256 ORGANIC EVOLUTION CONSIDERED 



If instinct may use the word ought, then why 

 should one instinct have more authority than another? 

 for each is entitled to the use of the word. When 

 we have followed one instinct and committed a deed, 

 why should a "more persistent instinct" afterwards 

 condemn us? Both are armed with the word ought. 

 Why do we not reason thus concerning murder? I 

 ought to follow my instinct. My instinct told me to 

 murder an enemy, and I obeyed. I did my duty and 

 my conscience is clear. Therefore, if another instinct 

 says that I ought not to have done so, I answer that 

 my instinct to murder ought to fulfill its purpose. 

 Thus, according to conflicting instincts, I ought and I 

 ought not to have committed murder. Thus morality 

 annihilates herself — moral quality is gone — conscience 

 has no right to exist — the whole matter of moral 

 obligation is a delusion — a delusion, in fact, on the 

 belief of which, more than on all else, depends the 

 welfare of the human race. 



With instinct as the basis of morality, there can be 

 no freedom of choice, no deliberation, no fore- 

 thought, and there ought to be no pangs of con- 

 science. The high mental powers, which Mr. Darwin 

 himself acknowledges are necessary to constitute a 

 moral being, are absent from instinct, and by making 

 the latter the foundation of the moral faculty, irre- 

 sponsibility and fatalism are substituted for responsi- 

 bility and freedom of the will. 



If the instinct of morality is wholly inherited, then 

 its possessor cannot be responsible for possessing it, 

 nor for following where it leads, if it carries the word 

 ought as authority. 



If, on the other hand, the instinct may be acquired 

 by cultivation, and we say that a person ought thus to 

 gain it, then the word ought precedes instinct and 

 exists independently of it. 



