W. R. Sorley

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Not obedience, not mutual help, not benevolence, but the will to rule or desire of power, is with Nietzsche fundamental, the primary impulse in the history of the whole progress of the world, and still of first importance for the further development of mankind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Sometimes they seem to think that in tracing the evolution of ethics they are also and at the same time determining and establishing a theory of the ethics of evolution. We must avoid this error, and keep the two problems distinct in our minds. Yet from the nature of the case it holds true that it is only through the facts which the theory of evolution establishes or can establish as to the development of morality that it is able to make any contribution to the solution of the further question as to the criterion of morality—the question, that is to say, of moral worth or value. ”

“ I do not deny that there may be a certain natural selection in the case of human beings; but that process is always clumsy and slow and wasteful, and the purposive intelligent selection which takes its place is one of the greatest possible gains to living beings: its presence distinguishes men from animals; its predominance distinguishes civilised men from savages; the higher the stage of civilisation, the more marked is the development of selective intelligence. ”

“ The question may be put, Are we to cultivate the qualities which will give us success in the battle of individual with individual, or are we to cultivate in ourselves qualities which will contribute to the success of the community? All the answer that the evolution theory can give to this question is, that when individual fights with individual, the man with stronger egoistic qualities will succeed, and that when group fights group, those groups that possess stronger altruistic qualities will tend to success. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the positive description remains imperfect until we can say what the rational or spiritual principle is which is to weld all man's 'particular impulses' into an organic whole.
And this cannot be done so long as we contemplate the mere individual in isolation. We cannot remain at the level of bare individuality. Personality itself is not a merely individual product: neither the knowledge nor the activity of the individual can be explained without reference to his position as a member of society ”

“ Every age is no doubt apt to exaggerate its own claims to mark an epoch. But, after a century of achievements in applied science, there seems little risk of error in asserting that the world is now becoming conscious as it never was before of the vast power given by material resources when under the control of a cool intelligence. And in the competition of nations it is not surprising that there should be an imperious demand for the most alert and well-trained minds to utilise these resources in war and in industry. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To use the old distinction: even if it is able to account for being, it can give no standard for wellbeing.
Now the environment of civilised man is a great deal larger in range than those material phenomena which contribute to his nourishment and thus to his existence as an animal organism. No doubt his first effort is to maintain himself as an animal—that is the condition of all his subsequent activity—but he seeks also to suit himself to an environment which is wider and subtler than merely animal conditions of life ”

“ But natural selection is a physical, external, objective process. It is carried out without the individual's volition: he is not aiming at the end. It is simply natural law which, with many varieties of living beings before it, exterminates the unfit individuals. Thus nature in its own blind way produces a result of the same kind as that which the will of man would bring about by subjective selection. ”

“ Surely we are not to take natural selection as the sole factor of ethical import because we see it at the crude beginnings of life on this earth, while the process of life itself in its higher ranges passes beyond natural selection. The physiological interpretation of life and conduct put forward by Nietzsche, and by a good many biological philosophers, would take natural selection, and its bearing upon the animal nature of man, as the sole test of efficiency and ethical value. ”

“ First, there is the competition between individuals for individual life and success. Now, so far as we are dealing with this competition, the only qualities which natural selection will favour are of course the qualities which lead to the continuance and efficiency of the individual organism. The qualities 'selected' in this process are therefore only the self-assertive qualities,—the qualities of strength, of courage, of prudence, and also of temperance. ”

“ But more than fifty years after the publication of this first essay, as, with the completion of the 'Principles of Ethics,' his whole system of philosophy lay unrolled before him, he made the significant and pathetic confession that "the doctrine of evolution has not furnished guidance to the extent I had hoped.... Right regulation of the actions of so complex a being as man, living under conditions so complex as those presented by a society, evidently forms a subject-matter unlikely to admit of definite conclusions throughout its entire range." ”

“ Green, 'Prolegomena to Ethics,' p. 7: "A philosopher who would reconstruct our ethical systems in conformity with the doctrines of evolution and descent, if he would be consistent, must deal less scrupulously with them than perhaps any one has yet been found to do. If he has the courage of his principles, having reduced the speculative part of them to a natural science, he must abolish the practical or preceptive part altogether." ”

“ By itself, therefore, the assertion that the moral agent 'finds rest' in the 'true good' does not enable us to distinguish the moral agent or the moral action from the immoral. For we are unable to define the 'true good.' It is not a part of experience; it is an ideal: and Green allows that we can give no complete account of it; he even says that we can give no positive account of it. At the same time this consideration leads to another and connected method for distinguishing good from evil. ”

“ The canon of the principle of natural selection is on the face of it relative. No one would say that the principle can be interpreted as an absolute law for conduct, after the fashion of the absolute laws laid down by the rationalist moralists; what is involved is simply a gelation to one's surroundings. One must keep in touch with them, one must adapt oneself to them, in order to live. ”

“ Can Metaphysics help us? I have pointed out that the evolutionist ethics is relative—implying always a relation between organism and environment—but this relativity is qualified by its objective character. It does do something for morals: it brings man's conduct into relation with the world as a whole. No doubt the environment which more immediately surrounds man is a succession of changing phenomena, so that although the basis we get is objective, nevertheless it is unable to give us a permanent standard of reference. ”