These two ideas, the "right" and the "useful," being so distinct here and now, a greater difficulty meets us with regard to their origin from some common source, than met us before when considering the first beginnings of certain bodily structures. For the distinction between the "right" and the "useful" is so fundamental and essential that not only does the idea of benefit not enter into the idea of duty, but we see that the very fact of an act not being beneficial to us makes it the more praiseworthy, while gain tends to diminish the merit of an action. Yet this idea, "right," thus excluding, as it does, all reference to utility or pleasure, has nevertheless to be constructed and evolved from utility and pleasure, and ultimately from pleasurable sensations, if we are to accept pure Darwinianism: if we are to accept, that is, the evolution of man's psychical nature and highest powers, by the exclusive action of "Natural Selection," from such faculties as are possessed by brutes; in other words, if we are to believe that the conceptions of the highest human morality arose through minute and fortuitous variations of brutal desires and appetites in all conceivable directions.
It is here contended, on the other hand, that no conservation of any such variations could ever have given rise to the faintest beginning of any such moral perceptions; that by "Natural Selection" alone the maxim fiat justitia, ruat cœlum could never have been excogitated, still less have found a widespread acceptance; that it is impotent to suggest even an approach towards an explanation of the first beginning of the idea of "right." It need hardly be remarked that acts may be distinguished not only as pleasurable, useful, or beautiful, but also as good in two different senses: (1) materially moral acts, and (2) acts which are formally moral. The first are acts good in themselves, as acts, apart from any intention of the agent which may or may not
have been directed towards "right." The second are acts which are good not only in themselves, as acts, but also in the deliberate intention of the agent who recognizes his actions as being "right." Thus acts may be materially moral or immoral, in a very high degree, without being in the least formally so. For example, a person may tend and minister to a sick man with scrupulous care and exactness, having in view all the time nothing but the future reception of a good legacy. Another may, in the dark, shoot his own father, taking him to be an assassin, and so commit what is materially an act of parricide, though formally it is only an act of self-defence of more or less culpable rashness. A woman may innocently, because ignorantly, marry a married man, and so commit a material act of adultery. She may discover the facts, and persist, and so make her act formal also.
Actions of brutes, such as those of the bee, the ant, or the beaver, however materially good as regards their relation to the community to which such animals belong, are absolutely destitute of the most incipient degree of real, i.e. formal "goodness," because unaccompanied by mental acts of conscious will directed towards the fulfilment of duty. Apology is due for thus stating so elementary a distinction, but the statement is not superfluous, for confusion of thought, resulting from confounding together these very distinct things, is unfortunately far from uncommon.
Thus some Darwinians assert that the germs of morality exist in brutes, and we have seen that Mr. Darwin himself speculates on the subject as regards the highest apes. It may safely be affirmed, however, that there is no trace in brutes of any actions simulating morality which are not explicable by the fear of punishment, by the hope of pleasure, or by personal affection. No sign of moral reprobation is given by any brute, and yet had such existed in germ through Darwinian abysses of past time, some evidence of its existence must surely have been rendered perceptible through "survival of the fittest" in other forms besides
man, if that "survival" has alone and exclusively produced it in him.
Abundant examples may, indeed, be brought forward of useful acts which simulate morality, such as parental care of the young, &c. But did the most undeviating habits guide all brutes in such matters, were even aged and infirm members of a community of insects or birds carefully tended by young which benefited by their experience, such acts would not indicate even the faintest rudiment of real, i.e. formal, morality. "Natural Selection" would, of course, often lead to the prevalence of acts beneficial to a community, and to acts materially good; but unless they can be shown to be formally so, they are not in the least to the point, they do not offer any explanation of the origin of an altogether new and fundamentally different motive and conception.
It is interesting, on the other hand, to note Mr. Darwin's statement as to the existence of a distinct moral feeling, even in, perhaps, the very lowest and most degraded of all the human races known to us. Thus in the same "Journal of Researches"[[210]] before quoted, bearing witness to the existence of moral reprobation on the part of the Fuegians, he says: "The nearest approach to religious feeling which I heard of was shown by York Minster (a Fuegian so named), who, when Mr. Bynoe shot some very young ducklings as specimens, declared in the most solemn manner, 'Oh, Mr. Bynoe, much rain, snow, blow much.' This was evidently a retributive punishment for wasting human food."
Mr. Wallace gives the most interesting testimony, in his "Malay Archipelago," to the existence of a very distinct, and in some instances highly developed moral sense in the natives with whom he came in contact. In one case,[[211]] a Papuan who had been paid in advance for bird-skins and who had not been able
to fulfil his contract before Mr. Wallace was on the point of starting, "came running down after us holding up a bird, and saying with great satisfaction, 'Now I owe you nothing!'" And this though he could have withheld payment with complete impunity.