thical problem--the problem of the
criterion or standard of goodness.

In the first place, it is desirable to characterise briefly Darwin's
own contribution to this matter. The suggestion made by him deals
almost entirely with what I have called the development of morality,
not with the ethics of evolution; and perhaps it may seem to us now
a rather obvious suggestion. But he was the first to make this
suggestion; and it comes from him as a direct application of the
theory he had established with regard to animal development. His
suggestion is simply this--that moral qualities are selected in the
struggle for existence in much the same way as purely physical or
animal excellences are selected, that is, by their contributing to the
continued and more efficient life of the organism. But Darwin saw very
clearly that the qualities which are recognised as moral are not
by any means in all cases contributory to individual success and
efficiency. They are not all of them qualities that contribute to the
success of one individual in his struggle with other individuals
for the means of subsistence. We may say that courage, prudence,
self-reliance, will have that effect, and that consequently in the
struggle for life the individuals who show such qualities will have
a better chance of survival than those without them. But what about
qualities such as sympathy, willingness to help another, obedience,
and faithfulness to a community or to a cause? Clearly, these are not
qualities which are of special assistance to the individual. But they
are qualities which are or may be of very great importance to the
tribe or community of individuals. Supposing such qualities of mutual
help, of willingness even to sacrifice oneself for others--the
qualities which are commonly grouped as expressions of the social
instinct,--supposing these to have been somehow developed in the
members of a tribe, that tribe would, other things being equal, have
an advantage in a struggle with another tribe whose members did not
possess these qualities. Now the advantage thus gained in the struggle
would be a case of the operation of natural selection: it would
exterminate or weaken the tribe without these social qualities, and it
would thus give opportunity for the growing efficiency of the tribe
that possessed them.

Put in the briefest way, this is the explanation which Darwin gave
of the growth of the social qualities in mankind; and the social
qualities ma