374 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ethics in no slight measure for its vague generalities and empty decla- 

 mations, and its playing with phrases, and to combat its lack of cir- 

 cumspection. The evolutionists have joined generally with the utilita- 

 rians, but they are not practical ethicists. They could hardly succeed 

 in actually working with their principle in such a compass as Ben- 

 tbam worked with his. 



We come now to consider what is the bearing of the Darwinian 

 doctrine of the struggle for existence upon morals. The objection has 

 been brought against this doctrine, in divers phrases and with a variety 

 of statement, that it leads to extreme demoralization. It can not be 

 denied that Darwin's designation of the principle discovered by him as 

 the " struggle for existence " is not fortunate, and is a metaphor, indi- 

 cating a conscious hostile contention between living beings, each seek- 

 ing the other's destruction, that has no real existence as such. And it 

 will not be disputed that Darwin has been led into errors similar to 

 those embodied in the theory of Malthus ; or that great mischief has 

 been done by the use of the phrase " struggle for existence " by per- 

 sons who have never learned the A B C of ethics, but have still be- 

 lieved themselves called to offer their crudities to the public. But 

 those mistakes are not to be alleged against the principle as such. 



The principle of the natural selection of those beings whose modi- 

 fications best adapt them to the conditions of their life is in the first 

 place only an expression of that which has been, not of that which is 

 to be. It is a law of Nature, not of morals. We are subject to this 

 natural law of organic life, just as we are subject to the law of gravita- 

 tion, or of the persistence of force, wholly without regard to our will. 

 Natural selection is an agent which has operated as the general regu- 

 lator of life upon the actual constitution of what is now existing in the 

 organic world. It is the universal natural force that also regulates hu- 

 man life. And what do we see in human life ? A fearful amount of 

 moral and physical evil which is not prevented, but rather in part be- 

 gotten by that regulator. We make it our task to contend incessantly 

 by our premeditated action against that evil, while we regard the world, 

 which is here without our assistance, not as the best possible, but as 

 something which we must labor to improve and make more rational. 

 What happens through the operation of the universal forces of Nature 

 can not be a moral rule for us ; for those forces produce also everything 

 that is bad. This regulating principle implies that the being which 

 possesses the most advantageous constitution, that is, which is best 

 adapted to the conditions of its existence, has the best chances to 

 maintain itself and to increase ; and it applies to human beings as to 

 all others. The fittest, or best adapted, survive. We have to distin- 

 guish among the life-conditions of man, or in his environment, between 

 the physical and the social factors ; the former regulating in general 

 his physical, the latter his moral constitution. 



What, now, is the moral constitution which enables the individual 



