mankind, in advocating an absolutely monistic determinism and a nearly exclusive dependence of the efficacy of moral principles on the theoretic cultivation of the mind, on reasoning and education, he, as before mentioned, stands on exactly the same ground with materialists and monists among whom he expressly ranks himself; in the inconsequence with which he makes concessions to the power of the idea and the ideal over man—concessions which could never be concluded from a mere immanent process of nature—he is closely related to Strauss. But it is peculiar that, although entirely dependent in his reasoning on that monistic view of the world, and that Darwinian view of nature, he defines his ethical developments and his reflections on the organizations of human life in a relative independence, which again separates him as moralist from these before-mentioned monists and materialists, and rather ranks him, as we have seen in [Chap. I, § 4], in the line of the disciples of Spinoza and Hegel. From this it can also be explained, how it could happen that in criticisms and reviews of Darwinism and its literature the standpoint which he takes could find such different and diametrically opposed expositions. While, for instance, the "Beweis des Glaubens," in the March number of 1873, thinks that Carneri wishes to seek on Darwinian ground a new and better basis for morality than we had heretofore; while Häckel in the preface to the third edition of his "Natural History of Creation," page XXIX, mentions the publication of Carneri with the greatest praise, earnestly recommends all theologians and philosophers to read it, and greets it as the first successful attempt at applying fruitfully the monistic view
of the world, as established by Darwinism, to the realm of practical philosophy and at showing that the immense progress of our knowledge of the world caused by the descent theory has only the most beneficial effect upon the further progressing development of mankind in practical life;—a criticism in the "Ausland" (8 April, 1872, No. 15), calls the same publication "an attempt at harmonizing Darwin's hypothesis with the current views of ethics, and at showing that those doctrines cannot be sustained which result as strictly logical conclusions from Darwin's theory, and which are opposed to the present views of morality."
In returning from this digression to Darwinism in its purest form, to Darwin himself, we have in the first place to resume the discussion entered upon as to the way and manner in which, according to Darwin, self-determination is originated. Love and sympathy, moral feeling (with this definition he seems to point at the consciousness of moral freedom of will and of responsibility), and conscience, are to him very important elements of morality; and in the moral disposition of man he sees the greatest of all differences between man and animal. He also willingly acknowledges the powerful impulse which morality has from religion, when he says ("Descent of Man," Vol. II, page 347): "With the more civilized races, the conviction of the existence of an all-seeing Deity has had a potent influence on the advance of morality." From these and all his other deductions, we see that Darwin in no way intends to modify the maxims of moral action; and if under the expression "reform of morality," with which we have headed the present chapter, we should understand but
a reform of moral action itself, we should without hesitation have to rank Darwin with the next group, and not with that of which we now treat; just as in our review of the position of Darwinism in reference to the religious question, we had to rank him with those who take a neutral and peaceful position in reference to religion.
But if he does not touch upon morality in the maxims, he nevertheless comes forth in the theory of moral action, in the science of morality with reformatory claims,—namely, with the fact that reduces the whole moral life to those agencies which are already active in the preceding animalic stage. It is true, he makes, as we have seen, a distinction in the genetic derivation of morality. He wholly reduces love and sympathy to social instincts which man has in common with the animal; and he lets the formal motives of moral action, sense of duty and conscience, originate through the high development of intelligence and other spiritual forces, and to be increased and transmitted by custom and inheritance, if those are present. But, on the other hand, development of intelligence is to him an exclusive product of the preceding stage on which it was developed, and thus, in his opinion, entire morality, notwithstanding that double derivation, certainly has purely and exclusively the natural basis as its origin. If that is once the standpoint to which man sees himself led, he has, in order to reason logically, but a double choice. He must either say that a development out of a natural basis can possibly be consistent with the appearance of a new and higher principle, or must give up the autonomy of the moral law, and leave the moral action of
man, even in his maxims, to the unsteady flowing of development, or even of arbitrariness, and to the degree of education and intelligence of subjectivity. Neither the one nor the other is done by Darwin. It is true, on the one hand he shows that modesty, so often exhibited by him, of the investigator who does not wish to express any opinion on questions regarding which he has not yet attained a mature judgment; but on the other hand he also manifests the same aversion to going beyond purely naturo-historical speculations which, as we have seen in Part I, Book II, [Chapter I, § 1], hindered him from obtaining a clear conception of the importance of the question as to the origin of self-consciousness and of moral self-determination, and the same want of sequence in reasoning, which, as we have found in [Chap. III], prevented him from giving an affirmative or negative decision in such an important question, as whether a divine end is to be observed in the processes of the world.
In this naturalization of ethical principles, he is closely related to that peculiar moral-philosophic tendency in England, which long before Darwin's appearance, took its origin in John Stuart Mill, but which now, in the closest connection with Darwin's principles, has its main advocate in Herbert Spencer, and is commonly called the utilitarian tendency. We understand by this that conception of the moral motive which allows the moral good, however it may be ideally separated from the useful in the developed condition of mankind at the present time, in its origin to be developed at the outset from the same origin as the useful,—namely, from the sensation of like and dislike; a theory of utility which Sir John Lubbock still tried to complete and deepen by
the theory of an inheritance of the sensation of authority. Activities which originally proved to be only useful, were inherited as traditional instinct by the offspring, and were thus freed from the sensation of the useful, and acted as authority; this is the origin of duty, according to the history of development. Inasmuch as this philosophic system aims at taking from ethics the absoluteness of its demands, and at drawing down these demands into the activities of originating and developing, it is also to be treated of in this place.
As in the religious question, so in the ethical, Gustav Jäger also stands nearer to a neutral relation between Darwinism and the hitherto valid principles. He puts the moral principles the same as the religious, into the balance of utility to man in his struggle for existence, and finds it thus easy and to be taken for granted, that the principles of morality, as they became the common property of mankind as influenced by Christianity, really prove themselves also the most serviceable to mankind. Social life is of more benefit to man than hermit life; this reflection leads him to the moral principle of charity. And as, according to Darwinism, rising development shows itself in an increasing differentiation and more richly organized physical development, so the organization of society according to the principle of the division of work is that form of social life which proves itself the most practical to man; and this reflection leads him to the full acknowledgment of the entire ethical organization of human life and its tasks.
But, as we saw, in treating of the religious question, that nobody, neither friend nor foe, could possibly be