Morals and the Evolution of Man — Part 26

Many moral philosophers, those of the Kantian school without exception, labour under the delusion of this same, egocentric view. In their eyes the phenomenon of Morality is a cosmic one. Morality is the law of human conduct, therefore it is the law of world processes, of the universe. Indeed, it is the law of the universe before it becomes that of human conduct. It would exist even if there were no men, no humanity, no human conduct at all. The solemn innocents who weightily give utterance to this doctrine are unaware how ridiculous they are. They do not hesitate to subject Sirius to the yoke of the Ten Commandments. They are convinced that the Milky Way practises virtue and shuns, or ought to shun, vice, just as we inconsiderable human beings do. The precept, "Thou shalt not steal," applies with binding force to gravity, and the warning, "Thou shalt not kill," to electricity, though the latter ruthlessly disregards it, as the results of being struck by lightning and accidents with high voltage installations frequently prove. If they do not threaten Nature with police and prison it is only because in their eyes Morality is independent of all sanctions, is superior to rewards and punishments, depends upon itself alone, constitutes its own aim, is by its very nature a compelling force, and therefore has no need of adventitious compulsion.

Such profound nonsense cannot lay claim to serious treatment. It is a counterpart to the belief that events in the history of mankind, like war and pestilence, are foretold by heavenly signs such as fiery comets. The stars revolve, the clockwork of the universe continues undisturbed, as though the earth were still uninhabited, as it was when it was a glowing fluid globe or, earlier still, a nebular mass; and this although man's self-esteem be hurt by such a lack of consideration. If we care to call the (so far as we know) unalterable laws, according to which the forces of Nature act and the mechanism of the world works, the Morality of the Universe, that may pass. Only we must in that case clearly realize that we are speaking metaphorically, that we are making use of a poetic simile, that we are anthropomorphically attributing human traits to the universe. Morality is a phenomenon restricted to mankind, or, to be strictly accurate, a phenomenon which occurs only among living beings; for the beginnings of Morality may be traced in creatures of a lower order than man, and it develops simultaneously with the consciousness and the mentality of living beings. Morality is a function of life, dependent upon it, begotten and developed by it, to meet life's needs and serve its interests. The existence of Morality apart from life is as unthinkable as that of hunger, ambition, or gratitude.