LITERARY NOTICES. 



707 



duct which ethics deals with, we must study 

 human conduct as a whole, so, fully to un- 

 derstand human conduct as a whole, we must 

 study it as a part of that larger whole con- 

 stituted by the conduct of animate beings 

 in general. Nor is even this whole con- 

 ceived with the needful fullness so long as 

 we think only of the conduct at present 

 displayed around us. We have to regard 

 the conduct now shown us by creatures of 

 all orders as an outcome of the conduct 

 which has brought life of every kind to its 

 present height, and this is tantamount to 

 saying that our preparatory step must be to 

 study the evolution of conduct." 



The second chapter is devoted to " The 

 Evolution of Conduct," and its import may 

 be gathered from the concluding passage: 

 " Guided by the truth that as the conduct 

 with which ethics deals is part of conduct 

 at large, conduct at large must be generally 

 understood before this part can be specially 

 understood ; and guided by the further truth 

 that to understand conduct at large we must 

 understand the evolution of conduct, we 

 have been led to see that ethics has for its 

 subject-matter that form which universal 

 conduct assumes during the last stages of 

 its evolution. We have also concluded that 

 these last stages in the evolution of conduct 

 are those displayed by the highest type of 

 being, when he is forced by increase of 

 numbers to live more and more in presence 

 of his fellows. And there has followed the 

 corollary that conduct gains ethical sanc- 

 tion in proportion as the activities becom- 

 ing less and less militant and more and more 

 industrial are such as do not necessitate 

 mutual injury or hindrance, but consist with 

 and are furthered by cooperation and mu- 

 tual aid." 



The- position here assumed at the outset 

 that morality is a product of evolution is 

 illustrated and confirmed with convincing 

 force throughout the work. Why the moral 

 restraints of conduct are the latest evolved 

 appears by considering the nature of the 

 different kinds of coutrol to which men have 

 been subjected during the unfolding of so- 

 ciety. As fully explained in the " Sociology," 

 society begins only in subordination to vio- 

 lent external restraints. The rule of the 

 despotic chief is the germ which develops 

 into the political control of human conduct. 

 The primitive fear of the ghost of the dead 



chief develops into the superstitious dread 

 of unseen forms, and ultimately becomes 

 that powerful religious control which is so 

 potent in influencing the actions of men. 

 A later developed but definite and power- 

 ful form of restraint upon conduct is the 

 influence of public opinion, or the force of 

 social reprobation. The results of these 

 forms of external coercion are so simple, 

 direct, and easily conceived that they are 

 well fitted to act upon undeveloped natures, 

 and they come into play first in the order of 

 social progress. 



The moral motive to conduct differs from 

 the preceding by recognizing the results that 

 actions naturally produce. As Mr. Spencer 

 remarks : " We are now prepared to see 

 that the restraints properly distinguished 

 as moral are unlike these restraints out of 

 which they evolve, and with which they are 

 long confounded, in this they refer not to 

 the extrinsic effects of actions but to their 

 intrinsic effects. The truly moral deterrent 

 from murder is not constituted by a repre- 

 sentation of hanging as a consequence, or 

 by a representation of tortures in hell as a 

 consequence, or by a representation of the 

 horror and hatred excited in fellow men; 

 but by a representation of the necessary 

 natural results the infliction of death-agony 

 on the victim, the destruction of all his pos- 

 sibilities of happiness, the entailed suffer- 

 ings to his belongings. Neither the thought 

 of imprisonment, nor of divine anger, nor 

 of social disgrace, is that which constitutes 

 the moral check on theft ; but the thought 

 of injury to the person robbed, joined with 

 a vague consciousness of the general evils 

 caused by disregard of proprietary rights. 



" And now we see why the moral feel- 

 ings and correlative restraints have arisen 

 later than the feelings and restraints that 

 originate from political, religious, and social 

 authorities ; and have so slowly, and even 

 yet so incompletely, disentangled themselves. 

 For only by these lower feelings and re- 

 straints could be maintained the conditions 

 under which the higher feelings and re- 

 straints evolve. It is thus alike with the 

 self-regarding feelings and with the other- 

 regarding feelings. The pains which im- 

 providence will bring, and the pleasures to 

 be gained by storing up things for future 

 use and by laboring to get such things, can 

 be habitually contrasted in thought, only 



