Evolution

by F. B. Jevons

The means by which this demonstration is supposed to be effected is the law of the survival of the fittest. It is shown that the law of organic life is the survival of the fittest, and that survival is the consequence of adaptation to environment. These two laws are of course uniformities of Nature. It follows, then, that there must be a constant tendency on the part of the environment to secure better and better results in the way of organic life, for it only permits the survival of the fittest and the increasingly fittest. Man is an organism, and man's good therefore consists in his adapting himself to his environment. Thus the laws of morality are shown to be but one special case of a certain uniformity of Nature, viz. the law of adaptation to environment, which applies to all organisms and not merely to man's.

The argument, however, is in the first place circular: "fittest to survive" simply means "best adapted to the environment." Doubtless the best adapted to the environment are best adapted to the environment, but it does not in the least follow that they are therefore morally or æsthetically best. There is, therefore, no such constant tendency on the part of the environment to secure moral progress as is required by the Optimistic Evolutionist.

In the next place, on its own showing, the argument ends by proving that morality—what ought to be—is nothing more or less than what is. And though that is exactly what the optimist undertook to show—and exactly what is undertaken by every one who engages to show that faith is unnecessary in morality because the laws of morality can be deduced from the facts of science—still it may be doubted whether the conclusion "whatever is, is right" is exactly either a law of morality or a uniformity of Nature.

The question at issue between science and faith is, as we have said, not whether it is possible to gain trustworthy knowledge of the world without faith, without making assumptions, for science itself is built on faith in the reality of things and the uniformity of Nature, but whether the assumptions of science are the only assumptions that we need make. One way of proving that they need not be assumed would be to show that they can be proved by science. But that way failure lies, as is shown by the optimist's ill-success. But there is yet another way of cutting down the common faith of mankind to the narrower creed of science, and that is to show that the remaining articles of faith, the assumptions not necessary to science, are inconsistent with science. That is the method adopted by the Pessimistic Evolutionist. He does, indeed, go further with the common faith than the optimist did. Impressed by the failure of the optimist to exhibit the laws of morality as the mere outcome of the laws of Nature, and the reality of our moral ideals as derived from the reality of material things, he accepts the common faith of mankind in the law of morality as being just as rational as his and their faith in the uniformity of Nature. But having taken this one step, having adopted this additional article of faith on faith, he refuses to go any further. He accepts without evidence the assumption that there are certain things which we ought to do, just as he accepts without evidence the assumption that Nature is uniform. But he refuses to accept the assumption that will is free, because that is opposed to the evidence. He admits that we ought to choose certain things, but denies that we can choose them; and his forecast of the future is in accordance with the premises from which it is inferred. It is a pessimistic picture of man being steadily driven to do the things that he ought not, ending with the triumph of what must be over what ought to be, of physical necessity over the morally right.

The object of science is to discover what we ought to believe, to substitute reasoned knowledge for ignorant conjecture; and the fundamental faith of science is that we ought not to believe anything that is contrary to the uniformity of Nature. Nothing ought to shake our faith in that article of our creed: no amount of evidence will convince a really scientific man, a true believer in the faith, that any alleged violation of the uniformity of Nature can be real. No amount of evidence would be sufficient, for instance, to warrant the belief in miracles. Either the alleged violation is only apparent, and will, with further knowledge, turn out to be a fresh instance of the truth that Nature is uniform; or else the evidence will prove on examination to be untrustworthy. To admit that any evidence could suffice for such a purpose would be to admit that the uniformity of Nature is not the fundamental reality in the world of science, or the ultimate base of our knowledge of what does actually take place in Nature.

A little reflection is enough to show that this is an entirely self-consistent line to take up. No amount of evidence can shake what is itself built on no evidence. If the belief in the uniformity of Nature depended on evidence in its favour, then evidence against it might overthrow it. But, as it rests on faith, it is superior to evidence.

Now, what is true and self-consistent in the case of science in its own sphere is equally so in the case of morality. It is the common belief of mankind that we can, and are able to, choose what is right; and just as no amount of evidence will convince a really scientific mind that a violation of the uniformity of Nature is possible, so there is no evidence which will convince a really moral man that he could not have done right when he did do what was wrong. "We ought, therefore we can," does not exactly express the facts. Rather, it is the other way: we can love, be merciful, tender, compassionate, therefore we ought. Liberty itself is a law to the free, the source of moral obligation, the gift of Him "whose service is perfect freedom."

The pessimist, then, who thinks, by producing evidence, to show that what ought to be cannot be, is adopting in morality a form of argument which in science, when it is a question of miracles, he condemns as inherently vicious and illogical. Further, the evidence which he does produce is not altogether above suspicion. It takes the form of the statement that the uniformity of Nature is a uniformity of necessity and not of a will freely purposing a good end by means of a voluntary uniformity.

If that statement could be proved to be a logical consequence from the facts of science, then it would indeed be proved that one article in the common creed of mankind was inconsistent with the rest. But, as we have argued already, it is not implied either in the admitted uniformity of Nature or in any of the facts deducible from it. To revert to the simile of the chess-board, it is as though one should say that because Black could not have moved his knight unless White had moved his pawn, therefore White was bound to move the pawn.

We cannot, therefore, consider that the pessimist has succeeded in showing that the articles of the common faith which he accepts require in their logical consequences the rejection of the rest. In saying that man ought to choose the right, but has no choice between right and wrong, he is not formulating a consequence of the facts of science, he is simply assuming without evidence the existence of a universal necessity of which the changes in Nature and the actions of man are but the varying though inevitable expression—an assumption which invalidates morality without adding to the truth of science.