IX.] EVOLUTION AND ETHICS. 221 



is remarkable for being destitute, at one and the same time, 

 of both authoritative sanction and the support of reason 

 and observation. 



To return to the bearing of moral conceptions on " Nat- 

 ural Selection," it seems that, from the reasons given in 

 this chapter, we may safely affirm : 1. That " Natural Se- 

 lection " could not have produced, from the sensations of 

 pleasure and pain experienced by brutes, a higher degree 

 of morality than was useful ; therefore it could have pro- 

 duced any amount of " beneficial habits," but not abhor- 

 rence of certain acts as impure and sinful. 



2. That it could not have developed that high esteem 

 for acts of care and tenderness to the aged and infirm which 

 actually exists, but would rather have })erpetuated certain 

 low social conditions which obtain in some savage locali- 

 ties. 



3. Tliat it could not have evolved from ape sensations 

 the noble virtue of a Marcus Aurelius, or the loving but 

 manly devotion of a St. I^ouis. 



4. That, alone, it could not have given rise to the maxim 

 Jiat justitia^ mat coelum. 



5. That the interval between material and formal mo- 

 rality is one altogether beyond its power to traverse. 



Also, that the anticipatory character of moral principles 

 is a fatal bar to that explanation of their origin which is 

 offered to us by Mr. Herbert Spencer. And, finally, that 

 the solution of that origin proposed recently by Sir John 

 Lubbock is a mere version of simple utilitarianism, appeal- 

 ing to the pleasure or safety of the individual, and there- 

 fore utterly incapable of solving the riddle it attacks. 



Such appearing to be the case as to the power of " Nat- 

 ural Selection," we, nevertheless, find moral conceptions — 

 formally moral ideas — not only spread over the civilized 

 world, but manifesting themselves unmistakably (in how- 

 ever rudimentary a condition, and however misapplied) 



