i88o.] 
Natural Science and Morality. 
453 
a course of conduct that made them miserable.* Instead 
of ennobling virtue by regarding its practice as the privilege 
and interest of a free man, there is often rather a tendency 
to degrade it by identification with the abjedt “duty” of a 
The natural or un-sedtarian morality (grounded on 
Natural Science) constitutes the very ideal of liberty, the 
freedom of contributing to one’s happiness. This morality 
might therefore be termed with equal propriety the morality 
of liberty ; and the very fadt of its constituting the perfec- 
tion of liberty might be viewed as an additional confirming 
illustration of its truth, in so far as the complete achieve- 
ment of liberty is justly regarded as one of the last con- 
quests of human progress. 
Morality in Relation to Evolution. 
If the morality of self-interest be brought under the test 
of the theory of Evolution, we think that it will not fail to 
become clearly apparent that the two harmonise in a remark- 
able manner. For Natural Selection has been recognised 
to adapt a living being to the conditions of life, and^ accord- 
ingly tends to produce in animals such “ instindts as are 
adapted to protedt them from danger. “ Sociability . (by 
which animals congregate in troops) is one of these instincts. 
Natural Seleftion may therefore be said to tend to develop 
such instincts in animated creatures as to cause them to act 
in a way conducive to their interests (which is the self- 
interest morality). . r 
It becomes evident, therefore, that in the case ot nian 
if the power of reason (attendant on brain development) be 
sufficiently augmented— this may largely replace (in regard 
to condudt) the “ instindts ” formerly established by the 
rough drill of Natural Seledtion. While the lower animals 
blunder, and Natural Seledtion corrects their errors by work- 
ing upon the brain to develop instindts which check the 
repetition of errors ; man, on the other hand, by using his 
reason aright, may avoid blundering, and thus may eman- 
cipate himself, to a great extent, from the rough discipline 
of Natural Seledtion. . . , . 
There is evidently a great difference (in degree) in this 
respedt between man and the lower animals. For self- 
interest being the guide of condudt, one of the highest 
* The animated coffin-like types of humanity, immured in the cloisters of 
the Jesuits, may serve as instru&ive illustrations of this pr,inpiple carried out 
to an extreme degree. 
