ON JUSTICE. 183 



ON JUSTICE. 



By HERBERT SPENCER. 

 [Conclu de d. ] 



IV. The Sentiment of Justice. — Acceptance of the doctrine of 

 organic evolution determines certain ethical conceptions. The 

 doctrine implies that the numerous organs in each of the innu- 

 merable species of animals, have been either directly or indirectly 

 molded into fitness for the requirements of life by constant con- 

 verse with those requirements. Simultaneously, through nervous 

 modifications, there have been developments of the sensations, 

 instincts, emotions, and intellectual aptitudes, needed for the ap- 

 propriate uses of these organs ; as we see in caged rodents that 

 exercise their incisors by purposeless gnawing, in gregarious creat- 

 ures which are miserable if they can not join their fellows, in 

 beavers which, kept in confinement, show their passion for dam- 

 building by heaping up whatever sticks and stones they can find. 



Has this process of mental adaptation ended with primitive 

 man ? Are human beings incapable of having their feelings and 

 ideas progressively adjusted to the modes of life imposed on them 

 by the social state into which they have grown ? Shall we sup- 

 pose that the nature which fitted them to the exigencies of sav- 

 age life has remained unchanged, and will remain unchanged, by 

 the exigencies of civilized life ? Or shall we suppose that this 

 aboriginal nature, by repression of some traits and fostering of 

 others, is made to approach more and more to a nature which 

 finds developed society its appropriate environment, and the 

 required activities its normal ones ? There are many believers in 

 the doctrine of evolution who seem to have no faith in the con- 

 tinued adaptability of mankind. While glancing but carelessly 

 at the evidence furnished by comparisons of different human races 

 with one another, and of the same races in different ages, they 

 ignore entirely the induction from the phenomena of life at large. 

 But if there is an abuse of the deductive method of reasoning 

 there is also an abuse of the inductive method. One who refused 

 to believe that a new moon would in a fortnight become full, and, 

 disregarding observations accumulated throughout the past, in- 

 sisted on watching the successive phases for three weeks before he 

 was convinced, would be considered inductive in an irrational 

 degree. But there might not unfairly be classed with him those 

 who. slighting the inductive proof of unlimited adjustability, bod- 

 ily and mental, which the animal kingdom at large presents, will 

 not admit the adjustability of human nature to social life until 

 the adjustment has taken place : nay, even ignore the evidence 

 that it is taking place. 



