REVIEW.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9401, 6 January 1894, Page 1 (Supplement)

REVIEW.

The Romanes Lecture, 1893 : Evolution and Ethics. By Thos. H. Huxley, F.R.S., • delivered in the Sheldonian Theatre, May 18, 1893. .

Mr. Huxley's Romanes Lecture is none the less worth reading or reviewing from the circumstance thab it is over seven months old; and at a season when by general consent men indulge in a brief forge tfu In ess of the Gospel of Competition, and in the encouragement of the altruistic and social feelings which lead to kindness and mutual help, there is some appropriateness in calling attention to an essay which asserts in no doubtful terms that the Gospel of Altruism, and the ethical sentiment, engage us in no less a task than thab of setting our faces like flint against the powers of nature, and attempting to withstand and reverse the cosmic, process which has made us what we now are, a task moreover in which the lecturer himself seems to hold out but a dubious prospect of success. It must be confessed that this sounds rather "a large order," and not a very hopeful or encouraging one to undertake. But a little examination may enable us to reconcile the lecturer's view with our hopes of humanity ; and, whether this be so or not, we shall find Mr. Huxley, as usual, entertaining and stimulating in all his moods, whether he humorously refers to our "grave and reverend juniors" whose severer studies may have prevented their making acquaintance with the story of Jack and the Beanstalk ; or displays his scholarly grasp of history in unfolding the root ideas of Oriental and Greek philosophy, and in showing how the old-time problems turn up again unsolved, and scarcely even modified by the scientific doctrines of which he has been so long one of the best and clearest interpreters. Mr. Huxley points oub that the preeminence which Man has achieved upon this planet has been mainly due to his unscrupulous self-assertion, "his cunning, his sociability, his curiosity, and imitativeness, his ruthless and ferocious destructiveness when his anger is roused by opposition." These "ape and tiger" - like qualities, supported by his exceptional physical organisation, have enabled him to become "the crown and sum of things," and now when he would gladly kick down the ladder by which he has climbed, and Jot the "ape and tiger die" they decline to disappear, but persist in obstructing and threatening to nullify our future progress. The " cosmopoietic energy," which is Mr. Huxley's name for the inscrutable power which all must recognise as manifesting itself in the evolutionary process, produces, when it works through sentient beings, what we call pain or suffering—a "baleful product" which reaches its consummation of intensity only when man becomes the member of an organised polity; for ib is in an organised polity alone that the necessity for rules of justice, and an orderly regard for the rights of others, can take shape and form, and so throw into the contrast of dark shade the selfish and aggressive qualities which were yet so useful in the early stages of progress. But with this gradual consolidation of the feeling of contrast between right and wrong, justice and oppressive force or fraud, there slowly emerges the solemn question: Is the Universe conducted on principles of justice ? Is the cosmic power a power that "makes for righteousness"? Mr. Huxley would seem to be quite in accord with the late J. S. Mill, whose fervid arraignment of Nature as being absolutely unmoral will be in the memory of many readers. He pronounces that " before the tribunal of ethics the cosmos might well seem bo stand condemned," bub yet the " microcosmic atom" has rarely ventured to record the verdict of guilty' against the " illimitable macrocosm." On the contrary, the business of philosophy has in all ages very largely been "to vindicate the ways of God"— at all events, of the Cosmos—"toman."

Amongst the earliest of such attempts the lecturer notices the Eastern doctrine of transmigration, a term which may perhaps be used as connoting the possibility of a human soul passing into the body of an animal or plant, as distinguished from reincarnation, which asserts a constant progress, on the whole, upwards. This doctrine makes "the present distribution of good and evil" J)he result of character or 4 karma it is " the algebraical sum of accumulated positive and negative deserts and this teaching is thought to reconcile the course of human affairs with eternal justice. Mr. Huxley questions the success of this attempt at reconciliation, but he points oat) that in the facts of heredity the doctrine of.- transmigration finds some true analogy for its support, for lib may justly be said that "character—the moral and intellectual essence of a mandoes veritably pass over from one fleshly tabernacle to another, and does really transmigrate from generation to veneration." This limitation of /' karma to a strictly lineal descent to heira " tail" will hardly satisfy the theosophists,—bub we pass on to the lecture's account of : the

difference between the philosophy of preBuddhistic times and ' that whictt was elaborated .; by Gautama. The earlier doctrine postulated beneath all " the shifting series of phenomena, whether of matter or of mind," a permanent reality or substance which in the cosmos was called " Brahma," and in the individual man " Attnan." The latter is shut up in the transitory desires, pains, and pleasures— illusions all—of the bodily life; and by the attainment of the enlightenment which sees through these illusions, and by the selfconquesb which extinguishes desire, the freed " Atman" loses itself in the universal "Brahma." Now the Buddha, Gautama, saw reason to suspect this postulate of a universal " Brahma." As a philosopher he considered it unproved, and as a moralist objectionable, for if it were allowed to remain as a permanent entity, what guarantee was there that it would nob again take to indulging its old propensity of creative evolution ? and so the old and weary round must be travelled again and again. Gautama therefore eliminated substance, and left nothing but a mere phenomenal flow of sensations and feelings, thus executing upon the older doctrine the same critical sentence which Hume more than 2000 years later executed upon the philosophy of Berkeley. The Nirvana, therefore, of Buddhism is pronounced to be— the absorption into "Brahma," bub the ceasing to be in any sense— result which was to be attained by the practice of all those virtues which we are accustomed to regard as distinctively Christian, and by the " total renunciation of that self-assertion which is the essence of the cosmic process." It is fair to say that this view of Buddhism, although supported by the authority of Mr. Rhys Davids, is yet strongly called in question by others, and even Dr. Oldenberg, who pronounces-"Nirvana" to be practically "exactly the same thing as annihilation," yet sets us all adrift again by immediately adding that " it is nob annihilation in the ordinary sense, inasmuch as ib could take place in the living Arahab" who has attained to perfect peace. And it does seem hard of belief that the very state which has been recognised by the universal conscience of Christians as the only true life of the soul, should be regarded by Buddhists as its death, whilst both agree in accounting ib the one thing needful. »

The lecturer goes on . to show how the great problem of evil was faced by the Greek with his acute intellect, restless energy, and passionate love of beauty. It is interesting to trace how the Stoics, dissatisfied with nonentity ab the heart of the Cosmos, brought back something equivalent to "Brahma" under the name of Nature or pure reason, and how they postulated as the aim of the wise man a state of freedom from passion and desire, which they called " Apatheia," the Greek equivalent of Nirvana. But we must hasten on, for the reader will desire to know what is the conclusion from all these data which have been thus passed under review, and here Mr. Huxley, as is his general habit, speaks plainly enough. "Social progress means a checking of the cosmic process at every step, and the substitution for it of the ethical process, the end of which is not so much the survival of the fittest as the fitting as many as possible to survive." The demand of ethics is " a course of conduct in all respects opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle." "In place of ruthless self-assertion it demands self-restraint;" in place of competition mutual * help. "It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence," and "laws and moral precepts are directed to the end of curbing the cosmic process and reminding the 1 individual of his duty to the community."- And here the lecturer pauses for. a moment to throw a shell into the camp of • the " fanatical individualists " who wish "to apply the analogy of cosmic nature to society," and who doubt whether any member of a community ought | to be forced against his will to contribute ; bo its maintenance. ,We must leave to Mr. ■ Auberon Herbert the task of defending the I doctrine of voluntary taxation, bu'u -we cannot help remarking that although a few persons may carry the principles of individualism •to a fanatical extent, we should have thought the danger to society from such views could hardly be regarded as pressing, and that the protest of the lecturer would have been more to the purpose ,if. directed against the fanaticism of over-regimentation and of government by inspectors • and policemen. If Acts of Parliament are to be substituted for laws of nature, ib may be questioned whether the substitution of the ethical for the cosmic process may not prove a change from the frying-pan into the fire, and the gospel of meddling and muddling turn out to be worse than that of laissez /aire. But we must resume our summary of Mr. Huxley's ethical conclusions. Audacious as it may seem to pit man againsb nature, the microcosm against the macrocosm, yet the progress of science affords ground for expecting some measure of success. The mastery which has been attained in the sphere of the mathematical and physical sciences will at no distant period assert itself in respect of the apparently more nebulous subjects of psychology, ethics, and political science, and will cause them to work as great a revolution as the others in the sphere of practice. But the realisation of all such hopes demands one essential condition, which is, " that we should cast aside the notion that the escape from pain and sorrow is the proper object of life." This noble sentiment forms a fitting conclusion to our summary of the leading ideas of this interesting and characteristic lecture. | It only remains toask the question whether the lecturer has really conducted us to any ground solid enough to bear the weight of so sublime an ethical structure. The doctrine of an ethical resistance to the cosmic process involves some theory about the cosmos and about ourselves^—about the macrocosm and the microcosm. Bub Mr. Huxley has not told us that Gautama was in error in declaring the universe, including man, to be nothing but a flux of illusive appearances ; and Mr. Huxley's well-known admiration for the acute dialectic of David Hume suggests that this scept philosophy meets with some favour in his eyes. But if the cosmos is thus illusive, what becomes of conscience and ethical theory ? We must nob stay to follow the course of this obvious argument. Ib in enough to say that it appears to us impossible to justify to the reason any noble theory of ethical practice and self-renunciation without postulating some living power or energy which manifests itself in the phenomena of the universe and in the course of evolution, and which is essentially the same in the macrocosm and the microcosm. If this view is really necessitated as a logical consequence of our trust in the authority of conscience, it can only be exploded by destroying that trust, and nob by the conbemptuous designation of "animism" wherewith philosophers attempt to conjure away the notion of a spiritual power immanent in the universe. And if such an agency is admitted our trust in conscience remains, and our faith in the cosmic process returns. If we are to contend againsb the lower forces of nature, it is only by the aid of the higher that we can do so, and the progress of the race to heights undreamed of yet will be as much the result of the cosmic _ process as the march from the ape and tiger to the man. " Much may be done," says Mr. Huxley, to change the nature of man himself." Surely this also may be hoped from the agencv which has alroady dono so much for us; "and what philosophy shall forbid us to expect thab the Christ-life, the higher souil within us, will yeb by the slow processes of nature be raised to a higher power, making practice easy, and imparting the gift of direct vision into matters which are now merely the themes of futile and endless debate Mr. Huxley may perhaps have little faith in such a consummation, but if it ever comes to pass we are sure that he will : have contributed more than one man's share in bringing about its advent. : '