52 



thing. For example, In which cases do we distinguish as 

 good, a knife, a gun, a house? and what trait leads us to speak 

 of a bad umbrella, or a bad pair of boots? Apart from human 

 wants or purposes, such things are neither good nor bad. 1 

 So in ethical conduct. Observation shows that we apply these 

 terms 'good* and 'bad' according as the adjustment of acts 

 to ends are or are not efficient. In the case of lions and tigers, 

 for example "death by starvation from inability to catch prey 

 (as in old age) shows a falling short of conduct from its ideal." 2 

 "Always then, acts are called 'good* or 'bad' according as 

 they are well or ill adjusted to ends." 3 



In conclusion, the situation may be summed up by quoting 

 a few sentences from Spencer's 'Principles of Ethics'. In his 

 chapter on 'The Sentiment of Justice', he makes the following 

 statement: "Acceptance of the doctrine of organic evolution 

 determines certain ethical conceptions. The doctrine implies 

 that the numerous organs in each of the innumerable species 

 of animals have been either directly or indirectly moulded into 

 fitness for the requirements of life by constant converse with 

 these requirements. Simultaneously, through nervous modifi- 

 cations, there have been developments of the sensations, in- 

 stincts, emotions and intellectual aptitudes, needed for the 

 appropriate uses of these organs. * * * Here we shall assume 

 it to be an inevitable inference from the doctrine of organic 

 evolution that the highest type of living being, no less than of 

 lower types, must go on moulding itself to those requirements 

 which circumstances impose. 4 And we shall, by implication, 

 assume that moral changes are among the changes thus 

 wrought out." 5 



And consequently we may infer, as Spencer also states, 

 that "the evidence set forth in the foregoing chapters must 

 dissipate once for all the belief in a moral sense as commonly 

 entertained." 6 "There needs but a continuance of absolute 

 peace externally and a rigorous insistance on non-aggression 

 internally, to ensure the moulding of men into a form naturally 

 characterized by all the virtues. 7 * * * We have to deal with 

 Man as a product of Evolution, with Society as a product of 



KXC. 8. 



2 O.C. 6. 



a O.C. 8. 



4 That is, human beings "Have their feelings and ideas progressively ad- 

 justed to the modes of life imposed on them by the social state into which 

 they have grown". 



O.C. 261. 



O.C. 191. 



'Ibid. Compare with Hartley "Observations on Man", p. 500. 



