maximum pleasure only definable in terms of life.
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. 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? can only be answered by saying that it is the conduct which will most promote life—an answer which might have been more satisfactory had it not been to give meaning to this end "promotion of life" that it was interpreted in terms of greatest pleasure. The evolution-theory of ethics is thus seen to oscillate from the theory which looks upon thesummum bonumas pleasure, to that whichfinds it in activity. It contains elements which make it impossible for it to adhere to the former alternative. The comprehensiveness of its view of life makes it unable to adopt pleasure as the end, since pleasure changes with every modification of function. And it has now to be seen whether the empirical method of interpretation to which it adheres will allow of its notion of life or activity affording a satisfactory end for conduct.
Want of harmony between evolutionism and hedonism.
In showing the important bearing which evolution has on the causes of pleasure, the argument of the preceding chapter has also made clear that the ends of evolutionism and of hedonism cannot be made to explain one another. The theory which starts with a maximum of pleasure as the ultimate end, but points to the course of evolution as showing how that end is to be realised, is confronted by the fact that the development of life does not always tend to increased pleasure, and that the laws of its development cannot therefore be safely adopted as maxims for the attainment of pleasure. The same objection may be taken to the method of interpreting the evolutionist end by means of the pleasurable results of conduct. The two do not correspond with that exactness which would admit of one doing duty for the other as a practical guide. And a further difficulty has been shown to stand in the way ofthis method. For, on coming to analyse pleasure, we find that it may, by habituation, arise from any—or almost any—course of conduct which the conditions of existence admit of. The evolutionist, therefore, can have no surer idea of greatest pleasure—even although this may not be a very sure one—than that it will follow in the train of the greatest or most varied activity which harmonises with the laws of life.
Necessity of investigating independent evolutionist end.
We must therefore forsake the method of eclecticism, and inquire whether the theory of evolution can make any independent contribution towards determining an end for conduct. We are frequently told that it prescribes as the end "preservation," or "development," or "the health of the society." But to obtain a clear meaning for such notions, we must see what definite content the theory of evolution can give them,—without considering, at present, the grounds for transforming them into ethical precepts. Now, it may be thought—and the suggestion deserves careful examination—that we may find in the characteristics of evolution itself[191]an indication of the end which organisms produced by and subject to evolution are naturally fitted to attain. These characteristics must therefore bepassed under review, that their ethical bearings may be seen.
1. Adaptation to environment: necessary for life;
1. The first condition of development, and even of life, is correspondence between an organism and its environment. The waste implied in the processes which constitute the life of an organised body has to be supplied by nutriment got from surrounding objects. It requires food, air, light, and heat in due proportions in order that its various organs may do their work. When these circumstances change, either it adapts itself to the new conditions or death ensues. Thus "we find that every animal is limited to a certain range of climate; every plant to certain zones of latitude and elevation,"[192]—though nothing differs more among different species than the extent of an organism's adaptability to varying conditions. A definite organism and a medium suitable to it are called by Comte the two "fundamental correlative conditions of life"; according to Mr Spencer they constitute life. "Conformity" is absolutely necessary between "the vital functions of any organism and the conditions in which it is placed." In this conformity there are varying degrees, and "the completeness of the life will be proportionate to the completeness of the correspondence."[193]Even when life is not altogether extinguished, it is impeded by imperfectadaptation. Where external circumstances make the attainment of nourishment difficult and precarious, life is shortened in extent, and, within its limits, more occupied with simply maintaining its necessary functions—less full, varied, and active. The same holds good whether the external circumstances are natural or social,—applies equally to those whose energies are exhausted in the production of a bare livelihood from a niggard soil and unpropitious climate, and to those who, under changed conditions, feel the hardship of adapting themselves to a new social medium.
spoken of as the ethical end;
Shall we say, then, that the end of human conduct is adaptation to environment? This seems to be the position taken up by some evolutionists. In the language of von Baer,[194]"the end of ends is always that the organic body be adapted to the conditions of the earth, its elements and means of nutriment;" and Mr Spencer holds "that all evil results from the non-adaptation of constitution to condition."[195]The hedonism which Mr Spencer definitely accepts as his ethical principle prevents him, indeed, from fully adopting the theory of human action which von Baer seems to regard as the result of the doctrine of evolution. Yet complete adaptation of constitution to condition is held by him to be characteristic of that perfect form of life to which evolution tends, and the laws of whichare to be our guides in our present imperfect social condition. In working out his theory of ethics, he describes acts as "good or bad according as they are well or ill adjusted to ends," identifying the good with "the conduct furthering self-preservation," and the bad with "the conduct tending to self-destruction."[196]The notion of self-preservation thus introduced is naturally suggested as the end subserved by the activity of an organism being adjusted to surrounding conditions.|defines the notion of self-preservation.|Self-preservation, therefore, rather than adaptation to environment, will be regarded as the end, with which adaptation will be connected as the essential means.
This notion of self-preservation has played a remarkable part in ethical and psychological discussion since the time of the Stoics. It withdraws attention from the relative and transient feeling of pleasure to the permanence of the living being. Thus, with the Stoics, the notion of self-preservation was accompanied by an ethics hostile to indulgence in pleasure; while, on the other hand, in Spinoza and in Hobbes, pleasure was recognised as the natural consequence of self-preserving acts—the former defining it as a transition from less to greater perfection, the latter as the sense of what helps the vital functions. The theory of evolution has, of course, not only its distinctive contribution to make to the connection between self-preservationand pleasure—a subject already referred to,—but also shows how an increasing harmony has been produced between acts which tend to self-preservation and those which tend to social-preservation. With Mr Spencer these two points are united. His doctrine that the "conduct which furthers race-maintenance evolves hand-in-hand with the conduct which furthers self-maintenance"[197]is preliminary to the establishment of the proposition that the highest life is one in which egoistic and "altruistic" acts harmonise with one another and with external conditions: "the life called moral is one in which this moving equilibrium reaches completeness or approaches most nearly to completeness."[198]
Self-preservation and social-preservation.
As has been already pointed out,[199]it is not the case, in the present state of human life, that egoistic and altruistic tendencies, even when properly understood, always lead to the same course of conduct; and even the theory of evolution does not do away with the necessity for a "compromise" between them. But, even had the theory of evolution overcome the opposition between the individual and social standpoints, much would still remain to be done for the purpose of constructing a system of ethics, or determining the ethical end. It seems better, therefore, to pass over at present the conflict of competing interests. According to Pascal,"the entire succession of men, the whole course of ages, is to be regarded as one man always living and always learning." And this is a suggestion which the theory of evolution only states more definitely, though it cannot completely vindicate it. On this supposition, self-preservationissocial-preservation, and the possibly divergent interests of the individual and the whole are left out of account. The end for the race then is, according to the theory most explicitly stated by von Baer, a state of "moving equilibrium": and to this state of affairs we are at least, Mr Spencer holds, indubitably tending. In the final stage of human development, man will be perfectly adapted to the conditions of his environment, so that, to each change without, there will be an answering organic change. The ideal which seems to be held up to us is that of a time in which there will be no more irksome fretting in the machinery of life, and circumstances will never be unpropitious, because the organism will never be wanting in correspondence with them.
(a) As the end for present conduct: opposed to progress;
If this adaptation be adopted as the practical end for conduct under present conditions, and not merely as describing a far-off ideal to which we are supposed to be tending, man may continue to manifest a law of progress, but its initiation will be from external conditions. If "adaptation to environment" is consistently made the end, activity will have to be restricted to suiting one's powersto an external order of nature, and desire will have to be curbed when it does not bring the means of satisfaction along with it. "Bene latere" will again be an equivalent for "bene vivere," and happiness will have to be sought in withdrawal from the distractions of political life, and in the restriction of desire. It is strange to see the theory which is supposed to be based upon and to account for progress, returning in this way to an ideal similar to that in which the post-Aristotelian schools took refuge amid the decline of political and intellectual life in Greece. The end which Stoic and Epicurean alike sought in complete emancipation from the conditions of the external world,[200]is now, in more scientific phrase, made to consist in complete harmony with these conditions. But, in their practical results, the two theories would seem scarcely to differ. It is not astonishing, therefore, if this gospel of renunciation finds little favour among practical men in our day. It is seen that, if a man has not wants, he will make no efforts, and that, if he make no efforts, his condition can never be bettered. Thus social reformers have often found that the classes they have tried to elevate did not feel the evil of their lot as their benefactors saw it, and they have had to create wants before attempting to satisfy them.[201]And the practical tendencyfinds its counterpart in speculative opinion, so that, whereas Epicurus placed happiness in freedom from wants, modern hedonism usually considers a man the happier the more wants he has and is able to supply.[202]
does not fully represent the theory of evolution.
This practical tendency brings out the truth that it is not only by the subordination of self to circumstances, and the restriction of desire to present means of satisfaction, that the required harmony between outer and inner relations can be brought about. The other alternative is open: circumstances may be subordinated to self. For this latter alternative the theory of evolution seems really to leave room as much as for the former. It is excluded only when a one-sided emphasis is laid on the necessity of adaptation to environment. For evolution implies a gradually increasing heterogeneity of structure as the prelude to perfect agreement with circumstances: "the limit of heterogeneity towards which every aggregate progresses is the formation of as many specialisations and combinations of parts as there are specialised and combined forces to be met."[203]The end of evolution is a correspondence between inner and outer which is not produced by the easy method of both being very simple, but which is consistent with, and indeed requires, the complexity and heterogeneity producedin both by constant interaction.[204]The greater this complexity, the more filled with sensation, emotion, and thought life is, the greater is what Mr Spencer calls its "breadth." But, if "adaptation" is still regarded as expressing the end, then, the more perfect this adaptation is, the less room seems left for progress, and the end of human conduct is placed in a state of moving equilibrium in which action takes place without a jar and without disturbing the play of external conditions.[205]
(b) As describing the ultimate condition of life,
This end of "adaptation" is looked upon by Mr Spencer not as representing the conduct prescribed by morality in present circumstances, but as describing the ultimate condition of human life. As such, it is the foundation of his Absolute Ethics—that "final permanent code" which "alone admits of being definitely formulated, and so constituting ethics as a science in contrast with empirical ethics."[206]The "philosophical moralist," he tells us, "treats solely of thestraightman. He determines the properties of the straight man; describes how the straight man comports himself; shows in what relationship he stands to other straight men; shows how a community of straight men is constituted.Any deviation from strict rectitude he is obliged wholly to ignore. It cannot be admitted into his premisses without vitiating all his conclusions. A problem in which acrookedman forms one of the elements is insoluble by him."[207]
complete correspondence with environment.
How, then, are we to conceive the nature or conduct of the "straight man"? To begin with, it is made clear that his dealings are only with straight men; for there are no "crooked men" in the ideal community. "The coexistence of a perfect man and an imperfect society is impossible; and could the two coexist the resulting conduct would not furnish the ethical standard sought."[208]"The ultimate man is one in whom this process [of adaptation to the social state] has gone so far as to produce a correspondence between all the promptings of his nature and all the requirements of his life as carried on in society. If so, it is a necessary implication that there exists an ideal code of conduct formulating the behaviour of the completely-adapted man in the completely-evolved society."|Resultant absolute code of ethics|This is the code of Absolute Ethics, whose injunctions alone are "absolutely right," and which, "as a system of ideal conduct, is to serve as a standard for our guidance in solving, as well as we can, the problems of real conduct."[209]At the outset, we were required to "interpret the more developed by the less developed;"[210]the conclusion sets forth that the less developed is to be guided by the more developed, the real by the ideal. Now, ethics "includes all conduct which furthers or hinders, in either direct or indirect ways, the welfare of self or others."[211]Thus Absolute Ethics, like Relative Ethics, has two divisions, personal and social.|(α) lays down abstract principles for relation of individual to society;|As to the latter, Mr Spencer formulates certain principles of justice, negative beneficence, and positive beneficence,[212]which describe the harmonious co-operation of ideal men in the ideal state. These principles may perhaps be capable of a modified application to the present state of society, in which there is a conflict of interests: although Mr Spencer's representation of them—which is still, however, incomplete—suggests the belief that they are not so much guides which the ideal gives to the real, as suggestions for the construction of a Utopia gathered from the requirements of present social life. But, supposing the "harmonious co-operation" of individuals to be thus provided for, what is the personal end? and what, it might be added, is the social end, if society has any further function than regulating the relation of its units to one another? Absolute ethics does not seem to be able to give much guidancehere.|(β) farther only defines end of conduct as adaptation;|"A code of perfect personal conduct," we are told, "can never be made definite."[213]There are various types of activities, all of which may belong to lives "complete after their kinds." But yet "perfection of individual life" does imply "certain modes of action which are approximately alike in all cases, and which, therefore, become part of the subject-matter of ethics." We cannot lay down "precise rules for private conduct," but only "general requirements." And these are: to maintain the balance between waste and nutrition, to observe a relation between activity and rest, to marry and have children.[214]This is "how the straight man comports himself." Apart, therefore, from the suggestion thrown out that a man's function may be the realisation of a type of activity complete after its kind—a suggestion to be considered in the sequel—all that we can say of the "completely-adapted man" would seem to be that he will be adapted to his circumstances.
(γ) cannot be shown to lead to happiness.
We have a right to demur if the pleasures of the final condition of equilibrium be held up to our imagination as a reason for aiming at it. That it is "the establishment of the greatest perfection and most complete happiness,"[215]seems an unwarrantable assumption. Yet it is through this assumption that an apparent harmony between MrSpencer's hedonistic ethics and his view of the tendency of evolution is brought about. It is not at all certain that the result of perfectly adapted function is great increase of pleasure. It is true that all the pains of disharmony between inner desire or feeling and outer circumstances would, in such a case, disappear; but with them also there would be lost the varied pleasures of pursuit and successful struggle. It cannot even be assumed that other pleasures would continue as intense as before. For, as acts are performed more easily, and thus with less conscious volition, they gradually pass into the background of consciousness, or out of consciousness altogether; and the pleasure accompanying them fades gradually away as they cease to occupy the attention. "Where action is perfectly automatic, feeling does not exist."[216]The so-called passive pleasures might still remain. But the fact of effort being no longer necessary for the adjustment of inner to outer relations might have the effect of making the "moving equilibrium" still called "life" automatic in every detail. Indeed, if the suggestions of the 'First Principles' are to be carried out, it would seem that the moving equilibrium is "a transitional state on the way to complete equilibrium,"[217]which is anothername for death.[218]So far, therefore, from heightened pleasure being the result of completely perfect adjustment of inner to outer relations, this adjustment would seem to reach its natural goal in unconsciousness—a conclusion which may commend itself to those of Mr Spencer's disciples who take a less optimist view of life than their master.
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."[219]"Adaptation to environment" must, at any rate, be kept quite distinct from any theory of ethics which takes pleasure as the end of life; and it cannot consistently determine any result as of ethical value on account of its pleasurable consequences. The goal it sets before us, and in which human progress ends, is conformity with an external order.The modification of these external conditions by human effort is to be justified ethically by the opportunity it gives for bringing about a fuller agreement between the individual or race and its environment. The result is a stationary state of human conduct, corresponding with, or a part of, that general "equilibration" to which, according to Mr Spencer, all evolution tends. But this theory, which places the goal of conduct in what seems to be the actual tendency of evolution, gains no real support from this apparent harmony of ethics with general philosophy. It may be granted that the evidence of physical laws goes to show that the evolution of the solar, or even stellar, system is towards a condition in which the "moving equilibrium" will at last pass into a form in which there is no further sensible motion, and the concentration of matter is complete. But to infer from this that the theory which places the end of conduct in a similar equilibrium shows the harmony of morality with the tendency of existence in general, would really involve a confusion of the two different meanings of "end." The end or termination of all things may be equilibrium, motionlessness, or dissolution, but this is no reason why the end or aim of conduct should be a similar equilibrium.
Indeed, to say that we ought to promote the end of evolution, and that this end is annihilation, isinconsistent with the postulate always implied by the ethics of evolution—the postulate that conduct should promote evolution because life is desirable,[220]and increase of life comes with the progress of evolution. Nor is it of any assistance to reply to this by saying that the dissolution in which evolution ends may be only the prelude to another process of evolution in which life will gradually progress till it again reaches equilibrium. For, in the first place, this is only a problematical suggestion—is not, to speak in Mr Spencer's language, "demonstrableà prioriby deduction from the persistence of force," as the tendency of present evolution to equilibrium is held to be; and secondly, the new process, if it were to come about, would have to begin again the slow ascent from the lowest rung of the ladder of existence: so that, in aiding evolution towards the goal of equilibrium, we should be only guiding it to the old starting-point which has now, after many a painful struggle, been left far behind.
(c) Insufficiency of adaptation as evolutionist end:
But further, it would seem that the theory of evolution itself is not fairly represented by a view which emphasises the fact of adaptation to environment to the exclusion of that of variation. The latter is as necessary to progressive development as the former. Adaptation to environment mightseem to be most nearly complete when organism and environment were both so simple as to be hardly separate. The polype, which is scarcely different from the sea-water it inhabits, might seem by correspondence with its medium to be near the maximum of adaptation, though at the very beginning of life. It may be solely because the environment is subject to numerous changes that the organism of simple structure cannot maintain life. But it is only through its own inherent power of variation that progress in organic life is possible. Perfect correspondence with the environment was not reached by simple organisms, not only on account of the want of uniformity in their surroundings,|tendency to variation in all organisms,|but also because there is in every organism a tendency to variation through which the modifications are produced which natural selection takes hold of. Did organisms not tend to vary in function and structure, no progressive modification would be possible. Those fittest to live would be selected once for all, and all but those adapted to the environment weeded out.
It is not necessary for our present purpose to have any definite theory of the obscure laws by which this variability is governed.[221]It is enough that natural selection requires the striking out of new modifications as well as the transmission ofthose already produced.[222]It may be the fact that variation is, in the last resort, due to changes in surrounding circumstances, to the unequal incidence of external forces upon a finite aggregate.[223]But, with living bodies as now constituted, it has, at any rate as proximate cause, a twofold source. It may be due to the direct effect of external forces, or it may be caused by the energy stored up in the organism in growth.[224]
consciously directed in man.
In man the outgo of this force is conscious; and, by means of his conscious or intelligent volition, governed by interests of various kinds, he can anticipate and modify the action of natural selection. The law that the fittest organism survives may perhaps work in man as in the lower animals, if only we give a wide enough meaning to "fittest," so as to admit even of the weak being made fit through the sympathy and help of the strong. Natural selection becomes dependent upon variations of a kind different from those in the merely animal world, so that its practical effect may be in some cases apparently reversed. We thus see how it is that even Darwin holds that in moralised societies "natural selection apparently effects but little,"[225]at the same time that we maynot be inclined to deny the truth of Schäffle's contention[226]that, although circumstances differ, the law of action remains the same. Schäffle points out how, as we rise in the scale of life, especially as it is manifested in human society, the organisation becomes more delicate, and other than merely natural facts have to be taken account of, so that the fittest to live in the new social and intellectual environment is no longer the man of greatest physical strength and skill.
The theory of natural selection as applied to the ordinary spheres of plant and animal life, may perhaps, for some purposes, neglect consideration of the fact that it presupposes a tendency to variation in the organisms whose growth it describes. But, when the variation in the behaviour of the organism becomes conscious and designed, there is thereby produced a preliminary indication or determination of the lines on which natural selection is to work. And, before the theory of evolution can give a full account of the ethical in man, it must distinguish consciously-determined from merely natural action, and give an analysis of what is implied in the former. We must bear in mind that it may be the case that the ground and possibility of progress and of the efficiency of ideal ends in human conduct—which "adaptation to environment" has been unable logically to explain or leave room for—areto be found in this differentiating fact of conscious activity. But we must first of all see whether, from the empirical characteristics of variation, we can extract an ethical end or any guide for conduct.
2. End suggested by this tendency to variation
2. "The lower animals," says a writer on biology, "are just as well organised for the purposes of their life as the higher are for theirs. The tape-worm is relatively quite as perfect as the man, and distinguished from him by many superior capabilities."[227]It is incorrect to look upon the evolution of animal life as working upon one line, so that the different kinds of living beings can be arranged, as it were, in an order of merit, in which the organisation of the higher animal plainly excels that of the lower. The conditions of life are manifold and various enough to permit of the existence of many species equally perfect in relation to their environments. The fact that we are still able to speak of one species or one animal as higher than another, is not owing to the one being better adapted to its environment than the other, but is supposed rather to be due to the higher forms having "their organs more distinctly specialised for different functions."[228]Even Mr Spencer, for whom equilibrium is the goal of life, implicitly admits that "adaptation" alone isnot the end of human action, by his doctrine that the degree of evolution may be measured by the complexity of the adjustments it effects between organism and environment.|(a) prescribes self-development rather than self-preservation,|The end, therefore, it may be said, is no longer the mere "self-preservation" found in adaptation to environment, but the "self-development" which implies temporary disharmony between organism and surroundings.
For "self-preservation" and "self-development," though frequently spoken of as identical, are really distinct and often opposed notions—the former denoting a tendency to persist in one's present state of being, while the latter implies more or less change. It may be held, however, that for an organism such as man to persist in his state of being, implies modification of his faculties, and that this modification involves development. For any organism to exist apart from change is, of course, impossible. Life is only known to us as a series of changes. But that change does not necessarily mean development or "change to a higher condition." Degradation is as well known a fact as development; and between the two, there is room for a state of existence of which it is difficult to say whether it improves or deteriorates. And whatever may be intended by the phrase, "self-preservation" points to a state of this kind rather than to an improving condition. The notion of "self-development" has therefore a richer contentthan that of "self-preservation"; but just on this account it cannot be explained by a reference to the nature of things as they are.
thus taking account of variability
It is true that self-development can only go on by a continuous process of adjustment; but it is also necessary for it that this tendency to adaptation should be continually hindered from becoming complete or lapsing into equilibrium. It is here that the function of variation comes in. On the one side there is this tendency to vary after a fashion often without any apparent regard to external conditions; on the other side, there is the action of the external conditions selecting and favouring those variations which bring the organism into closer correspondence with them. The wide range over which the theory of natural selection applies is due to the fact that the environment is never uniform and never constant, so that modifications on the part of the organism have a chance of suiting its varied and changing character. Its changes, moreover, are often the result not so much of any absolute alteration in external circumstances, as of a new relation between them and living beings having been brought about. For the enormous reproductive faculty of most organisms makes them multiply so rapidly as to press ever more and more closely against the limit of subsistence, and thus to produce competition for the means of living. Hence the fresh lines of development originatedby each organism have to be tested by their correspondence with a constantly changing medium. The altered circumstances give the modifications which organisms are for ever striking out an opportunity of perpetuating themselves.
which complicates the tendency to correspondence with environment,
By each new variation the existing relation between organism and environment is disturbed. The variation may, however, prove its utility at once by a more exact correspondence than before with the requirements of external conditions. But, in what are called the higher grades of life, variations from the type are sometimes not immediately useful, although they may ultimately become most advantageous.[229]Were it not for the remarkable power of persistence possessed by the higher animals, the modified organism would be unable to hold its own. The great majority of such eccentric or extraordinary variations do, as amatter of fact, soon disappear, because unable to prove their utility. But others of them, either by the power they give the organism to mould circumstances to itself, or by their appropriateness to the greater complexity which comes with the increased number of living organisms, and the more delicate readjustment it requires, prove themselves to be fitter to live than if no variation had taken place and the preceding state of relative equilibrium had been maintained. The higher adjustment of life to its surroundings, which marks each stage of advancing evolution, had its beginning in the rupture of the original simpler harmony that previously existed.
especially in human conduct.
If we compare human conduct with that of animals lower in the organic scale, it becomes evident that there is a broad difference between the two in this, that actions in the former are purposed, performed with a definite end in view; whereas, in the latter, they seem to be the blind result of impulse, and there are slight, if any, traces of purpose. In activity of the latter kind, natural selection works in the ordinary way by choosing for survival the animals which behave so as best to suit their environment. But actions done with a view to an end may anticipate the verdict of this natural law. The agent may see that conduct of a particular kind would conduce to the promotion of life, while conduct of a differentkind would render him less fit to live; and, as a consequence, the former action may be chosen. In this way development may be anticipated, and the present order of affairs may be disturbed, more or less forcibly, in order to bring about a foreseen better state of things.
We are thus able to see more clearly how it is that the theory of evolution may be thought to give rise to two different ethical ends. The first of these is the theory already criticised, "adaptation to environment," which corresponds to the notion of self-preservation. But this end, as we have seen, only takes one side of the theory of evolution into consideration—neglects the tendency to variation which evolution postulates, and which, in the higher organisms, becomes purposed. The other end which seems to be suggested by the theory of evolution takes account of this tendency to variation, and may be said to correspond to the notion of self-development; but this end it is harder to define. Adaptation we can easily understand by a reference to the environment to which life is to be adapted. This involves a knowledge of the conditions of the environment, but nothing more. Development can be measured by no such standard. On the one hand it implies an independent, or relatively independent, tendency to variation. On the other hand, however, it is necessary that the disharmony with environment, in which this tendencyto variation may begin, should not be excessive and should not be permanent; for without a certain amount of adaptation to environment no organism can live. The extent of initial disharmony which is possible, or is useful, varies according to the versatility of the faculties of each individual organism, and to its place in the scale of being; but throughout all existence it is true that want of adaptation beyond a certain varying degree is fatal: "a mode of action entirely alien to the prevailing modes of action, cannot be successfully persisted in—must eventuate in death of self, or posterity, or both."[230]
(b) Standard for measuring development
By what standard, then, can we measure development? We have already seen, from the "formula," as it is called, or definition, of evolution, that it implies an advance to a state of increased coherence, definiteness, and heterogeneity, by the double process of differentiation of parts, and integration of these parts into a whole by the formation of definite relations to one another. The notions of coherence amongst parts and of increased definiteness of function and structure are easily understood. But the heterogeneity postulated is a more complex notion,—has, in the first place, a double reference, "is at the same time a differentiation of the parts from each other and a differentiation of the consolidatedwhole from the environment;"[231]and secondly, is manifested in living beings in increased complexity of every kind—of structure, form, chemical composition, specific gravity, temperature, and self-mobility.[232]Can we then apply this at once to ethics, and say that the most developed—that is, the most moral—conduct is that which is most definite, coherent, and heterogeneous? This doctrine has at least the merit of not leaving out of sight so fundamental a characteristic of evolution as the tendency to variation; and, without being consistently held to, it is the burden of much of Mr Spencer's 'Data of Ethics,' where it is illustrated and defended with great ingenuity.