Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/377

 THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIENCE 361

provided no new factor made its appearance. But by means of this law could it have been anticipated theoretically that mind would come in and give the triumph at last to a creature on an inferior plane so far as the muscular system is concerned ?

Apply this to what we ordinarily call moral feeling. If, on walking along the street, we were to see a Chinaman fall down suddenly, from no manifest cause, we should step over and observe what had taken place, inferring that the man was seriously ill. The chances are that we are not fond of Chinamen, and our first impulse might be to go on and let him alone. Yet I venture to say that with most of us the course would be precisely the con- trary. We should step to the nearest telephone and call for an ambulance saying to ourselves : We ought to see that this man is sent to the city hospital. And the Chinaman will be taken there, looked after, nursed, and tended just about the same as if he were an ordinary white citizen of this country.

Why is that city hospital there ? The answer would be that the people of each community feel that they ought to have a place for the sick who cannot provide for themselves. Any kind of a sick person? we ask; of any race, from any part of the world ? Yes, it is said, there ought to be a hospital for any sick person, of any race, from any clime on earth.

So far as the investigations I have made in the theory of evolution are concerned, they do not explain that city hospital and the course we pursue in sending the Chinaman there. Hos- pitals, as such, may come by the laws of evolution. The strug- gle for existence requires co-operation, a high development of what we term social tissue in the organizations of clans or socie- ties. Natural selection would develop sympathies between members of the same clan, leading to the appearance of asylums for the sick within the tribe, the clan, or a given society. But there it would stop. It is against natural selection, against the struggle for existence or the theory of the survival of the fittest, for such an asylum to welcome any human creature.

I fail to see how we have an explanation of the growth of sympathy between all human creatures. If anyone had under- taken in advance to anticipate what the laws of evolution would