CHAP, xi DARWINISM IN MORALS" in 



Now plainly there is an ambiguity here. In the 

 previous chapters, for the most part, we have been dealing 

 with a scientific analogy, consciously lifted out of one 

 region of thought and introduced into another, coming 

 no doubt with a great deal of authority, but still 

 presenting itself to view, and continuing to be regarded, 

 as a foreign visitor. We shall still find such a course 

 followed in some instances by writers who are employing 

 Darwinian clues and modes of thought. The doctrine 

 of struggle for existence may be applied to other things 

 besides plants or animals, to competing states, or types 

 of society, or types of ethical thought. But there is a 

 nearer way in which Darwinism may bear upon our 

 problems. Man himself as an organism is brought 

 within the range of Darwinian theories. In connection 

 with the assertion of man's descent from brute races, 

 fresh light of a lurid kind, as many will think 

 is made to fall upon the problems of ethics ; and 

 questions as to social origins will run back into questions 

 regarding human origin by process of evolution. 



When the world first heard of "Darwinism in 

 Morals " from Miss Frances Power Cobbe, it was to this 

 latter bearing of the Darwinian theories that she called 

 attention by a resonant protest. Darwin like Leslie 

 Stephen after him, but with a distincter reference to 

 animal ancestors of the human race explained morality 

 from sympathy, and from the interests of the species. 

 In particular, he laid it down that the social instinct, 

 with intelligence added to it, would sufficiently explain 

 the origin of moral ideas. This shocked Miss Cobbe's 

 intuitionalist prepossessions ; she could not bear to see 

 moral ideas analysed, as if they were compounded of 

 other, and these non-moral, elements. But above all, 

 Miss Cobbe was aroused to natural indignation by 



