Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/105

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THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.

to do right. The whole undertaking resembles that of a man who should try to show us that the truth of the law of gravitation clearly indicates that we all ought to sit down. What is evident or doubtful apart from the law of evolution, cannot, in this field, be proved or disproved by the law. Shall we say: “Do good to thy neighbor to-day, because evolution tends to bring into existence a race of future beings who will do good?” To say this is to say something utterly irrelevant. What do we care about remote posterity, unless we already care about our neighbors as they are? Or shall we say: “Do good to thy neighbor because evolution has made thee a social being, whose instincts lead thee to desire thy neighbor’s good?” To say this is to say what is only very imperfectly true. One’s instincts often lead him to take much selfish delight in thwarting his neighbor. If it were true universally and strictly, it would not show us why to do right, nor yet what is right. For it is not obviously a fundamental ethical doctrine that we ought to follow an instinct as such. And if we follow an instinct because we find it pleasing, our aim is still not to do any right save what pleases us personally. And the whole wisdom of the doctrine of evolution would be reduced to the assurance that we ought to do as we like, with due regard to prudence. Shall we then say: “Do good, because the social order that has evolved is too strong for thee, and will hurt thee unless thou submittest to it?” Still one has the selfish motive insisted upon, and morality is still only prudence. And the doctrine will still have to