220 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [CHAP. 



all reference to utility or pleasure, has nevertheless to be 

 constructed and evolved from utility and pleasure, and 

 ultimately from pleasurable sensations, if we are to accept 

 pure Darwinianism : if we are to accept, that is, the evolu- 

 tion of man's psychical nature and highest powers, by 

 the exclusive action of "Natural Selection," from such 

 faculties as are possessed by brutes ; in other words, if 

 we are to believe that the conceptions of the highest 

 human morality arose through minute and fortuitous 

 variations of brutal desires and appetites in all conceivable 

 directions. 



It is here contended, on the other hand, that no conser- 

 vation of any such variations could ever have given rise to 

 the faintest beginning of any such moral perceptions ; that 

 by "Natural Selection" alone the maxim fiat justitia, mat 

 ccelum, could not have been excogitated, still less hav-e 

 found a widespread acceptance ; that it is impotent to 

 suggest even an approach towards an explanation of the 

 first beginning of the idea of " right." It need hardly be 

 remarked that acts may be distinguished not only as plea- 

 surable, useful, or beautiful, but also as good, in two dif- 

 ferent senses : (1) materially moral acts, and (2) acts 

 which are formally moral. The first are acts good in them- 

 selves, as acts, apart from any intention of the agent which 

 may or may not have been directed towards " right." The 

 second are acts which are good not only in themselves, as 

 acts, but also in the deliberate intention of the agent who 

 recognizes his actions as being " right." Thus acts may be 

 materially moral or immoral, in a very high degree, with- 

 out being in the le&st formally so. For example, a person 

 may tend and minister to a sick man with scrupulous care 

 and exactness, having in view all the time nothing but the 



