Evolution of Morals. 2,1?> 



ethics is wonderfully broadened l)y the application of the 

 tests required by evolutionary morals. Right action is no 

 mere concern of conventional morality, — an obedience to 

 the " Thou shalt nots " of the formal code. It becomes a 

 matter of positive, all-comprehensive and enduring obliga- 

 tion, insijiring the mind to purity, activity and integrity of 

 thought as well as of deed — to nobility of motive, intelli- 

 gent and conscientious regard for the possible results of 

 action, and a sublime self-consecration to the interests, 

 welfare and happiness of all sentient creatures. The fulness 

 of life which is the end of ethical endeavor being the result 

 of conduct in its ultimate stage of evolution, there will be 

 no conflict between the wisest egoistic and the wisest altru- 

 istic endeavor in the perfect life of society, as governed by 

 an ideal moral standard. In wisely seeking the perfection 

 of self, Ave are seeking the welfare and happiness of others, 

 and vice versa.* The new ethics thus cultivates and justi- 

 fies a manly self-respect instead of the abject self-abnegation 

 demanded hj the old theological dogma of total depravity. 

 "Self-love," it affirms with Shakspeare, "is not so vile a 

 sin as self-neglecting." This attitude is not so widely sepa- 

 rated as may at first appear from the ethics of the Sermon 

 on the Mount, for the obligations implied by the beatitudes 

 and the Golden Rule also find their sanctions and equipoise 

 in self-interest. 



The intuitive moralist finds an insuperable objection to 

 the evolutionary theory of morals, in the fact that its sense 

 of diity is derived. Duty, he says, is an original endow- 

 ment of the human mind — a primitive and imperative in- 

 tuition. Kant, however, the noblest thinker of the tran- 

 scendental school, admits that the moral imperative is merely 

 fornuil ; it simply says we ought, without declaring ichat we 

 ought to do. It tells us that duty exists, but it does not 

 tell us what duty is in any given case. "The only objects 

 of practical reason," says Kant, "are therefore those of 

 good or evil ; but it depends upon experience to find what 

 is good or evil."t An obligation em})ty of content is evi- 

 dently no infallible guide to right action ; and it is difficult 

 to see what advantage the intuitive moralist has over the 

 evolutionist as to the strength of his ethical sanctions, since 

 both theories a,dmit that the sense of obligation is intuitivti 

 in the individual, and both derive the moral content from 



♦Maude's The Foundatioi) of Ethics, t Kant's fritiquo of lYactical Reason. 



