THE ORIGIN OF TUE WILL. 455 



how to execute his wishes, but the state of his affections deter- 

 mines the direction of his acts. Moral amelioration has attended 

 the progress of intelligence on the one hand, and moral abase- 

 ment on the other. Intelligence is the condition of the perception 

 of moral truth ; in other words, intelligence, as applied to moral 

 questions, is the conscience. Consequences of acts are understood, 

 and their relations to the pleasures and pains of men are weighed. 

 Thus, no doubt, the world has advanced in the knowledge of good 

 and evil, and of right and wrong. That it has improved in the 

 practice of right has not been due to the inheritance of respect 

 for law, but to the self-destructive nature of wrong. That con- 

 tinued wrong sooner or later ends in the destruction of the wronc:- 

 doer, either from within or without, must be generally admitted. 

 Thus is the truth of the doctrine of '^ the survival of the fittest " 

 vindicated in moral as in natural law. But it is also true that 

 this law is restrictive onl}^, and that the school of Hume and 

 Bentham has overlooked the deeper originative law in moral phi- 

 losophy, as the school of Darwin has done in biological philosophy. 



It may still be urged that, if it be granted that experience of 

 the pains of evil-doing be not transmitted as an intellectual ac- 

 quisition from generation to generation, nevertheless such experi- 

 ence is sufficient to educate each separate generation as it passes, 

 without any other than automatic action on their part. It may 

 be replied to this that the results thus obtained are not due to 

 will, but simply follow compulsion, the motive thus created only 

 varying in strength with the characters of the individuals. Its 

 success is restricted to circumstances where the j^enalties are suffi- 

 ciently certain to constitute counter-inducements to effect the 

 necessary restraint. This can only be the case with the weaker 

 members of society. Wherever there is sufficient power to escape 

 penalties, wrong-doing has no restraint. Under such a system 

 might and right are identical ; for the strongest needs no protec- 

 tion of law. It is true that society can combine against a single 

 malefactor, but it is also true that malefactors can combine. In 

 fact, it is one of the usual phenomena of human society to find 

 men becoming malefactors as soon as they attain to power ; or to 

 find society governed by a few malefactors who have an army to 

 enforce their pleasure. 



While then inheritance does not secure the performance of 

 altruistic acts, appetent affections maybe so increased by accumu- 

 lation in descent as to become uncontrollable, so that will either 



