220 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [Chap. 



all reference to lUility or pleasure, has nevertheless to be 

 constructed and evolved from utility and pleasure, and 

 ultimately from pleasurable sensations, if we are to accept 

 pure Darwinianism : if we are to accept, that is, the evolu- 

 tion of man's psychical nature and highest powers, by 

 the exclusive action of "Natural Selection," from sucli 

 faculties as are possessed by brutes ; in other words, if 

 we are to believe that the conceptions of the highest 

 human morality arose through minute and fortuitous 

 variations of brutal desires and aj)petites in all conceivable 

 directions. 



It is here contended, on the other hand, that no conser- 

 vation of any such variations could ever have given rise to 

 the faintest beginning of any such moral perceptions ; that 

 by "Natural Selection" alone the maxim ^^^ justitia, ruat 

 ccehim, could not have been excogitated, still less have 

 found a widespread acceptance ; that it is impotent to 

 suggest even an approach towards an explanation of the 

 first hcffinning of the idea of " right." It need hardly be 

 remarked that acts may be distinguished not only as plea- 

 surable, useful, or beautiful, but also as good, in two dif- 

 ferent senses : (1) materially moral acts, and (2) acts 

 which diXQ formally moral. The first are acts good in them- 

 selves, as acts, apart from any intention of the agent which 

 may or may not have been directed towards " right." Tlu^ 

 second are acts which are good not only in themselves, as 

 acts, but also in the deliberate intention of the agent who 

 recognizes his actions as being " right." Thus acts may be 

 inatcmally moral or immoral, in a very high degree, with- 

 out being in the \Q^^i formally so. For example, a person 

 may tend and minister to a sick man witli scrupulous care 

 and exactness, having in view all the time nothing but the 



