who possessed a similar inherited aversion might result in phenomena quite other than the augmentation of such aversion, even if the two aversions should be altogether similar; while, very probably, they might be so different in their nature as to tend to neutralize each other. Besides, the union of parents so similarly emotional, would be rare indeed among savages, where marriages would be owing to almost any thing rather than to congeniality of mind between the spouses. Mr. Wallace tells us,* that they choose their wives for "rude health and physical beauty," and this is just what might be naturally supposed. Again, we must bear in mind the necessity there is that many individuals should be similarly and simultaneously affected with this aversion from consanguineous unions; as we have seen in the second chapter, how infallibly variations presented by only a few individuals, tend to be eliminated by mere force of numbers. Mr. Darwin indeed would throw back this aversion, if possible, to a pre-human period; since he speculates as to whether the gorillas or orangutans, in effecting their matrimonial relations, show any tendency to respect the prohibited degrees of affinity." No tittle of evidence, however, has yet been adduced pointing in any such direction, though surely if it were of such importance and efficiency as to result (through the aid of "Natural Selection " alone) in that "abhorrence" before spoken of, we might expect to be able to detect unmistakable evidence of its incipient stages. On the contrary, as regards the ordinary apes (for with regard to the highest there is no evidence of the kind) as we see them in confinement, it would be difficult to name any animals less restricted, by even a generic bar, in the gratification of the sexual instinct. And although the conditions under which they have been observed are abnormal, yet these are 4 "Natural Selection," p. 350.

5 "Animals and Plants under Domestication," vol. ii.

hardly the animals to present us in a state of nature, with an extraordinary and exceptional sensitiveness in such

matters.

To take an altogether different case. Care of, and tenderness toward, the aged and infirm are actions on all hands admitted to be "right;" but it is difficult to see how such actions could ever have been so useful to a community as to have been seized on and developed by the exclusive action of the law of the "survival of the fittest." On the contrary, it seems probable that on strict utilitarian principles the rigid political economy of Tierra del Fuego would have been eminently favored and diffused by the impartial action of "Natural Selection" alone. By the rigid political economy referred to, is meant that destruction and utilization of "useless mouths" which Mr. Darwin himself describes in his highly interesting "Journal of Researches." " He says: "It is certainly true, that when pressed in winter by hunger, they kill and devour their old women before they kill their dogs. The boy being asked why they did this, answered: 'Doggies catch otters, old woman no.' They often run away into the mountains, but they are pursued by the men and brought back to the slaughter-house at their own firesides." Mr. Edward Bartlett, who has recently returned from the Amazons, reports that at one Indian village where the cholera made its appearance, the whole population immediately dispersed into the woods, leaving the sick to perish uncared for and alone. Now, had the Indians remained, undoubtedly far more would have died; as doubtless, in Tierra del Fuego, the destruction of the comparatively useless old women has often been the means of preserving the healthy and reproductive young. Such acts surely must be greatly favored by the stern and unrelenting action of exclusive "Natural Selection.”

In the same way that admiration which all feel for acts

• See 2d edit., vol. i., p. 214.

of self-denial done for the good of others, and tending even toward the destruction of the actor, could hardly be accounted for on Darwinian principles alone; for self-immolators must but rarely leave direct descendants, while the community they benefit must by their destruction tend, so far, to morally deteriorate. But devotion to others of the same community is by no means all that has to be accounted for. Devotion to the whole human race, and devotion to God-in the form of asceticism-have been and are very generally recognized as "good;" and the author contends. that it is simply impossible to conceive that such ideas and sanctions should have been developed by "Natural Selection" alone, from only that degree of unselfishness necessary for the preservation of brutally barbarous communities in the struggle for life. That degree of unselfishness once attained, further improvement would be checked by the mutual opposition of diverging moral tendencies and spontaneous variations in all directions. Added to which, we have the principle of reversion and atavism, tending powerfully to restore and reproduce the more degraded anterior condition whence the later and better state painfully emerged.

Very few, however, dispute the complete distinctness, here and now, of the ideas of "duty" and "interest," whatever may have been the origin of those ideas. No one pretends that ingratitude may, in any past abyss of time, have been a virtue, or that it may be such now in Arcturus or the Pleiades. Indeed, a certain eminent writer of the utilitarian school of ethics has amusingly and very instructively shown how radically distinct even in his own mind are the two ideas which he nevertheless endeavors to identify. Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his examination of "Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy," says:" if "I am informed that the world is ruled by a Being whose attributes are infinite, but 1 Page 103.

what they are we cannot learn, nor what the principles of his government, except that 'the highest human morality which we are capable of conceiving' does not sanction them; convince me of it, and I will bear my fate as I may. But when I am told that I must believe this, and at the same time call this being by the names which express and affirm the highest human morality, I say in plain terms that I will not. Whatever power such a being may have over me, there is one thing which he shall not do: he shall not compel me to worship him. I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellowcreatures; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go."

8

This is unquestionably an admirable sentiment on the part of Mr. Mill (with which every absolute moralist will agree), but it contains a complete refutation of his own position, and is a capital instance of the vigorous life of moral intuition in one who professes to have eliminated any fundamental distinction between the "right" and the “ expedient." For if an action is morally good, and to be done, merely in proportion to the amount of pleasure it secures, and morally bad and to be avoided as tending to misery, and if it could be proved that by calling God goodwhether He is so or not, in our sense of the term—we could secure a maximum of pleasure, and by refusing to do so we should incur endless torment, clearly, on utilitarian principles, the flattery would be good.

Mr. Mill, of course, must also mean that, in the matter in question, all men would do well to act with him. Therefore, he must mean that it would be well for all to accept (on the hypothesis above given) infinite and final misery for all as the result of the pursuit of happiness as the only

end.

8 I have not the merit of having noticed this inconsistency; it was pointed out to me by my friend the Rev. W. W. Roberts.

It must be recollected that in consenting to worship this unholy God, Mr. Mill is not asked to do harm to his neighbor, so that his refusal reposes simply on his perception of the immorality of the requisition. It is also noteworthy that an omnipotent Deity is supposed incapable of altering Mr. Mill's mind and moral perceptions.

Mr. Mill's decision is right, but it is difficult indeed to see how, without the recognition of an "absolute morality," he can justify so utter and final an abandonment of all utility in favor of a clear and distinct moral perception.

These two ideas, the "right" and the "useful," being so distinct here and now, a greater difficulty meets us with regard to their origin from some common source, than met us before when considering the first beginnings of certain bodily structures. For the distinction between the "right" and the "useful" is so fundamental and essential that not only does the idea of benefit not enter into the idea of duty, but we see that the very fact of an act not being beneficial to us makes it the more praiseworthy, while gain tends to diminish the merit of an action. Yet this idea, “right,' thus excluding, as it does, all reference to utility or pleasure, has nevertheless to be constructed and evolved from utility and pleasure, and ultimately from pleasurable sensations, if we are to accept pure Darwinianism: if we are to accept, that is, the evolution of man's psychical nature and highest powers by the exclusive action of "Natural Selection," from such faculties as are possessed by brutes; in other words, if we are to believe that the conceptions of the highest human morality arose through minute and fortuitous variations of brutal desires and appetites in all conceivable directions.

It is here contended, on the other hand, that no conservation of any such variations could ever have given rise to the faintest beginning of any such moral perceptions; that by "Natural Selection " alone the maxim fiat justitia, ruat