192 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS. 



THE preceding article concludes Prof. Huxley's famous Ro- 

 manes Address, the first part of which was given in The 

 Popular Science Monthly for November. As bearing on the 

 author's main contention that the ethical j^rogress of society is 

 opposed to the cosmic process of evolution, the following letter 

 will be read with interest. Ed. 



To the Editor of TJie Popular Science Monthly : 



Sir : He who crosses swords with Prof. Huxley in a dialectical 

 encounter takes his life in both hands. I am not unaware, there- 

 fore, of my temerity in entering the lists against a scholar so fully 

 equipped on all subjects ; and my timidity is greatly increased 

 when I venture to question his interpretation of the law of 

 the "survival of the fittest," a subject upon which he is uni- 

 versally recognized as an authority. Yet it is because of what 

 I deem to be a misinterpretation of that law that goes to the 

 very marrow of a recent discussion by him that I venture to 

 differ with him. 



In his exceedingly thoughtful and suggestive Romanes Lec- 

 ture on Evolution and Ethics, Prof. Huxley maintains that the 

 cosmic process of evolution is directly opposed to the ethical de- 

 velopment of mankind, " that the cosmic process has no sort of 

 relation to moral ends" [see this number of the Monthly, p. 189], 

 and that the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest 

 can never help man toward ethical perfection. " Social progress," 

 he says, " means a checking of the cosmic process at every step, 

 and the substitution for it of another, which may be called the 

 ethical process ; the end of which is not the survival of those 

 who may happen to be the fittest, in respect of the whole of the 

 conditions which exist, but of those who are ethically the best. 

 As I have already urged, the practice of that which is ethically 

 best what we call goodness or virtue involves a course of con- 

 duct which, in all [the Italics are mine] 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 re- 

 quires that the individual shall not merely respect, but shall 

 help his fellows ; its influence is directed not so much to the sur- 

 vival of the fittest, as to the fitting of as many as possible to sur- 

 vive " [pp. 188, 189]. Holding these views it is to be expected that 

 Prof. Huxley should describe man's development in the following 

 words : " Man, the animal, in fact, has worked his way to the 

 headship of the sentient world, and has become the superb animal 



