Chapter VIII: The Evolutionist End (2)

There are two ways in which, on most or all ethical theories, the attempt may be made to distinguish "good" from "bad" conduct. We may either look to a subjective motive or impulse as giving the means of distinction, or we may test conduct by its conformity with an objective standard. If we like to make use of the terms self-preservation and self-development, then these may refer either to the subjective impulse which urges man to preserve or develop his life, or to some objective standard for estimating actions according as they actually tend to prolong life or enrich it. Both these possibilities are open to the theory of evolution. Although the subjective impulse is, of course, a property of the individual, it may be the result of the whole course of social development, and thus take in others as well as self in the range of its application. It is therefore necessary to examine both methods of determination with some care, especially as we are in no little danger of reaching an illusory appearance of conclusiveness by allowing the subjective standard to rest on the objective, and the objective, in turn, on the subjective.

[Sidenote: (_a_) Subjective standard: most persistent impulses;]

To begin with the subjective side. It may be thought that we can point to some impulse, tendency, motive, or class of motives in the individual mind by following which the evolution of life will be promoted, and that we are thus able to solve the question of practical ethics, though our conception of what the evolution of life connotes may still be in want of exact definition. As already pointed out, such an impulse (unless it depends on an objective standard) must carry its own authority with it by its strength or persistency. The case would, of course, be perfectly simple, if we could assert that the carrying out of all impulses in one's nature was to be approved as tending to the development of life. Could this assertion be made, there might be no difficulty in ethics, or rather, there might be no ethics at all, because there would be no difficulty in conduct. It is obvious, however, that the development of one natural tendency often conflicts with that of another in the same individual, as well as with the tendencies of other individuals. The course of evolution has no doubt tended to modify, though it has not rooted out, the impulses which are most prejudicial to individual and social welfare. But the increase of wants as well as satisfactions which it has brought about in human nature, makes it doubtful whether it has on the whole tended to diminish the conflict of motives.

[Sidenote: implies distinction between permanent and transient self;]

Again, when it is said that a man should "be himself," or that this is his "strongest tendency,"[251] there is an implicit reference to a distinction between a permanent and a transient, or a better and a worse self, and it seems to be imagined that this distinction can be reduced to difference in degrees of strength. But evolution has not enabled us to obviate Butler's objection to taking the "strongest tendency"--meaning by this the tendency which is at any time strongest--as representing "nature." For it is an undeniable fact that the tendency which for a time is the strongest--it may even be that which is strongest throughout an individual life--frequently leads to a diminution of vital power on the part of the agent, as well as to interference with the free exercise of the vital powers of others. Some advantage is gained, perhaps, by substituting for "strongest" the nearly equivalent phrase "most persistent" tendency. All those impulses which have in the past served to promote life have been chosen out and stored up as a sort of permanent basis for the human fabric; whereas other impulses, not so advantageous in their effects, have a less permanent influence, though they are not less real. The more regular or persistent class of impulses may, therefore, (the idea is) be taken as representing the course of the evolution by which they have been produced.

[Sidenote: but includes non-moral impulses in the former,]

To a large extent this distinction of two classes of impulses is justified. There seems no doubt that the social, and what are usually termed moral, feelings have a tendency to return into consciousness after any temporary depression or exclusion, which is not shared by some of the feelings with which they most commonly conflict. Other impulses, not usually classed as moral, no doubt share this characteristic of persistency or recurrence. "The wish for another man's property," says Darwin, "is as persistent a desire as any that can be named." The selfish feelings have obviously this persistent character. But an evolutionist may perhaps maintain that it is one of the defects of ordinary moral opinion that it depreciates the necessity and value for life of the selfish feelings, just because they are so strong as to stand in need of no encouragement. And it is not necessary that the evolutionist morality should agree at all points with ordinary moral opinion or moral intuition. It recognises, or ought to recognise the agency of immoral as well as moral forces, admitting that it is by the action of both of these that man as he is at present has been produced, although the principle of the survival of the fittest has tended, though by no means uniformly, towards the elimination of the immoral factor. We may admit, therefore, that there is a pressure on the will of the average individual towards certain kinds of conduct rather than others, or, put more precisely, that while all acts are performed in consequence of pressure on the will, the pressure towards certain kinds of acts is a permanent force which, although overcome for the time, always tends to reassert itself, while the tendency towards other acts inconsistent with these is more intermittent and variable, and does not reassert itself in the same way. But this subjective experience is so limited in accuracy and extent as to be an unfit test of morality.

[Sidenote: is restricted to previous habits of acting,]

[Sidenote: and cannot define nature of morality.]

In the first place, selfish conduct is as necessary for the preservation and development of man as "altruistic" conduct, and must therefore have given rise to an equally great and persistent pressure on the will: so that the subjective criterion of persistency leaves untouched what is often regarded as the most difficult question of morals, the balance of social and individual claims. In the second place, this subjective tendency is only a recurrence of antecedent advantageous characteristics, and does not lead us beyond the _status quo_, so that, if any progress is to be made in the future, it will be only possible through the pressure of new external conditions: no function is left for any ethical ideal which points beyond past and present habits of action. In the third place, subjective tendency only enables us to say generally that some acts or tendencies are more persistent than others, without giving any further description of what sort of acts these are. Were these tendencies or impulses a perfect guide to conduct, this defect would be of little practical consequence. It would prevent our having a definite ethical theory only in circumstances in which no ethical theory would be likely to be asked for. But the line between the more and less persistent motives is a narrow and shifting one. The impulses which are the residua of advantageous ancestral actions are counteracted by other impulses, residua of actions which would not be counted as moral, though we inherit tendencies to them because they formed a real part of our ancestral activity. We therefore stand in need of some characteristic by which to distinguish the one class of tendencies from the other. And as the only subjective characteristic is that of strength or persistency, and this has been found insufficient, an objective standard is shown to be necessary.

[Sidenote: Thus subjective standard acknowledged to depend on]

The impossibility of the subjective test doing duty alone without support from some objective criterion, is practically acknowledged by the writer who has discussed this part of the subject with greater penetration than any other investigator on the same lines. "The average man," it is said, "feels the pressure upon his own individual will of all the unknown natural sequence of motive which caused his ancestors to do on the whole more often the right thing than the wrong"[252]--or, as we must read it without objective assumption, "to do on the whole more often one class of acts than another." The right must be defined simply as that to which this "special feeling in the subject is directed," and it therefore becomes necessary "to discover what descriptions of acts inspire this feeling."[253] Thus, with greater facility than would be permitted to a critic, we are made to pass from the subjective to the objective method of determination.

[Sidenote: (_b_) Objective standard:]

The question, What is right? is thus relinquished for the question, What is good? Good is said to be of three kinds--natural, sensible, and moral. But as by sensible good is meant pleasure,[254] and pleasure is not the end, and as by moral good is meant "the pursuit of natural good under difficulties,"[255] it follows that natural good is the end we seek. We have thus to determine, as exactly as may be, this objective standard called natural good. It is interpreted in two ways, which, however, may be "not necessarily inconsistent": (α) "the perfection of the type as it is," and (β) "the absolute abundance and variety of vital power."[256]

[Sidenote: (α) Conformity to the type.]

[Sidenote: The type defined as what best serves its purpose]

This phrase, "the perfection of the type as it is," is somewhat misleading. When "the perfection of the type" is said to be the end, we naturally regard the type as something that needs to be brought to perfection, and _ex hypothesi_ is not perfect at present, or "as it is." But if "the perfection of the type _as it is_" is the standard, this implies, unless the standard itself is faulty, that the type is already perfect, and, therefore, that the perfection spoken of is the characteristic of a thing which conforms to the type, and not something to which the type has to conform. This interpretation is confirmed by the fact that imperfection is defined as "only departure from the class type."[257] Plainly, then, the objective standard meant is conformity to the type. What, then, is the type? Concerning things made by art the answer is easy. The type, as Mr Stephen puts it, represents the "maximum of efficiency,"[258] or, as we may say, is that which most fully realises the purpose for which the thing was formed. The best bow is that which shoots truest and farthest with a relatively small expenditure of strength by the archer; that which best realises the purpose of a bow is the typical bow. A similar explanation of types may be given regarding animals modified by artificial selection. The typical pointer or hunter can be defined from this teleological point of view; and, as long as people lived in the belief that all things were made for man, it was natural to fix the type of each class by reference to the human purpose it could best subserve. So also, as long as people think that, whether all things were made for man or not, all things may be made use of by him, there will be a tendency towards the same anthropomorphic interpretation of types. If, then, the typical products of art, and, to a large extent, the typical products of nature, are those which best serve human purposes, or best correspond with human ideals, how shall we define the typical man himself--the type which it is our perfection to conform to? "Every reasoning agent," it may perhaps be allowed,[259] "represents a certain type;" but the type can no longer be defined merely as "maximum of efficiency," for it is the end or purpose of this efficiency which now requires determination. In defining the typical man, we must have no idea of final cause or purpose which is not rooted in the nature of his organism.

How, then, shall we now determine the type in conformity to which perfection consists?[260]

[Sidenote: or as the normal,]

[Sidenote: or as what has strongest vitality or aids development, that is,]

The first answer to this seems to be, that the type is what is normal,--"what we have learned to regard as the normal development of objects belonging to" the class.[261] But the normal may have either of two meanings--it may, in the first place, mean the usual or customary. This, however, would make the typical man mean the ordinary or average man; and the ideal of conformity to the type would be reduced to doing the customary thing, and not trying to be better than one's neighbours. But it is evident that this stationary morality does not represent properly what is fundamental in the theory of evolution: "whatever other duties men may acknowledge, they do not look upon it as a duty to preserve the species _in statu quo_."[262] If natural science teaches one thing more clearly than another, it is that the type, like the individual, is not permanent, but the subject of gradual modifications. If the type is what is normal, we must mean by "normal" something else than customary. But the only other meaning of the word seems to imply a reference to a rule--either a rule imposed from without, or an inner constitution or order. If the former alternative is adopted, then we may use another definition of Mr Stephen's, and say that "the typical organism is ... that organism which is best fitted for all the conditions of life, or, in other words, which has the strongest vitality;"[263] and thus have to fall back either on the notion of "adaptation to environment," or on that of "strongest vitality"--the notion we are seeking to interpret. If the other meaning, which the reference to a rule may convey, be adopted, then we are met by the fact that the inner order or constitution which is to be our guide, can (from our present empirical point of view) mean nothing different from the line of development. And as we have already seen that it is unsatisfactory to interpret this as equivalent to adaptation to environment, or to increase of definiteness, coherence, and heterogeneity, this principle of conformity to the type is reduced to the general principle which we have been attempting to define more exactly--increase of life.

[Sidenote: (β) Abundance and variety of vital power,]

[Sidenote: which falls back on the subjective standard.]

Thus the first determination of natural good as "perfection of the type" is seen to reduce itself to the second, "absolute abundance and variety of vital power." For the additional statement, which makes the highest excellence consist in "conformity to the type as it is going to be, but as, except in a few chosen specimens, it is not yet discernible to be,"[264] is unsatisfactory. For to those "few chosen specimens" the end would seem to be simply to remain as they are--a conclusion which is hardly consistent for a writer who regards morality as a continual progress towards a higher life, a process of "climbing."[265] And, for the generality of men, there must be some standard for determining what is "going to be," and for certifying that the "few chosen specimens" have realised this state in its perfect form. Thus "conformity to the type as it is going to be," equally with "perfection of [conformity to] the type as it is," seems to be but another way of saying "abundance and variety of vital power," or, more fully stated, "the possession of abundant faculties, active and passive, fully developed, and in regular and equal exercise."[266] The question thus comes to be how we are to determine this "abundance of faculties." We cannot do so by reference to such characteristics as increase in the number and complexity of these faculties; for a criterion of this kind, as we have seen, is of no assistance in deciding the most fundamental ethical questions. To say that these faculties must be "regular and equal" in their exercise, is to give a merely formal canon. For how the equality and regularity are to be brought about,--which faculties are to be supreme and which subordinate--what meaning equality can have in view of the admitted diversity in a man's nature,--are questions left altogether undetermined. And to describe the ideal or perfect universe as one in which there is no conflict or collision,[267] is to give a description which is negative as well as merely formal. We are thus obliged to fall back on a subjective criterion, and say that the abundant life which it is the end of conduct to promote is a man's strongest tendencies, or the greatest number of these. Natural good is determined by "preferring out of all the rudimentary possibilities existing in nature, the combination that harmonises the greatest number of the strongest tendencies."[268] We set out, be it remembered, to obtain a characterisation of those acts to which the most persistent tendencies of human nature lead us; and the conclusion we have arrived at is, that they are the acts which harmonise the greatest number of the strongest tendencies. The objective standard is thus reduced to the subjective standard, which it was brought in to explain and support.

[Sidenote: Strongest tendencies the result of past activities,]

Now these strongest tendencies, in the harmonious play of which natural good or perfection is said to consist, are themselves the result of the courses of conduct which have been most vigorous and successful in ancestral organisms, and they may therefore, perhaps, be taken as a survival and index of the antecedent state of human nature. The realisation--or, rather, continuation--of human nature as it has been and is, seems thus to be the ideal which empirical evolution is able to set before conduct,--with this formal modification, that, while the various impulses are, so far as possible, to have free play given them, they should be developed in a harmonious manner. It seems doubtful how far this tendency towards harmony is properly suggested by, or consistent with, evolution, which has implied a ceaseless struggle of opposing forces. At any rate, evolution does not seem competent to give any principle of relative subordination between the various impulses, such as might add reality to the formal principle of harmony. But what it is essential to lay stress on here is, that the only end which empirical evolution seems able to establish is conformity to human nature as it is--the tendencies in it which are strongest and most persistent.

[Sidenote: and thus give no ideal for progress.]

We thus see that the attempt to explain on empirical grounds what is meant by positing "life," or "increase and variety of life," as the end of action, is practically reduced to making the most persistent impulses of human nature the guide of conduct. But these impulses, it has been shown, are only the survival or remnant of past stages in the course of development, not anticipations of future stages: so that evolution is in this way incapable of giving an ideal of progress as the end for conduct, and the last word it seems able to give us as a guide for action is that we should tread in the places where the footprints of ancestral conduct have left the deepest impress. The ideal of such a system is summed up in the new Beatitude, "Blessed is he that continueth where he is." It is probably just because the empirical aspect of evolution seems so little able to yield an end for human conduct corresponding to the actual course of evolution--which has been progress--that no thorough attempt has been made to develop a system of morals from the principle just reached. It is true that systems have been worked out by moralists who have taken human nature as their standard, and that Trendelenburg, at any rate, expressly includes historical development in his conception of man. But both Trendelenburg and a moralist like Butler (who has as yet no conception of the gradual modifications of human character and tendencies produced by evolution) have a view of human nature essentially distinct from that which has been called the "naturalistic" view.[269] For both assume a definite rational organisation of impulses similar to that taught in Plato's analogy between the individual man and a political constitution, so that the whole nature, or human nature as a whole, cannot be identified with the impulses which strength at any time makes most persistent, but depends upon the rational allotment of function and measure to each.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Summary.]

[Sidenote: Difficulty of reconciling individual and social ends.]

In summing up the argument of the preceding chapters, it is necessary to refer again to the discussion carried on in chapter vi. on the relation between egoism and altruism as affected by the theory of evolution. This discussion was not inserted in order to throw an additional obstacle in the way of obtaining an ethical end from the empirical theory of evolution. It is an integral part of an attempt to estimate the ethical value of the evolution-theory. The antinomy between the individual and social standpoints cannot be solved by a theory of morality which does not recognise that the individual, in his rational nature, is not opposed to other individuals, but in reality one with them. The theory of evolution certainly seems to go a long way towards establishing the unity of the individual with the race, and in substituting an organic connection between them, in place of the almost contingent reciprocal relations spoken of in earlier empirical theories. But when we come to inquire into this unity of organic connection, attempting still to keep to the purely empirical point of view, we find that the old difficulties return, that it must be recognised that the connection is empirically incomplete, and that it gives way at the very places where a firm basis for the theory of morals is required. It was in this way that, quite apart from this opposition between the individual and the whole, the empirical character of the theory prevented our getting from it any clear and consistent notion of the ethical end it leads to.

[Sidenote: Hedonistic interpretation of evolution not possible.]

It appeared at first that the ethics of evolution, when interpreted empirically, might be easily reconciled with the older theory of hedonism, by identifying life with pleasure--holding that the highest or most evolved life is that which contains most pleasure, and that increase of pleasure is therefore the end of conduct. In this way the end of evolutionism would be reduced to the end of utilitarianism. Some utilitarians, on the other hand, sought to get rid of the difficulties of their calculus, by the assumption that the greatest pleasure would be found by following the direction of evolution. But, around both points of view, and the correspondence they assumed to exist between pleasure and evolution, special difficulties were seen to gather. Any hedonistic theory might be met by the assertion that life is essentially a painful experience, and pleasure unattainable; and although the grounds on which this assertion was made seemed to be distinctly erroneous, and hedonism did not appear to be an impossible theory of conduct, yet a similar objection told with greater force against the combination of evolutionism and hedonism. For it holds the double position that the end is to promote life, and that life is to be promoted by adding to pleasure; or else, that the end is pleasure, but that pleasure is to be got by following evolution. It postulates, therefore, that the progress of life tends, and tends even in a proportionate degree, to the increase of pleasure. Yet we could obtain no proof that this progress does, as a matter of fact, increase pleasure in any regular way. On the contrary, the facts of experience seemed to show that life and pleasure do not advance proportionately, nor even always concomitantly. But a still more important and fundamental objection to the hedonistic form of evolutionism was deduced from the nature of pleasure itself; for it can be modified indefinitely, and always follows in the wake of function. Thus the sole intelligible account we can give of what conduct will bring the greatest pleasure is, that it is the conduct which calls forth the greatest amount of successful energising, that which employs the greatest number and the strongest of the human faculties. Hence, instead of being able to measure life by pleasure, we were driven to interpret pleasure in terms of life.

[Sidenote: No independent ethical ideal afforded by the theory of evolution.]

And perhaps at first sight it seemed that the theory of evolution could lead us beyond the pleasure-basis of older Naturalism. But, when the matter was examined more closely, without departing from the empirical point of view, it was found that the notions put forward were unsatisfactory, that they did not represent the progressive nature of the course of evolution, and that their apparent force fell away before logical analysis. It became evident, in the first place, that no appropriate end of human conduct could be derived from the nature of evolution in general. It is true that adaptation to environment is necessary for life; but to put forward such adaptation as the end for action, is to set up a practical goal which corresponds but ill with the facts from which it professes to be taken, making the theory which is supposed to account for progress establish no end by pursuit of which progress becomes possible for human action. Further than this, it neglects a factor in evolution as necessary to it as is adaptation to environment--the element, namely, of variation. A theory which took the latter as well as the former of these factors into account seemed, in the next place, to be given by those general characteristics which are said to mark all progress--increase of definiteness, coherence, and heterogeneity. But from these, again, it was found impossible to elicit a coherent and consistent rule for determining right and wrong in conduct, or a definite end for action: they were too abstract and mechanical to suit the living organism of human conduct; and we were thus driven back on the more general statement that "life" or the "increase of life" is the end after which we should strive. In inquiring into the meaning which could be given to this end, without interpreting it as pleasure, it was found, after tracing it through various forms of expression, that it reduced itself to making a man's strongest and most persistent impulses both standard and end. And this proved to be not only an uncertain and shifting guide for conduct, but an imperfect representation of what was to be expected from a progressive, because evolutionist, ethics. For these persistent impulses could only be regarded as the survival of past activities, and consequently, contained no ideal beyond that of continuing in the old paths, and re-treading an already well-beaten course. Just as from the external end of adaptation to environment, so from this internal or subjective principle, no ideal for progress, nor any definite end of action, could be obtained.

It would appear, therefore, that the theory of evolution--however great its achievements in the realm of natural science--is almost resultless in ethics. It only remains now to inquire whether this want of competency to determine practical ends may not be due to the superficiality of the ordinary empirical interpretation of evolution, which has hitherto been adhered to.

FOOTNOTES:

[191] Taking evolution in its widest sense, since the theory of evolution does not "imply some intrinsic proclivity in every species towards a higher form."--Spencer, First Principles, App. p. 574; Principles of Sociology, i. 106.

[192] Spencer, Principles of Biology, i. 73.

[193] Ibid., i. 82.

[194] Reden (1876), ii. 332.

[195] Social Statics (1850), p. 77.

[196] Data of Ethics, p. 25.

[197] Data of Ethics, p. 16.

[198] Ibid., p. 71.

[199] See above, chap. vi. p. 137 ff.

[200] Zeller, Phil. d. Griechen, 3d ed., III. i. 454, 470.

[201] Lassalle's tirade against the "verdammte Bedürfnisslosigkeit" of the German workman is a case in point.

[202] Lange, Gesch. d. Materialismus, 2d ed., ii. 458.

[203] Spencer, First Principles, p. 490.

[204] An aspect of Mr Spencer's ethical theory which will be considered in the sequel: p. 228 ff.

[205] Cf. A. Barratt, Physical Ethics, p. 294, where morality is placed in "reasonable obedience to the physical laws of nature."

[206] Data of Ethics, p. 148.

[207] Social Statics, quoted in Data of Ethics, p. 271.

[208] Data of Ethics, p. 279.

[209] Ibid., p. 275.

[210] Data of Ethics, p. 7.

[211] Ibid., p. 281.

[212] These are examined by Mr F. W. Maitland, in an incisive criticism of "Mr H. Spencer's Theory of Society," Mind, viii. 354 ff., 506 ff.

[213] Data of Ethics, p. 282.

[214] Ibid., p. 283.

[215] First Principles, p. 517.

[216] Spencer, Psychology, § 212, i. 478.

[217] First Principles, p. 489.

[218] "A complete equilibrium of the aggregate is without life, and a moving equilibrium of the aggregate is living."--Principles of Sociology, i. 106.

[219] Data of Ethics, p. 254.

[220] Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 26.

[221] Darwin, Origin of Species (1859), pp. 43, 131, 466.

[222] Spencer, Biology, i. 257.

[223] First Principles, p. 404 f.

[224] Cf. Clifford, Lectures and Essays, i. 101.

[225] Descent of Man, 2d ed., p. 137, cf. pp. 198, 618; cf. A. R. Wallace, Contributions (1870), p. 330.

[226] Vierteljahrsschrift f. wiss. Phil., i. (1877), 543 ff.

[227] Rolph, Biol. Probl., p. 33.

[228] Darwin, Origin of Species, p. 336.

[229] Thus Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 51, speaking of the "advantage to man" it must have been "to become a biped," says: "The hands and arms could hardly have become perfect enough to have manufactured weapons, or to have hurled stones and spears with a true aim, as long as they were habitually used for locomotion and for supporting the whole weight of the body; or, as before remarked, as long as they were especially fitted for climbing trees." The hands had to lose their dexterity for the latter purposes before they could acquire the more delicate adjustments necessary for skill in the former. The transition was of course a gradual one; but the initial variations required would seem to have been at first unfavourable to man's chances in the struggle for existence, though it was through them that he rose to his place at the summit of the organic scale.

[230] Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 280.

[231] Spencer, Biology, i. 149.

[232] ibid., i. 144.

[233] Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 71: "Briefly, then, if the conduct is the best possible on every occasion, it follows that as the occasions are endlessly varied the acts will be endlessly varied to suit--the heterogeneity in the combination of motions will be extreme."

[234] Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 106: "The acts characterised by the more complex motives and the more involved thoughts, have all along been of higher authority for guidance."

[235] Cf. Clifford, Lectures and Essays, i. 94 f., where a similar definition is given in answer to the question, "What is the meaning of _better_?"

[236] Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 63.

[237] Cf. Spencer, First Principles, p. 566.

[238] So far as the following criticism may appear to apply to Mr Spencer, and not merely to a possible way of defining moral conduct, it is necessary to bear in mind the words of his preface to the 'Data of Ethics': "With a view to clearness, I have treated separately some correlative aspects of conduct, drawing conclusions either of which becomes untrue if divorced from the other."

[239] Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 75 f.

[240] Data of Ethics, p. 106.

[241] Although Mr Spencer holds that representativeness varies as definiteness, and measures complexity, including that complexity implied by increasing heterogeneity.--Principles of Psychology, ii. 516 f.

[242] Data of Ethics, p. 113.

[243] Cf. Principles of Sociology, ii. 725.

[244] Data of Ethics, p. 123.

[245] Data of Ethics, pp. 107, 129.

[246] Ibid., p. 110.

[247] Data of Ethics, p. 25; cf. Lange, Ges. d. Mat., ii. 247. Lange's statement is noteworthy: "Die menschliche Vernunft kennt kein anderes Ideal, als die möglichste Erhaltung und Vervollkommnung des Lebens, welches einmal begonnen hat, verbunden mit der Einschränkung von Geburt und Tod."

[248] The "endeavour to further evolution, especially that of the human race," is put forward as a "new duty" by Mr F. Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development (1883), p. 337.

[249] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 121; Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 366. Earlier than either of these writers, Dr Hutchison Stirling suggested Health as a practical principle to be set against the anarchy of individualism. But with him, it is not an empirical generalisation of the tendency of evolution. It is as "the outward sign of freedom, the realisation of the universal will," that "health may be set at once as sign and as goal of the harmonious operation of the whole system--as sign and as goal of a realisation of life."--Secret of Hegel, ii. 554.

[250] Naturrecht auf dem Grunde der Ethik, 2d ed., 1868.

[251] Cf. E. Simcox, Natural Law, p. 97.

[252] Simcox, Natural Law, p. 86.

[253] Ibid., p. 87.

[254] Ibid., p. 90.

[255] Ibid., p. 99.

[256] Simcox, Natural Law, p. 104.

[257] Ibid., p. 87.

[258] Science of Ethics, p. 76.

[259] Science of Ethics, p. 74.

[260] Even were we to succeed in getting a satisfactory view of the type, we should still have to leave room for the individuality of each person, which is such that his function must differ in a manner corresponding to his peculiar nature and surroundings (cf. Lotze, Grundzüge der praktischen Phil., p. 13 f.)

[261] Simcox, Natural Law, p. 88.

[262] Ibid., p. 100.

[263] Science of Ethics, p. 120.

[264] Simcox, Natural Law, p. 104.

[265] Ibid., p. 103.

[266] Ibid., p. 89; cf. J. T. Punnet, Mind, x. 91: "What the progress-principle makes its aim and end is not complexity, but the highest and choicest fruits of complexity--the harmonious unfolding of all the latent capacities of man."

[267] "Of real tendencies"--Natural Law, p. 98. But what tendencies are not real?

[268] Natural Law, p. 98.

[269] Cf. Trendelenburg, Naturrecht, p. 45: "Von der philosophischen Seite kann es kein anderes Princip der Ethik geben als das menschliche Wesen an sich, d. h., das menschliche Wesen in der Tiefe seiner Idee und im Reichthum seiner historischen Entwickelung. Beides gehört zusammen. Denn das nur Historische würde blind und das nur Ideale leer."