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

by Cora May Williams

CONSCIENCE

The exact circumstances which led, in any particular line of descent, to the final production of self-conscious altruism we cannot know. We may, perhaps, as has been hinted, trace the whole development to the original union of the sexes in lower, asexual species, and of mother and offspring; and we may suppose the final self-conscious altruism to have been led up to gradually by habit, in any case, the history of all function being gradual evolution. Thus we may suppose it possible that, in some cases, the care of offspring may have been preceded by a habit of care, on the part of the female animal, for her eggs, which, as habit, was pleasurable, but was connected with no consciousness of the offspring produced from the eggs until some new circumstance of environment brought them within ken. Of the development of habit in general and of pleasure in it, we have plenty of illustrations in our own individual experience, and we can even watch, in our own case, the process of the increase of altruism along old lines as well as its growth in new directions; and we may thus gain a conception of what must have been the general nature of its earliest development, in any case.

In Volume III of "Mind," Paul Friedmann has an interesting essay on "The Genesis of Disinterested Benevolence," in which he relates the following: "A man had to throw away some water and, stepping out of his house, threw it upon a heap of rubbish, where some faded plants were nearly dying. At that moment, he paid no attention to them, took no interest in their pitiable state. The next day, having again some water to throw away, the man stepped out at the same place, when he remarked that the plants had raised their stems and regained some life. He understood that this was the result of his act of the day before, his interest was awakened, and as he held a jar with water in his hand, he again threw its contents over the plants. On the following day the same took place; the benevolent feeling, the interest in the recovery and welfare of the plants augmented, and the man tended the plants with increasing care. When he found, one day, that the rubbish and plants had been carted away, he felt a real annoyance. The feeling of the man was in this case real disinterested benevolence. The plants were neither fine nor useful, and the place where they stood was ugly and out of the way, so that the man had no advantage from their growth. Nor had the man a general wish to rear plants, for there were a number of other plants sorely in want of care, but to which the man did not transfer his affections. He had loved these individual plants." Friedmann says further: "Formerly rather hostile to dogs, now that I have a dog myself, I feel well inclined towards the whole canine species, but most to that part of it which has some characteristic feature in common with my favorite." Features of the first quotation may remind us of some former considerations of ours in which attention and interest were found to run parallel. We may take exception, however, to Friedmann's definition of the extension of benevolent feeling from an individual of a class to the whole of the class or to beings resembling them in any way as "a sort of logical confusion." This view has already been criticised. The adult being at least does not confuse individuals, or even if he may occasionally do so, such confusion is not at all the distinguishing feature of progress in altruism; it is merely an accident, not anything that is characteristic. The recognition of old features in new objects is the opposite of confusion; it would rather indicate a logical confusion, a lack of intelligence, if we failed to remember that which has formerly given us pleasure, and to find, in similar objects, some renewal of that pleasure. It would have been just as logical, for instance, and more truly benevolent, if the man who tended the plants had cared also for the other plants mentioned as "sorely in want of care," and which he seems to have left to perish.

We may often notice the growth of altruistic from egoistic as well as of egoistic from altruistic motives, in ourselves; for retrogression as well as progression in altruism is possible with the individual. If we feel bitterly towards some human being, for instance, the best and surest remedy is to perform some act of kindness towards him. We may contemplate and carry out the deed with merely a sense of gratification and egoistic elation at our own generosity, but we are more than likely to experience some degree of change of feeling before we have finished. On the other hand, our heart often seems to harden and fill with greater animosity towards those we have injured, the longer we continue this course of injurious action and the more positive the injury inflicted. A certain degree of generosity must, it is true, already exist in order that we may be able to show kindness to an enemy, just as hostility must also be present in order that we may be able to commence a course of injury or unkindness; but both kindly feeling and animosity increase constantly with their exercise. We are never exactly the same after our deeds that we are before them.

Says George Eliot: "It would be a poor result of all our anguish and our wrestling if we won nothing but our old selves at the end of it—if we could return to the same blind loves, the same self-confident blame, the same light thoughts of human suffering, the same frivolous gossip over blighted human lives."[165] And again: "The creature we help to save, though only a half-reared linnet, bruised and lost by the wayside—how we watch and fence it, and dote on its signs of recovery."[166]

Whatever the particular circumstances that led, in the particular line of animal descent by which the species we distinctively term human finally came into existence, to the extension of temporary to life-long association, and whether this life-long association began only with man, or earlier with his ape-like progenitors, certain it is that increase of numbers must finally condition society. The internal, like the external process, is a gradual one, an evolution; and we cannot, therefore, suppose society as life-long association to have begun with the existence of no altruistic feeling whatever. In so far, Darwin's assertion that the social instinct led men to society contains a measure of truth; but it is to be remembered that the social instinct at the beginning of social life cannot have been the same with the social instinct of present civilization, which is the product of long development; pleasure in function, its ends, and objects, increases concomitantly with exercise. Darwin's statement is, hence, liable to misconstruction. There is a similar truth in Rolph's criticism of Spencer's theory that men adopted social life because they found it advantageous, on the ground that men must first have had experience of the advantages of association before they could have been aware of them. But the experience which continually leads to a step in advance may not be, at every point, for every step, the experience of the individual or individuals taking the step; it is quite possible that some steps may be taken from the observance of the experience of others; at least this is possible if we suppose any degree of intelligence and reason in the individuals taking the step. The introduction of the idea of a calculation of advantages is, furthermore, exceedingly useful. For, while the "social instinct," the desire for and pleasure in all the various function connected with association with other beings, may be of assistance in bringing about any advance in association, the selfish instinct, already in existence before the evolution of any considerable degree of altruistic impulse, may influence and induce the advance, where the social instinct is not, alone, of sufficient strength. At the beginning of social life, as at every later point of advancement, motives are mixed, and selfishness may prepare the way for unselfishness.

At any point of evolution, there must be, among contending species or individuals, some who are stronger or who have, through some circumstance, the advantage over the others; given even a moderate number of individuals, and it is hardly possible that all should be defeated and destroyed in any struggle, like the famous cats of Kilkenny. This being the case, and change of organization being continually conditioned by contact with new elements of environment, advancement, evolution, becomes a necessity, no natural catastrophe occurring to destroy all life. There is no mystery about evolution in this sense. Advancement in society is still more comprehensible to us by the fact of the element of reason involved in it; from the beginning of life-association among human beings or their immediate progenitors, the existence of some more intelligent individuals than the rest, who will perceive the advantages of association, may be assumed. And thus at each step, as the growing density of population continually renders increasing coöperation increasingly advantageous, we may suppose the vanguard to be composed of the more intelligent and the more social.

Sympathy prompts not only to the conferring of pleasure, it prompts also to the prevention of injurious conduct, on the part of others, towards the being or beings with whom sympathy is felt. A conception of the advantage of mutual aid may assist as a motive in this. The earliest mutual aid was, to a great extent, one of coöperation against enemies. In one way and another, this mutual defence must have extended to the compulsion of positive beneficial conduct, on the part of others, towards the being or beings with whom sympathy was felt. Such compulsion may be exerted by different tribes, or by different members of the same tribe, on each other; the means of compulsion are revenges of different sorts, benefit, assistance of some sort, being, on the other hand, often the reward of ready compliance. This compulsion may be felt as greater or less according to the degree of reluctance to perform any form of action required under pain of the penalty. If the thoughts are occupied with the possible reward, and not with the punishment, then no outer compulsion is felt, but a choice of advantage is made. This choice again may not be wholly one of selfish calculation; some altruistic feeling may be involved. A form of action at first chosen with reluctance, and merely because of the fear of punishment or revenge, may come to be performed later without hesitation, and more under the hope of reward than the fear of punishment; and this same form of action may come to be performed finally with sympathy as the prominent feeling, the hope of reward becoming more and more secondary. Each increase of sympathy, again, reacts upon the environment as represented by other individuals, and thus the relations and influence of men on each other become more and more complicated. Any habit of cruelty or hostility which has been, at former stages, united with prosperity may thus become, through the action and reaction of increasing altruism, a disadvantage to the individual member of any society; or it is also conceivable that a formerly advantageous egoistic form of action may become disadvantageous through the advent of some new influence from outside the particular society in which it is practised. Father Phil, in Lover's story of "Handy Andy," relates an anecdote of an engagement in Spain, in which the dragoons of a regiment, retreating under hot fire, paused at the crossing of a river to take up behind them some women of the camp-followers, who had difficulty in crossing, and thereupon found themselves followed by cheers, instead of shots, from their French foes. I do not intend to intimate that the motive for the deed was self-interest; but it is easy to conceive similar instances in which humanity might become an advantage and be practised at first from self-interest, not by individuals merely but by a whole tribe; this must be frequently the case when less civilized peoples come in contact with more civilized peoples. And this leads us to remark that habits of sympathy and justice exercised within a people will be likely to manifest themselves in relations with other peoples also, in degree as the sympathy is real and the benevolence inward. But the attitudes of different peoples towards each other remain long hostile, since the partial surrender of tribal or national interests necessary to compact often involves too great sacrifices to be acquiesced in at an early stage of development. And the individual is necessarily influenced, to a great extent, by the feelings of those among whom he is born, with regard to the hostile nation. But this is retracing our analysis.

Altruism is thus increased directly by the perception and choice of coöperation as advantageous, by the spread of altruistic feeling and the compulsion of the social environment, as well as by the higher means of persuasion and affection, in which altruism itself affects the increase of altruism; and it is also increased indirectly by the aid of natural selection between individuals, families, neighborhoods, and groups of all sorts, coöperation becoming more and more advantageous with the increased density of population.

It is scarcely necessary to remark that natural selection acts also with regard to the egoistic or personal virtues; for these have regard, primarily, to the preservation of the individual in the best condition for labor and cheerfulness. It is evident that in this direction also the moral must continually gain the advantage. Either the injurious is perceived and avoided, or the individual failing to perceive and avoid it suffers physical injury and deterioration, and, unless a different course is adopted in time, brings at last destruction to himself or to his stock. But our analysis goes further; for the egoistic virtues are evidently not purely egoistic; and society will come with time to insist on this fact, and to render these virtues still more advantageous and their neglect still more disadvantageous; while the growth of the altruistic feelings will infuse the individual with the desire to perform his duty to others in this respect also. The purely egoistic character of so-called personal virtues, for the assertion of which so much has been written, is a myth. No man can make a sot of himself or indeed injure himself in any way without reducing his power to benefit society and harming those nearest to him. Self-preservation and the preservation of one's own health may conflict with altruistic virtues at times; that is to say, virtues both of which are altruistic, though the altruistic character of one is more direct than the other, may conflict; in which case, choice is necessary. And it is strange to note, at this point, that just those systems which lay most stress on individual welfare, that is, emphasize the fact that the preservation of individual health and the development of individual capacity are advantageous to society, are the very ones that also defend the freedom of the individual to practise so-called personal vice. The two theories do not well accord; surely, if the individual is of so much importance to society, his vice cannot be without injurious results to it. Only when egoistic care for health has become infused with the higher altruism, does it become truly virtue; then care for self ceases to be the mere means to isolated pleasure, and becomes the means to the happiness of others where it was often, before, the means to their misery, and even their destruction.

In the evolution of higher animal forms from lower, the lower do not necessarily pass out of existence with the development of the higher; in society, however, the contact is close and continuous, and the competition unremitting; there is, therefore, some elimination, though a very gradual one, of lower types. The lower forms may exist for a long time beside the higher; in other words, society as a whole progresses slowly on account of the immense complication of relations within it. We find it including many grades of altruistic and egoistic virtue, and can testify only to a progress that renders the extremes of vice and cruelty less and less the rule and more and more the exception.

And this brings us to the further consideration of a point not long ago touched upon, namely, the high degree of civilization attained by certain ancient peoples. Not the whole race of man, it is evident, advances together to higher grades of civilization, as not all individuals or all lines of descent in the same society fall under the same influences and advance at a like rate. At the present date, the greater part of Africa as well as portions of other countries are inhabited by rude and savage tribes, the rest of the world, not classed as savage, representing very many different grades and phases of progress. After the conquest of Greece by Rome and of Rome by the tribes from the North, the higher degree of civilization of the conquered nations was partly lost by them and partly acquired by their conquerors; that is, nothing was really lost, but two different forces met and partly neutralized each other; the resultant represented, in this case as in all others, the complication, the algebraic sum, of the two. In the essay before referred to, Dr. Petzoldt calls attention to the extremely unique character of the productions of Inner-African tribes before they have come in contact with white men, and cites Bastian's testimony that even one short visit from a white man is often enough to destroy the peculiarity of the type. "New tendencies are introduced, and the stability is immediately diminished, though only to progress gradually to a newer, higher form." The comparative sparsity of the human race in ancient times rendered it possible for single isolated peoples to attain to a high degree of culture while the greater part of the earth was inhabited by the uncivilized; and the increase of the species since that time, though necessitating wider contact and closer relations, and so rendering the newer civilization necessarily a wider one, has yet not been sufficient to make isolated savagery in lands not reached by the spreading circle, impossible. The ancient civilization was lost, but not lost in the sense that its force ever perished; it found its full representation—but no more—in the result that arose from blending with a lower grade. The same process is being repeated wherever civilized man, on the borders of civilization, comes in contact with savage or half-civilized man. The two races may dwell side by side, separated from intimate association, but their contiguity is yet marked by a certain amount of change on both sides,—a change the greater the greater the degree of association and the greater the isolation of those on the border-lands from the rest of the civilized world, and the longer this state of things persists. We are here reminded particularly of Fechner's formula of the process of evolution, in which the concepts of isolation as favoring the steady advancement of the process on its own peculiar lines, and of new contact as new disturbance from which issues new development, are most prominent. If we regard especially the ethical features of this contact at the borders, it may be remarked both that savages gain gradually more humanity from contact with civilized nations, and that white men, on the other hand, lose, in constant contact with savages, some of the humanity which they have displayed in the midst of their own nation. They grow used to sights of cruelty, much of which it is impossible for them to prevent; they are roused to anger, hatred, and retaliation by acts of deception, treachery, and cruelty, and they find, moreover, that kindness is often mistaken for weakness by the bloody and revengeful people with whom they have to do, who are often used to respect only or chiefly the brute force which can compel obedience. I do not intend here to represent the white man as the incarnation of sympathy and humanity; even in the midst of society, as we have already sufficiently noticed, his apparent altruism may be, to a large degree, the outcome of selfish motives, natural tendency being restrained through fear of punishment or hope of gain of some sort. There are grades within societies as well as grades represented by societies as wholes. But several things are to be taken into account in the comparison of the white man with the savage under circumstances of contact. In the first place, we have to remember that, while the white man is, to a great extent, withdrawn from the control of the society to which he belongs, secure from their judgment for the time being and with the prospect, often, of probable security from it for all time, since reports of his actions may never reach the ears of more civilized societies, the individual savage is still restrained by whatever of law and moral sentiment exists in his own tribe; his vengeance, whatever it is, is to a great extent under the control of his chiefs. Again, the power of the savage to inflict injury is not so great as that of the white man, who has all the implements of advanced coöperation at his disposal. The mere love of power always presents a temptation, and pleasure in demonstrating superiority is a common human emotion. Furthermore, it must be considered that the opportunities for selfishness afforded on the borders of civilization are likely to attract, in the majority, just those men whose social ties and social instinct are weakest, whose greed perceives here the opportunity of unscrupulous gratification, and is drawn by it. And lastly, it is to be noticed that not by any means all the individuals belonging to more advanced societies who come in contact with savages use them with inhumanity, or even retaliate on treachery and injury. The great differences exhibited, under such circumstances, by persons whose opportunities have been very similar is a strong argument in favor of inherent, innate grades of altruism, and so of hereditary character. The same is true of the fact that the Greeks and Romans did retain much of their culture even in contact with lower grades of civilization, handing it down, in a degree, to this day; and that their conquerors only in the lapse of many generations pulled themselves up to this level, which was attained, at last, rather in countries removed from direct contact with it and so, we may argue, to a great extent, through their own natural evolution. The general analysis of the amalgamation at the borders of civilization still remains true in the long run, however individual savages and individual white men may represent exceptions to it.

Mr. Stephen's analysis of the development of altruism from egoism, while in the main true and one of the most minute analyses on this subject that we possess, opens, through its ambiguity of terms, the way to inaccuracy of thought and to errors of theory into which I am not at all sure that the author does not himself fall at some points. Starting with an implied definition of sympathy as actual "feeling with" other sentient beings through the intellectual comprehension of their emotions, and acknowledging that sympathy in this sense may not lead directly to altruism, he uses the same word also, later in the analysis, in the higher sense, and at some points appears to confound the two meanings; so that, as there is a similar ambiguity in the use of the word "idiot," or "moral idiot," in the same connection, his theory seems to fall into the mistake of asserting the normal association of intellectual comprehension with altruism. He writes:—

"It is not more true that to think of a fire is to revive the sensations of warmth than it is true that to think of a man is to revive the emotions and thoughts which we attribute to him. To think of him in any other sense is to think of the mere doll or statue, the outside framework, not of the organized mass of consciousness which determines all the relations in which he is most deeply interesting to us." "The primary sympathy is, of course, modified in a thousand ways—by the ease or difficulty with which we can adopt his feelings; by the attractiveness or repulsiveness of the feelings revealed; by the degree in which circumstances force us into coöperation or antagonism; and by innumerable incidental associations which make it pleasant or painful to share his feelings. If by sympathy we mean this power of vicarious emotion, it may give rise to antipathy, to hatred, rivalry, and jealousy, and even to the diabolical perversion of pleasure in another's pain."[167] "The pain given by your pain may simply induce me to shut my eyes. The Pharisee who passed by on the other side may have disliked the sight of the wounded traveller as much as the good Samaritan. Indeed, the sight of suffering often directs irritation against the sufferer. Dives is often angry with Lazarus for exposing his sores before a respectable mansion, and sometimes goes so far as to think, illogically perhaps, that the beggar must have cultivated his misery in order to irritate the nerves of his neighbors. To give the order: 'Take away that damned Lazarus,' may be as natural an impulse as to say: 'Give him the means of curing his ailments.'"[168] "To believe in the existence of a sentient being is to believe that it has feelings which may persist when I am not aware of them. A real belief, again, implies that, at the moment of belief, I have representative sensations or emotions corresponding to those which imply the actual presence of the object. Again, a material object has an interest only so far as it is a condition of some kind of feeling, and, when the sympathies are not concerned, of some feeling of my own, whether implying or not implying any foretaste of the future. To take any interest in any material object, except in this relation, is unreasonable, as it is unreasonable to desire food which cannot nourish or fire which cannot warm. I want something which has by hypothesis no relation to my wants. The same is true of the sentient object so long, and only so long, as I do not take its sentience into account. But to take the sentience into account is to sympathize, or at least the sympathy is implied in the normal or only possible case. The only condition necessary for the sympathy to exist and to be capable therefore of becoming a motive, is that I should really believe in the object, and have, therefore, representative feelings. To believe in it is to feel for it, to have sympathies which correspond to my representations, less vivid as the object is more distant and further from the sphere of my possible influence, but still real and therefore effective motives. Systematically to ignore these relations, then, is to act as if I were an egoist in the extremest sense, and held that there was no consciousness in the world except my own. But really to carry out this principle is to be an idiot, for an essential part of the world as interesting to me is constituted by the feelings of other conscious agents, and I can only ignore their existence at the cost of losing all the intelligence which distinguishes me from the lower animal."[169] A similar use of the word "idiot" occurs in the following passage with regard to the relations of moral action to conviction: "It is a simple 'objective' fact that a man acts rightly or wrongly in a given case, and a fact which may be proved to him; and, further, though the proof will be thrown away if he is a moral idiot, that is, entirely without the capacities upon which morality is founded, the proof is one which must always affect his character if we suppose the truth to be assimilated, and not the verbal formula to be merely learned by rote."[170] "To learn really to appreciate the general bearings of moral conduct is to learn to be moral in the normally constituted man." Here the author adds, however, "though we must always make the condition that a certain aptitude of character exists."[171] Again he writes: "But it remains to be admitted that there is apparently such a thing as pleasure in the pain of others—pure malignity—which we call 'devilish' to mark that it is abnormal and significant of a perverted nature."[172] And in the same connection—where he is, at first, seemingly intent on proving only the normal connection of pain with the sight of suffering, admitting that this sympathetic pain may lead to brutality instead of altruistic action towards the sufferer—he says: "Sympathy is the natural and fundamental fact. Even the most brutal of mankind are generally sympathetic so far as to feel rather pain than pleasure at the sight of suffering. The scum of a civilized population gathered to pick pockets on a race-course would be pained at the sight of a child in danger of being run over or brutally assaulted by a ruffian, and would be disposed to rescue it, or at least to cheer a rescuer, unless their spontaneous emotion were overpowered by some extrinsic sentiment."[173] And finally: "The direct and normal case is that in which sympathy leads to genuine altruism, or feeling in accordance with that which it reflects."[174]

The terms in these passages 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 assert 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 assuredly 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 destitute 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 circumstances 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 (40·47) is reached in arson and the crimes against persons, or crimes of impulse, as Dugdale terms them, while 23·03 is the percentage of neurotic stock in the whole number of criminals examined. "This close relationship 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 accumulation 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 cumulative 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 coarser 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 associated 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 coördinate 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 class, and the family, to which they belong, the importance assumed by the class or family relations being according to the closeness and duration of association, and the natural aptitude 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, circumstances 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 assumption, 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 aptitude, 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 asserted, that, even to the man of less than the average moral aptitude, 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 assertion could be made, that the advantages of coöperation, the disadvantages of strife and discord, increase with the closer relations of men, and that the adoption of coöperation 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 coördinate 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 coöperation 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 assists in rendering social punishments of all sorts the more felt; and thus each increment of advance assists 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 assimilation, and neither in the world as a whole, in the nation or race, or in the tribe, clan, family, locality, or class, is it one of equal advance on all sides. The coöperation adopted may be, at different points, that of individuals against individuals, of tribes against tribes, of nations against nations, or of classes against classes.

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 coördinate 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 entities, 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 assert 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 pronounce it one of general idiocy or even of "moral idiocy." The virtue of Stephen's analysis 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 distinguishing 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 substitution 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 associated with a "feeling with" them, even in the lower sense; and it is certainly not true that it is naturally associated with genuine altruism.

The assertion that, in ignoring the sentience of living beings in thought about them, a man is ignoring a thing of importance to himself, is coördinate with the assertion 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 coördinate. 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 coördinate 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 assistance 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 coarser sensibilities derive from bull-fights, prize-fights, cock-fights, etc., and that doubtless comes down to us from a time when the struggle for existence was continually a bloody one. Just how the two instincts may be related in the animal, it is difficult, from a human standpoint, to say.

Our analysis has hitherto omitted all definition of morality and conscience. The words should properly, for some reasons, have been defined before this. But any definition must have assumed that which could logically be asserted 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 passing 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 assumption, 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 asserting 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 distinguishing, 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 assumes a higher form. So egoism is not lost in altruism, but assumes 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 assertion 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 analysis 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 unbiassed 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 constitution 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 coöperation 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. Coördinately with the development of coöperation and mutual dependence, constancy in all the multifarious directions and complex relations of that coöperation 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 anticipatory 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 assign 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 nobler 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 superstitious and dogmatic age that high moral purpose and steadfastness were not necessarily associated 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 assurance 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 circumstances 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 circumstances 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 circumstances.

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 shell 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 sexual 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 analyze the earliest appearance of sympathy, benevolence, and the sense of obligation, in our individual experience, the power of self-analysis 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, constituting 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 analysis 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 analogy of the special sense organs generally has part in their conception, and religious reference is often made to "the original constitution of man." But evolution knows nothing of an original constitution 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 constitution render the fundamental rules of forbearance, aid, honesty, and truth necessary to all societies alike; while our analysis 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 assuredly be considerable where there is a common basis of species.

The Utilitarians are doubtless right in asserting 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 assign 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, superstitious 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 analyze 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 superstition, 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 assertion ordinarily commits the fallacy of using the word "animal" in two senses. The latter assertion 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 illustration 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 analysis 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 assumption 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 unbiassed 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 shilly-shally in a corresponding manner in their action, accomplishing 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 circumstances, 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 passenger-train from imminent collision by switching it to another track, suddenly perceives his baby-girl seated upon the rails. Strong and ennobling 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 lust of a Joseph Phillippe, the impatience of the constitutionally 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 constitute 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 analysis 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 analysis 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 asserts Free Will not in a natural, but in a supernatural, or half supernatural sense, may object to the grounds for punishment assumed in our analysis; 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 ship "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 nobility 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 nutshell, 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 chastisement to the lazy man? Surely sloth cannot be interpreted as preëminently 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 assertion 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 analyzed, 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 analysis 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 intimation of the supernatural or transcendental. The question must be replied to in the negative. If it be objected that we must not expect to find the supernatural in the natural, we may reply that that is just what we have not expected to do. The fallacy of such an expectation does not lie with us. Nature gives us no intimation of a supernature, when we cease to see it with the uncomprehending eye of the untutored savage. Nor can the gross, cruel, and superstitious savage be regarded as, in contrast to more social and humane man, better fitted to be the medium of spiritual truth.

And this brings us to the discussion of the presence or absence of conscience in lower animal species. We have found that some species have social organization quite as elaborate as that of many savage tribes, and even more elaborate than that of some tribes. We are able to view these organizations only in their external features; we cannot, however, in most cases, suppose the species to be devoid of consciousness of some sort, and consciousness involves, in any case, pleasure in accustomed function and in its constantly experienced results; the two, action and experience of its results, are, in fact, both functional. The argument of inconstancy, and of inconstancy at points at which it is not found among men, has been shown to be absolutely valueless as directed against any theory of the existence of sympathy and "social instinct" among other animal species. We too are inconstant in our altruism; and habits of altruistic action do not necessarily take the same course with other species that they do with us, differences in social organization rendering differences of habit necessary. If other species fall below us in self-sacrifice for the community in some respects, they often surpass us in others. We may conclude, then, that habits of mutual assistance, habits which we perceive to be externally altruistic, must also be supposed to be connected in many cases with some internal corresponding feelings of the same nature as those which we term, in man, altruistic and social. I do not see how we can avoid this conclusion unless we deny all consciousness to other species; for consciousness must involve, on any plane, feeling as pleasure and pain. And on the supposition of memory, and of the connection in memory of those things and events which are constantly connected in experience, we must suppose the seeking of ends, also, though they are, probably, in most cases, much nearer ends than our human ones. It may be true, as Professor Morgan thinks, that animals have no general concept of ends and means; but a general concept of ends and means is not necessary to the recognition of the fact that this or that particular form of action will have this or that particular result. It is not necessary to apply the terms "ends" and "means" to events in order to understand their connection as following upon each other with constancy. Moreover, we are accustomed to count only our own ends as ends proper, and so, only our own wisdom as wisdom; and thus we term other species stupid for not understanding just our wisdom and acting on a line with us; but certainly there are plenty of human beings whom we do not term wanting in reasoning powers who seek their own destruction or harm much more stupidly than many animals; and, on the other hand, there are many animals who act much more consistently for their own and others' welfare than a large number of mankind do. If the failure of other species to comprehend our language and understand our action is to be termed stupid, then what shall we term our failure to understand their methods of communication and motives of action? It is time for us to emancipate ourselves from this narrow anthropomorphism in which we are accustomed to live, and to realize and acknowledge that there may be other consciousness than our own, with quite other thoughts, feelings, habits, ends, and motives. It is a part of our customary egoism that we prefer to exalt ourselves; it is more gratifying to our vanity, as well as more convenient to our conscience, to regard other species as half-automatic and beneath our sympathy; we thus have excuse for using them as we like. So we call the tiger cruel because he is carnivorous as we ourselves are; we call the fox cunning and sly for lying in ambush for his prey; but when we go out to take, by similar means, our special prey, we call our action a triumph of superior reason. We term the fox a thief, too, when he takes again from us what we are continually taking, and what we took originally, from the beasts. What we regard as right and justifiable and even admirable in ourselves we regard as wrong, cruel, mean, selfish, underhanded, abhorrent, and worthy of all punishment in the animals. As for the faithfulness unto death displayed by many animals, we do not regard that as heroism or worthy our admiration, although we might often take pattern from it. How should we understand other species? We are not accustomed to associate this or that feeling of pleasure in ourselves with a pricking up of ears or a wagging of tail, or our deepest despondency and pain at repulse with this or that peculiar posture or animal cry. A faint trembling of the human hand from fear or pain will stir us with the most profound sympathy; but the sensitive quiver of the whole body in some helpless, hopeless animal, that cannot speak its fear or crave for mercy in the human tongue, touches but seldom an answering chord in our hearts. Shame on our vanity and our hard-heartedness!

The whole of our analysis has tended to lay emphasis on habit. And this leads us to comment on a certain disdain and contempt for habit and custom which is continually arising in some quarters. The whole history of mankind is the history of the formation, gradual change, and spread of the change, of habit, and of custom as the social form of the latter. With the progress of society, habits and customs grow old and must be discarded; but only careful consideration can show us when change is desirable. It is, therefore, both stupid and foolish to inveigh against a habit merely because it is habit or because it is of long standing. Originality, intellectual superiority, does not consist in a contempt for custom merely as custom, but in the power to weigh all sides, to view a matter in all lights, without regard to its age or newness, and to decide on its worth according to its inherent merits or defects. In the rebellion from the slavery to tradition as such, the opposite, equally unreasonable extreme of denunciation of all existing custom is often reached. Thus, some followers of Socrates, adhering slavishly to the word of their master but failing to comprehend its inner meaning, dispensed with all the social usages of their nation, and despised its laws. Of late patriotism is denounced as mere race-prejudice founded on habit and association. But all our affections are matters of habit and association. Doubtless, patriotism may often involve narrowness and injustice; so also may a mother's love for her child, or any other of the forms of the preference of affection. However, it does not follow, therefore, that mother-love is to be denounced and rejected; what we need is not less mother-love, or father-love, but a counterbalancing sympathy for other human beings outside the family, also. And so too we do not want less love of country, but the infusion of it with a broader humanity and justice. The love of a mother need not render her less, but may, on the contrary, render her more, sympathetic; and the love of country may be combined with a wide-reaching regard for the welfare of other men outside the nation to which the patriot belongs. In fact, the mother who is incapable of peculiar love for her own child is not likely to be capable of deep sympathy with other human beings; and I am inclined to believe that there must be something lacking in a man's general moral constitution when he feels no peculiar regard for the land to which he belongs. If it is foolish, as is sometimes asserted, to love one country more than another, simply because we happen to have been born in it, then it is also equally foolish to love our mother simply because she happens to be our mother. There may be other lands as good as ours, and possibly there may be other mothers as good as ours; but affection does not reason thus.

Is social development the cause of an increase in sympathy, or is the increase of sympathy the cause of social progress and prosperity? Or is increase of population the cause of both by forcing men to companionship? Or is not, rather, increase of population the effect of prosperity? In his work on "Recent Discussions in Science, Philosophy, and Morals," Herbert Spencer writes of the altruistic sentiments: "The development of these has gone on only as fast as society has advanced to a state in which the activities are mainly peaceful. The root of all the altruistic sentiments is sympathy, and sympathy could have become dominant only when the mode of life, instead of being one that habitually inflicted direct pain, became one which conferred direct and indirect benefits; the pains inflicted being mainly incidental and indirect;" and in an essay on "Progress," the author writes: "Social progress is supposed to consist in the produce of a greater quantity and variety of the articles required for satisfying men's wants; in the increasing security of person and property; in widening freedom of action; whereas, rightly understood, social progress consists in those changes of structure in the social organism which have entailed these consequences." The two paragraphs appear contradictory of each other, the first laying emphasis upon outer conditions as cause of inner change, the second seeming to emphasize inner conditions as cause; but the terms of the second quotation are somewhat ambiguous. As to the first, to do Mr. Spencer full justice, he corrects this a little farther down, where he says that "sympathy is the concomitant of gregariousness, the two having all along increased by reciprocal aid."

The root of the whole difficulty, with regard to our theories of cause and effect in social development, as with regard to our theories of cause and effect in other parts of nature, lies in our desire for unity and simplicity. Instead of attempting to unravel the intricate web of the conditions, we fix our attention on some one feature or side of the process, and regard the whole development as revolving round this pivot.

It is easy to find examples, in the history of science and opinion, of the errors into which the concepts of cause and effect have led men, and of the repeated recurrence of uncertainty to which the unveiling of these errors in the further march of knowledge, has led. For instance, we find some writers on nervous diseases adhering to the view that insanity is sometimes the effect of a weak yielding to a violent disposition; more contending that the violence is itself the effect of incipient insanity; and still others opining that both violence of disposition and insanity are the effect of a general diseased state of the system. Ancient schools of medicine traced all diseases to the blood, and so drained off the fluid; and the patent medicines of to-day generally select some one organ as the source of all disease. I once heard the assertion that a certain woman had died with grief contested by a physician on the ground that the cause of her death was consumption; he added that deaths from sudden mental shock were known to medicine, but the cases were rare; another medical man suggested that the system might not have been in a perfectly healthy condition at the time of the shock, in those cases; and the first man seemed a little puzzled when a third person suggested that there was doubtless a physical basis in every case.