GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY 



minor unfitnesses which further complicate the 

 emotional disturbance, and disarrange the nor- 

 mal relations between incentives and actions. 

 We need not, therefore, be surprised at the fact 

 that men often find pleasure in detrimental ac- 

 tivities ; nor need we endorse the Puritanic or 

 ascetic theory, suggested partly by the contem- 

 plation of this fact, " that painful actions are 

 beneficial and pleasurable actions detrimental." 

 For if this were to any considerable extent the 

 case, sentient life would inevitably disappear 

 from the face of the earth. The cases which we 

 have cited belong to ethical pathology. And 

 just as pathologic phenomena do not invali- 

 date the laws of physiology, just as the dyna- 

 mic theory of life is not invalidated by the fact 

 that maladjustments are continually met with, 

 so neither do cases of moral disease invalidate 

 the corollary which inevitably follows from the 

 Doctrine of Evolution — " that pleasures are 

 the incentives to life-supporting acts, and pains 

 the deterrents from life-destroying acts." 



We are now prepared to deal with the phe- 

 nomena of Right and Wrong, and to notice 

 how they become distinguished from the phe- 

 nomena of Pleasure and Pain. Though the 

 foregoing discussion forms the basis for a gen- 

 eral doctrine of morality, it is nevertheless an 

 inadequate basis, until properly supplemented. 

 The existence of a moral sense has purposely 

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