DEONTOLOGY;
OR,
THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY:
IN WHICH THE HARMONY AND CO-INCIDENCE OF
DUTY AND SELF-INTEREST,
VIRTUE AND FELICITY,
PRUDENCE AND BENEVOLENCE,
ARE EXPLAINED, EXEMPLIFIED, AND APPLIED TO THE BUSINESS OF LIFE.
FROM THE MSS. OF JEREMY BENTHAM.
ARRANGED AND EDITED BY
JOHN BOWRING.
IN TWO VOLUMES. ^
VOL. II. V
LONDON:
LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWNE, GREEN, AND LONGMAN.
EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM TAIT.
1834.
BT
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6/f
JO
CONTENTS. PART II.
PRACTICE OF VIRTUE.
PAGE
PREFACE. . . . . vii to x
INTRODUCTION. . . .1 26
CHAPTER I.
General Statement . . .27 80
CHAPTER II.
Self-regarding Prudence . . .81 131
CHAPTER III.
Extra-regarding Prudence . .132 188
CHAPTER IV.
Negative Efficient Benevolence . .189 258
CHAPTER V.
Positive Efficient Benevolence . . 259 304
CHAPTER VI.
Conclusion. . . . 305 319
PREFACE.
IT is not presumed that this Volume contains
rules for every probable or possible contingency
in which the inquirer may seek for the applica
tion of the Deontological code. But the prin
ciples being laid down, and so many incidents
offered for their explanation and illustration, the
reader may be safely left for himself to gather
together such circumstances as his observation
may furnish, in order to submit them to those
tests with which he is here supplied. In doing
this, he will forward the views of that wise and
benevolent Philosopher to whom these pages
owe their birth. I hope, he says in one of his
memoranda, that the care of others, calling in
the experience of their friends and acquaint-
ance, will record all those cases which demand
VOL. ii. b
VJ11 PREFACE.
the application of the sound principles of mo-
rality ; that they will solve them by right rules,
and give the reasons for the solution/ Obser
vation, he was accustomed to say, would ere
long, condense the marrow of morality into a
few simple rules, that would become the Vade
Mecum of every body, and be ready on every
occasion to apply to every demand. They will
be pasted, he remarked, on the back of an
almanack, which now loses part of its value
every day, and soon is rendered worthless by
the lapse of time ; but the moral side, while
recording principles that are immutable, will
remain as fresh, as true, as useful as ever.
And, in elucidation of our Author s purpose,
I can find nothing more characteristic, nothing
more emphatic, than his own words :
I have taken the principle of utility for my
guide. I will follow wheresoever it leads me.
No prejudices shall force me to quit the road.
No interest shall seduce me. No superstitions
shall appal me. Addressing myself to a free
and enlightened nation, what have I to fear ?
PREFACE. IX
I will make the augmentation of the general fe-
licity, which is the object, which is the motive
of my inquiry, so plainly my purpose, that
those who would persuade men to the contrary,
shall not be able. How shall this be ? By
opening my breast, by casting my offerings at
the feet of the public without reserve. I write
not to an Athenian mob, nor to a fanatic rabble.
* I write to many who, were my merit ever so
many times greater than I can hope, would be
c worthy to be my judges !
There are, properly speaking, but two parties
in morals or politics, and in religion. The one is
for the unlimited exercise of reason ; the other
is against it. I profess myself of the former : I
hold myself to be more in communion with
I feel myself more cordially disposed towards
those who agree with me in that one point, than
with those who, disagreeing with me in that,
agree with me in every other. These, with res
pect to each other, are the two grand heresies :
the others are but schisms.
The materials out of which this volume has
X PREFACE.
been put together, are, for the most part, dis
jointed fragments, written on small scraps of
paper, on the spur of the moment, at times
remote from one another, and delivered into my
hands without order or arrangement of any
sort. J. Bo.
INTRODUCTION.
THE purpose of this volume is, to bring the
Deontological system of morality into practical
use ; to give to opinion the power of operation.
Having laid down a rule of conduct, it is
intended to show its applicability to the daily
concerns of life, and its aptitude for the cre
ation of human happiness and the diminution
of human misery.
The theory of the social science has been
largely developed in the volume dedicated to
the topic. With a view to the better under
standing and greater usefulness of the Deon
tological law, it appears desirable to revert,
even though briefly, to the principles which it
was our object to establish, in order that they
may be at hand for use, as the various cases
for abstention and action present themselves.
The value of the philosophical instrument will
VOL. II. B
2 INTRODUCTION.
not, it is believed, be lessened in the estimate
either of wisdom or of virtue, when that instru
ment is seen busied in its moral work. The
present portion of our labor will be to the
intelligent moralist what reports of cases ad
judged, or set down for judgment, are to the
inquiring jurisconsult ; and if it be found that
our legislation leads in all cases to satisfactory
decisions, a tolerable evidence will be given of
the excellence of the code recommended.
Laws in England the law of parliament and
the common law take a considerable portion
of human actions under their cognizance.
Wherever the sufferings inflicted by miscon
duct are so great as to affect the persons or
property of the community on a large scale
of mischievousness, penal visitation comes with
its punishments : where actions are supposed to
be beneficial over so large an extent as to
demand the attention of the legislative or ad
ministrative authorities, public recompense is
brought to reward them. Beyond these limits
vast masses of enjoyment and suffering are
produced by human conduct, and here is the
INTRODUCTION. O
province of morality. Its directions and its
sanctions become a sort of factitious law. Those
directions are of course dependent on the sanc
tions to which they appeal ; and it is only by
bringing the behaviour of men under the ope
ration of those sanctions that the moralist, or
the divine, or the legislator, can have any
success or influence.
These sanctions deal out their pains and
pleasures, their rewards and punishments ; and
they emanate from the following sources :
1 . The pathological, which include the phy
sical and psychological, or the pleasures and
pains of a corporeal character.
2. The social or sympathetic, which grow
immediately out of a man s domestic and social
relations.
3. The moral or popular, which are the
expression of public opinion.
4. The political, which comprise the legal
and administrative ; the whole of which belong
to jurisprudential rather than moral ethics.
5. The religious sanctions, which belong to
the ecclesiastical teacher.
4 INTRODUCTION.
With the two last of these the Deontologist
has little concern. They are the instruments
of the legislator and the divine.
There are, as has been repeated, two grand
divisions in a man s sphere of conduct; one con
cerns himself, and the other concerns all be
sides : these involve personal and extra-personal
considerations. All actions that regard himself,
and which are not indifferent, are either prudent
or imprudent. All actions that regard others,
and which are not indifferent, are either bene
ficent or maleficent. Hence virtue and vice
all virtues and all vices belong either to indi
vidual or social relations. Virtue, if individual,
is prudential ; if social, it is benevolent : and
thus all the virtues are modifications either
of prudence or benevolence. Not that all pru
dence is virtue : for it is prudent to exercise
the ordinary functions of nature ; but virtue is
found where the temptation to a present enjoy
ment is sacrificed to a greater future enjoyment;
not that all benevolence is virtue, for bene
volence may encourage both vice and misery;
but in order to be efficient, it must operate
INTRODUCTION. O
to the diminution or extinction of both. The
foundation of all virtue is individual happiness,
the pursuit of which is necessary to the very
existence of the human race, the pursuit of
which is necessary to the existence of virtue,
and the judicious pursuit of which is the true
and sole resource for the extension of virtue
and consequent felicity.
In the search after this felicity, with whom
has man to do ? He has to do with himself in
those proceedings in which others are not con
cerned ; with himself in those proceedings in
which others are concerned ; and with others
in those proceedings in which either himself or
they are concerned. Within these limits come
all questions of duty, and in consequence all
questions of virtue. And into these divisions
all investigations as to morality must be
brought.
The first inquiry, then, should be directed
to that conduct which concerns the individual
alone, and which has no influence upon the
pains or pleasures of others ; that is to say,
the purely self-regarding. Where the influence
6 INTRODUCTION.
of conduct does not reach beyond the indivi
dual, where his thoughts, or tastes, or actions
do not affect others, his line of duty is plainly
marked. He must provide for his own per
sonal enjoyment, weighing one pleasure against
another, taking into account all corresponding
pains, and then draw that balance of happiness
which will best stand the test of thought and
of time. As to his bodily acts, he will have
to weigh the consequence of each ; the suffer
ing growing out of pleasure, the pleasure atten
dant upon privation. As to his mental acts,
he will have to take care that present plea
surable thoughts do not bring with them fu
ture preponderant sufferings : in retrospective
thoughts, it will become him to dwell only
on such as leave a profit to happiness ; and
in his thoughts for futurity, whether requiring
or not requiring action, it will be his wisdom
to avoid anticipations likely to be disappointed,
or such as, when the accounts are closed, will
give a loss of pleasure. So, in the expectations
he may form, let him not add to possible future
the more pernicious influence of positive pre-
INTRODUCTION. 7
sent evil ; let him not create a misery now,
which perhaps may never have an existence
hereafter.
In those relations with others where a man s
own happiness is involved, those relations
which may be deemed of extra-regarding pru
dence, Deontology will teach him to apply the
same happiness-producing and misery-avoiding
rules of conduct, and to watch the flux and
reflux of his deportment towards others on his
own individual well-being. For until a man s
intercourse with other men can be shown to
have some connection with his own felicity,
it will be in vain to talk with him as to the
conduct he should pursue towards them. His
benevolence will be the re-action of benefits
received or anticipated. Deontology will in
struct him as to the course he should pursue
towards men in general, and show him how
his proceedings should be modified by all those
circumstances in his social relations, which
demand his special regard. It will trace out
for him those peculiar duties which, as equal,
inferior, or superior, are demanded from him,
8 INTRODUCTION.
with a reference to his own individual interests.
It will guide him in his connection with those
who are habitually or frequently in contact
with him, as well as with those whom acci
dent may throw in his way friends, fellow-
countrymen, strangers towards each will it
assist him to measure out that portion of pru
dential sympathy which will, on the whole,
lead to the greatest ultimate sum of good.
"Where the powers of benevolence come into
operation, Deontology will be near with her
beneficent instructions. In one hand she holds
a bridle, to check the tendency to inflict pain ;
in the other a spur, to impel the disposition
to communicate pleasure. She puts her veto
upon the will that would hurt ; she offers her
recompense to that which would serve. Upon
the lips whose discourse would annoy, without
some preponderant good to the hearer or to
society, she puts the finger of silence : to the
language that would communicate enjoyment,
without any preponderant evil either to the
speaker or the listener, she gives expression.
The written effusions which vex and torment
INTRODUCTION. U
and irritate, but bring with them no decided
result of benefit, she claims to censure and
to suppress. Where valuable truth and know
ledge are communicated, where misconduct is
exposed, whose exposure is predominantly use
ful, where mischief is to be prevented, where
good is to be effected, in all cases where,
in a word, there results to the world a greater
portion of good than of evil, she interferes with
her imprimatur.
And the same rules she applies to actions.
She arrests the hand that would inflict pain,
unless for the prevention of a greater pain.
She counsels the transfer of every species of
happiness to others, except where that transfer
leads to a sacrifice of happiness greater than
the happiness conferred. In her eyes happiness
is a treasure of such value, and interest, and
importance, that she would not willingly lose
the smallest portion of it. She watches it in
all its wanderings, and would fain bring it back
to every bosom from whence it has escaped.
If Deontology issue her cautions, it is solely
in the spirit of maternal kindness. If she ever
10 INTRODUCTION.
frown, in order to deter from misconduct, it is
(if she succeed in checking the error) only
that she may recompense its correction with
smiles.
The elements of pain and pleasure give to
the Deontologist instruments sufficient for his
work. Give me matter and motion/ said
Descartes, and I will make a physical world.
Give me/ may the Utilitarian teacher ex
claim, give me the human sensibilities joy
and grief, pain and pleasure and I will create
a moral world. I will produce not only jus
tice, but generosity, patriotism, philanthropy,
and the long and illustrious train of sublime
and amiable virtues, purified and exalted/
But, it may be said, Your principle of utility
is useless ; it will not excite to virtuous action,
it will not restrain from vicious/ If it will
not, there is no help for it ; no other principle
will stand in its stead, no other principle has
so many elements for encouragement to good
and discouragement to evil. Will clamoring
about ought/ and ought not/ that perpe
tual petitio principii will pronouncing the
INTRODUCTION. 11
words, bonum, hone stum, utile, decorum, do
more ? What motives can be furnished by any
other system what motives which are not
borrowed from this ? Men may wear out the
air with sonorous and unmeaning words ; those
words will not act upon the mind ; nothing will
act upon it but the apprehensions of pleasure
and pain.
If, indeed, there could be conceived such a
thing as virtue which would contribute nothing
to the happiness of mankind, or vice which
should contribute nothing to its misery, what
possible motive could there be for embracing
the one and avoiding the other? From man
there could be none, as, by the supposition,
he is uninterested in the matter : from God
there can be none : a being all-sufficient and
all-benevolent, who himself, placed beyond the
reach of the effects of human actions, must
estimate them only by their result, and whose
benevolence can have no conceivable object
but that very happiness for which sound mo
rality strives.
12 INTRODUCTION".
Stand up untremblingly, then, and avow that
what is called the duty to oneself is but pru
dence; and what is called duty to others is
effective benevolence ; and that all other duties
and virtues are resolvable into these. For that
God willeth the happiness of his creatures is
indisputable, and has made it impossible that
they should not endeavour to obtain it. To
this end he has given them every faculty they
possess, and to no other end.
It is absurd in reasoning, and dangerous in
morals, to represent the Divine Being as having
purposes to accomplish which are opposed to
all the tendencies of our nature, he himself
having created those tendencies.
To suppose that a man can act without a
motive, much less against a motive operating
singly, is to suppose an effect without and
against a cause.
To suppose the Deity to require it, is to
suppose a contradiction in terms, that he
commands us to do what he has rendered it
impossible for us to do that his will is opposed
INTRODUCTION. 13
to his will his purpose to his purpose in a
word, that in the same breath he forbids and
commands the same action. The impulses of
the principles of our nature are his undoubted
voice a voice heard in all bosoms, and to which
all bosoms respond.
Be it owned, however, that in too many cases
the discussion of the grounds of morality is
carried on in a way little likely to advance its
cause. Your motives are bad/ says the un
believer to the orthodox ; you are interested in
deceit you merely support the craft by which
you get your bread. And you, retorts the
orthodox, are influenced only by the love of
paradox the pride of singularity ; if not by
what is worse, a determination to cut up
religion by the roots to do it all the mischief
you can. Yours is a universal malice ; an
odium generis humani. 9 In such recriminations,
in such estimate of motives, the unbeliever is
seldom right, the orthodox never.
When moral teachers wander beyond the
limits of experience, when, guided by other
considerations than those of happiness and
14 INTRODUCTION.
misery, they adventure upon a trackless waste
leading no man can say whither.
How can we reason but from what we know ?
And the intrusion of the Divine Being, not as
he is known to us, but as he is feigned or
fancied by those who would make his attributes
subservient to their theories, only makes their
dogmatism more offensive. The happiness of
mankind is too precious a possession to be
sacrificed to any system. The felicity of a
future state as a recompense for virtue, can
never have been intended by a beneficent being
to be employed for introducing false standards
of virtue. In truth, if moralists are to dispose
of a state of things unknown to them, they
may as well advocate one system as another ;
if they are to have a licence for coining suppo
sitions, what is to prevent any extravagance?
If the benevolence of God is to be cramped, or
bent, or tortured, to become the servant of their
malevolence, what fastings, whippings, mace
rations, what deplorable caprices of a western
monk or an eastern fakir, may not be proved to
be a merit or a duty !
INTRODUCTION. 15
Sad must be the fate of religion, if it be
placed in hostile array against morality ; for no
religion can be reconciled to reason but on
evidence that it is calculated to strengthen,
and not to dissolve the moral ties. And what
can be so extensive an appeal as that which is
made to every man s bosom ? How could God
declare himself in a manner less liable to be
misunderstood, than by those infallible, inex
tinguishable, universal sentiments, that he has
implanted within us ? What words could speak
so strongly as the omnipresent fact, that to will
our own present happiness is the essence of our
nature; and who made our nature what it is?
our present happiness, be it repeated ; because
it is only by being linked with the present
that ideas of futurity can reach us at all.
And on this basis, that man endeavors to
procure his own felicity, shall we build our
edifice without fear of its falling.
For of a truth, that fact is subject to no dis
pute, it is evident beyond the reach of doubt,
it is paramount to all principles of reasoning,
and forcible beyond all possibility of resist-
1(5 INTRODUCTION.
ance. And let not the mind be led astray by
any distinctions drawn between pleasures and
happiness. Happiness is the aggregate of which
pleasures are the component parts.
Happiness without pleasures is a chimera and
a contradiction ; it is a million without any units,
a square yard in which there shall be no inches,
a bag of guineas without an atom of gold.
Be it understood that, in endeavouring to
apply the Deontological code of morals to the
business of life, in seeking to displace all those
theories which have not happiness for their end
and reason for their instrument, the only wish
to be preceptive is in so far as utility can be
called into operation. To drive out the ipse-
dixitism of another, by an ipse-dixitism of his
own, is no part of the business of theDeontologist,
and with no ipse-dixitism has he so irreconcil
able a quarrel as with that of asceticism. Other
principles may or may not be wrong : sentimen-
talism, which sometimes leads astray, may also
sometimes conduct into the paths of benevo
lence, without wandering so far from those of
prudence as to make that benevolence perni-
INTRODUCTION. 17
cious, but the ascetic principle must be wrong;
wrong whenever it is in action. It exclaims,
as Satan did Evil be thou my good ; and turns
upside down all virtues in endeavouring to shift
them from their true foundation happiness.
In fact, asceticism is the natural growth of a
barbarous and superstitious age ; it is the
representation of a principle which would
despotize over other men, by making duty
something different from that to which interest
points. The standard of happiness being in
every man s bosom, his pains and pleasures
being his own, and their value best estimated
by himself, it is clear that, in order to obtain
authority over him ; in order to legislate not for
his interest, but for the interests of the legislator,
some other influence than that of his own emo
tions must be appealed to. Hence the preten
sion to set up authority against reason and
experience ; hence the disposition and determi
nation to exalt the past at the expense of the
present ; to laud up a Golden Age when know
ledge was in its cradle, and to put forward the
golden mean as the true test of virtue. Medi-
VOL. II. C
18 INTRODUCTION.
ocrity, said the ancients ; Between extremes/
re-echo the moderns : useless and delusive
phrases, well fitted to keep the mind and the
affections from their safest and most judicious
direction. Then again, refining upon refine
ment, dividing the indivisible, moralists have
introduced a class of virtues, which are not
quite virtues, called half- virtues or semi-virtutes .
Examine them closely, exhaust them of the
prudence and the benevolent beneficence that
are in them, the rest is worthlessness, and the
parade of it foppery and folly.
The omnipresence of the self-regarding affec
tion, and its intimate union with the social, are
the bases of all genuine morality. That in the
human character certain dissocial affections
should exist, so far from being injurious to the
interests of virtue, is one of the greatest securi
ties for virtue. The social affections are the
instruments by which pleasure is communicated
to others ; the dissocial are those by which the
social are kept in check when a greater sacri
fice is proposed to be made to beneficence than
prudence warrants ; in other words, when less
INTRODUCTION. 19
happiness is to be gained by others than is lost
by ourselves. But with the term dissocial let no
idea of antipathy be connected. Hatred, anger,
indignation, or any such passions will rather
bewilder and blind than serve the moralist in
his investigations into the causes of vices, or their
appropriate cures. The law- giver should be no
more impassioned than the geometrician. They
are both solving problems by sober calculation.
The Deontologist is but an arithmetician whose
cyphers are pains and pleasures ; his science
is that of addition, subtraction, multiplica
tion, and division. And certainly the result of
his labors will be far more facilitated by the
quiet influence of composed thought, than by
imaginative wanderings, or passionate sallies.
It may perhaps assist the understanding and
recollection of the subject, if the Deontological
principles be arranged under a few heads,
taking the shape of axioms.
Happiness may be defined to be the posses
sion of pleasures with the absence of pains, or
the possession of a preponderant amount of
pleasure over pain.
20 INTRODUCTION.
Good and evil, when resolved into their
elements, are composed of pleasures and pains.
These pleasures and pains may be either
negative or positive, growing out of the absence
of the one, or the presence of the other.
The possession of a pleasure, or the absence
of a menaced pain, is good.
The presence of a pain, or the absence of a
promised pleasure, is evil.
A positive good is the possession, or the ex
pectation of a pleasure. A negative good is the
exemption, or the cause of exemption from a pain.
Sensations are of two sorts; those accom
panied by pleasure or by pain, and those which
are unaccompanied by either. It is only on
those which produce pain and pleasure, that
motives or sanctions can be brought to operate.
The value of a pleasure, separately considered,
depends on its intensity, duration, and extent.
On those qualities its importance to society
turns; or in other words, its power of adding
to the sum of individual and of general happiness.
The magnitude of a pleasure depends on its
intensity and duration.
INTRODUCTION. 21
The extent of a pleasure depends on the
number of persons who enjoy it.
And the same laws apply to pains.
The magnitude of a pleasure or a pain, in any
one of its qualities, may compensate or over
balance its deficiency in any other.
A pleasure or a pain may be fruitful or barren.
A pleasure may be fruitful in pleasures or in
pains, fruitful in pleasures like their parent, or
in pleasures of another character ; it may be
fruitful also in pains, and in the same manner a
pain may be fruitful in pains and pleasures.
Where pains and pleasures are barren, the
calculation of interest is easy. The task of the
moralist becomes more complicated, when
pains and pleasures produce fruits unlike them
selves.
A pleasure or a pain may be derived either
from another pleasure or pain, or by the act
which produces that other pleasure or pain. If
the act be the source of the derived pleasure or
pain, it is the act that is fruitful ; if it be the
pleasure that produces the secondary pleasure or
pain, the fecundity is in the pleasure.
22 INTRODUCTION.
The pleasure that is produced by the contem
plation of the pleasure enjoyed by another, is a
pleasure of sympathy.
The pain that is suffered by the contemplation
of the pain experienced by another, is a pain of
sympathy.
The pleasure enjoyed by the contemplation of
the pain suffered by another, is a pleasure of
antipathy.
The pain suffered by the contemplation of the
pleasure enjoyed by another, is a pain of
antipathy.
The benevolence of a man must be measured
by the number of beings out of whose pains
and pleasures he draws his own pleasures and
pains of sympathy.
The virtues of a man must be measured by the
number of persons whose happiness he seeks to
promote; that is, the greatest portion and
happiness to each, taking into amount the
sacrifice which he knowingly makes of his own
happiness.
When the amounts of pleasures and pains are
balanced, the balance of pleasure is the evidence
INTRODUCTION. 23
of virtue, the balance of pain the evidence of
vice.
Beyond, and exclusive of these balances of
pains and pleasures, the words virtue and vice
are emptiness and folly.
Not that the quantity of happiness determines
the quantity of virtue, there being much happi
ness with which virtue has nothing whatever to
do. Virtue implies the presence of a difficulty,
the presence of fruitfulness too as to pains and
pleasures. The greater the sacrifice, the greater
the difficulty.
The sources of happiness by which the
individual is preserved, which sources, too,
provide the greatest portion of happiness, are
independent of the exercise of virtue. They
may be called acts of well-doing, of beneficence,
according to the strictest meaning of the words,
but they are not acts of benevolence.
In fine, it would be a self-contradiction to
say, that an act which produced a balance of
suffering could be a virtue, as it would be to
declare, that an act producing a balance of
enjoyment could be a vice.
24 INTRODUCTION.
For the want of a standard to apply to con
duct, the strangest errors and mistakes have
been made : paradoxes one after another have
intruded themselves into common use, and have
served to darken counsels by words without
knowledge/ The vessel of public felicity has
been beaten about on the ocean of vague un
certainty, without a helmsman or a rudder.
Books have been printed, whose authors, had
they but attached distinct ideas to the phrase
ology they employed, would have rendered val
uable service to the cause of truth and virtue.
When Mandeville put forward his theory, that
private vices are public benefits, he did not per
ceive that the erroneous application of the terms
vice and virtue was the source of the confusion
which enabled him to advocate a seeming con
tradiction. For if what is called virtue produce
a diminution of happiness, and if vice, being
the opposite of virtue, have a contrary effect, it
is clear that virtue is the evil and vice the good,
and that the principle which he advocates is
merely the greatest-happiness principle under a
cloud. If a private vice be on the whole in-
INTRODUCTION. 25
strumental in producing a result of felicity to
the community, all that can be said is, that the
vice has been christened by an erroneous and
mistaken name. True it is that utility will
transfer many actions to the score of vice, which
unenlightened opinion has honored as virtues,
and will give to qualities, which have been fre
quently called vices, some name of indifference,
or even of approval. But the utilitarian scale
vibrates only between good and evil pain and
pleasure other elements count for nothing in
the balance, let them be called by names as
pompous as they may.
That a system of morality adapted to the
growing intelligence of man should not have
come down to us from remote time, is not to be
wondered at. Even in the knowledge of mate
rial objects, antiquity had made small progress.
In the knowledge of the functions of the human
mind, in intellectual physiology, there was no
progress at all. Ancient learning is the ware
house of wit, the treasury of superficial resem
blances. Modern learning science founded
on experiment and observation is the mine
26 INTRODUCTION.
whence materials for future progress are to be
extracted. There only can those combinations
be sought which constitute improvements ; there
only will those discoveries be made, out of which
theory rears its magnificent deductions. One
after another, the different branches of practical
philosophy are drawn into the regions of scien
tific arrangement. It is not Homer, nor Horace,
nor Virgil, nor Tibullus it is not all the furni
ture of a whole Christ Church library that will
help ethical science either to a nomenclature, or
an analysis. Neither virtues nor vices can find
their appropriate places, or exercise their true
influences, until the test is found which is to
divide them into the elements of pain and plea
sure. The science of morals is but the gather
ing up of the sensations of suffering and enjoy
ment, and arranging them under their different
heads of vice and virtue. Every moral law is
an integrant and harmonious part of the great
moral code, descending from and traceable to
the two master principles of all virtuous con
duct Prudence and Benevolence.
GENERAL STATEMENT. 27
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL STATEMENT.
THE object of Deontology is to instruct the
inquirer in the management of the affections,
so that they may be made most subservient to
his own well-being. He has pains and plea
sures of his own with .which the world has no
concern ; he has pains and pleasures which de
pend on his intercourse with mankind ; and it is
in both these relations to give pleasure such a
direction as that it may be the progenitor of
other pleasures, and to give pain such a direc
tion that, if possible, it may be made a source
of pleasure, or at all events, that it may be
made as light and as bearable and as transitory
as possible, that the Deontological moralist
pours out his instructions.
Abstractedly they may be reduced to a single
inquiry. At what cost of future pain or sacri
fice of future pleasure is a present pleasure pur
chased ? What repayment of future pleasure
may be anticipated for a present pain ? Out of
this examination morality must be developed.
Temptation is the present pleasure punish-
28 DEONTOLOGY.
ment is the future pain ; sacrifice is the present
pain enjoyment is the future recompense. The
questions of virtue and vice are, for the most
part, reduced to the weighing that which is,
against that which will be. The virtuous man
has a store of happiness in coming time, the
vicious man has prodigally spent his revenues
of happiness. To-day the vicious man seems
to have a balance of pleasure in his favor ; to
morrow the balance will be adjusted, and the
day after it will be ascertained to be wholly in
favor of the virtuous man. Vice is a spendthrift,
flinging away what is far better than wealth, or
health, or youth, or beauty namely, happiness:
because all of these without happiness are of
little value. Virtue is a prudent economist that
gets back all her outlay with interest.
The duty of the Deontological teacher cannot
be better discharged than when he, watching
the occasion of calm and quiet thought, trea
sures up in his own mind, or conveys to the
mind of others, those instructions which may be
turned to account in the untranqnil or passionate
hour. The time for planting truth is when
there is freedom from excitation. Truths so
planted may in the moment of excitation put
forth their salutary power. Occasions there
will be when the affections seem peculiarly at
tuned to the influences of virtuous suggestion.
GENERAL STATEMENT. 29
There are hours of sunshine, hours of happiness,
which dispose us to the reception of prudent
and generous impulses. It is then that the
word appropriately spoken the Deontological
law felicitously put forward may make its in
delible impression, and become a practical and
efficient monitor, when impulses, either impru
dent or maleficent, would lead astray. For, to
bring passion into the regions of virtue, so that
virtue may assume the sovereignty, or with simi
lar success to conduct virtue into the regions of
passion, is the highest triumph of morality ; a
triumph which can only be secured by the pro
visional foresight that lays in its stores of use
ful precepts with anticipating care. It is not
amidst the hurly-burly of exciting temptations
that we can safely look around us for motives
to check their promptings. Let the rules be
gathered up, let the motives be fixed within us,
while the temptations are absent, and it is thus,
and thus only, that when the temptations are
present, we shall find the arguments at hand
for resisting them.
In the still hour when passion is at rest,
Gather up stores of wisdom in thy breast ;
So when the storms awake, and in the din
Imprudence or malevolence to sin
Would tempt thy frailty thoughts of wisdom stor d
Shall check the passion, ere its tides are pour d.
A pebble turns the streamlet, whose proud sway
Unbridled sweeps the granite rocks away.
30 DEONTOLOGY.
The principle of utility, or rather the greatest-
happiness principle, has this advantage over
every other that, whenever the divergences of
opinion, which recognize another standard, do
meet, it is in the field of utility. If there be
any point of union or harmony between them,
it is exhibited there. Even where men agree
to recognise a certain authority, a text, a law,
for example, it will be found far more difficult
to induce them to coincide as to its interpreta
tion, than as to the decision of a question which
is submitted to the Deontological law. Let the
articles of a code (dependent on authority, and
removed from the application of the utilitarian
tests), or let the various texts of a volume on
morality be appealed to on any occasion as the
standard of rectitude, and it will be seen that
those who recognise the authority of the code
or the text-book, will be far less unanimous in
their suffrages, than would be the same number
of persons who, making utility their standard,
should be referred to for their decision on the
case in point.
Under the influence of the blind, instinctive
impulse, people have, in truth, from the be
ginning of the world, been in the habit of con
sulting the greatest-happiness principle, and
whenever they have acted reasonably, that prin
ciple has been their guide. They have been
led by it, without being aware of its existence :
GENERAL STATEMENT. 31
as, in a clouded day, men walk in the light
without tracing the brightness to the uprising of
the sun. Helvetius is the first moralist who
turned with steady eye to the utilitarian prin
ciple. He saw its radiance and its power, and
reasoned under its influence.
The general principle has been again and
again referred to. Morality is the art of max
imizing happiness : it gives the code of laws by
which that conduct is suggested whose result
will, the whole of human existence being taken
into account, leave the greatest quantity of
felicity.
Now the greatest quantity of felicity must
depend on the means, or sources, or instruments
by which the causes of happiness are produced,
and the causes of unhappiness avoided.
In so far as these causes are accessible to
man, and are under the influence of his will,
and become the rule of his conduct for the pro
duction of happiness, that conduct may be de
signated by one word, virtue; in so far as,
under similar circumstances, they lead to
conduct generating a result of unhappiness, that
conduct is designated by a word of an opposite
character, namely, vice.
Hence nothing that is called virtue is entitled
to the name, unless, and in so far as, it is con
tributory to happiness ; the happiness of the
32 DEONTOLOGY.
agent himself, or of some other being. And
nothing that is called vice is properly desig
nated, unless, and in so far as, it is productive
of unhappiness.
The sources of happiness are physical or in
tellectual : it is with the physical sources that
the moralist has principally to do. The culti
vation of the mind the creation of pleasure
from the purely mental faculties belongs to
another department of instruction.
Now, every person being for his own happi
ness principally dependent on his own conduct,
his conduct towards himself and his conduct
towards others, in all those relations in which
he exercises any influence upon their happiness,
it remains to give this theory of morals its prac
tical value, by applying it to the circumstances
of life ; and thus, to group human actions
into the two classes so often pointed at the
two grand departments of prudence and bene
volence.
It may at first appear, that the considerations
of benevolence are intitled to take precedence
of those of prudence, inasmuch as the field of
action for prudence is narrow and individual,
that for benevolence is social, vast, universal.
But prudence must have the pre-eminence ; for
though it regards but one individual, that indi
vidual is the man himself that individual is
GENERAL STATEMENT. 33
the man over whose actions an influence can be
exercised which cannot be exercised over the
actions of any other man or men. Of his own
will a man has the disposal, but he cannot
employ more than a limited authority over the
will of others. And could he do this, the self-
regarding, the prudential affections, are more
necessary to the existence, and thence to the
happiness of man, than the sympathising can
be ; to every man more necessary, and therefore
to the whole of the human race. The subject,
too, is more simple, and easy to be developed
to begin with one being, ere the connection of
that one being with others is traced. Hence it
is natural to trace the influence of his conduct
upon his own happiness, where the welfare of
no other person is concerned ; to proceed then
to consider what are the laws of prudence where
the welfare of others is involved ; and then to
proceed to the wider branch of the subject to
the consideration of the laws of effective bene
volence.
A stigma has too frequently been attached to
the self-regarding considerations ; because in
their erroneous calculations they have sometimes
been allowed to invade and do mischief in the
regions of benevolence ; because to them the
beneficent sympathies have been sometimes
sacrificed ; and an erroneous estimate of what
VOL. II. D
34 DEONTOLOGY.
human nature might become, if the social were
allowed preponderance over the selfish principle,
has often led men to fancy that there are analo
gies teaching and justifying the uncalculating
sacrifice of self. Beasts herd together, it is said,
beasts of the same sex, who have no wants to
satisfy by means of intercommunication, no
motive but in the abstract gregarious instinct.
Hence it is argued, that man seeks society for
its own sake, from an irresistible social tendency,
which has nothing to do with the enjoyments
he derives from it. But the assumption may
well be doubted. The search for food, the de
fence against common enemies are, it is be
lieved, the principal motives (and these undoubt
edly self-regarding ones), which determine the
congregation of animals together. Where the
same sort of wants and the same sort of dangers
exist, there is the bond the strongest : and a
similarity of wants and dangers often determines
the association of animals of different species.
Those animals which derive no assistance from
their fellows, either for the supply of their ne
cessities or for their security from molestation ;
those, the precariousness and scantiness of whose
subsistence create on the contrary an opposi
tion of interests, as, for example, the larger
beasts of prey, such as lions, tigers, &c., do not
associate even among themselves ; and if the
GENERAL STATEMENT. 35
case is otherwise in those of inferior strength,
as wolves, it may safely be attributed to their
inability singly to master the animals which are
their most usual prey. They feed upon horses
and oxen, which are stronger than themselves ;
or sheep, which are watched and guarded by
men, their proprietors. The fox is a beast of
prey, and not usually a gregarious one, but his
prey is poultry, and animals weaker than him
self, his interests being solitary rather than
social, his character and condition are solitary.
Prudence thus divides itself into two classes ;
the prudence which regards ourselves, the in
sulated prudence, where no interests but those
of the agent are at stake, and the prudence
which has reference to others, where the in
terests of others are at stake : for though a
man s happiness is naturally and necessarily his
primary and ultimate object, yet that happiness
is so dependent on the conduct of others to
wards him, as to make the regulation and direc
tion of the conduct of others towards him an
object of his prudential care.
Hence grows the association of prudence with
benevolence, and hence the necessity of ascer
taining the dictates of effective benevolence,
even with a view to the interests of prudence
alone.
36 DEONTOLOGY.
Effective benevolence, again, both in its ne
gative shape, where a man refrains from doing
that which may injure others, or in its positive
shape, where a man confers pleasure upon
others, is of two classes ; either practicable
without self-sacrifice, or requiring self-sacrifice
for its exercise.
But for the application of these principles to
practice, inasmuch as they bear upon all the
concerns of existence, on every event of every
day of every man s life, and as these events are
infinitely varied in their character, it is obvious
that nothing more can be done, than to lay
down general rules, and to point out some cases
for their exemplification. Such cases will be
come like lamps illumining a sphere far beyond
their own little flame. And the whole moral
edifice is one of unity, simplicity, and symme
try : each part enabling the inquirer to compre
hend the rest any fragment of it will give the
character, the measure of the whole. Taken
out of the circle of dogmatism and vagueness,
the moral code is perfectly harmonious, consist
ing of very few articles ; but these are applica
ble to every possible case, and resolve every
debateable question.
In self-love there is a foundation for universal
benevolence ; there is none for universal malice.
GENEKAL STATEMENT. 37
And this is in itself evidence of the union
between the interest of the individual and that
of mankind.
In the universal desire to obtain the good
opinion of others there is also security for this
same union. No man is deaf to expressions of
approbation and esteem. They are sources of
satisfaction to all. For suppose smiles and
praises were accompanied with the rod, and that
on the contrary frowns and reproaches brought
with them valuable gifts, who would not shun the
smile and desire the frown ? The appetite for
censure would supersede that for praise; frowns
would diffuse the alacrity that now accompa
nies smiles, and smiles be the harbinger of
gloom. The desire of praise is in fact inter
woven among our earliest sensibilities ; so early
that no man recollects a period when it did not
exist in his mind; nor does it require the pierc
ing eye and attentive searching of the philoso
pher to call into view a principle which is so
interblended with the very ground-work of our
nature. Existing in every man thus early,
strengthened by repeated, by habitual exercise,
this desire of approbation becomes indissolubly
and intimately united with our physical wants:
it is so associated that it can hardly be detached
from the idea of a personal pleasure. Praise may
indeed appear to be desired for itself, but the
38 DEONTOLOGY.
desire is so connected with the self- regarding
principle that to separate them is impossible.
The process by which benevolence is gene
rated is a beautiful one, and by it virtue is asso
ciated with felicity. A child receives praises and
marks of affection when at command it ceases
crying, or takes physic, or lays down a for
bidden object which it had seized. Its earliest
sacrifices are made to the moral, the happiness-
generating principle, and it finds its recompense.
The love of its parents, its brothers and sisters,
its nurse and attendants, grows out of its phy
sical sensibilities, and these sensibilities are
awakened to felicity by the action of that love.
Nor is there much value in the objection, that
this process is too complicated and intricate,
too long and difficult for childish intellects. The
gradual production of the results is the real
cause of the difficulty of following them by
words ; and the absence of appropriate words to
express the different phenomena, leaves the
erroneous impression that the phenomena are
themselves entangled and confused. To deny
the connection is to deny the association of
ideas in the minds of children ; though this
association is exhibited in the very earliest
development of intellect, and it is no more to
be wondered at than that a child should put
out its hands rather than its feet to grasp an
GENERAL STATEMENT. 39
object, and direct organically, as it were, its
little means to an end.
And as the child grows to manhood, and
manhood with its stronger powers and passions
impels to more ambitious efforts, the thirst for
praise becomes more ardent. It is for this that
men sacrifice their repose, and rush on to the
goal even of public misery through the ranks of
embattled competitors and in the defiles of toil
and danger. It is for this, in happier times, that
through the phalanxes and amidst the darts of
ignorance and envy, men urge their course to
the goal of public felicity, content though it
should be their fate to sacrifice their tranquillity
in the contest.
There is in the world so universal and constant
a competition for the respect, esteem and love
of others, the dependence of every man upon
other men is so obvious and so intimate, that a
certain quantity of benevolence is almost a
necessary condition of social existence. True
it is that those whose station enables them
most easily to command the services of others,
value those services least, as those who want
them most feel the greatest difficulty in obtain
ing them ; but there is no man so poor who by
his own good conduct may not increase the
disposition to serve him, and no man so
mighty as to be able to despise the services of
40 DEONTOLOGY.
others without diminishing their amount and
lessening their value and efficacy. Absolute
independence is the prerogative of none ; and
were it possible to conceive of a human being
wholly sufficient to his own enjoyments, a
human being deriving neither pleasure nor
pain from the persons or the events which
surround him he would be no object of envy ;
compared with him the hyssop on the wall
would be privileged, since some consideration,
some regard might now and then be flung upon
it ; while the man removed from the regions of
sympathy would at the same time be removed
from those of beneficence.
The great security for the active energy of
the benevolent feeling is found in the mutual
dependence of every human being upon other
or others of the human race, and in this de
pendence must we look for the check upon the
maleficent affections ; since, if neither hatred
nor love produced a re-action, if men could visit
others with their ill-will without getting any
ill-will in return ; or, on the other hand, if they
poured out their kindly sympathies in mere
waste, awakening no responsive kindly senti
ment, the link between prudence and benefi
cence would be wanting. If one man give pain
to another either by words or deeds, that other
will in all ordinary cases seek to inflict pain upon
GENERAL STATEMENT. 41
him in return. Hate engenders hate as a sort of
self-defence. It is employed for prompt and often
for vindictive punishment, whose awards are to
a certain extent in the power of its employer.
Cases there are, no doubt, where the disposition
to return evil for evil is controlled by high and en
nobling moral principle, by the true arithmetic of
virtue. But those cases are exceptional, and to
dream of escaping the ill-will of those whom we
make the victims of our ill-will, is to calculate
on miracles for the guidance of conduct. And be
the exceptions what they may to the rule that
malevolence in your bosom will, when brought
into action, be the prolific parent of malevolence
towards yourself in the bosom of others, an ex
ception can scarcely be found to the counterpart
of the rule, that love is the source of love.
The practical deduction is obvious. Never let
pain or uneasiness be inflicted on any one in any
shape, but for the purpose of producing a prepon
derate good, good clearly to be made out, and
traceable in its consequences. The good, if good
it be, will be good to some person or other ; to per
sons one or more ; to yourself by whom the pain
is caused ; to him in whom the pain is caused ;
or to third persons ; to third persons, assignable,
or to third persons in general. The demand of pru
dence and benevolence is peremptory that there
shall be a balance, a predominance, of good.
42 DEONTOLOGY.
In order to apply this general rule to every
particular case, it becomes the Deontologist to
consider, first, the various shapes in which pain
may be produced, since pain is multiform; 2nd,
the occasions on which pain may be produced,
occasions presenting themselves whenever inter
course exists between ourselves and others ;
3rd, the persons on whom it may be produced ;
and 4th, the acts by which it may be produced.
All these are important elements in the score of
suffering. When the other side of the account
comes to be examined, when the good is to be
estimated whose existence can alone counter
balance or justify the evil, the quantity of that
good must be brought into view ; the situation
and susceptibility of the persons who are to
benefit by the resulting good ; and when it is not
traceable to individuals, its existence in the
bosoms of unassignable persons must be evi
denced.
Occasions for the illustration of this impor
tant principle will present themselves as we
proceed. Here it was intended only to give the
general caution, and to establish the universal
rule. Deductions will flow into the minds of the
thoughtful. They will see that the mere cir
cumstance of misbehaviour on the part of
another will not of itself justify the infliction of
pain. If that infliction will prevent the repeti-
GENERAL STATEMENT. 43
tion of the misbehaviour, then, indeed, the pain
may be wisely and morally excited : the use
of the pain is obvious ; but pain must not be
created, pleasure must not be interfered with,
where no end is answered of which utility can
approve. Hence the reproach, the scorn, that
are flung upon others in consequence of any
irremediable defect, are useless, cruel, immoral
inflictions of misery. Imperfections, whether
corporeal or mental, which cannot be controlled
or extirpated, must not be visited by punish
ment. The stupidity, or wrong-headedness,
or ill-temper, which are beyond the reach of
discipline, which are not curable by attention,
are not fit objects for the castigation of pain ;
how far less is that castigation warrantable
when it only exasperates the sufferer, and
aggravates the defect?
In bringing all conduct into the regions of
pleasures and pains, inquiry will be much
facilitated by tracing actions up to their sources,
and distinguishing the relations which exist
between the impulses which gave those actions
birth . Emotions, affections, humors and passions,
singly and mingled, are each of them the origin
of action, and each presents its elements of
enjoyment and suffering. An act is said to be
the effect of an emotion when the motive by
which it is produced is a pleasure or pain of a
44 DEONTOLOGY.
transient character. Where a permanent or
habitual state of mind, as for example, where
sympathy or antipathy towards an individual
has created a continuous disposition to gratify
or annoy, the motive will be the result of an
affection; where the emotion becomes vehement,
whether allied with an habitual affection or not,
its consequences are called the effect of passion.
Humor is somewhat more of a capricious cha
racter, and implies a subjection of the emotions
or passion to a predetermination of the under
standing. It was my humor, e I controlled my
actions by the volition of the moment/ I made
the motive at my own good pleasure/
But among the sources of misjudgment, and
among the causes of despotism, the busy search
after men s motives is among the most fruitful.
Claims to purity, accusations against impurity
of motive are dragged about in eternal proces
sions, to excuse, to justify, to laud, to reprove, to
reprobate, to condemn. The whole field of action
is covered with pretensions on this score, indefati-
gably put forward, constantly appealed to, and
seldom grounded on any thing better than the
usurpation of the motive-denouncer. Why is
a habit so baneful to the general well-being so
constantly persisted in ? In the first place, it is
so flattering to the self-regarding affections ; it
enables the speaker or the writer to set up his
GENERAL STATEMENT. 45
own standard of right and wrong; it saves him
from the laborious necessity of tracing the conse
quences of actions ; it enables him to take the
opinions of others into a region the region of
another man s mind where those opinions find no
light to guide, and men are but too willing from
mere love of ease, to allow the usurper to set up
his throne of judgment. If a man is to determine
as to the value of an action by its consequences, he
must study those consequences; he must present
them to those whose approval or condemnation
of the action he desires to obtain ; he exposes
himself to contradiction if he misrepresents, to
correction if he voluntarily or involuntarily errs.
The blanks he leaves may be filled up, the
exaggerations he introduces may be cut down ;
he is, in a word, forced to come into court
with his witnesses, and to establish his case
by the evidence he can adduce. But if, on the
contrary, he can, by his own dictum, proclaim
that for the action there was a bad motive or
a good motive in the mind of the actor, the
judgment is an easy process ; its decrees are
not complicated by a variety of entanglements.
Good and evil present themselves at once, and
thus rashness and self-conceit perform functions
which belong to reason and philosophy.
The imputation of motive is one of the most
dangerous weapons with which to attack an
46 DEONTOLOGY.
adversary, and one of the most deceitful grounds
for judgment; since motives can be known to
him alone whose conduct is in question, and
can only be guessed at by other persons. This
disposition on the part of the impugner or the
approver of an act, to esteem it praiseworthy
or blameworthy, not according to its results,
but to the unknowable intentions of the actor,
may destroy all the reputation and recompense
of virtuous conduct, by the insinuation that the
motives were bad, and all the disreputableness
and punishment of vicious conduct, by the
setting forth the goodness of the motives that
led to it. But, on the other hand, it should
not be forgotten that every ill-founded impu
tation is not mala fide invented by him who
first casts it. A measure is deemed to be
wrong, where it is opposed to the interest of
another ; and if wrong in the eye of that other,
it is but natural that he should attribute it to
a wrong motive. Hence, to avoid the attribut
ing motives to others, and to avoid ready or
hasty condemnation of those who do attribute
motives to others, are alike the dictates of
morality.
Then, again, the perception of the prodigious
strength of authority comes in aid of the self-
regarding affections. The same inducements
which influence the motive-denouncer, have,
GENERAL STATEMENT. 47
to a greater or less extent, influenced every
body else. Authority, with prejudices, its
favorite and baleful progeny, ally themselves
with the egotistical principle. In the estimate
of conduct, derivative judgment is wont to take
possession of nearly the whole question, leav
ing scarcely any portion to the decision of self-
formed judgment. Thus, in the determination
of human action, two elements become fre
quently the principal guides : self-presumption
and blind deference, qualities which seem some
what incompatible, indeed ; but which unite
in mischievous influence ; the deference being,
in fact, submission to that species of authority
which flatters the self-regarding principle.
True it is that the ordinary phraseology of
the world is likely to lead the inquirer astray.
The qualities upon which the stamp of public
approbation has been set are frequently those
which deserve no such honorable distinction ;
while public reprobation interdicts actions on
which it would be difficult to affix the scandal
or the stain of vice. The judgments of the
public-opinion tribunal are thus sometimes in
opposition with the dictates of utility and the
conventions of society ; some of them, the mere
vestiges of barbarism, make laws which resist
all argument, and stand unshaken on the pre
judices left by feudal times.
48 DEONTOLOGY.
The historian of morality will one day appear,
to write the tales of the several dynasties that
have ruled over human actions, and most in
structive will the pages be.
First epoch, that of Force. No other code,
no other standard, no other source of morality.
Violence the law, and violent the law-giver.
Virtus, or virtue, is there found in its original
sense, a mere conjugate of vis. This vis, when
in action, took the name of courage, or virtus ;
the quality which is most the object of admi
ration among savages ; a quality far more animal
than moral, and deserving of no praise, any
farther than as the ally of prudence or bene
ficence.
Then comes the second reign, the reign of
Fraud. Force belongs to a time of ignorance :
fraud to semi-civilization. Its influence, like
that of force, is usurpation ; but it comes with
fallacies, instead of open violence, to help it.
It fosters credulity, it leagues itself with super
stition. It takes hold of the terrors of the
mind, and makes them subservient to its real,
but often concealed despotism. The usurping
priest, the aristocratical lawyer, flourish under
its dynasty.
Last of all comes the reign of Justice, the
reign of utility. Under its auspices the work
of the legislator will be lightened, and the
GENERAL STATEMENT. 49
moralist will assume many of the legislator s
functions. The great court of public opinion
will take charge of the decision of many ques
tions which are now in the keeping of penal
judicature. The lines which separate right
and wrong will be more clearly and more
broadly defined as the predominance of the
great social interest breaks down those barriers
which have been raised for sinister purposes,
or left by the ignorant traditions of ancient
days. Delightful it is to contemplate the pro
gress of virtue and of happiness; to see them
subduing, by mighty efforts or by quiet influ
ences, more and more of the domain where
false maxims of private and public morality
had so long held undisputed sway. Yet more
delightful is it to anticipate a period when the
moral code, grounded on the greatest-happiness
principle, will be the code of nations, teaching
them, in their vast political concerns, to create
no useless misery, and to make their patriotism
subservient to the demands of benevolence. As
knowledge has, in its progress, gathered fami
lies and tribes, once hostile, into the regions
of common interest and mutual affection, so it
will, in its further triumphs, fling the girdle
of beneficence around now-separated nations.
As the crimes of violence have diminished under
the rebuke of more enlightened opinion as that
VOL. II. E
50 DEONTOLOGY.
opinion, acquiring strength, will not fail to
act upon the other departments of improbity,
who can doubt that war the maximizer of
every crime, the harvester of every violence,
the picture of every horror, the representative
of every folly, will at last be overwhelmed and
annihilated by the mighty and resistless influ
ence of truth, virtue, and felicity?
It is only to a certain extent the lot of man
to mark out for himself his mortal destiny.
He does not choose his position in the world.
The accident of birth decides for him a thou
sand contingencies. It puts into his hand cer
tain sources of pleasure, and excludes him from
others. But so regulated are the instruments
of enjoyment and suffering, so beautifully
balanced, so equitably compensated, that the
ultimate portion of well-being dealt out to men
in the different orders of society is, perhaps,
not very unequal in amount. For whatever
estimate may be given to the pleasures of frui
tion, in any of their attributes, the pains of
privation must be increased in proportion.
Wants, which soon become pains, grow up
more easily in the bosoms pampered with
superfluity than among those whose enjoyment
demands little for its satisfaction : and often,
close upon the pleasures of rank and wealth,
tread lassitude and weariness. The pleasures
GENERAL STATEMENT. 51
of sense may grow dull from over-use, or feeble
from over-straining. The social or domestic
sanction loses its power when pride supposes
it can command all services without it. Public
opinion is checked in its influence by the indis
position of the powerful to recognize its au
thority, or to submit to its awards. These and
similar dangers wait on opulence, and thus
lower its virtue-creating tendencies. Yet power,
in all and every shape, is the sole instrument
of morality, and the struggle for it, within the
limits of prudence and benevolence, so far from
being worthy of reprehension, is perhaps the
very strongest of all excitements to virtue.
In those regions of action which birth, edu
cation, and social position have prescribed to
the individual, he has the power of directing
his pursuits and occupations with a view to the
general happiness of life. No man is without
some moments of leisure which may be em
ployed in the search of pleasure, or, in other
words, in the practice of that virtue which is
the parent of pleasure ; and no occupation is
there which does not create or allow occasions
for those thoughts thoughts from recollection,
or of anticipation, which are, in themselves,
happiness. No man who has the gift of lan
guage can, in the presence of others, pass a
single hour without the opportunity being
52 DEONTOLOGY.
afforded him of communicating enjoyment.
One principal reason why our existence has
so much less of happiness crowded into it than
is accessible to us is, that we neglect to gather
up those minute particles of pleasure which
every moment offers to our acceptance. In
striving after a sum total, we forget the cyphers
of which it is composed. Struggling against
inevitable results which he cannot control, too
often man is heedless of those accessible plea
sures, whose amount is by no means incon
siderable when collected together. Stretching
his hand out to catch the stars, he forgets the
flowers at his feet, so beautiful, so fragrant, so
various, so multitudinous.
By the condensation of the virtues into two,
that is, into prudence and effective benevolence,
let it not be supposed that any real, substan
tial, or useful virtue is removed from the moral
field. Wretched would be the task of that
moralist who should seek to destroy a virtue,
and deplorable would be his success. If, how
ever, after the most scrutinizing and severe
examination, it is discovered that whatever
exists of virtue is really a part of one of these
two great branches, the discovery is equivalent
to those great advances that have been made
in chemical science, by the reduction of the
infinite variety of compounds to a few simple,
GENERAL STATEMENT. 53
elementary substances. And the time, per
haps, will hardly be deemed uselessly em
ployed, that is engaged in reviewing those
moral qualities which, from time immemorial,
at all events from the time of Aristotle, have
put in their claims to be placed on the list of
virtues. It is, in some respects, to repeat
what has been urged before, yet, until the
false, imperfect, and ambiguous virtues are
moved aside, room will not be so easily found
for the true and legitimate virtues. And the
repetition may be excused on the score of its
necessity for clearing away incumbrances, and
preparing the field for the introduction of a
genuine and practical morality.
1 . Piety is the virtue by which is understood
reverence for the Divine Being, exhibiting itself
in obedience to his will. Reverence can only have
its source in a high estimate of his attributes,
especially of the attributes of wisdom, power,
and goodness. Now to what purpose can
these attributes be directed, so that they may
harmonize, but to the production of happiness ?
What other object can infinite goodness propose
to itself? What can infinite wisdom be so effi
ciently engaged in, as the discovery of the fittest
means ? And how should infinite power, being
allied to wisdom and to goodness, give evidence
of its existence but in the accomplishment of
54 DEONTOLOGY.
this great end ? In what situation then does
man stand to the Divinity ? In what way can
he best serve, in what way can he best give
evidence of that piety, which consists in obedi
ence ? Surely by furthering the great objects
proposed by the Divine Being; surely by labor
ing in the same field the field of benevolence.
And on whom can his benevolence be exerted ?
Only on himself and others. To himself and
others then all his powers of usefulness are con
fined ; beyond these he has no sphere of action.
What is piety, therefore, disassociated from
prudence and benevolence? a mere empty
sound.
2. Fortitude is a quality which is understood
to embrace patience and equanimity. It is to
a great extent the result of particular physical
organization ; and in so far as this is the case, it
is no more a virtue than strength, or symmetry,
or any other gift of nature, Unobtainable by
human effort. That portion of it which is under
the dominion of the will, may, if made subor
dinate to prudence and benevolence, be intitled
to the denomination of virtue ; but it is not ne
cessarily virtuous, for there may be an impru
dent fortitude and a maleficent fortitude, though
there can be no imprudent, no maleficent
virtue : in other words, no virtuous imprudence
or improbity. Fortitude generally implies Ion-
GENERAL STATEMENT. 55
ganimity under suffering, or resistance to pain ;
and as one of the great objects of virtue is to
diminish suffering, fortitude may frequently be
a useful auxiliary. There are cases in which
its exercise may only lead to a prolongation of
suffering, as where, exhibited under torture,
the opposition made by it to the ordinary
expressions of suffering, brings down tortures
more terrible. Whether in such a case the
pleasures of the dissocial affections, of scorn
and contempt, counterbalance the added agonies
of the tortured, as some have supposed, may
well be questioned. Few men would, of their
own choice, allow the additional tortures to be
inflicted for any gratification they could derive
from hurling any quantity of scorn at the
inflictor. The true reason may be, that though
the torture is near, the scorn is nearer ; and
when sufferings are intense, there may be a sort
of doubt in the mind of the sufferer as to the
possibility of adding to their intensity.
Fortitude is nearly allied to courage ; and
courage, like fortitude, depends wholly for its
title to approval upon the use made of it. In
itself it is no virtue ; and the exercise of it,
independently of its application to prudent or
beneficent purposes, is the exercise of a quality
rather the distinction of wild beasts than men,
56 DEONTOLOGY.
and distinguishing them in the very degree of
their fierceness and ferocity.
3. Temperance, may include sobriety and chas
tity. For the submission to their dictates there
is the strongest prima facie case. Neither pru
dence nor benevolence appears compromised by
the observance of these virtues. Both may be so
most seriously by their infraction. But even
here, on a closer examination, it will appear that
nothing but the subordination of temperance to
the two great primary virtues will make it really
virtuous. What virtue is there in the tempe
rance which produces disease or death ? What
virtue was there in the fastings of ascetic mora
lists, making experiments on the powers of ab
stinence, and frequently perishing in the strug
gle ? In the instance of temperance, as in those
of most of the virtues inculcated by ancient
writers, the imperfection of their theory of
morals is made manifest, and the necessity of
introducing some other test besides the so-called
virtue, in order to determine whether it really
be a virtue, is the best evidence of the incom
pleteness of their moral code. This test they
called moderation, for their notion was, that in
the excess of virtue there was no virtue at all.
In too much temperance there was no virtue ; in
too little there was none. Their golden mean
GENERAL STATEMENT. 57
\vas, in fact, a vague recognition of some higher
quality to which their virtues, in order to prove
them virtues, must be made subordinate. They
were not happy in the choice of a word, though
they could find no better a word than modera
tion. They would have been ill-content with
its application to the business of life : they
would not have been satisfied certainly with
moderate honesty on the part of their depen
dants, or moderate chastity on the part of their
wives, or moderate temperance on the part of
their children. But, feeling the insufficiency
and inapplicability of their phraseology, they
wanted some other guide. Their virtues were
the virtues of occasion, whose value depended
not on their intrinsic and substantial excellence,
but on the circumstances which called them
into operation. What was virtue this moment,
might not be virtue the next. Thus their defi
nitions of virtue were sometimes so narrow as
to exclude the highest virtue, and sometimes so
wide and vague as to embrace equally both
virtue and vice.
4. Justice is one of those qualities of which
a great parade is made by the moralists of the
Aristotelian school. Its interests are, to a great
extent, taken under the care of the legislator,
and its infractions are made responsible to the
criminal code in their most extensively perni-
58 DEONTOLOGY.
cious consequences. Justice is generally un
derstood to be the coincidence of conduct with
the dictates of law, or of morality. With the
moral, and not with the legal department is our
present concern; and the claims of justice,
stripped of their vague phraseology, will be
found to be simply the claims of benevolence ;
the claims of benevolence being here the applica
tion of the non-disappointment principle. Injus
tice, in as far as it has any definite or definable
meaning, is the denial of a pleasure which a
man has a right to enjoy, or the infliction of a
pain which he should not be exposed to suffer.
In both cases the dictates of benevolence are
violated towards him. But the claims of jus
tice, disassociated from the tests which Deon
tology applies to them, are vague and unsatis
factory. The declaration that such and such
an action, or such and such a course of action,
is just or unjust, is mere declamatory pretence,
unless, at the same time, the dependent plea
sures and pains are brought into the calculation.
If it could be proved that evil, in the shape of a
balance of suffering upon the whole, grew out of
a given line of conduct, and it were agreed that
such line of conduct ought to be called just, the
consequence would simply be, that justice and
virtue might be opposed to one another, and that
to be just would be to be immoral. Made
GENERAL STATEMENT. 59
secondary to the general happiness, or in other
words, to the combined influences of prudence
and benevolence, justice is intitled to the de
signation of virtue.
5. Liberality is beneficence on a large scale,
but, unless under the guidance of prudence,
may be a vice instead of a virtue ; and, unless
under the guidance of benevolence, may be still
more extensively pernicious. The word liberal
is one of vague and various interpretations. It
is applied, with different meanings, to thoughts,
words, and actions. A liberal mind is usually
understood to imply a disposition to give a
friendly interpretation to the conduct of others ;
to avoid harsh and sudden judgments; to be
candid and charitable : reduced to conduct,
liberality may mean mercy, justice, generosity;
in a word, beneficence, either by abstention or by
action. In order to associate the term with pru
dence and benevolence, it is very usual to attach
to it some phrase or word which takes it out of
the region of possible misinterpretation : for ex
ample, prudent liberality, well-judged liberality,
well-timed liberality. Liberality, undisciplined
by the two real and cardinal virtues, is mere
folly. It would be very liberal for any man to
give to others all that he has, either in posses
sion or in prospect, but it would be neither wise
nor virtuous : it might be very liberal to patro-
60 DEONTOLOGY.
nise and to reward error and misconduct, but it
would be neither useful nor philanthropic. In
fact, no liberality would be so liberal as that
which should run into all sorts of extravagan
ces. In the political field, liberal and liberalism
are used as self-laudatory terms by a party in
the state, and are generally associated, in the
meaning of those who employ them, with the
original idea of liberty, liberals, the advocates
of liberty ; liberalism, the principles of liberty
applied to public life. There are few words
which, with its derivations, have been more mis
chievous than this word liberty. When it
means any thing beyond mere caprice and dog
matism, it means good government ; and if good
government had had the good fortune to occupy
the same place in the public mind which has
been occupied by the vague entity called liberty,
the crimes and follies which have disgraced and
retarded the progress of political improvement
would hardly have been committed. The usual
definition of liberty that it is the right to do
every thing that the laws do not forbid shows
with what carelessness words are used in ordi
nary discourse or composition : for if the laws
are bad, what becomes of liberty ; and if the
laws are good, where is its value ? Good laws
have a defined, intelligible meaning ; they pur
sue an obviously useful end by obviously appro-
GENERAL STATEMENT. 61
priate means. When Madame de Roland un
dertook to distinguish liberty from licence, she
flattered the ear by alliteration, but brought no
satisfaction to the understanding.
6. Magnificence, which, however, is repre
sented as under the check of frugality, in
order to be deemed a virtue, simply means the
doing great things. And were it a virtue, the
masses of mankind would be wholly excluded
from its exercise. A quality, whose power of
action is confined to the extremely small mi
nority of mankind, has happily no real claims
to the recompense or to the praise of virtue.
Magnificence is a sort of grandiloquent word for
aristocratical beneficence. Ostentation has a
dyslogistic character, and mingles some alloy of
pride, or vanity, or scorn in its displays. Mag
nificence, even with frugality for its check and
control, is not of necessity either worthy of
praise or blame ; it may not have any tincture
of vice or virtue ; it may imply no sacrifice to
others; it may bring no pleasure to oneself; it
may be a mere waste of a means of pleasure.
As a question of expenditure, it may be pru
dential, and it may be benevolent ; but if it ab
sorb or subtract from means which might be
employed more prudentially and more benevo
lently, it is, supposing the expenditure would,
but for the magnificence, have been employed
62 DEONTOLOGY.
for the production of the greater instead of the
lesser good, it is a source of mischief equal to
the amount of difference between that lesser and
that greater good. The decking magnificence
with the pomp of virtue is, in the moral world,
a fallacy of a somewhat similar character to
that which has often intruded into the world of
political economy, namely, that it is more meri
torious to spend than to save. They both grow
out of an inordinate estimate of the value of
the social principle, separately and narrowly
viewed, that social principle which there is a
great disposition to aggrandize at the expense
of the self-regarding. Now the value and true
influence of the social depends on its subjection
and subordination to the self-regarding, as the
primary source of action, in the same way as
all the minor virtues resolve themselves into the
two major virtues which hold sole dominion
over the regions of morality.
7. Magnanimity is a word which, for popular
use, might be conveniently translated into great-
mindedness. It conveys an undefined idea of
intellectual superiority prompting beneficent
conduct of forbearance or of action, such as
on ordinary occasions could not be expected of
ordinary men. But magnanimous acts and vir
tuous acts are by no means synonymous, neither
are pusillanimous and vicious acts. Suppose a
GENERAL STATEMENT. 63
man, by sacrifice, to have done that which adds
to his ultimate stock of happiness, while it in
terferes not with, or increases the happiness of
other men, will the vituperating his conduct
with the charge of pusillanimity make it other
than wise and virtuous ? Let a man have per
formed a deed by which he has inflicted misery
on himself or others, or both, will any pomp
ous ejaculations to the honor and glory of his
magnanimity make the deed any other than one
of wickedness or folly ? Such two-edged in
struments as, at one moment, do good service
to the cause of morals, and the next inflict on
that cause the deadliest wounds, should be
hung up in the armoury of Deontology, to be
very rarely, always cautiously employed, and
never without the recollection, that they cut
both ways.
To estimate the quantity of virtue in an action
claiming to be magnanimous, the peculiar phy
sical organization of the actor must be taken
into the account, in order to estimate the amount
of sacrifice, and of consequent effort made.
Then comes the question, has the action been
more injurious to himself than useful to others ?
Has it been more injurious to others than use
ful to himself? In the first place, the magnani
mous action was imprudent ; in the second, it
was maleficent, in neither was it virtuous.
64 DEONTOLOGY.
The result of the magnanimous action, has it
been the diminution of human happiness ? If
so, there is nothing to save it from being drag
ged forth by the Deontologist from the territory
of virtue into which it has intruded, exposed as
an impostor, and flung into the realms of im
morality.
8. Modesty is a branch of extra-regarding
prudence. It is a virtue of abstention. In its
application to the two sexes, the sense of the
word undergoes a somewhat remarkable modi
fication. A modest man is understood generally
to mean a bashful, unobtrusive, unpretending
person ; a modest woman immediately associates
the character with the idea of sexual purity or
chastity. The different interpretation of the
same word, when thus differently employed, is
one of the consequences of that public opinion
which imposes upon woman a far stricter moral
law than that to which a man is required to
submit. Yet the distinction does not exist as to
the corresponding vice. Immodest, as applied
to man or woman, has nearly the same meaning,
and implies lasciviousness in words or action.
Modesty, in its ordinary sense, wins men s affec
tions by conciliating their opinion. It checks the
disposition to annoy by contradiction. It is an
unobtrusive tribute to the self-esteem of another.
It is unwilling to sit in j udgment on the conduct
GENERAL STATEMENT. 65
of others, and if it do sit in judgment, that
judgment is given in the least offensive shape.
Modesty in language is the result of prudential
restraint upon expression ; modesty in conduct
of prudential constraint upon action.
9. Mansuetude, when a virtue, is dependent
on extra-regarding prudence. Like modesty, it
is flattering to the self-esteem of the person
towards whom it is exercised. It is modesty
with a deeper tinge of humility ; or, which pro
duces the same effect upon the object, it is
modesty influenced by timidity : it goes farther
in deference and submission than modesty does,
and when suffering is brought into action man-
suetude becomes patience or longanimity. It
is a quality ordinarily virtuous, vibrating as it
were between other ordinarily virtuous qualities,
but whose amount of virtue can only be esti
mated by the application of the Deontological
tests. The meekness of a man whose meek
ness diminishes his own enjoyments, and adds
less to the happiness of others than the amount
he sacrifices of his own, that meekness, being
imprudent and improvident, is the contrary of
virtuous. The meekness of a man whose meek
ness is pernicious to others, and useless to him
self, is unbenevolent, and the contrary of vir
tuous. Meekness is to a considerable extent
a natural personal gift, and it is only to such
VOL. II. F
66 DEONTOLOGY.
portion of it as is acquired by thought that the
question of morality can apply. From this
portion, so diminished, subtract every thing
that is not prudence or benevolence, and the
residuum will be the virtue ; that is to say the
prudence and the effective benevolence will be
the virtue, and nothing else.
10. Veracity. There are two classes which com
prize the pernicious breaches of veracity. They
are the anti-prudential and the anti-social. The
violation of truth, when by its violation mischief
is done to the individual or the community, is
vicious ; and the idea of the sacredness of truth
is a very important element in the field of morals.
But the value of truth is not always and on
all occasions the same. Like every other
quality professing to be virtuous, veracity must
be made subservient to prudence and benevo
lence. Its excellence can only be estimated by
the result of good that it produces ; and though
it may appear safe and simple legislation to
declare that prudence and benevolence shall be
made subservient to truth, a little examination
will show that truth, in order to be most benefi
cial, must be subordinate to the great and lead
ing virtues. For truth must be either useful,
useless, or pernicious. Upon useful truths no
restraint should be placed ; the more influence,
the more diffusion they have the better. Pru-
GENERAL STATEMENT. 67
dence and benevolence unite not only in en
couraging their utterance but in giving wings to
their circulation. As to truths whose influence
is neutral, neither injurious nor beneficial, they
may be left to men s caprices, for they stand
upon their innoxious qualities ; but of those
truths that are mischievous, truths which are
creators of pain and destroyers of pleasure, let
them be suppressed ; they are ministers of evil,
not instruments of good. Happily, however, the
number of such pernicious truths can be but
small, and the demands for their utterance rare.
The man who treats the dictates of veracity
lightly, who seeks occasions either for the con
cealment of truth, for prevarication, or for utter
ing falsehood, loses that reputation for veracity
the preservation of which is one of the highest
objects of prudence. And strong must be the case
of utility which will warrant a man s sacrificing
any portion of his character for veracity, since
falsehood is the high road to self-contradiction.
1 1 . Amity or Friendship is neither a vice nor a
virtue until it is brought into the domains of
prudence or benevolence. It is merely a certain
state of the affections implying an attachment
to particular objects. Now that attachment may
be pernicious or beneficial. Indifferent it can
scarcely be, for that would suppose motives and
consequences of pain and pleasure without any
68 DEONTOLOGY.
balance for a result ; a case so rare in the field
of human action as scarcely to be worthy of
consideration. Amity may be pernicious to
both parties, in which case it violates both pru
dence and benevolence ; it may be pernicious to
the man who bestows his amity, and in that state
of things the laws of prudence forbid its exer
cise : without being pernicious to the man who
confers, it may be so to the man who is the object
of the amicable word or deed, or to others, in
which case it is maleficent. Again, where the
pleasures on either side are more than counter
balanced by the pains on the other, there is a clear
loss to happiness, and consequently to virtue.
Where amity is the source of mutual benefit, pru
dence and benevolence are served to the extent of
that mutual benefit, always supposing that the
consequences of the words or actions which are
the source of that benefit do not extend beyond
the parties. For no result of happiness to those
parties will make their friendship virtuous, if that
friendship destroy more happiness elsewhere
than they have created for themselves.
12. The word Urbanity is a very ambiguous
description of a virtue. That portion of it which
is denominated good temper or good nature is an
idiosyncratic element ; a part of a person s con
stitutional or physical identity, for which no title
of vice or virtue can be properly claimed. Where
GENERAL STATEMENT. 69
urbanity is the result of an effort made to give
pleasure to another, where it infuses benignity
into a word or action, makes the gracious thing
more gracious, and takes from that which is
unacceptable to another all unnecessary in
fliction of pain, where in a word it bears the
character of benevolence ; there, and there only
is virtue. But beyond that benevolence there
is no virtue at all, and there is no virtue except
in the benevolence. Urbanity, then, is intitled
to the honors of virtue in all those cases where
efficient benevolence is its guide and sovereign ;
with the understanding that prudence makes no
sacrifice of pleasure greater in value than the
pleasure won by that benevolence.
So vague are the conceptions, so unsatisfac
tory the definitions of morality proceeding even
from the most distinguished writers, that there
would be little difficulty in drawing the picture
of imprudence and improbity, and showing
that it was quite consistent with the qualities
to which, and to which alone they give the
name of virtue. Examine, for example, the dif
ferent characteristics which Mr Hume has put
forward in his Essays as tests and evidence
of virtuous disposition, which is/ he says, * in
* other words, that which leads to action and
employment, renders us sensible to the social
* passions, steels the heart against the assaults of
70 DEONTOLOGY.
fortune, reduces the affections to a just modera-
tion, makes our own thoughts an entertainment
to us, and inclines us rather to the pleasures of
society and conversation than to those of the
senses.
It would be easy to show, that of these
qualities there is scarcely one that is necessarily
virtuous ; scarcely one that may not be applied
to the production of misery. Action and
employment may be as well directed to per
nicious as to useful objects; the social passions
may be the fruitful sources of imprudence and
improbity ; the moderation of the affections
may or may not be worthy of praise ; for why
should not the virtuous affections be maximized
instead of moderated ? The making our own
thoughts an entertainment to us may be feeding
those thoughts with poison : no thoughts are
perhaps more entertaining than thoughts of
profligacy, while the pleasures of society and
conversation/ in preference to those of the
senses/ may, without prudence and benevolence
for their guide, be exhibitions equally perilous
to the understanding, and depraving to the
benevolent sympathies.
But how should Hume be safe from error,
who makes a sense of virtue a feeling
referable to no results, the groundwork of good
conduct? - An action/ he says, is virtuous or
GENERAL STATEMENT. 71
c vicious, because its view causes a pleasure or
uneasiness of a particular kind. iii. 28. But
what action is there which in different men will
not produce different feelings ? To have the
* sense of virtue, he proceeds, is nothing but
to feel a satisfaction of a particular kind from
the contemplation of a character. The very
feeling constitutes our praise or admiration.
We do not infer a character to be virtuous
because it pleases ; but in feeling that it pleases
after such a particular manner, we in effect
feel that it is virtuous. The same is implied in
our judgments concerning all kinds of beauty,
and tastes, and sensations ; our approbation is
implied in the immediate pleasure they convey
to us/
Truly it is inexplicable how all mankind
should have possessed this new sense this
moral sense, without ever dreaming of it till the
last century. And since the exercise of this
sense is a pleasure, well is its inventor intitled
to Xerxes and Tiberius s reward ! But if
original, if organic, it would be as strong in
savage as in civilised life : is that contended
for?
Hume was a man to get glimpses of truth.
He brought in the light of utility to show what
was the motive and the merit of justice. But
he stopped there, as if unconscious of the value
72 DEONTOLOGY.
of his discovery. Yet in Hume there is no
obstinacy, no uncandid artifice. Not wedded
to a system by professional attachment, a mild
philosophy breathes in his every line.
But this moral sense, instead of being or giving
a reason, is, after all, only an artifice to avoid
giving a reason. It affords in reality no criterion
to distinguish right from wrong; what ought
to be done from what ought not to be done.
It does not answer the question, Ought I to do
this or not ? It may say peremptorily, Yes !
or No! Suppose the partisan of the moral sense
says No ! and he were asked why ? he could
only say, My moral sense condemns it. But,
if farther pushed by an inquiry as to what he
meant by his moral sense, he could but declare
that it was painful to do it; and then, if asked
for evidence of that pain, he might rejoin that
all the wise and the good felt it ; but if more
moderate and accurate he might content himself
by averring that he felt it. In the first case, he
throws the whole question back upon authority,
which cuts, but does not untie the gordian
knot, and makes all morality arbitrary ; in the
second, he gives me, as a reason for not doing
a thing that it would give him pain were he to
do it. If he were to show that it would give
me pain, he would do something ; but the case
is by the supposition just the contrary ; for if
GENERAL STATEMENT. 73
it did give me pain, I should never think of
doing it, nor of asking him the question.
Besides, the existence of the moral sense, if
not organic or intuitive, will just be wanting
where it is most wanted, that is, in the case
of those who have it not. It will explain what
is understood already, and leave all the rest as
dark an enigma as before. It is a medicine
which will take effect only on those who are in
good health, and we know who has said, and
how wisely he has said it, They that are whole
need not a physician.
Vain is the attempt to teach morals by decla
mation, or to build theories out of facts opposed
to every thing we know. Is virtue less virtuous
because it is proved not to be disinterested ? In
no sense whatever. Shall the structure of
morality be raised on the foundation of truth,
or falsehood ? Answer, ye lovers of right !
Be men what they may, it becomes us to
know them as they are ; no flattering and faithless
portrait will mend the original. Were they
still worse, it could not but be useful to study
them honestly ; for every rule and argument
founded on an erroneous estimate, must be idle
or pernicious in proportion to the errors of that
estimate. The knowledge of man must be
beneficial to man. The times of the grossest
depravity have always been those of the darkest
74 DEONTOLOGY.
ignorance, and never were examples of enor
mous and devastating vice more abundant,
than in the days when outrageous and useless
sacrifices of happiness were most sedulously
preached, and most scrupulously practised.
They who discourse, and they who legislate
on the supposition, that man will act in oppo
sition to acknowledged interests, make morality
a fable, arid law a romance. Their commands
are nugatory their expedients vain.
Of the systems of morality presented to the
acceptance of mankind, which is there so ho
norable to its advocates as the Deontological ?
Sensible of no weakness, it asks for no mercy ;
it has no hidden defects to be glossed over by
sophistry ; no inexplicable mysteries to be
covered by the shield of authority. In itself it
contains the elements of its own purification,
and offers no barriers to the progress of those
investigations which are disposed to follow
truth and virtue through every ethical labyrinth
in which prejudice, or interest stronger than
prejudice, may have involved them. No man
need be ashamed on any occasion to own that
he is desirous of being governed by the doctrines
of utility in all his conduct ; and in making such
a declaration, he is certain to find a large
amount of sympathy ; for it cannot be denied
that the moral sanction is really grounded on
GENERAL STATEMENT. 75
the recognition of those doctrines. The Deon-
tological code is the harmonizer of that popular
opinion which, in fact, is awakening to its re
peated appeals. It is the law of society brought
into order and reduced to system, with a few
alterations necessary for the consistency and
unity of the whole.
But when a system of morals proposes to a
man a higher degree of perfection than it can
find motives to stimulate him to, that system is
false and hollow.
If the conduct it proposes to men in general
is such as, from the very nature of things, few
men can be expected to pursue, that system is
false and hollow.
If it proposes to a man a line of conduct as
necessary to be maintained which is not main
tainable, for which it can find no sanctions of
pleasure to attract, no menaces of pain to force
him to avoid ; if, in a word, it affects to accom
plish what is not accomplishable, that system
is false and hollow.
But, in order for utility to be the ground of
approbation for a species of action, it is not
necessary that every one who approves it should
have discovered or be able to explain its utility,
or every one who disapproves an act have per
ceived its mischievousness or be competent to
point it out to others. One man perceives
76 DEONTOLOGY.
its mischievousness he disapproves of it he
expresses his disapprobation he is looked to
as an authority he says it is bad it is wrong
it is mischievous nobody has any motive
to approve it, that is, in others. Men take him
at his word. A general opinion prevails that
the action is bad ; fit to be disapproved. It is
generally disapproved, The disapprobation
against the act thus established, a person has
occasion to consider whether he shall do it or
not. He concludes not. Why ? It occurs to
him that it is disapproved ; to do an action that is
disapproved draws on him the ill will of the
persons who disapprove of it; tis therefore that
he abstains from doing it. Is it because he
perceives it is mischievous ? No. He never
thinks whether it is mischievous or not ; he has
no occasion to look so far ; he does not look so
far : if he did look so far as to see whether there
were mischief or not in it, perhaps he might not
find it of himself. It was general disapprobation
of the act and not a sense of its mischievousness
that \vas the ground of his disapprobation.
But what was the ground of that general dis
approbation of it ? Particular experience of its
mischievousness.
The mischievousness of the act, even if recog
nised, would not be the immediate cause of his
conduct ; the immediate cause, that is, his
GENERAL STATEMENT. 77
motive, would be the idea of pleasure and pain
as about to arise from it : that is, the pain he
might incur, in consequence of the ill will of
men which would arise upon his committing an
act marked with their disapprobation.
Every thing concurs to make this train of
reasoning habitual, so habitual and so rapid as
to assume the guise of instinct ; it is a lesson we
are learning almost every moment of our lives.
Need we wonder at our being familiar with it,
when we see what practice will do in the
operation of the most difficult arts ?
The ends of morality will, however, be on all
occasions best served by the habit of comparing
the consequences of action ; of weighing their
results of pain and pleasure, and estimating the
profit and loss to human happiness on the
whole. The ablest moralist will be he who
calculates best, and the most virtuous man will
be he who most successfully applies right
calculation to conduct. Nor will the result
be always attainable without circuitousness,
without reference to motives and consequences
not immediately adjacent. To aim at virtuous
conduct is the first element of success.
Aiming supposes judgment; judgment is a
comparison of two ideas at a time, the pro
nouncing that one of them is or is not conform
able to the other.
78 DEONTOLOGY.
When he who delivers the ball at cricket
takes aim, you see him balancing the hand that
holds it backwards and forwards several times
before he parts with it. What is it that passes
in his mind all the while ? He is placing the
moving forces of his hand in an infinity of
different situations; he is adjusting the several
muscular fibres of his hand and arm to their
several degrees of tension ; all these different
adjustments pass over in review to no other
purpose than out of them all to find some one
which he recollected under parallel circum
stances of distance to have been attended with
the desired effect, namely, of hitting the wicket
which is the aim of his action.
Here then are an infinity of judgments passed
in the compass of a few minutes ; for of all the
adjustments that he has tried before his coming
to that which determines the casting of the ball,
there is not one of which he has not pronounced
that it was different from any of those he had
in his memory as models.
The really practical part of morality consists in
the management of the springs of action ; in the
directing the affections to the increase of human
happiness. These affections, as has been often
repeated, are self-regarding, social, or dissocial ;
each having a relation to pleasure and pain;
each operating upon interests, and motives,
GENERAL STATEMENT. 79
and desires, and purposes. The question of
virtue and of vice is on almost all occasions
represented by a present evil or a present
good, to be weighed against future good and
evil. Morality is the true, immorality the
false calculation of the final balance. The
choice between that which is and that which
will be, is, in fact, the whole subject of
inquiry, and the laws of morality come into
action from the moment in which the will
exercises its influence upon the choice of con
duct. The mastery of the mind over its own
operations, is the only ground work on which
any theory of morals can be raised. As well
were it to preach to wood or to stone as to appeal
to motives which cannot be brought into action.
To drag forth pleasures and pains from their
places of concealment, to show their connection
with, and dependence on conduct, to enable
the greater interest to prevail against the lesser
interest, is the task of the genuine teacher.
While he attaches to actions their consequences
of good and evil, while he removes vague and
obscure generalities into the domains of felicity
and misery, while he brings the calculations of
ultimate happiness to decide upon all the
questions which vanity, or authority appealing
to vanity, would place beyond the reach of a
probing examination, he, the genuine teacher
80 DEONTOLOGY.
is advancing the cause of truth and virtue.
That cause is, after all, one of the most intel
ligible simplicity. Prudence and imprudence,
beneficence and maleficence in these four words
are the exhausted list of those virtues which
alone it recognises, and the vices which alone
it deprecates. Beyond these simple and intel
ligible qualities, all is mystery and uncertainty.
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 81
CHAPTER II.
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE.
HAVING thus traversed, with somewhat wander
ing footsteps, the domains of practical morality,
so as to present a general view of the system
which the greatest-happiness principle incul
cates having shown, or attempted to show,
that, after all, there are only two classes of vir
tues the prudential and the beneficent it only
remains to develope that mental discipline by
which prudence and beneficence may be made
most efficient for the creation of felicity. Pru
dence, it has been shown, naturally divides itself
into two departments : the first, that prudence
with which others have nothing to do ; that
which refers to actions whose influences do not
reach beyond the actor ; in a word, that which
belongs to the individual in his relations with
himself, and not in his relations with society :
and the second, that prudence which is de
manded from him in consequence of his inter
course with others ; a prudence which is closely
connected with benevolence, and especially with
abstential benevolence. The claims of purely
VOL. II. G
82 DEONTOLOGY.
self-regarding* prudence first demand attention :
the subject is less embarrassed by complication ;
the power of the individual over himself is
more complete ; the estimate of pain and plea
sure is more immediately accessible to the
party concerned ; and any light thrown upon
this portion of the subject will, perhaps, relieve
the rest of some of its seeming embarrass
ments.
Self-regarding prudence comprises in its
domain actions and thoughts, or rather exter
nal and internal actions; for thoughts are only
internal or mental actions. Its dictates so
direct the choice between actions, or the choice
between thoughts, as to promote the greatest
happiness to the individual concerned.
As regards external actions, what prudence
can do, and all that prudence can do, is to
choose between the present and the future ;
and in so far as the aggregate of happiness is
increased, thereby to give preference to the
greater future over the lesser present pleasure.
But of two portions of happiness of equal
magnitude, one present and the other not pre
sent, the one present will always be greater
in value than that which is future; the value
of the future pleasure being measured by, and
in proportion to its adjacency, and, in case of
uncertainty, by the measure of its uncertainty.
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 83
If time be out of the question, if two portions
of happiness present themselves, equal in value
and equal in remoteness, or equal in value,
notwithstanding remoteness, virtue is not con
cerned in the choice between them ; it is a
matter, not of virtue, but of taste.
Under the head of self-regarding prudence,
as there has been occasion to remark, come
several of those virtues which Aristotle and,
guided by him, other moralists to this day
have put on the same level with prudence ; each
being, in fact, prudence presenting itself in some
shape or other, and each requiring for its exer
cise the sacrifice of the present to the future.
These virtues are temperance, continence, for
titude, magnanimity, and veracity. Subtract
prudence from each of these, and the residuum
will be almost nothing. If there be, under
any circumstances, any virtue left after the
subtraction of prudence, the small residuum of
virtue must be benevolence ; whatever else
remains, however it may pretend to the name
of virtue, will be nothing but impos
ture. If the interest of others be concerned
in the exercise of the prudential virtues by
ourselves, the prudence is not purely self-
regarding, but extra-regarding. But if neither
our own greater future happiness, nor the
happiness of others, to an extent greater than
84 DEONTOLOGY.
the sacrifice demanded by a particular action
is promoted by it, that sacrifice is mere asceti
cism ; it is the very opposite to prudence ; it is
the offspring of delusion ; it is miscalculating or
uncalculating blindness ; since to sacrifice any,
the least particle of pleasure, for any other
purpose than that of obtaining for a man s self,
or some other person, a greater quantity of
pleasure, or of avoiding a more than equivalent
quantity of pain, is not virtue, but folly; and
to cause, or endeavor to cause any other person
to give up any particle of pleasure, for any
other purpose than in exchange for a greater
quantity of pleasure, or to save him from a
more than equivalent quantity of pain, is not
virtue it is vice ; it is not benevolence it is
malevolence; it is not beneficence it is male
ficence.
* Sperne voluptates/ says Horace ; c docet
empta dolore voluptas, Spurn pleasures ;
purchased pleasure teacheth pain. Silly is
the precept ; sadly silly, if taken to the letter ;
but no such silly notion had the poet in his
head. No such silly notion did he mean to
inculcate. He was thinking of the verse, not
of the morality; and when the option is be
tween truth and rhythm, between serving and
pleasing, extraordinary indeed must be the poet
who makes any other choice than was made
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE.
by Horace. What he really meant to inculcate
was that which we have been inculcating.
* Utilitas/ he says elsewhere, utilitas justi
prope mater et aequi/ Here, happily, sound
and sense harmonize. Here is the principle of
utility set up in express terms, as the standard
of right and wrong; in terms, the import of
which is plain enough, though even here the
expression wants completeness. What is utility?
What but the property of producing pleasure
and preventing pain ?
In the field of purely self-regarding prudence,
the sensual pleasures being the most intense, and
the most peremptory in their demands for grati
fication, are especially those which require the
most cautious and careful estimate of their asso
ciated pains. The experience of the medical ad
viser, the lessons of the economist, may indeed
take place of the counsels of morality ; the option
is often between the enjoyment of a moment
and the pain of years ; between the excited
satisfaction of a very short period and the
sacrifice of a whole existence : between the
stimulation of life for an hour, and the conse
quent adjacency of disease or death.
Of the crime and misery which exist in the
world, the irregularities of the sexual passions
are among the most pregnant. Guerry, in his
< Statistique Morale de la France, states that
86 DEONTOLOGY.
one thirty-third portion of the attacks on the
lives of men take place in houses of ill-fame :
one-fourteenth of the cases of incendiarism,
a great part of the duels, a large proportion
of cases of insanity, all the cases of infanticide,
and almost all the instances of suicide among
young women, grow out of sexual immorality.
The weakened force of public opinion on this
part of the field of conduct demands prompt
consideration ; and M. Guerry most properly
draws the conclusion, that whatever opinions
we may form of the innocence or guilt of the
aberrations from chastity, men have but too
much neglected to trace their physical con
sequences, * for/ he continues, when deeply
examined, views of true utility and moral
duty will ever be found inseparable and iden
tical.
But these pleasures of sex stand on the same
ground as every other pleasure, and can be
placed on their true basis by the Deontological
principle alone.
Certain it is that asceticism, calling itself
religion, has set its face against them ; and by
deductions from that most false and most per
nicious dogma, that the favor of heaven is to
be purchased only by the sacrifice of pleasure,
has dragged forth the most intense of plea
sures as the meetest for sacrifice. And truly,
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 87
a great inroad was made upon the donfains of
virtue, when it was laid down as a religious
axiom, that these pleasures are simply and
per se immoral, and offensive to the Deity, and
that abstention from them is in itself meri
torious. It was only by gathering round the
word chastity a mist of confusion that a case
could be seemingly made out for the virtue
of abstention from enjoyment, under all cir
cumstances, and without any reference to ulti
mate good or evil.
Is not chastity, then, a virtue? Most un
doubtedly, and a virtue of high deserving.
And why ? Not because it diminishes, but
because it heightens enjoyment.
Is not temperance a virtue? Aye, assuredly
is it. But wherefore ? Because by restraining
enjoyment for a time, it afterwards elevates it
to that very pitch which leaves, on the whole,
the largest addition to the stock of happiness.
Modesty, itself a ramification and evidence
of chastity, what is it but an invention by
which pleasure is augmented ? Modesty dic
tates concealment ; concealment stimulates cu
riosity ; curiosity augments desire, and with
previous desire subsequent gratification in
creases.
Modesty, in fact, is to one appetite what
88 DEONTOLOGY.
bitters or acids are to another ; they contribute
to its healthfulness and pleasurableness, not
by their similarity, but by their contrast. If
they create a temporary disagreeableness, they
produce, on the whole, a greater amount of
agreeable sensations than would have been
experienced without them. If they repel a
pleasure of the palate, and substitute an annoy
ance, it is only to create a greater and more
enduring pleasure.
In fact, temperance, modesty, chastity, are
among the most efficient sources of delight.
They form part of the very pleasures which
they magnify and purify, and which, without
them, lose the best part of their value, and
shrink into almost nothing.
Strange that a result so obvious should have
escaped the penetration of the whole herd of
moralists ! Strange that the simple uses of
such valuable instruments should have been
so mistaken and so distorted ! The force that
was intended to be applied to the spring of
action, solely to increase and strengthen its
activity, has been thus represented as meant to
break that spring; and hence the means which
Providence has put into men s power, for the
creation of happiness, have been perverted to
its destruction. Such moralists, indeed, would
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 89
be aptly commented on by the surgeon who,
in order to cure a pimple, should amputate a
limb.
As it has been said, in the shape of a para
doxical truth, that religion is the height of
self-love, so, with equal propriety, may it be
asserted that modesty is the height of volup
tuousness. So futile is the distinction, so
absurd the variance, so mischievous the rupture
which have been made between interest and
duty, between what is virtuous and what is
pleasurable !
The acts which come under that branch of
prudence which we are now considering, are
either such as are in their character unsociable,
and accordingly performed without witness, or
such as are performed in the presence of others.
They may therefore be divided into uncogniz-
able and cognizable acts.
Those which are performed out of view are
actions purely internal, namely, thoughts, in
so far as thoughts are voluntary, or external
actions which may be performable in the pre
sence of others. Actions there are, which,
though performed in the presence of others,
are to them subjects of complete indifference,
and therefore come not under the control either
of extra-regarding prudence or benevolence.
Where an act is wholly inoffensive to others,
90 DEONTOLOGY.
it comes under the dominion of the physical
or pathological sanction ; where it is or may
be offensive, the retributive, the popular or
moral, and the political, including the legal,
may have application to it.
But the acts that are not knowable, or
at least not known in themselves, may be
knowable, or known by their consequences,
and those consequences may be immaterial or
material.
If an act is unknown, and unattended with
material consequences, it belongs to the pro
vince of taste, and not to that of morality.
A man is perfectly free to perform it or not ;
and whatever part he takes, he cannot do amiss.
An apple being before him, and he, subject
to no danger from indigestion, may eat it or
not eat it, eat it with his right hand or his
left hand ; an apple or a pear being before him,
he may eat the pear first or the apple first.
Deontology has nothing to do with his conduct
on the occasion.
But when material consequences grow out
of an action, the authority of morality begins.
Here may be two conflicting interests ; the
interest of the moment, and the interest of the
rest of life. Here may have place the tempt
ation and the demand for sacrifice, the
sacrifice of the present to the contingent
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 91
future, or of the contingent future to the
present.
And then comes the question, of the two
sacrifices, which is of the greatest value ? The
apple, we will suppose, would have produced
indigestion. At the cost of the future suffer
ings that indigestion will bring, is it wise to
buy the present immediate gratification of eat
ing the apple? And if there be no danger
of indigestion, there is no call for sacrifice :
the eating of the apple is a pleasure from which
no pain is to be deducted ; it is a clear result
of good ; but if there be danger of indigestion,
then must the comparative values of the pains
and pleasures be estimated, and according to
the reported balance will be the demand for
self-sacrifice.
Again shall I have beef or mutton to-day
for dinner ? The price is the same, the cost
of cooking the same ; it is only a question of
taste. But suppose the price of the mutton
be dearer than that of the beef, and that my
pecuniary circumstances do not make the cost
indifferent to me, here is obviously room for
the exercise of prudence ; but suppose, farther,
my wife has a fit of longing for the mutton,
in exclusion of the beef, and that she is in
circumstances requiring peculiar regard to her
desires, then prudence combines with bene-
92 DEONTOLOGY.
volence, even at the expense of part of the
next day s meal, in deciding in favor of the
mutton.
The rules for making our thoughts subser
vient to our happiness are two :
1. To exclude such thoughts as are painful,
and
2. To introduce such as are pleasurable.
The thoughts whose consequence is to influ
ence action will engage our attention elsewhere.
They belong to the head of means-selecting
prudence. Such are the thoughts which review
past life with a reference to future conduct.
The first lesson, then, of self-regarding pru
dence in the management of the thoughts is
negative, it teaches the avoidance of thoughts
which bring self-annoyance with them. The
next law is positive, and encourages those
thoughts to which self-gratification attaches.
In both cases prudence requires that the rejec
tion of painful and the creation of pleasurable
thoughts should not be accompanied by the visi
tation of a greater pain than that avoided, or
the sacrifice of a greater pleasure than that ob
tained. Do not, for the sake of laying them
aside, or in the expectation that you may easily
do so, look out for painful thoughts : that would
be the way not to keep them out of your mind,
but to keep them in. Look out exclusively for
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE THOUGHTS. 93
the pleasurable ones ; by so doing, in so far as
you succeed, you will, at the same time, get in
the pleasurable ones ; and by introducing the
pleasurable you will keep out the painful ones ;
by so doing, for in mind as in body, no two
objects can at the same time occupy the
same space. Matchless, it is true, is the rapid
ity with which any two, or any greater number
of such objects, may succeed one another ; but
still succession is not co-existence : successive
is not simultaneous existence.
Without being looked after, thoughts will in
troduce themselves, and in many a mind hateful
thoughts more readily than pleasurable ones.
It is idle to seek for unnecessary misery. The
painful thoughts that will come must come; but
add not uselessly to their number; encourage not
their visitations, and drive them away as fast
and as far as you can.
Disassociated from the present and the future,
the past is valueless, for as past, present, and
future are only interesting or instructive, in so
far as they afford materials out of which good
may be extracted, the past being irrevocable,
cannot, of course, be influenced by succeeding
events or opinions. But, except in the past,
there is no experience, and from it alone can be
gathered those results which may serve for the
guidance of the future. Beyond the lessons it
94 DEONTOLOGY.
gives, the remembrances of the past are, for the
most part, painful. Its history is, to a great
extent, the history of privations. If the mind
can be so happily tuned as to make those
privations sources of pleasurable retrospect,
something will be gained to happiness by dwel
ling upon them. In a great many instan
ces the memory of departed time is sad and
distressful. The calculation of what we had
and have not, is not fairly balanced against the
estimate of what we have. The lost, the irre
vocable, is frequently exaggerated in import
ance, because it is irrevocably lost, while there
is a prevalent disposition to underrate the value
of a present possession. On the whole, the
safest general rule is, to apply the attention as
little as possible to by-gone scenes and events.
Every man may for himself mark out certain
exceptions. There are thoughts of past enjoy
ments that still leave pleasant impressions,
notwithstanding the knowledge of their being
never to return ; so there are recollections of
painful events from which the remembrance of
our escape will be constantly accompanied with
pleasurable impressions. One class of reminis
cences are wholly pernicious that of vain re
grets, dreamings of what might have been had
not that been which was. No regret can change
the past, and unless it can be turned to some
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE THOUGHTS. 95
useful account for the future, prudence requires
its suppression. There is profound philosophi
cal truth in Shakespeare s dictum, that
All regrets are vain, and those most vain
Which, by pain purchased, do inherit pain/
Past occurrences in general, and in particular
such as at the time were of a painful nature,
will be continually forcing, or endeavoring to
force themselves from their repository in the
memory into present remembrance : and this in
a proportion rising with that of their magnitude,
and in particular to that of their intensity : that
is, with the intensity which belongs to them at
the time. To keep them out of present remem
brance, in one word, out of view, will be but in
an imperfect degree in any man s power. At
tention, however strong, desire, however earn
est, will fail to exclude the recurrence of sad
and disagreeable recollections ; the will has not,
in general, so perfect a command over the
thoughts as to chase such recollections away.
By exercise, however, this faculty, like any
other, may be strengthened and improved.
In fact, the thoughts have been often trained
not only to whelm past sorrows in oblivion, but
even to deaden the intensity of present suffer
ing. Cases are recorded of men who, at the
very time they were undergoing the severest
96 DEONTOLOGY.
torture, have had the faculty of drawing away
their attention even from the present sensation
with such force, as in a very considerable de
gree to diminish the baleful influence of it. In
comparison of the force of attention requisite
for the production of such an effect, the force
necessary to the keeping out of view the ordi
nary stock of such unpleasant incidents as those
which exist in the memory, will be found to be
very inconsiderable.
The power of managing the thoughts may
seem to presuppose the absence of other strong
excitement ; yet, if that power can be exercised
notwithstanding excruciating tortures, if calm
ness and even rejoicing under suffering have been
sometimes exhibited, what an influence must
strong determination produce upon the thoughts ?
When an idea or ideas have possession of the
mind, the will may be often successfully em
ployed in keeping them there ; but the will
cannot exclude ideas from the mind : the mind
cannot empty itself at will ; it may keep itself
full, it cannot keep itself empty ; it can only
get rid of one idea by turning aside from it and
calling in another idea. When the ideas so dealt
with are arguments on the opposite side of a
controverted question, the process so carried on
is the self-deceptive process the process by
which the reasonings on one side of a question
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE THOUGHTS. 97
are admitted, and the reasonings on the other
side are excluded. In this way, there is scarcely
a proposition so absurd but that a man may keep
himself tolerably persuaded of the truth of it ;
nor a proposition, however reasonable, but may
be rejected. The instruments of this sad delu
sion are hope and fear ; but especially by fear
the stronger passion of the two, is this despotism
exerted over the mind.
In the question as to the power exercised
over a man s own mind, is involved the question
of liberty and necessity ; and a close attention
to the subject will perhaps show that the
two principles are co-existent. Liberty, or
its equivalent, the sense of liberty, does un
doubtedly and without dispute exist ; yet
necessity is not excluded by it. It is solely
in virtue of the power, the command, the
mastery which I have over my own thoughts,
of which I feel myself every moment in posses
sion, that I am writing or dictating these
observations. But what was it that set me
on this occupation ? It was something other
than these same thoughts, some thought which
was already in my mind, without any exertion
of my will to bring or keep it there.
Among thoughts of pain which struggle to
force themselves into the mind, endeavor espe
cially to exclude the recollection or the anticipa-
VOL. ir. H
98 DEONTOLOGY.
tion of irremediable evil. Evil to which you
are quite sure that it is impossible for you to
apply, or to assist others in applying any the
least remedy, think of as little as possible ;
for the more you think of it, the more you in
crease it. To this case belong all the evils that
are passed. Passed are they, and nothing
can make them not to have passed ; no
anxiety about an event which has happened
will make it not to have happened. If it be an
evil that you might have prevented by acting
differently, then prudence requires that your
thoughts should dwell upon it long enough to
prevent a recurrence of the conduct that induced
it. If you have suffered a loss of money, or
power, or any object of desire or of gratification,
and your own imprudence or improvidence was
the cause, recall it to your mind sufficiently to
prevent a repetition of your miscalculation.
But if no error of yours led to the evil, revert
not to it ; forget it as soon as you can ; you only
waste your painful emotions, and in wasting,
magnify them. Always remember that pains
and pleasures are, after all, the stock of human
good and evil the seed of future well-being.
They should, wherever their creation depends
upon volition, be thrown on no ground uncon
genial to the production of good. A pain
pregnant with future pleasure may be an in-
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE THOUGHTS. 99
strument as valuable as a pleasure-producing
pleasure. If a primary pain be the parent of a
greater balance of pleasure than a primary
pleasure would give birth to, that primary pain
is of more value, in the account of happiness,
than that primary pleasure. The true discipline,
the genuine arithmetic of morality is here.
To resume. If, the recollection of past
scenes of pleasure give more gratification, from
the memory of the pleasure, than pain from the
knowledge that the pleasure is passed away, it is
wise and prudent to recall them to the thoughts.
If on scenes that were originally painful, the
delight of escape, the contrast which present
relief affords to past suffering, leave a balance
of satisfaction greater than would be left by
absolute forgetfulness, the lesson of utility is to
summon them forth from the recesses of remem
brance. No rule can be given which shall apply
to a particular case, as the constitution of
different minds is so variable. To some, for
example, the memory of the dead, whom they
have loved and honored, comes always in the
shape of pain ; nay, often of agony. They can
think of nothing but of the privation of happiness,
caused by the removal of those they loved. To
others there is no source of pleasurable emotion
more sweet, more pure, more permanent, than
that which flows from the recollection of beings
100 DEONTOLOGY.
who no longer take a personal part in the busi
ness of life. These dwell less upon the thought
of what they lost by their absence than upon the
memory of what they enjoyed in their presence.
Happily, the tendency of reflection, and the
progress of time, are generally in alliance with
the teachings of prudence. The grief that
mourns the dead, is subdued by a sense of its
fruitlessness ; the mind is dragged forth gradu
ally from the vanities of useless sorrow ; and
regret, after exhausting itself in idle lamentation,
yields to those more rational influences which
utility recommended long before.
Self-reproach may to a certain extent be
prudential prudential as a check upon future
conduct ; but self-reproach which has no refer
ence to the time to come is the mere deposition
of a certain quantity of misery in the mind,
which in every respect it would have been
better to have kept out of it. Reproach of
others, where no purpose of good is to be
answered by it the reproach which is concen
trated in your own thoughts, is unqualified
imprudence ; it is pain to yourself; it cannot be
of any benefit to them. It is the first step to
malevolent words, and to malevolent deeds.
Cases there are, no doubt, where language
and actions which give evidence of displea
sure where reproaches and their accompanying
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE THOUGHTS. 101
appropriate punishment, are demanded alike
by prudence and virtue ; but where this is
not the case, where the reproach is not in
tended to be exhibited in the shape of action,
then it is only a pain planted in the mind of the
reproacher : he will do well and wisely to shut
the door against its access.
To future evils, unpreventable by thought,
let not thought be applied ; and if preventable,
and the means of prevention are settled, think
of them no longer. Some men waste their time
and destroy their peace by imagining possible
evils evils which may never visit them, and if
they do, will not visit them the less severely for
all the anxiety which anticipated their arrival.
They will only have swelled the pains of
endurance by the pains of expectation. Of evil
contingent on prudential or unprudential con
duct, it is, of course, not intended to speak.
To think of these is the self-regarding prudence
we are teaching ; but to harass the mind by
imagining disease fancying the tortures of the
stone, the visitations of blindness, or the loss of
any of the senses, is a most unfruitful, not to say
baleful occupation. Dr Johnson was an ex
ample of a man whose existence was frequently
made wretched by the fears of insanity fears
so vivid as nearly to create the very calamity
they deprecated fears which frequently inter-
102 DEONTOLOGY.
fered with his usefulness, always (when present)
with his felicity.
In the pursuit of pleasurable thoughts, what
infinite regions are open to the explorer ! The
world is all before him, and not this world
only, but all the worlds which roll in the
unmeasured tracks of space, or the measureless
heights and depths of imagination. The past,
the present, the future all that has been, all
that is, of great and good, of beautiful and har
monious and all that may be. Why should
not the high intellects of the days that are gone
be summoned into the presence of the inquirer ;
and dialogues between or with the illustrious
dead be fancied, on all the points on which they
would have enjoyed to discourse, had their
mortal existence stretched into the days that
are ? Take any part of the field of knowledge,
in its present state of cultivation, and summon
into it the sages of former time ; place Milton,
with his high-toned and sublime philanthropy,
amidst the events which are bringing about the
emancipation of nations ; imagine Galileo hold
ing intercourse with Laplace; bring Bacon
either the Friar or the Chancellor, or both
into the laboratory of any eminent modern che
mist, listening to the wonderful development,
the pregnant results of the great philosophical
mandate Experimentalize/ Every man, pur-
SELF-HEGAKDING PKUDENCE THOUGHTS. 103
suing his own favorite tendencies, has thus a
plastic gift of happiness, which will become
stronger by use, and which exercise will make
less and less exhaustible. All the combinations
of sense with matter, the far-stretching theories
of genius, the flight of thought through eternity
what should prevent such exercises of the
mind s creative will ? How interesting are those
speculations which convey men beyond the
regions of earth into more intellectual and
exalted spheres where creatures endowed
with capacities far more expansive, with
senses far more exquisite than observation
had ever offered to human knowledge, are
brought into the regions of thought ! How
attractive and instructive are even some of the
Utopian fancies of imaginative and benevolent
philosophy ! Regulated and controlled by the
utilitarian principle, imagination becomes a
source of boundless blessings.
Though the imaginative or mental powers
depend on and are reducible into bodily plea
sure, the field they expatiate in is far more
extensive than any other ; and the expanse
opened to the contemplation, more varied and
sublime. As objects appear larger by night,
as obscurity magnifies everything, so imagina
tion of the vague outstrips the calculation of the
104
DEONTOLOGY.
real. When Milton describes the descent of
Satan, who
1 To this hour
Had still been falling-
the idea of the fall is far more great than if
there had been a positive estimate of tens of
thousands of miles, from the moment of his over
throw to the present hour. A definite expres
sion by numbers would have made a far less
forcible impression on the imagination. Out of
this disposition to magnify what is unknown,
grows a great part of the charm of voyages of
discovery. In an anticipated certainty, there
can be none of the pleasure of surprise ; and
hence the value of the mental pleasures is not
of a nature opposite to and separate from the
bodily ones, but is grounded on their giving an
indistinct and, therefore, magnified view of the
expected enjoyment of the latter. But utility
must be applied to both for their fit estimate.
It is the absence or presence of utility that
makes the sole difference between the arrange
ment of the pin on a pincushion by a child, or
the locating the stars on a celestial globe by a
philosopher.
In all these cases in all cases where the
power of the will can be exercised over the
thoughts let those thoughts be directed towards
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE THOUGHTS. 105
happiness. Look out for the bright, for the
brightest side of things, and keep your face
constantly turned to it. If exceptions there
are, those exceptions are but few, and sanc
tioned only by the consideration that a less
favorable view may, in its results, produce a
larger sum of enjoyment on the whole; as where,
for example, an increased estimate of difficulty
or danger, might be needful to call up a greater
exertion for the getting rid of a present annoy
ance. When the mind, however, reposes on
its own complacencies, and looks around itself
in search of food for thought when it seeks
rest from laborious occupation, or is forced upon
inaction by the pressure of adjacent circum
stances, let all its ideas be made to spring
up in the realms of pleasure, as far as the will
can act upon their production.
A large part of existence is necessarily passed
in inaction. By day (to take an instance from
the thousand in constant recurrence), when in
attendance on others, and time is lost by being
kept waiting ; by night, when sleep is un
willing to close the eyelids the economy of
happiness recommends the occupation of plea
surable thought. In walking abroad, or in
resting at home, the mind cannot be vacant;
its thoughts may be useful, useless, or perni
cious to happiness. Direct them aright ; the
10G DEONTOLOGY.
habit of happy thought will spring up like any
other habit.
Let the mind seek to occupy itself by the
solution of questions upon which a large sum of
happiness or misery depends. The machine, for
example, that abridges labor will, by the very
improvement and economy it introduces, produce
a quantity of suffering. How shall that suffer
ing be minimized ? Here is a topic for bene
volent thought to engage in. Under the pres
sure of the immediate demands of the poor,
Sully is said to have engaged them in raising
huge and useless mounds in his garden. Others
have been found to propose the digging holes
and filling them again, as meet employment for
industry when ordinary labor fails. But what
a fertile field for generous consideration is that,
which seeks to provide the clear accession to
the national stock of riches and happiness
which all real improvements bring with them,
at the least possible cost of pain ; to secure the
permanent good at the smallest and least en
during inconvenience; to make the blessings
that are to be diffused among the many fall as
lightly as possible in the shape of evil on the
few! Perhaps when the inevitable misery is
really reduced to the smallest amount, by
the attention of the intelligent and benevolent,
the transition will become in most instances
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE THOUGHTS. 107
neither perilous, as it has often been made
by riotous violence towards those who intro
duce it, nor alarming to those whose labor
may be temporarily shifted by its intro
duction.
To point out the projects of benevolence with
which the mind might occupy itself would be to
engage in a limitless task. But let a man pass
in review the different sorts of human misery
for the purpose of endeavoring to relieve or
to remove it : what employments could be
found for the blind, the deaf, the dumb ; for
those who had lost one or both hands, and
what pleasures could be invented for them ?
How, by the least quantity of pain inflicted
on a criminal, could the greatest effect possi
ble be produced on the people? and so forth.
The thoughts which have future consequences
for their object are called expectations ; and
upon these expectations no small part of a
man s happiness depends.
If a pleasure is anticipated, and fails of being
produced, a positive pain takes place of the
anticipation. For the designation of this pain
the French language furnishes nothing but a
compound appellation, namely, peine d attente
trompe*e the pain of frustrated expectation.
One word communicates the idea in English,
namely, the pain of disappointment.
108 DEONTOLOGY.
And of such importance is this pain in the
field of human existence, such its influence on
the aggregate of happiness, that it constitutes a
very great part of the foundation on which
the whole branch of the civ 7 il law is erected :
it is to the exclusion of disappointment that the
labors of legislation are in that department
mainly directed. Why do you give to the
proprietor that which is his own, rather than
to any other person? Because, by giving it
to any other person than the proprietor, you
would produce the pain of disappointment.
Dean Swift has concentrated his notion of
the necessity of excluding pain from this source
in the vivacity of an apophthegm ; or rather he
has added it to the beatitudes. * Blessed is
he which expecteth nothing, for he shall not
be disappointed/
Hence the high importance of forming correct
estimates of what may be expected from man
kind at large, in all those cases where their
conduct may influence your own well-being.
* If we would love mankind, says Helvetius,
as before quoted, we ought to expect little
from them ; and he might have added, if we
love ourselves. The less sanguine are our expec
tations that others will sacrifice their pleasures
to our pleasures, the less shall we be exposed
to disappointment, and the less will be the
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE THOUGHTS. 109
sum of disappointment. And if such sacrifices
are really made to us by others, the more keen
and exquisite will be our satisfaction : what
ever pleasure the sacrifice made or the service
done might render us, that pleasure will be
heightened by the pleasure of surprise, and
the pain of disappointment be supplanted by
a pleasure beyond expectation.
Now, though in every part of the field of
morals the keeping in view the primary fact,
that the social feelings must inevitably be
subordinate to the self-regarding is of the high
est importance, in this particular part of the
field the necessity is more prominently obvious.
Against the pain of disappointment he will be
best able to preserve himself who takes a cor
rect and complete view of the necessity of
that preponderance which, by the unalterable
condition of human nature, the force of self-
regarding affection is destined to maintain over
social or sympathetic affection. The rights of
property, be they what they may, grow out of
this source ; and indeed the whole machinery
of society is the recognition of the truth of the
principle.
We are thus naturally led to inquiry as to the
the best means of giving to the mind mastery over
its own thoughts. If it possess the power of
banishing thoughts of pain, and introducing
110 DEONTOLOGY.
thoughts of pleasure, how can that power be
exercised with most effect ? The obvious means
are to divert the mind from the thoughts that are
painful, and from the objects associated with
those thoughts; and on the other hand to occupy
it with thoughts that are pleasurable and with ob
jects likely to awaken pleasurable thoughts. The
expulsion of the one and the introduction of the
other, are in truth closely allied ; for unless some
thought of pleasure is at hand to take place
of the thought of pain which exertion has eject
ed, little may be won for happiness. Enough
will not be done by the mere attempt at forcing
an annoying thought to vacate the mind ; it
will infallibly be supplanted by another thought,
and the balance of happiness will be between
the efforts of the thought which enters and that
which makes its exit.
In many cases, as in cases of annoyance
from objects of the corporeal class, a man may
employ direct means ; he may remove the object
itself, or remove himself from its presence.
When the fatal apple was presented to Eve,
Eve might have turned her back upon it, or
have made a present of it to the first frugivorous
quadruped that crossed her path.
But it is not thus with impressions underived
from physical objects ; with ideas presented by
memory or imagination. A man can employ
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE THOUGHTS. Ill
no direct means for getting rid of these. He
has but one way of ridding himself, and that an
indirect one. He must detach his thoughts
from the idea he desires to expel, by attaching
them to some idea of a different nature. Until
he can do this his object must be thwarted ;
for the continuance of the endeavor to get rid
of the unpleasant idea, until he has hold of some
object to replace it, will but keep the unplea
sant idea constantly present, and more promi
nently in view.
Thus, to drive or keep an unpleasant idea out
of the mind, the attention must not be thrown
on the idea itself; since that would only fix it
the faster, and counteract the object. Endea
vor to lay hold of some idea that interests you,
and use it as the instrument for the expulsion
of the other. If it fail to fix itself in your mind,
and no other agreeable idea presents itself, use
any that, even though afflicting, is less afflicting
than the one you desire to be freed from. In
this case, the remedy employed is analagous to
that employed in the case of a blister : by a
pain less intense and less lasting, a pain more
intense and more lasting is subdued.
For example. You are visited by the wrath
of a near and dear relative. You plunge into
business in order to mitigate your grief. If your
grief be exceedingly afflictive, it might happen
that the business you carry on, even though
112 DEONTOLOGY.
accompanied by loss and vexation, would bring
alleviation with it. It might even involve you
in quarrels with other parties, and still, by
occupying your attention, distract you from the
greater grief from which you sought to escape.
But, in a case like this, the pursuit to which
you fly in the search of a remedy must demand
your continuous attention, an attention contin
ued long enough to allow the sharpness of your
sorrow to be mitigated ; for if the business be
soon despatched, and you are left at liberty,
and exposed to the influence of your former
feelings, your purpose will scarcely be answer
ed. Thus, if by way of remedy against the
distress produced by the loss of a friend, you
betake yourself to mere reading, especially
light reading, the demand upon your attention
will be so weak, that your attention will refuse
obedience, and instead of the ideas which the
book presents, the distressing thought will
intrude itself at every turn, and take and keep
its place. Nor is it irrelevant to refer here to
the great advantages attendant on a busy, in
contradistinction to an idle life ; to the privilege
of being fitted for and practised in a variety of
occupations in comparison of being dependent
on a few ; to the distinction of having a mind
highly cultivated by study in contrast with a
mind left by want of culture in emptiness and
barrenness. It is generally to persons of
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE THOUGHTS. 113
small fortunes and little or no education, that
such domestic losses are most afflictive and
irremediable.
Time for free thought, unoccupied or misoc-
cupied time, almost every human being has in
abundance. Apart from those engagements on
which existence and its enjoyments depend,
apart from those amusements which are neces
sary to health, apart from hours of repose, or
hours of repast, time there is in the posses
sion of all men which they may employ in the
exercise of free thought, giving to that thought
a moral, or in other words, a useful and a feli
citous direction. Every night, and every day,
morning and evening, have those interstices
which may be filled up to excellent purposes.
Some time elapses between the moment of lying
down and that of sleep. Sleep itself is not
continuous, its breaks leave time for reflection.
How much, again, of a man s life is employed
in locomotion, in walking or being conveyed
from place to place ; how much in attendance
on others ! What thousand interruptions steal
moments away from his occupations of business
or of pleasure ! These moments are all of them
precious. And then, how many of the engage
ments of mankind are handicraft and mechani
cal, leaving to the thoughts an almost unbridled
liberty to wander whither they will ! Time for
VOL. II. 1
1 14 DEONTOLOGY.
thought is wanting to no man who has learned
how to husband time. In the multitudinous
moments of existence, as in the multitudinous
topics which have a claim upon the attention of
our race, neither time nor subjects for pruden
tial and benevolent reflection can be long sought
for in vain.
A few such subjects it may not be amiss to
touch upon ; but the field is boundless, and will
offer to every man some peculiar points of
interest. All men may occupy themselves in
thinking of means for the prevention of evil,
in projects of profit or of amusement : if no
such projects occur to them, hopes may take
their place; if no hopes, agreeable imaginations;
imaginations turning aside from the improba
bility or impossibility of their being realised ;
imaginations which may be made more vivid
and delightful by individual recollections.
For himself each individual must mould his
habits of thought to suit his own circumstances.
If his thoughts are engaged in the search after
means of security against evil, and there be no
evils in particular of which he is apprehensive,
or none which it is in his power to guard
against, or none against which he has not
already made sufficient provision, he will do
well to turn his thoughts away from any such
unpleasant topic. And even if such evils
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE THOUGHTS. 115
menace him, his attention to the means of pre
vention should not be continuous, he should
seek his times of respite, otherwise the effect of
his endeavors to secure himself against future
suffering may be to make that suffering perpe
tually present.
In every case, the thoughts should be directed
as much as possible to the means of prevention,
and as little as possible to the evils themselves,
to the evils only so far as is necessary for
devising those means.
Thoughts directed to the consideration of the
means of alleviating the sufferings of others, do
not belong to this part of the subject ; nor are
they of any importance to others until and
unless they lead to action.
Projects have an advantage over imaginations.
Projects, in addition to the present good, afford
a chance of future. The interest and excite
ment they create are more lasting than hopes
and fancies, and more likely to extend; to be
prolific, productive of ulterior projects ; and
those of ulterior, and so on, in long suc
cession.
But, in the absence of purposes and projects,
hopes and imaginings come with their pleasure-
giving influence. Though imagination must
work upon the elements furnished by recollec
tion, yet imagination and recollection are not
116
DEONTOLOGY.
the same thing. There may be recollection
without any work done by imagination ; there
may be imagination without any distinct recol
lection of the individual objects by which the
matter for the operations of the imagination has
been furnished.
No situation is there out of which imagination
may not extract pleasure. Nothing so painful
as not to offer to the fancy materials pregnant
with enjoyment. When a man is laboring under
any disorder, pleasure may be derived from the
imagination of the mere absence of that disor
der ; from the mere imagination unaccompanied
by the expectation, and thus unaccompanied
even by hope. But, in such a case, it must be
the sufferer s endeavor to abstract his thoughts
as effectually as possible from the consideration
that the relief is not obtainable ; he must attach
them as strongly as they can be attached to the
recollection of his former state, and the several
enjoyments furnished by it antecedently to the
commencement of the disorder, shutting out
the idea of the hopelessness of their return.
To such a state of mind it is not uncommon
for reflection to discipline us. Of the pleasures
of the past, of boyhood and youth, of the
glory in the grass and the sunshine on the
flower, thousands think and talk with a satis
faction which the thought that those pleasures
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE THOUGHTS. 117
are irrevocably departed has not been able to
imbitter.
In proportion to the quantity of pain which a
given thought brings with it, will, in general,
be the difficulty of removing it from the mind.
At all events, the motive for its removal will be
proportioned to its intensity and duration. And
of such painful thoughts those caused by the
loss of friends are often the most painful. In
the earlier stages of grief the power of intro
ducing thoughts of a character unallied to grief
can scarcely be exercised, and it then becomes
the object of wisdom to modify the painful
thought by associations naturally and easily
linked to it, of which the presence of death
itself furnishes an abundance, and almost every
individual case of death some peculiar and per
sonal elements. For there is no sorrow which
has not in some way or other been linked with
pleasure, and the very existence of sorrow im
plies a contrast with the absence of sorrow.
Grief and grievance derive many of their pains
from the privation of some good once possessed
or hoped for, and cannot enter the mind but in
adjacency to pleasures enjoyed or anticipated;
the remembrance of which enjoyment or antici
pation is not necessarily, and on all occasions,
overwhelmed with the idea of its loss. Thus the
memory of the dead may be brightened with so
118 DEONTOLOGY.
many beautiful and pleasure-giving reflections
as to make even their death a source of happi
ness ;~ and there is a true philosophy as well
as an affectionate tenderness in the reflection,
that a greater bliss may be associated with
the recollection of the dead we have loved
than with the enjoyments gathered among the
living.
As to the direction to be given to dis
course when the well-being of others is not
concerned, little is required to be said. Such
ill-timed or ill-judged conversation as is likely
to bring with it the resentment of others, belongs
to another branch of our inquiry. To such
discourse as produces no influence on the con
duct of others towards us, but merely leaves
behind it a balance of pain, from the reflection
of its having been calculated to lower us in their
friendly opinion, to such discourse as, from that
or any other cause, we think of with after-regret,
so that when the balance is drawn between the
pleasures of giving it utterance, and the pains of
future reflection, something is found to be lost
to our personal happiness, to such discourse
the character of imprudence must attach, and
therefore such discourse should be avoided. So,
again, the discourse which, being pleasurable
to the speaker, gives no annoyance to the
hearer, leaves so much of gain as the pleasure
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE DISCOURSE. 119
it excites. But this is perilous ground, inas
much as annoyance may often be felt by the
listener, to which he will give no utterance, from
his own prudential calculations ; from the desire
of avoiding the appearance of contradiction,
and the expression of displeasure. The only
rule that can be given by way of estimating the
effect of conduct, is, to change places with the
other party ; to apply the law of doing to another
as we should desire another to do unto us ; a law
of great value and importance when made sub
servient to the greatest-happiness principle ; but
inapplicable on many occasions, and especially
on those where the infliction of pain is necessary
to accomplish the purposes of the moralist or
the legislator; since if the offender, who is the
object of punishment, could claim the benefit
of the rule just referred to, it is clear he would
escape punishment altogether, as no man
willingly entails suffering upon himself.
There is a source of enjoyment in words not
listened to by others : in recitations and
soliloquies; in viva voce composition; in reading
alone when no one is present but the reader.
For if the art of chasing grief be often unsuc
cessfully practised in supplanting thoughts of
grief by thoughts less painful, the instrument of
language will sometimes prove a valuable
auxiliary; and it frequently happens, when oui
120 DEONTOLOGY,
own mind is unable to furnish ideas of pleasure
with which to drive out the impressions of pain,
these ideas may be found in the writings of
others, and those writings will probably have
a more potent influence when utterance is given
to them. To a mind rich in the stores of
literature and philosophy, some thought appro
priate to the calming of sorrow, or the brighten
ing of joy, will scarcely fail to present itself,
clothed in the attractive language of some
favorite writer, and when emphatic expression
is given to it, its power may be considerably
increased. Poetry often lends itself to this
benignant purpose, and where sound and sense,
truth and harmony, benevolence and eloquence
are allied, happy indeed are their influences.
In the management of conduct at large,
the two great departments of abstention and of
action, naturally present themselves, and they
again may conveniently be divided into corpo
real, intellectual, and mixed. Though some
general principles may be laid down, both
negative and positive, yet in all questions of
suffering and enjoyment, much depends on the
peculiar constitution of the individual. For be
the sense of pleasure what it may, a man has
no right to assume that because he has no
relish for it, therefore his neighbor has none ;
and still less reason has he to interdict to another
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE CONDUCT. 121
an enjoyment, on the ground that it is no enjoy
ment to himself. Every man is able to form the
best estimate of his own pleasures and his own
pains. No description of them, no sympathy
for them, can be equivalent to their reality. No
story of a blow ever produced a bruise, nor was
the agony of tooth-drawing ever felt by mere
interest excited in the sufferings of a friend under
the hands of a dentist. Even were it other
wise, the power of sympathy is nothing till it
acts upon self: a truism which is almost reduci
ble to the self-identical proposition, that a man
can feel nothing but his own feelings. To escape
from one s self, to forget one s own interests,
to make unrequited sacrifices, and all for duty,
are high-sounding phrases, and, to say the truth,
as nonsensical as high sounding. Self-preference
is universal and necessary : if destiny be any
where despotic, it is here. When self is sacri
ficed, it is self in one shape to self in another
shape, and a man can no more cast off regard to
his own happiness, meaning the happiness of the
moment, than he can cast off his own skin, or
jump out of it. And if he could, why should
he? What provision could have been made
for the happiness of the whole so successful, so
complete as that which engages every individual
of that whole to obtain for himself the greatest
possible portion of happiness ? and what amount
122 DEONTOLOGY.
of happiness to mankind at large could be so
great on the aggregate as that which is made up
of the greatest possible portion obtained by
every individual man ? Of the largest number
of units, and those units of the largest amount,
the largest sum total must be the necessary
result.
One considerable branch of abstential self-
regarding prudence may be called the medical ;
it is that in which bodily future suffering is the
penalty of imprudent present enjoyment. The
discipline of after-punishment generally follows
the excess of sensual pleasure ; if the excess be
extreme it invariably follows. The pleasure of
fruition will be in most cases corporeal, but the
adjacent, or consequent pain, will be both
corporeal and mental ; for imprudence calls
down the chastisement of the mind in alliance
with that of the body; and regret adds stings to
suffering, when man s frame is least able to
endure them.
Take any case of imprudence ; intoxication,
for instance, from the excessive use of spirituous
liquors. Setting aside the effect upon others,
the evils of example, the loss of reputation, the
exposure to commit all those indiscretions and
offences which the temporary absence of reason
brings with it, what is the amount of pleasure
and pain which regards the individual con-
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE CONDUCT. 123
sidered as isolated from the rest of his race ?
At the cost of a certain loss of time and money, he
purchased a certain quantity of pleasurable ex
citement. To the loss of time occupied by the
enjoyment, add the loss of time and money sacri
ficed by or in consequence of the inebriety ; add
to that the sufferings of sickness and the suffer
ings of debility; the loss of self-control by
strengthening a vicious propensity ; the shame,
the sorrow, attendant on the imprudence (and if
no shame and sorrow be there, far more than
their amount of suffering will have to be added
to the extra-regarding portion of the account.)
All these are considerations affecting the indivi
dual, without reference to those pains which it
is in the power of others to inflict upon him.
To calculate the consequences of immorality is
the first step towards escaping from it.
To the acts of imprudence which may be
considered of a mental, or mixed character, the
same tests must be applied ; irascibility, for
example, which to a certain extent is attribut
able to natural temperament, but upon which
the greatest-happiness principle would put a
strong and an effective bridle. The pleasure of
its exercise, the pleasure of being in a passion,
is a very transitory one. Excessive anger soon
exhausts its stores. Now, the irascible affections
as respects others, are of all the most infectious,
124 DEONTOLOGY.
and ordinarily produce a vehement re-action.
Let them be directed against whom they may,
they diminish the pleasure felt in serving the
irascible person, and with the diminution of
the pleasure comes the diminution of the
disposition or the motive to serve him. But
what is the effect on the irascible person, as
disassociated from others ? What price has he
paid for the short-lived pleasure of being out
of humor? He has fluttered his temper; he
has weakened his powers of judgment; his
mastery over his own mind is diminished ; he
has lost time; he has lost influence : in a word,
he is left with a serious balance of loss.
Upon gaming self-regarding prudence lays
its interdict. Benevolence is not the less
peremptory in insisting on the immorality of
this so dearly-purchased pleasure. The public-
opinion tribunal has stigmatized the practice
with sufficient disgrace to hold a considerable
check upon the gaming propensity, and legis
lation has, at different times and in different
ways, interfered to bring the offence into the
field of penal judicature. Its consequences,
too, have been frequently followed into all
their ramifications of misery, personal, domes
tic, and social, by the pens and pencils of
authors and artists. But there is a consider
ation, and one of mere prudential calculation,
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE CONDUCT. 125
which seems to have escaped observation, or,
at all events, has not had any popular cur
rency.
Has it ever been hitherto considered that
every gamester who plays upon equal terms,
plays to a disadvantage? Though the stake,
skill and chance be entirely equal, a man
loses more than he could have gained. Sup
pose the stake 20/. on each side. If he loses,
he loses 20/. If he wins, he wins 20/. and
no more. Now 20/. lost is more on the side
of pain than 20/. won on the side of pleasure.
A man can better bear to be without 201. added
to what he has already, than to be without
20/. out of that which he has ; so that, in fact,
either person is sure to lose more than the other
gains.
In order for the one to gain as much as the
other loses, or rather say, for the one to lose
no more than the other gains, the sum at stake
should be a sum that had belonged to neither
of them before.
In extravagant expenditure, imprudence is
often exhibited; and the error is sometimes
brought about by the benevolent affections ; by
the exercise of those very qualities which oc
cupy so large a part of the domain of virtue,
but which, when escaped from the control of
the self-regarding interest, become pernicious
126 DEONTOLOGY.
vices. The imprudence will be greatest where
its errors are least reparable ; and though the
estimate of the quantity of imprudence must
be weighed in every particular case, yet the
fit distribution of expenditure may be subjected
to some general considerations, which it will
be well to keep in view, as, for example,
where income depends wholly upon labor ;
in such case, the necessity is obvious of a
strict economy, and of the laying by some
portion of the fruits of labor, as a security
against those interruptions to which ill-health,
or accidents, or the inevitable inroads of time,
subject the whole human race. When the
work of the laborer, who is wholly dependent
on daily exertions for his daily bread, is sus
pended, and he has no store gathered out of
the economy of the past, the imprudence which
neglected the habit of a strict economy will
be most painfully and most prominently felt.
In the expenditure of income underived from
labor, considerations of another character pre
sent themselves. Its judicious distribution will
be facilitated by the removal of all those un
certainties and contingencies to which the
income of the laborer is subjected. The means
of judging what prudence deprecates or de
mands are more accessible, and at the same
time the habit of labor, as a resource against
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE CONDUCT. 127
want, being wanting, it will not, in ordinary
cases, be looked to as a resource. Perhaps
the happiest of human conditions is that in
which income is derived partly from and partly
without labor, in which labor is looked to, not
for the supply of absolute necessities, but for
those extra enjoyments which add so much to
the sum of human pleasures. That the fruition
of them should be pushed to the greatest ex
tent, it is needful that their present intensity
should not interfere with their future duration,
so far as would, on a fair calculation of pro
babilities, diminish the final amount of them.
If, for the purchase of one pleasure to-day,
two, each of equal amount, are to be sacrificed
to-morrow, it is clear the bargain is one of loss,
of folly, of imprudence.
The means of positive pleasure, which self-
regarding prudence presents to the mind, are
multifarious. They depend for their extent
upon the habits and pursuits of the individual,
and must be followed out with a particular re
ference to those sources of enjoyment which
experience has taught to be most valuable to
him. Groups of pleasures will be found in
those different regions of amusement to which
different men address themselves, amuse
ments intellectual and corporeal, stationary and
locomotive, scientific and artistical; amusements
128 DEONTOLOGY.
of research into the past, or of discovery for the
future. Sex, age, station may influence some
of these. In every individual s case he must
select for his own pursuit those which to him
afford the greatest amount of satisfaction.
Happily for mankind, men s minds are so vari
ously endowed, so variously trained and tutored,
that tastes will always be distributed among a
considerable number of dissimilar objects. To
some the solitary, to others the social investi
gation will be most delightful. The leaves of
the library will instruct one, the flowers of the
field another. Some enjoy the examination of
the minutest details, others are most gratified
when they can grasp great and general princi
ples. And thus it is that in turn the whole
domain of thought and inquiry is occupied,
and the crowding upon some departments, and
the abandonment of others provided against.
Where no distinct tendency towards a particular
study has been perceived, a little attention to
the pursuits and amusements of men distin
guished for their possession of happiness may
be very useful. Of amusements purely mental
the list would be multitudinous, embracing all
the topics to which mind can devote itself. Pass
in review the various games by which skill may
be exercised without such a mixture of chance
as to produce more annoyance from unexpected
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE CONDUCT. 129
disappointment than satisfaction from unex
pected success. How much enjoyment may
grow from the collection of antiquities, with a
view to illustrate the past, to assist the investi
gation of historical facts, and especially to
throw light upon any topics which might be
made instructive to the future ; from the collec
tion of objects of natural history, in the animal,
mineral, and vegetable field, but particularly in
the two latter, since their collection inflicts no
pain, and implies no destruction of life, or of
happiness or enjoyment ; and most of all in the
last, the vegetable or botanical, which fre
quently gives the opportunity of diffusing plea
sure to others by the multiplication of speci
mens ; and, as connected with such studies,
the breeding of domestic animals, with a view
to the observance of their peculiar instincts,
habits, and propensities; the power of education
upon them ; their aptitude for services to which
they have not been before applied ; the culture
of beautiful flowers, such as tulips, auriculas,
or anemones, or of choice and useful plants for
purposes culinary or medicinal. Of locomotive
amusements many will present themselves,
both healthful and varied. Nutting, or mush
room hunting, or the thousand other attractions
of forest and field amusements not only plea
surable in themselves, but useful in their con-
VOL. II. K
130 DEONTOLOGY.
sequences, and sometimes even lucrative ; and
no man need blush if, without loss to others, his
amusements can be made pecuniarily profitable
to himself. The mechanical arts again ; those
arts which invent and modify the instruments
directly subservient to animal enjoyment, or
indirectly subservient by their subserviency to
sciences which promote that enjoyment. But
prudence, setting out in the chace for happi
ness, will seldom fail of success ; the world is
all before it, a world which presents at every
turning some new instrument, some new ele
ment of pleasure.
All the virtues, whether prudential or bene
volent, do, in effect, essentially, though indi
rectly, belong to the regions of self-regarding
prudence. For, be their action upon the minds
of others what it may, their action upon the
mind of him who exercises them must be bene
ficent. When the temper is in the most com
placent and pleasurable state, the disposition
to display acts of kindness is most fervent. It
may happen, indeed, that the effort of benefi
cence may not benefit those for whom it was
intended, but when wisely directed, it must
benefit the person from whom it emanates.
Good and friendly conduct may meet with an
unworthy, with an ungrateful return, but the
absence of gratitude on the part of the receiver
SELF-REGARDING PRUDENCE CONDUCT. 131
cannot destroy the self-approbation which re
compenses the giver. And we may scatter the
seeds of courtesy and kindness around us at so
little an expense ! Some of them will inevit
ably fall upon good ground, and grow up into
benevolence in the minds of others, and all of
them will bear fruit of happiness in the bosom
whence they spring. Once blest are all the
virtues always ; twice blest sometimes.
The counterpart of these observations applies
to the baneful and immoral qualities. Their
influence upon others may be undefinable, not
so their influence on the person who exhibits
them: he must be deteriorated. Cases may
occur in which incivility, asperity, anger, ill-
will, may, as far as they regard others, produce
consequences opposed to their natural tenden
cies, but they can only have a pernicious effect
upon him who makes the foolish experiment of
trifling with the happiness of others.
132 DEONTOLOGY.
CHAPTER III.
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE.
THIS branch of the great moral topic may be
perhaps most conveniently and satisfactorily
treated by considering, first, the general laws
which extra-regarding prudence dictates in our
ordinary intercourse with mankind; and then by
pursuing the inquiry into relations which de
mand modification of those general laws, in order
to produce on the whole the greatest accessible
sum of felicity.
The dependence of man upon his fellow men
is the sole source of the extra-regarding, as it is
of the benevolent principle. For if a man were
wholly sufficient to himself, to himself he would
be sufficient ; and as the opinions and conduct of
others towards him, would by the supposition
be indifferent to him, no sacrifice would he
make to obtain their friendly affections. In fact,
such sacrifice would be but a waste, and such
waste would be a folly.
Happily for each, happily for all of us, the
human being is differently constituted. Of man s
pleasures, a great proportion is dependent on
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 133
the will of others, and can only be possessed by
him with their concurrence and co-operation.
There is no possibility of disregarding the hap
piness of others without, at the same time, risk
ing happiness of our own. There is no possi
bility of avoiding those inflictions of pain with
which it is in the power of others to visit us,
except by conciliating their good will. Each
individual is linked to his race by a tie, of all
ties the strongest, the tie of self-regard.
Dream not that men will move their little
finger to serve you, unless their advantage in so
doing be obvious to them. Men never did so,
and never will, while human nature is made of
its present materials. But they will desire to
serve you, when by so doing they can serve
themselves ; and the occasions on which they
can serve themselves by serving you are multi
tudinous. The intelligent will catch at oppor
tunities which escape the eyes of the vulgar ;
and in these mutual services there is virtue,
and there is little virtue beyond them ; and hap
pily of such virtue, there is more than those
who do not possess it are willing to acknowledge
or able to believe.
The social and popular sanctions are called
into action in the field of extra-regarding pru
dence. In the domestic and private relations
of man, as well as in his public position, he has
134 DEONTOLOGY.
not only to create but to apply those pains and
pleasures which the tribunals of social and
popular opinion distribute ; to create, by fixing
as far as he is able, an accurate standard of vice
and virtue; to apply, by judging every action
according to the greatest- happiness principle,
and awarding to it the recompense or penalty
which that principle demands. Of the head of
a family, in his family circle, the power is great,
because he is the principal source of opinion ;
and the character of the moral atmosphere in
which his household dwells will essentially
depend upon himself. He may establish around
him a state of things, in which happiness being
wisely, will on most occasions be successfully
sought; but the sound judgments established at
home, will spread abroad and afar off in every
direction in which the members of such a family
may be placed. Were a correct estimate of
right and wrong, were sound notions on moral
topics born in the centre of families, they would
soon make their way into the civic and thence
to the national world. For the felicity-promot
ing code is universally applicable, applicable
to all men, on all occasions, in all places.
Where the dictates of prudence, and those of
benevolence obviously harmonize, the line of
duty is clear ; where they clash, as for example,
where prudence requires abstention from benefi-
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 135
cent action, or even the infliction of pain by ac
tive interference, no other rule can be laid down
than that the evil should be made not greater
than is necessary to accomplish the good, and
that the good obtained should be as great as is
obtainable. The question must always be one
of arithmetic ; for morality can be nothing but
the sacrifice of a lesser for the acquisition of a
greater good.
The virtue of extra-regarding prudence is only
limited by the limits of our intercourse with our
fellow men ; it may even extend far beyond the
bounds of our personal communion with others,
by secondary, or reflected influences. In the
public field, and as forming a part of a whole
people, both national and international law may
be said to constitute a proper ground for the in
troduction of that prudence which concerns
others. And, were this the fit occasion, the
subject might be followed into the ramifications
which the legislative and the executive depart
ments of government present, and these again
subdivided into their administrative and judicial
functions. But these topics belong more pro
perly to the question for philosophical legisla
tion ; and it is therefore to the private part of
the subject, as divided into the domestic and
non-domestic branches, that our attention will
be given; that part which embraces man s
136 DEONTOLOGY.
social relations which have not a public cha
racter; relations either permanent or accidental,
constituted by genealogical ties which are dis
solved only by death, or growing out of those
shifting or temporary associations which form a
part of every man s history.
Various are the situations in which an indivi
dual may be placed, as connected with public
opinion ; at its tribunal, a man may be either
judge, pleader, or party. He may have to award
and dispense pains and pleasures to others ; to
advocate at the hands of others the dispensa
tion of reward or punishment, or to receive from
the decrees of others the penalty or recompense
of acts submitted to the scrutiny of the social or
the popular sanction. In all these cases, let
him be on his guard against a common failing,
the ascription to others of certain motives,
inducements, or intentions, or the setting up a
claim of motive, inducement, or intention for
himself. In the character of a judge, nothing
can more assist an honest and a useful decision,
than the laying bare all actions as they really
are ; the tracing consequences as they present
themselves in overt conduct; avoiding carefully,
on the one hand, all attempts to dive into the
unfathomable regions of motives which cannot
be known ; and, on the other, steering clear of
that petty, pharisaical vanity which is so fond
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 137
of exhibiting itself to the great detriment of the
exhibitor. As an advocate, happily removed
from that most perilous position in which usage
has placed a numerous profession, who are
doomed, at the bidding of a sufficient fee, indis
criminately to defend right or wrong, by truth or
falsehood ; as an advocate, who is bound, if he
can, to obtain a correct verdict at the hands of
the popular sanction, no attempt to misdirect,
or lead astray from the consequences of the
action in question, can be sanctioned by the
moral principle. And, as a party to be judged
by the tribunal of public opinion, nothing can
be more safely recommended than to bear con
stantly in mind the conditions on which the
affection of others is held, namely, the inter
change of mutual services ; the sacrifice, on fit
occasions, of the present to the future. As a
general rule, let useless reproaches in thought
be avoided : they may lead to useless reproaches
in words, or useless reprobation in action. In
all these in thoughts, words and actions,
extra-regarding prudence has to exhibit itself.
Thoughts, not leading to words or actions, are
harmless to others, however painful or pleasur
able to ourselves. But, inasmuch as thoughts
often, do lead to words and actions are their
source and origin in fact, are in every case the
first impulse which prompts to conduct, they must
be followed into their recesses by the inquiring
138 DEONTOLOGY.
moralist, and divested, as far as may be, of
those qualities which are likely to break out in
pernicious influence upon individuals, bodies of
men, or mankind at large.
Thoughts there are prejudicial to a fair esti
mate of human character, and which by their
disparagement of our nature lead to erroneous
judgment, and what is worse to practical injus
tice and malevolence. Of these it will be suffi
cient to point out some of the most obvious.
The list might easily be extended, but the
inquirer will not be ill-employed in drawing on
his experience, his recollection, or his observa
tion, in order to increase the number of instruc
tive examples.
One, is to conclude, because professions once
made have afterwards been departed from, that
therefore they were insincere at the time they
were made.
Another, is to suppose that men profess such
and such sentiments solely because they are of
such and such a party : whereas, the case may
be that they are of such a party, because such
and such are their sentiments.
A third is, where a man may be a gainer by
professing such and such sentiments, to con
clude, in every case, that such interest is the sole
cause of his professing such sentiments.
The greater part of those who in point of
opinions are swayed by interest, are probably
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 139
sincere. This is the case when the interest
which sways them is not perceived by or
sensible to themselves.
There are few, perhaps, who have the bold
ness to own their dishonesty to themselves : few
who say to themselves aloud : This is not my
opinion, but yet I will say it is, because I can
* get so much by saying so. Interest in general,
acts in a more insensible and covert manner.
It does not attack men s integrity in front, but
undermines it. It occasions them to view the
arguments against the proscribed opinion with
more complacency ; those in favor of it with
less. When any of the former make their appear
ance in the mind, they are thought much of; they
are regarded with attention, and have their full
weight given them; when any of the latter present
themselves they are received askance, and hustled
as it were out of the mind without a hearing.
In the political world, errors of opinion,
which may well be called vulgar from their
universality, are the sources of much unchari-
tableness and suffering. Such are those which
make consummate characters either in depra
vity or in virtue ; those which refer every
motion of public men to political motives; which
attribute every action to ends and purposes
which belong to them as politicians, and none
to those which belong to them as men ; which
lay every instance of supposed misconduct in
140 DEONTOLOGY.
public men to the account of the depravity of
the heart, and none to the imbecility of the
head ; which suppose every thing immoral
which appears inexpedient.
True it is, that every observer of public men
may have noticed instances of misconduct
which would seem to justify the severest judg
ment; but the severest judgment is seldom the
wisest ; and the passions, which in political
matters so often mingle with the estimate we
form of others, sadly bewilder the intellect, and.
play havoc with the generous affections. The
law of benevolence requires that our thoughts
of others should be candid and merciful, and
this the claim of prudence yet more emphatic
ally urges; for harsh judgments of others will
bring back harsh judgments on ourselves; and
the pleasure of malevolence must be purchased
by the reaction of its penalties.
The prudential management of discourse is a
difficult, but most important branch of morals.
The aberrations of the tongue have been from
time immemorial the topic upon which prose
and poetry have poured forth their judgments,
though neither prose nor poetry has hitherto
given us any complete set of rules by which
the faculty of speech may be made most sub
servient to the creation of happiness and the
diminution of misery. With that great object
in view, the functions of the tongue, like all the
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 141
other functions of the body, may be made the
instruments of good.
In a great part of the regions of conversation,
boundless as they are, the dictates of bene
volence are in complete accordance with those
of prudence : and the topics are multitudinous
which, while they are pernicious to no one, are
pleasurable to the hearer, pleasurable to the
speaker, and pleasurable or useful to mankind
at large. And such topics should undoubtedly
be those of primary choice, where the direction
of conversation is in our hands, and where, at
the same time, the more urgent claims of a par
ticular present interest do not interfere. But
the mistake must be specially guarded against,
which is too frequently made, of supposing that
a topic interesting to the speaker is necessarily
so to the hearer, however really important that
topic may be. The prudential, as well as the
benevolent motives, dictate an abstention from
conversation which is annoying to others, and
even from that which is indifferent to them.
Nay, that which is pleasurable to both parties
may be in disaccordance with the great rule of
virtue the ultimate balance of good.
The discourse by which a man may be
affected is susceptible of three divisions. Dis
course to him, of him, and both ; in other
words, that discourse addressed to him of which
142 DEONTOLOGY.
he is not the topic ; that discourse addressed to
him of which he is the topic ; and that dis
course addressed to others of which he is the
object. But by the discourse of which he is
not the topic he may be very sensibly influ
enced, though, in ordinary cases, far more sen
sibly by that which concerns his own person
and character. The discourse addressed to
others will act upon him as a portion of the
awards of the public-opinion tribunal ; and, in
fact, the judgments we give expression to, are
in themselves awards, and dispense the pains
and pleasures, the recompense and punishment,
of which we have the disposal. Those judg
ments may or may not harmonize with the
opinions of the majority ; they may or may not
influence the opinions of the majority ; they
may or may not affect the happiness of the
individual in question ; but we are bound to
suppose that unfavorable judgment will infalli
bly produce pain, and we have no right to pro
duce it without satisfactory evidence that the
mischief inflicted by the pain in one direction,
will be more than compensated by the produc
tion of pleasure, or the removal of pain in
another direction. And so with undeserved, or
ill-deserved eulogium. To lower the standard
of morals, by dealing out the language of
approval to character or conduct in itself blame-
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 143
worthy, that is to say, to conduct or character
unfriendly to the happiness of mankind, is to
play a pernicious part on the stage of morality,
is to pervert that judgment in its sources,
whose correctness and appropriateness are the
great securities for its beneficial influences, in
a word, is to lend a helping hand to the demo
ralization of the race.
As a general rule, if the affections of him
with whom you are about to commence a con
versation are matters of indifference to you, all
topics are open to you : if it be an object with
you to gain or keep his affections, choose that
topic, whatever it be, that is most agreeable
to him. At any rate, you may avoid every
topic which you know or suspect to be dis
agreeable to him.
So, as to hearing and making others hear,
it will be a question of prudence as to the
proportion of time you shall yourself occupy in
the discussion, or allow to your companions for
their portion of the conversation. Not to fur
nish your contingent when that contingent
might instruct or amuse instruct without
annoyance, or amuse without mischief, is to be
wanting in one of the great arts of pleasing ;
while, on the other hand, to assume an unfair
portion of the time employed in conversational
intercourse, to intrude your discourse upon
144 DEONTOLOGY.
others, to their annoyance, is to assume a right
to interfere with the pleasures or the prejudices
of others, which sound morality will by no
means justify, still less recommend.
Let the tone of your conversation be inva
riably benevolent. Differ without asperity :
agree without dogmatism. Kind words cost no
more than unkind ones. Kind words produce
kind actions : not only on the part of him to
whom they are addressed, but on the part of
him by whom they are employed ; and this not
incidentally only, but habitually, in virtue of
the principle of association.
There is an infirmity to which many men
are subject, and which cannot but leave an
unfavorable impression on the minds of their
hearers. It is the use of hyberbolical language,
of praise or blame, as applied to actions of too
little importance to merit such extreme judg
ments : out of such phraseology oratory is
wont to choose its instruments of delusion, and
to these a great portion of the mischief of
erroneous moral estimate is to be attributed.
It is an act of sophistry to attach terms of
stigma to the conduct which the sophist wishes
to deprecate. The conduct in itself, perhaps,
if plainly and simply stated, would excite little
emotion ; but if some opprobrious name can be
attached to it, it is already half-condemned in
EXTRA-REGARD^ 7 G PRUDENCE. 145
the mind of the inconsiderate. Among the
most important triumphs of mental discipline,
is that which at once separates good and evil
actions from the laudatory or condemnatory
language in which they are so frequently wrapt
up, and which serves to bewilder or to blind
the observer. To the substantive act some
adjectival qualification is frequently appended,
by which the act is removed from its appropri
ate region into that where the applause or vitu
peration of the speaker chooses to place it.
Phrases eulogistic or dyslogistic act upon the
mind as stained glasses act upon the visual
sense, and the object contemplated assumes a
coloring which is not its own. In the political
world especially, men are prone to indulge in
that decorative and dishonest language, which
may sometimes serve the purposes of spite or
of flattery, but must, in the long run, be per
nicious to the moral and intellectual reputation
of him who employs it.
Avoid all arguments that you know to be so
phistical. Think not, by shutting your own eyes
against the weakness of your statements, that
you have thereby shut the eyes of your hearer.
Your sophistry will but irritate, for sophistry is
not only uncandid, but dishonest. It is an at
tempt to cheat, not the purse of another, but his
senses and his judgment. His aversion to you
VOL. II. L
14G DEONTOLOGY.
will be awakened by your effort to shine at his
expense ; and his contempt will be roused for
the folly that supposed it was able so to shine.
In all argument be candid, for the sake of your
comrade and for your own sake. The triumph
of an argument which is known and felt to be
unfair and unfounded, is a wretched exhibition
of perversity. If successful, it can serve no
interests but those of fraud : if unsuccessful,
it brings with it the consequences of blunder
ing and detected dishonesty. Constituted as
society is, with its errors and prejudices, its
narrow interests and interested passions, the
pursuit of truth makes demands enough upon
courageous virtue ; for he who goes one step
beyond the line which the world s poor con
ventions have drawn around moral and political
questions, must expect to meet with the thun
dering anathemas and obloquies of all who
wish to stand well with the arbiters of opinion.
Let no searcher after truth be led into the
labyrinths of sophistry. He will have enough
to do in order to make good his ground one
step beyond that trodden by those who dog
matize about decorum, and propriety, and right
and wrong.
While differing in opinion from others, and
giving expression to that difference, let care be
taken to avoid the appearance of personal
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 147
attack. And this may be accomplished by the
use of those forms of expression which secure
you against seeming personally to assume a
hostile position. You have, for example, oc
casion to convey your disapproval of certain
opinions, held by another. There is no need
of bringing upon yourself the sort of un
divided hostility which may probably result
from your direct and violent onset against those
opinions which, for aught you know, may be
as deeply rooted in your opponent s mind as
the contrary are in your own mind. Instead,
therefore, of taking the front ground, as it
were, of personal offence, you may represent
yourself to be one of a number who have not
been able to see the weight of the arguments
alleged in favor of your opponent s doctrine ;
that the doctrine has been met by such and
such difficulties, and so on. Or, you may put
your own opinions into the mouth of another, by
using a class of men indefinitely, or any deter
minate body of men, for the avoidance of that
sort of personal jousting which is so frequently
a source of annoyance to both combatants.
Such a form of expression as Some say, or
The opponents of this opinion say, will blunt
the sharp edge of the controversy ; and, if the
subject be one in which particular classes are
concerned, the terms of dissent will be suffi-
148 DEONTOLOGY.
ciently conveyed by a phrase like this Yet
there are lawyers who contend/ &c. ; or, * But
some divines argue/ and so on, with reference
to the special case before you.
And this contrivance has many uses. It
leaves your argument free from obnoxious per
sonality, and it leaves your person free from
the obnoxious associations which your opinions
might have attached to yourself.
True, a state of things may exist and to
such a state of things we are happily tending
in which opinions will not require to shroud
themselves in any trappings but those of ho
nesty. Yet, independently of difference of
opinions, respect must be had even to the pre
judices of others, so as to check the disposition
to intrude opposed opinion in what appears to
them an incongruous or offensive shape. Minds
there are, to whom the treating even ludicrous
topics with any thing like levity would be
vexatious and disagreeable ; and others, to
which serious and mathematical reasoning is
repugnant. To each the general rule applies,
though for each a distinct course may have to
be adopted. In the shape we give to the com
munication of our opinions, as well as in the
opinions themselves, let every thing be avoided
which creates a useless pain.
There is an instrument of tyranny, and con-
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 149
sequent source of annoyance, against whose
intrusions it is most desirable to find protection.
It is that of imprudent interrogation. It as
sumes various shapes, and sometimes produces
evil of no inconsiderable amount. Its powers
of annoyance vary with the situation of the
person who asks the question, as compared or
contrasted with that of him who is expected
to answer it ; they vary with the topic which
is put forward, and with the times or occasions
on which it is introduced. Where an individual
in a superior situation asks a question of an
inferior, which that inferior is known to be un
willing to answer, what is the question but
the interference of despotism on the part of the
questioner ; and what to the party questioned
but a cause of suffering, and of mendacity,
self-preservative mendacity? When a monarch
inquired of a novelist, in the presence of others,
whether he was the author of certain works,
whose authorship the monarch knew was
intended to be kept a profound secret, the
interrogation was an exhibition of tyranny, a
lie-compelling tyranny.
But to avoid collision, prudence requires,
not that the intrusion of offensive questionings
should be met with offensive answers, but
rather that they should be turned aside by
150 DEONTOLOGY.
good-humored management. What a ques
tion! You are not serious, surely! Thereby
hangs a tale ; and so forth. A facetious quo
tation, the singing a line of a ballad, an appro
priate look or gesture, may relieve the mind of
its embarrassment, and prevent the mischiefs
of imprudence. It is scarcely possible to pro
vide formulas for every condition in life, but
the broad Deontological line is sufficiently ob
vious.
The restraints demanded upon discourse by
prudence must be sought in every direction
where discourse has the power of inflicting
pain ; and, indeed, the rules which apply to
words differ only from the rules that apply to
actions, in that the immediate influence of dis
course upon human felicity is not so easily nor
so accurately definable. The pain which is
the consequence of a corporeal injury can be
estimated without much difficulty. The value
of a pleasure derived from a particular grati
fication might be, probably, averaged without
any considerable error. But the influence of
words upon the mind of the speaker, or upon
the mind of the hearer, cannot be very correctly
traced. The same quantity of tooth-ache would
affect, pretty equally, ten different individuals ;
but the same words, which addressed to one
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 151
man would fill his mind with acute distress,
would be heard by another with complete
indifference.
In the giving advice to others, and in the
abstaining from giving it, there is great reason
for the exercise of prudential calculation.
Cases are rare, in which the giving advice is
not the infliction of pain on him who receives
it; for, unless his conduct were in some re
spects defective, there would be no motive for
giving him the advice ; and to have defects
pointed at, or weaknesses divulged, cannot but
be disagreeable to him whom, by the advice,
it is sought to improve. Is there a certainty
that the advice will be wasted ? Let the adviser
spare himself the pains of disappointment, and
spare the advised the annoyance of a useless
infliction. But, escorted between self-regard
ing prudence and beneficence, if the adviser
has good reason to believe that his lessons will
not be lost, he is well occupied in giving them.
Let him avoid reference to by-gone misconduct,
except as necessary to give more efficiency to
his counsels. Let those counsels be tinged as
little as possible with reproach for the past,
but brightened as much as may be with encou
ragement for the future. In a word, let him
look forward instead of backward, and urge
his hearer to do the same. By sparing him
152 DEONTOLOGY.
the recollections of pain, by opening to him the
prospects of pleasure, he will best discharge his
moral mission.
To restrain those sallies of wit which give
annoyance to others, is one of the duties, and
a difficult one, whose exercise is demanded by
extra-regarding prudence. The complacency
with which men in general display their intel
lectual superiority, and especially in the regions
of ridicule, often betrays them into disregard
for the feelings they wound, and the reaction
of those wounded feelings upon themselves.
Happy he, who, tempted to say a clever but
malicious thing, has his own self-love so con
trolled by the benevolent principle, as to be
able, on any occasion, to check the utterance
of that which would distress another; and hap
pier still the man in whom the powers of wit
and ridicule have been so constantly subjected to
the influence of beneficence, as to feel no dispo
sition to utter that which could give to another
useless pain ! Men there are, whose minds have
been so successfully disciplined, as to be placed,
by a temperament which has become habitual,
beyond the influence, and even beyond the
suggestions of that infirmity, w 7 hich exasperates
its victims far more than it injures them, and
is often repaid by a malevolence more intense,
because its fears do not allow it to break forth
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 153
in ordinary expression. Pleasantry, the gay
and joyous pleasantry which proceeds from
happy spirits, and avoids all topics of painful
results, is alike an attraction and a merit.
Beware in your discourse of raising expect
ations, without a certainty of their realization ;
and if you have the certainty, take care that the
expectation be rather of something less than of
something more than you anticipate. The value of
the pleasure, when it arrives, will be heightened
by its being greater in amount, intensity, or in
duration than was looked for. If you prepare
disappointment, you suffer in the good opinion of
the party whose hopes your representations have
raised too high, and you suffer in your own
good opinion. You will have lost something in
usefulness by losing something in reputation.
In exciting a less amount of expectation than the
case would warrant, you can do neither yourself,
nor the expecting person any evil ; for if the
event happen, it will bring with it greater
pleasure from its out-weighing anticipation, and
if the event do not happen, the pain will be
lessened in proportion to the smallness of the
disappointment. And that we should prevent
all needless disappointment, is but the corollary
to the principle that we should not awaken
undue expectation. Next to the creation of
felicity, as the great and fundamental basis
154 DEONTOLOGY.
of all sound morals and legislation, comes the
non-disappointment principle as second in im
portance. And its application to discourse is
obvious : the language which creates an expect
ation not to be fulfilled, or in other words,
which lays the ground-work of a disappointment
which is inevitable, is as pernicious as any
other conduct which does not produce a greater
amount of suffering. Promises lightly made,
and carelessly broken, are frequent sources of
misery.
The pretension which indicates the motives of
others is almost always futile and offensive.
For if their motive be what we suppose it, and
the motive be a praiseworthy one, it will be
visible by and in the act ; and if the motive be
blameworthy, to denounce it will but be a
cause of annoyance to him to whom the motive
is attributed. And after all, we have nothing
to do with motives. If bad motives produce
good actions, so much the better for society ;
and if good motives produce bad actions, so
much the worse. It is the act, and not the.
motive, with which we have to do; and when the
act is before us, and the motive concealed from
us, it is the idlest of idling to be inquiring into
that which has no influence, and forgetting that
which has all the real influence upon our condi
tion. What acts, however outrageously and ex-
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 155
tensively mischievous, but may be excused and
justified, if the motives of the actor, instead of the
consequences of the act, become the test of right
and wrong? Perhaps there never was a group of
more conscientious and well-intending men than
the early inquisitors ; they verily believed they
were doing God service ; they were under the
influence of motives most religious and pious,
while they were pouring out blood in rivers,
and sacrificing, amidst horrid tortures, the wisest
and best of their race. Motive, indeed ! as if all
motives were not the same, to obtain for the
actor some recompense for his act, in the shape
of pain averted, or pleasure secured. The
motive, as far as that goes, of the vilest is the
same as the motive of the noblest, to increase
his stock of happiness. The man who murders,
the man who robs another, believes that the
murder and the robbery will be advantageous to
him, will leave to him more happiness than if
he had not committed the crime. In the field
of motive, however, he may make out a case as
recommendatory of his conduct, as if he were
the most accomplished of moralists. To say
that his motives were ill-directed to his object,
is to reason wisely with him ; to say that his
motives had not the object of obtaining for
himself some advantage, is to deny the operation
of cause on effect. There is, and the existence
156 DEONTOLOGY,
of the disposition is a striking evidence of the
tendency of men towards despotic assertion,
there is by far too great a willingness to turn
away from the consequences of conduct in order
to inquire into its sources. The inquiry is a
fruitless one, and were it not fruitless it would
be useless. For were motives other than they
are, were they fit and proper evidence of the
vice or virtue of any given action, it would not
be the less true, that opinion could ultimately
have no other test for judgment than the
consequences of that action. A man s motives
affect nobody until they give birth to action ;
and it is with the action and not with the
motive, that individuals or societies have any
concern. Hence, in discourse, let all indica
tions of motives be avoided. This will remove
one spring of error and false judgment from
the mind of the speaker, and from the minds of
the hearers one source of misunderstanding.
In the conveying approbation to another for
meritorious conduct, let the expressions be warm
and cordial. Let the recompense be as much
as the circumstances of the case justify. Sin
cerity and candor, indeed, are modifications of
veracity ; or rather veracity is a modification of
sincerity ; but veracity has its shapes more or
less attractive ; and when it has the matter of
pleasure at its disposal, let its distribution be
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 157
made as welcome as possible to the receiver.
That a favor denied may be made, by the grace
of its denial, almost as pleasurable as a bene
fit conferred has almost passed into a proverb ;
and that the language of approval may lose all,
or almost all its acceptableness by its forms of
expression or manner of utterance, is within the
observation of every man s experience. Let
your praise then, when given, be given with all
the accompaniments which make praise most
delightful. The exercise which conveys appro
bation is in itself most salutary. Let it be the
expression of truth combined with warm-heart
edness : one sentence so characterized will be
worth many in which such qualities are wanting.
And, where extra-regarding prudence requires
that disapprobation should be conveyed to an
other, let only so much of pain be created as is
necessary for the accomplishing the object you
have in view. If you create too little pain, indeed,
that which you do create is wasted, because the
purpose for which it was created fails. But the
common error is on the other side. Vindictive-
ness frequently mingles with the awards of
justice. The disposition of power to display
itself, usually leads to the infliction of more
suffering than prudence or benevolence warrant.
And in ordinary cases disapprobation is con
veyed in that moment when passion has
158 DEONTOLOGY.
enfeebled the power of judging how much of pain
is demanded. As a general rule, avoid the ex
pression of disapprobation when you are angry.
The violent expressions to which irritation gives
birth, are those which will be least adapted
to the end ; for the blindness of anger prevents
it from seeing and seizing the fit object for
the accomplishment of its ends. If a man has
injured you, avoid, if possible, being yourself the
awarder of the punishment the injury merits :
wait for denunciation of the injury by some
other person ; it will produce more effect than
from you, and the odium to yourself will be
saved.
Some men have a failing, which is a source of
great annoyance to others, and for which they
pay the penalty, by making their conversation
less agreeable, and even at times making their
conversation intolerable : it is the habit of
stickling for the final word. Right or wrong in
the controversy, subdued or victorious, there
are persons who insist on exercising the petty
and vexatious despotism of uttering the last sen
tence that is uttered. This disposition is the
outbreak of pride in a very offensive shape ; it
is the usurpation of dominion over the self-love
of other men, on a ground where men are ordi
narily most sensitive. It is, in fact, a determi
nation to humiliate him with whom you have
EXTKA-REGAllDING PRUDENCE. 159
been holding intercourse, to humiliate him,
not by the success of an irresistible argument,
but by the intrusion of a tyrannic power.
Avoid then the act, lest the act should create
the habit ; and if the habit exist, extra-regard
ing prudence requires that it should be got rid
of. Watch yourself ; and inquire of any friend
on whose sincerity you can rely, inquire, if
you are quite sure that you will not be hurt
by his reply, whether the infirmity is exhibited
by, or has been observed in you. And if it be,
correct the infirmity.
The proper subjugation of the virtue of vera
city to those of prudence and benevolence has
been already insisted on. Of the vice men
dacity, which is the contrasted vice to the virtue
of veracity, there are several ramifications, of
a character more or less pernicious, but against
whose exercise prudence demands us to be on
our guard. Mendacity is one of many modes
by which deceit is practised. Disingenuous-
ness is another. Its tendency always, and its
intention generally, is to produce misconcep
tion. Insincerity is another form of mendacity,
to be estimated, as to the extent of its per-
niciousness, by the extent of evil which it
generates. Exceptions excepted and those
are the rare cases in which the higher demands
of prudence and benevolence require the sacri-
160 DEONTOLOGY.
fice of veracity ingenuousness and sincerity
are among the virtues which extra-regarding
prudence takes under its care. They are sin
gularly fascinating and self-recommendatory.
The interest that every individual feels, on
ordinary occasions, in the communication of
truth, gives to truth a peculiar recommendation
when it comes in a shape so attractive. Its
charm is then upon the surface ; visible to the
eye; obvious to the understanding.
As to the general influence of our actions
upon others, as reflected back upon ourselves,
and with a sole regard to our own happiness,
that is, supposing their happiness to form no
part of our estimate, it is certain that an en
lightened selfishness would prescribe friendly
deeds towards them. For, take any object of
desire, power, for example, power, as a
source of pleasure, which it undoubtedly is,
and inquire how it is best obtainable, in so far
as other men are concerned. There are two
courses of action, namely, doing good to them,
or doing evil to them ; for non-action will, of
course, produce no results. By doing evil to
them, you make enemies ; by doing good to
them, you make friends : now which, in refer
ence to your own good, is preferable ?
Solitary and isolated man disposes but of
small portions of pleasure. Alone, all his ex-
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 16 J
ertions would scarcely be enough to provide for
himself food and clothing, and protection against
the elements. Even in the earlier periods of
civilization, where the means of association are
few, his sufferings are considerable, from the
frequent absence of the necessaries of life ; and
it is often his fate to perish from the want of
co-operation. All that social knowledge does,
is to make men more useful to one another,
is to give to each an interest in the resources
of the whole, is to deal out to every man, for
himself, a greater portion of the enjoyments
which are in the gift of others, than he would
otherwise have obtained.
Though, to the definitions of the Aristotelians
a thousand irresistible objections may be urged,
though their classification of morality, under
the bifurcate divisions of virtues and half-
virtues, is wholly untenable, yet the virtues may
be very conveniently and fitly divided into two
sections, the major and the minor morals, the
major, as they regard the interests which are
greater, but are more rarely at stake; the
minor, those which regard interests that are
comparatively less, but are continually brought
into question.
To both branches the same rules apply; but,
inasmuch as the quantity of good and evil
which depends on any one action belonging to
VOL. ir. M
K)2 OI .ONTOI.OOV.
tho minor hrancli will be comparatively small,
it is .MM inn. . more dillieult lo mark out the
course which prudence and benevolence pre
scribe, hut the popular sanction ha.s taken u
great j)art of the minor morals under its wing,
and, to a very considerable extent, the, laws of
goad hm tHng are in conformity with the, Deon-
tological principle*. To those laws there is
seldom any hostility on the part of the aristo-
eratical seetion of society. Like the rest of
mankind, the inliiig lew are dependent on their
observance (or no small portion of their own
happiness, and then-lore they combine to give
them action and effect. Ueeklcss as are too
often the*, opulent and privileged classes of the
claims of morality in its more exalted and
important bearings, they are cautious in violat
ing its dictates in that narrower field, where
aristocratical opinion has itself marked out a
certain course. Their extra-regarding prudence
ha.s I M! a decided check upon the dissocial
affections. In numberless cases, the impulse
which would inflict pain on another is disarmed
by the, well-established code of courtesy, (jood
manners already tolerate difference of opinion
in religion, politics, and taste. Tin- outbreaks
which, only a lew years ago, would have
been allowed to intolerance, have been already
checked by the peremptory mandates of polite
ness. A better system of morals than that
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE.
which has so long overruled society is gra
dually introducing itself, and regulating the
world s judgment by a more faithful standard
of right. In this there is consolation, in this
may be seen a tendency towards a state of
tilings where social and popular rewards and
punishments will be sufficient to restrain and
encourage a vast number of acts which are now
left to the intervention either of the legislative,
administrative, or judicial authorities; to the
dictum of the priesthood, or the terrors of the
law-giver. With the Deontological test in hand,
let Chesterfield s Letters be read, or any other
work whose object it is to teach the minor
morals, and it will be found very easy to
separate the chaff from the wheat, to rescue
and reduce to practice whatever is wise and
virtuous, and to pick out and fling aside, as
unfit for use, all those instructions which violate
the great primary principles. Such an employ
ment would be a delightful exercise, both for
the intellect and the affections : for the intel
lect, as engaged especially in calculating the
claims of the self-regarding interest; and for
the affections, in giving weight to all the sug
gestions of effective benevolence.
If the accomplishment of any one purpose
which a man proposes to himself be submitted
to any other rule of action than that we have
164 DEONTOLOGY.
laid down, will that other rule give him so
many chances of success, or make his success
so complete or so economical as the rule of
Deontology, which is resumable in two sim
ple precepts, Maximize good, minimize evil ?
Take any case that can be suggested. You
have, for example, long been in habits of inter
course with another. His society has ceased to
be acceptable to you. It is desirable the connec
tion should be dissolved. Now, for the putting
a termination, whether temporarily or other
wise, to his visits, could any better advice be
offered to you than that, while removing from
yourself the annoyance caused by his company,
you should take care that as little vexation as
possible should be given to him ? No good
end can be answered by exciting in his mind,
or in your own, a useless pain. Prudence
would guard you against distressing yourself
unnecessarily. Benevolence would prevent your
bringing down upon him unneeded suffering.
Such being the general law, you would so
apply it, in every case, as to give it the greatest
efficiency. If there were any peculiar suscep
tibility in the mind of your acquaintance, that
susceptibility you would take care not to
wound. Unless the case demanded an imme
diate rupture, you would break off your inter
course gradually ; if instant cessation of com-
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 105
munication were absolutely needful, you would
put forward the least offensive reason you could
find for your justification.
Let a man s object be to ingratiate himself
with another, a fit and proper object, if pursued
in accordance with prudence and benevolence,
how can he best accomplish it ? How shall he
apply the Deontological rule ?
To ingratiate yourself with another is to
obtain his good opinion, his good opinion on
any particular occasion, or his good opinion in
general. Out of his good opinion will grow
the desire to render you acceptable services ;
services in a shape which you or he may spe
cially have in view, or services of a more exten
sive character. It is your desire that he should
not regard you as he regards men in general,
or men unknown to him, but that his mind
should be impressed with favorable and friendly
affections towards you.
You have these two distinguishable courses
to pursue. If you have the power of giving
evidence of your disposition to render accept
able services to the party whose good opinion
you are seeking, and still more, if you have
the power of rendering him such services ; if
you can induce him to look upon you as likely
to be able, or as able in reality to add any
thing to his enjoyment; if, in a word, you are
166 DEONTOLOGY.
in a situation to exercise towards him the
virtues of benevolence and beneficence, do so :
it is the first and most obvious means of ingra-
tiation, and may be intitled courtship.
But if this be wanting, you have another
means of ingratiation. Set yourself, as regards
men in general, in a favorable light. Endeavor
to appear in his eyes as a fit object of social
affection, as worthy of love or esteem, or both.
This may be called self-recommendation, or
self-elevation.
With some persons this self-elevation is the
most recommendatory course ; with others, the
system of courtship, in other words, the exhibi
tion of the qualities which make your title out to
friendly regard, may be put forward with more
success and with less reserve to certain per
sons than to others.
Where the desire of ingratiating is exhibited
with prudence and wisdom, it seldom fails of
success, since there is no man who is not de
pendent, to some extent, on the good-will of
others, and very few who, in the obvious calcu
lations of self-interest, are not willing to make
some return for tendered useful services. But
self-recommendation cannot be employed with
out more or less hazard; it is an attempt to
occupy a higher position than that we fill in
the mind of the person appealed to. If it fail,
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 167
we are lowered in his opinion, and humiliated
in our own. Yet it is the most agreeable
instrument, and the most flattering to self: it
is that which is most frequently employed for
the purpose of winning the friendly sympathies
of others ; and the anxiety to employ it is the
frequent cause of the counteraction of its own
purpose. To the young it is peculiarly fasci
nating and peculiarly delusive. They are wont
to assign to themselves a place more exalted
than the world in general is disposed to re
cognize ; a place above the ordinary level in
the scale of popular estimation. They do not
easily lend themselves to the practice of court
ship, lest it should be deemed disreputable
flattery, and are therefore more prone to take
their stand upon their own merit.
But, in as far as the good opinion of others
can be purchased by services done, and if those
services can be done without any other sacrifice
of self than will be recompensed by a greater
result of good, no opportunity should be lost
which enables us to win the friendly affections
of mankind in general, or of any individual in
particular whose approval will augment our
own and the general happiness.
Various rules have at various times been
given for the suppression of anger, most of
which consist of devices for giving the irritation
168 DEONTOLOGY.
time to allay itself, before it breaks out into
offensive words or actions. All these rules are
in fact appeals to sober judgment against ex
cited passions. The deliberate repetition of the
alphabet, a walk into the open air, if the scene
of excitement be within doors, any device,
indeed, for diverting the mind from its irascible
tendency, may be used with effect. But
instead of depending on the chance of finding
the power of alienating the mind from its angry
dispositions, when on any particular occasion
they chance to be awakened, it would be far
better to obtain the power of subjugating those
dispositions by the habitual exercise of the cor
rective influences. Hence, in the cool and
quiet hour, when nothing disturbs the tranquil
lity of your feelings, satisfy yourself completely
of the usefulness and applicability of those rules
for which you may have occasion in the moment
of exasperation. Lodge them fix them firmly
in your memory think frequently of their
value ; and thus, when any incidental provoca
tion happens to excite anger, the recollection of
these rules may serve to repress it. It is in
this way you will purchase redemption from the
slavery to which passion would subject you, on
the cheapest and the safest terms.
The hoarding money is among the mistakes
of imprudence and miscalculation. With refer-
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 169
ence to ourselves to treasure it up unproduc-
tively is an obviously false estimate of interest.
As a means of enjoyment, the transfer of the
affections from the reality, to that which is only
the instrument by which the reality is obtain
able, will, in its consequences, reduce many
pleasures to one, and that one disassociated
from, or even opposed to, the pleasures of
others. The sensibility to pleasure being dead
ened by non-exertion, the vague and undefined
anticipation of good to be obtained by money,
as a source of pleasure, is magnified. One
after another, the individual pleasures vanish,
and as they vanish the pleasure of possessing
the source of so many pleasures takes stronger
and stronger root in the affections ; it becomes
in itself an object of desire, independent of
and above all others, and at last excludes
them all.
Here then is a man who has disconnected the
self-regarding principle from the social, and
endeavored to obtain for himself an additional
portion of good by alienating others from co
operation in his own happiness. And the con
sequences are as Deontology and philanthropy
would desire they should be. He has made a
foolish bargain in the interest of self. He has
lost much good to obtain little, and that little
good is made almost an evil by its being associ-
170 DEONTOLOGY.
ated with the anxieties which attend the one,
single, solitary source of pleasure. Indifferent
to the opinion of others, that opinion retaliates
a sentiment that is not indifferent. For how
ever men may desire to escape the judgment of
mankind, escape is impossible : the tribunal
of opinion drags all men inexorably before its
bar.
The rules of extra-regarding prudence, though
simple in their claims, dictate different forms
of operation with reference to the different
situations in which a man may be placed with
respect to others. The law is in all cases the
same, and the inquiry resolves itself into the
means of giving that law the greatest efficiency.
In the various grades of social position various
rules apply. The general reasoning is grounded
on the average of those grades. But it may be
well to point out some of those diversities of
position which demand the attention of the
Deontological student.
The cases presenting themselves where no
conflict of interest has place, will be of the
easiest decision. On those occasions where,
to do that which is most agreeable to others
is to do that which is most agreeable to your
self, and where to do that which is most
agreeable to yourself is, at the same time, to
ingratiate yourself with others, the task of exer-
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 171
tion is easy. In so far as without sacrifice of
prudence on the one hand, or of benevolence
on the other, you can make your own wishes to
accord with the wishes of others your own
interests with their interests, you will advance
the cause of virtue and consequent felicity.
But the points of difficulty will be, when con
flicting, or, still worse, irreconcilable interests
meet, where the conduct which would be
satisfactory to yourself is repelled by others, as
the cause of vexation and pain to them. It
might be a great enjoyment to a man to smoke,
notwithstanding the annoyance caused to others
by involving them in the fumes of his tobacco.
Setting aside the question as to what benevo
lence might prompt, would not extra-regarding
prudence demand from him the sacrifice of his
enjoyment, for the sole purpose of protecting
himself from the re-action, upon his own com
forts, of the ill-will of those he had annoyed ?
He might consider that the quantity of pleasure
which the smoking communicated would be less
in amount than the pleasures he would lose by
losing other men s good opinion, or in compari
son of the pains which other men would have it
in their power, and perhaps in their disposition,
to inflict.
Again, the laws of extra-regarding prudence
will be applied with greater facility on those
172 DEONTOLOGY.
occasions where no difference has place as to
the inferiority or superiority of a man s con
dition, as regards the party with whom he has
to do. Actions, which, generally speaking,
appear controlled by the Deontological princi
ple, might be found more or less accordant with
it, when the relative situation of the parties is
duly weighed. The very conduct which might
be prudent and benevolent when practised, for
example, by an opulent man towards his poorer
neighbour, by a wise man towards his less
instructed acquaintance, by a father towards
a child, by an old man to a youth, might
change its character on being adopted by the
opposite side, by those whose condition is
contrasted in the circumstance of wealth, or
knowledge, or of paternity, or age. In a situa
tion of equality, the mind is released from
weighing in the balance many topics of differ
ence which, if they exist, are intitled to be
duly estimated. As the pains and pleasures
enjoyed or suffered by persons in the same
condition, resemble each other more closely
than where the gradations of rank have sepa
rated men, the similarity of position will in
crease the power of accurately estimating the
value of the pleasure and the pain. For plea
sures and pains are not worth seeking or avoid
ing, except in so far as they act upon the
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 173
individual, and can be applied to his particular
case.
The domestic and social relations present,
under their various characters, various demands
for the exercise of extra-regarding prudence.
The intimacy and adjacency of a connection,
and our dependence upon it for our own hap
piness, strengthen the influence of the pruden
tial principle, by bringing us more immediately
into the presence of those who hold in their
hands the power of distributing to us frequently
recurring pains or pleasures. The ties of con
sanguinity are ordinarily the strongest ; next
follow r those of affinity ; next those of domestic
contract, such as exist between master and
servant ; next those of accidental social inter
course ; and last, those of neighborhood. To
some family circle almost every individual
belongs ; upon the services rendered by the
other members of that family circle every indi
vidual is greatly dependent for his ordinary
portion of happiness. Immediately beyond or
beneath the habitual relations of family, come
those accidental relations which grow out of
the communications by which others are some
times brought into our domestic circle, or by
which we are taken into theirs ; while the
friendly, but less intimate, intercourse of neigh
borhood may be deemed the last grade to
174 DEONTOLOGY.
which the social sanctions apply. Beyond it,
the popular sanction begins its action.
A family is a small community, in which the
situation of the heads is analogous to that of
rulers in a state : it is a government in minia
ture ; a government armed with all the powers
necessary for regulating its own concerns, and
especially all those which belong to the Deon-
tological field. Appropriate rewards, for the
recompense of actions which add to the hap
piness of the domestic circle, and appropriate
punishments for actions which diminish it, are
in the hands of those who exercise the func
tions of authority. And to them the rules of
extra-regarding prudence apply ; for their au
thority must become more or less influential,
as exercised with a greater or less regard to
the well-being of their dependents.
Every human being is dependent, in some
degree, upon others. In the very highest
elevations of the social ranks, the influences
exercised descend upon the ranks beneath,
while the very lowest are not without influence
on those above them, being called upon for
services necessary to the enjoyments of the
more privileged classes. To every individual
whether as patron or as subject, the claims of
Deontology apply. If his views look not be
yond his own personal interest, if he be reck-
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 175
less of every thing but the means of exacting
from others useful and agreeable services, the
dictates of wisdom will lead him to seek the
accomplishment of every end he proposes to
himself by the instrumentality of happiness.
Let the conditions of man s varied existence be
examined, one after another. Let the master
inquire how the ready attentions of his servant
can be best obtained. How but, by associat
ing the interests of that servant with his duties,
by making the duties pleasurable ? How can
the servant most easily win that good opinion
of his master which will lighten his labors or
make them sources of enjoyment ? Certainly
only by giving evidence to the master, that his
services are not without their beneficent influ
ence upon that master s felicity.
In following the claims dependent on man s
varied condition, those of superiority, inferiority,
and equality have been referred to, as present
ing topics for distinct consideration.
Superiority may represent greater excellence
in general, or greater excellence in some par
ticular and special branch. Superiority in
power, whencever derived, is the ordinary
ground for the claim to superior services ; and
the claim is obvious, for whatsoever induce
ments you have to the exercise of beneficence
towards inferiors and equals, on the score of
176 DEONTOLOGY.
prudence and benevolence, you have these, and
others too, when the virtues are to be exercised
towards a superior. The claims of self- regard
ing prudence come in to add their weight to
the claims of beneficence. The superiority of
him you serve places in his hands an additional
means of recompense, and your own self-regard
would compel you to endeavor to obtain it.
Superiority in power, derived from wealth,
shuts out, to a certain extent, the influence
of the inferior in that particular. The smaller
sum sacrificed by the unopulent may be a
greater loss than the larger sum obtained by
the opulent. The value of money, in different
hands, is a most important consideration, when
it is to be employed as a means of influence.
In early life, strange mistakes are wont to
be made by inexperience. Indifference, or
even haughtiness to superiors, is assumed as a
characteristic of independence, and an evidnece
of high-mindedness. And yet such exhibitions
do not alter the real situations of men. The
gradations of rank exist, in spite of all that
benevolence can anticipate, or philosophy sug
gest. Let any man ascertain what he gets
by scorn or disdain directed towards those
above him ! The ill-will of those who are
mightier than he is cannot serve his purpose.
Even if beneficence did not prompt him to
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 177
avoid the giving useless pain, a prudent regard
to his own well-being should teach him for
bearance.
By superiors in general are to be understood
superiors in power ; and, consequently, on the
part of the persons who are considered as their
inferiors, there exists, as towards them, a cor
respondent degree of dependence. In regard
to the deportment proper to be maintained by
their inferiors, as towards such superiors, the
error of which we have spoken is apt to have
place; and it is of a sort prejudicial, at once,
to beneficence as well as prudence, and which
is apt not to stop at the breach of these negative
virtues, but to go on to a violation of the cor
responding positive ones. A sort of merit is
attached by some to the refusal to manifest
towards the feelings of superiors that degree
of regard which, by the same persons, would
not be refused to equals or to inferiors. To
this supposed merit is annexed more or less of
self-praise, on the score of spirit, as it is called ;
on the score of a spirit of independence. But
if there is no merit in the violation of the
dictates of a single virtue, viz. beneficence,
negative or positive, still less can there be in
the violation of the dictates of that same virtue,
added to the dictates of self- regarding pru
dence.
VOL. II. N
178 DEONTOLOGY.
In this particular a difference may have place,
according as, on the occasion in question, third
persons are, or are not present.
The case where third persons are present, is
the case in which a display of this sort of spirit
is most apt to be made.
It will depend, however, upon the cast of
mind that has place on the part of the persons
thus present. It may possibly happen that, in the
opinion of them, or some of them, the character
of the person in question may be raised by this
display of independence : so far as this is the
case, what a man loses in the affection and
regard of the superior in question, this, or
more, he may gain by increase of regard on
the part of these same third persons. In
this case, a sort of conflict has place between
the two virtues. The dictates of beneficence
are neglected ; those of prudence self-regard
ing prudence are consulted and conformed
to ; and happiness gains by the sacrifice made
by the one virtue to the other.
In the other case in the case where no
other persons are presentif imprudence, in
this shape, is committed, ill humor anger
is apt to be the cause. By the anti-social
passion, the joint force of the self-regarding and
the social affections is overborne : folly presents
itself to the actor under the garb of merit : he
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. J 79
fancies himself to be displaying strength when,
in fact, he is betraying weakness.
A case, not absolutely impossible or unex
ampled, is, that by this display of hostility, in
a case where obsequiousness is not only more
advisable but more common, the inferior enter
tains a hope of raising himself in the estimation
of the superior ; and where that hope may even
have its accomplishment. But the experiment
is a hazardous one, and requires no small
degree of skill and attention to be made
successful.
The nature and existence of equality is as
easily conceived as those of superiority and infe
riority ; it being a negation of both.
But between no two persons is the existence
of it capable of being demonstrated, or with
any thing like precision capable of being ascer
tained.
Suppose, for argument sake, the existence
of it ascertained, as between yourself, whoever
you are, and another person, whoever he is.
From self-partiality you, in your own scale,
may be placed above him ; he, in his scale,
above you.
This difference, therefore, it belongs to you
to bear constantly in mind, as well with respect
to beneficence as with respect to self-regarding
prudence.
180 DEONTOLOGY.
The difference, however, is not so great in
the case of those classes which have least, as
in the case of those which have most powerful
incentives to emulation. Examples: day-
laborers on the one hand, professional men on
the other.
Superiority and inferiority suppose each other:
neither would have place without the other.
But superiority and inferiority, in order to
present a positive idea to the mind, must be
associated with some object, in itself a good,
or, at all events, supposed to be a good, so as
to awaken desire. The different quantity of
that good possessed relatively, may be con
sidered as the different degrees of a scale of
superiority or inferiority, with a reference to the
particular good in question.
One of the shapes in which superiority pre
sents itself most obviously to the mind has been
already referred to. It is that of power. It is
a superiority easily conceived, early established,
and widely spread.
Take, for example, the dependence of the
infant child upon its mother, and the power she
exercises over it. It begins with the child s
existence, it is absolute, it is boundless, it
even precedes existence ; on the mother the
child depends for its very being.
The power she exercises cannot but be hers.
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 181
No child can be born without a mother ; the
existence of a mother implies the existence of
a determinate child. The mother, standing in
the relation of extreme superiority and absolute
power over the child ; the child in those of
extreme inferiority and absolute dependence
upon the mother.
Of primeval, and necessary, and absolute
superiority, the relation of the mother to the
child is far more complete, though less seldom
quoted as an example, than that of father and
son. No man can with positive, indisputable
certainty, be known to be the father of a deter
minate child. His connection with his sup
posed or real offspring is, in the very nature of
things, less intimate than that of the mother.
By Filmer, whose name is kept alive by his
having had Locke for his antagonist in the field
of the political branch of moral art and science,
by Sir Robert Filmer, the supposed necessary
as well as absolute power of the father over
his children was taken as the foundation and
origin, and thence justifying cause of the power
of the monarch in every political state. With
more propriety he might have stated the abso
lute dominion of a female as the only legitimate
form of government.
In the Negro kingdom of Ashantee, the king
has for his successor the eldest male child of
182 DEONTOLOGY.
his eldest sister. In so far as certainty, com
bined with proximity of natural relationship to
the preceding monarch, is a proper, efficient
cause of title to the vacant throne, the advisers
of the black monarch of Africa have been, and
are wiser than the advisers of the white monarchs
of Europe.
The scales of comparison by which supe
riority, equality, and inferiority may be mea
sured, embrace, necessarily, a great variety of
topics, and may be classified under the head
of qualities which distinguish one man s situa
tion from another, or under those situations
themselves. Qualities useful to self, qualities
useful to others ; qualities natural, qualities
acquired ; and these, again, divided into the
qualities which are acquirable by a man s own
exertions alone, and not acquirable, except with
the concurrence of others ; qualities also of the
body, and qualities of the mind, in the pos
session of each, or all of these, almost every
man is in some way distinguished from every
other man. The amount of these qualities may
be the same in the cases of different individuals,
but their distribution is never so ; and a great
portion of the charm of social intercourse grows
out of the infinite distinctions by which these
varied elements exist in different persons. A
man may be distinguished from another by his
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 183
wisdom on general topics, by an all-pervading
accuracy of judgment, or by a wisdom peculiarly
associated with certain determinate objects. A
man may be characterised, though very rarely,
by universal knowledge ; but in nine hundred
cases, or more, out of a thousand, it will be his
devotion to, and acquirements in some particular
branch of study, that denote his superiority
over any man, or over men in general. So,
in that more vague dependence, which may
be called the dependence of expectation, an
inferior may anticipate good from a superior,
growing out of any one of the qualities spoken
of, or of any one of the various branches of
those qualities.
Among the more determinable sources of infe
riority and superiority in position, age, wealth,
rank, and political power, are particularly pro
minent.
The difference in age is easily definable, and
in some cases towers over every other distinc
tion. The power of the nurse, for example,
over the infant, however wealthy or high-born
the infant may be, is almost limitless. In
general estimate it may be remarked, that the
superiority conferred by age is frequently ex
aggerated, or rather, the points of character in
which youth may be fairly considered as pos-
184 DEONTOLOGV.
sessing greater excellence, are not sufficiently
taken into the account. The mental powers
are generally improved by the teachings of
time ; at all events, up to a certain period of
man s existence ; but this can hardly be said of
the benevolent tendencies.
If age bring experience with it, a cooler and
a riper judgment, if by it the intellectual
faculties are strengthened, youth presents, on
the other hand, valuable and virtuous qualities,
which are not, alas ! fortified by long life ; for
youth is the season of generous affections, of
warm and glowing sympathies, of zeal and of
activity. And occasions there are in which
difficulties are vanquished by it, because their
magnitude has not been perceived ; difficulties
against which, perhaps, reflection would have
counselled a more advanced intelligence not to
contend. Youth, too, has a longer period of
recompense or punishment before it; its cal
culations of the fruitfulness of pains and plea
sures are spread over a wider future field ; its
susceptibilities are more intense ; its hopes are
brighter ; it has more to gain and more to lose ;
its destinies are not fixed, but remain to be
called up, to a great extent, by the tendencies
itself must give.
From the novi homines the great advances
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 185
must be expected ; un palled by satiety of
honors, to them the slightest regale is a ban
quet the most exquisite.
The distinctions of wealth, in the scale of
superiority and inferiority, may be easily mea
sured. The pound in the hands of the foolish
man cannot, indeed, be considered an instru
ment of the same value as a pound in the
hands of the \vise ; but, as far as the standard
of wealth is applied, the fool and the wise are
in the same condition. Wealth, however, re
garded through the optics of utility, is only one
of the many means of power ; the means of
possessing that which is an object of desire;
and upon its application, less than its distribu
tion, depends the quantity of pleasure pur
chased, and pain avoided by it.
The number of fallacies current on the sub
ject of wealth is extremely great, and many
of them leave erroneous impressions on the
mind, both as to the value and the use of
wealth. Its value, its sole value, is as an
instrument of power, and the possession of
power, until called into exercise, counts for
little in the balance of pain or pleasure.
On its exercise its value depends. There is no
more truth in saying that Money is the root
of all evil, than in saying that Money is the
source of all good. The phrase endeavors to
18G DEONTOLOGY.
give to a small portion of a truth, mingled with
a large portion of that which is not truth, all the
influence of a truism. No doubt, some desire
or other is the cause of all misconduct, and
money is the means for gratifying a large por
tion of our desires. But as there are many
pains which neither the presence nor the
absence of money can create, remove, or even
influence, so there are pleasures beyond the
reach of wealth, however boundless.
Rank, as a representative of prosperity, is,
like wealth, to be estimated by its own scale of
influence, as different titles constitute different
grades of social position. But their bearing
upon the general question of a man s superior in
fluence, depends also upon moral and intellectual
qualities. As a rule of conduct, extra-regarding
prudence demands, in almost every case, the
recognition of those habits of deference which are
ordinarily paid to rank. Exceptional cases there
are in which self-regarding prudence will league
with benevolence to prevent that prostration
which is painful to the prostrate, and pernicious
to him who exacts or allows the humiliation.
Political power implies the means of action
in a wider sphere of influence. It enables a
man to dispose of a larger portion of good and
evil than power in any other shape will confer
on him. And prudence requires that conduct
EXTRA-REGARDING PRUDENCE. 187
should be directed with a view to that greater
quantity of happiness and misery of which
political power disposes.
In intercourse with superiors, prudence par
ticularly requires attention to all those lesser
marks of respect which superior station is wont
to exact. Great faults are sometimes par
doned, little ones seldom. Many great men
there are very willing to forgive an error, but
few who would forgive an inattention. In the
world, men s thoughts are far less occupied
with important than with trivial things. The
usages of polite society, the minor morals are
within every body s observation and estimate
who dwells in the more privileged social regions.
Hence, there is little chance of any violation of
them passing undetected and unpunished.
Among the lessons of extra-regarding pru
dence, that which teaches us to brook the inso
lence of office, is not the least valuable. How
shall that insolence be divested of its sting of
annoyance ?
Consider yourself as having to do with a stock
or a stone. In that case there is no use in giving
expression to resentment : as little in the other
case. In that case no mischief results to your
self from the expression of irritation : in the
other case mischief indefinite.
If your social position enables you success-
188 DEONTOLOGY.
fully to resist the disposition of men in power
to worry others by the display of their authority,
good service may be done by your appealing
against, by your resisting their pretensions ; but
if you can neither serve others nor serve your
self, by rebellion against those pretensions,
subdue your disposition to break out into fruit
less contention. Save yourself from vexation,
by preventing your own irascible passions from
urging your susceptibilities into openly ex
pressed discontent. Think that the possession of
power in the hands of others is in itself a means
of annoying you, and take care that the occasion
is not given to them.
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 189
CHAPTER IV.
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE.
THE compound term effective or efficient be
nevolence/ has been adopted, in consequence of
the want of a single word which should imply the
union of benevolence and beneficence. These
operate by checkingorby excitingto action. They
are either restrictive or instigative. The effective
benevolence which requires abstention from
action is the first branch that deserves atten
tion. Actions there are, and those very numer
ous, which at the same time that they are
inhibited by efficient benevolence, are mani
festly so by the considerations of prudence.
And where the alliance between prudence and
benevolence is obvious, there can be no doubt
as to the line of duty. But the miscalculations
of self-regard so often encroach on the claims of
benevolence, the sacrifice of the happiness of
others is so often made on the false estimate,
that by such sacrifice our own happiness is best
promoted, that the first and most important task
of the moralist, is to harmonize the selfish and
beneficent principle, and to demonstrate that a
190 DEONTOLOGY.
due regard to the felicity of others, is the best
and wisest provision for our own.
Negative effective benevolence consists in
nothing more than in the avoiding to do evil to
others.
But of evil done to others, some portions are
taken cognizance of by law, others are left to
the operation of opinion, with its different sanc
tions or instruments of pain and pleasure.
Evil done to others by man s instrumentality
may be deemed annoyance ; and annoyance is
either punishable or not punishable by judicial
proceedings.
This division, it is obvious, must be riot
natural but factitious. Its lines of demarcation
shift with time and place. In different countries
different laws visit the same acts with different
consequences; what is sanctioned by the legis
lation of one nation, is unnoticed or prohibited
by that of another. In the same country the
same act has been at different epochs rewarded,
allowed, or punished. The annoyance that is
punishable by law is termed injury, personal
injury.
But the evil we are engaged in prevent
ing here is that, and that alone, which it is in a
man s power to produce, without exposing him
self to legal punishment.
It would be a service of no small moment
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 191
done to mankind, if a work were specially de
voted to the collection and exhibition of those
evils and annoyances to which men are exposed,
and which are not visited by the interference of
the law. A manual of this sort would convey
a mass of practical moral instruction, which
might be turned to beneficial account, on occa
sions of constant occurrence.
If the different cases of men s vexations and
sufferings produced by the acts of others, and
remediable by forbearance, were gathered out
of the different volumes which tell the tales,
whether in ridicule of, or sympathy for, human
misery, such a collection might be made the
manual of abstential virtue.
Of these evils, one division might be com
posed of those, by the infliction of which no
advantage in any positive shape is produced, or
expected to be produced to himself, by the
agent. In the case of these, the efficient in
ducement may be referred to one or other of
two causes: 1. Antipathy, or say malignity;
2. Sport.
Another division may be composed of the
cases in which, from the production of the evil,
positive advantage, in some shape or other, is
reaped or looked for by the agent.
Of this class, one sub-class may be composed
of those in which superiority, on some account
192 DEONTOLOGY.
or other, is by the agent exercised, or supposed
by him to be exercised over, or at the expense
of the patient.
Such an investigation, conducted in a benevo
lent and inquiring spirit, would assuredly lay
open vast fields of pain, in which the tares of
misery might be torn up by the roots, and,
perhaps, no small portion of the ground be
covered with the seeds of happiness.
How many little pleasures are interfered with
by the meddling of unwelcome intruders, how
many checked by the asceticism, or the ill-
nature, or the ridicule, or the scorn of a by
stander ? How many trifling vexations are
aggravated by the dissocial qualities, or heed
less deportment of a looker-on ? At the end of
a day how much total loss is there not of hap
piness by inattention to those small elements of
which it is composed ? What an aggregate
amount is made up of those particles of pain
produced by carelessness alone !
The time will perhaps arrive, when all these
sources of evil will be investigated, grouped
together in their distinguishing characteristics,
illustrated by examples, and their inconsistency
with virtue be made so apparent, that opinion
will take charge of their extirpation, opinion,
which to enlighten and to make influential, is
the highest purpose of the moralist.
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 193
The general rules of negative benevolence
and beneficence may be thus enumerated :
1 . Never do evil, in any shape or quantity, to
any individual, but for the purpose of some
determinate and specific greater good : good to
yourself, to the other party in question, or to
third persons : to third persons, assignable or
unassignable.
In one verse,
Never do evil but for greater good.
2. Never do evil, solely on the ground that it
is deserved.
In one verse,
Never do evil for mere ill-desert.
These two branches of morality correspond
with the branches of negative and positive
offences which are taken cognizance of by law.
A negative offence is the omitting to prevent
that which, if done, would constitute a positive
offence. It is a guilt of abstention. It is the
forbearance of a man to prevent a mischief pre
ventable by his interference.
A positive offence is the direct infliction of a
mischief.
In both cases, the offence consists in that
course of conduct which leaves a balance on the
side of evil.
Negative beneficence is exercised by me, in
so far as evil, which, by an act of mine, might
VOL. II. O
194 DEONTOLOGY.
have been done to another, is purposely forborne
to be done.
It has benevolence for its cause, or, at any
rate, for its accompaniment, in so far as the
contemplation of the evil in question, and the
efficient desire and endeavor to avoid contribut
ing to the production of the evil, has place in
my breast.
It will be highly conducive to the cultivation
of negative beneficence and benevolence, to have
present to the mind the several sources from
which evil-doing to others is liable to flow ; and
these sources or motives may be classified under
the following heads :
1. Self- regarding interest at large, and in
particular the interests of the senses, and the
interest of the sceptre ; the interests of active
corporeal enjoyments, and those of power.
2. Interest of the pillow, interest correspond
ing to the love of ease ; to the aversion to labor
of body or mind. In this case, the cause of the
evil may generally be expressed by some such
single word as heedlessness, carelessness, inad
vertence, indifference, and so forth.
3. Interest of the trumpet. Interest corres
ponding to the pleasures and pains of the
popular or moral sanction. In this is included
the interest affected by wounds given to pride
and vanity.
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 195
4. Interest of malevolence. Interest corres
ponding to the motive termed ill-will or
antipathy.
Ill-will or antipathy, considered in respect of
its source or cause, may be thus distinguished : -
1. Ill-will or antipathy on account of rivalry;
opposition of interests, in respect of self-regard
ing interest at large.
2. Ill-will on account of trouble, that is, labor
of mind, regarded by me as produced in my
mind by the individual who is the object of the
ill-will thus produced ; say anti-social affection.
3. Ill-will on account of wounded pride or
vanity ; pains of the popular or moral sanction
experienced by me, and regarded as having
their source in some act, habit, or disposition
of his.
4. Ill-will or antipathy, having its source, its
immediate source, in sympathy : in sympathy
for the feelings of some person to whom evil, in
any of its shapes, is regarded by me as being
done, or more or less likely to be done, by the
instrumentality of the individual in question, in
whom this anti-social affection of mine beholds
its object.
5. Ill-will on the score of difference in opinion.
In this case, the interest affected is composed of
the interests respectively corresponding to love
of power, and to the love of the pleasure, and
196 DEONTOLOGY.
aversion to the pains of the popular or moral
sanction. In a man whose opinions are, in
respect of some point or system, or topic of
importance, in a state of determinate opposition
to mine, I behold a man in whose mind there
cannot be that esteem, or that affection, which
there might be in the opposite case ; I behold
a man in whose instance my love of power
cannot receive that exercise and that gratifica
tion which it would receive, if I could cause
him to give up that adverse opinion of his, and
adopt mine ; I behold a man at whose hands
I receive the evil, consisting in the suspicion of
an exemplification of mental weakness on my
own part : for the greater the number of the
persons by whom the opinion opposite to mine
is entertained, the greater the probability is
that mine may be erroneous.
Of the sufferings experienced by others, in
consequence of our behavior to them, a very
large portion brings with it no benefit, in any
shape, to ourselves. Nothing is gained to the
self-regarding interests, in order to form a coun
terpoise to the pain to which we have given
birth. The sole justification for annoyances
caused to others is, the obtaining for ourselves
some advantage: the justification can only be
complete when the advantage gained is clearly
greater than the annoyance caused.
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 197
Hence the rule of general application that
nothing be ever done of which you have reason
to suppose it will, in any shape, be productive
of uneasiness to any individual, unless some
obvious, special, and preponderant advantage
to yourself, to some other individual or indivi
duals, or to mankind at large, is to be the
certain result.
Such a subject, wherever the pains and plea
sures of others are involved, demands the strict
est investigation : for to every individual the
stock of pains and pleasures possessed, recol
lected, or anticipated, forms all the elements out
of which existence itself is made worthy of his
regard.
Even in joke, say nothing and do nothing
which you have reason to apprehend will cause
uneasiness to another : that uneasiness is a sad,
an unworthy source of merriment.
And if for no purpose of merriment the inflic
tion of uneasiness is to be allowed, how much
less can it be tolerated for any purpose of
malignity ?
Though the sensibilities of men are more or
less acute, and the same actions, which as re
spects some would cause little suffering, and as
respects others, more, or even much suffering,
no better rule can be given for enabling you
properly to estimate the amount of suffering,
198 DEONTOLOGY.
than that of changing places with the sufferer.
Put yourself in his position imagine the pains
are inflicted on yourself, and then make the
estimate of their burthensomeness. The more
you have accustomed your thoughts to weigh
the different classes of pains and pleasures, the
more accurate your opinions as to their value,
the sounder will be your judgment in all those
matters where they come in question within the
domains of morality.
But under both classes of negative and posi
tive benevolence, provision must be made for
those exceptions, where a preponderant good or
evil takes the case out of the ordinary instances.
Hence, in order to avoid producing prepon
derant evil for want of being aware of it, caution
is necessary.
The caution may be exercised by guidance
from a pernicious course.
Direct guidance is employed by indication or
creation of pain.
Indirect guidance by the indication or creation
of pleasure.
Indirect where practical is preferable ; for it
gives pleasure to both parties, and it is more
likely to be efficacious.
The modes of gratification and annoyance are
two :
Physical acting on the bodily organs.
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 199
Mental acting by impressions on the mind.
The occasions of benevolent action and absten
tion are
Incidental, or
Permament.
The permanent occasions are
Domestic, or
Extra-domestic.
And the domestic are again divided into those
of kindred, which have their origin at the begin
ning of the social relation, and are dissolved
only when that relation is terminated by death ;
or such as exist between masters and servants .
between hosts and visitors, which are entered
upon, and closed at the will of either or both
the parties.
The instruments by which effective benevo
lence gives evidence of its existence are words
and deeds. Words, as exhibited either in oral
or written discourse ; deeds, which have an in
fluence upon the pains or pleasures of others.
Much of the ground which has been gone
over in the inquiry as to the demands of extra-
regarding prudence, again presents itself for
examination under the head of effective bene
volence. Their claims are in many instances
the same their interests happily identical.
One of the topics treated of, however, leaves
little to be said. In the regions of thought
200 DEONTOLOGY.
thought as unconnected with, or unproductive
of actions, prudence has many laws to estab
lish ; for thoughts have no small influence upon
enjoyment.
But unless and until thoughts become words
or deeds, they do not concern others ; they
form no part of the field of effective benevo
lence. Intrusion into their sanctuary is usurpa
tion. If any thoughts do you, or do others, no
mischief, on what plea do you interfere with
them ? If they do, they must be exhibited in
some mischievous shapes. They must have
found expression, they must have become an act.
To words and deeds, therefore, the inquiry
into the exigencies of effective benevolence must
be confined ; and, first, it will be convenient
to examine into the requirements of negative
effective benevolence as to discourse.
The general rule for the abstention from the
infliction of all unnecessary pain, all pain
unnecessary to the avoidance of greater pain,
or the production of a balance of pleasure,
must be accommodated to the different cases,
as they present themselves. The great moral law
is peremptory : Exceptions excepted, inflict
no pain. The province of the legislator and the
moralist is to inquire into, to produce, to justify
the exceptions.
To prevent the uneasiness produced by dis-
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 201
course, where that uneasiness, in its general
results, would be useless or pernicious, is the
object of the instructions about to be offered.
And, as a primary precept
Consider whether the words you are about
to employ are likely to produce uneasiness in
the breast of those to whom they are addressed,
or whom they may reach.
Discourse is either conveyed by evanescent
or by permanent signs : when evanescent, com
monly by word of mouth ; when permanent,
usually by writing or printing.
Word-of-mouth discourse being the most sim
ple, and the only original mode, with this let
us commence. And, in the first place, let
it be to one person alone that the ideas thus
expressed are communicated. That person may
be either present at the utterance of the dis
course, or absent.
If, among its probable effects, be that of
producing uneasiness, consider, in the next
place, whether, in the account of good and
evil, in compensation for the uneasiness so pro
duced, good may not be produced in some
shape or shapes, in which it will be prepon
derant in value, with reference to such unea
siness. More briefly thus. If uneasiness be
among the probable effects of it, consider, then,
202 DEONTOLOGY.
whether the uneasiness may not be compensated
for by some greater good ; by a more than equi
valent good. In this case comes the consi
deration of the justifying causes for producing
uneasiness by discourse.
Again. In the case where uneasiness to the
other party is regarded as a probable conse
quence, consider whether, among the effects or
accompaniments of such uneasiness, anger, of
which you are the object, may not be the
result.
For want of a sufficient attention to the
particular causes by which uneasiness may be
produced by discourse, an indefinite quantity
of suffering is often caused, even where the
satisfaction felt by the utterer is extremely
small. The sufferings of others, originating in
the words of heedlessness, are often greater
than malevolence itself would be disposed to
inflict. Inattention may create an intenser pain
than hatred; and levity be more mischievous
than immorality.
In every case, however, small though it be,
there must be some motive of pleasure to him
self, which induces any man to give pain to
another.
As to evil without good, that is impossible;
for no evil ever is, or can be done, but with
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 203
a view to good. The least possible good is, in
this case, where it is through ill-will to the
man that you do the evil, without doing good,
in any shape, other than that of a gratification
to your own ill-will : which gratification, in the
supposition of your conceiving yourself to have
received evil at his hands ; and to be acting in
consideration of such evil, is called vengeance,
or revenge.
But let the evil thus done by you be ever so
enormous, and the gratification to be derived
from it ever so slight, still the object, in con
templation of which the act found its motive,
is in itself not evil, but good.
To do good to a man, the evil you speak
must be to him, not of him, unless it be in the
view that what is said of him may, in some
way or other, for his good, have the effect of
drawing on him punishment, at the hands of the
political or of the popular sanctions.
Supposing always that the good in question
cannot be produced at any cheaper rate, the
following are the justifying causes by which the
production of evil, in any shape, and therefore
in this shape, may be justified :
1. Production of preponderant good to the
evil- speaker himself.
2. Production of preponderant good to the
204 DEONTOLOGY.
person who is spoken to or spoken of, and to
whom evil is thus done.
3. Preponderant good to any other person or
persons at large.
4. Preponderant good to the public at large.
To the head of preponderant good done, done
to the public at large, belongs the case where, in
the production of the uneasiness, the author of
it acts in the character of a member of the
tribunal of public opinion, applying the force
of the popular or moral sanction.
But a distinction must be drawn between
the case, where there is nobody present but the
person in whom the uneasiness is caused, and
the case where there are another or others pre
sent. Abstraction made of any particular
relation borne by them to either of the parties,
the uneasiness produced will be the greater,
the greater the number of the persons so
present.
Always keeping, therefore, in view the mini
mization of suffering, if the discourse which
benevolence demands will answer the ends of
benevolence, by being addressed to the indi-
^ 7 idual in the absence of all other persons, it
should only be addressed to him in their
absence. If the presence of others be necessary
for its intended effect, let the number present
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 205
be as few as are needful for producing that
effect.
In the cases of the exercise of the domestic
authority, and of the exercise of the public
authority in an official situation ; that is, as a
depository of the political sanction, true and
proper grounds may be found for the infliction
of pain by discourse, which could not be justi
fied as disassociated from that authority. And,
as a member of the public-opinion tribunal, as
a dispenser of the popular sanction, language is
demanded frequently by benevolence in repro
bation of misdeeds, which the same benevo
lence would check, if addressed personally to
the misdoers.
But, in ordinary cases, the justifications put
forth for the infliction of pain by discourse are
not tenable. It is far from sufficient to say
that the assertions made are true ; it is far from
sufficient to pretend that the person on whom
the pain is inflicted deserves the infliction ; it
is far from sufficient to urge that he is reckless
or worthless, or that you deal charitably with
his misconduct. Unless you can come and
show that preponderant good is to result from
the sufferings you create, your vituperation of
your victim, your laudation of yourself, are but
vain and wasted words.
The modes in which the feelings of others
206 DEONTOLOGY.
may be wounded by discourse are many for
example :
By direct reprehension, whether by the im
putation of positive misconduct, on a particular
occasion, on the part of the persons addressed,
or by that assumption of authority which inti
mates, by words, the right of general dictation.
The right to reprehend is in itself a virtual
claim of superiority, and a claim which is likely
to hurt the pride and vanity of him upon whom
it is exercised. Reprehension is awarded pun
ishment ; and in proportion to the doubtfulness
of the title to arbitrate and to condemn, of him
who thus takes on himself the functions of
condemner, will be the perils incurred by his
own self-interest, from the enmity of the party
punished. The extent of his malevolence will
be measured by the same standard, and the
amount of his usurpation will be measured by
the needless seventy of his reprehension.
Imperiousness is the attempt to strengthen
argument by despotic authority. Not satisfied
even with being right, some men s pleasure
seems to consist in putting others in the wrong.
They must have a triumph for their dogmatism
as well as their reason. They must humiliate
while they subdue. They will beat down a
companion, even though his downfall should
not be needful to their success. Not only shall
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 207
their opponent be in the wrong, but they will
extort from him a confession that he is in the
wrong. They condemn him others condemn ;
but their tyranny will be satisfied with nothing
but a declaration of self-condemnation from the
condemned himself.
Stickling for the last word is another form
of this conversational imperiousness, a poor
and petty triumph, which only serves to lengthen
the endurance of pain, and to exasperate by
humbling an opponent.
A form of imperiousness is that of positive
and unqualified assertion, which is made more
offensive when it contradicts an opposite opinion
expressed by another : and the arrogance be
comes heightened if the assertion be of a
character not to be substantiated by proof. Of
a fact, for instance, a man may have evidence
that amounts to demonstration ; but imperious-
ness is not satisfied with unqualified assertions
as to facts, it often makes them, as to matters
wholly incapable of proof. A man may safely
say, that he witnessed such and such an action ;
but that such an action was a crime or a virtue,
might be a matter of opinion ; and if the case
were one of doubt, his peremptory declaration
as to the character of the action could not fail to
wound the man who had been giving a contrary
opinion.
So, positive assertions as to matters of fact,
208 DEONTOLOGY.
not witnessed by the assertor, the proof of
which depends upon evidence; assertions ma
king no reference to that evidence, but demand
ing belief on no other ground than the assertion
itself. But of this anon.
Peremptoriness of decision, before an opportu
nity has been given to others to express their con
victions, is a usurpation, shutting the door upon
discussion. Peremptoriness of decision after an
opinion has been given by others is annoying
and offensive.
Useless contradiction is another violation of
benevolence; it is also an exhibition of folly;
for while it manifests impotence, it wounds
power.
There is a form of imperiousness, somewhat
less annoying, but still worthy of discourage
ment and reprobation, which may be called
assummgness -. It generally displays itself in
the naked and crude assertion of an alleged
matter of fact, without reference to any per
cipient interest. Its pretension is to demand
implicit credence.
Now, if with the expression of the opinion of
the speaker, intimation were given of the evi
dence on which that opinion was founded, no
thing would be lost to the reputation of the
speaker, and the hearers would be spared the
annoyance inflicted by a rude and unauthorized
demand upon their credulity.
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 209
Another of the exhibitions of an assuming
temper, is the peremptory assertion of future
events ; such and such a circumstance will
take place. In so far as the speaker has any
knowledge which enables him to predict the
coming events of futurity, he may, without
giving any pain to the self-love of others, em
ploy some such formula as, I should, or I
should not expect to find, It would not sur
prise me if
Whether the domineering spirit exhibits itself
by undervaluing your companion, or overvaluing
yourself; in whatever shape of arrogance or
overbearingness it displays its propensities,
tyranny and aristocracy are there.
Its consequences will be resentment, either
open or secret : if open, quarrels ensue; if secret,
secret plans of injury.
Benevolence insists on its suppression: to all,
its efforts are maleficent ; if exercised towards
a dependent, it is ungenerous ; if exercised to
wards a patron, it is imprudent.
If you have benefited another, do not fancy
that your beneficence gives you a right to
tyrannize over him. Destroy not the good of
one action by the evil of another.
Discourse may wound by advice-giving, in
volving in it the appearance of reprehension, or
exhibiting itself in a shape implying the pos-
VOL. II. p
210 DEONTOLOGY.
session of an authority not recognized by the
hearer. Even the giving good advice is the
assumption of authority on the score of wisdom.
A man may be in the wrong, but however
egregiously wrong you may deem him, do not
think it is incumbent on you to set him right.
If the case require the interference of good
advice, give it so that it may be least offensive
to his self-esteem and self-complacency.
Speak to him rather alone than in company ;
rather in the company of few than of many.
If a man be engaged in a pursuit in which
success is hopeless and the expense seriously
prejudicial to him, advise him to abandon it.
But if not, avoid saying anything that can
tend to discourage him.
On the contrary, say what appears to you, so it
be consistent with truth, likely to encourage him.
Hold up to his view the considerations which
tend to probabilize success ; not bringing out
spontaneously any, the tendency of which is, to
disprobabilize it.
More particularly if success would, in your
view, be upon the whole beneficial to himself
and mankind at large.
If in this case you represent success as im
probable, you will hurt his feelings without any
possible good. If he, on his part, contend in
favor of probability of success, you will appear
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 211
to him in the character of a person making pre
tension to superior wisdom, and holding him in
contempt in the character of a self-deceiver.
Whereas want of judgment may be evidenced,
as well by regarding success as improbable
where it is probable, as by regarding it as pro
bable where it is improbable.
Discourse may wound by information-giving ;
first, where it involves the supposition of general
ignorance or general inferiority in the scale of
knowledge on the part of the person to whom
it is given ; or relative ignorance in relation to
some special subject of knowledge which, for
some special reason, he ought to be possessed
of; and secondly, where it involves a suppo
sition of a supposed consciousness of superiority,
general or special, on the part of the speaker
with relation to the person spoken to.
In all these cases a circumstance supposed
is, that, with reference to the speaker, the
person spoken to is, in point of general estima
tion, superior, decidedly superior, or at least
equal ; or, if inferior, not so decidedly inferior
as to warrant any such assumption of superi
ority as above.
Beyond these cases, the communicating infor
mation cannot come within the limits of offence ;
for no person is so knowing as not sometimes to
stand in need of instruction, even from the
ignorant.
212 DEONTOLOGY.
If you have to communicate information of
any sort, avoid all arrogance.
In preference to general, employ the most
particular assertion, and state, if possible, the
authority or authorities, the person or persons,
who, with reference to yourself, are the narrat
ing witness or witnesses.
General assertions are but conclusions con
clusions drawn by the judgment from particular
supposed facts. Assent to a general assertion
supposes two things : unlimited confidence in
the appropriate aptitude of all supposed wit
nesses through whose minds and tongues, or
pens, the supposed fact has passed, or is sup
posed to have passed ; and the like confidence
in the rectitude of their conclusions. Hence in
the general rectitude of the intellectual facul
ties of the party by whom the communication
has been made.
If it be to a familiar friend that the commu
nication is made by you, the non-mention of
the individual person, or other source of evi
dence, from whence your belief has been de
rived, is a token of want of confidence in him :
if by any tie of propriety you stand precluded
from making the disclosure, acknowledging that
this is the case is less offensive than the arro
gance which calls for implicit credence : it
indicates some confidence, not the absence of
confidence.
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 213
If a friend be permanently distant, do not
communicate to him any vexations of yours
which he is unable to relieve. You will spare
him all the suffering that his sympathy would
have excited.
Discourse may wound, by contempt ex
pressed for the religious opinions of another.
The contempt which is poured forth on those
who differ from us in religious matters, is
ordinarily close upon the regions of hate.
The dogmatism of establishments, the dam
natory creeds of church usurpation, sharpen
the edge of scorn with the instruments of
maleficence. Why should I spare my ana
themas towards those who are under the
curse of God? Why? Because I cannot hate
without pain to myself pain increasing with
the increase of hatred, so that my self-regard
ing interest should check the growth of hatred.
Why ? Because I cannot hate without desiring
to punish those I hate, to punish them in the
ratio of my hatred ; and as the outbreak of
hatred must thus necessarily be maleficent, my
regard for others should prohibit that outbreak.
And what is true of hatred is true in a less
degree of scorn. Scorn has its pains, too ; and
even though they may sometimes be outweighed
by the pleasures of the scorner, they cannot
counterbalance the sufferings produced in the
breast of the scorned.
214 DEONTOLOGY.
Abstential benevolence requires that no ques
tion should be put, the answer to which would,
or might expose the answerer to considerable,
or lasting inconvenience.
Such might be the consequence of inquiries
as to the religious sentiments of an individual.
He might gain little if his opinions were found
in accordance with those of the inquirer, and of
other persons present. He might lose much if
they were found discordant. Even without
culpable intention, much damage might be done,
and the damage might be irreparable.
The very question has more of intolerance in
it than even of curiosity.
Let, then, intolerance be checked in every
shape, the expression of impatience, con
tempt, or ill-will, when you are unable to con
vince another, however cogent and irresistible
your arguments may appear to yourself. No
man can believe just what he likes to believe,
at all events, at a moment s notice. He can do
a great deal towards believing in future, by
lending a favorable and attentive ear to the
evidence on one side, and resolutely turning
away from the evidence on the other. This is
all that can be exacted from him by way of
operating on his convictions, to produce the re
sult you desire. But such a convert would do
little honor to your apostleship ; and, at all
events, take care that no dishonest declaration
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 215
is obtained by the menace, or the infliction of
evil, or by the withdrawal of good.
Discourse may wound by contempt ex
pressed for the tastes of another. For taste
there can be no standard. To you such an
object of sight is beautiful, to another it is
offensive. How can you estimate the causes,
which, in his mind, have associated with pain
that which you deem pleasurable ? To you
such and such an assemblage of sounds is har
monious and attractive, to another they seem
discordant, or they afford no gratification. What
mischief results to you, or to mankind, from
that difference of opinion ? In what possible
way is any one injured from the circumstance,
that certain colors, or forms, or melodies do not
make exactly similar impressions on the senses
of different individuals? If you fed contempt
for the judgment of another on such topics, it
is your misfortune ; if you express it, it is your
offence. Abstential benevolence need not pre
vent your adopting the opinions which seem to
you best founded, but abstential benevolence
requires you should not so express them, as to
give needless pain to others.
Discourse may wound by contempt, or ill-
will, expressed towards the class of men, or
country, to which the hearer belongs. This
is a malevolence exercised on a wide scale,
216 DEONTOLOGY.
and unfortunately finding sympathy in the
bosoms of many who are in the same con
dition as the malevolent person. It some
times takes the name of esprit de corps, of
nationality ; sometimes the higher title of
patriotism ; and, in so far as these imply the
desire and the action of good upon the indivi
duals or parties with which we are specially
connected, nothing can be said against them : it
is a diffusion of the benevolent and beneficent
principle. But, from the moment in which
their exercise is exclusively directed to the
body, the class, or nation to which we belong,
and is denied to others, from the moment in
which they break out into words and deeds
of antipathy, from the moment in which the
fact, that a fellow man speaks a different lan
guage, or lives under a different government,
constitutes him an object for contempt, abhor
rence, or misdoings, from that moment they
are maleficent. A toast, for example, in Ame
rica, has been given, Our country, right or
wrong, which is, in itself, a proclamation of
maleficence, and if brought into operation,
might lead to crimes and follies on the widest
conceivable field, to plunder, murder, and all
the consequences of unjust war. Nor less
blameworthy was the declaration of a prime
minister of this country, that England nothing
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 217
but England formed any portion of his care
or concern. An enlarged philanthropy might,
indeed, have given to both expressions a Deon-
tological meaning, since the true interests of
nations, as the true interests of individuals, are
equally those of prudence and benevolence ;
but the phrases were employed solely to justify
wrong, if that wrong were perpetrated by the
land or government which we call our own.
Among the various exhibitions by which
superiority is assumed, and annoyance caused
to others by conversation, imperative command,
whether of injunction or prohibition, is among
the most vexatious.
Remember, on all occasions, that kind costs
a man no more than unkind language.
To use kind language costs nothing at all ;
unkind costs always more or less ; oftentimes
more to him who employs it than even to those
to whom it is addressed. But every man is
bound to anticipate that unkind language will
produce the fruits of unkindness ; that is, suffer
ing, in the bosoms of others.
The mandate which exacts obedience may
lose the despotic character with which harsh
ness would invest it, and become even plea
surable, if communicated in forms and terms of
kindness. Men there are, whom, to serve, is
218
DEONTOLOGY.
in itself pleasurable, from the consideration for
the feelings of others which accompanies their
demands for service.
Interrogation is often offensive, other than in
the way of request : there is a manner of inter
rogation which assumes all the dogmatism of
command. A question is put in the shape of a
requisition. Information is called for with the
coerciveness of authority. It is one of the exhi
bitions of imperiousness. It is generally exer
cised by superiors towards inferiors ; and its
vexatiousness increases in proportion as the
interrogator is less and less removed above the
rank of the interrogated. The purpose of a
question being to obtain an answer, morality
requires that the answer should be associated
with no unnecessary pain.
Discourse may wound by censure, whether
it takes the form of direct disapprobation, or
of laudation bestowed on conduct similar to
your own, and opposed to that of the party
censured. When censure is vituperative, it
assumes the functions of judge and execu
tioner. Defamation, when no person is pre
sent but the party defamed, is but vituperation
particularized.
If you have occasion to speak of a man s
fault, if for the prevention of its repetition, or
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 219
for some other undoubted purpose of good, it is
desirable that reference should be made to it in
your conversation with him, provide him with
an exculpation ; suppose, if that be possible,
a casual and blameless ignorance on his part,
on yours a casual knowledge.
Equally avoid accompanying your censure
with any expression of scorn, with any phrase
ology which shall convey a wish of yours to
degrade or lower him in the social scale.
Abstain from all vituperative words, when
neutral will express the meaning. Instead of
saying that a man intended to defraud you of
your rent, say he appeared desirous of avoiding
the payment.
If you think a man has used you ill, do not
overwhelm him with reproaches, do not even
let him know that such are your thoughts, unless
their communication to him be necessary to pre
vent a repetition of the misdeed. In almost every
case, the reproach will come with more grace
and more effect from any other party ; for the
judgment of a third party will be less liable to be
warped by interest, or exasperated by passion.
If called upon to give an unfavorable opinion
as to a saying of any kind, or a work of any
kind of which you disapprove, do not be forward
to communicate your disapprobation merely be
cause your self-love is flattered by the appeal
220 DEONTOLOGY.
made to your judgment. If the influence of
that of which you disapprove be pernicious to
mankind, in conveying your opinion to others,
for a purpose of preponderate good, employ
no phraseology stronger than is absolutely
necessary to communicate the amount of your
disapproval ; taking care that no portion of
malevolence mingles with your award.
Be cautious not to drag forward ill-conduct
which, but for your reference to it, might be for
gotten. Except for some obvious purpose of
future good, to treasure up in your mind the
records of old misdeeds of others, is to sin
against prudence and benevolence ; it is to make
your breast a store-house of pain, to be inflicted
on yourself and on others. The expression of
dissatisfaction at past ill-conduct, when it
has no reference to present ill-conduct, and at
the same time is not likely to prevent future ill-
conduct, is the creation of misery to no end
whatever, or to a bad end.
If you imagine you have cause for complaint
against any man, on the ground of his miscon
duct, towards you, and if it appear to you of
use that he should be informed of this, take
care that the communication be made so as to
give him the least possible annoyance ; do not
convey your expression in a way to make him
suppose you think ill of him ; so speak that he
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 221
may regard you as attributing his conduct to a
cause in which he is little, or not at all blame
worthy. You have asked him, for example, to
visit you ; he has neither done this, nor sent an
answer ; he ought to have come, or at least to
have given a reason why he did not, or would
not come. Impute his neglect to the possible
miscarriage of your letter; or if the message
was a verbal one, to probable misconception on
the part of the bearer, to misconception, or
misexpression, or forgetfulness ; for, as the effect
might have been produced by any of these
causes, there is no insincerity in a man s sup
posing as much.
Choose a fit time for that reproof which
effective benevolence demands. If a failure
have taken place on the part of any individual
toward you, avoid mentioning it at the moment,
for nothing you can say will cause that not to
have happened which has happened. The
tendency of your observation will naturally and
necessarily be to produce suffering on his part,
and that ill-humour toward you which is the
result of his suffering.
If a similar occasion is likely to occur, then
and then only, just before the occasion, if you
see a prospect that your interposition will be of
use, is the time for recalling to his mind the
former failure. The effect will thus be influ-
222 DEONTOLOGY.
ential at the moment when it is wanted, and
all the intermediate suffering will be spared.
But remember, that of useless reproof pure
evil is the consequence, evil certain and con
siderable, in the humiliation of the person re
proved, evil contingent, in the loss of his
amity and the exposure to his enmity.
These lessons may be resumed in a single
sentence : Blame nobody but for preventing
further cause of blame.
Direct and avowed interruption of the speaker
is one of the evidences of contemptuous dis-
esteem to be particularly guarded against. Its
offensiveness is often so intolerable as to make
conversation painful rather than pleasurable,
and to produce so much of annoyance as to
excite even the reaction of ill-will.
Indirect and unavowed interruption of the
speaker, by your own loud discourse, while the
other party has not completed his, this is
only another mode of annoyance ; the attempt
is injurious, and, in case of success, oppressive.
When, by such interruption, the thread of a
man s discourse is broken, it is frequently irre
coverable. By a man with a stronger voice
a man with a voice less strong may thus be
rendered at any time virtually dumb ; the
weak-voiced man kept in a sort of depressed
and slavish state, and the strong-voiced man
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 223
deprived of whatsoever benefit he might have
derived from the conversation of the other.
Departure from the presence of the speaker
before he has ended his discourse, is one of the
offences against good-breeding, which abstential
benevolence takes under its care. Great must be
the demand for the presence of the listener
elsewhere, to justify his abruptly quitting that
of the speaker. And in a less degree is the
exhibition of impatience, by language or ges
ture, during conversation prohibited by the
minor morals, always barring those exceptions
where an obvious and preponderate good is to
be set against the annoyance caused.
Affectation of disregard, while another person
is speaking, is another exhibition of contempt.
To hear what a man is saying to you, and take
no notice of it, is a breach of good-breeding
which would find little justification in public
opinion ; and the inattention is more offensive,
if a request is conveyed that you will not do so
and so, and paying no attention to his desires,
you continue to do it. This, indeed, is positive,
not negative maleficence ; but negative bene
volence should induce you to refrain.
A mode of annoyance which does not neces
sarily assume superiority, is direct or virtual
inquisitiveness into the private affairs of the
person addressed. By such interrogations pain
224 DEONTOLOGY.
will almost certainly be excited. In ordinary
cases the communication will be spontaneous,
if it be, on the whole, desirable that the know
ledge should >be conveyed. At all events, the
right of judging whether the communication
should be made, is with the party inquired of,
and not with the inquirer. The inquiry creates
pain to the inquirer, if the information be re
fused ; pain to the other party, if it be unwil
lingly given : and, in many cases, pain to both.
And where pain to either is a probable con
sequence, the motive to abstention from the
inquisitiveness should check its expression.
Avoid causing annoyance by the communica
tion of unpleasant, afflictive, or useless infor
mation.
The general exception is where the evil of
the annoyance promises to be outweighed by
the good produced by the information. The
persons susceptible of the good are 1. The
person to whom the information is conveyed ;
2. The person by whom the information is con
veyed ; and 3. Other persons at large.
If it be supposed that no good, in any shape,
can accrue from the information to any person
of any one of these classes, it is clearly the
case to which the application of the rule is
absolute : to convey the information is incon
sistent with benevolence and beneficence. But
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 225
if there are cases where, to set against the evil
from the information, good, in some shape and
quantity, is created on the other side ; where,
for example, the communication of disagreeable
news is necessary to the adoption of certain
measures of prudence, whose adoption is of
preponderating importance ; where, but for the
communication, more pain would be suffered
than if the communication had not been made ;
where some important object is to be accom
plished by him who makes the communication,
or some important benefits to be obtained by
individuals or society at large : on such occa
sions the pain must be inflicted, for its infliction
will prevent greater pain, or secure pleasure
more than sufficient to counterbalance the pain.
Never bring to view irremediable disasters ;
especially to or in the hearing of any who, in
the eyes of others or their own, may have
contributed to those same disasters, or the like.
No reference to them will make them not to
have happened ; and, in addition to the suffer
ings they caused, acid not the sufferings which
the reminiscence of them brings with it.
Avoid condolence with those who are mourn
ing the loss of .friends. Condolences, as well
as mournings, are bad things. Men, and more
especially women, give actual increase to their
grief while, under the notion of duty, and
VOL. II. Q
226 DEONTOLOGY.
even of merit, they make display of it. If
mournings were altogether out of use, a vast
mass of suffering would be prevented from
coming into existence. Some savage or bar
barous nations make merry at funerals : they
are wiser, in this respect, than polished ones.
Instead of offering condolence to your friend,
if you cannot persuade him to take any amuse
ment, contrive that business shall, in some
shape or other, make an irresistible demand
upon him for his attention.
Abstain from holding up to a man s view
imperfections which it is clearly beyond his
power to remedy or remove. The value of
your abstention will be in the ratio of your
elevation above his position. If his position be
superior to yours, prudence should teach you
forbearance ; if you be so little dependent on
him, that his ill-will can do you no sort of mis
chief, effective benevolence requires that you
should cause him no useless suffering.
Such forbearance is demanded, whether the
infirmity is intellectual, moral, or corporeal ; it
is demanded even in the absence of others; it
is more strongly demanded in their presence.
One never-failing result of unkindness in this
shape is, a pain of humiliation.
This pain will be greater or less, according
to the relations existing between the person
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 227
thus annoyed and other persons present : and,
be those relations what they may, it will be
greater and greater, in proportion to the increased
number of persons present.
And if the consequences of such unkindness
be 1 raced, they will be found to produce evil
to all parties: 1. Evil to the person thus
annoyed, by the infliction of this pain of humi
liation : 2. Evil to the third persons present, by
the infliction of the pain of sympathy, produced
in their minds, by the idea of his pain : 3. Evil
by pain of antipathy, of which you will be the ob
ject of antipathy produced by their sympathy :
4. Evil to yourself, by danger of retribution at
the hands of the person thus annoyed ; and,
eventually, at the hands of those in whose
breasts any such antipathy may have been
excited. For this mass of evil, whatever it
may amount to, compensation cannot, in any
shape or quantity, have place. Yes, perhaps,
if the imperfection thus brought to view were
remediable ; but, by the supposition, this is not
the case.
If any reference to irremediable infirmities
be thus prohibited, by the laws of benevolence,
far more decidedly and severely is it where it
comes in the shape of ridicule. Derision of
organic defects is one of the most cruel forms
of pain-giving. Imperfections there are, which
228 DEONTOLOGY.
may or may not be shaken off; but where, in
the very constitution of the human being, some
infirmities are interblended, the demands of ab-
stential beneficence are peremptory.
To this class of evils belong many of those
tricks and inflictions known as school-boy jokes.
Some malformation some human wretched
ness, is often marked and selected as the butt
for petty inflictions of pain. Let the maleficent
tendency be checked in its very earliest exhi
bitions. Let children, especially, be instructed
that the pleasure which finds its aliment in the
pain of another in the useless, uncompensated
pain of another, has in it the germ of all that is
immoral.
In the case of remediable imperfections, though
the rule which suppresses allusion to them does
not absolutely apply; yet before you refer to
them by oral discourse, and especially oral dis
course in the presence of third parties, be sure
that the object, which allusion to them purposes
to accomplish, cannot be accomplished without
those pains of humiliation which your reference
to them brings with it. Be sure that the good
is not attainable by some lesser evil. Be sure
that you are the person most likely to attain
the good at the least expense of evil.
In your intercourse with a child, servant or
other dependent, in regard to every fault or im-
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 22$
perfection not incorrigible by his exertions, re
mind him of it every time you observe it, so
long as prospect of amendment have place. If
all prospect is at an end, cease reminding him ;
and never afterwards let him see that you
observe it.
In the choice of subjects for conversation,
abstential benevolence will often find occasion
for its exercise. Every man s mind is so
organized, or at all events so trained by habit
and usage, that certain topics are less pleasur
able than others. Let those be avoided which
are the least agreeable, and in proportion to
their disagreeableness, be your anxiety to shun
them. The presence of important interests
may require the introduction of subjects on
which there is a known discordance of opinion.
Necessity, or preponderant benefit, can alone
justify their being brought forward.*
* I remember an interesting case in point. For two or
three years after my acquaintance with Mr Bentham, we
had frequent discussions on some points of religious con
troversy. Certainly on his part there was no diminution of
affection towards me ; on mine, no diminution of reverence
towards him, notwithstanding the unchanged state of our
minds on the subject in question, after so many and such
long debates. One day, he said to me I shall not change
1 your mind, I see; you will not change mine, you know. If
4 we goon, I shall give you pain, or you will give me pain, and
230 DEONTOLOGY.
Avoid on all occasions wounding the self-
love of another. If a man misunderstand, or do
not understand your conversation, attribute the
failure not to misconception on his part, but to
misexpression on yours. For misexpression
may be the cause of misconception, and there
is no reason for seeking an explanation which
will give pain, when one is at hand which can
give no pain.
Give no expression, and as far as you can
avoid it, give no place in your mind to useless
resentment ; not even where you feel that you
are calumniated. If you are accused of bad
conduct, past or intended, and it is in your
power to disprove the accusation, do not fly into
a passion, but give disproofs : to fly into a pas
sion is naturally a guilty man s sole and there
fore natural resource ; disproofs are the only
means of distinguishing your case from that of
a guilty man. Where you think you observe
marks of stupidity, beware of asperity in your
observations. Only in so far as negligence is
the cause, can they be of any use. Suppose
negligence out of the question, the effect of any
in either case pain to both will be the consequence. We will
never talk on this matter again/ Nor did we. And yet, if
ever there were a man who unveiled his bosom to another,
Bentham unveiled his to me. J. Bo.
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 231
asperity is to give purely useless pain, and to
excite resentment towards yourself on the score
of your injustice and cruelty.
Patience under invective is a lesson hard to
learn and difficult to practice, but well worthy
of being learned and practised.
If, in your presence, an attack is made upon
you, be it ever so outrageous, especially if there
be others in company, treat it, if you can, either
with manifest indifference, plain good humor,
or with pleasantry, as occasion serves. The
more outrageous the attack and to the assail
ant who makes it the more disgraceful the
more effectually will he be then put down :
he will be disappointed, humbled, and yet not
irritated, nor made your enemy in a greater de
gree than he was before ; he may possibly be
even reconciled. As to his disappointment, it
follows of course : at any rate, if no other
persons are present. For in such a case what
could have been the object of the attack?
No other assuredly than the making you
suffer : and the more completely undisturbed
your complacency, the more complete his
failure.
This is no doubt of the number of those
lessons which it is so much easier to give than
to obey : few lessons, be it repeated, either
232 DEONTOLOGY.
of self-regarding prudence or of effective bene
volence, can be more difficult than this.
This, however, or any other conquest over
temptation may, on adequate inducement, be
effected by previous preparation. Exercises
for the strengthening the body, have been inven
ted, and with illustrious success brought into
practice : this is of the number of those exer
cises by which, on a similar principle, strength,
the passive strength of patience, may be given
to the mind.
In the denial of favors, let the denial give as
little pain as possible to the person who applies.
Even though the request should appear ill-
timed and unreasonable, there is no motive for
showing that there is any disinclination on your
part to oblige or serve him. Should it seem
necessary to convince him that the request is
unreasonable, do so suaviter in modo : by the
fortiter in modo, you may humble or irritate him,
or both ; you may make him unhappy without
need or use ; you may even make him your
enemy; and what advantage can you obtain
from his suffering what good from his enmity ?
In the case of otherwise unmanageable im
portunity, that is, if gentleness and kind expres
sion have failed to rid you of the suppliant s
presence, have recourse to the punitory method.
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 233
Abstain from all expressions whose object is
the manifestation of opposition to the will or
judgment of another; no matter how trivial the
occasion.
Contest not a point of no practical importance,
merely because you are in the right and another
in the wrong. Out of such contests spring
dissension and enmity.
If, on account of something which he has
done, a demand presents itself for speaking of
a man in the correspondent unfavorable light,
mention the particular fact, but not in general
terms the opinion formed by you on account of
the fact. The fact may prove the correctness
of your judgment of condemnation. The terms
of condemnation will prove nothing, perhaps,
in the eyes of the person you are conversing
with, but the state of your affection with refer
ence to the person in question.
Excite in the minds of others no unreasonable
hopes, by holding out prospects of whose
realization there is any reasonable doubt. Let
the language in which you speak of anticipated
pleasures be such as to leave the smallest
amount of disappointment, should the pleasures
never arrive. Little will be lost by lowering
the tone of expectation ; much will be suffered
if it be raised too high.
The passion of anger has been already de-
234 DEONTOLOGY.
nounced as useful on no occasion ; pernicious
and pain-giving on almost every occasion. All
habits, therefore, that administer to it are to be
avoided. Of these habits, that of cursing and
swearing is among the most foolish and the
most mischievous. The popular sanction is
happily directing its opprobrium against such
exhibitions. Fashion had once taken them
under its protection; fashion is now repudiating
them. In addition to the pain produced by the
anger which excites them, other pain will be
produced by the expression of anger in a form
so offensive. In the minds of some, it will
shock the religious affections ; in the minds of
all, it will produce sensations which benevolence
should avoid conveying.
Thoughtlessness, or heedlessness of the con
sequences of language, is the source of the
greater portion of the evils inflicted by language.
Men are apt to speak, without consideration of
the effect their words may produce upon those
with whom they are conversing, or who are
within hearing.
Truth, it is said, ought not to be spoken at
all times. But there is a dangerous ambiguity
in the aphorism, and hence it is often employed
to a pernicious purpose. It has two senses;
one a bad, the other a good one. Falsehood
ought sometimes to be spoken, this is the bad
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 235
and perilous sense. Cases there are, in which
truth ought not to be spoken. What, then,
ought to be spoken? Falsehood? No! nothing
at all. This is the good sense. And this is
the sense in which only it should be employed
as an aphorism by the moralist.
The maxims which have been thus put for
ward, as the rules for conduct in matters of
discourse, will be found of similar application
where actions are in question. In fact, in the
progress of our investigations, it will have been
seen, that it has been convenient sometimes to
associate actions as the consequences of words,
their connection with one another being so inti
mate, that it has been difficult to separate the
consideration of them.
Of actions, however, a greater proportion
than of words comes into the domains of judicial
authority. The actions which are controlled by
the laws may be considered obligatory; those
of which the laws take no cognizance may
be deemed free; and they are such as are not
considered to belong to the domain of penal
justice.
Actions annoying to others may either be so
by offending the physical senses, or the intel
lectual feelings.
Of the five senses, the feeling and the taste
do not, on this occasion, come in question :
236 DEONTOLOGY.
annoyance to either of these senses presents
itself in the form of a legally-punishable offence :
annoyance to the touch or feeling becomes
what, in law language, is called assault : an
noyance to the taste presents the idea of poison ;
and, unless deceit or intimidation be employed
as the instrument of it, cannot but involve in
it an offence of the nature of assault.
In a word, the only senses exposed to those
annoyances which come under Deontological
cognizance, are the three senses which are
capable of being operated upon without imme
diate contact. These are the smell, the hear
ing, and the sight.
1. The smell. The ways in which annoy
ance may be inflicted on this sense are, for the
most part, sufficiently obvious. Under this
head some cautions may not be altogether with
out their use.
Trifling as they may seem at first sight, in
regard to all these modes of annoyance which
operate through the senses, such may be the
effect as to banish one friend from the society
of another, and even render a man an object
of recorded aversion to a whole company, in
any degree numerous. Trifling as it may seem,
what renders the mischief in this case the more
serious is, that by a sort of mixture of shame,
fear, and sympathy, the person by whom the
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 237
annoyance is felt is apt to be restrained from
making communication of his feelings to the
person who is the author of it. Here, then,
is the case of an act which, having the effect
of maleficence, stands clearly prohibited by the
dictates of negative beneficence, and thence of
self-regarding prudence. Trifling in the ex
treme as it may seem, greater annoyance is pro
duced by it than would be produced by many
a punishable offence ; at the same time that,
by the circumstance just mentioned, the injury,
such as it is, stands precluded from the benefit
of pardon.
The cautions in question consist in present
ing to view, to the reader, this or that cir
cumstance which, though really productive of
mischief in the shape in question, has been
found, by experience, to be liable to escape
notice.
First, then, as to annoyance in that shape in
which the seat of it is in the sense of smell.
The most obvious is that which is produced
by the emission of gas from the alimentary
canal.
Of gas of that species which is emitted from
the lower part of that canal, the emission is,
almost always, optional : in such sort that, in ge
neral, annoyance in tins shape cannot be inflicted
without being intended : forbearance is in the
238 DEONTOLOGY.
power of the individual by whom it is inflicted.
In the production of annoyance which has
place in this shape, though the sense is the
immediate seat of it, imagination acts the prin
cipal part : the self-same scent which, if emitted
from a man s own body, would not have been
productive of any annoyance to him, is ren
dered productive of annoyance to him, in a
highly offensive degree, by the mere circum
stance of its being by another person that it
has been emitted, and the annoyance is capable
of being mitigated or enhanced by a variety
of circumstances connected with the person
of the individual whose body has been the
source of it.
As the share which the imagination has in
the production of annoyance in this shape is
so great, annoyance may, in this case, have
place without any actual impression on the
organ which is the natural seat of it. Such is
the disgust apt to be produced by the impres
sion, that, by means of the principle of asso
ciation, a disgust correspondent in its nature,
though inferior in degree, is commonly pro
duced by the idea, when excited by operations
which apply not to any other sense than that
of hearing.
Education has done much for the suppression
of annoyances from this source. The good-
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 239
breeding which has penetrated even to the
masses of society, has succeeded in making
acts unfrequent, which are considered such
evidence of rudeness and ill-manners as to
make their exercise perilous to the reputation
of the offender.
The power of preventing disagreeable emis
sions from the mouth is not possessed to the
same extent ; but absolute power is possessed,
to regulate them so as to prevent their offen-
siveness to others. Eructation, which cannot
always be controlled, may be made less annoy
ing to those present, by watching the direction
in which the blast will not reach any person ;
then let the air escape in that direction, from
the smallest possible aperture at the corner of
your mouth, so the act may be unperceived.
If there be persons on every side within
reach of the blast, either cover your mouth
with your handkerchief or your hand ; the car
bonic acid gas will descend by its own gravity.
If you are at table, with any person opposite
to you, the covering your mouth is better than
your visibly puffing out the effluvia ; for if the
distance be so great that the annoyance will not
affect your companion s sense of smell, you
may save him from fancying that he does per
ceive it, a fancy likely to be created by his
240 DEONTOLOGV.
perceiving that the act of eructation has had
place.
2. Hearing sense of hearing. To this sense
annoyance may be applied in a direct way, or
in a collateral way, by the instrumentality of
the association of ideas.
In a direct way, either by the quality of the
sound, or by its quantity.
Annoyance by means of sounds offensive by
their quality, independent of their quantity, is
not very apt to be inflicted without intention :
without intention, having, for its end in view,
the production of such an effect. If inflicted
in pursuance of any such intention, it might,
perhaps, be considered as forming the matter of
a legally-punishable injury ; at any rate, any
warning to abstain from the practice can be no
better than superfluous and useless.
By the principle of association, any sound,
the effect of which is to call up and place in the
mind the idea of an application offensive to any
other sense, such as, for example the sense of
smell, becomes thereby, itself, noisome.
Annoyance may be created through the ear
to the inside of the nose and mouth by the
power of sympathy.
By an assortment of glands opening into the
nose, the interior of the mouth, and the passage
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 241
called the larynx into the lungs, a viscous
liquid, subservient to various uses, a liquid,
but in some cases, partly by its original texture,
partly by evaporation, approaching to solidity,
is discharged. This liquid, when accumulated
in the passages to a certain quantity, becomes,
in various ways, productive of disagreeable sen
sations, which cannot be removed but by the
expulsion of it. That portion of it which lines
the lungs, the larynx, and the interior of the
mouth, is capable of being discharged through
either of two channels : through the mouth, in
which case it is expelled out of the body alto
gether, and in its own form; or through the gullet
into the stomach, in which latter case it mixes
itself with the food, and, after having undergone
like changes, is finally expelled through the
same passages. That which lines the nose, the
upper part of it at least, is capable of being dis
charged through anyone of three orifices : namely,
at the nostrils ; at the mouth, as above ; or into
the stomach. When at the nose, it is driven out
from above by an extraordinary quantity of air
inhaled for that purpose ; in this case, the nose is
said to be blowed ; that which is expelled through
the mouth, is discharged partly by means of a
current of air inhaled for the purpose, partly by
means of the muscular force of the tongue and
the lips. In the instance of some persons, if,
VOL. II. R
242 DEONTOLOGY.
instead of being expelled from the mouth or
nose, this mucus is swallowed, sickness is apt
to be produced : sickness, partly by the diffi
cultly-digestible quality of the matter when
taken into the stomach, party by its tenacity,
by which it is kept in a state of continuous
strings, extending themselves down the gullet,
and stimulating it in such manner as to pro
duce a sort of convulsion called retching.
A man who is liable to be thus affected,
when, by the sense of hearing, he perceives
that another person experiences annoyance from
the accumulation of mucus in an extra quantity
is, in order to relieve himself, swallowing, or
preparing to swallow it into his stomach, instead
of expelling it through the mouth or the nose,
such a man is apt to receive from such percep
tion no inconsiderable annoyance. This annoy
ance has for its cause the affection of sym
pathy. By his own experience, in his own
case, the idea of sickness is associated with the
idea of that state of things.
Very considerable, indeed, is the suffering
produced by a cause apparently so inconsider
able, and the nature of which seems not to be
commonly understood.
A distinction must here be observed between
the cases in which the bodily organ, the organ
of sense, is itself the seat of annoyance suf-
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 243
fered, and the cases in which it is but an inlet
to the impression made on some other part of
the body or on the mind.
Thus, for example, the organs of sight and
hearing are each of them exposed to particular
modes of annoyance, of which they are respec
tively the seats. But, taken together, they are
the inlets to an infinity of annoyances as well
as of enjoyments, the seat of which is not in
the respective organs, but in the mind ; in a
word, of the annoyances and enjoyments capa
ble of being afforded by the means of discourse.
The only cases in which it is worth while, for
the present purpose, and on the present occa
sion, to bring a mode of annoyance to view, are
those in which it is in a man s power to avoid
giving the annoyance, without taking himself
out of the presence of those who are exposed
to it. There are some persons to whom the
sight of a person whose eyes are the seat of a
certain morbid affection, is sufficient to produce
a similar affection ; no forbearance, except the
forbearance to introduce himself into the pre
sence of the person laboring under this morbid
susceptibility, being sufficient to prevent the
annoyance, the case belongs not to this head.
On terms of less inconvenience than that of
their avoiding each other s presence, the annoy
ance may be avoided by an easy forbearance on
244 DEONTOLOGY.
the part of the person laboring under the mor
bid susceptibility : namely, by his avoiding to
turn his eyes towards those eyes, by the morbid
state of which the morbid sensibility is affected,
and the annoyance produced.
These cases, purposely gone into with some
detail, will be sufficient to awaken attention to
other points, where the corporeal senses are
likely to be affected by want of attention to the
causes which bring annoyance to them; and will
enable every man for himself to watch the in
stances in which benevolence demands absten
tion from practices thus offensive to others.
The subject is in itself so unattractive, that
even what has been said would seem to demand
an apology, were it not that to such sources a
large amount of disagreeable sensations is to
be traced, and that the full importance of pro
tecting men, as far as possible, from the visita
tions of such annoyance is not sufficiently, or
generally felt.
As an example of the way in which the topic
may be followed into other departments of the
minor morals, the following extract is given from
the Examiner newspaper :
Mode of Feeding annoying to persons of any
delicacy : making a clattering with their
knives and forks ; smacking their lips ; draw-
ing in their liquids with a bubbling sound ;
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 245
chewing with a noise ; and eating with rapid -
ity. These things may seem of little import-
ance to some, but they are very far from being
so ; for they not only indicate coarse feelings
* on the part of the offenders, but tend greatly
to make their company very distasteful to per-
sons of refinement, and must therefore operate
greatly to their injury in their commerce with
society/
Unkind expressions, with regard to the infir
mities of others, have been referred to as vio
lations of the Greatest-Happiness Principle.
Unkind actions are yet more palpable and de
cided violations of it. If you meet with any
person laboring under corporeal or mental de
fects, let your attention be especially awakened,
and be most anxious to say, and still more to
do, nothing which can wound the person suffer
ing from the defect. If the infirmity be one of
temper, do not suppose that you are authorised
to let your disapproval exhibit itself in words
or deeds of unkindness. Many defects of tem
per are constitutional, and cannot be overcome:
the cases are very rare indeed, where any, the
slightest good, can be done by your giving evi
dence of hostility, or even censure. Appear
not to notice the weakness, and if you notice it,
let it, at all events, be in a manner which shall
give the least possible pain.
246 DEONTOLOGY.
In cases of corporeal defects, do not refer to
them. It is dangerous to do so, even by an
expression, or an act of sympathy ; for the de
fect is brought by that sympathy into the im
mediate view of the sufferer; and the pleasure
of your sympathy, even where it communicates
a pleasure, which it will not always do, may be
overbalanced by the pain which excited atten
tion will awaken.
The case is different where the suffering is
remediable remediable by your kindness, or
alleviable by your sympathy. Such a case
establishes a claim to both.
If the words or deeds of another give you
pain, and you, in consequence, desire they
should cease from annoying you, so manage that
the discontinuance of the annoyance be obtained
with as little pain as possible to the other party.
Do not, therefore, desire abruptly that the vex
ation may cease ; do not give evidence of the
pain it causes you, but propose some new topic ;
give a direction to the conversation, or conduct,
which shall lead it away from the course that
annoys you.
In the interference of others on your behalf,
it may well happen that there has been impru
dence ; that the interference has not been such
as you would approve, and that your dissatis
faction is well-grounded. Before you complain,
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 247
be quite sure that, with a reference to the
future, it is necessary to apprize the party of
your displeasure : nothing but some reference
to the future will authorise, in any case, an ex
pression of dissatisfaction ; for no such expres
sion will change the past, or make an evil that
has been, not to have been. Should a recur
rence of ill-judged interference be contem
plated, then, at the moment when it is about to
take place, gently apprize the party that, on a
former occasion, some unintended mischief was
done ; otherwise, do not let him perceive that
you noticed the consequences of his injudicious
interference, nor apprize him of it.
The rule has been mentioned by which you
are enabled to judge of pains and pleasures
experienced by another : namely, by changing
positions with him. Thus, to avoid giving use
less offence, or uneasy pain, on the occasion of
any thing you are about to do or to say in rela
tion to any individual, think, in the first place,
in what manner, if said or done in relation to
yourself, it would aifect yourself. If to your
self it would be a matter of indifference, think
then whether between your situation and his
there may not be some difference, the effect of
which may be to render painful to him what
would not be so to you.
The best ordinary rule is, to assume equality;
248 DEONTOLOGY.
to make equality the law of general application
exceptional variations, growing out of differ
ence of position, must be applied to the parti
cular cases as they occur. There may be cases
where the peculiar character of the individual
likely to be offended, makes him less suscep
tible of pain than in ordinary persons; but safety
is on the side of forbearance.
What thou doest, do quickly/ and especially
if the deed be one that is likely to gratify
others. Hence, negative benevolence exacts,
that there should be no needless waste of time
in the discharge of those functions, on whose
exercise others depend for any portion of their
enjoyments.
Unnecessary delay in answering letters, for
example, is inconsistent with prudence and
beneficence. It brings with it loss of reputa
tion, in so far as you are concerned, and is likely
to cause annoyance to others. Promptitude
adds to the value of every service. Procrasti
nation is punishment imposed by the despotism
of indolence.
The same service rendered promptly is often
of far greater value than a more important ser
vice when delayed. Bis dat qui citd dat, He
gives twice who gives quickly, is an aphorism
which, when the gift is a benevolent one, the
Deontologist may adopt into his code. For to
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 249
promptitude of beneficent action not only is
greater efficiency of service ordinarily attached,
but greater vivacity in the generous affections.
Applications for services are too frequently
treated with inattention. At a little cost, the
pains of delay may be saved to the applier. It
was said to be the Duke of Wellington s prac
tice invariably and promptly to reply to all
such communications. Next to conferring the
favor, attention to the application is the surest
way of gratifying the applicant. It is a
saving of all those sufferings which grow out
of hope deferred.
Occasion has been found to point out some of
the instances of discordance between the laws
of politeness and the Deontological laws, or in
other words, the want of coincidence between
the popular sanction and the Deontological
principle.
Persons, for example, have been deemed
perfect gentlemen whose morality was as bad
as it could well be, and whose manners really
no better than their morality. Perhaps, if such
persons had not occupied stations pre-eminently
exalted, they would not have been quoted as
models. At all events, a politeness of a higher
character, and a gentlemanly spirit more re
gardful of the pains and pleasures of others,
might more properly be proposed for imitation.
250 DEONTOLOGY.
Far from being inconsistent with true moral
ity, the laws of genuine politeness harmonize
with those of benevolent beneficence. It will
as cautiously avoid giving pain, or exciting
painful associations, as if its name were virtue.
But fashionable habits, to be made truly
polite, must undergo many changes. These
habits are now a very chaos of inconsistencies,
inconsistencies sanctioned by aristocratic usage,
and escaping from the influence of any gene
ral law. A gentleman whose conversational
demeanor is courtesy itself, who will not utter
a word that shall cause needless pain, will not
hesitate to break an engagement for the dispatch
of business, to keep a visitor in weary attend
ance, to leave unanswered letters of intense
interest to the writer, to mislay or lose valuable
manuscripts, in a word, to give extreme and
gratuitous pain, without any sort of benefit to
himself.
As in your words, so by your conduct excite
no expectation that is likely to be disappointed ;
and, in as far as the intensity of expectation
depends on you, take care that it is less than
the probable amount of gratification ; for though
the pleasures of anticipation occupy no small
portion of the field of happiness, they will be
overbalanced by the pains of disappointment,
in so far as disappointment follows them. And
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 251
that portion of the pleasure really obtained,
which had not been looked for, will come
with the additional relish and welcome of
surprise.
Your exaggeration of your own ability to serve
will not only increase the demands of others
upon you, but lead to diminished affection
towards you when that exaggeration is made
manifest by the failure of your attempts to
serve. Your self-love will leave more vexation
from its detected helplessness than gratification
from its anticipated influence ; and others will
experience the annoyance of unrequited expec
tation, without any of those abatements, which
the pleasure of making fair promises to others
had excited in your mind.
Intrusion into the company of another, when
unexpected or uninvited, is one of the modes of
annoyance which effective benevolence would
avoid. It is the substitution of your will for the
will of another, and in so far is the assump
tion of despotism. A purpose, an important
purpose, may have to be answered; the intrusion
may be justified by preponderant good; but
such a case is exceptional. You are to take for
granted, unless on some general understanding
that your presence is welcome at all times, or at
specified times, you are bound to suppose that,
if your company were wished for, you would have
252 DEONTOLOGY.
been advised of the wish. At all events, your
intrusion does not give the person intruded on any
choice: it may compel him to submit to an an
noyance he would not have chosen, or to inflict on
you the annoyance of expulsion. If you have a
wish to see a person, and the business is not of
a peremptory character, communicate the wish
in a way which may leave him the privilege of
a refusal, without giving him pain or you
offence.
Do not let the timidity of another induce you
to act intolerantly towards him. If, in ordinary
cases, a benevolent man would avoid giving pain,
still more would he be anxious to avoid it were
any additional susceptibility excited in the
mind of the sufferer.
So in case of dullness. Let a man be naturally
ever so stupid, do not give him reason to believe
that you are annoyed by his stupidity ; do not let
him perceive that you have discovered it. No
thing that you can say or do can make him less
stupid than nature has made him, and your tell
ing him of his stupidity will only bring bad con
sequences to both ; to him, by the uneasiness
you cannot fail to give him ; to you by that
ill-will which no stupidity will prevent being
excited, to a greater or less extent, in his bosom.
A remote, but not unimportant consequence
of a habit of effective benevolence is, that in case
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 253
of rupture between yourself and any associate
of yours, the presumption antecedently to a
particular investigation will be in your favor in
the minds of your common associates. The
habit, which, being a habit, will have exhibited
itself in the presence of others, has laid up for
you a fund of reputation in the minds of other
men, which will influence their judgment with
out your knowing it.
If you have deserved, as you will have de
served, the credit of abstaining from all those
causes of offence which ordinarily are supposed
to justify reprisals, the advantage of so honor
able a distinction will be your acquittal, in
doubtful cases, of blame, and an unwillingness,
on all occasions, to receive evidence tending to
shake your acquired fame. Your character
will be your justification.
As the field of pernicious action widens, the
demand for beneficent abstention increases. If
the claims of benevolence be strong where the
happiness and misery of few are concerned, still
stronger are they in view of the happiness
and misery of the multitude. And, it unfortu
nately happens, that the popular sanction as
regards one of the great topics of human wretch
edness is miserably immoral. Nothing can be
worse than the general feeling on the subject of
War. The church, the state, the ruling few,
254 DEONTOLOGY.
the subject many, all seem to have combined,
in order to patronise vice and crime, in their
very widest sphere of evil. Dress a man in
particular garments, call him by a particular
name, and he shall have authority on divers
occasions to commit every species of offence ; to
pillage ; to murder ; to destroy human felicity ;
to maximize human suffering ; and for so doing
he shall be rewarded !
Of all that is pernicious in admiration, the
admiration of heroes is the most pernicious ;
and how delusions should have made us admire
what virtue should teach us to hate and loathe,
is among the saddest evidences of human weak
ness and folly. The crimes of heroes seem
lost in the vastness of the field they occupy. A
lively idea of the mischief they do, of the
misery they create, seldom penetrates the mind
through the delusions with which thoughtless
ness and falsehood have surrounded their names
and deeds. Is it that the magnitude of the evil
is too gigantic for entrance ? We read of twenty
thousand men killed in a battle, with no other
feeling than that it was a glorious victory/
Twenty thousand, or ten thousand what reck
we of their miserable sufferings ? The hosts
who perished are the evidence of the com
pleteness of the triumph; and the complete
ness of the triumph is the measure of merit
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 255
and the glory of the conqueror. Our school
masters, and the immoral books they so often
put into our hands, have inspired us with an
affection for heroes ; and the hero is more
heroic, in proportion to the numbers of the
slain. Add a cypher, not one iota is added
to our disapprobation. Four, or two figures,
give us no more sentiment of pain than one
figure, while they add marvellously to the
grandeur and splendor of the victor. Let
us draw forth one individual from those thou
sands or tens of thousands : his leg has been
shivered by one ball, his jaw broken by an
other ; he is bathed in his own blood, and
that of his fellows ; yet he lives, tortured
by thirst, fainting, famishing : he is but one
of the twenty thousand, one of the actors and
sufferers in the scene of the hero s glory, and
of the twenty thousand, there is scarcely one
whose suffering or death will not be the centre
of a circle of misery. Look again, admirer of
that hero ! Is not this wretchedness ? Because
it is repeated ten ten hundred ten thousand
times, is not this wretchedness?
The period will assuredly arrive, when better
instructed generations will require all the
evidence of history to credit that, in times
deeming themselves enlightened, human beings
should have been honored with public approval,
256 DEONTOLOGY,
in the very proportion of the misery they caused,
and the mischiefs they perpetrated. They will
call upon all the testimony which incredulity
can require, to persuade them that, in past
ages, men there were, men, too, deemed
worthy of popular recompense, who, for some
small pecuniary retribution, hired themselves
out to do any deeds of pillage, devastation,
and murder, which might be demanded of
them. And still more will it shock their sen
sibilities, to learn that such men, such men-
destroyers, were marked out as the eminent
and the illustrious ; as the worthy of laurels
and monuments, of eloquence and poetry. In
that better and happier epoch, the wise and
the good will be busied in hurling into oblivion,
or dragging forth, for exposure to universal
ignominy and obloquy, many of the deeds we
deem heroic; while the true fame and the
perdurable glories will be gathered round the
creators and the difFusers of happiness.
Intolerance in language, for difference in religi
ous opinions, bad as it is, is more worthy of tole
ration than intolerant deeds. Persecution in action
is the exhibition of this lamentable species of
maleficence. And next to the mischiefs of war
come the mischiefs of religious hatred. To say
nothing more than has been said of the immo
rality of punishing men for holding opinions
NEGATIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 257
different to our own, let the absurdity of the
pretence be investigated. Why are they to be
punished? Because they will not bow to
your authority, will not blindly submit to the
faith you would impose upon them.
Now a blind faith can operate only by sup
pressing evidence. It cannot change sensation ;
it cannot change the sentiment of truth and
falsehood.
Offering rewards for faith, and punishments
for the want of it, is therefore like offering
rewards for, and punishing the absence of, preju
dice and partiality in a judge.
To say, Believe this proposition rather than
its contrary/ is to say, do all that is in your
power to believe it. Now, what is in a man s
power to do in order to believe a proposition,
and all that is so, is to keep back and stifle
the evidences that are opposed to it. For,
when all the evidences are equally present to
his observation, and equally attended to, belief
or disbelief is no longer in his power. It is the
necessary result of the preponderance of the
evidence on one side over that of the other.
The sources to which is to be attributed the
pain-giving which it is the object of negative effec
tive benevolence to avoid or counteract, are to be
found in arrogance, imperiousness, scornfulness,
overbearingness, coldness, closeness, pride, and
VOL. jr. s
258 DEONTOLOGY.
affectation. Any one of these vices may pro
duce a similar result. To the sufferer, it mat
ters little whether his suffering emanates from
one bad quality or another. The law of ab
stention applies to all. In some minds, some
of them predominate ; in other minds, others.
They must be measured in the scale of moral
defects, by the quantity of pain they cause.
One man s scorn may be less offensive than
another man s coldness, and therefore less mis
chievous. The arrogance of a man in an ele
vated station may be more tolerable than the
closeness of a man in a station of inferiority, or
even of equality. Of each of these vices some
examples have been given ; but each of them
is susceptible of so many modifications, each of
being exhibited in such varieties of words and
deeds, that it must be left to every man to fill
up, from the pages of his own experience, the
blanks that are left. To root out these vices
from the mind, is to extirpate their fruits. They
partake, more or less, of the two fundamental
vices, of imprudence and maleficence, and
therefore cannot be retained without injury and
suffering.
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 259
CHAPTER V.
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE.
BENEFICENCE consists in contributing to the
comforts of our fellow-creatures : benevolence is
the desire so to contribute. Beneficence is not
a virtue, except in so far as accompanied with
benevolence. The food we eat contributes to
the comfort of those by whom it is eaten. But
the comfort of the eater does not render the
food or the act of eating virtuous.
Benevolence may be a virtue, without being
accompanied by beneficence ; for the desire
may exist, without any power of carrying it
into effect. But benevolence is not a virtue,
any farther than, as occasion serves, it is ac
companied with beneficence ; if, when occasion
serves, correspondent beneficence is not exer
cised, it is a proof that the desire was not,
in reality, present ; or that, if present, it was
inoperative ; it was so faint as to be of no use.
Over and above any present pleasure with
which an act of beneficence may be accompanied
to the actor, the inducement which a man has
for its exercise is of the same sort as that which
260 DEONTOLOGY.
the husbandman has for the sowing of his seed ;
as that which the frugal man has for the laying
up money. Seed sown is no otherwise of any
value than for the crops of which it is produc
tive. Money is of no value, but for the ser
vices of all sorts which it procures at the hands
of other men : at the hands of the laborer, the
service rendered by the performance of his
labor ; at the hands of the baker, the service
performed by the delivery of his bread to the
customer, who gives the money for it.
By every act of virtuous beneficence which
a man exercises, he contributes to a sort of
fund, a savings-bank, a depository of general
good-will, out of which services of all sorts
may be looked for, as about to flow from other
hands into his ; if not positive services, at any
rate negative services ; services consisting in the
forbearance to vex him by annoyances with
which he might otherwise have been vexed.
Negative beneficence, as we have seen and
we again go over the ground, for the sake of
showing what is left to positive beneficence
negative beneficence is exercised in so far as
mischief is not done to others. Negative bene
ficence amounts to nothing, unless in so far
as accompanied either with correspondent be
nevolence or with self-regarding prudence. The
most mischievous of all beings exercises nega-
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BEXEVOLENCE. 261
live beneficence in respect of all imaginable
mischief, except that which he does.
Negative beneficence is a virtue, in so far
as any mischief which without consideration
might have been produced, is by consideration
forborne to be produced. In so far as it is by
the consideration of the effect which the mis
chievous action might have upon a man s own
comfort, the virtue is prudence self-regarding
prudence : in so far as it is by the consideration
of the effect which the mischievous action might
have upon the comfort of any other person, the
virtue is benevolence.
A main distinction here is, between bene
ficence which cannot be exercised without self-
sacrifice, and beneficence which can be exer
cised without self-sacrifice. To that which
cannot be exercised without self-sacrifice, there
are, necessarily, limits, and these, compara
tively, very narrow ones. In truth, beneficence
which is accompanied with self-sacrifice is
not exercised but at the expense of a certain
amount of self-regarding prudence ; although it
may be no otherwise at the expense of self-
regarding prudence, than as the seed sown by
the husbandman is sown at the expense of
self- regarding prudence. In no case in which
money is disbursed without adequate return
262 DEONTOLOGY.
can beneficence be exercised without correspon
dent self-sacrifice.
To the exercise of beneficence, where it is
exercised without self-sacrifice, there can be
no limits; and by every exercise thus made
of it, a contribution is made to the good-will
fund, and made without expense. In a certain
sense, indeed, beneficence that has any virtue
in it cannot be exercised without self-sacrifice ;
for it cannot be exercised without forbearance ;
and forbearance, in so far as there is any the
smallest desire to perform the act forborne
from, requires consideration, requires effort ;
and to undergo any uneasiness with which this
effort may be accompanied, is, by the amount
of that uneasiness, self-sacrifice. There are
cases in which this self-sacrifice is accompanied
with uneasiness to a great amount ; an amount
beyond the endurance of the generality of men,
in the present state of society at least. Such
as that which causes a forbearance to gratify
the appetite of revenge, when excited by severe
injury.
But to self-sacrifice in this shape, whatever
limits may be set by the dictates of benefi
cence and self-regarding prudence, there are
others set by the nature of the case ; others,
such as those which are set in the case where
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 263
the act of beneficence consists in the gift of
money, and the rendering of service by labor
performed.
Negative beneficence, then, is exercised in so
far as annoyance is forborne to be inflicted on
others. Negative beneficence is forbearance of
annoyance. By acts of this description no
direct contribution, it is true, can be said to be
made to the good- will fund abovementioned.
But, on the other hand, correspondent to that
same good-will fund there is an ill-will fund ;
and by every exercise of negative beneficence
the ill-will fund is kept from receiving contri
bution, contribution to the amount of value it
would otherwise have received. In an indirect
way, the withdrawing contribution from the ill-
will fund may be productive of an effect equi
valent to that produced by a contribution to the
good- will fund. For if, while malevolence
keeps filling his ill-will fund, benevolence keeps
his ill-will-fund empty, it is manifest what the
advantage will be which, in a case when they
are rival candidates for a certain service, which
may be rendered to either, and must be rendered
to one of them, benevolence will have on his
side.
Described in general terms, the inducement
to positive beneficence, in all its shapes, is the
contribution it makes to the man s general
204 DEONTOLOGY.
good-will fund ; to the general good-will
fund from which draughts in his favor may
come to be paid : the inducement to negative
beneficence is the contribution it keeps back
from his general ill-will fund the general
ill-will fund hanging over his head ; and besides
its own particular use, any exertion made to
keep the ill-will fund empty, may be produc
tive of advantage in the same shape as that pro
duced by contribution made to a man s general
good- will fund.
I le who is in possession of a fund of this sort,
and understands the value of it, will understand
himself to be the richer by every act of bene
volent beneficence he is known to have exer
cised. He is the richer, and feels that he is so,
by every act of kindness he has ever done. Will
it be believed believed or not, it is strictly
true F knew a man once, of whose mind the
very contrary impression had taken hold ? He
had a phrase of his own by which he gave ex
pression to it. Even without self-sacrifice, in
any shape, to be the source of advantage or
gratification to any one else, without receiving
an advantage equal, at least, in value, he called,
* being made a property of. Often have I heard
him declare, he did not like to be made a pro
perty of, or, he would not be made a property
of: he would have regarded himself as being so
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 205
much the poorer for it ; he would have been
ashamed of it as of a weakness.
If a disposition of this stamp was in this same
instance productive of its natural effects, it had
for its accompaniment an ardent ambition, and
to that appetite it contributed to secure contin
ually-repeated rebuffs and disappointments.
The retributive sanction has been pointed out
as a motive to efficient benevolence, its power
of reward depending on the relation existing
between the parties. Widely separated as they
may be, there is no case where the influence
possessed by any individual, however mean,
over any other individual, however mighty, is
really null, and unworthy of all regard. The
mouse in the fable releasing the lion from bond
age, is an exemplification of the possible de
pendence of the strong upon the weak.
Popular opinion, in so far as it is enlightened
and has cognizance of beneficent actions, takes
them under its care. Its awards depend on the
estimate it forms of the merit of an action, and
the number and influence of those who sit in
judgment, and decree the recompense of that
action.
Independently of the rewards of opinion, and
the pleasures of sympathy, the acts of positive
benevolence tend to the creation of the habits
of benevolence. Every act adds something to
266 DEONTOLOGY.
the habit ; the greater the number of acts, the
stronger will be the habit ; and the stronger the
habit, the larger the recompense; and the larger
the recompense, the more fruitful in producing
similar acts ; and the more frequent such acts,
the more will there be of virtue and felicity in
the world.
Employ, then, every opportunity of benefi
cent action, and look out for other opportuni
ties. Do all the good you can, and seek the
means of doing good.
Efficient benevolence, when in action, may be
considered the gymnastics of the mind, or the field
in which it is displayed the mental gymnasium.
Like the gymnastics of the body, they will not
only give enjoyment but strength ; enjoyment
in their exercise, and strength from their calling
into greater activity the moral and intellectual
faculties, training them to the vigor of habitual
exertion. The indirect and general object is, to
fortify the mind, in order that it may better
guide the affections to virtue; the direct and
particular purpose is, on any given occasion, so
to influence conduct, as that a result of happi
ness may be the consequence of the individual
action in question.
In the application of evil for the production
of good, never let it be applied for the gratifica
tion of mere antipathy ; never but as subser-
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 267
vient to, and necessary for the only proper ends
of punishment, the determent of others by ex
ample, the determent of the offender by suffer
ing. In the interest of the offender, reformation
is the great object to be aimed at ; if this can
not be accomplished, seek to disable him from
inflicting the like evil on himself or others.
But always bear in mind the maxim, \vhich
cannot be repeated too often : Inflict as much
and no more pain than is necessary to accom
plish the purpose of benevolence. Create not
evil greater than the evil you exclude.
When it is settled in a man s mind that such
or such another is a bad man, an effect apt to
be produced by such judgment is a settled affec
tion of antipathy ; of antipathy more or less
strong, according to the temper of the indivi
dual. Thereupon, without troubling himself
to measure out the proper quantity of punish
ment which it would be proper for him to ad
minister, upon every opportunity that presents
the means of expressing towards the offending
party the affection of hatred and contempt, he
accordingly employs it ; and in so doing he piques
himself upon the evidence he affords to others
of his hatred of vice and love of virtue; while,
in truth, he is only affording a gratification to
his own dissocial and self-regarding affections,
to his own antipathy and his own pride.
268 DEONTOLOGY.
The happiness of the worst man of the species
is as much an integrant part of the whole mass
of human happiness as is that of the best man.
On every occasion in which evil done to a
delinquent does not afford an adequate promise
of greater good to the delinquent himself, or
others so far from doing evil to him, the law of
benevolence enjoins us to do as much good to
him as is consistent in other respects with bene
ficence and extra-regarding prudence.
The points of abstential benevolence which
have been brought forward, will serve as analo
gies in exhibiting parallel cases of active efficient
benevolence. To avoid giving pain being the ne
gative rule, to seek to give pleasure is the posi
tive. And though it cannot be invariably said,
that the virtuous abstention has necessarily a
counterpart of virtuous action, yet in a great
number of cases, to act precisely contrary to
what imprudence and maleficence would dic
tate, is to pursue the course which morality
demands.
It is not always possible to draw the exact
line between the claims of efficient benevolence,
whether positive or negative, and those of pru
dence, self-regarding or extra-regarding ; nor is
it always necessary nor desirable, for where the
interests of the two virtues are the same, the
path of duty is quite clear. But points of
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 269
agreement and of difference may be easily
pointed out, and a general definition may show
what, in ordinary cases, is the distinction be
tween the two qualities. As for example : you
are called upon to do service to another. If he
is in a condition to render you services in
return, prudence as well as benevolence com
bine to interest you in his favor. If he is
wholly removed from the occasions of serving
you, your motives can be those of benevolence
alone.
But though in a given case it may be diffi
cult to show, that the interests of prudence
demand a particular act of beneficence, it is not
the less true that the self-regarding consider
ation does, in fact, occupy the whole ground of
conduct. Whatever peculiar reasons benevo
lence may furnish for a given course of benefi
cent action, the universal principle remains,
that it is every man s interest to stand well in
the affections of other men, and in the affections
of mankind in general. A really beneficent
act, which may seem to be removed from the
prudential considerations always taking for
granted that the act is itself no violation of pru
dence, and that it is one which has the sanction
of the Deontological principle, by producing a
balance of good, such an act will, in its remoter
consequences, serve the self-regarding interests,
270 DEONTOLOGY.
by helping to create, to establish, or to extend
that general reputation for judicious benevolence,
which it is every man s obvious interest to pos
sess in the opinions of his fellow men.
Suetonius records that a Roman tyrant offered
a premium to the inventor of a new pleasure.
Since that time, many a moralist has numbered
the tyrant s desire to create a new enjoyment
among that tyrant s most obnoxious crimes.
Yet to the discovery of unexperienced grati
fications, a great portion of man s anxiety is
directed. From the moment human beings
associate, that object becomes their prominent
concern. In proportion to their aggregate num
ber are their efforts to provide some untasted
enjoyment. Every newspaper bears evidence
of the attempt. The list of theatrical exhibitions
is a list by which an appeal is made to attention
by rarities and novelties, by something in the
shape of pleasure unenjoyed before.
But, it will be said, the tyrant was a sensual
ist ; his desire was for some other sensual gratifi
cation ; it wanted to make his senses subservient
to the production of some new delight. What
then ? Had he succeeded it would have been
the better for him and the better for us. And
as to pleasure of which the senses are not to be
the instruments, let colors be presented to the
blimund, sic to the deaf, or motion to the lifeless.
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 271
As a matter of fact, however, civilization,
knowledge, commerce, have invented new plea
sures. And no generation passes away without
adding something to the stock of the generation
that preceded it. The discovery of America
opened a host of unexperienced gratifications to
our hemisphere.
And what various and valuable pleasures has
not the progress of philosophy brought with it !
The experiments of chemistry, the discoveries
of astronomy, the telescope, the microscope,
the mechanical powers, natural history, in a
word, the world of modern science ; a world
more extensive than that which Columbus made
known.
These, and whatever besides can add an iota
to happiness, have been added to the domains of
effective benevolence. These are to be appealed
to, these are to be drawn upon, in order to pro
mote the felicity of man. Exhibit any source
from whence enjoyment can be made to flow,
and you may add that source to the sum total
of prolific good.
And if the premium once offered by despot
ism could now be offered by intelligent benevo
lence, it would be given to him who should suc
ceed in exhibiting the greatest variety of shapes
in which pleasure can be produced, and how its
272 DEONTOLOGY.
magnitude, intensity, duration, and extent can
best be secured.
To give exercise, influence, and extension to
efficient benevolence, is one of the great con
cerns of virtue. Nor let it be thought that such
benevolence is to be bounded in its conse
quences by the race of man. There are other,
though inferior, sensitive objects intitled to its
consideration and its care. There is happiness
beyond the sphere of human beings happiness
with which human beings have much to do
happiness of which human beings are the
guardians, though the participators of that hap
piness are not of the human species. Let men
remember, that happiness wherever it is, and by
whomever experienced, is the great gift confided
to their charge that any thing else is unworthy
their regard, and that this this alone is the
pearl of great price.
It has been said, that Honesty is the best
policy. This is not exactly true. There is a
policy that is better, the policy of active
benevolence. Honesty is but negative : it
avoids doing wrong; it will not allow intrusion
into the enjoyments of others. It is, however,
only an abstential, and not an active quality.
The best policy is that which creates good ; the
second best is that which avoids evil.
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 273
The modes by which efficient benevolence
can gratify others by action, may be arranged
under the same heads as those by which annoy
ance is avoided, and belong to two classes :
1. Discourse. 2. Deportment. And as nega
tive morality takes under its cognizance those
acts of mischief which the laws allow to pass
unpunished the political sanction being too
great and solemn for the occasion, so positive
morality takes under its charge that con
duct which state recompense leaves unre
warded. But the interposition of the law being
more punitory and prohibitory than remuneratory
and exciting, inasmuch as it is more specially
charged with the functions of protecting indivi
duals against wrong, than with those of en
couragement for right, a small portion alone of
the field of active beneficence is taken posses
sion of by the legal or political authority.
Numerous acts of maleficence fall under the
cognizance of the law s penalties, for whose
counter or corresponding acts of beneficence
those laws provide no reward. Over multitu
dinous deeds, whose results would be a balance
of pain, the Deontological authority obtains the
allied influence of the retributive legal power,
each assisting the other with its restrictive force ;
but in the regions of positive benevolence, the
Deontological principle is, for the most part, left
VOL. ir. T
274 DEONTOLOGY.
to its own solitary influences for the production
of good. Ill-appropriated as are, in many cases,
the legal sanctions of punishment to offences, the
application of reward by those same sanctions,
is even more irregular and imperfect. With the
growth of intelligence, with the spread of mo
rality, the state of public opinion will become
more and more accordant with the Deontological
code, and the popular affections will be more
busied in distinguishing real from spurious vir
tue, and in giving to the virtue that is real its
fit recompense. Meanwhile, to that end we
must labor, each for himself, and as far as he is
able, marking out for his highest approbation in
the conduct of others those actions which have
produced, or are likely to produce, the greatest
sum of happiness, and visiting with his loudest
reprobation that conduct which leads to, or
creates, the greatest amount of misery. By
these means, every man will do something to
make the popular sanctions more useful, health
ful, active, and virtuous. The alliance of true
morality with the great interests of mankind,
mankind will soon discover, and the discovery
once generalized, it will not be in the power of
fallacy, of dogmatism, or despotism, to prevent
its influence, its universal action.
As regards discourse, the inquiry of positive
effective benevolence is what are the means
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 275
by which language can be best made to advance
the happiness of others? And the occasions
which offer themselves for consideration are, as
before, those in which the subject-person is
present: those in which the subject-person
is absent: and those where the subject-persons
and others are present.
In all these cases, the pleasure produced
must primarily depend on the power of the
speaker ; power intellectual, moral and active :
the power growing out of wisdom, knowledge,
the social affections, and the will to give them
a beneficent direction : the power of supe
riority in any of its shapes, whether political or
social ; whether of age, station, wealth, or any
other influence. To employ their action for the
removal of pain, or the sources of pain, for the
promotion of pleasure, or the introduction of the
sources of pleasure, whether the discourse be
oral or written, is the business of active
beneficence.
In the presence of the person of whom you
are speaking, and in so far as the topics of con
versation are in your power, choose always those
which are likely to be the most pleasurable to
him, taking care, however, that nothing is said
by you, the result of which would lower your
own credit for veracity, or imply approbation
of pernicious words or actions. In the first case,
276 DEONTOLOGY.
damage might be done to your own reputation;
in the second, damage to the character of the
hearer. But, if you have occasion to refer to
meritorious conduct, on the part of him to whom
you are speaking, deal out such liberal en
couragement as the case will justify.
For the prevention of a balance of mischief,
take into consideration the disposition of the
individual, and be sure that your putting forth
prominently his merits will not give such inor
dinate increase to his pride or vanity, as by its
results will produce evil to himself or others.
If the quality which appears to its possessor
a merit or an accomplishment, is really of a cha
racter to injure others by its exercise ; that is to
say, if it cause preponderant evil, either to its
possessor or others, the flatterer who encourages
its development, becomes accessary to all the
evil done in consequence by the person flattered.
Again, if your flattery exceed the bounds of truth,
and the flattered person detects your insincerity,
and perceives that you are yourself aware of
it, you may become to him an object of con
tempt and dislike ; your influence for the future
may be destroyed, and even the honest praise
with which you may have gratified him on for
mer occasions will thus lose its value.
The annoyance caused by the intrusion of
good advice has been referred to, while inquiry
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 277
was engaged in the claims of abstential benevo
lence. In the too-frequent way of communicat
ing even useful counsels, there is almost invari
ably something to vex, often to insult, and almost
always the arrogance which assumes authority,
and exercises a species of despotism. Now, if
men were as willing, and as ready to give rea
sons as they are to give rules, ( much mischief
might be prevented, and some good might be
done. Pride is undoubtedly gratified by being
enabled to deal out its animadversions, and self-
regard is flattered, but at a terrible expense a
great sacrifice of benevolence. Yet, it is no
small part of good-breeding and good morals to
give appropriate advice appropriately.
There is a class of people in the world, offen
sive intruders, forward hypocrites, and bold
usurpers, who, under the mask of friendly ad
visers, are great creators of misery.
Vice is never so much at ease, never more
tyrannical, never more ambitious, than when it
imagines it has found a mask, under the cover
and protection of which it may pass off for vir
tue. And masks there are which, to a certain
extent, deceive even the wearers ; a deceit to
which they lend themselves with alacrity, and
find in their own delusion, encouragement to
make daring experiments on the credulity,
timidity, or dependence of others.
278 DEONTOLOGY.
By no other means can a man give himself
so good a chance of conquering the weakness
which he finds in his way, of subduing the wills
of others by the instrumentality of their under
standings, as by taking upon himself the cha
racter of a giver of good advice.
In this character some men so dextrously
comport themselves, as to make abuse of others
the very instrument of self-elevation.
Not that, on every occasion, the counsels of
the adviser, even though injudicious, can be taken
as evidence of an unfriendly purpose. For fool
ish though it be, hastily concocted and inconsi
derately communicated, it may have had its
source in sympathy, and be really a mark of
good- will.
But such cases are exceptions. Selfishness
untouched by sympathy, is ordinarily the in-
spirer of the intrusive counsellor. Pure self
ishness is abundantly sufficient for the produc
tion of the character. And without good grounds
for believing that credit is to be given to
benevolence, it may, with great probability,
be presumed that some quality, far removed
from benevolence, gave birth to the intervention.
It is clearly then demanded by morality, that
advice-giving, as a habit, should be abstained
from ; and if the demand for it be obvious and
undoubted, if the case be clear and urgent, that
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 279
it should be accompanied with such statements
and reasons as will, in so far as may be, plead
its excuse and justification to the person ad
vised, and cause to him as little suffering as
may be necessary, to give the advice its in
tended effect. Without strong evidence both of
the necessity for its application, and the proba
bility of its success, virtue requires the sup
pression of the advice, and the abstention of the
adviser.
Revenge itself sometimes takes the shape of
advice-giving. For a gratification of ill-will a
man censures another in the shape of counsel.
He visits another with the burthen of evil, for
the obtaining a small pleasure in the infliction of
that evil. In so far as the inflicter is concerned,
no doubt the infliction of evil is good, for no
action can have its source in any other motive.
However enormous the evil may be, and how
ever trifling the pleasure of inflicting it, still
that pleasure is good, and must be taken into
account. But the law of effective benevolence
requires that the advice you give to a man, or
the evil speaking of him, necessary to do him
good, should lead to no waste of evil. Only in
the absolute necessity of drawing on him
punishment from the popular source, or sanction,
are you authorised to speak evil of him to
others ; and then be sure there is reason to
280 DEONTOLOGY.
believe that the awarded punishment will bring
a result of good.
Ingenuousness is sometimes a virtue, some
times not. Where it leads a man to declare his
sentiments without being called upon, there
would be no disingenuousness in his refraining
from doing so ; and, exceptions excepted, the
declaration of unasked opinions is to be avoided.
Where, being asked to declare his opinions, he
forbears to express them, his conduct would be
disingenuous, but not necessarily blameworthy.
Where no evil, in any shape, would result from
giving utterance to opinions, and the expression of
those opinions is solicited, ingenuousness would
be worthy of praise.
To abstain from bringing into view the infir
mities of others, was exhibited as one of the
marks of negative efficient benevolence. To
hold up to view the accomplishments or merits
of another, occupies the corresponding place in
the regions of positive benevolence. But, as
will have been naturally deduced from preced
ing observations, while in the negative part of
the field of action, there are no restrictions or
limitations, since the avoidance of action is the
avoidance of evil ; in the positive part, care
must be taken that the good which is done, the
pleasure which is purchased, do not cost more
than its worth, by leading to the destruction of
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 281
a greater amount of good, or the creation of a
greater portion of evil.
Within these limits, it is an act of effective
benevolence to give to deserving conduct its full
meed of approbation. The effect of praise is
to dispose to imitation, and you as effectually
elevate the standard of morals by encouraging
virtue, as by exposing or reprobating vice. The
immediate recognition of the merits of an act of
efficient benevolence, will have the advantage
of helping to place it at once in the regions of
public approval. The value of the praise will be
heightened by its promptitude a promptitude
which will take the character of generosity. In
cases where an action, obviously beneficial to
mankind, is left, by the want of courage on the
part of others, floating in the regions of unde
cided judgment, do what it depends upon you
within the pale of prudence, to give it the benefit
and sanction of your favorable opinion.
In intercourse with others, it may sometimes
be demanded by benevolence that their opinions
should be corrected on points affecting their
own happiness. In general, however, it be
comes us rather to seek points of agreement
than points of difference ; but where points of
difference are to be discussed, give the dis
cussion the character of a joint search after
truth an inquiry by which both are to be
282 DEONTOLOGY.
benefited, rather than of a contention for vic
tory, or an exhibition of dogmatism. Knowledge
communicated by benevolence has the united
charm of intellect and virtue, intellect engaged
in clearing the ground of evil, and virtue en
gaged in covering it with good.
If you have two topics to talk to a man about,
one of which interests him the most, while
the other interests you the most, begin with
that which interests him the most. It will put
him in good humor ; it will confer pleasure.
If you are not assured that a particular topic
on which you have to speak interests him, allow
him every facility for commencing the conver
sation with the subject that is most agreeable
to him.
The power exercised over the press, is one of
those instruments of good or evil whose influ
ences upon human felicity are, though not de
finable, of most extended range. And, in as
much as the re-action of opinion upon a public
writer, especially if anonymous, is for the most
part less operative than if individual responsi
bility were present to answer for the consequen
ces of thoughts or actions, it is rather to the
claims of benevolence than to those of prudence,
that mankind must look for the proper direction
of the writer s productions. They act in a
wide field, a field proportioned to the number
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 283
of readers, and to the influence of those readers
upon society. When an author gives vent, from
some inaccessible retirement, to opinions which
distress the feelings of others, his dissocial
affections have not the restraint put upon them
which exists when a man gives utterance to his
ideas viva voce. If, however, the desire to maxi
mize good were present to the minds of public
writers if it were ever less their purpose to give
pain to some object of individual hostility than
to further the great ends of the popular felicity,
the atmosphere of opinion would soon become
bright and clear.
Public meetings, or deliberative assemblies,
often afford occasion for the exercise of active
beneficence on a large scale. But, under the
excitement which the presence of numbers
creates, too often the passions obtain the mas
tery, and the passions of the orator acting upon
those of the auditors, lead to consequences
which benevolence must deplore. That always
mischievous, and often dishonest practice of
attaching to conduct adjectival terms of praise
or blame, the habit of speaking of actions, not
in their simple shape, but with the association
of some term of reproach or eulogy, is too apt
to obtain, on occasions, where to move men s
feelings is as much an object of desire, as to con
vince their judgments ; where, in fact, the great
284 DEONTOLOG\*.
ambition of the speaker is, to find such instru
ments as will enable him to carry his auditors
with him to the conclusions at which he
desires they should arrive. But let the Deon-
tological law be present to his mind, and the
triumph he will desire will be only the triumph
of the greatest- happiness principle. Contend
ing for that, and for that alone, the victory of
any sentiments more friendly to the principle
than his own sentiments will be, in fact, his
victory.
Whatever object of good is to be accom
plished by our interference, will be best accom
plished by the instruments of veracity and by
the avoidance of exaggeration. If we have to
speak of actions, let them, therefore, be repre
sented as they are, without the addition of those
terms of vituperation, or of applause, by which
men are led astray from the action itself to our
estimate of the action. The best testimony is
the simple statement of facts ; the worst, is that
which distorts and tortures facts into a prede
termined shape, and communicates them with
a judgment tacked to them. Now, the man
who, in seeking my opinion of the conduct of
another, gives his own opinion in putting the
question to me, does all he can to deprive me
of the power of judging truly, and of expressing
myself honestly.
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 285
To point out public abuses is a high function
of positive efficient beneficence, and to point
them out so that their removal may be accom
plished with the least possible sacrifice on the
part of those interested in their continuance, is
the task of intellectual virtue. For it often
happens that, in the anxiety to get rid of an evil,
a greater evil is entailed on an individual
or a class, than the evil got rid of by the com
munity ; that the sufferings experienced by the
few are not counterbalanced by the benefits
resulting to the many. In the demand for poli
tical reforms, the situation of those who benefit
by the unreformed state of things, is seldom
held up to view, as benevolence, as morality
itself would dictate. Sweep abuses away is
undoubtedly the maxim of political wisdom ;
but so sweep them away that as little disap
pointment, vexation, or pain, be created as pos
sible. A man occupies a situation for which he
is overpaid, but occupies it on an understand
ing with the public authorities that he shall not
be displaced. Is it wise, is it just to displace
him? I care little how that question is an
swered, but of this I am sure, that the greatest-
happiness principle, while it would provide that
no other person should be appointed to succeed
him on the same conditions, would also provide
that he individually should suffer no loss ; that
286 DEONTOLOGY.
the future good to the public should not be
accompanied by present injury to him.
Some rules of positive benevolence and bene
ficence may be made the immediate source of
happiness amidst the daily events of life.
Whenever you have nothing else to do, in
other words, whenever you have no particular
object in view, of pleasure or profit, of imme
diate or remote good, set yourself to do good
in some shape or other ; to men, to sensitive
beings, rational or irrational ; to one or to
many; to some individual, or to the whole race.
In so doing, and in proportion as you do
so, you will be producing a stock of sympathy
and good reputation, laid up in the breasts of
others, ready, upon occasion, to be brought
into action for your advantage. In the mean
time, whatsoever be the result to you or to them,
you will have been giving exercise to your
own powers ; giving exercise to your faculties,
mental and bodily, and, by means of such
exercise, strength. Your reward will be, at
all events, to experience and enjoy the pleasure
of power ; that sort of pleasure which is capable
of being reaped from the mere exercise of
power, independently of all advantage in the
shape of the fruit of labor, or of any other
fruit or result of such exercise.
That pleasure may be reaped from the mere
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 287
exercise of power, independently of all fruit
expected from it, is true beyond dispute : it
is proved so by universal experience. Witness
the pleasure derived from games of skill from
which all pecuniary profit-seeking is excluded:
for example, among mental exercises, chess
and draughts; amongst athletic bodily exer
cises, walking and riding with extraordinary
speed or perseverance.
Again, when your endeavors are directed
towards doing good to an individual, in other
words, to do him service, if there be any option
as to the mode or way, consider and observe
what mode of so being served is most to his
taste.
If you serve him, as you think or say, in
a way which is yours, and not his, the value
of any service may, by an indefinite amount,
be thus reduced. If the action of serving a
man, not in the way in which he wishes to be
served, but in the way in which he ought to
be served, or the way in which it is best for
him to be served, be carried to a certain length,
it becomes tyranny, not beneficence ; an exer
cise of power for the satisfaction of the self-
regarding affection, not an act of beneficence,
for the gratification of the sympathetic or social
affection.
True it is, that so you do but produce to the
288 DEONTOLOGY.
individual in question a balance on the side
of good, the choice as to the quantity you will
produce is yours, and be it greater or less,
your act is an act of beneficence ; but if, by
a little self-restraint, at the end of a little
reflection, you could do good to him in his
own way, or serve him in his own way ; it is bad
economy and weakness, on your part, to choose
to serve him, or do a less good to him, only
because it is your own way, rather than do
more good to him, render him greater service,
as you might do, by serving him in his own
way instead of yours.
A belief, an honest belief, that they are under
the real influences of benevolence, sometimes
leads men to conduct the most intrusive and
tyrannical. Power is usurped for the purpose,
it is supposed, of doing good. The doing good
is beneficent, therefore it ought to be done.
Beneficence is virtue, and virtue must, at all
events, be practised.
Under the shadow of this fallacy, vast
masses of misery have been poured out upon
the world, and that with the most benevolent
intention.
The ground-work of the mischief is this. A
man fancies he knows what is best for other
men; that he is better acquainted with their
sources of happiness than they can be ; that
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 289
he has more appropriate knowledge, and having
more power, that he can turn his knowledge
to good account on their behalf. He has formed
his own estimate of good; he is thoroughly
persuaded that such and such a thing is good,
and being good, he will compel others to
receive and to adopt it, because it is good,
and because he knows, from experience, that
it is so.
Yet despotism never takes a worse shape
than when it comes in the guise of benevolence ;
and is never more dangerous than when it acts
under the impression that it represents bene
ficence.
Pleasures and pains, the sweets and the
bitters of existence, cannot be tried by the
taste of another. What is good for another
cannot be estimated by the person intending
to do the good, but by the person only to whom
it is intended to be done. The purpose of
another may be to increase my happiness, but
of that happiness I alone am the keeper and
the judge. His feelings are not my feelings,
nor can they be ; nor can his feelings be made
to comprehend my feelings, except in so far as,
by observation or by frank communication on
my part, he has mastered my springs of action,
my pleasures arid my pains. But no obser
vation of his, and no communication of mine,
VOL. II. U
290 DEONTOLOGY.
can have made him as much the subject as
I am of my own enjoyments and sufferings ;
and any pretence on his part to understand
them better is a freak of usurpation.
Refrain, then, from doing good to any man
against his will, or even without his consent.
Obtain his consent beforehand, or be sure of
his subsequent consent. If the good you pro
pose to do be really such as, in his estimate
of it, will add to his happiness, no resistance
on his part will there be to your doing it. No
man opposes an increase to his pleasures, when
he sees reason to believe that the increase will
have place. And for his sake do not exhibit,
and for your own sake suppress, any annoyance
that you may feel from his rejection of a good
proffered by you. Your forbearance will be
more truly beneficent than your persistance in a
purpose of greater beneficence.
To this source, to this pretension of doing
good to others in spite of themselves, may be
traced the worst of religious persecutions. They
had their origin in a desire to benefit the per
secuted : to give them some chance of that
eternal happiness, of which their persistance
in error was supposed wholly to deprive them.
And let it not be supposed, that those misdeeds
which have flooded the world with misery are
to be attributed to malignant intentions. To
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 291
do evil for its own sake is not in the nature
of man. The most horrible of offences, the
most devastating and murderous of crimes, if
followed up to their origin, will be found only
a distortion of the happiness-seeking principle ;
the creation of a misery, intending to prevent
a greater misery, but mistaking its purpose
and miscalculating its means. And of such
mistakes and such miscalculations none has
been more prolific than the despotism of bene
volent intention ; a despotism taking no account
of the parties it subjects to its influence ; a
despotism setting up its own standard for other
men s happiness. A man who, on principle,
pretends to be, or is in reality, a benefactor,
in spite of, or in opposition to him he intends
to benefit, is among the most maleficent of
tyrants: beneficent or not in purpose, he is
necessarily maleficent in effect.
The motives to seek the good opinion of
others will be strong, in the proportion of the
power of others to do us service. Inferiority
of social position diminishes the means of be
nevolent action, and scarcely allows those of
positive beneficence to be brought at all into
operation. There are two methods of winning
the friendly sympathies of superiors : by accom
modating ourselves to their wishes and plea
sures, or by the display of talents in whose
292 DEONTOLOGY.
exercise they may see an after-interest, and
feel the desire of appropriating them to their
service. But this latter case requires pre
eminence of talents, and therefore is at the
disposal of few: the other means are at the
disposal of all.
Rising in the scale of superiority, man rises
in that of usefulness. Superiority is, in fact, the
representative of power ; power in its various
shapes ; the power of good and the power of
evil. To associate all the power we have with
the exercise, and hence with the habit of effec
tive benevolence, is to give to virtue its widest
scope. By what is the exercise of that bene
volence to be limited ? By nothing, as respects
objects susceptible of pain or pleasure ; by no
limits of family, or clanship, or province, or
nation : no, not even by the boundaries of
the human species ; but by the considerations
of prudence alone. Prudence must not allow
the individual to sacrifice more happiness than
he gains. Benevolence demands that, to the
common stock of happiness, every man should
bring the largest possible contribution.
To this diffusive spirit of benevolence it has
been commonly objected, that it weakens the
ties of friendly and family relations, and gives
less of enjoyment to the many than it takes
from the few. But why should it? Is it found
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 293
by experience that the really philanthropic man
is the man most wanting in domestic affections?
Are the tone and temper which constitute bene
volence likely to find no fit exercise among
those who are habitually in contact with them ?
Or must not the social principle be essentially
strong and influential, when it enables its
possessor to act upon the wide field of public
happiness ? In general, so far from neglecting
the enjoyments of those immediately dependent
on him, the true lover of his race brings into
the circle of their enjoyments the re-action of
the beneficent influences, which he exercises
on the vaster scale ; his contributions to the
happiness of mankind are so much in addition
to the happiness he creates in his own social
sphere. Let no man apprehend for himself or
others, that he can produce too much good, or
remove too much evil. It is not on the side
of expansive benevolence that his mistakes are
likely to be made. Let him do all the good
he can, and wherever he can, he will never do
too much for his own happiness, or the hap
piness of others.
The immorality of acts of maleficence may
be greatly heightened by the want of tempta
tion ; that is, in cases where the pleasure
purchased is small to the evil-doer, from the
absence of want, or other cause, contrasted
294 DEONTOLOGY.
with the injury done to the sufferer. Thus, the
rich man who is a despoiler, commits an offence
far more culpable than one of the same cha
racter committed by a poor man. And, in the
regions of active or positive beneficence, where
the good done has required some special effort,
in consequence of the situation of the good-
doer, the merit (always supposing the laws of
prudence not to be violated) will be great, in
proportion to the sacrifice. As a mischievous
act will naturally be considered evidence of a
man s malignity, should its natural consequence
be the production of other mischievous acts,
so those acts of beneficence will be worthy
of the highest praise, whose result and effect
are the creation of other acts of beneficence ;
in other words, should the one deed of virtue be
prolific of other deeds of virtue.
The exercise of positive efficient benevolence
towards inferiors brings with it increase of the
power which constitutes superiority. Of two
men occupying a position of equality as regards
others, the man who contributes most to the
happiness of those others will infallibly become
the most influential : will dispose of a greater
quantity of service. He will strengthen his
position by augmenting the number of his good
deeds. Every benefit conferred on others will
be prolific to himself. And the benefits con-
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 295
ferred on others increase the power of others ;
and the increase of power in the hands of those
willing to do him service, is the increase of his
own power. The compound interest brought
to effective benevolence by deeds of benevo
lence, is happily limitless. Of the seeds scat
tered by the husbandry of virtue, few will turn
out barren.
And the gratitude exhibited towards a man
who has benefited us, is, on our parts, an act of
positive beneficence.
It may be laid down as a general principle,
that a man becomes rich in his own stock
of pleasures, in proportion to the amount he
distributes to others. His opulence will be the
offspring of his generosity. Every time he
creates to himself a pleasure, by the commu
nication of a pleasure, or the suppression of a
pain, he increases the sum of his own hap
piness, directly, speedily, surely. Every time
he renders a service to another, he augments
the amount of his own happiness, indirectly,
remotely, slowly ; but in both cases his well-
being will be added to by his benevolence.
What then? Where no means are at hand
for increasing your happiness directly, employ
yourself in increasing it indirectly. In the
field of active benevolence there is always work
to be done.
296 DEONTOLOGY.
You have the night for repose. How better
can you employ the day than in the pursuit
of happiness ? You cannot always add to your
stock by direct means ; it is surely better to
do so by indirect means than not to add to
it at all. Those indirect means are labors of
beneficence.
You have solitary pleasures, perhaps. You
smoke your pipe, you drink your coffee alone.
You do well, if your enjoyment causes nobody
annoyance. But how are your thoughts em
ployed? They cannot be better employed than
in turning over in your mind all those oppor
tunities of usefulness which, though they seem
primarily to concern others, yet have the faculty
of bringing happiness home to yourself.
Promptitude has been mentioned as one of
the evidences of effective benevolence. In
general much pain is saved, and sometimes
much pleasure communicated by early atten
tion. While delay lasts, false hopes are excited,
and the mind is kept on the rack by painful
expectation. In public functionaries, where
the points of consideration are often of the
greatest importance, and the anxieties of the
applicant, therefore, the greater, the virtue
which avoids procrastination is peculiarly me
ritorious. It is pleasant to speak of a depart
ment where promptitude appears the order of
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 297
the day. The Secretary of the Post-office is
said to give immediate attention to every appli
cation. It is an honorable distinction, and
worthy of all praise. On every occasion in
which the virtue is exercised, if something is
not added to happiness, something is taken
away from anxiety.
If, from day to day, our recollection recorded
the little circumstances which had given us
pleasure in the conduct of others, in order to
dispose us to imitation for the benefit of others ;
and, on the other hand, if the causes of annoy
ance created by others were reverted to in our
intercourse with our own minds, solely for the
purpose of guarding against them in our rela
tions with our fellow men, no day would pass
without treasuring up some addition to the
store of virtue.
You leave your house in the morning. Many
circumstances may occur in which the know
ledge of the hour of your return would be
useful, useful to your inmates, useful to stran
gers. Mention, therefore, the time when you
will probably be at home, and be sure that the
information be as correct as your thoughtful
anticipation will allow it to be. Wilful mis-
statement will be more mischievous than silence :
it will lower your reputation for veracity. Heed
less mis-statement, though not equally per-
298 DEONTOLOGY.
nicious with intended mis-statement, will be
almost equally liable to cause annoyance.
A stranger calls. You are at home. Keep
him not waiting. His time is not yours, nor
are you to judge of its value. If he call on you
by appointment, his claim on your prompt at
tention is undoubted. Out of his weariness
from being kept in attendance, will grow loss of
reputation to yourself, and when admitted, his
frame of mind will be less pleasurable, less fit
ted for the discussion and dispatch of the busi
ness that has brought him to you. The habitual
practice of requiring inferiors to lose their time
in waiting-rooms, is one of the ordinary mis
deeds of aristocratical and official pride. If the
amount of annoyance suffered in the anti-cham
ber of many a great man could be added up,
and presented to him in its results, he might be
made to blush at the quantity of useless misery
he had created. A great portion of the aliment
of pride is suffering ; suffering gratuitously
created by itself, for its own good pleasure,
without bringing any addition to those elements
of power, the possession of which is pride s
main ambition. On the contrary, pride saps
its own foundation by the intrusive display of
its influence. To be proud of the power of
doing evil is something ; to be proud of possess
ing the power without exercising it is something
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 299
better ; but to be proud because our pride has
made others unhappy, is an exhibition of vice
equally maleficent and mean.
The laws of good-breeding might be pro
perly classed under the pleasures of amity, to
which they belong. They demand, as depen
dent upon positive efficient benevolence in the
ordinary intercourse of life, the doing all those
services, the creating all those pleasures against
which neither prudence nor beneficence in their
regions of wider influence have aught to object.
Good-breeding, when it degenerates into for
mality or ceremoniousness, loses the charm of
beneficence. Separately taken, acts of good-
breeding are of small importance. Added to
gether, the amount of pain and pleasure depen
dent on them will be found to be very consider
able. Good-breeding is a quality perpetually
in demand, while conducting our relations with
others ; for there is scarcely any one action
which may not be made instrumental to more
or less of pain or pleasure, that pain or pleasure
dependent often on the good or ill grace with
which the action is done.
No man can have opened his eyes upon the
events of every day, without perceiving how con
stantly the occasions occur in which the benevo
lent person is placed in advantageous contrast to
the unbenevolent. No man but mav have remark-
300 DEONTOLOGY.
ed at how small a sacrifice of self, some persons
win the good affections of others, and find occa
sions for the exercise of friendly sympathies,
which either wholly escape the attention or the
regard of minds less happily constituted or
less virtuously trained.
You are travelling, for example, in a public
carriage, shut up with others, and mutually de
pendent for the pleasures or annoyances of your
position. Now watch how many subjects of
contention may arise. Shall the windows, one
or both, be shut or open? One man will shut
or open them in spite of the remonstrances of
all the rest. On that occasion, as far as that
act is concerned, his maleficence would be maxi
mized ; another man would do so against the re
monstrances of one passenger, the others contin
uing silent ; a third would do so without having
heard or consulted the opinions of the others.
The line of true morality, as of genuine courtesy,
would be to consult the majority, and if in an
individual case there were any special cause of
annoyance, or gratification from the opening or
shutting the window, to state that case for the
consideration of the rest. But suppose the rest
were unreasonable ? It is a rare case, but it
would still be more for the interest of the rea
sonable person to give way.
Which side of the coach shall I occupy ?
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 301
Suppose a case, a frequent one, that a fellow
passenger suffers from riding in a particular
position, say with his back to the horses, or
from being forced to lean on the right side
or the left, beneficence would demand from me
that I who suffer little, or less, or not at all
from that particular position, should surrender
my place to him who suffers more. But by
surrendering it, I abandon a right ; a right whose
recognition is important for the general good ;
a right whose recognition prevents mistakes,
quarrels and their consequences. No doubt it
is so ; no doubt I make some sacrifice ; but I do
so in the interests of benevolence. I aban
don a small temporary pleasure in order to com
municate to another a greater temporary plea
sure. I have added to the amount of happiness ;
I have excited gratitude ; I have done good to
myself and to another.
The coach stops, a passenger expresses a
desire for food ; says he is hungry or thirsty ;
he had not time to eat before the coach started ;
and asks his fellow passengers to consent to a
short delay. They have the power, the right
to refuse him the gratification. Should they ?
Certainly not, unless the delay were unreason
able ; for the pains of hunger may be greater in
his case than any pains growing out of that
short delay.
The dinner-time arrives. The same passen-
302 DEONTOLOGY.
ger having satisfied his own wants, becomes
impatient, and attempts to shorten the average
duration and enjoyment of the meal. Here is
again a conflict of wills and interests. Does
benevolence demand that the individual will
should be submitted to by the rest ? On the
contrary, it is a fit occasion for resistance, and
for the display of the popular sanction ; for a les
son gently and not intrusively given, that those
who had exhibited patience and kindness to
wards the passenger just before, are intitled to
his consideration then ; but it is no occasion for
vituperation or anger. Even self-regarding pru
dence would check these, and demand that
only as much pain should be given to the party
offending as was necessary to prevent a repeti
tion of the offence : for what is to be gained by
his ill-will ? He is your companion, and being
so, many opportunities of manifesting his ill-
will, will be in his power during the remainder
of the journey, and by these you may suffer.
Why then should he be rebuked at all ? Be
cause the interests of the community require
that such a want of beneficence should not be
unnoticed; because, if the instruction be judi
ciously conveyed, it is not unlikely that to the
person himself the vexations may be saved
which a repetition of his offence would bring
with it.
A subject of conversation is started. It is ob-
POSITIVE EFFICIENT BENEVOLENCE. 303
viously painful to one of the parties. Opinions,
political or religious, are expressed which wound
the sensibilities of a fellow-traveller. Is it an
occasion to rebuke the speaker ? In ordinary
cases not, unless the case be one of more than
common impropriety ; but often there is a very
obvious claim on benevolence for endeavoring
to give another turn to the conversation. And
the course taken should be such as least to
annoy the annoy er and the annoyed. It is not
necessary to show that you have been hurt by
what may have been a want of temper, or a
want of liberality, on the part of him who has
been irritated by the expression of opinions hos
tile to his own ; it is not necessary that you
should give pain to the speaker who, in the in
troduction of a disagreeable topic, had, perhaps,
no intention to hurt the feelings of his neighbor.
Check not the conversation, then, by imperious
reproof, nor even by any species of animadver
sion ; the animadversion will not be justifiable
till other means have been tried. If you can
seduce the conversation away to pleasurable
topics, by any other than painful agencies, that
is your duty.
And, as a necessary consequence of this, the
acts of benevolence cannot be better exercised,
on occasions where we are forced, as it were,
into the company of others, than by the choice
304 DEONTOLOGY.
of pleasurable topics of conversation. A little
attention will discover those topics. To detect
what are the peculiar riches of another man s
mind, or experience, or knowledge, is among
the happiest of resources. Its exercise is alike
complimentary to the other party and instructive
to ourselves.
CONCLUSION. 305
CHAPTER VI.
CONCLUSION.
IN pursuing these important inquiries, it is
hoped and believed that the sole disposition
operating on the mind of the writer has been
the promotion of that great interest, the interest
of human happiness, to which reason and mo
rality, if they are of any worth, must be made
subservient. Since to trace errors to their
source is to refute them, there has been no
hesitation in threading the mazes of sophistry,
or following up the aberrations of honest pur
pose, or exposing the sinister interests of dog
matism and self-conceit. When progress shall
have been made in the true philosophy of
morals, investigation may possibly take a bolder
range, and proceed with less anxiety and less
distrust. As matters are, the counsel given in
Roman Catholic countries is the most judicious
counsel which can be offered to the student :
let him, in order to keep clear of mistakes,
believe not the testimony of his own eyes.
Let him be warned, at every turning, to take
VOL. II. X
30G DEONTOLOGY.
care how he trusts to the dictates of his own
senses. But while the Roman Catholic teacher
insists on the prostration of his moral and
intellectual perceptions, before the said teacher
and the church which he represents, the Deon-
tologist asks for the submission of the inqui
rer s faculties to his own felicity. He assumes
nothing but that happiness is the end and aim
of his being, and reasons only on that contin
gency.
While thus prosecuting the interests of truth,
the Deontologist will employ none of the arts
of falsehood. Why need he? What possible
end could he accomplish by it ? Applying to
himself the theory he proposes to others, his
labors are, to him, felicity ; and if he earnestly
intreat the attention of others to the thoughts
he scatters abroad, he asks no welcome for
them, but in so much and in so far as they
are susceptible of becoming to others instru
ments of felicity. He cares not whether the
honors of invention belong to him or not ; for
he is consoled with the reflection, that there are
men who, as wise to their own true interests
as they are zealous in the cause of truth, are
indifferent as to the manner in which they
make the commonwealth their debtor; whether
the discovery of truth is due to their sagacity,
CONCLUSION. 307
the recognition of it to their candor, or the
diffusion of it to their zeal.
Among the highest and brightest hopes of
the Deontologist, upon this he dwells, that he
is laboring, not unsuccessfully, to hasten the
day when opinion will give expression and
effect to the greatest-happiness principle. For
till that time arrives, vast mischiefs and mise
ries, which would not exist but for the preju
dices that sanction them, will continue to walk
abroad and devastate the earth. War, for
example, inadequately grounded, or utterly
groundless war, must infallibly be suppressed
by the progress of a sound morality. Nothing
but the lamentable success of those who, for
personal and sinister interests, have sought to
narrow the field of good-will and sympathy,
could have made those destructive contests,
in which nations have been so constantly en
gaged, appear innocent or laudable. And had
they not found fit instruments in phrases of
delusion, had they not filled men s ears with
the clamors of honor/ glory/ dignity/ and
so forth, till the sounds of human felicity and
human wretchedness could obtain no entrance
there ; had they not, in a word, turned upside
down all that wisdom or benevolence ever
taught, the greatest of scourges and the greatest
308 DEONTOLOGY.
of crimes could not so long have afflicted hu
manity. There is much, there is very much
to be done. Who, of all those who are the
actors in the murderous deeds of war, who but
looks with abhorrence on a solitary murderer ?
Napoleon himself made a boast that he had
never committed a crime !
In the same way, though to an extent less
lamentable, exists the notion that power, rank,
opulence, may convert malevolence into inno
cence, wrong into right. The obtaining money
under false pretences, an offence punished,
when found among the poor, according to
statute, by imprisonment, whipping, or trans
portation ; when carried on by great men, on a
great scale, appears scarcely illaudable. Is the
measure of wretchedness produced by the
crime considered as the measure of wickedness?
Far from it; too often is it the wretchedness
of the criminal. Let him be dirty and untidy
in his apparel; let him use a phraseology
different from that of the opulent ; let him, in
a word, be vulgar, and see how differently, in
ordinary cases, will he be judged and punished,
even by popular opinion. Vulgar is the word
to which the association of dislike attaches ; and
hence the willingness to bring down the fruits
of dislike upon the vulgar. Yet what is the
CONCLUSION. 309
meaning of the epithet ? Vulgar is that which
is in use among the common people. And
what are the common people ? What but the
great majority of the people ? And because a
thing is in use among the great majority of the
people, is that a reason, a sufficient reason that
it should be held in contempt ? Is the exist
ence of a usage among the relatively few,
and among those alone, a reason, an adequate
reason, for its being held in honor ? Poets and
philosophers have not been blind, indeed, to
the enormous injustice of opinion on these
matters ; they have not failed to observe the
impunity with which the errors of the rich are
clothed, and the harshness which scourges the
offences of the poor. Aphorisms, metaphors
in abundance, dance up and down the pages
of moralists, from the biblical books to the
newspaper of this morning, but still nearly
the same measure of injustice is dealt out, and
will be dealt out, until men shall see that
virtue is made up of pleasures, vice of pains,
and that morality is but the maximization of
happiness.
The state of opinion as to duels is alike
unfortunate and immoral. Take an ordinary
case, in which the popular sanction may be said
to be leagued with evil. A man imputes to
310 DEONTOLOGY.
another a wilful falsehood ; and here, in ordi
nary judgment, a man is authorised to destroy
another s life, and to risk his own. Could the
magnitude of the suffering be less appropriately
weighed against the demand for it? A false
hood has been uttered, and the life of the
utterer is to be staked in consequence ; and
because the falsehood has been uttered, an
innocent person, already, perhaps, suffering from
its utterance, is placed on a level with the
guilty, and compelled to risk his own life.
Could a more monstrous distribution of penal
ties be fancied by barbarism? But it was a
falsehood, a wilful falsehood ! And where is
the man who, while he calls upon another to
expiate the falsehood with his life, can boldly
say that he has never uttered a falsehood ; that
he has not done so more than once ; that he has
not done so frequently? The jealousy of
honor, as it is called, if pursued into its
recesses, will be found, far more frequently, the
self-convicted, self-condemning sense of frailty,
the exhibition of inwardly-avowed assailable-
ness, than the evidence of conscious strength
and purity. But in this particular the tribunal
of the vulgar is far more enlightened than that
of the privileged. Duelling has not descended
to the many ; and if, on any occasion, it has
CONCLUSION. 311
attempted to intrude itself among them, ridicule
has been sufficient to stop its progress. The
popular sanction has protected the common
people from a folly monopolized by their
betters; and the benefit of the example of that
many may one day act with salutary influ
ence upon the few/
It is thus, by gathering up, wherever they
are found, the elements of good, by giving
patronage to whatever exists of truth, virtue,
and happiness, and more especially where they
are found spreading over a wide field of thought
and action, it is thus, by putting into every
man s hand an instrument of power and an
instrument of felicity, that the work, the great
work of morality advances. If each man, for
himself, will seek emancipation from those
fraudful delusions by which his own well-being
is sacrificed ; if each man, while thinking of the
well-being of others, will ask the true meaning
of the words and the things by which social
and national affairs are conducted ; if he will
bring down the pompous phraseology of the
eloquent into the regions of his own and other
men s happiness ; if he will strip influential
opinions of the artful decorations of interest
and passion ; if he have the courage to ask,
Shew me, then, the good, and shew me the
312 DEONTOLOGY,
evil : exhibit to me what there is of enjoyment,
and what there is of suffering/ the seed
planted by true morality will be indeed ripen
ing to an abundant harvest, and the reapers will
be the whole family of man.
But, alas ! not such has been the course of
those who have had the monopoly of morals
in their hands : those who, seated in pomp
and pretence, loaded with dignities, riches, and
honors, have taught that it was sacrilege to
doubt their authority, impious to resist their
decrees.
And what have been their tactics, and what
their conquests ?
Theirs the art to cover their advances from
the eyes of the people, and their usurpations
from the scrutiny of the conscience of the
people.
They have taught mankind to be silent, se
cret, submissive, accommodating : to hate inno
vations, to join those with alacrity who would
stop up the inlets at which light may enter, in
order to save them the fatigue of examining
projects which distress their indolence, and
the vexation of being obliged to adopt measures
which oppose a bar to their cupidity. Why
should these worldly ones insult weakness,
and ignorance, and mediocrity, with the demon-
CONCLUSION. 313
strations of wisdom ? They know that, to avoid
being tempted, the safest plan is to close up
the entrance of wisdom into the minds of the
people.
How many are there who, for six days, have
the Mammon of unrighteousness, of intrigue,
of avidity, of fraud, of insincerity, of time
serving, of debasement, in their hearts, and
who dream of settling matters easily if, on the
seventh, the gospel of righteousness, or what
they call the gospel of righteousness, is in their
ears?
How many are there, who live in the habitual
practice of what themselves call perjury, and
in the still more flagitious tyranny of forcing
that perjury upon others, who rise to vow-
breaking as to their breakfast, and sleep on it
as their pillow ?
Are they not the nurses of that corruption
which is the child of weakness : are they not
the teachers of that profligacy which is the
parent of crime ?
In the course of these volumes, it will have
been seen, that mathematical terms have been
sometimes employed ;; and their employment
requires explanation, in order that two dangers
may be guarded against.
One is, that some people will think mathe-
VOL. II. Y
314 DEONTOLOGY.
matical certainty attained : others, who see
very well that it is not attained, will think it
affected. It is not attained, neither is it affected.
It is not mathematical modes of expression that
can give mathematical certainty, to the facts
which are necessarily put forward, as the foun
dation of the notions advanced, but they may
serve, in a certain degree, to give mathematical
precision to those notions.
But the inadequacy and insufficiency of lan
guage is a source of equal embarrassment to
the writer and the reader. Moral philosophy
will, in the course of time, probably create
better modes of expression, in proportion as
moral truths force their way into men s minds,
and the poverty of existing terms is conse
quently felt. Meanwhile, such words must be
employed as are found ready-made to the hands
of the teacher : all that he can permit himself
to do is now and then to venture upon a new
locution. And though, in the progress of this
work, the necessity of making such experiments
has been strongly felt, yet have they been
sparingly and unfrequently ventured on.
Will these volumes find mercy at the hands
of dogmatism? Probably not! Yet, it is hoped,
humbly and earnestly hoped, that the im-
pugner of the greatest-happiness principle, be
CONCLUSION. 315
he whom he may, will bring forward cases
to which it does not apply. This it is incum
bent on him to do, if he mean to conduct a
controversy in the love of truth and the spirit
of honesty. A standard of morals is here pro
posed. Its dictates are clear and intelligible.
He who runs may read ; and it is believed that
it has the merit of universal, invariable appli
cability. If men retreat from it into the regions
of mysticism, all that its advocate will have
to say is, that he stands in the light, while its
adversaries shroud themselves in darkness. If
authority comes with arbitrary and despotic
mandates, the Deontologist has only to tell
mankind that he reasons, but does not menace.
If crabbed asceticism pronounce evil to be the
real good, the advocate of happiness can but
retort, that to him evil is evil. And the world
will decide between them ; the world, which
will create its own futurity, which has its own
felicity in its own keeping, and which will
hereafter give to the disputants of the present
day the influence which unto it shall seem
good.
For the earnestness with which the cause of
happiness has been advocated, can an apology
be needed ? It is a cause, in the presence of
which every thing else really sinks into insig
nificance. It is a cause, beyond which man
316 DEONTOLOGY.
has nothing to desire, nothing to accomplish.
It is the sole link which binds him to the
present, the past, or the future. It is the
treasury in which all he has, all he hopes
for, is up-gathered. Happy he who points
out the edifice, happier still who unlocks the
portal.
THE END.
LONDON:
C. AND W. REYNELL, PRINTERS,
LITTLE rULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET.
BINDiNG S^CT. UtU 1
Bentham, Jeremy
Deontology *
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