THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY 53 



quasi-miraculous origin of morality with the growth of human 

 or at least the higher animal societies. 



It is my chief object in this chapter to emphasise the more 

 hopeful and creditable gospel of evolution as now widely held, in 

 which the law of co-operation is recognised as equally basic in 

 nature with that of competition, and as having an equally ancient 

 and more progressive application, so as to form in the advanced 

 stages of biological and human development the really and 

 increasingly predominant factor. 



Even in a relatively recent work on The New Scientific System 

 of Morality by Mr. G. Gore, F.RS., we find the following: 



All kinds of animals, men included, torture, kill, and eat each other ; 

 the land, sea, and air are one vast shamble ; kill or be killed, and eat or 

 be eaten are great facts in nature. 



Great facts indeed ! But how are we to assess these facts ? 

 And what becomes of our ideas respecting morality and its basis 

 in Nature if we consider these facts as representing the norm of 

 life, when in reality they represent but the degenerative or 

 abnormal phase of life ? The same writer informs us that " as 

 pain and pleasure are states of the nervous system, morality is 

 based upon physiology." 



Granted, but is morality to be based on such a physiology as 

 chooses to look upon Symbiosis as the negative pole and upon 

 its opposite, namely, depredation as the positive pole ? The 

 difference matters everything in interpretation, and the reader 

 will thus catch a glimpse of the vast difference of issues at stake 

 between the two forms of activity, i.e., of conduct. 



It was thus unfortunately held to be an essential of the new 

 (Darwinian) revelation, that a long protracted, reckless, colossal, 

 and habitual infliction of pain had directly led to the most exalted 

 results in the world. Natural Science seemed to support the view 

 that war, with its tyrannies and brutalities, was the parent of 

 all progress. 



Contrary to this view and to Darwin's opinion, the most 

 exalted results of evolution are now seen to be directly due to 

 what was going on in the shape of inconspicuous and thus scarcely 

 noticed sympathetic and reciprocal processes hidden beneath 

 the surface with its show of martial activities, which could only 

 be said at most to have indirectly furthered the cause of progress 

 in spite of their many and obvious effects in the other direction. 

 Spencer himself points out : 



