[56] Vol. II. p. 212.
[57] Ibid. pp. 227, 228.
W. H. ROLPH
"Biological Problems" ("Biologische Probleme," 1884)
For what purpose are we in the world? asks the philosopher, and lays, with this question, the foundation for later errors. In the effort to rescue from destruction the theory of a creative intelligence, teleology has adapted itself to many forms of scientific theory, not excepting that of evolution. It reads into evolution progress towards what is, in one way or another, assumed to be an end. But we really know, in the universe, nothing but continuity, eternal change according to natural law, and so only causæ efficientes, never causæ finales; and organic development as well as processes in inorganic nature are to be explained in this manner. The assumption that the result of a process is an end towards which the process was directed is unwarranted. The question of science is not: Wherefore is any creature in the world? but: What is he? What is his actual aim, that is, his endeavor?
In the answer to this question, all philosophical schools have something in common. Happiness, in one form or another, is acknowledged to be the "end" of life in this sense. A follower of the utilitarian school may define happiness as the "sublime feeling that one has taken part in the continuous improvement of humanity, and the increase of human happiness," but his words are less a definition of the concept than a designation of the way in which happiness is to be arrived at. The "sublime feeling" can be represented only as a feeling of happiness, of joy. The religious theory, too, which represents the joys of religion on earth and in heaven, as compensating for the evils of this life, makes happiness the end of life, though in a different manner. Spencer is right in declaring that happiness, however it may be defined, always means, in the end, a greater amount of pleasure than of pain. At this point, however, the harmony of the schools ceases. The question as to the method by which this surplus of pleasure is to be obtained is answered in different ways. All say, indeed, by seeking good and avoiding evil. But opinion is divided as to what is good and what is evil.
Rolph here introduces a long criticism of the different schools. Against utilitarianism he urges that, in so far as it makes the happiness of the greatest number its principle, it asserts the right of the majority over a minority, and so advocates, by implication, an absolute subjection to authority.
Our whole moral education has for its aim to give the young as high a conception as possible of the happiness which springs from virtue and, on the other hand, to decry the pleasure which may result from forbidden acts. We seek, in this manner, to diminish the inward struggle and bring about the right result. He who has grown up under good influences escapes many temptations to which a man of less moral education falls a prey. According to Wallock, who makes the degree of inner struggle the measure of virtue, the man of better education in this case, the more moral man, must have less merit than the less moral man. Wallock thus founders on the rock which Kant so skilfully avoids; according to the former, the man whose lusts have been mastered by education could never equal the man of evil instincts, and the chastity of a Magdalen must be regarded as more moral than that of a pure woman.
Spencer's theory, that the conduct of the higher animals is better adjusted to ends than that of lower species, is erroneous; the lower animals are exactly as well organized for the ends of their existence as are the higher animals for theirs; the tapeworm is relatively just as perfect as the human being, in comparison with whom he possesses many superior qualities. The common judgment that the human being is superior does not accord with the real adjustment of things, but with our human conception of the ideal end of organization, our anthropocentric idea of the aim of life. We foolishly believe that the tapeworm and every other animal has the same end as the human being, and rank the animals according to this principle, instead of tracing the different genealogical branches to a like height and then comparing them. Not the fitness for ends, but the kind and multiplicity of the ends for which there is fitness, determine our judgment; and the ends by which we judge are those of our own life. We judge subjectively and absolutely instead of objectively and relatively. We are ever unconsciously influenced by the conception that nature, in creating the tapeworm, merely made a false step and a step backwards in her way towards the creation of man. That all animals are adapted, some in a greater, some in a less degree, to the ends of their existence, is proved by the simple fact of their existence, that is, of their survival in the struggle for existence; but which are in a higher, and which are in a less degree so adapted, is, in the individual instance, extremely difficult to determine. In any attempt at such an estimate, we must meet with peculiar difficulties, resulting from the fact that we judge of the adaptation to ends with less certainty the further from us any animal is in its organization. A comparison such as Spencer institutes is possible only with respect to like functions of similar organs in closely related forms.