CHAPTER IX. 



EVOLUTION AND ETHICS. 



The ori^fin of morals an in([iury not foreign to the subject of this hook. — 

 JModern utilitarian view as to that origin. — Mr. Darwin's speculation 

 as to the origin of the abhorrence of incest. — Cause assigned b}^ him 

 insufficient. — Care of the aged and intirni opposed by " Natural Selec- 

 tion;" also self-abnegation and asceticism. — Distinctness of the ideas 

 "right" and "useful."— Mr. John Stuart Mill.— Insufficiency of 

 " Natural Selection" to account for the origin of the distinction 

 between duty and profit. — Distinction of moral acts into "matei'iar' 

 and "formal." — No ground for believing that formal morality exists in 

 bi-utes. — Evidence that it does exist in savages. — Facility with which 

 .savages may be misunderstood. — Objections as to diversity of customs. — 

 Mr. Mutton's review of ]\Ir. Herbert Spencer. — Anticipatory character of 

 morals. — Sir John Lubbock's explanation. — Summary and conclusion. 



Any inquiry into the origin of the notion of " morality" — 

 the conception of " riglit " — may, perhaps, be considered 

 as somewhat remote from the question of the Genesis of 

 Species; the more so since ^Mr. Darwin at one time dis- 

 chiimed any pretension to exphxin the.origin of the higher 

 psychical phenomena of man. His disciples, however, 

 were never equally reticent, and indeed he himself is now^ 

 not only about to produce a work^ on man (in which this 



^ The work refen-ed to is the " Descent of j\[an," which has apjteared since 

 the publicatiun of the first edition of tliis book. Mr. Darwin has therein 

 justified the author's anticipations, and has asserted in the strongest terms 

 the identity in kind of the mental faculties of men and brutes, and has 

 thoroughly confounded our moral judgments with the gregarious instincts 

 of beasts. 



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