formity to the type has less a negative and restrictive than a positive significance. Thus to say that natural selection favors the type rather than the individual is to say that it favors that which is the condition of individuality at a given stage of evolution. The type exists only for the individual to be in him, the individual, in the form of instincts, habits, associative processes while, in turn, the individual exists only to express in himself the type, as only in so doing can he realize himself as an individual. Natural selection, in the ethical sphere, at any rate, implies the negation of the individual as an entity opposed to the type, and is thus equally a positive principle, making 'automatically' for growth in personality. To be all that men are—were such a thing possible—would satisfy the conditions of unique individuality and ideal personality far more than to be what no other man is—were this also possible. But it is the latter ideal that is dominant in much of the anti-social ethics which, like that of Nietzsche, finds favor in men's sight at the present time. Evolution favors such ethics only when we create fictitious dualisms like the foregoing, disjoin idealism from the process, and reinstate human egoistic qualities which, however good in themselves, have long since become organic to other ends.
| C. V. Tower. |
| University of Michigan.. |
