with being ignorant of the distinction between material and formal
goodness, discusses the very question at issue, in a passage which
is well worth reading (vol. i.p. 87), and also comes to a conclusion
opposed to Mr. Mivart's axiom. A proposition which has been so much
disputed and repudiated, should, under no circumstances, have been
thus confidently assumed to be true. For myself, I utterly reject
it, inasmuch as the logical consequence of the adoption of any such
principle is the denial of all moral value to sympathy and affection.
According to Mr. Mivart's axiom, the man who, seeing another
struggling in the water, leaps in at the risk of his own life to save
him, does that which is "destitute of the most incipient degree of
real goodness," unless, as he strips off his coat, he says to himself,
"Now mind, I am going to do this because it is my duty and for no
other reason;" and the most beautiful character to which humanity
can attain, that of the man who does good without thinking about it,
because he loves justice and mercy and is repelled by evil, has no
claim on our moral approbation. The denial that a man acts morally
because he does not think whether he does so or not, may be put upon
the same footing as the denial of the title of an arithmetician to the
calculating boy, because he did not know how he worked his sums. If
mankind ever generally accept and act upon Mr. Mivart's axiom, they
will simply become a set of most unendurable prigs; but they never
have accepted it, and I venture to hope that evolution has nothing so
terrible in store for the human race.
But, if an action, the motive of which is nothing out affection or
sympathy, may be deserving of moral approbation and really good, who
that has ever had a dog of his own will deny that animals are capable
of such actions? Mr. Mivart indeed says:--"It may be safely affirmed,
however, that there is no trace in brutes of any actions simulating
morality which are not explicable by the fear of punishment, by the
hope of pleasure, or by personal affection" (p. 221). But it may
be affirmed, with equal truth, that there is no trace in men of any
actions which are not traceable to the same motives. If a man does
anything, he does it either because he fears to be punished if he
does not do it, or because he hopes to obtain pleasure by doing it, or
because he gratifies his affections[1] by doing it.
[Footnote 1: In separating pleasure and the gratification of
affection, I simply follow Mr. Mivart without admitting the justice of
the separation.]
Assuming the position of the absolute moralists, let it be granted
that there is a perception of right and wrong innate in every man.
This means, simply, that when certain ideas are presented to his
mind, the feeling of approbation arises; and when certain others, the
feeling of disapprobation. To do your duty is to earn the approbation
of your conscience, or moral sense; to fail in your duty is to feel
its disapprobation, as we all say. Now, is approbation a pleasure or
a pain? Surely a pleasure. And is disapprobation a pleasure or a pain?
Surely a pain. Consequently all that is really meant by the absolute
moralists is that there is, in the very nature of man, something which
enables him to be conscious of these particular pleasures and pains.
And when they talk of immutable and eternal principles of morality,
the only intelligible sense which I can put upon the words, is that
the nature of man being what it is, he always has been, and always
will be, capable of feeling these particular pleasures and pains. _A
priori_, I have nothing to say against this proposition. Admitting its
truth, I do not see how the moral faculty is on a different footing
from any of the other faculties of man. If I choose to say that it is
an immutable and eternal law of human nature that "ginger is hot
in the mouth," the assertion has as much foundation of truth as the
other, though I think it would be expressed in needlessly pompous
language. I must confess that I have never been able to understand why
there should be such a bitter quarrel between the intuitionists and
the utilitarians. The intuitionist is, after all, only a utilitarian
who believes that a particular class of pleasures and pains has an
especial importance, by reason of its foundation in the nature of man,
and its inseparable connection with his very existence as a thinking
being. And as regards the motive of personal affection: Love, as
Spinoza profoundly says, is the association of pleasure with that
which is loved.[1] Or, to put it to the common sense of mankind,
is the gratification of affection a pleasure or a pain? Surely a
pleasure. So that whether the motive which leads us to perform
an action is the love of our neighbour, or the love of God, it is
undeniable that pleasure enters into that motive.
[Footnote 1: "Nempe, Amor nihil aliud est, quam Laetitia, concomitante
idea causae externae."--_Ethices_ III. xiii.]
Thus much in reply to Mr. Mivart's arguments. I cannot but think
that it is to be regretted that he ekes them out by ascribing to the
doctrines of the philosophers with whom he does not agree, logical
consequences which have been over and over again proved not to flow
from them: and when reason fails him, tries the effect of an injurious
nickname. According to the views of Mr. Spencer, Mr. Mill, and Mr.
Darwin, Mr. Mivart tells us, "_virtue is a mere kind of retrieving;"
_ and, that we may not miss the point of the joke, he puts it in
italics. But what if it is? Does that make it less virtue? Suppose I
say that sculpture is a "mere way" of stone-cutting, and painting
a "mere way" of daubing canvas, and music a "mere way" of making a
noise, the statements are quite true; but they only show that I see no
other method of depreciating some of the noblest aspects of humanity,
than that of using language in an inadequate and misleading sense
about them. And the peculiar in appropriateness of this particular
nickname to the views in question, arises from the circumstance which
Mr. Mivart would doubtless have recollected, if his wish to ridicule
had not for the moment obscured his judgment--that whether the law
of evolution applies to man or not, that of hereditary transmission
certainly does. Mr. Mivart will hardly deny that a man owes a large
share of the moral tendencies which he exhibits to his ancestors;
and the man who inherits a desire to steal from a kleptomaniac, or a
tendency to benevolence from a Howard, is, so far as he illustrates
hereditary transmission, comparable to the dog who inherits the desire
to fetch a duck out of the water from his retrieving sire. So that,
evolution, or no evolution, moral qualities are comparable to a "kind
of retrieving;" though the comparison, if meant for the purposes of
casting obloquy on evolution, does not say much for the fairness of
those who make it.
The Quarterly Reviewer and Mr. Mivart base their objections to the
evolution of the mental faculties of man from those of some lower
animal form, upon what they maintain to be a difference in kind
between the mental and moral faculties of men and brutes; and I
have endeavoured to show, by exposing the utter unsoundness of their
philosophical basis, that these objections are devoid of importance.
The objections which Mr. Wallace brings forward to the doctrine of
the evolution of the mental faculties of man from those of brutes
by natural causes, are of a different order, and require separate
consideration.
If I understand him rightly, he by no means doubts that both the
bodily and the mental faculties of man have been evolved from those of
some lower animal; but he is of opinion, that some agency beyond that
which has been concerned in the evolution of ordinary animals, has
been operative in the case of man. "A superior intelligence has guided
the development of man in a definite direction and for a special
purpose, just as man guides the development of many animal and
vegetable forms."[1] I understand this to mean that, just as the
rock-pigeon has been produced by natural causes, while the
evolution of the tumbler from the blue rock has required the special
intervention of the intelligence of man, so some anthropoid form may
have been evolved by variation and natural selection; but it could
never have given rise to man, unless some superior intelligence had
played the part of the pigeon-fancier.
[Footnote 1: The limits of Natural Selection as applied to Man _(loc.
cit_. p. 359).]
According to Mr. Wallace, "whether we compare the savage with the
higher developments of man, or with the brutes around him, we are
alike driven to the conclusion, that, in his large and well-developed
brain, he possesses an organ quite disproportioned to his
requirements" (p. 343); and he asks, "What is there in the life of the
savage but the satisfying of the cravings of appetite in the simplest
and easiest way? What thoughts, idea, or actions are there that raise
him many grades above the elephant or the ape?" (p. 342). I answer Mr.
Wallace by citing a remarkable passage which occurs in his instructive
paper on "Instinct in Man and Animals."
"Savages make long journeys in many directions, and, their
whole faculties being directed to the subject, they gain a
wide and accurate knowledge of the topography, not only
of their own district, but of all the regions round about.
Everyone who has travelled in a new direction communicates his
knowledge to those who have travelled less, and descriptions
of routes and localities, and minute incidents of travel, form
one of the main staples of conversation around the evening
fire. Every wanderer or captive from another tribe adds to
the store of information, and, as the very existence of
individuals and of whole families and tribes depends upon
the completeness of this knowledge, all the acute perceptive
faculties of the adult savage are directed to acquiring and
perfecting it. The good hunter or warrior thus comes to know
the bearing of every hill and mountain range, the directions
and junctions of all the streams, the situation of each tract
characterized by peculiar vegetation, not only within the
area he has himself traversed, but perhaps for a hundred miles
around it. His acute observation enables him to detect the
slightest undulations of the surface, the various changes of
subsoil and alterations in the character of the vegetation
that would be quite imperceptible to a stranger. His eye is
always open to the direction in which he is going; the mossy
side of trees, the presence of certain plants under the shade
of rocks, the morning and evening flight of birds, are to
him indications of direction almost as sure as the sun in the
heavens" (pp. 207-8).
I have seen enough of savages to be able to declare that nothing can
be more admirable than this description of what a savage has to learn.
But it is incomplete. Add to all this the knowledge which a savage
is obliged to gain of the properties of plants, of the characters and
habits of animals, and of the minute indications by which their course
is discoverable: consider that even an Australian can make excellent
baskets and nets, and neatly fitted and beautifully balanced spears;
that he learns to use these so as to be able to transfix a quartern
loaf at sixty yards; and that very often, as in the case of the
American Indians, the language of a savage exhibits complexities which
a well-trained European finds it difficult to master: consider that
every time a savage tracks his game, he employs a minuteness of
observation, and an accuracy of inductive and deductive reasoning
which, applied to other matters, would assure some reputation to a man
of science, and I think we need ask no further why he possesses such a
fair supply of brains. In complexity and difficulty, I should say that
the intellectual labour of a "good hunter or warrior" considerably
exceeds that of an ordinary Englishman. The Civil Service Examiners
are held in great terror by young Englishmen; but even their ferocity
never tempted them to require a candidate to possess such a knowledge
of a parish, as Mr. Wallace justly points out savages may possess of
an area a hundred miles, or more, in diameter.
But suppose, for the sake of argument, that a savage has more brains
than seems proportioned to his wants, all that can be said is that
the objection to natural selection, if it be one, applies quite
as strongly to the lower animals. The brain of a porpoise is quite
wonderful for its mass, and for the development of the cerebral
convolutions. And yet since we have ceased to credit the story of
Arion, it is hard to believe that porpoises are much troubled with
intellect: and still more difficult is it to imagine that their big
brains are only a preparation for the advent of some accomplished
cetacean of the future. Surely, again, a wolf must have too much
brains, or else how is it that a dog, with only the same quantity and
form of brain, is able to develop such singular intelligence? The wolf
stands to the dog in the same relation as the savage to the man; and,
therefore, if Mr. Wallace's doctrine holds good, a higher power must
have superintended the breeding up of wolves from some inferior stock,
in order to prepare them to become dogs.
Mr. Wallace further maintains that the origin of some of man's mental
faculties by the preservation of useful variations is not possible.
Such, for example, are "the capacity to form ideal conceptions of
space and time, of eternity and infinity; the capacity for intense
artistic feelings of pleasure in form, colour, and composition; and
for those abstract notions of form and number which render geometry
and arithmetic possible." "How," he asks, "were all or any of these
faculties first developed, when they could have been of no possible
use to man in his early stages of barbarism?"
Surely the answer is not far to seek. The lowest savages are as
devoid of any such conceptions as the brutes themselves. What sort of
conceptions of space and time, of form and number, can be possessed by
a savage who has not got so far as to be able to count beyond five or
six, who does not know how to draw a triangle or a circle, and has not
the remotest notion of separating the particular quality we call
form, from the other qualities of bodies? None of these capacities
are exhibited by men, unless they form part of a tolerably advanced
society. And, in such a society, there are abundant conditions by
which a selective influence is exerted in favour of those persons who
exhibit an approximation towards the possession of these capacities.
The savage who can amuse his fellows by telling a good story over the
nightly fire, is held by them in esteem and rewarded, in one way or
another, for so doing in other words, it is an advantage to him to
possess this power. He who can carve a paddle, or the figure-head of
a canoe better, similarly profits beyond his duller neighbour. He
who counts a little better than others, gets most yams when barter
is going on, and forms the shrewdest estimate of the numbers of an
opposing tribe. The experience of daily life shows that the conditions
of our present social existence exercise the most extraordinarily
powerful selective influence in favour of novelists, artists, and
strong intellects of all kinds; and it seems unquestionable that
all forms of social existence must have had the same tendency, if we
consider the indisputable facts that even animals possess the power of
distinguishing form and number, and that they are capable of deriving
pleasure from particular forms and sounds. If we admit, as Mr. Wallace
does, that the lowest savages are not raised "many grades above the
elephant and the ape;" and if we further admit, as I contend must be
admitted, that the conditions of social life tend, powerfully, to
give an advantage to those individuals who vary in the direction of
intellectual or aesthetic excellence, what is there to interfere
with the belief that these higher faculties, like the rest, owe their
development to natural selection?
Finally, with respect to the development of the moral sense out of the
simple feelings of pleasure and pain, liking and disliking, with which
the lower animals are provided, I can find nothing in Mr. Wallace's
reasonings which has not already been met by Mr. Mill, Mr. Spencer, or
Mr. Darwin.
I do not propose to follow the Quarterly Reviewer and Mr. Mivart
through the long string of objections in matters of detail which they
bring against Mr. Darwin's views. Everyone who has considered
the matter carefully will be able to ferret out as many more
"difficulties;" but he will also, I believe, fail as completely as
they appear to me to have done, in bringing forward any fact which is
really contradictory of Mr. Darwin's views. Occasionally, too, their
objections and criticisms are based upon errors of their own. As, for
example, when Mr. Mivart and the Quarterly Reviewer insist upon the
resemblances between the eyes of _Cephalopoda_ and _Vertebrata_,
quite forgetting that there are striking and altogether fundamental
differences between them; or when the Quarterly Reviewer corrects Mr.
Darwin for saying that the gibbons, "without having been taught,
can walk or run upright with tolerable quickness, though they move
awkwardly, and much less securely than man." The Quarterly Reviewer
says, "This is a little misleading, inasmuch as it is not stated that
this upright progression is effected by placing the enormously long
arms behind the head, or holding them out backwards as a balance in
progression."
Now, before carping at a small statement like this, the Quarterly
Reviewer should have made sure that he was quite right. But he happens
to be quite wrong. I suspect he got his notion of the manner in which
a gibbon walks from a citation in "Man's Place in Nature." But at
that time I had not seen a gibbon walk. Since then I have, and I can
testify that nothing can be more precise than Mr. Darwin's statement.
The gibbon I saw walked without either putting his arms behind his
head or holding them out backwards. All he did was to touch the ground
with the outstretched fingers of his long arms now and then, just as
one sees a man who carries a stick, but does not need one, touch the
ground with it as he walks along.
Again, a large number of the objections brought forward by Mr. Mivart
and the Quarterly Reviewer apply to evolution in general, quite as
much as to the particular form of that doctrine advocated by Mr.
Darwin; or, to their notions of Mr. Darwin's views and not to what
they really are. An excellent example of this class of difficulties
is to be found in Mr. Mivart's chapter on "Independent Similarities
of Structure." Mr. Mivart says that these cannot be explained by
an "absolute and pure Darwinian," but "that an innate power and
evolutionary law, aided by the corrective action of natural selection,
should have furnished like needs with like aids, is not at all
improbable" (p. 82).
I do not exactly know what Mr. Mivart means by an "absolute and
pure Darwinian;" indeed Mr. Mivart makes that creature hold so many
singular opinions that I doubt if I can ever have seen one alive. But
I find nothing in his statement of the view which he imagines to
be originated by himself, which is really inconsistent with what I
understand to be Mr. Darwin's views.
I apprehend that the foundation of the theory of natural selection is
the fact that living bodies tend incessantly to vary. This variation
is neither indefinite, nor fortuitous, nor does it take place in all
directions, in the strict sense of these words.
Accurately speaking, it is not indefinite, nor does it take place in
all directions, because it is limited by the general characters of the
type to which the organism exhibiting the variation belongs. A whale
does not tend to vary in the direction of producing feathers, nor a
bird in the direction of developing whalebone. In popular language
there is no harm in saying that the waves which break upon the
sea-shore are indefinite, fortuitous, and break in all directions.
In scientific language, on the contrary, such a statement would be
a gross error, inasmuch as every particle of foam is the result of
perfectly definite forces, operating according to no less definite
laws. In like manner, every variation of a living form, however
minute, however apparently accidental, is inconceivable except as the
expression of the operation of molecular forces or "powers" resident
within the organism. And, as these forces certainly operate according
to definite laws, their general result is, doubtless, in accordance
with some general law which subsumes them all. And there appears to
be no objection to call this an "evolutionary law." But nobody is the
wiser for doing so, or has thereby contributed, in the least degree,
to the advance of the doctrine of evolution, the great need of which
is a theory of variation.
When Mr. Mivart tells us that his "aim has been to support the
doctrine that these species have been evolved by ordinary _natural
laws_ (for the most part unknown), aided by the _subordinate_ action
of 'natural selection'" (pp. 332-3), he seems to be of opinion that
his enterprise has the merit of novelty. All I can say is that I have
never had the slightest notion that Mr. Darwin's aim is in any way
different from this. If I affirm that "species have been evolved by
variation[1] (a natural process, the laws of which are for the most
part unknown), aided by the subordinate action of natural selection,"
it seems to me that I enunciate a proposition which constitutes the
very pith and marrow of the first edition of the "Origin of Species."
And what the evolutionist stands in need of just now, is not an
iteration of the fundamental principle of Darwinism, but some light
upon the questions, What are the limits of variation? and, If
a variety has arisen, can that variety be perpetuated, or even
intensified, when selective conditions are indifferent, or perhaps
unfavourable, to its existence? I cannot find that Mr. Darwin has ever
been very dogmatic in answering these questions. Formerly, he seems
to have inclined to reply to them in the negative, while now his
inclination is the other way. Leaving aside those broad questions of
theology, philosophy, and ethics, by the discussion of which neither
the Quarterly Reviewer nor Mr. Mivart can be said to have damaged
Darwinism--whatever else they have injured--this is what their
criticisms come to. They confound a struggle for some rifle-pits with
an assault on the fortress.
[Footnote 1: Including under this head hereditary transmission.]
In some respects, finally, I can only characterize the Quarterly
Reviewer's treatment of Mr. Darwin as alike unjust and unbecoming.
Language of this strength requires justification, and on that ground I
add the remarks which follow.
The Quarterly Reviewer opens his essay by a careful enumeration of
all those points upon which, during the course of thirteen years of
incessant labour, Mr. Darwin has modified his opinions. It has often
and justly been remarked, that what strikes a candid student of Mr.
Darwin's works is not so much his industry, his knowledge, or even
the surprising fertility of his inventive genius; but that unswerving
truthfulness and honesty which never permit him to hide a weak place,
or gloss over a difficulty, but lead him, on all occasions, to point
out the weak places in his own armour, and even sometimes, it appears
to me, to make admissions against himself which are quite unnecessary.
A critic who desires to attack Mr. Darwin has only to read his works
with a desire to observe, not their merits, but their defects, and
he will find, ready to hand, more adverse suggestions than are likely
ever to have suggested themselves to his own sharpness, without Mr.
Darwin's self-denying aid.