Chapter XVII: Part III: closes with reference to "an approximately complete adjustment (1)

of the nature to the life which has to be led."

FOOTNOTES:

[38] Spencer elsewhere says "due exercise," _vide_ p. 76.

[39] Essay on "Morals and Moral Sentiment."

[40] P. 105.

[41] _Vide_ "Principles of Psychology."

[42] P. 104.

[43] Pp. 104,105.

[44] Pp. 108, 109.

[45] Pp. 134, 148.

[46] P. 147.

[47] Pp. 202, 203.

[48] P. 231.

[49] See pp. 71, 193.

[50] Pp. 258, 259.

[51] As the "revision" of the theoretical part of this book chiefly consists, like its abridgment, in the elimination of the references to Divine Will and other earlier views held before acquaintance with Darwin's theory of life, there is nothing in the book, in distinction from Mr. Spencer's other later works, that needs especially to be considered here.

[52] See, for instance, _supra_, p. 70.

[53] See _supra_, p. 75.

JOHN FISKE

As Herbert Spencer's closest follower, John Fiske deserves to stand next him in order of analysis. Fiske accepts, though evidently with reluctance, what he terms "the terrible theory" of evolution, which establishes the fact of man's consanguinity with dumb beasts. In his book on "The Destiny of Man" (1884), he sets forth his theory of the evolution of society as foreshowing man's final destiny. With regard to the beginnings of psychical development in the course of evolution, he thus expresses himself: "At length there came a wonderful moment;--silent and unnoticed, even as the day of the Lord which cometh like a thief in the night, there arrived that wonderful moment at which psychical changes began to be of more use than physical changes to the brute ancestor of man. Through further ages of ceaseless struggle the profitable variations in this creature occurred oftener and oftener in the brain, and less often in other parts of the organism, until bye and bye the size of his brain had been doubled and its complexity of structure increased a thousandfold, while in other respects his appearance was not so very different from that of his brother apes.... No fact in nature is fraught with deeper meaning than this two-sided fact of the extreme physical similarity and enormous psychical divergence between man and the group of animals to which he traces his pedigree. It shows that when humanity began to be evolved, an entirely new chapter in the history of the universe was opened. Henceforth the life of the nascent soul came to be first in importance, and the bodily life became subordinated to it. Henceforth it appeared that the process of zooelogical change had come to an end, and a process of psychological change was to take its place. Henceforth along this supreme line there was to be no further evolution of new species through physical variation, but through the accumulation of psychical variations one particular species was to be indefinitely perfected.... Henceforth, in short, the dominant aspect of evolution was to be, not the genesis of species, but the progress of civilization.... In the deadly struggle for existence, which has raged throughout countless aeons of time, the whole creation has been groaning and travailing together in order to bring forth that last consummate specimen of God's handiwork, the Human Soul."

And further, of the genesis of this Human Soul: "With the growth of the higher centres, the capacities of action become so various and indeterminate that definite direction is not given to them until after birth." By the increase of cerebral surface, infancy, which is the period of plasticity, is prolonged, Man becomes teachable, and though inherited tendencies and aptitudes still form the foundations of character, yet the career of the individual is no longer wholly predetermined by the careers of its ancestors, but individual experience comes to count as an enormous factor in modifying the career of mankind from generation to generation.

The psychical development of humanity since its earlier stages has been largely due to the reaction of individuals upon one another in those various relations which we characterize as social.

Foreshadowings of social relations occur in the animal world. Rudimentary moral sentiments are also clearly discernible in the highest members of various mammalian orders and in all but the lowest members of our own order. But in respect of definiteness and permanence, the relations between animals in a state of gregariousness fall far short of the relations between individuals in the rudest human society. The primordial unit of human society is the family, the establishment of which was made necessary and took place through the lengthening of infancy. When childhood had come to extend over a period of ten or a dozen years, a period which would have been doubled where several children were born in succession to the same parents, the relationships between father and mother, brothers and sisters, must have become firmly knit; thus the family came into existence, and the way was opened for the growth of sympathies and ethical feelings. The rudimentary form of the ethical feelings was that of the transient affection of a female bird or mammal for its young. First given a definite direction through the genesis of the primitive human family, the development of altruism has yet scarcely kept pace with the general development of intelligence; the advance of civilized man in justice and kindness has been less marked than his advance in quick intelligence. But the creative energy which has been thus at work through the bygone eternity is not going to become quiescent to-morrow; the psychical development of man is destined to go on in the future as it has in the past. And from the "Origin of Man," when thoroughly comprehended, we may catch some glimpses of his destiny.

The earlier condition of things was a state of universal warfare, on account of the limitation of the food-supply. This warfare was checked by the beginnings of industrial civilization, which made it possible for a vastly greater population to live upon a given area, and in many ways favored social compactness. A new basis of political combination was now furnished by territorial continuity and by community of occupation. The supply of food was no longer strictly limited, for it could be indefinitely increased by peaceful industry; and, moreover, in the free exchange of the products of labor, it ceased to be true that one man's interest was opposed to another's. Men did not, it is true, at once recognize this fact, but have done so only gradually. When the clan had grown into the state, and the state into the empire, in which many states were brought together in pacific relations, the recognized sphere of moral obligation became enlarged, until at length it comprehended all mankind. The coalescence of groups of men into larger and larger political aggregates has been the chief work of civilization; and the chief obstacle to such coalescence has been warfare. Great political bodies have arisen in three ways. The first, conquest without incorporation, proved itself suicidal. The second way was conquest with incorporation, but without representation; and this lacking, the government retrograded and gradually became a despotism. The third method, federation, has been the policy of the English government. The advantage of the habit of self-government has been shown in England's wide conquest and colonization. The federative method of political union, pacific in its very conception, is assuming an unquestionable sway and destined to become universal; the progress of the race will be, as it has been, with the gradual elimination of warfare.

In a race of inferior animals, any maladjustment is quickly removed by natural selection. But in man there is a wide interval between the highest and lowest degree of completeness which are compatible with maintenance of life; in all grades of civilization above the lowest, there are so many kinds of superiorities which severally enable men to survive, notwithstanding accompanying inferiorities, that natural selection cannot, by itself, rectify any particular unfitness. Hence, the action of natural selection upon man has long since been essentially diminished through the operation of social conditions. Therefore the wicked flourish. Vice is but slowly eliminated, because mankind has so many other qualities, besides the bad ones, which enable it, in spite of them, to subsist and achieve progress.

The fundamental difference between civilized man and the savage lies in the representative power, the imagination, by which men comprehend pleasure and pain in others. Use and disuse, in place of natural selection, have come to be paramount with man; and though the ethical emotions are still too feeble, they will be more and more strengthened by use, while the manifestation of selfish and hateful feelings will be more and more weakened by disuse. Man is slowly passing from a primitive social state, in which he was little better than a brute, toward an ultimate social state, in which his character shall have become so transformed that nothing of the brute can be detected in it. The "original sin" of theology is the brute inheritance, which is being gradually eliminated; and the message of Christianity: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth" will be realized in the state of universal peace towards which mankind is tending. Strife and Sorrow shall disappear. Peace and Love shall reign supreme. The goal of evolution is the perfecting of man, whereby we see, more than ever, that he is the chief object of divine care, the fruition of that creative energy which is manifested throughout the knowable universe.

We know soul only in connection with body. Yet nothing could be more grossly unscientific than the famous remark of Cabanis that the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile; the molecular movements of the brain and the phenomena of thought and feeling are merely concomitants related in some unknown way. It is not even correct to say that thought goes on in the brain. He who regards man as the consummate fruition of creative energy and the chief object of divine care, is almost irresistibly driven to the belief that the soul's career is not completed with the life upon the earth. Difficulties to this theory he will meet; yet the alternative view contains difficulties at least as great; nor is there any problem in the simplest and most exact departments of science which does not speedily lead us to a transcendental problem that we can neither solve nor elude. A broad common sense argument has often to be called in, where keen-edged metaphysical analysis has confessed itself baffled. The doctrine of evolution does not allow us to take the atheistic view of the position of man; the Darwinian theory, properly understood, replaces as much teleology as it destroys. In the Titanic events of the development of worlds from the nebular mist and their after-destruction, we may find no signs of purpose, or even of a dramatic tendency; but on the earth we do find distinct indications of a dramatic tendency; though doubtless not of purpose in the limited human sense. Are we to regard the Creator's work as like that of a child, who builds houses out of blocks just for the pleasure of knocking them down again? On such a view the riddle of the universe becomes a riddle without a meaning. "I can see no insuperable difficulty in the notion that at some period in the evolution of humanity this divine spark [the soul] may have acquired sufficient concentration and steadiness to survive the wreck of material forms and endure forever. Such a crowning wonder seems to me no more than the fit climax to a creative work that has been ineffably beautiful and marvellous in all its myriad stages."

Fiske gives some further definition of social evolution in man, in his "Cosmic Philosophy" (1874). He there denies the incompatibility of free-will with causation, saying that "it is the doctrine of lawlessness, and not the causationist doctrine, which is incompatible with liberty and destructive of responsibility."[54]

He further postulates heterogeneity of the environment as "the chief proximate determining cause of social progress," and defines such evolution as "a continuous establishment of psychical relations within the community, in conformity to physical and psychical relations arising in the environment, during which both the community and the environment pass from a state of relatively indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a state of relatively definite, coherent heterogeneity; and during which the constituent units of the community become ever more distinctly individual."[55] "The progress of a community, as of an organism, is a process of _adaptation_--the continuous establishment of inner relations in conformity to outer relations. If we contemplate material civilization under its widest aspect, we discover its legitimate aim to be the attainment and maintenance of an equilibrium between the wants of men and the outward means of satisfying them. And while approaching this goal, society is ever acquiring in its economic structure both greater heterogeneity and greater specialization. It is not only that agriculture, manufactures, commerce, legislation, the acts of the ruler, the judge, and the physician, have, since ancient times, grown immeasurably multiform, both in their processes and in their appliances; but it is also that this specialization has resulted in the greatly increased ability of society to adapt itself to the emergencies by which it is now beset."[56] Religion, too, is adjustment; form after form has been outgrown and perished, yet the life of Christianity, incorporated in ever higher forms, is continually renewed. The omission of the moral feeling, as a factor, from Comte's interpretation of the progress of society, is a fatal defect, since moral and social progress depend more on feelings than on ideas. As Wallace shows, tribes which combined for mutual help and protection, restrained appetite by foresight, and felt sympathy, would have an advantage in the struggle for existence.

"As surely as the astronomer can predict the future state of the heavens, the sociologist can foresee that the process of adaptation must go on until, in a remote future, it comes to an end in proximate equilibrium. The increasing interdependence of human interests must eventually go far to realize the dream of the philosophic poet, of a Parliament of Man, a Federation of the World.

"'When the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law,' and when the desires of each individual shall be in proximate equilibrium with the means of satisfying them and with the simultaneous desires of all surrounding individuals."[57]

FOOTNOTES:

[54] Vol. II. p. 189.

[55] Ibid. p. 223, 224.

[56] Vol. II. p. 212.

[57] Ibid. pp. 227, 228.

W. H. ROLPH

"BIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS" ("Biologische Probleme," 1884)

For what purpose are we in the world? asks the philosopher, and lays, with this question, the foundation for later errors. In the effort to rescue from destruction the theory of a creative intelligence, teleology has adapted itself to many forms of scientific theory, not excepting that of evolution. It reads into evolution progress towards what is, in one way or another, assumed to be an end. But we really know, in the universe, nothing but continuity, eternal change according to natural law, and so only _causae efficientes_, never _causae finales_; and organic development as well as processes in inorganic nature are to be explained in this manner. The assumption that the result of a process is an end towards which the process was directed is unwarranted. The question of science is not: Wherefore is any creature in the world? but: What is he? What is his actual aim, that is, his endeavor?

In the answer to this question, all philosophical schools have something in common. Happiness, in one form or another, is acknowledged to be the "end" of life in this sense. A follower of the utilitarian school may define happiness as the "sublime feeling that one has taken part in the continuous improvement of humanity, and the increase of human happiness," but his words are less a definition of the concept than a designation of the way in which happiness is to be arrived at. The "sublime feeling" can be represented only as a feeling of happiness, of joy. The religious theory, too, which represents the joys of religion on earth and in heaven, as compensating for the evils of this life, makes happiness the end of life, though in a different manner. Spencer is right in declaring that happiness, however it may be defined, always means, in the end, a greater amount of pleasure than of pain. At this point, however, the harmony of the schools ceases. The question as to the method by which this surplus of pleasure is to be obtained is answered in different ways. All say, indeed, by seeking good and avoiding evil. But opinion is divided as to what is good and what is evil.

Rolph here introduces a long criticism of the different schools. Against utilitarianism he urges that, in so far as it makes the happiness of the greatest number its principle, it asserts the right of the majority over a minority, and so advocates, by implication, an absolute subjection to authority.

Our whole moral education has for its aim to give the young as high a conception as possible of the happiness which springs from virtue and, on the other hand, to decry the pleasure which may result from forbidden acts. We seek, in this manner, to diminish the inward struggle and bring about the right result. He who has grown up under good influences escapes many temptations to which a man of less moral education falls a prey. According to Wallock, who makes the degree of inner struggle the measure of virtue, the man of better education in this case, the more moral man, must have less merit than the less moral man. Wallock thus founders on the rock which Kant so skilfully avoids; according to the former, the man whose lusts have been mastered by education could never equal the man of evil instincts, and the chastity of a Magdalen must be regarded as more moral than that of a pure woman.

Spencer's theory, that the conduct of the higher animals is better adjusted to ends than that of lower species, is erroneous; the lower animals are exactly as well organized for the ends of their existence as are the higher animals for theirs; the tapeworm is relatively just as perfect as the human being, in comparison with whom he possesses many superior qualities. The common judgment that the human being is superior does not accord with the real adjustment of things, but with our human conception of the ideal end of organization, our anthropocentric idea of the aim of life. We foolishly believe that the tapeworm and every other animal has the same end as the human being, and rank the animals according to this principle, instead of tracing the different genealogical branches to a like height and then comparing them. Not the fitness for ends, but the kind and multiplicity of the ends for which there is fitness, determine our judgment; and the ends by which we judge are those of our own life. We judge subjectively and absolutely instead of objectively and relatively. We are ever unconsciously influenced by the conception that nature, in creating the tapeworm, merely made a false step and a step backwards in her way towards the creation of man. That all animals are adapted, some in a greater, some in a less degree, to the ends of their existence, is proved by the simple fact of their existence, that is, of their survival in the struggle for existence; but which are in a higher, and which are in a less degree so adapted, is, in the individual instance, extremely difficult to determine. In any attempt at such an estimate, we must meet with peculiar difficulties, resulting from the fact that we judge of the adaptation to ends with less certainty the further from us any animal is in its organization. A comparison such as Spencer institutes is possible only with respect to like functions of similar organs in closely related forms.

The assertion that increase of ability for self-preservation leads to better care for the young, and makes of such care a duty, is likewise erroneous. For, up to the highly organized class of the crustacea, we have no example of care for the young. In the struggle for existence, the species which survive must be such as not only are in themselves best fitted for survival, but as also bring forth best fitted progeny. Nor has Spencer made clear on what ground natural process is to be regarded as identical with duty. In truth he has succeeded in showing only that care for the young is wide-spread in the animal kingdom, from which fact naturally follows that it is a quality which tends to the preservation of species.

It cannot be conceded that such a perfection as Spencer pictures, where each shall fulfil all the functions of his own life in the most perfect and complete manner without interfering with a like freedom in others, is possible. The assertion involves the extension to all living beings of that ideal principle of equal claims which Spencer repudiates with regard to man,--showing that not all men are capable of a like degree of happiness and that individuals desire, moreover, pleasure differing in quality. Furthermore, a world of beings which, like the animals and many plants, can support life only by means of organic material, must, in order to exist, destroy organic life, either animal or vegetable. The theory does not even hold with regard to individuals of the same species; Spencer himself acknowledges the truth of the principles of Malthus and of Darwin, according to which, even with the lowest rate of increase, a struggle of competition must soon arise between individuals of the same species.

Nor does Spencer's proof of the fundamental character of altruism hold, on investigation. He demonstrates that through the animal species up to man, there is less and less self-sacrifice of the mother animal in giving birth to offspring. But this physical sacrifice is not altruism; altruism lies in conscious care for the young after birth, and this is not lessened, but increased, the higher we ascend.

That morality is but greater adjustment of acts to ends cannot be admitted. If, in ordinary speech, the word good refers to greatest adjustment to ends, whatever the ends may be, that is no proof that it must have the same significance in Ethics. A good shot may be a good one in that it hits the mark; but what if it kill a man? The acts of criminals may be as well adjusted to their ends and as easy to predict as those of a good man. Spencer's theory would lead, consistently carried out, to the principle that the means justify the end, an assertion that is even more dangerous than its opposite. The fact is, that in Ethics it is the nature of the end which is of importance.

Spencer endeavors to show that only normal exercise of function is favorable to life, and so moral;--that excess and deprivation are both injurious. It is not true, however, that excess is always injurious; within certain bounds it is made up for by reserves in the animal organism. Or, if Spencer should answer to this objection, that his "normal" is not to be represented by a sharp line, difficult to keep to, but by a broad road within which excess is safe, such a representation would both burden his theory with two dividing-lines, and moreover would not save it. For he has not deemed it necessary to treat the concept "normal" to an exact definition, and we find him using it in his later deductions in an entirely new sense--not as equilibrium between capacity of function and its exercise, but in the ideal significance of a harmony between the claims of the individual on the one side, and those of the environment on the other. This normal is nowhere actually to be found and cannot, from the nature of things, be arrived at. By addition of this significance, the word normal becomes indefinite in meaning, and is used, now in one sense, now in the other. Normal exercise of function has, however, nothing to do with the claims of the environment, which generally demands, indeed, a deviation from the normal.

Nor is Spencer's analysis of the beginning of the process of food-seizure, adduced in support of the theory that happiness and morality are commensurable, confirmed by facts. According to this theory, the process of food-taking begins with the contact of animal and food, in which act the commencement of diffusion of food in the body of the animal causes a pleasure which leads to the seizure of its prey and the further act of devouring it. The theory might hold of the lowest organisms, but could not be true of any animal furnished with an impenetrable shell or skin. Nor would the seizure follow with sufficient promptness if it were left to the action of the pleasure caused by diffusion. Moreover, we should expect to find, according to this theory, a much more general and finer development of the organ of taste among the animals,--to find it as a special organ on the lowest planes of animal life; it is, on the contrary, the latest of the special senses to develop. It is the reaction on the sense of touch, the lowest and most general of the special senses, which causes the seizure of nourishment. We must, therefore, deny that pleasure is the motive to the seizure of food, and so, too, reject the conclusion that it is the motive to every other act.

Besides arguing that normal function brings pleasure, Spencer has attempted to prove that all pleasure has its spring in normal function, and is therefore moral. Could he succeed in so doing, hedonism would be proved. For since all schools agree in regarding happiness as the end of life, and since all these, in common, acknowledge happiness to be an excess of pleasure over pain, enjoyment might be regarded as the absolute guide. But if, as Spencer acknowledges, pleasure and morality are only in a perfectly adapted society commensurate, then in only such a society can pleasure be the criterion; and since we do not live in a perfectly adapted society, the theory is not applicable to us, and if practicably applied would be fatal to society.

Against Spencer's theory of the final spontaneity of morality, many objections may be urged, among others especially the one that such a morality ceases to be morality at all, virtue being possible, as Kant has demonstrated, only where a certain conquest of desire is achieved. Such a morality is, moreover, unattainable, an extravagant fancy.

THE PROBLEM OF FOOD-TAKING

Rolph thinks Spencer's theory awakes the conjecture that it was not first arrived at through investigation, but rests upon a preconceived opinion, as do to a greater or less extent all theories on this subject. It seems as if the author had first attached himself to that theory which best accorded with his scientific bias, and then tried whether this theory might be proved or supported by facts of biology and psychology. One might surmise, from the very skilful, but often too artificial argument, that the author pursued the following train of thought. Pleasure, and indeed the greatest possible pleasure, is the end of endeavor in the organic world, that is, the psychical cause of endeavor. May it not also be the physical cause?

Rolph answers this question with a denial, and endeavors to show that the taking of food has its cause in the insatiability of all organic substance. The theory of Spontaneous Generation contains nothing impossible or improbable; is, on the contrary, a necessary logical assumption not to be disproved by the mere result of experiment under conditions of the laboratory. It is easy to imagine that organic elements, which are to be found in great quantities in inorganic nature, may come together by chance, or rather in the natural order of things, to the formation of protoplasm.

The movement of these masses of protoplasm seems, at first glance, to set the law of gravitation at defiance, but we may answer that an ascending balloon might seem, to an uninstructed observer, to do the same, although its movement is merely the natural result of that force; it is not necessary, therefore, to assume a free inner motive, the soul, as the cause of the one motion or the other. The first assimilation of food has its beginning in the process of endosmose and exosmose, in which the protoplasm, as in general the denser fluid, increases in volume, taking up more than it gives out; the process occurring, in detail, according to the special relations of attraction in the parts. The organism always takes up the greatest amount possible under the circumstances, exactly as, in the inorganic world, water takes up the greatest amount possible of salt or any other soluble substance; the growth of a crystal, and the oxidation of iron are illustrations of the same principle. Of the limit of this capacity to take up new matter into the organism we know nothing; all recent experiments go to show that the organism is capable, under propitious circumstances, of an enormous receptivity, such as, under natural conditions, it never reaches. The lower animals feed continually, and their whole lives are passed in this employment. In plants the tendency is seen still more clearly. Experiments with electric, violet, and ultra-violet light show an enormous growth in plants exposed to its action. But this can be only an indirect growth, namely, the exorbitant acceleration of organic change and assimilation. This fact is proved by experiments turning on increase of warmth in soil; from which is seen to result an unusual development of that part of the plant to which growth is especially directed at the time. When the warmth of an incubator is increased, the animal organ especially engaged in development at the time is affected in like manner. So that we may assume that the organism is capable of responding to every demand that nature makes upon it under normal conditions; and since the greatest possible assimilation under the existing conditions is thus removed from the control of the creature, the latter appears practically insatiable. This insatiability must appear to the observer an inner impulse of the organism, an effort towards increase of nourishment. It may be called mechanical hunger in distinction from psychical hunger, of which it is the basis. It is not necessary to take into consideration, in the question as to the degree of assimilation possible, the amount of excretion of substance by the organism; we must, on the contrary, assert that this is dependent upon the amount of assimilation. The measure of growth depends, therefore, on the degree of assimilation of new material. This degree, however, like the degree to which the matter may be dissolved in a liquid in the case of inorganic matter, is especially affected by light and warmth. The creature which comes into existence in the sun will experience a decrease of organic change when placed in the shade; and the creature which comes into existence in the shade will experience an increase of such change under the influence of the sun, a decrease again with a return to the shade. This decrease means hunger,--harm. Experiments with zooespores throw an interesting light upon these relations. They show that the zooespores, although suited to very different degrees of light, all shun darkness. Although when in the light they soon come to rest, divide, and copulate, they remain, in the darkness, in a state of continual unrest and motion. They grow so thin "that they almost excite pity" (Strassburger), and finally perish of hunger. Only such zooespores as are distinguished by sex and copulate come to rest, or those of such sorts as prey upon others. It is easy to perceive that the unrest of the zooespores in the darkness springs from lack of nourishment, from hunger; they seek feverishly for the light, without which assimilation follows with insufficient energy to satisfy need and render life possible. In darkness, copulation alone can do this; copulation takes, then, the place of normal nourishment.

Or let us consider the case of an organism which has originated in the shade. Heat, as we know, increases chemical change, in inorganic as well as organic matter; it hastens the disintegration of certain compounds, and alone renders it possible in many cases. In general, we may assert that increase of temperature within certain limits increases assimilation; that is, capacity to assimilate. Therefore, if an animal is placed in the sun, its capacity, that is, its need, to assimilate is increased, although assimilation is much more energetic than before. Need to assimilate or hunger is, therefore, dependent upon the supply of food, although, doubtless, also on other conditions, especially those of light and temperature. If this is true, the hunger of a simple organism that assimilates energetically must be more intense than that of one which assimilates slowly, in spite of the consumption of an enormous quantity of food in the case of the former. Botanists know (Sachs, "Lehrbuch der Botanik," p. 613) "that growth may be so hastened by too high a temperature that assimilation (especially under scanty light) does not suffice to provide the necessary material for it. The transpiration of the leaves may be so increased that the roots cannot repair the loss. And on the other hand, a too low temperature of the soil may so diminish the action of the roots that even a small loss by transpiration cannot be repaired."

At what stage of organization psychical hunger is added to mechanical hunger, or whether it may be identified with it, we cannot say. In any case, the former appears exceedingly early, for excitations of hunger may be observed in creatures very low in the scale of being. Certainly hunger is never absent where there is movement.

Hunger, a sense of pain, is, therefore, the first impulse to action.[58]

With a like effort in the attempt to obtain food, that organism will be best nourished which commands the best means of obtaining and preparing its food,--the best apparatus for the seizure and grinding of food, and the best salivary gland. And finally, greater surface of skin, of lungs, of gills, or of intestines, causes greater capacity for assimilation, and since this surface is increased by cell-division or propagation, the capacity of the organism for assimilation grows with its capacity of propagation.[59] Protoplasm is never entirely homogeneous, and we must suppose some difference even in the beginning; such difference is, indeed, fundamental through the very composition of protoplasm from the four fundamental elements, and this or that other element. These different elements must be held together by forces of attraction, and the direction of these forces must have some common centre represented by some differentiation of the protoplasm, whether as clearer spot, or as nucleus. This spontaneously generated organism, neither animal nor plant, is nourished, as we have seen, by diffusion, by the transformation of inorganic into organic substance. The lowest organisms possess no definite organs for taking food; they manifest, however, phenomena of movement which are exactly like those of the animal organism, for they appear unconditioned and hence voluntary. Locomotion is, in the lowest animal forms, the only means of obtaining nourishment. The amoeba surrounds and takes in whatever is by chance met with. Animals a little higher in the scale swim about and seek their food; or, remaining in one place, they cause, by means of cilia, a movement of the water towards a certain part of the body, a sort of mouth where the protoplasm is open and can take up the prey in the same manner as does the amoeba. Ascending the scale of life, we find more and more complicated apparatus for the seizure of food, for its preparation and digestion, and the beginning of a nervous system, first as the differentiation of certain muscle-cells, then in connection with a special sense, that of hearing. If we assume any pleasure to be connected with the earliest acts of assimilation, it must be that of the satisfaction of a want, the stilling of pain in the form of hunger.

THE PROBLEM OF PERFECTIBILITY

In the earliest forms of propagation, the younger organism is a true copy of that from which it springs, the trifling differences being due, as Schmankewicz has shown, to outer influences. The differences of male, female, worker, and soldier are due to such outer influences. The differences in the younger organism, where propagation takes place through copulation, may be explained by the mixture of types, through which, by action and reaction, some qualities are intensified, while some others become latent or are entirely destroyed. To these mutual influences are to be added such as come from without, especially those of warmth, and of quantity and quality of food. Under too great an increase in temperature, the young organism may even be destroyed, the process of assimilation not being able to keep pace with it. Those variations which have led to the development of existing forms, that is, which were favorable to life, are chiefly such as could be brought about by relative or absolute increase of assimilation. This is true of mental, as well as of physical, qualities.

It is a fact established without doubt, that the most common and most widely distributed species show the greatest variability, and that those species, on the contrary, which are now rare, although they were, perhaps, at earlier periods, the most common and extremely variable, vary, at the present date, the least of all. Following Darwin, one generally draws the conclusion that the severity of the struggle for existence favors the formation of varieties. For, it is said, the most common species fight the severest battle with one another, while the scanty representatives of rarer species come the least into competition and continue unchanged. But this theory is, in two ways, erroneous. In the first place, no attention is paid to the fact that a rare species may be exposed to a severe struggle against another species for the same nourishment, while a common species may, on the other hand, be exposed to no such struggle, and, supporting life from a generous supply of food, be subjected to but slight pressure. The conception of the Darwinians means nothing more or less than that the individuals of a species vary the more, the less favorable the conditions of nourishment; and this cannot be conceded. Again, the fact is to be taken into consideration, that the species at present common must have passed through a favorable period in which food was so plentiful that it not only afforded an abundance to individuals past the dangers of infancy and youth, but allowed, in addition, the existence of an ever-increasing number of individuals. And it is this period of increase, of abundance, not a period of struggle, which has developed the variations we now have before our eyes. In the same manner one must conclude, with regard to the rarer species, that the formerly existing numerous varieties were destroyed during the period of decline, that is, of overpowering pressure. We have abundant proof of this in the fact that domesticated species, which are carefully tended and fed, and so wholly withdrawn from the struggle for existence, vary enormously, and produce the most wonderful monstrosities.

To what direct causes the appearance of a variety is due, is a question as yet unanswered. But Weismann's investigations have shown us that climate plays a large part in their development. Embryology teaches us, moreover, that the development of the young organism does not take place with the same uniformity in all organs, but that, on the contrary, in one period one organ, in another, another, undergoes a more rapid growth, which may be influenced by variations in food or temperature. Through such variations the development of monstrosities is explained. We know that influences of nourishment are operative in the development of the larvae of bees to workers or to queens, and we can easily conceive that other organs besides the sexual are subject to these influences. The field in which such influences may be operative is, indeed, boundless.

All these considerations lead us to the conclusion that variability in general, but especially that variability resulting in a so-called improvement of the varieties producing it, is an accompaniment of prosperous conditions. This is a conclusion not yet reached in zooelogy, although botanists long ago recognized, in abundance of food, the most essential condition for the development of variations.

Darwinism fails to account for any need of nourishment beyond that necessary for the maintenance of the _status quo_ of life. According to Darwin, the animal can acquire only sufficient for the repair of loss. The struggle for existence is, therefore, according to him, a struggle of self-defence, and its results could be, at the best, only the maintenance of species in their present position or, in a less favorable case, their decline, and finally their destruction. But this view is wholly false. The animal acquires not only enough to repair loss, but much more. How could the first amoeba have propagated itself, if it consumed no more than it needed for mere self-maintenance, and how could evolution have taken place? We have seen that, even in the inorganic world, there is not an equality of loss and repair, but that, in osmose, the denser fluid takes up more than it gives, while the fluid that is less dense loses more than it receives, and the mutual exchange reaches the maximum possible under the existing circumstances. It is this characteristic which renders the involuntary and forced tendency of the organism to satiation independent of the amount of waste; this mechanical hunger is the spring of the insatiability of organisms, and explains to us their increase in number, the process of increasing perfection, and individual development. Without it, an eternity would not have sufficed for evolution; we should still have only a world of primitive amoebae.

This theory of development is, then, the opposite of that ordinarily assumed. The latter asserts that increase of growth demands increase of nourishment, whereas this asserts the fact that increase of nourishment determines growth. The struggle for existence is not a struggle for the mere necessaries to maintain life, but a struggle for increase of acquisition, increase of life; it is not a struggle of defence, but an attack which only under certain circumstances becomes a defence. The rule with which we advise our friends is, "Forward! strive to better yourself!" though we may endeavor, in hypocritical spirit, to persuade to contentment those who come into competition with our interests.

The chief points, therefore, in which this theory differs from that of Darwin, are as follows:--

"The struggle for existence is really a struggle for increase of nourishment, of life; and independent of the supply of the moment, it goes on at all times, hence even in a state of abundance.

"Limitation of supply by competition leads to fixation of the species and, in the end, to its decrease and disappearance.

"Sickness, climate, and direct enemies are the destructive agencies, and must secure more propitious conditions for survivors, the stronger their effect.

"Only under conditions of prosperity can the survivors propagate largely, and perfect themselves, separating into varieties and species.

"The increase and differentiation of the organic world shows us that conditions of prosperity have been the rule, those of want the exception."

Rolph's extremely interesting chapter on Propagation traces the sexual instinct to the "mechanical hunger." The earliest example which may be adduced in support of this theory is that of the zooespores which, by copulation, sustain life for a time under the unfavorable conditions of darkness, the thinner male representing, as does also the spermatozooen, the seeking individual suffering from want, the female representing a means of sustenance. The sex of the young organism is in like manner referred by Rolph to conditions of nourishment during development. We now come to the chapter on

ANIMAL OR NATURAL ETHICS

The existence of morality presupposes the existence of commandments of duty, and of an authority. Among animals, as well as among human beings, we find recognized authority and can discern the principles of action which constitute the duty of any particular animal. Authority among the lower animals is based on might, which is, indeed, the universal source of authority, without which no authority can exist. Personal authority is but a particular form of the authority of circumstances; and to this authority every creature must be subject. It consists of two factors: the outer authority of the environment, and the inner authority of impulse. Duty is obedience to authority. The duty of the organism consists in action that corresponds to these two authorities, following the direction given as the resultant of the mixture of the two components. That is, that manner of life is right or moral which renders the life of the organism the fullest possible under the circumstances. The unreasoning organism is unconsciously drawn to seek this maximum, while the reasoning being seeks it through reflection. The impulse to happiness includes, therefore, for the reasoning being, the impulse to morality; or, ideally expressed, the relative morality equals the relative happiness; morality and happiness are the same thing.

An authority without the means of enforcing itself is a self-contradiction. The means by which nature makes its authority felt is organic excitation. In proportion to its strength, an excitation produces sensation, in case it is not too weak to make itself felt at all. Every excitation has a definite significance and may come from without or within. Pleasant excitations are always, primarily, the feeling of the stilling of pain, though there are pains, such as, for instance, that of a wound, the toothache, headache, an aching corn, which have no corresponding feeling of pleasure. Nor is pleasure the only offspring of pain, since pain may bring forth pain. Pleasure depends, in its character as pleasure as well as in its strength, on the feeling preceding it in the organism; that is, its quality is the result, not of the degree of organic excitation, but of the order of succession of the feelings. For this reason, the same feeling which brings pleasure to one individual may bring pain to another.

This whole deduction is at variance with Spencer's theory that pleasurable excitations are favorable to life, painful ones injurious. And since observation is in direct opposition to his assertion, his followers have been obliged to supplement it with the conception that pain is gradually weeded out by natural selection. On the contrary, we need pain at every instant, since it is the impulse to action; persistence in the same condition through lack of excitation, must result in death; pleasure can never originate action, it can only cause persistence in action already begun. The fact has been too often overlooked, that the motive and the "end" of an action are by no means the same. The motive is pain, and the end is either simply the stilling of pain or an additional positive pleasure. There are, therefore, many actions which are directed to no concrete positive end, but only to the purely negative end of escape from pain without consideration of the further results; a striking example of such action is suicide. Even where positive pleasure appears as an end, it is never in itself the motive to action. In order to become a motive, it must first be transformed into an excitation, into desire for pleasure; and this desire for a definite or an indefinite pleasure is, in its essence, pain--the pain of the absence of pleasure.[60]

The pleasure sought may be one already known through experience, or it may be one not yet experienced. In the latter case, the desire is awakened by instruction or reflection, or else induced by instinct. But the motive is always the same, namely, a seeking after pleasure, hence a feeling of pain.

This view furnishes us with a psychical explanation of the association of ideas, the mysterious so-called transferrence of the feeling of pleasure from the end to the means. Pleasure begins as soon as we have begun the action which will bring us with certainty to the end desired, and this pleasure may reach such a degree of strength at some point of the process as to conquer the desire for the real end, hem further action, and dispose to continuance at the point reached. The action of the miser may be thus explained.

The objection that, if pain is the motive, the organism is nothing but a bundle of pains, is by no means valid, for it overlooks the fact that pain remains, in an immense number of cases, below the threshold of consciousness; as in the case of organic action, where it is rhythmic. The same is true of reflex action. To any close observer of the lower organisms, it seems most probable that these possess consciousness (see Wundt, "Physiologische Psychologie"), nor is it by any means proved that the plants do not possess it likewise. It is certainly remarkable that exactly the lowest plants, which stand so near the animals in the phenomena of their life, exhibit movements closely resembling those of animals. And it is, moreover, a fact that automatic and reflex actions increase with the degree of organization, and are most numerous in human beings. With increased exercise, one chain of movements after the other is withdrawn from consciousness; and through this removal from consciousness action gains in certainty and rapidity, and in energy also, since the part of the force which was before lost in inducing consciousness is now released. Such removal from consciousness is, therefore, a benefit to the organism, as an adaptation to the increased demands of circumstances. Movements which thus become unconscious are each and every one of them movements which have but one definite end and an interruption of which either kills or seriously injures the organism, or at least brings disorder into its life for the time being. An easily excited consciousness would be an exceeding danger to the animal. Conscious action is directed to the attainment of variable ends by means which are also variable. It cannot, therefore, astonish us that consciousness disappeared in plants after the loss of free motion.

By the regular exercise of certain actions or of trains of thought, either through necessity or by habit certain tracks are worn or taken possession of, so that the whole process, from the excitation to the action resulting upon it, takes place with such rapidity that we are no longer conscious of its separate phases and so of the growth of the result.

The first commandment of animal ethics is, therefore: "Flee pain"; and closely associated with it is a second commandment furnished by the insatiability of the organism, the impulse to happiness, to increase of life. The principle of Spencer's ethics, according to which normal living is right living, would result in stagnation. Right living consists, on the contrary, in progress, in passing beyond the normal. No educator would hesitate for an instant to pronounce the continuance of a pupil upon a present normal immoral, and to oppose it with all his powers. From day to day the developing organism advances the line of its normal activity. And as in the individual, so in the species: every new generation exceeds in a certain measure the activity of the last. Not rest, but motion, constitutes the normal; not rest, but motion, is happiness, and the spring of happiness. Not that being which has no wants, but that which develops and satisfies the greatest possible number of wants, is the happiest, leads the most pleasurable life. When we apply these principles to the animals, we reach the conception that all such as lead a solitary life live morally when they endeavor, with all their powers, to better their own condition. That they injure plants and other animals in so doing need not trouble us, since they are forced to do so in order to maintain life. The principle on which animal life is based is hence preeminently egoistic and acknowledges no other right than that of might. Spencer, in speaking of altruism on the lowest plane of animal life, makes the fundamental and quite fatal mistake that he does not first sharply and distinctly define egoism. Had he done this, he would certainly have found that, for egoism, as for altruism, the criterion of consciousness, of will, is indispensable. In his definition of altruism as consisting in those acts which in any way benefit others, he does nothing less than get rid of egoism altogether, since there are no acts which do not, in the end, benefit others than the performer. The greater number of the young brought forth by lowest organisms serve as food for other species, and hence the parent animal, in bringing forth such numbers, favors these species rather than her own flesh and blood. The fly would act altruistically, according to Spencer's definition, in being caught in the net of the spider.