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";[1] 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.
[Footnote 1: Principles of Ethics, i. 7.]
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.[1]
[Footnote 1: Cf. Green, 'Prolegomena to Ethics,' p. 7: "A philosopher
who would reconstruct our ethical systems in conformity with the
doctrines of evolution and descent, if he would be consistent, must
deal less scrupulously with them than perhaps any one has yet been
found to do. If he has the courage of his principles, having reduced
the speculative part of them to a natural science, he must abolish the
practical or preceptive part altogether."]
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.
III.
ETHICS AND IDEALISM.
There has been no movement of metaphysical thought in our time which
can be compared for its widespread influence or for its general
acceptance with the theory of evolution in biological science.
Intimate as is its connexion with the progress of science, metaphysics
does not keep step with it,--any more than it simply marks time as the
former advances. It reflects the influence of each new generalisation
of science; but if and so far as it reflects this influence only, it
cannot be an adequate metaphysics. Metaphysics must re-think each new
fact brought to light, each new generalisation established by science.
It must think them in their relation to the whole, and attempt to
understand them by setting them in their place in the complete system
of knowledge and reality. This complete system is indeed an
ideal, never adequately comprehended by the human mind; but it is
nevertheless the ideal which determines all efforts of constructive
philosophy--including those efforts which take the generalisation of
some special science as their all-comprehending principle. An attempt
of this kind to make a philosophy out of a scientific generalisation
has in our own time been the obvious result of the theory of
evolution, and has given new vogue to the philosophical system called
Naturalism. That system draws its strength from the scientific
doctrine of evolution; but as a philosophy it gives an extended
application to the generalisation established by a group of sciences,
and valid for the facts within their range. It interprets the law
of development which rules the sequences of nature as the highest
attainable principle for explaining the system of things. Some of the
questions which it leaves unanswered, and some of the facts which
it overlooks, have been pointed out in last lecture. Of this theory
perhaps enough has already been said.
In spite of the increased vogue which naturalism has obtained from its
alliance with triumphant evolutionism, it cannot be said to represent
the prevailing type of thought amongst the English metaphysicians
of the last generation. That generation was remarkable for the
reappearance in this country of a reasoned Idealism; and all forms of
Idealism have at least this in common, that they refuse to look upon
the material process as the ultimate character of reality--so far as
reality is known or knowable.
It may also be said--and this is a characteristic which is not merely
negative--that all forms of Idealism agree in ascribing special
significance to the moral and religious aspects of life. This holds
true of the great idealists, different as their types of thought may
be--of Plato and Aristotle, of Spinoza and Leibniz, of Kant, Fichte,
and Hegel. It holds true also of the leading representatives of recent
English idealism. But the ethical tone of a treatise and the ethical
interest of its author are not always a guarantee that ethical
conceptions have a secure position in his system of thought. This is
the case, I think, with Spinoza; and it seems to me to hold also of
some writers of the present day. Mr Bradley, for instance, is perhaps
the most influential, as he is without doubt not the least brilliant,
of contemporary metaphysicians; he carries on the tradition of a
school of thought predominantly ethical; his first book was a defence
of the ethical positions of that school; but, if we turn to the
elaborate metaphysical treatise which has resulted from his mature
reflexion, its most impressive feature will be found to be the almost
complete bankruptcy of the system in the region of ethics.
Not only had this idealist movement in its beginnings a predominantly
ethical tone. It was really started in the interest of moral ideals as
well as of intellectual thoroughness; and its contribution of greatest
value to English thought was a work on ethics. The 'Prolegomena
to Ethics' of T.H. Green was a fitting result of his unwearied
controversies in defence of the spiritual nature of man and the
universe. No one is more worthy than he to be called by the Platonic
name a 'friend of ideas,' And he was a friend of ideas because he saw
their necessity for maintaining and realising the higher capacities
of human life. Green's 'Prolegomena' was published in 1883, the year
after his death. And, had I been speaking twenty years ago, I should
have had to emphasise the ethical character of the metaphysics of the
day. His metaphysical thinking, through all its subtleties, never
strayed far from the moral ideal. Owing to his teaching that ideal,
and the general character of the philosophy with which it was
associated, have permeated a great part of the better thought of the
present day, and have influenced its practical activities in various
directions,--social, political, and religious. But the magnetism of
his personality has been removed; and those whose business it is to
test intellectual notions have been impressed by the difficulties
involved in Green's metaphysical positions and in his connexion of
them with morality.