IV
ORTHOBIOSIS
Human nature must be modified according to an ideal—Comparison with the modification of the constitution of plants and of animals—Schlanstedt rye—Burbank’s plants—The ideal of orthobiosis—The immorality of ignorance—The place of hygiene in the social life—The place of altruism in moral conduct—The freedom of the theory of orthobiosis from metaphysics
As I have shown in The Nature of Man, the human constitution as it exists to-day, being the result of a long evolution and containing a large animal element, cannot furnish the basis of rational morality. The conception which has come down from antiquity to modern times, of a harmonious activity of all the organs, is no longer appropriate to mankind. Organs which are in course of atrophy must not be reawakened, and many natural characters which perhaps were useful in the case of animals must be made to disappear in men.
Human nature, which, like the constitutions of other organisms, is subject to evolution, must be modified according to a definite ideal. Just as a gardener or stock raiser is not content with the existing nature of the plants and animals with which he is occupied, but modifies them to suit his purposes, so also the scientific philosopher must not think of existing human nature as immutable, but must try to modify it for the advantage of mankind.
As bread is the chief article in human food, attempts to improve cereals have been made for a very long time. Rimpau made one of the greatest steps in this direction when he introduced into cultivation a variety of rye known as Schlanstedt rye, now fairly abundant in France and Germany. Rimpau set himself the task of producing a variety with the longest ears and containing many and heavy grains. Having conceived his ideal, he began to seek out what was nearest to it in a very large number of examples of rye. After patient and continued labour, using careful selection and cross-fertilisation, Rimpau succeeded in making the new variety, and so did a great service to mankind.
Burbank,[230] an American horticulturist, has recently gained a wide reputation because of his improvements of useful plants. He has produced a new kind of potato which has raised the value of potato crops in the United States by about £3,500,000 per annum. Burbank cultivated great numbers of fruit trees, flowers, and all kinds of plants, with the object of increasing their utility. One of his objects was to produce varieties which could resist dry conditions, which reproduced rapidly and so forth. He has modified the nature of plants to such an extent that he has cactus plants and brambles without thorns. The succulent leaves of the former provide an excellent food for cattle, whilst the absence of thorns in the latter makes their pleasant fruit more suitable for gardens. Burbank has enormously improved the production of stoneless plums, and has very much reduced the price of many bulbs and lilies by increasing their productivity.
To obtain such results much knowledge and a long period of time were necessary. To modify the nature of plants it was necessary to understand them well. To frame the new ideal of the plant it was necessary not only to have an exact conception of what was wanted, but to find out if the qualities of the plants in question furnished any hope of realising it.
The methods which have been successful in the case of plants and animals must be much modified for application to the human race. In the case of human beings the selection and cross-breeding which were imposed upon rye and plum trees are not possible, but, at the same time, the ideal of human nature, towards which mankind ought to press, may be formed. In our opinion this ideal is orthobiosis, that is to say, the development of the human life so that it passes through a long period of old age in active and vigorous health, leading to the final period in which there shall be present a sense of satiety of life, and a wish for death. I do not think that the ideal should be that of Herbert Spencer, a simple prolongation of human life. When the instinct of death comes at a not very late period of life, there would be no inconvenience in shortening the life, if death did not come soon after the appearance of the instinct. Probably this would be the only case where suicide was justified in the conception of orthobiosis.
The foregoing is the case of an action in conformity with the ideal, but quite contrary to human nature as it is at present. A similar contradiction appears in reproduction. Man came from animals amongst which unlimited reproduction was an important factor in the preservation of the species, as it allowed the species to survive under all sorts of bad conditions, such as diseases, combats, attacks of enemies, and changes of climate. Although man, according to the laws of human nature, is capable of reproducing extremely rapidly, the ideal of his happiness makes a restriction of this power necessary. Thus orthobiosis, based upon knowledge of human nature, would set limits to a function which is perhaps the most natural of all. The restriction which is already partially adopted will come more and more into operation as the struggle against diseases, the prolongation of human life, and the suppression of war make progress. It will be one of the chief means of diminishing the most brutal forms of the struggle for existence, and of increasing moral conduct amongst mankind.