EVOLUTION AND ETHICS.
The origin of morals an inquiry not foreign to the subject of this
book.--Modern utilitarian view as to that origin.--Mr. Darwin's
speculation as to the origin of the abhorrence of incest.--Cause
assigned by him insufficient.--Care of the aged and infirm opposed by
"Natural Selection;" also self-abnegation and asceticism.--Distinctness
of the ideas "right" and "useful."--Mr. John Stuart
Mill.--Insufficiency of "Natural Selection" to account for the origin
of the distinction between duty and profit.---Distinction of moral acts
into "material" and "formal."--No ground for believing that formal
morality exists in brutes.--Evidence that it does exist in
savages.--Facility with which savages may be misunderstood.--Objections
as to diversity of customs.--Mr. Hutton's review of Mr. Herbert
Spencer.--Anticipatory character of morals.--Sir John Lubbock's
explanation.--Summary and conclusion.
Any inquiry into the origin of the notion of "morality"--the conception of
"right"--may, perhaps, be considered as somewhat remote from the question
of the Genesis of Species; the more so, since Mr. Darwin, at one time,
disclaimed any pretension to explain the origin of the higher psychical
phenomena of man. His disciples, however, were never equally reticent, and
indeed he himself is now not only about to produce a work on man (in which
this question must be considered), but he has distinctly announced the
extension of the application of his theory to the very phenomena in
question. He says:[202] "In the distant future I see open fields for {189}
far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new
foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and
capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his
history." It may not be amiss then to glance slightly at the question, so
much disputed, concerning the origin of ethical conceptions and its bearing
on the theory of "Natural Selection."
The followers of Mr. John Stuart Mill, of Mr. Herbert Spencer, and
apparently, also, of Mr. Darwin, assert that in spite of the great
_present_ difference between the ideas "useful" and "right," yet that they
are, nevertheless, one in _origin_, and that that origin consisted
ultimately of pleasurable and painful sensations.
They say that "Natural Selection" has evolved moral conceptions from
perceptions of what was useful, _i.e._ pleasurable, by having through long
ages preserved a predominating number of those individuals who have had a
natural and spontaneous liking for practices and habits of mind useful to
the race, and that the same power has destroyed a predominating number of
those individuals who possessed a marked tendency to contrary practices.
The descendants of individuals so preserved have, they say, come to inherit
such a liking and such useful habits of mind, and that at last (finding
this inherited tendency thus existing in themselves, distinct from their
tendency to conscious self-gratification) they have become apt to regard it
as fundamentally distinct, _innate_, and independent of all experience. In
fact, according to this school, the idea of "right" is only the result of
the gradual accretion of useful predilections which, from time to time,
arose in a series of ancestors naturally selected. In this way, "morality"
is, as it were, the congealed past experience of the race, and "virtue"
becomes no more than a sort of "retrieving," which the thus improved human
animal practises by a perfected and inherited habit, regardless of
self-gratification, just as the brute animal has acquired the habit of
seeking prey and bringing it to his master, instead of devouring it {190}
himself.
Though Mr. Darwin has not as yet expressly advocated this view, yet some
remarks made by him appear to show his disposition to sympathise with it.
Thus, in his work on "Animals and Plants under Domestication,"[203] he
asserts that "the savages of Australia and South America hold the crime of
incest in abhorrence;" but he considers that this abhorrence has probably
arisen by "Natural Selection," the ill effects of close interbreeding
causing the less numerous and less healthy offspring of incestuous unions
to disappear by degrees, in favour of the descendants (greater both in
number and strength) of individuals who naturally, from some cause or
other, as he suggests, preferred to mate with strangers rather than with
close blood-relations; this preference being transmitted and becoming thus
instinctive, or habitual, in remote descendants.
But on Mr. Darwin's own ground, it maybe objected that this notion fails to
account for "abhorrence," and "moral reprobation;" for, as no stream can
rise higher than its source, the original "slight feeling" which was
_useful_ would have been perpetuated, but would never have been augmented
beyond the degree requisite to ensure this beneficial preference, and
therefore would not certainly have become magnified into "abhorrence." It
will not do to assume that the union of males and females, each possessing
the required "slight feeling," must give rise to offspring with an
intensified feeling of the same kind; for, apart from reversion, Mr. Darwin
has called attention to the unexpected modifications which sometimes result
from the union of _similarly_ constituted parents. Thus, for example, he
tells us:[204] "If two top-knotted canaries are matched, the young, instead
of having very fine top-knots, are generally bald." From examples of this
kind, it is fair, on Darwinian principles, to infer that the union of {191}
parents who possessed a similar inherited aversion might result in
phenomena quite other than the augmentation of such aversion, even if the
two aversions should be altogether similar; while, very probably, they
might be so different in their nature as to tend to neutralize each other.
Besides, the union of parents so similarly emotional would be rare indeed
amongst savages, where marriages would be owing to almost anything rather
than to congeniality of mind between the spouses. Mr. Wallace tells
us,[205] that they choose their wives for "rude health and physical
beauty," and this is just what might be naturally supposed. Again, we must
bear in mind the necessity there is that _many individuals_ should be
similarly and simultaneously affected with this aversion from
consanguineous unions; as we have seen in the second chapter, how
infallibly variations presented by only a few individuals, tend to be
eliminated by mere force of numbers. Mr. Darwin indeed would throw back
this aversion, if possible, to a pre-human period; since he speculates as
to whether the gorillas or orang-utans, in effecting their matrimonial
relations, show any tendency to respect the prohibited degrees of
affinity.[206] No tittle of evidence, however, has yet been adduced
pointing in any such direction, though surely if it were of such importance
and efficiency as to result (through the aid of "Natural Selection" alone)
in that "abhorrence" before spoken of, we might expect to be able to detect
unmistakeable evidence of its incipient stages. On the contrary, as regards
the ordinary apes (for with regard to the highest there is no evidence of
the kind) as we see them in confinement, it would be difficult to name any
animals less restricted, by even a generic bar, in the gratification of the
sexual instinct. And although the conditions under which they have been
observed are abnormal, yet these are hardly the animals to present us in a
state of nature, with an extraordinary and exceptional sensitiveness in
such matters. [Page 192]
To take an altogether different case. Care of, and tenderness towards, the
aged and infirm are actions on all hands admitted to be "right;" but it is
difficult to see how such actions could ever have been so useful to a
community as to have been seized on and developed by the exclusive action
of the law of the "survival of the fittest." On the contrary, it seems
probable that on strict utilitarian principles the rigid political economy
of Tierra del Fuego would have been eminently favoured and diffused by the
impartial action of "Natural Selection" alone. By the rigid political
economy referred to, is meant that destruction and utilization of "useless
mouths" which Mr. Darwin himself describes in his highly interesting
"Journal of Researches."[207] He says: "It is certainly true, that when
pressed in winter by hunger, they kill and devour their old women before
they kill their dogs. The boy being asked why they did this, answered,
'Doggies catch otters, old women no.' They often run away into the
mountains, but they are pursued by the men and brought back to the
slaughter-house at their own firesides." Mr. Edward Bartlett, who has
recently returned from the Amazons, reports that at one Indian village
where the cholera made its appearance, the whole population immediately
dispersed into the woods, leaving the sick to perish uncared for and alone.
Now, had the Indians remained, undoubtedly far more would have died; as
doubtless, in Tierra del Fuego, the destruction of the comparatively
useless old women has often been the means of preserving the healthy and
reproductive young. Such acts surely must be greatly favoured by the stern
and unrelenting action of exclusive "Natural Selection."
In the same way that admiration which all feel for acts of self-denial done
for the good of others, and tending even towards the destruction of the
actor, could hardly be accounted for on Darwinian principles alone; for
self-immolators must but rarely leave direct descendants, while the
community they benefit must by their destruction tend, so far, to {193}
morally deteriorate. But devotion to others of the same community is by no
means _all_ that has to be accounted for. Devotion to the whole human race,
and devotion to God--in the form of asceticism--have been and are very
generally recognized as "good;" and the Author contends that it is simply
impossible to conceive that such ideas and sanctions should have been
developed by "Natural Selection" alone, from only that degree of
unselfishness necessary for the preservation of brutally barbarous
communities in the struggle for life. That degree of unselfishness once
attained, further improvement would be checked by the mutual opposition of
diverging moral tendencies and spontaneous variations in all directions.
Added to which, we have the principle of reversion and atavism, tending
powerfully to restore and reproduce that more degraded anterior condition
whence the later and better state painfully emerged.
Very few, however, dispute the complete distinctness, here and now, of the
ideas of "duty" and "interest" whatever may have been the origin of those
ideas. No one pretends that ingratitude may, in any past abyss of time,
have been a virtue, or that it may be such now in Arcturus or the Pleiades.
Indeed, a certain eminent writer of the utilitarian school of ethics has
amusingly and very instructively shown how radically distinct even in his
own mind are the two ideas which he nevertheless endeavours to identify.
Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his examination of "Sir William Hamilton's
Philosophy," says,[208] if "I am informed that the world is ruled by a
being whose attributes are infinite, but what they are we cannot learn, nor
what the principles of his government, except that 'the highest human
morality which we are capable of conceiving' does not sanction them;
convince me of it, and I will bear my fate as I may. But when I am told
that I must believe this, and at the same time call this being by the {194}
names which express and affirm the highest human morality, I say in plain
terms that I will not. Whatever power such a being may have over me, there
is one thing which he shall not do: he shall not compel me to worship him.
I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet
to my fellow-creatures; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not
so calling him, to hell I will go."
This is unquestionably an admirable sentiment on the part of Mr. Mill (with
which every absolute moralist will agree), but it contains a complete
refutation of his own position, and is a capital instance[209] of the
vigorous life of moral intuition in one who professes to have eliminated
any fundamental distinction between the "right" and the "expedient." For if
an action is morally good, and to be done, merely in proportion to the
amount of pleasure it secures, and morally bad and to be avoided as tending
to misery, and if it could be _proved_ that by calling God good--whether He
is so or not, in our sense of the term,--we could secure a maximum of
pleasure, and by refusing to do so we should incur endless torment,
clearly, on utilitarian principles, the flattery would be good.
Mr. Mill, of course, must also mean that, in the matter in question, all
men would do well to act with him. Therefore, he must mean that it would be
well for all to accept (on the hypothesis above given) infinite and final
misery for all as the result of the pursuit of happiness as the only end.
It must be recollected that in consenting to worship this unholy God, Mr.
Mill is not asked to do harm to his neighbour, so that his refusal reposes
simply on his perception of the immorality of the requisition. It is also
noteworthy that an omnipotent Deity is supposed incapable of altering Mr.
Mill's mind and moral perceptions.
Mr. Mill's decision is right, but it is difficult indeed to see how, {195}
without the recognition of an "absolute morality," he can justify so utter
and final an abandonment of all utility in favour of a clear and distinct
moral perception.
These two ideas, the "right" and the "useful," being so distinct here and
now, a greater difficulty meets us with regard to their origin from some
common source, than met us before when considering the first beginnings of
certain bodily structures. For the distinction between the "right" and the
"useful" is so fundamental and essential that not only does the idea of
benefit not enter into the idea of duty, but we see that the very fact of
an act _not_ being beneficial to us makes it the more praiseworthy, while
gain tends to diminish the merit of an action. Yet this idea, "right," thus
excluding, as it does, all reference to utility or pleasure, has
nevertheless to be constructed and evolved from utility and pleasure, and
ultimately from pleasurable sensations, if we are to accept pure
Darwinianism: if we are to accept, that is, the evolution of man's
psychical nature and highest powers, by the exclusive action of "Natural
Selection," from such faculties as are possessed by brutes; in other words,
if we are to believe that the conceptions of the highest human morality
arose through minute and fortuitous variations of brutal desires and
appetites in all conceivable directions.
It is here contended, on the other hand, that no conservation of any such
variations could ever have given rise to the faintest beginning of any such
moral perceptions; that by "Natural Selection" alone the maxim _fiat
justitia, ruat coelum_ could never have been excogitated, still less have
found a widespread acceptance; that it is impotent to suggest even an
approach towards an explanation of the _first beginning_ of the idea of
"right." It need hardly be remarked that acts may be distinguished not only
as pleasurable, useful, or beautiful, but also as good in two different
senses: (1) _materially_ moral acts, and (2) acts which are _formally_
moral. The first are acts good in themselves, _as acts_, apart from any
intention of the agent which may or may not have been directed towards{196}
"right." The second are acts which are good not only in themselves, as
acts, but also in the deliberate _intention_ of the agent who recognizes
his actions as being "right." Thus acts may be _materially_ moral or
immoral, in a very high degree, without being in the least _formally_ so.
For example, a person may tend and minister to a sick man with scrupulous
care and exactness, having in view all the time nothing but the future
reception of a good legacy. Another may, in the dark, shoot his own father,
taking him to be an assassin, and so commit what is _materially_ an act of
parricide, though _formally_ it is only an act of self-defence of more or
less culpable rashness. A woman may innocently, because ignorantly, marry a
married man, and so commit a _material_ act of adultery. She may discover
the facts, and persist, and so make her act _formal_ also.
Actions of brutes, such as those of the bee, the ant, or the beaver,
however materially good as regards their relation to the community to which
such animals belong, are absolutely destitute of the most incipient degree
of real, _i.e._ formal "goodness," because unaccompanied by mental acts of
conscious will directed towards the fulfilment of duty. Apology is due for
thus stating so elementary a distinction, but the statement is not
superfluous, for confusion of thought, resulting from confounding together
these very distinct things, is unfortunately far from uncommon.
Thus some Darwinians assert that the germs of morality exist in brutes, and
we have seen that Mr. Darwin himself speculates on the subject as regards
the highest apes. It may safely be 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. No sign of moral reprobation is given by any brute, and yet had
such existed in germ through Darwinian abysses of past time, some evidence
of its existence must surely have been rendered perceptible through
"survival of the fittest" in other forms besides man, if that {197}
"survival" has alone and exclusively produced it in him.
Abundant examples may, indeed, be brought forward of useful acts which
simulate morality, such as parental care of the young, &c. But did the most
undeviating habits guide all brutes in such matters, were even aged and
infirm members of a community of insects or birds carefully tended by young
which benefited by their experience, such acts would not indicate even the
faintest rudiment of real, _i.e._ formal, morality. "Natural Selection"
would, of course, often lead to the prevalence of acts beneficial to a
community, and to acts _materially_ good; but unless they can be shown to
be _formally_ so, they are not in the least to the point, they do not offer
any explanation of the origin of an altogether new and fundamentally
different motive and conception.
It is interesting, on the other hand, to note Mr. Darwin's statement as to
the existence of a distinct moral feeling, even in, perhaps, the very
lowest and most degraded of all the human races known to us. Thus in the
same "Journal of Researches"[210] before quoted, bearing witness to the
existence of moral reprobation on the part of the Fuegians, he says: "The
nearest approach to religious feeling which I heard of was shown by York
Minster (a Fuegian so named), who, when Mr. Bynoe shot some very young
ducklings as specimens, declared in the most solemn manner, 'Oh, Mr. Bynoe,
much rain, snow, blow much.' This was evidently a retributive punishment
for wasting human food."
Mr. Wallace gives the most interesting testimony, in his "Malay
Archipelago," to the existence of a very distinct, and in some instances
highly developed moral sense in the natives with whom he came in contact.
In one case,[211] a Papuan who had been paid in advance for bird-skins and
who had not been able to fulfil his contract before Mr. Wallace was on{198}
the point of starting, "came running down after us holding up a bird, and
saying with great satisfaction, 'Now I owe you nothing!'" And this though
he could have withheld payment with complete impunity.
Mr. Wallace's observations and opinions on this head seem hardly to meet
with due appreciation in Sir John Lubbock's recent work on Primitive
Man.[212] But considering the acute powers of observation and the industry
of Mr. Wallace, and especially considering the years he passed in familiar
and uninterrupted intercourse with natives, his opinion and testimony
should surely carry with it great weight. He has informed the Author that
he found a strongly marked and widely diffused modesty, in sexual matters,
amongst all the tribes with which he came in contact. In the same way Mr.
Bonwick, in his work on the Tasmanians, testifies to the modesty exhibited
by the naked females of that race, who by the decorum of their postures
gave evidence of the possession in germ of what under circumstances would
become the highest chastity and refinement.
Hasty and incomplete observations and inductions are prejudicial enough to
physical science, but when their effect is to degrade untruthfully our
common humanity, there is an additional motive to regret them. A hurried
visit to a tribe, whose language, traditions and customs are unknown, is
sometimes deemed sufficient for "smart" remarks as to "ape characters,"
&c., which are as untrue as irrelevant. It should not be forgotten how
extremely difficult it is to enter into the ideas and feelings of an alien
race. If in the nineteenth century a French theatrical audience can witness
with acquiescent approval, as a type of English manners and ideas, the
representation of a marquis who sells his wife at Smithfield, &c. &c., it
is surely no wonder if the ideas of a tribe of newly visited savages {199}
should be more or less misunderstood. To enter into such ideas requires
long and familiar intimacy, like that experienced by the explorer of the
Malay Archipelago. From him, and others, we have abundant evidence that
moral ideas exist, at least in germ, in savage races of men, while they
sometimes attain even a highly developed state. No amount of evidence as to
acts of moral depravity is to the point, as the object here aimed at is to
establish that moral intuitions _exist_ in savages, not that their actions
are good.
Objections, however, are sometimes drawn from the different notions as to
the moral value of certain acts, entertained by men of various countries or
of different epochs; also from the difficulty of knowing what particular
actions in certain cases are the right ones, and from the effects which
prejudice, interest, passion, habit, or even, indirectly, physical
conditions, may have upon our moral perceptions. Thus Sir John Lubbock
speaks[213] of certain Feejeeans, who, according to the testimony of Mr.
Hunt,[214] have the custom of piously choking their parents under certain
circumstances, in order to insure their happiness in a future life. Should
any one take such facts as telling _against_ the belief in an absolute
morality, he would show a complete misapprehension of the point in dispute;
for such facts tell in _favour_ of it.
Were it asserted that man possesses a distinct innate power and faculty by
which he is made intuitively aware what acts considered in and by
themselves are right and what wrong,--an infallible and universal internal
code,--the illustration would be to the point. But all that need be
contended for is that the intellect perceives not only truth, but also a
quality of "higher" which ought to be followed, and of "lower" which ought
to be avoided; when two lines of conduct are presented to the will for
choice, the intellect so acting being the conscience.
{200}
This has been well put by Mr. James Martineau in his excellent essay on
Whewell's Morality. He says,[215] "If moral good were a quality resident in
each action, as whiteness in snow, or sweetness in fruits; and if the moral
faculty was our appointed instrument for detecting its presence; many
consequences would ensue which are at variance with fact. The wide range of
differences observable in the ethical judgments of men would not exist; and
even if they did, could no more be reduced and modified by discussion than
constitutional differences of hearing or of vision. And, as the quality of
moral good either must or must not exist in every important operation of
the will, we should discern its presence or absence separately in each; and
even though we never had the conception of more than one insulated action,
we should be able to pronounce upon its character. This, however, we have
plainly no power to do. Every moral judgment is relative, and involves a
comparison of two terms. When we praise what _has been_ done, it is with
the coexistent conception of something _else_ that _might have been_ done;
and when we resolve on a course as right, it is to the exclusion of some
other that is wrong. This fact, that every ethical decision is in truth a
_preference_, an election of one act as higher than another, appears of
fundamental importance in the analysis of the moral sentiments."
From this point of view it is plain how trifling are arguments drawn from
the acts of a savage, since an action highly immoral in us might be one
exceedingly virtuous in him--being the highest presented to his choice in
his degraded intellectual condition and peculiar circumstances.
It need only be contended, then, that there _is_ a perception of "right"
incapable of further analysis; not that there is any infallible internal
guide as to all the complex actions which present themselves for {201}
choice. The _principle_ is given in our nature, the _application_ of the
principle is the result of a thousand educational influences.
It is no wonder, then, that, in complex "cases of conscience," it is
sometimes a matter of exceeding difficulty to determine which of two
courses of action is the less objectionable. This no more invalidates the
truth of moral principles than does the difficulty of a mathematical
problem cast doubt on mathematical principles. Habit, education, and
intellectual gifts facilitate the correct application of both.
Again, if our moral insight is intensified or blunted by our habitual
wishes or, indirectly, by our physical condition, the same may be said of
our perception of the true relations of physical facts one to another. An
eager wish for marriage has led many a man to exaggerate the powers of a
limited income, and a fit of dyspepsia has given an unreasonably gloomy
aspect to more than one balance-sheet.
Considering that moral intuitions have to do with _insensible_ matters,
they cannot be expected to be more clear than the perception of physical
facts. And if the latter perceptions may be influenced by volition, desire,
or health, our moral views may also be expected to be so influenced, and
this in a higher degree because they so often run counter to our desires. A
bottle or two of wine may make a sensible object appear double; what
wonder, then, if our moral perceptions are sometimes warped and distorted
by such powerful agencies as an evil education or an habitual absence of
self-restraint. In neither case does occasional distortion invalidate the
accuracy of normal and habitual perception.
The distinctness here and now of the ideas of "right" and "useful" is
however, as before said, fully conceded by Mr. Herbert Spencer, although he
contends that these conceptions are one in root and origin.
His utilitarian Genesis of Morals, however, has been recently combated{202}
by Mr. Richard Holt Hutton in a paper which appeared in _Macmillan's
Magazine_.[216]
This writer aptly objects an _argumentum ad hominem_, applying to morals
the same argument that has been applied in this work to our sense of
musical harmony, and by Mr. Wallace to the vocal organs of man.
Mr. Herbert Spencer's notions on the subject are thus expressed by himself:
"To make my position fully understood, it seems needful to add that,
corresponding to the fundamental propositions of a developed moral science,
there have been, and still are developing in the race certain fundamental
moral intuitions; and that, though these moral intuitions are the result of
accumulated experiences of utility gradually organized and inherited, they
have come to be quite independent of conscious experience. Just in the same
way that I believe the intuition of space possessed by any living
individual to have arisen from organized and consolidated experiences of
all antecedent individuals, who bequeathed to him their slowly developed
nervous organizations; just as I believe that this intuition, requiring
only to be made definite and complete by personal experiences, has
practically become a form of thought quite independent of experience;--so
do I believe that the experiences of utility, organized and consolidated
through all past generations of the human race, have been producing
corresponding nervous modifications which, by continued transmissions and
accumulation, have become in us certain faculties of moral intuition,
active emotions responding to right and wrong conduct, which have no
apparent basis in the individual experiences of utility. I also hold that,
just as the space intuition responds to the exact demonstrations of
geometry, and has its rough conclusions interpreted and verified by them,
so will moral intuitions respond to the demonstrations of moral science,
and will have their rough conclusions interpreted and verified by them."
{203}
Against this view of Mr. Herbert Spencer, Mr. Hutton objects--"1. That even
as regards Mr. Spencer's illustration from geometrical intuitions, his
process would be totally inadequate, since you could not deduce the
necessary space intuition of which he speaks from any possible
accumulations of familiarity with space relations.... We cannot _inherit_
more than our fathers _had_: no amount of experience of facts, however
universal, can give rise to that particular characteristic of intuitions
and _a priori_ ideas, which compels us to deny the possibility that in any
other world, however otherwise different, our experience (as to space
relations) could be otherwise.
"2. That the case of moral intuitions is very much stronger.
"3. That if Mr. Spencer's theory accounts for anything, it accounts not for
the deepening of a sense of utility and inutility into right and wrong, but
for the drying up of the sense of utility and inutility into mere inherent
tendencies, which would exercise over us not _more_ authority but _less_,
than a rational sense of utilitarian issues.
"4. That Mr. Spencer's theory could not account for the intuitional
sacredness now attached to _individual_ moral rules and principles, without
accounting _a fortiori_ for the general claim of the greatest happiness
principle over us as the final moral intuition---which is conspicuously
contrary to the fact, as not even the utilitarians themselves plead any
instinctive or intuitive sanction for their great principle.
"5. That there is no trace of positive evidence of any single instance of
the transformation of a utilitarian rule of right into an intuition, since
we find no utilitarian principle of the most ancient times which is now an
accepted moral intuition, nor any moral intuition, however sacred, which
has not been promulgated thousands of years ago, and which has not
constantly had to stop the tide of utilitarian _objections_ to its
authority--and this age after age, in our own day quite as much as in days
gone by.... Surely, if anything is remarkable in the history of {204}
morality, it is the _anticipatory_ character, if I may use the expression,
of moral principles--the intensity and absoluteness with which they are
laid down ages before the world has approximated to the ideal thus
asserted."
Sir John Lubbock, in his work on Primitive Man before referred to, abandons
Mr. Spencer's explanation of the genesis of morals while referring to Mr.
Hutton's criticisms on the subject. Sir John proposes to substitute
"deference to authority" instead of "sense of interest" as the origin of
our conception of "duty," saying that what has been found to be beneficial
has been traditionally inculcated on the young, and thus has become to be
dissociated from "interest" in the mind, though the inculcation itself
originally sprung from that source. This, however, when analysed, turns out
to be a distinction without a difference. It is nothing but utilitarianism,
pure and simple, after all. For it can never be intended that authority is
obeyed because of an intuition that it _should be deferred to_, for that
would be to admit the very principle of absolute morality which Sir John
combats. It must be meant, then, that authority is obeyed through fear of
the consequences of disobedience, or through pleasure felt in obeying the
authority which commands. In the latter case we have "pleasure" as the end
and no rudiment of the conception "duty." In the former we have fear of
punishment, which appeals directly to the sense of "utility to the
individual," and no amount of such a sense will produce the least germ of
"ought" which is a conception different _in kind_, and in which the notion
of "punishment" has no place. Thus, Sir John Lubbock's explanation only
concerns a _mode_ in which the sense of "duty" may be stimulated or
appealed to, and makes no approximation to an explanation of its origin.
Could the views of Mr. Herbert Spencer, of Mr. Mill, or of Mr. Darwin on
this subject be maintained, or should they come to be generally accepted,
the consequences would be disastrous indeed! Were it really the case that
virtue was a _mere kind of "retrieving,"_ then certainly we should {205}
have to view with apprehension the spread of intellectual cultivation,
which would lead the human "retrievers" to regard from a new point of view
their fetching and carrying. We should be logically compelled to acquiesce
in the vociferations of some continental utilitarians, who would banish
altogether the senseless words "duty" and "merit;" and then, one important
influence which has aided human progress being withdrawn, we should be
reduced to hope that in this case the maxim _cessante causa cessat ipse
effectus_ might through some incalculable accident fail to apply.
It is true that Mr. Spencer tries to erect a safeguard against such moral
disruption, by asserting that for every immoral act, word, or thought, each
man during this life receives minute and exact retribution, and that thus a
regard for individual self-interest will effectually prevent any moral
catastrophe. But by what means will he enforce the acceptance of a dogma
which is not only incapable of proof, but is opposed to the commonly
received opinion of mankind in all ages? Ancient literature, sacred and
profane, teems with protests against the successful evil-doer, and
certainly, as Mr. Hutton observes,[217] "Honesty must have been associated
by our ancestors with many unhappy as well as many happy consequences, and
we know that in ancient Greece dishonesty was openly and actually
associated with happy consequences.... When the concentrated experience of
previous generations was held, _not_ indeed to justify, but to excuse by
utilitarian considerations, craft, dissimulation, sensuality, selfishness."
This dogma is opposed to the moral consciousness of many as to the events
of their own lives; and the Author, for one, believes that it is absolutely
contrary to fact.
History affords multitudes of instances, but an example may be selected
from one of the most critical periods of modern times. Let it be {206}
granted that Lewis the Sixteenth of France and his queen had all the
defects attributed to them by the most hostile of serious historians; let
all the excuses possible be made for his predecessor, Lewis the Fifteenth,
and also for Madame de Pompadour, can it be pretended that there are
grounds for affirming that the vices of the two former so far exceeded
those of the latter, that their respective fates were plainly and evidently
just? that while the two former died in their beds, after a life of the
most extreme luxury, the others merited to stand forth through coming time
as examples of the most appalling and calamitous tragedy?
This theme, however, is too foreign to the immediate matter in hand to be
further pursued, tempting as it is. But a passing protest against a
superstitious and deluding dogma may stand,--a dogma which may, like any
other dogma, be vehemently asserted and maintained, but which is remarkable
for being destitute, at one and the same time, of both authoritative
sanction and the support of reason and observation.
To return to the bearing of moral conceptions on "Natural Selection," it
seems that, from the reasons given in this chapter, we may safely
affirm--1. That "Natural Selection" could not have produced, from the
sensations of pleasure and pain experienced by brutes, a higher degree of
morality than was useful; therefore it could have produced any amount of
"beneficial habits," but not abhorrence of certain acts as impure and
sinful.
2. That it could not have developed that high esteem for acts of care and
tenderness to the aged and infirm which actually exists, but would rather
have perpetuated certain low social conditions which obtain in some savage
localities.
3. That it could not have evolved from ape sensations the noble virtue of a
Marcus Aurelius, or the loving but manly devotion of a St. Lewis.
4. That, alone, it could not have given rise to the maxim _fiat justitia,
ruat coelum_. [Page 207]
5. That the interval between material and formal morality is one altogether
beyond its power to traverse.
Also, that the anticipatory character of moral principles is a fatal bar to
that explanation of their origin which is offered to us by Mr. Herbert
Spencer. And, finally, that the solution of that origin proposed recently
by Sir John Lubbock is a mere version of simple utilitarianism, appealing
to the pleasure or safety of the individual, and therefore utterly
incapable of solving the riddle it attacks.
Such appearing to be the case as to the power of "Natural Selection," we,
nevertheless, find moral conceptions--_formally_ moral ideas--not only
spread over the civilized world, but manifesting themselves unmistakeably
(in however rudimentary a condition, and however misapplied) amongst the
lowest and most degraded of savages. If from amongst these, individuals can
be brought forward who seem to be destitute of any moral conception,
similar cases also may easily be found in highly civilized communities.
Such cases tell no more against moral intuitions than do cases of
colour-blindness or idiotism tell against sight and reason. We have thus a
most important and conspicuous fact, the existence of which is fatal to the
theory of "Natural Selection," as put forward of late by Mr. Darwin and his
most ardent followers. It must be remarked, however, that whatever force
this fact may have against a belief in the origination of man from brutes
by minute, fortuitous variations, it has no force whatever against the
conception of the orderly evolution and successive manifestation of
specific forms by ordinary natural law--even if we include amongst such the
upright frame, the ready hand and massive brain of man himself. [Page 208]
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