Darwinism in morals, and other essays : reprinted from the Theological and Fortnightly reviews, Fraser's and Macmillan's magazines, and the Manchester Friend / by Frances Power Cobbe.

Frances Power Cobbe

Date:: 1872

Credit: Darwinism in morals, and other essays : reprinted from the Theological and Fortnightly reviews, Fraser's and Macmillan's magazines, and the Manchester Friend / by Frances Power Cobbe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$we have passed the theologic stage, and must not think of running to a First Cause to explain phenomena. After all (they seem to say), cannot we easily suggest how man might acquire a conscience from causes obviously at work around him ? Education, fear of penalties, sympathy, desire of approval, with imaginary religious sanctions, would alto- gether, well mixed and supporting one another, afford suffi- cient explanation of feelings, acquired, as Mr. Bain thinks, by each individual in his lifetime, and, as Mr. Mill justly says, not the less natural for being acquired and not innate. At this point of the history, the gradual extension of the Darwinian theory of Evolution brought it into contact with the speculations of moralists, and the result was a new hypothesis, which has greatly altered the character of the whole controversy. The doctrine of the transmission by hereditary descent of all mental and moral qualities, of which Mr. Dalton’s book is the chief exponent,^ received, in 1868, from Mr. Herbert Spencer the following definition, •as applied to the moral sentiments : ^ “ I believe that the experiences of utility, organized and consolidated through all past generations of the human race, have been pioducing corresponding modifications, which by continued transmis- sion and accumulation have become in us certain faculties ' Reviewed in the next essay. 2 Letter to Mr. Mill, in Bain’s “ Mental and Moral Science,” p. 722 ; quoted in “Descent of Man,” p. 101. On the day of the original publication of this essay there appeared in the Fortnightly Review an article by Mr. Spencer, desio-ned to rectify the misapprehension of his doctrine into which Mr. Hutton, Sir'^John Lubbock, Mr. Mivart, Sir Alexander Grant, and, as it proved, my humble self, had all fallen regarding the point in question. “ If,” says Mr. Spencer very pertinently, “ a general doctrine concerning a highly involved class of phenomena could he adequately presented in a single paragraph of a letter the writing of books would he superfluous.” 1 may add that as it would be equally impossible for me adequately to present Mr. Spencer’s rectifications and modifications in a single paragraph of an essay, I must, while apologizing to him for my involuntary errors, refer the reader to his own article {Fortnightly Review, April 1, 1871) for better comprehension of the subject.$