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Data of Ethics, p. 61.

Data of Ethics, p. 10.

THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE EVOLUTION OF ETHICS.

Modern thought since the publication of the "Origin of Species," has been more and more forced into the recognition of ethics, as the result of a process of natural growth. The factors out of which this growth arose are lost in the obscurities of our ignorance, and many of the processes upon which it has depended also surpass existing human powers of explanation. Science has to take for granted the unexplained existence of organisms. For her purposes she is obliged to begin by assuming certain primitive organisms of some simple structure and functions. She is also obliged to admit, although she does not understand, the facts of reproduction and of heredity. Nor can she refuse to acknowledge a place in the history of development, along with the factors of chemistry and of physics, to a subjective factor called feeling, consciousness, mind, or however else it may be best expressed. All these unexplainable but fundamental verities of existence she has to assume. It is because these are unexplained that science falls short of becoming a philosophy. But within the range of their operation science can tell us much, and the Darwinian doctrines have displayed before our eyes the wonderful histories of change and growth through the preceding cycles of the world's existence. Little doubt now remains in the minds of thoughtful men as to the truth of biological development. The theory rests upon such a wide induction of facts extending over so many branches of science and over such remote periods of time, and withal as by a stroke of magic it has so arranged all sorts of odd incomprehensible facts into definite places in a well ordered organic history, that the mind can no longer withhold its subjection to so imperial and cogent a scientific conception.

Although the philosophical laws of biological development are as we have seen beyond our reach, and although our theory of the accidental origin of variations is rather lame, still there is much that can be expressed in the formal statements called the Laws of Biological Development, which throws light upon those processes of change and growth that have led up from simple organic forms to the highest manifestation of life in the human race. Mr. Spencer defines life as "the continuous adjustment of inner relations to outer relations." This Mr. Spencer regards not merely as a definition but as a law. Its philosophical justification is sought in vain, but it may be accepted as a correct scientific statement--not only of the non-conscious adaptations of organisms to changes of the environment, but also of the conscious adaptations by which higher animals perform particular actions or undergo changes of habit.

As Mr. Spencer points out, the acceptance of this law implies not merely an entire harmony between the existence of an organism and its environment, but it also implies various degrees of life. The greater the number and variety of correspondences established between an organism and the immensities of the external world--immensities displayed not only in the multiplicities of individual objects, but also in the grandeur of their collective interrelations--the greater the degree of life. Much stress is laid by Mr. Spencer upon this Quantitative character of Life. Much more, indeed, than upon mere continuity, although the latter is to a certain extent essential to the former. Subordinate to this notion, advance in degree of life is found to proceed from a simple, incoherent, and indefinite life to a more and more definite, coherent and complex set of relations with the environment.

But side by side with this development, and indeed in a manner to be likened to that of a geometrical progression, the subjective factor has advanced in relative importance. In its more rudimentary development, Mr. Spencer finds pain to be the concomitant of those states of the physical organism which tend to its destruction, and pleasure to be the concomitant of those states which tend to its promotion. Thus hunger is a pain indicative of the absence of those supplies of energy to be obtained from the environment, which are requisite for the continuance of the organism's activity, while the pleasure of feeding is concomitant with the due supply of the energy necessary for the continuance of organic function. Pleasure and pain, therefore, become motives, and the attainment of the one and the avoidance of the other work together for the continuance of life. Pleasures and pains are relative to the organism--according to the physiological constitution and structure of the organism so are its pleasures and its pains.

The concomitant of some of the structures and functions of the organism has been not merely sentiency but perception. Mind has developed from the distinguishment, identification, and recognition of modes of sentiency. These functions and structures have been accompanied by pleasure and pain, and have formed the basis of the pleasures of intellectual activity in their multiform variety. From their very nature in relation to the environment they have increased wonderfully the quantitative development of life.

With the increase of mind has proceeded the recognition of the part played in the organic universe by feeling. This recognition of the existence of feeling--of the susceptibilities of external organisms to pleasure and pain--has formed the basis of a large part of the adaptations of organisms in relation to their organic environment. Adaptations revealing this recognition are to be seen not only more manifestly in the actions of man and the animals, but also in the functions of plants, strange as this may seem.

With this increase of general intelligence has proceeded an increase of rational knowledge of the causal relationships of phenomena: and with the increase of the knowledge of human motives has proceeded an increased knowledge of the sequences of actions. Thus larger rational judgments of the consequences of actions have been attained.

Following upon the increased recognition of pleasure and pain as motives, and upon the increased amount of rational judgment as to the sequences of actions, has come the adaptation of conduct to the pains and pleasures of others. Those adaptations have, however, been relative to the particular constitution of the Ego, and relative also to the constitution of the environing Egos.

The knowledge of the existence of sentiency in external organisms may be turned to the account of the Ego by inflicting pain, so as to coerce other sentient organisms to its own selfish objects; or, again, by conferring pleasure, so as to subserve the same end. Thus cruelty may be a natural pleasure in certain early stages of development, as a concomitant of necessities of existence, and may remain by inheritance long after the necessities have passed away. But with the increase of life has occurred the increase of sympathy. It is a law of nature that after the pleasures of the ego are satisfied they are augmented by the contemplation of similar enjoyments of others. But this again is relative. The gourmand likes the society of gourmands, and cares not for the company of the aesthetic or the ascetic. The man of taste revels in the society of kindred natures and despises the pleasures of the base. But the family relation has been the main source of all sweet and manly sympathies: and it has been the gradually widening scope of social organisations which has spread more and more the feeling of human sympathy. The course of history exhibits to us a constant growth, not merely in passively refraining from the infliction of pain, but also in the active endeavour to promote the happiness of our fellow creatures.

This is a general statement of the scientific view of purposed conduct. Its laws are derived from a study of its growth. The growth is one exhibiting several distinguishable features. There has been the ordinary biological "struggle for existence," and "survival of the fittest." There have been adaptations necessitated by the action of the environment, and there have been chance variations within the lines of causation which, benefitting the individual or some particular race, have given them such an advantage in the battle of life as to secure for their descendants a preponderating possession of the good things of the world. There has been the increase of intelligence, the increase in the organisation of society, the increase of rational judgments of phenomena and human actions. There has been increased knowledge of the determination of actions by motives. There has been increase of sympathy.

But what is the ethical virtue of this historical study is not very clear. The history of human developments is a matter of natural history and no more. And even if we proceed as we might do, to study more in detail the history of the development of notions of right and wrong and of the various changeful applications of those terms, we are still within the limits of a natural history--we are still holding the merely scientific or observant attitude. It is true such study may be essential to our future history: but the mere study of what has been, and the consequent pre-vision of what will be, establishes no rule of right. To prophecy the determining courses of future human conduct does not furnish an ethical imperative to the individual. "If so it will be," he may say, "so let it be, it is no affair of mine. The obligation rests with nature and not with me." Whence then the new "regulative system," the want of which fills Mr. Spencer with alarm? Where shall we look for the new gospel which shall restrain and vivify the moral conduct of future generations in place of the supernatural systems which are supposed to be tottering to their fall?

And if we go beyond this and find that this natural history of man is governed by general laws of adaptation and development we shall still have to question the ethical discernment and ethical authority in special junctures, when what is--is judged not to be what it ought to be; when, in fact, adaptations or biological facts, or equilibrations produced by evolution, are judged not to be ethically good equilibrations.

However, Mr. Spencer holds that rules of right conduct can be established on a scientific basis, and it is our task to examine his treatment of the problem.

"Though this first division of the work terminating the Synthetic Philosophy, cannot, of course, contain the specific conclusions to be set forth in the entire work; yet it implies them in such wise that, definitely to formulate them requires nothing beyond logical deduction.

"I am the more anxious to indicate in outline if I cannot complete this final work, because the establishment of rules of right conduct on a scientific basis is a pressing need. Now that moral injunctions are losing the authority given by their supposed sacred origin, the secularization of morals is becoming imperative. Few things can happen more disastrous than the decay and death of a regulative system, no longer fit, before another and fitter regulative system has grown up to replace it. Most of those who reject the current creeds, appear to assume that the controlling agency furnished by it may be safely thrown aside, and the vacancy left unfilled by any other controlling agency. Meanwhile, those who defend the current creeds allege that in the absence of the guidance it yields, no guidance can exist; divine commandments they think the only possible guides. Thus between these extreme opponents there is a certain community. The one holds that the gap left by disappearance of the code of supernatural ethics, need not be filled by a code of natural ethics; and the other holds that it cannot be so filled. Both contemplate a vacuum which the one wishes and the other fears. As the change which promises or threatens to bring about this state, desired or dreaded, is rapidly progressing, those who believe that the vacuum can be filled, are called on to do something in pursuance of their belief."

It is clear, from the above passage, that Mr. Spencer seeks not merely a knowledge of the laws of past developments, which have landed us in our present position with regard to moral obligation in general and the varied social regulations extant in different societies, but he seeks in addition to strengthen and establish on a new basis the authority of all such obligations. What Mr. Spencer hopes for is a practical end. He seeks the art of good living. As there are sciences of chemistry, metallurgy, electricity, etc., and arts consequent upon them, so he looks for Rules of Life which shall benefit humanity, consequent upon the Science of Humanity. But it is a question whether the Moral Imperative can be regarded as the result of science. However, if not the result, yet science may be able to discern that the Moral Imperative is so firmly established in human nature, that it may be able to proclaim loudly its empire in the heart and over the actions of man; while at the same time Science may be able to guide it to wiser and better judgments.

The task we have before us is to pursue Mr. Spencer's course of thought, undertaken in this spirit, through the succeeding chapters of his work. Neglecting minor criticisms and passing over much valuable teaching, our business is to follow the main course of his reasoning and examine the chief grounds for such authority and guidance which he finally presents to us as the outcome of his study.

FOOTNOTE:

Introduction to "Data of Ethics," p. 3.

THE BIOLOGICAL VIEW OF ETHICS.

Are we to look for the origin of Pleasure and Pain in those laws of the moving equilibrium which necessitate the generation of internal forces equal and in opposition to external inimical forces? If so, Pleasure and Pain must be regarded as forces--as factors--in the organism, and we must regard the subjective as generated by external physical factors operating upon internal physical factors, and we must regard these subjective factors not merely as concomitant, but as producing physical effects by way of reaction.

So far as it goes there may be a physical view of purposed conduct, and so far as it goes there may be a psychological view, but between the two the biological view is a mere disorderly mixture, borrowing its terms first on one hand and then on the other, and assigning its determining causes first to the physical moving equilibrium theory, and then again to the anticipation of Pleasure and Pain. But the biological law which should co-ordinate these two sets of laws is not formulated, and hence we find more or less gliding, or more or less sudden transition from one set of terms or laws to the other, a defect which is concealed in some measure by the formal divisions of the chapters. But if the course of thought is carefully followed it is found that the actual treatment does not properly fit in. There is an unmistakeable transition from the purely physical set of factors to the purely subjective, and there is no co-ordinated biological law at all. The chapter is a transitional one, it is true, but only in the sense of gradually leaving off the employment of one set of terms, and the gradual employment of another set of terms in the treatment of the same phenomena.

Mr. Spencer proposes to deal with feelings and functions in their mutual dependence, and so admits the subjective as a factor. Thus there are feelings which are sensations and serve partly as guides and partly as stimuli towards actions for the sustenance and preservation of life. And there are feelings which are classed as emotions which also act in a very potent way as guides and stimuli, such as fear and joy. Hence, in treating of conduct under its biological aspect we are compelled to consider that inter-action of feelings and functions which is essential to animal life in all its more developed forms.

Following upon this we are taught that Pleasure is a feeling which we seek to bring into consciousness, and Pain a feeling which we seek to keep out of consciousness. This certainly accords to the subjective factor a commanding position in the physical action of organisms; it also implies a foresight of the results of actions, and a certain degree of advance in psychology but throws no light upon the lower stages of biological action. Mr. Spencer says, however, that "fit connections between acts and results must establish themselves in living things even before consciousness arises." This is followed by an interesting study of the proposition that "after the rise of consciousness these connections can change in no other way than to become better established," and that "whenever sentiency makes its appearance as an accompaniment, its forms must be such that in the one case the produced feeling is of a kind that will be sought--Pleasure, and in the other case is of a kind that will be shunned--Pain." "It is an inevitable deduction from the hypothesis of evolution that races of sentient creatures could have come into existence under no other conditions" than that "pains are the correlatives of actions injurious to the organism, while pleasures are the correlatives of actions conducive to its welfare."

All this may be admitted, granted the existence of the subjective factor; but at what stage does it commence to have such a potent influence upon the development of organisms, and whence came it at all? Mr. Spencer says, "fit connections between acts and results must establish themselves in living things even before consciousness arises." "At the very outset life is maintained by persistence in acts which conduce to it, and desistance from acts which impede it." It would seem that if life can be maintained by means of unconscious persistence in beneficial acts and unconscious desistance from injurious acts, such a process might continue in more complex organisms without the assistance of consciousness, and that the continuance and development of life could be explained in terms of the same factors and processes which originated life, and regulated and propagated the existence of races in the lowest forms of organisms. Mr. Spencer clearly holds that such races of organisms were originated and maintained by the action of physical laws before sentiency became a factor in their sustaining or generative actions. What need then for sentiency in the subsequent development? Mr. Spencer's argument is good, that, granted the concomitance of Pleasure and Pain with life-sustaining and life-diminishing acts respectively, the attainment of the one and the avoidance of the other acts on the increase of life; but he says that, previous to the advent of sentiency, life was sustained in much the same way. There is this difference in it, however, that only where the requisite acts were performed or avoided in pre-sentient organisms did such organisms continue to exist, and that these acts were not consciously performed, but only happened in the course of physical sequence; whereas in the case of sentient creatures Pleasure is consciously sought, and Pain is intentionally avoided. But it seems to us that when acts are determined by the anticipation of Pleasure or Pain, we enter upon the domain of psychology, and when they are determined by physical factors without consciousness we remain in the province of physics, so that there is no intermediate science of Biology at all. And by this we mean, not that for convenience we may not so arrange our classes of study, but that there are no laws of physics which will account for the development of organisms, and there are no biological processes which do not imply the action of a subjective factor; and that there is no true biological law which properly expresses the correllation of the two. Mr. Spencer starts with a Biology from which the subjective is completely absent, and ends with a Psychology of the highest description: but he fails to express the biological law which accounts for the growth of the one out of the other, or expresses the law of their correlation in a concomitant growth.

How then can we arrive at any ethical rule by the study of Biology? In this way. An organism is a moving equilibrium: it is a law of moving equilibria that they counterbalance by means of new adjustments antagonistic forces in the environment, and absorb forces from the environment favourable to their continuance. Their continued existence depends upon such continuous absorption and adjustment. But as environment varies, so do adjustments; and thus there is a wonderful variety of different moving equilibria, which form important parts of one another's environment. The suitable structures and functions which have thus been evolved are therefore relative to the environment, and the inherited structure and functions forming a moving equilibrium are fitted for particular environments and no other. There is no absolute moving equilibrium; all are relative. "That which was defined as a moving equilibrium, we define biologically as a balance of functions. The implication of such a balance is that the several functions in their kinds, amounts, and combinations, are adjusted to the several activities which maintain and constitute complete life; and to be so adjusted is to have reached the goal towards which the evolution of conduct continually tends." But completeness of life means primarily the completeness of life in each individual organism as regards its continued existence, and the full satisfaction of all its functions during the period of its existence. The biologically good is all that conduces to this end, and the biologically bad is all that detracts from it. The biologically good and bad are therefore relative to the consensus of functions which constitute an animal or other organism. The biologically good and bad are therefore individual. That which is good for the individual is the right conduct, and that which is bad for it is wrong conduct. It is therefore right for the big fishes to eat the little ones, for the bird to prey upon the insect; it is a fit satisfaction for the functions of the lion to devour the antelope, for one tribe to slay or drive out another tribe in order to possess itself of more fertile plains and more delightful countries. And so, as long as the functions delight in egoism, and there is no counterforce of sympathy included among them, it is right to tyrannise, to subject others to the service or passions of the dominant organisms. They subserve the biological law--the

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