animal basis, but of which the animal basis gives no
explanation--interests social, artistic, intellectual, spiritual.

It is correct, therefore, to say of man that his environment is much
larger than the material universe; it is whatever he conceives the
universe as being, and whatever it can be for him: whether he seeks
from it merely intellectual understanding, whether he regards it as
a vehicle for artistic production, or whether he may see in it an
opportunity for realising his own being by fulfilling the will of
God--perhaps by submerging his own individuality in deity. The
objects of philosophy, art, and religion,--all these are parts of the
environment of civilised man, and yet his self-adaptation to them has
no direct effect whatever upon his continuance on the earth as an
animal organism. In other words, the process of natural selection
can give us no canon at all for putting a value upon these various
activities, or upon the way in which man adapts himself to these parts
of his environment.

It is said by Mr Herbert Spencer that "we must interpret the more
developed by the less developed";[1] and the inference would seem to
be that, as animal existence is the basis of all higher activities, we
must interpret these by it. But if this claim can be admitted at all,
it can only be if our aim goes no further than to trace a historical
process. If we desire to understand capacity or function--still more
if we speak of worth or goodness--then it is much more correct to say
that we must interpret the less developed by the more developed.
If you wish to trace the growth of the oak-tree from its earliest
beginnings to maturity, then study the acorn and the soil; but if you
wish to know what the capacity and the function of the acorn are, then
you must interpret the less developed by the more developed, you
must see what an oak is like when it spreads its branches under the
heavens.

[Footnote 1: Principles of Ethics, i. 7.]

In the third place, the way in which the action of natural selection
differs according to circumstances affects its ethical significance.
It operates as between individuals, and it operates as between
groups,--although in the latter operation especially it is always
mixed with other forces than natural selection. The competition
between individuals favours egoistic qualities, the competition
between groups favours qualities which may be called altruistic.

Now no principle whatever can be go