A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution Part 29

The terms in these pa.s.sages are thus evidently very loosely used, and the charge above made is, I think, substantiated,--that the author himself finally falls into the error following upon a confusion of the various meanings, and comes to a.s.sert what he elsewhere distinctly denies, namely, the normal connection of intellect and morality, of the comprehension of suffering with that form of sympathy which issues in altruistic action. The problem is an interesting one, and it may be well for us to look into it a little further.

During the last few years a number of books have been written in which the attempt has been made to prove the general physical, and especially the cerebral, and so the intellectual inferiority of a large number of criminals. There may be a difference of opinion as to the value of exact weights and measures except in so far as they demonstrate an actual nervous deformity of some sort; and it may be said that the cases examined for distinctly cerebral defect are too few to admit of the formation of any universal, definite, theory or law. But some degree of importance must a.s.suredly be attached, by the unprejudiced reader, to the more purely psychological evidence obtained in many cases, as well as to the evidence of the tendency to brain-disease often found in the direct line of descent. Indeed, in the case of some of the photographs issued with Lombroso's "L'Homme Criminel," not more than a glance is needed to convince one that the possessors of such heads and faces cannot be normal men and women. To this testimony from the criminologists may be added that of many eminent specialists in mental diseases, whose evidence goes to show the degeneration of the moral sense in cases of brain-disease. Maudesley says, for instance, of moral feeling: "Whoever is dest.i.tute of it is, to that extent, a defective being; he marks the beginning of race-degeneracy; and if propitious influence do not chance to check or to neutralize the morbid tendency, his children will exhibit a further degree of degeneracy, and be actual morbid varieties. Whether the particular outcome of the morbid strain shall be vice, or madness, or crime, will depend much on the circ.u.mstances of life." "When we make a scientific study of the fundamental meaning of those deviations from the sound type which issue in insanity and crime, by searching inquiry into the laws of their genesis, it appears that these forms of human degeneracy do not lie so far asunder as they are commonly supposed to do. Moreover, theory is here confirmed by observation; for it has been pointed out by those who have made criminals their study, that they oftentimes spring from families in which insanity, epilepsy, or some allied neurosis exists, that many of them are weak-minded, epileptic, or actually insane, and that they are apt to die from diseases of the nervous system and from tubercular diseases."[175] To the history proper of the Jukes, Dugdale has appended a series of tables giving further information as to the stock, environment, and present condition of some two hundred and thirty-three criminals committed for various crimes, each of which crimes heads a separate list. These lists are decidedly interesting, particularly as affording us some considerable information with regard to psychological characteristics and environment, under the headings: "Neglected Children," "Orphans," "Habitual Criminals," "First Offenders," "Reformable," "Hopeless," etc. From the table of percentages we remark that, in the "Neurotic Stock," the highest percentage (4047) is reached in arson and the crimes against persons, or crimes of impulse, as Dugdale terms them, while 2303 is the percentage of neurotic stock in the whole number of criminals examined. "This close relations.h.i.+p between nervous disorders and crime," says Dugdale, "runs parallel with the experience of England, where 'the ratio of insane to sane criminals is thirty-four times as great as the ratio of lunatics to the whole population of England, or, if we take half the population to represent the adults which supply the convict prisons, we shall have the criminal lunatics in excess in the high proportion of seventeen to one.'" Dugdale further quotes from Dr. Bruce Thomson, surgeon to the General Prison of Scotland, the following words: "On a close acquaintance with criminals, of eighteen years' standing, I consider that nine in ten are of inferior intellect, but that all are excessively cunning." Dr. Thomson says also: "In all my experience, I have never seen such an acc.u.mulation of morbid appearances as I witness in the post-mortem examinations of the prisoners who die here. Scarcely one of them can be said to die of one disease, for almost every organ of the body is more or less diseased; and the wonder to me is that life could have been supported in such a diseased frame."

But with regard to this last quotation, it may be remarked that, although many modern students of crime tend to look upon the general diseased condition of body among criminals as the cause of their criminality, it is generally, as a matter of fact, a c.u.mulative growth, vicious acts appearing now as condition, now as result, in its increase.

Vice is directly connected with disease, and crime against others, even where it does not itself directly involve vice, is still likely to be connected with it, since the man who is immoral in one direction is not likely to be restrained from immorality in what is ordinarily considered a direction of lesser wrong; and the self-gratification of vice always presents a temptation to the man of coa.r.s.er fibre. Dugdale notices that pauperism often appears in the younger members of a family where crime appears in the elder branches, his explanation being that crime is a sign of comparative vigor, pauperism of greater physical weakness.

We have found some connection between intellectual incapacity and moral lack in the shape of crime, but the cases are extreme ones. The question is not: Are the extremes of criminality connected with mental incapacity? but, Is the power of intellectual comprehension, is intelligence, always a.s.sociated with sympathy and altruism? Is the connection of these two general? Or, conversely: Is lack of sympathy and altruism in general a sign of mental incapacity, of the power of comprehension for another's suffering?

The individual may be supposed to be naturally endowed with a certain basis of tendency, which, as coordinate with a nervous organization that, as organization, is of definite nature, is also definite. I do not intend, here or elsewhere, to lay especial stress on the physical, as distinguished from the psychical; merely, it is convenient for reference. The individual character and life must be the continual progressive issue of this basis of tendency or capacity and the developing and modifying factors of environment. Individuals will, therefore, _but in very different degrees and manners_, reflect the moral standard of the society as organization, the cla.s.s, and the family, to which they belong, the importance a.s.sumed by the cla.s.s or family relations being according to the closeness and duration of a.s.sociation, and the natural apt.i.tude of the individual for one or another sort of influence. Aside from altruistic considerations, the individual will find it to his advantage to conform to the standards of these environments, at least in a considerable degree. The standards may, however, conflict, so that there is also a conflict of advantages.

Moreover, circ.u.mstances may arise such that conformity to all or any of these standards presents much greater disadvantage than advantage, involving great sacrifice, which may reach even to personal destruction.

But while a single anti-social act to avert personal destruction may involve greater advantage to the individual, as life represents an advantage over death, and while such an act is more an advantage and less a disadvantage as it involves less conflict with social standards (if it is the theft of food, for instance, rather than murder), any continued course of crime in so-called civilized society must be attended with many risks to the evil-doer, and present gain may mean future loss of a much higher degree. Deeds conflicting with general social standards are punished by penalties which are larger as the conflict is greater in the eye of the state. The individual who lays himself liable to legal punishment or social ostracism is foolish as well as, in very many cases, bad; of course, it is possible that his conduct may rise above the moral standards as well as that it may fall below them. But we are now considering cases where it is, by the a.s.sumption, supposed to fall below them. It is easy to perceive, from this standpoint, that great and persistent criminals are likely to be of inferior intellect, as well as wanting in moral apt.i.tude, although, whatever reasoning capacity they possess being developed in the line of their own interest in their accustomed occupation, they may appear to the more moral, who are not practised in this direction, to possess a high degree of cunning.

The honest man has generally a better chance than the habitual criminal, however small his chance may be. Further, education of any sort, which is also intellectual elevation, gives the individual better chances of earning his own living honestly, and so renders the advantages on this side greater, and also endows with the power of perceiving these advantages. But these are only general truths, applying, again, to extreme cases. There may be cases in which there seems, at least, to be no choice left between crime and a life continually on the verge of starvation; and though the crime means also continual risk, and higher risk as the crime is greater and so, in general, more lucrative, the advantage may still be reckoned by the individual as on its side. In this case, the individual may discover, in the end, that his calculation was mistaken; but the mistake may not be so great, the balance of disadvantage on the side of conformity with social standards so excessive, as to prove him below the average of intellect in his mistaking. The wisest men make many mistakes in calculating the results of their action. Again, the cleverer a man is, the greater is his power to cope with the risk of detection and to avoid it. It may be objected that the single individual cannot hope to compete continually with the organized action of all society, and that the criminal must, at times, submit to some degree of punishment, even if escaping its worst phases.

But if he feels no shame at the disgrace of the punishment, it may not mean to him the greater disadvantage.

But here we come round to the altruistic and moral emotions, for shame is present only where the individual has a desire to please, and is pained at the disapproval of others; that is, shame implies and requires, in the degree in which it exists, social and altruistic capacity. Furthermore, when we come to examine the concept of "advantage," we find that it is as relative as that of "end," and will be judged according to the individual predilections; to the non-sympathetic, shameless man it is an advantage to "get on" at whatever cost to others; to the moral man no gain appears an advantage at the expense of principle. And, as there are all degrees of altruism in the bases of character of different individuals, so the advantage, in any particular case, will lie at very different points according to the individual mind reflecting on it. Only the general truths may be a.s.serted, that, even to the man of less than the average moral apt.i.tude, great punishment must appear a disadvantage, while even to the man of considerable moral principle death for the sake of his convictions is a thing to be hesitated at.

We may return to view the question in the light of the general facts of social evolution. We found that only the general a.s.sertion could be made, that the advantages of cooperation, the disadvantages of strife and discord, increase with the closer relations of men, and that the adoption of cooperation follows this line of advantage by individual choice, and by the disadvantage under which the less social as the less fit, labor, the latter tending gradually to disappear leaving the field to the more social. Thus the whole progress is the result of the will of the human being, as well as of the other forces of nature; it is only as the individual chooses, that progress is possible. But lower types survive long beside the more progressive, higher ones. The individual is not so reasonable that he always perceives his own more enduring advantage, or always chooses it even when he perceives it; he may choose momentary gratification at the acknowledged risk, and even with the certainty, of great future loss. Nor can it be averred that the individual always suffers seriously from action at variance with even the average standard; simply, the line of survival gradually changes in favor of altruism, so that escape is less frequent and less probable; and the lines of greatest deviation from the altruism demanded at any period by the line of advance tend to disappear; but the altruism demanded by any line of advance is not, up to the present time, an absolute altruism, nor do all deviations from it result in destruction to the individual even in extreme cases. The fact of the growing disadvantage of selfishness, and its destructive tendency, remains, nevertheless. It may be expressed in another form in the statement that power of all sorts is increased by civilization, and where a coordinate increase of self-restraint does not accompany the increased power, it must lead to destruction, either in the case of the individual, or if not so abruptly, then in the case of his descendants. The closer contact of human beings and increased knowledge and cooperation mean growing opportunity of good or evil, to self and others. The destructive forces lie as well in the workings of social organization, in the will of man, as in nature outside man. Legal justice, public opinion, and the opinion of the smaller circle of personal friends and acquaintances, all have their part. Any degree of social instinct developed in the course of social evolution only a.s.sists in rendering social punishments of all sorts the more felt; and thus each increment of advance a.s.sists in further advance. Men who persist in action antagonistic to social demands, action which they themselves acknowledge to be immoral, may yet feel the condemnation of society so much, that, even while yet persisting, they destroy their vitality by alcoholism or other excesses to drown regret and remorse; habit chains them, in many cases, where the condemnation of others reaches them only late. But the whole process of social evolution is one of very gradual a.s.similation, and neither in the world as a whole, in the nation or race, or in the tribe, clan, family, locality, or cla.s.s, is it one of equal advance on all sides. The cooperation adopted may be, at different points, that of individuals against individuals, of tribes against tribes, of nations against nations, or of cla.s.ses against cla.s.ses.

From still another point of view, we may look upon the evolution of man as an intellectual as well as a moral one. We may count the continual gain of new experience, and the variation of thought, feeling, and will in accordance with knowledge, as adjustment to new elements of the environment, and so, as organic progress. Since, indeed, knowledge and the application of knowledge to more and more distant and more and more complex and general ends is just what we designate as higher reason in man as compared with other animal species, we cannot logically regard the further progress of this same sort in the human species itself as other than an increase of reason. Here, again, it is strange that an exact line of division between the human species and the rest of life should so often be drawn; that, although we acknowledge the necessity of an intellectual evolution having taken place from the lower species up to man, and recognize this intellectual evolution as the concomitant of wider adaptation, and although we recognize also man's continuing adaptation or experience as coordinate with progress in knowledge, we yet should be able to regard the human race as stationary as far as reason, intellect, is concerned. Evolution no more stands still in man than it did before his "advent" (if we may still use a word denoting a definite beginning, of the evolution of a species). And the reality of an intellectual evolution at the same time with the moral evolution being acknowledged, it follows that the two must to some extent coincide.[176] But we have again to remember that the evolution is not on exactly the same lines in all individuals or parts of society, that not all lines of descent may be called also those of progress. Sympathy is a progressive term; there are numberless degrees of it represented by the different individuals who form society, at their different periods of development and in their different moods. Nor can we distinguish between natural sympathy and "extrinsic sentiment" which may interfere with it; since feelings are no separate ent.i.ties, all sentiment that bears on a subject is intrinsic, and the final sympathy or non-sympathetic feeling is a fusion and not a mere mixture of the various emotions which go to make it. We cannot a.s.sert that "genuine altruism" is the normal case, even of the present period of social development, and certainly not when we are considering morality as an evolution. We may hope that the standard of future generations will come to be as much superior to our present standard as that standard is superior to the savage standard; but it is scarcely to be expected that the men of that better time, although they may look back at this age with as much horror as that with which we regard the savage children roasting their dog for sport, will p.r.o.nounce it one of general idiocy or even of "moral idiocy." The virtue of Stephen's a.n.a.lysis lies in the especial notice it takes of the different degrees and phases of that which we term "sympathy"; its fault lies in not sufficiently distinguis.h.i.+ng between these phases, by definition, throughout the argument; and this fault leads, as we have seen, to a final confusion of the different meanings, the subst.i.tution of the one for the other, and so the proving of the higher meaning by the lower. It is scarcely true, even in civilized society, that a comprehension of the feelings of others is naturally a.s.sociated with a "feeling with" them, even in the lower sense; and it is certainly not true that it is naturally a.s.sociated with genuine altruism.

The a.s.sertion that, in ignoring the sentience of living beings in thought about them, a man is ignoring a thing of importance to himself, is coordinate with the a.s.sertion that, in so doing, he is ignoring "an essential part of the world as interesting" to him; for that which appears of importance to a man is that which interests him; and it is true that interest and attention are coordinate. But one thing may appear to one man important, another to another. We generally consider a thing in the relations and phases which interest us, but not all its relations or phases always interest us. We do not follow out all the possible lines of thought connected with a thing, we do not regard it in all its aspects every time we think about it; we think more or less by symbols or parts; and Stephen says that we feel by symbols also.[177] It is by no means true of all men, or true of any man at all times, that others are most deeply interesting to him in their relations of thought and feeling; there are many cases where they would be quite as interesting if they were mere automata, provided only that they could be depended on to perform the same actions. And it is perfectly possible to regard them in the light of their actions and the significance of these for us, leaving quite out of account the psychical meaning of the actions, and this also without at all "losing all the intelligence which distinguishes one from the lower animal." Nor is sympathy coordinate with interest in the thoughts and emotions of others; revenge is very normal, yet it rejoices in just the fact that the living being can be made to suffer.

The irritation noticed by Stephen, as sometimes directed against others whose suffering is a source of pain, is of especial interest as bearing on the habit of some animals--wild cattle, for instance--of setting with fury on a wounded comrade, and putting him to a violent death. A recent writer has attempted to explain this habit as a frantic and unintelligent endeavor to render some a.s.sistance to a suffering friend; but the explanation seems improbable, especially as we find a corresponding impulse to cruelty even in human society of a higher type.

In the action of the animal, there is the possibility and even the probability of still another impulse--that excitement and exhilaration which seems to possess many species at the sight and smell of blood, and which finds its counterpart in the peculiar pleasure that many men of coa.r.s.er sensibilities derive from bull-fights, prize-fights, c.o.c.k-fights, etc., and that doubtless comes down to us from a time when the struggle for existence was continually a b.l.o.o.d.y one. Just how the two instincts may be related in the animal, it is difficult, from a human standpoint, to say.

Our a.n.a.lysis has. .h.i.therto omitted all definition of morality and conscience. The words should properly, for some reasons, have been defined before this. But any definition must have a.s.sumed that which could logically be a.s.serted only at the end of the preceding considerations. The definitions are involved in these considerations. It is evident that morality, as we ordinarily define it, has a very intimate connection with the relations of individuals to each other; and though we may conceive of a morality of the individual pa.s.sing an entire existence in solitude on a desert island devoid of animal-life, we become aware, when we reflect on the condition of such an imaginary personage, that many of the ordinary grounds of moral action, and moral judgment of action, are wanting in his case. Such a person cannot, by our a.s.sumption, beget others who may inherit his psychical and physical qualities, and cannot injure man or beast directly or indirectly. He has only his own welfare to consider, and if he chooses rather an animal indulgence in such pleasures as may be within his reach, we may possibly disapprove of his conduct, but we cannot find especial grounds for a.s.serting that he has not a right to his choice. It may be said that this case is only imaginary, and that, in all actual cases of such isolation there is no certainty that the individual may not, at some future time, come in contact with other living animals or with human beings. But this being admitted, we immediately come back again to the conception of morality as dependent upon our relations to others. In spite of all that has been said in favor of egoistic morality, of duties to self as the source and reason of morality, it becomes evident that altruism is a most important element of even that which we term egoistic or personal morality. In fact, we find difficulty in distinguis.h.i.+ng, on a higher plane, between the duties of egoism and those of altruism; in both we have to consider others as well as ourselves. And we begin to suspect that we are making a mistake in separating, in a definition, things which must be indissolubly united in actual practice; and we surmise that such a mistake may lie at the root of the many disagreements as to whether the preference is to be given to egoism or to altruism in Ethics. In all evolution, the results of former adaptation are not lost in new; merely the old a.s.sumes a higher form. So egoism is not lost in altruism, but a.s.sumes a higher form; the care for self becomes identical, according to the degree of altruism, with the care for others. This fact has been utilized for the a.s.sertion that all altruism is merely egoism. The argument commits the fallacy of using the word "egoism" in two senses, the one of which, the higher sense, is used to prove the other. We need to remember that the fact of development implies degrees, and that neither egoism nor altruism is an absolute term. A certain care of self, physically and mentally, is necessary to cheerfulness, health, sympathy, and the due performance of labor and kindnesses; just as, conversely, in society, the health and happiness of the individual are dependent upon the aid of others. The antagonistic character of the two principles is gradually modified in evolution and disappears altogether in some cases of action; in the contemplation of the ideal, it vanishes completely. Care for self gains a new significance in the light of love or affection for any other being, and in the action and reaction of character in human society, this newer significance gradually spreads, leavening the whole of mankind. Our a.n.a.lysis is unable to trace its workings and significance in all the complicated relations of men. In like manner it is difficult to decide, in any particular case, what the exact course is, which, in view of the far-reaching results of an act through the action and reaction of these relations, is the right one. The moral decision must be reached through a consideration which should be nearer the ideal, the nearer it comes to a consideration of all results, a due allowance being made for the uncertainty of distant results. This uncertainty must, other things being equal, diminish the influence of considerations of the far future on the decision, and should properly do so; although relative importance may, again, render the mere possibility of some one result a sufficient reason for choosing or abstaining from an act in the face of all other certainties and probabilities. Again, the power of calculating distant results is increased with the growth of knowledge, and man comes, thus, to obtain greater and greater power to shape the world about him and mould his own life to the attainment of his ends. With this power responsibility is also increased; the adult thief who rears children to theft bears the chief responsibility in the beginning of their career, and a very large share of it later on; the experienced man of the world, who understands whither he is tending, is much more responsible than the ignorant girl whom he seduces.

The highest morality demands, therefore, careful judgment. The factors to be considered are the complicated relations of men in the society of which the judge and actor himself is a member; morality may thus be identified with justice in the highest sense of the word. The decision is always a difficult one on account of the great complexity of the factors concerned; this every man perceives who endeavors, with unbia.s.sed mind, to discover exactly what the most moral course is in any particular case. Some one course may be evidently immoral; but that does not necessarily decide what the moral course is, for there may be very many courses open to choice, or there may be at least more than one other as alternative to the manifestly immoral one. Moreover, the necessity for action forbids that we spend all our time in reflection and choice. Moral responsibility demands, however, that we never cease from the endeavor to discover where justice lies.

A certain constancy in the const.i.tution of society, and the necessity for constancy or consistency in the action of the individual, give rise to certain general rules of conduct that develop and change somewhat as society changes; special rules of conduct which supplement these general rules change constantly. In the societies of a primitive sort, held together by only the loosest of bonds, personal retaliation is in vogue and is considered moral. Revenge is a duty. In societies of a higher sort retaliation is taken from the hands of the individual in all matters of importance, at least as far as the revenge consists in definite action, the motive of which can be demonstrated. The Englishman may still knock down the man who insults him, but he may not avenge a murder. Not only the negative morality of abstinence from violence is demanded of the citizen of a so-called civilized society, a certain reliability in the relations of cooperation is also necessary for the general welfare, and thus honesty comes to be encouraged and dishonesty to be discouraged by legal punishment and social contempt. Dishonesty in word is not so often punished directly by law as dishonesty of act, but there are many cases where it is impossible to distinguish between the two, and other cases where the lie is directly punishable because of the consequences which it involves. Beyond this, society begins early to discourage lying in some sort, though the love of and respect for truth obviously grows with social development. Coordinately with the development of cooperation and mutual dependence, constancy in all the multifarious directions and complex relations of that cooperation and dependence, becomes more and more desirable.

But constancy is not to be secured as an outward fact except as it becomes a part of the inward character of men, a constant habit. The man who lies occasionally is in at least some danger of developing a habit in the direction of lying, as he is also in danger of destroying the confidence of others if they discover that he sometimes lies; for they have no means of knowing to exactly what extent untruthfulness is, or is becoming, a habit in his case, or in what instances it may manifest itself, in what not. Moreover, the distrust so engendered may lead to antic.i.p.atory deception on their side, and so the circle of distrust and untruthfulness spreads until it is met somewhere by determined truth that demands truth in return. Thus, in spite of all that is said in favor of the occasional lie, we instinctively feel the danger of it, though we may not be able, until after much consideration, to a.s.sign the exact reason for our feeling. We may admit that there are occasions when the lie may be justifiable; but we feel that these occasions must, then, be very exceptional. In general, it is desirable to discipline ourselves to as close an approach to the truth as possible. If I lie in a dozen instances, in what I consider a good cause, I am very likely to lie again when the temptation of some merely personal gain presents itself. The habit of truth or falsehood is, further than this, one of the most subtle and intricate relations in our character: nothing is more difficult than the facing of the exact truth with regard to ourselves; cowardice and self-deception with regard to our own traits and motives are very common, and only the most earnest and constant effort can enable us to gain that moral courage that is the first requisite of self-knowledge and so self-control. Any weakening of the will in the contrary direction is dangerous. Truth is not an easy thing; it is as difficult as justice; in fact, that which is justice in action and the judgment which leads to action, is truth in the premises of which the judgment is the issue. We have most of us known persons who had so accustomed themselves to lying that they seemed no longer able to distinguish between truth and falsehood, facts and mere impressions.

Certainly where matters of high importance which deeply concern the public welfare are at stake, we cannot admit falsehood to be desirable for the sake of any personal gain; and even though we may find excuses for the failure of human courage in the face of mortal danger, there are those of us who will still continue to think a Bruno's defiance of death for the sake of his conviction the n.o.bler and better choice. I have heard it argued that this philosopher might have contributed more to the world through a continuation of his life than he did through his death.

But surely it was one of the highest services that he could do mankind to show a superst.i.tious and dogmatic age that high moral purpose and steadfastness were not necessarily a.s.sociated with this or that religious dogma. His death drew the attention of thoughtful and good men as nothing else could have drawn it. But beyond this consideration, and even leaving out of account the desirability of the habit of truth and the necessity of its action in the single instance, it is doubtful whether there is any other benefit we can confer on our fellow-men so great as just the a.s.surance that they can rely on us. The bitter cry of human nature everywhere repeats the faithlessness of those on whom trust has been staked; and the rescue of many a man from despair and waste of life has been through the discovery of some one soul whose truth and constancy were steadfast and unchangeable. Belief in others is belief in our own possibilities; and distrust of others is distrust of self, at least for the most thoughtful and introspective men. The examples of such men as Socrates and Bruno stand to the world as pledges of the power of faithfulness in humanity. They are the rocks on which pessimism must shatter, and the betrayed and sorrowful may build their faith. This is, I believe, the secret of our veneration for such men as these, who died, not in an ecstasy of religious emotion or under the hope of especial glory as a reward for martyrdom, but faithful to a calm conviction, and sustained only by the love of truth and their fellow-men.

And this brings us to a consideration of the sacrifice of the individual. The cases may be few where the highest standard can demand of a man such entire and final sacrifice as the instances we have just noted, even though it may look upon this sacrifice as the highest. But it is evident that some degree of self-sacrifice is often necessary to the welfare of society, and however important we may consider the welfare of the individual, it cannot be regarded as more important than the welfare of the whole of society as an aggregate of many individuals, or even as more important than the welfare of a large number of other individuals, a considerable portion of society. The legitimate degree of sacrifice, where interests conflict and choice is necessary between the sacrifice of the single individual and the sacrifice of many, is a question that can be decided only according to the particular circ.u.mstances of the case. Everything depends upon the number of individuals on both sides, whose interests conflict, on the nature of the sacrifices necessary, and the results of these sacrifices to the society as a whole, as well as, in some cases, on the character of the individuals concerned. It is often denied that the nature of the individuals whose interests conflict, between whom choice must be made, can ever affect that choice if it is made under principles of justice.

And in general, doubtless, there is danger of injustice in distinctions between individuals; but it is scarcely to be doubted that, if it were necessary to choose between the life of a great philanthropist and that of a persistent and hardened criminal, if, for instance, both were drowning and it were possible to save only one, the choice of most would fall, and fall rightly, on the philanthropist. The fact that moral choice must take different directions under different circ.u.mstances is sometimes construed into an argument against any fixity of moral commandments, an argument for a narrow expediency. It certainly establishes the rule that obedience to any rule of action should never be blind. Nevertheless, if our preceding considerations be correct, the uniformities in social relations admit of the establishment of certain general rules which the moral man will follow under most circ.u.mstances.

We come finally to the definition of conscience. In humanity as a whole, and in the single societies of which it is composed, a certain moral evolution may be perceived which we have found reasons for believing to be internal as well as external, a matter of heredity as well as of instruction. In this internal sense, conscience, as innate capacity, or tendency, may be said to be an instinct. We may not be able to explain how the inheritance takes place in this case any more than we are able to explain how it is possible that the chicken just from the sh.e.l.l may pick at his food without instruction, and just what psychical process, if any, accompanies the first performance of the act; or to explain how it is that the s.e.xual instinct appears in later life as an inheritance of species, and why it acts uniformly. We can only say that, the proper conditions of stimulation (which are always necessary in the case of any instinct) being present, the action takes place. We are unable to a.n.a.lyze the earliest appearance of sympathy, benevolence, and the sense of obligation, in our individual experience, the power of self-a.n.a.lysis appearing much later in life. That which, when we become capable of reflection, we term conscience, consists in pleasure in forms of action furthering the welfare of society--forms gradually moulded to habit with the development of social relations,--and in a corresponding pain at the realization of having failed of such action; the knowledge of the demand, by society as a whole or by a part of society, of action in accord with the general welfare, and the sense of the justice of this demand, const.i.tuting the feeling of obligation and duty. This feeling is early nourished in the family, the obligation we acknowledge being towards our parents first and foremost. We have found motives to be often of a mixed character; and this is often also the case with remorse, the pain we experience at having failed in our duty. It may contain an egoistic element of regret or dread at having rendered ourselves liable to punishment or loss of some sort.

Our whole a.n.a.lysis of the course by which conscience is developed tends to show the truth of that which Darwin claimed, namely, that the moral instinct is a development and organization of many special instincts.

But there are those who claim conscience to be a special sense, and who generally mean much more than merely that it is, at present, an organization of subordinate instincts. A dim a.n.a.logy of the special sense organs generally has part in their conception, and religious reference is often made to "the original const.i.tution of man." But evolution knows nothing of an original const.i.tution of man; it knows only of a gradual development of the human. And it must be remembered that, in evolution, that may become inherent which was not so before.

Any theory which regards even an organization of special instincts as a special sense may, moreover, be objected to on the same grounds on which the old idea of special faculties of thought, feeling, and will was criticized. The old argument, used to prop the belief in conscience as an original, higher gift, and so, in the original creation of fixed species,--the argument that the same fundamental rules of moral conduct are to be found in all societies,--has already been answered in the demonstration that uniformities of human nature and necessary similarities in all social const.i.tution render the fundamental rules of forbearance, aid, honesty, and truth necessary to all societies alike; while our a.n.a.lysis of the course of development by which social organization grows more and more complex, shows the necessity as well as the reality of progress in outward and inward observance of these rules.

Du Prel argues that even life on any of the heavenly bodies, supposing such to exist, must have some points of resemblance to our own, although the differences due to different planetary conditions may be great; but resemblances must a.s.suredly be considerable where there is a common basis of species.

The Utilitarians are doubtless right in a.s.serting that all rules of morality may be traced to utility. However, there is considerable ambiguity about the word "utility." Mr. Spencer's earlier objections to Utilitarianism, given in "Social Statics,"--namely, that we cannot make the greatest good of the greatest number our object because it is impossible to perceive, without omniscience, where the greatest good lies, and because the standard of utility is a changing one, cannot be regarded as apposite, for we might as well say that a man cannot endeavor to secure his own health, or that it is not well for him to do so, because he does not possess a knowledge of all the intricate workings of the organs of his body and so may make mistakes, or that he cannot seek it to-day because the conditions necessary to secure it will have changed by to-morrow; but Mr. Spencer's later objections to Utilitarianism touch an important truth. He says, for instance, in his "Recent Discussions in Science, Philosophy, and Morals": "Utility, convenient a word as it is from its comprehensiveness, has very inconvenient and misleading implications. It vividly suggests uses and means and proximate ends; but very faintly suggests the pleasures, positive or negative, which are the ultimate ends, and which, in the ethical meaning of the word, are alone considered." Stephen has another pertinent criticism of Utilitarianism, namely that the utilitarian, in his anxiety to have his feet on solid earth, and to a.s.sign definite and tangible grounds for every conclusion, is likely to favor the prosaic rather than the poetical, and to leave out of account, or rank as of little importance, finer sorts of pleasure.[178] The utilitarian is, in fact, liable to fall into a similar error to that already noticed on the part of those who claim that egoism is the foundation of all morality, present as past. While accepting the theory of evolution, the utilitarian fails to perceive, in many cases, that this lends to his terms a progressive and increasingly complex meaning. The error has its source, doubtless, in the fact that the utilitarian school represents a recoil from the older, superst.i.tious Intuitionalism, which not only defended a doctrine of conscience as a sort of supernatural or half-supernatural instinct, on a plane above ordinary instinct, but, relying upon it as of such character, practically denied to reason any authority in matters of morality. In the strong reaction from these ideas, and under the fear of ceding any ground of advantage to the enemy, Utilitarianism has gone to an equally inadmissible extreme of disregarding "mere impulses" of sympathy, and has tended to reject all conceptions of morality where it was not possible to unravel, beyond the criticism of opponents, the intricate web of social conditions. It is for this reason also that Utilitarianism is often egoistic; in the endeavor to a.n.a.lyze back to tangible grounds of action, it was much easier to adopt the evidently original basis of sympathy and altruism--that is, egoism--as the present basis also, than to trace out later developments in the many-sided organization of society. In rejecting instinct, it was but consistent and natural to overlook also the significance of habit in matters of morality; and thus the poet, the moral enthusiast, the martyr, and the rigid adherent of truth, came to be looked at askance. I do not mean to aver that all Utilitarianism has fallen into these errors, though the tendency is distinctly in this direction; neither the connection of a theory of utility with a disregard of the finer sorts of happiness, and the more distant and complex workings of social forces, nor the connection of a theory of moral instinct with superst.i.tion, is a necessary one.

A re-reaction against this bald Utilitarianism has set in; but some of the forms which it takes on can no more be indorsed by the consistent evolutionist than can the system from which it is a revolt. When Sidgwick defends Intuitionalism with the argument that the rightness of some kinds of action is known without consideration of ulterior consequences, we may answer that it is true that tradition furnishes us with many rules that we may follow without consideration of the consequences of our acts, but that it is very doubtful whether we act with the highest degree of morality in so doing. As to the "knowing" of the rightness of the acts, this is surely a matter of judgment, must, therefore, involve the considerations of consequences in some form, though the course of reasoning followed to the attainment of what is often termed "knowledge" in this sense may not be elaborate, and may, indeed, go no farther than a reflection on the approval and disapproval of society.

The terms "higher" and "lower" have been used in our previous considerations with regard to pleasures. The legitimacy of their use in this connection has often been questioned. From an evolutional standpoint, however, either they are legitimate here, or else objection may be made, on similar grounds, to their application to man as distinguished from the brutes or even from the original protoplasmic cell with which evolution began. The later developments of the desires, the newer social ends, are as much higher as the human species is higher than the species from which it has been evolved through continued adaptation. As, in the attainment of altruism, egoism is not lost in the sense that the individual no longer seeks that which is most pleasurable to him, but simply reaches a higher plane, so the fundamental animal desires and instincts still move us, but in a quite different form, being closely interwoven, in their later development, with all the ideals and aspirations with which social life has supplied us. The advocates of a "return to nature" make, therefore, a fundamental mistake in theory. Human development is also natural. The same mistake is made when we are told that we must be animals in practice because we are animals by nature, or that we must "copy nature" because we are a part of it. The former a.s.sertion ordinarily commits the fallacy of using the word "animal" in two senses. The latter a.s.sertion involves the fallacy of first making man a part of the nature, which he is to copy, in order, then, to prove that he must regard himself as something outside nature and must, therefore, slavishly follow. But if man is himself a part of the nature he must copy, one may question why he may not simply copy himself rather than any other part; for obviously he is unable to copy all parts, there being many antagonisms in nature. I have heard the argument used in defence of cruelty to animals; nature is cruel, therefore man must be cruel. But as a matter of fact, there is no more reason why man should copy any other part of nature, than there is reason why the horse should imitate the habits of the hog, or turtle-doves take example by the tiger. Necessity may sometime compel a choice between two cruelties, to which there is no third alternative; but this is a different argument; let us say, in this case, that we are so compelled (if, indeed, there is no other alternative; for this argument, like the other, is often used as a convenient excuse for mere selfishness, where there are alternatives); let us not employ a wholly fallacious and misleading argument which opens the way to the free exercise of selfish disposition.

Objections are often made to theories of the development of higher moral qualities from egoism, on the ground that such a derivation is degrading to that which is best in man. Some color is lent to this view by arguments like that just noticed. But we may question whether facts can be logically chosen or rejected according to their agreeableness, or even their moral utility, in any case. And, again, some of us may fail to discover any degradation in this theory of evolution. The flower may grow from carrion, but we do not find it the less beautiful, the less pleasing to our various senses. And we should have exactly as good reason to regard the carrion as elevated by its office as to regard the flower as degraded by the source of its life. As a matter of fact, we merely find the flower pleasing and the carrion abhorrent. We are used to this particular connection of the pleasing with the abhorrent, and accept it as we accept much that may be to us disagreeable in our own physical organization; but we have not yet accustomed ourselves to the ideas of mental and moral evolution, and our recoil from them is an ill.u.s.tration of the displeasing character of the wholly New. The same argument of degradation was at first brought forward also against the theory of an evolution of the human form from that of lower species, and of the "purely intellectual faculties" from the animal mind.

The question as to whether struggle is an essential element of virtue has been so thoroughly answered by Gizycki, Stephen, and others, that it would be superfluous to say much about it here; however, our a.n.a.lysis would not be complete without some consideration of it. "The man is the strongest," writes Stephen, "who can lift the heaviest weight or who can lift a given weight with the greatest ease. But (and it is a proof of the loose argument which has often been accepted in ethical disputes) the two cases have sometimes been confounded. It would plainly be absurd to say, 'The man is strongest who lifts the greatest weight, therefore the man who makes the greatest effort; therefore the man who makes the greatest struggle to lift a given weight.' But it has occasionally been said that a man is most virtuous who resists the greatest temptation; therefore the man who has the greatest struggle; therefore the man who has the greatest difficulty in resisting a given temptation. Though the fallacy does not occur in this bare form, it is not infrequently implied in the a.s.sumption that the effort, taken absolutely, is the measure of merit.... We are thus led to excuse a man for the very qualities which make him wicked. True, he committed a murder, but he was so spiteful that he could not help it; or he was exceedingly kind, but he is so good-natured that it cost him no effort."[179]

The difficulty lies in the fact that the struggle arising in any particular case may result from any one of several general conditions of character, between which it is often difficult to distinguish. An absence of struggle may mean simply a general weakness of character which makes a man ready to yield to any and almost all momentary influences, good or evil; the agreement with another's argument may signify absence of the power to reason for oneself; but, on the other hand, it may mean the highest intellectual power of unbia.s.sed judgment; the act that follows such agreement as its result may mean will-power, or it may mean vacillating weakness that, if led by a good influence at the present moment, will be as easily or nearly as easily swayed by an evil one, the next. We are all acquainted with persons who invariably agree with all sides, and s.h.i.+lly-shally in a corresponding manner in their action, accomplis.h.i.+ng little or no positive good in any direction, though often positive evil. For the reason of this frequent weakness of character in what we call the "good-natured" person, the term "good-natured" has come to have a certain idea of mental and moral inferiority connected with it. In a similar manner, some men who are generally called "good" are swayed to a greater extent by tradition and lack of courage to act for themselves than by strong desire to know and do the right, and thus, very unfortunately, the excellent word "good"

even comes to be looked upon with a certain degree of disdain. On the other hand, a man may find much difficulty in doing right in a certain instance, because of the strength of emotions that would be, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, morally desirable and are, in themselves, admirable even in the moment of his temptation, although a yielding to this temptation would, nevertheless, involve great wrong. No one could blame the agony and struggle of the switchman who, in the moment when he is about to rescue a pa.s.senger-train from imminent collision by switching it to another track, suddenly perceives his baby-girl seated upon the rails. Strong and enn.o.bling love between man and woman may involve, under certain conditions, temptation and struggle; even the best of our impulses may not always be followed, if we desire to act morally. Few, if any persons could refuse admiration and respect to the love between Phillip Tredennis and Mrs. Amory in Mrs. Burnett's "Through one Administration." But not all strong feeling is of an admirable nature; the revengefulness of the murderer, the vicious l.u.s.t of a Joseph Phillippe, the impatience of the const.i.tutionally belligerent man, are not to be praised, but condemned. Stephen's argument, therefore, that struggle is adjudged an element of virtuous character in many cases because its absence would show "a defect in some faculty of enjoyment,"

includes too much; for Jack the Ripper, and others who especially delight in crime, possess faculties of enjoyment the entire absence of which in other men we do not look upon as a defect.[180] Stephen restates his position in another form, saying that "If a man resists any inducement because it has no charms for him, his act does not prove virtue unless the inducement be such as to appeal only to the wicked."

It is only because, incidentally, those qualities moulded in human society, and therefore fundamentally good, may come into conflict with each other, that we fall into the habit of connecting the idea of struggle with morality; in face of the fact that readier response to moral stimulus must const.i.tute all moral advancement.

And these reflections lead us to remark on the common fallacy that strength of emotion means necessarily a lack of the moral direction of emotion, and that conversely moral self-direction argues weakness of emotional capacity. The direction of emotion is changed with evolution, as we have seen, but this does not mean that emotion is lessened in force. In the man of highest morality, the emotions are merely moulded to a greater harmony with social needs, a harmony that is not weakness but strength, not mere narrow reaction upon momentary impulse or one-sided sympathy with a few to the exclusion of the many, but, in contrast to this lower impulsiveness, an all-sidedness that is the result of reflection and choice. I say this all-sidedness is "the result" of reflection; for I do not mean to intimate that the moral man is less impulsive than the immoral man, or that he is obliged to consider long before every act. Merely his impulsiveness is of a higher sort; in it both racial and individual adjustments to social needs find expression; and reason always stands, figuratively speaking, in the background, ready to suppress the spontaneity where the conditions are such that it ceases to be moral. It has been part of our whole a.n.a.lysis to show that reason and instinct, thought and feeling, are by no means antagonistic. Simply, feeling may take one direction in one man, another in another; in the criminal, it is developed in the direction of anti-social acts; in the profligate, it takes the same direction, but in a less degree; the original savage is stronger in him than in the moral man, who belongs to a later and higher type, and finds his pleasure in acts in accordance with the welfare of his fellow-men and fellow-women.

As the human being is a higher development than other species because he is adapted to a wider circle of nature, so just as truly the moral man is a higher human development, because function is, in him, adjusted to a wider circle of conditions--to complex social requirements which represent the happiness of his fellow-men. Altruism is not, because a later development, "artificial," as Barratt calls it, any more than man is artificial in comparison with the ape, or the ape is artificial in comparison with original protoplasm. Nor can virtue consist, as Barratt conceives, in a yielding to all emotions,[181] as long as man has not yet attained the highest summit of morality where all emotions follow moral directions, without conflicts and without constraint. But neither can morality be distinguished as "a constraining power opposed to instinct and emotion in general,"[182] as Stephen at one point defines it. Struggle and constraint are not necessarily elements of moral action; kind and moral action often follows upon impulse with no effort whatever; and, on the other hand, the basest characters may know struggle of an extreme nature when the directions of self-interest conflict.

We have already noticed the origin of punishment in revenge, which is the outcome of a fundamental, egoistic instinct of self-defence; and we have traced its development up to the monopolization of its extremer forms by society as a whole through state organization. It is impossible for a.n.a.lysis to give any adequate representation of the workings of Reward and Punishment in society, except as we draw an exact line between legal and other forms. But such a distinction, however convenient for particular purposes, is obviously scientifically injustifiable in a general theory of social morals. The constraint of family disinheritance and social ostracism, of threats of all sorts, of vituperation, of disapproval and coldness, are only higher forms of revenge or punishment, by which men influence each other's action, as savages influence each other through physical suffering and the fear of it, in a more primitive and less humane manner; and state reward for services, praise, and approval, are all forms of encouragement, by which men similarly incite each other not merely to a negative abstention from undesirable acts, but to a positive performance of desirable acts. With the development of sympathy, punishment tends to become less brutal on the one side, while, on the other, the less brutal forms come to have as great influence as the more brutal ones formerly had. Furthermore, the distinct calculation of the attainment of egoistic ends gives place to the impulsive reaction of the sense of justice on the one hand, and, on the other, to the readier response to disapproval and to the desires of others, through social predispositions and affections which are more altruistic than egoistic.

But there are two diametrically opposed schools, neither of which perfectly agrees with the theory of will as stated in a preceding chapter of this work, and both of which may therefore take exception to the theory of recompense which follows naturally upon that theory. The one, the school which a.s.serts Free Will not in a natural, but in a supernatural, or half supernatural sense, may object to the grounds for punishment a.s.sumed in our a.n.a.lysis; this school is answered by the demonstration of the actual course of development taken by reward and punishment. The other school maintains, on the ground that man is a part of nature, that there is no merit in conscientiousness, and that evil-doing, being as much dependent upon organization and social environment as disease, cannot, on scientific grounds, be punishable. It is to be noticed, however, that many of the advocates of the theory that state punishment is injustifiable yet inflict punishment upon their own children; and we may remind them, in this connection, that they can scarcely claim the will of the child to be freer or less the result of general social conditions than that of the adult, and that, moreover, they themselves are the most immediate links in the chain of conditions producing this will. Furthermore, they are inconsistent in their practice if they visit any blame on evil-doers or criminals; they are logically restricted to, at most, an "I differ with you in opinion," to Jack-the-Ripper, to the cruelest of slave hunters, or to the Chinese who are said to have regarded with indifference the burning of their fellow-men on the s.h.i.+p "Shanghai," while they exerted themselves to secure the wreckage. Nor, if punishment and blame are inadmissible, on the ground of the determination of the will, can they consistently show greater consideration to benevolent than to malevolent men, no matter how great the public benefits these men have conferred, or what aid they have given to the advancement of society? If it is unjust to punish criminals because their acts are determined, then it is also wholly unjust to the rest of mankind to praise a Bruno, or a dying Sir Philip Sidney giving the cup of water offered him to another. If good men might be criminals, had they the criminal organization, it is equally true that ordinary and selfish men might be Brunos and Sir Philip Sidneys if they had the organization of Brunos and Sir Philip Sidneys; why then do ordinary men the injustice of praising and admiring such n.o.bility of character? Nor can a theory of determinism which refuses to blame the individual consistently lay the blame of crime and badness on society as a whole, as it often does; for society as a whole is composed of individuals, all of whom are equally determined in their action. Or, if we choose to regard society as a unit, then it may be said that it is as much the product of nature as a whole as the individual is its product.

If it be objected that we do not blame nature as a whole because it is soulless, we may inquire what is meant by soulless; society has no composite soul, no soul except in its individuals. The real significance of the objection is that we cannot influence nature, by our blame, to the production of better characters; but it is also true that we cannot influence society except through the individuals composing it; and here we have, again, in a nutsh.e.l.l, the real reason and justification of punishment and blame.

The Socialists have been prominent of late in disclaiming the right of the state to punish, on the ground that society as a whole is responsible for the evil of individual characters. But it is not noticeable that all Socialists refrain from blaming non-socialistic and conservative individuals, although it is obviously true that these are quite as much determined, and as irresponsible from a deterministic point of view, as are the criminals. Moreover, even the mildest Socialists advocate the measure of denying food to the man who can work but will not do so. By what right do these determinists make use of the expression "can but will not"? And what right have they, on their own showing, to administer this chastis.e.m.e.nt to the lazy man? Surely sloth cannot be interpreted as preeminently a power of will, which no other man possesses; and surely sloth is, as much as criminality, the product of social conditions. If it be objected that this denial of food is no punishment but merely a letting alone, we may inquire whether the starvation which used to be inflicted on prisoners for some offences was not a positive form of punishment. And if it be said that the slothful man has it in his power, at any time, to escape starvation by beginning to work, we may answer that the state says to the criminal, also, that he has nothing to do with its penalties as long as he abstains from the acts for which they are imposed. Why should the vindictive man, the Joseph Phillippes, the Jukes, and Eyrauds of the future receive sustenance, care, and kindness, in homes set apart for their especial use, while the man who is merely indolent is driven to solitude and the roots and herbs of the forest for the support of existence? Perhaps, in such case, the indolent man may claim society's greater indulgence by taking to crime.

These determinists are sometimes heard to make the a.s.sertion that the punishment of criminals is wrong, but that punishment of children must still be resorted to for their own sake as well as for that of society, since their character can be disciplined and bettered by it. When we arrive at this inconsistency, we get at the root of the whole objection to state punishment of criminals. There is a growing dissatisfaction with present methods of punishment, and this dissatisfaction, insufficiently a.n.a.lyzed, takes the form of objection to punishment altogether. Benevolence is progressing beyond present laws, and demands their change; that is the gist of the whole matter.

In the light of our a.n.a.lysis of the evolution of morality, we may repeat the inquiry, left unanswered at the beginning of this work, as to whether, in the province of morals more than in other provinces, we find a supernatural element or an element which, in any way, gives us an int