Page:Philosophical Review Volume 14.djvu/600

584 Characteristic, also, was the view, so widely entertained, of the impermanence of the sentiment of moral obligation. This view was the more remarkable because it stood in direct contradiction to numerous analogies of mental evolution. Morality, it was argued, is a mode of readjustment; the sense of obligation simply indicates so much friction, a lack of ease and spontaneity in the process. With moral progress, whether of the race or of the individual, this discomforting friction may be expected to disappear. As well expect that scientific curiosity must disappear with the advancement of knowledge. The particular duty be- comes a matter of unreflective impulse; the particular problem is solved and disposed of; but, in the one case as in the other, the difficulty is hydra-headed,—two newly conceived obligations, two newly formulated questions take the place of the old one. The good man's conscience pricks him for many a fault, of which the coarser individual takes no account.

Closely connected with this theory of the transitoriness of obligation was Spencer's notion,—very seriously treated by some of his continental critics,—of a completely evolved society. He found that throughout the evolution of conduct a tendency is discernible, by which action beneficial to the agent has become less and less prejudical, and in many instances actually helpful to others. Assuming that this tendency will continue, he predicted the evolution of a society in which self-serving and fellow-serving actions will completely and invariably coincide. Here, again, we are dealing with a prediction which science cannot guarantee; and here, again, all the evidence of general analogies would lead us to expect a very different course of events. That progress means continually improved adaptation may be granted without admitting that in such improvement any approach to a fixed end is implied. For the usual case is that, as adaptation proceeds, the necessities for adaptation proportionately increase. Perhaps the material environment changes, either by the lapse of geological periods of time, or more swiftly, as the species spreads from land to land; or, perhaps, the progress of rival tribes or species bring with it a more and more exacting competition; or it may be that the very increase of efficiency of