122 The Utility of Virtue. 



selection the solid framework of a united and 

 strengthened society. But sympathy and social 

 ity imply fidelity, trustworthiness, truthfulness, 

 obedience, and the like. And as these are useful 

 in the struggle for life being, in fact, means of 

 social survival not less useful are the other virt 

 ues which form the complex tissue of our moral 

 ity. Hence it follows that the moral sentiments, 

 as motors tending to the preservation of the tribe, 

 must, like the mental faculties, be self-preserving 

 and self-accumulating under the utilitarian sway 

 of natural selection. 



This view of the development of the simian 

 quadruped into the moral person by means of 

 natural selection seems to confirm the general 

 impression that utilitarian ethics is the necessary 

 implicate of Darwinian biology. We began by 

 remarking that the biological theory borrowed 

 the notion of utility from empirical morals ; but 

 we must now confess the loan has been so success 

 fully invested that there is some ground for be 

 lieving the proceeds suffice, not only to wipe out 

 the obligation, but even to make ethics debtor 

 to biology. In demonstrating the evolution of 

 plants and animals, organs and functions, in 

 stincts and intelligence and conscience, through 

 the preservation and accumulation of modifica- 



