CHAP, xiv REACTION FROM DARWINISM HUXLEY 141 



ugliness too ; what survives after struggle is " fittest to 

 survive," but not necessarily best or noblest. Briefly, 

 cosmical and ethical tendencies are opposite. We human 

 beings have to develop our own ideas of justice ; the 

 bad blind world can neither guide nor help us. In the 

 past, struggle was of service when it gave man dominion 

 over the creatures (as theologians express it) a curious 

 hint. But now the remainders of struggle poison man's 

 higher life. 



Perhaps this is seasonable discourse. After all, 

 nature and spirit are different things, and, if philosophy 

 drops below pantheism into downright materialism and 

 atheism, then too probably it will undermine morality. 

 Nevertheless we must not exaggerate the difficulties of 

 the case, or leap prematurely to the sorry conclusion, 

 that nature is in opposition to morality. We are not 

 obliged to rush into either extreme. Because we hesitate 

 to recognise evolution as the key to ethics, we are not 

 bound to regard evolution as anti-ethical. Huxley seems 

 very one-sided when he draws a sharp contrast between 

 the best and those fittest to survive. Bagehot and Mr. 

 Leslie Stephen teach a different lesson. Among human 

 societies it is probably fair to assume that in the majority 

 of cases the most moral are the strongest. So far as 

 that is true of states or of individuals, the "blind" 

 cosmic process does not oppose morality, but acts in its 

 service. The difficulty is at least attenuated. 



A fuller answer to Huxley's perplexities regarding 

 the moral bearings of evolution is to be found in a better 

 view of reason. Morality is a new thing in the creation 

 with the advent of rational man, yet not wholly new. 

 It is the transformation and perfecting of animal ethics 

 not the simple inversion of the cosmic process. But 

 it is a highly significant transformation. Pain also is 



