SUPERNATURAL MORALITY. SOME CONSIDERATIONS OF HERBERT SPENCER'S "DATA OF ETHICS." [A Paper read before the American Institute of Christian Philosophy in New York, at the Monthly Meeting, January 31st, 1884.] BY W. H. PLATT, D.D., LL.D., AN EVOLVED OR NATURAL MORALITY IS A NECESSARY AND THEREFORE AN IMPOSSIBLE MORALITY. I. HE learned writer of the Introduction to the Data of Ethics" says, "There are two systems of morality-that which claims supernatural authority, and that which is grounded in nature; and one of these must be accepted or all morality denied." (Intro. D. E., ix.) Which must be accepted? The first question is: Is there nature as distinguished from supernature upon which morality could be grounded? Mr. Spencer admits both nature and supernature. He says (F. P., 105): "The progress of intelligence has throughout been dual. Though it has not seemed so to those who made it, every step in advance has been a step towards both the natural and the supernatural. The better interpretation of each phenomena has been, on the one hand, the rejection of a cause that was relatively conceivable in its nature, but unknown in the order of its action, and, on the other hand, the adoption of a cause that was known in the order of its action, but relatively inconceiva ble in its nature. The first advance out of universal fetichism manifestly involved the conception of agencies less assimilable to the familiar agencies of men and animals, and therefore less understood; while, at the same time, such newly conceived agencies, in so far as they were distinguished by their uniform effects, were better understood than those they replaced. All subsequent advances display the same double result. Every deeper and more general power arrived at as a cause of phenomena, has been at once less comprehensible than the special ones it superseded, in the sense of being less definitely representable in thought; while it has been more comprehensible in the sense that its actions have been more completely predicable. The progress has thus been as much towards the establishment of a positively unknown as towards the establishment of a positive known. Though as knowledge approaches its culmination, every unaccountable and seemingly supernatural fact, is brought into the category of facts that are accountable and natural; yet, at the same time, all accountable or natural facts are proved to be, in their ultimate genesis, unaccountable and supernatural." Nature and supernature being thus admitted, from which come the rules of morality? We might reasonably expect Mr. Spencer to teach a supernatural morality, after saying that, "Amid the mysteries which become the more mysterious the more they are thought about, there will remain the one absolute certainty, that he is ever in the presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy, from which all things proceed." (Pop. Sci. M., Jan., 1884.) Though he thus admits the supernatural-the Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed-he not only does not expect morality to proceed from this Energy, but says, "The establishment of rules of right conduct on a scientific basis is a pressing need. Now that moral injunctions are losing the authority given by their supposed sacred origin, the secularization of morals is imperative." (Prefacc D. E., vi.) The "sacred origin of moral injunctions" is not supposed but admitted in the admission of supernature. And again: if from the Infinite and Eternal Energy all things proceed, why are moral injunctions excepted, and why should the seculariza tion of morals be imperative? If from this Infinite Energy all things proceed, how can morals be secularized? That which is essentially sacred cannot become secular. We expect to show the impossibility of Mr. Spencer's system of morality "grounded in nature," where he exclusively places it; and also to show that morality must be from the supernature, which he admits, exactly under the authority where he denies it to be. To admit supernature, admits its moral as well as its material authority. It would be more consistent either to deny the supernatural, or to admit its moral authority. If the basis of morals must be scientific, of course morals must be natural and not supernatural; because there can be no science of the supernatural. Suppose, that, by induction, we try to put morals. upon a scientific basis: what must we first do? Mr. Spencer says, "Our preparatory step must be to study the evolution of conduct" (D. E., § 2); that "moral phenomena" (as all else) "are the phenomena of evolution." (D. E., § 23.) Is this evolution theistic or atheistic-free or necessary-prescribed or unprescribed? Unless there are two or more kinds of evolution, the laws of the evolution of morals must be the same as the laws of the evolution of matter. Not stopping here to define any terms-nature or supernature-morality or evolution-the logical argument is, that whatever is not prescribed is either accidental or necessary. According to materialistic evolutionists, evolution is not prescribed, and is, therefore, either accidental or necessary. It must be necessary; for, as to morals, Mr. Spencer says (D. E., § 21): "The view for which I contend is, that Morality properly so-called-the science of right conduct-has for its object to determine how and why certain modes of conduct are detrimental, and certain other modes beneficial. These good and bad results cannot be accidental; but must be necessary consequences of the constitution of things." What is necessity? Theists contend, that with a divine Will in the universe nothing is necessary. But to theists it is more easy to tell what necessity is not than what it is. Necessity is not the irrevocable behind us, but it is the inevitable before us. In necessity there is no intelligence, for there is no plan; there is no will, because there is no choice; there is no hope, because there is no escape; there is no responsibility, because there is no freedom. If, then, evolution is not prescribed because prescription implies authority which materialistic evolutionists deny; and if evolution, especially of morality, is not an accident, as we learn from Mr. Spencer, it is evident from the reasoning of these materialistic evolutionists that 1. All evolution is necessary evolution. As we know no freedom apart from Will, if there be no Will in evolution, there can be no freedom. If evolution be neither free nor accidental, it must be necessary. Evolution does not claim to proceed from Will, or to address itself to will. It is not free to command, and no one is free to obey. Therefore, it must be admitted or denied, that all evolution is necessary evolution. If it be admitted, as it must be by all materialistic evolutionists, then, it follows, as all evolution is necessary, and all natural morality is an evolution, that all natural morality must be necessary; and necessary morality is no morality. If it be denied, and it be claimed, that there is a natural morality, which is an evolution, but not a necessary evolution, then such evolution must be merely a method of a free Power; and if free, as we are conscious of freedom only in a free Will, we come, in our denial of a necessary evolution, to an all-evolving Will, whose uniformity is not necessity. Mr. Spencer speaks of a "Power manifested throughout evolution work." Does this power work with method or without method? According to Prof. Hæckel, and other materialistic evolutionists, this Power works without method. He says in his "Munich Address," that "Those rudimentary organs-eyes that see not, wings that fly not, muscles that do not contract-clearly show, that conformity to an end, in the structure of organic forms, is neither general nor complete; they do not emanate from a plan of creation drawn up beforehand, but were of necessity produced by the accidental clash of mechanical causes." (Mr. Spencer denies "accidental consequences.") If Prof. Hæckel is right, then nature, under necessity and without Will, puts under necessity and without Will, all in nature. If nature is necessary, and evolution is a way of nature, then all evolution is necessary. Things evolve because they must; they cannot be otherwise than they are. Whatever is, is inevitable. No intelligent Will started the universe, and there is no intelligent Will to stop it. The abstract must become concrete-the absolute must become the conditioned. Mr. Spencer states the doctrine of necessity quite as sharply as Prof. H. He says, "Moral principles must conform to physical necessities." (D. E., § 22.) Morality is either evolved or prescribed. If evolved, it is said to be "grounded in nature," and is called Natural Morality. If morality is prescribed, it is said, as nature prescribes nothing, "to claim supernatural authority," and is called Supernatural Morality. If nature is necessary, then the supernature admitted by Mr. Spencer, so far as it is not self-limited in nature, must be free. Therefore Morality is either evolved as necessary in nature, or prescribed as free in supernature. In evolution, as nothing cannot evolve something, something must, from itself, evolve something like itself; for, if unlike itself, it is something evolved from nothing; which is impossible. All evolution is under Will, or not under Will; if not under Will, it is necessary; if under will, evolution is only the method of Will. cer says, But, according to the theory of natural evolution, the homogeneous must be unstable; the instability of the homogeneous must differentiate into the heterogeneous; the dissipation of motion must integrate matter; effects must follow causes; and causes must multiply effects. Now, where is there enough freedom of action in all this, for that free action called moral action? 2. All so-called Natural Morality is an evolution. Mr. Spen"Here we have to enter on the consideration of moral phenomena as phenomena of evolution; being forced to do this by finding that they form a part of the aggregate of phenomena which evolution has wrought out. If the entire visible universe has been evolved-if the solar system as a whole, the earth as a part of it, the life in general which the earth bears, as well as that of each individual organism-if the mental phenomena displayed by all creatures, up to the highest, in common with the phenomena presented by aggregates of these highest-if one and all conform to the laws of evolution; then the necessary implication is that those phenomena of conduct in these highest creatures with which Morality is concerned, also conform.” (D. E., § 23.) The Italics are ours. |