as well as partly in competition, but there is an absolute dependence
in all the higher species between its different members which may be
said to imply a _de facto_ altruism, as the dependence upon other
species implies a _de facto_ co-operation. Every animal, to say
nothing else, is absolutely dependent for a considerable part of its
existence upon its parents. The young bird or beast could not grow up
unless its mother took care of it for a certain period. There is,
therefore, no struggle as between mother and progeny; but, on the
contrary, the closest possible alliance. Otherwise, life would be
impossible. The young being defenceless, their parents could
exterminate them if they pleased, and by so doing would exterminate the
race. The parental relation, of course, constantly involves a partial
sacrifice of the mother to her young. She has to go through a whole
series of operations, which strain her own strength and endanger her
own existence, but which are absolutely essential to the continuance of
the race. It may be anthropomorphic to attribute any maternal emotions
of the human kind to the animal. The bird, perhaps, sits upon her eggs
because they give her an agreeable sensation, or, if you please, from a
blind instinct which somehow determines her to the practice. She does
not look forward, we may suppose, to bringing up a family, or speculate
upon the delights of domestic affection. I only say that as a fact she
behaves in a way which is at once injurious to her own chances of
individual survival, and absolutely necessary to the survival of the
species. The abnormal bird who deserts her nest escapes many dangers;
but if all birds were devoid of the instinct, the birds would not
survive a generation.
Now, I ask, what is the difference which takes place when the monkey
gradually loses his tail and sets up a superior brain? Is it properly
to be described as a development or improvement of the "cosmic
process," or as the beginning of a prolonged contest against it?
In the first place, so far as man becomes a reasonable being, capable
of foresight and of the adoption of means to ends, he recognises the
nature of these tacit alliances. He believes it to be his interest not
to exterminate everything, but to exterminate those species alone whose
existence is incompatible with his own. The wolf eats every sheep that
he comes across as long as his appetite lasts. If there are too many
wolves, the process is checked by the starvation of the supernumerary
eaters. Man can maintain just as many sheep as he wants, and may also
proportion the numbers of his own species to the possibilities of
future supply. Many of the lower species thus become subordinate parts
of the social organism--that is to say, of the new equilibrium which
has been established. There is so far a reciprocal advantage. The sheep
that is preserved with a view to mutton gets the advantage, though he
is not kept with a view to his own advantage. Of all arguments for
vegetarianism, none is so weak as the argument from humanity. The pig
has a stronger interest than any one in the demand for bacon. If all
the world were Jewish, there would be no pigs at all. He has to pay for
his privileges by an early death; but he makes a good bargain of it. He
dies young, and, though we can hardly infer the "love of the gods," we
must admit that he gets a superior race of beings to attend to his
comforts, moved by the strongest possible interest in his health and
vigour, and induced by its own needs, perhaps, to make him a little too
fat for comfort, but certainly also to see that he has a good sty, and
plenty to eat every day of his life. Other races, again, are extirpated
as "ruthlessly" as in the merely instinctive struggle for existence. We
get rid of wolves and snakes as well as we can, and more systematically
than can be done by their animal competitors. The process does not
necessarily involve cruelty, and certainly does not involve a
diminution of the total of happiness. The struggle for existence means
the substitution of a new system of equilibrium, in which one of the
old discords has been removed, and the survivors live in greater
harmony. If the wolf is extirpated as an internecine enemy, it is that
there may be more sheep when sheep have become our allies and the
objects of our earthly providence. The result may be, perhaps I might
say must be, a state in which, on the whole, there is a greater amount
of life supported on the planet; and therefore, as those will think who
are not pessimists, a decided gain on the balance. At any rate, the
difference so far is that the condition which was in all cases
necessary, is now consciously recognised as necessary; and that we
deliberately aim at a result which always had to be achieved on penalty
of destruction. So far, again, as morality can be established on purely
prudential grounds, the same holds good of relations between human
beings themselves. Men begin to perceive that, even from a purely
personal point of view, peace is preferable to war. If war is unhappily
still prevalent, it is at least not war in which every clan is fighting
with its neighbours, and where conquest means slavery or extirpation.
Millions of men are at peace within the limits of a modern State, and
can go about their business without cutting each other's throats. When
they fight with other nations they do not enslave nor massacre their
prisoners. Starting from the purely selfish ground Hobbes could prove
conclusively that everybody benefited by the social compact which
substituted peace and order for the original state of war. Is this,
then, a reversal of the old state of things--a combating of a "cosmic
process"? I should rather say that it is a development of the tacit
alliances, and a modification so far of the direct or internecine
conflict. Both were equally implied in the older conditions, and both
still exist. Some races form alliances, while others are crowded out of
existence. Of course, I cease to do some things which I should have
done before. I don't attack the first man I meet in the street and take
his scalp. One reason is that I don't expect he will take mine; for, if
I did, I fear that, even as a civilised being, I should try to
anticipate his intentions. This merely means that we have both come to
see that we have a common interest in keeping the peace. And this,
again, merely means that the tacit alliance which was always an
absolutely necessary condition of the survival of the species has now
been extended through a wider area. The species could not have got on
at all if there had not been so much alliance as is necessary for its
reproduction and for the preservation of its young for some years of
helplessness. The change is simply that the small circle which included
only the primitive family or class has extended, so that we can meet
members of the same nation, or, it may be, of the same race, on terms
which were previously confined to the minor group. We have still to
exterminate and still to preserve. The mode of employing our energies
has changed, but not the essential nature. Morality proper, however,
has so far not emerged. It begins when sympathy begins; when we really
desire the happiness of others; or, as Kant says, when we treat other
men as an end and not simply as a means. Undoubtedly this involves a
new principle, no less than the essential principle of all true
morality. Still, I have to ask whether it implies a combating or a
continuation of a cosmic process. Now, as I have observed, even the
animal mother shows what I have called a _de facto_ altruism. She
has instincts which, though dangerous to the individual, are essential
for the race. The human mother sacrifices herself with a consciousness
of the results to herself, and her personal fears are overcome by the
strength of her affections. She intentionally endures a painful death
to save them from suffering. The animal sacrifices herself, but without
foresight of the result, and therefore without moral worth. This is
merely the most striking exemplification of the general process of the
development of morality. Conduct is first regarded purely with a view
to the effects upon the agent, and is therefore enforced by extrinsic
penalties, by consequences, that is, supposed to be attached to us by
the will of some ruler, natural or supernatural. The instinct which
comes to regard such conduct as bad in itself, which implies a dislike
of giving pain to others, and not merely a dislike to the gallows,
grows up under such probation until the really moralised being acquires
feelings which make the external penalty superfluous. This,
indubitably, is the greatest of all changes, the critical fact which
decides whether we are to regard conduct simply as useful, or also to
regard it as moral in the strictest sense. But I should still call it a
development and not a reversal of the previous process. The conduct
which we call virtuous is the same conduct externally which we before
regarded as useful. The difference is that the simple fact of its
utility, that is, of its utility to others and to the race in general,
has now become also the sufficient motive for the action as well as the
implicit cause of the action. In the earlier stages, when no true
sympathy existed, men and animals were still forced to act in a certain
way because it was beneficial to others. They now act in that way
because they are conscious that it is beneficial to others. The whole
history of moral evolution seems to imply this. We may go back to a
period at which the moral law is identified with the general customs of
the race; at which there is no perception of any clear distinction
between that which is moral and that which is simply customary; between
that which is imposed by a law in the strict sense and that which is
dictated by general moral principles. In such a state of things, the
motives for obedience partake of the nature of "blind instincts". No
definite reason for them is present to the mind of the agent, and it
does not occur to him even to demand a reason. "Our fathers did so and
we do so" is the sole and sufficient explanation of their conduct. Thus
instinct again may be traced back by evolutionists to the earliest
period at which the instincts implied in the relations between the
sexes or between parents and offspring, existed. They were the germ
from which has sprung all morality such as we now recognise.
Morality, then, implies the development of certain instincts which are
essential to the race, but which may, in an indefinite number of cases,
be injurious to the individual. The particular mother is killed because
she obeys her natural instincts; but, if it were not for mothers and
their instincts, the race would come to an end. Professor Huxley speaks
of the "fanatical individualism" of our time as failing to construct
morality from the analogy of the cosmic process. An individualism which
regards the cosmic process as equivalent simply to an internecine
struggle of each against all, must certainly fail to construct a
satisfactory morality upon such terms, and I will add that any
individualism which fails to recognise fully the social character,
which regards society as an aggregate instead of an organism, will, in
my opinion, find itself in difficulties. But I also submit that the
development of the instincts which directly correspond to the needs of
the race, is merely another case in which we aim consciously at an end
which was before an unintentional result of our actions. Every race,
above the lowest, has instincts which are only intelligible by the
requirements of the race; and has both to compete with some and to form
alliances with others of its fellow occupants of the planet. Both in
the unmoralised condition and in that in which morality has become most
developed, these instincts have common characteristics, and may be
regarded as conditions of the power of the race to which they belong to
maintain its position in the world, and, speaking roughly, to preserve
or increase its own vitality.
I will not pause to insist upon this so far as regards many qualities
which are certainly moral, though they may be said to refer primarily
to the individual. That chastity and temperance, truthfulness and
energy, are, on the whole, advantages both to the individual and to the
race, does not, I fancy, require elaborate proof; nor need I argue at
length that the races in which they are common will therefore have
inevitable advantages in the struggle for existence. Of all qualities
which enable a race to hold its own, none is more important than the
power of organising individually, politically, and socially, and that
power implies the existence of justice and the instinct of mutual
confidence-in short, all the social virtues. The difficulty seems to be
felt in regard to those purely altruistic impulses, which, at first
glance at any rate, make it apparently our duty to preserve those who
would otherwise be unfit to live. Virtue, says Professor Huxley, is
directed "not so much to the survival of the fittest," as to the
"fitting of as many as possible to survive". I do not dispute the
statement, I think it true in a sense; but I have a difficulty as to
its application.
Morality, it is obvious, must be limited by the conditions in which we
are placed. What is impossible is not a duty. One condition plainly is
that the planet is limited. There is only room for a certain number of
living beings; and though we may determine what shall be the number, we
cannot arbitrarily say that it shall be indefinitely great. It is one
consequence that we do, in fact, go on suppressing the unfit, and
cannot help going on suppressing them. Is it desirable that it should
be otherwise? Should we wish, for example, that America could still be
a hunting-ground for savages? Is it better that it should contain a
million red men or sixty millions of civilised whites? Undoubtedly the
moralist will say with absolute truth that the methods of extirpation
adopted by Spaniards and Englishmen were detestable. I need not say
that I agree with him, and hope that such methods may be abolished
wherever any remnant of them exists. But I say so partly because I
believe in the struggle for existence. This process underlies morality,
and operates whether we are moral or not. The most civilised race, that
which has the greatest knowledge, skill, power of organisation, will, I
hold, have an inevitable advantage in the struggle, even if it does not
use the brutal means which are superfluous as well as cruel. All the
natives who lived in America a hundred years ago would be dead now in
any case, even if they had invariably been treated with the greatest
humanity, fairness, and consideration. Had they been unable to suit
themselves to new conditions of life, they would have suffered an
euthanasia instead of a partial extirpation; and had they suited
themselves they would either have been absorbed or become a useful part
of the population. To abolish the old brutal method is not to abolish
the struggle for existence, but to make the result depend upon a higher
order of qualities than those of the mere piratical viking.
Mr. Pearson has been telling us in his most interesting book, that the
negro may not improbably hold his own in Africa. I cannot say I regard
this as an unmixed evil. Why should there not be parts of the world in
which races of inferior intelligence or energy should hold their own? I
am not so anxious to see the whole earth covered by an indefinite
multiplication of the cockney type. But I only quote the suggestion for
another reason. Till recent years the struggle for existence was
carried on as between Europeans and negroes by simple violence and
brutality. The slave trade and its consequences have condemned the
whole continent to barbarism. That, undoubtedly, was part of the
struggle for existence. But, if Mr. Pearson's guess should be verified,
the results have been so far futile as well as disastrous. The negro
has been degraded, and yet, after all our brutality, we cannot take his
place. Therefore, besides the enormous evils to slave-trading countries
themselves, the lowering of their moral tone, the substitution of
piracy for legitimate commerce, and the degradation of the countries
which bought the slaves, the superior race has not even been able to
suppress the inferior. But the abolition of this monstrous evil does
not involve the abolition but the humanisation of the struggle. The
white man, however merciful he becomes, may gradually extend over such
parts of the country as are suitable to him; and the black man will
hold the rest and acquire such arts and civilisation as he is capable
of appropriating. The absence of cruelty would not alter the fact that
the fittest race would extend; but it may ensure that whatever is good
in the negro may have a chance of development in his own sphere, and
that success in the struggle will be decided by more valuable
qualities.
Without venturing further into a rather speculative region, I need only
indicate the bearing of such considerations upon problems nearer home.
It is often complained that the tendency of modern civilisation is to
preserve the weakly, and therefore to lower the vitality of the race.
This seems to involve inadmissible assumptions. In the first place, the
process by which the weaker are preserved consists in suppressing
various conditions unfavourable to human life in general. Sanitary
legislation, for example, aims at destroying the causes of many of the
diseases from which our forefathers suffered. If we can suppress the
smallpox, we of course save many weakly children, who would have died
had they been attacked. But we also remove one of the causes which
weakened the constitutions of many of the survivors. I do not know by
what right we can say that such legislation, or again, the legislation
which prevents the excessive labour of children, does more harm by
preserving the weak than it does good by preventing the weakening of
the strong. One thing is at any rate clear: to preserve life is to
increase the population, and therefore to increase the competition; or,
in other words, to intensify the struggle for existence. The process is
as broad as it is long. If we could be sure that every child born
should grow up to maturity, the result would be to double the severity
of the competition for support, What we should have to show, therefore,
in order to justify the inference of a deterioration due to this
process, would be, not that it simply increased the number of the
candidates for living, but that it gave to the feebler candidates a
differential advantage; that they are now more fitted than they were
before for ousting their superior neighbours from the chances of
support. But I can see no reason for supposing such a consequence to be
probable or even possible. The struggle for existence, as I have
suggested, rests upon the unalterable facts that the world is limited
and population elastic. Under all conceivable circumstances we shall
still have in some way or other to proportion our numbers to our
supplies; and under all circumstances those who are fittest by reason
of intellectual or moral or physical qualities will have the best
chance of occupying good places, and leaving descendants to supply the
next generation. It is surely not less true that in the civilised as
much as in the most barbarous race, the healthiest are the most likely
to live, and the most likely to be ancestors. If so, the struggle will
still be carried on upon the same principles, though certainly in a
different shape.
It is true that this suggests one of the most difficult questions of
the time. It is suggested, for example, that in some respects the
"highest" specimens of the race are not the healthiest or the fittest.
Genius, according to some people, is a variety of disease, and
intellectual power is won by a diminution of reproductive power. A
lower race, again, if we measure "high" and "low" by intellectual
capacity, may oust a higher race, because it can support itself more
cheaply, or, in other words, because it is more efficient for
industrial purposes. Without presuming to pronounce upon such
questions, I will simply ask whether this does not interpret Professor
Huxley's remark about that "cosmic nature" which is still so strong,
and which is likely to be strong so long as men require stomachs. We
have not, I think, to suppress it, but to adapt it to new
circumstances. We are engaged in working out a gigantic problem: What
is the best, in the sense of the most efficient, type of human being?
What is the best combination of brains and stomach? We turn out saints,
who are "too good to live," and philosophers, who have run too rapidly
to brains. They do not answer in practice, because they are instruments
too delicate for the rough work of daily life. They may give us a
foretaste of qualities which will be some day possible for the average
man; of intellectual and moral qualities, which, though now
exceptional, may become commonplace. But the best stock for the race
are those in whom we have been lucky enough to strike out the happy
combination, in which greater intellectual power is produced without
the loss of physical vigour. Such men, it is probable, will not deviate
so widely from the average type. The reconciliation of the two
conditions can only be effected by a very gradual process of slowly
edging onwards in the right direction. Meanwhile the theory of a
struggle for existence justifies us, instead of condemning us, for
preserving the delicate child, who may turn out to be a Newton or a
Keats, because he will leave to us the advantage of his discoveries or
his poems, while his physical feebleness assures us that he will not
propagate his race.
This may lead to a final question. Does the morality of a race
strengthen or weaken it; fit it to hold its own in the general
equilibrium, or make its extirpation by low moral races more probable?
I do not suppose that anybody would deny what I have already suggested,
that the more moral the race, the more harmonious and the better
organised, the better it is fitted for holding its own. But if this be
admitted, we must also admit that the change is not that it has ceased
to struggle, but that it struggles by different means. It holds its
own, not merely by brute force, but by justice, humanity, and
intelligence, while, it may be added, the possession of such qualities
does not weaken the brute force, where such a quality is still
required. The most civilised races are, of course, also the most
formidable in war. But, if we take the opposite alternative, I must ask
how any quality which really weakens the vitality of the race can
properly be called moral. I should entirely repudiate any rule of
conduct which could be shown to have such a tendency. This, indeed,
indicates what seems to me to be the moral difficulty with most people.
Charity, you say, is a virtue; charity increases beggary, and so far
tends to produce a feebler population; therefore, a moral quality tends
doubly to diminish the vigour of a nation. The answer is, of course,
obvious, and I am confident that Professor Huxley would have so far
agreed with me. It is that all charity which fosters a degraded class
is therefore immoral. The "fanatical individualism" of to-day has its
weaknesses; but in this matter it seems to me that we see the weakness
of the not less fanatical "collectivism".
The question, in fact, how far any of the socialistic or ethical
schemes of to-day are right or wrong, depends upon our answer to the
question how far they tend to produce a vigorous or an enervated
population. If I am asked to subscribe to General Booth's scheme, I
inquire first whether the scheme is likely to increase or diminish the
number of helpless hangers-on upon the efficient part of society. Will
the whole nation consist in larger proportions of active and
responsible workers, or of people who are simply burdens upon the real
workers? The answer decides not only the question whether it is
expedient, but also the question whether it is right or wrong, to
support the proposed scheme. Every charitable action is so far a good
action that it implies sympathy for suffering; but if it is so much in
want of prudence that it increases the evil which it means to remedy,
it becomes for that reason a bad action. To develop sympathy without
developing foresight is just one of the one-sided developments which
fail to constitute a real advance in morality, though I will not deny
that it may incidentally lead to an advance.