Moral evolution

Preface

THE purpose of this book, as stated in the first chapter, is to establish the harmony of personal and social morality with the facts of evolution. The unity of the entire process of development, even in respect to tendencies which seem to conflict, is recognized.

The discussion has been wrought out in obedience to the impulse which seizes every one who has discovered, or believes he has discovered, a truth, or the clue to a truth,—the impulse of communication. The author has not gone into the technicalities of science nor into the abstractions of philosophy, but has attempted to set forth his conclusions and reasons with as much clearness, directness, and concreteness as possible.

The distinctiveness of the book, if it has any, is the recovery of self from the mistaken neglect into which it has fallen at the hands of many philosophers, to its proper value. Self-preservation, with all its incident evils of struggle, waste, and cruelty, is shown to be in the line of progress, and an essential condition of progress. The social, sympathetic, altruistic feelings are not forced iv PREFACE.

to bear all the mighty burden of human advancement. Social regeneration is not allowed, with the author’s consent, to overbalance personal good. The two values, the personal and the social, are carried along together from the beginning to the end of the volume, even as they are inseparable from the beginning to the end of moral evolution.

ANDOVER,

MASSACHUSETTS, January, 1896.

CHAPTER I EVOLUTION AND ETHICS I. Evolution Accepted : gre If. Revival of Ethical Studies . III. Time Ripe for Adjustment ‘ ° IV. Antagonism . : ‘ ‘ ‘ V. Independence. : ° . ° VI. Identity . : , ° ° .

OS OTT ESET Ee i i CHAPTER II PERSONALITY IN SOCIETY I. Society and Persons . : 5 ° If. Heredity : ; ‘ III. Knowledge Teohdnstieds : ‘ : IV. Dependence on Contemporaries. V. Increase of Social Functions . ° VI. Development of Personality . ° VII. Great Men. , . ° VIII. Institutions and TAavinuale bere IX. Limitations 4 ; 2 ° .

CHAPTER III THE MORAL IDEAL— THE GOOD I. An Ideal Essential . . °

II. Historical Ethics . , ‘ .

III. The Ideal Personal . . ° ° IV. The Ideal is the Good . . °

° Worth e e . ° ° e . Happiness : . . ° . Personal and Social ; - . .

V1

Il.

Chapter IV

. The Imperative of Right . : . . The Right and the Good . ° . . Law; Duty; Obligation . . : . Good and Right Correlative . . °

. The Uniting Principle ; . : . Origin of Obligation ° : . . . Conscience . : ; . ° ° CHAPTER V THE HAPPINESS THEORY . Various Forms . 5 ; ° . . The Hedonistic Theory . . . . . Pleasures Comparable ‘ . . . Happiness Measurable . . ° . . Not Gained by Seeking . .. . . Satisfaction . ° . . ° . . Utilitarianism . - - ‘ : . Agreement . : . . : ° CHAPTER VI SELF-REALIZATION AND ALTRUISM . Sympathy and Self-Regard : . . Self ; . 4 ° : ° ° . Self-Love . ° ° . . ° . Self-Realization ; . . ° ° . Altruism ~ . ° °

. Altruism Receptive and Reflex . ° . The Mutual Relation . A ° °

CHAPTER VII

. The Common Principle . ° ° . Progressive Realization . ° °. Morality and Sympathy . . .

159 164

. Self-Assertion and Struggle . on tte . Perversion Incidental . ° ° °

. The Higher Values ; ° ernie VIL.

The Twofold Relation : ‘

CHAPTER VIII

. Reason inthe Universe ° ° . The Moral Order of History . ° ° . The Ideal Order of Humanity . ° . The Imperative of Duty ° ° ° . Moral Law Universal : . ° . The Righteousness of God .« . . Morality without Religion. . . . Historically Together. ° ° ° . Religion Inspires Morality . ° °

Morality and Immortality . . °

CHAPTER IX

. Principles Instead of Rules ° ° . Personal and Social 4 ° ° e . Individualism . 4 e . The Worth of the Paren . e : . The Character of Jesus . : ° . The Law of Love . i ° ° ° . Eternal Life , ° °

. The Ideal Perfect aad Final 3 ‘ 5;

. A Present Reality : ° ° ° . From Person to Society . ° ° °

CHAPTER X

. The Kingdom of God. : oui 8 . Fulfillment . ° ° ° . The Kingdom puree Tha ete a . The Forms of Righteousness .

221 222 224.

. 232

« 252

255 256

Related Personalities

. The Kingdom Established .

- Real and Ideal

CHAPTER XI

. A Theme of Literature .

. Degeneration and Evolution . Fact and Extent

. Abnormity .

. Freedom .

. Moral Power not Denioved

CHAPTER XII

. Recovery ’

5 Sab Tiapartation! of Je esus P . The Obedience of Jesus : . The Ever-Living Christ .

Faith .

. Conflict and Ranorcany . The Positive Method .

CHAPTER XIII SOCIAL REGENERATION — ECONOMICS

. Economies and Ethics

. Material Values . . Moral Values

. Competition

. Specific Evils

CHAPTER XIV SOCIAL REGENERATION — INSTITUTIONS

. The Family . - . . The State Eeemocter :

. 264

. 273

. 278

. 293

. 311

. 316

. 368

. The Church . : : :

. Relation of Institutions . , . Church and State. Y °

. Religion in Public Schools . . . Rate of Social Progress .

CHAPTER XV

. Prejudice against Theology

. Historical Review ‘

. Nomism and Antinomianism .

. Sovereignty and Fatherhood

. The Humanity of Christ

. Total Depravity

. Redemption . : : .

. The Kingdom of God es i

CHAPTER XVI

I. Revelation . x : II. The Idea of God | 2 LI; Sm . , : . A 4 IV. The Character of Jesus x a V. Immanence of the Spirit : VI. Immortality

The Evolution of Religion r

. The Person of Christ . . Miracles and Resurrection

CONCLUSION The Path and the Goal . P

. 379

. 385

. 392

. 399

. 405

. 408

410 415 418

. 419

. 423

. 427

¢ i A abe Ria Aiea ee iy os tee : “Saad i ee :

MORAL EVOLUTION

Chapter I Evolution And Ethics

THESE words designate two of the most important, possibly the two most important interests of the present time. Their general relation will be indicated in this chapter, and their specific meaning and connection in the chapters which follow.

I

One dominant factor in thought, without doubt, is evolution, which thirty years ago was a theory advocated by a few biologists and opposed by others, but which is now adopted by all scientific authorities and accepted by the vast majority of educated men. A generation ago it was an hypothesis presented in scientific treatises and in technical terms. ‘To-day it is taught in the colleges, illustrated in magazines, popularized on the platform, and recognized even in the pulpit. The method of evolution has, indeed, become so familiar that the word is overworked and misapplied, as is usually the case when the theory for which a phrase stands makes rapid way into general acceptance. The locomotive is spoken of m7 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS as an evolution from the stage-coach, although they are purely mechanical contrivances without organic connection, the evolution being in the brain of man. To every sort of improvement, and to every observed relation of cause and effect, evolutionary terms are applied. This inexact application, or rather misapplication, indicates both the familiarity and the popularity of the theory. And, indeed, in its exact signification and within its proper limits, it takes rank as a universal method. For no existence is detached. All things are in relation. ‘There is an all-embracing unity. The world is a cosmos, a universe. The stability which is conserved and the change which is promoted are in accordance with a development which includes the inorganic as well as the organic, and is not inapplicable to the planetary and stellar systems. The various features of organic evolution, characterized as natural selection, struggle for existence, survival of the fittest, and to which reproduction and codperation should be added, are coextensive with all forms of life. These laws of vegetable and animal life have furnished the clue to the origin and progress of man. The human species came into existence, not by abrupt creation in entire independence of preéxisting animals, but by evolution from them through organic derivation. The dominant races, it is believed, have gained and held their place by a fierce struggle, which, on the lower plane of savagery, proceeded by wars of extermination; on the higher plane of civilization, by foreign conquest, acquisition of territory, and the skill of diplomacy. Industrial

EVOLUTION ACCEPTED 3 and commercial advantage has been gained by clever inventions and by competition. The advance of the toilers has been made by struggle with landholders, by agrarian revolutions, by the organized conflict of labor with capital. Thus every chapter of history is read, and this term, evolution, is applied to every institution, custom, and legal code. There are books on the evolution of industry, the evolution of art, of music, of architecture, of philosophy, of morality, of religion. This law is carried upwards and outwards till it is seen to be as comprehensive as the law of gravitation. No one claims that organic development was unknown until thirty years ago. The birth and growth of individuals, the influence of heredity, the history of nations, the phenomena of physical nature, have been interpreted in_ philosophies, -cosmogonies, and sciences, some of which are very ancient. The tradition of Genesis depicted six successive days of ascending orders, rather than creation in a single day or by an instantaneous stroke. But evolution is new and distinctive as a theory of the derivation of one species from another, of the descent of man from inferior animals, of the progress of man in his habits, arts, morality, and religion, in accordance with the methods which control the development of all life below and around him. Evolution, then, is regarded as a dominant factor in the interpretation of human origins and human history. It has become an important interest, both in the extent of. its application and as readjusting and even revolutionizing long-accepted theories of man and society.

II

The other interest, almost as commanding in recognized importance, is morality. During the same period there has been a genuine revival of the study of ethics. Treatises on the science and philosophy of morality have multiplied in England, Germany, France, and America. In England especially, the most eminent authors are writers on ethics. The names of Mill, Sidgwick, Stephen, Green, Martineau, and others, have distinction chiefly by their works on the history and principles of morality.

Discussion has proceeded in advocacy of one system as against another, with differences apparently radical, yet with the result of establishing in all the systems essential elements which had been minimized, ignored, or denied on the one side, and exaggerated or over-emphasized on the other. The intuitive philosophy of morality has been modified by wider knowledge of the historical development of moral sentiments, of the variety and advance of moral standards, of certain correspondences of men with lower orders, of heredity, of pleasure and pain as determining motives, and the like. The utilitarian philosophy of morality has been modified by clearer perception of the lofty ideals that sway conduct, of the imperative of conscience, of the sharp distinction practically made between happiness and virtue, of the difficulty of applying its own standard to the finest and noblest goodness, and of other kindred considerations. That is, a reconstruction of theories of morality has been going on, and partly by the aid of evolution.

REVIVAL OF ETHICAL STUDIES 5

One result is the interpretation of all the movements of human progress ethically. When a short perspective covering a century is taken, it is seen that each separate line of advance has been largely or wholly moral. The industrial and economic movement in respect to increase of wages, the standard of comfort, the rights and safety of laborers, the care of the unproductive classes, has meant right and wrong as well as profit and loss. It is no longer held that political economy is a nonethical science. Marshall and other writers find in the moral life and relations an essential element of material prosperity. The political movement in democracy, in government by the people for the people, in the effective administration of justice, in the restriction of vice, in the protection of the family, and in the very conception of the State as the institute of rights, has meant morality as truly as it has meant finance, or tariffs, or public office, which indeed, in the last analysis, are moral interests. Even the modifications of religious beliefs are found to consist largely in the rejection of immoral notions, and the recovery of the moral value of doctrine. When a longer perspective is taken, and the range sweeps into prehistoric and savage conditions, the advance which can be traced is seen to be moral progress. The evolution of the monogamic family from polygamy, consolidation into tribes affording protection and administering a rude justice, alliances of tribes in codperation, transition from the nomadic life of hunting to the settled life of grazing and agriculture, the religious or even superstitious belief in higher powers, and all that converts savagery into barbarism and barbarism into civilization, are progress in morality.

The advance from lower to higher civilization is moral advance, in liberation of the ° masses from slavery, serfdom, and feudalism; in the emancipation of women and children from legal disabilities; in adequate and sympathetic support of the defective and dependent; in the reformation as well as punishment of the delinquent; in the decline of the warlike spirit, although, or because, the engines of war become more destructive ; in the growth of international comity ; in the cessation of religious persecution, and in freedom of religious opinion. Progress is traced, not only in improvement of material appliances, in swifter locomotion, in the thousand-fold multiplication of the power of muscle by the power of machine, in conversion of the mighty and invisible forces of nature to be the thralls of man, but also and. chiefly in moral reforms, in education, culture, taste, refinement, and pure religion, —from which material masteries are by no means separate. The moral movement, like the evolutional, is observed in every direction, backwards in history to the ancient nations, outwards to the savage tribes, downwards to, or even into, the animal societies ; extensively, to all families, tribes, and races, intensively, to all the conditions of society, industrial, political, educational, esthetic, and religious.

A curious illustration of the tendency to interpret history and progress ethically may be found, by way of contrast, in a book which, at the time of its publication in 1857, created a sensation in Eng:

TIME RIPE FOR ADJUSTMENT T land and America, and made its author famous.} Mr. Buckle maintained that progress is wholly due to intellectual and not at all to moral causes. Morality, he argued, is stationary. There is no perceptible difference in the moral sentiments and standards of modern and ancient peoples, but

~~ntellectually there has been marked advance. The progress of civilization, he affirmed, is owing, not to the stationary, but to the moving agent. What is regarded as moral improvement is due to intellectual discoveries and attainments, as, for example, the decline of the warlike spirit by reason of the discovery of gunpowder and the modern science of political economy. But now, to say nothing of the absurdity of dividing the nature of man into stationary and advancing parts, especially when the parts are mutually dependent, it is a favorite tenet of science that there has been an uninterrupted development of morality ; that it originated in the reproductive and social instincts of animals ; that each moral sentiment and practice established itself as an advantage in the long struggle of the human species for existence and supremacy ; that intellectual and moral progress have gone hand in hand up to the present moment, or indeed are two constant phases of one and the same thing.

Til

The time is now ripe for determining the relation of these important interests. Adjustment waits for, but necessarily follows, recognition of

1 History of Civilization in England. By Henry Thomas Buckle.

values. Hitherto evolution and ethics, with a certain independence of each other, have been working their way to clearness and certainty. KEach has been almost exclusively occupied in substantiating its own truth. Investigation has been busy in the verification of theory. Students have been absorbed in collating facts, weighing objections, modifying hypotheses, and giving exact definition to principles. Adjustment of the one value with the other could not be attempted until each value was known for what it is. Evolution and ethics could not at any time lose sight of each other. The material of each all along was found partly in the other. Yet, until each had vindicated itself, had established its own essential truth, and had won its way to general acceptance, there could be no satisfactory settlement of accounts. But when theory has passed from the tentative to the assured stage, when it has made its way from the schools into intelligent and popular recognition, then adjustment of it to the sum of knowledge, and to other accepted principles, is demanded with pressing insistence. While thoughtful and honest minds were still asking whether the theory of evolution is demonstrated or not, it was premature either to antagonize it or appropriate it in the interest of other principles. While students of ethics were debating with one another about the significance of elements which had been ignored or overworked, and until the necessary reconstruction of ethics had been accomplished, there could be no satisfactory harmonizing with evolution. And although there is not the unanimity of opin-

TIME RIPE FOR ADJUSTMENT 9 ion which obtains in respect to evolution, nor perhaps ever can be, yet certain principles have become so well established that the ethical theories which cling to different names are in an agreement larger than is commonly supposed. The two great interests now know each other well enough to enter into conference. They are within speaking distance and on speaking terms. Like mercy and truth, they are met together, even if, like right- ‘eousness and peace, they have not yet kissed each other.

The last three or four years have, therefore, witnessed the appearance of treatises on the relation of the two values. There are books on evolution and ethics, the evolution of ethics, the ethics of evolution, the evolution of morality, and evolutional theories of ethics. Nearly all of these discussions have approached morality from the evolutionary point of view. The books are written by scientists, or upon the basis of scientific theory. But it is important to stand in both points of view, in order to hear what morality says to evolution as well as what evolution says to morality. Ethics, indeed, being the older science, may be expected, in courtesy, to take the initiative, and to show cordiality to the newcomer who appears with the proper scientific and philosophical credentials. I therefore approach the discussion from the ethical side. I have studied ethics with some carefulness, and have reached certain conclusions. The theory of evolution I accept, and accept heartily, on the agreeing authority of its acknowledged interpreters, but without professing to be an investigator of the facts. I therefore come from ethics, of which I am a student, to evolution, in which I am a believer, in imitation of scientists who come from the evolution they have tested to the ethics they have accepted. I find in evolution correspondences to the moral customs and convictions of men, correspondences which amount to conditions of morality, and I find them even in those features of evolution which have been considered foreign or hostile to morality. The moral is based, not only on the sympathetic feelings, which exist in lower orders, but as truly on the self-regarding feelings. Regard of self being as truly moral as regard of others, the relation of morality to evolution is not limited to the sympathetic feelings. The perception that self-preservation, self-assertion, self-enjoyment, and self-perfection, which constitute one hemisphere of morality, have a vital relation to the fundamental facts of evolution. — even the facts of natural selection and survival of the fittest — has been to me in the nature of a discovery, both as to the truth and the value of the relation. In those elements of morality I find the reconciliation of conflicting theories of ethics, as well as the larger harmony of ethical with evolutionary doctrine. The impulse has therefore become strong upon me to set forth these elements of morality in themselves and in their relation to development, in the hope that the truth I have found may be made clear and helpful to others. This book is cast into the stream of discussion to contribute the modicum of truth it may contain, and to receive correction, if need be, of its errors and limitations. While the

ANTAGONISM 11 following chapters are not directed at every point to the relation of the two great interests, yet the study of the principles of ethics, even in their highest development under Christianity, will furnish material and criteria for determining the relation of morality and evolution.

There are four possible relations between evolution and ethics. They may be regarded as antagonistic, as independent, as identical, or as harmonious. Every one of these four relations has in fact been supposed to exist, and has had its advocates. They are briefly indicated at this point in the order named, so as to clear the way for the discussion, later on, of that relation which I believe to be the true relation.

IV

Evolution and morality are regarded by some ethical writers as antagonistic. The struggle for existence, the rivalry, the crowding out, the rejection of the unfit, the destruction of the weaker, the enormous waste of life, the remorseless extermination, seem to be selfishness, or at least very like it. Even if, in the sub-human orders, the method is non-moral, yet the same method appearing in the so-called progress of mankind is certainly contrary to that which is moral, is positively immoral. It is argued that the strife which has accompanied the advance of men into and along the path of civilization has not been the cause, nor even the incident, but rather the hindrance, of progress. The rivalry that marks that path along its entire length, from the mass of conoe b/ EVOLUTION AND ETHICS fused footprints left by the cruel fighting of savages to the broad but hard-paved highway beaten down by the battles of nations, the competitions of industry, and the persecutions and controversies of religion, are distinctly wicked. The very instinct that yields such issues is purely selfish. Moral progress has another root. It is found in sympathy. Sympathy is not a disguised form of selfishness, but a native instinct of man in the family and in society. Sympathy combats selfishness. So far as selfishness is reduced by sympathy, progress is made. When selfishness is dethroned by sympathy, the true kingdom of humanity is come. But when selfishness controls ; when there is a gladiatorial contest of nation against nation, of tribe against tribe, of individual against individual; when man seems worse than nature, the human process worse than the cosmic process, — it must be concluded that the law of evolution through struggle and survival is antagonistic to morality. There is strong protest against evolution, not merely because the derivation of man from animals is thought to be degrading, but chiefly because moral sentiments recoil from the process of strife, subjection, and extinction. Must not morality look upon evolution as an enemy if it is true that nature is regardless of the individual, and regardful only of the type, and not even careful of the type? “So careful of the type ? but no, From searped cliff and quarried stone

She cries, ‘ A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, all must go.’”’ 4

2 Tennyson, In Memoriam.

INDEPENDENCE 13

Another reason for antagonizing evolution, when itis extended to the life of man, is the apparent exclusion of freedom, choice, and responsibility. Evolution is necessity. It reverses the maxim, for it is necessity which knows nothing but law. If man’s life has been shaped by inevitable law, the foundations of morality are destroyed ; and if the foundations be destroyed, the old question, What shall the righteous do? need not even be asked, for there are no righteous ones to be asked about, nor to ask about themselves. Much of the opposition of religion to science is really for this reason, rather than because science does not square with an ancient cosmogony of the Hebrews.

There is, no doubt, a degree of truth in the opinion that the evolution of man in some of its aspects and incidents is in conflict with morality. There is such a thing as reversal in nature. There is such a thing as degeneration in man. Proper discrimination, however, of the essential law of evolution from some of its accompaniments removes occasion for antagonism. If evolution is true, there can be no hostility towards any other truth. The true cannot be in conflict with the right. The ethical man may find a war in his members, but the war does not rage because the ethical man is the evolved man.

Vv

The second view of the relation of the two interests is that they are independent of each other. According to this view, it is maintained that, while the physical nature of man is developed by natural selection from animals, his intellectual and moral faculties are not so accounted for, or, if they are so derived as faculties, the use of them is independent of evolution. The mental and moral man is on a plane above the level of physical nature, and under different conditions. Man is like a ship, the physical hull in the waves, tides, and currents of the ocean, the intellectual, moral, and spiritual sails spread to the breezes of heaven ; or, to adapt the figure to improved navigation, his brain and heart are the twin engines within the hull, and carry the ship across or even against the waves and currents on which it would otherwise drift helplessly. Man’s moral powers, and, as some think, his intellectual powers, appeared, no one knows how; perhaps, according to the striking but sinister Scriptural figure employed by Mr. John Fiske, like a thief in the night. Having appeared, these faculties have improved and refined, not by struggle and survival, but under other laws, which are sympathetic or social.

There certainly is much truth in this view. There are higher and lower orders, of which man is the highest. There are higher and lower powers in man, and assuredly the higher are not precisely like the lower in constitution or in method of progress. But it is much to be doubted whether a process which obtains in the physical nature, and to a degree in the intellectual and moral nature, ls ever discarded so as to give virtual independence of it at any point.

One of the distinguished representatives of this ppinion is Mr. Alfred R. Wallace. In his “ Dar-

' INDEPENDENCE 15 winism ”’ he parts company with Mr. Darwin when it comes to the moral, mathematical, musical, and artistic faculties of man. He regards it as impossible that these faculties should have been derived from anything to be found in animals. He does not argue this definitely with respect to moral powers, confining his discussion to the other faculties named, but its emphatically affirms this opinion concerning the moral convictions.!

Another representative of this view is Mr. Huxley, whose “ Romanes Lecture ” created a genuine surprise. It was supposed that he regarded morality merely as a phase of evolution, as an outcome of the struggle for existence. But he declared that ethics is independent of evolution; that moral sentiments and practices are under other laws than the laws of the great cosmic process; that convictions of right and wrong can by no possibility have been developed in the struggle for existence ;. and that the business of morality is to combat the selfishness which controls the process styled cosmic. He maintains that humanity is differentiated from other orders in such ways, chiefly moral; that it pursues a method of its own, and is not a mere projection a little farther in the same direction with inferior beings. A single quotation must suffice to define Mr. Huxley’s opinions : —

“Cosmic evolution may teach us how the good and the evil tendencies of man may have come about; but in itself it is incompetent to furnish any better reason why what we call good is preferable to what we call evil than we had before.

1 Darwinism, pp. 461-478.

Some day, I doubt not, we shall arrive at an understanding of the evolution of the esthetic faculty ; but all the understanding in the world will neither increase nor diminish the force of the intuition that this is beautiful and that is ugly. There is another fallacy which appears to me to pervade the so-called ‘ ethics of evolution.’ It is the notion that because, on the whole, animals and plants have advanced in perfection of organization by means of the struggle for existence and the consequent ‘survival of the fittest,’ therefore men in society, men as ethical beings, must look to the same process to help them towards perfection... . As I have already urged, the practice of that which is ethically best — what we call goodness or virtue — involves a course of conduct which in all respects is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of ruthless self-assertion, it demands self-restraint ; in place of thrusting aside or treading down all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect but shall help his fellows; its influence is directed, not so much to the survival of the fittest, as to the fitting of as many as possible to survive. It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence. It demands that each man who enters into the advantages of a polity shall be mindful of his debt to those who have laboriously constructed it, and shall take heed that no act of his weakens the fabric in which he has been permitted to live. . . . It is:from the neglect of plain considerations like these that the fanatical individualism of our time attempts to apply the