266 Evolution of Morals. 



be manifested in the order of the galaxies, or in the orderly 

 impulse to right action which we term Conscience or Duty. 



Perhaps the modus operandi of moral evolution may be 

 better understood by studying the psychological principles 

 underlying the entire process of organic development from 

 yet another point of view. The growth of the manifold 

 faculties of sentient organisms can only be understood on 

 the fundamental assumption that life is inherently good, 

 and that each successive stage in the evolution of life is 

 productive, on the whole, of an increase in the sum total of 

 subjective satisfactions.* In order to survive in the strug- 

 gle for existence, each organism and race must adapt itself 

 to its environment. Upon its greater or less degree of 

 adaptability depends the amount of conscious satisfaction 

 which it derives from the use of its faculties — or, in other 

 words, from its conscious life.t The experience of this 

 satisfaction from right adjustment, and of the pains conse- 

 quent upon mal-adjustment, has been the immediate motive- 

 power in effecting social and moral evolution. The higher 

 organisms are doubtless susceptible of greater pain and 

 suffering than the lower ; but this must be more than 

 counterbalanced, on the whole, by an increase of satisfac- 

 tions, or the life of the individual and the race would come 

 to an end. The suffering to which conscious beings are 

 subjected is not, therefore, an essential quality of life ; it 

 is the result of some interference with its spontaneous and 

 perfect manifestation. Life itself, in its essential quality, 

 is good. All organisms, consciously or unconsciously, seek 

 instinctively or voluntarily for more abundant life, and find 

 their health and satisfaction in its achievement. Conscious 

 volition, in this particular, simply follows the path made 

 for it by the inherited sum total of past involuntary and 

 unconscious experiences. It testifies to the immanence in 

 the organism of a universal biological law. 



It naturally follows that those actions which tend to 

 adapt the organism to its environment, though they may at 

 first be attended with pain, and demand effort or self-denial, 

 and are perhaps initiated only by reason of the imperative 



* Spencer's Principles of Psychology. 



t "Life" is denned by Mr. Spencer as " the continuous adjustment of internal 

 relations to external relations" (Principles of Psychology). This expression is 

 synonymous with the one we have used — "the adaptation of the organism to 

 the environment." Life is adjustment, or adaptation, involving a movement 

 or process, tending toward a condition of harmony or equilibrium between the 

 organism and the totality of its environing conditions. 



