A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution Part 26

which of the two is to be accorded the greater importance with regard to the will? and what is the significance of feeling as pleasure and of feeling as pain with respect to the will? These are some of the questions generally considered in one form or another in the discussion of the relations of mental functions. The first question may be interpreted in any one of several different ways. It may be regarded as referring to particular excitations, objects, or ends, or to precedence at the earliest beginning of consciousness in general, or to the initial state of consciousness in the case of the individual organism. Since we are not able to determine as to where consciousness does begin, either absolutely in nature as a whole or relatively in the individual, whether there is, indeed, any such thing as an initial state, and since we can predicate nothing certainly as to the nature of such a state if there be one, the interpretation of the question which has reference to this relative or absolute beginning of consciousness cannot be answered. If we regard the question, however, as having reference to particular excitations, objects, or ends, it is evident that sometimes one, sometimes the other of the two functions appears more prominent in the beginning; pain or pleasurable excitation sometimes makes itself felt before it is connected in consciousness with any distinct object, and again perception may give us thought-images which only consideration renders painful or pleasurable. But there is no real beginning in either case; in consciousness as we know it, thought and feeling are continually intermingled, and only their direction varies with varying excitation, now thought, now feeling, a.s.suming the greater prominence.

This last consideration has important bearings on a question which we have previously discussed and to which we may, at this point, revert for a moment. The fact alone that we know nothing of a beginning of consciousness, but only its variation, is sufficient to make us doubt whether we are in possession of any data from which to p.r.o.nounce dogmatically on the absence of consciousness in the case of organisms differing from our own, or even in the case of inorganic matter. Why may we not equally well suppose merely a difference in the direction of consciousness corresponding to differing organization and function in the one case and differing composition or const.i.tution and corresponding motion in the other? Our error begins in a.s.suming no ends possible in action except such as we ourselves would set, and so in a.s.suming no end to be present in cases where no end would exist for the human being, or where the end which would be involved for us cannot have come within the experience of the organism performing the act. In the latter case, we speak of "blind instinct" or of "automatism." We forget that an "end" is merely some one of such constant results of function as are brought within the circle of our experience; which end may come to lie farther and farther away, for the same act, as the circle of experience widens and varies in direction, even in beings as similar as individuals of the human species. With the attainment of manhood and womanhood, whole regions of thought and feeling, whole cla.s.ses of motives, are opened up which are wholly unknown to the child and would be incomprehensible to him; the ends of the scientist, the man of letters, the idealist in morals, the sensualist, and the boor, may differ radically in performing the same or very similar acts. However, there is a certain community of ends in human beings, due to common organization and experience, which enables them to judge to some extent of each other's ends. But these data of organization and experience fail us when we come to judge of beings not human, and hence we are liable to error in their case. A superior being of an entirely different species from our own might be greatly puzzled to discern the motives which could govern some of our acts,--those, for instance, which incite the miser to starve in misery with a fortune hidden in the cellar. A superior being of another species gifted with pessimistic views, if we can suppose such, regarding our action externally as we regard brute-action and plant-function, might imagine our whole action to be directed to the attainment of our own death, since that is what we finally achieve as the result of action, and sometimes with most purposeful rapidity; and he might suppose the suicide, and the miser, and the opium-eater, and the drunkard, and the glutton, to be only the more intelligent members of the species, the others to be led chiefly by blind instinct. It is a fundamental mistake to suppose that there can be no "ends" but those of which we are conscious.

The question as to the existence of any causal relations in the old sense between thought and feeling has already been answered in previous considerations; all we can a.s.sert is sequence or simultaneity. Indeed, as psychology has rarely troubled itself with any direct question of this sort, its introduction may appear foolish. Yet feeling is sometimes, by imputation, treated as a mere attribute of thought, while again, as we shall see, it is often considered as an independent, directing, if not perception, at least the subsumption of percepts in thought. And, indeed, it is difficult to perceive why, if feeling and thought be regarded as two quite distinct yet simultaneous activities, the same problem as to precedence might not arise, under the concepts of cause and effect, as in the case of physiological process and consciousness as a whole.

But a question with which Psychology and Ethics have occupied themselves as a most important one is that of the relation of pleasure and pain to the will. A point around which strife particularly rages is the problem as to whether it is the pleasurableness of the end which moves the will to seek it; and on the view taken as to the truth on this point theories of freedom or determination of the will are often based, the advocate of free will arguing that the power of choosing the painful proves his theory, the determinist declaring that the invariable might of the pleasurable over the will shows the subordination of the latter. But I cannot, for my own part, see how the demonstration of the fact that the will may be moved by the imagination of a painful end rather than, or as well as, by that of a pleasurable one is a proof of its freedom; as I also fail to perceive how it is proved that the will is determined because it invariably chooses the pleasurable rather than the painful end. In either case, choice may be said equally to depend on motive, and in either case the will may be said equally to choose. It is true in either case that the strongest motive moves; it is true in either case that the will decides upon the act with a feeling of its own spontaneity and freedom, and guides the movement of the body in the performance of the act. That which is shown in an invariable connection of the will with pleasurable motives is a constancy which we find elsewhere in nature and which forbids us to regard will as something outside and above the rest of nature. As we have seen, however, the theory of a compulsion of nature anywhere by constancy or law, or of the compulsion of one particular part by the rest, is untenable.

In speaking of the pleasurable and painful, we have introduced the conception of ends into our considerations, and may emphasize, in another form, the fact that we cannot consider indefinite feeling alone as the mover of the will to an end. The pleasurableness or painfulness is predicated of some definite object or event, and corresponds to definite actualities perceived in the object or imagined with the help of former experience. Thought and feeling are thus inextricably commingled in the state of consciousness leading to choice, and the nature of the acting individual and that of the external objects concerned are equally essential to the result.

We have hitherto treated thought, feeling, and will, as separate parts of consciousness, defining each, by implication, much as we would define wheel, tongue, and whiffletree, as parts of a wagon. But the three are indissolubly connected in the act of the will, and thought and feeling are not, as we have seen, ever disconnected. Nor can we say that it is one part of consciousness that feels, another that thinks, and still another that wills. Further, a closer a.n.a.lysis may render it doubtful whether that which we call will is only an occasional act of consciousness, or whether it is not rather involved in all operations of consciousness as we have seen thought and feeling to be. The ident.i.ty of will and that which is often called involuntary attention has already been a.s.serted by some authors, and not the ident.i.ty of will and outward attention alone, but also of will and attention to the inner process of consciousness. Here, however, the dividing line generally sought between willed and unwilled, involuntary, or, as we say, drifting thought, becomes dim and uncertain. But it is evident that attention is given to that which interests us for one reason or another; and the question logically presents itself as to whether thought ever follows a direction wholly uninteresting to us, or whether it does not the rather always turn from such direction to one which has for us at least some degree of interest, whether, in short, the will does not in this manner, as the innervation of attention, accompany and direct all mental process. The sense of effort involved in choice, in the struggle of interfering impulses, may bring into prominence mental activity at points where such obstacles and interferences occur; but is not the mental force which we, in this case, especially notice the same with that involved in all processes of consciousness? Just as the physiological process in nerve and muscle with which the limbs are moved in action, or eye or ear innervated in the effort of attention, is only the outcome of the processes which are constantly going on in the brain, so the concomitant process of will or attention is but the expression, in another form, of the activity involved in all consciousness.

The division of consciousness into separate ent.i.ties or parts has often been carried much further than this threefold one; the division has varied with the particular theory and fancy of the student, until some one has suggested that we might, on the principle used, a.s.sume a distinct faculty for dancing, for eating, sleeping, dressing, reading, writing, and so on, _ad infinitum_,--the faculty, in each case, being defined as the special activity that discharges the particular function a.s.signed to it by the name. Only by abstraction and by the invest.i.ture of our abstractions with a life of their own do we arrive at a theory of thought, feeling, and will, as separate ent.i.ties, or parts; in the mental process itself, they are indissolubly united.

We have seen that thought acquires new directions with the evolution of the individual, that pleasure and pain attach themselves to new objects, and that will is directed to new ends. If we can discover in these changes any uniformities of relation everywhere manifest as far as experience extends, the constancy of nature may admit of our conclusion that the relation is fundamental, and we may be able to formulate thus a general law of evolution with respect to the mental processes. Such a law must, of course, be interpreted, not as governing the changes which it regards, but simply as the expression of general facts of their development. Our considerations on this point are in a line with those of Chapter I; indeed, they are only a more special application and more careful derivation and expansion of points there noticed.

If we begin with our own experience, and study the growth of this or that particular habit gradually acquired, we notice that it not only becomes stronger with time, acquiring an intensity less and less easy to check, but also that this increasing strength of tendency is accompanied with a corresponding increase of pleasure in the performance of the act.

The drunkard may have derived no especial pleasure from his first gla.s.s; he may, indeed, have found the taste little to his liking, and the slight succeeding dizziness disagreeable; but, with habituation, both gradually become agreeable. The first fit of intoxication may be felt as unpleasant, not only in the succeeding shame and physical depression, but in itself; though it is also conceivable that the state of thorough intoxication may have been led up to so slowly, by such imperceptible degrees, that it may be combined, even in the first instance, with a certain degree of pleasure. It is, however, evident that this pleasure increases with further lapse of time. If we study the habits of individuals, we shall find a thousand little peculiarities of habit in which others than their performers would be puzzled to discover anything attractive, and in which, indeed, the latter themselves would find difficulty in pointing out the source of the gratification that they nevertheless experience. Our habits are things we are loth to break with; and we grow more loth as time pa.s.ses, until finally no consideration, no shame of scorn or pain of punishment in any form, can suffice to counterbalance the craving of desire and the fierce pleasure of satisfaction, or the less turbulent but not less strong impulse that carries us steadily in the course which past custom has worn for us.

Customary acts are themselves agreeable to us, though their results may bring with them disagreeable factors.

Again, this same principle is directly traceable in heredity. We say, for instance, of the drunkard whose father and grandfather were drunkards before him, that he has inherited a "taste" for intoxicants, meaning, not that he can feel their attraction before he has tasted them and experienced their influence, but that the habit of drunkenness is one more easily formed in him than in the average individual, const.i.tutional peculiarities corresponding to a pleasure derived from the alcohol. We often notice striking resemblances, not only in general appearance but also in mental characteristics and habits, extending even to att.i.tude and gesture, between children and parents deceased when the children were yet infants. I have known very peculiar physical habits to appear, in one instance in three, in another in four, generations, with the avowal of satisfaction in their practice on the part of the persons subject to them, although neither they could explain, nor onlookers comprehend, the pleasure derived from them. Imitation is not always possible in such cases; in one case of these two just cited, it was, in the third generation at least, impossible; and even where there is imitation, it is by no means proved that an innate tendency does not lend readiness to the formation of the habit. It may here be objected that we are venturing on too uncertain ground in endeavoring to formulate any general law of the growth of habit in relation to heredity, opinions differing so much as to the relative importance to be accorded to environment and innate tendency in the formation of character, and especially as to the possibility of the inheritance, by succeeding generations, of new peculiarities not common to the species as a whole but acquired by individual parents. As far as the former question is concerned, it may be said that the whole development of plant or animal in organization and corresponding functions must be regarded as directly dependent upon present environment, never independent of it; but that, while it must be conceded that the environment is greatly concerned in the development of habit, and that no innate tendency can manifest itself unless the complementary conditions of its appearance are presented by circ.u.mstance, it may likewise be claimed that the influence of environment no more excludes heredity than heredity excludes the influence of the individual environment. We tend, generally, to emphasize heredity in the case of the plant and the animal, and environment in the case of the human being. This is because our knowledge of species other than our own is merely an outward one, while the ideas of heredity in our own case are confused by our consciousness of the influence that even minute circ.u.mstances may have upon our inner life and character. And yet just those who are inclined to lay most stress upon the power of good influences are generally, strange to say, the very ones who would most protest at the a.s.sertion of the superiority of outer conditions over inner ones. It can scarcely be supposed that any law of heredity which applies to the rest of the animal kingdom does not apply to man also.

With respect to the second of the two questions noticed above, something has already been said from one point of view, and more will be said later from another. At present it will be sufficient for our purpose to notice some generally admitted facts. Darwin uses a certain caution when he comes to the consideration of the conditions of inheritance, and makes the general statement that the tendency to inheritance of any function is increased by the continuation of the action of the inducing conditions of environment for several generations. But it may be questioned whether an innate tendency may not have favored and a.s.sisted the action of the environment in the later of these generations, whether, indeed, the continuity everywhere supposed in evolution does not compel us to a.s.sume, between the first appearance of any function, trait, or habit, and its attainment, after several generations, of sufficient strength to render its hereditary character noticeable, intermediate degrees of strength in the intermediate generations. On the same principle on which we accept the theory of evolution as a logical necessity, despite the gaps in the proof, we must also, I believe, consider development of any sort to be continuous increase.

But even the theory of the increased probability of the inheritance of any mark, function, trait, or habit, after several generations of inducing environment, is sufficient for our present purpose. It still remains true, if we regard the development of function or habit in its broad features, that the tendency to inheritance, the organic significance of any function or habit is increased with increased exercise. Merely in the one case we regard the increments of increase as infinitesimal, while, in the other case, we regard them as of much greater than infinitesimal value. Even the theory of Weismann, which regards everything as present in the germ, must formulate some such theory as this of the environment as the condition of the development of germinal possibilities.

Not only are the strongest and most infallibly recurring functions those which have been most strongly and longest exercised, but these strongest functions, those to which, as we say, the tendency is strongest, are connected with the strongest pleasures of gratification and the most extreme pain of denial. The s.e.xual appet.i.te is an example of such a function fundamental to all the higher forms of animal life. Hunger and thirst, if long unsatisfied, are connected with intensest suffering and, if not dulled by general ill-health or too great satiety, involve a keen pleasure of satisfaction. Muscular exercise is a source of keen enjoyment, and physical inaction results in general depression that may become extreme if the inaction be long continued.

In this pain of inaction, a new conception has been introduced into our considerations. The converse of this pain is that involved in the over-exercise of any function. We thus perceive that the pleasure involved in the exercise of function lies between two extremes, beyond either of which is pain, discomfort. Such pain is connected with the vacillations in the relations of food-a.s.similation to the use of acc.u.mulated energy. These two general processes or functions of all organic matter are reciprocal or complementary, and the too much or too little on either side which involves pain may be looked upon as a disturbance of equilibrium. Excess on either side means want on the other.[135]

And this brings us again to the conception of normal function as a stable form of motion. Long-exercised function, fundamental functions of animal or plant life are forms of motion that for a very long period have found their sufficient complementary conditions in the environment, have met with but little interference in this environment. And thus we attain a conception of pleasure as that form of feeling accompanying forms of physiological motion with which there is a minimum of interference. Pleasure appears as the accompaniment of unimpaired and unimpeded function everywhere as far as our knowledge extends. Function and habit are essentially the same; habit is merely function. The functions of the species furnish the foundation of the habits of the individual, which vary according to individual surroundings and the family peculiarities acquired through peculiar circ.u.mstances. The degree of pleasure in the exercise of any function or habit bears constant relations to the strength of the acquired function, while this again bears constant relations to degree of exercise, in which the time relation plays a prominent part. Here we have, too, by implication, the explanation of the disagreeable character of the strange and new except as it corresponds to some tendency of the organism, some capability not yet exercised, in which case it appears as nothing strictly new but only as pleasing variety. From a physiological point of view, the new appears as that which demands a readjustment involving the fresh action of natural selection, and the possible destruction of the organism in case the readjustment demanded is too great. From the physical and mechanical view, the new may be regarded as a disturber of equilibrium.

To this a.n.a.lysis the objection may possibly be urged that obstacles often increase pleasure. If, however, a definition of obstacle be demanded, it will soon appear that what is meant by an obstacle that increases pleasure is not anything that interferes with function but rather that which is exactly its occasion and opportunity. To a man in health and vigor who sets off for a walk through the fields, a hedge or fence in the way is no real obstacle, but furnishes rather an agreeable diversion, a new method of trying his strength and getting rid of superfluous muscular secretions; it adds but the spice of some slight variety to his exercise. That which is an interruption of one function, may be the opportunity of another; and if the demands of the first function for satisfaction are not too imperative, the interruption of too great duration, the obstacle may not be felt to be disagreeable. But pain and pleasure are often mixed, since the satisfaction of one function may be the prevention of another. If, in this case, the function which is satisfied is a fundamental one, the function which is prevented a subordinate one, the pleasure exceeds the pain. If, on the other hand, the function prevented is a fundamental one, the function satisfied a merely subordinate one, the pain exceeds the pleasure.

With the ideas of unimpaired and unimpeded function as pleasurable, and of the new as demanding readjustment, we arrive at the consideration of health and disease. The free performance of any particular function is the first condition of the health of the organ of which it is the function, the regular performance of all physical functions according to the mutual adjustment of the organs of the body the condition of the health of the organism as a whole. And thus again we come round to the conception of pleasure as connected with the action that accords with the health of the organism. And this leads us to some remarks concerning the act of food-taking which may answer a possible objection to the statements made above with regard to the pleasure involved in the act.

The moralist and idealist are wont to protest against any theory that may seem to give prominence to "the purely animal" side of human life.

But first, we have to do, at present, merely with facts on which ethical theory may be founded, not as yet with such theory itself. Furthermore, the selection of the appet.i.tes of hunger, thirst, and s.e.x, as ill.u.s.trating the general theory of the relations of pleasure and pain to function is not made in order to lay special stress upon these appet.i.tes but because they afford, as fundamental, especially good examples. And, finally, it may be noticed that the pleasure connected with the stilling of hunger and thirst is not that of taste alone, though doubtless there are many with whom this pleasure is one of the most important of life; on the taking of sufficient and proper nourishment depends the pleasure involved in the general health of the body; the pain of non-satisfaction in this case is not simply that of a single organ but that of the whole organism. Even the deferment of a single meal beyond the usual hour often lowers the "tone" of the whole body, and the variations of too much or too little strongly influence the mood and general happiness of the individual. On the right use of nourishment depend, in great measure, the ability to cope with circ.u.mstances and the moral power of cheerfulness.

In connection with the idea of a certain equilibrium between exercise and nourishment, waste and repair, as normal, healthful, and pleasurable, Rolph's principle of the Insatiability of life may be considered. Evidently the facts of evolution demonstrate the power of the organism to advance by slow degrees beyond its original normal. But the progress is an exceedingly slow one, and the power of advance in the individual organism, at any particular point, by no means limitless, but very definitely limited. The limitations of the power of a.s.similation are evidenced by the evil results of over-eating, of over-satiety of function in any direction. Even at an early period of life, when growth is most marked, the capacity for a.s.similation is by no means limitless.

The idea of insatiability is advanced by Lewes[136] in a somewhat different form. It may possibly be an aid to the comprehension of the process of growth to regard one factor, namely the organism, as the active side of the development tending to indefinite growth in all directions, and the other factor, the environment, as the regulating, resisting factor, limiting such growth; the conception may, perhaps, be legitimately resorted to as we resort to various other devices which bring into prominence some one side of a process to the neglect of others but to the simplification of our concepts and calculations. A similar device is used by Zollner in his consideration of sun-spots.[137] But these representations should not be mistaken for actuality. The limitless expansion of the organism is as much a fiction as a theory of the limitless coercion of the environment resisted by the organism would be. The latter fiction is involved in one interpretation of the Struggle for Existence. Either view is one-sided; environment and organism both alike represent active forces, of both which combined, growth is, at each moment, the exactly conditioned resultant.

We may notice another a.s.sertion of Rolph's, namely, that growth is produced by increase of nourishment rather than that it demands[138]

increase of nourishment as the Darwinians state. I do not know how the Darwinians come to be accredited with this statement in the sense which is evidently criticised by Rolph. In so far as the statement may be interpreted as meaning that growth takes place first, and without nourishment, and that the demand for nourishment then ensues on this growth, the criticism is evidently valid. But the word "demands" may be interpreted in quite a different way as designating the need of growth for its conditions, or rather (for this is the ultimate significance of the word in this sense) the logical demand of the reason, which cannot suppose anything to take place in the absence of its conditions. Any other signification of the word is contrary to the whole spirit of Darwinism, and would accord much better with a theory of Insatiability or with other forms of theory that imply a special vital principle of some sort. If, when Rolph makes the a.s.sertion that increase of nourishment produces growth, he refers, by "increase of nourishment,"

to the mere act of mastication, it is true that growth must be regarded as following upon this as its condition; but growth and the a.s.similation of nourishment are identical. And, in fact, a.s.similation begins in the action of the saliva in the act of mastication. a.n.a.lysis of a.s.similation gives us sequence in one sense, since the parts of the act follow upon one another; but any interpretation which tends to draw a distinct line at any point in the physiological process, or to distinguish between a.s.similation as active, performed, and growth as pa.s.sive, suffered, should be avoided.

We may return to the consideration of pleasure and pain as connected with function in general, with a view to a solution, if possible, of the problem of its especial connection with the will. The brain may be defined, from the point of view of the theory of evolution, as the organ of centralization through which the unity of the organism is established, and the adaptation of parts or the development of special function becomes the adaptation or function of the whole. With this physiological adaptation, an increasing breadth of knowledge by experience, the deviation of feeling from old into new channels, and the attainment of new ends of action, are a.s.sociated. Just as past adaptations must have their physiological representation in brain-organization, so psychical experience is stored up to be remembered on sufficient suggestion, and finds, thus, its expression in conscious will, just as its physiological concomitants must be supposed to find their expression in nervous and muscular action. As we have seen, pleasure follows the line of evolution of function, strongest pleasure appearing in the direction of most strongly developed function, so that, just as any conflict of tendencies to function in the brain must result in conquest by the strongest tendency, the line of action must always correspond with that of the greatest pleasure. And just as the most strongly inherent function is combined with the greatest pleasure, so the representation of the performance of this most strongly inherent function is, in the conflict of tendencies before action, combined with the greatest pleasure of antic.i.p.ation. This statement coincides with Stephen's remark that it is not the representation of the greatest pleasure, but the pleasantest representation, which furnishes the decisive motive to will. Contingent circ.u.mstances may introduce into the actual carrying out of the act determined upon an element of pain not before experienced, in which the wish may arise that the act had not been performed; and the strength of the tendency to action in this direction is thus diminished.

With regard to this a.n.a.lysis, several things are to be noted. (1) It is no more claimed that the strongest pleasure of antic.i.p.ation is unmitigated pleasure than that the pleasure involved in the attainment of the end is necessarily unmitigated. Wherever there is interference, there is also pain. Where any struggle is involved, where any conflict of tendencies and wishes precedes choice, the struggle itself and the relinquishment of one or more courses in favor of the one chosen involve disagreeable elements, and the fiercer the struggle the greater the pain. Where two extremely strong tendencies thus come into collision, the pain involved may amount to agony. Our statement that the more pleasurable end or rather the one the imagination of which is the more pleasurable is the one sought by will needs therefore to be put into a somewhat different form, since, among all the methods of action open to choice in any case, there may be none the thought of which involves any positive pleasure, though there is in all or most cases some one which promises at least a negative excess of pleasure, that is, least pain.

(2) No a.s.sumption is made as to the particular kind of representation or the particular kind of end with which the greatest pleasure of antic.i.p.ation or of realization is combined, whether these are "higher"

or "lower," sensual or intellectual, moral or immoral. It is not by any means a.s.serted that the most moral end may not be that which is chosen.

(3) It is not a.s.serted that any direct calculation of the pleasure to self involved in any course of action necessarily contributes to choice.

(4) The pleasure or pain connected with the imagination of a future event is not to be confused with the actual pleasure or pain of the event itself. The feeling experienced in the event may be wholly different from that of antic.i.p.ation.

In connection with the second point, reference may be made to an a.s.sertion of Sidgwick's in his attack upon Hedonism. He writes as follows, "We have to observe that men may and do judge remote as well as immediate results to be in themselves desirable, without considering them in relation to the feelings of sentient beings."[139] The question for us here is, first, whether the emphasis of the a.s.sertion is on the word "considering,"--a question the context does not answer. It is certainly true that decisions are reached, judgments p.r.o.nounced, without introspection and self-a.n.a.lysis, and without long reflection of any sort. It is true that, even where reflection does take place, there is not necessarily any distinct attachment of the concept "pleasurable" to results considered, whether with relation to self or to others. The dog who s.n.a.t.c.hes at a piece of meat does not probably waste any time in reflecting on the pleasure he will experience in eating it; and yet we do not the less believe that if the act were not pleasurable to him he would not perform it. It may also be true that a man often p.r.o.nounces results to be desirable without noting or caring for their relations to other sentient beings; but if these results are regarded by him as desirable, then they must be in some way desirable to himself, that is, must have a pleasurable relation to his own feelings. Desire appertains to sentient beings and to sentient beings as such; a thing which is desirable must be desirable to a sentient being; the desirable which is not desirable to a sentient being is the desirable which is not-desirable, a self-contradiction.

In connection with the third of the points above noticed, Rolph's a.s.sertion that not pleasure but pain is the motive to action, may be considered. The author does not mean anything else than that action is in the direction from "want," "hunger," "pain," to ends involving pleasure, so that this theory does not, when a.n.a.lyzed, differ fundamentally from theories which a.s.sume the motive to will to be furnished by the most pleasurable end or by the most pleasurable representation of an end. The chief point of difference is the conception of the state of consciousness preceding will as invariably one of pain, the want of the end willed as invariably painful. Now it is evident that the satisfaction of a function may be so long deferred as to involve the severest pain; hunger, thirst, may reach a degree of intensity that is frenzy, muscular inaction, in an ordinarily active individual, if long persevered in, may be combined with extreme discomfort and depression. And it is also true that all desire involves want in the sense that an end is sought because its absence is felt as undesirable. But want in this sense means merely desire, and is not necessarily combined with any real pain of deprivation. The state of consciousness preceding action may be, on the contrary, one of exhilaration, of exceeding joy of antic.i.p.ation; the gratification of a desire may take place so soon after the first appearance of the desire, or the gratification of the desire become so certain so soon after the desire is first felt, that no pain of want is felt at all. Rolph, indeed, finds great difficulty in demonstrating his theory, and finally resorts to the definition of the pain which, as he a.s.serts, furnishes the motive to action as "the pain of the absence of pleasure." He says, moreover, that not all pain is felt as such, since much feeling is below the threshold of consciousness.[140] But "unconscious pain" and "feeling below consciousness" are mere self-contradictions. Specification of that of which, as unconscious, we know nothing is a very easy way of delivering oneself from the necessity of positive proof, but it is a very unscientific one. With respect to Rolph's a.s.sertion that pain can not be dispensed with, since it is everywhere the motive to action, it may be remarked that this statement seems to accord ill with Rolph's other theory that never the struggle for existence but always states of plenty and comfort are the conditions of growth, and the lengthy demonstration that periods of want must condition decline, retrogression, and finally the extinction of the species suffering the want. From the standpoint of Darwin, the struggle for existence is not inconsistent with the possession of plenty on the part of favored individuals and species, but Rolph expressly denies the compatibility of the two principles.

In his theory of want as the universal motive to action, Rolph cites suicide as an extreme case of this want. Our a.n.a.lysis has already taken into consideration some of the cases of mental struggle and postponement of the satisfaction of desire involving pain. But where one end greatly desired is unattainable, choice may yet be possible of another end affording partial satisfaction of the function corresponding to the desire, and, in cases where choice is necessary between two or more conflicting ends, the gratification of one may be attended with a sufficient degree of pleasure to cause partial forgetfulness of the disappointment in the necessary relinquishment of the other ends. Where, however, the function denied is one of the most fundamental of the organism, its denial may be combined with intensest pain and a gradual physical degeneration, or even a sudden collapse of the organism, ending in death; or it may induce an act that secures this end through the mediation of self-conscious will. What is true, in this case, of the denial of some one fundamental function, is true also of an acc.u.mulation of coincident denials of a number of lesser ones. Our desires are, indeed, in all cases, more or less complex, and involve the fulfilment of various functions; but we can easily imagine such an acc.u.mulation of small ills as to lead to desperation. Where no choice of action seems left us by which we may attain some one end deeply desired, or where a coincidence of obstacles makes it appear as if there were no choice of action towards any desirable ends, death may be chosen as a lesser evil than life, the equivalent of a lesser pain in the absence of feeling altogether. It may be noted, however, that where suicide is prevented in the first moment of desperation, the individual planning it may not only never again attempt it, but may afterwards even find much pleasure in life. As there is a high degree of pleasure connected with the performance of deeply rooted function or habit, so the performance of all function is attended with some modic.u.m of pleasure, except in such isolated moments as render suicide possible. Every end desired is one of function, and all function furnishes ends to the will. The pessimist lays emphasis upon the fact of the speedy loss of pleasure in ends attained. But herein lies the higher pleasure of life, that it is not rest but progress. The pleasures we attain may be continually renewed if rightly sought, but they cannot be unintermittently sustained. We cannot rest at ends attained and find unlessened rapture in them. Rest is not an attribute of life; life is essentially motion, that phase of it which we term rest being mere change of function for a time. The intimate relation, between pleasure and an equilibrium of waste and repair renders it impossible to obtain pleasure except as occupation is varied in order to afford opportunity of recuperation to organs and cells before used. Proper variation, however, may enable us to return to old pleasures with ever renewed and even increased enjoyment. But it is conceivable that the pleasures of gratification and the pains of disappointment may be so nearly balanced as to make life possible and yet endow it, at least for a period, with but little joy. It is to be noticed, however, that intense pain cannot endure, unmodified, for any great length of time. As pleasure follows the line of customary action, so pain diminishes with long-continued lack in any direction, unless this direction be that of too fundamental function, in which case the organism succ.u.mbs entirely and perishes. Either we grow gradually used to our disappointment and forget it to a great degree in other gratification, or we die under it. Certainly there are losses the pain of which is never entirely forgotten, after which life is never quite the same again; but the first agony of such losses is materially modified with time; and many of the losses which have seemed worst to us at the time they occurred are later looked back upon without regret. We progress to another stage, and the ends we desire to gain are changed.

The habitual misanthrope, indeed, generally derives a great deal of satisfaction from his own misery; and this leads us to the apparently anomalous remark that even pain as function may come to be combined with pleasure; we feel a satisfaction in our own capacity of emotion. The sensitivity of the poet to pain as well as his sensitivity to pleasure is a source of often very keen gratification and pride to him. Of the weak and aged who have no especial pleasure in life, it may be said that they have also, in general, no fierce pains, at least seldom such as bring desperation in youth. Having learned from experience, they are not subject to such exaggerated expectations, and hence disappointments, as accompany youth, vigor, and ignorance of the realities of life; and often they derive enjoyment from things which would have no attraction for the young.

The old question as to the relation between health and happiness may be answered by the statement that the two coincide. The statement is not meant, however, in the sense that the happiness which we at present attain is coincident with health in an absolute sense or that, _vice versa_, perfect happiness is, or can be, coincident with that which we ordinarily term health. The two terms are generally very ill-defined; sometimes the one, sometimes the other, is used in an absolute sense in connection with the discussion of the parallel term in a comparative sense. Perfect happiness must coincide with perfect health; for perfect health must coincide with perfect fulfilment of all function, and this coincides with the gratification of all desire. At present desires conflict, and the gratification of one is bought at the expense of others. This partial gratification corresponds to a partial health; but we too often forget, in the discussion of health and happiness, that health is no more perfect than is happiness. The individual is not yet in harmony with himself. But this means that he also is not in harmony with the environment.

In the development of thought, feeling, and will, we have noticed a certain parallelism, the attainment of new knowledge, the deviation of feeling into new channels, and the direction of will to new ends; indeed, our a.n.a.lysis must bring us to regard this development as something more than a parallelism, since, as we have seen, thought, feeling, and will, cannot be defined as separate organs of mind. And we are here led to notice a theory sometimes advanced, that the feelings of one individual can never be changed by another. You may present a man with arguments, say the advocates of this theory, but this is all; you cannot bring him to act on the arguments unless his feeling is already of the right sort before you present your arguments; if it is not, you cannot in any way alter it. Now a certain general foundation of character, of fundamental feeling, must always be conceded; but this is not what these theorists mean when they say that arguments can never alter feeling. "Of what use would it be to argue with my child and tell her that this or that act of hers is selfish," said a man to me not long ago of his three-year-old daughter; "if she is selfish, arguing with her will not make her less so; showing her that she is selfish will never have any effect upon her selfishness; you may change opinions by argument, but not feelings." The theory reminds us of the old idea of the will as something above other phases of nature and so supreme above their influence; it replaces this theory of the uncaused nature of the will by one of the like absolute independence of feeling. And yet, strange to say, this theory is oftenest advanced by just those who a.s.sert the variability of will in accordance with law, under the influence of the environment, and unite with these already incongruous theories the wholly contradictory one that it is feeling which furnishes the motive to will. To appeal to any one except through the medium of thought is certainly impossible; the feelings cannot be influenced except by representation and argument. Feeling cannot be taken by itself and so influenced. But the person endeavoring to convince does not desire to arouse indefinite feeling; he invariably wishes to excite it with regard to some definite end. To change opinion is also to change feeling in some degree. Whether an appeal to another is successful or not depends on the nature of the appeal and upon the consciousness of the individual to whom the appeal is made; but this means that not the nature of consciousness alone decides the result. In any excitation by the environment, the result is conditioned, not by the one factor alone but by both; and no excitation can leave the individual entirely unchanged; the multiplication of infinitesimal single excitations const.i.tutes the whole of evolution. A first appeal or argument may be felt only as disagreeable interference; but an acc.u.mulation of appeals at first disagreeable and met only with rebuffs may eventually result in total change of both ends and feelings. The amount of appeal necessary differs with the person appealed to; it may be large or small, excessively large or excessively small, but the general fact remains, that feelings vary as thought widens, and that an accompanying change of ends takes place. Thought and feeling are not two separate and independent things, but are, on the contrary, vitally united.

We may put our old familiar question with regard to cause and effect in a new form in respect to the development of thought, feeling, and will.

In considering the process of evolution, will, and, therefore, the conscious exercise of function, is ordinarily treated as the effect of pleasure; but our course of a.n.a.lysis identifies function and its exercise and rather brings function into the foreground, though the a.s.sertion of precedence in importance has been avoided. The course was chosen partly because it affords an opportunity of propounding the following questions: Is lapse of time, amount of exercise, or pleasure, the cause of habit? Or is habit the cause of function? Or is pleasure the cause of continued exercise of function? Or is function the cause of pleasure? Or is a minimum of interference the cause of pleasure and of function in a particular direction? Or is not, rather, continued exercise of function the cause of the absence of interference wherever and as far as it exists? We find all these various suggested theories advocated, by direct statement or by implication, in the treatment of the evolution of function by different authors, and indeed we frequently find several of the theories included, by implication, in the work of the same author. The vital connection of unimpeded function and pleasure is apparent, and the necessity of the time element in the development of function may also be a.s.serted; but there is not, according to our theory, any reason for introducing the concept of cause into the relations.

Our a.n.a.lysis of the development of thought, feeling, and will, has an important bearing on the teleological argument. If all habit comes, in time, to be pleasurable, if pleasure merely follows the line of exercise of function, _whatever that line may be_, and ends are thus mere matters of habit, and habit, exercise, is a matter of the action and reaction of all conditions, then it is evident that the force of the teleological argument is at once destroyed. We cannot pa.s.s beyond nature, by this route, to the inference of a transcendental cause. Man's action being a part of nature and the result of all conditions as much as is the motion of the wind or the waves, the results he produces, like theirs, only change and never creation, the only inference we could make from his will to other will must be an inference to will that is a part of nature, a result if also a condition, a link in the chain of nature, its ends coordinate with habit but not the cause of it, and no more determining than determined.

FOOTNOTES:

[135] See Avenarius' formulae of "complete vital maintenance": f(R) = -f(S); f(R) + f(S) = o, "Kritik der reinen Erfahrung."

[136] "Problems of Life and Mind," Ser. II. p. 103.

[137] See essay by Petzoldt above considered.

[138] "Biologische Probleme," p. 96; "erfordern."

[139] "Methods of Ethics," 4th ed. p. 97.

[140] "Biologische Probleme," p. 177 _et seq._

CHAPTER V

EGOISM AND ALTRUISM IN EVOLUTION

Carneri, in consistency with his scepticism as to feeling in animals, remarks that, with man, the struggle for happiness is added to the struggle for existence. Wallace and others regard man as comparatively withdrawn from the struggle for existence and the operation of natural selection. Much depends on definition in any statement; but it may be repeated that the a.n.a.logy of nervous organization does not permit us to suppose the absence of pleasure and pain in many species, and that man is no exception to the rule that the disharmonious is the unstable, and doomed, by its nature, to destruction.

However, a.n.a.logy does not, as we have seen, carry us far in deciding upon the presence or absence of consciousness, or in determining the exact nature of the ends it posits even where we may suppose it to be present and conscious of ends. If, then, we apply the terms "egoism" and "altruism" to the action of plants or even of other animal species, meaning, by these terms, that, in the action referred to, such ends are sought and willed as render human conduct what we call altruistic, we may be falling into error. However, in considering egoism and altruism in their relations to human development, it may be useful to note their prototypes, as far as external form is concerned, in life on lower planes, without making any a.s.sumption as to the internal meaning of these prototypes, except in so far as, in special instances, we may be warranted by further particular examination of facts.

It is evident that the action of animals is of a sort that has as its immediate and most prominent result their own protection and preservation, and that they show themselves generally hostile to other kinds and even, in many cases, if not hostile, at least indifferent, under most circ.u.mstances, to their own kind. Yet a certain amount of mutual support may occasionally be observed even among lower species.

One of the forms of such aid most common in the whole range of animal species is the care of the parent animal for its offspring. This care is more usual on the part of the female than on that of the male, and where it is exercised it is not the exception, but rather the rule, that the mother will sacrifice life itself in the defence of her young. Such care and self-sacrifice, especially marked in mammals and birds, are too well known to need ill.u.s.tration here.

Mutual aid between the s.e.xes is not so common or so strongly marked as the care of parent animals for their young. There is often no companionship at all between the s.e.xes, and even at the time of mating male and female may show themselves hostile to each other. It often happens with certain _Epeiridae_ the males of whom are smaller than the females, that, after copulation or sometimes even before, the female seizes upon the male and makes a meal of him. Sometimes, also, during the battle of two males for the possession of a female, the latter throws her web about both and devours them.[141] Female deer wandering in the company of a male have been observed to watch with indifference the contest of the latter with some newly arrived male, and on his death to lick the wounds of their new suitor and follow him as they before followed his predecessor. The relations of male and female among the birds, especially among some sorts of birds, have, on the other hand, often been made the theme of the poet.

But mutual aid among the animals is not confined to the relations of parents and offspring, and male and female. Whether or not we explain the societies of animals as merely huge families, as some authors are inclined to do, the fact of the a.s.sociation remains, and it continues to be true that, in this a.s.sociation, much mutual a.s.sistance is given. In this connection, however, may be cited the experiments of Lubbock, showing the exceeding irregularity and apparent caprice with which such a.s.sistance is rendered among even such creatures as the ants, with whom organization is generally regarded as having arrived at an unusual degree of development. Lubbock found that, wherever a regular battle was in progress, the ants gave aid to each other, but that where a single ant was attacked by an enemy, the others of the nest generally took no part in the matter. In many cases, they pa.s.sed by wounded or helpless members of their own colony, leaving them to perish where a very small amount of help would have saved them. In some cases, they cared for the slightly wounded; but those who were severely wounded they threw from the nest. In their hostility to their enemies, they were merciless and more persistent than in their help of friends.[142] Lubbock, arguing from such facts as these, differs in opinion from Grote, who regards it as necessary to the maintenance of any society that some moral feeling should exist. Indeed, that which Carneri a.s.serts with regard to the care of offspring might be claimed in this case, namely, that the a.s.sistance reaches exactly so far as is necessary for the preservation of species.