The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-12-20
THE EVOLUTION OF EXPERIENCE.

The cheap "social reform" prigs and
scrlbbling quacks are never weary of de-
handing that "all laws shall be conformed
TO the requirements of natural morality"
This is absurd, for there is no such thing
as natural morality. Morality is the evo-
luton of the highest human experience,
just as modern Christianity is the evolu-
ton of the highest spiritual rejection.
Man had no more natural morality than
a hungry wolf who has become house
dog; than painted, tattooed Briton who
has become humane homemaker, home
keeper and householder, like the finished
man of our own day in England and
America.
The primitive savage has no natural
morality, bat is ruled by his passions of
avarice and lust. His avarice makes him
murderer and a thief, and his lust makes
him polygamist. There is no love
among primitive savages in the sense of
gaIlantry and devotion to women. There
is little or nothing of romantic love in lit
erature before the days of Dante and
Shakespeare. and even with them it seems
To have been the speculation and conyic-
ton of what love ought TO be and would be
some day rather than what love was
among the best of their own day. Con-
Jugal love, an exceptionally gifted spirit
like Hector knew. but doves and sparrows
know that; but of the romantic love that
antedates marriage, literature is silent
back Of Dante and Shakespeare The vast
piercing eye of genius. in the case of
Dante and Shakespeare, anticipates the ev
olution of experience that finally becomes
what we call morality; anticipates in
spiritual reelection what finally comes to
be what we call modern Christianity in
the general conduct as well rs the prema-
ture conclusions of human life.
The natural morality" meaning the
instructive conduct of human life
is nothing but the selfish, brutal
aspirations OF an animal that
pounces upon everything it dare
steal. and holds il By might. not by right;
by the fee simple of pure physical strength.
There is no more authentic record of a rrjyp-
tive savage man having any natural
morality" than there is record of a
natural morality on the part of grizzly
bear or a Bengal tiger. Lust, hunger.
and the savage lawiessness that lust and
hunger breed, which prompts the strong
est bear or tiger 10 catch and keep all he
can by mere strength, is all the natural
morality" That man ever had, until by
the evolution of experience, he slowly
l.
Of experience We call morality in man
t3mes him into the acceptance of its
comforts and privileges, just IS the beas,
by similar evolution. though not equal
or identical, becomes civilized, if no;
morally enlightened.
OF natural morality there is no more
in the conduct OF the primitive saw
age wild man than there is in the
conduct Of the life of savage wild
beast. The evolution OF experience
does for the top Of animate nature
infinitely more than it has ever done for
the intermediate grades of life between
man and the bottom Of creation. but OF
natural morality man had nothing except
what the evolution OF experience we call
morality gave him, or The spiritual and in
tellectual evolution whose Ugh: fell upon
his path from the eye of geaius-the