The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-08-17
THE ETHICS OF EVOLUTION.

of wonderful success In the scientific
study of matter, is the increasing de-
sire to Danish a personal God from
the universe and intuitional ethics
from practical life. The effort is to
displace God by nature, and the
moral by natural law. Ethical con-
duct is practical conformity to nat
ure's order. Sin is disease, virtue is
practical hygiene, vice is mistake,
crime is insanity. The basis of moral
obligation is the experience of pleas
ure and pain. Conscience is an or
| ganized and transmitted sensibility
to pleasure and pain as resulting
from certain lines of conduct. Pun
ishment is the suffering which results
from the violation of natural law.
The rewards of virtue are physical
and mental health and prosperity in
business life. The motives to moral
action are our fears of punishment
and hopes of reward. The springs
of ethical action are our appetites,
passions, desires and lusts. The
whole system is rooted and grounded
in human seltishness. 1t is essen
TALLY secular, earthly and animal. 1t
never rises above the plane of the
earthly life. There is no God in it.
1t recognizes no divine authority
and no divine law, 1t does not recog-
nize duty and obligation as growing
out of our relations to God or our fell
lowmen. The only God it knows is
nature and its only heaven is here.
Charles Darwin says that "man
alone can with certainty be ranked as
moral being" but also thinks that
any animal endowed with social in
stincts might develop conscience.
Professor Vogt does not agree with
Mr.. Darwin "that man alone can with
certainty be marked as moral be-
ing" but "claims that rats and bears
reveal moral qualities in the treat
ment of their young" Conscience is
the principal factor and supreme
guide in morals and is not peculiar to
man. 1t is found by the advocates
of the ethics of evolution in a rudi-
mentary or germinal state in all
animals. Indeed they hold that the
germs of conscience in brutes, if suf
ficiently developed, would make them
as moral as men are. "In the dog
for instance there are signs of fear
which can be made analogous to the
moral sense of man. Monkeys have
been known to extract thorns from
each others hide" conscientiously,
which is conclusive in favor of the
development of moral character in
animals. Female apes, it is said,
carry their young to the waters side
and there wash their faces in spite of
cries and resistance. This important
ethical fact is quoted by Professor
Huxley and Mr.. Darwin as evidence
that moral science has its germinal
principles in the animal creation. To
their minds this fact reveals the ex-
istence of conscience as moral fac
ulty in monkeys. Ethics, therefore, is
not of divine or human origin, but
had its genesis in the nature of
brutes.
The central fact or principle in the
ethics of evolution is usefulness.
What above all other things should
be made the aim of life? The answer
will give the basis of all morality.
The answer unhesitatingly given by
the philosophy of evolution, for man
and beast, the useful and the agreea-
BILE is the supreme good. This is the
pole star of ethics to which the needle
of conscience always points. What
ever is useful is right. Whatever is
not useful is wrong.
This is the essence of the decalogue
of materialism. Whoever chooses the
useful aud the agreeable, the two
benign convertible terms, is always
right. eff the atoms have evolved
necessity into freedom, so that man
has become responsible he commits a
crime if he choose any thing injuIi-
GUS, provided he knows that the ul-
innate result of the choice will be an
injury; but if the atoms have not
evolved freedom he will recognize no
responsibility and will see in crime
only a mistake. Error is not crime
If the agreeable is the supreme law
of ethics what more can be desired?
Before choosing, man need only in
quire is it usefull Will it do ne good
or give me pleasurei "The affirma-
tive answer always gives the ought"
and imposes duty and obligation.
The materialistic law of the suprema-
cy of the useful and pleasurable is
natural and man is as much under
its control as brutes. "The survival
of the fittest," is the corner stone of
this svstem and should be made the