Translators’ Preface

Kropotkin’s “Ethics: Origin and Development,” is, in a sense, a continuation of his well-known work, “Mutual Aid as a Factor of Evolution.” The basic ideas of the two books are closely connected, almost inseparable, in fact: — the origin and progress of human relations in society. Only, in the “Ethics” Kropotkin approaches his theme through a study of the ideology of these relations.

The Russian writer removes ethics from the sphere of the speculative and metaphysical, and brings human conduct and ethical teaching back to its natural environment: the ethical practices of men in their everyday concerns — from the time of primitive societies to our modern highly organized States. Thus conceived, ethics becomes a subject of universal interest; under the kindly eyes and able pen of the great Russian scholar, a subject of special and academic study becomes closely linked to whatever is significant in the life and thought of all men.

The circumstances leading to the conception and writing of this book are discussed by the Russian editor, N. Lebedev, whose Introduction is included in this volume. The present translators have availed themselves of Kropotkin’s two articles on Ethics contributed to the Nineteenth Century, 1905–06. They found, however, that the author had made very many changes in the first three chapters of his book — in substance, a reproduction of the magazine articles- and they thought it best to make the necessary alterations and additions called for by the Russian text. These three chapters preserve the English and the turns of phrase of the magazine articles.

In preparing this edition the translators consulted all of the books mentioned by Kropotkin; they verified all his citations, and corrected a number of errors that crept into the Russian original owing to the absence of the author’s supervising care. As is generally known, the book appeared after Kropotkin’s death. The translators have added such additional footnotes as they thought would prove of value and interest to the English reader. They have made every attempt to discover and cite the best, most readily available English versions of the books referred to by the author. These added notes and comments are enclosed in brackets, and are usually marked, — Trans. Note. In addition, the Index has been carefully revised and augmented.

A multitude of books had to be consulted in the faithful discharge of the translators’ duties. And for these, many librarians — those most obliging and patient of mortals-were pestered. The translators wish to record their thanks to Mr. Howson, Mr. Frederic W. Erb, Miss Erb, and Mr. Charles F. Claar — all of Columbia University Library, and to Mr Abraham Mill of the Slavonic division of the New York Public Library. They and their assistants have been very helpful and kind. In the preparation of the manuscript the translators were fortunate to have the competent assistance of Miss Ann Bogel and Miss Evelyn Friedland — always vigilant in the discovery and eradication of errors.

Madam Sophie G. Kropotkin and Madam Sasha Kropotkin — wife and daughter of Peter Kropotkin — followed the progress of this edition; they have been ever gracious and helpful. It is their hope that, at some time in the near future, Kropotkin’s last essays on Ethics will be issued in English translation. And indeed, our literature and thought will be richer for the possession of all of Kropotkin’s writings. His work — fine and thorough and scholarly as it is — is only less inspiring than the ennobling memory of his life and character.

Louis S. Friedland Joseph R. Piroshnikoff New York May 1924

Introduction by the Russian Editor

“Ethics” is the swan song of the great humanitarian scientist and revolutionist-anarchist, and constitutes, as it were, the crowning work and the résumé of all the scientific, philosophical, and sociological views of Peter Alekseyevich Kropotkin, at which he arrived in the course of his long and unusually rich life. Unfortunately, death came before he could complete his work, and, according to the will and desire of Peter Alekseyevich, the responsible task of preparing “Ethics” for the press fell upon me.

In issuing the first volume of “Ethics”, I feel the necessity of saying a few words to acquaint the reader with the history of this work.

In his “Ethics” Kropotkin wished to give answers to the two fundamental problems of morality: whence originate man’s moral conceptions? and , what is the goal of the moral prescriptions and standards? It is for this reason that he subdivided his work into two parts: the first was to consider the question of the origin and the historical development of morality, and the second part Kropotkin planned to devote to the exposition of the bases of realistic ethics, and its aims.

Kropotkin had time to write only the first volume of “Ethics,” and even that not in finished form. Some chapters of the first volume were written by him in rough draft only, and the last chapter, in which the ethical teachings of Stirner, Nietzsche, Tolstoi, Multatuli, and of other prominent contemporary moralists were to be discussed, remained unwritten.

For the second volume of “Ethics” Kropotkin had time to write only a few essays, which he planned to publish at first in the form of magazine articles, — and a series of rough drafts and notes. They are the essays: “Primitive Ethics,” “Justice, Morality, and Religion,” “Ethics and Mutual Aid,” “Origins of Moral Motives and of the Sense of Duty,” and others.

Kropotkin began to occupy himself with moral problems as early as in the ‘eighties, but he devoted particularly close attention to the questions of morality during the last decade of the nineteenth century, when voices began to be heard in literature proclaiming that morality is not needed and when the a-moralist doctrine of Nietzsche was gaining attention. At the same time, many representatives of science and of philosophic thought, under the influence of Darwin’s teaching, — interpreted literally, — began to assert that there reigns in the world but one general law, — the “law of struggle for existence,” and by this very assumption they seemed to lend support to philosophical a-moralism.

Kropotkin, feeling all the falseness of such conclusions, decided to prove from the scientific point of view that nature is not a-moral and does not teach man a lesson of evil, but that morality constitutes the natural product of the evolution of social life not only of man, but of almost all living creatures, among the majority of which we find the rudiments of moral relations.

In 1890 Kropotkin delivered, before the “Ancoats Brotherhood” of Manchester, a lecture on the subject “Justice and Morality,” and somewhat later he repeated this lecture in amplified form before the London Ethical Society.

During the period 1891–1894 he printed in the magazine, Nineteenth Century, a series of articles on the subject of mutual aid among the animals, savages, and civilized peoples. These essays, which later formed the contents of the book “Mutual Aid, a factor of evolution,” constitute, as it were, an introduction to Kropotkin’s moral teaching.

In 1904–1905 Kropotkin printed in the magazine Nineteenth Century two articles directly devoted to moral problems: “The Ethical Need of the Present Day,” and “The Morality of Nature.” These essays, in somewhat modified form, constitute the first three chapters of the present volume. About the same time Kropotkin wrote in French a small pamphlet, “La Morale Anarchiste.” In this pamphlet Kropotkin exhorts man to active participation in life, and calls upon man to remember that his power is not in isolation but in alliance with his fellow men, with the people, with the toiling masses. In opposition to anarchistic individualism he attempts to create social morality, the ethics of sociality and solidarity.

The progress of mankind, says Kropotkin, is indissolubly bound up with social living. Life in societies inevitably engenders in men and in animals the instincts of sociality, mutual aid, — which in their further development in men become transformed into the feeling of benevolence, sympathy, and love.

It is these feelings and instincts that give origin to human morality, i.e., to the sum total of moral feelings, perceptions, and concepts, which finally mould themselves into the fundamental rule of all moral teachings: “do not unto others that which you would not have others do unto you.”

But not to do unto others that which you would not have others do unto you, is not a complete expression of morality, says Kropotkin. This rule is merely the expression of justice, equity. The highest moral consciousness cannot be satisfied with this, and Kropotkin maintains that together with the feeling of mutual aid and the concept of justice there is another fundamental element of morality, something that men call magnanimity, self-abnegation or self-sacrifice.

Mutual Aid, Justice, Self-sacrifice — these are the three elements of morality, according to Kropotkin’s theory. While not possessing the character of generality and necessity inherent in logical laws, these elements, according to Kropotkin, lie, nevertheless, at the basis of human ethics, which may be regarded as the “physics of human conduct.” The problem of the moral philosopher is to investigate the origin and the development of these elements of morality, and to prove that they are just as truly innate in human nature as are all other instincts and feelings.

Arriving in Russia after forty years of exile, Kropotkin settled at first in Petrograd, but soon his physicians advised him to change his residence to Moscow. Kropotkin did not succeed, however, in settling permanently in Moscow. The hard conditions of life in Moscow at the time compelled him, in the summer of 1918, to go to the tiny, secluded village of Dmitrov (60 versts from Moscow), where Kropotkin, almost in the literal sense of the word isolated from the civilized world, was compelled to live fore three years, to the very day of his death.

Needless to say, the writing of such a work as “Ethics” and its exposition of the history and development of moral teachings, while the author was living in so isolated a place as Dmitrov, proved an extremely difficult task. Kropotkin had very few books at hand(all his library remained in England), and the verification of references consumed much time and not infrequently held up the work for long periods.

Owing to lack of means Kropotkin could not purchase the books he needed, and it was only through the kindness of his friends and acquaintances that he succeeded at times in obtaining with great difficulty this or that necessary book. Because of the same lack of means Kropotkin could not afford the services of a secretary or a typist, so that he was obliged to do all the mechanical part of the work himself, at times copying portions of his manuscript again and again. Of course, all this had its unfavourable influences on the work. To this must be added the circumstance that after coming to Dmitrov, Kropotkin, perhaps owing to inadequate nourishment, began often to feel physical indisposition. Thus, in his letter to me dated January 21, 1919, he writes: I am diligently working on ‘Ethics,’ but I have little strength, and I am compelled at times to interrupt my work.” To this a series of other untoward circumstances was added. For instance, Kropotkin was compelled for a long time to work evenings by a very poor light, etc.

Kropotkin considered his work on ethics a necessary and a revolutionary task. In one of his last letters (May 2, 1920) he says “I have resumed my work on moral questions, because I consider that this work is absolutely necessary. I know that intellectual movements are not created by books, and that just the reverse is true.” But I also know that for clarifying an idea the help of a book is needed, a book that expresses the bases of thought in their complete form. And in order to lay the bases of morality, liberated from religion, and standing higher than the religious morality...it is necessary to have the help of clarifying books.” — “The need of such clarification is felt with particular insistence now, when human thought is struggling between Nietzsche and Kant ....

In his conversations with me he often said, “Of course, if I were not so old I would not potter over a book on ethics during the Revolution, but I would, you may be sure, actively participate in the building of the new life.”

A realist and a revolutionist, Kropotkin regarded Ethics not as an abstract science of human conduct, but he saw in it first of all a concrete scientific discipline, whose object is to inspire men in their practical activities. Kropotkin saw that even those who call themselves revolutionists and communists are morally unstable, that the majority of them lack a guiding moral principle, a lofty moral ideal. He said repeatedly that it was perhaps due to this lack of a lofty moral ideal that the Russian Revolution proved impotent to create a new social system based on the principles of justice and freedom, and to fire other nations with a revolutionary flame, as happened at the time of the Great French Revolution and of the Revolution of 1848.

And so he, an old revolutionist-rebel, whose thoughts were always bent on the happiness of mankind, thought with his book on Ethics to inspire the young generation to struggle, to implant in them faith in the justice of the social revolution, and to light in their hearts the fire of self-sacrifice, by convincing men that “happiness is not in personal pleasure, not in egotistic, even in higher joys, but in struggle for truth and justice among the people and together with the people.”

Denying the connection of morality with religion and metaphysics, Kropotkin sought to establish ethics on purely naturalistic bases, and endeavoured to show that only by remaining in the world of reality may one find strength for a truly moral life. In his “Ethics,” Kropotkin, like the poet, gives to mankind his last message:

“Dear friend, do not with wary soul aspire Away from the gray earth — your sad abode; No! Throb with th’ earth, let earth your body tire, — So help your brothers bear the common load.”

Many expect that Kropotkin’s “Ethics” will be some sort of specifically “revolutionary” or anarchist” ethics, etc. Whenever this subject was broached to Kropotkin himself, he invariably answered that his intention was to write a purely human ethics (sometimes he used the expression “realistic”).

He did not recognize any separate ethics; he held that ethics should be one and the same for all men. When it was pointed out to him that there can be no single ethics in modern society, which is subdivided into mutually antagonistic classes and castes, he would say that any “bourgeois” or “proletarian” ethics rests, after all, on the common basis, on the common ethnological foundation, which at times exerts a very strong influence on the principles of the class or group morality. He pointed out that no matter to what class or party we may belong, we are, first of all, human beings, and constitute a part of the general animal species, Man. The genus “Homo Sapiens,” from a most cultured European to a Bushman, and from the most refined “bourgeois” to the last “proletarian,” in spite of all distinctions, constitutes a logical whole. And in his plans for the future structure of society Kropotkin always thought simply in terms of human beings — without that sediment of the social “table of ranks,” which has thickly settled upon us in the course of the long historical life of mankind.

Kropotkin’s ethical teaching may be characterized as the teaching of Brotherhood, although the world “brotherhood” is scarcely ever met with in his book. He did not like to use the word brotherhood, and preferred the term solidarity. Solidarity, in his opinion, is something more “real” than brother hood. As a proof of his thought he pointed out that brothers frequently quarrel among themselves, hate one another, and even go as far as murder. In fact, according to the Biblical legend, the history of the human race begins with fratricide. But the conception of solidarity expresses the physical and the organic relation among the elements in every human being, and in the world of moral relations solidarity is expressed in sympathy, in mutual aid, and in co-miseration. Solidarity harmonizes with freedom and equity, and solidarity and equity constitute the necessary conditions of social justice. Hence Kropotkin’s ethical formula: “Without equity there is no justice, and without justice there is no morality.”

Of course, Kropotkin’s ethics does not solve all the moral problems that agitate modern humanity (and it is not within expectation to think that they will ever be completely solved, for with every new generation the moral problem while remaining unchanged in its essence, assumes different aspects, and engenders new questions). In his “Ethics” Kropotkin merely indicates the path and offers his solution of the ethical problem His work is an attempt by a revolutionist-anarchist and a learned naturalist to answer the burning question: why must I live a moral life? It is extremely unfortunate that death prevented Kropotkin from writing in final, finished form the second part of his work, in which he planned to expound the bases of the naturalistic and realistic ethics, and to state his ethical credo.

Kropotkin, in his search for the realistic bases of ethics, seems to us an inspired reconnoiterer in the complicated world of moral relations. To all those who strive to reach the promised land of freedom and justice, but who are still subjected to the bitter pains of fruitless wanderings in the world of oppression and enmity, to all those Kropotkin stands out as a steadfast way-mark. He points the path to the new ethics, to the morality of the future which will not tolerate an immoral subdivision of human beings into “masters” and “slaves,” into “rulers” and “subjects,” but will be the expression of the free, collective co-operation of all for the common good, of that co-operation which alone will permit the establishment on earth of a real, and not an ephemeral, kingdom of brotherly labour and freedom.

A few last words. In editing, I endeavoured to be guided by the remarks that Peter Alekseyevich himself made in the course of our conversations and discussions, and also by the directions which he left among his documents, “Instructions as to the disposition of my papers,” and in a brief sketch, “À un continuateur.” In the latter paper, Kropotkin writes, among other things: “si je ne réussi pas a terminer mon Éthique, — je prie ceux qui tâcheront peut-être de la terminer, d’utiliser mes notes.”

For the purpose of the present editions these notes have remained unutilized, in the first place because the relatives and friends of the late Peter Alekseyevich decided that it is much more important and more interesting to publish “Ethics” in the form in which it was left by the author, and secondly, because the sorting and arranging of these notes will require much time and labour, and would have considerably retarded the appearance of “Ethics” in print.

In subsequent editions all the material left by Kropotkin pertaining to Ethics, will, of course, be utilized in one form or another.

N. Lebedev. Moscow May 1, 1922

Chapter 1: The Present Need of Determining the Bases of Morality

When we cast a glance upon the immense progress realized by the natural sciences in the course of the nineteenth century, and when we perceive the promises they contain for the future, we can not but feel deeply impressed by the idea that mankind is entering upon a new era of progress It has, at any rate, before it all the elements for preparing such a new era. In the course of the last one hundred years, new branches of knowledge, opening entirely new vistas upon the laws of the development of human society, have grown up under the names of anthropology prehistoric ethnology (science of the primitive social institutions), the history of religions, and so on. New conceptions about the whole life of the universe were developed by pursuing such lines of research as molecular physics, the chemical structure of matter, and the chemical composition of distant worlds. And the traditional views about the position of man in the universe, the origin of life, and the nature of reason were entirely upset by the rapid development of biology, the appearance of the theory of evolution, and the progress made in the study of human and animal psychology.

Merely to say that the progress of science in each of its branches, excepting perhaps astronomy, has been greater during the last century than during any three or four centuries of the ages preceding, would not be enough. We must turn back 2000 years, to the glorious times of the philosophical revival in Ancient Greece, in order to find another such period of the awakening of the human intellect. And yet, even this comparison would not be correct, because at that early period of human history, man did not enter into possession of all those wonders of industrial technique which have been lately arrayed in our service. The development of this technique at last gives man the opportunity to free himself from slavish toil.

At the same time modern humanity developed a youthful, daring spirit of invention, stimulated by the recent discoveries of science; and the inventions that followed in rapid succession have to such an extent increased the productive capacity of human labor as to make at last possible for modern civilized peoples such a general well-being as could not be dreamt of in antiquity, or in the Middle Ages, or even in the earlier portion of the nineteenth century. For the first time in the history of civilization, mankind has reached a point where the means of satisfying its needs are in excess of the needs themselves. To impose therefore, as has hitherto been done, the curse of misery and degradation upon vast divisions of mankind, in order to secure well being and further mental development for the few is needed no more: well being can be secured for all, without placing on anyone the burden of oppressive, degrading toil, and humanity can at last rebuild its entire social life on the bases of justice. Whether the modern civilized nations will find in their midst the social constructive capacities, the creative powers and the daring required for utilizing the conquests of the human intellect in the interest of all, it is difficult to say beforehand.

Whether our present civilization is vigorous and youthful enough to undertake so great a task, and to bring it to the desired end, we cannot foretell. But this is certain: that the recent revival of science has created the intellectual atmosphere required for calling such forces into existence, and it has already given us the knowledge necessary for the realization of this great task.

Reverting to the sound philosophy of Nature which remained in neglect from the time of Ancient Greece until Bacon woke scientific research from its long slumber, modern science has now worked out the elements of a philosophy of the universe, free of supernatural hypotheses and the metaphysical “mythology of ideas,” and at the same time so grand, so poetical and inspiring, and so expressive of freedom, that it certainly is capable of calling into existence the new forces. Man no longer needs to clothe his ideals of more beauty, and of a society based on justice, with the garb of superstition: he does not have to wait for the Supreme Wisdom to remodel society. He can derive his ideals from Nature and he can draw the necessary strength from the study of its life.

One of the greatest achievements of modern science was, that it proved the indestructibility of energy through all the ceaseless transformations which it undergoes in the universe. For the physicist and the mathematician this idea became a most fruitful source of discovery. It inspires in fact all modern research. But its philosophical import is equally great. It accustoms man to conceive the life of the universe as a never-ending series of transformations of energy: mechanical energy may become converted into sound, light electricity and conversely, each of these forms of energy may be converted into others. And among all these transformations the birth of our planet, its evolution, and its final unavoidable destruction and reabsorption in the great Cosmos are but an infinitesimally small episode- a mere moment in the life of the stellar worlds.

The same with the researches life concerning organic life. The recent studies in the wide borderland dividing the inorganic world from the organic, where the simplest life-processes in the lowest fungi are hardly distinguishable — if distinguishable at all from the chemical redistribution of atoms which is always going on in the more complex molecules of matter, have divested life of its mystical character. At the same time, our conception of life has been so widened that we grow accustomed now to conceive all the agglomerations matter in the universe — solid, liquid, and gaseous (such are son nebulae of the astral world) — as something living and going through the same cycles of evolution and decay as do living beings. The reverting to ideas which were budding once in Ancient Greece, modern science has retraced step by step that marvelous evolution of living matter, which, after having started with the simplest forms, hardly deserving the name of organism, has gradually produced the infinite variety of beings which now people and enliven our planet. And, by making us familiar with the thought that every organism is to an immense extent the product of its own environment, biology has solved one of the greatest riddles of Nature — it explained the adaptations to the conditions of life which we meet at every step.

Even in the most puzzling of all manifestations of life, — the domain of feeling and thought, in which human intelligence has to catch the very processes by means of which it succeeds in retaining and coordinating the impressions received from without — even in this domain, the darkest of all, man has already succeeded in catching a glimpse of tile mechanism of thought by following the lines of research indicated by physiology. And finally, in the vast field of human institutions, habits and laws superstitions, beliefs, and ideals, such a flood of light has been throw’, by the anthropological schools of history law and economics that we cat’ already maintain positively that “the greatest happiness of the greatest number” is no longer a dream a mere Utopia. It is possible , and it is also clear, that the prosperity and happiness of no nation or class could ever he based even temporarily upon the degradation of either classes, nations, or races.

Modern science has thus achieved a double aim. On the one side it has given to man a very valuable lesson of modesty. It has taught him to consider himself as but an infinitesimally small particle of the universe. It has driven him out of his narrow, egotistical seclusion, and has dissipated the self-conceit under which he considered himself the center of the universe and the object of the special attention of the Creator. It has taught him that without the whole the “ego” is nothing; that our “I” cannot even come to a self-definition without the “thou.” But at the same time science has taught man how powerful mankind is in its progressive march, if it skillfully utilizes the unlimited energies of Nature.

Thus science and philosophy have given us both the material strength and the freedom of thought which are required for calling into life the constructive forces that may lead mankind to a new of progress. There is, however, one branch of knowledge which behind. It is ethics, the teaching of the fundamental principle morality. A system of ethics worthy of the present scientific revival, which would take advantage of all the recent acquisition reconstituting the very foundations of morality on a wider philosophical basis, and which would give to the civilized nations the inspiration required for the great task that lies before them — such a system has not yet been produced. But the need of it is felt every where. A new, realistic moral science is the need of the day a science as free from superstition, religious dogmatism, and metaphysical mythology as modern cosmogony and philosophy already and permeated at the same time with these higher feelings brighter hopes which are inspired by the modern knowledge of and his history this is what humanity is persistently demanding.

That such a science is possible lies beyond any reasonable doubt. If the study of Nature has yielded the elements of a philosophy which embraces the life of the Cosmos the evolution of living beings the laws of physical activity and the development of society it must also be able to give us the rational origin and tile sources of moral feelings. And it must be able to show us where lie the forces that are able to elevate the moral feeling to an always greater height and purity. If the contemplation of the Universe and a close acquaintance with Nature were able to infuse lofty inspiration into the minds of the great naturalists and poets of the nineteenth century, — if a look into Nature’s breast quickened the pulse of life for Goethe, Shelley, Byron, Lermontov, in the face of the raging storm, the calm mountains, the dark forest and its inhabitants, — why should not a deeper penetration into the life of man and destinies be able to inspire the poet in the same way? And when the poet has found the proper expression for his sense of communion with the Cosmos and his unity with his fellow-men, he becomes capable of inspiring millions of men with his high enthusiasm. He makes them feel what is best in them and awakens their desire to become better still. He produces in them those very ecstasies which were formerly considered as belonging exclusively to the province of religion. what are, indeed, the Psalms, which are often described as the highest expression of religious feeling, or the more poetical portions of the sacred books of the East, but attempts to express man’s ecstasy at the contemplation of the universe — the first awakening of his sense of the poetry of nature?

The need of realistic ethics was felt from the very dawn of the scientific revival, when Bacon, at the same time that he laid the foundations of the present advancement of sciences, indicated also the main outlines of empirical ethics, perhaps with less thoroughness than this was done by his followers, but with a width of conception which few have been able to attain since, and beyond which we have not advanced much further in our day.

The best thinkers of the seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries continued on the same lines, Endeavoring to worth out systems of ethics independent of the imperatives of religion. In England Hobbes, Cudworth, Locke, Shaftesbury, Paley, Hutcheson, Hume, and Adam Smith boldly attached the problem on all sides. They indicated the natural sources of the moral sense, and in their determinations Of the moral Ends they (except Paley) mostly stood on the same empirical ground. They endeavored to combine in varied ways the “intellectualism” and utilitarianism of Locke with the “moral sense” and sense of beauty of Hutcheson, the “theory of association” of Hartley, and the ethics of feeling of Shaftesbury. Speaking of the ends of ethics, some of them already mentioned the “harmony” between self-love and regard for fellowmen, which acquired such an importance in the moral theories of the nineteenth century, and considered it in connection with Hutcheson’s “emotion of approbation,” or the “sympathy” of Hume and Adam Smith. And finally, if they found a difficulty in explaining the sense Of duty on a rational basis, they resorted to the early influences of religion or to some “inborn sense,” or to some variety of Hobbe’s theory, which regards law as the principal cause of the formation of society, while considering the primitive savage as an unsocial animal.

The French Encyclopaedists and materialists discussed the problem on the same Lines, only insisting more on self-love and trying to find the synthesis of the opposed tendencies of human nature: the narrow-egoistic and the social. Social life they maintained invariably favors the development of the better sides of human nature. Rousseau. with his rational religion, stood as a link between the materialists and the intuitionists, and by boldly attacking the social problems of the day he won a wider hearing than any one of them. On the other side even the utmost idealists, like Descartes and his pantheist follower Spinoza, and at one time even the “transcendentalist-idealist” Kant, did not trust entirely to the revealed origin Of the moral idealism and tried to give to ethics a broader foundation, even though they would not Part entirely with an extra-human origin of the moral law.

The same endeavor towards finding a realistic basis for ethics became even more pronounced in the nineteenth century, when quite a number of important ethical systems were worked out on the different bases of rational self-love, love of humanity (Auguste Comte, Littré and a great number of minor followers), sympathy and intellectual identification of one’s personality with mankind (Schopenhauer), utilitarianism (Bentham and Mill), and evolution (Darwin, Spencer, Guyau), to say nothing of the systems reflecting morality, originating in La RochefoucauId and Mandeville and developed in the nineteenth centenary by Nietzsche and several others, who tried to establish a higher moral standard by their bold attacks against the current half-hearted moral conceptions, and by a vigorous assertion of the supreme rights of the individual.

Two of the nineteenth century ethical systems — Comte’s positivism and Bentham’s utilitarianism — exercised, as is known, a deep influence upon the century’s thought, and the former impressed with its own stamp all the scientific researches which make the glory of modern science. They also gave origin to a variety of sub-systems, so that most modern writers of mark in psychology, evolution, or anthropology have enriched ethical literature with some more or less original researches, of a high standard, as is the case with Feuerbach, Bain, Leslie Stephen, Proudhon, Wundt, Sidgwick, Guyau, Jodl, and several others. Numbers of ethical societies were also started for a wider propaganda of empirical ethics (i.e., not based on religion). At the same time, an immense movement, chiefly economical in its origins, but deeply ethical in its substance, was born in the first half of the nineteenth century under the names of Fourierism, Saint-Simonism, and Owenism, and later on of international socialism and anarchism. This movement, which is spreading more and more, aims, with the support of the working men of all nations, not only to revise the very foundations of the current ethical conceptions. hut also to remodel life in such a way that a new page in the ethical life of mankind may be opened.

It would seem, therefore, that since such a number of rationalist ethical systems have grown up in the course of the last two centuries, it is impossible to approach the subject once more without falling into a mere repetition or a mere recombination of fragments of already advocated schemes. However, the very fact that each of the main systems produced in the nineteenth century — the positivism of Comte, the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill, and the altruistic evolutionism, i.e., the theory of the social development of morality, of Darwin, Spencer, and Guyau — has added something important to the conceptions worked out by its predecessors, — proves that the matter is far from being exhausted.

Even if we take the last three systems only, we cannot but see that Spencer failed to take advantage of some of the hints which are found in the remarkable sketch of ethics given by Darwin in “The Descent of Man;” while Guyau introduced into morals such an important element as that of an overflow of energy in feeling, thought, or will, which had not been taken into account by his predecessors. If every new system thus contributes some new and valuable element, this very fact proves that ethical science is not yet constituted In fact, it never will be, because new factors and new tendencies always have to be taken into account in proportion as mankind advances in its evolution.

That, at the same time, none of the ethical systems which were brought forward in the course of the nineteenth century has satisfied be it only the educated fraction of the civilized nations, hardly need be insisted upon. To say nothing of the numerous philosophical works in which dissatisfaction with modern ethics has been expressed, the best proof of it is the decided return to idealism which we see at the end of the nineteenth century. The absence of poetical inspiration in the positivism of Littré and Herbert Spencer and their incapacity to cope with the great problems of our present civilization; the narrowness which characterizes the chief philosopher of evolution, Spencer, in some, of his views; nay, the repudiation by the latter-day positivists of the humanitarian theories which distinguished the eighteenth-century Encyclopaedists all these have helped to create a strong reaction in favor of a sort of mystico-religious idealism. As Fouillée very justly remarks, a one-sided interpretation of Darwinism, which was given to it by the most prominent representatives of the evolutionist school, (without a word of protest coming from Darwin himself for the first twelve years after the appearance of his “Origin of Species”), gave still more force to opponents of the natural interpretation of the moral nature of man, so-called “naturism.”

Beginning as a protest against some mistakes of the naturalist philosophy, the critique soon became a campaign against protest knowledge altogether. The “failure of science” was triumphant announced. However, the scientists know that every exact science moves from one approximation to another, i.e., from a first approximate explanation of a whole series of phenomena to the next more accurate approximation. But this simple truth is completely ignored by the “believers,” and in general by lovers of mysticism. Having learned that inaccuracies have been discovered in the first approximation, they hasten to proclaim the “bankruptcy of science” in general. Whereas, the scientists know that the most exact sciences, such as, for example, astronomy, follow just this road of successive approximations. It was a great discovery to find out that all the planets move around the sun, and it was the first “approximation” to suppose that they follow circular paths. Then it was discovered that they move along somewhat oblong circles, i.e., ellipses, and this was the second “approximation.” This was followed by the third approximation when we learned that the planets follow a wavy course, always deviating to one or the other side of the ellipse, and never retracing exactly the same path; and now, at last, when we know that the sun is not motionless, but is itself flying through space, the astronomers are endeavoring to determine the nature and the position of the spirals along which the planets are traveling in describing slightly wavy ellipses around the sun.

Similar approximations from one near solution of the problem to the next, more accurate one, are practiced in all sciences. Thus, for example, the natural sciences are now revising the “first approximations” concerning life, physical activity, evolution of plant and animal forms, the structure of matter, and so on, which were arrived at in the years 1856–62, and which must be revised now in order to reach the next, deeper generalizations. And so this revision was taken advantage of by some people who know little, to convince others who know still less, that science, in general, has failed in its attempted solutions of all the great problems.

At present a great many endeavor to substitute for science “intuition,” i.e., simply guess work and blind faith. Going back first to Kant, then to Schelling, and even to Lotze, numbers of writers have of late been preaching “spiritualism,” “indeterminism,” “apriorism,” “personal idealism,” “intuition,” and so on — proving that faith, and not science, is the source of all true knowledge. Religious faith itself is found insufficient. It is the mysticism of St. Bernard or of the Neo-Platonist which is now in demand. “Symbolism,” “the subtle,” “the incomprehensible” are sought for. Even the belief in the medieval Satan was resuscitated.

It is true that none of these currents of thought obtained a widespread hold upon the minds of our contemporaries; but we certainly see public opinion floating between the two extremes — between a desperate effort, on the one side, to force oneself to return to the obscure creeds of the Middle Ages, with their full accompaniment of superstition, idolatry, and even magic; and, on the opposite extreme. a glorification of “a-moralism” and a revival of that worship of “superior natures,” now invested with the names of “supermen” or “superior individualizations,” which Europe had lived through in the times of Byronism and early Romanticism.

It appears, therefore, more necessary than ever to see if the present skepticism as to the authority of science in ethical questions is well founded, and whether science does not contain already the elements of a system of ethics which, if it were properly formulated, would respond to the needs of the present day.

The limited success of the various ethical systems which were born in the course of the last hundred years shows that man cannot be satisfied with a mere naturalistic explanation of the origins of the moral instinct. He means to have a justification of it. Simply to trace the origin of our moral feelings, as we trace the pedigree of some structural feature in a flower, and to say that such-and-such causes have contributed to the growth and refinement of the moral sense,, is not enough. Man wants to have a criterion for judging the moral instinct itself. Whereto does it lead us? Is it towards a desirable end, or towards something which, as some critics say, would only result in the weakening of the race and its ultimate decay?

If struggle for life and the extermination of the physically weak weakest is the law of Nature, and represents a condition of progress, is not then the cessation of the struggle, and the “industrial state” which Comte and Spencer promise us, the very beginning of the decay of the human race — as Nietzsche has so forcibly concluded? And if such an end is undesirable, must we not proceed, indeed, to a revaluation of all those moral “values” which tend to reduce the struggle, or to render it less painful?

The main problem of modern realistic ethics is thus, as has been remarked by Wundt in his “Ethics,” to determine, first of all, the moral end in view. But this end or ends, however ideal they may be, and however remote their full realization, must belong to the world of realities.

The end of morals cannot be “transcendental,” as the idealists desire it to be: it must be real. We must find moral satisfaction in life and not in some form of extra-vital condition.

When Darwin threw into circulation the idea of “struggle for existence,” and represented this struggle as the mainspring of progressive evolution, he agitated once more the great old question as to the moral or immoral aspects of Nature. The origin of the conceptions of good and evil, which had exercised the best minds since the times of the Zend-Avesta, was brought once snore under discussion with a renewed vigor, and with a greater depth of conception than ever. Nature was represented by the Darwinists as an immense battlefield upon which one sees nothing but an incessant struggle for life and an extermination of the weak ones by the strongest, the swiftest, and the cunningest: evil was the only lesson which man could get from Nature.

These ideas, as is known, became very widely spread. But if they are true, the evolutionist philosopher has to solve a deep contradiction which he himself has introduced into his philosophy. He cannot deny that man is possessed of a higher conception of “good,” and that a faith in the gradual triumph of the good principle is deeply seated in human nature, and he has to explain whence originates this conception of good and this faith in progress. I He cannot be lulled into indifference by the Epicurean hope, expressed by Tennyson — that “somehow good will be the final goal of ill.” Nor can he represent to himself Nature, “red in tooth and claw,” — as wrote the same Tennyson and the Darwinian Huxley, — at strife everywhere with the good principle — the very negation of it in every living being — and still maintain that the good principle will be triumphant “in the long run.” He must explain this contradiction.

But if a scientist maintains that “the only lesson which Nature gives to man is one of evil,” then he necessarily has to admit the existence of some other, extra-natural, or super-natural influence which inspires man with conceptions of “supreme good,” and guides human development towards a higher goal. And in this way he nullifies his own attempt at explaining evolution by the action of natural forces only.

In reality, however, things do not stand so badly as that, for the theory of evolution does not at all lead to the contradictions such as those to which Huxley was driven, because the study of nature does not in the least confirm the above-mentioned pessimistic view of its course, as Darwin himself indicated in his second work, “The Descent of Man.” The conceptions of Tennyson and Huxley are incomplete, one-sided, and consequently wrong. The view is, moreover, unscientific, for Darwin himself pointed out the other aspect of Nature in a special chapter of “The Descent of Man.” There is, he showed, in Nature itself, another set of facts, parallel to those of mutual struggle, but having a quite different meaning: the facts of mutual support within the species, which are even more important than the former, on account of their significance for the welfare of the species and its maintenance. This extremely important idea, — to which, however, most Darwinists refuse to pay attention, and which Alfred Russel Wallace even denies, — I attempted to develop further, and to substantiate with a great number of facts in a series of essays in which I endeavored to bring into evidence the immense importance of Mutual Aid for the preservation of both the animal species and the human race, and still more so for their progressive evolution.

Without trying to minimize the fact that an immense number of animals live either upon species belonging to some lower division of the animal kingdom, or upon some smaller species of the same class as themselves, I indicated that warfare in Nature is chiefly limited to struggle between different species, but that within each species, and within the groups of different species which we find living together, the practice of mutual aid is the rule, and therefore this last aspect of animal life plays a far greater part shall does warfare in the economy of Nature. It is also more general, not only on account of the immense numbers of sociable species, such as the ruminants, most rodents, many birds, the ants, the trees, and so on, which do not prey at all upon their animals, and the overwhelming numbers of individuals which all sociable species contain, but also because nearly all carnivorous and rapacious species, and especially those of them which are not in decay owing to a rapid extermination by man or to some other cause, also practice it to some extent. Mutual aid is the predominant fact of nature.

If mutual support is so general in Nature, it is because it offers such immense advantages to all those animals which practice it, that it entirely upsets the balance of power to the disadvantage of the predatory creatures. It represents the best weapon in the great struggle for life which continually has to be carried on in Nature against climate, inundations, storms, frost, and the like, and continually requires new adaptations to the ever-changing conditions of existence. Therefore, taken as a whole, Nature is by no means an illustration of the triumph of physical force, swiftness, cunning, or any other feature useful in warfare. It seems, on the contrary, that species decidedly weak, such as the ant, the bee, the pigeon, the cluck, the marmot and other rodents, the gazelle, the deer, etc., having no protective armor, no strong beak or fang for self-defense, — and not at all warlike — nevertheless, succeed best in the struggle for life; and owing to their sociality and mutual protection, they even displace much more powerfully-built competitors and enemies. And, finally, we can take it as proved that while struggle for life leads indifferently to both progressive and regressive evolution, the practice of mutual aid is the agency which always leads to progressive development. It is the main factor in the progressive evolution of the animal kingdom, in the development of longevity, intelligence, and of that which we call the higher type in the chain of living creatures. No biologist has so far refuted this contention of mine.

Being thus necessary for the preservation the welfare, and the progressive development of every species, the mutual-aid instinct has become what Darwin described as “a permanent instinct,” which is always at work in all social animals, and especially in man. Having its origin at the very beginnings of the evolution of the animal world, it is certainly an instinct as deeply seated in animals, low and high, as the instinct of maternal love; perhaps even deeper, because it is present in such animals as the molluscs, some insects, and most fishes, which hardly possess the maternal instinct at all. Darwin was therefore quite right in considering that the instinct of “mutual sympathy” is more permanently at work in the social animals than even the purely egotistic instinct of direct self-preservation. He saw in it, as is known, the rudiments of the moral conscience, which consideration is, unfortunately, too often forgotten by the Darwinists.

But this is not all. In the same instinct we have the origin of those feelings of benevolence and of that partial identification of the individual with the group which are the starting-point of all the higher ethical feelings. It is upon this foundation that the higher sense of justice, or equity, is developed, as well as that which it is customary to call self-sacrifice. When we see that scores of thousands of different aquatic birds come in big flocks from the far South for nesting on the ledges of the “bird mountains” on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, and live here without fighting for the best positions; that several flocks of pelicans will live by the side of one another on the sea-shore, while each flock keeps to its assigned fishing ground; and that thousands of species of birds and mammals come in some way without fighting to a certain arrangement concerning their feeding areas, their nesting place, their night quarters, and their hunting grounds; or when we see that a young bird which has stolen some straw from another bird’s nest is attacked by all the birds of the same colony, we catch on the spot the very origin and growth of the sense of equity and justice in animal societies. And finally, in proportion as we advance in every class of animals towards the higher representatives of that class (the ants, the wasps, and the bees amongst the insects, the cranes and the parrots amongst the birds, the higher ruminants, the apes, and then man amongst the mammals), we find that the identification of the individual with the interests of his group, and eventually even self-sacrifice for it, grow in proportion. In this circumstance we cannot but see the indication of the natural origin not only of the rudiments of ethics, but also of the higher ethical feelings.

It thus appears that not only does Nature fail to give us a lesson of a-moralism, i.e., of the indifferent attitude to morality which needs to be combated by some extra-natural influence, but we are bound to recognize that the very ideas of bad and good, and man’s abstractions concerning “the supreme good” have been borrowed from Nature. They are reflections in the mind of man of what he saw in animal life and in the course of his social life, and due to it these impressions were developed into general conceptions of right and wrong. And it should be noted that we do not mean here the personal judgments of exceptional individuals, but the judgment of the majority. They contain the fundamental principles of equity and mutual sympathy, which apply to all sentient beings, just as principles of mechanics derived from observation on the surface of the earth apply to matter in the stellar spaces.

A similar conception must also apply to the evolution of human character and human institutions. The development of man came about in the same natural environment, and was guided by it in the same direction, while the very institutions for mutual aid and support, formed. in human societies, more and more clearly demonstrated to man to what an extent he was indebted to these institutions for his strength. In such a social environment the moral aspect of man was more and more developed. On the basis of new investigations in the field of history it is already possible to conceive the history of mankind as the evolution of an ethical factor, as the evolution of an inherent tendency of man to organize his life on the basis of mutual aid, first within the tribe, then in the village community, and in the republics of the free cities, — these forms of social organization becoming in turn the bases of further progress, periods of retrogression notwithstanding. We certainly must abandon the idea of representing human history as an uninterrupted chain of development from the prehistoric Stone Age to the present time. The development of human societies was not continuous. It was started several times anew — in India, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Scandinavia, and in Western Europe, beginning each time with the primitive tribe and then the village community. But if we consider each of these lines separately, we certainly find in each of them, and especially in the development of Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire, a continual widening of the conception of mutual support and mutual protection, from the clan to the tribe, the nation, and finally to the international union of nations. On the other hand, notwithstanding the temporary regressive movements which occasionally take place, even in the most civilized nations, there is — at least among the representatives of advanced thought in the civilized world and in the progressive popular movements — the tendency of always widening the current conception of human solidarity and justice, and of constantly improving the character of our mutual relations. We also mark the appearance, in the form of an ideal, of the conceptions of what is desirable in further development.

The very fact that the backward movements which take place from time to time are considered by the enlightened portion of the population as mere temporary illnesses of the social organism, the return of which must be prevented in the future, proves that the average ethical standard is now higher than it was in the past. And in proportion as the means of satisfying the needs of all the members of the civilized communities are improved, and the way is prepared for a still higher conception of justice for all, the ethical standard is bound to become more and more refined. Taking this viewpoint of scientific ethics, man is in a position not only to reaffirm his faith in moral progress, all pessimistic lessons to the contrary notwithstanding, but he can also put it on a scientific basis. He sees that this belief, although it originated only in one of those intuitions which always precede science, was quite correct, and is now confirmed by positive knowledge.

Chapter 2: The Gradually Evolving Bases of the New Ethics

If the empirical. philosophers have hitherto failed to prove the progress of moral conceptions (which may be inciple of evolution), the fault lies to a great extent with the speculative, i.e., the . non-scientific philosophers. They have so strongly denied the empirical origin of man’s moral feelings; they have gone to such subtle reasoning in order to assign a supernatural origin to the moral sense; and they have spoken so much about “the destination of man,” the “way of his existence,” and “the aim of Nature,” that a reaction against the mythological and metaphysical conceptions which had risen round this question was unavoidable. Moreover, the modern evolutionists, having established the presence in the animal world of a keen struggle for life among different species, could not accept such a brutal process, which entails so much suffering upon sentient beings, as the expression of a Supreme Being; and they consequently denied that any ethical principle could be discovered in it. Only now that the evolution of species, races of men, human institutions, and of ethical ideas themselves, has been proved to be the result of natural forces, has it become possible to study all the factors of this evolution, including the ethical factor of mutual support and growing sympathy, without the risk of falling back into a supra-natural philosophy. But,this being so, we reach a point of considerable philosophical importance.

We are enabled to conclude that the lesson which man derives from the study of Nature and his own history is the permanent presence of a double tendency — towards a greater development, on the one side of sociality, and, on the other side, of a consequent increase of the intensity of life, which results in an increase of happiness for the individuals, and in progress, — physical, intellectual, and moral.

This double tendency is a distinctive characteristic of life in general. It is always present, and belongs to life, as one of its attributes, whatever apsects life may take on our planet or elsewhere. And this is not a metaphysical assertion of the “universality of the moral law,” or a mere supposition. Without the continual growth of sociality, and consequently of the intensity and variety of sensations, life is impossible. Therein lies its essence. If that element is lacking life tends to ebb, to disintegrate, to cease. This may be recognized as an empirically discovered law of Nature.

It thus appears that; science, far from destroying the foundations of ethics gives, on the contrary, a concrete content to the nebulous metaphysical presumptions which are current in transcendental extra-natural ethics. As science goes deeper into the life of Nature, it gives to the evolution ethics a philosophical certitude, where the transcendental thinker had only a vague intuition to rely on.

There is still less foundation for another continually repeated reproach to empirical thought, — namely the study of Nature can only lead us to knowledge of some cold and mathematical truth, but that such truths have little effect upon our actions. The study of Nature, we are told, can at best inspire us with the love of truth; but the inspiration for higher emotions, such as that of “infinite goodness,” can be given only by religion. It can be easily shown that this contention is not based on any facts and is, therefore, utterly, fallacious. To begin with, love of truth is already one half — the better half — of all ethical teaching. Intelligent religious people understand this very well. As to the conception of “good” and striving for it, the “truth” which we have just mentioned, i.e., the recognition of mutual aid as the fundamental feature of life is certainly an inspiring truth, which surely will some day find its expression in the poetry of Nature, for it imparts to our conception of Nature an additional humanitarian touch.

Goethe, with the insight of his pantheistic genius, at once understood all the philosophical significance of this truth, upon the very first hint of it that he heard from Eckermann, the zoölogist. Moreover, the deeper we go into the study of primitive man, the more we realize that it was from the life of animals with whom he stood in close contact that he learned the first lessons of valorous defence of fellow-creatures, self-sacrifice for the welfare of the group, unlimited parental love, and the advantages of sociality in general. The conceptions of “virtue” and “wickedness” are zoölogical, not merely human conceptions.

As to the powers which ideas and intellectually conceived ideals exercise upon current moral conceptions, and how these conceptions influence in their turn the intellectual aspect of an epoch, this subject hardly need be insisted upon. The intellectual evolution of a given society may take at times, under the influence of all sorts of circumstances, a totally wrong turn, or it may take, on the contrary, a high flight. But in both cases the leading ideas of the time will never fail deeply to influence the ethical life. The same applies also to the individual.

Most certainly, ideas are forces as Fouillée puts it; and they are ethical forces, if the ideas are correct and wide enough to represent the real life of nature in its entirety, — not one of its sides only. The first step, therefore, towards the elaboration of a morality which should exerrcise a lasting influence upon society, is to base this morality upon firmly established truths. And indeed, one of the main obstacles to the working out of a complete ethical system, corresponding to the present needs, is the fact that the science of society is still in its infancy. Having just completed its storing of materials, sociology is only beginning to investigate them with the view to ascertaining the probable lines of a future development. But it continually meets in this field with a great number of deeply rooted prejudices.

The chief demand which is now addressed to ethics is to do its best to find through the philosophical study of the subject the cornmon element in the two sets of diametrically opposed feelings which exist in man, and thus to help mankind find a synthesis, and not a compromise between the two. ln one set are the feelings which induce man to subdue other men in order to utilize them for his individual ends, while those in the other set induce human beings to unite for attaining common ends by common effort: the first answering to that fundamental need of human nature — struggle, and the second representing another equally fundamental tendency — the desire of unity and mutual sympathy. These two sets of feelings must, of course, struggle between themselves, but it is absolutely essential to discover their synthesis whatever form it takes. Such a synthesis is so much more necessary because the civilized man of to-day, having no settled conviction on this point, is paralyzed in his powers of action. He cannot admit that a struggle to the knife for supremacy, carried on between individuals and nations, should be the last word of science; he does not believe, at the same time, in solving the problem through the gospel of brotherhood and self-abnegation which Christianity has been preaching for so many centuries without ever being able to attain the brotherhood of men and nations nor even tolerance among the various Christian sects. As regards the teaching of the Communists, the vast majority of men, for the same reason, have no faith in communism.

Thus the principal problem of ethics at present is to help mankind to find the solution for this fundamental contradiction. For this purpose we must earnestly study what were the means resorted to by men at different periods of their evolution, in order so to direct the individual forces as to get from them the greatest benefit for the welfare of all, without at the same time paralyzing personal energies. And we have to study the tendencies in this direction which exist at the present moment — in the form of the timid attempts which are being made, as well as in the form of the potentialities concealed in modern society, which may be utilized for finding that synthesis. And then, as no new move in civilization has ever been made without a certain enthusiasm being evoked in order to overcome the first difficulties of inertia and opposition, it is the duty of the new ethics to infuse in men those ideals which would provoke their enthusiasm, and give them the necessary forces for building a form of life which would combine individual energy with work for the good of all.

The need of a realistic ideal brings us to the chief reproach which has always been made to all non-religious systems of ethics. Their conclusions, we are told, will never have the necessary authority for influencing the actions of men, because they cannot be invested with the sense of duty, of obligation. It is perfectly true that empirical ethics has never claimed to possess the imperative character, such as belongs, for example, to the Mosaic Decalogue. True, that when Kant advanced as the“categorical imperative” of all morality the rule: “So act that the maxim of thy will may serve at the same time as a principle of universal legislation,” it required no sanction whatever, for being universally recognized as obligatory. It was, he maintained, a necessary form of reasoning, a “category” of our intellect, and it was deduced from no utilitarian considerations.

However, modern criticism, beginning with Schopenhauer, has shown that Kant was mistaken. He has certainly failed to prove why it should be a duty to act according to his “imperative.” And, strange to say, it follows from Kant’s own reasoning that the only ground upon which his “imperative” might recommend itself to general acceptance is its social utility, although some of the best pages which Kant wrote were precisely those in which he strongly objected to any considerations of utility being taken as the foundation of morality. After all, he produced a beautiful panegyric on the sense of duty, but he failed to give to this sense any other foundation than the inner conscience of man and his desire of retaining a harmony between his intellectual conceptions and his actions.

Empirical morality does not in the least pretend to find a substitute for the religious imperative expressed in the words, “I am the Lord,” but the painful discrepancy which exists between the ethical prescriptions of the Christian religion and the life of societies calling themselves Christian, deprives the above reproach of its value. However, even empirical morality is not entirely devoid of a sense of conditional obligation. l he different feelings and actions which are usually described since the times of Auguste Comte as “altruistic” can easily be classed under two different headings. There are actions which may be considered as absolutely necessary, once we choose to live in society, and to which, therefore, the name of “altruistic” ought never to be applied: they bear the character of reciprocity, and they are as much in the interest of the individual as any act of self-preservation. And there are, on the other hand, those actions which bear no character of reciprocity. One who performs such acts gives his powers, his energy, his enthusiasm, expecting no compensation in return, and although such acts are the real mainsprings of moral progress, they certainly can have no character of obligation attached to them. And yet, these two classes of acts are continually confused by writers on morality, and as a result many contradictions arise in dealing with ethical questions.

This confusion, however, can be easily avoided. (First of all it is evident that it is preferable to keep ethical problems distinct from the problems of law. Moral science does not even settle the question whether legislation is necessary or not.) It stands above that. We know, indeed, ethical writers — and these were not the least influential in the early beginnings of the Reformation — who denied the necessity of any legislation and appealed directly to human conscience. The function of ethics is not even so much to insist upon the defects of man, and to reproach him with his “sins,” as to act in the positive direction, by appealing to man’s best instincts. It determines, and explains, the few fundamental principles without which neither animals nor men could live in societies: but then it appeals to something superior to that to love, courage, fraternity, self-respect, accord with one’s ideal. It tells man that if he desires to have a life in which all his forces, physical, inter lectual,, and emotional, may find a full exercise, he must once and for ever abandon the idea that such a life is attainable on the path of disregard for others.

It is only through establishing a certain harmony between the individual and all others that an approach to such complete life will be possible, says Ethics, and then adds: “Look at Nature itself! Study the past of mankind! They will prove to you that so it is in reality.” And when the individual, for this or that reason, hesitates in some special case as to the best course to follow, ethics comes to his aid and indicates how he would like others to act with respect to him, in a similar case. But even then true ethics does not trace a stiff line of conduct, because it is the individual himself who must weigh the relative value of the different motives affecting him. There is no use to recommend risk to one who can stand no reverse, or to speak of an old man’s prudence to the young man full of energy. He would give the reply — the profoundly true and beautiful reply which Egmont gives to old Count Oliva’s advice in Goethe’s drama — and he would be quite right: “As if spurred by unseen spirits, the sun-horses of time run with the light cart of our fate; and there remains to us only boldly to hold the reins and lead the wheels away-here, from a stone on our left, there from upsetting the cart on our right. Whereto does it run? Who knows? Can we only remember wherefrom we came?” “The flower must bloom,” as Guyau says, even though its blooming meant death.

And yet the main purpose of ethics is not to advise men separately. It is rather to set before them, as a whole, a higher purpose, an ideal which, better than any advice, would make them act instinctively in the proper direction. Just as the aim of mental training is to accustom us to perform an enormous number of mental operations almost unconsciously, so is the aim of ethics to create such an atmosphere in society as would produce in the great number, entirely by impulse, those actions which best lead to the welfare of all and the fullest happiness of every separate being.

Such is the final aim of morality; but to reach it we must free our moral teachings from the self-contradictions which they contain. A morality, for example, which preaches “charity,” out of compassion and pity, necessarily contains a deadly contradiction. It starts with the assertion of full equity and justice, or of full brotherhood, but then it hastens to add that we need not worry our minds with either. The one is unattainable. As to the brotherhood of men, which is the fundamental principle of all religions, it must not be taken literally; that was a mere poetical phrase of enthusiastic preachers. “Inequality is the rule of Nature,” we are told by religious preachers, who in this can call Nature to their aid; in this respect, they teach us, we should take lessons from Nature, not from religion, which has always quarreled with Nature. But when the inequalities in the modes of living of men become too striking, and the sum total of produced wealth is so divided as to result in the most abject misery for a very great number, then sharing with the poor “what can be shared” without parting with one’s privileged position, becomes a holy duty.

Such a morality may certainly be prevalent in a society for a time, or even for a long time, if it has the sanction of religion interpreted by the reigning Church. But the moment man begins to consider the prescriptions of religion with a critical eye, and requires a reasoned conviction instead of mere obedience and fear, an inner contradiction of this sort cannot be retained much longer. It must be abandoned — the sooner the better. Inner contradiction is the death-sentence of all ethics and a worm undermining human energy.

A most important condition which a modern ethical system is bound to satisfy is that it must not fetter individual initiative, be it for so high a purpose as the welfare of the commonwealth or the species. Wundt, in his excellent review of the ethical systems. makes the remark that beginning with the eighteenth-century period of enlightenment, nearly all of them became individualistic. I his, however, is only partly true, because the rights of the individual were asserted with great energy in one domain only — in economics. And even here individual freedom remained, both in theory and in practice, more illusory than real. As to the other domains — political, intellectual, artistic — it may be said that in proportion as economic individualism was asserted with more emphasis, the subjection of the individual — to the war machinery of the State, the system of education, the mental discipline required for the support of the existing institutions, and so on — was steadily growing. Even most of the advanced reformers of the present clay in their forecasts of the future, reason under the presumption of a still greater absorption of the individual by society.

This tendency necessarily provoked a protest, voiced by Godwin at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and by Spencer towards its end, and it brought Nietzsche to conclude that all morality must be thrown overboard if it can find no better foundation than the sacrifice of the individual in the interests of the human race. This critique of the current ethical systems is perhaps the most characteristic feature of our epoch, the more so as its mainspring is not so much in an egoistic striving after economical independence (as was the case with the eighteenth-century individualists, with the exception of Godwin) as in a passionate desire of personal independence for working out a new, better form of society, in which the welfare of all would’ become a groundwork for the fullest development of the personality.

The want of development of the personality (leading to herd-psychology) and the lack of individual creative power and initiative are certainly one of the chief defects of our time. Economical individualism has not kept its promise: it diet not result in any striking development of individuality. As of yore, creative work in the field of sociology is extremely slow, and imitation remains the chief means for spreading progressive innovations in mankind. Modern nations repeat the history of the barbarian tribes and the medieval cities when they copied from one another the same political, religious, and economic movements, and the “charters of freedom.” Whole nations have appropriated to themselves lately, with astounding rapidity, the results of the west European industrial and military civilization; and in these unrevised new editions of old types we see best how superficial is that which is called culture, how much of it is mere imitation.

It is only natural, therefore, to ask ourselves whether the current moral teachings are not instrumental in maintaining that imitative submission. Did they not aim too much at converting man into the “ideational automaton” of Herbert, who is absorbed in contemplation, and fears above all the storms of passion? Is it not time to rise in defense of the rights of the real man, full of vigor, who is capable of really loving what is worth being loved and hating what deserves hatred, — the man who is always ready to fight for an ideal which ennobles his love and justifies his antipathies? From the times of the philosophers of antiquity there was a tendency to represent “virtue” as a sort of “wisdom” which induces man to “cultivate the beauty of his soul,” rather than to join “the unwise” in their struggles against the evils of the day. Later on that virtue became “non-resistance to evil,” and for many centuries in succession individual personal “salvation,” coupled with resignation and a passive attitude towards evil, was the essence of Christian ethics; the result being the culture of a monastic indifference to social good and evil, and the elaboration of an argumentation in defence of “virtuous individualism.” Fortunately, a reaction against such egoistic virtue is already under way, and the question is asked whether a passive attitude in the presence of evil does not merely mean moral cowardice, — whether, as was taught by the Zend-Avesta, an active struggle against the evil Ahriman is not the first condition of virtue? We need moral progress, but without moral courage no moral progress is possible.

Such are some of the demands presented to ethics which can be discerned amid the present confusion. All of them converge towards one leading idea. What is wanted now is a new conception of morality, — in its fundamental principles, which must be bread enough to infuse new life in our civilization, and in its applications, which must be freed both from the survivals of transcendental thinking, as well as from the narrow conceptions of philistine utilitarianism.

The elements for such a new conception of morality are already at hand. The importance of sociality, of mutual aid, in the evolution of the animal world and human history may be taken, I believe, as a positively established scientific truth, free of any hypothetical assumptions. We may also take next, as granted, that in proportion as mutual aid becomes an established custom in a human community, and so to say instinctive, it leads to a parallel development of the sense of justice, with its necessary accompaniment of the sense of equity and equalitarian self-restraint. The idea that the personal rights of every individual are as unassailable as the same rights of every other individual, grows in proportion as class distinctions facie away; and this thought becomes a current conception when the institutions of a given community have been altered permanently in this sense. A certain degree of identification of the individual with the interests of the group to which it belongs has necessarily existed since the very beginning of social life, and it manifests itself even among the lowest animals. But in proportion as relations of equity and justice are solidly established in the human community, the ground is prepared for the further and the more general development of more refined relations, under which man understands and feels so well the bearing of his action on the whole of society that he refrains from offending others, even though he may have to renounce on that account the gratification of some of his own desires, anti when he so fully identifies his feelings with those of others that he is ready to sacrifice his powers for their benefit without expecting anything in return. These unselfish feelings and habits, usually called by the somewhat inaccurate names of altruism and self-sacrifice, alone deserve, in my opinion, the name of morality, properly speaking, although most writers confound them, under the name of altruism, with the mere sense of justice.

Mutual Aid — Justice — Morality are thus the consecutive steps of an ascending series, revealed to us by the study of the animal world and man. They constitute an organic necessity which carries in itself its own justification, confirmed by the whole of the evolution of the animal kingdom, beginning with its earliest stages, (in the form of colonies of the most primitive organisms), and gradually rising to our civilized human communities. Figuratively speaking, it is a universal law of organic evolution, and this is why the sense of Mutual Aid, Justice, and Morality are rooted in man’s mind with all the force of an inborn instinct — the first instinct, that of Mutual Aid, being evidently the strongest, while the third, developed later than the others, is an unstable feeling and the least imperative of the three.

Like the need of food, shelter, or sleep, these instincts are self-preservation instincts. Of course, they may sometimes be weakened under the influence of certain circumstances, and we know many cases when the power of these instincts is relaxed, for one reason or another, in some animal group, or in a human community; but shell the group necessarily begins to fail in the struggle for life: it moves towards its decay. And if this group does not revert to the necessary conditions of survival anti of progressive development Mutual Aid, Justice, and Morality — then the group, the race, or the species dies out and disappears. Since it did not fulfil the necessary condition of evolution — it must inevitably decline and disappear.

Such is the solid foundation which science gives us for the elaboration of a new system of ethics and its justification; and, therefore, instead of proclaiming “the bankruptcy of science,” what we have now to do is to examine how scientific ethics can be built from the materials which modern research, stimulated by the idea of evolution, has accumulated for that purpose.

Chapter 3: The Moral Principle in Nature (17th and l8th Centuries) (continued)

The work of Darwin was not limited to biology only. Already in 1837, when he had just written a rough outline of his theory of the origin of species, he entered in his notebook this significant remark: “My theory will lead to a new philosophy.” And so it did in reality. By introducing the idea of evolution into the study of organic life he opened a new era in philosophy, and his later sketch of the development of the moral sense, turned a new page in ethics. In this sketch Darwin presented in a new light the true origin of the moral sense, and placed the whole subject on such a firm scientific basis, that although his leading ideas may be considered as a further development of those of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, he must be, nevertheless, credited with opening a new path for science in the direction faintly indicated by Bacon. He thus became one of the founders of the ethical schools, together with such men as Hume, Hobbes, or Kant.

The leading ideas of Darwin’s ethics may easily be summed up. In the very first sentence of his essay he states his object in quite definite terms. He begins with a praise of the sense of duty, which he characterises in the well-known poetical words, — “Duty! Wondrous thought that workest neither by fond insinuation, flattery, nor by any threat ...” etc. And he undertakes to explain this sense of duty, or moral conscience, “exclusively from the viewpoint of natural history” — an explanation, he adds, which no English writer had hitherto attempted to give.

That the moral sense should be acquired by each individual separately, during his lifetime, he naturally considers “at least extremely improbable in the light of the general theory of evolution;” and he derives this sense from the social feeling which is instinctive or innate in the lower animals, and probably in man as well (pp. 150–151). The true foundation of all moral feelings Darwin sees “in the social instincts which lead the animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them”; sympathy being understood here in its exact sense — not as a feeling of commiseration or “love,” but as a “feeling of comradeship” or “mutual sensibility,” in the meaning of capability to be influenced by another’s feelings.

This being Darwin’s first proposition, his second is that as soon as the mental faculties of a species become highly developed, as they are in man, the social instinct will also necessarily be developed. To leave this instinct ungratified will assuredly bring the individual to a sense of dissatisfaction, or even misery, whenever the individual, reasoning about his past actions, sees that in some of them “the enduring and always present social instinct had yielded to some other instinct, at the time stronger, but neither enduring nor leaving behind it a very vivid impression.”

For Darwin the moral sense is thus not the mysterious gift of unknown origin which it was for Kant. “Any animal whatever,” he says, “endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense, or conscience (Kant’s ‘knowledge of duty’), as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well, developed as in man” (ch. iv. pp. 149–150).

To these two fundamental propositions Darwin adds two secondary ones. After the spoken language had been acquired, so that the wishes of the community could be expressed, “the common opinion how each member ought to act for the public good would naturally become, in a paramount degree, the guide of action.” However, the effect of public approbation and disapprobation depends entirely upon the development of mutual sympathy. It is because we feel in sympathy with others that we appreciate their opinions; and public opinion acts in a moral direction only where the social instinct is sufficiently strongly developed. The truth of this remark is obvious. It refutes those theories of Mandeville (the author of “The Fable of the Bees”) and his more or less outspoken eighteenth-century followers, which attempted to represent morality as nothing but a set of conventional customs. Finally, Darwin mentions also habit as a potent factor for framing our attitude toward others. It strengthens the social instinct and mutual sympathy, as well as obedience to the judgment of the community.

Having thus stated the substance of his views in these four propositions, Darwin develops them further. He examines, first, sociality in animals, their love of society, and the misery which every one of them feels if it is left alone; their continual social intercourse; their mutual warnings, and the services they render each other in hunting and for self-defense. “It is certain,” he says, “that associated animals have a feeling of love for each other which is not felt by nonsocial adult animals.” They may not sympathize much with one another’s pleasures; but cases of sympathy with one another’s distress or danger are quite common, and Darwin quotes a few of the most striking instances. Some of them, such as Stansbury’s blind pelican or the blind rat, both of which were fed by their congeners, have become classical by this time. “Moreover, besides love and sympathy,” Darwin continues, “animals exhibit other qualities connected with social instincts which in us would be called moral,” and he gives a few examples of the moral sense in dogs and elephants.

Generally speaking, it is evident that every action in common — (and with certain animals such actions are quite common: all their life consists of such actions) — requires restraint of some sort. However, it must be said that Darwin did not analyze the subject of sociality in animals and their incipient moral feelings to the extent which it deserved in view of the central position which it occupies in his theory of morality.

Considering next human morality, Darwin remarks that although man, such as he now exists, has but few social instincts, he nevertheless is a sociable being who must have retained from an extremely remote period some degree of instinctive love and sympathy for his fellows. These feelings act as an impulsive instinct, which is assisted by reason, experience, and the desire of approbation. “Thus,” he concluded, “the social instincts, which must have been acquired by man in a very rude state, and probably even by his ape-like progenitors, still give the impulse for some of his best actions.” The remainder is the result of a steadily growing intelligence and collective education.

It is evident that these views are correct only if we are ready to recognize that the intellectual faculties of animals differ from those of man in degree, but not in their essence. But this is admitted now by most students of comparative psychology; and the attempts which have been made lately to establish “a gulf” between the instincts and the intellectual faculties of man and those of animals have not attained their end. However, it does not follow from this resemblance that the moral instincts developed in different species, and so much more in species belonging to two different classes of animals, should be identical. If we compare insects with mammals we must never forget that the lines of their development have diverged at a very early period of animal evolution. The consequence was that a deep physiological differentiation between separate divisions of the same species (workers, drones, queens) took place with the ants, the bees, the wasps, etc., corresponding to a permanent physiological division of labour in their societies, (or more accurately, division of labour and a physiological division in structure). There is no such division among mammals. Therefore it is hardly possible for men to judge the “morality” of the worker — bees when they kill the drones in their hive; and this is why the illustration of Darwin to this effect met with so much hostile criticism from the religious camp. Societies of bees, wasps, and ants, and the societies of mammals have so long ago entered upon their independent paths of development, that they have lost mutual understanding in many respects. A similar, though not so pronounced lack of mutual understanding is observed also between human societies in different stages of development. And yet the moral conceptions of man and the actions of social insects have so much in common that the greatest ethical teachers of mankind did not hesitate to recommend certain features of the life of the ants and the bees for imitation by man. Their devotion to the group is certainly not surpassed by ours; and, on the other hand, — to say nothing of our wars, or of the occasional exterminations of religious dissenters and political adversaries — the human code of morality has been subjected in the course of time to deepest variations and perversions. It is sufficient to mention human sacrifices to deity, the “wound-for-wound and life-for-life” principle of the Decalogue, the tortures and executions, — and to compare this “morality” with the profound respect for everything that lives preached by the Bodhisattvas, and the forgiveness of all injuries taught by the early Christians, in order to realize that moral principles, like everything else, are subject to “development” and at times to perversion. We are thus bound to conclude that while the differences between the morality of the bee and that of man are due to a deep physiological divergence, the striking similarities between the two in other essential features point to a community of origin.

Thus Darwin came to the conclusion that the social instinct is the common source out of which all morality originates; and he attempts to give a scientific definition of instinct. Unfortunately, scientific animal psychology is still in its infancy, and therefore it is extremely difficult to disentangle the complex relations which exist between the social instinct proper, and the parental, filial, brotherly instincts, as well as several other instincts and faculties, such as mutual sympathy, on one side, and reason, experience, and a tendency to imitation on the other. Darwin finally realized this difficulty, and therefore he expressed himself very guardedly. The parental and filial instincts, he suggested, “apparently lie at the base of the social instincts”; and in another place he wrote: — “The feeling of pleasure in society is probably an extension of the parental or filial affections, since the social instinct seems to be developed by the young remaining for a long time with their parents.”

This caution was fully justified, because in other places Darwin pointed out that the social instinct is a separate instinct, different from the others — an instinct which has been developed by natural selection for its own sake, as it was useful for the well-being and the preservation of the species. It is so fundamental that when it runs counter to another instinct, even one so strong as the attachment of the parents to their offspring, it often takes the upper hand. Birds, for example, when the time has come for their autumn migration, will leave behind their tender young (from the second hatching) which are not yet strong enough for a prolonged flight, and will follow their comrades.

To this very important fact I may also add that the social instinct is strongly developed also in many lower animals, such as the landcrabs, and in certain fishes with whom it could hardly be considered as an extension of the filial or parental feelings. In these cases it appears rather as an extension of the brotherly or sisterly relations, or feelings of comradeship, which probably develop each time that a considerable number of young creatures, having been hatched at a given place and at a given moment, (insects, or even birds of different species) continue to live together — whether they are with their parents or not. It would seem, therefore, more correct to consider the social, the parental, and the comradely instinct as closely connected instincts, of which the social is perhaps the earlier, and therefore the stronger, but they have all been developing together in the evolution of the animal world. Their growth was, of course, aided by natural selection, which, as soon as they come into conflict, keeps the balance between them for the ultimate good of the species.

The most important point in the ethical theory of Darwin is, of course, his explanation of the moral conscience of man and his sense of duty and remorse of conscience. This point has always been the stumbling block of all ethical theories. Kant, as is known, utterly failed, in his otherwise excellent work on morality, to explain why his “categorical imperative” should be obeyed at all, unless such be the will of a supreme power. We may admit that Kant’s “moral law,” if we slightly alter its formula while maintaining its spirit, is a necessary conclusion of the human reason. We certainly object to the metaphysical form which Kant gave it; but, after all, its substance, which Kant, unfortunately, did not express, is equity, justice. And, if we translate the metaphysical language of Kant into the language of inductive science, we may find points of contact between his conception of the origin of the moral law and the naturalist’s view concerning the origin of the moral sense. But this is only one-half of the problem. Supposing, for the sake of argument, that Kantian “pure reason,” independent of all observation, all feeling, and all instinct, but by virtue of its inherent properties, — must inevitably come to formulate a law of justice similar to Kant’s “imperative,” and even granting that no reasoning being could ever come to any other conclusion, because such are the inherent properties of reason — granting all this, and fully recognizing the elevating character of Kant’s moral philosophy, the great question of all ethics remains, nevertheless, in full: “Why should man obey the moral law, or principle, formulated by his reason?” Or, at least, “Whence comes that feeling of obligation of which men are conscious?”

Several critics of Kant’s ethical philosophy have already pointed out that it left this great fundamental question unsolved. But they might have added also that Kant himself recognized his inability to solve it. After having thought intensely upon this subject, and written about it for four years, he acknowledged in his book, — for some reason generally neglected — “Philosophical Theory of Religion” (Part 1., “Of the Radical Evil of Human Nature,” published in 1792) that he was unable to find the explanation of the origin of the moral law. In fact, he gave up the whole problem by recognizing “the incomprehensibility of this capacity, a capacity which points to a divine origin.” This very incomprehensibility, he wrote, must rouse man’s spirit to enthusiasm and give him strength for any sacrifices which regard for his duty may impose upon him. Such a decision, after four years of meditation, is equivalent to a complete abandoning of this problem by philosophy, and the delivering of it into the hands of religion.

Intuitive philosophy having thus acknowledged its incapacity to solve the problem, let us see how Darwin solved it from the point of view of the naturalist. Here is, he said, a man who has yielded to the sense of self-preservation, and has not risked his life to save that of a fellow-creature; or, he has stolen food from hunger. In both cases he has obeyed a quite natural instinct, and the question is — Why does he feel ill at ease? Why does he now think that he ought to have obeyed some other instinct, and acted differently? Because, Darwin replies, in human nature “the more enduring social instincts conquer the less persistent instincts.” Moral conscience, continues Darwin, has always a retrospective character; it speaks in us when we think of our past actions; and it is the result of a struggle in which the less persistent, the less permanent individual instinct yields before the more enduring social instinct. With those animals which always live in societies “the social instincts are ever present and persistent.” Such animals are always ready to join in the defence of the group and to aid each other in different ways. They feel miserable if they are separated from the others. And it is the same with man. “A man who possessed no trace of such instincts would be a monster.”

On the other hand, the man’s desire to satisfy his hunger or let loose his anger, or to escape danger, or to appropriate somebody’s possessions, is in its very nature temporary. Its satisfaction is always weaker than the desire *self. And when we think of it in the past, we cannot revive it with the same intensity that it had before its satisfaction. Consequently, if a man, with a view of satisfying such a desire, has acted contrary to his social instinct, and afterwards reflects upon his action — which we do continually — he will be driven “to make a comparison between the impressions of past hunger, vengeance satisfied, or danger shunned at other men’s cost, with the almost ever-present instinct of sympathy, and with his early knowledge of what others consider as praiseworthy or blamable.” And once he has made this comparison he will feel “as if he had been baulked in following a present instinct or habit, and this with all animals causes dissatisfaction, and in the case of man, even misery.”

And then Darwin shows how the promptings of such a conscience, which always “looks backwards, and serves as a guide for the future,” may in the case of man take the aspect of shame, regret, repentance, or even violent remorse, if the feeling be strengthened by reflection about judgment of those with whom man feel