Seventy years ago Charles Darwin published his book, "The Origin of Species," in which he defied the theological dogma of his time by the shocking idea that life had evolved by many stages of progress from the diatom to man. This of course did not conform to the story of the Garden of Eden, and so "Darwinism" was fought as an invention of the devil, and in the interior of America there are numerous sectarian colleges where the dread1 term "evolution" is spoken in awed2 whispers. Only the other day I read in my newspaper the triumphant3 proclamation of some clergyman that "Darwinism" had been overthrown4. This reverend gentleman had got mixed up because some biologists were disputing some detail of the method by which the evolution of species had been brought about. Do species change by the gradual elimination5 of the unfit, or do they change by sudden leaps, the "mutation6" theory of de Vries? Are acquired powers transmitted to posterity7, or is the germ plasm unaffected by its environment? Concerning such questions the scientists debate. But the fact that life has evolved in an ordered series from the lower forms to the higher, and that each individual reproduces in embryo8 and in infancy9 the history of this long process—these facts are now the basis of all modern thinking, and as generally accepted as the rotation10 of the earth.
You may study this process of evolution from the outside, in the multitude of forms which it has assumed and in their reactions one to another; or you may study it from the inside in your own soul, the emotions which accompany it, the impulse or craving11 which impels12 it, the élan vital, as it is called by the French philosopher Bergson. The Christians13 call it love, and Nietzsche, who hated Christianity, called it "the will to power," and persuaded himself that it was the opposite of love.
You will find in the essays of Professor Huxley, one entitled "Evolution and Ethics," in which he sets forth14 the complete unmorality of nature, and declares that there is no way by which what mankind knows as morality can have originated in the process of nature or can be reconciled to natural law. This statement, coming from a leading agnostic, was welcome to the theologians. But when I first read the essay, as a student of sixteen, it seemed to me narrow; I thought I saw a standpoint from which the contradiction disappeared. The difference between the morality of Christ and the morality of nature is merely the difference between a lower and a higher stage of mental development. The animal loves and seeks by instinct to preserve the life which it knows—that is to say, its own life and the life of its young. The wolf knows nothing about the feelings of a deer; but man in his savage15 state develops reasoning powers enough to realize that there are others like himself, the members of his own tribe, and he makes for himself taboos16 which forbid him to kill and eat the members of that tribe. At the present time humanity has developed its reason and imaginative sympathy to include in the "tribe" one or two hundred million people; while to those outside the tribe it still preserves the attitude of the wolf.
How came it that a mind so acute as Huxley's went so far astray on the question of the evolution of morality? The answer is that this was the factory age in England, and the great scientist, a rebel in theological matters, was in economics a child of his time. We find him using the formulas of bourgeois17 biology to ridicule18 Henry George and his plea for the freeing of the land. "Competition is the life of trade," ran the nineteenth century slogan; and competition was the god of nineteenth century biology. Tennyson summed it up in the phrase: "Nature red in tooth and claw with ravin;" and this was found convenient by Manchester manufacturers who wished to shut little children up for fourteen hours a day in cotton mills, and to harness women to drag cars in the coal mines, and to be told by the learned men of their colleges and the holy men of their churches that this was "the survival of the fittest," it was nature's way of securing the advancement19 of the race.
But now we are preparing for an era of cooperation, and it occurs to our men of science to go back to nature and find out what really are her ways. If you will read Kropotkin's "Mutual20 Aid as a Factor in Evolution," you will find a complete refutation of the old bourgeois biology, and a view of nature which reveals in it the germs of human morality. Kropotkin points out that everywhere throughout nature it is the social and not the solitary21 animals which are most numerous and most successful. There are many millions of ants and bees for every hawk22 or eagle, and certainly in the state of nature there were thousands of deer for every lion or tiger that preyed23 upon them. And all these social creatures have their ways of being, which it requires no stress of the imagination to compare with the tribal25 customs and the moral codes of mankind. The different animals prey24 upon one another, but they do not prey upon their own species, except in a few rare cases. The only beast that makes a regular practice of exploiting his own kind is man.
By hundreds of interesting illustrations Kropotkin shows that mutual aid and mutual self-protection are the means whereby the higher forms of being have been evolved. Insects and birds and fish, nearly all the herbivorous mammals, and even a great many of the carnivores, help one another and protect one another. The chattering26 monkeys in the treetops drove out the saber-tooth tiger from the grove27 because there were so many of them, and when they saw him they all set up a shriek28 and clamor which deafened29 and confused him. And when by and by these monkeys developed an opposed thumb, and broke off a branch of a tree for a club, and fastened a sharp stone on the end of it for an axe30, and fell upon the saber-toothed tiger and exterminated31 him, they did it because they had learned solidarity32—even as the workers of the world are today learning solidarity in the face of the beast of capitalism33.
Man has survived by the cunning of his brain, we are told, and that is true. But first among the products of that cunning brain has been the knowledge that by himself he is the most helpless and pitiful of creatures, while standing34 together and forming societies and developing moralities, he is master of the world. He has not yet learned that lesson entirely35; he has learned it only for his own nation. Therefore he takes the highest skill of his hand and the subtlest wit of his brain, and uses them to manufacture poison gases. At the present hour he is painfully realizing that his poison formulas all become known to the tribes whom he calls his enemies, and so it is his own destruction he is engaged in contriving36. In other words, man has come to a time when his mechanical skill, his mastery over the forces of nature, has developed more rapidly than his moral sense and his imaginative sympathy. His ability to destroy life has become dangerously greater than his desire to preserve it. So he confronts the fair face of nature as an insane creature, wrecking37 not merely everything that he himself has built up, but everything that nature has built in the ages before him. He is striving now with infinite agony to make this fact real to himself, and to mend his evil ways; and the first step in that process is to root out from his mind the devil's doctrine38 which in his blindness and greed he has himself implanted, that there is any way for him to find real happiness, or to make any worth while progress on this earth, by the method of inflicting39 misery40 and torment41 upon his fellow men.
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1
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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2
awed
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| adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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3
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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overthrown
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| adj. 打翻的，推倒的，倾覆的 动词overthrow的过去分词 | |
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elimination
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| n.排除，消除，消灭 | |
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mutation
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| n.变化，变异，转变 | |
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posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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8
embryo
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| n.胚胎，萌芽的事物 | |
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infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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10
rotation
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| n.旋转；循环，轮流 | |
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craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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impels
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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13
Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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16
taboos
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| 禁忌( taboo的名词复数 )； 忌讳； 戒律； 禁忌的事物（或行为） | |
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bourgeois
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| adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子 | |
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ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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advancement
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| n.前进，促进，提升 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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preyed
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| v.掠食( prey的过去式和过去分词 )；掠食；折磨；（人）靠欺诈为生 | |
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24
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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tribal
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| adj.部族的，种族的 | |
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chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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28
shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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29
deafened
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| 使聋( deafen的过去式和过去分词 )； 使隔音 | |
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30
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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31
exterminated
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| v.消灭，根绝( exterminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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solidarity
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| n.团结；休戚相关 | |
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33
capitalism
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| n.资本主义 | |
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34
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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36
contriving
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| （不顾困难地）促成某事( contrive的现在分词 )； 巧妙地策划，精巧地制造（如机器）； 设法做到 | |
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wrecking
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| 破坏 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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39
inflicting
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的现在分词 ) | |
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40
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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41
torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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