In place of ruthless self-assertion it demands
self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all
competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect,
but shall help, his fellows; its influence is directed, not so much to
the survival of the fittest, as to the fitting of as many as possible
to survive. It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence....
Let us understand once for all that the ethical progress of society
depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running
away from it, but in combating it."[1]
[Footnote 1: Evolution and Ethics, pp. 81-83.]
Here, then, is a view very different from the easy optimism of Mr
Herbert Spencer. The cosmic order has nothing to say to the moral
order, except that, somehow or other, it has given it birth; the
moral order has nothing to say to the cosmic order, except that it
is certainly bad. Morality is occupied in opposing the methods of
evolution.
Still another view is possible. It may be held that the morality of
self-restraint and self-sacrifice are opposed--as Huxley says they are
opposed--to the methods of cosmic evolution; and yet the "gladiatorial
theory of existence" may not be repudiated; but morality may be
modified to suit the claims of evolution. This is the position adopted
by the philosopher Nietzsche, whose whole thought is permeated by the
idea of evolution.
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