422 DARWINISM AND THE PROBLEMS OF LIFE 



so there is no end of their derision. They still fall 

 out, but are soon reconciled otherwise it would spoil 

 their stomachs. 



"They have their little pleasures for the day, and 

 their little pleasures for the night ; but they have a 

 regard for health." 



This is the pass that things will come to if the 

 Darwinian - ethical ideals are realised. A " deadly 

 generalness " will dominate the world. Happiness and 

 unhappiness are antitheses, and there should be no 

 antitheses in the scientific world of ideals. Nothing 

 low but nothing high : no hatred but no love : no 

 depth but no altitude : an eternally monotonous life, 

 without struggle and without victory. 



We see, then, that the ideal of a scientific guidance 

 of men means, to everyone who esteems individuality, 

 an intolerable mediocrity. But that is not the only 

 objection to a scientific ethics. It can be shown that 

 it has no right to exist at all. 



Every system of ethics must prescribe something 

 to a man ; it must tell him his duty. That is evident. 

 If moral laws are to be laws of nature, they must, 

 like the latter, have a universal validity. They then 

 show what exists, and must exist, everywhere ; it is 

 the very essence of natural laws that they act 

 necessarily. But if moral laws, being natural laws, 

 must be realised of themselves always and every- 

 where, there is absolutely no purpose in directing a 

 man to act according to them. If a thing is so, it is 

 superfluous to make it a duty for a man to bring it about. 



