106 LESSONS FKOM NATUEE. [CHAP. V. 



to the incipient stages of our bodily structures. For the 

 distinction between the &quot;right&quot; and the &quot;useful&quot; is so 

 fundamental and essential that not only does the idea of 

 benefit not enter into the idea of duty, but we see that the 

 very fact of an act not being beneficial to us makes it the 

 more praiseworthy, while gain tends to diminish the merit 

 of an action. Yet this idea, &quot; right,&quot; thus excluding, as it 

 does, all reference to utility 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 evolution 

 of man s psychical nature and highest powers by the ex 

 clusive action of &quot; Natural Selection &quot; from such 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 appetites, in all conceivable directions. 



It is here contended, on the other hand, that no con 

 servation of any such variations could ever have given rise 

 to the faintest beginning of any such moral perceptions; 

 that by &quot; Natural Selection &quot; alone the maxim fiat justitia, 

 mat coelum could not have been excogitated, still less have 

 found a widespread acceptance ; that it is impotent to sug 

 gest even an approach towards an explanation of t\\e first be 

 ginning of the idea of &quot; right.&quot; It need hardly be remarked 

 that acts may be distinguished not only as pleasurable, useful, 

 or beautiful, but also as good, in two different senses ; (1) 

 Materially materially moral acts, and (2) acts which are form- 

 moraiacts. ally moral. The first are acts good in themselves. 

 as acts, apart from any intention of the agent which may or 

 may not have been directed towards the right. The second 

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

 also in the deliberate intention of the agent who recognises 

 his actions as being &quot; right.&quot; Thus, acts may be materially 

 moral or immoral in a very high degree, without being in 

 the least formally so. For example, a person may tend and 

 minister to a sick man with scrupulous care and exactness, 



