Study Edition · Essay 57
Evolution and Ethics
Source: The Romanes Lecture, delivered at Oxford on 18 May 1893; collected in Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays (1894). Text from Project Gutenberg #2940. EXCERPT: the closing section of the lecture, complete from “Men in society are undoubtedly subject to the cosmic process” to the end; page numbers and note markers are removed. Archaic verb forms modernized; vocabulary kept and glossed.
Huxley, the biologist nicknamed “Darwin's Bulldog,” spent his career defending evolution. In this famous late lecture he turns against those who used evolution to justify ruthless competition, the view later called “Social Darwinism.” Nature's law, the “cosmic process,” is a struggle in which the strong crush the weak. Human ethics, he argues, means resisting that process, not copying it. Notice how a scientist writes for a general audience: clear definitions, short summarizing sentences, vivid images (the dog bred from the wolf, the “thinking reed”), and a closing appeal to Tennyson's poem “Ulysses.”
40 sentences: 7 simple, 13 moderate, 20 complex. Hover a number for its paraphrase; click it for the full note.
Key Vocabulary
- cosmicrelating to the universe or nature as a whole
- cessationa stopping
- rudimentarybasic; at an early stage of development
- repudiateto reject completely
- gladiatoriallike a fight between gladiators; brutal and competitive
- polityan organized society or state
- precepta rule for conduct
- fanaticalextreme and uncritical in belief
- injunctionan order or command
- beneficentdoing good
- audaciousbold, daring
- microcosma little world; here, the human being
- macrocosmthe great world; the universe
- obtrusionthe act of pushing in where not wanted
- millennialrelating to a coming golden age
- tenaciousholding on firmly; persistent
- abatementreduction; lessening
- nonageyouth; the period before adulthood
The Essay
Men in society are undoubtedly subject to the cosmic process.1 As among other animals, multiplication goes on without cessation, and involves severe competition for the means of support.2 The struggle for existence tends to eliminate those less fitted to adapt themselves to the circumstances of their existence.3 The strongest, the most self-assertive, tend to tread down the weaker.4 But the influence of the cosmic process on the evolution of society is the greater the more rudimentary its civilization.5 Social progress means a checking of the cosmic process at every step and the substitution for it of another, which may be called the ethical process; the end of which is not the survival of those who may happen to be the fittest, in respect of the whole of the conditions which obtain, but of those who are ethically the best.6
As I have already urged, the practice of that which is ethically best, what we call goodness or virtue, involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence.7 In place of ruthless self-assertion it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect, but shall help his fellows; its influence is directed, not so much to the survival of the fittest, as to the fitting of as many as possible to survive.8 It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence.9 It demands that each man who enters into the enjoyment of the advantages of a polity shall be mindful of his debt to those who have laboriously constructed it; and shall take heed that no act of his weakens the fabric in which he has been permitted to live.10 Laws and moral precepts are directed to the end of curbing the cosmic process and reminding the individual of his duty to the community, to the protection and influence of which he owes, if not existence itself, at least the life of something better than a brutal savage.11
It is from neglect of these plain considerations that the fanatical individualism of our time attempts to apply the analogy of cosmic nature to society.12 Once more we have a misapplication of the stoical injunction to follow nature; the duties of the individual to the state are forgotten, and his tendencies to self-assertion are dignified by the name of rights.13 It is seriously debated whether the members of a community are justified in using their combined strength to constrain one of their number to contribute his share to the maintenance of it; or even to prevent him from doing his best to destroy it.14 The struggle for existence which has done such admirable work in cosmic nature, must, it appears, be equally beneficent in the ethical sphere.15 Yet if that which I have insisted upon is true; if the cosmic process has no sort of relation to moral ends; if the imitation of it by man is inconsistent with the first principles of ethics; what becomes of this surprising theory?16
Let us understand, once for all, that the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it.17 It may seem an audacious proposal thus to pit the microcosm against the macrocosm and to set man to subdue nature to his higher ends; but I venture to think that the great intellectual difference between the ancient times with which we have been occupied and our day, lies in the solid foundation we have acquired for the hope that such an enterprise may meet with a certain measure of success.18
The history of civilization details the steps by which men have succeeded in building up an artificial world within the cosmos.19 Fragile reed as he may be, man, as Pascal says, is a thinking reed: there lies within him a fund of energy operating intelligently and so far akin to that which pervades the universe, that it is competent to influence and modify the cosmic process.20 In virtue of his intelligence, the dwarf bends the Titan to his will.21 In every family, in every polity that has been established, the cosmic process in man has been restrained and otherwise modified by law and custom; in surrounding nature, it has been similarly influenced by the art of the shepherd, the agriculturist, the artisan.22 As civilization has advanced, so has the extent of this interference increased; until the organized and highly developed sciences and arts of the present day have endowed man with a command over the course of non-human nature greater than that once attributed to the magicians.23 The most impressive, I might say startling, of these changes have been brought about in the course of the last two centuries; while a right comprehension of the process of life and of the means of influencing its manifestations is only just dawning upon us.24 We do not yet see our way beyond generalities; and we are befogged by the obtrusion of false analogies and crude anticipations.25 But Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, have all had to pass through similar phases, before they reached the stage at which their influence became an important factor in human affairs.26 Physiology, Psychology, Ethics, Political Science, must submit to the same ordeal.27 Yet it seems to me irrational to doubt that, at no distant period, they will work as great a revolution in the sphere of practice.28
The theory of evolution encourages no millennial anticipations.29 If, for millions of years, our globe has taken the upward road, yet, some time, the summit will be reached and the downward route will be commenced.30 The most daring imagination will hardly venture upon the suggestion that the power and the intelligence of man can ever arrest the procession of the great year.31
Moreover, the cosmic nature born with us and, to a large extent, necessary for our maintenance, is the outcome of millions of years of severe training, and it would be folly to imagine that a few centuries will suffice to subdue its masterfulness to purely ethical ends.32 Ethical nature may count upon having to reckon with a tenacious and powerful enemy as long as the world lasts.33 But, on the other hand, I see no limit to the extent to which intelligence and will, guided by sound principles of investigation, and organized in common effort, may modify the conditions of existence, for a period longer than that now covered by history.34 And much may be done to change the nature of man himself.35 The intelligence which has converted the brother of the wolf into the faithful guardian of the flock ought to be able to do something towards curbing the instincts of savagery in civilized men.36
But if we may permit ourselves a larger hope of abatement of the essential evil of the world than was possible to those who, in the infancy of exact knowledge, faced the problem of existence more than a score of centuries ago, I deem it an essential condition of the realization of that hope that we should cast aside the notion that the escape from pain and sorrow is the proper object of life.37
We have long since emerged from the heroic childhood of our race, when good and evil could be met with the same “frolic welcome;” the attempts to escape from evil, whether Indian or Greek, have ended in flight from the battle-field; it remains to us to throw aside the youthful overconfidence and the no less youthful discouragement of nonage.38 We are grown men, and must play the man / “…strong in will / To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield,” / cherishing the good that falls in our way, and bearing the evil, in and around us, with stout hearts set on diminishing it.39 So far, we all may strive in one faith towards one hope: / “…It may be that the gulfs will wash us down, / It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, / …but something ere the end, / Some work of noble note may yet be done.”40
Sentence Notes
In plain English: People living in society are certainly subject to the processes of nature.
Reference & context: Huxley uses “the cosmic process” for evolution by natural selection: the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest. He has just argued that “fittest” means best adapted, not morally best.
In plain English: As with other animals, populations keep increasing without stopping, and this leads to fierce competition for food and resources.
Reference & context: This is Malthus's argument, which helped inspire Darwin's theory of natural selection.
In plain English: The struggle to survive tends to remove those less able to adapt to their surroundings.
In plain English: The strongest and pushiest tend to trample the weaker.
In plain English: But the less developed a civilization is, the stronger the influence of the natural process on how that society develops.
In plain English: Social progress means holding back the natural process at every step and putting something else in its place, which we can call the ethical process. Its goal is not the survival of whoever happens to be best adapted to current conditions, but the survival of those who are morally best.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The central thesis in a single sentence: civilization is the replacement of the natural process by an ethical one.
In plain English: As I have already argued, doing what is morally best, what we call goodness or virtue, means behaving in a way that is the complete opposite of what brings success in nature's struggle for survival.
In plain English: Instead of ruthless self-promotion, it demands self-control. Instead of pushing aside or trampling all rivals, it requires each person not only to respect others but to help them. It aims not so much at the survival of the fittest as at making as many people as possible fit to survive.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A brilliant reversal of the slogan “survival of the fittest” into “the fitting of as many as possible to survive.”
In plain English: It rejects the view that life is a gladiator fight.
Reference & context: Huxley himself had described nature as a “gladiator's show” in an earlier essay, “The Struggle for Existence” (1888).
In plain English: It requires everyone who enjoys the benefits of an organized society to remember what he owes to those who worked hard to build it, and to make sure that nothing he does weakens the structure he has been allowed to live in.
In plain English: Laws and moral rules aim to restrain the natural process and to remind each person of his duty to the community, to whose protection and influence he owes, if not his very life, at least a life better than that of a brutal savage.
Reference & context: “Savage” reflects the Victorian assumption of a ladder from “primitive” to “civilized” peoples, now discredited.
In plain English: It is by ignoring these obvious points that the extreme individualism of our time tries to apply the model of nature to human society.
Reference & context: Huxley's target is especially Herbert Spencer, who coined “survival of the fittest” and opposed most state action, such as public health laws and poor relief.
In plain English: Once again, the Stoic command to “follow nature” is being misapplied. The individual's duties to the state are forgotten, and his urge to push himself forward is given the dignified name of “rights.”
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A sharp phrase exposing selfishness disguised as principle.
Reference & context: The ancient Stoic philosophers taught that people should “live according to nature,” by which they meant according to reason. Huxley discussed them earlier in the lecture.
In plain English: People seriously argue about whether the members of a community have the right to use their combined strength to force one of their number to pay his share toward keeping it going, or even to stop him from doing his best to destroy it.
Reference & context: He means debates over taxation and state power.
In plain English: The struggle for existence, which has done such admirable work in nature, must apparently be just as good in the moral world.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: Ironic: “it appears” signals that Huxley is mocking the view.
In plain English: But if what I've insisted on is true, if the natural process has nothing to do with moral goals, if copying it is against the basic principles of ethics, then what happens to this surprising theory?
Why this phrase is worth keeping: Three “if” clauses build pressure toward the rhetorical question.
In plain English: Let's be clear, once and for all: society's moral progress depends not on copying nature's process, and still less on running away from it, but on fighting it.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The most famous sentence of the lecture, built as a three-step climax: imitate, flee, fight.
In plain English: It may seem a bold idea to set the little world of man against the whole universe, and to have humans bend nature to their higher purposes. But I think the great intellectual difference between ancient times, which I have been discussing, and our own lies in the solid grounds we now have for hoping that such an effort might partly succeed.
Reference & context: Earlier in the lecture Huxley surveyed the ancient Indian and Greek responses to suffering: Buddhism and Stoicism, which he saw as ways of withdrawing from the struggle.
In plain English: The history of civilization records the steps by which humans have managed to build an artificial world inside the natural universe.
In plain English: Fragile as a reed he may be, but man, as Pascal says, is a thinking reed. Inside him is a store of energy that works intelligently and is so similar to the energy that fills the universe that it is able to influence and change the natural process.
Reference & context: Blaise Pascal, Pensées: “Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature; but he is a thinking reed.”
In plain English: Thanks to his intelligence, the dwarf (man) bends the giant (nature) to his will.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A compact image: human smallness, giant nature, and intelligence as the lever between them.
Reference & context: The Titans were the giant gods of Greek myth.
In plain English: In every family and every society ever founded, the natural process inside people has been restrained and changed by law and custom; in the natural world around us, it has been changed in the same way by the skills of the shepherd, the farmer and the craftsman.
Reference & context: In the Prolegomena to this lecture Huxley develops a long comparison between civilization and a garden carved out of wild land.
In plain English: As civilization has advanced, this interference has grown, until today's organized, advanced sciences and technologies have given people more control over non-human nature than magicians were once believed to have.
In plain English: The most impressive, even startling, of these changes have happened in the last two hundred years, while a proper understanding of how life works and how to influence it is only just beginning.
In plain English: We can't yet see past broad generalizations, and we are confused by misleading comparisons and crude predictions forcing their way in.
In plain English: But astronomy, physics and chemistry all went through similar stages before they reached the point where they became important in human life.
In plain English: Physiology, psychology, ethics and political science must go through the same trial.
In plain English: Still, it seems unreasonable to me to doubt that before long they will bring about just as great a revolution in practical life.
In plain English: The theory of evolution gives no grounds for expecting a coming golden age.
Reference & context: The “millennium” is the thousand-year reign of peace foretold in the Book of Revelation; the word came to mean any expected perfect future.
In plain English: Even if our planet has been on an upward path for millions of years, at some point it will reach the top and begin going down.
In plain English: Even the boldest imagination would hardly suggest that human power and intelligence could ever stop the movement of the great cosmic cycle.
Reference & context: The “great year” is an ancient idea of a vast cosmic cycle after which everything returns to its starting point. Victorian physicists also predicted the eventual “heat death” of the sun.
In plain English: Besides, the natural instincts we are born with, which are largely needed to keep us alive, are the product of millions of years of harsh training, and it would be foolish to think a few centuries could tame their power completely for moral purposes.
In plain English: Our moral nature can expect to face a stubborn and powerful enemy for as long as the world exists.
In plain English: On the other hand, I see no limit to how far intelligence and willpower, guided by sound scientific methods and organized in shared effort, may change the conditions of life, over a period longer than all recorded history.
In plain English: And a great deal can be done to change human nature itself.
In plain English: The intelligence that turned the wolf's brother into the faithful sheepdog ought to be able to do something to restrain the savage instincts of civilized people.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The domesticated dog becomes a hopeful image of what education and culture can do for people.
In plain English: But if we can allow ourselves more hope of reducing the basic evil in the world than those who faced the problem of existence more than two thousand years ago, when exact knowledge was in its infancy, then I believe one essential condition for that hope is that we give up the idea that the purpose of life is to escape pain and sorrow.
Reference & context: The e-text reads “at larger hope,” a misprint for “a larger hope,” corrected here. Huxley is thinking of Buddhism and Stoicism, which aimed at freedom from suffering.
In plain English: We left behind long ago the heroic childhood of humanity, when good and bad fortune could both be greeted with the same “playful welcome.” The Indian and Greek attempts to escape from evil ended in running away from the battlefield. What's left for us is to throw off both the overconfidence and the equally youthful discouragement of immaturity.
Reference & context: “Frolic welcome” is from Tennyson's “Ulysses,” where Ulysses praises his old shipmates “That ever with a frolic welcome took / The thunder and the sunshine.”
In plain English: We are adults and must act like adults, “strong in will / to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield,” valuing the good that comes our way and bearing the evil in and around us with brave hearts determined to reduce it.
Reference & context: The last line of Tennyson's “Ulysses” (1842): the aging hero urges his men to one final voyage.
In plain English: To that extent we can all work together, with one faith, toward one hope: “It may be that the deep waters will drown us; it may be we'll reach the Islands of the Blessed… but something before the end, some noble work, may still be done.”
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The scientist ends not with data but with poetry, as a call to moral courage.
Reference & context: Also from “Ulysses.” “Ere” means “before.” The Happy Isles are the paradise of Greek heroes. Huxley died two years later, in 1895.
Fun Fact
Huxley invented the word “agnostic” in 1869, to describe his position of not claiming to know whether God exists. His grandsons carried the family's ideas into the next century: Julian Huxley became the first head of UNESCO, and Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World (1932), a novel about a society that uses science to engineer human nature.