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

by Cora May Williams

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.