That such a formula or analogy gives the meaning of the cosmic process is not sufficient proof of its validity for morals. It must be said, however, that the meaning of the moral life is revealed by a study of the life-process in a remark- able degree. It gives anew meaning to moral laws to find that they are of such vital importance to the life process and the social organism. Any theory of morals not tak- ing this into the account is inadequate. The moral order is inextricably interwoven w^ith the cosmic process, even though they are not the same. A greater light could hard- ly be thrown upon moral principles than this of the evolutionist. In describing the virtues, to leave out their meaning for the life process and the social organism, would be to leave out half their essence. Then, too, we must hold with Stephen that ethics can no longer be regarded merely as science of individual life. It cannot be identified with social science or sociology but it is in truth a social science. It has a social reference. Its facts are facts of worth for the individual living as a factor of a society. Evolutionary ethics has shown the futility 58 English Evolutionary Ethics of an attempt to arrive at the nature of the moral ideal merely by an analysis of human nature, irrespective of the complex of social activities which occupy the members of society. Again, the moral order must be viewed as a part of the w^orld order, and morals must be subject to development. A study of morals from the evolutionistic point of view reveals the fact that morals cannot be fully understood unless followed from their beginnings up through the vari- ous stages of their development to their present compara- tively high stage of growth. It is not necessary to resort to a foreign analogy as an instrument for the study of morals. Agreeable feeling as the goal of moral eifort, and the evolutionistic criterion, are both hasty and misleading. Each however, betrays a desire for scientific unification, but either hypothesis is inadequate. A study of morals must, in the first place, be genetic. The content of the moral ideal can only be revealed when we review the achievements of the moral principle in the race. Aristotle's thought of the good as activity in accord- ance with virtue, can only be fully understood in the growth of the virtues as the moral order has made good its place in the real. The intensive and extensive realiza- tion of the moral ideal may by patient investigation be appreciated step by step, until there dawns a genuine in- sight into the nature of that ideal. In this study constant reference must be made to the effect upon the world order, in the combat of the moral order with it, and, more espe- cially, in an exact estimate of the assistance which the moral order renders the world order. Secondly, the stud}' of morals must be as indicated above a study of the social individual. Herein the individual finds his morality. The moral life is revealed in its fulness of content in all the complex relationships of man to man and man to society. And this not so much in a subjective wav, as e. g., to find out the source of altruism, as to find The Moral Ideal 59 the content of these activities in so far as they are moral. In this connection the hedonistic standard must be taken into the account and morality must be understood in part as it performs the office of promoter of the general happi- ness. Though the hedonistic contention cannot be admit- ted in full, as explanatory of morals, yet a full description of the moral ideal without reference to feeling would be misleading. Third, a study of morals to define the nature of the moral ideal must in a measure follow out the old line of an anal- ysis of human nature to find the touchstone of worth. For after all it is upon individual judgments of worth that morals rest. The whole content of the moral law must be an interpretation of what individuals reckon as being of worth in the conduct of men and activities of society. That a study of morals will be satisfactorily carried on without these three demands being satisfied, seems to be out of the question. And we are led to the conclusion that when the science is carried on in this manner, we shall be the less able to accept the evolutionist end of the life pro- cess as brought out by the English evolutionary ethicists, as a genuine description of the end, in the sense of moral ideal which is being realized through the moral order. In conclusion it must be added that an attempt to recon- cile the disparate ends above discussed must be essentially a metaphysical one. It is not a question of biology and sociology, nor yet one of ethics, as to the ultimate coinci- dence of the natural order and moral order. Metaphysi- cally it may be shown that the whole world process viewed as an evolution, is a unit, and that the underlying principle of that evolution is one that we may call moral. Or again even though such a metaphysical attempt should not be successful, it may be the office of the practi- cal reason to lead us to a faith that such a unification must be in the deepest sense a reality. Spencer and Stephen seem to be dominated by such a conviction, though they might not welcome the charge. 60 English Evolutionary Ethics An ethical scientist may handover the ultimate question to the philosopher for solution by the pure reason or the practical reason ; but he must as scientist be content with that same humble attitude which characterizes other gen- uine scientists, of describing and explaining his facts upon the principles which those facts reveal to the understanding. PART II THE CONSCIENCE In the history of British ethical speculation the prob- lem of the origin and validity of the Conscience, or the Consciousness of Moral Obligation, has had a prominence second to none. And when the doctrine of evolutionism began to influence all scientific and philosophic thinking, including ethical speculation, its possibility of application to the ever recurring problem of the conscience became evident. In Darwin's " Descent of Man " we find the first classic statement of the view that the moral sense is a direct outgrowth along discernible lines from the non-moral consciousness. This view is supported by Herbert Spencer and by Leslie Stephen, though all three have different theories of the method of the development. It is proposed in this part to give a statement and review of the theories of the origin of the sense of moral obligation according to these leaders in evolutional thinking, together with some conclusions as to the development of the moral conscious- ness. CHAPTER V darwin's theory of the origin of conscience In Chapter IV of the Descent of Man, Darwin endeavors to relate the natural history of the origin of the sense of oughtness. It is the moral sense or conscience that forms the most important of all the differences between man and the lower animals. While Darwin emphasizes this, while he acknowledges the supremacy of the ought of the moral sense, and while he quotes approvingly Kant's famous apostrophe to Duty, he does not hesitate to answer the question of the famous sage of Koenigsberg, " Whence thy original? " by tracing its genesis from the instincts of the lower animals. Any animal whatever, he holds, endowed with well marked social instincts, the parental and the social affec- tions being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well, developed as in man. Not that this strictly social animal with intellectual facul- ties, man-like in activity and development, would acquire the same moral sense as ours. This would depend entirely on the conditions of existence. If men, says Darwin, were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fer- tile daughters; and no one would think of interfering. And when Sidgwick remarks that a superior bee, we may feel sure, would aspire to a milder solution of the popula- tion question, Darwin, judging from the habits of savages, thinks such a milder method very doubtful. It is Darwin's belief that any social animal, when he be- The Conscience 63 came intelligent enough, would gain some feeling of right and wrong, would gain a conscience. For each individual would have an inward sense of possessing certain stronger or more enduring instincts, and others less strong or en- during; so that there would often be a struggle as to which impulse should be followed, and satisfaction, dis- satisfaction, or even misery would be felt as past impres- sions were compared during their incessant passage through the mind. In this case, an inward monitor would tell the animal that it would have been better to have followed one impulse rather than another. The one course ought to have been followed, the other ought not ; the one would have been right and the other wrong. It may be remarked just here that throughout Darwin uses in- stinct and impulse almost interchangeably without regard to their biological and pS3'chological differences ; also that instinct is used in the very loose fashion of common sense, | as e. g., "the instinct of self preservation." Darwin goes on to show the extreme sociability of ani- i mals, how they cling together, are miserable when alone, 1 and render services for one another. The stronger protect the weaker, the old baboon rushes back to rescue the youngster from danger, the monkeys gather round and drive away the eagle from their seized comrade. This is counteracted somewhat bv the fact that animals are some- times far from feeling any sympathy, for they will expel a wounded animal from the herd, or gore or worry it to death. In this, however, they are akin to the North Amer- ican Indians who leave their feeble comrades to perish on the plains, and the Fijians, who, when their parents get old, or fall ill, bury them alive. The dog will protect his master through sympathy, the little American monkey saved his keeper froin the fierce baboon. The feeling of pleasure from society, Darwin suggests, is probabl}^ an extensionof thatof the parental or filial affec- tions, which in turn was gained chiefly through natural selections. The social instincts themselves were first de- 64 English Evolutionary Ethics veloped in order that those animals which would profit by being in society should be induced to live together. Dar- win also observes that in many instances it is probable that instincts are followed from mere force of inheritance, without the stimulus of either pleasure or pain. Hence the common assumption, very modestly yet cogently sug- gests the author, that man must be impelled to every action by experiencing some pleasure or pain, may be erroneous. Man even in his savage state is preeminently social. His social instincts still give the impulse to some of his best actions. In the earlier stages of his development, how- ever, man's conduct was largely dictated by his egoistic instincts. In time, however, love and sympathy and self- command become strengthened by habit, and as the power of reasoning becomes clearer, the individual will feel him- self impelled apart from transitory considerations to certain lines of conduct. Yet where is the conscience? Why should a man feel that he ought to obey one instinctive desire rather than another? We have now come to the crucial point on which the whole question of the moral sense turns. The instinctive impulses, says Darwin, have different degrees of strength. The social instincts are weaker than the ego- istic instincts of hunger, lust, vengeance, etc. Why does one feel regret that he has followed one of these natural im- pulses rather than another? This arises, says Darwin, from the fact that man cannot avoid reflection. Past impressions and images are incessantly passing through his mind. The social instincts are ever present and persist- ent, while the desire to satisfy hunger, vengeance, or any such passion is in its nature temporary, and can for a time be fully satisfied. Nor can we recall vividly such desires. But we can recall the fact that we have acted in the manner which satisfied them. These remembrances will often pass through the mind of the individual and will be compared with the ever present instinct of The Conscience 66 sympathy. The individual will then feel, says Darwin, as if balked in following out this present instinct. After the gratification of these selfish desires, when past and weaker impressions are judged by the ever-enduring social instinct, and by his deep regard for the opinion of his fel- lows, retribution will surely come. He will then feel remorse, repentance, regret, or shame. He will conse- quently resolve more or less firmly to act differently for the future; and this is conscience; for conscience looks backward and serves as a guide for the future. Man, prompted by his conscience, will through longhabit acquire such perfect self-command that his desires and passions will at last yield instantly and without a strug- gle to his social sympathies and instincts. This may be inherited. And finally man comes to feel by means of acquired and inherited habit, that it is better for him to obey his more persistent impulses. The imperious word "ought," says Darwin, seems merely the consciousness of a rule of conduct however it may have originated. Hence we see that for Darwin the requirements for the development of a moral sense, are well developed social instincts together with a high grade of intellectual devel- opment. These social instincts are of course not yet moral. But with these Darwin begins and on them or rather out of them he builds the moral consciousness. The high de- velopment of the mental faculties enables the individual tq recall images of past action from all kinds of motives 1 The individual has many instincts, social and non-social.) All of these seek satisfaction. Yet the non-social instincts', though strong, are of short duration, while the social in- ' stincts are almost always present. When these social 1 instincts predominate, the intellectual being who can re- member his conduct that was prompted by non-social 1 instincts, will feel that the instinct at present in control has been violated, and he is much pained thereat. The resolve that follows, to act in the future in accordance with the social instinct is the moral judgment for self, the n : 1 66 English Evolutionary Ethics pain here felt is remorse, the habit thus formed is the moral rule for action. The conception of the pre-moral individual as a bundle of instincts, impulsive tendencies, and desires, some of which are in our estimate of them egoistic and some altru- istic, is on the whole a valid one. Especially is the concep- tion a valid one in contrast with the doctrine that the natural individual is a sum of purely egoistic tendencies. Darwin was in advance of most thinkers of his time in regarding the individual as much an altruistic being, nat- 'J.-nrally, as an egoistic one. Each of these instincts, impulsive tendencies, desires, seeks its proper object, and in achieving its end furnishes the individual with a certain satisfaction. If one of these tendencies is balked in its exercise, however, pain arises. One set of these tendencies, the social, is of longer duration than the other ; hence, having memory, we ponder longer over any sort of conduct that balks the functioning of these tendencies. Hence in order not to experience such pains in retrospect, brought on by having allowed the short- enduring tendencies exercise, this being of a high degree of intelligence will, out of regard for his own pleasure, deter- mine to refrain from action that at anv future time will cause this pain to again arise, but will determine to always act according as his social instincts demand. Darwin is here making the avoidance of pain thesanction of conduct, and the calculation is consciously a pleasure-pain on the part of the individual, due regard being had to the cause of the pain. This would result in a rule of conduct, which is the object of our search here, but the rule is only a means to a pleasure end, and the resource is utilized of having the individual forget theendin themeans, after the fashion of Mill's miser, in order that the rule may be followed for its own sake according to the requirement of the ought whose genesis Darwin is seeking. But on the other hand the individual is strongly pos- sessed by his non-social tendencies, and when these are The Conscience 67 predominant their functioning and satisfaction will be his chief concern. They are from the standpoint of the natural individual as deserving of satisfaction as are the social tendencies. Hence when these non-social instincts have full sway, this individual, highly developed intellectually, will have passing through his mind images of his actions ensuing on the functioning of social instincts which had balked his egoistic tendencies, and he will be much pained thereat. Hence he will resolve m the future to forego the exercise of his social tendencies. He will resolve to act differently for the future ; and this is conscience, for con- science looks backward and serves as a guide for the future. Darwin may be right in saying that while these strong anti-social tendencies are in the ascendant the individual may not be in as good a frame of mind to think over his condition as in the former case. But the distinction is not so marked as it might seem. If the satisfaction of egoistic impulse or desire is long deferred, as it must often be, the individual has much time for thinking the situation over, and can say to himself many times, "What a fool was I, that in a former situation I allowed altruistic motives to stand in the way of my egoistic tendencies." Hence, if we follow Darwin logically, the individual will have tw^o con- sciencies, or two conscious rules for action, each acting at its appropriate time, each reinforced, or let us say caused, by its own proper feeling of pain and remorse. This difficulty Darwin seeks to avoid by insisting that the individual has predominant for a much longer period the social tendencies, so that they become more or less his habitual frame of mind. Their functioning is of longer duration, and the individual will tend to be more and more ruled by his social tendencies at the expense of their oppo- site. Yet it cannot but be admitted that the egoistic conscience is as authoritative for the short time that it is in exercise, as the longer enduring social conscience. This time element upon which Darwin lays so much stress, and to which reference will be made later, is not so clearlv a 68 English Evolutionary Ethics factor in the case as is claimed. Certainly in early devel- opment the self-regarding tendencies played as great a part in the persistence of the individual as did the social tend- encies. Darwin seems to have in mind merely these tend- encies in the shape of momentary passions, while these are but a small portion of the whole. One might well claim an equal length time for their exercise, to say nothing of the greater strength of the egoistic tendencies while in ex- ercise, admitted by Darwin. Hence we have good reason on Darwin's estimate of the psychology of the case, to think of a conscience, number two, an egoistic conscience, as well as the conscience number one, the social conscience. Or shall it be said that rules thus relative and not absolute are essentially not of the stuff to make the absolute ought of conscience ? If w^e look at the matter more closely from a psycholog- ical point of view, we have the individual, let us say, with the social tendencies uppermost contemplating his past conduct. To think on it, says Darwin, gives the individual pain, because this non-social tendency is contrary to the instinct at present ruling. Now it would seem as though this individual if he were well developed mentally as is the supposition, and if he were the shrewd pleasure-pain cal- culator that Darwin would have him, would be able to recognize that the satisfaction of his egoistic tendencies brought him pleasure. That was pleasurable satisfaction of instinct or desire. In memory, if the representation of past egoistic conduct did not bring present pleasure on account of the present altruistic temper, yet the individual would certainly remember that such egoistic conduct had been pleasurable. The present ruling tendency affords presentative pleasurable satisfaction. Each would be worth while and at its own time. If the pleasurable sat- isfaction of instinct, impulsive tendency, or desire, be the criterion of the value of conduct, as it is herewith Darwin, then instead of pain in the retrospect, there would be pleasure, or a consciousness that that past had been pleas- The Conscience 69 urable. If this being is as shrewd a calculator as Darwin makes him out, he would not regard past egoistic actions in the light of something destructive to the satisfaction of present instinct and hence painful. Psychologically speak- ing, then, we would have the two sets of rules of conduct, egoistic and social, working in turn in the person, united indeed under the higher law of continued avoidance of pain and obtaining of pleasure, which end would be lost in the means, if at all, only to be replaced by a double and inconsistent set of ends. This seems to be as yet far re- moved from the quality of moral obligation which Darwin speaks of at the outset. To put this result in a slightly different way. It is quite probable that the resolves made during the ascendancy of the social instincts would w^anewhen again the non-social tendencies come into play. Why? Simply because the worthful to the individual would be as before the satisfac- tion of present instinct. Good resolutions would now appear as bad ones, and would be bad for the very same reason that previously made them good. Conscience num- ber two would appear on the scene, and the past satisfac- tion of social tendency would be evil, following Darwin's line of argument. This intellectual individual would see to it that his present impulsive tendencies were gratified, for he has no other rule or motive to guide him than the pleasurable satisfaction of tendency. His only motive for crushing out one tendency for the advantage of the other is to avoid pain and to obtain for the longest time the most enjoyable functioning of tendency for himself. This is of course a prudential regard for the individual's own pleasure, and does not become moral motive, or obliga- tion, by becoming very conscious and very powerful to influence conduct. The pleasurable and painful consequences of conduct be- ingthe individual's guides for action, the worth of conduct would seem to be the product of intensity of pleasure by its duration. Darwin has not made it clear to us that in 70 English Evolutionary Ethics their exercise the social tendencies guarantee us more of this product than the egoistic tendencies. It would seem then that in the conflict, if conflict there is, the issue would be very uncertain. Of course, as yet, one set of tendencies has as much moral right to the victory as the other, sim- ply because neither possesses a shadow of moral right. If indeed the social instincts and desires can in the struggle for existence endure, if by calling intelligence to their aid they can successfully crush out their opponents, this is no guarantee of their moral flavor either to an observer or to the individual concerned. In all discussion on the problem of the origin of the moral sense we are likely to commit the fallacy of reading our own point of view back into the experience and judgment of the individual supposed to be developing just this moral sense. Darwin has not suc- ceeded in escaping this fallacy, for he seems to think that social tendency has more of a moral flavor for the individ- ual than egoistic tendency. Nothing could be further from the thought of the individual concerned. The time element is the only possible feature in which the social tendencies can excel the egoistic, and this indeed must be the test of their morality. Social tendencies, such for instance as impulsive sympa- thy, are not, even when pursued consciously, and to the exclusion of egoistic tendencies, necessarily moral for the individual, subjectively. No doubt the conduct commonly and rightly called moral is objectively, largely made up of the sort of actions which these altruistic tendencies prompt. There must come about somehow a harmonj^ or synthesis of all the tendencies egoistic and social, under a common rule of rightness, expressing itself in the person of the self, as the category of moral obligation. Darwin has rendered valuable assistance towards a solution in his description of the conflict between two fundamental phases of the na- ture of the self. But if we consider the logical bearing of his arguments, we see that there would be developed, a much different The Conscience 71 sort of an individual, from one obeying the dictates of obligation for their own sake, and one whose objective conduct could be regarded as consistently obej'ing through- out one fundamental law of action. Darwin has not shown us how that the satisfaction of one set of instincts at the expense of another set, is of moral worth for the individu- al. He has not shown us how social tendencies become transformed into laws with a sense of moral obligation attached, merely by a possibly successful struggle with other tendencies as much inside or outside the moral pale for the individual as the former. If conscious imperative rule of conduct does indeed result, it is the law of pleasure for pleasure's sake and not that of rightness for the sake of its moral quality. This is not to say that the sense of moral obligation is not a matter of development, in the experience of the race or the individual. It is merely an estimate of Darwin's attempt to show the method of such a possible develop- ment. CHAPTER VI spencer's theory of the origin of conscience In Chapter VII of the Data of Ethics, entitled "The Psy- chological View," Spencer traces the development of the moral consciousness and the origin of the notion of moral / obligation. Conduct being the adjustment of acts to ends, it becomes necessary to investigate the nature of the men- tal process by which this adjustment is brought about when it is called moral. In any such adjustment, moral or non-moral, we have, says Spencer, two phases of the mental process, the feeling constituting the motive, and the thought by which the action is brought about. The motive, says Spencer, passes through the stages from a simple nervous excitement produced by an object, through the purely sensational stages simple and compound, a cluster of presentative and representative sensations (feel- ings), which leads to an emotion purely representative or ideal, and this to the highly evolved compound ideal emotion. Spencer's psychological terminology need not lead us astray. Mind, he says, consists of feelings and relations among feelings. Feelings then, or sensations, which he seems to regard as synonymous, are essentially affective states of consciousness, while ideas, or relations between these original affective data of consciousness, are essential- ly intellective. The thought element in the mental process involved in the adjustment of acts to ends is first a mere instinct hard- ly removed from a reflex action ; as the life advances, step by step, ideas simple and compound arise, more complex as motives struggle for pre-eminence and issue in action. The Conscience 73 Whence come thoughts of conflicting motives, and delib- eration on the promptings of competitive feeHngs. During the evolving process the more representative feel- ings become more and more the springs of action, while motions become more complex in carrying out the more complex motives. Hence, of course, the thought side of the process, uniting the motive and the act, becomes more complicated as life evolves from the lower to the higher phases. All through the ascent from the lower forms of life to the higher, life has been preserved and more lasting benefit | derived from subordinating the presentative feelings to the / ideal. A present pleasure is foregone for the sake of a greater one to come, or for the avoidance of pain. The beast leaves his prey and secretes himself on the arrival of a more powerful animal, while the savage learns to reserve some of the fruits of the chase for another day, when good luck may not be his. As guides to conduct then, says Spencer, feelings come to have more actual authority as they advance from the simple to the complex, from thcij sensational to the ideal. And we must also observe, in viewing this evolving process, that the thoughts accom- panying these authoritative feelings have become more complex, as also have the adjustments of acts to ends. Hence, says Spencer, it becomes a general rule for success in the struggle, a rule which if disregarded results in the elimination of the rule-breaker, that the earlier evolved feelings shall be dominated by the later evolved, the simple by the complex, the sensational by the ideal. The hard facts of existence force the observance of such a rule. And here, says Spencer, is found the genesis of the moral consciousness, for the essential trait of the moral con- ciousness is the control of some feeling or feeHngs by some other feeling or feelings. While we see this growing tendency in the evolution of life process, viz., the subjugation of the presentative to the ideal, yet it is not conscious subjugation until we have left 74 English Evolutionary Ethics not only the lower animals, but also the lowest forms of human beings. But as we arise above the life of the sav- age, and come to that life where this subjugation becomes more frequent and more important, we find gradually dawning a consciousness of it ; and it then becomes, ac- cording to Spencer, a public induction down from these varied experiences. This conscious surrendering a present gain for a future one, is, as we have seen, the essence of the moral life. But it is also the essence of certain other re- straints which are the natural outgrowths of the condi- tions of existence, viz., those arising from fears, political, religious, and social, whose genesis and character Spencer proceeds to explain. While a savage tribe is yet unorganized, consciousness of the evils which a fellow-tribesman may inflict, if immediate satisfaction of desire arouses his fellow's anger, is the lead- ing restraint on these immediate satisfactions. As chief- tainship is established this fear is especially great towards the chief He begins to be both feared and obeyed. This feeling is of course transferred in even greater meas- ure to the dead chiefs ghost, and his injunctions, laws and traditions become a religious code. Disobedience of the mandates of this code will call down punishment from these departed spirits, while obedience will have its reward. Social restraints, the natural wish for the approbation of comrades, the fear of a fellow's vengeance, are all the while in operation working toward mutual forbearance, and so causing immediate desires to be checked, that the more remote may be achieved. Meanwhile the sagacious chief, seeing that cooperation among the members of his tribe increases its efficiency, restrains quarreling and whatever tends towards militan- cy within the tribe. These restraints again are transformed into religious ones. These restraints, political, social, and religious, have evolved together and are for the good of society. They present, Spencer holds, direct advantage The Conscience 75 for acquiescing in the essence of the moral law. They are not, however, moral restraints. Restraints properly moral differ from these in that they refer to the intrinsic effects of conduct and not to the ex- trinsic effects. Hence they are later in development and require for their genesis a condition in society in which these other restraints prevail, to the end that the natural outcome of the subordination of presentative motives to ideal ones may be seen to be beneficial. These restraints Spencer calls pro-ethical. The restraint can only be properly called moral when, aside from such outward constraints, conduct is pursued for its own sake, and in view of the gain or loss involved in the natural outcome of such conduct. Hence arise moral intuitions, the result of experiences of utility organized and consolidated through all past generations of the human race. The feeling, itself, of moral obligation has, according to Spencer, two elements in its make up. The first element is that of authority. As soon as there is a consciousness of the benefit derived from postponing present good for greater future good, there arises the notion of the author- ity of those motives tending to this postponement. The idea of authoritativeness has come to be connected with feelings representative and ideal, as opposed to the sensa- tional and presentative. Hence the consciousness of duty in general, derived as an abstraction from these moral ex- periences. The other element is that of coercion. This element is very prominent in the pro-ethical restraints. But this element has become so firmly attached to the essence of these restraints, i. e., the control of the presentative feelings by the representative, that in the transferrment of the content of these restraints to the moral sphere, the element of coercion has, by association, been transferred with it. But as the moral restraints become more and more 76 English Evolutionary Ethics clearly differentiated from the others, this element of coer- civeness is bound to disappear, thinks Spencer, and will remain only with its true parents the religious, political, and social restraints. This outcome is foreshadowed by many instances at the present time while duty is perform- ed without the consciousness of obligation, as, e. g., the fostering of children by parents. Many men find their highest pleasure in honest action, performed not only with- out legal, social, or political compulsion, but also without self-compulsion. When men, says Spencer, come to be completely adapted to the social state, moral obligation will disappear. All the true content of the moral law will become natural conduct, and will yield its due amount of pleasure. The motive of the consciousness of oughtnessor right will give place, according to Spencer, to the motive of the intrinsic pleasurableness of the contemplated action. The feeling of moral obligation, in so far as it is differen- tiated from any prudential authoritative motive, is only accidentally a part of the moral consciousness, and does not enter into the essence of it. This is equal to coercive- ness, and the categorical imperative is really an hypothet- ical imperative borrowed by association from forced obedience. In the first place, Spencer is incorrect in thus interpret- ing the motive of the consciousness of moral obligation ; and, in the second place, he is incorrect in thinking that moral conduct as such can escape being instigated by what we know as the category of oughtness. If the coerciveness of the notion of moral obligation is merely an associational transfer from the forced perform- ance of actions under the pro-ethical constraints, then, of course, when these constraints are seen in their true nature this feeling of coerciveness must disappear. Is the ought- ness of moral obligation of such character ? Is it bor- rowed from such a foreign category ? There can be no doubt, I think, that men are seldom prompted to moral conduct simply and solely by the mo- The Conscience 77 tive of moral oughtness. All sorts of considerations usually enter in to make up the complex motive, even pru- dential, social, political, and religious, and that, too, when they are w^ell known to be extrinsic. No doubt there also enter in feelings of coerciveness drawn from the individu- al's own experience, childhood's punishments, etc. There may be, too, a mass of inherited tendenc}' to feeling of coercion from the experience of ancestors. Society has also coerced the individual in imposing its demands and statutes upon him. But whether it has arisen with these other considerations as scaffoldings, or however it may have come about, there is in every really moral decision, an inner lonely settlement of the case with one's own inner self, no matter what the content of that self may be; and in this there speaks out clearly and unmistakably, as sepa- rate from these other considerations, and of such a nature as not to be constituted by them, an ideal legislation that is a self legislation, which is the oughtness of the self as moral. No doubt this moral self is constituted through its experiences but it is thereby none the less a personal self. The decision that issues in material morality may indeed not be at all dictated by the moral motive ; but, v^hen so dictated, it is truly a unique experience. If its origin were such as Spencer argues, it would seem as though long ere this, its parentage would have been guessed by moral beings, and its importance therebv reduced. The extrinsic nature of the coerciveness ought long ago to have been apparent to beings as highly developed intellectually, as the more enlightened part of the human race is now supposed to be. But, says Spencer, the feeling of moral obligation is bound to disappear when moral conduct becomes natural and pleasurable, when the proper adjustment of acts to ends becomes more habitual. This conclusion rests upon the psychologically unwarranted assumption that when a course of conduct becomes pleasant it will thereafter be done for the sake of the pleasure. Such indeed may be the 78 English Evolutionary Ethics case, but not necessarily so to beings who have once ex- perienced the deeper call of duty. The pleasantness of the contemplated act may indeed enter in as a part motive, may tend to become quite prominent in consciousness in many classes of acts, but this is no reason for thinking that the consciousness of oughtness will disappear. In this conclusion of Spencer, we have the supposition that after a time moral beings in society will have arrived at a state of stable equilibrium where no further advance- ment is necessary or even possible. Now this is far from representing the evolving progress of society. It is of the very nature of the social and ethical life to think new thoughts, to create new ideals, to grow in fulness of life, in short. So long as this is so, so long as there is a moral life at all in the struggle for ideals as higher conditions of existence and action, so long will there be the higher law for the individual to fulfil, so long will there be the cate- gory of moral oughtness. Thus we see that Spencer has misinterpreted the nature of the consciousness of moral obligation, and too soon predicted its disappearance. So far, then, Spencer's attempt has been to explain the genesis of moral obliga- tion, by setting up a pseudo-conscience and by explaining its appearance and disappearance. It remains, however, to examine whether in his remaining argument Spencer has not sufficiently accounted for the development of our consciousness or moral obligation. The individual in his upward career has been more successful in maintaining his life and obtaining happiness, as he has taken for his guide authoritative feelings which are removed by their complexity and their ideality from simple sensations and appetites. Here, then, we have the individual struggling for his life's preservation and for his happiness. This in- dividual has found out, though unconsciously as yet, what are the better guides for him. It is for him a matter of in- dividual concern. It is pre-eminently the individual's struggle for his own preservation and happiness. The rule The Conscience 79 of success has been that presentative simple feelings must be subordinated to the ideal complex feelings. When this becomes conscious, says Spencer, the individual must be regarded as moral, or as capable of morality. For this subordination is the cardinal trait of moral self restraint. That is to say, when the individual becomes conscious of the rule by which he may best preserve his life and attain to a surplusage of agreeable feeling, he has reached the moral stage. He sees the why and wherefore of the rule, he sees the desirable results to be obtained by following, he sees this, and being possessed of wisdom and prudence, he follows. But we have to ask, is this restraint, this conscious re- linquishment of immediate and present satisfaction, for ideal and future life-preservation and happiness, of the nature of moral resolution ? The moral consciousness as ordinarily understood, with its judgments and feelings of obligation, is not analysable into a conscious seeking of one's own preservation and happiness. This is such a conscious egoism that even the egoistic hedonist would not be willing to resolve moral judgment and feeling into it. The authoritativeness of the ideal feelings is thus seen to be of this purely egoistic nature. This cannot be the authoritativeness of the moral law, subjectively. Not in this element of authoritativeness, then, do we find the meaning of moral obligation any more than in associated coerciveness. But, says Spencer, the individual is forced by the pro-eth- ical restraints to perform conduct that is materially altru- istic though not subjectively so. In this period artificial consequences of conduct are forced upon the individual. On account of these restraints the individual will get into new habits of conduct, and while compelled to such conduct he will become aware of the results of it. His obedience to these restraints is still a matter of his own concern for his preservation and agreeable feeling. At this point 80 English Evolutionary Ethics Spencer begins to reckon as the natural results of acts their consequences upon others. The results are brought to notice by the artificial restraints. Now all along from the very first even before these artificial restraints were brought to bear, actions had certain effects with respect to others. These were of course their natural results. But as such they do not affect the individual. Results are not good or bad according to their effect upon others. On Spencer's moral evaluation in this chapter, they are good or bad subjectively for the individual according as thc}-^ do or do not promote the pleasure and continue the life of the individual concerned. The motive is not changed by the imposition of artificial restraints, nor by the forced performance of other-regarding conduct. There will not result a conscious relinquishing of the individual's satis- factions according to an ideal of conduct authoritative in its moral force, for the sake of others. If this individual has suddenly become moral, then of course, these effects of actions wnll be viewed for themselves and the individual will conduct himself accordingl3^ This presupposes the moral individual. But Spencer is not concerned with what the individual would do or feel, or what motive would prompt him, if he w^ere moral ; but the problem is, how did he become moral? Whence the genesis of the moral consciousness? Spencer may say that the moral motive springs up here somewhere, but we have not had traced the necessary conditions of its development. The individual still follows so far as we can gather from the argument, the rule for guidance that gradually dawned upon him in his evolution. Spencer's account of the individual as becoming gradu- ally more and more ruled in his development by his com- plex and representative motives, is no doubt a valid one. And somewhere in this projection of ideal motives the in- dividual finds himself as ruled consciously by the ideal motive of the oughtness of moral obligation with its con- crete content. The Conscience 81 Sometimes, however, motives that lead to immoral con- duct are more representative than those leading to moral conduct under the circumstances. Long delayed revenge is more ideal in this sense than presentative pity, which prompts conduct that the sense of moral oughtness can approve. So, too, some forms of non-moral conduct merely prudential or even theoretical in nature, are more ideal than many phases of purely moral conduct, and if these should come into conflict, the ideal would have to give way to the more presentative. Spencer, too, makes some exceptions to this rule, where ideal conduct would entail too great a sacrifice, or indeed in the case mentioned in his conclusion, where all moral conduct becomes pre- sentative to the individual, yielding present pleasure. In conclusion, then, it must be said that Spencer fails in part to show the true nature of the consciousness of moral obligation ; and, again, and more to our present purpose, he has failed to show the development as a necessary se- quence of the highly evolved moral consciousness from the admittedly non-moral consciousness preceding it. From all that we can gather from the nature of the non-moral individual, he would not become moral under the condi- tions to which Spencer subjects him. The sense of moral obligation does not seem to be constituted by any of these pre-ethical conditions, nor are we shown how that it must grow, or even can grow out of them. CHAPTER YII Stephen's theory of the origin of conscience Leslie Stephen's treatment of the question of the origin of the consciousness of moral obHgation follows almost as a corollary from his theory of the moral ideal. The end is the health of the social organism. The highest type of individual morally is he whose conduct contributes most to the health of the social organism, that is, his conduct viewed as an outcome of his character. And he is the subject of the feeling of moral obligation as he has a senti- ment or feeling prompting him to this worthy line of conduct. Stephen argues for the reality and naturalness of altru- istic feeling. Altruism begins with the capability of benev- olent intentions, that is, when conferring pleasure on others becomes a possible motive. Every motive is both objec- tive and subjective, that is, there must be end as well as motive. My conduct, sa3^s Stephen, must be conditioned by my desire, but the objective condition may be anj^thing which can affect my desire. Sympathy springs from the primar\^ intellectual power of representation, and increases with knowledge. So far as I sympathize with you, says Stephen, I annex your consciousness. True altruistic con- duct must spring from my own feelings, but its object is the welfare of others. In order that a being of sympathy, or one provided with social instincts, should act reasona- bly, it is necessary not that he should take that course of conduct which gives the greatest chances of happiness for self, but that which gives the greatest chances of happiness to that organization of which he forms a constituent part. The conscience is a feeling prompting to altruistic con- duct, that which will promote the health of the social The Conscience 83 organism. Conscience appears historically as a develop- ment of simple instincts. The moral law is obeyed long before it is brought into consciousness. We need not in- deed, says Stephen, appeal to the evolutionist to see that the conscience is not an elementary faculty. It means in any case pain felt by the wrong doer, or the sensibility im- plied by that pain. Conduct is determined by feeling, and virtuous conduct by that particular kind of feeling which we call conscience. Stephen goes on to consider as connected with conscien- tious feelings, what he calls the sense of shame. It is more often excited by offences of sensuality, for instance, than by those of cruelty, thus laying greater stress on one part of the moral code than on other parts. It often goes beyond the sphere of morality proper. A ^^oung man appearing at a dinner in a shooting coat would, perhaps, feel more ashamed of himself than if he had committed a moral offense. The pain of making a fool of oneself is often greater than at the breaking of some moral rule which is not detected. Thus the sense of shame is not alwaj's an ally of conscience, though it is in some sense implicated in conscientious feeling. It implies the existence of a social order of a certain stage of development. There is, too, says Stephen, a certain aesthetic element in the moral consciousness. Moral approval includes the pleasure derived from the contemplation of virtuous char- acter, and may therefore give rise to an aesthetic pleasure. In fact the thorough assimilation of the moral law implies the growth of a sensibility which may be called aesthetic, a capacity for receiving delight from the bare contempla- tion of high moral qualities. With these preliminaries we now come to a more direct consideration of the genesis of the conscience proper. What is the reason consciously admitted by moral agents for moral conduct? To any association of human beings there must correspond a certain corporate sentiment. This sentiment implies conformity to certain rules neces- 84 English Evolutionary Ethics sary to the welfare of the corporate body. The sense of duty, or the purely moral obligation, has the same rela- tion to the social tissue, as the various special sentiments corresponding to each organ or association have to the body to which thej^ correspond. This morality impressed on a man is an approximate expression of ideal moral qualities. For the historical growth of the consciousness of moral obligation we must view him as a member of the familv in which he is reared. As the cohesion of the whole ml tissue depends on the cohesion of the compound molecules of which it is built up, so the society depends on the family, whatever qualities are useful in one relation being useful in another. The moral sense is absorbed naturally as we grow up from childhood, just as, for instance, is patriot- ism. The individual's life in the family teaches him how to live in society. The moral law being, in brief, conformity to the condi- tions of social welfare, conscience is, as Stephen defines it, the name of the intrinsic motives to such conformity. So far we feel ourselves to be members of any social organi- zation, and identify ourselves with it, we are in virtue of that sentiment prompted to this conformity, and feel a sense of obligation. This sense of obligation, as obliga- tion, arises from our perception that the rule is formed by something outside us, that we imbibe it from the medium in which w^e live. Conscience is then the utterance of the public spirit of the race ordering us to obey the primary conditions of its welfare. It acts none the less forcibly, because we may not understand the source of its authori- ty, nor the end at which it is aiming. This account of the genesis of the conscience follows so closely the conception of morality as the primary condi- tions of the welfare of the social organism, which was equivalent, as we have seen, to the conditions of the greatest amount of life in each and all, that the criticism of the theory must, in the first place, follow our criticism of this conception of the content of the moral ideal. The The Conscience 85 content of morality was, as we saw, not exhausted by- such conceptions as the health of the social organism or the greatest amount of life in each and all. The two pro- cesses — moral process and life process — were not coincident. Each had factors not resolvable into the other, which made it impossible to consider the essence of the one as identical with the essence of the other, though of course in great part the means and the methods of the two processes were the same. Now if, as Stephen contends, there must grow up in the life process, or as he prefers to put it, the social or- ganism, a sentiment, which consciously^ or more often unconsciously, prompts to action for the welfare of the social organism, this would be a life process sentiment, which very fact differentiates it from the moral senti- ment. If this sentiment were a true servant of the end inherent in the process, it would not of necessity be a sentiment leadmg always to moral conduct. It is under no obligation to be moral. True, just as the two processes largely agree, as the conduct of individuals exhibiting the essences of the two processes largely agree, so this senti- ment would at the present stage of development where the moral plays so large a part in the life process to a great extent agree with the moral sentiment. But this sentiment, mirroring in the inner life of men the evolution of life process, cannot exactly correspond to the moral consciousness of men. The question at issue is simple. It must be decided upon the plane of the objective end and not upon the plane of the subjective sentiment. As we considered Stephen's account of the essence of the moral law to be essentially an account of the life process, which could not be identified with the moral process, so the life process conscience could not be that conscience which is the spring of the truly moral life. The genesis and growth of this corporate sentiment is not delineated by Stephen as thoroughly as one could wish, as this is the all important thing in such an evolu- 86 English Evolutionary Ethics tionary description of the nature of conscience. We have it stated by Stephen that in any society there will and must arise a corporate sentiment tending to the welfare of that society. It is so in small societies, the sentiments corresponding to which are like minor consciences. Any social club, political party or religious organization pos- sesses such a corporate sentiment. Hence it is the most natural thing in the world for that grand organization, the social organism, to have generated within it a senti- ment which actuates towards and echoes the well being of that organism. In so far as the individual is a true member of this grand society, in so far will he be possessed by this sentiment, and this is conscience. The method of this genesis is not shown as fully as one could wish. To compare its origin with that of the cor- porate sentiments may be somewhat misleading. In the case of voluntary organization, and most minor organiza- tions are such, the end in view presents itself to the indi- vidual as something desirable, the means to that end become definitely known, and consequently appropriate actions will be performed by the individual. The end ap- peals directly to him, and this at once involves a desire for that end, or a sentiment with respect to it, else the indi- vidual would not voluntarily become a member of said organization. His sentiment for the welfare of the organ- ization is directly involved in the very existence of that society, and is the reason for his being a member of it, and will impel him to conduct conducing to the welfare of that society. The case of the social organism is quite different from this. Here, as Stephen points out, the end is in itself not desired by the individual for the simple reason that he is unconscious of it, and it probably would not appeal to him even though he were conscious of it. The question of the genesis of the sentiment in this case cannot be explained by the analogy of the minor voluntary organization for The Conscience 87 in that the sentiment was based on the direct desire for the end involved. It is not clear, again, that we are aided by the analogy of involuntary minor organizations. The sentiments prompting to action for their welfare seem to involve essentially other rival organizations. It is difficult to see anything corresponding to this in the social organism. We might find it in the relation of one tribe to others or even of nations. But it would hardly seem to be necessa- rily called out in its members by such an organization as we must conceive the social organism to be. One can not readilv see how the individual becomes possessed of the sentiment, nor how the end appeals to him, even uncon- sciously. It may be suggested that the life process conserves such factors, and eliminates such individuals as are not pos- sessed at some degree of this social organism sentiment. Whether one could accept the doctrine that the struggle for life operates in just this manner or not, it is but the ordinary evolutionistic factual explanation, and would explain the preservation of the corporate sentiment, and not its manner of genesis. It is important that we should notice the coloring of obligation that this moral sentiment, described by Stephen, possesses. This is occasioned by the perception that the rule is formed by something outside us, that we imbibe it from the medium in which we live. It would seem as though this were making out of an accident of the method, by which we are aided in getting our moral notions, the very essence of the form of the sentiment. We learn from society, but this is not proving that the oughtness of the moral sentiment is the outward pressure. This is not an evolutionary description of the genesis of the ought, but a stereotyped restatement of the empirical position, which it is not our purpose to criticize here. The perception that certain rules are forced upon the individual from without does not make them binding in the moral sense. These 88 English Evolutionary Ethics rules like the rules of other societies will at best be hypo- thetical and not categorical. If you do not wish to incur the consequences of not acting in accordance with the rule formed by something outside, then of course follow the rule. For the rule to appeal to the individual as morally binding it must find him with a sense of moral obligation already formed. The feeling of moral obligation is in its very nature that the obligation is not imposed from with- out, but is the expression of inner moral selfhood. Stephen, certainly, has not explained the genesis and growth of the consciousness of moral obligation, though this does not imply that such an explanation is impossible along evolu- tionary lines. CHAPTER VIII THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS The foregoirig criticisms of the theories of Darwin, Spen- cer, and Stephen, leave us with the conclusion that these theories are inadequate as an explanation of the origin and nature of the consciousness of moral obligation. It remains to consider the inner aspect of the moral life, that is the nature of its subjective appeal to the individual, and especially to inquire what light the doctrines mentioned, and the evolutionary doctrine in general, may throw upon this much vexed question of the origin of the conscience. In the performance of moral conduct, there are two as- pects of the case which must betaken into account. First, the end, conceived of as the morally right thing to be done under the circumstances. This may be, and perhaps usu- ally is, attended by the thought of indirect consequences which will as a matter of fact follow upon the performance of the act. And, second, the motive or motives for the performance of the act. This motive is usually a complex, and consists of the end together with reinforcements. The end is to be regarded as a part of the motive, for, if it had complete possession of the consciousness of the individual, it would be the only motive power necessary for the pass- ing over into action. In addition to this, however, there are the affective qualities clustering about the thought of the end, instinctive, emotional, and sentimental. In the purely moral decision, the moral sentiment reinforces the conception of the end, and with it forms the motive in the case. Here we find in its purity the feeling of moral obli- gation, which we commonly express by the statement "I ought" or in the negative manner " I ought not." In connection with this pure moral sentiment we have the 90 English Evolutionary Ethics moral consciousness speaking in the form of a judgment "this is right" or "this is wrong," when the end is con- templated. This in some cases follows the feeling phase and sometimes precedes it. It is frequently the interpreter of the feeling or sentiment attitude, but perhaps in the well regulated life quite as frequently that which in the inter- pretation of conduct calls the sentiment immediately into exercise. In addition to these we must notice that in- tensely personal phavSe of the moral consciousness called remorse, and that milder form of moral approval. Moral ends of action, or representations of right con- duct, are the phases of consciousness which appeal to the individual in these unique ways. And just because the individual is capable of being appealed to in these ways do we call him a moral being. We must also notice that not all courses equally right from a moral point of view call out this feeling of obligation in such a soul-stirring way. And yet we commonly think, and rightly, that they w^ould do so were motives for opposed courses of action presently insistent. This brief account of its nature being before us, what can be said as to the origin and growth of the conscience ? The common thought of these evolutionary writers is that the conscience is an empirical growth from the non- moral stage to the moral. The development is a matter, however, of countless generations rather than a matter of each individual life as in the doctrine of the ordinary em- piricists. By this theory the contention between the inten- tionist and the empiricist was supposed to be done away with. It must be admitted of course that both in the individual and the race there is an early stage of life which cannot be described as subjectively of the moral sort. As developed races and individuals have such a consciousness of moral obligation, it must in their lives, more or less gradually, have come about. A claim might be made at this point that it is the busi- The Conscience 91 nessof the evolutionary moralist to study the development of moral life, and not to inquire as to its genesis out of the non-moral life of the race. That is, to begin with its low- er forms and to describe the various developments subjec- tively, and, more especially, objectively, in the growth of the race. In this contention we have accentuated the uniqueness of the moral consciousness, its utter difference from all else in the world. As the biologist begins with living organisms and does not attempt as a scientist to derive them from inorganic being, and as the psychologist begins with men- tal phenomena and does not seek to derive these from the purel}' physical, just so the moral scientist will begin with admittedly moral phenomena and will not seek to derive this moral life from the mental and non-moral. And only as the biologist has incidentally to take account of the laws of matter, and as the psychologist has to consider the relation between psychic event and physical stimulus and brain function, just to this extent has the moralist to work with purely psychological laws and use them in every ethical determination. But just as the biologist studies essentially life phenomena, and the psychologist, mental phenomena, just so the moral scientist must study moral phenomena. There can be no doubt of the validity of the contention that the chief work of the evolutionary moralist is to de- scribe the growth and advancement of the moral life from its rudimentary stage, and evolutionary ethics has done much to this effect. And in answering in the negative the question as to whether it is possible to show the develop- ment of the moral consciousness out of the non-moral ex- perience of the race, it has much of support. For let us notice that the theory of evolution explains to us the order of appearance of existing things upon the earth. And while, in a general way, it seeks to account for the whole series as an unbroken whole, yet, in the pres- ent condition of our knowledge, it must be admitted that 92 English Evolutionary Ethics it is still in the theory stage. As purely scientific it may be said to have different parts of a story to tell, and while nearly all are profoundly convinced of the closest relation between the parts, yet the connection is not proven as one could wish for a direct continuance of the story. As his- torical and scientific the evolution doctrine does not seek to explain just how the organic arose from the inorganic. The origin of life is a fact but an unexplained fact. The origin of consciousness is a fact but an unexplained fact. At a certain stage, almost at the beginning of the evolu- tionary account, we have life upon the scene in its lowest forms almost indistinguishable from the inorganic. The evolution doctrine as purely scientific does not seek to ex- plain the cause of this lowest exhibition of life, but taking it for granted seeks to explain all after and higher life from this crude manifestation. The same phenomenon is exhib- ited when mentality first comes upon the scene. Its cause is inscrutable to the scientist. He cannot, even with his principles of natural selection and adaptation to environ- ment, deduce its existence from what has gone before. He sees as a matter of fact the first appearance of mental life, and from this he seeks to develop the whole aftergrowth of mental life and activity. As a scientific explanation then, we have first the given inorganic, which for our purpose need not be traced through its different stages, then differing slightly, but still differ- ing in its essential character, we have life exhibited in its lowest forms, then, after the long development of this phase of existence, we have the slight beginning of mental- ity differing slightly, but yet differing essentially, from the life preceding. As a scientific explanation we have the ev- olution theory giving a complete history of continuous development from the lowest to the highest, except that it recognizes two slight but real breaks which it does not pretend to bridge over — that between the inorganic and the organic, and that between the physical and the mental. It does not seek to show how each of these arose from The Conscience 93 what preceded it. It takes their first almost indistinguish- able forms for granted. This is the position of evolution as a scientific explanation. As a metaphysical theory it seeks of course in some manner to unify these scientific disparates. Logically then it is possible for still another order to arise somehow from the mental life, which at first is but slightly different from the mental and yet different essen- tially, just as the mental arose upon the physical and the organic upon the inorganic. Not that it is necessary that any such new order should originate. Nothing in the men- tal order would warrant its deduction, just as there was presumably nothing in the inorganic from which on evolu- tionary scientific principles the organic could be deduced, nor yet anything in the physical from which the mental could be deduced. But if phenomena should in the time process arise that are different essentially from merely mental life, the existence of a new^ order descriptive of such phenomena would logically be thoroughly in keeping with the evolutionistic account of the other orders of existing things. The question that naturally arises in this discussion is one of fact as to whether the moral life, the moral con- sciousness or the conscience is a distinct order differing essentially from the other three. Logically there can be no difficulty in so conceiving it, and methodologically there is considerable advantage. It is in keeping with the modern scientific attitude of sep- arateness of subject matter for purposes of investigation. And as above stated the consideration of morals in this separate way must ever be the chief business of the evolu- tionary moralist. Yet there can be no gain in separating so completely even for methodological purposes the moral from the non-moral, if, in fact, there is no clear cut distinc- tion. And, of course, after our consideration of Darwin, Spencer, and Stephen, we must admit that there would be a possibility of cutting ourselves off from an explanation 94 English Evolutionary Ethics of the moral consciousness in any way except in terms of itself. The moral life is of course a part of the mental or con- scious life. It contains within itself intellection, affection, and conation. The term mental life includes within itself moral sentiments, discriminations, and determinations. Hence, of course, there is no such distinction between the moral life and non-moral as that between the mental and the physical. Yet from our consideration of Darwin, Spencer, and Stephen, it is not yet apparent how various non-moral factors can be combined and placed in the cru- cible of time and experience and have issue the moral con- sciousness of man. The fact that the moral life is a part of the mental life does not however settle the case. The organic is a part of the material world, yet living organisms are essentially different from the rest of the physical world, and their ori- gin is unexplained. So the moral may still be essentially different from the simply conscious and non-moral, and not derivable from it by any known method. The argument rests then upon the verdict of men as to the nature of the moral consciousness. This verdict seems to be, at least, that there is an essential difference. The moral life appeals to the individual as a life of oughts and ideals. The moral sentiment, the moral judgment, and the moral ideal, have in them a unique quality, audit does not yet appear from the discussion how this quality is to be accounted for. If it cannot be accounted for, then the moral scientist is as ignorant of the question of origin as the biologist or the psychologist, the one of life, another of consciousness, and the other of the sense of moral obligation and better- ness. If we should endeavor to describe the moral conscious- ness as it first appears it would probably be found to be something different from that which is now experienced as highly developed moral life. Yet in calling this moral, The Conscience 95 it must contain certain features which distinguish it from non-moral experience. The first gHmmerings of moral life are discerned when in any individual one impulsive tend- ency or desire, or temporarily inhibited instinctive reac- tion, appeals to that individual as better than another, when one of these tendencies conquers, or endeavors to conquer, an opposing one, by a dim feeling- of worth, or betterness, or right. This once arrived at in human devel- opment, we have the germs of the moral creature. This is the first moral victory and moral life's beginning. The nature of the future development may be anticipated from the first, in that it is a struggle for the victory of the right, and an acknowledgement of the place of worth in the con- sideration of all possibilities of conduct. We have, in this early experience just referred to, a con- sciousness of end, or rather of ends, and a subtle reinforce- ment of one end by a feeling of worth which is practically the feeling of moral obligation. It is then in feeling with respect to an end, or proposed phase of conduct, that the moral consciousness first appears. Here we find the es- sence, the beginning of the full moral sentiment. The moral consciousness as judgment soon arises as interpretative of these feelings, and, naturally, remorse, when the feeling is not allowed to rule. It is possible that we may be able to go back further than this in describing the development, but at any rate, if we should begin here, we should be beginning, as moral scientists with the first evidences of the moral life, just as the biologist begins with the beginnings of organisms and the psychologist with the beginnings of consciousness. The work then of the moral scientist would then be a de- scription of the growth of the moral life, subjectively in part, but of course chiefly with respect to its objective determinations. This is a worthy task, if not indeed as ambitious as the task of the derivation of the moral life from the non-moral. If we assume this starting point we have the moral order 96 English Evolutionary Ethics arising, somehow, in the midst of an order not moral. It arises now for itself and struggles for its life. The princi- ple of worth, of betterness, of right, is now established. The basal principle of morality, the vitalizing force of moral consciousness is at work. Subjectively the story is nearly told, but objectively not at all so. It remains for the experience of the race to reveal, and for the moral scientist to describe, what is the full content of the moral for man. This moral process now seeks its own growth. The principle once established, the content of that principle is capable of indefinite growth. The time process alone can reveal the whole of moral possibility. The consideration of worth referred to above as deter- mining actions, in order to be moral, must be absolute in its nature. This feeling distinguishes its ends as above all things to be desired ; and the feeling of worth, or of ought, and the judgment of right, are of the essence of the con- science. In answering the question as to whether we can go back of such experiences as these in the matter of moral origins, we must make a distinction between two aspects of the case commonly confused. Are we to attempt to name the factors in non-moral experience which may be used and fused in such a manner as to become the content of the consciousness of moral obligation ; or, are we simply to attempt to lay down the conditions within which moral- ity emerges, that is as a growth by itself and not by a fusion or growth of these non-moral conditions ? None of the writers whom we considered made this dis- tinction clear. Spencer comes most nearly to it when he speaks of the pro-ethical conditions out of which the moral life emerges, but he immediately regards these as factors, and not merely as conditions. The attempt to produce the moral consciousness from any factors non-moral in their nature seems a hopeless one. It fails in the explana- tions of these evolutionists, as it failed in the ordinary empirical explanation of the genesis of the moral conscious- The Conscience 97 ness in the individual. The moral consciousness is unique in its nature, and its essence is not to be explained by any chemistry of non-moral considerations. It is beyond their reach. It has something in it which these others have not, individually or in union. Nor, indeed, can it be truly claimed that an evolutionary explanation necessitates such a view. The story of origin would be well told if the second attempt mentioned above should succeed, though less ambitious in its nature than the attempt to resolve the moral nature into non-moral factors. Let us see then how far we may get in the matter of laying down the conditions under which we may reasona- bly suppose that morality must have sprung up. These no doubt were very complex, just as in the life of the indi- vidual the conditions of the appearance of the purel}' moral consideration are complex. And I think we may safely say that those conditions of life which Spencer, Darwin, and Stephen, laid down as the conditions of the moral life, or rather the factors out of which it was made, we may ac- cept as likely conditions out of which morality could spring. No doubt, as Darwin says, we must think of the pre-moral being as endowed with tendencies egoistic and social. And with Spencer, too, we may conceive of the various pro-ethical controls as forcing certain lines of con- duct, being likely conditions of the dawning of the better- ness or worth of conduct. And activity for the life of the social organism, according to Stephen's thought, with a feeling or sentiment toward the furthering of this life, would no doubt give a better chance for the moral con- sciousness to spring into life. In other words, in order that the genuine moral con- sciousness may have a genesis, we must have beings living together, and so ordering their acts that all may live to- gether and live together well. We must have an escape from a purely egoistic position, if indeed the individual ever were in such a position, to a beginning of effort for 98 English Evolutionary Ethics others as well as for self, and of a measure of feeling of sympathy reinforcing such activity. We must have enough intelligence, memory, imagination, and reasoning, to appreciate the meaning of this endeavor, which is the actual living out of activities promotive of a good which is more than individual, which is social. Here he will feel the social pressure, and herein no doubt he will find some egoistic advantage. He will act perforce from social pres- sure, and to a small extent willingly from prudential con- siderations so as to bring about in his family and tribe those things which, good for himself, are good also for others. Or at least his conduct will not be such as to en- croach upon the attempt of others to obtain like goods. These, it would seem, are the conditions of life out of which the moral must spring. The conditions, we repeat, and not by any means the factors out of which it is made. When, in the process of life, the moral does spring up, it will exhibit certain unique qualities not found in the pre- moral. A feeling or sentiment for the better, as better, of prompting toward the common good, the transfiguration of egoism and altruism, of an obligation to make actual an ideal. This does not borrow its authority from advan- tage in the struggle, nor from association from outer com- mand, but is the genuine authority of the appeal of the ideal upon the individual as moral, as susceptible of bet- terness of conduct, and of response to a common good, with the power of self-legislation to effect the end. We see then that the genuinely moral consciousness ap- pears quite early in the social life, that it comes into being, somehow, when certain conditions are present, but that it is not a product of non-moral factors. From the view of the ethicist this would seem to be the pronouncement upon the attempt of the evolutionist to derive the moral life from the preceding non-moral life. Any attempt to make a closer union than the one here suggested between the moral life and the preceding non- moral life, must be a metaphj'sical one. It may be that The Conscience 99 the metaphysical task here would not be as difficult a task as to unify the three orders of existence, the inorganic, the organic, and the conscious, as phases of one underlying principle. It may be that the basal metaphysical principle is itself ethical. But, methodologically, the task would seem to be a metaphysical one. ^ OF THE , UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY THIS BOOK IS DUT^ THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW 50c1,°er^Utel?t?r1hrthird%r ^"^"^'r' ^° ^ ^^^ of to $1.00 per volume aftPrThI -^^ overdue, increasing demand mav be r^newpd if t "'^'^ ^ay. Books not in expiration of loan perTod ^^^^'^^^'"^ ^^ "^ade before SEP 19 m^ UEC 15 m{. n.eD 20 i^g 50w7.'16