211 



true foundation of the moral idea considered objectively : the 

 capacity of perceiving the order which they involve is its 

 foundation considered subjectively. The origin of the moral 

 sense is found only in the origin of the soul itself. 



But here we come into the presence of the philosophy of 



evolution as it makes one of its formidable points. 

 Mr. Herbert Spencer, in a letter to John Stuart Mill, says : 

 " There have been, and still are, developing in the race 

 certain moral intuitions,''^ — these moral intuitions are the 

 results of accumulated experiences of utility, gradually organ- 

 ized and inherited.^^ These same intuitions,'"'' — like, for 

 example, '^'^ the intuition of space ^'' in an individual, — *'*^have 

 arisen from organized and consolidated experiences of all 

 antecedent individuals who bequeathed to him their slowly- 

 developed nervous organizations.''^ The moral intuition,^'' 

 according to Mr. Spencer, is only a state of nerve matter. 

 His account of " the ego is curiously in keeping with this 



notion. He says, " Either the ego is some state of 



consciousness, simple or composite, or it is not. If it is not 

 some state of consciousness, it is something of which we are 

 unconscious — something, therefore, which is unknown to us — 

 something, therefore, of v/hose existence we neither have nor 

 can have any evidence — something, therefore, which it is 

 absurd to suppose existing. If the ego is some state of 

 consciousness, then, as it is ever present, it can be at each 

 moment nothing else than the state of consciousness present 

 at that moment.^'' * Here is philosophy every way worthy of 

 the theory of evolution ! 



It may be tried on our conception of the philosopher him- 

 self. First of all, then, the only substance recognized is nerve. 

 What is called the '"''organization^^ of this substance is the 

 result of a process which reaches from Adam downwards, or, 

 if you will, fixjui the first '^'^ pre-Adamite man, or from some 



primordial coll of vastly more ancient birth ! Probably 

 some similar unit would call this almost infinitely elaborated 

 unit of nerve Mr. Herbert Spencer but, if he did, he would 

 soon, we hope, find out that he must not call it Mr. Spencer's 

 " ego,^^ — that is, Mr. Spencer himself ! My ego is just myself, 

 and Mr. Spencer's ego is just himself ; and, as he teaches, 

 neither ego is anything — for he insists that it is only a state of 

 consciousness. It is not even a permanent state, it is only 

 that of a moment — the ego of one moment being one, and that 

 of the next moment another ! I confess that reading such 

 philosophy makes one hunger for a grain of common sense. 



* Principles of Psychology, p. 618. 



