Morals do not come by revelation, but by evolution. Morals are not based
upon the commands of God, but upon the nature and the needs of man. Our
churches attribute the origin of morals to the Bible. But the Egyptians
and Babylons had moral codes before Moses was born or the Bible written.
Thousands of years, tens of thousands of years, perhaps millions of
years before Abraham, there were civilisations and moral codes.
Even before the coming of man there were the beginnings of morals in the
animal world.
When I was a boy, we were taught that acts were right or wrong as they
were pleasing or displeasing to the God of the Hebrew Bible.
There were two kinds of men--good men and bad men. The good men might
expect to succeed in business here and go to heaven hereafter. The bad
men were in peril of financial frosts in this world, and of penal fires
in the world to come.
As I grew older and began to think for myself, I broke from that
teaching, and at last came to see that all acts were wrong which caused
needless injury to others; that the best and happiest man was he
who most earnestly devoted himself to making others happy; that
all wrong-doing sprang from selfishness, and all welldoing from
unselfishness; that all moral acts were social acts, and all immoral
acts unsocial acts; and that therefore Socialism was good, and
Individualism was evil.
But as to the beginning of the social virtues I was puzzled.
In most religions morality is supposed to have been established by
divine revelation. Men did not know right from wrong until God gave them
codes of laws ready-made; and even after men had the divine laws given
to them they were by nature so depraved that they could only obey those
laws by the special grace of God.
The idea that morality was slowly built up by evolution was first given
to the world by Spencer and Darwin. It has since been elaborated by
other writers, notably by Winwood Reade and Prince Kropotkin.
The notions of "the struggle for existence" and "the survival of the
fittest" have been too commonly taken to mean that life in the animal
world is one tragic series of ruthless single combats; that every man's
hand always was and ever must be against the hand of every man, and
every beast's tooth and claw against the tooth and claw of every beast.
But if we read Darwin's _Descent of Man_ and Prince Kropotkin's _Mutual
Aid Among Animals_ and Winwood Reade's _Martyrdom of Man_, we shall
find that the law of natural selection does not favour any such horrible
conclusions.
Self-preservation may be the first law of nature; but it is not the last
law of nature. In union is strength. The gregarious animals--those which
live in communities of flocks and herds--as the apes, the deer, the
rooks, the bees, the bison, the swallows, and the wolves, gain by mutual
aid in the struggle for existence, for, by reason of their numbers
and their union, they are better able to watch for the approach and to
defeat the attacks of their enemies.
From this union and mutual aid of the gregarious animals arose the
social instincts.
The sociable animals would doubtless be first drawn together partly for
safety and partly for company.
Sheep, deer, buffalo, wild dogs, ants, rooks, and other social animals
enjoy the companionship of their own kind. They play together, feed
together, sleep together, hunt together, and help each other to evade or
resist their common foes. They share in social pleasures, and practise
some of the social virtues.
And as the more sociable animals would be safest, and the less sociable
animals most exposed to danger, natural selection would tend to raise
the level of sociability, because the stock would be bred more from
sociable than from unsociable animals.
The apes are social animals, and also imitative animals. The ape-like
forbears of man would unite for safety and for society, and, being
imitative, would observe and copy any invention or discovery due to
lucky accident or to the sharper wits amongst their number.
Like the lower animals, they would play together, feed together, fight
in companies, defend or rescue their young, and post sentinels to watch
for the approach of danger.
Long before man had thought of any ghost or God, some rude form of order
and morality would exist in the families and tribes of men, as some rude
form of order and morality exists to-day amongst the wild elephants, the
bees, the deer, and other creatures.
I once saw two horses fighting in a field. A third and older horse came
up and parted them, and then drove them away in opposite directions.
So in the earliest human tribes would the leaders prevent brawling and
exact obedience.
Partly from such action, and partly from the training of the young,
would be formed the habit of resenting and of punishing certain unsocial
acts which the herd or tribe felt to be opposed to the general welfare.
One of the first faults man would brand as immoral would be cowardice.
One of the earliest moral laws would, perhaps, resemble the Viking law
that men who proved cowards in battle should be buried in the swamp
under a hurdle.
Imitation, habit, natural selection, and the love of approbation, would
all tend to fix and improve these crude customs, and from these simple
beginnings would grow up laws and morals and conscience.
Very likely the earliest human groups were family groups, or clans.
These clans would fight against other clans.
The next step may have been the union of clans into tribes, and the next
the banding of tribes into nations.
At present men are mostly united as nations. Each nation has its own
laws, its own morality, and its own patriotism, and the different
nations are more or less hostile to each other; as formerly were the
tribes or clans.
The final triumph will be the union of the nations in one brotherhood,
and the abolition of war.
The red Indian does not think it immoral to murder an Indian of another
tribe. The European does not think it immoral to kill thousands of men
in battle. The evolution of morality has not yet carried us as far as
universal peace. Nor has any revelation of God forbidden war.
We do not need to think long, nor to look far to see that different
conditions have evolved different moral codes.
But all morals may be divided into two classes: True Morals and
Artificial Morals.
True morals are all founded on the rule that it is wrong to cause
needless injury to any fellow-creature.
Artificial morals are those morals invented by priests, kings, lawyers,
poets, soldiers, and philosophers.
Moral codes made by rulers, or by ruling classes, are generally founded
on expediency; and expediency, as understood by the rulers or the ruling
classes, usually means those things that are expedient for themselves.
Now that which is expedient for a king, a tyrant, or an aristocracy may
be far from expedient for the people over whom they rule. So we need not
be surprised to find that many of the laws of barbarous and civilised
nations are immoral laws. Our British game laws, land laws, poor laws,
and very many of the criminal laws, and the laws relating to property,
are immoral laws.
But there is no revelation of God condemning those laws. Nor does any
European church oppose those laws, nor denounce them as immoral.
Then as to public opinion--our unwritten moral code--there is no clear
and logical system of moral principles. For instance, the public think
it a pity that men should be out of work, that women should starve, that
little children should be sent to school unwashed and unfed. But the
public do not think these things immoral. The fact is, the British
people, after more than a thousand years of Christian teaching, do
not know what true morality is. And how should they know, when their
teachers in the church do not know?
The churches have always drawn their morality from the Bible, and
have always tried to fit it in with the immoral codes made by kings,
soldiers, landlords, money-lenders, and other immoral persons.
The Church has often pleaded for "charity" to the poor, but has never
come to the rescue of the "Bottom Dog"; because the churches have never
understood morality nor human nature.
It is science, and not the revelation of God, nor the teaching of
priests, that has enabled us to begin to understand human nature, and
has made it possible to build up a systematic code of true morality.
As to what morality is, I claim it is the rule of social conduct: the
measure of right conduct between man and man; and I shall build up my
whole case upon the simple moral rule that "every act is immoral which
needlessly injures any fellow-creature." This rule is only an old truth
in a new form. It is, indeed, just a modern reading of the "Golden
Rule." It is not the rule itself, but the use I shall put it to, that is
likely to flutter certain moral dovecotes. As to the rule, the teachings
of most great moralists, of all times and nations, go to prove it. As,
for instance:
Lao Tze, a Chinese moralist, before Confucius, said: "The good I would
meet with goodness, the not-good I would also meet with goodness."
Confucius, Chinese moralist, said: "What you do not want done to
yourself, do not do to others."
He also said: "Benevolence is to be in one's most inward heart in
sympathy with all things; to love all men; and to allow no selfish
thoughts."
The same kind of teaching is found in the Buddhist books, and in the
rock edicts of King Asoka. Here is a Buddhist precept, which has a
special interest as touching the _origin_ of morals.
"Since even animals can live together in mutual reverence, confidence,
and courtesy, much more should you, O brethren, so let your light shine
forth that you may be seen to dwell in like manner together."
The Hebrew moralists often sounded the same note. In Leviticus we find:
"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."
In Proverbs: "If thine enemy be hungry give him bread to eat, and if he
be thirsty give him water to drink."
In the Talmud it is written: "Do not unto others that which it would
be disagreeable to you to suffer yourself; that is the main part of the
law."
We have the same idea expressed by Christ: "All things therefore
whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also
unto them, for this is the Law and the Prophets." Sextus, a teacher of
Epictetus, said: "What you wish your neighbours to be to you, such be
also to them."
Isocrates said: "Act towards others as you desire others to act towards
you."
King Asoka said: "I consider the welfare of all people as something for
which I must work."