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

by Cora May Williams

But the evident fact of a present periodicity of imperfect form suggests another possible conception. We are under no necessity to regard the universe as finite either in space or time. On the contrary. We tend naturally to conceive of it as finite after the analogy of particular things which we perceive continually to arise and perish; but as concerns space, we have no knowledge of any limit, and, as concerns time, the conception of any actual beginning or end to the universe as a whole is only the ancient naïve idea which science has disproved in showing that neither matter nor motion ever perish. An infinite universe is conceivable, in which not exactly the same but very similar forms, or forms of which the successive ones closely resemble each other though those widely separated may be very dissimilar, continue to arise and be destroyed to all eternity. The conception of a primal nebular mist is not a necessary inference from astronomic phenomena; it is as easy and as logical to regard the various phases of planetary development revealed to us by the telescope as so many phases of an evolution and dissolution continually recurring in different parts of the universe, one extreme of which is represented by the nebular mist, the other by the cold and lifeless remains of planets gradually suffering dissolution as they revolve through space. The greater the immensity of the universe is conceived to be, the nearer our conception of it must approach to this type. But the term Tendency to Stability is misapplied when applied to such infinite and imperfect periodicity—to the motion, thus conceived, of the universe as a whole.

The periodicity in the life of organic species may be compared to the wave-motions of light and heat as distinguished from those of water, the individual representing the single wave-length. The analogy is not, however, intended—to speak with Bacon—as one of nature, but merely as one of mind. And just here it may be questioned whether Fechner may not have been right, after all, in his assertion of the dependency of the organism upon periodicity of function, whether the periodic character of the individual life, dependent, as it must be supposed to be, on adaptation to a medium to some degree resisting, does not sacrifice its stability in so far as the increments of resistance lack uniformity. This is evidently the case in large relations; is it not logically necessary to suppose it so in minute relations, though the fact may not be so evident to the coarse measurement of the senses? Experience seems to prove that an approximate periodicity in larger relations, is most consistent with health; and it must be remembered that the non-periodic relations are subordinated to periodic ones, that not only in the case of waking and sleeping, working and eating, but also in those of rest and labor, a certain uniformity is necessary to the best mental and physical condition. A close observation will, I think, reveal a greater periodicity than was at first suspected; since much of it is of so-called "automatic," "unconscious," or "half-conscious" nature. It is to be noticed, here, that the termination of individual lives is often in the nature of a catastrophe, and a uniform periodicity of individual development and decay cannot be assigned, except in the form of an average that falls much below the figure attained by the thoroughly healthy individual. There is every reason to believe that if we could sleep, rise, eat, bathe, exercise, work, and rest with the regularity of a clock, we should be the better for it physically. But the irregularities outside the province of our will-power render it impossible for us to order our lives in this manner. Nor do we desire to do so. For these very irregularities, as representing greater or less change to which adaptation is necessary, are, in many cases and within certain lines, the conditions and signs of progress; though they may constitute in other cases and beyond these lines—that is, where they are of too great intensity or duration—conditions of retrogression, the imperfection in periodicity becoming catastrophe, which may extend beyond the individual to his offspring. We may thus infer that the final destruction of the individual organism is conditioned by its own progress and the progress of its species, but that on the other hand, when the destruction of the individual is too abrupt, it may mean catastrophe to the species also, or at least to a part of it, through heredity.

Our considerations so far have been of a nature to convince us that not isolation, but a constancy in the continual action of like relatively small increments of force in the same directions, is the condition of steady evolution. The less constant and the larger the increments, the nearer the changes involved resemble catastrophe, though the catastrophes themselves may be regarded in another light as forming part of an evolution of a higher order. The changes the sun is undergoing may be regarded as evolution in so far as the influence of the cooling medium is a constant one. The earth as a whole and in its parts may be regarded as passing through a process of evolution towards full stability in so far as the sun's heat is a constant quantity, the periodic changes of seasons and of day and night the same. The relation would seem, therefore, to be one of time—the time-relation involved in the duration of outer conditions as constant with reference to the period required for the attainment of stability. Thus the sun's influence upon the earth might appear approximately constant to the human individual, but might represent a rapid change in relation to some stupendous and long-continued evolution in some other part of the universe. Considerations which we have already noticed forbid our regarding any conditions of "full" as distinguished from absolute stability as anything other than peculiar states single in the system and thus unenduring maxima succeeded by decrease, although the process may be, with reference to any other particular process, so slow, the retrogression from the culminating point so gradual, as to be, with respect to this other process, inappreciable.

And while we are busied with matters which involve the whole multiplicity of relations in the universe, just a word with reference to cause and effect. Which one of these myriad material parts interacting at any moment shall we single out as the cause of the succeeding state? The solidarity of the universe as far as the complete interdependence of all its parts is concerned is clear to us. It is true we cannot reckon with all factors of the universe at once; and the concept of cause and effect is therefore a useful one. But the cause of anything must be, from a positive point of view, just what the methods prescribed for its discovery in any particular case shows it to be: namely, a factor, merely, in the manifold conditions determining a following state, the removal of which means the prevention of the succession of exactly that state. Which, for instance, shall we regard as the cause of an evil act—the character of a man or the temptation offered by circumstances? The change or removal of either means the change or removal of the act. Neither is complete without the other, and both are involved in the whole complexity of the universe, through heredity on the one hand and the action of nature external to life on the other.

And just here we may glance at Spencer's definition of life as "the continual adjustment of inner relations to outer relations." Though emphasizing an important side of evolution, it is evidently incomplete. Evolution is not only the adjustment of inner relations to outer relations, it is also the adjustment of outer relations to inner relations as well as of inner relations among themselves; or it is a process of mutual adjustment of all the parts engaged in it.

Our analysis, though crude and imperfect, may now be regarded as complete. Our scope will not allow of a more elaborate one. It is fitting, therefore, that we proceed to synthesis. The first matter which presents itself to us, in this connection, is the theory of Heredity and Adaptation mentioned above.

The theory is not a new one, wholly outside Darwin's conception of evolution. The concept of Adaptation represents simply the generalization of all those special causes with which Darwin more particularly occupied himself, and is, in essence, only a proclamation of that universal subjection to natural law which Darwin himself plainly asserted. As such a. generalization it is, however, a useful one; it furnishes us with an expression, for the organic world, of that universal action and reaction through which opposing forces move towards stability by mutual adjustment.

The law of Heredity, again, may be regarded as an organic expression of the more general principle according to which motion that, in the sense defined above, suffers only a minimum of interference, that is, motion which, by a certain equilibrium of mutual relations, is "approximately" or "fully" stable, tends to continue to take place in nearly the same directions, or nearly to repeat itself. It is thus apparent, also, that Heredity is closely related to the more special principle of Habit, or also of Use and Disuse, if only we remember that, whatever the metaphysical truths of Freedom or Determination, the psychical is always accompanied by what may be called equivalents of the physical under natural law. The special laws of Heredity are still enveloped in mystery; I refer, not to that mystery which may be regarded as surrounding all ultimate facts, if we choose to conceive them as expressing or concealing something further unknowable, but to the scientific mystery of ignorance, which time may dissolve. Biologists disagree on this question, the ultimate decision of which must be left to them. Still some general criticism on the results of research in this direction may be allowable from a philosophic standpoint.

The chief point at issue between various theories of Heredity seems to be the degree of importance to be attached to Adaptation: however we may express the question, this is the ultimate form to which it is reducible. Now it is obvious, from the foregoing analysis, that the form of theory which would be most useful to us, if such were attainable, would be one in which the degree of tendency to inheritance as well as the strength of inherited tendency is expressed in terms of the intensity and duration of exercise, use, function, habit, or form of motion or action (however we may choose to term it); and variation is regarded as the resultant of such tendency and change in the environment, or, in other words, deviation from constancy of influence. It may be useful to inquire to what extent such a general theory is authorized by special ones.