GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

NATURE OF THE MORAL FACULTY 307
evidence accumulated in such a book as Oswald Spengler's
The Decline of the West, in favour of the view that the major
movements of history have been cyclical in character, so
regularly do eras of stagnation, decay and relapse appear to
follow eras of progress.
(ill) IF THEY DO, IT IS NOT CLEAR THAT THE PROGRESS
is DESIGNED OR is IN ACCORDANCE WITH A PLAN. Let
us suppose that societies do evolve and progress, and that
we know broadly what we mean by saying that they do.
The question then arises, is the evolution, is the progress
accidental or designed? Is it, in other words, the result of
a series of happy chances, or is it the expression of an
advancing evolutionary purpose? Can we in fact assign
to the development of the human race an ideal end or
goal, by
reference to which we can claim an absolute
validity for the judgments of the moral sense, on the
ground that they are concerned to further the advance of
the human race in the direction of an ever greater realization
of this ideal, and then deduce that this advance
takes place in pursuance of a definite plan?
The bearing of this question upon the issue we are
discussing is obvious. If changes in society which appear
to constitute an advance in the direction of an ideal, are,
nevertheless, arbitrary and irresponsible, then the code of
morality which supports them is equally irresponsible.
Again, if the process which we know as social evolution
does not involve an ethical advance, or if, though it does
do so, the advance is accidental, then the deliverances of
the moral sense which both support the stage of social
evolution which has at any moment been reached, and
conduce to the realization of a further stage, are them-
selves devoid of that ultimate validity which a discernible
and necessary relation to an evolutionary purpose can alone
bestow, and morality becomes, in Professor Muirhead's
words, "nothing but that kind of conduct which supports
one or other of the accidental changes in the phantasmagoria
of social forms"