Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/108

Rh Because, Mr. Spencer says, the concrete case must be tested by the general law of Evolution. But once more, why? The only answer is the principle, which Mr. Spencer sometimes tacitly assumes, sometimes very grudgingly acknowledges, sometimes seems to claim as his peculiar property, namely, the well-known Kantian principle, that nothing should be done which we could not wish to see done universally, or that the rule of the single act ought to he a rule adapted to serve as an universal rule for all rational beings. But if this maxim is essential to the foundation of a moral system, then how poor the pretense that the law of evolution gives us any foundation for ethics at all. The facts of evolution stand there, mere dead realities, wholly without value as moral guides, until the individual assumes his own moral principle, namely, his ideal determination to do nothing that a person considering the order of the world as a whole and desiring universal happiness would condemn, from the point of view of the general tendencies of acts. Grant that principle, and you have an ideal aim for action. Then a knowledge of the course of evolution will be useful, just as a knowledge of astronomy is useful to a navigator. But astronomy does not tell us why we are to sail on the water, but only how to find our way. With Kant’s principle assumed, we already have attained, apart from any physical doctrine of evolution, the essentials of an ethical doctrine to start with; and we need no doctrine of evolution to found this ethical doctrine, but need it only to tell us the means. But if we have not already this Kantian principle,