Malcolm Guthrie

“ Here, then, we have to enter on the consideration of moral phenomena as phenomena of evolution; being forced to do this by finding that they form a part of the aggregate of phenomena which evolution has wrought out. If the entire visible universe has been evolved—if the solar system as a whole, the earth as part of it, the life in general which the earth bears, as well as that of each individual organism—if the mental phenomena displayed by all creatures, up to the highest, in common with the phenomena presented by aggregates of these highest—if one and all conform to the laws of evolution ”

“ If certain laws of living become established, then moving equilibria capable of recognising this fact must act accordingly—they must adapt themselves to the environment: but this does not prevent the organism from adapting the environment to itself, if it can, by changing it or overcoming it—this is merely a matter of equilibration. The law of Biology will allow it to cope with an adverse environment in many ways, namely, by conformity, by escape so as to preserve its individuality, and by altering or overcoming the environment. ”

“ The theoretical sanction thus given to right living is incomparably the most powerful that has ever been assigned in any philosophy of Ethics. Human responsibility is made more strict and solemn than ever, when the eternal power that lives in every event of the universe is thus seen to be in the deepest possible sense the author of the moral law that should guide our lives, and in obedience to which lies our only guarantee of the happiness which is incorruptible—which neither inevitable misfortune nor unmerited obloquy can ever take away. ”

“ But then the question arises, how do we apply the theory of the moving equilibrium to such an assemblage of atoms thus acted upon to account for the fact that the assemblage of atoms endeavours to prolong its existence by defence and absorption or by absorption only? If it be said that it does not do so, and that its movements have no food object, but are simply the effect of chemical and mechanical action, then it is not an animal displaying life, inasmuch as it does not adapt means to an end—motions to the end of sustenance. ”

“ Errors to be successful must be big and bold. Fallacies of reasoning are detected on a medium scale, but when they are "writ large" it is difficult to detect them. Trains of syllogisms are sometimes more effective because they are vast than because they are true. Let them be imposing in their language and grand in their proportions, we naturally bow down to power, even if it is only power of largeness. When dealing with Mr. Spencer's reasonings we feel a certain awe as if we were contradicting the forces of the universe—seemingly allied to him. ”

“ To say that when men act ethically they act from egoism is only to include ethical action in a statement of a more general biological law, and takes the mind off from the special ethical study altogether. Ethical egoism pre-supposes ethical feeling in the Ego, otherwise egoistic morality is obliged to frame for itself a hypothetical society of individuals without feelings, which, of course, puts it out of relation with humanity. Egoism, as a basis of morals, is bound to include altruism, or else it is merely a form of expressing the most general law of Biology. ”

“ The more extended recognition of the social aim throughout society will guide and increase social pressure in a corresponding direction, not only in the proper application of social rewards and penalties, but in the ethical inculcations, and eventually in the hereditarily established intrinsic motives.
Nor will prophets, the ripest fruit of evolution, be wanting in the future. Ages produce not only the working results but the religious voices. There are always men who give utterance to the thought and to the aspirations of their time. ”

“ We here make a distinction between theories of Will and theories of Free Will. What we have just been considering have been theories of will or volition. They are of the deterministic order because in either case the actions are wholly determined by preceding facts. Human and all actions of organisms are held to be merely resultants of pre-existing factors and their relations. This is the theory held by all scientific philosophers, and the one most analogous to what we know of physical science as well as most in conformity with actual experience of human conduct. ”

“ Now, science began to return a decisively affirmative answer to such questions as these when it began, with Mr. Spencer, to explain moral beliefs and moral sentiments as products of evolution. For clearly, when you say of a moral belief or a moral sentiment that it is a product of evolution, you imply that it is something which the universe through untold ages has been labouring to bring forth, and you ascribe to it a value proportionate to the enormous effort that it has cost to produce it. ”

“ And yet it is difficult to say this if Biology is to be considered as the law of actions of organisms. It all depends upon the factors which are included in the generalisation. If the factors are simply physical, then the generalisation is insufficient; if the forces included in the moving equilibrium include subjective forces capable of growth into sympathy or Altruism, then the biological laws receive, perhaps, an extension which renders them capable of determining the whole of the phenomena. ”

“ If now we recognise Ethics as the rule of life imposed by Society upon the individual, we shall have to recognise great varieties of rule, according to the nature and objects of the particular Society imposing the rule, according to the state of development at which that Society has arrived, and according to the nature of the environment. ”

“ Those laws which were seen to be essential to the very existence of society were regarded as eternal and true independently of society. But this is at once seen to be a false notion, and only a peculiar manner of representing the most essential laws of relative morality. No men, no morals! Immorality is a sin, not against eternal principles of right, but against the practical working principles co-eval with human society. ”

“ From the sociological point of view, then, Ethics becomes nothing else than a definite account of the forms of conduct that are fitted to the associated state, in such wise that the lives of each and all may be the greatest possible, alike in length and breadth. But here we are met by a fact which forbids us thus to put in the foreground the welfares of citizens, individually considered, and requires us to put in the foreground the welfare of the society as a whole. The life of the social organism must, as an end, rank above the lives of its units. ”

“ Science has to take for granted the unexplained existence of organisms. For her purposes she is obliged to begin by assuming certain primitive organisms of some simple structure and functions. She is also obliged to admit, although she does not understand, the facts of reproduction and of heredity. Nor can she refuse to acknowledge a place in the history of development, along with the factors of chemistry and of physics, to a subjective factor called feeling, consciousness, mind, or however else it may be best expressed. ”

“ The nature of this factor we do not know, nor do we know how, as having an orderly relation to chemical and physical events, its law is to be expressed in such a manner as to enable us to understand how organisms arose and were developed. Here, indeed, we can recognise a power, and an inscrutable one: but inasmuch as it is inscrutable it spoils our philosophy—our systems of explanations—and laughs at our formulas. ”

“ Generally speaking, is it a scientific enquiry for the information of our minds, or is it investigated for the enforcement of ethical injunctions?
It is to be presumed that we have both ends in view. Knowledge must precede power. Light must go before footsteps. At least, so it must be if intellect is to rule. As a matter of fact, Ethics has not been so much a reasoned out system of conduct as a worked out system to be afterwards reasoned about. Morality has been the interbalance, growth, and counterbalance of subjective and sympathetic individuals. ”

“ Nevertheless, the psychological conception of an ideal man in an ideal state is a most fascinating one, alike to the philanthropist whose heart broadens out to all humanity, and to the philosopher who aims at absolute perfection of moral or political theory. ”

“ Indeed we have more experience of purposed actions becoming automatic than of automatic or reflex actions becoming purposed.
Can there then be purpose without consciousness? There are adaptations in the vegetable world as well as in the animal, and of these we do not predicate conscious design. Nor can we, on the theory of life as the adaptation of a moving equilibrium to its environment, admit that these changes are due to mere happy accidents of origin and survival, for we are required to account for them as necessary results of their existence as moving equilibria. ”

“ But if we sufficiently realise the fundamental notion of Biology as that of the most complete adjustment of the organism to its environment, including incidentally the adjustment of the environment to the organism we must acknowledge that the most perfect morality is the best adjustment of the individual to his environment in the society to which he belongs. Thus the most perfect morality is the best relative adjustment, and not the nearest conformity to an ideal standard suited to a perfect state of society. ”

“ Spencer expresses in his preface, as to the loss of a controlling agency in the decay and death of an older regulative system is not met by the establishment of a new controlling agency which takes the place of the discarded authority, but may be met by the fact disclosed in evolution, that whatever authority men may recognise, nay, even if they do not recognise any, it is all the same—they are part and parcel of an onward growth against which it is useless to rebel. The moral authority is the conviction of the inevitable. ”

“ It is no idle verbiage that of the rhetorician, the preacher, the philosophical novelist, the poet, when they exhort to the cultivation of the powers of the Will in their varied representations of the aspirations and struggles of noble humanity. There is something that calls forth the moralist's sympathies in the poet's appeals to the power of Will, and there is no grander spectacle in all this universe than to witness the battle of the will-power of a man against difficulties and oppositions of all sorts ”

“ Are we to suppose that the Free Will predicated of man is an universal possession of all? If it is a theoretical question, it must be granted that all men's wills are free. But if it is a practical question as to the strength of the Will as opposed to external forces, and held to be free in proportion to its relative strength of self-assertion, surely Free Will is a variable quality. ”