Practical ethics; a collection of addresses and essays

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PRACTICAL ETHICS

PRACTICAL ETHICS

A COLLECTION OF

ADDRESSES AND ESSAYS

BY

HENRY SIDGWICK

Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Cambridge

author of
"thh methods of ethics"; "the elements of politics"

ETC. etc.

'- UNIV

LONDON
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., Lim.

NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
1898

THE ETHICAL LIBRARY.

Edited by Professor J. H. Muirhead, M.A. (Oxen.)

The Civilization of Christendom, and other Studies.

By Bernard Bosanquet, M.A. (Oxon.), LL.D. (Glas.) 4j. 6./.

Short Studies in Character.

By Sophie Bryant, D.Sc. (Lond.) 4s. ^d.

Social Rights and Duties.

By Leslie Stephen. 2 vols. 9j.

The Teaching of Morality in the Family and the School.

By Sophie Bryant, D.Sc. (Lond.) Zs.

Practical Ethics.

By Professor H. Sidgwick. 4j. 6^.

Other Volumes to follow.

PREFACE

THE greater part of the present volume consists
of addresses delivered before one or other of
the Ethical Societies that were founded some ten
years ago in London and Cambridge. These societies
were partly — though not entirely — modelled on the
" Societies for Ethical Culture " which had been
started in America a few years before : they aimed
at meeting a need which was believed to be widely
felt for the intelligent study of moral questions with a
view to elevate and purify social life. At the first
meeting of the Cambridge Ethical Society, in May,
1888, I endeavoured, in an address which I have
placed first in this volume, to set forth my con-
ception of the work that the Society might profitably
undertake. Four years later, at a meeting of the
London Ethical Society, of which I was at the time
President, I attempted a somewhat fuller analysis
of the aims and methods of such an association.
This stands second in the volume. In three other
addresses, delivered before one or other of these
societies, I endeavoured to apply my general con-
ception to particular topics of interest and difficulty

vi PREFACE

—the "Morality of Strife," the "Ethics of Con-
formity," and " Luxury." These stand respectively
fourth, fifth, and seventh in the volume. These
addresses, except the first, have already appeared in
the International Journal of Ethics,

Along with these addresses I have included four
papers, having, either in whole or in part, similarly
practical aims. Two of these, on " Public Morality "
and " Clerical Veracity," and part of a third, on
the " Pursuit of Culture," are published here for
the first time. I have placed each of the three either
before or after the address that appeared most
cognate in subject. The connection is closest in the
case of the paper on " Clerical Veracity " ; which is,
in fact, a fuller exposition — called forth by contro-
versy— of my views on a portion of the subject
of the address that precedes it. The last paper in
the volume — on " Unreasonable Action " — I have not
included without some hesitation, as it was written
primarily from a psychological rather than a practical
point of view : but on the whole it appeared to
me to have sufficient ethical interest to justify its
inclusion.

HENRY SIDGWICK.

Newnham College, Cambridge,
November^ 1897.

CONTENTS

I, The Scope and Limits of the Work of an

Ethical Society.

II. The Aims and jMethods of an Ethical Society

«^III. Public Morality

- IV. The Morality of Strife

- V. The Ethics of Religious Conformity

^VI. Clerical Veracity .

. VII. Luxury . . . •

/VIII. The Pursuit of Culture

IX. Unreasonable Action

PAGE

I

23
52

83

142
178

^ UM'

I.

THE SCOPE AND LIMITS OF THE WORK
OF AN ETHICAL SOCIETY*

I HAVE to ask you to regard this as a preliminary
meeting of the newly-formed Ethical Society,
which will commence its ordinary meetings in the
Michaelmas Term. This preliminary meeting is held
with the view of arriving by frank discussion at a
more full and clear notion of the aims and methods
of such a society than could conveniently be given
in the printed definition of its objects that has been
circulated.

In order to set an example of frankness, I will
begin by saying that I am not myself at all sanguine
as to the permanent success of such a society in
realizing what I understand to be the design of its
founders, i.e., to promote through discussion the
interests of practical morality. I think that failure

* An address delivered at the preliminary meeting of the Cambridge
Ethical Society, Friday, May i8th, 1888.

B

THE SCOPE AND LIMITS OF

in such an undertaking is more probable than
success : but, lest this prognostication should be too
depressing, I hasten to add that while permanent
success in realizing what we aim at would be a result
as valuable as it would be remarkable, failure would
be a very small evil ; indeed, it would not necessarily
be an evil at all. Even supposing that we become
convinced in the course of two or three years that we
are not going to attain the end that we have in view
by the method which we now propose to use, we
might still feel — I have good hope that we shall
feel — that our discussions, so far as they will have
gone, will have been interesting and, in their way,
profitable ; though recognizing that the time has
come for the Ethical Society to cease, we may
still feel glad that it has existed, and that we have
belonged to it.

This cheerfully pessimistic view — ^^if I may so
describe it — is partly founded on an experience
which I will briefly narrate.

Many years ago I became a member of a Meta-
physical Society in London ; that was its name,
although it dealt with ethical questions no less than
those called metaphysical in a narrow sense. It
included many recognized representatives of different
schools of thought, who met animated, I am sure, by
a sincere desire to pursue truth by the method of

THE WORK OF AN ETHICAL SOCIETY. 3

discussion; and sought by frank explanation of their
diverse positions and frank statement of mutual
objections, to come, if possible, to some residuum
of agreement on the great questions that concern
man as a rational being — the meaning of human
life, the relation of the individual to the universe,
of the finite to the infinite, the ultimate ground of
duty and essence of virtue. Well, for a little while
the Society seemed to flourish amazingly ; it was
joined by men eminent in various departments of
practical life — statesmen, lawyers, journalists, bishops
and archbishops of the Anglican and of the Roman
persuasion : and the discussions went on, monthly
or thereabouts, among the members of this hetero-
geneous group, without any friction or awkwardness,
in the most frank and amicable way. The social
result was all that could be desired ; but in a few
years' time it became, I think, clear to all of us that
the intellectual end which the Society had proposed
'^ to itself was not likely to be attained ; that, speaking
broadly, we all remained exactly where we were,

" Affirming each his own philosophy,"

and no one being in the least convinced by any one
else's arguments. And some of us felt that if the
discussions went on, the reiterated statement of
divergent opinions, the reiterated ineffective appeals

THE SCOPE AND LIMITS OF

to a common reason which we all assumed to exist,
but which nowhere seemed to emerge into actuality,
might become wearisome and wasteful of time. Thus
the Metaphysical Society came to an end ; but we
were glad — at least, I certainly was glad — that we
had belonged to it. We had not been convinced by
each other, but we had learnt to understand each
other better, and to sympathize, in a certain sense,
with opposing lines of thought, even though we were
unable to follow them with assent.

I have not, however, brought in this comparison
merely to show why I am not afraid of failure ; I
have brought it in partly to introduce one counsel
that I shall give to the Ethical Society with the view
of escaping failure, viz., that it should be as much
as possible unlike in its aims to the Metaphysical
Society to which I have referred. I think we should
give up altogether the idea of getting to the bottom
of things, arriving at agreement on the first prin-
ciples of duty or the Summum Bonum. If our
discussions persist in taking that line, I can hardly
doubt that we shall imitate the example of failure
that I have just set before you; we shall not convince
each other, and after a little while each of us, like
>^ the Irish juryman, will get tired of arguing with so
many other obstinately unreasonable persons. In
the Metaphysical Society we could not avoid this ; a

THE WORK OF AN ETHICAL SOCIETY. 5

metaphysician who does not try to get to the bottom
X of things is, as Kant would say, an " Unding " : he
has no raison d'etre. But with our Ethical Society
the case is different ; the aim of such an Ethical
Society, in the Aristotelian phrase, is not knowledge
but action: and with this practical object it is not
equally necessary that we should get to the bottom
of things. It would be presumptuous to suppose
that in such a Society as this, including, as we hope,
many members whose intellectual habits as well as
their aims are practical rather than speculative, we
can settle the old controversies of the schools on
ethical first principles ; but it may be possible by
steering clear of these controversies to reach some
results of value for practical guidance and life. But
how exactly are we to do this ?

The question may be put in a more general form,
in which it has a wider and more permanent interest
than we can presume to claim for the special purpose
for which we are met here to-night. What, we may
ask, are the proper lines and limits of ethical dis-
cussion, having a distinctly practical aim, and carried
on among a miscellaneous group of educated persons,
who do not belong exclusively to any one religious
sect or philosophical school, and possibly may not
have gone through any systematic stud}' of philo-
sophy t The answer that I am about to give to this

THE SCOPE AND LIMITS OF

question must not be taken as in any way official,
nor do I intend it to be in any way cut and dried. I
should like to be free to adopt a materially different
view as the result of further experience and inter-
change of opinions. But at present the matter
presents itself to me in this light. Moralists of all
schools have acknowledged — and usually empha-
sized, each from his own point of view — that broad
agreement in the details of morality which we
actually find both among thoughtful persons who
profoundly disagree on first principles, and among
\ plain men who do not seriously trouble themselves
about first principles. Well, my view is that we
ought to start with this broad agreement as to the
dictates of duty, and keeping close to it, without
trying to penetrate to the ultimate grounds, the first
principles on which duty may be constructed as a
rational system, to make this general agreement
somewhat more explicit and clear than it is in ordinary
thought. I want to advance one or two degrees in
the direction of systematizing morality without
hoping or attempting to go the whole way ; and
in the clearer apprehension of our common
morality thus gained to eliminate or reduce the
elements of confusion, of practical doubt and dis-
agreement, which, at the present day at least, are
liable to perplex even the plainest of plain men.

THE WORK OF AN ETHICAL SOCIETY.

I sometimes wonder whether the great Bishop
Butler, who lays so much emphasis on the clear-
ness and certainty of the dictates of a plain
man's conscience, — I wonder whether this generally
cautious thinker would use quite the same language
if he lived now. It certainly seems to me that
the practical perplexities of the plain man have
materially increased in the century and a half that
have elapsed since the famous sermons to which I
refer were preached. Take, e.g.^ the case of com-
passion. The plain man of Butler's time knew
that when he heard the cry of distress he ought to
put his hand in his pocket and relieve it ; but now
he has learnt from newspapers and magazines that
indiscriminate almsgiving aggravates in the long run
the evils that it attempts to cure; and, therefore
now, when he hears the cry of woe, it is apt to
^ stir in his mind a disagreeable doubt and conflict,
instead of the old simple impulse. Well, there is
a solution to this perplexity, on which thinkers of
the most different schools and sects would probably
agree : that true charity demands of us money, but
also something more than money : personal service,
sacrifice of time and thought, and — after all — a
patient endurance of a partially unsatisfactory result,
\ acquiescence in minimizing evils that we cannot
cure.

THE SCOPE AND LIMITS OF

But this answer, though it does not raise any of
the fundamental questions disputed in the schools,
is yet not altogether trite and obvious ; to give it
in a fully satisfactory form needs careful thinking
over, careful development and explanation. Thus
this case may serve to illustrate my view of the
general function of ethical debate, carried on by such
a society as ours : to bring into a more clear and
consistent form the broad and general agreement
as to the particulars of morality which we find
among moral persons, making explicit the general
conceptions of the good and evil in human life, of
the normal relation of a man to his fellows, which
this agreement implies. We should do this not
vaguely, but aiming cautiously at as much precision
as the subject admits, not avoiding difficulties, but
facing them, so as to get beyond the platitudes of
copybook morality to results which may be really
of use in the solution of practical questions ; and
yet not endeavouring to penetrate to ultimate
principles, on which — as I have said — we can
hardly hope to come to rational agreement in the
present state of philosophical thought. We must
remain as far as possible in the " region of middle
axioms " — if I may be allowed the technical term.
But how shall we mark off this region of dis-
cussion, in which we look for middle axioms, from

THE WORK OF AN ETHICAL SOCIETY.

the region in which first principles are sought ?
Well, I shall not try to do this with any definite-
ness, for if I did I should inevitably pass over
into the region that I am trying to avoid ; I should
illustrate the old Greek argument to prove the
necessity of philosophizing. "We must philoso-
phize, for either we ought to philosophize, or, if
we ought not, we must philosophize in order to
demonstrate that we ought not to philosophize."
So if I tried to make definite our general con-
ception of the kind of topics we ought to avoid,
I should be insensibly drawn into a full discussion
of these topics. I shall, therefore, leave the line
vague, and content myself with describing some
of the questions that lie beyond it.

To begin, there is all the discussion as to the
nature, origin and development of moral ideas and
sentiments, which — in recent times especially — has
absorbed so large a part of the attention of
moralists ; when we want them to tell us what
morality is, they are apt to slide off into enter-
taining but irrelevant speculations as to how, in
^ pre-historic times, or in the obscurity of the infant's
consciousness, it came to be. I think that, for our
present purposes, we must keep clear of all this ;
we must say, with the German poet, "Wir, wir
leben . . . und der lebende hat Recht." We must

lo THE SCOPE AND LIMITS OF

make as workable a system as we can of our own
morality, taking it as we find it, with an inevitable
element of imperfection and error which I hope
posterity will correct and supplement, just as we
have corrected and supplemented certain errors and
deficiencies in the morality of preceding ages.

So again, I hope we shall not waste words on
the question of the freedom of the will, so promi-
nent in the writings of some moralists. I do not
think that ought to be included among the problems
of practical ethics. Whether, and in what sense,
we could have realized in the past, or can realize
in the future the ideal of rational conduct which
we have not realized, is not needed to be known
for our present purposes. All we need to assume
— and I suppose we may assume this of persons
joining an Ethical Society — is that they have a
desire of a certain force to realize their common
moral ideal, and that they think it will help them
to get their conception of it clearer.

And this leads me to another topic, more difficult
to excise, but which yet I should like to omit.
When we try to get the conception of rational
conduct clear we come upon the " double nature
of Good," which, as Bacon tells us, is "formed in
everything " : we are met with the profound difficulty
of harmonizing the good of the individual with the

THE WORK OF AN ETHICAL SOCIETY. ii

good of the larger whole of which he is a part
or member. In my professional treatment of ethics
I have concerned myself much with this question,
— considering it to be the gravest formal defect of
the Utilitarianism of Mill and Bentham, under whose
influence my own view was formed, that it treats this
problem so inadequately. But I do not want to
introduce it into the discussions of our Society ;
I should prefer to assume — what I think we are
all prepared to assume — that each of us wants to
do what is best for the larger whole of which he
is a part, and that it is not our business to supply
him with egoistic reasons for doing it. In saying
this, I do not dispute his claim to be supplied with
such reasons by any moralist professing to construct
a complete ethical system. When J. S. Mill says,
in the peroration of a powerful address, " I do not
attempt to stimulate you with the prospect of direct
rewards, either earthly or heavenly ; the less we
think about being rewarded in either way the better
for us," I think it is a hard saying, too hard for
human nature. The demand that happiness shall
be connected with virtue cannot be finally quelled
in this way ; but for the purposes of our Society
I am ready to adopt, and should prefer to adopt,
Mill's position.

And this leads me naturally to a point of very

12 THE SCOPE AND LIMITS OF

practical moment — the relation of our Society to

the Christian Churches. For one great function of

the rehgious teaching of the Churches — in all ages

— has been the supply of extra-mundane motives

stimulating men to the performance of duty. Such

motives have been both of higher and lower kinds,

appealing respectively to different elements of our

nature — fears of hell-fire and outer darkness, of

A\. wailing and gnashing of teeth, for the brutal and

selfish element in us, that can hardly be kept down

without these coarse restraints ; while to our higher

part it has been shown how heavenly love in saints

has fused into one the double nature of good ; how

— like earthly love in its moments of intensity — it

has

" Touched the chord of self that trembling passed in music out
of sight."

Well, in all this — if my view be adopted — the Ethical
Society will make no attempt to compete with the
Churches. We shall contemplate the relation of
virtue to the happiness of the virtuous agent, as
we believe it actually to be in the present world,
and not refer to any future world in which we may
hope for compensation for the apparent injustices
of the present. And in thus limiting ourselves to
mundane motives we shall, I hope, keep a middle
path between optimism and pessimism. That is,

THE WORK OF AN ETHICAL SOCIETY. 13

we shall not profess to prove that the apparent

sacrifices of self-interest which duty imposes are

never in the long run real sacrifices ; nor, on the

other hand, shall we ignore or underrate the noble

and refined satisfactions which experience shows to

attend the resolute choice of virtue in spite of all

such sacrifices —

" The stubborn thistles bursting
Into glossy purples, which outredden
All voluptuous garden-roses."

It may, however, be said that it is" not merely the
function of Churches to supply motives for the
performance of duty, but also to teach what duty
is, and that here their work must inevitably coincide
— and perhaps clash — with that undertaken by an
Ethical Society. My answer would be that there
is at least a large region of secular duty in which
thoughtful Christians commonly recognize that an
ideal of conduct can be, and ought to be, worked
out by the light of reason independently of revela-
tion ; and I should recommend our Society to
confine its attention to this secular region. Here
no doubt some of us may pursue the quest of moral
truth by study or discussion in a non-religious spirit,
others in a religious spirit ; but I conceive that we
have room for both. As a Society, I conceive that
our attitude ought to be at once unexciusive as

14 THE SCOPE AND LIMITS OF

regards the non-religious, and unaggressive as re-
gards all forms of Christian creed.

In saying this, I keep in view the difficulty that
many feel in separating at all the ideas of morality
and religion, and I have no wish to sharpen the
distinction. Indeed, I myself can hardly conceive
a working Ethical Society of which the aim would
not include in essentials the apostle's definition of
the pure service of religion. We might characterize
it as the aim of being in the world and yet not of it,
working strenuously for the improvement of mun-
dane affairs, and yet keeping ourselves, as the apostle
says, "unspotted of the world" — that is, in modern
phrase, keeping clear of the compromises with sordid
interests and vulgar ambitions which the practical
standards of all classes and sections of society are
too apt to admit. Of such compromises I will say
a word presently : my point now is that the main-
tenance of an ideal in this sense unworldly must be
the concern of any Ethical Society worthy of the
name, nor do I see why those who habitually con-
template this ideal from a religious point of view
should be unable to co-operate with those who
habitually contemplate it from a purely ethical point
of view. I do not say that there are no difficulties
in such co-operation ; but I am sure that we all
bring with us a sincere desire to minimize these

THE WORK OF AN ETHICAL SOCIETY

difficulties, and if so, I do not see why they should
not be avoided or overcome.

To sum up : the region in which we are to move
I conceive as, philosophically, a middle region, the
place of intermediate ethical generalizations which
we are content to conceive in a rough and approxi-
mate way, avoiding fundamental controversies as far
as we can ; while from a religious point of view it
is a secular but not therefore irreligious region, in
which we pursue merely mundane ends, but yet not
in a worldly spirit.

But it remains to define more clearly its relation
to particular practical problems. In the present age
it is impossible that any group of educated persons,
spontaneously constituted by their common interest
in practical ethics, should not have their attention
prominently drawn to the numerous schemes of
social improvement on which philanthropic effort
is being expended. In this way we may be easily
led in our ethical discussions to debate one after
another such practical questions as, " Shall we work
for State-aided emigration, or promote recreative
education, or try to put down sweating } Shall
we spend our money in providing open spaces for
the poor, or our leisure on a Charity Organization
Committee } " Now I have no doubt myself that
persons of education, especially if they have com-

i6 THE SCOPE AND LIMITS OF

parative wealth and leisure, ought to interest them-
selves in sonae or all of these things ; and I think
it belongs to us in Cambridge, not only to diffuse
a general conviction of the importance of this kind
of work, but also to encourage a searching exam-
ination of the grounds on which particular schemes
are urged on the public attention. But in this
examination a detailed study of social facts
necessarily comes in along with the study of
principles, and — though I have no wish to draw a
hard and fast line — I should be disposed to regard
this study of facts as lying in the main beyond
the province of our Society, whose attention should
be rather concentrated on principles. I should
propose to leave it to some economic or philan-
thropic association to examine how far an alleged
social want exists, and how urgent it is, and by
what particular methods it may best be satisfied
or removed. What we have rather to consider is
how far the eleemosynary or philanthropic inter-
vention of private outsiders in such cases is in
accordance with a sound general view of the relation
of the individual to his society. It is with the
general question, " What social classes owe to each
other," that we are primarily concerned, though in
trying to find the right answer to this question we
may obtain useful instruction from a consideration

THE WORK OF AN ETHICAL SOCIETY. 17

of the particular fields of work to which I have
referred.

But the moral problem offered by the social
relations of different classes — though specially
prominent in the thought of the present age — is not
the only problem causing practical perplexities that
such discussions as ours might reduce. There are
many other such problems in our complicated
modern life — even omitting those obviously unfit
for public oral discussion. One class of them which
specially interests me is presented by the divergence
of the current practical standards of particular
sections of the community, on certain points, from
the common moral ideal which the community as
a whole still maintains. We feel that such diver-
gences are to a great extent an evil, the worldliness
which we have to avoid ; but yet we think them
in some degree legitimate, and the difficulty lies
in drawing the line. Any careful discussion of such
deflections must lead to what bears the unpopular
name of Casuistry. I think, however, that the odium
which in the seventeenth century overwhelmed the
systematic discussion by theologians of difficult and
doubtful cases of morals — though undeniably in part
deserved — went to an unreasonable length, and
obscured the real importance of the study against
which it was directed. There is no doubt that

C

i8 THE SCOPE AND LIMITS OF

individuals are strongly tempted to have recourse to
casuistry in order to find excuses for relaxing in
their own favour the restraints of moral rules which
they find inconvenient; and hence a casuist has come
to be regarded with suspicion as a moralist who aims
at providing his clients with the most plausible
excuses available for this purpose. But though
certain casuists have been reasonably suspected of
this misapplication of their knowledge and ingenuity,
the proper task of casuistry has always been quite
different ; the question with which it has properly
been concerned is how far, in the particular circum-
stances of certain classes of persons, the common
good demands a special interpretation or modifi-
cation of some generally accepted moral rule. This,
at any rate, is the kind of casuistical problem that
I have now in view : and I think that any morality
that refuses to deal with such problems must confess
itself inadequate for the practical guidance of men
engaged in the business of the world ; since modifica-
tions of morality to meet the special needs of special
classes are continually claimed, and more or less
admitted by serious and well-meaning persons.
Thus it is widely held that barristers must be
allowed to urge persuasively for their clients
considerations that they know to be false or mis-
leading; that a clergyman may be a most virtuous

THE WORK OF AN ETHICAL SOCIETY. 19

man without exactly believing the creeds he says or
the articles he signs ; that a physiologist must be
allowed to torture innocent animals ; that a general
, in war must be allowed to use spies and at the same
time to hang the spies of the conflicting general. I
do not say that most educated persons would accept
broadly all these relaxations, but that they would at
least admit some of them more or less. Especially
in the action of states or governments as such is
this kind of divergence admitted, though vaguely
and rather reluctantly. When Pope asked — using
the names of two noted criminals :

" Is it for Bond or Peter, paltry things.
To pay their debts or keep their faith like kings ? "

the epigram was undeniably deserved : still we do
not commonly think that governments are bound
to keep their faith quite like private individuals ;
we do not think that repudiating a treaty between
nation and nation is quite like breaking a promise
between man and man. On all these and similar
points I think it would be of real practical utility
if discussion could help us to clearer views. For
there is a serious danger that when the need of
such relaxations is once admitted they may be
carried too far; that, in the esoteric morality of
any particular profession or trade, ordinary morality
will be put aside altogether on certain particular

20 THE SCOPE AND LIMITS OF

questions, as the opinion of ignorant outsiders ; and
no result could be more unfavourable than this to
the promotion of ethical interests.

So far I have been speaking of particular and
limited conflicts between what may be called
sectional morality and general morality. But there
are departments of society and life of which the
relation to ethics is perplexing in a more broad
and general way, just because of the elevated and
ideal character of their aims — I mean art and
science. The practical maxims of some classes of
artists and scientific men are liable to collide with
common morality in the manner just mentioned —
e.g.^ certain painters or novelists may deliberately
disregard the claims of sexual purity — but it is not
of these limited conflicts that I now wish to speak,
but of the perplexity one finds in fixing the general
relation of the ends of Art and Science to moral
ends. Perhaps it will be impossible to deal with this
without falling into the metaphysical controversies
that I have abjured; but the problem often presents
itself to me entirely apart from the questions of
the schools. When I surrender myself to the pur-
suit of truth or the impressions of art, I find myself
in either case in a world absorbing and satisfying
to my highest nature, in which, nevertheless, morality
seems to occupy a very subordinate place, and in

THE WORK OF AN ETHICAL SOCIETY. 21

which — for the more efifective reah'zation of the
aesthetic or scientific ideal — it seems necessary that
morahty should be thus subordinated. The difficulty
seems to be greater in the case of the aesthetic
ideal, because the emotional conflict is greater. The
lover of truth has to examine with neutral curiosity
the bad and the good in this mixed world, in order
to penetrate its laws ; but he need not sympathize
with the bad or in any way like its existence. But
this is harder for the lover of beauty : since evil —
even moral evil — is an element in the contrasts and
combinations that give him the delight of beauty.
If, as Renan says, such a career as Cesar Borgia's
is " beautiful as a tempest or an abyss," it is difficult
for a lover of beauty not to rejoice that there was
a Cesar Borgia. One may even say that in pro-
portion as the sentiment of beauty becomes absorbing
and quasi-religious, this divergence from morality is
liable to become more marked : because what is bad
in a picturesque and exciting way comes to be more
and more felt as discord artfully harmonized in the
music that all things make to God.

Well, is this feeling in any degree legitimate } and
if so, how is it to be reconciled with our moral
aspirations .'' I do not expect to attain a single
cogently-reasoned answer, which all must accept, to
either of these questions. They will probably always

22 THE WORK OF AN ETHICAL SOCIETY.

be somewhat differently answered by different sets
and schools of thoughtful persons. But I think
they may illustrate the kind of questions on which
we may hope to clear up our ideas and reduce
the extent of our mutual disagreement by frank
and sympathetic discussion.

[The limits above suggested were thought to be too
narrow by the leading spirits of the London Ethical
Society. Accordingly, as the reader will see, in the next
address — delivered as President of the latter body — I tried
to adapt my general view of the nature of the work that
such a society might profitably undertake to a wider
conception of its scope.]

II.

THE AIMS AND METHODS OF AN
ETHICAL SOCIETY*

T N taking this opportunity, which your committee
^ has given me, of addressing the London Ethical
Society, in the honourable but gravely responsible
position of their president, I have thought that I
could best fulfil the duties of my station by laying
before you one or two difficulties which have oc-
curred to my mind, in thinking how we are to
realize the declared aims of our Society on the basis
of its declared principles. I hope, indeed, not
merely to put forward difficulties, but to offer at
least a partial solution of them ; but I am conscious
that it is easier to raise questions than to settle them,
and that there is a danger lest the effect of my
remarks may be to repel some minds from the study
which we are combined to promote. Still, after
anxious thought, I have determined to face this

* An address delivered to the London Ethical Society on April 23,
1893, 3-nd published in the International Journal of Ethic s^ October,
1893, under the title " My Station and its Duties,"

23

24 THE AIMS AND METHODS OF

danger. For I do not think we ought to conceal
from ourselves that the task we have proposed to
our Society is one of which the complete accom-
plishment is likely to be very difficult. Indeed,
were it otherwise, it would hardly have been left for
us to accomplish.

I will begin by explaining that the difficulties of
which I am to speak only affect a part of the aims
and work of our Society ; there is another part —
and a most important part — which they do not
affect. The first and most comprehensive of the
aims that we have stated is

" To assist individual and social efforts after right living."

Now, what are the obstacles to right living } Why
does not each of us completely fulfil the duties of
his station }

First, I put aside such obstacles as may seem to
lie in external circumstances and material con-
ditions. I do not mean that such circumstances
and conditions may not cause the gravest hindrances
to right living, which a Society like ours should
make the most earnest efforts to remove. But
important as it is to diminish these hindrances, it is
no less important for an ethical society to lay stress
on the old truth — sometimes apt to be overlooked
in ardent efforts for economic improvement — that it

AN ETHICAL SOCIETY. 25

is possible to act rightly under any material con-
ditions. On this point I need hardly say that there
is an overwhelming agreement among moralists.
The ancient thinkers went too far, no doubt, in
saying that a perfectly wise and good man would
be perfectly happy in the extremest tortures. We
moderns cannot go so far as that ; but we must still
maintain, as a cardinal and essential ethical truth,
that a perfectly wise and good man could behave
rightly even under these painful conditions. In
short, the immediate obstacles to right conduct,
however they may be caused, lie in our minds and
hearts, not in our circumstances.

Looking closer at these obstacles, we find that
they lie partly in the state of our intellect, partly
in the state of our desires and will. Partly we
know our duty imperfectly, partly our motives for
acting up to what we know are not strong enough
to prevail over our inclination to do something else.
The two kinds of obstacles are essentially different,
and must be dealt with by different methods ; each
method has its own problems, and the problems
require very different treatment. In what I am to
say to-day I shall treat mainly of the intellectual
obstacles — the imperfection of knowledge. But
before I proceed to this I will illustrate the manner
in which the two obstacles are combined, by recalling

26 THE AIMS AND METHODS OF

an anecdote from the early history of ethics. It is
told of Socrates that he once met a professional
teacher of Wisdom, who informed him that he had
discovered the true definition of Justice. " Indeed,"
said Socrates, " then we shall have no more dis-
putes among citizens about rights and wrongs, no
more fights of civic factions, no more quarrels and
wars between nations. It is, indeed, a most magni-
ficent discovery ! "

Now, the first impression that this remark makes
on us is that Socrates is speaking ironically, as no
doubt he partly is. We know that men and nations
continually commit injustice knowingly ; we remem-
ber the old fable of the wolf and the lamb — where
the wolf pleads his own cause, and then pronounces
and immediately executes sentence of capital punish-
ment on the weaker animal — and we surmise that
the practical result of this famous debate would not
have been altered by our supplying the wolf with
the clearest possible formula of justice ; the argu-
ment might have been cut short, but it would have
been all the same in the end to the lamb.

But let us look at the matter again, and we shall
see that the master's meaning is not entirely ironical.
Let us suppose that our notion of justice suddenly
became so clear that in every conflict that is now
going on between individuals and classes and nations,

AN ETHICAL SOCIETY. 27

every instructed person could at once see what
justice required with the same absolute certainty
and exactness with which a mathematician can now
see the answer to a problem in arithmetic ; so that
if might anywhere overbore right, it would have to
be mere naked brutal force, without a rag of moral
excuse to hide its nakedness ; suppose this, and I
think we see at once that though all the injustice in
the world would not come to an end — since there
is a good deal of the wolf still left in man — yet
undoubtedly there would be much less injustice ;
we should still want policemen and soldiers, but
we should have much less occasion for their
services.

Now, let us make a different supposition : let
us suppose the state of our knowledge about justice
unchanged, but all the obstacles on the side of
motive removed ; let us suppose that men's ideas
of their rights are still as confused and conflicting
as they are now, but that every one is filled with
a predominant desire to realize justice, strong enough
to prevail over every opposing inclination. Here
again we must admit that we should not thus get
rid of injustice altogether. I am afraid that it
would still be true, as the poet says, that

" New and old, disastrous feud.
Must ever shock like armed foes,"

28 THE AIMS AND METHODS OF

and we must still look to have serious and even
sanguinary conflicts between nations and parties,
conscientiously inscribing on their banners conflicting
principles of Right. But though unintentional in-
justice of the gravest kind might still be done,
what a reHef it would be to humanity to have got
rid of all intended wrong ; and how much nobler,
less exasperating, more chivalrous, would be the
conflicts that still had to go on, if each combatant
knew that his adversary was fighting with perfect
rectitude of purpose.

I have laid stress on this comparison of imaginary
improvements, because I think that those who are
earnestly concerned for the moral amelioration of
themselves and others are often apt to attend too
exclusively to one or other of the two sets of
obstacles that I have distinguished. They are either
impressed with the evils of moral ignorance, and
think that if anyone really knew what the good
life was, he must live it ; or, what is more common,
they are too exclusively occupied with the defects
of desire and will, and inclined to say that anyone
knows his duty well enough if he would only act
up to his knowledge. Now, I hope we shall agree
that an ethical society worthy of the name must
aim at removing both kinds of defects; success
in both endeavours is necessary for the complete

AN ETHICAL SOCIETY. 29

accomplishment of our task ; but as success in either
is difficult, it may encourage us somewhat to think
how much would be gained by success in only one of
these endeavours, even if the other is supposed to
fail altogether. In the education of the young and
in the practical work of our Society the aim of
developing the motives to right action, of intensi-
fying the desire for the good life, must always be
prominent. This endeavour has its own difficulties
and dangers of failure, and I do not propose to deal
with them to-day. But before I pass on to my
special subject — the other endeavour to remove
the defects of moral knowledge — may I say one
thing, out of my observation of human life, as to
the endeavour I leave on one side. Though the
gift of inspiring enthusiasm for duty and virtue is
like other gifts, very unequally distributed among
well-meaning persons, I do not believe that anyone
who had himself an ardent love of goodness ever
failed entirely to communicate it to others. He may
fail in his particular aims, he may use ill-devised
methods, meet with inexplicable disappointments,
make mistakes which cause him bitter regret; but we
shall find that after all, though the methods may have
failed, the man has succeeded ; somewhere, somehow,
in some valuable degree, he has — if I may use an old
classical image — handed on the torch of his own

30 THE AIMS AND METHODS OF

ardour to others who will run the race for the prize
of virtue.

We are agreed, then, that much may be done if
we simply take the current ideal of what is right,
and earnestly endeavour to develop a desire to realize
it in ourselves and others. But this is not the whole
of our aim. We are conscious of defects in this
current ideal, and it is impossible for us really to care
for it and at the same time to sit down content
with these defects. Hence we state it as our second
aim "to free the current ideal of what is right from
all that is merely traditional and self-contradictory,
and thus to widen and perfect it."

With this view we invite all our members "to
assist in constructing a Theory or Science of Right,
which, starting with the reality and validity of moral
distinctions, shall explain their mental and social
origin, and connect them in a logical system of
thought."

It is to the difficulties involved in the task thus
defined that my thoughts have chiefly turned in
meditating what I was to say to you to-day.

I think that no instructed person can regard it
as other than arduous. Speaking broadly, what we
propose to do is what ancient thinkers had been
trying to do for many centuries, before the Christian
churches monopolized the work of moralizing man-

AN ETHICAL SOCIETY.

kind in this quarter of the globe ; and it is also what
a long line of modern thinkers have been trying to do
for several centuries more, since independent ethical
thought revived in Europe, after the long mediaeval
period of submission to ecclesiastical authority.

Yet the phrase we use — " assist in constructing " —
implies that after all these efforts the construction yet
remains to be effected. We must, then, hardly be
surprised if we do not find it easy.

Still there is a Greek proverb that says "the fine
things are difficult," and I by no means wish to say a
word to dissuade anyone from devoting his energies
to so noble a cause, especially since a large part of
my own life has been spent in working for this end.

And in order that I may be as little discouraging
as possible, I will begin with a difficulty which seems
to me sufficiently important to be worth discussing,
but which I hope to be able to remove completely.

At first sight it might seem as if the task that we
have undertaken, the task of " explaining the mental
and social origin of moral distinctions, and connecting
them in a logical system of thought," was one that
could only be carried out by experts — i.e.y by persons
who have gone through a thorough training in
psychology, sociology, and logic — in short, by
philosophers. But the plan on which our Society
has been framed — and I believe the same is true of

32 THE AIMS AND METHODS OF

all other ethical societies which have been founded —
invites the co-operation of all thoughtful persons who
sympathize with its principles and aims, whether they
are experts in psychology and sociology or not. And
if our movement succeeds, the element of non-experts
is evidently likely largely to outnumber the experts,
unless the philosophers of the community should in-
crease in number more than is to be expected, or
perhaps even desired.

The question then arises, can this unphilosophic
majority really aid in the task of constructing a
Theory of Right which shall eliminate error and
contradiction from current morality, reduce all
valid moral perceptions and judgments to their
elements or first principles, and present them as
connected in a logical system of thought ? Ought
we not, at least, to divide and distribute our task
more clearly and thoroughly ? Does not our in-
vitation at present seem to hand over a work of
intellectual construction, requiring the highest gifts
and the completest training, to persons who are not,
and who cannot be expected to become, duly qualified
for the work ? Will not these untrained builders
build with untempered mortar ?

I have stated this difficulty plainly, because I at
first felt it strongly myself, and therefore think that
others may have felt it. But reflection convinced me

AN ETHICAL SOCIETY. ^-^

that if your society has been right — and I hope
experience may show that it has been right — in
undertaking the noble but arduous task which it
has proposed to itself, there is much to be said for
the broad and comprehensive basis which it has
adopted. There are serious reasons for thinking
that the work undertaken cannot be thoroughly well
done by philosophers alone ; partly because alone
they are not likely to have the requisite knowledge
of facts ; and partly because their moral judgment
on any particular question of duty, even supposing
them to have obtained all available information as
to the particular facts of the case, is not altogether
to be trusted, unless it is aided, checked, and con-
trolled by the moral judgment of persons with less
philosophy but more special experience.

First, as I say, the philosopher's knowledge is likely
to be inadequate for the accomplishment of our aim.
Our aim is to frame an ideal of the good life for
humanity as a whole, and not only for some par-
ticular section ; and to do this satisfactorily and
completely we must have adequate knowledge of
the conditions of this life in all the bewildering
complexity and variety in which it is actually being
lived. This necessity is imposed on us by the modern
ethical ideal which our Western civilization owes to
Christianity. We cannot any longer decline — as

D

34 THE AIMS AND METHODS OF

Aristotle would have declined — to work out an ideal
of good life for mechanics and tradesmen, on the
ground that such persons are incapable of any high
degree of virtue. But if we are to frame an ideal
of good life for all, and to show how a unity of moral
spirit and principle may manifest itself through the
diversity of actions and forbearances, efforts and
endurances, which the diversity of social functions
renders necessary — we can only do this by a com-
prehensive and varied knowledge of the actual
opportunities and limitations, the actual needs and
temptations, the actually constraining customs and
habits, desires and fears, of all the different species
of that " general man " who, as Browning says,
" receives life in parts to live in a whole." And this
knowledge a philosopher — whose personal experience
is often very limited — cannot adequately attain unless
he earnestly avails himself of opportunities of learn-
ing from the experience of men of other callings.

But, secondly, even supposing him to have used
these opportunities to the full, the philosopher's
practical judgment on particular problems of duty
is liable to be untrustworthy, unless it is aided and
controlled by the practical judgment of others who
are not philosophers. This may seem to some a para-
dox. It may be thought that so far as a philoso-
pher has a sound general theory of right, he must

AN ETHICAL SOCIETY. 35

be able to apply it to determine the duties of any
particular station in life, if he has taken due pains
to inform himself as to that station and its cir-
cumstances. And this would doubtless be true if
his information could be made complete ; but this it
cannot be. He can only learn from others the facts
which they have consciously observed and re-
membered ; but there is an important element in
the experience of themselves and their predecessors
— the continuous experience of social generations —
which finds no place in any statement of facts or
reasoned forecast of consequences that they could
furnish ; it is only represented in their judgments
as to what ought to be done and aimed at. Hence
it is a common observation that the judgments of
practical men as to what ought to be done in
particular circumstances are often far sounder than
the reasons they give for them ; the judgments
represent the result of experience unconsciously as
well as consciously imbibed ; the reasons have to
be drawn from that more limited part of experience
which has been the subject of conscious observation,
information, and memory. This is why a moral
philosopher, in my opinion, should always study
with reverent care and patience what I am
accustomed to call the Morality of Common Sense.
By this I do not mean the morality of " the world "

36 THE AIMS AND METHODS OF

— /.^., the moral notions and judgments of persons
who are not seriously concerned about their moral
duty — who are always perhaps in a majority. Such
persons, indeed, have a morality, and it is better
than their actions ; they approve rules which they
do not carry out, and admire virtues which they
do not imitate. Still, taking the morality of the
worldly at its best, it would be wasted labour to
try to construct it into a consistent system of
thought ; what there is in it of wisdom and truth
is too much intermixed with a baser element,
resulting from want of singleness of heart and
aim in those whose thoughts it represents. What
the worldly really want — if I may speak plainly —
is not simply to realize the good life in virtue of
its supreme worth to humanity, but to realize it
as much as they can while keeping terms with
all their appetites and passions, their sordid in-
terests and vulgar ambitions. The morality that the
world works out in different ages and countries
and different sections of society, under the influence
of the spirit of compromise, is not without interest
for the historian and the sociologist ; but it was
not to this mixed stuff that I just now referred
when I said that the moral philosopher should study
with reverent and patient care the Morality of
Common Sense. I referred to the moral judgments

AN ETHICAL SOCIETY. 37

— and especially the spontaneous unreflected judg-
ments on particular cases, which are sometimes
called moral intuitions — of those persons, to be
found in all walks and stations of life, whose
earnest and predominant aim is to do their duty ;
of whom it may be said that

" though they slip and fall,
They do not blind their souls with clay,"

but after each lapse and failure recover and renew
their rectitude of purpose and their sense of the
supreme value of goodness. Such persons are to be
found, not alone or chiefly in hermitages and retreats
— if there are still any hermitages and retreats — but
in the thick and heat of the struggle of active life, in
all stations and ranks, in the churches and outside
the churches. It is to them we have appealed for
aid and sympathy in the great task that we have
undertaken ; and it is to their judgments on the
duties of their station, in whatever station they may
be found, that the moral philosopher should, as
I have said, give reverent attention, in order that
he may be aided and controlled by them in his
theoretical construction of the Science of Right.

Perhaps some of my audience may think that in
what I have just been saying I have been labouring
the wrong point ; that it needs no argument to show
that the moral philosopher, if he tries to work out

38 THE AIMS AND METHODS OF

a reasoned theory of duty by which all the particular
duties of particular stations may find their places in
one harmonious and coherent system, cannot dis-
pense with the aid and guidance of the special moral
experience of practical men ; but that what requires
to be proved is rather that the practical man, who
desires earnestly to know and fulfil the particular
duties of his particular station, has any need of
the philosopher. And certainly I must admit that
there is a widespread opinion, supported by moralists
of great repute, that he has hardly any such need ;
that, as Butler says, " any plain honest man in almost
any circumstances, if, before he engages in any course
of action, he asked himself, ' Is this I am going about
right, or is it wrong ? ' would answer the question
agreeably to truth and virtue." Or if it be granted
that such a plain honest man has any need of philo-
sophers, it is said to be only to protect him against
other philosophers ; it is because there are bad philoso-
phers— what we call sophists — about, endeavouring to
undermine and confuse the plain man's naturally clear
notions of duty, that there has come to be some need
of right-minded thinkers to expose the sophistries
and dispel the confusions. It is held, in short, that if
any assistance can be obtained from the moral philo-
sopher by a plain man who is making serious efforts
after right living, it is not the positive kind of

AN ETHICAL SOCIETY, 39

assistance which a physician gives to those who
consult him for rules of diet, but a merely negative
assistance, such as the policeman gives who warns
suspicious characters off the premises.

This view is so often put forward that I cannot but

infer that it is really very widely entertained, and

that it corresponds to the moral experience of many

persons ; that many plain honest men really do

think that they always know what their duty is — at

any rate, if they take care not to confuse their moral

sense by bad philosophy. In my opinion such

persons are, to some extent, under an illusion, and

really know less than they think. But whether I

could convince them of this, or whether, if I could

convince them, it would be really for their advantage,

are questions which I need not now consider, because

I think it hardly likely that such persons have joined

our Ethical Society in any considerable numbers.

For to practical men of this stamp the construction

of a theory or science of right must seem a work

of purely speculative interest, having no particular

value whatever ; a work, therefore, which persons

who have not studied psychology or sociology

had better leave to those who profess these subjects.

It is not to plain men of this type that our appeal is

made, but rather to those whose reflection has made

them aware that in their individual efforts after right

40 THE AIMS AND METHODS OF

living they have often to grope and stumble along
an imperfectly-lighted path ; whose experience has
shown them uncertainty, confusion, and contradiction
in the current ideal of what is right, and has thus led
them to surmise that it may be liable to limitations
and imperfections, even when it appears clear and
definite. Practical men of this stamp will recognize
that the effort to construct a Theory of Right is not
a matter of mere speculative interest, but of the
deepest practical import ; and they will no more try
to dispense with the aid of philosophy than the
moral philosopher — if he knows his own limitations
-*^will try to dispense with the aid of moral
f/common sense.

Well, may I say that here is one difficulty re-
moved ? But I am afraid that removing it only
brings another into view. We have seen how and
why philosophers are to co-operate with earnest and
thoughtful persons who are not philosophers in con-
structing an ethical system ; but the discussion has
made it evident that the main business of construc-
tion and explanation — on the basis of psychology
and sociology — must be thrown on the philosophers ;
and then the question arises, how are they to co-
operate among themselves } The reason why the
work remains to be done lies in the fundamental
disagreement that has hitherto existed among

AN ETHICAL SOCIETY. 41

philosophers as to the principles and method of
ethical construction ; and so long as this disagree-
ment continues, how is co-operation possible?
Well, I think it may be said on the hopeful side,
that there " is more willingness now to co-operate
than there has been in other times not very remote.
Fundamental disagreements on principles and
methods can only be removed by systematic con-
troversy ; but it was difficult to conduct philo-
sophical controversy in a spirit of mutual aid and
co-operation, so long as philosophers had the bad
habit of arguing in as exasperated a tone as if each
had suffered a personal injury through the publica-
tion of views opposed to his own. This bad habit
has now nearly passed away, and a glance at the
names of our committee will show that moralists of
the most diverse philosophical schools are willing
to combine in the work of an ethical society. But
this willingness does not altogether remove the
difficulty, or rather it removes it as regards a part
of our aims, but not as regards another part. It
is easy to see how philosophers of diverse schools
may, by sympathetic efforts at mutual understand-
ing and interpenetration of ideas, assist each other in
constructing a theory or science of right ; but even
under these favourable conditions the labour of this
construction is likely to be long, and how, in the

42 THE AIMS AND METHODS OF

meantime — so long as their fundamental disagree-
ments are unremoved — can they effectually combine
to assist individual and social efforts after right
living? So long as they are not agreed on the
ultimate end of action — so long as one holds it to
be moral perfection, another "general happiness,"
another " efficiency of the social organism " — how
can any counsels they may combine to give, as to
the right way of living so as best to realize the end,
be other than discordant and bewildering to those
who seek their counsels? The difficulty would be
avoided if all the philosophers of the Ethical Society
belonged to the same school, for then they could
assist those who were not philosophers by reasoned
deductions from the accepted principles of the
school. They would have to admit that other
philosophers held fundamentally different principles,
but they would explain to their hearers that the
other philosophers were wrong. But, then, if our
movement flourished and was found to meet a social
need, these other philosophers would be led to form
ethical societies of their own. The non-philosophic
members of the different societies could not be
thoroughly competent judges of the philosophical
disputes ; but loyalty and esprit de corps would
lead them to stand firmly by their respective
philosophers ; and the result must be that any

AN ETHICAL SOCIETY. 43

assistance rendered by these competing ethical
societies to individual and social efforts after right
living would be hampered by the grave drawbacks
of sectarian rivalries and conflicts. In short, it
seemed to me that the ethical movement was in a
dilemma ; if each school had its own ethical society,
it incurred the dangers of sectarianism ; if different
schools combined to work in the same society, it
incurred the danger of a bewildering discord of
counsels.

In this perplexing choice of alternatives, I think
that our Society has adopted the right course in
accepting the difficulty that attaches to combined
efforts ; and I think that if this difficulty is con-
templated fairly and considerately, though we
cannot completely remove it, we can find a pro-
visional solution of it sufficient for practical
purposes.

I find this solution in the generally-admitted fact,
that there is much greater agreement among thoughtful
persons on the question what a good life is, than on
the question why it is good. When they are trying
to define the ultimate end of right actions, the
conceptions they respectively apply seem to be so
widely divergent that the utmost efforts of mutual
criticism are hardly sufficient to enable them even
to understand each other. But when, from the effort

44 THE AIMS AND METHODS OF

to define the ultimate end of right conduct, we pass
to discuss right conduct itself, whether viewed on its
inner or its outer side — the spirit in which a good
life is to be lived, the habits of thought and feeling
that it requires, the external manifestations of this
inner rectitude in the performance of duty and the
realization of virtue — then the disagreement is
reduced to a surprising extent. I do not say that
it becomes insignificant, that there is no important
difference of opinion among philosophers as to the
details and particulars of morality. Were this so,
the task of an ethical society would be less arduous
than I have felt bound to represent it ; but it is at
any rate not sufficient to prevent a broad, substantial
agreement as to the practical ideal of a good life.
And I think that philosophers of the most diverse
schools may combine on the basis of this broad and
general agreement with each other, and with earnest
and thoughtful persons who are not philosophers in
their practical ideals ; and letting their fundamental
differences on ultimate principles drop into the back-
ground may hopefully co-operate in efforts to realize
the second of our aims, to free this current ideal
from all that is merely traditional and self-con-
tradictory, and thus to widen and perfect it.

But I am afraid you will think that our task, as
I conceive it, is like the climbing of a mountain, of

AN ETHICAL SOCIETY. 45

which the peaks are hidden one after another behind
lower peaks ; for when one difficulty is surmounted it
brings another into view. We have agreed that our
business is to " free the current ideal of what is right
from all that is merely traditional " ; but we are also
agreed — it is one of our express principles — that the
good life " is to be realized by accepting and acting
in the spirit of such common obligations as are
enjoined by the relationships of family and society."
But when we look closer at these common obliga-
tions, we find that they are actually determined by
tradition and custom to so great an extent that, if we
subtracted the traditional element, it would be very
difficult to say what the spirit of the obligation was.
This is not perhaps clear at first sight, because the
moral tradition, familiar to us from childhood up-
ward, blends itself so completely with our conception
of the facts that it seems to the unreflecting mind to
arise out of them naturally and inevitably ; but if
we take any such common obligation and compare
the different conceptions of it as we find them in
different ages and countries, the large space occupied
by the traditional element becomes clear through the
great range of its variations. Take, for instance, the
family relations. As we trace these down the stream
of time we see them undergoing remarkable changes,
both in extent and content. The mutual claims of

46 THE AIMS AND METHODS OF

kindred more remote than the descendants of the
same parents or grandparents, which in primitive
times are strong and important, become feeble and
evanescent as civilization goes on ; while within the
narrower circle, within which the tie still remains
strong, the element of authority on the one hand and
of obedience on the other — authority of husbands
over wives and parents over children — is subject to
a similar, though not an equal, diminution ; on the
other hand, the interference of the State in the
domestic control and provision for children's welfare,
which was at first left entirely to parents, is a marked
feature of recent social progress. During the whole
of this process of historic change the recognized
mutual obligations of members of the family have
been determined by the actual state of traditional
morality at any given time ; when, then, from this
historic survey we turn to scrutinize our own ideal
of family duty, how are we to tell how much of
it belongs to mere tradition, which the river
of progress will sweep away, and how much
belongs to the indestructible conditions of the
well-being of life, propagated as human life
must be propagated? And the same may be
said when we pass from domestic to social and
political relations : what social classes owe to
each other, according to our commonly - accepted

AN ETHICAL SOCIETY. 47

ideal of morality, depends on traditions which
result from a gradual development, are going
through a process of change, and are actually
assailed by doubts and controversies often of a
deep and far - reaching kind. How can we find
in this moving, though slowly moving, mass of
traditional rules and sentiments, which is the element
in which our outward moral life is necessarily lived,
any stable foundation on which to build, and to
invite others to build, the structure of a good life?
And yet, on the other hand, we have pledged our-
selves not to acquiesce in " mere tradition " when
recognized as such, for which indeed we can hardly
feel, or hope to inspire, any enthusiasm.

Of this difficulty there is, I think, no complete
solution possible, until our task of constructing a
theory or science of Right has been satisfactorily
accomplished ; but some suggestions may be made,
helpful towards the provisional solution which we
practically require, and with these I will now briefly
conclude :

First, the same historic survey which shows us the
process of continual change through which human
morality has passed also shows us that, — like the
structures of physical organisms, — it tends to be
continually adapted, in a subtle and complex
manner, to the changing conditions and exigencies

48 THE AIMS AND METHODS OE

of human society. This tendency does not, indeed,
suffice to place traditional morality above criticism ;
since we have no ground for regarding its adaptation
to social needs as being at any time perfect, and
critical discussion is an indispensable means of
improving it. But a contemplation of the pro-
foundly important part played by morality, as it
changes and developes along with other elements
in the complex fact of social evolution, should make
our critical handling of it respectful and delicate,
and should quell that temper of rebellion against
tradition and convention, into which the reflective
mind is apt to fall, in the first reaction against the
belief in the absolute validity of current and accepted
rules.

Secondly, though the traditional and conventional
element of current morality cannot belong to our
moral ideal as abstractly contemplated, it may none
the less incontrovertibly claim a place in the concrete
application of that ideal to present facts. For in-
stance, a refined sense of justice will require us to
fulfil the expectations warranted by any implied
and tacit understandings into which we may have
entered, no less than those which depend on express
and definite contracts: and the implied and mutually-
understood conditions of our voluntary social relations
are in most cases largely determined by tradition and

AN ETHICAL SOCIETY. 49

custom. On the other hand, if in reflecting on the
moraHty of our age we find it to contain palpable
inconsistencies ; if accepted particular rules cannot
be reconciled with equally accepted general principles,
or tolerated practices reconciled with accepted rules ;
if there is an arbitrary inequality, based on no
rational grounds, in the commonly approved treat-
ment of human beings ; if, to take a simple case,
we find that we can find no real moral distinction
between conduct which we have judged legitimate
on our own part towards others and conduct which
we have judged illegitimate on the part of others
towards us — then in such inconsistencies we may
recognize a sure sign of error and need of change
in our ethical view.

Thirdly, in considering difficulties of detail we
should never lose grasp of the importance of that
rectitude of purpose, that mental attitude and habit
of devotion to universal good, which constitutes the
core and centre of the good life. Whatever else
shifts, as life and thought changes, this central
element is stable and its moral value indestructible ;
and it not only consoles us to rest on this certitude
when practical doubts and perplexities assail us, but
it may sometimes afford a solution of these doubts.
It is, indeed, a dangerous error to hold that it does
not matter what we do so long as we do it in the

£

50 THE AIMS AND METHODS OF

right spirit. But though a dangerous error, it is still
only an exaggeration of the truth ; for there are
many cases where it really does not matter very
much to ourselves or to others which of two alterna-
tive courses we adopt, so long as we take whichever
we do take in a spirit of sincere devotion to the
general good, and carry it through in the manner
and mood of thought and feeling which belong to
this spirit.

Further, we may make this old and abstract con-
ception of the general good more full and definite by
combining it with the more modern conception of
society as an organism : in which each individual
worker in any trade or profession is to be regarded
as a member of an organ, having his share of re-
sponsibility for the action of this organ. We shall
thus recognize that the right condition of any such
organ depends on the service it renders to the whole
organism ; so that if the accepted moral rules and
sentiments of any such social class are seen to tend
to the benefit of the part at the expense of the
whole they stand condemned. It does not follow
that the rules should be at once set aside — as this
might cause a greater evil in the way of disappoint-
ment and disturbance — but we must recognize the
need of change and begin the process. Similarly,
if we find that elements of human good, such as

AN ETHICAL SOCIETY. 51

knowledge and art, important in the life of the
whole, are not sufficiently recognized in our current
moral ideal, the same principle will require us to
enlarge and extend this ideal to admit them.

And if it be said that after all is done the moral
ideal of our age, however purged of inconsistencies
and inspired and expanded by a steady self-devotion
to the most comprehensive notion of good that we
can form, is still imperfect and mutable ; and that it
must be expected to undergo, in the future, trans-
formations now unforeseen ; it yet need not painfully
disturb us that the best of our possessions should be
thus subject to the inexorable conditions of mundane
existence. It need not hinder us from cherishing and
holding to the best we have so long as it remains the
best. Life is essentially change, and the good life
must be essentially life ; it is enough if it contain
unchanged amid the change that aspiration after the
best life, which is itself a chief source and spring of
change.

III.

PUBLIC MORALITY^

^ I ^HERE are two distinct ways of treating ethical
-*- questions, the difference between which, in
respect of method, is fundamental ; though it does
not necessarily lead to controversy or diversity of
systems. We may begin by establishing funda-
mental principles of abstract or ideal morality, and
then proceed to work out deductively the particular
rules of duty or practical conceptions of human good
or well-being, through the adoption of which these
principles may be as far as possible realized, under
the actual conditions of human life. Or, we may
contemplate morality as a social fact — "positive
morality" as it has been called — i.e.y the body of
opinions and sentiments as to right and wrong, good
and evil, which we find actually prevalent in the
society of which we are members ; and endeavour,
by reflective analysis, removing vagueness and

* An essay read on Jan. 26, 1897, at a meeting of a Cambridge
essay-club called "The Eranus."

52

PUBLIC MORALITY. 53

ambiguity, solving apparent contradictions, correct-
ing lapses and supplying omissions, to reduce this
body of current opinions, so far as possible, to a
rational and coherent system. The two methods
are in no way antagonistic : indeed, it may reason-
ably be contended that if pursued with complete
success, they must lead to the same goal — a
perfectly satisfactory and practical ideal of conduct.
But in the actual condition of our intellectual and
social development, the respective results of the two
methods are apt to exhibit a certain divergence,
which, for practical purposes, we have to obliterate —
more or less consciously — by a rough compromise.

In the present discourse, I shall adopt primarily
the second method. I shall accordingly mean by
" public morality '' prevalent opinions as to right and
wrong in public conduct ; that is, primarily in the
conduct of governments — whether in relation to the
members of the states governed, or in dealings with
other states. We must, however, extend the notion,
especially in states under popular government, to
include opinions as to the conduct of private indi-
viduals and associations, so far as they influence or
control government ; or we might put it otherwise,
by saying that in such states every man who
possesses the franchise has a share in the functions
and responsibilities of government. Thus, in such

54 PUBLIC MORALITY.

states the morality of party strife is a department
of public morality. The limits of my discourse will
compel me to concentrate attention mainly on
government in the ordinary sense — the persons
primarily responsible for governmental action, and
to whose conduct the judgment of right and wrong
applies in the first instance. But it seemed desirable
to notice at the outset the wider extension of govern-
mental responsibilities that belongs to democracy ;
because on this largely depends, in my view, not
the theoretical interest, but the practical urgency
of the question that I am about to raise.

For the most important inquiry which my subject
at the present time suggests is whether there is
any deep and fundamental distinction between
public and private morality ; any more difference,
that is, than between the moralities belonging
respectively to different professions and callings.
We all, of course, recognize that in a certain
sense the application of moral rules varies for
different professions : certain kinds of duty be-
come specially important for each profession, and
accordingly come to be defined for it with special
precision ; and certain minor problems of conduct
are presented to members of one profession which
are not presented to another. In this way some
variations are thus caused in the practical casuistry

PUBLIC MORALITY. 55

belonging to different callings ; so that we might
speak of clerical morality, legal morality, and
medical morality ; but in so speaking we should be
commonly understood to refer to variations in detail
of comparatively minor importance. It would be
a violent paradox to maintain that the ordinary
rules of veracity, justice, good faith, etc., were
suspended wholly or partially in the case of any of
these professions. But the case is different with
the department of morality which deals with the
conduct of states or governments. In this region
paradoxes of the kind just mentioned have been
deliberately maintained by so many grave persons
that we can hardly refuse them serious attention.
Indeed, if anyone will study the remarkable catena
of authorities quoted by Lord Acton in his intro-
duction to Burd's edition of Machiavelli's Prince,
he will, I think, be left in some doubt how far the
proposition, that statesmen are not subject in their
public conduct even to the most fundamental rules
of private morality, can properly be called para-
doxical any longer, for persons duly instructed
in modern history, and modern political thought.
It is still, no doubt, a paradox to the vulgar.
It is not a proposition that a candidate for
Parliament would affirm on a public platform ;
but the extent to which it is adopted, explicitly

56 PUBLIC MORALITY.

or implicitly, by educated persons is already
sufficient to introduce into popular morality an
element of perplexity and disturbance, which it
would be desirable, if possible, to remove ; and this
perplexity and disturbance must be expected to
increase, in proportion as democracy increases the
responsibility — and the sense of responsibility — of
the ordinary citizen.

Observe that in speaking of "morality" I have
in view the standard by which men are judged, not^
the standard of their practice. It is not merely that
the statesman frequently violates the rules of duty,
for that we all do. Nor is it merely that, in view
of the greatness of his temptations or the nobleness
of his patriotic motives, more indulgence is shown
to his breaches of justice, veracity, or good faith,
than would be shown to similar transgressions in
private life ; that the historian is " a little blind "
to the faults of a man who has rendered valuable
services to his country. For this kind of indulgence
is also sometimes shown to persons in other voca-
tions, when subject to special temptations or moved
by fine impulses ; but it does not commonly amount
to a modification of the rule by which men are
judged, but only to an alteration in the weight
of the censure attached to a breach of the rule.
Thus public opinion is indulgent to the amorous

PUBLIC MORALITY. 57

escapades of gallant soldiers and sailors, though
it would condemn similar conduct severely in
schoolmasters ; but no one would gravely argue
that the Seventh Commandment is not binding on
military men. So again, we all sympathize with
the Jacobite servant who " would rather trust his
soul in God's hands than his master in the hands
of the Whigs," and therefore committed perjury to
avoid the worse alternative ; but our sympathy
does not lead us to contend that domestic loyalty
has a licence to swear falsely on suitable occasions.
Nor, further, is the fact I am considering merely
that there is, or has been, an esoteric professional
morality current among politicians, in which con-
siderable relaxations are allowed of the ordinary
rules of veracity, justice, and good faith. This is
doubtless a part of the fact ; but if this were all,
it would be easy to find analogies for it in several
other professions and callings, which are all liable
to similar esoteric relaxations of ordinary morality.
For instance, I suppose that there is now an
esoteric morality widely spread among retail traders
which allows of secret payments to cooks and
butlers in order to secure their custom ; but we
do not hear the bribery approved or defended
outside the circles of retail tradesmen and domestic
servants. So, again, it would seem that in certain

58 PUBLIC MORALITY.

ages and countries the current morality among
priests has regarded " pious fraud " as legitimate ;
but the success of this method of promoting the
cause of religion would seem to depend upon its
being kept strictly esoteric ; and I am not aware
that it was ever openly defended in works pub-
lished for the edification of the laity. The
peculiarity of the divergence of political from
ordinary morality is that it has been repeatedly
thus defended, not only by the statesmen them-
selves, but by literary persons contemplating the
statesman's work in the disengaged attitude of
students of life and society.

Nor, finally, is it merely that the statesman's
breaches of morality, if successful, are liable to be
approved by the popular sentiment of the nation
which profits by them, so that the writers of
this nation are inadvertently led into fallacies and
sophistries in order to justify the immoralities in
question. This doubtless occurs, and cannot much
surprise us. Adam Smith has explained how con-
science— the imaginary impartial spectator within
the breast of each of us — " requires often to be
awakened and put in mind of his duty by the
presence of the real spectator"; and how, when the
real spectator at hand is interested and partial,
while the Impartial ones are at a distance, the

PUBLIC MORALITY. 59

propriety of moral sentiments is apt to be cor-
rupted. No doubt this partly explains the low
state of international morality, and of the morality
of party warfare, as compared with ordinary private
morality; but this explanation will not suffice to
account for the divergence that I am now con-
sidering. It is^not merely that particular cases in
which leading statesmen have employed immoral
means for patriotic ends are sophistically defended
by patriotic contemporaries belonging to the same
nation. The point is that the approval of such
breaches is formulated in explicit general maxims,
raised into a system, and deliberately applied by
eminent students of history and political science to
the acts of statesmen in remote ages and countries.
This seems to be especially the case in Germany,
where men of letters have in recent times taken
the lead in advocating the emancipation of the
statesman from the restraints of ordinary morality.
It is not merely that the German defends his
Frederic or his Bismarck to the best of his ability ;
his historical and philosophical soul is not content
with that. To do him justice, he is equally earnest
in defending the repudiation by Rome of the treaty
with the Samnites after the incident of the Caudine
Forks, — or any similar act of bad faith or aggression
perpetrated by that remarkably successful common-
wealth.

6o PUBLIC MORALITY.

Let us contemplate more closely the principles
of this charter of liberation from the ordinary rules
of morality, issued to statesmen and states by
respectable thinkers of our century. And, first, I
may begin by distinguishing the explicitly anti-
moral propositions that I have in view from other
propositions in some measure cognate, which yet
do not definitely imply them. For instance, when
a writer speaks of the "irresistible logic of facts,"
or tells us that history furnishes the only touch-
stone for political ideals, that great designs and
great enterprises can only prove themselves such
by succeeding, that achievement is the only criterion
of the true statesman, etc., etc. — this does not
necessarily imply the emancipation of the states-
man from ordinary moral restraints. It may merely
mean that the construction of the finest possible
Utopia is not statesmanship, and that the true
statesman's ideas must be adapted for realization
with the means at his disposal and under given
conditions ; it need not be taken to deny that the
restraints of common morality are among these
conditions. No doubt this kind of language strongly
suggests the

Si possis rede si 7W7i quocu7ique modo

of Horace ; but though it suggests this meaning,
it does not strictly justify us in attributing it to

PUBLIC MORALITY. 6t

the writer. For one might similarly say that the
possession of the art of medicine can only be
proved by success, and that the one business of
the physician is to cure his patient, without in-
tending to imply that it does not matter what
commandments the physician may break, provided
only the cure is effected.

So, again, when it is said that morality varies
from age to age, and from country to country,
that the code shifts with the longitude and alters
with the development of society, and that in
judging any statesman we must apply the standard
of his age and country, — all this seems directed
rather to the emancipation of the historian from
moral narrowness in his judgments than to the
emancipation of the statesman from moral restraint
in his conduct. For this language assumes that
the statesman is bound by the established moral
code of his society ; it only points out that that
court for the award of praise and blame, in which
the historian from time to time appoints himself to
sit as judge and jury, is subject to the difficulties
arising from the diversity and conflict of laws, and
that the judicious historian must take care to select
and apply the right code. Whether this view is
sound or not, it has no logical connection with the
doctrine that sets a statesman free from the funda-

62 PUBLIC MORALITY.

mental rules of morality, recognized as binding in
his own age and country.

One more distinction, and then I come to the
point. I suppose that if there is any one his-
toric name with which this anti- moral doctrine
is to be specially connected, it is the name of
Machiavelli ; I might indeed have referred to it
briefly as " Machiavellianism," only that I am
anxious to examine it rather in its nineteenth
century than its sixteenth century form. Now,
competent historians of thought have regarded it as
the essential principle of Machiavelli that "the end
justifies the means"; and certainly this principle is
expressly laid down by the great Florentine, not
only in the paradoxical and variously interpreted
Prince^ but in the more moderate and straightforward
Discourses 07t Livy, — which have largely escaped
the reprobation piled on the more famous treatise.
He lays this principle down in treating of a case
so remote from modern interest as the slaying of
Remus by Romulus ; he admits that this fratricide
was objectionable in itself, but holds it justified when
we take Romulus' ends into account. "A good
result excuses any violence." And probably for
ordinary readers this statement sufficiently charac-
terizes Machiavelli's doctrine as anti-moral ; but it
must be obvious that it cannot so characterize it

PUBLIC MORALITY. 63

for those who, like myself, hold that the only true
basis for morality is a utilitarian basis. I desire
here to digress as little as may be into this con-
troversy of the schools : but I must refer to it to
avoid confusion and misunderstanding. For in the
view of utilitarians the proposition that " the end
justifies the means" cannot possibly be taken to
characterize the anti-moral position of Machiavelli
or his nineteenth century followers. In our view
the end must always ultimately justify the means —
there is no other way in which the use of any
means whatever could possibly be justified. Only
it must be a universal end ; not the preservation of
any particular state, still less its aggrandisement or
the maintenance of its existing form of government;
but the happiness or well-being of humanity at
large — or, rather, of the whole universe of living
things, so far as any practical issue can be raised
between these two conceptions of the universal
end. According to us, then, the immorality of
Machiavellianism does not lie in its affirmation that
the bindingness of all moral rules is relative, or
that the moral value of actions is to be estimated
by their consequences — if only a sufficiently wide
view is taken of these consequences. It only
begins when the end in view and the regard for
consequences is narrowed and restricted; when

64 PUBLIC MORALITY.

the interest of a particular state is taken as the
ultimate and paramount end, justifying the em-
ployment of any means whatever to attain it,
whatever the consequences of such action may be
to the rest of the human race.

And this " national egoism " is, I think, the
essence of the Neo-Machiavellianism, which, — though
views somewhat similar have frequently found ex-
pression from the sixteenth century onward,— has
been especially prominent in the political thought
of the last forty years, and, as I have said, has
found the most unreserved and meditated expression
in the writings of Germans. I may give as an
example the statements of an able and moderate
writer, who is by no means an admirer of Machiavelli.
" The state," says Rumelin,* " is self-sufficient."
"Self-regard is its appointed duty; the maintenance
and development of its own power and well-being, —
egoism, if you like to call this egoism, — is the
supreme principle of all politics." "The state can
only have regard to the interest of any other state
so far as this can be identified with its own interest."
" Self-devotion is the principle for the individual,

* These sentences are taken from an address, " Ueber das
Verhaltniss der Politik zur Morale," published in 1875, among the
Reden und Aufsdtze of Gustro Rumelin, Chancellor of the University
of Tubingen.

PUBLIC MORALITY. 65

self-assertion for the state." "The maintenance of
the state justifies every sacrifice, and is superior to
every moral rule."

It may perhaps be said that this adoption of
national interest as a paramount end does not
necessarily involve a collision with established
morality : that it may be held along with a belief
that veracity, good faith, and justice are always
the best policy for states and for individuals. But
the common sense of Christendom does not affirm
this of individuals, if mundane consequences alone
are taken into account : and though Bentham and
an important section of his earlier followers were
prepared to base private morality on pure self-
interest empirically ascertained and measured, this
doctrine has few defenders now. And the cor-
responding doctrine as regards national interest is
certainly not to be attributed to the German
writers to whom I refer : their practical aim in
affirming national egoism is almost always expressly
to emancipate the public action of statesmen from
the restraints of private morality.

The origin of this Neo-Machiavellianism may be
traced to various causes. It is partly due to a
reaction from the political idealism of the later
eighteenth century — a reaction in which moral
rules have been thrown overboard along with con-

F

66 PUBLIC MORALITY.

stitutional principles ; partly to a reaction from the
cosmopolitanism of the same period, tending to an
exaggerated affirmation of the self-sufficiency and
absolute moral independence of the nation-state ;
partly, perhaps, to a kind of Neo-paganism, striving
to make patriotism take the place of Christianity.
Partly it seems to be connected with the triumph
of the historical method, influenced in its earlier
stage by the Hegelian change of Idealism through
Optimism into its opposite, summed up in the
famous declaration that the Real is Rational; from
which it seems an obvious inference that the man
who succeeds is always in the right, whatever his
path to success, the man who fails always in the
wrong. In any case, I think the nineteenth century
study of history has tended to enlarge and systematize
the demand for the moral emancipation of the
statesman. Doubtless from the time of Machiavelli
downwards it has been a common view of practical
politicians that " good men " are unsuited for
political crises, because they will not, as Walpole
puts it, "go the necessary lengths." But so long
as Traditional and Ideal Legitimacy were carrying
on their constitutional struggle with confident
conviction on both sides, the required relaxation
from moral restraints was commonly limited to crises
sincerely believed to be exceptional. " Revolutions

PUBLIC MORALITY. 67

and wars are not made with rose water," said
the political idealist; "but when once we have
emancipated nations, and established in them free
and equal democratic governments, revolutions and
wars will be things of the past." "We have to
violate rules of right to defend the right," said
the party of order, "in the present tempest of
revolutionary madness ; but, once the madness is
over, the powers ordained of God will, of course,
conform to the moral order which they are essentially
required to maintain." But the convictions of both
parties belong to a stage which the movement of
nineteenth century thought has now left behind it.
The study of history has caused the view to prevail
that " the great world " is to

"Spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change";

and, consequently, at every turn of this rotatory
movement forward, there would seem likely to be
an ever recurrent need for the morally emancipated
\ statesman — the statesman who, when circumstances
drive him to cruelty, rapacity, breach of faith, false-
hood, will not waver and whine about the "painful
necessity"; but, with simple decision, unhampered
by scruples, take the course that leads straightest
to the next stage of the everlasting progress.
In the extreme form which this doctrine not

68 PUBLIC MORALITY.

unfrequently assumes, and in which I have, for
clearness, presented it, it neither invites nor requires
a formal refutation; since it neither appeals to the
common moral consciousness of mankind, which,
indeed, it frankly claims to override, nor to any
principles which have ever been accepted by
philosophers. For egoism pure and simple, the
doctrine that each individual's interest must be for
him ultimately paramount to all other considerations,
there is, in abstract ethical discussion, much to be
said ; but I have never seen, nor can I conceive, any
ethical reasoning that will provide even a plausible
basis for the compound proposition that a man is
bound to sacrifice his private interest to that of the
group of human beings constituting his state, but that
neither he nor they are under any similar obligation
to the rest of mankind. And to do them justice,
the advocates of this doctrine do not commonly
resort to ethical deductions to justify their position.
They prefer to appeal to facts ; and certainly it is
not difficult to find examples of statesmen who
have attained their ends by such breaches of current
morality as this doctrine defends: but obviously no
appeal to facts can settle the question of right
without a palpable petitio principii.

There is, however, one objection that may be
taken to this doctrine on the purely historical

PUBLIC MORALITY. 69

ground on which its advocates usually argue. I do
not think that the history of polity and of political
ideas gives us any reason for believing that this
emancipation from morality, if once admitted, will
stop where the Neo-Machiavellians desire it to
stop — at national egoism. The moral emancipation
allowed to governments for the promotion of the
interests of the nation will be used by governments
for the maintenance of their power, even against the
interests of the nation ; the distinction between what
may be done to hold power and what may be done
to acquire it will come to be recognized as arbitrary ;
and so by an easy inclined plane we shall pass
from the Machiavellianism of the Discourses o?i Livy
to the Machiavellianism of the Prince. Or, again,
granting that some kind of corporate sentiment is
maintained, there is still no ground for confidence
that it will always attach itself to the particular
corporation called the state. If everything is per-
mitted in national struggles for the sake of the
nation, it will be easy to think that everything is
permitted in party-struggles or class-struggles for
the sake of the party or class. The tendencies of
modern democracy are running strongly towards
the increase of corporate sentiments and the habits
of corporate action in industrial groups and classes,
and so towards dividing civilized humanity by lines

^o PUBLIC MORALITY.

that cut across the Hnes separating nations ; and
history certainly does not justify us in confidently
expecting that when the rules of private morality are
no longer held to apply to public action, patriotism
will still keep class feeling and party feeling within
the bounds required by national peace and well-
being. It is in the later period of free Greece — the
civilized fourth century — that the class conflict is
most disintegrative, which makes, as Plato says,
"two cities in one, the city of the rich and the
city of the poor": and similarly in mediaeval Italy,
whereas in the twelfth century the chronicle ran
simply, " Parma fights Piacenza," before the end of
the thirteenth it ran, " Parma, with the exiles from
Piacenza, fights Piacenza."

I conclude, then, that this Neo-Machiavellian
doctrine is really condemned by history — the Caesar
to which it appeals — no less than by the old-
fashioned moral philosophy that it despises. But
I am far from wishing to dismiss it with a bare
negation. The extent to which it has found favour
with thoughtful persons affords a prijua facie pre-
sumption that there are elements of sound reason
in it, which have been exaggerated into dangerous
paradox ; and, if so, it seems very desirable to get
these clear. The most important of these elements
— especially as regards international conduct — is, I

PUBLIC MORALITY. 71

think, more easily discernible in the work of Hobbes
than in that of Machiavelli ; the Englishman being
a more systematic and philosophical thinker than
his Florentine master, though a less acute and
penetrating analyst of political experience. Hobbes,
as is well known, accepted fully the Machiavellian
view of human relations — outside the pale of a
(political society compacted through unquestioning
obedience into peace and order. Outside this pale
he certainly held any aggression or breach of
compact conducive to self-preservation to be lawful
to the human individual or group, struggling to
maintain its existence in the anarchy called a state
of nature ; but he justified this licence on the ground
that a member of such a "natural society" who
may observe moral rules can have no reasonable
expectation of reciprocal observance on the part of
others, and must therefore merely " make himself
a prey to others." In Hobbes' view, morality —
the sum of the conditions of harmonious human
living in society — is a system that man is always,
bound to keep before his mind as an ideal ; but..
his obligation to realize it in act is conditional
on a reasonable expectation of reciprocity. This
condition is, I think, with careful limitations and
qualifications, sound ; and the error of Hobbes
does not lie so much in making this demand for

72 PUBLIC MORALITY,

reciprocity — though he makes it too unguardedly —
as in his palpable exaggeration of the difference
between human relations in a so-called " natural "
society and in the state of political order. The
exaggeration is palpable — since {e.g) the mere fact
that the habit of making compacts prevails among
states is evidence of a prevalent confidence that
they will be more or less observed — but the
exaggeration should not blind us to the real
divergence that exists between the rules of public
and of private duty, or to its connection with the
cause that Hobbes assigns for it.

This divergence, observe, does not arise in the
main from any fundamental difference in the general
principles of ideal morality for states and individuals
respectively, but from the actual difference of their
relations. A similar, if not an equal, divergence
would exist for a virtuous individual who found
himself in a society where, whether from anarchy
or from other causes, the moral standard maintained
in ordinary conduct was as low as the moral
standard of international conduct actually is.

As Mr. Spencer* forcibly says —

*' Ideal conduct .... is not possible for the ideal
man in the midst of men otherwise constituted. An

* Principles of Ethics^ Part I., chap, xv., p. 280.

PUBLIC MORALITY. 73

absolutely just or perfectly sympathetic person, could not
live and act according to his nature in a tribe of cannibals.
Among people who are treacherous and utterly without
scruple, entire truthfulness and openness must bring ruin.
If all around recognize only the law of the strongest, one
whose nature will not allow him to inflict pain on others,
must go to the wall. There requires a certain congruity
between the conduct of each member of a society and
others' conduct. A mode of action entirely alien to the
prevailing modes of action, cannot be successfully persisted
in — must eventuate in death to itself, or posterity, or
both."

I do not mean that the customary conduct of
nations to each other is accurately represented by
Spencer's description ; but it is liable to resemble
this description much more closely than the
customary conduct of individuals in a civilized
society. Nor, again, do I mean that a state, any
more than an individual, can justify conduct which
ideal morality condemns by simply alleging the
similar conduct of other states — even the majority
of other states : if this u^ere so, moral progress
would be almost impossible in international relations.
From the fact that unprovoked aggression, com-
mitted with impunity and successful in its immediate
aims, is a phenomenon that continually recurs
throughout modern European history, I do not infer
that it is right for a modern European state to

74 PUBLIC MORALITY,

commit an act of unprovoked aggression ; what I
contend is that this fact materially alters the moral
relations between states by extending the rights and
duties of self-protection.

The difference thus introduced is unmistakably,
though vaguely, recognized in ordinary moral
thought; all we have to do — according to the
plan of the present essay — is to bring it clearly
before our minds, and assign its limits as pre-
cisely as we can. Thus it has long been tacitly
recognized that in international relations the con-
ditions are wanting under which the morality of
passive submission and resignation, specially distinc-
tive of Christianity, is conducive to the general
well-being. It has been comprehended by the
common sense of the Christian world that the
precept to turn the other cheek, and repay coercion
and encroachment with spontaneous further con-
cessions, was not given to nations ; and that the
meek who are to inherit the earth must be under-
stood to be meek individuals, protected by a
vigorous government from the disastrous conse-
quences to themselves that meekness in a state of
anarchy would entail.

The case is different with the rules of veracity,
good faith, abstinence from aggression on person or
property, which are not specially Christian : it would

PUBLIC MORALITY, 75

be absurd to interpret popular morality as allowing
governments a general licence to dispense them-
selves from the obligation of these rules when they
find it convenient, in view of the general tendency to
transgress them. But to an important extent, in
special cases, such a licence is commonly conceded.
Take the case of veracity. We should not condemn
a general in war for disseminating false statements to
nuslea<l_ttl£„£aeiny^_or for sending spies to obtain
information as to the enemy's movements by pro-
cesses involving an indefinite amount of falsehood. A
similar licence is commonly conceded to governments
— or at least to their subordinates — in performing
the task of maintaining order within the community
governed. We recognize that in the ceaseless contest
with secret crime, the business of the detective police
— which involves continual deception — is practically
indispensable ; and must therefore be regarded as
a legitimate, if not highly honourable, calling. There
is at present no such general toleration of the use of
falsehood and spies and stratagems in diplomacy ;
times are changed, I am told, since the definition of
a diplomatist as a person " sent to lie abroad for the
benefit of his country," was from a scientific point of
view admissible. But here again, I think, a reason-
able expectation of reciprocity is practically accepted
as a condition of the stringency of the rule prohibit-

76 PUBLIC MORALITY.

ing such artifices — a plot would be held to justify
a counterplot, at any rate if there were no other
effective means of defeating it.

In the case of breach of engagements, the exten-
sion of the scope of self-protection is of a somewhat
different character. Our common morality does not
justify treacherous promises, made without intention
of fulfilling them, even in dealing with states that
have been guilty of such treachery. Speaking
broadly, the right mode of dealing with such a
state is clearly to treat its promises as idle words,
unless there is some adequate ground, other than
the promise itself, for expecting its fulfilment.
But when modern states have failed to carry out
their compacts — and history abounds in instances
of such failure — they have usually made excuses,
alleging ambiguity of terms, material change of
circumstances, or the non-fulfilment of promises on
the other side. Now, in dealing with a government
which — in order to free itself from inconvenient
treaty-obligations — is in the habit of using pleas of
this kind in a strained and unreasonable manner,
I conceive that any other government would not
be liable to censure for claiming a similar freedom
— at any rate, in case of urgent need.

It will be observed that, according to the moral
view that I am endeavouring to express, urgent

PUBLIC MORALITY, 77

need is held to be required — as well as the ante-
cedence of similar acts on the other side — in order
completely to justify a breach of veracity or good
faith. Without urgent need, the fact that any
particular act of unveracity or bad faith is merely
imitative and retaliatory affords an excuse, but not
an adequate justification ; since even a retaliatory
act of this kind has the mischievous effect of a
bad precedent, and tends to depress the customary
standard of morality between nations.

I may here mention one special difference between
public and private morality arising from the same
absence of a common government which has hitherto
rendered wars between nations inevitable, — the
different view that is and must be taken of the
bindingness of compacts imposed by force in the
two cases. In an orderly state, a promise obtained
from any person by unlawful force has, of course,
no legal validity : and it is at least doubtful whether
it has any moral validity. If in England a robber
were to force me, under threat of death, to promise
him a large sum of money, I conceive that no
thoughtful person would censure me for breaking
my promise, though he might feel a sentimental
preference for the opposite course. But in the case
of states, we cannot similarly treat wrongful force
^s invalidating obligations deliberately undertaken

78 PUBLIC MORALITY.

under its pressure : to do this — as I have elsewhere
said — " would obviously tend to aggravate the evils
of unjust victory" in war : " as the unjust victor,
being unable to rely on the promises of the van-
quished community, would be impelled by self-
interest to crush it utterly." At the same time,
there is an opposite danger in treating oppressive
conditions thus imposed as finally and permanently
binding : as this would increase the temptation —
already sufficiently strong — to skilfully-timed acts of
violent aggression. In this dilemma, international
morality has, I think, to adopt a somewhat vague
compromise, and to regard such obligation as having
I a limited validity, but tending to lose their force
; through lapse of time, and the change of circum-
stances that lapse of time brings with it.*
' So far I have been speaking of international
relations ; but the general principles that I have
applied to them must, I think, be admitted to some
extent in respect of internal crises in the life of a
political society. Here, however, I must guard
against a misunderstanding. I do not think we
should assume that the changes — even the greater
changes — in internal polity, which the future has

* This general view may be made a little less vague by distinguish-
ing different kinds of conditions imposed by unjust force. See my
Elements of Politics., chap, xvi., p. 6.

PUBLIC MORALITY. 79

doubtless in store for European states, must neces-
sarily involve violent breaches of political order,
in respect of which the ordinary rules of morality
are to be suspended. Revolutions and coups d'etat
are fraught with such wide and far-reached mischief
that the efforts to avoid them should never be
relaxed : if political meteorologists unite in affirming
that one or other must come "sooner or later," the
true patriot should answer, with Canning, that he
"prefers it later." The same is, of course, true of
wars : but there is at present more reason to hope
for the ultimate success of such efforts in the case
of internal strife owing to the greater strength of
the bonds of interest and sympathy that unite
members of the same state. But if ever such efforts
seem doomed to fail, and the minds of men are
turning to the violent courses that appear inevitable,
an enlargement of the right of self-protection —
somewhat similar to that which we have just
recognized in international relations — must be
conceded to any of the sections into which the
state is suffering a transient moral disintegration ;
or rather to the statesmen acting on behalf of such
a section.

The last sentence leads me to notice a reason
sometimes given for divergence between public
and private morality, which I have not yet con-

8o PUBLIC MORALITY.

sidered. It is said that the actions of states have
generally to be judged as actions of governments ;
and that governments hold a position analogous
to that of trustees in relation to the community-
governed, and therefore cannot legitimately incur
risks which a high morality would require individuals
to incur in similar cases. I think that there is some
force in the argument, but that it is only applicable
within a very narrow range. Trustees, whether for
private or collective interests, are bound to be just ;
and the cases are at any rate very rare in which
the highest morality applicable in the actual
condition of international relations would really
require states to be generous at the definite sacrifice
of their interests. For a state to embark on a
career of international knight - errantry would,
generally speaking, be hardly more conducive to
the interests of the civilized world than to those
of the supposed Quixotic community. Still I
admit that cases may occur in which intervention
of this kind, at a cost or risk to the intervening
community beyond what strict self-regard could
justify, would be clearly advantageous to the world,
and that in such cases the "quasi-trusteeship"
attaching to the position of government might
render its duty doubtful. It would seem that in
a case of this kind the moral responsibility for public

PUBLIC MORALITY. 8i

conduct is properly transferred in a large measure
from the rulers to the ruled. The government may
legitimately judge that it is right to run a risk with
the support of public opinion which it would be
wrong to run without it ; so that it becomes the
duty of private persons — in proportion as they
contribute to the formation of public opinion — to
manifest a readiness to give the required support.

To sum up briefly the main result of a long

discussion. So far as the past conduct of any

foreign state shows that reciprocal fulfilment of

international duty — as commonly recognized —

cannot reasonably be expected from it, I admit

that any other state that may have to deal with

it must be allowed a corresponding extension of

the right of self- protection, in the interest of

humanity at large no less than in its own interest.

' It must be allowed to anticipate attack which it

has reasonable grounds for regarding as imminent,

; to meet wiles with wiles as well as force with force,

I and to be circumspect in the fulfilment of any

i compact it may make with such a state. But

I do not regard this as constituting a fundamental

difference between public and private morality ;

similar rights may have to be exceptionally claimed

and exercised between man and man in the most

orderly society that we have experience of; the

G

82 PUBLIC MORALITY,

difference is mainly in the degree of exceptionality
of the claim. It remains true that in both cases
equally it must be insisted that the interest of the
part is to be pursued only in such manner and
degree as is compatible with the interests of the
larger community of which it is a part ; and that
any violation of the rules of mutual behaviour
actually established in the common interests of this
community, so far as it is merely justified by its
conduciveness to the sectional interest of a particular
group of human beings, must receive unhesitating
and unsparing censure.

\ ^*

IV.

THE MORALITY OF STRIFE*

A LL who have thought earnestly on moral
-^^^ questions, and in particular have reflected on
the causes of and the remedies for the failure to
do what is right in themselves and others, must have
recognized that the causes of this failure divide
themselves naturally under two distinct heads.
Firstly,, men do not see their duty with sufficient
clearness ; secondly, they do not feel the obligation
to do it with sufficient force. But there are great
differences of opinion among thoughtful persons as
to the relative importance of these different sources
of wrong conduct. The commonest opinion is
disposed to lay most stress on the latter, the defect
of feeling or will, and even to consider the defect
of intellectual insight as having comparatively little
practical importance. It is not uncommon to hear
it said by preachers and moralizers that we all

* An address delivered to the London Ethical Society in the year
1S90.

83

84 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE.

know our duty quite sufficiently for practical pur-
poses, if we could only spur or brace our wills
into steady action in accordance with our convictions.
And it is no doubt true that, if we suppose all
our intellectual errors and limitations to remain
unchanged, and only the feebleness of character
which prevents our acting on our convictions re-
moved, an immense improvement would take place
in many departments of human life. But it is
important not to overlook other inevitable results
of the supposed change, which would certainly not
be improvements. We all recognize the dangers
of fanaticism. But what is a fanatic? Surely we
all mean by a " fanatic " a person , who .acts up to
his convictions, resolutely and perhaps vehemently,
when they are opposed to the common sense of
mankind, and when — in the judgment of common
sense — his acts are likely to lead to gravely mis-
chievous consequences. If, therefore, we suppose
that the element of intellectual error in the causes
of wrong action remains unchanged, while the
element of feebleness of character, weakness of
motive or will to do duty, is entirely removed, we
must suppose fanaticism greatly increased. We
must also suppose an increase in the bad effects
of more widespread errors in popular morality,
which are now often prevented from causing the

THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 85

full evil which they tend to cause, by the actual
feebleness of the mistaken resistance which they
oppose to healthy natural impulses. Hence, when
we had to strike the balance of gain and loss to
human happiness resulting from the change — though
I have no doubt that the gain on the whole would
be great — we must recognize that the drawbacks
would be serious and substantial.

Considerations of this kind have led some thought-
ful minds to take an exactly, ^opposite view, and
to regard it of paramount importance to remove
the intellectual source of error in conduct, holding
with Socrates that the true good of each individual
man is really consistent and harmonious with the
true good of all the rest ; and that what every man
really wants is his own true good, if he only knew
it. But this view also is too simple and unqualified ;
since, in the first place, a man often sacrifices what
he rightly regards as his true interest to the over-
mastering influence of appetite or resentment or
ambition ; and, secondly, if we measure human
well-being by an ordinary mundane standard, and
suppose men's feelings and wants unaltered, we
i must admit that the utmost intellectual enlighten-
ment would not prevent the unrestrained pursuit
of private interest from being, sometimes, anti-social,
anarchical, and disorganizing. Still, allowing all

86 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE.

this, it seems to me not only that a very substantial
gain would result if we could remove from men's
minds all errors of judgment as to right and wrong,
good and evil, even if we left other causes of bad
conduct unchanged ; but that the gain in this case
would be more unmixed than in the former case.
Suppose, for instance, that every one who is liable
to drink too much had clearly present to his mind,
in the moment of temptation, the full amount of
harm that his insobriety was doing to his bodily
health, his reputation, his means of providing for
those dependent on him ; some, no doubt, would
drink all the same, but the great majority of those
not yet in bondage to the unnatural craving would
draw back. Suppose, again, that any one who is
wronging a neighbour saw, as clearly as any im-
partial judge or friend would see, the violation of
right that he is committing; surely only a thoroughly
bad man would persist in his wrong-doing. And
thoroughly bad men are after all rare exceptions
among the beings of mingled and chequered moral
nature of whom the great mass of mankind consists,
and who on the whole mean only to maintain their
own rights and not to encroach upon the rights
of others; though doubtless, from a mixture of
intellectual muddle with passionate impulse or selfish
negligence, they are continually liable to wrong others.

THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 87

I have drawn attention to this fundamental
distinction between (i) improvement in moral in-
sight and (2) improvement in feeling and will,
because I think it important that we should have
a clear view of its general character before we enter
on the special discussion of the " Morality of Strife,"
which is the subject of the present paper. I ought
perhaps to explain that in speaking of strife I
shall have primarily and chiefly in view that most
intense form of conflict which we call war, in which
masses of civilized men elaborately try to destroy
each other's lives and incidentally to take each
other's property. This is the strife which, from its
fundamental nature and inevitable incidents, causes
the most intense and profound moral aversion and
perplexity to the modern mind. At the same time
it seems to me that the deepest problems presented by
war, and the deepest principles to be applied in dealing
with them, are applicable also to the milder conflicts
and collisions that arise within the limits of an orderly
and peaceful community, and especially to those
struggles for wealth and power carried on by classes
and parties within a state. Indeed, these latter —
though conducted by the milder methods of debate
and vote — often resemble wars very strongly in the
states of thought and feeling that they arouse, and
also in some of the difficulties that they suggest.

THE MORALITY OF STRIFE'.

Now, in considering the morality of strife, the
difference of opinion which I have been discussing,
as to the causes of wrong conduct in general, meets
us with especial force. Thus many will say, when
they hear of moralizing war, that the moralist ought
not to acquiesce in its existence ; he ought to trace
it to its source, in the lack of kindly feeling among
human beings. Spread kindness and goodwill ;
make altruism predominate over egoism ; and wars
between states will come to an end among civilized
men, because there will be no hostile emotions to
rouse them, while within states strife will resolve
itself into a competition for the privilege of doing
good to others. I do not deny that a solution of
the problem of war for the world might be found
in this diffusion of kindly feeling, if sufficiently
ardent and universal. But for this effect the uni-
versality is necessary as well as the ardour. The
increase of the "enthusiasm of humanity" in a
moral minority, in a world where most men are
still as selfish as now, would have no decisive
tendency to prevent strife ; for if around us some
are wronging others, the predominance of altruism
in ourselves, though it will diminish our disposition
to fight in our own quarrels, will make us more
eager to take part with others who are wronged ;
and since, so long as we are human beings, our

THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 89

kindly feelings must flow more strongly in special
channels, as they grow in intensity we shall exhibit
greater energy in defending against unjust attacks
the narrower communities and groups in which we
take special interest. Increase of sympathy among
human beings may ultimately do away with strife ;
but it will only be after a long interval, during which
the growth of sympathetic resentment against wrongs
seems not unlikely to cause as much strife as the
diminution of mere selfishness prevents. The
Founder of Christianity is recorded to have said
that he "came not to bring peace on earth, but
a sword," and the subsequent history of Christianity
offers ample and striking confirmation of the truth
of the prediction. And the same may be said,
with at least equal truth, of that ardour for the
secular amelioration of mankind which we find
presented to us in these latter days as a substitute
for Christian feeling.

The extinction of strife through the extension
of amity being thus at best a remote event, we
may allow ourselves to dwell for a moment on the
brighter aspects of the continuance of war. War
is an evil ; but it is not, from an ethical point of
view, an unmixed evil. Indeed, its value as a school
of manly virtue led the greatest thinkers of ancient
Greece — even in the civilized fourth century — to

90 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE.

regard the fighting part of the community as the
only part on whose education it was worth while
to bestow labour and care ; the occupations of the
trader and the artisan being considered an in-
superable bar to the development of fine moral
qualities. Christianity and the growth of free
industry combined have carried European thought
so far away from the point of view of Plato and
Aristotle, that their utterances on this topic now
seem to most of us startlingly narrow-minded and
barbaric ; but the element of truth that they contain
still, from time to time, forces itself on the modern
mind, and finds transient expression in a modified
form. There are, I believe, even at the end of
the nineteenth century, some thoughtful persons
seriously concerned for moral excellence, who would
regret the extinction of war ; attracted not so
much by the showy virtue of valour in battle, but
by the unreserved devotion, the ardour of self-
sacrifice for duty and the common good, which war
tends to develop. If this acceptance of war as
an indispensable school of virtue were widespread
enough to impede the drift of modern opinion and
sentiment towards universal peace as an ideal, it
might be necessary to argue against it as a
dangerous paradox. In such an argument we
should not lay stress exclusively or even mainly

THE MORALITY OF STRIFE, 91

on its physical mischief; but still more on its
moral evils, its barbarous inadequacy as a means
of settling disputes of right, the frequent triumphs
of injustice and their demoralizing consequences,
the constant tendency of the bitter resentments and
the intensification of national self-regard, which war
brings with it, to overpower the sentiments of
humanity, and confuse and obscure those of justice
and good faith. But I need not labour these points ;
the evils of war are so keenly felt that the moralist
may without danger allow himself to make the
most of the opportunities of moral development
that it affords.

What I rather wish now to point out is, that
the moral benefits of war, such as they are,
depend largely on the fact that war is not usually
— as cynics imply — a mere collision of passions
and cupidities; it is a conflict in which each side
conceives itself to be contending on behalf of
legitimate interests. In the wars 1 have known,
as a contemporary, this has been strikingly mani-
fested in the sincere belief of religious persons
generally — ordinary plain honest Christians on either
side — that God would defend their cause. In the
wars of ancient history a people's belief in special
divine protection was not equally an evidence of
its belief in the justice of its cause, since each

92 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE.

nation had its own deities who were expected to
take sides with their worshippers ; but in a war
between modern Christian nations, worshipping the
same God, the favour of heaven impHes the justice
of the cause favoured ; and it is sometimes starthng
to see that not only is each side convinced of its
overwhelming claims to the favour of heaven, but
it can hardly believe in a similar sincere conviction
on the other side. Perhaps some of my readers
may remember how, in the Franco -German war of
1870, the pious utterances of the Emperor William
excited the derision of Frenchmen and their friends ;
it seemed to the latter not only evident that the
invading Germans were brigands, but even impossible
to conceive that they did not know that they were
brigands. This strikingly shows how war among
human beings, supposing them to possess the degree
of rationality that average civilized humanity has
at present reached, is normally not a mere conflict
of interests, but also a conflict of opposing views
of right and justice.

I must not exaggerate. I do not mean that in
modern times unscrupulous statesmen have never
made wars that were substantially acts of conscious
brigandage, and have never been applauded for so
doing by the nations whom they led, who have
suffered a temporary obscurity of their moral sense

THE MORALITY OF STRIFE 93

under the influence of national ambition. I do not
say that this has not occurred ; but I do not think
it is the normal case, and I shall leave it out of
account, partly because it does not seem to me to
give rise to any moral problem which we can
profitably discuss. The immorality of such un-
scrupulous aggression is simple; and the duty is
no less clear for any individual in the aggressing
country to use any moral and intellectual influence
he may possess — facing unpopularity — to prevent
the immoral act. It may be difficult to say exactly
how far he should go in such opposition ; but the
answer to this question depends so much on cir-
cumstances that an abstract discussion of it is
hardly profitable.

It is still more true that in any strife of parties
and classes within a modern civilized state, when
there is a conflict of interests, it is not of bare in-
terests, but of interests clothed in the garb of rights —
and in the main the garb is not hypocritically worn.
In such a state the sentiment of fellow-citizenship,
the habit of co-operating for common ends, the
community of hopes and fears stirred by the
vicissitudes of national prosperity, tend powerfully
to reinforce the wider sentiments of humanity and
justice to men as men. Hence, though the pre-
datory type of human being cannot be said to

94 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE.

be rare in any civilized society, it is still an ex-
ceptional type ; the average member of such a
society is too moral to enter into a struggle on
behalf of interests which he knows to be " sinister
interests" — to use Bentham's apt phrase. I do not
say that he is not easily led to believe that what is
conducive to his interests is just — men's proneness
to such belief is proverbial — but the belief is
generally sincere ; and though, again, in the heat
of party conflict many things are done from passion
and eagerness to win which are known to be wrong,
these are deplorable incidents of party strife, they
do not make up its moral texture.

If, then, normal human strife is due not merely
to colliding interests, but to conflicting views of
rights, it would seem that we might hope to reduce
its worst eflects to a sporadic and occasional evil,
if we could only find and make clear the true
definition of the rights in question. For though
the interests of all individuals, classes, and nations
are not harmonious, their rights are ; that is the
essential difference between the two. You cannot
be sure of bringing disputants into harmony and
peace by enlightening them as to their true interests,
though you may in some cases ; but you must do
this if you can really and completely enlighten them
as to their true rights, unless they are bad enough

THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 95

to fight on in conscious wrongful aggression. Such
completeness of enlightenment, however, we cannot
reasonably expect to attain ; the complexity of
human relations, and the imperfection of our intel-
lectual methods of dealing with them, preclude the
hope that we can ever solve a problem of rights
with the demonstrative clearness and certainty with
which we can solve a problem of mathematics. The
practical question therefore is, how we can attain
a tolerable approximation to such a solution.

To many the answer to this question seems simple.
They propose to settle the disputes of right between
nations, and the disputes of right between classes
and sections within any state, by applying what
I will call an external method ; i.e.^ by referring
the dispute to the judgment of impartial — and, if
possible, skilled — outsiders, as the legal disputes of
individual members of a civilized community are
referred to arbitrators, judges, and juries. I call this
an external method, because it does not require
any effect to be produced on the intellects and
consciences of the disputants ; they are allowed
to remain in their onesided and erroneous con-
victions ; indeed, they are almost inevitably left to
concentrate their attention on their own onesided
views, and — if I may so say — harden themselves
in their onesidedness, because their function in the

96 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE.

process of settlement is to advocate their own case
before the outside arbiter ; they are not supposed
to be convinced by his decision, but merely to
accept it for the sake of peace.

The method takes various forms, according to
circumstances. In the case of disputes between
nations it takes the form of a substitution of
arbitration for war ; the practical — or, perhaps I
may say, the technical — problem comes to be how
to get a wise and impartial court of international
arbitration. A similar method is widely advocated
for the settlement of those disputes between em-
ployers and employed — within the limits drawn
by the existing law — which have been so long a
prominent feature of our present industrial condition.
But in the still deeper disputes between classes
and sections within a community, which tend to
changes in the established legal order, the expedient
commonly recommended is somewhat different ; it
consists in the construction of a legislature on the
representative system, so adjusted and balanced that
each class and section has enough representatives
to advocate its claims, but not enough to constitute
it a judge in its own cause ; the decision on any
proposed change in laws or taxation, affecting the
interests of different sections in opposite ways, is
always to rest with the presumably impartial repre-

THE MORALITY OF STRIFE, 97

sentatlves of other sections. Now, I do not wish
to undervalue the external method in any of these
cases ; I think the attention of statesmen should
be seriously directed to making it as perfect as
possible. But I cannot believe that it is in any
case safe to rely on it for a complete and final
removal of the evils of strife.

Let us place ourselves at the point of view of
a nation that is being drawn into what it regards
as a just war, according to the received principles
of international justice. It is obvious that any
serious and unprovoked violation of international
duty must be held to give a state whose rights
are violated a claim for reparation ; and if repara-
tion be obstinately refused, it would seem that —
so long as states are independent — the offending
state must be held to have a right to obtain it by
force, with the aid of any other states that can be
persuaded to join it. This exercise of force need
not necessarily amount to war. For instance, if
the property belonging to a state or any of its
members has been unjustly seized by another state,
reparation may be obtained by reprisals ; but it is
most probable that such reprisals, being resisted,
will lead to the thorough-going appeal to physical
force as a means of settlement, which we call war.
Well, at this point it is asked, by many earnest

H

98 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE

philanthropists, " Why should not the offended state
make a proposal to submit its claims to arbitration,
and why should not the offending state be made,
by the pressure of public opinion, to accept this
proposal?" I am far from waiving this suggestion
aside as out of the range of practical politics.
Much may be hoped, in the way of reduction of
the danger of war between civilized states, from
improvements in the machinery of arbitration, and
a more extensive adoption of the improved ma-
chinery ; and the efforts of those who keep urging
these points on the attention of statesmen and of
the public deserve our warmest sympathy. But I
think that such efforts are more likely to attain
the limited success which can alone be reasonably
hoped, if those who urge them bear in mind the
inevitable limitations of the applicability of arbitra-
tion to the disputes of right between nations.

In the first place, the violation of right which
leads to a conflict may be a continuing evil, which
requires immediate abatement as well as reparation ;
and the violence required for this abatement is
likely to lead to further violence on the other side,
so that the conflicting states may be drawn into
the condition of war by a series of steps too rapid
to allow of the delay necessary for arbitration, and
which involve so many fresh grounds of complaint

THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 99

that the decision of the original dispute may easily
sink into insignificance. But there are other reasons
of more importance and wider application. On the
one hand, the interests at stake may be so serious
that a state, believing itself able to obtain redress
by its own strong hand, cannot reasonably be ex-
pected to run the risk of arbitration, unless it can
feel tolerably secure of impartiality in the arbitrator ;
or, to keep closer to the moral problem actually
presented, I should rather say that the government
of a community cannot feel justified in thus risking
the interests of the community intrusted to it. On
the other hand, where the quarrel is one that in-
volves a conflict of principles, widely extended
among civilized states, there may be an insuperable
difficulty in finding an arbiter on whose impar-
tiality both sides could rely. A similar difficulty
may be caused by the ties of interest and alliance
binding nations into groups. Thus, in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries it would have been almost
impossible to find such an arbiter in Europe in
any quarrel between a Catholic and a Protestant state.
In the nineteenth century it would be almost im-
possible to find such an arbiter in any quarrel
caused by the claims of a nationality struggling
for independence ; while in the intervening period
the combinations of states — formed, to a great

loo THE MORALITY OF STRIFE.

extent, for the legitimate end of maintaining the
"balance of power" — presented a similar obstacle.

Now, I think that history shows that minor
violations of international rights — such as arbitra-
tion undoubtedly might settle — have rarely been the
real causes, though they have often been the osten-
sible causes and the real occasions^ of momentous
wars. The most serious wars of the European
group of states have resulted from conflicting
fundamental principles, religious or political, or
conflicting national interests of great real or sup-
posed importance, or more often a combination
of the two. Hence, though the international law
which arbitrators can administer may be most useful
in removing minor occasions of controversy and
in minimizing the mischief resulting from graver
conflicts, we can hardly look to it to provide such
a settlement for the graver controversies as will
enable us to dispense with war. This will perhaps
appear more clearly if we reflect for a moment
on the special difficulties that beset the definition
of international rights, in consequence of which
opposite views of imperfectly- defined rights tend
to be combined with discordant interests. Such
difficulties arise partly from the absence of a central
government of the community of nations ; partly
from the imperfect unity and cohesion of a nation

THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. loi

as compared with individual human beings ; partly
from the great difference in degrees of civilization
in the society of nations ; and practically we have
also to take into account the comparatively small
number of civilized states, and the consequent
greater importance of an individual nation — and
still more of a group of allied nations — relatively to
the whole community whose affairs international law
is designed to regulate. The first of these causes
renders necessary and legitimate an extension of
the right and duty of self-defence, which it is very
difficult to limit. War is not only obviously just
against actual aggression, but when aggression is
unmistakably being prepared, the nation threatened
cannot be condemned for striking the first blow,
if this is an important gain for self-defence. But
this easily passes over into anticipation of a blow
that is merely feared, not really threatened. Indeed,
this enlarged right of self-protection against mere
danger has often been further extended to justify
hostile interference to prevent a neighbour growing
strong merely through expansion or coalescence
with other states. I think that moral opinion should
set itself steadily against this latter extension of the
right of self-protection ; still, it is obviously difficult
to define exactly the degree of alarm that would
justify hostile action. It is still more difficult to

ro2 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE.

decide, on any clearly just principles, how far the
right of national self-preservation may be legiti-
mately extended into the right to prevent interference
with " national development " — e.g., if nation A
appropriates territory over which nation B is hoping
to extend its sway some time or other. At the
same time, this is a cause of strife that we must,
I think, expect to operate more intensely as the
world gets fuller. With each successive generation
the demand for expansion on the part of civilized
nations is likely to grow stronger ; and the more
serious the interests involved, the more difficult it
will be to obtain acquiescence in the rules deter-
mining the legitimate occupation of new territory,
which must inevitably be to some extent arbitrary.
And the question is complicated by the differences
in grade of civilization, to which I have referred ;
for the nations most advanced in civilization have
a tendency — the legitimacy of which cannot be
broadly and entirely disputed — to absorb semi-
civilized states in their neighbourhood, as in the
expansion of England and Russia in Asia, and of
France in Africa. As, I say, the tendency cannot
be altogether condemned, since it often seems clearly
a gain to the world on the whole that the absorp-
tion should take place; still it is obviously difficult
to define the conditions under which this is legiti-

THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 103

mate, and the civilized nation engaged in this process
of absorption cannot be surprised that other civiHzed
nations think that they have a right to interfere and
prevent the aggression.

When we turn to the part of the earth tolerably-
filled with civilized nations — to Western Europe —
it seems that the duty of avoiding substantial en-
croachment would be so clear that it could not
be violated without manifest immorality, if only
such nations had perfect internal unity and co-
herence. I do not see, e.g., how any quarrel could
easily arise between France and Spain — apart from
collisions of interest in other parts of the world —
except of the minor kind which arbitration might
settle, unless there was something like avowed
brigandage on one side or the other. But we have
only to look at Germany and Italy to see that
even Western Europe is far from being composed
of states of this type ; and even if internal unity
were attained for a time, it might always be broken
up again by some new division.

I therefore think it inevitable that, at least for
a long time to come, every nation in the most
important matters — as individuals in matters not
within the range of law courts — must to an im-
portant extent be judge in its own cause ; it may
refer some of its disputes to arbitration — and I

I04 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE.

hope the number may increase — but there are others
which it cannot so refer, and its judgment must
determine the Hmits of such reference. Other con-
siderations might be adduced, tending to restrict still
further the normal application of arbitration in inter-
national controversies ; e.g.^ it might be shown that
even where both sides in such a controversy are
animated by an adequate and preponderant desire
for peace, an acceptable compromise is often more
likely to be attained by direct negotiation than by
reference to an arbitrator. But it belongs to a
political rather than an ethical discussion to dwell
on points like these. I have said enough to show
why even civilized nations, in which the majority
are so far moral as to be sincerely unwilling to
fight for a cause clearly known to be wrong, cannot
be expected to avoid war by arbitration, except to
a very limited extent.

If, then, a moral acquiescence in war is at present
inevitable, what is to be the aim of morality with
regard to it ? Chiefly, it would seem, twofold : to
reduce its causes by cultivating a spirit of justice,
and to minimize its mischievous effects by the
prevalence of a spirit of humanity. Now in this
latter point the progress of modern civilization
shows a steady and considerable improvement, —
though it must be admitted that the progress starts

THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 105

from a very low level. The growth of humane
, sentiment has established rule after rule of military
'practice, tending to limit the mischief of war to
the minimum necessary for the attainment of its
ends. Thus bond-fide non-combatants have been
more and more completely exempted from personal
injury, while as regards their property, the old
indiscriminate pillage has given place to regulated
requisitions and contributions, the severity of which
at any rate falls short of cruelty. In the case of
combatants, the use of instruments — such as ex-
plosive bullets — which tend to cause pain out of
proportion to disablement has been expressly pro-
hibited, and the old liberty of refusing quarter
practically abandoned ; while elaborate provision has
been made for humane tending of sick and wounded
soldiers ; and humane treatment of prisoners, even
at considerable inconvenience to their captors, is
decisively imposed by the opinion of the civilized
world. Much, no doubt, might yet be done in the
same direction ; but considering the aims of war,
and the deadly violence inevitable in its methods,
I think that civilized humanity, at the end of the
nineteenth century, may look with some complacency
on the solid amount of improvement achieved.

The case is different when we turn to the
other duty of cultivating a spirit of justice. We

io6 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE.

all admit that — as we must be judges in our own
cause — we ought to endeavour to be just judges ;
but there is hardly any plain duty of great im-
portance in which civilized men fail so palpably
as in this. Doubtless the impartiality required is
difficult ; still, I am persuaded that even the im-
perfect beings who compose modern nations might
perform with more success the judicial function—
which, in a modern state under popular government,
has become, in some degree, the business of every
man — if national consciences could be roused to
feel the nobility, and grapple practically and
persistently with the difficulties of the task. At
any rate, the thoughtful and moral part of every
community might fit themselves for this judicial
function with more care, and perform it under a
sense of graver responsibility than is now the case.
I am not urging that they should keep coldly aloof
from patriotic sentiment ; but at any rate before
the struggle has actually commenced, when the
cloud of discord that is to cover the sky is as
yet no bigger than a man's hand, it is surely the
imperative duty of all moral persons, according to
their gifts and leisure, to make an earnest and
systematic attempt to form an impartial view of the
points at issue.

There are three stages in such an attempt, which

THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 107

are not always distinguished. First, we may en-
deavour to put ourselves in the opponent's place,
carrying with us our own principles and views of
right, and see whether, when we look at the
opponent's case from the inside, there is not more
to be said for it than appeared when we contem-
plated it from the outside. Secondly, if we have
no doubt that our opponent is in the wrong,
according to principles of right that we sincerely
hold, we still have to ask ourselves whether we
apply these principles not merely in claiming our
rights, but also in practically determining the per-
formance of our duties. For if there has been
divergence between our actions and our principles,
though it may not always be a reason for abandoning
a present claim — for two wrongs do not make a right
— it is an argument for mildness and for a spirit
of compromise. And, thirdly, if there seems to
us to be a real difference of principles, then comes
the most difficult duty of endeavouring to place
ourselves in an impartial position for contemplating
the different sets of principles, and seeing if there
is not an element of truth in the opponent's view
which we have hitherto missed. It is hard to bring
a man to this when once the complex collision of
principles and interests has begun, and it is still
harder to bring a nation to it ; but it is a plain

io8 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE,

duty imposed on us by reason, and it is the most
essential part of the internal method of aiding
the transition from strife to concord, without which
the perfecting of the machinery of arbitration does
not seem to me likely to achieve very great results.
Fortunately it is not, for practical needs, indispensable
that the opposing views of justice should be com-
pletely harmonized ; it is practically sufficient if the
divergence be so far reduced by reciprocal admissions
that the difference remaining may appear to both
less important than the evils of war. Thus the effort
at mutual comprehension, even if it does not lead
to anything like agreement, may still avert strife.
For, finally, one great argument for the strenuous
use and advocacy of what I may distinguish as
the spiritual method of avoiding the appeal to
brute force in international disputes — the cultivation
of a spirit of justice — is that it tends to promote
the application of the external or political method.
If we school ourselves to seek no more than is
our due in any dispute, and to take pains to
ascertain what this is, we shall be practically more
willing to submit our claims to arbitration; and,
further, if a keen interest in international justice
spreads through civilized nations, confidence in
arbitrators will tend to increase.

I pass to consider briefly the burning question

THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 109

of the strife between industrial classes, that is an
increasingly prominent feature of modern civilized
society ; the strife which, so far as physical violence
is excluded by political order, is carried on between
two groups of producers — ordinarily manual labourers
and employers — by means of concerted refusals to
exchange productive services except on terms fixed
by one or other of the opposing groups. There is
no kind of strife to which the application of the
method of arbitration appears at first sight more
reasonable, or is more commonly demanded ; but
there is none in which the nature of the case
ordinarily presents greater obstacles to the satis-
factory application of it. The difficulty here is not
so much to find an arbitrator adequately free from
bias as to find principles of distributive justice
which the common sense of both the classes con-
cerned accepts. This is a difficulty that seems to
reach its maximum in the present state of society,
which is distracted between two opposing ideals.
According to the individualistic ideal, monopoly
and combination would only exist to an insignificant
extent, and every individual worker would obtain,
through unlimited competition, the market value —
representing the social utility — of the services
rendered by him to society. On the other hand,
so far as we can conceive a completely socialistic

no THE MORALITY OF STRIFE.

regime to exist at all, we must suppose that the
remuneration allowed to different classes of pro-
ducers— beyond the minimum which anyone could
obtain from the state in return for the work which
it would have to provide for him somehow — would
be determined by some administrative organ of
government, on principles laid down by the legis-
lature. In neither case would there be an opening
for the industrial strife that naturally occurs in our
present intermediate system, in which the pursuit
of self-interest is more and more prompting to
combined instead of simply competitive action. In
this system the problem of determining the just
or equitable division of any product, between two
or more groups of the persons who have produced
it, only admits of a rough and, to a great extent,
arbitrary solution. Compulsory arbitration in the
disputes thus arising would involve serious risks in
a fully-peopled state ; for the rules to be applied by
the arbitrator would in the last resort have to be
determined by government ; and a state that under-
took to fix the terms of industrial bargains would
be responsible for any want of employment that
might result, and would therefore be in a logically
weak position for refusing to provide employment on
the terms thus laid down ; while if it attempted any
such provision, full-blown Socialism would be well

THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. in

in sight. And even voluntary arbitration is, under
these conditions, only applicable when the two parties
have been somehow brought to agreement as to
the general rules by which any particular dispute
should be decided ; and the difficult problem is
how to bring them to this agreement. Here again,
therefore, the external method of composing strife
requires the aid of the spiritual method. For the
reason I have explained, to appeal to the sense of
justice, strictly speaking, of the opposing parties
would be rather ineffective rhetoric. But we may
none the less endeavour to develop the elements
from which the moral habit of justice springs — on
the one hand, sympathy, and the readiness to
imagine oneself in another's place and look at things
from his point of view ; and on the other hand, the
intelligent apprehension of common interests. In
this way we may hope to produce a disposition to
compromise, adequate for practical needs, even when
the adjustment thus attained can only be rough,
and far removed from what either party regards
as ideally equitable.

My limits do not allow me to discuss the larger
questions raised by the other external method of
realizing justice between classes in a state — I mean
the construction of a supreme government that will,
in legislation and taxation and the control of adminis-

112 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE.

tration, keep a just balance between different sections
of the community. I can only express my conviction
that the most skilfully-adjusted representative system
will not really protect us against a majority, formed
by a combination of selfish interests, becoming
practically judge in its own cause ; and the belief in
the natural right of the majority of any community
to do what it likes is a political superstition which
is rapidly passing to the limbo of such superstitions.
The only sure way of preventing strife within modern
states from growing continually more bitter and
dangerous lies in persuading the citizens, of all
classes and sections, that it is not enough to desire
justice sincerely ; it is needful that they fit them-
selves, by laborious and sustained efforts to under-
stand the truths mingled with opposing errors, for
the high and deeply responsible function, which
democracy throws on them, of determining and
realizing social justice so far as it depends on
government. Otherwise, there seems grave reason to
fear that the strife of sections within a community
may lead to war in the future, as it has done in
the past.

V.

THE ETHICS OF RELIGIOUS
CONFORMITY*

T HAVE taken as the subject of my address to-
-■- day the " Ethics of ReHgious Conformity." What
I wish to discuss is the duty which the persons who
form the progressive — or, to use a neutral term, the
deviating — element in a religious community owe to
the rest of that community ; the extent to which they
ought to give expression and effect to their opinions
within the community ; and the point at which the
higher interests of truth force them to the disruption
of old ties and cherished associations. There can, I
think, be little doubt that this is an ethical question
of much importance. But it may reasonably be
doubted whether it is one with which we are here
called upon to concern ourselves. I will begin by
trying to remove this doubt.

* A lecture delivered to the West London Ethical Society, Novem-
ber 24, 1S95, and published in the International Journal of Ethics,
April, 1896.

I ZI3

114 THE ETHICS OF

The aim of our Society is to be a moralizing
agency, to assist "individual and social efforts after
right living." Now, actually, in the world we live
in, the great moralizing agencies are the Christian
churches ; and the most advanced thinker can hardly
suppose that this will not continue to be the case for
an indefinite time to come. If so, surely none can
be more seriously concerned than members of an
Ethical Society that the vast influence exercised by
the churches on social morality should be as pure
and elevating as possible.

It is true that our work proceeds on a different
basis : our principles are that " the good life has a
claim on us in virtue of its supreme worth to
humanity," and "rests for its justification" simply
"on the nature of man as a rational and social
being." But, in the view of the wiser and more
thoughtful teachers in the Christian churches, this
is not a basis to be rejected, though it needs to be
supplemented. I will mention one or two great
names. The philosophy of Thomas Aquinas has
been for centuries the dominant philosophy in the
Church of Rome. In the Anglican Church, and
beyond its limits in England, there is no repre-
sentative of orthodox Christian morality who has
gained more esteem than Joseph Butler. Yet no
one can doubt that in the view of Aquinas and of

RELIGIOUS CONFORMITY, 115

Butler equally it was a matter of the highest im-
portance to show how — putting aside the Christian
revelation — a life of virtue (not saintly virtue, but
ordinary human virtue) might be justified on a
consideration of the nature of man as a rational
and social being.

Accordingly, in our Cambridge Ethical Society —
though this is not, any more than yours, founded
on the basis of acceptance of traditional Christian
dogma — we have always invited, and, I am glad to
say, obtained the co-operation of persons of orthodox
views. It may seem, however, that this unexclusive
attitude is incompatible with your express principle
that the good life " rests for its justification on no
external authority, and no system of supernatural
rewards and punishments " ; but I venture to in-
terpret this principle as opposed not to Christian
doctrine, but to a superficial and unphilosophic form
of such doctrine. For in a more profound and
philosophical view divine authority is not conceived
as external ; it is the authority of that Universal
Reason through community with which all knowledge,
all truth, comes to human minds. So, again, the
rewards of virtue and the penalties of vice to which
Christianity looks forward in the future lives of in-
dividuals are not " supernatural," since the conditions
under which, if at all, those lives will be lived are

ii6 THE ETHICS OF

conditions forming part of one system of nature — a
system deriving its unity from the One Mind which
is its ground. I am far from imposing this as an
authoritative interpretation of your formula, but I
trust I am right in regarding it as an admissible
interpretation ; since it is in this view of the scope of
your principles that I accepted the honour of being
your President, and of addressing you here to-day.

For while I have always sympathized with the
movement that has led to the formation of Ethical
Societies here and in America, I have always held
that they ought to maintain — and I hope that they
always will maintain — towards the churches an
attitude of fraternal sympathy, without either con-
flict or competition. The work that the churches
are doing, with their vast resources and traditional
influence over men's minds, is work in the eflicacy
of which we must always be keenly interested ; while
any work that we may accomplish in our little
measure, towards the realization of our avowed aims,
is work which the thoughtful among them will equally
desire to be well done — though, of course, in their
view it cannot be by itself adequate for the guidance
of life.

It is, then, in this spirit that I address myself to
the subject that I have announced.

The student of history sees that hypocrisy and

RELIGIOUS CONFORMITY. 117

insincere conformity have always been a besetting
vice of established or predominant religions ; and a
grave drawback to their moralizing influence after
the first period of ardent struggle is over, and they
have attained a stable position of power and in-
fluence over men's minds. Indeed, we may say that
in the popular classification of professional failings,
just as lying is the recognized vice of diplomatists,
chicanery of lawyers, solemn quackery of physicians,
so hypocrisy is noted as the temptation of priests
and of laymen who make a profession of piety.
And in most of these cases, on the margin of the
vice, there is a region of doubt and difficulty for
persons desiring to do what is right : it is not easy
to say exactly how far a diplomatist may legitimately
go in concealing state secrets, or a lawyer in using
his professional skill to defeat justice. It is on this
margin of doubt and difficulty, in the case of religious
conformity, that I wish now to concentrate attention.
With the vice of hypocrisy, so far as it is conscious
and unmistakable, I am not concerned. The
thorough-paced hypocrite —

" Who never naming God except for gain,
So never took that useful name in vain " —

we may leave to popular censure; — which is, perhaps,
at the present time sufficiently active in reprobating

ii8 THE ETHICS OF

him. It is the excusable hypocrisy, the well-meant
pretence of belief — the region not of vice, but of
error in judgment, if error there be — that I wish
now to examine.

And here I may pause to note another aspect in
which the question I am raising interests us as an
Ethical Society. I conceive that it is largely a
sense of the value of the churches as moralizing
agencies — as supplying both in their regular common
worship and their weekly discourses, an assistance
to individual and social efforts after right living —
which leads men who do not really believe impor-
tant doctrines formally adopted by their church to
cling to it in spite of intellectual divergence ; and
even, perhaps, in some cases to hold office in it and
preach in its pulpits. They feel that the teaching
received by them in childhood from their church or
under its guidance has made them better men than
they would have been without it, and they wish
their children to be brought up under similar
beneficent influences. Without denying that there
are good men and women outside the churches,
they think that — making a broad and general
comparison of the religious and the irreligious —
the conditions and habits of life of the latter are,
on the average, manifestly less favourable to morality
than those of the former. They think, therefore,

RELIGIOUS CONFORMITY. 119

that separation from the church would be — from an
ethical point of view — a greater evil than a more
or less suppressed intellectual disagreement with
some of the doctrines in the creeds that they allow
themselves to appear to believe.

The question then is, How far are they right?
I need hardly explain, after what I have already
said, that I propose to treat this question merely
from an ethical point of view, and not at all as a
theological question. Doubtless, in an age like the
period immediately following the Reformation —
when Christians still believed almost universally
that there was some one ecclesiastical organization
and some one system of doctrines to which the
divine favour was exclusively attached, but were
profoundly disagreed as to which organization or
system enjoyed this privilege — any but a theo-
logical treatment of these topics would naturally
seem idle. The inquiry then could only be, what
degree of variation from the true standard involved
deadly error. Even now, it may be held by some,
that if a man has the misfortune to hold erroneous
opinions he ought to keep them to himself, and
outwardly appear to believe what he does not
believe, rather than aggravate his guilt by the open
rejection of saving truth. Or they may hold that
such a heretic must do wrong, whatever he does ;

I20 THE ETHICS OF

he is in the miserable dilemma of being inevitably
either a hypocrite or a schismatic, and it is an
unedifying exercise in casuistry to discuss which is
worst. On the other hand, men may still believe
vaguely that the favour of heaven rests in some
mysterious and supernatural way on a particular
religious community, even though they may be
unable to accept its distinctive theological opinions ;
or, rather, though they may have renounced most
of its dogmas, but not the one dogma that asserts
the peculiar salvatory efficacy of its discipline. To
minds in any of these attitudes I do not attempt
to appeal. Indeed, the mere statement of these
views — though I believe them to be actually and,
perhaps, even widely held — suffices to show how
opposed they are to the general movement of
thought in the present age, among Protestants at
least, both within and without the churches. On
the whole, the recognition of the necessity of free
inquiry, and the respect for conscientious difference
of opinion, is now so general among thoughtful
persons that I believe most educated Englishmen
— whether orthodox or not — are prepared to regard
my question as one to be determined on ethical
principles common to all sects and schools.

It is necessary, however, to separate this question
from another one, that in many minds blends with

RELIGIOUS CONFORMITY. 121

it and predominates over it. It is very difficult for
men in any political or social discussion to keep the
ideal quite distinct from the actual, and not some-
times to prescribe present conduct on grounds which
would only be valid if a distant and dubious change
of circumstances were really certain and imminent.
It is peculiarly difficult to do this in discussing the
conditions of religious union ; for in theological
matters an ardent believer, especially if his beliefs
are self-chosen and not inherited, is peculiarly prone
to think that the whole world is on the point of
coming round to his opinions. And hence the
religious persons who, by the divergence of their
opinions from the orthodox standard of their church,
have been practically led to consider the subject of
this lecture, have often been firmly convinced that
the limits of their church must necessarily be en-
larged at least sufficiently to include themselves ; and
have rather considered the method of bringing about
this enlargement, than what ought to be done until
it is effected. But when we survey, impartially, the
development of religious thought from the Reforma-
tion to the present time ; when we observe how the
diversity of beliefs throughout the Christian world
has continually increased, the interval between the
extremes widening, and the intermediate opinions,
or shades of opinion, becoming more numerous ;

122 THE ETHICS OF

when we see how Httle the outward organization,
symbols, and formulas of the different religious
communities have been affected by the discoveries
of science or the changes of philosophy, or the
successive predominance of novel ideas, novel hopes
and aspirations, in the political and social spheres; —
we shall feel it presumptuous to prophesy that any
revolution is now impending in the nature, extension,
and mutual relations of the recognized creeds of
Christendom, so great as to render a discussion like
the present unnecessary.

Here, however, it may perhaps be said, " Granting
the question to be still one of practical importance,
it is not one of fresh interest ; it is surely an old
question which must have been raised and settled^ —
so far as ethical discussion can settle it — long ago."
My answer is that the change of thought to which
I just now referred — the movement in the direction
of wide toleration — materially alters the conditions
of the question ; for this movement at once intro-
duces a new danger and imposes a new duty. On
the one hand, there is a danger that the disposition
to tolerate and respect even widely divergent
opinions, when held with consistency, clearness, and
sincerity, may degenerate into a disposition to think
lightly of conscious inconsistency and insincerity,
and so to tolerate the attitude of sitting loose to

RELIGIOUS CONFORMITY. 123

creeds. On the other hand, every step society takes
towards complete civil and social equality of creeds
really diminishes the old excuse for lax and insincere
conformity. Further, though the toleration of which
I have spoken has, like other drifts of current opinion
and sentiment, baser and nobler elements, its best
element consists of the growing predominance of the
love of truth over mere partisanship in theological
controversy, which leads to a comprehensive effort
after mutual understanding among persons who hold
conflicting opinions. As a result of this we find,
among the best representatives of orthodoxy, a
temperate dogmatism which holds opinions firmly
and earnestly, and yet is able to see how they look
when viewed from the outside, and to divine by
analogy how the opinions of others look when viewed
from the inside ; and this attitude carries with it a
legitimate demand for respectful frankness on the
part of their opponents.

And this demand is continually strengthened by
the growing influence of positive science as an
element of our highest intellectual culture. I do
not refer to any effect which the progress of science
may have had in modifying theological opinions ;
but rather to the necessity, which this progress lays
with ever-increasing force on theologians, of accept-
ing unreservedly the conditions of independent

124 THE ETHICS OF

thought which in other departments are clearly seen
to be essential to the very life of knowledge. This
is a necessity of which the recognition is quite
independent of any particular view of theological
method or conclusions. It is sometimes said that
we live in an age that rejects authority. The state-
ment, thus unqualified, seems misleading ; probably
there never was a time when the number of beliefs
held by each individual, undemonstrated and unveri-
fied by himself, was greater. But it is true that we
are more and more disposed to accept only authority
of a particular sort; the authority, namely, that is
formed and maintained by the unconstrained agree-
ment of individual thinkers, each of whom we
believe to be seeking truth with single-mindedness
and sincerity, and declaring what he has found with
scrupulous veracity, and the greatest attainable exact-
ness and precision. For this kind of authority the
wonderful and steady progress of physical knowledge
leads educated persons to entertain a continually
increasing respect, accompanied by a correspond-
ing distrust of any other kind of authority in
matters intellectual. Now, from theologians of an
earlier generation, it seemed hopeless to look for
acceptance of the conditions under which alone the
authority of a " consensus " of experts can be
obtained ; owing to the onesided stress which they

RELIGIOUS CONFORMITY. 125

were accustomed to lay on the imbecility of the
inquisitive intellect, the inadequacy of language to
express profound mysteries, and the unedifying effect
of truth upon an unprepared audience. It is because
a change is tailing place in this respect, because
among the most orthodox theologians there are men
imbued with the best qualities of the scientific spirit,
because the tide of opinion is moving in this direc-
tion among earnestly religious Protestants of all
shades, that the time seems to me opportune for
a fresh discussion of my present subject. If we
accept as a fact, which at any rate cannot be rapidly
altered, that the divergence of religious beliefs, con-
scientiously entertained by educated persons, is great,
is increasing, and shows no symptom of diminution ;
if we admit the principles of complete toleration and
complete freedom of inquiry; if we also admit the
growing demand of educated laymen, that when they
are instructed on matters of the highest moment
they should feel the same security which they feel
on less important subjects, that their teacher is
declaring to them truth precisely as it appears to
him, — then surely the old question as to the nature
and limits of the duty of religious conformity may
reasonably be examined afresh in the light of these
considerations.

Now I find two views — opposed to each other, but

126 THE ETHICS OF

both somewhat widely spread — which stand in the
way of a full and frank discussion of this question.
It is said that the question is so simple that it is not
worth while discussing it at any length ; an honest
man can easily settle it on the principles of ordinary
morality. Again, it is said that the question is so
difficult and complex, and the right solution of it
dependent on so many varying conditions, that it
had better be left entirely to the conscience of the
individual, which can take account of his special
nature and circumstances. The truth seems to me
to lie between these two extremes. On the one
hand, I do^ not think it very difficult to find the right
general answer to the question ; though at the
same time I do not think that this — for the persons
whom it practically most concerns — is quite a simple
answer. I think it requires both impartial sympathy
and careful distinctions to conceive and state it accu-
rately. On the other hand, I think that the best
general answer that we can obtain is not one that
by itself gives decisive guidance to any individual :
it leaves, and must leave, much to be variously
determined by the divergent views and sentiments
and varying circumstances of different individuals ;
but I think we ought to confine these variations —
in determining the conduct to which moral approval
is to be given — within somewhat narrower limits than

RELIGIOUS CONFORMITY. 127

those within which the practice of well-meaning
persons actually ranges.

The argument of those who treat the question as
a simple one may be briefly given thus. A church
is an association of persons holding certain dis-
tinctive doctrines ; — not necessarily theological doc-
trines, since the essential differences between one
church and another may relate to questions of ritual
or of ecclesiastical organization rather than to
questions strictly theological, but in any case
doctrines or beliefs of some kind. An individual
belongs to a church because he holds these distinctive
doctrines ; or at any rate because he once held them,
and his intellect has not yet decisively rejected any
important part of them, though it may be in a state
of doubt and suspense of judgment on some points.
It would be generally granted that, so long as he
remains merely doubtful and wavering, he is right in
maintaining his old position. But — according to this
view — as soon as he has made up his mind against
any important doctrine explicitly adopted by his
church, it is proper for him to withdraw. Or at any
rate — for I do not wish to state the view in the most
extreme form — this withdrawal is a clear duty in the
case of any church which exacts, as a condition of
admission to the privileges of membership, an
express declaration of adhesion to certain doctrines

128 THE ETHICS OF

selected as fundamental in the teaching of the
church.

This view of the basis of religious association
cannot, I think, be rejected as an inadmissible view :
we cannot say that an individual does wrong in
holding and acting on it. I should go further and
say that it is the most natural and obvious view to
take. But it would, I think, be a grave mistake to
impose it as the only view ethically admissible.

First, the view clearly does not correspond to the
actual facts, — the actual basis of common under-
standing on which a church, in modern society, holds
together. It is not only that the members of such a
body do not always withdraw when they have ceased
to hold any of its fundamental doctrines ; but it is
not expected that they should withdraw: they violate
no common understanding in not withdrawing.

And this is because feelings that every one must
respect make it impossible for a man voluntarily to
abandon a church as easily as he would withdraw
from a scientific or philanthropic association. The
ties that bind him to it are so much more intimate
and sacred, that their severance is proportionally
more painful. The close relations of kinship and
friendship in which he may stand to individual
members of the congregation present obstacles to
severance which all, in practice, recognize, if not in

RELIGIOUS CONFORMITY. 129

theory ; but even to the community itself, and its
worship, he is still bound by the strong bands of
hereditary affection, ancient habit, and, possibly,
religious sympathies outliving doctrinal agreement.
Let us grant that these considerations ought not
to weigh against disagreement on essential points.
The question remains, Who is to be the judge of
essentiality? For it often happens — probably most
often at the present day — that the point at issue,
though selected as fundamental by the church, is
not so regarded by the divergent individual : it
may very likely appear to him to possess no religious
importance whatsoever, and therefore to give him no
personal motive for secession. A man who feels no
impulse to leave a community, and sees no religious
or moral gain in joining any other, can hardly be
expected to excommunicate himself; others, sym-
pathizing with his motives, shrink from excommuni-
cating him ; and thus " multitudinism " — as it has been
called — creeps tacitly into churches whose bond of
union is prima facie doctrinal. And the principle
thus admitted receives a continually widening appli-
cation, until from the mere fact that a man is a
member of a religious body we can draw no inference
whatever as to his beliefs, even in the case of a
generally upright and conscientious man, and even
though the body to which he professedly belongs

K

I30 THE ETHICS OF

has a perfectly definite and express basis of theolo-
gical doctrine.

It may be said that this result, however, is not
legitimate or desirable, but merely a concession to
human weakness, inevitable perhaps in fact so long
as men are weak, but to be firmly rejected in deter-
mining the moral ideal. The reason, in my opinion,
for adopting an opposite view is, that the service
which religion undeniably renders to society lies
primarily in its influence on the moral and social
feelings, and that Multitudinism tends to keep this
influence alive in many cases in which a strict Doc-
trinalism would tend to destroy it. If a man severs
himself from the worship of his parents and the
religious habits in which he has grown up he will, in
many cases, form no new religious ties, or none of
equal stability and force ; and in consequence the
influence of religion on his life will be liable to be
impaired, and with it the influence of that higher
morality which Christianity, in all our churches,
powerfully supports and inspires ; so that his life
will in consequence be liable to become more selfish,
frivolous, and worldly, even if he does not lapse into
recognized immorality. I need hardly say that I do
not regard this as an inevitable result of breaking
away from an inherited creed and worship. I do not
even say that it is to be expected in a majority of

RELIGIOUS CONFORMITY. 131

cases. Many are saved from it by devotion to a non-
religious ideal — to science or social progress ; others
by the bracing effect of onerous duties faithfully dis-
charged ; others by intense and elevating personal
affections. But — though I have no means of
estimating the proportion with any exactness — I
am disposed to think that this moral decline is to
be feared in a number of cases sufficient to constitute
it a grave danger.

Here I would note, because it is apt to be over-
looked, one moral advantage of membership of a
church for ordinary men — which remains even when
the authoritative creed of the church no longer
seriously affects their belief as to the moral order
of the world — namely, that it constrains them, gently
but effectively, to a regular and solemn profession of
a morality higher than their ordinary practice. This
may sound a paradox, since the gap between
Christian professions and Christian practice is one
of the tritest themes of modern satire. And I quite
admit that for men deliberately and contentedly false
to their avowed standard of duty the express accept-
ance of this standard is no gain, but a loss : they
merely add the evil of hypocrisy to the evil of vice or
selfish worldliness. But the case is otherwise with
the average well-meaning persons who are numeri-
cally most important ; however much their practice

132 THE ETHICS OF

may fall below their professions, it is higher than it
would have been if they had not, by professions not
consciously insincere, given their fellow-men the right
to try it by the exacting standard of Christian duty.

I need not labour this point here, since surely a
leading motive for the formation of ethical societies
is the desire to gain, for oneself and for others, the
moral support to be derived from sharing in the
social expression of lofty ethical aims and interests.

For these reasons I think that in defining the
moral obligation of church-membership it is right
and wise to admit what I have called Multitudinism,
and concede to it as much as can be conceded without
violating the principles of Veracity and Fidelity to
promises.

Now probably you would allow me, if I wished, to
assume that the rules of Veracity and Fidelity to
promises are rules to be obeyed at all costs ; that
the evils of violating them at all are graver than
any trouble and disturbance and pain that may be
caused by strict adhesion to them. But this is not
exactly my own view, and I wish here to explain my
position with perfect frankness and precision. My
philosophical principles are on ethical questions
utilitarian. I think that these and other virtues are
only valuable as means to the end of human happi-
ness, and when I examine the matters discussed for

RELIGIOUS CONFORMITY. 133

ages by casuists, I find exceptional cases in which
I have to approve of unveracity. For instance, I
should not hesitate to lie to a murderer in pursuit
of his victim, nor — if I thought it prudent — to
deceive a burglar as to the whereabouts of the
family plate. And there have been ages of violent
and inquisitorial religious persecution when it was
excusable, though not admirable, in a heretic to keep
his view of truth a secret doctrine, and simulate
acceptance of the creed imposed by fire and sword.
But in an age like the present, when even aggressive
atheism has in England been found no bar to a
political career and parliamentary success, the last
shadow of this excuse for unveracity has vanished.

But again, I admit cases in which deception may
legitimately be practised for the good of the person
deceived. Under a physician's orders I should not
hesitate to speak falsely to save an invalid from a
dangerous shock. And I can imagine a high-minded
thinker persuading himself that the mass of mankind
are normally in a position somewhat analogous to
that of such an invalid ; that they require for their
individual and social well-being to be comforted by
hopes, and spurred and curbed by terrors, that have
no rational foundation. Well, in a community like
that of Paraguay under the Jesuits, with an en-
lightened few monopolizing intellectual culture and

134 THE ETHICS OF

a docile multitude giving implicit credence to their
instruction, it might be possible — and for a man with
such convictions it might conceivably be right — to
support a fictitious theology for the good of the
community by systematic falsehood. But in a
society like our own, where every one reads and
no one can be prevented from printing, where doubts
and denials of the most sacred and time-honoured
beliefs are proclaimed daily from house-tops and
from hill-tops, the method of pious fraud is surely
inapplicable. The secret must leak out; the net of
philanthropic unveracity must be spread in the sight
of the bird : the benevolent deceiver will find that he
has demoralized his fellow-men, and contributed to
shake the invaluable habits of truth-speaking and
mutual confidence among them, without gaining the
end for which he has made this great sacrifice. The
better the man who sought to benefit his fellow-men
in this strange way the worse, on the whole, would be
the result ; indeed, one can hardly imagine a severer
blow to the moral well-being of a community than
that that element of it which was most earnestly
seeking to promote morality should be chargeable
with systematic unveracity and habitual violation of
solemn pledges, and be unable to repel the charge.

I conclude, then, that while we should yield full
sympathy and respect to the motives that prompt a

RELIGIOUS CONFORMITY. 135

man to cling to a religious community whose in-
fluence on himself and others he values, even though
he has ceased to hold beliefs which the community
has formally declared to be essential ; and while we
should concede broadly the legitimacy of such ad-
hesion ; still all such concessions must be firmly
limited by the obligations of Veracity and Good
Faith.

This conclusion, however, is somewhat vague and
general. I will try to make it rather more definite —
but much must always be left to the varying senti-
ments and judgments of individuals, and it is an
important gain to get the principle clear. In illus-
trating its application, I will consider first the case
of pledges expressly taken on admission to member-
ship. Here I should understand my principle to
mean that the obligation to fulfil any such pledge
should be held as sacred as any other promise, but
that as broad an interpretation as is fairly admissible
should be put on the terms of the pledge. In
determining this I hold it reasonable to be largely
guided by common understanding. This is not
always easy to ascertain, but if an individual is in
doubt, any serious danger of bad faith may usually
be avoided by making his position clear to others
who do not hold his views. The important point is
that he should neither betray the confidence reposed

136 THE ETHICS OF

in him by others, nor give them fair reason for believing
that he holds opinions which he does not hold.

I may make this clearer by taking a particular
example ; and I will select the case of the Church
of England, both because it is practically for us
the most important case, and because in an estab-
lished church with a prescribed form of worship,
and an elaborate official creed more than three
centuries old, the difficulties of the present question
reach their maximum. Now there can be no doubt
that a member of the Church of England is formally
pledged to believe the Apostles' Creed. But it is
clearly impossible to take this pledge literally. If
it comes into conflict with the necessity or duty of
believing what appears to a man true, it can be
no more binding than any other promise to do what
is either impossible or wrong. Can we say, then,
that in the case of such conflict there is an implied
pledge to withdraw ? This is, I think, the most
natural view to take, and, for a long time, I
thought it difficult to justify morally any other
view. But as the pledge to withdraw is at any
rate only implied, and as the common understanding,
of orthodox and unorthodox alike, gives the implica-
tion no support, I now think it legitimate to regard
the obvious though indirect import of the verbal
pledge as relaxed by the common understanding.

RELIGIOUS CONFORMITY. 137

At the same time, considering how necessarily vague
and uncertain this appeal to a tacit common under-
standing must be, and how explicit and solemn the
pledge taken is, I do not think anyone who is a
candidate for any educational or other post of trust,
in which membership of the English Church is
required as a condition, ought to take advantage of
this relaxation without making his position clear to
those who appoint to the post ; so as to make sure
that they, at any rate, are willing to admit his inter-
pretation of it. I do not mean that such a person
is bound to state his theological opinions — I think
no one should be forced to do that — but I think
he ought to state clearly how he interprets his pledge
to believe the Apostles' Creed.

I might pursue this question into much more
detail, but this kind of casuistry is apt to weary,
unless it is pursued for the practical end of personal
choice or friendly counsel ; and I am anxious not
to seem to dogmatize on points on which I should
readily acquiesce in minor differences of judgment.
I pass on, therefore, to examine the obligation implied
in taking part in a form of worship — especially one
which, like that of the Church of England, includes
the recital of one or more creeds. Here, however, I
think that the only practical question admitting of
a precise general answer relates not to the duty

138 THE ETHICS OF

of a private member of the church, but to the duty
of its appointed teachers. For the mere presence
at a religious service — by a clear common under-
standing— does not imply more than a general
sympathy with its drift and aims ; it does not
necessarily imply a belief in any particular statement
made in the course of it, as an ordinary member of
the congregation is not obliged to join in any such
statement unless he likes. And how far it is desirable
that an individual should take any part in a social
act of religious worship, while conscious of a certain
amount of intellectual dissent from the beliefs
implied in the utterances of the worship, is a
question which may properly be left to be decided
by the varying sentiments of individuals ; the effect
of public worship on the worshipper is so complex
and so various, that it would be inexpedient to
attempt to lay down a definite general rule. The
minds of some are so constituted, that it would
be a mockery to them to take part in a service
not framed in exact accordance with their theological
convictions ; to others, again, quite as genuinely
religious, but more influenced by sympathies and
associations, the element of intellectual agreement
appears less important.

The case of the teacher, the officiating minister,
is different, for on him the imperative duty falls —

RELIGIOUS CONFORMITY. 139

in the Church of England — of solemnly declaring
his personal belief in the fundamental doctrines of
the church, as stated in the Apostles' Creed and
the Nicene Creed. And here, I think, we come to
a point at which the efforts made for more than
a generation in England to liberalize the teaching
of the English Church, and to open its ministry
to men of modern ideas, must find an inexorable
moral barrier in the obligations of veracity and
good faith. For the priest who recites any one
of the precise and weighty statements in the
Apostles' Creed,* while not really believing it, can
hardly be acquitted of breaking both these rules of
duty;t since he states falsely that he believes a
theological proposition which he has implicitly
pledged himself to teach with genuine belief, and
in his case no common understanding can, I think,
be held to have relaxed the force of this pledge.
I believe that there are men who make these false
statements regularly with the best intentions, and
with aims and purposes with which we shall all

* I mention the Apostles' Creed because its position in the Baptismal
Service attaches to it with special emphasis the character of a summary
of the doctrine which the minister has been appointed to teach.

t No doubt if he at the same time makes clear that he does not
believe the statement, his unveracity is merely formal ; but then his
breach of his ordination vow, **so to minister the doctrine ... as
this Church hath received the same," becomes still more palpable.

I40 THE ETHICS OF

here sympathize ; but the more we sympathize with
them, the more it becomes our duty to urge — from
the purely ethical point of view which we here take
— that no gain in enlightenment and intelligence
which the Anglican ministry may receive from the
presence of such men can compensate for the
damage done to moral habits, and the offence given
to moral sentiments, by their example. Let me
not be misunderstood. I should desire and think
right that in determining the scope of the obligation
imposed by the creeds the utmost breadth of inter-
pretation should be granted, the utmost variety of
meanings allowed which the usage of language,
especially the vagueness of many fundamental
notions, will fairly admit. Christianity, in the course
of its history, has adapted itself to many philoso-
phies ; and I do not doubt that there is much
essentially modern thought about the Universe, its
End and Ground and moral order, which will bear
to be thrown into the mould of these time-honoured
creeds. But there is one line of thought which is
not compatible with them, and that is the line of
thought which, taught by modern science and
modern historical criticism, concludes against the
miraculous element of the gospel history, and in
particular rejects the story of the miraculous birth
of Jesus. I would give all sympathy to those who

RELIGIOUS CONFORMITY. 141

are trying to separate the ethical and religious
element in their inherited creed from the doubts
and difficulties that hang about the "thaumato-
logical " element, and so to cherish the vital ties
that connect the best and highest of our modern
sentiments and beliefs, religious and moral, with
the sacred books and venerable traditions of Chris-
tianity. I think the work on which they are
engaged a good work and profitable for these times ;
but I cannot think it is a work that can properly
be done within the pale of the Anglican ministry.

VI.
CLERICAL VERACITY.

THE foregoing address was published in the
International Journal of Ethics for April, 1 896.
In January, 1 897, a reply from the Rev. H. Rashdall,
of Hertford College, Oxford, combating at some
length the view taken in my address as to the moral
position of the Anglican clergy, appeared in the
same journal. Mr. Rashdall's paper is ably and
earnestly written, and I have endeavoured to give
full weight to the considerations urged by him.
But the main conclusions expressed in my address
remain unchanged ; and as the question seems to me
one of profound social importance, I propose in this
essay to return to it and give such further explana-
tions and further arguments as Mr. Rashdall's paper
suggests. I do not, however, find it convenient to
throw my statement into the form of a simple re-
joinder to Mr. Rashdall, because he has, to an impor-
tant extent, misunderstood my position ; and the
detailed discussion of such misunderstandings is

142

CLERICAL VERACITY. 143

almost always wearisome and unprofitable to the
reader. The misunderstanding is partly due to the
comparative brevity with which I treated the subject
— Mr. Rashdall's thirty pages being in fact directed
against the last page and a half of my address ; and
perhaps I ought to offer some explanation of this
brevity. The truth is that though Mr. Rashdall
regards my position as extreme on the side of
strictness, "almost what might have been expected
from a Kantian rigorist," this was not at all my own
view of it. I do not merely mean that I aimed at
keeping a judicious middle course, avoiding with
equal care right-hand rigour and left-hand laxity;
for that, I suppose, is the aim of every one who forms
a disinterested conclusion on a controverted matter.
The point is rather that, while composing my address,
my "judicious mean" seemed to myself much more
assailable in respect of laxity than in respect of
rigour. Before writing it, I had tried to study im-
partially the Baptismal Service and the Confirmation
Service of the Church of England ; and had been
strongly impressed with the definiteness and force
with which the doctrinal basis of membership is there
put forward. A member of the Church has been
" baptized in the faith " defined by the Apostles'
Creed ; at confirmation he has solemnly " acknow-
ledged " himself " bound to believe " it. I had.

144 CLERICAL VERACITY.

therefore, some hesitation in arguing, on the ground
of anything so vague as a tacit common understand-
ing, that a layman who definitely rejects any precise
and important statement made in this creed may still
legitimately claim the privileges of membership.
I felt that if this claim were denied by any one of
the many orthodox persons who regard the Apostles'
Creed as the indispensable minimum of Christian
doctrine, I should have considerable difficulty in
defending the position that I had still, on the whole,
determined to maintain. On the other hand, the
proposition that an ordained minister of the Church,
who is required by his office to declare solemnly
every Sunday his belief in the Apostles' Creed, is
chargeable with unveracity if this declaration is
palpably false — this proposition seemed to me hardly
controvertible. I was, indeed, aware that a portion of
the Anglican clergy were in the habit of thus affirm-
ing falsely their belief in the miraculous birth of
Jesus Christ ; because Mr. Haweis, in an interest-
ing article in the Contemporary Review (September,
1895) had stated this as a fact within his knowledge.
" We have in our midst," said Mr. Haweis, " clergy
within the Church holding two views of the incarna-
tion. There are what I may call the prenatal infusion
clergy and the postnatal transfusion clergy. The
Postnatalists admit human parentage on both sides."

CLERICAL VERACITY. 145

I had no doubt that these Postnatalists* were for the
most part making their weekly false statements with
the best intentions ; but it never occurred to me that
they would claim to be acquitted of unveracity in so
doing. I rather supposed them to hold that any
harm that might be done to religion and morality by
this falsity was outweighed by the loss that the
Church would suffer if men of enlightenment, open
to modern ideas and fearlessly accepting the methods
of modern criticism, were excluded from its pulpits.
This was a plea that I was prepared to discuss more
fully if necessary ; but on the point of veracity
I thought I might be brief

It is partly owing to this brevity that Mr. Rashdall
has occupied a considerable part of his article with
arguments really irrelevant to my position. Thus he
argues at length against the view that a clergyman is
bound to believe in miracles as such, and in all the
miracles recorded in the New Testament. But I did
not intend to suggest this ; my contention was merely
that veracity requires him to believe the marvels
affirmed in the creeds. He is quite at liberty — so far
as my argument is concerned — to hold that these
marvels were " not breaches of natural law."

* I propose in this article to adopt Mr. Ilaweis' term, as a convenient
designation for " Christians who do not believe in the miraculous birth
of Jesus Christ."

L

146 CLERICAL VERACITY.

I cannot, however, admit that Mr. Rashdall's
misunderstandings are entirely due to my brevity.
For instance, he understands me to suggest that a
clergyman is bound to believe " in the most literal *
interpretation of everything contained in the creeds."
But in the paragraph against which he was arguing I
had expressly said " I should desire and think right
that in determining the scope of the obligation
imposed by the creeds, the utmost breadth of inter-
pretation should be granted, the utmost variety of
meanings allowed, which the usage of language,
especially the vagueness of many fundamental
notions, will fairly admit." My contention is simply
that the widest licence of variation that can be
reasonably claimed must stop short of the permis-
sion to utter a hard, flat, unmistakable falsehood; and
this is what a clergyman does who says solemnly
— in the recital of the Apostles' Creed — " I believe in
Jesus Christ, .... who was conceived by the Holy
Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary," when he really
believes that Jesus was, like other human beings, the
son of two human parents. He utters, of course, a
similar falsehood in affirming the belief that Jesus
" on the third day rose again from the dead," when he
does not believe that Jesus had a continued life as an
individual after death, and a life in some sense

* The italics are mine.

CLERICAL VERACITY. 147

corporeal. But since the conception of the resur-
rection body — which, in a theology based on the
canonical scriptures, is naturally formed by com-
paring the language of St. Paul (i Cor. xv.) with
the language of the third and fourth evangelists —
is somewhat ambiguous and obscure, "^ I propose in
this discussion to concentrate attention mainly on the
first-mentioned statement, which presents a perfectly
simple and definite issue.

* The difficulty in making the conception precise arises thus. St.
Paul, expounding the distinction between the •^vx'lkov and the
TuevfiaTiKov aQjua, says that ' ' flesh and blood cannot inherit the
kingdom of God." But according to St. Luke the resurrection body
of Jesus is seen to have "flesh and bones," and to eat fish and honey-
comb ; according to both St. Luke and St. John the risen Jesus ofters
His body to be handled; and it is clearly contrary to the meaning of the
Evangelists to suppose these appearances and offers deceptive. On the
other hand, the form of Jesus appears and vanishes mysteriously (Luke
xxiv. 31, 36), and seems to have passed through closed doors. (John xx.
19, 26.)

I observe that Alford (on Luke xxiv. 39) suggests that the resurrec-
tion body had flesh and bones, du^ not blood. This strikingly illustrates
what I have ventured to call the "obscurity and ambiguity" of the
conception ; but it is not easy to treat the suggestion with the respect
due to a learned and thoughtful commentator. The declaration
appended to the Anglican Communion Service, on the contrary,
affirms that " the natural Body and Blood oi our Saviour Christ are in
heaven."

The scriptural data being what I have just stated, I think that a large
freedom of interpretation of the term "body" may be legitimately
claimed by any one who affirms a belief in the "resurrection of the
body."

148 CLERICAL VERACITY.

This issue is frankly accepted by Mr. Rashdall.
He definitely holds that a man may reject the mir-
aculous birth and yet solemnly recite in church the
Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed, without doing
anything " really inconsistent with the duties of
veracity and good faith," according to the " principles
which are generally recognized."

His reasoning is as follows i"^

1. "The clergy do not profess their beliefs in the

Creeds in any other sense and to any other
degree than they assent to the whole of the
Prayer Book and Articles."

2. There are few clergymen who literally believe

all the Thirty-nine Articles ; and even in the
Apostles' and the Nicene Creed there are
clauses which '' most orthodox clergymen
would explain in a way different from that
which was intended by their authors " — e.g,^
those relating to the descent into hell, and
the Resurrection of the Body.

3. We have to recognize, accordingly, a " general

agreement that subscription does not imply
a literal acceptance of the formulae."

* In what follows I have endeavoured faithfully to represent Mr.
Rashdall's arguments, keeping his own words as far as possible, but I
have found it necessary for clearness to give them in a different order.

CLERICAL VERACITY. 149

4. The liberty thus gained might with advantage

be increased ; and, with a view to this
increase, " the principle of liberalizing inter-
pretation may be carried a little further than
can be justified by strict insistence upon"
the rule that " words must be taken to mean
what they are generally understood to mean."
By so doing a clergyman will " contribute to
a further step in that process of religious
development which has proved so beneficial
in times past."

5. This principle justifies a clergyman in affirming

his belief that Christ was born of a virgin,
when he really believes that He had two
human parents, provided he thinks the
matter "of no spiritual significance."

6. No doubt such a man ought, before taking

orders, to satisfy himself that this " disbelief
is of the same order as those which public
opinion has already recognized as falling
within the permissible limits " ; and Mr.
Rashdall appears to concede that he may
have some little difficulty in satisfying him-
self of this : but he thinks that he is
"justified in throwing the responsibility"
on the bishop to whom he applies for

ISO CLERICAL VERACITY.

ordination. If the bishop consents to ordain
him, as an avowed unbeHever in the miracu-
lous birth, he may feel assured that his
disbelief " does not exceed the limits of
the liberty which the Church by its practi-
cal conduct has proclaimed." Nor need he
— if I understand Mr. Rashdall — communi-
cate to the world or to his congregation his
unbelief in the miraculous birth. It is
sufficient if he informs his bishop and the
incumbent who gives him his title, and lets
his congregation know " by the general tenor
of his teaching" in what sense he interprets
his acceptance of the formularies.

7. For confirmation of his general view of the
liberty allowed to the clergy, Mr. Rashdall
appeals to ** the Courts, the authorized inter-
preters of the obligations imposed by law
upon the clergy." He finds that the
" decisions of the Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council in the case of the various
writers in Essays and Reviews go far to
constitute, within the limits contended for
in this article, a charter of theological
freedom for the clergy of the Church of
England."

CLERICAL VERACITY. 151

This is, I think, a faithful summary of the reason-
ing by which Mr. Rashdall tries to prove that the
conduct he recommends is " not really inconsistent
with the duties of veracity and good faith." I cannot
say that he has convinced me on either point ; but
after considering the lines of his argument, I think it
better to separate the duties of veracity and good
faith, and, for clearness of issue, to concentrate
attention here mainly on the former. The pledges
given by a priest at his ordination are no doubt given
immediately to the bishop ; and it is at least a
tenable view that the bishop is an authorized inter-
preter of the ordination vows ''so to minister the
doctrine as this Church hath received the same," and
"with all faithful diligence to banish and drive
away all strange doctrines contrary to God's Word."
Hence the question, whether in the exercise of
this interpretative authority he may properly dispense
an enlightened candidate from the duty of believing
and teaching such portions of the Apostles' Creed
as conflict with modern historical criticism, may
perhaps be regarded as a question of ecclesiastical
order with which an outsider should not presume
to deal. I should myself have thought that this
episcopal dispensing power was rather a mediaeval
than a modern idea ; but I do not claim to be an
expert on such points. I will only say that if this

152 CLERICAL VERACITY,

dispensing power be once admitted, I do not see how
it is possible to limit it to the particular modern
ideas that Mr. Rashdall wishes to admit. Suppose,
for instance, that a disciple of Matthew Arnold,
glowing with ardour to exhibit the " true greatness of
Christianity," purified from the '' '^o'^yAds Aberglaube''
of the Apostles' Creed and the ''false science" of the
Nicene Creed, presents himself for ordination before
a bishop who — like the present Dean of Ripon"^' —
is more or less in sympathy with Literature and
Dogma. Is it not probable that the enlightened
prelate would stretch his dispensing power to admit
the enlightened candidate? and could a colleague
who had himself consented to ordain a Postnatalist
reasonably censure the transaction ? f I can hardly
think that the Church of England will ever willingly
entrust such a power to any single bishop.

But in any case we shall agree that this episcopal

* See Fortnightly Reviezv, vol. xlviii. pp. 452-8.

t I do not know that any bishop has actually gone quite so far. Mr,
Rashdall, indeed, informs us that "the most learned and universally
respected theologian among the English bishops of this generation
consented to ordain a candidate who confessed to him that the question
of the miraculous birth was to him an open question." But there is
a not immaterial difference between saying that one believes what one
disbelieves, and saying that one believes something about which one is
suspending one's judgment. Mr. Rashdall's bishop may have allowed
himself to hope that the balance of his candidate's judgment would
shortly incline on the orthodox side.

CLERICAL VERACITY, 153

dispensing power cannot extend to the general duty
of veracity : the bishop cannot Hcense a deacon or
priest to speak falsely to his congregation. And
here I must express my astonishment at Mr.
Rashdall's assertion that the clergy do not profess
their belief in the Creeds in any other sense or degree
than they assent to the whole of the Prayer Book
and the Thirty-nine Articles. For he himself points
out that the assent required to the Prayer Book and
Articles is only a "general declaration of assent,
deliberately substituted by Parliament and both con-
vocations in 1865 for certain very much stronger
and more explicit declarations ; so that in dis-
tinguishing between a general belief in the Articles
and Prayer Book, and an explicit belief that every-
thing in the Articles and Prayer Book is true, no one
can be accused of pressing an accidental selection
of phrases." But an "explicit belief that every-
thing " in the Apostles' Creed " is true" is just what
everyone who performs clerical functions has to
declare ; moreover, he has ordinarily to declare
it every Sunday, whereas his general assent to the
Articles is only required when he is ordained or
licensed to a curacy, or instituted to a benefice. IMr.
Rashdall's arguments to show that hardly any
clergyman really believes everything in the Thirty-
nine Articles would only be to the point if every

154 CLERICAL VERACITY.

clergyman were required periodically to repeat all the
Articles, prefacing each with the words " I believe " :
under the conditions which have now existed for
a generation such arguments are, by his own
showing, irrelevant to the present issue.*

At the same time the considerations which Mr.
Rashdall urges against a pedantic insistence on what
he calls " technical veracity," in dealing with formulae
prescribed for assent or repetition, seem to me to
a great extent sound. My complaint is that, instead
of stating and applying these considerations with the
care and delicacy of distinction required for helpful-
ness, so as to show how the essence of veracity may
be realized under peculiar and somewhat perplexing
conditions, he rather uses them to suggest the
depressing and demoralizing conclusion that no
clergyman can possibly speak the truth in the sense

* For this reason I have not thought it worth while to discuss Mr.
Rashdall's tii qtioque, addressed to the High Church party. I should
admit that it would have had some force before 1865 ; but now any
difficulty that a High Churchman may find in agreeing to the statements
of any particular Article 2x0. prima facie met by the difference between
general assent and explicit belief in particulars, on which Mr. Rashdall
lays stress. It is possible, indeed, that the divergence between the
opinions of some extreme High Churchmen and the general scheme of
doctrine set forth in the Articles may be too great to be fairly covered
by this difference. But Mr. Rashdall has made no serious attempt to
prove this ; and it would be difficult to demonstrate it cogently, owing
to the inevitable indefiniteness of the effect of the change made in 1865.

CLERICAL VERACITY. 155

in which a plain layman understands truth-speaking ;
so that any clergyman may lie without scruple in the
cause of religious progress, with a view to aiding popu-
lar education in the new theology, and still feel that
he is as veracious as his profession allows him to be.
Or perhaps I should rather say that Mr. Rashdall's
conception of substantial veracity is what gram-
marians call proleptic ; the duty of truth-speaking
is, he thinks, adequately performed by a Postnatalist,
if he may reasonably hope that the falsehood he now
utters will before long cease to deceive through the
spread of a common understanding that he does not
mean what he says. In this way what is sound in
Mr. Rashdall's arguments comes to be inextricably
mixed up with what I regard as dangerously mis-
leading. It appears to me therefore desirable that
I should state and illustrate in my own way the
general view of the moral obligation of veracity in
which we on the whole agree, and then try to show
that, properly understood, this does not support his
particular conclusions as to clerical duty.

Two considerations appear to me to modify the
duty of truth-speaking in such a case as that before
us.

(i) Ordinarily a man may choose his own words
to express his belief, and therefore has no excuse
for deliberately choosing ambiguous words ; he

156 CLERICAL VERACITY.

ought, generally speaking,* to choose words which
appear to him freest from ambiguity. But where
the words are prescribed for him this choice is
precluded ; and in such a case, I conceive, he
should be held to speak truthfully, if he employs
the terms in any sense which they will fairly admit,
according to the common usage of language. I
think that this is the rule which a conscientious
man practically applies in any of the cases — not
rare in modern political life — in which he is asked
to sign a document which he has had no share in
drawing up. If it contains any statement as to a
matter of fact which he regards as clearly false, he
will refuse to sign the document, however much he
may sympathize with its object ; but he will sign
it — in a good cause — although the document may
contain some phrases which he can only accept by
taking them in a sense different from that which the
majority attach to them, and perhaps different from
that intended by the framers of the document,
provided the vague and varying usage of common
speech may be fairly held to include the different
meanings. It is the common usage and under-
standing which fixes the limits of variation in such

* I should hold that even when we choose our own words, there are
cases in which regard for the feelings of others may properly lead us to
prefer words to some extent ambiguous.

CLERICAL VERACITY. 157

cases, not simply the opinions and sentiments of the
framers of the document.

(2) This leads us to the second consideration. The
common understanding may change gradually, so
that certain phrases in certain relations may come
to be understood in a sense quite different from that
which they originally bore, or which the words
would convey if used in other connexions. The
stock instance of this is the language of compliment
or politeness : thus the phrase " Dear Sir " in com-
mencing a letter is understood to express not
affection, but a certain minimum of social respect ;
similarly the words " Right Reverend " might be
applied without deception to a bishop by a Non-
conformist, who both hated prelacy and despised the
particular bishop to whom he was writing. In some
cases the new meaning thus given to a phrase by
current usage is designed to be ambiguous, because
ambiguity is required by social convenience. Thus
the phrase "not at home" is now understood to
mean " eitJier out or unwilling to receive visitors " ; —
a phrase with this ambiguous meaning being con-
venient, because the uncertainty between the two
alternatives tends to prevent social friction.

This last example has a peculiarity which deserves
special attention from our present point of view.
The meaning now attached to the phrase "not at

158 CLERICAL VERACITY.

home" is the result of a gradual process of change
during which the phrase has been, in a continually-
decreasing degree, deceptive. Now the original decep-
tive use is obviously condemned by the general rule
of truth-speaking, and few thoughtful persons would
deny that it was morally objectionable : it was a
falsehood not justified by the social convenience
which prompted it. The question then arises whether
this deception in the process of change — granting it
wrong — renders it wrong to avail ourselves of the
results of the process? I agree with Mr. Rashdall
in thinking that this question must be answered in
the negative. In the political and social life of man
good continually comes out of evil, and bad actions
have, as a part of their consequences, beneficent
results, — as when a prosperous and well-ordered state
has been founded by unscrupulous aggression and
conquest. In all such cases we may, I conceive, use
the results freely without approving the process.

A more subtle question, somewhat less easy to
answer, arises in respect of the later stages of the
process to which I have referred. The new meaning
may be understood by a large number of the persons
to whom the phrase is addressed, but not by all ;
there may still be a certain amount of deception
caused by its use, and some of those who use it may
be conscious of deceiving. Is it at this stage legiti-

CLERICAL VERACITY. 159

mate to use it? and, if so, at what point of the
gradual process has it become legitimate? The
general answer is, that it becomes legitimate when
the evil of social annoyance which the phrase would
prevent becomes less than the evil of deception ;
but in the case supposed the line cannot be drawn
exactly, and the practical decision must be left
entirely to the varying judgment of individuals.
We shall find, however, that the corresponding
problem is to some extent easier to solve in
dealing with the more important matters with
which this essay is concerned — to which I now
return.

There can be little doubt that old prescribed
expressions of religious belief do tend to have their
meaning changed by changes in prevalent theological
opinion ; and in some cases the early stages of the
process may have involved conscious deception, — of
which, according to the rule just laid down, we shall
disapprove, while at the same time allowing as
legitimate the employment of the phrase in the new
meaning, when the change in common understanding
has been brought about. But it is by no means
necessary that any conscious deception should take
place, as the change of meaning may be so gradual
that neither speaker nor hearer is at any time aware
that he is using words in a non-natural sense. There

i6o CLERICAL VERACITY.

seem to be two chief forms of this process : (i)
Words originally used literally come to be used
metaphorically, and (2) words originally intended to
be understood without qualification come to be used
with tacit qualifications and reserves, which materially
modify their meaning.

Both these kinds of changes have certainly taken
place in respect of the common understanding of
the formulae of the Church of England ; and I
should regard them both as legitimate, so long as the
new meaning is one which the phrases in question
will admit without any violent straining.

Let me give one or two examples. The Apostles'
Creed makes the following assertions with regard
to Jesus Christ :

"On the third day He rose again from the dead,
He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right
hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence He
shall come to judge the quick and the dead."

It seems clear that the original meaning of these
phrases is that unmistakably expressed in the Fourth
Article : " Christ . . . took again His body, with
flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the
perfection of man's nature; wherewith He ascended
into heaven and there sitteth, until He returns to
judge all men at the last day."

That is, the older belief clearly was that Jesus

CLERICAL VERACITY. l6l

not only went from the earth upwards with " flesh,
bones, etc.," but that He is now existing with these
elements of bodily life in a certain portion of
space called heaven. And the same view is no
less definitely expressed in the declaration appended
(for quite another purpose) to the Communion
Service : " the natural body and blood of our
Saviour Christ are in heaven, and not here ; it
being against the truth of Christ's natural body
to be at one time in more places than one."

Now I think that this belief hardly survives at
all in the minds of educated persons at the present
time. At any rate among the educated laity I
doubt if even the most orthodox — however firmly
they believe that in the actual existence of Jesus
Christ the spiritual union of human and divine
natures is perpetually maintained — are now ac-
customed to imagine him as actually occupying
a certain portion of space with a bodily organism,
containing flesh, bones, and blood. The conception
of physical facts and possibilities which modern
science has established among us has unconsciously
rendered any such imagination quite alien to us.
Accordingly I believe that the weekly repetition
of the Creed in most cases no longer suggests this
idea either to the clergy or to the educated laity
who repeat it. The meaning has changed for them

M

1 62 CLERICAL VERACITY.

gradually, without a shade of conscious unveracity
at any stage of the process. But that is because
the words of the Creed present no definite barrier
to the change : had the words of the Article been
used, the case would have been quite different.
As it is, a phrase, which was always in part a
metaphor,* has come to be understood as completely
metaphorical or symbolical, by a perfectly smooth
transition of thought.

A similar but slighter change has taken place
in the common understanding of the phrase "de-
scended into hell," which has lost the idea of
downward movement — and even, perhaps, of spatial
movement altogether — and come to mean simply
"passed to the abode of departed spirits." The
figure of local motion downward has been accepted
without difficulty, from old habit and association —
perhaps aided by some vague connexion between the
known position of the buried bodies of the dead
relatively to the living and the imagined position of
their souls.f

* The apparent anthropomorphism of the phrase ' * at the right hand
of God the Father" must have been intended figuratively by the
framers of the Anglican formularies : as the first Article declares that
God is " without body, parts, or passions."

t It is curious to note how the imagination — as distinct from the
thought — of the region of departed spirits as being beneath the region
of living men, still survives in the modern mind, notwithstanding the

CLERICAL VERACITY, 163

I pass to another instance, where an important
affirmation has undergone a distinct change of
meaning, from the introduction of a qualification
not originally intended.

A candidate for ordination as deacon is solemnly-
asked by the bishop, " Do you unfeignedly believe
all the Canonical Scriptures of the Old and New
Testament ? " There seems to be no doubt that this
was originally intended to import a belief in the
truth of every statement in the Bible, the whole
aggregate of books included in the Old and New
Testament being regarded as literally the "Word
of God." But as the development of historical
method and scientific knowledge rendered it more
and more difficult for educated persons to hold
this belief, the phrase gradually came to be under-
stood with a tacit limitation expressible by some
such words as "so far as they convey religious
teaching." It is possible that this change originally
involved some degree of deception, — the bishops
and the common understanding of the Church

long domination of a conception of the physical universe that might
have been expected to exclude it. We find it even in so intensely
serious and profoundly modern a poem as Tennyson's In Menioriam :

" So, dearest, now thy brows are cold
I see thee what thou art, and know
Thy likeness to the wise bel(nv,
Thy kindred with the great of old.''

i64 CLERICAL VERACITY.

taking the words in one sense, and a few exception-
ally enlightened candidates taking them in the
more limited sense, conscious that it would have
been repudiated by the bishops and the Church
generally. But it seems equally probable that the
new meaning came in gradually without any such
consciousness ; and in any case it has now been
recognized as admissible for more than a generation.
For when the matter came before the Ecclesiastical
Courts in the trial of Dr. Rowland Williams for
heresy (1862), the stricter view of the scope of the
deacon's declaration seems to have been unhesita-
tingly rejected by the judge of the Arches Court.
Dr. Lushington held that the nature of the Old and
New Testament " must be borne in mind in con-
sidering the extent of the obligation imposed by the
words 'I do believe.'"* This expression, he said,
"must be modified by the subject-matter," — there
must be a bond fide " belief that the Holy Scriptures
contain everything necessary to salvation, and that to
that extent they have the direct sanction of the Al-
mighty." The view here expressed was illustrated and
further defined in dealing with the particular charge
that Dr. Williams' statements about the book of
Daniel contradicted the declaration in the Deacon's

* See Ecclesiastical Juiigfnents of the Privy Council^ by Brodrick
and Fremantle, p. 256.

CLERICAL VERACITY. 165

Ordination Service. Dr. Williams had explicitly
affirmed that the " admitted necessities of the case "
undoubtedly bring our book of Daniel " as low as
the reign of Epiphanes " ; the writer of the book
having " used a name traditionally sacred, with no
deceptive intention, as a dramatic form which digni-
fied his encouragement of his countrymen in their
great struggle against Antiochus." All this, says
the judge, " may be wholly erroneous, but ... I do not
see any repugnance to the deacon's declaration." *

I conceive that an Ecclesiastical Court may fairly
be taken as an authorized interpreter of the meaning
and scope of an ecclesiastical formula ; so that any
one who accepts the canonical books, in any real
sense whatever, as a divinely-inspired source of
religious teaching, may with perfect veracity make
the deacon's declaration, although disbelieving many
statements made in these books as to historical facts.

But in this appeal to judicial authority it is impor-
tant to distinguish clearly between the major and the
minor premiss of the judicial syllogism. I have more
than once seen arguments to the following effect :
"The legal obligations of a clergyman are a fair
measure of his moral obligations ; the essayists and
reviewers were acquitted by the courts ; therefore
a clergyman may legally — and therefore morally —

* u., p. 259.

i66 CLERICAL VERACITY.

hold opinions similar to theirs, however apparently
inconsistent with the Creeds he recites." And I under-
stand Mr. Rashdall's reference to the failure of judicial
prosecutions for heresy to imply reasoning of this
kind ; but it seems to me quite fallacious. In one
sense, indeed, I think it plain that the legal obliga-
tion is the measure of the moral one ; i.e., I think
that a clergyman cannot be morally bound to take a
stricter interpretation of his declarations and pledges
than that adopted by the Ecclesiastical Courts in
stating the general principles of their decisions. But
it cannot reasonably be inferred that the writer of an
essay is morally guiltless of holding — or even of de-
signedly communicating — opinions that contravene
his solemn affirmations, merely because this contra-
vention cannot be proved from the language of the
essay by the strict methods of proof required to
justify a legal sentence. It is easy for a writer with
any literary skill to suggest to his readers in a manner
practically unmistakable, and persuasively commend
to their acceptance, heretical opinions which he yet
does not avow in the explicit and precise form
required to bring them into demonstrable conflict
with the Creeds and Articles ; and there can be no
doubt that the Essayists and Reviewers had repeatedly
adopted this course.

I may give as an illustration Dr. Williams'

CLERICAL VERACITY. 167

language in regard to the particular doctrine with
which I am primarily concerned in the present
discussion. His article — which was a sympathetic
review of Bunsen's Biblical Researches — contained
the following sentences : * " Thus the incarnation
becomes with our author as purely spiritual as it
was with St. Paul. The Son of David by birth
is the Son of God by the Spirit of holiness. What
is flesh is born of flesh, and what is Spirit is born
of Spirit." No intelligent reader can doubt that
Dr. Williams designed to suggest that the accounts
of the miraculous birth of Jesus are legendary,
and that He was in reality the son of Joseph.
Accordingly he was charged with contravening the
statement in the Second Article that the Son of
God "took man's nature in the womb of the
Blessed Virgin." But his dexterous use of the
language of St. Paul — who certainly shows no
knowledge of the miraculous birth — had enabled
him to suggest the desired conclusion without any
explicit denial of the traditional doctrine ; and the
judge naturally finds it impossible to condemn
what cannot be denied to be a " not unfair ex-
pression of the substance of what St. Paul wrote." f
This non-condemnation, however, cannot reasonably

• Essays and Reviews^ p. 82.

t Ecclesiastical Judgments, p. 258.

i68 CLERICAL VERACITY.

be argued to imply that a clergyman is not bound
to believe in the miraculous birth ; since there can
be no doubt that Dr. Williams would have been
condemned at once if he had explicitly denied it.

To sum up : by a gradual introduction of a meta-
phorical or symbolic meaning into words originally
understood in a more literal sense, and by a gradual
introduction of tacit qualifications and reserves into
phrases originally understood in an absolute and
unqualified sense, changes in some cases important
have no doubt taken place in the common un-
derstanding of the Anglican formularies ; and
whether or not such changes have involved de-
ception in the past — which I conjecture to be
not the case for the most part — I hold that any
person may now, without unveracity, use the
phrases in the newer meaning. And I see no
reason why similar changes should not take place
in the future with perfect legitimacy. I quite
admit that either process may conceivably be
applied so as to involve substantial unveracity; but
I do not think it possible to draw in general terms
a clear line between the legitimate and the illegiti-
mate introduction of new meanings in either way.
The common understanding of language, changing
with changes in knowledge and habitual sentiment,
must be the test; but the appeal to this may in

CLERICAL VERACITY, 169

particular cases give a doubtful result. There are
always likely to be differences of opinion on such
questions among conscientious persons, which may
be reduced, but can hardly be altogether removed,
by frank and temperate discussion. Hence the
decisions of Ecclesiastical Courts — taken with the
limitation that I have explained — are useful as
authoritatively declaring the limits of legitimate
variation in the use of terms. But they are not
the only means available for attaining this end. A
general expression of opinion on the part of bishops
or recognized theological experts — at any rate, if
received with acquiescence by the Anglican clergy
and laity generally — would have a similar effect.
Such an expression of opinion has, in fact, taken
place with regard to the damnatory clauses in the
Athanasian Creed, declaring these to be applicable
only to those who wilfully reject the doctrines of
the Creed ; and, however little any individual clergy-
man may think that this declaration represents the
original meaning of the clauses, it would in my
opinion be now over-scrupulous in him to make
a difficulty about reciting the Creed on account of
these clauses.

But, however difficult it may be in certain cases
to decide exactly when a divergence in thought
from the literal sense of any affirmation becomes

I70 CLERICAL VERACITY.

illegitimate and evasive, it is easy to say that some
divergences are quite beyond any defensible line ;
and that seems to me the case with the affirmation
defended by Mr. Rashdall. The assertion that
Jesus Christ was born of a virgin has a perfectly
simple and definite negative meaning ; it is based
on well known and unmistakable statements by two
evangelists, a belief in which it must certainly be
understood to imply unless the opposite is expressly
stated ; it is impossible to conceive — and no one has
ever suggested — any admissible qualification by
which the phrase could be adapted to the thought
of a man who believes that Jesus was the son of
Joseph. Mr. Rashdall suggests that the phrase may
be used to mean that Jesus was without sin from His
birth ; but I find it difficult to treat the suggestion
seriously. A metaphor, to be undeceptive, must
be accepted as such by hearers as well as speakers ;
whereas there is surely not the slightest chance that
any part of any congregation would — without an
express declaration that this was the speaker's
meaning — understand the affirmation of the miracu-
lous birth to mean an affirmation of the infant's
sinlessness. And Mr. Rashdall hardly suggests that
they would now so understand it ; but he seems to
think that they might be educated up to accept the
meaning. I do not believe such education to be

CLERICAL VERACITY. 171

possible ; but granting it possible, I submit that to
save the statement from unveracity it must be made
after the education has been performed, and not
before.

It may be replied that if the Postnatalist makes
his real opinion known, the mere repetition of the
Creed becomes no longer unveracious, because there
is no deception. I quite agree that if any one
declares plainly the sense in which he utters any
words, then, however alien this sense may be to
the common understanding of the words, there is
no substantial unveracity. But in order that his
act may have this character the declaration must
be made publicly ; a private explanation to a bishop
and an incumbent is not sufficient ; it would only
make them accomplices in deception. Further,
I cannot consider that a false statement in the
recital of a Creed is rendered unobjectionable by
a public declaration of its falsity ; because it is likely
still to give a shock to the moral sentiment of
a plain man, who cannot be expected to distinguish
clearly between formal and substantial unveracity ;
moreover, the solemn utterance of untrue words will
seem to him a mockery of sacred things and offend
his religious sentiment. Still, if such an express
public declaration were made, the responsibility for
these consequences would be thrown, in a great

172 CLERICAL VERACITY.

measure, on the Church. The Postnatalists would
have fairly and frankly challenged the Church to
say whether it tolerated them or not ; it would
be for the Church to consider whether this toleration
did not of necessity involve the removal of the
Apostles' Creed from its place in the service.

In any case I admit fully that a Postnatalist
clergyman, who has frankly stated his views to his
congregation and to the world, is not open to the
charge of unveracity in the sense in which I am
here mainly concerned with it. But it is important
to insist that for this purpose the declaration must
be perfectly frank and explicit. A heretic cannot
fairly argue that the common understanding of the
Church has tolerated his heresy, because he — or
someone holding similar views — has not been prose-
cuted, or has been prosecuted and acquitted, so
long as the escape from legal penalties may be
reasonably attributed to the absence of a candid
and explicit statement of his opinions.*

Nor is it, I conceive, of any avail to urge that
the belief in question has — at least for the Post-
natalist, who is also a Trinitarian — "no spiritual
importance." This is, indeed, a consideration of

* As I have shown in the case of Dr. Williams, the failure of the
prosecution of the Essayists and Reviewers in 1862 may be fairly
attributed to this cause.

CLERICAL VERACITY, 173

much weight when the question is of his remaining
in the Church and continuing to attend its services
as a layman ; but when it is a question of solemnly
affirming a proposition without believing it, he
ought to consider the significance of the belief to
others rather than to himself. Now it cannot be
denied that the rejection of the miraculous birth
is, in the view of the great majority of Christians,
a divergence of no light moment from " the faith
delivered to the saints." And this prevalent opinion
appears to me well founded. For if the methods
of modern criticism are by any one allowed to
prevail so far, against scriptural narratives and
ecclesiastical tradition, as to lead to the rejection
of the miraculous birth of Jesus, it must be an
exceptionally constituted mind that can find the
authority of the evangelists still sufficient to sustain
the vast weight of Nicene Theology. Most of those
who have gone so far will find themselves drawn
further ; other miraculous stories will have to be
given up as legendary ; the marvellous cures of
Jesus will sink into remarkable cases of faith-
healing, and the accounts of the post-resurrection
apparitions into a remarkable ghost story, swollen
into legend by the unconscious fictions of witnesses
and reporters. Thus Christianity will soon come
to have a purely ethical import, and the divine

174 CLERICAL VERACITY.

sonship of Jesus, so far as it is still affirmed, will
only be affirmed in the sense of unique consciousness
of the relation existing, essentially or ideally, be-
tween the human spirit and the divine. No doubt
there is so much friction on this inclined plane of
thought that individuals may stop at almost any
point : but of the general force of logic, impelling
to the ultimate result that I have indicated, I can
entertain no doubt.

Now I am far from any wish to disparage the
form of religion resulting from the reduction of
Christian dogma to this minimum ; on the contrary,
I should, in the present state of thought, welcome
any increase of influence that it may obtain by fair
advocacy; but I think that even Mr. Rashdall will
agree with me in deprecating any attempt to pour
this new wine into the old bottles of the Anglican
formularies. And if so, it seems clearly unreasonable
to ask the Church of England to throw over the
Apostles' Creed, in order to admit to its ministry the
handful of Postnatalists who stop at Postnatalism.
But even assuming that this momentous breach with
tradition is to lead to no further consequences, I
should still urge — in the interest of religion, morality,
and free thought at once — that it ought to be
effected openly, and not through the stealthy and
secret approaches recommended by Mr. Rashdall :

CLERICAL VERACITY. 175

that the new reformers should not profess loyalty
to this time-honoured doctrine weekly with their
lips, while their heart is far from it.

Mr. Rashdall dwells on the importance of main-
taining and extending " the Christian Koivuivla" and
on the "spiritual and social loss of multiplied schism."
I may remind the reader that the argument of the
preceding address does not lead to external separa-
tion as a necessary result of intellectual disagreement;
quite the contrary. At the same time, I think that
Mr. Rashdall's language misrepresents the actual
conditions of thought and social life ; his ideas of
" unity " and " schism " are either too far behind the
age or too far in advance of it — or perhaps both at
once. External unity is a hollow form without
spiritual unity, unity of thought and feeling ; and
spiritual unity will only be completely possible for
the modern mind when competent students of
theology have come to an agreement on funda-
mental questions of principle and method, similar to
that which has been already attained by students of
physical science. Suppose this result reached, then
the question of substituting a single for a multiple
ecclesiastical organization becomes a mere question
of mechanism — I do not say unimportant, but
certainly of secondary importance from a religious
point of view. On the other hand, until this result

176 CLERICAL VERACITY.

is reached unity cannot but remain a sentiment, an
aspiration, an unrealized ideal ; though doubtless the
sentiment may be developed, and the realization of
the ideal brought nearer, by moral as well as intel-
lectual methods; — by the cultivation of sympathy
between different churches, by the cordial co-operation
of their members in philanthropic work, by temperate-
ness in controversy, by a sustained desire to recognize
the merits and do justice to the motives of opponents.
Progress is already being made in this direction, and
the spiritual and social evils of schism are being
thereby steadily diminished ; but this progress, I
conceive, will be aided, rather than impeded, by such
external separation as will allow teaching to be
candid, forms of prayer to be adapted to the real
beliefs of the worshippers, and clerical pledges to be
taken and fulfilled in the sense in which they are
commonly understood. I quite agree with Mr.
Rashdall that under no conditions would it be
desirable that a clergyman should flaunt before a
comparatively uneducated audience novel opinions
that would shock and perplex them ; but he should
be in a position to speak frankly to thoughtful
members of his flock, and such frank speaking
should be reconcilable with the solemn expression
of beliefs which his office prescribes. The Preacher
has said that there is "a time to speak and a time

CLERICAL VERACITY. 177

to keep silence," and this ancient wisdom is not yet
antiquated. But he has not said that there is a time
to speak truly and a time to speak falsely ; and I
think that, in religious matters, the common sense
of Christendom will reject this addition to the
familiar proverb.

N

VII.

LUXURY.*

T HAVE chosen Luxury for the subject of my
-*■ address this evening ; because I think that the
employment of wealth, in what we should agree to
call luxurious expenditure, is a source of considerable
perplexity to moral persons who find themselves in
the possession of an income obviously more than
sufficient for the needs of their physical existence,
and for the provision of the instruments necessary
to their work in life. Such persons commonly wish
to do what common morality regards as right ; yet
for the most part they cannot deny that they live in
luxury; while at the same time it can hardly be denied
that luxurious living is commonly thought to be in
some degree censurable. We should be surprised to
hear an earnest and thoughtful man say, except
jocosely, that it was part of his plan of life to live
in luxury ; or to hear an earnest and thoughtful

* An address delivered to the University Hall Guild, London,
January, 1894 ; and subsequently to the Cambridge Ethical Society.

178

LUXURY. 179

father, toiling to accumulate by industry adequate
wealth for his children, say that he wished to enable
them to live in luxury. Yet often there would be no
doubt that the habits of his life, and the habits and
expectations which he is allowing his children to
form, are habits and expectations of luxurious
living.

Possibly some of my hearers may think that this
is only the familiar phenomenon of human frailty;
that the most moral persons are continually doing
many things which they know to be wrong, and that
luxurious living is only one of these many things.
But I submit that it would be difficult to find a
parallel case in the familiar errors and shortcomings
of moral persons. For these errors and shortcomings
are mostly occasional deflections from the way in
which they regularly walk, due to transient victories
of impulse over settled purpose. Doubtless appetite,
resentment, vanity, egoism, frequently lead the most
earnest persons astray; but it is commonly only for
a brief interval, after which they reject and repudiate
the seductive impulse and return to the path of reason
and duty. But the luxurious living of the high-
minded and earnest among the possessors of wealth
is obviously not an occasional deflection of this kind :
it is a high-road on which they travel day after day
and year after year, systematically and — I was going

i8o LUXURY,

to say comfortably, but that would not be quite true ;
my point rather is that they travel it with a certain
amount — I think at the present time a growing
amount — of moral uneasiness and perplexity.

Here, perhaps, some one may think that this per-
plexity, if it is a perplexity, is one which interests
only a very limited circle, at least from a moral point
of view. It may be said that the difficulty that the
rich find in trying to enter the kingdom of heaven was
long ago made known to us by the highest authority ;
but that, fortunately for the human race, this par-
ticular obstacle affects only a few, for whose moral
troubles we can hardly be called on to feel much
sympathy, since to get rid of the obstacle is only
too easy. I think, however, that this would be a
hasty and superficial judgment. No doubt it is only
a small minority of persons who are privileged to
dwell in marble halls, adorned with damask hangings,
and surrounded by acres of park and garden-beds ;
who are liable to dinners costing two guineas a head,
and who habitually wear whatever substitute for
purple the aesthetic fashion of this modern age pre-
scribes. But if luxurious living is morally censurable,
the censure must extend far beyond the limits of the
few thousand persons who enjoy these privileges ; it
must extend to all who watch this glorious profusion
with mingled sympathy and envy, struggle and long

LUXURY. i8i

to get a share of it whenever opportunity offers, and
meanwhile pay it the homage of cheap imitation.
Indeed, if the sin of luxurious living, like many other
sins, lies mainly in the spirit and intention of expen-
diture, it would be easy to write an apologue that
should be the reverse of the tale of the widow's mite,
and show how the spirit of luxury may be fully
manifested in the expenditure of sixpence on lolli-
pops or feathers or gin.

But further, even if it were granted that the costly
luxuries of the rich are really the only kind of
luxuries that can possibly deserve the unfavourable
judgment of the moralist, it would still be important
to all classes of the community that this censure
should be well considered and discriminating. For
any material change in the expenditure in question
would inevitably, in one way or another, have
economic and social effects of a far-reaching kind,
however it was brought about ; and if such a change
ever should be brought about, it will be largely due to
the pressure of the moral opinions and sentiments of
persons other than the rich.

My aim, then, this evening will be to arrive at as
clear a view as possible on the following questions :
(i) What luxury is; (2) Why and how far it is
deserving of censure.

Let us begin by considering the definition of the

i82 LUXURY.

term. Political economists sometimes use the term
" luxury " in a wide sense, to include all forms of
private consumption of wealth not necessary for the
health or working efficiency of the consumer ; all
consumption — to put it otherwise — which is neither
directly nor indirectly productive, and which, there-
fore, would be uneconomical, if we regarded a man
merely as an industrial machine. It may seem,
however, that we should keep nearer to ordinary
thought and language by recognizing one or more
kinds of expenditure intermediate between luxuries
on the one hand and necessaries on the other.
Certainly we commonly speak of '' luxuries, com-
forts, and necessaries " ; or, again, of " luxuries,
decencies, and necessaries of life " ; and I think we
may get a clearer idea of what we mean by ''luxury"
if we examine its relation to each of these inter-
mediate terms.

When we reflect on the ordinary distinction
between "luxuries" and "comforts," the difference
seems to be this : " comforts " are means of pro-
tection against slight pains and annoyances such
as do not materially injure health or interfere with
efficiency — such annoyances as we call "discom-
forts " ; — " luxuries," on the other hand, are sources
of positive pleasure whose absence would not cause
discomfort. It is commonly, I think, not difficult

LUXURY. 183

for an individual to apply this distinction in his own
case, so far as his feelings at any particular time
are concerned. Thus, when I take a long railway
journey on a frosty day, a thick great-coat is neces-
sary to me, because without it I am likely to catch a
cold which will impair my efficiency ; a railway rug
is a comfort, because without it I shall be disagree-
ably cold from the knees downward ; a fur cloak is
a luxury. But reflection shows that the difference
on which this distinction turns is very largely an
affair of habit, since the privation of luxuries that
have become habitual usually causes discomfort and
annoyance. We are told that a famous Roman
epicure — Apicius — committed suicide when he had
reduced his fortune to eighty thousand pounds, feel-
ing that life was not worth living on this meagre
scale; and though this is an extreme case, it is
generally recognized that a rapid fall from great to
moderate wealth is liable to cause positive discomfort
from the sudden break of luxurious habits that it
entails. But it is not, perhaps, generally recognized
how very far-reaching this effect of habit is, and how
largely what we call comforts are — apart from habit
— really luxuries. I suppose there can be no doubt
that the vast majority of Englishmen might without
discomfort dispense through life with all such nervous
stimulants as tea, coffee, alcohol, and tobacco — at any

i84 LUXURY.

rate, if they had been reared from infancy without
them. I do not say this without experience. I lived
myself in perfect comfort between the ages of twelve
and nineteen, drinking only water at all meals ; and
I remember that I could not imagine why people
took the trouble to manufacture tea, coffee, and wine.
Yet the most hard-headed modern economist would
not deprive an old woman of her tea in the work-
house ; and I am told that whatever deterrent effect
the prospect of imprisonment under present con-
ditions has on our criminal classes depends largely
on the deprivation of their habitual alcohol and
tobacco.

It seems clear, then, that the line between luxuries
and comforts is necessarily a shifting one. The
commonest comforts might — apart from the effect
of habit — be classed as luxuries; the most expensive
luxuries may, through habit, become mere comforts,
in the sense that they cannot be dispensed with
without annoyance.

We have now to observe that often the annoyance
which the loss of wealth causes to the loser arises
solely from the fall in social position and reputation
which it is rightly or wrongly believed to entail.
This leads me to my second distinction : — that
between "luxuries" and the "decencies" of life. I
here use " decencies" in a wide sense, to mean all

LUXURY. 185

commodities beyond necessaries which we consume
to avoid not physical discomfort, but social dis-
repute. Perhaps I may make my distinction
between " decencies " and " comforts " clear by a
homely illustration. Many men, I believe, find
that their coats, hats, and boots are liable to be
condemned by domestic criticism as not "decent"
to wear in public, just when they have become
most thoroughly adapted to the peculiarities of
the wearer's organism, and so most thoroughly
comfortable. Half a century ago I believe that
boots were altogether a " decency " rather than a
comfort for a valuable and thriving part of the
population of our island ; at least a political
economist* of that date tells us that a " Scotch
peasant wears shoes to preserve not his feet, but
his station in society."

It will, therefore, be clear at once that just as the
line between "luxuries" and "comforts" varies
almost indefinitely with the habits of individuals,
the distinctions between " luxuries " and " decencies "
varies similarly with the customs and opinions of
classes.

Now, if we are passing judgment on an individual
accused of luxury in a bad sense, or giving advice to
one desirous of avoiding it, the consideration of his

* Senior,

1 86 LUXURY,

formed habits and the customs of his class must be
taken into account. It may sometimes be even un-
wise in him to break habits which it would yet have
been wise not to have formed ; for a struggle with
habit sometimes involves a material temporary
decrease of efficiency, and a hard - working man
reasonably objects to impair his efficiency. The
principle is no doubt a dangerous one, and easily
abused ; but I do not think we can deny its legiti-
macy within strict limits. So, again, though we
should usually admire an individual who breaks
through a custom of useless expenditure, we should
usually shrink from imposing this as an absolute
duty, and sometimes should even condemn it as
unwise. A fight with custom is, like other fights,
inspiriting and highly favourable to the development
of moral courage ; but usually, like other fights, it
cannot be carried on without cost and sacrifice of
some kind ; and it is the part of a wise man to count
the cost before undertaking it, and to measure his
resources against the strength of the adversary.

But at present I only mention these considerations
to exclude them. I do not now wish to consider
how we are to judge individuals, but rather how we
are to judge habits and customs regarded as social
facts. For such habits and customs are being modi-
fied continually though slowly ; and if they are bad,

LUXURY. 187

it is desirable that the pressure of public opinion
should in one way or another be brought to bear
to modify them. " They may say it is the Persian
fashion, but let it be changed," as Shakespeare
has it.

From this point of view I think it convenient to
avoid the necessarily shifting and relative definitions
of decencies and comforts, and to fall back on the
simpler distinction between "luxuries" and "neces-
saries " ; extending, however, the term necessaries
to include expenditure required by such habits
and customs as we consider generally necessary to
physical or moral well-being ; e.g., habits of due
cleanliness and such customs in respect of decency
— in a strict sense — as we judge important, if not
indispensable, to morality. This extension is, I
think, required by ordinary usage, for no one would
apply the term "luxurious" in an unfavourable mean-
ing to expenditure of this kind. And I think we
shall further agree that the term is not properly
applicable to expenditure that increases a man's
efficiency in the performance of his industrial or
social function, so long as the increase of efficiency
is not obtained at a disproportionate cost. But this
requirement of due proportion between expenditure
and increase of efficiency should be kept carefully in
view, because in all kinds of work it is possible to

1 88 LUXURY.

increase efficiency really but wastefuUy by adding
instruments which are of some use, but are not worth
their cost. In the application of wealth, by which a
competent man of business makes his income, this
proportion of efficiency to cost is easily estimated,
and clearly unremunerative conveniences — e.g.^
machines that clearly cost more labour than they
save — are carefully excluded ; but in the application
of wealth by which an income is spent^ this economic
care is often thrown aside, and instruments are
purchased which, while not absolutely useless for
the purchaser's ends, are at any rate of very little
use in proportion to their cost, — not unfrequently of
so little use that they do not even compensate the
loss of time and trouble spent in taking care of
them. May I take an illustration from my own
calling ? I have heard of a scholar who did good
work in his youth and attained fame and promotion ;
but then his work slackened and stopped. On
inquiry this was found to be due not to laziness,
but to his increasing absorption in the task of
buying, housing, binding, classifying, arranging, and
looking after the splendid collection of books that
he had formed to aid his researches.

For this form of luxury, these inconvenient
conveniences, there is no defence. But I dwell on
it now because, ever since moral reflection began

LUXURY, 189

in Europe, there have been thoughtful persons who
have held that the customary luxurious expenditure
of the rich on food, clothes, houses, furniture,
carriages, horses, etc., consisted mainly in con-
veniences that were really quite uneconomic, because
one way or another they caused more trouble and
annoyance than they saved to their possessor. I
will quote an expression of this view from a source
which may surprise some of my hearers ; ix.^ from a
work* by the founder of the long line of modern
political economists who are commonly supposed
to exalt wealth too exclusively, and to value it
unduly. Adam Smith, in 1759, wrote that "wealth
and greatness are mere trinkets of frivolous utility,
no more adapted for procuring ease of body or tran-
quillity of mind than the tweezer-cases of the lover
of toys ; and, like them, too, more troublesome to
the person who carries them about with him than all
the advantages they can afford him are commodious.
. . . In ease of body and peace of mind all the
different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and
the beggar who suns himself by the side of the
highway possesses that security which kings are
fighting for."

I have quoted this not because I believe it to
be really true, but because it is interesting to find

* Theory of Moral Senthnents, part iv., chap. i.

I90 LUXURY.

that Adam Smith believed it, and because it was a
tolerably prevalent belief in his age. There is a
story told by a writer of this period which may serve
as another illustration : a story of a Persian king,
afflicted with a strange malady, who had been
informed by a wise physician that he could be cured
by wearing the shirt of a perfectly happy man. It
was at first supposed that there could be no difficulty
in finding such a man among the upper ten thousand
of Persia ; but the court was searched in vain,
and the city was searched in vain ; and the
messengers sent to prosecute the search through
the country found that landowners and farmers had
all their sorrows and anxieties. At length the
searchers met a labourer, singing as he came home
from work. Struck with his gaiety, they questioned
him as to his happiness. He professed himself
perfectly happy. They probed him with minute
inquiries, but no flaw in his happiness was revealed.
The long-sought remedy seemed to be in their
hands ; but, alas ! the happy man wore no shirt.

Well, I think this story will show how far the
thought of the nineteenth century has travelled from
the view of life that was prevalent in the age of
Adam Smith and Rousseau. Perhaps it has travelled
a little too far. Adam Smith was — what Rousseau
certainly was not — a shrewd, calm, and disengaged

LUXURY. 191

observer of the facts of civilized life. He sometimes,
as here, gives the rein to rhetoric, but he never lets it
carry him away. And I think that his view contains
an important element of truth ; that it signalizes
a real danger of wasted effort, growing in importance
as the arts of industry grow, against which civilized
man has to guard. I think that every thoughtful
person, in planning his expenditure, ought to keep
this danger in view, and avoid the multiplication of
useless, or nearly useless, instruments, — houses larger
than he at all needs, servants whose services are not
materially time-saving, a private carriage when
walking is ordinarily better for his health and
adequate for his business, and many minor super-
fluities which absorb the margin of income that
would otherwise be available for results of real
utility. Still, taking Adam Smith's statement in its
full breadth, I cannot but regard it as a paradox
containing more error than truth. I see no reason
to doubt that the steady aim of civilized man to
increase the pleasures of life by refining and compli-
cating their means and sources — an aim which in all
ages has stimulated and directed the development of
industry and commerce — has been to a great extent
a successful aim, so far as its immediate end is
concerned.

Let us, then, putting out of sight expenditure

192 LUXURY.

prompted by bad habits, or imposed by useless
customs, and expenditure on illusory conveniences
that give more trouble than they save, concentrate
our attention on luxury successful in its immediate
aims — i.e., consumption that increases pleasure with-
out materially promoting health or efficiency ; and
let us consider how far and on what grounds this
may reasonably be thought deserving of censure.
Now — if we put aside the paradoxes of stoical
moralists who deny that pleasure is a good — the
arguments against increasing an individual's pleasure
by superfluous consumption seem to be chiefly three.
It may be urged, first, that the process usually injures
his health in the long run ; secondly, that it impairs
his efficiency for the performance of his social
functions ; thirdly, that the labour he causes to be
spent in providing him with the means of pleasure
would have produced more happiness, on the whole,
if it had been spent in providing the means of
pleasure for others. The first two of these consider-
ations form the main staple of the older arguments
against luxury ; the third is more prominent in
modern thought. I will briefly consider each in turn.
On the first of these heads — the effect of luxury
on health — there is much need to meditate, but little
for a layman to say. That persons of wealth and
leisure are in danger of excess in sensual indulgences;

LUXURY, 193

that this excess is continually being committed ; that
it is not difficult to avoid it by care and self-control ;
that those who do not avoid it are palpably foolish ;
what more is there to say for one who is not a
physician ?

I remember that in one of the most polished and
pointed poems that Pope ever wrote, he speaks of
his father as having had a long life —

" Healthy by temperance and by exercise."

The line, you see, is neither polished nor pointed ;
and I used to wonder how Pope's fine taste ever
came to admit such a platitude, until I read the
brilliant chapter in Trevelyan's Early History of
Charles James Fox, on the manners of London
society in the middle of the eighteenth century. It
then occurred to me that the fact of a man of means
having lived to old age, " healthy by temperance
and by exercise," may have seemed to Pope so rare
and remarkable that its bare statement would be
impressive without any verbal adornments. Well, I
hope that this has been changed in the nineteenth
century ; but I leave the question to the social his-
torian ; the philosopher may be permitted to pass on,
only remarking that the folly of sacrificing health to
sensual indulgence is not the distinctive privilege of
any social class. I remember that Pope, whom I

O

194 LUXURY.

have just quoted, sneers at legislation that spares the
vices of the rich,

" And hurls the thunders of the laws on gin."

But the legislators might have answered, that
while champagne and burgundy were slaying their
thousands, " gin " was slaying its tens of thousands.
But, secondly, it is urged that, without positively
injuring health, the refinement and complication of
the means of physical enjoyment tend to diminish
efficiency for work. Looking closer at this argu-
ment, we find that it combines two distinct
objections : one is that luxury makes men lazy^
disinclined for labour ; the other is that it makes
them soft, incapable of the prolonged, strenuous
exertion and the patient endurance of disagree-
able incidents which most kinds of effective work
require. On the point of laziness I will speak
presently. As regards softness, the objection has
this element of truth in it — that the powers of
sustained exertion and endurance are developed,
like other powers, by practice, and that the lives
of the poor provide normally an unsought training
of these powers from childhood upwards, which
has to be supplied artificially, if at all, in the lives
of the rich. But I think experience shows that
the objection is not very serious, at least for our

LUXURY. 195

race. Certainly, Englishmen brought up in luxury
seem usually to show an adequate capacity of
exertion and endurance when any strong motive
is suppHed for the exercise of these qualities.

We come, then, to the question of laziness,
meaning by laziness a disposition to work clearly
less than is good for one's self and others. There
can be no doubt that the luxurious tend as a
class to be lazy ; the possession of the means of
sensual enjoyment without labour disposes average
men, if not to absolute inertia, at any rate to
short working hours and long holidays. On the
other hand, if luxury makes men lazy, the prospect
of luxury makes them work ; and if we balance
the two effects on motive, I think there can be no
doubt that, other things remaining the same, a
society from which luxury was effectually excluded
would be lazier than a society that admitted it.
If it be said that the desire of luxury is a low
motive, I might answer in the manner in which one
of the wisest of English moralists — Butler — speaks
of resentment. I should say that " it were much to
be wished that men would act on a better principle " ;
but that if you could suppress the desire of luxury
without altering human nature in other respects, you
would probably do harm, because you would diminish
the general happiness by increasing laziness.

196 LUXURY.

This argument is, I think, decisive from a political
point of view, as a defence of a social order that
allows great inequalities in the distribution of wealth
for consumption. But when I hear it urged as con-
clusive from an ethical point of view, I am reminded
of Lord Melbourne's answer to a friend whom he
consulted, when premier, as to the bestowal of a
vacant garter. His friend said, "Why not take it
yourself? no one has a better claim." " Well, but,"
said Lord Melbourne " I don't see what I am to gain
by bribing myself" The answer is cynical in ex-
pression, but it contains a lesson for some who
profess a higher moral standard than Lord
Melbourne was in the habit of professing. For
when we have decided that the toleration of
luxury as a social fact is indispensable to the full
development of human energy, the ethical question
still remains for each individual, whether it is
indispensable for him ; whether, in order to get
himself to do his duty, he requires to bribe himself
by a larger share of consumable wealth than falls
to the common lot. And if one answers the
question in the affirmative, one must admit one's
self to belong to the class of persons character-
ized by George Eliot as " people whose high ideals
are not required to account for their actions."

Further, the moral censor of luxury may rejoin

LUXURY. 197

that he admits the danger of repressing luxury with-
out repressing laziness, and is quite willing to divide
his censure equally between the two. He may even
grant that, of the two, more stress should be laid
on the discouragement of idleness ; and that the
moral repression of luxury can only be safely
attempted by slow degrees, so far as we succeed
in substituting nobler motives for activity — i.e., so
far as we can make it natural and customary for
all men, whatever their means, to choose some
social function and devote themselves strenuously
to its excellent performance.

But if the censor takes this line — and I think
it practically a wise line — he by implication admits
the inconclusiveness of the argument against luxury
as an inducement to idleness ; for it implies that the
two are separable, and that idleness, like softness
and disease, is not an inevitable concomitant of
luxurious living, but only a danger that may be
guarded against.

I come, then, to the third argument — viz., that
a man who lives luxuriously consumes what would
have produced more happiness if he had left it to
be consumed by others. It is to be observed that
this is an argument not against luxury itself, so
far as it is successful luxury, but against its unequal
distribution ; it is an argument in favour of cheap

198 LUXURY.

luxuries for the many instead of costly luxuries for
the few. And this, I think, is generally the case
with the modern censures of luxurious living as
contrasted with the more ancient censures ; the
modern attack is rather directed against inequality
in the distribution of the means of enjoyment than
against the general principle of heightening the
pleasures of life by refining and elaborating their
means and sources ; or, at any rate, if this elab-
oration is attacked, it is only because it involves,
from a social point of view, a waste of labour. But
though this makes a fundamental difference in the
grounds of the attack, it does not make much
difference in its objects; since it is the consumer of
costly luxuries who in all ages has stood in the
forefront of the controversy and borne the brunt
of moral censure. Accordingly, in the little I have
yet to say of luxury, I shall use the term in the
special sense of costly luxury.

It must be admitted that this third objection,
so far as it is valid at all, is more inevitable than the
preceding ones. A man may avoid disease by
care and self-control ; he may avoid idleness and
softness by bracing exercise of his faculties, physical
and mental, while still systematically heightening his
enjoyment of existence by elaborate and complex
means of pleasure ; but just as he cannot both eat

LUXURY. 199

his cake and have it, so he cannot both eat his
cake and arrange that other men should eat it
too, or that they should consume the simpler
products of the baker's art which might have
resulted from the same labour.

Need I say a word about the hoary fallacy that
a man by eating his cake provides employment —
and therefore cake, or at least bread — for the baker ?
" Time was," as Shakespeare says, " that when the
brains were out the man would die " ; and as the
brains have been out of this fallacy generations
ago, I shall consider it as slain, even though it
still walks the earth with inextinguishable vitality,
and occasionally reappears in the writings of the
most superior persons. I shall venture to assume
that, speaking generally, a man benefits others by
rendering services to them, and not by requiring
them to render services to him.

Can we accept it as a generally satisfactory
defence of the costly luxuries of the few that,
owing to the exquisite delicacy of the palates of
certain individuals, the general happiness is best
promoted by the consumption of cake being
reserved to them ? that they are to be regarded,
in fact, as the organ of humanity for the apprec-
iation of cake ? There is some truth in this, if we
are considering a siiddeti change ; since experience

200 LUXURY.

shows that refined luxury is liable to be wasted
on persons suddenly transplanted into it late in
life. But the arguments do not go far, since the
same experience shows that the task of educating
any class up to the standard of capacity for enjoy-
ing luxury, which is reached on the average by
the wealthiest class of the age, is not a difficult
task, though it requires time. It is, indeed, in most
cases, an educational problem peculiarly easy of
solution. Hence I do not think this consideration
can weigh much against the broad fact that, even in
the case of successful luxury, increase in the means
of enjoyment consumed by the same individual is
accompanied by increase of enjoy n>ent in a con-
tinually diminishing ratio ; so that inequality in the
distribution of consumption is uneconomic from a
social point of view.

A really valid defence of luxury, then, must be
found, if at all, in some service which the luxurious
consumer as such renders to the non-luxurious.
That is, it must be shown that so-called luxury is
not really such, according to our definition, but is
a provision necessary for the efficient performance
of some social function.

From this point of view it is sometimes said
that luxury is a kind of social insurance against
disaster, as providing a store of commodity on

LUXURY. 201

which society can draw when widespread economic
losses occur through war or industrial disturbance.
Such disasters would no doubt cause far graver
distress if they fell on a body of human beings who
had among them hardly more than the necessaries of
life ; but though this is an argument for habitually
producing a certain amount of commodities not
required for health or efficiency, it is not a strong
argument for distributing them unequally. The
social surplus required might be nearly as well
created by the cheap superfluities of the many as
by the costly superfluities of the few.

Passing over other inadequate defences of luxury,
I come to the only one to which I am disposed to
attach weight — viz., that inequality in the distribution
of superfluous commodities is required for the social
function of advancing culture, enlarging the ideal of
human life, and carrying it towards ever fuller per-
fection. Here it seems desirable to draw a distinction
between the two main elements of culture — (i) the
apprehension and advancement of knowledge, and
(2) the appreciation and production of beauty, as it
is in respect of the latter that defence is most
obviously needed. No doubt in the past learning
and science have been largely advanced by men of
wealth ; no doubt, also, the scholar or researcher at
the present day requires continually more elaborate

202 LUXURY.

provision in the way of libraries, museums, apparatus.
But these we shall properly regard not as luxuries
but as the instruments of a profession or calling of
high social value ; and, generally speaking, there
seems no reason why the pursuit of knowledge
should suffer if the expenditure of the student,
inclusive of the funds devoted to the instruments of
his calling, were kept free from all costly luxury and
"high thinking" universally accompanied by "plain
living." And the same view may be, to a great
extent at least, legitimately taken of the expenditure
on the pursuit of knowledge incurred by that large
majority of educated persons who can hardly hope
to contribute materially to the scientific progress of
mankind : so far as this expenditure tends directly or
indirectly to increase the efficiency of their intellectual
activities. Some portion of this may no doubt be
wasted in the gratification of idle curiosity, so as to
leave no intellectual profit behind ; and theoretically
we must except this portion from our defence of
costly expenditure on intellectual pursuits. But I do
not think that this exception is practically very
important, considering the hesitation that a wise man
will always feel in pronouncing on the uselessness of
any knowledge.

Can we similarly defend the costly expenditure of
the rich on the cultivation and satisfaction of aesthetic

LUXURY. 203

sensibilities — on literature regarded as a fine art, on
music and the drama, on paintings and sculptures,
on ornamental buildings and furniture, on flowers
and trees and landscape - gardening of all kinds ?
Such expenditure is actually much larger in amount
than that incurred in the pursuit of knowledge :
and in considering it we reach, I think, the heart of
this ancient controversy on luxury. Here, however,
I have to confess that personal insight and experience
fail me. I only worship occasionally in the outer
court of the temple of beauty, and so I do not
feel competent to hold the brief for luxury on
the ground of its being a necessary condition of
aesthetic progress. But though I cannot hold the
brief I am prepared, as a member of the jury of
educated persons, to give a verdict in favour of the
defendant ; so far, at least, as a sincere love of
beauty is the predominant motive of the costly
expenditure defended. I find that the study of
history leads me continually to contemplate with
sympathy and satisfaction the opulence and luxury
of the few amid the hard lives of the many, because
it presents itself as the practically necessary soil in
which beauty and the love of beauty grow and
develop ; and because I see how, when new sources
of high and refined delight have thus been pro-
duced, the best and most essential of their benefits

204 LUXURY.

extend by degrees from the few to the many, and
become abiding possessions of the race. It is possible
that in the future we may carry on artistic and
aesthetic development successfully on the basis of
public and collective effort, and dispense with the
lavish and costly private expenditure of the few ;
but till we are convinced that this is likely — and I
am not yet convinced — I think we should not hamper
the progress of this priceless element of human life
by any censure or discouragement of luxurious living,
so long as it aims at the ends and keeps within the
limits which I have endeavoured briefly to determine.

VIII.

THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE*

\T THEN I was invited to deliver an incidental
^ ' lecture to the students of the London School
of Ethics and Social Philosophy, it seemed to me
desirable to choose a subject that on the one hand
should have an interest for students of Ethics, from
a practical as well as theoretical point of view ; and
on the other hand, should not be customarily in-
cluded— or, at least, only introduced in a very cursory
and subordinate way — in the systematic treatment of
Ethics. It seemed to me that the pursuit of culture
as an ideal would fulfil these two conditions. Culture
is a fundamentally important part of the human
good that practical morality aims at promoting ; at
the same time, its importance in the general view
of practical morality and philanthropy has grown
very much during the last generation, with the
enlargement of our conception of the prospective
greatness of human life to be lived on this earth. I

* An address delivered before the London School of Ethics and
Social Philosophy on October 24th, 1897.

205

2o6 THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE,

think no more remarkable change has ever taken
place in human thought than this enlargement, due
to the advance of science, especially of the historical
sciences — geology, evolutional biology, archaeology,
and anthropology, and the comprehensive but still
rudimentary science sociology, which has taken
nearly a century to get itself fairly born. The
mundane life of the individual is as transient as
ever ; but the mundane life of the larger whole of
which he is a part — the life of the human race — now
spreads out before our imagination as all but infinite
in its probable duration and its possibilities of
development. Its past life is reckoned by tens of
thousands of years : and the gloomiest forecasts of
physicists as to the cooling of the sun allow it more
millions of future years than I need try to count.
Thus the problem of making human life on earth
a better thing has become more and more clearly the
dominant problem for morality, comprehending
almost all minor problems, and determining the
lines on which their solution is to be sought ; and
in the doubtless imperfect conception we form of
this betterment, mental culture, which, — according to
usage, I shall speak of briefly as culture, — has, as
I said, a prominent place.

And the dominance of this problem has been
further established by the change in current political

THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE. 207

ideas, of which our newspapers have long been so
full, — the reaction against the individualism of the
earlier political economists, which left the culture of
the individual to his self-interest well understood,
or, in the case of children, to parental affection, and
merely aimed at protecting individuals and parents
against interference in its pursuit. The enlarged
conception of social and political duty which is now
prevalent is impelling us with increasing force to
promote positively the attainment of a good life
for all ; — through the action of the State, so far as
experience shows this to be prudent, but also through
private and voluntarily associated effort, outside and
apart from, or in co-operation with, government.
And this good life, as I have said, means for us a
cultivated life, a life in which culture is in some
degree attained and exercised.

Indeed, I think it may be said that the promotion
of culture, in one form or another, is more and
more coming to be recognized as the main moral
justification for the luxurious expenditure of the
rich. Observe that in saying this I wish clearly
to distinguish the moral from the political justi-
fication. I have no hankering after sumptuary laws ;
and men being what they are, I have no doubt
that the liberty to spend one's income luxuriously
is — quite apart from any question of culture — an

2o8 THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE.

indispensable spring of economic progress. But
what men ought to do is often very different from
what they ought to be made to do. And if culture,
like the greater goods, Religion and Morality,
could be equally well promoted by scanty and re-
stricted personal expenditure, it would seem to me —
in view of the multiple evils of the penury around
us — a clear moral duty for most persons with ample
means to restrict their expenditure to the minimum
necessary for the health, and the efficiency in pro-
fessional or social work, of themselves and their
families. The superfluity could then be spent in any
of the ways of relieving distress which the Charity
Organization Society would sanction ; and in spite
of the severity commonly attributed to that society,
such sanctioned ways of spending are, I can assure
you, both numerous and absorbent of funds. What
stands in the way of this moral judgment is the
widespread conviction that the lavish expenditure
of the rich on the elements of culture, the means
of developing and gratifying the love of knowledge
and the love of beauty in all their various forms,
meets an important social need, — wastefully no doubt,
but still more effectively than it could at present
be met in any other way; since the gain in know-
ledge and in elevated and refined delight obtained
through this expenditure does not remain with the

THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE. 209

rich alone, but extends in a number of ways to other
classes. Whether this conviction is sound or not
I do not now consider : I only refer to it as illus-
trating the importance that we have come to attach
to the notion of culture in our moral judgments.

And this comes out more clearly if we note what
among the advantages which the rich actually derive
from their superfluous expenditure — I mean expendi-
ture not needed for health or efficiency — the genuine
philanthropists among them are keenly desirous to
giwQ to others less fortunate. Surely — apart from
the general and technical education required for
economic efficiency — they consist almost entirely
in the means of developing the elevated faculties
and refined sensibilities which we include in the
notion of culture. I do not mean that such a
philanthropist would object to manual labourers
feasting on grouse and champagne — as certain
miners in the North were once said to do when
wages were high — but he would not make efforts
and sacrifices to spread these delicacies. Perhaps
you may say that if wealthy philanthropists really
put so high a value on culture, they would not spend
so much of their wealth in giving themselves plea-
sant things which have little or nothing to do with
culture. I might answer this in various ways. I
might dwell on the tyranny of custom, and the

V

2IO THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE,

conventional forms in which the time-honoured
virtue of hospitahty necessarily has to express
itself. But perhaps the answer that goes deepest
is that suggested by an old remark that the precept
"Love thy neighbour as thyself" might — when it
has attained general acceptance and serious efforts
are made to fulfil it — be advantageously supple-
mented by the converse precept " Love thyself as
thy neighbour " : since a genuine regard for our
neighbour — when not hampered by the tyranny
of custom — prompts us to give him what we think
really good for him ; whereas natural self-regard
prompts us to give ourselves what we like. Thus
the spontaneous expression of altruism, rather than
the spontaneous expression of egoism, corresponds
to our deepest judgment, the judgment of our best
self, as to the good and evil in human life.
■^ If it were needful to give further more detailed
proof of this growing recognition of the importance
of culture, and the growing desire for its wider
diffusion, I might draw attention to several different
features in recent social movements. I might point,
e.g., to the burning question of the " eight hours
day," and the eagerness shown by the advocates
of the workmen's side in this controversy to convince
the public that it is really leisure they want for their
clients, and not merely additional wages. No im-

THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE. 211

partial outsider objects to their getting as much
wages as the conditions of industry may allow ; but
they know that the demand for leisure to lead a
more cultivated life will stir the keenest sympathy
of lookers on. I might remind you of the resolu-
tion recently passed at a Socialistic Congress, that
University education should be effectively open to
all classes of the community, from the highest to
the lowest ; for even an extravagance of this kind
is a straw that shows how strongly the current of
opinion is flowing. I might refer to the efforts to
render picture-galleries and museums of art really
available for the delight and instruction of the
poorer classes of the community ; and I might point
to what is sometimes attacked as the " encroachment
of primary education on the province of secondary
education " ; which is, at any rate, evidence of the
widespread determination to aim, even in elementary
teaching, at something more than the viinhninn
required for economic efficiency.

I only suggest these topics, as they are familiar
to us all from the daily papers. I have said enough
to show the growing importance of culture in our
common conception of human good, in the ideal
that morality aims at realizing. What I propose
in the remainder of the present discourse is not
to discuss the methods by which culture is to be

212 THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE.

promoted and diffused, but to free this fundamental
notion, so far as possible, from obscurity and am-
biguity, so that our philanthropic efforts to promote
culture may have a clear and precise aim.

The question, what is culture? carries the thought
of a man of my age irresistibly back to the delight-
ful writer, who made the term familiar as a household
word to the English reading public a generation ago
— Matthew Arnold. I know that his poems are not
forgotten by a younger generation, and I hope his
essays are not forgotten either ; — at any rate the less
controversial of them, since the interest of contro-
versy is usually somewhat ephemeral. I know no
writings in English that plead the cause of literary
culture with an earnestness so light and graceful,
and so persuasive a charm. It was early in the
sixties that he began his efforts to penetrate the
hide of self-complacency which, then as now, was
a characteristic feature of his fellow-countrymen ;
and to make us feel the want of true culture in all
the three classes into which he divided our society —
Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace. He told us —
he was never tired of telling us, and his style could
make the most incessant iteration tolerable if not
agreeable — he set forth to us in memorable phrases
what culture was, and what great benefits we should
gain if we would only turn and seek it with our

THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE. 213

whole heart. Unfortunately, Matthew Arnold was
not — as he humorously confessed — a systematic
thinker with philosophical principles duly coherent
and interdependent ; and consequently it is not
surprising that he did not always mean the same
thing by culture ; indeed it is interesting to watch
his conception expanding and contracting elastic-
ally, as he passes from phase to phase of a long
controversy.

When his preaching began he appeared to mean
by culture merely a knowledge of and taste for fine
literature, and the refinement of feeling and manners
which he considered to spring naturally from this
source. Thus, when he remarks regretfully that the
English aristocracy has declined somewhat from the
" admirable " and " consummate " culture which it had
attained in the eighteenth century, what he regrets
is the time when the oracle of polite society — Lord
Chesterfield — could tell the son whom he was training
for a political career, that "Greek and Roman learning
is the most necessary ornament which it is shameful
not to be master of," and bid the nascent diplomatist
" let Greek without fail share some part of every
day." And Arnold here seems to signify by culture
almost entirely the aesthetic value and effect of the
study of fine literature and not its value for thought :
since he speaks of a " high reason " and a " fine cul-

214 THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE.

ture " as two distinct things, and tells the middle class
— his " Philistines " — that they want both " culture "
which aristocracy has, and " ideas " which aristocracy
has not But as the controversy went on and waxed
a little hot, the limits of the notion came to be greatly
enlarged. When John Bright sneered at culture as
a " smattering of two dead languages," and when Mr.
Frederick Harrison, in his "stringent manner," said
that culture was a desirable quality in a critic of new
books, but a poor thing when you came to active
politics, Arnold was moved to unfold a much wider
and deeper view of the essential quality of this divine
gift. In the first place, culture was now made to
include an openness to ideas, as well as fine manners
and an appreciation of the beauty of fine poetry
and fine prose. Indeed, of the two, the intellectual
element is now the most prominent ; the most
powerful motive, according to Arnold, that prompts
us to read the best books, to know the best that has
been thought and said in the world, is now identified
with the genuine scientific passion for " seeing things
as they really are." But this is not all : Arnold will
have us go deeper still and take a yet more compre-
hensive view. The passion for culture is not, he says,
the mere desire of seeing things as they are, for the
simple pleasure of seeing them as they are, and
developing the intelligence of the seer ; though this

THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE. 215

is a noble impulse, eminently proper to an intelligent
being. But culture, true culture, aims at more than
this : it aims at nothing less than human perfection,
a perfect spiritual condition, involving the " har-
monious expansion of all the powers which make
the beauty and worth of human nature," and thus
necessarily including perfection of will and of the
moral feelings that claim the governance of will, no
less than perfection of intelligence and taste. Its
dominant idea being that of a human nature perfect
on all its sides, it includes and transcends religion,
which on its practical side is dominated by the more
limited idea of moral perfection, and which, there-
fore, tends to concentrate effort on conquering the
" obvious faults of our animality." So viewed, culture
cannot be sought by anyone who seeks it for himself
alone. " Because men are all members of one great
whole, and the sympathy which is in human nature
will not allow one member to have a perfect welfare
independent of the rest, the expansion of our
humanity, to suit the idea of perfection which
culture forms, must be a gefteral expansion. . . .
The individual is obliged, under pain of being
stunted and enfeebled in his own development if
he disobeys, to carry others along with him in his
march towards perfection, to be continually doing
all he can to enlarge and increase the volume of the

2i6 THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE.

human stream sweeping thitherward." In this wider
conception "all the love of our neighbour, the im-
pulses towards action, help, and beneficence, the
desire for clearing human confusion and diminishing
the sum of human misery, the noble aspiration to
leave the world better and happier than we found it "
— all these motives " come in as part of the grounds
of culture and the main and pre-eminent part." This
culture is seen — if we see with Arnold's eyes — to
move by the force not merely or primarily of the
scientific impulse to pure knowledge, but also of the
moral and social impulse to do good : it has '' one
great passion for sweetness and light " ; and " one
greater, for making reason and the will of God
prevail."

Well, this was a noble ideal, and the words in
which Arnold set it before us had the genuine ring
of prophetic conviction ; but we felt that we had
travelled a long way from the Earl of Chesterfield
and the admirable and consummate culture of the
English aristocracy in the eighteenth century. Our
historical reminiscences seemed to indicate that the
passion for making reason and the will of God
prevail, and carrying on the whole human race in
a grand march towards complete spiritual perfection,
which these fine gentlemen as a class derived from
their studies in Greek and Latin, was of a very

THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE. 217

limited description ; hardly, indeed, perceptible to
the scrutiny of the impartial historian. Even in
the latter half of the nineteenth century the desire
to cultivate the intellect and taste by reading the
best books, and the passion for social improvement,
are not — if we look at actual facts — always found
together ; or even if we grant that the one can
hardly exist without some degree of the other, at
any rate they co -exist in different minds in very
varying proportions. And when Arnold tells us
that the Greeks had arrived, in theory at least, at
a harmonious adjustment of the claims of both, we
feel that his admiration for Hellenism has led him
to idealize it ; for we cannot but remember how
Plato politely but firmly conducts the poets out of
his republic, and how the Stoics sneered at Aristotle's
praises of pure speculation. In short, we might allow
Arnold to define the aim of culture either as the
pursuit of sweetness and light, or more comprehen-
sively as the pursuit of complete spiritual perfection,
including the aim of making reason and the will
of God prevail ; but in the name of culture itself
we must refuse to use the same word for two such
different things ; since the resulting confusion of
thought will certainly impede our efforts to see
things as they really are.

And when the alternatives are thus presented, it

2i8 THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE.

seems clear that usage is on the side of the
narrower meaning. For what philanthropy is now
increasingly eager to diffuse, under the name of
culture, is something different from religion and
morality ; it is not these goods that have been with-
held from the poor, nor of which the promotion
excuses the luxurious expenditure of the rich.
Poverty — except so far as it excludes even adequate
moral instruction — is no bar to morality ; as it is
happily in men's power to do their duty in all
relations of life, under any pressure of outward cir-
cumstances ; and it is the rich, not the poor, that the
Gospel warns of their special difficulty in entering the
kingdom of heaven. Again if the pursuit of culture
is taken to transcend and include the aim of pro-
moting religion and morality, these sublimer goods
cannot but claim the larger share of attention.
Indeed Arnold himself told us in a later essay,
that at least three-fourths of human life belong to
morality, and religion as supplying motive force to
morality ; art and science together can at most
claim the remaining fourth. But if so, in dis-
cussing the principles that should guide our effort
after the improvement of the three-fourths of life
that morality claims, the difficulties that such
effort encounters, the methods which it has to
apply, we shall inevitably find ourselves led far

THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE. 219

away from the consideration of culture in the
ordinary sense.

For practical purposes then we must take the
narrower meaning. But I have not referred to
Arnold's wider notion in order merely to reject it,
or to divorce the pursuit of culture from the larger
aim at complete spiritual perfection and harmonious
development of all sides of human nature. What
God has joined together, I do not presume thus to
put asunder. No one who has risen to the grand
conception of the study of perfection as a com-
prehensive and balanced whole, the harmonious
development of human nature on all its sides, can
ever consent to abandon it ; and therefore we cannot
put it out of sight altogether, in considering the
more restricted aims of culture in the narrower
sense. This narrower notion is an abstraction
needful for the purpose of clearer view and prac-
tical working out of methods of pursuit ; but it
should never be forgotten that the separation cannot
be made complete without loss of truth. I propose,
therefore, in what I have yet to say, first to
analyse somewhat further the narrower conception
of culture ; and then to consider its relation to
other elements of the wider notion of complete
spiritual perfection.

The first question that arises when we concentrate

220 THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE.

attention on culture in the narrower and more usual
sense is to determine its relation to knowledge. We
certainly often distinguish the two : we speak of
diffusing knowledge and culture ; and yet it is not
easy to conceive a cultivation of the mind that
does not give knowledge. Here again it may help
us to follow the course of Matthew Arnold's thought.
In his earliest view, as we saw, culture seems to
lie in the development of the taste rather than the
intellect ; the aristocracy, he finds, has culture but
lacks ideas. But in his later and more meditated
view he appears to blend the two completely, taking
the development of the intellect as the more
fundamental element. His favourite phrase for
the essential spring of culture is the desire or
passion for " seeing things as they are." The activity
of culture, he tells us, lies in reading, observing,
thinking. Hellenism — which is another term for
culture in the narrower sense — " drives at ideas " ;
has "an ardent sense for all the new and chang-
ing combinations of them which man's activity
brings with it, and an indomitable impulse to know
and adjust them perfectly"; it drives at "an un-
clouded clearness " and flexibility of mind, an
" unimpeded play of thought," an " untrammelled
spontaneity of consciousness." This is its essential
aim ; and the sweetness, the grace and serenity, the

THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE. 221

sensibility to beauty, the aversion to hideousness,
rawness, vulgarity, which Arnold no less values, are
conceived to have an intellectual root and source ;
they are to come from " harmonized ideas."

Now, I agree generally with the view here ex-
pressed as to the primacy of the intellectual element
of culture. Since the most essential function of the
mind is to think and know, a man of cultivated mind
must be essentially concerned for knowledge : but it
is not knowledge merely that gives culture. A man
may be learned and yet lack culture : for he may be
a pedant, and the characteristic of a pedant is that
he has knowledge without culture. So again, a load
of facts retained in the memory, a mass of reason-
ings got up merely for examination, these are not,
they do not give culture. It is the love of know-
ledge, the ardour of scientific curiosity, driving us
continually to absorb new facts and ideas, to make
them our own and fit them into the living and
growing system of our thought ; and the trained
faculty of doing this, the alert and supple intelli-
gence exercised and continually developed in doing
this, — it is in these that culture essentially lies.

But when we consider how to acquire this habit
of mind, we must, I think, regretfully take leave of
the fascinating guide whom I have so long allowed
to lead our thoughts on this subject. The path

222 THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE.

which at this point he shows us is a flowery one ;
but it does not cHmb the pass that we have to cross ;
it cannot bring us to the solution of our problem.
For Matthew Arnold's method of seeking truth is
a survival from a pre-scientific age. He is a man
of letters pure and simple ; and often seems quite
serenely unconscious of the intellectual limitations
of his type. How the crude matter of common
experience is reduced to the order and system which
constitutes it an object of scientific knowledge ; how
the precisest possible conceptions are applied in the
exact apprehension and analysis of facts, and how
by facts thus established and analysed the concep-
tions in their turn are gradually rectified ; how the
laws of nature are ascertained by the combined
processes of induction and deduction, provisional
assumption and careful verification ; how a general
hypothesis is used to guide inquiry, and after due
comparison with ascertained particulars, becomes an
accepted theory ; and how a theory, receiving further
confirmation, takes its place finally as an organic
part of a vast, living, ever-growing system of
knowledge ; — all this is quite alien to the habitual
thought of a mere man of letters. Yet it is this
complex process that the desire to see things as
they are must, in the present state of knowledge,
prompt a man to learn, to follow, and to apply.

THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE. 223

Intellectual culture, at the end of the nineteenth
century, must include as its most essential element
a scientific habit of mind ; and a scientific habit of
mind can only be acquired by the methodical study
of some part at least of what the human race has
come scientifically to know.

Now of all this Arnold has a very faint and inter-
mittent conception. His method of "seeing things
as they are " is simply to read the best books of all
ages and countries, and let the unimpeded play of his
consciousness combine the results. We ought, he
thinks, to read a good many books, to give our con-
sciousness room to play in, and acquire the right
flexibility of spirit ; but we must especially read the
books of great writers — such as those of whom he
incidentally gives a list : Plato, Cicero, Machiavelli,
Shakespeare, Voltaire, Goethe. Now imagine a man
learning physical science in this way. I will take
astronomy as the example most favourable to
Arnold's view that I could choose ; since students
do still read the great work of Newton, though
two centuries old : but imagine a learner, desirous
of seeing the starry universe as it is, set down
to read the treatises of Ptolemy, Copernicus,
Galileo, Kepler, and let his consciousness play
above them in an untrammelled manner, instead of
learning astronomical theory from the latest books.

224 THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE,

and the actual method of astronomical observation
in a modern observatory ! And the suggestion
would seem still more eccentric if applied to physics,
chemistry, and biology.

It may be replied that, granting this true as to
the knowledge of nature, the case is otherwise with
knowledge of the human spirit. But the antithesis
is misleading. Man, whatever else he is, is part of
the world of nature, and modern science is more
and more resolutely claiming him as an object of
investigation. The sciences that deal with man
viewed on his spiritual side — psychology and
sociology — are certainly in a rudimentary condition
compared with the physical sciences, and have
fundamental difficulties to overcome of a kind no
longer found in those more established methods.
But literature supplies no short cut for overcoming
these difficulties : the intuitions of literary genius
will not avail to reduce to scientific order the
complicated facts of psychical experience, any more
than the facts of the physical world. And this
is no less true of those special branches of the
study of social man, which have attained a
more advanced condition than the general science
of society that, in idea, comprehends them : —
economics, political science, archaeology, philology.
Let us take philology, because, being concerned

THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE, 225

about words, it is in a way akin to literature.
Reflection at once shows that the kinship lies entirely
in the object and not at all in the manner of study.
This is true even of the most limited species of
philology, the study of the grammar of a particular
language. The Iliad read by a man of letters differs
in aspect from the Iliad scrutinized by the student
of Greek philology, much as the Niagara of the
ordinary cultivated tourist differs from Niagara
as observed by the student of hydrodynamics. In
short, in dealing with the human spirit and its
products, no less than with merely physical pheno-
mena, we shall find that " letting our consciousness
play about a subject" is an essentially different
thing from setting our intellect at work upon it
methodically: and it is the latter habit that has
to be resolutely learnt by any modern mind, that
is earnestly desirous of "seeing things as they
are."

And when this is clearly apprehended, it becomes
manifest that the aim of science, and the aspect
which things scientifically known present to the
mind, is profoundly different from the aim of art,
and the aspect of things which the study of beauty
aims at seizing and presenting. There is, indeed, at
the same time, a deep affinity traceable between the
two. Things seen as they are by science afford the

Q

226 THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE.

seer the pleasure of complex harmony, through the
unity of intelligible order and system that is seen
to pervade the vast diversity of particular facts, when
we are able to bring them under general laws : and
the pleasure of harmony, of a subtle unity of effect
pervading a diversity of sensible impressions, is a main
element of the delight derived from a great work of
art. But the harmony and its elements are essentially
different in the two cases ; and in the case of science
the harmony is essentially known, intellectually
grasped, the feeling of it secondary ; whereas in
the case of art the feeling is of primary importance,
the intellectual explanation of it secondary. So
again the technique of art always involves know-
ledge of some kinds, and in the representative arts
especially, careful observation of facts : but the
knowledge is not sought for its own sake, and there
is no general need that the facts should be scientific-
ally understood. It would seem therefore that these
two elements of what we commonly call culture,
the love of truth along with the trained faculty for
attaining it, and the love of beauty duly trained and
developed, are — speaking broadly — as different in
their aims and points of view as either is different
from morality.

At this point Arnold would answer — this answer
is, in fact, his final utterance on the subject —

THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE. 227

that it is the special function of literature to
comprehend and mediate between these divergent
aims and views. He urges that what the spirit of
man — even the most modern man — demands is to
establish a satisfactory relation between the results
of science and our sense of conduct and sense of
beauty ; and that this is what humane letters, poetry
and eloquence, stirring our higher emotions, will do
for us. In this answer there is an important element
of truth ; but the claim goes too far. For to satisfy
completely the demand to which he appeals, to bring
into true and clear intellectual relation the notions
and methods of studies so diverse as positive science
and the theory of the fine arts is more than literature
as literature can perform ; the result can only be
attained by philosophy, whose peculiar task indeed
it is to bring into clear, orderly, harmonious relations
the fundamental notions and methods of all special
sciences and studies. But we must admit that it is
not a task which philosophy can yet be said to have
triumphantly accomplished : the height from which
all normal human aims and activities can be clearly
and fully contemplated in true and harmonious
relations is a height not yet surmounted by the
human spirit. And perhaps it never will be sur-
mounted ; perhaps — to change the metaphor — the
accomplishment of this task is an ideal whose face is

228 THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE.

" Evermore unseen,
And fixed upon the far sea-line,"

which changes with every advance in the endless
voyaging of the human spirit.

In the meantime it may be conceded to the
advocates of humane letters that literature of the
thoughtful kind — such poetry and eloquence as really
deserves to be called a criticism of life — may supply
even to philosophers an important part of the matter
of philosophy, though it cannot give philosophic
form and order, and may give a provisional substitute
for philosophy to the many who do not philosophize.
It gives, or helps to give, the kind of wide interest
in, the versatile sympathy with, the whole complex
manifestation of the human spirit in human history,
which is required as a corrective to the specialization
that the growth of science inexorably imposes ; and
giving this along with beauty and distinction of
form and expression, it does at any rate bridge the
gulf we occasionally feel between the divergent aims
of science and art. It helps to produce a harmony
of feeling in our contemplation of the world and life
presented under these diverse aspects ; if not the
reasoned harmony of ideas which only philosophy
could impart. And it is this function of literature,
I think, that affords the best justification for the
prominence given to it in our educational system.

THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE. 229

So far, in analysing the conception of culture in
the narrower sense, we have found divergence, at first
sight wide, between the two elements of it which we
have distinguished, but we have not found discord.
Can we say that this is still the case when we turn
to consider culture in relation to other elements of
the wider notion of spiritual perfection ? Is there
any natural opposition between the devotion to
moral excellence and the devotion to knowledge or
to beauty? and if so, how are we to deal with it?
These are questions of some practical importance on
which it remains to say a few words.

First, as regards science and the scientific habit
of mind. Here we may say broadly that morality
is disposed to welcome science as a sef^ant, but
somewhat to dread it as a master. No moralist
would deny that we shall be better able to promote
human well-being or cure human woes the more we
can learn from science of the conditions of both :
discord can only arise because science is not al-
together willing to accept simply this subordinate
and serviceable relation to ethics. I shall not here
treat of the deepest element of this discord : the
tendency of the scientific study of man, in explain-
ing the origin and growth of moral ideas and senti-
ments, to explain away their binding force ; so that
the "law so analysed" ceases, as Browning says, to

230 THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE.

" coerce you much." This is a difficulty with which
only a systematic moral philosophy can deal. But,
assuming that all such presumptuous invasions of
science are repelled, and ethics allowed to be valid
within its own domain, the question still remains how
far the study of science tends to produce a habit of
mind unfavourable to moral ardour. I think some
such effect must be allowed to be natural. Scientific
curiosity naturally adopts a neutral attitude towards
the evil and good in the world it seeks to know ; it
aims at understanding, explaining, tracing the causes
of the former no less than the latter ; and so far as
cases of vice and "wrongdoing present interesting
problems to science, the solution of which throws
light on psychological and sociological laws, the
passion for discovering truth seems inevitably to
carry with it a certain pleasure in the existence of
the facts scientifically understood and explained,
which is difficult to reconcile with the aversion to
vice and wrongdoing that morality would inculcate.

We may illustrate this by comparing the similar
attitude towards physical evil sometimes noticed in
students of medical science. We have all heard of
the surgeon who, when bicycles came in, rubbed his
hands with delight over the novel and beautiful
fractures of the lower limbs resulting from this
mode of progression ! But though the surgeon's

THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE. 231

sentiments towards an interesting fracture are differ-
ent from a layman's, and may have an intermingling
of scientific satisfaction from which the latter recoils,
we all know that this does not normally affect his
active impulses ; in the presence of the need of
action he is none the less helpful, while the layman
is comparatively helpless. And perhaps the parallel
may suggest a tolerable practical solution of the
deeper discord between the scientific and the moral
views of man's mental nature. That is, though there
must perhaps be some interference in the region of
feeling between the passion of scientific activity and
normal ethical sentiment, there need be none in
respect of habits of action. And any loss in the
region of sentiment will not be uncompensated ; for
the keener and correcter insight into the bad con-
sequences of our actions which science may be
expected to give, must tend to direct the sentiment
of moral aversion to matters other than those on
which ordinary morality concentrates its attention,
and thus to make its scope at once broader and
truer.

When we turn to contemplate the pursuit of
beauty in relation to the pursuit of moral excellence
we find an occasional antagonism even more sharply
marked, just because of the affinity between the two.
Morality and Art sometimes appear as the proverbial

232 THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE.

''two of a trade" that cannot agree ; — and in speaking
of art I mean only work worthy of the name, and
do not include the mere misuse of technical gifts for
the gratification of base appetites. Both art and
morality have an ideal, and the aim in both cases
is to apprehend and exhibit the ideal in a reality
that does not conform to or express it adequately ;
but the ideals are not the same, and it is just where
they most nearly coincide — in dealing with human
life and character — that some conflict is apt to arise.
Morality aims at eradicating and abolishing evil,
especially moral evil ; whereas the aesthetic con-
templation of life recognizes it as an element
necessary to vivid and full interest. The opposition
attains its sharpest edge in modern realistic art and
literature ; but it is by no means confined to the
work of this school. Take, for example, the Paradise
Lost of Milton — a writer as unlike a modern realist
as possible. The old remark, that Satan is the real
hero of Paradise Lost^ is an epigrammatic ex-
aggeration ; but he is certainly quite indispensable
to the interest of the poem ; and the magnificent
inconsistency with which Milton has half humanized
his devil shows that he felt this. If the description
of Adam and Eve in the Miltonian Paradise is not
dull — and most of us, I think, do not find it dull —
it is because we know that the devil is on his way

THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE. 233

thither ; the charm of the placid, innocent Hfe
requires to be flavoured by the anticipated contrast.
Thus, aesthetically speaking, the more we admire the
poem the more satisfaction we must find in the
existence of the devil, as an indispensable element
of the whole artistic construction ; and this satis-
faction is liable to clash somewhat with our moral
attitude towards evil.

I do not think that this opposition can be
altogether overcome. Its root lies deep in the
nature of things as we are compelled to conceive it ;
it represents an unsolved problem of philosophy,
which continually forces itself to the front in the
development of the religious consciousness. The
general man is convinced that the war with moral
evil is essential to that highest human life which
is the highest thing we know in the world of
experience ; and yet he is no less convinced that
the world with all its evil is somehow good, as
the outcome and manifestation of ideal goodness.
The aim of art and of the effort to apprehend
beauty corresponds to the latter of these convictions ;
and thus its claim to have a place along with moral
effort, in our ideal of human nature harmoniously
developed, is strongly based. If so, it would seem
that we must endeavour to make the moods of
aesthetic and ethical sentiment alternate, if we cannot

234 THE PURSUIT OF CULTURE.

quite harmonize them ; the delighted contemplation
of our mingled and varied world as beautiful in its
mixtures and contrasts, though it cannot be allowed
to interfere with the moral struggle with evil, may
be allowed to relieve it, and give a transient repose
from conflict.

And on the whole we must be content that science
and art and morality are for the most part working
on the same side, in that struggle with our lower
nature through which we

" Move upward, working out the beast."

Perhaps they will aid each other best if we abstain
from trying to drill them into perfect conformity of
movement, and allow them to fight independently
in loose array.

IX.
UNREASONABLE ACTION.^

IN the present paper I wish to examine the con-
ception of what I think it on the whole most
convenient to call the " unreasonable action " of sane
persons in an apparently normal condition ; and to
contribute, if possible, to the more precise ascer-
tainment of the nature of the mental process involved
in it. The subject is one which attracted considerable
attention in Greek philosophy ; since the cardinal
doctrine of Socrates "that every man wishes for
his own good and would get it if he knew how"
naturally brought into prominence the question,
" How then is it that men continually choose to
do what they apparently know will not conduce
to their own good?" Accordingly the Aristotelian
treatment of ethics t included an elaborate discus-
sion of the "want of self-restraint" exhibited in
such acts, considered primarily in the special case

• This essay was printed in Mind {\o\. ii., N.S. No. 6).
t I refer to book vii. of the Nicotnachean Ethics.

235

236 UNREASONABLE ACTION.

of indulgence of bodily appetites in spite of a
conviction that they ought not to be indulged.
The discussion, apart from its historical interest,
may still be read with profit ; but the combination
of " dialectical " and " naturalistic " methods which
the writer uses is somewhat confusing to a modern
reader ; and the node of the difficulty with which
he deals seems to me to be rather evaded than*
overcome. In modern psychological and ethical
treatises the question has, from various causes,
usually failed to receive the full and systematic
treatment which it appears to me to deserve ; and
this is the main reason why I wish now to draw
attention to it.

I must begin by defining more clearly the pheno-
menon that I have in view. In the first place, I wish
to include inaction as well as positive action ; — the
not doing what we judge that we ought to do, no
less than the doing what we judge that we ought
not to do. Secondly, I mean action not objectively
but subjectively unreasonable ; i.e., not action which
is contrary to sound judgment, but action which is
done in conscious opposition to the practical judgment
of the agent at the time. Such practical judgment
will in many cases be the result of a process of
reasoning of some kind, either performed imme-
diately before the act is done or at some previous

UNREASONABLE ACTION. 237

time ; in these cases the term " unreasonable " seems
obviously appropriate. I shall, however, extend the
term to cases in which the judgment opposed to the
act is apparently intuitive, and not inferential. The
propriety of this extension might, I admit, be
questioned : but I want a term to cover both the
cases above distinguished, and I can find no other
familiar term so convenient. I wish then to examine
consciously unreasonable action, in this sense, as a
fact of experience capable of being observed and
analysed, without reference to the validity of the
judgment involved in it, or of the process (if any)
of reasoning by which it has been reached ; simply
with the view of finding out, by reflective observation,
exa.ctly what it is that happens when one Jknowing^ly^
acts against one's " better judgment."

Again, by "practical judgment" I do not neces-
sarily mean what is ordinarily called " moral judg-
ment " or " dictate of conscience," or of the " moral
faculty." I mean, of course, to include this as one
species of the phenomenon to be discussed; but in
my view, and, I think, in the view of Common-
sense, there arejnany cases of consciously unreason-
able action where morality in the ordinary sense does
not supply the judgment to which the act is opposed.
Let us suppose that a man regards ordinary social
morality as a mere external code sanctioned by

238 UNREASONABLE ACTION

public opinion, which the adequately instructed and
emancipated individual only obeys so far as he con-
ceives it to be on the whole his interest to do so :
still, as Butler pointed out, the conflict between
Reason and Unreason remains in the experience
of such a man in the form of a conflict of passion
and appetite with what he judges from time to time
to be conducive to his interest on the whole.

But if the notion of subjectively unreasonable
action is thus, from one point of view, wider than
that of subjectively wrong action, it would seem to
be from another point of view narrower. For action
subjectively wrong would be widely held to include
action which conflicts with the agent's moral senti-
ment^ no less than action which is contrary to his
practical judgment ; — moral sentiment being con-
ceived as a species of emotion not necessarily
connected with a judgment as to what "ought to be
done " by the agent or what is ** good " for him.
Indeed, in the account of the moral consciousness
that some writers of repute give, the emotional
element is alone explicitly recognized : the moral
consciousness appears to be conceived merely as a
species of complex emotion mixed of baser and
nobler elements — the baser element being the vague
associations of pain with wrong acts, due to ex-
periences of the disagreeable effects of retaliation,

UNREASONABLE ACTION. 239

punishment, and loss of social reputation, and
associations of pleasure with acts that win praise,
goodwill and reciprocal services from other men ;
the nobler being sympathy with the painful conse-
quences to others of bad acts, and the pleasurable
consequences of good acts.

This is not my view : I regard it as an essential
characteristic of moral sentiment that it involves a
judgment, either explicit or implicit, that the act to
which the sentiment is directed " ought " or " ought
not " to be done. But I do not wish here to enter
into any controversy on this point : I merely desire
now to point out that conduct may be opposed
to moral sentiment, according to the view of moral
sentiment above given, without having the character-
istic of subjective unreasonableness ; and, again, this
characteristic may belong to conduct in harmony with
what would be widely regarded as moral sentiment.
Suppose (e.g^ a religious persecutor yielding to a
humane sentiment and remitting torture from a weak
impulse of sympathy with a heretic, contrary to his
conviction as to his religious duty ; or suppose
Machiavelli's prince yielding to a social impulse and
impairing his hold on power from a weak reluctance
to kill an innocent person, contrary to his conviction
as to what is conducive to his interest on the whole.
In either case the persecutor or the tyrant would act

240 UNREASONABLE ACTION.

contrary to his deliberate judgment as to what it
would be best for him to do, and therefore with
' subjective unreasonableness ' ; but in both cases the
sentiment that prompted his action would seem to be
properly classed as a moral sentiment, according to
the view above described. And in the latter case
he certainly would not be commonly judged to act
wrongly, — even according to a subjective standard of
wrongness ; — while in the former case it is at least
doubtful whether he would be so judged.

By " unreasonable action," then, I mean voluntary
action contrary to a man's deliberate judgment as to
what is right or best for him to do : such judgment
being at least implicitly present when the action is
willed. I therefore exclude what may be called
*' purely impulsive " acts : z>., acts which so rapidly
and immediately follow some powerful impulse of
desire, anger, or fear, that there is no room for any
judgment at all as to their rightness or wrongness :
not only is there no clear and explicit judgment with
which the will conflicts, but not even a symbol or
suggestion of such a judgment. But often when
there is no explicit judgment there is an uneasy^
feeling which a pause for reflection might develop
into a judgment : and sometimes when we recall such
states of mind there is a difficulty in saying whether
this uneasy feeling did or did not contain an implicit

UNREASONABLE ACTION. 241

judgment that the act was wrong. For it often

I happens that uneasy feehngs similar to ordinary

I moral sentiments — I have elsewhere called them

\ ^^ quasi -morsX" — accompany voluntary acts done

i strictly in accordance with the agent's practical

j judgment ; i.e., when such acts are opposed to widely

i accepted rules of conduct, or include among their

I foreseen consequences annoyance to other human

' beings. Hence in trying to observe and analyse my

own experiences of unreasonable action I have found

a difficulty in dealing with cases in which a moral (or

prudential) judgment, if present at all, was only

implicitly present: since when subsequent reflection

shows a past deed to have been clearly contrary

to one's normal judgment as to what is right or best,

this subsequent conviction is apt to mix itself with

one's memory of the particular state of mind in

which the deed was actually done. In this way

what was really a quite vague feeling of uneasiness

may be converted in memory into a more definite

symbol of a judgment opposed to the volition that

actually took place. I have tried, however, to be

on my guard against this source of error in the

observations which have led me to the conclusions

that I am about to state.

Finally, I must define somewhat further the
limitation of my subject to the experience of persons

242 UNREASONABLE ACTION,

apparently sane, and in an apparently nornaal con-
dition. I mean by this to exclude from discussion
all cases of discord between voluntary act and
rational judgment, when the agent's will is manifestly
in an abnormal condition, — either from some distinct
cerebral disease, or from some transient disturbance
of his normal mental condition due to drugs, extreme
heat, sudden calamity, or any other physical or
psychical cause. Cases of this kind — in which there
appears to be no loss of sanity, in the ordinary
sense, the mental disturbance affecting the will and
not the reason — are highly interesting from a
psychological point of view, as well as from that of
medicine or jurisprudence. Sometimes they are cases
of " aboulia " or impotence of will, when in spite of
perfect clearness in a man's practical judgment he
feels it simply impossible to form an effective volition
in accordance with his judgment ; sometimes, again, to
use M. Ribot's* terms, he suffers from "excess" and
not " defect " of " impulsion," and appears to himself
compelled to commit some atrocious crime or
grotesque folly, or otherwise to act in a manner con-
trary to his practical judgment, under the constraint
of an impulse which he feels to be irresistible. But
in either case the very characteristics that give these

• See Les Maladies de la Volonti^ par Th. Ribot.

UNREASONABLE ACTION. 243

phenomena their striking interest render it desirable
to reserve them for separate discussion.

The Hne between " normality " and " abnormality "
cannot, indeed, be precisely drawn ; and certain phe-
nomena, similar in kind to those just mentioned, though
much slighter in degree, fall within the experience of
ordinarily sane persons free from any perceptible or-
ganic disorder or disturbance. I can myself recall
momentary impressions of something like "aboulia";
i.e., moments in which I was transiently conscious of
an apparent impossibility of willing to do something
which I judged it right to do, and which appeared
to be completely within the control of my will. And
though I have not myself had any similar experience
of irresistible " excess of impulsion," I see no reason
to doubt that others have had such experiences,
apart from any recognizable cerebral disorder ; it
would seem that hunger and thirst, aversion to death
or to extreme pain, the longing for alcohol, opium,
etc., occasionally reach a point of intensity at which
they are felt as irresistibly overpowering rational
choice. But cases of either kind are at any rate
very exceptional in the experience of ordinary men ;
and I propose to exclude them from consideration
at present, no less than the more distinct " maladies
de la volont(^ " before mentioned. I wish to con-
centrate attention on the ordinary experiences of

244 UNREASONABLE ACTION

"yielding to temptation," where this consciousness
of the impossibiHty of resistance does not enter in ;
where, however strong may be the rush of anger or
appetite that comes over a man, it certainly does
not present itself as invincible. This purely sub-
\ jective distinction seems to afford a boundary line
\within which it is not difficult to keep, though it
would doubtless be difficult or impossible to draw it
exactly.

It may tend to clearness to define the experiences
that I wish to examine as those in which there
is an appeara7ice of free choice of the unreasonable
act by the agent, — however this appearance may
be explained away or shown to be an illusion. At
the same time I do not at all wish to mix up
the present discussion with a discussion on Free
Will. The connection of " subjective irrationality " —
or, at least, " subjective wrongness " — and " freedom "
is, indeed, obvious and natural from a jural point
of view, — so far at least as the popular view of
punishment as retributive and the popular concep-
tions of Desert and Imputation are retained : since
in this view it would seem that "subjective wrong-
ness" must go along with "freedom" in order to
constitute an act fully deserving of punishment.
For the jurist's maxim " Ignorantia juris non
excusat" is not satisfactory to the plain man's

UNREASONABLE ACTION. 245

sense of equity : to punish any one for doing
what he at the time did not know to be wrong
appears to the plain man at best a regrettable
exercise of society's right of self-preservation, and
not a realization of ideal justice. But in a
psychological inquiry there seems to me no ground
whatever for mixing up the question whether
acts are, metaphysically speaking, " free " with the
question whether they are accompanied with a
consciousness of their irrationality.

I incline, however, to think that the tendency
to fuse the two questions, and the prominence in
the fusion of the question of Free Will, partly
explain the fact that the very existence of unreason-
able action appears to be not sufficiently recognized
by influential writers of the most opposite schools
of philosophy.

I find that such writers are apt to give an account
of voluntary action which — without expressly
denying the existence of what I call subjective
irrationality — appears to leave no room for it.
They admit, of course, that there are abundant
instances of acts condemned, as contrary to sound
practical principles, not only by the judgment of
other men but by the subsequent judgment of
the agent ; but in the analysis which they give
of the state of mind in which such actions are willed,

246 UNREASONABLE ACTION.

they appear to place the source of error in the
intellect alone and not at all in the relation of
the will to the intellect. For instance, Bentham
affirms that "on the occasion of every act he
exercises, every human being is led to pursue that
line of conduct which, according to his view of
the case, taken by him at the moment, will be in
the highest degree contributory to his own greatest
happiness";* and as Bentham also holds that the
" constantly proper end of action on the part of
every individual at the moment of action is his
real greatest happiness from that moment to the
end of his life,"t there would seem to be no room
for what I call "subjective unreasonableness." If
Bentham's doctrine is valid, the defect of a volition
Which actually results in a diminution of the agent's
happiness must always lie in the man's "view of
'the case taken at the moment": the evils which
reflection would show to be overwhelmingly probable
consequences of his act, manifestly outweighing any
probable good to result from it, are not present
to his mind in the moment of willing ; or if
they are in some degree present, they are, at any
rate, not correctly represented in imagination or

* Bentham, Constitutional Code, Introduction, p. 2 (vol. ix. of
Bowning's edition),
t Bentham, Memoirs, p. 560 (vol. x. of Bowning's edition).

UNREASONABLE ACTION. 247

thought. The only way therefore of improving |
his outward conduct must be to correct his /
tendencies to err by defect or excess in the intel-/
lectual representation of future consequences : as /
he always acts in accordance with his judgment
as to what is most likely to conduce to his greatest
happiness, if only all errors of judgment were
corrected, he would always act for his real greatest
happiness. (I may add that so acting, in Bentham's
view, he would also always act in the way most
conducive to general happiness : but with the
question of the harmony of interests in human
society we are not now concerned.)

I do not think that Bentham's doctrine on this
point was accepted in its full breadth by his more
influential disciples. Certainly J. S. Mill appears
to admit important exceptions to it, both in the
direction of ^self-sacrifice and in the direction of
self-indulgence. He admits, on the one hand,
that the " hero or the martyr " often has " volun-
tarily" to "do without happiness" for the sake
of " something which he prizes more than his own
individual happiness"; and he admits, on the other
hand, that " men often from infirmity of character,
make their election for the nearer good, though
they know it to be the less valuable ; and this
no less when the choice is between two bodily

248 UNREASONABLE ACTION.

pleasures, than when it is between bodily and
mental. They pursue sensual indulgence to the
injury of health, though perfectly aware that health
is the greater good."* But though Mill gives a
careful psychological analysis! of the former devia-
tion from the pursuit of apparent self-interest, he
does not pay the same attention to the latter ;
and yet it is difficult to reconcile the conscious
self-sacrifice — if I may be allowed the term — of
the voluptuary, no less than the conscious self-
sacrifice of the moral hero, with Mill's general
view that "to desire anything, except in propor-
tion as the idea of it is pleasant, is a physical
impossibility." For in balancing "sensual indulgences"
against "injury to health," distinctions of quality
hardly come in ; the prudential estimate, in which
the pleasure of champagne at dinner is seen to be
outweighed by the headache next morning, is surely
quantitative rather than qualitative : hence when the
voluptuary chooses a " pleasure known to be the less
valuable" it would seem that he must choose some-
thing of which — in a certain sense — the "idea" is
less "pleasant" than the idea of the consequences
that he rejects. If so, some explanation of this
imprudent choice seems to be required ; and in order

* Utilitarianism, chap. ii. f Ibid.^ chap. iv.

UNREASONABLE ACTION. 249

to give it, we have to examine more closely the
nature of the mental phenomenon in which what
he calls " infirmity of character " is manifested.

But before I proceed to this examination, I wish
to point out that the tendency either to exclude the
notion of "wilful unreasonableness," or to neglect
to examine the fact which it represents, is not found
only in psychologists of Bentham's school ; who
regard pleasure and the avoidance of pain as the
sole normal motives of human action, and the attain-
ment of the greatest balance of pleasure over pain —
to self or to other sentient beings — as the only
" right and proper " end of such action. We find
this tendency also in writers who sweepingly reject
and controvert the Hedonism of Bentham and Mill.
For example, in Green's Prolegomena to Ethics, both
the psychological doctrine that pleasure is the normal
motive of human action, and the ethical doctrine
that it is the proper motive, are controverted with
almost tedious emphasis and iteration. But Green
still lays down as broadly as Bentham that every
person in every moral action, virtuous or vicious,
presents to himself some possible state or achieve-
ment of his own as for the time his greatest good,
and acts for the sake of that good ; at the same
time explaining that the kind of good which a

person at any point of his life " presents to himself

R 2

250 UNREASONABLE ACTION

as greatest depends on his past experience." * From
these and other passages we should certainly infer
that, in Green's view, vicious choice is always made
in the illusory belief that the act chosen is conducive ^
to the agent's greatest good ; although Green is on
this point less clearly consistent than Bentham, since
he also says that " the objects where good is actually
sought are often not those where reason, even as in
the person seeking them, pronounces that it is to
be found." f But passages in the former sense are
more common in his book, and he seems to make
no attempt to bring them into harmony with that
last quoted.

I cannot accept the proposition "that every man
always acts for the sake of what he presents to
himself as his own greatest good," whether it is
offered in a hedonistic or in a non-hedonistic form.
At the same time, I think that the statements which
I have quoted from Bentham and Green are by no
means to be treated as isolated paradoxes of in-
dividual thinkers ; I think they point to a difficulty
widely felt by educated persons, in accepting and
applying the notion of "wilful wrongdoing," i.e.^
conscious choice of alternatives of action known
to be in conflict with principles still consciously

* Green, Prolegomena to Ethics^ book ii., chap. i. , f. 99.
t I.e., book iii., chap, i., f. 177.

UNREASONABLE ACTION. 251

accepted by the agent On the other hand, this
notion of wilful wrongdoing is so clearly a part of
the common moral experience of mankind that
it seems very paradoxical to reject it, or explain it
away.

Under these circumstances it seemed to me worth
while to make a systematic attempt to X)_bserve with/
as much care as possible — and as soon as possible
after the phenomenon had occurred — the mental
process that actually takes place in the case of

unreasonable action. I have found some difficulty :

i

in making the observations ; because action con- \
^ously unreasonable belongs to the class of
phenomena which tend to be prevented by
attempts to direct attention to them. This result
is not, indeed, to be deprecated from a practical
point of view ; indeed, it may, I think, be fairly
urged as a practical argument for the empirical
study of the present psychological problem, not
only that the results of systematic self-observation
directed to this point are likely to aid the observer
in his moral efforts to avoid acting unreasonably,
but that the mere habitual direction of his attention
to this problem tends to diminish his tendency
to consciously unreasonable conduct. But though
practically advantageous, this latter result is, from
a scientific point of view, inconvenient. This

252 UNREASONABLE ACTION.

direction of attention, however, cannot be long
maintained ; and in the intervals in which it is
otherwise directed the psychological observer is
probaby as liable to act unreasonably as any one
else ; though probably the phenomenon does not
last quite as long in his case, since, as soon as he
is clearly conscious of so acting, the desire to observe
the process is likely to be developed and to interfere
with the desire which is stimulating the unreasonable
volition.

I also recognize that I ought not to put forward
confidently the results that follow as typical and
fairly representative of the experiences of men in
general. It is a generally recognized obstacle in the
way of psychological study, especially in the region
of the intellect and the emotions, that the attitude
of introspective observation must be supposed to
modify to some extent the phenomena observed ;
while at the same time it is difficult to ascertain
and allow for the amount of effect thus produced.
Now in relation to the experiences with which I am
here concerned, the attitude of disengaged observant
attention is peculiarly novel and unfamiliar, and
therefore its disturbing effect may reasonably be
supposed to be peculiarly great. I have, accordingly,
endeavoured as far as possible to check the con-
clusions that I should draw from my own experience

UNREASONABLE ACTION. 253

by observation and interpretation of the words and
conduct of others. My conclusion on the whole
would be that — in the case of reflective persons — a
clear consciousness that an act is what ought not to
be done, accompanying a voluntary determination to
do it, is a comparatively rare phenomenon. It is,
indeed, a phenomenon that does occur, and I will
presently examine it more closely : but first it will
be convenient to distinguish from it several other
states of mind in which acts contrary to general
resolutions deliberately adopted by the agent may
be done ; as most of these are, in my experience,
decidedly more common than unreasonable action
with a clear consciousness of its unreasonableness.
These other states of mind fall under two heads :
(i) cases in which there is at the time no conscious-
ness at all of a conflict between volition and practical
judgment ; and (2) cases in which such consciousness
is present but only obscurely present.

Under the former head we may distinguish first
the case of what are commonly called thoughtless
or impulsive acts. I do not now mean the sudden
purely impulsive " acts of which I spoke before :
but acts violating an accepted general rule, which,
though they have been preceded by a certain amount
of consideration and comparison, have been willed in
a state of mind entirely devoid of any application

;k

254 UNREASONABLE ACTION.

of the general rule infringed to the particular case.
Suppose, for instance, that a man has received a
provocative letter in relation to some important
business in which he is engaged : he will sometimes
answer it in angry haste, although he has previously
adopted a general resolution to exclude the influence
of angry feeling in a correspondence of this kind by
interposing an interval of time, sufficient ordinarily to
allow his heated emotion to subside. I conceive that
often, at least, in such cases the rule is simply for-
gotten for a time, just as a matter of fact might
be : the effect of emotion is simply to exclude it
temporarily from the man's memory.

I notice, however, that in the Aristotelian treatise
before mentioned an alternative possibility is sug-
gested, which may sometimes be realized in the case
of impulsive acts. It is suggested that the general
rule — say ' that letters should not be written in anger '
— may be still present to the mind ; though the
' particular judgment, ' My present state of mind is a
f state of anger ' — required as a minor premiss for a
I practical syllogism leading to the right conclusion —
is not made. And no doubt it may happen that an
angry man is quite unaware that he is angry ; in
which case this minor premiss may be at the time
absent through pure ignorance. But more often he
is at least obscurely conscious of his anger ; and if

UNREASONABLE ACTION. 255

he is conscious of it at all, and has the general rule
in his mind, it seems to me hardly possible that he
should not be at least obscurely aware that the
particular case comes under the rule.

More commonly, I think, when a general resolu-
tion is remembered, while yet the particular
conclusion which ought to be drawn is not drawn,
the cause of the phenomenon is a temporary
perversion of judgment by some seductive feeling
— such as anger, appetite, vanity, laziness. In such
cases a man may either consciously suspend his
general rule from a temporary conviction caused by
the seductive feeling that he has adopted it without
sufficient reason, or he may erroneously but sincerely
persuade himself that it is not applicable to the
case before him. Suppose he is at dinner and the
champagne comes round : he is a patient of Sir
Andrew Clark,* and has already drunk the very
limited amount allowed per month by that rigid
adviser ; but rapidly the arguments of Dr. Mortimer
Granville occur to his mind, and he momentarily but
sincerely becomes persuaded that though an extra
glass may cause him a little temporary inconvenience,
it will in the long run conduce to the maintenance of

* I have left unaltered the name of this eminent physician, who was
alive when the article was written ; since there is no other name that
would, at that time, have seemed equally appropriate.

256 UNREASONABLE ACTION.

his physical tone. Or, as before, he has received a
letter that rouses his indignation : he remembers his
rule against allowing temper to influence his answer ;
but momentarily — under the influence of heated
feeling — arrives at a sincere conviction that this rule
of prudence ought to give way to his duty to
society, which clearly requires him not to let so
outrageous a breach of propriety go unreproved. Or
having sat down to a hard and distasteful task which
he regards it as his duty to do — but which can be
postponed without any immediate disagreeable con-
sequences to himself — he finds a difficulty in getting
under way ; and then rapidly but sincerely persuades
himself that in the present state of his brain some
lighter work is just at present more suited to his
powers, — such as the study, through the medium of
the daily papers, of current political events, of which
no citizen ought to allow himself to be ignorant.

i have taken trivial illustrations because, being not
[complicated by ethical doubts and disagreements, they
exemplify the phenomenon in question most clearly
and simply. But I think that in graver cases a
man is sometimes sincerely though very temporarily
convinced by the same kind of fallacious reasoning —
under the influence of some seductive feeling — that
a general resolution previously made either ought to
be abrogated or suspended or is inapplicable to the

UNREASONABLE ACTION. 257

present case. Such a man will afterwards see the
fallacy of the reasoning : but he may not have been
even obscurely conscious at the time that it was
fallacious.

But, again, these examples will also serve as illus-
trations of a different and, I think, still more common
class of cases which fall under my second head ; in
which the man who yields to the fallacious process
of reasoning is dimly aware that it is fallacious.
That is, shortly, the man sophisticates himself, being
obscurely conscious of the sophistry.

Moralists have often called attention to sophistry
of this kind, but I think they have not fully re-
cognized how common it is, or done justice to its
persistent, varied, and versatile ingenuity.

If the judgment which Desire finds in its way is
opposed to the common-sense of mankind, as mani-
fested in their common practice, the deliberating mind
will impress on itself the presumption of differing
from a majority so large : if, on the other hand, the
restraining dictate of reason is one generally ac-
cepted, the fallibility of common-sense, and the
importance of the individual's independence, will be
placed in a strong light. If a novel indulgence is
desired, the value of personal experience before finally
deciding against it will be persuasively presented ;
if the longing is for an old familiar gratification,

258. UNREASONABLE ACTION.

experience will seem to have shown that it may-
be enjoyed with comparative impunity. If the
deliberating mind is instructed in ethical controversy,
the various sceptical topics that may be culled from
the mutual criticisms of moralists will offer almost
inexhaustible resources of self-sophistication — such
as the illusoriness of intuition, if the judgment is
intuitive ; if it is a reasoned conclusion, the fact that
so many thoughtful persons reject the assumptions
on which the reasoning is based. The Determinist
will eagerly recognize the futility of now resisting the
formed tendencies of his nature ; the Libertarian will
contemplate his indefeasible power of resisting them
next time. The fallacies vary indefinitely; if plausible
arguments are not available, absurd ones will often
suffice : by hook or by crook, a quasi-rational con-
clusion on the side of desire will be attained.

Often, however, the seductive influence of feeling
is of a more subtle kind than in the instances above
given, and operates not by producing positively
fallacious reasoning, but by directing attention to
certain aspects of the subject, and from certain
others. This [e.g^ is, I think, not uncommonly the
case when an ordinarily well-bred and well-meaning
man acts unreasonably from egotism or vanity : he
has an obscure well-founded consciousness that he
might come to a different view of his position if he

UNREASONABLE ACTION. 259

resolutely faced certain aspects of it tending to reduce
his personal claims ; but he consciously refrains from
directing attention to them. So, again, in cases where
prompt action is necessary, passion may cause a man
to acquiesce in acting on a one-sided view, while
yet obscurely aware that the need is not so urgent as
really to allow no time for adequate consideration.

In both the classes of cases last mentioned we
may say that the wrongdoing is really wilful though
not clearly so : the man is obscurely conscious either
that the intellectual process leading him to a con-
clusion opposed to a previous resolution is unsound,
or that he might take into account considerations
which he does not distinctly contemplate and that
he ought to take them into account. But though
he is obscurely conscious of this, the sophistical or
one-sided reasoning which leads him to the desired
practical conclusion is more clearly present.

Finally, there remains pure undisguised wilfulness
— where a man with his eyes open simply refuses to
act in accordance with his practical judgment, al-
though the latter is clearly present in his conscious-
ness, and his attention is fully directed towards it.
I think it undeniable that this phenomenon occurs :
but my experience would lead me to conclude that
— at least in the case of habitually reflective persons
— it more often takes place in the case of negative
action, non-performance of known duty : in the case

26o UNREASONABLE ACTION.

of positive wrong action some process by which the
opposing judgment is somehow thrust into the back-
ground of consciousness seems to me normally
necessary. In other words, it seems, so far as this
experience goes, to be far easier for a desire clearly
recognized as conflicting with reason to inhibit action
than to cause it.

Even in the exceptional case of a man openly
avowing that he is acting contrary to what he knows
to be both his interest and his duty, it cannot be
assumed that a clear conviction of the truth of what
he is saying is necessarily present to his conscious-
ness. For a man's words in such a case may express
not a present conviction, but the mere memory of a
past conviction ; moreover, one of the forms in which
the ingenuity of self-sophistication is shown is the
process of persuading oneself that a brave and manly
self-identification with a vicious desire is better than
a weak, self-deceptive submission to it ; — or even than
a feeble fluctuation between virtue and vice. Thus,
even a man who said, " Evil, be thou my good," and
acted accordingly, might have only an obscured con-
sciousness of the awful irrationality of his action —
obscured by a fallacious imagination that his only
chance of being in any way admirable, at the point
which he has now reached in his downward course,
must lie in candid and consistent wickedness.

WilUam Brendon and Son, Printers, Plymouth.

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