THE FALLACY OF THE FITTEST 31 



professes to doubt that, so far forth as we possess a 

 power of bettering things, it is our paramount duty 

 to use it and to train all our intellect and energy 

 to this supreme service of our kind. 



Hence the pressing interest of the question, to what 

 extent modern progress in natural knowledge and, 

 more especially, the general outcome of that progress 

 in the doctrine of evolution, is competent to help us 

 in the great work of helping one another. 



The propounders of what are called the " ethics of 

 evolution," when the ' evolution of ethics ' would 

 usually better express the object of their speculations, 

 adduce a number of more or less interesting facts 

 and more or less sound arguments, in favour of 

 the origin of the moral sentiments, in the same way 

 as other natural phenomena, by a process of evolution. 

 I have little doubt, for my own part, that they are 

 on the right track ; but as the immoral sentiments 

 have no less been evolved, there is, so far, as much 

 natural sanction for the one as the other. The thief 

 and the murderer follow nature just as much as the 

 philanthropist. Cosmic evolution may teach us how 

 the good and the evil tendencies of man may have 

 come about ; but, in itself, it is incompetent to furnish 

 any better reason why what we call good is preferable 

 to what we call evil than we had before. Some day, 

 I doubt not, we shall arrive at an understanding of 

 the evolution of the aesthetic faculty ; but all the 

 understanding in the world will neither increase nor 

 diminish the force of the intuition that this is 

 beautiful and that is ugly. 



