74: EVOLUTION AND ETHICS. n 



conduct. Ethics would thus become applied 

 Natural History. In fact, a confused employment 

 of the maxim, in this sense, has done immeasur- 

 able mischief in later times. It has furnished ^an 

 axiomatic foundation for the philosophy of philo- 

 sophasters and for the moralizing of sentimental- 

 ists. But the Stoics were, at bottom, not merely no- 

 ble, but sane, men; and if we look closely into what 

 they really meant by this ill-used phrase, it will be 

 found to present no justification for the mischiev- 

 ous conclusions that have been deduced from it. 



In the language of the Stoa, " Nature " was a 

 word of many meanings. There was the " Na- 

 ture " of the cosmos and the " Nature " of man. 

 In the latter, the animal "nature,*' which man 

 shares with a moiety of the living part of the cos- 

 mos, was distinguished from a higher " nature." 

 Even in this higher nature there were grades of 

 rank. The logical faculty is an instrument which 

 may be turned to account for any purpose. The 

 passions and the emotions are so closely tied to the 

 lower nature that they may be considered to be 

 pathological, rather than normal, phenomena. 

 The one supreme, hegemonic, faculty, which con- 

 stitutes the essential " nature " of man, is most 

 nearly represented by that which, in the language 

 of a later philosophy, has been called the pure 

 reason. It is this " nature " which holds up the 

 ideal of the supreme good and demands absolute 

 submission of the will to its behests. It is this 



