212 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [CHAP. 



question must be considered), but he has distinctly 

 announced the extension of the application of his theory 

 to the very phenomena in question. He says: 1 "In the 

 distant future I see open fields for far more important 

 researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, 

 that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power 

 and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the 

 origin of man and his history." It may riot be amiss then 

 to glance at the question, so much disputed, concerning 

 the origin of ethical conceptions and its bearing on the 

 theory of " Natural Selection." 2 



The followers of Mr. John Stuart Mill, of Mr. Herbert 

 Spencer, and apparently, also, of Mr. Darwin, assert that 

 in spite of the great present difference between the ideas 

 " useful " and " right," they are, nevertheless, one as to 

 their origin, and that that origin consisted ultimately of 

 pleasurable and painful sensations. 



They say that " Natural Selection " has evolved moral 

 conceptions from perceptions of what was useful, i.e. 

 pleasurable, by having through long ages preserved a 



1 "Origin of Species," 5th edition, 1869, p. 577. 



2 Since the first edition of this work appeared, Mr. Darwin lias fully 

 explained his views as to morality, and has identified the "moral sense" 

 with "stronger and more persistent instincts." No argument, however, 

 has been employed, and no facts adduced, which even tend to answer the 

 objections here urged. Mr. Darwin seems not adequately to recognize 

 the points which require to be met, and while he brings forward instances 

 bearing on the acquisition of materially moral habits (which are utterly 

 trivial and beside the point), he literally does not say one word in ex- 

 planation of the genesis of formal morality (with which we are alone con- 

 cerned), nor even pretend to show how the gregarious instinct of a herd 

 becomes metamorphosed into a common moral judgment. "While therefore 

 the author has the satisfaction of feeling that he has not misrepresented 

 Mr. Darwin, he also feels that he has nothing whatever substantial to 

 retract, or even to modify, in his former assertions and arguments. 



