Morals and the Evolution of Man

by Max Simon Nordau

Reason, then, which is capable of foreseeing the results of actions, teaches a man what he must do and from what he must abstain, where he may follow his instinct and where he must resist it, according as it considers the presumptive results of yielding to impulse good or bad. But whence does Reason obtain the standard it applies to the actions of men and their results? How does it acquire the fundamental concepts Good and Bad, and what is their significance? Generally speaking, the answer will be as follows: Moral values are appraised by a standard supplied by a general consensus of opinion; Reason acknowledges as good that which meets with the approval of the community, that which the latter desires and therefore praises; the community, for its part, echoes the pronouncements of influential personages, i.e. of the most respected, most powerful, and most aristocratic; Reason condemns as bad that which the community disapproves, and which it therefore censures and rejects. This definition does not solve the problem of good and bad, it only shifts it.

Later we shall have to show upon what grounds the community discriminates between acceptable and reprehensible facts, calling the former good and the latter bad. For the present it is enough to observe that Reason derives the laws, which it constantly impresses on man, from the opinion of the community.

It can happen that Reason rejects the opinion of the community and forms a conclusion opposed to it. This revolt of individual morality against conventional morality is the great tragedy of man. It can only occur in the soul of a hero, for mediocre and insipid people always bow to the opinion of the majority. There is clearly imminent danger of making a mistake. Not seldom, however, the individual is right in his opposition to the community, and then the latter is fired by his example to examine its traditional dogmas and to correct or reject them. This is not the only, but it is the most common means by which Morality is developed and changed. Its progress demands martyrs. Strong personalities must be sacrificed to force a revision of moral values. Socrates has to swallow the draft of hemlock so that unfettered thought may acquire the right to doubt the legend of the gods. Jesus has to incur the dangerous anger of the Pharisees so that the adulteress may be treated with indulgence and human sympathy instead of being punished according to rigorous law. But the opposition of a self-willed, subjective Morality to the accepted moral law is always exceptional; the general rule is submission to the moral law. This is indeed a necessary preliminary to revolt against the moral law of the community, for it is only by means of a vigorous social education that man develops such a nicely balanced and keen sense of Good and Bad, that he cannot prevail upon himself to carry out generally approved actions which his own intelligence does not recognize as moral. He whose moral sense has not been intensified by strict discipline will never be assailed by doubt, as long as he follows in the footsteps of the multitude.

Hence, as a rule, Reason exercises its control of the actions of man in conformity with the laws prescribed by the community. Before Morality develops into the practice of Good and the rejection of Bad it takes the form of consideration for the world at large, since it is the latter which has created the concepts of Good and Bad as well as the standard by which they are judged, and in order to avoid conflict with the community, and to maintain uninterrupted agreement with it, the individual exerts himself to persist in doing good and to refrain from doing evil.

The establishment of these facts gives deep offence to the mystics among moral philosophers. "What a debasement and belittling of Morality! What! It is supposed to be nothing more than a sort of obsequiousness towards the multitude? Its laws are observed for the sake of pleasing others? It is a comedy played to win applause and a call before the curtain? That is a libel and a calumny. The truly moral man looks neither to the right nor to the left. He does not condescend to ask, 'What will the world say to this?' There is but one judge in whose eyes he wishes to be justified: his conscience."

Quite right. But what is conscience found to be if we penetrate the fog of mystic words with which it has come to be surrounded? Conscience is the permanent representative of the community in the consciousness of the individual, just as public opinion may be termed the conscience of every member of society made manifest. Metaphorically, it wields the powers pertaining to society; it praises and blames, it condemns and exalts, it punishes and rewards, as society could do; and it actually pronounces judgment in the name of society, even though it does not preface such judgment with this formula which is tacitly implied and must always be mentally added. Conscience is the invisible link which unites the individual with a social group, just as speech, custom, tradition, and political institutions are the visible links. But the social origin and representative nature of conscience set limits to its power. Conscience is a respected authority with wide powers only in the consciousness of those individuals who have a highly developed social sense. I purposely do not say those in whom the instinct to follow the crowd preponderates, because this mode of expression might imply blame and condemnation which I do not intend to convey.

For social instinct comes natural to an individual born, educated and working in a community, who shares its feelings, views and interests, nay, even its prejudices and mistakes; and if he lacks it, it is a sign of a morbid deviation from the normal. Only the decadent man is uncannily lonely in spirit, alien, indifferent or definitely hostile to his human surroundings; he is, according to the violence and polarization of his instincts, the passionate anarchist or the born criminal; the public opinion of his circle is unintelligible to him and makes no impression on him; it has no significance for him; he attaches no importance to its approbation, and its anger leaves him cold; he would take no notice of it, were it not that he knows its power to destroy him, and fears its police, its prisons, and its scaffolds. Such a man, organically predisposed to crime, most urgently needs a conscience. It would arrest him on the downward path to which his evil instincts lead. It would warn him to resist the wicked impulses of his selfishness. But he, of all people, has no conscience. He can have none. He is anti-social, he is at war with society, diplomatic relations between him and it have been broken off, and it has no representative in his consciousness. A lively and active feeling of joint responsibility with the community is a necessary predisposition on the part of the individual before conscience can have any power. Where the former is lacking the latter is mute and paralysed.

The essence of Morality, as we have found, is the subjection of instinct and direct organic impulses to the discipline of Reason. The latter exercises a censorship in pursuance of a law which it derives not from within, but from without, from the ordinances of the community which instructs Reason as to what it should permit, what it should forbid, and what it should demand. Conscience ensures respect for its commands, and may be called the executive power or police of Reason, acting as the authorized representative of Morality. It is the garrison which the community maintains in the individual's consciousness, which it arms and supplies with authority and instructions; the power of conscience lies in the strength of the community at its back, and is without influence only upon those who refuse admission to the troops of the community and yield to none but actual physical force. All this proves irrefutably that Morality is a phenomenon arising from the social life of man, and its power is a function of society.

If under the conditions in which humanity lives nowadays one could imagine a man totally detached from his species, leading a solitary life, Morality would be absolutely meaningless to him. The idea is one he could never conceive. It would have no significance. Good and bad would always retain their original meaning as labels for sensual qualities, for pleasant or unpleasant sensations of taste, smell, etc.; they would never be spiritualized or apply to the quality of actions. He would be unable to attach any meaning to the words duty and right. The terms virtue, vice, conscience, repentance would convey nothing to him. Morality can only originate when the individual lives united with fellow beings in a social community. It is a consequence of this union. It is the one condition on which alone this union can be permanent.

The solitary individual must, however, not be confused with the lonely one. Robinson Crusoe, shipwrecked on a desert island and forced to stay there without companionship, is not primitive man. He is a son of civilization who has fallen upon evil days. In his enforced solitariness he maintains the habits of thought of his original surroundings. He preserves the concepts of Morality even though he has no occasion to obey its dictates. He can, if not actually yet potentially, be a paragon of virtue or a sink of iniquity; he can have a very delicate or a very dull conscience. He continues to be a man of social instincts cut off from society, and goes on thinking and feeling in a social manner. By primitive man I mean man as he was before society originated. For, contrary to the sociological school which denies the individual and boldly refuses to allow him any existence, declaring society to be older and earlier than the individual, I think I have conclusively shown ("Der Sinn der Geschichte" [The Meaning of History]) that man is not by nature a gregarious animal, that he lived alone, being self-sufficing as long as the climatic conditions, under which he first made his appearance on earth, enabled him to exist by his own unaided efforts and capabilities, and that he banded himself together with others in gangs, troops and hordes—the earliest forms of subsequent society—when, after the first ice age following his appearance, the struggle for existence grew ever harder, ever more laborious, transcending the powers of the individual so that he could only overcome Nature, now grown hostile to him, by uniting with others of his kind.