THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF MORALITY.
[Sidenote: 1. General characteristics of the theory of evolution:]
To relinquish the individualistic theory of ethics does not
necessarily imply a recourse to evolution. It may still be possible
to rest the foundation of ethics on the state, without that view of
the growth of the community and of its connection with the individual
which the theory of evolution involves. This, as has already been
pointed out, was, in part, what Bentham did; while an attempt--in
some respects more elaborate still--to deduce morality from society
was made by Hobbes. The theory of Bentham, and of his successor
Professor Bain, is indeed partly individualistic, partly social.[106]
In the former reference, ethics becomes a theory of prudence; in
the latter, a part of legislation. With Hobbes, on the other hand,
the identification of individual and social interests is supposed
to be brought about by the absolute necessity, in order to personal
security, of a supreme political power, into the hands of which all
men have agreed to transfer their rights to all things. But both
Hobbes and Professor Bain might have avoided obvious difficulties had
they had the theory of evolution to assist them, and had they thought
themselves justified in making use of it.[107] For want of it the
former has to explain morality and its binding force by means of the
fiction of an "original contract"; while the latter has to account by
the associations of a few years for the harmony of feeling between
the individual and the whole, and for the good of the community
coming to be so faithfully reflected in the consciences of its
members. The theory of evolution, by its doctrine of the hereditary
transmission of acquired modifications, gives a scientific basis for
this existing solidarity between man and society.
The great consensus of opinion amongst those who are best qualified
to judge--amongst those who alone are qualified to judge--may be
regarded as having established the claim of the theory of evolution
to give the most satisfactory account of all forms of natural life.
And it may seem only advancing the theory a step further, or only
developing one of its applications, to make it yield a complete
explanation of human nature, mental as well as physical. If ethics,
then, is to be founded on a "natural" basis, no theory would seem to
be complete which leaves evolution out of account.
[Sidenote: an assertion of the unity of life;]
In general, the theory of evolution is an assertion of the unity of
life, or, in its widest form, of the unity of existence. Progressive
modifications and hereditary transmission of such modifications
are, it is contended, sufficient to explain the different forms
and species which life now manifests. The assumption is specially
discarded that there are fixed differences between kinds of living
things making it impossible for them all to have developed from
simple germs, originally of like constitution, which have, in the
course of time, become more heterogeneous and complex, and so given
rise to the wealth of organic life. But this general doctrine, held
(wholly or in part) in modern times by Kant, Wolff, and Lamarck,
needed to be supplemented by a definite view of the way in which
the progressive modifications took place; and this required to be
established as a really operative cause, before evolution could
receive scientific proof. This more special element of the theory
was Darwin's contribution to the subject. Evolution, he showed,--and
herein consists his theoretical advance on Lamarck,--has taken place
by the "natural selection" of organisms, so modified as to fit them
for survival in the struggle for existence. Organisms in which
advantageous modifications have been produced tend to survive, and
to transmit their modified structure to descendants, while organisms
in which such modifications have not been produced, are less able to
preserve their life and to hand it on to successors. Older types, it
is true, remain, but only in circumstances in which their continued
existence does not seriously interfere with the organisms which, in
the struggle for life, have developed a structure better suited to
their environment: when more perfect and less perfect forms cannot
exist together, only the better adapted survive.
[Sidenote: in first instance, historical;]
[Sidenote: but implies a teleological aspect, which may have ethical
consequences.]
The theory of evolution is thus primarily the history of an order of
sequent facts and relations. It is an account of the origin or growth
of things, which attempts to explain their nature and constitution
by showing how they have come to be what they are. But, in so doing,
it naturally reveals the method and tendency of this order. And it
is by means of this its teleological aspect that we see how it may
be possible for it not merely to trace the development of historical
facts, such as the feelings and customs of men, but at the same
time to make a more real contribution to ethics by pointing out the
course of action to which human nature is adapted. It does not,
like the old teleology, attempt to show that each thing has been
formed with the design of subserving some particular purpose. On the
contrary, it reverses this way of looking at things. The fitness of
an organism to fulfil any definite end comes to be regarded as the
result not of a conscious design, independent of the environment, but
of the modifications produced on the organism through the necessity
laid upon it by its surroundings of adapting itself to them or
else disappearing. What the theory does show is, that adaptation
to environment is necessary for life, and that organisms unable to
adapt themselves pass away. Adaptation to environment will thus be
implied in, or be an essential means towards, self-preservation
and race-preservation, self-development and race-development. And
should this preservation or development be looked upon as the end of
conduct, the adaptation to environment it implies may help to define
and characterise the end.
Again: when an organism adapts itself to its environment, it does so
by some modification being produced in its structure corresponding
to the modified function required by the conditions of life. In this
way, one organism increases in complexity in a certain direction,
while another organism, in different circumstances, also develops
a more complicated structure, though one of a different kind. Thus
organisms, alike to begin with, become heterogeneous in nature
through exposure to different surroundings. At the same time, by
constant interaction with their environments, they become more
definite and coherent in structure. Incipient modifications are
developed and defined in different ways by different circumstances,
and the parts of a living being are brought into closer reciprocal
relations, and thus welded into a coherent organic whole. This
is what Mr Spencer means when he says that evolution implies a
transition from "an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite
coherent heterogeneity":[108] the whole process being interconnected
in such a way that these different aspects of it--definiteness,
coherence, heterogeneity--increase together and imply one another. By
this the inference would appear to be suggested that, if conduct is
to harmonise with the conditions of evolution, this characteristic
feature of it must be recognised in the ethical end.
[Sidenote: Distinction of its historical and ethical aspects.]
In saying this, I am perhaps anticipating results. But it is well to
show at the outset how the essentially historical inquiry carried
out by the evolutionists may suggest conclusions which are ethical
in their nature. To some, indeed, it will appear superfluous to have
spent even a sentence in suggesting a _primâ facie_ case for the
ethical importance of evolution. If there is one subject more than
another, it may be thought, which has secured a place for itself in
the scientific consciousness of the day, it is the evolution-theory
of ethics. Without question, the phrase has been received into the
scientific vocabulary; but there is a good deal, even in the official
literature on the question, to make one doubt whether it is always
used with a distinct conception of its meaning. When reference is
made to the "ethics of evolution," no more is sometimes meant--though
a great deal more should be meant--than an historical account of the
growth of moral ideas and customs, which may provide (as Mr Stephen
expresses it) "a new armoury wherewith to encounter certain plausible
objections of the so-called Intuitionists." This, however, would only
affect the ethical psychology of an opposed school. The profounder
question still remains, What bearing has the theory of evolution,
or its historical psychology and sociology, on the nature of the
ethical end, or on the standard for distinguishing right and wrong in
conduct? The answer to this question will be the "reconstruction"
and "deeper change" which Mr Stephen holds to be necessary.[109] It
is the ambiguity of the subject--or rather its twofold range--which
has made the application of evolution to ethics look so obvious,
and made a discussion of the easier question frequently do duty
for a solution of the more difficult. The ethical writings of the
evolutionists, indeed, often confuse the problems of history and
theory in a way which presents the same difficulty to the critic as
the works of the corresponding school in jurisprudence. In both, the
writers seem disinclined fairly to put to themselves the question as
to the kind of subjects to which so fruitful a method as that which
has fallen into their hands is appropriate: what its conditions are,
and whether it has any limits at all. Every one is now familiar with
the evils of hypothetical history, and with the iniquity of the
proverbial philosophic offence of constructing facts out of one's
inner consciousness. The historical jurists deserve no little credit
for the thoroughness with which this has been enforced by them;
perhaps, too, the same lesson may be learned from the facts of the
development of morality. But it may be questioned whether we are
not at the present time more apt to confuse fact and theory in the
opposite way: whether the science of law is not sometimes lost sight
of in the history of legal institutions, and ethics in danger of
being identified with the development of moral sentiments and customs.
We may naturally expect the theory of evolution to throw light on
such questions as the growth of moral feelings and ideas, and of
the customs and institutions in which morality is expressed and
embodied. But to show the process morality has passed through in
the individual mind and in society still leaves the question as to
the end of conduct unanswered. It is necessary, therefore, to keep
clearly before us the distinction between the historical and the
ethical problem, if we would successfully attack the subject of the
bearing of the theory of evolution on this fundamental question of
ethics. To the theory of evolution we are indebted for the opening
up of a new field of investigation--the historical treatment of
conduct. But it is one thing to describe the way in which men have
acted in the past: to determine the end for their action now is quite
a different problem; and there is no reason why the distinction
should be overlooked. The interest which belongs to the history of
morality is not solely nor mainly due to its bearing on questions
beyond the historical sphere. That its results will not be without
relation--and that of an important kind--to questions of theory may
well be expected. But it can only tend to confusion if we treat the
development of morality, in the human mind and in society, from a
preconceived attitude--dogmatic or agnostic--towards the central
problem of ethics.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 2. The development of morality: (_a_) historical
psychology.]
The way in which the theory of evolution is applied to ethical
psychology is easy enough to understand in principle, though complex
and obscure in many of its details. We have only to postulate that
mental as well as bodily traits admit of modification, and that
modifications once produced can be transmitted to descendants,[110]
and it at once follows that sentiments and ideas leading to actions
which promote life will be encouraged and developed by natural
selection. Thus parental and filial feelings, once originated, may
have been developed through those families and tribes in which they
were strongest, presenting a more united, and therefore stronger,
front against hostile influences. The feelings of tribal sympathy
and patriotism, too, may have had a similar history. Those races in
which they were strongest would, other things being equal, obtain
the mastery over and exterminate other races in which they were
relatively weak. The compactness of the community would even be
promoted by that fear of the political and of the religious control
in which the feeling of obligation is said to have had its root.
In general, benevolence and sympathy amongst a people give it a
solidarity from which it derives a stronger position, so that in turn
the benevolent and sympathetic feelings gain free scope to develop
and expand.
[Sidenote: Its difficulties: the origin of new feelings,]
[Sidenote: and of the moral consciousness;]
But the working out of this theory is not without its own
difficulties. In the first place, the factor in the theory of
evolution which can be most clearly traced--the principle of natural
selection--is not itself a source of change or of the production
of new results. It is only the means by which advantageous changes
are preserved and disadvantageous changes passed by. The initiative
in these changes comes either from the unequal pressure of the
environment or from some tendency to vary in the organism itself.
Now, if we suppose certain moral relations and the feelings
corresponding to them to exist in a society, and to tend to greater
certainty and fulness of life on the part of those who possess them,
such relations and feelings will be favoured by the operation of
natural selection, and will gradually be assimilated into the tissue
of the social organism. But this does not account for the origin of
morality generally nor of any particular moral relation; it merely
shows how, having been somehow originated, it has naturally come
to persist. There are thus really two points to be considered in
tracing the development of moral ideas--the question of origin and
the question of persistence. The latter is accounted for by natural
selection; the former must be brought under the obscure laws of
variation, laws so obscure that variations in nature are frequently
spoken of as if they took place by chance. These two questions
are involved at each stage in the progress of morality. But it is
at the initial stage that the question of origin is of greatest
importance: when the attempt is made to show how, in the course of
time, and by the aid of purely physical and biological laws, feelings
and conduct, from being merely natural and reflex, have acquired a
moral character--when, in a word, the moral is being evolved out of
the non-moral. A difficulty comes to the front here which scarcely
arises when we are simply tracing the various phases through which
the moral consciousness has passed, and the various forms in which
moral conduct and feelings have expressed and embodied themselves.
The latter subject is obviously within the scope of the theory of
evolution, if that theory applies to the processes of the human mind
and society as well as to those of external nature. And, although
each stage involves a modification to be accounted for not by natural
selection, but by the laws of variation, yet the variation is within
facts of the same order, and creates no more difficulty than the
successive modifications of living tissue which have been implied
in the evolution of organic nature. But the transition from the
non-moral to the moral is a transition to a different order of facts
or--perhaps we should rather say--to a different way of looking at
facts, and should not be assumed to be a process of the same kind and
explicable by the same method of investigation as the passage from
one fact to the similar fact which immediately follows it. It may be
compared, perhaps, to the transition from the sphere of inorganic
matter to that of life. At the same time, it is frequently maintained
that we unduly limit the application of the law of evolution if we
deny its power to show how morality has developed out of customs
and institutions whose origin can be traced to purely natural or
non-moral causes. And, for present purposes, it is sufficient to have
pointed out that this does not necessarily follow from the admission
that evolution applies to mental and social processes as well as
to the facts of external nature. It is not my object to criticise
any doctrine of the development of morality; but, starting with the
position taken up with regard to it by the theory of evolution, to
inquire what conclusions it may lead to as to the end of action.
[Sidenote: the development of feelings apart from natural selection.]
A further difficulty has to be met by the theory of the development
of morality, which is in a sense complementary of the initial
difficulty encountered in differentiating the moral from the
non-moral. This further difficulty awaits it at a subsequent stage
of development when the extension and refinement of moral feeling
seem to have gone on in circumstances where there is no room for
natural selection to work. Thus it has been admitted that the feeling
of sympathy, and the habitual exercise of mutual good offices among
members of a community, strengthen that society, and make it fit to
prevail in the struggle for existence over other similar societies,
the members of which are not so much at one amongst themselves in
feeling and in act.
But as benevolence and sympathy widen, and become less closely
connected with a definite association of individuals, such as the
family or tribe, and there ceases to be a particular body to the
welfare of which these social feelings contribute, the operation of
the law of natural selection becomes less certain. This law only
tends to conserve and perfect the feelings in question, in virtue of
the fact that the associations to whose good they lead are successful
in the struggle for life over other associations the members of which
are not animated by like feelings. The one association lives and
expands, while the others are unable to maintain themselves against
the encroachments of their neighbours, and thus fall to pieces. The
law of natural selection, therefore, comes into play only when there
are competing organisms struggling against one another for the means
of subsistence and development. Not only is it the case, therefore,
that the sympathy which aids the weak who are unable to take care of
themselves, does not seem to be of the kind that would contribute
to success in the struggle for existence; but the more general and
catholic our sympathies are, the less will the law of evolution
help to preserve and develop them--because the less will they tend
to promote the welfare of one rival association rather than that of
another. Thus the growth of really unrestricted sympathy with men
as men cannot have been promoted in this way. The "enthusiasm of
humanity" which animated the early Christians, the self-renouncing
brotherhood of Buddha, the φιλανθρωπία (~philanthrôpia~) attributed
to men like Xenocrates[111] who had freed themselves from the
aristocratic prejudices of Athens, the "caritas generis humani" of
the Stoics,--such feelings as these could not have been encouraged,
any more than they could have been produced, by the operation of
natural selection. For, however much they tend to elevate the human
character, and to promote human happiness, they do not advance the
welfare of one body of men to the exclusion of some other competitor
in the struggle for existence.[112]
But, although the law of natural evolution cannot account, by
survival of the fittest, for any progress made by universal
benevolence, yet it may explain the value ascribed to the feeling
of benevolence, when its object is the family or the community.
Besides--as has already been pointed out--natural selection always
implies an initiative got from elsewhere: it does not itself produce
modifications; it only chooses out favourable ones and adds them
together when produced. It always implies an independent modification
of the organism; its part is to select the modifications best
fitted to promote life. Hence the mere fact of benevolence being
universalised is not in itself an anomaly on the theory of natural
selection, any more than is the fact of its being extended from the
family to the tribe. Only, the latter extension is one which it
perpetuates, the former is not. No aspect of the theory of evolution
seems able to account for an extension of the feeling of universal
benevolence among different people or throughout different societies.
This feeling has neither tended to promote the welfare of the race
animated by it to the exclusion of other competing races--for there
are no competing races whom it could affect--nor can it be shown that
it makes the individuals possessing it fitter to wage successful war
against opposing forces, than other individuals.[113]
[Sidenote: Its result: shows the social nature of the individual.]
Apart from such special difficulties, however, comparative psychology
has shed a new light on the mental structure of the individual.
The facts it brings forward show that the nature of the individual
man cannot be explained without taking into account the relations
in which he stands to society by birth, education, and business.
He is, from the first, surrounded by, and dependent upon, other
individuals, and by a set of established usages and institutions
which modify his life; and he is connected with these in such a way
that it is impossible to consider him as merely acted upon by them
and influencing them in turn. He has been produced by, and has become
a part of them. His physical and mental structure bears the marks of
the same influences as those by which his so-called environment has
been formed. He is cell in the "tissue" of which the body social
is composed. This was partly recognised, it is true, before the
theory of evolution had been elaborated. But the organic nature of
the social union is confirmed by that theory, and erected into a
scientific view of human life.
[Sidenote: (b) Development of society.]
Now the various sentiments which bring one man into mental union with
others act with greatest facility when men are connected with one
another by some definite mutual bond such as that which forms the
family, the clan, or the nation. The individual's feeling of sympathy
with his neighbours both promotes this social union and depends upon
it. But it is characteristic of the theory of evolution to put the
external aspect first--the social customs and institutions--and to
evolve from them the corresponding sentiments and ideas. Not word
or thought or power, it holds, is to be regarded as the origin of
morality: "Im Anfang war die That." The whole composed of these units
bound together by reciprocity of feeling and function is termed the
"social organism"; and what has been called moral sociology shows the
way in which the outward forms which express and embody morality have
grown up and become part of it.
In this connection, the theory of natural evolution traces the
process by which, from the rudimentary beginnings of society, the
members composing it have gradually become more coherent amongst one
another, related in definite ways instead of merely by chance, and
more differentiated in function. Certain rudimentary forms--such as
the family (in its rudest structure)--and the corresponding instincts
are presupposed. And from this basis the origin of institutions
and customs, political, religious, and industrial, is traced. In
developing these various customs and institutions, along with the
corresponding sentiments, the course of social evolution has had
the effect of gradually bringing out and cultivating those feelings
and tendencies in the individual which promote the welfare of the
organism, while other individual tendencies, hostile to social
welfare, have been repressed. Not sympathy and benevolence only,
but honesty, temperance, justice, and all the ordinary social
and personal virtues, may have their natural history traced in
this way--by showing how they have contributed to the life of the
individual, or of the society, or of both.[114] Through the operation
of purely natural laws, the wicked are "cut off from the earth,"
while the "perfect remain in it" and leave their possessions to their
children. This is an obvious result of natural selection. For those
communities are always fittest to survive in which each member, in
feeling and in act, is most at one with the whole. The _tendency_ of
evolution seems to be to produce not merely an ideal but an actual
identification of individual and social interests, in which each man
finds his own good in that of the state.
FOOTNOTES:
[106] The social basis of ethics is emphasised by Professor Bain in
his Practical Essays (1884), p. 155: "'How is society to be held
together?' is the first consideration; and the sociologist--as
constitution-builder, administrator, judge--is the person to
grapple with the problem. It is with him that law, obligation,
right, command, obedience, sanction, have their origin and their
explanation. Ethics is an important supplement to social or political
law. But it is still a department of law. In any other view it is a
maze, a mystery, a hopeless embroilment."
[107] Without denying that it is possible to apply the theory of
evolution to mind, Professor Bain holds that, as a fact, moral
sentiment has not become organic and hereditary--"that there are no
moral instincts properly so called."--The Emotions and the Will, 3d
ed., p. 56.
[108] First Principles, 4th ed., p. 380.
[109] Science of Ethics, p. vi.
[110] It would seem that the transmission of mental qualities only
takes place in the form of modified physical structure (cf. G. H.
Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind, 1st series, i. 164). But, if we
regard it as established that every mental change has a structural
modification corresponding to it, the possibility of mental evolution
and inheritance presents no new difficulty.
[111] Ælian, V. H., xiii. 30.
[112] If conscience has no other function than that assigned to it by
Clifford, Lectures and Essay, ii. 169, "the preservation of society
in the struggle for existence," then it can never reach universal
benevolence or prescribe "duties towards all mankind."
[113] A difficulty of another kind is suggested by Professor
Bain, who holds that the "pleasure of malevolence" is not only a
real element in the human constitution, but greater than would be
naturally called forth by the conditions and course of development.
"It is remarked by Mr Spencer," he says, "that it was necessary for
the progress of the race that destructive activity should not be
painful, but on the whole pleasurable. In point of fact, however,
the pleasure of destruction has gone much beyond what these words
express, and much beyond what is advantageous to the collective
interest of animals and of human beings alike. The positive delight
in suffering has been at all stages too great."--The Emotions and
the Will, p. 66. So far from adopting this argument, however, I must
confess myself still amongst the unconvinced regarding the "pleasure
of malevolence."
[114] This subject is carefully discussed in Mr Stephen's 'Science of
Ethics.'