eristic expression of this consciousness he
found, just as Kant did, in the idea of "ought"; it was the origin of
this new idea which should be explained. His hypothesis was that the
ethical "ought" has its origin in the social and parental instincts,
which, as well as other instincts (e.g. the instinct of
self-preservation), lie deeper than pleasure and pain. In many
species, not least in the human species, these instincts are fostered
by natural selection; and when the powers of memory and comparison are
developed, so that single acts can be valued according to the claims
of the deep social instinct, then consciousness of duty and remorse
are possible. Blind instinct has developed to conscious ethical will.

As already stated, Darwin, as a moral philosopher belongs to the
school that was founded by Shaftesbury, and was afterwards represented
by Hutcheson, Hume, Adam Smith, Comte and Spencer. His merit is,
first, that he has given this tendency of thought a biological
foundation, and that he has stamped on it a doughty character in
showing that ethical ideas and sentiments, rightly conceived, are
forces which are at work in the struggle for life.

There are still many questions to solve. Not only does the ethical
development within the human species contain features still
unexplained;[209] but we are confronted by the great problem whether
after all a genetic historical theory can be of decisive importance
here. To every consequent ethical consciousness there is a standard of
value, a primordial value which determines the single ethical
judgments as their last presupposition, and the "rightness" of this
basis, the "value" of this value can as little be discussed as the
"rationality" of our logical principles. There is here revealed a
possibility of ethical scepticism which evolutionistic ethics (as well
as intuitive or rationalistic ethics) has overlooked. No demonstration
can show that the results of the ethical development are definitive
and universal. We meet here again with the important opposition of
systematisation and evolution. There will, I think, always be an open
question here, though comparative ethics, of which we have so far only
the first attempts, can do much to throw light on it.

It would carry us too far to discuss all the philosophical works on
ethics, which have been influenced directly or indirectly by
evolutionism. I may, however, here refer to the book of C. M.
Williams, _A Review of the Syst