On the Ethics of Naturalism

by W. R. Sorley

[240] Data of Ethics, p. 106.

[241] Although Mr Spencer holds that representativeness varies as definiteness, and measures complexity, including that complexity implied by increasing heterogeneity.—Principles of Psychology, ii. 516 f.

[242] Data of Ethics, p. 113.

[243] Cf. Principles of Sociology, ii. 725.

[244] Data of Ethics, p. 123.

[245] Data of Ethics, pp. 107, 129.

[246] Ibid., p. 110.

[247] Data of Ethics, p. 25; cf. Lange, Ges. d. Mat., ii. 247. Lange's statement is noteworthy: "Die menschliche Vernunft kennt kein anderes Ideal, als die möglichste Erhaltung und Vervollkommnung des Lebens, welches einmal begonnen hat, verbunden mit der Einschränkung von Geburt und Tod."

[248] The "endeavour to further evolution, especially that of the human race," is put forward as a "new duty" by Mr F. Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development (1883), p. 337.

[249] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 121; Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 366. Earlier than either of these writers, Dr Hutchison Stirling suggested Health as a practical principle to be set against the anarchy of individualism. But with him, it is not an empirical generalisation of the tendency of evolution. It is as "the outward sign of freedom, the realisation of the universal will," that "health may be set at once as sign and as goal of the harmonious operation of the whole system—as sign and as goal of a realisation of life."—Secret of Hegel, ii. 554.