Chapter 21

Are we to forget all of these things when we try to put in order our ideas belonging to the categories of higher thought? Can we hope to find the truth if we fail to employ the methods of scientific common-sense which only yield sure results? It is no more justifiable to discard our hard-earned knowledge than it would be for an advocate to undertake the conduct of a case in deliberate disregard of what he had learned of the law, or for a surgeon to leave his knowledge at the door when he entered the operating room. Too often we are bidden to view the larger conceptions of nature and supernature as something outside the realm of ordered knowledge too frequently we are given statements upon authority that takes no account of reason, and we are asked to accept these views whether or not they accord with the demonstrated facts of common-sense. But those who have followed the present description of evolution can readily recognize their obligation to use for the further analysis of higher human life the means which have given in that doctrine the most reasonable explanation of the natural phenomena already investigated.

I need hardly say that we now enter upon the most difficult stage of our progress. The regions we have traversed were more readily explored because they were remote from the matters now before us; even in the case of man's mental and social evolution it was possible to take a partially impersonal view of certain of the essential elements in human life, which we cannot do now. For ethics and religion and philosophy are groups of ideas that are familiar to us as the property of mankind alone. Countless obstacles are in the way. Much mental inertia must be overcome, for it is far easier to accept the average and traditional judgments of other men--to let well enough alone--than it is to win our own way to the heights from which we may survey knowledge more fully. Human prejudices confront us as a veritable jungle, hemming us in and obstructing our vision on all sides; and perhaps much underbrush must be cut away if we are to see widely and wisely. Nevertheless, to those imbued with a desire to learn truth, anything and everything gained must surely repay a thousand times all efforts to obtain clearness of vision and breadth of view. With our perspective thus rectified by our backward glance, we turn to the three divisions of human thought now to be examined. The conceptions of ethics come first for reasons that must be apparent from the classification of the facts of social evolution; just as mental attributes and communal organization are inseparable, so rules of conduct arise _pari passu_ with the origin of a biological association. Religion and theology form the second division, which takes its origin in part from the first, for these two groups of ideas are largely concerned with the authority for right conduct and with human responsibility for taking the right attitude toward the entire visible and unseen universe. Finally, science and philosophy are briefly treated as evolved products which include within their scope all that there is in human knowledge; for this reason they take the highest place, instead of the position below religion usually assigned to them. At the last, having reached our final standing ground, we must look back in order that we may clearly define the lessons and ultimate values of the whole doctrine of evolution.

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Ethics is the science of duty. It is usually restricted to an examination of purely human obligations, and to a search for the reasons why men should do certain things and refrain from committing other acts. Like psychology and sociology, ethics began as a strictly formal and _a priori_ system of dogmas which related to the life of cultured human beings alone. Again, like the sciences specified, it gradually broadened its scope so as to include the conventions of races lower in the scale than the civilized peoples who only were sufficiently advanced intellectually to conceive it. Thus the comparative method came to be employed, and in direct proportion to its use, more liberal views have developed regarding the diverse methods of thought and standards of social life and of conduct among differently conditioned peoples. Still more important is the demonstration that human ethics as a whole, like human faculty and civilization, takes its place at the end of a scale whose beginnings can be found in lower organic nature.

Those who have followed the account of social evolution given in the preceding chapter must realize that the basic general principles of natural ethics, as contrasted with "formal" ethics, have already been discovered and formulated. A biological association of whatever grade and degree of complexity is impossible unless biological duties are discharged. Human ethical conduct differs from insect and protozoön ethical conduct only in the element of a participation in the process by the explicit consciousness of man that he has definite obligations to others; and this distinguishing characteristic is the direct outcome of an evolution which adds reflection and conceptual thought to a mental framework derived from prehuman ancestors. The insect hurries about in its daily life as an animated machine, whose activities are defined by heredity; its special mode of conduct is just what nature has produced by selection from among countless other forms of living which have not had the same degree of biological utility. But man alone recognizes vaguely or clearly the "why and wherefore" of his acts that are far more instinctive than he supposes; he only is consciously aware of the bonds of kinship and economic interdependence. He looks about for the authority which imposes his duties and fashions his bonds, and conceives this authority as something superhuman, until the comparative studies of evolutionary phenomena reveal the true causes in uniform nature itself.

According to biological ethics, the fundamental obligations of all living things are the same, even though the modes of discharging them may be various. Every individual must lead an efficient personal life by procuring food, but animals differ very much in their alimentary apparatus; among other things they must respire, but some are so simply organized that they do not need elaborate organs like the tufted gills of a crustacean or the lungs of higher vertebrates. Every individual of whatever grade must also provide in some way for the maintenance of the species, but some, like a conger eel, produce enormous numbers of eggs which are left uncared for, while others, like birds, bring forth only a few young, which receive constant attention and protection until they are able to shift for themselves. Nature has no place for even a human community unless individual and racial interests are conserved, so that the greatest duties are definitely formulated--all else is secondary and less essential. Selfish action on the part of every unit is obligatory, but it must always be antecedent to endeavor in the wider interests of the race if the unit is a solitary individual; if it is a member of an association of any grade, then it must serve its fellows in some way. Egoism and altruism are natural essential guides to conduct; neither can safely exclude the other, and their antithesis sets a problem for every organism, which is to work out the proper compromise that will be most satisfactory to nature. The Golden Rule is taught by biology because it is demonstrated empirically, and not because it has any _a priori_ value as an ideal ethical principle.

But utilitarian or natural ethics need not stop with the statement of vague generalities like the foregoing. In human society, as in the life of low animals, the worth and value of any form of conduct and of every single act can be estimated by definite biological criteria. The institution of marriage and the conventions of common morality have their biological value in their provision for the care of children; the safeguards of property rights enable the industrious--the biologically efficient--to keep the fruits of their labors; the establishment of formal civil and criminal laws is biologically valuable in a social way, in so far as such laws diminish the unsettling effects of personal animosity and the desire to wreak personal vengeance; the establishment and differentiation of legislative, executive, and judicial organs of government lead to greater social solidarity and higher biological efficiency. Thus unchecked individualism is just as wrong ethically and biologically among men as it would be in the case of insect communities, as pointed out in the preceding chapter; no one has a right to expect service or deference to personal interest from others if he fails to work for them and for the good of all. It is true that the social structure will stand a great amount of tension, but if this becomes too great, either a readjustment is effected, as when King John was forced by the barons to concede their rights, or else the whole nation suffers, owing to the selfishness of a few. In the war between Russia and Japan, the latter won because the individual soldier merged his individuality in the larger mechanism of the regiment and brigade and army corps, gladly sacrificing his life for the nation represented by the person of its Emperor. The single Russian soldier may have been far superior to a Japanese in muscular strength, and perhaps in arms also, but selfishness and greed on the part of many who were responsible for the organization and equipment of the Russian armies rendered the whole fighting machine less coherent and therefore less efficient than that of the Japanese.

In the evolution of ethics the recognition of ideals of conduct has followed long after the institution of a particular precept by nature, which is obeyed instinctively and mechanically by force of inheritance. In the case of the communities of insects, the results are the same as though the individual animal fully recognized the value of concerted endeavor. So among primitive savages of to-day there is only a vague conception of abstract duty as such, or it may be practically lacking, as in the case of the Fuegians. So also a growing child is substantially egoistic, and it must be taught by precept and example that the rights of others can be safeguarded only by the altruistic correction of personal action, long before the child can grasp the higher conceptions of ethics. If a human being never learns to do so, and becomes a criminal through force of heredity or circumstances, the machinery of the law automatically comes into operation to conserve the welfare of the community. Such a criminal may be unable to control his destiny, and may not be responsible for being what he is, but nevertheless he must pay the penalty for his unsocial heritage by suffering elimination.

Ethical systems are built around man's vague recognition of certain natural obligations, and they have thus become more or less complex, and more or less varied as worked out by different peoples. They must necessarily be much concerned with social questions, with morals in the usual sense and the more rigid principles enacted into the spoken and printed law, but they have also become closely connected with religion and theological elements. Especially is this true in the ethics of barbarous and savage peoples, who accredit the "categorical imperative" to some supernatural power, as we are to see in a later section. The one point that comes out clearly is that the systems of conduct and duties have evolved so as to be very different among various races, and that in the history of any one people, ethics has passed through many varied conditions. What may be deemed right at one period becomes wrong at another when conditions may be changed; in medieval England the penalty of death was prescribed for one who killed a king's deer, as well as for a highway murderer. The Fijian of a quarter century ago killed his parents when they became too old to be effective members of their tribe. And so deeply ingrained was this principle of duty that elderly people would voluntarily go to a living grave surrounded by their friends; while in other authentic cases, parents have first killed their sons who failed to obey the tribal law, and have then committed suicide. We can see how nature and necessity would institute a law requiring such conduct where a tribe must carry on almost incessant warfare and where the available food supplies would be enough for only the most efficient individuals. Infanticide also has been practised for reasons of biological utility, as among the Romans, who at first maintained their racial vigor by deliberately ordering the death of weak babes. But times have changed, and ethics has become very different with passing decades. Our civilization has resulted in a development of human sympathy as an emotional outgrowth of necessary altruism; this motive directs us through charitable institutions and hospitals to prolong countless lives which are more or less inefficient, but which do not render the whole body politic incompetent in its struggle for existence.

Nature then has itself attended to the development and institution of ethics. As we look back over the long series of stages leading to our own system of conduct the most striking feature of the history is the increasing power of self-control or inhibition. As a natural instinct this tends to prevent the committing of acts which for one reason or another are naturally harmful to society as a whole. What we call conscience is an instinct implanted by purely natural factors, and it unconsciously turns the course of human action in the directions of selfish and altruistic interests. Conscience, then, without ceasing to have validity and efficiency, appears on the same plane with all of the other products of evolution which owe their existence to individual or social utility.

Theology and religion involve intimately related conceptions of the world, its make-up, and its causes. Strictly speaking, religion is a system of piety and worship, while theology deals more particularly with the ultimate and supernatural powers conceived in one way or another as the God and the gods who have constructed the universe and have subsequently ordered its happenings. A religion is a group of ideas having the effect of motives; it is dynamic and directs human conduct. Theology, on the other hand, is more theoretical and descriptive, and its conceptions, together with those of other departments of human thought, give the materials for the formulation of the religious beliefs which determine the attitudes of men toward all of the great universe in which they play their part and whose mysteries they attempt to solve.

Defined and distinguished in these ways, these two departments of higher human life present themselves for comparative study and historic explanation. They differ much among the varied races of mankind, so much, indeed, that an investigator who approaches their study with a knowledge only of Christian religion and theology finds it difficult at first to recognize that the same fundamental ideas, although of far cruder nature, enter into the conceptions of an idol-worshiping fanatic living in the heart of Africa. But, nevertheless, beliefs that fall within the scope of the definitions adopted above are to be found among all men, and they must be examined so that their agreements and differences may be demonstrated, and their common elements may be explained as the natural products of a process of evolution.

Such a broad comparative study, like that of physical, mental, and social phenomena discussed heretofore, must be conducted objectively; that is, each and every particular belief of a religious or theological nature which can be discovered in any race is entitled to a place in the array of materials which demand scientific treatment. They must be verified, classified, and summarized, in order that their total meaning and value can be discovered. It must be strongly emphasized that for such purposes the inherent validity and truth or falsity of diverse religions are not called into question when they are so considered as objects of study; many still entertain the view that the mere task of conducting an analysis of a group of religious beliefs of whatever nature must tend to destroy or alter that system of religion in some way and degree. But whatever the comparative student may himself believe, the conception of Jehovah in the Hebrew religion is quite as legitimate an object of study as the Buddhistic concept of Brahma as the Ultimate Being, or the Polynesian idea of Tangaroa as the god of the waves. We would naturally be inclined to exclude the last from our own personal system of piety and worship as the childish concept of an imaginative, adolescent race; but whatever the truth may be, the fact of a belief in Tangaroa is as real as the fact of Christian belief in God. We can no more destroy any one of these ideas by investigating its nature and origin than we destroy the efficacy of the human arm when we study its muscles and bones and sinews. The former, like the latter, take their places among natural phenomena whose history must be inquired into if there are any reasons for supposing that they fall within the scope of evolution. I would be the last to lead or to take part in an attack upon any system of religion, but as a student who is interested in the universality of organic evolution, I am forced to scrutinize each and every authentic account of a religion to see if such systems present objective evidence of the fact of their evolution through the operation of purely natural causes.

But before passing to a detailed treatment of the analysis, synthesis, and genesis of religious systems, let us employ our common-sense for a brief backward glance over the known history of familiar facts. Every one is aware that the Christian religions of our time and community have not existed forever; this, indeed, is indicated by the way the passing years are denominated. We call the present year 1907 Anno Domini, and this whole expression explicitly refers to the fact that less than two thousand years ago the Christian systems of piety and worship collectively took their origin from their Hebrew ancestor. The same parent has produced the relatively unchanged Judaism of the present day. Judaism itself evolved under the influence of the Prophets, of Moses, and of Abraham. Turning to Asia, we learn how Buddhism evolved from Brahmanism. The teachings of Mohammed at a later time developed into the formulated precepts of the Koran. Would any one venture to assert that all or any of these systems of thought have stood firm and immutable from the finite or infinite beginnings of time? Would any one contend that the creeds of Protestantism have remained unchanged even during the past twenty years? Like all departments of human belief and knowledge, religious concepts have obviously altered in natural adjustment to changing times and to advancing conditions of human intellect; and the question turns to the mode by which they have been modified, to see whether natural causes of evolution have changed them, and have originated their earliest beginnings at the very outset of human history. It has been stated above that every race of mankind, however primitive or advanced it may be, holds some form of religious belief based upon some conception of the supernatural powers back of the world; and what the universe is conceived to be must largely determine the particular characteristics of a theology, and through this the special form of its attendant religion. We have before us a wide array of types to study and to compare, which vary so greatly, partly for the reason specified, that an inclusive definition of religion must be couched in very general terms. If we define it as the attitude and reaction of a human being conditioned by his knowledge of the immediate materials and his conception of the ultimate powers of the universe, its scope is so extended as to include the ideas of the atheists and agnostics as well as the crude conceptions of lower races and those systems of piety and worship conventionally regarded as religions by civilized peoples. More than this: we cannot regard the total reaction of a thinking being as essentially different in ultimate value from the attitudes toward their worlds of animals lower than man. The situation of a well-trained sheep dog is one of pastures and fences and gates, of rain and sunshine, of sheep, and of a master whose voice is to be obeyed. What the dog may do is partly determined by what it finds in its world of animate and inanimate things. Although the animal's "conception" of such things must be far simpler than a human being's, nevertheless its life is lived in reaction to all of its surroundings as they are presented to its cerebral apparatus by the proper organs. So in the human case, conduct is directly affected by the living and lifeless objects of a total human situation, the only difference being that reflective consciousness and reasoned interpretation have their share in determining the assumed attitude in ways that seem to have no counterparts as such in the mental lives of lower animals. But whether or not the similarity between human religion and lower organic reaction be admitted,--and the admission is one that greatly facilitates an understanding of evolution in this field,--the general resemblance of all religions in fundamental character at least must be accepted.

Another general feature of religious systems is their complexity. The essential elements of all of them are few indeed, as we shall see at a later point; they are beliefs regarding ultimate powers, human responsibility to such powers, and future existence. These have taken one specific form or another in various lines of racial evolution, but aside from their own changes they have gathered about them many other articles of creed relating to other departments of thought and life. Ethical rules of conduct are so added, as in the Hebrew religion where the idea of Jehovah involves God the Ruler and Judge who imposes and administers the laws of right living. Social customs are almost invariably intertwined with religious views, among savages as well as among the more advanced Mohammedans whose rules relating to family organization form an integral part of the whole cult. The emotional elements play a large part in some cases, in the fanatical creeds of the Dervish and Mahdist and in the "revivals" under nearer observation. In Greek cosmology and worship, aesthetics figured to a large degree. Temperamental and other psychological characteristics have profound effects upon religions, which we may illustrate by such extreme examples as the austerities of New England and Scotch Presbyterianism and the contrasted liberties of the natural religions of tropical races. But all of these accessory elements belong to other well-defined departments, some of which have already been considered, and among the materials of their proper divisions they find their interpretation and historical explanation in evolution. It is with the basic elements themselves that we are now concerned.