CHAPTER IX. 



EVOLUTION AND ETHICS. 



The origin of morals an inquiry not foreign to the subject of this hook. 

 Modern utilitarian view as to that origin. Mr. Darwin's speculation 

 as to the origin of the abhorrence of incest. Cause assigned by him 

 insufficient. Care of the aged and infirm opposed by "Natural Selec- 

 tion;" also self-abnegation and asceticism. Distinctness of the ideas 

 "right" and "useful." Mr. John Stuart Mill. Insufficiency of 

 "Natural Selection" to account for the origin of the distinction 

 between duty and profit. Distinction of moral acts into "material" 

 and "formal." No ground for believing that formal morality exists in 

 brutes. Evidence that it does exist in savages. Facility with which 

 savages may be misunderstood. Objections as to diversity of customs. 

 Mr. Button's review of Mr. Herbert Spencer. Anticipatory character of 

 morals. Sir John Lubbock's explanation. Summary and conclusion. 



ANY inquiry into the origin of the notion of " morality " 

 the conception of "right" may, perhaps, be considered 

 as somewhat remote from the question of the Genesis of 

 Species; the more so since Mr. Darwin at one time dis- 

 claimed any pretension to explain the origin of the higher 

 psychical phenomena of man. His disciples, however, 

 were never equally reticent, and indeed he himself is now 

 not only about to produce a work 1 on man (in which this 



1 The work referred to is the " Descent of Man," which has appeared since 

 the publication of the first edition of this book. Mr. Darwin has therein 

 justified the author's anticipations, and has asserted in the strongest terms 

 the identity in kind of the mental faculties of men and brutes, and has 

 thoroughly confounded our moral judgments with the gregarious instincts 

 of beasts. 



p 2 



