As to man's final end. Though he has attained to the power of shaping, to some extent, his own environment and means of existence, yet he does not occupy an exceptional position in the animal kingdom, and must cease to exist unless he submits to adapt himself. It has been almost the rule that the highest animals of an epoch have later died out and been replaced by some new aristocracy, developed from somewhat lower forms. It is to be supposed that man, also, will be destroyed, whether by a new ice-age or by a period of heat. By the very fact of his supremacy, he disturbs the primal equilibrium, and originates conditions which, even now, press hard upon single lands and may easily become dangerous to all civilization. Destruction may also threaten mankind morally, for the development of morality hitherto gives no surety of its continuance. Every advancement brings with it some evil, every virtue contains the germs of some vice. Modern humanity has given us an unreasoning soft-heartedness, with an extravagant malady of forgiveness which is nothing less than immorality itself, since it on the one hand undermines the general sense of justice, while on the other it prompts and encourages wrong-doing.
FOOTNOTES:
[58] For further arguments in support of this assertion, see "Biologische Probleme," pp. 64-66, etc.
[59] Und da diese Fläche durch Zelltheilung oder Fortpflanzung vergrössert wird, so wächst die Aufnahmefähigkeit des Organismus mit der Fortpflanzungsfähigkeit desselben (p. 67).
[60] Und diese Begierde... ist ihrem innersten Kerne nach, eine Unlust, ein Leid: das Leid des Entbehrens des Genusses (p. 176).
[61] Bei der Binfachheit der primitiven socialen Verhältnisse und der Einförmigkeit der Lebenstätigkeit müssen sich bald Erfahrungsregeln gebildet haben, die nun durch Vererbung übertragen und damit zu Lebensregeln vertieft wurden (p. 195).
[62] Compare supra, p. 100, note.
ALFRED BARRATT
Alfred Barratt's "Physical Ethics" (1869) deals with First Principles, "Pure," as distinguished from "Applied," Ethics, the aim of the science, as stated by the author, being "to try to establish the first principle which is the condition of further progress. If we can establish a principle a priori, and then verify its universality by an appeal to mental phenomena and to philosophical theories, its existence as a fact will be made certain; if, in addition to this, we can connect it with laws still more general and with the family of natural sciences, it will be no longer a fact, but become a scientific law, a section of the universal code; and the title of this essay will be justified."