The Essence of Darwinism and the Basis of Modern Orthodoxy 135
could establish a preference for altruistic acts that might then serve as a basis for
tribal selection. But such an argument cannot enjoy wide application in nature, as
all other species lack this special mental mechanism for spreading abstract ideas
against the thrust of natural selection:
We may therefore conclude that primeval man, at a very remote period,
would have been influenced by the praise and blame of his fellows. It is
obvious, that the members of the same tribe would approve of conduct,
which appeared to them to be for the general good, and would reprobate
that which appeared evil... A man who was not impelled by any deep,
instinctive feeling, to sacrifice his life for the good of others, yet was
roused to such actions by a sense of glory, would by his example excite the
same wish for glory in other men, and would strengthen by exercise the
noble feeling of admiration. He might thus do far more good to his tribe
than by begetting offspring with a tendency to inherit his own high
character (1871, p. 165).Note also how Darwin, in this passage, explicitly limits within tribal boundaries
the extent of such spread against organismal selection. If some form of group
selection had to be acknowledged for a special case, Darwin sought to confine its
operation to the smallest aggregation within the species—and then to let these
small collectivities struggle with others in a minimal context of groupiness.
Thus, in permitting a true exception to organismal selection, Darwin's primary
attitude exudes extreme reluctance—restriction to minimal groupiness, provision
of other explanations in the ordinary organismal mode, limitation to a unique
circumstance in a single species (human consciousness for the spread of an idea
against the force of organismal selection), and placement within a more general
argument for sexual selection, the strongest form of the orthodox mode.
In my researches for this book, I made a discovery that strongly supports this
view of Darwin's attitude towards supraorganismal selection. I found that the
traditional sources (Ruse, Kottler and others) did not identify Darwin's major,
explicit struggle to contain an apparent need for higher-level selection, and to
assert exclusivity for the organismal mode. He fought a far more important battle
with himself on an issue well beyond particular problems raised by single taxa
(sterility of worker castes or human morality): the explanation of the principle that
he ranked second only to natural selection itself as a component of evolutionary
theory—the "principle of divergence." (Evolutionists have not recognized this
important component of Darwin's developing ideas about selection because he
excised this discussion as he abstracted his longer work to compose the Origin. But
the full version exists in the uncompleted manuscript of his intended larger work—
edited and published by Stauffer, 1975, but not widely read by practicing
biologists.) Moreover, in his long version, Darwin wrestles not with the lowest
interdemic level of tribal selection, but with species selection itself. I will present a
full exposition in Chapter 3 (pp. 224-250), but should mention for now that
Darwin's