IX.] EVOLUTION AND ETHICS. 219 



be to admit the very principle of absolute morality which 

 Sir John combats. It must be meant, then, that authority 

 is obeyed through fear of the consequences of disobedience, 

 or through pleasure felt in obeying the authority which 

 commands. In the latter case we have "pleasure" as the 

 end and no rudiment of the conception of " duty." In the 

 former we have fear of punishment, which appeals directly 

 to the sense of " utility to the individual," and no amount 

 of such a sense will produce the least germ of " ought," 

 which is a conception different in kind, and in which the 

 notion of " punishment " has no place. Thus, Sir John 

 Lubbock's explanation only concerns a mode in which the 

 sense of " duty " may be stimulated or appealed to, and 

 makes no approximation to an explanation of its origin. 



Could the views of Mr. Herbert Spencer, of Mr. Mill, or 

 of Mr. Darwin, on this subject be maintained, or should they 

 come to be generally accepted, the consequences would be 

 disastrous indeed ! Were it really the case that virtue was 

 a mere kind of " retrieving" then certainly we should have 

 to view with apprehension the spread of intellectual culti- 

 vation, which would lead the human " retrievers " to regard 

 from a new point of view their fetching and carrying. We 

 should be logically compelled to acquiesce in the vocifera- 

 tions of some Continental utilitarians, who would banish 

 altogether the senseless words " duty " and " merit ; " and 

 then, one important influence which has aided human prog- 

 ress being withdrawn, we should be reduced to hope that 

 in this case the maxim cessante causa cessat ipse effectus 

 might through some incalculable accident fail to apply. 



It is true that Mr. Spencer tries to erect a safeguard 

 against such moral disruption, by asserting that for every 

 immoral act, word, or thought, each man during this life 

 receives minute and exact retribution, and that thus a re- 

 gard for individual self-interest will effectually prevent any 

 moral catastrophe. But by what means will he enforce the 



