istory of
development. Inasmuch as this philosophic system aims at taking from ethics
the absoluteness of its demands, and at drawing down these demands into the
activities of originating and developing, it is also to be treated of in
this place.

As in the religious question, so in the ethical, Gustav Jaeger also stands
nearer to a neutral relation between Darwinism and the hitherto valid
principles. He puts the moral principles the same as the religious, into
the balance of utility to man in his struggle for existence, and finds it
thus easy and to be taken for granted, that the principles of morality, as
they became the common property of mankind as influenced by Christianity,
really prove themselves also the most serviceable to mankind. Social life
is of more benefit to man than hermit life; this reflection leads him to
the moral principle of charity. And as, according to Darwinism, rising
development shows itself in an increasing differentiation and more richly
organized physical development, so the organization of society according to
the principle of the division of work is that form of social life which
proves itself the most practical to man; and this reflection leads him to
the full acknowledgment of the entire ethical organization of human life
and its tasks.

But, as we saw, in treating of the religious question, that nobody, neither
friend nor foe, could possibly be {244} satisfied with the substitution of
the category of utility for that of truth, we are compelled to say in
reference to the ethical question, that a moral principle which, on such a
foundation, has its basis and authority only in its utility, is really no
authority, and loses its value with every individual who is unwilling to
acknowledge its utility and thinks another ground of action may be more
useful than the moral.

* * * * * {245}

CHAPTER VI.

NEUTRALITY AND PEACE BETWEEN DARWINISM AND MORALITY.

Sec. 1. _Mivart, Alex. Braun, and Others._

Evidently a real neutrality between the Darwinian theories of development
and the hitherto valid and absolute authority of the moral principle is
possible only, when we deny that the ethical demand is simply a natural
process--although we may perceive its origin within the limits of a natural
process--and when we fail to identify that demand with this process, and do
not deduce it from the latter as its sufficient ground of explanation; but
harmony between th