The Meaning of Good-A Dialogue Part 5

"Well, then, how does your theory of instincts help us to know what is Good? For it seems that after all we have to choose between instincts, to approve one and condemn another. And our problem still remains, how can we do this? how can we get any certainty of standard?"

"Perhaps the faculty that judges is itself an instinct?"

"Perhaps it is," I replied, "I don't really know what an instinct is.

My quarrel is not with the word instinct, but with what seemed to be your a.s.sumption that whatever it is in us that judges about Good judges in a single, uniform, infallible way. Whereas, in fact, as you had to admit, sometimes at the same moment it p.r.o.nounces judgments not only diverse but contradictory."

"But," he replied, "those seem to me to be exceptional cases. As a rule the difficulty doesn't occur. When it does, I admit that we require a criterion. But I should expect to find it in science rather than in philosophy."

"In science!" exclaimed Leslie. "What has science to do with it?"

"What has _not_ science to do with?" said a new voice from behind. It was Wilson who, in his turn, had joined us from the breakfast room (he always breakfasted late), and had overheard the last remark. He was a lecturer in Biology at Cambridge, rather distinguished in that field, and an enthusiastic believer in the capacity of the scientific method to solve all problems.

"I was saying," Leslie repeated in answer to his question, "that science has nothing to do with the Good."

"So much the worse for the Good," rejoined Wilson, "if indeed that be true."

"But you, I suppose, would never admit that it is," I interposed. I was anxious to hear what he had to say, though at the same time I was desirous to avoid a discussion between him and Leslie, for their types of mind and habits of thought were so radically opposed that it was as idle for them to engage in debate as for two bishops of opposite colour to attempt to capture one another upon a chessboard. He answered readily enough to my challenge.

"I think," he said, "that there is only one method of knowledge, and that is the method we call scientific."

"But do you think there is any knowledge of Good at all, even by that method? or that there is nothing but erroneous opinions?"

"I think," he replied, "that there is a possibility of knowledge, but only if we abjure dialectics. Here, as everywhere, the only safe guide is the actual concrete operation of Nature."

"How do you mean?" asked Leslie, his voice vibrating with latent hostility.

"I mean that the real significance of what we call Good is only to be ascertained by observing the course of Nature; Good being in fact identical with the condition towards which she tends, and morality the means to attaining it."

"But----" Leslie was beginning, when Parry cut him short.

"Wait a moment!" he said. "Let Wilson have a fair hearing!"

"This end and this means," continued Wilson, "we can only ascertain by a study of the facts of animal and human evolution. Biology and Sociology, throwing light back and forward upon one another, are rapidly superseding the pseudo-science of Ethics."

"Oh dear!" cried Ellis, _sotto-voce_, "here comes the social organism!

I knew it would be upon us sooner or later."

"And though at present, I admit," proceeded Wilson, not hearing, or ignoring, this interruption, "we are hardly in a position to draw any certain conclusions, yet to me, at least, it seems pretty clear what kind of results we shall arrive at."

"Yes!" cried Parry, eagerly, "and what are they?"

"Well," replied Wilson, "I will indicate, if you like, the position I am inclined to take up, though of course it must be regarded as provisional."

"Of course! Pray go on!"

"Well," he proceeded, "biology, as you know, starts with the single cell----"

"How do you spell it?" said Ellis, with shameless frivolity, "with a C or with an S?"

"Of these cells," continued Wilson, imperturbably, "every animal body is a compound or aggregation; the aggregation involving a progressive modification in the structure of each cell, the differentiation of groups of cells to perform special functions,--digestive, respiratory, and the rest,--and the subordination of each cell or group of cells to the whole. Similarly, in sociology----"

"Dear Wilson," cried Ellis, unable any longer to contain himself, "mightn't we take all this for granted?"

"Wait a minute," I said, "let him finish his a.n.a.logy."

"That's just it!" cried Leslie, "it's nothing but an a.n.a.logy. And I don't see how----"

"Hush, hush!" said Parry. "Do let him speak!"

"I was about to say," continued Wilson, "when I was interrupted, that in the social organism----"

"Ah!" interjected Ellis, "here it is!"

"In the social organism, the individual corresponds to the cell, the various trades and professions to the organs. Society has thus its alimentary system, in the apparatus of production and exchange; its circulatory system, in the network of communications; its nervous system, in the government machinery; its----"

"By the bye," interrupted Ellis, "could you tell me, for I never could find it in Herbert Spencer, what exactly in society corresponds to the spleen?"

"Or the liver?" added Leslie.

"Or the vermiform appendix?" Ellis pursued.

"Oh, well," said Wilson, a little huffed at last, "if you are tired of being serious it's no use for me to continue."

"I'm sorry, Wilson!" said Ellis. "I won't do it again; but one does get a little tired of the social organism."

"More people talk about it," answered Wilson, "than really understand it."

"Very true," retorted Ellis, "especially among biologists."

At this point I began to fear we should lose our subject in polemics; so I ventured to recall Wilson to the real issue.

"Supposing," I said, "that we grant the whole of your position, how does it help us to judge what is good?"

"Why," he said, "in this way. What we learn from biology is, that it is the constant effort of nature to combine cells into individuals and individuals into societies--the protozoon, in other words, evolves into the animal, the animal into what some have called the 'hyper-zoon,' or super-organism. Well, now, to this physical evolution corresponds a psychical one. What kind of consciousness an animal may have, we can indeed only conjecture; and we cannot even go so far as conjecture in the case of the cell; but we may reasonably a.s.sume that important psychical changes of the original elements are accompaniments and conditions of their aggregation into larger ent.i.ties; and the morality (if you will permit the word) of the cell that is incorporated in an animal body will consist in adapting itself as perfectly as may be to the new conditions, in subordinating its consciousness to that of the Whole--briefly, in acquiring a social instead of an individual self. And now, to follow the clue thus obtained into the higher manifestations of life. As the cell is to the animal, so is the individual to society, and that on the psychical as well as on the physical side. Nature has perfected the animal; she is perfecting society; that is the end and goal of all her striving.

When, therefore, you raise the question, what is Good, biology has this simple answer to give you: Good is the perfect social soul in the perfect social body."

As he concluded, Ellis exclaimed softly,"'_Parturiunt montes_,'" and Leslie took it up with: "And not even a mouse!"

"Whether it is a mouse or no," I said, "it would be hard to say, until we had examined it more closely. At present it seems to me more like a cloud, which may or may not conceal the G.o.ddess Truth. But the question I really want to ask is, What particular advantage Wilson gets from the biological method? For the conclusion itself, I suppose, might have been reached, and commonly is, without any recourse to the aid of natural science."

"No doubt," he said, "but my contention is, that it is only by the scientific method that you get proof. You, for example, may a.s.sert that you believe the social virtues ought to prevail over individual pa.s.sions; but if your position were challenged, I don't see how you would defend it. Whereas I can simply point to the whole evolution of Nature as tending towards the Good I advocate; and can say:--if you resist that tendency you are resisting Nature herself!"

"But isn't it rather odd," said Ellis, "that we should be able to resist Nature?"

"Not at all," he replied, "for our very resistance is part of the plan; it's the lower stage persisting into the higher, but destined sooner or later to be absorbed."

"I see," I said, "and the keynote of your position is, as you said at the beginning, that Good is simply what Nature wants. So that, instead of looking within to find our criterion, we ought really to look without, to discover, if we can, the tendency of Nature and to acquiesce in that as the goal of our aspiration."

"Precisely," he replied, "that is the position."