The Relations of Moral Philosophy to Speculation Concerning the Origin of Man [pp. 288-302]

MORA4L PHILOSOPHY AND THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 297
a moral law, such as Justice, to which reference has been made
above? Can we trace the possession of this knowledge to the
continuous influence of sensibilities such as we have in common
with the higher animals, dogs, horses, and apes? Or does
the knowledge of moral law present such characteristics as to
make it impossible to maintain that it comes to us through
the avenues of sensibility and reflection? Here there is diversity of opinion among moral philosophers, some maintainihg
that moral law is an advanced generalization flowing from observation of the conditions of our sensibility, while others
maintain that this knowledge is not confined to those who enter
on such study, and is not accepted by men generally from phi.
losophers as if on their authority or on evidence of their inductions. The ultimate results of ethical inquiry as to the conditions
of our knowledge of moral law are, however, intimately connected with the prospects of an Evolution theory, when facing
the peculiar perplexities of man's position, as a being the wealth
and grandeur of whose life is not included within the results of
physiological inquiry. Hence it is that those who are professedly naturalists are found recording and discussing peculiar
occurrences in animal life which seem to bear something of a
moral complexion, and those who are evolutionists of a more
philosophic type hurry forward, as Herbert Spencer has done,
to a discussion of The Data of Ethics as presenting the highest
and severest test of the theory they have espoused.
Moral Philosophy is, however, concerned with more than a
philosophy of our knowledge of moral distinctions. It must
also seek a trustworthy explanation of the conditions required
for subjection of all the stronger impulses of our nature in harmony with the requirements of moral law. In this connection
we are brought face to face with the inconsistencies prevalent
in human life, and constantly referred to by those who aim at
establishing close relations between men and animals. Moral
Philosophy has to search beyond these inconsistencies and underneath them for the possible harmony of the intellectual and
impulsive powers of our nature. It is in this region we come
upon the deepest mysteries of human life, laying bare to observation these two strange possibilities-that of descending to a
level lower than the brutes and that of ascending to a moral
I