II EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 79 



Further, I think I do not err in assuming that, 

 however diverse their views on philosophical and 

 religious matters, most men are agreed that the 

 proportion of good and evil in life may be very 

 sensibly affected by human action. I never heard 

 anybody doubt that the evil may be thus increased, 

 or diminished ; and it would seem to follow that 

 good must be similarly susceptible of addition or 

 subtraction. Finally, to my knowledge, nobody 

 professes to doubt that, so far forth as we possess 

 a power of bettering things, it is our paramount 

 duty to use it and to train all our intellect and 

 energy to this supreme service of our kind. 



Hence the pressing interest of the question, to 

 what extent modern progress in natural know 

 ledge, and, more especially, the general outcome 

 of that progress in the doctrine of evolution, is 

 competent to help us in the great work of helping 

 one another ? 



The propounders of what are called the &quot; ethics 

 of evolution,&quot; when the evolution of ethics 

 would usually better express the object of their 

 speculations, adduce a number of more or less in 

 teresting facts and more or less sound arguments, 

 in favour of the origin of the moral sentiments, 

 in the same way as other natural phenomena, by 

 a process of evolution. I have little doubt, for my 

 own part, that they are on the right track ; but as 

 the immoral sentiments have no less been evolved, 

 there is, so far, as much natural sanction for the 



