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Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays

T >> Thomas H. Huxley >> Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays



EVOLUTION AND ETHICS
AND OTHER ESSAYS

BY THOMAS H. HUXLEY




PREFACE

THE discourse on "Evolution and Ethics," reprinted in the first half of
the present volume, was delivered before the University of Oxford, as
the second of the annual lectures founded by Mr. Romanes: whose name I
may not write without deploring the untimely death, in the flower of
his age, of a friend endeared to me, as to so many others, by his
kindly nature; and justly valued by all his colleagues for his powers
of investigation and his zeal for the advancement of knowledge. I well
remember, when Mr. Romanes' early work came into my hands, as one of
the secretaries of the Royal Society, how much I rejoiced in the
accession to the ranks of the little army of workers in science of a
recruit so well qualified to take a high place among us.

It was at my friend's urgent request that I agreed to undertake the
lecture, should I be honoured with an official proposal to give it,
though I confess not without misgivings, if only on account of the
serious fatigue and hoarseness which public speaking has for some
years caused me; while I knew that it would be my fate to follow the
most accomplished and facile orator of our time, whose indomitable
youth is in no matter more manifest than in his penetrating and
musical voice. A certain saying about comparisons intruded itself
somewhat importunately.

And even if I disregarded the weakness of my body in the matter of
voice, and that of my mind in the matter of vanity, there remained a
third difficulty. For several reasons, my attention, during a number
of years, has been much directed to the bearing of modern scientific
thought on the problems of morals and of politics, and I did not care
to be diverted from that topic. Moreover, I thought it the most
important and the worthiest which, at the present time, could engage
the attention even of an ancient and renowned University.

But it is a condition of the Romanes foundation that the lecturer
shall abstain from treating of either Religion or Politics; and it
appeared to me that, more than most, perhaps, I was bound to act, not
merely up to the letter, but in the spirit, of that prohibition. Yet
Ethical Science is, on all sides, so entangled with Religion and
Politics that the lecturer who essays to touch the former without
coming into contact with either of the latter, needs all the dexterity
of an egg-dancer; and may even discover that his sense of clearness
and his sense of propriety come into conflict, by no means to the
advantage of the former.

I have little notion of the real magnitude of these difficulties when I
set about my task; but I am consoled for my pains and anxiety by
observing that none of the multitudinous criticisms with which I have
been favoured and, often, instructed, find fault with me on the score
of having strayed out of bounds.

Among my critics there are not a few to whom I feel deeply indebted for
the careful attention which they have given to the exposition thus
hampered; and further weakened, I am afraid, by my forgetfulness of a
maxim touching lectures of a popular character, which has descended to
me from that prince of lecturers, Mr. Faraday. He was once asked by a
beginner, called upon to address a highly select and cultivated
audience, what he might suppose his hearers to know already. Whereupon
the past master of the art of exposition emphatically replied
"Nothing!"

To my shame as a retired veteran, who has all his life profited by
this great precept of lecturing strategy, I forgot all about it just
when it would have been most useful. I was fatuous enough to imagine
that a number of propositions, which I thought established, and which,
in fact, I had advanced without challenge on former occasions, needed
no repetition.

I have endeavoured to repair my error by prefacing the lecture with
some matter--chiefly elementary or recapitulatory--to which I have
given the title of "Prolegomena" I wish I could have hit upon a
heading of less pedantic aspect which would have served my purpose;
and if it be urged that the new building looks over large for the
edifice to which it is added, I can only plead the precedent of the
ancient architects, who always made the adytum the smallest part of
the temple.

If I had attempted to reply in full to the criticisms to which I have
referred, I know not what extent of ground would have been covered by
my pronaos. All I have endeavoured to do, at present, is to remove
that which seems to have proved a stumbling-block to many--namely, the
apparent paradox that ethical nature, while born of cosmic nature, is
necessarily at enmity with its parent. Unless the arguments set forth
in the Prolegomena, in the simplest language at my command, have some
flaw which I am unable to discern, this seeming paradox is a truth, as
great as it is plain, the recognition of which is fundamental for the
ethical philosopher.

We cannot do without our inheritance from the forefathers who were the
puppets of the cosmic process; the society which renounces it must be
destroyed from without. Still less can we de with too much of it; the
society in which it dominates must be destroyed from within.

The motive of the drama of human life is the necessity, laid upon every
man who comes into the world, of discovering the mean between
self-assertion and self-restraint suited to his character and his
circumstances. And the eternally tragic aspect of the drama lies in
this: that the problem set before us is one the elements of which can
be but imperfectly known, and of which even an approximately right
solution rarely presents itself, until that stern critic, aged
experience, has been furnished with ample justification for venting
his sarcastic humour upon the irreparable blunders we have already
made.

I have reprinted the letters on the "Darkest England" scheme, published
in the "Times" of December, 1890, and January, 1891; and subsequently
issued, with additions, as a pamphlet, under the title of "Social
Diseases and Worse Remedies," because, although the clever attempt to
rush the country on behalf of that scheme has been balked, Booth's
standing army remains afoot, retaining all the capacities for mischief
which are inherent in its constitution. I am desirous that this fact
should be kept steadily in view; and that the moderation of the
clamour of the drums and trumpets should not lead us to forget the
existence of a force, which, in bad hands, may, at any time, be used
for bad purposes.

In 1892, a Committee was "formed for the purpose of investigating the
manner in which the moneys, subscribed in response to the appeal made
in the book entitled 'In Darkest England and the Way out,' have been
expended." The members of this body were gentlemen in whose competency
and equity every one must have complete confidence; and in December,
1892, they published a report in which they declare that, "with the
exception of the sums expended on the 'barracks' at Hadleigh," the
moneys in question have been "devoted only to the objects and expended
in the methods set out in that appeal, and to and in no others."

Nevertheless, their final conclusion runs as follows: "(4) That whilst
the invested property, real and personal, resulting from such Appeal
is so vested and controlled by the Trust of the Deed of January 30th,
1891, that any application of it to purposes other than those declared
in the deed by any 'General' of the Salvation Army would amount to a
breach of trust, and would subject him to the proceedings of a civil
and criminal character, before mentioned in the Report, ADEQUATE LEGAL
SAFEGUARDS DO NOT AT PRESENT EXIST TO PREVENT THE MISAPPLICATION OF
SUCH PROPERTY."

The passage I have italicised forms part of a document dated December
19th, 1892. It follows, that, even after the Deed of January 30th,
1891, was executed, "adequate legal safeguards" "to prevent the
misapplication of the property" did not exist. What then was the state
of things, up to a week earlier, that is on January 22nd, 1891, when
my twelfth and last letter appeared in the "Times"? A better
justification for what I have said about-the want of adequate security
for the proper administration of the funds intrusted to Mr. Booth
could not be desired, unless it be that which is to be found in the
following passages of the Report (pp. 36 and 37):--

"It is possible that a 'General' may be forgetful of his duty, and
sell property and appropriate the proceeds to his own use, or to
meeting the general liabilities of the Salvation Army. As matters now
stand, he, and he alone, would have control over such a sale. Against
such possibilities it appears to the Committee to be reasonable that
some check should be imposed."

Once more let it be remembered that this opinion given under the hand
of Sir Henry James, was expressed by the Committee, with the Trust
Deed of 1891, which has been so sedulously flaunted before the public,
in full view.

The Committee made a suggestion for the improvement of this very
unsatisfactory state of things; but the exact value set upon it by the
suggestors should be carefully considered (p.37).

"The Committee are fully aware that if the views thus expressed are
carried out, the safeguards and checks created will not be sufficient
for all purposes absolutely to prevent possible dealing with the
property and moneys inconsistent with the purposes to which they are
intended to be devoted."

In fact, they are content to express the very modest hope that "if the
suggestion made be acted upon, some hindrance will thereby be placed in
the way of any one acting dishonestly in respect of the disposal of
the property and moneys referred to."

I do not know, and, under the circumstances, I cannot say I much care,
whether the suggestions of the Committee have, or have not, been acted
upon. Whether or not, the fact remains that an unscrupulous "General"
will have a pretty free hand, notwithstanding "some" hindrance.

Thus, the judgment of the highly authoritative, and certainly not
hostile, Committee of 1892, upon the issues with which they concerned
themselves is hardly such as to inspire enthusiastic confidence. And
it is further to be borne in mind that they carefully excluded from
their duties "any examination of the principles, government, teaching,
or methods of the Salvation Army as a religious organization, or of
its affairs" except so far as they related to the administration of
the moneys collected by the "Darkest England" appeal.

Consequently, the most important questions discussed in my letters were
not in any way touched by the Committee. Even if their report had been
far more favourable to the "Darkest England" scheme than it is; if it
had really assured the contributors that the funds raised were fully
secured against malversation; the objections, on social and political
grounds, to Mr. Booth's despotic organization, with its thousands of
docile satellites pledged to blind obedience, set forth in the
letters, would be in no degree weakened. The "sixpennyworth of good"
would still be out-weighed by the "shillingsworth of harm"; if indeed
the relative worth, or unworth, of the latter should not be rated in
pounds rather than in shillings.

What would one not give for the opinion of the financial members of
the Committee about the famous Bank; and that of the legal experts
about the proposed "tribunes of the people"?

HODESLEA, EASTBOURNE,
July, 1894.




CONTENTS

I

PAGE
EVOLUTION AND ETHICS. PROLEGOMENA [1894] . . . . . . 1

II

EVOLUTION AND ETHICS [1893]. . . . . . . . . . . . .46

III

SCIENCE AND MORALS [1886]. . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

IV

CAPITAL--THE MOTHER OF LABOUR [1890] . . . . . . . 147

V

SOCIAL DISEASES AND WORSE REMEDIES [1891]. . . . . 188

Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
The Struggle for Existence in Human Society. 195
Letters to the Times . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Legal Opinions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
The Articles of War of the Salvation Army. . 321




[1]


I.

EVOLUTION AND ETHICS.

PROLEGOMENA.

[1894.]


I.

IT may be safely assumed that, two thousand years ago, before Caesar
set foot in southern Britain, the whole country-side visible from the
windows of the room in which I write, was in what is called "the state
of nature." Except, it may be, by raising a few sepulchral mounds,
such as those which still, here and there, break the flowing contours
of the downs, man's hands had made no mark upon it; and the thin veil
of vegetation which overspread the broad-backed heights and the
shelving sides of the coombs was unaffected by his industry. The
native grasses and weeds, the scattered patches of gorse, contended
with one another for the possession of the scanty surface soil; they
fought against the droughts of summer, the frosts of winter, and the
furious gales which swept, with unbroken force, now from the [2]
Atlantic, and now from the North Sea, at all times of the year; they
filled up, as they best might, the gaps made in their ranks by all
sorts of underground and overground animal ravagers. One year with
another, an average population, the floating balance of the unceasing
struggle for existence among the indigenous plants, maintained itself.
It is as little to be doubted, that an essentially similar state of
nature prevailed, in this region, for many thousand years before the
coming of Caesar; and there is no assignable reason for denying that
it might continue to exist through an equally prolonged futurity,
except for the intervention of man.

Reckoned by our customary standards of duration, the native vegetation,
like the "everlasting hills" which it clothes, seems a type of
permanence. The little Amarella Gentians, which abound in some places
to-day, are the descendants of those that were trodden underfoot, by
the prehistoric savages who have left their flint tools, about, here
and there; and they followed ancestors which, in the climate of the
glacial epoch, probably flourished better than they do now. Compared
with the long past of this humble plant, all the history of civilized
men is but an episode.

Yet nothing is more certain than that, measured by the liberal scale
of time-keeping of the universe, this present state of nature, however
it may seem to have gone and to go on for ever, is [3] but a fleeting
phase of her infinite variety; merely the last of the series of
changes which the earth's surface has undergone in the course of the
millions of years of its existence. Turn back a square foot of the
thin turf, and the solid foundation of the land, exposed in cliffs of
chalk five hundred feet high on the adjacent shore, yields full
assurance of a time when the sea covered the site of the "everlasting
hills"; and when the vegetation of what land lay nearest, was as
different from the present Flora of the Sussex downs, as that of
Central Africa now is.* No less certain is it that, between the time
during which the chalk was formed and that at which the original turf
came into existence, thousands of centuries elapsed, in the course of
which, the state of nature of the ages during which the chalk was
deposited, passed into that which now is, by changes so slow that, in
the coming and going of the generations of men, had such witnessed
them, the contemporary, conditions would have seemed to be unchanging
and unchangeable.

* See "On a piece of Chalk" in the preceding volume of these
Essays (vol. viii. p. 1).

But it is also certain that, before the deposition of the chalk, a
vastly longer period had elapsed; throughout which it is easy to
follow the traces of the same process of ceaseless modification and of
the internecine struggle for existence of living things; and that even
when we can get no further [4] back, it is not because there is any
reason to think we have reached the beginning, but because the trail
of the most ancient life remains hidden, or has become obliterated.

Thus that state of nature of the world of plants which we began by
considering, is far from possessing the attribute of permanence. Rather
its very essence is impermanence. It may have lasted twenty or thirty
thousand years, it may last for twenty or thirty thousand years more,
without obvious change; but, as surely as it has followed upon a very
different state, so it will be followed by an equally different
condition. That which endures is not one or another association of
living forms, but the process of which the cosmos is the product, and
of which these are among the transitory expressions. And in the living
world, one of the most characteristic features of this cosmic process
is the struggle for existence, the competition of each with all, the
result of which is the selection, that is to say, the survival of
those forms which, on the whole, are best adapted, to the conditions
which at any period obtain; and which are, therefore, in that respect,
and only in that respect, the fittest.* The acme reached by the cosmic
[5] process in the vegetation of the downs is seen in the turf, with
its weeds and gorse. Under the conditions, they have come out of the
struggle victorious; and, by surviving, have proved that they are the
fittest to survive.

* That every theory of evolution must be consistent not merely
with progressive development, but with indefinite persistence
in the same condition and with retrogressive modification, is a
point which I have insisted upon repeatedly from the year 1862
till now. See Collected Essays, vol. ii. pp. 461-89; vol. iii.
p. 33; vol. viii. p. 304. In the address on "Geological
Contemporaneity and Persistent Types" (1862), the
paleontological proofs of this proposition were, I believe,
first set forth.

That the state of nature, at any time, is a temporary phase of a
process of incessant change, which has been going on for innumerable
ages, appears to me to be a proposition as well established as any in
modern history.

Paleontology assures us, in addition, that the ancient philosophers
who, with less reason, held the same doctrine, erred in supposing that
the phases formed a cycle, exactly repeating the past, exactly
foreshadowing the future, in their rotations. On the contrary, it
furnishes us with conclusive reasons for thinking that, if every link
in the ancestry of these humble indigenous plants had been preserved
and were accessible to us, the whole would present a converging series
of forms of gradually diminishing complexity, until, at some period in
the history of the earth, far more remote than any of which organic
remains have yet been discovered, they would merge in those low groups
among which the Boundaries between animal and vegetable life become
effaced.*

* "On the Border Territory between the Animal and the Vegetable
Kingdoms," Essays, vol. viii. p. 162

[6] The word "evolution," now generally applied to the cosmic process,
has had a singular history, and is used in various senses.* Taken in
its popular signification it means progressive development, that is,
gradual change from a condition of relative uniformity to one of
relative complexity; but its connotation has been widened to include
the phenomena of retrogressive metamorphosis, that is, of progress
from a condition of relative complexity to one of relative uniformity.

As a natural process, of the same character as the development of a
tree from its seed, or of a fowl from its egg, evolution excludes
creation and all other kinds of supernatural intervention. As the
expression of a fixed order, every stage of which is the effect of
causes operating according to definite rules, the conception of
evolution no less excludes that of chance. It is very desirable to
remember that evolution is not an explanation of the cosmic process,
but merely a generalized statement of the method and results of that
process. And, further, that, if there is proof that the cosmic process
was set going by any agent, then that agent will be, the creator of it
and of all its products, although supernatural intervention may remain
strictly excluded from its further course.

So far as that limited revelation of the nature of things, which we
call scientific knowledge, has [7] yet gone, it tends, with constantly
increasing emphasis, to the belief that, not merely the world of
plants, but that of animals; not merely living things, but the whole
fabric of the earth; not merely our planet, but the whole solar
system; not merely our star and its satellites, but the millions of
similar bodies which bear witness to the order which pervades
boundless space, and has endured through boundless time; are all
working out their predestined courses of evolution.

* See "Evolution in Biology," Essays, vol. ii. p. 187

With none of these have I anything to do, at present, except with that
exhibited by the forms of life which tenant the earth. All plants and
animals exhibit the tendency to vary, the causes of which have yet to
be ascertained; it is the tendency of the conditions of life, at any
given time, while favouring the existence of the variations best
adapted to them, to oppose that of the rest and thus to exercise
selection; and all living things tend to multiply without limit, while
the means of support are limited; the obvious cause of which is the
production of offspring more numerous than their progenitors, but with
equal expectation of life in the actuarial sense. Without the first
tendency there could be no evolution. Without the second, there would
be no good reason why one variation should disappear and another take
its place; that is to say there would be no selection. Without the [8]
third, the struggle for existence, the agent of the selective process
in the state of nature, would vanish.*

* Collected Essays, vol. ii. passim.

Granting the existence of these tendencies, all the known facts of the
history of plants and of animals may be brought into rational
correlation. And this is more than can be said for any other
hypothesis that I know of. Such hypotheses, for example, as that of
the existence of a primitive, orderless chaos; of a passive and
sluggish eternal matter moulded, with but partial success, by
archetypal ideas; of a brand-new world-stuff suddenly created and
swiftly shaped by a supernatural power; receive no encouragement, but
the contrary, from our present knowledge. That our earth may once have
formed part of a nebulous cosmic magma is certainly possible, indeed
seems highly probable; but there is no reason to doubt that order
reigned there, as completely as amidst what we regard as the most
finished works of nature or of man.** The faith which is born of
knowledge, finds its object in an eternal order, bringing forth
ceaseless change, through endless time, in endless space; the
manifestations of the cosmic energy alternating between phases of
potentiality and phases of explication. It may be that, as Kant
suggests,*** every cosmic [9] magma predestined to evolve into a new
world, has been the no less predestined end of a vanished predecessor.

**Ibid., vol. iv. p. 138; vol. v. pp. 71-73.
***Ibid., vol. viii. p. 321.


II.

Three or four years have elapsed since the state of nature, to which I
have referred, was brought to an end, so far as a small patch of the
soil is concerned, by the intervention of man. The patch was cut off
from the rest by a wall; within the area thus protected, the native
vegetation was, as far as possible, extirpated; while a colony of
strange plants was imported and set down in its place. In short, it
was made into a garden. At the present time, this artificially treated
area presents an aspect extraordinarily different from that of so much
of the land as remains in the state of nature, outside the wall.
Trees, shrubs, and herbs, many of them appertaining to the state of
nature of remote parts of the globe, abound and flourish. Moreover,
considerable quantities of vegetables, fruits, and flowers are
produced, of kinds which neither now exist, nor have ever existed,
except under conditions such as obtain in the garden; and which,
therefore, are as much works of the art of man as the frames and
glasshouses in which some of them are raised. That the "state of Art,"
thus created in the state of nature by man, is sustained by and
dependent on him, would at once become [10] apparent, if the watchful
supervision of the gardener were withdrawn, and the antagonistic
influences of the general cosmic process were no longer sedulously
warded off, or counteracted. The walls and gates would decay;
quadrupedal and bipedal intruders would devour and tread down the
useful and beautiful plants; birds, insects, blight, and mildew would
work their will; the seeds of the native plants, carried by winds or
other agencies, would immigrate, and in virtue of their long-earned
special adaptation to the local conditions, these despised native
weeds would soon choke their choice exotic rivals. A century or two
hence, little beyond the foundations of the wall and of the houses and
frames would be left, in evidence of the victory of the cosmic powers
at work in the state of nature, over the temporary obstacles to their
supremacy, set up by the art of the horticulturist.

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