admit the immediate and intuitive character in the individual of the sentiments which older empiricism had tried to make out to be composite, growing up in each person out of the materials afforded by his environment, and the experiences to which he was subjected. The theory of evolution contends for an empiricism on a larger scale, which will more closely connect the individual with the race, and both with their environment.

this on their

The question thus arises, What bearing has this Bearing of psychological or "psychogonical" theory on the validity: ethical validity of moral intuitions and sentiments? It certainly does not follow that they are of no moral value, merely because their origin can be traced to simpler elements of experience. They would lose ethical importance only if it were first of all shown that their validity depended on their not being derived from, or compounded out of, other elements. As Professor Sidgwick says, "Those who dispute the authority of moral or other intuitions on the ground of their derivation, must be required to show, not merely that they are the effects of certain causes, but that these causes are of a kind that tend to produce invalid belief." 1

But what the theory of evolution has to determine with regard to moral intuitions or sensibilities would seem to be not so much their ethical validity or invalidity, as the range and 1 Methods of Ethics, III. i. 4, 3d ed., p. 211.

I

(a) different social condi

manner of their ethical application. It attempts to show that particular moral beliefs or feelings have been originated and formed by certain external customs belonging to the conditions of social or family life. These customs have impressed themselves upon the mental structure, and reappear in the individual in the shape of organic tendencies to certain actions, or classes of actions, and of aversion to other actions, accompanied by a corresponding mental sentiment—or judgment— of approbation or disapprobation. Thus the individual comes instinctively to feel-or to judge,-" A ought to be done," "B ought not to be done." Now the evolutionist, as I conceive, does not proceed to infer that such judgments are invalid because he has shown how they originated-does not conclude (to use Mr Sidgwick's words) that "all propositions of the form X is right' or 'good,' are untrustworthy;" but he does ask in what way the history of these judgments affects their application.1

(a) He recognises, in the first place, that all such tions from judgments are the natural result of a certain social which they condition, and that there is, therefore, some probability that the same kind of social state could not continue to exist were those moral judgments

may have resulted,

1 Cf. Professor F. Pollock, "Evolution and Ethics "-Mind, i. pp. 335 ff. Apart from the bearing of a utilitarian test on inherited instincts, to which Mr Pollock refers, I have tried to show what meaning they will have for the evolutionist who judges them solely from the point of view of his theory.

habitually disregarded in conduct. They have resulted from a certain state of society, and have been assumed-after insufficient experience, perhaps to be required for the stability of that state, so that every action opposed to these moral judgments will probably tend to weaken social bonds. But the evolutionist's conclusions are not restricted to such generalities. He may show that certain moral judgments or sentiments have had their origin from the habits of union between individuals, and of respect for the rights of property, which have obtained in every relatively permanent society, and which may therefore be inferred to be probably necessary for the continued existence of any community; that certain other sentiments or intuitions have descended to present individuals from customs which have not been so universal in the history of societies, although the communities possessing them have shown greater power of vitality than those in which they were absent; while others, again, may be traced to institutions which, from their occasional and unprogressive character, may be shown to be neither necessary nor beneficial.

ence in their

conduct;

The evolutionist will therefore contend that and consedifferent degrees of value for the regulation of quent differconduct belong to different moral intuitions or value for classes of them. If one class is habitually disregarded, he may assert that historical evidence goes to show that society will fall to pieces, and

(b) their organic character.

the life of man become, in the expressive words of Hobbes, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” The disregard of another class will probably lead to a more precarious existence, or one less filled. with the experiences which make up life; while opposition to a third class, so far from being hurtful or dangerous, may remove unnecessary restrictions, and aid the development both of the individual and of society.

(b) There is a second point which will also be recognised by the evolutionist. Although these intuitions have been derived, they are now organic, and their disappearance from the human mind as instinctive tendencies towards or against action can only be slow and painful. The process must involve a certain amount of loss: at the same time, it is not a process that can be easily avoided. As soon as the reason of the instinctive tendency is inquired into, it is weakened as instinct. We pass from the action itself to the end it is fitted to subserve; and, if the instinctive action is not the most appropriate, or has hurtful results, we have already reached the stage in which the instinct is checked, and begins to yield to action directed by a principle. Yet it dies out only gradually, and, so to speak, after a struggle. Nor does it seem possible to assert with confidence, as mitigating this struggle, that the strongest impulses will always be those which are necessary or advantageous to the existence of

society. For it is a common experience that the moral intuitions which lead to conduct that has ceased to serve a purpose, and the internal sanctions which follow disregard of them, are often even more powerful than those which protect such virtues as justice or veracity.

attitude of

tionism.

From the preceding argument it follows that it Resultant cannot be held that moral intuitions are invalid evolutionbecause evolved. The evolutionist will certainly ism to intuigo very far wrong, as Mr Sidgwick points out, if he maintains that a "general demonstration of the derivedness or developedness of our moral faculty is an adequate ground for distrusting it." Instead of holding that, if we succeed in tracing the origin of an intuition, it is thereby discredited, he will admit that the mere fact of our possessing any moral intuition shows that the habits of action from which it was derived have been permanent enough to leave their traces on the mental structure, and that the conduct to which it leads, like the custom from which it came, will not destroy society, but, on the contrary, will probably tend to its permanence. The general attitude of the evolution-theory to moral intuitions is therefore, after all, very similar to that which Mr Sidgwick has reached as a result of his elaborate examination of the maxims of common-sense. It is an attitude of trust modified by criticism. In both an appeal

is made from the axioms themselves: in the one