•;vnvi1ivll^^,^<«.;i^^:^^ill1^llHilllll!ll)!i^^^Wllll!^lil^nml^llillii^!ll!lH!^llt :ill!l!lillilllllllil!llllll!llll!lillJllltlilllllil!tllllllllll!l!illlill!llilllll!!lllliH 11 BJ ) 1001 MS 9 Miiirhead - The elements of IT* — e uViii^s , ^^^^^^^^^Hl ^B^ Southern Branch V If of the ] University of California Los Angeles Form L 1 1 \00\ This book is DUE on the last date stamped below ^AN 19 J92 AUG 1 i92y i JUL '%\hl jU t / FEB5-n DEC 3 1 1952 NOV 3- isisc RECEIVE LD-URL MAY 12 ^9 D AM 7-4 .5 pM b- 10 Form L-9-15m-8,'26 THE ELEMENTS OF ETHICS THE ELEMENTS OF ETHICS AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY BY J. H. MUIRHEAD, M.A. LECTURER IN MENTAL AND MORAL SCIENCE, ROYAL HOLLOWAY COLLEGE, EGHAM; assistant examiner in philosophy in THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW Td KaOrjKovTa cJs eirlwav rah crx^ § 40. The theory in modern times ..... 93 § 41. The sanctions of morality ...... 93 § 42. Pleasure and happiness ...... 96 § 43. Do pleasures difter in quality? ..... 98 § 44. How are pleasures calculated in respect to their value ? 99 § 45. Modern forms of the pleasure theory .... 100 § 46. Characteristic difficulties in these several forms of Hedonism ........ 102 § 47. Elements of value in pleasure theory .... 105 § 48. Fundamental error of the theory based on inadequate analysis of desire . . . . . . .106 § 49. Is pleasure the only motive? Re-statement of Hedon- istic argument ........ 108 § 50. Met by distinction between " pleasure in idea " and "idea of pleasure " . . . . . .110 CHAPTER II THE END AS SELF-SACRIFICE §51. Opposite theory to foregoing . . . . .112 § 52. Historical forms of theory . . . . . .113- § 53. The theory recognises right as distinct from expediency 1 14 § 54. Value of this view of man's nature in the history of thought 116 § 55. Duty for duty's sake as a practical principle . .118 § 56. Criticism of theory . . . . . . .120 xii Contents CHAPTER III EVOLUTIONARY HEDONISM PAGE §57. Utilitarianism and evolution 125 § 58. The organic view of human society corrects pre- suppositions on which Utilitarianism rests . .127 § 59. On the Utilitarian theory moral laws are empirical generalisations . . . . . . .130 § 60. Importance of theory of evolution in the field of ethics 132 § 61. Difficulties in evolutionary ethics .... 136 BOOK IV THE END AS GOOD CHAPTER I THE END AS COMMON GOOD § 62. Summary of results . . . . . . -151 § 63. Current distinction between self and society . .152 § 64. Relativity of this distinction . . . . -153 § 65. Further illustration of dependence of individual on society . . . . . . . . .158 § 66. Ethical import of these facts . . . . ^ 159 § 67. Appeal to moral judgments in support of conclusions 162 § 68. Duty to humanity . . . . . . .165 § 69. Duty to God 166 CHAPTER II FORMS OF THE GOOD § 70. Recapitulation . . . . . , . .170 § 71. Has my argument been a circle? . . . .172 § 72. Virtues and institutions . . . . . .175 § 73. Requirements of classification . . . . -177 § 74. Limits of classification. The main heads not mutually exclusive . . . . . . . . .180 § 75. The interdependence of the virtues extends through the whole classification . . . . . . .182 § 76. Table of virtues . . . . . . . .186 Contents xin §77. §78- § 79- §80. §81. BOOK V MORAL PROGRESS CHAPTER I THE STANDARD AS RELATIVE Differences of standard which we may neglect . Essential differences involving ethical problem The unity of the form of virtue ..... The relativity of the standard as condition of its validity Further difficulty PAGE 191 193 194 196 198 CHAPTER n THE STANDARD AS PROGRESSIVE § 82. Clue to solution of problem in idea of progress § 83. Illustration of the general law of progress § 84. Progress of humanity as a whole § 85. Moral progress in nations . § 86. Evolution of a universal moral order § 87. Illustration from courage § 88. Illustration from temperance § 89. Summary ..... § 90. Further question 201 202 203 205 206 207 209 211 212 CHAPTER III THE STANDARD AS IDEAL § 91. The question involves metaphysical considerations § 92. Consciousness as active principle in knowledge § 93. The unity of the world as postulate of thought § 94. Conscience and consciousness § 95. Relation of conscience to social environment §96. Is the ideal social or personal? . § 97. Evolutionary account of moral progress § 98. How this account requires to be supplemented § 99. The Social Reformer and Martyr Bibliography 215 216 218 220 222 224 226 229 233 237 BOOK I THE SCIENCE OE ETHICS CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM OF ETHICS § 1. How can there be a Problem at all? Philosophy, said Plato, begins in wonder. The child who wonders why her wax doll shuts its eyes, or her kitten wags its tail, has already set forward on the path that leads to philosophy and science. The differences among us that distinguish learned from ignorant depend merely upon the extent to which we have carried our wonder; whether we are content to acquiesce in superficial answers, or still find our wonder unsatisfied, and press on with a new question so soon as our first is answered. Thus, astronomy begins in the wonder and perplexity caused by the contradictions and confusions of the apparent movements of the heavens. The various systems that have succeeded one another — the Ptolemaic, the Coper- nican, the Newtonian — have differed only in the relative satisfactoriness of the solutions they have offered. The question I propose to discuss iti-thi&c-hapt€r- is. What kind of wonder is that in which Ethics begins? To what does that wonder attach? How does it first rise? How does it express itself? The question of the precise sub- ject-matter of ethics is deferred. Here I would ask why should there be a science of ethics at all, rather 3 4 Ethics [Bk. I than what the science of ethics is. It may, indeed, seem absurd to ask why it should exist before we know what it is. But in this case the " what " is a good deal determined by the "why." At the same time, it must be admitted that some of the definitions and results, reached in a later part of this treatise, are taken for granted in this chapter and the next. Etymologies rarely help us much in acquiring accurate conceptions of the present use of words. They are as often as not misleading.* In the present case, etymology will give us considerable help. Ethics is precisely what its derivation (^^cs) implies, the science of moral character. We are, moreover, further helped if we carry our etymology a step further back, and recollect that ^^os is connected with IQa-i, custom or habit. Similarly, if we revert to the older name under which our science was known, viz.. Moral Philosophy,! we find that this means the philosophy of mores, which signifies in Latin, primarily customs or habits, secondarily the habits of moral agents in respect to moral action, i.e., character. Assuming, then, that ethics is the science of character, and that character means, according to its etymology, customs or habits of conduct, | our question is. How does that "wonder," which is the source of all science, come to attach to national and individual habits of conduct? * E.g., any one who should define Politics, in terms of its etymol- ogy, as the science of civil life, and should go on to argue that politicians were those who possessed this science, would clearly make a great mistake. Whately {Logic, p. Ii8) would convict him of the " Fallacy of Etymology." t Compare " Physics " and " Natural Philosophy." X " Character," in our modern view, carries with it greater in- wardness than this definition seems to contain. This is quite in conformity with the more subjective aspect which all questions of Ch. I] The Problem of Ethics 5 The very statement of this question suggests a diffi- culty. For at first it might appear as though habitual actions were just that part of conduct which had ceased to perplex us or cause us any trouble. All habits can be shown psychologically to be themselves the completed form of answers to practical problems. The habit of moving one's limbs in walking is the solution of the problem of balancing oneself first on one leg and then on another, and executing a forward movement at the same time.* When it has become a liabit, the solution is complete. We are no longer troubled with the problem; we are not even con- scious that it is one. Similarly with habits of conduct in a nation or individual. The habit, for instance, of self-restraint in matters of the body, which the ancients called Temperance, is the solution of the problem of the relative claims to satisfaction of apparently contradictory impulses, e.g., the impulse of a man to go to the public- house, and the impulse to go home to his wife. As a habit, or element of character, it is that solution carried to perfection, so that the perfectly temperate man is no longer conscious of any conflict or problem as he passes the tavern. There may, of course, still rise questions as to the details of the conduct determined by the habit. Thus it may remain for the temperate man to decide how much he may drink, at what time, what kind of liquor, and so on. But these are not ethical questions in the ethics assume in modern discussions as compared with ancient. Here it is immaterial whether we define character as habit of con- duct or as habit oi will. See below, p. 52. * That this is an acquired art any one can see who watches a baby's ineffectual efforts on the nursery floor. 6 Ethics _ [Bk. I sense above referred to. They are a matter of insight in the circumstances of a particular case, corresponding to the questions of when, how far, and how fast we shall walk. A hundred such questions may rise in a man's mind in a day, without ever bringing him face to face with the ethical question proper. This latter does not refer primarily to the details of an act under a habit, but to the habit itself. It is not. What acts are just, courageous, temperate? but, What is justice, courage, temperance? And so the difificulty recurs: How can habits of conduct, which are themselves solu- tions of practical problems in the life of a nation or an individual, ever become the subject of that doubt and perplexity from which science springs? The answer briefly is, that so long as the solutions are adequate to the existing circumstances, i.e., so long as there is a congruity between the habits of conduct of a nation or individual and the practical problems of life, so long the ethical question remains in abeyance. On the other hand, it is the appearance of new problems, of which the early habits offer no solution, that first throws doubt upon the validity of custom. To see how this is, let us consider the several stages into which, in this respect, the life of progressive nations naturally falls. § 2. General Description of the Conditions under ■which the Problem rises For the purpose in hand we might divide these stages into three. First, there is the period of the formation of moral habits of a people, the growth of its morality. This corresponds in the individual's life to the period of childhood and early youth. It is the period of its Ch. I] TJie Problem of Ethics 7 education.* Next we have the period of action, corre- ■^ spending to early manhood. This is the period in which a balance or equilibrium has been established between the various forces that reside within the nation. Externally, this equilibrium exhibits itself in the harmony of classes, the "balance of the constitu- tion," the reconciliation of interests. Internally, it means the adequacy of the moral aptitudes and habits of the people, both in force and variety, to meet the calls of its daily life. The habits, which in the pre- vious stage were, so to speak, in the gristle, have now hardened into a system of traditional morality, the maxims of which are embodied in the received moral code, and entrenched behind national institutions of State and Church. I have called this the age of action, because it corresponds generally to the period of a nation's best energies and most brilliant achievements. Civil discord is meantime at an end, and the nation is thus left free to expand its power abroad.f Lastly, we 3. have the stage of reflection. The balance of internal powers, which was the characteristic feature of the second stage, is undermined by the development of new forces. Chief among these is the intellectual progress that has gone hand in hand with the enlargement of the nation's * The mode of this education— the evolution of moral habits under the pressure of social necessity; the rise of institutions of family, state, and church, corresponding to them; and the embodi- ment of directions for their maintenance in moral and legal codes — would require separate treatment, for which this is clearly not the place. t As examples of this stage might be mentioned the Jewish nation in the time of David, the Athenians in the age of Pericles, the Romans after the establishment of internal peace by the settle- ment of the long-standing quarrel between patricians and plebeians. 8 Ethics [Bk. I experience, as its power extended. Corresponding to this progress will be the rise of new interests, industrial, literary, artistic, philosophical. These have to find a place for themselves in the national life. This they can usually only do at the expense of existing habits, insti- tutions, and formulas. The new wine has to be poured into the old bottles. The spirit is contrary to the form. A period of intellectual and political ferment sets in; the age is marked by doubt, perplexity, and hesitation; it is disconcerted by the apparent baselessness of the forms and institutions upon which society has hitherto seemed to rest; the moral law, the fabric of the constitution, religion itself, seem shaken to their foundations; the only choice seems to be either to close one's eyes^to the contradictions of the present, and seek refuge in the old habits of faith, or to set forward on a new, untried path of revolution and anarchy. But this is an alternative which cannot fail to startle and repel. To admit it is to prove traitor to the intelli- gence which discerned the new problem, and therefore in the last resort to morality itself, which, as we have seen, is only another name for the solution of problems which once were new. It is at this stage that recourse is had to Ethics, which opens a third alternative between simple acceptance and simple rejection of the morality and institutions of the past. Ethics proposes to try to understand them. It asks whence they came, and what they mean. It blinks no difficulty which the spirit of scepticism suggests. It ignores no claim which tra- dition puts forward. But it goes its own way, regardless of both, with a deeper doubt than scepticism, because it doubts the conclusions of scepticism, and a deeper faith than traditionalism, because it believes in the reason Ch. ij The Problem of Ethics g which traditions embody, and which is the source of what power they still possess. § 3. Historical Illustration from the Case of Greece Historically, the best illustration, both of the decom- position of national habits and traditions, owing to the growth of national life, and of the rise out of this decomposition of a rational system of morals and polity, founded upon the effort to understand current forms and, by revealing both their value and their inadequacy, to prepare the way for progress — is to be found in the actual origin of the science of ethics in the age of the Sophists in Greece. This is not the place to give any detailed account of the state of opinion out of which the great systems of Plato and Aristotle grew.* It is sufficient, in illustration of what has been already said, to remind the reader that the Sophists lived at a time of great political, industrial, and intellectual expansion. Athens, from a small city state, had become the head of a great empire. New ideas, new interests, new demands, had produced a vague rest- lessness and dissatisfaction with older forms of thought and life. In the hands of the Sophists the criticism which was the life and breath of the time spread from attacks on external forms and abstract theories to the ideas of right and wrong, justice and injustice, piety and impiety. By their means a general sense of the contra- dictions that were latent in the traditional morality came to pervade the educated classes in Athens. A condition of doubt, uncertainty, and general perplexity was created, * See Sidgvvick's Histoiy of Ethics ; Grant's Aristotle, Vol. I., Essay ii.; Erdmann's History of Philosophy, Vol. I., pp. 69 foil. lo Ethics [Bk. I out of which in due time rose, under the influence of Socrates, the first sketch of a science of morality. § 4. Illustration from Our Ov7n Time But we do not require to go to Athens in the time of the Sophists to find an ilhistration of the rise of a science of ethics. Our own time, resembling the age just referred to in many other respects, resembles it in nothing more than this — that it is a time of moral and political unrest, resulting in a new demand among large numbers of the educated classes to understand the meaning of the moral code under which they live, and the institutions that support it. To mention only a few of the contradictions and seemingly irreconcil- able antitheses which criticism has made apparent, and which harass and perplex our age, there is, in the first place, in the field of religion, the opposition be- tween faith and reason, science and religion, authority and private judgment. In politics there is the antith- esis between the individual and the state. On the one side are asserted "the rights of rnan," on the other "the duties of citizenship." "Man versus State"* is the cause cHebre of the century. Coming to more dis- tinctly moral questions, we have the conflict between self and others, self-interest and the greatest happiness of the greatest number, pleasure and duty, freedom and necessity, law and liberty, and other sharp-horned dilemmas that start from the ground of our common life when the light of criticism is turned upon it. For all these and similar contradictions no solution is possible, except upon condition of a thorough-going * See Mr. Spencer's booklet with this title. Ch. I J The Pi'oblem of Ethics i i analysis of the basis of individual and social morality, the origin, the meaning, the authority of the moral habits of civilised man, and the social, political, and religious institutions in which they have entrenched themselves. It is under pressure of these and kindred difficulties that the science of ethics has taken a new start in our own time. It is indeed true that ethics has always been more or less studied in modern times as a department of philosophy. Under its older name of moral philosophy it has always had an honoured place in systems of meta- physics. What is characteristic of our time in this regard is not the rise of a new study, but the new significance that has come to attach to an old one. The practical importance of the science of ethics, as offering valuable aid towards the solution of problems that vex our daily life, has come to be more fully recognised. Among other evidences of this recognition may be mentioned the rise of societies to promote its study,* the institu- tion of the International Journal of Ethics, and gener- ally the place that is now claimed for it as no longer a subordinate branch of philosophy, but an independ- ent science.! The validity of this latter claim I shall have occasion hereafter to examine.! Meantime it may be noted as an illustration of the new importance attach- ing to the study that attempts have been made to detach it from the cumbrous adjuncts of logic and meta- physics, and to present it as a science in no respect * There are Ethical Societies in London, Cambridge, Edinburgh, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and elsewhere, all of recent growth. t On the general question of the dissolution of the ancient partner- ship between philosophy and its various branches, see the excellent article by James Ward, Muni, Vol. XV., No. 58. X See pp. 28 foil. 12 Ethics [Bk. I differing, save in the complexity of its subject-matter and the practical importance of its conclusions, from other empirical sciences.* § 5. Effect of the Study of Ethics on our General View of Life If now, reverting to our definition of ethics as the science of moral habits, the reader ask what we may expect to be the general effect of such an investigation on our general view of the nature and authority of these habits, I answer that that effect will be twofold. First, it will necessarily be partly destructive. This is implied in saying that science is critical. It criticises, corrects, supplements, and classifies the distinctions of common- sense. All science does this: it is a criticism of common-sense. Ethical science will be found to do so specifically. Some familiar distinctions, some effe.te prohibitions and injunctions, some crude notions of the nature of moral authority and moral sanctions, will have to be given up. For moral law, like statute law, grows by constant alteration and accretion. As these alterations and accretions take place more or less unconsciously, little care is taken to revise and readjust what went before. And just as many contradictory laws, passed at various times, without reference to one another, may remain on the statute book, so the moral code of any period may contain many elements loosely compacted and imperfectly reconciled with one another. The result of the application of scientific criticism to these will be like the revisal and codification of statute law. * See Leslie Stephen's Science of Ethics, pp. 6, 7. Also S. Alexander's Moral Order and Progress, p. 80. Ch. I] The Problem of Ethics 13 Similarly, in reference to the social institutions that support the moral law, we may expect that our results will have a negative and critical side. These also, like the moral code, are an unconscious growth. Like the organs of animal life, they were evolved in response to vital needs. Yet, as there are survivals and rudimentary organs among the parts of animals, so in a community forms and institutions may survive from a former state of life. One of the first results of ethical science will be the perception of this fact. Lastly, with regard to the authority on which the moral law is based, we may expect, in the first instance, a crit- ical and apparently negative result. As man's notions of this authority were formed in the ages of poetry and mythology, we may expect the ordinary notions about it to be tinged with the colour of their origin. It is a necessary part of the work of science to criticise them. Ill all these respects, science " is nothing if it is not critical." On the other hand, ethics has a positive and recon- structive side. To explain is not to explain away, neither is to explain away to explain. Its starting- point is the reality of duty and right. If in its first role as critical it seems to be attacking these, this is only the superficial aspect of its work.* In its deeper aspect it is reconstructive. It comes, not to destroy, but to fulfil. It does so by separating the essential from the unessential, the permanent from the transient, the spirit from the form of moral and social institutions. By leaving only those which are organically connected with human * In all scientific education there is a stage in which destruction seems to be the chief work of science. Plato calls it the " puppy dog " stage. 14 Ethics [Bk. 1 nature and with one another, it gives them a value and a sanctity which, as merely traditional forms, they never could possess. Ethics is thus a criticism which makes reconstruction possible ; it strips off the irrelevant and the unessential, in order to get a firmer hold of the essential. Here and there it presents us with a bold negative, but, when it does so, this is found only to be "the cutting edge of a positive." Ch. II] Can there be a Science of Ethics ? 15 CHAPTER II CAN THERE BE A SCIENCE OF ETHICS? § 6. DifBculty in the Conception of such a Science In the preceding chapter a sketch has been given of the circumstances in which the practical need for a science of ethics arises, the general nature of its problem, and the kind of answer to it that may be expected. We have now to seek for a convenient starting-point in developing the science itself. But before we do so several preliminary difficulties that rise in connection with the very idea of a science of this kind require to be noticed. Accepting the general definition (given on p. 4) of ethics as the science of character or conduct, in what sense, we may ask, can we speak of such a science? Science, it is said, has for its subject-matter necessary truths. It traces effects to their causes, formulates general laws as to the way in which these causes act, and from these generalisations, or the combinations of them, proceeds to deduce new consequences. The last of these processes is especially distinctive of a science. No science is considered complete until it is shown to be possible to predict particular effects from the known laws of their causes. According to this idea of a science, it becomes at once evident that, in assuming i6 Ethics [Bk. II the possibility of a science of character and conduct, we assume that these phenomena are the effects of certain definable causes, that it is possible to formulate general laws of their origin and course of development, and that when the science is perfected we shall be able to make confident predictions regarding them on the ground of our previous generalisations. Thus at the very outset we seem to make certain assumptions as to the nature of human character and conduct, the discussion of which has always been one of the chief subjects of moral philosophy. For is it not contended by a large and powerful school of writers that "character and conduct are precisely that which cannot be explained as the resultant of discernible and calculable forces? They are chiefly dependent upon the human will, and we have no right at the outset of our investigation to make an assumption which prejudges the question as to the free- dom of volition. If the will is free, the whole concep- tion of a science of ethics falls to the ground: there is a variable and incalculable element in character and conduct which vitiates all its results." This objection is, however, based upon a miscon- ception of the nature of the science. It is indeed possible to treat human conduct as a natural phenom- enon on the same plane as other physical events, such as the motions of the planets, or the evolution of species. The aim of the science upon this supposition will be to formulate general laws of the action of human agents in specific circumstances, and thence deduce the course it will take in nations and individuals upon the recurrence of the same conditions. A science of this kind, difficult as it might prove to be to work it out in detail, is at least conceivable, and it would Ch. II] Can there be a Science of Ethics? 17 certainly proceed upon the assumption that the freedom of the will is a delusion, or at any rate may be neglected for purposes of the science. But such a science would have little or nothing to do with ethics. Ethics is not primarily concerned with conduct as a fact in space and time, — something done here and now, following from certain causes in the past, and succeeded by certain results in the future. It is concerned with i\\Q Judgment upon conduct, the judgment that such and such conduct is right or wrong. The distinction is important, and may be made the basis of a general classification of the sciences. On the one hand, we have those sciences which are con- cerned with facts or phenomena of nature or of mind, actual occurrences which have to be analysed, classified, and explained. The movement of the earth round the sun is such a fact. Astronomy may be taken as the type of this class of sciences. On the other hand, there are those sciences which have to do primarily, not with facts in space and time, but with judgments about those facts. It might be said, indeed, that all facts present themselves to us as judgments. "The earth moves round the sun" is a fact, but it is also a judgment. There is a distinction, however (to go no deeper), between a judgment of izcX. and a judgment upon fact, corresponding to the distinc- tion between "judgment " in its logical sense of " proposi- tion " and " judgment " in its judicial sense of " sentence." It is with judgment in the latter sense that ethics has to do. It deals with conduct as the subject of judicial judg- ment, not with conduct merely as a physical fact. Simi- larly it might be argued that all judgments are facts, and that a moral judgment only differs from other facts in being more complicated. This of course is true, but one of the chief elements in this complication is the refer- 1 8 Ethics [Bk. I ence to a standard, and it is this element to which I wish to call attention as distinctive of the fact with which our science has to deal. On the ground of it ethics has to be classed with what have been called "normative" sciences, to which Logic, or the science of the judgment of truth or falsity, and .-Esthetics, or the science of the judgment of beauty or ugliness, belong. Ethics has to do with the norm, or standard of right and wrong, as logic has to do with the standard of truth, aesthetics with the standard of beauty. It is concerned primarily with the laws that regulate our judgments of right and wrong, only secondarily with the laws that regulate conduct as an event in time. § 7. Practical DifBculty in the Conception of a Science of Conduct There is a second objection that may be taken to such a science from the practical side. It has been said that ethics is the science of the laws which regulate our judgments of right and wrong. But how then, it may be asked, does it come about that the great mass of people who are perfectly innocent of such a science, yet confidently pass such judgments on themselves and others? It is these judgments of ordinary people, more- over, from which presumably the science of ethics pro- poses to start, and it is these it proposes to investigate. But what hope can there be of finding any law or reason embodied in popular judgments, obviously arrived at without any relation to laws of judgment previously known and acted upon? The answer to this difficulty has already been given in the previous chapter. The objection springs from the Ch. II] Can there be a Scie/ice of Ethics ? 19 failure to distinguish between an unconsciously acquired art, and the science which analyses the principles which underlie it. Just as the art of speaking or of reasoning may be acquired by those who have never seen or heard of a book on grammar or logic, so the art of moral judgment and moral conduct may be acquired by the unconscious processes described above (p. 5) before a science of ethics is even dreamt of. How far the science of conduct will react upon the art, what influence ethics has on morality, is another question. The kind of answer that may be expected to be given to it has already been alluded to (pp. 12 foil.). In the present section I desire merely to emphasise a distinction which, though so obvious when stated, is obscured in current language. § 8. What may be Expected of a Science of Ethics? If we now come closer to the question of the present chapter, and ask in what sense there can be said to be a science of moral judgment, we open up a still more serious ditficulty. Although the full import of our answer can only be apprehended after the claim that is now to be made on behalf of ethics has been justified by the detailed exposition of the theory itself, still it may be permissible to state here generally what we may expect as the result of the present inquiry. Before attempting to do so, it is necessary, however, to define more clearly than we have yet done what a science in the strict sense is, and what we require that it should do for us. Let us take astronomy as our type, and ask. Wherein does the scientific differ from the ordinary way of looking at things? In the first place, it observes accurately. In astronomy 20 Ethics [Bk. I every one knows that the heavenly bodies change their position with reference to the earth and one another. Science demands, in the first place, accurate observations and descriptions of these changes. Secondly, science distinguishes different kinds of the phenomena thus observed, and classifies them according to their most significant differences. It will, for instance, in astronomy very soon arrive at the distinction between our own sun and planetary system, and more distant suns. Within this it will distinguish moons from planets, planets that have cooled sufficiently to permit of life upon their surface from those that have not, and so on. But if its functions ended here, it would hardly merit the name of a science at all. It must not only accurately observe and classify : it must explain. Without entering into any detailed discussion of what is meant by "explana- tion," which is a question for logic, not for ethics, I may define shortly what I wish the reader to understand by this term. To explain a phenomenon or occurrence, in the proper sense of the term, it is not sufficient, as popular language implies, to find the cause or agency which pro- duced it. Even the account given by the older books on logic, which define explanation as the process of finding a more general law, or more general laws, under which the occurrence may be subsumed, is inadequate.* Explanation includes this, but is not exhausted by it. A thing can only properly be said to be explained when it is seen necessarily to flow from the sum of the con- ditions which the science in question takes into account. But these conditions, when accurately apprehended, are never merely a series of successive phenomena, but * For this kind of explanation in its three forms, see Mill's Logic, Book III., ch. xii.; Bain's Induclive Logic, Book III., ch. xii. Ch. II] Can there be a Science of Ethics ? 21 the relations of the parts or members of an organic system to one another. Hence we may substitute for this definition a still more accurate one, and say that a phenomenon is only fully explained when enough is known of the particular system in question to permit us to apprehend the phenomenon in the light of the known relations of the other parts, and therefore as a coherent member of the whole. Thus, to take a simple instance, the phenomenon of the dawn is explained in the sense described when we see it to be the necessary result of the sum of conditions which we know as the planetary system; in other words, when we know enough of the mutual relations of the various members of the planetary system, and the laws of their motions, to see that these involve the turning of our part of the earth to the light of the sun at a particular moment in the manner we call the sunrise.* By this third stage, therefore, in the scientific account of any phenomenon, we mean the process by which it is shown to be a coherent part of a system or organ- ism. It is shown to be "required" by the conditions previously known to prevail in a particular field or group of facts. As so explained, it is seen to be neces- sarily involved in these conditions so soon as we realise what they mean; in other words, to be a necessary truth. Of course the particular group is itself related to other groups, and ultimately to the whole system of known reality; so that the complete explanation of * A simple example of this process ef explanation would be the adjustment of a piece in a child's picture puzzle. The " explanation " of its apparently strange shape and jumble of coloured surface is only found when its place has been assigned to it in the organic structure of the whole. 2 2 Ethics [Bk. I any fact requires that we should see it to be neces- sarily involved in the constitution of the cosmos as a whole. Science however, qua Science, contents itself with the perceived necessity of its data relatively to a limited sphere, e.g., spatial, mechanical, or chemical rela- tions. On the other hand, the ultimate relations of these spheres to one another, and to reality as a whole, is the point of view distinctive of Philosophy, the difference being that Science, as such, is content with the relatively complete explanation which consists in showing particular phenomena to flow necessarily from a particular group of organic relations, as in astronomy or biology; Philosophy requires us to see the same fact in organic relation to the world as a whole. Returning from this digression, we are now in a posi- tion to understand what is meant by the statement that ethics is a science. It is so, not merely in the sense that it observes and classifies its data, as in the current tables of the different forms of moral judgment known as duties; it also aims at explaining them. Its function is to exhibit these forms as necessarily flowing from the known con- ditions of the individual and social life of man. To the unreflective, moral judgments appear to be somewhat isolated phenomena, without relation to one another or to other facts of experience. Upon the field of other- wise strictly correlated and comprehensible facts and events, there appears to be intruded an arbitrary pro- nouncement of condemnation or approval. It is the work of ethics, on the other hand, to bring these judgments into organic relation with one another and with the known facts of experience; to strip them of their apparent arbitrariness, and clothe them with the livery of reason, by showing them to be necessary Ch. II] Can there be a Science of EtJiics? 23 postulates of that organism of relations which we know as human society. § 9. Comparison of Ethics as so interpreted, with Intuitionist and Theological Ethics The nature and extent of this claim will be more obvious if we contrast it shortly with two other views that have been held as to the nature and limits of ethical investigation. Attempts have been made to limit the scope of the science to the description and classification of the utterances of what is called Moral Sense. The only ultimate account which we can give, it is said, of those pronouncements as to right and wrong, which we call moral judgments, is that in the presence of certain conditions ( Ethics [Bk. I CHAPTER III SCOPE OF THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS § 10. In what sense Ethics differs from the Natural Sciences Having indicated in what sense ethics may be said to resemble other sciences, it remains for me further to define its general character by pointing out in what respects it differs from them. It differs from all the natural sciences in that : — (i) // is regulative. Ethics deals with a rule or standard of judgment, not with physical events and the causes which determine them. This has been already explained, and need not now detain us. It involves, however, a further distinction which it is of the utmost importance to note. (2) // treats man as conscious. Seeing tjiat ethics deals with judgments consciously passed by man upon himself and others, it rests upon the assumption that man is not merely a part of nature and the blind servant of her purposes, but is co?iscious of being a part, and of being subject to her laws. He not only behaves in a certain way in presence of particular circumstances, as oxygen may be said to "behave " in the presence of hydrogen, but he is conscious of his behaviour in its relation to Ch. Ill] Scope of the Science of Ethics 27 himself and others. It is on the ground of this con- sciousness that he passes judgment upon it. Hence any attempt to treat the science of human conduct and character as merely a branch of material science is doomed to failure. The "explanations" in the field of ethics cannot be in terms of the laws and hypotheses that are applicable in the field of physical science. The laws of motion or the principle of the conservation of force are here out' of court. It is true that human conduct may be described as a mode or form of energy, but the important thing is the "form," — it is conscious energy, and that makes all the difference. Nothing has created more confusion in the history of science than the attempt to take principles which successfully explain phenomena in one field and apply them to those of another to which they are inapplicable. It was thus that the Pythagoreans thought that the laws of abstract number were adequate to explain the concrete facts of the physical w^orld; the atomists that the hypothesis of indestructible, material atoms, was sufficient to explain all phenomena of life and thought. And though we have given over these attempts in their cruder forms, yet we are still liable, in our enthusiasm for a prin- ciple which -we have victoriously applied in one field, to overlook fundamental distinctions of subject-matter, and apply it in a field where it is either altogether ir- relevant or only relatively valid.* We are in continual danger of forgetting that the world does not consist of groups of facts all upon the same plane and explicable by * As a prominent instance of this mistake at the present time we might take the tendency to apply the law of natural selection, as it is observed to operate in unconscious nature and among the lower animals, to the life of man as a conscious and intelligent 2 8 Ethics [Bk. I the same axioms and definitions, but disposes them in an ascending series resembling rather a spiral column, from each new round of which we view the facts that lie before us from a higher plane and at a different angle. In regard to ethics we may here so far anticipate as to state the view, hereafter to be proved, that it differs from the sciences that stand next below it, viz., biology and natural history, in that while these treat man as organically related to his environment in nature and society, ethics treats of him as. conscious of that relation. (3) // is more closely related to philosophy. Another distinction is important. It flows naturally from the two already mentioned. It has already been observed (p. 22) that the explanations of particular sciences are, after all, relative. No fact or phenomenon is fully explained till its relations to all the world beside are clearly known and defined. But all the world beside, or the whole system of things, is not the subject-matter of any particular science. So far as it can be made a subject of investigation at all, it is the subject of philosophy or metaphysics, the science of sciences.* But while philosophy alone deals with complete or final explanations, yet relatively, and in tli^ir own field, the explanations of the particular sciences are regarded as valid. It might be said, for instance, that the truth member of a social system. Even Mr. Spencer is not altogether ficc from this error. A great deal of the antagonism to the scientific treatment of the moral life is probably clue to attempts to explain its phenomena upon inadequate principles. * Which, however, ought not to be thought of as opposed to the sciences, but only as " an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly " on their subject-matter. Ch. Ill] Scope of the Science of Ethics 29 of the fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid is independent of the conclusions of philosophy as to the nature and reality of space, and no one would think it worth while seriously to question the state- ment that mathematics is independent of metaphysics. But the question may be and has been put with reference to ethics, Is it in like manner independent of philosophy ? The older thinkers apparently were of opinion that it was not, as it was commonly spoken of as moral philos- ophy. Modern nomenclature and methods of treating it have emphasised its independence. Recent writers even go out of their way to disown all connection between ethics and metaphysics. But besides the general con- nection which there is between all the sciences which deal with some particular aspect of the world {e.g., mathe- matics, which deals with space; dynamics, which deals with bodies in motion) and philosophy or metaphysics, which deals with the nature and reality of the world as a whole, there is in the case of ethics a more particular connection. This is manifest whether we take the point of view of the first or of the second of the distinctions already mentioned. For {a) its judgments are thought to be absolute. Ethics, we have seen, has to do with moral judgments, and these judgments are judgments of value— the value of conduct or character. Now, whatever they be in reality, they are apparently, at least, judgments of abso- lute, not merely of relative value; for it is usually thought and asserted that conduct is good or bad, not merely relatively, i.e., according as we choose to regard a certain end {e.g., the good of the society in which we live) as desirable or not, but absolutely, i.e., without relation to our individual views of what is desirable 30 Ethics [Bk. I or not desirable in particular circumstances. This apparently is the meaning of duty and right as con- trasted with pleasure or utility. In other words, morality is commonly thought to be required by the nature of things as a whole, not merely by the circumstances in which we happen to live. It is not necessary here to decide whether this opinion is true or false. Clearly if it is true there is a most intimate connection between ethics and metaphysics. And even if it 'be false it is difficult to see how its falsity can be proved without more or less overt reference to a philosophical doctrine of the place of man in the universe, and his relation to its central principle and purpose. {F) Man'' s consciousness of himself as a fuember of society involves a reference to a cosmic order. This intimate con- nection between ethics and metaphysics may further be illustrated from the fact that in the former we have to do, not only with man as related to his material and social environment, but with man as conscious of this relationship. For this consciousness, as may be easily shown, involves a reference to the whole world besides, as a cosmos or order in which he has a place. In being conscious of himself as a citizen of a particular state, or as a member of the human brotherhood, he is also con- scious of himself as a citizen of the world and as a mem- ber of a cosmos of related beings. And just as it is impossible to think of himself as a member of any lesser circle of relations, e.g., of the family, without thinking of himself as a member of a larger circle, e.g., a society or state, so it is impossible to think of himself as a member of society without thinking of himself as a member of a universal or cosmic order. His thought of himself, moreover, in this latter aspect, overflows, as it were, into Ch. Ill] Scope of the Science of Ethics 31 all his other thoughts about himself, transforming and moulding them in such a way that it is impossible to treat of any of the lower forms of consciousness, e.g., his social consciousness, without taking the higher into account. It is of course possible for the moment and for purposes of science to abstract one aspect or form of consciousness, such as the consciousness of ourselves as members of a particular society, from our consciousness of ourselves in general, just as it is possible to abstract a particular form or aspect of space or of force from space or force in general. But when we come to analyse our social consciousness into its constituent elements, and ask, as we do in ethics. What is its nature and contents? we find that the answer depends upon our answer to the wider question, as to the nature and contents of con- sciousness as a whole, in a far more intimate way than does the question of the properties of the triangle or the electric current upon the question of the nature of space or force in general. Thus, to take a single instance, the science of mathematics will remain unaffected whether we believe with one school of metaphysicians that our knowledge of space is given from without, or with another that it is an a priori form contributed by the mind itself. But no one could say that cur ethical analysis of that form of social consciousness which we call conscience will remain unaffected whether we believe with the ICpicureans that the world is an acci- dental concourse of atoms, or hold with the Stoics that it is the reflection of divine intelligence. We are thus led to the conclusion that, while the natural sciences may be said to be practically independent of metaphys- ics, the conclusions of philosophy as to the nature of the world at large and man's relation to it are of the 32 Ethics [Bk. I utmost Importance to ethics, and cannot be neglected in a complete exposition of its subject-matter.* While this is so, it may be convenient and even necessary, in an elementary treatise like the present, to consider the subject-matter of ethics with as litile reference as possible to the philosophical questions involved. Little harm can come of this course, so long as we know what we are about. It only comes to be misleading when we confuse the temporary con- venience of neglecting these questions with the per- manent possibility of doing so. To assert that we may for purposes of investigation abstract from metaphysical considerations is one thing; to assert their irrelevance to our ultimate results is quite another. § 11. Ethics as a "Practical" Science Ethics has sometimes been distinguished from the natural sciences on the ground that it is practical, while they are theoretic. On examination, however, the dis- tinction is found to be a superficial one. It is true, indeed, that ethics stands nearer to our everyday life than do, for instance, astronomy or physiology. Its very name, as we have seen, implies this, and on this ground it has sometimes been called practical philos- ophy. It is the science of conduct (TrpS^is) and the judgments which more deeply affect it. Its conclusions may therefore be said to be of immediate and universal interest in a sense which cannot be claimed for the conclusions of the sciences just mentioned. But this does not carry us far. For it may easily be shown that * The precise point at which metaphysical questions press them- selves upon our notice will be noted below. See p. 215. Ch. Ill] Scope of the Science of Ethics ■^,2, as a science ethics is just as theoretic as astronomy or physiology, while, as furnishing the basis for the scientific practice of the arts, e.g., of navigation and of healing, these sciences are just as practical as ethics. The idea that there can be such a thing as a science which is purely theoretic comes from our habit of thinking of the natural sciences as systems of truth elaborated in books which are chiefly useful as a means of intellectual training. In the early stages of the his- tory of science such a mistake was impossible. Man's interest in the laws of nature was then only the reflection of his interest in his own ends and purposes. Causes in nature were only interesting as means to practical ends.* It is true that there came a time when man began to develop that "disinterested curiosity " which is the condition of all higher achievement in science. Yet it is equally true that, just in proportion as scientific research becomes divorced from the practical interest that man has in the subjugation of nature, there is a danger that it may become pedantic or dilettanti.f Even the most abstract and theoretic of all the sciences, viz., metaphysics or philosophy, while, as Novalis said, "it bakes no bread," is not without important bearing on the practical problems of everyday life. On the other hand, the notion that ethics is less theoretic than any other science can only come from * See Hoffding's Psychology, p. 240 (Eng. Tr.). t Mr. Casaubon's Key to all Mythologies in Middlemarck appears to have been of this character. One cannot help a sus- picion that much of the erudition of the present time, which, as Hegel once said, "finds most to be done where there is least to be got from it," is in the same condition. On the whole subject see Note at end of Book IV. below. 34 Ethics [Bk. I the tendency, already remarked upon, to confuse theory with practice in the field of conduct — ideas and judg- ments about morality in the study or in the class-room with moral ideas and moral judgments in the concrete circumstances of daily life. § 12. Has Ethics to do with what Ought to be rather than with w^hat Is? Closely allied with the view just criticised is another that is not less misleading. Ethics, it is said, differs from the natural sciences in that, while they deal with things as they are, ethics deals with them as they ought to be. This distinction, it is maintained, is based upon the fundamental antithesis between natural and moral law. The former is the law of what is, the latter of what rw^/v{-Xto be. (/ Now it is undoubtedly true that for the individual the moral law represents something that ought to be, as opposed to physical law, which is a statement of what is. The law of gravitation is a statement of the actual relation between the pen I hold in my hand and the earth which attracts it. On the other hand, the law that I shall be perfectly sincere in the opinions I express by my writing is a statement of what ought to be my relation to my reader, whatever the actual fact may be. But this is no more than to say that, as by this time must be obvious to the student, these two are laws in a wholly different sense. In the one case we have a scientific generalisation from the observation of facts, in the other we have a rule or maxim flowing from such a generalisa- tion. What corresponds to moral law in this sense is the practical rule deducible from the conclusions of any particular science, e.g., the rules of health which are Ch. Ill] Scope of the Science of Ethics 35 deducible from the conclusions of physiology. On the other hand, what corresponds in ethics to the theoretic conclusions of science are the definitions, classifications, and explanations of which I gave a general account in the preceding chapter. It is, indeed, true that in the search for the conclusions there sketched out we start from judgments of what ought to be, — this constitutes the distinctive mark of the science, — but it deals with these judgments as actual facts. At each step, more- over, in its progress the science is, as we shall see, in the closest contact with concrete facts, in just as true a sen5,e as any other science. Thus it is its aim to show how moral judgments as to what ought to be are always relative to what is; they imply at every point the actual existence of a moral order, apart from which, as it is revealed in social relations, there could be no such thing as a moral law, any more than, apart from the known relations of the bodily organs to one another in what we might call the physiological order which reveals itself in them, there could be any laws of health in the ordinary sense of the term. In criticising the distinction which it has been sought to establish between ethics and other sciences, on the ground of the difference between the "ought " and the "is," I have not meant to deny or in any way to obliterate the latter antithesis. However closely these categories may be related to one another, no identifica- tion of them is ultimately possible. I have merely wished to point out that the distinction between them is not applicable as a principle of division among the sciences themselves.* * See Dewey's Outlines of Elhics, pp. 174 foil. ^6 Ethics [Bk. I § 13. Distinction between Ethics and Politics It remains to distinguish ethics from a science with which it may seem to have been confused, when we spoke of the former as having to do with man as a member of society, namely, politics.* The connection between them is obvious. They both deal with human conduct and character. They both treat of these in connection with the end of human good, and therefore as the subject of moral judgment. They both conceive of them as subject to laws, carrying with them judicial rewards and penalties. The difference is that while ethics is concerned with the analysis of conduct and character as the subjects of moral judgment {i.e., as right and wrong), simply, politics has to do with the analysis of those external forms and institu- tions which lay down in outline the fields in which right conduct primarily manifests itself, viz., the family, school, church, profession, etc. Hence ethics may be said to precede politics. Only after we have arrived at a clear conception of the inward nature of right conduct can we hope to settle the question as to its proper external conditions. The foundation of a true criticism of * The word is here used in its ancient and honourable, not in its somewhat degraded modern sense. Just as "Ethics" is preferred to the more ambitious title of " Moral Philosophy," so " Politics " may be preferred to " Political Philosophy," but in both cases it is to be understood that a science, not an art, is intended. The hybrid term, " Sociology," seems likely to assert a place for itself. I under- stand the word ars meaning the theory of soci-^ty in general, incluling its origin and growth, whereas politics is the theory of civilised society organised as a state. On the distinction lietvveen Society and State, see D. G. Ritchie's Principles of Slate In'erference, Appendix. Ch. Ill] Scope of the Science of Ethics 37 political institutions must be laid in a true criticism ot human life as subject to a supreme law or purpose, i.e., in ethics. Hence also the familiar distinctions between political and moral law: — (i) Morality is more aiithoritative than law, conscience than political institutions. Morality judges the latter, declaring them to be bad or good. A bad political law or institution is unfortunately a com- mon phenomenon; a bad moral law is a contradiction in terms.* (2) Morality extends over a wider field than legal enactment. It takes account ol all conduct, not of some departments only. This follows from the dis- tinction already drawn between politics and ethics. For as politics is the science of the external conditions of morality, the corresponding art — practical government — takes account only of those kinds of conduct which endanger these conditions. These conditions are not indeed confined, as a popular philosophical dogma represents, to protection of person and property, — such a limitation is purely arbitrary, — they embrace family life, education, recreation, and everything that admits of public organisation in the interest of morality. Yet the details of conduct within the circle of these conditions, e.^., within the family, the school, the theatre, lie out- side this field, if for no other reason than their infinite * The practical steps that ought to be taken in consequence of such an unfavourable judgment upon any particular law or institution will, of course, depend upon circumstances. The obvious formula in a country like our own is : agitation for reform plus temporary conformity. If any one thinks he can best agitate by refusing to con- form, and taking the consequences, he may be admired for his moral zeal, but he will be punished for his political disobedience. The justification will be that more moral harm would come from leaving the law unvindicated than from punishing an enthusiast for refon-n. 38 Ethics [Bk. I multiplicity. (3) A deeper difference is that political law has to do with conduct in its external consequences, or if it goes deeper merely takes account of intention. It takes account of such visible effects as theft of property, neglect of wife and children, etc. On the other hand, the invisible things of the mind are recognised by most civilised governments as outside of their sphere. Morality regulates the inwai'd motive* and disposition as well as the outward effect, — the conduct of the under- standing and the imasrination as well as conduct towards property or children. It says not only "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not kill," but "Think no evil," "Flee vain and foolish imaginations." This also follows from the distinction between the external con- ditions and the life for which these are intended to make room. Political enactment can maintain property, the currency, the family, public education; it cannot secure that the citizens shall use these institutions in the spirit and for the purpose for which they were intended, — a truth which is expressed in the common saying that you can not make men moral by act of parliament. The justifi- cation for legislation which apparently has this aim — e.g., the regulation or suppression of public houses — is not that by means of it we may make certan persons conform to moral demands, e.g., abstain from intoxicating liquor, but that we may improve the conditions of the moral life for the community at large, e.g., for the neighbours or the children of the toper. The man who abstains merely because owing to the state of the law he cannot get liquor is obviously not moral. A distinguished churchman is said to have remarked to the late Professor Thorold Rogers, "We must have compulsory religion, because * On the difference between intention and motive, see below, p. 58. Ch. Ill] Scope of the Science of Ethics 39 otherwise we shall have none at all," to which the Professor replied that he didn't see the difference. The same might be said of compulsory morality : it is equiv- alent to no morality at all. The further definition of conduct, which, as we have just seen, is in its fullest extent the subject of moral judgment, will be the object of our next inquiry.* * On the general subject of the relation between Law and Morahty, see Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics, Book I., ch. ii. ; also Elements of Politics, ch. xiii. ; and on the apparent permanency of the legal as compared with the moral code, Alexander, op. cit., p. 286. BOOK II MORAL JUDGMENT CHAPTER I THE OBJECT OF MORAL JUDGMENT § 14. What is Conduct? We have seen that ethics has to do with conduct and character, and that it differs from a physical or experi- mental treatment of the phenomena of human action in that its subject-matter is a form of judgment upon them. Before proceeding further we must try to get a clear idea of what is meant by conduct and character. It seems natural to define conduct as "human action." And this is a good definition if we understand properly what is meant by " human action." For instance, breath- ing is a human action, but this is clearly not included in conduct, for we do not distinguish a good and a bad in automatic actions of this kind. In other words, the action is not distinctively human at all. It belongs to man as an animated mechanism, not as man. Nor do we mend matters by adding "conscious" to action, and identifying conduct with conscious action. I am conscious of winking my eyes when the sun strikes them, and of starting when I hear a sharp sound, but these actions are not yet conduct. They are known in psychology as reflex actions.* As such they are * On the distinction between reflex action, instinct, and volition, see Hoffding, Psychology, Eng. Tr., ch. vii., and for a full discussion of the " instinctive germs of voHtion," Bain's Senses and Intellect, pp. 246 foil. 43 44 Ethics [Bk. ii shared in by the lower animals, and are not distinctively human. The element that is still wanting is will or volition. Between the merely reflex and the voluntary action which constitutes conduct there is all the difference that there is (to take our previous example) between the blinking of the cat in the sunshine and the movement of my pen across this sheet of paper. The difference is that the latter is willed, so that we may define conduct as voluntary action.* § 15. Apparent Exceptions to this Definition Against the view that moral judgment attaches only to voluntary action, it might be urged that we pass moral judgments on many actions that are not volun- tary, e.g., on habitual actions. How is this to be explained if moral predicates attach only to conduct, and conduct is always voluntary action? The answer is, that though the habit may have become so strong as to have completely mastered the will, and we can no longer be said to be responsible for its consequences, yet there was a time when each repetition of the action was voluntary. So that, while we cannot strictly be said to be responsible for the habitual act as an isolated event, seeing that it is not a voluntary one, we are responsible for it as an instance of a habit which has been voluntarily acquired, and which we ought to have checked before it became inveterate. f In other words, what we really judge in such a case is the series of voluntary acts whereby the habit has become irresistible. Contrariwise, if conduct and voluntary action are to * On the distinction here drawn between conduct and action, see Lotze's Practical Philosophy^ pp. 23 foil. t See Aristotle's Ethics, Boole III., ch. vii., where this point is raised, and once for all solved in the above sense. Ch. I] The Object of Moral Judgi7ient 45 be taken as equivalent terms, the difficulty might be raised that many actions are clearly seen to be voluntary, and yet are not commonly reckoned as conduct or made the subject of moral judgment. Thus it is thought that while the artisan is at his work, though all his acts may be strictly voluntary, yet they are not conduct : conduct (that in virtue of which we apply moral attributes to him) only begins when he lays down his tools. We do indeed blame him for being dilatory or careless in his work, but this is thought to be on the ground of his breaking his contract with his employer, not on the ground of the work itself. Similarly, in the higher fields of the artist and the scientific reasoner or experimentalist, we do not generally think of their labour as conduct. The distinc- tion, however, here urged is entirely arbitrary, and can- not bear investigation. The conduct of the hand and eye and intellect in daily work is as much moral conduct as the voluntary dealings with Ourselves and others out- side that work. An artisan or an artist or a writer who does not " do his best " is not only an inferior workman, but a bad man.* Conduct then embraces not merely a section of man's voluntary life; it is not "three-fourths of life," as Matthew Arnold said of it, or any other vulgar fraction of it, but the whole of life so far as it is human life at all. § 16. What is Will? It remains to ask what this Will or Volition is which brings human action within the reach of moral judg- ment. The investigation of the phenomena of will as * Carlyle once said of a joiner who was doing a job in his house in Chelsea that he "broke the whole decalogue with every stroke of his hammer." 46 Ethics [Bk. II a side or aspect of the human mind is one for psychol- ogy rather than ethics. Here it must suffice to give a short statement of the results reached by psychology, so far as they are necessary for the right understanding of what follows. This will best be done by taking a simple instance and analysing it. Let us take the voluntary action of rising and going nearer to the fire. What does this involve? (i) Let us say it involves a feeling of pain arising from the sensation of being cold. Feeling is an element in all conscious action, and by feeling is meant simply pleasure or pain. This is involved even in the most unemotional actions, as in the investigation of a scientific problem. If there were no element of feeling, of pleasure in the thought of the acquisition of knowledge or of pain in the thought of being without it {i.e., unless we had an interest in it), the activity itself would be impossible. In the case chosen for illustration it is obvious enough that there is an element of feeling, and that on the supposition that the action we have under analysis is voluntary this feeling makes itself felt distinctly as mine. It involves the incipient judgment, "I feel cold." In proportion as this is realised my state is recognised as different from the state of the cat which at the same moment shows signs of moving to the fire also. (2) There is desire of the warmth of the fire. It is im- portant to note the new elements that are here intro- duced, {a) There is the idea of the fire and its heat in a particular direction and at a particular distance, and of myself as warmed by it. (J)) Side by side, and contrasted with this, there is the idea of my present cold self, the contrast producing a heightened state of feeling curiously compounded of the pain of the present Ch. I] The Object of Moral Judgment 47 state and the pleasure or interest in the idea of the fire. (^) But if these two were all, — if the rise of the idea of the fire were immediately followed by its enjoy- ment, as putting on the wishing-cap in the story means possession of the thing wished for, — there would be no such thing as desire or will. It is the fact that there is resistance to be overcome, something to be done, that is the condition of both. Desire is a state of tension created by the contrast between the present state of the self and the idea of a future state not yet realised. But desire is not will, as may be seen from the fact that there may be a conflict of desires in the mind, as, in our illus- tration, the conflict between the desire of getting on with my work and the desire of getting up and going to the fire. (3) This is the stage of deliheratioiiJLxa.-^\i\c\i the mind weighs, as in a balance, two or more mutually exclusive objects of desire. Finally, Will, or Volition, is the act by Vv^hich attention is concentrated on the one object of desire, to the exclusion of the others. Hence there is further involved (4) the " actjo£^hoiceJi_" ditc'i- sion," or "resolution," the essence of which is that I identify myself in anticipation with a particular object and with the particular line of action required to real- ise it. It may be, however, that the actual realisation is deferred to a future time, e.g., till I have finished a book or a letter. In this case I am said to have made a resolution, which means that the idea is, as it were, hung up meantime in a state of suspended anima- tion, to be called into life again when the proper moment shall arrive. We do indeed pass moral judgments upon * With reference to the object or end. At a later stage, after the resolution has been taken, there is usually a subsidiary process of deliberation as to the means. 48 Ethics [Bk. ii resolutions,* but they are only provisional. A man is not good because he makes good resolutions, nor bad because he makes bad ones. It is only when the resolu- tion passes into conduct that it justly becomes the object of a moral judgment.! § 17. Relation of Desire to Will and Character The chief difficulty in considering an act of will does not, however, attach to the analysis of it into its elements, but to the question of the manner in which we are to conceive of these elements as related to one another in the concrete act. * And even on desires. See Matthew's Gospel, v. 28. t How far the resolution is from the completed act has become a proverb in respect to good resolutions It is not, perhaps, very creditable to human nature that a similar reflection with regard to bad resolutions does not make us more charitable to persons who are caught apparently on the way to a crime. Hoffding (^Psychology, Eng. Ed., p. 342) quotes a case of a woman who, having got into a neighbour's garden for the purpose of setting fire to her house, and been taken almost in the act, swore solemnly in court that she knew she would not have perpetrated the act, but hesitated to state upon oath that she had abandoned her intention when she was surprised. With this we may compare the passage m INIark Rutherford's story of Miriam's Schoohng, where, speaking of Miriam's temptation to take her own life, he says : " Afterwards the thought that she had been close to suicide was for months a new terror to her. She was unaware that the distance betiveen us and dreadful crimes is much greater often than it appears to be." On the other hand, the mere wish for a result {e.g., Tito Melema's wish for his father's death in Romola^ may contain already in itself, all unknown to the conceiver of it, the fully formed resolution and the act as well. The occa- sion only is wanting for the wish and the deed to spring together. On the subject of the whole section, see Ward's art. on "Psychol- ogy" in Enc Brit., p. 74; Green's Proleg. to Ethics, Book II., ch. ii. ; Dewey's Psychology, pp. 360 foil. , Ch. I] The Object of Moral Judgment 49 Thus it is a common mistake to think of a desire as an isolated element. We speak of our " having desires," "following our desires," "controlling our desires," etc., as though they were something separate from ourselves, acting upon us from without, or con- trolled by us as an unruly horse is by its rider.* This conception of the relation between will and desire is at the basis of the anti-libertarian doctrine, that conduct is at all times determined by the strongest desire, i.e. (since desire is a force outside and independent of the will), by something other than free choice. The conception, however, is itself inaccurate. It is forgotten that desires are always for objects, and that these objects are always relative to a self for whom they have value. It is owing to their having a value for self that they become objects of desire, and thus their character, even their very ex- istence, is always dependent upon the character of the self to whom they are objects. Thus it is an object of desire to the reader to apprehend this section on the nature of conduct, but it is so in virtue of his intellectual and moral needs, acquirements, and capacities. In other words, the desire depends upon, and is organically related to, the character of the person who desires to understand this book. This section has a eignificance and an attraction for him which it does not possess for the man in the street, precisely in virtue of the difference of their respective characters. His character reflects itself in the object of his desire; he thinks he sees, in the idea of himself as having read the book, a more desirable self than his present self : whereas to the man in the street the sight of the book and the paragraph * See Plato's well-known simile of the charioteer and the horses, Phcsdrus, § 253. 5° Ethics [Bk. II gives back no such reflection, and awakens, consequently, no such desire. These considerations bring out two points which are of the utmost importance in the theory of desire. First, human desires are not mere irrational forces or tendencies propelling a man this way and that way. They are always for objects more or less definitely conceived. As such they are to be distinguished from mere appetites or propensities which are shared by the lower animals. Secondly, these objects are related to a self, and that in two ways, {a) They are organically related, as just explained, to the character of that self. So far from being the creature of desire, each man may be said to create his own desires, in the sense that, as he himself changes by development of his intellectual and moral powers, he changes the character of the objects which interest him or which he desires, {h) They are related to the self, in that it is the realisation of them for a setf that is desired. Hence it is indifferent whether we say, e.g., I desire that object, or I desire myself to be in possession of that object; I desire to read this book, or I desire a self that has read this book. The essential point to note is that all desire, and there- fore all will (inasmuch as will depends upon desire), carry with them a reference to self. Their object is a form of self-satisfaction.* § 18. Will and Self The mistake of conceiving of will and desire as con- trolling or controlled from without is connected with the * Cp. Bradley's, Ethical Studies, p. 62, " In desire what is desired must in all cases be self," Ch. I] The Object of Moral Jiidgjuent 51 more fundamental one of conceiving of the will and the self as externally related to one another. As the former may be said to be the characteristic fallacy of those who oppose the common doctrine of the freedom of the will, the latter may be said to be the characteristic mis- take of those who support it.* The latter often speak as though the self had, among its other faculties, also a will, which was free in the sense of being able to act independently of desire, and of the character which, as we have seen, reflects itself in desire. If what we have already said be true, we shall suspect this view, on the ground that, as we have already seen, will is dependent on desire, and all desire is related to self and character. We cannot be too careful to avoid thinking of the will z.% possessedhy the self in the above sense. The will is the self. It is the self apprehended as consciously moving towards the realisation of an object of desire. It thus differs from conduct as the inward does from the outward aspect of the same fact. Looked at from the inside, the fact apprehended is that of a self expressing itself in conscious action with a purpose; looked at from the outside, it is conduct. Hence it will be indifferent whether we say that moral judgments attach to conduct or to the will (or self) that realises itself in conduct. * It is not possible, perhaps not desirable, to enter, In a text-book like the present, into a full discussion of the vexed and difficult question of the freedom of the will. The above remarks are rather warnings against initial errors in approaching the subject than a detailed solution of its difficulties. For a critical discussion of the points at issue between Libertarians and Determinists, see Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics, Book I., ch. v.; and for development of a view similar to that in the text, Green's Prolegomena, Book II.. ch. ii. 52 Ethics [Bk. II § 19. Conduct and Character In defining the subject-matter of ethics, we said that it was conduct and character; but hitherto we have not been in a position to set these two in their proper rela- tions to one another. We have now, however, reached a point of view from which we may criticise the common ideas of that relationship. P'or these ideas are founded upon an error similar to those which we have just been criticising. They assume that the will, of which conduct, as we have just seen, is only the outer side, stands to the character in a merely external relation; the only differ- ence being that, while by some it is conceived of as de- termined by it as by a natural cause {e.g., as the motion of the billiard ball is determined by the cue), by others the will is conceived of as capable of acting in an inde- pendent line of its own, without relation to character. It will help us to steer our way between the rocks and shoals of this controversy, which will be recognised by the student as that between Necessarianism and Libertarian- ism, if we keep clearly before us two distinctions often overlooked. In the first place, there is the distinction between the so-called natural tendencies and inherited charac- teristics, such as quick temper or indolent disposition, which are the raw material of moral training, and these same as elaborated and systematised by will and intelli- . gence in that peculiar mode which we call character. The former, as isolated elements of character, may in a sense be said to be "given," and to be independent of will; though, as a matter of fact, they never come before us in a being whose conduct may be made the :»bject of moral judgment, except in a form which they nu Ch. I] The Object of Moral Judgment 53 owe to the reaction of will and intelligence upon them. Character, on the other hand, is the acquired habit of regulating these tendencies in a certain manner, in rela- tion to consciously conceived ends. In other words, character is not something separate from will and acting upon it from without, but is the habitual mode in which will regulates that system of impulses and desires which, looked at subjectively, is the field of its exercise.* Secondly, there is the distinction between character as relatively fixed and static at the moment of action, and character as something that grows and changes from moment to moment. In its former aspect volition must be conceived of as determined by character; the individual act must be taken as the expression or embodiment of character. If it be not so taken it is difificult to see in what sense we can speak in ordinary language of a man as respon- sible or accountable for his actions. The theoretic justification of moral responsibility is the presumption that a man's voluntary actions may be taken as an index to the moral qualities of the man himself. Any other hypothesis as to the relation between character and conduct — whether it be that of the determinist, who supposes actions to flow from previous conditions, as physical effects follow upon their causes, or that of the libertarian, who isolates the will from character as a mysterious power of unmotived choice — is incompatible with human responsibility. On the former hypothesis a human action is only one of a series of natural effects, for which it would be as absurd to hold the agent * Hence character has been defined as a " habit of will." J. S. Mill calls character " a completely fashioned will," 54 Ethics [Bk. II accountable as it would be to hold the sun accountable for heat or the clouds for rain. On the latter supposi- tion acts of choice are traced to an abstract force or entity, conceived of as without organic relation to the concrete self or personality who alone can be the subject of moral censure or approval.* On the other hand, looked at as in process of forma- tion or growth, character must be conceived of as determined by volition. As already pointed out,t our habits of conduct are the result of an indefinite multitude of past actions, which in the first instance were voluntary. If any one objects to this account, whereby he is asked to conceive of character as at once determining and determined by the will, we shall best answer by pointing out that this apparent contradiction is not peculiar to the relation of character and the individual act : it is simply a law of growth generally. The life of a plant furnishes us with an analogous instance. At any moment of its growth the plant is determined by its previous state; while, on the other hand, the new shoot (which corresponds to the volitional act) reacts upon and changes, or, in other words, deter- mines, the future growth of the parent plant. We must, however, remember that, while in the plant the determining and the determined are unconscious of themselves as such, man (and herein lies his freedom) is conscious of himself as at once determining and determined by his character.! * On the subject of responsibility, see, inter alia, Bradley, op. cit., Essay I.; Dewey, Outlines of Ethics, p. i6o. t § 15 and n. \ For discussion of the sense in which character can be taken as fixed, see Bradley, op. cit., Essay I., Note B. Ch. 1] The Object of Moral Judgment 55 § .20. Is Motive or Consequent the Essential Element in Conduct as the Object of Moral Judgment? There still remains a serious difficulty in connection with the above account of the object of moral judgment. The object of moral judgment, it has been said, is con- duct; but conduct, according to our definition, has two aspects : it is will and it is action; it involves .an internal and an external factor. On the one hand, as will it in- volves feeling, and desire, which again involves the idea of an object. On the other hand, actions obviously in- volve consequences : in action the will goes, so to speak, out of itself, implicates itself in an external world, and in realising its object produces an effect. Hence the question rises. Which of these factors is the important one? Is conduct judged to be good or bad in respect of the feelings and desires involved in the volition, or in respect to the consequences which are involved in the action? The controversy has become historic, some philosophers maintaining that the Tightness or wrong- ness of an action depends upon the motive, others on the consequences. On the one hand J. S. Mill asserts, "The motive has nothing to do with the morality of the act."- On the other his opponents maintain that " the Tightness or wrongness of an act depends very much upon the motive for which it is done." The question cannot be fully answered at this stage of our investigation. The answer to it clearly depends in part upon our conclusions as to the kind of conse- quences which we shall agree to call good, i.e., upon the answer we give to the question. What is the "standard " of moral judgment? which will be the subject discussed in future chapters. Meantime it may be observed that 5 6 Ethics [Bk. II much of the difficulty turns on the ambiguity of the word motive, upon which, in its relation to conduct, we are now in a position to throw some light. § 21. Meaning of Motive It will be generally agreed that the motive is that which moves the will. It may therefore be looked for in one or other of the conditions which we found on analysis are implied in any act of will. These con- ditions are chiefly two, feeling and desire. In which of these are we to look for motive? (i) Some have said in feeling, and there is a sense in which it must be admitted that feeling is the moving spring of action. It is certain that there is no action which is not preceded by feeling. This is involved in saying, as we did, that feeling is invariably present as an element in desire. The pleasure-seeker must have a feeling of pleasure in the thought of a future pleasure before he can be moved to pursue it. Similarly the benevolent man must feel pleasure in the thought of other people's happiness, the scientific man in the thought of the truth to be dis- covered, before the will of either can be set in motion. But it is clear that this feeling cannot be the motive of an action in the sense required. For whatever else a motive is, it is agreed by all that it is equivalent to an end or aim representing something that is to be realised, e.g., a future pleasure to ourselves, a good to others, or a truth to be discovered, not something that is already realised, as is the feeling in question. This may be •otherwise expressed by saying that, while feeling as an element in desire may be said to be the efficient cause of action, a motive is universally admitted to be a final cause. Moreover, it is to be observed in connection with Ch. I] The Object of Moi'cil Judgment 57 the question placed at the head of the ])receding section that feeling, in the sense just explained, has in itself and as feeling no moral qualities whatsoever. It is only in virtue of its connection with certain objects that it acquires such a quality. Thus the feeling of pleasure in the thought of a pleasure is as a feeling neither good nor bad. Its moral quality depends wholly on the kind of pleasure which is thought of. Similarly the feeling of pleasure at the thought of a particular act of well-doing or a particular scientific investigation has upon its own right no moral superiority over any other feeling. It only derives its right to moral appro- bation from the object which kindles it; in other words, from the end or aim towards which the desire of which it is an element is directed.* (2) May we then look for the motive in the desire? It is clear that it cannot be simply the desire. Desire itself is said to be "moved," and, as we have seen, it is moved by the idea of an object; it is, in fact, that projection of the feeling self towards an object not yet attained which is the condition of volition. (3) Is then this idea of the object the real motive of the action? In a sense it is, but a question might still be asked. Is this idea of a de- sired object a motive before the will has chosen it, or only after the will has identified itself with the object and been "moved" by it? By some motive has been * It might be said (Martineau seems to say so, Types of Ethical Theory, Part II., Book II., ch. vi., §1) that malevolence is a feel- ing which is unconditionally bad. But malevolence is more than a feeling. It is, as the word indicates, a " desire for evil " to another. On the whole subject of the relation between feeling and motive, see Dewey, op. cit., pp. 5, 6, 7, 10, loS. Also below, p. 1 10, and the words there cited. 58 Ethics [Bk. II taken, in the former sense, to mean the idea of any ob- ject presented to the mind as desirable. Popular lan- guage would seem to sanction this usage when it speaks of "a conflict of motives," as though several ideas were fighting for mastery. But seeing that the motive is that which moves, and the will is not moved until it chooses, it seems more correct to define motive finally as the idea of the object which, through congruity with the character of the self, moves the will.* § 22. Motive and Intention Further to clear the ground of preliminary difficulties which beset the question of the relation of motive and consequent to one another and to moral judgment, we must clearly distinguish between motive and intention. Bentham formulated this distinction by defining motive as that for the sake of which an action is done; whereas the intention includes both that for the sake of which, and that in spite of which, anything is done. Intention is thus wider than motive. The former may be said to include the latter, but not vice versa. For while the end or consequent for the sake of which the action is done is, of course, intended, it is only part of the inten- tion, and is sometimes distinguished from the other part as the "ultimate intention." On the other hand, the consequences of the intermediate steps or the means adopted, though part of the intention, are not part of the motive. Thus the father who punishes his child is said to intend the child's good. The good of the child is the motive. But he also intends to cause the child * On the subject of motive, see Green, op. cit., Book II., ch. i., pp. 90 foil. Ch. I] The Object (f Moral Judgment 59 pain; the pain, however, though it is part of the inten- tion, cannot in any sense be called the motive or reason why he punished him. Or take the case of the man who sells his coat to buy a loaf of bread. ' His motive is to buy the bread. It is also part of his intention to do so. It is part of his intention also to part with his coat, but this cannot in any intelligible sense be said to be the motive of his conduct. § 23. Bearing of Results on Question bet'ween Motive and Consequent If we now revert to the question with which we started, we perceive that the antithesis upon which the con- troversy turns is in reality a false one. Motive and consequent are not really opposed to one another in the manner supposed. The motive is the ultimate con- sequent as apprehended and willed. It is accordingly indifferent whether we say that the motive or the con- sequent is the object of moral judgment, so long as we understand what we are speaking about. Thus we may say that an act is good because the motive is good, but we shall be careful to note that by motive we mean, not a mere feeling, but the end with which the will identifies itself in the action, and by so doing reveals its character. On the other hand, we may say that it is the consequences which give moral character to the act; but again we shall be careful to note that this is true only if by consequences we mean, first, consequences as preconceived, i.e., as intended, and, secondly, those of the intended consequences for the sake of which the act is done, i.e., the idea of which is the final cause of the act. A man cannot be held respon- 6o Ethics [Bk. II sible for consequences which he did not foresee, except in so far as he is responsible for not foreseeing them. Nor is he to be judged good or bad on the ground of that part of the consequences which was his intention merely and not his motive. So judged, the regicide for the cause of freedom would be condemned, the tyrant who saved a victim from drowning to burn him at the stake would be justified. Only when we have taken into account the act as a whole, and answered the questions (i) whether the consequences as a whole are good or bad, (2) whether these consequences were the end aimed at, have we a right to found our moral judg- ments upon them.* § 24. Will and Motive As a further consequence of our definition of motive, it will be seen that what was said in a previous section on the relation between will and desire applies, mutatis * It has been said that most of the great historic controversies have turned on the ambiguity of words. The present seems an instance in point. Mill properly points out in his discussion of the above question ( UtilitarianisDi, ch. ii. «.), that there is a distinction between motive and i)itention. He denies, however, that the motive has anything to do with the morality of the action, although he admits that the intention has. But on looking closer we find that he means by intention " what the agent ivilh to do," which, taken in the narrower sense of the ultimate intention explained, is precisely what we have seen to be the proper meaning of motive. From this he distinguishes motive as " the feeling which makes him will so to do," which is precisely what we have said motive ought not to mean, for the feeling, as feeling, has no moral quality whatsoever. Mill's opponents {e.g., Martineau, see Types of Ethical Theory, p. 274) use the words in the same sense as he does. For the further discussion of the question raised in the text, and of other difficulties that rise out of it, see Green, op. cit.. Book IV., ch. i. init. Ch. ij The Object of Moral Judgment 6i mutandis, to the relation between will and motive. Since motive is the idea of the wider object desired, and since the object desired depends upon the character of the self that desires, the same may be said of the motive. This is sometimes expressed by saying that a man "con- stitutes " his own motive. And this is true in the sense that the motive is not to be conceived of as external 10 the will, or as something that acts upon or appeals to it from without. The mind and wall of a man are already expressed in his motives, so that in being deter- mined by them he is in strict sense determined by himself. Hence we may pass from judgment on a man's conduct and character to judgment upon his motive, for in doing so we do not pass from judgment upon will to judgment upon something foreign to it. In judging a man's motive to be bad, we pass condemnation on the character or habit of will for being such that this could be a motive to it. § 25. Summary Returning from the discussion of these difficulties, we may sum up the conclusions arrived at in this chapter, so far as they are important for our main investigation. The object of moral judgment is Conduct, i.e. voluntary action. The Volition, or act of Will, which is the distinctive mark of conduct, may be defined as the movement of the Self towards the realisation of an object, conceived of, as a state of its own being, as well-being or as good. Judgment on conduct may therefore, with equal justice, be said to be judgment upon will, or upon the self which is expressed in the act of will. As, moreover. Character, properly understood, is simply the general habit of will determining it in its particular actions, moral judgments 62 Ethics [Bk II attach with equal propriety to character. Finally, the Motive of an action is not, as commonly supposed, the feeling (which, though undoubtedly present in every act of will, has as feeling no moral quality), but the idea of the object in which the self is moved to look for satisfaction. Hence, as organically related to the self (being, in fact, only possible as a motive to a self of such and such a character), the motive is also with justice regarded as a proper object of Moral Judgment. Ch. II] The Standard as Law 63 CHAPTER II THE STANDARD OF MORAL JUDGMENT MORAL LAW § 26. The Two General Forms of Moral Judgment If, in seeking for the standard of moral judgment, we start with an analysis of its form, we perceive at once that this is two-fold. On the one hand we speak of conduct as "right" or "wrong," and on the other as "good " or "bad." And these two forms seem to imply different standards. Looked at from the side of its ety- mology, right is connected with Lat. /r^/z/i-^" straight" or "according to rule.''' Similarly the word in Greek most nearly corresponding to right, Aikt; (Dike), with the adj. St'/caios (dikaios) and the adv. ^U-qv (diken = in early Greek simply " according to rule "), is connected with the root die, to point or direct. On the other hand, good, Germ.^///, is connected with the loot gath, found in Gr. dya^o's (agathos), and meaning serviceable or valuable for an end. Similarly we have a circle of words referring to the phenomena of the moral life, and bearing obvious al^nity to one or other of these fundamental ideas. On the one hand we have the vocabulary of right: e.g., " duty," that which is owed or which we are bound to do; 64 Ethics [Bk. ii "obligation," that whicli binds us; "ought," or owed; "responsibility," or answerableness, as before a legal tribunal, etc. On the other hand we have the vocabu- lary of goodness or fitness for an end: e.g., in "virtue," the quality of fitness in a inau, corresponding to Gr. aptrr] (arete), from root ar, found in apapLO-Kw (ararisco), to fit or join together; "worth," or value for an end, etc. § 27. Which of these is Prior? There thus seem to be two standards, or at any rate two different ways of conceiving of the same standard, that of a law and that of an end; and the question may be raised. Which of these is prior, and what is their relation to one another? The answer is that while the conception of end, as we shall hereafter see, is prior in importance, being that on which the other rests, yet the conception of law comes first in time. Whether we look at the individual or the nation, we find that the earliest idea of morality is of a species of conduct which is imposed upon us by a law.* Thus each of us, at his first introduction into the world, finds himself in the presence of a law which he is conscious he did not make, and which seems to require from him an uncon- * This, of course, does not prevent us from admitting that at the outset moral and political laws must have been recognised as serving some social utility. Cp. Green's Prolegomena to Ethics, Book III., ch. iii. : "There is an idea which equally underlies the conception both of moral duty and of legal right; which is prior, so to speak, to the distinction between them; which must have been at work in the minds of men before they could be capable of recog- nising any kind of action as one that ought to be done. . . . This is the idea of a common good." This is true even of religious prac- tices. Their claim to respect must in the first instance have been Ch. II] The Standard as Law 65 ditional obedience. The same is true of nations. The first idea of morality is of obedience to law. Nor is this idea confined to the jDrimitive stages in a nation's development. Probably the prevalent idea among the vast majority of the inhabitants of civilised countries, at the present day, is that morality consists in doing what is right, or what is in accordance with a law laid down for human guidance by a Superior Will. Now while, as we shall see, there is a sense in which morality consists in obedience to an authoritative law, yet "our first step must be to examine this popular notion as an account of the ultimate nature of the standard of moral judgment. § 28. Three Stages in Reflective Analysis In doing so we shall find that there are three clearly marked stages of reflective analysis, representing respec- tively the degree in which the human mind, in reflecting upon the contents of morality, has been able to rest sat- isfied with this primitive conception. ( i ) In more primi- tive times, and among individuals at a later stage of development who have not outgrown primitive notions, the law is conceived of as external. (2) At a later period, when reflection has shown this notion to be un- tenable, it is sought to supplement the defects of the their serviceableness. Cp. Sir Alfred Lyall's Asiatic Studies, p. 56 : " It will almost always be found that they [religious practices] are really founded upon some selfish material interests, and are not, as they are usually supposed to be, merely whimsical super- stitions as to what will please the gods or as to what is right and proper." But it remains true that this origin is very soon forgotten : the law becomes, as it were, fossilised, and, resisting the forces that might have adapted it to new circumstances, is handed down as an unchangeable system of divinely given commandraents. 66 Ethics [Bk. II traditional code, and to free the individual from bondage to an external authority, by appealing to the internal law of conscience. (3) While at a later stage still these two forms of " legal " morality come to be recognised by reflection as unable to bear the light of criticism, and give way to a new conception altogether, whereby the law is seen to be related to an end, which as intrinsically good and desirable determines ultimately our judgments of good and bad, and through them of right and wrong. We cannot do better, at this stage in our analysis, than avail ourselves of the help afforded by observing the course which, as a matter of fact, man's reflections on the nature and contents of the moral law have tended to take. § 29. (1) Morality as Obedience to External Law The defects revealed by reflection, when it comes to react upon merely traditional codes which are con- ceived of as "given," are chiefly these: — {a) Such codes are found to contain elements which, though they are commonly regarded as of co-ordinate authority, are clearly of unequal importance. Thus cere- monial are bound up with moral injunctions, moral and religious with political. A notable example of the former confusion and its subsequent correction is to be found in the history of the Jews. The burdensome ceremonial legislation which had been insisted upon by the traditionalist as of equal importance and sustained by the same authority as the moral * begins in the time of Amos and Hosea,t through the force of altered cir- * An interesting survival is to be found in our own time in the Fourth Commandment. t See Amos v. 21 foil.; viii. 5 foil.; Hosea vi. 6, Ch. II] The Standard as Law 67 cumstances and a higher and more reflective moral feel- ing, to be recognised as a matter of quite secondary- importance, if not entirely irrelevant, to morality. In the teaching of the New Testament, as is well known, the ceremonial has dropped entirely away. As an exam- ple of the way in which political duties may come to be recognised as distinct from and subordinate to moral, and religious duties, we have the Greek drama of Antigone. Its interest to the moral philosopher* lies in the fact that it marks the recognition by the writer, and the Athenian people whom he addresses, of the inadequacy of a merely traditional and aphoristic code to meet the varied demands of the moral life. In individual life it is un- necessary to illustrate the distress which the conflict between a moral command and political or paternal authority frequently creates in persons to whom moral duty has been presented solely or chiefly in the form of a system of external rules. {U) But the conflict is not confined to elements so obviously distinct as the ceremonial or political and the moral. Within the laws recognised as moral, contradic- tions necessarily rise. The commandment "Thou shalt not steal " may come into conflict with the commandment "Thou shalt do no murder," f "Thou shalt not lie " with "Thou shalt do no injury to a fellow-creature." The practical needs of life are sufficient to reveal this defect in traditional morality, though conscious reflection is not slow to follow and emphasise the unconscious criticism of changing circumstances. Thus the in- dustrial changes in Athens had already sapped the * See Caird's Hegel (Blackwood), p. 6; Jebh's Antigone, Introd., p. xxi. t See Plato's Republic, § 331 and whole passage. 68 Ethics [Bk. ii traditional code, before the criticism of the sophists came to assist and accelerate its disintegration. There are two ways in which the would-be conservators of a traditional code may, under these circumstances, en- deavour to meet the difficulty. They may try to stretch the code so as to make it co-extensive with life. In other words, by inventing a system of explanations and excep- tions they may attempt the impossible task of making their code cover every possible case. This is the 7-educiio ad absiirdum of the notion that morality can consist in obedience to an external law. It was the mode adopted by the clergy of the middle ages in reference to the ecclesiastical code. It resulted in the development of that system of Casuistry which has fallen into such deserved disrepute. Another way is to seek for one chief commandment among many lesser ones.* Thus the doubts and difificulties of the faithful were settled in the Christian Church by advancing the doctrine of Passive Obedience, according to which the supreme duty was implicitly to accept the decisions of king and pontiff as the oracles of God. The demand for such a commandment springs from a truer instinct, — * On a celebrated occasion when the question, " Which is the great commandment?" was raised, the misunderstanding it involved was shown by the selection in reply of one that could not by its very nature be a commandment at all, being a direction to feel, not to act. In reality the answer went beyond the idea of law, and sub- stituted for it a principle of action. It expressed this principle in subjective terms of feeling (love), but other passages show that it was conceived also in terms of an objective end. It was " the Kingdom of God " which " is within you." The distinction between Rule and Rational End corresponds to that betueen " the Law " and " the Gospel," between the ten words and the good word or the word about the Good. Ch. II] The Standard as Law 69 the instinct, namely, to seek a principle of unity which will introduce order and subordination into the multi- plicity of the traditional code. So far it is right. It is wrong in that the principle that is sought is still an external one. It unifies by suppressing and destroying, not by co-ordinating and vitalising the parts. In this way the doctrine just referred to meant in this country the suppression of the inward witness of conscience against untruth and injustice in favour of the duty of obedience to the powers that be. Or, to take another example, the golden rule that we should love our neighbour as ourselves has been referred to in the above note as a principle of conduct rather than a command- ment. But it has frequently been interpreted by devout Christians in the latter sense, and in this case it obvi- ously leaves room for conflict and contradiction between its terms. Thus I have heard it seriously argued that it only commands us to love our neighbour as ourselves, the implication being that when, as often happens, a conflict arises between our own and our neighbour's ad- vantage, we require a further guide. The answer which is merely authoritative is in favour of one side or the other, and settles the dispute by making an arbitrary selection of one of two apparently contradictory maxims. The discovery, on the other hand, of a principle which will mediate between them, and give each its place in an organic system of duties, is the problem of rational ethics. {c) A further difficulty is raised by reflection upon the nature of the moral life itself. If, as appears according to the view we are considering, this consists in obedience to a law which is merely "given," it does not require much insight to see that, however august the authority -JO Ethics [Bk. II upon which it rests,* this authority itself can only be grounded on a force majeure. In other words, the in- terest which man takes in it can only be an indirect one, having been made artificially to attach to it by means of threatened punishments and promised rewards. But what is this but the destruction of morality itself? For whatever else morality may be, it is universally acknowl- edged by all who reflect upon it to be something more than slavish submission to a superior will on the ground of its superior power. § 30. (2) The Law as Internal— Conscience These difficulties it has been sought to meet by rep- resenting the standard of moral judgment under another form. The law, it has been said, that constrains us in the field of conduct is not really the external law at all, or this only in so far as it finds a response in the inner law of conscience. It is this inner law that is the authoritative court of appeal. The external law may contain irrelevant matter, and enjoin at times contra- dictory lines of conduct; but we are not left without an inward witness and guide, that is sufficient for all emer- gencies, and is the ultimate standard and test of moral judgments. We must therefore examine, in the second place, the claim of conscience to be ultimate and supreme. And first we shall have to ask more particularly what is here meant by conscience. By conscience is here meant the intuitive faculty of * To the Greek, Themis (Law) was the daughter of Uranos (Heaven). The Jews, as is well known, traced their moral code to the legislation of Sinai. Ch. II] Tlie Standard as Lata 71 moral judgment, with the characteristic feeling that accompanies its exercise, {a) It is claimed that it is intuitive, i.e., it does not arrive at its results through any process of reasoning, but acts immediately. Acts of fraud and cowardice are condemned instinctively; acts of truthfulness, courage, temperance, are as instinc- tively approved. {l>) It is said to be underived. It cannot be analysed into simpler elements, being an ultimate 'fact of human nature. Hence the peculiar authority of its judgments, which command our allegiance irrespective of all secondary considerations, such as interest or pleasure, (c) It is universal. It is found among all races, the lowest as well as the highest, and among all ages and classes. By this it is not, of course, meant that it is found among these in an equally developed form, any more than is the faculty of dis- criminating colours, or of reasoning; but that whatever development the faculty may or may not subsequently undergo, it is innate in just the same sense as are the faculties of sight and hearing, and just as universal as these are in all normally constituted human beings. § 31. Mistaken Objection to Intuitionalist Vieiw In criticising this, which is known as the Intuitionalist view of the standard of moral judgment, it is important not to mistake our ground. Thus we must put aside as irrelevant an argument that is frequently brought against it, viz., that the judgments of conscience do not possess that easily recognisable character which this theory attributes to them. They may easily be mistaken, it is argued, for various less dignified judgments and feelings. Thus conscience is frequently not distinguishable from 'J2 Ethics [Bk. II mere sense of propriety, reverence for custom, or fear of committing an offence against etiquette.* But this does not seem to be true. An appeal to consciousness seems to reveal a clearly distinguishable line of demarcation between the two phenomena, failure to distinguish which is as much a matter of intellectual as of moral obtuseness.t There are, however, insurmountable difificulties in accepting this theory as a final account of the standard of moral judgment, and these I must now proceed to state. As a preliminary it is necessary to go a step further than I have hitherto done in the analysis of conscience. § 32. Elements in Conscience It is clear, when we reflect upon it, that conscience involves at least two distinguishable elements, (a) There is an intellectual element. Conscience is a faculty of judgment. Nor is this judgment merely logical. It is not merely a judgment of fact. It is also judicial. It is a judgment upon fact. This judicial attitude of conscience is a prominent characteristic of it. Conscience in its * " You ride using another man's season ticket, or you tell a white lie, or speak an unkind word, and conscience, if a little used to such things, never winces. But you bow to the wrong man in the street, or you mispronounce a word, or you tip over a glass of water, and then you agonise about your shortcoming all day long; yes, from time to time for weeks. Such an impartial judge is the feeling of what you ought to have done." — Royce's Religious Aspect of Philosophy, pp. 53, 54. t The case, of course, of survivals such as that mentioned p. 74 n., in which what has come to be a mere convention is still mistaken for a moral obligation, is different. Ch. ii] The Standard as Law 73 usual manifestations seems to be engaged in a species of judicial investigation. Older writers delighte'l in this metaphor, which they worked out to show that, as common language seems to imply, conscience is at once lawgiver, accuser, witness, and judge. Conscience, it is said, "commands," conscience "accuses," conscience "bears witness," conscience "acquits" or "condemns." They might have added, as we shall immediately see, that it is also executioner, seeing that it punishes with "stings" peculiar to it. So prominent is this element of judgment, that by some it has been held to be its chief or only one. It is thought to be in a peculiar sense the voice of reason, and has been elevated into the position of a special faculty, which under the name of the moral faculty, or the faculty of moral judgment, had a prominent place assigned to it in the older text-books, {h) It is clear, however, that this is not the only element, or perhaps the most distinctive. It is as involving a characteristic feeling that the judg- ments of conscience come most home to us. This is especially marked, as is to be expected, in judgments upon past conduct, — the feeling of remorse, as is well known, being one of the most violent of human emo- tions. Hence some writers have gone to the opposite extreme from those who would exclude feeling altogether, and claimed for conscience that it is wholly a matter of emotion.* This view seems to gain some support from popular language, which substitutes "moral sentiment" and "moral feeling" for conscience, and endows them * "The approbation of praise and blame cannot,'' says Hume (^Inquiry concerning Principles of Morals, § i), "be the work of judgment, but of the heart, and is not a speculative proposition or affirmation, but an active feeling or sentiment." Cp. Professor Knight's Hume, B., ch. vi. (Blackwood). 74 Ethics [Bk. II with all the judicial attributes which we have seen to belong to the latter. . That this view involves the in- accurate use of language is obvious, inasmuch as feeling may emphasise 'and, in the metaphorical sense referred to above, give effect to the judgments of conscience, but as feeling it is dumb and cannot pronounce them. Nevertheless the side of the phenomena of conscience which is here emphasised is a true and important one.* § 33. Defects of Conscience as Ultimate Standard {a) The elements of feeling and judgment may stand in contradiction to one another. Returning once more to the criticism of the Intuitionalist theory, we may state the first difficulty thus: So long as the two elements of conscience just described are in harmony with one another,— so long, that is, as the appropriate feeling accompanies the intellectual approval or condemnation of an act, — little practical difficulty may arise in the conduct of life. But suppose, as is frequently the case, that reason approves of a line of conduct which yet, on being chosen, is accompanied by a feeling bearing a close resemblance to remorse. How are we to explain such a conflict? and which of the conflicting elements must we follow?! Psychologically, the explanation is simple enough. It is that feeling is the conservative element * On the general subject of conscience, see below, pp. 220 foil., and authorities there cited. t The reader will supply instances for himself. The contradiction between reason and feeling which some of us will recollect, when first we permitted ourselves to take a row or attend a concert on Sunday, is a good example from contemporary life. Ch. II] The Standard as Law 75 in human life. In the present case it continues to attach to certain lines of conduct in the form of remorse, or, as we say, "qualms" of conscience, even after reason, the radical and revolutionary element in life, has pronounced in their favour as morally innocent.* The ethical ques- tion, however, still remains. Which of these elements has the more authoritative claim upon us? Whatever our answer to this may be (whether we take our stand upon the instinctive feeling, or upon the rational judgment), we shall have to go further, and seek for a reason for our preference in the ultimate nature of conscience, i.e., we shall have to seek a standard of judgment as between the elements of conscience itself. {l)) Relativity of judgmeiits. But secondly, within the field of the element of conscience which we described as judgment, serious difficulties present themselves. What, it may be asked, are these judgments? The common answer is, that they represent the generally recognised principles of right and wrong: as that lying, cheating, unchastity are to be reprobated; truthfulness, honesty, temperance are subjects of approbation. In other words, it is the "middle axioms"! which are intuitively discerned. But if this is so, what becomes of the universality which we saw above is claimed on behalf of the judgments of conscience? Instead of the universal agreement on the main lines of moral obliga- tion which the theory demands, we find a perfect chaos * Another instance is the feeling that continues to keep us attached to institutions after we know them to be useless, or to individuals after they have ceased to merit our regard. t What Aristotle calls the major premise of the practical syllo- gism : All lying is wrong; the completed argument being this would be a lie, therefore this is wrong. ^6 Ethics [Bk. II of contradictory principles at various times and in various places,* and the standard of right and wrong is still to seek. If it be sought to meet this difficulty by giving a dif- ferent answer to our question, and maintaining with some that " though undoubtedly men differ in different' ages and countries as to what they judge to be right and wrong, yet they are all agreed as to the fact that there is a right and a wrong, and this is what is de- clared to be innate," this is to give up the whole position. For it amounts to the assertion that we know intuitively that there is a standard, but that intuition is helpless to tell us what the standard is. If, finally, it be said that what is intuitively appre- hended is not right and wrong as such, but the true end of human life, we have passed to a new theory altogether. We have passed from the theory that the standard of moral judgment is ultimately to be conceived of as a Law, and we have substituted for it a theory of the End. In this form Intuitionalism can no longer maintain itself as an independent theory. For whatever end we suppose thus to be intuitively revealed, the task of ethics is still before us, viz., to show that moral judgments do not rest on a number of isolated intuitions, but are organically related to an end or good. On the other hand, on any theory of the end, we may very well admit that its worthiness is intuitively discerned, in the sense that it is the necessary postulate of morality, and is not in the last resort susceptible of other proof. {/) The authority of the law still external. In discussing * See the classical proof that there are " no innate practical principles." — Locke's Essay concei-ning Himian Understanding, Book I., ch. iii., and Book V., ch. ii., below. Ch. II] The Standard as Law 77 the conception of morality as obedience to external law, we saw that difificulties rose, not only from the demand forced upon us, both practically and theoretically, to find some principle of unity in the particular injunctions of which it consists, but also from the consideration of the nature of its authority. If the law is merely external, it can only be recognised by man in virtue of its sanctions, that is, the pains and penalties which are decreed by another as the price of disobedience; and this was seen to be the destruction of morality, and the substitution for it of a long-sighted prudence. To meet this objection it was suggested that the law is not merely external, but is the voice of conscience. This led us into some account of conscience, with the result that its injunctions have been seen to lie just as much outside one another as those of external law, and therefore leave us with our explanation or principle of unity still to seek. We have now, therefore, to ask, in the third place, with reference to the authority of the law on the intuitional theory, whether it has really been made internal by being called the law of conscience? To be " internal " in the sense demanded, the law must be seen to be really our own, not merely the law of some part of us. If it is the law of a part only, it is still external to the self, and obedience to it on the part of the self is, after all, obedience to something which is external. Our question, therefore, resolves itself into this: Is conscience, on this theory, the name for the whole self, judging and feeling in a particular way, or is it only a part, connected indeed with the self in that it inhabits the same body, yet to all intents and purposes a stranger there ? Now our final objection to the theory that we must 78 Ethics [Bk. ii rest content in ethics with the intuitions of conscience is that, as commonly maintained, it leaves the Imv still external in the sense just explained. Conscience is not explained, as on any true theory it must be, as the self judging of its own acts,* but (as the very phraseology of the intuitional theory implies) as a special faculty. It is the "Faculty of Moral Judgment," — an innate and inex- plicable power of moral discrimination, sitting apart from the rest of human consciousness, like the priestess in the oracle at Delphi, and authoritatively imposing its decrees upon the human will. The whole conception may easily be shown in psychology! to be contrary to the teaching of science; it is now seen to contradict the presupposi- tion implied in the whole vocabulary of moral praise and blame, viz., that morality is free obedience to a self- imposed law. § 34. (3) Morality as determined by End It is indeed possible to correct this theory so as to meet the demand made upon it in the last paragraph. It may be said that conscience is the whole or true self claiming to legislate for the parts. Its claim is the claim of the self, as a conscious and rational being, to judge any particular manifestation of itself in voluntary action. Its voice is the voice of the true self, or of the self as a whole, which, as addressed to the false or partial self of particular desires and passions, rightfully assumes the tone of command, and has built up in connection with * See below, p. 220. t The human mind cannot be treated, as in the older text-books, as an aggregate of " faculties." The elements of mind, viz., feeling, thought, will, etc., are related to one another in a closer and more organic way than this mode of conceiving them represents. Ch. II] The Standard as Law 79 the varied circumstances and desires of life that system of authoritative commandments known as the moral law. Morality consists in obeying this voice. Man's freedom just means his power of being moral, i.e., of obeying the imperative of reason or of his true self. But, in making this correction, it is clear that we have passed beyond the conception of the standard as Law, and substituted in its place the idea of an End. There is indeed a moral law which is authoritative and supreme; but it is now seen to be so not by indefeasible right of its own, but in virtue of its relation to the true self, as the End which man, qua man, seeks to realise. The following books will be occupied with the further definition of the end which is the standard of moral judgment. Meantime we may conclude this part of the discussion by noting some of the general characteristics of this end, as these flow from the conclusions already reached, and may prove useful as tests both of current theories about it and of the view hereafter to be set forth. § 35. General Characteristics of the End * (i) It is important to observe that we are dealing in ethics with a conscious being, to whom the end is a pos- sible object of desire. Hence ethics is a teleological as opposed to empirical science. It deals with a final cause or consciously conceived purpose, not merely with an efficient cause or general tendency of things. Closely connected with ethics, and liable to be confused with it, there is the science of biological evolution, which shows * The remaining portion of this chapter is not essential to the main argument, and may be here omitted by the student who desires to follow closely in its track. 8o Ethics [Bk. II how efficient causes have been at work in bringing human consciousness to the birth as the soil out of which mo- rality springs. But it is a mistake to refuse, as is fre- quently done, to recognise that in passing from biology to ethics we are passing from an empirical to a teleological science. The mistake is made possible by the fact that there is a sense in which biology is also teleological, in that it deals with the tendency of organisms to adapt themselves to environment; and thus, through the law of natural selection, tc develop forms of life which we, with a reference to the end of consciousness and social life, call higher. But there is an important difference between the end with which biology and the end with which ethics and politics deal; viz., that in the one case it is worked out by beings who are unconscious of it; in the other it is an end which is consciously conceived. To overlook this distinction, and to attempt to solve ethical problems by the methods of empirical science, is one of the chief causes of confusion in working out the doctrine of the end. (2) That it is a good, and z. personal goo^, follows from the fact that it is a consciously conceived end. As such it is an object of desire, and, as we have already seen, "object of desire " and "personal good " are equivalent terms.* This must not, of course, be taken to mean that the end is necessarily self-interest. We shall have abundant occasion hereafter to deal with this fallacy. f Meantime, it is sufficient to warn the student against confusing two totally different things, viz., personal good and personal advantage. Whatever the end may * Qiiidqiiid petitur petitur sub specie boni. t In addition to what will hereafter be said, see the excellent treatment, Dewey, op. cit., § xxxv., and the authorities there cited. Ch. II] The Standard as Law 8i be — whether happiness, or duty, or perfection — it can only become an object of choice to us in so far as it is recognised as desirable, i.e., a personal good, or good for us. The difference between a selfish and unselfish theory of ethics is not that on the former the end is conceived as personal, on the latter as impersonal good, or as no good to the self at all. The difference lies in the account which they severally give of the nature and contents of the personal good. (3) It further follows from the fact that, as has been shown above, it is the end of the self as a whole, that it is intrinsically good. It is good in itself, not as a means towards any further good. Other ends, such as health, wealth, learning, are goods of the self under particular aspects : as a physical being, as wealth-producing, truth- seeking, and hence are contributions or means to a further good. The end of man, as man, cannot con- tribute to anything higher.* Hence it cannot consist of anything which does not possess interest for man, as that in realising which he will find his personal good. It cannot, for instance, be mere obedience to the will of God. Such obedience cannot in itself be an object of interest or desire. Those who represent obedience to the will of God as the supreme duty do not suppose that it can. They tacitly assume that man's chief end is his own happiness, and that this will best be secured in this world and the next by the course of conduct they recommend. The view really undermines morality by substituting for it a long-sighted prudence. It is accordingly a true in- tuition which makes the higher moral feeling of the * Cp. Aristotle's account of the end as self-sufiicing {_Nic. Ethics, I.) . 82 Ethics [Bk. II Church now insist that the relation of God to man is not that of a master imposing a law upon his servant, but that of a father to his children : the essence of the latter as opposed to the former being that a father recognises that his claim upon the obedience of his children rests upon the reasonableness of the law, as enjoining conduct which is for their good. (4) It is only stating the fact of its intrinsic goodness in another way to say that the end is sutnmuin bonum. But we must be careful not to mistake the meaning of the expression. It does not mean that the good can be conceived of in any sense as a sum of particular goods or satisfactions. Human life does not consist of a number of activities, each directed from moment to moment towards the satisfaction of a separate desire. It does not require much reflection to discover that our daily life, so far as we are intelligent beings, does not consist in the pursuit of a number of isolated equally important ends, but is a system of ends, each of which is more or less consciously subordinated to one beyond it, until, in the case of a "consistent" life,* we finally trace them all up to the aim, purpose, or final end of our lives. In a like sense, the good for self, as such, is not a mere sum of isolated satisfactions, but is the final end in reference to which all others have their place and value assigned to them. At the same time we have to avoid the mistake of thinking of the good as though it were the satisfaction of some supreme or highest principle distinct from and tyrannising over the desires. The supremacy which it * On the other hand, one of the most charming characteristics of children and of non-moral beings is that all their ends are equally important. Ch. II] The Standard as Law 83 exercises is not, so to speak, exercised in its own interest as separate from the interests of the particular desires. " Reason," says Aristotle, " rules the desires like a consti- tutional statesman," i.e., as their representative, and for the good of the whole, not for its own good as having an interest separate from theirs. In other words, the self is not something different from human desires, with sepa- rate interests of its own, but is these desires organically related to one another in a system or whole. It is, on the one hand, made up of them, varying from moment to moment as one or other of these is dominant; on the other hand, it is the principle of unity which expresses itself in them, dominating them and bringing them into that unity which we call personality. It is nothing apart from the desires and activities which it unifies; these, on the other hand, would be mere blind instincts of propensities apart from that principle or organic relation through which they become a self. Hence the good of the self or whole, while it is more than the good of any of the particular parts or desires, cannot be secured, except through the relative satisfaction of each of them.* * The conception of the Summum Bonum as a harmony or equi- librium of the elements of human nature cemes to us from Plato. It may be contrasted, on the one hand, with the Hedonists' view, which makes good consist in a sum of satisfactions, and, on the other, with Kant's, which makes it consist in satisfying the demands of reason, regardless of desire. Recently it has been worked out with much skill by Mr. Alexander in the first part of his Moral Order and Progress. It is, however, a mistake to suppose, as Mr. Alexander seems to do, that mere formal equilibrium of function, apart from the satisfaction of the self of which it is the condition, can ever of itself be the end. 84 Ethics [Bk. ii § 36. These Characteristics of the Moral End the Basis of commonly recognised Attributes of the Moral Law These characteristics of the end explain the peculiari- ties which are commonly recognised as distinctive of moral law. So long as we interpret moral judgment as merely a judgment of conformity to law, it is, as we have seen,* inexplicable. Hence we were forced to conclude that such judgments, while prior in time to those of value, as being the form under which we first make acquaintance with morality, are later in ethical importance. On the other hand, to depose the idea of moral law from its logical pre-eminence is not to cancel its practical claims; to explain the law by showing that its utterances have reference to an end, as the principle of unity which underlies them, is not to explain it away. On the contrary, it is to establish the law in possession of its traditional attributes, by showing the reason of its claim to them. Thus, in showing that the end is supreme, we have established the supremacy of the law of which in practice it is the source, as other ends {e.g., correct reasoning) are the source of the prac- tical maxims that flow from them {e.g., the rules of logic). On the same ground we may claim that the law is absolute or "categorical." As the end is one which man, as man, is called upon to realise, it carries with it a law or maxim from which there is no escape, the law, namely, of which all other moral laws are only the * Pp. 69, 70, where we saw that this interpretation involved us in contradictions, by requiring us to uaake laorality a ueaus to a further end. Ch. II] The Standard as Law 85 particularised expression — "Be a man."* Finally, we may claim to have established its dignity as a " law of liberty " by showing that it is not imposed from with- out, but flows from the conception of an end which is self-imposed and intrinsically good, j * Hegel's well-known formula is, " Be a person," to which, as we shall hereafter see, '* and respect others as persons " is a necessary addition. t For the practical value of moral rules as " tools of analysis," see Dewey, op. cH., pp. 203 foil. BOOK III THEORIES OF THE END CHAPTER I THE END AS PLEASURE § 37. Problem arising' out of Results hitherto reached Returning to the point we reached in examining the proposal to make conscience the ultimate standard of moral judgment, we may now state the problem which will occupy us in the immediately succeeding chapters. We there found that the moral judgments implied in the utterances of conscience are only intelligible as the judgments of a self which, as the principle of unity among the particular desires, and more than any one of them, claims to sit in judgment upon them, and demands that they shall each and all give way when, as may fre- quently happen, their satisfaction is incompatible with its own. The Satisfaction or, as we provisionally expressed it, the Realisation of this Self is thus the end which is the standard of moral judgment. If now we proceed to inquire more closely into the nature and definition of this, end, it is at once obvious that our conclusions will depend upon the conception we entertain of the nature of the self which is to be satisfied or realised. For there are different elements in the self, and according to our view of the relation of these to one another will be our notion of the nature of the 90 Ethics [Bk. Ill self as a whole. Thus, there is an obvious distinction, which the earliest psychologists were not slow to note, between Thought and Feeling, — between the active powers of thought and reason on the one side, and the passive element of feeling which comes and goes with the varied experiences of the self on the other. A ques- tion, therefore, at once arose, traceable in the very dawn of philosophy. Which of these elements constitutes the true nature of the self? Is feeling the primary and essential element, reason having for its function in the last resort only to administer to the satisfaction of a feeling or emotional self? or is reason the vital con- stituent in its composition, while feeling is only a tran- sient effect playing upon its surface? In accordance as one or other of these alternatives has been accepted, throughout the history of philosophy, is the view that has been taken of the ethical end. If the self is par excellence a feeling self, its summiim bonum, it has been argued, must be a state of feeling; if it is par excellence reason, the end must be some form of rational activity. The examination of these two historic theories will be of use in helping us to a truer one, by teaching us to benefit by the truth and avoid the mistakes of each. The more important, because the more common, is the first, which will accordingly occupy the main portion of this, the critical part of our investigation. Stated in its simplest terms, it is the view that the end is the agreeable state of feeling which we call Pleasure. Ch. 1] The End as Pleasure 91 § 38. What is meant by saying that the Standard of Moral Judgment is Pleasure By this theory in its simplest form it is meant that conduct has value in proportion to the amount of pleasure it produces. One line of conduct is good rel- atively to another which, when it is possible to produce less, produces more pleasure; that is bad which, it be- ing possible to produce more, produces less pleasure. There is no difference in motive, according to this theory, — all men being moved alike by the one motive, desire for pleasure. The difference is in the amount of pleasure which, owing to insight into the conditions of happiness and their previous moral training, their actions tend to secure. Thus, the intemperate man is reprehensible, not because he pursues his own pleasure, — we all not only do that, but we cannot do anything else, — but because he habitually chooses courses of action which involve to himself, his family, and to society at large, an amount of pain far exceeding the pleasure which the momentary indulgence gives to himself. When it is possible for him to create a balance of pleasure by restraining himself, he has done the reverse and created a balance of pain. Similarly the liar gains immediate pleasure or advantage, — so far his act is good, — but the pain and disadvantage ensuing to society, in increased suspicion, mutual distrust, impaired credit, etc., far out- weigh the pleasure, and the conduct must accordingly be stamped as bad. The worst conduct is that which under the circumstances yields — or, since there are many counteracting circumstances, tends to yield — the least possible amount of happiness. That conduct, on the other hand, is best which tends to produce the greatest sum-total of pleasure. 92 Ethics [Bk. Ill § 39. Ancient Forms of the Theory This theory of the end, in a more or less fully developed form, has, as is well known, played an im- portant part in the history of ethical thought. It made its appearance in the early morning of philos- ophy. The teaching of Socrates, whose influence, like that of Christ, was rather due to his life and character, than to any system of doctrine which he propounded, contained a number of elements loosely held together. Upon his death these fell apart, as did the different elements in Christian doctrine,* and were taken up by different groups of his followers, and made the basis of different theories of the end of life. One of these groups seized upon the element of feeling, and under the name of the Cyrenaicsf (from the city of Cyrene, to which Aristippus, the chief exponent of the doctrine, belonged), became the precursors of the later and better-known school of Epicureans. They held that pleasure was the end, interpreting this to mean the pleasure of the moment, and using the theory as little more than an excuse for self-indulgence. At a later time the theory was taken up by Epicurus, J who deepened and dignified it (i) by connecting it with the atomic theory of the nature and origin of matter as expounded by Leucippus and Democritus, (2) sup- plementing it with a sensationalist psychology, and (3) interpreting pleasure so as to include the higher social and intellectual enjoyments. The noble expres- * E.g., Faith and Works as represented respectively by Paul and James, Universalism and Judaism by Paul and Peter. t See Zeller's Socrates and Socratic Schools. X See Cicero's De Finibus, Book I., c. 5-21 (Bohn's Library). Ch. I] The End as Pleasure 93 sion which was given to this theory of the nature of the world and human life by the greatest of the Roman poets, Lucretius,* is well known. § 40. The Theory in Modern Times The doctrine has been revived in modern times chiefly by English thinkers, who differ from their predecessors in antiquity (i) in seeking to provide it with a securer basis in philosophy and psychology, (2) in enjoining a more reflective form of pleasure-seeking, (3) in making the doctrine the starting-point for enlightened theories of social and political reform. The discussion of the first of these differences belongs to a text-book of psy- chology rather than of ethics. The development of the theory in the direction indicated by the third difference coincides generally with the successive appearance of Egoistic, Universalistic, and Evolutionary Hedonism f to be discussed below, and need not further detain us here. The second, however, requires more detailed notice, as it introduces us to a development which is characteristic of the modern form of the theory, and will best find a place at the point at which we have now arrived. § 41. The Sanctions of Morality- Ancient Epicureanism, while emphasising the peace and happiness which have their source in the recognition of the universality of natural law, laid but little stress on * See De Rerum Natura, Eng. Tr. (Munro). t For the name see below (p. 96). Besides the Bil^hography, p. 238, see, for the history of modern Hedonism, Courtney's Constructhie Ethics, Sidgwick's History of Ethics, and Sorley's Ethics of Naturalism. 94 Ethics [Bk. Ill the physical consequences of conduct as a motive to morality. As the doctrine, moreover, was developed at a time when the older forms of pagan society were breaking up, and men were seeking satisfaction for their deeper longings in a species of spiritual individualism, it laid but little emphasis on social approval as a source of happiness, or social disapproval as a source of pain. Finally, as it was a fundamental article of the creed of the Epicurean that the gods, if there were any, took no interest in human a'ffairs, and that man's life ended with the grave, it was impossible to appeal to the rewards and punishments of another life as a motive for good conduct in this. In modern times, however, the keener sense of the relation between cause and effect in the physical plane, the increased sensitiveness to public opinion resulting from greater social solidarity, together with the habits of thought encouraged by the common form of the Christian religion, suggest reasons for the conduct commonly called moral, which the supporters of Hedonism have not been slow to seize upon and develop. These reasons or persuasives to good conduct are the so-called "sanctions of morality," the enumeration of which is a characteristic addition to the modern form of the pleasure theory. By the sanction of a legal enactment is meant the penalty that is annexed to the infringement of it. In ethics, as just explained, the meaning is extended to include the pleasures which are the persuasives to con- formity, as well as the pains which act as deterrents from disobedience to moral law. The sanctions of morality in this sense are mainly five: (i) There is the natural sanction, by which are meant the physical pains which follow upon the disregard of natural laws, e.g., in the Ch. I] The End as Pleasure 95 over-indulgence of the appetites. (2) There is the political sanction, or the pains and penalties attached by law to such obviously "unfelicific " forms of conduct as theft, assault, libel, etc., and the ])ublic rewards and honours bestowed upon the social benefactor. (3) There is the social sanction, — the pleasures of social re- spect, gratitude, etc., which a favourable public opinion brings with it, and the pains of the disgrace attach- ing to forms of immoral conduct, which do not come within the reach of the law as well as to those that do. (4) There is the religious sanction. Though this does not belong to the catalogue of legitimate motives on a naturalistic theory of ethics like ordinary Hedonism, yet in speaking of the sanctions or external persuasives to morality founded on the desire for pleasure and aversion to pain, it is necessary to take account of the influence which fear of punishment and hope of reward in another life have exercised, and still continue to exercise, in the moral education of the race and the individual. (5) To these is added, as a fifth, the moral sanction, by which is meant simply the pleasures of a good conscience and the pains of remorse.* We shall have occasion hereafter to discuss at Tength the presuppositions on which the whole theory is founded. Meantime it is sufificient to point out that to any but the Hedonist the phrase " sanctions of morality " is suspiciously like a contradiction in terms. Conduct which issues from regard for these sanctions is not morality, if by that we mean conduct which is * For the theory of the sanctions of morality, see Bentham's Morals and Legislation, ch. iii. ; Mill's. Utilitarianism, ch. iii.; Sidgwick's Alethods of Ethics, Book II., ch. v.; Fowler's Pro- gressive Morality, chs. i., ii. 9 6 Ethics [Bk. hi morally approved. It may conform to a certain type and be externally indistinguishable from good conduct, but it is not good. The man who is temperate because he desires the pleasures of temperance (whether these be earthly or heavenly, physical or social) is, as Plato pointed out, temperate by reason of a kind of intem- perance. Similarly, the man who is courageous from fear of the pains which will be the consequence of cowardice is courageous by reason of a kind of cowardice. Appeals to the so-called moral sanction, i.e., to the pleasures of a good conscience (or the pains of remorse), as a motive to good conduct, appear, moreover, to involve an additional absurdity. The pleasure in ques- tion depends upon the approval of conscience, and this in turn depends on the disinterestedness of the conduct, i.e., upon the exclusion of the idea of personal pleasure from the motive. To point therefore to the pleasure likely to result from such approval, as a reason for well- doing, is to suggest a motive which, if accepted, would render approval impossible. § 42. Pleasure and Happiness Some confusion has been introduced into the discus- sion of this theory in the forms under which we now know it by the failure to distinguish between pleasure and happiness. Assuming that they both refer to a state of agreeable feeling, it is not true, as is commonly assumed, either that the terms are synonymous, or that, if there is a distinction, happiness is only pleasure raised to a higher power by an arithmetical process of multiplication or addition.* The distinction between * In thus becoming affiliated with pleasure, happiness seems, like 80 many words, to have come down in the world. Certainly Ch. I] The End as Pleasure 97 them is founded on a qualitative difference in the modes of self-realisation which pleasure and happiness severally accompany, not merely on a quantitative difference in the amount of the feeling itself. Pleasure is the feeling which accompanies the satisfaction of par- ticular desires; happiness is the feeling which accom- panies the sense that, apart from the satisfaction of momentary desires, and even in spite of the pain of refusal or failure to satisfy them, the self as a whole is being realised.* The propriety of describing the end in terms of either depends upon the conclusion we shall come to in the sequel as to the legitimacy of describing it in terms of feeling at all. Meantime I may so far anticipate as to point out, for the benefit of those who may prove impervious to the arguments there adduced, that there is less objection to expressing the good in terms of happiness than in terms of pleasure pure and simple. For while both descriptions of the end err in identifying it with agreeable feeling, the happiness theory (Eudaemonism) has the advantage over the pleasure theory (Hedonism) that it refuses to consider the sum- mum bonum as a mere aggregate of particular pleasures, and insists that it is pleasure for the self as a whole. f For the benefit, however, of those who are determined the Greeks would have objected to the assumption which underlies modern Hedonism, that pleasure and happiness are interchangealile terms, or differ only as the less from the greater. To them i]lov^ (h8don§ = pleasure) conveyed a wholly different idea from eySat/xo^fa (eudaemonia= happiness), and accordingly Hedonism would have represented a wholly different theory from Eudaemonism. * On this distinction the student is recommended to consult Dewey's Psychology, pp. 292-4. t Which, as we can never insist too often, is more than a mere aggregate of its parts. 98 • Ethics [Bk. Ill at all hazards to express the end in terms of feeling, it may be well to state that to advance a stq3 further and call it Blessedness, which, QsixXyX^ %2iy9>{Sartor Resartiis, Book II., ch. ix.), is better than happiness, is less mis- leading still. Blessedness may be defined as the feeling of pleasure which accompanies modes of conduct in which an existing harmony of activities is sacrificed to a higher conception of what a true harmony implies, in other words, in which the self as static is sacrificed to the self as progressive. Seeing, therefore, that man, as man, is a progressive animal, and that harmony is no sooner established between himself and his environment than it is broken into by aspirations after a higher form of life, the theory which represents the emotional re- action of such aspirations and the activities resulting from them as the end, while theoretically not less erroneous than that which defines it in terms of any lower form of feeling, may yet by reason of its implicit admissions be less practically misleading. § 43. Do Pleasures differ in Quality? A difificulty suggested by the discussion in the preced- ing paragraph has risen within the school itself as to whether pleasures differ only in quantity, or in quality as well. There are those who hold that pleasures differ only as greater or less, and that, in estimating the com- parative value of two or more lines of conduct, we have only to cast up the arithmetical total of the pleasures which they severally tend to produce. Others hold that pleasures differ in quality as well. The controversy carries us into psychology, in which field the answer is seen to depend on considerations already set forth in a Ch. I] The End as Pleasure 99 previous section (21), where it was pointed out that it is impossible to consider feelings, qua feelings, as qualita- tively differing from one another. It is only in virtue of the qualitative differences of the objects in connection with which they rise that we are justified in attributing moral quality to them. Thus, on the hypothesis that knowledge is a higher good than wealth or power, the pleasure of acquiring it may be judged to be higher than that of gratified vanity or ambition. But from the Hedonist's point of view knowledge can only be judged a higher end in so far as it is the source of a greater quantity of pleasure. In other words, the qualitative differences in objects are reduced to quantitative differ- ences in the feeling of pleasure they produce. To introduce, therefore, into the pleasure theory qualitative differences among feelings which are not resolvable into quantitative, is to introduce a standard of higher or lower in a scale of relative dignity or worth not determinable in terms of greater and less. It is to go beyond the conception of self as a subject of feeling, and to declare that there is another standard besides the greater or less agreeableness of its experiences, viz., their worthiness as experiences of a being who is more than feeling, and may have higher ends than pleasure.* § 44. How are Pleasures calculated in respect to their Value ? For those Hedonists who hold the simpler and more logical view that pleasures differ only in respect to quan- tity the question still remains, What dimensions must * On this controversy see Mill's statement of the doctrine tliat there are differences of quality among pleasures, Utilitariatiisin, p. 12 (loth ed., 1888), and the criticisms of it in Kant's Theory of loo Ethics [Bk. hi enter into the calculation? What elements enter into the "pleasure calculus"? We calculate the size of a room by the three dimensions of length, breadth, and height. What are the dimensions of a pleasure? Jer- emy Bentham was at pains to formulate them as six, — intensity, duration, nearness, certainty, purity, fruitful- ness.* With the exception of the two last these explain themselves, and need not further detain us. The two last, however, require a word of explanation. By purity is meant not any moral quality, but freedom from accompanying pain ; an intellectual pleasure may in this respect take precedence of a sensual, on the ground that it does not involve subsequent pain, as the latter is liable to do. By the f ruitfulness of a pleasure is meant the ten- dency to bring other pleasures with it, as when keeping an engagement involves the pleasures of a good con- science and the future benefits that might accrue to the good character for reliableness which is thus acquired. f § 45. Modern Forms of the Pleasure Theory Difificulties of a still more fundamental kind arise when we ask the question, "Whose pleasure is meant?" Differences on this head have given rise to at least two Ethics (Abbott), p. 109 (4th ed.); Green, y pleasures and pains as by efficient causes, instead of by the idea of an end, i.e., by a final cause, they have confused the issue, and are still open to the charge of being empi'-ical, though in a different and more serious sense. "The doctrine of evolution itself," it has been well said, " when added to empirical morality, only widens our view of the old landscape — does not 144 Ethics [Bk. hi enable us to pass from 'is' to 'ought,' or from efficient to final cause, any more than the telescope can point beyond the sphere of spatial quantity."* We have already seen how the moral laws which are the "data of ethics" can only spring from such a conception of an end. We have further seen how such an end must be a personal good, i.e., the realisa- tion or satisfaction of the self. Lastly, we have seen how this satisfaction cannot be sought in any mere state of feeling. The last result is practically accepted by the evolutionist, when he proposes to substitute for greatest pleasure the end of "social health" or " increase of life. " But in rejecting this element of error in the older utilitarianism, he has also dropped the ele- ment of truth which it represented, viz., that the end must be a form of personal goodi.'\ It is perfectly open to him to point out, as none have done so admirably, that the "person" cannot be conceived of as an isolated atom, and that the end cannot be the isolated gratifica- tion of any one or of any number of such atoms; but this only means that the "good " of the individual must be also a common good. It cannot mean that the good is not a personal one. If it does, the theory simply means that it is impossible to deduce any moral law from the conception of end, i.e., to have any science of ethics in the proper sense. Yet this is precisely the difficulty in which evolutionary ethics, in the writings of its leading exponents, has landed us. Our objection to their con- clusions is not that they apply evolution to conscience * Sorley, op. cii., p. 273. Cp. Sidgwick's art. on " Mr. Spencer's Ethical System," Mind, XVIII. t For criticisms founded on this defect see Koyce., Religious Aspect of Philosophy, pp. 74-85; Dewey, op. cit., pp. 71-8. Ch. Ill] Evolutionary Hedonism 145 and the forms of morality, still less that they widen our view of the nature of self and give us a new insight into the nature of pleasure, but that they cling to the empiri- cal point of view, and so fail to get the full meaning out of their own results. The "health," "vitality," "adapta- tion," or what not, "of the social organism," are valuable forniulcc in helping us to define the contents of " the good." As anything more, they are abstractions without relation to the moral end. What is required to complete the evolutionist theory is (i) once and for all to renounce Hedonism and all its works; (2) to add to its empirical demonstration that the individual is essentially social a teleological demonstra- tion that his good is essentially a common good. In a previous chapter we showed the way in respect to the former, the next chapter will deal with the latter desideratum. Note. In illustration of the defect of evolutionary ethics which is pointed out in the text, the important admissions made by Mr. Stephen in his section on Self-Sacrifice, op. cit., p. 426 onward, may be quoted: " When we say to a man, ' This is right,' we cannot also say invariably and unhesitatingly, 'This will be for your happiness.' The cold- hearted and grovelling nature has an argument which, from its own point of view, is not only victorious in practice, but logically unanswerable. Not only is it impossible to persuade people to do right always, — a matter of fact as to which there is not likely to be much dispute, — but there is no argument in existence which, if exhibited to them, would always appear to be conclusive. A thoroughly selfish man prefers to spend money on gratifying his own senses which might save some family from misery and starvation. He prefers to do so, let us say, even at the cost of breaking some recognised obligation — of telling a lie or stealing. 146 Ethics [Bk. Ill How can we argue with him? By pointing out the misery which he causes? If to point it out were the same thing as to make him feel it, the method might be successful; and we may hold that there is no reasonable being who has not, at least, the germs of sym- pathetic feeling, and therefore no one who is absolutely inaccessible to such appeals. But neither can we deny, without flying in the face of all experience, that in a vast number of cases the sympathies are so feeble and intermittent as to supply no motive capable of encoun- tering the tremendous force of downright selfishness in a torpid nature. Shall we then appeal to some extrinsic motive — to the dan- ger of being found out, despised, and punished? Undoubtedly, that will be effective as far as it goes. But if for any reason the man is beyond the reach of such dangers; if he is certain of escaping detec- tion, or so certain that the chance of punishment does not outweigh the chance of impunity, he may despise our arguments, and we have no more to offer. . . . Against some people, in short, the only effec- tive arguments are the gallows or the prison. Unluckily, they are arguments which cannot be brought to bear with all the readiness desirable, and therefore I think it highly probable that there will be bad men for a long time to come. ... By acting rightly, I admit, even the virtuous man will sometimes be making a sacrifice; and I do not deny it to be a real sacrifice; I only deny that such a state- ment will be conclusive for the virtuous man. His own happiness is not his sole ultimate aim. . . . There is scarcely any man, I believe, at all capable of sympathy or reason (^sic), who would not, in many cases unhesitatingly, sacrifice his own happiness for a suffi- cient advantage to others" (pp. 429, 431). In this passage the following points are worthy of notice : (i) That Mr. Stephen still lingers by the notion that happiness (though not necessarily the indi- vidual's) is the end. (2) That while it is true that the hr.ppiness of the individual and happiness of others normally coincide, yet they are different, and however near they come to one another, we can never be sure that they are one and will follow the same path. That which unites them in the good man " is sympathy," i.e., a feeling. (3) Hence, to one who has not the feeling, there is no argument for unselfish adherence to the right which would appear conclusive. To which the reply is, " Of course not, if the connection between others' happiness and one's own is a feeUng." You cannot tell a man he ought to have this feeling. It is sufficient that he has not got it. Ch. Ill] Evolutionary Hedonism 147 " Ought," in fact, has disappeared from our vocabulary. But what if the end is not properly described as happiness, but as well-being or good; and the connection between individual and social good is not the subjective one of feeling, but, as Mr. Stephen inadvertently him- self suggests, the objective one of " reason " ? Supposing that pleas- ure, whether egoistic or altruistic, is not his end, but that it is in virtue of his being rational, not in virtue of \)Ss, feeling sympathy, that we appeal to a man to set aside selfish considerations, we are no longer left to seek for " arguments " to convince him that in following the " right " he is securing his own greatest happiness. We do not appeal to his sentient nature at all, but to his reason. It is on the ground of his being a rational self, incapable by his very nature of finding satis- faction in gratified feeling, that we are justified in setting aside all " arguments " founded on comparison of pleasures, and appealing directly to an "ought." Apart from this rational self, which can be shown to be essentially social, and therefore only capable of finding satisfaction in a common good, there can be no categorical imperative and no morality. The form into which W. K. Clifford threw the evolutionist doctrine marks a stage of advance both upon Mr. Stephen's and upon Mr. Spencer's statement of it, in that he comes nearer than either to the view that right is founded upon the contrast between a true, or ex- tended, and a false, or constricted self. In the following passage he applies hiL doctrine of " the tribal self" to solve a similar difficulty to that which Mr. Stephen discusses above. " ' If you want to live together in thi:; complicated way ' (called society), 'your ways must be straight, and not crooked; you must seek the truth, and love no lie.' Suppose we answer, ' I don't want to live together with other men in this complicated way; and so I shall not do as you tell me,' — that is not the end of the matter, as it might be with other scientific precepts. For obvious reasons, it is right in this case to reply, ' Then, in the name of my people, I do not like you,' and to express this dislike by appropriate methods. And the offender, being descended from a social race, is unable to escape his conscience, the voice of his tribal self, which says, ' In the name of the tribe, I hate myself for this treason which I have done ' " (^Essays and Lectures, "On the Scientific Basis of Morals"). We have here got beyond the pleasure theory; we have further exchanged the empirical for the teleological point of view, in so far as the "self" is made the 148 Ethics [Bk. in centre of interest. All that is wanted is to ask what is implied in the idea of such a self. This, to a certain extent, Clifford does in his Essay on " Cosmic Emotion," where it is shown to imply a con- sciousness of a universal moral order. His early death probably lost us the opportunity of seeing evolutionary ethics discarding in propria "■ersotia the worn-out raiment of the empirical philosophy. BOOK IV THE END AS GOOD CHAPTER I THE END AS COMMON GOOD § (J2. Summary of Results We may now sum up the results which our analysis and criticism have hitherto enabled us to reach : — (i) The standard of morality is primarily an end, not a law. Moral law is valid as flowing from the conception of a moral end, which cannot be mere obedience to law, whether supposed to be given by another or by self in the form of conscience. (2) The end is an ideal of self. As all voluntary action has some form of good for its aim, and all consciously conceived good may be described as realisation of self in one form or another, conduct which is judged to be absolutely, i.e., morally, good is conduct whose end is the highest good, which again may be described as the realisation of the highest self. The sumvium boinim is to realise the summiis ego. (3) The ideal self cannot be realised in the state of pleasant consciousness which results from the most complete satisfaction of the desire for pleasure; nor yet in the most complete determination by reason apart from all desire; but in the subordination of the desires according to the law of the self as an organic unity. (4). Finally, we have already made some headway, under the 151 152 Ethics [Bk. IV lead of the evolutionist writers, in proving that the self as thus defined is not an isolated atom, but is only com- prehensible as a member of a society, whose moral judgments reflect a moral order already established in its environment. But as the prejudice against the concep- tion of the self as essentially social, and of moral judg- ments as only intelligible in relation to an objective moral order, is so inveterate, I shall devote part of this chapter to its further elucidation, as a preparation for the further definition of the end. § 63. Current Distinction between Self and Society The current opinion* is that, while it requires a meta- physician like Hobbes to trace back all the elements and instincts of human nature to the egoistic desire for pleas- ure, it is yet possible to divide them psychologically into two distinct classes, the egoistic, or self-regarding, and the altruistic, or other-regarding. Of the former type we have the instinct of self-preservation and of the acquisi- tion of property. Of the latter we have types in benev- olence and sympathy. Similarly, there is the obvious social distinction beween man and the state, the in- dividual and society. On the one hand, we have the " rights of man." The individual is supposed to be born into the world with certain natural rights belonging to him as an individual. These are the germ of that system of conventional or artificial rights with which in any civilised country the law courts invest him.f On * Not unsupported by the highest scientific authorities, as when Mr. Spencer represents human nature as the battle-ground of two permanently antithetical forces of egoism and altruism. t The natural rights of man apparently are liberty, property, security, and " Resistance of Oppression." See Declaration of the Ch.' 1] The Efid as Common Good 153 the other hand, as securing to him the enjoyment of his natural rights by means of the police and the law courts, the state has a certain limited right of taxation and control over individuals. One of the chief questions for the political philosopher is, it is supposed, to define the limits which the state must observe in interfering with the natural rights of individuals. The quintessence of wisdom in this field is sometimes declared to be to rec- ognise that, inasmuch as rights belong to man naturally and not in virtue of any connection with the artificial organisation of society and state, the state has really no business to interfere at all. It is not difificult to show that these distinctions, though relatively valid, as giving us different points of view from which it may be useful to look at psychological and social facts, are misleading when taken as absolute and final. § 64. Relativity of these Distinctions ( I ) Egoistic and altruistic passions and desires. Thus, in regard to the psychological distinctions referred to above between egoistic and altruistic desires, it is easy to show how the thought of self and the thought of others cross and interlace one another, in such a manner as to leave us with only a vanishing distinction between them. Thus, nothing seems more individual- Rights of Man, quoted in Paine's treatise on the same. The Declaration of Rights in the Constitution of the State of Cahfornia further adds the right of "pursuing and obtaining ( !) happiness." See Bryce's American Commonwealth, Vol. II., p. 643. As neces- sary corollaries of these some add "access to the soil"; others, more generally, " access to the means of production." 154 Ethics [Bk. iv istic than the desire for life. But the moment we think of it, we see how in a rational being it is its social significance that makes life valuable to him. It is doubtful whether in a moment of peril a normally constituted individual thinks first, or even at all, of himself, except so far as he is related to others. His thoughts fly, e.g., to his wife and family. When life is emptied of these relations, i.e., when it appears only as an egoistic good, it is no good at all. It is just its emptiness of social content that makes life appear so worthless to the suicide. On the other hand, the benevolent desire for the good of others involves a reference to self. By this it is not merely meant, as Professor Bain puts it, that " sympathy cannot exist upon the extreme of self-abnegation. . . . We must retain a sufficient amount of the self-regarding element to consider happiness an object worth striving for," * but that, as has been already so frequently pointed out, the object of all desire is a personal good. Hence it is only as involved in one's own that one can desire one's neighbour's good: it is only as his good enters as an element into ;;/)' conception of my good that I can make it an object of desire and volition. The inadequacy of such a classification of the elements of human nature into egoistic and altruistic is further seen in the difificulty which we should have in classifying the more violent forms of passion under either head. Thus love in its purer forms is commonly thought to be an altruistic emotion, having for its object the good of the loved object. Yet it may on occasions take forms into which the good of the loved object does not enter as an * Mental and Moral Science, p. 282. Ch. I] The End as Common Good 155 element.* Similarly revenge, which is presumably upon this classification to be set down as an egoistic passion, nevertheless takes forms which involve the most complete self-abnegation, t (2) The Individual and Society. In regard to the relations of the individual to society, it may likewise be shown that the independent rights put forward on behalf of the individual, by current individualistic theories, are, if taken literally, an arbitrary assumption. Whence, it may be asked, does the individual derive them? He has them, it may be said, by nature (the theory of "natural rights" seems to imply this). "Man," said Rousseau, "is born free," i.e., independent of the laws, habits, and conventions of society. But this is cer- tainly not the case. The child who comes into the world inherits everything he has from a previous state of society. He owes everything he possesses to a com- bination of forces and circumstances (national, local, and family influences) over which he has had no control. It was a favourite metaphor with the older individualistic writers to liken the soul of the newly born child to a piece of blank paper, on which, by means of education, anything might be written, and so a * In describing Romola's love for her dead father, G. Eliot says : " Love does not aim simply at the conscious good of the beloved object: it is not satisfied without perfect loyalty of heart; it ai\ns at its own completeness." t Speaking of the passion that consumes Baldassare in the same novel, G. Eliot says: " It is the nature of all human passion, the lowest as well as the highest, that there is a point where it ceases to be properly egoistic, and is like a fire kindled within our being, to which everything else in us is mere fuel." Similarly hatred has been defined as "inverted love"; it is often like love in this, that "it seeketh not its own." 156 Ethics [Bk. IV perfectly independent and original character given to the individual. It would be a more apt illustration of its true nature to compare it to a word or sentence in a continuous narrative. The soul comes into the world already stamped with a meaning determined by its relation to all that went before, — having, in other words, a context in relation to which alone its character can be understood. It sums up the tendencies and traditions of the past out of which it has sprung, — giving them, indeed, a new form or expression, inasmuch as it is an individual, but only carrying on and developing their meaning, and not to be understood except in relation to them. Or it may be said that man acquires these rights by educatioji. Knowledge gives him power, individuality, freedom. This, of course, is true, but not in the sense that with these advantages he acquires any rights as against society. On the contrary, the dependence of the individual upon society in the sense claimed is still more obvious when we consider what is implied in education. Thus it may be pointed out how absurd it is to speak, as is sometimes done, of a "self-educated man." No one can be said, in any proper sense, to educate himself. Nor indeed can any individual properly be said to gain his education from another. Parent or teacher can only help to open and interpret to him the sources of education. That education has begun long before it is consciously thought of, and goes on long after it is supposed to be completed. Intellectually it consists from first to last in the appro- priation of a body of knowledge, not contained in the mind of any individual parent or teacher, but diffused through the language and literature of the society Ch. I] The End as Common Good 157 into which the child is born. The child has not to make its own ideas about the world, nor has the parent or teacher to make them for it. In spoken language, which is essentially a social institution,* there is already a store-house of distinctions and generalisa- tions which the child begins by appropriating. Its thoughts adapt themselves to the mould which is here prepared for them. They will be accurate and adequate in proportion {a) to the stage of accuracy which the language has reached {i.e., the stage of intellectual advance which the society whose language it is repre- sents) ; {b) to the degree of culture which the group of persons who form its immediate society have attained. Not less representative of social acquisitions is the writ- ten language of books. This or that man indeed is said to write a book : he puts his name at the beginning of it, and his list of authorities in the preface or at the end. But in most cases it would represent the fact more accu- rately if he put the names of his authorities on the title page, and stowed away his own in some obscurer corner. All that he has done, all that he can do, is to recast the material supplied him by the labour of countless genera- tions. His book is at best only a clever compilation from these. t The same remarks apply to the child's moral education. Here, again, it is not we who educate our children, but language with its store of ready-made moral distinctions, the nursery with its "spirit," its laws, and, as Plato would add, its pictures and songs, the family, the play- * The Emperor Augustus confessed that, with all his power, he was unable to make a new word. t Hence Emerson accuses every one of being a plagiarist. Everything, he says, is a plagiarism,—" a house is a plagiarism." 158 Ethics [Bk. IV ground, and the church. These begin to act upon the child's moral life, forming or deforming it, at a time when direct verbal instruction is impossible. From its earliest infancy, to use a philosopher's somewhat gran- diloquent expression, the child "has been suckled at the breast of the Universal Ethos."* § 65. Further Illustrations of Dependence of Individual on Society In industry this truth has a still more obvious applica- tion. Thus we sometimes hear in business of a "self- made man." But a moment's consideration makes it obvious that it is as impossible for a man to "make" himself as we saw it to be for him to educate himself. All he does is to use the opportunities that society offers to him. Where, to look no further, would his factory or business be but for the police who protect it, the laws that secure him the title deeds, the markets that supply the raw material, the community that supplies the labour to work it, the system of railways, harbours, etc., that are the means of disposing of the product? What is the share that all these things, each in its turn depending for its existence and efficiency upon a community of organised wills, as well as on the social labour of many generations, have in the wealth that is produced, and what is the share of the energetic individual who uses them? where in all this are we to draw the line between the respective rights of the man and of the state ? As a final illustration, we might take the case of great men. These, at any rate, it might be thought, are an exception to this dependence of the individual upon * On the subject of this section, see Bradley, op. cit., pp. 145-58. I Ch. I] The End as Common Good 159 his society and his time. They stand out in solitary independence of the society in the midst of which they live. If they have not made themselves, they seem to have been made by God, and to owe little or nothing to their environment. Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon, may thus be proved to have been makers of their social environment, instead of having been made by it. And indeed there is a sense in which this is true. Such men seem to contribute a new element to social progress, and to leave the world different from what they found it. But when we look closer we see that they do so, not in virtue of that which separates them from their time, but of that which unites them to it. It is their insight into the wants of the time, their sympathy with its blind longings and aspirations, that gives them their power over it. They are closer to the spirit of the time, and the moral order which that spirit represents, not further away from it, than common people. This is the secret of their greatness. It is on this account that they "represent" their time.* They sum up and give ex- pression to its tendencies. It is not so much they who act, as the spirit of the time that acts in them. The permanent part of their work (the establishment of an empire, of a system of education, or a new social organi- sation) was " in the air " when the man arrived. He was only an instrument in giving effect to it. § 66. Ethical Import of These Facts (i) The first consequence of the truth I have been illustrating which it is of importance for us to note is that the end which is the standard of moral judgment * Cp. Ben Jonson's apostrophe to Shakespeare as " Soul of the Age." 1 60 Ethics [Bk. IV is a social one — the good is common good. A being who, like man, is a little higher than the animals, '' a little lower than the angels," can only realise his own life in so far as he realises the life of the society of which he is a member.* To maintain himself in isolated inde- pendence, to refuse to be compromised by social relations, is the surest way to fail to realise the good he seeks. f To seek life in this sense is to lose it. On the other hand, a man finds salvation in the duties of family, profession, city, country. To lose his life in these is to find it. For the social fabric of which he finds himself a part is only the fabric of his own life "writ large." It is only the other, or objective side, of that which subjectively I described as the system of his impulses and desires, as controlled and organised by his reason. It might seem, at first sight, an illustration of an igno turn per ignotiiis to refer us from the desires and impulses, which we know as parts of ourselves, to the vague field of social rights and duties, which appeal to us only in a secondary way through moral rules and social conventions, were it not for the knack that these rights and duties have of grouping themselves in visible institutions. Thus, corre- sponding to the instinct of self-preservation and the rights and duties it involves, civilisation has produced the police and la?/ courts; corresponding to the instinct of propagation, the family; of acquisition, property and trade; of the pursuit of truth, the school, university, and * Aristotle said that one who is independent of society is either " a god or a beast." t As a simple illustration of this truth, I may quote the case of a man whose vote I once solicited for one of several strongly opposed candidates for the School Board. His answer was that he was an independent man, and intended to prove it by not voting at all. Ch. I] The End as Common Good i6i academy of science. Apart from these, and the rights and duties they represent, the individual life shrivels up into quite insignificant proportions; * in connection with them it expands to the full extent of its recognised capabilities. The same truth might be illustrated from the side of vice and evil. As the good of the individual is the common good, so his evil is common evil. No one can neglect the duty he owes himself of findng the equilibrium of his instincts and desires in the due proportion of their exercise, without failing in his duty to society, and dis- turbing the equilibrium of functions which constitute its health and well-being. The man who drinks away his wages, and upsets the equilibrium between desire for drink and desire for health, if he fails of no duty nearer home, deprives his trade or profession of an efficient member, and so is a source of common loss and evil. And just as we have the wholesome institutions of family, trade, the universities, etc., corresponding to the har-. monious and proportionate satisfaction of natural in- stincts, so, corresponding to disorganisation in the system of desires, we have the morbid growth of brothels, gam- bling dens, cribs, and cramming establishments.! (2) It is only expressing the same truth in a more particular form to point out that the self is not merely related to society in general, but that each particular self is related in a special way to the society into which he is * Becoming, as Hobbes puts it, " solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, short." t It is common to make a distinction between sins of omission and commission. If the above account is true, this is merely super- ficial. To omit a duty is as much a common evil as to commit a positive trespass. 1 62 Ethics [Bk. IV born. This way is best described under the form, which is not an ingenious metaphor, but a vital fact, of member- ship. The individual is not less vitally related to society than the hand or the foot to the body. Nor is it merely that each individual is dependent for life and protection upon society, as the hand or the foot is dependent for its nourishment upon the body, but he is dependent on his particular relation to society for the particular form of his individuality. It is the function it performs in virtue of its special place in the organism which makes the hand a hand, and the foot a foot. In the same way it is his place and function in society that makes the in- dividual what he is. He realises himself by enabling society, through him, to perform the particular function which is represented by his station and its duties.* § 67. Appeal to Moral Judgments in support of Conclusions We have thus arrived at a new statement of the nature of the self, which, as the standard of moral judgment, I formerly described as the permanent unity underlying the multiplicity of desire. This, which may * See Bradley, op. cit., pp. 157-86. Cp. Essays in Philosophical Crilicijm (Ed. Seth and R. B. Haldame), "The Social Organism," by Professor Henry Jones, esp. pp. 193, 209 foil. Dewey points out that (i) the fulfilment of the duties of one's station, or, as he calls it, " adjustment to environment," can be taken as a moral ideal only on condition that it means "willing the maintenance and development of moral surroundings as one's own end"; (2) The function that is thus performed serves at once to define and to unite. It makes a man " a distinct social member at the same time that it makes him a mentber. . . . Individuality means, not separation, but defined position in a whole" (op. cit., pp. 115 foil., 137, 138), Ch. I] The End as Common Good 163 have appeared a somewhat metaphysical statement, I am now able to translate into the familiar language of every-day life, in so far as I have shown that this unity amid diversity assumes visible form in that circle of inter-related duties which we call a man's station in society. It remains merely to verify this explanation of moral judgments by submitting it to the test of fact, and asking whether moral judgments, which we have seen involve a reference to a true self or rational order among instincts and desires, bear out the interpretation I have just given to that self as essentially social by carrying with them a reference to a society or objective moral order as well. That this is so with regard to a large section of our moral judgments is obvious. Injustice, dishonesty, un- truthfulness, covetousness, are all judged bad on the ground of the harm to others they involve. So fully has this been recognised, that it has sometimes been proposed to resolve all virtue into right relations with our fellow-men under the common name of Justice, Benevolence, or Truth. But it is not so clear that this social reference is universally present in moral judg- ments, when we come to consider the so-called indi- vidualistic virtues and the duties we are said to owe to ourselves. In the next chapter I shall have occasion to remark in detail how these involve a social reference. Here it will be sufficient to take what is regarded as the first duty we owe to ourselves, the duty of self-preservation. And that it may not be obscured by obvious reference to "social ties," which may in a particular instance "bind a man to life," such as his duty to his wife and family, we must suppose all these ties have been dis- 164 Ethics [Bk. IV solved, and life to have been to all appearance emptied of social significance. What, it may be asked, is implied in our judgment that suicide is wrong in such a case? Ex hypothesi there are no relations that can have any claim upon the would-be suicide. He is without friends, money, trade, or the hope of acquiring them. Here, if anywhere, it might be supposed our judgment refers to the individual. In parting with his life, he is merely parting with his own. If there is a duty in the matter, it is merely a duty to himself. There is no duty to society, and therefore society has no right to interfere with what is strictly his own affair.* To all this society in most civilised countries, as is well known, replies, rudely enough, with the police- man's baton, the prison, or the lunatic asylum. It may indeed be said that this is no sufficient answer to the claim that is put forward. For the State may be wrong. Its judgments in this matter may not be in conformity with any true standard of right. But we have already seen reason in the nature of man himself for believing that its interference in this case is not without ethical justification. For if what was said in the earlier part of this chapter be sound, no man has a right to take his own life, because no man has a life of his own to take. His life has been given him, and has been made all that it is, as has been already shown, by society. He cannot morally part with it without consent of a society which is joint-owner with him in it. He * This, of course, is constantly urged in defence of suicide; and if we take up the position that certain duties rest on the value which life has to the individual alone, it is difficult to see what answer there can be. Hence individualistic theories of ethics, eg., Stoicism, have always tended to justify suicide. Ch. 1] The End as Common Good 165 carries on his life as a joint concern : he cannot dissolve the partnership without the consent of his partner in it.* Perhaps in the case selected society may have shame- fully neglected its part. So far society is wrong, and is responsible for the state to which matters have come, but this does not absolve the individual from his duty to society. Two wrongs do not make a right. § 68. Duty to Humanity Nor do we alter the social implication of moral judg- ment by saying that the duty in such cases is not to the state or community to which he belongs, but to God or to humanity, for this only brings into view a wider aspect of the moral order than that which we have hitherto considered. Thus, to take the latter contention first, to speak of our interest in humanity as the ground of obli- gation is only to extend our conception of what is implied in the moral order which we call society. It is to con- ceive of it as reaching beyond the limits of any particular * Cp. Burke's famous description : " Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure ; but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence;' because it is not a partnership subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born." — Reflections on the Revolution in France. 1 66 Ethics [Bk. IV time and country, and as progressively realising itself over the whole world and through the ages. The exist- ence of such an order is not doubted by the historian. History, in the ordinary sense, is the record of the form which it takes, and the changes it undergoes, in a par- ticular age or country. Universal history is the record of these forms and changes as organically related to one another, and to the whole which we call the growth or evolution of civilisation.* Loyalty to the moral order in this sense is involved in loyalty to the narrower circle of duties which represent it for the individual. On the other hand, the former is impossible apart from the latter. It is not possible to do our duty to humanity, and leave undone our duty to our neighbour. Dickens has made us laugh over Mrs. Jellyby's "telescopic philanthropy." But in his humorous description of that lady's humanitarian ec- centricities the novelist is only emphasising the truth which the philosopher expresses in different language when he reminds us that "there is no other genuine en- thusiasm for humanity than one which has travelled the common highway of reason — the life of the good neigh- bour and the honest citizen — and can never forget that it is still only a further stage of the same journey." f § 69. Duty to God In the same way it may be shown that to speak of the duties in question as owed to God and not to society is * For a sketch of history in this sense, see Hegel's Philosophy of History (Bohn's Library). t T. H. Green's Introd. to the Moral Part of Hume's " Treatise^'' Works, Vol. I., p. 371. Ch. I] The End as Common Good 167 a perfectly legitimate mode of expression so long as we understand what we mean by it. Thus, it cannot be meant that in using it we are introducing a new conception of the ground of obligation. It cannot be too often repeated that the ground of moral obligation is always a personal interest in a moral order. It may, however, be legitimate to express this truth in the language of religion as well as of ethics. In the latter we confine our view to the moral order which is represented by particular societies, or by humanity as a whole. But it is possible to extend our view still further, and to conceive of the establish- ment of moral relations and the sovereignty of con- science as elements in the end or final cause of a cosmic process. In doing so we pass from the point of view of morality to that of religio^i, but no further change is involved. It is indeed sometimes supposed that there are religious duties which are not included in the catalogue of moral duties, and that in passing from morality to religion we not only change the point of view from which duties are regarded, but extend the range of our obligations. But this is a mistake. The particulars of conduct, not less than the ground of obligation, are the same whether we speak of duty to society or duty to God. It is indeed true that the religious man may recognise duties which others deny or neglect. Of these prayer, fasting, and other ceremonial observances may be quoted as instances. But it ought to be observed that it is the import of these rites for morality which gives them their importance for religion. If this import be recognised by the individual; if it be acknowledged, for instance, that they serve an important end in purifying the affections or capturing the 1 68 Ethics [Bk. iv will,* they are nptonly religiously but morally obligatory. Apart from such recognition, not only are they irrelevant to the moral, and therefore to the religious life, they may be an actual hindrance to both. Is there then no difference, it might be asked, between religion and morality ? Matthew Arnold, as is well known, sought to answer this question in his famous definition of the former as only "morality touched with emotion." But this, it must be confessed, does not carry us far. Emotion is not a distinctive mark of religious conduct. All conduct, as we have already seen, is touched with emotion,t otherwise it would not be conduct at all. The distinction lies not in the presence of an element of emotion in religion which morality is without, but in the kindoi emotion present in either case, and this again depends on the kind of thought which accompanies the performance of a duty. It is the way we think of the duty, the view we take of it, that constitutes it simply moral or also religious. Thus, to return to the class of duties from which we started, an act of self-restraint or self-preservation might be said to be simply moral if it were done out of sympathy with the lives and purposes of a special group of our fellow-creatures, without further reference to what is implied in such a fellowship. The same act would be religious if it were conceived of as furthering a cosmic purpose, or as charged with meaning for a universal moral order that is being consummated upon the earth. It may indeed be feasibly maintained that no good conduct is entirely without reference to * Cp. Pascal's pious exhortation " to begin by sprinkling holy water and observing ceremonies," for that " the rest 2vould fo/low," and Hoffding's remarks upon it, Psychology (Eng. Tr.), p. 76. t See analysis of Desire, p. 46. Ch. I] The End as Common Good 169 some such universal end; but in so far as the distinction between morality and religion is permissible at all, it must be explained as one between two views that may be taken of moral conduct, not between two different kinds of conduct, or two different standards of moral judgment. 170 Ethics [Bk. IV CHAPTER II FORMS OF THE GOOD § 70. Recapitulation In looking for the basis of moral judgment, we were led to the conclusion that it must be sought in the idea of an end, which, as the end of conduct, must be an end for me. With these "data of ethics" — viz. {a) moral judgments of right and wrong, good and bad; {b^ as in- volved in these, the conception of an end; and (HS of /he Good i 7 1 theory that the end is the sacrifice of all desire. For, apart from desire, there can be no action; so that the theory not only fails to account for moral judgment, but leaves no place in a strictly moral world for the eager passions and desires which are the life-blood of common life. The concrete life of social activity, as founded on desires for the good of ourselves and others, disappears on this theory altogether. Both theories, while thus differing in their conception of the self, agree in being individualistic. If we repre- sent the problem they had to solve as that of finding the link of connection between moral judgments and the maxims of conduct which flow from them on the one hand, and the summiim bonuin on the other, we might say that they were both right in perceiving that the middle term, through which the solution was to be accomplished, was the self. The error, however, which made the problem insoluble for both, was that they con- ceived of the self in an abstract way, apart from its social relations, and thus robbed it of the content which might have given us the desired connection. Our objection to evolutionary ethics was different. We gladly accepted from it the organic conception of the relation between the individual and society. We ob- jected merely to the way in which this idea was applied in ethics. After dropping the individualistic theory, we should have expected the writers in question to go on to a more thorough-going examination of the concep- tion of self, which we saw to be the basis of moral judgment. Instead of this, they have allowed themselves to drift away from the idea of personal good altogether, and have attempted to work out a teleological science, or a science of consciously conceived ends, as though its 172 Ethics [Bk. IV object were the conflict of emotional forces empirically given.* In the last chapter we endeavoured to put ourselves right in this last respect, by showing that the self is only intelligible as the reflection of a moral order, which, for practical purposes, we found might be considered as represented to each of us by his station and his duties, so that "the good" for each comes to be expressible in terms of his social relations — in other words, of good conduct itself. It is not pretended that this is more than a rough statement of the end or standard of moral judgment. Some of the modifications and corrections which further consideration renders necessary will be the subject of the following book. Meantime, I shall try to give greater definiteness to it by considering some of the chief forms of the good, which, as I have shown, will merely be forms of good conduct. But, before doing so, I must endeavour to meet an objection which is sure to occur at this point in our argument. § 71. Has my Argument been a Circle ? Has not my argument, it may be asked, though de- veloped with all the appearance of consecutive reasoning, only succeeded after all in involving us in a circle? I started out to explain moral judgments, in the sense of deducing them from an end to which they should be seen to be organically related. I then defined the end as realisation of self; and finally, to the question, "How is the self realised?" I replied, on behalf of the average * See the celebrated chapters (xi.-xiv.), in Spencer's Z^a/a oj Ethics, on Egoism versus Altruism. Ch. II] Forms of the Good 173 man, " By loyalty to the ordinary duties of the good parent and honest citizen." Starting from good conduct, and professing to explain what this is through the idea of end, I have finished up by defining the end in terms of good conduct. We thus seem, like the heroes of the song, to have merely "marched up the hill, and then marched down again." We have ascended from the idea of good conduct to the idea of end, only to descend again to the idea of good conduct, and are no further on than we were at the beginning. My first answer is: Granting it to be a circle, it may be none the worse for that. No one complains of the guide who takes him up the mountain that he takes him back to the starting-point. The journey may have been of value, though he returns at the end of it to the same place. As a matter of fact, the same traveller never does return to the same place. He is " a different man " when he comes back, and the home he comes back to is a "different place." In the same way, it is possible that the reader who has followed this argument may seem to have come back to the point from which he started; but he may have seen a good deal by the way, and may really have come back (as the writer hopes he has) with a quite different idea of what good conduct really is; i.e., he may have come back to quite a different point. But the objection is in reality founded on a false view of the nature of the moral end. It proceeds on the assump- tion that the end in reference to which conduct is judged to have value, the ideal which good conduct aims at realising, is something to be attained in the long run. The end of man, as man, is conceived of as the end of the artist would be. It is something to be produced by a series of actions, each leading up to a final result, and 174 Ethics [Bk. IV standing to it in the relation of means to end. The Greeks were not slow to perceive the fallacy of this notion, and at the beginning of his treatise on ethics Aristotle * is careful to point out that the end for man, as man, is attained in the action itself. It is conduct (TrpS^ts = Lat. actio), not production (TroLr](n<; = Lat. /actio). Similarly Christianity recognised that "the kingdom of heaven is within you." Expressed in modern language, this means that the end or ideal in morals is not to be conceived of as "some far-off divine event" which is some day to come to pass. It is daily and hourly realised in the good act itself. Such an act is not a means to a further end; it is itself the end. In its completeness (the purity of its motive, the beneficence of its results) the end is realised. The good is not something to be hereafter attained; it is attained from moment to moment in the good life itself. Hence somef have been content to define the good as the good will, by which is meant, not a will which acts independently of desire, but the will which in the indulgence of the particular desires that from moment to moment form the undercurrent of our daily lives is habitually determined by a more or less consciously conceived idea of a person whose satisfaction is only to be found in a certain order of their mutual subordination. The truth intended to be emphasised by this mode of expression is the truth that satisfaction does not exist somewhere, laid up in store for the future, but must be realised in the good action itself; and that the moral end is sui generis in this, that the distinction of end and * Ethics, I., I. t E.g., Kant and T. H. Green, who held that " the only uncon- ditioned good is the good will." Ch. II] Forms of the Good 175 means is a distinction within itself, — in other words, has no proper place as a distinction here at all. We may, therefore, have no further hesitation in defining the forms of good, or modes of self-realisation, as forms of good conduct, and vice versa. § 72. Virtues and Institutions The previous discussion has prepared us for a double classification of the duties or forms of good conduct. These may be classified according to the virtues or qualities of character which lead to their recognition, or to the social institutions which guarantee a field for their exercise. In the former they are considered sub- jectively as habits of will; in the latter objectively as the sphere in which the good will realises itself. It has been maintained* that the latter is the true classification, inasmuch as moral institutions provide us with a ready- made map of the different parts of the moral life. They are "the mode in which morality gives effect to the various wants of mankind." But it has to be observed that, as we have seen, there is corresponding to the system of objective institutions a subjective system of impulses and desires, and that the virtues or aptitudes (dperat) for restraining and co-ordinating natural instincts, and so giving effect to the self as an organic whole, are just as natural a basis of classification as are the institu- * As by Mr. Alexander, op. cit., p. 253. Though I have criticised one or two minor points in Mr. Alexander's remarks on the subject of this chapter, what he says on it is so valuable that the student is recommended to read the passage referred to in connection with what follows. On the general subject of this section, see Dewey, op. cit., pp. 169-74. 176 Ethics [Bk. IV tions which are maintained by means of them. It is doubtful, moreover, whether in actual fact the difficulties which are admitted to exist in any attempt at an exhaust- ive classification are not felt equally in connection with the one system as with the other. Granted, as is indeed true in a general sense, that duties " naturally attach to the institutions, and are defined by them," it would yet be difificult to say round what institutions more than others the duties, e.g., of courage, veracity, toleration naturally group themselves. As a matter of fact, a complete system of ethics would require to exhibit the forms of good under both aspects, as related on the one side to the system of instincts and desires known as human nature, and on the other to the objective moral order, as that is embodied in social insti- tutions. In the one case we should be supplementing our exposition of the principles of ethics by a more or less elaborate psychological account of the springs of action.* In the other case we should be adding to the science of ethics in the stricter sense a sociological account of the principal forms which man, in his efforts after a fuller expression of his true nature, has devised to be the repositories of his moral acquisitions.! In this handbook neither of these is attempted. Following the guidance of common language, I have adopted, with slight modifications, a classification of the virtues in its main lines as old as Aristotle, merely with the view of * For such an account see, e.g., Martineau's Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II., pp. 128 foil. t It is characteristic of German as contrasted with English ethics to have emphasised this side of the moral life. Perhaps this is natural where the state counts for so much and the individual for so Utile. Ch. II] Forms of the Good 177 showing how actual moral duties, and the judgments that correspond to them, flow from the conception of the self as set forth above.* § 73. Requirements in such a Classification (i) To be of any use for our purpose, as thus defined, the classification must neither be too general nor run into too great detail. Thus Plato's celebrated classifica- tion of the virtues into Wisdom, Courage, Temperance, Justice, is obviously too meagre, and, as has been well said, "serves its purpose only because justice is used to include everything not accounted for by the rest." On * Virtue has been used in the preceding paragraph in its proper sense of the quaHty of character that fits for the discharge of duty. In this sense it is not opposed to duty, save as good character in general is opposed to good conduct in general. The relation between virtue and duty is that of universal to particular, and may be illustrated by the relation of the state to the individual. The character of a man's action, in reference to particular circumstances, is determined by the virtuous habit of will with reference to the particular form of desire that is called into exercise, just as the character of an individual citizen is determined by the character of the society to which he belongs. The performance of the duty has moral quality only in so far as it is the expression of a virtue; virtue, on the other hand, only lives in the performance of duty. It should be pointed out, however, that the word is often loosely used in the sense of meritorious act, as when we speak of " making a virtue of necessity." Here it is distinguished from duty, as the meritorious act is distinguished from the act which is simply good : the meritorious act being that which is the result of a higher than the average standard of virtue, whether in overcoming natural dis- advantages, as when we speak of the diligence of a stupid scholar as meritorious, or in achieving exceptional success ceteris paribus. On the distinction between virtue and duty, see Sidgwick's MetJiods of Ethics, Book III., ch. ii., and on the subject of the succeeding sections, ibid., chs. iii.-x. 1 78 Ethics [Bk. IV the other hand, if, as has been shown to be the case, virtue has to do with the regulation of the instincts and desires, the list of which is practically inexhaustible,* its forms will be legion. Language, fortunately, prescribes for us the mean in these two directions. It indicates a sufificient variety of moral distinctions, but makes no attempt to cover the whole field by having words for all the possible virtues. In many cases, it is content with general names, under which whole classes are brought. Thus self-control is the general word for the regulation of the desire for pleasure; courage, of the desire to escape from pain. But of these desires there are many varieties, according to the nature of the object desired or feared (according as the object of desire is the pleasure of eating or of drinking, of seeing or of learn- ing, etc., the object of fear — physical or mental, near or distant, short or prolonged pain). Language has here picked out a few prominent instances, as in connecting tempej-ance with the regulation of the desire for strong drink, endurance with the regulation of the impulse to escape or mitigate continued pain. (2) A second obvious requirement for our purpose is, that the division should follow the main outline of the organic parts or relations of the self. Only in this way shall we be dividing our subject as Plato required we should — "at the joints." Hence such grounds of distinction as that between determinate and indeterminate duties, or duties of per- fect and duties of imperfect obligation, will be useless to us. For by this it is meant that some duties are defi- * For an interesting fragment of such a list, see William James's Principles of Psychology, Vol. II., ch. xxiv. Cp. p. 43 n. above. Ch. iij Forms of the Good i 79 nitely determined by law or custom, while others are left to the discretion of the individual. Of the former the duty to pay one's debts is a familiar example; of the latter, the duty of charity. But such a principle of classification is misleading. There is an element of indeterminateness in all duty, inasmuch as the precise form that the duty takes must depend in each case upon the circumstances. It is quite true that it is a deter- minate duty to pay one's debts; but the time, the place, the manner, frequently the amount, are matters left indeterminate. On the other hand, all duty which is duty at all is a "bounden " duty. If it is a duty to be, charitable, it is of as perfect obligation as any other. In this sense an indeterminate duty, or a duty of imperfect obligation, is a contradiction in terms. Again, it is proposed to divide virtues according to their importance, beginning with the "cardinal virtues," and going down through all degrees until we come to the lesser duties of social etiquette and politeness. The difificulty in this case is, that the relative importance of the virtues varies, not only from age to age in the history of the world, but from class to class in any one com- munity, and even from individual to individual. Thus it has been well observed that each age has had its cardinal (or papal) virtue. Among the Greeks and Romans it was courage, or manliness (dpeT>;, virtus); among the early Christians it was charity ; in the mid- dle ages, chivalry; in the eighteenth century, benev- olence; to-day, perhaps, it is what Mr. Leslie Stephen calls "organic justice." Similarly, indifferent classes in a community virtues vary in importance. Courage is more important in a soldier than in a tailor, truthfulness and sincerity in a clergyman than in a lawyer, toleration i8o Ethics [Bk. IV in a ruler than in a subject. Lastly, in the life of the individual, the circumstances of his own temptations, or the importance of his example, may make a particular virtue {e.g., temperance) the cardinal one for him, while for another it may be different. § 74. Limits of Classification. The Main Heads not mutually Exclusive Before going on to suggest a classification which may in some degree satisfy these requirements, it may be well to recall some of the results arrived at in the pre- vious investigation, that we may know in what sense such a classification is really possible. (i) In the first place, we may remind ourselves that the self, of whose moral qualities we are attempt- ing a general description, is not an aggregate of parts mechanically put together, and mutually exclusive of one another. Each part is organically related to every other : each therefore implies the other, as well as the whole through which it is united to it. Thus, reason implies will, as the student may observe for himself if he pauses to note how much voluntary effort has been required in the act of comprehending the argument in the present chapter. Similarly will implies reason, while each is only comprehensible as a different aspect of one subject that embraces both.* Hence, when in the common classifi- cation it is proposed to draw a distinction between intellectual and moral virtues, — or Wisdom and Virtue proper, — we shall know in what sense to accept the division. It cannot mean that these exclude one another, or that we are here doing more than dis- * See Green, op. cit., Book II., ch. ii., §§ 148 foil. Ch. II] Forms of fhc Good i8i tinguishing between elements or aspects of all morality. In the case of the former, it is undoubtedly true that we are dealing primarily with the relations of things or events to one another in an objective world of fact; in the case of the latter we are dealing primarily with relations of persons to one another. But it is not dil^cult to show that the virtues implied in right dealing in each of these spheres, involve each other. Thus, in reference to the self-regarding virtues, it hardly requires to be stated that they involve an element of wisdom. The common description of them as "pru- dential " implies this. Even proverbial philosophy teaches us that "discretion is the better part of valour." It might have added the converse, that valour is the better part of wisdom or discretion, for it is equally true that — " He wants wit who wants resolved 7oill To learn his wit to exchange the bad for better." It is hardly less obvious that the other-regarding vir- tues of justice* and benevolence presuppose knowledge {e.g., of economic and physical laws), while, on the other hand, it may be doubted whether the pursuit of truth,t divorced from sympathy with social needs and aspirations, has any claim to be called a virtue. (2) If again we recall the truth on which so much has been said, that self and society are related to one another as particular and universal, and are therefore only different sides of the one reality, we shall be prepared to estimate the common distinction between * Who, as she is commonly depicted, is blinded, not blind. t The same is true, of course, of beauty. Cp. Note at the end of this chapter. i82 Ethics [Bk. IV self-regarding and other-regarding virtues at its proper value. We shall be ready to admit that these are as- pects of the same habit or quality of mind. Prudence and self-control are the necessary conditions of justice and benevolence. On the other hand, that which gives prudence and self-control a claim to be called virtues is the fact that they are the indispensable condition of all social service from the lowest to the highest. § 75. The Interdependence of the Virtues extends through the Whole Classification But we cannot stop here. The interdependence which we find to exist between the several highest species in our classification of the summitm genus Virtue, may be expected to prevail also among the lower species of which these in turn are general. If, as we have assumed throughout, human nature is an organic whole, and not merely an aggregate of parts, we may expect to find it equally impossible to treat the special virtues, each of which, in its separate department, is the guarantee of its unity, as independent units. Hence it is an error to distinguish, as some have sought to do, between the main heads of morality, such as wisdom and self-control, and the other virtues, on the ground that they do not correspond to any special groups of duties or observances, but are implied in all good actions. It is certainly true that on any classification these would require to be treated as summcE species, and as such might be considered generalised expressions for the various species which in turn should be subsumed under them. But this must not be interpreted to mean that there is Ch. II] Forms of the Good 183 any greater independence among the lower species than among the higher. Tliere is, of course, a greater differentiation as we descend, and the relationships of the various parts to one another are accordingly more remote; but to press this distinction, so as to divide aspects or elements of virtue from virtues proper, is to deny the organic nature of virtue itself. It is as though in classifying the muscles of any organic body we were to begin by separating off the respiratory, alimentary, reproductive, and other systems, and, after baptising them "aspects of the muscular system as a whole," were to refuse them a place in a continuous classification along with the muscles of the special organs in each several group. It is, in fact, as impossible to draw hard and fast lines between the virtues {e.g., of courage and temperance, which are species of self-control, or between devotion to truth in knowledge and veracity in society, which are species of intellectual virtue) as it is to draw a hard and fast line between self-control and wisdom themselves. It is just as open to us to speak of these sub-species as ele- ments or aspects of self-control or wisdom, as to speak of self-control and wisdom as aspects of virtue as a whole. In order to be temperate a man must be courageous : in order to be able to resist the allurements of pleasure he must be willing to endure the pain the resistance involves. Similarly, in order to be courageous he must be temperate, — at least in his desire for those kinds of pleasure which he is called upon to forego in facing danger, e.g., the desire for life. Not less is the virtue of social veracity implied in the virtue of devotion to truth in thought and knowledge. The latter is, as has been well said, merely an enlargement of the former. It is 184 Ethics [Bk. IV the same virtue " exhibited, not in the mere normal interchange of ideas in language, but in the effort to represent things in thought as they really are in ex- istence." Similarly with the sub-species under the other-regard- ing virtue of benevolence. "Charity," we are told, "begins at home." In other words, duty to parent or child, friend or neighbour, is an essential side or aspect of duty to humanity. On the other hand, charity or love of humanity is the best guarantee against the exclusiveness which turns family affection into a vice. The same truth is illustrated by the saying, "Justice before generosity." Generosity, it is implied, presup- poses justice. On the other hand, justice presupposes generosity, which is only justice adequately conceived.* Finally, to take an extreme instance, it might be thought that the minor virtues of amour propre and politeness are clearly separable from those which refer to weightier matters of the law. But among the Greeks the virtue of magnanimity,! which corresponded in some degree to the first, was an essential quality in the best men, while the vice corresponding to the excess of it, viz., * It is, of course, the " adequate conception " which adds that splendour to the act which we indicate by calling it generous. The man who publishes the ruin of the company in which he holds most of the stock might be said to be generous to the public. He is only just, but he has an adequate conception of what justice implies. On the distinction between ideal justice, of which I am here speaking, and legal justice, see Bradley, op. cit. The former corresponds to equity as conceived by Aristotle: see Rhetoric, Book I., ch. xiii. (Welldon's Eng. Tr.); Ethics, Book V., ch. x. t See Aristotle's famous description of the Magnanimous Man {^Ethics, III.). Ch. II] Forms of the Good 185 insolence (vfSpi^), was a noticeable element in the worst. On the other hand, so close is the connection between manners and morals that, just as politeness has been defined as "benevolence in small things," so chivalry — • the cardinal virtue of the middle ages — might be defined as "politeness in great ones."' With these explanations and exceptions, the following table may be taken as a rough sketch of the exfoliation of the good in some of its principal forms: — C/3 M O H OS I— I > < b w 3 H C o 3-- i"*^ s ^ ^kj I- a. w u z w J o > z H m s S « W h O B 3 C 3 .3 o DC ^ C — o •J- V V TS -^ ii a Jo. rt "1 c •r >-' 'C >:. o. o. 1^ o: Ul a « tr. :/} 1) C D ^ _3JT3 U o y) "S r- o <; s u OJ 1) ^ N ^ *^ >. n >> J= rt Xi ty; ^ C3 M B a ^ T? > -o U U "2 ^■HS 1 rt re cH M o V u rt P< M'j C o ■•3 £ C h rt Z too .« u < -g 5 u o. o _w o. ^r? a u z < Id III 3 O E J a. -o ' ^, > r3 W -S E a. o }-• a M Hi O I- H -°s- O (/J 3 < o bo c ^•: u tt) J O J3 V 3 « J3J= C O o z o o c _C. c O re >< o i— (^ 2h Id u -S - ^ 5 z 2 O H u o -o z < .5 3 U 3 ii > 3 H a ,J n < — h z a o. u 7 u J u n > u V s c < OJ >. nt -n ■4 J3 C c S ^ .. % u u ■7 M j: n IK b •c v^ X s Ch. II] Forms of the Good 187 Note. The relation between the moral and the intellectual virtues, i.e., between devotion to duty on the one hand and devotion to truth and beauty on the other, suggests problems which the cur- sory treatment it has received in the text (pp. 180, 181) hardly can be said to solve. Thus it might be asked whether it is meant that the ground upon which devotion to art and science is deemed a virtue is the social usefulness of these pursuits. If this be so, it would appear from what has already been said of the relatfon between motive and morality (see pp. 59 foil), that those only who in the studio or laboratory are consciously seeking the good of society or humanity are worthy artists or truthseekers. Whereas it is notori- ously the case that the condition of the highest achievement in either field is that truth and beauty should be pursued for their own sakes, and not on account of any ulterior object. The difficulty is a real one, and may be shown to involve problems that lie outside the limits I have laid down for myself in the present treatise. Thus it would lead us to inquire, with regard to the ultimate relations of truth and beauty to one another, and of both to goodness, whether these three are really different from one another, as the above objection seems to presuppose, or whether they are not ultimately recognisable as different aspects of the one reality, the disinterested pursuit of them as different but co-ordinate forms of self-expression. Such an inquiry would obviously have been out of place in the text. Even here I can only give the conclusions to which I believe it would lead us — connecting them with the results of our previous examination into the nature of the good with a view to suggesting the solution of the above difficulty. I have already defined the good as self-realisation. Morality means the human spirit taking flesh in the ordinary activities of daily life, so that, in realising, it may also be said to reveal itself. The condition of this self-revelation we have already seen to be its recognition of the objective relations of the moral order that we call society. We have now to add that the apprehension of the law of that objective order which we call the world of nature and of his- tory, is as essential a condition of self-realisation on the side of intellect as the apprehension of moral law is on the side of the will. Hence it is that in the study of natural science, and still more obviously in the study of history and psychology, though we may appear to have gone outside of ourselves, we are, in reality, only 1 88 Ethics [Bk. iv investigating the contents of the human spirit itself (^/. p. 2 19 below). In the same way it may be shown that art is not concerned with a world that lies outside of ordinary human interests. Art does not, as common language would sometimes seem to imply, create a world of its own apart from ours : it reveals to us the world that lies within us and about us. Its function is not less interpretation than is that of science itself. It differs indeed from science in the medium which it chiefly employs. Its appeal is emotional rather than intellectual. Yet all true art, like true science, is ideal in that it serves to deepen our insight into the tneatiiiig of nature and of human life, and so to enlarge our knowledge of ourselves. If now, after these reflections, we return to the difficulty with which we started, we may note: (i) that it is a mistake to isolate truth and beauty from human good: they can only be admitted as rational ends in so far as they are elements in it. (2) While little is undoubtedly to be hoped for from the man who pursues science or art with a constant view to the economy of labour that ought to be practised in regard to what is merely a means to a further end, yet just as little is to be looked for from the man who in the pursuit of either of them forgets his relation to the larger world that embraces both. (3) The motive which constitutes an act good is never, as the preceding objection seems to imply, good in general, but is always some particular form of good. (4) Scientific and artistic activity under the conditions just mentioned being, as we have seen, such particular forms of good, are approved by mankind at large on the ground of the common interest which all have in the free play of thought and imagination, quite apart from any immediate public utility which may accrue from them. On the difficulty here discussed, see Green, op. cit., pp. 312 and 415; Alexander, op. cit., pp. 123-6, 182-6, 257-9; Dewey, op. cit., §§ xxxix. and Ixxiii.; Lotze, op. cit., p. 61. On the more general question of the relation of Intellectual to Moral virtue, see Aristotle, Ethics, Book VI.; and of Art to Morality, Plato, Republic, Book III., esp. § 401; Aristotle, Poetics (Cassell's National Library), pp. 23 and 39; Bosanquet, Introduction to HegeVs Philosophy of Art, esp. pp. 58, 105 foil.; Essays in Philosophical Criticisf/is, " The Philosophy of Art," by Professor W. P. Ker; Dewey, Psychology, pp. 195-201. For literary expression of the same truth, see, e.g., Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poesie (Cassell's National Library) ; Spenser's Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh at beginning of the Fa'erie Queenc (Globe Edition) ; Browning, passim, esp. Fra Lippo Lippi. BOOK V MORAL PROGRESS CHAPTER I THE STANDARD AS RELATIVE § 77. Differences of Standard -which we may Neglect We have hitherto treated moral judgments as though they were universally applied in the same way, i.e., as though there were only one good and one right, which is the same for all. The moral standard has been conceived of as something fixed and absolute, and even worked out into some detail in a system of virtues and duties representing the outline of a common ideal. Within this fixed standard indeed we have recognised differences. Thus it was pointed out that, inasmuch as the form under winch each realises himself is pre- scribed for him by his station and its duties, this may be different for different classes and even for dif- ferent individuals. The duty which the doctor at the bedside of a nervous patient recognises to verbal truth- fulness is different from that of the witness in the box in a court of law. But this may be called a difference flowing from the very nature of the standard as a social one, rather than a difference in the standard itself. It is merely a difference of emphasis among duties which all recognise, and need not cause any further difficulty. 191 192 Ethics -[Bk. V Nor is the absoluteness of the standard, as hitherto defined, affected by the kind of differences which, as distinguished from those just spoken of, we may call differences within the standard. They are the result of the co-existence of different standards in the same com- munity. Thus the standard of morality in a circle of racing men or of horse-dealers will be -different from that recognised by a Christian congregation. Even within the latter there will be differences, as between those who permit themselves to smuggle silk or tobacco at the Custom House or to take a ticket in a raffle- sale, and those who do not. Yet the difference is more apparent than real. It is the result of local depressions rather than of serious divergence of standard. In the case of the horse-dealer and the raffler, the higher standard is rather latent than non-existent, as is shown by the fact that it is possible to "convert" them. Differences of this kind, which have been called differ- ences within the standard, cause no difficulty to ethics, , and may be disregarded. In any time and country there is sufficient agreement as to the contents of the moral standard to lull suspicion in the unreflective as to more fundamental contradictions. Another interesting form of variation is where dif- ferent standards co-exist in the same individual. Thus, on being asked a question, a man will unblushingly reply with the query, " Do you ask me as a lawyer (doctor, stockbroker, etc.), or as a friend?" admitting thereby that he is the happy possessor of at least a pair of different standards, and intends to use the one or the other, according to circumstances. No more difficulty, however, need be caused by this case than by those already discussed. The man of many standards will Ch. ij The Standard as Relative 193 probably admit, when closely pressed, that "a man's a man for a' that," and that there is a supreme standard which applies to him as sharing that distinction with his neighbours. § 78. Essential Differences in Standard involving' Ethical Problem It is the compafative study of the moral codes of differ- ent times and countries that first reveals the fact that the standard is relative in the sense that makes a difficulty for ethics, and causes practical alarm for the authority of the moral imperative. Not to go beyond historical times and the civilised nations of Europe, it is well known that, among the early Greek communities, the exposure of infants who were weak or deformed w^as not only deemed consistent with humanity, but advocated as necessary for the maintenance of the community and in the interests of morality. In the middle ages per- secution for religious opinion differing from that of the majority was not only permitted, but approved of as a highly commendable form of religious zeal. At the present day, on the other side of the Channel, leading statesmen may meet in duel with the intent to maim or to kill without in any way losing caste or outraging the public conscience. Nor is this variation in the standard in different times and countries confined to virtues which, like humanity and toleration, might be regarded as of secondary impor- tance for the maintenance of society : it extends also to those which are usually regarded as primary, and as lying at the foundation of all social life. The children at Sparta were taught to steal : in the well-known story of 194 Ethics [Bk. v the child who stole a fox and permitted it to tear his bosom rather than let it be discovered, the crime was, not to steal, but to be found out. In the lives of the saints among the Turks, as Locke informs us in his celebrated chapter entitled "No Innate Practical Prin- ciples," the primary virtue of chastity had no place. In respect to these and similar varieties of standard, it is not, of course, enough to say that all respectable people condemn these anomalies. The point is that they are not anomalies, and that "all respectable people " in the time and country in which they were practised approved them. It would be a gross historical injustice to apply our own standards in such cases. The virtue of the_ Spartan boy must be judged by his own standard, not by that of the shiny-faced urchin who creeps unwillingly to school in an English village: so judged, it is heroic. We have to recognise that in this sense goodness is a different thing in different times and countries. Is there then, it might be asked, no such thing as an absolute standard of morality? Is morality not one, but many and different? And are those justified who, upon the basis of the latter hypothesis, draw the practical con- clusion that, as opposed to what is "conventional" or "expedient" for a community, there is no such thing as "right"? § 79. The Unity of the Form of Virtue The previous course of our argument has prepared us for the answer to this question. At the very outset it was shown that morality cannot consist in obedience to a fixed code of rules. As opposed to this view, I showed that morality is the conduct prescribed by an Ch. I] The Standard as Relative 195 end other than the momentary satisfaction of desire, which may indifferently be described as the satisfaction {i.e., realisation) of the self as a whole {i.e., the better self), or as the maintenance according to opportunity of the social system, which is only the other or objective side of this better self. This end is the principle of unity which underlies and "explains" the manifold im- peratives in which the moral law expresses itself, inas- much as it is the common root or stem of which, as the last chapter tried to show, they are exfoliations. We have now only to apply these results to the question before us, in order to see that, underlying the apparent diversities in the contents of the moral stand- ard, virtue is at all times one and the same. Wherever we have moral judgment approving a line of conduct as good, whether among the rudest band of savages or in those circles which in the most highly moralised countries in the world recognise the highest moral standard, it is seen to rest upon a more or less consciously recognised contrast between a permanent and a transient self : between the satisfaction of a higher, or true self, and of a lower, or apparent one. Take, for instance, the savage who, when the enemy's hamlet has been taken by his tribe and the booty is in his power, instead of seizing the largest share he can and escaping to the solitary enjoyment of it in the woods, lestrains his impulse in order to await his chief's own choice, and the subsequent distribution by the lot. What does this mean? It means that he restrains the instincts of his lower nature in view of a good, which in so far as he reflects upon it he recognises as his better self, viz., the social self which at this stage is represented by the rudely organised society of the nomadic tribe. 196 Ethics [Bk. V Or to revert to our previous illustration : the Spartan boy is approved by the judgment of his time and country because he sacrifices the pleasure-seeking, pain- avoiding self, who would have done with the matter by throwing away the fox,' to an idea of a higher good, which he represents to himself perhaps as "pluck" or "en- durance," but which has value only in so far as it is related to a moral order, loyalty to which the boy recognises as part of his true self. From these examples it will be seen that, while it is undoubtedly true that morality differs from age to age and under different circumstances, it springs in every age and country from the same root; in other words, while its matter or content varies its form or essence remains the same.* § 80. The Relativity of the Standard as Condition of its Validity But we may go further than this. For it further follows from the argument in the previous chapters that the relativity of the moral standard is not only compatible * The above argument may be further illustrated from the beginnings of morality in sub-human forms of life. (See Mr. Spencer's article, Nineteenth Century, February 1890, since pub- lished in his book on Justice.') In these, as in the devotion of the outpost elephant (^cp. Professor Drummond's description of the white ants in Tropical Africa') to the interest of the herd, we have a shadow of human morality. Nature is dreaming of morality. What makes the difference, of course, is the po7ver 0/ conceiving the higher or common good. In saying so I do not intend to deny that the lower animals may have the rudiments of such a conception of a higher self. All I mean is, that it is the possession of such a rudimentary conception, and not the mere empirical fact that the lower animals e::hibit such conduct, that justifies us in speaking of sub-human justice, or any other sub-human virtue. Ch. I] TJie Standard as Relative 197 with the existence of a law which is absohite for each in his special circumstances, but is a necessary condition of the obligatoriness of morality and the validity of moral judgment. We have already seen how this is so, within certain limits, with respect to individuals living in the same age and country. Duty with each of us was seen to be relative to his station and circumstances. It is this relativity which makes it duty for me. A law which did not apply to me, in virtue of my place in the organism of society, could not be binding upon me at all. It is only an extension of the same principle to say that it is because morality is always, and in all places, relative to circumstances, that it is binding at any time and in any place. The idea that it is otherwise comes from our habit of conceiving of the moral law as isolated from the social circumstances in which it rose, and as therefore varying arbitrarily in different times and countries. The error is corrected by recollecting that the variations we are discussing are not accidental, but are organically related to the circumstances of the time to which they severally belong. Thus, to go no further than our previous instances, the practice of exposing infants (especially females*) was justified at a time when it was necessary (or, which comes to the same thing, was supposed to be n«ces- sary), in order to maintain that peculiar form of city- state which flourished in Greece and Italy. When the circumstances changed, when city-states had perished, when higher ideas of the position of women began to prevail, and when it became obvious that the outrage to * See Merivale's History of the Roman Empire, Vol. V., pp. 56 and 303 n. 198 Ethics [Bk. V humanity that was involved in the practice was a greater social evil than the burden thrown upon the community by the necessity of maintaining an apparently useless population, not only was exposure discountenanced, but the public conscience was awakened to the duty of making provision for their support.* Similarly, intolerance dates from a time when, owing to the intimate relations between State and Church (1?.^., in the oaths of soldiers), it seemed to be of vital impor- tance that no religious scruples of non-conformists {e.g., of the Christian soldiers in the Roman armies) should interfere with the due performance of social obligations. Intolerance ceased to be a virtue, and began to pass over into the opposite category,! when, among other changes, it began to be seen that freedom of thought contributed more to the common good than any artificial unity of religious belief. As, then, the form of social life varies from age to age in the course of natural evo- lution, morality, which, as we have seen (if it is to be morality in the proper sense, and not mere blind obedience to a traditional law), must represent " a quality of the social tissue," must vary with it. § 81. Further Difficulty But perhaps this does not altogether meet the difficulty. Granted that there is a unity of form under- lying the variations in the matter of moral obligation, * See the Law of Constantine, quoted, Gibbon, II., p. 142 (Smith's edition). t Cp. the definition of badness as a survival. On the whole subject of this chapter and book the student is recommended to consult Book III. in the same work. Ch. I] The Standard as Relative' 199 and, further, that the variations are a necessary in- cident in anything that can rightly be called a moral standard, a further question still remains. If the social changes on which the variations spoken of depend are themselves only accidental circumstances dependent on efficient causes empirically discerned (and hitherto nothing has been said to show that they are not), morality comes, after all, to be nothing but that kind of conduct which supports one or other of the accidental changes in the phantasmagoria of social forms. It is much, of course, to have established this underlying unity in varieties of standard, and to have proved that " the good " for the individual depends upon the good of the society of which he is a member. But if these "goods" are only, after all, varieties of adaptation to environment blindly determined by natural causes, and are not united with one another in any order so as to suggest the idea of a universal or absolute good, there is, after all, no ground for the obligation to adopt the moral sta-ndard of any one of them rather than of another, except the accidental circumstance that our inherited aptitudes probably fit us for the conditions of life that obtain in that into which we have been born rather than those of any other. And, if this be so, ifiorality turns out, after all, to be relative in the sense for which the sceptic contends, viz., of resting upon no objective and universal moral order, but only upon one which is relative to the effects of accidental circumstances.* The difficulty here suggested is a real one, involving as it does at least two distinct questions which press for an answer in the interest of the higher forms of practical * For a clear statement of this difficulty, see Professor Knight's Studies in Philosophy and Literature, pp. 32 foil. 200 Ethics [Bk. V morality, perhaps of religion itself. They both, indeed, remind us of what was said in an earlier chapter of the impossibility of separating ethics from the study of the nature of the world as a whole, and man's relation to it. Nor, as we shall see, shall we be able altogether to escape without paying tribute to the spectre of meta- physics that has dogged our steps throughout. Mean- time, however, it will be possible to avoid coming face to face with it, and to carry our explanation of the data of ethics a step further than we have hitherto done, by inquiring whether, amid the variety of forms the moral standard has been seen to take, any principle of unity is discernible in the light of which they may be seen to be more than isolated phenomena on a back- ground of unintelligible change. Ch. II] The Standard as Progressive 201 CHAPTER II THE STANDARD AS PROGRESSIVE § 82. Clue to Solution of the Problem in Idea of Progress The question with which we ended the last chapter may be stated in a form which will make its connection with the results of our previous analysis plain to the student. In seeking for an explanation of moral judgments, we traced them back to a principle of unity variously described as the end, standard, or ideal of conduct, in the light of which they were seen to be organically re- lated to one another and to the life of man as a social being. A new difficulty, however, rose when, on further investigation, we found that so far from there being one universally recognised standard, there exists a most bewildering variety in the standards or ideals that men have agreed to recognise. We were thus driven to ask whether this variety must be accepted as an ultimate fact, or whether all these different standards may not be susceptible of explanation in the same sense as the variety of the moral judgments under any one standard was found to be, by being shown to have their place as 202 Ethics [Bk. V mutually related parts or elements in an organic whole. Is there, in a word, any larger conception of morality possible than that implied in the definition of it as a quality of the social tissue at any one time or place, in the light of which we may be enabled to establish a relation between conduct that supports any particular moral order, and some more universal end or purpose traceable in human history? For the clue to the answer to the question, when so stated, we have not far to look. It is given in the con- ception of progress rendered familiar to us by evolution- ist writers. Progress means change estimated in terms of approximation to an end, — the end being the princi- ple of unity which harmonises and explains the successive steps. History, as contrasted with annals or chronicles, is the record, not simply of change, but of progress and growth. As applied to the life of nations and societies, evolution has made us familiar, not only with the idea, but also with the law of growth. Popularly stated, that law is that societies advance through successive stages of simultaneous differentiation and unification to ever higher and richer forms of life. § 83. Illustration of the General Law of Progress This law hardly requires illustration. Mr. Spencer has formulated it in well-known terms to the effect that "an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity is transformed into a definite, coherent heterogeneity," profusely illus- trating it in the fields of biology and social life. Thus the general course of biological evolution is seen to be from organisms such as the amoeba, which are homogeneous and almost structureless, through fishes. Ch. II] 7he Standard as Progressive 203 reptiles, birds, to the highly difTerentiated structures of the mammals, and finally of man. A similar prog- ress is traceable in the development of the social or- ganism. At first this is simple and undifferentiated; all the members alike fish, and hunt, and fight. But with all its homogeneity, it is still a loose organisation, with little internal coherence. The functions are not specialised, the parts are comparatively independent of one another. With division of labour comes greater differentiation into castes and classes, and at the same time greater interdependence, greater unity and cohe- rence, as these become mutually dependent on one another. As evolution proceeds the different forms of industry again differentiate into smaller groups or spe- cialised industries. Similarly, the military forces are separated into departments, as of the home and foreign service, the army and the navy, etc. ; the government into central and municipal, and each again into legis- lative, executive, and judicial. § 84. Progress of Humanity as a Whole A process similar to that which takes place among individual nations may be seen to take place in the world at large, and in the human race as a whole. The growth here also is from a state of relative homo- geneity and mutual isolation to greater heterogeneity, advancing pa?-i passu with greater mutual interdepend- ence and coherence among the parts. It is true that as yet this progress has been but fitful,* and that the indications of the growth of a universal human brother- * As a whole, we have to recollect that " progress has many receding waves." 204 Ethics [Bk. V hood are but faint. If, however, we take the history of the nations of Europe and America during the last century, it cannot be doubted that some progress has been made. In so far as it is observable, it is in the direction indicated by our law. In the first place, we have a movement towards disruption and disintegration. This may be said to have begun in the great American War of Independence, and to have been continued in Europe in the national movement, which took its rise in the anti-Napoleonic reaction, created the German Empire, modern Greece, Italy, and Hungary, and cannot be said to have even yet spent itself. On the other hand, going on pari passu with this movement, we have the growth of international sympathy, industrial co- operation, and a community of intellectual interests, so that the Europe and America of to-day, in spite of the development of greater internal differences, are more united than ever before.* If now we pass from these indications of the growth in the civilised world as a whole of a richer form of social and political organisation to the moral ideas and habits which, as we have seen, must at each stage be its support, w^e may expect to find a corresponding development, indicating at least a tendency towards a universal standard or ideal, which, as it unifies and gives significance to the separate varieties that have been developed in the progress, may be said to furnish the explanation of which we are in search. * As illustrations of this progress may be mentioned International Arbitration, Labour Conferences, Industrial Exhibitions, the Postal Union, Laws of Copyright and of Extradition. Ch. Ill The Shiiidiini as Progressive 205 § 85. Moral Progress in Nations Confining ourselves to the history of particular nations, it is not difficult to show, not only that there is a definite progress in the moral standard, but that this progress obeys the law of all others as expounded above. Thus, to take a well-known example, it is not diffi- cult to show that, pa?'i passu with the progress of the Jewish nation from a rabble of fugitive slaves to a great and highly civilised nation, there is a moral progress from the first elements of a standard in the Decalogue to the highly spiritualised morality of the later prophets and the Sermon on the Mount. A similar progress is traceable from the traditional and proverbial morality of early Greece to the reflective morality of the philosophers. The progress, moreover, is one from incoherent honx)geneity to coherent heterogeneity. We have, on the one hand, a movement towards greater differentiation, as when the principles laid down in the ten commandments expand into the greater detail of the Sermon on the Mount {e.g., the principle Thou shalt not kill being extended to minute particulars of daily life), orwhen the /XT/Sei/ ayav (nothing in excess) of traditional Greek morality differentiates into the elabo- rate table of the Aristotelian virtues.* On the other hand, we have a movement towards greater unity and coherence. To this corresponds in Jewish ethics the movement from the externality of the law to the " inward- ness " of the Christian teaching. The law is " contained " in the golden rule {i.e., is seen to be related to the spirit * See Ethics, Books III. and IV. 2o6 Ethics [Bk. V or principle that underlies it as the particular to the universal), viz., love to God and to our neighbour. In the same way in Greek morality the integrating movement is plainly seen in the writings of the philoso- phers, who merely sum up the higher tendencies of their time when they exhibit the various forms of the good which constitute the common standard as flowing from a conscientious interpretation of the duties of a good citizen. § 86. Evolution of a Universal Moral Order But this is not enough for our purpose. It is not enough to know that, in particular times or nations, the changes in the moral standard are determined by such a law of progress. We have to go further, and ask whether in morality as a whole throughout the history of humanity any such progress is discernible. The question is sufificiently wide. A complete answer to it could only be given in a general history of morality.* In writing such a history the historian would be met by a dii^culty which is not felt in treating of the evolution of morality in a particular age or countr)', namely, that the process is not completed. It is com- paratively easy to place the various stages in the de- velopment of Jewish and Hellenic morality in their true light, because it is possible to trace the leading features of the Jewish and Hellenic ideals as these fulfilled them- selves in history. But where are we to find such fulfil- ment in a universal history? Here we must be satisfied with tendencies towards an ideal, into the nature of * For a popular contribution to such a history, see Lecky's History of Ettropean Morals, Ch. II] The Standard as Progressive 207 which we may have more or less insight, according to the degree of our intellectual and moral culture, but which at best is rather an object of faith than of sight. Without committing myself to any speculative descrij)- tion of the general features of the moral ideal that is working itself into shape as the common standard of civilised humanity, I may try to illustrate the general progress by considering one or two instances of it in the particular virtues. § 87. Illustration from Courage* Thus we may take the virtue of courage at two successive stages in its development as part of the common stock of moral ideas. It is the virtue which the ancients delighted to honour, and of which Plato and Aristotle have given careful and typical delinea- tions, t Among the Greeks it appears as the virtue which is concerned with resistance to fear in the pres- ence of danger and death. But when we compare the Greek conception of it with our own, we .become con- scious of the same kind of difference which we saw above characterised all higher as compared with lower forms of organic life. It has become more differentiated. As has been well pointed out,| our conception of the kind of pains in reference to which the virtue is ex- hibited has greatly widened. Besides danger and death in battle, there is the danger to health and life in the mission field, the city slum, and the fever ward, which * I take many hints in the ensuing illustrations from- Green"s suggestive treatment of this subject, Proleg. to Ethics, Book III. t See Republic, III., § 429, and Nicomachean Ethics, III., 6, 9. \ Green, loc. cit., p. 279. 2o8 Ethics [Bk. V makes the foreign missionary, the skim sister, and the hospital nurse as heroic types among ourselves as the citizen soldier was among the Greeks. In these cases perhaps the difference is not so great but that we should class them all under the old title of courage, but, as the sphere of the virtue widens, parts of it tend to break away and appropriate to themselves new names. Thus, as the conception of the kind of pains in reference to which fortitude may be exhibited widens so as to embrace not only physical pains, but those which bear but a remote resemblance to them, not only those which may be inflicted by enemies, but those that spring from disagreement and misunderstandings with one's friends,* we have what is practically a new variety of the virtue — that which for want of a better name we call moral courage. With this differentiation, which corresponds to the extension of the area covered by the virtue, there goes a greater integration, corresponding to the deepening of the consciousness of its significance. For it is just the relation which the virtue is felt to bear to human prog- ress in general which, while opening up new fields for its exercise, places the new forms thus generated, as well as the forms previously recognised, in closer relation to one another, and to virtue as a whole. A Greek would have been at a loss how to class the forms of virtue which we have mentioned above as typical of our own * As examples of the pains in question may be taken those of the social ostracism inflicted by the majority of a particular class or profession upon an offending member, e.g., by a church upon a clergyman who denounces its corruptions, or by the press upon an editor who denounces forms of social immorality that are generally winked at. Ch. II] The Standard as Progressive 209 time. He could hardly have denied that they were like courage, but without the fully developed notion of human brotherhood, he would have found it difficult to invent a formula which could have given the clue to the underlying identity. We, on the other hand, while recognising new forms of the virtue, perceive them only to be extensions of it, required by wider conceptions of that " society " in relation to which alone it has meaning. At the same time, we interpret the virtue of courage itself as only a particular form of virtue in general. We recog- nise it as only "the form which individual and social virtue take in presence of the obstacles, both moral and physical, presented by the environment to the realisation of the common human good."* § 88. Illustration from Temperance In further illustration of this truth we may quote the virtue which the Greeks called Temperance, but which we should call Self-control. Along with extended ideas of our duty to humanity, and especially to women, has gone the application of the virtue to new relations. An obvious instance of the former is the appropriation of the word " temperance " to a special form of self-control, viewed as a duty to society at large as much as to oneself or to the state. From the general virtue of self-control in matters of sense, self-control in matters of drink has broken away, and set up, as it were, for itself as an independent virtue. Similarly, the range of the virtue of self-control in matters of sex has immensely widened. Under the influence of new conceptions of * I am indebted for this definition to Lux Miindi, p. 496 (isted.). 2IO Ethics [Bk. V the position of women which were contained in gc-m in the Christian religion, a new emphasis came to be laid on the virtue in question, which, under the names of chastity and chivalry, is more than any other the key- stone of the modern form of social organisation.* With this differentiation has gone hand in hand, as in the case of courage, a new conception of the relation of these forms to one another, and to virtue as a whole, corresponding to the movement of integration. Thus, to take our previous instance, it was difficult to see, so long as the view was confined to the narrow field of the Greek community, what was the precise relation of chastity to the other forms of temperance and to virtue as a whole. Accordingly, as is well known to any one familiar with Greek literature, it was the virtue most to seek in the character of the average good citizen. Even Socrates plays with unnameable forms of its corresponding vice, while Plato proposes a special exemption from its re- quirements as the reward of the youthful heroes in his *' Republic." As a matter of fact, in the so-called mili- tary age, and in military circles in industrial ages, it has always tended to fall into the background.! It is only * These examples, it may be noted by the way, are a further comment on Mr. Spencer's conception of an absolute ethics, and a state of society where all sense of duty, as involving pain, will dis- appear. As already pointed out, his theory is based on the notion that the environment is something definite 'and fixed. But, as we have just seen, our conception of the environment, and the obstacles it presents to the realisation of the good, changes with the deepen- ing of our conception of the nature of the good itself. Hence it involves as much pain (perhaps more, see above, p. 208 «.) to be courageous or chaste to-day as in Athens in the fourth century B.C. With progress " more is required of us." t " It is not without reason that the earliest mythology united Ares Ch. II] The Standard as Progressive 211 in view of a higher conception of the rights of women, as members of a universal fellowship and joint-partners in a common good, that the true significance of the virtue, and the relation of its various forms to one an- other and to the universal moral order, come into sight. § 89. Summary Similar illustrations of the view for which I am contending might be drawn from the rise of the virt- ues of humility, mercy, truth, tolerance, class justice, esprit de corps,* etc., but sufficient has perhaps been said to show that the actual standard at any particular period, while undoubtedly relative to the special cir- cumstances of the time and country, is not on that account an isolated and accidental phenomenon, but takes its place as a stage in the evolution of a universal moral order, from its relation^ to which in the last resort it derives its significance.! The practical conclusion to and Aphrodite." — Aristotle, Foil tics, II., 9 (Bohn's Library, p. 62) ; see the whole passage. * A simple example of the process of differentiation spoken of above is the Latin pictas, which is now represented by several virtues, chiefly those classed under involuntary social relations in our table (p. 186). Max Miillcr somewhere mentions a people (the Hawaiians) who have only one word (aloha) for love, friendship, gratitude, benevolence, and respect. t The " universality " which is thus opposed to the " relativity " of the standard must not l)e misunderstood. After what has been already said, it cannot, of course, mean that morality can ever come to be "the same for all": duty is duty just because it is different for all. Nor can it mean the " finality " of any conceivable moral code. We have already seen sufficient reason to distrust the conception of a final or absolute ethics. It cannot even mean merely the " ubiquity " of the highest recognised standard, though 212 Ethics [Bk. V which the preceding discussion points is that moral obligation at any particular stage rests, not merely on the call to maintain a particular form of moral organisation, but to maintain and foDj'ard the cause of moral order as a whole.* § 90. Further Question But before we can regard this conclusion as satisfac- torily established, we have to encounter the second of the two questions with which we were threatened at the end of the last chapter. Duty or obligation, as I have already had occasion repeatedly to point out, rests on a personal interest in a moral order, which when it is reflected upon we recognise as "good," i.e., as the revelation to man of what he himself truly is or has it in him to become. But how, it may be asked, can such an interest come to attach to the moral order, the law of whose evolution we have just been describing, if, as is commonly added, not only the lines which it follows coincide with those of biological evolution, but the cause which is at work in producing it is in both cases the same? If, as is claimed, the process has been determined throughout by the natural law of adaptation to environment and survival of the fittest, and is thus explicable without reference to this is undoubtedly an element in it. The moral order which is being evolved must be conceived of as universal, chiefly in the sense that it represents the demands of the universal or rational element in human nature. My meaning will become apparent in the light of considerations which I reserve for the next chapter. * The endeavour to further evolution, especially that of the human race, has been put forward by scientific writers as a " new duty." It would be better to say that it is a fundamental aspect of old ones. Ch. II] Tlic Standard as Progressive 213 any free self-determination on the part of man, in what sense, it may be asked, can the result of the action of this biological law, viz., the existing moral order, be said to represent such a good? To answer this question, it is necessary that we should enter more fully than we have yet done into the question of the source or spring of the moral evolution I have been describing, in order to see whether it is true, as has just been suggested, that in accepting the evolutionist's statement of the course that moral evolution takes, we necessarily accept his account of the cause that explains it. Simply stated, the question, then, is whether the en- largement and enrichment of the moral standard, which we have observed to be taking place, is sufficiently ex- plained as the result of a mechanical process of adap- tation to environment, determined, like biological evolu- tion, at each step from without, and following the course laid down for it by purely natural causes; or whether there is not also required a reference to the action at each stage of a self-conscious intelligence, seeking its good as such, and evolving step by step from the raw maturrial of its surroundings a system of social relations, in the maintenance and development of which that good maybe found. The question, it will be acknowledged, is an important one at the stage of our argument at which we have arrived. For if the evolution is after all merely natural, the objections which we have ourselves urged against the scientific or evolutionary doctrine of the standard of morality will be found to apply after all, though at a later stage of the investigation and in a somewhat different form, to our own account. Unless the results of the progress can be shown to be elements in a more or less clearly conceived end or good, obligation, 214 Ethics ' [Bk. V which we have seen to depend on the relation between conduct and personal good, is still without a foothold, even on the supposition of a universal moral order. If we are to bring together the results just obtained with those of our previous argument, we cannot refuse to consider this difficulty. Ch. Ill] The Standard as Ideal 215 CHAPTER III THE STANDARD AS IDEAL Part I § 91. The Question involves Metaphysical Considerations The difificulty started, but left unsolved, at the end of the last chapter, shortly stated, is : Whether progress in morality generally is explicable in terms of efficient causes as the result of adjustment to environment, as ordinarily interpreted; or whether it does not involve a reference to an end or ideal more or less consciously conceived by a subject, to whom changes in the environment and the ad- justments rendered necessary by them are merely the opportunity for further self-realisation. So stated, the question introduces wide issues, which I cannot hope in the last chapter of a text-book like the present to treat as they deserve. Thus, to.be satisfactorily answered, it would require to be discussed in close connection with the general question of the relation of the self or conscious subject as a whole to the world which constitutes its ob- ject or environment. This, however, would bring me into dangerous proximity with the metaphysical discus- sions which at the outset I abjured; so that I seem to be 2i6 Ethics [Bk. V caught in the dilemma of either abruptly ending my argu- ment in the face of an unsolved difficulty, or using my last chapter to break new ground and pass beyond the limits I imposed upon myself. I shall not deceive the reader, but confess to him my intention of choosing the latter alternative. The shock to him will, perhaps, be mitigated by the recollection that in the last two or three sections we have admittedly been prospecting on the borders of that thorny region. In the following section I shall ask him boldly to step across with \e and take a look at things at home from the other side, at the same time promising not to lead him further into its dangerous wildernesses than is necessary in order to get a clearer view of the point we have reached and the path by which we have come. § 92. Consciousness as Active Principle in Knowledge The old-fashioned view of the relation of the conscious subject to the external world is that the knowledge of the latter is impressed upon it from without. The subject is the passive receptacle of feelings, sensations, and ideas w'hich come to it. Progress consists in the storage, classifi- cation, and acquired power of recalling and utilising these possessions at the proper moment. A little reflection, however, is sufficient to dispel the illusion on which this view is based. Thus, to take the lowest element in knowledge, sensation, it is a commonplace of the text- books to point out that in the last analysis the so-called external world reduces itself to stimuli imparted to the physical organism. To a certain extent it may be said that differences in sensation depend on differences in the stimuli, which in turn resolve themselves into differences Ch. Ill] TJie Standard as Ideal 217 in the rate of velocity in the vibrations which cause them. Vibrations of a low rate of velocity affect us through the sense of touch, as a feeling of jar. When the velocity reaches some 20,000 per second we have a sensation of sound. Above 40,000 per second we no longer hear them. When they reach a much higher number we begin to have sensations of colour, beginning with red, and passing through the chromatic scale to violet. Above a certain point they are too numerous to be responded to by the visual apparatus, and light disappears. In all which the point to be observed is that, as it has been well put, " out of what is in itself an undistinguishable, swarm- ing continuum, devoid of distinction or emphasis, our senses make for us ... a world full of contrasts, of sharp accents, of abrupt changes, of picturesque light and shade." So that even on the plane of the senses which we share with the lower animals, the world of knowledge is not so much a revelation of an external universe as a revelation of our own nature as sentient beings. Coming to the subject or self, as a conscious principle of unity amid the variety of presentations, we may see that this is even more obviously true. It is not, of course, contended that the mind can evolve knowledge from its inner consciousness, any more than sensations can call themselves into being without aid from external stimuli. What is asserted is, that it does not approach the world as a passive receptacle, or, according to the well-known metaphor, a tabula rasa, on which the world to be known imprints itself. From the outset it is an active principle of interpretation, to which the world comes as a system of signs, like the signals received by the clerk at a telegraphic depot, rather than as a reflection in a mirror, or the impression imprinted by the seal upon the 2i8 Ethics [Bk. V wax. Moreover, the standard of interpretation is fur- nished by itself; and the world which it builds up out of the material supplied it from without is a memorial to the fundamental principles it brings with it to the work {i.e., to the chief features of its own inner nature), rather than to any world that exists independently of it. § i)3. The Unity of the World as Postulate of Thought The detailed account of these principles is the subject- matter of philosophy as the theory of knowledge and reality. It is sufficient for our purpose to point out that the primary feature which distinguishes a con- scious self from a merely sentient subject is that it asserts its "personal identity " as the underlying unity of its transient experiences. Even in its most ele- mentary stage, the world of such a self is a unity in a sense which it is not (apparently) to the lower animals. Hence the fundamental principle it brings with it to the interpretation of the signs supplied it from with- out * is that they should form an intelligible unity or whole. This is the ideal to which, even at its most elementary stage, it demands that knowledge shall cor- respond. If it has no other unity to the mind of the savage or the child, the world at least possesses the unity of being in one space, its events in one order of succession in time. But this order is not something given. It is the mind's first effort to embody its ideal in the data of experience. Advance, moreover, does not * I use the popular language in permitting myself to speak of signs, material, etc., coming from -without. Metaphysics, of course, has something further to say on this externality. Ch. Ill] The Standard as Ideal 219 come from without by the mere heaping up of expe- riences. It is an advance to higher forms of unity among them, and this advance is forced upon the subject by the demand which its own nature, as active intelli- gence, makes upon it, — the demand, namely, to see in the so-called external world an ever more perfect embodi- ment of the ideal of unity which itself supplies. I'^om this point of view, therefore, progress in knowledge has to be looked at rather as a progressive revelation to the self of its own nature than as the unfolding of an external world to an observing subject.* From all this two results follow. (1) The sciences, as they exist at any time, are not to be looked at as the mere accumulation of generalisations from experience and the deductions which are drawn from them, but as actual embodiments of mind. They are the best up-to- date account which mind can give of itself — the reflection or mirror of its inner nature so far as revealed upon this globe. (2) Progress comes from within. New objects and events are the occasion, not the cause or primary * " Nervous signs," says Bowne (quoted, James's Principles of Psychology, I., p. 220), "are the raw material of all knowledge of the outer world. . . . But, in order to pass beyond these signs into a knowledge of the outer world, we must posit an interpreter who shall read back these signs into their objective meaning. But that interpreter, again, must implicitly contain the meaning of the uni- verse within itself, and these signs are really but excitations which cause the soul to unfold what is within itself. Inasmuch as by common consent the soul communicates with the outer world only through these signs, and never comes nearer to the object than such signs can bring it, it follows that the principles of interpretation must be in the mind itself, and that the resulting construction is primarily only an expression of the mind's own nature. All reaction is of this sort ; it expresses the nature of the reacting agent." ■ Cp. Note at end of preceding book. 2 20 Ethics [Bk. V source, of intellectual development. What Aristotle says of political revolutions is true of scientific progress : it is the outcome of great causes and small occasions. The fall of an apple may be the occasion of the discovery of a law which may be said to have remade the world for scientific men; but the cause is in the ideal of a self- consistent system of planetary movements, as that was conceived in Newton's mind. So generally, unless con- sciousness were the seat of an ideal of a completely uni- fied world of mutually related parts, progress, in any intelligible sense, would be impossible. It is only in so far as the new materials are interpreted in the light of its own principles, and are seen by the mind further to fill out and illustrate the ideal it cherishes of completed knowledge or of a completely knowing self, that there can be said to be growth and progress in knowledge.* § 94. Conscience and Consciousness Now conscience is only another side of consciousness. It is in the field of practice what consciousness is in the field of knowledge. This fundamental identity is already indicated in the words themselves. Consciousness {con- scire) is the sense we have of ourselves, as realised in the mode of activity we call knowledge; conscience (also cojiscire ; cp. Old Eng. ifnvit) is the sense we have of our- selves as realised in conduct. Hence we may expect to * Practically this dependence of the mind in intellectual progress upon its ability to see in the new facts a further revelation of itself takes the form of the familiar statement that intellectual effort de- pends upon interest, — interest being the emotional satisfaction which an object gives us as a possible means of further self-realisation. Cp. Dewey, op. cii., §§ xxxiv. foil.; also on general subject of this section, § xl. Cn. Ill] 21ie Standai-d as Ideal 221 find interesting analogies cropping up between iliem in respect to the relations discussed in the last paragraph. Of these it is here important to note (i) that the objective world of human relations is to conscience what the exter- nal world of experience is to consciousness. Just as we saw that, apart from the interpreting and constructive power of the human mind, the external world is merely a chaos of nervous movements, so, apart from the inter- preting power of conscience, the relations and institu- tions of society are mere physical facts without moral meaning.* (2) As the principle of interpretation in the former case is the ideal which the conscious self cherishes of a unified world of experience, representing its own complete realisation as a principle of knowledge, so the principle which conscience brings to the interpre- tation of external circumstances is the ideal of a system of moral relations, representing its own realisation as a principle of conduct. (3) As, finally, progress in knowl- edge was shown not to come from without, but to be the result of the inner demand of the self for a more and more perfect embodiment of its ideal of unified knowl- edge, so progress in morality has its spring, not in mere * The question is sometimes aslvcd whether any sane person is wholly devoid of conscience. I am not here concerned to find the answer to this conundrum, but merely to point out that in pro- portion as any one approaches such a limit, moral relations and institutions tend to lose their meaning for him. To Hedda Gabler, in Ibsen's play of that name, moral sacrifices are simply unintelli- gible. She does not understand those who make them. Her dislike of them {e.g., of her aunt) is merely the dislike of a clever girl to what is stupid and unreasonable. If she had had a little more conscience, her dislike would have turned into hatred. For in that case she would have recognised them as persons whose conduct was a standing reproof to her own almost fiendish selfishness. 222 Ethics [Bk. V adjustment of the self to changing circumstances, but in the interpreting, constructive power of conscience finding in new circumstances the occasion for the further reali- sation of its ideal of rationalised and unified conduct. § 95. Relation of Conscience to Social Environment If now we return from this somewhat abstract discus- sion, and ask what is its bearing on the question with which we started, viz., the relation of the subjective ele- ment in morality (i.e., conscience) to the objective {i.e., social conventions and institutions), we have to note : — (i) That the above argument has confirmed from a new point of view the doctrine developed in a previous chapter, viz., that the system of social institutions, among which the individual finds himself, is only the other or objective side of the organic system of impulses and desires that constitute his inward nature. It is so because, as we have just seen, it is the result of the reaction upon his environment of a self-conscious, or, as we may now say, "conscientious" being, who seeks to create out of it a system of relations corresponding to the ideal which his nature, as conscious intelligence, forces upon his notice. It thus comes to the individ- ual as a species of objectified conscience. It supplies him with an objective expression of the chief contents of the ideal which he himself, as sharing the intelligence and conscience embodied in these forms, is called upon to make actual. Practically, this is of immense value to him. For, in the first place, he is not left to the subjective witness of his own reason to interpret the demands of conscience. These are already writ large in the social relations into which he is born, or, as we previously Ch. Ill] The Standard as Ideal 223 expressed it, in his station and its duties. Secondly, these relations present him with a standard by which he may correct his own subjective judgments. Conscience, if left to itself, is liable to run into all kinds of caprice. Unless its judgments are constantly checked by a refer- ence to actual social requirements, as by a kind of "double entry," it may easily be transformed from a guarantee of social solidarity into a principle of isolation and anarchy.* (2) But, while the social environment is thus an in- valuable aid to the individual conscience in interpreting its own ideal, the conscience is always reacting on the environment. A man's "station and its duties" is not the fixed quantity we are apt to suppose.- It is not a "bed of Procrustes" to which he has permanently to adapt himself; rather it is a "leaden rule " which has to adapt itself to him. The good life is not, except in a society of Podsnaps, a treadmill of recurring duties, keeping a man in a state of stable equilibrium with his en- vironment. It is a " moving equilibrium," changing and expanding as new circumstances arise, which conscience interprets in its own way as "further calls. "f New in- terests develop from the old ones, which, conscientiously pursued, tend to change the whole aspect of his environ- ment. | While, therefore, it is true that a man's duties at any particular moment may be expressed in terms of * It has been observed that Intuitionalist thinkers, who in their ethical analysis begin and end with conscience, tend to be indi- vidualists in politics, t As Lowell has it — "New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth." J A familiar instance is when a man marries. 224 Ethics [Bk. V definite social relations, yet, as a being with a conscience {i.e., a moral ideal), he can never find adequate expression for himself in them, but has to seek new occasions for the exercise of his virtue or excellence as a man. He has "ideas beyond his station." Progress for himself and the society in which he lives depends upon his follow- ing their lead into new social combinations, resulting in a richer form of life for himself and others.* § 96. Is the Ideal Social or Personal? A question might here be raised as to whether the ideal which is thus seen to be the source of progress is primarily one of a better form of social life or a * These two aspects of the moral life have found so admirable a literary expression in Mazzini's essay " On the Condition of Europe " (see Essays, Camelot Series, p. 286) that I cannot refrain from quoting him : — " Life is one : the individual and society are its two necessary manifestations; life considered singly and life in relation to others. , . . The individual and society are sacred; not only because they are two great y?zf A which cannot be abolished, and which consequently we must endeavour to con- ciliate, but because they represent the only two criteria which we possess for realising our oliject, the trurti, — namely, conscience and tradiiiojt. The manifestation of truth being progressive, these two instruments for its discovery ought to be continually transformed and perfected; but we cannot suppress them without condemning ourselves to eternal darlcness. We cannot suppress or subalternise one without irreparably mutilating our power. Individuality, that is to say, conscience, applied alone, leads to anarchy; society, that is to say, tradition, if it be not constantly interpreted and impelled upon the route of the future by the intuition of conscience, begets despotism and immobility. Truth is found at tlieir point of inter- section. It is forbidden, then, to the individual to emancipate himself from tlie social object which constitutes his taslv here below, and forbidden to society to crush or tyrannise over the individual." Ch. Ill] The Standai-d as Ideal 225 higher type of personal character.* Different answers will probably be given in the case of different individ- uals. Where sympathy and imagination are active, the inner call tends at once to be translated into terms of higher forms of social well-being. On the other hand, where sympathy and imagination are sluggish, but the will strong and the purpose earnest, the call may come rather in the form of a demand for greater purity of motive and more consistent character. Each of these forms of conscientiousness has its advantages and its dangers. The advantage of the former is the enthusiasm that goes along with it. Effort is inspired and sustained by the vision of the new heavens and the new earth. The danger is that the cultivation of qualities of char- acter, on which, in the last resort, all social w-ell-being depends, should be neglected for the sake of "quick returns " in the shape of increase of general happiness. Th'e advantage of the latter is that the will is bent on being itself that which, in so far as general well-being is the end, it must wish all other wills to be. The cor- responding danger is that the essentially social character of all forms of goodness should drop out of sight, and that wholeness (in the sense explained in Book IV.) ■ should be sacrificed to holiness. The two attitudes, how- ever, can never be entirely separate in any one whom we judge morally good. Purity of will is only possible to one who is absorbed in the higher interests of life. On the other hand, unless we are to suppose it possible * For the points of contrast and the fundamental identity in the saintly and the reforming type of character, see Green's Prolegomena, Book IV., ch. v.; and on the subject of conscientiousness generally, ibid., pp. 323-37; Martineau, op. cit.. Vol. II., pp. 59 foil.; Alex- 3,nder, op. cit., pp. 156-60; Dewey, op. cit., § Ixiii. 2 26 Ethia [Bk. v to gather "grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles," social progress cannot be safe in the hands of those in whom the desire for social improvement does not involve a keen sense of personal responsibility, and a high ideal of the kind of life required in those who claim to be its prophets and evangelists. Part II § 97. Evolutionary Account of Moral Progress The reader will have already perceived that the answer to the question with which we closed the last chapter is involved in the foregoing argument. It remains for me only further to illustrate what has just been said by indi- cating how the ordinary account of the evolution of morality requires to be supplemented, in order to bring it into harmony with the view I have taken throughout of the nature of moral judgment and the ground of obligation. In doing so I shall assume that the evolu- tionists' treatment of the origin and growth of morality is fairly familiar to the reader, and that a short allusion to it will suffice. In this treatment attention is called to the important part which the struggle for existence and the law of nat- ural selection have played in the evolution of morality. Thus, it is shown how at the outset the pressure of environment forced the members of hostile tribes into closer union with one another, developing social soli- darity, and with it the virtues on which it depended. Progress was conditional on the survival of those tribes whose members best responded to the social require- ments thus forced upon them, and on the consolidation and propagation of the form of social organisation and, Ch. Ill] The Statidard as Ideal 227 the standard of morality corresponding to this response. In this way, to take familiar examples, the Judaic organi- sation asserted itself triumphantly against the Canaani- tic; the Greek maintained itself against the Persian, and ultimately, in the conquests of Alexander, overcame its ancestral rival in the East; the Roman superseded the Greek. In modern times, the Protestant has, on the whole, been victorious over the Catholic; the democratic and industrial over the feudal and military. In the -common account of the mode in which the law of natural selection acts in the sphere of morality, the emphasis has usually been laid on the analogy between social and biological evolution. Little attempt has been made to note the characteristic differences in the two cases. Recently the subject has received more careful treatment from evolutionary writers,* by whom it is pointed out that, whereas in the case of the lower animals and of man in the earlier stages of his develop- ment survival of the fittest is purchased at the price of the destruction of the unfit, in the later stages of social evolution this is less and less the case. Thus, to illustrate from our previous examples, the conquest of Canaan by the Jews does not appear, in spite of the reiterated instructions of priests and prophets, to have been followed by the extirpation of the inhabitants of the land. Nor were "the conquests of the Greeks and Romans followed, as a rule, by the annihilation of their enemies. The reason of this difference is that with the growth of humanitarian feeling the conflict came to be one between social and moral ideals, rather than between * E.g., Mr. Alexander, whose application of the law of natural selection to the progress of the moral ideal is worthy of study, op. cit, pp. 353 foil. 2 28 Ethics [Bk. V nations as physical aggregates. The aim of the con- queror is not to exterminate, but to "convert" the conquered by imposing his ideal upon him. As a rule, he succeeds, as when Greek culture and modes of thought overspread the East in the track of the armies of Alexander; or when (to take a modern instance) the expeditions of the Revolution armies under Napoleon carried the ideas of the French Republic through the length and breadth of Europe.* In other cases the ideal of the conquered coalesced with or even overcame that of the conquerors, as was notably the case on the con- quest of Greece and Judeea by Rome, and of Rome itself by the Goths.f The conflict of ideals within a particular society serv'es still better to illustrate this distinction. If swords have not yet been beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks, they have at any rate on the field of party warfare been exchanged for the pen, the platform, and the garden party. The end is victory as before, but the means are persuasion and education (which, as has been well said, is only an organised method of persuasion). So far from exterminating, or even injuring, its political opponent, a victorious party heaps coals of fire upon his head by educating his children in the victorious and presumably the better ideas. * Substituting, e.g., in Germany, the Code Napoleon for the feudal system of land tenure that had previously existed. At the present moment we have in Alsace-Lorraine an interesting conflict proceeding between the French and German ideals of life and organisation. As Mr. Gladstone once pointed out, the justification of the retention of these provinces by Germany will be its power of morally assimi- lating them with itself, i.e., of imposing its ideal upon them. t In \\hich cases Victi victoribus leges dederiint. Ch. Ill] The Standard as Ideal 229 To complete this sketch of the evolutionists' account of the actions of "natural law in the spiritual world," it remains to be pointed out how, in the view of certain economic writers, all the great steps in moral progress are connected with changes which the necessity of adaptation to material environment has brought about. Thus, the spread of humanitarian feeling and ideas in the early Roman empire is claimed as the result of the changes which followed upon the break-up of the older agricultural basis of society in Italy and throughout the world, the development of vast industries directed by Roman princes, and the universal system of trade and finance introduced by Roman capitalists. Again, it is pointed out that the release of the serfs in the middle ages, which by some is claimed as a step in moral progress, only followed the break-up of the social system which had rendered it necessary for the baron to support crowds of small owners or crofters upon the soil. Slave-emancipation, in more recent times, was, in like manner, the result of the discovery that the system of industry founded upon slavery was an unprofitable one, and unable to compete with free labour. Lastly, not to multiply examples, the French Revolution and all the moral enthusiasm it awakened had their roots in the break-down of an effete system of national finance, as is well known to all readers of the Second Book of Carlyle's History of that event. § 98. How this Account requires to be Supplemented Now if these facts are put forward as representing the external or material aspect of moral progress, their im- portance can hardly be exaggerated. The study of them 230 Ethics [Bk. V bears much the same relation to ethics as physiology does to psychology. As the study of the nervous system and of the brain throws important light on the origin and evolution of mind, so the study of the external conditions of moral progress may be expected to throw important light on the origin and contents of morality. If, however, they are put forward as a complete account of the origin and growth of moral ideas, we shall find reason in the preceding argument for being on our guard. As ideas these are in the mind, as moral ideas in the conscience, of individual men, and in neither case can they be simply consequences of material changes. So far from external changes being the cause of them, these changes are only operative as occasions of progress in so far as they are interpreted by the reason and con- science of individuals in the way explained above. Thus, the struggle for existence has undoubtedly tended to promote the survival of tribes whose solid and coherent organisation rendered them the fittest, and accordingly may be said to be one of the conditions of the evolution of those virtues which, like loyalty to king or chief, went to support this organisation. But this is only one side, the ^z/Zside of the truth. Before the solidarity — the loy- alty; and before the loyalty, or constituting the loyalty — an idea in the mind of the individual member of an end or form of self to be realised in the loyal conduct. It is not, of course, maintained that, at the early stage of evolution referred to, we are to look for a fully developed conscience any more than for a fully developed reason. All that is asserted is that, so far as there is consciousness at all {i.e., so far as we can say that we are dealing with human history), there is involved in its presence more than a mere instinctive response to the external circum- Ch. Ill] The Standard as Ideal 2x1 6' stances requiring adjustment to environment. This sometliing more is, in the case of the loyal member of the community, an interpretation of the circumstances as an occasion to realise an end which belongs to him as man. Whether this end is conceived of in terms of internal worth — in which case the circumstances would be interpreted as an occasion for exhibiting the qualities and developing the character of a man — or of social good — in which case the conduct would seem to be demanded by the " Relations dear, and all the charities Of father, son, and brother " — it does not matter. The point is that the conception is there as an ideal, and, as such, is the vital element in the stage of progress represented by our illustration. Similarly in the other examples which were cited above. The Jews were no doubt forced into closer union under their theocratic government by the pressure of their environment, and the necessity to present a solid resistance to their enemies. But to interpret this neces- sity in terms to which the human spirit could respond, to formulate the duties which were involved in the main- tenance of their peculiar form of organisation as elements in a national life, and incorporate them in such a body of moral and religious precept as we find in their literature, required the interpreting, idealising reason of successive generat'jns of law-givers, judges, and priests. Again, humanitarian ideas began to spread after Roman con- quest had broken down the proud isolation of Jew and Greek; but before the new conditions introduced by the Pax Rofnana could become the occasion of a moral advance, they required the moral enthusiasm of the 232 Ethics [Bk. V Christian apostles * and the reflective insight of the Stoic philosophers to interpret them. The Protestant form of organisation is likely to survive the Roman Catholic, owing to its superior adaptation to the environment; but part of that environment is just the demand of the human spirit for liberty of thought and conscience as an essential element in the ideal of personal good. The democratic form of government is undoubtedly that which is best adapted to modern conditions, and may be expected to survive and propagate itself; but it was the moral enthu- siasm for the " rights of man " at the end of the last century and the beginning of this, and not the break-down of an economic system, which created modern democracy.! With regard to slavery we have already seen how the moral consciousness of mankind protested against it, as early as the time of the Cynics (p. 117). It is true, indeed, that it was economically played out as a form of labour before its abolition came, and that, apart from the apprehension of this fact, its general abolition among civilised nations might have been delayed for several generations. Yet it may well be doubted whether, even after the discovery of its economic failure had been made, this would in itself have been sufficient to break through the crust of prejudice and habit, behind * Cp. George Eliot's fine saying, " The great world-struggle of developing thought is continually foreshadowed in the struggle of the affections seeking a justification for love and hope." t Napoleon has been called " the matricide of democracy," in that, while it was the democratic movement in Europe which may be said to have given him birth, he did his best to strangle it. The saying might be true if democracy were the effect merely of adaptation to environment, and not an elemental force in human nature, whose expression in suitable social forms an individual may delay, but cannot prevent. Ch. Ill] The Standard as Ideal 233 which the institution was entrenched, but for the moral enthusiasm which accompanied, and, on any rational interpretation of history, was independent of it. Wherever then, as in all these cases, we have accom- panying changes in the material conditions of human existence, an extension and enrichment of the moral standard in the sense explained in the preceding chap- ter, this is to be traced, in the last resort, to the reaction upon the changed circumstances of conscious intelligence applying, in the method characteristic of it as such, a higher standard than is as yet represented by any exist- ing form of social organisation. § 99. The Social Reformer and Martyr The interpreter and administrator of this ideal standard is the social reformer, with his brother, the martyr for ideal causes. As the power to explain the phenomena of their lives — their manifest disregard of all standards of individual or social utility in the narrower sense — may be taken as the criterion of any ethical theory, I may close this discussion by submitting the view set forth in the preceding pages to this test. That the "naturalistic" theory of ethics has failed to satisfy it, we may take upon the authority of the admis- sions of the most candid of its exponents.* On the view we have developed, on the other hand, these phe- nomena are perfectly comprehensible. 'The reformer I should define merely as one who sits closer to conscience in the sense explained than the run of his neighbours. He is the child of the ideal, as opposed to the majority * See Mr. Leslie Stephen, Science of Elhics, pp. 42S, 430. 234 Ethics [Bk. v around him, who might be described as "the children of the status quo,'" * and is accordingly as "one born out of due season." But this does not mean that existing forms are meaningless to him. On the contrary, he is just the man who understands them, for he can see them as organically related to the ideal which he cherishes, bear- ing the same relation to primitive conceptions of that ideal as the institutions or reforms he works for bear to its fuller development in his own mind and that of his party or disciples. Loyalty, however, to ancestral wis- dom does not with him consist in blind acceptance of its creations. On the contrary, such blind acquiescence in the status quo is treason to the idealising, innovating spirit to which, in its own day, the status itself was due. As has been well remarked, the opponents of useful reforms are drawn from the same class as at the outset blindly resisted the establishment of the form or institution to which they themselves blindly cling. Those who build the sepulchres of the prophets and garnish the tombs of the righteous are the children of those who slew them. On the other hand, in demanding the reform of institu- tions as they are, the reformer is only demanding room for a fuller expression of the ideal which they represent, and apart from which they are meaningless. He is only carrying on the work which the reason and conscience of those who went before have begun, reacting on the given conditions as his own reason and conscience now react. He feels himself the representative of those who have gone before. Their ideal is his ideal. It constitutes his true self. His deepest interest is to realise it. Talents, time, fortune, friends, station, life * M. Arnold's libellous definition of the English aristocracy. Ch. Ill] The Standard as Ideal 235 itself, are of value to him only in so far as they offer him an opportunity of working for it. Apart from such opportunity, they are valueless to him; if they rob him of it (as they will if, in order to retain them, he is tempted to deny the supremacy of his ideal), they may even become an object of hatred and disgust. To love his life in this sense may be to lose it; to hate it may be to find it. THE END Bibliogi-aphy 237 BIBLIOGRAPHY Of some of the Chief English Works on Ethics {arranged as much as possible according to Schools and Dates) . I. Early Intuitionalism Shaftesbury, {yd) Earl (1713) ; ed. Hatch, with notes. 1869. Butler, Bishop Joseph. Sermons (1726) ; Dissertation on Virtue (i 729) . (Both in Butler's Analogy and Sermons. Bohn's Library.) Hutcheson, Francis. System of Moral Philosophy (i755)- See T. Fowler's Shaftesbury and Hutcheson. 1883. Smith,* Adam. Theory of the Moral Sentiments (1759)- II. Later Intuitionalism Price, Richard. Review of Chief Questions and Difficulties of Morals (1757). Reid, Thomas. Outlines of Moral Philosophy (i793) ; ed. McCosh. 1863. Stewart, Dugald. Outli?ies of Moral Philosophy {ijc^t,); ed. McCosh. 1869. Whewell, William. Elements of Morality {i?>A&) . 1864. Calderwood, Henry. Handbook of Moral Philosophy (1872). 1888. * There are other elements in Adam Smith's ethics which relate him to the Utilitarians. The same is true, though in lesser degree, of all the earlier writers here mentioned. 238 Ethics Martineau, James. Types of Ethical TJieojy, 2 vols. (1885). 1886. Lawrie, S. S. Ethica. 1885. Porter, Noah. The Elemeiits of Moral Science. 1885. III. Egoistic Hedonism Hobbes, Thos. Elonenta PJiilosophics de Cive (1642). De Corpore Politico ; or, the Eletnents of Law, Moral and Political {\6^6). Leviattian {\6^\). 1885. Mandeville, Bernard de. The Fable of the Bees (1714). IV. Utilitarianism Locke,* John. Essay concerning the Hufnan Understanding, Book I., chs. hi. and iv. (1690). 1868. Hartley, David. Observations on Man (1748). Hume, David. Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). Works; ed. Green and Grove, 4 vols. 1882. Essays, Literary, Moral, and Political (1742). 1875. Paley, Wilham . L'rinciples of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785). 1859. Bentham, Jeremy. Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789). 1876. Edited in 2 vols, sepa- rate from Deontology (posthumous). Works by J. Bow- ring (1834). Mill, James. Analysis of the Huinan Mind. chs. xvii.-xxiii. (1829). 1878. Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism {\%()i). 1871. Bain, Alexander. Mental and Moral Science (1868). 1872. Sidgwick, Henry. Methods of Ethics {i2>-j^). 1890. Hodgson, Shadworth H. Theory of Practice, 2 vols. 1870. Fowler, Thomas. Progressive Morality. 1884. V. Gizycki. G. Students'' Manual of Ethical Philosophy ; adapted by Stanton Coit. 1889. * Locke is difficult to class. See Si(lg\vick's History of Ethics; Fowler's Locke {English Alen of Letters'), ch. ix. init. Bibliography 239 V. Evolutionary Ethics Darwin, Charles. Descent of Man (1871), chs. i.-v. and xxi. 1883. Spencer, Herbert. Dafa of Ethics {i?,7c,) . 1887. Clifford, W . K . Lectures and Essays ( 1 879) . 1886. Stephen, Leslie. Science of Ethics. 1882. Alexander, Samuel. Moral Order and Progress. 1889. VI. Early Idealists Cudworth, Ralph. Eternal and Tmmidable Morality (posth. 1688). Cumberland, Richard. De Legibus N'atitra; (1672). Clarke, Samuel. Boyle Lectures (1704). VII. Nineteenth-Century Idealists Caird, Edward. The Critical Philosophy of Kant (1877), 2 vols. 1890. Green, T. H. Prolegomena to Ethics (1883). 1887. Bradley, F. H. EtJiical Studies. 1876. Sorley, W. R. Ethics of Natnralisvi. 1885. Courtney, W. L. Constructive Ethics. 1886. Royce, Josiah. Religious Aspect of Philosophy. 1887. Mackenzie,]. S. Introduction to Social PhilosopJiy. 1890. Lotze. Practical Philosophy. 1890. Dewey, J. Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics. 1891. History Sidgwick, H. Outlines of the History of EtJiics (1886). 1888. See also Sonnenschein's Library of Philosophy (in progress). UNIVERSITY MANUALS A NEW SERIES OF USEFUL AND IMPORTANT BOOKS EDITED BY PROFESSOR WM. KNIGHT CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers 'T^HIS Series, published by John Murray in England ^ and Charles Scribner's Sons in America, though the outgrowth of the University Extension movement, is designed to supply the need so widely felt of author- ized books for study and reference both by students and by the general public. The aim of these Manuals is to educate rather than to inform. In their preparation, details will be avoided except when they illustrate the working of general laws and the development of principles ; while the historical evolution of both the literary and scientific subjects, as well as their philosophical sig- nificance, will be kept in view. 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Not content with presenting an historical sketcli of past opin- ion and tendency on the subject of the Beautiful, Prof. Knight shows how these philosophical theories have been evolved, how they have been the outcome of social as well as of intellectual causes, and have often been the product of obscure phenomena in the life of a nation. Thus a deep human interest is given to his synopsis of speculative thought on the subject of Beauty and to his analysis of the art school corresponding to each period from the time of the Egyptians down to the present day. He traces the sequence of opinion in each country as expressed in its literature and its art works, and shows how doctrines of art are based upon theories of Beauty, and how these theories often have their roots in the customs of society itself. ENGLISH COLONIZATION AND EMPIRE By Alfred Caldecott, St. John's College, Cam- bridge. i2mo, with Maps and Diagrams, $i.oo, net. CONTENTS — PIONEER period — international STRUGGLE — DEVELOPMENT AND SEPARATION OF AMERICA — THE ENGLISH IN INDIA — RECONSTRUCTION AND FRESH DEVELOPMENT — GOV- ERNMENT OF THE EMPIRE — TRADE AND TRADE POLICY — SUPPLY OF LABOR— NATIVE RACES — EDUCATION AND RELIGION — GEN- ERAL REFLECTIONS — BOOKS OF REFERENCE. The diffusion of European, and, more particularly, of English, civilization over the face of the inhabited and habitable world is the subject of this book. The treatment of this great theme covers the origin and the historical, political, economical and ethnological development of the English colonies, the moral, intellectual, in- dustrial and social aspects of the question being also considered. There is thus spread before the reader a bird's-eye view of the British colonies, great and small, from their origin until the present time, with a summary of the wars and other great events which have occurred in the progress of this colonizing work, and with a careful examination of some of the most important questions, economical, commercial and political, which now affect the rela- tion of the colonies and the parent nation The maps and dia- grams are an instructive and valuable addition to the book. UNIVERSITY MANUALS THE LITERATURE OF FRANCE By H. G. Keene, Hon. M.A. Oxon. i2mo, $i.oo, net. CONTENTS — Introduction. — the age of infancy (a. Birth) — THE AGE OF INFANCY {b. Growth) — THE AGE OF ADO- LESCENCE (Sixteenth Century) — THE age OF GLORY, Part I. POETRY, Etc. — THE AGE OF GLORY, Part II. PROSE — THE AGE OF REASON, Part I. — THE AGE OF REASON, Part II. — THE AGE OF ' NATURE ' — SOURCES OF MODERN FRENCH LITER- ARY ART : POETRY — SOURCES OF PROSE FICTION — APPENDIX — INDEX. "My first impressions are fully confirmed. The book is interesting and able. It wouKi be difficult to compress into equal compass a more satisfactory or suggestive view of so great a subject. As an introductory text for schools and colleges or private readers I have seen nothing so good. The book deserves, and I hope will receive, a wide welcome." — Edwakd S. Joynes, Professor of Modem Languages, ^out/i Carolina College, THE REALM OF NATURE An Outline of Physiography. By Hugh Robert Mill, D.Sc. Edin.; Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh ; Oxford Lecturer. Maps and 68 Illustrations. i2mo, $1.50, net. CONTENTS— STORY of nature — substance of nature — POWER of NATURE — THE EARTH A SPINNING BALL — THE EARTH A PLANET — THE SOLAR SYSTEM AND UNIVERSE — THE ATMOSPHERE — ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENA — CLIMATES — THE HYDROSPHERE — BED OF THE OCEANS — CRUST OF THE EARTH — ACTION OF WATER ON LAND — RECORD OF THE ROCKS — CONTINENTAL AREA — LIFE AND LIVING CREATURES — MAN IN NATURE — APPENDICES — INDEX. " An excellent book, clear, comprehensive, and remarkably accurate. The standard errors tliat one has come to expect in one text-bfiok after another are successfully avoided, :ind this indicates high and scholarly attainments on the part of the author, and a broad acquaintance with modern sources of scientific statements. . . . One who reaches a good underst^indine of the book may regard himself .is having made a real advance in his education towards an appreciation of nature."— Professor W. M. 'D\vi^, of ffarvard. "Evidently prepared by one who understood his subject." — Professor James D. Dana, Vale. "Admirably adapted for High Schools, as also a reference book for teachers. I can commend it with pleasure." - Professor S. W. Williston. UNIVERSITY MANUALS THE STUDY OF ANIMAL LIFE By J. Arthur Thomson, M.A., F.R.S.E., University of Edinburgh. i2mo. Illustrated, $1.50 net. An original and comprehensive account of all animal life, save man. Such topics as the wealth of life on tlie earth, its distri- bution, the struggle for existence, the social and domestic life of animals, instinct, structure, heredity, influence of habit and sur- roundings, etc., are thoroughly discussed, though in a bright and interesting way, and with the fact constantly in mind that the book is a manual and not a cyclopcedia or a special treatise. " I have read it with grent delight. It is an admirable work, giving a true view of the existing state and tendencies of ziology : and it possesses the rare merit of benig an elementary work, written from'lhe standpoint of the most advanced thought, and in a manner to be understood bv the beginning stu- dent."— J. H. CoMSToCK, Pfflfessor of Evtomology in Cornhill University, andin Leland Stanford Junior University. "An interesting and stimulating bnok, especially so for teachers. The style is clear anre/>aratio>K THE ENGLISH NOVEL FROM ITS ORIGIN TO SIR WALTER SCOTT. By Prof. Raleigh, University College, Liverpool. PROBLEMS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. By M. E. Sadler, Senior Student of Christ Church, Oxford. PSYCHOLOGY: A HISTORICAL SKETCH. By Prof. Skth, Uni- versity of St. Andrews. ENERGY IN NATURE. An Introduction to Physical Science. By John Cox, Trinity College, Cambridge. THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. By Arthur Berrv, King^s Col- lege, Cambridge. 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