§ 48. Not for the human race only, but for every race, there are laws
of right living. Given its environment and its structure, and there
is for each kind of creature a set of actions adapted in their kinds,
amounts, and combinations, to secure the highest conservation its
nature permits. The animal, like the man, has needs for food, warmth,
activity, rest, and so forth, which must be fulfilled in certain
relative degrees to make its life whole. Maintenance of its race
implies satisfaction of special desires, sexual and philoprogenitive,
in due proportions. Hence there is a supposable formula for the
activities of each species, which, could it be drawn out, would
constitute a system of morality for that species. But such a system of
morality would have little or no reference to the welfare of others
than self and offspring. Indifferent to individuals of its own kind, as
an inferior creature is, and habitually hostile to individuals of other
kinds, the formula for its life could take no cognizance of the lives
of those with which it came in contact; or rather, such formula would
imply that maintenance of its life was at variance with maintenance of
their lives.
But on ascending from beings of lower kinds to the highest kind
of being, man; or, more strictly, on ascending from man in his
pre-social stage to man in his social stage, the formula has to
include an additional factor. Though not peculiar to human life
under its developed form, the presence of this factor is still, in
the highest degree, characteristic of it. Though there are inferior
species displaying considerable degrees of sociality, and, though, the
formulas for their complete lives would have to take account of the
relations arising from union, yet our own species is, on the whole, to
be distinguished as having a formula for complete life which specially
recognizes the relations of each individual to others, in presence of
whom, and in co-operation with whom, he has to live.
This additional factor in the problem of complete living is, indeed, so
important that the necessitated modifications of conduct have come to
form a chief part of the code of conduct. Because the inherited desires
which directly refer to the maintenance of individual life are fairly
adjusted to the requirements, there has been no need to insist on
that conformity to them which furthers self-conversation. Conversely,
because these desires prompt activities that often conflict with the
activities of others; and because the sentiments responding to other's
claims are relatively weak, moral codes emphasize those restraints on
conduct which the presence of fellow men entails.
From the sociological point of view, then, Ethics becomes nothing else
than a definite account of the forms of conduct that are fitted to the
associated state, in such wise that the lives of each and all may be
the greatest possible, alike in length and breadth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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