Darwinism in Ethics. 155 



tues, and not injustice and lying ? For if these 

 vices, or others, had enabled those primitive semi- 

 human societies to survive, they would not have 

 been vices, but virtues ; for virtue is nothing but 

 a useful means of social survival. &quot;Will not evo 

 lution, then, as thus interpreted, work revolution 

 in our views of the moral nature of man, since 

 it implies that morality is not grounded in the 

 nature of things, but something purely relative 

 to man s circumstances a happy device whereby 

 man s ancestors managed to cohere in a united 

 society and so kill out rival and disunited groups ? 

 Now, it is not necessary to deny either the so 

 cial utility of morals or the influence of heredity 

 in order to show that, whatever the first appear 

 ance, evolution is not in reality revolution in the 

 sphere of man s moral nature. It is no doubt ^, 

 true that heredity supplies us with much of the 

 material out of which we make our characters. 

 But it is only by an oversight that we identify 

 our character with the inherited elements out of 

 which we form it. As Aristotle profoundly ob 

 served, nature does not make us good or bad, 

 she only gives us the capacity of becoming good 

 or bad that is, of moulding our own characters. 

 Emphasize as you will, then, the bulk of the in 

 heritance I have received from my ancestors, it 



