lesson of social service that it teaches. We are members of a vast
community whose complex total life seems far removed from anything going
on in an ant-colony, and our daily tasks vary greatly in specific
character and degree when compared with those of lower communal organisms.
It seems scarcely credible that any principles of social relationship,
however general, can hold true for us and for them. But when the
rock-bottom foundations are reached, they are simple and instructive
indeed. Being here, we cannot escape our personal obligations as living
things or our equally clear duties as members of our community. These
facts being as they are, what must we do? Self-interest is rightly to be
served, otherwise we would be incapable of discharging our secondary
tasks, namely, those of service to others in ways that are determined by
hereditary endowment and conditional circumstances. The difficulty is to
find the right compromise between the two sets of obligations; but the
right balance must be found, or else the health of the community is
impaired. Should any class demand more than its just dues, others must
suffer through the diversion of what they require, and the well-being of
the selfish class is jeopardized to some degree, so closely interwoven are
the interests of all. Freedom of opportunity within the limits of ability
and efficiency is the right of every one, but freedom of conduct must
never result in trespass upon the equal rights of others to make the most
of their abilities and opportunities.
To summarize, then, social evolution is a continuous process accomplished
through differentiation and division of labor among the components of
biological associations. Although the total form remains the same
everywhere, progress has been made in content through the further
subordination of selfish to altruistic conduct; only by this means does an
individual gain liberty to pursue the social task for which he is best
fitted by nature.
VIII
EVOLUTION AND THE HIGHER HUMAN LIFE
We have now reached the last division of the large subject that has
occupied our thoughts for so long. The present title has been chosen
because the questions now before us relate to the highest human ideas
belonging to the departments of ethics, religion, theology, science, and
philosophy. These matters may seem at first sight to be far removed from
the territory of the naturalist as such, and quite exempt from the control
of laws which determine the nature and history of the human individual in
physical, mental, and social respects. Yet one reason alone would impel us
onward: we cannot close the present examination into the basic facts of
evolution and into the scope of the doctrine without asking to what extent
a belief in its truth may affect our earlier formed conceptions of nature
and supernature. Heretofore these possible effects upon what may be dearly
cherished intellectual possessions have received no attention, so that we
might learn how evolution works in the lower fields of organic life in
general and human life in particular without being disturbed by them. No
doubt, however, the conviction has grown with each step in our progress
that the principles we have learned must cause us to readjust our views of
the highest elements in human thought to a degree that must be inversely
proportional to our previous acquaintance with the laws and processes of
nature. But the seeker after truth is fearless of consequences. He knows
that truth cannot contradict itself; and if those to whom he looks for
authority give him conflicting accounts of nature's history, he knows that
one of these must be less surely grounded than the other. The investigator
soon learns to withhold final judgment, realizing that the primary
conditions for intellectual development are the plasticity and openness of
mind that dogmatism and finality destroy. He knows that while his
researches may be, and indeed must be, iconoclastic, they provide him with
better icons in place of the old.
Let us recall the steps in our progress through one and another field of
knowledge, from which representative facts have been chosen for
classification and summary. We began with the basic principles of organic
structure and workings, and then we examined serially the larger
categories of the evidences relating to evolution as a fact, and to the
mode of its accomplishment by natural factors. Proceeding to the special
case of our own species, we learned that human beings are inevitably a
part of nature and not outside it; in structure, development, and
palæontological history, mankind is subject to the control of the uniform
laws which operate throughout the entire range of living things. Finally,
the mental characters and the social relations of human organisms were
derived from beginnings lower down in the scale, and were proved to be no
more exceptional than the physical constitution of a single human being.
Are we to forget all of these things when we try to put in order our ideas
belonging to the categories of higher thought? Can we hope to find the
truth if we fail to employ the methods of scientific common-sense which
only yield sure results? It is no more justifiable to discard our
hard-earned knowledge than it would be for an advocate to undertake the
conduct of a case in deliberate disregard of what he had learned of the
law, or for a surgeon to leave his knowledge at the door when he entered
the operating room. Too often we are bidden to view the larger conceptions
of nature and supernature as something outside the realm of ordered
knowledge too frequently we are given statements upon authority that takes
no account of reason, and we are asked to accept these views whether or not
they accord with the demonstrated facts of common-sense. But those who
have followed the present description of evolution can readily recognize
their obligation to use for the further analysis of higher human life the
means which have given in that doctrine the most reasonable explanation of
the natural phenomena already investigated.
I need hardly say that we now enter upon the most difficult stage of our
progress. The regions we have traversed were more readily explored because
they were remote from the matters now before us; even in the case of man's
mental and social evolution it was possible to take a partially impersonal
view of certain of the essential elements in human life, which we cannot
do now. For ethics and religion and philosophy are groups of ideas that
are familiar to us as the property of mankind alone. Countless obstacles
are in the way. Much mental inertia must be overcome, for it is far easier
to accept the average and traditional judgments of other men--to let well
enough alone--than it is to win our own way to the heights from which we
may survey knowledge more fully. Human prejudices confront us as a
veritable jungle, hemming us in and obstructing our vision on all sides;
and perhaps much underbrush must be cut away if we are to see widely and
wisely. Nevertheless, to those imbued with a desire to learn truth,
anything and everything gained must surely repay a thousand times all
efforts to obtain clearness of vision and breadth of view. With our
perspective thus rectified by our backward glance, we turn to the three
divisions of human thought now to be examined. The conceptions of ethics
come first for reasons that must be apparent from the classification of
the facts of social evolution; just as mental attributes and communal
organization are inseparable, so rules of conduct arise _pari passu_ with
the origin of a biological association. Religion and theology form the
second division, which takes its origin in part from the first, for these
two groups of ideas are largely concerned with the authority for right
conduct and with human responsibility for taking the right attitude toward
the entire visible and unseen universe. Finally, science and philosophy
are briefly treated as evolved products which include within their scope
all that there is in human knowledge; for this reason they take the
highest place, instead of the position below religion usually assigned to
them. At the last, having reached our final standing ground, we must look
back in order that we may clearly define the lessons and ultimate values
of the whole doctrine of evolution.
* * * * *
Ethics is the science of duty. It is usually restricted to an examination
of purely human obligations, and to a search for the reasons why men
should do certain things and refrain from committing other acts. Like
psychology and sociology, ethics began as a strictly formal and _a priori_
system of dogmas which related to the life of cultured human beings alone.
Again, like the sciences specified, it gradually broadened its scope so as
to include the conventions of races lower in the scale than the civilized
peoples who only were sufficiently advanced intellectually to conceive it.
Thus the comparative method came to be employed, and in direct proportion
to its use, more liberal views have developed regarding the diverse
methods of thought and standards of social life and of conduct among
differently conditioned peoples. Still more important is the demonstration
that human ethics as a whole, like human faculty and civilization, takes
its place at the end of a scale whose beginnings can be found in lower
organic nature.
Those who have followed the account of social evolution given in the
preceding chapter must realize that the basic general principles of
natural ethics, as contrasted with "formal" ethics, have already been
discovered and formulated. A biological association of whatever grade and
degree of complexity is impossible unless biological duties are
discharged. Human ethical conduct differs from insect and protozoön
ethical conduct only in the element of a participation in the process by
the explicit consciousness of man that he has definite obligations to
others; and this distinguishing characteristic is the direct outcome of an
evolution which adds reflection and conceptual thought to a mental
framework derived from prehuman ancestors. The insect hurries about in its
daily life as an animated machine, whose activities are defined by
heredity; its special mode of conduct is just what nature has produced by
selection from among countless other forms of living which have not had
the same degree of biological utility. But man alone recognizes vaguely or
clearly the "why and wherefore" of his acts that are far more instinctive
than he supposes; he only is consciously aware of the bonds of kinship and
economic interdependence. He looks about for the authority which imposes
his duties and fashions his bonds, and conceives this authority as
something superhuman, until the comparative studies of evolutionary
phenomena reveal the true causes in uniform nature itself.
According to biological ethics, the fundamental obligations of all living
things are the same, even though the modes of discharging them may be
various. Every individual must lead an efficient personal life by
procuring food, but animals differ very much in their alimentary
apparatus; among other things they must respire, but some are so simply
organized that they do not need elaborate organs like the tufted gills of
a crustacean or the lungs of higher vertebrates. Every individual of
whatever grade must also provide in some way for the maintenance of the
species, but some, like a conger eel, produce enormous numbers of eggs
which are left uncared for, while others, like birds, bring forth only a
few young, which receive constant attention and protection until they are
able to shift for themselves. Nature has no place for even a human
community unless individual and racial interests are conserved, so that
the greatest duties are definitely formulated--all else is secondary and
less essential. Selfish action on the part of every unit is obligatory,
but it must always be antecedent to endeavor in the wider interests of the
race if the unit is a solitary individual; if it is a member of an
association of any grade, then it must serve its fellows in some way.
Egoism and altruism are natural essential guides to conduct; neither can
safely exclude the other, and their antithesis sets a problem for every
organism, which is to work out the proper compromise that will be most
satisfactory to nature. The Golden Rule is taught by biology because it is
demonstrated empirically, and not because it has any _a priori_ value as
an ideal ethical principle.
But utilitarian or natural ethics need not stop with the statement of
vague generalities like the foregoing. In human society, as in the life of
low animals, the worth and value of any form of conduct and of every
single act can be estimated by definite biological criteria. The
institution of marriage and the conventions of common morality have their
biological value in their provision for the care of children; the
safeguards of property rights enable the industrious--the biologically
efficient--to keep the fruits of their labors; the establishment of formal
civil and criminal laws is biologically valuable in a social way, in so
far as such laws diminish the unsettling effects of personal animosity and
the desire to wreak personal vengeance; the establishment and
differentiation of legislative, executive, and judicial organs of
government lead to greater social solidarity and higher biological
efficiency. Thus unchecked individualism is just as wrong ethically and
biologically among men as it would be in the case of insect communities,
as pointed out in the preceding chapter; no one has a right to expect
service or deference to personal interest from others if he fails to work
for them and for the good of all. It is true that the social structure
will stand a great amount of tension, but if this becomes too great,
either a readjustment is effected, as when King John was forced by the
barons to concede their rights, or else the whole nation suffers, owing to
the selfishness of a few. In the war between Russia and Japan, the latter
won because the individual soldier merged his individuality in the larger
mechanism of the regiment and brigade and army corps, gladly sacrificing
his life for the nation represented by the person of its Emperor. The
single Russian soldier may have been far superior to a Japanese in
muscular strength, and perhaps in arms also, but selfishness and greed on
the part of many who were responsible for the organization and equipment
of the Russian armies rendered the whole fighting machine less coherent
and therefore less efficient than that of the Japanese.
In the evolution of ethics the recognition of ideals of conduct has
followed long after the institution of a particular precept by nature,
which is obeyed instinctively and mechanically by force of inheritance. In
the case of the communities of insects, the results are the same as though
the individual animal fully recognized the value of concerted endeavor. So
among primitive savages of to-day there is only a vague conception of
abstract duty as such, or it may be practically lacking, as in the case of
the Fuegians. So also a growing child is substantially egoistic, and it
must be taught by precept and example that the rights of others can be
safeguarded only by the altruistic correction of personal action, long
before the child can grasp the higher conceptions of ethics. If a human
being never learns to do so, and becomes a criminal through force of
heredity or circumstances, the machinery of the law automatically comes
into operation to conserve the welfare of the community. Such a criminal
may be unable to control his destiny, and may not be responsible for being
what he is, but nevertheless he must pay the penalty for his unsocial
heritage by suffering elimination.
Ethical systems are built around man's vague recognition of certain
natural obligations, and they have thus become more or less complex, and
more or less varied as worked out by different peoples. They must
necessarily be much concerned with social questions, with morals in the
usual sense and the more rigid principles enacted into the spoken and
printed law, but they have also become closely connected with religion and
theological elements. Especially is this true in the ethics of barbarous
and savage peoples, who accredit the "categorical imperative" to some
supernatural power, as we are to see in a later section. The one point
that comes out clearly is that the systems of conduct and duties have
evolved so as to be very different among various races, and that in the
history of any one people, ethics has passed through many varied
conditions. What may be deemed right at one period becomes wrong at
another when conditions may be changed; in medieval England the penalty of
death was prescribed for one who killed a king's deer, as well as for a
highway murderer. The Fijian of a quarter century ago killed his parents
when they became too old to be effective members of their tribe. And so
deeply ingrained was this principle of duty that elderly people would
voluntarily go to a living grave surrounded by their friends; while in
other authentic cases, parents have first killed their sons who failed to
obey the tribal law, and have then committed suicide. We can see how
nature and necessity would institute a law requiring such conduct where a
tribe must carry on almost incessant warfare and where the available food
supplies would be enough for only the most efficient individuals.
Infanticide also has been practised for reasons of biological utility, as
among the Romans, who at first maintained their racial vigor by
deliberately ordering the death of weak babes. But times have changed, and
ethics has become very different with passing decades. Our civilization
has resulted in a development of human sympathy as an emotional outgrowth
of necessary altruism; this motive directs us through charitable
institutions and hospitals to prolong countless lives which are more or
less inefficient, but which do not render the whole body politic
incompetent in its struggle for existence.
Nature then has itself attended to the development and institution of
ethics. As we look back over the long series of stages leading to our own
system of conduct the most striking feature of the history is the
increasing power of self-control or inhibition. As a natural instinct this
tends to prevent the committing of acts which for one reason or another
are naturally harmful to society as a whole. What we call conscience is an
instinct implanted by purely natural factors, and it unconsciously turns
the course of human action in the directions of selfish and altruistic
interests. Conscience, then, without ceasing to have validity and
efficiency, appears on the same plane with all of the other products of
evolution which owe their existence to individual or social utility.
Theology and religion involve intimately related conceptions of the world,
its make-up, and its causes. Strictly speaking, religion is a system of
piety and worship, while theology deals more particularly with the
ultimate and supernatural powers conceived in one way or another as the
God and the gods who have constructed the universe and have subsequently
ordered its happenings. A religion is a group of ideas having the effect
of motives; it is dynamic and directs human conduct. Theology, on the
other hand, is more theoretical and descriptive, and its conceptions,
together with those of other departments of human thought, give the
materials for the formulation of the religious beliefs which determine the
attitudes of men toward all of the great universe in which they play their
part and whose mysteries they attempt to solve.
Defined and distinguished in these ways, these two departments of higher
human life present themselves for comparative study and historic
explanation. They differ much among the varied races of mankind, so much,
indeed, that an investigator who approaches their study with a knowledge
only of Christian religion and theology finds it difficult at first to
recognize that the same fundamental ideas, although of far cruder nature,
enter into the conceptions of an idol-worshiping fanatic living in the
heart of Africa. But, nevertheless, beliefs that fall within the scope of
the definitions adopted above are to be found among all men, and they must
be examined so that their agreements and differences may be demonstrated,
and their common elements may be explained as the natural products of a
process of evolution.
Such a broad comparative study, like that of physical, mental, and social
phenomena discussed heretofore, must be conducted objectively; that is,
each and every particular belief of a religious or theological nature
which can be discovered in any race is entitled to a place in the array of
materials which demand scientific treatment. They must be verified,
classified, and summarized, in order that their total meaning and value
can be discovered. It must be strongly emphasized that for such purposes
the inherent validity and truth or falsity of diverse religions are not
called into question when they are so considered as objects of study; many
still entertain the view that the mere task of conducting an analysis of a
group of religious beliefs of whatever nature must tend to destroy or
alter that system of religion in some way and degree. But whatever the
comparative student may himself believe, the conception of Jehovah in the
Hebrew religion is quite as legitimate an object of study as the
Buddhistic concept of Brahma as the Ultimate Being, or the Polynesian idea
of Tangaroa as the god of the waves. We would naturally be inclined to
exclude the last from our own personal system of piety and worship as the
childish concept of an imaginative, adolescent race; but whatever the
truth may be, the fact of a belief in Tangaroa is as real as the fact of
Christian belief in God. We can no more destroy any one of these ideas by
investigating its nature and origin than we destroy the efficacy of the
human arm when we study its muscles and bones and sinews. The former, like
the latter, take their places among natural phenomena whose history must
be inquired into if there are any reasons for supposing that they fall
within the scope of evolution. I would be the last to lead or to take part
in an attack upon any system of religion, but as a student who is
interested in the universality of organic evolution, I am forced to
scrutinize each and every authentic account of a religion to see if such
systems present objective evidence of the fact of their evolution through
the operation of purely natural causes.