A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution Part 27

The implication is that all this apparent altruism is mere automatism.

In support of a view similar to this, Benno Scheitz quotes the following case,[143] "which Dr. Altum relates from his own experience": "'In the Gens d'Armes Market in Berlin, I saw several larks and a robin in a cage; the former cowered sorrowfully, with somewhat roughened feathers, in a corner, but the robin was in full activity. It ran to the food-cup, seized as many ant-larvae as it could grasp in its bill, and hastened with these to the nearest lark. The latter, however, did not honor the solicitous robin and its food with as much as a look. But scarcely had the robin offered its disdained food than it let this fall and hastened after fresh food, offered this, let it fall, fetched fresh again,--only to begin the same performance anew. As long as I watched this interesting spectacle, the robin was thus employed, and very soon the greater portion of the ant-larvae had been carried from the food-vessel and lay scattered before the different larks. And what was here the motive of the redbreast in permitting itself no nourishment (I did not see that it ate a single one of the ant-larvae itself), but carrying it all to its fellow-prisoners,--sympathy and love for the larks, who disdained all food, and who could have taken the same food for themselves, in the same manner, and with exactly the same amount of trouble? The redbreast had been caught and carried away from its young; the impulse to feed was strongly awakened and had before been strongly active, but not satisfied; the bird was obliged, therefore, to continue to bring food, although there was no longer anything to feed.'" The care which female animals of many species, when deprived of their young, often show for the young of other animals of the same or other species that come in their way is well known. Among domestic animals, the cat appears particularly susceptible in this respect, though comparisons here are perhaps scarcely fair, since, of all domestic animals that are habitually deprived of their young, the cat is about the only one that has the chance of coming in contact with young animals near the size of its own kind. The cat has been known to adopt young rats, chickens, puppies, ducks, and will generally, during the time of suckling, take up readily with kittens of another litter. Galton, in his "Inquiry into Human Faculty," mentions that the records of many nations have legends like that of Romulus and Remus, these being surprisingly confirmed by General Sleeman's narrative of six cases where children were nurtured for many years by wolves, in Oude. The working ants of certain species show as great care for the slave-larvae robbed from other nests as do many parent animals for their own offspring. Again, the care for their eggs shown by many animals who give no care to their young may be cited as evidence in favor of the theory of automatism. In the vegetable world also, similar protection is afforded flower and fruit, the most wonderful instances of such protection being, perhaps, those of the insectivorous plants.

But to all these arguments in favor of automatism may be answered: (1) that functions which are preserved and inherited must evidently be, not only in animals and plants, but also and equally in man, such as favor the preservation of the species; those which do not so favor it must perish with the individuals or species to which they belong; (2) that it cannot, indeed, be a.s.sumed that a result which has never come within the experience of the species can be willed as an end, although, with the species, function securing results which, from a human point of view, might be regarded as ends, may be preserved; but (3) that, as far as we a.s.sume the existence of consciousness at all in any species or individual, we must a.s.sume pleasure and pain, pleasure in customary function, pain in its hindrance; and (4) that, as far as we can a.s.sume memory, we may also feel authorized to a.s.sume that a remembered action may be a.s.sociated with remembered results that come within the experience of the animal, some phases of which may thus become, as combined with pleasure or pain, ends to seek or consequences to avoid.

There is no reason to be given why care for the young should be more pleasurable than care for eggs; the one may be as pleasurable to some species as the other is to other species. If we a.s.sume consciousness in Dr. Altum's robin, we may a.s.sume pleasure in the care of its young and also, as a possibility, pleasure in the results of such care, the preservation and prosperity of the young; whether the consciousness of the robin includes abstract concepts of preservation and prosperity, is another question. The human mother, too, is wont to be peculiarly tender to children in general, but we do not for that reason infer that her kindness towards them is mere automatism. There is no necessary opposition between reason and instinct, and certainly none between emotion and instinct. To the very functions from which we derive the most pleasure we are impelled by an irresistible innate tendency. In any particular case, it may be very difficult to determine the amount of reasoning power possessed by the animal, the exact relation of ends to means in its consciousness; but it may be remarked that there are human mothers who reason little with regard to the preservation of the species or other so-called ends secured by the care they give their offspring; the care is spontaneous, but may not be the less a matter of warm affection. It appears strange, therefore, that exactly that constancy and strength of tendency, with need of satisfaction by other channels if the usual ones fail, which we use as proof of extreme mother-tenderness in the case of human beings should, in the case of other species, be turned into an argument to disprove the existence of this feeling.

It is sometimes argued that the feeling of the parent animal in the care of its young is, in any case, merely one of pleasure in the activity, and has no connection with the good of the offspring. In such a case as that of the robin, where the effects of the care come within the experience of the mother, this is a mere arbitrary a.s.sumption, although direct proof of the contrary may be impossible. Naturally, in the case of an animal which cares for its eggs, but never comes in contact with the offspring that are hatched from them, it would be impossible to suppose any affection for the offspring as such; their existence does not come within the range of the animal's experience. With regard to an animal whose connection with its young is constant, the theory that pleasure in their care has no reference to their welfare, has no evidence to support it and is unjustifiable. If we cannot directly disprove it, we have, at least, the evidence of many facts unfavorable to it. The distress manifested not only by many mammals (who might be supposed to find physical discomfort merely in the absence of the means of relief of the milk-glands), but also by other animals and notably birds, in the loss of their young and even in any danger that threatens them,--the indescribably mournful sounds at deprivation, the after depression, and the capacity for self-sacrifice in their defence, would lead us naturally, from an unprejudiced standpoint, to a belief in something very like what we term mother-love in human beings. From Letourneau's "Sociology based upon Ethnography,"[144] I quote the following: "A female wren, observed by Montagu, spent sixteen hours a day in looking for food for her little ones. At Delft, when there was a fire raging, a female white stork, not being able to carry away her young ones, allowed herself to be burnt with them.... J. J. Hayes tells us of a female white bear forgetting the Esquimaux dogs, the huntsmen, and her own wounds, in order to hide her own little bear with her body, to lick her and to protect her. In Central Africa, a female elephant, all covered and pierced with javelins, hurled at her by the escort of black men attending upon Livingstone, was all the while protecting her young one with her trunk which her own large body enabled her to cover.... In Sumatra, a female orang-outang, pursued with her little one by Captain Hall and wounded by a gunshot, threw her infant on to the highest branches of the tree on to which she had climbed, and continued, until she died, exhorting her young one to escape. In Brazil, Sphix saw a female of the stentor niger who, wounded by a gunshot, collected her last remaining strength to throw her young one on to one of the branches close by; when she had performed this last act of duty, she fell from the tree and died." In Romanes' "Animal Intelligence," occurs the following quotation from Dr. Franklin:[145] "'I have known two parrots,'

said he, 'which had lived together four years, when the female became weak and her legs swelled. These were symptoms of gout, a disease to which all birds of this family are very subject in England. It became impossible for her to descend from the perch, or to take her food as formerly, but the male was most a.s.siduous in carrying it to her in his beak. He continued feeding her in this manner during four months, but the infirmities of his companion increased from day to day, so that at last she was unable to support herself on the perch. She remained at the bottom of the cage, making, from time to time, ineffectual efforts to regain the perch. The male was always near her, and with all his strength aided the attempts of his dear better half. Seizing the poor invalid by the beak or the upper part of the wing, he tried to raise her, and renewed his efforts several times. His constancy, his gestures, and his continued solicitude, all showed in this affectionate bird the most ardent desire to relieve the sufferings and a.s.sist the weakness of his companion. But the scene became still more interesting when the female was dying. Her unhappy spouse moved around her incessantly, his attention and tender cares redoubled. He even tried to open her beak to give her some nourishment. He ran to her, then returned with a troubled and agitated look. At intervals, he uttered the most plaintive cries; then, with his eyes fixed on her, kept a mournful silence. At length his companion breathed her last; from that moment he pined away, and died in the course of a few weeks.'"

Moreover, care of animals for other animals shows itself often where neither the relation of parent to offspring, nor the relation of s.e.x, nor even that of species, furnishes the basis. Aside from the friendship and self-sacrifice of domestic animals for man, friendships, under domestication, between individuals of all manner of ordinarily most hostile species are reported. Such friendship is not at all infrequent between dog and cat. In the family of a relative of my own were once a quail and cat who were most devoted to each other. They would spend hours playing together, and were often left alone together for long periods. The cat never manifested any tendency to regard the bird in the light of food; she seemed, however, well aware of the danger it might be under from other cats, and invariably drove these away when they endeavored to approach the house. This cat was also friendly to a tame robin which preceded the quail as pet in the same family.

And furthermore, a.s.sistance is frequently given spontaneously where there has been no a.s.sociation before the act. There are a number of instances on record, and supported by good authority, where dogs have brought suffering individuals of their own kind to places where they had themselves received aid. Romanes cites from Mr. Oswald Fitch the story of a domestic cat who "was observed to take out some fish-bones from the house to the garden, and, being followed, was seen to have placed them in front of a miserably thin and evidently hungry stranger cat, who was devouring them; not satisfied with that, our cat returned, procured a fresh supply, and repeated its charitable offer, which was apparently as gratefully accepted. This act of benevolence over, our cat returned to its customary dining-place, the scullery, and ate its own dinner off the remainder of the bones."[146] Romanes says further: "An almost precisely similar case has been independently communicated to me by Dr. Allen Thomson, F.R.S. The only difference was that Dr. Thomson's cat drew the attention of the cook to the famishing stranger outside by pulling her dress and leading her to the place. When the cook supplied the hungry cat with some food, the other one paraded round and round while the meal was being discussed, purring loudly." "Mr. H. A. Macpherson writes me that in 1876 he had an old male cat and a kitten aged a few months. The cat, who had long been a favorite, was jealous of the kitten and 'showed considerable aversion to it.' One day the floor of a room in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the house was taken up in order to repair some pipes. The day after the boards had been replaced, the cat 'entered the kitchen (he lived almost wholly on the drawing-room floor above), rubbed against the cook, and mewed without ceasing until he had engaged her attention. He then, by running to and fro, drew her to the room in which the work had taken place. The servant was puzzled until she heard a faint mew from beneath her feet. On the boards being lifted, the kitten emerged safe and sound, though half-starved. The cat watched the proceedings with the greatest interest until the kitten was released; but, on ascertaining that it was safe, he at once left the room, without evincing any pleasure at its return. Nor did he subsequently become really friendly with it.'"

I cite still one other instance of animal affection from Romanes: "One of a shooting-party under a banian tree killed a female monkey, and carried it to his tent, which was soon surrounded by forty or fifty of the tribe, who made a great noise and seemed disposed to attack the aggressor. They retreated when he presented his fowling-piece, the dreadful effect of which they had witnessed, and appeared perfectly to understand. The head of the troop, however, stood his ground, chattering furiously; the sportsman, who perhaps felt some little degree of compunction for having killed one of the family, did not like to fire at the creature, and nothing short of firing would suffice to drive him off. At length he came to the door of the tent, and finding threats of no avail, began a lamentable moaning and by the most expressive gesture seemed to beg for the dead body. It was given him; he took it sorrowfully in his arms and bore it away to his expecting companions.

They who were witnesses of this extraordinary scene resolved never again to fire at one of the monkey race."[147]

As to the changeable and capricious appearance of the a.s.sistance rendered in animal a.s.sociations, by one member to another, it may be said that any being of a different species who could look into our towns and cities might easily find as great problems of caprice here as among the ants and bees. We, too, leave our fellows to perish unaided; we, too, kill off, by neglect and hard usage, often not only or chiefly our drones, but even some of our most industrious, useful members of society. With us, too, there is very often greater hostility towards enemies than kindness towards friends. Many savage tribes, that we certainly concede to be endowed with intelligence, could learn of the ants, rather than teach them, with regard to the duties of mutual aid.

With regard to other species than his own, even so-called civilized man is often eminently selfish and cruel. Among the savages the most extreme cruelty is often shown. Bain, in an essay ent.i.tled "Is there Such a Thing as Pure Malevolence?" cites from a book, "Siberian Pictures,"

together with mention of the pleasure shown by onlookers in the drowning of a man, an instance where boys seemed to find a genuine and peculiar delight in slowly roasting a dog to death.[148] And Bruce describes in his travels the feasts of the Abyssinians, where the flesh was cut from an ox alive and bellowing with pain. But our police courts frequently bear witness to the possibility of the most wanton cruelty performed by people within our own most enlightened societies, although we may claim that cruelty is not so general in civilized societies. I personally have known of a case where, a horse becoming suddenly ill and falling upon the road, it was prodded by its owner with a pitchfork until it died of its wounds; and of another case where a man fastened to a tree a harmless kitten that had wandered into his yard, and deliberately stoned it to death. Surely we have very little right to criticise the slaughter of animals by other species, while we ourselves name the taking of life "sport." Our criticism of the play of the cat with the mouse as "cruel"

is humorous--if there can be any humor connected with cruelty--as long as we ourselves find delight in the prolonged struggle of the trout and the torture of the fox-chase. Perhaps the cat may be under the impression that the mouse takes pleasure in being played with; certainly we can believe that this is possible, when beings who claim to possess so much higher intelligence can gravely a.s.sert that the fox enjoys the chase.

Amongst so-called civilized human beings, too, the care of parents for offspring is by no means universal, and mothers are known whom not even the fear of the law can hinder from sacrificing their children by the slow torture of starvation for the gain of a few pounds or for even simple relief from the trouble of their rearing. The reports of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children show that not strangers but parents are the most frequent sinners against the child.

Nor is infanticide and neglect confined to the poorer cla.s.ses. I repeat, if a being of some other species enabled to obtain only such external knowledge of us as we have of other species, some being beholding us, for instance, from distant planets, should endeavor to form a theory of our inner egoism and altruism, of sentiment and motive, he might be as puzzled as we are when we study the conduct of bees and ants. Even the helplessness of the ant species, _Polyergus rufescens_, at which we often wonder as stupidity, has its parallel in some of the former slave-owners of the southern states of North America, who live in the utmost poverty and ignorance because they have lost the habits of industry and consider work beneath them. Mother-love is certainly the rule amongst us; but it is not more constant or self-sacrificing than with some other species, though it, in general, accompanies the child farther in his career. This rule is not, however, universal. Human mothers of a lower type, who show fondness for their children when they are little, often exhibit little or none for them after they have grown out of arms.

It is claimed that altruism was, in its origin, egoism. Everything depends, in theory on this point, on our definition of the terms "origin" and "altruism." If we regard the life of animals in general or the life of any particular species as having been non-social before it was social, and as having become social through increase of numbers, the "chance" a.s.sociation which arose naturally in this way being favored by natural selection, we must a.s.sume function fundamentally advantageous to self without regard to the results to other beings to have been primary, whether or not we call this function egoism. With regard to animal life in general, we cannot avoid adopting some such view as this, since we find few species forming lasting bonds of a.s.sociation, a large number forming only exceedingly short ones, and some forming none at all, and since we must furthermore suppose a scarcity of living individuals to have preceded their multiplicity. Moreover, we cannot suppose consciousness to have been absent, in the case of many of the animal species, during the whole of this development. And where there is consciousness, pleasure must be a concomitant along the line of development, and customary forms of action come to present ends, whether or not the individual has the abstract concept of "ends."

But we need to remember that even the human race has not yet arrived at perfection, and that even moral altruism (for not all altruism is necessarily moral) is not yet absolutely attained in any species. Our ordinary use of the term is progressive; that which is altruistic at one period of history is often looked upon, at a later period, as merely a higher form of egoism. This fact should be borne in mind when, in Ethics or Political Economy, we inquire whether man was, in the beginning, altruistic. What do we mean here by "altruism," and what by "beginning"?

A similar criticism may be made on the rather more usual question as to whether man was, in the beginning, social; what is the beginning of our species, and what degree of a.s.sociation is necessary in order that the individuals a.s.sociating may be termed "social"? The question is a difficult one to answer from any point of view. While the majority of human beings, even the most savage, show some degree of gregariousness, there appear to be some tribes that are even less social in their habits than the most of our ape-cousins. Mr. Dalton says of the savages of Inner Borneo that they live in the most perfect state of nature, do not cultivate the earth or live in huts, do not eat either rice or salt, and do not a.s.sociate with each other, but wander like wild animals in the forest. "The s.e.xes meet in the jungle, or the man carries away a woman from some campong. When the children are old enough to shift for themselves, they usually separate, neither one afterwards thinking of the other."[149]

As to just what form the development of altruism from egoism may have a.s.sumed in the case of any particular species, or how the individuals of the species may first have been led to a.s.sociation, the state of science does not, at present, enable us to say. Most authors, indeed, incline to cla.s.s all social development as having its origin in some one form of family relation. Rolph, for instance, refers it to the necessary a.s.sociation of the s.e.xes, at certain times, for the purpose of copulation. Others regard the care of the female for its young as the primary form from which all social organization has developed. Inasmuch, however, as the line of ascent from primitive protoplasm to man cannot be regarded as straight, but has very many branches, it is quite conceivable that the development may have taken place in different ways in different branches or different species; and the very various forms which social organization shows in different species is direct evidence in favor of such a supposition. Thus it is not, for instance, in some species, the mother animal, but the male, who cares for the young, and again, in other cases, affectionate relations of the s.e.xes are not a prominent feature of the social structure. The att.i.tude of a swarm of bees towards the queen, her progeny, and the drones, presents aspects entirely different from those of ant-nests or human tribal or state organization. In some species where the female exhibits considerable care and concern for her eggs or offspring, there is no especial friendliness between the s.e.xes, and in other cases, where no care is given to offspring, there is still apparently some degree of friendliness, or at least of physical attraction, between male and female. It is not only conceivable that the habit of a.s.sociation may have been developed by different means in different species, but it is also conceivable that, in some cases, several forms of family relation may have a.s.sisted equally, and in other cases have united, even if not in equal measure, in producing the result. The a.s.sociation of parent with offspring, for instance, is in most cases impossible without some degree of a.s.sociation between the offspring.

However we may suppose social relations to have originated in the case of any particular species, whether through the s.e.xual or the parental relations or through both combined, and whether we trace these relations themselves back, in the one instance, to the original union of the s.e.xes in the individual, and propagation as self-division, in the other to the unity of mother and offspring before the individual life commences, or whether we simply begin with some non-hostile contact of individuals as already existent, it is evident that, with increasing compet.i.tion, cooperation must be to the advantage of those cooperating. Those individuals whose single strength is supplemented by the aid of others must succeed best in the struggle for existence. Moreover, with the exercise of altruistic forms of action, we must suppose pleasure in its exercise to increase, in so far as we suppose any consciousness at all in the animal performing the action. The greater the degree of exercise, the greater the pleasure connected with the action, and the more readily the organism will respond to conditions permitting its accomplishment; while repet.i.tion, again, must increase tendency to repet.i.tion. This is true not only of exactly the same form of action, but also of similar forms, that is, of forms having some like elements. The conditions of action are never exactly the same; the environment is continually changing; but the animal tends to choose, among possible forms of action, that which corresponds most nearly to most exercised and pleasurable forms.

At just what period we are to regard the altruistic forms of action as becoming in spirit altruistic depends, as has already been said, on our definition of the degree of disinterested feeling necessary to altruism proper, aside from our theories of the existence and form of consciousness in the case of any particular species at any particular point of development. In the case of even disinterested human action, the altruism is not generally, or at least in very many cases, wholly unmixed with _any_ thought of self, though this thought may not hold first place. If self-sacrifice be the test of altruistic feeling, then we must suppose the latter to exist, in some relations, even far down in the scale of being. In this case, just as in other cases where choice is necessary, the stronger tendency conquers even with the result of pain of disappointment in some other direction. The case of altruistic action is hence not unique in this respect, and it might perhaps be argued that such self-sacrifice would therefore be possible without any consideration or consciousness of the good accruing to others through its performance. But if we a.n.a.lyze the development of any habit, we find that the pleasure of the act speedily connects itself with all the constant results of the act that come within the experience of the performer of the act and are recognized as its results. Any result at first unpleasant must, if it is constant, either lead to the discontinuance of the act or else, with time, lose much of its quality of unpleasantness. Either the expected pain of this one factor is sufficient to counterbalance the pleasure awaited in the act, and a repet.i.tion of the act is thus avoided, or, as in all other cases of habitual experience, the pain or discomfort gradually diminishes, until, if the habit be long enough continued, pleasure takes its place. The pleasure of others must be a constant result of action that secures their welfare, and if this result comes within the conscious experience of the performer of the action, we can scarcely avoid supposing that, even if his action is in the beginning purely selfish, the pleasure of those benefited must come in time to play a part in the pleasure of the performer. The part it plays will not be, in the beginning, naturally, a very important one, but its importance will increase with time. If this is true in a measure even of the individual, it is doubly true of the species. Wherever, therefore, we may suppose the existence of sufficient intelligence for the inference of pleasure from its outer signs in others, it must be admitted to be possible and even probable that constant habits of self-sacrifice and helpfulness to others will be accompanied by some measure of altruistic feeling. And even if we suppose an insufficiency of intelligence for such inference, it is still possible and even probable that the constant symptoms of pleasure in others will come to be a part of the conditions of the pleasure of the individual or the species in whom habits of self-sacrifice have become constant, although their inner significance is not recognized. It may be objected that, if actual altruistic feeling were present in animals which show a certain amount of helpfulness towards others of their kind, this altruism would not desert these others at the very time of their greatest need or when any great peril to self is involved, or that it would show itself in many other acts than just those which, as in the case of the ants, secure the preservation of a society, or in that of some other species give a certain protection to the female during breeding time. The argument is wholly inconclusive, and has already been answered. The action of natural selection in the preservation of those forms of tendency that secure the preservation of the species does not annul the action of the will or render the presence of strong emotion in the direction of the tendency thus preserved impossible; on the contrary, we must suppose all tendency, in man equally with other animal species, to be the result of natural selection. And in man, too, altruism that is sufficient for some degree of sacrifice is insufficient for a greater. In man, as in other species, altruistic feeling and altruistic action vary according to the particular directions in which habit in the species and in the individual has been cultivated. Men and women who are not kind to each other will frequently be kind to little children. The average Englishman is kind to his dog in spite of his total indifference to the pain inflicted on the very nearly if not quite as intelligent fox; and he will grow indignant to the verge of tears over abuse of a horse, while he will regard the like abuse with little or no emotion when it is inflicted on a miserable donkey. I doubt if the average Englishman would shoot horses or dogs, even if they were good for food and useless otherwise, and abounded wild in Great Britain. But this is merely because a.s.sociation and habit have made him acquainted with the capacity of feeling in the horse and dog, and have accustomed him to humane treatment of them.

An argument sometimes advanced against the theory of a derivation of altruism from egoism is that such altruism has no premises or reasons; if, say the advocates of this argument, a man performs an apparently altruistic act to-day from selfish motives, and performs the same act to-morrow without calculation of the benefit to self to be gained from it,--if such a change were possible,--then this man must simply have forgotten his motives for the act. But this is not altruism proper. Such action is the result of a logical confusion, but it can never be altruism. Altruism proper has a motive, and this motive is the desire to do good to others. With regard to this argument it may simply be said that it is wholly untenable from any evolutionist standpoint; it destroys at once the possibility of any moral progress. Intended to defend altruism and moral principle in general from what is designated as degradation, it is itself degrading in its denial of the compatibility of natural and moral advance. It posits the a.s.sertion that nothing can ever become that which it was not from the beginning, an a.s.sertion utterly inconsistent with any theory of growth, whether evolutional or otherwise. It is contradictory, too, of the directly observed every-day facts of individual experience. The ends with which we perform our acts, and the same acts, certainly change from day to day. The adult would have reason for shame were the ends with which he performs certain acts the same with those with which he performed those same acts when he was a child. The emotions with which we regard life and its various relations alter every day. If the change from egoism to altruism could be p.r.o.nounced logical confusion, then all mental evolution must const.i.tute an increase of intellectual disorder, a continuous progress towards less instead of greater intelligence. Where is the beginning of feeling and what was feeling in the beginning? Of what nature were the motives of our ape-like progenitors, and of what nature the first motive that appeared in the universe? and how have we ever arrived at the possession of other motives than these? What a confusion worse confounded must be our present motives, and of what a chaos of thought and emotion must the human intellect consist! The origin of any such argument as this, intended to disprove the theory of a derivation of altruism from egoism, is probably in the failure to distinguish the fact that both altruism and egoism, as we know them, are comparative, not absolute. Naturally, absolute altruism could not develop immediately from absolute egoism, that is, the one could not change immediately into the other. But there are very few human beings in whom some degree of altruism does not exist; and all we may note directly of change of motive in ourselves, as well as all we ever could note of change in external action in other species, is gradual increase in this direction. In the individual case it is quite possible for change to take place in the opposite direction of the development of greater egoism.

In connection with the discussion of the development of motives, we may inquire what is the final end of action; I refer not to the ideal end but the actual end, although the two are not always distinguished in the answer to this question. The confusion of the two generally arises from forgetfulness of the fact that an end is the part of the result of an act particularly willed by the performer. The concept is again a teleological one, although often advanced, in some form, by persons of materialistic views. Thus some authors, looking at the process of evolution as continual survival of the fittest, and observing that natural selection thus tends continually towards health, so that the action of existing species is, in a large and ever increasing measure, favorable to health, a.s.sert that the latter is the end of action.

Others, in like manner and from similar premises, argue that the preservation of the species is the end of action; or sometimes the logical inaccuracy involved in making health or the preservation of species the universal end of action is partly concealed by giving the a.s.sertion the form that one or the other of these is "the end attained"

by action. To these statements may be answered: The health of the individual, although it sometimes appears as the end willed, is by no means the constant and universal end, but, on the contrary, rather an infrequent end. As to the preservation of the species, the concept has never been heard of by a majority of human beings, and a thing cannot be an end to those who have not heard of it. It is doubtful, moreover, whether even those to whom it is familiar often, if ever, make it the end of action. With regard to pleasure, it has already been said that special calculation of the pleasure to accrue to self is by no means a necessary part of the motive to action. Attention may again be called to the fact that it is not the future pleasure that decides the will to action in the case of struggle of conflicting tendencies, but that it is the more pleasurable representation, and that it is present pleasure which decides in any case. Or, rather, it is not the pleasure, the feeling alone, that decides, for feeling is never found alone; it is always combined with thought-images. The strength of pleasurable feeling is the "tone" in which the intensity of the function manifests itself, and according to which it tends to further expression in action. In the imagination of action and its results, or the thought of it, reflection may linger especially on any one of its elements,--on any part of the action or its results as inferred from the a.n.a.logy of past experience; the pleasure to self is not necessarily the element on which the mind lays stress, and the pleasure to others may be the element with which thought is particularly occupied and which turns the scale of choice; just as, also, in the actual action and its results, the pleasure in pleasure or benefit accruing to others may more than counterbalance the pain which some other inevitable phase of the action or its results brings with it.

Much that has been said of the development of egoism from altruism still holds true of the individual, even if the idea of a progress in altruism through heredity be surrendered. The consideration of the question of heredity is, however, necessary to any complete or wide-reaching theory of moral progress. Hitherto, the actuality of the inheritance of altruistic tendency has been a.s.sumed on the strength of previous considerations with regard to heredity in general, according to which we could not conceive all the multifarious differences which appear in all the species and varieties of animal nature to have been present in simplest primal organisms, or all the differences of the different species and varieties which have arisen through s.e.xual propagation from common ancestors to have been present as inherent potentialities in the germ-plasm, as such, of their common ancestors, and so cannot consider the lesser variations which go to make up the larger ones as due merely to the germ-plasm. It remains for us to examine the facts more particularly with respect to this special form of tendency. Stephen says: "An unreasoning animal can only adapt itself to new circ.u.mstances, except within a very narrow range, by acquiring a new organization; or, in other words, by becoming a different animal. Its habits and instincts may therefore remain fixed through countless generations. But man, by acc.u.mulating experiences, can virtually alter both his faculties and his surroundings without altering his organization. When this acc.u.mulation extends beyond the individual, it implies a social development, and explains the enormous changes wrought within historical times, and which define the difference between the savage and the civilized man."[150]

"Briefly, society exists as it exists in virtue of this organization, which is as real as the organization of any material instrument, though it depends upon habits and instincts instead of arrangements of tangible and visible objects."[151] "Children, no doubt, start with infinitely varying apt.i.tudes for moral culture, as they start with stomachs of varying strength of digestion; but, in every case, the action of the social medium is an essential factor of the result."[152] Now, in the first place, objection may be made to the term "unreasoning animal," in that, whatever we may think with regard to inorganic matter and plant-life or even with regard to the lower forms of animal-life, the whole theory of evolution is opposed to the supposition that reason suddenly arises in man; and in that we have, moreover, in the case of many of the higher species, very conclusive evidence of the presence of some degree of reason. Mr. Stephen does not elsewhere make any positive a.s.sertion of the entire absence of reason in animals; yet to his remark that "It may be that germs of this capacity [_i.e._ the capacity to learn by experience and impart this knowledge to others] are to be found in the lower animals" he adds, "but we shall make no sensible error if we regard it, as it has always been regarded, as the exclusive prerogative of humanity."[153] That is, we make no sensible error if we regard the progress of other animal species than our own to be wholly "organic," that of our own species, on the other hand, to be wholly an acc.u.mulation of common knowledge. The division between man and the rest of the animal kingdom is thus made a very distinct and absolute line. It may be noticed, second, that the third quotation of the three cited consecutively above contains a very different statement from that of the first quotation. And it may be said, third, that the second quotation, while seeming to bear out the first, is in reality a contradiction of it, since it makes social organization dependent upon "habits" and "instincts."

Exactly what is it that is meant by the alteration of organization which is p.r.o.nounced unnecessary to the "virtual" alteration of human faculties? From the modern spiritualistic, the materialistic, the positivistic, or any modern standpoint at all, it is difficult to perceive how mental alteration can be supposed without the a.s.sumption of an exactly corresponding physiological change. In view of the exceedingly minute structure of the nervous system, which is chiefly affected by such change, we may suppose this change to be so fine as to be imperceptible to sense-perception, but, since it must, in any case, be exactly coordinate with the psychical change, I fail to see how we can scientifically regard the one and at the same time ignore the other and p.r.o.nounce it of no significance. And if we suppose any fixation of psychical alteration, we cannot avoid likewise supposing an exactly coordinate fixation of physiological alteration. Of course the question remains as to the extent to which fixation takes place in either case, and this question we have yet to consider. The weakness of Mr. Stephen's position lies in his a.s.sumption of fixation on the one side and his denial of it on the other.

How far are the moral qualities acquired in one generation inherited by the next? Inasmuch as all development is by inappreciable increments, all change of organization gradual, or, in psychical terms, inasmuch as character varies only slowly from the grooves of established habit, there is a general truth in the statement that all habit prominent enough to be noticed as such can generally be traced farther back than the next generation only. Nevertheless, here are a few cases for the Weismannites:--

"Gall speaks of a Russian family in which the father and grandfather had died prematurely, the victims of taste for strong drink. The grandson, at the age of five, manifested the same liking in the highest degree."

"Trelat, in his work 'Folie Lucide,' states that a lady of regular life and economical habits was subject to fits of uncontrollable dipsomania.

Loathing her state, she called herself a miserable drunkard, and mixed the most disgusting substances with her wine, but all in vain; the pa.s.sion was stronger than her will. The mother and the uncle of this lady had also been subject to dipsomania."

"Charles X----, son of an eccentric and intemperate father, manifested instincts of great cruelty from infancy. He was sent at an early age to various schools, but was expelled from them all. Being forced to enlist in the army, he sold his uniform for drink and only escaped a sentence of death on the testimony of physicians, who declared that he was the victim of an irresistible appet.i.te. He was placed under restraint, and died of general paralysis."

"A man belonging to the educated cla.s.s, and charged with important functions, succeeded for a long time in concealing his alcoholic habits from the eyes of the public; his family were the only sufferers by it.

He had five children, only one of whom lived to maturity. Instincts of cruelty were manifested in this child, and from an early age its sole delight was to torture animals in every conceivable way. He was sent to school, but could not learn. In the proportions of the head he presented the character of microcephalism, and in the field of intellectual acquisition he could only reach a certain low stage, beyond which further progress was impossible. At the age of nineteen he had to be sent to an asylum for the insane."

"A man of an excellent family of laboring people was early addicted to drink, and died of chronic alcoholism, leaving seven children. The first two of these died, at an early age, of convulsions. The third became insane at twenty-two, and died an idiot. The fourth, after various attempts at suicide, fell into the lowest grade of idiocy. The fifth, of pa.s.sionate and misanthropic temper, broke off all relations with his family. His sister suffers from nervous disorder, which chiefly takes the form of hysteria, with intermittent attacks of insanity. The seventh, a very intelligent workman, but of nervous temperament, freely gives expression to the gloomiest forebodings as to his intellectual future."

"Dr. Morel gives the history of a family living in the Vosges, in which the great-grandfather was a drunkard, and died from the effects of intoxication; and the grandfather, subject to the same pa.s.sion, died a maniac. He had a son far more sober than himself, but subject to hypochondria and of homicidal tendencies; the son of this latter was stupid, idiotic. Here we see, in the first generation, alcoholic excess; in the second, hereditary dipsomania; in the third, hypochondria; and in the fourth, idiocy and probable extinction of the race."[154]

It is the general testimony of authorities that mental disease may thus appear in one generation as general tendency to excess, in another as homicidal mania, in another as microcephalism, etc. Here we have examples of the hereditary character of what we recognize as nervous disease, which yet has its moral as well as its intellectual side. There are few who do not recognize the power of the parent, through injury to his own health, to affect the health of his children; and yet that which we call disease is not more physical than that which we call moral characteristic. However, the physical side of that which we call normal moral characteristic is more withdrawn from observation; that which is recognized as mental disease forms, in this respect, a link between what we term ill-health and mental characteristic. The physical features of what we term ill-health attract our attention especially because of the weakness and incapacity or the distinct physical pain involved; the physical side of insanity comes also more or less distinctly to our notice, but the physical accompaniments of normal characteristic attract less attention. And yet all these three conditions have each a psychical and each a physiological side. It is therefore difficult to understand how the possibility of the inheritance of ill-health from want or excess can be acknowledged and yet the possibility of the inheritance of psychical characteristic acquired by the parent be doubted; the latter has its organic side as much as the former. And no better ill.u.s.tration of this fact can be found than in just such cases as those above cited, where that which appears in the first place as mere excess, that is, moral characteristic as we ordinarily term it, takes finally the form of microcephalism, idiocy, or insanity.

Man's early existence as an individual is distinguished by the length of duration of a condition of helplessness, at the beginning of which, beyond the fundamental so-called organic action, only a few simple activities manifest themselves. The human being is born with almost everything to acquire, and the earlier years, during which habits are slowly acc.u.mulating, appear peculiarly adaptive or formative. The human child is peculiarly susceptible, as regards mental and moral acquirements, to the nature of his surroundings. But this fact does not necessarily mean any more than what Stephen a.s.serts in the last of the three quotations above cited, namely, that the social medium is an essential factor of the result; it does not necessarily exclude the inheritance of moral or immoral tendency acquired under civilization or even by near ancestors. Even in cases of the inheritance of the most extreme pa.s.sion for alcohol, we cannot suppose that the taste would ever have manifested itself, had alcohol never come within the reach of the inheriting individual. The young kitten that has never tasted meat will s.n.a.t.c.h at a piece as soon as it scents it; but we cannot suppose that the evidently inherited taste for flesh would ever appear, did flesh never come within the range of its sense-perception. Since a suitable environment must always be conceived as essential to the development even of the most inveterate inherited qualities, and since man's mental and especially his moral superiority has been developed in connection with social conditions, it is conceivable that, these conditions failing, his mental and moral development may show a lack coordinate with the degree of such failure. And here is an answer to those who, in contesting the theory of any moral inheritance, state their views in the final form that if any inheritance at all can be claimed, it can only be as a certain degree of readiness in responding to the conditions of civilization; _no_ inheritance can ever be anything more than this; the existence, to a sufficient degree, of complementary conditions in the environment is always necessary to the development of tendency. It is, therefore, conceivable that the child of civilized parents of a higher type of morality, if carried off, in infancy, by savages, might fail to exhibit the high character of its parents, just as it is conceivable and more than probable that it would fail to exhibit their higher intellectual gifts. It is also conceivable that the child of moral parentage may inherit the capacity of high moral development and yet fall into crime, if circ.u.mstances afford him no education save that of a.s.sociation with hardened criminals. We might only with reason expect to find, in the case of the supposed child abducted by savages, a certain mental acuteness applied to savage affairs and some greater degree of humane feeling, dominated, however, by savage conceptions; as also greater ease in the acquirement of civilized ideas and customs in case of a return to higher surroundings before maturity; and we might only expect to find, in the case of the child brought up among criminals, a greater degree of that primitive honor and faithfulness which may exist among criminals. Modern reformatories have testified to the possibility of the redemption of a large number of criminals from their evil life, but they have shown, nevertheless, that there is a l.u.s.t of cupidity, a love of meanness, and an animality from which rescue is almost if not quite impossible. The reaction of men whose past opportunities have been about equal, upon effort for their reform, exhibits also very different degrees of readiness. The testimony of reformatories for the young is especially of worth on this point; and I once heard Mrs. Mary A.

Livermore, whose interest in reformatories and prisons is well known, describe the faces of many of the children to be found in a certain inst.i.tution of this sort, as bearing fearful witness to the fact that they had been "mortgaged to the devil before they were born." I remember a number of cases cited by the matron of a certain orphan asylum showing that children taken from their home at too early an age to have learned the sins of their parents by imitation may yet repeat those sins. Out of three children of the same parents, the one of whom was a drunkard and prost.i.tute, the other a thief, one developed, at a very early age, a tendency to dishonesty, another an extreme morbid eroticism, and the third child appeared to have escaped the evil inheritance; but he was still very young when I last heard of him. The two children did not exhibit these evil traits at their entrance to the home, but developed them later.

And here it may be noticed that the fact of the unformed character of the infant does not prove that the tendencies which make their appearance in later life are wholly the result of the environment. It has been remarked by biologists and pathologists that inherited characteristics tend to appear at an age corresponding to that at which they appeared in the progenitor. The caterpillar does not undergo metamorphosis with a less regularity because it is not, in the beginning, a b.u.t.terfly, and the beard does not the less appear in the adult human male because he was not born bearded. Diseases of the brain often develop, for several generations, at nearly the same age, and there seems to be no reason why we should not suppose the like to be true in the case of many normal characteristics. Ribot cites from Voltaire the following case: "'I have with my own eyes,' he writes, 'seen a suicide that is worthy of the attention of physicians. A thoughtful professional man, of mature age, of regular habits, having no strong pa.s.sions, and beyond the reach of want, committed suicide on the 17th of October, 1769, leaving behind him, addressed to the council of his native city, an apology for his voluntary death, which it was not thought advisable to publish, lest men should be encouraged to quit a life whereof so much evil is spoken. So far there is nothing extraordinary, since instances of this kind are everywhere to be found; but here is the astonishing feature of the case: his father and his brother had committed suicide at the same age as himself. What hidden disposition of mind, what sympathy, what concurrence of physical laws, caused this father and his two sons to perish by their own hand and by the same form of death, just when they had acquired the same year of their age?'"[155] Ribot continues:--

"Since Voltaire's day, the history of mental disease has registered a great number of similar facts. They abound in Gall, Esquirol, Moreau of Tours, and in all the writers on insanity. Esquirol knew a family in which the grandmother, mother, daughter, and grandson, committed suicide. 'A father of taciturn disposition,' says Falret, 'had five sons. The eldest, at the age of forty, threw himself out of a third-story window; the second strangled himself at the age of thirty-five; the third threw himself out of a window; the fourth shot himself; a cousin of theirs drowned himself for a trifling cause. In the Oroten family, the oldest in Teneriffe, two sisters were affected with suicidal mania, and their brother, grandfather, and two uncles, put an end to their own lives.'... The point which excited Voltaire's surprise, viz. the heredity of suicide at a definite age, has been often noticed: 'M. L----, a monomaniac,' says Moreau of Tours, 'put an end to his life at the age of thirty. His son had hardly attained the same age when he was attacked with the same monomania, and made two attempts at suicide.

Another man, in the prime of life, fell into a melancholy state and drowned himself; his son, of good const.i.tution, wealthy, and the father of two gifted children, drowned himself at the same age. A wine-taster who had made a mistake as to the quality of a wine threw himself into the water in a fit of desperation. He was rescued, but afterwards accomplished his purpose. The physician who had attended him ascertained that this man's father and one of his brothers had committed suicide at the same age and in the same way.'...

"A woman named Olhaven fell ill of a serious disorder, which obliged her to wean her daughter, six weeks old. This complaint of the mother began by an irresistible desire to kill her child. This purpose was discovered in season to prevent it. She was next seized with a violent fever which utterly blotted the fact from her memory, and she afterwards proved a most devoted mother to her daughter. This daughter, become a mother in her turn, took two children to nurse. For some days she had suffered from fatigue and from 'movements in the stomach,' when one evening as she was in her room with the infants, one of them on her lap, she was suddenly seized by a strong desire to cut its throat. Alarmed by the horrible temptation, she ran from the spot with the knife in her hand, and sought in singing, dancing, and sleep, a refuge from the thoughts that haunted her. Hardly had she fallen asleep when she started up, her mind filled with the same idea, which now was irresistible. She was, however, controlled, and in a measure calmed. The homicidal delirium recurred, and finally gave way, only after many remedies had been employed."

These are only a few out of the many instances that might be given of recurrence, at the same age or under the stimulation of similar conditions, of so-called pathological states. Science has. .h.i.therto given more study to such cases than to the inheritance of healthful conditions, though the line between healthful mental conditions and mental disease is very difficult to draw, and the a.s.sumption that all suicides are more insane than many of the people who are regarded as sane is unwarranted; of course if one starts with the premise that suicide is always a symptom of insanity, then the conclusion follows naturally that all suicides are insane; but this is a mere argument in a circle. As far as the inheritance of healthy or normal mental characteristics is concerned, we do know at least, from general observation, that a child often exhibits, as it develops, more and more rather than less and less the characteristics of some progenitor; and this, moreover, in many cases where the possibility of imitation is excluded. Observations might possibly be made here in a line with former reflections on man's adaptability and Haeckel's theory of the prenatal existence of the individual as repeating the history of his species. In the case of postnatal as well as in that of prenatal existence, the action of the environment can no more be left out of account than can that of heredity; and the influence of favorable or of unfavorable conditions at corresponding periods of development may explain the exaggerated growth or, on the other hand, the dwarfed character or non-appearance of tendencies a.s.sociated in their development with these periods. But at present such observations can be little more than speculation. We may at least say, however, that Mr. Leslie Stephen's statement of the case, namely, that children "start with infinitely varying capacities" but that the environment of civilization is that which finally makes them what they become morally and mentally, should rather be reversed; for it is rather true that children are born into the world on about the same level mentally and morally (for we observe but little difference in the faculties of new-born babes), but that they by no means react, in development, upon the same or a similar environment in a similar manner. The case of the Athenian baby, whose probable equality with the modern infant is used by Mr. Stephen as an argument that the human race has made no progress as far as innate qualities are concerned, would therefore scarcely be a case in point, even if it were capable of proof,--as it is not. But it cannot be called a case in point in any sense, the English baby with which Mr. Stephen compares the Athenian infant not being of Athenian descent. Any comparison of this sort, to be of worth in the discussion of the element of heredity in human progress, must be between the baby of the primitive savage Briton and the modern British infant. The Athenians arrived at a high degree of social development; but the very fact that neither their civilization nor even that of Rome was acquired by the less civilized races who were their conquerors is rather testimony in favor of the theory of the hereditary, organic character of the habits and capacities acquired in the course of civilization. Nor have the Athenians transmitted their type unmixed; there is no pure Athenian or Greek race at the present day with which we could compare the ancient Greeks, even if we desired to affirm so great an independence of circ.u.mstances as would a.s.sure to such a race the unimpaired faculties of their ancestors in spite of all the changes in their environment which history records.

Not only the environment was changed and mixed; the stock, also, of that race which once regarded all strangers as barbarians became equally impure. And a.s.suredly the comparison of the "average child of to-day"

with an Archimedes or a Themistocles is anything but a fair one.[156]

Taken with the qualification of the predicate which Mr. Stephen cautiously introduces in a.s.serting that the innate qualities of the average modern child are not "radically" superior to those of the greatest ancients, it leads us to suspect that Mr. Stephen is not, himself, very thoroughly convinced of what he attempts to prove. We may agree with Mr. Stephen that "If Homer or Plato had been born amongst the Hottentots, they could no more have composed the 'Iliad' or the 'Dialogues' than Beethoven could have composed his music, however fine his ear or delicate his organization, in the days when the only musical instrument was the tom-tom"[157]; for certainly no one can reach the same heights under an unfavorable environment that he might have attained under a favorable one; and that Homer could have expressed, in the ruder poetry which he might still have composed among Hottentots, the sentiments of the "Iliad," or Beethoven have produced his sonatas with the a.s.sistance of the tom-tom (provided that remained the only instrument after the appearance of an individual of such musical capacity as a Beethoven), cannot be conceived. But it is also inconceivable that a Beethoven, a Homer, or a Plato, could be born among the Hottentots, if "to be born among them" means to be born of their stock.

In order to make any direct comparison between the capacities of the descendants of civilized parents and those of uncivilized progenitors, we ought to be able to compare average results obtained in savage infants removed, in earliest infancy, to the advantages of civilization, with the average mental and moral acquirements of individuals born under those influences. We need to compare averages, I say, and not one or two individual cases alone; for, in order to a.s.sert the organic and hereditary character of human progress up to and under civilization, we are by no means compelled to prove a like advance in all parts of a nation or people, or even advance at all in every part. It is conceivable, and wholly in accordance with the general course of evolution, that types should remain stationary while other types are advancing, that lower types should continue to exist side by side with higher ones that have developed out of them, and even that, in some lines of descent, retrogression should take place while the species or a society as a whole is progressing. But our data for comparison of averages are not, by any means, as satisfactory as could be wished; for nowhere are the direct descendants of uncivilized races given equal advantages with those of the descendants of peoples already civilized.

Galton's comparison of the negro with the white man is, for this reason, too extreme in its conclusions as to the hereditary character of intellect. Yet some general facts may be noted. And perhaps no better field for comparison is afforded us than the United States, where the white population is not the mere offshoot and tributary of a nation the great majority of whose better representatives inhabit a distant land, but an independent and successful nation, and where the negro race, while yet untutored, was suddenly endowed with a liberty nominally as great as that of the white man, together with a part in the government and a right to state education. This liberty may be, indeed is, in many parts of the South, a mere pretence, though even there toleration is gradually being acquired; but in the North the negro is treated on very nearly the same footing with the white man, the indignities offered him having their origin, for the most part, with former slave-holders, not with the born and bred Northerner. Negro children have free access to the northern schools, where they may often be seen sitting side by side with white children; and the best of American universities are open to negro students. If, then, the average of opinion, even in the North, maintains a certain amount of condescension towards the African, this condescension is no greater in degree than that maintained by the aristocracy of Europe towards the so-called lower (not the lowest) cla.s.ses, and in spite of whi