{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_56721/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_56721","id":"gutenberg_56721","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56721","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Ethics, Evolutionary","Spencer, Herbert, 1820-1903. Data of ethics"],"text":"Produced by Donald Cummings, Adrian Mastronardi, Martin\nPettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at\nhttp://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images\ngenerously made available by The Internet Archive/American\nLibraries.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n+-------------------------------------------------+\n|Transcriber's note:                              |\n|                                                 |\n|Errors listed in the Errata have been corrected. |\n|                                                 |\n+-------------------------------------------------+\n\n\nON MR. SPENCER'S DATA OF ETHICS.\n\nBY MALCOLM GUTHRIE,\n\nAUTHOR OF\n\"ON MR. SPENCER'S FORMULA OF EVOLUTION,\" & \"ON MR. SPENCER'S\nUNIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE.\"\n\n\nLONDON:\nTHE MODERN PRESS,\n13 AND 14, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.\n1884.\n\n(_All rights reserved._)\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n                                                   PAGE\nCHAPTER I.--ETHICS AND THE UNIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE.\n            THE PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW                    1\n\nCHAPTER II.--THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE EVOLUTION\n             OF ETHICS                               27\n\nCHAPTER III.--THE BIOLOGICAL VIEW OF ETHICS          36\n\nCHAPTER IV.--THE SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW                   56\n\nCHAPTER V.--THE ETHICAL IMPERATIVE                   63\n\nCHAPTER VI.--SYSTEMS OF ETHICS                       75\n\nCHAPTER VII.--THE EVOLUTION OF FREE WILL             83\n\nCHAPTER VIII.--EVOLUTION AND RELIGION               107\n\nCHAPTER IX.--SUMMARY                                120\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThis volume completes the critical examination of Mr. Spencer's system\nof Philosophy already pursued through two previous volumes entitled\nrespectively \"On Mr. Spencer's Formula of Evolution,\" and \"On Mr.\nSpencer's Unification of Knowledge.\" The entire task has been undertaken\nby a student for the use of students. It cannot be of much use to the\ngeneral reader, as it presumes and indeed requires a very intimate\nknowledge of Mr. Spencer's works. For those who do not wish to enter\ninto detailed examination perhaps Chapter I. of the \"Unification of\nKnowledge\" will afford a good epitome of the line of criticism; and this\nmay be followed, if desired, by a perusal of the \"Formula of Evolution.\"\nIt is believed that the most serious piece of criticism against Mr.\nSpencer's system will be found in the examination of his re-constructive\nBiology in Chapter V. of the \"Unification,\" and in the examination of\nthe origin of organic molecules commencing at page 30 of the \"Formula\nof Evolution.\" Evidently of the highest importance in a system of\nphilosophy conceived in the manner in which Mr. Spencer presents it,\nthis point of transition between the inorganic and the organic with its\ndependent histories is of the very deepest fundamental interest, and\nupon the question whether it is well or badly treated depends the\npractical value of his philosophy as applied to human concerns.\n\nIn our opinion, whatever of worth there is in Mr. Spencer's works (and\nthere is very much), derives its value from _a posteriori_ grounds and\nnot from its _a priori_ reliance upon first principles, nor from its\nplace in a deductive system of cosmic philosophy. It has not fallen to\nour lot, nor has it been our object, to appraise the separate or\nincidental value of Mr. Spencer's works. Our view has been limited to\nthe single object of examining them in the mode in which he presents\nthem, as forming a connected system of philosophy. We have done so\nbecause he sets forth his works to us in this light, and evidently if\nthey can be so accepted, it would be a gift to humanity of the highest\nvalue, for it would lend cogency to every past and confer a guidance to\nall future ages, forming a crowning glory to the intellectual\nachievements of the human race.\n\nIt is therefore to this point that we address our examination, and in\nno unfriendly spirit; for the object Mr. Spencer had in view was one\nwhich appealed to every sentiment and every intellectual aspiration\nwithin us. But we feel bound to say how sadly we have been disappointed.\nWe have found the object of our admiration to be like Nebuchadnezzar's\ndream god, a thing apparently perfect and complete in configuration but\nlike the image compounded of iron and clay and precious stones\ninevitably falling to pieces under the strain of sustained criticisms.\n\nMr. Spencer's philosophic conception was indeed imposing, and before its\nmagnificent proportions many have bowed down in sincere respect. But his\ncosmical scheme when carefully examined proved to be constructed of\nterms which had no fixed and definite meaning, which were in fact merely\nsymbols of symbolic conceptions, conceptions themselves symbolic because\nthey were not understood--and the moment we began to put them to use as\nhaving definite values they landed us forthwith in alternative\ncontradictions! Then to effect cosmical evolution, which is a process of\nimperceptible objective change, what was necessary, but to adopt a\nsystem of imperceptible word changes, so that the imperceptible word\nchanges accompanying the imperceptible objective changes should lead us\nin the end to the completed results, and the process of evolution should\nthus be made comprehensible! In this manner over the spaces of an\nenormous work have we been skilfully led by a master of language till we\nfind ourselves in imagination following out mentally the actual\nprocesses of the universe. But after all it has only been a process, in\nour own minds, of the skilful substitution of words!\n\nErrors to be successful must be big and bold. Fallacies of reasoning are\ndetected on a medium scale, but when they are \"writ large\" it is\ndifficult to detect them. Trains of syllogisms are sometimes more\neffective because they are vast than because they are true. Let them be\nimposing in their language and grand in their proportions, we naturally\nbow down to power, even if it is only power of largeness. When dealing\nwith Mr. Spencer's reasonings we feel a certain awe as if we were\ncontradicting the forces of the universe--seemingly allied to him. We\nfeel conscious of an impertinence in treating of such great matters,\ndealt with in such a mighty sweep--disdainful of precision and\nconsistency. The transformations and evolutions of reasoning in Mr.\nSpencer's works are no less wonderful than his treatment of words. The\nmind is swept along by an indiscernable but mighty flow, and sometimes\nafter mysterious disappearances of consecutiveness between volumes or\nchapters, we find ourselves landed in a satisfied but bewildered manner\nat a conclusion about which we cannot but wonder however we arrived\nthere.\n\nBy such terms as equilibration, including the theory of the moving\nequilibrium; by such terms as polarity plastic and coercive; and by\nplausible similarities between modes of process, we are deluded into\nsupposing we understand the constructive progress of nature and are made\nto feel happy and proud of our knowledge. A great self satisfaction\nattends the student who believes himself rightly to understand the\nuniverse. We are pleased with our teacher, and are still more pleased\nwith ourselves.\n\nBut the real difficulty appears when the necessity for exposition\narises. If one undertakes to explain, if one has to condense and\nsolidify for the purpose of teaching, if one wishes to make others\nunderstand, and share the knowledge one has attained, then indeed our\ndifficulties commence. What seemed so grand and alluring to look at will\nnot stand the ordinary handling of scientific language and logical\nstatement as between man and man. The illusion vanishes, the system has\ngone. In these remarks we speak only of Mr. Spencer's cosmical system.\nOf the general value of this work as a philosopher we express no\nopinion. In the estimation of competent thinkers it is very great.\nFiske, Youmans, Carveth Read, Ribot, Maudsley, Clifford, Sully, Grant\nAllen, Gopinay, and others are all working on Spencerian lines, but we\ndo not understand that they accept the cosmical explanation of Mr.\nSpencer. He marks not the age of complete accomplishment but the age of\ntransition. He has not grasped the solution of problems, but he has\nshewn the direction of future studies. He has failed in his grand\nendeavour, but he has shown what to aim at and has pointed the way. Much\nof his detailed work has been good and effective, and therefore one\nfeels some compunction in writing of him so severely. Nevertheless a man\nof such eminence must not be held sacred from criticism, but on the\ncontrary, just by reason of his eminence and consequent influence, must\nhis work be well examined before it is accepted and approved. This is\nthe task we have set ourselves and which may now be considered as\ncomplete. We have approached the study without any prepossessions, and\nwe have endeavoured, while being very strict, to be perfectly fair and\nhonest in our presentations of Mr. Spencer's theories. Naturally the\nwork has been long and tedious, and where so many contradictory and\nindistinct expressions of opinion are given it has been necessary to\ndeal largely in quotations. This has been done in justice both to\nourselves and to our author. If we have succeeded in bringing out the\nmain lines of thought for the future use of students we shall have\naccomplished our end. It is only by very strict thinking and discussion\nthat truth is finally evolved.\n\nA few words must be added as to the teleological implications which a\n_Westminster_ reviewer has discovered in our previous works, and has\nregarded as vitiating the whole of their reasoning. The subject of\nteleology is a very interesting and puzzling one, and is bound to\nreceive careful attention from the student of nature. It requires much\nconsideration as to what is meant by the term. There may be a natural\nteleology apart from a supernatural teleology. We have no very clear\nconceptions upon this point ourselves as yet, but are at present engaged\nupon the study of the question. Intention and design are exemplified in\nhuman actions, means to an end are adopted by many animals; the \"Moving\nEquilibrium\" theory, and the \"Happy Accident\" theory alike seem\ninadequate to account for the origin of natural teleology or even for\nall variations of species; and the study of biological developments\nsuggests to us the presence and activity of a subjective factor related\nto physical factors by some law to which may be due the origin of some\nof the biological variations. Mr. Spencer's theory of biological\nvariations as internal forces generated by external forces, and thus\nacting as a counterbalance in opposition to an inimical force, or in\nharmony with a favourable force, having for its object the protection or\nsustentation of the organism, is an altogether different theory from the\nagnostic \"Happy Accident\" hypothesis of the naturalist school. It\nimplies the origin of biological variations as means adapted to ends in\nthe preservation of the organism or species, and if this is not found\nworkable on the physical equilibration hypothesis, some extension of\ntheory is required to account for the origin of biological variations in\nwhich teleological implications are involved, although this theory may\nbe truly naturalistic and in perfect harmony with an orderly development\nin the manner of evolution. If we cannot predicate an anthropomorphic\nteleological mind at the beginning of things, nevertheless a teleology\nappears to be involved in biological developments and requires a\nnaturalistic explanation.\n\nM. Lionel Dauriac[1] enquires how it comes about that, while accepting\nthe theory of Evolution, we write a book of 476 pages against its most\nillustrious exponent, and asks us to explain our acceptance of the\ndoctrine as a whole. It is quite true, as he states, that we repudiate a\nmaterialistic explanation, and it is on this ground that we join issue\nwith Mr. Spencer, inasmuch as, notwithstanding Mr. Spencer's own formal\nrepudiation, all the formulas of explanation upon which he attempts the\nreconstruction of the universe are materialistic. The factors of\nchemistry, and the laws of physics, together with the laws of\nequilibration and polarity, are all purely materialistic in character.\nBy the aid of these factors and these laws alone we do not think it\npossible to understand and explain the history of cosmical evolution. Do\nwe then accept a spiritual evolution to which the materialistic has been\naltogether subordinate? No. We do not understand the operations of the\nsubjective apart from the material organism. It seems to us that there\nare material factors, and factors which are subjective, and what is\nwanted is the law of their correlation. When we say that we accept\nEvolution, we mean that we accept the theory of an orderly progress from\na state of indefinite, incoherent simplicity to a state of definite\ncoherent complexity. We discern two sets or kinds of factors, the\nmaterialistic and the subjective, but we are unable sufficiently to\nunderstand them and their laws of correlation to lay down a formula of\ninteraction of such a nature as to explain the orderly development which\nwe recognise.\n\nThis is a difficulty which has not been overlooked by Mr. Spencer. He\nwould escape it in two ways. Firstly by a mysticism, through which after\nthe definite meaning he has given to his terms has been found to fail in\nactual work he changes all his fundamental terms into \"symbolic\nconceptions.\" Why? Because they have no meaning; and if you give them a\nmeaning the conclusions from them land the student in irreconcilable\ncontradictions. Out of this mysticism no progress is possible. Secondly\nby means of the \"double aspect\" theory. According to this theory\neverything is both material and subjective, as you choose to regard it,\nand may be explained and accounted for in laws of the relations of\neither set of factors. It is true that phenomena may be so described,\nbut it is not true that they can be so explained. There is an undoubted\nconcomitance between the bodily act and the conscious feeling, but the\nreal question is this,--Does the conscious feeling wholly depend upon\nthe physical series of events and has itself no effects on the physical\nseries? Is it produced without producing? Is it something occurring in\nconnexion with certain motions in the nerves of the organism and\ntherefore dependent upon and wholly produced by the physical factors in\ntheir interrelation, according to the known chemical and physical laws\nof the factors? If it is so determined, and does not determine as part\nin a chain of causation it cannot be said to interfere with the\nmaterialistic explanation. That is complete in itself. The only question\nleft is this:--How comes it about that some portions of the physical\nseries of phenomena have this strange accompaniment of consciousness? A\nvery interesting but comparatively unimportant question. The theory that\nphenomena have two sides is of no use whatever in the endeavour towards\nthe statement of a cosmical formula of explanation. The result of our\nstudies is to the effect that there are physical factors and subjective\nfactors alike produced and producing. We aim at the statement of their\nlaw of correlation, and in this we would seek the cosmical formula. We\nhowever seek it in vain, and we do not think it possible to attain it.\nIn the meantime we look to the development of the subjective factor in\nlife, and more especially in human life, as a fact of the greatest\ninterest, the more so that we discern in that development an orderly\nprogress in a well marked manner; and it is our task to understand the\nlaws of that orderly development. This study has to be undertaken along\nwith the study of material Evolution; and although we may not fully\nunderstand our problem, there is much that we can understand and much to\nmake our views large and sympathetic and our minds expansive in working\nout the great questions that are set before us.\n\n\nThe study of Ethics from the Evolutionist's point of view assumes an\naltogether different phase from the old methods of inquiry and rests\nupon an altogether different basis. Its ground of authority is seen to\nrest in the very nature of humanity and does not come to him as an\nimposed law. Confidence is first shaken and then fully restored. From\nthe new point of view the merit of all preceding systems is seen, and\nhow they all fall into harmony in a wonderful manner in the consensus of\nmutual support and enforce ethical law by an united authority.\n\nThe chief merit of Mr. Spencer's \"Data of Ethics\" is that it puts the\nstudy upon an entirely new basis in grafting it upon the study of the\nlarger science of Biology. Heretofore the study has been isolated, and\nsupposed to be complete within its own borders. Henceforth no professor\nor student will be considered competent to express opinions without\nbeing well grounded in the study of Biological and Psychological\nevolution. Ethics, along with Sociology, must be studied as part of the\ngreater movement.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[1] \"Revue Philosophique,\" Dec. 1883.\n\n\n\n\nON MR. SPENCER'S DATA OF ETHICS.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nETHICS AND THE UNIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE.\n\nTHE PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW.\n\n\nAlways a very complex problem, the study of ethics, in Mr. Spencer's\nworks, becomes in some respects still more complex from the necessity he\nis under of affiliating it in some way upon the cosmical process.\nConceiving all knowledge to be capable of unification as a system of\ncausation, so that when the relations of the original factors are\nunderstood, all histories are merely corollaries from these ultimate\ntruths, Mr. Spencer feels bound, in the first place, to show that each\nparticular science falls into its due place in the logical scheme.\nConsequently, one of the main ideas permeating the \"Data of Ethics\" is\nthis view of ethics as interpretable only by an adequate knowledge of\nthe cosmical process in which it forms a feature.\n\nIndeed, the proposition is laid down at the outset that parts can only\nbe properly understood through a knowledge of the wholes of which they\nform part.[2] Upon this Mr. Spencer reasons that since ethics deals\nwith purposed conduct, that kind of conduct can only be understood\nthrough a scientific knowledge of conduct in general, which again forms\npart of the study of action in general, bringing us at once to the\ncosmical process upon the understanding of which, therefore, depends the\nunderstanding of our special subject.\n\nThis philosophic relation of Ethics to the cosmical process is referred\nto in the preface as being, in fact, the main object Mr. Spencer had in\nview in his elaborate series of volumes, and is more explicitly stated\nin Chapter IV. of the work under review, in which Mr. Spencer\nconsidering \"The Ways of Judging Conduct,\" justifies the course he thus\npursues. Here it is pointed out that in the systems of all preceding\nauthors the idea of causation has been insufficiently recognised or has\neven been altogether ignored--an assertion which is thereupon justified\nby a review of the Theological, Political, Intuitional, and Utilitarian\nschools of moral philosophers. Mr. Spencer thereupon proceeds (\u00b6 22)\n\"Thus, then, is justified the allegation made at the outset, that,\nirrespective of their distinctive characters and their special\ntendencies, all the current methods of ethics have one general\ndefect--they neglect ultimate causal connexions. Of course, I do not\nmean that they wholly ignore the natural consequences of actions; but I\nmean that they recognise them only incidentally. They do not erect into\na method the ascertaining of necessary relations between causes and\neffects, and deducing rules of conduct from formulated statements of\nthem.\n\n\"Every science begins by accumulating observations, and presently\ngeneralises these empirically; but only when it reaches the stage at\nwhich its empirical generalisations are included in a rational\ngeneralisation does it become developed science. Astronomy has already\npassed through its successive stages; first, collections of facts, then\ninductions from them, and lastly deductive interpretations of these, as\ncorollaries from a universal principle of action among masses in space.\nAccounts of structures and tabulations of strata, grouped and compared,\nhave led gradually to the assigning of various classes of geological\nchanges to igneous and aqueous actions; and it is now tacitly admitted\nthat geology becomes a science proper, only as fast as such changes are\nexplained in terms of those natural processes which have arisen in the\ncooling and solidifying Earth, exposed to the Sun's heat and the action\nof the Moon upon its ocean. The science of life has been, and is still,\nexhibiting a like series of steps; the evolution of organic forms at\nlarge is being affiliated on physical actions in operation from the\nbeginning; and the vital phenomena each organism presents, are coming to\nbe understood as connected sets of changes, in parts formed of matters\nthat are affected by certain forces, and disengage other forces. So is\nit with mind. Early ideas concerning thought and feeling ignored\neverything like cause, save in recognising those effects of habit which\nwere forced on men's attention and expressed in proverbs; but there are\ngrowing up interpretations of thought and feeling as correlates of the\nactions and reactions of a nervous structure, that is influenced by\nouter changes and works in the body adapted changes, the implication\nbeing that psychology becomes a science, as fast as these relations of\nphenomena are explained as consequences of ultimate principles.\nSociology, too, represented down to recent times only by stray ideas\nabout social organisation, scattered through the masses of worthless\ngossip furnished us by historians, is coming to be recognised by some as\nalso a science; and such adumbrations of it as have from time to time\nappeared in the shape of empirical generalisations, are now beginning to\nassume the character of generalisations made coherent by derivation from\ncauses lying in human nature placed under given conditions. Clearly\nthen, _ethics, which is a science dealing with the conduct of associated\nhuman beings_, regarded under one of its aspects, has to undergo a like\ntransformation, and, at present undeveloped, can be considered a\ndeveloped science only when it has undergone this transformation.\n\n\"A preparation in the simpler sciences is pre-supposed. Ethics has a\nphysical aspect, since it treats of human activities, which, in common\nwith all expenditures of energy, conform to the law of the persistence\nof energy; moral principles must conform to physical necessities. It has\na biological aspect, since it concerns certain effects, inner and outer,\nindividual and social, of the vital changes going on in the highest type\nof animal. It has a psychological aspect, for its subject matter is an\naggregate of actions that are prompted by feelings and guided by\nintelligence. And it has a sociological aspect, for these actions, some\nof them directly, and all of them indirectly, affect associated beings.\n\n\"What is the implication? Belonging under one aspect to each of these\nsciences--physical, biological, psychological, sociological--it can find\nits ultimate interpretations only in those fundamental truths which are\ncommon to all of them. Already we have concluded in a general way that\nconduct at large, including the conduct Ethics deals with, is to be\nfully understood only as an aspect of evolving life; and now we are\nbrought to this conclusion in a more special way.\n\n\"Here, then, we have to enter on the consideration of moral phenomena as\nphenomena of evolution; being forced to do this by finding that they\nform a part of the aggregate of phenomena which evolution has wrought\nout. If the entire visible universe has been evolved--if the solar\nsystem as a whole, the earth as part of it, the life in general which\nthe earth bears, as well as that of each individual organism--if the\nmental phenomena displayed by all creatures, up to the highest, in\ncommon with the phenomena presented by aggregates of these highest--if\none and all conform to the laws of evolution; then the necessary\nimplication is that those phenomena of conduct in these highest\ncreatures with which morality is concerned, also conform.\"[3]\n\nIn this passage Mr. Spencer propounds morality or ethics as a matter for\nscientific study, only to be understood or explained as part of general\nconduct when it is capable of explanation deductively from antecedent\ncauses. The distinction recognised between conduct called moral and\nconduct regarded as immoral is only to be understood when, after a\nhistorical survey of human actions and of the actions of organisms in\ngeneral, we not only perceive its immediately antecedent causes, but,\ngoing behind them, recognise the ultimate necessity of their occurrence\nin the very nature of the universe. This reveals the special features of\nMr. Spencer's method in the treatment of his subject as distinguished\nfrom that followed by Mr. Leslie Stephen in his \"Science of Ethics,\" a\ndistinction which we may conveniently mark by terming them respectively\nthe Philosophic and the Scientific methods. The former term we use in\nthe sense assigned to it in the definition given by Mr. Spencer in\n\"First Principles.\"[4]\n\nA philosophy is complete when the mind has been able to form for itself\nsuch an appraisement of the relations and conditions of factors at a\nperiod sufficiently remote to ante-date any great amount of complexity\nas will enable us deductively to frame a history of developments which\nmay correspond with the actual history of sequences in the concrete\nuniverse. If this appraisement of a remote cosmos characterised by\ncomparative simplicity nevertheless admits the existence of many factors\nwhose differences are not accounted for, philosophy is so far formally\nincomplete: but as the determination of these points lies beyond the\npowers of human reason, philosophy may justly be regarded as practically\ncomplete if it unifies from this point of view all the knowledge with\nwhich the human mind is conversant. If we are able to include all the\nsciences in one coherent whole nothing more can be expected of\nphilosophy--beyond that lies the realm of speculation and the\nUnknowable.\n\nThe scope of the sciences is not so ambitious. Their aim is limited\nwithin a much narrower purview. They seek merely to ascertain the laws\nwhich subsume special classes of phenomena. They recognise causation and\ntheir inductions are valid to the extent of the classes of facts\nexpressed in any particular law. But each science or class of facts is\nseverally and separately worked upon even though the progress of study\nis ever disclosing the mutual dependence of the various sciences.\n\nIt is very evident that there must be great imperfections in our scheme\nof knowledge so long as there remain great blanks between the sciences.\nBut this is a natural condition of the progress of thought. On the other\nhand a complete philosophic system such as that referred to above, and\nat which Mr. Spencer aims, would throw a flood of light upon each\nparticular department if the mutual relation of all problems could be\ndeduced from ascertained relations of the original factors. But it is\nalso clear that if we think we have framed such a philosophy without\nhaving really succeeded in so doing, or at any rate without having\nsucceeded in making others understand or accept it, then the supposed\nphilosophy becomes a confusing element in the exposition of a scientific\nproblem. In the work under review the philosophical attempt is very\nregrettable for it spoils the exposition of a scientific treatment,\nsurpassing all former expositions, since it dims the clearness of the\nargument, and hinders the force of its practical application.\n\nSuch is our judgment of Mr. Spencer's \"Data of Ethics.\" It contains at\nonce an excellent scientific treatment of the subject and a weak attempt\nto affiliate it upon an impotent philosophy. To the philosophical or\ncosmical aspect of the work we will confine ourselves in the present\nchapter, so that we shall hereafter be free to devote our attention to\nthe more solid scientific treatment of the questions at issue which it\npresents.\n\nThe students of Mr. Spencer's previous volumes will have observed that\nalthough he states the problem of evolution as a deductive one, he has\nyet regarded evolution in a different aspect in the working out of each\nspecific problem. Thus it is very noteworthy that throughout the\nBiological, Psychological, and Sociological expositions, Mr. Spencer has\nregarded the establishment of the fact of evolution by the accretion of\ninsensible changes as equivalent to an actual affiliation of the\nsciences upon the theory of evolution, utterly regardless of his own\nrigid requirement that these changes should be explained and accounted\nfor by the general deductions of cosmical evolution. The histories of\norganisms, for instance, exhibit gradual development, and therefore are\nsupposed to conform to the definition of evolution at large. But if\nthese changes are not intellectually discerned as the result of\nantecedent conditions and traceable to the relations of the ultimate\nfactors recognised by the philosophy, then the affiliation of the\nscience upon evolution in general is not made good. While the form and\noutside show are present, the organic connexion is not exhibited. But it\nis a characteristic of Mr. Spencer's mode of exposition, that when the\nlatter fails, the former takes its place. Hence the gradual development\nof conduct is evolution of conduct, but it is an evolution of which we\nwant an explanation. We seek it in Biology, but find that Biology also\nis a gradual increment of insensible changes of which again we seek in\nvain for an explanation.\n\nThe effect of this mode of presenting evolution or the unification of\nknowledge is heightened by the seemingly systematic manner of its\nexposition. Development is shown to be universally characterised by\nprogress in three forms--namely, from a simple, indefinite, incoherent\nstate to a complex, definite, and coherent state: and the wonderful\nscope which the universe affords, both in time and space, for\nhistorically exhibiting these traits, overwhelms the mind with a sense\nof the universality of evolution, in spite of the fact that all the time\nthe very point of the question is missed in the absence of any\nexplanation. We recognise the gradual development, but where is the\ndeductive connexion? Where is the promised system of corollaries from\noriginal factors which shall account for the historical development?\n\nThus, when in the \"Data of Ethics\" we find a reference to the Biology,\nthe Psychology, and the Sociology as parts of an established\nphilosophical system we are apt to suppose that the views as to ethics\nwhich Mr. Spencer expresses derive their authority from an antecedent\napprehension of the cosmical process; whereas this is not really the\ncase: and although it is essential to the study that ethics should be\nviewed as dependent upon the sciences named, yet such a connexion is not\nshown as one of logical order; we are only told that Ethics exhibits\nsimilar traits in its order of development.\n\nBut in addition to this foisting of the sciences upon philosophy by\nmeans of general similarities of history, the student will find that\nwhatever inner deductive warrant is set forth is badly conceived in the\nappraisement of the original factors--Matter, Motion, and Force--terms\nto which no definite conceptions can be attached. And should any one be\nso rash as to attach to them such definite meanings as would render\ntheir logical use possible, then the deductive process which would have\nto be undertaken to render them into corollaries corresponding to\nconcrete histories would very shortly bring him to confusion. Should\nhe, again, confine himself to the definite chemical factors existent in\nthe primordial nebul\u00e6, then his deductive attempt would bring him to the\nimpassable gulf at the commencement of life. And, moreover, should he\nimport the factor of sentiency into some simple chemical aggregates, and\nshould he be able to set forth some gradual development of mind in\ncorrelation with gradual changes of physical organism, then again in the\nabsence of any knowledge as to the relations of the two he would find\nhimself unable to work out the deductive process and fail in the system\nof _\u00e0 priori_ explanations which philosophy requires. For philosophy,\naccording to Mr. Spencer, demands a deductive process commencing with\nthe apprehension of the relations subsisting between the factors of the\nuniverse at some particular stage, which deductive process shall be a\ncounterpart of the actual histories of the universe.\n\nSuch deductive explanations Mr. Spencer does attempt--mainly in the\nBiology--the most important as to results, and the most badly reasoned\nof all his works. It is attempted firstly in a very concrete manner, by\na consideration of the properties of the chemical substances which form\nthe bases of organisms, and of the properties of the surrounding\nagencies--light, heat, air, water, etc. To the inter-relation of these\nare applied the laws of mechanics, such as movement in the direction of\nleast resistance, etc., and by their instrumentality at last are\norganisms supposed to be evolved which have, somehow, a concomitant of\nconsciousness which is nevertheless not a factor in any action of an\norganism. In such a history however, it is found necessary to admit\ngenesis, reproduction, and heredity, and these, since they cannot be\nexplained, are accepted without explanation.\n\nIt is true that Polarity is called in to assist the endeavour, but it is\na polarity which is the obedient servant of the author, and does as it\nis bid, firstly in being so amenable to changed conditions as to alter\nconformably with them, and again in being so rigid in its acquired form\nas to coerce molecules into definite construction. It is alternately so\npliable and so fixed as, hand over hand, to enable the author to scale\nthe highest summits of Biology. It is also true that Equilibration is\ncalled in: but then every change in the organic and the inorganic world\nturns out to be an equilibration, so that the word becomes devoid of\nmeaning.\n\nA more special study has to be given to Mr. Spencer's theory of the\nmoving equilibrium with which he identifies the existence of an\norganism, and by means of which he is supposed to bridge over the chasm\nbetween it and the inorganic. The idea is derived from a consideration\nof the spinning top, the solar system, and the steam engine, more\nparticularly if the latter is self-feeding! These are moving equilibria,\nand if their motions are disturbed by some external object they will\ngenerate forces in opposition to the environment. This purely mechanical\nconception is then rendered into an abstract form by the substitution of\nthe idea of related _forces_, as constituting a moving equilibrium, and\nis found to fit the abstract conception of an organism, so that the\nsolar system and the organism can both be identified as moving\nequilibria. Next, by loosely characterising the behaviour of the solar\nsystem in its relation to its environment, real or hypothetical, as\nconsisting of changes due to the laws of a moving equilibrium, Mr.\nSpencer seeks to show that the adaptations of an organism in response to\nchanged external conditions are likewise due to the same laws, so that\norganisms and their histories are supposed to be explainable or\naccounted for both in their origin and in their development in the same\nmanner as the moving equilibria of the physical world. Thereupon we are\nsupposed to understand both why organisms generate forces to\ncounterbalance inimical external forces, and why they generate forces\n(adaptations) for securing and absorbing forces of the environment\n(food) favourable to their continued existence. It is only what all\nmoving equilibria do. This biological theory we have discussed at great\nlength elsewhere,[5] and we then came to the conclusion that it was only\na mockery of a rational explanation. We also found that the facts of\nGenesis and the Law of Heredity were wholly inexplicable by means of a\nstudy of physics or by means of a study of the nature and laws of the\nmoving equilibrium. So that altogether we found the main requirements of\na philosophical explanation of biological facts very far from being\ncomplied with.\n\nAs part of the deductive system which our philosophy requires, we have\nnow to consider the origin and development of purposed actions--the\nsubject-matter, namely, of our present study which is to lead us up to\nthe ultimate study of Ethics proper.\n\nResuming the consideration of the problem at the point where we left off\nin our reference to the explanations of biology, we have first to review\nthe arguments which would explain the origin of purposed actions in the\nnature and laws of the moving equilibrium. For if the actions of\norganisms are thus explainable, so must be the purposed actions or\npurposed conduct of organisms, and Mr. Spencer himself expressly\nincludes them in the biological definition. And indeed it is doubtful\nwhether \"purpose\" is not covertly introduced in the very definition of\nlife as \"the continuous adaptation of inner relations to outer\nrelations.\"\n\nThe question is a very nice one, and brings us at once to the obscure\nconfines of the organic and the inorganic worlds. How, for instance,\nfrom the laws of the moving equilibrium, as derived from the study of\nthe solar system, are we to regard the movements of an infusorium? \"An\ninfusorium swims randomly about, determined in its course not by a\nperceived object to be pursued or escaped, but, apparently, by varying\nstimuli in its medium; and its acts unadjusted in any appreciable way to\nends, lead it now into contact with some nutritive substance which it\nabsorbs, and now into the neighbourhood of some creature by which it is\nswallowed and digested.... The conduct is constituted of actions so\nlittle adjusted to ends, that life continues only as long as the\naccidents of the environment are favourable.\"[6]\n\nThis is one of Mr. Spencer's transitional passages. The infusorium is a\nmoving equilibrium. Consequently it rearranges its forces for\nself-preservation in opposition to inimical forces of the environment,\nand in harmony with favoring forces of the environment. The special\nadjustment it displays is motion. But this is not communicated motion of\na mechanical description, such as the kick given to a foot-ball. Nor,\napparently, are we to regard its motions as due to a series of\nmechanical motions of the molecules of the environment. The action of\nthe environment is expressed as being a stimulus. Does this mean a\nchemical action? Or does it refer to the action of heat and light? If so\nit means that the attractions and repulsions of atoms and the motions of\nether and of molecules, account for the movements of the infusorium.\nThere is certainly no \"purpose\" in such a theory. But then the question\narises, how do we apply the theory of the moving equilibrium to such an\nassemblage of atoms thus acted upon to account for the fact that the\nassemblage of atoms endeavours to prolong its existence by defence and\nabsorption or by absorption only? If it be said that it does not do so,\nand that its movements have no food object, but are simply the effect of\nchemical and mechanical action, then it is not an animal displaying\nlife, inasmuch as it does not adapt means to an end--motions to the end\nof sustenance. If it be regarded as a moving equilibrium in this sense,\nit is one of the same sort as the solar system, and not one of the sort\nknown as animals. Nevertheless, Mr. Spencer regards it as displaying\nlife, yet very little adjusted to ends; but again he regards its actions\nas determined by external stimuli, without, however, explaining his\nmeaning.\n\nIf we are to regard the motions of the infusorium as displaying life, it\nmust be by regarding them as adaptations of inner relations to outer\nrelations--the outer relations being food; but if its actions are merely\nchemically and mechanically determined, then its conduct is not adapted\nto or balanced against the action of any external relations, but is the\nsubmissive consequent thereof. But if its conduct is altogether\ndetermined by external relations we seem to be landed in a paradox. The\nonly escape is by the obvious inference that the definition of life\nadvanced by Mr. Spencer always implies an adaptation or adjustment or\naction having the definite twofold object in view of sustenance and\nself-protection employed _against_ the inimical forces of the\nenvironment. Life adaptations are always for the accomplishment of the\nend of self-preservation, either by the procuring of food, or by defence\nagainst enemies--self-preservation primarily and afterwards the\ncontinuation of the race. Therefore, if we regard the movements of the\ninfusoria as included in the definition of life we must regard them as\nhaving in view the sustenance of the creatures. They are acts adapted to\nends. Are they then to be regarded as purposed actions? Life adaptations\nseem to be distinguished from the changes wrought by external forces\nupon a physical moving equilibrium in the fact, namely, that they act\ntowards a definite end, and therefore come into the class of purposed\nactions. We cannot do more than indicate the difficulty. If we say these\nactions are not purposed we allow that there may be purposed adaptation\nof means to ends by chemistry and mechanics. If we say that chemistry\nand mechanics do this, then we have to revise our meaning of chemistry\nand mechanics, and that in a much more thorough manner than Mr. Spencer\nhas done in his treatment of the moving equilibrium.\n\nThat there are biological adjustments which do not manifest purpose we\nexperience every day in the thickening of the skin and the changes\nwrought by climate or daily avocation, although it is true these\nadjustments may receive a scientific explanation independently of their\nbeing adaptations of means to ends. We also find that there are reflex\nactions of organisms which take place in response to external stimuli\nwithout any conscious purpose, such as breathing, digesting, &c. We are\nalso acquainted with the fact that purposed actions become by long habit\nautomatic. Indeed we have more experience of purposed actions becoming\nautomatic than of automatic or reflex actions becoming purposed.\n\nCan there then be purpose without consciousness? There are adaptations\nin the vegetable world as well as in the animal, and of these we do not\npredicate conscious design. Nor can we, on the theory of life as the\nadaptation of a moving equilibrium to its environment, admit that these\nchanges are due to mere happy accidents of origin and survival, for we\nare required to account for them as necessary results of their existence\nas moving equilibria. Yet if so the adjustments are so complex, so\nmarvellous in their relations to the insect world and the animal world\ngenerally in view of their preservation and the propagation of their\nspecies, that purpose or means adapted to ends is the apparent\ncharacteristic. Means adapted to ends is denied in the \"Happy Accident\"\ntheory, and is sought to be explained by the \"Moving Equilibrium\"\ntheory. Yet when we come to consider the abstract conception of a moving\nequilibrium derived from our solar system we can discern no endeavour\ntowards self-sustenance and self defence. No adaptations are there made\nto secure either of these objects. There is no purpose manifested, and\nno adjustment made in view of ends to be secured. On the other hand,\nthere are many adaptations in the animal and vegetable worlds which are\nnot consciously purposed. Since, however, ours is a critical task and\nnot a reconstructive work we need do no more than point out that\npurposed actions in particular, and biological adaptations as a whole,\nare not explainable by regarding organisms as aggregates of the chemical\nelements acted upon by physical forces and constituting merely physical\nmoving equilibria, of which the laws are similar to those derived from a\nconsideration of moving equilibria like the solar system. Such a theory\ndoes not admit of purposed action.\n\nStated in the abstract, the problem is how to explain the origin of\npurpose in a moving equilibrium--commencing from the solar system and\nproceeding to a self-feeding engine and pursuing our investigation to\nthe abstract moving equilibrium of forces in which external inimical or\nfavourable forces generate internal forces as a counterbalance, either\nof opposition or harmony of adjustment. Thus stated, the problem is\npurely of a dynamic nature, and would give an understanding of purpose\nas a dynamic relation of aggregates of forces. This is the true\nSpencerian view to take of the problem and its mode of settlement, but\nit is one to which Mr. Spencer does not apply himself. In the absence of\nsuch a study Mr. Spencer forsakes the true line of explanation required\nby his philosophy.\n\nBut we think if we proceed more deeply into this study we shall find\npurpose connected with consciousness. The question arises, must all\npurpose be conscious purpose? Purpose implies the direction of action,\nit implies an interval of time, it implies the accomplishment of a\nresult. In these respects it differs from chemical and mechanical\naction. We have to ask what place consciousness finds in the\nconstitution and action of a moving equilibrium. Evidently it has no\nplace in the solar system, for physicists can make their calculations\nwithout taking it into consideration as a factor. Yet the ideal or\nabstract moving equilibrium, by whose aid we are endeavouring to\nunderstand the actions of organisms, is derived from the consideration\nof the solar system as a moving equilibrium. But reducing the problem\nfrom the abstract to the concrete study of an organism, we have to ask\nwhat place consciousness holds in a moving equilibrium of oxygen,\nnitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, etc., in relation with an environment of\nheat, light, etc. We find that it is in the main a factor in all those\nclasses of actions which we term purposed--that in so far as actions\ndepart from the chemical and mechanical, that in so far as aggregates\nmanifest the characteristics of life--namely, the adaptation of inner\nrelations to outer relations--the nearer do they approach the most\ncomplete adaptation of means to the ends of complete living, and the\nmore do they manifest conscious purpose.\n\nThe theory has been propounded that consciousness is the result of\ncomplexity in the combination of the chemical elements, a complexity\nwhich can be explained on purely physical grounds. Mr. Spencer's biology\nis partly worked so as to prove this theory. But it is evident that no\nmore can be got out of a deductive theory than is contained in the\noriginal factors. It is useless to say that we do not sufficiently know\nall the properties of the original factors, because that is to abandon\nthis particular theory, and to acknowledge its inadequacy. The admission\nnecessitates an attempt to re-state the original forces of the factors.\nIf this can be done it is equivalent to propounding a new theory, which\nagain must be judged by its deductive efficacy.\n\nThe theory that complexity of nervous structure--a structure produced by\nchemical and mechanical combination--suffices to explain memory,\nreflection, judgment, choice, and purpose, has been treated by Dr. Bain\nand Professor Clifford at considerable length, and has been criticised\nin our former works in great detail.[7]\n\nThe theory that organisms are the result of chemical and mechanical\ncombinations, and that consciousness is a concomitant of some processes\nin the continuous existence of such physical combinations, throws all\nthe burthen of explanation just as fully upon the line of physical\ncausation as if there were no such concomitant of consciousness\nwhatsoever. The determining causes are wholly physical, and the chain of\nsequence is complete within the lines of chemical and mechanical\nrelations. The fact that independent and concomitant consciousness\naccompanies some of the actions in question is an interesting\ncircumstance, but although consciousness is produced as an effect, it\nnever on this theory produces any effects itself.\n\nThe attempt to amend the conceptions of the original chemical factors\n(the sixty or seventy so-called elements,) and of the physical factors\n(heat, light, etc.,) by the association with them of mind, feeling,\netc., has at various times produced vague theories. More particularly of\nlater years Professor Clifford's theory of mind-stuff has attracted a\ngreat deal of attention. But, singular to say, Professor Clifford only\nendeavoured to work out his theory in some vague semi-mechanical,\nsemi-subjective kind of way. It was not of such a sort that, given a\nnebula such as we supposed to be the predecessor of the solar system, we\nshould be able to deduce from it the existing universe. The proper\nstatement of such a problem would be a statement of the relations not\nmerely of mind-stuff, but of mind-oxygen, mind-nitrogen, etc. The\nconception would have to be of such a nature as to express the\nmind-factor, mental side, or subjective aspect of oxygen, as related to\nthe mind-factor of nitrogen, etc., and how they variously affected the\nconduct of the doubly-constituted atoms or of the more complex molecules\ninto which they formed themselves. But this is a mere indication of the\nlarger task of estimating the whole of the elementary substances, and\nestimating the value and the action of their relative mind-factors. From\nthis would have to be determined the law of growth by which increasing\ncomplexity evolved the continually increasing power of the mind-factor\nin determining actions. Upon this might rest a rational basis for a\ndefinition of life of such sort that the organic could be recognised as\narising out of the inorganic. And since the organic, in its latest and\nhighest development, is mainly distinguished by purposed actions,\npurposed actions might be deemed to have evolved in a natural way out of\nactions which were not purposed. But such a theory is not capable of\ndefinite statement, and our philosophic object in endeavouring to\naccount for the origin of purposed action out of non-purposed action is\nas far off as ever.\n\nIt might be as well here for the full satisfaction of the student, to\nconsider how far the origin of purposed action is taken account of by\nMr. Darwin, or is to be accounted for by his methods. There is a wide\ndistinction between Mr. Spencer's treatment of Biology and that of Mr.\nDarwin. Mr. Spencer aims at a complete logical deductive system, and\nendeavours to show how in the very nature of things, everything that is,\nmust have been what it is. Mr. Darwin's endeavour is not so ambitious.\nHe confines his studies to the field of biology, and to past histories\nof living creatures, as preserved for us in the geological record. His\nis a purely scientific work, not trespassing beyond the generalisation\nof the facts with which he deals. These are large and immensely\nimportant; so much so, that they cover the whole history of living\nthings: but his explanations only go a certain way. They are not\nfundamental, and we are only led backwards in time to the original\ntwilight and ultimate darkness. His theory is strictly causational. The\nexplanation of existing organisms is to be found in the relations of\nantecedent factors. Part of these we understand, and part of them we do\nnot understand. We do not understand the wherefore of genesis and\nheredity, but we know them to be facts, and they form the basis for\nlarge explanations. For if organisms are modifiable, ever-increasing\nchanges of structure and function can be produced and reproduced. The\nincrement of induced changes in various directions may in succeeding\ngenerations be such as to obliterate all semblance of relationship to\nthe original ancestor. What are the laws of these changes it is Mr.\nDarwin's great achievement to have explained. The struggle for\nexistence, the survival of the fittest, the adaptation to new\nenvironments by the use and disuse of parts, the changes induced by\nchange of climate and food, or by the action of new organisms in the\nenvironment, all these considerations open out to the astonished and\nadmiring gaze of man vast and interesting histories of changes such as\na discerning mind like Mr. Grant Allen revels in in his rambles through\nthe English fields.\n\nThe question arises how far Mr. Darwin's theories can be extended\nphilosophically, so as to explain what he accepts unexplained, viz.:\ngenesis, heredity, the origin of organisms out of the inorganic, the\ngradual development of consciousness, the increase of feeling and\nintelligence, and the advent of purposed conduct directed to the\nachievement of definite and deferred ends? For all these points he\nleaves undealt with as not coming within his scientific province.\nEvidently his theories are not fitted to explain what they take for\ngranted. They cannot explain what they are founded upon. The origin of\norganisms is unexplained: propagation of the species is accepted as an\nunexplained fact, so are heredity and the presence of consciousness.\nPurposed actions are not accounted for in Mr. Darwin's works.\n\nBut there is one point to which we wish to call attention as regards the\ndifferent method in which the changes of species are treated by Mr.\nSpencer and Mr. Darwin. The former regards all changes as necessitated\nby the laws of the moving equilibrium, so that a change of climate of\nsuch a nature as to deprive an organism of the requisite moisture for\ncontinued existence through a long period of time, would absolutely\nnecessitate some device on its part to counterbalance the external force\nof drought. It would be a consequent in the very nature of things that\nthe plant should become thick and succulent like the cactus, or that the\nanimal should form for itself a reservoir for the storage of water.\n\nMr. Darwin's theory is very different. He advances the fact that\norganisms, and more particularly those of the lower and simpler forms\nconstantly produce \"sports.\" These are not chance accidents in the false\nmetaphysical sense of being uncaused, but are termed accidents as being\nproduced by some external or internal incident in the growth of the\nembryo, which causes it to deviate in some point from the structure of\nthe parent. This \"sport\" may be to the advantage or to the detriment of\nthe new organism. If it should be the latter, it soon perishes: but if\nit should assist the organism to a fuller life, then it will live longer\nand better, and its progeny will in like manner survive to the detriment\nof its fellows of the unimproved type. The accretion of changes produced\nin this way, now in one direction, and now in another, together with the\ninfluences elsewhere indicated, might do and no doubt has done much in\nthe development of species.\n\nTo this cause of change we give in no disrespectful spirit, the name of\nthe \"Happy Accident Theory\" as opposed to Mr. Spencer's \"Moving\nEquilibrium Theory,\" and would ask what it may and may not account for.\nIt may account for much within the limits of Mr. Darwin's enquiry, but\ndoes it at all account for those fundamental facts which he takes for\ngranted--genesis, heredity and consciousness, or the origin of the\norganic out of the inorganic. Could some inorganic aggregate, produced\nby the relations of certain chemical compounds under the action of\nlight, heat, &c, accidentally take to generation by fission or\notherwise, and then by a succession of sports eventuate in sexual\ngeneration? Could such a chemical combination accidentally become\nconscious, and by a succession of sports organise its consciousness\ninto purpose? Into these regions we think we cannot carry the Happy\nAccident Theory--the theory of sports. This is a valid and justifiable\ntheory within the limits of biology, though even here the estimate of\nits results may be exaggerated; but beyond it and behind those limits it\nis of no use. The very admission of it is a confession of ignorance and\nincapacity to apprehend the exact line of causation; but so long as we\nare satisfied that the accident or the sport which gives rise to a\nvariety, occurs within the scope of factors which we are able to\nrecognise, the incapacity to account for the special cause of a special\nsport does not affect the general theory. But if any one should rashly\nextend the application of the theory so as to explain the otherwise\nunaccountable presence of a new factor, or advance it as an explanation\nof a line of sequences not logically deducible from all that is included\nin the mental appraisement of the original factors by which the system\nof sequences is to be unified, then he makes a very great mistake\nindeed.\n\nIt is to guard against such a mistake that we take notice of the proper\nlimits to the applicability of Mr. Darwin's theory. Indeed we think it\nis too commonly supposed that Mr. Darwin's theory is of the\nuniversalistic scope of Mr. Spencer's theories; his work however is\npurely of a scientific character relating to the province of Biology.\n\nIt will have been noticed that in the preceding argument we have not\ndealt with the philosophical problem of the theory of knowledge. We have\nsimply taken the study of the cosmos in the historical order, finding\nthe inorganic as antecedent to the organic, the unconscious to the\nconscious, a historical order which cannot be disputed whatever theory\nof knowledge may be held.\n\nWe conclude therefore that in so far as the Data of Ethics is an attempt\nto explain purposed actions and their ethical quality upon a\nphilosophical method of the kind propounded by Mr. Spencer, namely, as\nincluded in a proper understanding of the cosmical process, and of the\nhistories of the universe consequent upon a knowledge of the relations\nof its original factors--so far Mr. Spencer's work must be considered a\nfailure. That there is much of real scientific value in the work under\nreview, and much original insight and true apprehension of process, we\nhold to be true; but this scientific value is much obscured by the vague\ncosmical references which pervade an otherwise admirable study. As\nstated at the outset of the chapter, we consider the attempt to\naffiliate purposed actions upon the general lines of the cosmical\nprocess to mar the effect of the work in its scientific aspect. The\nfault is all the greater since Mr. Spencer rests the full stress of his\ntheories, not so much upon their limited scientific value, as upon the\nsoundness of the philosophic basis. For twenty years or more he has been\nworking from this basis, and in the course of his marvellous work has\nhad ever in view as his crowning achievement the establishment of Ethics\nupon a cosmical basis through a cosmical process of which it should be\nthe glorious outcome. Ethics should be shown to be dominant and\nimperative through the voice of the expanding universe. Yet, except as\nshowing Ethics to be a part of the study of Biology, the general laws of\nthe development of which are known, but which in its factors and their\nrelations and origin is utterly unknown, he has not succeeded. He\nmight, with the exception indicated, just as well have written his \"Data\nof Ethics\" first as last.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[2] Data of Ethics, pp. 5 and 6.\n\n[3] Data of Ethics, p. 61.\n\n[4] See \"On Mr. Spencer's Unification of Knowledge,\" Chap. I., \u00b6 1, and\nChap. III, \u00b6 4.\n\n[5] On Mr. Spencer's \"Unification of Knowledge,\" Chap. V.\n\n[6] Data of Ethics, p. 10.\n\n[7] On Mr. Spencer's \"Unification of Knowledge,\" p. 231, _et seq._; and\nsee Dr. Bain's reply in \"Mind,\" No. xxxi.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE EVOLUTION OF ETHICS.\n\n\nModern thought since the publication of the \"Origin of Species,\" has\nbeen more and more forced into the recognition of ethics, (together with\nall other forms of human conduct) as the result of a process of natural\ngrowth. The factors out of which this growth arose are lost in the\nobscurities of our ignorance, and many of the processes upon which it\nhas depended also surpass existing human powers of explanation. Science\nhas to take for granted the unexplained existence of organisms. For her\npurposes she is obliged to begin by assuming certain primitive organisms\nof some simple structure and functions. She is also obliged to admit,\nalthough she does not understand, the facts of reproduction and of\nheredity. Nor can she refuse to acknowledge a place in the history of\ndevelopment, along with the factors of chemistry and of physics, to a\nsubjective factor called feeling, consciousness, mind, or however else\nit may be best expressed. All these unexplainable but fundamental\nverities of existence she has to assume. It is because these are\nunexplained that science falls short of becoming a philosophy. But\nwithin the range of their operation science can tell us much, and the\nDarwinian doctrines have displayed before our eyes the wonderful\nhistories of change and growth through the preceding cycles of the\nworld's existence. Little doubt now remains in the minds of thoughtful\nmen as to the truth of biological development. The theory rests upon\nsuch a wide induction of facts extending over so many branches of\nscience and over such remote periods of time, and withal as by a stroke\nof magic it has so arranged all sorts of odd incomprehensible facts into\ndefinite places in a well ordered organic history, that the mind can no\nlonger withhold its subjection to so imperial and cogent a scientific\nconception.\n\nAlthough the philosophical laws of biological development are as we have\nseen beyond our reach, and although our theory of the accidental origin\nof variations is rather lame, still there is much that can be expressed\nin the formal statements called the Laws of Biological Development,\nwhich throws light upon those processes of change and growth that have\nled up from simple organic forms to the highest manifestation of life in\nthe human race. Mr. Spencer defines life as \"the continuous adjustment\nof inner relations to outer relations.\" This Mr. Spencer regards not\nmerely as a definition but as a law. Its philosophical justification is\nsought in vain, but it may be accepted as a correct scientific\nstatement--not only of the non-conscious adaptations of organisms to\nchanges of the environment, (such as the thickening of the fur to resist\narctic cold, or protective change of colour to imitate physical\nsurroundings,) but also of the conscious adaptations by which higher\nanimals perform particular actions or undergo changes of habit.\n\nAs Mr. Spencer points out, the acceptance of this law implies not merely\nan entire harmony between the existence of an organism and its\nenvironment, but it also implies various degrees of life. The greater\nthe number and variety of correspondences established between an\norganism and the immensities of the external world--immensities\ndisplayed not only in the multiplicities of individual objects, but also\nin the grandeur of their collective interrelations--the greater the\ndegree of life. Much stress is laid by Mr. Spencer upon this\nQuantitative character of Life. Much more, indeed, than upon mere\ncontinuity, although the latter is to a certain extent essential to the\nformer. Subordinate to this notion, advance in degree of life is found\nto proceed from a simple, incoherent, and indefinite life to a more and\nmore definite, coherent and complex set of relations with the\nenvironment.\n\nBut side by side with this development, and indeed in a manner to be\nlikened to that of a geometrical progression, the subjective factor has\nadvanced in relative importance. In its more rudimentary development,\nMr. Spencer finds pain to be the concomitant of those states of the\nphysical organism which tend to its destruction, and pleasure to be the\nconcomitant of those states which tend to its promotion. Thus hunger is\na pain indicative of the absence of those supplies of energy to be\nobtained from the environment, which are requisite for the continuance\nof the organism's activity, while the pleasure of feeding is concomitant\nwith the due supply of the energy necessary for the continuance of\norganic function. Pleasure and pain, therefore, become motives, and the\nattainment of the one and the avoidance of the other work together for\nthe continuance of life. Pleasures and pains are relative to the\norganism--according to the physiological constitution and structure of\nthe organism so are its pleasures and its pains.\n\nThe concomitant of some of the structures and functions of the organism\nhas been not merely sentiency but perception. Mind has developed from\nthe distinguishment, identification, and recognition of modes of\nsentiency. These functions and structures have been accompanied by\npleasure and pain, and have formed the basis of the pleasures of\nintellectual activity in their multiform variety. From their very nature\nin relation to the environment they have increased wonderfully the\nquantitative development of life.\n\nWith the increase of mind has proceeded the recognition of the part\nplayed in the organic universe by feeling. This recognition of the\nexistence of feeling--of the susceptibilities of external organisms to\npleasure and pain--has formed the basis of a large part of the\nadaptations of organisms in relation to their organic environment.\nAdaptations revealing this recognition are to be seen not only more\nmanifestly in the actions of man and the animals, but also in the\nfunctions of plants, strange as this may seem.\n\nWith this increase of general intelligence has proceeded an increase of\nrational knowledge of the causal relationships of phenomena: and with\nthe increase of the knowledge of human motives has proceeded an\nincreased knowledge of the sequences of actions. Thus larger rational\njudgments of the consequences of actions have been attained.\n\nFollowing upon the increased recognition of pleasure and pain as\nmotives, and upon the increased amount of rational judgment as to the\nsequences of actions, has come the adaptation of conduct to the pains\nand pleasures of others. Those adaptations have, however, been relative\nto the particular constitution of the Ego, and relative also to the\nconstitution of the environing Egos.\n\nThe knowledge of the existence of sentiency in external organisms may be\nturned to the account of the Ego by inflicting pain, so as to coerce\nother sentient organisms to its own selfish objects; or, again, by\nconferring pleasure, so as to subserve the same end. Thus cruelty may be\na natural pleasure in certain early stages of development, as a\nconcomitant of necessities of existence, and may remain by inheritance\nlong after the necessities have passed away. But with the increase of\nlife has occurred the increase of sympathy. It is a law of nature that\nafter the pleasures of the ego are satisfied they are augmented by the\ncontemplation of similar enjoyments of others. But this again is\nrelative. The gourmand likes the society of gourmands, and cares not for\nthe company of the \u00e6sthetic or the ascetic. The man of taste revels in\nthe society of kindred natures and despises the pleasures of the base.\nBut the family relation has been the main source of all sweet and manly\nsympathies: and it has been the gradually widening scope of social\norganisations which has spread more and more the feeling of human\nsympathy. The course of history exhibits to us a constant growth, not\nmerely in passively refraining from the infliction of pain, but also in\nthe active endeavour to promote the happiness of our fellow creatures.\n\nThis is a general statement of the scientific view of purposed conduct.\nIts laws are derived from a study of its growth. The growth is one\nexhibiting several distinguishable features. There has been the ordinary\nbiological \"struggle for existence,\" and \"survival of the fittest.\"\nThere have been adaptations necessitated by the action of the\nenvironment, and there have been chance variations within the lines of\ncausation which, benefitting the individual or some particular race,\nhave given them such an advantage in the battle of life as to secure for\ntheir descendants a preponderating possession of the good things of the\nworld. There has been the increase of intelligence, the increase in the\norganisation of society, the increase of rational judgments of phenomena\nand human actions. There has been increased knowledge of the\ndetermination of actions by motives. There has been increase of\nsympathy.\n\nBut what is the ethical virtue of this historical study is not very\nclear. The history of human developments is a matter of natural history\nand no more. And even if we proceed as we might do, to study more in\ndetail the history of the development of notions of right and wrong and\nof the various changeful applications of those terms, we are still\nwithin the limits of a natural history--we are still holding the merely\nscientific or observant attitude. It is true such study may be essential\nto our future history: but the mere study of what has been, and the\nconsequent pre-vision of what will be, establishes no rule of right. To\nprophecy the determining courses of future human conduct does not\nfurnish an ethical imperative to the individual. \"If so it will be,\" he\nmay say, \"so let it be, it is no affair of mine. The obligation rests\nwith nature and not with me.\" Whence then the new \"regulative system,\"\nthe want of which fills Mr. Spencer with alarm? Where shall we look for\nthe new gospel which shall restrain and vivify the moral conduct of\nfuture generations in place of the supernatural systems which are\nsupposed to be tottering to their fall?\n\nAnd if we go beyond this and find that this natural history of man is\ngoverned by general laws of adaptation and development we shall still\nhave to question the ethical discernment and ethical authority in\nspecial junctures, when what is--is judged not to be what it ought to\nbe; when, in fact, adaptations or biological facts, or equilibrations\nproduced by evolution, are judged not to be ethically good\nequilibrations.\n\nHowever, Mr. Spencer holds that rules of right conduct can be\nestablished on a scientific basis, and it is our task to examine his\ntreatment of the problem.\n\n\"Though this first division of the work terminating the Synthetic\nPhilosophy, cannot, of course, contain the specific conclusions to be\nset forth in the entire work; yet it implies them in such wise that,\ndefinitely to formulate them requires nothing beyond logical deduction.\n\n\"I am the more anxious to indicate in outline if I cannot complete this\nfinal work, because the establishment of rules of right conduct on a\nscientific basis is a pressing need. Now that moral injunctions are\nlosing the authority given by their supposed sacred origin, the\nsecularization of morals is becoming imperative. Few things can happen\nmore disastrous than the decay and death of a regulative system, no\nlonger fit, before another and fitter regulative system has grown up to\nreplace it. Most of those who reject the current creeds, appear to\nassume that the controlling agency furnished by it may be safely thrown\naside, and the vacancy left unfilled by any other controlling agency.\nMeanwhile, those who defend the current creeds allege that in the\nabsence of the guidance it yields, no guidance can exist; divine\ncommandments they think the only possible guides. Thus between these\nextreme opponents there is a certain community. The one holds that the\ngap left by disappearance of the code of supernatural ethics, need not\nbe filled by a code of natural ethics; and the other holds that it\ncannot be so filled. Both contemplate a vacuum which the one wishes and\nthe other fears. As the change which promises or threatens to bring\nabout this state, desired or dreaded, is rapidly progressing, those who\nbelieve that the vacuum can be filled, are called on to do something in\npursuance of their belief.\"[8]\n\nIt is clear, from the above passage, that Mr. Spencer seeks not merely a\nknowledge of the laws of past developments, which have landed us in our\npresent position with regard to moral obligation in general and the\nvaried social regulations extant in different societies, but he seeks in\naddition to strengthen and establish on a new basis the authority of all\nsuch obligations. What Mr. Spencer hopes for is a practical end. He\nseeks the art of good living. As there are sciences of chemistry,\nmetallurgy, electricity, etc., and arts consequent upon them, so he\nlooks for Rules of Life which shall benefit humanity, consequent upon\nthe Science of Humanity. But it is a question whether the Moral\nImperative can be regarded as the result of science. However, if not the\nresult, yet science may be able to discern that the Moral Imperative is\nso firmly established in human nature, that it may be able to proclaim\nloudly its empire in the heart and over the actions of man; while at the\nsame time Science may be able to guide it to wiser and better judgments.\n\nThe task we have before us is to pursue Mr. Spencer's course of\nthought, undertaken in this spirit, through the succeeding chapters of\nhis work. Neglecting minor criticisms and passing over much valuable\nteaching, our business is to follow the main course of his reasoning and\nexamine the chief grounds for such authority and guidance which he\nfinally presents to us as the outcome of his study.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[8] Introduction to \"Data of Ethics,\" p. 3.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE BIOLOGICAL VIEW OF ETHICS.\n\n\nWe shall best arrive at an adequate estimate of Mr. Spencer's ethical\nsystem by studying first what he terms the biological view of ethics.\nBut to do this properly requires a survey not only of Chapter VI., which\nbears this title, but also of the following chapter, which deals with\nthe psychological view. We hold that Mr. Spencer, in this division of\nhis subject into separate stages, makes a false arrangement of his\nstudies. For as on the one hand he endeavours to include the study of\nbiology as a branch of physics, on the other hand he treats it as\nincapable of comprehensive developmental study apart from the factors of\nfeeling and mind. These divisions are marked features of the form into\nwhich Mr. Spencer has thrown his study of human conduct, but they do not\ncorrespond with his actual treatment of the subject. The course of\nthought cannot be fitted into the formal outline. It is found that the\nunderstanding of biology is as dependent upon a knowledge of psychology\nas it is upon a knowledge of physics. The sequence of dependent stages\nas set forth does not hold good. The conduct of animal and perhaps\nvegetable organisms is not explicable as the action of mere physical\naggregates, and is little understood without the admission of a\nsubjective factor of feeling or mind. It is all very well for Mr.\nSpencer to argue, as he does in Chapter V., on the \"Physical View,\" that\nsince all conduct is objectively physical action it may be separately\nstudied from the physical point of view; but since the actions of\norganisms are not to be explained within the limits of physical laws\nthis is a very useless reminder, and Mr. Spencer himself makes nothing\nof the study since he cannot work out the line of causation in terms of\nthe physical factors only. On the other hand we find that our author has\nnot proceeded three pages into the biological view before he introduces\nthe subjective factors of Pleasure and Pain, which he eventually\nestablishes not merely as the accompaniments of life-sustaining and\nlife-diminishing acts, but even as the causes of further actions which\nshall at the same time tend to secure Pleasure and avoid Pain, and thus\nsustain the organism in a continuance of existence. Only for three pages\ncan the purely biological view of animal organisms as physical moving\nequilibria be maintained; and then with section 32 comes the\nintroduction of subjective factors--factors which are treated not merely\nas the concomitants of physical processes conducted wholly within and\naccording to the laws of physical sequence, but as actual factors\ninterfering with and affecting the line of causation. It is true Mr.\nSpencer recognises and deals with the difficulty which obviously arises\nas to the separability of the psychological view from a biological view\nwhich admits the factors of Pleasure and Pain. But the distinction he\nmakes, while justifiable, does not deal with the fundamental difficulty.\nPsychology treats, roughly speaking, of mentality; it comprises a study\nof the establishment of sets of inner relations, (_i.e._, associations\nof thought, relations of ideas, relations of sequences, the powers of\nremembrance, of discrimination and identification,) with sets of\nexternal relations, namely, the actual existences of which the inner\nrelations are the representatives. The establishment of such inner\nrelations corresponding to outer relations and their widening growth,\nmust have a marked influence upon human conduct so that it may very well\nbe separated for convenience of study from the earlier forms of organic\nconduct, in which such action is little recognisable. But how to form\nthe connective law is the difficulty. Moreover, it is one thing to\nestablish the fact of evolution, and another thing to explain it. We\nourselves admit the fact, indeed, but search in vain for the\nexplanation.\n\nAre we to look for the origin of Pleasure and Pain in those laws of the\nmoving equilibrium which necessitate the generation of internal forces\nequal and in opposition to external inimical forces? If so, Pleasure and\nPain must be regarded as forces--as factors--in the organism, and we\nmust regard the subjective as generated by external physical factors\noperating upon internal physical factors, and we must regard these\nsubjective factors not merely as concomitant, but as producing physical\neffects by way of reaction.\n\nSo far as it goes there may be a physical view of purposed conduct, and\nso far as it goes there may be a psychological view, but between the two\nthe biological view is a mere disorderly mixture, borrowing its terms\nfirst on one hand and then on the other, and assigning its determining\ncauses first to the physical moving equilibrium theory, and then again\nto the anticipation of Pleasure and Pain. But the biological law which\nshould co-ordinate these two sets of laws is not formulated, and hence\nwe find more or less gliding, or more or less sudden transition from one\nset of terms or laws to the other, a defect which is concealed in some\nmeasure by the formal divisions of the chapters. But if the course of\nthought is carefully followed it is found that the actual treatment does\nnot properly fit in. There is an unmistakeable transition from the\npurely physical set of factors to the purely subjective, and there is no\nco-ordinated biological law at all. The chapter is a transitional one,\nit is true, but only in the sense of gradually leaving off the\nemployment of one set of terms, and the gradual employment of another\nset of terms in the treatment of the same phenomena.\n\nMr. Spencer argues well in Chapter V. as to the concomitance of\npleasure-giving acts with life-sustaining acts, and of pain-giving acts\nwith decrease of life; but which is prior in the chain of causation? Or,\nto repeat the old difficulty, is the subjective factor present in the\nline of causation at all? Is it merely a concomitant of the physical\nline of events?\n\nMr. Spencer proposes to deal with feelings and functions in their mutual\ndependence,[9] and so admits the subjective as a factor. Thus there are\nfeelings which are sensations and serve partly as guides and partly as\nstimuli towards actions for the sustenance and preservation of life.\nAnd there are feelings which are classed as emotions which also act in a\nvery potent way as guides and stimuli, such as fear and joy. Hence, in\ntreating of conduct under its biological aspect we are compelled to\nconsider that inter-action of feelings and functions which is essential\nto animal life in all its more developed forms.[10]\n\nFollowing upon this we are taught that Pleasure is a feeling which we\nseek to bring into consciousness, and Pain a feeling which we seek to\nkeep out of consciousness. This certainly accords to the subjective\nfactor a commanding position in the physical action of organisms; it\nalso implies a foresight of the results of actions, and a certain degree\nof advance in psychology but throws no light upon the lower stages of\nbiological action. Mr. Spencer says, however, that \"fit connections\nbetween acts and results must establish themselves in living things even\nbefore consciousness arises.\" This is followed by an interesting study\nof the proposition that \"after the rise of consciousness these\nconnections can change in no other way than to become better\nestablished,\" and that \"whenever sentiency makes its appearance as an\naccompaniment, its forms must be such that in the one case the produced\nfeeling is of a kind that will be sought--Pleasure, and in the other\ncase is of a kind that will be shunned--Pain.\" \"It is an inevitable\ndeduction from the hypothesis of evolution that races of sentient\ncreatures could have come into existence under no other conditions\" than\nthat \"pains are the correlatives of actions injurious to the organism,\nwhile pleasures are the correlatives of actions conducive to its\nwelfare.\"\n\nAll this may be admitted, granted the existence of the subjective\nfactor; but at what stage does it commence to have such a potent\ninfluence upon the development of organisms, and whence came it at all?\nMr. Spencer says, \"fit connections between acts and results must\nestablish themselves in living things even before consciousness arises.\"\n\"At the very outset life is maintained by persistence in acts which\nconduce to it, and desistance from acts which impede it.\" It would seem\nthat if life can be maintained by means of unconscious persistence in\nbeneficial acts and unconscious desistance from injurious acts, such a\nprocess might continue in more complex organisms without the assistance\nof consciousness, and that the continuance and development of life could\nbe explained in terms of the same factors and processes which originated\nlife, and regulated and propagated the existence of races in the lowest\nforms of organisms. Mr. Spencer clearly holds that such races of\norganisms were originated and maintained by the action of physical laws\nbefore sentiency became a factor in their sustaining or generative\nactions. What need then for sentiency in the subsequent development? Mr.\nSpencer's argument is good, that, granted the concomitance of Pleasure\nand Pain with life-sustaining and life-diminishing acts respectively,\nthe attainment of the one and the avoidance of the other acts on the\nincrease of life; but he says that, previous to the advent of sentiency,\nlife was sustained in much the same way. There is this difference in it,\nhowever, that only where the requisite acts were performed or avoided in\npre-sentient organisms did such organisms continue to exist, and that\nthese acts were not consciously performed, but only happened in the\ncourse of physical sequence; whereas in the case of sentient creatures\nPleasure is consciously sought, and Pain is intentionally avoided. But\nit seems to us that when acts are determined by the anticipation of\nPleasure or Pain, we enter upon the domain of psychology, and when they\nare determined by physical factors without consciousness we remain in\nthe province of physics, so that there is no intermediate science of\nBiology at all. And by this we mean, not that for convenience we may not\nso arrange our classes of study, but that there are no laws of physics\nwhich will account for the development of organisms, and there are no\nbiological processes which do not imply the action of a subjective\nfactor; and that there is no true biological law which properly\nexpresses the correllation of the two. Mr. Spencer starts with a Biology\nfrom which the subjective is completely absent, and ends with a\nPsychology of the highest description: but he fails to express the\nbiological law which accounts for the growth of the one out of the\nother, or expresses the law of their correlation in a concomitant\ngrowth.\n\nHow then can we arrive at any ethical rule by the study of Biology? In\nthis way. An organism is a moving equilibrium: it is a law of moving\nequilibria that they counterbalance by means of new adjustments\nantagonistic forces in the environment, and absorb forces from the\nenvironment favourable to their continuance. Their continued existence\ndepends upon such continuous absorption and adjustment. But as\nenvironment varies, so do adjustments; and thus there is a wonderful\nvariety of different moving equilibria, which form important parts of\none another's environment. The suitable structures and functions which\nhave thus been evolved are therefore relative to the environment, and\nthe inherited structure and functions forming a moving equilibrium are\nfitted for particular environments and no other. There is no absolute\nmoving equilibrium; all are relative. \"That which was defined as a\nmoving equilibrium, we define biologically as a balance of functions.\nThe implication of such a balance is that the several functions in their\nkinds, amounts, and combinations, are adjusted to the several activities\nwhich maintain and constitute complete life; and to be so adjusted is to\nhave reached the goal towards which the evolution of conduct continually\ntends.\" But completeness of life means primarily the completeness of\nlife in each individual organism as regards its continued existence, and\nthe full satisfaction of all its functions during the period of its\nexistence. The biologically good is all that conduces to this end, and\nthe biologically bad is all that detracts from it. The biologically good\nand bad are therefore relative to the consensus of functions which\nconstitute an animal or other organism. The biologically good and bad\nare therefore individual. That which is good for the individual is the\nright conduct, and that which is bad for it is wrong conduct. It is\ntherefore right for the big fishes to eat the little ones, for the bird\nto prey upon the insect; it is a fit satisfaction for the functions of\nthe lion to devour the antelope, for one tribe to slay or drive out\nanother tribe in order to possess itself of more fertile plains and more\ndelightful countries. And so, as long as the functions delight in\negoism, and there is no counterforce of sympathy included among them, it\nis right to tyrannise, to subject others to the service or passions of\nthe dominant organisms. They subserve the biological law--they are\nconducive to complete relative life. The biological law does not\nrecognise the lives of others until sympathy has become part of the\nfunctions of the organism.\n\nThe question here arises, how far the ethical law is to be determined by\nthe biological law, for if the biological law is dominant, and the\nethical dependant, the latter can only be explained and justified by the\nformer. But we at once see that the two things are not identical and\nco-extensive. We recognise the difference between the biologically\nefficient and the ethically good and bad. The law of Biology refers to\nthe actions of each individual in regard to itself alone, whatever the\nfunctions, etc., which constitute that self. It relates to its good\nalone, irrespective of the good of others, unless, and until, sympathy\nwith others has become part of the functions of the individual.\n\nBut Mr. Spencer seeks to make the biological view of conduct identical\nwith the ethical by introducing the conception of quantitative life. In\nthis case an organism has more life the greater the number of\ncorrespondences it has with the environment. And since the environment\nis constituted of two classes of objects, the objective and the\nsubjective--the purely physical and the organisms possessing feeling--so\nthe correspondences established in the individual are of two kinds, the\npsychological and the emotional. In the former class are comprised all\nthe objects and relations of the inorganic world, the great laws and\nintricacies of nature and her past history, including the history of\norganisms and of man. In the latter are included all the feeling, living\ncreatures around us, with their pleasures, hopes, and pains, and all the\ncharacters, noble and beautiful, delicate or brutal, passionate or\naspiring, who have ever trod the stage of history, or wrought or thought\nfor us in antecedent ages. In fact all the patient work and mighty\nachievements of science, and all the emotional relations of men have\nafforded scope for the quantitative increase of life; and in proportion\nto the increase so it is suggested that life became ethical. The\nbiological law is the continuous adjustment of organisms to environment,\nand the increase of adjustment is the increase of life.\n\nThis may be so; but it is a denial of Ethics as being coeval with\nBiology; it makes the one simply a late outcome of the other. According\nto this view, Ethics is something which has supervened upon the process,\nand which requires a separate analysis. But we have seen that increase\nof correspondence is of two kinds--it takes place in the direction of\nintellect, and it takes place in the direction of emotion, whether of\nsympathy or antipathy. But it is with the latter class of phenomena\nalone that Ethics is concerned. The increased quantitative life which is\nidentical with the increase of knowledge has no ethical aspect. It is\nincreased relations of an emotional nature only which admit that term.\nIn fact it is to societarian relations alone that it is applicable.\nIncrease of life may proceed in the direction of intellect or\nrecognition of the facts and relations of the external world, and yet\nthe life may never be termed ethical; while on the other hand there may\nbe but little increase of intellect, yet a great increase of ethical\nrelations. Therefore, increased quantitative life, considered as a mode\nof identifying the biological law with the ethical law, except by way of\ncomprehension in a larger classification, fails in the end because it\nis not true that the increase of correspondences need be in the special\ndirection of increase of emotional correspondences: and thus we find\nthat ethics is not to be affiliated upon the main line of biological\nprogress, but with one distinguishable result of it--namely the relation\nof the individual with its subjective environment--that is to say,\nSociety.\n\nAnd here it is fit that we should take notice of Mr. Spencer's account\nof Good and Bad Conduct, given in chapter 3 of the \"Data of Ethics.\" A\ngood knife, gun, or house are such in virtue of their capacity for\nfulfilling the purposes for which they were designed. A good day or a\ngood season are such as satisfy certain of our desires. A good pointer\nor a good ox are so in reference to certain of our requirements. A good\njump, or good stroke at billiards, are those which accomplish the\ndesired ends. And bad things are those which do not subserve desired\nends.\n\nMr. Spencer then proceeds to study the ethically good and bad, and to\ndiscuss the application of these terms to actions as regards the welfare\nof self, of offspring, and of fellow citizens. Acts are said to be good\nand bad according as they affect the welfare of self. Here it is\nindicated that acts are judged according to their degree of biological\nefficiency. In the next class--namely, acts relating to offspring--a\nfather and mother are again judged according to their efficiency in\nthose capacities, although the egoistic element is present in a\nsubordinate degree. \"Most emphatic, however, are the applications of the\nwords good and bad to conduct throughout that third division of it\ncomprising the deeds by which men affect one another. In maintaining\ntheir own lives\" (biological laws) \"and fostering their offspring,\nmen's adjustments of acts to ends are so apt to hinder the kindred\nadjustments of other men, that insistence on the needful limitations has\nto be perpetual; and the mischiefs caused by men's interferences with\none another's life-subserving actions are so great, that the interdicts\nhave to be peremptory.\"\n\nThe general meaning of \"good\" and \"bad\" as applied to actions, then, has\nreference to their efficiency. The differences of their meaning are due\nto the end regarded. The meanings are harmonised, however, when we\nconsider that they are applicable to different degrees in the evolution\nof conduct; the conduct to which we apply the name good is the\nrelatively more evolved conduct, and \"bad is the name we apply to\nconduct which is relatively less evolved. This involves a reference to\nthe three stages of biological evolution, the individual, the offspring,\nand society.\"\n\n\"Lastly, we inferred that establishment of an associated state, both\nmakes possible and requires a form of conduct such that life may be\ncompleted in each and in his offspring, not only without preventing\ncompletion of it in others, but with furtherance of it in others; and we\nhave found that this is the form of conduct most emphatically termed\ngood.\"[11] From this Mr. Spencer infers the contemporaneous achievement\nof the greatest totality of life in self, and this is supposed to\nvindicate the affiliation of Ethics upon Biology.\n\nWe have, however, already shown that the enlargement of the relations\nbetween the individual and the subjective environment is the special\nethical relation, and that the enlargement of the relations between the\nindividual and the objective environment is non-ethical, thus\nspecialising the ethical interpretation of the enlargement of biological\nrelations. We must also notice that Mr. Spencer's affiliation of biology\nwith ethics relates to a remote ideal future and not to an actual\npresent or a historic past. The biological law is the adaptation of the\nindividual to its own special surroundings, and not the adaptation of\nits remote and changed descendant to its remote and changed environment.\nAccording to the fitness of the individual for supplying itself with\nfood, whether of a vegetable or animal nature, and according to its\ncapacities for, self preservation or defence, so will it be deemed\nbiologically perfect. This is a relative, an individual standard,\nwithout reference to the subjective environment except in so far as this\nsubjective environment subserves some internal function of sympathy. But\neven in this case the ethical relation is subordinate to the biological\nand is relative to the actual individual and not to a future ideal\ndescendant. Moreover, the biological standard is always individual and\nsingular and is not societarian.\n\nWe therefore come to the conclusion that the biological point of view\ndoes not furnish us with any ethical theory. The biological law is not\nindividual completeness; it is individual suitability to environment. It\nis true, individual greatness may be the most complete life; but when\nthat is not possible from the nature of the inherited organism, or from\nthe nature of the surroundings, then the actually best thing, because\nrelatively best, is conformity to the surroundings. The man who cannot\nadapt the environment to himself will prudently adapt himself to the\nenvironment. That is the biological law; whether it be the ethical law\nis another question. Abstract quantitative life may not be attainable\neither intellectually or in relation to the emotional surroundings.\nTherefore the more skilful adaptation having in view the particular\nfunctions of the organisms, (whether they include sympathies with the\nsubjective surroundings, or not), is the biological law--although it may\nnot be regarded as the ethical law.\n\nQuantitative life, viewed biologically, _i.e._, individually, does not\nmean an ideal quantitative life, but the most that an individual\norganism can get. This depends upon the organism's own nature and\ncapacities, and upon the nature of the environment. That some\ndescendents some day may have other natures and other surroundings, is\nnot to the point. The presence of subjective surroundings in the\nenvironment affects the individual according to the nature of his own\nfeelings: it affects him in the first place according to his possession\nor non-possession of sympathy, and in the second place according to his\nposition of command or subserviency.\n\nIf Biology takes cognisance of Ethics, it is from a prudential point of\nview alone. It means a recognition of the penalties of legal enactments\nor social laws. As a matter of calculation it takes account of the\nconsequences of actions, and the conduct varies accordingly.\n\nAnd if we are unable to accept the biological view as identical with the\nfundamentals of Ethics, so we are unable to accept the correlative that\nthe preponderance of pleasurable feelings is indicative of the ethically\ncorrect life. For this criterion again is relative to the individual,\nand prescribes that course of conduct which to him is most largely\npleasurable. It is only ethical when the surrounding conditions are\nsuch as to make the personally pleasurable harmonise with what is also\npleasurable to the subjective environment--again showing the external or\nsocial origin and authority of the ethical imperative.\n\nBefore quitting this subject, it would-be as well to notice the narrow\nlimitation assigned to the relation of feeling and function in the\nchapter on the biological view. Pleasure is there described as the\ncorrelative of life-sustaining acts, and Pain as the correlative of\nlife-destructive acts; and we are told that under these conditions alone\nsentient creatures could evolve. This would apparently limit the range\nof the evolution of feeling to those classes of actions which are\nessential to the mere continuance of existence. If the growth of feeling\nis co-extensive with the growth of actions essential to existence, then\nPleasure and Pain should be limited to the feelings involved in the\nsupply of food, the escape from enemies, the pursuit of prey, &c. If to\nthese should be added the larger, but as yet unexplained, view of\nBiology, which makes the individual a part only of a greater moving\nequilibrium--namely the species to which he belongs--then there will be\nan extension of feeling (that is, of Pleasure and Pain) to the acts\nrequisite for the propagation of the race and the care of off-spring.\nBut to these two classes of functions, human pleasures and pains are not\nlimited. Beyond what may be termed the essential growth of feeling,\nthere has been a super-growth of feeling concomitant with every\nextension of the correspondences between the inner relations and the\nouter relations. In the converse of the organism with its environment\nthere has grown up a vast extension of knowledge as to external facts;\nand in the classification and reasoning upon these there has supervened\na vast interest, which has been pleasurable quite apart from any\nlife-sustaining necessity. So in the arts of life there has arisen a\npleasure in the exercise of ingenuity and skill of manufacture, far\nabove the requisites for bodily preservation. In the spread of\n\u00e6stheticism and the appreciation of the beautiful in Painting, Statuary,\nArchitecture and Decoration generally, there has been manifested an\namount of taste or feeling, utterly beyond any value it may have as\n\"life-sustaining.\" Poetry, Music, Literature, along with all the other\nhighest manifestations of civilization, are not the outcome of the\nnecessities of existence, but a work super-imposed upon the poor and\nbare adaptations which are sufficient for simple existence. The same may\nbe said of all those fine sympathies of man for man, of man for noble\nideals of humanity, and even of the more homely love and good feeling of\nsimple natures. Our friendships, our admirations, all that makes man\nsomething over and above the mere brute animals, is due to this larger\ngrowth of feeling beyond what is essential to the mere continuance of\nlife--and if we should identify Pleasure and Pain merely with the\nconditions of life-sustaining and life-destructive acts, we should form\na very inadequate conception of their place in human life. This of\ncourse is on the understanding that the biological law implies only self\ncontinuance or race continuance. That this is Mr. Spencer's original\nview is manifest from the fact that he theoretically derives life from\nthe consideration of the laws of the moving equilibrium. But if we take\nthe larger view, (which, however, is not derivable from the former),\nthat life is correspondence between inner relations and outer\nrelations, and is to be measured quantitatively by the increase of the\nnumber of correspondences, then of course the whole estimation of\npleasures and pains is changed.\n\nUnder the latter view the organism enters into correspondence with all\nthe individual objects of the environment, and not only has a present\nregard, but a past and a future interest. The scope of interest in the\nlarger minds embraces long lines of history leading up and down the eras\nof development. In narrow measures of family or local interest, the\nsocial feeling has first risen, but as the framework of tribes or\nnations becomes knit together, so the social feelings acquire a wider\ninterest. The merely biological interests have become enlarged by means\nof an internal growth, so as to have regard for other sentient\nexistences. Altruism becomes a part of Egoism. We care for others, not\nby compulsion, but from natural growth of interest. Into the causes and\nincidents of this growth it is not necessary to enter. It is a simple\nfact of human nature that the pains and pleasures of others affect us\nmuch, and sometimes very keenly indeed.\n\nThus we find that the purely biological law, regarded as the adjustment\nof a moving equilibrium to its environment, derived from and exemplified\nin the physical moving equilibrium of the solar system, the spinning\ntop, the steam engine, &c, does not afford us much insight into ethical\ntheory, even if the equilibrations have a concomitant of feeling. In any\napproach from the purely biological towards the ethical, we are thrown\nfor our explanations upon efficient subjective factors--upon the\ninteraction of feeling organisms and sympathetic organisms.\n\nIf we attempt to apply the biological law as an explanation of the\nsuper-growth of correspondences over and above the actual necessities of\ncontinued existence, and as an explanation of the growth of sympathy or\naltruism, we have to suppose that the external forces have generated in\nthe organism internal forces in opposition or balance therewith. But\nthis theory of the moving equilibrium, difficult to understand and\naccept in its simplest applications, transcends all powers of human\ncomprehension when it attempts to deal with the subjective relations of\norganisms, and, it appears to us, entirely fails to account for the\ngrowth of sympathy or altruistic feeling.\n\n\nALTRUISM IN EGOISM.\n\nThe fact of the existence of altruistic feelings in the texture of the\nEgo has led to the theory that all altruistic actions, since they arise\nout of the constitution of the Ego, are really egoistic. This argument\nis irresistible. A kind, sympathetic man or woman is so by virtue of\ninnate qualities, just as the selfish or the brutal man is. And if the\njustification of actions were to depend upon the authority of natural\negoism the one is as much capable of justification as the other. If\nEthics depends for its explanation and justification upon Biology, then,\nsince the view of Biology is limited to the individual and means the\nsuitable adjustment of every moving equilibrium to its special\nenvironment, each is capable of equal justification and similar\nexplanation. Egoism may include Altruism or it may not, but in either\ncase the action is equally valid from the point of view of Biology.\n\nIf, however, an extension of this view be argued for on the theory that\na rationalistic view of all the requirements of the subjective\nsurroundings involves a certain line of conduct in order to secure a\nsuitable adaptation between the organism and the environment, which\nshall be the equation of that organism, the best adaptation for the time\nbeing--this will be a superior, because a more extended, biological\naspect of conduct, and it is not disputed that such a view of life may\nbe more or less acted upon.\n\nBut neither the Ego-altruistic view, nor the prudential rationalistic\nview attains to the true ethical point of view of human conduct; for the\naltruistic growth in the Ego is not universal, nor of equal development;\nand the prudential rationalistic motive is purely egoistic and\nbiological, and therefore adverse to the altruistic, even if it exists\nin the Ego.\n\nThe main object of the present argument is to shew that the purely\nbiological explanation of ethical injunctions is insufficient as a means\nof understanding their imperative character. And yet it is difficult to\nsay this if Biology is to be considered as the law of actions of\norganisms. It all depends upon the factors which are included in the\ngeneralisation. If the factors are simply physical, then the\ngeneralisation is insufficient; if the forces included in the moving\nequilibrium include subjective forces capable of growth into sympathy or\nAltruism, then the biological laws receive, perhaps, an extension which\nrenders them capable of determining the whole of the phenomena. But if\nPleasure and Pain are limited to life-sustaining acts or\nlife-destructive acts, then the influence of the subjective factors is\nlimited to the physical, and the super-growth of correspondences of\ninner with outer (which is necessary to explain the larger growth of\nfeeling) transgresses the narrow limits of the biological law--the law\nof simple equilibration between the organism and its environment.\n\nIt is well now to raise the question what is the object of ethical\nenquiry. Is it merely scientific determination of the origin, growth,\nand variations of ethical opinion? Is it a natural history of human\nconduct, more particularly of that part of it called ethical? Is it an\ninvestigation into the natural authority of ethical injunction? Is the\nobject to establish ethical authority, or to show that ethics has no\nauthority, or to enable us to conform to it and administer it\nintelligently? Generally speaking, is it a scientific enquiry for the\ninformation of our minds, or is it investigated for the enforcement of\nethical injunctions?\n\nIt is to be presumed that we have both ends in view. Knowledge must\nprecede power. Light must go before footsteps. At least, so it must be\nif intellect is to rule. As a matter of fact, Ethics has not been so\nmuch a reasoned out system of conduct as a worked out system to be\nafterwards reasoned about. Morality has been the interbalance, growth,\nand counterbalance of subjective and sympathetic individuals. Then it\nbecame something to reason about, to modify by reason in the the\napplication to remoter ends and larger bodies of the principles out of\nwhich it arose. But the province of reason is not to supersede those\nprinciples, nor to weaken their authority, which indeed it could not do,\nfor the forces which produced morality are ever present to sustain it,\nand, indeed, acquire age after age an increasing force.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[9] Data of Ethics, p. 78.\n\n[10] Ibid, p. 78.\n\n[11] Ibid, p. 25.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW.\n\n\nWe now enter upon the study of Ethics proper. Notwithstanding Mr.\nSpencer's attempt at the outset of the chapter to identify \"right\nliving\" with the universal biological principle that \"Given its\nenvironment and its structure, and there is for each kind of creature a\nset of actions adapted in their kinds, amounts, and combinations to\nsecure the highest conservation its nature permits,\" the fact still\nremains that the ethical imperative is drawn from the social\nsurroundings, and is not derivable from the adaptation to environment,\nunless the environment be of a subjective character requiring an\nadaptation to it as such. Mr. Spencer considers that \"there is a\nsupposable formula for the activity of each species, which, could it be\ndrawn out, would constitute a system of morality for that species,\"\nalthough \"such a system of morality would have little or no reference to\nthe welfare of others than self and offspring.\" We cannot concede that\nthe formula of activities for a worm by which it maintains its\nexistence, is a formula of morality; nor can we admit that the\nlongest-lived oyster is the most moral of oysters. Systems of morality\nwhich relate to the welfare of self and offspring alone are in the\nlatter instance confessedly of a very limited character, and when\nentirely confined to self it would seem that we lose all ethical quality\nwhatsoever. We continually find in Mr. Spencer's exposition that,\nnotwithstanding his attempt to affiliate Ethics upon the biological law,\nit is only in the increased correlation of subjective individuals that\nEthics arises, and it is only the modification of the individual by\nsociety, and the mental or emotional growths in the individual\nconsequent on the action of the social environment, that constitute the\ngroundwork of Ethics.\n\nIt is true that, since society is composed of individuals, the nature\nand constitution of the units has to be considered in their mutual\ninteraction, and therefore the study must have a biological basis: but\nwhen we have to consider the special action of the compound social\nenvironment upon the individual, the study is not one which can be\nproperly considered from the purely biological side, nor is it to be\ncomprised within the formula of individual life. With respect to the\nsocial environment Mr. Spencer says, \"This additional factor in the\nproblem of complete living, is, indeed, so important that the\nnecessitated modifications of conduct have come to form a chief part of\nthe code of conduct. Because the inherited desires, which directly refer\nto the maintenance of individual life, are fairly adjusted to the\nrequirements, there has been no need to insist on that conformity to\nthem which furthers self-conservation. Conversely, because these\ndesires prompt activities that often conflict with the activities of\nothers, and because the sentiments responding to other's claims are\nrelatively weak, moral codes emphasise those restraints on conduct which\nthe presence of fellow men entails. From the sociological point of view,\nthen, Ethics becomes nothing else than a definite account of the forms\nof conduct that are fitted to the associated state, in such wise that\nthe lives of each and all may be the greatest possible, alike in length\nand breadth. But here we are met by a fact which forbids us thus to put\nin the foreground the welfares of citizens, individually considered, and\nrequires us to put in the foreground the welfare of the society as a\nwhole. The life of the social organism must, as an end, rank above the\nlives of its units. These two ends are not harmonious at the outset, and\nthough the tendency is towards harmonisation of them, they are still\npartially conflicting.\"[12]\n\nThe difficulty alluded to arises from the fact that human society is not\none well-ordered whole, but has been from the first, and still is, split\nup into numerous nations having conflicting interests: from which it\nfollows that there is not a complete homogeneity of duty between man and\nman when, for instance, a state of warfare exists.\n\nIf now we recognise Ethics as the rule of life imposed by Society upon\nthe individual, we shall have to recognise great varieties of rule,\naccording to the nature and objects of the particular Society imposing\nthe rule, according to the state of development at which that Society\nhas arrived, and according to the nature of the environment.\n\nThe rule of a club over the individuals composing it, the rule of a\nchurch over its members, the rule of any body of men over its\nconstituent units is founded upon the ethical principle, however\ntrifling or however serious the objects of the particular association\nmay be. Those slight or those important social penalties or\ncommendations which fill up the course of everyday life in business, in\nthe workshop, in social intercourse--the familiar judgments of\ncompanions or contemporaries--are all of them ethical valuations of\nconduct. Slight though some of them may be, they are still enforcements\nof social opinions. Man is hedged in on all sides by forces limiting his\naction to certain lines of conduct, and this social pressure is as much\nthe basis of the most forceful ethical commands or prohibitions as of\nthe most ephemeral influences. The only difference consists in the\nimportance of the mode in which the various actions affect the general\nwelfare. But this we shall have occasion to treat of hereafter in\ngreater detail. It is, however, all a matter of the greater or lesser\ndegree in which it affects the welfare of the temporary organisation,\nthe welfare of the family, or the welfare of the permanent community, of\nwhich the individual forms a part.\n\nBut it is evident that as the stage of development differs, and as\nnations differ in their environments, so there will be different\nstandards of conduct at different times and places. And therefore,\nagain, there will be different standards of morality for different sets\nof purposes. This must be acknowledged at once.\n\nHence arise the questions, What can be the obligation of a relative\nmorality? and--Is there no absolute morality with its imperatives\nuniversal in space and in time?\n\nThe question as to absolute morality we reserve: meanwhile we confine\nour considerations to a study of the influence of Society upon\nindividuals. This is disclosed in a study of Sociology.\n\nLiving together in a social state necessitates certain negative and,\neventually, positive duties.\n\n\"Whether the members of a social group do or do not co-operate, certain\nlimitations to their individual activities are necessitated by their\nassociation; and after recognising these as arising in the absence of\nco-operation, we shall be the better prepared to understand how\nconformity to them is effected when co-operation begins.[13]\n\n\"What shape, then, must the mutual restraints take when co-operation\nbegins? or rather, what, in addition to the primary mutual restraints\nalready specified, are those secondary mutual restraints required to\nmake co-operation possible? * * * * The reply will be made clearer if we\ntake the successive forms of co-operation in the order of ascending\ncomplexity. We may distinguish as homogeneous co-operation (1) that in\nwhich like efforts are joined for like ends that are simultaneously\nenjoyed. As co-operation that is not completely homogeneous we may\ndistinguish (2) that in which like efforts are joined for like ends that\nare not simultaneously enjoyed. A co-operation of which the\nheterogeneity is more distinct is (3) that in which unlike efforts are\njoined for like ends. And lastly comes the decidedly heterogeneous\nco-operation, (4) that in which unlike efforts are joined for unlike\nends.\"[14]\n\nThe social attainment reaches a full development in the last mentioned\ncase.\n\n\"Only under voluntary agreement then, no longer tacit and vague, but\novert and definite, can co-operation be harmoniously carried on when\ndivision of labour becomes established. And, as in the simplest\nco-operation, where like efforts are joined to secure a common good, the\ndissatisfaction caused in those who, having expended their labours, do\nnot get their share of the good, prompts them to cease co-operating; as\nin the more advanced co-operation, achieved by exchanging equal labours\nof like kind expended at different times, aversion to co-operate is\ngenerated if the expected equivalent of labour is not rendered; so in\nthis developed co-operation, the failure of either to surrender to the\nother that which was avowedly recognized as of like value with the\nlabour or product given, tends to prevent co-operation by exciting\ndiscontent with its results. And, evidently while antagonisms thus\ncaused impede the lives of the units, the life of the aggregate is\nendangered by diminished cohesion.\"\n\n\"But now we have to recognise the fact that complete fulfilment of these\nconditions, original and derived, is not enough. * * * * If no one did\nfor his fellows anything more than was required by strict performance of\ncontract, private interests would suffer from the absence of attention\nto public interests. The limit of evolution of conduct is consequently\nnot reached, until, beyond avoidance of direct and indirect injuries to\nothers, there are spontaneous efforts to further the welfare of others.\"\n\nThe point brought out here is the social pressure of the society upon\nthe individual, so as to ensure that the actions of the individual\nprimarily are not inimical to its welfare, and secondarily are\nsubservient to its welfare. But, of course, since society is composed\nof individuals, this pressure must not be of such a character as to be\ndestructive of the welfare of the individuals of which the society is\ncomposed, for that would militate against its own objects.\n\nIt is easy to reason out from this principle what actions would be\ncondemned and what actions would be praised in the various stages of\nhuman development. The strongest injunctions would correspond with the\nfundamental requirements of existence, and would enjoin the sacredness\nof life within the community. The family relationships would come next\nin order of authority. The safeguards of property of every description\nwould early receive ethical recognition. Commendation would be accorded\nto men whose actions were properly limited in these respects. In early\nstages of development the coward would be condemned, while the warrior\nwho did his share well in the protection of the community would be\npraised. And so in a variety of ways men's actions would receive praise\nor blame, according as they conduced to the welfare or to the suffering\nof the existing community.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[12] Data of Ethics, p. 133.\n\n[13] Data of Ethics, p. 139.\n\n[14] Ibid., p. 140.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE ETHICAL IMPERATIVE.\n\n\nWe have thus seen that the origin and authority of Ethics are to be\nfound in Sociology; but to allow the enquiry to rest here is only half\nto understand the nature and imperativeness of ethical obligations as to\nconduct. We consider that Mr. Spencer's ethical theory suffers from his\nmode of exposition. We should be disposed to approach the question in an\ninverse order, and instead of seeking for an ethical authority on\nindividual or biological grounds, culminating in an ethical Sociology,\nto acknowledge at once the sociological origin and authority of the\nethical obligation, and to endeavour to understand it in detail by a\nsubordinate study of biological requirements and psychological growths.\n\nThe main fact underlying all Ethics is the existence of a society\ncomposed of subjective factors, factors possessing feelings and\nreasoning powers. The fundamental notion in Ethics is the regulation of\nthe mutual conduct of these factors. It is the voice of the million\nagainst the voice of the unit which decides the duty of the unit. It is\nthe voice of the individual against the voice of society claiming a\nmodification of opinion. It is the voice of individuals to other\nindividuals specifying general duty. Broadly speaking it is the claim of\nduties towards other individuals upon the Ego. But it follows from the\nuniversality of the claim, that there is mutuality of claim, and the\nduties which are demanded have at the same time to be acknowledged. The\nprinciple can be easily accepted as theoretically correct, and many\ngeneral rights and duties can be readily deduced as corollaries, but\nbeyond these general rules ethical problems have rather to be worked out\nthan thought out--in the more important matters by societies during\ntheir upward growth, in smaller matters by individuals through\nmultitudinous adjustments and re-adjustments. I do this or that in\ncontravention of some accepted social law. I am condemned, and am made\nso generally uncomfortable by the social penalties that I am coerced\ninto conformity, or, otherwise, society modifies its opinion in\nacknowledgment of my right to do as I have done.\n\nBut then the question arises, upon what principle should ethical\njudgments be formed? Since society demands the performance of certain\nactions, while it prohibits the performance of others, and since its aim\nis the biological completeness of each of the individuals, what are the\nprinciples upon which it determines the restraints and imposes the\ninjunctions so as not to interfere too much with individual liberties?\nThis principle finds very good expression in Mr. Spencer's formula.\n\nThe whole problem comes before us when we have to consider the relative\nclaims of egoism and altruism, a problem splendidly worked out by Mr.\nSpencer, in the chapters entitled \"Egoism _versus_ Altruism,\" \"Altruism\n_versus_ Egoism,\" \"Trial and Compromise,\" and \"Conciliation.\" As this is\na purely critical work, to be read only in conjunction with the work\ncriticised, we do not feel called upon to give an account of these\nchapters. We simply state our acceptance of them bodily, the\nreservations we would make being merely in regard to certain details of\nthe exposition. We ought to reprint them here in order to make this work\ncomplete in its argument, but it is simpler to ask the student to\ninterrupt his reading of this criticism by a reperusal of the chapters\nreferred to.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHaving read Mr. Spencer's treatment of the problem, the question\nremains, is the ethical imperative merely an external one, dictated by a\nprudential consideration of the requirements of the social environment?\nThe answer must be a negative one; there is an internal moral authority\nwhich gives to actions their ethical glory, their poetic delicacy, their\nqualitative appreciation, insomuch that there are names in past history\nthat stand ever in the forefront of the memories of men, hallowed and\nennobled in their imaginations for all time, on account of the ethical\nglory of their lives and the manner in which their example appeals to\nthe wide sympathies within us. From the same internal fount springs the\ndetestation of foul and cruel actions, the hatred of unjust and\ntyrannical deeds, and the abhorrence of the men and women who commit\nthem. The same internal sentiment covers the individual himself with\nshame and remorse for unworthy actions committed, from which an\never-present memory suffers no release.\n\nThe natural history of the growth of this internal authority is the\nhistory of the action of the subjective environment upon the subjective\nindividual. The understanding of this growth is the province of\nPsychology in the two forms of emotional evolution and intellectual\nevolution as presented by Mr. Spencer in chapter vii of the \"Data of\nEthics,\"--the enlargement of the number of sympathies with the\nsubjective environment--past, present, and future--and the enlargement\nof the number of correspondences with the objective environment in\nspace, and time, and generality. We are more particularly concerned with\nthat branch of it which deals with the growth of the emotions. The\npurely biological view relates to the individual, and its own personal\nexistence. But the care of offspring, arising from some incomprehensible\nnecessity for the continuance of the species, and accompanied by a\nrecognition of their subjective character, produces actions, having\nregard to their effects upon the subjectivity of the offspring, of a\nregulative, coercive, or deterrent character. Moreover, by some not\nunderstood law, the sympathies which undoubtedly exist between\norganisms, have led to the recognition of the pains of others as\negoistic pains, and of the pleasures of others as egoistic pleasures.\nThus altruism from the very first became _to a certain extent_ a form of\negoism, and the action of the Ego in its subjective environment was of a\nregulative character amongst its offspring. An extension and\nmodification of this action ensued upon a social environment composed of\nmore distant, or only tribal relationships. Nevertheless psychological\nevolution made the sympathies gradually include tribal and national, and\neventually humanitarian recognitions. The growth of Ethics, and the\ngrowth of ethical feeling, are thus seen to be a natural growth, and not\nmerely the solution of an intellectual problem. The justification for\nthe ethical feeling is that it exists. The justification for any code of\nmorality is that is exists. But the amendment of the code of morality\nderives its justification from changing conditions. The changefulness of\nthe latter does not detract from but attests the essential nature of the\nformer. It is the court of appeal for the retention of existing codes,\nand for the judgment of imminent changes. We cannot, therefore turn\nround and say--as we may be tempted to do when we find the relativity of\nmorals and its origin in external obligation--\"Ethics is only an\nintellectual puzzle, only a social contract, into which I may enter or\nnot as I please.\" If a man assumes a hostile attitude to society, he\nwrongs his nature as a man; and if a philosopher or selfish man of the\nworld cuts off human sympathy for the purpose of living a merely\nprudential life he becomes something less than a man, he misses the full\nfunction and joy of life. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that\nthere are men who have so maimed their emotional nature as to lead\ntolerably satisfactory lives within the narrow limits of selfish\ndesires. To them ethical obligation is external only, and the internal\nobligation is a minimum. Such may be the case. There are men who do\nactions in contradiction of the voice of society, and who do not repent.\nSociety has to deal with these men as best it can. The ethical problem\nis only of interest to those who feel the obligation, or to the\nphilosopher who studies the human nature of which it is a\ncharacteristic.\n\nViewed as a practical question, no philosophical theory will carry the\nforce of conviction to a bestial, brutal, sordid, selfish man. These\nrequire the material punishments of the administrators of the law,\npersonal force, and social coercion. And even then there remain large\ncriminal classes in every community. The study of the ethical problem\nis for those who recognise ethical obligation and seek guidance or to\nguide. The internal ethical obligation is not to be reasoned into a man.\nIt must be grown into the child. This is to be done by love-enkindling\nactions and demeanour, a just and considerate course of conduct, well\njudged according to ethical principles. And herein lies the utility of\nthe study. Example and injunctions in daily exigencies form the\ngroundwork of such influence as can be exerted by education. A\ndiscriminating judgment of contemporary actions and of past histories\ntends to develop a proper discrimination of the qualities of actions.\n\nBut below and accompanying all this must be recognised--as Mr. Spencer\nso fully recognises--the registration, as he terms it, of emotions and\nmental capacities in the inherited constitutions of organisms. That\nwhich is the lesson of one age has become the inborn faculty of a\nsucceeding one. There are natural tendencies inherited by individuals\nfrom their ancestors, and the perpetual social improvement tends to the\ngradual production of individuals more and more suitable to the social\nstate by the possession of sympathies for others, and the internal\nfeeling of moral obligation. Furthermore, these individuals are born and\nreared under the influence of a social state ever more and more\npermeated by the recognition of the good of society as rightly\noverruling the destinies of the individual.\n\nThe ethical imperative then must be regarded as an internal growth in a\nsubjective individual brought about in psychological evolution in the\ncontinuous advance both of the increase of the sympathetic\ncorrespondences and of the intellectual correspondences with the\nsubjective environment, and in the hereditary transmission of the same,\nand their perpetuation and modification by means of education and\ntraining induced by the current social pressure, special and general;\nwhich social pressure is itself undergoing constant but gradual change\nin its incidence and tendency. The ethical imperative therefore is\npartly internal in so far as each individual is actuated by societarian\nsympathies and emotional regards for humanitarian ideals, or in so far\nas he possesses numerous special and personal kindly relations with his\nenvironment. But in-so-far as a man is destitute of these sympathetic\npossessions, so far is he free from the obligations of the internal\nethical imperative, and so much does he approach to the lower\nevolutionary states of the inanimate object, or of the beast of the\nforest, the insensate fish which stares into vacuity in the tanks of an\naquarium, or a self-feeding engine which is only a little less developed\nform of a moving equilibrium. For such as these there only remains the\nexternal prudential obligation of conformity to social pressure in its\nseveral forms of law, custom, or public opinion, or the variously\nexpressed displeasure or commendations of neighbours whereto it would be\nwise to conform. This to them is the only ethical imperative.\n\nTo neither class does any reasoned-out theory of absolute morality yield\nany force of obligation or insight into the details of duty. And here it\nwill be convenient to enquire whether Mr. Spencer himself attaches to\nabsolute morality, any power as an ethical imperative. Absolute morality\nin Mr. Spencer's treatment is merely a conception of ideal conduct in an\nideal state of society. We must conceive a state of society in the\nhighest degree complex, composed of individuals following all the\nvarious occupations necessitated by the sub-division of labour from the\nlowest to the highest, in which each individual may yet perform his or\nher functions in such a manner as to insure the highest degree of\npersonal happiness, and at the same time promote the highest happiness\nof the society as a whole.\n\nSuch an ideal state would comprise individuals of all ages, from infancy\nto extreme old age, and could not possibly exclude invalids and the\nmaimed, for we cannot suppose that moving equilibria will be able to\ndevelop internal forces so as to preserve them intact from the effects\nof storms, explosions, and other natural occurrences, and as it is part\nof the moving equilibrium theory to suppose that organisms are only\ntemporary equilibrations on the way towards a final equilibration in a\nstate of rest, it is necessary to suppose that they will always be\nsubject to disease and death. It is therefore probable that the society\nwould comprise many sufferers from organic diseases, and it is difficult\nto imagine any state of society which would be entirely free from mental\ndisorders in various degrees of defect, or excess, or aberration.\nNevertheless we are asked to conceive a state of perfect balance amongst\na society composed of heterogeneous individuals in various stages of\nequilibration, and we are told that a proper and complete conception of\nthis character would furnish us with a code of absolute morality. But it\nis quite clear that Mr. Spencer's utopian hypothesis is the outcome of\nhope springing from large human sympathies rather than a realisable\nfuture, affording an ethical imperative.\n\nThus it is supposed that actual standards of morality are extremely\nimperfect, and form but faint foreshadowings of a future ideal, or in\nany case, that there is an absolute morality which rules throughout all\nages, and is the authority for the approximations of each age. But if\nwe sufficiently realise the fundamental notion of Biology as that of the\nmost complete adjustment of the organism to its environment, including\nincidentally the adjustment of the environment to the organism we must\nacknowledge that the most perfect morality is the best adjustment of the\nindividual to his environment in the society to which he belongs. Thus\nthe most perfect morality is the best relative adjustment, and not the\nnearest conformity to an ideal standard suited to a perfect state of\nsociety. The biological rule is more fundamental than any other, the\nsocietarian view following; and its ideal of morality is perfection of\nactual adjustment amongst the individuals of existing societies so as to\ninsure the greatest happiness of each and all. Thus as there are higher\nlives and lower lives, there are higher moralities and lower moralities,\nbut they are justified by their quantitative relative perfection, and\nnot according to their approach to absolute morality, and they do not\nderive their ethical obligation from the latter source.\n\nIt is due to the growth of psychological views that man is troubled with\nthe burthen of so many ideals. Far be it from us to detract from noble\naims, but it is necessary to note the origin and nature of moral ideals\nand to assign them their proper place. They arise from the growing\nsympathies of the race, and its ever-widening intelligence; more\nespecially do they arise in the minds of thinkers and students of\nhumanity in regard to the continuous aggregations of tribes and nations\nof men in entering on the practical problem, how they shall live\ntogether without unduly trespassing upon one another's rights of life\nand enjoyment. These necessarily had to form for themselves practical\nideals, but ideals of some sort--ideals of greater or less degree of\nimperativeness in proportion as they affected the essentials of a\npleasurable existence, or as they affected interactions of lesser\nconsequence. The growth of individual sympathies continually afforded\nwider scope in the judgment of personal actions, and the spread of\nintelligence insured the acceptance of more general laws of regulative\nrequirements on the part of the society. The authoritativeness of some\nof the laws so recognised seemed eventually to be in the nature of\nthings, and to be independent and absolute in its imperativeness. Those\nlaws which were seen to be essential to the very existence of society\nwere regarded as eternal and true independently of society. But this is\nat once seen to be a false notion, and only a peculiar manner of\nrepresenting the most essential laws of relative morality. No men, no\nmorals! Immorality is a sin, not against eternal principles of right,\nbut against the practical working principles co-eval with human society.\n\nTo set up a perfect morality, an ideal code, which may possibly exist in\nan ideal state of society, but which is scarcely likely ever to be\nrealised as a rule of present conduct, is to set up not only an\nimpracticable, but a false standard, since the only true standard is the\nrelative sociological one founded upon the historical principle of\nadjustment.\n\nPerhaps, however, even from this principle we work round to the same\npoint, for in working out the problem how to secure to each his fair\nshare of happy life, we are obliged to set down certain fundamental laws\nprotecting the individual from injury in the full exercise of his\nfaculties, and we are obliged to impose upon society as a whole, and\nupon each individual, certain positive duties of assistance towards\nindividuals, being members of the community. Nevertheless, the ideal set\nbefore each generation is that of which it is actually capable, and not\na fanciful one which is beyond its powers. And we imagine that some harm\nis done by the sweeping condemnation of religious and moral idealists in\ninculcating the sense of sin, and imperfection, and incapability of\nattainment, which the preaching of such high absolute standards\nnecessitates.\n\nNo doubt the inculcation of high ideals kindles youthful enthusiasm, and\nsustains manly effort. But sometimes the non-attainment of impossible\nideals detracts from the effort towards attainable relative perfections,\nand causes us to under-value and to neglect the good qualities actually\nextant in ourselves, and in our fellow-creatures. The \"unco guid\" may\nrepress as much as they may develop, for the idealists have made more\nsin, and therefore sinners, than is justified by the adaptations of\nsociety.\n\nNevertheless, the psychological conception of an ideal man in an ideal\nstate is a most fascinating one, alike to the philanthropist whose heart\nbroadens out to all humanity, and to the philosopher who aims at\nabsolute perfection of moral or political theory. There are men and\nwomen of noble and sweet sympathies who aim at making each his little\nideal world around him, and so leaven the general mass and aid the\nmovement towards the great ideal. Poets have sung, and will sing through\nall ages, of that golden age, and philosophers, consciously or\nunconsciously, have it for their ruling motive in all their writings.\nStatesmen in lesser circles of practical scope only work towards it, and\nthe whole heart of humanity teems with hope for a time when troubles\nshall cease, and a bearable, if not a happy lot, shall be the meed of\nall.\n\nThe ethical imperative we therefore find to possess a two-fold origin.\nIt has external authority in the imposition of coercive rules of\nconduct, carrying with them social penalties or rewards, varying in\ndegree according to the essential or trivial manner in which actions\naffect the lives of other individuals, and again an external one in the\nsympathetic action of surrounding subjective organisms upon subjective\norganisms in eliciting and enkindling sympathetic response. It has also\nan internal authority in the sympathies which, by a law of nature, grow\nup in the ego towards surrounding egos in the manifestation of its\nseveral subjective characteristics.\n\nThus the ethical imperative is a growth within a man. It is also an\neducation imposed upon him, and it is again an external social pressure\naccompanied by rewards and punishments. The internal ethical imperative\ndoes not exist to all men, and to them must be applied the social\npressure in more or less manifest forms of scorn, denunciation, and even\nscant diet, and the cold frowning walls of jails, and unrewarding\nlabour. Towards this end the legislator works, also in the removal of\nhindrances to life, and the promotion of education. The philanthropist\ngently encourages the feeble efflorescences of humanitarian sympathies.\nSunday schools and pulpits more or less earnestly impress the moral\nobligations. Parents call forth the love and sympathy of children, and\namongst brothers and sisters and companions the child first learns the\nlesson of mutual duty and mutual help. Occasionally in the world's\nhistory arises a prophet in whom has become concentrated in a ten-fold\ndegree the humanitarian sentiment, and he speaks in a voice which\nreverberates down the outspreading avenues of time, calling forth an\nanswering note from the attuned heart chords of the nations.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nSYSTEMS OF ETHICS.\n\n\nMr. Spencer very justly claims for his system that it gives a new\nmeaning and authority to all previous systems of Ethics and theories of\nhuman action. In his system they all harmonise. Their contradictions\ndisappear on the discovery that they are all parts of one consensus of\ntruth. We will proceed to examine in order some of these earlier\ntheories in their relation to the one now propounded.\n\nThe idea that society is a pact or contract, though essentially untrue,\nsince society has been a growth and not a partnership resulting from\nnegociations, is nevertheless true in the sense that men have had to\ngive up individual biological liberties or egoisms in entering upon the\nsocial stage. There never was any conscious bargaining, but there have\nbeen an infinite number of tacit understandings of societarian and\nindividual adjustments which eventually brought about the well-ordered\nsocieties of modern times.\n\nThe Intuitional School of Moralists finds the intuitions as to what is\nright and wrong, and more especially the feeling of right and the\nfeeling of wrong, justified and established in the fact of the growth of\nfeeling in general as the essential of the biological history, and in\nthe historical establishment of the internal growth of moral feelings\ntransmitted from generation to generation. Validity and authority are\ngiven, to moral principles by the very fact of their existing strength\nand their recognised fitness to the social circumstances. The\nindignation or the admiration naturally felt by man at certain actions\nis justified _a priori_, and apart from any reasoned opinion of their\nbearings. Praise and blame are not much, as a matter of fact, affected\nby reason. Spontaneously and independently passion and enthusiasm are\nexpressed. Without staying to think, comes the unbidden frown and sharp\nreproof, or even the hasty blow. Without thought come the expression of\nsorrow and sympathy, the glow of praise, the approving smile, the\ncommendatory word, straight from the heart and sympathies of the\nlike-minded spectator. Reason may argue about details--it may rejudge\nthe spontaneous expressions of the sympathies, it may guide and direct,\nbut it never lends to praise its warmth, or to condemnation its\nseverity. These are purely instinctive, and reason justifies them in the\nascertainment of their origin and growth. There is an intuitive\nconscience which has been developed by evolution. The adjustment of\norganisms, the growth of feeling, the acquisition of altruistic or\nsympathetic feeling in an environment of subjective individuals has\ndeveloped not only social adjustments, but also feelings in individuals,\nrelative to those social adjustments, which compose a conscience or\nintuition. Never yet could such a conscience or intuition wholly and of\nitself teach a man moral action. The conscience presupposes for its\nactualization the presence of its environment. It needs education,\nencouragement, and instruction. Society is a continuous existence. The\nchild born into a society not only inherits its dispositions, but from\nthe very first receives its prepossessions, is subject to its\ninjunctions, and is trained in its habits. Intuition is only a part of\nthe truth. Yet although it may be developed by education, and guided by\nreason, there is no question as to its existence, and as to its\naffording the zest to praise, the keenness to condemnation, and the\npoignancy to remorse.\n\nThe view which regards Ethics as explicable by Egoism is a very\nimperfect and ambiguous one. For what is the Ego spoken of, and of what\ndoes it consist? The view which makes egoism the rule of life, and which\nsome suppose may afford the ultimate rationale of Ethics, is identical\nwith the biological view which we have already discussed. No doubt\negoism is the rule of life taken in its widest sense. No doubt the\nadjustment of the Ego to society, and of society to the Ego, is the rule\nof life. But egoism only becomes ethical when it, in order of growth,\nincludes love of offspring, love of family, love of fellow-man, regard\nfor the tribe, the nation, or humanity at large. As egoism loses its\nnarrowness, as it loses its exclusive regard for personal continuance,\nand finds itself possessed of affections for others and altruistic\nconsiderations, so does it become continually less and less egoistic. It\nis a matter of chopping logic to say that its action is still\nessentially selfish, if it does good to others, because it is part of\nits own nature to do good to others, and it does so to satisfy its own\negoistic desires. This only proves that egoism is the rule of life, but\ndoes not establish it as the rule of Ethics, which is a very different\nthing. The ethical rule has been found in the course of the enquiry to\nbe, firstly, the body of injunctions which society lays upon the\nindividual; and, secondly, the conscience which a society of subjective\nindividuals cultivates in each separate Ego, both arising from the\ngrowth of altruistic sympathy in the subjective organism of which\nsociety is composed. To say that when men act ethically they act from\negoism is only to include ethical action in a statement of a more\ngeneral biological law, and takes the mind off from the special ethical\nstudy altogether. Ethical egoism pre-supposes ethical feeling in the\nEgo, otherwise egoistic morality is obliged to frame for itself a\nhypothetical society of individuals without feelings, which, of course,\nputs it out of relation with humanity. Egoism, as a basis of morals, is\nbound to include altruism, or else it is merely a form of expressing the\nmost general law of Biology.\n\nEgoism however gives, in its highest form, a wide and wise consistency\nto actions. It pre-supposes a well-ordered mind capable of\nself-regulation and control. It takes a look all round, and it judges of\nthe eventualities of actions. It sums up its own forces and motives, it\ntakes account of its present and future surroundings and forms a\njudgment as to the most prudent course of action for securing the\nfittest life possible for itself and the greatest continuance of such\nlife in the future. A wise and well-judged egoism is very valuable to\nthe community, as well as profitable to the individual. It is not\nhowever essentially ethical, and is so only in so far as the individual\nis properly altruistic. If the egoist is not altruistic, he may become a\ncurse to the society in which he lives, or if on a larger scale--a\nterrible scourge to humanity at large.\n\nUtilitarianism does not explain ethics, unless the word be accepted as\nco-extensive with the biological and sociological adjustments which have\ngone on during the upward growth. No doubt these were all utilities;\nand, therefore, utilitarianism is so far true. But since the process has\nbeen one of accompanying modified feeling, it is only half an\nexplanation, only one feature of the general explanation. It was no\ncommon intellectual appreciation of the axiom \"the greatest happiness\nfor the greatest number,\" which caused the evolution of morals. The\naxiom was itself an after-thought. It may have great use in these days,\nas the expression of the outcome in feeling and in philosophic thought\nof processes of evolution, but it was not the ruling principle which\nproduced the evolution. Accepted thus as the outcome, it may be the\ncriterion and guide for future action in detailed adjustments and\nmodifications of ethical judgments or political action, and may have an\nauthority in modern times which it could not have had primordially. But\nits scope is limited to the formation of deliberate judgments, and it\ndoes not impel spontaneous praise or give any force to spontaneous\nblame. Its judgments are those of the calm reasoner which may very\nproperly modify the opinions of society at large, and thus tend to form\nan improved conscience, but it will never make a moral impulse or form\nthe base for an ethical ideal.\n\nIn an ethical system founded upon an acceptance of biological and\nsociological evolution, all these systems of previous philosophers find\na due place. Egoism cannot be denied as the rule of life, but it is\nshown that egoism cannot always remain purely egoistic, but at last\nincludes inevitably an altruistic growth. The progress of society\ninvolves altruistic conditions. The intrinsic growth of sympathy and the\nextrinsic imposition of conditions form in a continuous society, by\nchange in the internal constitution of organisms, and by hereditary\ntransmission of such changes, not only an intuitional feeling of right\nand wrong, but also an intuitional conscience of greater or less\ndevelopment. Thus, we admit and explain the law of right and wrong\nwritten upon each civilized human heart. Utilitarianism is recognised as\nthe ultimate outcome of philosophical thought; and, while it is but an\ninadequate expression in the hands of some writers, it may, perhaps, in\nits wider expansion by later philosophers, become an adequate and\nsuitable expression of the ethical principle, and a guide for\nre-adjustments in the recognition of the wider ends and larger views of\nhuman organisation.\n\nBut any one of these views is inadequate by itself to explain and\nexpress the largeness of ethical movement. Only when we seize upon the\nhistory of the development of subjectivity, only when we understand the\ngradual progress from gross beginnings, and recognise the grand movement\nwhich carries us forward to we know not what hopeful future, can we\nproperly appreciate the ethical position and the ethical authority. But\nto one who understands the evolution of organisms and of society, all\nthese varying views fall at once into their natural places in a\nbeautiful harmony. The touch of genius in a Darwin or a Spencer,\nproduces out of the apparent chaos a well-ordered and progressive\nsystem.\n\nThis is the proper place to notice Mr. Leslie Stephen's very valuable\nand elaborate work upon \"The Science of Ethics.\" That work is wise in\nconception, sound as to its basis and construction, beautifully\nproportioned in its mode of treatment, carefully, and, perhaps, too\nelaborately worked out in detail.\n\nThe original conception is wise in that it excludes metaphysical\nquestions and discussions as to first principles, and limits the range\nof its considerations to properly-ascertained scientific facts or laws,\nand to such extensions of scientific surmise as are warranted by the\nacceptance of the modern doctrine of evolution, expounded by Darwin. The\nacceptance of this doctrine not only involves the acceptance of historic\ndevelopments, but justifies, and even necessitates, the acceptance of a\nsupposititious prehistoric development. This hypothetical history,\nfounded on observations of historical order, and of the habits and\ncustoms of uncivilised races, is perfectly justifiable. However, the\nproblem, conducted within scientific limits is to consider the\ngroundwork of actual morality (Ch. i.).\n\nProperly to effect this object, it is necessary to study the influence\nof the emotions as determining conduct. Next, the influence of the\nreason as determining conduct, and finally, the interaction of the race\nand the individual (Ch. ii. and iii.).\n\nThese preliminaries are succeeded by a study of the moral law as derived\nfrom social interests, following upon social necessities, establishing\nthe moral law as natural, and as authoritative (Ch. iv.).\n\nThe contents of the moral law are next discussed, in which the virtues\nof courage, temperance, truth, and the social virtues are considered\n(Ch. v.).\n\nAltruism, as a growth within the Ego, is necessarily an object of study,\nand is explained as a natural development of sympathy out of intrinsic\nsubjectivity. Its place in a system of ethics is also set forth. (Ch.\nvi.).\n\nUpon this follows an exposition of special views upon merit, free-will,\neffort, and knowledge, as modified by the acceptance of the doctrine of\nevolution. Of essential importance to an ethical work is a consideration\nof the nature of conscience and the variations of its judgments (Ch.\nviii.).\n\nA discussion of happiness as a criterion succeeds, including a study of\nutilitarianism, and a consideration of the relations of morality and\nhappiness (Ch. ix. and x.). A concluding chapter sums up a work of\nnearly 500 closely printed pages.\n\nIt is very evident that we cannot undertake the criticism of so large\nand important a work without having to enter minutely upon points of\nagreement and difference which would greatly augment the size of our\npresent volume. We need only say that, although there are naturally many\nminor criticisms to be made, we accept it as an excellent exposition of\nmodern ethical views modified and co-ordinated as necessitated by the\nrecognition of the Darwinian theories. It should be read, we think, in\nsuccession to Professor Sidgwick's excellent broad and dispassionate\nwork on \"The Methods of Ethics.\" Mr. Leslie Stephen's study is based\nupon the same scientific fundamentals as Mr. Spencer's \"Data of Ethics,\"\nwithout the confusing cosmical views which are necessitated by Mr.\nSpencer's position, but which do not by any means tend to strengthen it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE EVOLUTION OF FREE WILL.\n\n\nTwo distinct theories may be held by the Evolutionist with respect to\nvolition, both of them being strictly causational, and, therefore, of a\nscientific, as opposed to a mystical character.\n\nHe may hold, in the first place, the double aspect theory pure and\nsimple, according to which all developments of mind are merely dependent\nconcomitants of the development of nerve ramifications, with consequent\ngrowths of nerve-cells, ganglions, and the more considerable nerve\nplexuses, culminating in the growth of a brain. This evolution of a\nnervous and cerebral system he may hold to be wholly due to the action\nof molecular and other motions upon a mass of colloid substances of such\na constitution as to be fittest, under the action of these external\nstimuli, to form lines for the transmission of motions and for the\ndischarge of these motions into certain otherwise formed contractile\nstructures called muscles. He will consider that they eventually acquire\na power of retaining these motions, so that the effect of all the\nmotions thus caused is not immediate but deferred. And since all motions\nreceived are not immediately concerned with the welfare of the organism,\nhe may suppose that separate masses of nervous matter are produced, in\nwhich these motions are stored in an organised form, related indirectly\nrather than directly to the motor apparatus. According to this theory\nthe whole system of determining causes is purely physical. In the simple\norganisms the response of muscular action to incident motions is quick,\ndirect, and unhesitating. Such action is called reflex or automatic, and\nis as unconscious as chemical activity. But when the system becomes more\ncomplex, when nerves cross each other, when cells and junctions are\nformed, and more particularly when the storages of motions are formed,\nas just referred to; then compoundings and recompoundings of nervous\nmotions take place, and, according to the strength of the various\ncurrents, to the facility of discharge, and to various physical local or\ngeneral conditions, the action becomes slower and more hesitating. Under\nthese circumstances, it is held that the nervous system becomes\nconscious. A double aspect then arises, and the actions which thereafter\ntake place may be described either in terms of the relations of the\nvarious molecular motions in the nervous and cerebral systems, or in\nterms of feeling; but all the same the latter is merely the secondary\naspect of series of changes altogether determined by the motions and\nstructure of the former. On this theory memory is the revived motion of\na nerve structure; feeling is a consciousness of interaction between\ndifferent nerve motions; trains of thought are the reverberations of\ngreat varieties of motions throughout the system and brain;\nconsciousness resulting from the mingling of the nerve currents and the\nconsequent conflict and retardation of effects.\n\nThe element of mystery here lies in the secondary or subjective aspect,\nbut it is placed strictly without the line of deduction and is a merely\nunexplained accompaniment of a series of changes otherwise fully\naccounted for.\n\nA second theory--as strictly causational as the former--recognises the\npresence of a subjective factor. In some of the quotations from Mr.\nSpencer's \"Psychology,\" given above, it will have been seen that, at the\npoint of development of nerve junctions when different currents meet in\nthe developed ganglion and in proportion as the system becomes more\ncomplex, Mr. Spencer asserts not only the rise of a secondary aspect,\nbut of an additional factor. The element of mystery here is the entrance\nof this additional factor, capable of taking part as an active agent in\nthe affairs of the organism. But since it is itself the result of\nexperience and the organization of experiences of the physical nervous\nsystem, it is strictly of a causational or deductive order, and after\nits unexplained inception, it has to be studied strictly in the\nscientific order of development and action. Notwithstanding that it\nplays a part in the conduct of life, and notwithstanding that its\ndependence upon physical organization and development is so intimate,\nand that this development again cannot be understood without\nit--notwithstanding all this incomprehensibleness of relation and our\nignorance of its origin, the Evolutionist maintains the orderly\ndevelopment of organism and actions, including the subjective as\nresultants of the relations of original factors, although he may be for\nthe time being ignorant of the nature of the processes.\n\nIt will therefore be seen that in either case he holds the deterministic\ntheory of volition, and believes all purposed actions to be actions\ndetermined by pre-existing causes, whether he regards these causes as\nthe structure and condition of nerve centres, or as feelings and\nthoughts, or whether he regards them as ascribable to some law of\ncorrelation between the two.\n\nNevertheless, it seems to be incumbent upon all writers dealing with\nthe subject of Ethics to define their position as to the Free Will\ncontroversy. It is needless to say that we accept unreservedly the\ndeterministic theory, though it may be necessary to attempt its\nreconciliation with the consciousness in persons of Free Will.\n\nWe here make a distinction between theories of Will and theories of Free\nWill. What we have just been considering have been theories of will or\nvolition. They are of the deterministic order because in either case the\nactions are wholly determined by preceding facts. Human and all actions\nof organisms are held to be merely resultants of pre-existing factors\nand their relations. This is the theory held by all scientific\nphilosophers, and the one most analogous to what we know of physical\nscience as well as most in conformity with actual experience of human\nconduct. Another theory--arising no doubt in the mystery of the\nsecondary aspect or in the mystery of the origin of the subjective\nfactor, denies the rigidity of the scientific order, and asserts the\npresence and activity of a _self-determining factor_, thus placing\nvolitional action beyond the scientific order of the dependent and\nrelated successions of cause and effect.\n\nPerhaps, however, we would be more correct in attributing the confidence\nwith which this theory of a self-determining power is sometimes held to\nanother cause. There is in all human beings the consciousness of a power\nmore or less developed to regulate their own actions; and this process\nof self-regulation is held to be inconsistent with the deterministic\ntheory. There can be no doubt that there is such a consciousness and we\nthink there can be no doubt also that there is such a power. The\nsuperficial evolutionist, indeed, may admit the consciousness, which he\nmay explain as a secondary aspect of conflicting nerve-currents, and\nlaugh in his sleeve at the egotistic vanity of a trustful man proud of\nhis power of Will. But we think a deeper explanation, and one more\ncommensurate with the phenomena, is to be found: and this brings us back\nto the distinction, as indicated at the outset of this section, between\ntheories of Will or Volition, and theories of Free Will or the power of\nregulating one's own conduct.\n\nWill, in its scientific sense, is merely volition, _i.e._ the mental\nstate accompanying or immediately preceding action. The nature of the\naction, good, bad, or indifferent, is immaterial. Technically speaking,\nall volitions are equal, viewed as such. The volition for the time being\nis the Will for the time being. The Will of a man is the totality of his\nvolitions during the whole of his lifetime. It is a general or\ncollective term relating to conscious actions, or states of\nconsciousness immediately preceding actions, and is not the name of an\nentity.\n\nBut if Will is the volition for the time being, irrespective of any\nqualitative characteristic, then we have to inquire as to the\napplicability to it of the term \"Free.\" Now this term is antithetical to\nthe two terms \"restrained\" and \"constrained.\" Thus if a man's actions\nare hindered or forcefully prevented by the Will of others, that man's\nactions are not free. But if some of a man's motives are restrained or\nhis actions constrained by the predominance of some other of his\nmotives--as, for instance, when he performs actions which his conscience\ntells him are wrong--in his Will not free? The actions are his\nvolitions. If some motives are restrained, and therefore not to be\nconsidered free, still the others which have gained the predominance\nhave thereby become his Will; their operation proves their non-restraint\nor freedom, and the volition or Will is still free. The action is an\nevidence of freedom. Volition is always free. It is of different kinds,\nbut this does not affect the conclusion that volition proves its own\nfreedom. The Will is always and under all circumstances free.\n\nBut although this disposes of the question theoretically, the ordinary\nman remains unconvinced, and clings to his belief in a Free Will, which\nis not merely this technical and universal Free Will, but must be\ninterpreted as a power he feels himself to possess of choosing and\ndetermining his own actions; and if we say to him, \"Undoubtedly you have\nthis power; but your choice, and therefore your volition and consequent\naction, is still determined in the same manner as if you had not\nrecognized the power,\" he will demur, and, logically or illogically, he\nwill deny your position, and hold to his consciousness of what he calls\nhis self-determining power over his own actions, which he places out of\nthe line of Determinism, however unmeaning or paradoxical his assertions\nmay be proved to be.\n\nIt is this state of consciousness, this clinging to the belief held by\nmany men in their own _power of self-rule_ over their own general\nconduct, and by most men in their own control over some of their\nactivities, that Evolution is bound to account for and explain.\nEvolutionists do not sufficiently mark off this _practical_ part of the\nquestion from the _theoretical_ part, and thus leave imperfectly\nexplained the consciousness of the so-called \"Free Will.\" They deem\nthat the explanation of Free Will is included in an explanation of Will,\nand therefore they only deal incidentally and imperfectly with\nself-rule. The confusion arises from the term Free Will having two\nmeanings--the theoretic or scientific one, as opposed to Determinism,\nand the practical one, as implying the power of self-rule, choice,\neffort, and determination.\n\nThat there exists such a power of self-regulation is a fact recognized\nin every department of social intercourse--in the attribution of praise\nor blame, in the teachings of the moralist, in the eye of the law, and\nin the process of education. Every individual is supposed to have a\ncommand over his own actions, except such as are purely automatic. It is\nnot supposed that men are responsible for their congenital tastes or\nabilities; but all members of the community are held responsible for\ntheir actions towards other members of the community, and to a certain\nextent they are judged to be wise or foolish with regard to themselves,\non the supposition that they are able to carry out a purposed conduct.\nAnd even if in various particulars it is seen that they do not possess\nsuch a power, they, or the persons responsible for their earlier\neducation are blamed for their want of this power since it is held to be\none of the most characteristic and valuable possessions of humanity.\nThus we find the judicious parent, from the very first, endeavours to\ninculcate in the child habits of command over his temper and his\nappetites. The youth who has received the lessons of wise counsellers,\nwho has been imbued with the lessons of Christianity, who has drunk in\nthe teachings of the ancient moralists, and framed his ambitions upon\nthe severe examples of early Greece and Rome, or who has found his\nsympathies excited by the dreams of modern philanthropy, knows that the\nfoundation of all his personal greatness is in his power of\nself-command. It is no idle verbiage that of the rhetorician, the\npreacher, the philosophical novelist, the poet, when they exhort to the\ncultivation of the powers of the Will in their varied representations of\nthe aspirations and struggles of noble humanity. There is something that\ncalls forth the moralist's sympathies in the poet's appeals to the power\nof Will, and there is no grander spectacle in all this universe than to\nwitness the battle of the will-power of a man against difficulties and\noppositions of all sorts; none the less if the scene of the conflict be\nin the region of his own heart and mind, rather than in the wider field\nof the battle of life.\n\nThe evolutionist is bound to account for this amongst the other\nphenomena of human existence. The principles of such an evolution are\ncontained in Mr. Spencer's \"Psychology,\" but the development is not\nelaborated in detail, and is well worthy of a special study. We have\npreviously roughly indicated the outlines of such a study; and as the\nspecial psychological question has been treated in an interesting and\nsuggestive manner by the Rev. T. W. Fowle in the number of the\n\"Nineteenth Century\" for March 1881, we will find it convenient to take\nthis article as the text or basis of our own remarks.\n\nThe writer's argument appears in brief to be this. In the course of\nEvolution, man became self-conscious (see p. 392). This consciousness of\nself led, first of all, to self-preservation, then to self-assertion,\nand finally to self-pleasing. \"When man first uttered the words or\nrather felt the impression to which language subsequently gave definite\nshape and force, '_I will_ live in spite of all the forces encompassing\nmy destruction,' then was Free Will created upon the earth.\"\n\nNote here, that Will is changed to Free Will in the course of a single\nsentence, and that this \"Free Will\" is simply human action predominant\nover external difficulties, which should therefore rather be called\nWill, and is certainly not the Free Will or self-rule which we have now\nunder consideration. Hence arises a certain amount of confusion, as\nwitness p. 393:--\"We ascribe, then, man's consciousness of _Free Will_\nto the concentration of all his pre-human experiences into one\nimperative determination to preserve, to assert, and to please himself.\"\nThus, \"Free Will,\" in the mind of the writer, is simply the human Will\nas opposed to the forces of nature. Nothing is said about the exterior\nopposing wills of others, though surely he must intend them also to be\nincluded in the environment. At the same time we do not know that it\nmakes the particular point under consideration more difficult of study,\nalthough these external wills form a considerable part of the objects\ndetermining the activities of the self. Yet, as our particular point of\nstudy is _self_-rule, this extension of the reference to external forces\ndoes not directly affect the argument.\n\nBut it will be seen that the Will or Free Will mentioned here, and\ndefined as self-assertion and determination to please one's self, is\nself-assertion as opposed to environment--a self-assertion which,\nirrespective of the qualities or nature of the motives comprised in that\nself, determines to work out its own pleasure there and then in spite of\nall opposition. Such a state is well illustrated in the first\nself-assertions of childhood--its so-called _wilfulness_; for as\nembryology illustrates the stages of biological evolution, so does\nchildhood illustrate the stages of mental and moral evolution. This\nself-assertion is also illustrated in the conduct of the insane and of\nthe rude, rough, uneducated minds of the masses. Still it is not what is\nmeant by Free Will, but the very reverse; for such persons are said to\nbe slaves to their passions or motives. This is undoubtedly Egoistic\n_Will_; and therefore theoretically, as before distinguished, it is\n_free_: but it is not the Free Will, the self-rule we are now in search\nof. This sort of self-assertion is the determination to please oneself,\n_irrespective of consequences_. But when it is known that consequences\nrecoil upon self--when the _element of time_ is taken into account, and\nthe self is found to be continuous, then there is reflection, and\nby-and-by succeeds caution, restraint, and the co-ordination of actions\nto a given end. This is the germ of self-rule which is mistakenly\nregarded as identical with the self-determination of volition.\n\nThe term \"self-preservation\" has a wide and also a restricted sense. It\nmay simply mean the continuance in existence of the body; or if the self\nis equivalent to the preservation of the activities comprised in that\nself, _whatever those activities may be_--lust, hate, benevolence,\n\u00e6sthetic feeling, &c.--then it implies the continuous gratification of\nthose activities. This understanding of self-preservation is dependent\non the length of time for which the self is expected to continue. The\nreligious man, believing in a God and a future life, preserves what he\nesteems his self--_i.e._, his moral and religious being--even in\nmartyrdom. But if there is no future life, then the self that has to be\npreserved is the self as it is, whatever that may happen to be--gross or\nrefined.\n\nThere are no better recognised traits of Free Will--_i.e._,\nself-rule--than the power of self-denial, self-abnegation,\nself-sacrifice. These cannot be explained by any definition of Free Will\nfounded on self-assertion and self-preservation merely. Then, again,\nself-education, the designed alteration of the character, and the\nintentional acquirement of self-control, can hardly be held to be\nconsistent with simple self-assertion. Self-assertion is the assertion\nof self as it is. The resolution to alter is the denial of\nself-preservation as regards the existing self. The adaptation to\nenvironment involved in self-abnegation is the opposite to\nself-assertion.\n\nAre we to suppose that the Free Will predicated of man is an universal\npossession of all? If it is a _theoretical_ question, it must be granted\nthat all men's wills are free. But if it is a practical question as to\nthe strength of the Will as opposed to external forces, and held to be\nfree in proportion to its relative strength of self-assertion, surely\nFree Will is a variable quality. If, again, it is a practical question\nas to the power of self-rule, are we to suppose that all men have it in\nequal degrees? Do the idiot and the maniac possess it, or on the\ncontrary is it possessed unequally by men, and by some not at all?\n\nThe writer says, p. 391, \"Now, from the moment that self became an\nobject of consciousness, it became also a motive.\"\n\nThis consciousness of self is a consciousness of the totality of the\nactivities, a consciousness of the unity of that totality, a\nconsciousness of the continuance of that totality for a more or less\ncertain future. The motive consequent upon such recognition must be the\nlongest continuance of that self, the greatest amount of gratification\nof the activities of that self, the avoidance of pains to that self, and\nthe aggregation of more activities by that self.\n\nThe result of that motive would be the co-ordination of actions to\nattain the final end thus set before the total self, and the\nsubordination of particular motives to their proper places in the\nco-ordinative scheme. But as the total self is in relation to\nenvironment, that environment, physical or societarian, has to be taken\ninto account; and as consequences of actions recoil upon the individual\nat a later time, the results of actions have to be taken into account.\nTherefore there is brought into activity a large amount of rational\nconsideration and judgment as to the eventualities of conduct in regard\nto the 'total self'; and finally it is found that action must take one\nof two forms: either the environment must be adjusted to the\norganism--this is a form of Will--or the organism must be adjusted to\nthe environment--this is Free Will or self-rule--_i.e._, the Free Will\nas here understood. This is the solution implied in the writer's\nstatement that \"from the moment that self became an object of\nconsciousness it became also a motive.\"\n\nThis rational view of self as an aggregate of faculties and motives\nlikely to last a certain length of time, and surrounded by a social\nenvironment which has in great measure formed it, and which exercises\nupon it a continual pressure, brings forward the relation of Free Will\nto Ethics in the fact that the acquired power of self-rule has to take\ninto account, in-so-far as it exists in the individuals forming the\nsocial coercions and approvals, and in so far as the Ego approaches the\nnormal standard of regulating his own sympathies, which together in an\ninstructed community make up personal responsibility to the ethical law,\nand supply the ethical as distinguished from the merely altruistic\nmotive.\n\nThe evolutionist's definition of life is \"the continuous adjustment of\ninner to outer relation,\" or of organism to environment. The principles\nand results of this continuous adjustment, in the modifications of\nstructure and function, and their transmission by heredity in gradually\nmore permanently established forms, is well understood from the writings\nof Mr. Darwin, Mr. Spencer, and others.\n\nThe progress of development in the human race has consisted in the\n_establishment of correspondences_ of a definite and permanent character\nbetween organism and environment. Why it should have been possible for\nsuch a grand development to take place as that which has actually taken\nplace lies beyond the limits of our subject; but if Evolution is true,\nthe fact remains that the human organism has continually been increasing\nthe number of its correspondences, in accordance with the increasing\ncomplexity of its surroundings. Roughly, this establishment of relations\nwith the external world may be classed under two divisions, each\ncontaining a great variety of details. Firstly, the class of cognitions,\nincluding the knowledge of the physical world, the field, the forest,\nthe stream, the animals, the sky and heavenly bodies, and also the\nknowledge of men, and their ways in society; secondly, the class of\ndirect relations with other individuals, such as the relations of wife,\nchildren, parents, chiefs, involving also property, and inducing the\nfeelings of love, friendship, hate, justice, and other social\naffections.\n\nThe establishment of a correspondence between the organism and the\nenvironment, of such a definite character as to be transmitted by\nheredity, involves the establishment of motives. The stomach without\nfood experiences hunger, a want, and forms a motive. So of the other\norgans, and so of all other established relations inwoven in the\norganism. However subtle and refined any established relation may be,\nbut less in proportion to its later order of development, and directly\nas its necessity to existence, so its force. It experiences a want in\nrespect of its correlate, and this want becomes a motive or incentive to\nits own gratification.\n\nThe kinds of actions, then, may be distinguished as--\n\nThe Functional, such as the action of the heart, the intestines, &c.\nThese are wholly involuntary.\n\nThe Emotional Involuntary, such as the feelings and desires, and the\nmuscular expression of some of them, as in laughing, crying, &c.\n\nThe Emotional Volitional, or actions proceeding from the emotions, and\nconstraining the muscles to the means of their gratification.\n\nHere must be added the Rational Volitional; and if the rational choice\nof actions and ordering of conduct, in which the emotions and passions\nplay a subordinate part as factors in a general estimate or judgment,\ncan be interpreted as a recognition of \"self as an object,\" and the\nestablishment of a correspondence therewith, then the \"motive of self\"\nas advanced by the essayist may be considered as the highest motive of\nthe Emotional Volitional class. Thus self as an enduring whole becomes\nestablished as the predominating object in the mind of the Ego, towards\nwhich object or ideal attainment in continuity, and in expansiveness of\nrelation the motives of the individual turn--co-ordinating to it all the\nmore special motives; and evolving in a higher degree the powers of\nself-rule.\n\nIn this manner Self-Rule or Free Will is explained and vindicated as a\nnatural possession of humanity and one of its highest and most\ncharacteristic attainments. At the same time it is found to be\nconsistent with a Deterministic scheme and not to require the assistance\nof an incomprehensible Self-Determining Power on the part of the Ego.\nThe Deterministic theory as regards the actions and conduct of an\nindividual is not, however, so narrow in its purview as this. It\nrecognises a great many kinds of conditions as the more or less direct\nor remote causes of actions. It recognises--\n\n_Heredity_, by which the physical qualities, and emotional and\nintellectual tendencies, of the parents, more or less obscurely known on\naccount of intermixture, are transmitted to the offspring. The child is\nborn with a certain inherited constitution, containing potentially\nwithin it a course of development through certain physiological changes\nup to decay and old age. This constitution is one of a definite\ncharacter, having definite proportions of parts, as of head, chest,\nabdomen, &c., and definite relations of systems, such as nervous,\nvascular, muscular, visceral, &c., and partly as a consequence of this\nthe child also possesses mental and moral tendencies which, while very\nsusceptible of influence, are primarily derived by heredity.\n\n_Action of Environment._--From the moment of birth, (or sooner), the\norganism comes into relation with very complex conditions, which\nvariously affect its course of development. The suitable or unsuitable\nconditions of the mother's health, food, warmth, sleep, &c., influence\nthe development of the child; and thenceforward all through life the\nconditions of nourishment, diet, climate, exposure, disease, accident,\n&c., have strong and recognisable effects upon the organism, physical\nand mental.\n\n_General Tuition_, or the education by contact with the members of the\nfamily, playmates, companions, and the great body of the individuals of\nthe environment with whom the child or youth comes into contact, into\nthe general tone and principles of his age, country, class, or sect,\ngradually fashioning him into a certain pattern, shaping the general\nmode of his life, and forming within him certain standards of action,\ncertain codes of obligation, moral or ceremonial, certain customs,\nfashions, &c., as well as implanting in him the convictions, theological\nor otherwise, of his time.\n\n_Special Tuition._--Tuition affects the whole of the activities of the\nindividual according to the nature of the training, its suitability or\nunsuitability, its persistence, and the force exerted. The value of a\nlong course of direct education is well understood in all civilised\ncommunities, and in modern times is recognised as one of the great means\nof effecting the general improvement of society, if only it could be\nthoroughly applied.\n\n_The Education of Circumstances_ affects not only the physical\nconstitution, but also very much the mental and moral qualities of the\nindividual. And as these circumstances are widely varied and the\nhereditary tendencies very different, the results will be widely diverse\nin different individuals; but there is no doubt that a condition of\npoverty or of affluence, good or ill usage, neglect or over-governing, a\nsolitary or a social condition, surroundings of town or country, status\nof parents, nature of and facilities for amusements and studies, the\ndegree of early responsibilities, the kind of business occupation or\nother avocation, all largely affect the conduct and modify the motives\nof the individual.\n\nAnd it is wonderful in a highly developed and complex state of society,\nwhere the possession of great wealth creates a large leisure class, and\nthe enormous activity pervading the whole ever tends to put the\norganisms included into every possible relation with the outer world,\nand with every relation that can grow up in its own complex social\nmixture--it is wonderful, we say, in such circumstances, the number of\nmotives that will grow up. The relations extend to the past and the\nfuture. The most paltry, evanescent, and adventitious relations become\nmore or less motives of action, and grow more or less established in the\nindividual and more or less transmitted to posterity. Besides the great\nnumber of these relationships, there is the difference of kind. Many are\nof a concrete sort; as for instance, the love of dogs, horses, &c.;\nothers are of a very abstract description. These latter are principally\nthe outcome of social and intellectual relationships. They are\ngeneralisations of conduct, or they are abstractions of the intellect.\nVirtue, ideal conduct, justice, beauty, truth, science, philosophy, a\nperfected humanity, all become realised abstractions, as it were, with\nwhich a relation is established, and which, therefore, assume the guise\nof motives seeking their means of gratification. We recognize the fact\nthat abstractions may become objects of motives, as distinct from the\nconcrete objects which are definitely in relation with corresponding\naffections of the organism. These abstractions grow into definite parts\nof self, and, if they largely predominate in an individual, he will\nbecome a martyr rather than abandon his devotion to them. He will esteem\nthem the principal part of self, and let his body perish rather than act\nagainst them. Such organic abstractions may, indeed, become the objects\nof the most powerful passions, before which concrete objects sink into\nutter insignificance. We have found that the recognition of the\ncontinuous or \"total self\" can become such an object and induce the\nestablishment of a corresponding motive.\n\nAt the outset, we distinguish the province of Reason, in which is\nincluded the calculation of the results of actions, and the devising of\nthe best means for accomplishing a desired end without incurring pains\nand inconveniences. If a certain end is desired, the intellect has to\nforecast the outcome of different modes for effecting the desired\nresult, and to discern that which secures the end with the fewest\ndrawbacks. The end may be good or bad; the motives may be of the most\nelevated and generous character or they may be of the worst; but all the\nsame, it must be duly considered what is the best means of securing it.\nWhat would be the result if I did this? on the other hand, would it not\nbe better to do that? It will be seen that here there is no choice\nbetween motives, no dispute to settle between conflicting principles and\npassions, but only a kind of mental calculus or intellectual\nengineering. This state of the mind is sometimes taken to be the\nexercise of a choice, and it may be so; but it is of a different kind to\nthat involved in self-rule, which we now approach.\n\nAs a power of very gradual growth must we regard that cognition, (with\nits subsequent establishment as an object and a motive in the human\norganism) which recognises the Self as a whole--as a whole at any given\ntime, and as a whole extending over seventy years, and perhaps\nindefinitely longer!\n\nMan's total self can become an object of thought and that object a\nmotive, as distinguished from any of the particular motives of which it\nis made up. Man's future self may be an object of thought as well as the\npresent; and man's Continuous Self may become a constant and\nall-predominating object of regard and interest--an all-absorbing\nmotive. Indeed, so far may this go, that the long continuous self\nprospected after death may and has been so much an object of motive as\nto overshadow and dwarf every interest of the present. And if this\nContinuous Self is recognised by the Reason as the complete object, the\none and chief motive--and it must be so since it includes every motive\nat every instant of time--then the Reason accords to it and claims for\nit a _ruling_ position, a claim before which every other must give way.\nThere is no doubt that this is substantially taught, although in\ndifferent terms of exposition, in all ethical books and in all verbal\nprecepts of good counsel.\n\nThe psychogeny of this development of the continuous self into an object\nand a motive is to be found in the intellectual recognition of the\nactual order displayed by nature in the processes of life. It is the\nharmonising of the volitional actions with the laws of natural change.\nWe have seen that the process of life is the continuous adaptation of\norganism to environment. But this is a natural, non-volitional process.\nChange in the environment produces change of organism to correspond with\nit. When cognitions are developed the sequences of action are foreseen,\nthe changes of environment are foreseen, the developments of organism\nare foreseen; a generalisation is made of all the factors, and logical\nconclusions drawn as to the necessary adaptations. Then follows a\nrational or intentional adaptation of organism and environment, due to\nthe motive of Self which we have just considered; this rational or\nintentional adaptation may be either incidental or continuous, and the\nadaptation may be either of organism or of environment. And in this\ncalculus the relation of the individual to the mass of individuals\nconstituting society must be taken into account.\n\nA man having regard to his continuous self finds himself in a certain\nposition. The motive relating to the continuous self determines that his\nconduct shall be regulated by the best regard for that continuous self.\nAnd it must be admitted at once that technically it is not qualitatively\nrelated to any abstraction, such as virtue, &c., unless, indeed, virtue\nbe interpreted as the establishment of such a harmony, but has regard\npurely to the establishment of the most harmonious correspondence\nbetween himself and his environment for the remainder of his life. It\nmight be that such a resolve would result in a system of ethics, but we\nwish to limit the consideration to our special subject.\n\nAnd, in the first place, we must recognise the _quantitative_ character\nof such an adaptation. The self is surrounded by an enormous and highly\ncomplex environment; but it may, from heredity, or want of education, or\nperverse education, be a very narrow, poor, meagre, little self, having\nvery few, weak, feeble correspondences with the environment. A pig in\nhis stye may be well adjusted to his environment; but his\ncorrespondences with the external world are few in number and of small\nintensity. We would therefore assert with Mr. Spencer as a corollary\nfrom the continuous adjustment of the organism and the environment, not\nmerely the establishment of a convenient _modus vivendi_, but an\nadjustment of the organism by enlargement of the number of its\ncorrespondences with the environment, so as to render the adjustment\nbetween organism and environment more perfect by making the former\nco-extensive with the latter. In proportion to the number of points of\ninterest or correspondences established between organism and\nenvironment, so is the perfection of the continuous self. In this manner\nthen Free Will or Self-Rule in its very nature is related to the\nconception of a continuous self towards which it acts as the object of a\nmotive, and possesses also an ethical bearing with regard to the\nenlargement of the correspondences with the external world. For what is\nthere of greater interest in the external world than the subjective\nindividuals of our surroundings, the society of which we form a part,\nthe mysterious past out of which we came and the dependent nations of\nthe future which we are helping to make?\n\nIt is evident that in thus setting up the continuous self as an object,\nwhose realisation is to be the ruling power in the regulation of\nconduct, (whether this self be the complete self we have just\ncontemplated, or the incomplete self which we may happen to be, and to\nbe pretty well contented with,) a certain amount of self-regulation will\nalways be necessary in order to effect the object in view, and at\noccasional crises a very great amount of struggle and effort will have\nto be exerted in order to put down the influence of some active motive\nwhich would, by its hasty and blind gratification, mar the result of\nthat line of conduct already decided upon as the best. Here will come in\nthe conflict of passion with reason, and of impulse with prudence, which\nis really of the greatest practical interest in our study.\n\nAnd here we find, as one of the chief motives in such a conflict, the\nmotive of _regard for the continuous self_. It is not always a ruling\nmotive. It is best that it should be so. The object of education and\nself-culture is to make it so. But at any rate it is a motive, and a\nstrong one. In proportion to its predominance is the amount of\nself-rule, of self-control, and, as we read it, of Free Will.\n\nThus the rational regard for self becomes recognised as a motive. The\nRational Volitional becomes the Emotional Volitional. It has been\nrecognised in many philosophies under various names, advanced sometimes\nas a motive, sometimes as the very self of self, and sometimes\ndesignated by the term \"self-determining power,\" &c.; but its true\ncharacter and genesis is best explained by Evolution.\n\nThe great practical question is this: Has man the power of choice\namongst motives? Has he the vaunted power of self-rule? and can he\ncultivate it?\n\nWe can only reply that, as a matter of fact, some men have it and some\nhave not; that some have in some respects and not in others. As a matter\nof possibility, most men may attain in a considerable degree to the\npower of self-rule by judicious self-culture: and in the education of\nthe young, more particularly in home education, a very high standard in\nthis respect may be attained. Some feeble minds and flighty or\nimpassioned natures, as well as idiots, may not be able to reach it, and\nsome fools may lose it after they have got it; but as a general rule\nand a safe fact for all to accept, we may say that a high degree of\nself-rule may by most people be attained, and that the possession of it\nis for the most part happiness.\n\nAdopting, then, the statement of the essayist, \"from the moment that\nself became an object of consciousness it became also a motive,\" we\nwould add the element of time and recognise a continuous self. Then,\nplacing the statement in a subordinate position, as part of the general\nevolution of life--which is the continuous adjustment of organism and\nenvironment--and acknowledging the growth of reason, we would define the\ncourse of action which results from all these factors as _the rational\nquantitative and continuous adjustment of organism and environment_.\nThis is the Evolutionist formula of Free Will or self-rule.\n\nThus the consciousness of choice and of the power of self-rule receives\nan explanation on the Evolution of Deterministic hypothesis in this\nrespect, that the recognition of the continuous self as an object of\nthought and an important object of interest and regard, _becomes thereby\na motive determining action and conduct_, even against the immediate\nurgencies of passion. Determinism is thus acknowledged to be a correct\ntheory: but the dignity of the claim for self-rule and free choice is\nvindicated, and the attainment of it by most people is shown to be both\ndesirable and feasible.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nEVOLUTION, ETHICS, AND RELIGION.\n\n\nThe recognition of the ultimate tendencies of evolution suggests two\nfurther enquiries, one as to the personal relation with the far-off\nresult, and one as to the origin of such a definite progress.\n\nPerhaps the consideration of the former question is bound up in the\nlatter. Nevertheless, within the scope of the former more limited\nenquiry, the Comtists are content to rest. For them the narrow limits of\nhistory and its immediate outlook are sufficient. What is actually\nrecorded of humanity, and what is actually revealed in it, together with\nthe indications of its possibilities, suffice for the creed of the\nComtist. The Positivist produced by Evolution worships his Cause under\nthe name of humanity, and works towards Mr. Spencer's evolutionist\nideal. He seeks no justification in philosophy. The product of\nEvolution--he acts from inward impulse and requires no authority. He has\nnone to appeal to in the inculcation of his worship, but the natural\nresponse to be found in the hearts of those who occupy the same\nintellectual and sympathetic position. But this is after all only a\npartial grasp of the fundamental problem of history. It is an\nabandonment, temporary or otherwise, of the intellectual problem,\nalthough it is a recognition of the onward sweep of humanitarian\nEvolution. The history and the tendencies are alike sought to be\nexplained by the philosophy of the Evolutionist. What, then, is the\nposition of the Evolutionist in regard to the problem of religion, and\nwhat practical bearing has it upon Ethics or moral obligation?\n\nThe answer to these questions depends upon what is meant by the theory\nof Evolution. If by Evolution is meant a complete system of explanations\nby which all the events comprised in all departments of human knowledge,\nstretching throughout the whole of history recorded and surmised, are\nintelligibly accounted for as the results of the interrelation of\nprimordial factors, of which we have a clear apprehension, insomuch that\nthe logical order becomes a picture of the historical order, then our\nestimate of Evolution depends upon our estimate of the original factors.\nIf they are held to be some seventy in number, and to be those elements\nof which a full account is given in chemistry, and to be subject to\ngeneral laws, such as those described in works on physics, then our\nregard for Evolution must be one due to the reverence we possess for\nchemistry, electricity, heat, gravitation, and the like, and our conduct\nmust be made to conform--if we wish to coincide with the eventual\ntendencies of evolution--with what we judge to be the ultimate\ntendencies of the evolution of these factors, namely, their ultimate\nequilibration in universal quiescence. Life, according to this view, is\nan interruption of the process, and a contradiction of cosmical\nintention.\n\nThis view of evolution is not saved by the theory that behind these\nchemical affinities and physical relations there is an unknowable power\nof which they are but the manifestations: for the power is not\nunknowable if its manifestations are limited to these known\nmanifestations; and if they are not so limited, but operate in other\nways with new factors, not comprised in our estimate of them, then our\nexplanatory system is at fault, and has to be abandoned or amended. The\nrecognition of an unknowable power behind chemistry and physics, yet\nlimited by the laws of chemistry and physics, is equal only to our\nestimate of chemistry and physics. We could but address it as Oh my Lord\nChemistry! Oh my Lord Physics!\n\nBut we have shown in our previous criticisms that this view of\nevolution, as dealing with purely physical factors, is inadequate to\nexplain the cosmical histories. We have criticised adversely Mr.\nSpencer's attempts so to explain biological development; and we have\nindicated the necessity for supposing that other superior factors are\npresent in biological evolution. We do not know that Mr. Spencer\ndisputes it--his work is too vague and inconsistent to enable us to say\nprecisely what he does and what he does not teach. But the admission of\nadditional factors does not destroy the theory of evolution. Darwin and\nSpencer and the modern school have established, beyond dispute, the fact\nof orderly development in the cosmos. We are forced, therefore, to admit\nboth evolution and the presence in it, so far as Biology is concerned,\nand probably also as regards all the changes anterior to the beginnings\nof life, of a factor over and above the chemical and physical factors.\nThe nature of this factor we do not know, nor do we know how, as having\nan orderly relation to chemical and physical events, its law is to be\nexpressed in such a manner as to enable us to understand how organisms\narose and were developed. Here, indeed, we can recognise a power, and an\ninscrutable one: but inasmuch as it is inscrutable it spoils our\nphilosophy--our systems of explanations--and laughs at our formulas.\n\nBut after all, if we succeed in establishing purposive actions as\nincidents in a process of equilibration, what have we gained? We have\ngained a scientific explanation of all purposive actions as well as of\nall actions of organisms in general. They all stand upon the same\nfooting--that is to say they are all equally explicable as parts of the\nuniversal process. They are all equally equilibrations, and so justified\nin their order of occurrence. They rank alike as incidents in a line of\ncausation explicable by the law of equilibration.\n\nApparently all that is, is right. Equilibration does not recognise any\ndistinction as to the quality of actions. This distinction can be\nexplained by equilibration, but cannot be justified by it as a law for\nfuture conduct, any more than any other incident of the course of\nequilibration. If certain laws of living become established, then moving\nequilibria capable of recognising this fact must act accordingly--they\nmust adapt themselves to the environment: but this does not prevent the\norganism from adapting the environment to itself, if it can, by changing\nit or overcoming it--this is merely a matter of equilibration. The law\nof Biology will allow it to cope with an adverse environment in many\nways, namely, by conformity, by escape so as to preserve its\nindividuality, and by altering or overcoming the environment. If the\nforces of the environment be powerful and omnipresent, then conformity\nis the only resource. It is only a matter of superiority of force, and\nthe resulting conformity is merely a matter of equilibration. It is not\nthat equilibration lends any special sanctity or quality to certain\nactions. Social pressure coerces individual pressure--the mutual\ncoercion of society is equilibration--the result of this equilibration,\nwhatever it is, is a variable Ethics. The recognition of great duties\nand great faults, the facts of moral approbation and condemnation, the\nphenomena of a private and public conscience are all explicable as\nequilibrations: but since whatever is, is an equilibration, it is not\nfrom the laws of equilibration that any established moral distinction or\nobligation can be justified for guidance for a single day in advance.\nThere is no universality, either in place or time in Ethics thus viewed.\nThe justification of Ethics from the evolution point of view must be\nsought on other grounds than in that of a cosmical equilibration.\n\nIt is difficult to say what support is rendered to practical Ethics by\nthe theory of Evolution. According to it, Ethics is a history and a\nprediction; but failing the existence in any individual (as the result\nof a growth) of the moral sense for which Evolution professes to\naccount, the prediction only applies to future generations; and it is\ndifficult to see that practical Ethics has for such a person any\nintrinsic authority. And even if the moral sense, and social pressure\n(which are respectively the intrinsic and the extrinsic authority, for\npractical Ethics) are sufficient of themselves to enforce moral conduct,\nthen the understanding of how they both came to possess such a power of\ncommand, lends them no additional authority, but rather tends, at first\nsight, to detract from their sacred prestige. The confidence of the\nphilosopher is however soon restored, when he considers that despite the\nfailure of his theory to intellectually establish moral enforcements,\nnevertheless, the great forces which have produced both the intrinsic\nand the extrinsic ethical authorities are still at work, and must more\nand more prevail. If these are natural growths the movement in the\nhearts of men, and in societarian organization, will ever prevail over\nand above all reasoning about them. Individual opposition and\nrestiveness will be levelled before the might of the advance. The\nindividual must obey or perish; indeed he must himself change and become\npart of the coercive power.\n\nThus it will be found that the apprehension which Mr. Spencer expresses\nin his preface, as to the loss of a controlling agency in the decay and\ndeath of an older regulative system is not met by the establishment of a\nnew controlling agency which takes the place of the discarded authority,\nbut may be met by the fact disclosed in evolution, that whatever\nauthority men may recognise, nay, even if they do not recognise any, it\nis all the same--they are part and parcel of an onward growth against\nwhich it is useless to rebel. The moral authority is the conviction of\nthe inevitable. Thus evolution dispels the fear of a moral anarchy by\nshowing the necessity for the existence of present and future moral\norder, ensured alike by extrinsic social organization, and by a no less\ncertain prevalence of intrinsic motives. Thus, though evolution lends\nbut little additional theoretical force to moral argument, it shows\nforth the power of natural ethical authority, and declares with\nconvincing efficacy, \"magna est veritas et pr\u00e6valebit.\"\n\nThe moral imperative is found to be firstly extrinsic in social\npressure, and secondly intrinsic in altruistic sympathy. These are the\nonly authorities competent to say: \"Thus shalt thou do, and thus shalt\nthou not do.\" Evolution establishes no absolute morality. It is always\nrelative to the surroundings, and it differs according to the stage of\ncivilization. The more nearly the conduct approaches the relatively\nperfect the more truly ideal is it. The imagined ideal is not so perfect\nas the relatively perfect. According as a necessity is universal, so is\nthe degree of moral enforcement which accompanies it, and the degree of\naccord in the recognition of its imperativeness. The sanctity of life,\nthe condemnation of these who infringe it, the commendation of those who\npromote it are of first eminence. Liberty, Property, and other\nessentials receive little less recognition; and so on by degrees down to\nthe small details of everyday life. The kind of moral imperative is the\nsame throughout, the degree of enforcement differing according to the\nvarying importance of the actions.\n\nAs this point very properly comes in the Evolutionist's view of\nreligion. We take, as our text on this subject, the speech by Professor\nFiske at the Spencer banquet held in New York, November 9th, 1882, and\nsince published in the form of a tractette.[15]\n\nProfessor Fiske here pursues Mr. Spencer's faulty plan of generalising\nall religions, and assuming the common or fundamental content as a true\nfinding, besides holding that the fundamental truths of science are\nidentical with this final deliverance of religion. It is not that\nProfessor Fiske's argument is bad, but that it is badly put. If we\nconfine ourselves to the scientific view, and say that the universe\nmanifests an orderly development; that it is probably altogether the\nresult of the relations of primordial factors; but that of these we can\nform no adequate conception although, nevertheless, they undoubtedly\ncontained something of the elements of a subjective nature--then we do\nnot transgress the scientific view. Neither do we so transgress when, by\ninductions from the history of man, we assert that the law of\ndevelopment of the subjective is towards altruistic sympathy,\nquantitative increase of life, and social harmony or equilibration. Mr.\nMatthew Arnold's recognition of \"an eternal power, not ourselves, that\nmakes for righteousness\" is as near an approach to the truth as we can\nget. Mr. Spencer's formula should be \"an unknowable power, not\nourselves, that makes towards equilibrium.\" The question, thereupon\narises, Is the subjective a factor in a process of equilibration, and is\nrighteousness subjective equilibration? The question also arises in the\nlatter case, Is the \"makes for\" or \"makes towards\" a teleological aiming\nat an end, or a process determined completely by antecedent factors of\nwhich it is but the outcome?\n\nIt is difficult to imagine under a system of evolution, even if an\nuniversal subjective factor be admitted, the operation of a teleological\nactivity as ordinarily understood. Nevertheless, we find a teleological\nfaculty evolved in man. And even if we accept Mr. Matthew Arnold's\ndescription, the question arises, Has the eternal power a conscious\nintention of making towards righteousness from the first or from any\ntime? Or is it implicit in the original relations of the subjective to\nthe chemical and physical that it makes through Biology towards\nrighteousness--is righteousness merely another expression for a\ncompleted biological law involved in the original relations of atoms\nwith an omnipresent subjective and relative factor?\n\nAnd again, what, scientifically viewed, is our personal relation to\nthat inscrutable power which makes for righteousness? Here comes in the\nethical problem as affected by the religious, and both as affected by\nour views of evolution. Professor Fiske says of the propositions\nrecognised by all religions \"that men ought to do certain things and\nought to refrain from doing certain other things; and that the reason\nwhy some things are wrong to do and other things are right to do, is in\nsome mysterious but very real way connected with the existence and\nnature of this divine Power.\"\n\nThe fact that personal responsibility to the inscrutable Power belongs\nto the essence of all religions is one thing, and the establishment of\nit as a scientific truth is another. The fact of its existence and of\nits universality is a presumption in its favour, but is not more than a\npresumption. What has science to say to it? With this point Professor\nFiske next deals. He says that science, after all its searchings, finds,\nin its ultimate enquiries, not only inexplicable laws whose effects it\ncan calculate though the laws themselves remain unexplained, but also\nlong processes which are not explicable by the known laws, and which\nwill probably remain for ever inexplicable. If he does not say so in\nthose words, we presume that must be what he means: for if he only means\nthat all cosmical histories are explicable by known laws, these laws\nbeing themselves inexplicable, the inscrutable or Divine Power is only\nantecedent to cosmical histories, and is not present in them, nor does\nit affect the future. Nevertheless, what Professor Fiske has to say of\nthe results of scientific enquiry does not amount to much. \"The doctrine\nof evolution asserts, as the widest and deepest truth which the study of\nnature can disclose to us, that there exists a power to which no limit\nin time or space is conceivable, and that all the phenomena of the\nuniverse, whether they be what we call material or what we call\nspiritual phenomena, are manifestations of this infinite and eternal\nPower.\"\n\nBut this scientific truth does not in its mere enunciation bear upon the\nquestion as to our ethical relationship to the Unknown Power. It is only\nwhen we study its spiritual or subjective manifestation as an orderly\ndevelopment that we can recognise a power to which we owe a moral\nobligation. The scientific evidence of moral obligation to the\ninscrutable power rests, not upon the recognition of the power of which\nthe cosmos is a manifestation, nor upon the fact of its inscrutability,\nbut upon the knowledge of the subjective factor, its manifested history,\nand the inductions to be drawn from a study of that history in the laws\nof the working of altruistic sympathy, of quantitative life, and of the\nharmony of life as already set forth. Professor Fiske's conclusion is a\ngood statement of this scientific establishment of personal\nresponsibility to the divine power, and of religion as the crown and\nsanction of Ethics.\n\n\"Now, science began to return a decisively affirmative answer to such\nquestions as these when it began, with Mr. Spencer, to explain moral\nbeliefs and moral sentiments as products of evolution. For clearly, when\nyou say of a moral belief or a moral sentiment that it is a product of\nevolution, you imply that it is something which the universe through\nuntold ages has been labouring to bring forth, and you ascribe to it a\nvalue proportionate to the enormous effort that it has cost to produce\nit. Still more, when with Mr. Spencer we study the principles of right\nliving as part and parcel of the whole doctrine of the development of\nlife upon the earth; when we see that, in an ultimate analysis, that is\nright which tends to enhance fulness of life, and that is wrong which\ntends to detract from fulness of life--we then see that the distinction\nbetween right and wrong is rooted in the deepest foundations of the\nuniverse; we see that the very same forces, subtle, exquisite, and\nprofound, which brought upon the scene the primal germs of life and\ncaused them to unfold, which through countless ages of struggle and\ndeath have cherished the life that could live more perfectly, and\ndestroyed the life that could only live less perfectly, and humanity,\nwith all its hopes, and fears, and aspirations, has come into being as\nthe crown of all this stupendous work--we see that these very same\nsubtle and exquisite forces have wrought into the very fibres of the\nuniverse those principles of right living which it is man's highest\nfunction to put into practice. The theoretical sanction thus given to\nright living is incomparably the most powerful that has ever been\nassigned in any philosophy of Ethics. Human responsibility is made more\nstrict and solemn than ever, when the eternal power that lives in every\nevent of the universe is thus seen to be in the deepest possible sense\nthe author of the moral law that should guide our lives, and in\nobedience to which lies our only guarantee of the happiness which is\nincorruptible--which neither inevitable misfortune nor unmerited obloquy\ncan ever take away.\"\n\nThis appears to us the best statement yet made of the logical results of\nthe enquiry into Evolution when pursued to its furthest point. Some\nenquirers halt at the materialistic point, but an irresistible logic\nleads the honest and open-minded enquirer beyond this stage of thought,\nand he finds in the recognition of the existence of the subjective, and\nin the history of its development, a law of spiritual life. He finds a\nlaw of relation in subjective individuals which induces the\nestablishment of a quantitative life in the increase of the number of\ncorrespondences with the external world both in Time and Space, and,\nwhich induces also the establishment of altruistic feeling--a feeling\nthat expands to a greater or less comprehension of the great life of the\nsubjective throughout the cosmical history; and in this recognition he\nfinds also a sense of personal responsibility towards a Power which\ndemands from him a surrender, so that he shall work towards its great\nideal, and find his happiness therein. What more there may be in natural\nreligion is beyond the scope of our present volume, though we hope at\nsame future time to treat of this important subject. Our present view is\nlimited to the consideration of Ethics, and how that science is affected\nby the recent large generalisations of Biological history. Certain\ndefinite conclusions of a religious character have come forward as the\nresult of our studies, and since these have an ethical import, it is\nnecessary to refer to them in this place.\n\nNevertheless the study of Evolution assists Ethics, although it can\nbring no argument to bear upon those who possess little moral\naspiration, and can add nothing to the forcefulness of social pressure.\nIts _point d'appui_ is in the existence in most men of the moral\naspirations. Through them it will work upon individuals of their\nenvironment, and upon the teachers and legislators who form and guide\nsociety. To them is disclosed the fact that their aspirations coincide\nwith the tendencies of nature. They find that they are going with the\nstream, are in fact part of the historic stream itself. They recognise\nin society three movements. The first is the growth of altruism or\nsympathy. The second is the enlargement of quantititive life. The third\nis the approach towards a harmony or equilibration of life. The\nrecognition of these truths imparts a deeper faith in moral progress,\nand gives a greater breadth of view, and a more intelligent and\ncharitable interpretation of human action. Philosophers, teachers, and\nstatesmen, understanding the movements of society from age to age, and\ndiscerning the goal to which it inevitably works, can read more\nintelligently its primary phases, and assist more skilfully in its\nonward movement. The more extended recognition of the social aim\nthroughout society will guide and increase social pressure in a\ncorresponding direction, not only in the proper application of social\nrewards and penalties, but in the ethical inculcations, and eventually\nin the hereditarily established intrinsic motives.\n\nNor will prophets, the ripest fruit of evolution, be wanting in the\nfuture. Ages produce not only the working results but the religious\nvoices. There are always men who give utterance to the thought and to\nthe aspirations of their time. Standing in the fore-front of the\nadvancing race, they face the mysterious darkness of the future\nillumined but by the lights drawn from the Power working through the\nsubjective history.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[15] \"Evolution and Religion,\" by John Fiske, M.A., LL.B. London: J. C.\nFoulger, The Modern Press, 1882. Price Twopence.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nSUMMARY.\n\n\nWhether we consider Biology as a process of equilibration of physical\nfactors in a state of moving equilibrium, (including in this formula the\nprocess of reproduction and heredity to which biologically speaking the\nlife of a species is limited--which equilibration explanation includes\nan equilibration of forces, as well as an equilibration of motives,\nrespecting which our conceptions are as yet very indefinite and vague,)\nor on the other hand consider that the facts of Biology require us to\ninclude in our explanatory moving equilibrium theory an equilibration of\nsubjective factors with each other, and with the physical forces\nconcerned, it is clear in either case that the dominant law of Biology\nas set forth by Mr. Spencer is that of Equilibration.\n\nThe place to be assigned to Purpose in a process of equilibration is not\nvery clear. In the first place, if the biological explanations are all\nstrictly limited to the chemical and physical factors, it seems evident\nthat there can be no purposive actions, since all actions are determined\nby the chemical and mechanical relations of molecules, masses of\nmolecules, and organised masses of molecules. To say that what we call\npurposive actions are explicable by physical and mechanical laws is to\nabolish purpose and substitute physical causation. Can purpose by any\nmeans be made lineable in such a sequence? The problem is a fair one to\nconsider and to attempt. We fail to do it, and we think that all who\nhave attempted it have failed.\n\nBut if a subjective factor is admitted into the problem, then it is\nnecessary to understand in what way it becomes part of, and in what way\nit affects, a process of equilibration on the part of a moving\nequilibrium in which it is a factor. The peculiar nature of a biological\nmoving equilibrium, and the respect in which it differs from a physical\nor mechanical moving equilibrium, consists in the fact that it works\ntowards, if indeed it does not purposely aim at self-continuance by\nassimilation of force and self-continuance by means of self-protection\nfrom adverse forces in the environment. The coincidence of the\nsubjective element with this tendency, in many equilibria, is suggestive\nof an efficient connexion. Yet if we do not understand the law of the\nrelation of a subjective factor with the physical and mechanical\nfactors, how can we understand the resultant process of equilibration\nand the necessity for the biological law of adaptations for\nself-preservation and self-protection? How can we understand Purpose as\nan equilibration?\n\nEthics to be affiliated upon the cosmical process requires that we\nshould understand how purposive actions can be so affiliated, for Ethics\nrelates to purposive actions. In the failure of such a logical\nconnexion, we may understand Ethics on partial and limited grounds, but\nwe do not understand it as Mr. Spencer proposes we should understand it,\nnamely, as part of the cosmical process.\n\nAccording to Mr. Spencer, we are bound to accept Ethics as part of the\nprocess of cosmical equilibration for this is after all the main\nconception of Mr. Spencer's great work. The apparent and ostensible\nconception, and that with which he has most succeeded in impressing the\npublic mind, is the principle of evolution or gradual development; but\nwe must not lose sight of the fact that what he proposed to accomplish\nwas an explanation of evolution, and not merely the establishment of its\nhistorical verity. This explanation is in terms of equilibration. That\nconception lies behind and above the celebrated \"Formula of Evolution,\"\nand by means of it the fanciful law of the moving equilibrium is posited\nas the ruling principle of biological change and development, as well as\nof physical changes proper. The biological law, or law of the moving\nequilibrium, rules supreme over all actions and developments of\norganisms: and even if an additional factor of subjectivity is present\nas one of the forces which equilibrate in a moving equilibrium, it is,\nnevertheless, subject to the laws of equilibration. It is not yet made\nclear how the law of equilibration, which necessitates that all forces\nshould come to a state of rest in as speedy a time as possible, can be\nchanged into a biological law working in the antagonistic direction of\nthe self-preservation of a set of motions, and their self-protection\nagainst a possible cessation or extinction, with the addition of means\nof reproduction in view of an eventual cessation or extinction. But it\nis these biological actions, some of them purposive, and some of them\nperhaps not consciously purposive, which have to be properly shown as\npart of the cosmical process of equilibration, before purposive actions,\nand therefore, before Ethics can be explained upon cosmical principles.\n\n\n\n\nERRATA.\n\n\nPage xiii, lines 1 and 13, for \"actors\" read \"factors.\"\n\nPage ii, line 18, for \"he bridges over\" read \"he is supposed to bridge\nover.\"\n\nPage 38, line 27, at the end, delete \"in the.\"\n\nPage 43, heading, for \"The Philosophical View\" read \"The Biological\nView.\"\n\nPage 47, line 27, for \"Ethics\" read \"of Ethics.\"\n\nPage 51, line 7, for \"\u00e6theticism\" read \"\u00e6stheticism.\"\n\nPage 74, line 14, for \"eges\" read \"egos.\"\n\nPage 88, line 28, for \"pervented\" read \"prevented.\"","title":"On Mr. Spencer's Data of Ethics","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":36053}