Chapter VI: Conscience (3)

Is social development the cause of an increase in sympathy, or is the increase of sympathy the cause of social progress and prosperity? Or is increase of population the cause of both by forcing men to companionship? Or is not, rather, increase of population the effect of prosperity? In his work on "Recent Discussions in Science, Philosophy, and Morals," Herbert Spencer writes of the altruistic sentiments: "The development of these has gone on only as fast as society has advanced to a state in which the activities are mainly peaceful. The root of all the altruistic sentiments is sympathy, and sympathy could have become dominant only when the mode of life, instead of being one that habitually inflicted direct pain, became one which conferred direct and indirect benefits; the pains inflicted being mainly incidental and indirect;" and in an essay on "Progress," the author writes: "Social progress is supposed to consist in the produce of a greater quantity and variety of the articles required for satisfying men's wants; in the increasing security of person and property; in widening freedom of action; whereas, rightly understood, social progress consists in those changes of structure in the social organism which have entailed these consequences." The two paragraphs appear contradictory of each other, the first laying emphasis upon outer conditions as cause of inner change, the second seeming to emphasize inner conditions as cause; but the terms of the second quotation are somewhat ambiguous. As to the first, to do Mr. Spencer full justice, he corrects this a little farther down, where he says that "sympathy is the concomitant of gregariousness, the two having all along increased by reciprocal aid."

The root of the whole difficulty, with regard to our theories of cause and effect in social development, as with regard to our theories of cause and effect in other parts of nature, lies in our desire for unity and simplicity. Instead of attempting to unravel the intricate web of the conditions, we fix our attention on some one feature or side of the process, and regard the whole development as revolving round this pivot.

It is easy to find examples, in the history of science and opinion, of the errors into which the concepts of cause and effect have led men, and of the repeated recurrence of uncertainty to which the unveiling of these errors in the further march of knowledge, has led. For instance, we find some writers on nervous diseases adhering to the view that insanity is sometimes the effect of a weak yielding to a violent disposition; more contending that the violence is itself the effect of incipient insanity; and still others opining that both violence of disposition and insanity are the effect of a general diseased state of the system. Ancient schools of medicine traced all diseases to the blood, and so drained off the fluid; and the patent medicines of to-day generally select some one organ as the source of all disease. I once heard the assertion that a certain woman had died with grief contested by a physician on the ground that the cause of her death was consumption; he added that deaths from sudden mental shock were known to medicine, but the cases were rare; another medical man suggested that the system might not have been in a perfectly healthy condition at the time of the shock, in those cases; and the first man seemed a little puzzled when a third person suggested that there was doubtless a physical basis in every case.

FOOTNOTES:

[165] "Adam Bede."

[166] "Daniel Deronda."

[167] "The Science of Ethics," pp. 238, 239. The italics are mine.

[168] Ibid. pp. 242, 243.

[169] As above, pp. 255, 256. The italics are mine.

[170] Ibid. p. 443.

[171] Ibid. p. 441. The italics are mine.

[172] Ibid. p. 236. The italics are mine.

[173] Ibid. p. 237.

[174] Ibid. p. 239. The italics are here also mine.

[175] "The Pathology of Mind," 102 _et seq._

[176] In this general and limited sense, but only in this general and limited sense, does Spencer's assertion that more moral conduct shows a greater adjustment of means to ends, correspond to the facts.

[177] See "The Science of Ethics," p. 62.

[178] "The Science of Ethics," pp. 375, 376.

[179] "The Science of Ethics," p. 300.

[180] "The Science of Ethics," p. 301.

[181] See Part I, this book, p. 117.

[182] "The Science of Ethics," p. 310.