Ethics and evolution.

There are two things which are not always kept distinct, what may be called the ‘evolution of ethics’ and the ‘ethics of evolution,’ The former might more correctly be called the evolution of morality, the account of the way in which moral customs, moral institutions, and moral ideas have been developed and have come to take their place in the life of mankind. Clearly these are all features of human life; and, if the theory of evolution applies to human life, we must expect it also to have some contribution to make to this portion of man’s development, to the growth of the customs, institutions, and ideas which enter into and make up his morality.

But by the ‘ethics of evolution’ is meant something more than the ‘evolution of ethics’ or development of morality. It signifies a theory which turns the facts of evolution to account in determining the value for man of different kinds of conduct and feeling and idea. When one speaks of the ethics of evolution one must be understood to mean that the evolution theory does something more than trace the history of things, that it gives us somehow or other a standard or criterion of moral worth or value. This additional point may be expressed by the technical distinction between origin and validity. Clearly there is a very great difference between showing how something has come to be what it is and assigning to it worth or validity for the guidance of life or thought It may be that the former enquiry has some bearing upon the latter; but only confusion will result if the two problems are not clearly distinguished at the outset, as they very seldom are distinguished by writers on the theory of evolution in its application to ethics.

It may be said that the evolutionist writers on ethics seek to base an ethics of evolution upon the evolution of ethics, but that they are not always aware of the real nature and difficulties of their task. Sometimes they seem to think that in tracing the evolution of ethics they are also and at the same time determining and establishing a theory of the ethics of evolution. We must avoid this error, and keep the two problems distinct in our minds. Yet from the nature of the case it holds true that it is only through the facts which the theory of evolution establishes or can establish as to the development of morality that it is able to make any contribution to the solution of the further question as to the criterion of morality the question, that is to say, of moral worth or value.

We cannot, therefore, avoid dealing with the evolution of ethics. But in what follows I am not considering it for its own sake though it is an interesting and important question. In order to simplify the argument, we may allow what is claimed for it, and give the evolutionist credit for even greater success on the field of historical investigation which is his own field than he would, if fair-minded, claim for himself. The problem I have in view lies beyond this historical question. It is the problem how far the known facts and probable theories regarding the development of morality can make any contribution towards determining the standard of worth for our ideas, our sentiments, and our conduct. Now if we read the accredited exponents of the doctrine of evolution we shall find amongst them a considerable variety of view regarding the bearing of the theory of evolution upon this properly ethical problem the problem of the criterion or standard of goodness.

In the first place, it is desirable to characterise briefly Darwin’s own contribution to this matter. The suggestion made by him deals almost entirely with what I have called the development of morality, not with the ethics of evolution; and perhaps it may seem to us now a rather obvious suggestion. But he was the first to make this suggestion; and it comes from him as a direct application of the theory he had established with regard to animal development. His suggestion is simply this that moral qualities are selected in the struggle for existence in much the same way as purely physical or animal excellences are selected, that is, by their contributing to the continued and more efficient life of the organism. But Darwin saw very clearly that the qualities which are recognised as moral are not by any means in all cases contributory to individual success and efficiency. They are not all of them qualities that contribute to the success of one individual in his struggle with other individuals for the means of subsistence. We may say that courage, prudence, self-reliance, will have that effect, and that consequently in the struggle for life the individuals who show such qualities will have a better chance of survival than those without them. But what about qualities such as sympathy, willingness to help another, obedience, and faithfulness to a community or to a cause? Clearly, these are not qualities which are of special assistance to the individual. But they are qualities which are or may be of very great importance to the tribe or community of individuals. Supposing such qualities of mutual help, of willingness even to sacrifice oneself for others the qualities which are commonly grouped as expressions of the social instinct, supposing these to have been somehow developed in the members of a tribe, that tribe would, other things being equal, have an advantage in a struggle with another tribe whose members did not possess these qualities. Now the advantage thus gained in the struggle would be a case of the operation of natural selection: it would exterminate or weaken the tribe without these social qualities, and it would thus give opportunity for the growing efficiency of the tribe that possessed them.

Put in the briefest way, this is the explanation which Darwin gave of the growth of the social qualities in mankind; and the social qualities make up, to a large extent at any rate, what we call moral qualities. Darwin, however, saw further than this: he saw that, while this might account for the development of what we may call savage and barbarian virtues, there was in civilised mankind a development of sympathy which went far beyond this, and which one could not with good reason account for by asserting that it rendered assistance to the community in its struggle for existence with other communities.

Thus, with regard to the former question, he says: “A tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection.”

But when he comes to the case of civilised men he finds a difficulty. “With savages,” he says, “the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment.... The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts.... Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature.” This sympathy, which natural selection cannot preserve or vindicate even in the struggle of communities, is nevertheless recognised by Darwin as having a moral value outside of and above natural selection and the struggle for existence, a value of which these have no right to judge. He thinks that if we followed hard reason and by ‘hard reason’ he obviously means an imitation on our part of the action of natural selection we should be led to sweep away all those institutions by which civilised mankind guards its weaker members. But this, he says, would be only to deteriorate the “noblest part of our nature.” What is noblest in our nature, then, is not that which natural selection has favoured or maintained. There is, therefore, implied in his view a limitation of the ethical significance of the principle of natural selection. For, when we come to this crucial question of conduct, it is not allowed to give any criterion of moral validity. More comprehensive attempts on the same lines as Darwin’s have been made subsequently; and various writers have tried to show how the moral criterion may be resolved into social efficiency, or how it may be derived from a problematic future state of the human race on this earth when the need for struggle has disappeared and all things go smoothly. The former view may be found in Sir Leslie Stephen’s ‘Science of Ethics’; the latter is the peculiar property of Mr Herbert Spencer. Somewhat unwillingly I must for the present leave these special views without consideration, because I wish to bring out still more plainly the various attitudes of the evolutionists to morality, and especially to draw attention to a view very different from those just mentioned, though not altogether without support in Darwin, which, as put forward some years ago by the late Professor Huxley, produced no little flutter in scientific dovecots.

Professor Huxley reviewed what he called the cosmic process as it was guided by the law of evolution. He showed how at each step of that process new results were only attained by enormous waste and pain on the part of those living creatures which were thrust aside as unfit for their surroundings, and he held consequently that the whole cosmic process is of an entirely different character from what we must mean when we use the term ‘moral.’ According to him morality is opposed to the method of evolution, and cannot be based upon the theory of evolution. It is of independent worth; but Professor Huxley, perhaps wisely, refrained from investigating its justification, while enforcing “the apparent paradox that ethical nature, while born of cosmic nature, is necessarily at enmity with its parent”

“The practice of that which is ethically best what we call goodness or virtue involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of ruthless self-assertion it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect, but shall help, his fellows; its influence is directed, not so much to the survival of the fittest, as to the fitting of as many as possible to survive. It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence.... Let us understand once for all that the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it."

Here, then, is a view very different from the easy optimism of Mr Herbert Spencer. The cosmic order has nothing to say to the moral order, except that, somehow or other, it has given it birth; the moral order has nothing to say to the cosmic order, except that it is certainly bad. Morality is occupied in opposing the methods of evolution.

Still another view is possible. It may be held that the morality of self-restraint and self-sacrifice are opposed as Huxley says they are opposed to the methods of cosmic evolution; and yet the “gladiatorial theory of existence” may not be repudiated; but morality may be modified to suit the claims of evolution. This is the position adopted by the philosopher Nietzsche, whose whole thought is permeated by the idea of evolution. Like Professor Huxley, Nietzsche might say that morality is opposed to the cosmic process. But by morality he would mean something that is not to be encouraged, but that is to be shed from human life, or at least fundamentally transformed, just because it is in opposition to the laws of cosmic progress. On the other hand, the morality if we may use the term which the cosmic process teaches us will be a development of the conceptions of self-assertion and self-reliance, qualities which, according to ordinary morality the morality, for instance, of Professor Huxley require to be permeated and even superseded by self-restraint and possibly self-sacrifice in order that the moral law may be satisfied. Not obedience, not mutual help, not benevolence, but the will to rule or desire of power, is with Nietzsche fundamental, the primary impulse in the history of the whole progress of the world, and still of first importance for the further development of mankind.

This view is at the opposite extreme from Huxley’s, for it overlooks the advantages mankind has gained by means of the social instinct and the social solidarity which it secures. But there is a further point in Nietzsche’s réflexions which is suggested by the theory of development. Natural selection is not the sole agent in the development of organic life: it cannot be too often enforced that natural selection produces nothing, that its operation is purely negative. It does not properly select at all, it only excludes. What it does is to cut off the unfit specimens of living beings which nature supplies. It would have no field of operation were it not for the variety of nature. While individuals tend to repeat the characteristics of their parents, they do not repeat them without change: the principle of heredity is counterbalanced by a principle of variety equally hard to explain. All organic life exhibits this tendency to variation; and one variation proves better adapted than another to the environment. It is this which makes possible the operation of ‘natural selection.’ Unfit varieties are exterminated by natural selection, and room is thus left for varieties which are fit to perpetuate themselves and to increase in efficiency.

Now, if we apply this conception to human conduct, should we not encourage all varieties to carry on their experiments in living and in morality so that we may see whether success will justify them? An affirmative answer to this question is sometimes vaguely hinted at; by Nietzsche it is proclaimed from the housetops.

“There is no monopoly of morals, and every morality which exclusively asserts itself destroys too much good strength, and is too dearly bought by mankind. The straying ones, who so often are the inventive and productive ones, shall no longer be sacrificed; it shall not even be deemed a disgrace to stray from morals either in deeds or thoughts; numerous new experiments shall be made in matters of life and society; an enormous incubus of bad conscience shall be removed from the world these are the general aims which ought to be recognised and furthered by all honest and truth-seeking people."

Reflecting for a moment on what precedes, we may observe that, from the mouths of the evolutionists themselves, we have encountered three different views regarding the ethical significance of evolution. In the first place, there is the view of Darwin that natural selection is a criterion of moral fitness only up to a certain stage, and that the noblest part of man’s morality is independent of this test; in the second place, there is the view of Huxley that morality is entirely opposed to the cosmic process as ruled by natural selection; and, in the third place, there is the view of Nietzsche that the principles of biological development (variation, that is to say, and natural selection) should be allowed free play so that, in the future as in the past, successful variations may be struck out by triumphant egoism. Neither these views, nor the still more elaborate treatment of Spencer, do I propose to examine in detail. But I wish to offer some réflexions upon the fundamental conception underlying them all, accounting in this way, perhaps, for the differences of opinion between Darwin and Spencer, Huxley and Nietzsche. The conception of natural selection and of evolution by natural selection is applied by men of science and by philosophers in three very different spheres, to three very different kinds of struggle or competition. There may be many different kinds of competition: it will be sufficient here to consider the three following:

First, there is the competition between individuals for individual life and success. Now, so far as we are dealing with this competition, the only qualities which natural selection will favour are of course the qualities which lead to the continuance and efficiency of the individual organism. The qualities ‘selected’ in this process are therefore only the self-assertive qualities, the qualities of strength, of courage, of prudence, and also of temperance.

But in the second place there is also, as I have already indicated and as was seen by Darwin (though he did not draw this distinction), a second kind of competition, the competition between groups. Now the group competition has as its end the continuance and efficiency of the group, be it horde or tribe or nation, or be it one of those subsidiary groups which enter into national life. In this competition between groups it is clear that those qualities will be favoured by natural selection which contribute to the efficiency of the group; and the qualities which contribute to the efficiency of the group are not those only which contribute to the efficiency of the individual, but also qualities implying self-restraint and even self-sacrifice on the part of one member of the group for the sake of other members of the group or of the group as a whole. The habit of obedience, for example, obedience to the authority of the group or its representative, may be of fundamental importance in maintaining the existence of the group as a group, although that habit of obedience has no place at all in promoting the interests of the individual when he is competing with other individuals.

Thirdly, there is still another kind of competition which is a little more difficult to make quite clear, because it is not on the plane of individual life and it is not to be identified with the life of the community. It is a competition on the intellectual level, the competition between ideas, and with this one may also couple (so far as it does not directly concern the struggle for social existence and thus belong to the second class) the competition between institutions, including therein also habits and customs. The various institutions in our national life, and the various habits of our life, may be said to be forms which have to maintain themselves often in competition with other and antagonistic forms of institution. The same holds of our various ideas or general conceptions, whether about morality, which we have now specially in view, or about matters more purely intellectual. For instance, forty or fifty years ago, there was a fierce controversy amongst biologists between the group of ideas represented by Darwin’s theory and the group of ideas represented by the traditional view of the fixity of species. There was a long conflict between these two groups of ideas, and we may now say that the Darwinian group of ideas has emerged from the conflict victorious.

Now, when the phrase ‘natural selection in morals’ is used, the reference is commonly to a conflict of this last kind. The suggestion is that different ideas and also different standards of action are manifested at the same time within the same community, that they compete with one another for existence, and that gradually those which are better adapted to the life of the community survive, while the others grow weaker and in the end disappear. In this way the law of natural selection is made to apply to moral ideas and moral standards, and also to intellectual standards and to the institutions and customs in which our ideas are expressed.

These, then, are the three ways in which the competition in man’s life and the selection between the competing factors is carried out. And sometimes I think one sees a tendency to suggest that this needs only to be stated, and that the whole question of the application of evolution to ethics is then settled. You may say that such and such moral qualities, as for instance the quality of sympathy, do not aid the individual in competition with other individuals. The reply might be No, but they aid the group in competition with other groups. Or you may say, as Darwin said, that even this competition will not account for the civilised development of sympathy. But even so we are not at the end of our tether; and we can fall back on the conflict of ideas. The idea of sympathy or of altruism, for instance, may conflict with some other idea, such as that of egoism. At first the competition is a group-competition, in which the group with altruistic members succeeds at the expense of the egoistic group. By the victory of the former our society becomes more and more a society whose basis is sympathy and all that sympathy implies, while conflicting ideas lose the lead. So in general with the competition of ideas: the idea which fails to adapt itself to its conditions will disappear, and the idea which is thus adapted will persist; and this also (it is said) is just natural selection. Now I venture to ask the question, Is it? I will put the question whether all these three processes are really forms of the same process, or, in other words and to put the matter more simply, Is it simply natural selection that is operative in all these different forms of competition?

For the sake of clearness I will take first this last-mentioned form of competition, the process by which one idea drives another out of the intellectual or moral currency of a community. The competition between the idea of fixity of species and Darwin’s idea of the unity of life has been already cited as an instance; and it was pointed out that, gradually and after a controversy of some forty years, the former idea almost disappeared, and in the minds at any rate of those who know, the Darwinian theory became victorious. Was it natural selection that brought about the result? To test the matter let us ask once more how natural selection operates. Its mode of operation is always simply negative. And if, in the struggle of life, it selects the courageous man rather than the coward, the temperate man rather than the intemperate, the method by which this result is reached is simple: when it comes to a conflict the courageous man kills the coward or reduces him to subjection; the intemperate man has less vitality than the temperate: he too disappears, although perhaps gradually.

Take again the group-competition so far as it is influenced by natural selection. The tribe which manifests the qualities of social solidarity is selected simply in this way, that when it comes into conflict with a tribe which has not this solidarity the latter is beaten, and is thus unable to obtain the pastures or the hunting-ground which it desires, and therefore gradually or swiftly it is exterminated or left behind in the race for life. Now, I ask, Did this process take place when Darwinism supplanted the traditional theory of the fixity of species? Surely it is clear that it is only in the rarest cases that false or inadequate ideas on such subjects have any tendency to shorten life or weaken health. Bishop Wilberforce was killed by a fall from his horse, not by the triumphant dialectic of Professor Huxley. Sir Richard Owen lived to a patriarchal old age, and did not disappear from the face of the earth because he still clung to an idea which the best intellect of his time had relinquished. There is nothing in the doctrine of the fixity of species if you hold it which will in the least degree tend to diminish vitality. Natural selection has practically no effect at all in exterminating those who adhere to this idea. There is no means of livelihood from which it would exclude them except indeed that it might prevent them from occupying Chairs of Biology. Apart from that I do not think it will hinder them in any of the various modes of activity in which the struggle for life is manifested.

What was it then that led to the victory of the one idea over the other? The cause was intellectual. With the experts, it was logical conviction: one set of ideas was found to fit the facts somewhat better than the other set of ideas. With men in general the intellectual change came more slowly and in a different way: they adopted or imitated the ideas of those who knew. It was therefore not natural selection at all which led to the presence and power of the one idea rather than the other in the minds of thoughtful men. One idea was deliberately accepted and the other deliberately rejected. The former was accepted on grounds of which the most general account would be, if we may use the term, to call them subjective. But natural selection is a physical, external, objective process. It is carried out without the individual’s volition: he is not aiming at the end. It is simply natural law which, with many varieties of living beings before it, exterminates the unfit individuals. Thus nature in its own blind way produces a result of the same kind as that which the will of man would bring about by subjective selection.

The origin of this term ‘natural selection’ is overlooked when people talk glibly about ‘natural selection’ of ideas. Darwin used the term ‘natural selection’ because he thought he saw an analogy between the tendency of nature and the selective purposes of intelligent beings. It was because nature, working without intelligence, produced the same kind of result as man does by intelligent selection, that he ventured to use this term ‘selection’ of the process of nature. Perhaps he was hardly justified in adopting the term, as nature does not select; she only passes by. At the same time, artificial selection also includes, although it is not limited to, this negative or weeding-out process. When you select a certain plant for growth in your garden you weed out the neighbouring plants which encroach upon it, so as to give it a chance to grow and thrive. By removing its competitors, you let air and light surround the plant, and it spreads its leaves to the sun. The healthy growth which results is due to the removal of obstacles by an external power; and it is in this way by the removal of obstacles that natural selection works.

Intelligent or artificial selection is not restricted to this negative method of working; and its operation, positive as well as negative, was certainly well known long before Darwin’s day. Starting with the familiar facts of artificial or purposive selection, Darwin showed how results similar to those aimed at and reached in this way might be brought about by the operation of certain natural laws, working without purpose or design. Purposive selection pursues its ends more directly and in general attains them far more quickly than does natural selection. A still more striking characteristic is the fact that it does not entail the waste and pain which mark the course of natural selection. Witness the records of natural selection in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, where thousands are called into fruitless being that one alone may survive and prosper. Wastefulness is the most striking feature of its method, and its path is strewn with wreckage. In all these respects the conflict of ideas belongs to the level of purposive and not of natural selection. It involves consciousness of the end, which natural selection never does; it is comparatively rapid in reaching its goal and comparatively direct in the route it takes; and the victory of an idea does not take effect through any general extermination of the individuals who cherish ideas ‘unfit’ for survival.

I do not deny that there may be a certain natural selection in the case of human beings; but that process is always clumsy and slow and wasteful, and the purposive intelligent selection which takes its place is one of the greatest possible gains to living beings: its presence distinguishes men from animals; its predominance distinguishes civilised men from savages; the higher the stage of civilisation, the more marked is the development of selective intelligence. And in the conflict of ideas, whether moral or intellectual, the issue is determined by a selection which is predominantly purposive, and only in the slightest degree natural.

If we return to the conflict of groups we shall see that even there purposive selection enters. How (we may ask) do those qualities of obedience, willingness to help another, and the like, arise in a community and thus enable it to win the victory over a less organised or more savage enemy? Surely it is not a sufficient answer to say that these qualities have been somehow developed, and then have contributed to the victory of the community possessing them. All through civilised life, and probably throughout a great part of savage life, there is the keenest enquiry into and perception of the qualities which will make for success. These qualities are carefully selected and positively fostered. You drill your armies that is, you cultivate the habit of discipline and all that discipline implies so that the victory may be gained; in other words, the quality is not produced by natural selection at all. The issue may resemble the result of natural selection, for it leads to conflict and defeat of the unfit; but the conqueror is he who has foreseen the conditions of the struggle: has deliberately equipped his forces for the fight, and been the intelligent organiser of victory.

Even in the case of competition between individuals, at least among civilised men, it is clear that natural selection is very far from being the only factor. A man trains himself for a profession. It does not just somehow come about that a number of people accidentally develop certain varieties of occupation, and that natural selection makes play with this result, cutting off the unfit and leaving only those who are fairly well adapted to their positions. Something of this sort no doubt takes place to a limited extent; but, so far as it does take place, our methods are denounced as defective and, perhaps, as old-fashioned. ‘Haphazard’ is a wasteful principle, and should be superseded by intelligent initiative and deliberate preparation. And this indeed is the usual process. One adapts oneself carefully and of set purpose to the conditions of one’s life, instead of simply waiting for natural selection to cut one off should one happen to be unfit.

Even among animals there are certain processes which cannot be brought under natural selection. There are the first efforts, slight as they may be, towards learning by experience. There are also all those facts which Darwin classes under sexual selection, where there is a positive choosing, due no doubt not to intelligent purpose but nevertheless to a subjective impulse. This marks the beginning of the end of the reign of natural selection, because in it for the purely objective or external factor there is substituted an internal, subjective factor; instead of the process of cutting off unsuitable individuals among chance varieties there appears the process of selecting that variety which pleases or attracts.

The result of this whole investigation is that natural selection cannot be properly applied so as to explain the conflict of moral ideas. It is not able to account for all the phenomena of the competition between groups. Even in sub-human life there are indications of the processes which supersede natural selection. From this result the ethical consequence may be drawn, that there is no good ground for taking the lower, the less developed, method of selection as our guide in preference to the higher and more developed. Surely we are not to take natural selection as the sole factor of ethical import because we see it at the crude beginnings of life on this earth, while the process of life itself in its higher ranges passes beyond natural selection. The physiological interpretation of life and conduct put forward by Nietzsche, and by a good many biological philosophers, would take natural selection, and its bearing upon the animal nature of man, as the sole test of efficiency and ethical value. But this interpretation of man’s life disregards the achievements of evolution itself for the sake of pinning its faith to the humble beginnings of the organic process.

After this long enquiry into the nature and scope of natural selection, we should be better prepared to understand the degree and kind of ethical significance which can be rightly assigned to the theory of evolution. In the first place let us consider the now familiar claim that man must be taken as part of the cosmos, and that man’s conduct must be regarded and studied in its place in the cosmic process. At the time when it was first made this claim may have seemed a startling one; but I think that we must admit that, keeping to their own ground and using the instruments that are theirs by right, the evolutionist writers have succeeded in showing man’s connexion with the animal kingdom and with organic life generally, and thus his place in the whole cosmic process. The claim must therefore be admitted.

But if man is part of the universe, then the universe is not intelligible apart from man, and the cosmic process is not fully understood unless we also have an understanding of human activity. This, therefore, is the counter-claim that I would suggest. The course and method of evolution, or of the ’cosmic process’ to use Huxley’s term is imperfectly described if the methods and principles of human action are left out of account.

No doubt the reply may be made, as the reply has been made, that after all man occupies but a minute space in the cosmos, that he is but an insignificant speck on an unimportant planet. But, if this is at all meant to imply that we may safely leave the peculiarities of human activity out of account, then I say that the suggestion hardly deserves consideration. Surely the assumption is too gross and unwarrantable that material magnitude is the standard of importance, or that the significance of man’s life can be measured by the size of his material organism. We must therefore never delude ourselves with the idea that we have a full account of the cosmos or the cosmic process unless we have taken account of the peculiarities of man’s nature and man’s activity.

In the second place, the discussion of the principle of natural selection suggests a further reflexion. The process of natural selection is a process which always tends to some end, because by it some organisms are selected, and they are the organisms which are fittest to live. By ‘fittest’ is of course meant that which is best adapted to the environment, or, as it is simply a question of survival, that which so fits the conditions of the environment that it is able to survive. The canon of the principle of natural selection is on the face of it relative. No one would say that the principle can be interpreted as an absolute law for conduct, after the fashion of the absolute laws laid down by the rationalist moralists; what is involved is simply a gelation to one’s surroundings. One must keep in touch with them, one must adapt oneself to them, in order to live.

But I wish to point out that the principle is not only relative, but that its relation is limited to certain features of the environment which surrounds mankind, namely, to those features and those features only which prevent organisms unsuited to the conditions of life from surviving at all. The only way in which natural selection works is by killing off rapidly or gradually the organisms which are not fitted to obtain from the environment the means of life that is to say, it has to do with life only, with the continuance of life as a possible material phenomenon. Given that the organisms are fit enough to survive, given that their animal vitality is not diminished, a question remains: what is the standard of worthy survival? and to that question the process and principle of natural selection can give no answer. To use the old distinction: even if it is able to account for being, it can give no standard for wellbeing.

Now the environment of civilised man is a great deal larger in range than those material phenomena which contribute to his nourishment and thus to his existence as an animal organism. No doubt his first effort is to maintain himself as an animal that is the condition of all his subsequent activity but he seeks also to suit himself to an environment which is wider and subtler than merely animal conditions of life; to adapt himself to society, perhaps only as a member of it, perhaps also as a leader or reformer; to adapt himself to the dominant ideas of his time, absorbing them, perhaps also modifying them; to adapt himself to a whole region of interests which may in our life be built upon an animal basis, but of which the animal basis gives no explanation interests social, artistic, intellectual, spiritual.

It is correct, therefore, to say of man that his environment is much larger than the material universe; it is whatever he conceives the universe as being, and whatever it can be for him: whether he seeks from it merely intellectual understanding, whether he regards it as a vehicle for artistic production, or whether he may see in it an opportunity for realising his own being by fulfilling the will of God perhaps by submerging his own individuality in deity. The objects of philosophy, art, and religion, all these are parts of the environment of civilised man, and yet his self-adaptation to them has no direct effect whatever upon his continuance on the earth as an animal organism. In other words, the process of natural selection can give us no canon at all for putting a value upon these various activities, or upon the way in which man adapts himself to these parts of his environment.

It is said by Mr Herbert Spencer that “we must interpret the more developed by the less developed"; and the inference would seem to be that, as animal existence is the basis of all higher activities, we must interpret these by it. But if this claim can be admitted at all, it can only be if our aim goes no further than to trace a historical process. If we desire to understand capacity or function still more if we speak of worth or goodness then it is much more correct to say that we must interpret the less developed by the more developed. If you wish to trace the growth of the oak-tree from its earliest beginnings to maturity, then study the acorn and the soil; but if you wish to know what the capacity and the function of the acorn are, then you must interpret the less developed by the more developed, you must see what an oak is like when it spreads its branches under the heavens.

In the third place, the way in which the action of natural selection differs according to circumstances affects its ethical significance. It operates as between individuals, and it operates as between groups, although in the latter operation especially it is always mixed with other forces than natural selection. The competition between individuals favours egoistic qualities, the competition between groups favours qualities which may be called altruistic.

Now no principle whatever can be got out of the theory of natural selection, or out of the evolution theory in general, which will decide between these divergent operations. The question may be put, Are we to cultivate the qualities which will give us success in the battle of individual with individual, or are we to cultivate in ourselves qualities which will contribute to the success of the community? All the answer that the evolution theory can give to this question is, that when individual fights with individual, the man with stronger egoistic qualities will succeed, and that when group fights group, those groups that possess stronger altruistic qualities will tend to success. But which set of qualities we are to cultivate, or whether we are to manifest a sort of balance of the two, is a question upon which we can get no light from the theory of evolution considered by itself. And consequently we find a very prevalent, though perhaps hardly ever definitely expressed, code of conduct according to which the individual takes as the guide for his own action the egoistic qualities which give success in the struggle between different individuals, but recommends to all his fellows in the same community that they should cultivate those altruistic qualities which will lead to the advantage of society.

The theory of evolution makes no contribution at all to these questions of worth or validity or moral value which we have been discussing. All one can get out of it is certain canons for living, but none for good living. It may draw one’s attention to this fact, if anybody’s attention needs to be drawn to it, that existence is prior to wellbeing; but what the nature of wellbeing is upon that it throws no light.

We have been met by the suggestion that we should interpret by means of the lower or less developed, and again that we should set up a purely physiological standard. But the suggestion overlooks two things: first of all, the difficulties in the application of natural selection itself with its divergent tendencies; and, secondly, the fact that this process of evolution has itself resulted in the development of certain higher activities and higher tendencies, and that there is no good ground for holding that their worth is to be tested by means of the lower qualities out of which they have grown.

Now a good many evolutionist moralists seem to see this, and accordingly restrict themselves almost entirely to what we may call the historical point of view. They show how moral customs and moral ideas adapted to them have arisen, and how these ideas and customs have corresponded with the institutions of the time to which they belonged. Their tendency, accordingly, is to restrict ethics to the question of origin and history and description, to deprive it altogether of what is sometimes called its normative character that is to say, its character as a science which lays down rules or sets up ideals for conduct. They would take away from it altogether the power of determining and establishing a criterion between right and wrong. In other words, the fundamental ethical question would be entirely excluded from the scope of the science of ethics.

That, so far as I can see, is the tendency of a good deal of quite recent writing from the point of view of the evolution school: in the face of controversy and in the face of difficulties to give up the attempt which they started on so confidently thirty years ago, the attempt to show that evolution affords a means of deciding between right and wrong and of establishing an ideal for human conduct. Failing in this attempt, they seem to turn round and say that ethics should content itself with describing facts instead of laying down a law or setting up an ideal.

Now, whatever truth there may be in the assertion of the difficulty of determining an ideal for conduct, there is one thing certain: that whether or not the ideal can be philosophically or scientifically defined and established, some ideal is always being set up. Human action implies choice, implies the selection of one course rather than another; and the course that is chosen is always chosen for some reason, because it seems better than the course which is passed by. Choice always follows some kind of principle. We may use different principles at different times, we may use badly established principles, we may use uncriticised principles, but principles we do use, and we cannot act voluntarily without using them, even when we are not definitely conscious of them.

It is not possible, therefore, to entertain the suggestion that these principles should be excluded from ethics. Ethics must consider them, even if it should fail in reaching a correct account of them. We are bound to ask, for instance, what principles can decide between those divergent tendencies brought to light by natural selection, between the conditions of success for the group and the conditions of success for the individual? The conflict between individual development and group development is continually pressing to the front The individual cannot reach a high stage of development except in and through a highly developed society. But the efficiency which a highly developed society requires of its members is not the same as individual development; it more commonly implies a specialisation which tends to warp or cramp individual capacity. This is a long familiar opposition. And the theory of evolution can do nothing to reconcile it All it can say is that in certain cases natural selection points one way, and that in certain cases it points the other way. If ethical significance be claimed for it, it must be said that natural selection is divided against itself, and that it is without any principle for reconciling its own divergences.

It is because biological evolution is essentially an historical doctrine that its votaries should not be too eager to apply it directly to ethics. It has accomplished much if able to tell us how things have happened in the past, without also dictating how they ought to take place now. It is specially absurd to say that earlier methods must govern later developments. That is what is done when we are asked to take as our guide in voluntary choice a principle which ignores volition. The whole progress from animal to man and from savage to civilised man shows a gradual supersession of the principle of natural selection by a principle of subjective selection which steadily grows in purposiveness and in intelligence. To say that intelligence should take nature as its guide is to ask civilised man to put off both his civilisation and his manhood.

The course of evolution may describe the working of different principles; but it cannot of itself supply a test of their value. How then is such a test to be got? Can Metaphysics help us? I have pointed out that the evolutionist ethics is relative implying always a relation between organism and environment but this relativity is qualified by its objective character. It does do something for morals: it brings man’s conduct into relation with the world as a whole. No doubt the environment which more immediately surrounds man is a succession of changing phenomena, so that although the basis we get is objective, nevertheless it is unable to give us a permanent standard of reference. At the same time we may trace in this theory some advance on the older types of ethical thinking spoken of in last lecture. Subjectivity adhered even to the Utilitarian type of thought: for what can be more subjective than the pleasant feeling upon which morality is made by it to depend? There was also a certain subjectivity attaching to the Intuitional type of thought, because the Intuitionists simply referred their judgments to conscience, the law in man, and did not connect conscience with a wider or more objective view of the universe.

The suggestion remains that we may get a basis for morality which is both objective and permanent from that more complete view of the universe which is given or which is sought by metaphysics. Metaphysics aims at completeness. That is, indeed, its predominant characteristic as a body of knowledge. It may begin with the part, if you like, with the ‘flower in the crannied wall’; but when that is seen in all its relations to the rest of the world, then you will ’know what God and man is,’ If the universe is a whole, then, beginning at any point, with any detail, if you only push the enquiry far enough, you are bound to become metaphysical: for you are attempting to understand reality as a whole.

In this Metaphysics resembles Religion. Both seek the ultimate, the final, the whole. But Metaphysics is distinguished from Religion in seeking the whole only by way of knowledge. So far it is like any other science. It is a process or the result of a process of knowledge. It seeks to know reality as a whole, and in knowing a part to know it in its relations to the whole. Religion also considers everything in its relation to the whole. But in religion knowledge is not the fundamental thing: its object is to relate man to God, in his consciousness, and in his life as a whole.

The theory of evolution itself very often tends to become a metaphysical theory. It does so when it holds the course of development which it traces to be either itself the ultimate reality or the most adequate appearance of that reality. This theory is now commonly known by the name of Naturalism; according to it the facts dealt with by the natural sciences are the only reality which is knowable; man’s nature is part of these and has to be adapted to them, and there is nothing further with which it can be brought into relation. This theory is not the same as the scientific theory of evolution, nor is it a necessary consequence of it; but in the minds of many the two go together. The conclusion of the preceding argument that the ethical significance of evolution is not deep enough to give any answer to the fundamental question of morals is not a criticism of the theory of evolution so far as restricted to the domain of science, but it is a criticism of the Naturalism which professes to be a final philosophy.