skip to content

Darwin Correspondence Project

From G. M. Asher   26 October 1879

Ericht Lodge Dulwich London S.E.

Oct 26 / 79.

Dear Sir

Would you kindly examine the following idea by which human and animal sociology are brought under one head; and, if you think it deserving of your commendation, send this note with as many words as possible of yours, to Macmillan’s Magazine—1

How does the bee’s cell acquire its hexagonal shape? we know

1) That the bee’s original instinct is to build a circular cell

2) That the shape of the hexagonal cell is just such as if a number of circular cells in a liquid state had been squeezed ⁠⟨⁠aga⁠⟩⁠inst each other—similar in fact to the cells in the foam of soapwater blown from a pipe; that is to say to bubbles turned, by mutual squeezing from a globular into an angular shape.

Even in the case of the foam there is not exactly a bodily pressure, but merely a mutual repression of ⁠⟨⁠ex⁠⟩⁠pansive tendencies; and that also is impossible in the case of the bee. The only possible explanation therefore is, that an intellectual repression takes place; that is to say each bee feeling in its own mind the reflection of the other bees’ instincts, leaves room for the exercise of those instincts; and thus the circular cell becomes hexagonal by mutual concession.

If the bee were disposed to swerve to the right or left, the figure of the neighbouring bee, whose province would be infringed upon, rises in the bee’s mind; and in consequence an intellectual pain similar to that which our bee would feel if its own prov⁠⟨⁠ince⁠⟩⁠ were infringed upon; a reminder closely resembling that inwardly received by a man disposed to infringe upon another man’s rights. For all human rights spring, like the hexagonal shape of the bee’s cell, from mutual concessions by which individual propensities are checked.

Now all this illustrates the principle introduced from Indian Philosophy into modern thought by Schopenhauer, and made by him the basis of all moral and religious philosophy. The Indians call the above described feeling “Thou art I” and Schopenhauer calls it the law of compassion.

Schopenhauer spoilt what might have been a great boon by his abstruse language, his misanthropy and his fanatical atheism, and therefore not only failed to draw the necessary conclusions from his own premises but arrived at opinions diametrically opposite to them. Into these errors we need not follow him; and for our purpose it is quite sufficient to see that his “Thou art I” principle belongs to animal as well as to human sociology.2

These two sociologies are nevertheless far from identical; as a further investigation of our principle in its application to the one and the other sociology shows; a fact at once obvious when we take the following things into account:

1) The human microcosm consists in the faculty to reproduce every individuality whether human or animal, animate or inanimate, bodily or intellectual; while we have no reason to suppose animals capable of reproducing, in their minds, any individuality not exactly exactly alike to their own.

2) The mutual reproduction of men’s individualities is principally, though not exclusively, affected by language, a faculty not possessed by animals, just because they lack its foundation, the human microcosm.

3) The human Thou art I principle and, therefore human society, can be highly developed only by religion.

Repeating the above request I remain | Dear Sir | Respectfully Yrs | G. M. Asher.

Ch Darwin Esqr. | LLd. FRS. &c.

Footnotes

Asher did not publish this note in Macmillan’s Magazine.
Arthur Schopenhauer discussed ethics in book 4 of his Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (The world as will and idea; Schopenhauer 1819). On his use of Indian philosophy and religion, see Cross 2013; on his ‘ethics of compassion’ in relation to Sanskrit texts, see Ruffing 2013.

Bibliography

Cross, Stephen. 2013. Schopenhauer’s encounter with Indian thought: representation and will and their Indian parallels. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.

Ruffing, Margit. 2013. The overcoming of the individual in Schopenhauer’s ethics of compassion, illustrated by the Sanskrit formula of the ‘tat tvam asi’. In Understanding Schopenhauer through the prism of Indian culture: philosophy, religion and Sanskrit literature, edited by Arati Barua et al. Berlin and Boston: Walter De Gruyter.

Schopenhauer, Arthur. 1819. Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus.

Summary

Asks CD to examine his idea that human and animal sociology are related, as each is based on the principle of mutual concession (derived from Schopenhauer’s law of compassion). If CD approves, he should write a note and forward it and GMA’s letter to Macmillan’s Magazine.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-12272
From
Georg Michael Asher
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
Dulwich
Source of text
DAR 159: 121
Physical description
ALS 4pp damaged

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12272,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12272.xml

letter