INTRODUCTION 



n 



Fiske's contribution to the ethical and re- 

 ligious PROBLEMS IN THE " COSMIC PHI- 

 LOSOPHY " 



26. With chapter xxii., on "Genesis of Man, 

 Morally," we pass to a decidedly more inde- 

 pendent and original discussion than any of 

 those that have preceded in the course of these 

 volumes. The chapter opens, indeed, very much 

 as if it were to be confined to the form of devel- 

 opment of moral principles usual in statements 

 of utilitarian hedonism. But it soon appears that 

 Fiske has other interests in the discussion. It is 

 true that for him, as for other evolutionists, the 

 ultimate warrant for ethical distinctions must be 

 closely related to the pleasure-producing tend- 

 encies of good action and the pain-producing 

 tendencies of evil action. It is also true that the 

 biological basis upon which the moral conscious- 

 ness grows must be that " adjustment of an or- 

 ganism to its environment'* of which pleasure 

 and pain give such important symptoms. It is 

 still further true that the evolution of the moral 

 consciousness must be, for Fiske, correlated with 

 that improvement in the structure and functions 

 of the brain which he has discussed in the pre- 

 Ixxviii 



