Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/265

 264 CRITICAL NOTICES I portion between progress and pleasure has not been shown, " we must make our choice between evolutionism and hedonism ". If we decide for "evolutionism" three interpretations of it are possible. The end may be stated as " increase of adaptation " or as " increase of complexity " or as " increase of life ''. But none of these formulae can give us any independent ethical ideal. Not- withstanding the attempts of evolutionists to explain the notion of " higher," which, both as applied to conduct and to pleasure, has been taken by the hedonistic schools from current moral opinion, they have not succeeded in getting at any fixed point of view of their own for judging rationally what kinds of conduct are really higher in the scale of development. We must therefore quit the ground of " empirical evolution " as incompetent to determine practical ends, and pass to the view of evolution as the expression of an internal teleology. Mr. Sorley's conclusion as to the relations of pleasure and pro- gress does not seem quite sufficient to prove the incompatibility of hedonism and " evolutionism". Such an " exact proportion" as he requires is unnecessary. The theories of Mr. Spencer and Mr. Stephen ought really to be regarded as " hedonism with evolution/' not as an " alliance " of two independent doctrines called " evolutionism" and "hedonism". Considered simply as rational doctrines of the end of conduct, they are hedonistic ; the theory of biological and social evolution is to them only an aid for determining the axiomata media of ethics. The questions to which, in order to maintain themselves, they need an affirmative answer are, according to Mr. Sorley, these : "Is hedonism, as Mr. Spencer affirms, a form of thought in ethics?'' and "Can the theory of evolution give us any aid in determining what kinds of conduct contribute to the end as already fixed?" Obviously the second question is subsidiary to the first, not co-ordinate with it. But before considering these points more closely, it will be best to describe Mr. Sorley's positive contribution to ethical theory (Pt. ii., c. 9, "On the Basis of Ethics "). His teleological view of evolution (which is not to be confounded with the old " external " teleology) leads him to affirm as the end of man " self-realisation ". The transition from the point of view of science to that of morality, which has been found not to be possible empirically, is possible " transcendentally through self- consciousness," because "in self-consciousness we reach the element of identity between knowledge and action ". For " the ultimate self-consciousness," knowledge and action are indis- tinguishable. The being of things and their teleological deter- mination by the absolute Reason are one and the same. For " the finite self," on the other hand, there is a distinction between knowledge and action, "correct if not pushed to the extent of making an absolute separation between them ". In human beings " conscious volition only follows a conceived want, a recognition that the self as imagined the ideal self is not