In this naturalization of ethical principles, he is closely related to that peculiar moral-philosophic tendency in England, which long before Darwin's appearance, took its origin in John Stuart Mill, but which now, in the closest connection with Darwin's principles, has its main advocate in Herbert Spencer, and is commonly called the _utilitarian_ tendency. We understand by this that conception of the moral motive which allows the moral good, however it may be ideally separated from the useful in the developed condition of mankind at the present time, in its origin to be developed at the outset from the same origin as the useful,--namely, from the sensation of like and dislike; a theory of utility which Sir John Lubbock still tried to complete and deepen by {243} the theory of an inheritance of the sensation of authority. Activities which originally proved to be only useful, were inherited as traditional instinct by the offspring, and were thus freed from the sensation of the useful, and acted as _authority_; this is the origin of _duty_, according to the history of development. Inasmuch as this philosophic system aims at taking from ethics the absoluteness of its demands, and at drawing down these demands into the activities of originating and developing, it is also to be treated of in this place. As in the religious question, so in the ethical, Gustav Jaeger also stands nearer to a neutral relation between Darwinism and the hitherto valid principles. He puts the moral principles the same as the religious, into the balance of utility to man in his struggle for existence, and finds it thus easy and to be taken for granted, that the principles of morality, as they became the common property of mankind as influenced by Christianity, really prove themselves also the most serviceable to mankind. Social life is of more benefit to man than hermit life; this reflection leads him to the moral principle of charity. And as, according to Darwinism, rising development shows itself in an increasing differentiation and more richly organized physical development, so the organization of society according to the principle of the division of work is that form of social life which proves itself the most practical to man; and this reflection leads him to the full acknowledgment of the entire ethical organization of human life and its tasks. But, as we saw, in treating of the religious question, that nobody, neither friend nor foe, could possibly be {244} satisfied with the substitution of the category of utility for that of truth, we are compelled to say in reference to the ethical question, that a moral principle which, on such a foundation, has its basis and authority only in its utility, is really no authority, and loses its value with every individual who is unwilling to acknowledge its utility and thinks another ground of action may be more useful than the moral. * * * * * {245} CHAPTER VI.