The Genealogy of Morals 283 



. . . The high state of intellectual development of the 

 old Grecians with the little or no subsequent improve- 

 ment . . . harmonizes perfectly with our views. The 

 case would be decidedly difficult on the Lamarckian or 

 Vestigian doctrine of necessary progression, but on 

 the view which I hold of progress depending upon the 

 conditions, it is no objection at all, and harmonizes 

 with the other facts of progression. . . . For in a 

 state of anarchy, or despotism, or bad government, 

 or after an irruption of barbarians, force, strength, 

 or ferocity, and not intellect, would be apt to gain 

 the day.* 



This is a pellucidly clear statement of the true 

 Darwinian theory that social progress depends, 

 not upon force and collective homicide, but upon 

 institutions and ideas. 



Darwin's Theory of the Evolution of the Moral Law 



Much light is thrown upon Darwin's theory of *■ 

 social progress by an analysis of his derivation 

 of the moral law. The philosophy of force has ^ 

 much to say about the ethics of evolution, but in 

 the true Darwinian theory the guiding principle is 

 the evolution of ethics. 



The moral sense, according to Darwin, is the 

 greatest of all distinctions between man and the • 

 lower animals: 



I fully subscribe to the judgment of those writers 

 who maintain that of all the differences between man 



' Lijt and Letter $ of Charles Darwin, vol. ii,, p. 89. 



