Darwinism in Ethics, 117 



the national ethics. He remembered distinctly, 

 as he wrote Haeckel, how on reading Malthus s 

 &quot; Essay on Population &quot; the thought of a uni 

 versal struggle for existence first flashed upon his 

 mind. But he could not remember, so early, so 

 gradual, so subtly pervasive is the entrance of 

 ethical ideas, when he had become inoculated with 

 the national utilitarianism. Yet it can scarcely 

 be doubted that it was from this source he ex 

 tracted the notion of utility as determinator of 

 the issue of the combat for existence. No one 

 uninfluenced by the ethics of the school of Plume 

 and Bentham would have ventured to interpret 

 the evolution of life as a continuous realization of 

 utilities. And yet the survival of the fittest, by 

 which, according to Darwin, development is ef 

 fected, just means the preservation of the most 

 useful modifications of structure or habit. &quot;Any 

 being, if it vary, however slightly, in any man 

 ner profitable to itself&quot; says Darwin, &quot;will have 

 a better chance of surviving, and thus be natu 

 rally selected.&quot; Or, in other words, before the 

 operation of natural selection there must be a 

 utility of some kind on which it acts. What is 

 useful is preserved, what is harmful is destroyed. 

 &quot;Nature cares nothing for appearances, except 

 in so far as they may be useful to any being.&quot; 



