I have termed this evolution of the feelings out of which the
primitive bonds of human society are so largely forged, into the
organized and personified sympathy we call conscience, the ethical
process.* So far as it tends to
* Worked out, in its essential features, chiefly by Hartley and
Adam Smith, long before the modern doctrine of evolution was
thought of. See Note below, p. 45.
[31] make any human society more efficient in the struggle for
existence with the state of nature, or with other societies, it works
in harmonious contrast with the cosmic process. But it is none the
less true that, since law and morals are restraints upon the struggle
for existence between men in society, the ethical process is in
opposition to the principle of the cosmic process, and tends to the
suppression of the qualities best fitted for success in that
struggle.*
* See the essay "On the Struggle for Existence in Human Society"
below; and Collected Essays, vol. i. p. 276, for Kant's
recognition of these facts.
It is further to be observed that, just as the self-assertion,
necessary to the maintenance of society against the state of nature,
will destroy that society if it is allowed free operation within; so
the self-restraint, the essence of the ethical process, which is no
less an essential condition of the existence of every polity, may, by
excess, become ruinous to it.
Moralists of all ages and of all faiths, attending only to the
relations of men towards one another in an ideal society, have agreed
upon the "golden rule," "Do as you would be done by." In other words,
let sympathy be your guide; put yourself in the place of the man
towards whom your action is directed; and do to him what you would
like to have done to yourself under the circumstances. However much
one may admire the generosity of such a rule of [32] conduct; however
confident one may be that average men may be thoroughly depended upon
not to carry it out to its full logical consequences; it is
nevertheless desirable to recognise the fact that these consequences
are incompatible with the existence of a civil state, under any
circumstances of this world which have obtained, or, so far as one can
see, are, likely to come to pass.
For I imagine there can be no doubt that the great desire of every
wrongdoer is to escape from the painful consequences of his actions.
If I put myself in the place of the man who has robbed me, I find that
I am possessed by an exceeding desire not to be fined or imprisoned;
if in that of the man who has smitten me on one cheek, I contemplate
with satisfaction the absence of any worse result than the turning of
the other cheek for like treatment. Strictly observed, the "golden
rule" involves the negation of law by the refusal to put it in motion
against law-breakers; and, as regards the external relations of a
polity, it is the refusal to continue the struggle for existence. It
can be obeyed, even partially, only under the protection of a society
which repudiates it. Without such shelter, the followers of the
"golden rule" may indulge in hopes of heaven, but they must reckon with
the certainty that other people will be masters of the earth.
What would become of the garden if the [33] gardener treated all the
weeds and slugs, and birds and trespassers as he would like to be
treated, if he were in their place?