Problems of Conduct | Page 7

is none the less morality when it is instinctive and natural.
Morality is a general name for certain KINDS of conduct, certain
redirections of impulse. These redirections appeared in animal life long
before the emergence of what we may call man from his ape-like
ancestry; and all of our self-conscious moral idealism is but a
continuation and development of the process then begun. Any theory of
right and wrong must take account of the fact that morality, unlike art,
science, and religion, is not an exclusively human affair. In contrast
with these late and purely human innovations, it is hoary with antiquity
and the possession, in some rudimentary form or other, of nearly the
whole realm of organic life.
What were the main causes that produced personal morality?
How did these germinal forms of courage, prudence, industriousness,
etc, first come into existence? The answer to this question will also
show what are the main underlying causes that promote these virtues
today.
(1) They are in part due to certain organic needs and cravings which
exist independently of the individual's environment. Hunger and thirst
imperiously check the tendency to laziness, or heedlessness, and
stimulate to industriousness and prudence. To this day the mere need of

food and clothing and shelter is the main bulwark of these virtues. The
acquisitive impulse, which is also rather early in appearance, has an
increasing share in this sort of moralization. The craving for action,
which is the natural result of abundant nervous and muscular energy,
the combative instinct, the joy of conquest and achievement, and the
sexual impulse, go far in counteracting cowardice and inertia. The
artistic impulse, when it emerges in man, long before the dawn of
history, makes against caprice for orderliness, self-control, and patience.
Ambition is a potent force in human affairs. The desire for the approval
of others, which is prehuman, makes for all the virtues.
(2) But in addition to these inward springs of morality there is the
constant pressure of a hostile environment. Cold, storms, rivers that
block journeys, forests that must be felled, treacherous seas that lure
with promise and exact toll for carelessness, arouse men out of their
torpor and aid the development of the virtues we have been considering.
The necessity of rearing some sort of shelter makes against laziness for
industry and perseverance. The dangers of wind or flood check
heedlessness in the choice of location for the home and foster prudence
and foresight. In the harsher climates man is more goaded by nature;
hence more moral progress has, probably, been effected in the
temperate than in the tropical zones.
(3) A third and very important source lies in the mutual hostility of the
animal species and of men. Slothfulness and recklessness mean for the
great majority of animals the imminent risk of becoming the prey of
some stronger animal. Among tribes of men the ceaseless struggles for
supremacy have pricked cowardice into courage, demanded self-control
instead of temper, supplanted gluttony and drunkenness by temperance.
Cruel as has been the suffering caused by war, and deplorable as most
of its effects, it did a great deal in the early stages of man's history to
promote the personal virtues, alertness, moderation, caution, courage,
and efficiency.
In the latest stages of man's development, conscious regard for law and
custom, the fear of gods, the explicit recognition of duty and
conscience, and the direct pursuit of ideals-all the reflective

considerations that we may lump together under the word
"conscientiousness"-play their ever increasing part and complicate the
psychological situation. But even in modern civilized man the
underlying animal forces count for far more. And without them the
later self-conscious forces would not have come into play at all. There
is a small class of people who are dominated throughout their activities
by consciously present ideals or obedience to religious injunctions. But
the average man still acts mainly under the pressure of the more
primitive forces which we have enumerated.
How far has the moralizing process been blind and how far conscious?
(1) To a very large extent the moralizing process has been a merely
mechanical one. Through slight differences in nerve-structure
individuals have varied a little in their response to the pressure of
inward cravings and outward perils. The braver, the more prudent, the
more industrious have had a better chance of survival. So by the
process which we have come to call natural selection there has been a
continual weeding-out of the relatively lazy, cowardly, reckless, and
imprudent. Much of our morality is the result of tendencies thus long
cultivated by the ruthless methods of nature; we inherit a complex
nervous organization, the outcome of ages of molding and selection,
which now instinctively and easily responds to stimuli with a certain
degree of inbred morality. This is the case much