CHAPTER III. EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS. It is not very easy to over-estimate the extent to which the modern mind has been stirred by the doctrines popularly associated with the name of Charles Darwin. There is no department of human thought, no sphere of human life, in which the influence of what is called the evolutionary philosophy is not felt. I say advisedly, "what is called "; for evolution really exhibits the mode, not the cause, of development, and its ascertained facts lend themselves to various interpretations. When, however, the evolutionary philosophy is spoken of, the hypothesis of the universe so elaborately formulated by Mr. Herbert Spencer is usually meant. It is that hypothesis which Professor Huxley has blessed and approved as the "only complete and methodical exposition of the theory of evolution" known to him, "a work that should be carefully studied by those who desire to become acquainted with the tendencies of scientific thought." This seems to be fair enough. No one can deny to Mr. Spencer the 11.] MR. SPENCER'S CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT. 67 praise of method, or, in a certain sense, of completeness; and unquestionably he does exhibit clearly the tendencies of an influential school of contemporary physicists. I do not doubt that all future theories of the universe will have to reckon with the facts so industriously collected by Mr. Spencer, and with the speculations into which he has so ingeniously fitted them. But I do take leave to doubt whether the exposition of the doctrine of evolution, which we owe to him, will ultimately be accepted as the true one. It appears to me too narrow, too superficial, too mechanical, too inadequate to life. Its completeness is attained by disregarding fundamental principles, both of metaphysics and of logic. And, notwithstanding its parade of physical science, it is not really founded upon experience at all. At present, however, it is unquestionably a potent factor in the world's thought. My purpose here is not to examine Mr. Herbert Spencer's philosophy as a whole. I am now concerned with only one department of it, the ethical. It seems worth while, in view of the wide influence, both direct and indirect, exercised by Mr. Spencer's writings, to devote a chapter to the evolutionary morality of which he is the prophet. To this part of his system, as appears from the introduction to his Data of Ethics, he attaches peculiar importance. His disciples are wont to glorify it as the crowning achievement of their master's philosophy. And, assuredly, it is the most noteworthy endeavour known to me, to establish the rules of right conduct upon a new basis. That basis Mr. Spencer calls "scientific." He shall himself explain what he means by the adjective. "The consideration of the moral phenomena, as phenomena of evolution," he writes, is "forced" upon us, because "they form a part of the aggregate of phenomena which evolution has wrought out. If the entire physical universe has been evolved-if the solar system, as a whole, the earth, as a 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; then the necessary implication is that those phenomena of conduct, in the highest creatures, with which morality is concerned, also conform."* But these "laws of evolution" are considered by Mr. Spencer as purely physical. He expressly tells us that "a redistribution of matter and motion constitutes evolution.”† "The deepest truths we can reach "-in morals, as elsewhere-are, he assures us, "simply statements of the widest uniformities in our experience of the relations of Matter, Motion and Force."‡ Data of Ethics, § 23. Ibid. § 29. The italics are mine. III.] MR. SPENCER'S METHOD IN MORALS. 69 Such, according to Mr. Spencer, is the evolutionary method in moral philosophy. It is a purely physical method. I said in my last chapter: "In the long run there are only two schools of ethics, the hedonistic and the transcendental; only two possible foundations of morality, conscience and concupiscence." There can be no doubt to which of these schools Mr. Spencer belongs; upon which of these foundations he builds. Unquestionably he must be reckoned with those "men of science" who derive morality "from physical law, grounded solely on what they call experience, and on analysis of and deductions from experience;" who "insist that there is no essential difference between the moral and the physical order; who agree in the negation of primary and final causes, of the soul and of freewill; who eliminate moral liberty as a useless spring in the machinery of matter; who conceive of man as an animal whose motive principle is what they call happiness." Experience and expediency-to these principles in the domain of knowledge and of action, they reduce all philosophy and all morality. And so does Mr. Spencer. But I may at once be met with the objection, "You are going in the teeth of Mr. Spencer's repeated declaration that he adopts neither experience nor expediency as his foundation. Has he not severely criticised Bentham and the axiom, The greatest happiness of the greatest number' in his Social Statics, and in The Data of Ethics? Has 6 he not, with equal vigour, assailed the doctrine of experience upheld by Mill, substituting for it another in which tribal considerations take the place of individual instincts? You must not interpret a writer against his own expressly intended meaning." To this I reply, It is quite true that Mr. Spencer is neither a Benthamist nor an adherent of Mr. Mill's association-philosophy. True, likewise, is it that he does not confine himself to the experience of the individual, or adopt the bald empiricism which sums up morality as enlightened self-interest. But it is none the less true, first, that he dissents utterly from the transcendental school as to the foundation of ethics; secondly, that he denies free-will in every possible sense, and subordinates morality to the laws of life, which laws he accounts of as purely physical; and thirdly, that he resolves right conduct into the pursuit of happiness or pleasure. To experience and expediency he comes at last, be the process ever so complicated. That fact all his dexterity in evolving laws of conduct from tribal selfishness cannot conceal, and will not abolish. It matters nothing whether his point of departure is the race or the individual. Morality so conceived, I contend, whether in the race or in the individual, is not morality at all, but something else; the principle upon which Mr. Spencer builds, when stripped of its disguises, is not conscience but concupiscence. To call him a particular Hedonist would be unjust. He is an universal Hedonist, or say "a rational Utili |