t"

"The practice of that which is ethically best--what we call goodness
or virtue--involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is
opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle
for existence. In place of ruthless self-assertion it demands
self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all
competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect,
but shall help, his fellows; its influence is directed, not so much to
the survival of the fittest, as to the fitting of as many as possible
to survive. It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence....
Let us understand once for all that the ethical progress of society
depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running
away from it, but in combating it."[1]

[Footnote 1: Evolution and Ethics, pp. 81-83.]

Here, then, is a view very different from the easy optimism of Mr
Herbert Spencer. The cosmic order has nothing to say to the moral
order, except that, somehow or other, it has given it birth; the
moral order has nothing to say to the cosmic order, except that it
is certainly bad. Morality is occupied in opposing the methods of
evolution.

Still another view is possible. It may be held that the morality of
self-restraint and self-sacrifice are opposed--as Huxley says they are
opposed--to the methods of cosmic evolution; and yet the "gladiatorial
theory of existence" may not be repudiated; but morality may be
modified to suit the claims of evolution. This is the position adopted
by the philosopher Nietzsche, whose whole thought is permeated by the
idea of evolution. Like Professor Huxley, Nietzsche might say that
morality is opposed to the cosmic process. But by morality he would
mean something that is not to be encouraged, but that is to be shed
from human life, or at least fundamentally transformed, just because
it is in opposition to the laws of cosmic progress. On the other hand,
the morality--if we may use the term--which the cosmic process teaches
us will be a development of the conceptions of self-assertion and
self-reliance, qualities which, according to ordinary morality--the
morality, for instance, of Professor Huxley--require to be permeated
and even superseded by self-restraint and possibly self-sacrifice in
order that the moral law may be satisfied. Not obedience, not mutual
help, not benevolence, but the will to rule or desire of power, is
with Nietzsche fundamental, the primary impul