Those who have followed the account of social evolution given in the
preceding chapter must realize that the basic general principles of
natural ethics, as contrasted with "formal" ethics, have already been
discovered and formulated. A biological association of whatever grade and
degree of complexity is impossible unless biological duties are
discharged. Human ethical conduct differs from insect and protozooen
ethical conduct only in the element of a participation in the process by
the explicit consciousness of man that he has definite obligations to
others; and this distinguishing characteristic is the direct outcome of an
evolution which adds reflection and conceptual thought to a mental
framework derived from prehuman ancestors. The insect hurries about in its
daily life as an animated machine, whose activities are defined by
heredity; its special mode of conduct is just what nature has produced by
selection from among countless other forms of living which have not had
the same degree of biological utility. But man alone recognizes vaguely or
clearly the "why and wherefore" of his acts that are far more instinctive
than he supposes; he only is consciously aware of the bonds of kinship and
economic interdependence.
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