On the Genesis of Species

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What explanation can be offered of these phenomena? To say that they
exhibit a "nutritional relation" brought about by a "balancing of forces"
is merely to give a new denomination to the unexplained fact. The changes
are, _of course_, brought about by a "nutritional" process, and the
symmetry is undoubtedly the result of a "balance of forces," but to say so
is a truism. The question is, what is the cause of this "nutritional
balancing"? It is here contended that it must be due to an internal cause
which at present science is utterly incompetent to explain. It is an
internal property possessed by each living organic whole as well as by each
non-living crystalline mass, and that there is such internal power or
tendency, which may be spoken of as a "polarity," seems to be demonstrated
by the instances above given, which can easily be multiplied indefinitely.
Mr. Herbert Spencer[195] (speaking of the reproduction, by budding, of a
Begonia-leaf) recognizes a power of the kind. He says, "We have, therefore,
no alternative but to say that the living particles composing one of these
fragments have an innate tendency to arrange themselves into the shape of
the organism to which they belong. We must infer that a plant or animal of
any species is made up of special units, in all of which there dwells the
intrinsic aptitude to aggregate into the form of that species; just as{185}
in the atoms of a salt, there dwells the intrinsic aptitude to crystallize
in a particular way. It seems difficult to conceive that this can be so;
but we see that it _is_ so." ... "For this property there is no fit term.
If we accept the word polarity as a name for the force by which inorganic
units are aggregated into a form peculiar to them, we may apply this word
to the analogous force displayed by organic limits."

Dr. Jeffries Wyman,[196] in his paper on the "Symmetry and Homology of
Limbs," has a distinct chapter on the "Analogy between Symmetry and
Polarity," illustrating it by the effects of magnets on "particles in a
polar condition."

Mr. J. J. Murphy, after noticing[197] the power which crystals have to
repair injuries inflicted on them and the modifications they undergo
through the influence of the medium in which they may be formed, goes on to
say:[198] "It needs no proof that in the case of spheres and crystals the
forms and the structures are the effect, and not the cause, of the
formative principles. Attraction, whether gravitative or capillary,
produces the spherical form; the spherical form does not produce
attraction. And crystalline polarities produce crystalline structure and
form; crystalline structure and form do not produce crystalline polarities.
The same is not quite so evident of organic forms, but it is equally true
of them also." ... "It is not conceivable that the microscope should reveal
peculiarities of structure corresponding to peculiarities of habitual
tendency in the embryo, which at its first formation has no structure
whatever;"[199] and he adds that "there is something quite inscrutable and
mysterious" in the formation of a new individual from the germinal {186}
matter of the embryo. In another place[200] he says: "We know that in
crystals, notwithstanding the variability of form within the limits of the
same species, there are definite and very peculiar formative laws, which
cannot possibly depend on anything like organic functions, because crystals
have no such functions; and it ought not to surprise us if there are
similar formative or morphological laws among organisms, which, like the
formative laws of crystallization, cannot be referred to any relation of
form or structure to function. Especially, I think, is this true of the
lowest organisms, many of which show great beauty of form, of a kind that
appears to be altogether due to symmetry of growth; as the beautiful
star-like rayed forms of the _acanthometrae_, which are low animal organisms
not very different from the Foraminifera." Their "definiteness of form does
not appear to be accompanied by any corresponding differentiation of
function between different parts; and, so far as I can see, the beautiful
regularity and symmetry of their radiated forms are altogether due to
unknown laws of symmetry of growth, just like the equally beautiful and
somewhat similar forms of the compound six-rayed, star-shaped crystals of
snow."

Altogether, then, it appears that each organism has an innate tendency to
develop in a symmetrical manner, and that this tendency is controlled and
subordinated by the action of external conditions, and not that this
symmetry is superinduced only _ab externo_. In fact, that each organism has
its own internal and special laws of growth and development.

If, then, it is still necessary to conceive an internal law or "substantial
form," moulding each organic being,[201] and directing its development{187}
as a crystal is built up, only in an indefinitely more complex manner, it
is congruous to imagine the existence of some internal law accounting at
the same time for specific divergence as well as for specific identity.

A principle regulating the successive evolution of different organic forms
is not one whit more mysterious than is the mysterious power by which a
particle of structureless sarcode develops successively into an egg, a
grub, a chrysalis, a butterfly, when all the conditions, cosmical,
physical, chemical, and vital, are supplied, which are the requisite
accompaniments to determine such evolution. [Page 188]

* * * * *

CHAPTER IX.

EVOLUTION AND ETHICS.

The origin of morals an inquiry not foreign to the subject of this
book.--Modern utilitarian view as to that origin.--Mr. Darwin's
speculation as to the origin of the abhorrence of incest.--Cause
assigned by him insufficient.--Care of the aged and infirm opposed by
"Natural Selection;" also self-abnegation and asceticism.--Distinctness
of the ideas "right" and "useful."--Mr. John Stuart
Mill.--Insufficiency of "Natural Selection" to account for the origin
of the distinction between duty and profit.---Distinction of moral acts
into "material" and "formal."--No ground for believing that formal
morality exists in brutes.--Evidence that it does exist in
savages.--Facility with which savages may be misunderstood.--Objections
as to diversity of customs.--Mr. Hutton's review of Mr. Herbert
Spencer.--Anticipatory character of morals.--Sir John Lubbock's
explanation.--Summary and conclusion.

Any inquiry into the origin of the notion of "morality"--the conception of
"right"--may, perhaps, be considered as somewhat remote from the question
of the Genesis of Species; the more so, since Mr. Darwin, at one time,
disclaimed any pretension to explain the origin of the higher psychical
phenomena of man. His disciples, however, were never equally reticent, and
indeed he himself is now not only about to produce a work on man (in which
this question must be considered), but he has distinctly announced the
extension of the application of his theory to the very phenomena in
question. He says:[202] "In the distant future I see open fields for {189}
far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new
foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and
capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his
history." It may not be amiss then to glance slightly at the question, so
much disputed, concerning the origin of ethical conceptions and its bearing
on the theory of "Natural Selection."

The followers of Mr. John Stuart Mill, of Mr. Herbert Spencer, and
apparently, also, of Mr. Darwin, assert that in spite of the great
_present_ difference between the ideas "useful" and "right," yet that they
are, nevertheless, one in _origin_, and that that origin consisted
ultimately of pleasurable and painful sensations.

They say that "Natural Selection" has evolved moral conceptions from
perceptions of what was useful, _i.e._ pleasurable, by having through long
ages preserved a predominating number of those individuals who have had a
natural and spontaneous liking for practices and habits of mind useful to
the race, and that the same power has destroyed a predominating number of
those individuals who possessed a marked tendency to contrary practices.
The descendants of individuals so preserved have, they say, come to inherit
such a liking and such useful habits of mind, and that at last (finding
this inherited tendency thus existing in themselves, distinct from their
tendency to conscious self-gratification) they have become apt to regard it
as fundamentally distinct, _innate_, and independent of all experience. In
fact, according to this school, the idea of "right" is only the result of
the gradual accretion of useful predilections which, from time to time,
arose in a series of ancestors naturally selected. In this way, "morality"
is, as it were, the congealed past experience of the race, and "virtue"
becomes no more than a sort of "retrieving," which the thus improved human
animal practises by a perfected and inherited habit, regardless of
self-gratification, just as the brute animal has acquired the habit of
seeking prey and bringing it to his master, instead of devouring it {190}
himself.

Though Mr. Darwin has not as yet expressly advocated this view, yet some
remarks made by him appear to show his disposition to sympathise with it.
Thus, in his work on "Animals and Plants under Domestication,"[203] he
asserts that "the savages of Australia and South America hold the crime of
incest in abhorrence;" but he considers that this abhorrence has probably
arisen by "Natural Selection," the ill effects of close interbreeding
causing the less numerous and less healthy offspring of incestuous unions
to disappear by degrees, in favour of the descendants (greater both in
number and strength) of individuals who naturally, from some cause or
other, as he suggests, preferred to mate with strangers rather than with
close blood-relations; this preference being transmitted and becoming thus
instinctive, or habitual, in remote descendants.

But on Mr. Darwin's own ground, it maybe objected that this notion fails to
account for "abhorrence," and "moral reprobation;" for, as no stream can
rise higher than its source, the original "slight feeling" which was
_useful_ would have been perpetuated, but would never have been augmented
beyond the degree requisite to ensure this beneficial preference, and
therefore would not certainly have become magnified into "abhorrence." It
will not do to assume that the union of males and females, each possessing
the required "slight feeling," must give rise to offspring with an
intensified feeling of the same kind; for, apart from reversion, Mr. Darwin
has called attention to the unexpected modifications which sometimes result
from the union of _similarly_ constituted parents. Thus, for example, he
tells us:[204] "If two top-knotted canaries are matched, the young, instead
of having very fine top-knots, are generally bald." From examples of this
kind, it is fair, on Darwinian principles, to infer that the union of {191}
parents who possessed a similar inherited aversion might result in
phenomena quite other than the augmentation of such aversion, even if the
two aversions should be altogether similar; while, very probably, they
might be so different in their nature as to tend to neutralize each other.
Besides, the union of parents so similarly emotional would be rare indeed
amongst savages, where marriages would be owing to almost anything rather
than to congeniality of mind between the spouses. Mr. Wallace tells
us,[205] that they choose their wives for "rude health and physical
beauty," and this is just what might be naturally supposed. Again, we must
bear in mind the necessity there is that _many individuals_ should be
similarly and simultaneously affected with this aversion from
consanguineous unions; as we have seen in the second chapter, how
infallibly variations presented by only a few individuals, tend to be
eliminated by mere force of numbers. Mr. Darwin indeed would throw back
this aversion, if possible, to a pre-human period; since he speculates as
to whether the gorillas or orang-utans, in effecting their matrimonial
relations, show any tendency to respect the prohibited degrees of
affinity.[206] No tittle of evidence, however, has yet been adduced
pointing in any such direction, though surely if it were of such importance
and efficiency as to result (through the aid of "Natural Selection" alone)
in that "abhorrence" before spoken of, we might expect to be able to detect
unmistakeable evidence of its incipient stages. On the contrary, as regards
the ordinary apes (for with regard to the highest there is no evidence of
the kind) as we see them in confinement, it would be difficult to name any
animals less restricted, by even a generic bar, in the gratification of the
sexual instinct. And although the conditions under which they have been
observed are abnormal, yet these are hardly the animals to present us in a
state of nature, with an extraordinary and exceptional sensitiveness in
such matters. [Page 192]

To take an altogether different case. Care of, and tenderness towards, the
aged and infirm are actions on all hands admitted to be "right;" but it is
difficult to see how such actions could ever have been so useful to a
community as to have been seized on and developed by the exclusive action
of the law of the "survival of the fittest." On the contrary, it seems
probable that on strict utilitarian principles the rigid political economy
of Tierra del Fuego would have been eminently favoured and diffused by the
impartial action of "Natural Selection" alone. By the rigid political
economy referred to, is meant that destruction and utilization of "useless
mouths" which Mr. Darwin himself describes in his highly interesting
"Journal of Researches."[207] He says: "It is certainly true, that when
pressed in winter by hunger, they kill and devour their old women before
they kill their dogs. The boy being asked why they did this, answered,
'Doggies catch otters, old women no.' They often run away into the
mountains, but they are pursued by the men and brought back to the
slaughter-house at their own firesides." Mr. Edward Bartlett, who has
recently returned from the Amazons, reports that at one Indian village
where the cholera made its appearance, the whole population immediately
dispersed into the woods, leaving the sick to perish uncared for and alone.
Now, had the Indians remained, undoubtedly far more would have died; as
doubtless, in Tierra del Fuego, the destruction of the comparatively
useless old women has often been the means of preserving the healthy and
reproductive young. Such acts surely must be greatly favoured by the stern
and unrelenting action of exclusive "Natural Selection."

In the same way that admiration which all feel for acts of self-denial done
for the good of others, and tending even towards the destruction of the
actor, could hardly be accounted for on Darwinian principles alone; for
self-immolators must but rarely leave direct descendants, while the
community they benefit must by their destruction tend, so far, to {193}
morally deteriorate. But devotion to others of the same community is by no
means _all_ that has to be accounted for. Devotion to the whole human race,
and devotion to God--in the form of asceticism--have been and are very
generally recognized as "good;" and the Author contends that it is simply
impossible to conceive that such ideas and sanctions should have been
developed by "Natural Selection" alone, from only that degree of
unselfishness necessary for the preservation of brutally barbarous
communities in the struggle for life. That degree of unselfishness once
attained, further improvement would be checked by the mutual opposition of
diverging moral tendencies and spontaneous variations in all directions.
Added to which, we have the principle of reversion and atavism, tending
powerfully to restore and reproduce that more degraded anterior condition
whence the later and better state painfully emerged.

Very few, however, dispute the complete distinctness, here and now, of the
ideas of "duty" and "interest" whatever may have been the origin of those
ideas. No one pretends that ingratitude may, in any past abyss of time,
have been a virtue, or that it may be such now in Arcturus or the Pleiades.
Indeed, a certain eminent writer of the utilitarian school of ethics has
amusingly and very instructively shown how radically distinct even in his
own mind are the two ideas which he nevertheless endeavours to identify.
Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his examination of "Sir William Hamilton's
Philosophy," says,[208] if "I am informed that the world is ruled by a
being whose attributes are infinite, but what they are we cannot learn, nor
what the principles of his government, except that 'the highest human
morality which we are capable of conceiving' does not sanction them;
convince me of it, and I will bear my fate as I may. But when I am told
that I must believe this, and at the same time call this being by the {194}
names which express and affirm the highest human morality, I say in plain
terms that I will not. Whatever power such a being may have over me, there
is one thing which he shall not do: he shall not compel me to worship him.
I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet
to my fellow-creatures; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not
so calling him, to hell I will go."

This is unquestionably an admirable sentiment on the part of Mr. Mill (with
which every absolute moralist will agree), but it contains a complete
refutation of his own position, and is a capital instance[209] of the
vigorous life of moral intuition in one who professes to have eliminated
any fundamental distinction between the "right" and the "expedient." For if
an action is morally good, and to be done, merely in proportion to the
amount of pleasure it secures, and morally bad and to be avoided as tending
to misery, and if it could be _proved_ that by calling God good--whether He
is so or not, in our sense of the term,--we could secure a maximum of
pleasure, and by refusing to do so we should incur endless torment,
clearly, on utilitarian principles, the flattery would be good.

Mr. Mill, of course, must also mean that, in the matter in question, all
men would do well to act with him. Therefore, he must mean that it would be
well for all to accept (on the hypothesis above given) infinite and final
misery for all as the result of the pursuit of happiness as the only end.

It must be recollected that in consenting to worship this unholy God, Mr.
Mill is not asked to do harm to his neighbour, so that his refusal reposes
simply on his perception of the immorality of the requisition. It is also
noteworthy that an omnipotent Deity is supposed incapable of altering Mr.
Mill's mind and moral perceptions.

Mr. Mill's decision is right, but it is difficult indeed to see how, {195}
without the recognition of an "absolute morality," he can justify so utter
and final an abandonment of all utility in favour of a clear and distinct
moral perception.

These two ideas, the "right" and the "useful," being so distinct here and
now, a greater difficulty meets us with regard to their origin from some
common source, than met us before when considering the first beginnings of
certain bodily structures. For the distinction between the "right" and the
"useful" is so fundamental and essential that not only does the idea of
benefit not enter into the idea of duty, but we see that the very fact of
an act _not_ being beneficial to us makes it the more praiseworthy, while
gain tends to diminish the merit of an action. Yet this idea, "right," thus
excluding, as it does, all reference to utility or pleasure, has
nevertheless to be constructed and evolved from utility and pleasure, and
ultimately from pleasurable sensations, if we are to accept pure
Darwinianism: if we are to accept, that is, the evolution of man's
psychical nature and highest powers, by the exclusive action of "Natural
Selection," from such faculties as are possessed by brutes; in other words,
if we are to believe that the conceptions of the highest human morality
arose through minute and fortuitous variations of brutal desires and
appetites in all conceivable directions.

It is here contended, on the other hand, that no conservation of any such
variations could ever have given rise to the faintest beginning of any such
moral perceptions; that by "Natural Selection" alone the maxim _fiat
justitia, ruat coelum_ could never have been excogitated, still less have
found a widespread acceptance; that it is impotent to suggest even an
approach towards an explanation of the _first beginning_ of the idea of
"right." It need hardly be remarked that acts may be distinguished not only
as pleasurable, useful, or beautiful, but also as good in two different
senses: (1) _materially_ moral acts, and (2) acts which are _formally_
moral. The first are acts good in themselves, _as acts_, apart from any
intention of the agent which may or may not have been directed towards{196}
"right." The second are acts which are good not only in themselves, as
acts, but also in the deliberate _intention_ of the agent who recognizes
his actions as being "right." Thus acts may be _materially_ moral or
immoral, in a very high degree, without being in the least _formally_ so.
For example, a person may tend and minister to a sick man with scrupulous
care and exactness, having in view all the time nothing but the future
reception of a good legacy. Another may, in the dark, shoot his own father,
taking him to be an assassin, and so commit what is _materially_ an act of
parricide, though _formally_ it is only an act of self-defence of more or
less culpable rashness. A woman may innocently, because ignorantly, marry a
married man, and so commit a _material_ act of adultery. She may discover
the facts, and persist, and so make her act _formal_ also.

Actions of brutes, such as those of the bee, the ant, or the beaver,
however materially good as regards their relation to the community to which
such animals belong, are absolutely destitute of the most incipient degree
of real, _i.e._ formal "goodness," because unaccompanied by mental acts of
conscious will directed towards the fulfilment of duty. Apology is due for
thus stating so elementary a distinction, but the statement is not
superfluous, for confusion of thought, resulting from confounding together
these very distinct things, is unfortunately far from uncommon.

Thus some Darwinians assert that the germs of morality exist in brutes, and
we have seen that Mr. Darwin himself speculates on the subject as regards
the highest apes. It may safely be affirmed, however, that there is no
trace in brutes of any actions simulating morality which are not explicable
by the fear of punishment, by the hope of pleasure, or by personal
affection. No sign of moral reprobation is given by any brute, and yet had
such existed in germ through Darwinian abysses of past time, some evidence
of its existence must surely have been rendered perceptible through
"survival of the fittest" in other forms besides man, if that {197}
"survival" has alone and exclusively produced it in him.

Abundant examples may, indeed, be brought forward of useful acts which
simulate morality, such as parental care of the young, &c. But did the most
undeviating habits guide all brutes in such matters, were even aged and
infirm members of a community of insects or birds carefully tended by young
which benefited by their experience, such acts would not indicate even the
faintest rudiment of real, _i.e._ formal, morality. "Natural Selection"
would, of course, often lead to the prevalence of acts beneficial to a
community, and to acts _materially_ good; but unless they can be shown to
be _formally_ so, they are not in the least to the point, they do not offer
any explanation of the origin of an altogether new and fundamentally
different motive and conception.

It is interesting, on the other hand, to note Mr. Darwin's statement as to
the existence of a distinct moral feeling, even in, perhaps, the very
lowest and most degraded of all the human races known to us. Thus in the
same "Journal of Researches"[210] before quoted, bearing witness to the
existence of moral reprobation on the part of the Fuegians, he says: "The
nearest approach to religious feeling which I heard of was shown by York
Minster (a Fuegian so named), who, when Mr. Bynoe shot some very young
ducklings as specimens, declared in the most solemn manner, 'Oh, Mr. Bynoe,
much rain, snow, blow much.' This was evidently a retributive punishment
for wasting human food."

Mr. Wallace gives the most interesting testimony, in his "Malay
Archipelago," to the existence of a very distinct, and in some instances
highly developed moral sense in the natives with whom he came in contact.
In one case,[211] a Papuan who had been paid in advance for bird-skins and
who had not been able to fulfil his contract before Mr. Wallace was on{198}
the point of starting, "came running down after us holding up a bird, and
saying with great satisfaction, 'Now I owe you nothing!'" And this though
he could have withheld payment with complete impunity.

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