The passing of the phantoms: A study of evolutionary psychology and morals

The passing of the phantoms by Charles Joseph Patten is a scientific-philosophical essay written in the early 20th century. It examines how mental capacities and moral feelings evolve from simpler organisms to humans, arguing that morality has natural, biological roots and critiquing supernatural explanations of ethics.

The book moves from evidence for organic and mental evolution—via anatomy, embryology, brain development, and the role of memory—to vivid field anecdotes that reveal attention, imagination, imitation, and admiration in animals (hawks, pigeons, cats, dogs, horses). Patten shows how these faculties can even seed rudimentary superstition. He then traces the moral sense in nature through mutual aid and disciplined social organization (notably in ants and birds), sentinel behavior, mobbing of predators, and surprising forbearance among predators and prey. Turning to humans, he argues that imagination fostered belief in spirits and dualism through dreams, which grew into animism, totemism, and astronomical myths, eventually crystallizing into organized religions. He contrasts a “superstitious” order, guided by external authority and faith, with a “non-superstitious” order rooted in scientific inquiry and agnostic humility, concluding that a sound ethical life is best grounded in evolved social instincts, reason, and a naturalistic reverence for the living world.