How, then, shall we now determine the type in conformity to which perfection consists?[260]
or as the normal,
The first answer to this seems to be, that the type is what is normal,—"what we have learned to regard as the normal development of objects belonging to" the class.[261] But the normal may have either of two meanings—it may, in the first place, mean the usual or customary. This, however, would make the typical man mean the ordinary or average man; and the ideal of conformity to the type would be reduced to doing the customary thing, and not trying to be better than one's neighbours. But it is evident that this stationary morality does not represent properly what is fundamental in the theory of evolution: "whatever other duties men may acknowledge, they do not look upon it as a duty to preserve the species in statu quo."[262] If natural science teaches one thing more clearly than another, it is that the type, like the individual, is not permanent, but the subject of gradual modifications. If the type is what is normal, we must mean by "normal" something else than customary. |or as what has strongest vitality or aids development, that is,| But the only other meaning of the word seems to imply a reference to a rule—either a rule imposed from without, or an inner constitution or order. If the former alternative is adopted, then we may use another definition of Mr Stephen's, and say that "the typical organism is ... that organism which is best fitted for all the conditions of life, or, in other words, which has the strongest vitality;"[263] and thus have to fall back either on the notion of "adaptation to environment," or on that of "strongest vitality"—the notion we are seeking to interpret. If the other meaning, which the reference to a rule may convey, be adopted, then we are met by the fact that the inner order or constitution which is to be our guide, can (from our present empirical point of view) mean nothing different from the line of development. And as we have already seen that it is unsatisfactory to interpret this as equivalent to adaptation to environment, or to increase of definiteness, coherence, and heterogeneity, this principle of conformity to the type is reduced to the general principle which we have been attempting to define more exactly—increase of life.
(β) Abundance and variety of vital power,
Thus the first determination of natural good as "perfection of the type" is seen to reduce itself to the second, "absolute abundance and variety of vital power." For the additional statement, which makes the highest excellence consist in "conformity to the type as it is going to be, but as, except in a few chosen specimens, it is not yet discernible to be,"[264] is unsatisfactory. For to those "few chosen specimens" the end would seem to be simply to remain as they are—a conclusion which is hardly consistent for a writer who regards morality as a continual progress towards a higher life, a process of "climbing."[265] And, for the generality of men, there must be some standard for determining what is "going to be," and for certifying that the "few chosen specimens" have realised this state in its perfect form. Thus "conformity to the type as it is going to be," equally with "perfection of [conformity to] the type as it is," seems to be but another way of saying "abundance and variety of vital power," or, more fully stated, "the possession of abundant faculties, active and passive, fully developed, and in regular and equal exercise."[266] The question thus comes to be how we are to determine this "abundance of faculties." We cannot do so by reference to such characteristics as increase in the number and complexity of these faculties; for a criterion of this kind, as we have seen, is of no assistance in deciding the most fundamental ethical questions. To say that these faculties must be "regular and equal" in their exercise, is to give a merely formal canon. For how the equality and regularity are to be brought about,—which faculties are to be supreme and which subordinate—what meaning equality can have in view of the admitted diversity in a man's nature,—are questions left altogether undetermined. And to describe the ideal or perfect universe as one in which there is no conflict or collision,[267] is to give a description which is negative as well as merely formal. |which falls back on the subjective standard.| We are thus obliged to fall back on a subjective criterion, and say that the abundant life which it is the end of conduct to promote is a man's strongest tendencies, or the greatest number of these. Natural good is determined by "preferring out of all the rudimentary possibilities existing in nature, the combination that harmonises the greatest number of the strongest tendencies."[268] We set out, be it remembered, to obtain a characterisation of those acts to which the most persistent tendencies of human nature lead us; and the conclusion we have arrived at is, that they are the acts which harmonise the greatest number of the strongest tendencies. The objective standard is thus reduced to the subjective standard, which it was brought in to explain and support.
Strongest tendencies the result of past activities,
Now these strongest tendencies, in the harmonious play of which natural good or perfection is said to consist, are themselves the result of the courses of conduct which have been most vigorous and successful in ancestral organisms, and they may therefore, perhaps, be taken as a survival and index of the antecedent state of human nature. The realisation—or, rather, continuation—of human nature as it has been and is, seems thus to be the ideal which empirical evolution is able to set before conduct,—with this formal modification, that, while the various impulses are, so far as possible, to have free play given them, they should be developed in a harmonious manner. It seems doubtful how far this tendency towards harmony is properly suggested by, or consistent with, evolution, which has implied a ceaseless struggle of opposing forces. At any rate, evolution does not seem competent to give any principle of relative subordination between the various impulses, such as might add reality to the formal principle of harmony. But what it is essential to lay stress on here is, that the only end which empirical evolution seems able to establish is conformity to human nature as it is—the tendencies in it which are strongest and most persistent.
We thus see that the attempt to explain on empirical grounds what is meant by positing "life," or "increase and variety of life," as the end of action, is practically reduced to making the most persistent impulses of human nature the guide of conduct. But these impulses, it has been shown, are only the survival or remnant of past stages in the course of development, not anticipations of future stages: |and thus give no ideal for progress.| so that evolution is in this way incapable of giving an ideal of progress as the end for conduct, and the last word it seems able to give us as a guide for action is that we should tread in the places where the footprints of ancestral conduct have left the deepest impress. The ideal of such a system is summed up in the new Beatitude, "Blessed is he that continueth where he is." It is probably just because the empirical aspect of evolution seems so little able to yield an end for human conduct corresponding to the actual course of evolution—which has been progress—that no thorough attempt has been made to develop a system of morals from the principle just reached. It is true that systems have been worked out by moralists who have taken human nature as their standard, and that Trendelenburg, at any rate, expressly includes historical development in his conception of man. But both Trendelenburg and a moralist like Butler (who has as yet no conception of the gradual modifications of human character and tendencies produced by evolution) have a view of human nature essentially distinct from that which has been called the "naturalistic" view.[269] For both assume a definite rational organisation of impulses similar to that taught in Plato's analogy between the individual man and a political constitution, so that the whole nature, or human nature as a whole, cannot be identified with the impulses which strength at any time makes most persistent, but depends upon the rational allotment of function and measure to each.
Summary.