n6 Natural Selection in Morals. 



be absolutely disconnected with the hypotheses of 

 biology. Leaving Darwin the moralist, therefore, 

 wholly aside, we would fain settle whether Dar 

 win the naturalist, in establishing the function 

 of natural selection, thereby predetermined ethics 

 to a particular form or invested its phenomena 

 with a new cast of thought. And this point can 

 be resolved only by ignoring the uncritical assump 

 tions of the school and undertaking afresh an in 

 dependent consideration of the facts and analysis 

 of the notions which the Darwinian theory in 

 volves. 



That theory, as already expounded, consists 

 essentially of two moments the struggle for life 

 and the survival of the fittest. The former con 

 nects it historically and logically with Malthusi- 

 anism, and may be considered as an applica 

 tion of the famous doctrine of population to the 

 whole organic world. That is to say, the strug 

 gle for life follows inevitably from the enor 

 mous increase of living beings beyond the means 

 of subsistence, as first pointed out in the case of 

 man by Malthus. This debt to the national po 

 litical economy Darwin has openly acknowledged. 

 But it has not been observed that the other mo 

 ment of his theory the issue of the struggle 

 was conditioned by a conception borrowed from 





