All evolution, all progress, is from lower to higher plane. From a philosophic point of view, things are not good and evil, but only higher and lower. All things are good in their true places, each under each, and all must work together for the good of the ideal man. Each lower forms the basis and underlying condition of the higher; each higher must subordinate the lower to its own higher uses, or else it fails of its true end. The physical world forms the basis and condition of the organic, yet the organism rises to a higher plane only by ceaseless conflict with and adaptation to the physical environment, which therefore seems in some sense evil. The organic world in its turn underlies and conditions and nourishes the rational moral world. As the senses are the necessary feeders of the intellect, so the appetites are the necessary feeders of the moral nature. Yes, even the lowest sensual appetites are the necessary basis and nourishers of our highest moral sentiments. And yet the struggle for mastery of the higher spiritual with the lower animal is often so severe that the latter seems to many as essential evil to be extirpated, instead of a useful servant to be controlled. This view is asceticism. Now the whole view of evil usually held is a kind of asceticism, and therefore, like asceticism, must be only a transition phase of human thought. All that we call evil both in the material and the spiritual world is good, so long as we hold it in subjection as servants to the spirit, and only becomes evil when we succumb. All evil consists in the dominance of the lower over the higher; all good in the rational use of the lower by the higher. Asceticism may, indeed, be the best philosophy for some. If we can not subdue the lower nature, we must try to extirpate it, and thus at any cost set free the higher from humiliating bondage. If we can not practice the higher virtue of temperance in all things, we must even try the lower virtue of total abstinence in some things. If our right eye offends, we must not hesitate to pluck it out; but let us not imagine that one eye is better than two—let us clearly understand that thereby our spiritual nature is sadly maimed, and therefore that the highest virtue, which is spiritual beauty and strength, can not thus be attained. True virtue consists, not in the extirpation of the lower, but in its subjection to the higher. The stronger the lower is, the better, if only it be held in subjection. For the higher is nourished and strengthened by its connection with the more robust lower, and the lower is purified, refined, and glorified by its connection with the diviner higher, and by this mutual action the whole plane of being is elevated. It is only by action and reaction of all parts of our complex nature that true virtue is attained.
FOOTNOTES
[1] The term Chorology, used by Haeckel, nearly covers the ground.
[2] Ontos-gennao (individual-making, or genesis of the individual).
[3] Taxis, nomos (relating to science of arrangement).
[4] This statement is general; it will be modified hereafter.
[5] Phule-gennao (kind-making); genesis of the race.
[6] This formulation of the laws of organic succession was given by me in 1860, before I knew anything of either Darwin’s or Spencer’s evolution. They were my own mode of formulating Agassiz’s views.
[7] Genesis without previous life—spontaneous generation.