The evolutionary process is cruel and merciless; multitudes perish for every one that survives, and the survivor is not the most deserving, but the strongest or swiftest or cleverest.  Why should we imitate such ruthless ways?  Nature is to be not followed but improved upon.  Not only morality, but most of man’s activity, consists in making nature over to suit his needs.  “If nature and man are both the works of a Being of perfect goodness, that Being intended nature as a scheme to be amended, not imitated, by man.” [Footnote:  Ibid, p. 41.]

(2) Not only is there no reason why we should “follow nature,” but the result of so doing would be any thing but what we agree is moral.  Hardly a sin is committed but was “natural” to the sinner.  It is “natural” to lose our tempers; to be vain, selfish, greedy, lustful.  Nothing could be practically more pernicious than the idea that an impulse is right because it is natural; that is, because it is common to most men.  “Following nature” naturally means following our inclinations; nothing is more disastrous.  Virtue necessitates self denial, effort, living by ideals, which are late and artificial products.  It is actually true, in its metaphorical way, that we need to be born again, to be turned about, converted, saved from ourselves.  The “natural” man is the “carnal” man; the “spiritual” man, while potential in us all, needs to be fostered and stimulated by every possible means if life is to be serene and full and beautiful.  The difference between the “natural” man and the moral man is the difference between the untrained child, capricious, the victim of a thousand whims and longings, and the man of formed character whom we respect and trust.  Morality is, of course, in a sense, natural too-everything that exists is natural; but in the sense in which the word has a specific meaning, it is flatly opposed to that making-over, that readjustment of our impulses, which is the very differentia of morality.  There is, indeed, a eulogistic sense of the word “natural”; to Rousseau the “return to nature” meant the abandonment of needless artificiality and silly convention.  But except in this sense, what is “natural” has no particular merit.  The great achievements of man have consisted not in following natural, primitive instincts, but in controlling and disciplining those instincts.

If we were to imitate nature in making the survival of the fittest our aim, we should return to the barbaric ruthlessness of ancient Sparta or Rome, exposing infants, killing the feeble and insane, and becoming just such cold-blooded pursuers of efficiency as Nietzsche admires.  That such pitiless competition is moral, or desirable, no one but a few cranks would on examination maintain.  “Let us understand once for all,” says Huxley,” that the ethical progress of society depends not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it.” [Footnote:  Evolution and Ethics, title essay.]