A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of EvolutionMacmillan, 1893 - 581 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
absolute according action æsthetic altruism animals appears argument arises assertion attained become cause character civilization conceive conception conduct connection conscience consciousness continually coöperation coördinate crime criminal Darwin definition degree desire determined direction duty egoism elements emotion environment equilibrium Ethics evil evolution experience fact feeling force function gradually greater habit happiness heredity higher human idea ideal implies impulse increase individual influence inherited instinct judgment justice larvæ law of Identity less Lubbock marriage matter means ment mental merely moral motion motive natural law natural selection object organism perfect phenomena physical pleasures and pains possible present principle progress protoplasm psychical punishment question radicle reason regard relations result savage sensation sense sentiment slaves social Social Statics society species Spencer suppose sympathy teleological argument tendency theory theory of evolution things thought tion true truth Utilitarianism vidual virtue whole
Popular passages
Page 505 - Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Page 563 - Oh, may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence...
Page 505 - The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.
Page 505 - Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in 'no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven : but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall lie called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Page 495 - I do distrust the poet who discerns No character or glory in his times, And trundles back his soul five hundred years, Past moat and drawbridge, into a castle-court, To sing — oh, not of lizard or of toad Alive i...
Page 3 - ... distinguished. If Mozart, instead of playing the pianoforte at three years old with wonderfully little practice, had played a tune with no practice at all, he might truly be said to have done so instinctively. But it would be a serious error to suppose that the greater number of instincts have been acquired by habit...
Page 423 - God forbid. It would be a poor result of all our anguish and our wrestling, if we won nothing but our old selves at the end of it — if we could return to the same blind loves, the same self-confident blame, the same light thoughts of human suffering, the same frivolous gossip over blighted human lives, the same feeble sense of that Unknown towards which we have sent forth irrepressible cries in our loneliness.
Page 563 - This is life to come, Which martyred men have made more glorious For us who strive to follow. May I reach That purest heaven, be to other souls The cup of strength in some great agony, Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty, Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, And in diffusion ever more intense. So shall I join the choir invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world.
Page 79 - The Evolution of Society is a continuous establishment of •psychical relations within the Community, in conformity to •physical and -psychical relations arising in the Environment; during which, both the Community and the Environment pass from a state of relatively indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a state of relatively definite, coherent heterogeneity; and during which, the constituent Units of the Community become ever more distinctly individuated.
Page 5 - If strange and rare deviations of structure are really inherited, less strange and commoner deviations may be freely admitted to be inheritable. Perhaps the correct way of viewing the whole subject would be, to look at the inheritance of every character whatever as the rule, and non-inheritance as the anomaly.