EDITOR'S TABLE. 



269 



extinction. By the observation, the 

 t]iougbt, the suffering of many, expe- 

 rience is gained, and by self-control 

 and self-direction that experience is 

 applied to the government of life. If 

 the individual, with his narrower per- 

 sonal experience, wishes to share in the 

 general fund of wisdom and morality 

 acquired by the social aggregate to 

 which be belongs, be can only do it 

 by conscious effort. The customary 

 morality of the community is impressed 

 upon birn, in the first place, by public 

 opinion, and it is left to him to check 

 his purely individual impulses in the 

 degree necessary for realizing (per- 

 chance transcending) the social ideal. 

 It may further be observed that the 

 ideal toward which the individual 

 strives is identical with tbe standard 

 of conduct which he is disposed to ex- 

 act from his neighbor. Thus, to each 

 man, conscience is the echo of the de- 

 mands he makes upon others in the 

 matter of conduct. Every man wants 

 truth and justice and kindly help when 

 necessary from his fellow-man; why, 

 then, should he not yield them in re- 

 turn? How can be fail to at least pro- 

 fess a conformity with the standard he 

 sets up for others? And if be contin- 

 ually professes to acknowledge that 

 standard, bow can he fail to strive 

 more or less to adjust himself to it? 

 If this involves conflict, on tbe one 

 band, it promises escape from conflict 

 on the other — the conflict between a 

 man's inner and outer self, between bis 

 professions and his practice. 



We are thus very naturally led to 

 see that tbe sense of effort in the indi- 

 vidual is in no way incompatible with 

 the existence of general tendencies by 

 which human conduct is raised to suc- 

 cessively higher levels. We scarcely 

 gather from our contemporary's article 

 above referred to that he has taken any 

 pains to familiarize himself with the 

 arguments of the evolutionist school. 

 If he will not shun tbe effort needed 

 for this purpose, but will read with 



attention Herbert Spencer's "Data of 

 Ethics," or even so brief a treatise 

 as Mr. Fiske's "Destiny of Man," we 

 think he will find himself confronted 

 with indubitable evidence that there 

 has been an evolution in morals and in 

 thought as well as in physical struct- 

 ure ; and that this has been carried on, 

 in the main, independently of mere in- 

 dividual volition. What the individual 

 has to do is to keep up with the pro- 

 cession, and take a front rank in it 

 if be can ; he does not make the pro- 

 cession, nor can he greatly acceler- 

 ate or retard the speed of its move- 

 ment. 



We might, indeed, turn our con- 

 temporary's argument against him by 

 asking how it is, if a certain moral 

 constitution was imparted to man at 

 the outset, that so much struggle should 

 be involved in getting back to it. Re- 

 version is generally, if not always, an 

 easy process; the difi3cult thing is to 

 add something to the ancestral inherit- 

 ance. Evolutionists say that, if wrong- 

 doing is easier than right-doing, it is 

 because wrong-doing implies falling 

 back on the more deeply implanted 

 primitive instincts, and right-doing tbe 

 exercise of more recently acquired and 

 morally higher instincts. To be sen- 

 sual merely requires a yielding to ap- 

 petite; to be unjust, a compliance with 

 some selfish motive; to be cruel, the 

 indulgence of the instinct for destruc- 

 tion. Primitive man, wherever we 

 find him, is sensual, unjust, and cruel ; 

 and the hoodlums and ruffians of our 

 great towns show to-day the same 

 characteristic. If, then, men have to 

 struggle in order to be moral, in order 

 to attain to " righteousness," it is be- 

 cause tbe higher moral attributes are 

 of comparatively recent development, 

 and not as yet as thoroughly worked 

 into human nature as the primitive, 

 self-regarding instincts. We are glad 

 to have had this opportunity of dis- 

 cussing an important and interesting 

 question; and we trust the "Journal of 



