CHAP, x "SCIENCE OF ETHICS" IOQ 



biological evolutionism has done for Mr. Stephen. 

 It is not indeed strictly necessary for his argument. 

 There might be evolution in human society, with the 

 moral law as its ideal goal, even if there were no evo- 

 lution of species in the infra-human world. The 

 "typical bow" which is "felt out" might point us to 

 Mr. Stephen's conception of morality as the true type 

 of our own social being, even if there were no evi- 

 dence that "the animal . . . feels itself out." 1 But 

 there would not be the same trace or hint of authority 

 in Mr. Stephen's evolutionary interpretation of morals, 

 did we not believe in the origin of species by a process 

 of evolution. Morality is vindicated when we see that 

 all nature, or all animated nature, toils upwards, and 

 that our goal, if not as individuals, yet as a race, is 

 moral goodness. The morally good society is the 

 typically human society ; the morally good individual, 

 so far as he is good, is qualified for membership in 

 that society. Here, however, a difficulty arises. 

 Mr. Stephen renews his warning against a doctrine 

 of absolute or ideal ethics. The type is a real type 

 in the actual present, a type constantly modifying 

 itself as the environment alters or as the conditions 

 of struggle change. Yet on the whole the broad out- 

 lines of the type are fixed ; the cardinal virtues are 

 recognised on all hands, very nearly as they have 

 been blocked out by Mr. Stephen ; and we may say 

 in general terms that morality represents the human 

 ideal the demand addressed by the race to every 

 individual. Here as elsewhere, Professor Alexander 

 gives us a more extreme position on the lines of Mr. 

 Stephen's tentative suggestions. 



1 P- 79- 



