UC-NRLF B ^ SDD S3S ^ %. ORIGIN AND EVOLUIION OF ETHICS WERE MORAL LAWS SUPERNATURALLY REVEALED, OR ARE THEY PRODUCTS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE AND EVOLUTION? BY SINGLETON WATERS DAVIS, M. D., LL D. Jluthor of" The Scientific Dispensaiton," "A Future Life ? " etc., and Editor of " The Humanitarian Review." LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA : THE HUMANITARIAN REVIEW PUBLISHING HOUSE, NO. 854 E. FIFTY-FOURTH STREET. 1910 ^1 .-^ ^-/'-'>'- ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS WERE MORAL LAWS SUPERNATURALLY REVEALED, OR ARE THEY PRODUCTS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE AND EVOLUTION? BY SINGLETON WATERS DAVIS, M. D., LL. D. jluthoT of" The Scientific Dispensalic^," "A Future Life? " etc., and Editor of " The Humanitarian Review." LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA : THE HUMANITARIAN REVIEW PUBLISHING HOUSE. NO. 854 E. FIFTY-FOURTH STREET. 1910 V I git:- ■ f Printed al the Office of The Humanitarian Review 854 E. 54th St. Los Angeles, California. I PREFACE tflj In the first place, 1 must say that this little book does not cover ^il ••■ all of the ground at first intended. It was written in installments month after month, under constraint of far too much other work, for pub- lication in The Humanitarian Review, and it grew to far greater length than 1 had at first proposed to make it before the discussion reached anothei branch of the subject that was included in the original pros- pectus of the work laid out by the author. This was the subject of the ethics of brute or sub-human life as a substratum of the higher human ethics, which may yet be presented in another booklet. This work will not be liked by those who read merely for entertain- ment or the intellectual intoxication that comes from sensational litera- ture, but to the thoughtful, meditative man who is individualistic and independent enough to think for himself, and who is intellectually free enough from prejudice to think logically, 1 believe it will not appear to be "dry" reading, but useful and rationally entertaining. Singleton W. Davis. Los Angeles, Cai, Dec. 20, 1910. CONTENTS § 1. Introductory. — The Ideas of Ancient Sages : Hamurabi, Socrates 5-16 ij 2. Ideas of Ancient Sages (continued) : The Cynics and Cy- renaics Aristotle, et al. I 7-24 S 3. The Stoics: Zeno, et al. ...... 25-28 S 4. The Epicureans : Epicurus, Plotinus, .... 29-33 § 5. Views of Mediaeval Scholastics: St. Bernard, et al. - - 34-36 § 6. Views of Modern Moral Philosophers : Hobbes, Cumber- land, Cudworth, Clarke, Locke, Price, Butler, Hutche- son, Hume, Adam Smith, Hartley, Dugald Stewart, Paley, Thomas Brown, Bentham, Mackintosh, James Mill, Whewell, John Stuart Mill, Bailey, Kant, - - 37-93 § 7. Views of Ethical Evolutionists: Herbert Spencer, - 94-149 § 8. Views of Ethical Evolutionists of Today : C. A. Stephens, J. Howard Moore 149-157 J; 9. Ethical Culture and Evolution— Conclusion, - - 157-161 TY THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS. Were Moral Laws Supernaturally Revealed, or are they Products of Human Experience and Evolution ? SECTION I. " INTRODUCTORY—THE IDEAS OF ANCIENT SAGES. IN A series of short papers, I propose to publish in The Humanitarian Review a somew^hat elaborate discussion of the old questions of the origin of the " moral sense," and of moral laws, and the means best adapted to moral culture and the repression of immorality. Some time ago I printed in The Review a very brief series of articles on "The Nature-Basis of Ethics," which attracted rather more than usual attention and met with quite general approbation of advanced thinkers ; but now, while I may, unavoidably, make some repetitions of what was said therem, I shall aim to treat the subjects of the main theme and its minor associated ones in a wider, and more com- prehensive and thorough manner. THE IDEAS OF ANCIENT SAGES. Before entering upon a discussion of this subject from a modern science point of view, I deem it advisable to set forth briefly the ideas or " doctrines " of some of the most erudite and Note. — The matter of this booklet was first published in The Humani- tarian Review, of Los Angeles, Cal., beginning in No. 2 of Vol. vii — Aug., 1908. In order to supply additional demands for the articles in a more permanent form, they are herein reproduced. — Author. 6 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS famous of the ancient or older sages and philosophers. There is monumental evidence in Egypt that the people of that weird and wonderful country of the dead past quite fully and clearly conceived of and observed in their social relations well-defined rules of moral conduct that they were in posses- sion of a "moral code" as explicit and as binding upon them as any the world possesses to-day, even in Christendom, from prehistoric times — from more than 1 2,000 years ago up to the time of the downfall of Egypt's ancient civilization, magnificence and splendor. For, though that civilization was not the same, in many particulars, as our so-called civilization, and though that magnificence and splendor was of a kind which modern tastes do not, as a rule, appreciate, it Was a civilization, it was magnifi- cent and it was splendid, when viewed from a high, disinterested, self-abnegating standpoint. The evidences of the moral stand- ard and practice in prehistoric Egypt (and other parts of the old world) are sufficient to convince the scientist who accepts the laws of evolution as of universal dominion ; for, as he finds at the very dawn of history a well-defined moral code and a con- scientious practice of moral rules to have been in existence, he is bound to infer that for many long preceding ages a moral code, though possibly inferior, was in existence in the valley of the Nile and of the Tigris and Euphrates, as well as elsewhere. That it germinated in the very embryotic condition of that civil- ization and gradually and slowly (and consequently for ages) was developed up to its acme or zenith, which in Egypt was probably at about the time of the building of the Great ["'yramid and its most splendid temples and tombs. In Assyria and Babylonia, a moral code was in existence as long ago as we have any evidence that the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, and adjoining hill-country, were inhabited by the Semites, who probably migrated from the oases of the Arabian desert country in which their moral code probably originated and was quite highly evolved. But, for my present purposes, 1 shall refer specifically only to the philosophies and ethical doctrines of men of comparatively THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 7 more modeiTi times, yet, to our day, comparatively ancient, beginning with HAMURABI. To whom ! will only briefly refer as being the real immediate predecessor of the ethical teachers of the Hebrews or Jews, as allegorically set forth in the Old Testament scriptures chiefly as Moses, the mythical sun-god of Winter, — the sun in the zodiacal sign jJquarius. As to the evidence of this, I will not only refer the reader to works recording the discovery and rendering the translation of the famous clay tablet inscriptions, but to the writings of Assyriologists in general and to the recent lectures of Delitsch on " Babel and Bible," etc. Whether King Hamurabi was a real blood and bone man himself or only a myth, to whom the makers of the monuments ascribed the reception from their god of their moral and political code, it matters not, as the inscriptions and the symbolical pictures plainly prove that the moral code of those peoples was in existence before the time ascribed by theo- logians to the writing of the Pentateuch by Moses; and the very great similarity of the laws of Hamurabi, as recorded, as well as the current myth-stories of his age, with the decalogue and the so-called biblical history of the ancient Hebrews (real myth stories, however), proved incontrovertibly that the Jewish code, as well as their " history," was borrowed from the Assyrio-Baby- lonians or Chaldeans, and " edited " to make them assimilable by the Hebrew people. SOKRATES (OR SOCRATES). is the first great name in the history of modern-ancient philosophy, whose teachings have come down (or up) to us in w^hat is almost universally accepted as authentic writings. Soc- rates, as usually reckoned, lived from 469 to 399 B. C. He was not directly an author, but a conversational philosopher whose teachings were recorded, more or less perfectly by his disciples or students, as is plainly imitated by the four evangelists of the New Testament in their records of the " life " and teachings of Jesus. Xenophon and Plato, themselves celebrated philosophers 8 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS later, were the men who recorded the views, and, professedly, m many cases, the language of Socrates. .Xenophon undertook to vindicate the character of Socrates and the correctness of his philosophy against the accusations and sophistries that led to his tragic death. Plato, so far as his writings are expositions of the philosophy of Socrates, wrote the Apologie, the Kriton and the 'Phsdon. In the first is chiefly elucidated the methods of Socrates and " sets forth his moral attitude." In the Kriton Plato describes a conversation between Socrates and his friend Kriton only two days before his death ; and in the 'PhceJon is recorded a conver- sation on " the Immortality of the Soul." also represented as taking place only a short time previous to his death. As Hamurabi is represented as receiving the "law" from his god, and Moses the same, so Socrates is reputed to have "brought philosophy down from heaven to earth" a saying that to this day is proverbial. He discussed man and his social relations and protested against the tendencies of other philosophers to enquire into causes and laws of other natural phenomena, as the constitution of the Kosmos, or universe, the nature and move- ments of the heavenly bodies, and of winds, storms, etc., which he called " divine things," and besides being sacrilege to discuss them, he thought an understanding of them, even if gained, would be useless to man — evidently a view far in the rear of modern science progress. Socrates was, then, radically and extremely, even narrowly, utilitarian and practical. He thought the relations of man with man and the varieties of conduct between them, were the only matters within the legitimate domain of philosophic inquiry and reach of human knowledge, and the only knowledge, when gained, capable of yielding to man useful results. Socrates is said to be the first of the moderately ancient philosophers to give ethics a scientific form and foundation, chiefly by his showing thai it had an "end" and a "theory" or system of principles from which are deducible moral precepts and means, and that it was practical, utilitarian or nothing. A suggestion of what he meant by the "end" of ethics, though never by him given a formal statement, may be had from such THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 9 expressions of his as " the science of human happiness," "the art of behaving in society," etc. He seems to be somewhat incon- sistent, as viewed from the records of Xenophon and Plato. The former represents Socrates' statements of the end to be "an independent reference to the happiness of others — altruism; by Plato he is represented and is made to speak as though he consid- ered the agent's own happiness was the chief or only end, to which the happiness of others was a valuable and indispensable means. To me, these views may both be justified by nature and science. For, reduced to the last analysis, all altruistic effort is conscious effort for the good of others, prompted by unconscious motives of the good of the "agent " or actor. Just as we eat, consciously, to satisfy our appetite — desire for food, but uncon- sciously to replenish the bodily waste or to supply means of bodily growth. Socrates had a well-defined "doctrine " of ethics to the effect that " knowledge is virtue and ignorance or folly is vice." He taught that " to do right was the only way to impart or acquire happiness, or the least degree of unhappiness compatible with any given situation " — one's environment. He contended that this was precisely what everyone wished for and aimed at — only that many persons, from ignorance, took the wrong road ; and no man was wise enough to alwa\)S take the right. " And "as no man was willingly his own enemy, so no man ever did wrong willingly," but " because he was not fully or correctly informed of the consequences of his own actions ; so that the proper remedy to apply was enlarged teaching of consequences and im- proved judgment. " He taught that rvell-doing was the summum bonum, and his ideal pursuit for man was that of virtue, — "the noble and praise- worthy. " That " well-doing consisted in doing well whatever a man undertook, " and " the best man," he said, "and the most beloved of the gods, is he that, as a husbandman, performs well the duties of husbandry; as a surgeon, the duties of the medical art, in political life, his duty toward the commonwealth." And he adds that " the man who does nothing well is neither useful nor agreeable to the gods." 10 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS This latter expression shows plainly that the ethics of Socrates was an element of a religion, just as the ethics of a Chris- tian are considered by him as an element of Christianity. Yet the connection, in the mind of Socrates, between ethics and the- ology, is said to have been " very slender. " He excluded, in his distinction between the "divine" and the "human," the "arbitrary will of the gods from human affairs — from those things that con- stituted the ethical end." Yet he maintained a pious and reverential state of his own mind, and taught that men should, after patient study or medi- tation, "consult the oracles by which the gods, in cases of diffi- culty, graciously signified their intentions and their beneficent care of the race." And in this view "the practice of well-doing was prompted by reference to the satisfaction of the gods " — and "in-so-far as the gods administered the world in a right spirit, they would show favor to the virtuous" — a real theological or religious doctrine. In his practical precepts he inculcated self-denial to curb or restrain excessive human desire and sensuous ambition, and urged that self-improvement, performance of duty, rather than "indulgences, honors and worldly advancement" yielded pleasures or happiness. He said that the first aim of his life was to impart to man the shock of his consciousness of ignorance; and that the second aim is to " reproach men for pursuing wealth and glory more than wisdom and virtue." In the Krilon he is recorded as saying that iDe are never to act wrongly or unjustly)- although others are unjust to us. And here we find the sayings ascribed to Jesus, that we should " love our enemies," " return good for evil," and like sentiments, in spirit if not in word, very orderly set forth by Socrates more than three hundred and fifty years previous to the time ascribed to the life of Jesus. Socrates furnished in his own life the most consistent and wonderful faithfulness in the practice of the principles he taught, even to the point of self-sacrifice of his noble life. PLATO. This philosopher lived from 427 to 347 B. C, partly con- temporaneous with Socrates; and his ideas of ethics were similar THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS II to those of Socrates, both, doubtless, only expressing in a superior manner, as only genius can, the already current ideas of morality in logical order and methodical arrangement of coincident princi- ples, together with, perhaps, some small portion of new or original thought on che subject initiated in the brain of one or the other of them, but recorded by Plato only. Plato wrote no single work on ethics as such. His ethical doctrines are to be picked up here and there throughout many of his voluminous works under various titles. In his Apologie, Kriton and Eulhyphron, he only, or chiefly, reflects the ethical philosophy of his master, Socrates — for, though Plato was the elder of the two, he was the acknowledged pupil of Socrates. Plato's own views, the philosophy of moral conduct that may be properly called Platonian, is incidentally set forth in 'Dialogues and incorporated with his elucidations of his philo- sophical method, his theory of ideas and of man's social rela- tions. His Dialogues are Socratic ; that is, in them he adopted in his writing the conversational method of Socrates, and largely his ideas. This he called " Dialectics," or the "Method of Debate." His method of searching for philosophic truth, also, was Socratic ; that is, by apparently only searching for and discus- sing the meaning or exact definition of the principle terms used in philosophic discussion. Among these were Virtue, Courage, Holiness, Temperance, Justice, Law, Beauty (aesthetics), Knowl- edge, Rhetoric, etc. In treating of Justice or The Just, Plato, after the manner of Socrates, first exposes the indefinite notions popular among his less erudite contemporaries, and then sets forth the idea that the Just is not only expedient but honorable and good, and to this adds that it is " the cause of happiness to the just man." He also commends Justice and Temperance, and not wealth and political power, as the only conditions upon which depend human happiness. In treating of goodness, or The Good, Plato seems to be more original and expresses his personal arguments and conclu- sions. He considered that health, money, the family, etc., were " good," but only in connection with another " good, " the sl^ill to 12 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS use these things properly to bring about the supreme end, hap- piness. He thought that all knowledge was not useful, and that men are principally benefitted by knowing the good and the profitable. He calls this the " Knowledge of the Good, or Reason," by which he means a "just discrimination and com- parative appreciation of ends and means." An ethical doctrine peculiar, apparently, to both Socrates and Plato, is that of the identity of virtue and knowledge ; that the intellectual element of human conduct was paramount. For instance, Plato thought it better to be able to tell the truth if one chooses to do so, than to be unable though disposed to do so- That is, briefly, knowledge is more valuable than good disposi- tion. Law, he considered as having no authority but the arbitrary edict of a wise, ideal man. So of virtue : it is brought out in the discussion that it is resolvable into the chief or supreme "desideratum of the know- ledge of good and evil" — also determinable by the ideal " one wise man." So of temperance ; as one of the virtues, he considers it to be good and beneficial, but under the supreme knowledge or science of good and evil. In his conversational discussion of the meaning of temperance, he considers various definitions of the term but does not formally adopt any of them. In treating of Friendship, or Love, identified by him, Plato's chief conclusion is that its ultimate end is Good. In relation to Plato's discussion of this virtue in his Lysis, Prof. Alexander Bain says : " The subject is one of special interest in ancient ethics, as being one of the aspects of Benevolent Sentiment in the Pagan World." In Plato's dialogue entitled Menon, may be found the most exclusively ethical expression of the views of Socrates and him- self, and it is definitely devoted to a discussion of the question, " Is Virtue Teachable ? " They resolve virtue, as usual, into the supreme virtue. Knowledge, or that it is "a mode of knowledge," good and profitable. They distinguish this Virtue-Knowledge from Right Opinion, which they consider a kind of " quasi- THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 13 knowledge, the knowledge of esteemed and useful citizens," but which " cannot be the highest know^ledge, since these citizens fail to impart it even to their own sons" ! In the same Dialogue Plato gives his view of Immortality, which is that both pre-existence (ante-birth), and post-existence (after death), are facts. By his doctrine of pre-existence, he ex- plained the possession of general notions which antecede those acquired through sense perception ; or, as some scientists say, of inherited ideas. In Protagoras, Plato represents Socrates in a very important conversation with Protagoras, in the Socratic manner and upon his favorite ethical theme — the question, " Is Virtue Teachable ? " Socrates doubts, and then Protagoras addresses him in an attempt to show bow virtue is taught by the practice of society in approv- ing, condemning, rewarding and punishing " individuals for their actions. Protagoras, as a philosopher, a Sophist, falls short in his proofs on these grounds, and Socrates puts questions to him in order to bring out the correct definition of virtue, so that Protagoras is so far defeated that he is driven to admit that " Pleasure is the only good. Pain the only evil, and that the sci- ence of Good and Evil consists in Measuring, and in choosing between, conflicting pleasures and pains — preferring the greater pleasure to the less, the less pain to the greater." Though Plato frequently recurs to his doctrine of " Measurement," he every- where else but here applies it in general to actions from knowl- edge of good and evil, and does not again specifically refer to the theory that man is consciously thus to measure pleasures and pains, either of himself or of others. In his book, or " Dialogue," Qorgias, Plato sets forth his own ethical ideas more explicitly than elsewhere. He herein eluci- dates the celebrated Platonian doctrine that though men are prompted to act from a desire for good, " it is a greater evil to do wrong than to suffer wrong." Note here that this idea, in the New Testament, is recorded as one of the teachings of Jesus, who, even if we admit his actual historicity and the accuracy of the gospels, is thus shown not to have been the originator of the doctrine, for Plato taught it more than 350 years previous to the time of Jesus. 14 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS Plato, in the representation of a conversation of Socrates represents him as expressing the really Platonian doctrine that the criminal or the wrong doer is morally diseased, and that to punish him is to use means for curing him of his moral dis- order, and therefore he is a beneficiary of his own punishment ; and that "the unpunished wrong-doer is more miserable than if he were punished. " Plato herein represents Socrates as teaching that some pleasures are bad and some pains are good — contra- dicting his general statement, to a. degree, in 'Protagoras, that pleasure or happiness is the only good. In fact, the essence of the doctrine is here asceticism, and self-denial is set forth as a means to the chief end, good. He not only condemns all the sensuous or physical desires and pleasures, but even all the aesthetic arts and means of recreation, including " music and poetry, all provision for the most essential wants, all protection against particular sufferings and dangers — even all ser^'ice rendered to another person in the way of relief or rescue ; all the effective maintenance of public organized force, ' such as ships, arms and armies, walls, docks, etc. Con- tempt is to be had for all desires of immediate satisfaction or relief from pain or danger. Herein enters a religious idea again — the notion that supreme good is supernatural or above the things of this world. (See Grote's comments in his Qorgias.) Order and discipline are commended as ends in themselves rather than means to ends. In the discussion of the Art of Government is set forth the great Platonic doctrine of " the One Competent Person, govern- ing absolutely, by virtue of his scientific knowledge, and aiming at the good and improvement of the governed." This is a re- statement of the Socratic idea of "a despotism annointed by supreme good intentions and by ideal skill." (See Bain's Moral Science.) In Philebus, the dialogue on the Good, we have Plato's rep- resentation of the Socratic idea of the summum honum, which the master denies is mere pleasure, but the good must be related with intelligence or reason, leading human activity to proceed toward a supernatural or ideal result supposed to be superior to THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 15 man's human enjoyment. This is merely an expansion or further discussion of the religious phase of the Socratic idea of a superior good to be achieved by asceticism — by man's adherence to a line of conduct that is judged, intellectually, to be right in a general sense, though it does not lead to immediate pleasure or happiness. He thus makes Good a compound of knowledge and pleasure — that is, herein Socrates sets forth philosophically, through Plato's representation, the homely saying that passions must be controlled by reason — in one word, " self-control," im- plying " self-denial " of indulgence in that which brings only immediate pleasure. Pleasure is defined as " the fundamental harmony of the system," and pain as the disturbance of this harmony. Great importance is attached to quiet or tranquil enjoyment or happi- ness as contrasted with the excited passionate pleasures so much sought after by man in general, which is considered to be a disordered or diseased mental state. Such pleasures are delusive and lead away from true, abiding happiness. Yet pleasure is denied to be the supreme end of human action, because by its nature it is " a change or transition. " And the "measure " prin- ciple is to be applied which shall join in proper proportion the Good with the Beautiful. The spirit of this Dialogue is, ethic- ally, strongly impregnated with asceticism, and hence is a discussion of a religious rather than of a moral question. The ethical question, What is Justice? is discussed in The Republic, and is answered by offering a plan for a model repub- lic. And here a contradiction of other important ethical state- ments of Socrates occurs where Justice is given one definition of "rendering to every man his due " — a homely definition now familiar to most people as a theory ; but that definition was im- mediately amended by saying it is "doing good to friends, evil to enemies ! " And another of the speakers in the discussion defines it " the right of the strongest, " — the doctrine we know of as "might is right. " One speaker avers that injustice is profitable to the actor but evil to society, and as society makes laws against it and pun- ishes the unjust doer, justice is the more profitable leads to 16 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS lesser evils. But Socrates himself is made by Plato to contend against these vices and falls back upon his transcendental dogma that Justice is good in itself, insuring the happiness of the doer by its intrinsic effect on his mind, and irrespective of the exemption from the penalties of injustice." He even advances the idea that the State, in his ideal republic, " must prescribe the religious belief " and allow nothing at variance with the established State creed ! Practically, in this "State religion," Socrates sets forth the following rules : "The gods must always be set forth as the causes of good ; they must never be represented as the authors of evil, nor as practicing deceit ; " neither must man be repre- sented " as unjust yet happy, or just and yet miserable ; " and the poetic or literary representation of bad or evil character is forbidden. In musical training the mind is to be led £o a per- ception of the beautiful ; and " useful fictions are to be diffused, without regard to truth " — a doctrine acquiesced in by Plato and notably by " St. Paul, " as confessed by himself. SECTION II. IDEAS OF ANCIENT SAGES- THE CYNICS AND CYRENAICS. IMMEDIATELY arising out of the ethical teachings of Socrates came two opposing sects or schools of philosophers, the Cynics and the Cyrenaics, which later gradually passed with little change, the one into Stoics and the other into Epicureans. The Cynics were the more orthodox disciples of Socrates, and exemplified in their daily conduct his great maxim that "the gods had no wants and the most god-like man was he who ap- proached to the same state. " Their highest ideals were of Socratic origin : "to subsist on the narrowest means; to acquire indifference to pain by a discipline of endurance ; to despise all the ordinary pursuits of pleasure," etc. The most celebrated of philosophers of this sect were Antisthenes and Diogenes, and Zeno, who became the first Stoic. The Cynical standard of right and rong was nothing else than social authority — laws and customs of society. The Cynics did not discuss a moral faculty, the will, or disinterested — altru- istic — conduct. Yet they exercised great will-power in the form of self-control and discipline for endurance, and they practiced a high grade of morality in that their ascetic principles and prac- tices prevented wrong doing against the property of others and the exercise of public ambition or practice of personal vices. The Cynics set forth as the compensating rewards for their abstemiousness, habituation of pain and indifference as to the common enjoyments of life, "exemption from fear, anxiety and disappointments," the satisfaction of "pride" of the sense of superiority to others and their approximation to the status of the gods. The name Cynic means dog-like, and was an epithet applied by the opposing public which considered these philosophers to 18 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS be abusive, scarcastic and contemptuous and jeering toward others. Diogenes is the best illustration of the peculiar style of discussion which gained for the sect this appellation and repu- tation. While they professed to despise pleasure, their ideal end of conduct was one's own happiness, and they differed from their opponents, the Cyrenaics, only in the means to that end. The Cynics protested against most of the approved usages of society, religious, moral or secular. They were avowed "free lovers," and took no part in affairs of the State, but were inclined to practice communism both as to property and sexual relations. The Cyreniac sect originated wath Aristippus, another con- temporary and follower of Socrates. In Xenophons Memorabilia is set forth his conversations of Socrates. He is reputed to have been the first philosopher to avow that pleasure and the absence of pain were the direct and sole end of human conduct and of life. But he meant not mere present or temporary pleasures or relief from pains, but "present and future taken in one great total." He taught that it was expedient to forego present pleasure and suffer present pain in order to secure greater good, but that the extreme asceticism of the Cynics was not necessary to this end. He taught that perfect happiness was unattainable ; that man could not escape the natural evils, pain and death, but that the wise might overcome the evils of envy, intemperate love, sup>erstition, etc., as the consequences of ignorance or mistaken opinions. He taught that life was, to a degree, somewhat of a lottery, and that the ignorant or "foolish" man sometimes enjoyed more pleasure or suffered less pain than the wise man; but that the general rule was the reverse, and hence the value of a knowledge of the nature of Good and Evil. " The Cyrenaics," says Bain, "denied that there is anything just, or honorable, or base, by nature ; all depended on the laws and customs. These laws and customs the w^ise man obeys to avoid punishment and discredit from society w^here he lives ; doubtless, also, from higher motives, if the political constitution and his fellow-citizens generally can inspire him with respect." They, like the Cynics, did not believe in or profess to. have dis- interested, generous or altruistic impulses. THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 19 ARISTOTLE. Aristotle lived during the period of about 384 to 322 B. C. and is, perhaps, one of the most justly famous of the philosophers of that age. He is supposed to have written voluminously upon ethical subjects, yet much of what has been generally attributed to him is thought by some critics to have been recorded by his pupils, especially by Eudemus, and that while these records of his teachings by his pupils may be considered fairly representa- tive, in general, of his views, there is reason to think that the personal views of the pupils themselves more or less modify or even contradict some of the doctrines of Aristotle. The ethical works usually assigned to Aristotle's authorship are the Nicomachean Ethics, generally agreed to be the chief and most important presentation of his views ; and the Eudemian Ethics and the Magna Moralia, two smaller works which modern critics believe to have been produced by Eudemus, largely, and by others of Aristotle's disciples. Aristotle's ethics is not to be found set forth as an orderly system, but scattered disconnectedly throughout his writings. But by careful study and arrangement, his leading doctrines may be extracted and methodically set out, as follows : In Book 1 of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle discusses the Chief Good or the highest end of human effort. He avers that every exercise of the human powers aims at some good, and all the arts have their several ends, " which are subordinate to a general higher end, which is the chief good, the "subject of the highest art of all, the political, which, he says, aims at the welfare of the aggregate of individuals," and therefore "is identical with and comprehends the welfare of the individual." But Aristotle does not consider politics as a science of exact- ness. The student of it studies to discover what is "just, honor- able and good," and the uncertainty is so great as to this that "the utmost discrepancy of opinion prevails" —as the commonest observation of political affairs show us is still the case in this twentieth century. Hence he considers that the conclusions to be drawn from such premises cannot be known principles, but only probabilities. He says the highest practical good, men find 20 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLLTTION OF ETHICS to be happiness, but vary greatly in their opinions of what happi- ness is of its nature. He says the masses look upon it as temporal pleasures, honor, wealth, etc., " while individuals vary in their estimate according to each man's state for the time being;'* as examples, the sick look to health, the jDoor to wealth, the con- sciously ignorant to knowledge, as happiness or its chief source. He classifies the various efforts men make to attain happiness as sensuality — temporal pleasure; politics, or aspiring to honor, fame ; and the contemplative or intellectual life. He calls the first the "life of the brutes," the second he says is only a means to the end of becoming conscious of one's own merits. Even virtue, he thinks, cannot itself bring happiness, "for the virtuous man may pass his life in inactivity or experience the maximum of calamity, and such a man cannot be regarded as happy. " He does not seem to recognize the fact that a "virtuous man ' who "passes his life in inactivity " is really not a virtuous man ; that inactivity is slothfulness, laziness — a vice. But he concludes that the contemplative life is the only one that leads along the path of happiness. Aristotle controverts Plato's doctrine of an absolute good — an ideal general good distinct from all the {Articular goods, which imparts to these the property of goodness. Aristotle teaches that what he calls the Supreme End (of human endeavor) is, 1st, an end-in-itself, "pursued for its own sake; 2nd, it must he self-sufficing — ^leaving no wrants unprovided for — taking into account the gratification of man's desire for society — association. And he says that happiness is such an end — hence the Supreme End. He lays great stress on each man pursuing that art to which he is best adapted, just as the hand, the eye, the heart, etc., must do its own peculiar work to be in good health. And, as Bain expresses it, "Since the work of man consists in the exercise of the mental capacities, conformably to reason, the supreme good of man will consist in performing this work with excellence or virtue. Herein he will obtain happiness, if we assume continu- ance throughout a full period of life : one day, or a short time is not sufficient for happiness." THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 2 1 Aristotle defines man's supreme happiness, as other philoso- phers had often done, in such phrases as " good of the mind, "living well and doing well," etc. ; that it consists in virtue, as taught by the Cynics ; in practical wisdom, as taught by Socrates; in philosophy, or all of these things connected with pleasure, as taught by Plato. But in agreeing with these definitions, he states his own definition to be superior in that his theory requires virtue to not be a mere possession, but virtuous action, and that " to the virtuous man, virtuous performance is itself pleasurable." He says the only true basis of happiness is "the active manifestation of mental excellence, which no ill-fortune can efface from a man's mind. " Aristotle confined his ideas of happiness to this life and this world, apparently regarding speculation as to the means to the end of after-life happiness as "useless — such means being unavailable in this life." Presumably, he considered that the wise course was to take " one world at a time. Here 1 shall refer briefly to Aristotle's famous definition of the difference between intellectual excellence and moral excellence. He says the former is "chiefly generated and improved by teach- ing, whereas the latter is a result of habit (ethics) ;" that "moral excellence is no inherent part of of our nature ; if it were, it could not be reversed by habit, any more than a stone can acquire, from any number of repetitions, the habit of moving upward. " He held that moral excellence is neither a part of nor contrary to human nature, that we are by nature simply adapted to take it on and to bring it into habit through which it attains to its consummation. Moral virtues, he taught, are acquired only through practice. Just as the mechanic learns to build by build- ing and the harpist learns to play by playing the harp, so men become just, etc., by the practice of the moral virtues. And on this principle he justifies government as effecting morality ; for he says ' all lawgivers shape the characters of their respective citizens by enforcing habitual practice." And again, as to the effect of compulsion as establishing a life of moral rectitude, he refers to the importance of enforcing good actions upon the young habitually from the. beginning — " the permanent ethical 22 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS acquirements are generated by uniform and persistent practice.'* As Bain remarks, this is the earliest statement of the philosophy of habit. Many modern opponents of reform movements in which the force of law is called for, contradict this principle, but, I think, without just grounds in the facts of human nature. One of the common expressions of these people is that "you cannot make men moral by law." This is often accepted as a self-evident fact, whereas ! deem it a gross fallacy. Indeed it is upon this principle of forming moral habits by compelling the practice of moral conduct that parents generally resort to coinpulsion in bring- ing up their children ; and we see on every hand the evil effects of failure to train children compulsorily to do right, and of the good effects of the opposite course, in the formation of the habits and moral character of the grown-up men and women. One of the chief objects, then, of criminal law should be the formation of fixed habits of moral conduct by enforcing the practice of right conduct. This is nothing more nor less than the universally- recognized principle of exercise as a means of development. The physical culturist compels the practice of his muscles in the line of action which results in the development of strength and agility. Aristotle, therefore, takes pains to emphasize his doctrine by frequently declaring that his purpose is not only to teach what virtue is, but to teach what are virtuous agents. And he says we are to know of what this practice should be, not by the edicts of the gods, but by the exercise of reason. But he explains that as in the case of rules for the promotion of health, no universally- applicable rules of practice for the development of virtuous hab- its can be laid down. The rules and methods must be more or less varied to suit individual differences. Aristotle sets forth a curious but reasonable means of knowing when a course of moral conduct has really become established as a fixed habit of character. It is this : That the performance of virtuous acts from a fixed habit gives no pain -no fear or remorse. " He that feels pain in a brave act is a coward. " So he defines a virtuous education as one which "makes men feel pleasure or pain at proper objects and on proper occasions; pun- ishment is a discipline of pain. THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 23 Aristotle insisted persistently upon the principle of the neces- sity of a man's habitually performing acts from a proper motive to constitute him a moral man ; and that the only way toacquire these character-habits was by practice, which not only develops the habit but also the mental state back of it which takes cogni- zance of the intention. Finally, to give concisely Aristotle's definition of virtue, it is thus stated : " Virtue is an acquirement or fixed state, tending by deliberate purpose (genus) toward a mean relative to us (dif- ference), determined by reason as the Judicious man would determine. " This he sets out as a rule for recognizing an author- ity for moral conduct, but at the same time he refers all rules of moral conduct back ultimately to their original source in the authority of the society or State of the time and place. He lays much stress on the mean in the practice of virtue, but recognizes the difficulty of determining in practice what that mean is. He lays down some general rules for assisting in this determination : "Avoid the worst extreme ; keep farthest from our natural bent ; guard against the snare of pleasure ". In par- ticulars of practice, however, all must be left to the judgment of reason , Aristotle taught that both virtue and vice were voluntary — that is, that man willed to do virtuous or to do vicious acts. He does not seem to have traced the line of causation back so far as to discover that the will is determined by peculiarities of heredi- tary organization and the life-environment of the actor. It may be truly said that men act virtuously or viciously because they will to do so ; but we are justified by facts in going further and saying that men will to do one or the other kind of acts by the character of their mental organization influenced by their environ- ment -their circumstances. He says "man must be admitted to be the origin of his own actions," but that is only a part of the truth ; for man cannol be admitted to be the origin of himself, and the selfhood of man is what constitutes him an individual person, and the sum of his acts good and bad constitute the characteristics of his individuality and personality and character. Hence, we may truly say that the proximate cause of virtuous or vicious acts or habits, is man's will, but that the ultimate causes 24 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS of those acts and the will are hereditary organization and environ- ment. Again, he says " legislators and others punish men for wickedness, and confer honor on good actions," implying that in this we have evidence that those actions are causelessly voluntary -that the will to do thus and so is itself without a cause. But the Determinist's answer to this is that the punishment of men as a means of correcting their actions is nothing more nor less than supplying them with an environment which delermines their will to act differently from what they would in an environment of pleasure Further, he says "our character itself, or our fixed acquirements, are in our power, being produced by our succes- sive acts," which is another half truth, for to say that there is no cause back of the will to produce a certain line of successive acts is to say that man is himself a "first cause," or a causeless effect. But he makes a distinction between individual acts and fixed acquirements or habits, by saying that the latter "are not in his own power in the same sense or degree in which his separate acts are." That is, speaking correctly, the habit is really Je/er- mined by a certain line of conduct. But that line of conduct, though determined by the will as a proximate cause, is deter- mined by heredity and, largely, by environment — the causes of the will itself. Of Aristotle's doctrine of the voluntary control of both virtuous and vicious acts, Alexander Bain remarks : "Aristotle \s happily unembroiled with the modern controversy. The mal-apropos of ' freedom' had not been applied to voluntary action. Ac- cordingly he treats the vs^hole question from the inductive side, dis- tinguishing the cases where people are praised or blamed for their con- duct from those where praise and blame are inapplicable as being pow- erless. It would have been well if the method had never been departed from; a sound psychology would have improved the induction, but would never have introduced any question except as to the relative strength of the d.fferent feelings operating as motives to voluntary con- duct." [ Moral Science, p. 74.] Aristotle classifies the virtues into those of Courage, Temper- ance (moderation). Liberality, Magnificence (a "grander kind of liberality"). Magnanimity or Highmindedness, Mildness (a state in which one is not impelled by passion but guided by reason), ' Good Breeding, Modesty, Justice (the social virtue by pre-emin- ence), and the Intellectual virtues or excellences. THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 25 The Aristotelian moral philosophy may be summarized thus: 1 , The judgment of the wisest and most highly cultivated minds constitute the standard; 2, Happiness is the Sumwum Bonum or Chief Good ; 3, Virtue in particular is distinguished from excel- lence in general; 4, The individual is the moral pupil of society ■ — i.e., each takes his lessons in moral conduct from the general edicts and practices of society; 5, Morality is wholly apart from theology, SKCTTON IIT. THE STOICS, Zeno, of Citium, who lived from 340 to 260 B. C, was the founder of the sect of philosophers called the Stoics. The Stoical philosophy was an outgrowth of the Cynical, and was the direct opponent of the Epicurean. It flourished for about 400 years, and has more or less permeated and influenced nearly, if not all, thought and literature relative to ethics, at all effected by the Greek philosophies, ever since. The name Stoic means a porch, and was applied to Zeno and his pupils because their school was originally opened in a building or porch called the Stoa Poecile— "painted portico," — in Athens. Cleanthes, a noted pupil of Zeno, wrote the Hymn to Jupiter, which was a remarkable production and the earliest authentic writing of the Stoics that has come down to us. This hymn sets forth the unity of God (Jupiter) — ■ that is, the monotheistic idea^his omnipotence and his moral government of the world. Another pupil was Chrysippus, who vn-ote voluminously and somewhat modified the original Stoical system of Zeno. About the time of the beginning of the Chris- tian era, the Stoic philosophy began to be accepted in Rome, and through the Roman literature, doubtless, it has affected that of the English and European languages. A writer on the Stoical philosophy, Sir A. Grant, apparently demonstrates that the system is more closely related to the an- cient oriental systems than to early Greek ideas—that it is largely of Asiatic origin, and he shows that nearly all the earlier Stoical philosophers were of Asiatic birth. In Rome, Stoicism was early presented by Cicero in his treatise, ©e Offiis, which was based on a previous work of one Panastius ; and by Cato the Younger, Seneca (6 B. C— 60 A. D.) Epictetus 26 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS (the Slave), and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the Emperor (121- 180 A. D.). There, two opposing philosophies, Stoicism and Epicureanism, flourished side by side. The Stoics taught a theologico-moral system really a sort of religion. Their system may be summarized under four heads : 1 . Theological the system of the Universe and man's rela- tion thereto. It was, in a sense, monotheistic, but critically speak- ing really not so, for while it taught that the Universe was ruled by one Supreme God, it taught also that he was assisted by numerous subordinate, inferior deities. It emphasizes the dogma that the good and wise God governs the world in such manner that the good are rewarded with happiness and the wicked with misfortune and misery. The idea of divine revelation through omens, prophecy and certain forms of divination, was embraced, so that the Gods thus revealed to man that which they had fore- ordained. In the Stoic theology, God, the Supreme God, was anthromorphous in body and spirit. It essayed to account for evil in a world governed by an allwise, omnipotent God, as mod- ern theists yet do, by a series of axiomatic assumptions, as fol- lows: a — "God is the author of all things except w^ickedness ; b — the very nature of good supposes its contrast for opposite], evil, and the two are inseparable, like light and darkness; c in the enormous extent of the Universe, some things must be neg- lected [virtually admitting the finitcness of God]; d when evil happens to the good it is not as a punishment, but as connected with a different dispensation ; e parts of the w^orld may be pre- sided over by evil demons ; /^ -what we call evil, may not be evil.' (Bain's Moral Science.) The First Cause wbs said to be Zeus, " the primal fire," from whom emanated the souls of men as "warm ether. " God was thought to be material substance, as " nothing incorporeal could act on wh^t is corporeal. " The Stoics were undecided as to man's immortality, teaching that at death the individual soul was absorbed by the divine es- sence ; and yet that we should consider this as undecided and " leave it to the pleasure of God. " Their argument for the exist- ence of God was the old ones (still in use) of design and analog]^ — " that a greater power pervades the Universe as the intellect per- vades the human system." THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 27 2. In the Stoical Psychology there were two chief doctrines — the theory of " freedom of the will " and that of " pleasure and pain. " In regard to freedom of the will, Epictetus and others of the Stoics taught that such freedom extended to a class of " things in our power, " as our desires, affections, aversions, and even our opinions about things ; while it did not extend to such things as were "not in our power, as authority, honor, rank, wealth, death, and even our bodies. They thought the freedom of the will in relation to the latter was unimportant, and " the want of them should not give us pain nor mar our happiness. The force of deprivation of wealth, rank, etc., and of death, was thought to be wholly in the idea of them, and our freedom of will enabled us to control this idea to the point of indifference. Though 1 have here used the term freedom of the mill for this Stoical doctrine, it must not be understood as extending back to the cause of the will, as now discussed by the Determinists. It referred exclusively to our freedom to do or acquire, or prevent things. The free volition was not discussed in this discussion ; it was a matter of things our free volition could not control. But Chrysippus went back of this and argued with his opponents that the will itself was alwa\}s determined or controlled by antecedent motives — that is, causes. He denied the doctrine of Aristotle that there existed within the soul an automatic, self-initiating or spontaneous power, which was irregular (not governed by natu- ral law). In decisions of the will in cases of apparently equal conflict, he declared that the balance, or exact equality did not long continue, " because some new but slight motive slipped in unperceived and turned the scale on one side or the other." (See Plutarch "De Stoicorum Repugnatiis, c. 23, p. 1045.) The practical application of this doctrine was, that man should train his mind to adapt himself to will to acquire or do things " in harmony with the schemes of Providence," which they thought were always planned for the good of the entire world, as a whole in extent and duration. The bad man who did not so regulate his conduct to harmonize with these providential schemes, suf- fered for his error, while the good man who did so regulate his will and conduct, escaped with less pain or none at all. But Determinism was a doctrine of philosophies and various 28 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS schools of philosophy long before Chrysippus. For Socrates Plato and Aristotle, and, as Bain says, "all the ethical teachers of antiquity," taught that the decisions of the will depended upon natural causes, and not upon an initiating power of the soul. Epicurus also taught this doctrine. These moral philosophers all aimed to originate new habits and a "new type of character," though they disagreed as to ex- actly what that new type should be. But the general end was the same, the formation of a type of character able to regulate the desires and aversions with reason, and to temper the suscepti* bility of the will to different motives or causes. This aim could not be consonant with the idea that the will is "self-originating and unpredictable." 3. The Stoical theory of Happiness was that it depended solely upon the Good ; that mere pleasure was no part of good, and pain no part of evil, and therefore relief from pain was not necessary to happiness. Still, to maintain their defense of a moral life, they were obliged to, in part, modify this theory. 4, The theory of Virtue held by the Stoics, was, in brief, that it consisted in a "life according to nature;" subordination of the individual to the general interests of the family, country and hu- manity, and even "the whole Universe." The highest character of virtue was "to consider self as absolutely nothing in comparison with the universal interest," and to regard this interest as the sole purpose of the individual life. They were humanitarians, regarding with kindness not only all mankind, but the animals and even inanimate things. They declared there was "no difference between the Greeks and the Barbarians," and antedated Paine's famous declaration by saying that "the world is our city." The Stoical ethics was an element of a religion, and Stoicism, taken as a whole, was a religion as well as a " philosopy. ' For it emphsized the importance of our "duties to God, and of morality based on piety." The Stoics declared that all men were not only brethren, but also " children of one Father." THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 29 SKX'TIOX I\'. THE EPICUREANS. Epicurus, the founder of the philosophical sect called the Epicureans, was born on the island of Samos, 341 B. C, and died at the age of seventy-one years. It is supposeed that he was a pupil of Xenocrates or Theophrastus in Athens. In a gar- den in that city he established a school for the study of philoso- phy in 306 B. C. It is recorded of him that "his life was simple, chaste and temperate;" but, alas for the perversity of human er- rancy, which has set up and persistently mantained many an- other false tradition, the reputation of Epicurus and his followers has been exactly opposed to the truth, and his very name has become proverbial the world over as a synonym for the antith- eses of "simple, chaste and temperate." He is reputed to have written 300 works on philosophy, but probably the most of this writing was the labor of his pupils ; and nothing now exists di- rectly attributable to him except three letters, in which he gives a condensed statement of his theories for the benefit, apparently, of a few of his near friends. At Herculaneum, there have been exhumed some supposed fragments of his writings, and some of his followers have recorded certain detached sayings as the words of their master. As Prof. Bain says, "most of our knowledge of Epicurus is from the works of his opponents, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and of his follower, Lucretius." Of the Roman Epicurean writers, Lucretius, who lived from 95 to 51 B. C, is chief, and his poeti- cal work, De Rerum Natura, gives the most complete exposition of the Epicurean system that is in existence. A Christian ( Ro- man Catholic ) writer named Gassendi, became a champion of Epicurus and his philosophy and published a work in 1647 enti- tled Syntagma Philosophies Epicuri and a life of Epicurus, and "he established an Epicurean school in France among the disciples of which were Moliere and Voltaire." (Bain.) Only of the ethical aspects of the Epicurean philosophy can 1 speak here. The standard of morals, as taught by Epicurus, was 30 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS referred to pleasure and pain pleasure as the reward of virtue, pain as the panalty of vice, in general, and he taught that virtue was the only good, pain the only evil, that the one ■was not an end in itself to be sought nor the other an end itself to be avoid- ed ; that the motive for practicing viitue and abstaining from vice was to the end that pleasure might be increased and pain dimin- ished ; and that to attain this end to the greatest degree, "the complete supremacy of reason is indispensable." Happiness, Epicurus defined as enjoyment of pleasure and freedon from pain ; and the missapprehension of this has doubt- less led to the error of believing that Epicureanism was only base sensualism. To understand this definition aright we must know exactly what Epicurus meant by the terms pleasure and pain, and here is a quotation from him that is pertinent : "When we say that pleasure is the end of life, we do not mean the pleasures of the debauchee or the sensualist, as some from ignorance or from malignity represent, but freedom of the body from pain, and of the soul from anxiety. For it is not continuous drinkings and revelings, nor the society of women, nor rare viand.s and other luxuries of the ta- ble, that constitute a pleasant life, but sober contemplations, such as searches out the grounds of choice and avoidance, and banishes those chimeras that harass the mind." Bain states the case fairly, as follows: . "When we read the explanations given by Epicurus and Lucretius of what the Epicurean theory really was, and compare them with the nu- merous attacks made upon it by opponents, we cannot but remark that the title or formula of the theory was ill-chosen, and was really a mis- nomer. What Epicurus meant by pleasure was not what people meant by it [sensual indulgence] but something very different — a tranquil and comfortable state of mind and body ; much the same as what Demo- critus had expressed before him by the phrase Euphemia. This last phrase would have expressed what lipicurus aimed at. neither more nor less. It would at least have preserved his theory from much misplaced sarcasm and aggressive rhetoric." —Mora/ Science, p. 120. Epicurus came very close to the modern doctrine of evolution in his theory of the relationship of bodily feeling physiological sensation and mentality the memory and hope of pleasure or memory and expectation of pain. He says the one is prior to the other ; "the former was primordial while the latter was de- THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 31 rivative from it by repeated processes of memory and association." And he taught that the mental or intellectual element of pleas- ure or pam far surpassed m importance the mere physical or bodily element, because the latter "exists only in the present," "but mental feelmgs involve memory and hope — embrace the past as well as the future — and may endure for a long time." Epicurus considered the chief ills of life to be not bodily pains, but the delusions of exaggerated hopes and aspirations for wealth, honor, etc., and from the delusions of fear- anticipations of evils to come; and he said "the two greatest torments of human ex- istence " were " fear of death and of eternal suffering after death as announced by prophets and poets, and fear of the gods." He did not believe in " the existence of the soul separate from the body," but that it was a compound of " air, vapor, heat and another nameless • ingredient, * * in the chest [the breath, of course, was the original soul or " spirit " as I have often contended] dependent on the body and incapable of separate or disembodied contmuance." He was a firm believer in the gods, but considered the preva- lent opinions about them as " vulgar " and insulting. He con- ceived of them as very superior beings, not concerned with the management, as mere agents or providences, of the affairs of man- kind or even of the phenomena of the cosmos. He considered death to be " a permanent extinction of consciousness," and as such was not to be feared. But Epicurus did not confine his pnilosophy to the considera- tion of the pains and pleasures of the individual. He clearly conceived of the solidarity of humanity, and he set out a system of real ethics ; that is, a science of human association involvmg the right relations of the individual members one to another, each to all and all to each. His idea, broadly, was that of the partner- ship of each with the others for the benefit of ail. The sum of his ethical system was that ' 'just and righteous dealing was the indispensable condition to everyone's comfort.'' He exalted friendship above justice, declaring that ' 'a good friend was an- other self, and that friends ought to be prepared, in case of need, 32 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS to die for each other." Thus he distinguished between that element of ethics which holds an exact balance of right between man and man and a nobler element which involves self-sacrifice for the good of another and of society. He declared that there was " more pleasure in giving than in receiving," and that in- telligent gratitude of the receiver was due, saymg that " no one but a wise man knows how to return a favor properly.' Prof. Bain remarks in a note in his Moral Science that " we know, even by the admission of witnesses adverse to the Epi- curean doctrines, that the harmony among the members of the sect, with common veneration for the founder, v^as more marked and more enduring than that exhibited by any of the other sects. Epicurus himself was a man of amiable personal qualities." On the principle that " a tree is known by its fruits." this speaks well for Epicurus and his system. Plotinus (A. D. 205-70) and Porphyry were the principal rep- resentatives of the early Neo-Platonist philosophy, which was essentially ethical in character, though hardly to be called an eth- ical system. The means proposed for the culture of the moral nature was intellectual, and yet Neo-Platonism may be said to be of a somewhat religious or religio-ethical nature. The teachings of Plotinus were collected into the six Enneac/s, the first of which contained chiefly his ethical views, by his pupil, Porphyry. The basic idea was the "fall" of man, but a fall that occurred before embodiment, the entry of the soul into a material body being the penalty for the sin which brought about the "fall." The aim of human effort toward right conduct was thought to be to " rise above the debasing connection with matter, and again to lead the old spiritual life" a sort of second birth doctrine somewhat different from that of the Christian theology. But the idea both of the fall and the new birth is essentially of a theolog- ical nature, and closely allied to the Chrisiian doctrine of the fall and second birth, except, perhaps, to the Christian notion as to the blood-sacrifice redemption. It was taught by Plotinus that some were sunk so far in mate- THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS. 33 riality as to be "content with the world of sense," and that for these, "wisdom consists in pursuing pleasure as good and shun- ning pain as evil." But others not so much debased were able to "partake of a better life, in different degrees" — a more "spiritual" life, as the Christian would say. In the Christian scheme the first step toward entering upon a better life is set out as " repentance " and the next " belief " in the vicarious, sacrificed savior, Jesus Christ, as annulling the penalty of the " original sin " inherited from Adam and all the personal wrong-doing up to the hour of such repentance and belief. But Plotinus taught that the practice of virtue was the first step in a better life — right conduct in human inter-relations the essence of reform or " conversion " — and to do this it was necessary to sub- ject sense (the animal passions) to reason. The second, or higher step, was to be attained by means of the " purifying " virtues, in which " it is sought to root out (instead of merely modifying) the sensual affections." He taught that when the soul had attained to this freedom from all sensuality it was able, without obstacle, to pursue " its natural bent towards good, and enter into a perma- nent state of calm" — another religio-ethical doctrine and closely allied to the Christian notion of "sanctification ' or a state of "holiness" which places the believer safely beyond the possibility of again " falling from grace." This perfection was thought to bring one into the likeness of Deity, "all that went before being merely a preparation " for this end. And here we have a modi- fication of the Christian dogma of the atonement. Plotinus considered true happiness as identified with perfec- tion, and this as a condition in which the bodily desires — appetites — were fully subdued except as to the bare necessities of physical existence, and in lieu of the experience of the baser pleasures the life of contemplation was the chief element of happiness. This is near to the Stoical doctrine, but differs in this that by suicide or any other way of shirking prolonged effort toward perfection, no freedom of the soul from the "bondage of matter" can be at- tained. Nothing short of complete performance of the affairs of life in right conduct could "set the soul free from the world of sense." 34 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS But highest of all attainable, was thought to be the state of ecstacy — one of " ineffable bliss" — which was attainable only by the " complete withdrawal from the external world into self, " form- ing a union with the One Good, and not even thinking or con- templating but waiting quietly for the ecstacy to come on an occurrence of uncertainty as to when and of how long duration, owing to the defective nature of man himself. SIon the sick and unfortunate will not say that their own kindly acts gave them great satisfaction ? And what is satisfaction but gratification of an individual desire ? Show me the man or woman who takes no pleasure — gets no gratification -from bestowing kindness upon another in need, and 1 will show you one who does not do so — who is not benevolent. Nevertheless, this does not detract from the value of benevolence or from the honor or approbation due the benevolent man. As a matter of fact he acts at the time un- conscious — unreflectively — of the good he is receiving for the good he is bestowing. He acts as if he were disinterested — as if his motives were purely altruistic. Hume was probably right in his opposition to the theory that benevolent acts were prompted by self-lo\>e — in a premeditated plan to gain something equal or greater in value than is bestowed. But the language and the ideas are not properly correlated, and in other words he would probably have conceded that benevolent acts were all prompted by unconscious (or sui-conscious) desire, for the gratification of that desire which nature has given especially to gregarious ani- mals and men, and to all parents, especially mothers, for the ex- press purpose of leading them to do things for the preservation of the species or the race. Very briefly summed up, Hunne's system of ethics is this : 1. The standard of right and wrong is utility — the common- weal of the community or the race. 2. The moral faculty is a co-operation of reason wnth humane sentiment. (He persistently upholds the hypothesis of " disin- terested sentiment," but does not carry it to the extent of affirm- ing that it ever leads to entirely uncompensated effort to the de- gree of self-sacrifice. And this is, 1 think, a virtual surrender of the question at issue.) 3. free will is not taken into account as determining acts of right and wrong. 4. " He recognizes no relationship between ethics and theology" THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 6! (Bain), and considers the reason looking to utility as determin- ing the sentiment which directly moves to moral action. 5. No new moral code is proposed. 6. Happiness is not directly treated upon as the end, but his ideas are that simplicify is the basis of the greatest happiness — the "simple life" versus luxury. ADAM SMITH. The Theory of Moral Sentiments is the title of a most extensive and able elaboration by Adam Smith, who was born in I 723 and died in 1 790. The work is divided into Parts, which are subdivided into Sections, each of which is made up of Chapters. Only a bare outline of this work can be given here, but it will give a clear idea of his system. Part 1. Of the Propriety of Action : Sec. 1 , Sense of propriety ; Sec. 2, Degrees of the different passions which are consistent with propriety ; Sec. 3, Effects of prosperity and adversity upon the judgment of mankind regarding propriety of action. Part 11. Of Merit and Demerit: Sec. I, The sense of merit and demerit; Sec. 2, Justice and beneficence; Sec. 3, Influence of fortune upon the sentiments of mankind with regard to the merit and the demerit of actions. Part 111. Of the Foundation of our Judgments concerning our own Sentiments and Conduct, and of the Sense of Duty : Chap- ter I , Principle of self-approbation and self-disapprobation ; Ch. 2, Love of praise and praiseworthiness, and dread of blame and blameworthiness ; Ch. 3, Influence and authority of conscience ; Chs. 4 and 5, Self-deceit and the origin and use of general rules ; Ch. 6, Sense of duty a motive of conduct. Part IV. Of the Effect of Utility upon the Sentiment of Ap- probation : Ch. 1 , Beauty arising from utility ; Ch, 2, Connection of utility with moral approbation. Part V. Influence of Custom on the Moral Sentiments. Part VI. The Character of Virtue : Sec. 1 , Prudence ; Sec. 2, Character as affecting other people; Sec. 3, Self-command. Part Vll. Of Systems of Moral Philosophy. 62 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS A very brief summary of Adam Smith's ethical system is given as follows : 1 . The ethical standard, the judgment of an impartial observer or critic, the actor's own decisions being based upon what such an observer would approve or disapprove. 2. The moral Faculty is identical with that of Sympathy, which is the foundation of benevolence. 3. Happiness depends chiefly upon contentment and tranquility. 4. Freedom of the will, relation of morality with politics and the moral code as to inducements to right conduct are not treated of at all, or not in any special manner. His ideas regarding dis- interested conduct are not clearly expressed. 5. Ethics and religion he considers as allied, but does not in- sist that the religious sanction should be referred to on all occa- sions. " He assumes a benevolent and all-wise Governor of the world, who will ultimately redress all inequalities and remedy all outstanding injustice." (Bain). Smith ignores a divine revelation and thinks we are to infer solely from the principles of benefi- cence what this supreme Governor would approve or disapprove in our conduct. Our relation to this deity is simply that we show our regard for him by just and beneficent acts toward our fellow men, and " not by frivolous observances, sacrifices, cere- monies and vain supplications. " Prof. Bain justly remarks, " In Smith's Essay, the purely scien- tific enquiry is overlaid by practical and hortatory dissertations, and by eloquent delineations of character and of beau-ideals of virtuous conduct. " DAVID HARTLEY. A work entitled Observations on Man by David Hartley was published in 1 749, which was something of an innovation in the field of ethical discussion. The author is said to be the first to undertake a systematic explanation of mental phenomena by the law of association, and in doing this, he adopts the hypothesis that " mental states are produced by the vibration of infinitesimal particles of the nerves "a somewhat crude materialistic expla- THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 63 nation. This hypothesis is a mere extension of the undulation theory of the hypothetical substance ether of the physicists from inanimate to animate nature. In treating of morals, Hartley con- fines his remarks almost entirely to the psychology of ethics. He tries to defend the doctrine of disinterestedness, but like others who have done so, did not, apparently, go back to the last analysis. He treated of sympathy at length, and showed that all our feelings of pleasure and displeasure with the acts of others originate in association. But he failed to see that this very "association" was the organic link that constitutes society or the race a solidarity — a complex unity which enjoys and suffers as an individual, just as the personal individual as a complex unity of billions of organic cells experiences pleasures and pains as an individual. Hartley denied that benevolence was a primitive function or " feeling," but maintained that it grows out of the circumstances of our pleasures being caused by others, independently of the usefulness of those others to us. But he here overlooks the fact that their thus rendering pleasure is " usefulness to us." He also lays stress upon the principle that teaching one to " put on the appearance of good will, and to do kindly actions," may beget in him the disposition to perform benevolent deeds in a disinterested manner — a force of habit developed into an organic function, as it were. While it may be admitted that such discipline effects such a development as results in an improvement of the benev- olent disposition, it may be said with truth, 1 think, that the sub- conscious feeling of associated interest is present, and therefore the person does not reall'^, though apparently, act from disinter- ested motives. Under the head of Compassion he makes similar remarks upon the rise of apparent disinterested sympathy and consequent suffering with the sufferings of our associates ; the same objections may be made to this explanation as to that im- mediately preceding. Of the moral senses. Hartley does not accept the doctrine of the existence of an organic moral instinct by which we indepen- dently judge of the rectitude of acts or conduct. Yet he insists 64 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS that our moral approbation or disapprobation is disinterested and " has a factitious independence," though arising from asso- ciation. Unlike Hobbes, he considers " self-love, " or rather self- interest, the remote and not the immediate cause of conscience. DUGALD STEWART. This writer, who lived from 1753 to 1828, was the author of a work entitled Essays on the jidive Powers of the Mind, in which the chief point of interest, perhaps, is his endorsement of the doctrine of the existence of an innate moral faculty — an instinct- ive sense of right and wrong independent of reason, sympathy, association or self-interest. This is set out chiefly in his second chapter in which his aim is to show that " the moral faculty is an original principle of the mind." In his third and fourth chap- ters he tries to reply to objections to the theory of an innate moral sense. In his fifth chapter he uses the phrase " analysis of our moral perceptions and emotions," of which Bain justly re- marks it " is a somewhat singular phrase in an author recognizing a separate inborn faculty of right." In his sixth chapter, Stewart sets out and endorses Butler's " supremacy of conscience " doc- trine under the heading, " Moral Supremacy " ; but he goes fur- ther than Butler in that he insists that this obligation is wholly independent of the command of God. And in relation to re- ward and punishment in a future state of existence, he makes some very pertinent remarks, of which I will quote this : " In the last place, if moral obligation be constituted by a regard to our situation in another life, how shall the existence of a future state be proved, or even rendered probable by the light of nature? or how shall we discover what conduct is acceptable to the Deity ? The truth is, that the strongest presumption for such a state is deduced from our natural notions of right and wrong ; of merit and demerit ; and from a compar- ison between these and the general course of human affairs." In the first chapter of Book iv of his work, Stewart re-enters upon the discussion of benevolence and utility and argues against the ethical systems that have been founded on them ; but, as Bain says, "merely repeats the common-place objections." On the relation of morality to religion, Stewart was positive in his oppo- -y^ Of THE UNIVERSITY OF THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 65 sition to their identity or the dependence of the former upon the latter, or upon the will of God. In Book iii, he discusses extensively " natural religion," but does not take into account either the Bible or the Christian re- ligion, taking a position in this respect the same as that of Adam Smith. While he thinks we may assume that the Deity is benev- olent, " to affirm it positively is to go beyond our depth." WILLIAM PALEY. This writer (1 743-1805) produced a work on Moral and Politi- cal Philosophy which contains his ethical system fully set forth. The work is divided into six Books, the first of which, entitled " Preliminary Considerations," is a sort of compilation of miscel- laneous discussions of his own upon various basic principles of the general subject. In the second Book his ideas are more sys- tematically and fully set out. He opens up his discussion in Book 1 by defining moral philosophy thus : " That science which teaches men their duty, and the reasons for it "- -certainK' a very inexact definition. He lays down the fundamental proposition that the ordinary rules of moral conduct are of themselves defective and liable to lead one into wrong doing instead of the right unless they are supple- mented or supported "by scientific investigation," and what he means by the "ordinary rules," he classifies, crudely, as " the law of honor, the law of the land, and the scriptures." And the crudeness of the classification is added to by his very narrow limitation of the " law of honor" to people of " rank and fashion " ! He says the law of the land must necessarily "omit many duties, properly compulsory, as piety, benevolence," etc., and also " leave unpunished many vices, as luxury, prodigality, partiality." He says the Scriptures (Hebrew and Christian) " lay down general rules which have to be applied by the exercise of reason and judgment. Moreover they pre-suppose the principles of natural justice, and supply new sanctions and greater certainty. Accord- ingly, /Aey do not dispense with a scientific view of morals." (Bain.) Next, he discusses elaborately the moral sense — the principle 66 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLLTION OF ETHICS question of the existence of an innate faculty of discernment of right and wrong as such. He states the arguments on both sides of the question, giving, first, those for an innate moral sense as — " that we approve examples of generosity, gratitude, fidelity, etc., on the instant, without deliberation and without being con- scious of any assignable reason ; and that this approbation is uniform and universal, the same sort of conduct being approved or disapproved in all ages and countries ; which circumstances point to the operation of an instinct, or a moral sense." (Bain). He replies to these propositions by refusing to admit as a fact the uniformity alleged, and citing historians and travellers as au- thority, saying that there is scarcely a vice, so considered by one people in one age of the world, but has been approved as a virtue by the public opmion of some other people or age of the world. And he cites as examples the killing of aged parents, theft, sui- cide, sexual promiscuity, and crimes not now even mentionable. And even now the public opinion is divided as to the character of many acts, as, for instance, duelling, forgiveness of personal injuries, and in these and many other instances the approbation of the public is governed by the fashion and institutions of the country which " have grown out of local conditions or the arbi- trary authority of some chieftain or the caprice of the multitude." And even to the claim that though no vice is or has been uni- oersally so considered, yet many have been generally less ap- proved than others, he replies that when through experience we learn that a particular line of conduct is beneficial to ourselves, a feeling or sentiment of approbation is engendered and grows into habit, and this feeling is aroused into action whenever the vir- tuous act is observed or spoken of, and without our being con- scious, at the time, of the consequences — acting from mere "force of habit." Then Paley sets out his positive objections to the doctrine of an innate moral faculty or instinct. He argues, first, that moral rules are not absolutely and uniformlly applicable, but adapt themselves to the conditions. Telling the truth, for example, is a virtue, but in dealing with a deadly enemy, a robber, or a luna- THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 67 tic, we not only refrain from telling the truth but tell that which is positively untrue ; and we are under some circumstances released from our most sincere promises, in the second place, he says, the instinct, if it exist, must carry with it " the idea of the actions to be approved or disapproved, but that we are not born with any such ideas." And he concludes that " on the whole, either there exist no moral instincts, or they are undistinguishable from prejudices and habits, and are not to be trusted in moral reason- ings." He shows by many examples that the self-interest or " convenience of the parties has much to do w^ith the rise of a moral sentiment." In treating of happiness, Paley first sets forth what happiness does not consist in, and secondly, what happiness does consist in. But Paley's definition of virtue is thoroughly theological. It is this : " The doing good to mankind in obedience to the will of God and for the sake of everlasting happiness." This, on the face of it, is a most faulty definition ; but in following up Paley's treatment of the subject, we find that he does not mean by this language exactly what it seems to express as standing alone. The will of God, he explains, co-incides with the good of man- kind, and we are to judge of what God's will is by the results of our actions toward our fellow men. This, of course, reduces the proposition to the basis of utility as the guide, not the revealed will of a superhuman authority. As to the reward of " everlast- ing" happiness, 1 cannot see that his position is anything other than a mere assumption. We are guided into good and right conduct toward our fellows by the hope of attaining happiness thereby, not knowing that it will be unending or even of long duration — often expecting it to be the reverse. In Book II, Paley sets out more methodically a full exposition of his ideas or ethics under the head of " Moral Obligation. " A very noticeable feature of Paley's theory of moral motive is that it must be "violent" and from the command oi another; by authority supplemented by impending penalty for disobedience of the command. He illustrates his theory by saying that men would not obey the magistrate if it were not that rewards de- 68 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS pended upon their obedience and punishments upon their dis- obedience; and he adds that neither would men, without the same reason, do what is right or obey God. He asks, " Why am 1 obliged to keep my word ?" and answers by saying that he does so because urged by " a violent motive," meaning the rewards and punishments of a future life, resulting from the command of God. Thus it is seen that his ethics is based upon theology. Although in his first Book Paley set out and seemed to advo- cate the doctrine that virtue leads to happiness even in this life, in this portion of his work he recedes from that position as shown in the following quotation : "They who would establish a system of morality, independent of a future state, must look out for some other idea of mora! obligation, un- less the^ can shoVD that virtue conducts the possessor to certain happiness in this life, or to a much greater share of it than he could attain by a different behavior." From this and the fact that he adopted the doctrine of future- life rewards and punishments as necessary motives to rectitude of conduct, we must infer that he did not think it could be shown that virtue leads to happiness in this life. He discusses the means of determining the "will of God," and says there are two ways of doing so. First by accepting " the express declarations of scripture,' and by observation of the design shown in the world --that is, by guidance of "the light of nature." In this second method, he says that as "God wills and wishes the happiness of his creatures, * * * the method of coming at his will concerning any action, is to enquire into the tendency of that action to promote or to diminish the general happiness. " But this method is the humanitarian method of de- termining right from wrong conduct regardless of any " com- mands of God " or anyone else, or of any hopes of future-life re- ward or fear of future-life punishment. These motives seem to be superfluous. In discussing ulililv, Paley brings out one true principle of con- duct which is often overlooked or not clearly seen. That is, that THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 69 certain actions may be useful that no one would admit were right per 56, and that this is explained upon the distinction between " the particular and the general consequences of actions," and the necessity of enforcing general rules. He illustrates this by citing the case of an assassin killing a villain — the act may do immediate and particular good to society, " but the liberty granted to indi- viduals to kill whoever they should deem injurious to society would render human life unsafe and induce universal terror. " The other Books of Paley's work are devoted to human duties — " relative duties, duties to ourselves, duties toward God " — and ending in Book vi with politics and political economy, forms of government, etc., not necessary to discuss here. THOMAS BROWN. Thomas Brown (living from 1778 to 1820) discussed ethics in his Lectures, beginning with the Seventy-third. In laying his foundation for his discussion he first offers some criticisms on the various terms that have been commonly used to express the fundamental question of ethical inquiry, " What is the ground of moral approbation and disapprobation ?" Such as these ques- tions : " What is it that constitutes the action virtuous?" "What constitutes the moral obligation to perform certain actions ? " "What constitutes the merit of the agent?" And he concludes that these though they have been considered distinct are es- sentially the same question ; that there is fundamentally but one emotion involved in moral decisions, and that the sense of " approbation or of disapprobation of an agent acting in a cer- tain way." But this seems to me to be a begging of the real question, which is, in one way of expressing. What is it that con- stitutes an action moral or immoral — that excites in us the emo- tion of approbation or disapprobation ? And it seems to me that the answ^er is variable according to conditions and the char- acter of the person who approves or disapproves of an action. This is shown by the facts that the same act in one case may re- ceive the approval of a person and in another case, his disap- proval ; and one person may approve a certain act and another 70 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS person disapprove the very same act. Hence the diversity of ethical opinions and of ethical systems among different peoples at different times. It seems to me that we approve of an act because of its consistency, its judiciousness, its appropriateness on the occasion, its agreement with what we consider the most beneficial to the actor or others affected under the circumstances ; and our disapprobation, of course, arises from the reverse of this. But let us see what Brown has to say further. He adds to his form of the question, that approbation is " a simple emotion of the mind, of which no further explanation can be given than that we are so constituted." This, of course, is an endorsement of the innate moral sense ideas, and he concludes that " our feeling of moral excellence is not the mere perception of different actions, or the discovery of the physical good that these may produce ; it is an emotion sui generis superadded to them. in one of his illustrations of his theory. Brown inadvertently admits the truth of the utilitarian principle, thus : " Where good and evil results are so blended that we cannot easily assign the preponderance, different men may form different conclusions," and this not only in case of individuals, but of whole nations — as an instance of the latter, is cited the Spartan law permitting theft. Brown then makes the mistake of supposing that those who do not accept the doctrine of an innate moral sense do be- lieve in the existence of an innate immoral sense, for he in af- fected triumph asks " whether men in approving [certain] excep- tions to morality, approve them because they are immoral ?" In considering the theory of utility, he admits that utility unques- tionably bears a certain relation to virtue, but that "it is only a small portion of virtuous actions wherein the measure" of utility " holds." Brown admits that " utility arid virtue are so intimately related that there is perhaps no action generally felt by us as virtuous but what is generally beneficial ; but that " it is only the Divine Being that can fully master this relationship or so prescribe our duties that they shall ultimately coincide with the general happi- ness," but while this relation may in part be " discovered by re- THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 71 fleeting men, it never enters the mind of the unthinking multi- tude." He further admits that " the good of the world at large [humanity), if not the only moral object, is a moral object, in com- mon with the good of parents, friends," etc. In discussing the question of the existence of disinterested af- fections, Brown, contending strongly in the affirmative, as Bain says, " mixes the two sentiments [of disinterestedness and the moral sense] together in his language, a thing almost inevitable, but yet inconsistent with the advocacy of a distinct moral senti- ment." He classes Paleys ethical theory with what he calls the "selfish systems," and contends hotly against its two leading doc- trines, " everlasting happiness as the motive and the will of God as the rule." But Brown objects to the terms " moral sense " or " moral ideas," as meaning an innate power of moral approba- tion," but not if these terms mean " merely a susceptibility," " an emotion, like hope, jealousy or resentment, rising up on the pre- sentation of a certain class of objects." He considers the phrase "moral ideas," as used by Hutcheson, as objectionable on the ground that " the moral emotions are more akin to love and hate than to perception or judgment." Brown's classification of duties places his system along with those 1 have called theological, or " religious," for it stands thus : " Duty to others, to God and to ourselves." JEREMY BENTHAM. yln Introduclion to the Principles of Morals and Legislation is the title of Bentham's work containing his ethical system, which was first published in 1 789 ; but in a posthumous work entitled Deontologv the principles of his system were further treated and in more detail, especially as to the " minor morals and amiable virtues." Bentham wrote of ethics looking to government or legislation, and he considered utility as the final standard of morals. In the first chapter of his original work he treats of " The Principle of Utility," and starts his discussion thus : " Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to 72 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS point out what we ought to do as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand, the standard of right and wrong, on the other, the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think ; every effort we can make to throw off our subjection will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire, but in realitj- he will remain sub- ject to it all the while. The principle of utilitv recognizes this sub- jection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the ob- ject of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hand of rea- son and of law." Bentham here, as appears to me, errs in one particular in com- mon with all other moral philosophers of whose writings I have any knowledge ; that is, in making no distinction between the conscious and unconscious objects of all our actions. They, gen- erally, however much they differ in other respects, agree that our acts are. steps toward the attainment of pleasure or happiness as their ultimate end. Whereas, 1 think a careful and profound anal- ysis of moral as well as personal conduct shows that pleasure and happiness are not the unconscious, ultimate end of single acts or general conduct, but proximate conscious objects. That is, we consciously do this or that for the sake of the pleasure or happiness that we expect to result therefrom ; but nature, as that word is used in the restricted sense for our so-called involuntary activities, has a more remote object for our acts and conduct, and that is the preservation and reproduction of the individual and the species. This is the real ultimate end or object of all life-activity, whether conscious or unconscious, voluntary or involuntary, and the conscious proximate end of pleasure or happiness is only a means to that ultimate end. This may appear clearer when we take the converse of it : Pain or unhappiness are not means for securing pleasure or happiness, but proximate means to the ultimate end that life may be preserved and reproduced strictly speaking, preserved or continued, reproduction itself being only a means to that end. So that, from my point of view, while pleas- ure and pain, or happiness and misery are consciously sought or avoided as ends of conduct, they are really only the sugar-teats and whips of Mother Nature, the one in her right hand the other THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 73 in her left. By the one she lures us on to do " right, " and by the other deters us from doing "wrong;" these words right and wrong being the names of the two paths before us, the first lead- ing to life, the other to death — of the individual or the species. But this does not at all invalidate the theory of utility, as advo- cated by Bentham and others, but confirms it. The utility of the act is the preservation of life, however, and not, ultimately as an end, the attainment of pleasure or happiness. In this light, then, the summum honum is, not as the old philosophers taught, many of them, happiness, but life. And, so far as reason is able as yet to peer into the methods, means and objects of nature, the end or object of life is life. Bentham considers utility as " the tendency of actions to pro- mote the hapiness, and to prevent the misery, of the party under consideration, which party is usually the community where one's lot is cast. Of this principle no proof can be offered ; it is the final axiom, on which alone we can found all arguments of a moral kind." But in this statement the same error creeps in, for " the tendency of utility to promote the happiness of the com- munity " falls short of the ultimate. The " community " itself is not an ultimate end, but a means to an end, and that end is the preservation of life. Animals associate in flocks and herds for self-defense, as well as in pairs of male and female for reproduc- tion, as means to the end that life may be continued. In his second chapter Bentham discusses the " principles ad- verse to utility," w^hich he considers to consist of tw^o kinds, as- ceticism, and sympathy and antipathy (liking and disliking). He defines asceticism as the " approval of an action according to its tendency to diminish happiness, or obversely." But here again an insidious error slips in. The view is too short ; we must look not altogether to the immediate but also to the ulti- mate result of acts, when we shall see that even asceticism has for its end ultimately ( in consciousness) happiness. The ascetic looks into the distant future as holding in store for him all the more happiness as a reward for his present misery or deficiency. He wades across a deep morass to reach a better road beyond ; 74 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS he climbs a rugged mountain to enjoy a magnificent view of the landscape ; he scrambles through briars and thorns to reach the smoothe, open meadow beyond. There is no such thing as asceticism in the sense of choosing pain for pain's sake, or avoid- ing pleasure as an evil except as only temporary good resulting in ultimate evil. We all recognize the evil of the pleasure of ex- cessive gratification of the appetite for food, for we know that ultimately the result is disastrous to our more permanent and profound pleasure. Bentham in his third chapter considers the " four sanctions or sources of pain and pleasure whereby men are stimulated to act right — as being physical, political, moral and religious. " Of the " religious " sanction he says it " proceeds from the im- mediate hand of a superior invisible being, either in the present or in a future life. " Of the " social " motives for ethical conduct he makes four classes : Good-will, which, he says, " taken in a general way, is that whose dictates are surest to co-incide with utility. " He means by " good-will," benevolence. Next after this he considers Love of Reputation as having the best chance of co-inciding with utility, and thinks " it would be perfect if men's likings and dis- likings were governed exclusively by the principle of utility, and not, as they often are, by the hostile principles of asceticism, and of sympathy and antipathy." And he makes note hereof an im- portant distinction by saying that " love of reputation is inferior as a motive to good-will in not governing the secret actions." After benevolence and love of reputation, he places the Desire of Amity " close personal affection " — which according to his own view, is only a more restricted form of love of reputation, for he says that " according as we extend the number of persons whose amity [ friendship ] we desire, this prompting approximates the love of reputation. His fourth social or tutelary motive he calls the Dictates of Religion, which so placed indicates that he con- siders this as least of all co-inciding with the principle of utility ! He says the religious motives are " so various in their sugges- tions that he can hardly speak of them in common. Were the THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 75 Being, who is the object of religion, universally supposed to be as benevolent as he is supposed to be wise and powerful, and were the notions of his benevolence as correct as the notions of his wisdom and power, the dictates of religion would correspond, in all cases, with utility. But while men call him benevolent in words, they seldom mean that he is so in reality. " - Bain. Opposed to these four social or tutelary motives, as he classi- fies them, he opposes the Dis-social and Self-regarding motives, which I have not space here to say more about. Bentham treats of punishments for what he calls " mischiev- ous" acts — acts that result in pernicious consequences to others — at length, but 1 will here only remark that he says that " so- ciety ought, no less than the legislator, to be guided by sound scientific principles " in the administration of punishments. Bentham makes ethics cover a much broader field than do many other writers. He does not restrict it to conduct of man toward his fellow-men, but makes a three-fold classification which includes, 1 , man's own actions, or " private ethics ; " 2, the actions of other human beings, and 3, the actions of " other ani- mals," whose interests Bentham thinks " have been disgracefully overlooked by jurists as well as by mankind generally!" Bentham, though like Paley, a Utilitarian, differs much from Paley on the questions of the relation or connection of theology or " religion " with ethics. As Bain says, "While Paley makes a conjoined reference to Scripture and to Utility in ascertaining moral rules, Bentham insists on Utility alone as the final appeal. He does not doubt that if we had a clear, unambiguous state- ment of the divine will, we should have a revelation of what is for human happiness; but he distrusts all interpretations of scrip- ture unless they co-incide with a perfectly independent scientific investigation of the consequences of actions "--a Rationalistic position. SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. This writer lived contemporary with Jeremy Bentham (1765 to 1832). He wrote a comprehensive work. Dissertation on the Pro- gress of Ethical Philosophy "chiefly during the Seventeenth and 76 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS Eighteenth Centuries, " in which he incorporates his own views and " advocates a distinct ethical theory." He divided his book into sections, and in the first, " Prelimi- nary Observations," he treats of the universal distinction among men of right and wrong, and avers that "on no subject do men, in all ages, co-incide on so many points as on the general rules of conduct and the estimable qualities of character. Even the grossest deviations may be explained by ignorance of facts, by errors with respect to the consequences of actions, or by incon- sistency with admitted principles." He criticises Paley and Ben- tham for confounding the standard of ethics with the moral fac- tor of the mind, and says that Paley mistakes in opposing utility to a moral sense because the two terms relate to different sub- jects, and that "it is possible to represent utility as the criterion of right, and a moral sense as the faculty," and also that Ben- tham repeats Paley's error, and that " the school men failed to draw the distinction, In his fifth section he treats of " the moral faculty and the so- cial affections," and states his objections to the theory that moral distinctions are founded solely on reason. He says, "reason can never be a motive to action ;" it is necessary to appeal to the feel- ings — the effect of pleasure or pain. " The influence of reason is indirect ; it is merely a channel whereby the objects of desire are brought into view, so as to operate on the will." In this, I think his criticism is well-founded. Reason is not a motive to either right or wrong, but a guide to right and frorr} wrong as foreseeing the good or evil of a line of conduct. Mackintosh seems to see this distinction clearly, and remarks upon " the importance of reason in choosing the means of action, as well as in balancing ends, during which operation the feelings are suspended, delayed and poised in a way favorable to our last- ing interests. Hence the antithesis of reason and passion." He lays down m his sixth section, two fundamental propositions, as follows : I , The moral sentiments have no other objects than the dispositions to voluntary actions and the actions flowing from these dispositions ; 2, Conscience is an acquired principle. And THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 77 he discusses these propositions at length. He endorses Hume's ethical doctrine that " utility is a uniform ground of moral dis- tinction, " but in other things he disagrees with Hume. This whole section is devoted to a critical survey of the theories of a number of writers on ethics, including Butler, Hume, Adam Smith, Hartley, Paley, Bentham, Dugald Stewart, Thomas Brown. in his seventh section, under the head of " General Remarks," Mackintosh tries to elucidate his own peculiar views, supple- mentary to his discussions in the preceding sections. Throughout his discussions he gives special and frequent at- tention to the question of the relations of morality to religion or theology. JAMES MILL. Utility as the ultimate standard of morality and conscience as a derived faculty of the mind may justly be laid down as the basic principles of Mill's ethical philosophy ; and his place with the ethical writers of modern times is well marked, and his name stands out prominently in the list as that of a real thinker. His time was from I 783 to 1 836. Analysis of the Human Mind is the title of his great work on mental philosophy, and in chapters xvii to xxiii, inclusive, are set out his views of ethical questions in remarkably precise defini- tions of the leading terms used and in a logical treatment which renders the work one of great permanent value and a veritable handbook of discipline in logical discussion — not only as to these specifically-mentioned chapters but as to the entire work. That the moral feelings are a complete outgrowth from our experience of pleasure and pain is a principle which Mill strongly endeavors to establish. And in beginning by assuming that such pleasurable and painful sensations that constitute our expe- rience do exist, he proceeds to enquire as to their immediate and primary or originating causes, by the means of which we may secure the one and avoid the other —attain to happiness and escape from unhappiness. He argues that " the remote causes of our pleasures and pains are more interesting than the immediate causes. " He illustrates 78 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS this by 'referring to "wealth, power and dignity as causes of a great range of pleasures," and to " poverty, impotence [or impo- tency] and contemptibility " as causes of a wide range of painful sensations." And he lays stress upon the fact that the first of these series of causes " are the means of procuring the services of our fellow-creatures," as " a fact of the highest consequence in morals, as showing how deeply our happiness is entwined with the actions of other beings ' ; and he quite extensively illus- trates this idea and shows that the influence of these remote causes is entirely the result of mental association, which he con- siders to be a power of mind of great magnitude and import- ance. But Mill does not stop at this direct effect of the remote causes of pleasure or happiness, but says that our fellow-creatures being the subjects of affection " not merely as the instrumentality set in motion by wealth, power and dignity, but in their proper per- sonality," their agency extends to the production of the pleasur- able affections of friendship, kindness, kinship, love of country (patriotism), party fealty, humaneness, etc. ; and he " resolves them all into associations with our primitive pleasures," and illus- trates his ideas of this quite fully. In chapter xxii of his work the author treats of ethical molives, and defines a motive, to begin, by saying that " the peculiar state of mind generated " " when the idea of a pleasure is associated with an action of our own as the cause," is called a motive, and that " the idea of a pleasure writhout the idea of gaining it does not amount to a motive." He points out that education has much to do with the strength attained by motives, and calls " the facility of being acted on by motives of a particular kind," dispo- sition. In these chapters the questions are treated in the abstract, but in chapter xxiii he makes concrete application of those prin- ciples to practical ethics or morals. He declares that " the actions emanating from ourselves combined with those emanating from our fellow-creatures exceed all other causes of our pleasures and pains," and that " consequently such actions are objects of intense affections or regards." The actions of utility are classed under the four heads of pru- THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 79 dence, fortitude, justice and benevolence. And he carefull}' ex- plains that the first and second of these classes of acts are " use- ful to ourselves in the first instance, to others in the second instance," and that the third and fourth classes of acts are " use- ful to others in the first instance, to ourselves in the second in- stance." After treating at length on the effects of praise and dispraise in determining our conduct toward our fellow^-creatures, the author says that of all the various motives " the most constant in operation and the most in use in moral training, are praise and blame," and that " it is the sensibility to praise and blame — the joyful feelings associated with the one and the dread associated with the other — that gives effect to popular opinion, or the popular sanction, and with reference to men generally, the moral sanction." Mill was the author of another work, entitled A Fragment on Mackintosh, in which he further illustrates his theory of the deri- vation of the moral sentiment and strongly defends the principle of utility as the moral standard, agreeing in this with Bentham. In treating of the much-discussed question of disinterested feel- ings. Mill, in both of his works, takes the stand that " though we have feelings directly tending to the good of others, they are nevertheless the growth of feelings that are rooted in self," and " that feelings should be detached from their original root is a well-known phenomenon of the mind." (Bain.) In treating of ethics Mill confines his remarks to the Standard and the Faculty, and, as before mentioned, defends the theory of Utilitarianism that the standard of ethics is utility — and the doctrine of the faculty being "based on our pleasures and pains, with which there are multiplied associations." He believed that all existing moral rules were based on the human estimate, cor- rect or incorrect, of utility. WILLIAM WHEWELL. Among the best known of the modern ethical writers is Dr. Whewell, who lived from I 794 to 1 876. His ethical works are Elements of Morality, Including 'Polity, and Lectures on the Historv of Moral Philosophy in England. 1 can give here only a very brief abstract of his views as set out in his Elements. He lays down 80 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS as fundamental these two propositions : Morality has its root in the common nature of man, and a scheme [ or system ] of morality must conform to the common sense of mankind, in so far as that is consistent with itself. But he immediately notes that this common sense of mankind has in every age led to two seemingly opposite schemes of morality, the one making virtue, and the other making pleasure, the rule of action. On the one side, men urge the claims of rectitude, duty, conscience, the moral faculty ; on the other, they declare utility, expediency, interest, enjoyment, to be the proper guides. ( Bain.) Dr. Whewell then says " both systems are liable to objections, and that it is necessary that a scheme of morality should surmount both classes of objections"; and then he proceeds to attempt a harmonizing of these two opposing theories. This by way of introduction, as set out in the fourth edition of his Elements. In brief, the following outlines his views on the main question of ethics : I . — The Standard, as discussed incidentally in his Introduction, as above referred to. 2. — The Psychology of the Moral Faculty, which he considers to be " a part of a classification of our active powers," which he calls " springs of action," and which he class- ifies as, (a) the Appetites ; (b) the Affections ; (c) the Mental Desires; (d) the Moral Sentiments; (e) the Reflex Sentiments, in this connection the author refers to the office of reason in its relation to the Moral Sentiments in these words : " The Practical Reason, which guides us in applying rules to our actions and in discerning the consequences of actions." 3. — The Summum bonurn or happiness, he says " must be found in our moral pro- gress ; we must be happy by being virtuous. 4. — The Moral Code, discussed in connection with the moral rules, and he enu- merates as cardinal virtues (as the substance of morality) benev- olence, justice, truth, purity and order. 5. — The Relation of Ethics to Politics. This he considers as one of independence, yet of considerable intimacy. 6. — The Morality of Religion, con- sidered as supplemental to the Morality of Reason. Here he remarks that the separation of these two " enables us to trace the the results of the moral guidance of human Reason consistently and continuously, while we still retain a due sense of the supe- rior authority of Religion," thus placing his " scheme" of morality in the classification as a theological system, though timidly so acknowledged by him. THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 81 JOHN STUART MILL. Utilitarianism is the laconic title of a work on the basis of ethics written by John Stuart Mill, and the name and theory of Utilitarianism has ever since been associated with the name of that author in the minds of all students of ethical philosophy. And his logical treatment of the subjects and questions relating to ethics has won for Mill a place at the very forefront of the modern ethical philosophers. His work begins with an introductory chapter of " General Remarks, " and he starts out upon the discussion in Chapter II by the inquiry, "What Utilitarianism Is?" He defines the prin- ciple as that " actions are right in proportion as they tend to pro- mote happiness — wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness." And he means by happiness, pleasure and the absence of pain ; and by unhappiness, pain and the deprivation of of pleasure. He very soon refers to the well-known objection that " pleasure is a low and grovelling object of pursuit," and answers by saying that men are capable of enjoying pleasures which are not base, and that the theory of Utility embraces the fact that "some kinds of pleasure are more valuable than others." He thinks the sense of dignity is inseparable from the estimate of pleasure and "determines a preference among enjoyments." As to the Standard of Utility, Mill considers that this distinc- tion is not essential to its justification, which standard he says is not the greatest happiness of the agent only, but " the greatest amount of happiness altogether." And though the higher virtues may contribute little to the agent's own pleasure or hap- piness, mankind in general is benefitted by them. To the objec- tion that real happiness is unattainable, and that no one has a natural right to it, he answers that " supposing happiness impos- sible, the prevention of unhappiness might still be an object, which is a mode of utility"; yet he does not admit that happi- ness is impossible, but charges that the statement of the objection is an exaggeration or a mere verbal quibble. We do not mean a whole " life of sustained rapture," but " occasional moments of 82 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS such in an existence of few and transitory pains ; many and various pleasures, with a predominance of the active over the passive, and moderate expectations on the whole, constitute a life worthy to be called happiness. " The factors of pleasure he says are " tranquility and excite- ment," and that with the one, little pleasure is satisfactory, and with the other much pain can be endured. Of self-sacrifice, Mr. Mill says that " it is the highest virtue that can be found in man when it is made to serve the happi- ness of others," but such a state of the world as requires the sacrifice of one's own happiness to serve the happiness of others is a very imperfect one ; but " the conscious ability to do without happiness in such a condition of the world, is the best prospect of realizing such happiness as is attainable." A sacrifice not resulting in the increase of the sum of human happiness is wasted, and yet self-devotion is as much a part of Utilitarianism as it is of Stoicism. The Golden Rule, Mr. Mill thinks, is " the ideal perfection of Utilitarian morality." And he teaches that " the means of ap- proaching this ideal are, that laws and society should endeavor to place the interest of the individual in harmony with the inter- est of the whole, and that education and opinion should establish in the mind of each individual an indissoluble association between his own good and the good of the whole." Another objection to the utilitarian system is that it is "too high for humanity " ; " men cannot be perpetually acting with a view to the general interests of society." To this he answers that it is an error of mistaking the meaning of a standard, and "confounds the rule of action with the motive." Ethics, in general, informs men of their duties or by what test they may know what they are, but "no system of ethics requires that the motive of every action should be a feeling of duty ; our actions are rightly done provided only duty does not condemn them." He thinks nearly all the acts of men end with the good of the indi- vidual, and that " it happens to few persons, and that rarely, toc be public benefactors." THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 83 Another objection which he answers is that utility " renders men cold and unsympathizing, chills the feelings towards indi- viduals and regards only the dry consequences of actions, with- out reference to the moral qualities of the agent." He admits that "a right action does not necessarily indicate a virtuous char- acter, " but that in general, " the best proof of a good character is good actions. " To the theological objection to utility that it is "a godless doc- trine," he answers that " whoever believes in the perfect goodness and wisdom of God necessarily believes that whatever he has thought fit to reveal on the subject of morals must fulfill the requirements of utility in a supreme degree." The religious objection that utility is "an immoral doctrine, by carrying out expediency in opposition to principle," he answers by saying that " the expedient in this sense means what is expedient for the agent himself, and, instead of being the same thing w^ith the useful, is a branch of the hurtful. It would often be expedient to tell a lie, but so momentous and so widely-extended are the utilities of truth, that veracity is a rule of transcendant expediency. Yet all moralists admit exceptions to it, solely on account of the manifest inexpediency of observing it on certain occasions." The most common objection to Utilitarianism, that "it is im- possible to make a calculation of consequences previous to every action," he answ^ers by remarking that it " is as much as to say that no one can be under the guidance of Christianity because there is not time on the occasion of doing anything to read through the Old and New Testaments." But his serious answer is that " there has been ample time during the past duration of the species." During all that time men have by experience been learning the consequence of actions and on the results of that founded rules of prudence and morality. Finally, Mr. Mill replies to the standing objection that " people will pervert utility for their private ends, by saying there is no ethical creed in which this may not happen, and that " the fault is due, not to the origin of the rule, but to the complicated nature of human affairs and the necessity of allowing a certain latitude. 84 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS under the moral responsibility of the agent, for accommodation to circumstances." The Ultimate Sanction of the Principle of Utility is the title of Chapter III of Mill s work, and he considers it a proper question with any proposed moral standard to ask, " What is its Sanction "? — "wherein lies its binding force?" He considers the sanctions of utility under two heads. External and Internal. The External embraces the hope of favor and fear of disapprobation, from, first one's fellows, second from God, with sympathy or affection for his fellows, or love and reverence of God, inducing one away from selfish motives. These are the sanctions of other systems of morality, but " there is no reason why they should not apply as well to utilitarian morality. The internal sanction is nothing else than what is known as the conscience, which Mill defines as a complex phenomenon, involving associations from sympathy, love and fear, from recollections of childhood and of all one's past life ; from self-esteem, desire of the approbation of others, and occasionally even self-abasement. And he says the binding force of this is " the mass of feeling to be broken through in order to violate one's standard of right," which, " if violated will later have to be encountered as remorse. " Thus the ultimate sanction, aside from the external, under utility, as in other systems, is the conscientious feelings. If the conscience is innate, " the intuitive ethics would be the same as the utilitarian." But, as the author believes, if the moral feelings are not innate, " they are not for that reason less natural." " The moral faculty, if not a part of our nature, is a natural outgrowth of it, capable in a certain small degree of springing up sponta- neously, and of being brought to a high pitch by cultivation," and may also "be perverted to absurdity and mischief." He illustrates this by referring to the fact that it is natural for man to speak, reason, cultivate the soil, etc., etc., though these are acquired faculties. The social feelings are found to be the sentiment capable of sup- porting the natural basis of the utilitarian morality. He says that the social condition is so natural to man so necessary and habit- THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 85 ual to him — that he can hardly conceive of himself as not a member of society, and this association becomes more fixed and forcible as civilization advances. He wisely holds that " in an improving state of society, the influences are on the increase that generate in each individual a feeling of unity with all the rest; which, if perfect, would make him never think of anything for self, if they also were not included. Suppose, now, that this feeling of unity were taught as a religion, and that the whole force of education, of institutions, and of opinion, were directed to make every person grow up surrounded with the profession and the practice of it, can there be any doubt as to the sufficiency of the ultimate sanction for the happiness of morality?" (Bain's Moral Science, p. 293.) In the fourth chapter of Mill's Utilitarianism is discussed " Of what sort of proof the principle of utility is susceptible. " The theory of Utility is that happiness is desirable as an end, and all other things are desirable as means to that end. The proof he refers to in this way : " The proof that the sun is visible, is that people actually see it, so the proof that happiness is desirable is that people do actually desire it. " The reason that the general happiness is desirable is the fact that each one desires his own happiness, and realizes that by his association with others it depends upon their happiness also. Utilitarians maintain that virtue is a thing to be desired for itself. They hold that the mind is not in a condition — in a right state — not conformable to utilitj' — not in a state conducive to the general happiness, " unless it has adopted this essential instrumentality so warmly as to love it for its own sake. " Cer- tain things originally of the nature of means, come by associa- tion to be a part of the social end. "So virtue is not originally an end, but ii is capable of becoming so ; it is to be desired and cherished not solely as a means to happiness, but as a part of happiness. " Bain says that " the author considers it proved that there is in reality nothing desired except happiness. * * * Human nature is so constituted, he thinks, that we desire nothing but 86 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS what is either a part of happiness or a means of happiness ; and no other proof is required that these are the only things desirable. Whether this psychological assertion be correct, must be deter- mined by the self-consciousness and observation of the most practical observers of human nature. " (Moral Science, p. 295.) The persistence in a course of conduct long after the origmal desire has passed away is due to force of habit, " and is nowise confined to virtuous actions. Will is amenable to habit ; we may will from habit what we no longer desire for itself. But will is the child of desire, and passes out of the dominion of its parent only to come under the sway of habit." The other influences are not sufficient to be depended upon to maintain unerring con- stancy in a course of virtuous conduct until they have acquired the further support of habit; and this is the justification of its existence and our submission to it. "On the Connection Between Justice and Utility," is the title of Chapter V of Mill's little book on Utilitarianism ; and in that he discusses what he considers to be the " strongest obstacle to the doctrine of Utility, " viz: that drawn from the idea of justice. It has been claimed that "the rapid perception and the powerful sentiment connected with the Just, seem to show it as generic- ally distinct from every variety of the Expedient. " Mill discusses the question of the essential nature of justice at some length, and I cannot here more than refer the reader to this portion of his answer. But he comes to the conclusion that the idea of justice is grounded in law; and then proceeds to answer the question whether the feeling or sentiment of justice grows out of considerations of utility, by saying that " though the notion of expediency or utility does not give birth to the sentiment, it gives birth to what is moral in it." He considers Justice as constituted of two essentials; first, " the desire to punish some one," and second, "the notion or be- lief that harm has been done to some definite individual." And he believes "the desire to punish is a spontaneous outgrowth of two sentiments, both natural, and, it may be, instinctive : the impulse of self-defense and the feeling of sympathy." He remarks THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 87 here that "there is nothing moral in mere resentment ; the moral part is the subordination of it to our social regards," and that " we are moral beings in proportion as we restrain our private resentment whenever it conflicts with the interests of society." The author believes that " there is in Justice a rule of conduct, and a right on the part of some one, which ought to be enforced by society" ; and to the question why society ought to enforce the right, he replies that " there is no answer but the general utility." After presenting his own theory of justice as a moral senti- ment, he proceeds to examine the theory of intuition — that the sense of justice is innate and not an acquired setiment. Mill proceeds to illustrate his ideas here as follows — briefly outlined : " On the question of Punishment, some hold it unjust to pun- ish anyone by way of example, or for any end but the good of the sufferer ; others maintain that the good of society is the only admissible end of punishment. Robert Owen affirms that pun- ishment altogether is unjust, and that we should deal with crime only through education. Now, without an appeal to expediency, it is impossible to arbitrate between these two views — each one has a maxim of justice on its side." As to the proportion of penalty to offense, he says " the rule that recommends itself to the primitive sentiment of justice [ as in children and uncivilized peoples is universal ] is 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth ' ; a rule formally abandoned in European countries, although [yet] not without its hold upon the popular mind. With many, the test of justice in penal infliction is that it should be proportioned to the offense, while others maintain that it is just to inflict only such an amount of punish- ment as will deter from the commission of the offense. Briefly, Mill's idea of the great distinction between the Just and the Elxpedient is the distinction between the essentials of well-being: the moral rules forbidding mankind to hurt one another and the rules that only point out the best mode of man- aging some department of human affairs." As to the doctrine of the freedom of the will, Mr. Mill was a 88 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS Determinist — maintaining " the strict causation of human actions, and refuting the supposed fatalistic doctrine of a determined will. He believed that our disinterested impulses arise from a purely relf-regarding origin. In his work on Liberty, Mill, in treating of " Individuality," illustrates "the great importance of special tastes, and urges the full right of each person to the indulgence of these in every case where they do not directly injure others." As to marriage, he declaims against the legal and moral rule of the code that makes it irrevocable, and " he would also abolish all restraint on freedom of thought, and on individuality of conduct, qualified as above," in regard to injury of others. Consequently, Mill was a Freethinker. Although 1 believe in Utilitarianism as the true basic principle of ethics, 1 do not mean by that word exactly what is generally understood to be John Stuart Mill's meaning of it. He seems to mean that the measure of utility of an act, or series of acts con- stituting a line of conduct, is the pleasure or happiness effected thereby, while 1 think the pleasure or happiness is not the ulti- mate end of morality, but that the ultimate end, the unconscious object, of all human activity, and of pleasure and pain as means to that end, is the welfare and continuity of either the individual or the race ; though the conscious effort may be directed to pleas- ure or happiness as the ultimate end — "the chief good" or "sum- mum honum " of the old-time philosophers. Nature provides that certain acts give us pleasure or happiness as an inducement for us to do those acts to the end that our health and our lives may be preserved, or the species be propagated and perpetuated. But this pleasure is not aninfallible guide to right acts, for we find that some acts destructive to health and life give us immediate pleasure ; hence our intemperate indulgence in useful things and attempted use of things exclusively injurious. Hence, pleasure or happiness cannot be a true measure of utility. The end of right acts and lines of conduct —with ihem pleas- ure and pain being the life of the individual or the race, or their welfare, the utility of an act or course of conduct is one of these results, and the contrary, if the acts or lines of action are wrong. Therefore the true measure of utility is the perpetuation of life. THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 89 SAMUEL BAILEY. In the third series of Letters on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, Samuel Bailey devotes four chapters to the consideration of moral sentiments, or " the feelings inspired in us by human conduct." As the basis of moral conduct, he states five funda- mental facts, as follows : " Man is susceptible of pleasure and pain of various kinds and degrees. He likes and dislikes re- spectively the causes of them. He desires to reciprocate pleas- ure and pain received, when intentionally given by other sentient beings. He himself expects such reciprocation from his fellows, coveting it in the one case and shunning it in the other. He feels, under certain circumstances, more or less sympathy with the pleasures and pains given to others, accompanied by a pro- portionate desire that those affections should be reciprocated to the giver." And these " affections, states and operations of con- sciousness " are feelings in combination with intellectual pro- cesses, and are more or less developed in nearly all of the human race. The feelings, he thinks, are modified accordmg as actions are, first, " done to ourselves by others " ; second, " done to others by others," or third, " done to others by ourselves." Bailey considers the standard of ethics to be the production of happiness, and the moral faculty as "mainly composed of certain sentiments, chiefly reciprocity and sympathy," mvolved with in- tellectual processes. IMMANUEL KANT. Kant lived from 1724 to 1804, and his ethical writings were published in 1 785, 1 788 and I 797. He wrote three important works. Foundation for the Metaph^sic of Morals, Critique of the T^ractical Reason, and Metaphysic of ^M^orals, this last containing the detailed presentation of his ethical system, the other two containing his theories in general. The system of Kant is one extremely involved in speculation and peculiar expressions in his phraseology which render the study of that system one requiring close and long application — in order to gain a clear conception of it — if that be at all possi- 90 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS ble. Hence in this place 1 can no more than very briefly and imperfectly set forth something of the nature of Kant's ethical doctrines. He distinguishes the modes of treating ethics as empirical and rational, and these as not the same. He also dis- tinguishes between " common rational knowledge of morals " and philosophical morals, and argues to prove the absolute goodness of the will by proving its natural subjection to reason ; and, " since reason is a practical faculty and governs the will, its functions can only be to produce a will good in itself, ' and " such a will if not the onl^ good, is certainly the highest." He asserts that all genuine supreme principles of morality rest on pure reason only. Kant discusses the will quite extensively, and the presentation of his ideas are so much involved in his peculiar phraseology and technical verbiage that much study and close application are required to successfully apprehend his meaning. He makes a distinction between " natural " and " rational beings " by averring that the actions of things in nature are according to laws, while rational beings act according to conceived ideas of laws ; that is, principles ; and to do this is to have a will, which he identifies with practical reason, as reason is required to deduce actions from laws. And in connection with the discussion of will, he discusses duty. Kant sets out several formulae for action according to practical reason, as follows : 1 . "Act according to that maxim only which you can wish at the same time to become a universal law, " or "act as if the maxim of your action ought by your will to become the universal law of nature. " 2. "Act so as to use humanity (human nature) as well in your own person as in the person of another, ever as end also, and never merely as means." 3. "The idea of a will of every rational being as a will that legislates universally." (Bain.) Freedom of the will in man as a rational end or thing-in-itself is the great postulate of the pure practical reason, he avers, " be- THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 91 cause else there could be no explanation of the categorical im- perative of duty, " yet admits that the fact must always remain speculatively undemonstrable. Kant postulates immortality and God, as being " required to render possible the attainment of inoral perfection, " and " in order to find the ground of the required conjunction of felicity." The certainties of these postulates are said to be " moral certainties," being demanded by the practical reason. It is a difficult task to construct an intelligible synopsis of Kant's abstruse and technical system of ethics, or rather of eth- ical theories. Yet I shall offer here an outline that the careful student may be able to use as first step, at least, tov^ard an un- derstanding of Kant's philosophy in detail as presented by himself. 1 . The Standard of Ethics — of good moral courses of action (i. e. "will ") — as expressed in the different forms of the categor- ical imperative, is the possibility of its being universally extended as a law for all rational beings ; or, obversely, " all action is bad that cannot be, or cannot be wished to be, turned into a universal law. " 2. Psychology of Ethics. As stated above, he considers the mental faculty to be the " pure practical reason. " That we ap- prehend what is morally right by the exercise of reason exclu- sively ; the element of feeling as respect for the law is imposed by reason. In speaking of " the pure reason, " Kant means a faculty of principles, and belongs to two classes, viz: the specu- lative and the practical reason. The speculative requires the knowledge of the understanding to be brought up to "certain higher unconditioned unities- soul, cosmos, God ; but it is erro- neous to regard these as facts of knowledge. The practical sets up a law of duty unconditioned by motives, in which, and the "related conception of the summum bonum, is contained a moral cer- tainty" of the immortality of the soul, freedom in an environment of natural necessity, and of God as existing. Kant lays great stress on disinterested action and ignores disinterested sentiment as a mere sentiment ; so that only actions that are wholly devoid 92 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS of any element of self-interest are considered by him as moral. Virtue, he considers, not as the performance of acts we are strongly inclined to do, but such as involve more or less of self- sacrifice, so that, in a sense, virtue and altruism are synonymous terms. 3. Happiness, Kant considers not to be the end of action. This latter he considers to be the self-assertion of the reason over the inferior propensities -the physical appetites and self-seeking desires. To seek happiness is a duty only because thereby one is " kept from neglecting his other duties." The need of happi- ness to this end he avers is connected with the sensuous element of human nature. And there is necessarily an ultimate equation of virtue and happiness. 4. The Moral Code of Kant is fully set out in the second part of his latest work. In this he classes duties into moral and legal, the first enforced by the conscience, the other externally enforced, the two classes being, I , Duties to Self ; 2, Duties to Others. The end of duties of the first class is the perfection of the actor, "for his own happiness being provided for by a natural propensity is to himself no duty." Duties to self are enumerated as perfect and imperfect, the former being directed to self-conservation, the latter to the advancement or perfection of one s being. The perfect are " directed against self-destruction, sexual excess, in- temperance in eating and drinking, lying, avarice and servility " ; the imperfect refer to, first, physical, second, moral advancement or perfection. Duties to others have regard to their happiness, the only end, according to Kant, that one can make a duty of — their perfection can only come from their own efforts. He classes the duties to others as those of love and of recpect. These are classed as "beneficence, gratitude, fellow-feeling"; "duties of respect, absolutely due to others as men ; the opposites are vices, as haughtiness, slander, scornfulness." Friendship is a combina- tion of love and respect in the highest degree. Social duties he regards as " outworks of morality ;' he admits of " no special duties to God or the inferior creatures beyond what is contained in moral perfection as duty to self." THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 93 5. Law, in Kant's conception, in a transcendental sense is an important element of his theory of ethics ; but he uses the term not as identifying or assimilating morality with political or gov- ernmental institutions, " the legality of external actions " being "determined by reference to the one universal moral imperative, " as well as " the morality of internal Jtspositions." Legal or jural, as opposed to ethical or moral, provisions, must unite the freedom of each with the freedom of all — "individual freedom and the freedom of all must be made to subsist together in a universal law. " 6. Religion, with Kant, is identical with, or at least very closely allied with morality, but without the connection being at " the expense of morality. " He does not conceive of morality as being dependent upon religion, but on the contrary, he "can find nothing but the moral conviction whereon to establish the relig- ious doctrines of immortality and the existence of God." And he even avers that " religion consists merely in the practice of morality as a system of divine commands," and he considers the moral consciousness as the standard by which to judge of all religious dogmas and institutions. SKCTiox vn. VIEWS OF ETHICAL EVOLUTIONISTS. HERBERT SPENCER. RATIONALISTS, everywhere, hold in high esteem the writings of Herbert Spencer, regardless of whether they do or do not agree with him in his theories or his conclu- sions. He stands out so boldly from all those writers on ethics 1 have herein classed as " modern," that he is justly entitled to bfc put into a class by himself and treated of as a philosopher of today; for, though his material body has returned to the earth and air, his " spirit," — his ideas and influences — still lives in his books and in the minds of his readers as that of one still bodily with them. Spencer undertook a great life work when he planned his " System of Synthetic Philosophy." He laid out for himself a course and extent of intellectual and physical labor that would seem appalling to many a strong man, though Spencer was strong only in his mentality, being physically far from robust. And it is wonderful what a large amount of work he accomplished in his lifetime, in the composition of his very comprehensive system of philosophy. This labor began to weigh heavily upon him some years before it was completed, so that he began to antici- pate the possibility and even probability that he might not con- tinue in sufficient health, or even in life, to complete the program he had mapped out, and so, to make sure that the crowning conclusions of his system might be recorded, he wrote his Data of Ethics before writing his other work on the Principles of Soci- ology:, which in its true order precedes his Principles of Morality, of which his Data of Ethics constitutes the first division. In his preface to the Data, referring to this anticipation of fail- ure to complete his great task as planned, and referring to this last part of his work being written before its proper successor, Spencer remarks that " this last part of the task it is to which 1 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 95 regard all the preceding parts as subsidiary," and that from the first onward his " ultimate purpose, lying behind all proximate purposes, has been that of finding for the principles of right and wrong, in conduct at large, a scientific basis. " He says further : " 1 am the more anxious to indicate in outline, if 1 cannot com- plete, this final work because the establishment of rules of right conduct on a scientific basis is a pressing need. Now that moral injunctions are losing the authority given by their supposed sacred origin, the secularization of morals is becoming imperative." Thus Mr. Spencer places himself exactly in line with the Rationalistic Humanitarian, who, seeing the decay of faith in supernatural revelation as authority for right conduct, seeks to find a reasonable authority for it on a scientific basis. Furthermore, Mr. Spencer agrees with the Humanitarian con- servative yet radical principle that while the reformer may de- stroy fallacies and idols, he at the same time should establish truths and rational ideals to take their places in the human mind lest moral chaos results, for he says that " few things can happen more disastrous than the decay and death of a regulative system no longer fit, before another fitter regulative system has grown up to replace it." Elucidating this more fully, he says : Most of those who reject the current creed appear to assume that the controlling agency furnished by it may safely be thrown aside and the vacancy left unfilled by any other controlling agency. Meanwhile, those who defend the current creed allege that in the absence of the guidance it yields, no guidance can exist; divine commandments they think the only possible guides. Thus, between these extreme opponents there is a certain com- munity. The one holds that the gap left by disappearance of the code of supernatural ethics need not be filled by a code of natural ethics, and the other holds that it cannot be so filled. [That is, the one that it need not be so filled, the other that it can not.] Both contemplate a vacuum, which the one wishes and the other fears. As the change which promises or threatens to bring about this state, desired or dreaded, is rapidly progressing, those who believe the vacuum can be filled, and that it must be filled, are called upon to do something in pursuance of that belief. This is exactly the basis of the difference which I conceive to 96 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS exist between the iconoclastic Freethinker and the Rationalistic Humanitarian. The one believes that this "vacuum" is desirable and need not be filled; the other, the Humanitarian, believes that the old should pass av/ay, but that its place should be filled, before a vacuum is produced; that a system of natural, scientific morals should instantly replace the conglomerate supernatural, supposed- revealed moral injunctions. And in a small attempt to in part carry out this idea, this essay on " The Origin and Evolution of Ethics " w^as undertaken by the editor of The Humanitarian Re- vicvv. If it can be shown that morality originated in nature and was not supernaturally revealed, and that our rules of conduct have been evolved in the experience of mankind as associated individuals in an interdependent solidarity that is indispensable to the very existence of man as man, the scientific basis of nat- ural ethics will have been established. Mr. Spencer truly says that " great mischief has been done by the repellant aspect habitually given to moral rule by its expos- itors, and immense benefits are to be anticipated from presenting moral rule under that attractive aspect which it has when undis- torted by superstition and asceticism." Here is another prefatory remark by Spencer which seems to me to be not only true to facts but eminently pertinent in this place : Just as the rampant egoism of a brutal militancy was not to be remedied by attempts at the absolute subjection of the ego in convents and monasteries, so neither is the conduct of ordinary humanity as now existing to be remedied by upholding a stand- ard of abnegation beyond human achievement. Rather the effect is to produce a despairing abandonment of all attempts at a higher life. And not only does an effort to achieve the impos- sible end in this way, but it simultaneously discredits the possible. By association with rules that cannot be obeyed, rules that can be obeyed lose their authority. * * Since the days of persecution, a curious change has taken place in the behavior of so-called orthodoxy towards so-called heterodoxy. The time was when a heretic, forced by torture to recant, satisfied authorit}' by external conformity ; apparent agreement sufficed, however profound continued to be the real disagreement. But now that THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 97 the heretic can no longer be coerced into professing the ordinary belief, his belief is made to appear as much opposed to the ordi- nary as possible. Does he diverge from established theological dogma? Then he shall be an atheist, however inadmissible he considers the term. Does he think spiritualistic interpretation of phenomena not valid ? Then he shall be classed as a materialist, indignantly though he repudiates the name. And in like manner what differences exist between natural morality and supernatural morality, it has become the policy to exaggerate into funda- mental antagonisms. Mr. Spencer being charged with opposition to the theory of Utilitarianism, he very clearly stated in a letter to John Stuart Mill his idea of the object of "morality properly so-called — the science of right conduct" — as, " to determine how and whp certain modes of conduct are detrimental and certain other modes beneficial." And he adds that " these good and bad results cannot be acci- dental, but must be necessary consequences of the constitution of things; and I concieve it to be the business of moral science to deduce from the laws of life and the conditions of existence what kinds of action necessarily tend to produce happiness and what kinds to produce unhappiness. Having done this, its de- ductions are to be recognized as laws of conduct ; and are to be conformed to irrespective of a direct estimation of happiness or misery." That is, we are to judge of the utility of an act not by its specific immediate results, but by the known general results of the act. He thus asserts his acceptance of the doctrine of Utility as modified by his explanation. But Mr. Spencer, in this same letter, like nearly all other moral philosophers, says he believes that "happiness is the ultimate end to be contemplated," but does " not admit that it should be the proximate end." This, 1 contend, is an error based on, or caused by, a mental illusion to which all men are subject, namely, that we live to be happy, while truly (and unconsciously) we try to gain happiness because it leads us on the road to continued individual or race life. In this sense, life — the conservation and perpetuation of life, and the reproduction of tissues and individ- uals — is the ultimate end of both right action and happiness. This places happiness under the head of proximate end, which 98 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS Spencer denies, though he evidently uses the word proximate in a somewhat different application from that in which 1 herem use it. He means by proximate, the immediate results of an act, and by ultimate the general and less readily perceived results. He, with other ethical writers, seems not to be conscious of the fact that nature uses pleasure and happiness only as rewards to in- duce a course of conduct that leads to the preservation of the life of the individual and the species, but that we act to this end unconsciously. For instance, the gratification of the sensual tastes is not ultimately the pleasure we derive from eating and drinking, etc., but the supplying to the body the needed materials for rebuilding wasted tissues. The species would soon become extinct if it were not for the pleasure attendant upon the gratifi- cation of the sexual desire, and that pleasure is only a provision of nature to induce — seduce, if you will — beings into acts which otherwise would be repugnant and painful, in order that the race may continue to exist. The formula, then, as 1 see it is : The conscious or proximate end of all our acts is happiness ; the uncon- scious or ultimate end, preservation of life. In The 'Data of Ethics, Spencer lays his foundation in a dis- cussion of conduct in general, in section one beginning with a very elementary explanation of the idea that correlatives imply one another. From this principle he proceeds, in the second section of Chapter 1, to a consideration of human conduct. He enters the discussion of ethics proper by saying : "Conduct is a whole ; and, in a sense, it is an organic whole — an aggregate of independent actions performed by an organism. That division or aspect of conduct with which ethics deals, is a part of this whole — a part having its components inextricably bound up with the rest. * * The behavior we call good and the behavior we call bad are included, along with the behavior we call indifferent, under the conception of behavior at large. The whole of which ethics forms a part, is the whole constituted by the theory of conduct in general ; and this whole must be understood before the part can be understood." Mr. Spencer then proceeds to define conduct, first asserting that " it is not co-extensive with the aggregate of actions, though THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 99 it is nearly so." The exceptions he refers to here are such as are purposeless, for instance such actions as those of one in an epileptic fit, etc. He then defines conduct in two ways ; first, as "acts adjusted to ends," and second, as "the adjustment of acts to ends, according as we contemplate the formed body of acts or think of the form alone." Thus he arrives at the further defini- tion that " conduct in its full acceptation must be taken as com- prehending all adjustments of acts to ends, from the simplest to the most complex, whatever their special natures and whether considered separately or in their totality." After giving this definition of conduct in general as dintin- guished from the larger whole of actions in general, he goes on to inquire what distinguishes the conduct on which ethical judg- ments are made from the remainder of conduct in general. And first, he here points out what he calls indifferent conduct as having no ethical significance, giving as examples, a walk to the waterfall or a ramble along the seashore, in which, he says, " the ends are ethically indifferent," and illustrates further by saying it is a matter of ethical indifference whether, " if I go to the waterfall, I shall go over the moor or take the path through the wood." But 1 am disposed to think that this differentiation is not critically and scientifically exact. Speaking more exactly, I should say such actions are apparently indifferent ethically. We are unable to see any ethical end resulting from them ; and yet there may be an ethical end resulting indirectly from such acts through their influence upon our health or our disposition or our intellectual alertness and clearness. Such so-called ethic- ally indifferent conduct may thus really be positively of ethical import as determining future actions of direct ethical results — good or bad. To this statement regarding indifferent actions, Spencer adds that " from hour to hour most of the things we do are not to be judged as either good or bad in respect of either ends or means." And this, 1 admit, is true, from a popular point of view, though not from a scientifically exact point of view. ! conceive that, as either diredh or Undirectlp leading to ethical ends, all actions are parts of ethical conduct in general. But in declaring that the transition trom indifferent acts to 100 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS acts which are good or bad is gradual, Spencer virtually admits that there is in fact no line of demarcation between his so-called indifferent acts and ethical acts — that the difference is only appa- rent, and is more exactly defined as the one being a class of acts whose ends are directly, and the other whose ends are indirectly), good or bad. Mr. Spencer takes a broad and comprehensive view of the basis of ethical conduct by contemplating conduct in general as so wide of range as to include the conduct of all animate beings, including with that of man that of animals. He considers the conduct of human beings as only "a part of universal conduct — conduct as exhibited by all living creatures," as the conduct of all living beings, brute as well as human, comes within the defi- nition of acts adjusted to ends. He explains that "the conduct of the higher animals [below man] as compared with that of man, and the conduct of the lower animals [in the scale of brutes] as compared with that of the higher, mainly differ in this, that the adjustments of acts to ends are relatively simple and rela- tively incomplete," and that "we must interpret the more devel- oped by the less developed." So he lucidly explains further thus: " Just as, fully to understand the part of conduct which ethics deals with, we must study human conduct as a whole, so fully to understand human conduct as a whole, we must study it as a part of that larger whole constituted by the conduct of animate beings in general " — which includes both man and beast. Further, this broad view is still more to be widened by a con- templation of conduct in general of all animate beings now dis- played to include " the less-developed conduct out of which this has arisen in the course of time." Being an evolutionist, Spencer consistently avers that " we have to regard the conduct now shown us by creatures of all orders as an outcome of the con- duct which has brought life of every kind to its present height. And this is tantamount to saying that our preparatory step must be to study the evolution of conduct." And this step is taken in the second chapter of his Data of Ethics. Right here is a statement by Mr. Spencer which sustains my idea of the ultimate end of all right conduct being not happiness THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF EJHICS 101 but preservation and continuation of life, for he says that the conduct of all the past of creatures of all orders is " an outcome, of the conduct which has brought life of every k.ind to its present height!' (My italics.) An outcome is an end; if the present height of life of every kind has been brought about by the conduct of the past, then that high degree of life has been the end of that con- duct, and not the happiness or pleasure of the actors, which was merely a means to that end. He arrived near the truth here without however being, apparently, aware of its existence but one step ahead. Mr. Spencer begins his treatment of the evolution of conduct by remarking that, having familiarized ourselves with the idea of an evolution of structures, and that "an evolution of functions has gone on pari passu with the evolution of structures," the next step is to " frame a conception of the evolution of conduct as correlated with this evolution of structures and functions." He says " we are concerned with functions in the true sense while we think of them as processes carried on within the body ; and, without exceeding the limits of physiology, we may treat of their adjusted combinations, so long as these are regarded as parts of the vital consensus." After referring to the internal physiological functions in co-operation to ends, and " how parts that act directly on the environment —legs, arms, wings — perform their duties, we are still concerned with functions in that aspect of them constituting physiology so long as we restrict our atten- tion to internal processes and to internal combinations of them. But we enter on the subject of conduct when we begin to study such combinations among the actions of sensory and motor organs as are externally manifested." This he illustrates quite fully by reference to examples, and then lays down the proposi- tion that " the initial adjustment of an act to an end, inseparable from the rest, must be included with them under the same gen- eral head ; and obviously, from this initial simple adjustment hav- ing no moral character, we pass by degrees to the most complete adjustments and to those on which moral judgments are passed." And hence he concludes that conduct is " the aggregate of all external co-ordinations, and this aggregate includes not only the simplest as well as the most complex performed by human 102 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS beings, but also those performed by all inferior beings considered as less or more evolved." In section 4 of the Data, Spencer treats in detail the advance of the evolution of conduct up from the lowest types of living creatures to the highest, beginning Vk'ith the apparently purpose- less movements of an infusorium, which, he says, moves about " determined in its course not by a perceived object to be pur- sued or escaped, but, apparently, by varying stimuli in its me- dium [environment]." And he says that " in the very lowest creatures most of the movements from moment to moment made have not more recognizable aims than have the struggles of an epileptic." He then illustrates the process of evolution of con- duct by citing the character of the actions of higher and higher animate beings, from the rotifers and mullusca, low forms com- pared with higher ones, to vertebrate animals, from the fish, " roaming about at hazard in search of something to eat, and now and again rushing away in alarm at the approach of a bigger fish, makes adjustments of acts to ends that are relatively few and simple in their kinds," to the elephant, in which " these general actions performed in common with "the fish are far better adjusted to ttieir ends, * * * l-j^f t}^e chief difference arises from the addition of new sets of adjustments." And then, going to the top of the scale, to man, he says, " we not only find that the adjustment of acts to ends are both more numerous and better than among lower mammals, but we find the same thing on comparing the doings of higher races of men with those of the lower races. * * And when with the ordinary activities of the savage we compare the ordinary civilized activities * * we see sets of adjustments of acts to ends not only immensely ex- ceeding those seen among lower races of men in variety and intricacy, but acts to which lower races of men present nothing analogous. And along with this greater elaboration of life pro- duced by the pursuit of more numerous ends there goes that increased duration of life which constitutes the supreme end." Here Mr. Spencer is carried by his own logical ratiocination to the conclusion that " increased duration of life constitutes the supreme end " of conduct, almost exactly stating the proposition 1 have herein referred to as to the ultimate end of right conduct being the conservation and perpetuation of life, as opposed to THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 103 the theory that happiness constitutes the supreme end. And yet Mr. Spencer does not seem to be conscious of the fact that he had herein contradicted his own premise that happiness is the end of right conduct; so that in formula he embraces the old doctrine of happiness as the sumnium bonum while in fact he himself proves that it is not, but that life — "increased duration of life" is the "chief good," or end of right conduct. And further, he not only sees this end of conduct, increased duration of life, but he continues by saying that " besides being an improving adjustment of acts to ends, such as furthers in- creased amount of life " — a supplementary statement which brings his proposition as a whole still nearer to the completeness of the statement that the end of right conduct is the conservation and continuation of life. He recognizes this deficiency in the former statement, unattended by this later supplementary statej ment in these words: " Length of life is not by itself a measure of evolution of con- duct, but quantity of conduct must be taken into account, * * the augmentation of it [life] which accompanies evolution of conduct results from increase of both factors. * * * £ach further evolution of conduct widens the aggregate of actions while conducing to elongation of it." In section 5, Mr. Spencer approaches still nearer the true ethical end, in his opening paragraph saying : " Thus far we have considered only those adjustments of acts to ends which have for their final purpose complete individual life. Now we have to consider those adjustments which have for their final purpose the life of the species." This commits his whole theory of conduct, if not of ethical conduct, to the doc- trine that the summiim bonum of all normal conduct is the con- servation and perpetuation of the life of the individual or of the species or race. And this law is fully in accord with the other general laws of the evolution of all animate beings. In treating of acts whose end is race preservation Spencer says : "Throughout the ascending grades of the animal kingdom, this second kind of conduct presents stages of advance like those which we have observed in the first. Low down, where struct- 104 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS ures and functions are little developed and the power of adjust- ing acts to ends but slight, there is no conduct, properly so named, furthering salvation of the species. Race-maintaining conduct, like self-maintaining conduct, arises gradually out of that which cannot be called conduct ; adjusted actions are preceded by un- adjusted ones. " He illustrates this by citing the cases of the protozoa, which merely "divide and subdivide in consequence of physical changes over which they have no control," in which case conduct cannot be alleged. Similarly, higher up, germ cells-and sperm-cells, are sent forth to their fate, unprotected and unprovided for. In the case of fish and the higher crustaceans, a sort of action adjusted to ends occurs, which may be called a simple kind of conduct. In some fishes, " the male keeps guard over the eggs, driving away intruders, there is additional adjustment of acts to ends, and the applicability of the name conduct is more decided " than in case of those species in which the female merely selects a suitable place to deposit her eggs and then leaves them to their fate, unattended by either parent. He then passes to the mention of " creatures far superior, such as birds, which building nests and sitting on their eggs, feed their broods for considerable periods, and give them aid after they can fly; or such mammals, which suckling their young for a time, continue afterward to bring them food or protect them while they feed, until they reach ages at which they can provide for themselves, we are shown how this conduct which furthers race- maintainance evolves hand-in-hand with the conduct which fur- thers self-maintainance. That better organization which makes possible the first also." Coming up to man, he compares the savage with the brute, and finds in him a higher development of both the self-maintain- ing and the race-maintaining conduct. Then comparing civil- ized man with savage man, he finds this: " The adjustment of acts to ends in the rearing of children becomes far more elaborate alike in the number of ends met, variety of means used, and efficiency of their adaptations ; and the aid and oversight are continued throughout a much greater THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 105 part of early life." So that he finds these two kinds of conduct mutually dependent, and " neither can evolve without evolution of the other, and the highest evolutions of the two must be reached simultaneously. " Then Mr. Spencer enters upon a consideration of the third kind of conduct, which he explains inductively thus : " The multitudinous creatures of all kinds which fill the earth cannot live wholly apart from one another, but are more or less in presence of one another — are interfered with by one another. In large measure the adjustments of acts to ends which we have been considering are components of that ' struggle for existence ' carried on both between members of the same species and be- tween members of different species ; and very generally a suc- cessful adjustment made by one creature involves an unsuccess- ful adjustment made by another creature, either of the same kind or of a different kind." He illustrates this by citing the facts that herbiverous animals must die that carnivorous ones may live, the death of many small birds is necessary for the maintainance of the life of the hawk and her brood, and the worm and insect must die that the small bird may live ; and even in the same species the competition is attended with similar results. Then he truthfully observes that " among creatures whose lives are carried on antagonistically, each of the two kinds of conduct delineated above must remain imperfectly evolved ; * * even in such few kinds as have little to fear from enemies or competitors, as lions or tigers, there is still inevitable failure in the adjustments of acts to ends toward the close of life ; death by starvation from inability to catch prey shows a falling short of conduct from its ideal." But Mr. Spencer then calls attention to conduct which he de- clares is perfectly evolved — " adjustments such that each creature may make them without preventing them from being made by other creatures." And he says : " That the highest form of conduct must so be distinguished is an inevitable implication ; for, while the form of conduct is such that adjustments of acts to ends by some necessitate non- adjustments by others, there remains room for modifications 106 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS which bring conduct into a form avoiding this and so making the totality of life greater." Here he virtually concludes that the highest form of conduct has for its end the greatest totality of life — life, not happiness. Then, coming to the concrete, he discusses the conditions under which the conduct of men " in all three aspects of its evo- lution reaches its limit." Thus : While the lives led are entirely predatory, as those of savages, the adjustments of acts to ends fall short of this highest form of conduct in every way. Individual life, ill carried on from hour to hour, is prematurely cut short ; the fostering of offspring often fails, and is incomplete when it does not fail ; and in so far as the ends of self-maintenance are met, they are met by destruction of other beings of different kind or of like kind. In social groups * * conduct remains imperfectly evolved in proportion as there continue antagonisms between the groups and betw^een members of the same group -two traits necessarily associated, since the nature which prompts international aggression prompts aggression of individuals on one another. Hence the limit of evolution can be reached by conduct only in permanently peace- ful societies. But this condition of society is a purely ideal one, and is never, and never can be, actualized to perfection. Spencer says it "can be approached only as war decreases and dies out." But there are many other inevitable social antagonisms besides war. Now he proceeds to fill up what he calls " a gap in this out- line," by saying: For beyond so behaving that each achieves his ends without preventing others from achieving their ends, the members of a society may give mutual help in the achievement of ends. And if either indirectly by industrial co-operation or directly by volun- teered aid, fellow-citizens can make easier for one another the adjustments of acts to ends, then their conduct assumes a still higher phase of evolution ; since whatever facilitates the making of adjustments by each increases the totality of the adjustments made and serves to render the lives of all more complete. Thus he stands to the last by the proposition that life is the ultimate end of conduct, averring that this " still higher phase of evolution " of conduct * * * serves to render the Ihes of all more complete!' THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 107 In §7 of his Data of Ethics, Mr. Spencer refers the reader back to passages in his earlier works, First Principles, T^rinciples of Biol- ogy and 'Principles of Ps\)cholog\), and quotes his former technical definitions of life, viz : " The definite combination of hetero- genous changes, both simultaneous and successive, in corres- pondence with external co-existences and sequences," and in briefer phraseology and less specific formula, " the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations. " And he points out that the difference between the presentation of facts made in those earlier works from that here made in his Data of Ethics, as herein discussed, consists mainly in " ignoring the inner part of the correspondence and attending exclusively to that outer part constituted of visible actions," and recommends the thorough-going student to " join to the more special aspect of the phenomena " herein considered, " the more general aspects before delineated ' — in the above-named works. After this introductory remark, he recurs to the main propo- sition which he has been setting forth in the first and second chapters of his Data, and begins with the fundamental proposi- tions that " as the conduct with which Ethics deals is part of conduct at large, conduct at large must be generally understood before this part can be specially understood ; and * * that to understand conduct at large we must understand the evolu- tion of conduct," which leads to the formula of the subject-mat- ter of Ethics, " that form which universal conduct assumes during the last stages of its evolution," which form of conduct consists of the " last stages of conduct displayed by the highest type of being [man] when he is forced to live more and more in presence of his fellows," from which follows the corollary that "conduct gains ethical sanction in proportion as the activities, becoming less and less militant and more and more industrial, are such as do not necessitate mutual injury or hindrance, but consist with and are furthered by co-operation and mutual aid." And he then proceeds in the succeeding chapters to show that " these implications of the Evolution-Hypothesis * * har- monize with the leading moral ideas men have otherwise reached." 108 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS In Chapter III of the Da/a o/ £//j/cs Mr. Spencer enters upon the elucidation of his propositions by clearly pointing out the nature of good and evil of " good " and " bad " — as differences not intrinsically belonging to things or actions, but as merely relative aspects, for apart from human wants, he says, such ttiings and actions have neither merit nor demerit. That is, both the old notion that there exists in nature — in matter — an intrinsic character of evil or badness, and the modern " New Thought " dictum that " all is good " are erroneous, for all things and all activities in nature are good or bad only in their relations to life — specifically to human life. He rightly says " we call articles good or bad according as they are well or ill adapted to achieve prescribed [desired] ends." In the use of these terms as "characterizing conduct under the ethical aspects * * obser- vation shows that we apply them according as the adjustments of acts to ends are or are not efficient." In >^8 Mr. Spencer says that the discussion of any ethical question must be preceded by a definite answer to the question often asked. Is life worth living? If not, then what we call good is not good and what we call evil is not bad. He says that on the answer to this question depends entirely every decision con- cerning the goodness or badness of conduct. Those who take the pessimistic view must not blame but praise whatever causes the ending of an undesirable existence, while " those who take the optimistic view, or who, if not pure optimists, yet hold that in life the good exceeds the evil, are committed to opposite esti- mates, and must regard as conduct to be approved that which fosters life in self and others, and as conduct to be disapproved that which injures or endangers life in self or others." He regards the ultimate question herein involved to be : — " Has evolution been a mistake ? and especially that evolution which improves the adjustment of acts to ends in ascending stages of organization?" Assuming that men are divisible into two schools upon this question, he asks, "have these irreconcil- able opinions anything in common ? " He answers, " Yes, there is one postulate in which pessimists and optimists agree. Both THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 109 their arguments assume it to be self-evident that life is good or bad according as it does or does not bring a surplus of agreeable feelings. * * Each makes the kind of sentiency which ac- companies life the test." And the implication common to both views is that " conduct should conduce to the preservation of the life of the individual, of the family, and of society, only sup- posing that life brings more happiness than misery." Spencer logically arrives at the conclusion here that " if we call good every kind of conduct which aids the lives of others, and do this under the belief that life brings more happiness than misery ; then it becomes undeniable that, taking into account immediate and remote effects on all persons, the good is unvers- ally the pleasurable." But he falls short of reaching the ultimate of his logical stepping because of not apprehending right here the demonstrable fact that " the pleasurable " is not the ultimate end of conduct but a means to that end, which, so far as objective observation can discern, is the conservation of the life of the individual and of the species. Yet Mr. Spencer's conclusion would be correct with the qualification that the conscious end of our conduct is pleasure or happiness; just as the conscious end of eating is the pleasure incident to the gratification of appetite, while the unconscious and ultimate end of eating is to supply material for the maintainance of the integrity of the bodily tissues — a condition indispensable to the continuity of life. Yet in §11, Mr. Spencer refers specifically to the fact that people do mistake the means for the end; for he says; 'Sundry influences — moral, theological and political — conspire to make people disguise from themselves this truth " — that is, that the good is universally the pleasurable and the ultimate end of con- duct. — " As in narrower cases, so in this widest case, they become so pre-occupied with the means by which an end is achieved as eventually to mistake it for the end," which he illus- trates by referring to the miser and his money. Then adds : " Just as the miser, asked to justify himself, is obliged to allege the power of money to purchase desirable things as his reason for prizing it, so the moralist who thinks this conduct intrinsic- no THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS ally good and that intrinsically bad, if pushed home, has no choice but to fall back on their pleasure-giving and pain-giving effects. " But 1 contend that in this case the moralist has not really been " pushed home. " Push him still further and he will be bound to acknowledge that the pleasure-giving and the pain- giving effects are themselves not ultimate ends but means to the ultimate end, viz : the conservation of individual and race life. The idea that pleasure or happiness is the ultimate end of con- duct is the old theological one upon which is based the doctrines of a future heaven and hell : Our lives here are only preparatory to future happiness or misery ! But to the scientist, nature pre- sents a stolid, mechanical and unsympathetic aspect. Nature conducts life processes by inducing the living being to provide the means upon which those processes depend. The means nature uses to induce this conduct are, in conscious beings, pleas- ure or happiness, as enticers, and pain or misery as deterrants. Like a stern parent or teacher. Dame Nature holds out to us in her right hand the sugar-plums of pleasure and happiness to entice us to so conduct ourselves that our individual lives shall be maintained and the units of the race reproduced as maintain- ance fails ; and in her left hand she holds the rod of pain and misery by which she unmercifully compels us to avoid the things and the conduct that would minimize or destroy life. But this stern mistress is not omniscient — she makes mistakes, from the view-point of human reason. Some of the things she has or- dained to give us immediate pleasure lead us to ultimate ruin. Not all that's sweet is nutritious, and some sweet things, useful in moderation and at proper times, are over-enticing and lead us to untimely or over-indulgence to our misery or death ; the song of her Siren may lead us astray. A Christmas pudding or a Thanksgiving dinner may prove to be a means of ultimate disas- ter — the partakers thanks may be turned to wailing and his liv- ing body to insensate clay. In treating of theories of morals, Mr. Spencer, on page 42 of his Data, writes of the intuitional theory as follows : By the intuitional theory 1 here mean, not that which recog- THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS I 1 1 nizes as produced by the inherited effects of continued experi- ences, the feelings of liking and aversion we have to acts of certain kinds ; but I mean the theory which regards such feelings as divinely given, and as independent of results experienced by self or ancestors. "There is therefore," says Hutcheson, "as each one by close attention and reflection may convince himself, a natural and immediate determination to approve certain affec- tions and actions consequent upon them"; and since in common with others of his time, he believes in the special creation of man and all other beings, this " natural sense of immediate excellence ' he considers as a supernaturally-derived guide. Though he says that the feelings and acts thus intuitively recognized as good, " all agree in one general character of tending to the happiness of others," yet he is obliged to conceive this a pre-ordained cor- respondence. Nevertheless, it may be shown that conduciveness to happiness, here represented as an incidental trait of the acts which receive these innate moral approvals, is really the test by which these approvals are recognized as moral. The intuitionists place confidence in these verdicts of conscience simply because they vaguely, if not distinctly, perceive them to be consonant with the disclosures of that ultimate test. After giving a number of concrete examples proving the error of the idea of an innate moral sense, he adds : The unavoidable conclusion is, then, that the intuitionist does not, and can not, ignore the ultimate derivations of right and w^rong from pleasure and pain. However much he may be guided, and rightly guided, by the decisions of conscience re- specting the character of acts, he has come to have confidence in these decisions because he perceives, vaguely but positively, that conformity to them furthers the welfare of himself and others, and that disregard of them entails in the long run suffering on all. Require him to name any moral-sense judgment by w^hich he knows as right some kind of act that will bring a surplus of pain, taking into account the totals in this life and in any as- sumed other life [after death], and you find him unable to name one ; a fact proving that underneath all these intuitions respect- ing the goodness or badness of acts there lies the fundamental assumption that acts are good or bad according as their aggre- gate effects increase men's happiness, or increase their misery. This quotation from Mr. Spencer is here made more complete and at length than usual in this essay, because he therein treats 112 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS directly the great question at issue between the Rationalists and the Christian theologians ; that is, the question stated in the sub- heading of this little treatise, viz : " Were moral laws super- naturally revealed, or are they products of human experience and evolution ? " (See title page.) And this is the chief ques- tion to be answered in this discussion, so that the discussion embraced in the above quotations is eminently pertinent. Yet, from my point of view, the author of The T)ata of Ethics, great intellect though he was, failed to a degree to arrive at the complete conclusion of his reasoning. Pleasure and pain, hap- piness and misery, true enough, have been the standards by which emotional and comparatively unreasoning man judged of the right and wrong of his acts and his conduct, just as he has judged of the fitness of his food to nourish his body by the fact that this or that article was in taste agreeable or disagreeable — pleasurable or not. But man, upon reaching a higher plane, more and more subjects his acts and conduct to his reason, and allows his reason to judge of the fitness of things for food aside from their mere quality of pleasurable taste. He asks, is it nec- essary, digestible, assimilable ? Does it contain within its bulk injurious materials ? So the reasoning man sets up a rational standard of moral right and wrong by his acquired greater power of ratiocination, and asks, will this act, or this line of conduct, result ultimately in the welfare of himself or his fellows, or of both, regardless of immediate or proximate pleasures or pains ? Still, in daily practice, man yet is bound by the limitations of his reasoning power to decide upon the moral right or wrong of very many of his individual acts, " upon the spur of the mo- ment," by the emotional standard of pleasure or pain certain or probable as to results ; but as to lines of conduct, as to conduct in general, he is not nearly so much restrained from, the use of reason in determining right from wrong. He may, and does, to a great degree and extent, use a rational standard of moral judg- ment, rather than the more primitive emotional standard, in the domain of general ethical conduct. It has been objected by the intuitionists that man cannot deliberate rationally upon each act to decide upon its utility or its adaptability to a good end. So THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 113 far this is true. But reason may arrive at general principles upon which general rules may be formed as the basis of sub- conscious moral practices, just as, for instance, one studies the elements and rules, of arithmetic or grammar and then in com- position or business speaks or writes correctly and arrives at correct arithmetical results without a conscious reflection upon the elementary principles he had learned by the exercise of his reason. In >^ 1 6 Mr. Spencer makes a remark which verges very closely upon the theory of the conservation of life as the ultimate end of all animate action, physical, intellectual and moral. He says " the acts adjusted to ends which, while constituting the outer visible life from moment to moment further the continuance of life," etc., and, "other things equal, we call good the acts that are well adjusted for bringing up progeny capable of complete living ; and other things equal, we ascribe goodness to acts which further the complete living of others." Note that the words I have italicized mean not necessarily pleasure or happiness, but life — the continuance and completeness of life — as the end of moral acts. Mr. Spencer formally holds to his theory of happiness as the ultimate end, but is led by his own logic to find the ultimate end beyond happiness — which makes happiness or pleasure only a proximate end or means to the natural ultimate end, life. " Intelligent progress," says Mr. Spencer in the fourth chapter of his Data of Ethics, " is by no one trait so adequately character- ized as by development of the idea of causation, since develop- ment of this idea involves development of so many other ideas." He illustrates the slow but actual development of the idea of causation very clearly as follows: We hear with surprise of the savage who, falling down a prec- ipice, ascribes the failure of his foothold to a malicious demon ; and we smile at the kindred notion of the ancient Greek, that his death was prevented by a goddess who unfastened for him the thong of the helmet by which his enemy was dragging him. But daily, without surprise, we hear of men who describe them- selves as saved from shipwreck by "divine interposition," who 114 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS speak of having " providentially" missed a train w^hich met w^ith a fatal disaster, and who call it a " mercy " to have escaped in- jury from a falling chimney-pot- men who, in such cases, recog- nize physical causation no more than do the uncivilized or semi- civilized. The Veddah who thinks that failure to hit an animal with his arrow resulted from inadequate invocation of an ances- tral spirit, and the Christian priest who says prayers over a sick man in the expectation that the course of his disease will so be stayed, differ only in respect of the phenomena to be altered by him : the necessary relations among causes and effects are tacitly ignored by the last as much as by the first. Deficient belief in causation is, indeed, exemplified even in those whose discipline has been specially fitted to generate this belief — even in men of science. For generations after geologists had become uniform- itarians in geology, they remained catastrophists in biology : while recognizing none but natural agencies in the genesis of the earth's crust, they ascribed to supernatural agency the genesis of the organisms on its surface. Nay, more — among those who are convinced that living things in general have been evolved by the continual interaction of forces everywhere operating, there are some v^^ho make an exception of man ; or who, if they admit that his body has been evolved in the same manner as the bodies of other creatures, allege that his mind has been not evolved but created. If, then, universal and necessary causation is only now approaching full recognition, even by those whose investigations are daily re-illustrating it, we may expect to find it very little recognized among men at large, whose culture has not been cal- culated to impress them with it ; and we may expect to find it least recognized by them in respect of those classes of phenom- ena amid which, in consequence of their complexity, causation is most difficult to trace the psychical, the social, the moral. Though this may seem irrelevant to the subject of ethics, it is not so, as Mr. Spencer explains, thus : " Because on studying the various ethical theories 1 am struck with the fact that they are all characterized either by entire absence of the idea of causation, or by inadequate presence of it. Whether theological, political, intuitional, or utilitarian, they all display, if not in the same de- gree, still each in a large degree, the defects which result from this lack." Then he proceeds to criticise on this ground the several ethical systems named. I can here only very briefly refer to his chief points. He makes a strong and just arraignment of THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 115 the theological, in >? 1 8, as follows : The school of morals properly to be considered as the still extant representative of the most ancient school, is that which recognizes no other rule of conduct than the alleged will of God. It originates with the savage, whose only restraint, beyond fear of his fellow-man, is fear of an ancestral spirit ; and whose notion of moral duty, as distinguished from his notion of social prudence, arises from this fear. Here the ethical doctrine and the religious doctrine are identical — have in no degree differentiated. More specifically, Mr. Spencer then presents an important his- torical fact with concrete examples. He truly says that " this primitive form of ethical doctrine, changed only by the gradual dying out of multitudinous minor supernatural agents and accompanying development of one universal supernatural agent, survives in great strength down to our own day." That is, the progress has been from a belief in a multitude of gods — poly- theism — to a belief in one god only — monotheism. Yet even this later stage has in reality been reached by extremely few peo- ple — even of those who profess to believe in the existence of .but one god ; for there are few^ who so profess who do not believe in the existence of one or more demi-gods, or god-men, angels, saints, devils, or spirits of deceased humans, which interpose more or less in the affairs of men. And the only hope for fur- ther progress toward the total elimination of supernaturalism is the evolution of the idea of universal natural causation from the one-god notion being transmuted into the idea of monism — the idea that the cosmos is a solidarity and self-operative, and that the " one god " is but another name for the fact of the persist- ence of motion of matter as the cause of all phenomena — phys- ical, mental and moral. Spencer says further of this influence of supernaturalism, that " religious creeds, established and dis- senting, all embody the belief that right and wrong are right and v^^rong simply in virtue of divine enactment. And this tacit assumption has passed from systems of theology into systems of morality. * * * We see this in the works of the Stoics, as well as in the works of certain Christian moralists. Among recent ones I may instance the Essays on the Principles of Morality, 1 1 6 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS by Jonathan Dymond, a Quaker, which makes 'the authority of the deity the sole ground of duty, and his communicated will the only ultimate standard of right and wrong." And those sects w^hich take a rather more philosphical view, he shows to be still under the spell of supernaturalism, for " these assert that in the absence of belief in deity, there would be no moral guidance, and this amounts to asserting that moral truths have no other origin than the will of God, which, if not considered as revealed in sacred writings, must be considered as revealed in conscience." Spencer's remarks on the ethical theory of law^s or political en- actment as being the only standard of right and wrong, I will pass without further note, though important and well-placed. In §20, he comments upon "the pure intuitionists who held that moral perceptions are innate in the original sense —thinkers whose view is that men have been divinely endowed with moral faculties ; not that these have resulted from inherited modifica- tions caused by accumulated experiences." And he ends this section by this sound sentence : The conception of natural causation is so imperfectly devel- oped, that there is only an indistinct consciousness that through- out the whole of human conduct necessary relations of causes and effects prevail, and that from them are ultimately derived all moral rules, however much these may be proximately derived from moral intuitions. That is, intuition itself is a subconscious product of accumu- lated and inherited human experience, and so what we derive from it is as only from a proximate source, the ultimate source being the source of the intuition — inherited experience. Mr. Spencer criticises the utilitarian school as being very far from the complete recognition of natural causation. This criti- cism, 1 admit, is partially to the point and just ; but it does not apply to all Utilitarians, nor to all phases of the utilitarian theory of ethics. For as I conceive, and as some others have done and do, utility itself is dependent upon this uniform relation of effect to cause; and we fully recognize the fact that all moral rules have their origin in natural causes and nowhere else. THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 1 I 7 Herbert Spencer, upon reaching the main portion of his essay on the Data of Ethics, after closing his lengthy introductory dis- cussion as hereinbefore summarized, takes up in succession the four principal views, of the subject, viz : the physical, the biolog- ical, the psychological, and the sociological. In writing of the physical view (ch. V ), Mr. Spencer begins by saying that " thoughts and feelings are referred to when we speak of anyone's deeds with praise or blame ; not those outer manifestations which reveal the thoughts and feelings. Hence we become oblivious of the truth that conduct as actually experi- enced consists of changes recognized by touch, sight and hear- ing, " and that " this habit of contemplating only the psychical face of conduct is so confirmed that an effort is required to con- template only the physical face." Approaching the question of the physical view of moral phenomena, he says : " Taking the evolution point of view, and remembering that while an aggre- gate evolves, not only the matter composing it, but also the motion of that matter, passes from an indefinite coherent heterogeneity, we have now to ask whether conduct as it rises to its higher forms displays and in increasing degrees these characters ; and whether it does not display them in the greatest degree when it reaches that highest form which we call moral." He then proceeds to illustrate the principle of increasing coher- ence by citing the evolution of physical movements of living beings from the lowest to the highest in the biological scale, saying, first, that the conduct of the lower organizations is in broad contrast with that of highly organized beings in having its successive portions feebly connected, as illustrated thus : The random movements which an animalcule makes have severally no reference to movements made a moment before ; nor do they affect in specific ways the movements immediately after. Today's wanderings of a hsh in search of food, though perhaps showing by their adjustments to catching different kinds of prey at different hours a slightly determined order, are unre- lated to the wanderings of yesterday and tomorrow. But such more-developed creatures as birds show us in the building of I 18 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS nests, the sitting on eggs, the rearing of chicks, and the aiding of them after they fly, sets of motion which form a dependent series extending over a considerable period. And in observing the complexity of the acts performed m fetching and fixing the fibres of the nest, or in catching and bringing to the young each portion of food, we discover in the combined motions lateral cohesion as well as longitudinal cohesion. Man, even in his lowest state, displays in his conduct far more coherent combinations of mo- tions. By the elaborate manipulations gone through in making weapons that are to serve for the chase next year, or in building canoes and wigwams for permanent uses — by acts of aggression and defense which are connected with injuries long since received or committed, the savage exhibits an aggregate of motions which, in some of its parts, holds together over great periods. More- over, if we consider the many movements implied by the trans- actions of each day, in the wood on the water, in the camp, in the family, we see that this coherent aggregate of movements is composed of many minor aggregates that are severally coherent within themselves and with one another. In civilized man this trait of developed conduct becomes more conspicuous still. And this increased coherence of conduct among the civil- ized will strike us even more when we remember how its parts are often continued in a connected arrangement through life, for the purpose of making a fortune, founding a family, gaining a seat in Parliament. Then Mr. Spencer calls special attention to the fact that "a greater coherence among its component motions broadly distin- guishes the conduct we call moral from the conduct we call immoral," and he then says rightly that " in proportion as the conduct is what we call moral, it exhibits comparatively settled connections between antecedents and consequents ; for the doing right implies that under given conditions the combined motions constituting conduct will follow in a way that can be specified. Contrariwise, in the conduct of one whose principles are not high, the sequences of motions are doubtful." In §27, he extends his remarks to the illustration of the lack of coherence, that is, incoherence ; that sequence of acts which forms a line of conduct ; and he begins by saying that " indefi- niteness accompanies incoherence in conduct that is little evolved ; and throughout the ascending stages of evolving conduct there THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 119 is an increasingly definite co-ordination of the motions constitut- ing it." To illustrate this principle, he cites examples, thus : Such changes of form as the rudest protozoa show us, are utterly vague — admit of no precise description ; and though in higher kinds the movements of the parts are more definable, yet the movement of the whole in respect of direction is indetermin- ate — there is no adjustment of it to this or the other point in space. In such coelenterate animals as polypes we see the parts moving in ways which lack precision ; and in one of the loco- motive forms, as a medusa, the course taken, otherwise at ran- dom, can be described only as one which carries it toward the light, where degrees of light and darkness are present. Among annulose creatures, the contrast between the track of a w^orm, turning this way or that at hazard, and the definite course taken by a bee in its flight from flower to flower or back to the hive, shows us the same thing ; the bee's acts in building cells and feeding larvae further exhibiting precision in the simultaneous movements as well as in the successive movements. Though the movements made by a fish in pursuing its prey have consid- erable definiteness, yet they are of a simple kind, and are in this respect contrasted with the many definite motions of body, head and limbs gone through by a carnivorous mammal in the course of waylaying, running down and seizing a herbivore ; and, fur- ther, the fish shows us none of those definitely-adjusted sets of motions which in the mammal subserve the rearing of the young. Much greater definiteness, if not in the combined movements forming single acts, still in the adjustments of many combined acts to various purposes, characterizes human conduct, even in its lowest stages. In making and using weapons, and in the manoeuverings of savage warfare, numerous movements, all pre- cise in their adaptations to proximate ends, are arranged for the achievement of remote ends with a precision not paralleled among ower creatures. The lives of civilized men exhibit this trait far more conspicuously. Each industrial art exemplifies the effects of movements which are severally definite, and which are defi- nitely arranged in simultaneous and successive order. Business transactions of every kind are characterized by exact relations between the sets of motions constituting acts, and the purposes fulfilled, in time, place and quantity Moral conduct differs from immoral conduct in the same manner and in a like degree. The conscientious man is exact in all his transactions. He supplies a precise weight for a specified sum ; he gives a 120 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS definite quantity in fulfillment of understanding ; he pays the full amount he bargained to do. In times as well as in quan- tities, his acts answer completely to anticipations. If he has made a business contract, he is to the day ; if an appointment, he is to the minute. Similarly in respect of truth ; his statements correspond accurately with the facts. It is thus too in his family life. He maintains marital relations that are definite in contrast with the relations that result from the breach of the marriage contract ; and as a father, fitting his behavior with care to the nature of each child and to the occasion, he avoids the too much and the too little of praise or blame, reward or penalty. Nor is it otherwise in his miscellaneous acts. This is sound doctrine from the viewpoint of the evolutionist, except in a remarkable instance exhibited in Mr. Spencer's re- marks about the movements of the protozoa being " utterly vague" and "indeterminate." The remarkable thing about this statement is that such a master intellect as that of Herbert Spen- cer should be so much clouded by earlier teachings and beliefs as not to be able to see that all movements of everything are de- termined by environment, past and present. He seems to utterly fail to distinguish between the determination of motion directly by the environment, as in cases of non-sentient things and the lower forms of living creatures that he refers to, and the deter- mination of motion indirectly by the environment first determining the " will " of the creature to act in this or that manner. Take his illustrations : The creeping worm passes this way or that in its movements as determined by obstructions in its path, in front, to the right or to the left ; yet it moves forward by an impulse of " will " determined by the desire for food or the accomplishment of some other end necessary to the perpetuation of its life or the procreation of its kind. The bee moves in a straight line back to its hive determined in the very same way. Its " will " to go to the hive is determined by the desire to store its collection of pol- len or nectar. Obstructions to a straight forward movement in the air are very much less frequent than upon the ground. Yet the bee will cross a range of hills over a low pass and make an an angle out of its direct course to the hive to avoid the higher THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 121 portions of the range which obstruct its straight course. Its crooked course is determined exactly as is that of the worm, ex- cept that in the one case the medium of contact is closer and in the other more distant ; the sense of louch in the one, the medium of light and sight, in the other, through which the " will " to vary the course is determined. In the simpler forms of life the influ- ence of environment is more direct and simple ; in the more complex forms of life, the influence of the environment is less direct — passes through various mediums — and is more compli- cated in its relations, so that the mind of man not being able to see and co-ordinate all of these relations, " follows the lines of least resistance" in its ratiocination and concludes that an inderter- mined will is the cause of the movements to definite ends. And this principle is just as much inherent in morals as in intellectual mentation, physiological functioning or physical movement of insensate bodies. Late — that is, the principle that matter moves always in the same manner in the same environment — is abso- lutely immutable, and this is the basis of modern science and the only stable groundwork for any valuable, lasting and logical system of philosophy, physical, mental or moral. It is remark- able, then, that the trained intellect of a Herbert Spencer should indite such words as " at random," and " at hcizard," in describ- ing any kmd of motion. Speaking of the increasing contrast between the immoral and the moral as we ascend in the scale from the savage to the highly- civilized man, Mr. Spencer says that " instead of recognizing this contrast, most readers will be inclined to identify a moral life with a life little varied in its activities. But here we come upon a defect in the current conception of morality. This compara- tive uniformity in the aggregate of motions which goes along with morality as commonly conceived, is not only not moral, but is the reverse of moral. The better a man fulfills every require- ment of life, alike as regards his own body and mind, as regards the bodies and minds of those dependent on him, and as regards the bodies and minds of his fellow citizens, the more varied do his activities become. The more fully he does all these things. 122 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS the more heterogeneous must be his movements." And in this statement, it seems to me, he makes a clear statement of an im- portant truth not generally recognized. In §29, Spencer opens his further discussion of the physical view, by saying, truly, I think, that " evolution in conduct con- sidered under its moral aspect, is, like all other evolution, toward equilibrium. 1 do not mean that it is toward the equilibrium reached at death, though this is, of course, the final state which the evolution of the highest man has in common with all lower evolution ; but 1 mean that it is toward a moving equilibrium," and he concludes that " the life called moral is one in which the maintenance of the moving equilibrium reaches completeness, or approaches most nearly to completeness." Another very important principle is in this connection enun- ciated by Spencer in these words : " The man who .... reaches the limit of evolution, exists in a society congruous with his nature — is a man among men similarly constituted, who are severally in harmony with that social environment which they have formed. . . . For the production of the highest type of man can go on only pari passu with the evolution of the highest type of society. . . . Complete life in a complete society is but another name for complete equilibrium between the co-ordi- nated activities of each social unit and those of the aggregate units." Concluding his discussion of the physical view, Spencer says that to most readers of his Data and preceding works, " there will seem a strangeness, or even an absurdity, in this presenta- tion of moral conduct in physical terms," but that it has been needful to make it, for, " if that re-distribution of matter and motion constituting evolution goes on in all aggregates, its laws must be fulfilled in the most developed being as in every other thing ; and his action when decomposed into motions, must ex- emplify its laws There is an entire correspondence between moral evolution and evolution as physically defined." He says that on ascending through the various grades of animate beings, the combined motions are characterized by increasing THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 123 coherence, and definiteness considered singly and in their co-or- dinated groups, and increasing heterogeneity, becoming more marked still as we ascend in the scale to highly-civilized and moral man ; and that " this increasing cohesion, definiteness and heterogeneity of the combined motions ... in the human race at large is comparatively regular and enduring ; and its regularity and enduringness are greatest in the highest. " The second part of Mr. Spencer's classification of the aspects of ethics he treats of in the sixth chapter of his Data of Ethics, under the heading, "The Biological View." He begins by say- ing that the ideally moral man being one in whom " the moving equilibrium is perfect, or approaches nearest to perfection, it is true, speaking physiologically, that " he is one in whom the functions of all kinds are duly fulfilled." He says that " each function has some relation to the needs of life," and that " the fact of its existence as a result of evolution, being itself a proof that it has been entailed, immediately or remotely, by the adjust- ment of inner actions to outer actions. Consequently, non-ful- fillment of it in normal proportions is non-fulfillment of a requi- site to complete life. If there is defective discharge of the func- tion the organism experiences some detrimental result caused by the inadequacy. If the discharge is in excess, there is entailed a reaction upon the other functions which in some way dimin- ishes their efficiency." Coming directly to the moral aspect of this principle, he con- cludes that " the moral man is one whose functions are all dis- charged in degrees duly adjusted to the conditions of existence." And he extends this conclusion by at some length laying down and illustrating the proposition that " the performance of every function is, in a sense, a moral obligation." He sets a higher standard for morals than that generally accepted, in this relation, when he declares that, instead of mor- ality requiring only a restraint of such vital activities as are often pushed to excess, or such as conflict with average welfare, " it also requires us to carry on these vital activities up to their nor- mal limits." And he means by this to include all the merely 124 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS vegetal or physiological functions proper, but also the higher functions of the cerebrum the intellect, and sentiments or emo- tions. He says that, recognizing the fact that in the present state of man, in which his constitution is imperfectly adapted to his environment, " moral obligations of supreme kinds often necessi- tate conduct which is physically injurious," and that " we must recognize the fact that, considered apart from other effects, it is immoral to treat the body as in any way to diminish the fullness or vigor of its vitality.'' These two propositions at first view seem to contradict each other, but he makes their agreement more apparent in explaining a " test of actions," as he calls it, as follows : There may in every case be put the questions : Does the action tend to maintenance of complete life for the time being ; and does it tend to prolongation of life to its full extent ? To answer Yes or No to either of these questions, is implicitly to class the action as right or wrong in respect of its immediate bearings, whatever it may be in respect of its remote bearings. The seeming paradoxicalness of this statement results from the tendency, so difficult of avoidance, to judge a conclusion which presupposes an ideal humanity as now existing. The foregoing conclusion refers to that highest conduct in which the evolution of conduct terminates — that conduct m which the making of all adjustments of acts to ends subserving complete individual life, together with all those subserving maintenance of offspring and preparation of them for maturity, is not only consistent with the making of like adjustment by others, but furthers it. And this conception of conduct in its ultimate form implies the conception of a nature having such conduct for its spontaneous outcome — the product of its normal activities. So, understanding the mat- ter, it becomes manifest that under such conditions any falling- short of function, as well as any e.xcess of function, implies devi- ation from the best conduct or from perfectly moral conduct. Then coming from this exclusively physiological aspect of the biological view to a consideration of the psychological aspect in the biological view, in ^34, he refers back to his former work. Principles of Psychologv, ^ I 24. where, he says, " it was shown that necessarily, throughout the animate world at large, ' pains are the correlatives of actions injurious to the organism, while pleasures THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 125 are the correlatives of actions conducive to its welfare ' ; since ' it is an inevitable deduction from the hypothesis of evolution, that races of sentient creatures could have come into existence under no other conditions.' . . . Fit conditions between acts and results must establish themselves in living things, even before consciousness ; and after the rise of consciousness these connec- tions can change in no other way than to become better estab- lished." Spencer then illustrates his principles here enunciated by quite full citations to several stages of life-development from the lowest in the biological scale to and including man. Then he says he arrives at this corollary : " As fast as an accompanying sen- tiency arises, this [stimulus] cannot be one that is disagreeable, prompting desistance, but must be one that is agreeable, prompt- ing persistence. The pleasurable sensation must be of itself the stimulus to the contraction by which the pleasurable sensation is maintained and increased ; or must be so bound up with the stimulus that the two increase together. . . . There exists [then], a primordial connection between pleasure-giving acts and continuance or increase of life, and, by implication, between pain- giving acts and decrease or loss of life. " Thus he recognizes the general law 1 have all along kept in view in this discussion, that all right acts of living beings, physi- ological, mental or moral, have for their proximate end, pleasure or happiness ; but for their ultimate end, the preservation of life — the persistence of the individual or of the species. This, in con- tradistinction from the world-wide and time-honored doctrine that happiness was the chief good," the Summum Bonum, the ultimate end, of human activity. Mr. Spencer, in §40, sums up in the initial paragraph what he had before said of the biological view in a few brief words, thus : " Like the physical, the biological view corresponds with the view gained by looking at conduct in general from the stand- point of evolution." And then, further along, he adds : " So that from the biological point of view, ethical science becomes a 126 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS specification of the conduct of associated men who are severally so constituted that the various self-preserving activities — the activities required for rearing offspring and those which social welfare demands, are fulfilled in the spontaneous exercise of duly-proportioned faculties, each yielding when in action its quantum of pleasure, and who are, by consequence, so consti- tuted that excess or defect in any one of these actions brings its quantum of pain, immediate and remote." In the seventh chapter of his Data of Ethics, Mr. Spencer treats of the psychological view, beginning in {^41, in which he intro- duces his discussion by this remark : " In this chapter we are not concerned with the constitutional connections between feel- ings, as incentives or deterrents, and physical benefits to be gained or mischiefs to be avoided ; nor with the reactive effects of feelings on the state of the organism, as fitting or unfitting it for future action. Here we have to consider represented pleas- ures and pains, sensational and emotional, as constituting delib- erate motives — as forming factors in the conscious adjustments of acts to ends." He then takes a broad view of psychological evolution before entering upon the discussion of the motives and actions that are classed as moral and immoral, which he does at some length in 5^43, supplemented m following sections. In ^47 he answers the questions, " How does there arise the feeling of moral obligation in general ? Whence comes the sen- timent of duty, considered as distinct from the several sentiments which prompt temperance, providence, kindness, justice, truthful- ness, etc., by saying that " it is an abstract sentiment generated in a manner analogous to that in which abstract ideas are gen- erated." And after discussing these corolleries to near the end of the chapter, he arrives at the psychological aspect of the con- clusion he arrived at under its biological aspect, and ends by saying that " the pleasures and pains which the moral sentiments originate, will, like bodily pleasures and pains, become incentives and deterrents so adjusted in their strengths to the needs that the moral conduct will be the natural conduct. ' THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 127 The sociological view is given all of the tw^enty pages of Chap- ter VII 1. I can here refer to only a few^ of the chief points in the treatment. Spencer opens this discussion by affirming that for every race of living beings, including the human, " there are lav^^s of right living. " To this he adds that " given its environment and its structure, and there is for each kind of creature a set of actions adapted to their kinds, amounts and combinations, to secure the highest conservation its nature permits." He lays down this principle as fundamental, that from the sociological point of view, " Ethics becomes nothing else than a definite account of the forms of conduct that are fitted to the associated state, in such wise that the lives of each and all may be the greatest possible, alike in length and breadth." But he immediately adds to this statement of the principle, " But here we are met by a fact which forbids us thus to put in the fore- ground the welfare of citizens, individually considered, and requires us to put in the foreground the welfare of the society as a whole. The life of the social organism must, as an end, rank above the lives of its units." He notes that these two ends are not entirely harmonious, but that the tendency is toward their harmonization. This, 1 take it, is the ground upon which all government — political law — is based, and upon which good government by the state institution is justifiable and beneficent. In §56 Spencer sums up what he has said of the sociological view in these pertinent words : " Thus the sociological view of ethics supplements the physical, the biological, and the psycho- logical views, by disclosing those conditions under which only associated activities can be so carried on that the complete living of each consists with and conduces to the complete living of all." And then after amplifying this somewhat, he closes the chapter by summarizing the principles of a code of sociological conduct in a brief paragraph, as follows : The leading traits of a code, under which complete living through voluntary co-operation is secured, may be simply stated : The fundamental requirement is that the life-sustaining actions 128 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS of each shall severally bring him the amounts and kinds of advantage naturally achieved by them ; and this implies, firstly, that he shall suffer no direct aggressions on his person or prop- erty, and, secondly, that he shall suffer no direct aggressions by breach of contract. Observance of these negative conditions to voluntary co-operation having facilitated life to the greatest ex- tent by exchange of services under agreement, life is to be fur- ther facilitated by exchange of services be3ond agreement ; the highest life being reached only v^hen, beside helping to complete one another's lives by specified reciprocities of aid, men other- wise help to complete one another's lives. In the ninth chapter of the Data the author offers some criti- cisms and explanations, which 1 have not space here to even summarize ; but in §63, he refers to the theological theory in a way that I cannot pass over without a brief quotation. Spencer says that " thus observing how means and ends in conduct stand to one another, and how there emerge certain conclusions re- specting their relative claims, we may see a way to reconcile sundry conflicting ethical theories. These severally embody portions of the trutti, and simply require combining in proper order to embody the whole truth," and then he proceeds: The theological theory contains a part. If for the divine will, supposed to be supernaturally revealed, we substitute the natur- ally revealed end toward which the Power manifested throughout Evolution works, then, since Evolution has been, and is still, working toward the highest life, it follows that conforming to those principles by which the highest life is achieved, is further- ing that end. The doctrine that perfection or excellency of nature should be the object of pursuit, is in one sense true; for it tacitly recognizes that ideal form of being which the highest life implies, and to which Evolution tends. There is a truth, also, in the doctrine that virtue must be the aim ; for this is another form of the doctrine that the aim must be to fulfill the conditions of achievement of the highest life. That the intuitions of a moral faculty shall guide or conduct, is a proposition in which a truth is contained ; for these intuitions are the slowly, organized results of experiences received by the race while living in presence of these conditions. And that happiness is the supreme end is beyond question true ; for this is the concomitant of the highest life which every theory of moral guidance has THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 129 distinctly or vaguely in view. So understanding their relative positions, those ethical systems which make virtue, right, obli- gation, the cardinal aims, are seen to be complementary to those ethical systems which make welfare, pleasure, happiness, the cardinal aims. Why anything referred to in the above quotation should be called " theological theory," Mr. Spencer does not say, and I can not see. For the moment he begins to state the first theory he immediately lifts it out of the domain of theology by saying, " if for the divine will, supposed to be supernaturally revealed, we substitute the naturally-revealed end toward which the Power mani- fested throughout Evolution works," etc. This substitution is plainly a rejection of the " theological theory," and an adoption or substitution of the evolution theory. Again when Mr. Spencer says " that happiness is the supreme end is beyond question true," he is assuming entirely too much. For one, I do not accept it as true. With the insertion of one word in the clause it is true ; that is, if we say happiness is the supreme end of our conscious efforts. But Mr. Spencer did not so modify his state- ment, and taken as it stands, it is surely erroneous. The supreme end of all action is the conservation and reproduction of indi- vidual life and of the species, while happiness or pleasure is the proximate end — a means to the. supreme end ; the means which Mother Nature adopts to induce us to conduct our actions to the supreme end. This is an evolution theory, so stated. It may be called a theological theory only when " Mother Nature " is considered to be a personal being exercising a " free will " inde- pendent of natural laws ; that is as " God." And whatever name we may designate the evolutionary power by, it is theological only when we attribute to that power the supposed attribute of supernaturalism — superiority over the laws of nature, arbitrary will, decisions to do or not to do wholly undetermined by condi- tions or environment. Besides, the theological theory does not imply right action to the end that happiness be attained as the cardinal principle, but belief in the arbitrary, supernatural will that demands such a line of conduct. 1 30 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS The relativity of pains and pleasures is set forth at full length, as the author says, in his tenth chapter, as " a truth of cardinal importance as a datum of ethics," and he means by that " the truth that not only men of different races, but also different men of the same race, and even the same men at different periods of life, have different standards of happiness." The relativity of pleasure and pain is not recognized by man- kind in the barbaric state, or by the children of civilized people ; and even the so-called civilized and enlightened adults seldom recognize it. Spencer truly says that " it is a belief universal in early life — a belief which in most people is but partially corrected in later life, and in very few wholly dissipated — that there is some- thing intrinsic in the pleasantness of certain things, while other things are intrinsically unpleasant." Some of our " advanced thinkers" get half-way out of this error, and affirm with much confidence that evil does not exist, and that " all is good." They are misled into this new thought doctrine by the seeming neces- sity of justifying the personal creator and supervisor of the cosmos in his methods and means. The sophistry begins by accepting as a major premise that there is a perfectly wise, pow- erful and good being, whose will is supreme, who created all things and superintends all activities in the world. If this be true, we are forced to conclude that " all is good," though in asserting this we discount our own observations and discredit our reason. One step more is needed to bring these people out into the light of evolution, and that is that of recognizing good and evil — pleasures and pains — as relative, not intrinsic proper- ties of things and actions. Inherently, or intrinsically, nothing is either good or evil ; it is only in a thing's relation to something else that we can attribute to it goodness or badness. This Spen- cer makes plain in his extended remarks and illustrations in this chapter. Speaking of the relativity of pain, he cites these facts as exam- ples : "The common assumption- is that equal bodily injuries excite equal pains. But this is a mistake. Pulling out a tooth, or cutting off a limb, gives to different persons widely different /<^. THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 131 amounts of suffering ; not the endurance only but the feeling to be endured, varies greatly ; and the variation largely depends on the degree of nervous development. This is well shown by the great insensibility of idiots — blows, cuts, and extremes of heat and cold being borne by them with indifference. {On Idiocy and Im- becilify, by Wm. W. Ireland, M. D., pp. 255-6.) The relation thus shown in the most marked manner where the development of the central nervous system is abnormally low, is shown in a less marked manner where the development of the central nervous system is normally low ; namely, among inferior races of men.' Spencer, after giving many examples of the relativity of pain in all of its phases, says of its counterpart, thus : " The rela- tivity of pleasures is far more conspicuous, and the illustrations of it furnished by the sentient world at large are innumerable. It needs but to glance round at the various things which different creatures are prompted by their desires to eat and are gratified in eating — flesh for predaceous animals, grass for herbivora, worms for the mole, flies for the swallow, seeds for the finch, honey for the bee, a decaying carcass for the maggot- -to be reminded that the taste for foods are relative to the structures of of the creatures. " And he gives many illustrations to show " that pleasures are relative not only to the organic structures but also to their states." Then he says that his illustrations " carry home the truth manifest enough to all who observe, that the receipt of each agreeable sensation depends primarily on the existence of a structure which is called into play ; and, second- arily, on the condition of that structure as fitting it or unfitting it for activity, " and he with equal force and propriety maintains that " emotional pleasures are made possible partly by the exist- ence of correlative structures and partly by the states of those structures." In 5^68 he says he has " insisted on these grand truths, with perhaps needless iteration, to prepare the reader for more fully recognizing a corollary that is practically ignored. . . . Per- vaded as all past thinking has been, and as most present think- ing is, by the assumption that the nature of every creature has 132 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS been specially created for it, and that human nature, also specially created, is, like other natures, fixed — pervaded, too, as this think- ing has been, and is, by the allied assumption that the agreeable- ness of certain actions depends on their essential qualities, while other actions are by their essential qualities made disagreeable ; it is difficult to obtain a hearing for the doctrine that the kinds of action which are now pleasurable will, under conditions requiring the change, cease to be pleasurable. Even those who accept the doctrine of Evolution mostly hear with skepticism, or at best with nominal faith, the inference to be drawn from it respecting the humanity of the future. And yet, as shown in myriads of instances, indicated by the few above given, those natural processes which have produced multitudinous forms of structure adapted to multitudinous forms of activity, have simul- taneously made these forms of activity pleasurable. And the inevitable application is that within the limits imposed by physical laws, there will be evolved, in adaptation to any new sets of con- ditions that may be established, appropriate structures of which the functions will yield their respective gratifications." And he says that "the remolding of human nature into fitness for the requirements of social life must eventually make all needful activities pleasurable, while it makes displeasurable all activities at variance with these requirements, . . . — we shall infer that along with the decrease of those emotions for which the social state affords little or no scope, and increase of those which it persistently exercises, the things now done with dislike from a sense of obligation will be done with immediate liking, and the the things desisted from because they are repugnant." The author ends his chapter on the relativity of pains and pleasures with a restatement of his principal corollary, to emphasize it, in these words : Pleasure being producible by the exercise of any structure which is adjusted to its special end, supposing it consistent with the maintenance of life, there is no kind of activity which will not become a source of pleasure if continued ; and therefore pleasure will eventually accompany any mode of action de- manded by social conditions. -t-Jl THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 133 In his eleventh chapter of the Data of Ethics, the author writes of " Egoism vs. Altruism," and he states this corollary as a basis for maintaining this relation of egoism to altruism, namely : "The acts by which each maintains his own life must, speaking generally, precede in imperativeness all other acts of which he is capable That is to say, Ethics has to recognize the truth, recognized in unethical thought, that egoism comes before altruism." This statement is but a variant of the old adage, "Self-preservation is the first law of nature," yet it is none the less true. After discussing and illustrating this principle to some extent, Mr. Spencer says_: The conclusion forced upon us is that the pursuit of individual happiness within those limits prescribed by social conditions is the first requisite to the attainment of the greatest general hap- piness. In closing this chapter Mr. Spencer says, " Finally, it may be remarked that a rational egoism, so far from implying a more egoistic human nature, is consistent with a human nature that is less egoistic." This seeming paradoxical corollary he shows to be self-consistent and expresses his conclusion in his final sentence, thus : " For asserting the due claims of self is, by implication, drawing a limit beyond which the claims are undue; and is, by consequence, bringing into greater clearness the claims of others." Then, in Chapter XII, he reverses his previous caption and discusses " Altruism vs. Egoism," and he introduces his discus- sion of the subject from this standpoint in this paragraph : " If we define altruism as being all action which, in the normal course of things, benefits others instead of benefitting self, then, from the dawn of life, altruism has been no less essential than egoism. Though primarily it is dependent on egoism, yet, secondarily, egoism is dependent on it." Then, proceeding, he says he includes " in the acts by which offspring are preserved and the species maintained " — thus again reaching the viewpoint that the conservation of life, individual and racial, is the ultimate end of action and not pleasure — "under 134 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLLTION OF ETHICS altruism in this comprehensive sense" of the term. And here for the first time he seems to recognize the essential difference between conscious and unconscious acts towards an end as effect- ing a difference as to whether it be a proximate or an ultimate end, for he adds : " Moreover, among these acts must be in- cluded not such only as are accompanied by consciousness, but also such as conduce to the welfare of offsping without mental representation of the welfare — acts of automatic altruism, as we may call them. Nor must there be left out those lowest altru- istic acts which subserve race-maintenance without implying even automatic nervous processes- -acts not in the remotest sense psychical, but in a literal sense physical. Whatever action, unconscious or conscious, involves expenditure of individual life to the end of increasing life in other individuals, is unquestionably altruistic in a sense, if not in the usual sense [my italics] ; and it is here needful to understand it in this sense that we may see how conscious altruism grows out of unconscious altruism." He illustrates his ideas of unconscious physical altruism by pertinent examples in the lowest orders of life, and begins by asserting the well-known fact of biology that the simplest beings multiply, or reproduce, by spontaneous fission — division of an individual into two or more individuals. He makes a fine distinction here that is more apparent than real, by saying this: "Since the two halves [in the lowest kind of physical altruism] which before fission constituted the individual, do not on dividing disappear, we must say that though the individuality of the parent infuso- rium or other protozoan is lost in ceasing to be single, yet the old individual continues to exist in each of the new individuals. When, however, as happens generally with these smallest animals, an interval of quiescence ends in the breaking up of the whole body into minute parts, each of which is the germ of a young one, we see the parent entirely sacrificed in forming progeny." Now, there is a michievous fallacy in the first half of this state- ment that invalidates Mr. Spencer's conclusion. It is not a fact that when an " individual ' divides to form two new individuals the original individual still exists in the two. it is impossible for an " individual " to exist as two —as a 'di\)idual. He should have THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 135 said the elements, or components, of the original individual con- tinue to exist in the two new ones ; but that the fact that these elements or components have been separated establishes the fact that the original " individual " has been destroyed. Then, the second example he cites is not essentially different from the first. Whether the original individual separates into two, ten, a hun- dred or myriads of new individuals, the destruction of the ori- ginal is effected. Let us take, for instance, a rope 100 feet long. We say it is one rope — an individual rope ; cut it into two pieces and immediately it becomes two ropes — two individual ropes, but the original individuality has been destroyed by the act of dividing. Cut the rope into ten pieces of ten feet each, and the result is equally, no more, no less, a destruction of the original 100-foot individual rope. We do not say the materials of which the rope or the infusorium is composed has been destroyed in the latter case any more than in the former, but that union of the materials which constituted it one rope or one being — constituted it an individual — has been destroyed. The truth is, as 1 see it, that the whole process of reproduction from protozoa to mankind, inclusive, is one of dissolving individuals into nuclei of newer individuals, in order that the stream of life may continue, since it is impossible, in the economy of nature as it is, for an indi- vidual living being to continue beyond a necessary limit of dura- tion, owing to the fact that no being is ever perfectly adapted to its environment, and never can be. This is forcibly illustrated by Mr. Spencer himself in this remark, " the multitudinous cases where, as generally throughout the insect world, maturity having been reached and a new generation provided for, life ends; death follows the sacrifice made for progeny." This destruction of the individual in the formation of two or more new individuals is well exemplified in bees. When a hive of bees " swarms," it is not true that only young bees go out and leave the old queen bee with her old workers in the hive, but the old queen with some of the old bees and some of the young ones go out, leaving a new queen with some of the old bees and some of the young ones in the original hive, and that original hive no more contains the original colony of bees than does the 1 36 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS new hive into which the outgoing half of the original individual has established itself as an individual colony. The division has destroyed the individual, but each of the two parts of it is now a new individual, because they each form an integral colony of bees. This, of course, in a cursory view seems without bearing on the subject of ethics, but really it is a very important element in the data of ethics, and Mr, Spencer exhibits the spirit of the true philosopher in thus beginning at the very foundations of life and ascending step by step to the highest forms exhibited in civilized man, for there is no rigid line of demarkation anywhere between physical action and moral or ethical action -the merging of the one into the other being imperceptible; and so as between un- conscious and conscious aption. Spencer, in his second step in this section, leaves, as he says, " these lower types in which the altruism is physical only, or in which it is physical and automatically psychical only," and "ascends to those in which it is also, to a considerable degree, conscious," and citing birds and mammals as examples, in which, he says, " such parental activities as are guided by instinct, are accompanied by^either no representations or but vague represen- tations of the benefits which the young receive, yet there are also actions which we may class as altruistic in the higher sense," as the agitation which such creatures exhibit when their offspring are in danger and the grief they experience when their young are destroyed, manifest that in their " parental altruism has a concomitant of emotion." Then he explains " that those who understand by altruism only the conscious sacrifice of self to others among human beings, will think it strange or even absurd, to extend its meaning so widely, but the justification for doing this is greater than has thus far appeared " in his treatment of the subjects " I do not mean," he continues, " merely that in the course of evolution there has been a progress through infinitesimal gradations from purely physical and unconscious sacrifices of the individual for the welfare of the species, up to sacrifices consciously made. I THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 137 mean that from first to last the sacrifices are, when reduced to their lowest terms, of the same essential nature ; to the last, as at first, there is a loss of bodily substance." He explains this fur- ther by saying that " as no effort can be made without an equiv- alent waste of tissue [a very important physiological fact], and as the bodily loss is proportionate to the expenditure that takes place without reimbursement in food consumed, it follows that efforts made in fostering the offspring do really represent a part of the parental substance, which is now given indirectly instead of directly." And he might well have added, is only a higher development of the principle of fission so apparent in the lowest animal forms. Then he concludes " that self-sacrihce is no less primordial than self-preservation," which is both true and import- ant. And he further says that " the imperativeness of altruism as thus understood, is indeed, no less than the imperativeness of egoism was shown to be in the last chapter " treating of " Egoism versus Altruism." This entire chapter in the Data of Ethics is one of the greatest interest, and 1 would be glad to quote from and comment upon each section of it to the end if space were available. Those at all interested in the true basis of ethics, or of a real science of sociology, should carefully study, particularly, this chapter. In Herbert Spencer's Data of Ethics, which I have used and will still use as the basis of my treatment of his ethical phi- losophy — which I consider the best accepted representation of what is known as evolutionary ethics — the thirteenth chapter is entitled "Trial and Compromise," in which the author under- takes "to consider what verdict ought to be given" in the case of egoism and the case of altruism in conflict, as set forth in his previous chapter and somewhat freely quoted and commented upon in the foregoing pages of these essays. He begins by saying " if the opposed statements are severally valid, or even each of them is valid in part, the inference must be that pure egoism and pure altruism are both illegitimate. If the maxim, ' Live for self,' is wrong, so also is the maxim, ' Live 138 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS for others.' Hence, a compromise is the only possibility. This is really the conclusion to which his discussion carries him, but stated at. its beginning as "already seeming unavoidable," in or- der that his succeeding arguments which are to justify it may be better comprehended. For my purpose here, his detailed pre- sentation of the proofs of the correctness of this conclusion need only be referred to and the reader asked to examine them in the original writings of Mr. Spencer. In the theory that the general happiness should be the object of pursuit, is embraced the necessary concomitant that the gen- eral happiness of all includes the individual actor, the " self," as a unit of the general ; the unit being almost infinitesimal as com- pared with the great body of humanity, the happiness of the whole approaches almost infinitesimally near to pure altruism ; — and in criticising this form of " pure altruism," Spencer quotes statements in Mill's Utilitarianism and comments upon the philos- ophy of both Mill and Bentham in this relation, at some length ; and he proceeds to show that it is absurd to suppose that "the happiness of all can be achieved without each pursuing his own happiness." And he brings to view the implication that "before altruistic pleasure can exist, egoistic pleasure must exist." He also arrives at the conclusion, in a portion of his argument, that "a mode of action which becomes impracticable as it approaches universality, must be wrong," and that "a right rule of conduct must be one which may with advantage be adopted by all." At the end of ^^9] he arrives at the conclusion that "disregard of others by each, carried to a great extent, is fatal to society, and carried to a still greater extent, is fatal to the family, and eventu- ally to the race," and that egoism and altruism are therefore both essential ; and this is what he means by a " compromise '' of the two principles. This thirteenth chapter is closed by some well-stated facts, one or two only of which I have space here to quote in brief. He says truly that "the more distinct assertions of individual claims, and more rigorous apportioning of personal enjoyments to efforts expended, have gone hand in hand with growth of that negative THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 139 altruism shown in equitable conduct and that positive altruism shown in gratuitous aid." Again, he says, " if on the one hand we note the struggles for political freedom, the contests between labor and capital, the judicial reforms made to facilitate enforce- ment of rights, we see that the tendency still is toward complete appropriation by each of whatever benefits are due him, and con- sequent exclusion of his fellows from such benefits ; on the other hand, if we consider what is meant by the surrender of power to the masses, the abolition of class privileges, the efforts to diffuse knowledge, the agitations to spread temperance, the multitudi- nous philanthropic societies, it becomes clear that regard for the well-being of others is increasing pari passu with the taking of means to secure personal well-being." In the fourteenth chapter, under the heading, " Conciliation," Mr. Spencer seeks to conciliate the antagonism, or seeming an- tagonism, between egoism and altruism as implied in these the- ories, as set out in the previous chapter. He says that to ask the question, how far must the pursuit by each of his own hap- piness and the happiness of his fellows be sought, relatively, though suggesting discord, or at least an absence of complete harmony, in the life of each, this is not, however, the inevitable inference. He here treats quite fully of sympathy, and at the end of >595 writes this paragraph : By simultaneous increase of its subjective and objective fac- tors, sympathy may thus, as the hindrances diminish, rise above that now shown by the sympathetic as much as in them it has risen above that which the callous show. And then he begins the next section by these questions : "What must be the accompanying evolution of conduct? What must the relations between egoism and altruism become as this form of nature is neared ? " and he concludes the section by this partial answer : " Subjectively considered, then, the conciliation of egoism and altruism will eventually become such that though the altruistic pleasure, as being a part of this consciousness of one who experiences it, can never be other than egoistic, it will not be conscientiously egoistic." 140 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS In speaking of " the more fortunate succoring the less fortun- ate," he sa5's, " altruism is understood to mean self-sacrifice " — - " a mode of action which, while it brings some pleasure, has an accompaniment of self-surrender that is not pleasurable." And then he makes this important statement, which I deem a funda- mental and essential element of a true scientific and beneficent system of ethics, viz : " The sympathy which prompts denial of self to please others is a sympathy which also receives pleasure from their pleasures when they are otherwise originated. The stronger the fellow-feeling which excites efforts to make others happy, the stronger is the fellow-feeling with their happiness however caused." This is the scientific statement of Col. IngersoU's famous ora- torical maxim, "The way to be happy is to make others happy. But Spencer here means that one not only gains his own happi- ness by himself directly making others happy, but that such a habit or practice implants in, or, rather, cultivates and develops in him the capacity of being made happy by knowing that others are made happy by acts not his own. This is a psychological law — a law of sympathy, by which we rejoice with the joy of our friends, but also mourn with them in their grief ; and the act, or that unbroken succession of acts which constitutes a line of con- duct or habit, that brings happiness to others is not only the source of the purest and most refined happiness of the actor, but developes within his mind the capacity to enjoy ; yet at the same time it developes that sensitiveness and sympathy which brings the capacity and the experience of suffering with the suffering of others. And yet, even such sympathetic suffering is ameli- orated and transfigured very much by its apparent paradoxical effect of affording happiness or pleasure to the suffering sympa- thizer ; for such a one is glad to be able to feel with his friend the pangs of his sorrows, as if he were helping him to bear them, and to a certain extent relieve him from them. " In its ultimate form, then," says Mr. Spencer, " altruism will be the achievement through sympathj' with these gratifications of others, which are mainly produced by their activities of all THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 141 kinds successfully carried on — sympathetic gratification which costs the receiver nothing, but is a gratis addition to his egoistic gratifications. This power of representing in idea the mental states of others, which, during the process of adaptation, has had the function of mitigating suffering, must, as the suffering falls to a minimum, come to have almost wholly the function of mu- tually exalting men's enjoyments. While pain prevails widely, it is undesirable that each should participate much in the con- sciousness of others ; but with an increasing predominance of pleasure, participation in others' consciousness becomes a gain of pleasure to all. And so there will disappear that apparently permanent opposition between egoism and altruism implied by the compromise reached in the last chapter. Subjectively looked at, the conciliation will be such that the individual will not have to balance between self-regarding impulses and other-regarding impulses ; but, instead, the satisfactions of other-regarding im- pulses which involve self-sacrifice, becoming rare and much- prized, will be so unhesitatingly preferred that the competition of self-regarding impulses with them will scarcely be felt. And the subjective conciliation will also be such that though altruistic pleasure will be attained, yet the motive of the action will not consciously be the attamment of altruistic pleasure, but the idea present will be the security of others' pleasures. Meanwhile, the conciliation objectively considered will be equally complete. As, at an early stage, egoistic competition, first reach- ing a compromise such that each claims no more than his equa- ble share, afterwards rises to a conciliation such that each insists on the taking of equitable shares by others ; so, at the latest stage, altruistic competition, first reaching a compromise under which each restrains himself from taking an undue share of altru- istic satisfactions, eventually rises to a conciliation under which each takes care that others shall have their opportunities for altruistic satisfaction : the highest altruism being that which ministers not to the egoistic satisfactions of others only, but also to their altruistic satisfactions. ' Then Mr. Spencer ends this section with a paragraph in which he speaks of the results of this evolution yet in futurity, as fol- lows : " Far off as seems such a state, yet every one of the fac- tors counted on to produce it may already be traced in operation among those of highest natures. What now in them is occa- sional and feeble, may be expected with further evolution to be- 142 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS come habitual and strong ; and what now characterizes the ex- ceptionally high may be expected eventually to characterize all For that which the best human nature is capable of, is within the reach of human nature at large. " But Mr. Spencer was not optimistic as to the accepting of these optimistic conclusions, for " neither with current ideas nor with current sentiments are they sufficiently congruous." And 1 cannot resist the inclination to quote in full his remarks upon the influence of the Christian creed in presentmg such an accept- ance. Here is how he " roasts " the church people in this rela- tion : " Such a view will not be agreeable to those who lament the the spreading disbelief in eternal damnation ; nor to those who follow the apostle of brute force in thinking that because rule of the strong hand was once good it is good for all time ; nor to those whose reverence for one who told them to put up the sword, is shown by using the sword to spread his doctrine among heathens. From the ten thousand priests of the religion of love, who are silent when the nation is moved by the religion of hate, will come no sign of assent ; nor from their bishops who, far from urging the extreme precept of the master they pretend to follow, to turn the other cheek when one is smitten, vote for acting on the principle — strike lest ye be struck. Nor will any approval be felt by legislators who, after praying to be forgiven their trespasses as they forgive the trespasses of others, forthwith decide to attack those who have not trespassed against them, and who, after a Queen's Speech, have invoked ' the blessing of Almighty God ' on their councils, immediately provide means of committing political burglary. But, though men who profess Ctiristianity and practice paganism can feel no sympathy with such a view, there are some, classed as antagonists to the cur- rent creed, who may not think it absurd to believe that a ration- alized version of its ethical principles will eventually be acted upon." In his next chapter (XV), Mr. Spencer discusses " Absolute and Relative Ethics," and right here comes in that theory of his which has brought him most antagonism from Rationalists ; the use of the word Power (capitalized) as representing the " first cause " and operator of the cosmos, apparently as a " being, or THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 143 person. Here is his first statement in this chapter: " Right, as we can think it, necessitates the thought of not-right, or wrong, for its correlative, and hence to ascribe Tightness to the acts of the Power manifested through phenomena is to assume the pos- sibility that wrong acts may be committed by this Power. But how come there to exist, apart from this Power, conditions of such kind that subordination of its acts to them makes them right and insubordination wrong ? How can Unconditioned Being be subject to conditions beyond itself ? If, for example, anyone should assert that the Cause of Things, conceived in respect of fundamental moral attributes as like ourselves, did right in producing a Universe which, in the course of immeasur- able time, has given origin to beings capable of pleasure, and would have done wrong in abstaining from the production of such a Universe ; then the comment to be made is, that, impos- ing the moral ideas generated in his [ 1 ] finite consciousness upon the Infinite Existence which transcends consciousness he goes behind that Infinite Existence and prescribes for it principles of action. " On the face of these remarks one would see evidence that Spencer believed in a " Power " that is manifested in the phenomena of nature which was an originating cause of the universe, and conceived of as having fundamental moral attri- butes like those of man — that is a personal power. But a closer, deeper scrutiny of his language may reveal that he was speaking of views from the standpoint of others who so believed, irrespect- ive of his own opinions. Speaking of absolute right, he first says : " As applied to ethics, the word ' absolute " will by many be supposed to imply principles of right conduct that exist out of relation to time and place, and independent of the universe as now visible to us, ' eternal ' principles, as they are called." But he does not use the word absolute in this sense. His theory of ethics implying that right and wrong can exist only in relation to the actions of creatures capable of pleasure and pain, absolute right is itself, in a broader view, relative right. The word is used by him here as I understand him, to mean fully or purely, or completely. As 144 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS an act that results fully, purely, completely, in the production of pleasure, without any attending pain or evil consequences, is under this classification called absolutely right. And to make his meaning clearer in this respect, Spencer, m 4^101 , offers " a criticism on the current conceptions of right and wrong," which though interesting and pertinent, 1 can here only cite. But he lays great emphasis on a distinction under the terms absolute right and " least wrong " — this last really being the antithesis of the first. That is, the impure, not fully, incomplete right — right to a degree accompanied by more or less wrong pain-producing action. He begins the next section with the remark that " the law of absolute right can take no cognizance of pain, save the cogni- zance implied by negation." And further along he says, " By implication, conduct which has any concomitant of pain, or any painful consequence, is partially wrong ; and the higher claim to be made for such conduct is that it is the least wrong which, under the conditions, is possible — the relatively right," and again, "con- duct which inflicts any evil cannot be absolutely good." Then, as he says, " to make clear the distinction . . . between that perfect conduct which is the subject-matter of Absolute Ethics, and that imperfect conduct which is the subject-matter of Rela- tive Ethics," he proceeds, in ?5l03, to give some illustrations. Then, in the next section, he begins by saying that " now we are prepared for dealing in a systematic way with the distinction between Absolute Ethics and Relative Ethics," which classifica- tion, 1 think, is one of considerable importance, though so much involved in the ambiguity of the terminology that there is diffi- culty in giving this distinction such a manifestation as will be easily comprehensible by the general reader. As a basis for explaining the difference between absolute and relative ethics, in the sense of these terms used by Spencer, he makes the following rather technical though correct and clear preliminary definition : " Scientific truths, of whatever order, are reached by eliminat- ing perturbing or conflicting factors. When by dealing with THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 145 fundamental factors in the abstract, not as presented in actual phenomena, but as presented in ideal separation, general laws have been ascertained, it becomes possible to draw inferences in concrete cases b} taking into account incidental factors. But it is only by first ignoring these and recognizing the essential ele- ments alone that we can discover the essential truths sought." This he then proceeds to illustrate by giving a brief history of the progress of mechanics from its empirical form to its rational form, and concludes witfi averrmg that " we see [by this] that mechanical science, fitted for dealing with the real, can arise only after ideal mechanical science has arisen," and so " all this holds of moral science." And he concludes the section with the statement that, " so a system of ideal ethical truths, expressing the absolutely right, will be applicable to the questions of our [humanity's] transitional state in such ways that, allowing for the friction of an incomplete life and the imperfection of existing na- tures, we may ascertain with approximate correctness what is relatively right." Spencer defines " the moral law " to be " the law of the perfect man — the formula of ideal conduct — the statement in all cases of that which should be, and cannot recognize in its propositions any elements implying existence of that which should not be. (See " Definitions of Morality," in his Social Statics and J^ 106 of the Data of Ethics.) Further along in this section (p. 319) he, in speaking of the alleged precedence of absolute over relative ethics, makes this statement : " An ideal social being may be conceived as so constituted that his spontaneous activities are congruous with the conditions imposed by the social environ- ment formed by other social beings," and " conformably with the laws of organization in particular, there has been, and is in pro- gress, an adaptation of humanity to the social state, changing it in the direction of such an ideal congruity. And the corollary is that the ultimate man is one in whom this process has gone so far as to produce a correspondence between all the promptings of his nature and all the requirements of his life as carried on in society. If so, it is a necessary implication that there exists an ideal code of conduct formulating the behavior of the completely -adapted man in the completely-evolved society. 146 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS Such a code is that here called Absolute Ethics- a code the injunctions of which are alone to be considered as absolutely right in contrast with those that are relatively right or least wrong; and which, as a system of ideal conduct, is to serve as a standard for our guidance in solving, as well as we can, the problems of real conduct. " In ^108, Mr. Spencer says the conception of ethics he has thus set forth is " one which lies latent in the beliefs of all mor- alists at large. Though not definitely acknowledged, it is vaguely implied in many of their propositions." And then he proceeds to briefly review the doctrines of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Epicurus, and he adds this of the modern phase : "If, in modern times, influenced by theological dogmas con- cerning the fall and human sinfulness, and by a theory of obli- gation derived from the current creed, moralists have less fre- quently referred to an ideal, yet references are traceable. We see one in the dictum of Kant — 'Act according to the maxim only which you can wish, at the same time, to become a uni- versal law.' For this implies the thought of a society in which the maxim is acted upon by all, and universal benefit recognized as the effect ; there is a conception of ideal conduct under ideal conditions. And Mr. Sidgwick [ in a quotation Mr. Spencer had made from him] implies that ethics is concerned with man as he is rather than with man as he should be, yet, elsewhere in speak- ing of ethics as dealing with conduct as it should be rather than with conduct as it is, he postulates ideal conduct and indirectly the ideal man It requires only that these various conceptions of ideal conduct or of an ideal humanity should be made consistent and definite to bring them into agreement with the conception above set forth. " This chapter (XV) is concluded with this paragraph : Hence it is manifest that we must consider the ideal man as existing in the ideal social state. On the evolution hypothesis, the two presuppose one another; and only when they co-exist can there exist that ideal conduct which Absolute Ethics has to formulate, and which Relative Ethics has to take as the standard by which to estimate divergences from right, or degrees of wrong. In the final chapter of the Data of Ethics, the author treats of THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 147 " The Scope of Ethics," in a brief but interesting way, but in this place I have space only for a very limited reference to this re- capitulation of his doctrines as set forth in the body of the book, from which 1 have so liberally quoted, and froin which the reader may make his own recapitulation with little trouble. 1 will, how- ever, here make a very condensed summary of the author s closing chapter, as giving at a glance his entire view of the basis and evolution of ethics as set out in the body of his Data of Ethics and in his other works. As the conduct with which ethics deals is a part of conduct at large, conduct at large must be understood before this part can be understood. Ethics has for its subject-matter the most highly evolved con- duct as displayed by the most highly evolved being — man ; that is, a specification of the traits which his conduct shows on reach- ing its limit of evolution. Ethics has a wider field than is commonly assigned to it, and it " includes all conduct which furthers or hinders the welfare of self or others." The entire field of ethics includes two great divisions, personal and social. Each of these divisions has to be considered first as a part of absolute, and then as a part of rela- tive ethics. " A code of perfect personal conduct can never be made defi- nite." And perfection of personal life implies modes of action which are only approximately alike in all cases. And though it cannot be said that it is possible to reduce this restricted part to scientific definiteness, " ethical requirements may here be to such an extent affiliated upon physical necessities as to give them a partially scientific authority." In the conduct of the ideal man among ideal men, that self- regulation which has for its motive to avoid giving pain, practic- ally disappears." Negative beneficence, though only a nominal part of absolute ethics, it is an actual part of relative ethics. It can only be said of positive benehcence under its absolute form that nothing can be said more specifically than that " it must become co-extensive with whatever sphere remains for it." And positive beneficence in its relative form presents problems admitting only of empirical solutions, and only approximately true answers to the questions involved. 148 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS " But though here absolute ethics, by the standard it supplies does not greatly aid relative ethics, yet, as in other cases, it aids somewhat by keeping before the consciousness an ideal concilia- tion of the various claims involved, and by suggesting the search for such compromise among them as shall not disregard any, but shall satisfy all to the greatest extent practicable." In Spencer's Prospectus to his ^p^/em of Philosophy he pro- posed to treat of the subject-matter of Moral Science, Personal Morals, Justice, Negative Beneficence, and Positive Beneficence. Under the hrst of these heads, he includes " the principles of private conduct physical, intellectual, moral and religious that follow^ from the conditions to complete mdividual life." Under Justice, he proposed 'the mutual limitations of men's actions necessitated by their co-existence as units of society — limitations the perfect observance of w^hich constitutes that state of equi- librium forming the goal of political progress." Negative Benefi- cence he applies as a caption for his treatment of " those second- ary limitations, similarly necessitated, which, though less import- ant, and not cognizable by law, are yet requisite to prevent mutual destruction of happiness in various indirect ways; in other words, those minor self-restraints dictated by what may be called passive sympathj'. And under the head of Positive Beneficence, he includes "all modes of conduct, dictated by active sympathy, which imply pleasure in giving pleasure modes of conduct that social adaptation has induced and must render ever more general, and which in becoming universal must fill to the full the possible measure of human happiness. " Here 1 must close my review of Mr. Spencer's ethics as set forth chiefly in his great work, the Data of Ethics. I have given it so much greater time and space in this discussion than I have given to any other man's system or published works, because 1 consider it the best and most important exposition ever yet pro- duced, of the modern evolutionary, or scientific, concept of the origin, basis and development of ethics and ethical philosophy. And this, though I do not wholly agree with Mr. Spencer in all things, and have offered, from time to time, criticisms of what 1 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 149 believe to be defects in his ethical doctrines, and his conceptions of evolution as applied to ethics, etc. 1 fully recognize the great- ness of Herbert Spencers intellect and the extent of his mental training as an original thinker, and I only venture to state my own views in contrast to, or opposition to, any of his with the understanding of the reader that they are offered for only what they are worth, if anything. SECTIOiST \TII. VIEWS OF ETHICAL EVOLUTIONISTS OF TODAY. In this Section a brief, rather desultory discussion of some present-day phases of changes in ethical theories and moral conduct will be presented. So far as authors are concerned in connection with these newest theories and variations of char- acter, they may not be men who have gained renown as philos- ophers or as scientific discoverers, but the facts and reasoning they set out will be presented solely on their own merits. One of the writers which 1 propose to cite here, C. A. Ste- phens, M. D., in his work, Natural Salvation, makes some remarks about theory, hypothesis and science that are so pertinent to the ideas above referred to, as introductory to this section, that I will quote them, as follows : " It is a part of the unwritten code of science that the investi- gator shall avoid a priori conclusions, look coldly upon theory and be wary of hypothesis. In a word, that he shall devote himself patiently to the acquisition of data, be content to collect facts, and live abstinent of ever-present human weakness to play the role of prophet. Nothing, indeed, so surely distinguishes the man of science from the charlatan as his attitude toward theory and his caution in presenting conclusions. A single page, often a single paragraph, of the article, or the book, of a writer on scientific subjects, enables us to judge all too accurately of the value, or lack of value, of his entire effort ; and, generally speaking, the verdict turns on the care with which he draws conclusions from data. Science has endured so much of pre- mature vaticination that its best friends and exponents have 150 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS come to regard all that sort of thing with marked hostility, as detrimental to true progress. There is a disposition to put inju- dicious enthusiasts outside the pale. A certain regimen has come to prevail ; immature publication is held to be bad form as well as futile. Humility and an educated conservatism char- acterize the truly scientific mind : the attitude of Newton at the end of his grand discoveries. ' (Page 7.) This, no matter what its authenticity may be, is acceptable to both readers and writers embued with the spirit of the modern scientific method. Yet, theory, hypothesis, and belief have their places in conjunction with scientific investigation, just as scaffold- ing, ladders and hoisting apparatus have their place as temporary means to permanent ends in the erection of a building. The author here quoted clearly recognizes this, and adds these sen- tences to the above : " It is in the nature and constitution of the human mind, how- ever to believe something. The history of mankind shows that those tribes, nations and races which have gone forward with the greatest energy have been actuated and incited by confident beliefs as to the origin and destiny of human beings. In like manner the scientist has often found hypothesis an adjuvant; for an hypothesis is of the nature of a belief. Some of the most signal discoveries in astronomy, chemistry and biology have been elicited under guidance of provisional theories. There is a use as well as abuse of hypothesis; and, moreover, the theories of science are often bona fide glimpses of truth." Yes ; and the true attitude of mind, 1 think, in relation to this is, that one carefully and conscientiously, all the time, keep in mind and expression a clear distinction between scientific facts and principles and scientific hypotheses and theories. It is the confusion of these things that misleads the novice in scientific study, and, all too often, even the professed scientist whose intel- lectual character is too easily swayed from exactitude by the free and easy sweeps of the imagination acting as the enthusiastic creator of hypotheses, guesses and theories. Dr. Stephens has said well here. But like millions of other doctors who have preceded him, he preaches better than he practices, and in his enthusiastic effort to support a theory of THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 151 human immortality falls into errors he himself warns others against. He, in his zeal, seems to be conscious of his overreach- ing, to some extent, but excuses it on the ground that he is offer- ing " glimpses of. the truth " that "will light us forward in the great outer darkness of the universe." Anu then he enters this disclaimer, in a moment of awakening to the rather too zealous violation of his excellent formula of the modern scientific meth- od : " As such and such only are the present outlines [in his Natural Salvation] of a greater gospel put forward ; a provisional belief to be used as a scientist uses an hypothesis ; probably true, better certainly than the existent babel of doctrines." Speaking of the present diversity of belief, in America espe- cially, he turns optimistically to this view : " Even now, already, science is able to outline a new and greater faith ; and no pro- phetic gift is required to assure us that this new faith will be the religion of future America. For new hope has come to the hu- man heart, the hope of salvation from ' sin ' and death by natural means: natural salvation, contradistinguished from supernatural salvation." This mixing-up of science with faith, or looking to science to establish a faith is confusing to one who has learned to use these terms — science and faith — as antitheses, or even enemies ; of science as destructive rather than constructive of " faith." Nevertheless, the author makes many truthful state- ments, if we keep well in mind what he means by the term faith. For instance, he says : " Supernaturalism has been the burden of all previous religious systems. In all the past, human hopes have founded on rite, sacrifice and supernatural rescue. But the keynote and initiative of science is natural salvation : salvation under nature accom- plished by the growth and conservation of human knowledge. In all the past, man has turned to the skies and prayed to powers beyond the earth for salvation ; but now, at the dawn of the twentieth century, he turns to himself and grandly, hopefully, estimates the problem of self-salvation." It may be objected that this is religion, not ethics. But when we take the broad, evolutionari- view of ethics, we see that re- ligion is but a phase of ethical development, inadequate though 152 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS it be, like all of the phases of evolution that precede perfection. The truth is, I think, that all ethical principles and conduct relate to man s attempts to secure more and longer life of the indi- vidual and the race, in large measure unconsciously and through the inducement of expected happiness or miserj'. So that this message of science, as Dr. Stephens calls it, is essentially an up- ward step in the scale in ethical evolution, though he may speak of it as a " religion." In fact it is the step that is to carry man up out of the theological era into the scientific ethical era. And this does not imply, as the Doctor seems to believe and hope, that the new phase is a step toward the abolition of bodily death and the immortality of the material individual. Evolution may go on eternally without such a result, for its progress is not in a straight, directly-upward line from chaos or utter imperfection to ultimate order and perfection, but a series of revolutions, wherein occur the succession of the nights and days, the winters and summers, the deaths and lives of never-ending change. It is not logical to object that such an evolutionary law is not " right," or beneficent, or consistent with the character of the designer and conductor of nature and natural phenomena, for we know nothing of any immaculate designer and conductor ; and even if we assume that there be a designer and conductor of a per- sonal nature, we are not warranted in drawing our inferences of that being's character from mere imagination, for we must judge of the character of such designer and conductor, as we do in every-day affairs, by the character of his work. The unknown character of a designer is no guide to the character of the thing designed, but the known character of the. design is a reliable guide to the character of the designer. We are bound to accept the results of our observation of the phenomena of nature, whether they appear to us to be " right," or beneficent, or wise, or such as we would expect from a designer in chaj"acter like our highest ideals of human character, or the reverse of these qualities. The author of The New Ethics, J. Howard Moore, is another of these writers upon the latest phase of morality as brought about by evolution up to the present, and forefeeling the future THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 153 at least to some extent, who does not speak so much as " one having authority, " as one who has the courage to speak the truth as he thinks he sees it. The reader of such writers, however, must always be an guard against the misleading influence of their enthusiasm and zeal consequent upon a development of sentiment out of proportion to the development of their purely intellectual powers. In his first chapter, Mr. Moore begins with a statement that the Freethinker accepts as a truism, but which very many people have not as yet been able to comprehend and accept. It is this : " No being can believe a thing or can keep from believing a thing by simply deciding to do so." This is simply a variant of the statement of the law of Determinism — that all human acts, including will and belief, are determined by inherited organiza- tion and personal environment. Mr. Moore continues : " Psychic phenomena, like all other phenomena, take place according to fixed laws. The notion that opinions are formed by an arbitrary act of the mind, and are not related causally to the conditions from which they come, is as unsupported by fact as that other supposition, once universally held, but now about outgrown, that events in the physical world just happen without any necessary connection with each other, or with the circumstances from which they come." Mr. Moore's specialty in ethics is the idea that all beings, hu- man and below human or brute — all sentient beings — are ethic- ally related to one another ; that the field of morals is not merely the relations of man to man, but also of man to brute and of brute to brute. Of course this largely depends upon the defini- tion of terms and the point of view. Generally the words ethics and morals are restricted to the relations of man to man. But the meaning may be extended so as to include all sentient beings, just as we usually mean by physiology the science of human functions, but may and do use the term in a far more general sense to mean the science of functions of all living beings, hu- man, brute and plant. Mr. Moore is something of a zealot in his field. In his zeal to 154 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS emphasize his theory of universal kinship and ethics, he is reck- less in many of his assertions, which is unbecoming a true sci- entist. He exaggerates the immorality of man as compared with brutes, and in this places himself in the same attitude as that of the Christian theologians. He complains that men are so very immoral because they have been driven into, or led into, immoral conduct by their predecessors have inherited the evil tendency. But the cool-headed scientist will go back of heredity and ask^ what is the primary cause ? From what did man first receive these " evil " impulses and tendencies? Nature is the universal fountain of all things, call them good or evil, as we may. Our inheritance is from the circumstances in which our predecessors lived, and all our acts that combine to form lines of conduct or habits are determined, from the mono-cell to model man, by en- vironment. Man cannot blame himself for any of his faults — his failures to reach any ideal — because environment, not him- self, has been his creator. Nature — that broad nature that is all-comprehensive — must bear the blame, if blame there be, for what appear to be human defections. And to him who observes closely and reflects intelligently, and without prejudice, defects are seen in every department of nature outside of the human race ac well as within it. Destruction, miscarriage and mon- strosity appear right along with construction, successful adapta- tion of means to ends and balanced proportions of parts and acts. Whether or not we can class those things as good or evil, depends upon what we mean by those words. If used to desig. nate relation of things and acts to special ends, they are legiti- mate, and we may say that nature is far from perfect ; but if we mean that good and evil are positive, absolute qualities, we must say that nature is neither good nor evil. In his zeal to picture the " depravity " of man in the deepest shades, Mr. Moore exclaims : " Oh this killing, killing, ^////ng - this awful, never-slopping, never-ending, world-wide butchery! What a world ! ' Ideal ' ? and ' perfect' ? and ' all-wise' ? Cer- tainly — to tigers, and highwaymen, and people who are sound asleep ; but to everybody else it is simply monstrous. We are nothing but a lot of ferocious humbugs — that is the long and THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 155 short of it — leading lives all the way from a tenth to two-thirds decent in our conduct toward our fellow-men, but almost abso- lutely savage in our treatment of not men." And he charac- terizes the race as '.' a globeful of lip-virtuous felons ! " But where is the standard by which we shall measure human conduct to reach such a verdict ? Throughout nature we find this " killing, killing, filling " — this " world-wide butchery"; indeed construction is dependent upon destruction, for out of the debris of what has been is made what is to be, on and on, and forever. What then is cruelty? Is it a vice? Certainly. Whatever means results in evil effects to the actor or his species is a vice. To slay wantonly is vicious, because the act brings no adequate reward or return but cultivates the habit of wantonness and dulls the sense of sympathy and propriety. On page 1 63 of The New Ethics, the author thus speaks of the ethics of nature: " In the first place, Nature is not perfect nor ideal, as it is as- sumed to be by those who make this objection. That great, perfect, all-beneficial Nature, that never had a blemish nor made a mistake, or if it did make a mistake the mistake was supposed to be some particularly profound act whose goodness eluded the understandings of men — this Nature, the masterpiece of an all- wise mind, the Nature of the pre-Darwinians, has passed away. And in its place we have an evolved and evolving Nature, very imperfect, some parts of it especially. Among imperfect parts may be mentioned the incompetents who are not able to recog- nize imperfections when they meet them in their own minds." And on page 1 69, adds : " But We are a part of Nature, just as truly a part of the universe of things as the insect of the sea.' Mr. Moore answers the objection that if ethical relations are extended by man to other animals, he should extend these same relations to plants also, by saying that this " assumes that the basis of ethics is life, whereas ethics is concerned, not with life> but with consciousness. The question ever asked by ethics is not. Does the thing live? but. Does it feel? It is impossible to do right or wrong to that which is incapable of sentient experience. Ethics arises with consciousness and is co-extenstve with it." In closing his chapter on the " Flashlights of Progress," in The New Ethics, Mr. Moore says some very good things about evolu- 156 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS tion — evolution especially as related to ethical progress. Speak- ing of the way the doctrine of evolution was combatted a few years ago, he says : " Many seemed to feel that one of the worst things about the new doctrine w^as the way it treated the ' Almighty — impairing his dignity so, and undermining many of his choicest and most venerable functions. They seemed to think that if evolution was true, God wouldn't have anything to do, and would have to read novels or go fishing in order to kill time. Mr. Gladstone, emi- nent as a politician but a mere child in science, was one of these. In an address at Liverpool, he said : ' Upon the grounds of what is termed evolution, God is relieved of the labor of creation, and in the name of unchangeable laws he is dismissed from the superintendency of the world.' Which is about true. But what of it? Herbert Spencer called Mr. Gladstone's attention to the fact that the same thing which he complained of as having been done by Darwin had already been done by Newton in his law of gravitation, and by Kepler in his laws of astronomy. But Mr. Gladstone conveniently failed to see the point, and relieved him- self by sending a rhetorical sky-rocket to the Contemporary Review. The editor of the Dublin University Magazine went Mr. Gladstone one better by charging Darwin and his band with being ' resolved to hunt God out of the world ' ! How pitiful ! How anthropo- morphic and childish the human mind can be when it takes a notion ! And what an incomparable weakling the Lord of Cos- mos must be, anyway, to permit himself to be put to rout by an Englishman and banished from the universe by a book! " We live in a brighter age. . . . We cannot yet point to complete triumph of the doctrine of evolution, but we can say that it is getting along very well. ... In the realms of the natural sciences the success of evolution may be considered complete, and it is invading rapidly those regions of human knowledge lying farther and farther from the sciences of its birth. It is destined finally to revise and rationalize every field of human thought, and to work on organic phenomena, as a whole, the profoundest and most far-reaching effects of any revelation that has thus far flashed on the children of men. " Mr. Moore has glimpses, if not a full realization, of the truth of Determinism. In his concluding chapter of The Netv Ethics, THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 157 his first sentence is, " We are slaves of the past.' The second paragraph reads : " It is not true that we are free. We are free to do only that which we are destined to do. We do not choose our natures or our minds any more than we do our appearances. We are cut out by the universe [nature], of which we are but parts, receiving our ways of acting from the clays that compose us when we come into the world and the circumstances that surround us. SECTION IX. ETHICAL CULTURE AND EVOLUTION. TN concluding this series of essays on the origin and evolution of ethics 1 deem it pertinent to consider briefly the relation of ethical culture, or the teaching of morality, to the process of evolution, and the relation of the principle of Determinism to such teaching. That ethics as a line of conduct originated in the experiences of the human race as, first, bi-sexual and, second, as gregarious animals, and third, as social humans, seems to me to be proven by the facts of modern biological science as well as deducible from the general trend of .the various ethical theories discussed in foregoing sections of this essay. If we accept this as true, there remains no necessity for ascribing the origin of the '* moral law '* to the gods, to Jehovah, or to any supernatural or provi- dential source. Whatever in our experience or observation can be accounted for without resort to hypotheses of occult causes we must accept, by the scientific method and common-sense reasoning, as not of mystical or supernatural origin. In the study of human conduct of the individuals of limited associations and of the race in relation with one another, we find that there has been a certain progressive movement toward com- pleteness and complexity, which we usually designate as devel- opment or progress — advancement, ascension of the scale from zero up through simple and inadequate rules of conduct or 138 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS moral laws to more complete, more adequate and practicable rules and codes of rules, systems of ethics and political laws. This progress is by some ascribed to the intervention in the affairs of men, of the gods, or God, or the spirits of predecessor humans who have died. Many think that the human mind is incapable of progressing from savagery to civilization without the supervision and directing activity of a superior beneficent and w^ise personal power over it. But this progress from sav- agery to civilization is not the whole of evolution it is only half of it. Movement in the opposite direction is just as evident, just as necessary and just as much a part of the general evolu- tionary movement of all things as is movement in the direction of complexity and completeness. The evening follows the morn- ing as inevitably and as necessarily as the morning follows the evening ; the sun lowers and sets each day as well as rises and mounts the heavens to the zenith ; it goes (apparently) down the southern slope of the celestial arch each autumn as regularly as it mounts each spring the same apparent arc of the celestial hemisphere ; the year consists of the fall of the sear leaf and the decline of heat and light as well as of the growth of vegetation and the daily increase of the heat and light of spring and early summer. Evoltition is by revolution, as everyone who has eyes may see all about him. And from this general law of evolution we are logically bound to infer that ethics not only rises towards complexity and completeness, but falls back in the opposite direction. Decline and death everywhere is essential to birth and growth. Without disintegration of old forms there is not material, space or force (motion) for the building of new forms. We may deplore the fact as much as we please, that civiliza- tion and morality must decline as well as grow in the economy of nature, but the truth is truth whether w^e like it or not. We deplore the fact of human decline after middle age has been reached, and the fact that finally the body must return to the earth from which it arose ; but deplore it as much as we will, we are compelled to accept it and abide by the inexorable law. Why, then, it may be asked, should we exert ourselves to THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 159 propagate principles of a better morality ? Why try to teach our children and the cruder members of society the rules of ethics that will develop them into more civilized and more moral, or "better" beings and members of society? If environment determines the character of not only the individual, but as well of the race in its entirety of place and time, how can we be justi- fied in attempting to reform the wayward or to teach the morally degenerate ? The answers to these questions are difficult to understand by minds imbued with the notion of a " free will * — a hallucination as surely and as evidently as is the notion that the sun actually rises and sets by a movement of itself over the earth is an illusion. But to a mind which has thoroughly studied the principle of Deterrfiinism, and is able to comprehend the fact that environment includes not only the commonly-recognized conditions, but also the so-called voluntary acts of our associates, these answers giving reasons for teaching morality, restraining criminals, promoting reform measures, etc., are clear and con- vincing. A parent teaches his children morality because natural environment has determined his will to do so. It is " right " because it is in accord with the natural law of evolution — -it is one of the means of evolution. Nature, whether }'ou consider it mind or imbued with mind, or void of intellect and conscious- ness, embraces not only all that is outside of the human body, brain and mind, but also all that is within them, including intel- lect, consciousness and will. Why teach morals? For the same reason that we do other things. For utility's sake. The act adds to our happiness — it is a means to the proximate, conscious end of human conduct — happiness — and a means to the subconscious ultimate end, the conservation and reproduction of life. The reason for teaching morality appeals to the vast majority of people from the stand- point of happiness secured thereby as the end of conduct — the summum bonum; but to the thinker, this motive is only Mother Natures little sugar-plum by which she seduces her children into doing the things that conserve and reproduce life. It may be objected that, if we teach morality voluntarily then 160 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS the result is achieved outside of the influence of environment and therefore contradicts the theory of Determinism. The an- sv^er is, that the voluntary teaching of morality is itself deter- mined by the influence of environment upon the w^ill of the teacher. Again, it may be said that, if the will is determined by environment and the conduct of the one taught is also so deter- mined, it is useless for us to voluntarily undertake to teach mor- ality or influence others to conduct their lives in a moral man- ner, as nature w^ill determine that result without our interference. The answer is, that nature will not do so, because our teaching and influence is nature's own means of achieving the result. And nature induces us to become this means by conferring upon us happiness, pleasure, or satisfaction of mind or " conscience, by the performance of the things necessary to attain the end sought. Again, the objector may say that as evolution necessarily is by revolution, and disintegration, decline and retrogression nec- essarily follows integration, growth and progress, it is useless to make efforts to promote and continue the constructive, progres- sive, upward movement because the retrogressive, downward, destructive movement must necessarily come in spite of those effortSo But to this the answer is simple. There is a homely old adage commonly accepted as a truism, that " half a loaf is better than no loaf." In this case our acts in promoting morality and progress are directly and immediately (comparatively) bene- ficial to ourselves and to our associates. To illustrate, we feed our infants and children to the end that their bodies may grow to full manhood size and their lives continue to the full age of man, though we realize that after all in time their bodies will decline, die and disintegrate. We send our children to school and teach them at home though we realizp that after all in old age they will become imbecile, lose their memory, " go into dotage," as we say, and " second childhood," and finally and inevitably go out as the flame of the candle expires when the wick and the wax have been consumed. We eat, drink and labor for ourselves today, though we know that tomorrow we die. THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ETHICS 161 To do this affords us happiness, the conscious, proximate end of all human effort. We take care to secure this end though we disinterestedly leave " nature ' to secure the ultimate end of our activities — the conservation and propagation of life, carried on within our bodies and minds sub-consciously. We eat, drink and indulge in sexual congress not directly to nourish our bodies and propagate the species, but to obtain pleasure or happiness, which the whole world, with but a single exception, or at most but very few exceptions, has believed to be the chief good, the end of all right conduct, the summum bonum of the ethics of the master philosophers. The reason is good — a provision of nature — and for this very same reason we are justifiable and " in duty bound " to promote morality and abridge crime, teach ethics and cultivate habits of good conduct. OF THE CNIVERStTY OF