154 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



dered natural and necessary. Mr. Spencer is undoubtedly an evolu- 

 tionist, but we do not know that there is any distinct warrant for say- 

 ing he is a necessarian. We do not know that he is more embar- 

 rassed by the secular antithesis of free-will and necessity than others 

 have been before him, or are now. Were necessarianism a corollary 

 from evolution, it would be in order to remark that it has also been, 

 with a not uninfluential school of Christian thinkers, a corollary of the 

 conception of the divine nature. Mr. Smith, we observe, records his 

 own objection to the term " free-will " ; remarking that what has inap- 

 propriately passed under that name should rather be defined as " the 

 difference given us by consciousness between moral and physical causa- 

 tion. He thus recognizes moral causation ; and his objection to the ex- 

 pression " free-will " would seem to be grounded on its implied denial 

 of such causation. Mr. Spencer, on his side, objects to the free-will 

 theory because it denies the " cohesions " which demonstrably exist 

 between psychical states. Is it certain that between the two views so 

 great a gulf is fixed that Mr. Smith can afford to snap his fingers in 

 happy security, while contemplating the speculative torments of the 

 author of " The Data of Ethics " ? Seeing, however, that this is a diffi- 

 culty with which human thought has never been able to grapple suc- 

 cessful^, it might be as well to raise no question concerning it. The 

 evolutionist condemns a wrong action on this ground, that it conflicts 

 with some principle of proved utility, or of proved equity the two 

 are really one which, if not as potent so might be desired, still has 

 its place in the mind of the man who has neglected or overridden it. 

 We condemn moral inconsistency just as we do intellectual inconsist- 

 ency. When a man puts forward an opinion we regard as false, our 

 only hope of persuading him that it is false is by bringing into the 

 strongest possible relief some truth or opinion, accepted by him, with 

 which the opinion in question conflicts. Precisely parallel is the pro- 

 cedure when a man performs an act of which w T e disapprove : we call 

 some ethical principle accepted by himself, and acted upon at times 

 by himself, to bear witness against what he has done. By doing so 

 we re-enforce the higher principle, and perhaps bring about shame and 

 repentance for the improper act. 



We have thus tried to deal with the chief objections formulated 

 by Mr. Smith against the evolutionary theory of morals. To speak of 

 that theory as a purely " physical" one (as Mr. Smith does) is hardly 

 correct. Mind, according to Mr. Spencer, is made up of feelings and 

 relations among feelings, and these are not properly physical. Mem- 

 ory and judgment may have a physical basis, but they are not them- 

 selves physical. The evolution of conduct, according to Mr. Spencer, 

 depends wholly upon accretions of capital, so to speak, in conscious- 

 ness. A dim and narrow consciousness renders possible only a most 

 imperfect self-direction ; a clear and highly developed consciousness, 

 on the other hand, gives a correspondingly increased power of self- 



