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CHAPTER IV.

DARWINISM AND MORAL LIFE.

Sec. 1. _Darwinistic Naturalism and Moral Life._

Precisely the same relationship between Darwinism and morality, which we
found in treating of moral principles, presents itself when we ask about
the relationship of Darwinistic ideas and moral life in its concrete
reality. He who builds a system of monistic naturalism upon his Darwinism,
if he is logical, and not better than his system, comes into inevitable
collision with concrete moral life; while he who limits his Darwinism to
the realm of natural science, remains in concrete life in peace with
morality.

That Darwinistic ethical naturalism also comes into conflict with concrete
moral life, becomes evident from the joy with which the advocates of
subversion and negation greet the new principle of the "struggle for
existence," and make it the principle of their own actions and social
theories. This is not chance sympathy, but is founded upon the nature of
ethical naturalism. Of him who learns to look upon himself only as a
product of nature, though highly ennobled, we cannot expect any other
principle than that of following his nature: not, indeed, the ideal nature
of man--for this is an abstraction which man reaches only by means of a
long {392} process of reflection--but his own empirical nature, as he finds
it present in himself; for this is indeed that natural product as which man
has to consider himself according to that theory. Where this leads to,
everybody knows who knows human nature. If these consequences are not to be
found in all ethical naturalists, and if they are perhaps the least evident
in the system and life of the very ones who otherwise teach naturalism the
most logically (Strauss, for example), we again most cheerfully admit that
many men are better than their systems, and that in making objection to a
system, even an ethical system, we in the first place do not say anything
at all about the advocates of this system and their moral value. Often
enough some noble and fruitful truth has been advocated by men who are
personally contemptible, and often enough some dangerous error is
propagated by men who are personally very amiable and moral, although the
damage which such an error carries with it, must become evident in their
lives, on closer observation. Besides, we must not overlook the fact, that
what in a perverse system is still relatively true, and the thing whic