Morals and the Evolution of Man Part 2

CHAPTER II

THE IMMANENCE OF THE CONCEPT OF MORALITY

It is natural for man's thoughts to be concentrated on himself until he has learnt to rise from the deep and narrow well of his egoism to a higher and wider view of life and, free from the taint of self-love, to form an idea of his place in the world and his relationship to it. Not till the development of his intellect is far advanced does any doubt a.s.sail him as to the truth of his conviction that all his personal affairs, the least as well as the most weighty, are of the greatest importance to the universe, that every ache or pain he feels must wake an echo in the heavens, that the Earth shudders in antic.i.p.ation when he is about to stumble and sprain his ankle, and that the stars in their courses mysteriously, though intelligibly to the discerning, foretell the hour of his birth and of his death. An Indian legend pours cruel scorn upon this childlike megalomania: A fox had fallen into a stream and was drowning. "The world is coming to an end!" gasped the animal in its agony. A peasant standing on the brink replied coldly, "Oh, no, I see only a little fox drowning."

Many moral philosophers, those of the Kantian school without exception, labour under the delusion of this same, egocentric view. In their eyes the phenomenon of Morality is a cosmic one. Morality is the law of human conduct, therefore it is the law of world processes, of the universe. Indeed, it is the law of the universe before it becomes that of human conduct. It would exist even if there were no men, no humanity, no human conduct at all. The solemn innocents who weightily give utterance to this doctrine are unaware how ridiculous they are. They do not hesitate to subject Sirius to the yoke of the Ten Commandments. They are convinced that the Milky Way practises virtue and shuns, or ought to shun, vice, just as we inconsiderable human beings do. The precept, "Thou shalt not steal," applies with binding force to gravity, and the warning, "Thou shalt not kill," to electricity, though the latter ruthlessly disregards it, as the results of being struck by lightning and accidents with high voltage installations frequently prove. If they do not threaten Nature with police and prison it is only because in their eyes Morality is independent of all sanctions, is superior to rewards and punishments, depends upon itself alone, const.i.tutes its own aim, is by its very nature a compelling force, and therefore has no need of advent.i.tious compulsion.

Such profound nonsense cannot lay claim to serious treatment. It is a counterpart to the belief that events in the history of mankind, like war and pestilence, are foretold by heavenly signs such as fiery comets.

The stars revolve, the clockwork of the universe continues undisturbed, as though the earth were still uninhabited, as it was when it was a glowing fluid globe or, earlier still, a nebular ma.s.s; and this although man's self-esteem be hurt by such a lack of consideration. If we care to call the (so far as we know) unalterable laws, according to which the forces of Nature act and the mechanism of the world works, the Morality of the Universe, that may pa.s.s. Only we must in that case clearly realize that we are speaking metaphorically, that we are making use of a poetic simile, that we are anthropomorphically attributing human traits to the universe. Morality is a phenomenon restricted to mankind, or, to be strictly accurate, a phenomenon which occurs only among living beings; for the beginnings of Morality may be traced in creatures of a lower order than man, and it develops simultaneously with the consciousness and the mentality of living beings. Morality is a function of life, dependent upon it, begotten and developed by it, to meet life's needs and serve its interests. The existence of Morality apart from life is as unthinkable as that of hunger, ambition, or grat.i.tude.

Morality is a collection of laws and prohibitions which Reason opposes to organic instincts, by means of which the former forces the latter into actions from which they would like to refrain, or prevents them from carrying out that which they yearn to do. The existence of Morality, therefore, presupposes in the first place that of an intelligence sufficiently developed to form a clear idea of something that is still in the future, namely, an image of the consequences resulting from an action.

Guided by this inner contemplation of the image of the consequences of an action, Reason decides to carry out or prevent the action. This gives us the lowest plane upon which Morality can occur as the cause of action and of abstention from action. It implies, above all things, foresight, and can therefore only exist in a consciousness which is sufficiently developed to grasp the idea of the future and form a picture of it. This consciousness must be capable of extracting the elements of a conception from memory according to the laws of the a.s.sociation of ideas, and be able to group them logically in a new order. In other words, as long as the mind cannot visualize the past and from it build up a picture of the future, Morality can find no place in it.

This statement requires no limitation, but it demands a short explanation. It is quite true that Morality is foresight, but it is only among the elect that the latter is developed to such a pitch that it is possible to form images of the consequences of action and abstention sufficiently clear and definite to exercise a restraining or encouraging influence.

The average man can act morally without first working out a clear picture of the future. It is enough that he has been trained to the habit of respecting current precepts, and of accepting the views obtaining in his circle as to what is good or bad, what is admissible or inadmissible. This morality, of course, is merely a matter of drill or training; it is unthinking automatism; it is inferior, and not to be compared with the living, creative morality of higher natures, which, as a sovereign law-giver, comes to an independent decision in every case and, like the guardian angel of childlike faith, guides man on his path through life, indicates the right course at the cross-roads, and warns him of pitfalls and stumbling-blocks. But for everyday use mechanical morality may suffice. In the uneventful existence of the average man, which pa.s.ses in a stereotyped way, this mechanical morality is an acceptable guide and counsellor, but it remains an outside influence foreign to his inner consciousness; he is glad to deceive and outwit it, as a slave does his master's bailiff if he can do so without running the risk of a thrashing; but if his destiny unexpectedly rises above its accustomed dead level, then this dogmatic morality, which he has never really a.s.similated, leaves him in the lurch, and mournfully, in piteous tones, he utters the well-known cry, "It is easy to do one's duty; it is difficult to know where one's duty lies."

Reason, then, which is capable of foreseeing the results of actions, teaches a man what he must do and from what he must abstain, where he may follow his instinct and where he must resist it, according as it considers the presumptive results of yielding to impulse good or bad.

But whence does Reason obtain the standard it applies to the actions of men and their results? How does it acquire the fundamental concepts Good and Bad, and what is their significance? Generally speaking, the answer will be as follows: Moral values are appraised by a standard supplied by a general consensus of opinion; Reason acknowledges as good that which meets with the approval of the community, that which the latter desires and therefore praises; the community, for its part, echoes the p.r.o.nouncements of influential personages, i.e. of the most respected, most powerful, and most aristocratic; Reason condemns as bad that which the community disapproves, and which it therefore censures and rejects.

This definition does not solve the problem of good and bad, it only shifts it.

Later we shall have to show upon what grounds the community discriminates between acceptable and reprehensible facts, calling the former good and the latter bad. For the present it is enough to observe that Reason derives the laws, which it constantly impresses on man, from the opinion of the community.

It can happen that Reason rejects the opinion of the community and forms a conclusion opposed to it. This revolt of individual morality against conventional morality is the great tragedy of man. It can only occur in the soul of a hero, for mediocre and insipid people always bow to the opinion of the majority. There is clearly imminent danger of making a mistake. Not seldom, however, the individual is right in his opposition to the community, and then the latter is fired by his example to examine its traditional dogmas and to correct or reject them. This is not the only, but it is the most common means by which Morality is developed and changed. Its progress demands martyrs. Strong personalities must be sacrificed to force a revision of moral values. Socrates has to swallow the draft of hemlock so that unfettered thought may acquire the right to doubt the legend of the G.o.ds. Jesus has to incur the dangerous anger of the Pharisees so that the adulteress may be treated with indulgence and human sympathy instead of being punished according to rigorous law. But the opposition of a self-willed, subjective Morality to the accepted moral law is always exceptional; the general rule is submission to the moral law. This is indeed a necessary preliminary to revolt against the moral law of the community, for it is only by means of a vigorous social education that man develops such a nicely balanced and keen sense of Good and Bad, that he cannot prevail upon himself to carry out generally approved actions which his own intelligence does not recognize as moral.

He whose moral sense has not been intensified by strict discipline will never be a.s.sailed by doubt, as long as he follows in the footsteps of the mult.i.tude.

Hence, as a rule, Reason exercises its control of the actions of man in conformity with the laws prescribed by the community. Before Morality develops into the practice of Good and the rejection of Bad it takes the form of consideration for the world at large, since it is the latter which has created the concepts of Good and Bad as well as the standard by which they are judged, and in order to avoid conflict with the community, and to maintain uninterrupted agreement with it, the individual exerts himself to persist in doing good and to refrain from doing evil.

The establishment of these facts gives deep offence to the mystics among moral philosophers. "What a debas.e.m.e.nt and belittling of Morality! What!

It is supposed to be nothing more than a sort of obsequiousness towards the mult.i.tude? Its laws are observed for the sake of pleasing others? It is a comedy played to win applause and a call before the curtain? That is a libel and a calumny. The truly moral man looks neither to the right nor to the left. He does not condescend to ask, 'What will the world say to this?' There is but one judge in whose eyes he wishes to be justified: his conscience."

Quite right. But what is conscience found to be if we penetrate the fog of mystic words with which it has come to be surrounded? Conscience is the permanent representative of the community in the consciousness of the individual, just as public opinion may be termed the conscience of every member of society made manifest. Metaphorically, it wields the powers pertaining to society; it praises and blames, it condemns and exalts, it punishes and rewards, as society could do; and it actually p.r.o.nounces judgment in the name of society, even though it does not preface such judgment with this formula which is tacitly implied and must always be mentally added. Conscience is the invisible link which unites the individual with a social group, just as speech, custom, tradition, and political inst.i.tutions are the visible links. But the social origin and representative nature of conscience set limits to its power. Conscience is a respected authority with wide powers only in the consciousness of those individuals who have a highly developed social sense. I purposely do not say those in whom the instinct to follow the crowd preponderates, because this mode of expression might imply blame and condemnation which I do not intend to convey.

For social instinct comes natural to an individual born, educated and working in a community, who shares its feelings, views and interests, nay, even its prejudices and mistakes; and if he lacks it, it is a sign of a morbid deviation from the normal. Only the decadent man is uncannily lonely in spirit, alien, indifferent or definitely hostile to his human surroundings; he is, according to the violence and polarization of his instincts, the pa.s.sionate anarchist or the born criminal; the public opinion of his circle is unintelligible to him and makes no impression on him; it has no significance for him; he attaches no importance to its approbation, and its anger leaves him cold; he would take no notice of it, were it not that he knows its power to destroy him, and fears its police, its prisons, and its scaffolds. Such a man, organically predisposed to crime, most urgently needs a conscience. It would arrest him on the downward path to which his evil instincts lead. It would warn him to resist the wicked impulses of his selfishness. But he, of all people, has no conscience. He can have none.

He is anti-social, he is at war with society, diplomatic relations between him and it have been broken off, and it has no representative in his consciousness. A lively and active feeling of joint responsibility with the community is a necessary predisposition on the part of the individual before conscience can have any power. Where the former is lacking the latter is mute and paralysed.

The essence of Morality, as we have found, is the subjection of instinct and direct organic impulses to the discipline of Reason. The latter exercises a censorship in pursuance of a law which it derives not from within, but from without, from the ordinances of the community which instructs Reason as to what it should permit, what it should forbid, and what it should demand. Conscience ensures respect for its commands, and may be called the executive power or police of Reason, acting as the authorized representative of Morality. It is the garrison which the community maintains in the individual's consciousness, which it arms and supplies with authority and instructions; the power of conscience lies in the strength of the community at its back, and is without influence only upon those who refuse admission to the troops of the community and yield to none but actual physical force. All this proves irrefutably that Morality is a phenomenon arising from the social life of man, and its power is a function of society.

If under the conditions in which humanity lives nowadays one could imagine a man totally detached from his species, leading a solitary life, Morality would be absolutely meaningless to him. The idea is one he could never conceive. It would have no significance. Good and bad would always retain their original meaning as labels for sensual qualities, for pleasant or unpleasant sensations of taste, smell, etc.; they would never be spiritualized or apply to the quality of actions. He would be unable to attach any meaning to the words duty and right. The terms virtue, vice, conscience, repentance would convey nothing to him.

Morality can only originate when the individual lives united with fellow beings in a social community. It is a consequence of this union.

It is the one condition on which alone this union can be permanent.

The solitary individual must, however, not be confused with the lonely one. Robinson Crusoe, shipwrecked on a desert island and forced to stay there without companionship, is not primitive man. He is a son of civilization who has fallen upon evil days. In his enforced solitariness he maintains the habits of thought of his original surroundings. He preserves the concepts of Morality even though he has no occasion to obey its dictates. He can, if not actually yet potentially, be a paragon of virtue or a sink of iniquity; he can have a very delicate or a very dull conscience. He continues to be a man of social instincts cut off from society, and goes on thinking and feeling in a social manner. By primitive man I mean man as he was before society originated. For, contrary to the sociological school which denies the individual and boldly refuses to allow him any existence, declaring society to be older and earlier than the individual, I think I have conclusively shown ("_Der Sinn der Geschichte_" [The Meaning of History]) that man is not by nature a gregarious animal, that he lived alone, being self-sufficing as long as the climatic conditions, under which he first made his appearance on earth, enabled him to exist by his own unaided efforts and capabilities, and that he banded himself together with others in gangs, troops and hordes--the earliest forms of subsequent society--when, after the first ice age following his appearance, the struggle for existence grew ever harder, ever more laborious, transcending the powers of the individual so that he could only overcome Nature, now grown hostile to him, by uniting with others of his kind.

This primitive man of the golden geological period before the Ice Age knew no Morality, and as far as human intelligence can tell he would never have known of it had there been a continuance of the paradisaic conditions obtaining at the time of his birth, and had the climate not deteriorated. The occurrence of murderous frosts, the necessity of seeking protection from them in natural caves or artificially constructed shelters, and of kindling and maintaining fires, the diminution or disappearance of vegetable food, and the need to replace it by the booty of the chase or fishing--all these forced him to unite his efforts with those of other men who shared his wretched lot on earth. But in order to maintain this community with others he had to learn a new science, one he had hitherto not known because he had had no need of it: consideration for his fellows. He might no longer think of himself alone, consider his own inclinations in all eventualities, give way to all his moods or yield to every whim; he had unceasingly to bear his neighbour in mind and take care not to annoy him, not to make an enemy of him, not to become hateful to him. Forbearance towards his neighbour was the necessary condition of their life in common, just as their life in common was the necessary condition of self-preservation.

The penalty for selfish indulgence was stern persecution, punishment, perhaps death; in any case, expulsion from the community. Man, therefore, stood before the choice of self-control or destruction, and this dilemma taught him Morality.

Such, we must imagine, were the beginnings of Morality. It was not prearranged or purposely sought; it grew naturally from the companionship of men and developed simultaneously with society. If the struggle for existence made life in communities a necessity, the first coercive law of the community was to enjoin upon its members a mode of conduct which alone rendered the existence of the community possible, and the fundamental rule of this conduct was mutual consideration.

Without this two egoisms cannot exist side by side and develop. They either destroy or shun one another. This phenomenon may also be observed among the higher animals. Elephants, living in herds, expel quarrelsome individuals and force them to wander alone far from the rest. The natives of Ceylon and India fear these "bachelor elephants" as being specially savage and malicious. They think that they grow like this because of their loneliness. That is probably a false conclusion. It is much more likely that these animals have been driven from their herd because they were savage and malicious, because their characters were opposed to discipline. Here we come upon the first faint foreshadowing of the phenomenon of Morality in an animal community.

Now that we have introduced the idea of the growth and development of Morality, it becomes obvious that it must have begun with mere indications, and that from rude, dim, undeveloped beginnings it gradually grows more perfect, more refined, more nicely differentiated.

At first man avoids only the most brutal injuries to his neighbour, such as hurting him, doing him bodily harm, threatening to kill him, openly robbing him. In proportion as he becomes more spiritually sensitive, as he learns to feel the insult and humiliation of injuries other than those inflicted with a fist or club, he is led to refrain from giving his fellow-men similar offence, which though it deals no gaping wounds, yet hurts his spiritual sensibilities. A series of values is developed, growing ever longer, ever more complicated, with more and more gradations, until, going far beyond the simple, artless commandments, "Thou shalt not kill," "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife nor his goods," it reaches the pitch of agonized self-reproach, because of the slightest and most secret impulses to dislike, injustice, covetousness, dissimulation, etc.

Morality must be regarded as a support and a weapon in the struggle for existence in so far as, given present climatic conditions on earth and the civilization arising therefrom, man can only exist in societies, and society cannot exist without Morality. The chain of thought runs as follows: without morality no society, without society no individual existence; consequently, Morality is the essential condition for the existence of the individual as well as for that of the community.

However, we must always bear in mind the reservation, "given the present climatic conditions on earth." Had the earth continued to be the paradise it must have been at the birth of our species (since otherwise the latter could simply not have originated), the necessity would never have arisen for the individual to band himself together with others of his kind, no society would ever have developed, and there would have been no Morality. Serious as the subject is, one cannot but smile at the thought of the comic figure the learned, professorial Neo-Kantians would cut with their dogma of the absolute and cosmic nature of Morality, if they propounded it among men whose wants Nature's bounty was able to satisfy as easily as the frog is satisfied in his puddle or the crow on his tree top. They would find no trace of absolute Morality among mankind, and would be reduced to seeking it among the stars.

The very nature of Morality, in that it is an aid to man in the struggle for existence, makes it easy to understand the origin and nature of the concepts Good and Bad. There are propensities and actions which facilitate life in a community which, indeed, alone make it possible: love of one's neighbour, helpfulness, liberality, consideration for the feelings of others, and amiability. There are others which make such a life difficult or absolutely impossible: uncompromising selfishness, violence, cruelty, rapacity, instinctive hostility to one's neighbour.

Men recognized that the former were beneficial to them, the latter harmful. The former aroused their liking, the latter their disapproval, dislike and animosity. The quality of feeling which accompanied the perceptions of actions of the former kind was akin to that with which they responded to beneficial, profitable, useful and welcome sense impressions. The quality of feeling, which actions of the second category gave rise to, was akin to that due to harmful and repellent sense impressions. Following the law of a.n.a.logy, they placed on an equal footing actions which were felt to be pleasing and pleasant sensations of taste and smell; similarly with disagreeable actions and unpleasant sense impressions; and finally they called the former good and the latter bad, using terms originally applicable only to the realm of the senses.

Not everything that is pleasant to the senses is beneficial. There are poisons which are pleasing to taste, but none the less noxious for that, such as (to give only one example) alcoholic drinks and impressions of a certain order, like voluptuousness, which man greedily pursues, even though they ruin his health. But these are exceptions. As a rule, not only man, but all living creatures, derive pleasant sensations from beneficial things; and it is probable that that category of sensations, which we are conscious of as being pleasant, is nothing but the state of coenesthesis, when the organism functions particularly energetically under the influence of the absorption of food or of a special stimulus of the senses, when it feels its life processes carried on particularly vigorously, freely and harmoniously; just as we feel that state of coenesthesis to be unpleasant, which occurs when the organism functions badly, slackly, and in a manner calculated to endanger the continuance of life. With the reservation that has been indicated we can say in general that Good is equivalent to beneficial and pleasant, Bad to harmful and unpleasant. This is true of the transferred and spiritualized as well as of the immediate and material meaning of these expressions of value. The significance of the words Good and Bad, the point of departure, development and change of conception they indicate, suffice to justify the Utilitarians and the Hedonists or Eudaemonists among the moral philosophers, and to confute the contentions of their critics, who deny all connexion between Morality and a practical purpose, profit or pleasure, and declare these to be unworthy humiliations of its majesty.

They wriggle, with the agility of a contortionist on the music-hall stage, to get over the obvious and palpable aim of moral conduct. They display all the cunning of dishonest sophistry in their arguments to prove that the element of subjective satisfaction which moral action yields is non-existent, and that, therefore, the Hedonists and Eudaemonists are wrong. They stir up an opaque cloud of words, phrases and formulae to hide the fact, which nevertheless emerges clearly, that he who acts morally expects to derive pleasurable emotions from his action, or at least tries thereby to avoid probable painful emotions, and that moral conduct, just as it is designed to give the individual subjective satisfaction which is a kind of pleasure, is also meant to be a benefit, or at any rate a supposed benefit, to the community.

Morality must never try for a reward and never expect one. It must be absolutely disinterested. It has no business to pursue any aim outside itself. Thus say the mystics of moral philosophy, juggling with words; and they think they are doing especial honour to Morality and raising it to a particularly proud eminence. But Morality has no need of this artificial and false grandeur to maintain its lofty place among the phenomena of life, and it is derogatory neither to its authority nor to its influence to be recognized as a beneficial force conducive to happiness.

The opponents of Utilitarianism and Eudaemonism in Ethics, if they speak in good faith, may be excused on the grounds that their a.n.a.lysis of the phenomenon of Morality is shallow. For them Morality is something absolute, which exists by itself as an eternal and unalterable law of the Universe, but which is revealed in the individual and therefore must be conceived individually as a quality which has become human, as a human value. If anyone persists in looking upon Morality as an absolutely individual matter, without any connexion with anything outside the individual, if anyone obstinately shuts his eyes to the fact that Morality has not been developed by the individual out of his own immediate needs and in consideration of himself alone, but that it is, on the contrary, a creation of society and has no sense or significance except as a social phenomenon, then indeed he can with some show of justification deny Utilitarianism and Hedonism. For truly, looked at from the point of view of the individual, moral conduct appears neither pleasant nor immediately beneficial. On the contrary, it is, as a rule, directly opposed to his own apparent interest, and it is achieved with difficulty by sacrifice and renunciation, which are never pleasant and often very painful.

Once in a drawing-room, during a game of definitions, I heard a light-hearted young lady define Duty in the following terms: "Duty is that which we do unwillingly." A stern professor contradicted her at once with the solemnity he thought due to his position, and a.s.sured her reprovingly: "It is my duty to give lectures, and I do this duty gladly.

If you were right, madam, expressions such as 'zealous in one's duty'

and 'willing performance of duty' would have no meaning and could never have been coined." That seems convincing, but yet it is wrong.

Expressions such as "zealous in one's duty" and "willing performance of duty" were not coined until society had developed its system of Morality and had educated its members to strive for its approval by conducting themselves in accordance with this system, to look on its approval as a flattering distinction and to fear its disapproval as a disgrace. Such phrases are Pharisaical, calculated to exercise a suggestive influence profitable to society. They are the sugar to sweeten the pill; but the young lady was honest and the professor conventional; the pill is bitter. Thinkers recognized and admitted this thousands of years ago.

Antiphon, the sophist, says: "The law, the outcome of an agreement, coerces nature, the result of growth, and goes against the interest of the individual." The same idea is expressed by the tragic poet in the lines: "The G.o.ds have placed sweat before virtue." This was said in the very same words by Lao Tse, the disciple of Meng Tse, the pupil of Confucius and the reformer of his doctrine.

The law, not only the law of the state which Antiphon has princ.i.p.ally in view, but also the moral law, "goes against the interest of the individual"; not in reality, but apparently, at the first superficial glance. Moral conduct is the reverse of natural conduct; it takes place in opposition to instinct by deflecting the original impulse; it is a subjugation of inclination, a victory over the real nature of the man.

Virtue has to exert its utmost strength in bitter struggles, fought out within the individual, before it can reveal itself actively in deeds.

That is a natural consequence of the manner in which Morality originated.

The point is that it was not created directly for the individual, but for the community, and for the former only in so far as he is a part of the community, and from its stability and well-being derives a benefit which he may, or may not, be conscious of; which he may, or may not, be able to appreciate; which he accepts as something natural and self-understood without further thought; for which he does not consider any return service to be due; but which is nevertheless of real magnitude, profiting the individual, facilitating his existence, or even alone making it possible; and for which, as for every other gift, he must make sacrifices. For within society there can be no gifts. It possesses nothing but what it has acquired from its members, and the latter must pay full value for everything it provides, unasked or otherwise.

As the Moral law originated to meet the needs of the community, and was gradually formulated in definite precepts, it is comprehensible that the community never paused to inquire what subjective effect its law would have on the feelings of the individual. If you impose a law upon someone you hardly ever consider how great will be the emotions of pleasure or displeasure which its enforcement will entail. The order is, "Obey, whether you like it or not; that which deeper insight and more far-seeing wisdom prescribe is for your good." Thus the individual is forced to work laboriously for his own good, which in his purblindness he does not even recognize. It would be comprehensible if the individual, who does not see farther than his own nose and does not look beyond the present moment, formed the opinion that Morality is not perceptibly beneficial to him and gives him no pleasure, and that, therefore, the Utilitarians and the Hedonists talk nonsense. But the moral philosopher, who observes the individual in relationship to the community and surveys human actions, the way they are connected, and the way they interact upon one another, has no right to pursue the same line of thought as the individual, and deny that Morality aims at utility and pleasure, even though the individual, when he acts morally, does not perceive any personal advantage, nor feel any pleasure except the self-satisfaction which he has been trained to feel, since in the eyes of others he is so good and honest. That Morality aims at utility, and is at the same time a source of pleasure and happiness, may seem dark and doubtful while we consider the individual, but it becomes clear as day and indisputable when we regard the community.

Among creatures of a lower order than man, indeed among all animals that live together in flocks or herds, we find the first beginnings of that mode of conduct which in man we call moral, and which is not intended to be of direct benefit to the individual, or to add to his momentary pleasure, but which subordinates or sacrifices these personal satisfactions to the good of the community.

Chamois, when they are grazing, set one of their number on guard upon a rocky eminence with a distant view, and this individual is responsible for the safety of the herd. While the others feed in peace and comfort, this guardian chamois forgoes the food which is doubtless just as attractive to it as to the others, and tirelessly keeps a sharp look out over its whole field of vision, warning its companions at the first approach of danger by uttering a shrill cry.

When the great herds of buffaloes still inhabited the North American prairies, they had at the head and on the flanks of the herd the strongest bulls, while the centre was occupied by the cows with their calves and the young animals. Before civilization came to trouble them, the grizzly bear was the only enemy that threatened them, and with him they were able to deal; one of them would meet the attacking bear in single combat, but did not always emerge from it unhurt. Often enough at the end of the fight both the bull and the bear would be terribly injured or even dead; yet by sacrificing his life the bull saved the rest of the herd.

The thrilling adventure of the Abyssinian baboon is well known; first told by Alfred Brehm in his "_Tierleben_" (animal life), it was afterwards quoted by Darwin and many other writers. On a hunting expedition Brehm surprised a party of monkeys in a clearing. They fled at once and had found shelter in the wood before the dogs could reach them. Only one young one had got separated from the rest and was left behind alone. It had scrambled up on to a solitary rock standing in the plain, round which the dogs were barking furiously, and in its terror the creature uttered piercing cries for help. A little male monkey, hearing it, detached himself from the group, turned back from the safety of the forest, made quietly for the rock and fetched away the trembling young baboon from among the pack, silent now and shrinking in amazement; and then stroking and caressing the little creature he carried it safely in his arms to its family in the wood, unmolested by the stupefied dogs and spared by the hunter, lost in admiration of this self-sacrificing courage.

In these three instances we see how the joint responsibility among gregarious animals develops in them an ever increasing sense of duty, which teaches the chamois to forgo its food during the hours it is on guard, rouses in the buffalo a savage l.u.s.t for battle, and makes the baboon perform a premeditated deed of epic heroism. When men act as these animals did, we ascribe this to Morality. This is nothing but joint responsibility in action, the joint responsibility which the species is forced by the conditions of life to adopt, if it is to survive.

Among the moral philosophers the mystics are prevented, by the haze which obscures all their thought, from seeing that Morality originates from this joint responsibility. Or rather, if they do see it, they think this origin too low. They demand a more exalted genealogy for the phenomenon of Morality. According to them the Moral law comes straight from G.o.d. The concepts Good and Evil are revealed. Commands and prohibitions are imposed upon the soul by that omnipotence which spiritualizes the universe and of which the soul is an immortal part.

If these phrases were anything but moonshine and tinkling cymbals they certainly would make any other explanation of this astonishing fact superfluous; the fact, namely, that man does what is repugnant to him, and refrains from doing what would give him pleasure, that he is content with himself when he has voluntarily curbed his impulses and made sacrifices, and that he feels the p.r.i.c.ks of conscience if he chances to experience the pleasure of appeas.e.m.e.nt because he has satisfied his desires. "Man obeys divine commands." That suffices and obviates the necessity of seeking for explanations of this phenomenon, which shall satisfy Reason.

It is a mere mirage, the reflection of an earthly state of affairs in the heavens, to a.s.sume that the universe is governed by an authority devoid of responsibility, which imposes on its subjects, that is to say men, laws and instructions, discipline and order.