e. The doctrine of evolution is
brought into the service of monism, and the attempt is made to prove that
in the very process of biological development human thought, moral
sentiment, and social instincts have been evolved. With a curious
sacrifice of consistency, Haeckel does not agree with Feuerbach in
exalting egoism to the place of supremacy in the moral life. He
recognises two kinds of duty--duty to self and duty to society. The
social sense once created is permanent, and rises to ever-fresh
developments. But benevolence, like every other obligation, is,
according to evolutionary monism, a product evolved from the battle of
existence. Traced to its source, it has its spring in the physical
organism, and is but an enlargement of the ego.[3]

The monistic naturalism of Haeckel offers no high ideal to life. Its
Ethics is but a glorified egoism. Its dictates never rise above the
impulses derived from nature. But not religion only with its kingdom of
God, nor morality only with its imperatives, nor art with its power of
idealising the world of nature, but even science itself, with its claim
to unify and organise facts, proves that man stands apart from, and is
higher than, the material world. The very existence of such activities
in the invisible realm renders vain every attempt to reduce the spiritual
to the natural, and to make truth, goodness and beauty mere outgrowths of
nature.

2. On its ethical side naturalism is closely associated with the theory
of life which bears the name of _utilitarianism_--the theory which
regards pleasure or profit as the aim of man. In its most independent
form Hedonism can hardly be said to exist now as a reasoned theory.
Carried out to its extreme consequences it reduces man to a mere animal.
Hence a type of reflective egoism has taken the place of animal
gratification, and the idea of ulterior benefit has succeeded to that of
immediate pleasure.

The names associated with this theory of morals are those of Hobbes,
Bentham, and the two Mills. Hobbes, {103} who preaches undiluted
egoism,[4] may be regarded as the father of utilitarianism. But the
title was first applied to the school of Bentham.[5] Bentham's watchword
was 'utility' expressed in his famous formula--'The greatest happiness of
the greatest number.' While renouncing the abstract ideal of equality,
he yet asserted the equal claim of every individual to happiness. In its
distribution 'each is to count for