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

by Cora May Williams

In speaking of the pleasurable and painful, we have introduced the conception of ends into our considerations, and may emphasize, in another form, the fact that we cannot consider indefinite feeling alone as the mover of the will to an end. The pleasurableness or painfulness is predicated of some definite object or event, and corresponds to definite actualities perceived in the object or imagined with the help of former experience. Thought and feeling are thus inextricably commingled in the state of consciousness leading to choice, and the nature of the acting individual and that of the external objects concerned are equally essential to the result.

We have hitherto treated thought, feeling, and will, as separate parts of consciousness, defining each, by implication, much as we would define wheel, tongue, and whiffletree, as parts of a wagon. But the three are indissolubly connected in the act of the will, and thought and feeling are not, as we have seen, ever disconnected. Nor can we say that it is one part of consciousness that feels, another that thinks, and still another that wills. Further, a closer analysis may render it doubtful whether that which we call will is only an occasional act of consciousness, or whether it is not rather involved in all operations of consciousness as we have seen thought and feeling to be. The identity of will and that which is often called involuntary attention has already been asserted by some authors, and not the identity of will and outward attention alone, but also of will and attention to the inner process of consciousness. Here, however, the dividing line generally sought between willed and unwilled, involuntary, or, as we say, drifting thought, becomes dim and uncertain. But it is evident that attention is given to that which interests us for one reason or another; and the question logically presents itself as to whether thought ever follows a direction wholly uninteresting to us, or whether it does not the rather always turn from such direction to one which has for us at least some degree of interest, whether, in short, the will does not in this manner, as the innervation of attention, accompany and direct all mental process. The sense of effort involved in choice, in the struggle of interfering impulses, may bring into prominence mental activity at points where such obstacles and interferences occur; but is not the mental force which we, in this case, especially notice the same with that involved in all processes of consciousness? Just as the physiological process in nerve and muscle with which the limbs are moved in action, or eye or ear innervated in the effort of attention, is only the outcome of the processes which are constantly going on in the brain, so the concomitant process of will or attention is but the expression, in another form, of the activity involved in all consciousness.

The division of consciousness into separate entities or parts has often been carried much further than this threefold one; the division has varied with the particular theory and fancy of the student, until some one has suggested that we might, on the principle used, assume a distinct faculty for dancing, for eating, sleeping, dressing, reading, writing, and so on, ad infinitum,—the faculty, in each case, being defined as the special activity that discharges the particular function assigned to it by the name. Only by abstraction and by the investiture of our abstractions with a life of their own do we arrive at a theory of thought, feeling, and will, as separate entities, or parts; in the mental process itself, they are indissolubly united.

We have seen that thought acquires new directions with the evolution of the individual, that pleasure and pain attach themselves to new objects, and that will is directed to new ends. If we can discover in these changes any uniformities of relation everywhere manifest as far as experience extends, the constancy of nature may admit of our conclusion that the relation is fundamental, and we may be able to formulate thus a general law of evolution with respect to the mental processes. Such a law must, of course, be interpreted, not as governing the changes which it regards, but simply as the expression of general facts of their development. Our considerations on this point are in a line with those of Chapter I; indeed, they are only a more special application and more careful derivation and expansion of points there noticed.

If we begin with our own experience, and study the growth of this or that particular habit gradually acquired, we notice that it not only becomes stronger with time, acquiring an intensity less and less easy to check, but also that this increasing strength of tendency is accompanied with a corresponding increase of pleasure in the performance of the act. The drunkard may have derived no especial pleasure from his first glass; he may, indeed, have found the taste little to his liking, and the slight succeeding dizziness disagreeable; but, with habituation, both gradually become agreeable. The first fit of intoxication may be felt as unpleasant, not only in the succeeding shame and physical depression, but in itself; though it is also conceivable that the state of thorough intoxication may have been led up to so slowly, by such imperceptible degrees, that it may be combined, even in the first instance, with a certain degree of pleasure. It is, however, evident that this pleasure increases with further lapse of time. If we study the habits of individuals, we shall find a thousand little peculiarities of habit in which others than their performers would be puzzled to discover anything attractive, and in which, indeed, the latter themselves would find difficulty in pointing out the source of the gratification that they nevertheless experience. Our habits are things we are loth to break with; and we grow more loth as time passes, until finally no consideration, no shame of scorn or pain of punishment in any form, can suffice to counterbalance the craving of desire and the fierce pleasure of satisfaction, or the less turbulent but not less strong impulse that carries us steadily in the course which past custom has worn for us. Customary acts are themselves agreeable to us, though their results may bring with them disagreeable factors.

Again, this same principle is directly traceable in heredity. We say, for instance, of the drunkard whose father and grandfather were drunkards before him, that he has inherited a "taste" for intoxicants, meaning, not that he can feel their attraction before he has tasted them and experienced their influence, but that the habit of drunkenness is one more easily formed in him than in the average individual, constitutional peculiarities corresponding to a pleasure derived from the alcohol. We often notice striking resemblances, not only in general appearance but also in mental characteristics and habits, extending even to attitude and gesture, between children and parents deceased when the children were yet infants. I have known very peculiar physical habits to appear, in one instance in three, in another in four, generations, with the avowal of satisfaction in their practice on the part of the persons subject to them, although neither they could explain, nor onlookers comprehend, the pleasure derived from them. Imitation is not always possible in such cases; in one case of these two just cited, it was, in the third generation at least, impossible; and even where there is imitation, it is by no means proved that an innate tendency does not lend readiness to the formation of the habit. It may here be objected that we are venturing on too uncertain ground in endeavoring to formulate any general law of the growth of habit in relation to heredity, opinions differing so much as to the relative importance to be accorded to environment and innate tendency in the formation of character, and especially as to the possibility of the inheritance, by succeeding generations, of new peculiarities not common to the species as a whole but acquired by individual parents. As far as the former question is concerned, it may be said that the whole development of plant or animal in organization and corresponding functions must be regarded as directly dependent upon present environment, never independent of it; but that, while it must be conceded that the environment is greatly concerned in the development of habit, and that no innate tendency can manifest itself unless the complementary conditions of its appearance are presented by circumstance, it may likewise be claimed that the influence of environment no more excludes heredity than heredity excludes the influence of the individual environment. We tend, generally, to emphasize heredity in the case of the plant and the animal, and environment in the case of the human being. This is because our knowledge of species other than our own is merely an outward one, while the ideas of heredity in our own case are confused by our consciousness of the influence that even minute circumstances may have upon our inner life and character. And yet just those who are inclined to lay most stress upon the power of good influences are generally, strange to say, the very ones who would most protest at the assertion of the superiority of outer conditions over inner ones. It can scarcely be supposed that any law of heredity which applies to the rest of the animal kingdom does not apply to man also. With respect to the second of the two questions noticed above, something has already been said from one point of view, and more will be said later from another. At present it will be sufficient for our purpose to notice some generally admitted facts. Darwin uses a certain caution when he comes to the consideration of the conditions of inheritance, and makes the general statement that the tendency to inheritance of any function is increased by the continuation of the action of the inducing conditions of environment for several generations. But it may be questioned whether an innate tendency may not have favored and assisted the action of the environment in the later of these generations, whether, indeed, the continuity everywhere supposed in evolution does not compel us to assume, between the first appearance of any function, trait, or habit, and its attainment, after several generations, of sufficient strength to render its hereditary character noticeable, intermediate degrees of strength in the intermediate generations. On the same principle on which we accept the theory of evolution as a logical necessity, despite the gaps in the proof, we must also, I believe, consider development of any sort to be continuous increase.

But even the theory of the increased probability of the inheritance of any mark, function, trait, or habit, after several generations of inducing environment, is sufficient for our present purpose. It still remains true, if we regard the development of function or habit in its broad features, that the tendency to inheritance, the organic significance of any function or habit is increased with increased exercise. Merely in the one case we regard the increments of increase as infinitesimal, while, in the other case, we regard them as of much greater than infinitesimal value. Even the theory of Weismann, which regards everything as present in the germ, must formulate some such theory as this of the environment as the condition of the development of germinal possibilities.

Not only are the strongest and most infallibly recurring functions those which have been most strongly and longest exercised, but these strongest functions, those to which, as we say, the tendency is strongest, are connected with the strongest pleasures of gratification and the most extreme pain of denial. The sexual appetite is an example of such a function fundamental to all the higher forms of animal life. Hunger and thirst, if long unsatisfied, are connected with intensest suffering and, if not dulled by general ill-health or too great satiety, involve a keen pleasure of satisfaction. Muscular exercise is a source of keen enjoyment, and physical inaction results in general depression that may become extreme if the inaction be long continued.

In this pain of inaction, a new conception has been introduced into our considerations. The converse of this pain is that involved in the over-exercise of any function. We thus perceive that the pleasure involved in the exercise of function lies between two extremes, beyond either of which is pain, discomfort. Such pain is connected with the vacillations in the relations of food-assimilation to the use of accumulated energy. These two general processes or functions of all organic matter are reciprocal or complementary, and the too much or too little on either side which involves pain may be looked upon as a disturbance of equilibrium. Excess on either side means want on the other.[135]