to cure or to mitigate it. And it will continue notwithstanding the promises of evolution, which, even under the most favourable circumstances, asks for a long time to effect a change, and a much longer time-almost a geological period—to effect any fundamental change in human nature. For that such changes are infinitesimally slow is the one chief lesson of the evolution philosophy.

§ 3. Further, man is not only an animal, he is moreover, as all living beings, necessarily a self-regarding, albeit that he is likewise, as Darwin tells us, a social, animal. He is self-regarding as well as social; but the former in a more deep and abiding sense than the latter. The truth clearly laid down so long ago by Epicurus, revived by Hobbes, and assented to by a moralist in many respects so different from both as Butler, that man, in common with every living creature, seeks first and before all else the conservation of his own being and the greatest sum of well-being, remains an eternal and necessary truth, which has received in our day a fresh emphasis from biological science, and a new significance in its bearings upon ethical theory.

Every human being, however sociable, or sympathetic, or capable of sacrifice he may be, yet resident necessarily in his own isolated consciousness, which acquaints him with pleasure and pain, happiness and misery, necessarily seeks to minimize the one and to increase the other. It is no objection to the doctrine, that the wise man sometimes accepts or even voluntarily incurs a pain that he might have avoided; for he does so for the sake of a higher satisfaction or to avoid a greater pain. It is no objection that he often rejects the nearer pleasure, fearing the distant and larger pain. Nor is it an objection that the virtuous man often acts from conscience or a sense of duty, which must bring

direct and foreseen pain, without any other future pleasure to set against it save the feeling and satisfaction of right doing; for even in this case he would have suffered greater pain from a contrary course of action, in the stings of his outraged conscience. Still less is there any objection in the fact that a benevolent man often foregoes the means of happiness for the sake of others, since, as Butler has shown, there is in this case a distinct and positive pleasure secured much greater than the possible amount foregone,―benevolence, both as a frame of mind and in the accomplishment of its aims, bringing its own satisfaction and reward more surely than any other active principle. In all these seemingly exceptional cases, as in all other cases, man follows pleasure, satisfaction, happiness of some species; whether or no his happiness is inclusive or exclusive of that of others; whether he prefers the near and sure, or the distant and larger but more doubtful satisfaction; whether he pursues it directly or circuitously; and whether, finally, he does or does not secure this invariable end of his pursuit and aim of his being. He follows pleasure, happiness, wellbeing, let us call it by what names we please, and be the happiness certain or doubtful, near or far off, narrowly and entirely selfish or including in it the happiness of others; and all this remains true, though, owing to the severe conditions of existence and the evils of his environment, man must more frequently direct his efforts to the diminution of his pains than to the increase of his positive happiness.

Each individual, then, necessarily seeks his own wellbeing; and within limits set by law and conscience, which prescribe that he shall not lessen in certain cases the wellbeing of others, he is justified, nay, further, he is to a large

extent compelled to seek it by the strongest compulsion, or cease to exist. And often, in seeking our own legitimate life and happiness, we are further compelled to act in ways that must inevitably subtract from the happiness of othersthose in competition or in collision with us; worse, even our friends. The conditions of existence force upon man, as upon all the lower animals, this self-regarding course of action, whatever disagreeable results may follow to others from it; and some such is sure to result. In a word, the exigencies of life compel men to act in a prescribed way as respects their own interest. We must in certain cases put self-interest in the narrow sense first. But what we must do, that we ought to do; or at least so to do is legitimate and cannot be shown to be immoral. There is, in fact, an "ought" which comes from strict physical necessity, as well as an ought" which comes from conscience, and the former carries the first obligation with it.

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Life for self, then, as Herbert Spencer and many moralists before him have concluded, comes first; life for others, or for humanity—if the latter be a practicable as it is a noble ideal-can only come second. The truth that man is necessarily a self-regarding animal first, and a social or a sympathetic one afterwards, is forced upon our attention by the facts of experience, by the universal régime of competition all around. But it has been brought before us in a more deep and comprehensive manner by the teaching of evolution in the writings of Darwin, Spencer, Haeckel, all of whom show us that the struggle for existence is the all-pervading law throughout the whole animal kingdom. Everywhere they point out to us this universal trial by battle, in some sense of the word. Darwin, it is true, in the case of man, is somewhat inclined to draw a veil over the

disagreeable facts of this seemingly selfish struggle; but this veil, Haeckel, dissatisfied with the present course of things and social arrangements, would boldly tear aside. He affirms the everywhere selfish, pitiless, and immoral or non-moral character of the whole contest, and this not less in the case of man than of any other species. Thus he tells us, in bold and brusque language, that only “the idealist scholar who closes his eyes to the real truth, or the priest who tries to keep his spiritual flock in ecclesiastical leadingstrings, can any longer tell the fable of the 'moral ordering of the world.' It exists neither in nature nor in human life, neither in natural history nor the history of civilization. The terrible and ceaseless 'struggle for existence' gives the real impulse to the blind course of the world. A moral ordering and a purposed plan of the world can only be visible if the prevalence of an immoral rule of the strongest and undesigned organization is entirely ignored." The picture here drawn is darkly coloured, and, in fact, is not true; for, as we have maintained elsewhere, there is a purpose and also a morality discernible in the facts of life and the structure of society; there is, moreover, a progress visible and a tendency to a higher morality, though not quite through the agency of natural selection; nevertheless there remains an important truth in the view of Haeckel which our "benevolence" moralists of the past century did not perceive or found it convenient to overlook; and which our humanitarians and utilitarians of to-day, the followers of Bentham, Mill, and Comte, would do well to remember. There is a struggle for existence still going on, which tends to bring out the self-asserting and selfish side

*The Evolution of Man, vol. i. p. 112; also History of Creation, vol. i. p. 19, where the like sentiments are expressed.

of our nature into undue prominence; the fierceness and fellness of the struggle is indeed considerably mitigated, as compared with that of former ages, and some quarter is usually shown to the conquered; nevertheless, the struggle still goes on, and, though with mitigated fury, its consequences are sufficiently terrible, for our nerves are now more sensitive, we have less toughness of fibre, possibly less courage of heart, than our fathers,-all which weakness in the physical base make the consequences of defeat and failure in the contest the more dreadful in our apprehension.

The struggle continues; and while it lasts, and in proportion to its intensity, it tends to keep the social virtues, which undoubtedly exist, from further development. It keeps them down to that moderate minimum which society exacts, and indeed absolutely requires, as a condition even of carrying on the competitive struggle within some recognized lines of honour and fair play.

§ 4. Happily, however, man is naturally, as Darwin maintains,* a social animal. He is such, both by longinherited instincts and the numerous necessities of his life. And men have devised the means of pursuing their own advantage and happiness, in very many cases not only without interfering with that of others, but in some cases all the more effectually in association, actual or virtual, with others; while advancing a great step, by a happy and fortunate development in man's nature, the greatest in the entire history of our species, they have even come to include the happiness of others as a distinct and important part of their own.

Men have discovered that many of the materials of wellbeing and happiness can be best secured by acting in *Descent of Man, ch. iii., " On a Moral Sense."