Genesis of Species
It must be recollected that in consenting to worship this unholy God, Mr. Mill is not asked to do harm to his neighbour, so that his refusal reposes simply on his perception of the immorality of the requisition. It is also noteworthy that an omnipotent Deity is supposed incapable of altering Mr. Mill’s mind and moral perceptions.
Mr. Mill’s decision is right, but it is difficult indeed to see how, without the recognition of an “absolute morality,” he can justify so utter and final an abandonment of all utility in favour of a clear and distinct moral perception.
These two ideas, the “right” and the “useful,” being so distinct here and now, a greater difficulty meets us with regard to their origin from some common source, than met us before when considering the first beginnings of certain bodily structures. For the distinction between the “right” and the “useful” is so fundamental and essential that not only does the idea of benefit not enter into the idea of duty, but we see that the very fact of an act not being beneficial to us makes it the more praiseworthy, while gain tends to diminish the merit of an action. Yet this idea, “right,” thus excluding, as it does, all reference to utility or pleasure, has nevertheless to be constructed and evolved from utility and pleasure, and ultimately from pleasurable sensations, if we are to accept pure Darwinianism: if we are to accept, that is, the evolution of man’s psychical nature and highest powers, by the exclusive action of “Natural Selection,” from such faculties as are possessed by brutes; in other words, if we are to believe that the conceptions of the highest human morality arose through minute and fortuitous variations of brutal desires and appetites in all conceivable directions.
It is here contended, on the other hand, that no conservation of any such variations could ever have given rise to the faintest beginning of any such moral perceptions; that by “Natural Selection” alone the maxim fiat justitia, ruat coelum could never have been excogitated, still less have found a widespread acceptance; that it is impotent to suggest even an approach towards an explanation of the first beginning of the idea of “right.” It need hardly be remarked that acts may be distinguished not only as pleasurable, useful, or beautiful, but also as good in two different senses: (1) materially moral acts, and (2) acts which are formally moral. The first are acts good in themselves, as acts, apart from any intention of the agent which may or may not have been directed towards “right.” The second are acts which are good not only in themselves, as acts, but also in the deliberate intention of the agent who recognizes his actions as being “right.” Thus acts may be materially moral or immoral, in a very high degree, without being in the least formally so. For example, a person may tend and minister to a sick man with scrupulous care and exactness, having in view all the time nothing but the future reception of a good legacy. Another may, in the dark, shoot his own father, taking him to be an assassin, and so commit what is materially an act of parricide, though formally it is only an act of self-defence of more or less culpable rashness. A woman may innocently, because ignorantly, marry a married man, and so commit a material act of adultery. She may discover the facts, and persist, and so make her act formal also.
Actions of brutes, such as those of the bee, the ant, or the beaver, however materially good as regards their relation to the community to which such animals belong, are absolutely destitute of the most incipient degree of real, i.e. formal “goodness,” because unaccompanied by mental acts of conscious will directed towards the fulfilment of duty. Apology is due for thus stating so elementary a distinction, but the statement is not superfluous, for confusion of thought, resulting from confounding together these very distinct things, is unfortunately far from uncommon.
Thus some Darwinians assert that the germs of morality exist in brutes, and we have seen that Mr. Darwin himself speculates on the subject as regards the highest apes. It may safely be affirmed, however, that there is no trace in brutes of any actions simulating morality which are not explicable by the fear of punishment, by the hope of pleasure, or by personal affection. No sign of moral reprobation is given by any brute, and yet had such existed in germ through Darwinian abysses of past time, some evidence of its existence must surely have been rendered perceptible through “survival of the fittest” in other forms besides man, if that “survival” has alone and exclusively produced it in him.
Abundant examples may, indeed, be brought forward of useful acts which simulate morality, such as parental care of the young, &c. But did the most undeviating habits guide all brutes in such matters, were even aged and infirm members of a community of insects or birds carefully tended by young which benefited by their experience, such acts would not indicate even the faintest rudiment of real, i.e. formal, morality. “Natural Selection” would, of course, often lead to the prevalence of acts beneficial to a community, and to acts materially good; but unless they can be shown to be formally so, they are not in the least to the point, they do not offer any explanation of the origin of an altogether new and fundamentally different motive and conception.
It is interesting, on the other hand, to note Mr. Darwin’s statement as to the existence of a distinct moral feeling, even in, perhaps, the very lowest and most degraded of all the human races known to us. Thus in the same “Journal of Researches” before quoted, bearing witness to the existence of moral reprobation on the part of the Fuegians, he says: “The nearest approach to religious feeling which I heard of was shown by York Minster (a Fuegian so named), who, when Mr. Bynoe shot some very young ducklings as specimens, declared in the most solemn manner, ‘Oh, Mr. Bynoe, much rain, snow, blow much.’ This was evidently a retributive punishment for wasting human food.”
Mr. Wallace gives the most interesting testimony, in his “Malay Archipelago,” to the existence of a very distinct, and in some instances highly developed moral sense in the natives with whom he came in contact. In one case, a Papuan who had been paid in advance for bird-skins and who had not been able to fulfil his contract before Mr. Wallace was on the point of starting, “came running down after us holding up a bird, and saying with great satisfaction, ‘Now I owe you nothing!’” And this though he could have withheld payment with complete impunity.
Mr. Wallace’s observations and opinions on this head seem hardly to meet with due appreciation in Sir John Lubbock’s recent work on Primitive Man. But considering the acute powers of observation and the industry of Mr. Wallace, and especially considering the years he passed in familiar and uninterrupted intercourse with natives, his opinion and testimony should surely carry with it great weight. He has informed the Author that he found a strongly marked and widely diffused modesty, in sexual matters, amongst all the tribes with which he came in contact. In the same way Mr. Bonwick, in his work on the Tasmanians, testifies to the modesty exhibited by the naked females of that race, who by the decorum of their postures gave evidence of the possession in germ of what under circumstances would become the highest chastity and refinement.
Hasty and incomplete observations and inductions are prejudicial enough to physical science, but when their effect is to degrade untruthfully our common humanity, there is an additional motive to regret them. A hurried visit to a tribe, whose language, traditions and customs are unknown, is sometimes deemed sufficient for “smart” remarks as to “ape characters,” &c., which are as untrue as irrelevant. It should not be forgotten how extremely difficult it is to enter into the ideas and feelings of an alien race. If in the nineteenth century a French theatrical audience can witness with acquiescent approval, as a type of English manners and ideas, the representation of a marquis who sells his wife at Smithfield, &c. &c., it is surely no wonder if the ideas of a tribe of newly visited savages should be more or less misunderstood. To enter into such ideas requires long and familiar intimacy, like that experienced by the explorer of the Malay Archipelago. From him, and others, we have abundant evidence that moral ideas exist, at least in germ, in savage races of men, while they sometimes attain even a highly developed state. No amount of evidence as to acts of moral depravity is to the point, as the object here aimed at is to establish that moral intuitions exist in savages, not that their actions are good.
Objections, however, are sometimes drawn from the different notions as to the moral value of certain acts, entertained by men of various countries or of different epochs; also from the difficulty of knowing what particular actions in certain cases are the right ones, and from the effects which prejudice, interest, passion, habit, or even, indirectly, physical conditions, may have upon our moral perceptions. Thus Sir John Lubbock speaks of certain Feejeeans, who, according to the testimony of Mr. Hunt, have the custom of piously choking their parents under certain circumstances, in order to insure their happiness in a future life. Should any one take such facts as telling against the belief in an absolute morality, he would show a complete misapprehension of the point in dispute; for such facts tell in favour of it.
Were it asserted that man possesses a distinct innate power and faculty by which he is made intuitively aware what acts considered in and by themselves are right and what wrong,—an infallible and universal internal code,—the illustration would be to the point. But all that need be contended for is that the intellect perceives not only truth, but also a quality of “higher” which ought to be followed, and of “lower” which ought to be avoided; when two lines of conduct are presented to the will for choice, the intellect so acting being the conscience.
This has been well put by Mr. James Martineau in his excellent essay on Whewell’s Morality. He says, “If moral good were a quality resident in each action, as whiteness in snow, or sweetness in fruits; and if the moral faculty was our appointed instrument for detecting its presence; many consequences would ensue which are at variance with fact. The wide range of differences observable in the ethical judgments of men would not exist; and even if they did, could no more be reduced and modified by discussion than constitutional differences of hearing or of vision. And, as the quality of moral good either must or must not exist in every important operation of the will, we should discern its presence or absence separately in each; and even though we never had the conception of more than one insulated action, we should be able to pronounce upon its character. This, however, we have plainly no power to do. Every moral judgment is relative, and involves a comparison of two terms. When we praise what has been done, it is with the coexistent conception of something else that might have been done; and when we resolve on a course as right, it is to the exclusion of some other that is wrong. This fact, that every ethical decision is in truth a preference, an election of one act as higher than another, appears of fundamental importance in the analysis of the moral sentiments.”
From this point of view it is plain how trifling are arguments drawn from the acts of a savage, since an action highly immoral in us might be one exceedingly virtuous in him—being the highest presented to his choice in his degraded intellectual condition and peculiar circumstances.
It need only be contended, then, that there is a perception of “right” incapable of further analysis; not that there is any infallible internal guide as to all the complex actions which present themselves for choice. The _principle_ is given in our nature, the application of the principle is the result of a thousand educational influences.
It is no wonder, then, that, in complex “cases of conscience,” it is sometimes a matter of exceeding difficulty to determine which of two courses of action is the less objectionable. This no more invalidates the truth of moral principles than does the difficulty of a mathematical problem cast doubt on mathematical principles. Habit, education, and intellectual gifts facilitate the correct application of both.