62 ETHICAL ASPECTS OF EVOLUTION 



always and exactly correspond with those of the family, 

 of the nation, and of the species, we are obliged to inquire 

 which of these is the organism to the preservation of which 

 the efforts of nature are directed. If pleasure and advantage 

 always coincide, only one answer is possible. Whatever 

 definition may be given to pleasure, it will not be asserted 

 that it can be felt except by individuals. A collective body 

 can no more be pleased than it can eat and drink. The end 

 of nature must, therefore, be the advantage of the individual. 

 We need not pause to discuss the theories that the pleasure 

 of the individual citizen ought to be the sole business of 

 the State, or that in some remote future individual and 

 collective interests will be reconciled. All that concerns us 

 now is the plain fact that even the simplest form of society 

 implies some degree of conflict between collective and 

 individual interests ; that this conflict becomes more 

 severe and more varied with every development both of the 

 individual and the society, and that, if the object of nature 

 had been the advantage of the individual only, we should 

 require the statement of some other principle to account 

 for the introduction of arrangements which are in constantly 

 increasing opposition to it. That is to say, the algedonic 

 theory of evolution fails in point of comprehension. 



This is far from being the only or even the most important 

 class of fact which the theory fails to account for. It may 

 often be difficult to determine whether certain actions are 

 advantageous or not, but there are some which no licence of 

 special pleading can exhibit in a favourable light, but which 

 are, nevertheless, unmistakably pleasant. 



On the other hand, if not all duties are unpleasant, some 

 certainly are. A single well-established exception would 

 call for an explanation, and there are so many that we are 

 again compelled to recognize the need of some other principle 

 to complete the theory. The existence of unpleasant duties 

 has been met in the same spirit as has declined to admit 

 the existence of evil. When not wholly ignored, it has been 

 denied, or their range has been minimized. We have been 

 told that they are parts of a merely temporal and provisional 



