[Footnote 1: Descent of Man, pp. 205, 206.]
[Footnote 2: For a discussion of these views I may be allowed to
refer to my' Ethics of Naturalism,' chap. viii. (chap. ix. in the new
edition). The same volume contains a more exhaustive examination than
is possible in this lecture of the whole subject of evolutionist
ethics.]
[Footnote 3: The Romanes Lecture, 1893, "Evolution and Ethics." In
1894 this was republished, with prolegomena, in vol. ix. of 'Collected
Essays,' with the title, "Evolution and Ethics, and other Essays."]
Professor Huxley reviewed what he called the cosmic process as it was
guided by the law of evolution. He showed how at each step of that
process new results were only attained by enormous waste and pain on
the part of those living creatures which were thrust aside as unfit
for their surroundings, and he held consequently that the whole cosmic
process is of an entirely different character from what we must mean
when we use the term 'moral.' According to him morality is opposed
to the method of evolution, and cannot be based upon the theory of
evolution. It is of independent worth; but Professor Huxley, perhaps
wisely, refrained from investigating its justification, while
enforcing "the apparent paradox that ethical nature, while born of
cosmic nature, is necessarily at enmity with its parent"
"The practice of that which is ethically best--what we call goodness
or virtue--involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is
opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle
for existence.
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