:^r*::V^h-t: 
 
 
 lifHli-f! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
For ive are not children of the bond-woman , but oj 
 the free, 
 
 E pur se muove. 
 
OUTLINES 
 
 0' 
 
 CRITICAL THEORY OF ETHICS 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN DEWEY 
 
 Professor of Philosophy in the University of Michigari 
 
 '<^^i 
 
 
 ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN 
 
 REGISTER PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 Ube 1InIan^ press 
 
Copyright, 1891. Register PubliIShing Co.. Ann Arbor, Mich. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Introduction 1-12 
 
 PART I.— FUNDAMENTAL ETHICAL NO- 
 TIONS. 
 
 ChaptePw I.—The Good 
 
 13-138 
 
 Hedonism 
 
 14 
 
 Utilitarianism 
 
 52 
 
 Evolutionary Utilitarianism 
 
 67 
 
 Kantianism 
 
 78 
 
 Problem and Solution 
 
 95 
 
 Realization of Individuality 
 
 97 
 
 Ethical Postulate 
 
 127 
 
 Chapter 11.— The Idea of Obligation 
 
 139-158 
 
 Bain's Theory 
 
 140 
 
 Spencer's Theory 
 
 142 
 
 Kant's Theory 
 
 147 
 
 Its Real Nature 
 
 152 
 
 Chapter 111.— The Idea of Freedom 
 
 158-166 
 
 Negative Freedom 
 
 158 
 
 Potential Freedom 
 
 159 
 
 Positive Freedom 
 
 164 
 
 PART IL — THE ETHICAL 
 
 WORLD. 
 
 Social Relations 
 
 167 
 
 Moral Institutions 
 
 169 
 
yi 
 
 PAKT III.— THE MORAL LIFE OF THE 
 INDIVIDUAL. 
 
 Division of Subject 181 
 
 Chapter l. — The Formation and Growth of 
 
 Ideals 182-211 
 ' Conscience 182 
 Conscientiousness 199 
 Development of Ideals 206 
 Chapter 11.— The Moral Struggle or the Real- 
 izing of Ideals 211-227 
 Goodness as Struggle 211 
 Badness 214 
 Goodness and Badness 221 
 Chapter 111— Realized Morality or the Vir- 
 tues 227-233 
 Cardinal Virtues 231 
 Conclusion 233-238 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Although the following pages have taken shape 
 in connection with class-room work, they are in- 
 tended as an independent contribution to ethical 
 science. It is commonly demanded of such a work 
 that its readers shall have some prefatory hint of 
 its sources and deviations. In accordance with 
 this custom, I may state that for the backbone of 
 the theory here presented — the conception of the 
 will as the expression of ideas, and of social ideas; 
 the notion of an objective ethical world realized in 
 institutions which afford moral ideals, theatre and 
 impetus to the individual; the notion of the moral 
 life as growth in freedom, as the individual finds 
 and conforms to the law of his social placing — for 
 this backbone I am especially indebted to Green's 
 ' Prolegomena to Ethics ', to Mi\ Bradley's ' Ethical 
 Studies ', to Professor Caird's ' Social Philosophy of 
 Comte ' and ' Critical Philosophy of Kant ' (to this 
 latter book in particular my indebtedness is funda- 
 mental), and to Alexander's ' Moral Order and Pro- 
 gress '. Although I have not been able to adopt 
 the stand- point or the method of Mr. Spencer, or of 
 Mr. Leslie Stephen my obligation to the ' Data of 
 Ethics ' and to the ' Science of Ethics ' (especially 
 to the latter) is large. 
 
 As to the specific forms which give a flesh and 
 blood of its own to this backbone, I may call atten- 
 
Vlll 
 
 tionto the idea of desire as the ideal activity in con- 
 trast with actual possession; to the analysis of indi- 
 viduality into function including capacity and envi- 
 ronment ; to the treatment of the social bearings of 
 science and art (a point concerning which I am 
 indebted to my friend, Mr. Franklin Ford) ; to the 
 statement of an ethical postulate; to the accounts 
 of obligation, of moral rules, and of moral badness. 
 
 While the book is an analysis, in outline, of the 
 main elements of the theory of ethics rather than 
 a discussion of all possible detailed questions, it 
 will not be found the less fitted, I hope, to give a 
 student an idea of the main methods and problems 
 of contemporary ethics. Other teachers, indeed, 
 may agree that a general outline is better than a 
 blanket- mortgage spread over and forestalling all 
 the activity of the student's mind. 
 
 I have not been unmindful of the advisability 
 of avoiding in presentation both undue polemic, 
 and undue dogmatism without sufficient reference 
 to the statements of others. I hope the method 
 hit upon, of comparing opposite one-sided views 
 with the aim of discovering a theory apparently 
 more adequate, will help keep the balance. I have 
 quoted freely from the chief modern authorities, 
 hoping that the tastes here given will tempt the 
 reader to the banquet waiting in the authors 
 themselves. The occasional references introduced 
 are not bibliographical, nor intended as exhaustive 
 statements of authorities consulted; they are meant 
 as aids to an intelligent reading on the part of the 
 general student. For this reason they are confined 
 mainly to modern English writings. 
 

 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 I. 
 
 Definition The term ethics is derived from a 
 of Greek word meaning manners, cus- 
 
 Ethlcs. toms, habits, just as the term morals 
 is derived from a Latin word with a similar mean- 
 ing. This suggests the character of the science as 
 an account of human action. Anthropology, eth- 
 nology, psychology, are also, in their way, accounts 
 of human action. But these latter branches of 
 knowledge simply describe, while the business of/ 
 ethics is to judge. 
 
 I This does not mean that it belongs to ethics to 
 prescribe what man ought to do; but that its busi- 
 ness is to detect the element of obligation in cop.- 
 duct, to examine conduct to see what gives it its 
 worthy. Anthropology, etc., do not take into account 
 the whole of action, but simply some of its 
 aspects — either external or internal. Ethics deals 
 with conduct in its entirety, with reference, that is, 
 to what makes it conduct, its end, its real meaning. 
 Ethics is the science of conduct, understanding by 
 conduct man's activity in its whole reach. 
 
 Three of the branches of philosophy may be called 
 normative, implying that they deal with some norm. 
 
standard or end, estimating the value of their respect- 
 ive subject-matters as tested by this end. These are 
 Logic, dealing with the end Truth, and the value of 
 intellectual processes with respect to it; Esthetics, 
 dealing with Beaut.y and the value of emotional con- 
 ditions as referred to it; and Ethics, as defined above. 
 But this norm in no case comes from outside the sub- 
 ject-matter; it is the subject-matter considered in its 
 totality. 
 
 II. 
 
 Meaning In its widest sense, the term moral or 
 
 of ethical means nothing more than relating 
 
 Moral, to conduct; having to do with practice, 
 
 when we look at conduct or practice from the 
 
 point of view not of its occurrence, but of its value. 
 
 Action is something which takes place, and as such 
 
 it may be described like any objective fact. But 
 
 action has also relation to an end, and so considered 
 
 it is moral. The first step in ethics is to fix firmly 
 
 in mind the idea that the term moral does not mean 
 
 any special or peculiar kind of conduct, but simply 
 
 means practice and action, conduct viewed not 
 
 partially, but in connection with the end which it 
 
 realizes. 
 
 It should be noted that the term moral has a wider 
 and a narrower sense. In the wider sense it means 
 action in the moral sphere, as opposed to non-moY^\ 
 and thus includes both good and bad conduct. In the 
 narrower sense it means moral, as opposed to im- 
 moral. See Bradley, Ethical Studies, p. 53, note, for a 
 further meaning. 
 
III. 
 
 Meaning Ethics then has to do with conduct or 
 of action viewed completely, or in relation 
 
 Conduct. tp_Jts end. But what is conduct? It 
 must be distinguished from action in general; for 
 any process of change, the working of a pump, the 
 growth of a plant, the barking of a dog, may be 
 called action. Conduct implies more than some- 
 thing taking place; it implies purpose, motive, 
 intention; that the agent knows what he is about, 
 that he has something which he is aiming at. All 
 action accomplishes something or brings about 
 results, but conduct has the result in vieiv. It 
 occurs for the sake of producing this result. Con- 
 duct does not simply, like action in general, have a 
 cause, but also a reason, and the reason is present 
 to the mind of the agent. There can be conduct 
 only when there is a being who can propose to him- 
 self, as an end to be reached by himself, something 
 which he regards as worth while. Such a being is 
 a moral agent, and his action, when conscious, is 
 conduct. 
 
 IV. 
 
 D vision The main ethical problem is just this: 
 of What is the conduct that really deserves 
 
 Ethics, the name of conduct, the conduct of 
 which all other kinds of action can be only a per- 
 verted or deflected form ? I Or, since it is the end 
 
 I 
 
which gives action its moral value, what is the true 
 end, summum honum of man ?] Knowing this, we 
 have a standard by which we judge particular 
 •acts.) Those which embody this end are right, 
 others wrong. The question of the Tightness of 
 •conduct is simply a special form of the , question 
 concerning the nature of the end or good. ) IBut the 
 end bears another relation to specific acts. They 
 are not only marked ofP by it as right or wrong, but 
 they have to fulfill it. The end or good decides 
 what should be or 02ight to be. Any act necessary 
 to fulfill the end is a duty. Our second inquiry 
 will be as to the nature of obligation or duty. 
 Then we have to discuss the nature of a being who 
 is capable of action, of manifesting and realizing the 
 end ; capable of right (or wrong ) of obligatory and 
 good action, pi^his will leacj us to discuss the question 
 of Freedom, or Moral Capacity and its Realization. 
 The discussion of these three abstract questions 
 will constitute Part I of our theory ; Part II 
 will take up the various forms and institutions 
 in which the good is objectively realized, the fam- 
 ily, state, etc. ; while Part III will be devoted to an 
 account of the moral experience of the individual. 
 
 V. 
 The Motive Before taking up the first problem 
 in presented, the nature of the good or 
 
 Conduct, the end of conduct, it is necessary to 
 

 analyze somewhat further the various sides and 
 factors of conduct in order to see where the dis- 
 tinctly ethical element is to be found. The ele- 
 ments particularly deserving consideration are (1) / 
 the Motive; (2) the Feelings or Sentiments; (3) 
 Consequences of the Act; (4) Character of Agent. 
 We shall begin with 
 
 1. The Motive. The motive of the act is the 
 end aimed at by the agent in performing the act. 
 Thus the motive of Julius Csesar in crossing the 
 Rubicon was the whole series of results which he 
 intended to reach by that act of his. The motive 
 of a person in coming to college is to gain knowl- 
 edge, to prepare himself for a certain profession. 
 The motive is thus identical with the ideal element 
 of the action, the purpose in view. 
 
 2. The Feelings or Disposition. Some writers 
 speak of the feelings under which the agent acts 
 as his motive. Thus we may suppose Julius Caesar 
 ' moved ' by the feelings of ambition, of revenge, 
 etc., in crossing the Rubicon. The student may be 
 ' moved ' by curiosity, by vainglory, by emulation, 
 by conscience, in coming to college. It is better, 
 however, to regard the motive as the reason for 
 which the act is performed, and to use the term 
 moving or impelling cause for the feelings in their 
 relation to action. Thus we may imagine a parent 
 asking a child why he struck a playmate, meaning 
 
6 
 
 what was the motive of the action. If the child 
 should reply that he struck his playmate because 
 he was angry, this answer would give the moving 
 cause or impelling force of the action, but not its 
 motive. The motive would be the idea of punish- 
 ing this playmate, of getting even with him, of 
 taking something away from him. The motive is 
 the end which he desired to reach by striking and 
 on account of which he struck. This is implied by 
 the fact that the parent would ask, " What made you 
 angry f^^ 
 
 VI. 
 
 Moral Bearing It is the feelings which supply 
 
 of These the impelling force to action. 
 
 Distinctions. They may be termed, collectively, 
 
 the natural disposition. The natural disposition 
 
 in itself has no moral value. This has been well 
 
 illustrated by Bentham. 
 
 Principles of Morals and Legislation, pp. 49-55. 
 Bentham here uses the term 'motive' to designate 
 what we have called the moving cause. 
 
 We may select of the many examples which he 
 
 gives that of curiosity. We may imagine a boy 
 
 spinning a top, reading a useful book and letting 
 
 a wild ox loose in a road. Now curiosity may be 
 
 the ' motive ' of each of these acts, yet the first act 
 
 would generally be called morally indifferent, the 
 
 second good, the third abominable. 
 
What we mean by the ' natural ' feelings, then, 
 is the feelings considered in abstraction from 
 activity. Benevolence, as a mere feeling, has no 
 higher moral value than malevolence. But if it is 
 directed upon action it gets a value at once; let the 
 end, the act, be right, and benevolence becomes a 
 name for a moral disposition — a tendency to act in 
 the due way. Nothing is more important than to 
 distinguish between mere sentiments, and feeling 
 as an element in conduct. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Relation Do the consequences of an act 
 
 of have anything to do with its mo- 
 
 Consequences rality? We may say no, pointing 
 
 and to the fact that a man who does his 
 
 Conduct. best we call good, although the 
 consequences of his act may be far from good. 
 We say his purpose in acting was right, and using 
 as he did all the knowledge that he had, he is not 
 to be blamed for its bad consequences. On the 
 other hand, it is evident that we do take into ac- 
 count consequences in estimating the moral value 
 of an act. Suppose, to use one of Bentham's exam- 
 ples, a person were about to shoot an animal but 
 foresaw that in doing so there was a strong proba- 
 bility that he would also wound some bystander. 
 If he shot and the spectator were wounded, should 
 we not hold the agent morally responsible ? Are 
 
there not multitudes of intended acts of which we 
 say that we cannot tell whether they are good or 
 bad until we know how they are likely to turn 
 out? 
 
 The solution of the difficulty is in recognizing 
 the ambiguity of the term ' consequences '. It may 
 mean the whole outcome of the act. When I speak, 
 I set in motion the air, and its vibrations have, in 
 turn, long chains of effects. Whatever I do must 
 have an endless succession of ' consequences ' of 
 which I can know but very little; just so far as, in 
 any act, I am ignorant of the conditions under 
 which it is performed, so far I am ignorant 
 of its consequences. Such consequences are 
 wholly irrelevant morally. They have no more to do 
 with the morality of the act than has the fact that 
 the earth is revolving while the act is taking 
 place. 
 
 I But we may mean by consequences the foreseen 
 consequences of an act. Just in the degree 
 that any consequence is considered likely to r^ult 
 from an act, just in that degree it gets moral value, 
 for it becomes part of the act itself. The reason 
 that in many cases we cannot judge of the morality 
 of an intended act until we can judge its probable 
 results, is that until we know of these results the 
 action is a mere abstraction, having no content at 
 all. The conceived results constitute the content of 
 
9 
 
 the act to be performed. They are not merely rele- 
 vant to its morality, but are its moral quality. The 
 question is whether any consequence is foreseen, 
 conceived, or not. The foreseen, the ideal conse- 
 quences are the end of the act, and as such form 
 the motive. 
 
 See on Sections 6 and 7, Alexander, Moral Order and 
 Progress, pp. 36-46; on Section 7, Green, Prolegomena 
 to Ethics, pp. 317-323. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Character We have seen that the moral senti- 
 and ments, or the moral disposition (dis- 
 Conduct, tinguished from the feelings as passing 
 emotions), on one side, and the consequences as 
 ideal or conceived (distinguished from the con- 
 sequences that, de facto, result), on the other, both 
 have moral value. If we take the moral feelings, 
 not one by one, but as a whole, as an attitude of 
 the agent toward conduct, as expressing the kind of 
 motives which upon the whole moves him to action, 
 we have character. ■> And just so, if we take the 
 consequences willed, not one by one, but as a 
 whole, as the kind of end which the agent endeav- 
 ors to realize, we have conduct. Character and 
 conduct are, morally, the same thing, looked at first 
 inwardly and then outwardly. Character, except 
 as manifest in conduct, is a barren ideality. Our 
 moral judgments are always severe upon a man 
 
10 
 
 who has nothing to show but ' good intentions ' never 
 executed. This is what character comes to, apart 
 fi'om conduct. Our only way of telling the nature 
 of character is the conduct that issues from it. 
 But, on the other hand, conduct is mere outward 
 formalism, excepting as it manifests character. To 
 say that a man's conduct is good, unless it is the 
 manifestation of a good character, is to pass a 
 judgment which is self- contradictory. 
 
 See Alex;i!j(ler, Op. cit., pp. 4S-50 and }>. 39. 
 
 From this point of view we are enabled to 
 identify the two senses of motive already discussed 
 — the ideal of action and the moving feelings. 
 Apart from each other they are abstractions. 
 Csesar's motive in crossing the Kubicon may have 
 been ' ambition,' but this was not some bare feeling. 
 It was a feeling of ambition produced in view of 
 the contemplation of a certain end which he wished 
 to reach. So a boy's motive in striking a playmate 
 may be anger, but this means (if the act is any- 
 thing more than one of blind physical reaction) an 
 anger having its conscious cause and aim, and not 
 some abstract feeling of anger in general. The 
 feeling which has its nature made what it is by the 
 conceived end, and the end which has ceased to be 
 a bare abstract conception and become an interest, 
 are all one with each other. 
 
 Morality is then a matter pertaining to charac- 
 
11 
 
 ter — to the feelings and inclinations as transformed 
 by ends of action; and to conduct — to conceived 
 ends transformed into act under the influence of 
 emotions. But what kind of character, of conduct, 
 is right or realizes its true end ? This brings us to 
 our first problem. 
 
PART I. 
 
 FUNDAMENTAL ETHICAL NOTIONS. 
 
 Chapter I.— THE GOOD. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Subdivision We may recognize tliree main 
 of types of theories regarding the good, 
 
 Theories, of which the first two represent (we 
 shall attempt to show) each respectively one side of 
 the truth, while the third combines the one-sided 
 truths of the other two. Of the first two theories 
 one is^ abstract, because it tends to find the good-in 
 the__ _mere cons equences of conduct ^ aside from 
 chara cter. This is the he donis tic theory, which 
 finds the good to be pleasure. This is either indi- 
 vidualistic or universalistic according as it takes 
 individual or general pleasure to be the good. The 
 second type of t heories attempts to find the go od 
 in the motive of conduct fi ipart f^'^Tn nnnsognanpfta 
 even as -wiH^: it reduces the goodjto conformity 
 to abstract morallaw. The best type of this 
 
14 
 
 theory is the Kantian. We shall criticize these 
 theories with a view to developing the factors 
 necessary to a true moral theory. 
 
 X. 
 
 Hedonism. According to the strict hedonistic 
 position, the pleasure resulting to the agent from 
 his act is the end of conduct and is therefore the 
 criterion of its morality. The position as usually 
 taken involves, first, that pleasure is psychologically 
 the sole motive to action; and, secondly, that the 
 results of an act in the way of the pain or pleasure it 
 produces are the only tests we have of the rightness 
 of the act. 
 
 It is said above that these two points are involved 
 in the hedonistic position as usually taken. They are 
 not necessarily involved. 
 
 Siclgwick. (Methods of Ethics, Bk. I, ch. lY and 
 Bk. ly, ch. I) holds that plea,am:g^js_not_tlie_object 
 pf dft,sir^,OT_jaQtivja,.Qf_ action, huJL^thatJiappiiiess is 
 the_moral_end and criteruin. On the other hand 
 Hodgson (Theory of Practice, Vol. II, ch. II) holds 
 that pleasure m-dy be the motive (in the sense of im- 
 pelling force) but it is never the criterion of conduct. 
 Kant adopts the psychology of hedonism regarding 
 pleasure as the object of desire, but holds that on that 
 very account no object of desire can be the standard 
 of moral conduct. 
 
 A good statement of strict individualistic hedon- 
 ism is the following from Barratt, Physical Ethics, 
 page 71: "If man aims at pleasure merely by the 
 physical law of action, that pleasure must evidently be 
 ultimately his own, and whether it be or not preceded 
 
15 
 
 by phenomena which he calls the pain and pleasure of 
 others, is a question not of principle but of detail, just 
 as the force of a pound weight is unaltered whether it 
 be composed of lead or of feathers, or whether it act 
 directly or through pulleys." 
 
 XI. 
 
 The Hedonistic Hedonism holds that pleasure 
 Position is both the natural end and the 
 
 Sup po rted . proper criterion of action : 
 The following quotation from Bentham (Princi- 
 ples of Morals and Legislation, Works, Vol. 1, p. 1) 
 gives a statement of both these elements. "Mature 
 has placed man under the governance of two sovereign 
 masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to 
 point out what we ought to do, [i. e. they are criteria] 
 as well as to determine what we shall do [motives], On 
 the one hand, the standard of right or wrong [crite- 
 rion]; on the other the chain of causes and effects 
 [motives], are fastened to their throne." 
 
 1. Pleasure as Criterion. That the tendency 
 of an action to produce pleasure is the standard 
 for judging its moral value is generally held by the 
 hedonists to be so axiomatic as to be beyond 
 argument. 
 
 See Bain, Moral Science, p. 27. " The ultimate data 
 must be accepted as self-evident: they have no higher 
 authority than that mankind generally are disposed to 
 accept them. . . Now there can be no proof offered 
 for the position that happiness is the proper end of all 
 human pursuits, the criterion of all right conduct. It 
 is an ultimate or final assumption to be tested by 
 reference to the individual judgment of mankind." 
 8o Bentham, Enquiry I, II, "The principle is not 
 
/ 
 16 
 
 susceptible of direct proofs for that which is used to 
 prove everything else can not itself be proved; a chain 
 of proofs must have their commencement some- 
 where." Mill, Utilitarianism. (Dissertations and 
 Discussions, pp. 348-349). " The only proof capable of 
 being given that an object is visible is that people 
 actually see it. In like manner the sole evidence it is 
 possible to produce that anything is desirable is that 
 people do actually desire it." See Stephen, Science 
 of Ethics, p. 42; Spencer, Data of Ethics, pp. 30-32 
 and p. 46; Lotze, Practical Philosophy, pp. 18-19; 
 Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, pp. 368-369. 
 
 Hedonism, then, represents the good or the 
 desirable and pleasixre to be two names for the 
 same fact. What indeed can be worth while unless 
 it be either enjoyable in itself or at least a means 
 to enjoyment ? Would theft be considered bad if it 
 resulted in pleasure or truth itself good if its 
 universal effect were pain ? 
 
 2. Pleasure as object of desire. It is also 
 urged that psychological analysis shows that pleas- 
 ure is not only the desirable, but also always the 
 desired. Desire for an object is only a short way 
 of saying desire for the pleasure which that object 
 may bring. To want food is to want the pleas- 
 ure it brings; to want scientific ability is to desire 
 to find satisfaction, or attain happiness. Thus it 
 is laid down as a general principle that the inva- 
 riable object of desire, ^nd motive of action is some 
 pleasure to be attained; the action itself and the 
 direct end of action being simply means to pleasure. 
 
17 
 
 For a strong statement of this doctrine see Mill, 
 Op. cit., pp. 354-5. "Desiring a thing and finding it 
 pleasant, aversion to it and thinking of it as painful, 
 are phenomena entirely inseparable, or rather two 
 parts of the same phenomenon, — in strictness of lan- 
 guage, two different modes of naming the same psy- 
 chological fact; to think of an object as desirable and 
 to think of it as pleasant are one and the same thing. 
 See also, Bain, Emotions and Will, p. 436, Senses and 
 Intellect, pp. 338-344; Sully, Outlines of Psychology, p. 
 575, " The inclination or tendency of the active mind 
 towards what is pleasurable and away from what is 
 painful is the essential fact in willing." Also pp. 576- 
 577. 
 
 XII, Criticism. 
 
 Pleasure Notl Taking up the points in reverse 
 the End /order, we shall endeavor to show 
 of Impulse/ first, that the motive of action, in 
 the sense ©i end aimed at, is not pleasure. This 
 point in itself, is, of course, rather psychological 
 than ethical. Taking up then the psychology of 
 pleasure in its connection with will, we shall 
 discuss its relation to impulse, to desire and to 
 motive. 
 
 It is generally agreed that the raw material of 
 volition is found in some form or other of the im- 
 pulsive or instinctive actions. Such tendencies 
 (e. g., the impulse for food, for drink, for unim- 
 peded motion) clearly precede the reaching of an 
 end, and hence the experience of any pleasure in 
 
 the end. Our first actions, at least, are not for 
 2 
 
18 
 
 pleasure; on the contrary, there is an activity for 
 some independent end, and this end being reached 
 there is pleasure in an act which has succeeded. 
 This suggests as a possible principle that pleasure 
 is not so much the end of action, as an element in 
 the activity which reaches an end. What Aristotle 
 says of another matter is certainly true of instinct- 
 ive action. "It is not true of every characteristic 
 function that its action is attended with pleasure, 
 except indeed the pleasure of attaining its end J' 
 
 See Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II, 
 pp. 299-300; Sidgwick, Op. cit., pp. 38-45. 
 
 XI 11. CriUc'ism— Continued. 
 Pleasure Not ) It may, however, be said that, 
 the End /hile our instinctive actions have 
 of Desire/ another end than pleasure, this is 
 not true of conscious desires — that, indeed, just the 
 difference between instinct and desire is that the 
 former goes blindly to its end, while the latter 
 superimposes the thought of the pleasure to be 
 reached upon the mere instinct. So we have to 
 analyze the nature of desire. 
 
 A child, led by impulse, has put a piece of sugar 
 into his mouth, just as, under the same circum- 
 stances, he would put a piece of stone into his 
 mouth. But his action results in a state of pleas- 
 ure wholly unforseen by him. Now the next time 
 the child sees the sugar he will not merely have 
 
19 
 
 the impulse to put it in his mouth. There will 
 also be the remembrance of the pleasure enjoyed 
 from sugar previously. There is consciousness of 
 sugar as satisfying impulse and hence desire for it. 
 1. This is a description of an instance of desire. 
 Does it bear us out in the doctrine that pleasure is 
 the object of desire? It is possible that, in an irra- 
 tional animal, the experience of eating food rein- 
 forces the original instinct for it with associated 
 images of pleasure. But even this is very different 
 from a desire for pleasure. It is simply the pri- 
 mordial instinct intensified and rendered more 
 acute by new sensational factors joined to it. In 
 the strict sense, there is still no desire, but only 
 stronger impulse. Wherever there is desire there 
 is not only a feeling of pleasure associated with 
 other feelings (e. g., those of hunger, thirst), but 
 there is the consciousness of an object in ivhich 
 satisfaction is found. The error of the hedonistic 
 psychology is in omitting one's consciousness of an 
 object which satisfies. The hedonists are quite 
 right in holding that the end of desire is not any 
 object external to consciousness, but a condition 
 of consciousness itself. The error begins in elim- 
 inating all objective (that is, active) elements from 
 consciousness, and declaring it to be a mere state 
 of feeling or sensation. The practical conscious- 
 ness, or will, cannot be reduced to mere feeling, 
 
20 
 
 any more than the theoretical consciousness, or 
 
 knowledge, can be so reduced. 
 
 Even Mill, in its statement of the hedonistic 
 
 psychology, does not succeed in making the object 
 
 of desire mere pleasure as a state of feeling. Jt 
 
 is the ''plea sant thing ^^ and not pleasu re alone 
 
 which he finds equivalent to the desire. It is 
 
 true enough that sugar as an external fact does not 
 
 awaken desire, but it is equally true that a child does 
 
 not want a passive pleasure. What he wants is his 
 
 own activity in which he makes the sugar his own. 
 
 And it should be remembered that the case of sugar 
 
 is at once a trivial and an exceptional one. Not 
 
 even children want simply sweat-meats; and the 
 
 larger the character which finds expression in wants, 
 
 the more does the direct object of want, the bread, 
 
 the meat, become a mere element in a larger system 
 
 of activity. What a man wants is to live, and he 
 
 wants sweet- meats, amusements, etc., just as he 
 
 wants substantial — on account of their value in 
 
 life. 
 
 Professor James compares the idea that pleasure is 
 the end of desire to saying that " because no steamer 
 can go to sea without incidentally consuming coal, 
 . . . therefore no steamer can go to sea for any other 
 motive than that of coal-consumption." Psychology, 
 Vol. II, p. 558. See the entire passage, pp. 549-559. 
 
 2. But granting that an ' object ' and a ' pleas- 
 ure ' are both necessary to desire, it may be argued 
 
21 
 
 that the ' object ' is ultimately a means to ' pleas- 
 ure.' This expressly raises a question already inci- 
 dentally touched upon: What is the controlling 
 element in desire ? Why is the object thought of 
 as pleasant ? Simply because it is thought of as 
 satisfying want. The hedonists, says Green (Pro- 
 legomena to Ethics, p. 168), make the " mistake of 
 supposing that a desire can be excited by the antic- 
 ipation of its own satisfaction." This is to say, of 
 course, that it exists before it exists, and thus 
 brings itself into being. 
 
 Green, Op. cit., p. 167, states the matter thus: 
 '' Ordinary motives are interests in the attainment of 
 objects, without which it seems to the man that he 
 cannot satisfy himself, and in the attainment of 
 which, because he has desired them, he will find a cer- 
 tain pleasure, but only because he has previously de- 
 sired them, not because pleasures are the objects 
 des'.red." P>radley says on this same point (Ethical 
 Studies, p. 230): " The difference is between my find- 
 ing my pleasure in an end, and my finding means for 
 the end of my pleasure, and the difference is enor- 
 mous." Consult the entire passage, pp. 226-235. See 
 also Caird, Critical Philosophy of Kant, Vol. II, p. 229. 
 
 It is the object, then, which controls, and the 
 pleasure is on account of the attaining of the 
 desired object. But even this statement makes 
 more division in desire than actually exists ; for 
 
 3. The real object of desire is activity itself. 
 The will takes its rise, as we have seen, in impulse ; 
 in the reaching for something to satisfy some felt 
 
22 
 
 lack. Now, in reality, desire adds nothing to 
 impulse excepting consciousness of the impulse. 
 Volitional action does not difPer from impulsive or 
 instinctive, except in bringing to consciousness the 
 nature of the ivant and of the activity necessary to 
 satisfy it. But this makes just the difPerence 
 between ' natural ' or animal activity, and ' moral ' 
 or human activity. To be conscious of the impulse 
 is to elevate it from a blind impelling force to an 
 intended or proposed end; and thus, by bringing it 
 before consciousness, both to extend its range and 
 to idealize it, spiritualize it. To be conscious of an 
 impulse for food means to give up the unreasoned 
 and momentary seizing of it; to consider the rela- 
 tion of things to this want, what will satisfy it best, 
 most easily, etc. The object of desire is not some- 
 thing outside the action; it is an element in the 
 enlarged action. And as we become more and 
 more conscious of impulse for food, we analyze our 
 action into more and more ' objects ' of desire, but 
 these objects never become anything apart from the 
 action itself. They are simply its analyzed and 
 defined content. Man wants activity still, but he 
 knows better what activity means and includes. 
 
 Thus, when we learn what the activity means, it 
 changes its character. To the animal the activity 
 wanted is simply that of eating the food, of 
 realizing the momentary impulse. To man the 
 
23 
 
 activity becomes enlarged to include the satisfaction 
 of a whole life, and not of one life singly, but of 
 the family, etc., connected with the single life. 
 The material well-being of the family becomes 
 one of the objects of desire into which the original 
 impulse has grown. But we misinterpret, when 
 we conceive of this well-being as an external object 
 lying outside the action. It means simply one 
 aspect of the fuller action. By like growing con- 
 sciousness of the meaning of the impulse, produc- 
 tion and exchange of commodities are organized. 
 The impulse for food is extended to include a 
 whole range of commercial activities. 
 
 It is evident that this growing consciousness of 
 the nature of an impulse, whereby we resolve it into 
 manifold and comprehensive activities, also takes 
 the impulse out of its isolation and brings it into 
 connection with other impulses. We come to have 
 not a series of disconnected impulses, but one all- 
 inclusive activity in which various subordinate ac- 
 tivities (or conscious impulses) are included. Thus, 
 in the previous example, the impulse for food is 
 united with the family impulse, and with the 
 impulse for communication and intercourse with 
 society generally. It is this growing unity with 
 the whole range of man's action that is the 
 * spiritualizing ' of the impulse — the natural 
 and brutal impulse being just that which insists 
 
24 
 
 upon itself irrespective of all other wants. The 
 spiritualizing of the impulse is organizing it so 
 that it becoms one factor in action. Thus we lit- 
 erally come to 'eat to live', meaning by life not 
 mere physical existence, but the whole possible 
 sphere of active human relations. 
 
 4. Relation of activity to pleasure. We have 
 seen that the ' object ' of desire in itself is a mere 
 abstraction; that the real object is full activity itself. 
 We are always after larger scope of movement, 
 fuller income in order to get larger outgo. The 
 * thing ' is always for the sake of doing ; is a part of 
 the doing. The idea that anything less or other 
 than life (movement, action, and doing), can satisfy 
 man is as ridiculous when compared with the act- 
 ual course of things in history, as it is false psy- 
 chologically. Freedom is what we want, and free- 
 dom means full unimpeded play of interests, that 
 is, of conscious impulses (see Sec. 34 and 51). If 
 the object is a mere abstraction apart from activity, 
 much more is pleasure. Mere pleasure as an 
 object is simply the extreme of passivity, of mere 
 having, as against action or doing. It is possible to 
 make pleasure to some degree the object of desire; 
 this is just what the voluptuary does. But it is a 
 commonplace that the voluptuary always defeats 
 himself. He never gets satisfaction who identifies 
 satisfaction with having pleasures. The reason is 
 
25 
 
 •evident enough. Activity is what we want, and since 
 pleasure comes from getting what we want, pleasure 
 comes only with activity. To give up the activity, 
 and attempt to get the pleasure is a contradiction in 
 effect. Hence also the 'hedonistic paradox' — that 
 in order to get pleasure we must aim at something 
 else. 
 
 There is an interesting reco;2:nition of this in Mill 
 himself, (see his Autobiography, p. 142). And in his 
 Utilitarianism, in discussing^ the feasibility of getting 
 happiness, he shows (pp. 318-319) that the sources of 
 happiness are an intelligent interest in surrounding 
 things— objects of nature, achievements of art, inci- 
 dents of history — and especially an unselfish devotion 
 to others. Which is to say that man does not find sat- 
 isfaction in pleasure as such at all, but only in ob- 
 jective affairs— that is, in complete interpretation, in 
 activity with a wide and full content. Further con- 
 sideration of the end of desire and its relation to 
 pleasure may be found in Green, Op. cit.,pp. 123-132; 
 pp. 163-167. Bradley, Mind, Vol. XIII, p. 1, and 
 Dewey, Psychology, pp. 360-365. 
 
 XIV. Criticism— Continued. 
 Character It now being admitted that the end 
 and of desire is activity itself in which the 
 
 Pleasu re. ' object ' and ' pleasure ' are simply fac- 
 tors, what is the moving spring to action? What 
 is it that arouses the mind to the larger activity? 
 Most of the hedonists have confounded the two 
 senses of motive already spoken of, and have held 
 ^that because pleasure is the end of desirop th erefore 
 
26 
 
 it is the moving spring of conduct (or more often 
 that because it is the moving spring of conduct 
 it therefore is the end of desire). 
 
 Mr. Stephen (Science of Ethics, pp. 46-58), 
 although classing himself as a hedonist, has 
 brought out this confusion very clearly. Ordinary 
 hedonism confounds, as he shows, the judgment of 
 what is pleasant — the supposed end — with the 
 pleasant judgment — the moving spring. (See also 
 Bradley, Op. cit., pp. 232-236). It maybe ad- 
 mitted that it is feeling which moves to action, but 
 it is the present feeling which moves. If the 
 feeling aimed at moves, it is only as through 
 anticipation it becomes the present feeling. Now 
 is this present feeling which moves ( 1 ) mere pleas- 
 ure and (2 ) mere feeling at all ? This introduces 
 us to the question of the relation of pleasure (and 
 of feeling in general) to character. 
 
 1. If the existing state of consciousness — that 
 which moves — were pure pleasure, why should 
 there be any movement, any act at all ? The feel- 
 ing which moves must be in so far complex: over 
 against the pleasure felt in the anticipation of an 
 end as satisfying, there must be pain felt in the 
 contrasting unsatisfactory present condition. There 
 must be tension between the anticipated or ideal 
 action, and the actual or present (relative) non- 
 action. And it is this tension, in which pain is just 
 
27 
 
 as normal an element as pleasure, which moves. 
 Desire is just this tension of an action which satis- 
 fies, and yet is only ideal, against an actual posses- 
 sion which, in contrast with the ideal action, is felt 
 as incomplete action, or lack, and hence as unsatis- 
 factory. 
 
 2. The question now comes as to the nature of 
 this tension. We may call it ' feeling,' if we will, 
 and say that feeling is the sole motive power to 
 action. But there is no such thing as feeling at 
 large, and the important thing, morally, is what 
 kind of feeling moves. To take a mere abstraction 
 like ' feeling ' for the source of action is, at root, 
 the fallacy of hedonism. To raise the question, 
 What is it that makes the feeling what it is, is to 
 recognize that the feeling, taken concretely, is char- 
 acter in a certain attitude. 
 
 Stephen, who has insisted with great force that 
 feeling is the sole 'motive' to action, has yet shown 
 with equal cogency the moral uselessness of such a 
 doctrine, when feeling is left undefined (Op. cit., p. 44). 
 "The love of happiness must express the sole possible 
 motive of Judas Iscariot and his master; it must ex- 
 plain the conduct of Stylites on his column, of Tiberius 
 at Capre^e, of A Kempis in his cell, and of kelson in the 
 cockpit of the Victory. It must be equally good for 
 saints, martyrs, heroes, cowards, debauchees, ascetics,, 
 mystics, cynics, misers, prodigals, men, women, and 
 babes in arms." Surely, this is only to say, in effect, 
 that ' love of happiness ' is a pure bit of scholasticism,, 
 an undefined entitv. 
 
28 
 
 In a hedonistic argument (by Stanton Coit,Mind, 
 Vol. XI, p. 349), the fallacy is seen in the following 
 discussion. The story is told of Abraham Lincoln 
 that he once passed an animal in distress by the 
 side of the road, and that, after going by, he finally 
 went back and got him out of the ditch. On being 
 praised for his act, he replied that he did it on his 
 own account, since he kept getting more uncomfort- 
 able as he thought of the animal in distress. From 
 this, it cannot be inferred that love of pleasure is at 
 the basis of moral acts. The mere lumping off of 
 feeling as the spring of conduct overlooks the only 
 important thing morally — the fact that Lincoln felt 
 pain at the thought of the animal unrelieved, 
 and pleasure at the idea of its relief, just be- 
 cause he was a man of compassionate character. 
 It was not the feeling, but the character revealed 
 in, and creative of, the feeling that was the real 
 source of the act. 
 
 To connect this with our previous account of de- 
 sire (p. 26 ) : the important thing morally is that the 
 nature of the tension between fact and idea — the 
 actual state and the ideal activity — is an expression 
 of character. What kind of activity does it take 
 to satisfy a man? Does riding in a comfortable 
 carriage, and following the course of his own re- 
 flections exhaust his need of action ? or does his full 
 activity require that note be taken of a suffering 
 
29 
 
 animal ? It is the kind of character one is (that is, 
 the kind of activity which satisfies and expresses 
 one) which decides what pleasure shall be taken in 
 an anticipated end, what feeling of lack or hin- 
 drance (what pain) there shall be in the given state,^ 
 and hence what the resulting tension, or desire, 
 shall be. It is, therefore, character which moves to 
 conduct. 
 
 Mere wishing, the mere floating fancy of this or 
 that thing as desirable, is not desire. To iva7it is 
 an active projection of character; really and deeply 
 to want is no surface and passing feeling; it is the 
 stirring of character to its depths. There may be 
 repressed activity; that is not, of itself, desire. 
 There may be an image of larger activity; that is 
 not, of itself, desire. But given the consciousness 
 of a repressed activity in view of the perception of 
 a possible larger action, and a man strives within 
 himself to break his bonds and reach the new satis- 
 faction. This striving within one's self, before the 
 activity becomes overt, is the emotional antecedent 
 of action. But this inward striving or tension, 
 which constitutes desire, is so far from being mere 
 emotion that it is character itself — character as it 
 turns an inward or ideal advance into an outward, 
 or real progress, into action. 
 
 We may fall back on Aristotle's statement (page 
 38, of Peters' translation of his ethics): " The pleasure 
 
30 
 
 or pain that accompanies an act must be regarded as a 
 test of character. He who abstains from the pleasures 
 of the body and rejoices in his abstinence is temperate, 
 while he who is vexed at having to abstain is still pro- 
 fligate. As Plato tells us, man needs to be so trained 
 from youth up as to take pleasure and pain in the right 
 objects.'' 
 
 XV. 
 
 Summary. The truth in hedonism is its convic- 
 tion that the good, the end of man, is not to be 
 found in any outward object, but only in what 
 comes home to man in his own cons cious exp eri- 
 ence. The error is in reducing this experience to 
 mere having, to bare feelings or affections, elimi- 
 nating the element of doing. It is this doing 
 which satisfies man, and it is this which involves as 
 its content (as knowledge of impulse, instead of 
 blind impulse) objective and permanent ends. 
 When Mill speaks of the end of desire as a " satis- 
 fied life," (p. 317 of Utilitarianism) he carries our 
 assent ; but to reduce this satisfied life to feelings of 
 pleasure, and absence of pains, is to destroy the 
 life and hence the satisfaction. As Mill recognizes, 
 a life bounded by the agent's own feelings would 
 be, as of course, a life " centred in his own mis- 
 erable individuality." (Mill, p. 319). Such words 
 have meaning only because they suggest the con- 
 trast with activity in which are comprehended, as 
 * ends ' or ' objects ' (that is, as part of its defined 
 
31 
 
 content) things — art, science and industry — and 
 persons (see Sees. 34 and 35). 
 
 Here too we must 'back to Aristotle.' According 
 to him the end of conduct is eudaimonia, success, wel- 
 fare, satisfied life. But eudaimonia is found not in 
 pleasure, but in the fulfillment of human powers and 
 functions, in which fulfillment, since it is fulfillment 
 pleasure is had. (Ethics, Bk. I, ch. 4-8). 
 
 We now take up the question whether pleasure 
 is a standard of right action, having finished the 
 discussion concerning it as an end of desire. 
 XVI. 
 Pleasure The line of criticism on this point 
 as the may be stated as follows: Pleasure 
 Standard fails as a standard for the very reason 
 of that it fails as a motive. Pleasure, 
 
 Conduct, as conceived by the hedonist, is pas- 
 sive, merely agreeable sensations, without any objec- 
 tive and qualitative, (active) character. This being 
 so, there is no permanent, fixed basis to which we 
 may refer acts and by which we may judge them. 
 A standard implies a single comprehensive end 
 which unifies all acts and through connection with 
 which each gets its moral value fixed. Only action 
 can be a standard for acts. To reduce all acts to 
 means to getting a mere state of feeling is the inevi- 
 table consequence of hedonism. So reducing them 
 is to deprive them of any standard of value. 
 
 An end to serve as standard must be (1) a com- 
 
32 
 
 prehensive end for all the acts of an individual, and 
 (2) an end comprehending the activities of various 
 individuals — a common good. 
 
 1. The moral end must be that for the sake of 
 which all conduct occurs — the organizing principle 
 of conduct — a totality, a system. If pleasure is 
 the end it is because each detail of conduct gets its 
 placing, its moral value through relation to pleas- 
 ure, through the contribution it makes to pleasure. 
 
 2. The moral end must also include the ends of 
 the various agents who make up society. It must 
 be capable of constituting a social system out of 
 the acts of various agents, as well as an individual 
 system out of the various acts of one agent; or, 
 more simply, the moral end must be not only the 
 good for all the particular acts of an individual, 
 but must be a common good — a good which in satis- 
 fying one, satisfies others. 
 
 Ail ethical theories would claim that the end 
 proposed by them served these two purposes. We 
 shall endeavor to show that the hedonistic theory, 
 the doctrine that the pleasure is the good, is not 
 capable of serving either of them. 
 
 XVII. 
 Pleasure 1. It does not unify character. In 
 Not a the first place, the hedonistic theory 
 Standard, makes an unreal and impossible sepa- 
 ration between conduct and character. The psy- 
 
33 
 
 chology of hedonism comes into conflict with its 
 ethics. According to the former the motive of all 
 action is to secure pleasure or avoid pain. So 
 far as the motive is concerned, on this theory there 
 can be no immoral action at all. That the agent 
 should not be moved by pleasure, and by v^hat, at 
 the time of acting, is the greatest pleasure pos- 
 sible, would be a psychological impossibility. 
 Every motive would be good, or rather there would 
 be no distinction of good or bad pertaining to the 
 motive. The character of the agent, as measured 
 by his motives, could never, under such circum- 
 stances, have any moral quality. 
 
 To the consequences of action, or the conduct 
 proper, however, the terms good and bad might be 
 applied. Although the agent is moved by pleasura- 
 ble feelings, the result of his action may be painful 
 and thus bad. In a word, on the hedonistic theory, 
 it is only the external consequences of conduct, or 
 conduct divorced from character, to which moral 
 adjectives have any application. Such a separation 
 not only contradicts our experience (see VIII), but 
 inverts the true order of moral judgment. Con- 
 sequences do not enter into the moral estimate at 
 all, except so far as, being foreseen, they are the 
 act in idea. That is, it is only as the consequences 
 are taken up into the motive, and thus related to 
 
 character, that they are subject to moral judgment. 
 3 
 
34 
 
 Indeed, except so far as action expresses character, 
 it is not conduct, but mere physical sequence, as 
 irrelevant to morality as the change in blood distri- 
 bution, which also is the ' result ' of an action. 
 Hedonism has to rule out at the start the only 
 thing that gives totality to action — the character of 
 the agent, or conduct as the outcome of motives. 
 Furthermore, the ordinary judgment of men, instead 
 of saying that the sole moral motive is to get pleasure, 
 would say that to reduce everything to means for 
 getting pleasure is the very essence of immorality. 
 
 On the point above, compare Bentham, Op. cit., I, 
 p. 48. " A motive is substantially nothing more than 
 pleasure or pain operating in a certain manner. Isow 
 pleasure is in itself a good: nay, even, setting aside 
 immunity from pain, the only good; pain is in itself 
 an evil, and, indeed, without exception, the only evil; 
 or else the words good and evil have no meaning. And 
 this is alike true of every sort of pain and of every 
 sort of pleasure. It follows, therefore, immediately 
 and incontestably, that there is no such thing as any 
 sort of motive that is in itself a bad one. If motives 
 are good or bad, it is only on account of their effects; 
 good on account of their tendency to produce pleas- 
 ure or avert pain; bad on account of their tendency to 
 produce pain or avert pleasure. Now the case is, that 
 from one and the same motive, and from every kind 
 of motive, may proceed actions that are good, others 
 that are bad and others that are indifferent." Further, 
 on p. 60, Bentham asks: "Is there nothing, then, 
 about a man that can properly be termed good or bad, 
 when on such or such an occasion he suffers himself 
 to be governed by such or such a motive ? Yes, cer- 
 
35 
 
 tainly, his disposition. Now disposition is a kind of 
 fictitious entity, feigned for the convenience of dis- 
 course, in order to express what there is supposed to 
 he permanent m 2i man's frame of mind. It is with 
 disposition as with everything else; it will be good or 
 bad according to its effects." The first quotation, it 
 will be noticed, simply states that the motive is in 
 itself always good, while conduct {i, e., consequences) 
 may be good, bad or indifferent. The second quotation 
 seems, however, to pass moral judgment upon charac- 
 ter under the name of disposition. But disposition is 
 judged according to the tendency of a person's actions. 
 A good or bad disposition, here, can mean nothing 
 intrinsic to the person, but only that the person has 
 been observed to act in ways that usually produce pain 
 or pleasure, as the case may be. The term is a 
 * fiction', and is a backhanded way of expressing a 
 somewhat habitual result of a given person's conduct 
 his motive remaining good (or for pleasure) all the 
 time. The agent would never pronounce any such judg- 
 ment upon his own disposition, unless as a sort of 
 suprise that, his motive being 'good,' his actions turn 
 out so * bad ' all the time. At most, the judgment 
 regarding disposition is a sort of label put upon a man 
 by others, a label of "Look out for him, he is dan- 
 gerous," or, " Behold, a helpful man." 
 
 The moral standard of hedonism does not, then, 
 bear any relation to the character of the agent, does 
 not enable us to judge it, either as a whole or in 
 any specific manifestation. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 It Does Not Give a Pleasure, as the end, 
 
 Criterion for fails also to throw light 
 
 Concrete Acts. on the moral value of 
 
 any specific acts. Its failure in this respect is, 
 
36 
 
 indeed, only the other side of that just spoken 
 of. There is no organizing principle, no ' univer- 
 sal ' on the basis of which various acts fall into a 
 system or order. The moral life is left a series of 
 shreds and patches, where each act is torn off, as 
 to its moral value, from every other. Each act is 
 right or wrong, according as it gives pleasure or pain, 
 and independently of any whole of life. There 
 is, indeed, no whole of moral life at all, but only a 
 series of isolated, disconnected acts. Possession, 
 passivity, inere feeling, by its very nature cannot 
 unite — each feeling is itself and that is the end of 
 it. It is action which reduces multiplicity to unity. 
 We cannot say, in the hedonistic theory, that pleas- 
 ure is the end, but pleasures. 
 
 Each act stands by itself — the only question is: 
 "What pleasure will it give f The settling of this 
 question is the "hedonistic calculus." We must 
 discover the intensity, duration, certainty, degree 
 of nearness of the pleasure likely to arise from the 
 given act, and also its purity, or likelihood of being 
 accompanied by secondary pains and pleasures. 
 Then we are to strike the balance between the 
 respective sums on the pleasure and pain sides, and, 
 according as this balance is one of pleasure or pain, 
 the act is good or evil. 
 
 Bentham, Op. cit., p, 16, was the first to go into 
 detail as to this method. He has also given certain 
 
memoriter verses stating "the points on which the 
 
 whole fabric of morals and legislation may be seen to 
 
 rest. 
 
 Intense, long, certain, speedy, fruitful, pure. 
 
 Such marks in pleasures and in pains endure, 
 
 Such pleasures seek, if private be thy end. 
 
 If it be public, wide let them extend. 
 
 Such pains avoid whichever be thy vievr. 
 
 If pains must come, let them extend to fevr." 
 
 This, however, in its reference to others, states the 
 
 utilitarian as well as the hedonistic vir^w. 
 
 Now, it must be remembered that, if pleasure 
 is the end, there is no intrinsic connection between 
 the motive of th6 act, and its result. It is not 
 claimed that there is anything belonging intrins- 
 ically to the motive of the act which makes it result 
 in pleasure or pain. To make such a claim would 
 be to declare the moral quality of the act the cri- 
 terion of the pleasure, instead of pleasure the 
 criterion of the act. The pleasures are external to 
 the act; they are irrelevant and accidental to its 
 quality. There is no ' universal,' no intrinsic bond 
 of connection between the act and its consequences. 
 The consequence is a mere particular state of feel- 
 ing, which, in this instance, the act has happened 
 to bring about. 
 
 More concretely, this act of truth-telling has in 
 this instance, brought about pleasure. Shall we 
 call it right? Right in this instance, of course; 
 but is it right generally ? Is truth-telling, as such, 
 
38 
 
 right, or is it merely that this instance of it hap- 
 pens to be right? Evidently, on the hedonistic 
 basis, we cannot get beyond the latter judgment. 
 Prior to any act, there will be plenty of difficulties 
 in telling whether it, s.^ particular, is right or wrong. 
 The consequences depend not merely on the result 
 intended, but upon a multitude of circumstances 
 outside of the foresight and control of the agent. 
 And there can be only a precarious calculation of 
 possibilities and probabilities — a method which 
 would always favor laxity of conduct in all but the 
 the most conscientious of men, and which would 
 throw the conscientious into uncertainty and per- 
 plexity in the degree of their conscientiousness. 
 
 "If once the pleas of instinct are to be abolished 
 and replaced by a hedonistic arithmetic, the whole 
 realm of animated nature h^ to be reckoned with in 
 weaving the tissue of moral relations, and the problem 
 becomes infinite and insoluble ".—Martineau, Op. cit.. 
 Vol. II, p. 334. 
 
 But waive this ; let the particular case be settled. 
 There is still no law, no principle, indeed no presump- 
 tion as to future conduct. The act is not right he- 
 cause it is truth-telling, hnt because, in this instance, 
 cicumstances were such as to throw a balance of 
 pleasure in its favor. This establishes no certainty, 
 no probability as to its next outcome. The result 
 then will depend wholly upon circumstances exist- 
 ing then — circumstances which have no intrinsic 
 
39 
 
 relation to the act and which must change from 
 time to time. 
 
 The hedonist would escape this abolition of all 
 principle, or even rule, by falling back upon -a 
 number of cases — 'past experience' it is called. 
 We have found in a number of cases that a certain 
 procedure has resulted in pleasure, and this result 
 is sufficient to guide us in a vast number of cases 
 which confe up. 
 
 Says Mill (Op. cit., pp. 332-4): "During the whole 
 past duration of the species, mankind have been learn- 
 ing by experience the tendencies of actions, on which 
 experience all the prudence as well as all the morality 
 
 of life are dependent Mankind must by this 
 
 time have acquired positive belief as to the effects of 
 some actions on theirhappiness; and the beliefs which 
 have thus come down are the rules of morality for the 
 multitude, and for the philosopher, until he has suc- 
 ceeded in finding betted. .... Nobody argues that 
 the art of navigation is not founded on astronomy, 
 because sailors cannot wait'to calculate the 'Nautical 
 Almanac'. Being rational creatures, they go to sea 
 with it ready calculated; and all rational creatures go 
 out upon the sea of life with their minds made up on 
 the common questions of right and wrong, as well as 
 on manvof the far more difficult questions of wise and 
 foolish." 
 
 That we do learn from experience the moral 
 nature of actions is undoubted. The only ques- 
 tion is : if hedonism were true, could we so learn ? 
 Suppose that I were convinced that the results of 
 murder in the past had been generally, or even 
 
40 
 
 without exception (though this could not be proved), 
 painful; as long as the act and the result in the 
 way of feeling (pain or pleasure) are conceived as 
 having no intrinsic connection, this would not prove 
 that in the present instance murder will give a sur- 
 plus of pain. I am not thinking of committing mur- 
 der in general, but of murder under certain specific 
 present circumstances. These circumstances may, 
 and, to some extent, must vary from all previous in- 
 stances of murder. How then can I reason from 
 them to it? Or, rather, let me use the previous 
 cases as much as I may, the moral quality of the 
 act I am now to perform must still be judged not 
 from them, but from the circumstances of the pres- 
 ent case. To judge otherwise, is, on hedonistic 
 principles, to be careless, perhaps criminally care- 
 less as to one's conduct. The more convinced a man 
 is of the truth of hedonism and the more conscien- 
 tious he is, the more he is bound not to be guided 
 by previous circumstances, but to form his judg- 
 ment anew concerning the new case. This result 
 flows out of the very nature of the hedonistic ideal. 
 Pleasure is not an activity, but simply a particular 
 feeling, enduring only while it is felt. Moreover, 
 there is in it no principle which connects it intrin- 
 sically with any kind of action. To suppose then 
 that, because ninety- nine cases of murder have re- 
 sulted in pain, the hundredth will, is on a par with 
 
41 
 
 reasoning that because ninety-nine days have been 
 frosty, the hundredth will be. Each case, taken as 
 particular, must be decided wholly by itself. There 
 is no continuous moral life, and no system of con- 
 duct. There is only a succession of unlike acts. 
 
 Mill, in his examiDation of AVhe well, (Diss, and Diss., 
 Vol. Ill, pp. 158-59),tries to establish a general principle, 
 if not a universal law, by arguing that, even in excep- 
 tional cases, the agent is bound to respect the rule, 
 because to act otherwise vrould weaken the rule, and 
 thus lead to its beii^g disregarded in other cases, in 
 which its observance results in pleasure. There are, 
 he says, persons so wicked that their removal from the 
 earth would undoubtedly increase the sum total of 
 happiness. But if persons were to violate the general 
 rule in these cases, it would tend to destroy the rule. 
 "If it were thought allowable for any one to put to 
 death at pleasure any human being whom he believes 
 that the world would be well rid of,— nobody's life 
 would be safe.'' That is to say, if every one were 
 really to act upon and carry out the hedonistic princi- 
 ple, no rule of life would exist. This does very well 
 as a reductio ad ahsurdum of hedonism, or as an argu- 
 ment against adopting hedonism, but it is difficult to 
 see how Mill thought that it established a ' rule ' on a 
 hedonistic basis. Mill's argument comes to saying 
 that if hedonism were uniformly acted upon, it would 
 defeat itself— that is, pleasure would not result. There- 
 fore, in order to get pleasure, we must not act upon the 
 principle of hedonism at all, but follow a general rule. 
 Otherwise put: hedonism gives no general rule, but 
 we must have a general rule to make hedonism works 
 and therefore there is a general rule ! This begging of 
 the question comes out even more plainly as Mill goes 
 
42 
 
 on: "If one person may break through the rule on his 
 own judgment, the same liberty cannot be refused to 
 others; and, since no one could rely on the rule's 
 being observed, the rule would cease to exist." All of 
 this is obviously true, but it amounts to saying: " We 
 must have a rule, and this we would not have if we 
 carried out the hedonistic principle in each case; there- 
 fore, we must not carry it out." A principle, that car- 
 ried out destroj^s all rules which pretend to rest upon 
 it, lays itself open to suspicion. Mill assumes the en- 
 tire question in assuming that there is a rule. Grant 
 this, and the necessity of not 'making exceptions,' 
 that is, of not applying the hedonistic standard to 
 each case, on its own merits, follows. But the argu- 
 ment which Mill needs to meet is that hedonism 
 requires us to apply the standard to each case in itself, 
 and that, therefore, there is no rule. Mill simply says 
 —assume the rule, and it follows, etc. 
 
 See Bradley, Op. cit., pp. 96-101; Green, Bk. TV, Ch. 
 3; Martineau, Vol. II, pp. 329-334. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 The Sum We have been dealing with hedon- 
 andthe ism in its strict form — that which 
 Quality makes a pleasure, considered as to 
 of its intensity, certainty, etc., the end 
 
 Pleasure of an act. Hedonism in this form 
 as the fails to unify life, and fails, there- 
 Standard, fore, to supply any standard. But 
 the end of conduct is often stated to be the greatest 
 possible sum of pleasnres, thus introducing a cer- 
 tain element of generality. Mill goes further and 
 brings in the idea of quality of pleasure. 
 
43 
 
 Regarding the sum of pleasures the following from 
 Sidgwick (Op. cit. p. 382; see also p. 114) gives the 
 hedonistic statement. "The assumption is involved 
 that all pleasures are capable of being compared quali- 
 tatively with one another and with all pains; that 
 every feeling has a certain intensive quality, positive 
 or negative (or perhaps zero) in respect to its desira- 
 bleness and that the quantity may be known, so that 
 each may be w^eighed in ethical scales against any 
 other. This assumption is involved in the very motion 
 of maximum happiness," as the attempt to make " as 
 great as possible a sum of elements not quantitatively 
 commensurable would be a mathematical absurdity." 
 
 I. Sum of pleasures as the moral end. This, 
 first, taken as criterion, comes into conflict with the, 
 hedonistic psychology of pleasure as the motive of 
 acts; and, secondly, it requires some objective 
 standard by means of which pleasure is to be 
 summed, and is, in so far, a surrender of the whole 
 hedonistic position. 
 
 1. If the object of desire is pleasure or a state 
 of feeling which exists only as it is felt, it is im- 
 possible that we should desire a greatest sum of 
 pleasures. We can desire a pleasure and that only. 
 It is not even possible that we should ever desire a 
 continuous series of pleasures. We can desire one 
 pleasure and when that is gone, another, but we can 
 not unify our desires enough to aim at even a sum 
 of pleasures. 
 
 This is well put by Green (Op. cit. p. 236). " For 
 the feeling of a pleased person, or in relation to his- 
 
44 
 
 sense of enjoyment, pleasure cannot form a sum. How- 
 ever numerous the sources of a state of pleasant feel- 
 ing", it is one and is over before another can be 
 enjoyed. It and its successors can V)e added together 
 in thought, but not in enjoyment or in imagination of 
 an enjoyment. If the desire is only for pleasure, i. e., 
 for an enjoyment or feeling of pleasure, we are sim- 
 ply victims of words when we talk of desire for a sum 
 of pleasures, much more when we take the greatest 
 imaginable sum to be the most desirable." See the 
 whole passage, pp. 235-246. 
 
 2. But the phrase "sum of pleasures'' undoubt- 
 edly has a meaning — though the fact that it has a 
 meaning shows the untruth of the hedonistic psy- 
 chology. Surrendering this psychology, what shall 
 we say of the maximum possibility of pleasure as 
 the criterion of the morality of acts ? It must be con- 
 ceded that this conception does afford some basis — 
 although a rather slippery one — for the unification 
 of conduct. Each act is considered now not in its 
 isolation merely, but in its connection with other 
 acts, according as its relation to them may increase 
 or decrease the possible sum of future happiness. 
 But this very fact that some universal, or element of 
 relation, albeit a quantitative one, has been intro- 
 duced, arouses this inquiry: Whence do we derive 
 it ? JIow do we get the thought of a sum of pleasure, 
 and of a maximum sum? Only by taking into 
 account the objective conditions upon which pleas- 
 ures depend^ and by judging the pleasures from the 
 
45 
 
 standpoint of these objective conditions. When 
 we imagine we are thinking of a sum of pleasures, 
 we are really thinking of that totality of conditions 
 which will come nearest affording ns self-satisfac- 
 tion — we are thinking of a comprehensive and con- 
 tinuous activity whose various parts are adjusted to 
 one another. Because it is complete activity, it is 
 necessarily conceived as giving the greatest possible 
 pleasure, but apart from reference to complete 
 activity and apart from the objects in which this is 
 realized, the phrase ' greatest sum of happiness ' is 
 a mere phrase. Pleasures must be measured by a 
 standard, by a yard stick, before they can be sum- 
 med in thought, and the yard stick we use is the 
 activity in which the pleasure comes. We do not 
 measure conduct by pleasure, but we compare and 
 sum up pleasures on the basis of the objects which 
 occasion them. To add feelings, mere transitory 
 consequences, without first reducing those feelings 
 to a common denominator by their relation to one 
 objective standard, is an impossibility. Pleasure is 
 a sort of sign or symbol of the object which satis- 
 fies, and we may carry on our judgment, if we will, 
 in terms of the sign,without reference to the stand- 
 ard, but to argue as if the sign were the thing, as 
 if the sum of pleasure were the activity, is suicidal. 
 
 Thus Green says (Op. cit., p. 244): "In truth a 
 man's reference to his own true happiness is a refer-^ 
 
46 
 
 ence to the objects which chiefly interest him, and has 
 its controlling power on that account. More strictly, 
 it is a reference to an ideal state of well-being, a state 
 in which he shall be satisfied; but the objects of the 
 marl's chief interests supply the flUing of that ideal 
 state." See the argument as put by Alexander (Moral 
 Order and Progress, pp. 199-200). Alexander has also 
 brought out (Ibid, pp. 207-210) that even if we are 
 going to use a quantitative standard, the idea of a 
 sum is not a very happy one. It is not so much a sum 
 of pleasures we want, as a certain proportionate dis- 
 tribution and combination of pleasures. " To regard 
 the greatest sum of pleasures as the test of conduct, 
 supposing that we could express it in units of pleas- 
 ure, would be like declaring that when you had an 
 atomic weight of 98 you had sulphuric acid. The 
 numerical test would be useless unless we knew what 
 elements were to be combined, and in Avhat pro- 
 portion. Similarly till we know what kinds of 
 activities (and therefore what kinds of pleasures) 
 go with one another to form the end, the greatest sum 
 of pleasures will give us only the equivalent of the 
 end, but will not tell us w^hat the composition of the 
 end is, still less how to get at it; or, to put the matter 
 more simply, when we know what the characters of 
 persons are, and how they are combined in morality, 
 we then estimate the corresponding sum of pleasures." 
 (p. 209.) 
 
 II. A certain quality of pleasure the end. 
 Some moralists, notably John Stuart Mill, introduce 
 considerations regarding the quality of pleasure into 
 the conception of the end. "It is quite com- 
 patible," says Mill, " with the principle of utility to 
 recognize the fact that some kinds of pleasure 
 
47 
 
 are more desirable and more valuable than others." 
 (p. 310.) Is it compatible? Is kind of pleasure 
 the same thing as pleasure? does not strict hedon- 
 ism demand that all kinds of pleasure equally pre- 
 sent as to intensity in consciousness shall be of 
 the same value ? To say otherwise is to give up 
 pleasure as such as the standard and to hold that 
 we have means for discriminating the respective 
 values of pleasures which simply, as feelings, are 
 the same. It is to hold, that is to say, that there is 
 some standard of value external to the pleasures as 
 such, by means of which their moral quality may 
 be judged. In this case, this independent standard 
 is the real moral criterion which we are employing. 
 Hedonism is surrendered. 
 
 Kant's position on this point seems impregnable. 
 " It is surprising," he says," that men otherwise astute 
 can think it possible to distinguish between higher 
 and lower desires, according as the ideas which are 
 connected with the feeling of pleasure have their ori- 
 gin in the senses or in the understanding; for when 
 we inquire what are the determining grounds of desire, 
 and place them in some expected pleasantness, it is of 
 no consequence whence the idea of this pleasing 
 
 object is derived, but only how much it pleases 
 
 The only thing that concerns one, in order to decide 
 choice, is how great, how long continued, how easily 
 obtained and how often repeated, this agreableness is 
 For as to the man who wants money to spend, it is all 
 the same whether the gold was dug out of the moun- 
 tain or washed out of the sand, provided it is every- 
 
48 
 
 where accepted at the same value; so the man who 
 cares only for the enjoyment of life does not ask 
 whether the ideas are of the understanding or the 
 senses, but only how much and how great pleasure 
 they will give for the longest time." 
 See also Bradley, Op. cit,, pp. 105-110. 
 
 When we ask how the diflFerences in quality are 
 established and how we translate this qualitative 
 difference into moral difference, the surrender of 
 pleasure as the standard becomes even more evi- 
 dent. We must know not only the fact of different 
 qualities, but how to decide which is ' higher ' than 
 any other. We must bring the qualities before a 
 tribunal of judgment which applies to them some 
 standard of measurement. In themselves qualities 
 may be different, but they are not higher and lower. 
 What is the tribunal and what is the law of judg- 
 ment? According to Mill the tribunal is the pref- 
 erence of those who are acquainted with both kinds 
 of pleasure. 
 
 " Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all. or 
 almost all who have experience of both, give a decided 
 preference, irrespective of any feellDo- of moral obli- 
 gation to prefer it, that is the more desirable 
 pleasure." It is an unquestionable fact that such 
 difierences exist. " Few liuinan creatures would con- 
 sent to be changed into any of the lower animals for a 
 promise of the fviilest allowance of a beast's pleasures. 
 No intelligent person would consent to be a fool; no 
 instructed person would be an ignoramus; no person 
 of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base. 
 
49 
 
 even though they should be persuaded that the fool, 
 the dunce or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot 
 
 than they are with theirs It is better to be a 
 
 human being dissatisfied, than a pig satisfied; better 
 to be a Socrates dissatisfied, than a fool satisfied. And 
 if the fool or the pig are of a different opinion, it is 
 because they only know their own side of the ques- 
 tion. The other party to the comparison knows both 
 sides."— Mill, Op. cit., pp. 311-313. And in an omitted 
 portion Mill says the reason that one of the higher 
 faculty would prefer a suffering which goes along 
 with that higher capacity, to more pleasure on a lower 
 plane, is somethicg of which "the most appropriate 
 appellation is a sense of dignity, which all human 
 beings possess in one form or another." 
 
 A question immediately arises regarding this 
 standard of preferability. Is it the mere historical 
 fact that some man, who has experienced both, pre- 
 . fers A to B that makes A more desirable? Surely 
 I might say that if that person prefers A, A is more 
 desirable to him, but that I for my part prefer B, 
 and that I do not intend to give up my preference. 
 And why should I, even though thousands of other 
 men happened to prefer A? B is the greater 
 pleasure, none the less, to me, and as a hedonist I 
 must cling to the only standard that I have. The 
 hedonists, in a word, have appealed to feeling, and 
 to feeling they must go for judgment. And feeling 
 exists only as it is felt and only to him who feels it. 
 
 On the other hand, perhaps it is not the bare 
 
 act that some men prefer one pleasure to pother 
 4 
 
50 
 
 that makes it more desirable, but something in the 
 character of the men who prefer. And this is 
 what Mill implies. It is a " sense of dignity " 
 belonging to man which makes his judgment of 
 pleasure better than that of animals; it is the 
 human being against the pig, Socrates against the 
 fool, the good man against the rascal. This is the 
 complete surrender of hedonism, and the all but 
 explicit assertion that human character, goodness, 
 wisdom, are the criteria of pleasure, instead of 
 pleasure the criterion of character and goodness. 
 Mill's "sense of dignity," which is to be consid- 
 ered in all estimates of pleasures, is just the sense 
 , of a moral (or active) capacity and destiny belong- 
 ing to man. To refer pleasures to this is to make 
 it the standard, and with this standard the anti- 
 hedonist may well be content, while asking, how- 
 ever, for its further analysis. 
 
 To sum up our long discussion of pleasure as a 
 criterion of conduct in respect of its unity, we may 
 say: Pleasure, as it actually exists in man, maybe 
 taken as a criterion, although not the really primary 
 one, of action. But this is not hedonism; for 
 pleasure as it exists is something more than pleas- 
 urable feeling; it is qualified through and through 
 by the kind of action which it accompanies, by the 
 kind of objects which the activity comprehends. 
 And thus it is always a secondary criterion. The 
 
51 
 
 moment we begin to analyze we must ask what 
 kind of activity, what kind of object it is which 
 the pleasure accompanies and of which it is a sym- 
 bol. We may, if we will, calculate a man's 
 wealth in terms of dollars and cents; but this is 
 only because we can translate the money, the 
 symbol, into goods, the reality. To desire pleasure' 
 instead of an activity of self, is to substitute 
 symbol for fact, and a symbol cut ofP from fact 
 ceases to be a symbol. Pleasure, as the hedonist 
 treats it, mere agreeable feeling without active and 
 thus objective relationships, is wholly an abstrac- 
 tion. Since an abstraction, to make it the end of 
 desire results in self-contradiction; while to make 
 it the standard of conduct is to deprive life of all 
 unity, all system, in a word — of all standard. 
 
 XX. 
 
 The Failure of Thus far our examination of 
 
 Pleasure as a the hedonistic criterion has been 
 
 Standard devoted to showing that it will 
 
 to Unify Con- not make a system out of indivi- 
 
 duct Socially, dual conduct. We have now to 
 
 recognize the fact that pleasure is not a common 
 
 good, and therefore fails to give a social unity to 
 
 conduct — that is, it does not offer an end for which 
 
 men may cooperate, or a good which reached by 
 
 one must be shared by another. No argument is 
 
 needed to show, theoretically, that any proposed 
 
. 52 
 
 moral criterion must, in order to be valid, harmon- 
 ize the interests and activities of difPerent men, or 
 to show, practically, that the whole tendency of the 
 modern democratic and philanthropic movement 
 has been to discover and realize a good in which 
 men shall share on the basis of an equal principle. 
 It is contended that hedonism fails to satisfy these 
 needs. According to it, the end for each man is 
 his own pleasure. Pleasure is nothing objective in 
 which men may equally participate. It is purely 
 individual in the most exclusive sense of that term. 
 It is a state of feeling and can be enjoyed only 
 while felt, and only by the one who feels it. To set 
 it up for tho ideal of conduct is to turn life into an 
 exclusive and excluding struggle for possession of 
 the means of personal enjoyment; it is to erect into 
 a principle the idea of the war of all against all. 
 No end more thoroughly disintegrating than indi- 
 -vidual agreeable sensation could well be imagined. 
 
 Says Kant, (pa^e 116 of Abbott's Trans., entitled 
 Kant's Theory of Ethics) on the basis of the desire of 
 happiness " there results a harmony like that which a 
 certain satirical poem depicts as existing between a 
 married couple bent on going to ruin: O, marvellous 
 harmony, what he wishes, she wishes also; or like 
 what is said of the pledge of Francis I to the emperor 
 •Charles V, what my brother Charles wishes that I 
 wish also {mz., Milan)." 
 
 Almost all modern moralists who take pleas- 
 ure as the end conceive it to be not individual 
 
53 
 
 pleasure, but the happiness of all men or even of 
 all sentient creatures. Thus we are brought to the 
 consideration of Utilitarianism. 
 
 Says Mill (Op. cit., p. 323), " The happiness which 
 forms the Utilitarian standard of what is right in con- 
 duct is not the agent's own happiness, but that of all 
 concerned; as between his own happiness and that of 
 others, Utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly- 
 impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator." 
 And (page 315) the Utilitarian standard is " not the 
 agent's own greatest happiness, but the greatest 
 amount of happiness altogether." See also Sidgwick 
 (Op. cit., p. 379), " By Utilitarianism is here meant 
 the ethical theory, first distinctly formulated by Ben- 
 tham, that the conduct which, under any given cir- 
 cumstances is externally or objectively right is that 
 which will produce the greatest amount of happiness 
 on the whole; that is, taking into account all whose 
 happiness is affected by the conduct. It would tend to 
 clearness if we might call this principle, and the 
 method based upon it, by some such name as Uni- 
 versalistic hedonism." As popularly put, the utilita- 
 rian standard is the " greatest happiness of the great- 
 est number." While in its calculation "each is to 
 count for one and only one." {Bentham). And finally 
 Bain (Emotions and Mill, p. 303), " Utility is opposed 
 to the selfish theory, for, as propounded, it always im- 
 plies the good of society generally, and the subordina- 
 tion of individual interests to the general good." 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Criticism of The utilitarian theory certainly 
 
 Utilitarian- does away entirely with one of the 
 
 ism. two main objections to hedonism — 
 
 its failure to provide a general, as distinct from a 
 
54 
 
 private end. The question which we have to meet, 
 however, is whether this extension of the end from 
 the individual to society is consistent with the fun- 
 damental principles of hedonism. Hoid do we get 
 from individual pleasure to the happiness of all? 
 
 An intuitional utilitarian, like Sidgwick, has ready 
 an answer which is not open to the empirical utilita- 
 rians, like Bentliam, Mill and Bain, Methods of Eth- 
 ics, Bk. Ill, ch. 13-14, p. 355. "We may obtain the 
 self-evident principle that the good of any one individ- 
 ual is of no more importance, as a part of universal 
 good, than the good of any other. The abstract prin- 
 ciple of the duty of benevolence, sq far as it is cogni- 
 zable by direct intuition" is, "that one is morally 
 bound to regard the good of any other individual as 
 much as one's own" — and page 364, ''the principles, 
 so far as they are immediately known by abstract in- 
 tuition, can only be stated as precepts to seek (1) one's 
 own good on the whole, and (2) the good of any other 
 no less than one's own, in so far as it is no less an ele- 
 ment of universal good." Sidgwick, that is, differs in 
 two important points from most utilitarians. He 
 holds that pleasure is not the sole, or even the usual 
 object of desire. And he holds that we have an imme- 
 diate faculty of rational intuition which informs us 
 that the good of others is as desirable an end of our 
 conductas is our own happiness. Our former arguments 
 against pleasure as the end, bear, of course, equally 
 against this theory, but not the following arguments. 
 Criticisms of this position of Sidgwick's will be found 
 in Green (Op. cit., pp. 406-415); Bradley (Op. cit,, pp. 
 114-117). 
 
 The popular answer to the question how we get 
 from individual to general happiness, misses the 
 
55 
 
 entire point of the question. This answer simply 
 says that happiness is ^intrinsically desirable'. 
 Let it be so ; but ' happiness ' in this general way is 
 a mere abstraction. Happiness is always a partic- 
 ular condition of one particular person. Whose 
 happiness is desirable and to ivhom f Because my 
 happiness is intrinsically desirable to me, does it 
 follow that your happiness is intrinsically desirable 
 to me ? Indeed, in the hedonistic psychology, is it 
 not nonsense to say that a state of your feeding is 
 desirable to me? Mill's amplified version of the 
 popular answer brings out the ambiguity all the 
 more plainly. He says (Utilitarianism, p. 349), 
 "No reason can be given why the general happi- 
 ness is desirable, except that each person, so far as 
 he believes it to be obtainable, desires his own hap- 
 piness. This, however, being a fact, we have not 
 only all the proof which the case admits of, but all 
 which it is possible to require, that happiness is a 
 good; that each person's happiness is a good to 
 that person; and the general happiness, therefore, 
 a good to the aggregate of all persons." But does 
 it follow that because the happiness of A is an end 
 to A, the happiness of B an end to B, and the 
 happiness of C an end to C, that, therefore, the 
 happiness of B and C is an end to A ? There is 
 obviously no connection between the premises and 
 the supposed conclusion. And there appears to be, 
 
 ■^ r 
 
 rrr 
 
56 
 
 as Mill puts it, only an account of the ambiguity 
 of his last clause, " the general happiness a good 
 to the aggregate of all persons." The good of A 
 and B and C may be a good to the aggregate 
 (A -}- B + C), but what universalistic hedonism 
 requires is that the aggregate good of A + B + 
 C, be a good to A and to B and to C taken separately 
 — a very different proposition. Mill is guilty of 
 the fallacy known logically as the fallacy of divi- 
 sion — arguing from a collective whole to the dis- 
 tributed units. Because all men want to be happy, 
 it hardly follows that every man wants all to be 
 happy. There is, accordingly, no direct road from 
 -individualistic hedonism — private pleasure — to uni- 
 versalistic — general pleasure. Moreover, if we 
 adopt the usual psychology of hedonism and say 
 that pleasure is the motive of acting, it is abso- 
 lutely absurd to say that general pleasure can be a 
 motive. How can I be moved by the happiness 
 which exists in some one else ? I may feel a pleasure 
 resembling his, and be moved by it, but that is 
 quite a different matter. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Indirect Means Is there any indirect 
 
 of Identifying method of going from the 
 
 Private and pleasure of one to the 
 
 General Pleasure, pleasure of all? Upon the 
 
 whole, the utilitarians do not claim that there is any 
 
57 
 
 natural and immediate connection between the 
 desire for private and for general happiness, but 
 suppose that there are certain means which are 
 instrumental in bringing about an identity. Of 
 these means the sympathetic emotions and the 
 influence of law and of education are the chief. 
 Each of these, moreover, cooperates with the other. 
 
 1. Sympathetic and Social Emotions. 
 
 We are so constituted by nature that we take 
 pleasure in the happiness of others and feel 
 pain in their misery. A proper regard for our 
 own welfare must lead us, therefore, to take an 
 interest in the pleasure of others. Our own feel- 
 ings, moreover, are largely influenced by the feelings 
 of others toward us. If we act in a certain way 
 we shall incur the disapprobation of others, and 
 this, independently of any overt punishment it 
 may lead them to inflict upon us, arouses feelings 
 of shame, of inferiority, of being under the dis- 
 pleasure of others, feelings all of which are de- 
 cidedly painful. The more enlightened our judg- 
 ment, the more we see how our pleasures are bound 
 up in those of others. 
 
 " The Dictates of Utility" (Bentham, Op. cit., p. 56) 
 are neither more nor less than the dictates of the most 
 extensive and enlightened (that is, well advised) benev- 
 olence," and (p. 18), " The pleasures of benevolence are 
 the pleasures resulting from the view of any pleasures 
 supposed to be possessed by the beings who may be 
 
58 
 
 the objects of benev jlence These may also be 
 
 called the pleasures of good will, the pleasures of sym- 
 pathy, or the pleasures of the benevolent or social 
 affections"; and (p. 144), " What motives (independent 
 of such as legislation and relij^ion may choose to fur- 
 nish) can one man have to consult the happiness of 
 another? .... In answer to this, it cannot but be 
 admitted that the only interests which a man at all 
 times and upon all occasions is sure to find adequate 
 motives for consulting, are his own. Notwithstanding 
 this, there are no occasions in which a man has not 
 some motives for consulting the happiness of other 
 men. In the first place he has, on all occasions, the 
 purely social motive of sympathy and benevolence; 
 in the next place he has, on most occasions, the semi- 
 social motives of love of amity and love of reputa- 
 tion." And so in the Deontology, which, however, 
 was not published by Bentham himself, page 203, " The 
 more enlightened one is, the more one forms the 
 habit of general benevolence, because it is seen that 
 the interests of men combine with each other in more 
 points than they conflict in." 
 
 2. Education and Laic. 
 
 Education, working directly and internally upon 
 the feelings, and government, appealing to them from 
 without through commands and penalties, are con- 
 stantly effecting an increasing identity of self- 
 interest and regard for others. These means 
 supplement the action of sympathy and the more 
 instinctive emotions. They stimulate and even 
 induce a proper interest in the pleasures of others. 
 In governmental law, with its punishments, we 
 have an express instrument for making the pleas- 
 
59 
 
 ures of one harmonize with (or at least not conflict 
 with) the pleasures of others. 
 
 Thus Benthain, after statino: that an enlightened 
 mind perceives the identity of st'lf-interest and that of 
 others (or of egoism and altriiUm, as these interests 
 are now commonly called), goes on (Deontology, p. 
 201): " The majority do not have sufficient enlighten- 
 ment, nor enough moral feeling so that their character 
 goes beyond the aid of laws, and so the legislator 
 should supplement the frailty of this natural interest, 
 in adding to it an artificial interest more appreciable 
 and more continuous. Thus the government augments 
 and extends the connexion which exists between pru- 
 dence and benevolence." Mill says (Op. cit., p. 323): 
 " To do as you would be done by, and to love your 
 neighbor as yourself, constitute the ideal perfection of 
 utilitarian morality. As the means of making the 
 nearest approach to this ideal, utility would enjoin, 
 first, that laws and social arrangements should place 
 the happiness or the interest of every individual as 
 nearly as possible in harmony with the interest of the 
 whole; and, secondly, that education and opinion, 
 which have so vast a power over human character, 
 should so use that power as to establish in the mind of 
 every individual an indissoluble association between 
 his own happiness and the good of the whole." 
 
 XXIII. 
 Private Pleasures In criticism of these Indi- 
 an d rect methods of establishing 
 General Welfare, the identity of 'egoism ^ and 
 * altruism,' it may be said: 
 
 1. That the supposed relation between the pri- 
 Tate and the general happiness is extrinsic, and 
 
60 
 
 hence always accidental and open to exception.. 
 It is not contended that there is any order which 
 morally demands that there be an identity of in- 
 terests. It is simply argued that there are certain 
 physical and psychological forces which operate, 
 as matter of fact, to bring about such a result. 
 Now we may admit, if we like, that such forces 
 exist and that they are capable of accomplishing all 
 that Bentham and Mill claim for them. But all 
 that is established is, at most, a certain state of 
 facts which is interesting as a state of facts, but 
 which has no especial moral bearing. It is not 
 pretended that there is in the very order of things 
 any necessary and intrinsic connection between the 
 happiness of one and of another. Such identity 
 as exists, therefore, must be a mere external result 
 of the action of certain forces. It is accidental. 
 This being the case, how can it constitute the uni- 
 versal ideal of action? Why is it not open for an 
 agent, under exceptional circumstances, to act for 
 his own pleasure, to the exclusion of that of others? 
 We may admit that, upon the whole (or that 
 always, though this is wholly impossible to prove) 
 in past experience, personal pleasure has been best 
 attained by a certain regard for the pleasures of 
 others; but the connection being wholly empirical 
 (that is, of past instances and not of an intrinsic 
 law), we may ask how it can be claimed that the 
 
61 
 
 same connection is certain to hold in this new case ? 
 Nor is it probable that any one would claim that 
 the connection between individual pleasure and 
 general pleasure had been so universal and inva- 
 riable in past experience. 
 
 Intrinsic moral considerations (that is, those 
 based on the very nature of human action) being 
 put aside, a pretty strong case could be made 
 out for the statement that individual happiness is 
 best attained by ignoring the happiness of others. 
 Probably the most that can be established on the 
 other side is that a due prudence dictates that some 
 attention be paid to the pleasures of others, in cal- 
 culating one's own pleasures. 
 
 And this suggests: 
 
 2. That the end is still private pleasure, general 
 pleasure being simply a means. Granting all that 
 the hedonists urge, what their arguments prove is 
 not that the general pleasure is the end of action, 
 but that, private pleasure being the end, regard for 
 the pleasures of others is one of the most efficient 
 means of reaching it. If private pleasure is a 
 selfish end, the end is not less selfish because the 
 road to it happens to bring pleasure to others also. 
 
 See Koyce, Religious Aspect of Philosophy, pp. 
 61-74. 
 
 3. The use of education and law to bring about 
 this identity, presupposes that we already have the 
 
62 
 
 ideal of the identity as something desirable to 
 realize — it takes for granted the very thing to be 
 proved. Why should it occur to men to use the 
 private influence of opinion and education, and 
 the public influences of law and penalty to identify 
 private welfare > with public, unless they were al- 
 ready convinced that general welfare was the end 
 of conduct, the one desirable thing? What the 
 hedonist has to do is to show how, from the end of 
 private happiness, we may get to the end of general 
 happiness. What Bentham and Mill do show is, 
 that if we take general happiness as the end, we 
 may and do use education and law to bring about 
 an identity of personal and general pleasures. 
 This may go undoubted, but the question how we 
 get the general happiness as the end, the good, re- 
 mains unanswered. 
 
 Nor is this all. The conception of general hap- 
 piness, taken by itself, has all the abstractness, 
 vagueness and uncertainty of that of personal hap- 
 piness, multiplied indefinitely by the greater num- 
 ber of persons introduced. To calculate the effects 
 of actions upon the general happiness — when hap- 
 piness is interpreted as a state of feeling — is an 
 impossibility. And thus it is that when one is 
 speaking of pleasures one is really thinking of wel- 
 fare, or well-being, or satisfied and progressive 
 human lives. Happiness is considered as it would 
 
63 
 
 be, if determined by certain active and well defined 
 interests, and thus the hedonistic theory, while con- 
 tradicting itself, gets apparently all the support of 
 an opposed theory. Universalistic hedonism thus, 
 more or less expressly, takes for granted a social 
 order, or community of persons, of which the agent 
 is simply one member like any other. This is the 
 ideal which it proposes to realize. In this way — 
 although at the cost of logical suicide — the ideal 
 gets a content and a definiteness upon which it is 
 possible to base judgments. 
 
 That this social organization of persons is the 
 ideal which Mill is actually thinking of, rather than 
 any succession of states of agreeable sensation, is evi- 
 dent by his treatment of the whole subject. Mill is 
 quite clear that education and opinion may produce 
 any sort of feeling, as well as truly benevolent motives 
 to actions. For example, in his critique of Whewell, 
 he says, (Op. cit., p. 154): *' All experience shows that 
 the moral feeliDgs are preeminently artificial, and the 
 products of culture; that even when reasonable, they 
 are no more spontaneous than the growth of corn and 
 wine (which are quite as natural), and that the most 
 senseless and pernicious feeling can as easily be raised 
 to the utmost intensity by inculcation, as hemlock and 
 thistles could be reared to luxuriant growth by sowing 
 them instead of wheat." It is certainly implied here 
 that legislation, education and public opinion must 
 have as a presupposed standard the identity of general 
 and private interests or else they may produce any- 
 thing whatever. That is to say, Mill instead of arriv- 
 ing at his result of general happiness simply takes it 
 for granted. 
 
64 
 
 This fact and the further fact that he virtually 
 defines happiness through certain objective interests 
 and ends (thus reversing the true hedonistic position) 
 is obvious from the following-, (Millj Op. cit., pp. 343- 
 347): After again stating that the moral feelings are 
 capable of cultivation in almost any direction, and 
 stating that moral associations that are of artificial 
 construction dissolve through the force of intellectual 
 analysis (c/. his Autobiography, p. 136), and that the as- 
 sociation of pleasure with the feeling of duty would 
 similarly dissolve unless it had a natural basis of sen- 
 timent, he goes on. " But there is this basis of power- 
 ful natural sentiment. This firm foundation is that 
 of the social feelings of mankind; the desire to be in 
 unity with our fellow-creatures. The social state is at 
 once so natural, so necessary, and so habitual to man 
 that except in some unusual circumstances, or by an 
 effort of volu7itxry abstraction he never conceives of 
 himself otherwise tha7i as a member of a body. Any 
 condition, therefore, which is essential to a state of 
 society becomes more and more an inseparable part of 
 every person's conception of the state of things which 
 he is born into, and which is the destiny of a human 
 being." Mill then goes on to describe some of the 
 ways in which the social unity manifests itself and 
 influences the individual's conduct. Then the latter 
 "comes, as though instinctively, to be conscious of 
 himself as a being who of course pays regard to others. 
 The good of others becomes to him a thing naturally 
 and necessarily to be attended to, like any of the phy- 
 sical conditions of our existence. The deeply -rooted 
 conception which every individual even now has of 
 himself as a social being tends to make him feel it as 
 one of his natural wants, that there should be harmony 
 between his feelings and aims and those of his felloyy 
 
65 
 
 d'eaUires. This conviction is the ultimate sanction of 
 the greatest happiness morality." 
 
 It is to be noticed that there is involved in this 
 account three ideas, any one of which involves such 
 a reconstruction of the pleasure theory as to be a 
 surrender of hedonism. 
 
 1. There is, in one instance, a natural (or in- 
 trinsic) connection between the end of conduct and 
 the feelings, and not simply an external or artificial 
 bond. This is in the case of the social feelings. 
 In other words, in one case the ideal, that is, happi- 
 ness, is intrinsically, or necessarily connected with 
 a certain kind of conduct, that flowing from the 
 social impulses. This, of course, reverses hedonism 
 for it makes happiness dependent upon a certain 
 kind of conduct, instead of determining the nature 
 of conduct according as it happens to result in 
 pleasure or pain. 
 
 2. Man conceives of himself, of his end or of 
 his destiny as a member of a social body, and 
 this conception determines the nature of his wants 
 and aims. That is to say, it is not mere happiness 
 that a man wants, but a certain kind of happiness, 
 that which would satisfy a man who conceived of 
 himself as social, or having ends and interests in 
 common with others. 
 
 3. Finally, it is not mere general "happiness" 
 which is the end, at all. It is social unity; " har- 
 
66 
 
 mony of feelings and aims," a beneficial condition 
 for one's self in which the benefits of all are included. 
 Instead of the essentially vague idea of states of 
 pleasurable sensation we have the conception of a 
 community of interests and ends, in securing which 
 alone is true happiness to be found. This concep- 
 tion of the moral ideal we regard as essentially 
 true, but it is not hedonism. It gives up wholly 
 the notion that pleasure is the desired, and, since it 
 sets up a standard by which it determines pleas- 
 ure, it gives up equally the notion that pleasure as 
 such is the desirable. 
 
 In addition to the works already referred to, the 
 following will give fuller ideas of hedonism and util- 
 itarianism: For historical treatment see Sidgwick, 
 History of Ethics; Jodl, Geschichte der Ethik, Vol. 
 II., pp, 432-468; Bain, Moral Science, Historical Men- 
 tion; Guyau, La Morale Anglaise Contemporaine; 
 Wallace, Epicureanism; Pater, Marius, the Epicurean. 
 Paley, Moral and Political Philosophy; Grote, Exam- 
 ination of the Utilitarian Philosophy (especially fair 
 and valuable criticism); Lecky, History of European 
 Morals, Yol. I, ch. 1; Birks, Utilitarianism (hostile); 
 Blackie, Four Phases of Morals: Essay on Utilitar- 
 ianism (hostile); Gizycki, Students' Manual of Ethical 
 Philosophy, (Coit's trans., favorable); Calderwood, 
 Hand-Book of Moral Philosophy (opposed); Laurie, 
 Ethica (e. g., p. 10). " The object of will is not pleas- 
 ure, not yet happiness, but reason-given law— the law 
 of harmony; but this necessiirily ascertained through 
 feeling, and, therefore, through happiness." 
 
 Wilson and Fowler, Principles of Morals, Yol. I, 
 
67 
 
 pp. 98-112; Vol. II, pp. 262-273. Paulsen, System der 
 Ethik, pp. 195-210. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 The Utilitarian Theory There has lately 
 Combined With the been an attempt to 
 Doctrine of Evolution, c o m b i n e utilitarian 
 morality with the theory of evolution. This posi- 
 tion, chiefly as occupied by Herbert Spencer and 
 Leslie Stephen, we shall now examine. 
 
 Alexander, also, Moral Order and Progress, makes 
 large use of the theory of evolution, but does not 
 attempt to unite it with any form of hedonism. 
 
 For the combination, at least three decided ad- 
 vantages are claimed over ordinary utilitarianism. 
 
 1. It transforms 'Bmpirical rules' into 'rational 
 laws.' The evolutionary hedonists regard pleasure 
 as the good, but hold that the theory of evolution en- 
 ables them to judge of the relation of acts to 
 pleasure much better than the ordinary theory. As 
 Mr. Spencer puts it, the ordinary theory is not sci- 
 entific, because it does not fully recognize the 
 principle of causation as existing between certain 
 acts as causes, and pleasures ( or pains ) as efPects. 
 It undoubtedly recognizes that some acts do result 
 in pain or pleasure, but does not show how or why 
 they so result. By the aid of the theory of evoh 
 tion we can demonstrate that certain acts must be 
 beneficial because furthering evolution, and others 
 painful because retarding it. 
 
/> 
 
 68 
 
 Spencer, Data of Ethics, pp. 5758. *' Morality 
 properly so-called — the science of right conduct — has 
 for its object to determine liow and why certain rules 
 of conduct are detrimental, and certain other rules 
 beneficial. Those good and bad results cannot be acci- 
 dental, but must be necessary consequences of the 
 constitution of things; and I conceive it to be the 
 business of moral science to deduce, from the laws of 
 ^Ufe and the conditions of existence, what kinds of 
 action necessarily tend to produce happiness, and what 
 kinds to produce unhappiness. Having done this, its 
 deductions are to be recognized as laws of conduct; 
 and are to be conformed to irrespective of a direct 
 estimation of happiness or misery The objec- 
 tion which I have to the current utilitarianism is, 
 that it recognizes no more developed form of utility 
 — does not see that it has reached but the initial stage 
 
 of moral science It is supposed that in future, 
 
 as now, utility is to be determined only by observation 
 of results; and that there is no possibility of knowing 
 by deduction from fundamental principles what con- 
 duct 7nust be detrimental and what conduct inust be 
 beneficial." Cf. also ch. IX, and Stephen, Science of 
 Ehtics, ch. IX. 
 
 It is contended, then, that by the use of the evo- 
 lutionary theory, we may substitute certain condi- 
 tions, which in the very nature of things tend to 
 produce happiness, for a calculation, based upon 
 observation of more or less varying cases in the past, 
 of the probable results of the specific action. Thus 
 we get a fixed objective standard and do away with 
 all the objections based upon the uncertainty, 
 vagueness and liability to exceptions, of the ordinary 
 utilitarian morality. 
 
Spencer, Op. cit., p. 162: "When alleging that 
 empirical utilitarianism is but introductory to rational 
 utilitarianism I pointed out that the last does not 
 take welfare for its immediate object of pursuit, but 
 takes for its immediate object of pursuit conformity 
 to certain principles Avhich, in the nature of things, 
 causally determine welfare." 
 
 2. It reconciles 'intuitionalism' with 'empir- 
 icism.' The theory of evolution not only gives us 
 an objective standard on which happiness neces- 
 sarily depends, and from which we may derive our 
 laws of cenduct, instead of deriving them from ob- 
 servation of particular cases, but it enables us to 
 recognize that there are certain moral ideas now 
 innate or intuitive. The whole human race, the 
 whole animal race, has for an indefinite time been 
 undergoing experiences of what leads to pleasure 
 and of what leads to pain, until finally the results 
 of these experiences have become organized into 
 our very physical and mental make-up. The first 
 point was that we could substitute for consideration 
 of results consideration of the causes which deter- 
 mine these results ; the present point is that so far 
 as we have to use results, we can use those of the 
 race, instead of the short span of the individual's 
 life. 
 
 Spencer, Op. cit., pp. 123-124. " The experiences of 
 utility organized and consolidated through all past 
 generations of the human race have been producing 
 corresponding nervous modifications, which, by con- 
 
70 
 
 tinned transmission and accumulation, have become 
 in us certain faculties of moral intuition — certain 
 emotions corresponding to right and wrong conduct, 
 which have no apparent basis in the individual expe- 
 riences of utility The evolution hypothesis thus 
 
 enables us to reconcile opposed moral theories 
 
 The doctrine of innate powers of moral perception 
 become congruous with the utilitarian doctrine, when 
 it is seen that preferences and aversions are rendered 
 organic by inheritance of the effects of pleasurable 
 and painful experiences in progenitors." 
 
 3. It reconciles 'egoism' with 'altruism.' As 
 we have seen, the relation of personal pleasure to 
 general happiness presents very serious difficulties to 
 hedouism. It is claimed, however, that the very pro- 
 cess of evolution necessitates a certain identity. 
 The being which survives must be the being which 
 has properly adapted himself to his environment, 
 which is largely social, and there is assurance that 
 the conduct will be adapted to the environment 
 just in the degree in which pleasure is taken in 
 acts which concern the welfare of others. If an 
 agent has no pleasure in such acts he will either not 
 perform them, or perform them only occasionally, 
 and thus will not meet the conditions of surviving. 
 If surrounding conditions demand constantly certain 
 actions, those actions in time must come to be pleas- 
 urable. The conditions of sui'vival demand altru- 
 istic action, and hence such action must become 
 pleasurable to the agent (and in that sense egotistic). 
 
71 
 
 " From the laws of life (Spencer Op. cit., p. 205) it 
 must be concluded that unceasing social discipline 
 will so mould human action, that eventually sympa- 
 thetic pleasures will be pursued to the fullest extent 
 
 advantageous to each and all Though pleasure 
 
 may be gained by giving pleasure, yet the thought of 
 the sympathetic pleasure to be gained will not occupy 
 consciousness, but only the thought of the pleasure 
 given." 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Criticism Regarding the whole foregoing 
 
 of scheme, it may be said so far as it 
 
 Evolutionary is true, or suggestive of truth, it is 
 UtilitarlanisiTK not hedonistic. It does not judge 
 actio ns f i - on rmeir effects in the way of pleasure or 
 pain, but it judges pleasures from the basis of an 
 independent standard ' in the nature of things.' 
 It is expressly declared that happiness is not to be 
 so much the end, as the test of conduct, and it is 
 not happiness in general, of every sort and kind, 
 but a certain kind of happiness, happiness condi- 
 tioned by certain modes of activity, that is the test. 
 Spencer's hedonism in its final result hardly comes 
 to more than saying that in the case of a perfect 
 individual in a perfect society, every action what- 
 ever would be accompanied by pleasure, and that, 
 therefore, in such a society, pleasure would be an 
 infallible sign and test of the morality of action — a 
 position which is not denied by any ethical writer 
 "whatever, unless a few extreme ascetics. Such a 
 
72 
 
 position simply determines the value of pleasure 
 by an independent criterion, and then goes on to 
 say of pleasure so determined, that it is the test of 
 the morality of action. This may be true, but, true 
 or not, it is not hedonistic. 
 
 Furthermore, this standard by which the nature 
 of pleasure is determined is itself an ethical (that 
 is, active) standard. We have already seen that 
 Spencer conceives that the modes of producing hap- 
 piness are to be deduced from the " laws of life and 
 the conditions of existence". This might be, of 
 course, a deduction from x>hysical laws and condi- 
 tions. But when we find that the laws and condi- 
 tions which Spencer employs are mainly those of 
 social life, it is difficult to see why he is not employ- 
 ing a strictly ethical standard. To deduce not 
 -gight actions directly from happiness, but the kinds 
 of actions which will produce happiness from a con- 
 sideration of a certain ideal of social relationships 
 seems like a reversal of hedonism; but this is what 
 Mr. Spencer does. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 The Real Mr. Spencer expressly recognizes 
 
 Criterion that there exists (1) an ideal code of 
 
 of conduct, formulating the conduct of 
 
 Evolutionary the completely adapted man in the 
 
 Ethics. completely evolved society. Such a 
 
 code is called absolute ethics as distinguished from 
 
73 
 
 relative ethics — a code the injunctions of which are 
 alono to be considered " as absolutely right, in con- 
 trast with those that are relatively right or least 
 wrong, and which, as a system of ideal conduct, is 
 to serve as a standard for our guidance in solving, 
 as well as we can, the problems of real conduct " 
 (p. 275 of the Data of Ethics). The ideal code 
 deals, it will be observed, with the behavior of the 
 completely adapted man in a completely evolved 
 society." This ideal as elsewhere stated, is " an 
 ideal social being so constituted that his spontane- 
 ous activities are congruous with the conditions 
 imposed by the social environment formed by 
 
 other such beings The ultimate man is 
 
 one in whom there is a correspondence between 
 all the promptings of his nature and all the 
 requirements of his life as carried on in society" 
 (p. 275). Furthermore, "to make the ideal man 
 serve as a standard, he has to be defined in terms 
 of the conditions ivhich his nature fulfill — in terms 
 of the objective requisites which must be met 
 before conduct can be right" (p. 179). " Hence it 
 is manifest that we must consider the ideal man as 
 existing in the ideal social state " (p. 280). 
 
 Here we have in the most express terms the rec- 
 ognition of a final and permanent standard with 
 reference to which the nature of happiness is deter- 
 mined, and the standard is one of social relation- 
 
74 
 
 ships. To be sure it is claimed that the standard 
 is one which results in greatest happiness, but every 
 ethical theory has always claimed that the ideal 
 moral condition would be accompanied by the max- 
 imum possible happiness. 
 
 2. The ideal state is defined with reference to 
 the end of evolution. That is, Spencer defines 
 pleasure from an independent standard instead of 
 using pleasure as the standard. This standard is 
 to be got at by considering that idea of "fully 
 evolved conduct " given by the theory of evolution. 
 This fully evolved conduct implies: (i.) GroajUst- 
 possible quantity of life, both in length and 
 breadth; (ii.) Similar maintenance of life in pro- 
 geny; and (iii.) Life in which there is no interfer- 
 ence of actions by one with those of another, and, 
 indeed, life in which the "members of a society 
 give material help in the achievement of ends, 
 thus rendering the " lives of all more complete ". 
 (See Chap. II of Data of Ethics). Furthermore, 
 the " complete life here identified with the ideally 
 moral life " may be otherwise defined as a life of 
 perfect equilibrium (p. 74), or balance of functions 
 (p. 90), and this considered not simply with refer- 
 ence to the individual, but also with reference to 
 the relation of the individual to society. " Com- 
 plete life in a complete society is but another name 
 for complete equilibrium between the co-ordinated 
 
75 
 
 activities of each social unit and those of the ag- 
 gregate of units" (p. 74, and the whole of chap. 
 V. See also pp. 169-170 for the position that 
 the end is a society in which each individual has 
 full functions freely exercised in due harmony, and 
 is, p. 100, " the spontaneous exercise of duly pro- 
 portioned faculties " ). 
 
 3. Not only is pleasure thus determined by an 
 objective standard of " complete living in a com- 
 plete society " but it is expressly recognized that 
 as things are noiv, pleasure is not a perfect guide 
 to, or even test of action. And this difficulty is 
 thought to be removed by reference to the ideal 
 state in which right action and happiness will fully 
 coincide. 
 
 The failure of pleasure as a perfect test and 
 guide of right conduct, comes out in at least three 
 cases : — 
 
 1. There is the conflict of one set of pleasures 
 with another, or of present happiness with future, 
 one lot having to be surrendered for the sake of 
 another. This is wrong, since pleasure as such is 
 good, and, although a fact at present, exists only on 
 account of the incomplete development of society. 
 When there is "complete adjustment of humanity 
 to the social state there will be recognition of the 
 truth that actions are completely right only when, 
 besides being conducive to future happiness, special 
 
76 
 
 and general, they are immediately pleasurable, and 
 that painfulness, not only ultimate but proximate, 
 is the concomitant of actions which are wrong " 
 (p. 29. See for various cases in which "pleasures 
 are not connected with actions which must be per- 
 formed " and for the statement that this difficulty 
 will be removed in an ideal state of society, p. 77; 
 pp. 85-87; pp. 98-99). 
 
 2. There is also, at present, a conflict of indi- 
 vidual happiness with social welfare. In the first 
 place, as long as there exist antagonistic societies, 
 the individual is called upon to sacrifice his own 
 happiness to that of others, but " such moralities 
 are, by their definition, shown to belong to incom- 
 plete conduct; not to conduct that is fully 
 evolved" (See pp. 133-137). Furthermore, there 
 will be conflict of claims, and consequent compro- 
 mises between one's own pleasure and that of 
 others (p. 148), until there is a society in which 
 there is " complete living through voluntary co- 
 operation ", this implying negatively that one shall 
 not interfere with another and shall fulfill contracts, 
 and positively that men shall spontaneously help to 
 aid one another lives beyond any specified agree- 
 ment (pp. 146-149). 
 
 3. There is, at present, a conflict of obligation 
 with pleasure. Needed activities, in other words, 
 have often to be performed under a pressure, which 
 
77 
 
 either lessens the pleasure of the action, or brings 
 pain, the act being performed, however, to avoid a 
 greater pain (so that this point really comes under 
 the first head). But " the remoulding of human 
 nature into fitness for the requirements of social 
 life, must eventually make all needful activities 
 pleasurable, while it makes displeasurable all 
 activities at variance with these requirements'^ 
 (p. 183). "The things now done with dislike, 
 through sense of obligation, will be done then 
 with immediate liking" (p. 84, and p. 186; 
 and pp. 255-256). All the quotations on these 
 various points are simply so many recognitions 
 that pleasure and pain as such are not tests of 
 morality, but that they become so when morality 
 is independently realized. Pleasure is not now a 
 test of conduct, but becomes such a test as fast as 
 activity becomes full and complete ! What is this 
 but to admit (what was claimed in Sec. XIII.) that 
 activity itself is what man wants ; not mere activity, 
 but the activity which belongs to man as man, and 
 which therefore has for its realized content all 
 man's practical relationships. 
 
 Of Spencer's conception of the ideal as something 
 not now realized, but to be some time or other realized 
 once for all, we have said nothing. But see below^ 
 Sec. 64, and also Alexander.Op. cit., pp. 264-277, and 
 also James, Unitarian Review, Vol. XXII., pp. 212-213. 
 
 We have attempted, above, to deal with evolu- 
 
78 
 
 tionary ethics only in the one point of its supposed 
 connection with pleasure as a standard. Accounts and 
 criticisms of a broader scope will be found in Darwin, 
 Descent of Man; Martineau, Op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 335- 
 393; Schurman, Ethical Import of Darwmism; Sorley, 
 Ethics of Naturalism, chapters V, and VI; Stephen, 
 Science of Ethics, particularly pp. 31-34; 78-89; 359- 
 379; Royce, Religious Aspect of Philosophy, pp. 74-85; 
 Everett, Poetry, Comedy and Duty, Essay on the New 
 Ethics; Seth in Mind, Jan. 1889, on Evolution of Mo- 
 rality; Dewey, Andover Review, Vol. VII, p. 570; 
 Hyslop, Ibid., Vol. IX, p. 348. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Formal Ethics. We come now to the ethical 
 theories which attempt to find the good not only 
 in the will itself, but in the will irrespective of 
 any end to be reached by the will. The typical 
 instance of such theories is the Kantian, and we 
 shall, therefore, make that the basis of our examin- 
 ation. Kant's theory, however, is primarily a theory 
 not of the good, but of the nature of duty, and that 
 makes a statement of his doctrine somewhat more 
 difficult. 
 
 " The concept of good and evil must not be deter- 
 mined before the moral law (of which it seems as if it 
 must be the foundation), but only after it and by 
 means of it " (Abbott's Trans., p. 154). 
 
 Separating, as far as we can, his theory of the 
 good from that of duty, we get the following re- 
 sults : 
 
 1. Goodness belongs to the will, and to that alone. 
 
<s 
 
 *' Nothing can possibly be conceived, in the world 
 or out of it, which can be called good without qual- 
 ification except a good will." The will is not good 
 because of what it brings about, or what it is fitted 
 to bring about; that is, it is not good on account 
 of its adaptation to any end outside of itself. It 
 is good in itself. "It is like a jewel which 
 shines by its own light, having its whole value in 
 itself." 
 
 2. The good, then, is not to be found in any 
 object of will or of desire, nor in the will so far as it 
 is directed towards an end outside itself. For the 
 will to be moved by inclination or by desire is for it 
 to be moved for the sake of some external end, which, 
 moreover, is always pleasure (Kant, i. e., agrees 
 with the hedonists regarding the object of desire, 
 but on that very ground denies that pleasure is the 
 good or the desirable). If, then, no object of desire 
 can be the motive of a good will, what is its motive ? 
 Evidently only some principle derived from the will 
 itself. The good will is the will which acts from 
 regard to its own law. 
 
 3. What is the nature of this law ? All objects 
 of desire {i. e., all material) have been excluded 
 from it. It must, therefore, be purely formal. 
 The only content of the law of the good will is the 
 idea of law itself. The good will acts from rever- 
 ences for law as law. It not only acts in confor- 
 
80 
 
 mity loith law, but has the conception of law as its 
 directing spring. 
 
 4. There must, however, be some application of 
 this motive of law in general to particular motives 
 or acts. This is secured/ as follows: The idea of 
 law carries with it the idea of universality or self- 
 identity. To act from the idea of law is then so to 
 act that the motive of action can be generalized — 
 made a motive for all conduct. The good will is 
 the legislative will; the will whose motive can be 
 made a law for conduct universally. The ques- 
 tion in a specific case is then: Can your motive 
 here be made universa}, i. e., a law? If the action 
 is bad, determined by an object of desire, it will be 
 contingent and variable, since pleasures are differ- 
 ent to different persons and to the same person 
 fi'om moment to moment. The will is good, 
 then, when its motive (or maxim) is to be found 
 solely in the legislative form of the action, or in its 
 fitness to be generalized into a universal principle 
 of conduct, and the law of the good will is: "Act 
 so that the maxim of thy will can always at the 
 same time hold good as a principle of universal 
 legislation" (Abbott's Trans., p. 119; also p. 55). 
 
 5. The application may be illustrated by the fol- 
 lowing cases: 
 
 (a) Some one, wearied by what he conceives to 
 be the entire misery of life proposes to commit sui- 
 
81 
 
 cide, but he asks himself whether thin maxim based 
 on the principle of self-love could become a univer- 
 sal law of nature; and " we see at once that a system 
 of nature in which the very feeling, whose office is 
 to compel men to the preservation of life, should 
 lead men by a universal law to death, cannot be 
 conceived without contradiction". That is to say, 
 the principle of the motive which would lead a man 
 to suicide cannot be generalized without becoming 
 contradictory — it cannot be made a law universal. 
 
 (b) An individual wishes to borrow money which 
 he knows that he cannot repay. Can the maxim of 
 this act be universalized ? Evidently not : "a system 
 of nature in which it should be a universal law to 
 promise without performing, for the sake of private 
 good, would contradict itself, for then no one would 
 believe the promise — the promise itself would be- 
 come impossible as well as the end it had in view." 
 
 (c) A man finds that he has certain powers, 
 but is disinclined to develop them. Can he make 
 the maxim of such conduct a universal law? He 
 cannot ivill that it should become universal. " As a 
 rational being, he must will that his faculties be 
 developed." 
 
 (d) A prosperous individual is disinclined to re- 
 lieve the misery of others. Can his maxim be gen- 
 eralized? "It is impossible to loill that such a 
 
 principle should have the universal validity of a 
 6 
 
82 
 
 law of nature. For a will which resolved this 
 
 would contradict itself, in as much as many cases 
 
 might occur in which one would have need of the 
 
 love and sympathy of others, and in which, by 
 
 such a law of nature, sprung from his own will, he 
 
 would deprive himself of all hope of the aid he 
 
 desires." 
 
 In conclusion, then, th e^ good is the good will 
 
 itself^ and the w^ill ij^good in virtue of the bare 
 
 form of its action, independentl^_o|__alL_spaoial 
 
 material willed. 
 
 See Abbott's trans., pp. 9-46, 105-120. Caird's Criti- 
 cal Philosophy of Kant, Vol. II, pp. 171-181; 209-212. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Relation \ The Kantian theory, as already 
 of this jfioticed, agrees in its psychology with 
 ledonism. It holds that pleasures 
 are the objects of desire. But it 
 Hedonism, reverses the conclusion which hedon- 
 ism draws from this fact as to the desirable. Since 
 pleasures are the object of desire, and pleasures 
 can give no law, no universality to action, the end 
 of action must be found wholly outside the pleas- 
 ures, and wholly outside the desires. It can be 
 found only in the bare law of the will itself. 
 
 1. Hedonism finds the end of conduct, or the 
 desirable, wholly determined by the various partic- 
 ular desires which a man happens to have; Kant- 
 
83 
 
 ianism holds that to discover the end of conduct, 
 we must wholly exclude the desires. 
 
 2. Hedonism holds that the Tightness of con- 
 duct is determined wholly by its consequences; 
 Kantianism holds that the consequences have noth- 
 ing to do with the rightness of an act, but that it 
 is decided wholly by the motive of the act. 
 
 From this contrast, we may anticipate both our 
 criticism of the Kantian theory and our concep- 
 tion of the true end of action. The fundamental 
 error of hedonism and Kantianism is the same 
 — the supposition that desires are for pleasure 
 only. Let it be recognized that desires are for 
 objects conceived as satisfying or developing the 
 self, and that pleasure is incidental to this fulfill- 
 ment of the capacities of self, and we have the 
 means of escaping the one-sidedness of Kantianism 
 of well as of hedonism. We can see that the end 
 is neither the procuring of particular pleasures 
 through the various desires, nor action from the 
 mere idea of abstract law in general, but that it is 
 the satisfaction of desires according to law. The 
 desire in its particular character does not give the 
 law; this, as we saw in our criticism of hedonism, is 
 to take away all law from conduct and to leave us 
 at the mercy of our chance desires as they come 
 and go. On the other hand the law is not some- 
 thing wholly apart from the desires. This, as we 
 
84 
 
 shall see, is equally to deprive us of a law capable 
 of governing conduct. The law is the law of the 
 desires themselves — the harmony and adjustment 
 of desires necessary to make them instruments 
 in fulfilling the special destiny or business of the 
 agent. 
 
 From the same point of view we can see that the 
 criterion is found neither in the consequences of 
 our acts as pleasures, nor apart from consequences. 
 It is found indeed in the consequences of acts, hut in 
 their complete consequences : — those upon the agent 
 and society, ^as helping or hindering them in ful- 
 fillment of their respective functions. 
 
 XXIX. 
 Criticism 1. With reference to the unification 
 of of the conduct of the individual. Of 
 
 Kantian pleasure as the object of desire, we need 
 Criterion now say nothing further, but may pro- 
 of ceed at once to the criticism of the 
 Conduct, theory that the will, acting according 
 to the mere idea of law in general, is the end of man 
 and hence that it is the criterion of the rightness 
 or wrongness of his acts. We shall attempt to 
 show that such an end is wholly empty, and that it 
 fails (as much as hedonism) to unify conduct or 
 to place any specific act as to its morality. 
 
 The difficulty of the end proposed by Kant is 
 that it is an abstraction; that it is remote. The 
 
85 
 
 hedonist leaves out one element from conduct, and 
 takes into account the merely particular or individ- 
 ualistic side; the Kantian abstracts the opposite 
 element — the merely universal. The formal 
 universal, or universal stripped of all particular 
 content, has, considered as an end of action, at least 
 three defects. 
 
 I. It is an end which would make impossible 
 that very conduct of which it is taken to be the 
 end — that is, moral conduct. In denying that 
 pleasure is the end of action, we took pains to show 
 that it (or rather the feeling due to the tension 
 between pleasure of a state considered better and 
 the pain of the experienced worse state) is a neces- 
 sary element in the force impelling to action. The 
 mere conception of an end is purely intellectual; 
 there is nothing in it to move to action. It must 
 be felt as valuable, as worth having, and as more 
 valuable than the present condition before it can 
 induce to action. It must interest, in a word, and 
 thus excite desire. But if feeling is, as Kant de- 
 clares, to be excluded from the motive to action, be- 
 cause it is pathological or related to pleasure as the 
 object of desire, how can there be any force mo v- 
 ing to action? The mind seems to be set over 
 against a purely theoretical idea of an end, with 
 nothing to connect the mind with the end. 
 Unless the end interests, unless it arouses emotion, 
 
why should the agent ever aim at it ? And if the 
 law does excite feeling or desire, must not this, 
 on Kant's theory, be desire for pleasure and thus 
 vitiate the morality of the act ? We seem to be in 
 a dilemma, one side of which makes moral action 
 impossible by taking away all inducing force, 
 while the other makes it impossible by introducing 
 an immoral factor into the motive. 
 
 Kant attempts to escape from this difficulty by 
 claiming that there is one feeling which is rational, 
 and not sensuous in quality, being excited not by 
 the conception of pleasure or pain, but by that of 
 the moral law itself. This is the feeling of rever- 
 ence, and through this feeling we can be moved to 
 moral action. Waiving the question whether the 
 mere idea of law in general would be capable of 
 arousing any moral sentiment — or, putting the 
 matter from the other side, whether Kant gives us 
 a true account of the feeling of reverence — it is 
 clear that this admission is fatal to Kant's theory. 
 If desire or feeling as such is sensuous ( or paf 7io- 
 logical, as Kant terms it), what right have we to 
 make this one exception? And if we can make 
 this one exception, why not others ? If it is possi- 
 ble in the case of reverence, why not in the case, 
 say, of patriotism, or of friendship, or of philan- 
 thropy, or of love — or even of curiosity, or of 
 indignation, or of desire for approbation ? Kant's 
 
87 
 
 separation of reverence, as the one moral sentiment 
 from all others as pathological, is wholly arbitrary, 
 The only distinction we can draw is of the feelings 
 as they well up naturally in reaction upon stimuli, 
 sentiments not conceived and thus neither moral nor 
 immoral, and sentiments as transformed by ends 
 of action, in which case all without exception may 
 be moral or immoral, according to the character of 
 the end. The Kantian separation is not only ar- 
 bitrary psychologically, but is false historically. 
 So far is it from true that the only moral sentiment 
 is reverence for law, that men must have been 
 moved toward action for centuries by motives of 
 love and hate and social regard, before they became 
 capable of such an abstract feeling as reverence. 
 And it may be questioned whether this feeling, as 
 Kant treats it, is even the highest or ultimate form 
 of moral sentiment — whether it is cot transitional 
 to love, in which there is complete union of the 
 individual interest on one hand, and the objective 
 end on the other. 
 
 For these criticisms at greater length, see Caird, 
 Critical Philosophy of Kant, Vol. II, Bk. II, ch. lY. 
 
 II. The Kantian end would not bring about any 
 system in conduct — on the contrary, it would tend 
 to differences and collisions. What is required to 
 give unity to the sphere of conduct is, as we have 
 seen, a principle which shall comprehend all the 
 
88 
 
 motives to action, giving eacli its due place in con- 
 tributing to the whole — a universal which shall 
 organize the various particular acts into a harmon- 
 ious system. Now Kant's conception of the good 
 does not lead to such result. We may even say 
 that it makes it impossible. According to Kant each 
 act must be considered independently of every 
 other, and must be capable of generalization on its 
 own account. Each motive of action must be 
 capable of being itself a universal law of nature. 
 Each particular rule of action is thus made abso- 
 lute, and we are left not with one universal which 
 comprehends all particulars in their relations to 
 one another, but literally with a lot of universals. 
 These not only fail to have a unity, but each, as 
 absolute, must contradict some other. If the prin- 
 ciples always to tell the truth and always to 
 preserve life are universal in themselves, and not 
 universal simply through their relation to some 
 total and controlling principle of life, it must be 
 impossible to reconcile them when they come into 
 conflict. 
 
 See Caird, Op. cit., Yol. II, pp. 187-190, and p. 215. 
 Cf. '* Treated as universal and without exception, 
 eveu two such commands as e. g., ' Thou shalt not 
 steal,' and ' Thou shalt not kill,' must ultimately come 
 into conflict with each other; for, if all other interests 
 are to be postponed to the maintenance of the rights 
 of property, it is impossible that all other interests 
 should also be postponed to the preservation of 
 
89 
 
 human life— and to make either property or life an 
 absolute end is to raise a particular into a universal, 
 to treat a part as if it were a whole. But the true 
 moral vindication of each particular interest cannot 
 be found in elevating it into something universal and 
 absolute, but only in determining its place in relation 
 to the others in a complete system of morality." 
 
 III. The principle is so empty of all content 
 
 that it does not enable us to judge of any specific 
 
 act. 
 
 A caution should be noticed here, which is equally 
 applicable to the criticism of hedonism: When it is 
 said that the end does not enable us to judge of specific 
 acts, the objection is not that the theory (Kantianism 
 or hedonism, as the case may be) does not give us 
 rules for moral conduct. It is not the business of any 
 theory, however correct as a theory, to lay down rules 
 for conduct. The theory has simply to discover what 
 the end is, and it is the end in view which determines 
 specific acts. It is no more the business of ethics to 
 tell what in particular a man ought to do, than it is of 
 trigonometry to survey land. But trigonometry must 
 state the principles by which land is surveyed, and so 
 ethics must state the end by which conduct is gov- 
 erned. The objection to hedonism and Kantianism is 
 that the end they give does not itself stand in any 
 practical relation to conduct. We do not object to 
 Kantianism because the theory does not help us as to 
 specific acts, but because the end, formal law, does 
 not help jis, while t he real mor al end must det eFmine 
 the whole of conduct. ( ' 
 
 Suppose a man thrown into the complex 
 
 surroundings of life with an intelligence fully 
 
 developed, but with no previous knowledge of right 
 
 ) 
 
90 
 
 or wrong, or of the prevailing moral code. He is 
 to know, however, that goodness is to be found in 
 the good will, and that the good will is the will 
 moved by the mere idea of the universality of law. 
 Can we imagine such an one deriving from his 
 knowledge any idea of what concrete ends he ought 
 to pursue and what to avoid ? He is surrounded 
 by special circumstances calling for special acts, 
 and all he knows is that luhatever he does is to be 
 done from respect for its universal or legislative 
 quality. What community is there between this 
 principle and ichat he is to do ? There is no bridge 
 from the mere thought of universal law to any 
 concrete end coming under the law. There is no 
 common principle out of which gi'ows the concep- 
 tion of law on one hand, and of the various special 
 ends of action, on the other. 
 
 Suppose, however, that ends are independently 
 suggested or proposed, will the Kantian conception 
 serve to test their moral fitness ? Will the concep- 
 tion that the end must be capable of being general- 
 ized tell us whether this or that end is one to be 
 followed ? The fact is, that there is no end what- 
 ever that in or by itself, cannot be considered as 
 self- identical, or as universal. If we presuppose a 
 certain rule, or if we presuppose a certain moral 
 order, it may be true that a given motive cannot be 
 universalized without coming into conflict with this 
 
91 
 
 presupposed rule or order. But aside from some 
 moral system into connection witli which a pro- 
 posed end may be brought, for purposes of compar- 
 ison, lying is just as capable as truth-telling of 
 generalization. There is no more contradiction in 
 the motive of universal stealing than there is in 
 that of universal honesty — unless there is as stand- 
 ard some order or system of things into which the 
 proposed action is to fit as a member. And this 
 makes not the bare universality of the act, but the 
 system, the real criterion for determining the moral- 
 ity of the act. 
 
 Thus Mill remarks, regarding Kant's four illustra- 
 tions (Ante, p. 80), that Kant really has to employ utili- 
 tarian considerations to decide whether the act is 
 moral or not. 
 
 For the foregoing criticisms, see Bradley, Ethical 
 Studies, Essay IV; Caird, Op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 185-186, 
 and 212-214, and, indeed, the whole of ch. II of Bk. II. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Criticism of 2. With reference to the furnish- 
 Kantian ing of a common good or end. If 
 Criterion the Kantian end is so formal and 
 of Conduct, empty as not to enable us to bring 
 into relation with one another the various acts of one 
 individual, we may agree, without argument, that 
 it does not provide us with an end which shall unify 
 the acts of different men into a connected order of 
 conduct. The moral end, the acting from regard 
 
92 
 
 for law as law, is presented to each individual by 
 himself, entirely apart from his relations to others. 
 That he has such relations may, indeed, furnish ad- 
 ditional material to which the law must be applied, 
 but is something to which the character of the law 
 is wholly indifferent. The end is not in itself a 
 social end, and it is a mere accident if in any case 
 social considerations have to be taken into account. 
 It is of the very quality of the end that it appeals 
 to the individual as an isolated individual. 
 
 It is interesting to note the way in which Kant, 
 without expressily giving up the purely formal 
 character of the moral end, gives it more and more 
 content, and that content social. The moral law is 
 not imposed by any external authority, but by the ra- 
 tional will itself. To be conscious of a universal self- 
 imposed law is to be conscious of one's self as having 
 a universal aspect. The sgurce of the law and its end 
 are both in the will — in the rational self. Thus man 
 is an end to himself, for the rational self is man. Such 
 a being is a person—" Rational beings are persons, be- 
 cause their nature marks them out as ends in them- 
 selves, i. e., as beings who should never be used merely 
 
 as means Such beings are not ends simply /or 1^5, 
 
 whose existence as brought about by our action has 
 value, but ohjectixe ends, i. e., beings whose existence 
 is an end in itself, an end for which no other end can 
 be substituted so as to reduce it to a mere means." 
 Thus, we get a second formula. " Always treat human- 
 ity, both in your own person and in the person of 
 others, as an end and never merely as a means." (Ab- 
 bott's Trans., pp. 46-47; Caird, Op. cit., Vol. II, 219). 
 Here the criterion of action is no longer the bare self- 
 
93 
 
 consistency of its motive, but its consistency with the 
 rational nature of the agent, that which constitutes 
 him a person. And, too, "the will of every rational 
 being is likewise a universally law-giving will." (Ab- 
 bott, p. 49). The conception of humanity embodied in 
 others as well as in one's self is introduced, and thus 
 our criterion is socialized. Even now, however, we 
 have a lot of persons, each of whom has to be consid- 
 ered as an end in himself, rather than a social unity as 
 to which every individual has an equal and common 
 reference. Kant advances to this latter idea in his 
 notion of a " Kingdom of ends." " We get the idea of 
 a complete and sj^stematically connected totality of 
 all ends — a whole system of rational beings as ends in 
 themselves as well as of the special ends which each 
 of them may set up for himself— i e., a kingdom of 
 
 ends Morality is the reference of all deeds to the 
 
 legislation which alone can make such a kingdom pos- 
 sible." (See Abbott's Trans., pp. 51-52). This trans- 
 formation of a mere formal universal into a society or 
 kingdom of persons— while not sufficiently analyzed 
 as Kant states it (see Caird, Vol. II, pp. 225-226)— gives 
 us truly a social criterion, and we shall hereafter meet 
 something resembling it as the true ideal. As finally 
 stated, it does not dilt'er in essential content from Mill's 
 individual who " conceives of himself only as a member 
 of a body," or from Spencer's free man in a free society. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Value of Kantian We must not leave the Kant- 
 Theory, ian theory with the impression 
 that it is simply the caprice of a philosopher's brain. 
 In two respects, at least, it presents us, as we shall 
 see, with elements that must be adopted; and even 
 where false it is highly instructive. 
 
94 
 
 Kant's fundamental error is in his conception 
 that all desires or inclinations are for private pleas- 
 ure, and are, therefore, to be excluded from the 
 conception of the moral end. Kant's conclusion, ac- 
 cordingly, that the good will is purely formal follows 
 inevitably if ever it is granted that there is any 
 intrinsic opposition between inclination as such, 
 and reason or moral law as such. If there is such 
 an opposition, all desire must be excluded from re- 
 lation to the end. We cannot make a compromise 
 by distinguishing between higher and lower de- 
 sires. On the contrary, if the end is to have content, 
 it must include all desires, leaving out none as in 
 itself base or unworthy. Kant's great negative 
 service was showing that the ascetic principle log- 
 ically results in pure formalism — meaning by ascetic 
 principle that which disconnects inclinations from 
 moral action. 
 
 Kant's positive service was, first, his clear in- 
 sight into the fact that the good is to be found only 
 in activity; that the will itself, and nothing beyond 
 itself, is the end; and that to adopt any other doc- 
 trine, is to adopt an immoral principle, since it is to 
 subordinate the will (character, self and personal- 
 ity), to some outside end. His second great service 
 was in showing the necessity of putting in abeyance 
 the immediate satisfaction of each desire as it hap- 
 pens to arise, and of subordinating it to some law 
 
/ 
 
 95 
 
 not to be found in the particular desire. He 
 showed that not the particular desire, but only the 
 desire as controlled by the idea of law could be the 
 motive of moral action. And if he fell into the 
 error of holding that this meant that the desire 
 must be excluded from the moral motive, this error 
 does not make it less true that every particular 
 desire must be controlled by a universal law. The 
 truth of asceticism is that the desire must be 
 checked until subordinated to the activity of the 
 whole man. See Caird, Op. cit.. Vol. II, p. 200; 
 pp. 203-207; 226-227. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 The Problem If we gather together the results 
 and of our observations of hedonism 
 
 Its Solution, and of Kantianism we get some- 
 thing like the following problem and solution 
 in outline. The end of action, or the good, is the 
 realized will, the developed or satisfied self. This 
 satisfied self is found neither in the getting of a 
 lot of pleasures through the satisfaction of desires 
 just as they happen to arise, nor in obedience to 
 law simply because it is law. It is found in satis- 1 
 faction of desires according to laiu. This law, 
 however, is not something external to the desires, 
 but is their own law. Each desire is only one 
 striving of character for larger action, and the only 
 
96 
 
 way in which it can really find satisfaction (that is, 
 pass from inward striving into outward action ) is as 
 a manifestation of character. A desire, taken as a 
 desire for its own apparent or direct end only, is an 
 abstraction. It is a desire for an entire and con- 
 tinuous activity, and its satisfaction requires that it 
 fitted into this entire and continuous activity; that 
 it be made conformable to the conditions which will 
 bring the whole man into action. It is this fitting- 
 in which is the law of the desire — the ' universal ' 
 controlling its particular nature. This 'fitting-in' is 
 no mechanical shearing off, nor stretching out, 
 but a reconstruction of the natural desire till it 
 becomes an expression of the whole man. The 
 problem then is to find that special form of char- 
 acter, of self, which includes and transforms all 
 special desires. This form of character is at once 
 the Good and the Law of man. 
 
 We cannot be content with the notion that the 
 end is the satisfaction of the self, a satisfaction 
 at once including and subordinating the ends of 
 the particular desire. This tells us nothing posi- 
 tive — however valuable it may be negatively in 
 warning us against one-sided notions — until we 
 know ivhat that whole self is, and in ivhat con- 
 cretely its satisfaction consists. As the first step 
 towards such a more concrete formula, we may 
 say: 
 
97 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 TheMoralEndor In saying that this realiza- 
 the Good is the tion is hy a person and as a 
 Realization by person we are saying nothing 
 a Person and new. We are simply repeat- 
 as a Person ing what we have already 
 of Individuality, learned about moral conduct 
 (Sec. III). Conduct is not that which simply reaches- 
 certain consequences — a bullet shot from a rifle 
 does that; there is conduct only when the conse- 
 quences are foreseen; made the reason of action. 
 A person is a being capable of conduct — a being 
 capable of proposing to himself ends and of attempt- 
 ing to realize them. 
 
 But what is the meaning of the rest of the for- 
 mula? What do we mean by individuality? We 
 may distinguish two factors — or better two aspects, 
 two sides — in individuality. On one side, it means 
 special disposition, temperament, gifts, bent, or 
 inclination; on the other side, it means special 
 station, situation, limitations, surroundings, oppor- 
 tunities, etc. Or, let us say, it means specific capac- 
 ity and specific environment. Each of these ele- 
 ments, apart from the other, is a bare abstraction 
 and without reality. Nor is it strictly correct to 
 say that individuality is constituted by these two 
 factors together. It is rather, as intimated above,, 
 that each is individuality looked at from a cer- 
 
98 
 
 tain point of view, from within or from without. 
 If we are apt to identify individuality with the 
 inner side alone, with capacity apart from its sur- 
 roundings, a little reflection will show the error. 
 Even the most devoted adherent of " self -culture " 
 would not hold that a gift could be developed, or a 
 disposition manifested, in isolation from all exterior 
 circumstances. Let the disposition, the gift be 
 what it may (amiable or irascible, a talent for 
 music or for abstract science, or for engineering), 
 its existence, to say nothing of its culture, apart 
 from some surroundings is bare nonsense. If a 
 person shuts himself up in a closet or goes out into 
 the desert the better to cultivate his capacities, 
 there is still the desert or the closet there; and it 
 is as conditioned by them, and with reference to 
 them that he must cultivate himself. For more is 
 true than that, as a matter of fact, no man can 
 wholly withdraw himself from surroundings; the 
 important point is that the manner and the purpose 
 of exercising his capacity is always relative to and 
 dependent upon the surroundings. Apart from the 
 environment the capacity is mere emptiness; the 
 exercise of capacity is always establishing a relation 
 to something exterior to itself. All we can say of 
 capacity apart from environment is that if certain 
 circumstances were supplied, there would be some- 
 thing there. We call a capacity capability, possi- 
 
99 
 
 bility, as if for the very purpose of emphasizing 
 the necessity of external supplementing. 
 
 We get the same fact, on the other side, by call- 
 ing to mind that circumstances, environment are 
 not indifferent or irrelevant to individuality. The 
 difference between one individual and another lies 
 as much in the station in which each is placed as in 
 the capacity of each. That is to say, environment 
 enters into individuality as a constituent factor, 
 helping make it what it is. 
 
 On the other hand, it is capacity which makes the 
 environment really an environment to the individual. 
 
 The environment is not simply the facts which 
 happen objectively to lie about an agent; it is such 
 part of the facts as may be related to the capacity 
 and the disposition and gifts of the agent. Two mem- 
 bers of the same family may have what, to the out- 
 ward eye, are exactly the same surroundings, and 
 yet each may draw from these surroundings wholly 
 unlike stimulus, material and motives. Each has a 
 different environment, made different by his own 
 mode of selection; by the different way in which 
 his interests and desires play upon the plastic ma- 
 terial about him. It is not, then, the environment 
 as physical of which we are speaking, but as it ap- 
 peals to consciousness, as it is affected by the make- 
 up of the agent. This is the practical or moral 
 environment. The environment is not, then, 
 
/ 
 
 / 
 
 100 
 
 what is then and there present in space. To the 
 Christian martyr the sufferings of his master, and 
 the rewards of faithfulness to come to himself were 
 more real parts of his environment than the stake 
 and fire. A Darwin or a Wallace may find his en- 
 vironment in South America or the Philippine 
 Islands — or, indeed, in every fact of a certain sort 
 wherever found upon the earth or in whatever geo- 
 logical era. A man of philanthropic instincts may 
 find his environment among Indians or Congo 
 negroes. Whatever, however near or remote in 
 time and space, an individual's capacities and 
 needs relate him to, is his environment. The mo- 
 ment we realize that only what one conceives as 
 proper material for calling out and expressing some 
 internal capacity is a part of his surroundings, we 
 see not only that capacity depends upon envi- 
 ronment, but that environment depends upon ca- 
 pacity. In other words, we see that each in itself 
 is an abstraction, and that the real thing is the in- 
 dividual who is constituted by capacity and envi- 
 ronment in their relation to one another. 
 
 Function is a term which we may use to express 
 union of the two sides of individuality. The idea 
 of function is that of an active relation established 
 between power of doing, on one side, and some- 
 thing to be done on the other. To exercise a 
 function as a student is not to cultivate tastes and 
 
101 
 
 possibilities internally; it is also to meet external 
 demands, the demands of fact, of teachers, of 
 others needing knowledge. The citizen exercises 
 his function not simply in cultivating sentiments of 
 patriotism within ; one has to meet the needs of the 
 city, the country in which one lives. The realiza- 
 tion of an artistic function is not poring over emo- 
 tions of beauty pumped up within one's self; it is 
 the exercise of some calling. On the other hand, 
 it hardly needs saying that the function of a stu- 
 dent, a citizen, an artist, is not exercised in bare 
 conformity to certain external requirements. With- 
 out the inner disposition and inclination, we call 
 conduct dead, perfunctory, hypocritical. An activ- 
 ity is not functional, unless it is organic, expressing 
 the life of the agent. 
 
 A function thus includes two sides — the exter- 
 nal and the internal— and reduces them to elements 
 in one activity. We get an analogy in any animal 
 function. The digestive function includes the ma- 
 terial appropriated, just as much as it does the 
 organ appropriating. It is the service, the work 
 which the organ does in appropriating material. So, 
 morally, function is capacity in action ; environment 
 transformed into an element in personal service. 
 Thus we get another formula for the moral end: 
 The performance by a person of his specific 
 function, this function consisting in an activity 
 
102 
 
 which realizes wants and powers with reference to 
 their peculiar surroundings. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 Moral Functions If morality consists in the 
 as exercise of one's specific func- 
 
 I nterests. tions, it follows that no detailed 
 
 account of the content of the moral end can possi- 
 bly be given. This content is thoroughly individual 
 or infinite. It is concrete to the core, including 
 every detail of conduct, and this not in a rigid 
 formula, but in the movement of life. All we can 
 do is, by abstraction, to select some of the main 
 features of the end, such as the more common and 
 the more permanent. While each individual has 
 his own particular functions, which can no more be 
 exhausted by definition or description than the 
 qualities of any other individual object, it is also 
 true that we can recognize certain typical functions 
 to be found permanently and in all. These make, 
 as it were, the skeleton of the moral end which each 
 clothes with his own flesh and blood. 
 
 Functions are interests — objective interests were 
 not the term tautological. Interests have three 
 traits worth special mention. 
 
 1. They are active. An interest is not an emo- 
 tion produced from without. It is the reaction of 
 the emotion to the object. Interest is identified, in 
 ordinary speech, with attention; we take an inter- 
 
103 
 
 est, or, if we say simply ' interested,' that involves 
 some excitation, some action just beginning. We 
 talk of a man's interests, meaning his occupations 
 or range of activities. 
 
 2. They are objective. The emotion aroused 
 goes out to some object, and is fixed upon that; we 
 are always interested in something. The active 
 element of interest is precisely that which takes it 
 out of the inner mood itself and gives it a ter- 
 minus, an end in an object. 
 
 3. An interest is satisfaction. It is its own re- 
 ward. It is not a striving for something unreal- 
 ized, or a mere condition of tension. It is the 
 satisfaction in some object which the mind already 
 has. This object may be possessed in some 
 greater or less degree, in full realization or in faint 
 grasp, but interest attaches to it as possessed. This 
 differentiates it from desire, even where otherwise 
 the states are the same. Desire refers to the lack, 
 to what is not present to the mind. One state of 
 mind may be called both interest in, and desire for, 
 knowledge, but desire emphasizes the unknown, 
 while interest is on account of the finding of self, 
 of intelligence, in the object. Interest is the union 
 in feeling, through action, of self and an object. 
 An interest in life is had when a man can prac- 
 tically identify himself with some object lying 
 beyond his immediate or already acquired self 
 
104 
 
 and thus be led to further expression of himself. 
 
 To have an interest, then, is to be alert, to have 
 
 an object, and to find satisfaction in an activity 
 
 which brings this object home to self. 
 
 Not every interest carries with it comj^lete satisfac- 
 tion. But no interest can be wholly thwarted. The 
 purer the interest, the more the interest is in the ob- 
 ject for its own sake, and not for that of some ulterior 
 consequence, the more the interest fulfills itself. " Tt 
 is better to have loved and lost than never to have 
 loved at all", and love is simply the highest power of 
 interest— interest freed from all extrinsic stuff. 
 
 Of the interests, two abstract forms may be rec- 
 ognized, interest in persons and interest in things. 
 And these may be subdivided : Interest in persons : 
 interest in self and others. Interest in things — 
 into their contemplation [knowledge) and into their 
 production (art). And art again may be either 
 productive of things to be contemplated (fine art), 
 or useful — manufactures, industry, etc. The 
 moral end, then, or the Good will consist in the 
 exercise of these interests, varied as they may be in 
 each individual by the special turn which his capa- 
 cities and opportunities take. 
 
 XXXV. 
 The Exercise Let us now, as a means of ren- 
 
 of Interests dering our conception of the 
 as the moral end more concrete, consider 
 
 Moral End. briefly each of the forms of in- 
 terest. 
 
105 
 
 ■ 1. Interest in self. We must free ourselves 
 ^om any notion that an interest in self is non- 
 moral, if not actually immoral. The latter position 
 is seldom consciously assumed, but it is not uncom- 
 mon to have interest in self, under the name of 
 prudence, marked off from the moral sphere. In- 
 terest in self, if the interest is pure, is just as much 
 an interest in the moral end as interest in anything 
 or anybody else. Interest in self may take the 
 form of selfishness, or of sentimentalism ; but this 
 is only an impure interest, an interest not in self, 
 but in some conseqences to which the self may be 
 directed. Interest in self may take many forms, 
 according to the side of self which is the object of 
 attention, and according to the range of the self 
 taken into account. A rudimentary form is pru- 
 dence, but even this, instead of being non-moral, is, 
 in proper place and degree, moral, as moral as be- 
 nevolence; and, if not in its proper place, immoral. 
 From such an interest there are all stages up to 
 the interest in self as it most deeply and broadly is, 
 the sense of honor, moral dignity, self-respect, 
 conscientiousness, that attempt to be and to make 
 the most of one's self, which is at the very root of 
 moral endeavor. 
 
 The ground that is usually given for making the 
 distinction between Prudence, Self-Regard, Self-Love 
 as non-moral, and Benevolence, Altruism etc., as moral, 
 is that in the former case a mere regard for one's own 
 
106 
 
 advantage dictates proper conduct, while in the latter 
 case there must be a positive virtuous intent. We 
 may, for example, be pointed to some cool calculating 
 man who takes care of his health and his property, 
 who indeed is generally 'prudent', because he sees that 
 it is for his advantage, and be told that while such an 
 end is not immoral it is certainly not moral. But in 
 return it must be asked what is meant here by advan- 
 tage ? If by it is meant private pleasure, or advan- 
 tage over somebody else, then this conduct does not 
 spring from interest in self at all, but from interest in 
 some exterior consequence, and as springing from such 
 an impure interest is not simply non-moral, but posi- 
 tively immoral. On the other hand, if 'advantage* 
 means regard for one's whole function, one's place in 
 the moral order, then such interest in self is moral. 
 Care for bodily health in the interest of efliciency in 
 conduct is supremely moral beside reckless disregard 
 of it in the interest of some supposed higher or mora 
 spiritual function. 
 
 If it is meant that conduct is immoral because it 
 springs from some interest on the part of the agent, 
 the reply is that all conduct must so arise, and that 
 any other supposition leads us immediately into ascet- 
 icism and into formalism. 
 
 2. Interest in others. The generic form of in- 
 terest in others is sympathy, this being specified by 
 the various forms of social organization of which the 
 individual is a member. A person is, we have seen, 
 one who can conceive of ends and can act to realize 
 these ends. Only a person, therefore, can conceive 
 of others as ends, and so have true sympathy. 
 
 It is not meant, of course, that animals do not per- 
 form acts which, de facto, are altruistic or even self- 
 
107 
 
 sacrificing. What is meant is that the animal does 
 not act from the idea of others of his kind as ends in 
 themselves. If the animal does so act, it cannot be 
 denied the name of person. 
 
 True interest in others is pure, or disinterested, 
 in the sense of having no reference to some further 
 and external consequence to one's self. Interest in 
 others need not be moral (or pure) any more than 
 interest in self is necessarily immoral (or impure). 
 It is a mistake to distinguish interest in self as 
 egoistic and interest in others as altruistic. Gen- 
 uine interests, whatever their object, are both ego- 
 istic and altruistic. They are egoistic simply because 
 they are interests — imply satisfaction in a realized 
 end. If man is truly a social being, constituted by 
 his relationships to others, then social action must 
 inevitably realize himself, and be, in that sense, 
 egoistic. And on the other hand, if the individ- 
 ual's interest in himself is in himself as a member of 
 society, then such interest is thoroughly altruistic. 
 In fact, the very idea of altruism is likely to carry 
 a false impression when it is so much insisted upon, 
 as it is nowadays in popular literature, as the 
 essence of morality. The term as used seems ta 
 imply that the mere giving up of one's self to others, 
 as others, is somehow moral. Just as there may be 
 an immoral interest in self, so there may be an im- 
 moral ' altruism.' It is immoral in any case to sac- 
 rifice the actual relationships in the case, those 
 
108 
 
 which demand action, to some feeling outside them- 
 selves — as immoral when the feeling to which the 
 sacrifice is offered up is labelled 'benevolence', as 
 when it is termed 'greediness'. It is no excuse 
 when a man gives unwisely to a beggar that he 
 feels benevolent. Moral benevolence is the feeling 
 directed toward a certain end which is known to be 
 the fit or right end, the end which expresses the sit- 
 uation. The question is as to the aim in giving. 
 Apart from this aini, the act is simply relieving the 
 agent's own feelings and has no moral quality. 
 Bather it is immoral; for feelings do have a moral 
 capacity, that is, a relation to ends of action, and 
 hence to satisfy them on their account, to deprive 
 them of their practical reference, is bad. Aside 
 from what this illustrates, there is a tendency in the 
 present emphasis of altruism to erect the principle 
 of charity, in a sense which implies continued social 
 inequality, and social slavery, or undue dependence 
 of one upon another, into a fundamental moral 
 principle. It is well to "do good" to others, but 
 it is much better to do this by securing for them 
 the freedom which makes it possible for them to 
 get along in the future without such ' altruism ' from 
 others. There is what has been well termed an 
 "egotism of renunciation" ; a desire to do for others 
 which, at bottom, is simply an attempt to regulate 
 their conduct. Much of altruism is an egoism of a 
 
109 
 
 larger radius, and its tendency is to " manufacture 
 a gigantic self", as in tlie case wliere a father sacri- 
 fices everything for his children or a wife for her 
 husband. 
 
 See Caird, Op. eit., Vol. II, p. 402. See also Hinton, 
 The Law Breaker, p. 287: "The real meaning 
 of the difficulty about a word for " regard for others'^ 
 is that we do not want it. It would mislead us if we 
 had it. It is not a regartl for others that we need, but 
 simply a true regard, a regard to the facts, to nature; 
 it is only a truth to facts in our regard, and its nature 
 is obscured l)y a reference to "others", as if that were 
 
 the essential point It is not as being for 
 
 others, but as being trne, that the regard for others is 
 demanded." 
 
 Some ethical writers have gone to the other 
 extreme and held that all benevolence is a disguised 
 or an enlightened selfishness, since having a neces- 
 sary reference to self. The reference to self must 
 be admitted; unless the action springs from an 
 interest of the agent himself the act may be out- 
 wardly useful, but cannot be moral. But the argu- 
 ment alluded to inverts the true relation involved. 
 If a man's interests are such that he can find satis- 
 faction only in the satisfaction of others, what an 
 absurdity to say that his acting from these inter- 
 ests is selfish! The very fact of such identity of 
 self with others in his interest is the proof of his 
 unselfishness. 
 
 See Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 241, for an 
 admirable discussion of this difficulty. When it is said 
 
/ 
 
 110 
 
 that your pain is painful to me, he says, the inference 
 is often "insinuated that I dislike your pain because 
 it is painful to me in some special relation. I do not 
 dislike it as your pain, but in virtue of some partic- 
 ular consequence, such, for example, as its making you 
 less able to render me a service. In that case I do not 
 really object to your pain as your pain at all, but only 
 to some removable and accidental consequences." 
 (And see his whole treatment of sympathy, pp. 230-245). 
 The whole question is shown to come to this: Is my 
 interest in, my sympathy with, your joy and sorrow as 
 such, or in your joy and sorrow as contributing to 
 mine? If the latter, of course the interest is selfish, 
 not being an interest in others at all. But if the for- 
 mer, then the fact that such sympathy involves one's 
 own satisfaction is the best proof that man is not sel- 
 fishly constructed. When Stephen goes on to say that 
 such sympathy does not involve the existence of a real 
 unity larger than the individual, he seems to me to 
 misread his own facts, probably because he conceives 
 of this unity as some abstract or external thing. 
 
 Discussion regarding self-love and benevolence, 
 or, in modern phrase, egoism and altruism, has been 
 rife in English ethics since the time of Hobbes, and 
 especially of Shaftesbury and Butler. See, in particu- 
 lar, the Sermons of the latter, which gave the central 
 point of discussion for almost a century. With refer- 
 ence to the special weakness of this point of view, 
 with its co-ordination of two independent principles, 
 see Green, Philosophical Works, Vol. Ill, pp. 99-104. 
 The essential lack (the lack which we have tried to 
 make good in the definition of individuality as the 
 union of capacity and surroundings in function), was 
 the failure to analyze the idea of the individual. 
 Individuality being defined as an exclusive principle, 
 the inevitable result was either (i.) the "disguised 
 
Ill 
 
 selfishness" theory; or (ii.) the assumption of two 
 fundamentally different principles in man. The ordi- 
 nary distinction between prudence and virtue is an echo 
 of the latter theory. Then, finally, (iii.) a third princi- 
 ple, generally called conscience by Butler, was brought 
 in as umpire in the conflict of prudence and virtue. 
 Suggestive modern treatment of the matter, from 
 a variety of points of view, will be found in Spencer, 
 Data of Ethics, chs. XI-XIII; Stephen, Op. cit., ch. 
 VI; Sidgwick, Op. cit., Bk. V, ch. VII; Royce, Op. 
 cit., ch. IV; Sorley, Ethics of Naturalism, pp. 134-150; 
 Alexander, Op. cit., pp. 172-180; Caird, Op. cit., Vol.11, 
 pp. 400-405; Paulsen, System der Ethik, pp. 295-311. 
 
 3. Interest in Science and Art. Man is inter- 
 ested in the world about him; the knowledge of the 
 nature and relations of this world become one of 
 his most absorbing pursuits. Man identifies him- 
 self with the meaning of this world to the point that 
 he can be satisfied only as he spells out and reads 
 its meaning. (See, for example, Browning's 
 "Grammarian's Funeral".) The scientific interest 
 is no less a controlling motive of man than the per- 
 sonal interest. This knowledge is not a means for 
 having agreeable sensations; it is not dilettanteism 
 or 'love of culture"; it is interest in the large and 
 goodly frame of things. And so it is with art; man 
 has interests which can be satisfied only in the 
 reconstruction of nature in the way of the useful 
 and the beautiful. 
 
 I have made no distinction between 'fine' and 
 * useful ' art. The discussion of this question does not 
 
112 
 
 belong here, but the rigid separation of them in aes- 
 thetic theory seems to me to have no justification. 
 Both are products of intelligence in the service of 
 interests, and the only difference is in the range of 
 intelligence and interests concerned. 'Use' is 'd lim- 
 ited serYice and hence implies an external end; beauty 
 is complete use or service, and hence not mere use at 
 all, but self-expression. Historically, all art which has 
 not been merely sentimental and ' literary ' has 
 sprung from interest in good workmanship in the 
 realizing of an idea. 
 
 It seems as if here interests violated their gen- 
 eral law, and, in the case of use at least, were an 
 interest in some ulterior end. But it may be ques- 
 tioned whether a carpenter whose aim was con- 
 sciously beyond the work he was doing, would be 
 a good workman — and this whether the further 
 end is his own private advantage, or social benefit 
 at large. The thought of the further benefit to 
 self and of the utility to accrue to some one else, 
 will, if it becomes a jmrt of what he is doing, un- 
 doubtedly intensify his interest — it must do so, for 
 it enlarges its content. But to identify one's own 
 or another's well-being with work, and to make the 
 work a mere means to this welfare, are two quite 
 different things. The good artisan " has his heart 
 in his work". His self-respect makes it necessary 
 for him to respect this technical or artistic capacity, 
 and to do the best by it that he can without 
 scrimping or lowering. To a good business man 
 
113 
 
 business is not the mere means to money- making; 
 and it is sentimentalism (and hence immoral) to 
 demand that it be a mere means to the good of so- 
 ciety. The business, if it is a moral one (and any 
 business, so far as it is thus carried on, is moral), 
 is carried on for the sake of the activity itself, as a 
 realizing of capacity in a specific situation. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 The Moral We seem, however, to meet here, 
 Quality in relation to science and art, a diffi- 
 of Science, culfcy which threatens our whole 
 theory. Can it be claimed, it may be asked, that 
 devotion to science or art constitutes goodness in 
 the same sense that devotion to the interests of 
 one's family or state constitutes it ? No one doubts 
 that a good father or a good citizen is a good man, 
 in so far forth. Are we ready to say that a good 
 chemist or good carpenter, or good musician is, in 
 so far, a good man ? In a word, is there not a 
 reference to the good of persons present in one case 
 and absent in another, and does not its absence 
 preclude the scientific and artistic activities from 
 any share, as such, in the moral end ? 
 
 It must be remembered that the moral end does 
 not refer to some consequence which happens, de 
 /acto, to be reached. It refers to an end willed-, 
 i. e., to an idea held to and realized as an idea. And 
 this fact shows us the way to meet the query, in 
 
114 
 
 part at least. If, when we say good carpenter, or 
 good merchant, we are speaking from the stand- 
 point of results, independently of the idea con- 
 ceived as end in the mind of the agent; if we mean 
 simply, 'we like what that man does', then the 
 term good has no moral value. A man may paint 
 ' good ' pictures and not be, in so far, a good man, 
 but in this sense a man may do a great deal of 
 ' good', and yet not be a good man. It was agreed 
 at the outset that moral goodness pertains to the 
 kind of idea or end which a man clings to, and not 
 to what he happens to effect visibly to others. 
 
 If a scientific man pursues truth as a mere 
 means to reputation, to wealth, etc., we do not (or 
 should not) hesitate to call him immoral. 
 
 This dops not mean that if he thinks of the repu- 
 tation, or of weath, he is immoral, for he may foresee 
 wealth and the reputation as necessarily bound up in 
 what he is doing; it may become a part of the end. It 
 means that if knowledge of truth is a mere means to 
 an end beyond it, the man is immoral. 
 
 What reason is there why we should not call him 
 
 moral if he does his work for its own sake, from 
 
 interest in this cause which takes him outside his 
 
 "own miserable individuality", in Mill's phrase? 
 
 After all, the phrase a ' good father ' means but a 
 
 character manifesting itself in certain relations, as 
 
 is right according to these relations ; the phrase has 
 
 moral significance not in itself, but with reference 
 
115 
 
 to the end aimed at by character. And so it is 
 with the phrase ' a good carpenter.' That also 
 means devotion of character to certain outer rela- 
 tions for their own sake. These relations may not 
 be so important, but that is not lack of moral 
 meaning. 
 
 XXXVII, 
 
 Adjustment So far we have been discussing 
 to the moral ideal in terms of its 
 
 Environment, inner side — capacity, interest. 
 We shall now discuss it on its outer or objective 
 side — as ' adjustment to environment ' in the phrase 
 made familiar by the evolutionists. Certain cau- 
 tions, however, must be noted in the use of the 
 phrase. We must keep clearly in mind the rela- 
 tivity of environment to inner capacity; that it ex- 
 ists only as one element of function. Even a plant 
 must do something more than adjust itself to a 
 fixed environment; it must assert itself against its 
 surroundings, subordinating them and transforming 
 them into material and nutriment; and, on the 
 surface of things, it is evident that transformation 
 of existing circumstances is moral duty rather than 
 mere reproduction of them. The environment 
 must bs plastic to the ends of the agent. 
 
 But admitting that environment is made what it 
 is by the powers and aims of the agent, what 
 sense shall we attribute to the term adjustment? 
 
116 
 
 Not^bare conformity to circumstances, nor bare ex- 
 ternal reproduction of them, even when circum- 
 stances are taken in their proper moral meaning. 
 The child in the family who simply adjusts himself 
 to his relationships in the family, may be living a 
 moral life only in outward seeming. The citizen 
 of the state may transgress no laws of the state, he 
 may punctiliously fulfill every contract, and yet be 
 a selfish man. True adjustment must consist in 
 willing the maintenance and development of moral 
 surroundings as one's own end. The child must 
 take the spirit- of the family into himself and live 
 out this spirit according to his special membership 
 in the family. So a soldier in the army, a friend 
 in a mutual association, etc. Adjustment to intel- 
 lectual environment is not mere conformity of ideas 
 to facts. It is the living assimilation of these facts 
 into one's own intellectual life, and maintaining 
 and asserting them as truth. 
 
 There are environments existing prior to the 
 activities of any individual agent; the family, for 
 example, is prior to the moral activity of a child 
 bornpnto it, but the point is to see that ' adjust- 
 ment', to|^have a moral sense, means making the en- 
 vironment a reality for one's self. A true descrip- 
 tion of the case would say that the child takes for 
 his own end, ends already existing for the wills of 
 others. And, in making them his own, he creates and 
 
117 
 
 supports for himself an environment that already 
 exists for others. In such cases there is no special 
 transformation of the existing environment; there 
 is simply the process of making it the environment 
 for one's self. So in learning, the child simply ap- 
 propriates to himself the intellectual environment 
 already in existence for others. But in the activity 
 of the man of science there is more than such per- 
 sonal reproduction and creation; there is increase, 
 or even reconstruction of the prior environment. 
 While the ordinary citizen hardly does more than 
 make his own the environment of ends and inter- 
 ests already sustained in the wills of others, the 
 moral reformer may remake the whole. But 
 whether one case or the other, adjustment is not 
 outer conformity; it is living realization of certain 
 relations in and through the will of the agent. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 The Moral End is the Since the perform- 
 Real ization of ance of function is, 
 a Community of Wilis, on the other side, the 
 creation, perpetuation, and further development of 
 an environment, of relations to the wills of others, 
 its performance is a common good. It satisfies 
 others who participate in the environment. The 
 member of the family, of the state, etc., in exer- 
 cising his function, contributes to the whole of 
 which he is a member by realizing its spirit in 
 
118 
 
 himself. But the question discussed in section 
 XXXVI recurs under another aspect. Granting 
 that the satisfying of personal interests realizes a 
 common good, what shall we say of the impersonal 
 interests — interests in science and art. Is the 
 good carpenter or chemist not only in so far a good 
 man, but also a good social member? In other 
 words, does every form of moral activity realize a 
 common good, or is the moral end partly social, 
 partly non- social? 
 
 One objection sometimes brought to the doctrine 
 that the moral end is entirely social, may be now 
 briefly dismissed. This is the objection that a man 
 has moral duties toward himself. Certainly, but what 
 of himself f If he is essentially a social member, his 
 duties toward himself have a social basis and bearing. 
 The only relevant question is whether one is wholly a 
 social member— whether scientific and artistic activi- 
 ties may not be non-social. 
 
 The ground here taken is that the moral end is 
 wholly social. This does not mean that science 
 and art are means to some social welfare beyond 
 themselves. We have already stated that even the 
 production of utilities must, as moral, be its own 
 end. The position then is that intellectual and 
 artistic interests are themselves social, when consid- 
 ered in the completeness of their relations — that in- 
 terest in the development of intelligence is, in and 
 of itself, interest in the well-being of society. 
 
 Unless this be true there is no moral end at all, 
 
119 
 
 but only moral ends. There is no comprehensive 
 unity in life, but a number of ends which, being 
 irreducible to a common principle, must be com- 
 bined on the best principle of compromise avail- 
 able. We have no 'The Good', but an aggregate of 
 fragmentary ends. 
 
 It iielps nothing to say that this necessary unity is 
 found in the self to be realized, unless we are pointed 
 to something in the self that unites the social and non- 
 social functions. Our objection is that the separation 
 of intellectual interests from social makes a chasm in 
 the self. 
 
 For the same reason it follows that in the case 
 of a collision of social with intellectual ends — say 
 the conflict of a man's interests as a member of a 
 family with his interests in new scientific discovery 
 — no reconciliation is possible. If the interests are 
 forms of social interest, there is a common end in 
 both, on the basis of which the conflict can be re- 
 solved. While such considerations do not prove 
 that there is but one end, and that social, they may 
 well make us hesitate about carelessly taking a 
 position of which they are the logical consequence. 
 
 Of course, every one recognizes that a certain 
 amount of scientific and artistic interest is social 
 in character. A certain amount of interest in truth, 
 or in intelligence, a certain amount of susceptibility 
 to beauty, a certain amount of devotion to utility, 
 are universally recognized to be necessary to make 
 
120 
 
 judicious, agreeable and eflScient social members. 
 The whole system of modern education has mean- 
 ing only on this supposition. 
 
 More than this: A certain amount of intelli- 
 gence, and a certain amount of susceptibility to 
 embodied ideals, must exist to give moral conduct. 
 A moral end is, as we have seen, always a concep- 
 tion, an idea. The very act of bringing conduct 
 out of the impulsive into the moral sphere, depends 
 upon the development of intelligence so as to trans- 
 form a feeling into the perception of a situation. 
 And, as we watch moral development from child- 
 hood to maturity, is it not evident that progress 
 consists in power to conceive of larger and better 
 defined ends? to analyze the situation which de- 
 mands active response, the function which needs 
 exercise, into specific relations, instead of taking it 
 partially or even upon some one else's say so? 
 Conduct, so far as not based upon an intelligent 
 recognition and realization of the relationships in- 
 volved, is either sentimental, or merely habitual — 
 in the former case immoral, and in the latter fail- 
 ing of the complete morality possible. 
 
 If the necessary part played in conduct by artis- 
 tic cultivation is not so plain, it is largely because 
 *Art' has been made such an unreal Fetich — a 
 sort of superfine and extraneous polish to be acquired 
 only by specially cultivated people. In reality, liv- 
 
121 
 
 ing is itself the supreme art ; it requires fineness of 
 touch; skill and thoroughness of workmanship; 
 susceptible response and delicate adjustment to a 
 situation apart from reflective analysis ; instinctive 
 perception of the proper harmonies of act and act, 
 of man and man. Active art is the embodiment of 
 ideals; the clothing of ideas otherwise abstract 
 in their peculiar and fit garb of concrete outward 
 detail; passive art is the quick and accurate 
 response to such embodiments as are already 
 made. What were human conduct without the one 
 and the other ? 
 
 Granting the necessity of knowledge and of 
 its artistic application in conduct, the ques- 
 tion arises as to where the line is to be drawn. 
 Evidently, if anywhere, at specialisms, remote phil- 
 osophic or mathematical endeavors; life-times 
 spent in inventive attempts without appreciable 
 outcome. But to draw the line is not easy. The 
 remote of one generation is the social tool of the 
 next; the abstract mathematics and physics of the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the great 
 social forces of the nineteenth — the locomotive, the 
 telegraph, the telephone, etc. And how, in any 
 case, can we tell a scientific investigator that up to 
 a certain experiment or calculation his work may 
 be social, beyond that, not ? All that we can say is 
 that beyond a certain point its social character is not 
 
122 
 
 obvious to sense and that the work must be carried 
 on by faith. 
 
 Thus it is that we dispose of objections like 
 Bradley's (Ethical Studies, p. 202): "Nothing is 
 easier than to suppose a life of art or speculation 
 which, as far as we can see, though true to itself, 
 has, so far as others are concerned, been sheer 
 waste or even loss, and which knew that it was so." 
 That we can not see any social result in such cases 
 has nothing to do with the question whether or not 
 the interests themselves are social. We may imag- 
 ine a life of philanthropic activity, say of devotion 
 to emancipation of slaves in a country wholly given 
 over to slavery, or of a teacher in an unenlightened 
 country, which, as far as we can see, (though, in 
 this case, as in the one referred to by Mr. Bradley, 
 everything depends upon how far we can see ) has 
 been sheer waste, so far as influence on others is 
 concerned. The point is whether in such cases the 
 life lived is not one of devotion to the interests of 
 humanity as such. 
 
 We have been trying to show that everyone admits 
 that science and art, up to a certain point, are social, 
 and that to draw a line where they cease to be so, is in 
 reality to draw a line where we cease to see their social 
 character. That we should cease to see it, is necessary 
 in the case of almost every advance. Just because the 
 new scientific movement is new, we can realize its 
 social effects only afterwards. But it may be ques- 
 tioned whether the motive which actuates the man of 
 
123 
 
 science is not, when fully realized, 2^ faith in the social 
 bearing of what he is doing:. If we were to go into a 
 metaphysical analysis, the question would have to 
 be raised whether a barely intellectual fact or theory 
 be not a pure abstraction— an unreality if kept apart 
 entirely from the activities of men in relation to one 
 another. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Science Let us consider the problem on its 
 and other side. What kind of an interest is 
 Art our interest in persons, our distinct- 
 
 as ively social interest? Suppose we 
 
 Necessary attempt to separate our interests in 
 Factors truth, beauty, and use from our inter- 
 of est in persons: What remains in the 
 
 Social persons to he interested inf Is not a 
 Welfare, necessary part of out interest in per- 
 sons, an interest in them as beings fulfilling their 
 respective intellectual and artistic capacities; and 
 if we cut this out of our social interest, have we not 
 maimed and stunted our interest in persons ? We 
 wish the fullest life possible to ourselves and to 
 others. And the fullest life means largely a com- 
 plete and free development of capacities in knowl- 
 edge and production — production of beauty and use. 
 Our interest in others is not satisfied as long aa 
 their intelligence is cramped, their appreciation of 
 truth feeble, their emotions hard and uncompre- 
 hensive, their powers of production compressed. 
 To will their true good is to will the freeing of all 
 
124 
 
 such gifts to the highest degree. Shall we say- 
 that their true good requires that they shall go to 
 the point of understanding algebra, but not quater- 
 nions, of understanding ordinary mechanics, but 
 not to working out an electro -magnetic theory of 
 light? to ability to appreciate ordinary chords and 
 and tunes, but not to the attempt to make further 
 developments in music ? 
 
 And this throws light upon the case referred to 
 by Mr. Bradley. Social welfare demands that the 
 individual be permitted to devote himself to the 
 fulfilling of any scientific or artistic capacity that 
 he finds within himself — provided, of course, it does 
 not conflict with some more important capacity — 
 irrespective of results. To say to a man: You may 
 devote yourself to this gift, provided you demon- 
 strate beforehand its social bearing, would be to 
 talk nonsense. The new discovery is not yet made. 
 It is absolutely required by the interests of a pro- 
 gressive society that it allow freedom to the indi- 
 vidual to develop such functions as he finds in 
 himself, irrespective of any proved social effect. 
 Here, as elsewhere, morality works by faith, not by- 
 sight. 
 
 Indeed the ordinary conception of social inter- 
 ests, of benevolence, needs a large over-hauling. 
 It is practically equivalent to doing something 
 directly for others — to one form or another of 
 
/ 
 
 125 
 
 charity. But this is only negative morality. A 
 true social interest is that which wills for others 
 freedom from dependence on our direct help, which 
 wills to them the self- directed power of exercising, 
 in and by themselves, their own functions. Any 
 will short of this is not social but selfish, willing 
 the dependence of others that we may continue 
 benignly altruistic. The idea of " giving pleasure " 
 to others, " making others happy", if it means any- 
 thing else than securing conditions so that they 
 may act freely in their own satisfaction, means 
 slavery. 
 
 As society advances, social interest must consist 
 more and more in free devotion to intelligence for 
 its own sake, to science, art and industry, and in 
 rejoicing in the exercise of such freedom by others. 
 Meantime, it is truth which makes free. 
 
 See Spencer, Data of Ethics, pp. 249-257, where this 
 doctrine is stated with great force. 
 
 Where, finally, does the social character of sci- 
 ence and art come in ? Just here : they are elements 
 in the perfection of individuality, and they are ele- 
 ments whose very nature is to be moving, not rigid; 
 distributed from one to another and not monopo- 
 listic possessions. If there are forms of science 
 and art which, at present, are static, being merely 
 owned collections of facts, as one may have a col- 
 lection of butterflies in a frame, or of etchings in a 
 
126 
 
 closed portfolio, this is not because they are sci- 
 ence and art, but imperfect science and art. To 
 complete their scientific and artistic character is to 
 set these facts in motion; to hurl them against the 
 world of physical forces till new instruments of 
 man's activity are formed, and to set them in circu- 
 lation so that others may also participate in their 
 truth and rejoice in their beauty. So far as scien- 
 tific or artistic attainments are treasured as indi- 
 vidual possessions, so far it is true that they are 
 not social — but so far it is also true that they are 
 immoral : indeed that they are not fully scientific 
 or artistic, being subordinated to having certain 
 sensations. 
 
 The intellectual movement of the last four or 
 five centuries has resulted in an infinite specializa- 
 tion in methods, and in an immense accumulation 
 of fact. It is quite true, since the diversity of fact 
 and of method has not yet been brought to an 
 organic unity, that their social bearing is not yet 
 realized. But when the unity is attained (as at- 
 tained it must be if there is unity in the object of 
 knowledge), it will pass into a corresponding unity 
 of practice. And then the question as to the social 
 character of even the most specialized knowledge 
 will seem absurd. It will be to ask whether men 
 can cooperate better when they do not know than 
 when they do know what they want. Meantime 
 
J 
 
 127 
 
 the intellectual confusion, and the resulting di- 
 vorce of knowledge from practice, exists. But this 
 constitutes a part of the environment of which 
 action must take heed. It makes it one of the 
 pressing duties that every man of intelligence 
 should do his part in bringing out the public and 
 common aspects of knowledge. The duty of the 
 present is the socializing of intelligence — the real- 
 izing of its bearing upon social practice. 
 
 XL. 
 The Ethical We have attempted to show that 
 Postulate, the various interests are social in 
 their very nature. We have not attempted to show 
 that this can be seen or proved in any given case. 
 On the contrary, in most, if not all cases, the agent 
 acts from a faith that, in realizing his own capacity, 
 he will satisfy the needs of society. If he were 
 asked to 2^^'ove that his devotion to his function 
 were right because certain to promote social good, 
 he might well reply: " That is none of my affair. 
 I have only to work myself out as strength and 
 opportunity are given me, and let the results take 
 care of themselves. I did not make the world, and 
 if it turns out that devotion to the capacity which 
 was given me, and loyalty to the surroundings in 
 which I find myself do not result in good, I do not 
 hold myself responsible. But, after all, I cannot 
 believe that it will so turn out. What is really 
 
128 
 
 good for me '}nust turn out good for all, or else 
 there is no good in the world at all." The basis, 
 in a word, of moral conduct, with respect to the 
 exercise of function, is a faith that moral self-satis- 
 faction (that is, satisfaction in accordance with the 
 performance of function as already defined) means 
 social satisfaction — or the faith that self and others 
 make a true community. Now such faith or con- 
 viction is at the basis of all moral conduct — not 
 simply of the scientific or artistic. Interest in self 
 must mean belief in one's business, conviction of 
 its legitimacy and worth, even prior to any sensible 
 demonstration. Under any circumstances, such dem- 
 onstration can extend only to past action ; the social 
 efficiency of any new end must be a matter of 
 faith. "Where such faith is wanting, action becomes 
 halting and character weak. Forcible action fails, 
 and its place is taken by a feeble idealism, of 
 vague longing for that which is not, or by a pessi- 
 mistic and fruitless discontent with things as they 
 are — leading, in either case, to neglect of actual 
 and pressing duty. The basis of moral strength is 
 limitation, the resolve to be one's self only, and to 
 be loyal to the actual powers and surroundings of 
 that self. The saying of Carlyle's about doing 
 the " duty that lies nearest ", and of Goethe's that 
 " America is here or nowhere ", both imply that 
 faith in the existing moral capacity and environ- 
 
129 
 
 ment is the basis of conduct. All fruitful and 
 sound human endeavor roots in the conviction that 
 there is something absolutely worth while, some- 
 thing ' divine ' in the demands imposed by one's 
 actual situation and powers. In the great moral 
 heroes of the world the conviction of the worth of 
 their destiny, and of what they were meant to do, 
 has amounted to a kind of fatalism. They have 
 done not simply what they could do, but what they 
 must do. 
 
 On the other hand, effective social interest is 
 based upon what is vaguely called ' faith in hu- 
 manity ', or, more specifically, belief in the value of 
 each man's individuality, belief in some particular 
 function which he might exercise, given appropri- 
 ate conditions and stimuli. Moral interest in others 
 must be an interest in their possibilities, rather 
 than in their accomplishments; or, better, in 
 their accomplishments so far as these testify 
 to a fulfilling of function — to a working out of ca- 
 pacity. Sympathy and work for men which do not 
 grow out of faith in them are a perfunctory and 
 unfertile sort of thing. 
 
 This faith is generally analyzed no further; it 
 is left as faith in one's 'calling ' or in 'humanity'. 
 But what is meant is just this: in the performing 
 of such special service ds each is capable of, there 
 is to be found not only the satisfaction of self, but 
 
130 
 
 also the satisfaction of the entire moral order, the 
 furthering of the community in which one lives. 
 All moral conduct is based upon such a faith; and 
 moral theory must recognize this as the postulate 
 upon which it rests. In calling it a postulate, we 
 do not mean that it is a postulate which our theory 
 makes or must make in order to be a theory; but 
 that, through analysis, theory finds that moral 
 practice makes this postulate, and that with its 
 reality the reality and value of conduct are bound 
 up. 
 
 In calling it a postulate we do not mean to call 
 it unprovable, much less unverifiable, for moral 
 experience is itself, so far as it goes, its verification. 
 But we mean that the further consideration of this 
 postulate, its demonstration or (if the case so be) 
 its refutation, do not belong to the realm of ethics 
 as such. Each branch of human experience rests 
 upon some presupposition which, for that branch, 
 is ultimate. The further inquiry into such pre- 
 suppositions belong not to mathematics, or physics, 
 or ethics, but to metaphysics. 
 
 Unless, then, we are to extend our ethical theory 
 to inquire into the possibility and value of moral 
 experience, unless, that is, we are to make an ex- 
 cursion into the metaphysics of ethics, we have here 
 reached our foundation. The ethical postulate, the 
 presupposition involved in conduct, is this : 
 
131 
 
 In the realization of individuality there is 
 found also the needed realization of some com- 
 munity of persons of which the individual is a 
 
 member; and, conversely, the agent WHO DULY 
 SATISFIES THE COMMUNITY IN WHICH HE SHARES, BY 
 THAT SAME CONDUCT SATISFIES HIMSELF. 
 
 Otherwise put, the postulate is that there is a 
 
 community of persons; a good which realized by 
 
 the will of one is made not private but public. 
 
 It is this unity of individuals as respects the end 
 
 of action, this existence of a practical common 
 
 good, that makes what we call the moral order of 
 
 the world. 
 
 Shakespeare has stated the postulate- 
 To thine ownself be true; 
 And it must follow, as the night the day, 
 Thou can'st not then be false to any man. 
 
 Its significance may be further developed by 
 comparing it with the scientific postulate. 
 
 All science rests upon the conviction of the thor- 
 ough-going and permanent unity of the world of 
 objects known — a unity which is sometimes termed 
 the ' uniformity of nature ' or the ' reign of law ' ; 
 without this conviction that objects are not mere 
 isolated and transitory appearances, but are con- 
 nected together in a system by laws or relations, 
 science would be an impossibility. Moral experience 
 makes for the world of practice an assumption anal- 
 ogous in kind to that which intellectual experience 
 
132 
 
 makes for the world of knowledge. And just as it 
 is not the affair of science, as such, or even of logic 
 (the theory of science) to justify this presupposi- 
 tion of science, or to do more than show its presence 
 in intellectual experience, so it is not the business 
 of conduct, or even of ethics (the theory of con- 
 duct) to justify what we have termed the ' ethical 
 postulate '. In each case the further inquiry be- 
 longs to metaphysics. 
 
 XLI. 
 Does the End We have now concluded that 
 Proposed an end which may be termed in- 
 Serve as a differently ' The Realization of 
 Criterion of Individuality', 'The Performance 
 Conduct? of Specific Functions', 'The Sat- 
 isfaction of Interests', 'The Realization of a Com- 
 munity of Individuals ' is the moral end. Will 
 this end serve the two aims (see Sec. XVI) required 
 of a criterion, or standard: (1) Will it unify in- 
 dividual conduct ? ( 2 ' Will it afford a common 
 good? We have just been endeavoring to show 
 that it does both of these things; that as the reali- 
 zation of one's specific capacity, it unifies individual 
 conduct, and that, as the performance of function, it 
 serves to satisfy the entire community. To take 
 up just these points, accordingly, would involve a 
 repetition of what has been said, and we shall 
 therefore take up instead some aspects of the indi- 
 
133 
 
 vidual and social unity of conduct, not already con- 
 sidered. 
 
 1. The System of Individual Conduct. We 
 must be careful not to interpret the idea of 
 specific function too rigidly or abstractly. It does 
 not mean that each one has some supreme mission 
 in life to which everything else must be sacrificed 
 — that a man is to be an artist, or a soldier, or a 
 student, or a day-laborer and nothing else. On the 
 contrary, the idea of function is that which com- 
 prehends all the various sides of life, and it cannot 
 be narrowed below the meaning we have already 
 given: the due adjustment of capacity and sur- 
 roundings. Wherever there is any capacity or any 
 circumstance, no matter how trivial, there is some- 
 thing included in the exercise of function, and, 
 therefore to be satisfied — according to its place, of 
 course, in the whole of life. Amusements and all 
 the minor details of life are included within the 
 scope of morality. They are elements in the exer- 
 cise of function, and their insignificance and triv- 
 iality does not exclude them from the grasp of 
 duty and of the good. It is a mistake to suppose 
 that because it is optional or indifferent — as it con- 
 stantly is — what acts among the minor details of 
 life are to be done or left undone, or unimportant 
 whether they are done or left undone at all, there- 
 fore such acts have no moral value. Morality con- 
 
134 
 
 sists in treating tliem just as they are — if they are 
 
 slight or trivial they are to be performed as slight 
 
 and trivial. Morality does not simply permit the 
 
 performance of such acts, but demands it. To try 
 
 to make, in the interests of duty, a serious matter 
 
 out of every detail of life would be immoral — as 
 
 much so, in kind, as to make light of momentous 
 
 matters. 
 
 See Alexander, Op. cit. pp. 53-54. 
 Bradley, Op. cit., pp. 194-197. 
 
 Consider, also, how this conception of the end 
 stands in definite relation to concrete acts; how it 
 explains the possibility of decision as to whether 
 this or that proposed act is right. We do not have 
 to trace the connection of the act with some end 
 beyond, as pleasure, or abstract law. We have 
 only to analyze the act itself. We have certain 
 definite and wholly concrete facts ; the given capac- 
 ity of the person at the given moment, and his 
 given surroundings. The judgment as to the 
 nature of these facts is, in and of itself, a judgment 
 as to the act to be done. The question is not: 
 What is the probability that this act will result in 
 the balance of maximum pleasure; it is not what 
 general rule can we hunt up under which to bring 
 this case. It is simply: What is this casef The 
 moral act is not that which satisfies some far-away 
 principle, hedonistic or transcendental. It is that 
 
135 
 
 which meets the present, actual situation. Difficul- 
 ties indeed, arise, but they are simply the difficulty 
 of resolving a complex case; they are intellectual, 
 not moral. The case made out, the moral end 
 stands forth. No extraneous manipulation, to bring 
 the case under some foreign end, is required. 
 
 And this suggests the elasticity of the criterion. 
 In fact moral conduct is entirely individualized. 
 It is where, when, how and of whom. There has 
 been much useless discussion as to the absolute or 
 relative character of morals — useless because the 
 terms absolute and relative are not defined. If abso- 
 lute is taken to mean immobile and rigid, it is any- 
 thing but desirable that morals should be absolute. 
 If the physical world is a scene of movement, in 
 which there is no rest, it is a poor compliment to 
 pay the moral world to conceive of it as static and 
 lifeless. A rigid criterion in a world of develop- 
 ing social relations would speedily prove no crite- 
 rion at all. It would be an abstract rule, taking no 
 account of the individualized character of each act; 
 its individuality of capacity and of surroundings, 
 of time, place and relationships involved. A truly 
 absolute criterion is one which adjusts itself to each 
 case according to the specific nature of the case; 
 one which moves with the moving world. On the 
 other hand, if relative means uncertain in application, 
 changing in time and place without reason for change 
 
136 
 
 in the facts themselves, then certainly the criterion is 
 not relative. If it means taking note of all con- 
 crete relations involved, it is relative. The abso- 
 luteness, in fine, of the standard of action consists 
 not in some rigid statement, but in never- failing 
 application. Universality here, as elsewhere, re- 
 sides not in a thing, but in a way, a method of 
 action. The absolute standard is the one applica- 
 ble to all deeds, and the conception of the exercise 
 of function is thus absolute, covering all conduct 
 from the mainly impulsive action of the savage to 
 the most complex reaches of modern life. 
 
 Aristotle's well known theory of the 'mean' 
 seems to have its bearing here. "It is possible," he 
 says (Peters' trans, of Ethics, p. 46), "to feel fear, 
 confidence, desire, anger, pity, and generally to be 
 affected pleasantly and painf ulh% either too much or 
 too little— in either case wrongfully; but to be 
 affected thus at the right times, and on the right occa- 
 sions, and toward the right persons, and with the 
 right object and in the right fashions, is the mean 
 course and the best course, and these are characteris- 
 tics of virtue." The right time, occasion, person, pur- 
 pose and fashion — what is it but the complete indi- 
 vidualization of conduct in order to meet the whole 
 demands of the whole situation, instead of some ab- 
 straction ? And what else do we mean by fit, due, 
 proper, right action, but that which just hits the 
 mark, without falling short or deflecting, and, to mix 
 the metaphor, without slopping over? 
 
 2. The system of social conduct, or common 
 good. Moral conduct springs from the faith that 
 
137 
 
 all right action is social and its purpose is to justify 
 this faith by working out the social values in- 
 volved. The term ' moral community ' can mean 
 only a unity of action, made what it is by the co- 
 operating activities of diverse individuals. There is 
 unity in the work of a factory, not in spite of, but 
 because of the division of labor. Each workman 
 forms the unity not by doing the same that every- 
 body else does, or by trying to do the whole, but by 
 doing his specific part. The unity is the one ac- 
 tivity which their varied activities make. And so 
 it is with the moral activity of society and the 
 activities of individuals. The more individualized 
 the functions, the more perfect the unity. (See 
 section LII. ) 
 
 The exercise of function by an agent serves, 
 then, both to define and to unite him. It makes him 
 a distinct social member at the same time that it 
 makes him a member. Possession of peculiar ca- 
 pacities, and special surroundings mark one per- 
 son off from another and make him an individual; 
 and the due adjustment of capacities to surround- 
 ings (in the exercise of function) effects, therefore, 
 the realization of individuality — the realization of 
 what we specifically are as distinct from others. 
 At the same time, this distinction is not isolation; 
 the exercise of function is the performing of a 
 special service without which the social whole is de- 
 
138 
 
 fective. Individuality means not separation, but 
 defined position in a whole; special aptitude in 
 constituting the whole. 
 
 We are now in a position to take up the consid- 
 eration of the two other fundamental ethical con- 
 ceptions — obligation and freedom. These ideas 
 answer respectively to the two sides of the exercise 
 of function. On the one hand, the performing of 
 a function realizes the social whole. Man is thus 
 * bound ' by the relations necessary to constitute 
 this whole. He is subject to the conditions which 
 the existence and growth of the social unity im- 
 pose. He is, in a word, under obligation; the per- 
 formance of his function is duty owed to the com- 
 munity of which he is a member. 
 
 But on the other hand, activity in the way of 
 function realizes the individual; it is what makes 
 him an individual, or distinct person. In the per- 
 formance of his own function the agent satisfies his 
 own interests and gains power. In it is found his 
 freedom. 
 
 Obligation thus corresponds to the social satis- 
 faction, freedom to the seZ/- satisfaction, involved in 
 the exercise of function ; and they can no more 
 be separated from each other than the correlative 
 satisfaction can be. One has to realize himself as 
 a member of a community. In this fact are found 
 both freedom and duty. 
 
139 
 Chapter II.— THE IDEA OF OBLIGATION, 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Theories Regarding The idea of obligation 
 Moral Authority, or duty has two sides. 
 There is the idea of law, of something which con- 
 trols conduct, and there is the consciousness of the 
 necessity of conforming to this law. There is, of 
 course, no separation between the two sides, but 
 the consideration of the latter side — the recogni- 
 tion of obligation — may be best dealt with in dis- 
 cussing conscience. Here we shall deal simply with 
 the fact that there is such a thing in conduct as 
 law controlling action, and constituting obligation. 
 Theories regarding obligation may, for our pur- 
 poses, be subdivided into those which make its 
 exercise restraint or coercion (and which therefore 
 hold that in perfect moral conduct, duty as such 
 disappears); and those which hold that obliga- 
 tion is a normal element in conduct as such, and 
 that it is not, essentially, but only under certain 
 circumstances, coercive. Of the former type, some 
 theories (mainly the hedonistic) regard the re- 
 straint as originally imposed from without upon 
 the desires of the individual, while others (as the 
 Kantian) regard it as imposed by man's reason 
 upon his desires and inclinations. 
 
140 
 
 XLIII. 
 Bain's It is obvious that the question 
 
 Theory of of obligation presents considerable 
 Obligation, difficulty to the hedonistic school. 
 If the end of conduct is pleasure, as the satisfac- 
 tion of desire, why should not each desire be satis- 
 fied, if possible, as it arises, and thus pleasure 
 secured? What meaning is there in the term 
 ' duty ' or ' obligation ' if the moral end or good 
 coincides wholly with the natural end of the incli- 
 nations themselves ? It is evident, at all events, that 
 the term can have significance only if there is 
 some cause preventing the desires as they arise 
 from natural satisfaction. The problem of obliga- 
 tion in hedonism thus becomes the problem of 
 discovering that outside force which restrains, or, at 
 least, constrains, the desire from immediate gratifi- 
 cation. According to Bain, this outside force is 
 social disapprobation manifested through the form 
 of punishment. 
 
 " I consider that the proper meaning-, or import of 
 the terms [duty, obligation] refers to that class of 
 action which is enforced by the sanction of punish- 
 ment The powers that impose the obligatory 
 
 sanction are Law and Societj^, or the community acting 
 through the Government by public judicial acts, and 
 apart from the Government by the unofficial expres- 
 sions of disapprobation and the exclusion from social 
 good offices". Emotions and Will, p. 286. See also pp. 
 321-323 and p. 527. 
 
141 
 
 Through this ' actual and ideal avoidance of cer- 
 tain acts and dread of punishment ' the individual 
 learns to forego the gratification of some of his nat- 
 ural impulses, and learns also to cultivate and even 
 to originate desires not at first spontaneous. " The 
 child is open from the first to the blame and praise 
 of others, and thus is led to do or avoid certain acts". 
 
 On the model, however, of the action of this 
 external authority there grows up, in time an 
 internal authority — " an ideal resemblance of public 
 authority " (p. 287), or " a fac simile of the system 
 of government around us" (p. 313). 
 
 "The sentimeDt, at first formed and cultivated by 
 the relations of actual command and obedience, may 
 come at last to stand upon an independent foundation. 
 
 When the youn;^ mind, accustomed at the 
 
 outset to implicitly obeying any set of rules is suffi- 
 ciently advanced to appreciate the motive— the utilities 
 or the sentiment that led to their imposition — the 
 
 character of the conscience is entirely changed 
 
 Regard is now had to the intent and meaning of the 
 law, and not to the mere fact of its being prescribed 
 by some power " (E. and W., p. 318). 
 
 But when the sense of obligation becomes entirely 
 detached from the social sanction, "even then the 
 notion, sentiment or form of duty is derived from 
 what society imposes, although the particular matter 
 is quite different. Social obligation develops in the 
 mind originally the feeling and habit of obligation, 
 and this remains although the particular articles are 
 changed" (page 319, note). Cf. also Bain, Moral Sci- 
 ence, pp. 20-21 and 41-43. 
 
142 
 
 XLIV. 
 Spencer's Spencer's theory is, in substance, 
 Theory of an enlarged and better analyzed 
 Obligation, restatement of Bain's theory. Bain 
 nowhere clearly states in what the essence of obli- 
 gation consists, when it becomes independent, when 
 the internal fac simile is formed. Why should I 
 not gratify my desires as I please in case social 
 pressure is absent or lets up? Spencer supplies 
 the missing eletnent. According to him, "the essen- 
 tial trait in the moral consciousness is the control 
 of some feeling or feelings by some other feeling 
 or feelings" (Data of Ethics, p. 113). The kind 
 of feeling which controls is that which is more com- 
 plex and which relates to more remote ends; or, 
 we are ' obliged ' to give up more immediate, special 
 and direct pleasures for the sake of securing more 
 general, remote and indirect ones. Obligation, in 
 its essence, is the surrender or subordination of 
 present to future satisfaction. This control, re- 
 straint, or suppression may be ' independent ' or, 
 self-imposed, but is not so at first, either in the 
 man or in the child. Prior to self-restraint are the 
 restraints imposed by the " visible ruler, the invisi- 
 ble ruler and society at large " — the policeman, the 
 priest and public opinion. The man is induced to 
 postpone immediate gratification through his fear of 
 others, especially of the chief, of the dead and of 
 
143 
 
 social displeasure — " legal penalty, supernatural 
 punishment and social reprobation". Thus there 
 grows up the sense of obligation. This refers at first 
 only to the above-mentioned extrinsic effects of 
 action. But finally the mind learns to consider the 
 intrinsic effect of the action itself — the evil inflicted 
 by the evil deed, and then the sense of duty, or 
 coercion, evolved through the aforesaid external 
 agencies, becomes transferred to this new mode of 
 controlling action. Desires are now controlled 
 through considerations of what their own effects 
 would be, were the desires acted upon. 
 
 It follows "that the sense of duty or moral obli- 
 gation is transitory, and will diminish as fast as 
 moralization increases " (page 127). Even when 
 compulsion is self-imposed, there is still compul- 
 sion, coercion, and this must be done away with. 
 It is done away with as far as an act which is at 
 first done only for the sake of its own remoter 
 consequences comes to be done for its own sake. 
 And this will ultimately occur, if the act is con- 
 tinued, since "persistence in performing a duty 
 ends in making it a pleasure ". 
 
 See Guyau, La Morale Anglaise Contemporaine, 
 besides the works of Bain and Spencer. In addition 
 to objections which will forthwith be made, we may 
 here note a false abstraction of Spencer's. He makes 
 the act and its consequences two things, while the act 
 and its consequences (provided they are known as 
 
144 
 
 such) are the same thing, no matter whether conse- 
 quences are near or remote. The only distinction is 
 that consequences once not known as such at all are 
 seen in time to be really consequences, and thus to be 
 part of the content of the act. The transfer from the 
 ''external consequences" imposed by the ruler, priest 
 and public-opinion to the intrinsic consequences of the 
 act itself, is thus a transfer from an immoral to a 
 moral basis. This is very different from a change 
 of the form of obligation itself. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Criticism Putting aside the consideration of 
 of these the relation of desire to duty, (the 
 Theories, question whether duty is essentially 
 coercive) until after we have taken up the Kantian 
 idea of obligation, we may note the following 
 objections to the theories just stated. Their great 
 defect is that they do not give us any method 
 of differentiating moral coercion (or obligation) 
 from the action of mere superior physical force. 
 Taking it (first) upon the side of the individual: Is 
 there any reason ivhy the individual submits to the 
 external authority of government except that he has 
 to do so ? He may argue that, since others possess 
 superior force, he will avoid certain pains by con- 
 forming to their demands, but such yielding, 
 whether temporary or permanent, to superior force 
 is very far from being a recognition that one ought 
 to act as the superior force dictates. The theories 
 must logically commit us to the doctrine that ' might 
 
145 
 
 makes right' in its baldest form. Every one knows 
 that, when the individual surrenders the natural 
 gratifications of his desires to the command of 
 others, if his sole reason is the superior force of the 
 commanding party, he does not forego in the sur- 
 render his right to such gratification the moment 
 he has the chance to get it. Actual slavery would 
 be the model school of duties, if these theories were 
 true. 
 
 The facts adduced by Bain and Spencer — the 
 growth of the recognition of duties in the child 
 through the authority of the parents, and in the 
 savage through the use of authority by the chief — 
 are real enough, but what they prove is that obliga- 
 tion may be brought home to one by force, not that 
 force creates obligation. The child and the man 
 yield to force in such a way that their sense of duty 
 is developed only in case they recognize, implicitly, 
 the force or the authority as already right. Let it 
 be recognized that rightful force (as distinct from 
 mere brute strength) resides in certain social 
 authorities, and these social authorities may do 
 much, beyond the shadow of doubt, to give effect to 
 the special deeds and relations which are to be con- 
 sidered obligatory. These theories, in fine, take 
 the fact of obligation for granted, and, at most, only 
 show the historical process by which its fuller 
 
 recognition is brought about. Force in the service 
 10 
 
146 
 
 of right is one thing ; force as constituting and 
 creating right is another. 
 
 And this is to say (secondly), considering the 
 matter from the side of society, that the theories of 
 Bain and Spencer do not explain why or how social 
 authority should exercise coercive force over the 
 individual. If it is implied that they do so in the 
 moral interests of the individual or of the com- 
 munity, this takes it for granted that there already is 
 in existence a moral ideal obligatory upon the 
 individual. If it is implied that they exercise 
 coercive force in the interests of their own private 
 pleasure, this might establish a despotism, or lead 
 to a political revolt, but it is difficult to see how it 
 could create the fact of duty. When we consider 
 any concrete case, we see that society, in its com- 
 pelling of the individual, is possessed of moral 
 ideals; and that it conceives itself not merely as 
 having the power to make the individual conform to 
 them, nor as having the right merely; but as under 
 the bounden duty of bringing home to the individual 
 his duties. The social authorities do not, perforce, 
 create morality, but they embody and make effective 
 the existing morality. It is only just because the 
 actions which they impose are thought of as good^ 
 good for others as for themselves, that this imposi- 
 tion is taken out of the realm of tyranny into that of 
 duty (see Sec. XXXVIII). 
 
147 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 The Kantian As we have seen, Kant takes the 
 Theory of conception of duty as the primary 
 Obligation, ethical notion, superior to that of 
 the good, and places it in the most abrupt opposi- 
 tion to desire. The relation of duty to desire is 
 not control of some feelings by others, but rather 
 suppression of all desire (not in itself, but as a 
 motive of action) in favor of the consciousness of 
 law universal. We have, on one side, according to 
 Kant, the desire and inclination, which are sensuous 
 and pathological. These constitute man's 'lower 
 nature'. On the other side there is Beason, which 
 is essentially universal, above all caprice and all 
 prostitution to private pleasure. This Reason, or 
 'higher nature', imposes a law upon the sentient 
 being of man, a law which takes the form of a 
 command (the ' Categorical Imperative '). This 
 relation of a higher rational nature issuing com- 
 mands to a lower sensuous nature (both within man 
 himself), is the very essence of duty. If man 
 were wholly a sentient being, he would have only 
 to follow his natural impulses, like the animals. 
 If he were only a rational being, he would necessa- 
 rily obey his reason, and there would still be no 
 talk of obligation. But because of the dualism, 
 because of the absolute opposition between Reason 
 and Desire, man is a being subject to obligation. 
 
148 
 
 Reason says to the desires "Thou shalt" or "Thou 
 shalt not". Yet this obligation is not externally 
 imposed; the man as rational imposes it upon him- 
 self as sensuous. Thus Kant says that, in the 
 realm of morality, man is both sovereign and sub- 
 ject. 
 
 The reflex influence of Rousseau's social theories 
 upon Kant's moral doctrines in this respect is worthy 
 of more attention than it usually receives. Kant's 
 moral theory is hardly more than a translation of 
 Rousseau's politics into ethical terms, through its 
 union with Kant's previously established dualism of 
 reason and sense. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 Criticism of the 1. No one can deny that a 
 Kantian genuine opposition exists be- 
 
 Theory. tween the 'natural' desires and 
 
 moral activity. The being that ^satisfies each desire 
 or appetite as it arises, without ^-^ference of it to, 
 or control of it by, some principlei''^has not had the 
 horizon of cgoiduct lift before him. But Kant 
 makes the satisfaction of desire as such (not of 
 this or that desire) antagonistic to action from 
 duty. Kant was forced into this position by his 
 fundamental division of sense from reason, but it 
 carries with it its own condemnation and thus that 
 of the premises from which it is derived. It comes 
 to saying that the actual desires and appetites 
 are not what they ought to be. This, in itself, 
 
149 
 
 is true enough. But when Kant goes on to 
 say, as he virtually does, that what ought to be can- 
 not be, that the desires as such cannot be brought 
 into harmony with principle, he has made the 
 moral life not only a riddle, but a riddle with no 
 answer. If mankind were once convinced that the 
 moral ideal were something which ought to be but 
 which could not be, we may easily imagine how 
 much longer moral endeavor would continue. The 
 first or immediate stimulus to moral effort is the 
 conviction that the desires and appetites are not 
 what they should be; the underlying and continu- 
 ing stimulus is the conviction that the expression of 
 desires in harmony with law is the sole abiding good 
 of man. To reconcile the two is the very meaning of 
 the moral struggle (see Sec. LXIV). Strictly, ac- 
 cording to Kant, morality would either leave the 
 appetites untouched or would abolish them — in 
 either case destroying morality. 
 
 See Caird, Op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 226-28. 
 
 2. Kant again seems to be on the right track 
 in declaring that obligation is not anything exter- 
 nally imposed, but is the law of man's being, self- 
 imposed. This principle of ' autonomy ' is the 
 only escape from a theory of obligation which 
 would make obligation external, and regard for it 
 slavish fear, or servile hope of reward. To regard 
 even a Divine Being as the author of obligation is 
 
150 
 
 to make it a form of external constraint, appealing 
 only to hope or fear, unless this Divine Being is 
 shown to be organically connected with self. 
 
 But this abstract universal reason which some- 
 how dwells, without mediation or reason, in each 
 individual, seems to be somewhat scholastic, a trifle 
 mythological. There is undoubtedly in man's ex- 
 perience a function which corresponds to what 
 Kant is aiming, thus mythologically, to describe. 
 But it is one -thing to recognize an opposition of a 
 desire, in its isolation, to desire as organic to the 
 function of the whole man; it is another to split 
 man into a blank dualism of an abstract reason, 
 on one side, having no antecedents or bearings, and 
 of a mess of appetites, having only animal rela- 
 tionship, on the other. The truth that Kant is 
 aiming to preserve seems to be fairly stated as two- 
 fold: first, that duty is self-imposed, and thus 
 the dutiful will autononfous or free; and, sec- 
 ond, the presence of struggle in man between 
 a ' lower ' and a ' higher '. / The first point 
 seems to be sufficiently met by the idea already ad- 
 vanced that self, or individuality, is essentially 
 social, being constituted not by isolated capacity, 
 but by capacity acting in response to the needs of 
 an environment — an environment which, when 
 taken in its fullness, is a community of persons. 
 Any law imposed by such a self would be ' univer- 
 
151 
 
 sal ', but this universality would not be an isolated 
 possession of the individual; it would be another 
 name for the concrete social relationships which 
 make the individual what he is, as a social member 
 or organ. Furthermore, such a universal law would 
 not be formal, but would have a content — these 
 same relationships. 
 
 The second point seems to be met by recogniz- 
 ing that in the realization of the law of social 
 function, conflict must occur between the desire as 
 an immediate and direct expression of the individ- 
 ual — the desire in its isolation— and desire as an 
 expression of the whole man; desire, that is, as 
 wholly conformable to the needs of the surround- 
 ings. Such a conflict is real enough, as everyone's 
 experience will testif}^, but it is a conflict which 
 may be solved — which must be solved so far as 
 morality is attained. And since it is a conflict 
 within desire itself, its* solution or morality, does 
 not require any impossible obliteration of desire, 
 nor any acting from an ' ought ' which has no rela- 
 tion to what ' is '. This, indeed, is the failure of 
 the Kantian Ethics: in separating what should be 
 from what is, it deprives the latter, the existing 
 social world as well as the desires of the individual, 
 of all moral value; while, by the same separation, it 
 condemns that which should be to a barren ab- 
 straction. An ' ought ' which does not root in and 
 
152 
 
 flower from the ' is', which is not the fuller realiza- 
 tion of the actual state of social relationships, is a 
 mere pious wish that things should be better. And 
 morality, that is, right action, is not so feeble as 
 this would come to. 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 The Source The basis of a correct theory 
 
 and Nature of of obligation lies, as already 
 
 Obligation. stated, in holding fast to its 
 concrete relations to the moral end, or good. This 
 end consists in an activity in which capacity is ex- 
 ercised in accordance with surroundings, with the 
 social needs which afPect the individual. It is im- 
 plied in this very idea, that the end is not some- 
 thing which the individual may set up at his own 
 arbitrary will. The social needs give control, law, 
 authority. The individual may not manifest his 
 capacity, satisfy his desires, apart from their spe- 
 cific relation to the enviipnment in which they 
 exist. The general fact of obligation which is 
 constituted through this control of capacity by the 
 wider function is, of course, differentiated into 
 specific ' laws ' or duties by the various forms which 
 the one function takes, as capacity and circum- 
 stances vary. 
 
 In other words, obligation or duty is simply the 
 aspect which the good or the moral end assumes, as 
 the individual conceives of it. From the very fact 
 
^53 
 
 that the end is the good, and yet is not realized by 
 the individual, it presents itself to him as that 
 which should be realized — as the ideal of action. 
 It requires no further argument to show that obli- 
 gation is at once self-imposed, and social in its con- 
 tent. It is self-imposed because it flows from the 
 good, from the idea of the full activity of the indi- 
 vidaal's own will. It is no law imposed from with- 
 out; but is his own law, the law of his own function, 
 of his individuality. Its social content flows from 
 the fact that this individuality is not mere capacity, 
 but is this capacity acting, and acting so as to com- 
 prehend social relationships. 
 
 Suppose that man's good and his conviction of 
 duty were divorced from one another — that man's 
 duty were other than to fulfill his own specific 
 function. Such a thing would make duty purely 
 formal; the moral law would have no intrinsic rela- 
 tion to daily conduct, 4io the expression of man's 
 powers and wants. There have, indeed, been mor- 
 alists who think they do the Lord service, who 
 think they add to the dignity and sacredness of 
 Duty by making it other than the idea of the ac- 
 tivity of man, regulated indeed, but regulated only 
 by its own principle of activity. But such moral- 
 ists in their desire to consecrate the idea of duty 
 remove from it all content, and leave it an empty 
 abstraction. On the other hand, their eagerness to 
 
154 
 
 give absoluteness and imperativeness to duty by- 
 making it a law other than that of the normal ex- 
 pression of man, casts discredit upon the one moral 
 reality — the full, free play of human life. In deny- 
 ing that duty is simply the intrinsic law, the self- 
 manifestation of this life, they make this life 
 immoral, or at least non-moral. They degrade it 
 to a bundle of appetites and powers having no 
 moral value until the outside moral law is applied 
 to them. In reality, the dignity and imperativeness 
 of duty are simply the manifest dignity and uncon- 
 ditioned worth of human life as exhibited in its 
 free activity. The whole idea of the separateness 
 of duty from the concrete flow of human action is 
 a virulent example of the fallacy mentioned in an 
 early section — the fallacy that moral action means 
 something more than action itself (see Sec. II). 
 
 The attempt to act upon a theory of the divorce 
 of satisfaction and duty, to carry it out in practice, 
 means the maiming of desire through distrust of 
 its moral significance, and thus, by withdrawing 
 the impetus of action, the reduction of life to mere 
 passivity. So far as this does not happen, it means 
 the erection of the struggle itself, the erection of 
 the opposition of law to desire, into the very prin- 
 ciple of the moral life. The essential principle of 
 the moral life, that good consists in the freeing of 
 impulse, of appetite, of desire, of power, by enab- 
 
155 
 
 ling them to flow in the channel of a unified and 
 full end is lost sight of, and the free service of the 
 spirit is reduced to the slavish fear of a bond- man 
 under a hard taskmaster. 
 
 The essential point in the analysis of moral law, 
 or obligation, having been found, we may briefly 
 discuss some subsidiary points. 
 
 1. The relation of duty to a given desire. 
 As any desire arises, it will be, except so far as 
 character has already been moralized, a demand 
 for its own satisfaction; the desire, in a word, will 
 be isolated. In so far, duty will be in a negative 
 attitude towards the desire; it will insist first upon 
 its limitation, and then upon its transformation. 
 So far as it is merely limitative, it demands the 
 denying of the desire, and so far assumes a coercive 
 form. But this limitation is not for its own sake, 
 but for that of the transformation of desire into a 
 freer and more adequate form — into a form, that is, 
 where it will carry with it, when it passes into 
 action, more of activity, than the original desire 
 would have done. 
 
 Does duty itself disappear when its constraint 
 disappears? On the contrary, so far as an act is 
 done unwillingly, under constraint, so far the act is 
 impure, and undutiful. The very fact that there is 
 need of constraint shows that the self is divided; 
 that there is a two -fold interest and purpose — one 
 
156 
 
 in the law of the activity according to function, the 
 other in the special end of the particular desire. 
 Let the act be done wholly as duty, and it is done 
 wholly for its own sake; love, passion take the place 
 of constraint. This suggests: 
 
 2. Duty for duty's sake. 
 
 It is clear that such an expression states a real 
 moral fact; unless a duty is done as duty it is not 
 done morally. An act may be outwardly just what 
 what morality demands, and yet if done for the 
 sake of some private advantage it is not counted 
 moral. As Kant expresses it, an act must be done 
 not only in accordance with duty, but from duty. 
 This truth, however, is misinterpreted when it is 
 taken to mean that the act is to be done for the 
 sake of duty, and duty is conceived as a third 
 thing outside the act itself. Such a theory contra- 
 dicts the true sense of the phrase ' duty for duty's 
 sake ', for it makes the act done not for its own sake, 
 but as a mere means to an abstract law beyond it- 
 self. ' Do the right because it is the right ' means 
 do the right thing because it is the right thing; that 
 is, do the act disinterestedly from interest in the act 
 itself. A duty is always some act or line of action, 
 not a third thing outside the act to which it is to 
 conform. In short, duty means the act which is to 
 he done, and ' duty for duty's sake ' means do the 
 required act as it really is ; do not degrade it into 
 
157 
 
 a means for some ulterior end. This is as true in 
 practice as in theory. A man who does his duty 
 not for the sake of the acts themselves, but for the 
 sake of some abstract 'ideal' which he christens 
 duty in general, will have a morality at once hard 
 and barren, and weak and sentimental. 
 
 3. The agency of moral authority in prescrib- 
 ing moral law and stimulating to moral conduct. 
 
 The facts, relied upon by Bain and Spencer, as 
 to the part played by social influences in imposing 
 duties, are undeniable. The facts, however, are 
 unaccountable upon the theory of these writers, as 
 that theory would, as we have seen, explain only 
 the influence of society in producing acts done from 
 fear or for hope of reward. But if the individual 
 and others are equally members of one society, if 
 the performance by each man of his own function 
 constitutes a good common to all, it is inevitable 
 that social authorities should be an influence in 
 constituting and teaching duties. The community, 
 in imposing its own needs and demands upon the 
 individual, is simply arousing him to a knowledge 
 of his relationships in life, to a knowledge of the 
 moral environment in which he lives, and of the 
 acts which he must perform if he is to realize his 
 individuality. The community in awakening moral 
 consciousness in the morally immature may appeal 
 to motives of hope and fear. But even this fact 
 
158 
 
 does not mean that to the child, duty is necessarily- 
 constituted by fear of punishment or hope of re- 
 ward. It means simply that his capacity and his 
 surroundings are both so undeveloped that the 
 exercise of his function takes mainly the form of 
 pleasing others. He may still do his duty as his 
 duty, but his duty now consists in pleasing others. 
 
 On Obligation see Green, Op. cit., pp. 352-356; 
 Alexander, Op. cit., pp. 142-147. For different views, 
 Martineau, Op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 92-119; Calderwood, 
 Op. cit., pp. 131-138, and see also, Grote, Treatise on 
 Moral Ideals, ch. VII. 
 
 Chaptek III.— the idea OF FREEDOM. 
 
 XLIX. 
 The Forms We may now deal, more briefly, 
 of with the problem of moral capacity. 
 
 Freedom. It is, in principle, the ability to con- 
 ceive of an end and to be governed in action by this 
 conceived end. We may consider this capacity in 
 three aspects, as negative, as potential and as 
 positive. 
 
 1. Negative Aspect of Freedom. The power to 
 be governed in action by the thought of some end to 
 be reached is freedom from the appetites and de- 
 sires. An animal which does not have the power 
 of proposing ends to itself is impelled to action by 
 its wants and appetites just as they come into con- 
 
159 
 
 sciousness. It is irritated into acting. Each 
 impulse demands its own satisfaction, and the 
 animal is helpless to rise above the particular want. 
 But a person, one who can direct his action by- 
 conscious ends, is emancipated from subjection to 
 the particular appetites. He can consider their 
 relation to the end which he has set before himself, 
 and can reject, modify or use them as best agrees 
 with the pui'posed end. This capacity to control 
 and subjugate impulses by reflection upon their 
 relationship to a rational end is the power of self- 
 government, and the more distinct and the more 
 comprehensive in scope the end is, the more real 
 the self-government. 
 
 2. Potential Freedom. The power to con- 
 ceive of ends involves the possibility of thinking of 
 many and various ends, and even of ends which 
 are contrary to one another. If an agent could 
 conceive of but one end in some case, it would al- 
 ways seem to him afterwards that he had been 
 necessitated to act in the direction of that end; 
 but the power to put various ends before self con- 
 stitutes " freedom of choice ", or potential free- 
 dom. After action, the agent calls to mind that 
 there was another end open to him, and that if he 
 did not choose the other end, it was because of 
 something in his character which made him prefer 
 the one he actually chose. 
 
160 
 
 L. 
 
 Moral Here we have the basis of moral re- 
 
 Responsl- sponsibility or accountability. There 
 
 billty. is no responsibility for any result 
 which is not intended or foreseen. Such a con- 
 sequence is only physical, not moral. (Sec. VII). 
 But when any result has been foreseen, and adopted 
 as foreseen, such result is the outcome not of any 
 external circumstances, nor of mere desires and 
 impulses, but of the agent's conception of his own 
 end. Now, because the result thus flows from the 
 agent's own conception of an end, he feels himself 
 responsible for it. 
 
 It must be remembered that the end adopted is 
 that which is conceived as satisfying self — that, 
 indeed, when we say end of action, we mean only 
 some proposed form of self-satisfaction. The 
 adopted end always indicates, therefore, that sort 
 of condition which the agent considers to be good, 
 or self- satisfactory. It is because a result flows 
 from the agent's ideal of himself, the thought 
 of himself which he considers desirable or worth 
 realizing, that the agent feels himself responsible. 
 The result is simply an expression of himself ; a 
 manifestation of what he would have himself be. 
 Responsibility is thus one aspect of the identity of 
 character and conduct. (Sec. VII). We are re- 
 
161 
 
 sponsible for our conduct because that conduct is 
 ourselves objectified in actions. 
 
 The idea of responsibility is intensified when- 
 ever there have been two contrary lines of conduct 
 conceived, of which one has been chosen. If the 
 end adopted turns out not to be satisfactory, but, 
 rather, unworthy and degrading, the agent feels 
 that he might have chosen the other end, and that 
 if he did not, it was because his character was such, 
 his ideal of himself was such, that this other end 
 did not appeal to him. The actual result is felt to 
 be the outcome of an unworthy character mani- 
 fested in the adoption of a low form of satisfac- 
 tion; and the evident contrast of this low form 
 with a higher form, present to consciousness but 
 rejected, makes the sense of responsibility more 
 acute. As such, it is the judgment of disapproba- 
 tion passed upon conduct; the feeling of remorse 
 and of the desert of punishment. Freedom as the 
 power of conceiving ends and of realizing the ideal 
 end in action, is thus the basis both of responsi- 
 bility and of approbation (or disapprobation). 
 
 The Freedom of Indifference. It is this potential 
 freedom, arising from the power of proposing various 
 ends of action, which, misinterpreted, gives rise to the 
 theory of a liberty of indifferent choice— the theory 
 that the agrent can choose this or that without any 
 ground or motive. The real experience is the knowl- 
 edge, after the choice of one end, that since another 
 11 
 
162 
 
 end was also present to consciousness that other end 
 might have been chosen, if only the character had 
 been such as to find its satisfaction in that other end. 
 The theory of indifference misconstrues ihis fact to 
 mean that the agent might just as well have chosen 
 that other end, without any if or qualification what- 
 ever. The theory of indifference, moreover, defeats 
 its own end. The point which it is anxious to save is 
 responsibility. It sees that if only one course of 
 action were ever open to an agent, without the possi- 
 bility of any conception of another course, an agent, 
 so acting, could not be held responsible for not having 
 adopted that other course. And so it argues that 
 there must always be the possibility of indifferent or 
 alternate choice; the possibility of adopting this or 
 that line of action without any motive. But if such 
 were the case responsibility would be destroyed. If 
 the end chosen is not an expression of character, if it 
 does not manifest the agent's ideal of himself, if its 
 choice is a matter of indifference, it does not signify 
 morally, but is mere accident or caprice. It is because 
 choice is not a matter of indifference, but an outcome 
 of character that the agent feels responsibility, and 
 approves or disapproves. He virtually says : " 1 am 
 responsible for this outcome, not because I could have 
 chosen another end just as well without any reason, 
 but because I thought of another end and rejected it; 
 because my character was such that that end did not 
 seem good, and was such that this end did seem good. 
 My character is myself, and in this unworthy end I 
 ^tand self-condemned." 
 
 LI. 
 M o r a I Freedom considered as poten- 
 
 'Reformation. tial, depending upon the power 
 of the agent to frame diverse ends, is the basis not 
 
163 
 
 only of responsibility, but also of the possibility of 
 reformation, or of change in character and con- 
 duct. All moral action is the expression of self, 
 but the self is not something fixed or rigid. 
 It includes as a necessary part of itself the pos- 
 sibility of framing conceptions of what it would 
 be, and there is, therefore, at any time the pos- 
 sibility of acting upon some ideal hitherto un- 
 realized. If conduct were the expression of char- 
 acter, in a sense which identified character wholly 
 with past attainments, then reformation would be 
 impossible. What a man once was he must always 
 continue to be. But past attainments do not ex- 
 haust all the possibilities of character. Since con- 
 duct necessarily implies a continuous adjustment of 
 developing capacity to new conditions, there is the 
 ability to frame a changed ideal of self-satisfaction 
 — that is, ability to lead a new life. That the new 
 ideal is adopted from experience of the unworthy 
 nature of former deeds is what we should expect. 
 The chosen end having proved itself unsatisfactory, 
 the alternative end, previously rejected, recurs to 
 consciousness with added claims. To sum up: 
 The doctrine that choice depends upon character is 
 correct, but the doctrine is misused when taken to 
 mean that a man's outward conduct will always be 
 in the same direction that it has been. Character 
 involves all the ideas of difPerent and of better 
 
164 
 
 things which have been present to the agent, al- 
 though he has never attempted to carry them out. 
 And there is always the possibility that, if the 
 proper influences are brought to bear, some one of 
 these latent ideals may be made vital, and wholly 
 change the bent of character and of conduct. 
 LII. 
 Positive The capacity of freedom lies in 
 
 Freedom, the power to form an ideal or con- 
 ception of an end. Actual freedom lies in the 
 realization of that end which actually satisfies. An 
 end may be freely adopted, and yet its actual work- 
 ing-out may result not in freedom, but in slavery. 
 It may result in rendering the agent more subject 
 to his passions, less able to direct his own conduct, 
 and more cramped and feeble in powers. Only 
 that end which executed really effects greater energy 
 and comprehensiveness of character makes for 
 actual freedom. In a word, only the good man, 
 the man who is truly realizing his individuality, is 
 free, in the positive sense of that word. 
 
 Every action which is not in the line of per- 
 formance of functions must necessarily result in 
 self - enslavement. The end of desire is activity; 
 and it is only in fullness and unity of activity that 
 freedom is found. When desires are not unified — 
 when, that is, the idea of the exercise of function 
 does not control conduct — one desire must conflict 
 
165 
 
 with another. Action is directed now this way, now 
 that, and there is friction, loss of power. On ac- 
 count of this same lack of control of desires by the 
 comprehensive law of social activity, one member 
 of society is brought into conflict with another, with 
 waste of energy, and with i mpeded and divided ac- 
 tivity and satisfaction of desire. Exercise of func- 
 tion, on the other hand, unifies the desires, giving 
 each its relative, although subordinate, place. It fits 
 each into the others, and, through the harmonious 
 adjustment of one to another, effects that complete 
 and unhindered action which is freedom. The 
 performance of specific function falls also into 
 free relations with the activities of other persons, 
 cooperating with them, giving and receiving what 
 is needed, and thus constituting full liberty. 
 Other aspects of freedom, as the negative and the 
 potential, are simply means instrumental to the re- 
 alization of individuality, and when not employed 
 toward this, their true end, they become methods 
 of enslaving the agent. 
 
 On the subject of moral freedom, as, upon the 
 whole, in agreement with the view presented here: See 
 
 Green: Prolegomena to Ethics, pp. 90-117; 142-158. 
 Bradley: Ethical Studies, ch. I; Caird: Phil, of Kant, 
 Vol. II, Bk. II, ch. 3; Alexander: Moral Order and 
 Progress, pp. 336-341. 
 
 And, for a view agreeing in part, Stephen: Science 
 of Ethics, pp. 278-293. 
 
 For presentations of the freedom of indifference, 
 
166 
 
 see, Lotze: Practical Philosophy, ch. 3. Martineau: 
 Op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 34-40. Calderwood: Handbook 
 of Moral Philosophy. 
 
PART II. 
 
 THE ETHICAL WORLD. 
 
 LIH. 
 The Reality The habit of conceiving moral 
 of Moral action as a certain kind of action, 
 Relations, instead of all action so far as it really 
 is action, leads us to conceive of morality as a 
 highly desirable something which somehow ought 
 to be brought into our lives, but which upon the 
 whole is not. It gives rise to the habit of con- 
 ceiving morality as a vague ideal which it is praise- 
 worthy for the individual to strive for, but which 
 depends wholly for its existence upon the indi- 
 vidual's wish in the matter. Morality, that is, is 
 considered as a relation existing between something 
 which merely ought to be, on one hand, and the 
 individual's choice, or his conscience on the other. 
 This point of view has found typical expression in 
 Bishop Butler's saying: " If conscience had might 
 as it has right, it would rule the world." 
 
 But right is not such a helpless creature. It 
 exists not in word but in power. The moral world 
 is, here and now; it is a reality apart from the 
 
168 
 
 wishes, or failures to wish, of any given individual. 
 It bears the same relation to the individual's activity 
 that the 'physical world' does to his knowledge. 
 Not till the individual has to spin the physical 
 world out of his consciousness in order to know it, 
 will it be necessary for him to create morality by 
 his choice, before it can exist. As knowledge is mas- 
 tery in one's self of the real world, the reproduction 
 of it in self-consciousness, so moral action is the 
 appropriation and vital self-expression of the values 
 contained in the existing practical world. 
 
 The existence of this moral world is not any- 
 thing vaguely mysterious. Imagine a well organ- 
 ized factory, in which there is some comprehensive 
 industry carried on — say the production of cotton 
 cloth. This is the end; it is a common end — that 
 for which each individual labors. Not all indi- 
 viduals, however, are doing the same thing. The 
 more perfect the activity, the better organized the 
 work, the more differentiated their respective labors. 
 This is the side of individual activity or freedom. 
 To make the analogy with moral activity complete 
 we have to suppose that each individual is doing the 
 work because of itself, and not merely as di'udgery 
 for the sake of some further end, as pay. Now 
 these various individuals are bounds together by 
 their various acts; some more nearly because doing 
 closely allied things, all somewhat, because contrib- 
 
169 
 
 uting to a common activity. This is the side of 
 laws and duties. 
 
 This group of the differentiated and yet related 
 activities is the analogue of the moral world. 
 There are certain wants which have constantly to be 
 fulfilled; certain ends which demand cooper^ating 
 activities, and which establish fixed relations be- 
 tween men. There is a world of ends, a realm of 
 definite activities in existence, as concrete as the 
 ends and activities in our imagined factory. The 
 child finds, then, ends and actions in existence when 
 he is born. More than this: he is not born as a 
 mere spectator of the world; he is born into it. 
 He finds himself encompassed by such relations, 
 and he finds his own being and activity intermeshed 
 with them. If he takes away from himself, as an 
 agent, what he has, as sharing in these ends and 
 actions, nothing remains. 
 
 LIV. 
 Moral This world of purposes and ac- 
 
 Institutions. tivities is differentiated into various 
 institutions. The child is born as a member of a 
 family ; as he grows up he finds that others have 
 possessions which he must respect, that is, he runs 
 upon the institution of property. As he grows still 
 older, he finds persons outside of the family of 
 whose actions he must take account as respects his 
 own: society^ in the limited sense as meaning rela- 
 
170 
 
 tions of special intimacy or acquaintanceship. Then 
 he finds the political institutions; the city, state 
 and nation. He^finds an educational institution, the 
 school, the college ; religious institutions, the church, 
 etc., etc. Everywhere he finds men having com- 
 mon wants and thus proposing common ends and 
 using cooperative modes of action. To these organ- 
 ized modes of action, with their reference to com- 
 mon interests and purposes, he must adjust his 
 activities; he must take his part therein, if he acts 
 at all, though it be only negatively or hostilely, as 
 in evil conduct. These institutions are morality 
 real and objective; the individual becomes moral as 
 he shares in this moral world, and takes his due 
 place in it. 
 
 Institutions, then, are organized modes of action, 
 on the basis of the wants and interests which unite 
 men. They differ as the family from the town, 
 the church fi'om the state, according to the scope 
 and character of the wants from which they 
 spring. They are not bare facts like objects of 
 knowledge; they are practical, existing for the sake 
 of, and by means of the will — as execution of ideas 
 which have interest. Because they are expressions 
 of common purposes and ideas, they are not merely 
 private will and intelligence, but, in the literal sense, 
 public will and reason. 
 
 The moral endeavor of man thus takes the form 
 
/ 
 
 171 
 
 not of isolated fancies about right and wrong, not 
 of attempts to frame a morality for himself, not of 
 efforts to bring into being some praiseworthy ideal 
 never realized; but the form of sustaining and 
 furthering the moral world of which he is a mem- 
 ber. Since the world is one of action, and not of 
 contemplation like the world of knowledge, it can 
 be sustained and furthered only as he makes its 
 ends his own, and identifies himself and his satis- 
 faction with the activities in which other wills find 
 their fulfillment. 
 
 This is simply a more concrete rendering of what 
 has already been said about the moral environment 
 (see Sec. 33). 
 
 LV. 
 
 The Aspects An institution is, as we have 
 of a Moral seen the expression of unity of de- 
 Institution, sires and ideas; it is general intel- 
 ligence in action, or common will. As such com- 
 mon will, it is, as respects the merely private or 
 exclusive wants and aims of its members, abso- 
 lutely sovereign. It must aim to control them. 
 It must set before them the common end or ideal 
 and insist upon this as the only real end of indi- 
 vidual conduct. The ends so imposed by the pub- 
 lic reason are laws. But these laws are for the 
 sake of realizing the common end, of securing that 
 organized unity of action in which alone the indi- 
 
172 
 
 yidual can find freedom and fullness of action, or 
 his own satisfaction. Thus the activity of the 
 common will gives freedom, or riglds, to the vari- 
 ous members of the institution. 
 
 Every institution, then, has its sovereignty, or 
 authority, and its laws and rights. It is only a 
 false abstraction which makes us conceive of sov- 
 ereignty, or authority, and of law and of rights 
 as inhering only in some supreme organization, as 
 the national state. The family, the school, the 
 neighborhood group, has its authority as respects 
 its members, imposes its ideals of action, or laws, 
 and confers its respective satisfactions in way of 
 enlarged freedom, or rights. It is true that no 
 one of these institutions is isolated; that each 
 stands in relation with other like and unlike insti- 
 tutions. Each minor institution is a member of 
 some more comprehensive whole, to which it bears 
 the same relation that the individual bears to it. 
 That is to say, its sovereignty gives way to the 
 authority of the more comprehensive organization; 
 its laws, must be in harmony with the laws which 
 flow from the larger activity; its rights must be- 
 come aspects of a fuller satisfaction. Only human- 
 ity or the organized activity of all the wants, 
 powers and interests common to men, can have ab- 
 solute sovereignty, law and rights. 
 
 But the narrower group has its relations, none 
 
/ 
 
 173 
 
 the less, although, in ultimate analysis, they flow 
 from and manifest the wider good, which, as 
 wider, must be controlling. Without such minor 
 local authorities, rights and laws, humanity would 
 be a meaningless abstraction, and its activity 
 wholly empty. There is an authority in the family, 
 and the moral growth of the child consists in iden- 
 tifying the law of his own conduct with the ends 
 aimed at by the institution, and in growing into 
 maturity and freedom of manhood through the 
 rights which are bestowed upon him as such a 
 member. Within its own range this institution is 
 ultimate. But its range is not ultimate; the fam- 
 ily, valuable and sacred as it is, does not exist for 
 itself. It is not a larger selfishness. It exists as 
 one mode of realizing that comprehensive common 
 good to which all institutions must contribute, if 
 they are not to decay. It is the same with prop- 
 erty, the school, the local church, and with the 
 national state. 
 
 We can now translate into more concrete terms 
 what was said, in Part I, regarding the. good, 
 obligation and freedom. That performance of 
 function which is ' the good ', is now seen to con- 
 sist in vital union with, and reproduction of, the 
 practical institutions of which one is a member. 
 The maintenance of such institutions by the free 
 participation therein of individual wills, is, of 
 
174 
 
 itself, the common good. Freedom also gets con- 
 creteness; it is the assured rights, or powers of 
 action which one gets as such a member: — powers 
 which are not mere claims, nor simply claims 
 recognized as valid by others, but claims re-inforced 
 by the will of the whole community. Freedom be- 
 comes real in the ethical world; it becomes force 
 and efficiency of action, because it does not mean 
 some private possession of the individual, but means 
 the whole cooperating and organized action of an 
 institution in securing to an individual some power 
 of self expression. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 Moral Law Without the idea of the eth- 
 
 and the ical world, as the unified 
 
 Ethical World, activity of diverse functions 
 exercised by different individuals, the idea of the 
 good, and of freedom, would be undefined. But 
 probably no one has ever attempted to conceive of 
 the good aod of freedom in total abstraction from 
 the normal activity of man. Such has not been 
 the lot of duty, or of the element of law. Often by 
 implication, sometimes in so many words, it is 
 stated that while a physical law may be accounted 
 for, since it is simply an abstract from observed 
 facts, a moral law stands wholly above and apart 
 from actual facts ; it expresses solely what ' ought 
 to be' and not what is; that, indeed, whether any- 
 
175 
 
 thing in accordance with it ever has existed or not, 
 is a matter of no essential moral importance the- 
 oretically, however it may be practically. Now it 
 is evident that a law of something which has not 
 existed, does not and perhaps never will exist, is es- 
 sentially inexplicable and mysterious. It is as 
 against such a notion of moral law that the idea of 
 a real ethical world has perhaps its greatest service. 
 
 A moral law, e. g., the law of justice, is no more 
 merely a law of what ought to be than is the law of 
 gravitation. As the latter states a certain relation 
 of moving masses to one another, so the law of 
 justice states a certain relation of active wills to 
 one another. For a given individual, at a given 
 time and circumstances, the law of justice may ap- 
 pear as the law of something which ought to be, 
 but is not: — is not for him in this respect, that is to 
 say. But the very fact that it ought to be for him 
 implies that it already is for others. It is a law of 
 the society of which he is a member. And it is be- 
 cause he is a member of a society having this law, 
 that is a law of what should be for him. 
 
 Would then justice cease to be a law for him if 
 it were not observed at all in the society of which 
 he is a member? Such a question is as contradic- 
 tory as asking what would happen to a planet if 
 the solar system went out of existence. It is the 
 law of justice (with other such laws) that makes 
 
176 
 
 society; that is, it is those active relations which find 
 expression in these laws that unify individuals so 
 that they have a common end, and thus mutual 
 duties. To imagine the abolition of these laws is 
 to imagine the abolition of society; and to ask for 
 the law of individual conduct apart from all relation- 
 ship, actual or ideal, to society, is to ask in what 
 morality consists when moral conditions are de- 
 stroyed. A society in which the social bond we 
 call justice does not obtain to some degree in the re- 
 lations of man to man, is not society; and, on the 
 other hand, wherever some law of justice actually 
 obtains, there the law is for every individual who 
 is a member of the society. 
 
 This does not mean that the ' is ', the actual 
 status of the moral world, is identical with the 
 ' ought ', or the ideal relations of man to man. 
 But it does mean that there is no obligation, either 
 in general or as any specific duty, which does not 
 groiv out of the ' is ', the actual relations now ob- 
 taining. * The ethical world at any given time is 
 undoubtedly imperfect, and, therefore, it demands 
 a certain act to meet the situation. The very im- 
 perfection, the very badness in the present condi- 
 tion of things, is a part of the environment with 
 reference to which we must act ; it is, thus, an ele- 
 
 *See Sees. 59, 60 and 63 for discussion of other aspects of 
 this question. 
 
177 
 
 ment in the laiv of future action that it shall not 
 exactly repeat the existing condition. In other 
 words, the 'is' gives the law of the ' ought', but it 
 is a part of this law that the ' ought ' shall not be 
 as the ' is '. It is because the relation of justice 
 does hold in members of a stratum of society, hav- 
 ing a certain position, power or wealth, but does 
 not hold between this section and another class, 
 that the law of what should be is equal justice for 
 all. In holding that actual social relations afford 
 the law of what should be, we must not forget that 
 these actual relations have a negative as well as a 
 positive side, and that the new law must be framed 
 in view of the negatives, the" deficiencies, the 
 wrongs, the contradictions, as well as of the posi- 
 tive attainments. A moral law, to sum up, is the 
 principle of action, which, acted upon, will meet 
 the needs of the existing situation as respects the 
 wants, powers, and circumstances of the individuals 
 concerned. It is no far-away abstraction, but ex- 
 presses the movement of the ethical world. 
 
 One example will help define the discussion. 
 Take the case of a street railway conductor,, 
 whose union has ordered a strike. What deter- 
 mines the law of his conduct under the circum- 
 stances? Evidently the existing ethical institu- 
 tions of which he is a member, so far as he is 
 
 conscious of their needs. To determine what he 
 12 
 
178 
 
 should do, he does not hunt up some law of an 
 ' ought ' apart from what is ; if he should hunt for 
 and should find such a law he would not know 
 what to do with it. Just because it is apart from 
 his concrete circumstances it is no guide, no law 
 for his conduct at all. He has to act not in view 
 of some abstract principle, but in view of a con- 
 crete situation. He considers his present wage, 
 its relation to its needs and abilities; his capacity 
 and taste for this and for that work; the reasons 
 for the strike; the conditions of labor at present 
 with reference to winning the strike, and as to the 
 chance of getting other work. He considers his 
 family, their needs and developing powers; the 
 demand that they should live decently; that his 
 children should be fairly educated and get a fair 
 start in the world; he considers his relationships 
 to his fellow members in the union, etc. These 
 considerations, and such as these, give the law to 
 his decision in so far as he acts morally and not in- 
 stinctively. Where in this law- giving is there any 
 separation from facts ? On the contrary, the more 
 right the act (the nearer it comes to its proper law), 
 the more it will simply express and reflect the 
 actual concrete facts. The law, in other words, of 
 action, is the law of actual social forces in their on- 
 ward movement, in so far as these demand some 
 response in the way of conduct from the individual. 
 
179 
 
 We may restate from this point of view, what 
 we have already learned: A moral law is thor- 
 oughly individualized. It cannot be duplicated; it 
 cannot be for one act just what it is for another. 
 The ethical world is too rich in capacity and cir- 
 cumstance to permit of monotony; it is too swift 
 in its movement to allow of bare repetition. It 
 will not hold still; it moves on, and moral law is 
 the law of action required from individuals by this 
 movement. 
 
 The consideration of specific institutions, as the 
 family, industrial society, civil society, the nation, 
 etc., with their respective rights and laws, belongs 
 rather to political philosophy than to the general the- 
 ory of ethics. 
 
PART III. 
 
 THE MORAL LIFE OF THE INDIVIDUAL. 
 
 LVII. 
 Division We have now analyzed the funda- 
 of mental moral notions — the good, duty- 
 
 Subject, and freedom; we have considered their 
 objective realization, and seen that they are out- 
 wardly expressed in social relations, the more typi- 
 cal and abiding of which we call institutions; that 
 abstract duties are realized in the laws created and 
 imposed by such institutions, and that abstract 
 freedom is realized in the rights possessed by 
 members in them. We have now to consider the 
 concrete moral life of an individual born into this 
 existing ethical world and finding himself con- 
 fronted with institutions in which he must execute 
 his part, and in which he obtains his satisfaction 
 and free activity. We have to consider how these 
 institutions appeal to the individual, awakening in 
 him a distinct moral consciousness, or the con- 
 sciousness of active relations to persons, in antith- 
 esis to the theoretical consciousness of relations 
 which exist in contemplation; how the individual 
 
182 
 
 behaves towards these institutions, realizing them 
 by assuming his proper position in them, or at- 
 tempting to thwart them by living in isolation 
 from them; and how a moral character is thus 
 called into being. More shortly, we have to deal 
 (I) with the practical conscj^yusTiess, or the forma- 
 tion and growth of ideals of conduct; (II) with 
 the moral struggle, or the process of realizing 
 ideals^and (III) with moral character, or the 
 virtues. 
 
 Chapter I.— THE FOKMATION AND GROWTH 
 OF IDEALS. 
 
 LVIII. 
 Analysis The practical consciousness, or 
 
 of the recognition of ends and rela- 
 
 Con science, tions of action, is what is usually 
 termed conscience. The analysis of conscience 
 shows that it involves three elements, which may be 
 distinguished in theory, although they have no 
 separate existence in the actual fact of conscience 
 itself. These three elements are (1) the knowledge 
 of certain specific forms of conduct, (2) the 
 recognition of the authority or obligatoriness of 
 the forms, and (3) the emotional factors which 
 cluster about this recognition. That is to say, we 
 often speak ( 1 ) of conscience telling or informing 
 
183 
 
 us of duties; we speak of an enlightened or un- 
 enlightened conscience ; of savage, or mediaeval, or 
 modern conscience. Here we are evidently think- 
 ing of the kind and range of particular acts con- 
 sidered right or wrong. But we also speak (2) of 
 the authority and majesty of conscience; of the 
 commands of conscience, etc. Here we are think- 
 ing of the consciousness of obligation in general. 
 The savage and the civilized man may vary 
 greatly in their estimate of what particular acts 
 are right or wrong, and yet agree in the recogni- 
 tion that such acts as are right are absolutely 
 obligatory. Finally we speak of an approving or 
 disapproving, or remorseful conscience, of a tender 
 or a hardened conscience, of the pangs, the pricks 
 of conscience, etc. Here (3) we are evidently deal- 
 ing with the responsiveness of the disposition to 
 moral distinctions, either in particular acts, or in 
 the recognition of moral law in general. 
 LVIX. 
 Conscience Conscience in this sense is 
 
 as the no peculiar, separate faculty 
 
 Recognition of mind. It is simply intelli- 
 of gence dealing with a certain 
 
 Special Acts subject-matter. That is, con- 
 as science is distinguished not 
 Right or Wrong, by the kind of mental activity 
 at work, but by the kind of material the mind 
 
184 
 
 wprks upon. Intelligence deals with the nature 
 and relations of things, and we call it understand- 
 ing; intelligence deals with the relations of persons 
 and deeds, and it is termed conscience. 
 
 We may, with advantage, recognize these stages 
 in the development of intelligence as dealing with 
 moral relationships : 
 
 1. The Customary or Conventional Con- 
 science. The existing moral world, with the types 
 and varieties of institutions peculiar to it, is con- 
 stantly impressing itself upon the immature mind; 
 it makes certain demands of moral agents and en- 
 forces them with all the means in its power — pun- 
 ishment, reward, blame, public -opinion, and the 
 bestowal of social leadership. These demands and 
 expectations naturally give rise to certain convic- 
 tions in the individual as to what he should or 
 should not do. Such convictions are not the out- 
 come of independent reflection, but of the mould- 
 ing influence of social institutions. Moreover the 
 morality of a time becomes consolidated into 
 proverbs, maxims and law- codes. It takes shape 
 in certain habitual ways of looking at and judging 
 matters. All these are instilled into the growing 
 mind through language, literature, association and 
 legal custom, until they leave in the mind a corre- 
 sponding habit and attitude toward things to be 
 done. This process may be compared to the proc- 
 
185 
 
 ess by which knowledge of the world of things 
 is first attained. Certain of the more permanent 
 features of this world, especially those whose ob-, 
 servance is important in relation to continued 
 physical existence and well-being, impress them- 
 selves upon the mind. Consciousness, with no 
 reflective activity of its own, comes to mirror 
 some of the main outlines of the world. The 
 more important distinctions are fixed in language, 
 and they find their way into the individual mind, 
 giving it unconsciously a certain bent and color- 
 ing. 
 
 2. The Loyal Conscience. But just as the 
 mind, which seems at first to have the facts and 
 features of the world poured into itself as a passive 
 vessel, comes in time through its own experience to 
 appreciate something of their meaning, and, to 
 some extent, to verify them for itself; so the mind 
 in its moral relations. Without forming any 
 critical theory of the institutions and codes which 
 are forming character, without even considering 
 whether they are what they should be, the indi- 
 vidual yet comes at least to a practical recognition 
 that it is in these institutions that he gets his satis- 
 factions, and through these codes that he is pro- 
 tected. He identifies himself, his own life, with 
 the social forms and ideals in which he lives, and 
 repels any attack upon them as he would an attack 
 
186 
 
 upon himself. The demands which the existing 
 institutions make upon him are not felt as the 
 coercions of a despot, but as expressions of his 
 own will, and requiring loyalty as such. The 
 conventional conscience, if it does not grow into 
 this, tends to become slavish, while an intel- 
 ligence which practically realizes, although with- 
 out continual reflection, the significance of con- 
 ventional morality is free in its convictions and 
 service. 
 
 3. The Independent or Reflective Conscience. 
 The intelligence may not simply appropriate, as 
 its own, conventions embodied in current institu- 
 tions and codes, but may reflect upon them. It 
 may ask: What is this institution of family, 
 property for? Does the institution in its pres- 
 ent form work as it should work, or is some modi- 
 fication required? Does this rule which is now 
 current embody the true needs of the situation, 
 or is it an antiquated expression of by-gone rela- 
 tions? What is the true spirit of existing insti- 
 tutions, and what sort of conduct does this spirit 
 demand ? 
 
 Here, in a word, we have the same relation to 
 the ethical world, that we have in physical science 
 to the external world. Intelligence is not content, 
 on its theoretical side, with having facts impressed 
 upon it by direct contact or through language; it 
 
187 
 
 is not content with coming to feel for itself the 
 value of the truths so impressed. It assumes an 
 independent attitude, putting itself over against 
 nature and cross- questioning her. It proposes its 
 own ideas, its own theories and hypotheses, and 
 manipulates facts to see if this rational meaning 
 can be verified. It criticises what passes as truth, 
 and pushes on to more adequate statement. 
 
 The correlative attempt, on the part of intelli- 
 gence on its practical side, may have a larger or a 
 smaller scope. In its wider course it aims to criti- 
 cise and to re-form prevailing social ideals and in- 
 stitutions — even those apparently most fixed. 
 This is the work of the great moral teachers of the 
 world. But in order that conscience be critical, 
 it is not necessary that its range be so wide. The 
 average member of a civilized community is nowa- 
 days called upon to reflect upon his immediate re- 
 lationships in life, to see if they are what they 
 should be; to regulate his own conduct by rules 
 which he follows not simply because they are cus- 
 tomary, but the result of his own examination of 
 the situation. There is no difference in kind be- 
 tween the grander and the minuter work. And it 
 is only the constant exercise of reflective examina- 
 tion on the smaller scale which makes possible, 
 and which gives efficiency to, the deeper criticism 
 and transformation. 
 
188 
 
 LX. 
 
 Reflective Conscience This conception of 
 and the conscience as critical 
 
 Ethical World. and reflective is one of 
 
 the chief fruits of the Socratic ethics, fructi- 
 fied by the new meaning given life through the 
 Christian spirit. It involves the 'right of free 
 conscience' — the right of the individual to know 
 the good, to know the end of action, for himself, 
 rather than to have some good, however impos- 
 ing and however beneficent, enjoined from with- 
 out. It is this principle of subjective freedom, 
 says Hegel, which marks the turning-point in the 
 distinction of modern from ancient times (Sec. 124, 
 Chnindlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, Vol. VIII 
 of Hegel's Works).* 
 
 But this notion of conscience is misinterpreted 
 when the content as well as the form of conscience 
 is thought to be individual. There is no right of 
 private judgment, in the sense that there is not a 
 public source and standard of judgment. What is 
 meant by this right is that the standard, the source, 
 is not the opinion of some other person, or group 
 of persons. It is a common, objective standard. It 
 is that embodied in social relationships themselves. 
 
 *I hardly need say how largely I am indebted in the 
 treatment of this topic, and indeed, in the whole matter of 
 the 'ethical world', to Hegel. 
 
189 
 
 The conception of conscience as a private pos- 
 session, to be exercised by each one in independ- 
 ence of historical forms and contemporary ideals, is 
 thoroughly misleading. The saying " I had to fol- 
 low my own notion of what is right " has been 
 made the excuse for all sorts of capricious, obsti- 
 nate and sentimental performance. It is of such 
 notions that Hegel further says: "The striving 
 for a morality of one's own is futile, and by its 
 very nature impossible of attainment; in respect 
 of morality the saying of the wisest men of an- 
 tiquity is the only true one: To be moral is 
 to live in accordance with the moral tradition 
 of one's country" (Hegel, Works, Vol. I, p. 389). 
 And in discussing the same question, Bradley has 
 said that the wish to have a morality of one's own 
 better than that of the world is to be on the 
 threshold of morality (p. 180). 
 
 Yet, on the other hand, conscience should not 
 simply repeat the burden of existing usages and 
 opinions. No one can claim that the existing 
 morality embodies the highest possible conception 
 of personal relations. A morality which does not 
 recognize both the possibility and the necessity 
 of advance is immorality. Where then is the way 
 out from a capricious self-conceit, on one hand, 
 and a dead conformity on the other? Reflective 
 conscience must be based on the moral conscious- 
 
190 
 
 ness expressed in existing institutions, manners and 
 beliefs. Otherwise it is empty and arbitrary. 
 But the existing moral status is never wholly self- 
 consistent. It realizes ideals in one relation which 
 it does not in another ; it gives rights to ' aristo- 
 crats ' which it denies to low-born; to men, which 
 it refuses to women; it exempts the rich from obli- 
 gations which it imposes upon the poor. Its insti- 
 tutions embody a common good which turns out 
 to be good only to a privileged few, and thus 
 existing in self-contradiction. They suggest ends 
 which they execute only feebly or intermittently. 
 Reflective intelligence cross-questions the existing 
 morality; and extracts from it the ideal which it 
 pretends to embody, and thus is able to criticise 
 the existing morality in the light of its own ideal. 
 It points out the inconsistencies, the incoherencies, 
 the compromises, the failures, between the actual 
 practice and the theory at the basis of this prac- 
 tice. And thus the new ideal proposed by the in- 
 dividual is not a product of his private opinions, 
 but is the outcome of the ideal embodied in exist- 
 ing customs, ideas and institutions. 
 
 LXI. 
 The Sense of There has been much discus- 
 Obligation, si on regarding the nature of the 
 act of mind by which obligation is recognized. A 
 not uncommon view has been that the sense of 
 
191 
 
 duty as such must be the work of a peculiar fac- 
 ulty of the mind. Admitting that the recognition 
 of this or that particular thing as right or wrong, is 
 the work of ordinary intelligence, it is held that 
 the additional recognition of the absolute obliga- 
 toriness of the right cannot be the work of this 
 intelligence. For our intellect is confined to judg- 
 ing what is or has been; the conception of obliga- 
 tion, of something which should be, wholly tran- 
 scends its scope. There is, therefQ£e»--SDiae special 
 moral in faculty called"^ which affixes to the ordin- 
 ary judgments the stamjp of the categorical impera- 
 tive "You ought". ^ '' ^ 
 
 See for example Maurice on "Conscience". The 
 view is traceable historically to Kant's conception of 
 Practical Reason, but as the view is ordinarily ad- 
 vanced the function of Practical Reason in Kant's 
 philosophy is overlooked. The Practical Reason is no 
 special faculty of man's being; it is his consciousness 
 of himself "as "an" acting being-; that is, as a being 
 capable of acting from ideas. Kant never separates 
 the consciousness of duty from the very nature of 
 will a^s the realization of conceptions. In the average 
 modern presentation, this intrinsic connection of duty 
 ^ith activity is absent^.. Conscience becomes a faculty 
 whose function it is to clap the idea of duty upon the 
 existent conception of an act; ancj this existent con- 
 ception is regarded as morally indifferent. 
 
 It is true that Kant's Practical Reason has a cer- 
 tain separateness or isolation. But this is because of 
 his general separation of the rational from the sen- 
 suous factor, and not because of any separation of the 
 
192 
 
 consciousness of action from the consciousness of 
 duty. If Kant erred in his divorce of desire and 
 duty, then even the relative apartness of the Practical 
 Reason must be given up. The consciousness of obli- 
 gation is involved in the recognition of any end of 
 conduct, and not simply in the end of abstract law. 
 
 Such a conception of conscience, however, is 
 open to serious objections. Aside from the fact 
 that large numbers of men declare that no amount 
 of introspection reveals any such machinery within 
 themselves, this separate faculty seems quite 
 superflous. The real distinction is not between the 
 consciousness of an action with, and without, the 
 recognition of duty, but between a consciousness 
 which is and one which is not capable of conduct. 
 Any being who is capable of putting before himself 
 ideas as motives of conduct, who is capable of 
 forming a conception of something which he would 
 realize, is, by that very fact, capable of a sense of 
 obligation. The consciousness of an end to be 
 realized, the idea of something to be done, is, in 
 and of itself, the consciousness of duty. 
 
 Let us consider again the horse-car conductor 
 (see Sec. LVI). After he has analyzed the situation 
 which faces him and decided that a given course of 
 conduct is the one which fits' the situation, does he 
 require some additional faculty to inform him that 
 this course is the one which should be followed? 
 The analysis of practical ideas, that is, of proposed 
 
193 
 
 ends of conduct, is from the first an analysis of 
 what should be done. Such being the case, it is no 
 marvel that the conclusion of the reflection is: " This 
 should (ought to) be done." 
 
 Indeed, just as every judgment about existent 
 fact naturally takes the form 'S is P', so every 
 judgment regarding an activity which executes an 
 idea takes the form, ^ S ought (or ought not) to be 
 P'. It requires no additional faculty of mind, after 
 intelligence has been studying the motions of the 
 moon, to insert itself, and affirm some objective 
 relation or truth — as that the moon's motions are 
 explainable by the law of gravitation. It is the 
 very essence of theoretical judgment, judgment 
 regarding fact, to state truth — what is. And it is the 
 very essence of practical judgment, judgment re- 
 garding deeds, to state that active relation which 
 we call obligation, what ought to be. 
 
 The judgmeDt as to what a practical situation is, 
 is an untrue or abstract judgment. 
 
 The practical situation is itself an activity, the 
 
 needs, powers, and circumstances which make it 
 
 are moving on. At no instant in time is the scene 
 
 quiescent. But the agent, in order to determine his 
 
 course of action in view of this situation, has to fix 
 
 it; he has to arrest its onward movement in order 
 
 to tell what it is. So his abstracting intellect cuts a 
 
 cross-section through its on-going, and says * This 
 13 
 
194 
 
 ' is the situation '. Now the judgment ' This ought 
 to be the situation', or ' in view of the situation, my 
 conduct ought to be thus and so ', is simply restor- 
 ing the movement which the mind has temporarily 
 put out of sight. By means of its cross- section, intel- 
 ligence has detected the principle, or law of move- 
 
 I ment, of the situation, and it is on the basis of this 
 ''■ movement that conscience declares what ought to be. 
 Just as the fact of moral law, or of authority, of 
 the incumbency of duty, needs for its explanation 
 no separation of the ' is ' from the ' ought ' ( see 
 LVI), but only recognition of the law of the 'is' 
 which is, perforce, a law of movement, and of 
 change; — so the consciousness of law, 'the sense 
 of obligation' requires no special mental faculty 
 which may declare what ought to be. The intelli- 
 gence that is capable of declaring truth, or what 
 is, is capable also of making known obligation. 
 
 s. For obligation is only practical truth, the 'is' of 
 doing. 
 
 See upon this point, as well as upon the relation of 
 laws and rules to action, my article in Yol. I, No. 2, of 
 the International Journal of Ethics, entitled 'Moral 
 Theoi}^ and Practice '. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 Conscience Probably no judgment is entire- 
 
 as Emotional free from emotional coloring and 
 
 Disposition, accompaniments. It is doubtful 
 
 whether the most indifferent judgment is not based 
 
195 
 
 upon, and does not appeal to, some interest. Cer- 
 tainly all the more important judgments awaken 
 some response from the self, and excite its interests 
 to their depths. Some of them may be excited by tha 
 intrinsic nature of the subject-matter under judg- 
 ment, while others are the results of associations 
 more or less accidental. The former will necessar- 
 ily be aroused in every being, who has any emo- 
 tional nature at all, whenever the judgment is 
 made, while the latter will vary from time to time, 
 and may entirely pass away. That moral judg- 
 ments, judgments of what should be (or should 
 have been) done, arouse emotional response, is 
 therefore no cause for surprise. It may help clear 
 up difficulties if we distinguish three kinds of such 
 emotional accompaniment. 
 
 1. There are, first, the interests belonging to 
 the sense of obligation as such. We have just 
 seen that this sense of obligation is nothing separ- 
 ate from the consciousness of the particular act 
 which is to be performed. Nevertheless the con- 
 sciousness of obligation, of an authority and law, 
 recurs with every act, while the special content of 
 the act constantly varies. Thus an idea of law, or of 
 duty in general, is formed, distinct from any special 
 duty. Being formed, it arouses the special emo- 
 tional excitation appropriate to it. The formation 
 of this general idea of duty, and the growth of 
 
196 
 
 feeling of duty as such, is helped on through the 
 fact that children ( and adults so far as their moral 
 life is immature) need to have their moral judg- 
 ments constantly reinforced by recurrence to the 
 thought of law. That is to say, a child, who is not 
 capable of seeing the true moral bearings and 
 claims of an act, is yet continually required to per- 
 form such an act on the ground that it is obli- 
 gatory. The feeling, therefore, is natural and 
 legitimate. It must, however, go hand in hand 
 with the feelings aroused by the special moral 
 relations under consideration. Disconnected fi*om 
 such union, it necessarily leads to slavish and arbi- 
 trary forms of conduct. A child, for example, who 
 is constantly taught to perform acts simply because 
 he ought to do so, without having at the same time 
 his intelligence directed to the nature of the act 
 which is obligatory (without, that is, being led to 
 see how or why it is obligatory), may have a 
 strongly developed sense of obligation. As he 
 grows up, however, this sense of duty will be 
 largely one of dread and apprehension ; a feeling 
 of constraint, rather than of free service. Besides 
 this, it will be largely a matter of accident to what 
 act this feeling attaches itself. Anything that 
 comes to the mind with the force of associations of 
 past education, any ideal that forces itself persis- 
 tently into consciousness from any source may^ 
 
197 
 
 awaken this sense of obligation, wholly irrespective 
 of the true nature of the act. This is the expla- 
 nation of strongly ' conscientious ' persons, whose 
 morality is yet unintelligent and blundering. It 
 is of such persons that it has been said that a 
 thoroughly good man can do more harm than a num- 
 ber of bad men. 
 
 When, however, the feeling of obligation in 
 general is developed along with particular moral 
 judgments (that is, along with the habit of consid- 
 ering the special nature of acts performed), it is one 
 of the strongest supports to morality. Acts con- 
 stantly need to be performed which are recognized 
 as right and as obligatory, and yet with reference 
 to which there is no fixed habit of conduct. In 
 these cases, the more direct, or spontaneous, stim- 
 ulus to action is wanting. 
 
 If, however, there is a strong sense of obliga- 
 tion in general, this may attach itself to the par- 
 ticular act and thus afford the needed impetus. In 
 unusual experiences, and in cases where the ordi- 
 nary motive-forces are lacking, such a feeling of 
 regard for law may be the only sure stay of 
 right conduct. 
 
 2. There is the emotional accompaniment ap- 
 propriate to the special content of the act. If, for 
 example, the required act has to do with some 
 person, there arise in consciousness the feelings of 
 
198 
 
 interest, of love and friendship, or of dislike, 
 which belong to that person. If it relate to some 
 piece of work to be done, the sweeping of a room, 
 the taking of a journey, the painting of a picture, 
 there are the interests natural to such subjects. 
 These feelings when aroused necessarily form part 
 of the emotional attitude as respects the act. It is 
 the strength and normal welling- up of such spe- 
 cific interests which afPord the best assurance of 
 healthy and progressive moral conduct, as distinct 
 from mere sentimental dwelling upon ideals. Only 
 interests prevent the divorce of feelings and ideas 
 from habits of action. Such interests are the 
 union of the subjective element, the self, and the 
 objective, the special relations to be realized (Sec. 
 XXXIV), and thus necessarily produce a right 
 and healthy attitude towards moral ends. It is 
 obvious that in a normal moral life, the law of obli- 
 gation in general, and the specific interests in 
 particular cases, should more and more fuse. The 
 interests, at their strongest, take the form of love. 
 And thus there is realized the ideal of an effec- 
 tive character; the union of law and inclination 
 in its pure form — love for the action in and of 
 itself. 
 
 3. Emotions due to accidental associations. It 
 is matter of common notice that the moral feelings 
 are rarely wholly pure; that all sorts of sentiments, 
 
199 
 
 due to associations of time and place and person 
 not strictly belonging to the acts themselves, cluster 
 about them. While this is true, we should not 
 forget the great difficulty there is in marking off 
 any associations as ivholly external to the nature of 
 the act. We may say that mere fear of punishment 
 is such a wholly external feeling, having no place 
 in moral emotion. Yet it may be doubted whether 
 there is any feeling that may be called mere fear of 
 punishment. It is, perhaps, fear of punishment by 
 a parent, for whom one has love and respect, and 
 thus the fear has partially a genuinely moral aspect. 
 Some writers would call the aesthetic feelings, the 
 feelings of beauty, of harmony, which gather about 
 moral ends adventitious. Yet the fact that other 
 moralists have made all moral feelings essentially 
 aesthetic, as due to the perception of the fitness 
 and proportion of the acts, should warn us from 
 regarding aesthetic feelings as wholly external. 
 About all that can be said is that feelings which 
 do not spring from some aspect of the content 
 of the act itself should be extruded, with grow- 
 ing matui'ity of character, from influence upon 
 conduct. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 Conscientiousness. Conscientiousness is pri- 
 marily the virtue of intelligence in regard to 
 conduct. That is to say, it is the formed habit of 
 
200 
 
 bringing intelligence to bear upon the analysis of 
 moral relations — the habit of considering what 
 ought to be done. It is based upon the recogni- 
 tion of the idea first distinctly formulated by 
 Socrates — that " an unexamined life is not one that 
 should be led by man". It is the outgrowth of 
 the customary morality embodied in usages, codes 
 and social institutions, but it is an advance upon 
 custom, because it requires a meaning and a rea- 
 son. It is the mark of a " character which will not 
 be satisfied without understanding the law that it 
 obeys; without knowing what the good is, for 
 which the demand has hitherto been blindly at 
 work" (Green, Op. cit, p. 270). Conscientious- 
 ness, then, is reflective intelligence grown into 
 character. It involves a greater and wider recog- 
 nition of obligation in general, and a larger 
 and more stable emotional response to every- 
 thing that presents itself as duty; as well as 
 the habit of deliberate consideration of the moral 
 situation and of the acts demanded by it. 
 
 Conscientiousness is an analysis of the con- 
 ditions under which conduct takes place, and 
 of the action that will meet these conditions; 
 it is a thoroughly objective analysis. What is 
 sometimes termed conscientiousness is merely the 
 habit of analyzing internal moods and sentiments; 
 of prying into ' motives ' in that sense of mo- 
 
/ 
 
 201 
 
 tive which identifies it not with the end of ac- 
 tion, but with some subjective state of emotion. 
 Thus considered, conscientiousness is morbid. We 
 are sometimes warned against over-conscientious- 
 ness. But such conscientiousness means simply 
 over-regard of one's private self; keeping an eye 
 upon the effect of conduct on one's internal state, 
 rather than upon conduct itself. Over- conscien- 
 tiousness is as impossible as over- intelligence, 
 since it is simply the application of intelligence to 
 conduct. It is as little morbid and introspective 
 as is the analysis of any fact in nature. Another 
 notion which is sometimes thought to be bound up 
 with that of conscience, also has nothing to do 
 with it ; namely, the notion of a precision and cold- 
 ness opposed to all large spontaneity and broad 
 sympathy in conduct. The reflective man of nar- 
 row insight and cramped conduct is often called 
 the conscientious man and opposed to the man of 
 generous impulses. This comes from identify- 
 ing conscience with a ready-made code of rules, 
 and its action with the application of some such 
 fixed code to all acts as they come up. It is 
 evident, on the contrary, that such a habit is 
 opposed to conscience. Conscience means the 
 consideration of each case in itself; measuring it 
 not by any outside code, but in the existing moral 
 situation. 
 
202 
 
 On conscientiousness, see Green, Op. cit., pp. 269- 
 271 and 323-327; and Alexander, Op. cit., pp. 156-160. 
 These writers, however, seem to identify it too much 
 with internal scrutin3\ Green, for example, expressly 
 identifies conscientiousness with a man's " questioning 
 about himself, whether he has been as good as he 
 should have been, whether a better man would not 
 have acted otherwise than he has done " (p. 323). He 
 again speaks of it as " comparison of our own practice, 
 as we know it on the inner side in relation to the mo- 
 tives and characrer which it expresses, with an ideal 
 of virtue". The first definition seems to be mislead- 
 ing. Questioning as to whether the end adopted was 
 what it should have been, i. e., whether the analysis of 
 the situation was correctly performed, may be of 
 great service in aiding future decisions, but question- 
 ing regarding the purity of one's own ' motive ' does 
 not seem of much avail. In a man upon the whole 
 good, such questioning is apt to be paralyzing. The 
 energy that should go to conduct goes to anxiety 
 about one's conduct. It is the view of goodness as 
 directed mainly towards one's own private motives, 
 which has led such writers as Henry James, Sr., and 
 Mr. Hinton, to conceive of ' morality ', the struggle 
 for goodness, to be in essence bad. They conceived 
 of the struggle for ' private goodness ' as no different 
 from the struggle for private pleasure, although 
 likely, of course, to lead to better things. Nor in a 
 bad man is such scrutiny of ' motive ', as apart from 
 objective end, of much value. The bad man is gener- 
 ally aware of the badness of his motive without much 
 close examination. The truth aimed at by Green is, I 
 think, amply covered by recognizing that conscientious- 
 ness as a constant will to know what should be, and 
 to readjust conduct to meet the new insight, is the 
 spring of the moral life. 
 
203 
 
 LXIV. 
 Moral Commands, What is the part played 
 Rules by specific commands and 
 
 and Systems. by general rules in the ex- 
 amination of conduct by conscience ? We should 
 note, in the first place, that commands are not 
 rules, and rules are not commands. A command, 
 to be a command, must be specific and individual. 
 It must refer to time, place and circumstance. 
 * Thou shalt do no murder ' is not strictly speaking 
 a command, for it allows questioning as to what is 
 murder. Is killing in war murder ? Is the hang- 
 ing of criminals murder ? Is taking life in self- 
 defense murder? Regarded simply as a command, 
 this command would be ' void for uncertainty'. A 
 true command is a specific injunction of one per- 
 son to another to do or not to do a stated thing or 
 things. Under what conditions do commands 
 play a part in moral conduct? In cases where the \ 
 intelligence of the agent is so undeveloped that he 
 cannot realize for himself the situation and see the 
 act required, and when a part of the agent's envi- 
 ronment is constituted by others who have such 
 required knowledge, there is a moral element in 
 command and in obedience. 
 
 This explains the moral responsibility of parents 
 to children and of children to parents. The soldier, 
 too, in recognizing a general's command, is recog- 
 
204 
 
 nizing the situation as it exists for him. Were there 
 simply superior force on one side, and fear on the 
 other, the relation would be an immoral one. It 
 is implied, of course, in such an instance as the 
 parents' command, that it be so directed as to 
 enable the child more and more to dispense with 
 it — that is, that it be of such a character as to give 
 the child insight into the situation for himself. 
 Here is the transition from a command to a rule. 
 A rule does not tell what to do or what to leave 
 undone. The Golden Rule, for example, does not 
 tell me how to act in any specific case. A rule is 
 a tool of analysis. The moral situation, or capacity 
 in its relation to environment, is often an extremely 
 complicated afPair. How shall the individual re- 
 solve it ? How shall he pick it to pieces, so as to 
 see its real nature and the act demanded by it ? It 
 is evident that the analysis will be the more truly 
 and speedily performed if the agent has a method 
 by which to attack it, certain principles in the light 
 of which he may view it, instruments for cross - 
 questioning it and making it render up its mean- 
 ing. Moral rules perform this service. While the 
 Golden Rule does not of itself give one jot of in- 
 formation as to what I should do in a given case, 
 it does, if accepted, immensely simplify the situa- 
 tion. Without it I should perhaps have to act 
 blindly; with it the question comes to this: AVhat 
 
205 
 
 should I, under the given circumstances, like to 
 have done to me ? This settled, the whole ques- 
 tion of what should be done is settled. 
 
 It is obvious, then, that the value of a moral \ 
 rule depends upon its potency in revealing the 
 inner spirit and reality of individual deeds. Rules 
 in the negative form, rules whose application is 
 limited in scope because of an attempt to be spe- 
 cific, are midway between commands proper and 
 rules. The Golden Rule, on the other hand, is 
 positive, and not attempting to define any specific 
 act, covers in its range all relations of man to man. 
 It is indeed only a concrete and forcible statement 
 of the ethical principle itself, the idea of a common 
 good, or of a community of persons. This is also 
 a convenient place for considering the practical 
 value of ethical systems. We have already 
 seen that no system can attempt to tell what in 
 particular should be done. The principle of a 
 system, however, may be of some aid in analyzing 
 a specific case. In this way, a system may be re- 
 garded as a highly generalized rule. It attempts 
 to state some fundamental principle which lies at 
 the basis of moral conduct. So far as it succeeds 
 in doing this, there is the possibility of its prac- 
 tical application in particular cases, although, of 
 course, the mediate rules must continue to be the 
 working tools of mankind — on account of their 
 
206 
 
 decided concrete character, and because they have 
 themselves taken shape under the pressure of 
 practice rather than of more theoretical needs. 
 
 LXV. 
 Development of Thus far we have been 
 Moral Ideals. speaking of conscience mainly 
 as to its method of working. We have now to 
 speak more definitely of its content, or of the de- 
 velopment of ideals of action. 
 
 It is of the very nature of moral conduct to be 
 progressive. Permanence of specific ideals means 
 moral death. We say that truth-telling, charity, 
 loyalty, temperance, have always been moral ends 
 and while this is true, the statement as ordinarily 
 made is apt to hide from us the fact that the con- 
 tent of the various ideals (what is meant by tem- 
 perance, etc.) has been constantly changing, and 
 this of necessity. The realization of moral ends 
 must bring about a changed situation, so that the 
 repetition of the same ends would no longer sat- 
 isfy. This progress has two sides: the satisfaction 
 of wants leads to a larger view of what satisfac- 
 tion really is, i. e., to the creation of new capacities 
 and wants; while adjustment to the environment 
 creates wider and more complex social relationships. 
 Let the act be one of intelligence. Some new 
 fact or law is discovered. On one hand, this dis- 
 covery may arouse a hitherto comparatively dor- 
 
207 
 
 mant mind; it may suggest the possession of 
 capacities previously latent; it may stimulate 
 mental activity and create a thirst for expanding 
 knowledge. This readjustment of intellectual needs 
 and powers may be comparatively slight, or it may 
 amount, as it has with many a young person, to 
 a revolution. On the other hand, the new fact 
 changes the intellectual outlook, the mental hori- 
 zon, and, by transforming somewhat the rela- 
 tions of things, demands new conduct. All this, 
 even when the growth of knowledge concerns only 
 the physical world. But development of insight 
 into social needs and affairs has a larger and more 
 direct progressive influence. The social world 
 exists spiritually, an conceived, and a new concep- 
 tion of it, new perception of its scope and bearings, 
 is, perforce, a change of that world. And thus it 
 is with the satisfaction of the human want of 
 knowledge, that patience, courage, self-respect, hu- 
 mility, benevolence, all change character. When, 
 for example, psychology has given an increase of 
 knowledge regarding men's motives, political 
 economy an increase of knowledge regarding 
 men's wants, when historical knowledge has 
 added its testimony regarding the effects of 
 indiscriminate giving, charity must change its 
 content. While once, the mere supplying of 
 food or money by one to another may have been 
 
208 
 
 right as meeting the recognized relations, charity 
 now comes to mean large responsibility in knowl- 
 edge of antecedents and circumstances, need of 
 organization, careful tracing of consequences, and, 
 above all, effort to remove the conditions which 
 made the want possible. The activity involved has 
 infinitely widened. 
 
 Let the act be in the region of industrial life — 
 a new invention. The invention of the telephone 
 does not simply satisfy an old want — it creates 
 new. It brings about the possibility of closer 
 social relations, extends the distribution of intelli- 
 gence, facilitates commerce. It is a common say- 
 ing that the luxury of one generation is the neces- 
 sity of the next ; that is to say, what once satisfied 
 a somewhat remote need becomes in time the basis 
 upon which new needs grow up. Energy previ- 
 ously pent up is set free, new power and ideals are 
 evoked. Consider again a person assuming a family 
 relation. This seems, at first, to consist mainly in 
 the satisfaction of certain common and obvious 
 human wants. But this satisfaction, if moral, 
 turns out rather to be the creation of new insight 
 into life, of new relationships, and thus of new 
 energies and ideals. We may generalize these 
 instances. The secret of the moral life is not get- 
 ting or having, it is doing and thus being. The 
 getting and the possessing side of life has a moral 
 
209 
 
 value only when it is made the stimulus and nutri- 
 ment of new and wider acting. To solve the 
 equation between getting and doing is the moral 
 problem of life. Let the possession be acquiesced 
 in for its own sake, and not as the way to freer 
 (and thus more moral) action, and the selfish life 
 has set in (see Sec. LXVII). It is essential to 
 moral activity that it feed itself into larger appe- 
 tites and thus into larger life. 
 
 This must not be taken to deny that there is a 
 mechanical side even to the moral life. A merchant, 
 for example, may do the same thing over and over 
 again, like going to his business every morning at the 
 same hour. This is a moral act and yet it does not 
 seem to lead to a change in moral wants or surround- 
 ings. Yet even in such cases it should be noted that 
 it is only outwardly that the act is the same. In itself, 
 that is, in its relation to the will of the agent, it is 
 simply one element in the whole of character; and as 
 character opens up, the act must change somewhat 
 also. It is performed somehow in a new spirit. If 
 this is not to some extent true, if such acts become 
 wholly mechanical, the moral life is hardening into 
 the rigidity of death. 
 
 This progressive development consists on one 
 side in a richer and subtler individual activity, in 
 increased individualization, in wider and freer 
 functions of life; on the other it consists in in- 
 crease in number of those persons whose ideal is a 
 'common good', or who have membership in the 
 
 same moral community; and, further, it consists in 
 U 
 
( 
 
 210 
 
 more complex relations between them. It is both 
 intensive and extensive. 
 
 History is one record of growth in the sense of 
 specific powers. Its track is marked by the ap- 
 pearance of more and more internal and distin- 
 guishing traits; of new divisions of labor and cor- 
 responding freedom in functioning. It begins with 
 groups in which everything is massed, and the good 
 is common only in the sense of being undifferenti- 
 ated for all. It progresses with the evolution of 
 individuality, of the peculiar gifts entrusted to each, 
 and hence of the specific service demanded of each. 
 
 The other side, the enlargement of the com- 
 munity of ends, has been termed growth in 
 "comprehensiveness". History is again a record 
 of the widening of the social consciousness — of the 
 range of persons whose interests have to be taken 
 into account in action. There has been a period 
 in which the community was nothing more than a 
 man's own immediate family group, this enlarging 
 to the clan, the city, the social class, the nation; 
 until now, in theory, the community of interests 
 and ends is humanity itself. 
 
 This grovsrth in comprehensiveness is not simply 
 a growth in the number of persons having a com- 
 mon end. The quantitative growth reacts upon 
 the nature of the ends themselves. For example, 
 when the conceived community is small, bravery 
 
211 
 
 may consist mainly in willingness to fight for the 
 recognized commuoity against other hostile groups. 
 As these groups become themselves included in the 
 moral community, courage must change its form, 
 and become resoluteness and integrity of purpose 
 in defending manhood and humanity as such. 
 That is to say, as long as the community is based 
 largely upon physical facts, like oneness of blood, 
 of territory, etc., the ideal of courage will have a 
 somewhat external and physical manifestation. 
 Let the community be truly spiritual, consisting in 
 recognition of unity of destiny and function in 
 cooperation toward an all-inclusive life, and the 
 ideal of courage becomes more internal and spirit- 
 ual, consisting in loyalty to the possibilities of 
 humanity, whenever and wherever found. 
 
 On this development of moral ideals, and especially 
 of the growth in "comprehensiveness" as reacting" 
 upon the intrinsic form which the ideal itself takes, 
 see Green, Op. cit., pp. 264-308, followed by Alexander, 
 Op. cit., pp. 384-398. For the process of change of ideals 
 in general, see Alexander, pp. 271-292, and 369-371. 
 
 Chapter II. — THE MOEAL STEUGGLE OR 
 THE REALIZING OF IDEALS. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 Goodness We have already seen that the 
 
 as a Struggle, bare repetition of identically the 
 
 same acts does not consist with morality. To aim 
 
212 
 
 at securing a satisfaction precisely like the one 
 already experienced, is to fail to recognize the 
 altered capacity and environment, and the altered 
 duty. Moral satisfaction prior to an act is ideal; 
 ideal not simply in the sense of being conceived, 
 or present to thought, but ideal in the sense that 
 it has not been already enjoyed. Some satisfac- 
 tion has been enjoyed in a previous activity, but 
 that very satisfaction has so enlarged and compli- 
 cated the situation, that its mere repetition would 
 not afford moral or active satisfaction, but only 
 what Kant terms 'pathological' satisfaction. Mo- 
 rality thus assumes the form of a struggle. The 
 past satisfaction speaks for itself; it has been veri- 
 fied in experience, it has conveyed its worth to our 
 very senses. We have tried and tasted it, and 
 know that it is good. If morality lay in the repe- 
 tition of similar satisfactions, it would not be a 
 struggle. We should know experimentally before 
 hand that the chosen end would bring us satisfac- 
 tion, and should be at rest in that knowledge. But 
 when morality lies in striving for satisfactions 
 which have not verified themselves to our sense, it 
 always requires an effort. We have to surrender 
 the enjoyed good, and stake ourselves upon that of 
 which we cannot say: We know it is good. To 
 surrender the actual experienced good for a pos- 
 sible ideal"good is the struggle. 
 
213 
 
 We arrive, in what is termed the opposition of 
 desire and duty, at the heart of the moral struggle. 
 Of course, taken strictly, there can be no opposition 
 here. The duty which did not awaken any desire 
 would not appeal to the mind even as a duty. 
 But we may distinguish between a desire which is 
 based on past satisfaction actually experienced, 
 and desire based simply upon the idea that the end 
 is desirable — that it ought to be desired. It may 
 seem strange to speak of a desire based simply 
 upon the recognition that an end should be desired, 
 but the possibility of awakening such a desire and 
 the degree of its strength are the test of a moral 
 character. How far does this end awaken response 
 in me because I see that it is the end which is fit 
 and due? How far does it awaken this response 
 although it does not fall into line with past sat- 
 isfactions, or although it actually thwart some 
 habitual satisfaction? Here is the opposition of 
 duty and desire. It lies in the contrast of a good 
 which has demonstrated itself as such in experi- 
 ence, and a good whose claim to be good rests only 
 on the fact that it is the act which meets the situa- 
 tion. It is the contrast between a good of posses- 
 sion, and one of action. 
 
 From this point of view morality is a life of 
 aspiration^ and of faith ; there is required constant 
 willingness to give up past goods as the good, and 
 
214 
 
 to press on to new ends; not because past achieve- 
 ments are bad, but because, being good, they have 
 created a situation which demands larger and more 
 intricately related achievements. This willingness 
 is aspiration and it implies faith. Only the old 
 good is of sight, has verified itself to sense. The 
 new ideal, the end which meets the situation, is 
 felt as good only in so far as the character has 
 formed the conviction that to meet obligation is 
 itself a good, whether bringing sensible satisfac- 
 tion or not. You can prove to a man that he 
 ought to act so and so (that is to say, that such an 
 act is the one which fits the present occasion), but 
 you cannot prove to him that the performance of 
 that duty will be good. Only faith in the moral 
 order, in the identity of duty and the good, can 
 assert this. Every time an agent takes as his end 
 (that is, chooses as good) an activity which he has 
 not already tried, he asserts his belief in the good- 
 ness of right action as such. This faith is not a 
 mere intellectual thing, but it is practical — the 
 staking of self upon activity as against passive 
 possession. 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 Moral Badness originates in the contrast 
 
 Badness, which thus comes about between hav- 
 ing the repetition of former action, and doing — 
 pressing forward to the new right action. Good- 
 
215 
 
 ness is the choice of doing; the refusal to be con- 
 tent with past good as exhausting the entire content 
 of goodness. It is, says Green, ' in the continued 
 efPort to be better that goodness consists'. The 
 man, however bad his past and however limited his 
 range of intellectual, aesthetic and social activity, 
 who is dissatisfied with his past, and whose dissat- 
 isfaction manifests itself in act, is accounted better 
 than the man of a respectable past and higher 
 plane of life who has lapsed into contented acqui- 
 escence with past deeds. For past deeds are not 
 deeds, they are passive enjoyments. The bad man, 
 on the other hand, is not the man who loves bad- 
 ness in and for itself. Such a man would be a 
 mad man or a devil. All conduct, bad as well as 
 good, is for the sake of some satisfaction, that is, 
 some good. In the bad man, the satisfaction which 
 is aimed at is simply the one congruent with exist- 
 ing inclinations, irrespective of the sufficiency of 
 those inclinations in view of the changed capacity 
 and environment: it is a good of having. The bad 
 man, that is to say, does not recognize any ideal or 
 active good ; any good which has not already com- 
 mended itself to him as such. This good may be 
 good in itself', but, as distinguished from the good 
 which requires action, that which would fulfill the 
 present capacity or meet the present situation, 
 it is bad. 
 
216 
 
 Thus Alexander terms badness a survival, in part 
 at least, of former goodness. Hinton says (Philosophy 
 and Religion, p. 146), " That a thing is wrong does not 
 mean that it ought never to have been done or 
 thought, but that it ought to be left off". It will be 
 noted that we are not dealing with the metaphysical 
 or the religious problem of the nature and origin of 
 evil, but simply with an account of bad action as it 
 appears in individual conduct. 
 
 Badness has four traits, all derivable from this 
 basal fact. They are: (1) Lawlessness, (2) Sel- 
 fishness, (3) Baseness, (4) Demoralization. 
 
 1. Laivlessness. When desire and duty, that 
 is, when desires based on past having and on future 
 acting, conflict, the bad man lets duty go. He 
 virtually denies that it is a good at all — it may be a 
 good in the abstract but not a good for him. He 
 denies that obligation as such has any value; that 
 any end is to be consulted save his own state of 
 mind. He denies that there is law for conduct — at 
 least any law beyond the inclination which he hap- 
 pens to have at the time of action. Keeping him- 
 self within that which has verified itself to his 
 feeling in the past, he abrogates all authority ex- 
 cepting that of his own immediate feelings. 
 
 2. Selfishness. It has already been shown 
 that the self is not necessarily immoral, and hence 
 that action for self is not necessarily bad — indeed, 
 that the true self is social and interest in it right 
 (see Sec. XXXV). But when a satisfaction based on 
 
217 
 
 past experience is set against one proceeding from 
 an act as meeting obligation, there grows up a 
 divorce in the self. The actual self, the self recog- 
 nizing only past and sensible satisfaction, is set 
 over against the self which recognizes the necessity 
 of expansion and a wider environment. Since the 
 former self confines its action to benefits demon- 
 strably accruing to itself, while the latter, in 
 meeting the demands of the situation, necessarily 
 contributes to the satisfaction of others, one 
 takes the form of a private self, a self whose good 
 is set over against and exclusive of that of others, 
 while the self recognizing obligation becomes a 
 social self — the self which performs its due func- 
 tion in society. It is, again, the contrast between 
 getting and doing. 
 
 All moral action is based upon the presupposi- 
 tion of the identity of good (Sec. XL), but it by 
 no means follows that this identity of good can be 
 demonstrated to the agent at the time of action. 
 On the contrary, it is matter of the commonest 
 experience that the sensible good, the demonstrable 
 good (that is, the one visible on the line of past sat- 
 isfaction) may be contradictory to the act which 
 would satisfy the interests of others. The identity 
 of interests can be proved only by acting upon it; 
 to the agent, prior to action, it is a matter of faith. 
 Choice presents itself then in these cases as a test: 
 
218 
 
 Do you believe that the Good is simply your private 
 ^ood, or is the true Good, is your good, one which 
 includes the good of others? The condemnation 
 passed upon the ' selfish ' man is that he virtually 
 declares that good is essentially exclusive and pri- 
 vate. He shuts himself up within himself, within, 
 that is, his past achievements, and the inclinations 
 based upon them. The good man goes out of him- 
 self in new action. Bad action is thus essentially 
 narrowing, it confines the self; good action is 
 expansive and vital, it moves on to a larger self. 
 
 In fine, all conduct, good and bad, satisfies the 
 self; bad conduct, however, aims at a self which, 
 keeping its eye upon its private and assured sat- 
 isfaction, refuses to recognize the increasing func- 
 tion with its larger social range, — tlie 'selfish' self. 
 
 Light is thrown upon this point by referring to 
 what was said about interest (Sec. XXXIV). Inter- 
 est is active feeling, feeling turned upon an object, 
 and going out toward it so as to identify it with self. 
 In this active and objective interest there is satis- 
 faction, but the satisfaction is in the activity which 
 has the object for its content. This is the satisfac- 
 tion of the good self. In the bad self, interest is 
 reduced to mere feeling; for the aim of life in such 
 a self is simply to have certain feelings as its own 
 possession; activity and its object are degraded 
 into mere means for getting these sensations. 
 
219 
 
 Activity has two sides; as activity, as projection 
 or expression of one's powers, it satisfies self; as 
 activity, also, it has some end, some object, for its 
 content. The activity as such, therefore, the ac- 
 tivity for its own sake, must involve the realization 
 of this object for its own sake. But in having, in 
 getting, there is no such creation or maintenance of 
 an object for itself. Objects cease to be ' ends in 
 themselves ' when they cease to be the content of 
 action; and are degraded into means of private 
 satisfaction, that is, of sensation. 
 
 3. Baseness. For, when we say that bad action 
 takes account of ideals only on the basis of posses- 
 sion, we say, in effect, that it takes account only of 
 sensible satisfaction. As it is in the progressive 
 movement of morality that there arises the distinc- 
 tion of the law-abiding and the lawless self, of the 
 social and the selfish self, so in the same aspect 
 there comes into existence the distinction of the 
 low, degraded, sensual self, as against the higher or 
 spiritual self. In themselves, or naturally, there is 
 no desire high, none low. But when an inclination 
 for an end which consists in possession comes into 
 conflict with one which includes an active satisfac- 
 tion — one not previously enjoyed — the contrast 
 arises. It is wrong to say, with Kant, that the bad 
 act is simply for pleasure; for the bad act, the 
 choice of a past satisfaction as against the aspira- 
 
220 
 
 tion for a wider good, may have a large content — 
 it may be the'good of one's family; it may be scien- 
 tific or aesthetic culture. Yet the moment a man 
 begins to live on the plane of past satisfaction as 
 such, he has begun to live on the plane of 'sense', 
 or for pleasure. The refusal to recognize the ideal 
 good, to acknowledge activity as good, throws the 
 agent back into a life of dwelling upon his own 
 sensible good, and thus he falls more and more 
 into a life of dwelling upon mere sensations. What 
 made the past good a good at all was the spirit, the 
 activity, in it, and when it is no longer an activity, 
 but a mere keeping, the life is gone out of it. The 
 selfish life must degenerate into mere seDsuality — 
 although when sensuality is 'refined' we call it 
 sentimentality. 
 
 4. Demoralization. Morality is activity; exer- 
 cise of function. To cease this activity is not to 
 remain on the attained level, for that, when attained^ 
 was active. It is to relapse, to slip down into bad- 
 ness. The moral end is always an activity. To 
 fail in this activity is, therefore, to involve character 
 in disintegration. It can be kept together only by 
 constant organizing activity; only by acting upon 
 new wants and moving toward new situations. Let 
 this activity cease, and disorganization ensues, as 
 surely as the body decays when life goes, instead 
 of simply remaining inert as it was. Bad conduct 
 
221 
 
 is thus unprincipled; it has no center, no move- 
 ment. The good man is ' organic ' ; he uses his 
 attainments to discover new needs, and to assimilate 
 new material. He lives from within outwards, his 
 character is compact, coherent; he has integrity. 
 The bad man, having no controlling unity, has no 
 consistent line of action; his motives of conduct 
 contradict one another; he follows this maxim in 
 relation to this person, that in relation to another; 
 character is demoralized. 
 
 The bad man is unstable and double-minded. 
 He is not one person, but a group of conflicting 
 wills. So far as he is really bad he becomes as 
 many persons as he has desires. His conduct can- 
 not be made universal. He always makes excep- 
 tions in favor of himself. He does not want moral 
 relations abolished, but relaxed or deflected in his 
 own case, while they still hold for other men. 
 
 This is the truth at the basis of Kant's contention 
 regarding goodness as conduct whose maxim is capable 
 of generalization. See also Bradley, Op. cit., pp. 261- 
 271. And Alexander, Op. cit., pp. 309-312. 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 Goodness in its 1. Two aspects of this we 
 
 Relation to have already noted; one, that of 
 
 the Struggle, conscientiousness, or habitual 
 
 alertness and responsiveness of intelligence to the 
 
 nature of obligation, both in general and as to the 
 
222 
 
 specific acts which are obligatory. The other is 
 that goodness, in this relation, consists injjrogressive 
 adjustment, involving aspiration as to future con- 
 duct, and correlative humility as to present achieve- 
 ments of character. 
 
 2. We may state what has already been sug- 
 gested, that goodness as self-sacrifice or self-renun- 
 ciation has also its place here. The moral attitude 
 is one of renunciation, because, on account of the 
 constantly growing wants and circumstances, the 
 satisfactions which belong to the actually realized 
 self must be given up for active goods. That the 
 self-sacrifice takes largely the form of the surren- 
 der of private interests to the welfare of the whole, 
 is explained by what has just been said regarding 
 selfishness. Self-sacrifice is not in any way the 
 moral end or the last word. Life is lost that it 
 may be found. The smaller local life of the pri- 
 vate self is given up in order that the richer and 
 fuller life of the social or active self may be real- 
 ized. But none the less the self-sacrifice at the 
 time that it is made is genuine and real. AVhile it 
 is involved in the very nature of morality that moral 
 conduct shall bring greater activity, larger life, the 
 motive of the agent in self-sacrifice is not to give 
 up the lesser satisfaction for the sake of getting a 
 greater. It is only so far as he is already moral that 
 he is convinced that the new duty will bring satis- 
 
223 
 
 faction, and his conviction is not one of sense, but 
 of faith. To the agent at the time of action, it 
 is a real satisfaction which is given up for one 
 that is only ideal, and given up because the ideal 
 satisfaction is ethical, active — one congruent to 
 duty, while the actual satisfaction is only patholog- 
 ical; that is, congruent to the actualized self — to 
 the having, instead of the doing self. 
 
 3. Goodness is not remoteness from badness. 
 In one sense, goodness is based upon badness; that 
 is, good action is always based upon action good 
 once, but bad if persisted in under changing cir- 
 cumstances. The moral struggle thus presents itself 
 as the conflict between this " bad " and the good 
 which would duly meet the existing situation. This 
 good, of course, does not involve the annihilation 
 of the previously attained good — the present bad — 
 but its subordination; its use in the new function. 
 This is the explanation of the apparently paradox- 
 ical statement that badness is the material of good 
 action — a statement literally correct when badness 
 is understood as it is here. Evil is simply that 
 which goodness has to overcome — has to make an 
 element of itself. 
 
 Badness, as just spoken of, is only potential — 
 the end is bad as contrasted with the better. Bad- 
 ness may also, of course, be actual; the bad end 
 may be chosen, and adopted into character. Even 
 
224 
 
 in this sense, goodness is not the absence of evil, 
 or entire freedom from it. Badness even on this 
 basis is the material of goodness; it is to be 
 put under foot and made an element in good action. 
 But how can actual evil be made a factor of right 
 conduct? In this way; the good man learns from 
 his own bad acts ; he does not continue to repeat 
 such acts, nor does he, while recognizing their bad- 
 ness, simply endeavor to do right without regard to 
 the previous bad conduct. Perceiving the effect of 
 his own wrong acts, the change produced in his 
 own capacities, and his altered relations to other 
 people, he acts so as to meet the situation which 
 his own bad act has helped to create. Conduct is 
 then right, although made what it is, to some 
 degree, by previous wrong conduct. 
 
 In this connection, the introduction of Chris- 
 tianity made one of its largest ethical contributions. 
 It showed how it was possible for a man to put his 
 badness behind him and even make it an element 
 in goodness. Teaching that the world of social 
 relations was itself an ethical reality and a good (a 
 redeemed world), it taught that the individual, by 
 identifying himself with the spirit of this ethical 
 world, might be freed from slavery to his past 
 evil; that by recognizing and taking for his own 
 the evil in the world, instead of engaging in an 
 isolated struggle to become good by himself, he 
 
225 
 
 might make the evil a factor in his own right action. 
 
 Moreover, by placing morality in activity and 
 not in some thing, or in conformity to an external 
 law, Christianity changed the nature of the 
 struggle. While the old struggle had been an 
 effort to get away from evil to a good beyond, 
 Christianity made the struggle itself a good. It, 
 then, was no longer the effort to escape to some 
 fixed, unchanging state; the constant onward move- 
 ment was itself the goal. Virtue, as Hegel says, is 
 the battle, the struggle, carried to its full. 
 
 4. The conception of merit. This is, essentially, 
 the idea of social desert — the idea that an agent 
 deserves well of others on account of his act or his 
 character. An action evokes two kinds of judg- 
 ments : first, that the act is right or virtuous, that it 
 fulfills duty. This judgment may be passed by any 
 one; as well by the agent as by any one else. It is 
 simply the recognition of the moral character of 
 the act. But a right act may also awaken a convic- 
 tion of desert; that the act is one which furthers 
 the needs of society, and thus is meritorious. 
 
 This is not a judgment which the agent can pass 
 
 upon his own act. Virtue and duty are strictly 
 
 coextensive; no act can be so virtuous, so right, as 
 
 to go beyond meeting the demands of the situation. 
 
 Everything is a duty which needs to be done in a 
 
 given situation ; the doing of what needs to be done 
 15 
 
226 
 
 is right or virtuous. While the agent may and 
 must approve of right action in himself, he cannot 
 claim desert or reward because of its virtuousness ; 
 he simply does what he should. 
 
 Others, however, may see that the act has been 
 done in the face of great temptation; after a hard 
 struggle; that it denotes some unusual qualifica- 
 tion or executes some remarkable service. It is 
 not only right, but obligatory, for others to take 
 due notice of these qualities, of these deeds. 
 Such notice is as requisite as it is to show grati- 
 tude for generosity, or forgiveness to a repentant 
 man. 
 
 Two errors are to be avoided here; both arising 
 from the identification of merit with virtue. One 
 view holds that the virtue and merit consist in 
 doing something over and above duty. There is a 
 minimum of action which is obligatory ; to perform 
 this, since it is obligatory, is no virtue. Anything 
 above this is virtuous. The other view reverses 
 this and holds that since no man can do more than 
 he ought, there is no such thing as merit. Great 
 excellence or heroism in one man is no more meri- 
 torious than ordinary conduct in another; since the 
 one man is naturally more gifted than the other. 
 But while one act is no more right or virtuous 
 than another, it may be more meritorious, because 
 contributing more to moral welfare or progress. To 
 
227 
 
 depreciate the meritorious deed is a sign of a carp- 
 ing, a grudging or a mean spirit. 
 
 The respective relations of duty, virtue and merit 
 have been variously discussed. Different views will be 
 found in Sidgwick, Method of Ethics, Bk. Ill, ch. iv; 
 Alexander, Moral Order and Progress, pp. 187-195 and 
 242-247; Stephen, Science of Ethics, pp. 293-303; Mar- 
 tineau. Types of Ethical Theory, pp. 78-81; Laurie, 
 Ethica, pp. 145-148. 
 
 Chaptee III. — realized MORALITY OR 
 THE VIRTUES. 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 Goodness We have treated of the forming 
 as Found in of moral ideals, and of the attempt 
 
 Character, to realize them against the counter 
 attractions of sensible desire. We have now to 
 treat these ideas as actual ends of conduct and 
 thus reacting upon the agent. The good character, 
 considered in relation to the moral struggle, is the 
 one which chooses the right end, which endeavors 
 to be better. The good character in itself is that 
 made by this choice. It is good for the self to 
 choose a due end in an efPort caused by contrary 
 allurements. But the very fact of the struggle 
 witnesses that morality is not yet the natural and 
 spontaneous manifestation of character. A wholly 
 
228 
 
 good man would feel such satisfaction in the con- 
 templation of the ideal good that contrary desires 
 would not affect him. He would take pleasure 
 only in the right. Every accomplished moral deed 
 tends to bring this about. Moral realization brings 
 satisfaction. The satisfaction becomes one with 
 the right act. Duty and desire grow into harmony. 
 Interest and virtue tend toward unity. 
 
 This is the truth aimed at, but not attained, by 
 the hedonistic school. In complete moral action, 
 happiness and rightness know no divorce. And 
 this is true, even though the act, in some of its 
 aspects, involves pain. The act, so far as its qual- 
 ity of rightness is concerned, calls forth unalloyed 
 satisfaction, however bound up with pain to self 
 and to others in some respects. The error of 
 hedonism is not in insisting that right action is 
 pleasurable, but in its failure to supply content to 
 the idea of happiness, in its failure to define what 
 happiness is. In the failure to show those active 
 relations of man to nature and to man involved in 
 human satisfaction, it reduces happiness to the 
 abstraction of agreeable sensation. 
 
 A virtue then, in the full sense, that is as the 
 expression of virtuous character, and not of the 
 struggle of character to be virtuous against the 
 allurements of passive goods, is an interest. The 
 system of virtues includes the various forms which 
 
229 
 
 interest assumes. Truthfulness, for example, is 
 interest in the media of human exchange; gener- 
 osity is interest in sharing any form of superior 
 endowment with others less rich by nature or 
 training, etc. It is distinguished from natural 
 generosity, which may be mere impulse, by its 
 being an interest in the activity or social relation 
 itself, instead of in some accidental accompaniment 
 of the relation. 
 
 Another way of getting at the nature of the 
 virtues is to consider them as forms of freedom. 
 Positive freedom is the good, it is realized activity, 
 the full and unhindered performance of function. 
 A virtue is any one aspect which the free perform- 
 ance of function may take. Meekness is one form 
 of the adjustment of capacity to surroundings; 
 honesty another; indignation another; scientific 
 excellence another, and so on. In each of these 
 virtues, the agent realizes his freedom: Freedom 
 from subjection to caprice and blind appetite, 
 freedom in the full play of activity. 
 
 LXX. 
 Two Kinds of We may recognize two types of 
 Virtues. virtuous action. These are: 
 1. The Special Virtues. These arise from 
 special capacities or special opportunities. The 
 Greek sense of virtue was almost that of " excel- 
 lence ", some special fitness or power of an agent. 
 
230 
 
 There is the virtue of a painter, of a scientific 
 investigator, of a philanthropist, of a comedian, of 
 a statesman, and so on. The special act may be 
 manifested in view of some special occasion, some 
 special demand of the environment — charity, 
 thankfulness, patriotism, chastity, etc. Goodness, 
 as the realization of the moral end, is a system, 
 and the special virtues are the particular members 
 of the system. 
 
 2. Cardinal Virtues. Besides these special 
 members of a system, however, the whole system 
 itself may present various aspects. That is to say, 
 even in a special act the whole spirit of the man 
 may be called out, and this expression of the whole 
 character is a cardinal virtue. While the special 
 virtues differ in content, as humility from bravery, 
 earnestness from compassion, the cardinal virtues 
 have the same content, showing only different sides 
 of it. Conscientiousness, for example, is a cardi- 
 nal virtue. It does not have to do with an act 
 belonging to some particular capacity, or evoked 
 by some special circumstance, but with the spirit of 
 the whole self as manifested in the will to recog- 
 nize duty — both its obligatoriness in general and 
 the concrete forms which it takes. Truthfulness 
 as a special virtue would be the desire to make 
 word correspond to fact in some instance of speech. 
 As a cardinal virtue, it is the constant will to clarify 
 
231 
 
 and render true to their ideal all human relations — 
 those of man to man, and man to nature. 
 
 LXXl. 
 The Cardinal The cardinal virtues are 
 
 Virtues. marked by 
 
 1. Wholeness. This or that virtue, not calling 
 the whole character into play, but only some special 
 power, is partial. But a cardinal virtue is not a 
 virtue, but the spirit in which all acts are per- 
 formed. It lies in the attitude which the agent 
 takes towards duty; his obedience to recognized 
 forms, his readiness to respond to new duties, his 
 enthusiasm in moving forward to new relations. 
 It is a common remark that moral codes change 
 from ' Do not ' to ' Do ', and from this to ' Be '. A 
 Mosaic code may attempt to regulate the specific 
 acts of life. Christianity says, 'Be ye perfect'. 
 The effort to exhaust the various special right acts 
 is futile. They are not the same for any two men, 
 and they change constantly with the same man. 
 The very words which denote virtues come less and 
 less to mean specific acts, and more the spirit in 
 which conduct occurs. Purity, for example, does not 
 mean freedom from certain limited outward forms of 
 defilement; but comes to signify rightness of na- 
 tures as a whole, their freedom from all self-seeking 
 or exclusive desire for private pleasure, etc. Thus 
 purity of heart comes to mean perfect goodness. 
 
232 
 
 2. Disinterestedness. Any act, to be virtuous, 
 must of course be disinterested, but we may now 
 connect this disinterestedness with the integral 
 nature of moral action just spoken of. Immoral 
 action never takes account of the whole nature of 
 an end; it deflects the end to some ulterior purpose; 
 it bends it to the private satisfaction of the agent; 
 it takes a part of it by making exceptions in favor 
 of self. Bad action is never ' objective '. It is ' ab- 
 stract ' ; it takes into account only such portion of 
 the act as satisfies some existing need of the 
 private self. The immoral man shows his par- 
 tial character again by being full of casuistries, 
 devices by which he can get the act removed 
 from its natural placing and considered in some 
 other light: — this act, for example, would be dis- 
 honest, of course, if done under certain circum- 
 stances, but since I have certain praiseworthy feel- 
 ings, certain remote intentions, it may now be con- 
 sidered otherwise. It is a large part of the badness 
 of ' good ' people that instead of taking the whole 
 act just as it is, they endeavor to make the natural 
 feelings in their own mind — feelings of charity, or 
 benevolence — do substitute duty for the end aimed 
 at; they excuse wrong acts on the ground that 
 their ' intentions ' were good, meaning by intentions 
 the prevailing mood of their mind. It is in this 
 sense that ' hell is paved with good intentions. ' 
 
233 
 
 Now it is against this deflection, perversion 
 and mutilating of the act that disinterestedness 
 takes its stand. Disinterested does not mean with- 
 out interest, but without interest in anything 
 except the act itself. The interest is not in the 
 wonderful moods or sentiments with which we do 
 the act; it is not in some ulterior end to be gained 
 by it, or in some private advantage which it will 
 bring, but in the act itself — in the real and con- 
 crete relations involved. There is a vague French 
 saying that * morality is the nature of things.' 
 If this phrase has a meaning it is that moral con- 
 duct is not a manifestation of private feelings nor a 
 search for some unattainable ideal, but observance 
 and reproduction of actual relations. And this is 
 the mark of a disinterested character. 
 
 CONCLUSION, 
 
 LXXIl. 
 
 The Practical End Virtues, then, are cardinal, 
 of Morality. and character is integral, 
 just in the degree in which every want is a want 
 of the whole man. So far as this occurs, the bur- 
 den of the moral struggle is transformed into 
 freedom of movement. There is no longer effort 
 to bring the particular desire into conformity with 
 
234 
 
 a law, or a universal, outside itself. The fitting 
 in of each special desire, as it arises, to the organ- 
 ism of character takes place without friction, as a 
 natural re- adjustment. There is not constraint, 
 but growth. On the other side, the attained char- 
 acter does not tend to petrify into a fixed posses- 
 sion which resists the response to needs that grow 
 out of the enlarged environment. It is plastic to 
 new wants and demands; it does not require to be 
 wrenched and wracked into agreement with the 
 required act, but moves into it, of itself. The 
 law is not an external ideal, but the principle of 
 the movement. There is the identity of freedom 
 and law in the good. 
 
 This union of inclination and duty in act is the 
 practical end. All the world's great reformers 
 have set as their goal this ideal, which may be 
 termed either the freeing of wants, or the human- 
 izing of the moral law. It will help summarize 
 our whole discussion, if we see how the theories of 
 hedonism and of Kant have endeavored to express 
 this same goal. Hedonism, indeed, has this 
 identity for its fundamental principle. It holds 
 strongly to the idea of moral law immanent in 
 human wants themselves. But its error lies in 
 taking this identity of desire and the good, as a 
 direct or immediate unity, while, in reality, it exists 
 only in and through activity; it is a unity which 
 
235 
 
 / can be attained only as the result of a process. It 
 I mistakes an ideal which is realized only in action 
 • for bare fact which exists of itself. 
 
 Hedonism, as represented by Spencer, recog- 
 nizes, it is true, that the unity of desire and duty is 
 not an immediate or natural one; but only to fall 
 into the error of holding that the separation is due 
 to some external causes, and that when these are 
 removed we shall have a fixed millenium. As 
 against this doctrine, we must recognize that the 
 difference between want and duty is always re- 
 moved so far as conduct is moral; that it is not an 
 ideal in the sense of something to be attained at 
 some remote period, but an ideal in the sense of 
 being the very meaning of moral activity whenever 
 and wherever it occurs. The realizing of this ideal 
 is not something to be sometime reached once for 
 all, but progress is itself the ideal. Wants are 
 ever growing larger, and thus freedom ever comes 
 to have a wider scope (Sec. LXV). 
 
 Kant recognizes that the identity of duty and 
 inclination is not a natui'al fact, but is the ideal. 
 However, he understands by ideal something 
 which ought to be, but is not. Morality is ever a 
 struggle to get desire into unity with law, but a 
 struggle doomed, by its very conditions, not to 
 succeed. The law is the straight line of duty, 
 which the asymptotic curve of desire may approxi- 
 
236 
 
 mate, but never touch. An earthly taint of pleas- 
 ure-seeking always clings to our wants, and makes 
 of morality a striving which defeats itself. 
 
 The theory that morality lies in the realization 
 of individuality recognizes that there is no direct, 
 or natural, identity of desire and law, but also 
 recognizes that their identification is not an impos- 
 sible task. The problem is solved in the exercise 
 of function, where the desires, however, are not 
 unclothed, but clothed upon. Flowing in the 
 channel of response to the demands of the moral 
 environment, they unite, at once, social service and 
 individual fi'eedom. 
 
 LXXIIl. 
 The Means This practical end of the 
 
 of unification of desire and duty, 
 
 Moral izat ion. in the play of moral interests, is 
 reached, therefore, so far as the desires are social- 
 ized. A want is socialized when it is not a want 
 for its own isolated and fixed satisfaction, but re- 
 flects the needs of the environment. This implies, 
 of course, that it is bound by countless ties to the 
 whole body of desires and capacities. The eye, in 
 seeing for itself, sees for the whole body, because it 
 is not isolated but, through its connections, an organ 
 of a system. In this same way, the satisfaction of 
 a want for food, or for commercial activity, may 
 necessitate a satisfaction of the whole social system. 
 
237 
 
 But how shall this socialization of wants be 
 secured? It is in answering this question that we 
 are brought again to a point already discussed at 
 length: the moral bearings of intelligence. It is 
 intelligence that is the sole sure means of taking a 
 want out of the isolation of merely impulsive 
 action. It is the passing of the desire through the 
 alembic of ideas that, in rationalizing and spiritual- 
 izing it, makes it an expression of the want of the 
 whole man, and thus of social needs. 
 
 To know one's self was declared by Socrates, 
 who first brought to conscious birth the spirit of 
 the moral life, to be the very core of moral en- 
 deavor. This knowledge of self has taken, indeed, 
 a more circuitous and a more painful path, than 
 Socrates anticipated. Man has had, during two 
 thousand years of science, to go around through 
 nature to find himself, and as yet he has not wholly 
 come back to himself — he oftentimes seems still 
 lost in the wilderness of an outer world. But 
 when man does get back to himself it will be as 
 a victor laden with the spoils of subdued nature. 
 Having secured, in theory and invention, his unity 
 with nature, his knowledge of himself will rest on 
 a wide and certain basis. 
 
 This is the final justification of the moral value 
 of science and art. It is because through them 
 wants are inter- connected, unified and socialized,. 
 
238 ^ 
 
 that they are, when all is said and done, the pre- 
 eminent moral means. And if we do not readily 
 recognize them in this garb, it is because we have 
 made of them such fixed things, that is, such 
 abstractions, by placing them outside the movement 
 of human life. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Absolute— and relative Ethics, according to Spencer 
 
 72. 
 Accountability— See responsibility. 
 Activity— human, the subject-matter of ethics 1 ff. 
 —the object of desire 21 ff. 
 — the standard of pleasure 45, 50. 
 —equals exercise of function 101. 
 —opposed to mere possession 209; 215; 218; 220. 
 — two sides of 219. 
 —see freedom. 
 ^Esthetic feelings— may be moral 199. 
 
 —see art. 
 Agent— moral, one capable of acting from ideas 3. 
 
 — see person. 
 Alexander, S. quoted: on idea of sum of pleas- 
 ures 46. 
 —referred to: 9; 46; 77; 111; 134; 158; 
 165; 202; 216; 221; 227. 
 Altruism — how identified with egoism 59. 
 
 —reconciled, by Spencer, with egoism 70 ff. 
 —conflicts, at present, with egoism 76. 
 — older moralists termed benevolence 195. 
 — not necessarily moral 107. 
 — not disguised selfishness 109. 
 — may equal charity 125. 
 Amusements — moral nature of 133. 
 Approbation — nature of 161. 
 
240 
 
 Aristotle— quoted: on pleasure 18; on pleasure and 
 and character 29; on the mean 136. 
 —referred to: 31. 
 Art (and Science)— nature of interest in 111. 
 
 —distinction of fine and useful 112. 
 —interest in, why moral 113 ff. 
 —interest in, really social 118 ff. 
 —life an, 120. 
 —essentially dynamic 126. 
 Asceticism— means formalism 94. 
 
 —element of truth in 95. 
 —results when interest is excluded 106. 
 Aspiration— involved in morality 213; 222. 
 Autonomy — Kant's conception of justified 149. 
 Badness — of environment a factor in right action 
 176; 224. 
 — its source and factors 214. 
 — its relation to goodness 223. 
 —potential and actual 223. 
 — of good people 232. 
 Bain, A. — quoted: that pleasure is a self-evident cri- 
 terion 16; his definition of utilitarianism 53; 
 on obligation 140; 141. 
 —referred to: 17; 66; 227. 
 Barratt — quoted : that all pleasure is individual 14. 
 Baseness— why badness becomes 219. 
 Benevolence— see altruism. 
 
 Bentham, J.— quoted: pleasure both criterion and 
 motive 15; self-evident criterion 16; all 
 motives good 34 ff. ; hedonistic calculus 
 36 ff ; identity of individual and general 
 pleasure 57 ff.; influence of law 59. 
 —referred to: 53. 
 
241 
 
 Birks-— referred to: 66. 
 Blackie, J. S.— referred to: 66. 
 
 Bradley, F. H.— quoted: on pleasure and desire 21; 
 scientific interest not necessarily- 
 social 122; on merely individual con- 
 science 189. 
 —referred to: 25; 26; 42; 48; 54; 91; 
 124; 134; 165; 221. 
 Browning", R. — referred to: 111. 
 Butler— Bishop, quoted: on conscience 167. 
 
 —referred to: 110. 
 Caird, E.— quoted: on collision of moral ends 88. 
 
 —referred to: 21; 82; 87; 91; 92; 93; 95; 
 109; 111; 149; 165. 
 Calder wood— referred to: 158; 166. 
 Capacity — its relation to environment 97. 
 — increased by moral action 206. 
 Carlyle,T.— referred to: 128. 
 Casuistry— inevitable, if moral end is not wholly 
 
 social 119. 
 Character — reciprocal with conduct 9. 
 
 —the source of motive, desire and moral 
 
 pleasure 26 If. 
 — separated from conduct by hedonists 32 ff. 
 —and virtues 227 fC. 
 
 —see capacity, conduct, interests and 
 motive. 
 Charity — idea of, involves social inequality 125. 
 Christianity— ethical influence of 224. 
 
 — has no specitic ethical code 231. 
 Coit, S.— referred to : 28 ; 66. 
 
 Commands— moral value of: 203. 
 16 
 
242 
 
 Common Good— an ethical ideal 51. 
 
 —not furnished by hedonism 60. 
 
 —not furnished by Kant 91. 
 
 — why necessarily involved in morality 
 
 117; 217; 222. 
 — demands reciprocal satisfaction of 
 
 individual and society 127. 
 —its existence postulated by moral 
 
 conduct 130. 
 —results from exercise of function 168. 
 — constituted by activity 169 ff. 
 — realized in institutions 173. 
 —development of 210. 
 — see institutions and society. 
 Comprehensiveness — growth of, in moral end 210 ff. 
 Conduct — defined 3. 
 
 — relation to consequences 7. 
 — relation to character 9. 
 —an individual system 133. 
 — a social system 136. 
 —how related to character 163. 
 —see activity, consequences, character and 
 motive. 
 Conflict— of moral ends 88 ff. 
 
 —morality has an aspect of 151; 227. 
 Conscience— Bain's idea of 141. 
 
 —equals consciousness of action 181. 
 —elements in 182. 
 — not a special faculty 183. 
 —kinds of 183 ff. 
 —not merely individual 188. 
 Conscientiousness— nature of 199. 
 
 —does not equal introspection 200. 
 
243 
 
 Conscientiousness— nor application of code 201. 
 
 — a cardinal virtue 232. 
 Consequences— moral value of 7 ff.; 84; 114; 160. 
 
 —excluded from morality by Kantian- 
 ism 13; 29. 
 — identified with moral value by hedon- 
 ism 33. 
 — responsibility for 160. 
 Criterion— hedonistic is pleasure 15. 
 
 — criticism of hedonistic 31 ff. 
 —two ends to be met by every 32. 
 —of higher and lower pleasures 49 ff. 
 — when pleasure may be a 50. 
 —Mill's really social 63. 
 —Spencer's really social 73. 
 —Kant's nominally formal 79 ff. 
 —the real 132 fe. 
 —its elasticity 135. 
 Darwin, C— referred to: 78. 
 Demoralization— involved in badness 220. 
 Desire— pleasure as end of 16; 18 ff. 
 —defined 19. 
 —how spiritualized 23. 
 —not purely pleasurable 27. 
 —an expression of character 28. 
 — excluded from moral motive by Kant 79. 
 — all or no involved in morality 94. 
 — relation to pleasure 83. 
 — particular, an abstraction 96. 
 — how distinguished from interest 103. 
 —opposed to reason by Kant 147. 
 — when opposed to moral action 148; 155; 213;. 
 216. 
 
244 
 
 Desire— how socialized, 237. 
 Dewey, J.— referred to: 25; 78; 194. 
 Disinterestedness— equals full interest 107. 
 
 —an aspect of cardinal virtue 232. 
 Disposition— Bentham on 35. 
 Dualism— the Kantian 148 fl. 
 Duty — see obligation. 
 Egoism— see altruism. 
 
 End — moral: see common good; function; motive. 
 Environment— defined by relation to capacity 99 ff. 
 — meaning of adjustment to 115 ff. 
 — moral, exists in institutions 171. 
 —badness of, an element in right action 
 
 176; 190. 
 —enlarged by moral action 207. 
 Empiricism — Spencer's reconciliation with intuition- 
 alism 69 ff. 
 Ethics— defined 1. 
 —divided 3. 
 
 —its object according to Spencer 68. 
 —see theory. 
 Ethical World— discussed 167 ff. 
 
 —nature illustrated 168. 
 —relation to moral law 174. 
 — see Institutions. 
 Evolution, Theory of— combined with hedonism 67 ff. 
 — not really hedonistic 71 ff. 
 —its real standard objective 72. 
 Faith— a factor in moral progress 123; 127 ff. 
 —in humanity, meaning of 129. 
 —why demanded in moral action 217; 222. 
 Feelings- natural and moral 5 ff.; 25 ff.; 87. 
 
 —sympathetic relied upon by utilitarians 57. 
 
245 
 
 Feelings— necessary in moral activity 85. 
 — active, equal interests 102. 
 — moral, defined by end 108; see also motive, 
 —value of 195 ff. 
 
 — moral, not too narrowly limited 199. 
 Freedom— is object of desire 24. 
 
 —equals exercise of function 138. 
 — various aspects of 158. 
 —of choice defined 159. 
 — of indifference discussed 161 fE. 
 — actualized in rights 172; 174. 
 — positive, realized in virtues 229. 
 Function — union of capacity and circumstance In 
 act 103. 
 — freedom found in exercise of 164 ff. 
 GiZYCKi— referred to: 66. 
 
 God — an external, cannot be the source of obliga- 
 tion 149. 
 Goethe— referred to: 128. 
 
 Golden Rule— identified by Mill with principle of 
 utilitarianism 59 
 — gives no directions as to conduct 204. 
 — is a concrete statement of ethical post- 
 ulate 205. 
 Green, T. H. — quoted : on desire and pleasure 21 ; on 
 sum of pleasures 43; on nature of hap- 
 piness 45; on conscientiousness 200, 
 202; on goodness 215. 
 referred to: 9; 25; 42; 54; 110; 158; 165. 
 Grote, J.— referred to: 66; 158. 
 Guy au— referred to: 66; 143. 
 Hedonism— defined 14 ff. 
 
 —its paradox 25. 
 
246 
 
 Hedonism— confuses feeling and idea 26; 43 fl. 
 — summarized 30. 
 — all motives good 33. 
 — its calculus 36. 
 — fails to provide laws 39 ff. 
 — its contrast with Kantianism 82 ff. 
 — its treatment of obligation 140 ff. 
 — is correct in holding Tightness to be 
 
 pleasurable 228. 
 — truth and falsity in 234. 
 Hegel— quoted: on reflective conscience 188; on 
 
 merely individual conscience 189. 
 Hinton, J.— quoted: on altruism 109; on badness 216. 
 
 —referred to: 202. 
 Hodgson, S. H.— referred to: 14. 
 Idealism— when feeble 128. 
 Ideals— moral, progressive, 206. 
 Imperative, Categorical— of Kant 147. 
 
 — of conscience 191. 
 Impulse— and pleasure 17. 
 —and desire 22. 
 — nature of action from 159. 
 — see desire. 
 Individuality— defined 97. 
 
 —not identical with inner side alone 98. 
 — evils of defining from this standpoint 
 
 110. 
 — made by function 131. 
 —realized is autonomy 150. 
 — realized is freedom 164. 
 —growth in 210. 
 —see freedom and rights. 
 Institutions— nature of 169 ff. 
 
247 
 
 Institutions — sovereignty, rights and law inhere in 
 171 fl. 
 —influence of, upon conscience 184; 189. 
 —movement of, the source of duties, 194. 
 —see common good and society. 
 Interests— are functions on personal side 102 ff. 
 —classified and discussed 104 ff. 
 — social, involve science and art 123 ff. 
 —realized in institutions 170. 
 — their relation to conscience 198. 
 — pure, are virtue 228. 
 —the active element of 218. 
 —the freeing of, the moral goal 233. 
 James, sr., H.— referred to: 202. 
 James, Wm.— quoted: on pleasure and desire 20. 
 
 referred to: 77. 
 Kant— agrees with hedonism as to end of desire 79. 
 —his end an abstraction 84. 
 —his practical ideal that of Mill and Spencer 93. 
 —value of his theory 93. 
 — his theory of obligation 147. 
 — his conception of autonomy 149. 
 — his idea of duty 156. 
 — his conception of practical reason 191. 
 —quoted: on pleasure 47; on pleasure as common 
 good 52; on priority of duty to good 78; on 
 good will 79; his formula for right action 80; 
 illustrations of moral law 80 ff. 
 —referred to: 14; 78; 212; 221; 235. 
 Kantianism — compared with hedonism 82 ff. 
 
 —its practical breakdown 90. 
 Knowledge— moral effect of advance in 207. 
 —socializes wants 237. 
 
248 
 
 Knowledge—see art. 
 
 Laurie, S. S.— quoted: on happiness 66. 
 
 —referred to: 227. 
 Law— utilitarian use of 58; 61 ff. 
 —Kant's moral, formal 78. 
 — relation to desire 94. 
 —realized in institutions 172; 174. 
 
 of the ' is ', not merelj' of the 'ought' 175. 
 —idea of, in general 195. 
 —see obligation. 
 Lawlessness— involved in morality 216. 
 Leckey— referred to 66. 
 Limitation— the basis of moral strength 128. 
 Lincoln, A.— anecdote regarding 28. 
 Lotze— referred to: 16; 166. 
 Love— the union of duty and desire 154. 
 Martineau, J.— quoted: on the difficulty of the hed- 
 onistic calculus, 
 —referred to: 42; 78; 158; 166; 227. 
 Maurice, F. D.— referred to: 191. 
 Merit— means social desert 225. 
 Mill, J. S.— criticizes Kant 91. 
 
 — his equivoke of pleasure and pleasant 
 thing 20. 
 -- —his fallacy 56. 
 
 —introduces quality of pleasure into hedon- 
 ism 42; 46. 
 —quoted: pleasure self-evident criterion 16; 
 end of desire 17; on rules of morality 39 ff; 
 on moral tribunal 48; on utilitarian stand- 
 ard 53; on importance of law and education 
 59; on social feeling 63 ff. 
 —referred to: 25; 30; 49. 
 
249 
 
 Morality— sphere of as broad as conduct 2; 154. 
 
 — not dependent upon an individual's wish. 
 
 167 fe. 
 —realized in institutions 170. 
 —struggle for private, bad 202. 
 —in the nature of things 233. 
 Motive— defined 5. 
 
 —two elements in 10. 
 — determined by character 28. 
 — never bad according to hedonism 33. 
 —formal and legislative according to Kant 80. 
 —not a subjective mood 232. 
 Norms— in philosophy 1. 
 Obligation— in conflict with pleasure 76 ff. 
 —how related to function 138. 
 — theories regarding 139. 
 — distinct from coercion 144. 
 —enforced, not created by power 145. 
 —Kantian idea of criticized 148. 
 — does not relate simply to what ought to 
 
 be, but is not 151; 174 if^ 
 — relation to conscience 183. 
 — how made known 190 ff. 
 — practical value of sense of 196. 
 — must be individualized 197; 201. 
 — when opposed to desire 213; 216. 
 — the union with desire the moral ideal 234. 
 —see desire, law and universal. 
 Pater — referred to: 66. 
 Pathological— all inclination, according to Kant 86. 
 
 — opposed to active 212. 
 Paulsen— referred to: 67; 111. 
 Person— is one capable of conduct 97. 
 
250 
 
 Pleasure— an element in activity 24. 
 
 — not the moving spring to action 26. 
 
 — sum of, dependent on objective conditions 
 44 ff . 
 
 —quality of, similarly dependent 47 ft. 
 
 — may symbolize action 51. 
 
 — general, a vague idea 62. 
 
 — fixed by social relations 65; 77. 
 
 — not a sufficient guide at present 75. 
 
 — dependent on self-realization 83. 
 
 — all right action involves 228. 
 
 — see desire and hedonism. 
 Postulate— moral, defined 129 if. 
 
 — equals Golden Rule 205. 
 Problem— moral 3. 
 Progress— necessary in moral action 135 ff. 
 
 —moral, nature of 209. 
 Prudence— not outside moral sphere 105. 
 Reason — opposed to desire by Kant 147. 
 
 — Kant's conception too immediate 150. 
 — practical, idea of 191. 
 Reformation— possibility of 162 ff. 
 Relativity — of morals, means what 136. 
 Responsibility— nature of 160 If. 
 
 —of parents and children 2 03. 
 Reverence— Kant regards as sole moral feeling 86. 
 Rights — exist by common will 172. 
 Rousseau— his influence upon Kant 148. 
 Roy ce, J.— referred to: 61; 111. 
 Rule — moral, not a command 204. 
 
 — a tool of analysis 204. 
 Satisfaction— moral, creates new wants 208. 
 —good and bad 217. 
 
251 
 
 Science— nature of interest in 111. 
 
 —the preeminent moral means 237. 
 — see art. 
 Schurman, J. G.— referred to: 78. 
 Self— interest in 105 ff. 
 
 — involves sympathy 109. 
 —dualism in self, how arises 216. 
 —knowledge of 237. 
 Selfishness — involved in immorality 216. 
 Self-sacrifice —its moral nature 222. 
 Sentimentality — immoral 113. 
 
 —escape from, only through knowl- 
 edge 120. 
 —results from abstract idea of duty 
 
 157. 
 —refined, equals sensuality 220. 
 Shakespeare — quoted: on common good 131. 
 Sidgwick, H.— quoted: on the hedonistic assumption 
 43; on utilitarian standard 53; on in- 
 tuitional utilitarianism 54. 
 —referred to: 14; 16; 18; 66; 111; 227. 
 — its moral influence 146; 157. 
 — its relation to obligation 152. 
 — constituted by moral relationships 175. 
 — development of, changes moral ideals 207. 
 — see common good, institutions. 
 Socrates— author of idea of reflective conscience 
 188. 
 —initiator of modern ethical spirit 237. 
 Sorley— referred to: 78; 111. 
 Sovereignty— exists in common will and good 171. 
 —ultimate possessed in humanity 173. 
 Spencer, H.— believes in fixed social ideal 73 £f.; 235. 
 
252 
 
 Spencer, H. — quoted: on pleasure as a necessary 
 effect 68; not immediate object of desire 
 69; egoism and altruism 70 fl.; on ideal 
 man 73; equilibrium of functions 74; on 
 obligation 142; 143. 
 -referred to: 16; 67; 72; 73; 74; 75; 76; 
 111; 125; 235. 
 Stephen, L.— quoted: on feeling as universal motive 
 27; on sympathy 109 ff. 
 referred to: 16; 25; 67; 68; 78; 111; 165; 
 227. 
 Struggle— when morality is a 212. 
 
 —changed by Christianity into movement 225. 
 — see conflict. 
 Sully, J.~ref erred to: 17. 
 Theory— ethical and conduct 1. 
 — ethical, sub-divided 13. 
 — ethical, not cauistry 89. 
 —value of 186. 
 Universal— a, lacking in hedonism 37. 
 — Kant's emphasis of 80. 
 —Kant's, formal 80; 85; 90. 
 — Kant's, leads to conflict 87. 
 —true, equals organization, 88; 90; 96. 
 —bad action cannot be 221. 
 —means a method, not a thing 136. 
 —found in movement of character 234. 
 —see law. 
 Utilitarianism— is universalistic hedonism 13; 53. 
 —defined by Mill, Sidgwick, Bain, 53» 
 —criticized 54 ff . 
 —assumes social order 63 ff. 
 —combined with evolution 67. 
 
253 
 
 Virtue— change in nature of 211. 
 
 —correlative to duty 225. 
 
 —distinguished from merit 226. 
 
 —is an interest of character 228 
 
 —two types of 229. 
 
 —cardinal 230. 
 Wants— see desires. 
 Wilson (and Fowler)— referred to: 67. 
 Will— Kant's good will 79. 
 
 
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