W. R. Sorley

“ We have grown used to a presentment of human life such as Ibsen's in which the customary morality is regarded as a thin veneer of convention which hardly covers the selfishness in grain, or to the description of life as a tangled mass of animal passions,—a description which, in spite of the genius of Zola, does not fail to weary and disgust,—or perhaps as only a spectacle in which what men call good and evil are the light and shade of a picture which may serve to produce some artistic emotion. ”

“ It seems evident, therefore, that to take adaptation to environment, or self-preservation as interpreted by adaptation, as the end of conduct, is to adopt an end which cannot be shown to be desirable on the ground of yielding a maximum of happiness or pleasure. And it is almost with a feeling of relief that one finds Mr Spencer's confidence in the tendency of evolution so far shaken as to admit of his saying that "however near to completeness the adaptation of human nature to the conditions of existence at large, physical and social, may become, it can never reach completeness." ”

“ Which developments are truly realisations of "the moral capability of man," and so tend to the attainment of ultimate good, and which developments are expressions of those capacities which seek an apparent good only and are to be classed as evil, as impediments to the realisation of the good,—these have to be discriminated; and is it so clear that from the mere record of human deeds we are able to draw the distinction? Do we not need some criterion of goodness to guide our judgment? ”

“ On the one hand there is the Absolute Reality, spoken of as perfect, and described as all—comprehensive and harmonious throughout. Neither change nor time nor any relation can belong to it. But intelligence works by discrimination and comparison; knowledge implies relations; it is, therefore, excluded from reality. Truth is mere appearance. The same judgment must be passed on our moral activity. We strive after and perhaps reach an ideal, or, as Mr Bradley says, we aim at satisfying a desire; and this, too, is a process far removed from reality. [1] Goodness, like truth, is mere appearance. ”

“ If, then, one pleasure (or avoidance of pain) is chosen in preference to another, it must be either by chance,—an alternative which has no ethical significance—no significance, that is, for the guidance of voluntary conduct,—or because the one course promises, or seems to promise, the attainment of a greater balance of pleasure than the other, or is actually at the time more pleasant than that other. Thus the view that pleasure is the only motive of human action is really identical, for ethical purposes, with the theory loosely expressed in the law that action follows the greatest pleasure. ”

“ The only way in which natural selection works is by killing off rapidly or gradually the organisms which are not fitted to obtain from the environment the means of life—that is to say, it has to do with life only, with the continuance of life as a possible material phenomenon. Given that the organisms are fit enough to survive, given that their animal vitality is not diminished, a question remains: what is the standard of worthy survival? and to that question the process and principle of natural selection can give no answer. ”

“ The great consensus of opinion amongst those who are best qualified to judge—amongst those who alone are qualified to judge—may be regarded as having established the claim of the theory of evolution to give the most satisfactory account of all forms of natural life. And it may seem only advancing the theory a step further, or only developing one of its applications, to make it yield a complete explanation of human nature, mental as well as physical. If ethics, then, is to be founded on a "natural" basis, no theory would seem to be complete which leaves evolution out of account. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But, when we try to pass from efficient cause to the notion of purpose or of morality, we find ourselves driven back on the fundamental constitution of knowledge, and see that it is only through the unifying and relating action of a self-conscious subject that knowledge is possible or things exist for us at all. And this is the reason why we are able to say that the Unity or Continuity of nature is a principle or law of experience. ”

“ As long as they are looked upon as mere illusions, as expressions of doubt, or as a hazard staked on the unknowable, caprice takes the place of law; where all is equally uncertain there is no security for the worth of the ideal itself. ”

“ When it is said that greatest pleasure is the moral end of action, this "greatest pleasure" is looked upon as the greatest possible balance of pleasurable over painful states for the probable duration of life: on the egoistic theory, of the life of the individual; on the utilitarian theory, of the aggregate lives of all men or even of all sentient beings. But when it is said that greatest pleasure is, as a matter of fact, always the motive of action, it is obvious that "greatest pleasure" has changed its signification. ”

“ This sympathy, which natural selection cannot preserve or vindicate even in the struggle of communities, is nevertheless recognised by Darwin as having a moral value outside of and above natural selection and the struggle for existence,—a value of which these have no right to judge. He thinks that if we followed hard reason—and by 'hard reason' he obviously means an imitation on our part of the action of natural selection—we should be led to sweep away all those institutions by which civilised mankind guards its weaker members. ”

“ Annihilation is the end not directly for the individual, but for the race. Not life itself, according to Schopenhauer, but the will to live, is to be killed in the individual man. Even this code of morals, Hartmann thinks, is a remnant of the false, pre-evolutionist individualism, and would hinder the course of the universe, by leaving the game to be played out by the remaining individuals whose wills were not strong enough to curb or kill themselves. ”

“ There is one thing which all reasoning about morality assumes and must assume; and that is morality itself. The moral concept—whether described as worth or as duty or as goodness—cannot be distilled out of any knowledge about the laws of existence or of occurrence. Nor will speculation about the real conditions of experience yield it, unless adequate recognition be first of all given to the fact that the experience which is the subject-matter of philosophy is not merely a sensuous and thinking, but also a moral, experience. ”

“ In spite of the modifiability of function and its parasite feeling, we may still be able to say that such and such a course of action is likely to bring most pleasure to the individual or even to the family. But we cannot extend such a means of interpreting the ethics of evolution to the race, where the possibility of modification is indefinitely great, and the pain incurred in initiating a change counts for little in comparison with its subsequent results. If we continue to look from the evolutionist point of view, the question, What conduct will on the whole bring most pleasure? ”

“ The life which human conduct "ought" to increase is not merely that of one individual man, but the whole life of the community—"self, offspring, and fellow-men"—with which the individual life is bound up. Evolution has shown how the growth of the individual has been so dependent upon that of the whole body of society that it is impossible to separate their interests. At the same time, no complete identity has been brought about, and it remains one of the greatest difficulties of any empirical theory to harmonise their competing claims. ”

“ Many moralists, undoubtedly, are content to rest with the social aspect: to regard the 'health' or 'vitality' of society as the final expression of morality. But a life which is simply absorbed by society cannot be said to be a perfect unity. Society itself is a process; and its changes are determined in large measure by the moral ideals of its members. For its unity we must look to an end—an ideal—of which its actual forms can offer indications only. Both man and society are factors in a universal order ”

“ If we ask a number of people whether life is on the whole pleasant to them, not only do we receive a variety of answers which it is hard to sum up and average, but the answers we get are apt to reflect the feeling of the moment rather than to represent an impartial estimate of the pleasure and pain of a lifetime. Thus experience seems unable to give us a trustworthy answer as to the average pleasure-value of life ”

“ Now I am willing to admit that Green showed a correct instinct in examining the nature of man before entering upon his properly ethical enquiry. One must know what man is before one can say what his 'good' or his duty is; and it is only because man's nature cannot be accounted for as a merely natural or animal product that the way is open for an idealist ethics such as Green's. But perhaps Green laid too much stress on the problem of historical causation. What matters it how we came by our knowledge, provided it is the case that we can know ourselves and the world? ”

“ When we recognise the social factor in the individual, this judgment must be modified. The evolution-theory shows how he has become so constituted that much that pleases him individually, must of necessity benefit society at large. But there are obvious limits to the harmony. The pleasure or interest of the individual is often the reverse of advantageous to society. It may be the case that in seeking his own private ends, he is yet, to use the words of Adam Smith, "led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention." ”

“ Metaphysics must re-think each new fact brought to light, each new generalisation established by science. It must think them in their relation to the whole, and attempt to understand them by setting them in their place in the complete system of knowledge and reality. ”

“ In its speculative developments, both realistic and idealistic, the philosophy of the present day has made the endeavour to connect its conceptions of the world of thought and nature with the ends contemplated as to be realised in the realm of action. Whatever difficulties may be involved in the transition from the "is" to the "ought to be," it is yet implied that the transition requires to be made, not merely in order that human activity may be shown to be rational, but that reason itself may be justified by leaving nothing outside its sphere. ”

“ Concepts, such as 'mass,' 'energy,' and the like, are no longer held to express realities the denial of which would be treason to science; they are simply descriptive notions whose truth consists in their utility: that is to say, in their ability to comprehend all the relevant facts in a simple description. And, in the same way, scientific principles are of the nature of postulates, whose justification is no necessary law of thought, but must rather be sought in the results of scientific investigation. ”

“ It is only when this method has been tried and has failed that we should seek outside us for some guide as to the part we ought to play in the universe. For this reason I shall not take into consideration the views of the basis of ethics which find it in positive law either divine or human, except in so far as they are shown to follow from the nature of man. It is not necessary for me to deny that the source of all moral obligation may be the will of God, or the commands of the sovereign, or the opinion of society, and that the highest moral ideal may be obedience to such a rule. ”

“ It is correct, therefore, to say of man that his environment is much larger than the material universe; it is whatever he conceives the universe as being, and whatever it can be for him: whether he seeks from it merely intellectual understanding, whether he regards it as a vehicle for artistic production, or whether he may see in it an opportunity for realising his own being by fulfilling the will of God—perhaps by submerging his own individuality in deity. ”

“ At the same time, it is frequently maintained that we unduly limit the application of the law of evolution if we deny its power to show how morality has developed out of customs and institutions whose origin can be traced to purely natural or non-moral causes. And, for present purposes, it is sufficient to have pointed out that this does not necessarily follow from the admission that evolution applies to mental and social processes as well as to the facts of external nature. It is not my object to criticise any doctrine of the development of morality ”

“ I have contended in these lectures that neither the mechanical unity of the naturalists nor the rational unity of the idealists has succeeded in comprehending within its unifying principle the essential nature of morality with its deep-going dualism of good and evil. But while I have maintained that even the conception of reality as the reproduction of itself by an eternal self-consciousness is an inadequate conception, it is still possible to hold that reality is a connected whole, and that its true principle of unity is an ethical principle. ”

“ If, then, we have been seeking to define the evolutionist end by interpreting it in terms of pleasure, it appears that we have only succeeded in making the round of a circle: pleasure as the end is seen to be only definable as life or activity, although it was adopted as the end in order that by its help we might discover what life or activity meant as the end for conduct. We may, perhaps, still be able to hold to a form of hedonism, if we turn our attention from the race to a small portion of present mankind. ”

“ It is said by Mr Herbert Spencer that "we must interpret the more developed by the less developed"; [1] and the inference would seem to be that, as animal existence is the basis of all higher activities, we must interpret these by it. But if this claim can be admitted at all, it can only be if our aim goes no further than to trace a historical process. If we desire to understand capacity or function—still more if we speak of worth or goodness—then it is much more correct to say that we must interpret the less developed by the more developed. ”

“ The organic view of conduct will object not only to considering action apart from character, but also to considering character apart from action. We must treat conduct as a whole: and, in order to do so, we must treat it as both arising out of and forming character; and we must treat character not as mere potentiality, but as it realises itself in conduct. The weakness of the utilitarian theory is its method of treating actions merely in respect of their results: the evolutionist must show how results are connected with motives,—how character and conduct are different aspects of a whole. ”