# Ethics and the Materialist Conception of History/Chapter 4

Original title: Die Ethik des Darwinismus. Original sections: 1. Der Kampf ums Dasein, 2. Eigenbewegung und Erkenntnisvermögen, 3. Die Triebe der Selbsterhaltung und Fortpflanzung, and 4. Die socialen Triebe
CHAPTER IV.
The Ethics of Darwinism.
1.—The Struggle for Existence.
Kant, like Plato, had divided mankind into two sides: into natural and supernatural, animal and angelic. But the strong desire to bring the entire world, including our intellectual functions, under a unitary conception and to exclude all factors beside the natural from it; or, in other words, the Materialist method of thought was too deeply grounded in the circumstances for Kant to be able to paralyse it for any length of time. And the splendid progress made by the material sciences, which began just at the very time of Kant's death to make a spurt forwards, brought a series of new discoveries, which more and more filled up the gap between men and the rest of nature, which among other things revealed the fact that the apparently angelic in man was also to be seen in the animal world, and thus was of animal nature.
All the same, the Materialist Ethics of the nineteenth century, so far as it was dominated by the conceptions of natural science, as much in the bold and outspoken form which it took in Germany as in the more retiring and modest English and, even now, French version, did not get beyond that which the eighteenth century had taught. Feuerbach founded morality on the desire for happiness; while Auguste Comte, the founder of Positivism, took, on the other hand, from the English the distinction between the moral or altruistic feelings and the egoistical feelings, both of which are equally rooted in human nature.
The first great and decided advance over this position was made by Darwin, who proved, in his book on the "Descent of Man," that the altruistic feelings formed no peculiarity of man, that they are also to be found in the animal world, and that there, as here, they spring ​from causes which are in essence identical, and which have called forth and developed all the faculties of beings endowed with the power of moving themselves. With that almost the last barrier between man and animal was torn down. Darwin did not follow up his discoveries any further, and yet they belong to the greatest and most fruitful of the human intellect, and enable us to develop a new critique of knowledge.
When we study the organic world it reveals to us one very striking peculiarity as compared with the inorganic; we find in it adaptation to end. All organised beings are constructed and endowed more or less with a view to an end. The end which they serve is, nevertheless, not one which lies outside of them. The world as a whole has no aim. The aim lies in the individuals themselves: its parts are so arranged and fitted out that they serve the individual, the whole. Purpose and division of labour arise together. The essence of the organism is the division of labour just as much as adaption to end. One is the condition of the other. The division of labour distinguishes the organism from inorganic individuals, for example, crystals. Even crystals are distinct individuals, with a distinct form; they grow when they find the necessary material for their formation, under the requisite conditions; but they are through and through symmetrical. On the other hand, the lowest organism is a vesicle, much less visible and less complicated than a crystal; but a vesicle whose external side is different, and has different functions from the inner.
That the division of labour should be that one which is suitable for the purpose, that is, one which is useful to the individual, that which renders his existence possible, or even ameliorates it, seems wonderful. But it would be still more wonderful if individuals maintained themselves and procreated with a division of labour which was not suitable for the purpose, which rendered their existence difficult or even impossible.
But what is the work which the organs of the organism have to accomplish? This work is the struggle for life, that is, not the struggle with other organisms ​of the same kind, as the word is occasionally used, but the struggle with the whole of nature. Nature is in continual movement, and is always changing her forms, hence only such individuals are able to maintain their form for any period of time in this eternal change who are in a position to develop particular organs against those external influences which threaten the existence of the individual, as well as to supply the places of those parts which it is obliged to give up continually to the external world. Quickest and best will those individuals and groups assert themselves whose weapons of defence and instruments for obtaining food are the best adapted to their end, that is, best adapted to the external world: to avoid its dangers and to capture the sources of food. This uninterrupted process of adaptation and selection of the fittest by means of the struggle for existence produces, under such circumstances as usually form themselves on the earth since it has borne organised beings, an increasing division of labour. In fact, the more developed the division of labour is in a society, the more advanced does that society appear to us. The continual process of rendering the organic world more perfect is thus the result of the struggle for existence in it, and probably for a long time to come will be its future result, as long as the conditions of our planet do not essentially alter. Certainly we have no right to look on this process as a necessary law for all time. That would amount to imputing to the world an end which is not to be found in it.
The development need not always proceed at the same rate. From time to time periods can come when the various organisms, each in its way, arrive at the highest possible degree of adaptation to the existing conditions, that is, are in the most complete harmony with their surroundings. So long as these conditions endure they will develop no farther, but the form which has been arrived at will develop into a fixed type, which procreates itself unchanged. A further development will only then occur when the surroundings undergo a considerable alteration: if when the inorganic nature is subject to changes which disturb the balance of the ​organic. Such changes, however, take place from time to time, either single, sudden, and violent, or numerous and unnoticed, the sum total and effect of which, however, equally brings on new situations, as, for example, alterations in the ocean currents, in the surface of the earth, perhaps even in the position of the planet in the universe, which bring about climatic changes, transform thick forests into deserts of sand, cover tropical landscapes with icebergs, and vice versa. These alterations render new adaptations to the changed conditions necessary; they produce migrations which likewise bring the organisms into new surroundings, and produce fresh struggles for life between the old inhabitants and the new incomers, exterminate the badlyadapted and the unadaptable individuals and types, and create new divisions of labour, new functions and new organs, or transform the old. It is not always the highest developed organisms which best assert themselves by this new adaptation. Every division of labour implies a certain one-sidedness. Highly-developed organs, which are specially adapted for a particular method of life, are for another far less useful than organs which are less developed, and in that particular method of life less effective, but more many-sided and more easily adaptable. Thus we see often higher-developed kinds of animals and plants die out, and lower kinds take over the further development of fresh higher organisms. Probably man is not sprung from the highest type of apes, the man-apes, which are tending to die out, but from a lower species of four-handed animals.
2.—Self-movement and Intelligence.
At an early period the organisms divided themselves into two great groups: those which developed the organs of self-motion, and those which lacked it; animals and plants. It is clear that the power of self-movement is a mighty weapon in the struggle for life. It enables it to follow its food, to avoid dangers, to bring its young into places where they will be best secured from danger, and which are best provided with food.
​Self-motion, however, necesarily implies an intelligence and vice versa. One of these factors without the other is absolutely useless. Only in combination do they become a weapon in the struggle for lite. The power of self-movement is completely useless when it is not combined with a power to recognise the world in which I have to move myself. What use would the legs be to the stag if he had not the power to recognise his enemies and his feeding places? On the other hand, for a plant intelligence of any kind would be useless. Were the blade of grass able to see, hear or smell the approaching cow that would not in the least help it to avoid being eaten.
Self-movement and intelligence thus necessarily go together, one without the other is useless. Wherever these faculties may spring from, they invariably come up together and develop themselves jointly. There is no self-movement without intelligence, and no intelligence without self-movement. And together they serve the same ends: the securing and alleviation of the individual existence.
As a means to that they and their organs are developed and perfected by the struggle for life, but only as a means thereto. Even the most highly-developed intelligence has no capacities which would not be of use as weapons in the struggle for existence. Thus is explained the onesidedness and the peculiarity of our intelligence.
To recognise things in themselves may appear to many philosophers an important task; for our existence it is highly indifferent, whatever we have to understand by the theory in itself. On the other hand, for every being endowed with power of movement it is of the greatest importance to rightly distinguish the things and to recognise their relations to one another. The sharper his intelligence in this respect the better service will it do him. For the existence of the singing bird it is quite indifferent what those things may be in themselves which appear to it as berries, hawks, or a thunder-cloud. But indispensable is it for its existence to distinguish exactly berries, hawks, and clouds ​from the other things among his surroundings, since that alone puts him in a position to find his food, to escape the enemy, and to reach shelter in time. It is thus inevitable that the intelligence of the animal should be a power of distinguishing in space.
But just as indispensable is it to recognise the sequence of the things in time, and indeed this necessary sequence as cause and effect. Since the movement as cause can only then bring as a universal result the maintenance of existence, if it aims at special, more immediate, or remoter effects which are so much the more easily to be achieved, the better the individual has got to learn these effects with their causes. To repeat the above example of a bird: it is not sufficient that it should know how to distinguish berries, hawks and thunder-clouds from the other things in space, it must also know, that the enjoyment of the berries has the effect of satisfying its hunger, that the appearance of the hawk will have the effect that the first small bird which it can grasp will serve it as food, and that the rising thunder-clouds produce storm, rain and hail as results.
Even the lower animal, so soon as it possesses a trace of ability to distinguish and self-movement, developes a suspicion of causality. If the earth shakes that is a sign for the worm that danger threatens and an incentive to flight.
Thus if the intelligence is to be of use to the animal in its movements it must be organised so that it is in a position to show it the distinctions in time and space as well as the casual connections.
But it must do even more. All the parts of the body serve only one individual, only one end—the maintenance of the individual. The division of labour must never go so far that the individual parts become independent, because that would lead to the dismemberment of the individual. They will work so much the more efficiently the tighter the parts are held together, and the more uniform the word of command. From this follows the necessary unity of the consciousness. If every part of the body had its own intellectual ​organs or did each of the scenes which convey to us a knowledge of the outer world produce its own consciousness, then would all knowledge of the world in such a case and the co-operation of the various members of the body be much impeded, the advantages of the division of labour would be abolished, or changed into disadvantages, the support which the senses or the organs of movement mutually give to each other would cease, and there would come instead mutual hindrance.
Finally, however, the intelligence must possess, in addition, the power to gather experiences and to compare. To return once more to our singing bird: he has two ways open to him to find out where food is the best for him, and where it is easiest to be found; what enemies are dangerous for him, and how to escape them. One his own experience, the other the observation of other and older birds, who have already had experience. No master is, as is well known, born. Every individual can so much the easier maintain himself in the struggle for life the greater his experiences and the better arranged they are; to that, however, belongs the gift of memory and the capacity to compare former impressions with later ones, and to extract from them the common and the universal element, to separate the essential from the inessential—that is, to think. Does observation, the particular factor through the senses, communicate to us the differences, so does thinking tell us the common factor, the universal element in the things.
"The universal," says Dietzgen, "is the content of all concepts, of all knowledge, of all science, of all acts of thought. Therewith the analysis of the organs of thought show the latter as the power to investigate the universal in the particular."
All these qualities of the intellectual powers we find developed in the animal world, even if not in so high a degree as with men, and if often for us very difficult to recognise, since it is not always easy to distinguish conscious actions springing from intelligence from the involuntary and unconscious actions—simple reflex ​actions and instinctive movements which even in men play a great rôle.
If we find all these qualities of the intellectual faculties to be a necessary concomitant of the power of self-movement already in the animal world, so do we, on the other hand, find in the same qualities also the same limitations which even the most embracing and most penetrating understanding of the highly-developed civilised man cannot surmount.
Forces and capacities which were acquired as weapons in the battle for existence can naturally be made available for other purposes as well as those of rendering existence secure when the organism has brought its power of self-movement and its intelligence as well as its instincts, of which we will speak later, to a high enough degree of development. The individual can employ the muscles, which were developed in it for the purpose of snatching its booty or warding off the foe, as well for dancing and playing. But their particular character is obtained by these powers and capacities all the same only from the struggle for life which developed them. Play and dance develop no particular muscles.
That holds good also of the intellectual powers and faculties as a necessary supplement to the power of self-movement in the struggle for life; developed in order to render possible to the organism the most suitable movement in the surrounding world for its own preservation, yet it could, all the same, be made to serve other purposes. To these belong also pure knowing without any practical thoughts in the background, without regard for the practical consequences which it can bring about. But our intellectual powers have not been developed by the struggle for existence to become an organ of pure knowledge, but only to be an organ which regulates our movements in conformity with their purpose. So completely does it function in respect of the latter, so incomplete is it in the first. From the very beginning most intimately connected with the power of self-movement, it develops itself completely only in mutual dependence on the power ​of self-movement, and can only be brought to perfection in this connection. Also the power of the human faculties of cognition and human knowledge is most intimately bound up with human practice, as we shall see.
The practice it is, however, which guarantees to us the certainty of our knowledge. So soon as my knowledge enables me to bring about distinct effects the production of which lies in my power, the relation of cause and effect ceases for me to be simply chance or simple appearance, or simple forms of knowledge such as the pure contemplation and thought might well describe them. The knowledge of this relation becomes through the practice a knowledge of something real, and is thus raised to certain knowledge.
The boundaries of practice show certainly the boundaries of our certain knowledge. That theory and practice are dependent on one another, and only through the mutual permeation of the one by the other can at any time the highest results attainable be arrived at, is only an outcome of the fact that movement and intellectual powers from their earliest beginnings were bound to go together. In the course of the development of human society the duration of labour has brought it about that the natural unity of these two factors should be destroyed, and created classes to whom principally the movement, and others to whom principally the knowing, fell. We have already pointed out how this was reflected in philosophy through the creation of two worlds, a higher or intellectual and a lower or bodily. But naturally in no individual were the two functions ever to be wholly divided, and the proletariat movement of to-day is directing its energies with good effect to abolishing this distinction, and with it also the dualist philosophy, the philosophy of pure knowledge. Even the deepest, most abstract, knowledge, which apparently is farthest removed from the practical, influence this, and are influenced by it, and to bring in us this influence to consciousness becomes the duty of a critique of human knowledge. As before, knowledge remains in ​the last resort always a weapon in the struggle for existence, a means to give to our movements, be they movements in nature or society, the most suitable forms and directions.
"Philosophers have only interpreted the world differently," said Marx. "The great thing, however, is to change it."
3.—The Motives of Self-Maintenance and Propagation.
Both the powers of self-movement and of knowing belong thus inseparably together as weapons in the struggle for existence. The one developed itself along with the other, and in the degree in which these weapons gain in importance in the organism, others, more primitive, lose, being less necessary, as, for example, that of fruitfulness and of vital force. On the other hand, to the degree that these diminish must the importance of the first-named factors for the struggle for life increase, and it must call forth their greater development.
But self-movement and knowledge by no means form by themselves a sufficient weapon in the struggle. What use are to me in this struggle the strongest muscles, the most agile joints, the sharpest senses, the greatest understanding, if I do not feel in me the impulse to employ them to my preservation; if the sight of food or the knowledge of danger leaves me indifferent and awakens no emotion in me? Self-movement and intellectual capacity first then become weapons in the struggle for existence, if with them there arises a longing for the self-preservation of the organism; which brings it about that all knowledge which is of importance for its existence at once produces the will to carry out the movement necessary for its existence, and therewith calls forth the same.
Self-movement and intellectual powers have no importance for the existence of the individual without this instinct of self-preservation, just as this latter again is of no importance without both the former factors. All the three are most intimately bound up with each other. The instinct of self-preservation is the most ​primitive of the animal instincts, and the most indispensable. Without it no animal species endowed in any degree with the power of self-movement and a faculty of intelligence could maintain itself even a short time. It rules the entire life of the animal. The same social development which ascribes the care of the intellectual faculties to particular classes and the practical movement to others, and produces in the first an elevation of the "spirit" over the coarse "matter," goes so far in the process of isolating the intellectual faculties that the latter, out of contempt for the "mechanical" action which serves for the maintenance of life, comes to despise life itself. But this kind of knowledge has never as yet been able to overcome the instinct of self-preservation, and to paralyse the "action" which serves for the maintenance of life. Nay, even a suicide may be philosophically grounded; we always in every practical act of the denial of life finally meet with disease or ddsperate social circumstances as the cause but not a philosophical theory. Mere philosophising cannot overcome the instinct of self-preservation.
But if this is the most primitive and widely-spread of all instincts, so is it not the only one. It serves only for the maintenance of the individual. However long this may endure, finally it disappears without leaving any trace of its individuality behind, if it has not reproduced itself. Only those species of organisms will assert themselves in the struggle for existence who leave a progeny behind them.
Now with the plants and the lower animals the reproduction is a process which demands no power of self-movement and no faculty of intelligence. That changes, however, with the animals so soon as the reproduction becomes sexual, in which two individuals are concerned, who have to unite in order to lay their eggs and sperm on the same spot outside of the body or to incorporate the sperm in the body of the individual carrying the eggs.
That demands a will, an impulse to find each other, to unite. Without that the non-sexual propagation cannot take place; the stronger it is in the periods ​favourable for reproduction, so much the sooner will it take place, so much the better will be the prospects of a progeny for the maintenance of the species. On the other hand, there is little prospect for those individuals and species in whom the impulse for self-reproduction is weakly developed. Consequently, from a given degree of the devlopment, natural selection must develop, through the struggle for life, an outspoken impulse to reproduction in the animal world, and evermore strengthen it. But it does not always suffice to the attainment of a numerous progeny. We have seen that in the degree in which self-movement and intellectual powers grow, the number of the germs which the individual produces, as well as its vitality, have a tendency to diminish. Also, the greater the. division of labour, the more complicated the organism, the longer the period which is requisite for its development and its attainment to maturity. If a part of this period is passed in the maternal body, that has its limits. Even from consideration of space this body is not in a position to bear an organism as big as itself; it must expel the young body previously to that. In the young animals, however, the capacities for self-movement and intelligence are the latest achieved, and they are mostly very weakly developed as they leave the protecting cover of the egg or the maternal body. The egg expelled by the mother is completely without motion and intelligence. Then the care for the progeny becomes an important function of the mother: the hiding and defence of the eggs and of the young, the feeding of the latter, etc. As with the impulse for reproduction, so is it with the love for the young; especially in the animal world the maternal love is developed as an indispensable means, from a certain stage of the development on, to secure the perpetuation of the species. With the impulse towards individual self-preservation these impulses have nothing to do; they often come into conflict with it, and they can be so strong that they overcome it. It is clear that under otherwise equal conditions those individuals and species have the best prospect of ​reproducing themselves and handing on their qualities and impulses in whom the impulse of self-maintenance is not able to diminish the impulse to reproduce and protect the progeny.
4.—The Social Instinct.
Beside these instincts which are peculiar to the higher animals, the struggle for life develops in particular kinds of animals still others, which are special and conditioned by the peculiarity of their method of life; for example, the migratory instinct, which we will not further study. Here we are interested in another kind of instinct, which is of very great importance for our subject: the social instinct.
The co-operation of similar organisms in larger crowds is a phenomenon which we can discover quite in their earliest stages in the microbes. It is explained alone by the simple fact of reproduction. If the organisms have no self-movement, the progeny will, consequently, gather round the producer, if they are not by any chance borne away by the movements of the external world matter: currents, winds, and phenomena of that sort. The apple falls, as is well known, not far from the stem, and when it is not eaten, and falls on fruitful soil, there grow from its pips young trees, which keep the old tree company. But even in animals with power of self-movement it is very natural that the young should remain with the old if no external circumstances supply a ground for them to remove themselves. The living together of individuals of the same species, the most primitive form of social life, is also the most primitive form of life itself. The division of organisms, having common origin is a later act.
The separation can be brought about by the most diverse causes. The most obvious, and certainly the most effective, is the lack of sustenance. Each locality can only yield a certain quantity of food. If a certain species of animals multiplies over the limits of their food supply, the superfluous ones must either ​emigrate or starve. Beyond a certain number the number of organisms living in one place cannot go.
But there are certain species of animals for whom the isolation, the division in individuals or pairs who live only for themselves, is the form of living which affords an advantage in the struggle for existence. Thus, for example, the cat species, which lie in wait for their booty, and take it with an unexpected spring. This method of acquiring their sustenance would be made more difficult, if not impossible, did they circulate in bigger herds. The first spring on the booty would drive all the game away for all the others. For wolves, which do not come unexpectedly on their prey, but worry it to death, the foregathering in herds affords an advantage; one hunts the game to the other, which blocks the way for it. The cat hunts most successfully alone. Again, there are animals who choose isolation because thus they are less conspicuous, and can most easily hide themselves, and soonest escape the foe. The traps set by men have, for example, had the effect that many animals which formerly lived in societies are now only to be found isolated, such as the beavers in Europe. That is the only way for them to remain unnoticed.
On the other hand, however, there are numerous animals which draw advantage from their social life. They are seldom beasts of prey. We have mentioned the wolf above. But even they only hunt in bands when food is scarce in winter; in summer, when it is easier to get, they live in pairs. The nature of the beast of prey is always inclined to fighting and violence, and, consequently, does not agree well with its equals. The herbivora are more peaceful from the very manner in which they obtain their food. That very fact in itself renders it easier for them to herd together, or to remain together, because they are more defencless; they will, however, through their greater numbers, need weapons in the struggle for life. The union of many weak forces to common action can produce a new and greater force. Then, through union, the greater strength of certain individuals is for the good ​of all. Unless the stronger ones fight now for themselves, they fight for the good of the weaker; when the more experienced look out for their own safety, find out for themselves feeding grounds, they do it also for the inexperienced. It then becomes possible to introduce a division of labour among the united individuals, which, fleeting though it be, yet increases their strength and their safety. It is impossible to watch the neighbourhood with the most complete attention and at the same time to feed peacefully. Naturally, during sleep, all observation of any kind comes to an end. But in unity one watcher suffices to render the others safe during sleep or while eating.
Through the division of labour the union of individuals becomes a body with different organs to co-operate to a given end, and this end is the maintenance of the collective body—it becomes an organism. With that is by no means implied that the new organism or society is a body in the same way as an animal or a plant, but it is an organism of its own kind, which is far more widely distinguished from these two than the animal from the plant. Both are made up from cells without power of self-motion and without consciousness of their own; society, on the other hand, from individuals with their own power of self-movement and consciousness. If, however, the animal organism has as a whole a power of self-motion and consciousness, they are lacking, nevertheless, to society as well as to the plants. But the individuals which form the society can entrust individuals among their members with functions through which the social forces are submitted to a uniform will, and uniform movements in the society are produced.
On the other hand the individual and society are much more loosely connected than the cell and the whole organism in both plant and animal. The individual can separate itself from one society and join another, as emigration proves. That is impossible for a cell; for it the separation from the whole is death, if we leave certain cells of a particular kind out of account, such as the sperma and eggs, in the ​procreation processes. Again society can forthwith impose on new individuals any change of form without any change of substance, which is impossible for an animal body. Finally, the individuals who form society can, under circumstances, change the organs and organisation of society, while anything of that kind is quite impossible in an animal or vegetable organism.
If, therefore, society is an organism, it is no animal organism, and to attempt to explain any phenomena peculiar to society from the laws of the animal organism is not less absurd than when the attempt is made to deduce peculiarities of the animal organism and self-movement and consciousness from the laws of the vegetable being. Naturally this does not imply that there is not also something common to the various kinds of organisms.
As the animal so also the social organism survives so much the better in the struggle for existence the more unitary its movements, the stronger the binding forces, the greater the harmony of the parts. But society has no fixed skeleton which supports the weaker parts, no skin which covers in the whole, no circulation of the blood which nourishes all the parts, no heart which regulates it, no brain which makes a unity out of its knowing, its willing, and its movements. Its unity and harmony, as well as its coherence, can only arise from the actions and will of its members. This unitary will, however, will be so much the more assured the more it springs from a strong impulse.
Among species of animals, in whom the social bond becomes a weapon in the struggle for life, social impulses become encouraged which, in many species and many individuals, grow to an extraordinary strength, so that they can overcome the impulse of self-preservation and reproduction when they come in conflict with the same.
The commencement of the social impulse we can well look for in the interest which the simple fact of living together in society produces in the individual for his fellows, to whose society he is used from youth on. ​On the other hand, reproduction and care for the progeny already render longer or shorter relations of a more intimate kind necessary between different individuals of the same species; and just as these relations have formed the starting point for the formation of societies, so could the corresponding impulses well give the point of departure for the development of the social impulses.
These impulses themselves can vary according to the varying conditions of the various species, but a row of impulses form the requisite conditions for the success of any kind of society. In the first place, naturally, altruism—self-sacrifice for the whole. Then bravery in the defence of the common interests; fidelity to the community; submission to the will of society, thus obedience and discipline; truthfulness to society, whose security is endangered, or whose energies are wasted, when they are misled in any way by false signals. Finally ambition, the sensibility to the praise and blame of society. These are all social impulses which we find expressed already among animal societies, many of them in a high degree.
These social impulses are, nevertheless, nothing less than the highest virtues; they sum up the entire moral code. At the most they lack the love for justice, that is the impulse towards equality. For its development there certainly is no place in the animal societies, because they only know natural and individual inequality, and not those called forth by social relations, the social inequalities. The lofty moral law that the comrade ought never to be merely a means to an end—which the Kantians look on as the most wonderful achievement of Kant's genius, as the moral programme of the modern era, and as essential to the entire future history of the world—is in the animal world a common-place. The development of human society first created a state of affairs in which the companion became a simple tool of others.
What appeared to Kant as the creation of a higher world of spirits is a product of the animal world. How closely the social impulses have grown up with ​the fight for existence and to what an extent they originally were useful in the preservation of species can be seen from the fact that their effect often limits itself to individuals whose maintenance is advantageous for the species. Quite a number of animals which risk their lives to save younger or weaker comrades kill without a scruple sick or aged comrades that are superfluous for the preservation of the race, and are become a burden to society. The "moral sense," "sympathy," does not extend to these elements. Even many savages behave in this manner.
The moral law is an animal impulse, and nothing else. Thence its mysterious nature, this voice in us which has no connection with any external impulse or any apparent interest; this demon or god, which, since Socrates and Plato, has been found in themselves by those moralists who refused to deduce morality from self-love or pleasure. Certainly a mysterious impulse, but not more mysterious than sexual love, maternal love, the instinct of self-preservation, the being of the organism itself, and so many other things, which only belong to the world of phenomena, and which no one looks on as products of a supersensuous world.
Because the moral law is an animal instinct of equal force to the instinct of self-preservation and reproduction, thence its force, thence its power which we obey without thought, thence our rapid decisions, in particular cases, whether an action is good or bad, virtuous or vicious; thence the energy and decision of our moral judgment, and thence the difficulty to prove it when reason begins to analyse its grounds. Thence, finally, we find that to comprehend all means to pardon all, that everything is necessary, that nothing is good or bad.
Not from our organs of knowing but from our impulses come the moral law and the moral judgment, as well as the feeling of duty and the conscience.
In many kinds of animals the social impulses attain such a strength that they become stronger than all the rest. When the former come in conflict with the latter, they then confront the latter with overpowering ​strength as commands of duty. Nevertheless, that does not hinder in such a case a special impulse, say of self-preservation or of reproduction, being temporarily stronger than the social impulse and overcoming it. But as the danger passes the strength of the self-preserving impulse or the reproductive instinct diminishes, just as that of reproduction after the completion of the act. The social instinct remains, however, existing in the old force, regains the dominion over the individual, and works now in him as the voice of conscience and of repentance. Nothing is more mistaken than to see in conscience the voice of fear of his fellows, their opinion, or even their power of physical compulsion. It has effect even in respect to acts which no one has heard of, even acts which may appear to those nearest as very praiseworthy; it can even act as repugnance to acts which have been undertaken from fear of his fellows and their public opinion.
Public opinion, praise and blame, are certainly very influential factors. But their effect assumes in advance a certain social impulse—namely, ambition—they are not capable of producing the social impulses.
We have no reason to assume that conscience is confined to man. It would be difficult to discover even in men if everyone did not feel its effect on himself. Conscience is certainly a force which does not obviously and openly show itself, but works only in the innermost being. But, nevertheless, many investigators have gone so far as to point, even in animals, to a kind of conscience. Darwin says in his book, "The Descent of Man":—
"Besides love and sympathy, the animals show other qualities connected with the social instincts which we should call moral in men; and I agree with Agassiz that dogs have something very like a conscience. Dogs certainly have a certain power of self-control, and this does not appear to be altogether a consequence of fear. As Braubach remarks, 'A dog will restrain itself from stealing food in the absence of its master.'"
​If conscience and feeling of duty are a consequence of the lasting predominance of the social impulses in many species of animals, if these impulses are those through which the individuals of such species are the most constantly and most enduringly determined, while the force of the other impulses is subject to great oscillations, yet the force of the social impulse is not free from all oscillations. One of the most peculiar phenomena is this: that social animals when united in greater numbers also feel stronger social impulses. It is, for example, a well-known fact that an entirely different spirit reigns in a well-filled meeting than in a small one; that the bigger crowd has in itself alone an inspiring effect on the speaker. In a crowd the individuals are not only more brave—that could be explained through the greater support which each believes he will get from his fellows—they are also more unselfish, more self-sacrificing, more enthusiastic. Certainly only too often so much the more calculating, cowardly and selfish when they find themselves alone. And that applies not only to men, but also to the social animals. Thus Espinas in his book, "The Animal Societies," quotes an observation of Forel. The latter found:—
"The courage of every ant, by the same form, increases in exact proportion to the number of its companions or friends, and decreases in exact proportion the more isolated it is from its companions. Every inhabitant of a very populous ant heap is much more courageous than are similar ones from a small population. The same female worker which would allow herself to be killed ten times in the midst of her companions, will show herself extraordinarily timid, avoid the least danger, fly before even a much weaker ant, so soon as she finds herself twenty yards from her own home."
With the stronger social feeling there need not be necessarily bound up a higher faculty of intelligence. It is probable that, in general, every instinct has the effect of somewhat obscuring the exact observation of the external world. What we wish, that we readily believe; but what we fear, that we easily exaggerate. The instincts can very easily produce the effect that many ​things appear disproportionately big or near, while others are overlooked. How blind and deaf the instinct for reproduction can render many animals at times is ell known. The social instincts which do not show themselves as a rule so acutely and intensively, generally obscure much less the intellectual faculties; they can, however, influence them very considerably on occasion. Think, for instance, of the influence of faithfulness and discipline upon sheep, who follow their leading sheep blindly wherever it may go.
The moral law in us can lead our intellect astray just as any other impulse, being itself neither a producer nor a product of wisdom. What is apparently the most devoted and divine in us is essentially the same as that which we look on as the commonest and most devilish. The moral law is of the same nature as the instinct for reproduction. Nothing is more ridiculous than when the former is put on a pedestal and the latter is turned away from with loathing and contempt. But no less false is it to infer that man can, and ought, to give way to his impulses without check. That is only so far true as it is impossible to condemn any one of these as such. But that by no means implies that they cannot come to cross purposes. It is simply impossible that anyone should follow all his instincts without restraint, because they restrain one another. Which, however, at a given moment wins, and what consequences this victory may bring to the individual and his society with it, neither the ethic of pleasure nor those of a moral law standing outside of space and time afford us any help to divine.
If, however, the moral law were recognised as a social instinct which, like all the instincts, is called out in us by the struggle for life, then the supersensuous world has lost a strong support in human thought. The simple gods of Polytheism were already dethroned by natural philosophy. If, nevertheless, a new philosophy could arise which not only revealed the belief in God and a supersensuous world, but put it more firmly in a higher form, as was done in ancient times by Plato and on the eve of the French ​Revolution by Kant, the cause lay in the fact that the problem of the moral law, to whose explanation neither its deduction from pleasure nor from the moral sense sufficed—while it yet offered the only "natural" causal explanation which seemed possible. Darwinism was the first to make an end to the division of man, which this rendered necessary, into a natural and animal being on the one hand and a supernatural and heavenly one on the other.
But with that the entire ethical problem was not yet solved. Were it attempted to explain moral impulse, duty, and conscience as well as the ground type of the virtues from the social impulse, yet this breaks down when it is a question of explaining the moral ideal. Of that there is not the least sign in the animal world; only man can set himself ideals and follow them. Whence come these? Are they prescribed to the human race from the beginning of time as an irrevocable demand of nature, or an eternal reason—as commands which man does not produce, but which confront man as a ruling force and show him the aims to which he has ever more and more to strive after? That was, in the main, the view of all thinkers of the eighteenth century, Atheists as well as Theists, Materialists and Idealists. This view took, even in the mouth of the boldest Materialism, the tendency to assume a supernatural providence, which indeed had nothing more to do in nature, but still hovers over human society. The evolution idea which recognised the descent of man from the animal world made this trend of idealism absurd in a Materialist mouth.
All the same, before Darwin founded his epoch-making work, that theory had arisen which revealed the secret of the moral ideal. This was the theory of Marx and Engels.