I.Ethics

Ethics is the science of morals. Morals may be said to consist of two very distinct factors, which we will attempt to analyse:—

1. An instinctive sense, the conscience, sense of duty, or ethical impulse, which says to us: “This shalt thou do, and that shalt thou leave undone.” A person in whom it is highly developed experiences satisfaction if he obeys the “voice of conscience,” and remorse if he fails to do so.

2. The second factor of morals includes the objects of conscience, that is, the things which conscience commands or forbids.

The great philosopher Kant founded upon the instinct of conscience his Categorical Imperative, and held the further investigation of its causes to be unnecessary. If the conscience says “Thou shalt,” one must simply act accordingly. This is, in Kant’s opinion, the absolute moral law, which bids or forbids an action independently of any other consideration.

The further they progress, however, the more do reason and science rebel against the conception of the Categorical Imperative. Kant, great as he was, was not infallible. The imperative of the conscience is in itself no more categorical and absolute than that of the sexual impulse, of fear, of maternal love, or of other emotions and instincts.

In the first place daily observation shows us the existence of people born conscienceless, in whom the sense of duty is lacking, who are aware of no “Thou shalt,” and in whose eyes other individuals are merely welcome objects for plunder or inconvenient hindrances. For these “ethically defective” persons there can be no categorical imperative, because they have no conception of duty.

The ethical sense may exist in varying degrees of intensity. In some persons the conscience is weak, in others strong; and there are cases in which it is developed to an exaggerated and morbid extent. People of this type suffer pangs of conscience over the merest trifle, reproach themselves for “sins”which they have never committed, or which are no sins at all, and make themselves and others miserable. How can all this be reconciled with the absolute moral law as stated by Kant?

The theory of the Categorical Imperative becomes even more absurd when we consider the actions to which men are guided by their consciences. The same habit—the drinking of wine, for instance—may be for one man a matter of duty (for a Christian at the Eucharist or for an officer at the toast of the King); for another (the Mohammedan) it may be forbidden as a deadly sin. Murder, which is certainly almost universally prohibited by conscience, is a “duty” in time of war, and even for certain persons in the duel. Such instances could be multiplied indefinitely.

We will presently state the profounder reasons which prove Kant’s error; but we must first mention another source of pretended ethical commandments. Thereligionsexhibit a remarkable medley of various productsof human mystical phantasy and human emotions which have crystallised and formed themselves into legends and dogmas, and these latter have become interwoven with human morals in such a fashion that they seem at first inextricable.

The instinct of fear and the lust for power, the hypertrophy of the Ego and the ethical sentiments have here intermingled in a thousand different ways. More especially we may mention the fear of the unknown, of darker powers, and of death; the expansion of the beloved Ego, which becomes idealised in the conception of godhead, and then immortalised; the feelings of sympathy, antipathy and duty towards other individuals, and so forth. The mysterious powers which move the universe are then conceived as anthropomorphic (personal) gods, or as one such God.

The next stage is the attribution of godlike qualities to man, which flatters his vanity considerably, and gives him a sense of satisfaction.

As a result of this habit of thought, and assisted by the hallucinations of highly imaginative, hysterical, or insane individuals, there have developed the various conceptions of a direct intercourse between the Godhead and man. Hypnotism and psychiatry, in the respective cases of the sane and the insane, teach us how extraordinarily sensitive the human brain is to such impressions.

In this way the legendary revelations, according to which God has manifested himself directly and personally to certain individuals, and dictated to them commandments for the guidance of Humanity, have resulted.

In this, and in no other way, has come into existence the social tyranny of religious dogmas. Certain men have made God in their own image, and have, in the course of centuries, imposed their own handiwork upon whole nations, mainly by means of the organising ability of their more ambitious successors. Even to-day such prophets frequently arise, both within and without thewalls of lunatic asylums. Each one declares that he alone possesses the true revelation.

The divine injunctions vary considerably according to the different religions, and are often mutually contradictory. Among them are commandments relating to the Godhead which have nothing to do with natural moral law, and yet are amalgamated with it. Some of these are from the human point of view frankly immoral. Many, on the other hand, represent the precepts of a more or less suitable moral code, which varies according to the personal views of the founder of the religion.

The Koran ordains polygamy and forbids the use of wine, while modern Christianity allows the latter and ordains monogamy. Both Moses and Mohammed, however, regard woman as subordinate to man, and as his private property; a view which contradicts a higher and at the same time a more natural moral law.

Mental science has now the hardihood to maintain, Kant and the religious dogmasnotwithstanding, that the moral law is completely accessible to its investigations; that true human ethics can be founded upon human nature alone; that the dogmas and commandments of pretended revelation serve only to check a progressively higher development of morals; and that the dogma which holds out promises of heaven or threats of hell in the hereafter is in its effect actually immoral, inasmuch as it seeks to regulate the moral conduct of men by purely selfish motives—by the aid of a bill of exchange upon the future life, so to speak.

In order to understand natural human ethics we must consider its natural source, that is to say, the origin of the sense of duty or social conscience.

The sense of duty is, as an inclination, inborn, and therefore hereditary. It can indeed be developed or dulled by education, but it cannot be acquired; and only diseases of the brain can destroy it where it onceclearly exists. What is actually inculcated or acquired, as the case may be, is not the conscience, but the object towards which it is directed, as is the case with the feeling of shame or modesty. Just as the European woman is ashamed to exhibit her bare legs, but not her face, while with the Turkish woman the reverse holds true, so the objects of the conscience, according to acquired local customs, can be absolutely opposed to one another, or at least very different in their nature. They have, however, for the most part certain features in common, which are suited to the requirements of human nature. The reason for this we shall see below.

From what does conscience, or the sense of duty, arise? First of all from a conflict between two groups of instinctive emotions allied with instinctive impulses: (1) the group of so-called egoistic feelings and impulses, directed towards self-preservation andself-gratification; and (2) the group of sympathetic or altruistic impulses directed towards the preservation and well-being of others.

If I feel sympathy or love for a person, an animal, or an object, I suffer personally and feel displeasure as soon as the object of my sympathy suffers or is endangered. Hence the words compassion and sympathy (suffering with). I therefore seek to help the object of my sympathy, to save him even at the risk of personal injury; and thence the conflict arises. If my egotism triumphs I do not come to his aid, or at most only do so if I risk nothing thereby. If, on the other hand, my sense of sympathy is victorious, I sacrifice myself.

In the former instance I experience a feeling of dissatisfaction, the feeling of neglected duty and of remorse; in the latter I have the pleasurable sensation of duty fulfilled. And yet the nature of the object matters little. Only the intensity of the sympathy, together with the individual development of the conscience, determine theintensity of the sense of duty in any given case. An insane person can feel the most vehement sense of duty or remorse without any real object, or as the result of entirely perverted conceptions.

As every living creature, particularly if it possesses a separate nervous system, has the instinct of self-preservation, the conscience therefore results directly from the conflict between this instinct and the secondary emotions of altruistic sympathy. These latter are of later origin, and have for the most part been evolved from the attraction between the sexes (sexual love), or from the relationship of parents to the offspring dependent upon them (parental love).

The first feelings of duty and of sympathy in the animal kingdom are therefore confined to the family, and adapted to the preservation of the species. They are also exclusive, and may only persist for a short time (as in the case of cats), but frequently they are of lifelong duration. The conjugal fidelity of certain apes and parrots is exemplary.

But the necessity of protection against common foes brought about in the case of many animals a ripening of the sense of sympathy, and it became extended to whole groups, so that here and there free communities (swallows, buffaloes, monkeys) have resulted. Finally certain species have developed the senses of sympathy and duty to such an extent that they have led to a complete anarchistic Socialism, as is the case among wasps, bees, and ants. Here the social sense has so far overcome both egotism and altruism limited to a few individuals that it wholly dominates them. The individual devotes his whole energy and labour to the communal existence, and even sacrifices his life for this object. He never, however, sacrifices his life for another single member of the community, unless the latter is of primary importance for the maintenance of the species. One worker-bee does not immolate itself for another, but does so without hesitation for the queen and the hive. It will even empty the whole contents of itsstomach into the queen bee’s mouth and starve in order to save her. The altruism of the ants and the bees knows nothing of family affection or sexual love; it is confined absolutely to the hive or nest. Different beehives or ants’ nests are either inimical or indifferent to one another.

Nearer to man stand the higher mammals. Every one is aware of the sentiments of sympathy and duty in the dog, for instance. In man himself these affections are pre-eminently domestic, as may be seen in the love of mother and child, husband and wife, father and son, and in all the obligations thus contracted. But they also have a considerable tendency to extend to other intimate objects or persons with whom the individual frequently comes into contact—to friends, animals, etc.

We can also observe this inclination among bees and ants, where strangers are received into the hive or nest after a short period of familiarisation. But among mankind the tendency always maintains a strongly individualcharacter. The result is on the one hand a grouping into communities, such as castes, tribes, and nations; and on the other a host of individual friendships and enmities.

This fundamentally individual character of the human sense of sympathy rests primarily upon the fact that our nearest ancestors in the animal world, the parents of the existing anthropoid apes, were domestic and solitary, while our primeval ancestors lived in numberless tiny communities, inimical to one another.

In this way there appeared among mankind instinctive and exclusive impulses of sympathy and of duty, combined with intensely selfish predatory desires. The extraordinary complexity of the human brain is responsible for the strange many-sidedness of character which resulted. For example, crime and heroism developed side by side; child murder, parricide, rapine and robbery, slavery, war, and in particular the vilest subjugation of woman as an article of commerce or a beast of burden—these representthe fruits of egotism and its attendant cunning and meanness. On the other hand we see self-sacrifice, valour, heroic martyrdom, patriotism, sense of justice, asceticism, pity for the weak, and persistent labour for the family and the State, resulting as the fruits of the instinct of sympathy and the social sense.

The primitive sense of duty, which arose from direct assistance rendered to the object of sympathy, is now being enlarged by a higher racial and individual development, and is, indeed, resolving itself into a universal inclination to subdue egoistic instincts and passions.

If from a sense of duty I do something which is wearisome or dangerous, it is for the most part no longer out of direct sympathy with the particular object. The primeval impulse (which led to conflict) is becoming independent, and is taking the form of a higher and secondary instinct, tending towards the suppression of baser desires and weaknesses. And yet it is necessary, inorder to prevent the degeneration of this instinct, that the objects towards which it is directed shall be ever more adequately and better suited to the social welfare of the community.

From the above brief sketch, which is based upon the theory of evolution and the researches of science, it is clear as the day that moral laws can only be relative. They were always relative to the family, to the tribe, to the fatherland; they must become relative to mankind. The racial (that is, inherited and instinctive) social sense in man is unfortunately very variable in individual cases. In the average it is extremely weak and chiefly directed towards a few individuals. Moreover, as the result of centuries of bad habits and ancient prejudices, its objects are falsely or unsuitably taught in process of educating children. Instead of the child’s sense of duty being directed to the necessity of labour and social sacrifice for mankind as a wholeand posterity in particular, it is directed towards false codes of honour, local patriotism, family exclusiveness, private property, pretended divine commandments, and so forth.

The Earth is small, and human intercourse becomes more extensive every year; the union of all civilised peoples into a single great civilised community isinevitable. Ethics must, therefore, as far as reason permits, be directed towards this object. We require animals and plants in order to live, so that we can further extend our altruism at most to a moderate protection of other animals, if we are to avoid injury to our own race. We may remark in passing that the altruism of many lovers of animals, who prefer their favourite pets to human beings and to the social welfare, is typical of the exclusiveness and stupidity of misdirected impulses of sympathy.

Morality must therefore in the future consist of a common social impulse—it must itself become social. This impulse must overthrow not only egotism, but also the exclusivenessof individual sympathies. We are still, alas, far from this goal! The family is often a thieves’ kitchen; patriotism is a prolific parent of wars; while communities and societies, however noble their objects may be, readily degenerate into petty sects and cliques.

And now comes yet another difficulty, namely, the frequent lack of harmony between the ethical motives which inspire an action and its real moral value.

“Ich binEin Theil von jener KraftDie stets das Böse willUnd stets das Gute schafft,”

“Ich bin

Ein Theil von jener Kraft

Die stets das Böse will

Und stets das Gute schafft,”

says Mephistopheles in Goethe’sFaust.[B]Let us say often instead of always, and mention also that other Power which often wills the good and yet does the evil, and we have the well-known picture of the intelligent, ambitious egotist, who, without any sense of duty, achieves great and good results; and thatof the foolish, infatuated altruist, who devotes the whole might of his zeal for duty to the service of socially pernicious forces!

[B]“I am a part of that power which always wills the evil and always does the good.”

As a result of exaggerating the above-mentioned phenomena certain theorists have imagined that ethics can be founded upon pure egotism. But this is a mistake. Without the altruistic impulses of sympathy and duty among its individual members no common social existence can thrive; on the contrary, it must degenerate.

The power of the emotions in man is much too strong to allow of any other result. Any one who imagines that he is completely master of his emotions makes, if possible, a still greater mistake than one who avows that he has never lied, or that his actions are governed by free-will. All human morality is bound up with these impulses and emotions. Socialism, for instance, will become moral, or else it will not come to pass. Without the support of the social conscience ofmankind it cannot become moral. Every effort must therefore be directed towards strengthening the social conscience.

The falsity of the theory of absolute good and evil is demonstrated by the whole disposition of a world in which living creatures are designed to prey upon one another. When a spider devours a fly it is good for the spider and bad for the fly. The ethical value of the act itself is therefore purely relative.

It is just the same with human ethics. To attempt to explain all the evil in the world by the sin of Adam is to attribute a miserable incapacity to God. The same holds true of the attempts of certain modern Protestants to set up the dogma of a progressive revelation, in order to bring the older dogmas into harmony with the theory of evolution and descent. All these halting exegeses are only new models of the artificial drags which theology seeks to impose upon the free research of science.

Altruism and egotism stand only in relativeopposition. Among ants and bees they are instinctively adjusted to one another with wonderful harmony, and are rarely, if ever, found in conflict. This result can and must be striven after by mankind, however great may be the difficulties presented by our hereditary nature. For its achievement a harmonious co-operation of the hereditary social conscience with reason and knowledge is absolutely necessary.

I must briefly mention two other points. Firstly, morality and social or race hygiene become one and the same thing directly we include in our conception of hygiene a healthy condition of the brain or soul, and subordinate the individual hygiene to that of society in general. Then everything socially unhygienic is immoral, and everything immoral socially unhygienic. If, for instance, I ruin a healthy, active member of society, in order possibly to achieve the salvation of an incurably diseased criminal, I am committing, although from altruistic motives, an act which is injurious from the point of viewboth of ethics and social hygiene, and therefore evil and immoral.

Secondly, the boundaries of jurisprudence and of ethics are by no means clear. Jurisprudence is more narrowly confined. It has no right to lay claim to or to pass a verdict upon everything which ethics may discover or attain. Laws and the constraint they imply are a necessary evil, a crutch for the lame and defective social conscience. They must be reduced to an indispensable minimum. The ethical and social instincts, on the other hand, can never be too highly developed. Humanity must gradually develop in the future to such a point that jurisprudence may be completely replaced by an instinctive and inculcated social impulse.

“Es erben sich Gesetz und RechteWie eine ew’ge Krankheit fort.”[C]

“Es erben sich Gesetz und Rechte

Wie eine ew’ge Krankheit fort.”[C]

[C]“Laws and statutes pass on in heritage, like an eternal disease.”—Goethe,Faust.

In order now properly to understand our actual subject, viz. sexual ethics, we must state the fact that an action, as well as themotives which inspire it, may be either (1)ethically positive, i.e. good; (2)ethically negative, i.e. evil; or (3)ethically indifferent, i.e. without any relation to morals.

In their relationship to morals an action and its motive may be completely independent of one another, as we have already seen.

We must further note that there are various degrees of duty, and that from this cause conflicts may arise. There are duties towards one’s self, which serve to increase the worth, and particularly the social worth, of the individual by self-culture and education. In these days of effeminate culture it is too often forgotten that self-discipline and restraint, and even a certain degree of asceticism, fit the individual for freedom and happiness, while the craving for pleasure makes him useless and dependent.

Then there are duties towards the family and those nearer to us, towards the State, towards existing Humanity, and towards posterity. This last duty is the highest of all. Everything that we enjoy to-day in cultureand knowledge we owe to the toil, the suffering, and often the martyrdom of our forefathers. Our most sacred duty is, therefore, to secure for our descendants a loftier, happier and worthier existence than our own.

Speaking generally, a rational system of morals must subordinate the welfare of the individual to that of the community at large. A man who is unprejudiced and possesses the ethical and social instinct will therefore hold it as a principle first of all to do no man any injury; then to develop his own individuality as highly as possible, which will be both for his own good and that of the community; and as far as in him lies to be of service to others and to Humanity.

From this we may derive the following commandment of sexual ethics:—

Thou shalt take heed in thy sexual desire, in its manifestations in thy soul, and chiefly in thy sexual acts, that thou do no hurt to thyself nor another, nor, above all, to the race of men; but shalt strive with thy might to increase the worth of each and all.

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