Part 3

But when he comes to the case of civilised men he finds a difficulty. "With savages," he says, "the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment.... The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts.... Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature[1]." This sympathy, which natural selection cannot preserve or vindicate even in the struggle of communities, is nevertheless recognised by Darwin as having a moral value outside of and above natural selection and the struggle for existence,--a value of which these have no right to judge. He thinks that if we followed hard reason--and by 'hard reason' he obviously means an imitation on our part of the action of natural selection--we should be led to sweep away all those institutions by which civilised mankind guards its weaker members. But this, he says, would be only to deteriorate the "noblest part of our nature." What is noblest in our nature, then, is not that which natural selection has favoured or maintained. There is, therefore, implied in his view a limitation of the ethical significance of the principle of natural selection. For, when we come to this crucial question of conduct, it is not allowed to give any criterion of moral validity. More comprehensive attempts on the same lines as Darwin's have been made subsequently; and various writers have tried to show how the moral criterion may be resolved into social efficiency, or how it may be derived from a problematic future state of the human race on this earth when the need for struggle has disappeared and all things go smoothly. The former view may be found in Sir Leslie Stephen's 'Science of Ethics'; the latter is the peculiar property of Mr Herbert Spencer. Somewhat unwillingly I must for the present leave these special views without consideration,[2] because I wish to bring out still more plainly the various attitudes of the evolutionists to morality, and especially to draw attention to a view very different from those just mentioned, though not altogether without support in Darwin, which, as put forward some years ago by the late Professor Huxley[3], produced no little flutter in scientific dovecots.

[Footnote 1: Descent of Man, pp. 205, 206.]

[Footnote 2: For a discussion of these views I may be allowed to refer to my' Ethics of Naturalism,' chap. viii. (chap. ix. in the new edition). The same volume contains a more exhaustive examination than is possible in this lecture of the whole subject of evolutionist ethics.]

[Footnote 3: The Romanes Lecture, 1893, "Evolution and Ethics." In 1894 this was republished, with prolegomena, in vol. ix. of 'Collected Essays,' with the title, "Evolution and Ethics, and other Essays."]

Professor Huxley reviewed what he called the cosmic process as it was guided by the law of evolution. He showed how at each step of that process new results were only attained by enormous waste and pain on the part of those living creatures which were thrust aside as unfit for their surroundings, and he held consequently that the whole cosmic process is of an entirely different character from what we must mean when we use the term 'moral.' According to him morality is opposed to the method of evolution, and cannot be based upon the theory of evolution. It is of independent worth; but Professor Huxley, perhaps wisely, refrained from investigating its justification, while enforcing "the apparent paradox that ethical nature, while born of cosmic nature, is necessarily at enmity with its parent"

"The practice of that which is ethically best--what we call goodness or virtue--involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of ruthless self-assertion it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect, but shall help, his fellows; its influence is directed, not so much to the survival of the fittest, as to the fitting of as many as possible to survive. It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence.... Let us understand once for all that the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it."[1]

[Footnote 1: Evolution and Ethics, pp. 81-83.]

Here, then, is a view very different from the easy optimism of Mr Herbert Spencer. The cosmic order has nothing to say to the moral order, except that, somehow or other, it has given it birth; the moral order has nothing to say to the cosmic order, except that it is certainly bad. Morality is occupied in opposing the methods of evolution.

Still another view is possible. It may be held that the morality of self-restraint and self-sacrifice are opposed--as Huxley says they are opposed--to the methods of cosmic evolution; and yet the "gladiatorial theory of existence" may not be repudiated; but morality may be modified to suit the claims of evolution. This is the position adopted by the philosopher Nietzsche, whose whole thought is permeated by the idea of evolution. Like Professor Huxley, Nietzsche might say that morality is opposed to the cosmic process. But by morality he would mean something that is not to be encouraged, but that is to be shed from human life, or at least fundamentally transformed, just because it is in opposition to the laws of cosmic progress. On the other hand, the morality--if we may use the term--which the cosmic process teaches us will be a development of the conceptions of self-assertion and self-reliance, qualities which, according to ordinary morality--the morality, for instance, of Professor Huxley--require to be permeated and even superseded by self-restraint and possibly self-sacrifice in order that the moral law may be satisfied. Not obedience, not mutual help, not benevolence, but the will to rule or desire of power, is with Nietzsche fundamental, the primary impulse in the history of the whole progress of the world, and still of first importance for the further development of mankind.

This view is at the opposite extreme from Huxley's, for it overlooks the advantages mankind has gained by means of the social instinct and the social solidarity which it secures. But there is a further point in Nietzsche's reflexions which is suggested by the theory of development. Natural selection is not the sole agent in the development of organic life: it cannot be too often enforced that natural selection produces nothing, that its operation is purely negative. It does not properly select at all, it only excludes. What it does is to cut off the unfit specimens of living beings which nature supplies. It would have no field of operation were it not for the variety of nature. While individuals tend to repeat the characteristics of their parents, they do not repeat them without change: the principle of heredity is counterbalanced by a principle of variety equally hard to explain. All organic life exhibits this tendency to variation; and one variation proves better adapted than another to the environment. It is this which makes possible the operation of 'natural selection.' Unfit varieties are exterminated by natural selection, and room is thus left for varieties which are fit to perpetuate themselves and to increase in efficiency.

Now, if we apply this conception to human conduct, should we not encourage all varieties to carry on their experiments in living and in morality so that we may see whether success will justify them? An affirmative answer to this question is sometimes vaguely hinted at; by Nietzsche it is proclaimed from the housetops.

"There is no monopoly of morals, and every morality which exclusively asserts itself destroys too much good strength, and is too dearly bought by mankind. The straying ones, who so often are the inventive and productive ones, shall no longer be sacrificed; it shall not even be deemed a disgrace to stray from morals either in deeds or thoughts; numerous new experiments shall be made in matters of life and society; an enormous incubus of bad conscience shall be removed from the world--these are the general aims which ought to be recognised and furthered by all honest and truth-seeking people."[1]

[Footnote 1: Nietzsche, Werke, iv. 161, 162; Dawn of Day, § 164.]

Reflecting for a moment on what precedes, we may observe that, from the mouths of the evolutionists themselves, we have encountered three different views regarding the ethical significance of evolution. In the first place, there is the view of Darwin that natural selection is a criterion of moral fitness only up to a certain stage, and that the noblest part of man's morality is independent of this test; in the second place, there is the view of Huxley that morality is entirely opposed to the cosmic process as ruled by natural selection; and, in the third place, there is the view of Nietzsche that the principles of biological development (variation, that is to say, and natural selection) should be allowed free play so that, in the future as in the past, successful variations may be struck out by triumphant egoism. Neither these views, nor the still more elaborate treatment of Spencer, do I propose to examine in detail. But I wish to offer some reflexions upon the fundamental conception underlying them all, accounting in this way, perhaps, for the differences of opinion between Darwin and Spencer, Huxley and Nietzsche. The conception of natural selection and of evolution by natural selection is applied by men of science and by philosophers in three very different spheres, to three very different kinds of struggle or competition. There may be many different kinds of competition: it will be sufficient here to consider the three following:--

First, there is the competition between individuals for individual life and success. Now, so far as we are dealing with this competition, the only qualities which natural selection will favour are of course the qualities which lead to the continuance and efficiency of the individual organism. The qualities 'selected' in this process are therefore only the self-assertive qualities,--the qualities of strength, of courage, of prudence, and also of temperance.

But in the second place there is also, as I have already indicated and as was seen by Darwin (though he did not draw this distinction), a second kind of competition, the competition between groups. Now the group competition has as its end the continuance and efficiency of the group, be it horde or tribe or nation, or be it one of those subsidiary groups which enter into national life. In this competition between groups it is clear that those qualities will be favoured by natural selection which contribute to the efficiency of the group; and the qualities which contribute to the efficiency of the group are not those only which contribute to the efficiency of the individual, but also qualities implying self-restraint and even self-sacrifice on the part of one member of the group for the sake of other members of the group or of the group as a whole. The habit of obedience, for example, obedience to the authority of the group or its representative, may be of fundamental importance in maintaining the existence of the group as a group, although that habit of obedience has no place at all in promoting the interests of the individual when he is competing with other individuals.

Thirdly, there is still another kind of competition which is a little more difficult to make quite clear, because it is not on the plane of individual life and it is not to be identified with the life of the community. It is a competition on the intellectual level, the competition between ideas, and with this one may also couple (so far as it does not directly concern the struggle for social existence and thus belong to the second class) the competition between institutions, including therein also habits and customs. The various institutions in our national life, and the various habits of our life, may be said to be forms which have to maintain themselves often in competition with other and antagonistic forms of institution. The same holds of our various ideas or general conceptions, whether about morality, which we have now specially in view, or about matters more purely intellectual. For instance, forty or fifty years ago, there was a fierce controversy amongst biologists between the group of ideas represented by Darwin's theory and the group of ideas represented by the traditional view of the fixity of species. There was a long conflict between these two groups of ideas, and we may now say that the Darwinian group of ideas has emerged from the conflict victorious.

Now, when the phrase 'natural selection in morals' is used, the reference is commonly to a conflict of this last kind. The suggestion is that different ideas and also different standards of action are manifested at the same time within the same community, that they compete with one another for existence, and that gradually those which are better adapted to the life of the community survive, while the others grow weaker and in the end disappear. In this way the law of natural selection is made to apply to moral ideas and moral standards, and also to intellectual standards and to the institutions and customs in which our ideas are expressed.

These, then, are the three ways in which the competition in man's life and the selection between the competing factors is carried out. And sometimes I think one sees a tendency to suggest that this needs only to be stated, and that the whole question of the application of evolution to ethics is then settled. You may say that such and such moral qualities, as for instance the quality of sympathy, do not aid the individual in competition with other individuals. The reply might be No, but they aid the group in competition with other groups. Or you may say, as Darwin said, that even this competition will not account for the civilised development of sympathy. But even so we are not at the end of our tether; and we can fall back on the conflict of ideas. The idea of sympathy or of altruism, for instance, may conflict with some other idea, such as that of egoism. At first the competition is a group-competition, in which the group with altruistic members succeeds at the expense of the egoistic group. By the victory of the former our society becomes more and more a society whose basis is sympathy and all that sympathy implies, while conflicting ideas lose the lead. So in general with the competition of ideas: the idea which fails to adapt itself to its conditions will disappear, and the idea which is thus adapted will persist; and this also (it is said) is just natural selection. Now I venture to ask the question, Is it? I will put the question whether all these three processes are really forms of the same process, or, in other words and to put the matter more simply, Is it simply natural selection that is operative in all these different forms of competition?

For the sake of clearness I will take first this last-mentioned form of competition, the process by which one idea drives another out of the intellectual or moral currency of a community. The competition between the idea of fixity of species and Darwin's idea of the unity of life has been already cited as an instance; and it was pointed out that, gradually and after a controversy of some forty years, the former idea almost disappeared, and in the minds at any rate of those who know, the Darwinian theory became victorious. Was it natural selection that brought about the result? To test the matter let us ask once more how natural selection operates. Its mode of operation is always simply negative. And if, in the struggle of life, it selects the courageous man rather than the coward, the temperate man rather than the intemperate, the method by which this result is reached is simple: when it comes to a conflict the courageous man kills the coward or reduces him to subjection; the intemperate man has less vitality than the temperate: he too disappears, although perhaps gradually.

Take again the group-competition so far as it is influenced by natural selection. The tribe which manifests the qualities of social solidarity is selected simply in this way, that when it comes into conflict with a tribe which has not this solidarity the latter is beaten, and is thus unable to obtain the pastures or the hunting-ground which it desires, and therefore gradually or swiftly it is exterminated or left behind in the race for life. Now, I ask, Did this process take place when Darwinism supplanted the traditional theory of the fixity of species? Surely it is clear that it is only in the rarest cases that false or inadequate ideas on such subjects have any tendency to shorten life or weaken health. Bishop Wilberforce was killed by a fall from his horse, not by the triumphant dialectic of Professor Huxley. Sir Richard Owen lived to a patriarchal old age, and did not disappear from the face of the earth because he still clung to an idea which the best intellect of his time had relinquished. There is nothing in the doctrine of the fixity of species--if you hold it--which will in the least degree tend to diminish vitality. Natural selection has practically no effect at all in exterminating those who adhere to this idea. There is no means of livelihood from which it would exclude them except indeed that it might prevent them from occupying Chairs of Biology. Apart from that I do not think it will hinder them in any of the various modes of activity in which the struggle for life is manifested.

What was it then that led to the victory of the one idea over the other? The cause was intellectual. With the experts, it was logical conviction: one set of ideas was found to fit the facts somewhat better than the other set of ideas. With men in general the intellectual change came more slowly and in a different way: they adopted or imitated the ideas of those who knew. It was therefore not natural selection at all which led to the presence and power of the one idea rather than the other in the minds of thoughtful men. One idea was deliberately accepted and the other deliberately rejected. The former was accepted on grounds of which the most general account would be, if we may use the term, to call them subjective. But natural selection is a physical, external, objective process. It is carried out without the individual's volition: he is not aiming at the end. It is simply natural law which, with many varieties of living beings before it, exterminates the unfit individuals. Thus nature in its own blind way produces a result of the same kind as that which the will of man would bring about by subjective selection.

The origin of this term 'natural selection' is overlooked when people talk glibly about 'natural selection' of ideas. Darwin used the term 'natural selection' because he thought he saw an analogy between the tendency of nature and the selective purposes of intelligent beings. It was because nature, working without intelligence, produced the same kind of result as man does by intelligent selection, that he ventured to use this term 'selection' of the process of nature. Perhaps he was hardly justified in adopting the term, as nature does not select; she only passes by. At the same time, artificial selection also includes, although it is not limited to, this negative or weeding-out process. When you select a certain plant for growth in your garden you weed out the neighbouring plants which encroach upon it, so as to give it a chance to grow and thrive. By removing its competitors, you let air and light surround the plant, and it spreads its leaves to the sun. The healthy growth which results is due to the removal of obstacles by an external power; and it is in this way--by the removal of obstacles--that natural selection works.

Intelligent or artificial selection is not restricted to this negative method of working; and its operation, positive as well as negative, was certainly well known long before Darwin's day. Starting with the familiar facts of artificial or purposive selection, Darwin showed how results similar to those aimed at and reached in this way might be brought about by the operation of certain natural laws, working without purpose or design. Purposive selection pursues its ends more directly and in general attains them far more quickly than does natural selection. A still more striking characteristic is the fact that it does not entail the waste and pain which mark the course of natural selection. Witness the records of natural selection in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, where thousands are called into fruitless being that one alone may survive and prosper. Wastefulness is the most striking feature of its method, and its path is strewn with wreckage. In all these respects the conflict of ideas belongs to the level of purposive and not of natural selection. It involves consciousness of the end, which natural selection never does; it is comparatively rapid in reaching its goal and comparatively direct in the route it takes; and the victory of an idea does not take effect through any general extermination of the individuals who cherish ideas 'unfit' for survival.

I do not deny that there may be a certain natural selection in the case of human beings; but that process is always clumsy and slow and wasteful, and the purposive intelligent selection which takes its place is one of the greatest possible gains to living beings: its presence distinguishes men from animals; its predominance distinguishes civilised men from savages; the higher the stage of civilisation, the more marked is the development of selective intelligence. And in the conflict of ideas, whether moral or intellectual, the issue is determined by a selection which is predominantly purposive, and only in the slightest degree natural.

If we return to the conflict of groups we shall see that even there purposive selection enters. How (we may ask) do those qualities of obedience, willingness to help another, and the like, arise in a community and thus enable it to win the victory over a less organised or more savage enemy? Surely it is not a sufficient answer to say that these qualities have been somehow developed, and then have contributed to the victory of the community possessing them. All through civilised life, and probably throughout a great part of savage life, there is the keenest enquiry into and perception of the qualities which will make for success. These qualities are carefully selected and positively fostered. You drill your armies--that is, you cultivate the habit of discipline and all that discipline implies--so that the victory may be gained; in other words, the quality is not produced by natural selection at all. The issue may resemble the result of natural selection, for it leads to conflict and defeat of the unfit; but the conqueror is he who has foreseen the conditions of the struggle: has deliberately equipped his forces for the fight, and been the intelligent organiser of victory.