tutions of the past only in terms of our own present moral consciousness. Where, then, is the profit in genetic speculation? Is it not a tribute from the present to the past, without possibility of recompense? Is it not the end alone that explains the evolution? On the other hand, it is urged that the relation is reciprocal,—that the present returns from its view of the past with a clearer appreciation of its own character; that the end not only explains the evolution, but is explained by it,—is itself thereby made more amenable to exact analysis and criticism.
To resume: The stages of which we have treated are severally concerned with a supposed conflict between ethics and evolution, with the setting up of evolutionary laws as a standard for morality, with the treatment of ethical problems in terms derived from the theory of organic evolution, with the assertion of the distinctive nature of social and specifically moral evolution, and with questions of method.
The truth is that evolutionary ethics, as a peculiar variety or school, has almost ceased to exist. What has emerged from the half-century-long discussion is a method of research that is used, with more or less freedom, by almost every recent ethical writer of importance. In a word, the time has passed when a moralist can afford to be either for or against evolutionary ethics. The term has meant, and still means, far too much to be accepted or rejected in the mass. One might as well believe or disbelieve in democracy or socialism.
| T. de Laguna. |
| Cornell University.. |
