The Ethical Import of Darwinism |
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accumulation action ancestors Aristotle Aryan assumption biology brothers cause conception conduct consanguine family conscience consciousness constitution Darwin Darwinian deductive derivative descendants descriptive ethics doctrine domestic ence endogamous ethical science European cuckoo evolution evolutionary ethics evolutionary science evolutionism evolutionists exogamy explain fact faculty female fittest forms guine family habit hedonism human hypothesis imply impulse individual intelligence Kant kinship logic lower animals Malayan system man's mankind marriage mathematics McLennan mechanical philosophy mechanism mental metaphysics mind modifications moral law moral phenomena moral sense natural selection non-moral object observation organic origin of species philosophy physical ethics pleasure polyandry polygyny practice present preserved primitive principles produce question reason recognized regard relations remorse savage scientific character selective breeding simian social instincts Spencer struggle for existence supposed survival system of consanguinity teleology theory tion tive tribes Turanian system ultimate universal utilitarianism utility variations virtue wife-stealing wives
Popular passages
Page 207 - Hail, wedded Love, mysterious law, true source Of human offspring, sole propriety In Paradise, of all things common else ! By thee adult'rous love was driven from men Among the bestial herds to range ; by thee, Founded in reason, loyal, just and pure. Relations dear, and all the charities Of father, son, and brother, first were known.
Page 86 - On the other hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of favorable individual differences and variations, and the destruction of those which are injurious, I have called Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest...
Page 117 - ... any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.
Page 207 - Relations dear, and all the charities Of father, son, and brother, first were known. Far be it that I should write thee sin or blame, Or think thee unbefitting holiest place, Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets, Whose bed is undefiled and chaste pronounced, Present, or past, as saints and patriarchs used. Here Love his golden shafts employs, here lights His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings, Reigns here and revels...
Page 84 - In bigness to surpass earth's giant sons, Now less than smallest dwarfs in narrow room Throng numberless...
Page 53 - He first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.
Page 70 - But, for all this, our acceptance of the Darwinian hypothesis must be provisional so long as one link in the chain of evidence is wanting ; and so long as all the animals and plants certainly produced by selective breeding from a common stock are fertile, and their progeny are fertile with one an&ther, that link will be wanting.
Page 60 - Hence, as more individuals are produced than can possibly survive, there must in every case be a struggle for existence — either one individual with another of the same species, or with the individuals of distinct species, or with the physical conditions of life.
Page 118 - ... scarcely possible to decide how much allowance ought to be made for such causes of change, as the definite action of external conditions, so-called spontaneous variations, and the complex laws of growth ; but with these important exceptions, we may conclude that the structure of every living creature either now is, or was formerly, of some direct or indirect use to its possessor.
Page 183 - With animals having separated sexes, there will be in most cases a struggle between the males for the possession of the females. The most vigorous males, or those which have most successfully struggled with their conditions of life, will generally leave most progeny. But success will often depend on the males having special weapons, or means of defence, or charms; and a slight advantage will lead to victory.