Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/698

 684 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Darwinian, it is essentially anti-evolutional. Nothing is more fallacious than the distinction between natural sentiments and corresponding actions, and unnatural sentiments and resultant conduct, upon which Nietzsche's quarrel with modern civilization is based. The doctrine of evolution does not justify the assump- tion that egoistic feelings alone are natural, while the altruistic feelings are unnatural, due to false precepts and the sanctions of religion and morality. No one has insisted more strenuously than Mr. Herbert Spencer on the antagonism between individu- ation and genesis ; yet is there anything unnatural about the subordination of the former to the latter ? Is parental affection unnatural ? Is sympathy alien to the naturally developed man ? In his Principles of Psychology consideration of an extensive class of facts of 'the sub-human and human worlds leads Mr. Spencer to the conclusion that there are "three causes of sym- pathy, due respectively to the three relations between members of a species, between male and female, and between parent and offspring." These causes, Mr. Spencer points out, cooperate in various ways and degrees, and "it is inferable that, where the circumstances allow cooperation of all the causes, the effects are likely to be the greatest." Mr. Spencer continues :

Among inferior animals cooperation of all the causes is not frequent ; rooks supplying us with one of the few instances easily observable. And even where all the causes cooperate the effects producible depend on the accompanying degree of intelligence ; since the capacity for being sympa- thetically affected implies the capacity for having an ideal feeling of some kind aroused by perception of the sounds and emotions implying a real feeling of the same kind in another.

It is only when we come to the highest races of creatures that this last con- dition is largely fulfilled. Merely noting that among the lower primates, where considerable intelligence goes along with sociality and prolonged care of offspring by the females, sympathy is shown in various ways, we may now limit our attention to the human race. Here we have all three direct causes of sympathy in action, along with the coessential condition elevated intelli- gence.

As none of these propositions can be disputed, how absurd it is to allege that sympathy is "unnatural" to the "blonde beast"! It is true that excessive sympathy sentimentality is injurious a fact which those who would practice beneficence