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THE PRINCIPLES OF

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Sfovfes C T U T r^ Q

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HERBERT SPENCER

IN TIVO VOLUMES
VOL. I

NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

1905

Y.I.

PREFACE.

THE divisions of which this work consists have been pub
lished in an irregular manner. Part I was issued in 1879,
Part IY in 1891 ; Parts II and III, forming, along with
Part I, the first volume, were issued in 1892 ; and Parts V
and YI, concluding the second Tvolume, were, along with
Part IY, issued in 1893. The reasons for this seemingly
eccentric order of publication, primarily caused by ill-health,
will be found stated in the respective prefaces of the parts
and the volumes as originally published ; but as the
contained explanations are no longer needed I now suppress
them with the exception of the first, which has a permanent
significance.

It was there said that " the establishment of rules of
conduct on a scientific basis is a pressing need. Now that
moral injunctions are losing the authority given by their
supposed sacred origin, the secularization of morals is
becoming imperative. . . . Those who reject the current
creed appear to assume that the controlling agency furnished
by it may safely be thrown aside . . . those who defend
the current creed allege that in the absence of the guidance
it yields, no guidance can exist : divine commandments they
think the only possible guides." Dissenting from both of
these beliefs, my primary purpose has been to show that apart
from any supposed supernatural basis the principles of Ethics
have a natural basis. In the two volumes which here follow,
this natural basis is set forth and its corollaries elaborated.
If the conclusions to wrhich the general law of evolution
introduces us are not in all cases as definite as might be

VI PREFACE.

wished, yet they are more definite than those to which we are
introduced by the current creed.

Complete definiteness is of course not to be expected.
Right regulation of the actions of so complex a being as
Man, living under conditions so complex as those presented
by a society, evidently forms a subject-matter unlikely to
admit of specific statements throughout its entire range.

The primary division of it — private conduct — dependent
in part on the nature of the individual, his constitutional
state, and his circumstances, can be prescribed but approxi
mately ; and guidance must, in large part, be determined
by a judicial balancing of requirements and avoidance of
extremes. But entrance on the first great division of public
conduct — Justice — introduces us to conclusions which are in
large degree definite. Into this most important portion of
Ethics, treating of certain right relations between individuals,
irrespective of their natures or circumstances, there enters
the ruling conception of equity or equalness — there is
introduced the idea of measure • and the inferences reached
acquire a certain quantitative character, which partially
assimilates them to those of exact science. When, leaving
this all-important division, the injunctions of which ignore
personal elements, we pass into the remaining divisions-
Negative and Positive Beneficence — we enter a region in
which the complexities of private conduct are involved with,
the complexities of conduct in those around: presenting
problems for the solution of which we have nothing like
measure to guide us, and must mainly be led by empirical
judgments.

In view of these admissions some will contend that no
aid is here furnished by the general Doctrine of Evolution.
The first reply is that in that chief division of Ethics treat
ing of Justice, it furnishes aid both as verifying conclusions
empirically drawn and as leading to certain unaccepted con
clusions of importance. If it be said that throughout the
final divisions of Ethics, dealing with Beneficence, Negative

PREFACE. Vll

and Positive, the conclusions must, as above implied, be
chiefly empirical ; and that therefore here, at any rate, the
Doctrine of Evolution does not help us ; the reply is that it
helps us in general ways though not in special ways. In the
first place, for certain modes of conduct which at present
are supposed to have no sanction if they have not a super
natural sanction, it yields us a natural sanction. In the
second place, wThere it leaves us to form empirical judgments,
it brings into view those general truths by which our
empirical judgments should be guided.

Beyond serving to re-inforce the injunctions of Benefi
cence, by adding to the empirical sanction a rational sanc
tion, the contents of Parts V and VI have these claims to
attention :— First, that under each head there are definitely
set down the various requirements and restraints which
should be taken into account : so aiding the formation of
balanced judgments. Second, that by this methodic treat
ment there is given a certain coherence to the confused and
often inconsistent ideas on the subject of Beneficence, which
are at present lying all abroad. And third, that the coher
ent body of doctrine which results, is made to include regu
lation of sundry kinds of conduct which are not taken cog
nizance of by Ethics as ordinarily conceived.

But the truth of chief significance, which I now repeat and
emphasize, is that the supposed supernatural sanctions of
right conduct do not, if rejected, leave a blank; but that
there exist natural sanctions no less peremptory and covering
a much wider field.

Now that the work is complete, it becomes possible to
prefix some general remarks, which could not rightly be pre
fixed to any one of the instalments.

The ethical doctrine set forth is fundamentally a corrected
and elaborated version of the doctrine set forth in Social
Statics, issued at the end of 1850. The correspondence be
tween the two is shown, in the first place, by the coincidence

Vlll PREFACE.

of their constructive divisions. In Social Statics the subject-
matter of Morality is divided into parts which treat respect
ively of Private Conduct, Justice, Negative Beneficence, and
Positive Beneficence ; and these severally answer to Part III,
Part IY, Part Y, and Part YI, constituting the constructive
portion of this work : to which there are, however, here pre
fixed Part I, The Data, and Part II, The Inductions ; in con
formity with the course I have pursued throughout The Syn
thetic Philosophy. In Social Statics one division only of
the ethical system marked out was developed — Justice ; and
I did not, when it was written, suppose that I should ever
develop the others.

Besides coinciding in their divisions, the two works
agree in their cardinal ideas. As in the one so in the
other, Man, in common with lower creatures, is held to be
capable of indefinite change by adaptation to conditions.
In both he is regarded as undergoing transformation from
a nature appropriate to his aboriginal wild life, to a nature
appropriate to a settled civilized life; and in both this
transformation is described as a moulding into a form
fitted for harmonious co-operation. In both, too, this
moulding is said to be effected by the repression of certain
primitive traits no longer needed, and the development
of needful traits. As in the first work, so in this last, the
great factor in the progressive modification is shown to be
Sympathy. It was contended then, as it is contended now,
that harmonious social co-operation implies that limitation
of individual freedom which results from sympathetic
regard for the freedoms of others ; and that the law of
equal freedom is the law in conformity to which equit
able individual conduct and equitable social arrangements
consist. Morality, truly so called, was described in the
original work as formulating the law of " the straight
man"; and this conception corresponds with the concep
tion of Absolute Ethics, set forth in this work. The theory
then was, as the theory still is, that those mental products of

PREFACE.

Sympathy constituting what is called " the Moral Sense,"
arise as fast as men are disciplined into social life ; and
that along with them arise intellectual perceptions of right
human relations, which become clearer as the form of social
life becomes better. Further, at that time it was inferred,
as inferred now, that there is being effected a conciliation of
individual natures with social requirements ; so that there
will eventually be achieved the greatest individuation along
with the greatest mutual dependence — an equilibrium of
such kind that each, in fulfilling the wants of his own life,
will aid in fulfilling the wants of all other lives. Finally, in
the first work there were drawn essentially the same corol
laries. respecting the rights of individuals and their relations
to the State, that are drawn in this last work.

Of course it yields me no small satisfaction to find that
sundry of these ideas which fell dead in 1850, have now
become generally diffused ; and, more especially since the
publication of the Data of Ethics in 1879, have met with so
wide an acceptance that the majority of recent works on
Ethics take cognizance of them, and, in many cases, tacitly
assume them, or some of them. Many of these works convey
the impression that the evolutionary view of Ethics has long
been familiar, or else imply that it dates from 1859, when
the doctrine of " Natural Selection " was promulgated. In
this connexion I may name Mr. S. Alexander's Moral Order
and Progress, and still more the Review of the /Systems of
Ethics founded on Evolution, by Mr. G. M. Williams.
Alike in the introductory remarks of this last volume, and
in the paragraph closing the account given of the views of
Darwin, Wallace, and Haeckel, it is alleged that these " great
original authorities paved the way for a system of Evolu
tionary Ethics." Though in the exposition of my own
views, which immediately succeeds, the fact that they date
back to 1851 is recognized, yet the collocation, as well as
the express statements, practically cancel this inconsistent
admission, and leave the impression that my views are

X PREFACE.

sequences of those of Mr. Darwin. And this, indeed, is
the established general belief ; as is sufficiently shown by
the phrase " Darwinism in Ethics," frequently to be met
with, and which I now have before me in a review of Mr.
Williams' book.

Rectification of this misbelief is of course hopeless. The
world resents any attempt to show that it has fallen into an
error ; so that I should perhaps best consult my personal in
terests by saying nothing. But it seems to me proper to
point out, as a matter of historical truth, that in this case, as
in other cases, the genesis of ideas does not always follow the
order of logical sequence ; and that the doctrine of organic
evolution in its application to human character and intelli
gence, and, by implication, to society, is of earlier date than
The Origin of Species.

Without entering at length upon the prolegomena of
Ethics, it may be well here to state briefly one of them.
The tacit assumption made in this work, as more or less con
sistently in all modern works on Ethics, is that the conduct
dealt with is the conduct of and between like-natured indi
viduals — individuals whose likenesses of nature are so great
in comparison with their differences as to constitute them of
the same kind.

The possibility of another assumption, and consequently
of another Ethics, may be best shown by an analogy. The
several kinds of social insects, though they do not form
societies proper (since a nest of them is one large family
descended from the same parents), yet show us that there
may exist a body of co-operators among which a marked in
equality is an essential trait ; and they illustrate the possi
bility of a social organization such that the normal conduct
of class to class is guided by rules appropriate to each class,
and not common to all classes. They suggest that dissimilar
members of a community may work together harmoniously
on principles adapted to inequalities of nature. And they

PREFACE. XI

draw attention to the fact that there have been, and are,
human societies constituted in a way which is analogous, to
the extent that its classes of units, clearly marked off from
one another, and devoted to different kinds of activities,
either have, or tend to acquire, contrasted characters proper
to their relative positions, and reciprocal codes of conduct
which are thought obligatory. Societies formed of domi
nant and enslaved races obviously answer to this description.
In the United States in slavery days, it was common for
slaves to jeer at free negroes as having no white man to take
care of them. To such an extent may the sentiments be
come moulded to relations of inequality that, as in South
Africa, the servants of a mild master will speak contemptu
ously of him because he does not thrash them. With ex
treme cases such as these to give the clue, we may perceive
that wherever there are ruling classes and servile classes, as
throughout Europe in early days, there comes to be an ad
justment of natures such that command on the one side and
obedience on the other are the natural concomitants of the
social type. By continuous breeding of each class within
itself, tliere tends to arise a differentiation into two varieties,
such that the one becomes organically adapted to supremacy
and the other to subordination. And it needs but to recall
the ancient feudal loyalty, running down through all grades,
or the fealty shown by an ancient Highlander to his chief,
to see that there grew up ethical conceptions adjusted to the
conditions.

But systems of ethics appropriate to social systems charac
terized by these organized inequalities of status cannot be
the highest systems of ethics. Manifestly they presuppose
imperfect natures — natures which are not self-sufficing. On
the one side there is the need for control from without
for the proper regulation of conduct; and on the other
side there is the need for exercise of control, which, in an
opposite way, implies lack of self-sufScingness. Further,
external regulation is less economical of energy than inter-

Xll PREFACE.

nal regulation. When classes of inferiors are governed by
classes of superiors, there is a waste of action which does not
occur when all are self -governed. But chiefly the imperfec
tion of ethical systems appropriate to societies characterized
by organized inequality, is that sympathy and all those
emotions into which sympathy enters, and all that happiness
of which sympathy is the root, remain incomplete. Alien
natures cannot sympathize in full measure — can sympathize
only in respect of those feelings which they have in com
mon. Hence the unlikenesses presupposed between perma
nently ruling classes and permanently subject classes, nega
tive that highest happiness which a rational ethics takes for
its end.

Throughout this work, therefore, the tacit assumption will
be that the beings spoken of have that substantial unity of
nature which characterizes the same variety of Man ; and the
work will not, save incidentally or by contrast, take account
of mixed societies, such as that which w^ have established in
India, and still less of slave-societies.

June, 1893. H. S.

(Remodelled May, 1901.)

PREFACE TO PART I

WHEN FIRST ISSUED SEPARATELY.

A REFERENCE to the programme of the " System of Syi>
thetic Philosophy," will show that the chapters herewith
issued, constitute the first division of the work on the Prin
ciples of Morality, with which the System ends. As the
second and third volumes of the Principles of Sociology are
as yet unpublished, this instalment of the succeeding work
appears out of its place.

I have been led thus to deviate from the order originally
set down, by the fear that persistence in conforming to it
might result in leaving the final work of the series
unexecuted. Hints, repeated of late years with increasing
frequency and distinctness, have shown me that health may
permanently fail, even if life does not end, before I reach
the last part of the task I have marked out for myself.
This last part of the task it is, to which I regard all the pre
ceding parts as subsidiary. Written as far back as 1842, my
first essay, consisting of letters on The Proper Sphere of
Government, vaguely indicated what I conceived to be
certain general principles of right and wrong in political
conduct ; and from that time onwards my ultimate purpose,
lying behind all proximate purposes, has been that of finding
for the principles of right and wrong in conduct at large, a
scientific basis. To leave this purpose unfulfilled after mak
ing so extensive a preparation for fulfilling it, would be
a failure the probability of which I do not like to contem
plate ; and I am anxious to preclude it, if not wholly, stili
partially. Hence the step I now take. Though this first
division of the work terminating the Synthetic Philosophy,
cannot, of course, contain the specific conclusions to be set
forth in the entire work ; yet it implies them in such wise

Xlll

XIV PREFACE.

that, definitely to formulate them requires nothing beyond
logical deduction.

I am the more anxious to indicate in outline, if I cannot
complete, this final work, because the establishment of rules
of right conduct on a scientific basis is a pressing need.
Now that moral injunctions are losing the authority given
by their supposed sacred origin, the secularization of morals
is becoming imperative. Few things can happen more dis
astrous than the decay arid death of a regulative system no
longer fit, before another and fitter regulative system has
grown up to replace it. Most of those who reject the cur
rent creed, appear to assume that the controlling agency fur
nished by it may safely be thrown aside, and the vacancy left
unfilled by any other controlling agency. Meanwhile, those
who defend the current creed allege that in the absence
of the guidance it yields, no guidance can exist : divine
commandments they think the only possible guides. Thus
between these extreme opponents there is a certain commu
nity. The one holds that the gap left by disappearance of
the code of supernatural ethics, need not be filled by a code
of natural ethics ; and the other holds that it cannot be so
filled. Both contemplate a vacuum, which the one wishes
and the other fears. As the change which promises or
threatens to bring about this state, desired or dreaded, is rap
idly progressing, those who believe that the vacuum can be
filled, and that it must be filled, are called on to do some
thing in pursuance of their belief.

To this more special reason I may add a more general
reason. Great mischief has been done by the repellent as
pect habitually given to moral rule by its expositors ; and
immense benefits are to be anticipated from presenting
moral rule under that attractive aspect which it has when
undistorted by superstition and asceticism. If a father,
sternly enforcing numerous commands, some needful and
some needless, adds to his severe control a behaviour wholly
unsympathetic — if his children have to take their pleasures

PREFACE. XV

by stealth, or, when timidly looking up from their play, ever
meet a cold glance or more frequently a frown ; his gov
ernment will inevitably be disliked, if not hated ; and the
aim will be to evade it as much as possible. Contrariwise,
a father who, equally firm in maintaining restraints needful
for the well-being of his children or the well-being of other
persons, not only avoids needless restraints, but, giving his
sanction to all legitimate gratifications and providing the
means for them, looks on at their gambols with an approving
smile, can scarcely fail to gain an influence which, no less
efficient for the time being, will also be permanently efficient.
The controls of such two fathers symbolize the controls of
Morality as it is and Morality as it should be.

Nor does mischief result only from this undue severity of
the ethical doctrine bequeathed us by the harsh past. Fur
ther mischief results from the impracticability of its ideal.
In violent reaction against the utter selfishness of life as car
ried on in barbarous societies, it has insisted on a life utterly
unselfish. But just as the rampant egoism of a brutal mili
tancy, was not to be remedied by attempts at the absolute
subjection of the ego in convents and monasteries ; so neither
is the misconduct of ordinary humanity as now existing, to
be remedied by upholding a standard of abnegation beyond
human achievement. Rather the effect is to produce a de
spairing abandonment of all attempts at a higher life. And
not only does an effort to achieve the impossible, end in this
way, but it simultaneously discredits the possible. By asso
ciation with rules that cannot be obeyed, rules that can be
obeyed lose their authority.

Much adverse comment will, I doubt not, be passed on the
theory of right conduct which the following pages shadow
forth. Critics of a certain class, far from rejoicing that
ethical principles otherwise derived by them, coincide with
ethical principles scientifically derived, are offended by the
coincidence. Instead of recognizing essential likeness they
enlarge on superficial difference. Since the days of perse-

XVI PREFACE.

cution, a curious change has taken place in the behaviour of
so-called orthodoxy towards so-called heterodoxy. The time
was when a heretic, forced by torture to recant, satisfied
authority by external conformity : apparent agreement suf
ficed, however profound continued to be the real disagree
ment. But now that the heretic can no longer be coerced
into professing the ordinary belief, his belief is made to ap
pear as much opposed to the ordinary as possible. Does lie
diverge from established theological dogma ? Then he shall
be an atheist ; however inadmissible he considers the term.
Does he think spiritualistic interpretations of phenomena not
valid ? Then he shall be classed as a materialist ; indignantly
though he repudiates the name. And in like manner, what
differences exist between natural morality and supernatural
morality, it has become the policy to exaggerate into funda
mental antagonisms. In pursuance of this policy, there will
probably be singled out for reprobation from this volume,
doctrines which, taken by themselves, may readily be made
to seem utterly wrong. "With a view to clearness, I have
treated separately some correlative aspects of conduct, draw
ing conclusions either of which becomes untrue if divorced
from the other ; and have thus given abundant opportunity
for misrepresentation.

The relations of this work to works preceding it in the
series, are such as to involve frequent reference. Contain
ing, as it does, the outcome of principles set forth in each of
them, I have found it impracticable to dispense with re-state
ments of those principles. Further, the presentation of
them in their relations to different ethical theories, has made
it needful, in every case, briefly to remind the reader what
they are, and how they are derived. Hence an amount of
repetition which to some will probably appear tedious. I do
not, however, much regret this almost unavoidable result ;
for only by varied iteration can alien conceptions be forced
on reluctant minds.

June, 1879.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

PART I.— THE DATA OF ETHICS.

CHAP. PAGE

I. CONDUCT IN GENERAL ... ... ... 3

II. THE EVOLUTION OF CONDUCT ... ... 8

TIL GOOD AND HAD CONDUCT ... ... ... 21

IV. WAYS OF JUDGING CONDUCT... ... ... 47

V. THE PHYSICAL VIEW ... ... ... (U

VI. THE BIOLOGICAL VIEW ... ... ... 75

VII. — THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW ... ... ... 102

VIII. THE SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW ... ... ... 132

IX. CRITICISMS AND EXPLANATIONS ... ... 150

X. THE RELATIVITY OF PAINS AND PLEASURES ... 174

XI. EGOISM VERSUS ALTRUISM ... ... ... 187

XII. ALTRUISM VEIfSUS EGOISM ... ... ... 201

XIII. TRIAL AND COMPROMISE ... ... ... 211)

XIV. CONCILIATION ... ... ... ... 212

XV. ABSOLUTE ETHICS AND RELATIVE ETHICS ... 258

XVI. THE SCOPE OF ETHICS ... ... ... 2Sl

APPENDIX TO PART I ... ... ... 289

PART II.— THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

I. THE CONFUSION OF ETHICAL THOUGHT... ... 307

H. WHAT IDEAS AND SENTIMENTS ARE ETHICAL? ... 325

XV111 CONTENTS.

~~^-.

CHAP. PAGE

III. AGGRESSION ... ... ... ... 340

IV.— ROBBERY... ... ... ... ... 352

V. REVENGE ... ... ... ... 361

VI. JUSTICE ... ... ... ... ... 369

VII. GENEROSITY ... ... ... ... 378

VIII. HUMANITY ... ... ... ... 391

IX. VERACITY ... ... ... ... 400

X. — OBEDIENCE ... ... ... ... 410

XI. INDUSTRY ... ... ... ... 422

XII. — TEMPERANCE ... ... ... ... 435

XIII. CHASTITY ... ... ... ... 448

XIV. SUMMARY OF INDUCTIONS ... ... ... 464

PART III.— THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

I. — INTRODUCTORY ... ... ... ... 477

II. ACTIVITY... ... ... ... ... 485

III. — REST ... ... ... ... ... 493

IV. NUTRITION ... ... ... ... 500

V. STIMULATION ... ... ... ... 508

VI. — CULTURE... ... ... ... ... 514

VII. — AMUSEMENTS ... ... ... ... 523

VIII. MARRIAGE ... ... ... ... 532

IX. PARENTHOOD ... ... ... ... 544

X. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 555

PART I.
THE DATA OF ETHICS.

CHAPTEK I.

CONDUCT IN GENERAL.

§ 1. The doctrine that correlatives imply one another
—that a father cannot be thought of without thinking of
a child, and that there can be no consciousness of superior
without a consciousness of inferior — has for one of its
common examples the necessary connexion between the
conceptions of whole and part. Beyond the primary
truth that no idea of a whole can be framed without a
nascent idea of parts constituting it, and that no idea of a
part can be framed without a nascent idea of some whole to
which it belongs, there is the secondary truth that there
can be no correct idea of a part without a correct idea of the
correlative whole. There are several ways in which inade
quate knowledge of the one involves inadequate knowledge
of the other.

If the part is conceived without any reference to the
whole, it becomes itself a whole — an independent entity ;
and its relations to existence in general are misapprehended.
Further, the size of the part as compared with the size of
the whole, must be misapprehended unless the whole is not
only recognized as including it, but is figured in its total
extent. And again, the position which the part occupies
in relation to other parts, cannot be rightly conceived
unless there is some conception of the whole in its distribu
tion as well as in its amount.

4 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

Still more when part and whole, instead of being stati
cally related only, are dynamically related, must there be a
general understanding of the whole before the part can be
understood. By a savage who has never seen a vehicle, no
idea can be formed of the use and action of a wheel. To
the unsymmetrically-pierced disk of an eccentric, no place
or purpose can be ascribed by a rustic unacquainted
with machinery. Even a mechanician, if he has never
looked into a piano, will, if shown a damper, be unable to
conceive its function or relative value.

Most of all, however, where the whole is organic, does
complete comprehension of a part imply extensive comprehen
sion of the whole. Suppose a being ignorant of the human
body to find a detached arm. If not misconceived by him
as a supposed whole, instead of being conceived as a part, still
its relations to other parts, and its structure, would be wholly
inexplicable. Admitting that the co-operation of its bones
and muscles might be divined, yet no thought could be
framed of the share taken by the arm in the actions of the
unknown whole it belonged to ; nor could any interpretation
be put upon the nerves and vessels ramifying through it,
which severally refer to certain central organs. A theory
of the structure of the arm implies a theory of the structure
of the body at large.

And this truth holds not of material aggregates only,
but of immaterial a^o-reg-ates — ao-or related motions, deeds,

OO o oo o

thoughts, words. The Moon's movements cannot be fully
interpreted without taking into account the movements of
the Solar System at large. The process of loading a gun
is meaningless until the subsequent actions performed with
the gun are known. A fragment of a sentence, if not unin
telligible, is wrongly interpreted in the absence of the
remainder. Cut off its beginning and end, and the rest of a
demonstration proves nothing. Evidence given by a plain
tiff often misleads until the evidence which the defendant
produces is joined with it.

CONDUCT IN GENERAL.

§ 2. Conduct is a whole ; and, in a sense, it is an organic

whole an aggregate of inter-dependent actions performed

by an organism. That division or aspect of conduct
with which Ethics deals, is a part of this organic whole — a
part having its components inextricably bound up with the
rest. As currently conceived, stirring the fire, or reading
a newspaper, or eating a meal, are acts with which Morality
has no concern. Opening the window to air the room, put
ting on an overcoat when the weather is cold, are thought of
as having no ethical significance. These, however, are all
portions of conduct. The behaviour we call good and the
behaviour we call bad, are included, along with the behaviour
we call indifferent, under the conception of behaviour at
large. The whole of which Ethics forms a part, is the
whole constituted by the theory of conduct in general ; and
this whole must be understood before the part can be under
stood. Let us consider this proposition more closely.

And first, how shall we define conduct? It is not co
extensive with the aggregate of actions, though it is nearly
so. Such actions as those of an epileptic in a fit, are
not included in our conception of conduct : the conception
excludes purposeless actions. And in recognizing this ex
clusion, we simultaneously recognize all that is included.
The definition of conduct which emerges is either— acts
adjusted to ends, or else — the adjustment of acts to ends;
according as we contemplate the formed body of acts, or
think of die form alone. And conduct in its full acceptation
must be taken as comprehending all adjustments of acts to
ends, from the simplest to the most complex, whatever their
special natures and whether considered separately or in their
totality.

Conduct in general being thus distinguished from the
somewhat larger whole constituted by actions in general, let
us next ask what distinction is habitually made between
the conduct on which ethical judgments are passed and the
remainder of conduct. As already said, a large part of

6 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

ordinary conduct is indifferent. Shall I walk to the water
fall to-day? or shall I ramble along the sea-shore? Here
the ends are ethically indifferent. If I go to the waterfall,
shall I go over the moor or take the path through the
wood? Here the means are ethically indifferent. And
from hour to hour most of the things we do are not to
be judged as either good or bad in respect of either ends or
means. No less clear is it that the transition

from indifferent acts to acts which are good or bad is
gradual. If a friend who is with me has explored the sea
shore but has not seen the waterfall, the choice of one or
other end is no longer ethically indifferent. And if, the
waterfall being fixed on as our goal, the way over the moor
is too long for his strength, while the shorter way through
the wood is not, the choice of means is no longer ethically
indifferent. Again, if a probable result of making the
one excursion rather than the other, is that I shall not be
back in time to keep an appointment, or if taking the longer
route entails this risk while taking the shorter does not, the
decision in favour of one or other end or means acquires in
another way an ethical character; and if the appointment
is one of some importance, or one of great importance, or
one of life-and-death importance, to self or others, the
ethical character becomes pronounced. These instances will
sufficiently suggest the truth that conduct with which
Morality is not concerned, passes into conduct which is moral
or immoral, by small degrees and in countless ways.

But the conduct that has to be conceived scientifically
before we can scientifically conceive those modes of conduct
which are the objects of ethical judgments, is a conduct
immensely wider in range than that just indicated. Com
plete comprehension of conduct is not to be obtained by
contemplating the conduct of human beings only : we have
to regard this as a part of universal conduct — conduct as
exhibited by all living creatures. For evidently this comes
within our definition — acts adjusted to ends. The con-

CONDUCT IN GENERAL.

duct of the higher animals as compared with that of man,
and the conduct of the lower animals as compared with that
of the higher, mainly differ in this, that the adjustments
of acts to ends are relatively simple and relatively incom
plete. And as in other cases, so in this case, we must
interpret the more developed by the less developed. Just
as, fully to understand the part of conduct which Ethics deals
with, we must study human conduct as a whole ; so, fully to
understand human conduct as a whole, we must study it as
a part of that larger whole constituted by the conduct of
animate beings in general.

Nor is oven this whole conceived with the needful fulness,
so long as we think only of the conduct at present dis
played around us. We have to include in our conception
the less-developed conduct out of which this has arisen in
course of time. We have to regard the conduct now shown
us by creatures of all orders, as an outcome of the conduct
which has brought life of every kind to its present height.
And this is tantamount to saying that our preparatory step
must be to study the evolution of conduct.

CHAPTEE II.

THE EVOLUTION OF CONDUCT.

§ 3. "We have become quite familiar with the idea of an
evolution of structures throughout the ascending types of
animals. To a considerable degree we have become familiar
with the thought that an evolution of functions has gone on
paripassu with the evolution of structures. Now advancing
a step, we have to frame a conception of the evolution of
conduct, as correlated with this evolution of structures and
functions.

These three subjects are to be definitely distinguished.
Obviously the facts comparative morphology sets forth,
form a whole which, though it cannot be treated in general
or in detail without taking into account facts belonging
to comparative physiology, is essentially independent. JSTo
less clear is it that we may devote our attention exclusively
to that progressive differentiation of functions, and com
bination of functions, which accompanies the development
of structures — may say no more about the characters and
connexions of organs than is implied in describing their
separate and joint actions. And the subject of conduct
lies outside the subject of functions, if not as far as this
lies outside the subject of structures, still, far enough to
make it substantially separate. For those functions which
are already variously compounded to achieve what we re
gard as single bodily acts, are endlessly re-compounded

THE EVOLUTION OF CONDUCT. 9

to achieve that co-ordination of bodily acts which is known
as conduct.

AVe are concerned witli functions in the true sense, while
we think of them as processes carried on within the body ;
and, without exceeding the limits of physiology, we may
treat of their adjusted combinations, so long as these are
regarded as parts of the vital consensus. If we observe
how the lungs aerate the blood which the heart sends to
them ; how heart and lungs together supply aerated blood to
the stomach, and so enable it to do its work ; how these
co-operate with sundry secreting and excreting glands to
further digestion and to remove waste matter ; and how all
of them join to keep the brain in a fit condition for carry
ing on those actions which indirectly conduce to maintenance
of the life at large ; we are dealing with functions. Even
when considering how parts that act directly on the environ
ment — legs, arms, wings — perform their duties, we are still
concerned with functions in that aspect of them constituting
physiology, so long as we restrict our attention to internal
processes, and to internal combinations of them. But

we enter on the subject of conduct when we begin to
study such combinations among the actions of sensory and
motor organs as are externally manifested. Suppose that
instead of observing those contractions of muscles by which
the optic axes are converged and the foci of the eyes ad
justed (which is a portion of physiology), and that instead
of observing the co-operation of other nerves, muscles, and
bones, by which a hand is moved to a particular place and
the fingers closed (which is also a portion of physiology), we
observe a weapon being seized by a hand under guidance of
the eyes. We now pass from the thought of combined
internal functions to the thought of combined external
motions. Doubtless if we could trace the cerebral processes
which accompany these, we should find an inner physio-
logical co-ordination corresponding with the outer co-ordina
tion of actions. But this admission is consistent with the

10 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

assertion, that when we ignore the internal combination and
attend only to the external combination, we pass from a
portion of physiology to a portion of conduct. For though
it may be objected that the external combination instanced,
is too simple to be rightly included under the name conduct,
yet a moment's thought shows that it is joined with what we
call conduct by insensible gradations. Suppose the weapon
seized is used to ward off a blow. Suppose a counter
blow is given. Suppose the aggressor runs and is chased.
Suppose there comes a struggle and a handing him over
to the police. Suppose there follow the many and varied
acts constituting a prosecution. Obviously the initial ad
justment of an act to an end, inseparable from the rest,
must be included with them under the same general head ;
and obviously from this initial simple adjustment, having
intrinsically no moral character, we pass by degrees to the
most complex adjustments and to those on which moral
judgments are passed.

Hence, excluding all internal co-ordinations, our subject
here is the aggregate of all external co-ordinations ; and this
aggregate includes not only the simplest as well as the most
complex performed by human beings, but also those per
formed by all inferior beings considered as less or more
evolved.

§ 4. Already the question — "What constitutes advance in the
evolution of conduct, as we trace it up from the lowest types
of living creatures to the highest ? has been answered by
implication. A few examples will now bring the answer
into conspicuous relief.

We saw that conduct is distinguished from the totality
of actions by excluding purposeless actions ; but during
evolution this distinction arises by degrees. In the very
lowest creatures most of the movements from moment to
moment made, have not more recognizable aims than have
the struggles of an epileptic. An infusorium swims randomly

THE EVOLUTION OF CONDUCT. 11

about, determined in its course not by a perceived object to
be pursued or escaped, but, apparently, by varying stimuli
in its medium ; and its acts, unadjusted in any appreciable
way to ends, lead it now into contact with some nutritive
substance which it absorbs, and now into the neighbourhood
of some creature by which it is swallowed and digested.
Lacking those developed senses and motor powers which
higher animals possess, ninety-nine in the hundred of these
minute animals, severally living but for a few hours, dis
appear either by innutrition or by destruction. The conduct
is constituted of actions so little adjusted to ends, that life
continues only as long as the accidents of the environment
are favourable. But when, among aquatic creatures, we
observe one which, though still low in type, is much higher
than the infusorium— say a rotifer— we see how, along
with larger size, more developed structures, and greater
power of combining functions, there goes an advance in con
duct. We see how by its whirling cilia it sucks in as food
these small animals moving around ; how by its prehensile
tail it fixes itself to some object ; how by withdrawing its
outer organs and contracting its body, it preserves itself
from this or that injury from time to time threatened ; and
how thus, by better adjusting its own actions, it becomes less
dependent on the actions going on around, and so preserves
•itself for a longer period.

A superior sub-kingdom, as the Mollusca, still
exemplifies this contrast. When we compare a low mollusc,
such as a floating ascidian, with a high mollusc, such as
cephalopod, we are again shown that greater organic evol
tion is accompanied by more evolved conduct. At
mercy of every marine creature large enough to swallow it,
and drifted about by currents which may chance to keep_
at sea or may chance to leave it fatally stranded the
ascidian displays but little adjustment of acts
comparison with the cephalopod ; which, now crawling oyei
the beach, now exploring the rocky crevices, now swimmii

12 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

through the open water, now darting after a fish, now hiding
itself from some larger animal in a cloud of ink, and using
its suckered arms at one time for anchoring itself and at
another for holding fast its prey ; selects, and combines, and
proportions, its movements from minute to minute, so as
to evade dangers which threaten, while utilizing chances of
food which offer ; so showing us varied activities which, in
achieving special ends, achieve the general end of securing
continuance of the activities.

Among vertebrate animals we similarly trace up, along
with advance in structures and functions, this advance in
conduct. A fish roaming about at hazard in search of
something to eat, able to detect it by smell or sight only
within short distances, and now and again rushing away in
alarm on the approach of a bigger fish, makes adjustments
of acts to ends that are relatively few and simple in their
kinds ; and shows us, as a consequence, how small is the
average duration of life. So few survive to maturity that,
to make up for destruction of unhatched young and small
fry and half-grown individuals, a million ova have to be
spawned by a cod-fish that two may reach the spawning age.
Conversely, by a highly-evolved mammal, such as an ele
phant, those general actions performed in common with the
fish are far better adjusted to their ends. By sight as well,
probably, as by odour, it detects food at relatively great
distances ; and when, at intervals, there arises a need for
escape, relatively-great speed is attained. But the chief
difference arises from the addition of new sets of adjust
ments. We have combined actions which facilitate nutrition
—the breaking off of succulent and fruit-bearing branches, the
selecting of edible growths throughout a comparatively wide
reach ; and, in case of danger, safety can be achieved not by
flight only, but, if necessary, by defence or attack : bringing
into combined use tusks, trunk, and ponderous feet. Fur
ther, we see various subsidiary acts adjusted to subsidiary
ends — now the going into a river for coolness, and using the

THE EVOLUTION OF CONDUCT. 13

trunk as a means of projecting water over the body ; now
the employment of a bough for sweeping away flies from
the back ; now the making of signal sounds to alarm the
herd, and adapting the actions to such sounds when made
by others. Evidently, the effect of this more highly-evolved
conduct is to secure the balance of the organic actions
throughout far longer periods.

And now, on studying the doings of the highest of mam
mals, mankind, we not only find that the adjustments of
acts to ends are both more numerous and better than
among lower mammals ; but we find the same thing on com
paring the doings of higher races of men with those of lower
races. If we take any one of the major ends achieved, we
gee greater completeness of achievement by civilized than
by savage ; and we also see an achievement of relatively
numerous minor ends subserving major ends. Is it in
nutrition ? The food is obtained more regularly in response
to appetite ; it is far higher in quality ; it is free from dirt ;
it is greater in variety ; it is better prepared. Is it in
warmth 2 The characters of the fabrics and forms of the
articles used for clothing, and the adaptations of them to
requirements from day to day and hour to hour, are much
superior. Is it in dwellings ? Between the shelter of boughs
and grass which the lowest savage builds, and the mansion of
the civilized man, the contrast in aspect is not more ex
treme than is the contrast in number and efficiency of the
adjustments of acts to ends betrayed in their respective
constructions. And when with the ordinary activities of
the savage we compare the ordinary civilized activities—
as the business of the trader, which involves multiplied and
complex transactions extending over long periods, or as
professional avocations, prepared for by elaborate studies
and daily carried on in endlessly-varied forms, or as political
discussions and agitations, directed now to the carrying of
this measure and now to the defeating of that, — we see sets
of adjustments of acts to ends, not only immensely exceeding

14 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

those seen among lower races of men in variety and in
tricacy, but sets to which lowrer races of men present nothing
analogous. And along with this greater elaboration of life
produced by the pursuit of more numerous ends, there goes
that increased duration of life which constitutes the su
preme end.

And here is suggested the need for supplementing this
conception of evolving conduct. For besides being an
improving adjustment of acts to ends, such as furthers pro
longation of life, it is such as furthers increased amount
of life. Reconsideration of the examples above given, will
show that length of life is not by itself a measure of evolu
tion of conduct ; but that quantity of life must be taken into
account. An oyster, adapted by its structure to the diffused
food contained in the water it draws in, and shielded by its
shell from nearly all dangers, may live longer than a cuttle
fish, which has such superior powers of dealing with
numerous contingencies ; but then, the sum of vital
activities during any given interval is far less in the oyster
than in the cuttle-fish. So a worm, ordinarily sheltered from
most enemies by the earth it burrows through, which also
supplies a sufficiency of its poor food, may have greater
longevity than many of its annulose relatives, the insects ;
but one of these during its existence as larva and imago,
may experience a greater quantity of the changes which con
stitute life. Nor is it otherwise when we compare the more
evolved with the less evolved among mankind. The differ
ence between the average lengths of the lives of savage and
civilized, is no true measure of the difference between the
totalities of their two lives, considered as aggregates of
thought, feeling, and action. Hence, estimating life by
multiplying its length into its breadth, we must say that the
augmentation of it which accompanies evolution of conduct,
results from increase of both factors. The more multiplied
and varied adjustments of acts to ends, by which the more
developed creature from hour to hour fulfils more numerous

THE EVOLUTION OF CONDI UT. 15

requirements, severally add to the activities that are carried
on abreast, and severally help to make greater the period
through, which such simultaneous activities endure. Each
further evolution of conduct widens the aggregate of actions
while conducing to elongation of it.

§ 5. Turn we now to a further aspect of the phenomena,
separate from, but necessarily associated with, the last.
Thus far we have considered only those adjustments of acts
to ends which have for their final purpose complete individual
life. Now we have to consider those adjustments which have
for their final purpose the life of the species.

Self-preservation in each generation has all along depended
on the preservation of offspring by preceding generations.
And in proportion as evolution of the conduct subserving
individual life is high, implying high organization, there
must previously have been a highly-evolved conduct sub
serving nurture of the young. Throughout the ascending
grades of the animal kingdom, this second kind of conduct
presents stages of advance like those which we have observed
in the first. Low down, where structures and functions are
little developed, and the power of adjusting acts to ends
but slight, there is no conduct, properly so named, further
ing salvation of the species. Race-maintaining conduct, like
self-maintaining conduct, arises gradually out of that which
cannot be called conduct : adjusted actions are preceded
by unadjusted ones. Protozoa spontaneously divide

and sub-divide, in consequence of physical changes over
which they have no control ; or, at other times, after a period
of quiescence, break up into minute portions which severally
grow into new individuals. In neither case can conduct
be alleged. Higher up, the process is that of ripening, at
intervals, germ-cells and sperm-cells, which, on occasion,
are sent forth into the surrounding water and left to their
fate : perhaps one in ten thousand surviving to maturity.
Here, again, we see only development and dispersion

16 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

going on apart from parental care. Types above these, as
fish which choose fit places in which to deposit their ova,
or as the higher crustaceans which carry masses of ova
about until they are hatched, exhibit adjustments of acts
to ends which we may properly call conduct ; though it is of
the simplest kind. Where, as among certain fish, the male
keeps guard over the eggs, driving away intruders, there is
an additional adjustment of acts to ends ; and the appli
cability of the name conduct is more decided. Passing
at once to creatures far superior, such as birds which,
building nests and sitting on their eggs, feed their broods
for considerable periods, and give them aid after they can
fly ; or such as mammals which, suckling their young for a
time, continue afterwards to bring them food or protect
them while they feed, until they reach ages at which they
can provide for themselves ; we are shown how this conduct
which furthers race-maintenance evolves hand-in-hand with
the conduct which furthers self-maintenance. That better
organization which makes possible the last, makes possible
the first also. Mankind exhibit a great progress
of like nature. Compared with brutes, the savage, higher in
his self-maintaining conduct, is higher too in his race-main
taining conduct. A larger number of the wants of offspring
are provided for ; and parental care, enduring longer,
extends to the disciplining of offspring in arts and habits
which fit them for their conditions of existence. Conduct of
this order, equally with conduct of the first order, we see
beeoming evolved in a still greater degree as we ascend
from savage to civilized. The adjustments of acts to ends
in the rearing of children become far more elaborate, alike
in number of ends met, variety of means used, and efficiency
of their adaptations ; and the aid and oversight are continued
throughout a much greater part of early life.

In tracing up the evolution of conduct, so that we may
frame a true conception of conduct in general, we have thus
to recognize these two kinds as mutually dependent. Speak-

THE EVOLUTION OF CONDUCT. 17

ing generally, neither can evolve without evolution of the
other; and the highest evolutions of the two must be reached
simultaneously.

§ 0. To conclude, however, that on reaching a perfect
adjustment of acts to ends subserving individual life and
the rearing of offspring, the evolution of conduct becomes
complete, is to conclude erroneously. Or rather, I should
say, it is an error to suppose that either of these kinds of
conduct can assume its highest form, without its highest
form being assumed by a third kind of conduct yet to be
named.

The multitudinous creatures of all kinds which fill the
Earth, cannot live wholly apart from one another, but are
more or less in presence of one another — are interfered with
by one another. In large measure the adjustments of acts
to ends which we have been considering, are components of
that u struggle for existence " carried on both between
members of the same species and between members of
different species ; and, very generally, a successful adjust
ment made by one creature involves an unsuccessful adjust
ment made by another creature, either of the same kind or
of a different kind. That the carnivore may live herbivores
must die ; and that its young may be reared the young of
weaker creatures must be orphaned. Maintenance of the
hawk and its brood involves the deaths of many small birds ;
and that small birds may multiply, their progeny must be
fed with innumerable sacrificed worms and larvae. Com
petition among members of the same species has allied,
though less conspicuous, results. The stronger often carries
off by force the prey which the weaker has caught. Mono
polizing certain hunting grounds, the more ferocious drive
others of their kind into less favourable places. With plant-
eating animals, too, the like holds : the better food is secured
by the more vigorous individuals, while the less vigorous
and worse fed, succumb either directly from innutrition or

18 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

indirectly from resulting inability to escape enemies. That
is to say, among creatures whose lives are carried on anta<
gonistically, each of the two kinds of conduct delineated
above, must remain imperfectly evolved. Even in such few
kinds of them as have little to fear from enemies or compe-
titors, as lions or tigers, there is still inevitable failure in
the adjustments of acts to ends towards the close of life.
Death by starvation from inability to catch prey, shows a
falling short of conduct from its ideal.

This imperfectly-evolved conduct introduces us by anti
thesis to conduct that is perfectly evolved. Contemplating
these adjustments of acts to ends which miss completeness
because they cannot be made by one creature without other
creatures being prevented from making them, raises the
thought of adjustments such that each creature may make
them without preventing them from being made by other
creatures. That the highest form of conduct must be so
distinguished, is an inevitable implication ; for while the form
of conduct is such that adjustments of acts to ends by some
necessitate non-adjustments by others, there remains room
for modifications which bring conduct into a form avoiding
this, and so making the totality of life greater.

From the abstract let us pass to the concrete. Recogniz
ing men as the beings whose conduct is most evolved, let
us ask under what conditions their conduct, in all three
aspects of its evolution, reaches its limit. Clearly while
the lives led are entirely predatory, as those of savages, the
adjustments of acts to ends fall short of this highest form
of conduct in every way. Individual life, ill carried on
from hour to hour, is prematurely cut short ; the fostering
of offspring often fails, and is incomplete when it does not
fail ; and in so far as the ends of self-maintenance and race-
maintenance are met, they are met by destruction of other
beings, of different kind or of like kind. In social groups
formed by compoundingand re-compounding primitive hordes,
conduct remains imperfectly evolved in proportion as there

TIIF. EVOLUTION OF CONDUCT.

continue antagonisms between the groups and antagonisms
between members of the same group— two traits necessarily
associated ; since the nature Avliich prompts international
affo-ression prompts aggression of individuals on one another.
Hence the limit of evolution can be reached by conduct only
in permanently peaceful societies. That perfect adjustment
of acts to ends in maintaining individual Jife and rearing
new individuals, which is effected by each without hindering
others from effecting like perfect adjustments, is, in its very
definition, shown to constitute a kind of conduct that can be
approached only as war decreases and dies out.

A gap in this outline must now be filled up. There re
mains a further advance not yet even hinted. For beyond
BO behaving that each achieves his ends without preventing
others from achieving their ends, the members of a society
may give mutual help in the achievement of ends. And if,
either indirectly by industrial co-operation, or directly by
volunteered aid, fellow citi/ens can make easier for one
another the adjustments of acts to ends, then their conduct
assumes a still higher phase of evolution ; since whatever
facilitates the making of adjustments by each, increases the
totality of the adjustments made, and serves to render the
lives of all more complete.

§ Y. The reader who recalls certain passages in First Prin
ciple's, in the Principles of Biology, and in the Principle*
of Psychology •, will perceive above a re-statement, in another
form, of generalizations set forth in those works. ^ Especially
will he be reminded of the proposition that Life is "the
definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simul
taneous and successive, in correspondence with external co
existences and sequences;" and still more of that abridged
and less specific formula, in which Life is said to be '
continuous adjustment of internal relations to external

tions."

The presentation of the facts here made, differs from the

20 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

presentations before made, mainly by ignoring the inner
part of the correspondence and attending exclusively to that
outer part constituted of visible actions. But the two are in
harmony ; and the reader who wishes further to prepare
himself for dealing with our present topic from the evolu
tion point of view, may advantageously join to the foregoing
more special aspect of the phenomena, the more general
aspects before delineated.

After this passing remark, I recur to the main proposition
set forth in these two chapters, which has, I think, been fully
justified. Guided by the truth that as the conduct with which
Ethics deals is part of conduct at large, 'conduct at large must
be generally understood before this part can be specially un
derstood ; and guided by the further truth that i;o understand

conduct at large we must understand the evolution of con-

duct ; we have been led to see that Ethics has for its subject-
matter, that form which universal conduct assumes during
.the last stages of its evolution. We have also concluded that
- these last stages in the evolution of conduct are those dis
played by the highest type of being, when he is forced, by
increase of numbers, to live more and more in presence of
his fellows. And there has followed the corollary that con-
'duct gains ethical sanction in proportion as the activities, be
coming 'less and less militant and more and more industrial,
are such as do not necessitate mutual^ injury or hindrance,
but consist with, and are furthered by,1 co-operation and mu
tual aid.

These implications of the Evolution-Hypothesis, we shall
nowr see harmonize with the leading moral ideas men have
otherwise reached.

CHAPTER III.

GOOD AND BAD CONDUCT.

§ 8. By comparing its meanings in different connexions
and observing what they have in common, we learn the
essential meaning of a word ; and the essential meaning
of a word that is variously applied, may best be learnt by
comparing with one another those applications of it which
diverge most widely. Let us thus ascertain what good and
bad mean.

In which cases do we distinguish as good, a knife, a gun,
a house ? And what trait leads us to speak of a bad
umbrella or a bad pair of boots ? The characters here
predicated by the words good and bad, are not intrinsic
characters ; for apart from human wants, such things have
neither merits nor demerits. We call these articles good
or bad according as they are well or ill adapted to achieve
prescribed ends. The good knife is one which will cut ;
the good gun is one which carries far and true ; the
irood house is one which duly yields the shelter, comfort,
and accommodation sought for. Conversely, the badness
alleged of the umbrella or the pair of boots, refers to their
failures in fulfilling the ends of keeping off the rain and
comfortably protecting the feet, with due regard to appear
ances. So is it when we pass from inanimate objects
to inanimate actions. We call a day bad in which storms
prevent us from satisfying certain of our desires. A

22 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

good season is the expression used when the weather
Las favoured the production of valuable crops. If

from lifeless things and actions we pass to living ones, we
similarly find that these words .in their current applications
refer to efficient subservience. The goodness or badness of
a pointer or a hunter, of a sheep or an ox, ignoring all other
attributes of these creatures, refer in the one case to the
/ fitness of their actions for effecting the ends men use them
for, and in the other case to the qualities of their flesh as
adapting it to support human life. And those doings

of men which, morally considered, are indifferent, we class
as good or bad according to their success or failure. A good
jump is a jump which, remoter ends ignored, well achieves
the immediate purpose of a jump ; and a stroke at billiards
is called good when the movements are skilfully adjusted to
the requirements. Oppositely, the badness of a walk that
is shuffling and an utterance that is indistinct, is alleged
because of the relative non-adaptations of the acts to the
ends.

Thus recognizing the meanings of good and bad as other
wise used, we shall understand better their meanings as
used in characterizing conduct under its ethical aspects.
Here, too, observation shows that we apply them according
_ as the adjustments of acts to ends are, or are not, efficient.
This truth is somewhat disguised. The entanglement of
social relations is such, that men's actions often simulta
neously affect the welfares of self, of offspring, and of
fellow-citizens. Hence results confusion in iudginsr of ac-

*t o o

tions as good or bad ; since actions well fitted to achieve
ends of one order, may prevent ends of the other orders
from being achieved. Nevertheless, when we disentangle
the three orders of ends, and consider each separately, it be
comes clear that the conduct which achieves each kind of
end is regarded as relatively good ; and is regarded as rela
tively bad if it fails to achieve it.

Take first the primary set of adjustments — those sub-

GOOD AND BAD CONDUCT. 23

serving individual life. Apart from approval or disapproval
of his ulterior aims, a man who fights is said to make a good
defence, if his defence is well adapted for self-preservation ;
and, the judgments on other aspects of his conduct remain
ing the same, he brings down on himself an unfavourable
verdict, in so far as his immediate acts are concerned, if
these are futile. The goodness ascribed to a man of busi
ness, as such, is measured by the activity and ability with
which he buys and sells to advantage; and may coexist i
•with a hard treatment of dependents which is reprobated.
Though in repeatedly lending money to a friend who sinks
one loan after another, a man is doing that which, considered
in itself is held praiseworthy ; yet, if he does it to the extent
of bringing; on his own ruin, he is held blameworthy for a
self-sacrifice carried too far. And thus is it with the opinions
we express from hour to hour on those acts of people around
which bear on their health and personal welfare. " You
should not have done that;1' is the reproof given to one
who crosses the street amid a dangerous rush of vehicles.
" You ought to have changed your clothes ; " is said to
another who has taken cold after getting wet. u You were
right to take a receipt ; " " you were wrong to invest with
out advice;" are common criticisms. All such approving
and disapproving utterances make the tacit assertion that,
other things equal, conduct is right or wrong according as
its special acts, well or ill adjusted to special ends, do or do
not further the general end of self-preservation.

These ethical judgments we pass on self-regarding acts
are ordinarily little emphasized ; partly because the prompt
ings of the self-regarding desires, generally strong enough,
do not need moral enforcement, and partly because the
promptings of the other-regarding desires, less strong, and
often over-ridden, do need moral enforcement. Hence re
sults a contrast. On turning to that second class of adjust
ments of acts to ends which subserve the rearing of offspring,
we no longer find any obscurity in the application of the

24 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

words good and bad to them, according as they are efficient
or inefficient. The expressions good nursing and bad nurs
ing, whether they refer to the supply of food, the quality
and amount of clothing, or the due ministration to infantine
wants from hour to hour, tacitly recognize as special ends
which ought to be fulfilled^ the furthering of the vital
functions, with a view to the general end of continued life
and growth. A mother is called good who, ministering
to all the physical needs of her children, also adjusts her
behaviour in ways conducive to their mental health ; and a
bad father is one who either does not provide the neces
saries of life for his family, or otherwise acts in a manner
injurious to their bodies or minds. Similarly of the educa
tion given to them, or provided for them. Goodness or
badness is affirmed of it (often with little consistency, how
ever) according as its methods are so adapted to physical
and psychical requirements, as to further the children's lives
for the time being, while preparing them for carrying on
complete and prolonged adult life.

Most emphatic, however, are the applications of the words
good and bad to conduct throughout that third division of
it comprising the deeds by which men affect one another.
In maintaining their own lives and fostering their offspring,
men's adjustments of acts to ends are so apt to hinder the
kindred adjustments of other men, that insistance on the
needful limitations has to be perpetual ; and the mischiefs
caused by men's interferences with one another's life-sub
serving actions are so great, that the interdicts have to be
'peremptory. Hence the fact that the words good and bad
have come to be specially associated with acts which further
the complete living of others and acts which obstruct their
complete living. Goodness, standing by itself, suggests,
above all other things, the conduct of one who aids the sick
in re-acquiring normal vitality, assists the unfortunate to
recover the means of maintaining themselves, defends those
who are threatened with harm in person, property, or repu-

GOOD AXD BAD CONDUCT. 25

tation, and aids whatever promises to improve the living of
all his fellows. Contrariwise, badness brings to mind, as its
leading correlative, the conduct of one who, in carrying on
his own life, damages the lives of others by injuring their
bodies, destroying their possessions, defrauding them, calum
niating them.

Always, then, acts are called good or bad, according as
they are well or ill adjusted to ends ; and whatever incon
sistency there is in our uses of the words, arises from incon
sistency of the ends. Here, however, the study of conduct
in general, and of the evolution of conduct, have prepared
us to harmonize these interpretations. The foregoing ex
position shows that the conduct to which we apply the
name £0od, is the relatively more evolved conduct ; and

& •'

that bad is the name we apply to conduct which is relatively
less evolved. "We saw that evolution, tending ever towards
self-preservation, reaches its limit when individual life is the
greatest, both in length and breadth ; and now we see that,
leaving other ends aside, we regard as good the conduct
furthering self-preservation, and as bad the conduct tending
to self-destruction. It was shown that along with increasing
power of maintaining individual life, which evolution brings,
there goes increasing power of perpetuating the species by
fostering progeny, and that in this direction evolution
reaches its limit when the needful number of young, pre
served to maturity, are then fit for a life that is complete in
fulness and duration ; and here it turns out that parental
conduct is called good or bad as it approaches or falls short
of this ideal result. Lastly, we inferred that establishment
of an associated state, both makes possible and requires a
form of conduct such that life may be completed in each
and in his offspring, not only without preventing completion
of it in others, but with furtherance of it in others; and we
have found above, that this is the form of conduct most
emphatically termed good. Moreover, just as we there saw
that evolution becomes the highest possible when the con-

26 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

duct simultaneously achieves the greatest totality of life in
self, in offspring, and in fellow men ; so here we see that
the conduct called good rises to the conduct conceived as
best, when it fulfils all three classes of ends at the same
time.

§ 9. Is there any postulate involved in these judgments on
conduct ? Is there any assumption made in calling good the
acts conducive to life, in self or others, and bad those
which directly or indirectly tend towards death, special or
general ? Yes ; an assumption of extreme significance has
been made — an assumption underlying all moral estimates.

The question to be definitely raised and answered before
entering on any ethical discussion, is the question of late
much agitated — Is life worth living ? Shall we take the
pessimist view ? or shall we take the optimist view ? or
shall we, after weighing pessimistic and optimistic argu
ments, conclude that the balance is in favour of a qualified
optimism ?

On the answer to this question depends entirely every
decision concerning the goodness or badness of conduct.
By those who think life is not a benefit but a misfortune,
conduct which prolongs it is to be blamed rather than
praised : the ending of an undesirable existence being the
thing to be wished, that which causes the ending of it must
be applauded ; while actions furthering its continuance,
either in self or others, must be reprobated. Those who,
on the other hand, take an optimistic view, or who, if not
pure optimists, yet hold that in life the good exceeds the
evil, are committed to opposite estimates ; and must regard
as conduct to be approved that which fosters life in self and
others, and as conduct to be disapproved that which injures
or endangers life in self or others.

The ultimate question, therefore, is — Has evolution been
a mistake ; and especially that evolution which improves the
adjustment of acts to ends in ascending stages of organiza-

GOOD AND BAD CONDUCT.

tion ? If it is held that there had better not have been any
animate existence at all, and that the sooner it conies to an
end the better ; then one set of conclusions with respect to
conduct emerges. If, contrariwise, it is held that there is a
balance in favour of animate existence, and if, still further,
it is held that in the future this balance may be increased ;
then the opposite set of conclusions emerges. Even should
it be alleged that the worth of life is not to be judged by its
intrinsic "character, but rather by its extrinsic sequences-
by certain results to be anticipated when life has passed-
the ultimate issue re-appears in a new shape. For though
the accompanying creed may negative a deliberate shorten
ing of life that is miserable, it cannot justify a gratuitous
lengthening of such life. Legislation conducive to in
creased longevity would, on the pessimistic view, remain
blameable ; while it would be praiseworthy on the optimis
tic view.

But now, have these irreconcilable opinions anytJ
common ? Men being divisible into two schools differing
on this ultimate question, the inquiry arises— Is there any
thing which their radically-opposed views alike take for
granted >. In the optimistic proposition, tacitly made when
usino- the words good and bad after the ordinary manner ;
and in the pessimistic proposition overtly made, which
implies that the words good and bad should be used in the
reverse senses ; does examination disclose any joint proposi
tion—any proposition which, contained in both of them,
may be held more certain than either— any universally-
asserted proposition ?

§ 10. Yes, there is one postulate in which pessimists and
optimists agree. Both their arguments assume it to be self
evident that life is good or bad, according as it does, or do
not, bring a surplus of agreeable feeling. The pes
pavs he condemns life because it results in more pain than
pleasure The optimist defends life in the belief

28 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

brings more pleasure than pain. Each makes the kind of
sentiency which accompanies life the test. They agree that
the justification for life as a state of being, turns on this
issue — whether the average consciousness rises above indif
ference-point into pleasurable feeling or falls below it into
painful feeling. The implication common to their antagonist
views is, that conduct should conduce to preservation of the
individual, of the family, and of the society, only supposing
that life brings more happiness than misery.

Changing the venue cannot alter the verdict. If either
the pessimist, while saying that the pains of life predomi
nate, or the optimist, while saying that the pleasures pre
dominate, urges that the pains borne here are to be compen
sated by pleasures received hereafter ; and that so life,
whether or not justified in its immediate results, is justified
in its ultimate results ; the implication remains the same.
The decision is still reached by balancing pleasures against
pains. Animate existence would be judged by both a curse,
if to a surplus of misery borne here, were added a surplus of
misery to be borne hereafter. And for either to regard
animate existence as a blessing, if here its pains were held to
exceed its pleasures, he must hold that hereafter its pleasures
will exceed its pains. Thus there is no escape from the ad
mission that in calling good the conduct which subserves life,
and bad the conduct which hinders or destroys it, and in so
implying that life is a blessing and not a curse, we are inevi
tably asserting that conduct is good or bad according as its
total effects are pleasurable or painful.

One theory only is imaginable in pursuance of which
other interpretations of good and bad can be given. This
theory is that men were created with the intention that they
should be sources of misery to themselves ; and that they are
bound to continue living that their creator may have the
satisfaction of contemplating their misery. Though this is
not a theory avowedly entertained by many — though it is
not formulated by any in this distinct way ; yet not a few do

GOOD AND BAD CONDUCT. 29

accept it under a disguised form. Inferior creeds are per
vaded by the belief that the sight of suffering is pleasing to
the <rods. Derived from bloodthirsty ancestors, such gods
are naturally conceived as gratified by the infliction of pain :
\vhen living they delighted in torturing other beings ; and
witnessing torture is supposed still to give them delight.
The implied conceptions long survive. It needs but to name
Indian fakirs who hang on hooks and Eastern dervishes who
gash themselves, to show that in societies considerably ad
vanced, are still to be found many who think that submission
to anguish brings divine favour. And without enlarging on
fasts "and penances, it will be clear that there lias existed,
and still exists, among Christian peoples, the belief that the
Deity whom Jephthah thought to propitiate by sacrificing
his daughter, may be propitiated by self-inflicted pains.
Further^ the conception accompanying this, that acts pleasing
to self arc offensive to God, has survived along with it, and
still widely prevails ; if not in formulated dogmas, yet in
beliefs that are manifestly operative.

Doubtless, in modern days such beliefs have assumed
qualified forms. The satisfactions which ferocious gods
were supposed to feel in contemplating tortures, has been, in
large measure, transformed into the satisfaction felt by a
deity in contemplating that self-infliction of pain which is
held to further eventual happiness. T.ut clearly those who
entertain this modified view, are excluded from the class
whose position we are here considering. Restricting our
selves to this class-supposing that from the savage who
immolates victims to a cannibal god, there are descendants
among the civilized, who hold that mankind were made for
suffering, and that it is their duty to continue living
misery for the delight of their maker, we can only recog
nize the fact that devil-worshippers are not yet extinct.

Omitting people of this class, if there are any, as beyond
or beneath argument, we find that all others avowedly or
tacitly hold that the final justification for maintaining life,

30 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

can only be the reception from it of a surplus of pleasurable
feeling over painful feeling ; and that goodness or badness
can be ascribed to acts which subserve life or hinder life,
only on this supposition.

And here we are brought round to those primary mean
ings of the words good and bad, which we passed over when
considering their secondary meanings. For on remember
ing that we call good and bad the things which immediately
produce agreeable and disagreeable sensations, and also the
sensations themselves — a good wine, a good appetite, a bad
smell, a bad headache — we ' see that by referring directly to
pleasures and pains, these meanings harmonize with those
which indirectly refer to pleasures and pains. If we call
good the enjoyable state itself, as a good laugh — if we call
good the proximate cause of an enjoyable state, as good
music — if we call good any agent which conduces imme
diately or remotely to an enjoyable state, as a good shop, a
good teacher — if we call good considered intrinsically, each
act so adjusted to its end as to further self-preservation and
that surplus of enjoyment which makes self-preservation de
sirable — if we call good every kind of conduct which aids
the lives of others, and do this under the belief that life
brings more happiness than misery ; then it becomes unde
niable that, taking into account immediate and remote
effects on all persons, the good is universally the pleas
urable.

§ 11. Sundry influences — moral, theological, and political
— conspire to make people disguise from themselves this
truth. As in narrower cases so in this widest case, they
become so pre-occupied with the means by which an end is
achieved, as eventually to mistake it for the end. Just as
money, which is a means of satisfying wants, comes to be
regarded by a miser as the sole thing to be worked for,
leaving the wants unsatisfied ; so the conduct men have
found preferable because most conducive to happiness, has

GOOD AND BAD CONDUCT. 31

come to be thought of as intrinsically preferable : not only
to be made a proximate end (which it should be), but to be
made an ultimate end, to the exclusion of the true ultimate
end. And yet cross-examination quickly compels everyone
to confess the true ultimate end. Just as the miser, asked
to justify himself, is obliged to allege the power of money
to purchase desirable things, as his reason for prizing it ; so
the moralist who thinks this conduct intrinsically good and
that intrinsically bad, if pushed home, has no choice but
to fall back on their pleasure-giving arid pain-giving effects.
To prove this it needs but to observe how impossible it
would be to think of them as we do, if their effects were
reversed.

Suppose that gashes and bruises caused agreeable sen
sations, and brought in their train increased power of doing
work and receiving enjoyment ; should we regard assault in
the same manner as at present ? Or suppose that self-
mutilation, say by cutting off a hand, was both intrinsically
pleasant and furthered performance of the processes by
which personal welfare and the welfare of dependents is
achieved ; should we hold as now, that deliberate injury to
one's own body is to be reprobated ? Or again, suppose that
picking a man's pocket excited in him joyful emotions, by
brightening his prospects ; would theft be counted among
crimes, as in existing law-books and moral codes \ In these
extreme cases, no one can deny that what we call the badness
of actions is ascribed to them solely for the reason that they
entail pain, immediate or remote, and would not be so as
cribed did they entail pleasure.

If we examine our conceptions on their obverse side, this
general fact forces itself on our attention with equal dis
tinctness. Imagine that ministering to a sick person always
increased the pains of illness. Imagine that an orphan's
relatives who took charge of it, thereby necessarily brought
miseries upon it. Imagine that liquidating another man's
pecuniary claims on you redounded to his disadvantage.
4

32 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

Imagine that crediting a man with noble behaviour hindered
his social welfare and consequent gratification. What should
we say to these acts which now fall into the class we call
praiseworthy ? Should we not contrariwise class them as
blameworthy ?

Using, then, as our tests, these most pronounced forms of
good and bad conduct, we find it unquestionable that our
ideas of their goodness and badness really originate from
our consciousness of the certainty or probability that they
will produce pleasures or pains somewhere. And this truth
is brought out with equal clearness by examining the stand
ards of different moral schools ; for analysis shows that every
one of them derives its authority from this ultimate standard.
Ethical systems are roughly distinguishable according as
they take for their cardinal ideas (1) the character of the
agent ; (2) the nature of his motive ; (3) the quality of his
deeds ; and (4) the results. Each of these may be character
ized as good or bad ; and those who do not estimate a mode
of life by its effects on happiness, estimate it by the implied
goodness or badness in the agent, in his motive, or in his
deeds. We have perfection in the agent set up as a test
by which conduct is to be judged. Apart from the agent we
have his feeling considered as moral. And apart from the
feeling we have his action considered as virtuous.

Though the distinctions thus indicated have so little defi-
niteness that the words marking them are used interchange
ably, yet there correspond to them doctrines partially unlike
one another ; which we may here conveniently examine sep
arately, with the view of showing that all their tests of
goodness are derivative.

§ 12. It is strange that a notion so abstract as that oi'
perfection, or a certain ideal completeness of nature, should
ever have been thought one from which a system of guidance
can be evolved ; as it was in a general way by Plato and
more distinctly by Jonathan Edwardes. Perfection is sy-

GOOD AND DAD CONDUCT. 33

nonymous with goodness in the highest degree ; and hence
to define good conduct in terms of perfection, is indirectly to
define good conduct in terms of itself. Xaturally, therefore,
it happens that the notion of perfection like the notion of
goodness can be framed only in relation to ends.

A\re allege imperfection of any inanimate thine:, as a tool,
if it lacks some part needful for effectual action, or if some
part is so shaped as not to fulfil its purpose in the best man
ner. Perfection is alleged of a watch if it keeps exact time,
however plain its case ; and imperfection is alleged of it
because of inaccurate time-keeping, however beautifully it is
ornamented. Though we call things imperfect if we detect
in them any injuries or flaws, even when these do not detract
from efficiency ; yet we do this because they imply that in
ferior workmanship, or that wear and tear, with which ineffi
ciency is commonly joined in experience : absence of minor
imperfections being habitually associated with absence of
major imperfections.

As applied to living things, the word perfection has the
same meaning. The idea of perfect shape in a race-horse is
derived by generalization from those observed traits of race
horses which have usually gone along with attainment of
the highest speed ; and the idea of perfect constitution in a
race-horse similarly refers to the endurance which enables
him to continue that speed for the longest time. "With men,
physically considered, it is the same : we are able to furnish
no other test of perfection, than that of complete power in
all the organs to fulfil their respective functions. That our
conception of perfect balance among the internal parts, and
of perfect proportion among the external parts, originates
thus, is made clear by observing that imperfection of any
viscus, as lungs, heart, or liver, is ascribed for no other
reason than inability to meet in full the demands which
the activities of the organism make on it ; and on observ
ing that the conception of insufficient size, or of too great
size, in a limb, is derived from accumulated experiences

34 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

respecting that ratio among the limbs which furthers in the
highest degree the performance of all needful actions.

And of perfection in mental nature we have no other
measure. If imperfection of memory, of judgment, of tem
per, is alleged, it is alleged because of inadequacy to the re
quirements of life ; and to imagine a perfect balance of the
intellectual powers and of the emotions, is to imagine that
proportion among them which ensures an entire discharge of
each and every obligation as the occasion calls for it.

So that the perfection of man considered as an agent,
means the being constituted for effecting complete adjust
ment of acts to ends of every kind. And since, as shown
above, the complete adjustment of acts to ends is that which
both secures and constitutes the life that is most evolved,
alike in breadth and length ; while, as also shown, the justi
fication for whatever increases life is the reception from life
of more happiness than misery ; it follows that conducive-
ness to happiness is the ultimate test of perfection in a man's
nature. To be fully convinced of this it needs but to observe
how the proposition looks when inverted. It needs but to
suppose that every approach towards perfection involved
greater misery to self, or others, or both, to show by oppo
sition that approach to perfection really means approach to
that which secures greater happiness.

§ 13. Pass we now from the view of those who make ex
cellence of being the standard, to the view of those who
make virtuousness of action the standard. I do not here
refer to moralists who, having decided empirically or ration
ally, inductively or deductively, that acts of certain kinds
have the character we call virtuous, argue that such acts are
to be performed without regard to proximate consequences :
these have ample justification. But I refer to moralists who
suppose themselves to have conceptions of virtue as an end,
underived from any other end — who think that the idea of
virtue is not resolvable into simpler ideas.

GOOD AND BAD CONDUCT. dO

This is the doctrine which appears to have been enter
tained by Aristotle. I say, appears to have been, because his
statements are far from consistent with one another. Recog
nizing happiness as the supreme end of human endeavour,
it would at first sight seem that he cannot be taken as
typical of those who make virtue the supreme end. Yet
he puts himself in this category by seeking to define hap
piness in terms of virtue, instead of defining virtue in terms
of happiness. The imperfect separation of words from
things, which characterizes Greek speculation in general,
seems to have been the cause of this. In primitive thought
the name and the object named, are associated in such wise
that the one is regarded as a part of the other — so much
so, that knowing a savage's name is considered by him
as having some of his being, and a consequent power to
work evil on him. This belief in a real connexion between
word and thing, continuing through lower stages of progress,
and long surviving in the tacit assumption that the mean
ings of words are intrinsic, pervades the dialogues of Plato,
and is traceable even in Aristotle. For otherwise it is not
easy to see why he should have so incompletely dissociated
the abstract idea of happiness from particular forms of
happiness. Naturally where the divorcing of words

as symbols, from things as symbolized, is imperfect, there
must be difficulty in giving to abstract words a sufficiently
abstract meaning. If in the first stages of language the
concrete name cannot be separated in thought from the
concrete object it belongs to, it is inferable that in the
course of forming successively higher grades of abstract
names, there will have to be resisted the tendency to inter
pret each more abstract name in terms of some one class
of the less abstract names it covers. Hence, I think, the
fact that Aristotle supposes happiness to be associated with
some one order of human activities, rather than with all
orders of human activities. Instead of including in it the
pleasurable feelings accompanying actions that constitute

36 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

mere living, which actions he says man hag in common
with vegetables ; and instead of making it include the men
tal states which the life of external perception yields, which
he says man has in common with animals at large ; he ex
cludes these from his idea of happiness, and includes in it
only the modes of consciousness accompanying rational life.
Asserting that the proper work of man " consists in the
active exercise of the mental capacities conformably to rea
son ; " he concludes that " the supreme good of man will
consist in performing this work with excellence or virtue :
herein he will obtain happiness." And he finds confirma
tion for his view in its correspondence with views previously
enunciated ; saying — " our notion nearly agrees with theirs
who place happiness in virtue ; for we say that it consists in
the action of virtue ; that is, not merely in the possession,
but in the use."

Now the implied belief that virtue can be denned other
wise than in terms of happiness (for else the proposition
is that happiness is to be obtained by actions conducive to
happiness) is allied to the Platonic belief that there is an
ideal or absolute good, which gives to particular and relative
goods their property of goodness ; and an argument anal
ogous to that which Aristotle uses against Plato's concep
tion of good, may be used against his own conception of
virtue. As with good so with virtue — it is not singular but
plural : in Aristotle's own classification, virtue, when treated
of at large, is transformed into virtues. Those which he
calls virtues, must be so called in consequence of some com
mon character that is either intrinsic or extrinsic. We may
class things together either because they are made alike by
all having in themselves some peculiarity, as we do verte
brate animals because they all have vertebral columns ; or
we may class them together because of some community in
their outer relations, as when we group saws, knives, mallet?,
harrows, under the head of tools. Are the virtues classed as
such because of some intrinsic community of nature 1 Then

GOOD AND BAD CONDUCT.

there must he identifiable a common trait in all the cardinal
virtues which Aristotle specifies- "Courage, Temperance,
Liberality, Magnanimity, Magnificence, Meekness, Amiability
or Friendliness, Truthfulness, Justice." AVhat now is the
trait possessed in common by Magnificence and Meekness '?
and if any such common trait can be disentangled, is it that
which also constitutes the essential trait in Truthfulness?
The answer must be—No. The virtues, then, not being
classed as such because of an intrinsic community of char
acter, must be classed as such because of something extrinsic ;
and this something can be nothing else than the happiness
which Aristotle says consists in the practice of them. They
are united by their common relation to this result ; while
they are not united by their inner natures.

Perhaps still more clearly may the inference be drawn
tlms:_If virtue is primordial and independent, no reason
can be given why there should be any correspondence be
tween virtuous conduct and conduct that is pleasure-giving
in its total effects on self, or others, or both; and if there
is not a necessary correspondence, it is conceivable that the
conduct classed as virtuous should be pain-giving in its total
effects. That we may see the consequence of so conceiving
it, let us take the two virtues considered as typically such
in' ancient times and in modern times— courage and chas
tity. By the hypothesis, then, courage, displayed alike in
self-defence and" in defence of country, is to be conceived
as not only entailing pains incidentally, but as being neces
sarily a cause of misery to the individual and to the State ;
while, by implication, 'the absence of it redounds to per
sonal and general well-being. Similarly, by the hypothesis,
we have to conceive that irregular sexual relations are di
rectly and indirectly beneficial— that adultery is conducive
to domestic harmony and the careful rearing of children ;
while marital relations in proportion as they are persistent,
generate discord between husband and wife and entail on
their offspring, suffering, disease, and death. Unless it is

38 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

asserted that courage and chastity could still he thought of
as virtues though thus productive of misery, it must be ad
mitted that the conceptions of virtue cannot be separated
from the conception of happiness producing conduct ; and
that as this holds of all the virtues, however otherwise unlike,
it is from their conduciveness to happiness that they come to
be classed as virtues.

§ 14. When from those ethical estimates which take
perfection of nature, or virtuousness of action, as tests, we
pass to those which take for test rectitude of motive, we
approach the intuitional theory of morals ; and we may
conveniently deal with such estimates by a criticism on this
theory.

By the intuitional theory I here mean, not that which
recognizes as produced by the inherited effects of continued
experiences, the feelings of liking and aversion we have to
acts of certain kinds ; but I mean the theory which regards
such feelings as divinely given, and as independent of results
experienced by self or ancestors. " There is therefore," says
Hutcheson, "as each one by close attention and reflection
may convince himself, a natural and immediate determina
tion to approve certain affections, and actions consequent
upon them ; " and since, in common with others of his time,
he believes in the special creation of man, and all other be
ings, this "natural sense of immediate excellence" he consid
ers as a supernaturally-derived guide. Though he says that
the feelings and acts thus intuitively recognized as good, "all
agree in one general character, of tending to the happiness
of others ; " yet he is obliged to conceive this as a pre-or
dained correspondence. Nevertheless, it may be shown that
conduciveness to happiness, here represented as an incidental
trait of the acts which receive these innate moral approvals,
is really the test by which these approvals are recognized as
moral. The intuitionists place confidence in these verdicts
of conscience, simply because they vaguely, if not distinctly,

GOOD AND BAD CONDUCT. 39

perceive them to be consonant with the disclosures of that
ultimate test. Observe the proof.

By the hypothesis, the wrongness of murder is known by
a moral intuition which the human mind was originally con
stituted to yield ; and the hypothesis therefore negatives the
admission that this sense of its wrongness arises, immediately
or remotely, from the consciousness that murder involves
deduction from happiness, directly and indirectly. But if
you ask an adherent of this doctrine to contrast his intuition
with that of the Fijian, who, considering murder an honour
able action, is restless until he has distinguished himself by
killing some one ; and if you inquire of him in what way
the civilized intuition is to be justified in opposition to the
intuition of the savage ; no course is open save that of show
ing how conformity to the one conduces to well-being, while
conformity to the other entails suffering, individual and
general. When asked why the moral sense which tells him
that it is wrong to take another man's goods, should bo
obeyed rather than the moral sense of a Turcoman, who
proves how meritorious he considers theft to be by making
pilgrimages to the tombs of noted rubbers to make offer
ings ; the intuitionist can do nothing but urge that, certainly
under conditions like ours, if not also under conditions like
those of the Turcomans, disregard of men's claims to their
property not only inflicts immediate misery, but involves a
social state inconsistent with happiness. Or if, again, there
is required from him a justification for his feeling of repug
nance to lying, in contrast with the feeling of an Egyptian,
who prides himself on skill in lying (even thinking it praise
worthy to deceive without any further end than that of
practising deception) ; he can do no more than point to the
social prosperity furthered by entire trust between man
and man, and the social disorganization that follows uni
versal untruthfulness — consequences that are necessarily
conducive to agreeable feelings and disagreeable feelings
respectively.

40 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

The unavoidable conclusion is, then, that the intuitionist
does not, and cannot, ignore the ultimate derivations of
right and wrong from pleasure and pain. However much
he may be guided, and rightly guided, by the decisions of
conscience respecting the characters of acts ; he lias come
to have confidence in these decisions because he perceives,
vaguely but positively, that conformity to them furthers
the welfare of himself and others, and that disregard of
them entails in the long run suffering on all. Require him
to name any moral-sense judgment by which he knows as
right, some kind of act that will bring a surplus of pain,
taking into account the totals in this life and in any assumed
other life, and you find him unable to name one : a fact
proving that underneath all these intuitions respecting the
goodness or badness of acts, there lies the fundamental
assumption that acts are good or bad according as their
aggregate effects increase men's happiness or increase their

misery.

y>
§ 14. It is curious to see how the devil-wTorship of the

savage, surviving in various disguises among the civilized,
and leaving as one of its products that asceticism which in
many forms and degrees still prevails widely, is to be found
influencing in marked ways, men who have apparently
emancipated themselves, not only from primitive supersti
tions but from more developed superstitions. Views of life
and conduct which originated with those wTho propitiated
deified ancestors by self-tortures, enter even still into the
ethical theories of many persons who have years since cast
away the theology of the past, and suppose themselves to be
no longer influenced by it.

In the writings of one who rejects dogmatic Christianity
together with the Hebrew cult which preceded it, a career
of conquest costing tens of thousands of lives, is narrated
with a sympathy comparable to that rejoicing which the
Hebrew traditions show us over destruction of enemies in

GOOD AND HAD CONDUCT. 41

the name of God. You may find, too, a delight in contem
plating the exercise of despotic power, joined with insistance
on the salutariness of a state in which the wills of slaves and
citizens, are humbly subject to the wills of masters and
rulers — a sentiment also reminding us of that ancient Ori
ental life which biblical narratives portray. Along with
this worship of the strong man — along with this justifica
tion of whatever force may be needed for carrying out his
ambition — along with this yearning for a form of society in
which supremacy of the few is unrestrained and the virtue
of the many consists in obedience to them ; we not unnatu
rally find repudiation of the ethical theory which takes, in
some shape or other, the greatest happiness as the end of
conduct : we not unnaturally find this utilitarian philosophy
designated by the contemptuous title of " pig-philosophy."
And then, serving to show what comprehension there has
been of the philosophy so nicknamed, we are told that not
happiness but blessedness must be the end.

Obviously, the implication is that blessedness is not a kind
of happiness ; and this implication at once suggests the
question—What mode of feeling is it? If it is a state of
consciousness at all, it is necessarily one of three states-
painful, indifferent, or pleasurable. Does it leave the pos
sessor at the zero point of sentiency ? Then it leaves him
just as he would be if he had not got it. Does it not leave
him at the zero point ? Then it must leave him below zero
or above zero.

Each of these possibilities may be conceived under two
forms. That to which the term blessedness is applied, may
be a particular state of consciousness— one among the many
states that occur ; and on this supposition we have to recog
nize it as a pleasurable state, an indifferent state, or a painful
state. Otherwise, blessedness is a word not applicable to a
particular state of consciousness, but characterizes the aggre
gate of its states ; and in this case the average of the aggre
gate is to be conceived as one in which the pleasurable prc-
°

4:2 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

dominates, or one in which the painful predominates, or
one in which. pleasures and pains exactly cancel one another.
Let us take in turn these two imaginable applications of the
word.

"Blessed are the merciful;" "Blessed are the peace
makers;" "Blessed is he that considereth the poor;" are
sayings which we may fairly take as conveying the accepted
meaning of blessedness. What now shall we say of one
who is, for the time being, blessed in performing an act of
mercy ? Is his mental state pleasurable \ If so the hypothesis
is abandoned : blessedness is a particular form of happiness.
Is the state indifferent or painful ? In that case the blessed
man is so devoid of sympathy that relieving another from
pain, or the fear of pain, leaves him either wholly unmoved,
or gives him an unpleasant emotion. Again, if one who is
blessed in making peace receives no gratification from the
act, then seeing men injure each other does not affect him
at all, or gives him a pleasure which is changed into a pain
when he prevents the injury. Once more, to say that the
blessedness of one who "considereth the poor" implies no
agreeable feeling, is to say that his consideration for the
poor leaves him without feeling or entails on him a disagree
able feeling. So that if blessedness is a particular mode of
consciousness temporarily existing as a concomitant of each
kind of beneficent action, those who deny that it is a pleas
ure, or constituent of happiness, confess themselves either
not pleased by the welfare of others or displeased by it.

Otherwise understood, blessedness must, as we have seen,
refer to the totality of feelings experienced during the life
of one who occupies himself with the actions the word con
notes. This also presents the three possibilities — surplus of
pleasures, surplus of pains, equality of the two. If the
pleasurable states are in excess, then the blessed life can be
distinguished from any other pleasurable life only by the
relative amount, or the quality, of its pleasures : it is a life
which makes happiness of a certain kind and degree its end ;

GOOD AND BAD CONDUCT. 43

and the assumption that blessedness is not a form of happi
ness, lapses. If the blessed life is one in which the pleasures
and pains received balance one another, so producing an
average that is indifferent ; or if it is one in which the
pleasures are out-balanced by the pains ; then the blessed
life has the character which the pessimist alleges of life at
large, and therefore regards it as cursed. Annihilation is
best, he will argue ; since if an average that is indifferent is
the outcome of the blessed life, annihilation at once achieves
it; and if a surplus of suffering is the outcome of this high
est kind of life called blessed, still more should life in gen
eral be ended.

A possible rejoinder must be named and disposed of.
"While it is admitted that the particular kind of consciousness
accompanying conduct that is blessed, is pleasurable ; it may
be contended that pursuance of this conduct and receipt of
the pleasure, brings by the implied self-denial, and per
sistent effort, and perhaps bodily injury, a suffering that
exceeds it in amount. And it may then be urged that
blessedness, characterized by this excess of aggregate pains
over aggregate pleasures, should nevertheless be pursued as
an end, rather than the happiness constituted by excess of
pleasures over pains. But now, defensible though this con
ception of blessedness may be when limited to one indi
vidual or some individuals, it becomes indefensible when
extended to all individuals ; as it must be if blessedness is
taken for the end of conduct. To see this we need but ask
for what purpose are these pains in excess of pleasures to be
borne. Blessedness being the ideal state for all persons;
and the self-sacrifices made by each person in pursuance
of this ideal state, having for their end to help all other per
sons in achieving the like ideal state ; it results that the
blessed though painful state of each, is to be acquired by
furthering the like blessed though painful states of others:
the blessed consciousness is to be constituted by the con
templation of their consciousness in a condition of average

44 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

suffering. Does any one accept this inference ? If not, his
rejection of it involves the admission that the motive for
bearing pains in performing acts called blessed, is not the
obtaining for others like pains of blessedness, but the obtain
ing of pleasures for others ; and that thus pleasure some
where is the tacitly-implied ultimate end.

In brief, then, blessedness has for its necessary condition
of existence, increased happiness, positive or negative, in
some consciousness or other; and disappears utterly if we
assume that the actions called blessed, are known to cause
decrease of happiness in others as well as in the actor.

§ 15. To make clear the meaning of the general argument
set forth in this chapter, its successive parts must be briefly
summarized.

That which in the last chapter we found to be highly-
evolved conduct, is that which, in this chapter, we find to
be what is called good conduct ; and the ideal goal to the
natural evolution of conduct there recognized, we here
recognize as the ideal standard of conduct ethically con
sidered.

The acts adjusted to ends, which while constituting the
outer visible life from moment to moment further the con
tinuance of life, we saw become, as evolution progresses,
better adjusted ; until finally they make the life of each
individual entire in length and breadth, at the same time
that they efficiently subserve the rearing of young, and do
both these not only without hindering other individuals from
doing the like, but while giving aid to them in doing the
like. And here we see that goodness is asserted of such
conduct under each of these three aspects. Other things
equal, well-adjusted self-conserving acts we call good ; other
things equal, we call good the acts that are well adjusted for
bringing up progeny capable of complete living ; and other
things equal, we ascribe goodness to acts which further the
complete living of others.

GOOD AXD BAD CONDUCT. 45

This judging as good, conduct which conduces to life in
each and all, we found to involve the assumption that
animate existence is desirable. .By the pessimist, conduct
which subserves life cannot consistently be called good : to
call it good implies some form of optimism. AVe saw, how
ever, that pessimists and optimists both start with the postu
late that life is a blessing or a curse, according as the average
consciousness accompanying it is pleasurable or painful.
And since avowed or implied pessimists, and optimists of
one or other shade, taken together constitute all men, it
results that this postulate is universally accepted. Whence
it follows that if we call good the conduct conducive to life,
we can do so only with the implication that it is conducive
to a surplus of pleasures over pains.

The truth that conduct is considered by us as good or
bad, according as its aggregate results, to self or others or
both, are pleasurable or painful, we found on examination to
be involved in all the current judgments on conduct : the
proof being that reversing the applications of the words
creates absurdities. And we found that every other pro
posed standard of conduct derives its authority from this
standard. Whether perfection of nature is the assigned
proper aim, or virtuousness of action, or rectitude of motive,
we saw that definition of the perfection, the virtue, the recti
tude, inevitably brings us down to happiness experienced in
some form, at some time, by some person, as the funda
mental idea. Xor could we discover any intelligible con
ception of blessedness, save one which implies a raising of
consciousness, individual or general, to a happier state ;
either by mitigating pains or increasing pleasures.

Even with those who judge of conduct from the religious
point of view, rather than from the ethical point of view, it
is the same. Men who seek to propitiate God by inflicting
pains on themselves, or refrain from pleasures to avoid
offending him, do so to escape greater ultimate pains or to
get greater ultimate pleasures. If by positive or negative

46 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

suffering here, they expected to achieve more suffering here
after, they would not do as they do. That which they now
think duty they would not think duty if it promised eternal
misery instead of eternal happiness. Nay, if there be any
who believe that human beings were created to be unhappy,
and that they ought to continue living to display their
unhappiness for the satisfaction of their creator, such be
lievers are obliged to use this standard of judgment ; for
the pleasure of their diabolical god is the end to be
achieved.

So that no school can avoid taking for the ultimate moral
aim a desirable state of feeling called by whatever name —
gratification, enjoyment, happiness. Pleasure somewhere,
at some time, to some being or beings, is an inexpugnable
element of the conception. It is as much a necessary form
of moral intuition as space is a necessary form of intellectual
intuition.

* It has been remarked, quite truly, that this is a somewhat inconsistent
comparison to be made by me ; remembering my partial denial of the doctrine
that space is a form of intellectual intuition (see Principles of Psychology,
§ 399). Contending, as I do, that space is a form of the intuitions yielded by
touch and vision only, and is not a form of the intuitions which we know as
sounds and odours, I ought to have said that happiness is more truly a form of
moral intuition than space is a form of intellectual intuition : being, as we see,
a universal form of it.

CIIAPTEK IV.

WAYS OF JUDGING CONDUCT.

£17. Intellectual progress is by no one trait so ade
quately characterized, as by development of the idea of
causation ; since development of this idea involves develop
ment of so many other ideas. Before any way can be made,
thought and language must have advanced far enough to
render properties or attributes thinkable as such, apart from
objects ; which, in low stages of human intelligence, they are
not. Again, even the simplest notion of cause, as we under
stand it, can be reached only after many like instances have
been grouped into a simple generalization ; and through all
ascending steps, higher notions of causation imply wider
notions of generality. Further, as there must be clustered

O •'

in the mind, concrete causes of many kinds before there can
emerge the conception of cause, apart from particular causes;
it follows that progress in abstractness of thought is implied.
(Vmeomitantly, there is implied the recognition of constant
relations among phenomena, generating ideas of uniformity
of sequence and of co-existence— the idea of natural law.
These advances can go on only as fast as perceptions and
resulting thoughts, are made definite by the use of measures ;
serving to familiarize the mind with exact correspondence,
truth, certainty. And only when growing science accumu
lates examples of quantitative relations, foreseen and verified,
throughout a widening range of phenomena, does causation
r> 47

48 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

come to be conceived as necessary and universal. So that
though all these cardinal conceptions aid one another in de
veloping, we may properly say that the conception of causation
especially depends for its development on the developments
of the rest ; and therefore is the best measure of intellectual
development at large.

How slowly, as a consequence of its dependence, the
conception of causation evolves, a glance at the evidence
shows. We hear with surprise of the savage who, falling
down a precipice, ascribes the failure of his foothold to a
malicious demon ; and we smile at the kindred notion of the
ancient Greek, that his death was prevented by a goddess
who unfastened for him the thong of the helmet by which
his enemy was dragging him. But daily, without surprise,
we hear men who describe themselves as saved from ship
wreck by " divine interposition," who speak of having
" providentially " missed a train which met with a fatal
disaster, and who call it a " mercy " to have escaped injury
from a falling chimney-pot — men who, in such cases, recog
nize physical causation no more than do the uncivilized or
semi-civilized. The Veddah who thinks that failure to hit
an animal with his arrow, resulted from inadequate invo
cation of an ancestral spirit, and the Christian priest who
says prayers over a sick man in the expectation that the
course of his disease will so be stayed, differ only in respect
of the agent from whom they expect supernatural aid and
the phenomena to be altered by him : the necessary relations
among causes and effects are tacitly ignored by the last as
much as by the first. Deficient belief in causation is, indeed,
exemplified even in those whose discipline has been specially
fitted to generate this belief — even in men of science. For
a generation after geologists had become uniformitarians
in Geology, they remained catastrophists in Biology : while
recognizing none but natural agencies in the genesis of the
Earth's crust, they ascribed to supernatural agency the gene
sis of the organisms on its surface. ]STay more — among those

WAYS OF JUDGING CONDUCT. 49

who arc convinced that living tilings in genera have heen
evolved by the continued inter-action of forces everywhere
operating, there are sonic who make an exception of man ;
or who, if they admit that his body has been evolved in
the same manner as the bodies of other creatures, allege that
his mind has been not evolved but specially created. If,
then, universal and necessary causation is only now approach
ing full recognition, even by those whose investigations are
daily re-illustrating it, we may expect to find it very little
recognized among men at large, whose culture has not been
calculated to impress them with it ; and we may expect to
find it least recognized by them in respect of those classes
of phenomena amid which, in consequence of their com
plexity, causation is most difficult to trace — the psychical,
the social, the moral.

Why do I here make these reflections on what seems an
irrelevant subject '? I do it because on studying the various
ethical theories, I am struck with the fact that they arc all
characterized either by entire absence of the idea of causa
tion, or by inadequate presence of it. "Whether theological,
political, intuitional, or utilitarian, they all display, if not in
the same degree, still, each in a large degree, the defects
which result from this lack. We will consider them in the
order named.

§ 18. The school of morals properly to be considered as
the still-extant representative of the most ancient school, is
that which recognizes no other rule of conduct than the al
leged will of God. It originates with the savage whose only
restraint beyond fear of his fellow man, is fear of an ances
tral spirit ; and whose notion of moral duty as distinguished
from his notion of social prudence, arises from this fear.
Here the ethical doctrine and the religious doctrine are iden
tical — have in no degree differentiated.

This primitive form of ethical doctrine, changed only
by the gradual dying out multitudinous minor supernatural

50 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

agents and accompanying development of one universal
supernatural agent, survives in great strength down to our
own day. Religious creeds, established and dissenting, all
embody the belief that right and wrong are right and wrong
simply in virtue of divine enactment. And this tacit as
sumption has passed from systems of theology into systems
of morality ; or rather, let us say that moral systems in early
stages of development, little differentiated from the accom
panying theological systems, have participated in this assump
tion. AVe see this in the works of the Stoics, as well as in
the works of certain Christian moralists. Among recent ones
I may instance the Essays on the Principles of Morality, by
Jonathan Dymond, a Quaker, which makes " the authority
of the Deity the sole ground of duty, and His communicated
will the only ultimate standard of right and wrong." Nor
is it by writers belonging to so relatively unphilosophical a
sect only, that this view is held ; it is held with a difference
by writers belonging to sects contrariwise distinguished.
For these assert that in the absence of belief in a deity,
there would be no moral guidance ; and this amounts to
asserting that moral truths have no other origin than the
will of God, which, if not considered as revealed in sacred
writings, must be considered as revealed in conscience.

This assumption when examined, proves to be suicidal.
If there are no other origins for right and wrong than this
enunciated or intuited divine will, then, as alleged, were
there no knowledge of the divine will, the acts now known
as wrong would not be known as wrong. But if men did
not know such acts to be wrong because contrary to the di
vine will, and so, in committing them, did not offend by
disobedience ; and if they could not otherwise know them
to be wrong ; then they might commit them indifferently with
the acts now classed as right : the results, practically consid^
ered, would be the same. In so far as secular matters are
concerned, there would be no difference between the two ;
for to say that in the affairs of life, any evils would arise

WAYS OF JUDGING CONDUCT. 51

from continuing to do the acts called wrong and ceasing to
do the acts called right, is to say that these produce in them
selves certain mischievous consequences and certain beneficial
consequences ; which is to say there is another source for
moral rules than the revealed or inferred divine will : they
may he established by induction from these observed con
sequences.

From this implication I see no escape. It must be either
admitted or denied that the acts called good and the acts
called bad, naturally conduce, the one to human well-being
and the other to human ill-being. Is it admitted? Then
the admission amounts to an assertion that the conduciveness
is shown by experience ; and this involves abandonment of
the doctrine that there is no origin for morals apart from
divine injunctions. Is it denied, that acts classed as good
and bad differ in their effects ? Then it is tacitly affirmed
that human affairs would go on just as well in ignorance of
the distinction; and the alleged need for commandments
from God disappears.

And here we see how entirely wanting is the conception
of cause. This notion that such and such actions are made
respectively good and bad simply by divine injunction, is
tantamount to the notion that such and such actions have
not in the nature of things such and such kinds of effects.
If there is not an unconsciousness of causation there is an
ignoring of it.

§ 19. Following Plato and Aristotle, who make State-
enactments the sources of right and wrong ; and following
Ilobbes, who holds that there can be neither justice nor
injustice till a regularly-constituted coercive power exists to
issue and enforce commands; not a few modern thinkers
hold that there is no other origin for good and bad in con
duct than law. And this implies the belief that moral obli
gation originates with Acts of Parliament, and can be changed
this way or that way by majorities. They ridicule the idea

52 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

that men have any natural rights, and allege that rights are
wholly results of convention : the necessary implication be-
ino- that duties are so too. Before considering whether this

O "

theory coheres with outside truths, let us observe how far it
is coherent within itself.

In pursuance of his argument that rights and duties
originate with established social arrangements, Hobbes
gays —

- Where no covenant hath preceded, there hath no right been transferred, and
every man has right to every thing ; and consequently, no action can be unjust.
But when a covenant is made, then to break it is unjust ; and the definition of
INJUSTICE, is no other than the not performance of covenant. And whatsoever
is not unjust, is just. . . . Therefore before the names of just and unjust can
have place, there must be some coercive power, to compel men equally to the
performance of their covenants, by the terror of some punishment, greater than
the benefit they expect by the breach of their covenant." *

In this paragraph the essential propositions are :— justice
is fulfilment of covenant ; fulfilment of covenant implies a
power enforcing it : " just and unjust can have no place "
unless men are compelled to perform their covenants. But
this is to say that men cannot perforrn their covenants with
out compulsion. Grant that justice is performance of cove
nant. Now suppose it to be performed voluntarily : there is
justice. In such case, however, there is justice in the absence
of coercion ; which is contrary to the hypothesis. The only
conceivable rejoinder is an absurd one : — voluntary perform
ance of covenant is impossible. Assert this, and the doctrine
that right and wrong come into existence with the establish
ment of sovereignty is defensible Decline to assert it, and
the doctrine vanishes.

From inner incongruities pass now to outer ones. The
justification for his doctrine of absolute civil authority as
the source of rules of conduct, Ilobbes seeks in the miseries
entailed by the chronic war between man and man which must
exist in the absence of society ; holding that under any kind
of government a better life is possible than in the state of

* Leviathan, ch. xv.

WAYS OF JUDGING CONDUCT. 53

nature. Now whether we accept the gratuitous and baseless
theory that men surrendered their liberties to a sovereign
power of some kind, with a view to the promised increase
of satisfactions ; or whether we accept the rational theory,
inductively based, that a state of political subordination
gradually became established through experience of the
increased satisfactions derived under it ; it equally remains
obvious that the acts of the sovereign power have no other
warrant than their subservience to the purpose for which
it came into existence. The necessities which initiate
government, themselves prescribe the actions of govern
ment. If its actions do not respond to the necessities, they
are unwarranted. The authority of law is, then, by the
hypothesis, derived ; and can never transcend the authority
of that from which it is derived. If general good, or
welfare, or utility, is the supreme end ; and if State-enact
ments are justified as means to this supreme end ; then,
State-enactments have such authority only as arises from
conduciveness to this supreme end. When they are right,
it is only because the original authority endorses them;
and they are wrong if they do not bear its endorsement.
That is to say, conduct cannot be made good or bad by law ;
but its goodness or badness is to the last determined by its
effects as naturally furthering, or not furthering, the lives
of citizens.

Still more when considered in the concrete, than when
considered in the abstract, do the views of Hobbes and his
disciples prove to be inconsistent. Joining in the general
belief that without such security for life as enables men to
go fearlessly about their business, there can be neither
happiness nor prosperity, individual or general, they agree
that measures for preventing murder, manslaughter, assault,
&c., are requisite; and they advocate this or that penal
system as furnishing the best deterrents : so arguing, both
in respect of the evils and the remedies, that such and such
causes will, by the nature of things, produce such and such

54: THE DATA OF ETHICS.

effects. They recognize as inferable d priori, the truth that
men will not lay by property unless they can count with
great probability on reaping advantages from it ; that
consequently where robbery is unchecked, or where a
rapacious ruler appropriates whatever earnings his subjects
do not effectually hide, production will scarcely exceed
immediate consumption ; and that necessarily there will
be none of that accumulation of capital required for
social development, with all its aids to welfare. In neither
case, however, do they perceive that they are tacitly asserting
the need of certain restraints on conduct as deducible from
the necessary conditions to complete life in the social state ;
and are so making the authority of law derivative and not
original.

If it be said by any belonging to this school, that certain
moral obligations to be distinguished as cardinal, must be
admitted to have a basis deeper than legislation, and that it
is for legislation not to create but merely to enforce them—
if, I say, admitting this, they go on to allege a legislative
origin for minor claims and duties; then we have the
implication that whereas some kinds of conduct do, in the
nature of things, tend to work out certain kinds of results,
other kinds of conduct do not, in the nature of things, tend
to work out certain kinds of results. While of these acts
the natural good or bad consequences must be allowed, it
may be denied of those acts that they have naturally good
or bad consequences. Only after asserting this can it be
consistently asserted that acts of the last class are made right
or wrong by law. For if such acts have any intrinsic
tendencies to produce beneficial or mischievous effects, then
these intrinsic tendencies furnish the warrant for legislative

requirements or interdicts ; and to say that the requirements
or interdicts make them right or wrong, is to say that they
have no intrinsic tendencies to produce beneficial or mis
chievous effects.

Here, then, we have another theory betraying deficient

WAYS OP JUDGING CONDUCT. 55

consciousness of causation. An adequate consciousness of
causation yields the irresistible belief that from the most
serious to the most trivial actions of men in society, there
must tlow consequences which, quite apart from legal agency,
conduce to well-being or ill-being in greater or smaller de
crees. If murders are socially injurious whether forbidden
by law or not — if one man's appropriation of another's gains
bv force, brings special and general evils, whether it is or is
not contrary to a ruler's edicts — if non-fullilment of con
tract, if cheating, if adulteration, work mischiefs on a com
munity in proportion as they are common, quite irrespective
of prohibitions ; then, is it not manifest that the like holds
throughout all the details of men's behaviour ? Is it not
clear that when legislation insists on certain acts which have
naturally beneficial effects, and forbids others that have
naturally injurious effects, the acts are not made good or bad
by legislation ; but the legislation derived its authority from
the natural effects of the acts '( Non-recognition of this
implies non-recognition of natural causation.

§ 20. Kor is it otherwise with the pure intuitionists, who
hold that moral perceptions are innate in the original
sensc — thinkers whose view is that men have been divinely
endowed with moral faculties ; not that these have re
sulted from inherited modifications caused by accumulated
experiences.

To affirm that we know some things to be right and
other things to be wrong, by virtue of a supernaturally-
given conscience ; and thus tacitly to affirm that we do not
otherwise know right from wrong ; is tacitly to deny any
natural relations between acts and results. For if there
exists any such relations, then we may ascertain by induc
tion, or deduction, or both, what these are. And if it be
admitted that because of such natural relations, happiness is
produced by this kind of conduct, which is therefore to be
approved, while misery is produced by that kind of conduct,

56 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

which is therefore to be condemned ; then it is admitted
that the Tightness or wrongness of actions are determinable,
and must finally be determined, by the goodness or badness
of the effects that flow from them ; which is contrary to the
hypothesis.

It may, indeed, be rejoined that effects are deliberately
ignored by this school ; which teaches that courses recog
nized by moral intuition as right, must be pursued without
regard to consequences. But on inquiry it turns out that
the consequences to be disregarded are particular conse
quences and not general consequences. When, for example,
it is said that property lost by another ought to be restored
irrespective of evil to the finder, who possibly may, by re
storing it, lose that which would have preserved him from
starvation ; it is meant that in pursuance of the principle,
the immediate and special consequences must be disregarded,
not the diffused and remote consequences. By which we are
shown that though the theory forbids overt recognition of
causation, there is an unavowed recognition of it.

And this implies the trait to which I am drawing atten
tion. The conception of natural causation is so imperfectly
developed, that there is only an indistinct consciousness that
throughout the whole of human conduct, necessary relations
of causes and effects prevail ; and that from them are ulti
mately derived all moral rules, however much these may be
proximately derived from moral intuitions.

§ 21. Strange to say, even the utilitarian school, which,
at first sight, appears to be distinguished from the rest by
recognizing natural causation, is, if not so far from complete
recognition of it, yet very far.

Conduct, according to its theory, is to be estimated by
observation of results. When, in sufficiently numerous
cases, it has been found that behaviour of this kind works
evil while behaviour of that kind works good, these kinds of
behaviour are to be judged as wrong and right respectively.

WAYS OF JUDGING CONDUCT.

Now though it seems that the origin of moral rules in natu
ral causes, is thus asserted by implication, it is but partially
asserted. The implication is simply that we are to ascertain
bv induction that such and such mischiefs or benefits do go
aloii"- with such and such acts ; and are then to infer that
the like relations will hold in future. But acceptance of
these generalizations and the inferences from them, does not
amount to recognition of causation in the full sense of the
word. So long as only some relation between cause and
effect in conduct is recognized, and not the relation, a com
pletely-scientific form of knowledge has not been reached.
At present, utilitarians pay no attention to this distinction.
Even when it is pointed out, they disregard the fact that
empirical utilitarianism is but a transitional form to be
passed through on the way to rational utilitarianism.

In a letter to Mr. Mill, written some sixteen years ago,
repudiating the title anti-utilitarian which he had applied to
me (a letter subsequently published in Mr. Bain's work on
Mental and Moral Science], I endeavoured to make clear
the difference above indicated ; and 1 must here quote cer
tain passages from that letter.

The view for which I contend is, that Morality properly so-called — the
.science of right conduct— has for its object to determine how and why certain
modes of conduct are detrimental, and certain other modes beneficial. These
sood and bad results cannot be accidental, but must be necessary consequences
of the constitution of things ; and I conceive it to be the business of Moral
Science to deduce, from the laws of life and the conditions of existence, what
kinds of action necessarily tend to produce happiness, and what kinds to pro
duce unhappiness. Having done this, its deductions are to be recognized as
laws of conduct ; and are to be conformed to irrespective of a direct estimation
of happiness or misery.

Perhaps an analogy will most clearly show my meaning. During its early
stages, planetary Astronomy consisted of nothing more than accumulated ob
servations respecting the positions and motions of the sun and planets ; from
which accumulated observations it came by and by to be empirically predicted,
with an approach to truth, that certain of the heavenly bodies would have
certain positions at certain times. But the modern science of planetary
Astronomy consists of deductions from the law of gravitation— deductions
i howintr why the celestial bodies necessarily occupy certain places at certain
times. "NOW, the kind of relation which thus exists between ancient and

58 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

modern Astronomy, is analogous to the kind of relation which, I conceive,
exists between the Expediency-Morality and Moral Science properly so called.
And the objection which I have to the current Utilitarianism is, that it recog
nizes no more developed form of Morality — does not see that it has reached
but the initial stage of Moral Science.

Doubtless if utilitarians are asked whether it can be by
mere chance that this kind of action works evil and that
works good, they will answer — No : they will admit that
such sequences are parts of a necessary order among
phenomena. But though this truth is beyond question ;
and though if there are causal relations between acts and
their results, rules of conduct can become scientific only
when they are deduced from these causal relations ; there
continues to be entire satisfaction with that form of utilitari
anism in which these causal relations are practically ignored.
It is supposed that in future, as now, utility is to be deter
mined only by observation of results ; and that there is no
possibility of knowing by deduction from fundamental prin
ciples, what conduct inust be detrimental and what conduct
'must be beneficial.

§ 22. To make more specific that conception of ethical
science here indicated, let me present it under a concrete
aspect ; beginning with a simple illustration and compli
cating this illustration by successive steps.

If, by tying its main artery, we stop most of the blood
going to a limb, then, for as long as the limb performs its
function, those parts which are called into play must be
wasted faster than they are repaired : whence eventual
disablement. The relation between due receipt of nutritive
matters through its arteries, and due discharge of its duties
by the limb, is a part of the physical order. If, instead of
cutting off the supply to a particular limb, we bleed the
patient largely, so drafting away the materials needed for
repairing not one limb but all limbs, and not limbs only but
viscera, there results both a muscular debility and an en-
feeblement of the vital functions. Here, again, cause and

WAYS OF JUDGING CONDUCT. 59

effect are necessarily related. The mischief that results from
great depletion, results apart from any divine command, or
political enactment, or moral intuition. .Now advance a step.
Suppose the man to be prevented from taking in enough of
the solid and liquid food containing those substances con
tinually abstracted from his blood in repairing his tissues :
suppose he has cancer of the oesophagus and cannot swallow
—what happens ? By this indirect depletion, as by direct
depletion, he is inevitably made incapable of performing the
actions of one in health. In this case, as in the other cases,
the connection between cause and effect is one that cannot
be established, or altered, by any authority external to the
phenomena themselves. Again, let us say that instead of
being stopped after passing his mouth, that which he would
swallow is stopped before reaching his mouth ; so that day
after day the man is required to waste his tissues in getting
food, and day after day the food he has got to meet this
waste, he is forcibly prevented from eating. As before, the
progress towards death by starvation is inevitable-the con
nexion between acts and effects is independent of any alleged
theological or political authority. And similarly if, being
forced by the whip to labour, no adequate return in food
supplied to him, there are equally certain evils, equally in
dependent of sacred or secular enactment,
to those actions more commonly thought of as the occasions
for rules of conduct. Let us assume the man to be
tinually robbed of that which was given him in exchani
for his labour, and by which he was to make up for nervo-
muscular expenditure and renew his powers,
before is the connexion between conduct and conseqm
rooted in the constitution of things ; unchangeable by ,
made law, and not needing establishment by empirical gen
eralization. If the action by which the man is affected s
a stao-c further away from the results, or produces
of a te decisive kind, still we see the same basis for mo
rality in the physical order. Imagine that payment

CO THE DATA OF ETHICS.

his services is made partly in bad coin ; or that it is de
layed beyond the date agreed upon ; or that what he buys
to eat is adulterated with innutritive matter. Manifestly,
by any of these deeds which we condemn as unjust, and
which are punished by law, there is, as before, an inter
ference with the normal adjustment of physiological repair
to physiological waste. Nor is it otherwise when we pass to
kinds of conduct still more remotely operative. If he is hin
dered from enforcing his claim — if class-predominance pre
vents him from proceeding, or if a bribed judge gives a
verdict contrary to evidence, or if a witness swears falsely ;
have not these deeds, though they affect him more indirectly,
the same original cause for their wrongness ? Even

with actions which work diffused and indefinite mischiefs
it is the same. Suppose that the man, instead of being
dealt with fraudulently, is calumniated. There is, as before,
a hindrance to the carrying on of life-sustaining activities;
for the loss of character detrimentally affects his business.
'Nor is this all. The mental depression caused partially in
capacitates him for energetic activity, and perhaps brings
on ill-health. So that maliciously or carelessly propagating
false statements, tends both to diminish his life and to
diminish his ability to maintain life. Hence its flagitious-
ness. Moreover, if we trace to their ultimate rami
fications the effects wrought by any of these acts which
morality called intuitive reprobates — if we ask what results
not to the individual himself only, but also to his belongings
— if we observe how impoverishment hinders the rearing of
his children, by entailing under-feeding or inadequate cloth
ing, resulting perhaps in the death of some and the constitu
tional injury of others ; we see that by the necessary connex
ions of things these acts, besides tending primarily to lower
the life of the individual aggressed upon, tend, secondarily,
to lower the lives of all his family, and, thirdly, to lower the
life of society at large ; which is damaged by whatever dam
ages its units.

WAYS OF JUDGING CONDUCT. 01

A more distinct meaning will now be seen in the state
ment that the utilitarianism which recognizes only the prin
ciples of conduct reached by induction, is but preparatory
to the utilitarianism which deduces these principles from^the
processes of life as carried on under established conditions
of existence.

§ 22a. Thus, then, is justified the allegation made at the
outset, that, irrespective of their distinctive characters and
their special tendencies, all the current methods of ethics
have one general defect— they neglect ultimate causal con
nexions. Of course I do not mean that they wholly ignore
the natural consequences of actions ; but I mean that they
recognize them only incidentally. They do not erect into
a method the ascertaining of necessary relations between
causes and effects, and deducing rules of conduct from for
mulated statements of them.

Every science begins by accumulating observations, and
presently generalizes these empirically ; but only when it
reaches the stage at which its empirical generalizations are
included in a rational generalization, does it become devel
oped science. Astronomy has already passed through its
successive stages : first collections of facts ; then inductions
from them ; 'and lastly deductive interpretations of these,
as corollaries from a universal principle of action among
masses in space. Accounts of structures and tabulations of
strata, grouped and compared, Lave led gradually to ^the as
signing of various classes of geological changes to igneous
and aqueous actions ; and it is now tacitly admitted that
Geology becomes a science proper, only as fast as such
changes are explained in terms of those natural processes
which have arisen in the cooling and solidifying Earth, ex
posed to the Sun's Leat and the action of the Moon upon its
ocean. The science of life has been, and is still, exhibiting
a like series of steps: the evolution of organic forms^ at

large, is being affiliated on physical actions in operation

62 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

from the beginning ; and the vital phenomena each organ
ism presents, are coming to be understood as connected sets
of changes, in parts formed of matters that are affected by
certain forces and disengage other forces. So is it with
mind. Early ideas concerning thought and feeling ignored
everything like cause, save in recognizing those effects of
habit which were forced on men's attention and expressed
in proverbs ; but there are growing up interpretations of
thought and feeling as correlates of the actions and re
actions of a nervous structure, that is influenced by outer
changes and works in the body adapted changes : the impli
cation being that Psychology becomes a science, as fast as
these relations of phenomena are explained as consequences
of ultimate principles. Sociology, too, represented down to
recent times only by stray ideas about social organization,
scattered through the masses of worthless gossip furnished us
by historians, is coming to be recognized by some as also a sci
ence ; and such adumbrations of it as have from time to time
appeared in the shape of empirical generalizations, are now
beginning to assume the character of generalizations made
coherent by derivation from causes lying in human nature
placed under given conditions. Clearly, then, Ethics, which
is a science dealing with the conduct of associated human
beings, regarded under one of its .aspects, has to undergo a
like transformation ; and, at present undeveloped, can be
considered a developed science only when it has undergone
this transformation.

A preparation in the simpler sciences is pre-supposed.
Ethics has a physical aspect ; since it treats of human ac'
tivities which, in common with all expenditures of energy,
conform to the law of the persistence of energy : moral
principles must conform to physical necessities. It has a
biological aspect ; since it concerns certain effects, inner
and outer, individual and social, of the vital changes going
on in the highest type of animal. It has a psychological
aspect ; for its subject-matter is an aggregate of actions

WAYS OF JUDGING CONDUCT. 63

that are prompted by feelings and guided by intelligence.
And it lias a sociological aspect ; for these actions, sonic of
them directly and all of them indirectly, affect associated
beings.

What is the implication ? Belonging under one aspect to
each of these sciences — physical, biological, psychological,
sociological, — it can find its ultimate interpretations only in
those fundamental truths which are common to all of them.
Already we have concluded in a general way that conduct at
large, including the conduct Ethics deals with, is to be fully
understood only as an aspect of evolving life ; and now we
are brought to this conclusion in a more special way.

§ 23. Here, then, we have to enter on the consideration of
moral phenomena as phenomena of evolution ; being forced
to do this by finding that they form a part of the aggregate
of phenomena which evolution has wrought out. If the
entire visible universe has been evolved — if the solar system
as a whole, the earth as a part of it, the life in general which
the earth bears, as well as that of each individual organism —
if the mental phenomena displayed by all creatures, up to
the highest, in common with the phenomena presented by
aggregates of these highest — if one and all conform to the
laws of evolution ; then the necessary implication is that
those phenomena of conduct in these highest creatures with
which Morality is concerned, also conform.

The preceding volumes have prepared the way for dealing
with morals as thus conceived. Utilizing the conclusions
they contain, let us now observe what data are furnished
by these. We will take in succession — the physical view,
the biological view, the psychological view, and the socio
logical view.

CHAPTER Y.

THE PHYSICAL VIEW.

§ 24. Every moment we pass instantly from men's per
ceived actions to the motives implied by them ; and so are
led to formulate these actions in mental terms rather than
in bodily terms. Thoughts and feelings are referred to when
we speak of any one's deeds with praise or blame ; not those
outer manifestations which reveal the thoughts and feelings.
Hence we become oblivious of the truth that conduct as ac
tually experienced, consists of changes recognized by touch,
sight and hearing.

This habit of contemplating only the psychical face of con
duct, is so confirmed that an effort is required to contemplate
only the physical face. Undeniable as it is that another's
behaviour to us is made up of movements of his body and
limbs, of his facial muscles, and of his vocal apparatus ; it
yet seems paradoxical to say that these are the only elements
of conduct really known by us, while the elements of con
duct which we exclusively think of as constituting it, are
not known but inferred.

Here, however, ignoring for the time being the inferred
elements in conduct, we have to deal with the perceived ele
ments — we have to observe its traits considered as a set of
combined motions. Taking the evolution point of view, and
remembering that while an aggregate evolves, not only the
matter composing it, but also the motion of that matter,

THE PHYSICAL VIEW. 05

passes from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a defi
nite coherent heterogeneity, we have now to ask whether
conduct as it rises to its higher forms, displays in increasino-
degrees these characters ; and whether it does not display
them in the greatest degree when it reaches that highest
form which we call moral.

§ 25. It will be convenient to deal first with the trait of
increasing coherence. The conduct of lowly-organized
creatures is broadly contrasted with the conduct of highly-
organized creatures, in having its successive portions feebly
connected. The random movements which an animalcule
makes, have severally no reference to movements made a
moment before ; nor do they affect in specific ways the
movements made immediately after. To-day's wanderings
of a fish in search of food, though perhaps showing by
their adjustments to catching different kinds of prey at
different hours, a slightly-determined order, are unrelated to
the wanderings of yesterday and to-rnorrow. But such
more developed creatures as birds, showr us in the building
of nests, the sitting on eggs, the rearing of chicks, and the
aiding of them after they fly, sets of motions which form
a dependent series, extending over a considerable period.
And on observing the complexity of the acts performed in
fetching and fixing the fibres of the nest or in catching and
bringing to the young each portion of food, we discover in
the combined motions, lateral cohesion as well as longitudi
nal cohesion.

Man, even in his lowest state, displays in his conduct far
more coherent combinations of motions. By the elaborate
manipulations gone through in making weapons that are to
serve for the chase next year, or in building canoes and
wigwams for permanent uses — by acts of aggression and
defence which are connected with injuries long since
received or committed, the savage exhibits an aggregate
of motions which, in some of its parts, holds together over

66 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

great periods. Moreover, if we consider the many move
ments implied by the transactions of each day, in the wood,
on the water, in the camp, in the family ; we see that this
coherent aggregate of movements is composed of many
minor aggregates, that are severally coherent within them
selves and with one another. In civilized man
this trait of developed conduct becomes more conspic
uous still. Be his business what it may, its processes in
volve relatively-numerous dependent motions ; and day
by day it is so carried on as to show connexions between
present motions arid motions long gone by, as well as mo
tions anticipated in the distant future. Besides the many
doings, related to one another, which the farmer goes
through in looking after his cattle, directing his labourers,
keeping an eye on his dairy, buying his implements, selling
his produce, &c. ; the business of getting his lease involves
numerous combined movements on which the movements
of subsequent years depend ; and in manuring his fields
with a view to larger returns, or putting down drains with
the like motive, he is performing acts which are parts of a
coherent combination relatively extensive. That the like
holds of the shopkeeper, manufacturer, banker, is manifest ;
and this increased coherence of conduct among the civilized,
will strike us even more when we remember how its parts
are often continued in a connected arrangement through
life, for the purpose of making a fortune, founding a family,
gaining a seat in parliament.

Now mark that a greater coherence among its component
motions, broadly distinguishes the conduct we call moral
from the conduct we call immoral. The application of the
word dissolute to the last, and of the word self-restrained to
the first, implies this — implies that conduct of the lower
kind, constituted of disorderly acts, has its parts relatively
loose in their relations with one another ; while conduct
of the higher kind, habitually following a fixed order, so
gains a characteristic unity and coherence. In proportion

THE PHYSICAL VIEW. 07

as the conduct is what we call moral, it exhibits compara
tively settled connexions between antecedents and conse
quents ; for the doing right implies that under given con
ditions the combined motions constituting conduct will
follow in a way that can be specified. Contrariwise, in the
conduct of one whose principles are not high, the sequences
of motions are doubtful. He may pay the money or he may
not ; he may keep his appointment or he may fail ; he may
tell the truth or he may lie. The words trustworthiness and
untrustworthiness, as used to characterize the two respec
tively, sufficiently imply that the actions of the one can be
foreknown while those of the other can not ; and this im
plies that the successive movements composing the one bear
more constant relations to one another than do those com
posing the other — are more coherent.

§ 26. Indefiniteness accompanies incoherence in conduct
that is little evolved ; and throughout the ascending stages
of evolving conduct, there is an increasingly-definite co-ordi
nation of the motions constituting it.

Such changes of form as the rudest protozoa show us, are
utterly vague— admit of no precise description ; and though

in hio-her kinds the movements of the parts are more

definable, yet the movement of the whole in respect of
direction is indeterminate : there is no adjustment of it
to this or the other point in space. In such ccelenterate
animals as polypes, we see the parts moving in ways which
lack precision ; and in one of the locomotive forms, as a
medusa, the course taken, otherwise at random, can be
described only as one which carries it towards the light,
where degrees of light and darkness are present. Among
annulose creatures the contrast between the track of a worm,
turning this way or that at hazard, and the definite course
taken by a bee in its flight from flower to flower or back
to the hive, shows us the same thing: the bee's acts in
building cells and feeding larvtu further exhibiting pre-

68 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

cision in the simultaneous movements as well as in the
successive movements. Though the motions made by a
fish in pursuing its prey have considerable definiteness,
yet they are of a simple kind, and are in this respect con
trasted with the many definite motions of body, head, and
limbs gone through by a carnivorous mammal in the course
of waylaying, running down, and seizing a herbivore ; and
further, the fish shows us none of those definitely-adjusted
sets of motions which in the mammal subserve the rearing
of young.

Much greater definiteness, if not in the combined move
ments forming single acts, still in the adjustments of many
combined acts to various purposes, characterizes human
conduct, even in its lowest stages. In making and using
weapons and in the manoeuvrings of savage warfare, numer
ous movements all precise in their adaptations to proximate
ends, are arranged for the achievement of remote ends, with a
precision not paralleled among lower creatures. The lives of
civilized men exhibit this trait far more conspicuously.
Each industrial art exemplifies the effects of movements
which are severally definite; and which are definitely ar
ranged in simultaneous and successive order. Business
transactions of every kind are characterized by exact rela
tions between the sets of motions constituting acts, and the
purposes fulfilled, in time, place, and quantity. Further,
the daily routine of each person shows us in its periods and
amounts of activity, of rest, of relaxation, a measured ar
rangement which is not shown us by the doings of the
wandering savage ; who has no fixed times for hunting,
sleeping, feeding, or any one kind of action.

Moral conduct differs from immoral conduct in the same
manner and in a like degree. The conscientious man is
exact in all his transactions. He supplies a precise weight
for a specified sum ; he gives a definite quality in ful
filment of understanding ; he pays the full amount he
bargained to do. In times as well as in quantities, his acts

THE PHYSICAL VIEW. 69

answer completely to anticipations. If lie has made a
business contract he is to the day ; if an appointment he
is to the minute. Similarly in respect to truth:
statements correspond accurately with the facts. It is thus
too in his family life. He maintains marital relations that
are definite in contrast with the relations that result from
breach of the marriage contract ; and as a father, fitting
his behaviour with care to the nature of each child and to
the occasion, he avoids the too much and the too little of
praise or blame, reward or penalty. Nor is it otLerwia
in his miscellaneous acts. To say that he deals equitably
with those he employs, whether they behave well or ill, IE
to say that he adjusts his acts to their deserts; and t(
sav that he is judicious in his charities, is to say that
he portions out his aid with discrimination instead of
distributing it indiscriminately to good and bad, as
those who have no adequate sense of their social respon
sibilities.

That progress towards rectitude of conduct is progr<
towards duly-proportioned conduct, and that duly-pro
portioned conduct is relatively definite, we may see
from another point of view. One of the traits of conduct
we call immoral, is excess; while moderation habitually
characterizes moral conduct. Now excesses imply extreme
divergences of actions from some medium, while mamtc
nance of the medium is implied by moderation ; whence it
follows that actions of the last kind can be defined more
nearly than those of the first. Clearly conduct which, being
unrestrained, runs into great and incalculable oscillations,
therein differs from restrained conduct of which, by irnph
cation, the oscillations fall within narrower limits. And
falling within narrower limits necessitates relative (
ness of movements.

§ 27 That throughout the ascending forms of life, along
with increasing heterogeneity of structure and function,

70 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

there goes increasing heterogeneity of conduct — increasing
diversity in the sets of external motions and combined
sets of such motions — needs not be shown in detail. Nor
need it be shown that becoming relatively great in the
motions constituting the conduct of the uncivilized man,
this heterogeneity has become still greater in those which
the civilized man goes through. We may pass at once to
that further degree of the like contrast which we see on
ascending from the conduct of the immoral to that of the
moral.

Instead of recognizing this contrast, most readers will be
inclined to identify a moral life with a life little varied in
its activities. But here we come upon a defect in the cur
rent conception of morality. This comparative uniformity
in the aggregate of motions, which goes along with morality
as commonly conceived, is not only not moral but is the
reverse of moral. The better a man fulfils every require
ment of life, alike as regards his own body and mind, as
regards the bodies and minds of those dependent on him,
and as regards the bodies and minds of his fellow-citizens,
the more varied do his activities become. The more fully
he does all these things, the more heterogeneous must be his
movements.

One who satisfies personal needs only, goes through,
other things equal, less multiform processes than one who
also administers to the needs of wife and children. Sup
posing there are no other differences, the addition of family
relations necessarily renders the actions of the man who
fulfils the duties of husband and parent, more heterogeneous
than those of the man who has no such duties to fulfil, or,
having them, does not fulfil them ; and to say that his ac
tions are more heterogeneous is to say that there is a greater
heterogeneity in the combined motions he goes through.
The like holds of social obligations. These, in proportion as
a citizen duly performs them, complicate his movements
considerably. If he is helpful to inferiors dependent OB

THE PHYSICAL VIEW. 71

him, if he takes a part in political agitation, if he aids in
diffusing knowledge, he, in each of these ways, adds to his
kinds of activity — makes his sets of movements more multi
form ; so different from the man who is the slave of one de
sire or group of desires.

Though it is unusual to consider as having a moral aspect,
those activities which culture involves, yet to the few who
hold that due exercise of all the higher faculties, intellectual
and [esthetic, must be included in the conception of com
plete life, here identified with the ideally moral life, it will
be manifest that a further hetereogeneity is implied by
them. For each of such activities, constituted by that play
of these faculties which is eventually added to their life-
subserving uses, adds to the multiformity of the aggregated
motions.

Briefly, then, if the conduct is the best possible on every
occasion, it follows that as the occasions are endlessly varied
the acts will be endlessly varied to suit— the heterogeneity
in the combinations of motions will be extreme.

§ 28. Evolution in conduct considered under its moral
aspect, is, like all other evolution, towards equilibrium.. J
do not mean that it is towards the equilibrium reached at
death, though this is, of course, the final state which the
evolution of the highest man has in common with all lower
evolution ; but I mean that it is towards a moving equili
brium.

We have seen that maintaining life, expressed in physical
terms, is maintaining a balanced combination of internal
actions in face of external forces tending to overthrow it ;
and we have seen that advance towards a higher life, has
been an acquirement of ability to maintain the balance for
a longer period, by the successive additions of organic appli
ances which by their actions counteract, more and more
fully, the disturbing forces. Here, then, we are led to the
conclusion that the life called moral is one in which this

72 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

maintenance of the moving equilibrium reaches complete-,.
ness, or approaches most nearly to completeness.

This truth is clearly disclosed on observing how those
physiological rhythms which vaguely show themselves
when organization begins, become more regular as well as
more various in their kinds, as organization advances.
Periodicity is but feebly marked in the actions, inner and
outer, of the rudest types. Where life is low there is
passive dependence on the accidents of the environment;
and this entails great irregularities in the vital processes.
The taking in of food by a polype is at intervals now short
now very long, as circumstances determine ; and the
utilization of it is by a slow dispersion of the absorbed
part through the tissues, aided only by the irregular move
ments of the creature's body; while such aeration as is
effected is similarly without a trace of rhythm. Much
higher up we still find very imperfect periodicities ; as in
the inferior molluscs which, though possessed of vascular
systems, have no proper circulation, but merely a slow
movement of the crude blood, now in one direction through
the vessels and then, after a pause, in the opposite direc
tion. Only with well-developed structures do there come a
rhythmical pulse and a rhythm of the respiratory actions.
And then in birds and mammals, along with great rapidity
and regularity in these essential rhythms, and along with a
consequently great vital activity and therefore great expendi
ture, comparative regularity in the rhythm of the alimentary
actions is established, as well as in the rhythm of activity
and rest ; since the rapid waste to which rapid pulsation and
respiration are instrumental, necessitates tolerably regular
supplies of nutriment, as well as recurring intervals of
sleep during which repair may overtake waste. And from
these stages the moving equilibrium characterized by such
inter-dependent rhythms, is continually made better by the
counteracting of more and more of those actions which
tend to perturb it. So it is as we ascend

THE PHYSICAL VIEW. 73

from savage to civilized and from the lowest among the
civilized to the highest. The rhythm of external actions
required to maintain the rhythm of internal actions, he-
comes at once more complicated and more complete ; making
them into a better moving equilibrium. The irregularities
which their conditions of existence entail on primitive men,
continually cause wide deviations from the mean state of
the moving equilibrium — wide oscillations ; which imply
imperfection of it for the time being, and bring about its
premature overthrow. In such civilized men as we call
ill-conducted, frequent perturbations of the moving equi
librium are caused by those excesses characterizing a career
in which the periodicities are much broken ; and a common
result is that the rhythm of the internal actions being often
deranged, the moving equilibrium, rendered by so much
imperfect, is generally shortened in duration. While one in
whom the internal rhythms are best maintained is one by
whom the external actions required to fulfil all needs and
duties, severally performed on the recurring occasions, con
duce to a moving equilibrium that is at once involved and
prolonged.

Of course the implication is that the man who thus
reaches the limit of evolution, exists in a society congruous
with his nature— is a man among men similarly constituted,
who are severally in harmony with that social environment
which they have formed. This is, indeed, the only possi
bility. For the production of the highest type of man, can go
on only jmri passu with the production of the highest type
of society. The implied conditions are those before de
scribed as accompanying the most evolved conduct— condi
tions under which each can fulfil all his needs and rear the
due number of progeny, not only without hindering others
from doing the like, but while aiding them in doing the like.
And evidently, considered under its physical aspect, the con-
duct of the individual so constituted, and associated with like
individuals, is one in which all the actions, that is the com-

74- THE DATA OF ETHICS.

bined motions of all kinds, have become such as duly to
meet every daily process, every ordinary occurrence, and
every contingency in his environment. Complete life in a
complete society is but another name for complete equi
librium between the co-ordinated activities of each social
unit and those of the aggregate of units.

§ 29. Even to readers of preceding volumes, and still
more to other readers, there will seem a strangeness, or
even an absurdity, in this presentation of moral conduct in
physical terms. It has been needful to make it however.
If that re-distribution of matter and motion constituting

evolution goes on in all aggregates, its laws must be ful
filled in the most developed being as in every other thing ;
and his actions, when decomposed into motions, must exem
plify its laws. This we find that they do. There is an entire
correspondence between moral evolution and evolution as
physically defined.

Conduct as actually known to us in perception and not
as interpreted into the accompanying feelings and ideas,
consists of combined motions. On ascending through the
various grades of animate creatures, we find these combined
motions characterized by increasing coherence, increasing
definiteness considered singly and in their co-ordinated
groups, and increasing heterogeneity ; and in advancing
from lower to higher types of man, as well as in advancing
from the less moral to the more moral type of man, these
traits of evolving conduct become more marked still.
Further, we see that the increasing coherence, definiteness,
and heterogeneity, of the combined motions, are instru
mental to the better maintenance of a moving equilibrium.
Where the evolution is small this is very imperfect and
soon cut short ; with advancing evolution, bringing greater
power and intelligence, it becomes more steady and
longer continued in face of adverse actions ; in the human
race at large it is comparatively regular and enduring ; and
its regularity and enduringness are greatest in the highest.

CHAPTER VI.

THE BIOLOGICAL VIEW.

§ 30. The truth that the ideally moral man is one in
whom the moving equilibrium is perfect, or approaches
nearest to perfection, becomes, when translated into physio
logical language, the truth that he is one in whom the
functions of all kinds are duly fulfilled. Each function has
some relation, direct or indirect, to the needs of life : the
fact of its existence as a result of evolution, being itself a
proof that it has been entailed, immediately or remotely, by
the adjustment of inner actions to outer actions. Conse
quently, non-fulfilment of it in normal proportion is non-
fulfilment of a requisite to complete life. If there is
defective discharge of the function, the organism expe
riences some detrimental result caused by the inadequacy.
If the discharge is in excess, there is entailed a reaction
upon the other functions, which in some way diminishes
their efficiencies.

It is true that during full vigour, while the momentum
of the organic actions is great, the disorder caused by
moderate excess or defect of any one function, soon dis
appears—the balance is re-established. But it is none the
less true that always some disorder results from excess
or defect, that it influences every function bodily and
mental, and that it constitutes a lowering of the life for the
time being.

Beyond the temporary falling short of complete life im-

76 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

plied by undue or inadequate discharge of a function, there
is entailed, as an ultimate result, decreased length of life.
If some function is habitually performed in excess of the
requirement, or in defect of the requirement ; and if, as a
consequence, there is an of ten -repeated perturbation of the
functions at large ; there results some chronic derangement
in the balance of the functions. Necessarily reacting on the
structures, and registering in them its accumulated effects,
this derangement works a general deterioration ; and when
the vital energies begin to decline, the moving equilibrium,
further from perfection than it would else have been, is
sooner overthrown : death is more or less premature.

Hence the moral man is one whose functions — many and
varied in their kinds as we have seen — are all discharged in
degrees duly adjusted to the conditions of existence.

§ 31. Strange as the conclusion looks, it is nevertheless a
conclusion to be here drawn, that the performance of every
function is, in a sense, a moral obligation.

It is usually thought that morality requires us only to
restrain such vital activities as, in our present state,
are often pushed to excess, or such as conflict with
average welfare, special or general ; but it also requires
us to carry on these vital activities up to their normal
limits. All the animal functions, in common with all
the higher functions, have, as thus understood, their
imperativeness. While recognizing the fact that in our
state of transition, characterized by very imperfect adap
tation of constitution to conditions, moral obligations of
supreme kinds often necessitate conduct which is physically
injurious ; we must also recognize the fact that, considered
apart from other effects, it is immoral so to treat the body
as in any way to diminish the fulness or vigour of its
vitality.

Hence results one test of actions. There may in every
case be put the questions — Does the action tend to main-

THE BIOLOGICAL VIEW.

tcnance of complete life for the time being? and does it tend
to prolongation of life to its full extent ''. To answer yes or
no to either of these questions, is implicitly to class the
action as right or wrong in respect of its immediate bearings,
whatever it may be in respect of its remote bearings.

The seeming paradoxicalness of this statement results
from the tendency, so difficult of avoidance, to judge a
conclusion which pro-supposes an ideal humanity, by its
applicability to humanity as now existing. The foregoing
conclusion refers to that highest conduct in which, as we
have seen, the evolution of conduct terminates — that con
duct in which the making of all adjustments of acts to ends
subserving complete individual life, together with all those
subserving maintenance of offspring and preparation of them
for maturity, not only consist with the making of like adjust
ments by others, but furthers it. And this conception of
conduct in its ultimate form, implies the conception of a
nature having such conduct for its spontaneous outcome—
the product of its normal activities. So understanding the
matter, it becomes manifest that under such conditions, any
falling short of function, as well as any excess of function,
implies deviation from the best conduct or from perfectly
moral conduct.

§ 32. Thus far in treating of conduct from the biological
point of view, we have considered its constituent actions
under their physiological aspects only; leaving out of
sight their psychological aspects. We have recognized the
bodily changes and" have ignored the accompanying mental
changes. And at first sight it seems needful for us here to
do this ; since taking account of states of consciousness, ap
parently implies an inclusion of the psychological view in
the biological view.

This is not so however. As we pointed out in the
Principle of Psychology (§§ 52, 53) we enter upon psy
chology proper, only when we begin to treat of mental

78 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

states and their relations, considered as referring to external
agents and their relations. While we concern ourselves ex-

clusively with modes of mind as correlatives of nervous
changes, we are treating of what was there distinguished as
aestho-physiology. We pass to psychology only when we
consider the correspondence between the connexions among
subjective states and the connexions among objective actions.
Here, then, without transgressing the limits of our immedi
ate topic, we may deal with feelings and functions in their
mutual dependencies.

We cannot omit doing this ; because the psychical changes
which accompany many of the physical changes in the
organism, are biological factors in two ways. Those feel
ings, classed as sensations, which, directly initiated in the
bodily framework, go along with certain states of the vital
organs and more conspicuously with certain states of the
external organs, now serve mainly as guides to the perform
ance of functions but partly as stimuli, and now serve
mainly as stimuli but in a smaller degree as guides. Visual
sensations which, as co-ordinated, enable us to direct our
movements, also, if vivid, raise the rate of respiration ;
while sensations of cold and heat, greatly depressing or
raising the vital actions, serve also for purposes of discrim
ination. So, too, the feelings classed as emotions, which
are not localizable in the bodily framework, act in more
general ways, alike as guides and stimuli — having influences
over the performance of functions more potent even than
have most sensations. Fear, at the same time that it urges
flight and evolves the forces spent in it, also affects the
heart and the alimentary canal ; while joy, prompting per
sistence in the actions bringing it, simultaneously exalts the
visceral processes.

Hence in treating of conduct under its biological aspect,
we are compelled to consider that inter-action of feelings and
functions, which is essential to animal life in all its more
developed forms.

THE BIOLOGICAL VIEW. 79

§ 33. In the Principles of Psychology, § 12-4, it was shown
that necessarily, throughout the animate world at large,
'• pains are the correlatives of actions injurious to the organ
ism, while pleasures are the correlatives of actions conducive
to its welfare ; " since " it is an inevitable deduction from
the hypothesis of Evolution, that races of sentient creatures
could have come into existence under no other conditions."'
The argument was as follows : —

If we substitute for the word Pleasure the equivalent phrase — a feeling
whieh we seek to bring into consciousness and retain there, and if we substitute
for the word Pain the equivalent phrase — a feeling which we seek to get out of
consciousness and to keep out ; we sec at once that, if the states of conscious
ness which a creature endeavours to maintain are the correlatives of injurious
actions, and if the states of consciousness which it endeavours to expel are the
correlatives of beneficial actions, it must quickly disappear through persistence
in the injurious and avoidance of the beneficial. In other words, those races
of beings only can have survived in which, on the average, agreeable or desired
feelings went along with activities conducive to the maintenance of life, while
disagreeable and habitually-avoided feelings went along with activities directly
or indirectly destructive of life; and there must ever have been, other things
equal, the most numerous and long-continued survivals among races in which
these adjustments of feelings to actions were the best, tending ever to bring
about perfect adjustment.

Fit connexions between acts and results must establish
themselves in living things, even before consciousness
arises ; and after the rise of consciousness these connexions
can change in no other way than to become better estab
lished. At the very outset, life is maintained by persistence
in acts which conduce to it, and dcsistance from acts which
impede it ; and whenever sentiency makes its appearance as
an accompaniment, its forms must be such that in the one
case the produced feeling is of a kind that will be sought—
pleasure, and in the other case is of a kind that will be
shunned — pain. Observe the necessity of these relations as
exhibited in the concrete.

A plant which envelops a buried bone with a plexus of
rootlets, or a potato which directs its blanched shoots to
wards a grating through which light comes into the cellar,
allows us that the changes which outer agents themselves
7

80 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

set up in its tissues are changes which aid the utilization
of these agents. If we ask what would happen if a plant's
roots grew not towards the place where there was moisture
but away from it, or if its leaves, enabled by light to
assimilate, nevertheless bent themselves toward the dark
ness ; we see that death would result in the absence of the
existing adjustments. This general relation is still better
shown in an insectivorous plant, such as the Dionwa mus-
cipula, which keeps its trap closed round animal matter
but not round other matter. Here it is manifest that the
stimulus arising from the first part of the absorbed sub
stance, itself sets up those actions by which the mass of the
substance is utilized for the plant's benefit. When

we pass from vegetal organisms to unconscious animal
organisms, we see a like connexion between proclivity and
advantage. On observing how the tentacles of a polype
attach themselves to, and begin to close round, a living
creature, or some animal substance, while they are indiffer
ent to the touch of other substance ; we are similarly shown
that diffusion of some of the nutritive juices into the ten
tacles, which is an incipient assimilation, causes the motions
effecting prehension. And it is obvious that life would
cease were these relations reversed. 'Nor is it otherwise

with this fundamental connexion between contact with food
and taking in of food, among conscious creatures, up to the
very highest. Tasting a substance implies the passage of
its molecules through the mucous membrane of the tongue
and palate ; and this absorption, when it occurs with a sub
stance serving for food, is but a commencement of the
absorption carried on throughout the alimentary canal.
Moreover, the sensation accompanying this absorption, when
it is of the kind produced by food, initiates at the place
where it is strongest, in front of the pharynx, an automatic
act of swallowing, in a manner rudely analogous to that in
which the stimulus of absorption in a polype's tentacles
initiates prehension.

THE BIOLOGICAL VIEW. 81

If from these processes and relations that imply contact
between a creature's surface and the substance it takes in,
we turn to those set up by diffused particles of the sub
stance, constituting to conscious creatures its odour, we meet
a kindred general truth. Just as, after contact, some mole
cules of a mass of food are absorbed by the part touched,
and excite the act of prehension ; so are absorbed such of its
; molecules as, spreading through the water, reach the organ
ism ; and, being absorbed by it, excite those actions by which
contact with the mass is effected. If the physical stimulation
caused by the dispersed particles is not accompanied by con
sciousness, still the motor changes set up must conduce to
survival of the organism if they are such as end in con
tact ; and there must be relative innutrition and mortality
of organisms in which the produced contractions do not
bring about this result. Xor can it be questioned that when
ever and wherever the physical stimulation has a concomitant
sentiency, this must be such as consists with, and conduces
to, movement towards the nutritive matter : it must be not a
repulsive hut an attractive sentiency. And this which holds
with the lowest consciousness, must hold throughout ; as we
see it do in all such superior creatures as are drawn to their
food by odour.

Besides those movements which cause locomotion, those
which effect seizure must no less certainly become thus
adjusted. The molecular changes caused by absorption of
nutritive matter from organic substance in contact, or
from adjacent organic substance, initiate motions which
are indefinite where the organization is low, and which
become more definite with the advance of organization.
At the outset, while the undifferentiated protoplasm is
everywhere absorbent and everywhere contractile, the
changes of form initiated by the physical stimulation of
adjacent nutritive matter are vague, and ineffectually adapted
to utilization of it ; but gradually, along with the special
ization into parts that are contractile and parts that are

82 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

absorbent, these motions become better adapted ; for neces
sarily individuals in which they are least adapted disappear
faster than those in which they are most adapted. Recog
nizing this necessity we have here especially to recognize
a further necessity. The relation between these stimula
tions and adjusted contractions must be such that increase
of the one causes increase of the other ; since the directions
of the discharges being once established, greater stimula
tion causes greater contraction, and the greater contraction
causing closer contact with the stimulating agent, causes
increase of stimulus and is thereby itself further increased.
And now we reach the corollary which more particularly
concerns us. Clearly as fast as an accompanying sentiency
arises, this cannot be one that is disagreeable, prompting
desistance, but must be one that is agreeable, prompting
persistence. The pleasurable sensation must be itself the
stimulus to the contraction by which the pleasurable sensa
tion is maintained and increased ; or must be so bound up
with the stimulus that the two increase together. And this
relation which we see is directly established in the case of
a fundamental function, must be indirectly established with
all other functions ; since non- establishment of it in any
particular case implies, in so far, unfitness to the conditions
of existence.

In two ways then, it is demonstrable that there exists a
primordial connexion between pleasure-giving acts and con
tinuance or increase of life, and, by implication, between
pain-giving acts and decrease or loss of life. On the one
hand, setting out with the lowest living things, we see that
the beneficial act and the act which there is a tendency to
perform, are originally two sides of the same ; and cannot
be disconnected without fatal results. On the other hand, if
we contemplate developed creatures as now existing, we see
that each individual and species is from day to day kept
alive by pursuit of the agreeable and avoidance of the dis
agreeable.

THE BIOLOGICAL VIEW. 83

Thus approaching the facts from a different side, analysis
brings us down to another face of that ultimate truth dis
closed by analysis in a preceding chapter. AVe found it was
no more possible to frame ethical conceptions from which
the consciousness of pleasure, of some kind, at some time, to
some being, is absent, than it is possible to frame the con
ception of an object from which the consciousness of space
is absent. And now we see that this necessity of thought
originates in the very nature of sentient existence. Sentient
existence can evolve only on condition that pleasure-giving
acts are life-sustaining acts.

§ 34. Notwithstanding explanations already made, the
naked enunciation of this as an ultimate truth, underlying
all estimations of right and wrong, will in many, if not in
most, cause astonishment. Having in view certain beneficial
results that are preceded by disagreeable states of conscious
ness, such as those commonly accompanying labour ; and
having in view the injurious results that follow the receipt
of certain gratifications, such as those which excess in drink
ing produces ; the majority tacitly or avowedly believe that
the bearing of pains is on the whole beneficial, and that the
receipt of pleasures is on the whole detrimental. The excep
tions so fill their minds as to exclude the rule.

AVhen asked, they are obliged to admit that the pains ac
companying wounds, bruises, sprains, are the concomitants
of evils, alike to the sufferer and to those around him ; and
that the anticipations of such pains serve as deterrents from
careless or dangerous acts. They cannot deny that the
tortures of burning or scalding, and the miseries which in
tense cold, starvation, and thirst produce, are indissolnbly
connected with permanent or temporary mischiefs, tending
to incapacitate one who bears them for doing things that
should be done, either for his own welfare or the welfare of
others. The agony of incipient suffocation they are com
pelled to recognize as a safeguard to life, and must allow

84 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

that avoidance of it is conducive to all that life can bring
or achieve. Nor will they refu?e to own that one who is
chained in a cold, damp, dungeon, in darkness and silence,
is injured in health and efficiency ; alike by the positive
pains thus inflicted on him and by the accompanying nega
tive pains due to absence of light, of freedom, of com
panionship. Conversely, they do not doubt that
notwithstanding occasional excesses the pleasure which ac
companies the taking of food, goes along with physical
benefit ; and that the benefit is the greater the keener the
satisfaction of appetite. They have no choice but to ac
knowledge that the instincts and sentiments which so over-

poweringly prompt marriage, and those which find their
gratification in the fostering of offspring, work out an
immense surplus of benefit after deducting all evils. Nor
dare they question that the pleasure taken in accumulating
property, leaves a large balance of advantage, private and
public, after making all drawbacks. Yet many and con
spicuous as are the cases in which pleasures and pains,
sensational and emotional, serve as incentives to proper acts
and deterrents from improper acts, these pass unnoticed ;
and notice is taken only of those cases in which men are
directly or indirectly misled by them. The well-working in
essential matters is ignored ; and the ill-working in unessen
tial matters is alone recognized.

Is it replied that the more intense pains and pleasures,
which have immediate reference to bodily needs, guide us
rightly ; while the weaker pains and pleasures, not immediate
ly connected with the maintenance of life, guide us wrongly \
Then the implication is that the system of guidance by pleas
ures and pains, which has answered with all types of crea
tures below the human, fails with the human. Or rather, the
admission being that with mankind it succeeds in so far as
fulfilment of certain imperative wants goes, it fails in respect
of wants that are not imperative. Those who think this
are required, in the first place, to show us how the line is

THE BIOLOGICAL VIEW. 85

to bo drawn between the two ; and then to show us why
the system which succeeds in the lower will not succeed in
the higher.

§ 35. Doubtless, however, after all that has been said,
there will be raised afresh the same difficulty — there will be
instanced the mischievous pleasures and the beneficent pains.
The drunkard, the gambler, the thief, who severally pursue
gratifications, will be named in proof that the pursuit of
gratifications misleads ; while the self-sacrificing relative, the
worker who perseveres through weariness, the honest man
who stints himself to pay his way, will be named in proof
that disagreeable modes of consciousness accompany acts
that are really beneficial. But after recalling the fact
pointed out in g 20, that this objection does not tell against
guidance by pleasures and pains at large, since it merely
implies that special and proximate pleasures and pains must
be disregarded out of consideration for remote and diffused
pleasures and pains ; and after admitting that in mankind as
at present constituted, guidance by proximate pleasures and
pains fails throughout a wide range of cases ; I go on to
set forth the interpretation Biology gives of these anomalies,
as being not necessary and permanent but incidental and
temporary.

Already while showing that among inferior creatures,
pleasures and pains have all along guided the conduct by
which life has been evolved and maintained, I have pointed
out that since the conditions of existence for each species
have been occasionally changing, there have been occasion
ally arising partial mis-adjustments of the feelings to the
requirements, necessitating re-adjustments. This general
cause of derangement operating on all sentient beings, has
been operating on human beings in a manner unusually
decided, persistent, and involved. It needs but to contrast
the mode of life followed by primitive men, wandering in
the forests and living on wild food, with the mode of life

86 THr: DATA OF ETHICS.

followed by rustics, artisans, traders, and professional men
in a civilized community ; to see that the constitution,
bodily and mental, well-adjusted to the one is ill-adjusted
to the other. It needs but to observe the emotions kept
awake in each savage tribe, chronically hostile to neighbour
ing tribes, and then to observe the emotions which peaceful
production and exchange bring into play, to see that the
two are not only unlike but opposed. And it needs but
to note how, during social evolution, the ideas and senti
ments appropriate to the militant activities carried on by
coercive co-operation, have been at variance with the ideas
and sentiments appropriate to the industrial activities,
carried on by voluntary co-operation ; to see that there
has ever been within each society, and still continues, a
conflict between the two moral natures adjusted to these
two unlike modes of life. Manifestly, then, this re-adjust
ment of constitution to conditions, involving re-adjustment
of pleasures and pains for guidance, which all creatures
from time to time undergo, has been in the human race
during civilization, especially difficult ; not only because
of the greatness of the change from small nomadic groups
to vast settled societies, and from predatory habits to peace
ful habits ; but also because the old life of enmity between
societies has been maintained along with the new life of
amity within each society. While there co-exist two ways
of life so radically opposed as the militant and the indus
trial, human nature cannot become properly adapted to
either.

That hence results such failure of guidance by pleasures
and pains as is daily exhibited, we discover on observing
in what parts of conduct the failure is most conspicuous.
As above shown, the pleasurable and painful sensations are
fairly well adjusted to the peremptory physical require
ments : the benefits of conforming to the sensations which
prompt us in respect of nutrition, respiration, maintenance
of temperature, &c., immensely exceed the incidental evils ;

THE BIOLOGICAL VIEW. 87

and such mis-adjustments as occur may ho ascribed to the
change from the out-door life of the primitive man to the
iu-door life which the civilized man is often compelled to
lead. It is the emotional pleasures and pains which are in
so considerable a degree out of adjustment to the needs of life
as carried on in society ; and it is of these that the re-adjust
ment is made, in the way above shown, so tardy because so
difficult.

From the biological point of view then, we see that the
connexions between pleasure and beneficial action and be
tween pain and detrimental action, which arose when sen
tient existence began, and have continued among animate
creatures up to man, are generally displayed in him also
throughout the lower and more completely -organized part of
his nature ; and must be more and more fully displayed
throughout the higher part of his nature, as fast as his
adaptation to the conditions of social life increases.

§ 3G. Biology has a further judgment to pass on the rela
tions of pleasures and pains to welfare. Beyond the con
nexions between acts beneficial to the organism and the
pleasures accompanying performance of them, and between
acts detrimental to the organism and the pains causing
desistance from them, there are connexions between pleasure
in general and physiological exaltation, and between pain in
general and physiological depression. Every pleasure in
creases vitality ; every pain decreases vitality. Every pleas
ure raises the tide of life ; every pain lowers the tide of life.
Let us consider, first, the pains.

By the general mischiefs that result from submission to
pains, I do not mean those arising from the diffused effects
of local organic lesions, such as follow an aneurism caused
by intense effort spite of protesting sensations, or such as
follow the varicose veins brought on by continued disregard
of fatigue in the legs, or such as follow the atrophy set up
in muscles that are persistently exerted when extremely

88 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

weary ; but I mean the general mischiefs caused by that
constitutional disturbance which pain forthwith sets up.
These are conspicuous when the pains are acute, whether
they be sensational or emotional. Bodily agony

long borne, produces death by exhaustion. More fre
quently, arresting the action of the heart for a time, it
causes that temporary death we call fainting. On other
occasions vomiting is a consequence. And where such
manifest derangements do not result, we still, in the pallor
and trembling, trace the general prostration. Beyond the
actual loss of life caused by subjection to intense cold, there
are depressions of vitality less marked caused by cold less
extreme — temporary enfeeblement following too long an
immersion in icy water ; enervation and pining away con
sequent on inadequate clothing. Similarly is it with submis
sion to great heat : we have lassitude reaching occasionally
to exhaustion ; we have, in weak persons, fainting, suc
ceeded by temporary debilitation ; and in steaming tropical
jungles, Europeans contract fevers which when not fatal
often entail life-long incapacities. Consider, again, the
evils that follow violent exertion continued in spite of
painful feelings — now a fatigue which destroys appetite or
arrests digestion if food is taken, implying failure of the
reparative processes when they are most needed ; and now
a prostration of the heart, here lasting for a time and there,
where the transgression has been repeated day after day,
made permanent : reducing the rest of life to a lower
level. Xo less conspicuous are the depressing effects

of emotional pains. There are occasional cases of death
from grief ; and in other cases the mental suffering which a
calamity causes, like bodily suffering, shows its effects by
syncope. Often a piece of bad news is succeeded by sick
ness ; and continued anxiety will produce loss of appetite,
perpetual indigestion, and diminished strength. Excessive
fear, whether aroused by physical or moral danger, will, in
like manner, arrest for a time the processes of nutrition ;

THE BIOLOGICAL VIEW. 80

and, not unfrequently, in pregnant women brings on mis
carriage ; while, in less extreme cases, the cold perspiration
and unsteady hands indicate a general lowering of the vital
activities, entailing partial incapacity of body or mind or
both. How greatly emotional pain deranges the visceral
actions is shown us by the fact that incessant worry is not
unfrequently followed by jaundice. And here, indeed, the
relation between cause and effect happens to have been
proved by direct experiment. Making such arrangements
that the bile-duct of a dog delivered its product outside the
body, Claude Bernard observed that so long as he petted the
dog and kept him in good spirits, secretion went on at its
normal rate ; but on speaking angrily, and for a time so
treating him as to produce depression, the flow of bile
was arrested. Should it be said that evil results of

such kinds are proved to occur only when the pains, bodily
or mental, are great ; the reply is that in healthy persons
the injurious perturbations caused by small pains, though
not easily traced, are still produced ; and that in those
whose vital powers are much reduced by illness, slight
physical irritations and trifling moral annoyances, often
cause relapses.

Quite opposite are the constitutional effects of pleasure.
It sometimes, though rarely, happens that in feeble persons
intense pleasure — pleasure that is almost pain — gives a
nervous shock that is mischievous ; but it does not do
this in those who arc undebilitated by voluntary or enforced
submission to actions injurious to the organism. In the
normal order, pleasures, great and small, are stimulants to
the processes by which life is maintained. Among

the sensations may be instanced those produced by bright
light. Sunshine is enlivening in comparison with gloom
— even a gleam excites a wave of pleasure ; and experiments
have shown that sunshine raises the rate of respiration:
raised respiration being an index of raised vital activities in
general. A warmth that is agreeable in degree favours the

90 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

heart's action, and furthers the various functions to which
this is instrumental. Though those who are in full vigour
and fitly clothed, can maintain their temperature in winter,
and can digest additional food to make up for the loss of
heat, it is otherwise with the feeble ; and, as vigour declines,
the beneficence of warmth becomes conspicuous. That
benefits accompany the agreeable sensations produced by
fresh air, and the agreeable sensations that accompany
muscular action after due rest, and the agreeable sensations
caused by rest after exertion, cannot be questioned. Receipt
of these pleasures conduces to the maintenance of the body
in fit condition for all the purposes of life. More

manifest still are the physiological benefits of emotional
pleasures. Every power, bodily and mental, is increased
by " good spirits ; " which is our name for a general
emotional satisfaction. The truth that the fundamental
vital actions — those of nutrition — are furthered by laughter-
moving conversation, or rather by the pleasurable feeling
causing laughter, is one of old standing ; and every dys
peptic knows that in exhilarating company, a large and
varied dinner including not very digestible things, may be
eaten with impunity, and indeed with benefit, while a small,
carefully-chosen dinner of simple things, eaten in solitude,
will be followed by indigestion. This striking effect on the
ajinientary system is accompanied by effects, equally certain
though less manifest, on the circulation and the respiration.
Again, one who, released from daily labours and anxieties,
receives delights from fine scenery or is enlivened by the
novelties he sees abroad, comes back showing by toned-up
face and vivacious manner, the greater energy with which
he is prepared to pursue his avocation. Invalids especially,
on wrhose narrowed margin of vitality the influence of con
ditions is most visible, habitually show the benefits derived
from agreeable states of feeling. A lively social circle,
the call of an old friend, or even removal to a brighter
room, will, by the induced cheerfulness, much improve the

THE BIOLOGICAL VIEW. 91

physical state. In brief, as every medical man knows, there
is no such tonic as happiness.

These dill' used physiological effects of pleasures and pains,
which are joined with the local or special physiological
effects, are, indeed, obviously inevitable. We have seen
(Principles of Psychology, §§ 1'23-125) that while craving,
or negative pain, accompanies the under -activity of an
organ, and while positive pain accompanies its over-activity,
pleasure accompanies its normal activity. We have seen
that by evolution no other relations could be established ;
since, through all inferior types of creatures, if defect or
excess of function produced no disagreeable sentiency, and
medium function no agreeable sentiency, there would be
nothing to ensure a proportioned performance of function.
And as it is one of the laws of nervous action that each
stimulus, beyond a direct discharge to the particular organ
acted on, indirectly causes a general discharge throughout
the nervous system (Prin. of Psy. §§ 21, 39), it results that
the rest of the organs, all influenced as they are by the
nervous system, participate in the stimulation. So that
beyond the aid, more slowly shown, which the organs yield
to one another through the physiological division of labour,
there is the aid, more quickly shown, which mutual excita
tion gives. While there is a benefit to be presently
felt by the whole organism from the due performance of
each function, there is an immediate benefit from the ex
altation of its functions at large caused by the accom
panying pleasure ; and from pains, whether of excess or
defect, there also come these double effects, immediate and
remote.

§ 37. Non-recognition of these general truths vitiates
moral speculation at large. From the estimate of right
and wrong habitually framed, these physiological effects
wrought on the actor by his feelings are entirely omitted.
It is tacitly assumed that pleasures and pains have no

92 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

reactions on the body of the recipient, affecting his fitness
for the duties of life. The only reactions recognized are
those on character ; respecting which the current supposi
tion is, that acceptance of pleasures is detrimental and
submission to pains beneficial. The notion, remotely de
scended from the ghost-theory of the savage, that mind and
body are independent, has, among its various implications,
this belief that states of consciousness are in no wise re
lated to bodily states. " You have had your gratification
— it is past ; and you are as you were before," says the
moralist to one. And to another he says, " You have
borne the suffering — it is over ; and there the matter ends."
Both statements are false. Leaving out of view indirect
results, the direct results are that the one has moved a step
away from death and the other has moved a step towards
death.

Leaving out of view, I say, the indirect results. It is
these indirect results, here for the moment left out of view,
which the moralist has conclusively in view : being so
occupied by them that he ignores the direct results. The
gratification, perhaps purchased at undue cost, perhaps en
joyed when work should have been done, perhaps snatched
from the rightful claimant, is -considered only in relation to
remote injurious effects, and no set-off is made for imme
diate beneficial effects. Conversely, from positive and nega
tive pains, borne now in the pursuit of some future advan
tage, now in discharge of responsibilities, now in performing
a generous act, the distant good is alone dwelt on and the
proximate evil ignored. Consequences, pleasurable and
painful, experienced by the actor forthwith, are of no im
portance ; and they become of importance only when antici
pated as occurring hereafter to the actor or to other persons.
And further, future evils borne by the actor are considered
of no account if they result from self-denial, and are em
phasized only when they result from self-gratification. Ob
viously, estimates so framed are erroneous ; and obviously,

THE BIOLOGICAL VIEW. 93

the pervading judgments of conduct based on such esti
mates must be distorted. Mark the anomalies of opinion
produced.

If, as the sequence of a malady contracted in pursuit of
illegitimate gratification, an attack of iritis injures vision,
the mischief is to be counted among those entailed by im
moral conduct ; but if, regardless of protesting sensations,
the eyes are used in study too soon after ophthalmia, and
there follows blindness for years or for life, entailing not
only personal unhappiness but a burden on others, moralists
arc silent. The broken leg which a drunkard's accident
causes, counts among those miseries brought on self and
family by intemperance, which form the ground for repro
bating it ; but if anxiety to fulfil duties prompts the
continued use of a sprained knee spite of the pain, and
brings on a chronic lameness involving lack of exercise,
consequent ill-health, inefficiency, anxiety, and unhappiness,
it is supposed that ethics has no verdict to give in the
matter. A student who is plucked because he has spent
in amusement the time and money that should have
gone in study, is blamed for thus making parents un
happy and preparing for himself a miserable future ;
but another who, thinking exclusively of claims on him,
reads night after night with hot or aching head, and,
breaking down, cannot take his degree, but returns home
shattered in health and unable to support himself, is
named with pity only, as not subject to any moral judg
ment ; or rather, the moral judgment passed is wholly
favourable.

Thus recognizing the evils caused by some kinds of con
duct only, men at large, and moralists as exponents of
their beliefs, ignore the suffering and death daily caused
around them by disregard of that guidance which has
established itself in the course of evolution. Led by the
tacit assumption, common to Pagan stoics and Christian
ascetics, that we are so diabolically organized that pleasures

94: THE DATA OF ETHICS.

are injurious and pains beneficial, people on all sides yield
examples of lives blasted by persisting in actions against
which their sensations rebel. Here is one who, drenched
to the skin and sitting in a cold wind, pooh-poohs his shiv-
erings and gets rheumatic fever with subsequent heart-
disease, which makes worthless the short life remaining
to him. Here is another who, disregarding painful feel
ings, works too soon after a debilitating illness, and estab
lishes disordered health that lasts for the rest of his days,
and makes him useless to himself and others. Now the
account is of a youth who, persisting in gymnastic feats
spite of scarcely bearable straining, bursts a blood vessel,
and, long laid on the shelf, is permanently damaged ; while
now it is of a man in middle life who, pushing muscular
effort to painful excess, suddenly brings on hernia. In this
family is a case of aphasia, spreading paralysis, and death,
caused by eating too little and doing too much ; in that,
softening of the brain has been brought on by ceaseless
mental efforts against which the feelings hourly protested ;
and in others, less serious brain-affections have been con
tracted by over-study continued regardless of discomfort
and the cravings for fresh air and exercise.* Even without
accumulating special examples, the truth is forced on us by
the visible traits of classes. The careworn man of business
too long at his office, the cadaverous barrister poring half
the night over his briefs, the feeble factory hands and
unhealthy seamstresses passing long hours in bad air, the
anaemic, flat-chested school girls, bending over many lessons
and forbidden boisterous play, no less than Sheffield grinders
who die of suffocating dust, and peasants crippled with
rheumatism due to exposure, show us the wide-spread
miseries caused by persevering in actions repugnant to the
sensations and neglecting actions which the sensations
prompt. Nay the evidence is still more extensive and

* I can count up more than a dozen such cases among those personally well
known to me.

THE BIOLOGICAL VIEW. 95

conspicuous. What are the puny malformed children,
seen in poverty-stricken districts, but children whose ap
petites for food and desires for warmth have not been
adequately satisfied ? What are populations stinted in
growth and prematurely aged, such as parts of France
show us, but populations injured by work in excess and
food in defect : the one implying positive pain, the other
negative pain ? What is the implication of that greater
mortality which occurs among people who are weakened by
privations, unless it is that bodily miseries conduce to fatal
illnesses 2 Or once more, what must we infer from the
frightful amount of disease and death suffered by armies in
the field, fed on scanty and bad provisions, lying on damp
ground, exposed to extremes of heat and cold, inadequately
sheltered from rain, and subject to exhausting efforts ;
unless it be the terrible mischiefs caused by continuously
subjecting the body to treatment which the feelings protest
against ?

It matters not to the argument whether the actions entail
ing such effects are voluntary or involuntary. It matters
not from the biological point of view, whether the motives
prompting them are high or low. The vital functions accept
no apologies on the ground that neglect of them was un
avoidable, or that the reason for neglect was noble. The
direct and indirect sufferings caused by nonconformity to
the laws of life, are the same whatever induces the non
conformity ; and cannot be omitted in any rational estimate
of conduct. If the purpose of ethical inquiry is to establish
rules of right living; and if the rules of right living are
those of which the total results, individual and general,
direct and indirect, are most conducive to human happiness ;
then it is absurd to ignore the immediate results and recog
nize only the remote results.

§ 38. Here might be urged the necessity for preluding
the study of moral science, by the study of biological

96 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

science. Here might be dwelt on the error men make in
thinking they can understand those special phenomena of
human life with which Ethics deals, while paying little or
no attention to the general phenomena of human life, and
while utterly ignoring the phenomena of life at large. And
doubtless there would be truth in the inference that such
acquaintance with the world of living things as discloses the
part which pleasures and pains have played in organic
evolution, would help to rectify these one-sided conceptions
of moralists. It cannot be held, however, that lack of this
knowledge is the sole cause, or the main cause, of their
one-sidedness. For facts of the kind above instanced,
which, duly attended to, wrould prevent such distortions of
moral theory, are facts which it needs no biological inquiries
to learn, but which are daily thrust before the eyes of all.
The truth is, rather, that the general consciousness is so
possessed by sentiments and ideas at variance with the con
clusions necessitated by familiar evidence, that the evidence
gets no attention. These adverse sentiments and ideas have
several roots.

There is the theological root. As before shown, from the
worship of cannibal ancestors who delighted in witnessing
tortures, there resulted the primitive conception of deities
who were propitiated by the bearing of pains, and, conse
quently, angered by the receipt of pleasures. Through the
religions of the semi-civilized, in which this conception of
the divine nature remains conspicuous, it has persisted,
in progressively modified forms, down to our own times ;
and still colours the beliefs, both of those who adhere
to the current creed and of those who nominally reject
it. There is another root in the primitive and still-

surviving militancy. While social antagonisms continue to
generate war, which consists in endeavours to inflict pain
and death while submitting to the risks of pain and death,
and which necessarily involves great privations ; it is need
ful that physical suffering, whether considered in itself or in

THE BIOLOGICAL VIEW. 97

the evils it bequeaths, should be thought little of, and that
among pleasures recognized as most worthy should be those
which victory brings. Xor does partially-developed

industrialism fail to furnish a root. AVith social evolution,
which implies transition from the life of wandering hunters
to the life of settled peoples engaged in labour, and which
therefore entails activities widely unlike those to which the
aboriginal constitution is adapted, there comes an nnder-
exercise of faculties for which the social state affords no
scope, and an over-taxing of faculties required for the social
state: the one implying denial of certain pleasures, and the
other submission to certain pains. Hence, along with that
growth of population which makes the struggle for existence
intense, bearing of pains and sacrifice of pleasures is daily
necessitated.

Now always and everywhere, there arises among1 men a

>j \j ^>

theory conforming to their practice. The savage nature,
originating the conception of a savage deity, evolves a theory
of supernatural control sufficiently stringent and cruel to

*/ O

influence his conduct. With submission to despotic gov
ernment severe enough in its restraints to keep in order
barbarous natures, there grows up a theory of divine right
to rule, and the duty of absolute submission. "Where war
is made the business of life by the existence of warlike
neighbours, virtues which are required for war come to be
regarded as supreme virtues ; while, contrariwise, when in
dustrialism has grown predominant, the violence and the
deception which warriors glory in come to be held criminal.
In like manner, then, there arises a tolerable adjustment of
the actually-accepted (not the nominally-accepted) theory of
right living, to living as it is daily carried on. If the life is
one that necessitates habitual denial of pleasures and bearing
of pains, there grows up an answering ethical system under
which the receipt of pleasures is tacitly disapproved and the
bearing of pains avowedly approved. The mischiefs entailed
by pleasures in excess are dwelt on, while the benefits which

98 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

normal pleasures bring are ignored ; and the good results
achieved by submission to pains are fully set forth while the
evils are overlooked.

But while recognizing the desirableness of, and indeed the
necessity for, systems of ethics adapted, like religious sys
tems and political systems, to their respective times and
places ; we have here to regard the first as, like the others,
transitional. We must infer that like a purer creed and a
better government, a truer ethics belong to a more advanced
social state. Led, d priori, to conclude that distortions must
exist, we are enabled to recognize as such, the distortions we
find : answering in nature, as these do, to expectation. And
there is forced on us the truth that a scientific morality
arises only as fast as the one-sided conceptions adapted to
transitory conditions, are developed into both-sided concep
tions. The science of right living has to take account of
all consequences in so far as they affect happiness, person
ally or socially, directly or indirectly ; and by as much as it
ignores any class of consequences, by so much does it fail to
be science.

§ 30. Like the physical vicwT, then, the biological view
corresponds with the view gained by looking at conduct in
general from the stand-point of Evolution.

That which was physically defined as a moving equili
brium, we define biologically as a balance of functions. The
implication of such a balance is that the several functions in
their kinds, amounts, and combinations, are adjusted to the
several activities which maintain and constitute complete life ;
and to be so adjusted is to have reached the goal towards
which the evolution of conduct continually tends.

Passing to the feelings which accompany the performance
of functions, we see that of necessity during the evolution of
organic life, pleasures have become the concomitants of nor
mal. amounts of functions, while pains, positive and negative,
have become the concomitants of excesses and defects of

THE UIOLOGIOAL VIEW. 90

functions. And though in every species derangements of
these relations are often caused by changes of conditions,
they ever re-establish themselves : disappearance of the spe
cies being the alternative.

Mankind, inheriting from creatures of lower kinds, such
adjustments between feelings and functions as concern fun
damental bodily requirements ; and daily forced by peremp
tory feelings to do the things which maintain life and avoid
those which bring immediate death ; has been subject to a
change of conditions unusually great and involved. This
has considerably deranged the guidance by sensations, and
has deranged in a much greater degree the guidance by emo
tions. The result is that in many cases pleasures are not
connected with actions which must be performed, nor pains
with actions which must be avoided, but contrariwise.

Several influences have conspired to make men ignore the
well-working of these relations between feelings and func
tions, and to observe whatever of ill-working is seen in them.
Hence, while the evils which some pleasures entail are dilated
upon, the benefits habitually accompanying receipt of pleas
ures are unnoticed ; at the same time that the benefits
achieved through certain pains are magnified while the im
mense mischiefs which pains bring are made little of.

The ethical theories characterized by these perversions,
are products of, and are appropriate to, the forms of
social life which the imperfectly-adapted constitutions of
men produce. But with the progress of adaptation, bring
ing faculties and requirements into harmony, such incon
gruities of experience, and consequent distortions of theory,
must diminish ; until, along with complete adjustment of
humanity to the social state, will go recognition of the truths
that actions are completely right only when, besides being
conducive to future happiness, special and general, they are
immediately pleasurable, and that painfulness, not only ulti
mate but proximate, is the concomitant of actions which
are wrono:.

100 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

So that from the biological point of view, ethical science
becomes a specification of the conduct of associated men who
are severally so constituted that the various self-preserving
activities, the activities required for rearing offspring, and
those which social welfare demands, are fulfilled in the
spontaneous exercise of duly proportioned faculties, each
yielding when in action its quantum of pleasure ; and who
are, by consequence, so constituted that excess or defect in
any one of these actions brings its quantum of pain, imme
diate and remote.

NOTE TO § 33. In his Physical Ethics, Mr. Alfred Barratt has expressed a
yiew which here calls for notice. Postulating Evolution and its general laws,
he refers to certain passages in the Principles of Psychology (1st Ed. Pt. III.
ch. viii. pp. 395, sqq. cf. Pt. IV. ch. iv.) in which I have treated of the relation
between irritation and contraction which " marks the dawn of sensitive life ; "
have pointed out that " the primordial tissue must be differently affected by
contact with nutritive and with innutritive matters " — the two being for aquatic
creatures respectively the soluble and the insoluble ; and have argued that
the contraction by which a protruded part of a rhizopod draws in a fragment
of assimilable matter " is caused by a commencing absorption of the assimilable
matter." Mr. Barratt, holding that consciousness " must be considered as
an invariable property of animal life, and ultimately, in its elements, of
the material universe " (p. 43), regards these responses of animal tissue
to stimuli, as implying feeling of one or other kind. " Some kinds of
impressed force," he says, " are followed by movements of retraction and
withdrawal, others by such as secure a continuance of the impression. These
two kinds of contraction are the phenomena and external marks of pain
and pleasure respectively. Hence the tissue acts so as to secure pleasure
and avoid pain by a law as truly physical and natural as that whereby a
needle turns to the pole, or a tree to the light " (p. 52). Now without
questioning that the raw material of consciousness is present even in undiffer-
entiated protoplasm, and everywhere exists potentially in that Unknowable
Power which, otherwise conditioned, is manifested in physical action (Prin. of
P,ty. § 272-3), I demur to the conclusion that it at first exists under the forms
of pleasure and pain. These, I conceive, arise, as the more special feelings do,
by a compounding of the ultimate elements of consciousness (Prin. of Pay.
§§ 60, 61) : being, indeed, general aspects of these more special feelings when
they reach certain intensities. Considering that even in creatures which have
developed nervous systems, a great part of the vital processes are carried on by
unconscious reflex actions, I see no propriety in assuming the existence of what
we understand by consciousness in creatures not only devoid of nervous sys
tems but devoid of structures in general.

THE BIOLOGICAL VIEW. 101

NOTE TO i| 3(1. More than once in the Emotions and the Will, Dr. Bain
insists on the connexion between pleasure and exaltation of vitality, and the
connexion between pain and depression of vitality. As above shown, I concur
in the view taken by him ; which is, indeed, put beyond dispute by general ex
perience as well as by the more special experience of medical men.

When, however, from the invigorating and relaxing effects of pleasure and
pain respectively, Dr. Bain derives the original tendencies to persist in acts
which give pleasure and to desist from those which give pain, I find myself
unable to go with him. He says — " We suppose movements spontaneously
begun, and accidentally causing pleasure ; we then assume that with the
pleasure there will be an increase of vital energy, in which increase the
fortunate movements will share, and thereby increase the pleasure. Or, on the
other hand, we suppose the spontaneous movements to give pain, and assume
that, with the pain, there will be a decrease of energy, extending to the move
ments that cause the evil, and thereby providing a remedy" (3rd Ed. p. 315).
This interpretation, implying that " the fortunate movements " merely share in
the effects of augmented vital energy caused by the pleasure, does not seem to
me congruous with observation. The truth appears rather to be that though
there is a concomitant general increase of muscular tone, the muscles specially
excited are those which, by their increased contraction, conduce to increased
pleasure. Conversely, the implication that desistancc from spontaneous move
ments which cause pain, is due to a general muscular relaxation shared in by
the muscles causing these particular movements, seems to me at variance with
the fact that the retraction commonly takes the form not of a passive lapse but
of an active withdrawal. Further, it may be remarked that depressing as pain
eventually is to the system at large, we cannot say that it at once depresses the
muscular energies. Xot simply, as Dr. Bain admits, does an acute smart produce
spasmodic movements, but pains of all kinds, both sensational and emotional
stimulate the muscles (Essays, 1st series, p, 3(50, 1, or 2nd ed. Vol, I. p. 211, 12).
Pain however (and also pleasure when very intense) simultaneously has an inhibi
tory effect on all the reflex actions ; and as the vital functions in general are car
ried on by reflex actions, this inhibition, increasing with the intensity of the pain,
proportionately depresses the vital functions. Arrest of the heart's action and
fainting is an extreme result of this inhibition ; and the viscera at large feel its
effects in degrees proportioned to the degrees of pain. Pain, therefore, while
directly causing a discharge of muscular energy as pleasure does, eventually
lowers muscular power by lowering those vital processes on which the supply of
energy depends. Hence we cannot, I think, ascribe the prompt desistance from
muscular movements causing pain, to decrease in the flow of energy ; for this
decrease is felt only after an interval. Conversely, we cannot ascribe the per
sistence in a muscular act which yields pleasure to the resulting exaltation of
energy ; but must, as indicated in § 33, ascribe it to the establishment of lines
of discharge between the place of pleasurable stimulation and those contractile
structures which maintain and increase the act causing the stimulation — con
nexions allied with the reflex, into which they pass by insensible gradations.

CHAPTER VII.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW.

§ 40. The last chapter, in so far as it dealt with feelings
in their relation to conduct, recognized only their physio
logical aspects : their psychological aspects were passed over.
In this chapter, conversely, we are not concerned with the
constitutional connexions between feelings, as incentives or
deterrents, and physical benefits to be gained or mischiefs
to be avoided ; nor with the reactive effects of feelings on
the state of the organism, as fitting or unfitting it for future
action. Here we have to consider represented pleasures
and pains, sensational and emotional, as constituting deliber
ate motives — as forming factors in the conscious adjustments
of acts to ends.

§ 41. The rudimentary psychical act, not yet differentiated
from a physical act, implies an excitation and a motion. In
a creature of low type the touch of food excites prehension.
In a somewhat higher creature the odour from nutritive
matter sets up motion of the body towards the matter.
And where rudimentary vision exists, sudden obscuration of
light, implying the passage of something large, causes con
vulsive muscular movements which mostly carry the body
away from the source of danger. In each of these cases we
may distinguish four factors. There is (a), that property of
the external object which primarily affects the organism—

102

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW. 103

the taste, smell, or capacity ; and, connected with such
property, there is in the external object that character (£»),
which renders seizure of it, or escape from it, beneficial.
Within the organism there is (c), the impression or sensa
tion which the property («), produces, serving as stimulus ;
and there is, connected with it, the motor change (</), by
which seizure or escape is effected. Now Psychology

is chiefly concerned with the connexion between the relation
a I, and the relation c d, under all those forms which they
assume in the course of evolution. Each of the factors, and
each of the relations, grows more involved as organization
advances. Instead of being single the identifying attribute
a, often becomes, in the environment of a superior ani
mal, a cluster of attributes; such as the size, form, colours,
motions, displayed by a distant creature that is dangerous.
The factor Z», with which this combination of attri
butes is associated, becomes the congeries of characters,
powers, habits, which constitute it an enemy. Of the
subjective factors, c becomes a complicated set of visual
sensations co-ordinated with one another and with the ideas'
and feelings established by experience of such enemies,
and constituting the motive to escape ; while d becomes the
intricate, and often prolonged, series of runs, leaps, doubles,
dives, &c., made in eluding the enemy. In

human life we find the same four outer and inner
factors still more multiform and entangled in their
compositions and connexions. The entire assemblage of
physical attributes a, presented by an estate that is ad
vertized for sale, passes enumeration ; and the assemblage
of various utilities, 5, going along with these attributes,
is also beyond brief specification. The perceptions and
ideas, likes and dislikes, c, set up by the aspect of
the estate, and which, compounded and re-compounded,
eventually form the motive for buying it, make a whole too
large and complex for description ; and the transactions,
legal, pecuniary, and other, gone through in making the

104 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

purchase and taking possession, are scarcely less numerous
and elaborate. Nor must we overlook the fact

that as evolution progresses, not only do the factors increase
in complexity but also the relations among them. Origi
nally, a is directly and simply connected with J, while c is
directly and simply connected with d. But eventually, the
connexions between a and 5, and between c and d, become
very indirect and involved. On the one hand, as the first
illustration shows us, sapidity and nutritiveness are closely
bound together ; as are also the stimulation caused by the
one and the contraction wThich utilizes the other. But, as
we see in the last illustration, the connexion between the
visible traits of an estate and those characters which con
stitute its value, is at once remote and complicated ; while
the transition from the purchaser's highly-composite motive
to the numerous actions of sensory and motor organs,
severally intricate, which effect the purchase, is though an
entangled plexus of thoughts and feelings constituting his
decision.

After this explanation will be apprehended a truth other
wise set forth in the Principles of Psychology. Mind con
sists of feelings and the relations among feelings. By com
position of the relations, and ideas of relations, intelligence
arises. By composition of the feelings, and ideas of feelings,
emotion arises. And, other things equal, the evolution of
either is great in proportion as the composition is great.
One of the necessary implications is that cognition becomes
higher in proportion as it is remoter from reflex action ;
while emotion becomes higher in proportion as it is remoter
from sensation.

And now of the various corollaries from this broad view
of psychological evolution, let us observe those which con
cern the motives and actions that are classed as moral and
immoral.

§ 42. The mental process by which, in any case, the

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW. 105

adjustment of acts to ends is effected, and which, under
its higher forms, becomes the subject-matter of ethical
judgments, is, as above implied, divisible into the rise of a
feeling or feelings constituting the motive, and the thought
or thoughts through which the motive is shaped and finally
issues in action. The first of these elements, originally an
excitement, becomes a simple sensation ; then a compound
sensation ; then a cluster of partially presentative and
partially representative sensations, forming an incipient
emotion ; then a cluster of exclusively ideal or representa
tive sensations, forming an emotion proper ; then a cluster
of such clusters, forming a compound emotion ; and even
tually becomes a still more involved emotion composed of
the ideal forms of such compound emotions. The other
element, beginning with that immediate passage of a single
stimulus into a single motion, called reflex action, presently
comes to be a set of associated discharges of stimuli pro
ducing associated motions, constituting instinct. Step by
step arise more entangled combinations of stimuli, somewhat
variable in their modes of union, leading to complex motions
similarly variable in their adjustments; whence occasional
hesitations in the sensori-motor processes. Presently is
reached a stage at which the combined clusters of impres
sions, not all present together, issue in actions not all simul
taneous ; implying representation of results, or thought.
Afterwards follow stages in which various thoughts have
time to pass before the composite motives produce the appro
priate actions. Until at last arise those long deliberations
during which the probabilities of various consequences are
estimated, and the promptings of the correlative feelings
balanced ; constituting calm judgment. That under either
of its aspects the later forms of this mental process are the
higher, ethically considered as well as otherwise considered,
will be readily seen.

For from the first, complication of sentiency has accom
panied better and more numerous adjustments of acts to

106 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

ends ; as also has complication of movement, and complica
tion of the co-ordinating or intellectual process uniting the
two. Whence it follows that the acts characterized by the
more complex motives and the more involved thoughts, have
all along been of higher authority for guidance. Some ex
amples will make this clear.

Here is an aquatic creature guided by the odour of
organic matter towards things serving for food ; but a
creature which, lacking any other guidance, is at the mercy
of larger creatures coming near. Here is another which,
also guided to food by odour, possesses rudimentary vision ;
and so is made to start spasmodically away from a moving
body which diffuses this odour, in those cases where it is
large enough to produce sudden obscuration of light — usually
an enemy. Evidently life will frequently be saved by con
forming to the later and higher stimulus, instead of to the
earlier and lower. Observe at a more advanced stage

a parallel conflict. This is a beast which pursues others for
prey, and, either lacking experience or prompted by raging
hunger, attacks one more powerful than itself and gets
destroyed. Conversely, that is a beast which, prompted by
a hunger equally keen, but either by individual experience
or effects of inherited experience, made conscious of evil
by the aspect of one more powerful than itself, is deterred
from attacking, and saves its life by subordinating the
primary motive, consisting of craving sensations, to the
secondary motive, consisting of ideal feelings, distinct or
vague. Ascending at once from these examples of

conduct in animals to examples of human conduct, we shall
see that the contrasts between inferior and superior have
habitually the same traits. The savage of lowest type de
vours all the food captured by to-day's chase ; and, hungry,
on the morrow, has perhaps for days to bear the pangs of
starvation. The superior savage, conceiving more vividly
the entailed sufferings if no game is to be found, is deterred
by his complex feeling from giving way entirely to his

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW. 107

simple feeling. Similarly are the two contrasted in the
inertness which goes along with lack of forethought, and
the activity which due forethought produces. The primi
tive man, idly inclined, and ruled by the sensation of the
moment, will not exert himself until actual pains have to
be escaped ; but the man somewhat advanced, able more
distinctly to imagine future gratifications and sufferings, is
prompted by the thought of these to overcome his love of
ease : decrease of misery and mortality resulting from this
predominance of the representative feelings over the pre-
sentativc feelings. Without dwelling on the fact

that among the civilized, those who lead the life of the
senses are contrasted in the same way with those whose
lives are largely occupied with pleasures not of a sensual
kind, let me point out that there are analogous contrasts
between guidance by the less complex representative feel
ings, or lower emotions, and guidance by the more complex
representative feelings, or higher emotions. "When led by
his acquisitiveness — a re-representative feeling which, acting
under due control, conduces to welfare — the thief takes
another man's property ; his act is determined by certain
imagined proximate pleasures of relatively simple kinds,
rather than by less-clearly imagined possible pains that are
more remote and of relatively involved kinds. But in the
conscientious man, there is an adequate restraining motive,
still more re-representative in its nature, including not only
ideas of punishment, and not only ideas of lost reputation
and ruin, but including ideas of the claims of the person
owning the property, and of the pains which loss of it will
entail on him ; all joined with a general aveivion to acts in
jurious to others, vjjiich arises from the inherited effects of
experience. And here at the end we see, as we saw at the
beginning, that guidance by the more complex feeling, on
the average conduces to welfare more than does guidance by
the simpler feeling.

The like holds with the intellectual co-ordinations through

108 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

which stimuli issue in motions. The lowest actions, called
reflex, in which an impression made on an afferent
nerve causes by discharge through an efferent nerve a
contraction, shows us a very limited adjustment of acts to
ends : the impression being simple, and the resulting
motion simple, the internal co-ordination is also simple.
Evidently when there are several senses which can be
together affected by an outer object ; and when, according
as such object is discriminated as of one or other kind,
the movements made in response are combined in one or
other way ; the intermediate co-ordinations are necessarily
more involved. And evidently each further step in the
evolution of intelligence, always instrumental to better
self-preservation, exhibits this same general trait. The ad
justments by which the more involved actions are made
appropriate to the more involved circumstances, imply more
intricate, and consequently more deliberate and conscious,
co-ordinations ; until, when we come to civilized men, who
in their daily business taking into account many data and
conditions adjust their proceedings to various consequences,
we see that the intellectual actions, becoming of the kind
we call judicial, are at once very elaborate and very delib
erate.

Observe, then, what follows respecting the relative
authorities of motives. Throughout the ascent from low
creatures up to man, and from the lowest types of man
up to the highest, self-preservation has been increased
by the subordination of simple excitations to compound
excitations — the subjection of immediate sensations to the
ideas of sensations to come — the over-ruling of presenta-
tive feelings by representative feelings, and of representa
tive feelings by re-representative feelings. As life has
advanced, the accompanying sentiency has become increas
ingly ideal ; and among feelings produced by the com
pounding of ideas, the highest, and those which have evolved
latest, are the re -compounded or doubly ideal. Hence

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW. 109

it follows that as guides, the feelings have authorities pro
portionate to the degrees in which they are removed by
their complexity and their ideality from simple sensations
and appetites. A further implication is made

clear by studying the intellectual sides of these mental
processes by which acts are adjusted to ends. AVhere they
are low and simple, these comprehend the guiding only of
immediate acts by immediate stimuli — the entire transaction
in each case, lasting but a moment, refers only to a proxi
mate result. But with the development of intelligence and
the growing ideality of the motives, the ends to which the
acts are adjusted cease to be exclusively immediate. The
more ideal motives concern ends that are more distant ; and
with approach to the highest types, present ends become
increasingly subordinate to those future ends which the
ideal motives have for their objects. Hence there arises a
certain presumption in favour of a motive which refers to a
remote good, in comparison with one which refers to a
proximate good.

§ 43. In the last chapter I hinted that besides the several
influences there named as fostering the ascetic belief that
doing things which are agreeable is detrimental while bear
ing disagreeable things is beneficial, there remained to be
named an influence of deeper origin. This is shadowed
forth in the foregoing paragraphs.

For the general truth that guidance by such simple pleas
ures and pains as result from fulfilling or denying bodily
desires, is, under one aspect, inferior to guidance by those
pleasures and pains which the complex ideal feelings yield,
has led to the belief that the promptings of bodily desires
should be disregarded. Further, the general truth that pur
suit of proximate satisfactions is, under one aspect, inferior
to pursuit of ultimate satisfactions, has led to the belief that
proximate satisfactions must not be valued.

In the early stages of every science, the generalizations

110 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

reached are not qualified enough. The discriminating state
ments of the truths formulated, arise afterwards, by limita
tion of the undiscrim mating statements. As with bodily
vision, which at first appreciates only the broadest traits of
objects, and so leads to rude classings which developed
vision, impressible by minor differences, has to correct ; so
with mental vision in relation to general truths, it happens
that at first the inductions, wrongly made all-embracing,
have to wrait for scepticism and critical observation to re
strict them, by taking account of unnoticed differences.
Hence, we may expect to find the current ethical conclusions
too sweeping. Let us note how, in three ways, these domi
nant beliefs, alike of professed moralists and of people at
large, are made erroneous by lack of qualifications.

In the first place, the authority of the lower feelings as
guides is by no means always inferior to the authority of the
higher feelings, but is often superior. Daily occur occasions
on which sensations must be obeyed rather than sentiments.
Let any one think of sitting all night naked in a snowstorm,
or going a week without food, or letting his head be held
under water for ten minutes, and he will see that the
pleasures and pains directly related to maintenance of
life, may not be wholly subordinated to the pleasures
and pains indirectly related to maintenance of life.
Though in many cases guidance by the simple feelings
rather than by the complex feelings is injurious, in other
cases guidance by the complex feelings rather than by the
simple feelings is fatal ; and throughout a wide range of
cases their relative authorities as guides are indeterminate.
Grant that in a man pursued, the protesting feelings accom
panying intense and prolonged effort, must, to preserve life,
be over-ruled by the fear of his pursuers ; it may yet hap
pen that, persisting till he drops, the resulting exhaustion
causes death, though, the pursuit having been abandoned,
death would not otherwise have resulted. Grant that a
widow left in poverty, must deny her appetite that she may

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW. Ill

o-ive enough food to her children to keep them alive ; yet
the denial of her appetite pushed too far, may leave them
not only entirely without food but without guardianship.
Grant that, working his brain unceasingly from dawn till
dark, the man in pecuniary difficulties must disregard rebel
lious bodily sensations in obedience to the conscientious
desire to liquidate the claims on him ; yet he may carry this
subjection of simple feelings to complex feelings to the
extent of shattering his health, and failing in that end
which, with less of this subjection, he might have achieved.
Clearly, then, the subordination of lower feelings must be a
conditional subordination. The supremacy of higher feel
ings must be a qualified supremacy.

In another way does the generalization ordinarily made
err by excess. "With the truth that life is high in proportion
as the simple presentative feelings are under the control of
the compound representative feelings, it joins, as though
they were corollaries, certain propositions which are not
corollaries. The current conception is, not that the lower
must yield to the higher when the two conflict, but that the
lower must be disregarded even when there is no conflict.
This tendency which the growth of moral ideas has gener
ated, to condemn obedience to inferior feelings when supe
rior feelings protest, has begotten a tendency to condemn
inferior feelings considered intrinsically. " I really think
she does things because she likes to do them," once said to
me one lady concerning another : the form of expression
and the manner both implying the belief not only that such
behaviour is wrong, but also that every one must recogni/o
it as wronsj. And there prevails widely a notion of this
kind. In practice, indeed, the notion is very generally in
operative. Though it prompts various incidental asceti
cisms, as of those who think it alike manly and salutary to
go without a great coat in cold weather, or to persevere
through the winter in taking an out-of-door plunge, yet,
generally, the pleasurable feelings accompanying due f'ullil-

112 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

ment of bodily needs, are accepted : acceptance being,
indeed, sufficiently peremptory. But oblivious of these
contradictions in their practice, men commonly betray a
vague idea that there is something degrading, or injurious,
or both, in doing that which is agreeable and avoiding that
which, is disagreeable. " Pleasant but wrong," is a phrase
frequently used in a way implying that the two are naturally
connected. As above hinted, however, such beliefs result
from a confused apprehension of the general truth that the
more compound and representative feelings are, on the aver
age, of higher authority than the simple and presentative
feelings. Apprehended with discrimination, this truth im
plies that the authority of the simple, ordinarily less than
that of the compound but occasionally greater, is habitually
to be accepted when the compound do not oppose.

In yet a third way is this principle of subordination mis
conceived. One of the contrasts between the earlier-evolved
feelings and the later-evolved feelings, is that they refer
respectively to the more immediate effects of actions and
to the more remote effects ; and speaking generally, guid
ance by that which is near is inferior to guidance by that
which is distant. Hence has resulted the belief that, irre
spective of their kinds, the pleasures of the present must be
sacrificed to the pleasures of the future. We see this in the
maxim often impressed on children when eating their meals,
that they should reserve the nicest morsel till the last : the
check on improvident yielding to immediate impulse, being
here joined with the tacit teaching that the same gratifica
tion becomes more valuable as it becomes more distant.
Such thinking is traceable throughout daily conduct ; by no
means indeed in all, but in those who are distinguished as
prudent and well regulated in their conduct. Hurrying
over his breakfast that he may catch the train, snatching a
sandwich in the middle of the day, and eating a late dinner
when he is so worn out that he is incapacitated for evening
recreation, the man of business pursues a life in which not

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL A'lEAV. 113

only the satisfactions of bodily desires, but also those of
higher tastes and feelings, are, as far as may be, disregarded,
that distant ends may be achieved ; and yet if you ask what
are these distant ends, you iind (in cases where there are no
parental responsibilities) that they are included under the
conception of more comfortable living in time to come. So
ingrained is this belief that it is wrong to seek immediate
enjoyments and right to seek remote ones only, that you
may hear from a busy man who has been on a pleasure
excursion, a kind of apology for his conduct. lie depre
cates the unfavourable judgments of his friends by explain
ing that the state of his health had compelled him to take a
holiday. jS'evertheless, if yon sound him with respect to his
future, you find that his ambition is by-and-by to retire and
devote himself Avholly to the relaxations which he is now
somewhat ashamed of taking.

The general truth disclosed by the study of evolving con
duct, sub-human and human, that for the better preservation
of life the primitive, simple, preservative feelings must be
controlled by the later-evolved, compound, and representative
feelings, has thus come, in the course of civilization, to be
recognized by men ; but necessarily at first in too indis
criminate a Avay. The current conception, Avhile it errs by
implying that the authority of the higher over the loAver is
Unlimited, errs also by implying that the rule of the loAver
must be resisted even when it does not conflict Avith the rule
of the higher, and further errs by implying that a gratifica
tion which forms a proper aim if it is remote, forms an im
proper aim if it is proximate.

§ 44. Without explicitly saying so, AVC have been here
tracing the genesis of the moral consciousness. For unques
tionably the essential trait in the moral consciousness, is the
control of some feeling or feelings by some other feeling or
feelings.

Among the higher animals we may see, distinctly enough,

114 THE DATA OF ETRICS.

the conflict of feelings and the subjection of simpler to
more compound ; as when a dog is restrained from
snatching food by fear of the penalties which may come if
he yields to his appetite ; or as when he desists from scratch
ing at a hole lest he should lose his master, who has walked
on. Here, however, though there is subordination, there
is not conscious subordination — there is no introspection re
vealing the fact that one feeling has yielded to another. So
is it even with human beings when little developed mentally.
The pre-social man, wandering about in families and ruled
by such sensations and emotions as are caused by the cir
cumstances of the moment, though occasionally subject to
conflicts of motives, meets with comparatively few cases in
which the advantage of postponing the immediate to the
remote is forced on his attention ; nor has he the intelligence
requisite for analyzing and generalizing such of these cases
as occur. Only as social evolution renders the life more
complex, the restraints many and strong, the evils of im
pulsive conduct marked, and the comforts to be gained by
providing for the future tolerably certain, can there come
experiences numerous enough to make familiar the benefit
of subordinating the simpler feelings to the more complex
ones. Only then, too, does there arise a sufficient intellectual
power to make an induction from these experiences, followed
by a sufficient massing of individual inductions into a public
and traditional induction impressed on each generation as it
grows up.

And here we are introduced to certain facts of profound
significance. This conscious relinquishment of immediate
and special good to gain distant and general good, while
it is a cardinal trait of the self-restraint called moral,
is also a cardinal trait of self-restraints other than those
called moral — the restraints that originate from fear of the
visible ruler, of the invisible ruler, and of society at large.
Whenever the individual refrains from doing that which
the passing desire prompts, lest he should afterwards suffer

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW. 115

legal punishment, or divine vengeance, or public reproba
tion, or all of them, he surrenders the near and definite
pleasure rather than risk the remote and greater, though
less definite, pains, which taking it may bring on him ; and,
conversely, when he undergoes some present pain, that he
may reap some probable future pleasure, political, religious,
or social. But though all these four kinds of internal con
trol have the common character that the simpler and less
ideal feelings are consciously over-ruled by the more com
plex and ideal feelings ; and though, at first, they are practi
cally co-extensive and undistinguished ; yet, in the course of
social evidence they differentiate ; and, eventually, the moral
control with its accompanying conceptions and sentiments,
emerges as independent. Let us glance at the leading aspects
of the process.

While, as in the rudest groups, neither political nor
relio'ious rule exists, the leading check to the immediate
satisfaction of each desire as it arises, is consciousness of
the evils which the anger of fellow savages may entail, if
satisfaction of the desire is obtained at their cost. In this
early stage the imagined pains which constitute the
governing motive, are those apt to be inflicted by beings
of like nature, undistinguished in power : the political,
religious, and social restraints, are as yet represented only
by this mutual dread of vengeance. When special

strength, skill, or courage, makes one of them a leader in
battle, he necessarily inspires greater fear than any other ;
and there comes to be a more decided check on such satis
factions of the desires as will injure or offend him. Gradu
ally as, by habitual war, chieftainship is established, the
evils thought of as likely to arise from angering the chief,
not only by aggression upon him but by disobedience
to him, become distinguishable both from the smaller
evils which other personal antagonisms cause, and from
the more diffused evils thought of as arising from social
reprobation. That is, political control begins to dif-

116 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

ferentiate from the more indefinite control of mutual
dread. Meanwhile there1 has been developing the

ghost-theory. In all but the rude.^t groups, the double
of a deceased man, propitiated at death and afterwards, is
conceived as able to injure the survivors. Consequently,
as fast as the ghost-theory becomes established and defi
nite, there grows up another kind of check on immediate
satisfaction of the desires — a check constituted by ideas
of the evils which ghosts may inflict if offended ; and
when political headships get settled, and the ghosts of
dead chiefs, thought of as more powerful and more re
lentless than other ghosts, are especially dreaded, there
begins to take shape the form of restraint distinguished as
religious. For a long time these three sets of

restraints, with their correlative sanctions, though becom
ing separate in consciousness, remain co-extensive ; and do
so because they mostly refer to one end — success in war.
The duty of blood-revenge is insisted on even while yet
nothing to be called social organization exists. As the
chief gains predominance, the killing of enemies becomes a
political duty ; and as the anger of the dead chief comes to
be dreaded, the killing of enemies becomes a religious duty.
Loyalty to the ruler while he lives and after he dies, is
increasingly shown by holding life at his disposal for pur
poses of war. The earliest enacted punishments are those
for insubordination and for breaches of observances which
express subordination — all of them militant in origin. While
the divine injunctions, originally traditions of the dead king's
will, mainly refer to the destruction of peoples with whom he
was at enmity ; and divine anger or approval are conceived
as determined by the degrees in which subjection to him is
shown, directly by worship and indirectly by fulfilling these
injunctions. The Fijian, who is said on entering the other
world to commend himself by narrating his successes in
battle, and who, when alive, is described as sometimes greatly
distressed if he thinks he has not killed enemies enough to

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW. 11 Y

please his gods, shows us the resulting ideas and feelings ;
and reminds us of kindred ideas and feelings betrayed by
ancient races. To all which add that the control

of social opinion, besides being directly exercised, as in the
earliest stage, by praise of the brave and blame of the cow
ardly, conies to be indirectly exercised, with a kindred
general effect by applause of loyalty to the ruler and piety
to the o-od. So that the three differentiated forms of control
which grow up along with militant organization and action,
while enforcing kindred restraints and incentives, also en
force one another ; and their separate and joint disciplines
have the common character that they involve the sacrifice
of immediate special benefits to obtain more distant and
general benefits.

At the same time there have been developing under the
same three sanctions, restraints and incentives of another
order, similarly characterized by subordination of the proxi
mate to the remote. Joint aggressions upon men outside
the society, cannot prosper if there are many aggressions of
man on man within the society. War implies co-operation ;
and co-operation is prevented by antagonisms among those
who are to co-operate. We saw that in the primitive un-
governcd croup, the main check on immediate satisfaction
of his desires by each man, is the fear of other men's ven
geance if they are injured by taking the satisfaction ; and
throuo-h early stages of social development, this dread of
retaliation continues to be the chief motive to such forbear
ance as exists. But though long after political authority has
become established the taking of personal satisfaction for
injuries persists, the growth of political authority gradually
checks it. The fact that success in war is endangered if his
followers fight among themselves, forces itself on the atten
tion of the ruler. He has a strong motive for restraining
quarrels, and therefore for preventing the aggressions which
cause quarrels ; and as his power becomes greater he forbids
the aggressions and inflicts punishments for disobedience.

118 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

Presently, political restraints of this class, like those of the
preceding class, are enforced by religious restraints. The
sagacious chief, succeeding in war partly because he thus
enforces order among his followers, leaves behind him a
tradition of the commands he habitually gave. Dread of his
ghost tends to produce regard for these commands ; and
they eventually acquire sacrcdness. With further social
evolution come, in like manner, further interdicts, checking
aggressions of less serious kinds ; until eventually there
grows up a body of civil laws. And then in the way shown,
arise beliefs concerning the divine disapproval of these
minor, as well as of the major, civil oifences : ending, occa
sionally, in a set of religious injunctions harmonizing with,
and enforcing, the political injunctions. While simultane
ously there develops, as before, a social sanction for these
rules of internal conduct, strengthening the political and
religious sanctions.

But now observe that while these three controls, political,
religious, and social, severally lead men to subordinate proxi
mate satisfactions to remote satisfactions ; and while they
are in this respect like the moral control, which habitually
requires the subjection of simple presentative feelings to
complex representative feelings and postponement of present
to future ; yet they do not constitute the moral control, but
are only preparatory to it — are controls within which the
moral control evolves. The command of the political ruler
is at first obeyed, not because of its perceived rectitude ; but
simply because it is his command, which there will be a penalty
for disobeying. The check is not a mental representation of
the evil consequences which the forbidden act will, in the
nature of things, cause ; but it is a mental representation
of the factitious evil consequences. Down to our own time
we trace in legal phrases, the original doctrine that the
aggression of one citizen on another is wrong, and will
be punished, not so much because of the injury done him,
as because of the implied disregard of the king's will.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW. 119

Similarly, the sinfulness of breaking a divine injunction
was universally at one time, and is still by many, held to
consist in the disobedience to God, rather than in the
deliberate entailing of injury ; and even now it is a common
belief that acts are right only if performed in conscious
fulfilment of the divine will : nay, are even wrong if other
wise performed. The like holds, too, with that further
control exercised by public opinion. On listening to the
remarks made respecting conformity to social rules, it is
noticeable that breach of them is condemned not so much
because of any essential impropriety as because the world's
authority is ignored. How imperfectly the truly moral
control is even now differentiated from these controls within
which it has been evolving, we see in the fact that the sys
tems of morality criticized at the outset, severally identity
moral control with one or other of them. For moralists
of one class derive moral rules from the commands of a
supreme political power. Those of another class recognize
no other oriinn for them than the revealed divine will.

And though men who take social prescription for their
guide do not formulate their doctrine, yet the belief, fre
quently betrayed, that conduct which society permits is not
blameworthy, implies that there are those who think right
and wrong can be made such by public opinion.

Before taking a further step we must put together the
results of this analysis. The essential truths to be carried
with us respecting these three forms of external control to
which the social unit is subject, are these :— First, that they
have evolved with the evolution of society, as means to
social self-preservation, necessary under the conditions ; and
that, by implication, they are in the main congruous with
one another. Second, that the correlative internal restraints
generated in the social unit, are representations of remote
results which are incidental rather than necessary— a legal
penalty, a supernatural punishment, a social reprobation.
Third, that these results, simpler and more directly wrought

120 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

by personal agencies, can be more vividly conceived than
can the results which, in the course of tilings, actions natu
rally entail ; and the conceptions of them are therefore more
potent over undeveloped minds. Fourth, that as with the
restraints thus generated is always joined the thought of ex
ternal coercion, there arises the notion of obligation ; which
so becomes habitually associated with the surrender of imme
diate special benefits for the sake of distant and general
benefits. Fifth, that the moral control corresponds in large
measure with the three controls thus originating, in respect
of its injunctions ; and corresponds, too, in the general
nature of the mental processes producing conformity to
those injunctions ; but differs in their special nature.

§ 45. For now we are prepared to see that the restraints
properly distinguished as moral, are unlike these restraints
out of which they evolve, and with which they are long
confounded, in this — they refer not to the extrinsic effects
of actions but to their intrinsic effects. The truly moral de
terrent from murder, is not constituted by a representation
of hanging as a consequence, or by a representation of tor
tures in hell as a consequence, or by a representation of the
horror and hatred excited in fellow men ; but by a repre
sentation of the necessary natural results — the infliction of
death-agony on the victim, the destruction of all his possi
bilities of happiness, the entailed sufferings to his belong
ings. Neither the thought of imprisonment, nor of divine
anger, nor of social disgrace, is that which constitutes the
moral check on theft ; but the thought of injury to the per
son robbed, joined with a vague consciousness of the general
evils caused by disregard of proprietary rights. Those who
reprobate the adulterer on moral grounds, have their minds
filled, not with ideas of an action for damages, or of future
punishment following the breach of a commandment, or of
loss of reputation ; but they are occupied with ideas of un-
happiness entailed on the aggrieved wife or husband, the

THE rr.YCIIOLOGICAL YIT.W. 121

damaged lives of children, and the diffused mischiefs which
go along with disregard of the marriage tie. Conversely,
the man who is moved by a mural feeling to help another in
difficulty, does not picture to himself any reward here or
hereafter ; but pictures only the better condition he is try-
in<>- to brin"- about. One who is morallv prompted to light

?""> O "i

against a social evil, has neither material benefit nor popular
applause before his mind ; but only the mischiefs lie seeks
to remove and the increased well-being which will follow
their removal. Throughout, then, the moral motive differs
from the motives it is associated with in this, that instead
of being constituted by representations of incidental, collat
eral, non-necessary consequences of acts, it is constituted
by representations of consequences which the acts naturally
produce. These representations are not all distinct, though
some of such are usually present. ; but they form an assem
blage of indistinct representations accumulated by experi
ence of the results of like acts in the life of the individual,
super-posed on a still more indistinct but voluminous con
sciousness due to the inherited effects of such experiences in
progenitors : forming a feeling that is at once massive and
vague.

And now we see why the moral feelings and corre
lative restraints have arisen later than the feelings and
restraints that originate from political, religious, and social
authorities ; and have so slowly, and even yet so incom
pletely, disentangled themselves. For only by these lower
feelings and restraints could be maintained the conditions
under which the higher feelings and restraints evolve. It is
thus alike with the self-regarding feelings and with the
other-regarding feelings. The pains which improvidence
will bring, and the pleasures to be gained by storing up
things for future use and by labouring to get such things,
can be habitually contrasted in thought, only as fast as
settled social arrangements make; accumulation possible ;
and that there may arise such settled arrangements, fear of

122 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

the seen ruler, of the unseen ruler, and of public opinion,
must come into piny. Only after political, religious, and
social restraints have produced a stable community, can
there be sufficient experience of the pains, positive and
negative, sensational and emotional, which crimes of aggres
sion cause, as to generate that moral aversion to them
constituted by consciousness of their intrinsically evil
results. And more manifest still is it that such a moral
sentiment as that of abstract equity, which is offended not
only by material injuries done to men but also by political
arrangements that place them at a disadvantage, can evolve
only after the social stage reached gives familiar experience
both of the pains flowing directly from injustices and also of
those flowing indirectly from the class-privileges which make
injustices easy.

That the feelings called moral have the nature and origin
alleged, is further shown by the fact that we associate the
name with them in proportion to the degree in which they
have these characters — firstly of being re-representative ;
secondly of being concerned with indirect rather than with
direct effects, and generally with remote rather than imme
diate ; and thirdly of referring to effects that are mostly gen
eral rather than special. Thus, though we condemn one
man for extravagance and approve the economy shown by
another man, we do not class their acts as respectively vi
cious and virtuous : these words are too strong : the present
and future results here differ too little in concreteness and
ideality to make the words fully applicable. Suppose, how
ever, that the extravagance necessarily brings distress on wife
and children — brings pains diffused over the lives of others
as well as of self, and the viciousness of the extravagance
becomes clear. Suppose, further, that prompted by the wish
to relieve his family from the misery he has brought on
them, the spendthrift forges a bill or commits some other
fraud. Though, estimated apart, we characterize his over
ruling emotion as moral, and make allowance for him in

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW. 123

consideration of it, yet his action taken as a whole we
condemn as immoral : we regard as of superior authority,
the feelin0^ which respond to men's proprietary claims —
feelings which are re-representative in a higher degree
and refer to more remote diffused consequences. The
difference, habitually recognized, between the relative
elevations of justice and generosity, well illustrates
this truth. The motive causing a generous act has
reference to effects of a more concrete, special, and proxi
mate kind, than has the motive to do justice ; which,
beyond the proximate effects, usually themselves less con
crete than those that generosity contemplates, includes a
consciousness of the distant, involved, diffused effects of
maintaining equitable relations. And justice we hold to be
higher generosity.

Comprehension of this long argument will be aided by here
quoting a further passage from the before-named letter to
Mr. Mill, following the passage already quoted from it.

" To make any position fully understood, it seems needful to add that, corre
sponding to the fundamental propositions of a developed Moral Science, there
have been, and still are, developing in the race, certain fundamental moral intui
tions ; and that, though these moral intuitions are the results of accumulated
experiences of Utility, gradually organized and inherited, they have come to be
quite independent of conscious experience. Just in the same way that I
believe the intuition of space, possessed by any living individual, to have arisen
from organized and consolidated experiences of all antecedent individuals who
bequeathed to him their slowly-developed nervous organizations — just as I believe
that this intuition, requiring only to be made definite and complete by personal
experiences, has practically become a form of thought, apparently quite inde
pendent of experience ; so do I believe that the experiences of utility organized
;md consolidated through all past generations of the human race, have been
producing corresponding nervous modifications, which, by continued transmis
sion and accumulation, have become in us certain faculties of moral intuition —
certain emotions responding to right and wrong conduct, which have no appar
ent basis in the individual experiences of utility. I also hold that just as the
space-intuition responds to the exact demonstrations of Geometry, and has its
rough conclusions interpreted and verified by them ; so will moral intuitions
respond to the demonstrations of Moral Science, and will have their rough con
clusions interpreted and verified by them."

To this, in passing, I will add only that the evolution-

124 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

hypothesis thus enables us to reconcile opposed moral
theories, as it enables us to reconcile opposed theories of
knowledge. For as the doctrine of innate forms of intel
lectual intuition falls into harmony with the experiential
doctrine, when we recognize the production of intellectual
faculties by inheritance of effects wrought by experience ;
so the doctrine of innate powers of moral perception becomes
congruous with the utilitarian doctrine, when it is seen that
preferences and aversions are rendered organic by inherit
ance of the effects of pleasurable arid painful experiences in
progenitors.

§ 46. One further question has to be answered — How
does there arise the feeling of moral obligation in general ?
Whence comes the sentiment of duty, considered as distinct
from the several sentiments which prompt temperance, provi
dence, kindness, justice, truthfulness, &c. ? The answer is
that it is an abstract sentiment generated in a manner analo
gous to that in which abstract ideas are generated.

The idea of each colour had originally entire concreteness
given to it by an object possessing the colour ; as some of
the unmodified names, such as orange and violet, show us.
The dissociation of each colour from the object specially
associated with it in thought at the outset, went on as fast
as the colour came to be associated in thought with objects
unlike the first, and unlike one another. The idea of orange
was conceived in the abstract more fully in proportion as the
varous orange-coloured objects remembered, cancelled one
another's diverse attributes, and left outstanding their com
mon attribute. So is it if we ascend a stage and
note how there arises the abstract idea of colour apart from
particular colours. Were all things red the conception of
colour in the abstract could not exist. Imagine that every
object was either red or green, and it is manifest that the
mental habit would be to think of one or other of these two
colours in connexion with anything named. But multiply

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIKW. 125

the colours so that thought rambles undecidedly among the
ideas of them that occur along with any object named, and
there results the notion of indeterminate colour — the com
mon property which objects possess of affecting us by light
from their surfaces, as well as by their forms. For evi
dently the notion of this common property is that which
remains constant while imagination is picturing every pos
sible variety of colour. It is the uniform trait in all coloured
things; that is — colour in the abstract. Words

referring to quantity furnish cases of more marked dis
sociation of abstract from concrete. Grouping various
things as small in comparison either with those of their
kind or with those of other kinds ; and similarly grouping
some objects as comparatively great; we get the opposite
abstract notions of smallncss and greatness. Applied as
these are to innumerable very diverse things — not objects
only, but forces, times, numbers, values,— they have become
so little connected with concretes, that their abstract
meanings are very vague. Further, we must

note that an abstract idea thus formed often acquires an
illusive independence; as we may perceive in the case of
motion, which, dissociated in thought from all particular
bodies and velocities and directions, is sometimes referred
to as though it could be conceived apart from something
movin^. Ko\v all this holds of the subjective as

well as of the objective ; and among other states of con
sciousness, holds of the emotions as known by introspection.
P>y the grouping of those re-representative feelings above
described, which, differing among themselves in other re
spects have a component, in common ; and by the consequent
mutual cancelling of their diverse components ; this common
component is made relatively appreciable, and becomes an
abstract feeling. Thus is produced the sentiment of moral
obligation or duty. Let us observe its genesis.

We have seen that during the progress of animate
existence, the later-evolved, more compound and more re-

126 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

presentatlve feelings, serving to adjust the conduct to more
distant and general needs, have all along had an authority
as guides superior to that of the earlier and simpler feelings
— excluding cases in which these last are intense. This
superior authority, unrecognizable by lower types of crea
tures which cannot generalize, and little recognizable by
primitive men, who have, but feeble powers of generaliza
tion, has become distinctly recognized as civilization and
accompanying mental development have gone on. Accumu
lated experiences have produced the consciousness that guid
ance by feelings which refer to remote and general results,
is usually more conducive to welfare than guidance by feel
ings to be immediately gratified. For what is the common
character of the feelings that prompt honesty, truthfulness,
diligence, providence, &c., which men habitually find to be
better prompters than the appetites and simple impulses?
They are all complex, re-representative feelings, occupied
with the future rather than the present. The idea of authori-
tativeness has therefore come to be connected with feelings
having these traits : the implication being that the lower and
simpler feelings are without authority. And this idea of
authoritativeness is one element in the abstract consciousness
of duty.

But there is another element — the element of coercive-
ness. This originates from experience of those several
forms of restraint that have, as above described, established
themselves in the course of civilization — the political, re
ligious, and social. To the effects of punishments inflicted
by law and public opinion on conduct of certain kinds,
Dr. Bain ascribes the feeling of moral obligation. And I
agree with him to the extent of thinking that by them is
generated the sense of compulsion which the consciousness
of duty includes, and which the word obligation indicates.
The existence of an earlier and deeper element, gene
rated as above described, is, however, I think, implied
by the fact that certain of the higher self-regarding

TIIK PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW. 127

feelings, instigating prudence and economy, have a moral
authority in opposition to the simpler self-regarding feel
ings : showing that apart from any thought of factitious
penalties on improvidence, the feeling constituted bv repre
sentation of the natural penalties has acquired an acknowl
edged superiority. But accepting in the main the view that
fears of the political and social penalties (to which, I think,
the religious must be added) have generated that sense of
coerciveness which goes along with the thought of post
poning present to future and personal desires to the claims
of others, it here chiefly concerns us to note that this sense
of coerciveness becomes indirectly connected with the feel
ings distinguished as moral. For since the political, reli
gious, and social restraining motives, are mainly formed of
represented future results ; and since the moral restraining
motive is mainly formed of represented future results; it
happens that the representations, having much in common,
and being often aroused at the same time, the fear joined
with three sets of them becomes, by association, joined with
the fourth. Thinking of the extrinsic effects of a forbidden
act, excites a dread which continues present while the in
trinsic effects of the act are thought of; and being thus
linked with these intrinsic effects causes a vague sense of
moral compulsion. Emerging as the moral motive does but
slowly from amidst the political, religious, and social mo
tives, it long participates in that consciousness of subordina
tion to some external agency which is joined with them ;
and only as it becomes distinct and predominant does it lose
this associated consciousness — only then does the feeling of
'. obligation fade.

This remark implies the tacit conclusion, which will be to

most very startling, that the sense of duty or moral obli-

|i gation is transitory, and will diminish as fast as inoralization

increases. Startling though it is, this conclusion may be

satisfactorily defended. Even now progress towards the

implied ultimate state is traceable. The observation is not

128 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

infrequent that persistence in performing a duty ends in
making it a pleasure; and this amounts to the admission
that while at first the motive contains an element of coer
cion, at last this element of coercion dies out, and the act is
performed without any consciousness of being obliged to
perform it. The contrast between the youth on whom dili
gence is enjoined, and the man of business so absorbed in
affairs that he cannot be induced to relax, shows us how the
doing of work, originally under the consciousness that it
ought to be done, may eventually cease to have an}* such ac
companying consciousness. Sometimes, indeed, the relation
comes to be reversed ; and the man of business persists in
work from pure love of it when told that he ought not.
ISTor is it thus with self-regarding feelings only. That the
maintaining and protecting of wife by husband often result
solely from feelings directly gratified by these actions, with
out any thought of must ; and that the fostering of children
by parents is in many cases made an absorbing occupation
without any coercive feeling of ought ; are obvious truths
which show us that even now, with some of the fundamental
other-regarding duties, the sense of obligation has retreated
into the background of the mind. And it is in some degree
so with other-regarding duties of a higher kind. Con
scientiousness has in many out-grown that stage in which the
sense of a compelling power is joined with rectitude of ac
tion. The truly honest man here and there to be found, is
not only without thought of .legal, religious, or social com
pulsion, when he discharges an equitable claim on him ; but
he is without thought of self-compulsion. He does the right
thing with a simple feeling of satisfaction in doing it ; and
is, indeed, impatient if anything prevents him from having
the satisfaction of doing it.

Evidently, then, with complete adaptation to the social
state, that element in the moral consciousness which is ex
pressed by the word obligation, will disappear. The higher
actions required for the harmonious carrying on of life,

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW. 129

•will be as much matters of course as are these lower actions
which the simple desires prompt. In their proper times
and places and proportions, the moral sentiments will jjuide
men just as spontaneously and adequately as now do the
sensations. And though, joined with their regulating in
fluence when this is called for, will exist latent ideas of the
evils which nonconformity would bring; these will occupy
the mind no more than do ideas of the evils of starvation
at the time when a healthy appetite is being satisfied by a
meal.

§ -iT. This elaborate exposition, which the extreme com
plexity of the subject has necessitated, may have its leading
ideas re-stated thus : —

Symbolizing by a and I, related phenomena in the envi
ronment, which in some way concern the welfare of the
organism ; and symbolizing by c and d, the impressions, sim
ple or compound, which the organism receives from the one,
and the motions, single or combined, by which its acts are
adapted to meet the other ; we saw that psychology in gen
eral is concerned with the connexion between the relation a 5
and the relation c d. Further, we saw that by implication
the psychological aspect of Ethics, is that aspect under which
the adjustment of c d to a I, appears, not as an intellectual
co-ordination simply, but as a co-ordination in which pleas
ures and pains are alike factors and results.

It was shown that throughout Evolution, motive and act
become more complex, as the adaptation of inner related
actions to outer related actions extends in range and variety.
Whence followed the corollary that the later-evolved feelings,
more representative and re-representative in their constitu
tion, and referring to remoter and wider needs, have, on the
average, an authority as guides greater than have the earlier
and simpler feelings.

After thus observing that even an inferior creature is
ruled by a hierarchy of feelings so constituted that general

130 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

welfare depends on a certain subordination of lower to
higher, we saw that in man, as he passes into the social
state, there arises the need for sundry additional subordina
tions of lower to higher : co-operation being made possible
only by them. To the restraints constituted by mental repre
sentations of the intrinsic effects of actions, which, in their
simpler forms, have been evolving from the beginning, are
added the restraints caused by mental representations of
extrinsic effects, in the shape of political, religious, and social
penalties.

With the evolution of society, made possible by institu
tions maintaining order, and associating in men's minds the
sense of obligation with prescribed acts and with desistances
from forbidden acts, there arose opportunities for seeing the
bad consequences naturally flowing from the conduct inter
dicted and the good consequences from the conduct required.
Hence eventually grew up moral aversions and approvals :
experience of the intrinsic effects necessarily here coming
later than experience of the extrinsic effects, and therefore
producing its results later.

The thoughts and feelings constituting these moral aver
sions and approvals, being all along closely connected with
the thoughts and feelings constituting fears of political,
religious, and social penalties, necessarily came to participate
in the accompanying sense of obligation. The coercive ele
ment in the consciousness of duties at large, evolved by con
verse with external agencies which enforce duties, diffused
itself by association through that consciousness of duty, pro
perly called moral, which is occupied with intrinsic results
instead of extrinsic results.

But this self-compulsion, which at a relatively-high stage
becomes more and more a substitute for compulsion from
without, must itself, at a still higher stage, practically dis
appear. If some action to which the special motive is insuf
ficient, is performed in obedience to the feeling of moral
obligation, the fact proves that the special faculty concerned

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW. 131

is not yet equal to its function — has not acquired such
strength that the required activity has become its normal
activity, yielding its due amount of pleasure. With complete
evolution then, the sense of obligation, not ordinarily present
in consciousness, will be awakened only on those extraordi
nary occasions that prompt breach of the laws otherwise spon
taneously conformed to.

And this brings us to the psychological aspect of that con
clusion which, in the last chapter, was reached under its bio
logical aspect. The pleasures and pains which the moral
sentiments originate, will, like bodily pleasures and pains,
become incentives and deterrents so adjusted in their
strengths to the needs, that the moral conduct will be the
natural conduct.

CHAPTEE VIII.

THE SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW.

§ 48. Not for the human race only, but for every race,
there are laws of right living. Given its environment and
its structure, and there is for each kind of creature a
set of actions adapted in their kinds, amounts, and combi
nations, to secure the highest conservation its nature
permits. The animal, like the man, has needs for food,
warmth, activity, rest, and so forth ; which must be fulfilled
in certain relative degrees to make its life whole. Main
tenance of its race implies satisfaction of special desires,
sexual and philoprogenitive, in due proportions. Hence
there is a supposable formula for the activities of each
species, which, could it be drawn out, would constitute a
system of morality for that species. But such a system
of morality would have little or no reference to the wel
fare of others than self and offspring. Indifferent to indi
viduals of its own kind, as an inferior creature is, and
habitually hostile to individuals of other kinds, the formula
for its life could take no cognizance of the lives of those with
which it came in contact ; or rather, such formula would
imply that maintenance of its life was at variance with main
tenance of their lives.

But on ascending from beings of lower kinds to the high
est kind of being, man ; or, more strictly, on ascending from

132

THE SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW.

man in his pre-social stage to man in his social stage ; the
formula has to include an additional factor. Though not
peculiar to human life under its developed form, the presence
of this factor is still, in the highest degree, characteristic of
it. Though there are inferior species displaying considera-
ble degrees of sociality ; and though the formulas for their
complete lives would have to take account of the relations
arising from union ; yet our own species is, on the whole, to
be distinguished as having a formula for complete life which
specially recognizes the relations of each individual to others,
in presence of whom, and in co-operation with whom, he has

to live.

This additional factor in the problem of complete living,
is, indeed, so important that the necessitated modifications
of conduct have come to form a chief part of the code of
conduct. Because the inherited desires which directly refer
to the maintenance of individual life, are fairly adjusted to
the requirements, there has been no need to insist on that
conformity to them which furthers self-conservation. Con
versely, because these desires prompt activities that often
conflict with the activities of others ; and because the senti
ments responding to other's claims are relatively weak ;
moral codes emphasize those restraints on conduct which the
presence of fellow men entails.

From the sociological point of view, then, Ethics becomes
nothing else than a definite account of the forms of conduct
that are fitted to the associated state, in such wise that the
lives of each and all may be the greatest possible, alike in
length and breadth.

§ 49. But here we are met by a fact which forbids us thus
to put in the foreground the welfares of citizens, individually
considered, and requires us to put in the foreground the
welfare of the society as a whole. The life of the social
organism must, as an end, rank above the lives of its units.
These two ends are not harmonious at the outset; and

134 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

though the tendency is towards harmonization of them, they
are still partially conflicting.

As fast as the social state establishes itself, the preserva
tion of the society becomes a means of preserving its units.
Living together arose because, on the average, it proved
more advantageous to each than living apart ; and this im
plies that maintenance of combination is maintenance of the
conditions to more satisfactory living than the combined
persons would otherwise have. Hence, social self-preserva
tion becomes a proximate aim taking precedence of the ulti
mate aim, individual self-preservation.

This subordination of personal to social welfare is, how
ever, contingent : it depends on the presence of antagonistic
societies. So long as the existence of a community is en
dangered by the actions of communities around, it must
remain true that the interests of individuals must be sacri
ficed to the interests of the community, as far as is needful
for the community's salvation. But if this is manifest, it is,
by implication, manifest, that when social antagonisms cease,
this need for sacrifice of private claims to public claims
ceases also ; or rather, there cease to be any public claims at
variance with private claims. All along, furtherance of indi
vidual lives has been the ultimate end ; and if this ultimate
end has been postponed to the proximate end of preserving
the community's life, it has been so only because this proxi
mate end wras instrumental to the ultimate end. When the
aggregate is no longer in danger, the final object of pursuit,
the welfare of the units, no longer needing to be postponed,
becomes the immediate object of pursuit.

Consequently, unlike sets of conclusions respecting human
conduct emerge, according as we are concerned with a state
of habitual or occasional war, or are concerned with a state
of permanent and general peace. Let us glance at these
alternative states and the alternative implications.

§ 50. At present the individual man has to carry on his

THE SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW. Io5

life with due regard to the lives of others beloneino- to the

*~' O i5

same society; while lie is sometimes called on to be regard
less of the lives of those belonging to other societies. The
same mental constitution having to fuliil both these require
ments, is necessarily incongruous ; and the correlative con
duct, adjusted first to the one need and then to the other,
cannot be brought within any consistent ethical system.

Hate and destroy your fellow man, is now the command ;
and then the command is, love and aid your fellow man. Use
every means to deceive, says the one code of conduct ; while
the other code says, be truthful in word and deed. Seize
what property you can and burn all you cannot take away,
are injunctions which the religion of enmity countenances ;
while by the religion of amity, theft and arson are con
demned as crimes. And as conduct has to be made up of
parts thus at variance with one another, the theory of
conduct remains confused. There co-exists a

kindred irreconcilability between the sentiments answering
to the forms of co-operation required for militancy and
industrialism respectively. While social antagonisms arc
habitual, and while, for efficient action against other societies,
there needs great subordination to men who command, the
virtue of loyalty and the duty of implicit obedience have to
be insisted on : disregard of the ruler's will is punished with
death. But when war ceases to be chronic, and growing
industrialism habituates men to maintaining their own
claims while respecting the claims of others, loyalty becomes
less profound, the authority of the ruler is questioned or
denied in respect of various private actions and beliefs.
State-dictation is in many directions successfully defied,
and the political independence of the citizen comes to be
regarded as a claim which it is virtuous to maintain and
vicious to yield up. Necessarily during the transition, these
opposite sentiments are incongruously mingled. So

is it, too, with domestic institutions under the two regimes.
"YV hile the first is dominant, ownership of a slave is honour-

136 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

able, and in the slave submission is praiseworthy ; but as
the last grows dominant, slave-owning becomes a crime and
servile obedience excites contempt. Nor is it otherwise
in the family. The subjection of women to men, complete
while war is habitual but qualified as fast as peaceful occu
pations replace it, comes eventually to be thought wrong ;
and equality before the law is asserted. At the same time
the opinion concerning paternal power changes. The once
unquestioned right of the father to take his children's lives
is denied ; and the duty of absolute submission to him, long
insisted on, is changed into the duty of obedience within
reasonable limits.

Were the ratio between the life of antagonism with alien
societies, and the life of peaceful co-operation within each
society, a constant ratio, some permanent compromise be
tween the conflicting rules of conduct appropriate to the
two lives might be reached. But since this ratio is a vari
able one, the compromise can never be more than temporary.
Ever the tendency is towards congruity between beliefs and
requirements. Either the social arrangements are gradually
changed until they come into harmony with prevailing ideas
and sentiments ; or, if surrounding conditions prevent
change in the social arrangements, the necessitated habits
of life modify the prevailing ideas and sentiments to the
requisite extent. Hence, for each kind and degree of social
evolution determined by external conflict and internal friend
ship, there is an appropriate compromise between the moral
code of enmity and the moral code of amity : not, indeed, a
definable, consistent compromise, but a compromise fairly
well understood.

This compromise, vague, ambiguous, illogical, though it
may be, is nevertheless for the time being authoritative.
For if, as above shown, the welfare of the society must
take precedence of the welfares of its component indi
viduals, during those stages in which the individuals have
to preserve themselves by preserving their society ; then

THE SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW. 137

Biicli temporary compromise between the two codes of con
duct as duly regards external defence, while favouring inter-
nal co-operation to the greatest extent practicable, subserves
the maintenance of life in the highest degree ; and thus
gains the ultimate sanction. So that the perplexed and in
consistent moralities of which each society and each age
shows us a more or less different one, are severally justified
as being approximately the best under the circumstances.

But such moralities are, by their definitions, shown to
belong to incomplete conduct ; not to conduct that is fully
evolved. "We saw that the adjustments of acts to ends which,
while constituting the external manifestations of life con
duce to the continuance of life, have been rising to a certain
ideal form now approached by the civilized man. But this
form is not reached so long as there continue aggressions of
one society upon another. Whether the hindrances to com
plete living result from the trespasses of fellow-citizens, or
from the trespasses of aliens, matters not : if they occur there
does not yet exist the state defined. The limit to the evolu
tion of conduct is arrived at by the members of each society
only when, being arrived at by members of other societies
also, the causes of international antagonism end simultane
ously with the causes of antagonism between individuals.

And now having from the sociological point of view
recognized the need for, and authority of, these changing
systems of ethics, proper to changing ratios between warlike
activities and peaceful activities, we have, from the same
point of view, to consider the system of ethics proper to the
state in which peaceful activities are undisturbed.

§ 51. If, excluding all thought of dangers or hindrances
from causes external to a society, we set ourselves to specify
those conditions under which the life of each person, and
therefore of the aggregate, may be the greatest possible ; we
come upon certain simple ones which, as here stated, assume
the form of truisms.

138 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

For, as we have seen, the definition of that highest life
accompanying completely-evolved conduct, itself excludes
all acts of aggression — not only murder, assault, robbery
and the major offences generally, but minor offences, such
as libel, injury to property and so forth. While directly
deducting from individual life, these indirectly cause per
turbations of social life. Trespasses against others rouse
antagonisms in them ; and if these are numerous the group
loses coherence. Hence, whether the integrity of the group
itself is considered as the end ; or whether the end con
sidered is the benefit ultimately secured to its units by
maintaining its integrity ; or whether the immediate benefit
of its units taken separately, is considered the end ; the
implication is the same : such acts are at variance with
achievement of the end. That these inferences are self-
evident and trite (as indeed the first inferences drawn from
the data of every science that reaches the deductive stage
naturally are) must not make us pass lightly over the all-
important fact that, from the sociological point of view,
the leading moral laws are seen to follow as corollaries
from the definition of complete life carried on under social
conditions.

Respect for these primary moral laws is not enough, how
ever. Associated men pursuing their several lives without
injuring one another but without helping one another, reap
no advantages from association beyond those of companion
ship. If, while there is no co-operation for defensive pur
poses (which is here excluded by the hypothesis) there is
also no co-operation for satisfying wants, the social state
loses its raison d'etre — almost, if not entirely. There
are, indeed, people who live in a condition little removed
from this ; as the Esquimaux. But though these, exhibit
ing none of the co-operation necessitated by war, which
is unknown to them, lead lives such that each family is
substantially independent of others, occasional co-operation
occurs. And, indeed, that families should live in com-

THE SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW. 139

pany without ever yielding mutual aid, is scarcely con
ceivable.

Nevertheless, whether actually existing or only approached,
we must here recognize as hypothetically possible, a state in
which these primary moral laws alone are conformed to ; for
the purpose of observing, in their uncomplicated forms,
what are the negative conditions to harmonious social life.
"Whether the members of a social group do or do not co
operate, certain limitations to their individual activities are
necessitated by their association ; and after recognizing these
as arising in the absence of co-operation, we shall be the
better prepared to understand how conformity to them is
effected when co-operation begins.

§ 52. For whether men live together in quite independ
ent ways, careful only to avoid aggressing ; or whether,
advancing from passive association to active association,
they co-operate ; their conduct must be such that the
achievement of ends by each shall at least not be hindered.
And it becomes obvious that when they co-operate, there
must not only be no resulting hindrance but there must be
facilitation ; since in the absence of facilitation there can bo
no motive to co-operate. What shape, then, must the mutual
restraints take when co-operation begins ? or rather — What,
in addition to the primary mutual restraints already specified,
are those secondary mutual restraints required to make co
operation possible ?

One who, living in an isolated way, expends effort in
pursuit of an end, gets compensation for the effort by secur
ing the end ; and so achieves satisfaction. If he expends the
effort without achieving the end, there results dissatisfac
tion. The satisfaction and the dissatisfaction, are measures
of success and failure in life-sustaining acts ; since that
which is achieved by effort is something which directly or
indirectly furthers life, and so pays for the cost of the
effort ; while if the effort fails there is nothing to pay for

140 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

the cost of it, and so much life is wasted. What must result
from this when men's efforts are joined ? The reply will be
made clearer if we take the successive forms of co-operation
in the order of ascending complexity. We may distinguish
as homogeneous co-operation, (1), that in which like efforts
are joined for like ends that are simultaneously enjoyed. As
co-operation that is not completely homogeneous, M-e may
distinguish, (2), that in which like efforts are joined for like
ends that are not simultaneously enjoyed. A co-operation of
which the heterogeneity is more distinct is, (3), that in which
unlike efforts are joined for like ends. And lastly comes the
decidedly heterogeneous co-operation, (4), that in which un
like efforts are joined for unlike ends.

The simplest and earliest of these, in which men's po\vers,
similar in kind and degree, are united in pursuit of a benefit
which, wThen obtained, they all participate in, is most fami
liarly exemplified in the catching of game by primitive men :
this simplest and earliest form of industrial co-operation
being also that which is least differentiated from militant co
operation ; for the co-operators are the same, and the pro
cesses, both destructive of life, are carried on in analogous
ways. The condition under which such co-operation may
be successfully carried on, is that the co-operators shall
share alike in the produce. Each thus being enabled to
repay himself in food for the expended effort, and being
further enabled to achieve other such desired ends as main
tenance of family, obtains satisfaction : there is no aggression
of one on another, and the co-operation is harmonious. Of
course the divided produce can be but roughly proportioned
to the several efforts joined in obtaining it ; but there is
actually among savages, as we see that for harmonious co
operation there must be, a recognition of the principle that
efforts when combined shall severally bring equivalent bene
fits, as they would do if they were separate. Moreover?
beyond the taking equal shares in return for labours that
are approximately equal, there is generally an attempt at

THE SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW. 1-il

proportioning benefit to achievement, by assigning somc-
thin(T extra, in the shape of the best part of the trophy, to
the actual slayer of the game. And obviously, if there is a
wide departure from this system of sharing benefits when
there has been a sharing of efforts, the co-operation will cease.
Individual hunters will prefer to do the best they can for
themsel ves separately.

Passing from this simplest case of co-operation to a case
not quite so simple — a case in which the homogeneity is
incomplete—let us ask how a member of the group may be
led without dissatisfaction to expend eilort in achieving a
benefit which, when achieved, is enjoyed exclusively by
another? Clearly he may do this on condition that the
other shall afterwards expend a like effort, the beneficial
result of which shall be similarly rendered up by him in
return. This exchange of equivalents of effort is the form
which social co-operation takes while yet there is little or no
division of labour save that between the sexes. For example,
the Bodo and Dhimals u mutually assist each other for the
nonce, as well in constructing their houses as in clearing

7 O O

their plots for cultivation." And this principle — I will help
you if you will help me — common in simple communities
where the occupations are alike in kind, and occasionally
acted upon in more advanced communities, is one under
which the relation between effort and benefit, no longer
directly maintained, is maintained indirectly. For whereas
when men's activities are carried on separately, or are joined
in the way exemplified above, effort is immediately paid for
by benefit, in this form of co-operation the benefit achieved
by effort is exchanged for a like benefit to be afterwards
received when asked for. And in this case as in the preced
ing case, co-operation can be maintained only by fulfilment
of the tacit agreements. For if they are habitually not ful
filled, there will commonly be refusal to give aid when asked ;
and each man will be left to do the best he can by himself.
All those advantages to be gained by union of efforts in

142 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

doing tilings that are beyond the powers of the single indi
vidual, will be unachievable. At the outset, then, fulfilment
of contracts that are implied if not expressed, becomes a con
dition to social co-operation ; and therefore to social develop
ment.

From these simple forms of co-operation in which the
labours men carry on are of like kinds, let us turn to the
more complex forms in which they carry on labours of unlike
kinds. Where men mutually aid in building huts or felling
trees, the number of days' work now given by one to
another, is readily balanced by an equal number of days'
work afterwards given by the other to him. And no esti
mation of the relative values of the labours being required, a
definite understanding is little needed. But when division of
labour arises — when there come transactions between one
who makes weapons and another who dresses skins for cloth
ing, or between a grower of roots and a catcher of fish —
neither the relative amounts nor the relative qualities of their
labours admit of easy measure ; and with the multiplication
of businesses, implying numerous kinds of skill and power,
there ceases to be anything like manifest equivalence between
either the bodily and mental efforts set against one another,
or between their products. Hence the arrangement cannot
now be taken for granted, as while the things exchanged are
like in kind : it has to be stated. If A allows B to appro
priate a product of his special skill, on condition that lie is
allowed to appropriate a different product of B's special
skill, it results that as equivalence of the two products cannot
be determined by direct comparison of their quantities and
qualities, there must be a distinct understanding as to how
much of the one may be taken in consideration of so much
of the other.

Onlv under voluntary agreement, then, no longer tacit

*/ v ~ O

and vague but overt and definite, can co operation be har
moniously carried on when division of labour becomes estab
lished. And as in the simplest co-operation, where like

THE SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW. 14:3

efforts are joined to secure a common good, the dissatisfac
tion caused in those who, having expended their labours do
not get their shares of the good, prompts them to cease
co-operating ; as in the more advanced co-operation, achieved
by exchanging equal labours of like kind expended at differ
ent times, aversion to co-operate is generated if the expected
equivalent of labour is not. rendered ; so in this developed
co-operation, the failure of either to surrender to the other
that which was avowedly recognized as of like value with
the labour or product given, tends to prevent co-opera
tion by exciting discontent with its results. And evi
dently, while antagonisms thus caused impede the lives of
the units, the life of the aggregate is endangered by dimin
ished cohesion.

§ 53. Beyond these comparatively direct mischiefs, special
and general, there have to be noted indirect mischiefs. As
already implied by the reasoning in the last paragraph, not
onlv social integration but also social differentiation, is hin-

»/ ^:>

dered by breach of contract.

In Part II of the Principles of Sociology, it was shown
that the fundamental principles of organization are the same
for an individual organism and for a social organism ; because
both consist of mutually-dependent parts. In the one case
as in the other, the assumption of unlike activities by the
component members, is possible only on condition that they
severally benefit in due degrees by one another's activities.
That we may the better see what are the implications in re
spect of social structures, let us first note the implications in
respect of individual structures.

The welfare of a living body implies an approximate
equilibrium between waste and repair. If the activities
involve an expenditure not made good by nutrition,
dwindling follows. If the tissues are enabled to take up
from the blood enriched by food, fit substances enough to
replace those used up in efforts made, the weight may be
11

144 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

maintained. And if the gain exceeds the loss, growth
results. That which is true of the whole in its

relations to the external world, is no less true of the parts
in their relations to one another. Each organ, like the
entire organism, is wasted by performing its function, and
has to restore itself from the materials brought to it. If
the quantity of materials furnished by the joint agency of ,
the other organs is deficient, the particular organ dwindles.
If they are sufficient, it can maintain its integrity. If they
are in excess, it is enabled to increase. To say that this
arrangement constitutes the physiological contract, is to
use a metaphor which, though not true in aspect is true *
in essence. For the relations of structures are actually such
that, by the help of a central regulative system, each ,
organ is supplied with blood in proportion to the work it
does. As was pointed out (Principles of Sociology, § 254)
well-developed animals are so constituted that each muscle
or viscus, when called into action, sends to the vaso-motor ,
centres through certain nerve-fibres, an impulse caused by
its action ; whereupon through other nerve-fibres, there
comes an impulse causing dilatation of its blood-vessels.
That is to say, all other parts of the organism when they
jointly require it to labour, forthwith begin to pay it in
blood. During the ordinary state of physiological equilib
rium, the loss and the gain balance, and the organ does not
sensibly change. If the amount of its function is increased
within such moderate limits that the local blood-vessels can
bring adequately-increased supplies, the organ grows : be
yond replacing its losses by its gains, it makes a profit on its
extra transactions ; so being enabled by extra structures to
meet extra demands. But if the demands made on it be
come so great that the supply of materials cannot keep pace
with the expenditure, either because the local blood-vessels
are not large enough or for any other reason ; then the organ
begins to decrease from excess of waste over repair : there
sets in what is known as atrophy. Xow since each of the

THE SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW. 145

organs has thus to be paid in nutriment for its services by the
rest ; it follows that the due balancing of their respective
claims and payments is requisite, directly for the welfare of
each organ, and indirectly for the welfare of the organism.
For in a whole formed of mutually-dependent parts, any
thing which prevents due performance of its duty by one part
reacts injuriously on all the parts.

With change of terms these statements and inferences

hold of a society. That social division of labour which
parallels in so many other respects the physiological
division of labour, parallels it in this respect also. As
was shown at large in the Principles of Sociology, Part II,
each order of functionaries and each group of pro
ducers, severally performing some action or making
some article not for direct satisfaction of their own
needs but for satisfaction of the needs of fellow-citizens
in general, otherwise occupied, can continue to do this
only so long as the expenditures of effort and returns
of profit are approximately equivalent. Social organs
like individual organs remain stationary if there come
to them normal proportions of the commodities produced
by the society as a whole. If because the demands
made on an industry or profession are unusually great,
-those engaged in it make excessive profits, more citizens
flock to it and the social structure constituted by its
members grows ; while decrease of the demands and
therefore of the profits, either leads its members to
choose other careers or stops the accessions needful to
replace those who die, and the structure dwindles. Thus
is maintained that proportion among the powers of the
component parts which is most conducive to the welfare of
the whole.

And now mark that the primary condition to achieve
ment of this result is fulfilment of contract. If from the
members of any part payment is frequently withheld, or
falls short of the promised amount, then, through ruin of

146 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

some and abandonment of the occupation by others, the part
diminishes ; and if it was before not more than competent
to its duty, it now becomes incompetent, and the society
suffers. Or if social needs throw on some part great in
crease of function, and the members of it are enabled to
get for their services unusually high prices ; fulfilment of
the agreements to give them these high prices, is the only way
of drawing to the part such additional number of members
as will make it equal to the augmented demands. For citi
zens will not come to it if they find the high prices agreed
upon are not paid.

Briefly, then, the universal basis of co-operation is the
proportioning of benefits received to services rendered.
Without this there can be no physiological division of labour ;
without this there can be no sociological division of labour.
And since division of labour, physiological or sociological,
profits the whole and each part ; it results that on mainte
nance of the arrangements necessary to do it, depend both
special and general welfare. In a society such arrangements
are maintained only if bargains, overt or tacit, are carried
out. So that beyond the primary requirement to harmonious
co-existence in a society, that its units shall not directly ag
gress on one another; there comes this secondary require
ment, that they shall not indirectly aggress by breaking
agreements.

§ 54. But now we have to recognize the fact that complete
fulfilment of these conditions, original and derived, is not
enough. Social co-operation may be such that no one is im
peded in the obtainment of the normal return for effort,
but contrariwise is aided by equitable exchange of services ;
and yet much may remain to be achieved. There is a theo
retically-possible form of society, purely industrial in its ac
tivities, which, though approaching nearer to the moral idea
in its code of conduct than any society not purely industrial,
does not fully reach it.

THE SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW.

For while industrialism requires the life of each citizen
to be such that it may be carried on without direct or
indirect aggressions on other citizens, it does not require
his life to be such that it shall directly further the lives
of other citizens. It is not a necessary implication of
industrialism, as thus far defined, that «ach, beyond the
benefits in ven and received bv exchange of services, shall

o tj O

give and receive other benefits. A society is conceivable
formed of men leading perfectly inoffensive lives, scrupu
lously fulfilling their contracts, and efficiently rearing their
offspring, who yet, yielding to one another no advantages
beyond those agreed upon, fall short of that highest degree
of life which the gratuitous rendering of services makes
possible. Daily experiences prove that every one would
suffer many evils and lose many goods, did none give him
unpaid assistance. The life of each would be more or less
damaged had he to meet all contingencies single-handed.
Further, if no one did for his fellows anything more than
was required by strict performance of contract, private
interests would suffer from the absence of attention to public;
interests. The limit of evolution of conduct is consequent
ly not reached, until, beyond avoidance of direct and indi
rect injuries to others, there are spontaneous efforts to fur
ther the welfare of others.

It may be shown that the form of nature which thus to
justice adds beneficence, is one which adaptation to the
social state produces. The social man has not reached that
harmonization of constitution with conditions forming the

limit of evolution, so long as there remains space for the
growth of faculties which, by their exercise, bring positive
benefit to others and satisfaction to self. If the presence
of fellow-men, while putting certain limits to each man's
sphere of activity, opens certain other spheres of activity
in which feelings while achieving their gratifications, do

«— O O

not diminish but add to the gratifications of others, then
such spheres will inevitably be occupied. Kecognition of

148 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

this truth does not, however, call on us to qualify greatly
that conception of the industrial state above set forth ;
since sympathy is the root of both justice and beneficence.

§ 55. Thus the sociological view of Ethics supplements
the physical, the biological, and the psychological views, by
disclosing those conditions under which only associated
activities can be so carried on, that the complete living of
each consists with, and conduces to, the complete living
of all.

At first the welfare of social groups, habitually in antago
nism with other groups, takes precedence of individual wel
fare ; and the rules of conduct which are authoritative for
the time being, involve incompleteness of individual life that
the general life may be maintained. At the same time the
rules have to enforce the claims of individual life as far as
may be ; since on the welfare of the units the welfare of the
aggregate largely depends.

In proportion as societies endanger one another less, the
need for subordinating individual lives to the general life,
decreases ; and with approach to a peaceful state, the general
life, having from the beginning had furtherance of individual
lives as its ultimate purpose, comes to have this as its proxi
mate purpose.

During the transitional stages there are necessitated suc
cessive compromises between the moral code which asserts
the claims of the society versus those of the individual, and
the moral code which asserts the claims of the individual
versus those of the society. And evidently each such com
promise, though for the time being authoritative, admits of
no consistent or definite expression.

But gradually as war declines — gradually as the compulso
ry co-operation needful in dealing with external enemies be
comes unnecessary, and leaves behind the voluntary co-oper
ation which effectually achieves internal sustentation ; there
grows increasingly clear the code of conduct which voluntary

THE SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW. 149

co-operation implies. And this final permanent code alone
admits of being definitely formulated, and so constituting
ethics as a science in contrast with empirical ethics.

The leading traits of a code under which complete living
through voluntary co-operation is secured, may be simply
stated. The fundamental requirement is that the life-sus
taining actions of each shall severally bring him the amounts
and kinds of advantage naturally achieved by them ; and this
implies firstly that he shall suffer no direct aggressions 011
his person or property, and secondly that he shall suffer no
indirect aggressions by breach of contract. Observance of
these negative conditions to voluntary co-operation having
facilitated life to the greatest extent by exchange of services
under .agreement, life is to be further facilitated by exchange
of services beyond agreement : the highest life being reached
6nly when, besides helping to complete one another's lives
by specified reciprocities of aid, men otherwise help to com
plete one another's lives.

CHAPTER IX.

CEITICISMS AND EXPLANATIONS.

§ 56, Comparisons of the foregoing chapters with one
another, suggest sundry questions which must be answered
partially, if not completely, before anything can be done
towards reducing ethical principles from abstract forms to
concrete forms.

We have seen that to admit the desirableness of conscious
existence, is to admit that conduct should be such as will
produce a consciousness which is desirable — a consciousness
which is as much pleasurable and as little painful as may be.
We have also seen that this necessary implication corre
sponds with the a priori inference, that the evolution of life
has been made possible only by the establishment of con
nexions between pleasures and beneficial actions and between
pains and detrimental actions. But the general conclusion
reached in both of these ways, though it covers the area
within which our special conclusions must fall, does not help
us to reach those special conclusions.

Were pleasures all of one kind, differing only in degree ;
were pains all of one kind, differing only in degree ; and
could pleasures be measured against pains with definite re
sults ; the problems of conduct would be greatly simplified.
Were the pleasures and pains serving as incentives and de
terrents, simultaneously present to consciousness with like
vividness, or were they all immediately impending, or were
they all equi-distant in time ; the problems would be further

150

CRITICISMS AND EXPLANATIONS. 151

simplified. And they would be still further simplified if the
pleasures and pains were exclusively those of the actor. But
both the desirable and the undesirable feelings are of various
kinds, making quantitative comparisons difficult ; some are
present and some are future, increasing the difficulty of
quantitative comparison ; some are entailed on self and some
are entailed on others ; again increasing the difficulty. So
that the guidance yielded by the primary principle reached,
is of little service unless supplemented by the guidance of
secondary principles.

Already, in recognizing the needful subordination of
presentative feelings to representative feelings, and the
implied postponement of present to future throughout a
wide range of cases, some approach towards a secondary
principle of guidance has been made. Already, too, in
recognizing the limitations which men's associated state
puts to their actions, with the implied need for restraining
feelings of some kinds by feelings of other kinds, we have
come in sight of another secondary principle of guidance.
Still, there remains much to be decided respecting the
relative claims of these guiding principles, general and
special.

Some elucidation of the questions involved, will be ob
tained by here discussing certain views arid arguments set
forth by past and present moralists.

§ 57. Using the name hedonism for that ethical theory
which makes happiness the end of action ; and distinguish
ing hedonism into the two kinds, egoistic and universalistic,
according as the happiness sought is that of the actor him
self or is that of all, Mr. Sidgwick alleges its implied belief
to be that pleasures and pains are commensurable. In his
criticism on (empirical) egoistic hedonism he says : —

" The fundamental assumption of Hedonism, clearly stated, is that all feel
ings considered merely as feeling's can be arranged in a certain scale of desira
bility, so that the desirability or pleasantness of each bears a definite ratio to
that of all the others."— Methods of Ethics, 2nd ed. p. 115.

152 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

And asserting this to be its assumption, he proceeds to point
out difficulties in the way of the hedonistic calculation ; ap
parently for the purpose of implying that these difficulties
tell against the hedonistic theory.

Now though it may be shown that by naming the inten
sity, the duration, the certainty, and the proximity, of a
pleasure or a pain, as traits entering into the estimation of
its relative value, Bentham has committed himself to the
specified assumption ; and though it is perhaps reasonably
taken for granted that hedonism as represented by him, is
identical wTith hedonism at large ; yet it seems to me that the
hedonist, empirical or other, is not necessarily committed to
this assumption. That the greatest surplus of pleasures
over pains ought to be the end of action, is a belief which
he may still consistently hold after admitting that the valua
tions of pleasures and pains are commonly vague and often
erroneous. He may say that though indefinite things do
not admit of definite measurements, yet approximately true
estimates of their relative values may be made when they
differ considerably ; and he may further say that even when
their relative values are not determinable, it remains true
that the most valuable should be chosen. Let us listen to
him.

" A debtor who cannot pay me, offers to compound for his
debt by making over one of sundry things he possesses —
a diamond ornament, a silver vase, a picture, a carriage.
Other questions being set aside, I assert it to be my pecu
niary interest to choose the most valuable of these ; but
I cannot say which is the most valuable. Does the pro
position that it is my pecuniary interest to choose the most
valuable therefore become doubtful ? Must I not choose as
well as I can ; and if I choose wrongly must I give up my
ground of choice ? Must I infer that in matters of business
1 may not act on the principle that, other things equal, the
more profitable transaction is to be preferred ; because in
many cases I cannot say which is the more profitable, and

CRITICISMS AND EXPLANATIONS. 153

have often cliosen the less profitable ? Because I believe
that of many dangerous courses I ought to take the least
dangerous, do I make 'the fundamental assumption' that
courses can be arranged according to a scale of dangerous-
ness ; and must I abandon my belief if I cannot so arrange
them ? If I am not by consistency bound to do this, then I
am no more by consistency bound to give up the principle
that the greatest surplus of pleasures over pains should be
the end of action, because the ' commensurability of pleasures
and pains ' cannot be asserted."

At the close of his chapters on empirical hedonism, Mr.
Sidgwick himself says he does " not think that the common
experience of mankind, impartially examined, really sustains
the view that Egoistic Hedonism is necessarily suicidal ; "
adding, however, that the " uncertainty of hedonistic calcu
lation cannot be denied to have great weight." But here
the fundamental assumption of hedonism, that happiness is
the end of action, is still supposed to involve the assumption
that " feelings can be arranged in a certain scale of desira
bility." This we have seen it does not : its fundamental
assumption is in no degree invalidated by proof that such
arrangement of them is impracticable.

To Mr. Sidgwick's argument there is the further objec
tion, no less serious, that to whatever degree it tells against
egoistic hedonism, it tells in a greater degree against uni-
versalistic hedonism, or utilitarianism. He admits that it
tells as much ; saying " whatever weight is to be attached
to the objections brought against this assumption [the com
mensurability of pleasures and pains] must of course tell
against the present method." Not only does it tell, but it
tells in a double way. I do not mean merely that, as he
points out, the assumption becomes greatly complicated if
we take all sentient beings into account, and if we include
posterity along with existing individuals. I mean that,
taking as the end to be achieved the greatest happiness of
the existing individuals forming a single community, the set

154 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

of difficulties standing in the way of egoistic hedonism, is
compounded with another set of difficulties no less great,
when we pass from it to universalistic hedonism. For if the
dictates of universalistic hedonism are to he fulfilled, it
must be under the guidance of individual judgments, or of
corporate judgments, or of both. Now any one of such
judgments issuing from a single mind, or from any aggregate
of minds, necessarily embodies conclusions respecting the
happinesses of other persons ; few of them known, and the
great mass never seen. All these persons have natures
differing in countless ways and degrees from the natures of
those who form the judgments ; and the happinesses of
which they are severally capable differ from one another,
and differ from the happinesses of those who form the judg
ments. Consequently, if against the method of egoistic
hedonism there is the objection that a man's own pleasures
and pains, unlike in their kinds, intensities, and times of
occurrence, are incommensurable ; then against the method
of universalistic hedonism it may be urged that to the in
commensurability of each judge's own pleasures and pains
(which he must use as standards) has now to be added the
much more decided incommensurability of the pleasures and
pains which he conceives to be experienced by innumerable
other persons, all differently constituted from himself and
from one another.

Kay more — there is a triple set of difficulties in the way
of universalistic hedonism. To the double indeterminate-
ness of the end has to be added the indeterminateness of the
means. If hedonism, egoistic or universalistic, is to pass
from dead theory into living practice, acts of one or other
kind must be decided on to achieve proposed objects ; and
in estimating the two methods we have to consider how far
the fitness of the acts respectively required can be judged.
If, in pursuing his own ends, the individual is liable to
be led by erroneous opinions to adjust his acts wrongly,
much more liable is he to be led by erroneous opinions to

CRITICISMS AND EXPLANATIONS.

adjust -wrongly more complex acts to the more complex ends
constituted by other men's welfares. It is so if he operates
singly to benefit a few others; and it is still more so if
he co-operates with many to benefit all. Making general
happiness the immediate object of pursuit, implies numerous
and complicated instrumentalities officered by thousands of
nnseen and unlike persons, and working on millions of
other persons unseen and unlike. Even the few factors in
this immense aggregate of appliances and processes which
are known, are very imperfectly known ; and the great mass
of them are unknown. So that even supposing valuation
of pleasures and pains for the community at large is more
practicable than, or even as practicable as, valuation of his
own pleasures and pains by the individual; yet the ruling of
conduct with a view to the one end is far more difficult than
the ruling of it with a view to the other. Hence if the
method of egoistic hedonism is unsatisfactory, far more un
satisfactory for the same and kindred reasons, is the method
of universalistic hedonism, or utilitarianism.

And here we come in sight of the conclusion which it
has been the purpose of the foregoing criticism to bring
into view. The objection made to the hedonistic method
contains a truth, but includes with it an untruth. For
while the proposition that happiness, whether individual or
general, is the end of action, is not invalidated by proof that
it cannot under either form be estimated by measurement
of its components ; yet it may be admitted that guidance
in the pursuit of happiness by a mere balancing of pleasures
and pains, is, if partially practicable throughout a certain
range of conduct, futile throughout a much wider range. It

•

is quite consistent to assert that happiness is the ultimate
aim of action, and at the same time to deny that it can be
reached by making it the immediate aim. I go with Mr.
Sidgwick as far as the conclusion that " we must at least admit
the desirability of confirming or correcting the results of
such comparisons [of pleasures and pains] by any other

156 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

method upon which we may find reason to rely ; " and I
then go further, and say that throughout a large part of con
duct guidance by such comparisons is to be entirely set aside
and replaced by other guidance.

§ 58. The antithesis here insisted upon between the
hedonistic and considered in the abstract, and the method
which current hedonism, whether egoistic or universalistic,
associates with that end ; and the joining acceptance of the
one with rejection of the other ; commits us to an overt dis
cussion of these two cardinal elements of ethical theory. I
may conveniently initiate this discussion by criticizing another
of Mr. Sidgwick's criticisms on the method of hedonism.

Though we can give no account of those simple pleasures
which the senses yield, because they are undecomposable, yet
we distinctly know their characters as states of consciousness.
Conversely, the complex pleasures formed by compounding
and re-compounding the ideas of simple pleasures, though
theoretically resolvable into their components, are not easy
to resolve ; and in proportion as they are heterogeneous in
composition, the difficulty of framing intelligible conceptions
of them increases. This is especially the case with the
pleasures which accompany our sports. Treating of these,
along with the pleasures of pursuit in general, for the pur
pose of showing that " in order to get them one must forget
them," Mr. Sidgwick remarks : —

" A man who maintains throughout an epicurean mood, fixing his aim on
his own pleasure, does not catch the full spirit of the chase ; his eagerness
never gets just the sharpness of edge which imparts to the pleasure its highest
zest and flavour. Here comes into view what we may call the fundamental
paradox of Hedonism, that the impulse towards pleasure, if too predominant,
defeats its own aim. This effect is not visible, or at any rate is scarcely visible,
in the case of passive sensual pleasures. But our active employments gene
rally, whether the activities on which they attend are classed as ' bodily ' or as
' intellectual ' (as well as of many emotional pleasures), it may certainly be said
that we cannot attain them, at least in their best form, so long as we concen
trate our aim on them." — Methods of Jithics, 2nd ed. p. 41.

Now I think we shall not regard this truth as paradoxical

CRITICISMS AND EXPLANATIONS. 157

after we have duly analyzed the pleasure of pursuit. The
chief components of this pleasure are ; — first, a renewed
consciousness of personal efficiency (made vivid by actual
success and partially excited by impending success) which
consciousness of personal efficiency, connected in expe
rience with achieved ends of every kind, arouses a vague
but massive consciousness of resulting gratifications ; and,
second, a representation of the applause which recognition
of this efficiency by others has before brought, and will
again bring. Games of skill show us this clearly. Con
sidered as an end in itself, the good cannon which a billiard
player makes yields no pleasure. Whence then does the
pleasure of making it arise ? Partly from the fresh proof
of capability which the player gives to himself, and partly
from the imagined admiration of those who witness the
proof of his capability : the last being the chief, since he
soon tires of making cannons in the absence of witnesses.

"When from games which, yielding the pleasures of success,
yield no pleasure derived from the end considered intrinsi
cally, we pass to sports in which the end has intrinsic
value as a source of pleasure, we see substantially the same
thing. Though the bird which the sportsman brings down
is useful as food, yet his satisfaction arises mainly from
having made a good shot, and from having added to the
bag which will presently bring praise of his skill. The
gratification of self-esteem he immediately experiences ; and
the gratification of receiving applause he experiences, if not
immediately and in full degree, yet by representation ; for
the ideal pleasure is nothing else than a faint revival of the
real pleasure. These two kinds of agreeable excitement
present in the sportsman during the chase, constitute the
mass of the desires stimulating him to continue it ; for all
desires are nascent forms of the feelings to be obtained by
the efforts they prompt. And though while seeking more
birds these representative feelings are not so vividly excited
as by success just achieved, yet they are excited by im-

158 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

aginations of farther successes ; and so make enjoyable the
activities constituting the pursuit. Recognizing, then, the
truth that the pleasures of pursuit are much more those de
rived from the efficient use of means than those derived from
the end itself, we see that " the fundamental paradox of
hedonism " disappears.

These remarks concerning end and means, and the pleas
ure accompanying use of the means as added to the pleasure
derived from the end, I have made for the purpose of draw
ing attention to a fact of profound significance. During
evolution there has been a superposing of new and more
complex sets of means upon older and simpler sets of means;
and a superposing of the pleasures accompanying the uses of
these successive sets of means ; with the result that each of
these pleasures has itself eventually become an end. We
begin with a simple animal which, without ancillary appli
ances, swallows such food as accident brings in its way ; and
so, as we may assume, stills some kind of craving. Here we
have the primary end of nutrition with its accompanying
satisfaction, in their simple forms. We pass to higher types
having jaws for seizing and biting— jaws which thus, by their
actions, facilitate achievement of the primary end. On ob
serving animals furnished with these organs, we get evi
dence that the use of them becomes in itself pleasurable
irrespective of the end : instance a squirrel, which, apart
from food to be so obtained, delights in nibbling everything
it gets hold of. Turning from jaws to limbs we see that
these, serving some creatures for pursuit and others for
escape, similarly yield gratification by their exercise ; as in
lambs which skip and horses which prance. How the com
bined use of limbs and jaws, originally subserving the satis
faction of appetite, grows to be in itself pleasurable, is daily
illustrated in the playing of dogs. For that throwing down
and worrying which, when prey is caught, precedes eating, is,
in their mimic fights, carried by each as far as he dares.
Coming to means still more remote from the end, namely,

CRITICISMS AND EXPLANATIONS. 159

those by which creatures chased are caught, we are
again shown by dogs that when no creature is caught there

O •/ CJ £3

is still a gratification in the act of catching. The eager
ness with which a dog runs after stones, or dances and
barks in anticipation of jumping into the water after a
stick, proves that apart from the satisfaction of appetite, and
apart even from the satisfaction of killing prey, there is a
satisfaction in the successful pursuit of a moving ob
ject. Throughout, then, we see that the pleasure attend
ant on the use of means to achieve an end, itself becomes
an end.

]STow if we contemplate these as phenomena of conduct in
general, some facts worthy of note may be discerned — facts
which, if we appreciate their significance, will aid us in
developing our ethical conceptions. One of them

is that among the successive sets of means, the later are
the more remote from the primary end ; are, as co-ordinat
ing earlier and simpler means, the more complex ; and
are accompanied by feelings which are more representa
tive. Another fact is that each set of means, with
its accompanying satisfactions, eventually becomes in its turn
dependent on one originating later than itself. Before the
gullet swallows, the jaws must lay hold ; before the jaws tear
out and bring within the grasp of the gullet a piece fit for
swallowing, there must be that co-operation of limbs and
senses required for killing the prey; before this co-operation
can take place, there needs the much longer co-operation con
stituting the chase ; and even before tin's there must be per
sistent activities of limbs, eyes, and nose, in seeking prey.
The pleasure attending each set of acts, while making possi
ble the pleasure attending the set of acts which follows, is
joined with a representation of this subsequent set of acts
and its pleasure, and of the others which succeed in order ;
so that along with the feelings accompanying the search for
prey, are partially aroused the feelings accompanying the
actual chase, the actual destruction, the actual devouring, and
12

THE DATA OF ETHICS.

the eventual satisfaction of appetite. A third fact

is that the use of each set of means in due order, consti
tutes an obligation. Maintenance of its life being regarded
as the end of its conduct, the creature is obliged to use in
succession the means of finding prey, the means of catch,
ing prey, the means of killing prey, the means of devour
ing prey. Lastly, it follows that though the assuag
ing of hunger, directly associated with sustentation,
remains to the last the ultimate end ; yet the successful
use of each set of means in its turn is the proximate end
— the end which takes temporary precedence in authoritative-
ness.

§ 59. The relations between means and ends thus traced
throughout the earlier stages of evolving conduct, are trace
able throughout later stages ; and hold true of human conduct,
up even to its highest forms. As fast as, for the better main
tenance of life, the simpler sets of means and the pleasures
accompanying the uses of them, come to be supplemented by
the more complex sets of means and their pleasures, these be
gin to take precedence in time and in imperativeness. To
use effectually each more complex set of means becomes the
proximate end, and the accompanying feeling becomes the
immediate gratification sought ; though there may be, and
habitually is, an associated consciousness of the remoter ends
and remoter gratifications to be obtained. An example will
make clear the parallelism.

Absorbed in his business the trader, if asked what is his
main end, will say — making money. He readily grants that
achievement of this end is desired by him in furtherance of
ends beyond it. He knows that in directly seeking money
he is indirectly seeking food, clothes, house-room, and the
comforts of life for self and family. But while admitting
that money is but a means to these ends, he urges that the
money-getting actions precede in order of time and obliga
tion, the various actions and concomitant pleasures subserved

CRITICISMS AND EXPLANATIONS. 161

by them ; and he testifies to the fact that making money has
become itself an end, and success in it a source of satis
faction, apart from these more distant ends. A«-ain
on observing more closely the trader's proceedings, we find
that though to the end of living comfortably he e;ets monev
and though to the end of getting money he buys and sells
at a profit, which so becomes a means more immediately
pursued, yet he is chiefly occupied with means still more re
mote from ultimate ends, and in relation to which even the
selling at a profit becomes an end. For leaving to subor
dinates the actual measuring out of goods and receiving of
proceeds, he busies himself mainly with his general affairs-
inquiries concerning markets, judgments of future prices,
calculations, negotiations, correspondence : the anxiety from
hour to hour being to do well each one of these things in
directly conducive to the making of profits. And these
ends precede in time and obligation the effecting of profit-
: able sales, just as the effecting of profitable sales precedes
the end of money-making, and just as the end of monev-
making precedes the end of satisfactory living. Jlis
bookkeeping best exemplifies the principle at large. Entries
1 to the debtor or creditor sides are being made all through
the day ; the items are classified and arranged in such way
that at a moment's notice the state of each account may be
ascertained ; and then, from time to time, the books are
balanced, and it is required that the result shall come right
to a penny : satisfaction following proved correctness, and
annoyance being caused by error. If you ask why all this
.elaborate process, so remote from the actual getting of
money, and still more remote from the enjoyments of life,
;the answer is that keeping accounts correctly is fulfilling a
condition to the end of money-making, and becomes in
itself a proximate end — a duty to be discharged, that there
may be discharged the duty of getting an income, that
there may be discharged the duty of maintaining self, wife,
and children.

162 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

Approaching as we here do to moral obligation, are we
not shown its relations to conduct at large ? Is it not clear
that observance of moral principles is fulfilment of certain
general conditions to the successful carrying on of special
activities ? That the trader may prosper, he must not only
keep his books correctly, but must pay those he employs
according to agreement, and must meet his engagements
with creditors. May we not say, then, that conformity to
the second and third of these requirements is, like conform
ity to the first, an indirect means to effectual use of the
more direct means of achieving welfare ? May we not say,
too, that as the use of each more indirect means in due
order becomes itself an end, and a source of gratification ; so,
eventually, becomes the use of this most indirect means?
And may we not infer that though conformity to moral
requirements precedes in imperativeness conformity to other
requirements ; yet that this imperativeness arises from the
fact that fulfilment of the other requirements, by self or
others or both, is thus furthered ?

§ 60. This question brings us round to another side of the
issue before raised. When alleging that empirical utili
tarianism is but introductory to rational utilitarianism, I
pointed out that the last does not take welfare for its imme
diate object of pursuit, but takes for its immediate object of
pursuit conformity to certain principles which, in the nature
of things, causally determine welfare. And now we see
that this amounts to recognition of that law, traceable
throughout the evolution of conduct in general, that each
later and higher order of means takes precedence in time
and authoritativeness of each earlier and lower order of
means. The contrast between the ethical methods thus dis
tinguished, made tolerably clear by the above illustrations,
will be made still clearer by contemplating the two as put in
opposition by the leading exponent of empirical utilitarian
ism. Treating of legislative aims, Bentharn writes : —

CRITICISMS AND EXPLANATIONS. 103

" But justice, what is it that we arc to understand by justice : and why not
happiness but justice V What happiness is, every man knows, because, what
pleasure is, every man knows, and what pain is, every man knows. But what
justice is, — this is what on every occasion is the subject-matter of dispute. Be
the meaning of the word justice what it will, what regard is it entitled to other
wise than as a means of happiness." *

Let us first consider the assertion here made respecting
the relative intelligibilities of these two ends ; and let us
afterwards consider what is implied by the choice of happi
ness instead of justice.

Bentharn's positive assertion that " what happiness is
every man knows, because, what pleasure is, every man
knows,'' is met by counter-assertions equally positive.
" "Who can tell," asks Plato, " what pleasure really is, or
know it in its essence, except the philosopher, who alone
is conversant with realities." f Aristotle, too, after com
menting on the different opinions held by the vulgar, by
the political, by the contemplative, says of happiness that
" to some it seems to be virtue, to others prodence, and to
others a kind of wisdom : to some again, these, or some one
of these, with pleasure, or at least, not without pleasure ;
others again include external prosperity." ^ And Aristotle,
like Plato, comes to the remarkable conclusion that the
pleasures of the intellect, reached by the contemplative
life, constitute the highest happiness ! § How

disagreements concerning the nature of happiness and
the relative values of pleasures, thus exhibited in ancient
times, continue down to modern times, is shown in Mr.
Sidgwick's discussion of egoistic hedonism, above com
mented upon. Further, as was pointed out before, the
indefiniteness attending the estimations of pleasures and
pains, which stands in the way of egoistic hedonism as
ordinarily conceived, is immensely increased on passing to
universalistic hedonism as ordinarily conceived ; since its

* Constitutional Code, chap. xvir Supreme Legislative — Section vi, Omiri-
competcnce.

\ Republic, Bk. ix. \ Nicomacheem Ethics, Bk. 5. chap. 8. § Bk. x. chap. 7.

1G4 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

theory implies that the imagined pleasures and pains of
others are to be estimated by the help of these pleasures
and pains of self, already so difficult to estimate. And that
anyone after observing the various pursuits into which some
eagerly enter but which others shun, and after listening to
the different opinions concerning the likeableness of this or
that occupation or amusement, expressed at every table, should
assert that the nature of happiness can be fully agreed upon,
so as to render it a lit end for direct legislative action, is
surprising.

The accompanying proposition that justice is unintel
ligible as an end, is no less surprising. Though primitive
men have no words for either happiness or justice ; yet
even among them an approach to the conception of justice
is traceable. The law of retaliation, requiring that a
death inflicted by one tribe on another, shall be balanced
by the death either of the murderer or some member of
his tribe, shows us in a vague shape that notion of equal-
ness of treatment which forms an essential element in
it. When we come to early races who have

given their thoughts and feelings literary form, we find this
conception of justice, as involving equalness of action, be
coming distinct. Among the Jews, David expressed in
words this association of ideas when, praying to God to
" hear the right," he said — " Let my sentence come forth
from thy presence ; let thine eyes behold the things that are
equal ;" as also, among early Christians, did Paul when to
the Colossians he wrote — " Masters, give unto your servants
that which is just and equal." Commenting on the different
meanings of justice, Aristotle concludes that " the just will
therefore be the lawful and the equal ; and the unjust the
unlawful and the unequal. But since the unjust man is also
one who takes more than his share," &c. And that justice
was similarly conceived by the Romans they proved by in
cluding under it such meanings as exact, proportionate, im
partial, severally implying fairness of division : and still

CRITICISMS AND EXPLANATIONS. 165

better by identification of it with equity, which is a deriva
tive of cequus : the word ccquus itself having for one of its
meanings jnst or impartial. This coincidence of

view among ancient peoples respecting the nature of justice,
has extended to modern peoples ; who by a general agree
ment in certain cardinal principles which their systems of
law embody, forbidding direct aggressions, which are forms
of unequal actions, and forbidding indirect aggressions by
breaches of contract, which are other forms of unequal
actions, one and all show us the identification of justice with
equalness. Bentham, then, is wrong when he says — " But
what justice is, — this is what on every occasion is the sub
ject-matter of dispute." lie is more wrong, indeed, than
has thus far appeared. For, in the first place, he misrepre
sents utterly by ignoring the fact that in ninety-nine out of
every hundred daily transactions between men, no dispute
about justice arises ; but the business done is recognized on
both sides as justly done. And in the second place if,
with respect to the hundredth transaction there is a dis
pute, the subject matter of it is not " what justice is," for
it is admitted to be equity or equalness ; but the subject
matter of dispute always is — what, under these particular
circumstances, constitutes equalness ?— a widely different
question.

It is not then self-evident, as Bentham alleges, that
happiness is an intelligible end while justice is not ; but,
contrariwise, examination makes evident the greater in
telligibility of justice as an end. And analysis shows why
it is the more intelligible. For justice, or equity, or equal-
ness, is concerned exclusively with quantity under stated
conditions • whereas happiness is concerned with both
quantity and quality under conditions not stated. When,
as in case of theft, a benefit is taken while no equivalent
benefit is yielded — when, as in case of adulterated goods
bought or base coin paid, that which is agreed to be
given in exchange as of equal value is not given, but some-

1GC THE DATA OF ETHICS.

thing of less value — when, as in case of broken contract, the
obligation on one side has been discharged while there has
been no discharge, or incomplete discharge, of the obligation
on the other ; we see that, the circumstances l>einy specified,
the injustice complained of refers to the relative amounts
of actions, or products, or beneiits, the natures of which
are recognized only so far as is needful for saying whether
as much has been given, or done, or allowed, by each
concerned, as was implied by tacit or overt understanding
to be an equivalent. But when the end proposed is happi
ness, the circumstances remaining unspecified, the problem
is that of estimating both quantities and qualities, un-
lielped by any such definite measures as acts of exchange
imply, or as contracts imply, or as are implied by the
differences between the doings of one aggressing and
one aggressed upon. The mere fact that Bentham himself
includes as elements in the estimation of each pleasure
or pain, its intensity, duration, certainty, and proximity,
suffices to show how difficult is this problem. And when
it is remembered that all pleasures and pains, not felt in
particular cases only but in the aggregate of cases, and
severally regarded under these four aspects, have to be
compared with one another and their relative values deter
mined, simply by introspection ; it will be manifest both
that the problem is complicated by the addition of indefinite
judgments of qualities to indefinite measures of quantities,
and that it is further complicated by the multitudinous*
ness of these vague estimations to be gone through and
summed up.

But now passing over this assertion of Benthnrn that
happiness is a more intelligible end than justice, which we
find to be the reverse of truth, let us note the several implica
tions of the doctrine that the supreme legislative body ought
to make the greatest happiness of the greatest number its im
mediate aim.

It implies, in the first place, that happiness may be com-

CRITICISMS AND KXl'LANATIOXS. 107

passed by methods framed directly for the purpose, without
any previous inquiry respecting the conditions that must be
fulfilled ; and this pre-supposes a belief that there are no such
conditions. For if there are any conditions without fulfil
ment of which happiness cannot be compassed, then the first
step must be to ascertain these conditions with a view to ful
filling them ; and to admit this is to admit that not happiness
itself must be the immediate end, but fulfilment of the con
ditions to its attainment must be the immediate end. The
alternatives are simple : — Either the achievement of happi
ness is not conditional, in which case one mode of action is as
good as another, or it is conditional, in which case the re
quired mode of action must be the direct aim and not the
happiness to be achieved by it.

Assuming it conceded, as it will be, that there exist condi
tions which must be fulfilled before happiness can be attained,
let us next ask what is implied by proposing modes of so con
trolling conduct as to further happiness, without previously
inquiring whether any such modes are already known I The
implication is that human intelligence throughout the past,
operating on experiences, has failed to discover any such
modes ; whereas present human intelligence may be expected
forthwith to discover them. Unless this be asserted, it must
be admitted that certain conditions to the achievement of
happiness have already been partially, if not wholly, ascer
tained ; and if so, our first business should be to look for
them. Having found them, our rational course is to bring
existing intelligence to bear on these products of past intel
ligence, with the expectation that it will verify the substance
of them while possibly correcting the form. But to sup
pose that no regulative principles for the conduct of associ
ated human beings have thus far been established, and
that they are now to be established de novo, is to suppose
that man as he is differs from man as he was in an incredible
degree.

Beyond ignoring the probability, or rather the certainty,

168 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

that past experience generalized by past intelligence, must
by this time have disclosed partially, if not wholly, some of
the essential conditions to the achievement of happiness,
Bentham's proposition ignores the formulated knowledge of
them actually existing. For whence come the conception
of justice and the answering sentiment. He will scarcely
say that they are meaningless, although his proposition im
plies as much ; and if he admits that they have meanings,
he must choose between two alternatives either of which is
fatal to his hypothesis. Are they supernaturally-caused
modes of thinking and feeling, tending to make men ful
fil the conditions to happiness ? If so their authority is per
emptory. Are they modes of thinking and feeling naturally
caused in men by experience of these conditions ? If so,
their authority is no less peremptory. Not only, then, does
Bentham fail to infer that certain principles of guidance
must by this time have been ascertained, but he refuses to
recognize these principles as actually reached and present
to him.

And then after all, he tacitly admits that which he overtly
denies, by saying that — " Be the meaning of the word
justice what it will, what regard is it entitled to otherwise
than as a means to happiness ? " For if justice is a means
having happiness as its end, then justice must take prece
dence of happiness, as every other means takes precedence
of every other end. Bentham's own elaborate polity is a
means having happiness as its end, as justice is, by his
own admission, a means having happiness as an end. If,
then, we may properly skip justice, and go directly to the
end happiness, we may properly skip Bentham's polity,
and go directly to the end happiness. In short, we are
led to the remarkable conclusion that in all cases we
must contemplate exclusively the end and must disregard
the means.

§ 61. This relation of ends to means, underlying all ethical

CRITICISMS AND EXPLANATIONS. 1G9

speculation, will be further elucidated if we join with some
of the above conclusions, certain conclusions drawn in the
last chapter. We shall see that while greatest happiness may
vary widely in societies which, though ideally constituted, are
subject to unlike physical circumstances, certain fundamental
conditions to the achievement of this greatest happiness, are
common to all such societies.

Given a people inhabiting a tract which makes nomadic
habits necessary, and the happiness of each individual will
be greatest when his nature is so moulded to the require
ments of his life, that all his faculties find their due activities
in daily driving and tending cattle, milking, migrating, and
so forth. The members of a community otherwise similar,
which is permanently settled, will severally achieve their
greatest happiness when their natures have become such that
a fixed habitat, and the occupations necessitated by it, supply
the spheres in which each instinct and emotion is exercised
and brings the concomitant pleasure. The citizens of a large
nation industrially organized, have reached their possible
ideal of happiness, when the producing, distributing, and
other activities, are such in their kinds and amounts, that each
citizen finds in them a place for all his energies and aptitudes,
while he obtains the means of satisfying all his desires.
Once more we may recognize as not only possible but prob
able, the eventual existence of a community, also industrial,
the members of which, having natures similarly responding
to these requirements, are also characterized by dominant
aesthetic faculties, and achieve complete happiness only when
a large part of life is filled with aesthetic activities. Evident
ly these different types of men, with their different standards
of happiness, each finding the possibility of that happiness in
his own society, would not find it if transferred to any of the
other societies. Evidently though they might have in com
mon such kinds of happiness as accompany the satisfaction
of vital needs, they would not have in common sundry other
kinds of happiness.

170 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

Bat now mark that while, to achieve greatest happiness
in each of such societies, the special conditions to be fulfilled
must differ from those to be fulfilled in the other societies,
certain general conditions must be fulfilled in all the societies.
Harmonious co-operation, by which alone in any of them the
greatest happiness can be attained, is, as we saw, made pos
sible only by respect for one another's claims : there must be
neither those direct aggressions which we class as crimes
against person and property, nor must there be those indirect
aggressions constituted by breaches of contracts. So that
maintenance of equitable relations between men, is the con
dition to attainment of greatest happiness in all societies ;
however much the greatest happiness attainable in each may
differ in nature, or amount, or both.

And here a physical analogy may fitly be used to give the
greatest definiteness to this cardinal truth. A mass of
matter of whatever kind, maintains its state of internal equi
librium, so long as its component particles severally stand
towards their neighbours in equi-distant positions. Accept
ing the conclusions of modern physicists, which imply
that each molecule moves rhythmically, then a balanced
state implies that each performs its movements within a
space bounded by the like spaces required for the move
ments of those around. If the molecules have been so
aggregated that the oscillations of some are more restrained
than the oscillations of others, there is a proportionate insta
bility. If the number of them thus unduly restrained is
considerable, the instability is such that the cohesion in some
part is liable to fail, and a crack results. If the excesses of
restraint are great and multitudinous, a trifling disturbance
causes the mass to break up into small fragments. To
which add that the recognized remedy for this unstable
state, is an exposure to such physical condition (ordinarily
high temperature) as enables the molecules so to change
their relative positions that their mutual restraints become
equal on all sides. And now observe that this holds what-

CRITICISMS AND EXPLANATIONS. 171

ever be the natures of the molecules. They may be simple ;
they may be compound ; they may be composed of this or
that matter in this or that way. In other words, the special
activities of each molecule, constituted by the relative move
ments of its units, may be various in their kinds and de
grees ; and yet, be they what they may, it remains true that
to preserve internal equilibrium throughout the mass of
molecules, the mutual limitations of their activities must be
everywhere alike.

And this is the above-described pre-requisite to social
equilibrium, whatever the special natures of the associated
persons. Assuming that within each society such persons are
of the same type, needing for the fulfilment of their several
lives kindred activities, and though these activities may be
of one kind in one society and of another kind in another,
so admitting of indefinite variation, this condition to social
equilibrium does not admit of variation. It must be fulfilled
before complete life, that is greatest happiness, can be
attained in any society ; be the particular quality of that life,
or that happiness, what it may.*

§ 62. After thus observing how means and ends in con
duct stand to one another, and how there emerge certain
conclusions respecting their relative claims, we may see a
M'ay to reconcile sundry conflicting ethical theories. These
severally embody portions of the truth ; and simply require
combining in proper order to embody the whole truth.

The theological theory contains a part. If for the divine
will, supposed to be supernaturally revealed, we substitute
the naturally-revealed end towards which the Power mani
fested throughout Evolution works; then, since Evolution
has been, and is still, working towards the highest life, it
follows that conforming to those principles by which the
highest life is achieved, is furthering that end. The doctrine

* This universal requirement it was which I had in view when choosing for
my first work, published in 1850, the title Social Statics.

172 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

that perfection or excellence of nature should be the object
of pursuit, is in one sense true ; for it tacitly recognizes
that ideal form of being which the highest life implies, and
to which Evolution tends. There is a truth, also, in the doc
trine that virtue must be the aim ; for this is another form
of the doctrine that the aim must be to fulfil the conditions
to achievement of the highest life. That the intuitions of a
moral faculty should guide our conduct, is a proposition in
which a truth is contained ; for these intuitions are the
slowly organized results of experiences received by the race
while living in presence of these conditions. And that hap
piness is the supreme end is beyond question true ; for this
is the concomitant of that highest life which every theory of
moral guidance has distinctly or vaguely in view.

So understanding their relative positions, those ethical
systems which make virtue, right, obligation, the cardinal
aims, are seen to be complementary to those ethical systems
which make welfare, pleasure, happiness, the cardinal aims.
Though the moral sentiments generated in civilized men by
daily conduct with social conditions and gradual adaptation
to them, are indispensable as incentives and deterrents;
and though the intuitions corresponding to these senti
ments, have, in virtue of their origin, a general authority to
be reverently recognized ; yet the sympathies and antipathies
hence originating, together with the intellectual expressions
of them, are, in their primitive forms, necessarily vague.
To make guidance by them adequate to all requirements,
their dictates have to be interpreted and made definite by
science ; to which end there must be analysis of those
conditions to complete living which they respond to, and
from converse with which they have arisen. And such
analysis necessitates the recognition of happiness for each
and all, as the end to be achieved by fulfilment of these
conditions.

Hence, recognizing in due degrees all the various ethical
theories, conduct in its highest form will take as guides,

CRITICISMS AND EXPLANATIONS. 1 < O

innate perceptions of right duly enlightened and made
precise by an analytic intelligence ; while conscious that
these guides are proximately supreme solely because they
lead to the ultimately supreme end, happiness special and
general.

CHAPTER X.

THE RELATIVITY OF PAINS AND PLEASURES.

§ 63. A truth of cardinal importance as a datum of Ethica,
which was incidentally referred to in the last chapter, must
here be set forth at full length. I mean the truth that not
only men of different races, but also different men of the same
race, and even the same men at different periods of life,
have different standards of happiness. Though there is
some recognition of this by moralists, the recognition is
inadequate ; and the far-reaching conclusions to be drawn
when the relativity of happiness is fully recognized, are
scarcely suspected.

It is a belief universal in early life — a belief which in
most people is but partially corrected in later life, and in
very few wholly dissipated — that there is something intrin
sic in the pleasantness of certain things, while other things
are intrinsically unpleasant. The error is analogous to, and
closely allied with, the error crude realism makes. Just
as to the uncultured mind it appears self-evident that tlte
sweetness of sugar is inherent in sugar, that sound as we
perceive it is sound as it exists in the external world,
and that the warmth from a fire is in itself what it
seems ; so does it appear self-evident that the sweetness
of sugar is necessarily grateful, that there is in a beautiful
sound something that must be beautiful to all creatures,
and that the agreeable feeling produced by warmth is

174

THE KELATIVITY OF TAINS AND PLEASURES. 1 V5

a feeling which every other consciousness must find agree
able.

But as criticism proves the one set of conclusions to
be wrong, so does it prove to be wrong the other set.
]S"ot only are the qualities of external things as intellectu
ally apprehended by us, relative to our own organisms ; but
the pleasurableness or painfulness of the feelings which we
associate with such qualities, are also relative to our own
organisms. They are so in a double sense — they are rela
tive to its structures, and they are relative to the states of
its structures.

That we may not rest in a mere nominal acceptance of
these general truths, but may so appreciate them as to see
their full bearings on ethical theory, we must here glance at
them as exemplified by animate creatures at large. For
after contemplating the wide divergences of sentiency ac
companying the wide divergences of organization which
evolution in general has brought about, we shall be enabled
the better to see the divergences of sentiency to be expected
from the further evolution of humanity.

§ 04. Because they can be most quickly disposed of, let us
first deal with pains : a further reason for first dealing with
pains being that we may thus forthwith recognize, and then
leave out of consideration, those sentient states the qualities
of which may be regarded as absolute rather than relative.

The painfulness of the feelings produced by forces which
tend to destroy organic structures, wholly or in part, is of
course common to all creatures capable of feeling. We saw
it to be inevitable that during evolution there must every
where be established such connexions between external
actions and the modes of consciousness they cause, that the
injurious ones are accompanied by disagreeable feelings and
the beneficial ones by agreeable feelings. Consequently,
pressures or strains which tear or bruise, and heats which
burn or scald, being in all cases partially or wholly destruc-
13

176 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

tive, are in all cases painful. But even here the rela- ,

tivity of the feelings may in one sense be asserted. For the
effect of a force of given quantity or intensity, varies partly
with the size and partly with the structure of the creature
exposed to it. The weight which is scarcely felt by a large
animal crushes a small one ; the blow which breaks the limb
of a mouse produces little effect on a horse ; the weapon ,
which lacerates a horse leaves a rhinoceros uninjured. And
with these differences of injuriousness doubtless go differ- ,
ences of feeling. Merely glancing at the illustrations of this
truth furnished by sentient beings in general, let us consider
the illustrations mankind furnish.

Comparisons of robust labouring men with women or ,
children, show us that degrees of mechanical stress which
the first bear with impunity, produce on the others injuries
and accompanying pains. The blistering of a tender skin
by an amount of friction which does not even redden a ,
coarse one, or the bursting of superficial blood-vessels, and
consequent discolouration, caused in a person of lax tissues
by a blow which leaves in well-toned tissues no trace, will
sufficiently exemplify this contrast. Not only, how

ever, are the pains due to violent incident forces, relative
to the characters or constitutional qualities of the parts
directly affected, but they are relative in equally marked
ways, or even in more marked ways, to the characters of the
nervous structures. The common assumption is that equal
bodily injuries excite equal pains. But this is a mistake.
Pulling out a tooth or cutting off a limb, gives to different
persons widely different amounts of suffering : not the en
durance only, but the feeling to be endured, varies greatly ;
and the variation largely depends on the degree of nervous
development. This is well shown by the great insensibility
of idiots — blows, cuts, and extremes of heat and cold, being
borne by them with indifference.* The relation thus shown
in the most marked manner where the development of the

* On Idiocy and Imbecility, by William W. Ireland, M. D., p. 255-6.

THE RELATIVITY OF TAINS AND PLEASURES. 177

central nervous system is abnormally low, is shown in a
less marked manner where the development of the central
nervous system is normally low ; namely, among inferior
races of men. Many travellers have commented on the
strange callousness shown by savages who have been man
gled in battle or by accident ; and surgeons in India say
that wounds and operations are better borne by natives
than by Europeans. Further, there comes the converse
fact that among the higher types of men, larger-brained and
more sensitive to pain than the lower, the most sensitive are
those whose nervous developments, as shown by their mental
powers, are the highest : part of the evidence being the rela
tive intolerance of disagreeable sensations common among
men of genius,* and the general irritability characteristic of
them.

That pain is relative not to structures only, but to their
states as well, is also manifest — more manifest indeed.
The sensibility of an external part depends on its temper
ature. Cool it below a certain point and it becomes, as we
say, numb ; and if by ether-spray it is made very cold, it
may be cut without any feeling being produced. Con
versely, heat the part so that its blood-vessels dilate, and
the pain which any injury or irritation causes is greater than
usual. ITow largely the production of pain depends on
the condition of the part affected, we see in the extreme
tenderness of an inflamed surface — a tenderness such that
a slight touch causes shrinking, and such that rays from
the lire which ordinarily would be indifferent become in
tolerable. Similarly with the special senses. A light
which eyes that are in good order bear without disagreeable
feeling, cannot be borne by inflamed eyes. And beyond
the local state, the state of the system as a whole, and the
state of the nervous centres, are both factors. Those en
feebled by illness are distressed by noises which those in
health bear with equanimity ; and men with overwrought

* For instances see Fortnightly Review, Vol. XXIV (New Seric*}, p. 712.

178 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

brains are irritated in unusual degrees by annoyances, both,
physical and moral. Further, the temporary con

dition known as exhaustion enters into the relation. Limbs
over-worn by prolonged exertion, cannot without aching
perform acts which would at other times cause no appre
ciable feeling. After reading continuously for very many
hours, even strong eyes begin to smart. And noises that
can be listened to for a short time with indifference, become,
if there is no cessation, causes of suffering.

So that though there is absoluteness in the relation be
tween positive pains and actions that are positively injurious,
in so far that wherever there is sentiency it exists ; yet even
here partial relativity may be asserted. For there is no
fixed relation between the acting force and the produced
feeling. The amount of feeling varies with the size of the
organism, with the character of its outer structures, with the
character of its nervous system ; and also with the temporary
states of the part affected, of the body at large, and of the
nervous centres.

§ 65. The relativity of pleasures is far more conspicuous ;
and the illustrations of it furnished by the sentient world at
large are innumerable.

It needs but to glance round at the various things which
different creatures are prompted by their desires to eat and
are gratified in eating — flesh for predaceous animals, grass
for the herbivora, worms for the mole, flies for the swallow,
seeds for the finch, honey for the bee, a decaying car
case for the maggot — to be reminded that the tastes for
foods are relative to the structures of the creatures. And
this truth, made conspicuous by a survey of animals in
general, is forced on our attention even by a survey of
different races of men. Here human flesh is abhorred, and
there regarded as the greatest delicacy ; in this country
roots are allowed to putrefy before they are eaten, and in
that the taint of decay produces disgust ; the whale's

THE RELATIVITY OF PAIXS AXD PLEASURES. 179

blubber which one race devours with avidity, will in another
by its very odour produce nausea. £say, without looking
abroad we may, in the common saying that " one man's

;meat is another man's poison," see the general admission
that members of the same society so far differ, that a taste

.which is to these pleasurable is to those displeasurable. So
is it with the other senses. Assafoetida, which by us is
singled out as typical of the disgusting in odour, ranks

iamong the Esthonians as a favourite perfume ; and even
those around ns varv so far in their likings that the scents

" O

.of flowers grateful to some are repugnant to others. Analo
gous differences in the preferences for colours, we daily hear
expressed. And in a greater or less degree the like holds
: with all sensations, down even to those of touch : the feeling
yielded by velvet, which is to most agreeable, setting the
iteeth on edge in some.

It needs but to name appetite and satiety to suggest
multitudinous facts showing that pleasures are relative not
only to the organic structures but also to their states. The
food which yields keen gratification when there is great
hunger ceases to be grateful when hunger is satisfied ; and
'f then forced on the eater is rejected with aversion. So,
too, a particular kind of food, seeming when first tasted so
delicious ihat daily repetition would be a source of endless
enjoyment, becomes, in a few days, not only uncnjoyable but
repugnant. Brilliant colours which, falling on unaccustomed
eyes give delight, pall on the sense if long looked at ; and
there is relief in getting away from the impressions they
yield. Sounds sweet in themselves and sweet in their com
binations, which yield to unfatigued ears intense pleasure,
become, at the end of a long concert, not only wearisome
but, if there is no escape from them, causes of irritation.
The like holds down even to such simple sensations as those
of heat and cold. The fire go delightful on a winter's day
is, in hot weather, oppressive ; and pleasure is then taken in
the cold water from which, in winter, there would be

ISO THE DATA OF ETHICS.

shrinking. Indeed, experiences lasting over but a few
moments suffice to show how relative to the states of the
structures are pleasurable sensations of these kinds ; for it
is observable that on dipping the cold hand into hot water,
the agreeable feeling gradually diminishes as the hand
warms.

These few instances will carry home the truth, manifest
enough to all who observe, that the receipt of each agreeable
sensation depends primarily on the existence of a structure
which is called into play ; and, secondarily, on the condition
of that structure, as fitting it or unfitting it for activity.

§ 66. The truth that emotional pleasures are made possible,
partly by the existence of correlative structures and partly by
the states of those structures, is equally undeniable.

Observe the animal which, leading a life demanding soli
tary habits, has an adapted organization, and it gives no sign
of need for the presence of its kind. Observe, conversely, a
gregarious animal separated from the herd, and you seo
marks of unhappiness while the separation continues, and
equally distinct marks of joy on joining its companions. In
the one case there is no nervous structure which finds its
sphere of action in the gregarious state ; and in the other
case such a structure exists. As was implied by instances
cited in the last chapter for another purpose, animals leading
lives involving particular kinds of activities, have become so
constituted that pursuance of those activities, exercising
the correlative structures, yields the associated pleasures.
Beasts of prey confined in dens, show us by their pacings
from side to side the endeavour to obtain, as well as they
can, the satisfactions that accompany roaming about in
their natural habitats ; and that gratification in the ex
penditure of their locomotive energies shown us by por
poises playing round a vessel, is shown us by the similarly-
unceasing excursions from end to end of its cell which a
captured porpoise makes. The perpetual hoppings of the

THE RELATIVITY OF PAINS AXD PLEASURES. 181

canary from bar to bar of its cage, and the ceaseless use of
claws and bill in climbing about its perch by the parrot, are
other activities which, severally related to the needs of the
species, have severally themselves become sources of agree
able feelings. Still more clearly are we shown by the
efforts which a caged beaver makes to build with such
sticks and pieces of wood as are at hand, how dominant
in its nature has become the building instinct ; and how,
apart from any advantage gained, it gets gratification by
repeating, as well as it can, the processes of construction it
is organized to carry on. The cat which, lacking something
to tear with her claws, pulls at the mat with them, the con
fined giraffe which, in default of branches to lay hold of
wears out the upper angles of the doors to its house by
continually grasping them with its prehensile tongue, the
rhinoceros which, having no enemy to fight, ploughs up
the ground with his horn, all yield us analogous evidence.
Clearly, these various actions performed by these various
creatures are not intrinsically pleasurable ; for they dif
fer more or less in each species and are often utterly
unlike. The pleasurableness is simply in the exercise of
nervo-muscular structures adapted to the performance of the
actions.

Though races of men are contrasted with one another so
much less than genera and orders of animals are, yet, as we
saw in the last chapter, along with visible differences there
go invisible differences, with accompanying likings for dif
ferent modes of life. Among some, as the Mantras, the love
of unrestrained action and the disregard of companionship,
are such that they separate if they quarrel, and hence live
scattered ; while among others, as the Damaras, there is little
tendency to resist, but instead, an admiration for any one who
assumes power over them. Already when exemplifying the
indefiniteness of happiness as an end of action, I have referred
to the unlike ideals of life pursued by the nomadic and the
settled, the warlike and the peaceful, — unlike ideals which

182 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

imply unlikenesses of nervous structures caused by the in
herited effects of unlike habits accumulating through genera
tions. These contrasts, various iu their kinds and degrees
among the various types of mankind, everyone can supple
ment by analogous contrasts observable among those around.
The occupations some delight in are to those otherwise con
stituted intolerable ; and men's hobbies, severally appearing
to themselves quite natural, often appear to their friends
ludicrous and almost insane : facts which alone might make
us see that the pleasurableness of actions of this or
that kind, is due not to anything in the natures of the
actions but to the existence of faculties which find exercise
in them.

It must be added that each pleasurable emotion, like each
pleasurable sensation, is relative not only to a certain struct
ure but also to the state of that structure. The parts called
into action must have had proper rest — must be in a con
dition fit for action ; not in the condition which prolonged
action produces. Be the order of emotion what it may, an
unbroken continuity in the receipt of it eventually brings
satiety. The pleasurable consciousness becomes less and less
vivid, and there arises the need for a temporary cessation dur
ing which the parts that have been active may recover their
fitness for activity ; and during which also, the activities of
other parts and receipt of the accompanying emotions may
find due place.

§ 67. I have insisted on these general truths with perhaps
needless iteration, to prepare the reader for more fully recog
nizing a corollary that is practically ignored. Abundant
and clear as is the evidence, and forced though it is daily
on everyone's attention, the conclusions respecting life and
conduct which should be drawn, are not drawn ; and so
much at variance are these conclusions with current beliefs,
that enunciation of them causes a stare of incredulity.
Pervaded as all past thinking has been, and as most pres-

THE RELATIVITY OF PAINS AND PLEASURES. 183

ent thinking is, by the assumption that the nature of
every creature lias been specially created for it, and that
human nature, also specially created, is, like other natures,
fixed — pervaded too as this thinking has been, and is, by
the allied assumption that the agreeableness of certain
actions depends on their essential qualities, while other
actions are by their essential qualities made disagreeable ;
it is difficult to obtain a hearing for the doctrine that the
kinds of action which are now pleasurable will, under
conditions requiring the change, cease to be pleasurable,
while other kinds of action will become pleasurable. Even
those who accept the doctrine of Evolution mostly hear
with scepticism, or at best with nominal faith, the infer
ences to be drawn from it respecting the humanity of the
future.

And yet as shown in myriads of instances indicated
by the few above given, those natural processes which
have produced multitudinous forms of structure adapted to
multitudinous forms of activity, have simultaneously made
these forms of activity pleasurable. And the inevitable
implication is that within the limits imposed by physical
laws, there will be evolved, in adaptation to any new
sets of conditions that may be established, appropriate
structures of which the functions will yield their respective
gratifications.

When we have got rid of the tendency to think that
certain modes of activity are necessarily pleasurable because
they give us pleasure, and that other modes which do not
please us are necessarily unpleasing ; we shall see that the
re-moulding of human nature into fitness for the require
ments of social life, must eventually make all needful
activities pleasurable, while it makes displeasurable all
activities at variance with these requirements. When we
have come fully to recognize the truth that there is nothing
intrinsically more gratifying in the efforts by which wild
animals are caught, than in the efforts expended in rearing

184 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

plants, and that the combined actions of muscles and
senses in rowing a boat are not by their essential natures
more productive of agreeable feeling than those gone
through in reaping corn, but that everything depends on
the co-operating emotions, which at present are more in
accordance with the one than with the other ; we shall infer
that along with decrease of those emotions for which the
social state affords little or no scope, and increase of those
which it persistently exercises, the things now done with dis
like from a sense of obligation will be done with immediate
liking, and the things desisted from as a matter of duty will
be desisted from because they are repugnant.

This conclusion, alien to popular beliefs and in ethical
speculation habitually ignored, or at most recognized but
partially and occasionally, will be thought by the majority
so improbable that I must give further justification of it :
enforcing the d priori argument by an d posteriori one.
Small as is the attention given to the fact, yet is the fact
conspicuous that the corollary above drawn from the doctrine
of Evolution at large, coincides with the corollary which past
and present changes in human nature force on us. The
leading contrasts of character between savage and civilized,
are just those contrasts to be expected from the process of
adaptation.

The life of the primitive man is passed mainly in the
pursuit of beasts, birds, and fish, which yields him a
gratifying excitement ; but though to the civilized man the
chase gives gratification, this is neither so persistent nor so
general. There are among us keen sportsmen ; but there
are many to whom shooting and fishing soon become weari
some ; and there are not a few to whom they are altogether
indifferent or even distasteful. Conversely, the power

of continued application which in the primitive man is very
small, has among ourselves become considerable. It is
true that most are coerced into industry by necessity ;
but there are sprinkled throughout society men to whom

THE RELATIVITY OF PAIXS AXD PLEASURES. 185

active occupation is a need — men who are restless when
away from business and miserable when they eventually
give it up ; men to whom this or that line of investigation
is so attractive, that they devote themselves to it day after
day, year after year ; men who are so deeply interested in
public affairs that they pass lives of labour in achieving
political ends they think advantageous, hardly giving them
selves the rest necessary for health. Yet again, and
still more strikingly, does the change become manifest when
we compare undeveloped with developed humanity in respect
of the conduct prompted by fellow feeling. Cruelty rather
than kindness is characteristic of the savage, and is in many
cases a source of marked gratification to him ; but though
among the civilized are some in whom this trait of the
savage survives, yet a love of inflicting pain is not general,
and besides numbers who show benevolence, there are those
who devote their whole time and much of their money to
philanthropic ends, without thought of reward either here
or hereafter. Clearly these major, along with many
minor, changes of nature, conform to the law set forth.
Activities appropriate to their needs which give pleasures to
savages have ceased to be pleasurable to many of the civilized ;
while the civilized have acquired capacities for other appro
priate activities and accompanying pleasures which savages
had no capacities for.

Tsrow, not only is it rational to infer that changes like those
which have been going on during civilization, will continue
to go on, but it is irrational to do otherwise. 'Not he who
believes that adaptation will increase is absurd, but he who
doubts that it will increase is absurd. Lack of faith in such
further evolution of humanity as shall harmonize its nature
with its conditions, adds but another to the countless illus
trations of inadequate consciousness of causation. One who,
leaving behind both primitive dogmas and primitive ways
of looking at things, has, while accepting scientific conclu
sions acquired those habits of thought which science gener-

1SG THE DATA OF ETHICS.

ates, will regard the conclusion above drawn as inevitable.
He will find it impossible to believe that the processes which
have heretofore so moulded all beings to the requirements
of their lives that they get satisfactions in fulfilling them,
will not hereafter continue so moulding them. He will infer
that the type of nature to which the highest social life affords
a sphere such that every faculty has its due amount, and
no more than the due amount, of function and accompany
ing gratification, is the type of nature towards which prog
ress cannot cease till it is reached. Pleasure being pro
ducible by the exercise of any structure which is adjusted
to its special end, he will see the necessary implication to
be that, supposing it consistent with the maintenance of
life, there is no kind of activity which will not become a
source of pleasure if continued ; and that therefore pleasure
will eventually accompany every mode of action demanded
by social conditions.

This corollary I here emphasize because it will presently
play an important part in the argument.

CHAPTER XI.

EGOISM VERSUS ALTKUISM.

§ 68. If insistence on them tends to unsettle established
systems of unbelief, self-evident truths are by most people
silently passed over ; or else there is a tacit refusal to draw
from them the most obvious inferences.

Of self-evident truths so dealt with, the one which hero
concerns us is that a creature must live before it can act,
From this it is a corollary that the acts by which each main
tains his own life must, speaking generally, precede in im
perativeness all other acts of which he is capable. For if it
be asserted that these other acts must precede in impera
tiveness the acts which maintain life ; and if this, accepted
as a general law of conduct, is conformed to by all ; then
by postponing the acts which maintain life to the other
acts which life makes possible, all must lose their lives.
That is to say, Ethics has to recognize the truth, recog
nized in unethical thought, that egoism comes before altru
ism. The acts required for continued self-preservation,
including the enjoyment of benefits achieved by such acts,
are the first requisites to universal welfare. Unless each
duly cares for himself, his care for all others is ended by
death ; and if each thus dies, there remain no others to be
cared for.

This permanent supremacy of egoism over altruism, made

1ST

188 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

manifest by contemplating existing life, is further made
manifest by contemplating life in course of evolution.

§ 69. Those who have followed with assent the recent
course of thought, do not need telling that throughout past
eras, the life, vast in amount and varied in kind, which has
overspread the Earth, has progressed in subordination to
the law that every individual shall gain by whatever aptitude
it has for fulfilling the conditions to its existence. The
uniform principle has been that better adaptation shall bring
greater benefit ; which greater benefit, while increasing the
prosperity of the better adapted, shall increase also its ability
to leave offspring inheriting more or less its better adapta
tion. And, by implication, the uniform principle has been
that the ill-adapted, disadvantaged in the struggle for exist
ence, shall bear the consequent evils : either disappearing
when its imperfections are extreme, or else rearing fewer off
spring, which, inheriting its imperfections, tend to dwindle
away in posterity.

It has been thus with innate superiorities ; it has been
thus also with acquired ones. All along the law has been
that increased function brings increased power ; and that
therefore such extra activities as aid welfare in any member
of a race, produce in its structures greater ability to carry
on such extra activities : the derived advantages being en
joyed by it to the heightening and lengthening of its life.
Conversely, as lessened function ends in lessened structure,
the dwindling of unused faculties has ever entailed loss of
power to achieve the correlative ends : the result of inade
quate fulfilment of the ends being diminished ability to
maintain life. And by inheritance, such functionally-pro
duced modifications have respectively furthered or hindered
survival in posterity.

As already said, the law that each creature shall take the
benefits and the evils of its own nature, be they those
derived from ancestry or those due to self-produced modifi-

EGOISM VERSUS ALTRUISM. ISO

cations, has been the law under which life has evolved thus
far ; and it must continue to he the law however much
further life may evolve. Whatever qualifications this natu
ral course of action may now or hereafter undergo, arc
qualifications that cannot, without fatal results, essentially
change it. Any arrangements which in a considerable de
gree prevent superiority from profiting by the rewards of
superiority, or shield inferiority from the evils it entails —
any arrangements which tend to make it as well to be in
ferior as to be superior ; are arrangements diametrically
opposed to the progress of organization and the reaching of
a higher life.

But to say that each individual shall reap the benefits
brought to him by his own powers, inherited and acquired,
is to enunciate egoism as an ultimate principle of conduct.
It is to say that egoistic claims must take precedence of
altruistic claims.

§ TO. Under its biological aspect this proposition cannot
be contested by those who agree in the doctrine of Evolu
tion ; but probably they will not at once allow that admission
of it under its ethical aspect is equally unavoidable. While,
as respects development of life, the well-working of the
universal principle described is sufficiently manifest ; the
well-working of it as respects increase of happiness may not
be seen at once. But the two cannot be disjoined.

Incapacity of every kind and of whatever degree, causes
unhappiness directly and indirectly — directly by the pain
consequent on the over-taxing of inadequate faculty, and
indirectly by the non-fulfilment, or imperfect fulfilment, of
certain conditions to welfare. Conversely, capacity of every
kind sufficient for the requirement, conduces to happiness
immediately and remotely — immediately by the pleasure
accompanying the normal exercise of each power that is up
to its work, and remotely by the pleasures which are fur
thered by the ends achieved. A creature that is weak or

190 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

slow of foot, and so gets food only by exhausting efforts or
escapes enemies with difficulty, suffers the pains of over
strained powers, of unsatisfied appetites, of distressed emo
tions ; while the strong and swift creature of the same
species delights in its efficient activities, gains more fully the
satisfactions yielded by food as well as the renewed vivacity
this gives, and has to bear fewer and smaller pains in defend
ing itself against foes or escaping from them. Similarly
with duller and keener senses, or higher and lower degrees
of sagacity. The mentally-inferior individual of any race
suffers negative and positive miseries ; while the mentally-
superior individual receives negative and positive gratifica
tions. Inevitably, then, this law in conformity with which
each member of a species takes the consequences of its own
nature ; and in virtue of which the progeny of each member,
participating in its nature, also takes such consequences ; is
one that tends ever to raise the aggregate happiness of the
species, by furthering the multiplication of the happier and
hindering that of the less happy.

All this is true of human beings as of other beings. The
conclusion forced on us is that the pursuit of individual
happiness within those limits prescribed by social conditions,
is the first requisite to the attainment of the greatest general
happiness. To see this it needs but to contrast one whose
self-regard has maintained bodily well-being, with one whose
regardlessness of self has brought its natural results ; and
then to ask what must be the contrast between two societies
formed of two such kinds of individuals.

Bounding out of bed after an unbroken sleep, singing; or
whistling as he dresses, coming down with beaming face
ready to laugh on the smallest provocation, the healthy man
of high powers, conscious of past successes and by his
energy, quickness, resource, made confident of the future,
enters on the day's business not with repugnance but with
gladness ; and from hour to hour experiencing satisfac
tions from work effectually done, comes home with an

EGOISM VERSUS ALTRUISM. 191

abundant surplus of energy remaining for hours of relax
ation. Far otherwise is it with one who is enfeebled by
great neglect of self. Already deficient, his energies are
made more deficient by constant endeavours to execute
tasks that prove beyond his strength, and by the resulting
discouragement. Besides the depressing consciousness of
the immediate future, there is the depressing consciousness
of the remoter future, with its probability of accumulated
difficulties and diminished ability to meet them. Hours
of leisure which, rightly passed, bring pleasures that raise
the tide of life and renew the powers of work, cannot be
utilized : there is not vigour enough for enjoyments in
volving action, and lack of spirits prevents passive enjoy
ments from being entered upon with zest. In brief, life
becomes a burden. Xow if, as must be admitted, in a
community composed of individuals like the first the hap
piness will be relatively great, while in one composed of
individuals like the last there will be relatively little happi
ness, or rather much misery ; it must be admitted that
conduct causin«; the one result is o-ood and conduct causing

O O ^J

the other is bad.

But diminutions of general happiness are produced by
inadequate egoism in several other ways. These we will
successively glance at,

§ 71. If there were no proofs of heredity — if it were
the rule that the strong are usually begotten by the weak
while the weak usually descend from the strong, that viva
cious children form the families of melancholy parents while
fathers and mothers with overflowing spirits mostly have
dull progeny, that from stolid peasants there ordinarily come
sons of high intelligence while the sons of the cultured are
commonly fit for nothing but following the plough — if there
were no transmission of gout, scrofula, insanity, and did the
diseased habitually give birth to the healthy and the healthy
to the diseased, writers on Ethics might be justified in ignor-
14

192 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

ing those effects of conduct which are felt by posterity
through the natures they inherit.

As it is, however, the current ideas concerning the
relative claims of egoism and altruism are vitiated by the
omission of this all-important factor. For if health, strength
and capacity, are usually transmitted ; and if disease, feeble
ness, stupidity, generally reappear in descendants ; then a
rational altruism requires insistance on that egoism which
is shown by receipt of the satisfactions accompanying
preservation of body and mind in the best state. The
necessary implication is that blessings are provided for
offspring by due self-regard, while disregard of self carried
too far provides curses. When, indeed, we remember how
commonly it is remarked that high health and overflowing
spirits render any lot in life tolerable, while chronic
ailments make gloomy a life most favourably circum
stanced, it becomes amazing that both the world at large
and writers who make conduct their study, should
ignore the terrible evils which disregard of personal well-
being inflicts on the unborn, and the incalculable good
laid up for the unborn by attention to personal well-
being. Of all bequests of parents to children the most
valuable is a sound constitution. Though a man's body is
not a property that can be inherited, yet his constitution
may fitly be compared to an entailed estate ; and if he right
ly understands his duty to posterity, he will see that he is
bound to pass on that estate uninjured if not improved.
To say this is to say that he must be egoistic to the
extent of satisfying all those desires associated with the
due performance of functions. Nay, it is to say more. It
is to say that he must seek in due amounts the various
pleasures which life offers. For beyond the effect these
have in raising the tide of life and maintaining constitu
tional vigour, there is the effect they have in preserving and
increasing a capacity of receiving enjoyment. Endowed
with abundant energies and various tastes, some can get

EGOISM A'EKSUS ALTRUISM. 193

gratifications of many kinds on opportunities hourly occur
ring ; while others are so inert, and so uninterested in things
around, that they cannot even take the trouble to amuse
themselves. And unless heredity be denied, the inference
must be that due acceptance of the miscellaneous pleasures
life offers, conduces to the capacity for enjoyment in pos-
i terity; and that persistence in dull monotonous lives by
parents, diminishes the ability of their descendants to make
the best of M'hat gratifications fall to them.

§ 72. Beyond the decrease of general happiness which
results in this indirect way if egoism is unduly subordinated,
there is a decrease of general happiness which results in a
direct way. He who carries self-regard far enough to keep
himself in good health and high spirits, in the first place
thereby becomes an immediate source of happiness to those
around, and in the second place maintains the ability to in
crease their happiness by altruistic actions. But one whose
bodily vigour and mental health are undermined by self-
sacrifice carried too far, in the first place becomes to those
around a cause of depression, and in the second place ren-
! ders himself incapable, or less capable, of actively furthering
their welfare.

In estimating conduct we must remember that there
are those who by their joyousness beget joy in others,
and that there are those who by their melancholy cast a
gloom on every circle they enter. And we must remember
.that by display of overflowing happiness a man of the one
kind may add to the happiness of others more than by
positive efforts to benefit them ; and that a man of the other
kind may decrease their happiness more by his presence
than he increases it by his actions. Full of vivacity, the one
is ever welcome. For his wife he has smiles and jocose
speeches ; for his children stores of fun and play ; for his
friends pleasant talk interspersed with the sallies of wit that
come from buoyancy. Contrariwise, the other is shunned.

194: THE DATA OF ETHICS.

The irritability resulting now from ailments, now from
failures caused by feebleness, his family has daily to bear.
Lacking adequate energy for joining in them, he has at best
but a tepid interest in the amusements of his children ; and
he is called a wet blanket by his friends. Little account as
our ethical reasonings take note of it, yet is the fact obvious
that since happiness and misery are infectious, such regard
for self as conduces to health and high spirits is a benefac
tion to others, and such disregard of self as brings on suffer
ing, bodily or mental, is a malefaction to others. The
duty of making one's self agreeable by seeming to be
pleased, is, indeed, often urged ; and thus to gratify friends
is applauded so long as self-sacrificing effort is implied.
But though display of real happiness gratifies friends far
more than display of sham happiness, and has no drawback
in the shape either of hypocrisy or strain, yet it is not
thought a duty to fulfil the conditions which favour the dis
play of real happiness. Nevertheless, if quantity of happi
ness produced is to be the measure, the last is more impera
tive than the first.

And then, as above indicated, beyond this primary series
of effects produced on others there is a secondary series of
effects. The adequately egoistic individual retains those
powers which make altruistic activities possible. The indi
vidual who is inadequately egoistic, loses more or less of his
ability to be altruistic. The truth of the one proposition is
self-evident ; and the truth of the other is daily forced on us
by examples. Note a few of them. Here is a mother

who, brought up in the insane fashion usual among the cul
tivated, has a physique not strong enough for suckling her
infant, but who, knowing that its natural food is the best,
and anxious for its welfare, continues to give it milk for a
longer time than her system will bear. Eventually the accu
mulating reaction tells. There comes exhaustion running,
it may be, into illness caused by depletion ; occasionally end
ing in death, and often entailing chronic weakness. She

EGOISM VEKSUS ALTRUISM. 195

becomes, perhaps for a time, perhaps permanently, incapable
of carrying on household affairs ; her other children suffer
from the loss of maternal attention ; and where the income
is small, payments for nurse and doctor tell injuriously 011
the whole family. Instance, again, what not unfre-

quently happens with the father. Similarly prompted by
a high sense of obligation, and misled by current moral
theories into the notion that self-denial may rightly be
carried to any extent, he daily continues his office-work for
long hours regardless of hot head and cold feet ; and debars
himself of social pleasures, for which he thinks he can
afford neither time nor money. What comes of this entirely
unegoistic course ? Eventually a sudden collapse, sleepless
ness, inability to work. That rest which he would not give
himself when his sensations prompted, he has now to take
in long measure. The extra earnings laid by for the benefit
of his family, are quickly swept away by costly journeys in
aid of recovery, and by the many expenses which ill
ness entails. Instead of increased ability to do his duty by
his offspring, there comes now inability. Life-long evils
on them replace hoped-for goods. And so is it, too,

with the social effects of inadequate egoism. All grades
furnish examples of the mischiefs, positive and negative,
inflicted on society by excessive neglect of self. Kow the
case is that of a labourer who, conscientiously continuing
his work under a broiling sun, spite of violent protest from
his feelings, dies of sunstroke ; and leaves his family a burden
to the parish. Xow the case is that of a clerk whose eyes
permanently fail from over-straining, or who, daily writing
for hours after his fingers are painfully cramped, is attacked
with " scrivener's palsy," and, unable to write at all, sinks
with aged parents into poverty which friends are called on
to mitigate. And now the case is that of a man devoted
to public ends who, shattering his health by ceaseless appli
cation, fails to achieve all he might have achieved by a more

196 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

reasonable apportionment of his time between labour on
behalf of others and ministration to his own needs.

§ 73. In one further way is the undue subordination of
egoism to altruism injurious. Both directly and indirectly
unselfishness pushed to excess generates selfishness.

Consider first the immediate effects. That one man may
yield up to another a gratification, it is needful that the
other shall accept it ; and where the gratification is of a
kind to which their respective claims are equal, or which is
no more required by the one than by the other, acceptance
implies a readiness to get gratification at another's cost.
The circumstances and needs of the two being alike, the
transaction involves as much culture of egoism in the
last as it involves culture of altruism in the first. It is true
that not unfrequently, difference between their means or
difference between their appetites for a pleasure which the
one has had often and the other rarely, divests the accept
ance of this character ; and it is true that in other cases
the benefactor manifestly takes so much pleasure in giving
pleasure, that the sacrifice is partial, and the reception of it
not wholly selfish. But to see the effect above indicated we
must exclude such inequalities, and consider what happens
where wants are approximately alike and where the sacri
fices, not reciprocated at intervals, are perpetually on one
side. So restricting the inquiry all can name instances
verifying the alleged result. Evervone can remember

i/ & c3 v

circles in which the daily surrender of benefits by the gene
rous to the greedy, has caused increase of greediness ; until
there has been produced an unscrupulous egoism intolerable
to all around. There are obvious social effects of kindred
nature. Most thinking people now recognize the demorali
zation caused by indiscriminate charity. They see how in
the mendicant there is, besides destruction of the norma*
relation between labour expended and benefit obtained, a

EGOISM VERSUS ALTRUISM. 197

genesis of the expectation that others shall minister to his
needs ; showing itself sometimes in the venting of curses on
those who refuse.

Next consider the remote results. When the egoistic
claims are so much subordinated to the altruistic as to pro
duce physical mischief, the tendency is towards a relative
decrease in the number of the altruistic, and therefore an
increased predominance of the egoistic. Pushed to extremes,
sacrifice of self for the benefit of others, leads occasionally to
death before the ordinary period of marriage ; leads some
times to abstention from marriage, as in sisters of charity ;
leads sometimes to an ill-health or a loss of attractiveness
which prevents marriage ; leads sometimes to non-acquire
ment of the pecuniary means needed for marriage ; and in
all these cases, therefore, the unusually altruistic leave no de
scendants. Where the postponement of personal welfare to
the welfare of others has not been carried so far as to pre
vent marriage, it yet not unfrequently occurs that the phys
ical degradation resulting from years of self-neglect causes
infertility ; so that again the most altruistically-natured leave
no like-natured posterity. And then in less marked and
more numerous cases, the resulting enfeeblement shows itself
by the production of • relatively weak offspring ; of whom
some die early, while the rest are less likely than usual to
transmit the parental type to future generations. Inevitably,
then, by this dying out of the especially unegoistic, there is
prevented that desirable mitigation of egoism in the average
nature which would else have taken place. Such disregard
of self as brings down bodily vigour below- the normal level,
eventually produces in the society a counterbalancing excess
of regard for self.

§ 74. That egoism precedes altruism in order of imperative
ness, is thus clearly shown. The acts which make continued
life possible, must, on the average, be more peremptory than
all those other acts which life makes possible ; including the

198 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

acts which benefit others. Turning from life as existing to
life as evolving, we are equally shown this. Sentient beings
have progressed from low to high types, under the law that
the superior shall profit by their superiority and the inferior
shall suffer from their inferiority. Conformity to this law
has been, and is still, needful, not only for the continuance of
life but for the increase of happiness ; since the superior are
those having faculties better adjusted to the requirements —
faculties, therefore, which bring in their exercise greater
pleasure and less pain.

More special considerations join these more general ones
in showing us this truth. Such egoism as preserves a viva
cious mind in a vigorous body furthers the happiness of de
scendants, whose inherited constitutions make the labours of
life easy and its pleasures keen ; while, conversely, unhappi-
ness is entailed on posterity by those who bequeath them
constitutions injured by self-neglect. Again, the individual
whose well-conserved life shows itself in overflowing spirits,
becomes, by his mere existence, a source of pleasure to all
around ; while the depression which commonly accompanies
ill-health diffuses itself through family and among friends.
A further contrast is that whereas one who has been duly re
gardful of self retains the power of being helpful to others,
there results from self-abnegation in excess, not only an ina
bility to help others but the infliction of positive burdens on
them. Lastly, we come upon the truth that undue altruism
increases egoism ; both directly in contemporaries and indi
rectly in posterity.

And now observe that though the general conclusion en
forced by these special conclusions, is at variance with nomi
nally-accepted beliefs, it is not at variance with actually-ac
cepted beliefs. While opposed to the doctrine which men
are taught should be acted upon, it is in harmony with the
doctrine which they do act upon and dimly see must be acted
upon. For omitting such abnormalities of conduct as are
instanced above, everyone, alike by deed and word, implies

EGOISM VERSUS ALTRUISM.

that in the business of life personal welfare is the primary
consideration. The labourer looking for wages in return for
work done, no less than the merchant who sells goods at a
profit, the doctor who expects fees for advice, the priest who
calls the scene of his ministrations " a living," assumes as
beyond question the truth that selfishness, carried to the ex
tent of enforcing his claims and enjoying the returns his
efforts bring, is not only legitimate but essential. Even per
sons who avow a contrary conviction prove by their acts
that it is inoperative. Those who repeat with emphasis the
maxim—" Love your neighbour as yourself,'' do not render
up what they possess so as to satisfy the desires of all as
much as they satisfy their own desires. Xor do those
whose extreme maxim is — " Live for others," differ appre
ciably from people around in their regards for personal wel
fare, or fail to appropriate their shares of life's pleasures.
In short, that which is above set forth as the belief to
which scientific ethics leads us, is that which men do really
believe, as distinguished from that which they believe they
believe.

Finally it may be remarked that a rational egoism, so far
from implying a more egoistic human nature, is consistent
with a human nature that is less egoistic. For excesses in
one direction do not prevent excesses in the opposite direc
tion ; but rather, extreme deviations from the mean on one
side lead to extreme deviations on the other side. A society
in which the most exalted principles of self-sacrifice for the
benefit of neighbours are enunciated, may be a society in
which unscrupulous sacrifice of alien fellow-creatures is not
only tolerated but applauded. Along with professed anxiety
to spread these exalted principles among heathens, there may
go the deliberate fastening of a quarrel upon them with a
view to annexing their territory. Men who every Sunday
have listened approvingly to injunctions carrying the regard
for other men to an impracticable extent, may yet hire them
selves out to slay, at the word of command, any people in

200 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

any part of the world, utterly indifferent to the right or
wrong of the matter fought about. And as in these cases
transcendent altruism in theory co-exists with brutal egoism
in practice, so, conversely, a more qualified altruism may
have for its concomitant a greatly moderated egoism. For
asserting the due claims of self, is, by implication, drawing
a limit beyond which the claims are undue ; and is, by
consequence, bringing into greater clearness the claims of
others.

CHAPTER XII.

ALTRUISM FEItSUS EGOISM.

§ 75. If we define altruism as being all action which,
in the normal course of things, benefits others instead of
benefiting self, then, from the dawn of life, altruism has
been no less essential than egoism. Though primarily it is
dependent on egoism, yet secondarily egoism is dependent
on it,

Under altruism in this comprehensive sense, I take in
the acts by which offspring are preserved and the species
maintained. Moreover, among these acts must be included
not such only as are accompanied by consciousness, but also
such as conduce to the welfare of offspring without mental
representation of the welfare — acts of automatic altruism as
we may call them. Xor must there be left out those lowest
altruistic acts which subserve race-maintenance without im
plying even automatic nervous processes — acts not in the
remotest sense psychical, but in a literal sense physical.
Whatever action, unconscious or conscious, involves expendi
ture of individual life to the end of increasing life in other
individuals, is unquestionably altruistic in a sense, if not in
the usual sense ; and it is here needful to understand it in
this sense that we may see how conscious altruism grows
out of unconscious altruism.

The simplest beings habitually multiply by spontaneous

201

202 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

fission. Physical altruism of the lowest kind, differentiating
from physical egoism, may in this case be considered as not
yet independent of it. For since the two halves which
before fission constituted the individual, do not on dividing
disappear, we must say that though the individuality of the
parent infusorium or other protozoon is lost in ceasing to be
single, yet the old individual continues to exist in each of
the new individuals. When, however, as happens generally
with these smallest animals, an interval of quiescence ends in
the breaking up of the whole body into minute parts, each
of which is the germ of a young one, we see the parent
entirely sacrificed in forming progeny.

Here might be described how among creatures of higher
grades, by fission or gemmation, parents bequeath parts of
their bodies, more or less organized, to form offspring at the
cost of their own individualities. Numerous examples might
also be given of the ways in which the development of ova
is carried to the extent of making the parental body little
more than a receptacle for them : the implication being that
the accumulations of nutriment which parental activities
have laid up, are disposed of for the benefit of posterity.
And then might be dwelt on the multitudinous cases where,
as generally throughout the insect-world, maturity having
been reached and a new generation provided for, life ends :
death follows the sacrifices made for progeny.

But leaving these lower types in which the altruism is
physical only, or in which it is physical and automatically-
psychical only, let us ascend to those in which it is also, to
a considerable degree, conscious. Though in birds and
mammals such parental activities as are guided by instinct,
are accompanied by either no representations .or but vague
representations of the benefits which the young receive ;
yet there are also in them actions which we may class as
altruistic in the higher sense. The agitation which creatures
of these classes show when their young are in danger, joined
often with efforts on their behalf, as well as the grief dis-

ALTRUISM VERSUS EGOISM. 203

played after loss of their young, make it manifest that in
them parental altruism has a concomitant of emotion.

Those who understand by altruism only the conscious
sacrifice of self to others among human beings, will think it
strange, or even absurd, to extend its meaning so widely.
But the justification for doing this is greater than has thus
far appeared. I do not mean merely that in the course of
evolution, there has been a progress through infinitesimal
gradations from purely physical and unconscious sacrifices of
the individual for the welfare of the species, up to sacrifices
consciously made. I mean that from first to last the sacri
fices are, when reduced to their lowest terms, of the same
essential nature : to the last, as at first, there is involved a
loss of bodily substance. "When a part of the parental body
is detached in the shape of gemmule, or egg, or fc«tus, the
material sacrifice is conspicuous ; and when the mother
yields milk by absorbing which the young one grows, it
cannot be questioned that there is also a material sacrifice.
But though a material sacrifice is not manifest when the
young are benefited by activities on their behalf ; yet, as no
effort can be made without an equivalent waste of tissue,
and as the bodily loss is proportionate to the expenditure
that takes place without reimbursement in food consumed, it
follows that efforts made in fostering offspring do really
represent a part of the parental substance ; which is now
given indirectly instead of directly.

Self-sacrifice, then, is no less primordial than self-preser
vation. Being iu its simple physical form absolutely neces
sary for the continuance of life from the beginning ; and
being extended under its automatic form, as indispensable
to maintenance of race in types considerably advanced ; and
being developed to its semi-conscious and conscious forms,
along with the continued and complicated attendance by
which the offspring of superior creatures are brought to
maturity ; altruism has been evolving simultaneously with
egoism. As was pointed out in an early chapter, the same

204 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

superiorities which have enabled the individual to preserve
itself better, have enabled it better to preserve the individ
uals derived from it ; and each higher species, using its im
proved faculties primarily for egoistic benefit, has spread
in proportion as it has used them secondarily for altruistic
benefit.

The imperativeness of altruism as thus understood, is,
indeed, no less than the imperativeness of egoism was shown
to be in the last chapter. For while, on the one hand, a
falling short of normal egoistic acts entails enfeeblement or
loss of life, and therefore loss of ability to perform altruistic
acts ; on the other hand, such defect of altruistic acts as
causes death of offspring or inadequate development of them,
involves disappearance from future generations of the nature
that is not altruistic enough — so decreasing the average ego
ism. In short, every species is continually purifying itself
from the unduly egoistic individuals, while there are being
lost to it the unduly altruistic individuals.

§ 76. As there has been an advance by decrees from un-

i/ O

conscious parental altruism to conscious parental altruism of
the highest kind, so has there been an advance by degrees
from the altruism of the family to social altruism.

A fact to be first noted is that only where altruistic rela
tions in the domestic group have reached highly-developed
forms, do there arise conditions making possible full deve
lopment of altruistic relations in the political group. Tribes
in which promiscuity prevails or in which the marital rela
tions are transitory, and tribes in which polyandry entails
in another way indefinite relationships, are incapable of
much organization. Xor do peoples who are habitually
polygamous, show themselves able to take on those high
forms of social co-operation which demand due subordina
tion of self to others. Only where monogamic marriage
has become general and eventually universal — only where
there have consequently been established the closest ties

ALTRUISM VERSUS EGOISM. 205

of blood — only where family altruism has been most fos
tered, has social altruism become conspicuous. It needs
but to recall the compound forms of the Aryan family as
described by Sir Henry Maine and others, to see that family
feeling, first extending itself to the gens and the tribe,
and afterwards to the society formed of related tribes, pre
pared the way for fellow feeling among citizens not of the
same stock.

Recognizing this natural transition, we are here chiefly
concerned to observe that throughout the latter stages of

o o

the progress, as throughout the former, increase of egoistic
satisfactions has depended on growth of regard for the
satisfactions of others. On contemplating a line of succes
sive parents and offspring, we see that each, enabled while
young to live by the sacrifices predecessors make for it, itself
makes, when adult, equivalent sacrifices for successors; and
that in default of this general balancing of benefits received
by benefits given, the line dies out. Similarly, it is manifest
that in a society eacli generation of members, indebted for
such benefits as social organization yields them to pre-
cedino; generations, who have by their sacrifices elaborated

£"5 o •'

this organization, are called on to make for succeeding
generations such kindred sacrifices as shall at least main
tain this organization, if they do not improve it : the alter
native being decay and eventual dissolution of the society,
implying gradual decrease in the egoistic satisfactions of its
members.

And now we are prepared to consider the several ways in
which, under social conditions, personal welfare depends on
due regard for the welfare of others. Already the conclu
sions to be drawn have been foreshadowed. As in the
chapter on the biological view were implied the inferences
definitely set forth in the last chapter ; so in the chapter on
the sociological view were implied the inferences to be defi
nitely set forth here. Sundry of these are trite enough ; but

THE DATA OF ETHICS.

they must nevertheless be specified, since the statement would
be incomplete without them.

§ 77. First to be dealt with comes that negative altruism
implied by such curbing of the egoistic impulses as prevents
direct aggression.

As before shown, if men instead of living separately are
to unite for defence or for other purposes, they must seve
rally reap more good than evil from the union. On the
average, each must lose less from the antagonisms of those
with whom he is associated, than he gains by the associa
tion. At the outset, therefore, that increase of egoistic satis
factions which the social state brings, can be purchased only
by altruism sufficient to cause some recognition of others'
claims : if not a voluntary recognition, still, a compulsory
recognition.

While the recognition is but of that lowest kind due to

dread of retaliation, or of prescribed punishment, the
egoistic gain from association is small ; and it becomes
considerable only as the recognition becomes voluntary —
that is, more altruistic. Where, as among some of the
wild Australians, there exists no limit to the right of the
strongest, and the men fight to get possession of women
while the wives of one man fight among themselves about
him, the pursuit of egoistic satisfactions is greatly impeded.
Besides the bodily pain occasionally given to each by conflict,
and the more or less of subsequent inability to achieve
personal ends, there is the waste of energy entailed in
maintaining readiness for self-defence, and there is the
accompanying occupation of consciousness by emotions that
are on the average of cases disagreeable. Moreover, the
primary end of safety in presence of external foes is ill-
attained in proportion as there are internal animosities ;
such furtherance of satisfactions as industrial co-operation
brings cannot be had ; and there is little motive to labour

ALTRUISM VERSUS EGOISM. 207

for extra benefits when the products of labour are insecure.
And from this early stage to comparatively late stages, we
mav trace in the wearing of arms, in the carrying on of
family feuds, and in the taking of daily precautions for safety,
the ways in which the egoistic satisfactions of each are dimin
ished by deficiency of that altruism which checks overt injury
of others.

The private interests of the individual are on the average
better subserved, not only in proportion as he himself
refrains from direct aggression, but also, on the average, in
proportion as he suceeds in diminishing the aggression of
his fellows on one another. The prevalence of antagonisms
among those around, impedes the activities carried on by
each in pursuit of satisfactions ; and by causing disorder
makes the beneficial results of activities more doubtful.
Hence, each profits egoistically from the growth of an
altruism which leads each to aid in preventing or diminish
ing others' violence.

The like holds when we pass to that altruism which re
strains the undue egoism displayed in breaches of contract.
General acceptance of the maxim that honesty is the best
policy, implies general experience that gratification of the
self-regarding feelings is eventually furthered by such check
ing of them as maintains equitable dealings. And here,
as before, each is personally interested in securing good
treatment of his fellows by one another. For in countless
ways evils are entailed on each by the prevalence; of fraudu
lent transactions. As everyone knows, the larger the num
ber of a shopkeeper's bills left unpaid by some customers,
the higher must be the prices which other customers pay.
The more manufacturers lose by defective raw materials or
by carelessness of workmen, the more must they charge
for their fabrics to buyers. The less trustworthy people
are, the higher rises the rate of interest, the larger becomes
the amount of capital hoarded, the greater are the impedi
ments to industry. The further traders and people in
15

208 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

general go beyond their means, and hypothecate the prop
erty of others in speculation, the more serious are those
commercial panics which bring disasters on multitudes and
injuriously affect all.

This introduces us to yet a third way in which such per
sonal welfare as results from the proportioning of benefits
gained to labours given, depends on the making of certain
sacrifices for social welfare. The man who, expending his
energies wholly on private affairs refuses to take trouble
about public affairs, pluming himself on his wisdom in mind
ing his own business, is blind to the fact that his own busi
ness is made possible only by maintenance of a healthy social
state, and that he loses all round by defective governmental
arrangements. Where there are many like-minded with him
self — where, as a consequence, offices come to be filled by
political adventurers and opinion is swayed by demagogues
— where bribery vitiates the administration of the law and
makes fradulent State-transactions habitual ; heavy penalties
fall on the community at large, and, among others, on those
who have thus done everything for self and nothing for
society. Their investments are insecure ; recovery of their
debts is difficult ; and even their lives are less safe than they
would otherwise have been.

So that on such altruistic actions as are implied, firstly in
being just, secondly in seeing justice done between others,
and thirdly in upholding and improving the agencies by
which justice is administered, depend, in large measure, the
egoistic satisfactions of each.

§ 78. But the identification of personal advantage with the
advantage of fellow-citizens is much wider than this. In
various other ways the well-being of each rises and falls with
the well-being of all.

A weak man left to provide for his own wants, suffers by
getting smaller amounts of food and other necessaries than
he might get were he stronger. In a community formed of

ALTRUISM VERSUS EGOISM. 209

weak men, who divide their labours and exchange the pro
ducts, all suffer evils from the weakness of their fellows.
The quantity of each kind of product is made deficient by
the deficiency of labouring power ; and the share each gets
for such share of his own product as he can afford to give,
is relatively small. Just as the maintenance of paupers, hos
pital patients, inmates of asylums, and others who consume
but do not produce, leaves to be divided among producers
a smaller stock of commodities than would exist were there
no incapables ; so must there be left a smaller stock of com
modities to be divided, the greater the number of inefficient
producers, or the greater the average deficiency of produ
cing power. Hence, whatever decreases the strength of men
in general restricts the gratifications of each by making the
means to them dearer.

More directly, and more obviously, does the bodily well-
being of his fellows concern him ; for their bodily ill-being,
when it takes certain shapes, is apt to bring similar bodily
ill-being on him. If he is not himself attacked by cholera,
or small-pox, or typhus, when it invades his neighbourhood,
he often suffers a penalty through his belongings. Under
conditions spreading it, his wife catches diphtheria, or his
servant is laid up with scarlet fever, or his children take now
this and now that infectious disorder. Add together the im
mediate and remote evils brought on him year after year by
epidemics, and it becomes manifest that his egoistic satisfac
tions are greatly furthered by such altruistic activities as ren
der disease less prevalent.

With the mental, as well as with the bodily, states of fel
low-citizens, his enjoyments are in multitudinous ways bound
up. Stupidity like weakness raises the cost of commodities.
AVhere farming is unimproved, the prices of food are higher
than they would else be ; where antiquated routine maintains
itself in trade, the needless expense of distribution weighs on
all ; where there is no inventiveness, everyone loses the bene
fits which improved appliances diffuse. Other than economic

210 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

evils come from the average tmintelligence — periodically
through the manias and panics that arise because traders rush
in herds all to buy or all to sell ; and habitually through the
maladministration of justice, which people and rulers alike
disregard while pursuing this or that legislative will-o'-the-
wisp. Closer and clearer is the dependence of his personal
satisfactions on others' mental states, which each experiences
in his household. Unpunctuality and want of system are
perpetual sources of annoyance. The unskilfulness of the
cook causes frequent vexation and occasional indigestion.
Lack of forethought in the housemaid leads to a fall over a
bucket in a dark passage. And inattention to a message or
forgetfulness in delivering it, entails failure in an important
engagement. Each, therefore, benefits egoistically by such
altruism as aids in raising the average intelligence. I do not
mean such altruism as taxes ratepayers that children's minds
may be filled with dates, and names, and gossip about kings,
and narratives of battles, and other useless information, no
amount of which will make them capable workers or good
citizens ; but I mean such altruism as helps to spread a
knowledge of the nature of things and to cultivate the power
of applying that" knowledge.

Yet again, each has a private interest in public morals and
profits by improving them. Not in large ways only, by
aggressions and breaches of contract, by adulterations and
short measures, does each suffer from the general unconsci-
entiousness ; but in more numerous small ways. Now it is
through the un truthfulness of one who gives a good character
to a bad servant ; now it is by the recklessness of a laundress
who, using bleaching agents to save trouble in washing, de
stroys his linen ; now it is by the acted falsehood of railway
passengers who, by dispersed coats, make him believe that
all the seats in a compartment are taken when they are
not. Yesterday the illness of his child due to foul gases,
led to the discovery of a drain that had become choked
because it was ill-made by a dishonest builder under super-

ALTRUISM VERSUS EGOISM. 211

vision of a careless or bribed surveyor. To-day work
men employed to rectify it bring on him cost and incon
venience by dawdling ; and their low standard of work,
determined by the unionist principle that the better
workers must not discredit the worse by exceeding
them in efficiency, he may trace to the immoral belief
that the unworthy should fare as well as the worthy.
To-morrow it turns out that business for the plumber
has been provided by damage which the bricklayers have
done.

Thus the improvement of others, physically, intellectually,
and morally, personally concerns each ; since their imperfec
tions tell in raising the cost of all the commodities he buys,
in increasing the taxes and rates he pays, and in the losses of
time, trouble, and money, daily brought on him by others'
carelessness, stupidity, or unconscientiousness.

§ TO. Very obvious are certain more immediate connexions
between personal welfare and ministration to the welfare of
those around. The evils suffered by those whose behaviour
is unsympathetic, and the benefits to self which unselfish con
duct brings, show these.

That anyone should have formulated his experience by sav
ins; that the conditions to success are a hard heart and a sound

digestion, is marvellous considering the many proofs that
success, even of a material kind, greatly depending as it does
on the good offices of others, is furthered by whatever creates
goodwill in others. The contrast between the prosperity of
those who to but moderate abilities join natures which beget
friendships by their kindliness, and the adversity of those
who, though possessed of superior faculties and greater
acquirements, arouse dislikes by their hardness or indiffer
ence, should force upon all the truth that egoistic enjoyments
are aided by altruistic actions.

This increase of personal benefit achieved by benefiting
others, is but partially achieved where a selfish motive

212 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

prompts the seemingly-unselfish act : it is fully achieved only
where the act is really unselfish. Though services rendered
with the view of some time profiting by reciprocated services,
answer to a certain extent ; yet, ordinarily, they answer only
to the extent of bringing equivalents of reciprocated services.
Those which bring more than equivalents are those not
prompted by any thoughts of equivalents. For obviously
it is the spontaneous outflow of good nature, not in the
larger acts of life only but in all its details, which generates
in those around the attachments prompting unstinted benevo
lence.

Besides furthering prosperity, other-regarding actions
conduce to self-regarding gratifications by generating a
genial environment. With the sympathetic being everyone
feels more sympathy than with others. All conduct them
selves with more than usual amiability to a person who
hourly discloses a lovable nature. Such a one is practically
surrounded by a world of better people than one who is
less attractive. If we contrast the state of a man pos
sessing all the material means to happiness, but isolated
by his absolute egoism, with the state of an altruistic
man relatively poor in means but rich in friends, we may
see that various gratifications not to be purchased by money,
come in abundance to the last and are inaccessible to the
first.

While, then, there is one kind of other-regarding action,
furthering the prosperity of fellow-citizens at large, which
admits of being deliberately pursued from motives that are
remotely self-regarding — the conviction being that personal
well-being depends in large measure on the well-being of
society — there is an additional kind of other-regarding action
having in it no element of conscious self-regard, which never
theless conduces greatly to egoistic satisfactions.

§ 80. Yet other modes exist in which egoism unqualified
by altruism habitually fails. It diminishes the totality of

ALTRUISM VERSUS EGOISM.

213

egoistic pleasure by diminishing in several directions the ca
pacity for pleasure.

Self-gratifications, considered separately or in the aggre
gate, lose their intensities by that too great persistence in
them which results if they are made the exclusive objects
of pursuit. The law that function entails waste, and that
faculties yielding pleasure by their action cannot act inces
santly without exhaustion and accompanying satiety, has the
implication that intervals during which altruistic activities
absorb the energies, are intervals during which the capacity
for egoistic pleasure is recovering its full degree. ^ The sen
sitiveness to purely personal enjoyments is maintained at a
higher pitch by those who minister to the enjoyment of
others, than it is by those who devote themselves wholly to
personal enjoyments.

This which is manifest even while the tide of life is high,
becomes still more manifest as life ebbs. It is in maturity
and old age that we especially see how, as egoistic pleasures
grow faint, altruistic actions come in to revive them in new
forms. The contrast between the child's delight in the
novelties daily revealed, and the indifference which comes
as the world around grows familiar, until in adult life there
remain comparatively few things that are greatly enjoyed,
draws from all the reflection that as years go by pleasures
pall. And to those who think, it becomes clear that only
through sympathy can pleasures be indirectly gained from
things that have ceased to yield pleasures directly. In the
gratifications derived by parents from the gratifications of
their offspring, this is conspicuously shown. Trite as is the
remark that men live afresh in their children, it is needful
here to set it down as reminding us of the way in which, as
the egoistic satisfactions in life fade, altruism renews them
while it transfigures them.

We are thus introduced to a more general consideration—
the egoistic aspect of altruistic pleasure. Not, indeed, that
this is the place for discussing the question whether the

214 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

egoistic element can be excluded from altruism ; nor is it
the place for distinguishing between the altruism which is
pursued with a foresight of the pleasurable feeling to be
achieved through it, and the altruism which, though it
achieves this pleasurable feeling, does not make pursuit of
it a motive. Here we are concerned with the fact that,
whether knowingly or unknowingly gained, the state of
mind accompanying altruistic action, being a pleasurable
state, is to be counted in the sum of pleasures which the
individual can receive ; and in this sense cannot be other
than egoistic. That we must so regard it is proved on ob
serving that this pleasure, like pleasures in general, conduces
to the physical prosperity of the ego. As every other agree
able emotion raises the tide of life, so does the agreeable
emotion which accompanies a benevolent deed. As it can
not be denied that the pain caused by the sight of suffering,
depresses the vital functions — sometimes even to the extent
of arresting the heart's action, as in one who faints on see
ing a surgical operation ; so neither can it be denied that
the joy felt in witnessing others' joy exalts the vital func
tions. Hence, however much we may hesitate to class
altruistic pleasure as a higher kind of egoistic pleasure, we
are obliged to recognize the fact that its immediate effects in
augmenting life and so furthering personal wTell-being, are
like those of pleasures that are directly egoistic. And the
corollary drawn must be that pure egoism is, even in its
immediate results, less successfully egoistic than is the
egoism duly qualified by altruism, which, besides achieving
additional pleasures, achieves also, through raised vitality,
a greater capacity for pleasures in general.

That the range of aesthetic gratifications is wider for the
altruistic nature than for the egoistic nature, is also a truth
not to be overlooked. The joys and sorrows of human
beings form a chief element in the subject-matter of art ;
and evidently the pleasures which art gives increase as the
fellow-feeling with these joys and sorrows strengthens. If

ALTRUISM VERSUS EGOISM. 215

we contrast early poetry occupied mainly with war and
gratifying the savage instincts by descriptions of bloody
victories, with the poetry of modern times, in which the
sanguinary forms but a small part while a large part, deal
ing with the gentler affections, enlists the feelings of readers
on behalf of the weak ; we are shown that with the develop
ment of a more altruistic nature, there has been opened a
sphere of enjoyment inaccessible to the callous egoism of
barbarous times. So, too, between the fiction of the past
and the fiction of the present, there is the difference that
while the one was almost exclusively occupied with the
doings of the ruling classes, and found its plots in their an
tagonisms and deeds of violence, the other, chiefly taking
stories of peaceful life for its subjects, and to a considerable
extent the life of the humbler classes, discloses a new world
of interest in the every-day pleasures and pains of ordinary
people. A like contrast exists between early and late forms
of plastic art. When not representing acts of worship, the
wall-sculptures and wall-paintings of the Assyrians and
Egyptians, or the decorations of temples among the Greeks,
represented deeds of conquest ; whereas in modern times,
while the works which glorify destructive activities are less
numerous, there are an increasing number of works gratify
ing to the kindlier sentiments of spectators. To see that
those who care nothing about the feelings of other beings
are, by implication, shut out from a wide range of aesthetic
pleasures, it needs but to ask whether men who delight in
dog-fights may be expected to appreciate Beethoven's Ade-
laida, or whether Tennyson's In Memoriam would greatly
move a gang of convicts.

§ 81. From the dawn of life, then, egoism has been de
pendent upon altruism as altruism has been dependent upon
egoism ; and in the course of evolution the reciprocal serv
ices of the two have been increasing.

The physical and unconscious self-sacrifice of parents to

216 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

form offspring, which the lowest living tilings display from
hour to hour, shows us in its primitive form the altruism
which makes possible the egoism of individual life and
growth. As we ascend to higher grades of creatures, this
parental altruism becomes a direct yielding up of only part
of the body, joined with an increasing contribution from the
remainder in the shape of tissue wasted in efforts made on
behalf of progeny. This indirect sacrifice of substance, re
placing more and more the direct sacrifice as parental altru
ism becomes higher, continues to the last to represent also
altruism which is other than parental ; since this, too, implies
loss of substance in making efforts that do not bring their
return in personal aggrandisement.

After noting how among mankind parental altruism and
family altruism pass into social altruism, we observed that a
society, like a species, survives only on condition that each
generation of its members shall yield to the next, benefits
equivalent to those it has received from the last. And this
implies that care for the family must be supplemented by
care for the society.

Fulness of egoistic satisfactions in the associated state,
depending primarily on maintenance of the normal relation
between efforts expended and benefits obtained, which
underlies all life, implies an altruism which both prompts
equitable conduct and prompts the enforcing of equity. The
well-being of each is involved with the well-being of all in
sundry other ways. Whatever conduces to their vigour
concerns him ; for it diminishes the cost of everything he
buys. Whatever conduces to their freedom from disease
concerns him ; for it diminishes his own liability to disease.
Whatever raises their intelligence concerns him ; for incon
veniences are daily entailed on him by others' ignorance or
folly. Whatever raises their moral characters concerns
him ; for at every turn he suffers from the average uncon-
scientiousness.

Much more directly do his egoistic satisfactions depend

ALTRUISM VERSUS EGOISM. 217

on those altruistic activities which enlist the sympathies of
others. By alienating those around, selfishnesses loses the
unbouirht aid they can render ; shuts out a wide range of
social enjoyments ; and fails to receive those exaltations of
pleasure and mitigations of pain, which come from men's
fellow-feeling with those they like.

Lastly, undue egoism defeats itself by bringing on an
incapacity for happiness. Purely egoistic gratifications are
rendered less keen by satiety, even in the earlier part of life,
and almost disappear in the later ; the less satiating gratifica
tions of altruism are missed throughout life, and especially
in that latter part when they largely replace egoistic gratifi
cations ; arid there is a lack of susceptibility to aesthetic
pleasures of the higher orders.

An indication must be added of the truth, scarcely at all
recognized, that this dependence of egoism upon altruism
ranges beyond the limits of each society, and tends ever
towards universality. That within each society it becomes
greater as social evolution, implying increase of mutual
dependence, progresses, needs not be shown ; and it is a
corollary that as fast as the dependence of societies on one
another is increased by commercial intercourse, the internal
welfare of each becomes a matter of concern to the others.
That the impoverishment of any country, diminishing both
its producing and consuming powers, tells detrimentally on
the people of countries trading with it, is a commonplace of
political economy. Moreover, we have had of late years,
abundant experience of the industrial derangements through
which distress is brought on nations not immediately con
cerned, by wars between other nations. And if each com
munity has the egoistic satisfactions of its members dimin
ished by aggressions of neighbouring communities on one
another, still more does it have them diminished by its own
aggressions. One who marks how, in various parts of the
world, the unscrupulous greed of conquest cloaked by pre
tences of spreading the blessings of British rule and British

218 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

religion, is now reacting to the immense detriment of the
industrial classes at home, alike by increasing expenditure
and paralyzing trade, may see that these industrial classes,
absorbed in questions about capital and labour, and thinking
themselves unconcerned in our doings abroad, are suffering

O 7 O

from lack of that wide-reaching altruism which should in
sist on just dealings wTith other peoples, civilized or savage.
And he may also see that beyond these immediate evils, they
will for a generation to come suffer the evils that must flow
from resuscitating the type of social organization which
aggressive activities produce, and from the lowered moral
tone which is its accompaniment.

CHAPTER XIII.

TRIAL AND COMPROMISE.

§ 82. In the foregoing two chapters the case on behalf of
Egoism and the case on behalf of Altruism have been stated.
The two conflict ; and we have now to consider what verdict
ought to be given.

If the opposed statements are severally valid, or even
if each of them is valid in part, the influence must be that
pure egoism and pure altruism are both illegitimate. If the
maxim—" Live for self," is wrong, so also is the maxim—
" Live for others." Hence a compromise is the only pos
sibility.

This conclusion, though already seeming unavoidable, I do
not here set down as proved. The purpose of this chapter
is to justify it in full ; and I enunciate it at the outset be
cause the arguments used will be better understood, if the
conclusion to which they converge is in the reader's view.

How shall we so conduct the discussion as most clearly
to bring out this necessity for a compromise? Perhaps
the best way will be that of stating one of the two claims
in its extreme form, and observing the implied absurdities.
To deal thus with the principle of pure selfishness, would
be to waste space. Every one sees that an unchecked
satisfaction of personal desires from moment to moment, in
absolute disregard of all other beings, would cause universal
conflict and social dissolution. The principle of pure un-

219

220 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

selfishness, less obviously mischievous, may therefore better
be chosen.

There are two aspects under which the doctrine that others'
happiness is the true ethical aim presents itself. The
"others" may be conceived personally, as individuals with
whom we stand in direct relations ; or they may be conceived
impersonally, as constituting the community. In so far as
the self-abnegation implied by pure altruism is concerned, it
matters not in which sense " others " is used. But criticism
will be facilitated by distinguishing between these two forms
of it. We will take the last form first.

§ 83. This commits us to an examination of " the greatest
happiness principle," as enunciated by Bentham and his
followers. The doctrine that "the general happiness"
ought to be the object of pursuit, is not, indeed, overtly
identified with pure altruism. But as. if general happiness
is the proper end of action, the individual actor must regard
his own share of it simply as a unit in the aggregate, no
more to be valued by him than any other unit, it results
that since this unit is almost infinitesimal in comparison
with the aggregate, his action, if directed exclusively to
achievement of general happiness, is, if not absolutely altru
istic, as nearly so as may be. Hence the theory which
makes general happiness the immediate object of pursuit,
may rightly be taken as one form of the pure altruism to be
here criticized.

Both as justifying this interpretation and as furnishing a
definite proposition with which to deal, let me set out by
quoting a passage from Mr. Mill's Utilitarianism.

" The Greatest-Happiness Principle," he says, " is a mere form of words
without rational signification, unless one person's happiness, supposed equal in
degree (with the proper allowance made for kind), is counted for exactly as
much as another's. Those conditions being supplied, Bentham's dictum, ' every
body to count for one, nobody for more than one,' might be written under the
principle of utility as an explanatory commentary " (p. 91.)

Now though the meaning of ''greatest happiness" as an

TRIAL ANT) COMPEOMISE.

221

end, is here to a certain degree defined, the need for
further definition is felt the moment we attempt to decide
on ways of regulating conduct so as to attain the end. The
first question which arises is — Must we regard this " greatest
happiness principle" as a principle of guidance for the
community in its corporate capacity, or as a principle of
guidance for its members separately considered, or both?
If the reply is that the principle must be taken as a guide
for governmental action rather than for individual action,

we are at once met by the inquiry,— What is to be the
guide for individual action ? If individual action is not
to be regulated solely for the purpose of achieving "the
greatest happiness of the greatest number," some other
principle of regulation for individual action is required ;
and " the greatest happiness principle " fails to furnish the
needful ethical standard. Should it be rejoined that the
individual in his capacity of political unit, is to take further
ance of general happiness as his end, giving his vote or
otherwise acting on the legislature with a view to this end,
and that in so far guidance is supplied to him, there comes
the further inquiry — Whence is to come guidance for
the remainder of individual conduct, constituting by far
the greater part of it ? If this private part of individual
conduct is not to have general happiness as its direct aim,
then an ethical standard other than that offered has still to
be found.

Hence, unless pure altruism as thus formulated confesses
its inadequacy, it must justify itself as a sufficient rule
for all conduct, individual and social. We will first deal
with it as the alleged right principle of public policy ; and
then as the alleged right principle of private action.

g 84. On trying to understand precisely the statement
that when taking general happiness as an end, the rule
must be — "everybody to count for one, nobody for more
than one," there arises the idea of distribution. We can

223 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

form no idea of distribution without thinking of something
distributed and recipients of this something. That we
may clearly conceive the proposition Ave must clearly
conceive both these elements of it. Let us take first the
recipients.

" Everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one."
Does this mean that, in respect of whatever is portioned out,
each is to have the same share whatever his character, what
ever his conduct ? Shall he if passive have as much as if
active ? Shall he if useless have as much as if useful ? Shall
he if criminal have as much as if virtuous ? If the distribu
tion is to be made without reference to the natures and deeds
of the recipients, then it must be shown that a system which
equalizes, as far as it can, the treatment of good and bad, will
be beneficial. If the distribution is not to be indiscriminate,
then the formula disappears. The something distributed
must be apportioned otherwise than by equal division. There
must be adjustment of amounts to deserts ; and we are left
in the dark as to the mode of adjustment — we have to find
other guidance.

Let us next ask what is the something to be distributed ?
The first idea which occurs is that happiness itself must be
divided out among all. Taken literally, the notions that the
greatest happiness should be the end sought, and that in ap
portioning it everybody should count for one and nobody for
more than one, imply that happiness is something that can
be cut up into parts and handed round. This, however, is an
impossible interpretation. But after recognizing the impossi
bility of it, there returns the question — What is it in respect
of which everybody is to count for one and nobody for more
than one ?

Shall the interpretation be that the concrete means to
happiness are to be equally divided ? Is it intended that
there shall be distributed to all in equal portions the neces
saries of life, the appliances to comfort, the facilities for
amusement ? As a conception simply, this is more defensi-

TRIAL AND COMPROMISE.

blc. But passing over the question of policy — passing over
the question whether greatest happiness would ultimately be
secured by such a process (which it obviously would not) it
turns out on examination that greatest happiness could
not even proccimatety be so secured. Differences of age, of
growth, of constitutional need, differences of activity and
consequent expenditure, differences of desires and tastes,
would entail the inevitable result that the material aids to
happiness which each received would be more or less un-
adapted to his requirements. Even if purchasing power
were equally divided, the greatest happiness would not be
achieved if everybody counted for one and nobody for more
than one ; since, as the capacities for utilizing the purchased
means to happiness would vary both with the constitution
and the stage of life, the means which would approximately
suffice to satisfy the wants of one would be extremely insuf
ficient to satisfy the wants of another, and so the greatest
total of happiness would not be obtained : means might be
unequally apportioned in a way that would produce a greater
total.

But now if happiness itself cannot be cut up and dis
tributed equally, and if equal division of the material aids
to happiness would not produce greatest happiness, what
is the thing to be thus apportioned ? — what is it in re
spect of which everybody is to count for one and nobody
for more than one ? There seems but a single possibility.
There remain to be equally distributed nothing but the con
ditions under which each may pursue happiness. The limi
tations to action — the degrees of freedom and restraint, shall
be alike for all. Each shall have as much liberty to pursue
his ends as consists with maintaining like liberties to pursue
their ends by others ; and one as much as another shall
have the enjoyment of that which his efforts, carried on
within these limits, obtain. But to say that in respect of
these conditions everybody shall count for one and nobody
for more than one, is simply to say that equity shall be enforced.
16

224 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

Thus, considered as a principle of public policy, Bentham's
principle, when analyzed, transforms itself into the principle
he slights. Not general happiness becomes the ethical stand
ard by which legislative action is to be guided, but universal
justice. And so the altruistic theory under this form col
lapses.

§ 85. From examining the doctrine that general happiness
should be the end of public action, we pass now to examine
the doctrine that it should be the end of private action.

It is contended that from the stand-point of pure reason,
the happiness of others has no less a claim as an object of
pursuit for each than personal happiness. Considered as
parts of a total, happiness felt by self and like happiness felt
by another, are of equal values ; and hence it is -inferred
that, rationally estimated, the obligation to expend effort for
others' benefit, is as great as the obligation to expend effort
for one's own benefit. Holding that the utilitarian system
of morals, rightly understood, harmonizes with the Christian
maxim — " Love your neighbour as yourself," Mr. Mill says
that " as between his own happiness and that of others, utili
tarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disin
terested and benevolent spectator." (p. 24.) Let us consider
the alternative interpretations which may be given to this
statement.

Suppose, first, that a certain quantum of happiness has in
some way become available, without the special instrumen
tality of A, B, C, or D, constituting the group concerned.
Then the proposition is that each shall be ready to have this
quantum of happiness as much enjoyed by one or more of
the others as by himself. The disinterested and benevolent
spectator would clearly, in such a case, rule that no one
ought to have more of the happiness than another. But
here, assuming as we do that the quantum of happiness
has become available without the agency of any among
the group, simple equity dictates as much. No one

TRIAL AND COMPKOMISTC.

having in any way established a claim different from the
claims of others, their claims are equal ; and due regard
for justice by each will not permit him to monopolize the
happiness.

Now suppose a different case. Suppose that the quantum
of happiness has been made available by the efforts of one
member of the group. Suppose that A has acquired bv
labour some material aid to happiness. He decides to act
as the disinterested and benevolent spectator would direct.
What will he decide 2— what would the spectator direct ?
Let us consider the possible suppositions ; taking first the
least reasonable.

The spectator may be conceived as deciding that the
labour expended by A in acquiring this material aid to
happiness, originates no claim to special use of it ; but
that it ought to be given to B, C, or D, or that it ought
to be divided equally among 13, C, and D, or that it ought
to be divided equally among all members of the group,
including A who has laboured for it. And if the spectator
is conceived as deciding thus to-day, he must be conceived
as deciding thus day after day ; with the result that one of
the group expends all the effort, getting either none of the
benefit or only his numerical share, while the others get
their shares of the benefit without expending any efforts.
That A might conceive the disinterested and benevolent
spectator to decide in this way, and might feel bound to
act in conformity with the imagined decision, is a strong
supposition ; and probably it will be admitted that such
kind of impartiality, so far from being conducive to the
general happiness, would quickly be fatal to everyone. But
this is not all. Action in pursuance of such a decision
would in reality be negatived by the very principle enun
ciated. For not only A, but also B, C, and D, have to act on
this principle. Each of them must behave as he conceives
an impartial spectator would decide. Docs B conceive the
impartial spectator as awarding to him, B, the product of

226 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

A's labour ? Then the assumption is that B conceives the
impartial spectator as favouring himself, B, more than A
conceives him as favouring himself, A ; which is incon
sistent with the hypothesis. Does B, in conceiving the im
partial spectator, exclude his own interests as completely as
A does ? Then how can he decide so much to his own ad
vantage, so partially, as to allow him to take from A an
equal share of the benefit gained by A's labour, towards
which he and the rest have done nothing ?

Passing from this conceivable, though not credible, deci
sion of the spectator, here noted for the purpose of observ
ing that habitual conformity to it would be impossible, there
remains to be considered the decision which a spectator
really impartial would give. He would say that the happi
ness, or material aid to happiness, which had been purchased
by A's labour, was to be taken by A. He would say that
B, C, and D had no claims to it, but only to such happiness,
or aids to happiness, as their respective labours had pur
chased. Consequently, A, acting as the imaginary impartial
spectator would direct, is, by this test, justified in appro
priating such happiness or aid to happiness as his own
efforts have achieved.

And so under its special form as under its general form,
the principle is true only in so far as it embodies a disguised
justice. Analysis again brings out the result that making
" general happiness " the end of action, really means main
taining what we call equitable relations among individuals.
Decline to accept in its vague form " the greatest-happiness
principle," and insist on knowing what is the implied con
duct, public or private, and it turns out that the principle is
meaningless save as indirectly asserting that the claims of
each should be duly regarded by all. The utilitarian altruism
becomes a duly qualified egoism.

§ 8G. Another point of view from which to judge tho
altruistic theory may now be taken. If, assuming the proper

TRIAL AXI) COMPROMISE. 227

object of pursuit to be general happiness, \ve proceed ration
ally, we must ask in what different ways the aggregate, gen
eral happiness, may be composed ; and must then ask what
composition of it will yield the largest sum.

Suppose that each citizen pursues his own happiness inde
pendently, not to the detriment of others but without active
concern for others ; then their united happinesses constitute'
a certain sum — a certain general happiness. ]STow suppose
that each, instead of making his own happiness the object of
pursuit, makes the happiness of others the object of pursuit;
then, again, there results a certain sum of happiness. This
sum must be less than, or equal to, or greater than, the
first. If it is admitted that this sum is either less than
the first or only equal to it, the altruistic course of action is
confessedly either \vorse than, or no better than, the ego
istic. The assumption must be that the sum of happiness
obtained is greater. Let us observe what is involved in this
assumption.

If each pursues exclusively the happiness of others ; and
if each is also a recipient of happiness (which he must be,
for otherwise no aggregate happiness can be formed out of
their individual happinesses) ; then the implication is that
each gains the happiness due to altruistic action exclusively ;
and that in each this is greater in amount than the egoistic
happiness obtainable by him, if he devoted himself to pur
suit of it. Leaving out of consideration for a moment these
relative amounts of the two, let us note the conditions to the
receipt of altruistic happiness by each. The sympathetic
nature gets pleasure by giving pleasure ; and the proposition
is that if the general happiness is the object of pursuit, each
will be made happy by witnessing others' happiness. But
what in such case constitutes the happiness of others ? These
others are also, by the hypothesis, pursuers and receivers of
altruistic pleasure. The genesis of altruistic pleasure in
each is to depend on the display of pleasures by others ;
which is again to depend on the display of pleasures by

228 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

others ; and so on perpetually. Where, then, is the pleasure
to begin '( Obviously there must be egoistic pleasure some
where, before there can be the altruistic pleasure caused by
sympathy with it. Obviously, therefore, each must be ego
istic in due amount, even if only with the view of giving
others the possibility of being altruistic. So far from the
sum of happiness being made greater if all make greatest
happiness the exclusive end, the sum disappears entirely.

How absurd is the supposition that the happiness of all
can be achieved without each pursuing his own happiness,
will be best shown by a physical simile. Suppose a cluster
of bodies, each of whicli generates heat ; and each of which
is, therefore, while a radiator of heat to those around, also a
receiver of heat from them. Manifestly each will have a
certain proper heat irrespective of that whicli it gains from
the rest ; and, each will have a certain heat gained from the
rest irrespective of its proper heat. What will happen ? So
long as each of the bodies continues to be a generator of
heat, each continues to maintain a temperature partly de
rived from itself and partly derived from others. But if
each ceases to generate heat for itself and depends on the
heat radiated to it by the rest, the entire cluster becomes
cold. Well, the self-generated heat stands for egoistic pleas
ure ; the heat radiated and received stands for sympathetic
pleasure ; and the disappearance of all heat if each ceases to
be an originator of it, corresponds to the disappearance of
all pleasure if each ceases to originate it egoistically.

A further conclusion may be drawn. Besides the im
plication that before altruistic pleasure can exist, egoistic
pleasure must exist, and that if the rule of conduct is to be
the same for all, each must be egoistic in due degree ; there
is the implication that, to achieve the greatest sum of hap
piness, each must be more egoistic than altruistic. For,
speaking generally, sympathetic pleasures must ever con
tinue less intense than the pleasures with which there is
sympathy. Other things equal, ideal feelings cannot be as

TRIAL AND COMPROMISE. 229

vivid as real feelings. It is true that those having strong
imaginations may, especially in cases where the affections
arc engaged, feel the moral pain if not the physical pain of
another, as keenly as the actual sufferer of it, and may par
ticipate with like intensity in another's pleasure : sometimes
even mentally representing the received pleasure as greater
than it really is, and so getting reflex pleasure greater than
the recipients' direct pleasure. Such cases, however, and
cases in which even apart from exaltation of sympathy
caused by attachment, there is a body of feeling sympatheti
cally aroused equal in amount to the original feeling, if not
greater, are necessarily exceptional. For in such cases the
total consciousness includes many other elements besides
the mentally-represented pleasure or pain — notably the
luxury of pity and the luxury of goodness ; and genesis
of these can occur but occasionally : they could not be
habitual concomitants of sympathetic pleasures if all pur
sued these from moment to moment. In estimating the
possible totality of sympathetic pleasures, we must include
nothing beyond the representations of the pleasures others
experience. And unless it be asserted that we can have
other's states of consciousness perpetually re-produced in us
more vividly than the kindred states of consciousness are
aroused in ourselves by their proper personal causes, it must
be admitted that the totality of altruistic pleasures cannot
become equal to the totality of egoistic pleasures. Ilenco,
beyond the truth that before there can be altruistic pleasures
there must be the egoistic pleasures from sympathy with
which they arise, there is the truth that, to obtain the great
est sum of altruistic pleasures, there must be a greater sum
of egoistic pleasures.

§ 87. That pure altruism is suicidal may be yet other
wise demonstrated. A perfectly moral law must be one
which becomes perfectly practicable as human nature be
comes perfect. If its practicableness decreases as human

230 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

nature improves ; and if an ideal human nature neces
sitates its impracticability ; it cannot be the moral law
sought.

Now opportunities for practising altruism are numerous
and great in proportion as there is weakness, or incapacity,
or imperfection. If we pass beyond the limits of the family,
in which a sphere for self-sacrificing activities must be pre
served as long as offspring have to be reared ; and if we ask
how there can continue a social sphere for self-sacrificing
activities ; it becomes obvious that the continued existence
of serious evils, caused by prevalent defects of nature, is
implied. As fast as men adapt themselves to the require
ments of social life, so fast will the demands for efforts on
their behalf diminish. And with arrival at finished adapta
tion, when all persons are at once completely self-conserved
and completely able to fulfil the obligations which society
imposes on them, those occasions for postponement of
self to others which pure altruism contemplates, dis
appear.

Such self-sacrifices become, indeed, doubly impracticable.
Carrying on successfully their several lives, men not only
cannot yield to those around the opportunities for giving aid,
but aid cannot ordinarily be given them without interfering
with their normal activities, and so diminishing their plea
sures. Like every inferior creature, led by its innate desires
spontaneously to do all that its life requires, man, when com
pletely moulded to the social state, must have desires so ad
justed to his needs that he fulfils the needs in gratifying
the desires. And if his desires are severally gratified by
the performance of required acts, none of these can be per
formed for him without balking his desires. Acceptance
from others of the results of their activities can take place
only on condition of relinquishing the pleasures derived
from his own activities. Diminution rather than increase
of happiness would result, could altruistic action in such case
be enforced.

TRIAL AND COMPROMISE. 231

And hero, indeed, we are introduced to another baseless
assumption which the theory makes.

§ 88. The postulate of utilitarianism as formulated in the
statements above quoted, and of pure altruism as otherwise
expressed, involves the belief that it is possible for happi
ness, or the means to happiness, or the conditions to happi
ness, to be transferred. Without any specified limitation
the proposition taken for granted is, that happiness in gen
eral admits of detachment from one and attachment to
another — that surrender to any extent is possible by one and
appropriation to any extent is possible by another. But a
moment's thought shows this to be far from the truth. On
the one hand, surrender carried to a certain point is ex
tremely mischievous and to a further point fatal ; and on
the other hand, much of the happiness each enjoys is self-
generated and can neither be given nor received.

To assume that egoistic pleasures may be relinquished to
any extent, is to fall into one of those many errors of ethical
speculation which result from ignoring the truths of biology.
When taking the biological view of ethics we saw that plea
sures accompany normal amounts of functions, while pains
accompany defects or excesses of functions ; further, that
complete life depends on complete discharge of functions,
and therefore on receipt of the correlative pleasures. Hence,
to yield up normal pleasures is to yield up so much life ; and
there arises the question — to what extent may this be done ?
If he is to continue living, the individual must take certain
amounts of those pleasures which go along with fulfilment
of the bodily functions, and must avoid the pains which
entire non-fulfilment of them entails. Complete abnegation
means death ; excessive abnegatioii means illness ; abnega
tion less excessive means physical degradation and conse
quent loss of power to fulfil obligations, personal and other.
When, therefore, we attempt to specialize the proposal to live
not for self-satisfaction but for the satisfaction of others, we

232 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

meet with the difficulty that beyond a certain limit this can^
not be done. And when we have decided what decrease of
bodily welfare, caused by sacrifice of pleasures and accept
ance of pains, it is proper for the individual to make, there
is forced on us the fact that the portion of happiness, or
means to happiness, which it is possible for him to yield up
for redistribution, is a limited portion.

Even more rigorous on another side is the restriction put
upon the transfer of happiness, or the means to happiness.
The pleasures gained by efficient action — by successful
pursuit of ends, cannot by any process be parted with, and
cannot in any way be appropriated by another. The habit
of arguing about general happiness sometimes as though it
were a concrete product to be portioned out, and sometimes
as though it were co-extensive with the use of those material
aids to pleasure which may be given and received, has
caused inattention to the truth that the pleasures of achieve
ment are not transferable. Alike in the boy who has won
a game of marbles, the athlete who has performed a feat, the
statesman who has gained a party triumph, the inventor who
has devised a new machine, the man of science who has
discovered a truth, the novelist who has well delineated
a character, the poet who has finely rendered an emotion,
we see pleasures which must, in the nature of things, be
enjoyed exclusively by those to whom they come. And
if we look at all such occupations as men are not impelled
to by their necessities— if we contemplate the various am
bitions which play so large a part in life ; we are reminded
that so long as the consciousness of efficiency remains a
dominant pleasure, there will remain a dominant pleasure
which cannot be pursued altruistically but must be pursued
egoistically.

Cutting off, then, at the one end, those pleasures which
are inseparable from maintenance of the physique in an un
injured state ; and cutting off at the other end the pleasures
of successful action ; the amount that remains is so greatly

TKIAL AND COMPROMISE.

diminished, as to make untenable the assumption that happi
ness at large admits of distribution after the manner which
utilitarianism assumes.

§ 89. In yet one more way may be shown the inconsistency
of this transfigured utilitarianism which regards its doctrine
as embodying the Christian maxim—" Love your neighbour
as yourself," and of that altruism which, going still further,
enunciates the maxim — " Live for others."

A right rule of conduct must be one which may with ad
vantage be adopted by all. " Act according to that maxim
only, which you can wish, at the same time, to become a uni
versal law," says Kant. And clearly a passing over needful
qualifications of this maxim, we may accept it to the extent
of admitting that a mode of action which becomes impracti
cable as it approaches universality, must be wrong. Hence,
if the theory of pure altruism, implying that effort should be
expended for the benefit of others and not for personal bene
fit, is defensible, it must be shown that it will produce
good results when acted upon by all. Mark the consequences
if all are purely altruistic.

First, an impossible combination of moral attributes is
implied. Each is supposed by the hypothesis to regard self
so little and others so much, that he willingly sacrifices his
own pleasures to give pleasures to them. But if this is a
universal trait, and if action is universally congruous with
it, we have to conceive each as being not only a sacrificer
but also one who accepts sacrifices. While he is so unselfish
as willingly to yield up the benefit for which he has laboured,
he is so selfish as willingly to let others yield up to him the
benefits they have laboured for. To make pure altruism
possible for all, each must be at once extremely unegoistic
and extremely egoistic. As a giver, he must have no thought
for self ; as a receiver, no thought for others. Evident
ly, this implies an inconceivable mental constitution. The
sympathy which is so solicitous for others as willingly to

234 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

injure self in benefiting them, cannot at the same time be so
regardless of others as to accept benefits which they injure
themselves in giving.

The incongruities that emerge if we assume pure altruism
to be universally practised, may be otherwise exhibited
thus. Suppose that each, instead of enjoying such pleasures
as come to him, or such consumable appliances to pleasure as
he has worked for, or such occasions for pleasure as reward
his efforts, relinquishes these to a single other, or adds them
to a common stock from which others benefit ; what will
result ? Different answers may be given according as we
assume that there are, or are not, additional influences
brought into play. Suppose there are no additional

influences. Then, if each transfers to another his happiness,
or means to happiness, or occasions for happiness, while some
one else does the like to him, the distribution of happiness
is, on the average, unchanged ; or if each adds to a common
stock his happiness, or means to happiness, or occasions for
happiness, from which common stock each appropriates his
portion, the average state is still, as before, unchanged.
The only obvious effect is that transactions must be gone
through in the redistribution ; and loss of time and labour
must result. Now suppose some additional influence

which makes the process beneficial ; what must it be ? The
totality can be increased only if the acts of transfer in
crease the quantity of that which is transferred. The
happiness, or that which brings it, must be greater to one
who derives it from another's efforts, than it would have
been had his own efforts procured it; or otherwise, sup
posing a fund of happiness, or of that which brings it, has
been formed by contributions from each, then each, in
appropriating his share, must find it larger than it would
have been had no such aggregation and dispersion taken
place. To justify belief in such increase two conceivable
assumptions may be made. One is that though the sum of
pleasures, or of pleasure-yielding things, remains the same

TRIAL AXD COMPROMISE. 235

yet the kind of pleasure, or of pleasure-yielding things, which
each receives in exchange from another, or from the aggre
gate of others, is one which he appreciates more than that
for which he laboured. But to assume this is to assume
that each labours directly for the thing which he enjoys
less, rather than for the thing which he enjoys more, which is
absurd. The other assumption is that while the exchanged
or redistributed pleasure of the egoistic kind, remains the
same in amount for each, there is added to it the altruistic
pleasure accompanying the exchange. But this assumption
is clearly inadmissible if, as is implied, the transaction is
universal — is one through which each becomes giver and
receiver to equal extents. For if the transfer of pleasures,
or of pleasure-yielding things, from one to another or others,
is always accompanied by the consciousness that there will
be received from him or them an equivalent ; there results
merely a tacit exchange, either direct or roundabout. Each
becomes altruistic in no greater degree than is implied by
being equitable ; and each, having nothing to exalt his happi
ness, sympathetically or otherwise, cannot be a source of
sympathetic happiness to others.

§ 90. Thus, when the meanings of its words are inquired
into, or when the necessary implications of its theory are ex
amined, pure altruism, in whatever form expressed, commits
its adherents to various absurdities.

If " the greatest happiness of the greatest number/' or
in other words, " the general happiness," is the proper end
of action, then not only for all public action but for all
private action, it must be the end ; because, otherwise, the
greater part of action remains unguided. Consider its
fitness for each. If corporate action is^ to be guided
by the principle, with its interpreting comment — " every
body to count for one, nobody for more than one "-
there must be an ignoring of all differences of character
and conduct, merits and demerits, among citizens, since

236 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

no discrimination is provided for ; and moreover, since
that in respect of which all are to count alike cannot be
happiness itself, which is indistribntable, and since equal
sharing of the concrete means to happiness, besides failing
utimately would fail proximately to produce the greatest
happiness ; it results that equal distribution of the conditions
under which happiness may be pursued is the only tenable
meaning : wre discover in the principle nothing but a round
about insistance on equity. If, taking happiness at large as
the aim of private action, the individual is required to judge
between his own happiness and that of others as an impar
tial spectator would do, we see that no supposition concern
ing the spectator save one which suicidally ascribes partiality
to him, can bring out any other result than that each shall
enjoy such happiness, or appropriate such means to happi
ness, as his own efforts gain : equity is again the sole
content. When, adopting another method, we consider
how the greatest sum of happiness may be composed, and,
recognizing the fact that equitable egoism will produce a
certain sum, ask how pure altruism is to produce a greater
sum ; we are shown that if all, exclusively pursuing altruis
tic pleasures, are so to produce a greater sum of pleasures,
the implication is that altruistic pleasures, which arise
from sympathy, can exist in the absence of egoistic plea
sures with which there may be sympathy — an impossibility ;
and another implication is that if, the necessity for egoistic
pleasures being admitted, it is said that the greatest sum of
happiness will be attained if all individuals are more
altruistic than egoistic, it is indirectly said that as a general
truth, representative feelings are stronger than presentative
feelings — another impossibility. Again the doctrine of pure
altruism assumes that happiness may be to any extent
transferred or redistributed ; whereas the fact is that plea
sures of one order cannot be transferred in large measure
without results which are fatal or extremely injurious, and
that pleasures of another order cannot be transferred in any

TRIAL AND COMPROMISE. 237

degree. Further, pure altruism presents this fatal anomaly ;
that while a right principle of action must be more and
more practised as men improve, the altruistic principle
becomes less and less practicable as men approach an ideal
form, because the sphere for practising it continually de
creases. Finally, its self -destructive!] ess is made manifest
on observing that for all to adopt it as a principle of action,
which they must do if it is a sound principle, implies that
all are at once extremely unegoistic and extremely egoistic
— ready to injure self for others' benefit, and ready to ac
cept benefit at the cost of injury to others : traits which can
not co-exist.

The need for a compromise between egoism and altruism
is thus made conspicuous. We are forced to recognize the
claims which his own well-being has on the attention of each
by noting how, in some directions we come to a deadlock, in
others to contradictions, and in others to disastrous results, if
they are ignored. Conversely, it is undeniable that disregard
of others by each, carried to a great extent is fatal to society,
and carried to a still greater extent is fatal to the family, and
eventually to the race. Egoism and altruism are therefore
co-essential.

§ 91. What form is the compromise between egoism and
altruism to assume ? how are their respective claims to be
satisfied in due degrees ?

It is a truth insisted on by moralists and recognized in
common life, that the achievement of individual happiness is
not proportionate to the degree in which individual happi
ness is made the object of direct pursuit ; but there has not
yet become current the belief that, in like manner, the
achievement of general happiness is not proportionate to the
degree in which general happiness is made the object of
direct pursuit. Yet failure of direct pursuit in the last case
is more reasonably to be expected than in the first.

When discussing the relations of means and ends, we saw

238 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

that as individual conduct evolves, its principle becomes
more and more that of making fulfilment of means the
proximate end, and leaving the ultimate end, welfare or
happiness, to come as a result. And we saw that when
general welfare or happiness is the ultimate end, the same
principle holds even more rigorously ; since the ultimate
end under its impersonal form, is less determinate than
under its personal form, and the difficulties in the way of
achieving it by direct pursuit still greater. Recognizing,
then, the fact that corporate happiness still more than
individual happiness, must be pursued not directly but in
directly, the first question for us is — What must be the
general nature of the means through which it is to be
achieved.

It is admitted that self-happiness is, in a measure, to be ob
tained by furthering the happiness of others. May it not be
true that, conversely, general happiness is to be obtained by
furthering self-happiness? If the well-being of each unit is
to be reached partly through his care for the well-being of
the aggregate, is not the well-being of the aggregate to be
reached partly through the care of each unit for himself ?
Clearly, our conclusion must be that general happiness is to
be achieved mainly through the adequate pursuit of their
own happinesses by individuals ; while, reciprocally, the hap
pinesses of individuals are to be achieved in part by their pur
suit of the general happiness.

And this is the conclusion embodied in the progressing
ideas and usages of mankind. This compromise between
egoism and altruism has been slowly establishing itself ;
and towards recognition of its propriety, men's actual
beliefs, as distinguished from their nominal beliefs, have
been gradually approaching. Social evolution has been
bringing about a state in which the claims of the individual
to the proceeds of his activities, and to such satisfactions as
they bring, are more and more positively asserted ; at the
same time that insistance on others' claims, and habitual

TRIAL AXD COMPROMISE. 239

respect for them, have been increasing. Among the rudest
savages personal interests are very vaguely distinguished
from the interests of others. In early stages of civiliza
tion, the proportioning of benefits to efforts is extremely
rude : slaves and serfs get for work, arbitrary amounts of
food and shelter : exchange being infrequent, there is little
to develop the idea of equivalence. But as civilization
advances and status passes into contract, there conies daily
experience of the relation between advantages enjoyed and
labour given : the industrial system maintaining, through
supply and demand, a duo adjustment of the one to the
other. And this growth of voluntary co-operation — this
exchange of services under agreement, has been necessarily
accompanied by decrease of aggressions one upon another,
and increase of sympathy : leading to exchange of services
beyond agreement. That is to say, the more distinct asser
tions of individual claims and more rigorous apportioning
of personal enjoyments to efforts expended, has gone hand
in hand with growth of that negative altruism shown in
equitable conduct and that positive altruism shown in gratu
itous aid.

A higher phase of this double change has in our owrn times
becomes conspicuous. If, on the one hand, we note the strug
gles for political freedom, the contests between labour and
capital, the judicial reforms made to facilitate enforcement
of rights, we see that the tendency still is towards complete
appropriation by each of whatever benefits are due to him,
and consequent exclusion of his fellows from such benefits.
On the other hand, if we consider what is meant by the sur
render of power to the masses, the abolition of class-privi
leges, the efforts to diffuse knowledge, the agitations to spread
temperance, the multitudinous philanthropic societies ; it
becomes clear that regard for the well-being of others is in
creasing pari passu with the taking of means to secure per
sonal well-being.

What holds of the relations within each society holds to
17

24:0 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

some extent, if to a less extent, of the relations between
societies. Though to maintain national claims, real or
imaginary, often of a trivial kind, the civilized still make
war on one another ; yet their several nationalities are more
respected than in past ages. Though by victors portions of
territory are taken and money compensations exacted ; yet
conquest is not now, as of old, habitually followed by entire
appropriation of territories and enslavement of peoples.
The individualities of societies are in a larger measure
preserved. Meanwhile the altruistic intercourse is greater :
aid is rendered on occasions of disaster by flood, by fire, by
famine, or otherwise. And in international arbitration as
lately exemplified, implying the recognition of claims by one
nation upon another, we see a further progress in this wider
altruism. Doubtless there is much to be said by way of
set-off ; for in the dealings of the civilized with the un
civilized, little of this progress can be traced. It may be
urged that the primitive rule — " Life for life," has been
developed by us into the rule — " For one life many lives,"
as in the cases of Bishop Patteson and Mr. Birch ; but
then there is the qualifying fact that we do not torture our
prisoners or mutilate them. If it be said that as the
Hebrews thought themselves warranted in seizing the lands
God promised to them, and in some cases exterminating
the inhabitants, so we, to fulfil the " manifest intention of
Providence," dispossess inferior races whenever we want
their territories ; it may be replied that we do not kill
many more than seems needful, and tolerate the existence
of those who submit. And should any one point out that as
Attila, while conquering or destroying peoples and nations,
regarded himself as "the scourge of God," punishing men
for their sins, so we, as represented by a High Commis
sioner and a priest he quotes, think ourselves called on to
chastise with rifles and cannon, heathens who practise poly
gamy ; there is the rejoinder that not even the most ferocious
disciple of the teacher of mercy would carry his vengeance

TRIAL AND COMPROMISE. 24 I

so far as to depopulate whole territories and erase scores of
cities. And when, on the other hand, we remember that
there is an Aborigines Protection Society, that there are
Commissioners in certain colonies appointed to protect native
interests, and that in some cases the lands of natives have
been purchased in ways which, however unfair, have implied
some recognition of their claims ; we may say that little as
the compromise between egoism and altruism has progressed
in international affairs, it has still progressed somewhat in
the direction indicated.

CHAPTER XIY.

CONCILIATION.

§ 92. As exhibited in the last chapter, the compromise
between the claims of self and the claims of others seems to
imply permanent antagonism between the two. The pursuit
by each of his own happiness while paying due regard to the
happiness of his fellows, apparently necessitates the ever-
recurring question — how far must the one end be sought
and how far the other : suggesting, if not discord in the life
of each, still, an absence of complete harmony. This is not
the inevitable inference however.

"When, in the Principles of Sociology, Part III, the
phenomena of race-maintenance among living things at
large were discussed, that the development of the domestic
relations might be the better understood, it was shown that
during evolution there has been going on a conciliation
between the interests of the species, the interests of the
parents, and the interests of the offspring. Proof was
given that as we ascend from the lowest forms of life to
the highest, race-maintenance is achieved with a decreasing
sacrifice of life, alike of young individuals and of adult
individuals, and also with a decreasing sacrifice of parental
lives to the lives of offspring. We saw that, with the
progress of civilization, like changes go on among human
beings ; and that the highest domestic relations are those in
which the conciliation of welfare within the family becomes

242

CONCILIATION. 243

greatest, while the welfare of the society is best subserved.
Here it remains to be shown that a kindred conciliation has
been, and is, taking place between the interests of each
citizen and the interests of citizens at large ; tending ever
towards a state in which the two become merged in one, and
in which the feelings answering to them respectively,, fall
into complete concord.

In the family group, even as we observe it among many
inferior vertebrates, we see that the parental sacrifice, now
become so moderate in amount as to consist with long-con
tinued parental life, is not accompanied by consciousness of
sacrifice ; but, contrariwise, is made from a direct desire to
make it : the altruistic labours on behalf of young are car
ried on in satisfaction of parental instincts. If we trace
these relations up through the grades of mankind, and ob
serve how largely love rather than obligation prompts the
care of children, we see the conciliation of interests to be
such that achievement of parental happiness coincides with
securing the happiness of offspring : the wish for children
among the childless, and the occasional adoption of children,
showing how needful for attainment of certain egoistic satis
factions are these altruistic activities. And further evolu
tion, causing along with higher nature diminished fertility,
and therefore smaller burdens on parents, may be expected
to bring a state in which, far more than now, the pleasures
of adult life will consist in raising offspring to perfection
while simultaneously furthering the immediate happiness of
offspring.

Now though altruism of a social kind, lacking certain
elements of parental altruism, can never attain the same
level ; yet it may be expected to attain a level at which it
will be like parental altruism in spontaneity — a level such
that ministration to others' happiness will become a daily
need — a level such that the lower egoistic satisfactions will
be continually subordinated to this higher egoistic satisfac
tion, not by any effort to subordinate them, but by the

THE DATA OF ETHICS.

preference for tliis higher egoistic satisfaction whenever it
can be obtained.

Let us consider how the development of sympathy, which
must advance as fast as conditions permit, will bring about
this state.

•
§ 93. We have seen that during the evolution of life,

pleasures and pains have necessarily been the incentives to
and deterrents from, actions which the conditions of exist
ence demanded and negatived. An implied truth to be here
noted is, that faculties which, under given conditions, yield
partly pain and partly pleasure, cannot develop beyond the
limit at which they yield a surplus of pleasure : if beyond
that limit more pain than pleasure results from exercise of
them, their growth must be arrested.

Through sympathy both these forms of feeling are ex
cited. Now a pleasurable consciousness is aroused on wit
nessing pleasure ; now a painful consciousness is aroused on
witnessing pain. Hence, if beings around him habitually
manifest pleasure and but rarely pain, sympathy yields to
its possessor a surplus of pleasure ; while, contrariwise, if
little pleasure is ordinarily witnessed and much pain, sym
pathy yields a surplus of pain to its possessor. The average
development of sympathy must, therefore, be regulated by
the average manifestations of pleasure and pain in others.
If the life usually led under given social conditions is such
that suffering is daily inflicted, or is daily displayed by asso
ciates, sympathy cannot grow : to assume growth of it is
to assume that the constitution will modify itself in such
way as to increase its pains and therefore depress its ener
gies ; and is to ignore the truth that bearing any kind of
pain gradually produces insensibility to that pain, or callous
ness. On the other hand, if the social state is such that
manifestations of pleasure predominate, sympathy will in
crease ; since sympathetic pleasures, adding to the totality of
pleasures enhancing vitality, conduce to the physical pros-

CONCILIATION.

perity of the most sympathetic, and since the pleasures of
sympathy exceeding its pains in all, lead to an exercise of it
which strengthens it.

The first implication is one already more than once indi
cated. We have seen that along with habitual militancy
and under the adapted type of social organization, sympathy
cannot develop to any considerable height. The destructive
activities carried on against external enemies sear it; the
state of feeling maintained causes within the society itself
frequent acts of aggression or cruelty ; and further, the com
pulsory co-operation characterizing the militant regime neces
sarily 'represses sympathy— exists only on condition of an
unsympathetic treatment of some by others.

But even could the militant regime forthwith end, the
hindrances to development of sympathy would still be
great. Though cessation of war would imply increased
adaptation of man to social life, and decrease of sundry
evils yet there would remain much non-adaptation and much
consequent unhappiness. In the first place, that form of
nature which has generated and still generates wars, though
by implication raised to a higher form, would not at once
be raised to so high a form that there would cease all in
justices and the pains they cause. For a considerable period
after predatory activities had ended, the defects of the pre
datory nature would continue : entailing their slowly-dimin
ishing evils. In the second place, the ill-adjustment of the
human constitution to the pursuits of industrial life, must
long persist, and may be expected to survive in a measure
the cessation of wars : the required modes of activity must
remain for innumerable generations in some degree displeas-
urable. And in the third place deficiencies of self-control
such as the improvident show us, as well as those many
failures of conduct due to inadequate foresight of conse
quences, though less marked than now, could not fail still
to produce suffering.

ISor would even complete adaptation, if limited to

246 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

disappearance of the non-adaptations just indicated, remove
all sources of those miseries which, to the extent of their
manifestation, check the growth of sympathy. For while
the rate of multiplication continues so to exceed the rate of
mortality as to cause pressure on the means of subsistence,
there must continue to result much unhappiness ; either
from balked affections or from over-work and stinted means.
Only as fast as fertility diminishes, which we have seen it
must do along with further mental development (Principles
of Biology ', § § 367 — 3YY), can there go on such diminution
of the labours required for efficiently supporting self and
family, that they will not constitute a displeasurable tax on
the energies.

Gradually then, and only gradually, as these various
causes of unhappiness become less can sympathy become
greater. Life would be intolerable if, while the causes of
misery remained as they now are, all men were not only in a
high degree sensitive to the pains, bodily and mental, felt by
those around and expressed in the faces of those they met,
but were unceasingly conscious of the miseries every
where being suffered as consequences of war, crime, mis
conduct, misfortune, improvidence, incapacity. But, as the
moulding and re-moulding of man and society into mutual
fitness progresses, and as the pains caused by unfitness
decrease, sympathy can increase in presence of the pleasures
that come from fitness. The two changes are indeed so
related that each furthers the other. Such growth of
sympathy as conditions permit, itself aids in lessening pain
and augmenting pleasure ; and the greater surplus of
pleasure that results makes possible further growth of
sympathy.

§ 94. The extent to which sympathy may develop when
the hindrances are removed, will be better conceived after
observing the agencies through which it is excited, and
setting down the reasons for expecting those agencies to

CONCILIATION. 247

become more efficient. Two factors have to be considered
— the natural language of feeling in the being sympathized
with, and the powder of interpreting that language in the
being who sympathizes. We may anticipate development
of both.

Movements of the body and facial changes are visible
effects of feeling which, when the feeling is strong, are
uncontrollable. When the feeling is less strong however,
be it sensational or emotional, they may be wholly or par
tially repressed ; and there is a habit, more or less constant,
of repressing them : this habit being the concomitant of a
nature such that it is often undesirable that others
should see what is felt. So necessary with our existing
characters and conditions are concealments thus prompted,
that they have come to form a part of moral duty ; and
concealment for its o%vn sake is often insisted upon as an
element in good manners. All this is caused by the preva
lence of feelings at variance with social good — feelings which
cannot be shown without producing discords or estrange
ments. But in proportion as the egoistic desires fall
more under control of the altruistic, and there come fewer
and slighter impulses of a kind to be reprobated, the need
for keeping guard over facial expression and bodily move
ment wall decrease, and these will with increasing clearness
convey to spectators the mental state. Xor is this all.
Kestrained as its use is, this language of the emotions is at
present prevented from gro\ving. But as fast as the emo
tions become such that they may be more candidly displayed,
there will go, along with the habit of display, development
of the means of display ; so that besides the stronger emo
tions, the more delicate shades and smaller degrees of emo
tion will visibly exhibit themselves : the emotional language
will become at once more copious, more varied, more defi
nite. And obviously sympathy will be proportionately
facilitated.

An equally important, if not a more important, advance

24:8 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

of kindred nature, is to be anticipated. The vocal signs of
sentient states will simultaneously evolve further. Loudness
of tone, pitch of tone, quality of tone, and change of tone,
are severally marks of feeling ; and, combined in different
ways and proportions, serve to express different amounts and
kinds of feelings. As elsewhere pointed out, cadences are
the comments of the emotions on the propositions of the
intellect.* Not in excited speech only, but in ordinary
speech, we show by ascending and descending intervals, by
degrees of deviation from the medium tone, as well as by
place and strength of emphasis, the kind of sentiency which
accompanies the thought expressed. Now the manifestation
of feeling by cadence, like its manifestation by visible
changes, is at present under restraint ; the motives for
repression act in the one case as they act in the other. A
double effect is produced. This audible language of feeling
is not used up to the limit of its existing capacity ; and it is
to a considerable degree misused, so as to convey other feel
ings than those which are felt. The result of this disuse and
misuse is to check that evolution which normal use would
cause. We must infer, then, that as moral adaptation pro
gresses, and there is decreasing need for concealment of
the feelings, their vocal signs will develop much further.
Though it is not to be supposed that cadences will ever con
vey emotions as exactly as words convey thoughts, yet it is
quite possible that the emotional language of the future may
rise as much above our present emotional language, as our
intellectual language has already risen above the intellectual
language of the lowest races.

A simultaneous increase in the power of interpreting both
visible and audible signs of feeling must be taken into
account. Among those around we see differences both of
ability to perceive such signs and of ability to conceive the
implied mental states and their causes : here, a stolidity un-

* See Essay on " The Origin and Function of Music."

CONCILIATION. 249

impressed by a slight facial change or altered tone of voice,
or else unable to imagine what is felt ; and there, a quick
observation and a penetrating intuition, making instantly
comprehensible the state of mind and its origin. If \ve
suppose both these faculties exalted— both a more delicate
perception of the signs and a strengthened constructive
imagination — we shall get some idea of the deeper and
wider sympathy that will hereafter arise. More vivid
representations of the feelings of others, implying ideal ex
citements of feelings approaching to real excitements, must
imply a greater likeness between the feelings of the sym
pathizer and those of the sympathized with ; coming near
to identity.

By simultaneous increase of its subjective and objective
factors, sympathy may thus, as the hindrances diminish, rise
above that now shown by the sympathetic as much as in
them it has risen above that which the callous show.

§ 95. What must be the accompanying evolution of con
duct ? What must the relations between egoism and altru
ism become as this form of nature is neared ?

A conclusion drawn in the chapter on the relativity of
pleasures and pains, and there emphasized as one to be borne
in mind, must now be recalled. It was pointed out that,
supposing them to be consistent with continuance of life,
there are no activities which may not become sources of
pleasure, if surrounding conditions require persistence in
them. And here it is to be added, as a corollary, that if the
conditions require any class of activities to be relatively
great, there will arise a relatively great pleasure accompany
ing that class of activities. What bearing have these general
inferences on the special question before us ?

That alike for public welfare and private welfare sym
pathy is essential, we have seen. We have seen that co
operation and the benefits which it brings to each and all,
become high in proportion as the altruistic, that is the sym-

250 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

pathetic, interests extend. The actions prompted by fellow-
feeling are thus to be counted among those demanded by
social conditions. They are actions which maintenance and
further development of social organization tend ever to in
crease ; and therefore actions with which there will be
joined an increasing pleasure. From the laws of life it must
be concluded that unceasing social discipline will so mould
human nature, that eventually sympathetic pleasures will be
spontaneously pursued to the fullest extent advantageous to
each and all. The scope for altruistic activities will not
exceed the desire for altruistic satisfactions.

In natures thus constituted, though the altruistic gratifica
tions must remain in a transfigured sense egoistic, yet they
will not be egoistically pursued — will not be pursued from
egoistic motives. Though pleasure will be gained by giving
pleasure, yet the thought of the sympathetic pleasure to be
gained will not occupy consciousness, but only the thought
of the pleasure given. To a great extent this is so now. In
the truly sympathetic, attention is so absorbed with the
proximate end, others' happiness, that there is none given to
the prospective self-happiness which may ultimately result.
An analogy will make the relation clear.

A miser accumulates money, not deliberately saying to
himself — " I shall by doing this get the delight which pos
session gives." He thinks only of the money and the
means of getting it ; and he experiences incidentally the
pleasure that comes from possession. Owning property is
that which he revels in imagining, and not the feeling
which owning property will cause. Similarly, one who is
sympathetic in the highest sense, is mentally engaged solely
in representing pleasure as experienced by another ; and
pursues it for the benefit of that other, forgetting any par
ticipation he will have in it. Subjectively considered, then,
the conciliation of egoism and altruism will eventually
become such that though the altruistic pleasure, as being
a part of the consciousness of one who experiences it, can

CONCILIATION.

251

never be other than egoistic, it will not be consciously
egoistic.

Let us now ask what must happen in a society composed
of persons constituted in this manner.

§ 96. The opportunities for that postponement of self to
others which constitutes altruism as ordinarily conceived,
must, in several ways, be more and more limited as the
highest state is approached.

Extensive demands on the benevolent, presuppose much
unhappiness. Before there can be many and large calls on
some for efforts on behalf of others, there must be many
others in conditions needing help— in conditions of com
parative misery. But, as we have seen above, the develop
ment of fellow-feeling can go on only as fast as misery
decreases. Sympathy can reach its full height only when
there have ceased to be frequent occasions for anything like
serious self-sacrifice.

Change the point of view, and this truth presents itself
under another aspect. We have already seen that with the
prooress of adaptation each becomes so constituted that he
cannot be helped without in some way arresting a pleasur
able activity. There cannot be a beneficial interference
between faculty and function when the two are adjusted.
Consequently, in proportion as mankind approach complete
adjustment of their natures to social needs, there must be
fewer and smaller opportunities for giving aid.

Yet ao-ain, as was pointed out in the last chapter, the
sympathy which prompts efforts for others' welfare must be
gained by self -in jury on the part of others ; and must, there
fore, cause aversion to accept benefits derived from their
self-injuries. What is to be inferred ? While each when
occasion offers is ready, anxious even, to surrender egoistic
satisfactions ; others, similarly-natured, cannot but resist the
surrender. If anyone, proposing to treat himself more
hardly than a disinterested spectator would direct, refrains

252 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

from appropriating that which is due, others, caring for him
if he will not care for himself, must necessarily insist that
he shall appropriate it. General altruism then, in its de
veloped form, must inevitably resist individual excesses of
altruism. The relation at present familiar to us will be
inverted ; and instead of each maintaining his own claims,
others will maintain his claims for him : not, indeed, by
active efforts, which will be needless, but by passively resist
ing any undue yielding Tip of them. There is nothing in
such behaviour which is not even now to be traced in our
daily experiences as beginning. In business transactions
among honourable men, there is usually a desire on either
side that the other shall treat himself fairly. Not unfre-
quently, there is a refusal to take something regarded as the
other's due, but which the other offers to give up. In social
intercourse, too, the cases are common in which those who
would surrender their shares of pleasure are not permitted
by the rest to do so. Further development of sympathy
cannot but make this mode of behaving increasingly general
and increasingly genuine.

Certain complex restraints on excesses of altruism exist,
which, in another way, force back the individual upon a
normal egoism. Two may here be noted. In the first

place, self-abnegations often repeated imply on the part of
the actor a tacit ascription of relative selfishness to others
who profit by the self-abnegations. Even with men as they
are, there occasionally arises a feeling among those for
whom sacrifices are frequently made, that they are being
insulted by the assumption that they are ready to receive
them ; and in the mind of the actor also, there sometimes
grows up a recognition of this feeling on their part, and a
consequent check on his too great or too frequent surrenders
of pleasure. Obviously in more developed natures, this kind
of check must act still more promptly. In the second

place, when, as the hypothesis implies, altruistic pleasures
have reached a greater intensity than they now possess, each

CONCILIATION. 253

person will be debarred from undue pursuit of them by tlio
consciousness that other persons, too, desire them, and that
scope for others' enjoyment of them must be left. Even
now may be observed among groups of friends, where some
competition in amiability is going on, relinquishments of
opportunities for self-abnegation that others may have them.
" Let her give up the gratification, she will like to do so ;"
"Let him undertake the trouble, it will please him;" are
suggestions which from time to time illustrate this conscious
ness. The most developed sympathy will care for the sym
pathetic satisfactions of others as wrell as for their selfish
satisfactions. What may be called a higher equity will
refrain from trespassing on the spheres of others' altruistic
.ictivities, as a lower equity refrains from trespassing on the
spheres of their egoistic activities. And by this checking of
what may be called an egoistic altruism, undue sacrifices on
the part of each must be prevented.

What spheres, then, will eventually remain for altruism as
it is commonly conceived ? There are three. One of them
must to the last continue large in extent; and the others
must progressively diminish, though they do not dis
appear. The first is that which family-life affords.
Always there must be a need for subordination of self-
regarding feelings to other-regarding feelings in the rearing
of children. Though this will diminish with diminution in
the number to be reared, yet it will increase with the greater
elaboration and prolongation of the activities on their behalf.
But as shown above, there is even now partially effected a
conciliation such that those egoistic satisfactions which pa
renthood yields are achieved through altruistic activities— a
conciliation tending ever towards completeness. An impor
tant development of family-altruism must be added : the re
ciprocal care of parents by children during old age — a care
becoming lighter and better fulfilled, in which a kindred
conciliation may be looked for. Pursuit of social
welfare at large must afford hereafter, as it does now, scope

THE DATA OF ETHICS.

for the postponement of selfish interests to unselfish inter
ests, but a continually lessening scope ; because as adaptation
to the social state progresses, the needs for those regulative
actions by which social life is made harmonious become less.
And here the amount of altruistic action which each under
takes must inevitably be kept within moderate bounds by
others ; for if they are similarly altruistic, they will not
allow some to pursue public ends to their own considera
ble detriment that the rest may profit. In the
private relations of men, opportunities for self sacrifice
prompted by sympathy, must ever in some degree, though
eventually in a small degree, be afforded by accidents, dis
eases, and misfortunes in general ; since, however near to
completeness the adaptation of human nature to the con
ditions of existence at large, physical and social, may be
come, it can never reach completeness. Flood, fire, and
wreck must to the last yield at intervals opportunities for
heroic acts ; and in the motives to such acts, anxiety for
others will be less alloyed with love of admiration than now.
Extreme, however, as may be the eagerness for altruistic
action on the rare occasions hence arising, the amount fall
ing to the share of each must, for the reasons given, be nar
rowly limited. But though in the incidents of ordi
nary life, postponements of self to others in large ways must
become very infrequent, daily intercourse will still furnish
multitudinous small occasions for the activity of fellow feel
ing. Always each may continue to further the welfare of
others by warding off from them evils they cannot see, and
by aiding their actions in ways unknown to them ; or, con
versely putting it, each may have, as it were, supplementary
eyes and ears in other persons, which perceive for him things
he cannot perceive himself : so perfecting his life in numer
ous details, by making its adjustments to environing actions
complete.

§ 97. Must it then follow that eventually, with this dirni-

CONCILIATION. ZOO

mition of the spheres for it, altruism must diminish in total
amount ? By no means. Such a conclusion implies a mis
conception.

.Naturally, under existing conditions, with suffering widely
diffused and so much of effort demanded from the more for
tunate in succouring the less fortunate, altruism is under
stood to mean only self-sacrifice ; or, at any rate, a mode of
action which, while it brings some pleasure, has an accom
paniment of self-surrender that is not pleasurable. But the
sympathy which prompts denial of self to please others, is a
sympathy which also receives pleasure from their pleasures
when they arc otherwise originated. The stronger the fel
low-feeling which excites efforts to make others happy, the
stronger is the fellow-feeling with their happiness however
caused.

In its ultimate form, then, altruism will be the achieve
ment of gratification through sympathy with those gratifica
tions of others which are mainly produced by their activities
of all kinds successfully carried on — sympathetic gratifica
tion which costs the receiver nothing, but is a gratis addition
to his egoistic gratifications. This power of representing in
idea the mental states of others, which, during the process of
adaptation has had the function of mitigating suffering,
must, as the suffering falls to a minimum, come to have al
most wholly the function of mutually exalting men's enjoy
ments by giving everyone a vivid intuition of his neighbour's
enjoyments. While pain prevails widely, it is undesirable
that each should participate much in the consciousness of
others ; but with an increasing predominance of pleasure,
participation in others' consciousnesses becomes a gain of
pleasure to all.

And so there wrill disappear that apparently-permanent
opposition between egoism and altruism, implied by the com
promise reached in the last chapter. Subjectively looked at,
the conciliation will be such that the individual will not have
to balance between self-regarding impulses and other-regard-
IS

256 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

ing impulses ; but, instead, those satisfactions of other-regard
ing impulses which involve self-sacrifice, becoming rare and
much prized, will be so unhesitatingly preferred that the
competition of self-regarding impulses with them will
scarcely be felt. And the subjective conciliation will also
be such that though altruistic pleasure will be attained, yet
the motive of action will not consciously be the attainment
of altruistic pleasure ; but the idea present will be the secur
ing of others' pleasures. Meanwhile, the conciliation objec
tively considered will be equally complete. Though each,
no longer needing to maintain his egoistic claims, will tend
rather when occasion offers to surrender them, yet others,
similarly natured, will not permit him in any large measure
to do this ; and that fulfilment of personal desires required
for completion of his life will thus be secured to him :
though not now egoistic in the ordinary sense, yet the effects
of due egoism will be achieved. Nor is this all. As, at an
earlier stage, egoistic competition, first reaching a compromise
such that each claims no more than his equitable share, after
wards rises to a conciliation such that each insists on
the taking of equitable shares by others ; so, at the latest
stage, altruistic competition, first reaching a compromise
under which each restrains himself from taking an undue
share of altruistic satisfactions, eventually rises to a concilia
tion under which each takes care that others shall have
their opportunities for altruistic satisfactions : the highest
altruism being that which ministers not to the egoistic satis
factions of others only, but also to their altruistic satisfac
tions.

Far off as seems such a state, yet every one of the factors
counted on to produce it may already be traced in opera
tion among those of highest natures. What now in them
is occasional and feeble, may be expected with further evo
lution to become habitual and strong ; and what now char
acterizes the exceptionally high may be expected eventually
to characterize all. For that which the best human na-

CONCILIATION. 257

ture is capable of, is within the reach of human nature at
large.

§ 98. That these conclusions will meet with any consider
able acceptance is improbable. Neither with current ideas
nor with current sentiments are they sufficiently congruous.

Such a view will not be agreeable to those who lament the
spreading disbelief in eternal damnation ; nor to those who
follow the apostle of brute force in thinking that because
the rule of the strong hand was once good it is good for all
time; nor to those whose reverence for one who told them
to put up the sword, is shown by using the sword to spread
his doctrine among heathens. From the ten thousand
priests of the religion of love, who are silent when the
nation is moved by the religion of hate, will come no sign
of assent ; nor from their bishops wTho, far from urging the
extreme precept of the master they pretend to follow, to
turn the other cheek when one is smitten, vote for acting
on the principle — strike lest ye be struck. Nor will any
approval be felt by legislators who, after praying to be
forgiven their trespasses as they forgive the trespasses of
others, forthwith decide to attack those who have not tres
passed against them ; and who, after a Queen's Speech
has invoked " the blessing of Almighty God " on their
councils, immediately provide means for committing politi
cal burglary.

But though men who profess Christianity and practise
Paganism can feel no sympathy with such a view, there are
some, classed as antagonists to the current creed, who
may not think it absurd to believe that a rationalized
version of its ethical principles will eventually be acted
upon.

CHAPTER XV.

ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE ETHICS.

§ 99. As applied to Ethics, the word " absolute " will by
many be supposed to imply principles of right conduct
that exist out of relation to life as conditioned on the
Earth — out of relation to time and place, and independent
of the Universe as now visible to us — " eternal " principles,
as they are called. Those, however, who recall the doctrine
set forth in First Principles, will hesitate to put this inter
pretation on the word. Right, as we can think it, necessi
tates the thought of not-right, or wrong, for its correlative ;
and hence, to ascribe Tightness to the acts of the Power
manifested through phenomena, is to assume the possibility
that wrong acts may be committed by this Power. But how
come there to exist, apart from this Power, conditions of
such kind that subordination of its acts to them makes them
right and insubordination wrong ? How can Unconditioned
Being be subject to conditions beyond itself?

If, for example, any one should assert that the Cause of
Things, conceived in respect of fundamental moral attributes
as like ourselves, did right in producing a Universe which,
in the course of immeasurable time, has given origin to
beings capable of pleasure, and would have done wrong in
abstaining from the production of such a Universe ; then,
the comment to be made is that, imposing the moral ideas

258

ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE ETHICS. 259

generated in his finite consciousness, upon the Infinite
Existence which transcends consciousness, he goes behind
that Infinite Existence and prescribes for it principles of
action.

As implied in foregoing chapters, right and wrong as
conceived by us can exist only in relation to the actions of
creatures capable of pleasures and pains ; seeing that analysis
carries us back to pleasures and pains as the elements out of
which the conceptions are framed.

But if the word " absolute," as used above, does not refer
to the Unconditioned Being — if the principles of action dis
tinguished as absolute and relative concern the conduct of
conditioned beings ; in what way are the words to be under
stood ? An explanation of their meanings will be best con
veyed by a criticism on the current conceptions of right and
wrong.

§ 100. Conversations about the affairs of life habitually
imply the belief that every deed named may be placed under
the one head or the other. In discussing a political ques
tion, both sides take it for granted that some line of action
may be chosen which is right, while all other lines of action
are wrong. So, too, is it with judgments on the doings of
individuals : each of these is approved or disapproved on
the assumption that it is definitely classable as good or bad.
Even where qualifications are admitted, they are admitted
with an implied idea that some such positive characterization
is to be made.

Xor is it in popular thought and speech only that we see
this. If not wholly and definitely yet partially and by
implication, the belief is expressed by moralists. In his
Methods of Ethics (1st Ed. p. 6) Mr. Sidgwick says :—
" That there is in any given circumstances some one thing
which ought to be done and that this can be known, is a
fundamental assumption, made not by philosophers only,
but by all men who perform any processes of moral reason-

260 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

ing."* In this sentence there is specifically asserted only
the last of the above propositions ; namely, that, in every
case, what " ought to be done " " can be known." But
though that " which ought to be done " is not distinctly
identified with " the right," it may be inferred, in the ab
sence of any indication to the contrary, that Mr. Sidgwick
regards the two as identical ; and doubtless, in so conceiving
the postulates of moral science, he is at one with most, if
not all, who have made it a subject of study. At first sight,
indeed, nothing seems more obvious than that if actions
are to be judged at all, these postulates must be accepted.
Nevertheless they may both be called in question, and I
think it may be shown that neither of them is tenable.
Instead of admitting that there is in every case a right and
a wrong, it may be contended that in multitudinous cases
no r ight, properly so-called, can be alleged, but only a least
wrong ; and further, it may be contended that in many of
these cases where there can be alleged only a least wrong, it
is not possible to ascertain with any precision which is the
least wron£.

A great part of the perplexities in ethical speculation
arise from neglect of this distinction between right and least
wrong — between the absolutely right and the relatively
right. And many further perplexities are due to the assump
tion that it can, in some way, be decided in every case which
of two courses is morally obligatory.

§ 101. The law of absolute right can take no cognizance
of pain, save the cognizance implied by negation. Pain is
the correlative of some species of wrong — some kind of di
vergence from that course of action which perfectly fulfils
all requirements. If, as was shown in an early chapter, the

* I do not find this passage in the second edition ; but the omission of
it appears to have arisen not from any change of view, but because it did
not naturally come into the re-cast form of the argument which the section
contains.

ABSOLUTE AXD RELATIVE ETHICS. 2C1

conception of good conduct always proves, when analyzed,
to be the conception of a conduct which produces a surplus
of pleasure somewhere ; while, conversely, the conduct con
ceived as bad proves always to be that which inflicts some
where a surplus of either positive or negative pain ; then the
absolutely good, the absolutely right, in conduct, can be that
only which produces pure pleasure — pleasure unalloyed with
pain anywhere. By implication, conduct which has any con
comitant of pain, or any painful consequence, is partially
wrong ; and the highest claim to be made for such conduct

cD " O

is, that it is the least wrong which, under the conditions, is
possible — the relatively right.

The contents of preceding chapters imply throughout
that, considered from the evolution point of view, the acts
of men during the transition which has been, is still, and
long will be, in progress, must, in most cases, be of the
kind here classed as least wrong. In proportion to the
incongruity between the natures men inherit from the

O il

pre-social state, and the requirements of social life, must
be the amount of pain entailed by their actions, either on
themselves or on others. In so far as pain is suffered, evil
is inflicted ; and conduct which inflicts any evil cannot be
absolutely good.

To make clear the distinction here insisted upon between
that perfect conduct which is the subject-matter of Absolute
Ethics, and that imperfect conduct which is the subject-
matter of Kelative Ethics, some illustrations must be given.

§ 102. Among the best examples of absolutely right
actions to be named, are those arising where the nature and
the requirements have been moulded to one another before
social evolution began. Two will here suffice.

• Consider the relation of a healthy mother to a healthy
infant. Between the two there exists a mutual dependence
which is a source of pleasure to both. In yielding its natural
food to the child, the mother receives gratification ; and to

202 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

the child there comes the satisfaction of appetite — a satis
faction which accompanies furtherance of life, growth, and
increasing enjoyment. Let the relation be suspended, and
on both sides there is suffering. The mother experiences
both bodily pain and mental pain ; and the painful sensation
borne by the child, brings as its results physical mischief
and some damage to the emotional nature. Thus the
act is one that is to both exclusively pleasurable, while
abstention entails pain on both ; and it is consequently of
the kind we here call absolutely right. In the

parental relations of the father we are furnished with a
kindred example. If he is well constituted in body and
mind, his boy, eager for play, finds in him a sympathetic
response ; and their frolics, giving mutual pleasure, not only
further the child's physical welfare but strengthen that bond
of good feeling between the two which makes subsequent
guidance easier. And then it, repudiating the stupidities
of early education as at present conceived and unhappily
State-enacted, he has rational ideas of mental development,
and sees that the second-hand knowledge gained through
books should begin to supplement the first-hand knowledge
gained by direct observation, only when a good stock of
this has been acquired, he will, with active sympathy, aid
in that exploration of the surrounding world which his boy
pursues with delight ; giving and receiving gratification
from moment to moment while furthering ultimate welfare.
Here, again, are actions of a kind purely pleasurable alike
in their immediate and remote effects — actions absolutely
right.

The intercourse of adults yields, for the reason assigned,
relatively few cases that fall completely within the same
category. In their transactions from hour to hour, more
or less of deduction from pure gratification is caused on one
or other side by imperfect fitness to the requirements. The
pleasures men gain by labouring in their vocations and
receiving in one form or other returns for their services.

ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE ETHICS. 2C3

usually have the drawback that the labours are in a con
siderable degree displeasurable. Cases, however, do occur
where the energies are so abundant that inaction is irksome ;
and where the daily work, not too great in duration, is of a
kind appropriate to the nature ; and where, as a consequence,
pleasure rather than pain is a concomitant. When services
yielded by such a one are paid for by another similarly
adapted to his occupation, the entire transaction is of the
kind we are here considering : exchange under agreement
between two so constituted, becomes a means of pleasure to
both, with no set-off of pain. Bearing in mind the form of
nature which social discipline is producing, as shown in the
contrast between savage and civilized, the implication is that
ultimately men's activities at large will assume this character.
Remembering that in the course of organic evolution, the
means to enjoyment themselves eventually become sources
of enjoyment ; and that there is no form of action which
may not through the development of appropriate structures
become pleasurable ; the inference must be that industrial
activities carried on through voluntary co-operation, will in
time acquire the character of absolute Tightness as here
conceived. Already, indeed, something like such a state
has been reached among certain of those who minister to our
aesthetic gratifications. The artist of genius — -poet, painter,
or musician — is one who obtains the means of living by
acts that are directly pleasurable to him, while they yield,
immediately or remotely, pleasures to others. Once

more, among absolutely right acts may be named certain of
those which we class as benevolent. I say certain of them,
because such benevolent acts as entail submission to pain,
positive or negative, that others may receive pleasure, are,
by the definition, excluded. But there are benevolent acts
of a kind yielding pleasure solely. Some one who has
slipped is saved from falling by a bystander; a hurt is
prevented and satisfaction is felt by both. A pedestrian
is choosing a dangerous route, or a fellow-passenger is

264 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

about to alight at the wrong station, and, warned against
doing so, is saved from evil : each being, as a consequence,
gratified. There is a misunderstanding between friends,
and one who sees how it has arisen, explains : the result being
agreeable to all. Services to those around in the small affairs
of life, may be, and often are, of a kind which there is equal
pleasure in giving and receiving. Indeed, as was urged in
the last chapter, the actions of developed altruism must
habitually have this character. And so, in countless ways
suggested by these few, men may add to one another's happi
ness without anywhere producing unhappiness — ways which,
are therefore absolutely right.

In contrast with these consider the many actions which
from hour to hour are gone through, now with an accompani
ment of some pain to the actor and now bringing results
that are partially painful to others, but which nevertheless
are imperative. As implied by antithesis with cases above
referred to, the wearisomeness of productive labour as
ordinarily pursued, renders it in so far wrong; but then
far greater suffering would result, both to the labourer and
his family, and therefore far greater wrong would be done,
were this wearisomeness not borne. Though the pains
which the care of many children entail on a mother, form
a considerable set-off from the pleasures secured by them
to her children and herself ; yet the miseries, immediate and
remote, which neglect would entail so far exceed them, that
submission to such pains up to the limit of physical ability
to bear them, becomes morally imperative as being the least
wrong. A servant who fails to fulfil an agreement in respect
of work, or who is perpetually breaking crockery, or who
pilfers, may have to suffer pain from being discharged ; but
since the evil is to be borne by all concerned if incapacity or
misconduct is tolerated, not in one case only but habitually,
must be much greater, such infliction of pain is warranted
as a means to preventing greater pain. Withdrawal of
custom from a tradesman whose charges are too high, or

ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE ETHICS. 2G5

•whose commodities are inferior, or who gives short measure,
or who is unpunctual, decreases his welfare, and perhaps
injures his belongings ; but as saving him from these evils
would imply bearing the evils his conduct causes, and as
such regard for his well-being would imply disregard of the
well-being of some more worthy or more efficient tradesman
to whom the custom would else go, and as, chiefly, general
adoption of the implied course, having the effect that the
inferior would not suffer from their inferiority nor the
superior gain by their superiority, would produce universal
misery, withdrawal is justified — the act is relatively right.

§ 103. I pass now to the second of the two propositions
above enunciated. After recognizing the truth that a large
part of human conduct is not absolutely right, but only rela
tively right, we have to recognize the further truth that in
many cases where there is no absolutely right course, but
only courses that are more or less wrong, it is not possible
to say which is the least wrong. Recurrence to the instances
just given will show this.

There is a point up to which it is relatively right for a
parent to carry self-sacrifice for the benefit of offspring ;
and there is a point beyond which self-sacrifice cannot be
pushed without bringing, not only on himself or herself but
also on the family, evils greater than those to be prevented
by the self-sacrifice. Who shall say where this point is ?
Depending on the constitutions and needs of those con
cerned, it is in no two cases the same, and cannot be by
anyone more than guessed. The transgressions or short
comings of a servant vary from the trivial to the grave, and
the evils which discharge may bring range through count
less degrees from slight to serious. The penalty may be
inflicted for a very small offence, and then there is wrong
done ; or after numerous grave offences it may not be
inflicted, and again there is wrong done. How shall be
determined the degree of transgression beyond which to

2G6 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

discharge is less wrong than not to discharge ? In like
manner with the shopkeeper's misdemeanours. No one can
sum up either the amount of positive and negative pain
which tolerating them involves, nor the amount of positive
and negative pain involved by riot tolerating them ; and
in medium cases no one can say where the one exceeds the
other.

In men's wider relations frequently occur circumstances
under which a decision one or other way is imperative, and
yet under which not even the most sensitive conscience
helped by the clearest judgment, can decide which of
the alternatives is relatively right. Two examples will
suffice. Here is a merchant who loses by the failure

of a man indebted to him. Unless he gets help he himself
will fail ; and if he fails he will bring disaster not only on
his family but on all who have given him credit. Even if
by borrowing he is enabled to meet immediate engagements,
lie is not safe ; for the time is one of panic, and others
of his debtors by going to the wall may put him in further
difficulties. Shall he ask a friend for a loan ? On the one
hand, is it not wrong forthwith to bring on himself, his
family, and those who have business relations with him, the
evils of his failure ? On the other hand, is it not wrong to
hypothecate the property of his friend, and lead him too,
with his belongings and dependents, into similar risks ?
The loan would probably tide him over his difficulty ; in
which case would it not be unjust to his creditors did he
refrain from asking it ? Contrariwise, the loan would very
possibly fail to stave off his bankruptcy ; in which case is
riot his action in trying to obtain it, practically fraudulent ?
Though in extreme cases it may be easy to say which course
is the least wrong, how is it possible in all those medium
cases where even by the keenest man of business the con
tingencies cannot be calculated ? Take, again, the
difficulties that not unfrequently arise from antagonism
between family duties and social duties. Here is a tenant

ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE ETHICS. 267

farmer whose political principles prompt him to vote in
opposition to his landlord. If, being a Liberal, he votes for
a Conservative, not only does he by his act say that he
thinks what he does not think, but he may perhaps assist
what he regards as bad legislation : his vote may by chance
turn the election, and on a Parliamentary division a single
member may decide the fate of a measure. Even neglect-
in »-, as too improbable, such serious consequences, there is
the manifest truth that if all who hold like views with him
self, are similarly deterred from electoral expression of
them, there must result a different balance of power and a
different national policy : making it clear that only by ad
herence of all to their political principles, can the policy he
thinks right be maintained. But now, on the other hand,
how can he absolve himself from responsibility for the evils
which those depending on him may suffer if he fulfils what
appears to be a peremptory public duty ? Is not his duty to
his children even more peremptory ? Does not the family
precede the State ; and does not the welfare of the State
depend on the welfare of the family ? May he, then, take a
course which, if the threats uttered are carried out, will
eject him from his farm ; and so cause inability, perhaps
temporary perhaps prolonged, to feed his children. The
contingent evils are infinitely varied in their ratios. In one
case the imperativeness of the public duty is great and the
evil that may come on dependents small ; in another case the
political issue is of trivial moment and the possible injury
which the family may suffer is great; and between these
extremes there are all gradations. Further, the degrees of
probability of each result, public and private, range from
the nearly certain to the almost impossible. Admitting,
then, that it is wrong to act in a way likely to injure the
State ; and admitting that it is wrong to act in a way likely
to injure the family ; we have to recognize the fact that in
countless cases no one can decide by which of the alternative
courses the least wrong is likely to be done.

268 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

These instances will sufficiently show that in conduct at
large, including men's dealings with themselves, with their
families, with their friends, with their debtors and creditors,
and with the public, it usually happens that whatever course
is taken entails some pain somewhere ; forming a deduction
from the pleasure achieved, and making the course in so
far not absolutely right. Further, they will show that
throughout a considerable part of conduct, no guiding prin
ciple, no method of estimation, enables us to say whether a
proposed course is even relatively right ; as causing, proxi-
mately and remotely, specially and generally, the greatest
surplus of good over evil.

§ 104. And now we are prepared for dealing in a syste
matic way with the distinction between Absolute Ethics and
Relative Ethics.

Scientific truths, of whatever order, are reached by
eliminating perturbing or conflicting factors, and recog
nizing only fundamental factors. When, by dealing with
fundamental factors in the abstract, not as presented in
actual phenomena but as presented in ideal separation,
general laws have been ascertained, it becomes possible to
draw inferences in concrete cases by taking into account
incidental factors. But it is only by first ignoring these
and recognizing the essential elements alone, that we can
discover the essential truths sought. Take, in illustration,
the progress of mechanics from its empirical form to its
rational form.

All have occasional experience of the fact that a person
pushed on one side beyond a certain degree, loses his
balance and falls. It is observed that a stone flung or
an arrow shot, does not proceed in a straight line, but
comes to the earth after pursuing a course which deviates
more and more from its original course. When trying to
break a stick across the knee, it is found that success is
easier if the stick is seized at considerable distances from

ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE ETHICS. 269

the knee on each side than if seized close to the knee.
Daily use of a spear draws attention to the truth that by
thrusting its point under a stone and depressing the shaft,
the stone may be raised the more readily the further away
the hand is towards the end. Here, then, are sundry expe
riences, eventually grouped into empirical generalizations,
which serve to guide conduct in certain simple cases. How
does mechanical science evolve from these experiences ?
To reach a formula expressing the powers of the lever, it
supposes a lever which does not, like the stick, admit of
being bent, but is absolutely rigid ; and it supposes a ful
crum not having a broad surface, like that of one ordinarily
used, but a fulcrum without breadth ; and it supposes that the
weight to be raised bears on a definite point, instead of
bearing over a considerable portion of the lever. Similarly
with the leaning body, which, passing a certain inclination,
overbalances. Before the truth respecting the relations of
centre of gravity and base can be formulated, it must be
assumed that the surface on which the body stands is un
yielding ; that the edge of the body itself is unyielding ;
and that its mass, while made to lean more and more, does
not change its form — conditions not fulfilled in the cases
commonly observed. And so, too, is it with the projectile :
determination of its course by deduction from mechanical
laws, primarily ignores all deviations caused by its shape
and by the resistance of the air. The science of rational
mechanics is a science which consists of such ideal truths,
and can come into existence only by thus dealing with ideal
cases. Jt remains impossible so long as attention is restricted
to concrete cases presenting all the complications of friction,
plasticity, and so forth. But now, after disen

tangling certain fundamental mechanical truths, it becomes

o o

possible by their help to guide actions better ; and it becomes
possible to guide them still better when, as presently hap
pens, the complicating elements from which they have been
disentangled are themselves taken into account, At an

270 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

advanced stage, the modifying effects of friction are allowed
for, and the inferences are qualified to the requisite extent.
The theory of the pulley is corrected in its application to
actual cases by recognizing the rigidity of cordage ; the
effects of which are formulated. The stabilities of masses,
determinable in the abstract by reference to the centres of
gravity of the masses in relation to the bases, come to be
determined in the concrete by including also their characters
in respect of cohesion. The courses of projectiles having
been theoretically settled as though they moved through a
vacuum, are afterwards settled in more exact correspon
dence with fact by taking into account atmospheric resist
ance. And thus we see illustrated the rela
tion between certain absolute truths of mechanical science,
and certain relative truths which involve them. We are
shown that no scientific establishment of relative truths is
possible, until the absolute truths have been formulated inde
pendently. We see that mechanical science fitted for deal
ing with the real, can arise only after ideal mechanical science
has arisen.

All this holds of moral science. As by early and rude
experiences there were inductively reached, vague but par
tially-true notions respecting the overbalancing of bodies, the
motions of missiles, the actions of levers ; so by early and
rude experiences there were inductively reached, vague but
partially-true notions respecting the effects of men's behav
iour on themselves, on one another, and on society : to a cer
tain extent serving in the last case, as in the first, for the guid
ance of conduct. Moreover, as this rudimentary mechanical
knowledge, though still remaining empirical, becomes dur
ing early stages of civilization at once more definite and
more extensive ; so during early stages of civilization these
ethical ideas, still retaining their empirical character, increase
in precision and multiplicity. But just as we have seen that
mechanical knowledge of the empirical sort can evolve into
mechanical science, only by first omitting all qualifying

ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE ETHICS. 271

circumstances, and generalizing in absolute ways the funda
mental laws of forces ; so here we have to see that empiri
cal ethics can evolve into rational ethics only by first
neglecting all complicating incidents, and formulating the
laws of right action apart from the obscuring effects of
special conditions. And the final implication is that just
as the system of mechanical truths, conceived in ideal separa
tion as absolute, becomes applicable to real mechanical prob
lems in such way that making allowance for all incidental
circumstances there can be reached conclusions far nearer
to the truth than could otherwise be reached ; so, a system
of ideal ethical truths, expressing the absolutely right, will
be applicable to the questions of our transitional state in
such ways that, allowing for the friction of an incomplete
life and the imperfection of existing natures, we may as
certain with approximate correctness what is the relatively
ri<»;ht.

§ 105. In a chapter entitled " Definition of Morality " in
Social Statics, I contended that the moral law, properly so-
called, is the law of the perfect man — is the formula of ideal
conduct— is the statement in all cases of that which should
be, and cannot recognize in its propositions any elements im
plying existence of that which should not be. Instancing
questions concerning the right course to be taken in cases
where wrong has already been done, I alleged that the an
swers to such questions cannot be given " on purely ethical
principles." I argued that —

" No conclusions can lay claim to absolute truth, but such as depend upon
truths that are themselves absolute. Before there can be exactness in an infer
ence, there must be exactness in the antecedent propositions. A geometrician
requires that the straight lines with which he deals shall be veritably straight ;
and that his circles, and ellipses, and parabolas shall agree with precise defini
tions — shall perfectly and invariably answer to specified equations. If you put
to him a question in which these conditions are not complied with, he tells you
that it cannot be answered. So likewise is it with the philosophical moralist.
He treats solely of the straight man. He determines the properties of the
straight man ; describes how the straight man comports himself; shows in what
19

272 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

relationship he stands to other straight men ; shows how a community of
straight men is constituted. Any deviation from strict rectitude he is obliged
wholly to ignore. It cannot be admitted into his premises without vitiating all
his conclusions. A problem in which a crooked man forms one of the elements
isinsoluble by him."

Referring to this view, specifically in the first edition of
the Methods of Ethics but more generally in the second edi
tion, Mr. Sidgwick says : —

" Those who take this view adduce the analogy of Geometry to show that
Ethics ought to deal with ideally perfect human relations, just as Geometry
treats of ideally perfect lines and circles. But the most irregular line has defi
nite spatial relations with which Geometry doesnot refuse to deal : though of
course they are more complex than those of a straight line. So in Astronomy,
it would be more convenient for purposes of study if the stars moved in circles,
as was once believed : but the fact that they move not in circles but in ellipses,
and even in imperfect and perturbed ellipses, does not take them out of the
sphere of scientific investigation : by patience and industry we have learnt how
to reduce to principles and calculate even these more complicated motions. It
is, no doubt, a convenient artifice for purposes of instruction to assume that the
planets move in perfect ellipses (or even — at an earlier stage of study — in cir
cles) : we thus allow the individual's knowledge to pass through the same grada
tions in accuracy as that of the race has done. But what we want, as astron
omers, to know is the actual motion of the stars and its causes : and similarly
as moralists we naturally inquire what ought to be done in the actual world in
which we live." P. 19, Sec. Ed. •

Beginning with the first of these two statements, which
concerns Geometry, I must confess myself surprised to find
my propositions called in question ; and after full con
sideration I remain at a loss to understand Mr. Sidgwick's
mode of viewing the matter. When, in a sentence pre
ceding those quoted above, I remarked on the impossibility
of solving " mathematically a series of problems respecting
trooked lines and broken-backed curves," it never occurred
to me that I should be met by the direct assertion that
" Geometry does not refuse to deal " with " the most
irregular line." Mr. Sidgwick states that an irregular line,
say such as a child makes in scribbling, has " definite
spatial relations." What meaning does he here give
to the word " definite." If he means that its relations
to space at large are definite in the sense that by an

ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE ETHICS. 273

infinite intelligence they would be definable ; the reply
is that to an infinite intelligence all spatial relations would

be definable : there could be no indefinite spatial relations

the word "definite" thus ceasing to mark any distinction.
If, on the other hand, when saying that an irregular line has
" definite spatial relations,*' he means relations knowable
definitely by human intelligence ; there still comes the
question, how is the word " definite " to be understood i
Surely anything distinguished as definite admits of being
defined ; but how can we define an irregular line ? And
if we cannot define the irregular line itself, how can we
know its "spatial relations" definitely? And how, in the
absence of definition, can Geometry deal with it'* If Mr.
Sidgwick means that it can be dealt with by the " method of
limits," then the reply is that in such case, not the line itself
is dealt with geometrically, but certain definite lines artifi
cially put in quasi-definite relations to it: the indefinite be
comes cognizable only through the medium of the hypotheti-
cally-detinite.

Turning to the second illustration, the rejoinder to be
made is that in so far as it concerns the relations between
the ideal and the real, the analogy drawn does not shake
but strengthens my argument. For whether considered
under its geometrical or under its dynamical aspect, and
whether considered in the necessary order of its develop
ment or in the order historically displayed, Astronomy
shows us throughout, that truths respecting simple, theo
retically-exact relations, must be ascertained before truths
respecting the complex and practically-inexact relations
that actually exist, can be ascertained. As applied to the
interpretation of planetary movements, we see that the
theory of cycles and epicycles was based on pre-existing
knowledge of the circle : the properties of an ideal curve
having been learnt, a power was acquired of giving some
expression to the celestial motions. AVe see that the
Copernican interpretation expressed the facts in terms of

274 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

circular movements otherwise distributed and combined.
We see that Kepler's advance from the conception of circu
lar movements to the conception of elliptic movements, was
made possible by comparing the facts as they are with the
facts as they would be were the movements circular. We see
that the subsequently-learnt deviations from elliptic move
ments, were learnt only through the pre-supposition that the
movements are elliptical. And we see, lastly, that even now
predictions concerning the exact positions of planets, after
taking account of perturbations, imply constant references to
ellipses that are regarded as their normal or average orbits
for the time being. Thus, ascertainment of the actual truths
has been made possible only by pre-ascertainment of certain
ideal truths. To be convinced that by no other course could
the actual truths have been ascertained, it needs only to sup
pose any one saying that it did not concern him, as an
astronomer, to know anything about the properties of
circles and ellipses, but that he had to deal with the Solar
System as it exists, to which end it was his business to
observe and tabulate positions and directions and to be
guided by the facts as he found them. So, too, is

it if we look at the development of dynamical astronomy.
The first proposition in Newton's Principia deals with the
movement of a single body round a single centre of force ;
and the phenomena of central motion are first formulated in
a case which is not simply ideal, but in which there is no
specification of the force concerned : detachment from the
real is the greatest possible. Again, postulating a principle
of action conforming to an ideal law, the theory of gravita
tion deals with the several problems of the Solar System in
fictitious detachment from the rest ; and it makes certain fic
titious assumptions, such as that the mass of each body con
cerned is concentrated in its centre of gravity. Only later,
after establishing the leading truths by this artifice of disen
tangling the major factors from the minor factors, is the
theory applied to the actual problems in their ascending de-

ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE ETHICS. 275

grees of complexity ; taking in more and more of the minor
factors. And if we ask whether the dynamics of the Solar
System could have been established in any other way, we
see that here, too, simple truths holding under ideal condi
tions, have to be ascertained before real truths existing under
complex conditions can be ascertained.

The alleged necessary precedence of Absolute Ethics over
Relative Ethics is thus, I think, further elucidated. One
who has followed the general argument thus far, will not
deny that an ideal social being may be conceived as so con
stituted that his spontaneous activities are congruous with
the conditions imposed by the social environment formed by
other such beings. In many places, and in various ways, I
have argued that conformably with the laws of evolution in
general, and conformably with the laws of organization in
particular, there has been, and is, in progress, an adaptation
of humanity to the social state, changing it in the direction
of such an ideal congruity. And the corollary before drawn
and here repeated, is that the ultimate man is one in whom
this process has gone so far as to produce a correspondence
between all the promptings of his nature and all the require
ments of his life as carried on in society. If so, it is a neces
sary implication that there exists an ideal code of conduct
formulating the behaviour of the completely adapted man in
the completely evolved society. Such a code is that here
called Absolute Ethics as distinguished from Relative Ethics
—a code the injunctions of which are alone to be considered
as absolutely right in contrast with those that are relatively
right or least wrong ; and which, as a system of ideal con
duct, is to serve as a standard for our guidance in solving, as
well as we can, the problems of real conduct.

§ 105. A clear conception of this matter is so important
that I must be excused for bringing in aid of it a further
illustration, more obviously appropriate as being furnished
by organic science instead of by inorganic science. The

276 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

relation between morality proper and morality as commonly
conceived, is analogous to the relation between physiology
and pathology ; and the course usually pursued by moralists
is much like the course of one who studies pathology with
out previous study of physiology.

Physiology describes the various functions which, as com
bined, constitute and maintain life ; and in treating of them
it assumes that they are severally performed in right ways,
in due amounts, and in proper order : it recognizes only
healthy functions. If it explains digestion, it supposes that
the heart is supplying blood and that the visceral nervous
system is stimulating the organs immediately concerned. If
it gives a theory of the circulation, it assumes that blood has
been produced by the combined actions of the structures de
voted to its production, and that it is properly aerated. If
the relations between respiration and the vital processes at
large are interpreted, it is on the pre-supposition that the
heart goes on sending blood, not only to the lungs and to
certain nervous centres, but to the diaphragm and intercostal
muscles. Physiology ignores failures in the actions of these
several organs. It takes no account of imperfections, it
neglects derangements, it does not recognize pain, it knows
nothing of vital wrong. It simply formulates that which
goes on as a result of complete adaptation of all parts to all
needs. That is to say, in relation to the inner actions consti
tuting bodily life, physiological theory has a position like
that which ethical theory, under its absolute form as above
conceived, has to the outer actions constituting conduct.
The moment cognizance is taken of excess of function, or
arrest of function, or defect of function, with the resulting
evil, physiology passes into pathology. We begin now to
take account of wrong actions in the inner life analogous to
the wrong actions in the outer life taken account of by ordi
nary theories of morals.

The antithesis thus drawn, however, is but preliminary.
After observing the fact that there is a science of vital ac-

ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE ETHICS. 277

tions normally carried on, which ignores abnormal actions ;
we have more especially to observe that the science of
abnormal actions can reach such definitencss as is possible
to it, only on condition that the science of normal actions
has previously become definite ; or rather let us say that
pathological science depends for its advances on previous
advances made by physiological science. The very con
ception of disordered action implies a pre-conception of
well-ordered action. Before it can be decided that the heart
is beating faster or slower than it should, its healthy rate of
beating must be learnt ; before the pulse can be recognized
as too weak or too strong, its proper strength must be known ;
and so throughout. Even the rudest and most empirical
ideas of diseases, pre-suppose ideas of the healthy states from
which they are deviations ; and obviously the diagnosis of
diseases can become scientific, only as fast as there arises
scientific knowledge of organic actions that are undiseased.

Similarly, then, is it with the relation between absolute
morality, or the law of perfect right in human conduct, and
relative morality which, recognizing wrong in human con
duct, has to decide in what way the wrong deviates from the
right, and how the right is to be most nearly approached.
When, formulating normal conduct in an ideal society, we
have reached a science of absolute ethics, we have simul
taneously reached a science which, when used to interpret
the phenomena of real societies in their transitional states,
full of the miseries due to non-adaptation (which we may call
pathological states) enables us to form approximately true
conclusions respecting the natures of the abnormalities, and
the courses which tend most in the direction of the normal.

§ 106. And now let it be observed that the conception
of ethics thus set forth, strange as many will think it, is one
which really lies latent in the beliefs of moralists at large.
Though not definitely acknowledged it is vaguely implied in
many of their propositions.

THE DATA OF ETHICS.

From early times downwards we find in ethical specula
tions, references to the ideal man, his acts, his feelings, his
judgments. When Sokrates said that well-doing is the
thing to be chiefly studied, and that he achieved it who
devoted to the study searching and labour, he made the
actions of the superior man his standard, since he gave no
other. Plato, in Minos, asserts that " the authoritative
rescripts or laws are those laid down by the artists or men
of knowledge in that department ; " and the doctrine
contained in Ladies is that only " the One Wise Man " can
estimate the good or evil, or the comparative value of two
alternative ends in each individual case : " an ideal man is
postulated. Aristotle says : — " For it is the man whose
condition, whether moral or bodily, is in each case perfect
who in each case judges rightly, and at once perceives
the truth. . . . And herein it is that the perfect man
may be said to differ most widely from all others, in that
in all such casesTfie at once perceives the truth, being, as
it were, the rule and measure of its application." While
observing that the Stoics, like other ancient philosophers,
failing to distinguish properly between intellect and feeling,
identified wisdom with goodness, we see that they, too, made
the perfect man the measure of rectitude. And Epicurus,
also, regards the wise man as the only one who can achieve
a happy life — " he alone knows how to do the right thing in
the right way."

If in modern times, influenced by theological dogmas
concerning human sinfulness, and by a theory of divinely
prescribed conduct, moralists have not so frequently referred
to an ideal, yet various references are traceable. We may see
one in the dictum of Kant — " Act only on that maxim where
by thou canst at the same time will that it should become a
universal law." For this implies the thought of a society
in which the maxim is acted upon by all and universal bene
fit recognized as the effect : there is a conception of ideal
conduct under ideal conditions. And though Mr. Sidgwick,

ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE ETHICS. 279

in the quotation above made from him, implies that Ethics
is concerned with man as he is, rather than with man as he
should be ; yet, in elsewhere speaking of Ethics as dealino-
with conduct as it should be, rather than with conduct as
it is, he postulates ideal conduct and indirectly the ideal
man. On his first page, speaking of Ethics along with
Jurisprudence and Politics, he says that they are distin
guished " by the characteristic that they attempt to deter
mine not the actual but the ideal — what ought to exist, not
wrhat does exist."

It requires only that these various conceptions of an ideal
conduct and of an ideal humanity, should be made consistent
and definite, to bring them into agreement with the concep
tion above set forth. At present such conceptions are ha
bitually vague. The ideal man having been conceived in
terms of the current morality, is thereupon erected into a
moral standard by which the goodness of actions may be
judged ; and the reasoning becomes circular. To make the
ideal man serve as a standard, he has to be defined in terms
of the conditions which his nature fulfils — in terms of those
objective requirements which must be met before conduct
can be right ; and the common defect of these conceptions
of the ideal man, is that they suppose him out of relation to
such conditions.

All the above references to him, direct or indirect,
imply that the ideal man is supposed to live and act under
existing social conditions. The tacit inquiry is, not wrhat
his actions would be under circumstances altogether changed,
but what they would be under present circumstances. And
this inquiry is futile for two reasons. The co-existence of a
perfect man and an imperfect society is impossible; and
could the two co-exist, the resulting conduct would not
furnish the ethical standard sought. In the

first place, given the laws of life as they are, and a man of
ideal nature cannot be produced in a society consisting of
men having natures remote from the ideal. As well might

280 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

we expect a child of English type to be born among Negroes,
as expect that among the "organically immoral, one who is
organically moral will arise. Unless it be denied that
character results from inherited structure, it must be ad
mitted that since, in any society, each individual descends
from a stock which, traced back a few generations, ramifies
everywhere through the society, and participates in its aver
age nature, there must, notwithstanding marked individual
diversities, be preserved such community as prevents any
one from reaching an ideal form while the rest remain far
below it. In the second place, ideal conduct

such as ethical theory is concerned with, is not possible for
the ideal man in the midst of men otherwise constituted.
An absolutely just or perfectly sympathetic person, could
not live and act according to his nature in a tribe of canni
bals. Among people who are treacherous and utterly with
out 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 other's
conduct. A mode of action entirely alien to the prevailing
modes of action, cannot be successfully persisted in — must
eventuate in death itself, or posterity, or both.

Hence it is manifest that we must consider the ideal man
as existing in the ideal social state. On the evolution-hypoth
esis, the two presuppose one another ; and only when they
co-exist, can there exist that ideal conduct which Absolute
Ethics has to formulate, and which Relative Ethics has to
take as the standard by which to estimate divergencies from
right, or degrees of wrong.

CHAPTEK XVI.

THE SCOPE OF ETHICS.

§ 107. At the outset it was shown that as the conduct
with which Ethics deals, is a part of conduct at large, con
duct at large must be understood before this part can be
understood. After taking a general view of conduct, not
human only but sub-human, and not only as existing but as
evolving, we saw that Ethics has for its subject-matter the
most highly-evolved conduct as displayed by the most
highly-evolved being, Man — is a specification of those traits
which his conduct assumes on reaching its limit of evolution.
Conceived thus as comprehending the laws of right living at
large, Ethics has a wider field than is commonly assigned to
it. Beyond the conduct commonly approved or reprobated
as right or wrong, it includes all conduct which furthers or

O ^7

hinders, in either direct or indirect ways, the welfare of self
or others.

As foregoing chapters in various places imply, the entire
field of Ethics includes the t\vo great divisions, personal and
social. There is a class of actions directed to personal ends,
which are to be judged in their relations to personal well-
being, considered apart from the well-being of others :
though they secondarily affect fellow-men these primarily
affect the agent himself, and must be classed as intrinsically
right or wrong according to their beneficial or detrimental
effects on him. There are actions of another class which

281

282 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

affect fellow men immediately and remotely, and which,
though their results to self are not to be ignored, must be
judged as good or bad mainly by their results to others.
Actions of this last class fall into two groups. Those of the
one group achieve ends in ways that do or do not unduly
interfere with the pursuit of ends by others — actions which,
because of this difference, we call respectively unjust or just.
Those forming the other group are of a kind which influence
the states of others without directly interfering with the rela
tions between their labours and the results, in one way or the
other — actions which we speak of as beneficent or maleficent.
And the conduct which we regard as beneficent is itself sub
divisible according as it shows us a self-repression to avoid
giving pain, or an expenditure of effort to give pleasure —
negative beneficence and positive beneficence.

Each of these divisions and sub-divisions has to be con
sidered first as a part of Absolute Ethics and then as a part
of Relative Ethics. Having seen what its injunctions must
be for the ideal man under the implied ideal conditions,
we shall be prepared to see how such injunctions are to
be most nearly fulfilled by actual men under existing con
ditions.

§ 108. For reasons already pointed out, a code of perfect
personal conduct can never be made definite. Many forms
of life, diverging from one another in considerable degrees,
may be so carried on in society as entirely to fulfil the con
ditions to harmonious co-operation. And if various types
of men adapted to various types of activities, may thus lead
lives that are severally complete after their kinds, no specific
statement of the activities universally required for personal
well-being is possible.

But though the particular requirements to be fulfilled for
perfect individual well-being, must vary along with varia
tions in the material conditions of each society, certain gen
eral requirements have to be fulfilled by the individuals of

THE SCOPE OF ETHICS. 283

all societies. An average balance between waste and nutri
tion has universally to be preserved. Normal vitality implies
a relation between activity and rest falling within moderate
limits of variation. Continuance of the society depends on
satisfaction of those primarily-personal needs which result
in marriage and parenthood. Perfection of individual life
hence implies certain modes of action which are approxi
mately alike in all cases, and which therefore become part of
the subject-matter of Ethics.

That it is possible to reduce even this restricted part
to scientific deh'niteness, can scarcely be said. But ethical
requirements may here be to such extent affiliated upon
physical necessities, as to give them a partially-scientific
authority. It is clear that between the expenditure of bodily
substance in vital activities, and the taking in of materials
from which this substance may be renewed, there is a direct
relation. It is clear, too, that there is a direct relation
between the wasting of tissue by effort, and the need for
those cessations of effort during which repair may overtake
waste. Nor is it less clear that between the rate of mortal
ity and the rate of multiplication in any society, there is a
relation such that the last must reach a certain level before
it can balance the first, and prevent disappearance of the
society. And it may be inferred that pursuits of other lead
ing ends are, in like manner, determined by certain natural
necessities, and from these derive their ethical sanctions.
That it will ever be practicable to lay down precise rules for
private conduct in conformity with such requirements, may
be doubted. But the function of Absolute Ethics in rela
tion to private conduct will have been discharged, when it
has produced the M-arrant for its requirements as generally
expressed ; when it has shown the imperativeness of obe
dience to them ; and when it has thus taught the need for
deliberately considering whether the conduct fulfils them as
well as may be.

Under the ethics of personal conduct considered in rela-

284 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

tion to existing conditions, have to come all questions con
cerning the degree in which immediate personal welfare
has to be postponed, either to ultimate personal welfare or
to the welfare of others. As now carried on, life hourly
sets the claims of present self against the claims of future
self, and hourly brings individual interests face to face with
the interests of other individuals, taken singly or as asso
ciated. In many of such cases the decisions can be nothing
more than compromises ; and ethical science, here neces
sarily empirical, can do no more than aid in making com
promises that are the least ojectionable. To arrive at the
best compromise in any case, implies correct conceptions of
the alternative results of this or that course. And, con
sequently, in so far as the absolute ethics of individual
conduct can be made definite, it must help us to decide
between conflicting personal requirements, and also between
the needs for asserting self and the needs for subordinating
self.

§ 109. From that division of Ethics which deals with the
right regulation of private conduct, considered apart from
the effects directly produced on others, we pass now to that
division of Ethics which, considering exclusively the effects
of conduct on others, treats of the right regulation of it with
a view to such effects.

The first set of regulations coming under this head are
those concerning what we distinguish as justice. Individual
life is possible only. on condition that each organ is paid for
its action by an equivalent of blood, while the organism as
a whole obtains from the environment assimilable matters
that compensate for its efforts ; and the mutual dependence
of parts in the social organism, necessitates that, alike for
its total life and the lives of its units, there similarly shall
be maintained a due proportion between returns and
labours : the natural relation between work and welfare
shall be preserved intact. Justice, which formulates the

THE SCOPE OF ETHICS. 285

range of conduct and limitations to conduct lience arising,
is at once the most important division of Ethics and the
division which admits of the greatest definiteness. That
principle of equivalence which meets us when we seek its
roots in the laws of individual life, involves the idea of
measure; and on passing to social life, the same principle
introduces us to the conception of equity or equalness, in the
relations of citizens to one another : the elements of the
questions arising are quantitative, and hence the solutions
assume a more scientific form. Though, having to recog
nize differences among individuals due to age, sex, or other
cause, we cannot regard the members of a society as
absolutely equal, and therefore cannot deal with problems
growing out of their relations with that precision which
absolute equality might make possible ; yet, considering
them as approximately equal in virtue of their common
human nature, and dealing with questions of equity on this
supposition, wre may reach conclusions of a sufficiently-
definite kind.

This division of Ethics considered under its absolute form,
has to define the equitable relations among perfect individuals
who limit one another's spheres of action by co-existing, and
wrho achieve their ends by co-operation. It has to do much
more than this. Beyond justice between man and man, jus
tice between each man and the aggregate of men has to be
dealt with by it. The relations between the individual and
the State, considered as representing all individuals, have to
be deduced — an important and a relatively-difficult matter.
What is the ethical warrant for governmental authority ?
To what ends may it be legitimately exercised ? How far
may it rightly be carried ? Up to what point is the citi
zen bound to recognize the collective decisions of other citi
zens, and beyond what point may he properly refuse to obey
them.

These relations, private and public, considered as main
tained under ideal conditions, having been formulated, there

28C THE DATA OF ETHICS.

come to be dealt with the analogous relations under real con
ditions — absolute justice being the standard, relative justice
has to be determined by considering how near an approach
may, under present circumstances, be made to it. As al
ready implied in various places, it is impossible during stages
of transition which necessitate ever-changing compromises,
to fulfil the dictates of absolute equity ; and nothing beyond
empirical judgments can be formed of the extent to which
they may be, at any given time, fulfilled. While war con
tinues and injustice is done between societies, there cannot
be anything like complete justice within each society. Mili
tant organization no less than militant action, is irreconcilable
with pure equity ; and the inequity implied by it inevitably
ramifies throughout all social relations. But there is at every
stage in social evolution, a certain range of variation within
which it is possible to approach nearer to, or diverge fur
ther from, the requirements of absolute equity. Hence these
requirements have ever to be kept in view that relative equity
may be ascertained.

§ 110. Of the two sub-divisions into which beneficence
falls, the negative and the positive, neither can be specialized.
Under, ideal conditions the first of them has but a nominal
existence ; and the second of them passes largely into a trans
figured form admitting of but general definition.

In the conduct of the ideal man among ideal men, that self-
regulation which has for its motive to avoid giving pain, prac
tically disappears. No one having feelings which prompt
acts that disagreeably affect others, there can exist no code of
restraints referring to this division of conduct.

But though negative beneficence is only a nominal part
of Absolute Ethics, it is an actual and considerable part of
Kelative Ethics. For while men's natures remain imper
fectly adapted to social life, there must continue in them
impulses which, causing in some cases the actions we name
unjust, cause in other cases the actions we name unkind —

THE SCOPE OF ETHICS. 28 7

unkind now in deed and now in word ; and in respect of
these modes of behaviour which, though not aggressive,
give pain, there arise numerous and complicated problems.
Pain is sometimes given to others simply by maintaining an
equitable claim ; pain is at other times given by refusing a
request ; and again at other times by maintaining an opinion.
In these and numerous cases suggested by them, there have
to be answered the questions whether, to avoid inflicting
pain, personal feelings should be sacrificed, and how far
sacrified. Again, in cases of another class, pain is given
not by a passive course but by an active course. How far
shall a person who has misbehaved be grieved by showing
aversion to him ? Shall one whose action is to be repro
bated, have the reprobation expressed to him or shall noth
ing be said ? Is it right to annoy by condemning a preju
dice which another displays? These and kindred queries
have to be answered after taking into account the immediate
pain given, the possible benefit caused by giving it, and the
possible evil caused by not giving it. In solving problems
of this class, the only help Absolute Ethics gives, is by en
forcing the consideration that inflicting more pain than is
necessitated by proper self-regard, or by desire for another's
benefit, or by the maintenance of a general principle, is un
warranted.

Of positive beneficence under its absolute form nothing
more specific can be said than that it must become co-exten
sive with whatever sphere remains for it ; aiding to complete
the life of each as a recipient of services and to exalt the life
of each as a renderer of services. As with a developed hu
manity the desire for it by every one will so increase, and
the sphere for exercise of it so decrease, as to involve an al
truistic competition, analogous to the existing egoistic com
petition, it may be that Absolute Ethics will eventually in
clude what we before called a higher equity, prescribing the
mutual limitations of altruistic activities.

Under its relative form, positive beneficence presents

288 THE DATA OF ETHICS.

numerous problems, alike important and difficult, admitting
only of empirical solutions. How far is self-sacrifice for an
other's benetit to be carried in each case ? — a question which
must be. answered differently according to the character of
the other, the needs of the other, and the various claims of
self and belongings which have to be met. To what extent
under given circumstances shall private welfare be subordi
nated to public welfare ? — a question to be answered after con •
sidering the importance of the end and the seriousness of the
sacrifice. What benefit and what detriment will result from
gratuitous aid yielded to another ? — a question in each case
implying an estimate of probabilities. Is there any unfair
treatment of sundry others, involved by more than fair treat
ment of this one other ? Up to what limit may help be given
to the existing generation of the inferior, without entailing
mischief on future generations of the superior ? Evidently
to these and many kindred questions included in this division
of Relative Ethics, approximately true answers only can be
given.

But though here Absolute Ethics, by the standard it sup
plies, does not greatly aid Relative Ethics, yet, as in other
cases, it aids somewhat by keeping before consciousness an
ideal conciliation of the various claims involved ; and by sug
gesting- the search for such compromise among them, as shall
not disregard any, but shall satisfy all to the greatest extent
practicable.

APPENDIX TO PART I.

THE CONCILIATION.

[ While searching for some memoranda, I hare discovered the
rough draft of a chapter belonging to this work. Whether it
was that, when writing out at length the part of the argument
it belongs to, I was led to put aside this chapter as having a
form unfitting it for incorporation, or whether it was that 1 had
mislaid'it, I cannot now remember. The last supposition is, f
think, the more probable ; since this rough draft contains matter
which, had it been before me, I should have embodied.

Partly because certain of the arguments it contains yield fur
ther support to the general conclusion drawn, and partly because
such of its arguments as answer to those included in the text
are set forth in another way, I have decided here to append this
omitted chapter. " The Data of Ethics," as finally elaborated,
was based on a manuscript dictated to a short-hand amanuensis,
and written out by him in a series of copy-books, one to each
chapter : an arrangement which, I suspect, accidentally led to the
omission indicated. As, on reading fh is rough draft, I find that
it is fairly coherent and expressed with adequate clearness, I have
thought It well to print it fust as it stands. In a few places
where the short-hand writer failed to interpret his notes, I hare
supplied, in square brackets, what I suppose were the missing
words ; and in some other cases I have corrected errors that were
obviously due to misunderstanding or to mistranscription.']

§ In the last two chapters have been enunciated the claims of
egoism and altruism respectively. Each has been insisted upon
so strongly that, taken alone, it would seem to go far toward the
repudiation of the other. The usual tendency in ethical specula
tion is not to recognize in full both factors, as essential to human
happiness, but to "insist almost exclusively upon the one or the
other. Or rather I should say that, in almost all cases, ignoring
the egoistic factor, the insistence has been upon the altruistic
one.

At first sight it seems that there is some inconsistency in the
position here taken. To enunciate the legitimacy of egoism in
the way done, possibly caused the reader to think that the high
er morality was being denied by the assertion of a system
of selfishness. Contrariwise, reading by itself the subsequent

290 APPENDIX.

chapter, he might, if one who had before appreciated the claims
of egoism, be led to suppose that egoism was being ignored, and
the tacit assertion made that egoistic gratifications were to be
achieved through fulfilment of altruistic obligations. And
finding that each of the chapters to a considerable extent seems
to conflict with the other, he will incline to allege an incongruity
of doctrine. If he does not go farther, he will at any rate be
inclined to say that the doctrine implies a necessary incomplete
ness — implies that there can be no such thing as a life in which
all requirements are fully satisfied. That process of evolution
set forth in preceding chapters, will appear to be negatived by
such incompatibility between the conflicting claims of self and
others ; so that it cannot end in an entire equilibrium between
human nature and its conditions. Taking by itself the chapter on
Egoism versus Altruism, it would seem that for the imperative
welfare of the individual, and of those belonging to him, and of
those afterwards descending from him, there must be such sub
ordination of the claims of others, as from time to time deducts
from their welfare or diminishes the total happiness. On the
other hand, reading by itself the chapter on Altruism versus
Egoism, it seems to be an inevitable corollary that self-abnegation
— that is, the abandonment of a gratification or the submission to
a pain due to the craving unsatisfied, is more or less demanded of
all, that there may be maintained that social state which, by its
prosperity, conduces to the egoistic welfare of each, and that
there may be also achieved the character and the capacity which
are the means to their egoistic gratifications ; and that thus the
pursuit of altruistic ends must of necessity entail egoistic
deprivations. Or, to put the matter briefly, it seems to be clear
that there must be everywhere a certain large percentage of
sacrifice — sacrifice of others to self or sacrifice of self to others ;
and that, in so far as there is sacrifice, there is a submission to
pain, positive or negative, and therefore a necessary failure in the
working out of [a] nature capable of complete life — that is,
complete happiness.

Here there remains to be shown the invalidity of this con
clusion. On tracing upwards the process of evolution to a higher
stage, we shall see that this conflict between egoism and altruism,
which now constitutes the crux in all ethical speculation, is
transitional, and is in process of gradual disappearance.

§ Already in seeking clues for the interpretation of the future,
we have gone back to the past ; and that we may understand the
past have carried our inquiry back to the beginning. In seeking
a right interpretation of egoism we set out with life in its earlier
stages, and observed the truth that a predominant egoism, through
which each achieved the benefits of its own superiority, was the

THE CONCILIATION. 291

condition not only to the maintenance of life from the begin
ning, but a condition to the maintenance of each species, and
therefore to the evolution of higher species. Similarly, when seek
ing for an ultimate basis for the claims of altruism, we observed,
on going back to its root, that from the beginning altruism has
been co-essential ; in so far that the continued egoism of gen
eration after generation has been made possible only through
the altruism which sacrifices, physically and otherwise, a portion
of the life of each generation for the next. Here we may with
advantage pursue, in seeking the ultimate conciliation of egoism
and altruism, the same course. If we similarly go back to the
beginning, AVO shall get a clue to the method by which the con
ciliation, already in certain directions achieved, will in the
future be carried out to the full.

For how is there effected that conciliation of the egoism and
altruism, co-essential as we have seen, by which each race, and
life on the globe as a whole, have been maintained and evolved ?
How is there achieved that conciliation between the egoism of
the parent, which is essential to production and fostering of
offspring, and the altruism by which that fostering is effected ?
The answer is perfectly simple. There has from the beginning
been arising, and has "arisen more and more to a higher and
higher stage, such constitution in each creature, as entailed
egoistic gratification in performing the altruistic action.
" If we glance afresh at the cases before indicated, in which
there is a self-sacrifice of parent for the benefit of offspring, wo
observe that throughout, this self-sacrifice is made in gratifica
tion of a powerful instinct, and is a source of pleasure, and the
negation of it an extreme pain. Is ot to dwell on cases, even low
down among invertebrate animals, where, as even with molluscs,
great labour is taken in safe laying of ova, or, as in the case of
the spider, the ova are carried about and protected till they are
hatched— cases which show us even there that this expenditure
of labour by which other beings are benefited, is itself done in
fulfilment of an instinct which is only to be satisfied by the act,
and is therefore in that sense egoistic ; we have this relation
forced upon us distinctly, when we come to the more highly
organized and intelligent creatures. If we ask how it is that
there are gone through by a pair of birds, all the labours of nest-
building, the denial of activity implied by incubation, the activity
of the male in feeding the female while sitting, and the prolonged
labours of both in subsequently bringing food to the young ; the
answer is that all these actions are carried on under the prompt
ings of certain inherited and organized cravings, which make the
successive activities sources of gratification. And it needs but
to observe the signs of distress consequent on danger to the young
to get a measure of the degree of pleasure taken in performing

292 APPENDIX.

these acts that are directly beneficial to others and at the same
time pleasurable to self. Evidently this conciliation between the
requirements of egoism and altruism, has from the beginning
been growing in extent and completeness— necessarily has been
doing so— since the higher the type of creature evolved, the more
the young becomes dependent upon the parent and the more
involved the requirements to be fulfilled in fostering them, and
therefore the more continuous and more varied the activities
carried on by adults in behalf of the young.

And this conciliation which we see has gone hand-m-hand
with evolution, is a conciliation which we see has reached a high
degree in the human race. It needs not here to dwell on parental
sacrifices as prompted by parental affections. It needs not to
dwell on the amount of positive pleasure which the mother de
rives from daily witnessing that welfare of her offspring which
her self-sacrificing efforts achieve; nor does it need to d^yell
upon the intensity of the unhappiness which from time to time
results if illness threatens or death destroys, and if, as a conse
quence, the mother, no longer called on to make these daily
sacrifices, is at the same time defrauded of the pleasures those
sacrifices brought. All that needs to be more especially indicated
in further insisting on this great fact is, that during the evolu
tion of the human race itself there has been a marked further
progress in this conciliation ; so that whereas during savage life
the sacrifices made on the part of both parents are less varied
and persistent, they endure for a shorter period, and that among
the civilized the labours of both parents, gone through in rearing
and education, much more complex, are prolonged over a greater
number of years, and the labours gone through in accumulating
the means for setting them up in life, and often the injury to
health borne in providing them with fortunes, are such as to
make it manifest that a large part of the pleasure of daily life
is achieved in the process of sacrificing personal ends for the
benefit of offspring.

In all which illustrations the one truth to be observed and
carried with us is, that there gradually evolves with the evolution
of a higher life, an organic altruism, which, in relation to a cer
tain limited class of other beings, works to the effect of making
what we call self-sacrifice not a sacrifice in the ordinary sense of
the word, but an act which brings more pleasure than pain— an
act which has for its accompaniment an altruistic gratification
which outweighs the egoistic gratification lost ; and this, other
wise stated, implies that as the altruistic gratification is egoisti-
cally expressed, egoism and altruism coalesce.

§ That which has been in course of achievement in respect of
the limited group of beings constituting a family, in the course

THE CONCILIATION. 293

of the evolution of life, and has now, in the human race, hccn
in very large measure achieved, has been in course of achieve
ment, and is to a comparatively small extent achieved, with
those larger groups constituting societies. The conciliation be
tween egoism and altruism under their aspects as ordinarily
understood, is slowly coming about by analogous conciliation of
the egoistic and altruistic gratifications.

Only those whose creed prompts them to believe in the
unalterable badness of human nature, and who, in face of the
evidence which mankind at large furnish, hold that man not
only always lias been, but always will be, " desperately wicked,"
can refuse to recognize the conspicuous fact that along witli
the progress of civilization, there has been growing up not only
that kind of altruism which is shown in decreasing aggressive
ness on fellow-men, but also that kind of altruism which is shown
in actual regard for their welfare. Go back to the times when
blood-feuds were not only chronic between adjacent tribes but
in the later times in which there were blood-feuds maintained
from generation to generation between families of the same
tribe, and contrast it with the present time in which, among
civilized peoples, such aggressions as exist, relatively few, are far
less violent in kind ; and it cannot be denied that that negative
latruism which is shown in refraining from injuring others, has
increased. Contrast the times in which slavery, existing every
where, excited even in moralists no repugnance, with modern
times when, slavery, by the more sympathetically-minded, is
characterized as " the sum of all villanies ; " and it is undeniable
that the extent to which selfish gratification is pursued at the
cost of misery to others, is alike less extreme and less widespread.
Observe the contrast between savages who torture their captives
till they die, or ancient so-called heroes who dragged the dead
bodies of slain foes after their chariots, with our own days in
which, among the more advanced nations, wounded enemies are
cared for, and by-standing nations send out doctors and nurses ;
and it cannot be questioned that there exists now [more kind
feeling] than existed in the less developed human beings. So
in the contrast between gladiatorial shows and days when pugil
ism is forbidden, or between the societies in which seeing ani
mals slay one another is a chief pleasure and societies in which
there exist associations and laws for the prevention of such re
maining cruelty to animals as exists.

If, from the increase of sympathy shown by the decrease of
cruelty, we pass to that which is shown by the establishment of
juster social relations, the same thing is shown to us. From
the times when the system of internal protection was so little
developed that men had to rectify their own grievances by force
as well as they might, to the times when there exist guardians

204 APPENDIX.

of life and property patrolling the streets at all hours, we are
shown a gradual rise of that public sentiment expressing regard
for the claims of others. Defective as is the administration of
law, yet men's properties as well as their lives are far safer than
they were in early times ; by which there is implied an increase
of those feelings which embody themselves in equitable laws.
If we again look at the growth of governmental forms, which
have gone on from period to period decreasing the unchecked
powers of ruling classes, and extending to lower and lower
grades shares of political power, we see both that the institu
tions so established are more altruistic in the sense that they
recognize better the claims of all, and in the sense that they are
advocated and carried on grounds of equity and by appeal to
men's sense of justice— that is, to the most abstract and latest
developed of the altruistic sentiments.

Nor is it otherwise if we consider the altruism which ex
presses itself in active benevolence. Go back to early societies,
and we find little or nothing representing those multitudinous
agencies which have grown up during civilization for the care
of the sick and aged and the unfortunate. In the rudest forms
of society, those who were no longer from one or other cause
capable of taking care of themselves, were either killed or left
to die. But the moral modification which has resulted from
the discipline of social life, as it has gradually passed more and
more from the militant to the industrial form, has been accom
panied by growth of multitudinous forms of philanthropic ac
tivity — countless societies voluntarily established and carried
on, enormous sums of money subscribed, innumerable people
busying themselves with a view to the welfare of those who are
not so _ well off in the world as themselves. That is to say, altru
ism arising from that same growth of sympathy which checks
cruelty and extends justice, has been simultaneously leading to
positive exertions for the benefit alike of individuals and of the
community at large.

And if we ask what is the attitude of mind in those who are
engaged, now in the checking of actions which inflict pain, now
in the furtherance of political changes which conduce to more
equitable relations, now in the agitations for changing unjust
laws, now in the carrying on of organizations for mitigating' the
pains of less fortunate fellow-citizens or increasing their pleas
ures ; we see that if [not] in the whole, still in large measure,
the prompting cause is an actual satisfaction in the contempla
tion of the benefits achieved. Large numbers of persons are
there who, often postponing in large measure, and sometimes
unduly, their private affairs to public affairs, are as eagerly ener
getic in achieving what they conceive will redound to human
welfare at large, or the welfare of particular classes of people, as

THE CONCILIATION. 295

though they wore pursuing their personal ends; and so show us
that the gratification of their altruistic feelings has become to
them a stimulus approaching in potency to the gratification of
their directly egoistic feelings. So that the pursuit of the altru
istic pleasure has become a higher order of egoistic pleasure.

§ It is a paradox daily illustrated, that the belief in irrationali
ties habitually goes with scepticism of rationalities. Those who
are impressed by some statement of a wonder, and accept it on
the strength of some emphatic assertion notwithstanding its
utter incongruity with all that is known of the course of things,
will listen with utter incredulity to inferences drawn by the
most cogent reasoning from premises that they do not deny.
Incapable of conceiving with any vividness the necessary
dependence of conclusions upon premises, where these are
at all remote from the simplest matters, they are not affected
in their convictions by demonstration, however clear, as they
are affected by the manifestation of strong belief in those who
make statements to them. And thus while, for example, they
see nothing whatever ridiculous in the tradition which ascribes
the universe to a great artificer who was tired after six
days' labour, it seems to them quite ridiculous to suppose
that there are to come in the future, changes in human nature,
and corresponding changes in human society, analogous to, and
equally great with, those that have taken place since societies
were first formed.

One who, looking at the hour-hand of a watch, fails to see
it move, and is prompted by his inability to see the movement
to say that it does not move, is checked' from doing so by his
experiences of past occasions when, on looking after an interval,
he has seen that movement has taken place ; but one can
readily imagine that in one who had never had any experiences
of watches, and who was told that this hour-hand was moving
though he could not see it, and that unless familiar with the
actions of machinery, it would be of little avail to point out
the arrangements of mainspring, balance-wheel, pinions, and
the like, in such way as to prove to him that although he
could not see it, the hour-hand must be moving. And much
in the same condition as would be such anyone who had
never before seen a watch, and who was incredulous as to the
movement of the hour-hand because it was imperceptible to him,
are the great mass of people who habitually look upon human
nature and human society as, if not stationary, still, not moving
in such way as to be likely to change their places in such
great degree as to make them remote from what they now
are. They have indeed the opportunity, not paralleled in the
hypothetical case just put, of contrasting existing civilized socie
ties with existing savage societies ; and they have the opportunity

296 APPENDIX.

of contrasting the present state of any one civilized society with
its preceding state. But strong as is the evidence furnished to
them that both the individual human being and the masses
of human beings, undergo decided changes, they are so domi
nated by the daily impression of constancy, as to have
either unconsciousness, or no adequate consciousness, of the
changes that are, from kindred causes, hereafter to take place.
Not denying that there will be changes, their imagination of
them is so vague, and their belief in them is so feeble, that,
practically, the admission that they may take place amounts to
nothing in their general conception of things, and plays no part
as a factor in their general thinking. And, most remarkably,
this proves to be so not [only] with the commonplace uncultured
[and] with those of mere literary culture ; but it is to a large extent
true of those whose scientific culture should give them clear con
ceptions of causation — clear conceptions that results will not re
sult without causes, and, conversely, that given the causes the
results are inevitable. Even a large proportion of the biological
world whose discipline, especially in recent years, might be pre
sumed to give them full faith in the potent working hereafter of
causes that have worked so potently heretofore, show no sign that
their conceptions of human life and human society are much in
advance of those held by other people. Strange to say, natu
ralists who have accepted in full the general hypothesis of or
ganic evolution, and hold that by direct or indirect adaptation,
organisms have perpetually been moulded to their respective
conditions, and that in the future as the past such mouldings to
conditions must ever go on, show themselves, like the rest, little
regardful of the corollaries which must inevitably follow re
specting the future of humanity. And many of them may be
numbered among those who, in various ways, are busy in thwart
ing this process of adaptation as respects men and society.

Hence, not at all among the uneducated class, very little among
the class called educated, and in no adequate degree even in
the scientific class, is there a belief in the unquestionable truth
that altruism in the future will increase as it has increased in
the past ; and that as, at the present time, there has grown up in
the superior types of men, a capacity for receiving much personal
pleasure from furthering the welfare of others, and in contem
plating such welfare as is produced by other means, so will there
in the future grow up a much greater degree, and a much more
widespread amount, of such pleasure — so will there in the fu
ture come a further identification of altruism with egoism, in
the sense that personal gratification will be derived from achiev
ing the gratification of others. So far is it from being true, as
might be supposed from the general incredulity, that though
there has arisen a considerable moralization of the human

THE CONCILIATIOX. 297

being, as a concomitant of civilization, there will be no compa
rable increase of such moralizatiou in the future, it is true that
the moralization will hereafter go on at a much greater rate,
because it will no longer be checked by influences hitherto, and
at present, in operation. During all the past, and even still, the
egoism of warlike activities has been restraining the altruism
which grows up under peaceful activities. The need for main
taining adaptation to the militant life, which implies readiness
to sacrifice others, has perpetually held in check the progress of
adaptation to the industrial life, which, carried on by exchange
of services, does not of necessity entail the sacrifice of others to
self. And because of these conflicting influences, the growth of
altruism has of necessity been slow. What this moral modifica
tion due to the adaptation of human beings to peaceful social
life, might have already achieved in civilized societies, had it
not been for the moral effects that have accompanied the neces
sary process of compounding and re-compounding by which
great nations have been produced, we may judge 011 observing
the moral state existing in the few simple tribes of men who
have been so circumstanced as to carry on peaceful lives. (Here
insert examples.)

Judge, then, what might by this time have happened under the.
closer "mutual dependence and more complex relations which
civilized societies have originated, but for the retarding causes
which have kept sympathies^ seared ; and then judge what will
happen in the future when, by further progress such as has been
going on in the past, we reach eventually a state in which the
great civilized societies reach a condition of permanent peace,
and there continues no such extreme check as has been operating
thus far. Not only must we infer that the future of man and
of society will have modifications as great as the past has
shown us, but that it will have much greater. That is to say,
the transformation of altruistic gratifications into egoistic ones,
will be carried very much further ; and an average larger share
in the happiness of each individual, will depend 011 conscious
ness of the well-being of other individuals.

§ Doubtless the moral modification of human nature which
has thus to take place hereafter, analogous to that which has
taken place heretofore, will be retarded by other causes than this
primary cause. Not only is the growth of sympathy held in
check by the performance of unsympathetic actions, such as are
necessitated by militant activities, but it is held in check by the
constant presence of pains and unhappinesses, and by the ^con-
sciousness that these exist even when they are not visible._ Those
in whom the sympathies have become keen, are of necessity pro
portionately pained on witnessing sufferings borne by others, not

298 APPENDIX.

[only] in those cases where they are the causes of sufferings, but
where the sufferings are caused in any other way. To those whose
fellow-feelings were too keenly alive to the miseries of the
great mass of their kind — alive not only to such miseries as they
saw but to such miseries as they heard of or read of, and to
such miseries as they knew must be existing all around, far
and near, life would be made intolerable : the sympathetic pains
would submerge not only the sympathetic pleasures but the
egoistic pleasures. And therefore life is made tolerable, even
to the higher among us at the present time, by a certain per
petual searing of the sympathies, which keeps them down at
such level of sensitiveness as that there remains a balance of
pleasure in life. Whence it follows that the sympathies can
become more and more acute, only as fast as the amount of
human misery to be sympathized with becomes less and less ; and
while this diminution of human misery to be sympathized with,
itself must be due in part to the increase of sympathy which
prompts actions to mitigate it, it must be due in the main to
the decrease of the pressure of population upon the means of
subsistence. While the struggle for existence among men has to
be carried on with an intensity like that which now exists, the
quantity of suffering to be borne by the majority must remain
great. This struggle for existence mu-st continue to be thus
intense so long as the rate of multiplication continues greatly
in excess of the rate of mortality. Only in proportion as the
production of new individuals ceases to go on so greatly in
excess of the disappearance of individuals by death, can there
be a diminution of the pressure upon the means of subsistence,
and a diminution of the strain and the accompanying pains
that arise more or less to all, and in a greater degree to the
inferior. On referring back to the Principles of Biology,
Part VI, the reader will find grounds for the inference that
along with social progress, there must inevitably go a decrease
in human fertility, ending in a comparative balance of fertility
and mortality, as there comes the time when human evolution
approaches its limit of complete adaptation to the social state.
And as is here implied, the highest evolution of the sympathies,
and consequent reaching of the ultimate altruism, though the
progress will go on with comparative rapidity when a peaceful
state is once arrived at, will yet only approach its highest degree
as this ultimate state is approached.

§ But one of the chief causes of perplexity in this question,
arising from the conflict of egoistic and altruistic requirements,
and which is natural to the present condition, is due to the fact
that altruism is habitually associated with self-sacrifice. So long
as egoism is in excess, and so long as, in consequence of its ex-

THE CONCILIATION". 209

cess, the counteraction of altruism is shown mainly in checking
undue personal gratification, or in assuaging the pains that
have been produced by selfishness somewhere or other, it hap
pens, as a matter of course, that the conception of altruism is
identified with the conception of abandonment of individual
gratification, and self-infliction of more or less pain. This,
however, as I have implied, is an erroneous and purely transi
tional view of the effect of altruism in its ultimate workings out.

Sympathy is the root of every other kind of altruism than that
which, from the beginning, originates the parental activities. It
is the root of that higher altruism which, apart from the philo
progenitive instinct, produces desire for the happiness of others
and reluctance to inflict pain upon them. These two traits are
inevitably associated. The same mental faculty which reproduces
in the individual consciousness, the feelings that are being dis
played by other beings, acts equally to reproduce those states
when they are pleasurable or when they are painful. Sympathy,
therefore, is a state of the individual, of pleasure or pain, accord
ing to the states of the surrounding beings. Consequently it
happens, as indicated above, that when there exists around a
large proportion of pain, sympathy may entail on its possessor
more pain than pleasure, and so is continually kept in check.
Contrariwise as, in course of the general evolution of humanity
and society, the general increase of sympathy everywhere, and
improvement in the social relations consequent upon greater
sympathy, it more and more happens that the states of con
sciousness existing in those around are pleasurable; and in pro
portion as this happens, the effect of sympathy is to increase
the pleasure of the possessor.

Evidently the general corollary from this is that with the
increase of sympathy, there arises the double result, that by its
increase it tends to decrease the causes of human misery, and in
proportion as it decreases the causes of human misery and
increases the causes of happiness, it becomes itself the cause of
further reflected happiness received by each from others. And
the limit towards which this evolution approaches, is one under
which, as the amount of pain suffered by those around from indi
vidual imperfections and from imperfections of social arrange
ment and conduct, become relatively small, and simultaneously
the growth of sympathy goes on with little check, the sympathy
becomes at the same time almost exclusively a source of pleasure
received from the happiness of others, and not of pains received
from their pains. And as this condition is approached, the
function of sympathy is not that of stimulating to self-sacrifice
and of entailing upon its possessor positive or negative pain, but
its function becomes that of making him a recipient of positive
pleasure. The altruism which has to arise, therefore, in future,

300 APPENDIX.

is not an altruism which is in conflict with egoism, but is an
altruism which comes eventually to coincide with egoism in
respect of a large range of life ; and it becomes instrumental
in exalting satisfactions that are egoistic in so far as they are
pleasures enjoyed by the individual, though they are altruistic
in respect of the origin of these pleasures.

So far then from its being, as is commonly assumed, true that
there must go on throughout all the future, a condition in which
self-regard is to be continually subjected by the regard for others,
it will, contrariwise, be the case, that a regard for others will
eventually become so large a source of pleasure, as to compete
with in its amount, and indeed overgrow, the pleasure which is
derivable from direct egoistic gratification ; and the pursuit of
this indirect egoistic gratification may so become itself the pre
dominant part of egoism.

Eventually, then, along with the approximately-complete
adaptation of man to the social state, along with the evolution
of a society complete in its adjustments, and along with the ulti
mate diminution of pressure of population, which must come
with the highest type of human life, there will come also a state
in which egoism and altruism are so conciliated that the one
merges in the other.

§ To those who look at the creation at large, and the organic
creation in particular, from the old point of view of special
creation, and who think of the structures and functions of all
species as supernaturally given, and therefore fixed by God, there
will not only be a repudiation of a conception like this as chi
merical, but there will also be an utter imperviousness to all
arguments derived from those adaptations of constitution to con
ditions which the organic creation at large presents, and espe
cially those which present adaptations of the kind here prophe
sied. But all who take the evolution view, cannot in consistency
deny that if we have in lower orders of creatures cases in which
the nature is constitutionally so modified that altruistic activi
ties have become one with egoistic activities, there is an irre
sistible implication that a parallel identification will, under
parallel conditions, take place among human beings.

Social insects furnish us with instances completely to the point ;
and instances showing us, indeed, to what a marvellous degree the
life of the individual maybe absorbed in subserving the lives of
other individuals. Strangely enough, it happens that the typical
illustrations taken from the animal creation to enforce on human
beings the virtue of activity, are taken from those creatures whose
activities are devoted, not to their own special welfare, but to the
welfare of the communities they form part of. The ant, which
in the Bible is referred to as showing an industry which should

THK CONCILIATION.

301

shame the sluggard among men, and the busy bee which m
the child's hymn, is named as an example to be followed
imkino1 the best of time, are creatures whose activities are not
like those commended to the child and the sluggard— activities
mainly to be expended in subserving personal well-being ; but
they are activities which postpone individual well-being so com
pletely to the well-being of the community, that individual
life appears to be attended to only just as far as necessary to
make possible due attention to the social life. These instances
which are given as spurs to egoistic activity, are actually sup
plied by creatures whose activity is almost wholly altruistic.
Throughout the animal kingdom there are found no better
examples of energetic industry, than these m which the ends
which the activities subserve are altruistic rather than egoistic.
And hence we are shown, undeniably, that it is a perfectly pos
sible thin* for organisms to become so adjusted to the require
ments of their lives, that energy expended for the general wel
fare may not only be adequate to check energy expended for
the individual welfare, but may come to subordinate it so tar
as to leave individual welfare no greater than is requisite for
maintenance of individual life.

And now observe, further, that we are thus shown not only the
existence of an almost complete identification of egoism and
altruism ; but we arc also shown that this identification takes
place in consequence of the gratification accompanying the
altruistic, activities having become a gratification that is sub
stantially egoistic. .Neither the ant nor the bee can be supposed
to have a sense of duty, in the acceptation we give to that word ;
nor can it lie supposed that it is continually undergoing sell
sacrifice in the ordinary acceptation of that word. At the very
outset of its mature life, the working bee begins that lite
which, with untiring energy, it pursues to the end— collecting
food to feed the growing members of the community, gathering
pollen with which to build new cells, and taking only just such
food and such rest as are needful to maintain its vigour ; and m
the absence of those moral instigations existing only m the high
er vertebrates, the instigations are in this case simply those re-
s-iltino- from an organization which has become adjusted in the
course of evolution to the carrying on a social life. They show us
that it is within the possibilities of organization to produce a na
ture which shall be just as energetic, and even more energetic, in
the pursuit of altruistic ends, as is, in other cases, shown m the
pursuit of egoistic .ends; and they show that in such cases these
altruistic ends are pursued in pursuing ends which on their other
face are egoistic. For the satisfaction of the needs of the organ
ization, these actions conducive to the welfare of others must bo
carried on. The seeking for the satisfaction which the organize

302 APPENDIX.

tion requires, itself entails the performance of those activities
which the welfare of the community requires.

§ And here we are brought to a special application of that
general law, the relativity of pleasure, set forth and illustrated in
a preceding chapter. We have but duly to see the far-reaching
sequences of this law, to understand, even without such an illus
tration as that just furnished, that such a relation between
the individual and the community is not only possible, but is
certain to establish itself if the conditions to its establishment
are maintained.

One who once fully grasps the truth that pleasure of every
kind is the concomitant of the activity of some nervous structure,
inherited from the race or developed by modification in the in
dividual, will see it to be an inevitable corollary that there can
be a gratification in altruistic activities just as great as in egoistic
activities, if there exists the structure which answers to those
activities ; and that the evolution of such a structure will inevitably
take place, partly by direct and partly by indirect equilibration,
where it is to the advantage of the species that it should exist.
In proportion as, with the advance of society to a peaceful state,
there increases the form of social life which consists in mutual
exchange of services — in proportion as it becomes to the advantage
of the individual, and to the prosperity of the society, to regard
others' claims and fulfil contracts — in proportion as the individual
comes to be aided in leading a more complete life, by possessing a
nature which begets friendship and kindly offices from all around ;
in such proportion does there continuously tend to take place botli
a strengthening of the altruistic emotions directly in the individ
ual, and the increase of those individuals who inherit most largely
the altruistic nature. And in proportion as there goes on this
individual modification, conducing ever to the prosperity of the
society after the peaceful [stage] has been reached, in that same
proportion does it also happen that among societies those among
whom that modification has gone on most effectually will be those
to [survive and grow, so us gradually to replace those societies]
in which the individual nature is not so adapted to social require
ments. Inevitably, therefore, by this process, the tendency of
peaceful conditions is to the continual increase of those faculties,
that is, those nervous structures, which have for their spheres of
activity, pleasure taken in the welfare of others ; and in pro
portion as this takes place, there is evolved more and more a
nature in which the egoistic pursuit of these pleasures, arising
from the activity of the altruistic feelings, becomes a source of
such altruistic activities as are needful for the general welfare.
As certainly as those organized and inherited structures Avhich
prompt the activities of the chase, in animals and in men who

THE CONCILIATION. 303

live by the chase, and which, surviving in civilized men, give them
what seems so natural, the pleasure in achieving the success of
the chase, are structures which prompt to actions in pursuit of
gratification apart from future egoistic ends (for the sportsman
may be indifferent to the game he kills) ; so are there growing
up, and will still further grow up with the progress towards
a peaceful state, structures which will prompt to altruistic
activities, and which will find their gratification in those
altruistic activities quite apart from any egoistic motives.

Anyone who looks around and observes the higher types of
men and women already existing, will see that even now the
evolution of such structures has made considerable progress;
and that there is no limit to the progress, save reaching the
height at which it completely fulfils requirements.

PART II.
THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS,

CHAPTER I.

THE CONFUSION OF ETHICAL THOUGHT.
§ 111. If, in common with other things, human feelings

O o } o

and ideas conform to the general law of evolution, the
implication is that the set of conceptions constituting
ethics, together with the associated sentiments, arise out of
a relatively incoherent and indefinite consciousness ; and
slowly acquire coherence and definiteness at the same time
that the aggregate of them differentiates from the larger
aggregate with which it is originally mingled. Long
remaining undistinguished, and then but vaguely discern
ible as something independent, ethics must be expected to ac
quire a distinct embodiment only when mental evolution has
reached a high stage.

Hence the present confusion of ethical thought. Total
at the outset, it has necessarily continued great during
social progress at large, and, though diminished, must be
supposed to be still great in our present semi-civilized state.
Notions of right and wrong, variously derived and
changing with every change in social arrangements and
activities, form an assemblage which we may conclude is
even now in large measure chaotic.

Let us contemplate some of the chief factors of the ethical
consciousness, and observe the sets of conflicting beliefs and
opinions severally resulting from them.

§ 112. Originally, ethics has no existence apart from
religion, which holds it in solution. Religion itself, in its

308 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

earliest form, is undistinguished from ancestor-worship.
And the propitiations of ancestral ghosts, made for the
purpose of avoiding the evils they may inflict and gaining
the benefits they may confer, are prompted by prudential
considerations like those which guide the ordinary actions
of life.

" Come and partake of this ! Give us maintenance as
you did when living ! " calls out the innocent Wood-

\J O

Veddah to the spirit of his relative, when leaving an
offering for him ; and then, at another time, he expects this
spirit to give him success in the chase. A Zulu dreams
that his brother's ghost, scolding him and beating him for
not sacrificing, says — " I wish for meat ; " and then to the
reply — " No, my brother, I have no bullock ; do you see any
in tlie cattle-pen ? " the rejoinder is — " Though there be but
one, I demand it." The Australian medicine-man, eulo
gizing the dead hunter and listening to replies from the
corpse, announces that should he be sufficiently avenged he
has promised that "his spirit would not haunt the tribe,
nor cause them fear, nor mislead them into wrong tracks,
nor bring sickness amongst them, nor make loud noises in
the night." Thus is it generally. Savages ascribe their
good or ill fortunes to the doubles of the dead whom they
have pleased or angered ; and, while offering to them food
and drink and clothing, promise conformity to their wishes
and beg for their help.*

When from the first stage, in which only the ghosts of
fathers and other relatives are propitiated by the members
of each family, we pass to the second stage, in which, along
with the rise of an established chieftainship, there arises
a special fear of the chief's ghost, there results propitiation
of this also — offerings, eulogies, prayers, promises. If, as
warrior or ruler, a powerful man has excited admiration
and dread, the anxiety to be on good terms with his still

* For further illustrations see Principles of Sociology, § 142-3, and
Ecclesiastical Institutions, § 584.

THE CONFUSION OF ETHICAL THOUGHT. 309

more powerful double is great, and prompts observance
of liis commands and interdicts. Of course, after many
conquests have made him a king, the expressions of
subordination to his deified spirit, regarded as omnipotent
and terrible, are more pronounced, and submission to his will
becomes imperative : the concomitant idea being that right
and wrong consist simply in obedience and disobedience to
him.

All religions exemplify these relations of phenomena.
Concerning the Tongans, Mariner says that —

" Several acts acknowledged by all civilized nations as crimes, are tinder
many circumstances considered by them as matters of indifference," unless
they involve disrespect to " the gods, nobles, and aged persons."

In his description of certain peoples of the Gold Coast,
Major Ellis shows that with them the idea of sin is limited
to insults offered to the gods, and to the neglect of the
gods.

" The most atrocious crimes, committed as between man and man, the
gods can view with equanimity. These are man's concerns, and must be
rectified or punished by man. But, like the gods of people much farther-
advanced in civilisation, there is nothing that offends them so deeply as to
ignore them, or question their power, or laugh at them."

"When from these cases, in which the required subordi
nation is shown exclusively in observances expressive of
reverence, we pass to cases in which there are commands
of the kind called ethical, we find that the propriety of
not offending God is the primary reason for fulfilling them.
Describing the admonitions given by parents to children
among the ancient Mexicans, Zurita instances these : —

" Do not poison any one, since you would sin against God in his creature;
your crime would be discovered and punished, and » . you would suffer the
same death '' (p. 138). " Do not injure any one, shun adultery and luxury ;
that is a mean vice which causes the ruin of him who yields to it, and
which offends God " (p. 139). " Be modest ; humility procures us the
favour of God and of the powerful ' (p. 141).

Much more pronounced, however, among the Hebrews was
the belief that right and wrong are made such simply by
the will of God. As Schenkel remarks — " Inasmuch as

310 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

man owes obedience to God's laws, sin is regarded as
rebellion (Isa. i. 2, lix. 13 ; IIos. vii. 13 ; Amos iv. 4)."
Conformity to divine injunctions is insisted upon solely
because they are divine injunctions, as is shown in Leviticus
xviii. 4, 5 : —

" Ye shall do ray judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk there
in : I am the Lord your God. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my
judgments."

Such was the view which the Hebrews themselves avowedly
entertained. This is proved by their later writings. Bruch
remarks that according to the author of the Book of Wisdom,
" virtue is obedience to the will of God, and where this is ex
pressed in the Law fulfilment of it is required (vi. 5, 19)."
And in like manner, Fritzsche says — In Ecclesiasticus " the
command of God appears as the proper motive of morality."

How little good and bad conduct were associated in
thought with the intrinsic natures of right and wrong, and
how completely they were associated in thought with
obedience and disobedience to Jahveh, we see in the facts
that prosperity and increase of population were promised as
rewards of allegiance ; while there was punishment for such
non-ethical disobediences as omitting circumcision or number
ing the people.

That conformity to injunctions, as well as making sacri
fices and singing praises, had in view benefits to be received
in return for subordination, other ancient peoples show us.
Here are illustrative passages from the Rig- Veda.

" The unsacrificing Sanakas perished. Contending with the sacrificers
the non-sacrificers fled, 0 Indra, with averted faces." i. 33, 4-5.

" Men fight the fiend, trying to overcome by their deeds him who performs
no sacrifices." vi. 14, 3!

" May all other people around us vanish into nothing, but our own off
spring remain blessed in this world." x. 81, 7.

" We who are wishing for horses, for booty, for women. . . Indra, the
strong one who gives us women." iv. 17, 16.

A like expected exchange of obligations was shown
among the Egyptians when Rameses, invoking Ammon
for aid, reminded him of the hecatombs of bulls he had

HIE CONFUSION OF ETHICAL THOUGHT. 311

sacrificed to him. And, similarly, it was shown among
the early Greeks when Chrises, praying for vengeance,
emphasized the claim he had established on Apollo by deco
rating his temple. Evidently the good and evil which come
from enjoined and forbidden actions, are considered as di
rectly caused by God, and not as indirectly due to the consti
tution of things.

That like conceptions prevailed throughout mediaeval
Europe everyone knows. With the appeals to saints for
aid in battle, with the vows to build chapels to the Virgin
by way of compounding for crimes, and with the crusading
expeditions and pilgrimages undertaken as means to salva
tion, there went the idea that divine injunctions are to be
obeyed simply because they are divine injunctions ; and the
accompanying idea was that good and evil are consequences
of God's will and not consequences naturally caused. The
current idea was well shown in the forms of manumission —
" For fear of Almighty God, and for the cure of my soul, I
liberate thee" &c. or " For lessening mv sins" ifec. Even

o f

now a kindred conception survives in most men. Js"ot only
is it still the popular belief that right and wrong become
such by divine fiat, but it is the belief of many theologians
and moralists. The speeches of bishops concerning the
Deceased Wife's Sisters Bill, sufficiently indicate the attitude
of the one ; arid various books, among others that of the
Quaker-moralist Jonathan Dymond, show the other. Though
there has long been growing a vague recognition of natural
sanctions which some actions have and others have not, yet
there continues a general belief that moral obligation is su-
pernaturally derived.

§ 113. Various mythologies of ancient peoples, in
common with those of some existing savages, describe
the battles of the gods : now with one another and now
with alien foes. If the deities of the Scandinavians,
the Mongolians, the Indians, the Assyrians, the Greeks,

312 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

are not all of them successful warriors, yet the supremacy
of the gods over other beings, or of one over the rest, is
habitually represented as established by conquest. Even
the Hebrew deity, characterized as a "man of war," is
constantly spoken of as a subduer of enemies, if not per
sonally yet by proxy.

The apotheosized chiefs who become the personages of
mythologies (frequently invaders, like the Egyptian gods
who came into Egypt from the land of Punt) usually leave
behind them wars in progress or unsettled feuds ; and
fulfilment of their commands, or known wishes, by over
coming enemies, then becomes a duty. Even where there
are no bequeathed antagonisms with peoples around,
example and precept given by the warrior-king unite in
giving divine sanction to the ethics of enmity.

Hence such a fact as that told of the Fijian chief,
\vlio was in a state of mental agony because he had dis
pleased his god by not killing enough of the enemy.
Hence such representations as are made by Assyrian kings :
Shalmaneser II. asserting that Assur "had strongly
urged me to conquer and subjugate;" Tiglath Pileser
naming Ashur and the great gods as having "ordered
an enlarged frontier to " his dominions ; Sennacherib
describing himself as the instrument of Assur, and aided
by him in battle; Assurbanipal, as fighting in the service
of the gods who, he says, are his leaders in war. Of
like meaning is the account which the Egyptian king,
Barneses II, gives of his transcendant achievements in the
field while inspired by the ghost of his deified father.
Nor is it otherwise with the carrying on of wars among
the Hebrews in pursuance of divine behests ; as when it is
said — « Whomsoever the Lord our God shall drive out from
before us, them will we possess." (Judg. xi. 24.) And
among other peoples, in later times, we see the same con
nexion of ideas in the name assumed by Attila — " the scourge
of God."

THE CONFUSION OF ETHICAL THOUGHT. 313

Sanctions for deeds entailed by the conflicts between so
cieties, when not thus arising, inevitably arise from social
necessities. Congrnity must be established between the con
duct found needful for self-preservation and the conduct
held to be right. When, throughout a whole community,
daily acts are at variance with feelings, these feelings, con
tinually repressed, diminish, and antagonist feelings, con
tinually encouraged, grow ; until the average sentiments
are adjusted to the average requirements. Whatever in
jures foes is then thought not only justifiable but praise-
worth v, and a part of duty. Success in killing brings
admiration above every other achievement; burning of
habitations and laying waste of territory become things to
be boasted of ; while in trophies, going even to the extent
of a pyramid of heads of the slain, the conqueror and his
followers show that pride which implies the consciousness
of great deeds.

These conceptions and feelings, conspicuous in ancient
epics and histories, have continued conspicuous during the
course of social evolution, and are conspicuous still. If, in
stead of asking for men's nominal code of right and wrong,
we seek for their real code, we find that in most minds the
virtues of the warrior take the first place. Concerning an
officer killed in a nefarious war, you may hear the remark—
" He died the death of a gentleman." And among civilians,
as among soldiers, there is tacit approval of the political
brigandage going on in various quarters of the globe; while
there are no protests against the massacres euphemistically
called " punishments."

§ 114. But though for the defence against, and conquest
of, societies, one by another, injurious actions of all kinds
have been needful, and have acquired in men's minds that
sanction implied by calling them right, such injurious ac
tions have not been needful within each society; but, con
trariwise, actions of an opposite kind have been needful.

314: THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

Violent as may frequently be the conduct of tribesmen to
one another, combined action of them against other tribes
must be impossible in the absence of some mutual trust?
consequent on experience of friendliness and fairness. And
since a behaviour which favours harmonious co-operation
within the tribe conduces to its prosperity and growth,
and therefore to the conquest of other tribes, survival of
the fittest among tribes causes the establishment of such
behaviour as a general trait.

The authority of ruling men gives the ethics of amity
collateral support. Dissension being recognized by chiefs
as a source of tribal weakness, acts leading to it are repro
bated by them ; and where the injunctions of deified chief's
are remembered after their deaths, there results a super
natural sanction for actions conducive to harmony, and a
supernatural condemnation for actions at variance with it.
Hence the origin of what we distinguish as moral codes.
Hence the fact that in numerous societies, formed by various
races of men, such moral codes agree in forbidding actions
which are anti-social in conspicuous degrees.

We find evidence that moral codes thus arising are
transmitted from generation to generation, now informally
and now formally. Thus " the Karens ascribe all their laws,
and instructions, to the elders of preceding generations."
According to Schoolcraft, the Dakotas "repeat traditions
to the family, with maxims, and tell their children they
must live up to them." And then Morgan tells us that
among the Iroquois, when mourning for their sachems, " a
prominent part of the ceremonial consisted in the repetition
of their ancient laws and usages." Whence it is ^manifest
that, sachems being the ruling men, this repetition of their
injunctions during their obsequies, amounted to a tacit
expression of obedience, and the injunctions became an
ethical creed having a quasi-supernatural sanction.

The gravest transgressions, first recognized as such, and
their flagitiousness taken for granted, are, in the absence of

THE CONFUSION OF ETHICAL THOUGHT. 315

a systematized code of conduct, not conspicuously denounced
by early teachers ; any more than by our own priests, the
wrongfulness of murder and robbery is much insisted on.
Interdicts referring to the less marked deviations from ordi
nary conduct, and injunctions to behave worthily, are most
common. The works of the ancient Indians furnish illus
trations; at the same time showing how reaction against

extreme egoism leads to enunciation of extreme altruism.
<D

Thus, in the later part of that heterogeneous compound, the
Mahabliamta, we read : —

" Enjoy thou the prosperity of others,
Although thyself unprosperous ; noble men
Take pleasure in their neighbour's happiness."

And again in Bharavi's Kirdtdrjiiniyci it is said : —

" The noble-minded dedicate themselves
To the promotion of the happiness
Of others — e'en of those who injure them."

So too a passage in the Cural runs : —

" To exercise benevolence is the whole design of acquiring property.
" lie truly lives who knows and discharges the duties of benevolence,
lie who knows them not may be reckoned among the dead."

In the Chinese books we have, besides the injunctions of
the Taouists, the moral maxims of Confucius, exemplifying
high development of the ethics of amity. Enumerating the
five cardinal virtues Confucius says : —

" First among these stands humanity, that is to say, that universal sym
pathy which should exist between man and man without distinction of
class or race. Justice, which gives to each member of the community his
due, without favour or affection."

And then in another place he expresses, in a different form,
the Christian maxim : —

" Do not let a man practise to those beneath him, that which he dislikes
in those above him ; to those before him, what he dislikes in those behind
him ; to those on the right hand, that which he dislikes on the left."

Social life in Ancient Egypt had produced clear recog
nition of the essential principles of harmonious co-opera-

316 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

tion. M. Chabas, as quoted by Renouf and verified by him,

says : —

" None of the Christian virtues is forgotten in it ; piety, charity, gentle
ness, self-command in word and action, chastity, the protection of the
weak, benevolence towards the humble, deference to superiors, respect for
property in its minutest details, . . . all is expressed there, and in ex
tremely good language."

And then, according to Kuenen, who gives evidence of the
correspondence, we have the same principles adopted by the
Hebrews, and formulated by Moses into the familiar deca
logue ; the essentials of which, summed up in the Christian
maxim, serve along with that maxim as standards of conduct
down to our own day.

The broad fact which here chiefly concerns us is that, in
one or other wray, communities have habitually established
for themselves, now tacitly and now avowedly, here in rudi
mentary forms and there in elaborated forms, sets of com
mands and restraints conducive to internal amity. And the
genesis of such codes, and partial conformity to them, have
been necessary ; since, if not in any degree recognized and
observed, there must result social dissolution.

§ 115. As the ethics of enmity and the ethics of amity,
thus arising in each society in response to external and in
ternal conditions respectively, have to be simultaneously en
tertained, there is formed an assemblage of utterly incon
sistent sentiments and ideas. Its components can by no
possibility be harmonized, and yet they have to be all ac
cepted and acted upon. Every day exemplifies the resulting
contradictions, and also exemplifies men's contentment under
them.

When, after prayers asking for divine guidance, nearly all
the bishops approve an unwarranted invasion, like that of
Afghanistan, the incident passes without any expression of
surprise ; while, conversely, when the Bishop of Durham
takes the chair at a Peace-meeting, his act is commented
upon as remarkable. When, at a Diocesan Conference, a

THE CONFUSION OF ETHICAL THOUGHT. 317

peer (Lord Cranbrook), opposing international arbitration,
says lie is " not quite sure that a state of peace might not
be a more dangerous thing for a nation than war," the as
sembled priests of the religion of love make no protest;
nor does any general reprobation, clerical or lay, arise when
a ruler in the Church, Dr. Moorhouse, advocating a physi
cal and moral discipline fitting the English for war, ex
presses the wish " to make them so that they would, in fact,
like the fox when fastened by the dogs, die biting," and
says that " these were moral qualities to be encouraged and
increased among onr people, and he believed that nothing
could suffice for this but the grace of God operating in
their hearts." How completely in harmony with the popu
lar feeling, in a land covered with Christian churches and
chapels, is this exhortation of the Bishop of Manchester,
we see in such facts as that people eagerly read accounts
of football-matches in which there is an average of a death
per Aveek ; that they rush in crowds to buy newspapers
which give detailed reports of a brutal prize-fight, but
which pass over in a few lines the proceedings of a Peace-
Congress ; and that they are lavish patrons of illustrated
papers, half the wood-cuts in which have for their sub
jects the destruction of life or the agencies for its destruc
tion.

Still more conspicuous do we find the incongruity between
the nominally-accepted ethics of amity and the actually-
accepted ethics of enmity, when we pass to the Continent.
In France, as elsewhere, the multitudinous appointed agents
for diffusing the injunction to do good to enemies, are
practically dumb in respect of this injunction ; and, instead
of seeking to make their people put up the sword, are
themselves, under the direction of these people they have
been teaching, obliged, during their student days, to serve
in the army. Not to achieve any humane end or to enhance
the happiness of mankind, either at home or abroad, do the
French submit to the crushing weight of their military

318 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

budget; but to wrest back territories taken from them in
punishment for their aggressiveness. And, as we have
lately seen, a wave of enthusiasm very nearly raised to
supreme power a soldier who was expected to lead them to
a war of revenge.

So is it, too, in Protestant Germany — the land of Luther
and the favourite home of Christian theology. Significant
of the national feeling was that general order to his soldiers
issued by the Emperor on ascending the throne, in which,
saying that " God's decree places me at the head of the
army," and otherwise expressing his submission to " God's
will," he ends by swearing "ever to remember that the
eyes of my ancestors look down upon me from the other
world, and that I shall one day have to render account to
them of the glory and honour of the Army." To which
add that, in harmony with this oath, pagan alike in
sentiment and idea, we have his more recent laudation of
duelling-clubs: a laudation soon afterwards followed by
personal performance of divine service on board his yacht.

How absolute throughout Europe is the contradiction
between the codes of conduct adjusted respectively to the
needs of internal amity and external enmity, we see in the
broad fact that along with several hundred thousand priests
who are supposed to preach forgiveness of injuries, there
exist immensely larger armies than any on record !

§ 116. But side by side with the ethical conceptions above
described, originating in one or other way and having one
or other sanction, there has been slowly evolving a different
conception — a conception derived wholly from recognition
of naturally-produced consequences. This gradual rise of
a utilitarian ethics has, indeed, been inevitable; since the
reasons which led to commands and interdicts by a ruler,
living or apotheosized, have habitually been reasons of ex
pediency, more or less visible to all. Though, when once
established, such commands and interdicts have been con-

THE CONFUSION OF ETHICAL THOUGHT.

formed to mainly because obedience to the authority impos
ing them was a duty, yet there has been very generally some
accompanying perception of their fitness.

Even among the uncivilized, or but slightly civilized, we
find a nascent utilitarianism. The Malagasy, for example,
have —

'laws against Adultery, Theft and Murder; . . . there is also a Fine
inflicted on a Man, who shall curse another Man's Parents. They never
swear profanely, but these things they do, ' because, said they, it is conven
ient and proper ; and we could not live by one another, if. there were not
such laws. "

In the later Hebrew writings the beginnings of a utilitarian
ethics are visible ; for though, as Bruch remarks of the
author of Ecclesiastic us, " all his ethical rules and precepts
in a truly Hebrew way run together in the notion of the
fear of God," yet many of his maxims do not originate
from divine injunctions. When he advises not to become
too dependent, to value a good name, to be cautious in
talk, and to be judicious in eating and drinking, he mani
festly derives guidance from the results of experience. A
fully-differentiated system of expediency-morals had been
reached by some of the Egyptians. Mr. Poole writes : —

" Ptah-hotep is wearied with religious services already outworn, and
instead of the endless prescriptions of the current religion, he attempts
a simple doctrine of morals, founded on the observation of a long life.'
. . . His proverbs " enforce the advantage of virtuous life, in the present.
The future has no place in the scheme." ..." This moral philosophy of
the sages is far above that of the Book of the Dead, inasmuch as it throws
aside all that is trivial and teaches alone the necessary duties. But it rests
on a basis of . . expediency. The love of God, and the love of man, are
unnoticed as the causes of virtue."

Similarly was it with the later Greeks. In the Platonic
Dialogues, and in the Ethics of Aristotle, we see morality in
large measure separated from theology and placed upon a
utilitarian basis.

Coming down to modern days, the divergence of expedi
ency-ethics from theological ethics, is \vell illustrated in
22

320 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

Paley, who, in his official character, derived right and wrong
from divine commands, and in his unofficial character de
rived them from observation of consequences. Since his
day the last of these views has spread at the expense of
the first, and by Bentham and Mill we have utility estab
lished as the sole standard of conduct. How completely in
this last, conduciveness to human welfare had become the
supreme sanction, replacing alleged divine commands, we
see in his refusal to call " good " a supreme being whose acts
are not sanctioned by " the highest human morality ; " and
by his statement that " if such a being can sentence me to
hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go."

§ 117. Yet a further origin of moral dictates is to be
recognized as having arisen simultaneously. Habits of
conformity to rules of conduct have generated sentiments
adjusted to such rules. The discipline of social life has
produced in men conceptions and emotions which, irre
spective of supposed divine commands, and irrespective of
observed consequences, issue in certain degrees of liking
for conduct favouring social welfare and aversion to conduct
at variance with it. Manifestly such a moulding of human
nature has been furthered by survival of the fittest ; since
groups of men having feelings least adapted to social require
ments must, other things equal, have tended to disappear
before groups of men having feelings most adapted to
them.

The effects of moral sentiments thus arising are shown
among races partially civilized. Cook says : —

The Otaheitans " have a knowledge of right and wrong from the mere
dictates of natural conscience ; and involuntarily condemn themselves when
they do that to others, which they would condemn others for doing to them."

So, too, that moral sentiments were influential during
early stages of some civilized races, proof is yielded by
ancient Indian books. In the Mahabharata, Draupadi
complains of the hard lot of her righteous husband, and

THE CONFUSION OF ETHICAL THOUGHT. 321

charges the Deity with injustice ; but is answered by Yud-
dishthira : —

" Thou utterest infidel sentiments. I do not act from a desire to gain the
recompense of my works. I give what I ought to give . . . Whether re
ward accrues to me or not, I do to the best of my power what a man should
do .... It is on duty alone that my thoughts are fixed, and this, too, nat
urally. The man who seeks to make of righteousness a gainful merchandise,
is low. The man who seeks to milk righteousness does not obtain its re
ward .... Do not doubt about righteousness : he who does so is on the
way to be, born a brute."

And similarly, in another of these ancient books, the Rdmd-
yana, we read : —

" Virtue is a service man owes himself, and though there were no Heaven,
nor any God to rule the world, it were not less the binding law of life. It
is man's privilege to know the Right and follow it."
In like manner, according to Edkins, conscience is re
garded among the Chinese as the supreme authority. He
says : —

" When the evidence of a new religion is presented to them they at once
refer it to a moral standard, and give their approval with the utmost readi
ness, if it passes the test. They do not ask whether it is Divine, but whether
it is good."

And elsewhere he remarks that sin, according to the Con
fucian moral standard, " becomes an act which robs a man
of his self-respect, and offends his sense of right," and is
not " regarded as a transgression of God's law."

Of modern writers who, asserting the existence of a
moral sense, consider the intuitions it yields as guides to
conduct, we may distinguish two classes. There are those
who, taking a view like that of Confucius just indicated,
hold that the dicta of conscience are authoritative, irre
spective of alleged divine commands; and, indeed, furnish
a test by which commands may be known as not divine if
they do not withstand it. On the other hand there are
those who regard the authority of conscience as second to
that of commands which they accept as divine, and as
having for its function to prompt obedience to such com-

322 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

mands. But the two are at one in so far as they place the
dicta of conscience above considerations of expediency ; and
also in so far as they tacitly regard conscience as having a
supernatural origin. To which add that while alike in
recognizing the moral sentiment as innate, and in accepting
the ordinary dogma that human nature is everywhere the
same, they are, by implication, alike in supposing that the
moral sentiment is identical in all men.

But, as the beginning of this section shows, it is possible
to agree with moralists of the intuitive school respecting
the existence of a moral sense, while differing from them
respecting its origin. I have contended in the forego
ing division of this work, and elsewhere, that though there
exist feelings of the kind alleged, they are not of supernat
ural origin but of natural origin ; that, being generated by
the discipline of the social activities, internal and external,
they are not alike in all men, but differ more or less every
where in proportion as the social activities differ ; and that,
in virtue of their mode of genesis, they have a co-ordinate
authority with the inductions of utility.

§ 118. Before going further it will be well to sum up
these various detailed statements, changing somewhat the
order and point of view.

Survival of the fittest insures that the faculties of every
species of creature tend to adapt themselves to its mode of
life. It must be so with man. From the earliest times
groups of men whose feelings and conceptions were con
gruous with the conditions they lived under, must, other
things equal, have spread and replaced those whose feelings
and conceptions were incongruous with their conditions.

Recognizing a few exceptions, which special circum
stances have made possible, it holds, both of rude tribes
and of civilized societies, that they have had continually to
carry on external self-defence and internal co-operation-
external antagonism and internal friendship. Hence their

THE CONFUSION OF ETHICAL THOUGHT. 323

members have required two different sets of sentiments and
ideas, adjusted to these two kinds of activity.

In societies having indigenous religions, the resulting
conflict of codes is not overt. As the commands to destroy
external enemies and to desist from acts which produce
internal dissensions, come either from the living ruler or
from the apotheosized ruler ; and as, in both cases, the
obligation arises not from the natures of the prescribed
acts, but from the necessity of obedience ; the two, having
the same sanction, are not perceived to stand in opposition.
But where, as throughout Christendom, the indigenous
religion in which the ethics of enmity and the ethics of
amity coexisted with like authorities, has been suppressed
bv an invading religion, which, insisting on the ethics of
amity only, reprobates the ethics of enmity, incongruity
has resulted. International antagonisms having continued,
there has of necessity survived the appropriate ethics of
enmity, which, not being included in the nominally-accepted
creed, has not had the religious sanction. \Ilence the fact
that we have a thin layer of Christianity overlying a thick
layer of Paganism.! The Christianity insists on duties which
the paganism does not recognize as such ; and the Paganism
insists on duties which the Christianity forbids. The new
and superposed religion, with its system of ethics, has the
nominal honour and the professedt obedience ; while the old
and suppressed religion lias its system of ethics nominally
discredited but practically obeyed. Both are believed in,
the last more strongly than the first ; and men, now acting
on the principles of the one and now on those of the other,
according to circumstances, sit down under their contradic
tory beliefs as well as they may ; or, rather, refrain from re
cognizing the contradictions.

Hence the first of these various confusions of ethical
thought. Since, in the general mind, moral injunctions are
identified with divine commands, those injunctions only are
regarded as moral which harmonize with the nominally-

324 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

accepted religion, Christianity; while those injunctions
which belong to the primitive and suppressed religion, au
thoritative as they may be considered, and eagerly as they
are obeyed, are not regarded as moral. There have come
to be two classes of duties and virtues, condemned and ap
proved in similar ways, but one of which is associated with
ethical conceptions and the other not : the result being that
men cannot bring their real and nominal beliefs into har
mony.

And then we have the further confusions which arise,
not from the conflict of codes, but from the conflict of
sanctions. Divine commands are not the authorities whence
rules of conduct are derived, say the utilitarians, but their
authorities are given by conduciveness to human welfare as
ascertained by induction. And then, either with or without
recognition of divine commands, we have writers of the
moral-sense school making conscience the arbiter; and hold
ing its dicta to be authoritative irrespective of calculated
consequences. Obviously the essential difference between
these two classes of moralists is that the one regards as of no
value for guidance the feelings with which acts are regarded,
while the other regards these feelings as of supreme value.

Such being the conflict of codes and conflict of sanctions,
what must be our first step ? We must look at the actual
ideas and feelings concerning conduct which men entertain,
apart from established nomenclatures and current professions.
How needful is such an analysis we shall be further shown
while making it ; for it will become manifest that the confu
sion of ethical thought is even greater than we have already
seen it to be.

CHAPTER II.

WHAT IDEAS AND SENTIMENTS AEE ETHICAL?

§ 119. A silent protest lias been made by many readers,
and probably by most, while reading that section of the
foregoing chapter which describes the ethics of enmity.
Governed by feelings and ideas which date from their
earliest lessons, and have been constantly impressed on
them at home and in church, they have formed an almost
indissoluble association between a doctrine of right and
wrong in general, and those particular commands and in
terdicts included in the decalogue, which, contemplating the
actions of men to one another in the same society, takes
no note of their combined actions against men of alien so
cieties. The conception of ethics has, in this way, come to
be limited to that which I have distinguished as the ethics
of amity ; and to speak of the ethics of enmity seems ab
surd.

Yet, beyond question, men associate ideas of right and
wrong with the carrying on of inter-tribal and inter-national
conflicts ; and this or that conduct in battle is applauded
or condemned no less strongly than this or that conduct in
ordinary social life. Are we then to say that there is one
kind of rig-lit and wrong: recognized by ethics and another

S O J_3 «/

kind of right and wrong not recognized by ethics? If so,
under what title is this second kind of right and wrong to
be dealt with ? Evidently men's ideas about conduct are in

320 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

so unorganized a state, that while one large class of actions
lias an overtly-recognized sanction, another large class of ac
tions has a sanction, equally strong or stronger, which is not
overtly recognized.

The existence of these distinct sanctions, of which one is
classed as moral and the other not, is still more clearly seen
when we contrast the maxims of Christianity with the dog
mas of duellists. During centuries throughout Europe, and
even still throughout the greater part of it, there has existed,
and exists, an imperative " obligation," under certain con
ditions, to challenge another to fight, and an imperative ob
ligation to accept the challenge — an obligation much more
imperative than the obligation to discharge a debt. To
either combatant the word "must" is used with as much
emphasis as it would be used were he enjoined to tell the
truth. The " duty " of the insulted man is to defend his
honour ; and so wrong is his conduct considered if he does
not do this, that he is shunned by his friends as a disgraced
man, just as he would be had he committed a theft. Beyond
question, then, we see here ideas of right and wrong quite
as pronounced, with corresponding sentiments of approba
tion and reprobation quite as strong, as those which refer to
fulfilments and breaches of what are classed as moral injunc
tions. How, then, can we include the last under ethical sci
ence and exclude the first from it ?

The need for greatly widening the current conception of
ethics is, however, still greater than is thus shown. There
are other large classes of actions which excite ideas and feel
ings undistinguishable in their essential natures from those
to which the term ethical is conventionally limited.

§ 120. Among uncivilized and semi-civilized peoples, the
obligations imposed by custom are peremptory. The uni
versal belief that such things ought to be done, is not usually
made manifest by the visiting of punishment or reprobation
on those who do not conform, because nonconformity is

WHAT IDEAS AND SENTIMENTS ARE ETHICAL? 327

scarcely heard of. How intolerable to the general mind is
breach of usages, is shown occasionally when a ruler is de-

O J ^

posed and even killed for disregard of them : a sufficient
proof that his act is held wrong. And we sometimes find
distinct expressions of moral sentiment on behalf of customs
having nothing which we should call moral authority, and
even on behalf of customs which we should call profoundly
immoral.

I may begin with an instance I have named elsewhere
in another connexion — -the- instance furnished by some
Mahomedan tribes who consider that one of the worst
offences is smoking : a drinking the shameful," as they term
it. Palgrave narrates that while " giving divine honours
to a creature," is regarded by the Wahhabees as "thelirst
of the great sins," the second great sin is smoking — a
sin in comparison with which murder, adultery, and false
witness, are trivial sins. Similarly, by certain Russian sects
close to Siberia, smoking is an offence distinguished from
all others as being never forgiven : " every crime can be
expiated by repentance except this one." In these cases
the repugnance felt for an act held by us to be (mite harm
less, is of the same nature as the repugnance felt for the
blackest crimes : the only difference being that it is more
intense.

Lichtenstein tells us that when Mulihawang, king of the
.Matelhapees (a division of the Beclmanas), was told that
Europeans are not permitted to have more than one wife,
" he said it was perfectly incomprehensible to him how a
whole nation could submit voluntarily to such extraordinary
laws." Similar was the opinion of the Arab sheikh who,
along with his people, received the account of monogamy
in England with indignation, and said " the fact is simply
impossible ! How can a man be contented with one wife ( "
Nor is it only men who think thus. Livingstone says of the
Makololo women on the shores of the Zambesi, that they
were quite shocked to hear that in England a man had only

328 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

one wife : to have only one was not " respectable." So, too,
in Equatorial Africa, according to Reade,

" If a man marries, and his wife thinks that he can afford another spouse,
she pesters him to marry again ; and calls him a ' stingy fellow ' if he de
clines to do so."
Similar is the feeling shown by the Araucanian women.

" Far from being dissatisfied, or entertaining any jealousy toward the
new-comer, she [one of two wives] said that she wished her husband would
marry again ; for she considered it a great relief to have some one to assist
her in her household duties, and in the maintenance of her husband."
No notion of immorality, much less criminality, such as we
associate with bigamy and polygamy, is here entertained ;
but, contrariwise, when a woman calls her husband a " stingy
fellow " if he does not take a second wife, we have proof
that monogamy is reprobated.

Ideas relevant to the relations of the sexes, still more pro
foundly at variance with our own, are displayed in many
places. Books of travel have made readers familiar with
the fact that among various races, a traveller entertained by
a chief is offered a wife or a daughter as a temporary bed
fellow ; and the duty of hospitality is held to require this
offer. In other cases the loan takes a somewhat different
shape. Of the Chinooks we read : —

" Among all the tribes, a man will lend his wife or daughter for a fish-hook
or a strand of beads. To decline an offer of this sort is, indeed, to disparage
the charms of the lady, and therefore give such offence, that although we
had occasionally to treat the Indians with rigour, nothing seemed to irritate
both sexes more than our refusal to accept the favours of the females."
Still more pronounced is the feeling shown by the members
of an Asiatic tribe which Erman visited.

" The Chuckchi offer to travellers who chance to visit them, their wives,
and also what we should call their daughters' honour, and resent as a deadly
affront any refusal of such offers."

Here we see that deeds which among ourselves would be
classed among the profoundest disgraces, are not only re
garded without shame, but declining to participate in them
causes indignation : implying a sense of wrong.

As it concerns in another way the relations of the sexes,

WHAT IDEAS AND SENTIMENTS ARE ETHICAL? 329

I may instance next a further contrast between the senti
ments entertained by many partially-civilized peoples, and
those which have arisen along with the advance of civiliza
tion. Interdicts on marriages between persons of different
ranks, breaches of which have in some cases brought the
severest punishment, date back to very early times. Thus,
in the Mahabharata we read that Draupadi refused the
u ambitious Kama," saying : — " I wed not with the base-
born." And then, coming down to comparatively modern
times, we have the penalties entailed on those who broke the
laws against mesalliances • as in France during the feudal
period, on nobles who married beneath them : they were ex
cluded from tournaments, and their descendants also. But
the condemnation thus manifested five centuries ago is not
paralleled now. Though a certain amount of reprobation is
in some cases shown, in other cases there is approbation ; as
witness Tennyson's '" Miller's Daughter " and Mrs. Brown
ing's " Lady Geraldine's Courtship." Here the different feel
ings excited, though like in nature to those we call moral, are
not concerned with either supposed divine commands or with
acts usually classed as moral or immoral.

Returning to the uncivilized races, I may instance the con
ceptions associated with the division of labour between
the sexes. Concerning various tribes of American Indians,
North and South, we read that custom, limiting the actions
of the men mainly to war and the chase, devolves on the
women all the menial and laborious occupations ; and these
customs have an imperative sanction. Says Falkner con
cerning the Patagonians : —

"So rigidly are" the women " obliged to perform their duty, that their
husbands cannot help them on any occasion, or in the greatest distress,
without incurring the highest ignominy."

And these usages are fully approved of by the women them
selves ; as witness the following extract concerning the
Dakotas : —
" It is the worst insult one virago can cast upon another in a moment of

330 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

altercation. ' Infamous woman !' will she cry, ' I have seen your husband
carrying wood into his lodge to make the fire. Where was his squaw, that
he should be obliged to make a woman of himself? ' "
Clearly this indignation is the correlative of a strong moral
feeling enlisted on behalf of the prescribed conduct. But if.,
among ourselves, any women were left, as among the Esqui
maux, " to carry stones [for building houses], almost heavy
enough to break their backs," while u the men look on with
the greatest insensibility, not stirring a finger to assist them,"
moral reprobation would be felt. As there are no specific
injunctions, divine or human, referring to transactions of
these kinds, the strongly-contrasted emotions which they ex
cite in ourselves and in these uncivilized peoples, must be
ascribed to unlikenesses of customs — unlikenesses, however,
which are themselves significant of innate emotional unlike
nesses.

As further illustrating in a variety of ways these differ
ences of feelings akin in nature to those we call moral,
though not ordinarily classed as such, I may, without com
menting upon each, here append a series of them.

" The Gaffers despise the Hottentots, Bushmen, Malays, and other people
of colour, on account of their not being circumcised. On this account,
they regard them as boys, and will not allow them to sit in their company,
or to eat with them."

" A Mayoruna, who had been baptized, when at the point of death was
very unhappy . . . because, dying as a Christian, instead of furnish
ing a meal to his relations, he would be eaten up by worms."

" The Bambara washerwomen . . . were stark naked, yet they manifested
no shame at being seen in this state by the men composing our caravan."
And a kindred statement is made concerning the "Wakavi-
rondo by Thomson, who describes their women as neverthe
less altogether modest, and, remarking that " morality has
nothing to do with clothes,-' says of these people that " they
are the most moral of all the tribes of this region, and they
are simply angels of purity beside the decently-dressed
Masai."

" I found that the married men," among the Hassanyeh Arabs, says
Petherick, " felt themselves highly flattered by any attentions paid to their
better halves during their free-and-easy days. [Their marriages are for

WHAT IDEAS AND SEXTIMEXTS ARE ETHICAL? 331

three or four days in the week only.) They seem to take such attentions
as evidence that their wives are attractive."'

Among the Khonds, "so far is constancy to a husband from being required
in a wife, that her pretensions do not, in the least, suffer diminution in the
eyes of either sex when fines are levied on her convicted lovers ; while on the
other hand, infidelity on the part of a married man is held to be highly dis
honourable, and is often punished by deprivation of many social privileges."
I have reserved for the last, two remarkable cases in which
feelings like those which we class as moral, are definitely ex
pressed in ways to us very surprising. The first concerns
the Tahitians, who were described by Cook as without shame
in respect of actions which among ourselves especially ex
cite it, and as feeling shame in respect of actions which among
ourselves excite none. These people were extremely averse
to our custom of eating in society. " They eat alone, they
said, because it was right." The other instance, equally
anomalous, is even more startling. In Yate "it is consid
ered a disgrace to the family of an aged chief if he is not
buried alive." A like usage and accompanying feeling ex
isted in Fiji.

A son said, when about to bury his mother alive, " that it was from love
to his mother that he had done so ; that, in consequence of the same love,
they were now going to bury her, and that none but themselves could or
ought to do so sacred an office ! . . . she was their mother, and they
were her children, and they ought to put her to death."
The belief being that people commence life in the next world
at the stage they have reached when they leave this world ;
and that hence postponement of death till old age entails a
subsequent miserable existence.

Thus we have abundant proof that with acts which do vio
lence to our moral sentiments, there are associated, in the
minds of other races, feelings and ideas not only warranting
them but enforcing them. They are fulfilled with a sense
of obligation; and non-fulfilment of them, regarded as
breach of duty, brings condemnation and resulting self-
reproach.

£ 121. Everywhere during social progress custom passes

332 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

into law. Practically speaking, custom is law in undevel
oped societies. " The old Inmiits did so, and therefore we
must," say the existing Innuits (Esquimaux) ; and other un
civilized peoples similarly express the constraint they are
under. In subsequent stages, customs become the acknowl
edged bases of laws. It is true that afterwards the body
of laws is made up in part of alleged divine commands —
the themistes of the Greeks, for example ; but in reality
these, supposed to come from one who was originally an
apotheosized ruler, usually enforce existing customs. Leviti
cus shows us a whole body of practices, many of them of
kinds which would be now regarded as neither religious nor
moral, thus acquiring authority. Whether inherited from
the undistinguished forefathers of the tribes, or ascribed to
the will of a deceased king, customs embody the rule of the
dead over the living ; as do also the laws into which they
harden.

Of course, therefore, if ideas of duty and feelings of obli
gation cluster round customs, they cluster round the derived
laws. The sentiment of " ought " comes to be associated
with a legal injunction, as with an injunction traced to the
general authority of ancestors or the special authority of a
deified ancestor. And not only does there hence arise a
consciousness that obedience to each particular law is right
and disobedience to it wrong, but eventually there arises a
consciousness that obedience to law in general is right and
disobedience to it wrong. Especially is this the case where
the living ruler has a divine or semi-divine character ; as
witness the following statement concerning the ancient Pe
ruvians : —

" The most common punishment was death, for they said that a culprit
was not punished for the delinquencies he had committed, but for having
broken the commandment of the Ynca, who was respected as God."

And this conception, reminding us of religious conceptions
anciently current and still current, is practically paralleled
by the conceptions still expressed by jurists and accepted

WHAT IDEAS AND SENTIMENTS ARE ETHICAL?

by most citizens. For though a distinction is commonly
made between legal obligation and moral obligation, in those
cases where the law is of a kind in respect of which ethics
gives no direct verdict ; yet the obligation to obey has come
to be, if not nominally yet practically, a moral obligation.
The words habitually used imply (this. It is held " right "
to obey the law and " wrong " to disobey it. Conformity
and nonconformity bring approbation and reprobation, just
as though the legal injunction were a moral injunction. A
man who has broken the law, even though it be in a matter
of no ethical significance, — say a householder who has re
fused to fill up the census-paper or a pedlar who has not
taken out a license — feels, when he is brought before the
magistrates, that he is regarded not only by them but by
spectators as morally blameworthy. The feeling shown is
quite as strong as it would be were he convicted of aggress
ing on his neighbours by nuisances — perpetual noises or pes
tilent odours — -which are moral offences properly so called.
That is to say, law is upheld by a sentiment indistinguish
able from moral sentiment. Moreover, in some cases wrhere
the two conflict, the sentiment which upholds the legal
dictum overrides the sentiment which upholds the moral
dictum ; as in the case of the pedlar above named. His
act in selling without a licence is morally justifiable, and
forbidding him to sell without a licence is morally unjusti
fiable — is an interference with his due liberty, which is
ethically unwarranted. Yet the factitious moral sentiment
enlisted on behalf of legal authority, triumphs over the
natural moral sentiment enlisted on behalf of rightful free
dom.

How strong is the artificial sanction acquired by a
constituted authority, is seen very strikingly in the doings
of Joint Stock associations. If the directors of a company
formed to carry out a specified undertaking, decide to extend
their activities so as to include undertakings not originally
specified, and even undertakings wholly unallied to those

3.34 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

originally specified ; and if they bring before the proprietary
their proposals for doing this ; it is held that if a majority
(at one time a simple majority, but now two-thirds) approve
the proposal, the proprietary at large is bound by the
decision. Should a few protest against being committed to
such new undertakings, they are frowned upon and pooh-
poohed as unreasonable obstructions : moral reprobation is
vented against such resistance to the ruling agent and
its supporters. Nevertheless the moral reprobation should
be inverted. As a question of pure equity, the incorporated
body cannot enter on any businesses not specified or implied
in the deed of incorporation. Those who break the original
contract by entering on unspecified businesses, are un
justified ; while those who stand by the original contract,
however few in number, are justified. Yet so strong is the
quasi-moral sanction associated with the acts of a constituted
authority, that its ethically-wrong course is thought right,
and insistence on regard for the ethically-right course is
thought wrrong !

§ 122. How then are ethical ideas and sentiments to be
defined — How, indeed, are they to be conceived in any con
sistent way ? Let us recapitulate.

Throughout the past, and down to present days in most
minds, conceptions of right and wrong have been directly
associated with supposed divine injunctions. Acts have
been classed as good or bad, not because of their intrinsic
natures but because of their extrinsic derivations ; and
virtue has consisted in obedience. Under certain circum
stances, we find conduct regarded as praiseworthy or
blameworthy according as it does or does not inflict
suffering or death upon fellow-beings ; while, under other
circumstances, we find the praise or blame given according
as it does or does not conduce to the welfare of fellow-
beings. Then there is the opposition between hedonism
and asceticism : by some approbation is felt for deeds which

WHAT IDEAS AND SENTIMENTS ARE ETHICAL ? 335

apparently conduce to the happiness of self or others or
both ; while, contrariwise, others look with reprobation
upon a way of living which makes happiness an end.
By this class the perceptions of good and evil conduct,
alono- with love of the one and hatred of the other, are

O '

traced to a moral sense ; and ethics becomes the interroga
tion of, and obedience to, conscience. Contrariwise, by that
class such guidance is ridiculed ; and calculations of conse
quences, irrespective of sentiment of right or theory of right,
occupy the ethical sphere. Universally in early stages, and
to a considerable degree in late stages, the idea of ought is
associated with conformity to established customs, irrespec
tive of their natures ; and when established customs grow into
laws, the idea of oiight comes to be associated with obedience
to laws : no matter whether considered intrinsically good or
intrinsically bad.

Clearly, therefore, the conceptions of riy/it, alligation,
duty, and the sentiments associated with those conceptions,
have a far wider range than the conduct ordinarily con
ceived as the subject-matter of moral science. In different
places and under different circumstances, substantially the
same ideas and feelings are joined with classes of actions of
totally opposite kinds, and also with classes of actions of which
moral science, as ordinarily conceived, takes no cognizance.
Hence, if we are to treat the subject scientifically, we must
disregard the limits of conventional ethics, and consider
what are the intrinsic natures of ethical ideas and senti
ments.

§ 123. A trait common to all forms of sentiments and ideas
to be classed as ethical, is the consciousness of authority.
The nature of the authority is inconstant. It may be that
of an apotheosized ruler or other deity supposed to give
commands. It may be that of ancestors who have be
queathed usages, with or without injunctions to follow
them. It may be that of a living ruler who makes laws, or

THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

a military commander who issues orders. It may be that of
an aggregate public opinion, either expressed through a gov
ernment or otherwise expressed. It may be that of an im
agined utility which every one is bound to further. Or it
may be that of an internal monitor distinguished as con
science.

Along with the element of authority, at once intellectu
ally recognized and emotionally responded to, there goes the
element, more or less definite, of coercion. The conscious
ness of ought which the recognition of authority implies, is
joined with the consciousness of must, which the recognition
of force implies. Be it the power of a god, of a king, of a
chief soldier, of a popular government, of an inherited cus
tom, of an unorganized social feeling, there is always present
the conception of a power. Even when the injunction is
that of an internal monitor, the conception of a power is not
absent ; since the expectation of the penalty of self-reproach,
which disobedience may entail, is vaguely recognized as co
ercive.

A further component of the ethical consciousness,
and often the largest component, is the represented
opinion of other individuals, who also, in one sense,
constitute an authority and exercise a coercion. This,
either as actually implied in others' behaviour, or as
imagined if they are not present, commonly serves more
than anything else to restrain or impel. How large a
component this is, we see in a child who blushes when
wrongly suspected of a transgression, as much as when
rightly suspected ; and probably most have had proof that,
when guiltless, the feeling produced by the conceived repro
bation of others is scarcely distinguishable from the feeling
which would be produced • by such reprobation if guilty.
That an imagined public opinion is the chief element of
consciousness in cases where the acts ascribed or committed
are intrinsically wrong, is shown when this imagined or
expressed opinion refers to acts which are not intrinsically

WHAT IDEAS AND SENTIMENTS ARE ETHICAL? 337

wrong. The emotion of shame ordinarily accompanying
some gross breach of social convention which is morally
indifferent, or even morally praiseworthy (say wheeling
home the barrow of a costermonger who has lamed himself),
may be quite as strong as the emotion of shame which fol
lows the proved utterance of an umvarranted libel — an act
intrinsically wrong. In the majority of people the feeling
of ought not will be more peremptory in the first case than in
the last.

If, now, we look at the matter apart from conventional
classifications, we see that where the consciousnesses of au
thority, of coercion, and of public opinion, combined in dif
ferent proportions, result in an idea and a feeling of obliga
tion, we must class these as ethical irrespective of the kind
of action to which they refer. If the associated conceptions
of right are similar, and the prompting emotions similar, we
must consider the mental states as of the same nature, though
they are enlisted on behalf of acts radically opposed. Or
rather, let us say that, with the exception of an idea and a
sentiment incidentally referred to, we must class them as
forming a body of thought and feeling which may be called
pro-ethical ; and which, with the mass of mankind, stands in
place of the ethical properly so called.

§ 124. For now let us observe that the ethical sentiment
and idea properly so called, are independent of the ideas
and sentiments above described as derived from external
authorities, and coercions, and approbations — religious, po
litical, or social. The true moral consciousness which we
name conscience, does not refer to those extrinsic results
of conduct which take the shape of praise or blame, reward
or punishment, externally awarded ; but it refers to the
intrinsic results of conduct which, in part and by some in
tellectually perceived, are mainly and by most, intuitively
iflr. The moral consciousness proper does not contemplate
obligations as artificially imposed by an external power;

338 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

nor is it chiefly occupied with estimates of the amounts of
pleasure and pain which given actions may produce, though
these may be clearly or dimly perceived ; but it is chiefly
occupied with recognition of, and regard for, those condi
tions by fulfilment of which happiness is achieved or misery
avoided. The sentiment enlisted on behalf of these con
ditions is often in harmony with the pro-ethical sentiment
compounded as above described, though from time to time
in conflict with it ; but whether in harmony or in conflict,
it is vaguely or distinctly recognized as the rightful ruler :
responding, as it does, to consequences which are not arti
ficial and variable, but to consequences which are natural and
permanent.

It should be remarked that along with established su
premacy of this ethical sentiment proper, the feeling of ob
ligation, though continuing to exist in the background of
consciousness, ceases to occupy its foreground ; since the
right actions are habitually performed spontaneously or from
liking. Though, while the moral nature is imperfectly de
veloped, there may often arise conformity to the ethical sen
timent under a sense of compulsion by it; and though, in
other cases, non-conformity to it may cause subsequent self-
reproach (as instance a remembered lack of gratitude, which
may be a source of pain without there being any thought
of extrinsic penalty); yet with a moral nature completely
balanced, neither of these feelings will arise, because that
which is done is done in satisfaction of the appropriate
desire.

And now having, mainly for the purpose of making the
statement complete, contemplated the ethical sentiment proper,
as distinguished from the pro-ethical sentiment, we may for
the present practically dismiss it from our thoughts, and con
sider only the phenomena presented by the pro-ethical sen
timent under its various forms. For throughout the remain
ing chapters of this division, treating inductively of ideas
and feelings about conduct displayed by mankind at large,

WHAT IDEAS AND SENTIMENTS ARE ETHICAL? oo9

we shall be concerned almost exclusively witli the pro-ethical
sentiment: the ethical sentiment proper being, in the great
mass of cases, scarcely discernible.

Before entering on the task indicated, let me add that a
good deal which approaches to repetition will be found in
the immediately-succeeding pages — not repetition in so far
as the evidence given is concerned, but in so far as the car
dinal ideas are concerned. In the preliminary discussion to
which this chapter and the preceding one have been devoted,
it has been necessary to state in brief some of the leading
conceptions which a general inspection of the phenomena
suggests. These conceptions have now to be set forth in
full, along with the masses of facts which give birth to them.
But wrhile it seems well to apologize beforehand for the re
currence, in elaborated forms, of ideas already expressed in
small space, I do not altogether regret having to elaborate
the ideas ; since there will be afforded occasion for further
emphasizing conclusions which can scarcely be too much
dwelt upon.

CHAPTEK III.

AGGKESSION.

§ 125. Under this title, accepted in its full meaning, may
be ranged many kinds of acts — acts so many and various
that they cannot be dealt with in one chapter. Here I
propose to restrict the application of the title to acts in
flicting bodily injury on others to the extent of killing or
wounding them — acts of kinds which we class as destruct-

ive.

Even of these acts, which we may consider as completely
or partially homicidal, there are sundry kinds not compre
hended under aggression as ordinarily understood. I refer
to those which do not imply antagonism or conflict.

The first of them to be named is infanticide. Far from
being regarded as a crime, child-murder has been, through
out the world in early times, and in various parts of the
world still is, regarded as not even an offence : occasionally,
indeed, as a duty. We have that infanticide which is dic
tated by desire to preserve the lives of adults ; for in a tribe
which is ever on the border of starvation, addition of some
to its number may prove fatal to others. Female infanti
cide, too, is often dictated by thought of tribal welfare : the
established policy is to kill girls, who, while not useful for
purposes of war and the chase, will, if in excess, injuriously
tax the food-supplies. Then, again, we have the child-
murder committed in a fit of passion. Among savages, and

AGGRESSION-. 341

even amono: the semi-civilized, this is considered an indiffer-

ent matter : the power of life and death over children being,
in early stages, taken for granted. Once more we have the
sacrifice of children to propitiate cannibal chiefs, living or
dead. Regarded as an obligation, this may be classed as
prompted by a pro-ethical sentiment.

Turning to the socially-sanctioned homicides of which the
victims are adults, we may set down first those which in
many places occur at funerals ; as instance Indian suttees
until recent times. On much larger scales are the immola
tions during the obsequies of chiefs and kings. The killing
of wives to accompany their dead husbands to the other
world, and the killing of male attendants to serve them in
the other world (sometimes also of friends) are forms of
wholesale slaughter which have occurred in many countries,
and still occur in parts of Africa. And with these may
be joined such slaughters as those which are common in Da
homey, where a man is killed that his double may carry a
message from the kino; to a deceased ancestor. Homicides

o o

of this class have also a kind of pro-ethical warrant ; since
they are instigated by reverence for custom and by the obli
gation of loyalty.

Lastly we have the homicides prompted by beliefs classed
as religious. "With or without the ascription of divine
cannibalism, the sacrifices of victims to deities have prevailed
widely among various races in early times — Phoenicians,
Scythians, Greeks, Romans, Assyrians, Hebrews &c. —
carried, in some places, to great extremes ; as in Ancient
Mexico, where thousands of human victims annually were
slain on altars, and where wars were made on the plea that
the gods were hungry. And to these religious homicides
which, in early stages, ministered to the supposed appetites
of the gods, must be added the religious homicides which,
in comparatively modern times, have been committed, alike
by Catholics and Protestants, to appease the supposed wrath
of their God against misbelievers.

342 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

Under that theory which regards the Tightness of acts as
constituted by fulfilment of divine injunctions, these re
ligious homicides, in common with sundry of those above de
scribed, were prompted by one of the motives we class as
pro-ethical.

§ 126. From these aggressions, taking the form of homi
cides, which are not consequent on personal or tribal antag
onisms, let us pass to those of which bloodthirstiness is the
cause, with or without enmity, personal or tribal.

I will begin witli an instance which I have named elsewhere
— that of the Fijians, among whom murder was thought hon
ourable. Credence to this statement, which otherwise one
would be inclined to withhold, is justified by knowledge of
kindred statements respecting other peoples. Livingstone
tells us that —

A Bushman "sat by the fire relating his early adventures: among these
was killing five other Bushmen. ' Two,' said he, counting on his fingers,
' were females, one a male, and the other two calves.' — ' What a villain
you are to boast of killing women and children of your own nation ! What
will God say when you appear before him?' — 'He will say,' replied he,
' that I was a very clever fellow.' ... I discovered that, though he was
employing the word which is used among the Bakwains when speaking of
the Deity, he had only the idea of a chief, and was all the time referring to
Sekomi."

Still more astounding is the state of things, and the kind of
sentiment, described by "Wilson and Felkin in their account
of Uganda. Here is an illustrative incident.

" A young page of Mtesa's [king of Uganda], son of a subordinate chief,
was frequently employed to bring me messages from the palace, and one
morning came down to my house, and informed me with great glee that he
had just killed his father. 1 inquired why he had done this, and he said
that he was tired of being merely a servant, and wished to become a chief,
and said so to Mtesa, who replied, ' Oh, kill your father, and you will be
come a chief ; ' and the boy did so."

That, among peoples who lead lives of aggression, it is a
virtue to be a destroyer and a vice to be peaceful, sundry
cases prove.

AGGRESSION. 343

" The name of ' harami ' — brigand— is still honourable among the Hejazi
Bedouins. . . . He, on the other hand, who is lucky enough, as we should
express it, to die in his bed, is called ' fatis ' (carrion, the corps creve of the
Klephts); his weeping mother will exclaim, ' 0 that my son had perished of
a cutthroat ! ' and her attendant crones will suggest, with deference, that
such evil came of the will of Allah.''

How profound may become tlie belief in the virtue of man
slaughter, is made clear by the Kukis, whose paradise is
" the heritage of the man who has killed the largest number
of his enemies in life, the people killed by him attending on
him as his slaves."

With this supposed divine approval of man-slaying, we
may join the social approval manifested in other cases.
Among the Pathans, one of the tribes on the north-west

O ?

frontier of the Punjaub, " there is hardly a man whose hands
are unstained," and " each person counts up his murders."
That, under wild social conditions, a sentiment of this kind
readily arises, was shown in California during the gold period.
Murderers " continued to notch the number of their victims
on neatly kept hilts of pistols or knives."

§ 127. If from the implied or expressed belief in the hon-
ourableness of private homicide, illustrated by some still-ex
tant savages, we turn to the belief in the honourableness of
that public and wholesale homicide for which the occasions
are given by real or pretended inter-tribal or international in
juries, ancient records of barbarous and semi-civilized peoples
furnish illustrations in abundance.

Among the gods of the primitive Indians, Indra is lauded
in the Rig -Veda as the devastating warrior, and Agni, too,
" was born, the slayer of the enemy," and the " destroyer of
cities." Emulating their gods, the warriors of the Rig- Veda
and the Jfakabharata glory in conquests. Propitiating Indra
with deep libations, the hero prays : — " Let us share the
wealth of him whom thou hast slain ; bring us to the house
hold of him who is hard to vanquish." And then with such

CM THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

prayers, common to militant peoples, may be joined passages
from the Mahabharata recommending atrocities.

" Let a man inspire his enemy with confidence for some real reason, and
then smite him at the proper time, when his foot has slipped a little."

" Without cutting into an enemy's marrow, without doing something
dreadful, without smiting like a killer of fish, a man does not attain great
prosperity."

" A son, a brother, a father, or a friend, who present any obstacle to one's
interests are to be slain."

After these early Aryans, look now at some of the early
Semites. Still more extreme in the implied praise worthi
ness of sanguinary deeds, are they shown to have been by
their records. Assyrian kings glorify themselves in inscrip
tions describing wholesale slaughters and the most savage
cruelties. Sennacherib, driving his chariot through " deep
pools of blood," boasts — " with blood and flesh its wheels
were clogged ; " Assurbanipal says of the conquered — " their
tongues I pulled out," "the limbs cut off I caused to be
eaten by dogs, bears, eagles, vultures, birds of heaven ; "
Tiglath-Pileser's account of the slain Muskayans is that
" their carcases covered the valleys and the tops of the mount
ains ; " in an inscription of Assur-natsir-pal come the words
— " I am a weapon that spares not," the revolted nobles " I
flayed, with their skins I covered the pyramid," " their young
men and maidens I burned as a holocaust ; " and of his ene
mies Shalmaneser II says — " with their blood I dyed the
mountains like wool." Evidently the expectation was that
men of after times would admire these merciless destructions,
and this implies belief in their righteousness ; for we cannot
assume that these Assyrian kings intentionally made them
selves eternally infamous.

Omitting evidence furnished in plenty by the histories
of the Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Macedonians, Romans,
we find kindred thoughts and feelings betrayed by the
peoples of northern Europe. The Gauls of early days,
galloping home with the heads of their enemies slung to

AGGRESSION. 345

their saddles, displayed them on stakes or preserved them in
chests. According to Caesar :—

The Suevi and Germans generally '• esteem it their greatest praise . . that
the lands about their territories lie unoccupied to a very great extent.''
And the fact that the .Norse paradise was conceived as a
place for daily combats, sufficiently shows how dominant
was the belief in the virtue of successful aggression. That
throughout the Middle Ages successful aggression was
thought the one thing worth living for, needs no proof.
History, which is little more than the Newgate Calendar of
nations, describing political burglaries and their results, yields
illustrations on every page : u arms and the man " supply
the universal theme. No better way of showing the dominant
sentiment down to comparatively recent times, can be found
than that of quoting the mottoes of nobles, of which here are
some English ones. Earl of Kosslyn — " Eight ; " Baron
Hawke — tk Strike ; " Earl of Sef ton — " To conquer is to live ; "
the Marquis of Downshire — u By God and my sword I will
obtain ; " the Earl of Carysfort— " This hand is hostile ; "
Count Magawley — " The red hand to victory ; " the Duke of
Athole — " Forth, fortune, and fill the fetters." And the gen
eral spirit is well shown by lines illustrating the motto of the
Middleton family : —

" My sword, my spear, my shaggy shield,
These make me lord of all below,
And lie who fears the lance to wield
Beneath my shaggy shield must bow,
His lands, his vineyards must resign,
For all that cowards have is mine."

Mottoes being the expressions of feelings held above all others
worthy, and tacitly assuming the existence of like feelings in
others, those quoted imply the social sanction given to ag
gressiveness ; and we need but recall the religious ceremonies
on the initiation of a knight, to see that his militant course
of life was supposed to have a divine sanction also. War, even
unprovoked war, was supported by a pro-ethical sentiment.
Nor is it essentially otherwise even now. Thinly veiled

346 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

by conventional respect for the professed religions creed,
the old spirit continually discloses itself. Much more feeling
than is excited by a hymn, is excited by the song — " The
Hardy Norseman ; " and pride in the doing of the " sea-
wolves " who " conquered Normandy," shown by the line —
" Oh, ne'er should we forget our sires," is habitually
sympathized in. No reading is more popular than narra
tives of battles ; and the epithet k' great," as applied to
Alexander, Karl, Peter, Frederick, Napoleon, is applied
notwithstanding all the atrocities they committed. Occa
sionally, indeed, we meet with overt expression of this
sentiment. Lord Wolseley says of the soldier : — " He must
believe that his duties are the noblest that fall to man's
lot. He must be taught to despise all those of civil life : "
a sentiment which is not limited to the " duties " of the
soldier as a defender of his country, which in our day he
never performs, but is extended to his " duties " as an
invader of other countries, and especially those of weak
peoples: the appetite for aggression transforms baseness
into nobility. When, in the Hindoo epic, the god Indra is
described as conquering a woman, we are astonished to find
a victory which we should consider so cowardly lauded by
the poet ; and when, on the walls of Karnak, we see Rarneses
represented as a giant holding by the hair half-a-dozen
dwarfs, and cutting oft' all their heads with one sweep of his
sword, we think it strange that he should have thought to
glorify himself by depicting an easy triumph of strong
over weak. But when with arms of precision, with shells,
with rockets, with far-reaching cannon, peoples possessed
only of feeble weapons are conquered with as great facility
as a man conquers a child, there comes applause in our
journals, with titles and rewards to the leaders ! The
" duties " of the soldier so performed are called " noble ; "
while, held up in contrast with them, those of the peaceful
citizen are called despicable !

Beyond question, then, the sentiment which rejoices in

AGGRESSION. 347

personal superiority, and, not asking for equitable cause, is
ready, under an authority it willingly accepts, to slaughter
so-called enemies, is still dominant. The social sanction, and
the reflected inner sanction due to it, constitute a pro-ethi
cal sentiment which, in international relations, remains su
preme.

§ 128. The ethics of enmity thus illustrated, very little
qualified in some tribes of savages, especially cannibals,
qualilied in but a moderate degree in ancient semi-civilized
societies, and continuing predominant during the develop
ment of civilized societies, has been qualified more and more
by the ethics of amity as the internal social life has disci
plined men in co-operation : the relative prosperities of na
tions, while in part determined by their powers of conquest,
having been all along in part determined by the extents to
which, in daily intercourse, the aggressiveness of their mem
bers has been restrained.

Such peoples as have produced literatures show us, in
relatively early days, the rise of an ethics of amity, set in
opposition to the ethics of enmity. Proceeding, as the
expressions of it do, from the mouths of poets and sages,
we may not measure by them the beliefs wrhich then pre
vailed ; any more than we may now measure the prevailing
beliefs by the injunctions to forgive enemies, perpetually
uttered by our priests. But even the occasional enuncia
tion of altruistic sentiments, occurring in ancient societies
after there had been long-established states of relatively-
peaceful life, is significant. And it is interesting to observe,
too, how, after the absolute selfishness of the antagonistic
activities, a violent reaction led to the preaching of absolute
unselfishness. Thus while of that vast compilation which
constitutes the MahaWiarata, the older parts are sanguinary
in sentiment, the latter parts contain condemnations of need
less warfare. It is said that fighting is the worst means of
gaining victory, and that a king should extend his conquests

348

THE INDUCTIONS OP ETHICS.

without fighting. And there are much more pronounced re-
probations of aggressive action, as this : —
',' Treat others as thou would'st thyself be treated.

Do nothing to thy neighbour, which hereafter

Thou would'st not have thy neighbour do to thee.

A man obtains a rule of action by looking on his neighbour as himself."
And then in the writings of an Indian moralist, said by Sir
William Jones to date three centuries B. c., we read the ex
treme statement : —

" A good man who thinks only of benefiting his enemy has no feelings of
hostility towards him even at the moment of being destroyed by him."

Similarly among the Persians, we n'nd Sadi writing—" Show
kindness even to thy foes ; " and again—" The men of God's
true faith, I've heard, grieve not the hearts e'en of their foes."
In like manner among the Chinese, the teaching of Lao-Tsze
was that —

" Peace is his highest aim ... he who rejoices at the destruction of
human life is not fit to be entrusted with power in the world. He who has
been instrumental in killing many people should move on over them with
bitter tears."

Confucius said : — " In carrying on your government, why
should you use killing at all ? Let your evinced desires be
for what is good, and the people will be good." Mencius
held that " he who has no pleasure in killing men can " unite
the empire ; and of the warlike he said that —

" When contentions about territory are the ground on which they fight,
they slaughter men, till the fields are filled with them. When some strug
gle for a city is the ground on which they fight, they slaughter men till
the ctty is filled with them. . . . Death is not enough for such a crime."

Early as was his time, Mencius evidently entertained higher
sentiments than do " the western barbarians " at the present
time. The characterization which has been given to slavery

-" the sum of all villanies " - would probably have been
given by him to aggressive war.

In section 5Y3 of The Principles of Sociology, as also in
section 437, instances are given of various tribes which, non-
aggressive externally are also non-aggressive internally—

AGGRESSION. 349

tribes in which crimes of violence are so rare that scarcely
any control is needed. There may be added a few other
examples. There are the aborigines of Sumatra, a simple
people who, thrust into the interior by the Malays, are de
scribed by Marsden as " mild, peaceable, and forbearing "-
that is, non-aggressive. There are the Tharus, inhabiting a
retired strip of forest at the foot of the Himalayas, which af
fords them a refuge from invaders, and who are described as
'• a peaceful and good-natured race." Further, we have a
specially relevant testimony given by different authorities re
specting the Iroquois. In his work, The League of the Iro
quois, Morgan says: —

"It was the boast of the Iroquois that the great object of their confeder
acy was peace — to break up the spirit of perpetual warfare, which had
wasted the red race from age to age."

And then clear indication of the results is contained in the
following statement made by the same writer —

" Crimes and offences were so unfrequent under their social system, that
the Iroquois can scarcely be said to have had a criminal code."

Here, however, the truth which it specially concerns us
to note is that during states of hostility which make ag
gression habitual, it acquires a social sanction, and in some
cases a divine sanction : there "~Ts~ a pro-ethical sentiment
enlisted on its behalf. Contrariwise, in the cases just
referred to, aggressiveness meets with reprobation. An
ethical sentiment, rightly so-called, produces repugnance
to it.

.Nor was it otherwise with the Hebrews. After the
chronic antagonisms of nomadic life had been brought to an
end by their captivity, and after their subsequent wars of con
quest had ended in a comparatively peaceful state, the ex
pression of altruistic sentiments became marked ; until, in
Leviticus, we see emerging the principle, often regarded as
exclusively Christian — ;' Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself "-—a principle, however, which appears to have been
limited to " the congregation of the children of Israel." And

350 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

then in later days by the Essenes, as well as by Christ and
his apostles, the ethics of amity, extended so as to include
enemies, was carried even to the extreme of turning the
cheek to the smiter.

§ 129. Into what general induction may these facts be
grouped ? Taken in the mass, the evidence shows, as we
might expect, that in proportion as inter-tribal and inter
national antagonisms are great and constant, the ideas and
feelings belonging to the ethics of enmity predominate ; and,
conflicting as they do with the ideas and feelings belonging
to the ethics of amity, proper to the internal life of a society,
they in greater or less degrees suppress these, and fill with
aggressions the conduct of man to man.

Miscellaneous kinds of homicide, such as were noted at
the outset — infanticide, killing for cannibalism, immolations
at funerals, sacrifices to the gods — are characteristic of
societies in which warfare is habitual. Those most atrocious
of man-eaters, the Fijians, among whom every one carried
his life in his hand, implied their ingrained militancy by
their conception of the other world, where their gods " make
war, and kill and eat each another," and bear such names as
" the murderer," " fresh from the cutting up or slaughter,"
&c. ; where a chief arriving after death, boasts that he has
" destroyed many towns, and slain many in war ; " and where
" men who have not slain an enemy " suffer " the most de
grading of all punishments." vJTlic Bushmen, exhibiting pride
in private murder, pass their lives in ceaseless antagonism
with men and beasts around — aggressing and aggressed upon.
So, too, the Bedouin tribes instanced as thinking any death
save one suffered in combat disgraceful, commit never-ending
aggressions. And the "Waganda, the king of whom sug
gested to his page the parricide gladly carried out by him,
are soldiers noted for " their warlike character, which tinges
the whole of their life and government."

If, from the relations as illustrated in these extreme

AGGKESSION. 351

cases, we pass to the relations as illustrated in developing
societies, we see that with decrease of external aggressive
ness there goes decrease of internal aggressiveness. During
the Merovingian period, along with chronic militant ac
tivities on large and small scales, occurring even to the
extent of wars between towns, perpetual violence charac
terized the relations of individuals : kings murdered their

queens, royal fathers were murdered by their sons, princely
brothers murdered brothers, while bloodshed and cruelty
prevailed everywhere. In the next period the conquests of
Charlemagne were accompanied by atrocities largo and
small, lie beheaded 4,000 Saxons in one day, and in
flicted death on those who refused baptism or ate flesh
during Lent. Similarly throughout the Feudal ages, recur
ring international fights were accompanied by perpetual
fights among nobles; the chroniclers describe little else
than crimes ; and the slaughtering of serfs by knights was
passed over as a thing not calling for reproach. But as the
course of ages and the consolidation of kingdoms brought
diminution of a diffused warfare, and as, by consequence,
industrial activities, with resulting internal co-operation,
filled larger spaces in men's lives, the more unscrupulous
forms of aggressiveness came to be reprobated, while appro
bation was given to conduct characterized by regard for
others. And though modern times have seen great wars,

c> o

yet, since the militant activities have not been all-pervading
as in earlier times, the sentiments appropriate to peaceful
activities have not been so universally repressed. Moreover,
as we elsewhere saw, (Principles of Sociology, § 5T3), the
brutality of citizens to one another has from time to time
increased along with renewed militancy and decreased along
with cessation of it ; while there have been concomitant mod
ifications in the ethical standard.

CHAPTER IV,

KOBBERY.

§ 130. Between physically injuring another, partially or
to the death, and injuring him either by taking possession
of his body and labour, or of his property, the kinship in
nature is obvious. Both direct and indirect injuries are
comprehended under the title Aggression ; and the second,
like the first, might, without undue straining of words, have
been brought within the limits of the last chapter. But, as
before implied, it has seemed more convenient to separate
the aggression which nearly always has bloodshed for its
concomitant, from the aggression which is commonly blood
less. Here we have to deal with this last.

The extreme form of this last aggression is that which
ends in capturing a man and enslaving him. Though to
class this under the head of robbery is to do some violence
to the name, yet we may reasonably say that to take a man
from himself, and use his powers for other purposes than
his own, is robbery in the highest degree. Instead of de
priving him of some product of past labour voluntarily under
taken, it deprives him of the products of future labours
which he is compelled to undertake. At any rate, whether
rightly to be called robbery or not, it is to be classed as an
aggression, if not so grave as that of inflicting death, yet
next to it in gravity.

It is needless here to furnish proofs that this kind of
aggression has been, from very early stages of human pro-

ROBBERY. 353

gress, a concomitant of militancy. Eating the vanquished
or turning them into bondsmen, commonly became alterna
tives where inter-tribal conflicts were perpetual. From the
incidental making of captives there has frequently grown
ii]) the intentional making of captives. An established
policy has dictated invasions to procure workers or victims.
But whether with or without intention, this robbery in the
highest degree has been, throughout, a concomitant of habitual
Avar ; could not, indeed, have arisen to any extent without war.
A closely-allied form of robbery — somewhat earlier, since
we find it in rude tribes which do not make slaves— is the
stealing of women. Of course, along with victory over com
batants there has gone appropriation of the non-combatants
belonging to them ; and women have consequently been in
all early stages among the prizes of conquerors. In books
treating of primitive marriage, like that of Mr. McLennan,
there will be found evidence that the stealing of women not
unfrequently becomes the normal process by which the
numbers of a tribe are maintained. It is found best to
avoid the cost of rearing them, and to obtain by fighting
or theft the requisite number from other tribes. Becoming
a traditional policy, this custom often acquires a strong
sanction; and is supposed by some to have originated the
interdict against marriage with those of the same clan.
But, however this may be, we habitually find women re
garded as the most valued spoils of victory; and often,
where the men are killed, the women are preserved to
become mothers. It was so with the Caribs in their can
nibal days ; and it was so with the Hebrews, as shown in
Numbers xxxi, IT— IS, where we read that, after a suc
cessful war, all the wives and the males among the children
were ordered by Moses to be killed, while the virgins were re
served for the use of the captors. (See also Deuteronomy xxi.)
Now the truth here to be observed is that in societies
which have not risen to high stages, the ethical sentiment,
or rather the pro-ethical sentiment, makes no protest

354: THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

against robberies of these kind; but, contrariwise, gives
countenance to them. The cruel treatment of prisoners
delineated in Egyptian and Assyrian wall-paintings and
wall-sculptures, implies, what the records tell, that there
was a social sanction for their subsequent bondage. Simi
larly, we do not see in the literature of the Greeks, any
more than in the literature of the Hebrews, that the holding
of men in slavery called forth moral reprobation. It was
the same with the capture of women and the making wives
of them, or more frequently concubines : this was creditable
rather than discreditable. With the social sanction for the
stealing of women by the early Aryans, as narrated in^ the
Mahabharata, there was also a divine sanction ; and it is
manifest that among the Hebrews there was social if not
divine sanction for the taking of the virgins of Jabesli
Gilead for wives, and also for the stealing of the " daughters
of Shiloh." (Judges xxi.)

Under this head it needs only to add that modern pro
gress with its prolonged discipline of internal amity, as op
posed to that of external enmity, has been accompanied by-
disappearance of these grossest forms of robbery. The ethi
cal sentiment, rightly so-called, has been developed to the
extent needful for suppressing them.

§ 131. Success in war being honourable, all accompani
ments and signs of such success become honourable. Hence,
along with the enslaving of captives if they are not eaten,
and along with the appropriation of their women as concu
bines or wives, there goes the seizing of their property. A
natural sequence is that not only during war but at other
times, robbery of enemies, and by implication of strangers,
who are ordinarily classed as enemies, is distinguished from
robbery of fellow-tribesmen : the first being called good even
when the last is called bad.

Among the Comanches "a young man is not thought
worthv to be counted in the list of warriors, till he has

KOUBERY.

returned from some successful plundering expedition, . . .
the greatest thieves are . . the most respectable members of
society." A Patagonian is considered " as indifferently capa
ble of supporting a wife unless he is an adept in the art of
stealing from a stranger." Livingstone says of the East
Africans :

" In tribes which have been accustomed to cattle-stealing, the act is not
considered immoral, in the way that theft is. Before I knew the language
well, I said to a chief, ' You stole the cattle of so and so.' ' No, I did nob
steal them,' was the reply, ' I only lifted them.' The word ' gapa ' is iden
tical with the Highland term for the same deed."
Concerning the Kalmucks the account of Pallas is that
they are addicted to theft and robbery on a large scale, but
not of people of their own tribe. And Atkinson asserts
the like of the Kirghis.

" Thieving of this kind [stealing horses or camels from one of the same
tribe] is instantly punished among the Kirghis; but a barunta, like the
sacking of a town, is honourable plunder."

Hence doubtless arises that contrast, seeming to us so
strange, between the treatment which robber-tribes, such
as Bedouins, show to strangers under their roofs and the
opposite treatment they show to them after they have
departed. Says Atkinson : —

" My host [a Kirghis chief] said Koubaldos [another Kirghis chief to
whom I was going] would not molest us at his aonl, but that some of his
bands would be set on our track and try to plunder us on our march."
Perhaps it is among the Turkomans that we find the most
marked illustrations of the way in which predatory tribes
come to regard theft as honourable. By the people of Merv,
raids " even among members of the same tribe are not, or
were not until lately, looked upon in the light of robberies " ;
but the raids must be on a respectable scale.

" It is curious that, while red-handed murder and robbery were a recognized
means of existence among the Tekkes, thievery, in the sense of stealing from
the person, or niching an article from a stall of the bazaar, was despised."
And Mr. O'Donovan subsequently relates that when urging
on the Merv Council the cessation of marauding expedi
tions, a member " with angry astonishment " asked " how

356 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

in the name of Allah they were going to live if raids were
not to be made " ! To all which evidence we may add the
facts that " the Pathan mother often prays that her son may
be a successful robber," that according to Rowney the like
is done by the Afridi mother, and the further fact that
among the Turkomans a celebrated robber becomes a saint,
and pilgrimages are made to his tomb to sacrifice and pray.

While, in most of these cases, a marked distinction is
recognized between robbery outside the tribe and robbery
within the tribe, in other cases the last as well as the first is
deemed not only legitimate but praiseworthy. Dalton says
of the Kukis :—

" The accomplishment most esteemed amongst them was dexterity
in thieving."

Similarly, according to Gilmour —

" In Mongolia known thieves are treated as respectable members of soci
ety. As long as they manage well and are successful, little or no odium
seems to attach to them."

Of another Asiatic tribe we read :

" They [Angamis] are expert thieves and glory in the art, for among
them, as with the Spartans of old, theft is only dishonourable and obnoxious
to punishment when discovered in the act of being committed."

From America may be instanced the case of the Chinooks,
by whom " cunning theft is regarded as honourable ; but
they despise and often punish the inexpert thief." A case
in Africa is furnished by the Waganda, warlike and blood
thirsty, among whom —

" The distinctions between meum and tuurn are very ill-defined ; and indeed
all sin is only relative, the crime consisting in being detected."
And then, passing to Polynesia, we find that among the
Fijians —

" Success, without discovery, is deemed quite enough to make thieving
virtuous, and a participation in the ill-gotten gain honourable."

So that in these instances skill or courage sanctifies any
invasion of property-rights.

| 132. Evidence yielded by the historic races proves
that along with a less active life of external enmity and a

ROBBERY ,

357

more active life of internal amity, there goes a change of
ethical ideas and sentiments, allied to that noted in the
last chapter.

The Rig -Veda describes the thievish acts of the gods.
Vishnu " stole the cooked mess " at the libations of Indra.
When Tvashtri began to perform a soma-sacrifice in honour
of his son who been slain by Indra, and refused, on the
ground of his homicide, to allow the latter to assist at the
ceremony, then " Indra interrupted the celebration, and drank
off the soma by force."

The moral principle thus exemplified by the gods is
paralleled by the moral principle recommended for men.
" Even if he were to covet the property of other people, he is bound as a
Kshatriya to take it by force of arms, and never to beg for it."
But the Indian literature of later ages, displaying the results
of settled life, inculcates opposite principles.

Passing over illustrative facts furnished by other ancient
historic peoples, it will suffice if we glance at the facts which
medieval and modern histories furnish. Dasent tells us of the
Norsemen, that — " Kobbery and piracy in a good straight
forward wholesale way were honoured and respected. Simi
larly with the primitive Germans. Describing them, Csesar
says : —

" Robberies which are committed beyond the boundaries of each state
bear no infamy. . . And when any of their chiefs has said in an assembly
' that he will be their leader, let those who are willing to follow, give in
their names;' they who approve of both the enterprise and the man arise
and promise their assistance, and are applauded by the people ; such of
them as have not followed him are considered deserters and traitors, and
confidence in all matters is afterwards refused them."
Not to attempt the impossible task of tracing through some
ten centuries the relation between the perpetual wars, large
and small, public and private, and the plundering of men by
one another, wholesale and retail, it will suffice to single out
special periods. Of France in the early feudal period, Ste.
Palaye says : —
'" Our old writers denounce the avarice, greed, deceit, perjury, pillage, theft,

358 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

and brigandage, and other excesses of an unbridled soldiery, equally devoid
of principles, morals, and sentiments."

During the Hundred Years War a regime of robbery became
universal. Among the nobles the 'desire for plunder was the
motive for fighting. Everywhere there was brigandage on a
large scale, as well as on a small scale. In addition to multi
tudinous scattered highwaymen there were organized com
panies of robbers who had their fortresses, lived luxuriously
on the spoils of the surrounding country, kidnapped children
for pages and women for concubines, and sold at high prices
safe-conducts to travellers. And then, along with all these
plunder.ings on land, there was habitual piracy at sea. Not
only states, but towns and individuals equipped vessels for
buccaneering ; and there were established refuges for marine
freebooters. Take, again, the evidence furnished by the
Thirty Years War in Germany. Universal marauding be
came the established system. Soldiers were brigands. Not
only did they plunder the people everywhere, but they used
" thousand-fold torments " to make them disclose the places
where they had hidden their goods ; and the peasants had
to " till their fields armed to the teeth " against their fel
low-countrymen. Meanwhile the soldiers were themselves
cheated by their officers, small and great, wrho some of them
made large fortunes by their accumulated embezzlements, at
the same time that the princes robbed the nation by debasing
the coinage.

Involved and obscure as the evidence is, no one can fail
to recognize the broad fact that with progress towards a
state in which war is less frequent, and does not, as of old,
implicate almost everyone, there has been a decrease of
dishonesty, and a higher appreciation of honesty; to the
extent that now robbery of a stranger has come to be as
much a crime as robbery of a fellow-citizen. It is true
that there are still thefts. It is true that there are still
multitudinous frauds. But the thefts are not so numerous,
and the frauds are not of such gross kinds as they were.

ROBBKRY. 359

From the days when kings frequently tricked their cred
itors and shopkeepers boasted of their ability to pass bad
money, as Defoe tells us, we have somewhat advanced in
the respect for meum and tuuin. Xay, as shown by Pike's
History of Crime, the contrast is marked even between
the amount of transgression against property during the war
period ending in 1815 and the recent amount of such trans
gression.

§ 133. But of the relationship alleged, the clearest proofs
are furnished by contrasts between the warlike uncivilized
tribes instanced above, and the peaceful uncivilized tribes.
Here are traits presented by some of these last.

Xot only, according to llartshorne, is the harmless ^NVood-
Yeddah perfectly honest, but he cannot conceive it possible
that a man should "take that which does not belong to him."
Of the Esquimaux, among whom war is unknown, we read
that "they are uniformly described as most scrupulously
honest;" and any such qualification of this statement as is
made by Bancroft, refers to Esquimaux demoralized by con
tact with white traders. Of the Fuegians we learn from
Darwin that—

"If any present was designed for one canoe, and it fell near another, it
was invariably given to the right owner.''

And Snow says they were very honourable in their com
mercial dealings with him. Concerning certain of the
Papuans on the Southern coast of Xew Guinea, who are
described as too independent for combined action in war,
we read that "in their bargaining the natives have generally
been very honest, far more so than our own people." And
concerning others of this race, Kops tells us that the natives
of Dory give evidence " of an inclination to right and jus
tice, and strong moral principles. Theft is considered by
them as a very grave offence, and is of very rare occur
rence." A like character is ascribed by Kolff to the abo
rigines of Lette. In The Principles of Social oyy, ^ -137 and

300 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

574, I have given testimonies respecting the honesty of the
peaceful Todas, Santals, Lepclias, Bodo and Dhimals, Hos,
Chakmas, Jakuns. Here I add some further testimonies.
Consul Baker tells us of the aborigines of Vera Cruz, now a
subject race averse to military service, that " the Indian is
honest, and seldom yields to even the greatest temptation to
steal." In his description of a race inhabiting a " long strip
of swamp and forest " at " the foot of the Himalayas," Mr.
Nesfield says that " their honesty is vouched for by a hun
dred stories ; " " such at least is the character of the Tharu,
so long as he remains in the safe seclusion of his solitary
wilds," where he is free from hostilities. And then, with
the fact stated by Morgan concerning the Iroquois, that
" theft, the most despicable of human crimes, was scarcely
known among them," we have to join the fact that their
league had been formed for the preservation of peace among
its component peoples and had succeeded in its purpose for
many generations.

CHAPTER Y.

EEVENGE.

§ 134. Among intelligent creatures the struggle for ex
istence entails aggressions. Where these are not the de
structive aggressions of carnivorous creatures on their prey,
they are the aggressions, not necessarily destructive but
commonly violent, of creatures competing with one another
for food. Animals severally impelled by hunger are inevi
tably led into antagonisms by endeavours severally to seize
whatever food they can ; and injuries, more or less decided,
are usual concomitants.

Aggression leads to counter-aggression. "Where both

oo OO

creatures have powers of offence, they are likely both to
use them ; especially where their powers of offence are
approximately equal, that is, where they are creatures of
the same species : such creatures being also those commonly
brought into competition. That results of this kind are
inevitable, will be manifest on remembering that among
members of the same species, those individuals which have
not, in any considerable degree, resented aggressions, must
have ever tended to disappear, and to have left behind
those which have with some effect made counter-aggres
sions. Fights, therefore, not only of predatory animals with
prey but of animals of the same kind with one another,
have been unavoidable from the first and have continued
to the last.

Every flight is a succession of retaliations — bite being

THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

given for bite, and blow for blow. Usually these follow one
another in quick succession, but not always. There is a
postponed retaliation ; and a postponed retaliation is what
we call revenge. It may be postponed for so short a time
as to be merely a recommencement of the fight, or it may
be postponed for days, or it may be postponed for years.
And hence the retaliation which constitutes what we call re
venge, diverges insensibly from the retaliations which char
acterize a conflict.

But the practice, alike of immediate revenge and of post
poned revenge, establishes itself as in some measure a check
upon aggression ; since the motive to aggress is checked by
the consciousness that a counter-aggression will come : if not
at once then after a time.

§ 135. Among human beings in early stages, there hence
arises not only the practice of revenge but a belief that re
venge is imperative — that revenge is a duty. Here, from Sir
George Grey's account of the Australians, we have a graphic
picture of the sentiment and its results :—

" The holiest duty a native is called on to perform is that of avenging the
death of his nearest relation, for it is his peculiar duty to do so : until he has
fulfilled this task, he is constantly taunted by the old women ; his wives, if
he be married, would soon quit him ; if he is unmarried, not a single young
woman would speak to him ; his mother would constantly cry, and lament
she should ever have given birth to so degenerate a son ; his father would treat
him with contempt, and reproaches would constantly be sounded in his ear."

Of illustrations from North America that furnished by the
Sioux may be named. Burton says : —

" The obstinate revengefulness of their vendetta is proverbial ; they hate
with the ' hate -of Hell ; ' and, like the Highlanders of old, if the author of
an injury escape them, they vent their rage upon the innocent, because he
is of the same clan or colour."

From South America a case given by Schomburgk may be
quoted.

" My revenge is not yet satisfied, there still lives a member of the hated
family," said a Guiana native, whose relative he suspected to have been
poisoned.

REVENGE,

363

Here, again, is an instance from Williams' account of the

Fijians.

" At that hour of death, ho never forgets an enemy, and at that time lie

never forgives one. The dying man mentions his foe, that his children

may perpetuate his hatred,— it may be against his own son,— and kill him

at the first opportunity."

And then Thomson tells us of the New Zealanders that

" not to avenge the dead, according to native law, indicates

the most craven spirit.1' Passing to Asia I may quote

Macrae's account of the Kukis.

" Like all savage people," the Kukis " are of a most vindictive disposi
tion ; blood must always bo shed for blood. ... If a man should happen
to be killed by an accidental fall from a tree, all his relations assemble . . .
and reduce it to chips."
In Petherick, we read that—

The shedding of blood is "an offence with Arabs that neither time nor
contrition can obliterate, thirst for revenge descending from father to son,
and even through successive generations."
So too of the East Africans Burton writes—
" Revenge is a ruling passion, as the many rancorous fratricidal wars that
have prevailed between kindred clans, oven for a generation, prove. Re
taliation and vengeance are, in fact, their great agents of moral control."
In all these cases we see that cither avowedly or tacitly re
venge is considered a moral obligation.

The early stages of various existing peoples yield equally
clear evidence. In his Japan in Days of Yore, Mr. Dening
translates the life of Musashi, published by the Momtusho
(Education Department), narrating a prolonged vendetta
full of combats and murders ; and, in partial sympathy with
the Japanese educationists, remarks that his hero's acts of
undying revenge, displayed " so many of the nobler aspects
of human nature " and are " calculated to inspire confidence
in humanity." A kindred spirit is shown in the early In
dian literature. The gods are revengeful. As described in
the Rig - Veda- — •

" Agni swallows his enemies, tears their skin, minces their members, and
throws them before the wolves to be eaten by them, or by the shrieking
vultures."

364 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

And the ascribed character of the gods is participated in by
their devotees, as instance the invocation : —

" Tndra and Soma, burn the Rakshas, destroy them, throw them down, ye
two Bulls, the people that grow in darkness. Hew down the madmen,
suffocate them, kill them, hurl them away, and slay the voracious. Indra
and Soma, up together against the cursing demon ! May he burn and hiss
like an oblation in the fire ! Put your everlasting hatred on the villain."

The narrative of the " ferocious and deadly struggle " car
ried on " with all the frenzied wrath of demons," as Wheeler
says, is full of vows of revenge — a revenge extending to
horrible treatment of enemies' remains. Nor do we find a
different sentiment displayed among the Hebrews, whether
in the ascribed actions of Jahveh or the actions of his wor
shippers. The command to " blot out the remembrance of
Amalek from under heaven" (Deut. xxv. 19), and the ful
filment of this command by Saul and Samuel, to the extent
of destroying not only the Amalekites but all their cattle,
is a typical example of the implied divine revenge — a sam
ple variously paralleled in other cases. And with this sanc-
tification of revenge we see that the acts and feelings of
the Hebrews themselves harmonized. The wreaking of
vengeance was bequeathed as a duty ; as when David, after
enjoining Solomon to walk in the ways of the Lord, told
him not to spare the son of a man who had cursed him,
(and who had been forgiven on oath), saying — "but his
hoar head bring thou down to the grave with blood." (1
Kings ii. 9.)

It is superfluous to illustrate in detail the kindred senti
ments and ideas of European peoples throughout mediaeval
times. Most of the political and private incidents narrated
exhibit them. To inflict vengeance was among them, as
now among savages, considered an obligation ; and when,
occasionally, the spirit flagged in men it was kept alive
by women, as in the Merovingian period by Fredegonde
and Brunehaut. Then in later centuries there were chronic
family-feuds between nobles everywhere, transmitted from

KEVENGE. 365

generation to generation. And the spirit was still active
down to the time of the Abbe Brantome, who, in his will, en
joins a nephew to execute vengeance on his behalf should
he be injured when too old to avenge himself. ^S'ay, the
vendetta, once so general, is even now not extinct in the
East of Europe.

Though, throughout the modern civilized world, not per
turbed everywhere and always by conflicts, life does not
furnish such multitudinous examples of like meaning, yet
survival of the ethics of enmity, in so far as it enjoins re
venge, is sufficiently manifest. Duels almost daily occurring
somewhere or other on the Continent, exhibit the conceived
obligation under its private form ; and under its public
form we have before us a striking example in the persistent
desire which the French cherish to punish the Germans for
defeating them— a desire of which the strength has lately
(August, 1891) been shown by the remarkable fact that
while professedly enthusiastic advocates of liberty and up
holders of free institutions, they have been lauding "the
noble Russian people " and the despotic Czar who holds
them in bondage ; and all because they hope thus to be aided
in their wished-for fight with Germany. Clearly the ap
propriate expression of their feeling is — Not that we love
freedom less but that we love revenge more.

§ 136. But, wThile societies have been in course of growth
and consolidation, there have been occasional expressions of
ideas and sentiments opposite to these — occasional expres
sions which, as they are associated with the arrival at more
settled social states, may be fairly regarded as consequent
upon a diminution of warlike activities.

Various illustrations are furnished by the literature of
Hindostaii. In the code of Manu we read : —

" Wound not another, though by him provoked,
Do no one injury by thought or deed,
Utter no word to pain thy fellow-creatures."

366 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

And again, in another place, there is the exhortation —

" Treat no one with disdain, with patience bear
Reviling language ; with an angry man
Be never angry; blessings give for curses."

Of like spirit is the following from the Cural :—

" To do no evil even to enemies will be called the chief of virtues.1'

So, too, among some of the Persians. In their literature of

the 7th century we find the passage—

" Think not that the valour of a man consists only in courage and force ;
if you can rise above wrath and forgive, you are of a value inestimable."
At a later date, namely in a story of Sadi, there occurs the
injunction : —

" Hast thou been injured? suffer it and clear
Thyself from guilt in pardoning others' sin."

And still more extreme is the doctrine we find in Hafiz, as
translated by Sir William Jones :—

" Learn from yon orient shell to love thy foe,
And store with pearls the hand, that brings thee woe,
Free, like yon rock, from base vindictive pride,
Imblaze with gems the wrist, that rends thy side."

Nor are the writings of the Chinese sages without kindred
utterances of sentiment. Lao-Tsze says, " Recompense injury
with kindness." So also according to Mencius —

" A benevolent man does not lay up anger, nor cherish resentment against
his brother, but only regards him with affection and love."
While Confucius, in conformity with his doctrine of the
mean, expresses a less extreme view.

" ' What do you say concerning the principle that injury should be
recompensed with kindness?' The Master said, ' With what then will
you recompense kindness? Recompense injury with justice, and recom
pense kindness with kindness.' ''

In the later stages of Hebrew civilization, we similarly
find the social and divine sanctions' for revenge occasionally
qualified — a mingling of opposed ideas and sentiments.
While, in Ecclesiasticus xxx. 6, a father is regarded as

REVENGE. 367

happy who leaves "an avenger against his enemies," yet in
ch. x. G there is an injunction to "bear not hatred"
for wrong received — an injunction containing in germ
the ethical principle which, centuries later, took shape in
Christianity.

§ 137. Proofs that decline of vindictiveness and growth
of forgiveness are associated with decrease of militancy and
increase of peaceful co-operation, cannot be clearly disen
tangled from the facts; since the two kinds of life have
nearly everywhere, and at all times, been associated in one
or other proportion. But to such general evidence as the
foregoing quotations furnish, may be added some evidence
furnished by existing societies.

There is the fact that throughout the chief nations of
Europe, the family-vendetta has disappeared during a period
in which the conflicts of nations have become less constant,
and the peaceful exchange of services within each nation
more active: a contrast between ancient and modern which
asserted itself soonest where the industrial type was earliest
developed, namely, among ourselves.

Again, there is the fact that in our own society, with its
comparatively small number of soldiers and a militancy
less predominant than that of continental societies with
their vast armies and warlike attitudes, there has been a
suppression of the revenge for private insults, while this
with them continues ; and so far has the vindictive spirit
declined that an injured man who shows persistent animosi
ty towards one who has injured him, is reprobated rather
than applauded : forgiveness is, at any rate by many, tacitly
approved.

But if we seek a case in which the virtue supposed to be
especially Christian is practised, we must seek it among
the non-Christians. Certain peaceful tribes of the Indian
hills are characterized by it, as witness this account of the
Lepchas :— ^

368 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

" They arc wonderfully honest, theft being scarcely known among them ;
they rarely quarrel among themselves. . . . They are singularly forgiving
of injuries, when time is given them, after hasty loss of temper. Although
they were ready enough to lodge complaints before the magistrate against
one another in cases of assault and other offences, they rarely prosecuted
to a decision, generally preferring to submit to arbitration, or making
mutual amends and concessions. They are averse to soldiering, and cannot
be induced to enlist in our army even for local service in the Hills."

Thus we get both positive and negative evidence that the
revengefulness within each society is proportionate to the
habitual conflict with other societies ; and that while, at the
one extreme, there is a moral sanction for revenge, at the
other extreme there is a moral sanction for forgiveness.

CHAPTER VI.

J [JSTICE.

§ 138. Perhaps the soul of goodness in things evil is
by nothing better exemplified than by the good thing,
justice, which, in a rudimentary form, exists within the evil
thing revenge. Meeting aggression by counter-aggression
is, in the first place, an endeavour to avoid being suppressed
by the aggressor, and to maintain that ability to can-}7 on
life which justice implies ; and it is, in the second place, an
endeavour to enforce justice by establishing an equality
with the aggressor : inflicting injuries as great as have been
received.

This rude process of balancing claims usually fails to es
tablish equilibrium. Revenge, habitually carried not as far
only as suffices to compensate for injuries received but, if
possible, farther, evokes re-revenge, which also, if possible,
is carried to excess; and so there result chronic wars be
tween tribes and chronic antagonisms between families and
between individuals. These commonly continue from gen
eration to generation.

But occasionally there is shown a tendency towards estab
lishment of an equilibrium, by bringing aggression and
counter-aggression to a definite balance, achieved by meas
ure. Let us look at the evidence.

§ 139. Men of various rude types, as the Australians, con
stantly show the idea, tacitly asserted and acted upon, that
the loss of a life in one tribe must be compensated by the

370 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

infliction of a death in another tribe ; some member of
which is known, or supposed, to have caused the said loss of
life. And since deaths from disease and old age are, among
others, ascribed to the machinations of foes — since equiv
alent deaths must be inflicted for these also, there have to be
frequent balancings of losses. [It seems clear, however,
that these revenges and re-revenges cannot be always carried
out as alleged. For if not only deaths by violence but
deaths by disease entail them the two tribes must soon dis
appear by mutual extirpation.] Races much more advanced
in some cases carry out, not this secret balancing of mor
tality-accounts between tribes, but an overt balancing. This
is the case with the Sumatrans, among whom the differences
are squared by money payments.

This maintenance of inter-tribal justice, prompted in part
by consciousness of that corporate injury which loss of a
member of the tribe entails, and requiring the infliction of
an equivalent corporate injury on the offending tribe, has
the trait that it is indifferent what member of the offending
tribe is killed in compensation : whether it be the guilty man
or some innocent man matters not. This conception of inter
tribal justice is repeated in the conception of inter-family
justice. Those early types of social organization in which
the family is the unit of composition, show us that in each
family there arises an idea allied to the idea of nationality ;
and there results an allied system of reprisals for the bal
ancing of injuries. The Philippine Islands supply evidence.
" In the province of La Isabela, the Negrito and Igorrote
tribes keep a regular Dr. and Or. account of heads." A
further interesting illustration is yielded by the Quianganes
of Luzon. From an account of them given by Prof. F.
Blumentritt, here is a translated passage : —

" Blood vengeance is a sacred law with the Quianganes. If one plebeian
is killed by another, the matter is settled in a simple manner by killing
the murderer or some one of his family who is likewise a plebeian. But if
a prominent man or noble is killed by a plebeian, vengeance on the mur-

JUSTICE. 371

derer, a mere plebeian, is not enough ; the victim of the sin-offering must
l)e an equivalent in rank. Another nobleman must fall for the murdered
noble, for their doctrine is, — What kind of an equivalent is it to kill some
cno \vhd is no better than a dog? Hence the family of the slain noble
looks around to see if it cannot find a relative of the murderer to wreak
vengeance upon, who is also a noble; while the murderer himself is
ignored. If no noble can be found among his relatives, the family of the
murdered man wait patiently till some one of them is received into the
noble's caste ; then the vendetta is prosecuted, although many years may
have elapsed. When the blood-feud is satisfied a reconciliation of the
contending factions takes place. In all the feuds the heads of the mur
dered champions are cut oil' and taken home, and the head-hunters cele
brate the affair festally. The skulls are fixed to the front of the house."
Hero the need fur inflicting an injury of like amount, and
so equalizing the losses, is evidently the dominant need.
The Semitic peoples in general furnish kindred facts.
" It is a received law among all the Arabs, that whoever sheds the blood
of a man. owes blood on that account to the family of the slain person. . .
The lineal descendants of all those who were entitled to revenge at the
moment of the man-slaughter, inherit this right from their parents."

Burckhardt writes :—

And respecting this system of administering rude justice
by the balancing of deaths between families, Burckhardt
remarks :—

" I am inclined to believe that this salutary institution has contributed,
in a greater degree than any other circumstance, to prevent the warlike
tribes of Arabia from exterminating one another. . . the terrible ' blood-*
revenge ' renders the most inveterate war nearly bloodless."
The evident implication being that dread of this persistent
revenge, makes members of different families and tribes
fearful of killing one another. That with the feelings and
practices of existing Semites, those of ancient Semites
agreed, there is good reason to believe. The authorization
of blood-revenge between families, is implied in 1 Kings,
ii, 31, 33, as well as elsewhere. How, among European
peoples in early times, kindred conceptions led to kindred
usages, need not be shown in detail. The fact that when
the system of taking life for life was replaced by the system
of compensations, these were adjusted to ranks, so that the
murder of a person more valuable to the group he belonged

372 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

to was compounded for by a larger fine payable to it, shows
how dominant was the idea of group-injury, and how domi
nant was the idea of equivalence.

§ 140. But these ideas of family-injury and family-guilt
have all along been accompanied by ideas of individual-
injury and individual-guilt : here very distinct and there less
distinct.

They are very distinct among some peoples in early social
stages, as is shown by the account which Im Thurn gives of
the Guiana tribes.

" In the absence of anything corresponding to police regulations, their
mutual relations in everyday life are very well-ordered by the traditional
respect which each individual feels for the rights of the others, and by
their dread of adverse public opinion should they act contrary to such
traditions. . . . The smallest injury done by one Indian to another, even
if unintentional, must be atoned by suffering a similar injury."

And that among the Hebrews there was a balancing of
individual-injuries is a fact more frequently referred to
than is the fact that there was a balancing of family-
injuries; as witness the familiar "eye for eye, tooth
for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot" prescribed in
Deuteronomy xix.

The decline of family-responsibility and growth of
individual-responsibility, seem to be concomitants of the
change in social organization from the type in which the
family is the unit of composition to the type in which the
individual is the unit of composition. For, evidently, as
fast as the family-organization dissolves, there cease to be
any groups which can be held responsible to one another
for injuries inflicted by their members ; and as fast as this
happens the responsibility must fall on the members
themselves. Thus it naturally happens that along with
social evolution, there emerges from that unjust form of
retaliation, in which the groups more than their component
men are answerable, that just form in which the men them
selves are answerable : the guilty person takes the conse-

JUSTICE. 373

quences of his acts, and does not leave them to be borne by
other persons.

An instructive contrast in the literature of the Hebrews
supports this conclusion. In the earlier writings, God is
represented as punishing not only those who have sinned
against him, but their posterity for generations. In the
later writings, however, there occurs the prophecy of a time
when this shall no longer be. Here is a passage from
Jeremiah, xxxi. 29, 30.

" In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour
grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge. But every one shall die
for his own iniquity : every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall
be set on edge."

That iii European peoples growth of this factor in the
conception of justice has gone along with the lapsing of
group-organization and the rise of individual citizenship, is
clear. And it is interesting to observe how strange now

o o

seem t6 us the old idea and sentiment, when we come in
contact with them, as in China, where the group-organiza
tion lingers, and it is thought sufficient if, in compensation
for one of our people who has been murdered, a victim is
delivered up : no matter whether the victim be the guilty
man or not.

§ 141. But while, in the more advanced social stages,
maintenance of the relation between conduct and conse
quence comes to be recognized as required by justice ; in
early social stages the idea of equality is that which chiefly
obtains recognition, under the form of an infliction of equiv
alent injuries. It could scarcely be otherwise. During
times of unceasing strife, with entailed wounds and deaths,
this is the only equality admitting of distinct maintenance.
Evidently, however, from this practice of balancing deaths
and mutilations, there tends to arise one component in the
conception of equity.

We may see, too, that the activities of militant life them
selves afford scope for some further development of the

374: THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

idea ; and occasionally there grow up usages requiring some
maintenance of equality, even in the midst of conflict.
Speaking of certain early wars recorded in the Indian books,
Wheeler remarks that —

" The sentiment of honour which undoubtedly prevailed amongst the an
cient Kshatriyas made them regard an attack upon a sleeping enemy as a
heinous crime," "Aswatthama even whilst bent upon being revenged on
the murderer of his father, awoke his sleeping enemy before slaying him."

And various histories yield occasional signs of the belief
that under certain circumstances — especially in personal
combats — foes should be placed under something like equal
conditions before they are attacked ; though, very generally,
the aim has been the reverse — to attack them under every
disadvantage.

That all along the idea of likeness of treatment has
entered into human relations at large, but chiefly among
members of the same society, is manifest. But any con
siderable development of it has been inconsistent with
militant life and militant organization. While war, even
when retaliatory, has necessarily been a discipline in in
justice, by inflicting wounds and death upon individuals
\vho have mostly been guiltless of aggression, it has, at the
same time, necessitated within each society a type of or
ganization which has disregarded the requirements of jus
tice ; alike by the coercive arrangements within its fighting
part, by the tyranny over slaves and serfs forming its
industrial part, and by the subjection of women. Hence
the broad fact that throughout civilization the relations of
citizens have become relatively equitable only as fast as
militancy has become less predominant ; and that only along
with this change has the sentiment of justice become more
pronounced.

As yielding converse evidence I must again refer to the
habits and sentiments which accompany entire peaceful-
ness. Already in the last chapter but one I have named
some peoples whose unaggressiveness towards other peoples

JUSTICE. 375

is accompanied by unaggressiveness among themselves; and
of course this trait is in part ascribable to that regard for
others' claims which justice implies. Already, too, in
the last chapter, I have quoted various travellers in proof
of the great honesty characterizing tribes of this same
class ; and of course their honesty may be taken as, in a
considerable degree, proof of the prevailing sentiment of
justice. Here, to this indirect evidence, I may add evidence
of a more direct kind, furnished by the treatment of women
and children among them. In The Principles of /Sociology,
§§ 324, 327, I have drawn a contrast between the low
status of women among militant savages, as well as the
militant semi-civilized, and the high status of women
among these uncultured but unmilitant peoples ; showing
that by the Todas, low as they are in sundry respects, the
women are relieved from all hard work, and " do not even
step out of doors to fetch water or wood ; " that the wives
of the Bodo and Dhimals " are free from all out-door work
whatever;" that among the IIos a wife "receives the
fullest consideration due to her sex ; " and that among the
" industrious, honest, and peace-loving Pueblos," no girl
is forced to marry against her will, and " the usual order
of courtship is reversed " —facts all of them showing a
recognition of that equality of claims which is an essential
element in the idea of justice. And here I may add an
instance not before mentioned, furnished by the Manansas,
who occupy a hill-country in which they have taken ref
uge from the invading Bamangwatos and Makololo. Said
one of them to Holub — " We want not the blood of the
beasts, much less do we thirst for the blood of men ; " and
hence they are regarded with great contempt by the
more powerful tribes. Holub, however, testifying to their
honesty and fidelity, says that "nothing worse seems to
be alleged against them than their habitual courtesy and
good-nature ; " and he adds — " They treat their women in a
way that offers a very favourable contrast to either the

376 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

Bechuanas or the Matabele : " that is, they are relatively
just to them. Similarly, in The Principles of Sociology,
^ 330 — 2, I have shown how much the way in which
children are treated by warlike peoples who exercise over
them the powers of life and death, and behave to boys
far better than to girls, differs from the way in which they
are treated by these unwarlike peoples, whose conduct to
them is both kind and equal ; girls are dealt with as fairly
as boys.

To these indications that the sentiment of justice is
marked where the habits are peaceful, something should be
added respecting the overt expression of it. Little that is
definite can be expected from the uncultured, since both
the sentiment and the idea are complex. We may, how
ever, infer that in a Wood-Veddah who cannot conceive
that a man should take that which is not his own, there
exists a sufficiently clear, if not a formulated, idea of
justice ; and we may fairly say that this idea is implied in
the peaceful Tharus who, when they fly to the hills for
refuge, " always leave any arrears of rent that may be due
tied up in a rag to the lintel of their deserted house."
ISTor can we doubt that both the sentiment and idea, from
which result regard for other men's claims, must be
dominant in the Hos, of whom we read that one suspected
of theft is not unlikely to commit suicide, as also in the
Let-htas, an aboriginal hill-tribe in Burma, described as
ideally good, among whom one accused by several of an
evil act " retires to some secluded spot, there digs his grave
and strangles himself." But it is only when we pass to
peoples who have risen to a state of culture high enough to
evolve literatures, that we get definite evidence concerning
the conception of justice which has arisen, and among these
we meet with a very significant fact.

For throughout ancient societies at large, militant in
their activities, in their types of structure, and in the
universally-established system of status or compulsory

JUSTICE. 377

cooperation, justice is not differentiated in thought from
altruism in general. In the literatures of the Chinese, the
Persians, the Ancient Indians, the Egyptians, the Hebrews,
justice is in the main confounded with generosity and
humanity. The maxim commonly supposed to be especially
Christian, but which, as we have seen, was in kindred forms
enunciated among various peoples in pre-Christian days, shows
us this. " Do unto others as ye would that they should do
unto you," is an injunction which merges generosity and
justice in one. In the first place, it makes no distinction be
tween that which you are called upon to do to another on
grounds -of equity, and that which you are called upon to do to
him on grounds of kindness ; and, in the second place, it in
cludes no recognition, overt or tacit, of those claims of the
doer which we call " rights." In the consciousness of justice
properly so-called, there is included an egoistic as well as an
altruistic element — a consciousness of the claim of self and a
sympathetic consciousness of the claims of others. Percep
tion and assertion of this claim of self, cannot develop in a
society organized for \varfare, and carried on by compulsory
cooperation. Universal paralysis would ensue if each man
were free, within the limits prescribed by equity, to do as he
liked. Under a despotic rule there is scope for any amount
of generosity but for only a limited amount of justice. The
sentiment and the idea can grow only as fast as the external
antagonisms of societies decrease and the internal harmonious
co-operations of their members increase.

CHAPTER VII.

GENEKOSITY.

§ 142. To bring into intelligible order the kinds of con
duct ordinarily grouped under the name Generosity, is diffi
cult ; partly because much which passes under the name is
not really prompted by generous feeling, and partly because
generosity rightly so-called is complex in nature and its
composition variable.

Generosity is a double-rooted sentiment : one of its
roots being very ancient and the other very modern. Its
ancient root is the philoprogenitive instinct, which, as
manifested throughout a large part of the animal kingdom,
leads to the sacrifice of self for the benefit of offspring.
This form of generosity co-exists in many creatures with
absolute disregard of the welfare of all save offspring :
conspicuously so in the Carnivora and less conspicuously so
in the Ilerbivora. The relatively modern root of generosity
is sympathy, which is shown by some of the higher gregari
ous creatures, as the dog, in considerable degrees. This
trait is more variously and largely displayed by human
beings, and especially by certain higher types of them.
The earlier factor in the sentiment is personal and narrow',
while the later is impersonal and broad.

In mankind, generosity ordinarily combines the two.
The love of the helpless, which constitutes the essential
part of the philoprogenitive instinct, is, nearly always,
associated with fellow-feeling : the parent sympathizes with
the pleasures and pains of the child. Conversely, the

GENEROSITY. 379

feeling which prompts a generous act of one adult to
another, commonly includes an element derived from the
early instinct. The individual aided is conceived in a
distinct or vague way as an object of pity; and pity is a
sentiment closely allied to the parental, since it is drawn out
towards some being relatively helpless or unfortunate or
suffering.

To this mixed nature of the sentiment as commonly
displayed, is due the confusion in its manifestations among
races in different stages; and to it must consequently be
ascribed the perplexities which stand in the way of satisfac
tory inductions.

§ 143. As a preliminary it should be further remarked
that the sentiment of generosity, even in its developed
form, is simpler than the sentiment of justice; and hence
is earlier manifested. The one results from mental repre
sentations of the pleasures or pains of another or others— is
shown in acts instigated by the feelings which these men
tal representations arouse. But the other implies repre
sentations, not simply of pains or pleasures, but also, and
chiefly, representations of the conditions which are required
for, or are conducive to, the avoidance of pains or pro
curing of pleasures. Hence it includes a set of mental
actions superposed on the mental actions constituting
generosity.

.Recognition of this truth makes comprehensible the order
of their succession in the course of civilization. And this
order will be rendered still more comprehensible if we re
member that generosity, among people of low intelligence,
often results from inability to represent to themselves dis
tinctly the consequences of the sacrifices they make— they
are improvident.

§ 14:4. First to be dealt with is that pseudo-generosity
mainly composed of other feelings than benevolent ones.

380 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

The wish for the welfare of another is, indeed, rarely with
out alloy : there are mostly present other motives — chiefly
the desire for applause. But to the lowest of the actions
apparently caused by generosity, these other motives form
the predominant or sole prompters instead of the subordi
nate prompters.

The displays of hospitality among uncivilized and barbar
ous peoples furnishes striking examples. Of the Bedouin
" at once rapacious and profuse," and who is scrupulously
hospitable, Palgrave says : —

" He has in general but little to offer, and for that very little he not
unfrequently promises himself an ample retribution, by plundering his last
night's guest when a few hours distant on his morning journey."

Similarly of the Kirghiz, we are told by Atkinson that a
chief who does not molest travellers while with him, sends
his followers to rob them on their march. In East Africa,
too, a chief of Urori "will entertain his guests hospitably
as long as they remain in his village, but he will plunder
them the moment they leave it." Still more startling are
the apparent incongruities of conduct among the Fijians.

" The same native who within a few yards of his house would murder
a coining or departing guest for sake of a knife or a hatchet, will defend
him at the risk of his own life as soon as he has passed his threshold."

And then how little relation there is between generosity
rightly so-called and hospitality in such cases, is further
shown by the statement of Jackson that the Europeans who
have lived long among Fijians have become hospitable : " a
practice which they have adopted through the example of
these savages."

Among the uncivilized at large, of whatever type, hospi
tality of a less treacherous kind, prompted apparently by
usage the origin of which is difficult to understand, is con
stantly displayed.

" ' Custom ' enjoins the exercise of hospitality on every Aino. They
receive all strangers as they received me, giving them of their best, placing
them in the most honourable place, bestowing gifts upon them, and, when
they depart, furnishing them with cakes of boiled millet."

GENEROSITY. 381

"We read that among the Australians, the laws of hospitality
require that strangers should be perfectly unmolested dur-
incr their sojourn. Jackson says that according to the rules
of Samoan hospitality, strangers are well treated, receiv
ing the best of everything. According to Liechtenstein
"the Caffres are hospitable;1' and that "the hospitality
of the Africans has been noticed by almost every traveller
who has been much among them " is remarked by AVinter-
bottom. Of the tribes inhabiting North America Morgan
says : —

"One of the most attractive features of Indian society was the spirit of
hospitality by which it was pervaded. Perhaps no people ever carried this
principle to the same degree of universality, as did the Iroquois."

So, too, Angas tells us of the New Zealanders that they are
very hospitable to strangers.

By this last people we are shown in how large a measure
the love of applause is a factor in apparent generosity.
The New Zealanders, writes Thomson, have a great admira
tion of profuseness, and desire to be considered liberal at
their feasts ; and elsewhere he says that by them " heaping
up riches, unless to squander, was disgraceful." To an
allied feeling may be ascribed the trait presented by the
people of St. Augustine Island, among whom the dead were
judged and sent to happiness or misery according to their
" goodness " or " badness ; " and " goodness meant one whose
friends had given a grand funeral feast, and badness a per
son whose stingy friends provided nothing at all." To this
peremptory desire for approval is in some cases due an ex
penditure, on the occasion of a death or a marriage, so great
that the family is impoverished by it for years ; and in one
case, if not in more cases, female infanticide is committed
with the view of avoiding the ruinous expense which a
daughter's marriage entails.

To the prompters of pseudo-generosity thus disclosed, may
be added another disclosed by the habits of civilized settlers
in remote regions. Leading solitary lives as such men do,

382 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

the arrival of a stranger brings an immense relief from mo
notony, and gratifies the craving for social intercourse.
Hence it happens that travellers and sportsmen are not only
welcomed but even pressed to stay.

Manifestly, then, the sentiment which in many cases insti
gates hospitality to visitors and feasts to friends, is a pro-
ethical sentiment. There goes with it little, or none, of the
ethical sentiment proper.

§ 145. We find, however, among some of the most un
civilized peoples, displays of a generosity which is manifestly
genuine — sometimes, indeed, find displays of it greater than
among the civilized.

Burchell tells us even of the Bushmen that towards
one another they "exercise the virtues of hospitality and
generosity ; often in an extraordinary degree." So, too, he
says that the Hottentots are very hospitable among them
selves, and often to people of other tribes; and Kolben
expresses the belief that " In Munificence and Hospitality
the Hottentots, perhaps, go beyond all the other Nations
upon Earth." Of the East Africans, again, Livingstone
says : —

" The real politeness with which food is given by nearly all the interior
tribes, who have not had much intercourse with Europeans, makes it a
pleasure to accept."

Though, in the following extract concerning the people of
Loango, there is proof that love of approbation is a strong
prompter to generous actions, yet there seems evidence that
there is mingled with it a true sentiment of generosity.

" They are always ready to share the little they have with those whom
they know to be in need. If they have been fortunate in hunting and fishing,
or have procured something rare, they immediately run and tell their friends
and neighbours, taking to each his share. They would choose to stint
themselves rather than not give them this proof of their friendship. . . .
They call the Europeans close fists, because they give nothing for nothing."

Other races, some lower and some higher, yield like facts.
We read that the Australian natives who have been success
ful in hunting always, and without any remark, supply

GENEROSITY. 383

those of their number who have been unsuccessful with a
share of their meal. The account given by Vancouver
of the Sandwich Islanders, shows that, in their generosity
towards strangers, they were like most uncivilized peoples
before bad treatment by Europeans had demoralized them.
He says : —

'• Our reception and entertainment here [at Hawaii] by these unlettered
people, who in general have been distinguished by the appellation of sav
ages, was such as, I believe, is seldom equalled by the most civilized nations
of Europe."

Brett describes the Guiana tribes as " passionately fond
of their children ; hospitable to every one ; and, among
themselves, generous to a fault," These instances I may
reinforce by one from a remote region. Bogle stayed
while in Thibet with the Lama's family— that is, with his
relations, at whose hands he received much kindness. When
he offered them presents they refused to accept them ; say
ing — "You.. . . are come from a far country; it is our
business to render your stay agreeable ; why should you
make us presents ? "

§ 146. Various of the uncivilized display generosity in
other ways than by hospitality, and in ways which exhibit
the sentiment more clearly detached from other sentiments.
Illustrations are furnished by that very inferior race, the
Australians. They were always willing to show Mr. Eyre
where water was to be had, and, even unsolicited, would help
his men to dig for it. Their kindness in this respect seems
the more remarkable on remembering how difficult it was for
them to find a proper supply for themselves. Sturt tells us
that a friendly native has been known to interpose, at great
personal risk, on behalf of travellers whom a hostile tribe
was about to attack. "With an adjacent race it was the same.
During troubled times in Tasmania, the lives of white people
were in several instances " saved by the native women, who
would often steal away from the tribe, and give notice of an
26

384: THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

intended attack." Under another form, much generosity of
feeling is shown by the Tongans. Mariner writes of them
that—

" They never exult in any feats of bravery they may have performed, but,
on the contrary, take every opportunity of praising their adversaries ; and
this a man will do, although his adversary may be plainly a coward, and
will make an excuse for him, such as the unfavorableness of the opportunity,
or great fatigue, or ill state of health, or badness of his ground, &c."

These, and many kindred facts, make it clear that the
name " savages," as applied to the uncivilized, misleads us ;
and they suggest that the name might with greater propriety
be applied to many among ourselves and our European
neighbours.

§ 147. If, as we see, under the form of hospitality
enforced by custom, in which it is largely simulated, or
under forms in which it is more manifestly genuine, gener
osity is widely prevalent among peoples who have not
emerged from low stages of culture ; we need not be sur
prised to find expressions of generous sentiments, and in
junctions to perform generous actions, in the early literatures
of races which have risen to higher stages. The ancient
Indian books furnish examples. Here, from the Rig- Veda,
is an extract exhibiting the interested or non-sympathetic
prompting of generosity : —

"The givers of largesses abide high in the sky; the givers of horses live
•with the sun ; the givers of gold enjoy immortality ; the givers of raiment
prolong their lives."

Similarly Rig- Veda X. 107, eulogizes liberality to priests.

" [ regard as the king of men him who first presented a gift .... The
wise man makes largesse, giving his breastplate. Bountiful men neither
die nor fall into calamity ; they suffer neither wrong nor pain. Their liber
ality confers on them this whole world as well as heaven."

In the Code of Manu, too, we read that strangers are to be
allowed to sojourn and be well entertained. He must eat
before the householder (iii. 105). " The honouring of a
guest confers wealth, reputation, life, and heaven " (iii.

GENEROSITY. 3bO

106; iv. 29) and delivers from guilt (iii. OS). And kin
dred reasons for hospitality are given by Apastamba: —
The reception of guests is rewarded by •' immunity from misfortunes, and
heavenly bliss," (ii. o, 6, G.) " He who entertains guests for one night
obtains earthly happiness, a second night gains the middle air, a third
heavenly bliss, a fourth the world of unsurpassable bliss; many nights
procure endless worlds" (ii. o, 7, 1G.)

The literature of the Persians contains kindred thoughts.
In the Shdyast, the clothing of the soul in the next world
is said to be formed " out of almsgivings." Passages in
the Gulwtan enjoin liberality while reprobating asceticism.

"The liberal man who eats and bestows, is better than the religious man
who fasts and hoards. Whosoever hath forsaken luxury to gain the appro
bation of mankind, hath fallen from lawful into unlawful voluptuousness.''

And in the same work we have a more positive injunction
to be generous, but still associated with self-interest as a
motive.

" Do good, and do not speak of it, and assuredly thy kindness will be
recompensed to thee."

Passing to China we find in Confucius various kindred
injunctions ; dissociated, too, from promptings of lower
motives. Here are examples —

" Now the man of perfect virtue, wishing to be established himself, seeks
also to establish others ; wishing to be enlarged himself, he seeks also to
enlarge others.' "

" The Master said, ' Though a man have abilities as admirable as those of
the duke of Chow, yet if he be proud and niggardly, those other things aro
really not worth being looked at.' "

" When any of his [Confucius's] friends died, if he had no relations who
could be depended on for the necessary offices, he would say, ' I will bury
him.' "

That in the sacred books of the Hebrews are to be found
kindred admonitions, here joined with promises of super
natural rewards and there without such promises, needs no
saving. It should be added, however, that we art; not
enabled by these quoted passages to compare the characters
displayed by Indians, Persians, Chinese, or Hebrews, with
the characters described in the forei>;oin<r accounts travellers

386 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

give us of the uncivilized ; for these passages come from the
writings of exceptional men — poets and sages. But though
violent reaction against an all-pervading selfishness may
mostly be the cause of exaggerated expressions of generosity,
we must admit that the possibility of such exaggerated
expressions goes for something.

§ 148. Concerning generosity among European peoples, as
exhibited in history at successive stages of their progress, no
very definite statements can be made. AVe have evidence
that in early days there existed much the same feelings and
practices as those now existing among savages — practices
simulating generosity. Tacitus says of the primitive Ger
mans : —

" No nation indulges more profusely in entertainments and hospitality.
To exclude any human being from their roof is thought impious."

And these usages and ideas went, as we know, along with
utter lack of sympathy : they implied the generosity of dis
play sanctified by tradition.

Throughout the Middle Ages and down to comparatively
recent times, we see, along with a decreasing generosity
of display, little more than the generosity prompted by hope
of buying divine favour. The motive has been all along
expressed in the saying, — " He that hath pity upon the poor
lendeth to the Lord " (Prov. xix. 17) ; and the Lord is expected
to pay good interest. Christianity, even in its initial form,
represents the giving of alms as a means of salvation ; and
throughout many centuries of Christian history the giving of
alms had little other motive. Just as they built chapels to
compound for crimes and manumitted slaves to make peace
with God ; so, beyond a desire for the applause which
followed largesse, the only motive of the rich for performing
kind actions was an other-worldly motive — a dread of hell
and wish for heaven. As Mr. Lecky remarks—" Men gave
money to the poor, simply and exclusively for their own
spiritual benefit, and the welfare of the sufferer was altogether

GENEROSITY. 387

foreign to their thoughts." How utterly alien to generosity,
rightly so-called, was the feeling at work, is shown by the
unblushing, and indeed self-satisfied, avowal made by Sir
Thomas Browne in the passage which Mr. Lecky quotes
from him, — " I give no alms to satisfy the hunger of my
brother, but to fulfil and accomplish the will and command
of my God/'

In modern days, however, we may recognize a growing
proportion of true generosity — the ethical sentiment as
distinguished from the pro-ethical sentiment. Though
there is still in predominant amount that transcendental
self-seeking which does good here merely to get happiness
hereafter — though there are even multitudes who, in the
spirit of Sir Thomas Browne, feel no shame in the avowal
that their kindnesses to others are prompted by the wish
to please God more than by the wish to further human wel
fare ; yet there are many who, in conferring benefits, are
prompted mainly, and others who are prompted wholly, by
fellow-feeling with those whom they aid. And beyond the
manifestations of this sentiment of true generosity in private
actions, there are occasionally manifestations of it in public
actions ; as when the nation made a sacrifice of twenty
millions of money that the "West Indian slaves might be
emancipated.

That this development of true generosity has been conse
quent on increase of sympathy, and that sympathy has gained
scope for exercise and growth with the advance to an orderly
and amicable social life, scarcely needs saying.

§ 140. For reasons given at the outset, it is difficult to
bring the various manifestations of pseudo-generosity and
generosity proper, into generalizations of a definite kind.
And the impediment due to the complexity and variable
composition of the emotion prompting generous acts, is
made greater by the inconsistency of the traits which
men, and especially the lower types of men, present. Un-

388 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

balanced as their natures are, they act in quite opposite ways
according to the impulse which is for the moment in pos
session of consciousness. Angus tells us that "infanticide
is frequent among the New Zealanders." Yet "both parents
are almost idolatrously fond of their children ; " and while
Cook described them as " implacable towards their enemies,"
Thomson observed that they were kind to their slaves.
Other instances are furnished by the Negro races. Reade
says that in parts of Equatorial Africa where there is the
greatest treachery, there are also strong marks of affec
tionate friendship. Concerning the East Africans Burton
writes : —

" When childhood is passed, the father and son become natural enemies,
after the manner of wild beasts. Yet they arc a sociable race, and the
sudden loss of relatives sometimes leads from grief to hypochondria and
insanity."

Lacking those higher emotions which serve to coordinate

O O

the lower, these last severally determine the actions now this
way and now that, according to the incidents of the moment.
Hence only by comparison of extremes are we likely to dis
cover any significant relations of facts.

In the accounts of those most ferocious savages, the
cannibal Fijians, who worship cannibal gods, — savages
whose titles of honour are " the waster of " such a coast,
"the depopulator of" such an island, and who committed
atrocities which Williams said " I dare not record here,"
no mention is made of any generosity save that which
results from display. Among the predatory red men of
North America, the Dakotas may be singled out as those
who, in the greatest degree, show the aggressiveness and
revengefulness fostered by a life of chronic war — men by
whom prisoners, especially aged ones, are handed over to
the squaws to torture for their amusement. Here gen
erosity is referred to only to note its absence : the Dakota
is ungenerous, says Burton — never gives except to get
more in return. Similarly of the Nagas, ever fighting,

GENEEOSITY. 389

village with village as well as with neighbouring races,
carrying blood-feuds to extremes, dreaded as robbers and
murderers, and always mutilating their dead enemies, we
read that " they are totally devoid of a spark of generosity,
and will not give the most trilling articles without receiving
remuneration."

Of the converse connexion of traits the evidence is usually
not clear, for the reason that the generosity ascribed to
tribes which do not carry on perpetual hostilities is mostly
of the kind shown in hospitality, which is always open to the
interpretation of being due in part, if not wholly, to usage
or love of display. Thus Colquhoun, who talks of the " hos
pitable aborigines " and says u it is quite refreshing to turn
from the Christian Anamites to the less repulsive, if heathen,
hill-tribes " (the Steins who inhabit " fever-stricken haunts,"
where they can lead peaceful lives) says that "amongst them
a stranger is certain of a welcome ; the fatted pig or fowl is
at once killed, the loving cup produced." Similarly in his
earlier work, Across Chryse, Mr. Colquhoun, speaking of
indigenous peoples here and there islanded among the con
quering Tartars, speaks of them as " very pleasant in their
ways, kind and hospitable ; " and afterwards he quotes the
impressions of a resident French missionary, who spoke of
the peaceful native inhabitants as " simple, hospitable, hon
est," having "le bon cceur," while of the governing Chinese,
and especially the military mandarins, his verdict was —
" etre mandarin, c'est etre voleur, brigand ! " Of like mean
ing is the contrast drawn by the Abbe Favre in his Account
of tie Wild Tribes of the Malayan Peninsula. On the one
hand he describes the conquering race, the Malays, as being
full of predatory vices, lying, cheating, plundering — " no
man can entrust them with anything;" and, so far from
being hospitable, using every means to fleece the traveller.
On the other hand of the aboriginal peoples, who " fled to
the fastnesses of the interior, where they have since con
tinued in a savage state," he tells us that their disputes are

THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

settled " without fighting or malice," that they are " entirely
inoffensive," and " generally kind, affable, inclined to grati
tude and to beneficence," "liberal and generous." Briefly
contrasting the two he says — " The actions of Malays gen
erally show low sentiments and a sordid feeling ; but the
Jakuns are naturally proud and generous;" and then he
asks — « Whence then comes so remarkable a difference ? "
As a cause he comments on the " plundering and bloody
actions " of the piratical Malays ; while the Jakuns have
been led into quiet lives in their fastnesses. Let me add,
lastly, the case of the peaceful and " simple Arafuras," of
whom the French resident, M. Bik, says : — " They have a
very excusable ambition to gain the name of rich men, by
paying the debts of their poorer fellow- villagers . . . Thus
the only use they make of their riches is to employ it in
settling differences."

CIIAPTEE VIII.

HUMANITY.

§ 150. The division between the subject-matter of this
chapter and that of the last chapter, is in large measure
artificial, and defensible only for convenience sake. Kind
ness, pity, mercy, which we here group under the general
head of humanity, are closely allied to generosity ; though
less liable than it to be simulated by lower feelings. They
are all altruistic sentiments, and have for their common root,
sympathy. Hence we may expect to find, as we shall find,
that in respect of their relations to other traits of nature,
and to type of social life, much the same may be said of
them as may be said of generosity.

It may also be said of them, as of generosity, that while in
their developed forms they are mainly prompted by mental
representations of the pains or pleasures of other beings,
they usually contain to the last, as they contain in chief
measure at first, the parental feeling — the feeling which is
excited by the consciousness of relative incapacity or help
lessness — the pleasure felt in taking care of something which
tacitly appeals for aid. And the mixed nature of these
sentiments hence resulting, adds, as in the case of gener
osity, to the difficulty of generalizing.

A further difficulty, which is indeed a sequence of the
last, results from the incongruous emotions which many
types of men, and especially inferior types, display. Thus,

392 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

while Moffat says " the Bushmen will kill their children
without remorse," and while Lichtenstein tells us that no
other savages betray " so high a degree of brutal ferocity ; "
Moffat, speaking of their attentions to him when he was
ill, says : — " I was deeply affected by the sympathy of
these poor Bushmen, to whom we were utter strangers."
Agreeing with Burchell, Kolben describes the Hottentots
as friendly, liberal, benevolent ; and yet, from Kolben, as
from Sparrman, we learn that they frequently bury infants
alive, and leave their aged to die in solitary places. It is
so, too, with the Australians. While they abandon their
aged to perish, and often destroy their infants, they are
represented as fond and indulgent parents, and as often
showing kind feelings to travellers. More strange still is
the contrast exhibited in Borneo, where, according to Boyle,
a Dyak has often been seen rushing "through a captured
village, clasping in his arms a young child as tenderly as
possible, without relaxing his grasp of its father's gory
head."

In face of such facts it seems unlikely that our inductions
concerning the relations of humane feeling to type of man,
and to social type, can be more than rudely approximate.

§ 151. We may fitly begin with illustrations of entire lack
of sympathy, now taking the negative shape of simple in
difference to others' suffering, and now taking the positive
shape of delight in their suffering. Of the Karens Mason
says : —

" I have stood over an old woman dying alone in a miserable shed, and
tried in vain to induce her children and grandchildren, close by, to come
to help her."

The lack of feeling shown by the Honduras people in
Herrera's day, he illustrates by the refusal of a wife to
kill a lien for her sick husband, because, as she said, " her
husband would die, and then she should lose him and the
hen too." Various Negro races furnish kindred examples.
While, concerning the natives of Loando, Monteiro says

HUMANITY. 393

that " the negro is not cruelly inclined " [not actively
cruel] yet " he has not the slightest idea of mercy, pity,

or compassion " : —

" A fellow-creature, or animal, writhing in pain or torture, is to him a
si<rht highly provocative of merriment and enjoyment."
Duncan and Burton agree in saying that the Dahomans,
who "are void either of sympathy or gratitude, even iu
their own families," are " in point of parental affection,
inferior to brutes/' And then the Ashantees show us this
indifference formulated as a principle of conduct. Two of
their proverbs, as rendered by Burton, run thus: — "If an
other suffers pain, (to you) a piece of wood suffers." " The
distress of others is no concern of yours ; do not trouble
yourself about it."

Passing from negative to positive cruelty, we find in the
Damaras illustrations of both. Baines says of them :—
" Everybody knows that in other tribes the aged and helpless arc left to
perish, but, that a mother should refuse to pull a few bundles of grass to
close up a sleeping hut for her sick daughter. . . . is almost beyond belief."
And. according to Gallon, a sick man '' is pushed out of his
hut by his relations away from the fire into the cold ; they
do all they can to expedite his death." So with the negative
inhumanity of the Dahomans above named may be joined
their positive inhumanity ; shown, for instance, in the
'• annual customs " at which numbers of victims are slaugh
tered to supply a dead king " with fresh attendants in the
shadowy world," and again shown by decorating their
buildings with great numbers of human skulls, which they
make war to obtain. Of kindred testimonies Ilolub yields
one concerning the Marutse, asserting that " a brutal cruelty
is one of the predominant failings of these people ; " and
another is yielded by Lord Wolseley, who says that u the
love of bloodshed and of watching human bodily suffering
in any shape is a real natural pleasure to the negroes of
West Africa."

To these cases of positive inhumanity, may be added
those displayed by the predatory tribes of Xorth America

394 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

who, while they discipline their young men by subjecting
them to tortures, also torture their enemies. "Wolves
of women borne," as the Prairie Indians are called, hand
over "an old man or woman" for torture, "to the squaws
and papooses, pour les amnser." Burton who tells us this,
says of the Yutahs that they are " as cruel as their
limited intellects allow them to be." From another
authority we learn that the squaws among the Comanches
are crueller than the men, and delight in torturing the male
prisoners.

§ 152. Plow often misused words generate misleading
thoughts ! Savage, originally meaning rude, wild, uncul
tured, was consequently applied to aboriginal peoples.
Behaving treacherously and cruelly to voyagers, as some
of them did in retaliation, this trait was regarded as a
universal trait ; and " savage " came to mean ferocious.
Hence the baseless belief that savageness in this sense,
characterizes the uncivilized in contrast with the civilized.
But the inhumanity which has been shown by the races
classed as civilized, is certainly not less, and has often
been greater, than that shown by the races classed as
uncivilized.

Passing over the multitudinous cruelties which stain the
annals of ancient Eastern nations, of whom the Assyrians
may be named as a sample ; merely naming the doings of
the admired Homeric Greeks — liars, thieves and murderers,
as Grote shows — whose heroes revelled in atrocities ; and
not dwelling on the brutalities of the Spartans or the
callousness, if nothing more, of other later Greeks ; we
may turn to the liomans, whose ruthless civilization,
lauded by admirers of conquests, entailed on Europe
centuries of misery. Twenty generations of predatory wars,
developed a nature of which the savagery has rarely been
equalled by that of the worst barbarian races known to us.
Though the torture of captives has been practised by the

HUMANITY.

395

North American Indians, they have not been in the habit
of torturing their slaves. Though there were subject tribes
amono- the Fijians who were liable to be used for cannibal
feasts, yet the Fijians did not go to the length of killing
hundreds of his fellow-slaves along with one who had mur
dered his master. And if very often the uncivilized reduce
to bondage such of the conquered as are not slain, they do
not form them into herds, make them work like beasts, and
deny them all human privileges ; nor do they use any of
them to gratify their appetites for bloodshed by combats in
arenas — appetites so rampant in Eome that the need for
satisfying them was bracketed with the need for satisfying
bodily hunger. Using the word "savage" in its modern
acceptation, we may fairly say that, leaving the F'ijians out
of the comparison, the white savages of Rome outdid all
which the dark savages elsewhere have done.

Were it not that men are blinded by the theological bias
and the bias of patriotism, it would be clear to them that
throughout Christian Europe also, during the greater part
of its history, the inhumanity fostered by the wars between
societies, as well as by the feuds within each society, has
been carried to extremes beyond those reached by inferior
peoples whom we think of as ferocious. Though the
atrocities committed by such semi-civilized races as the
Mexicans and Central Americans, such as skinning victims
alive and tearing out their palpitating hearts, may not have
been paralleled in Europe ; yet Europeans, loudly professing
a religion of love, have far exceeded them in the ingenuity
of their multitudinous appliances for the infliction of pro
longed agonies on heretics, on witches, and on political
offenders. And even now, though at home the discipline of
a peaceful social life has nearly extinguished such inhumani
ties, yet by our people abroad there are still perpetrated in
human deeds, if not of these kinds, yet of other kinds. The
doinrrs of Australian settlers to the natives, of "beach
combers " and kidnappers in the Pacific, do but exemplify

396 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

in vivid ways the barbarous conduct of European invaders to
native races — races which, when they retaliate, are con
demned as " savage."

§ 153. While men of some varieties appear to be devoid
of sympathy, and the moral traits which it originates, there
are men of other varieties who, inferior to ourselves as they
may be in respect of culture, are our equals, and some of
them our superiors, in respect of humanity. Here, in the
briefest way, I string together the testimonies of travellers,
whose names will be found in the references.

The Veddahs are " in general gentle and affectionate : "
" widows are always supported by the community." Tannese
—''The sick are kindly attended to the last." In New
Guinea some tribes of Papuans have shown great humanity
to Europeans placed at their mercy. Dyaks — " Humane to
a degree which well might shame ourselves." Malagasy —
" Treat one another with more humanity than we do."
Esquimaux — "As between themselves, there can be no
people exceeding them in this virtue — kindness of heart."
Iroquois — "Kindness to the orphan, hospitality to all, and a
common brotherhood " were enjoined. Chippewas — before
the white man came, there was more "charity practised
towards one another ; and the widow and orphan were never
allowed to live in poverty and want." Araucanians — No
indigent person is to be found . . . the "most incapable
of subsisting themselves are • decently clothed :"" generous
and humane towards the vanquished." Mandingos — " It is
impossible for me to forget the disinterested charity, and
tender solicitude, with which many of these poor heathens
. . . sympathized with me in my sufferings." And Kolff,
speaking of the " continued kindness " of the inhabitants
of Luan, says — " I never met with more harmony, content
ment and toleration, more readiness to afford mutual assist
ance, more domestic peace and happiness, nor more humanity
and hospitality."

HUMANITY. 397

Though, «is in the case of the Bushmen, characterized by
Morlat in the first section of this chapter, humane actions on
some occasions are associated with brutal actions on other oc
casions, yet in some of the peoples here instanced — the Ved-
dahs, the Esquimaux, and the inhabitants of Luan — there is
no such alloy.

§ 15-i. In the literatures of ancient Eastern peoples, there
are numerous expressions of humane sentiments and exhor
tations to humane actions — utterances of poets and sages,
which, though they probably indicate in but small measure
the prevailing sentiments, may be taken as in some measure
significant of advance consequent on settled social life.
Among the early Indian books, the Mahabharata, contains
the following : —

"To injure none by thought or word or deed,
To give to others, and be kind to all —
This is the constant duty of the good."

And in the same book, the princess Savitri, urging Yama,
the god of death, to give back the soul of her husband
which he was carrying away, tells the god how noble is the
quality of mercy. She argues that to give is more divine
than to take; to preserve is mightier than to destroy. The
sacred book of the Persians, the Zend-Avesta, appears to
have its humane precepts in some measure prompted by the
doctrine of metempsychosis — kind treatment of animals
being insisted upon partly for that reason ; but Sadi, in the
(rulixtttH, has definite injunctions of a relevant kind : —
" Show mercy to the weak peasant ... it is criminal to crush the poor
and defenceless subjects with the arm of power . . . Thou who art indif
ferent to the sufferings of others deservest not to be called a man."
Charitable conduct was insisted upon among the Egyptians
too. According to Birch and Duncker, it was enjoined "to
give bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, • clothes to
the naked, and shelter to the wanderer ;" and the memoirs
in the tombs " portray just and charitable lives, protection
of the widow and the needy, care for the people in times of

398 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

famine." Similarly, the books of the Chinese sages agree
in emphasizing the virtues which flow from fellow-feeling.
According to Legge, Lao-tsze " seems to condemn the inflic
tion of capital punishment ; and he deplores the practice of
war." In a like spirit Confucius says that " benevolence is
the characteristic element of humanity." And Mencius too,
while alleging that the " feeling of commiseration is essential
to man," remarks that "so is the superior man affected
towards animals, that, having seen them alive, he cannot
bear to see them die." To all which has of course to be
added the evidence furnished by the sacred books of the
Hebrews, in the later of which there are injunctions to show
kindness and mercy, not to men only but to animals— injunc
tions which the European peoples who avowedly accepted
them, along with the still more humane doctrine of Jesus,
did so little throughout many centuries to practise, even in
small measure.

§ 155. Amid perturbing causes and conflicting testi
monies, no general conclusions seem trustworthy save those
reached by putting side by side the extreme cases. Compari
sons so made justify anticipation.

Of the Karens, instanced above as absolutely heartless,
it is said that " every tribe is antagonistic to each other,"
and there is almost continual war. So too is it with another
Indian race, the Afridis. The intensity of the fighting
propensity among them is such that " an Afrldl generally
lias a blood-feud with nine out of ten of his own relations ; "
and their lack of all humane sentiment is implied by the
statement that " ruthless, cowardly robbery, cold-blooded,
treacherous murder, are to an Afridi the salt of life." Then
we have the case of the Dahomans, above shown to be
utterly void of sympathy, even \vith their own offspring,
and whose absolutely militant social state is so exceptionally
indicated by their army of Amazons. The wildest tribes of
the North American Indians, too, the Dakotas and the

HUMANITY. 399

Comanches, whose inhumanity is shown by torturing their
prisoners, are tribes of warriors carrying on chronic feuds
and perpetual wars.

Of the converse relation, the most marked cases above
instanced are those exhibited by certain absolutely peaceful
peoples — the Esquimaux, the inhabitants of Luan, the Ved-
dahs. Among such, free as they are from those passions
which inter-tribal enmities exercise and increase, we find an
unusual display of that fellow-feeling which results in kindly
behaviour and benevolent actions.

And here, along with this contrast, may be joined a con
trast of kindred nature, between the absence and presence
of a trait allied to humane feeling — I mean gratitude ; for
of gratitude, as of humanity, the ultimate root is sympathy.
Of the fighting and destructive Fijians Williams says — " In
gratitude deeply and disgracefully stains the character of the
Fijian heathen."

" If one of them, when sick, obtained medicine from me, he thought me
bound to give him food ; the reception of food he considered as giving
him a claim on me for covering; and, that being secured, he deemed him
self at liberty to beg anything he wanted, and abuse me if I refused his
unreasonable request."

On the other hand, what do we read about the Yeddahs,
living always in peace? Mr. Atherton describes them as
" very grateful for attention or assistance;" and, as quoted
by Pridham, Mr. Bennett says that after having given some
Yeddahs presents and done them a service —
" a couple of elephant's tusks, nearly six feet in length, found their way
into his front verandah at night, but the Veddahs who had brought them
never gave him an opportunity to reward them. ' What a lesson in grati
tude and delicacy,' he observes, ' even a Veddah may teach ! ' "
Truly, indeed, they may teach this, by making in so un
obtrusive a way, and with great labour, a return greater in
value than the obligation ; and they may teach more — may
teach that where there have not been preached the Christian
virtues, these may be shown in a higher degree than
where they are ostentatiously professed and perpetually
enjoined.

CHAPTEK IX.

VERACITY.

§ 156. Complete truthfulness is one of the rarest of vir
tues. Even those who regard themselves as absolutely truth
ful are daily guilty of over-statements and under-statements.
Exaggeration is almost universal. The perpetual use of the
word " very," where the occasion does not call for it, shows
how widely diffused and confirmed is the habit of misrepre
sentation. And this habit sometimes goes along with the
loudest denunciations of falsehood. After much vehement
talk about " the veracities," will come utterly unveracious
accounts of things and people — accounts made unveracious
by the use of emphatic words where ordinary words alone
are warranted: pictures of which the outlines are correct
but the lights and shades and colours are doubly and trebly
as strong as they should be.

Here, among the countless deviations of statement from
fact, we are concerned only with those in which form is
wrong asrwell as colour — those in which the statement is
not merely a perversion of the fact but, practically, an
inversion of it. Chiefly, too, we have to deal with cases in
which personal interests of one or other kind are the
prompters to falsehood :- — now the desire to inflict injury, as
by false witness ; now the desire to gain a material advan
tage ; now the desire to escape a punishment or other threat
ened evil ; now the desire to get favour by saying that

VERACITY. 401

which pleases. For in mankind at large, the love of
truth for truth's sake, irrespective of ends, is but little
exemplified.

Here let us contemplate some of the illustrations of ve
racity and tin veracity — chiefly unveracity — furnished by vari
ous human races.

§ 157. The members of wild tribes in different parts of
the world, who, as hunters or as nomads, are more or less
hostile to their neighbours, are nearly always reprobated by
travellers for their untruthfulness ; as are also the members
of larger societies consolidated by conquest under despotic
rulers.

Says Burton of the Dakotas — "The Indian, like other
savages, never tells the truth.1' Of the Mishmis, Griffith
writes — "They have so little regard for truth, that one
cannot rely much on what they say." And a general
remark, d promos of the Kirghiz, is to the same effect.
" Truth, throughout Central Asia, is subservient to the pow
erful, and the ruler who governs leniently commands but
little respect."

Of the settled societies, the first to be named is the Fijian.
Williams tells us that —

" Among the Fijians the propensity to lie is so strong, that they seem to
have no wish to deny its existence. . . . Adroitness in lying is attained by
the constant use made of it to conceal the schemes and plots of the Chiefs,
to whom a ready and clever liar is a valuable acquisition. . . . ' A Fijian
truth ' has been regarded as a synonym for a lie."

Of kindred nature, under kindred conditions, is the trait dis
played by the people of Uganda.

" In common with all savage tribes, truth is held in very low estimation,
and it is never considered wrong to tell lies ; indeed, a successful liar is
considered a smart, clever fellow^ and rather admired."

So, too, was it among the ancient semi-civilized peoples of
Central Am'erica, De Laet says of certain of them, living
under a despotic and bloody regime — " they are liars, like
most of the Indians." And concerning the modern Indians^

402 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

who may be supposed to have preserved more or less the
character of their progenitors, Dunlop writes : —

" I never have found any native of Central America, who would admit
that there could be any vice in lying; and when one has succeeded in
cheating another, however gross and infamous the fraud may be, the na
tives will only remark, ' Que hombre vivo ' (What a clever fellow)."

A like fact is given by Mr. Foreman in his work on the
Philippine Islands. He says the natives do not " appear to
regard lying as a sin, but rather as a legitimate, though cun
ning, convenience."

§ 158. The literatures of ancient semi-civilized peoples
yield evidence of stages during which truth was little es
teemed, or rather, during which lying was tacitly or openly
applauded. As we saw in a recent chapter (§ 127) decep
tion, joined with atrocity, was occasionally inculcated in the
early Indian literature as a means to personal advancement.
We have proof in the Bible that, apart from the lying which
constituted false witness, and was to the injury of a neigh
bour, there was among the Hebrews but little reprobation
of lying. Indeed it would be remarkable were it otherwise,
considering that Jahveh set the example ; as when, to ruin
Ahab, he commissioned " a lying spirit " (1 Jfings, xxii, 22)
to deceive his prophets ; or as when, according to Ezekiel, xiv,
9, he threatened to use deception as a means of vengeance.

" If the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord
have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and
will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel."

Evidently from a race-character which evolved such a con
ception of a deity's principles, there naturally came no great
regard for veracity. This we see in sundry cases ; as when
Isaac said Rebecca was not his wife but his sister, and never
theless received the same year a bountiful harvest : " the
Lord blessed him" (Gen. xxvi, 12) ; or as when Rebecca in
duced Jacob to tell a lie to his father and defraud Esau — a
lie not condemned but shortly followed by a divine promise
of prosperity ; or as when Jeremiah tells a falsehood at the

VERACITY.

king's suggestion. Still we must not overlook the fact that
in the writings of the Hebrew prophets, as also in parts of
the New Testament, lying is strongly reprobated. Averag
ing the evidence, we may infer that along with the settled
life of the Hebrews there had grown up among them an
increased truthfulness.

Much regard for veracity was hardly to be expected
among the Greeks. In the Iliad the gods are represented
nut only as deceiving men but as deceiving one another.
The chiefs " do not hesitate at all manner of lying." Pallas
Athene is described as loving Ulysses because he is so de
ceitful ; and, in the words of Mahaffy, the Homeric society
is full of " guile and falsehood." ' Nor was it widely other
wise in later days. The trait alleged of the Cretans —
u always liars "—though it may have been more marked in
them than in Greeks at large, did not constitute an essential
difference. Mahaffy describes Greek conduct in the Attic
age as characterized by " treachery " and " selfish knavery,"
and says that Darius thought a Greek WT!IO kept his word a
notable exception.

Evidence of the relation between chronic hostilities and
utter disregard of truth, is furnished throughout the history
of Europe. In the Merovingian period — "the era of
* Marvelous are the effects of educational bias. Familiarity with the
doings of these people, guilty of so many " atrocities." characterized by such
'•revolting cruelty of manners," as Grote says, who were liars through all
grades from their gods down to their slaves, and whose religion was made up
of gross and brutal superstitions, distinguishes one of our leading statesmen ;
and, joined to familiarity with the doings of other Greeks, it is thought by
him to furnish the best possible preparation for life of the highest kind. In
a speech at Eton, reported in The Times, of 10 March, 1891, Mr. Gladstone
said — " If the purpose of education is to fit the human mind for the efficient
performance of the greatest functions, the ancient culture, and, above all,
Greek culture, is by far the best, the most lasting, and the most elastic
instrument that can possibly be applied to it." Other questions aside, one
might ask with puzzled curiosity which of Mr. Gladstone's creeds, as a
statesman, it is which we must ascribe to the influence of Greek culture —
whether the creed with which he set out as a Tory when fresh from Ox
ford, or the extreme radical creed which he has adopted of late years ?

404 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

" blood " — oaths taken by rulers, even with their hands on
the altar, were forthwith broken ; and Salvian wrrites — " If
a Frank forswear himself, where's the wonder, when he
thinks perjury but a form of speech, not of crime ? "
After perpetual wars during the two hundred years of the
Carolingian period, with Arabs, Saracens, Aquitanians, Sax
ons, Lombards, Slavs, Avars, Normans, came the early feudal
period, of which H. Martin says : —

" The tenth [century] may pass for the era of fraud and deceit. At no
other epoch of our history does the moral sense appear to have been so com
pletely effaced from the human soul as in that first period of feudalism."

And then, as an accompaniment and consequence of the
internal conflicts which ended in the establishment of the
French monarchy, there was a still-continued treachery :
the aristocracy in their relations with one another " were
without truth, loyalty, or disinterestedness . . . Neither life
nor character was safe in their hands." Though Mr. Lecky
ascribes the mediaeval " indifference to truth " to other
causes than chronic militancy, yet he furnishes a sentence
which indirectly yields support to the induction here made,
and is the more to be valued because it is not intended to
yield such support. He remarks that " where the indus
trial spirit has not penetrated, truthfulness rarely occupies
in the popular mind the same prominent position in the
catalogue of virtues " as it does among those " educated in
the habits of industrial life."

Nor do we fail to see at the present time, in the contrasts
between the Eastern and Western nations of Europe, a like
relation of phenomena.

§ 159. Reflection shows, ho\vever, that this relation is
not a direct one. There is no immediate connexion between
bloodthirstiness and the telling of lies. Nor because a man
is kind-hearted does it follow that he is truthful. If, as
above implied, a life of amity is conducive to veracity, while
a life of enmity fosters unveracity, the dependencies must be

VERACITY.

405

indirect. After glancing at some further facts, we shall
understand better in what ways these traits of life and
character are usually associated.

In respect of veracity, as in respect of other virtues, I
have again to instance various aboriginal peoples who have
been thrust by invading races into undesirable habitats ; and
have there been left either in absolute tranquillity or free
from chronic hostilities with their neighbours. Saying of
the Kois that they all seem to suffer from chronic fever
(which sufficiently shows why they are left unmolested in
their malarious wilds) Morris tells us that—
" They are noted for truthfulness, and are quite an example in this re
spect to the civilized and more cultivated inhabitants of the plains."
According to Shortt, in his Hill fianges of Southern India—
" A pleasing feature in their [Sowrahs] character is their complete
truthfulness. They do not know how to tell a lie. They are not suffi
ciently civilized to be able to invent."

I may remark in passing that I have heard other Anglo-
Indians assign lack of intelligence as the cause of this good
trait — a not very respectable endeavour to save the credit of
the higher races. Considering that small children tell lies,
and that lies are told, if not in speech yet in acts, by dogs,
considerable hardihood is shown in ascribing the truthful
ness of these and kindred peoples to stupidity. In his
Highlands of Central India, Forsyth writes :—

" The aborigine is the most truthful of beings, and rarely denies either a
money obligation or a crime really chargeable against him."
Describing the Ramosis, Sinclair alleges that—
" They are as great liars as the most civilized races, differing in this from
the Hill tribes proper, and from the Parwaris, of whom I once knew a
Brahman to say: ' The Kunabis, if they have made a promise, will keep it,
but a Mahar [Parwari] is such a fool that he will tell the truth without
any reason at all.' "

And this opinion expressed by the Brahman, well illustrates
the way in which their more civilized neighbours corrupt
these veracious aborigines ; for while Sherwill, writing of
another tribe, says — "The truth is by a Sonthal held
sacred, offering in this respect a bright example to their

406 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

lying neighbours the Bengalis," it is remarked of them by
Man that—

"Evil communications are exercising their baneful influences over them,
and soon, I fear, the proverbial veracity of the Sonthal will cease to become
a by-word."

In The Principles of Sociology, vol. ii, §§ 437 and 574, I
gave the names of others of these Indian hill-tribes noted
for veracity — the Bodo and Dhimals, the Carnatic abori
gines, the Todas, the Hos ; arid here I may add one more,
the Puluyans, whose refuge is " hemmed in on all sides by
mountains, woods, backwaters, swamps, and the sea," and
who " are sometimes distinguished by a rare character for
truth and honour, which their superiors in the caste scale
might well emulate." So too is it in a neighbouring land,
Ceylon. Wood-Veddahs are described as " proverbiallv truth
ful and honest." From other regions there comes kindred
evidence. Of some Northern Asiatic peoples, who are ap
parently without any organization for offence or defence, we
read : — " To the credit of the Ostiaks and Samoiedes it
must be said, that they are eminently distinguished for in
tegrity and truthfulness."

But now we have to note facts which make us pause.
There are instances of truthfulness among peoples who
are but partially peaceful, and among others who are any
thing but peaceful. Though characterized as " mild, quiet,
and timid," the Hottentots have not infrequent wars about
territories ; and yet, in agreement with Barrow, Kolben
says —

The Word of a Hottentot " is sacred : and there is hardly any Thing
upon Earth they look upon as a fouler Crime than breach of Engagement."
Morgan, writing of the Iroquois, states that " the love of
truth was another marked trait of the Indian character."
And yet, though the Iroquois league was formed avowedly
for the preservation of peace, and achieved this end in
respect of its component nations, these nations carried on
hostilities with their neighbours. The Patagonian tribes

VERACITY. 407

have frequent fights with one another, as well as with the
aggressive Spaniards ; and yet Snow says—" A lie with
them is held in detestation." The Khonds, too, \vlio believe
that truthfulness is one of the most sacred duties imposed
by the gods, have " sanguinary conflicts " between tribes
respecting their lands. And of the Kolis, inhabiting the
highlands of the Dekhan, we read that though " manlv,
simple, and truthful," they are " great plunderers " arid
guilty of " unrelenting cruelty."

What is there in common between these truthful and pa
cific tribes and these truthful tribes which are more or less
warlike '{ The common trait is that they are not subject to
coercive rule. That this is so with tribes which are peace
ful, I have shown elsewhere (Principles of Sociology, ii,
§§ 573 — 4); and here we come upon the significant fact that
it is so, too, with truthful tribes which are not peaceful.
The Hottentots are governed by an assembly deciding by a
majority, and the head men have but little authority. The
Iroquois were under the control of a council of fifty elected
sachems, who could be deposed by their tribes ; and military
expeditions, led by chiefs chosen for merit, were left to
private enterprise and voluntary service. Among the
Patagonians there was but feeble government : followers
deserting their chiefs if dissatisfied. Writing of the Khonds'
" system of society " Macpherson says — " The spirit of equal
ity pervades its whole constitution, society is governed by the
moral influence of its natural heads alone, to the entire ex
clusion of the principle of coercive authority."

§ 160. In the remarks of sundry travellers, we find evi
dence that it is the presence or absence of despotic rule which
leads to prevalent falsehood or prevalent truth.

Reference to the Reports on the Discovery of Peru of
Xeres and Pizarro (pp. 68—9, 85—6, 114—120), makes it
manifest that the general untruthfulness described was due to
the intimidation the Indians were subject to. So, too, respect-

408 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

ing the Mexicans, the Franciscan testimony was — " They are
liars, but to those who treat them well they speak the
truth readily." A clear conception of the relation between
mendacity and fear was given to Livingstone by his experi
ences. Speaking of the falsehood of the East Africans he
says —

" But great as this failing is among the free, it is much more annoying
among the slaves. One can scarcely induce a slave to translate anything
truly: he is so intent on thinking of what will please."

And he further remarks that " untruthf ulness is a sort of
refuge for the weak and oppressed."

A glance over civilized communities at once furnishes
verification. Of European peoples, those subject to the
most absolute rule, running down from their autocrat
through all grades, are the Russians ; and their extreme
untruthfulness is notorious. Among the Egyptians, long
subject to a despotism administered by despotic officials, a
man prides himself on successful lying, and will even ascribe
a defect in his work to failure in deceiving some one.
Then we have the case of the Hindus, who, in their early
days irresponsibly governed, afterwards subject for a long
period to the brutal rule of the Mahometans, and since that
time to the scarcely-less brutal rule of the Christians, are so
utterly untruthful that oaths in Courts of Justice are of no
avail, and lying is confessed to without shame. Histories tell
like tales of a mendacity which, beginning with the ruled,
infects the rulers. Writing of the later feudal period in
France, Michelet says : — " It is curious to trace from year to
year the lies and tergiversations of the royal false coiner " ;
but nowadays political deceptions in France, though still
practised, are nothing like so gross. Nor has it been other
wise among ourselves. If with the "universal and loath
some treachery of which every statesman of every party was
continually guilty," during Elizabeth's reign, while monarch
ical power was still but little qualified, we contrast the ve
racity of statesmen in recent days, we see a kindred instance

VERACITY. 409

of the relations between the untrutlifulness which accom
panies tyranny and the truthfulness which arises along with
increase of liberty.

Hence such connexions as we trace between mendacity
and a life of external enmity, and between veracity and a
life of internal amity, are not due to any direct relations
between violence and lying and between peacefulness
and truth-telling ; but are due to the coercive social
structure which chronic external enmity develops, and to
the non-coercive social structure developed by a life of
internal amity. To which it should be added that under
the one set of conditions there is little or no ethical, or
rather pro-ethical, reprobation of lying ; while under the
other set of conditions the pro -ethical reprobation of lying,
and in considerable measure the ethical reprobation, become
strong.

CHAPTER X.

OBEDIENCE.

§ 161. Under the one name " obedience " are grouped
two kinds of conduct, which have widely different sanctions :
the one sanction being permanent and the other temporary.
Filial obedience and political obedience being thus bracketed,
the idea of virtuousness is associated with both ; and almost
everyone thinks that a submission which is praiseworthy in
the one case, is praiseworthy in the other also.

Here we have to recognize the truth that while due subor
dination of child to parent originates in a permanent order
of Nature, and is unconditionally good, the subordination of
citizen to government is appropriate to a process which is
transitional, and is but conditionally good.

It is true that in societies which have had a genesis
of the kind erroneously supposed by Sir Henry Maine to
be universal, the two kinds of obedience have a common
root: the patriarchal group grows out of the family, and,
by insensible steps, the subjection of children to parents
passes into the subjection of adult sons to their father, and
the subjection of family-groups to the father of the father
or patriarch. It is true, also, that by union of many
patriarchal groups there is produced an organization in
which a supreme patriarch is the political head. But in
developed societies, such as those of modern days, these
primitive relationships have wholly disappeared, and the two
kinds of obedience have become quite distinct. Xeverthe-

OBEDIENCE. 411

less, being in large measure prompted by the same senti
ment, the two commonly vary together.

In contemplating the facts, we will first take those
which concern the subordination of child to father, and
then those which concern the subordination of citizen to
government.

§ 162. The earliest social stages are characterized not only
by absence of chiefs, and therefore absence of the sentiment
which causes political submission, but they are often char
acterized by such small submission of sons as renders the
human family-group near akin to the brutal family-group — a
group in which parental responsibility on the one side, and
filial subjection on the other, soon cease.

The American races yield instances. The Araucanians
f- never punish their male children, considering chastisement
degrading, and calculated to render the future man pusil
lanimous and unfit for the duties of a warrior." Among the
Arawaks affection seems to prompt this lenient treatment :
a father "• will bear any insult or inconvenience from his
child tamely, rather than administer personal correction."
And then of a Dakota boy we read that—

'• At ten or twelve, he openly rebels against all domestic rule, and does not
hesitate to strike his father : the parent then goes off rubbing his hurt, and
boasting to his neighbours of the brave boy whom he has begotten."

Some old-world races supply kindred illustrations. Of the
East Africans, Burton says : — " "When childhood is past, the
father and son become natural enemies, after the manner of
wild beasts." So, too, when, writing about the Bedouin
character, and commenting on " the daily quarrels between
parents and children," Burckhardt tells us that " instead of
teaching the boy civil manners, the father desires him to beat
and pelt the strangers who come to the tent," to cultivate his
high spirit : adding elsewhere that—

'• The young man, as soon as it is in his power, emancipates himself from
the father's authority . . whenever he can become master of a tent himself

412 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

... he listens to no advice, nor obeys any earthly command but that of
his own will."

Associated with insubordination to parents, we sometimes
have cruelty shown to them in age. A Chippewayan old
man "is neglected, and treated with great disrespect, even by
his own children ; " and the Kamtschadales " did not even
consider it a violation of filial duty to kill them [their parents]
when they became burdensome."

Towards mothers, more especially, is disregard shown :
their relatively low position as slaves to men, prompting
contempt for them. By the Dakotas " the son is taught to
make his mother toil for him." In Fiji " one of the first
lessons taught the infant is to strike its mother, a neglect of
which would beget a fear lest the child should grow up to be
a coward." When a young Hottentot has been admitted
into the society of men —

He " may insult " his mother " when he will with Impunity. He may cudgel
her, if he pleases, only for his Humour, without any danger of being called
to an Account for it." Such actions are " esteemed as Tokens of a Manly
Temper and Bravery."

Concerning the Zulu boys Thompson writes :—
" It Is a melancholy fact, that when they have arrived at a very early age,
should their mothers attempt to chas tise them, such is the law, that these
lads are at the moment allowed to kill their mothers."

And Mason says of the Karens that —

" Occasionally, when the mother gives annoyance to her children by
reproving them ; one will say : ' My mother talks excessively. I shall not be
happy till she dies. I will sell her, though I do not get more than a gong
or five rupees fot her.' And he sells her."

So far as these instances go, they associate lack of
obedience of children to parents with a low type of social
organization. This, however, is not a uniform relation, as
we see in the case of the Esquimaux, among whom " the
affection of the parents for their children is very great, and
disobedience on the part of the latter is rare. The parents
never inflict physical chastisement upori the children." The
fact would appear to be that in the lowest social groups, we
may have either filial obedience or filial disobedience ; but

OBEDIENCE. 413

that if the groups are of kinds which lead lives of antagonism,
then, in the absence of filial obedience, there does not arise
that cohesion required for social organization.

§ 163. This is implied by the converse connexion which
we see displayed among various types of men.

If, with the wandering Semites above named, we contrast
the Semites who, though at first wandering, became settled
and politically-organized, we see little filial subordination in
the one and much in the other. Among the Hebrews the
head of the family exercised capital jurisdiction {Genesis
xxxviii. 2-1). In the decalogue (Exodus xx. 12) honouring
parents comes next to obeying God. In Leviticus xx. 9,
punishment is threatened for cursing father or mother,
just as it is for blasphemy ; and in Deuteronomy xxi. 18 — 21,
it is ordered that a rebellious son shall be publicly stoned
to death. Of another branch of the race, which assumed
the coercive type of social organization — the Assyrians — we
read that—

'• A father was supreme in his household ... If the son or daughter dis
owned his father he was sold as a slave, and if he disowned his mother he
was outlawed."

By the Hindus, filial piety, vividly shown by sacrifices of
food to deceased father, grandfather, great-grandfather, &c.,
was in early times vividly shown, too, during life.

" The father of Nakiketas had offered what is called an All-sacrifice, which
requires a man to give away all that he possesses. His son, hearing of his
father's vow, asks him, whether he does or does not mean to fulfil his vow
without reserve. At first the father hesitates ; at last, becoming angry, he
says : ' Yes, I shall give thee also unto death.' The father, having once
said so, was bound to fulfil his vow, and to sacrifice his son to death. The
son is quite willing to go, in order to redeem his father's rash promise."

?S o less conspicuously has this connexion been exhibited in
China, where It has continued from the earliest recorded
days down to our owfc. With the established worship of
ancestors, by whom are supposed to be consumed the
periodical offerings of food, etc., made to them, there has
all alon"- «;one the absolute subordination of children

414 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

to living parents. Says Confucius — " Filial piety and
fraternal submission ! — are they not the root of all benevolent
actions ? " An old Chinese saying runs — " Among the
hundred virtues, filial piety is the chief ; " and a sacred edict
of 1670 says filial piety is " the first and greatest of the
commandments in China." It was the same in another
large society of which the continuity goes back beyond our
chronology : I mean that of the Egyptians. According to
Ptah-hotep, " the secret of moral duty is obedience ; filial
obedience is its root." Nor was it otherwise with the
society which, beginning as a small cluster of clans, spread
and spread till it over-ran all Europe, with parts of Asia and
Africa. The subjection of sons to fathers in early Roman
days, and long afterwards, was absolute — less qualified
indeed, than in China; for though down to the present time
Chinese parents have the right of infanticide, and may sell
their children as servants or slaves ; and though, by implica
tion, adult sons can do nothing without parental approval,
or own property not subject to parental confiscation ; yet we
do not read that the Chinese have exercised the power of
life and death over adult children, as did the Romans. Of
course with the establishment of this absolute parental
power went the assumption that filial submission should be
absolute. And if, throughout subsequent European history,
a father's authority and a child's subjection have been less
extreme ; yet, up to comparatively modern times, they have
been very decided.

By various types of men we are thus shown that filial
obedience has constantly accompanied social growth and con
solidation : if not throughout, yet during its earlier stages.

§ 164. The height to which political obedience rises is
determined, in chief measure, by the existence of favourable
conditions. If the physical characters of the habitat are
such as to negative large aggregations of men — as they do in
wide tracts which are barren, leading to nomadic life, or as

OBEDIENCE. 415

they do where mountain chains cut off group from group
— the tendency seems rather to be for the filial sentiment
to develop no further than the patriarchal ; and along with
this restricted growth there may go resistance to a wider
rule. The Khonds exemplify this : —

" For the head of a family all the tribes have the greatest respect, it being
a proverb with them that ' A man's fat her is his God on earth.' The so
cial organization among them is indeed strictly patriarchal, the father of
a family being its absolute ruler in every case. Disobedience to him under
any circumstances is regarded as a crime."

This trait is possessed by another mountain people, the Bhils,
who, along \vith a certain amount of submission to general
chiefs, show an extreme allegiance to their family-chiefs or
patriarchs, called Turwees.

" So wonderful is the influence of the chief over this infatuated people,
that in no situation, however desperate, can they be induced to betray
him." "To kill another when their Turwee desires, or to suffer death
themselves, appear to them equally a matter of indifference."

From filial obedience, thus widening in range, may in
time develop a settled political obedience, where physical
circumstances favour it; and especially where there arises
combined action in war. Pallas tells us that the Kalmucks
manifest much " attachment towards their legitimate rulers " ;

and that they honour and obey their parents. Among the
Sgaus, a division of the Karens (apparently unlike the other
divisions) —

" The elders say : ' 0 children and grandchildren ! respect and reverence
your mother and father.' . . . ' 0, children and grandchildren ! obey the
orders of kings, for kings in former times obeyed the commands of God."

But it is in the larger societies of primitive types that
the two kinds of obedience are most closely associated. In
China where, as before shown, filial obedience is extreme,
we see them jointly insisted upon ; as implied by Tsze-hea
when he lauded a man "if, in serving his parents, he can
exert his utmost strength, if, in serving his prince, he can
devote his life;" arid as implied in the conduct of Confu
cius, already quoted as enjoining filial obedience, who when
28

416 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

" passing the vacant place of the prince, his countenance ap
peared to change, and his legs to bend under him, and his
words came as if he hardly had breath to utter them." After
recognizing in China occasional dissent, as of Mencius, who
in one place suggests rebellion, we may pass to Persia.
Here, too, there were solitary expressions of independence,
as by the Darwesh who said that " kings are for the pro
tection of their subjects, not subjects for the service of
kings ; " but, in general, political obedience was urged, for
reasons of prudence if for no other. One of their vazirs
said : —

" Opinions differing from the king, to have
'Tis your own hands in your own blood to lave.
Should he affirm the day to be the night,
Say you behold the moon and Pleiads' light."

And Sadi enjoins the attitude of submission as a part of
duty : instance the sentence : —

" Whosoever possesseth the qualities of righteousness placeth his head
on the threshold of obedience."

Among the Ancient Indians, instanced above as carrying
to an extreme the submission of son to father, political sub
mission was strongly insisted on ; as in the Code of Manu,
where it is held wrong to treat even a child-king "as if he
wrere a mortal ; he is a great divinity in human shape."
Then in Egypt, along with that exhortation to obey parents
quoted from Ptah-hotep, may be named his approval of
wider obedience : — " If thou abasest thyself in obeying a
superior, thy conduct is entirely good before God." Com
menting on the grovelling prostrations represented in their
sculptures and paintings, Duncker remarks that the Egyp
tians " worshipped their kings as the deities of the land."
Indeed, in the inscriptions on the tombs of officials, the
deeds implying such worship are specified as proofs of their
virtue. Nor was it otherwise with the Hebrews. While,
in their decalogue, religious obedience and filial obedience are
closely coupled, there was elsewhere joined with these politi
cal obedience ; as in Proverbs xvi. 10, where it is said : — "A

OBEDIENCE. 417

divine sentence is in the lips of the king ; his mouth trans-
gresseth not."

Throughout European history a like relationship is trace
able. Along with the theory and practice of absolute
subjection of child to parent, there went the theory and
practice of absolute subjection to the chief man of the
group — now to the local head, while the groups were small
and incoherent, and now to the central head, when they
became large and consolidated. Less definite forms of rule
having been replaced by feudalism, there first came fealty
to the feudal lord, and then, with advancing political inte
gration, there came loyalty to the king. In the old French
epic the one inexpiable crime is the treason of a vassal ;
the noblest virtue is a vassal's fidelity. In our own coun
try the extreme loyalty of the highlanders to the chiefs of
their clans, and subsequently to the Stuarts as their kings,
exemplifies the dominance of the sentiment; while the
English nobility have, among other ways of showing this
feeling, shown it in sundry of their mottoes ; as instance —
Paulet and others, " Aimez loyaulte ; " Earl Grey and
others, "De bon vouloir servir le roy;" Earl of Lindsay,
" Loyalty binds me ; " Baron Mowbray, " I will be loyal
during my life ; " Earl of Rosse, " For God and the King ; "
Adair, " Loyal to the death."

And here let us note how the frequency with which loyalty
is thus expressed as the highest of sentiments, reminds us of
the frequency with which aggressiveness has been, by other
nobles, chosen as the sentiment most worthy to be professed.

§ 165. The significance of this association lies in the fact
that they are both accompaniments of chronic militancy.
When we remember that first of all the chief, and in later
days the king, 'and later still the emperor, is primarily the
supreme commander ; and that his headship in peace is but
a sequence of his headship in war; it is clear that at the
outset political obedience is identical with military obedience.

418 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

Further, it needs but to consider that for success in war ab
solute subordination to the Commander-in-chief is essential,
and that absolute subordination to him as kins; is a concomi-

tant, to see that while the militancy remains active, the two
remain one.

Additional evidence of this relationship is yielded by a
few cases in which political obedience is carried to an
extreme exceeding obedience of all other kinds. The
first to be named is afforded by a people who have passed
away — the warlike and cannibal Mexicans, who invaded
their neighbours to get victims to satisfy their hungry gods.
Montezuma II., says Herrera, "caused himself to be so
highly respected, that it almost came to be adoration. No
commoner was to look him in the face, and if one did, he
died for it." According to Peter of Ghent, "the worst
feature in the character of the Indians is their submissive-
ness ; " and then Herrera, illustrating their loyalty, names a
man who would not betray his lord, but rather than do so
allowed himself to be " torn piece-meal " by dogs. Among
existing peoples, a striking example is furnished by the
cannibal Fijians. These ferocious savages, revelling in war
and destruction, are described by Erskine as intensely loyal.
So obedient are they to their chiefs, says Jackson, that
they have been known to eat pumice-stone when commanded
to do so ; and Williams says that a condemned man stands
unbound to be killed, himself declaring — "Whatever the
king says, must be done." Of the bloody Dahomans, too,
with their Amazon army, we are told by one traveller that
" before the king all are slaves alike," and by another that
" they reverence him with a mixture of love and fear, little
short of adoration : " " parents are held to have no right or
claim to their children, who, like everything else, belong to
the king." So that political subordination submerges all
other kinds of subordination.

ISror is it only by these extreme cases, and by the extreme
converse cases, that this connexion is shown. It is shown

OBEDIENCE. 419

also by the intermediate cases : instance the various peoples
of Europe. In Russia militancy and its appliances subor
dinate the entire national life; and among Europeans the
Russians display the most abject obedience : gaining, there
by, the applause of Mr. Carlyle. Loyal to the point of wor
ship, they submit unresistingly to the dictation of all State-
officials down to the lowest. On the other hand, we are our
selves the people among whom militancy and its appliances
occupy the smallest space in the national life, and among
whom there is least political subjection. The Government
has come to be a servant instead of a master. Citizens se
verely criticize their princes ; discuss the propriety of abol
ishing one division of the legislature; and expel from power
ministers who do not please them.

Xor is it otherwise when we compare earlier and later
stages of the same nation. By these, too, we are shown
that as fast as the life of internal amity outgrows the life
of external enmity, the sentiment of obedience declines.
Though submissive loyality to the living German Kaiser is
great, yet it is not so great as was the submissive loyalty to
his conquering ancestor, Frederick II., when Forster wrote
— " "What chiefly disgusted me was the deification of the
king." If, notwithstanding the nominally free form of their
government, the mass of the French people let their liberties
be trampled upon to an extent which the English delegates
to a Trades-Union Congress in Paris said is " a disgrace
to, and an anomaly in, a Republican nation ; " yet their
willing subordination is not so great as it was at the time
when war had raised the French monarchy to its zenith.
In our own case, too, while there is a marked contrast
between the amount of war, internal and external, in early
days, and the complete internal peace, joined with long
external peace, which recent times have knoAvn ; there is a
contrast no less marked between the great loyalty shown
in early days and the moderate loyalty, largely nominal,
shown at present.

420 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

It remains only to add that, along with the decline of
political subordination there has gone a decline of filial
subordination. The harsh rule of parents and humble
submission of children in past centuries, have, in our times,
been exchanged for a very moderate exercise of parental
authority and a filial subjection which, far less conspicuous
during youth than it used to be, almost ceases when the
age for marriage arrives.

§ 166. Thus, akin though they are in the sentiment
prompting them, and in the main varying together, the
two kinds of obedience, filial and political, have different
sanctions. The one is bound up with the laws of life,
while the other is dependent on the needs of the social state,
and changes as they change.

For the obedience of child to parent there is the warrant
arising from relatively-imperfect development, and there is
the warrant arising from the obligation to make some
return for benefits received. These are obviously perma
nent ; and though, with the advance from lower to higher
types of man and society, filial subjection decreases, yet some
degree of it must ever remain, and must continue to be
prompted by an ethical sentiment properly so-called.

On the other hand, political obedience, non-existent in
groups of primitive men, comes into existence during the
political integrations effected by war — during the growth and
organization of large societies formed by successive con
quests. The development of political obedience in such soci
eties is a necessity ; since, without it, there cannot be carried
on the combined actions by which subjugations and consoli
dations are brought about.

The implication is that the sentiment of political obedience,
having but a transitional function, must decrease in amount
as the function decreases in needfulness. Along with decline
of that system of status characterizing the militant type of
organization, and rise of that system of contract charac-

OBEDIENCE.

421

terizing the industrial type, the need for subjection becomes
gradually less. The change of sentiment accompanying
this change from compulsory co-operation to voluntary
co-operation, while it modifies the relations of citizens to
one another, modifies also their relations to their govern
ment : to this the same degree of obedience is neither
required nor felt. Humble submission ceases to be a
virtue; and in place of it there comes the virtue of inde
pendence.

Decline of political obedience and waning belief in the
duty of it, go along with increasing subordination to ethical
principles, a clearer recognition of the supremacy of these,
and a determination to abide by them rather than by legisla
tive dictates. More and more the pro-ethical sentiments
prompting obedience to government, come into conflict with
the ethical sentiment prompting obedience to conscience.
More and more this last causes unconformity to laws which
are at variance with equity. And more and more it comes
to be felt that legal coercion is warranted only in so far as
law is an enforcer of justice.

That political obedience is thus a purely transitional
virtue, cannot be perceived while the need for political sub
ordination remains great ; and while it remains great the un
limited authority of the ruling power (if not a man then a
majority) will continue to be asserted. But if from past
changes we are to infer future changes, we may conclude
that in an advanced state, the sphere of political obedience
will have comparatively narrow limits ; and that beyond
those limits the submission of citizen to government will no
more be regarded as meritorious than is now the cringing of
a slave to a master.

CHAPTEK XI.

INDUSTRY.

§ 167. If we are to understand the origins and variations
of the sentiments, ethical and pro-ethical, which have been
entertained in different times and places concerning indus
try and the absence of industry, we must first note certain
fundamental distinctions between classes of human activities,
and between their relations to the social state.

Industry, as we now understand it, scarcely exists among
primitive men — scarcely, indeed, can exist before the pastoral
and agricultural states have been established. Living on
wild products, savages of early types have to expend their
energies primarily in gathering and catching these : the
obtainment of some, like fruits and roots, being easy and
safe, and the obtainment of others, such as beasts of which
some are swift and some are large, being difficult and
dangerous. After these the remaining activities, more diffi
cult and dangerous than those the chase implies, are implied
by warfare with fellow-men. Hence the occupations of the
utterly uncivilized may be roughly divided into those which
demand strength, courage, and skill, in large measure, and
those which demand them in but small measure or not at
all. And since in most cases the preservation of the tribe
is mainly determined by its success in war and the chase, it
results that the strength, courage, or skill shown in these,
come to be honoured both for themselves and for their value

INDUSTRY. 423

to the tribe. Conversely, since the digging up of roots, the
leathering of wild fruits, and the collecting of shell-fish, do
not call for strength, courage, and skill, and do not conspicu
ously further tribal preservation, these occupations come to
1)0 little honoured or relatively despised. An implication
strengthens the contrast. While the stronger sex is called on
to devote itself to the one, the other is left to the weaker sex :
sometimes aided by conquered men, or slaves. Hence arises
a further reason why, in primitive societies, honour is given
to the predatory activities while the peaceful activities are
held in dishonour. Industry, therefore, or that which at
first represents it, is not unnaturally condemned by the pro-
ethical sentiment.

The only kinds of activity to be classed as industrial
which the warriors of the tribe may enter upon, are those
necessitated by the making of weapons and the erection of
wigwams or huts : the one, closely associated with war and
the chase, demanding also the exercise of skill ; and the
other demanding both skill and strength — not the moderate
strength shown in monotonous labour, but the great strength
which has to be suddenly exerted. And these apparent ex
ceptions furnish a verification ; for they further show that
the occupations held in contempt are those which, demanding
relatively little power, physical or intellectual, can be carried
on by the inferior.

The contrast thus initiated between the sentiments with
M'hich these classes of occupations are regarded, has persisted
with but small, though increasing, qualification, throughout
the course of human progress ; and it has thus persisted
because the causes have in the main persisted. While the
self-preservation of societies has most conspicuously de
pended on the activities implied by successful war, such
activities have been held in honour ; and, by implication,
industrial activities have been held contemptible. Only dur
ing recent times — only now that national welfare is becom
ing more and more dependent on superior powers of produc-

424 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

tion, and such superior powers of production are becoming
more and more dependent on the higher mental faculties,
are other occupations than militant ones rising into respecta
bility ; while simultaneously respectability is being acknowl
edged in the accompanying capacity for persistent and
monotonous application.

Carrying this clue with us, we shall be able now to under
stand better the ethics of labour, as changing from people to
people and from age to age.

§ 168. The North American Indians furnish the simplest
and clearest illustrations of predatory habits and associated
sentiments. Schoolcraft says of the Chippewas :—

'; They have regarded the use of the bow and arrow, the war-club and
spear, as the noblest employments of man. . . . To hunt well and to fight
well, are the first and the last themes of their hopes and praises of the liv
ing and the dead. . . . They have ever looked upon agricultural and me
chanical labors as degrading."

Of the Snake Indian, Lewis and Clarke writes :— " lie would
consider himself degraded by being compelled to walk any
distance." Of kindred nature is Burton's account of the
Dakotas : —

" The warrior, considering the chase as an ample share of the labour-curse,
is so lazy that he will not rise to saddle or unsaddle his pony. . . . Like a
wild beast he cannot be broken to work : he would rather die than employ
himself in honest industry."

By the more civilized Iroquois, too, the primitive feeling was
displayed — " The warrior despised the toil of husbandry, and
held all labour beneath him." Even the un warlike Esqui
maux is said to exhibit a like aversion.

" He hunts and fishes, but having brought his booty to land troubles
himself no further about it ; for it would be a stigma on his character, if
he so much as drew a seal out of the water."

There being, perhaps, for this usage a plea like that
possessed by the usage of the Chippewayans, among whom,
" when the men kill any large beast, the women are always
sent to bring it to the tent"— the plea, namely, that the
chase, whether on sea or on land, is extremely exhausting.

INDUSTRY. 425

Passing to South America we meet with facts of kindred
meaning. Men of the Guiana tribes take no share in

industry, save in making clearance for the growing of food :
each lies " indolently in his hammock until necessitated
to fish, or use the more violent exercise of the chase, to
provide for the wants of his family." And then of the
Araucanians, warlike but agricultural (apparently because
there is but little scope for the chase), we are told that
"the 'lord and master' does little but eat, sleep, and ride
about,"

In the wording of this last statement, as by implication
in the other statements, we may see that in early stages
the egoism of men, unqualified by the altruism which
amicable social intercourse generates, leads them to devolve
on women all exertions which, unaccompanied by the
pleasures of achievement, are monotonous and wearisome.
u The lord and master " does what he likes ; and he likes
to make the woman (or his woman as the case may be) do
all the dull and hard work. Proofs of this are multitudi
nous. America furnishes instances in the accounts of the
Chippewayans, Creeks, Tupis, Patagonians ; as wdtness these
extracts : —

" This labourious task [dragging the sledges] falls mostly heavily on the
women ; nothing can more shock the feelings of a person, accustomed to
civilized life, than to witness thp state of their degradation."

'•The women perform all the labour, both in the house and field, and
are, in fact, but slaves to the men.''

"When they removed, the women were the beasts of burthen, and
carried the hammocks, pots, wooden pestles and mortars, and all their
other household stock."

The lives of the Patagonian women are " one continued scene of
labour. . . . They do everything, except hunting and fighting."
Here, again, are testimonies given by travellers in Africa
concerning the Hottentots, Bechuanas, Kaffirs, Ashantis,
people of Fernando Po and the Lower jSlger.

The wife " is doomed to all the toil of getting and dressing provisions
for" her husband, "herself and children .... and to all the care and
drudgery within doors, with a share of the fatigue in tending the cattle."

"The women build the houses; plant and reap the corn ; fetch water

426 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

and fuel ; and cook the food. It is very rarely that the men arc seen
helping the women, even in the most laborious work."

" Besides her domestic duties, the women has to perform all the hard
work ; she is her husband's ox, as a Kafir once said to me, — she has been
bought, he argued, and must therefore labour."

" It may be remarked, that the weightiest duties generally devolve upon
the wife, who is to be found ' grinding at the mill,' transacting business
in the market, or cultivating the plantation."

" The females in Fernando Po have a fair portion of work assigned to
them, such as planting and collecting llie yam . . . but they are certainly
treated with greater consideration and kindness than in any part of Africa
we visited."

On the lower Niger, " women are commonly employed in the petty retail
trade about the country ; they also do a great deal of hard work, especially
in the cultivation of the land."

Of which extracts it may be remarked that the latter ones,
which concern races of more advanced kinds, carrying on
more settled industries, show that with them the slavery of
women is less pronounced.

Beyond that dishonourableness which, in early stages,
attaches to labour because it can be performed by women,
who in most cases are incapable, or considered to be inca
pable, of war and the chase ; there is the further dishonour
ableness which attaches to it because, as above pointed out, it
is carried on also by conquered men or slaves — by men, that
is, proved in one or other way to be inferior. In very early
stages we sometimes find slaves thus used for the non-pre
datory occupations which their masters find irksome. Even
of the Cliinooks we read that " slaves do all the laborious
work ; " and they are often associated with the women in
this function. Says Andersson : —

" The Damaras are idle creatures. What is not done by the women is
left to the slaves, who are either the descendants of impoverished mem
bers of their own tribe or ... captured Bushmen."
Describing the people of Embomma on the Congo, Tuckey
writes : —

" The cultivation of the ground is entirely the business of slaves and women,
the King's daughter's and princes' wives being constantly thus employed."
Burton tells us that in Dahomey " agriculture is despised,
because slaves are employed in it ; " but a great deal of it

INDUSTRY.

427

seems to be done by women. And similarly of the Mishmees
in Asia, we read that " the women and slaves do all the
cultivation.1'

Naturally, then, and, indeed, we may say necessarily, there
grows up in these early stages a profound prejudice against
labour — a pro-ethical sentiment condemnatory of it. How
this pro-ethical sentiment, having the sanction of ancestral
usages, assumes this or that special character according to
the habits which the environment determines, we are vari
ously shown. Thus we read that—

The Bushmen " arc sworn enemies to the pastoral life. Some of their
maxims are, to live on hunting and plunder."

" The genuine Arabs disdain husbandry, as an employment by which
they would be degraded."

In which examples, as in many already given, we may see
how a mode of life long pursued, determines a congruous set
of feelings and ideas. And the strength of the prejudices
which maintain inherited customs of this class, is shown by
sundry anomalous cases. Livingstone tells us of the East
Africans that —

'• Where there are cattle, the women till the land, plant the corn, and
build the huts. The men stay at home to sew, spin, weave, and talk, and
milk the cows."

Still more strange is the settled division of labour between
the sexes in Abyssinia. According to Bruce —

" It is infamy for a man to go to market to buy anything. He cannot
carry water or bake bread ; but he must wash the clothes belonging to
both sexes, and. in this function, the women cannot help him."
In Ciexa's account of certain ancient Peruvians, the Cafiaris,
we find a kindred system : —

The women "are great labourers, for it is they who dig the land, sow the
crops, and reap the harvests, while their husbands remain in the houses
sewing and weaving, adorning their clothes, and performing other feminine
offices. . . . Some Indians say that this arises from the dearth of men and
the great abundance of women."

Possibly such anomalies as these have arisen in cases where
surrounding conditions, causing decrease of predatory ac-

428 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

tivities while the labours of women continued to suffice for
purposes of production, left the men to lead idle lives or
lives filled with easy occupations. AVe may safely infer that
among barbarous peoples, the men did not take to hard and
monotonous labour until they were obliged.

§ 169. But where chronic militancy did not effectually
keep down population, increase of it made peremptory the
devotion of men to food-production ; and with this change
in social life there was initiated a change in the pro-ethical
sentiments respecting labour. The Khonds furnish an ex
ample.

They " consider it beneath their dignity to barter or traffic, and . . .
regard as base and plebeian all who are not either warriors or tillers of the
soil."

So of the Javans we are told that —

"They have a contempt for trade, and those of higher rank esteem it
disgraceful to be engaged in it ; but the common people are ever ready to
engage in the labours of agriculture, and the chiefs to honour and encour
age agricultural industry."

From various sources we learn that the Germanic tribes, both
in their original habitats and in those which they usurped,
became reconciled to husbandry as an alternative to hunting
and marauding : doubtless because by no other occupation
could adequate sustenance be obtained.

Concerning these and kindred transitional states, two pass
ing remarks may be ventured. One is that since industry,
chiefly agricultural, is at first carried on by slaves and women,
working under authority, it results that when freemen are
forced by want of food to labour, they have a strong preju
dice against labouring for others, that is, labouring for
hire ; since working under authority by contract, too much
resembles working under authority by compulsion. While
Schomburgk characterizes the Caribs as the most industrious
race in Guiana, he says that only the extremest need can
induce a Carib so far to lower his dignity as to work for

1XDUSTKY. 429

wages for a European. This feeling is shown with equal or
greater strength by some peaceful peoples to whom subordi
nation is unfamiliar or unknown. Speaking of South-East
India, Lewin says : —

" Among the hill tribes labour cannot be hired ; the people work each one
for himself. In 186o, in this district, a road had to be cut; but although
fabulous wages were offered, the hill-population steadily refused to
work."

And still more decided is the aversion to working under
orders shown by the otherwise industrious Sonthal—

"The Sonthal will take service with no one, he will perform no work
except for himself or his family, and should any attempt be made to coerce
him, he flies the country or penetrates into the thickest jungle, where un
known and unsought, he commences clearing a patch of ground and erect
ing his log hut."

The other remark is that the scorn for trade which, as
above shown, at first co-exists with the honouring of agri
culture, is possibly due to the fact that it was originally
carried on chiefly by unsettled classes, who were detached,
untrustworthy members of a community in which most men
had fixed positions. But the growth of trade slowly
brought a changed estimate. As, in hunting tribes, agricult
ure, relatively unessential, was despised, but became respect
able when it became an indispensible means to maintenance
of life ; so trade, at first relatively unessential (since essential
things were mostly made at home), similarly lacked the
sanction of necessity and of ancestral custom, but in course
of time, while growing into importance, gradually ceased
to excite that pro-ethical sentiment which vents itself in
contempt.

§ 170. With the growth of populous societies and the
more and more imperative need for agriculture, the honour-
ableness of labour does not for long periods obtain recog
nition, for the reasons indicated at the outset : it is car
ried on by slaves, or by serfs, or in later days by men

430 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

more or less inferior in body or mind. A strong associa
tion in thought is thus established ; and the natural repug
nance to work is enforced by the belief that engagement in
it is a confession of a low nature.

Though, in the literatures of ancient civilized societies, we
find the duty of labouring insisted on, it seems mostly to be
the duty of subject men. The injunction contained in the
Code of Manu — " Daily perform thine own appointed work
unweariedly," refers by implication to men under authority ;
" appointed " work implies a master. So, too, according to
the Book of the Dead (cxxv), the Egyptian, when questioned
after death, had to declare—" I have not been idle," and,
" I have not made delays, or dawdled." From the phras
ing of the last sentence we may fairly infer that the work
diligently performed was work commanded. Of the He
brews the same may be concluded. Remembering that,
being originally pastoral, they long continued to regard
the care of cattle as relatively honourable (like the exist
ing Arabs among whom, when the men are not raiding,
their only fit occupation is herding) ; we may similarly
gather that the obligation to work was mostly the obliga
tion imposed on servants or slaves : slaves being usually the
proper word. Though the third Commandment applies to
masters as well as to servants, yet, even supposing the
Commandments wrere indigenous, the fact that the life
was still mainly pastoral, implies that the work spoken
of was pastoral work not manual labour. It is true that in
the legend of Adam's condemnation, the curse of labour is
imposed on all his descendants ; but we have, in the first
place, good reason for regarding this legend as of Babylonian
origin, and we have, in the second place, the inference
suggested by recent researches, that the Adami, a dark
race, were slaves, and that the eating of the forbidden
fruit reserved for the superior race, was a punishable trans
gression ; just as was, in ancient Peru, the eating of coca,
similarly reserved for the Ynca class. So that possibly

INDUSTRY. 431

among the Hebrews also, the duty of working was imposed
on inferior men rather than on men as such. In Persian
literature we do, indeed, meet with more distinct recognition
of the virtuousness of labour irrespective of conditions.
Thus it is said : — " A sower of seeds is as great in the eves
of Ormusd, as if he had given existence to a thousand
creatures." And in The Par sees , by Dosabhoy Fram jee, we
read that " The Zoroastrian is taught by his religion to earn
his bread by the sweat of his brow."

§ 171. The peoples of Europe from early days down to
our own, illustrate this relation between the kind of social
activity and the prevailing sentiment about labour.

We have first the evidence which the Greeks furnish.
Plato, showing his feeling towards traders by saying that
the legislator passes them over, while for agriculturists he
shows such respect as is implied by giving them laws, shows
more fully in the Republic how degraded he; holds to be all
producers and distributors: comparing them to the basest
parts of the individual nature. Similar is the belief ex
pressed, and feeling manifested, by Aristotle, who says : — •
" It is impossible for one who lives the life of a mechanic or
hired servant to practice a life of virtue."

Nor has it been otherwise further West. In the Roman
world, along with persistent and active militancy, there went
an increasing degradation of the non-militant class — slaves
and freedmen. And throughout " the dark ages," which
collapse of the brutal civilization of Rome left behind,
as well as throughout those ages during which perpet
ually recurring wars at length established large and stable
kingdoms, this contempt for industry, both bodily and
mental, continued ; so that not only unskilled labour
and the skilled labour of the craftsman, but also the
intellectual labour of the educated man, were treated with
contempt. Only in proportion as fighting ceased to be the

exclusive business of life with all but the subject classes,
29

432 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

and only as the subject classes, simultaneously growing
larger, gained a larger share in the formation of opinion
did the honourableness of industry become in some measure
recognized : any praise of it previously given by the
governing classes, being due to the consciousness that it
conduced to their welfare.

In modern days, especially among ourselves and the
Americans, the industrial part of society has so greatly
outgrown the militant part, and has come to be so much
more operative in forming the sentiments and ideas con
cerning industry, that these are almost reversed. Though
unskilled labour is still regarded with something like
contempt, as implying inferiority of capacity and of social
position ; and though the labour of the artisan, more
respected because of the higher mental power it implies,
is little respected because of its class associations ; yet
intellectual labour has in recent times acquired an honour
able status. But the fact chiefly to be noted is that
along with the advance of industrialism towards social
supremacy, there has arisen the almost universal feeling
that some kind of useful occupation is imperative. Con
demnations of the " idle rich " are now-a-days uttered by
the rich themselves.

It may be noted, however, that even still, among those
who represent the ancient regime — the military and naval
officers — the old feeling survives ; with the result that
those among them who possess the highest culture — the
medical officers, both military and naval, and the engineer
officers — are regarded as standing on a lower level than
the rest, and are treated with less consideration by the
authorities.

§ 172. Thus as in all the preceding chapters, so in this
chapter, we see that the ethical conceptions, or rather the
pro-ethical conceptions, are determined by the forms of
the social activities. Towards such activities as are most

INDUSTRY. 433

conspicuously conducive to the welfare of the society,
sentiments of approbation are called forth, and conversely ;
the result being that the idea of right comes to be
associated with the presence of them and wrong with the
absence of them.

Hence the general contrast shown from the earliest
stages down to the latest, between the disgracefulness of
labour in societies exclusively warlike, arid the honourable-
ness of labour in peaceful societies, or in societies relatively
peaceful. This contrast is significantly indicated by the
contrast between the ceremonies at the inauguration of a
ruler. Among uncivilized militant peoples, in the formal
act of making or crowning a chief or king, weapons always
figure : here he is raised on a shield above the shoulders of
his followers, and there the sword is girded on or the spear
handed to him. And since, in most cases, relatively
peaceful societies have preserved in their traditions the
ceremonies used in their exclusively militant days, it rarely
happens that the inauguration of a ruler is free from
symbols of this kind. But one significant case of freedom
from them is supplied by that tribe in Africa, the Manansas,
already named, who, driven by warlike tribes around into
a hill-country, have devoted themselves to agriculture, and
who say: — "We want not the blood of the beasts, much
less do we thirst for the blood of men ! " for among them,
according to Holub, a new sovereign receives as tokens,
some sand, stones, and a hammer, u symbolizing industry
and labour."

There is one remaining fact to be named and emphasized.
Out of the pro-ethical sentiments which yield sanction to
industry and make it honourable, there eventually emerges
the ethical sentiment proper. This does not enjoin labour
for its own sake, but enjoins it as implied by the duty of
self-sustentation instead of sustentation by others. The
virtue of work consists essentially in the performance of
such actions as suffice to meet the cost of maintaining1

434 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

self and dependents and discharging social duties ; while
the disgracefulness of idleness essentially consists in the
taking from the common stock the means of living, while
doing nothing either to add to it or otherwise to further
men's happiness.

CHAPTER XII.

TEMPERANCE.

§ 173. Such ethical, or rather pro-ethical, sentiments as
attach to temperance, have primarily, like sundry of the
associated pro-ethical sentiments, religious origins. As
shown in The Principles of Sociology, § 140, the bearing of
hunger becomes in many cases a virtue, because it is a
sequence of leaving food for the ancestor, and, at a later
stage, sacrificing food to the god. Where food is not
abundant, relinquishments of it involve either absolute
fastings or stinted meals ; and hence there arises an
association in thought between moderation in eating and a
subordination which is either religious or quasi-religious.

Possibly in some cases a kindred restraint is put on the
drinking of liquors which are used as libations, since the
quantities required for these also, restrict the quantities
remaining for the sacrilicers. If, as often happens, there is
at every meal a throwing aside of drink, as well as food,
for the invisible beings around, it tends to become an
implication that one who exceeds so far as to become
intoxicated, has disregarded these invisible beings, and is
therefore to be blamed. It is true that, as we shall
presently see, other ideas sometimes lead to contrary
beliefs and sentiments ; but it is possible that there may
from this cause have originated the divine reprobation
which is in some cases alleged.

Since the above paragraphs were written, I have found

436 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

clear proof that the suspicion they express is well founded.
From a people among whom ancestor-worship, and the
habitual sacrificing to ancestors, have been through all
known ages zealously carried on, we get evidence that
moderation in both food and drink, pushed even to
asceticism, is a consequence of regard for the dead, to
whom oblations are constantly made. Said Confucius : —
" He who aims to be a man of complete virtue, in his food
does not seek to gratify his appetite." Here we have the
virtue enunciated apart from its cause. But Confucius
also said : — " I can find no flaw in the character of Yu.
He used himself coarse food and drink, but displayed the
utmost filial piety towards the spirits. His ordinary gar
ments were poor, but he displayed the utmost elegance in
his sacrificial cap and apron." Here we have the virtue
presented in connexion with religious duty : the last being
the cause, the first the consequence.

Considered apart from supposed religious sanction, the
virtue of temperance can of course have no other sanction
than utility, as determined by experience. The observed
beneficial effects of moderation and the observed detrimental
effects of excess, form the bases for judgments, and the
accompanying feelings.

Rational ideas concerning temperance — especially temper
ance in food — cannot be formed until we have glanced at
those variations in the physiological requirements, entailed
by variations in surrounding circumstances.

§ 174. What would among ourselves be condemned as
disgusting gluttony, is, under the conditions to which
certain races of men are exposed, quite normal and indeed
necessary. Where the habitat is such as at one time to
supply very little food and at another time food in great
abundance, survival depends on the ability to consume
immense quantities when the opportunities occur. A
good instance is furnished by Sir George Grey's account

TEMPERANCE. 437

of the orgies which follow the stranding of a whale in
Australia.

" By and bye other natives came gaily trooping in from all quarters : by
night they dance and sing, and by day they eat and sleep, and for days this
revelry continues unchecked, until they at last fairly eat their way into the
whale, and you see them climbing in and about the stinking carcase choosing
tit-bits . . . they remain by the carcase for many days, rubbed from heat I to
foot with stinking blubber, gorged to repletion wtth putrid meat . . . When
they at last quit their feast, they carry off as much as they can stagger under."

Living as the Australians do in a barren country, and often
half starved, those of their number who could not fully
utilize an occasion like this would be the first to die
during times of famine. Proof that this is the true inter
pretation, is furnished by Christison's account of a tribe of
central Queensland. They are great eaters " only at first ;
but when they have become used to rations and regular

«/ O

meals, including bread or damper, they are very moderate
eaters, perhaps more moderate than Europeans."

In other cases what seems to us extreme and almost
incredible excess, is due to the physiological necessity for
producing heat in climates where the loss of heat is very
great. Hence the explanation of the following story.

" From Kooilittiuk I learnt a new Eskimaux luxury : he had eaten until he
was drunk, and every moment fell asleep, with a flushed and burning face,
and his mouth open : by his side sat Arnalooa [his wife], who was attending
her cooking pot, and at short intervals awakened her spouse, in order to cram
as much as was possible of a large piece of half-boiled flesh into his mouth,
witli the assistance of her forefinger, and having filled it quite full, cut off
the morsel close to his lips. This he slowly chewed, and as soon as a small
vacancy became perceptible, this was filled again by a lump of raw blubber.
During this operation the happy man moved no part of him but his jaws,
not even opening his eyes ; but his extreme satisfaction was occasionally
shown by a most expressive grunt, whenever he enjoyed sufficient room for
the passage of sound."

Another case, equally astonishing, comes from Northern
Asia. Mr. Cochrane says : —

The Yakuti and Tongousi are great gluttons. " I gave the child [a boy
about five years old] a candle made of the most impure tallow, a second,
and a third, — and all were devoured with avidity. The steersman then gave
him several pounds of sour fro/en butter : tin's also he immediately consumed;

438 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

lastly, a large piece of yellow soap: all went the same road . . . In fact, there
is nothing in the way of fish or meat, from whatever animal, however putrid
or unwholesome, but they will devour with impunity, and the quantity only
varies from what they have, to what they can get. I have repeatedly seen
a Yakut or a Tongouse devour forty pounds of meat in a day."

The following testimony of Capt. "Wrangell shows the
physiological results of this enormous consumption.

" Even in Siberia, the Jakuti are called iron-m,en, and I suppose that there
are not any other people in the world who endure cold and hunger as they
do. I have seen them frequently in the severe cold of this country, and
when the fire had long been extinguished, and the light jacket had slipped
off their shoulders, sleeping quietly, completely exposed to the heavens, with
scarcely any clothing on, and their bodies covered with a thick coat of rime."

And now observe the remarkable and significant fact that
where survival primarily depends on this ability to eat and
digest enormous quantities of food, this ability acquires an
ethical or pro-ethical sanction. According to Erman, a
Yakut adage says : — " To eat much meat and to grow fat
upon it, is the highest destiny of men."

§ 175. Passing from this extreme instance of the way in
which the necessities of life generate corresponding ideas
of right and wrong, and coming to the ordinary cases
meeting us in temperate and tropical climates, where some
thing like an ethical sanction, as we ordinarily understand
it, comes into play ; we find no connexions between tem
perance in food and other traits, unless it be a general asso
ciation of gluttony with degradation.

Even this qualified generalization may be held doubtful.
Cook described the Tahitians as each consuming a "pro
digious" quantity of food. Yet they were physically a
fine race, intellectually superior to many, and, though
licentious, were described by him as having sundry charac
teristics to be admired. Conversely, the Arabs are rela
tively abstemious in both food and drink. But while in
their sexual relations they are about as low as the Tahitians,
since they are continually changing wives, and say of
themselves — " Dogs are better than we are," they are

TEMPERANCE.

little to be admired in any respect : being fanatically
revengeful and regarding skilful robbery as a qualification
for marriage.

At the same time that the uncivilized at large present
no definite relations between temperance or intemperance
in food and their other traits, they display little or no senti
ment in respect of one or the other which can be called
ethical. Save in the above remarkable proverb quoted from
the Yakuts, opinion on this matter has not taken shape
among them.

In some ancient semi-civilized societies, however, there
had arisen the consciousness that excess in food is wrong.
In the Code of Mann it is written : —

" For gluttony is hateful, injures health,
May lead to death, and surely bars the road
To holy merit and celestial bliss."

The fact that in parts of the Mahabharata " heavenly
blessedness " is described as without any kind of " sensual
gratification," implies reprobation of excess in eating. This
is of course implied also in the ascetic life on which the
Indian sages insisted. The Hebrews, too, displayed this con
sciousness : there was occasional advocacy of abstemiousness,
as shown in the proverb : —

" Be not among wine bibbers : among riotous eaters of flesh : for the
drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty : and drowsiness shall
clothe a man with rags." (Prov. xxiii, 20-1.)

By the Egyptians gluttony was recognized as a vice, but was
nevertheless deliberately practised. On the one hand, excess
in food was set down among the forty-two chief sins of the
Egyptians, while on the other hand —

At their '• banquets the Egyptians do not seem to have been very moderate.
Herodotus tells us (ii. 78) that a small wooden image of a mummy was
carried round at their entertainments with the exhortion, ' Look on this,
drink and be merry. When dead, thou wilt be as this is ! ' This admoni
tion was not without its results. In the pictures on monuments we find
not only men, but women, throwing up the surfeit of food and wine."
Pmt the general aspect of the evidence seems to imply that
with the rise of settled societies, and with the generalizing

4-iO THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

of experiences, there arose a utilitarian condemnation of
excess in food.

§ 176. Excess in drinking is a phrase which, though
applicable to drinking of unfermented liquors in injurious
quantities, yet practically applies to liquors which are either
fermented, and therefore intoxicating, or are otherwise
intoxicating. Opinion concerning the taking of them is
determined mainly by recognition of the effects they pro
duce — regarded here with approbation and there with
reprobation.

It is a mistake to suppose that the state of intoxication
is everywhere condemned. Whether produced by alcohol
or by other agent, it has been in early times lauded, and
still is so in some places. An interpretation is suggested
by the remark of an Arafura, who, when belief in the
Christian God was commended to him, and he was told
that God is everywhere present, said : — " Then this God
is certainly in your arrack, for I never feel happier than
when I have drunk plenty of it." The idea thus implied
was distinctly and perpetually expressed by the ancient
Indians in their praises of soma-drinking. The god Soma
was supposed to be present in the juice of the plant called
soma ; intoxication resulted from being possessed by him ;
and the exalted state desired, produced, and gloried in, was a
state of religious blessedness: the gods themselves being
supposed to be thus inspired by the god Soma. Says Max
M tiller : —

Madakyut=such "a state of intoxication as was not incompatible with
the character of the ancient gods. . . . We have no poetical word to ex
press a high state of mental excitement produced by drinking the intoxi
cating juice of the Soma or other plants, which has not something oppro
brious mixed up with it, while in ancient times that state of excitement
was celebrated as a blessing of the gods, as not unworthy of the gods
themselves, nay as a istate in which both the warrior and the poet would
perform their highest achievements."

So, too, by the Greeks it was believed that the god

TEMPEKAXCE. 441

Dionysus was present in wine, and that " the Bacchic
excitement," with its accompanying prophetic power, was
due to possession by him. Hence there arose a religious
sanction for drunkenness, as shown in the orgies. Nor
are we without cases in our own times. The Dahomans,
according to Burton, deem it a '' duty to the gods to be
drunk ; " and the Ainos sanctify their intoxication under
uthe fiction of 'drinking to the gods:'" "the more sake
the Ainos drink the more devout they are, and the better
pleased are the gods." Kindred ideas and sentiments exist
in Polynesia, in connection with the taking of the intoxi
cating ava, kava, or yaqona. In Fiji the preparation and
drinking are accompanied by prayers to the gods and
chants, and participation in the ceremonies is regarded as
honourable.

Evidently then, drunkenness, instead of having in all cases
religious condemnation, has in some cases religious sanction ;
and thus comes to have a pro-ethical sentiment justifying it.
This is very well shown by the Ainos, who refuse to associate
with those who will not drink.

§ ITT. Either with or without this kind of sanction, intem
perance, under one or other form, is widely spread among
the inferior races.

Of the Kalmucks, Pallas tells us that they are intem
perate in eating and drinking when they have the chance.
4i The festivities of the Khonds," says Campbell, " usually
terminate in universal drunkenness." Brett writes that
the drunkenness of the natives of Guiana takes the shape
of " fearful excess at intervals." And we read of the
existing Guatemalans that " the greatest happiness of
these people consists in drunkenness, produced by the
excessive use of ... chicha," These last testimonies
respecting American peoples at the present day, recall
kindred testimonies respecting ancient American peoples.
Garcilasso says of the Peruvians :— " They brought liquor

442 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

in great quantity, for this was one of the most prevalent
vices among the Indians." Of the Yucatanese, Landa says :
— " The Indians were very debauched, and often got
drunk ; " " the women got intoxicated at the banquets,
but by themselves." And Sahagun writes of the Mexicans
that—

" They said that the bad effects of drunkenness were produced by one of
the gods of wine. Hence it appears that they did not consider as a sin
what they had done while being drunk."

But intemperance is by no means universal among the
uncivilized and semi-civilized : sobriety being shown by some
of the utterly primitive as well as by some of the consider
ably advanced. Of the Veddahs we read : — " They do not
smoke, and are very temperate, drinking water only." Says
Campbell:—

" Fond of fermented and spirituous liquors, the Lepchas are nevertheless
not given to drunkenness."

Of the Sumatran of the interior, only partially vitiated by
contact with the Malays, Marsden tells us : — " He is temper
ate and sober, being equally abstemious in meat and drink."
Africa, too, supplies instances.

" The Foolas and Mandingos very strictly abstain from fermented
liquors, and from spirits, which they hold in such abhorrence, that if a
single drop were to fall upon a clean garment, it would be rendered unfit
to wear until washed."

And Waitz makes the general remark that —

"Except where they have had much intercourse with whites the Negroes
cannot be accused of being specially addicted to intoxicating liquors."

This last statement, reminding us of the demoralization
which Europeans everywhere produce in the native races
whom they pretend to civilize, and reminding us more
especially of the disastrous effects which follow the supply
ing of them with whisky or rum, shows how cautious we
must be in our inferences respecting the relations between
drinking habits and social states. It is clear that in some
cases, as in that of the Yeddahs, sobriety may result from
lack of intoxicants, and that in other cases insobriety does

TEMPERANCE.

443

not naturally belong to the type or the tribe, but has been
imported.

§ ITS. Perhaps among European peoples, with their long
histories, we may with most chance of success seek for such
relation as exists between sobriety and social conditions.
This relation seems but indefinite at best.

Brutal as was their social system, the Spartans were
ascetic in their regimen ; and remembering the lessons
which drunken helots were made to inculcate, it is clear
that originally the Spartans reprobated drunkenness and
were ordinarily sober. Meanwhile the Athenians, much
more civilized as they were in their social state, and far
superior in culture, were by no means so sober. Some
scanty testimonies imply that among the European peoples
who at that time were socially organized in but low degrees,
excesses in drinking were frequent. Of the early Gauls
Diodorus says :— " They are so exceedingly given to wine,
that they guzzle it down as soon as it is imported by
the merchant," And describing the primitive Germans,
Tacitus tells us that " to pass an entire day and night in
drinking disgraces no one." Of course not much has come
down to us respecting men's drinking habits during "the
dark ao-es;" but the prevalence of intemperance may be
inferred from such indications as we have. One of the
excesses occurring in the Merovingian period was that
Bishop Eonius fell down drunk at mass ; and we are told of
Charlemagne that he was temperate : the implication being
that temperance was something exceptional. Of France it
may be remarked that even when intoxication was not pro
duced, wine was taken in great excess during man}- later
centuries. Montaigne, while saying that drunkenness was
less than when he was a boy, tells us that :—

" I have seen a great lord of my time . . . who without setting himself
to't, and after his ordinary rate of drinking at meals, swallowed down not
much less than five quarts of wine."

444 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

Evidently, from the days of Montaigne down to those of
the modern French, the majority of whom water their
ordinary weak wine, the decrease of intemperance has been
marked. And among ourselves there has taken place,
though with much irregularity, a kindred change. From
old English and Danish times, when there was drunkenness
among monks as well as others, down through the times
of the Normans, who soon became as intemperate as those
they had subjugated, and down through subsequent cen
turies, the excesses in drinks of the less potent kinds
were great and general. At the beginning of the last
century, when the consumption of spirits increased greatly,
rising to nearly a gallon per head of the population
annually, and producing scenes such as Hogarth depicted
in his " Gin Lane," there came the remedial Gin Act ;
which, however, was soon repealed after having done
mischief. Then during the rest of the century, while
" drunkenness was the common vice of the middle and
lower orders," wealthier people indulged so largely in wine
for their entertainments, as not unfrequently to impoverish
themselves.

§ 179. Evidently the relations between drinking habits
and kinds of social life are obscure. We cannot, as the
teetotalers would like, assert a regular proportion between
temperance and civilization, or between intemperance and
moral degradation at large. Says Surgeon-Gen. Balfour
— "Half of the Asiatic races — Arab, Persian, Hindu,
Burman, Malay, Siamese . . . are abstinents ; " and yet
no one will contend that, either in social type or social
conduct, these races are superior to the races of Europe
who are anything but abstinents. Within Europe itself
differences teach us the same lesson. Sober Turkey is not
so high in its social life as whisky-drinking Scotland. Nor,
on comparing Italy and Germany, do we see that along
with the contrast between the small potations of the one,

TEMPERANCE. 44:5

and the great potations of the other, there goes contrast
between their moral states of the kind that might be
looked for. Putting on the one hand the Bedouin, who,
habitual robber as he is and displaying numerous vices,
nevertheless drinks no fermented liquors, and cries " Fie
upon thee, drunkard ! " and on the other hand the clever
English artisan, who occasionally drinks to excess (and the
clever ones are most apt to do this) but who is often a good
fellow in other respects, we do not find any clear association
between temperance and rectitude.

Some relation may reasonably be supposed to exist
between drunkenness and general wretchedness. Where
the life is miserable there is a great tendency to drink,
partly to get what little momentary pleasure may be had,
and partly to shut out unhappy thoughts about the future.
But if we recall the drunkenness which prevailed among
our upper classes in the last century, we cannot say that
wretchedness, or at any rate physical wretchedness, was
its excuse. Ennui, too, seems often an assignable cause,
and may have produced the prevailing inebriety throughout
Europe in early days, when there was difficulty in passing
the time not occupied in lighting or hunting. Yet we find
various peoples whose lives are monotonous enough, but who
do not drink. Manifestly various influences co-operate ; and
it appears that the results of them are too irregular to be
generalized.

§ 180. But we are chiefly concerned with temperance and
intemperance as ethically regarded. That intemperance,
whether in food or drink, is condemned by the ethical
sentiment proper, which refers, not to the extrinsic but to
the intrinsic effects, as injurious alike to body and mind,
goes without saying. But it is otherwise with the pro-
ethical sentiment. We have many cases showing that there
comes either approbation or reprobation of intemperance,
according to the religious ideas and social habits.

446 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

Already we have seen that intoxication may be sanctified
by certain theological beliefs ; and here we have to note
that prevailing excess in drinking, and the current opinion
which grows up along with it, may result in a social sanction.
One of the uncivilized races shows us that a habit of taking
a toxic agent may, where it is general, generate for itself
not only a justification but something more. Says Yule of
the Kasias : —

" In the people perhaps the first thing that strikes a stranger, is their
extreme addiction to chewing pawn, and their utter disregard of the traces
which its use leaves on their teeth and lips. Indeed they pride themselves
on this, saying that ' Dogs and Bengalees have white teeth.' "

In records of ancient civilized races we find evidence of
a kindred pride in excesses. Apart from its religious
sanction, the drunken elevation which followed soma-
drinking was gloried in by the Indian rishi / and among a
neighbouring people, alcoholic excess was by some thought
the reverse of disgraceful, as witness the epitaph of Darius
Hystaspes, saying that he wTas a great conqueror and a
great drinker, and as witness the self-commendation of
Cyrus, who " in his epistle to the Spartans says, that in
many other things he was more fit than his brother to be
a king, and chiefly because he could bear abundance of
wine." But modern Europe has yielded the clearest proofs
that prevailing inebriety may generate a sentiment which
justifies inebriety. The drinking usages in Germany in
past times, and down to the present time among students,
show that along with an inordinate desire for fermented
liquor, and the scarcely credible ability to absorb it, there
had grown up a contempt for those who fell much below
the average drinking capacity, and a glory in being able to
drink the largest quantity in the shortest time. Among
ourselves, too, in the last century, kindred ideas and feel
ings prevailed. The saying that — " It is a poor heart that
never rejoices " was used as a justification for excess. The
taking of salt to produce thirst, the use of wine-glasses which

TEMPERANCE. 447

would not stand, and the exhortation " ISTo heel-taps,"
clearly showed the disapproval of moderation which went
along with applause for the " three-bottle " man. There
are some still living who have taken part in orgies at which
after locking the door and placing a number of bottles of
wine on the sideboard, the host announced that they had to
l)e emptied before rising : the refusal to take the required
share causing reprobation.*

But while, in past generations, there was thus a certain
pro-ethical sentiment upholding intemperance, in our own
generation temperance is upheld both by the ethical senti
ment, and by a pro-ethical sentiment. Not only is drinking
to excess universally reprobated, and to have been intoxicated
even once leaves a stain on a man's reputation, but we have
now a large class by whom even moderate drinking is con
demned. While in America water is the universal beverage
at meals and the taking of wine is regarded as scarcely re
spectable.

* The late Mr. John Ball, F.R.S., brought up in the neighbourhood of
Belfast, was, when young, though nominally a Catholic, intimate with a
wealthy family of Protestants, at the head of which was an old gent Ionian
looked up to with reverence by his descendants. Mr. Ball told me that
this patriarch took a fancy to him ; and one day, when leaving the room
after dinner, led him aside and patting him on the shoulder said— "My
good young friend, I want to talk to you about your wine. You don't
drink enough. Now take my advice— make your head while you are
young, and then you will be able to drink like a gentleman all your life."

CHAPTEK XIII.

CHASTITY.

§ 181. Before we can understand fully the ethical aspects
of chastity, we must study its biological and sociological
sanctions. Conduciveness to welfare, individual or social
or both, being the ultimate criterion of evolutionary ethics,
the demand for chastity has to be sought in its effects under
given conditions.

Among men, as among inferior creatures, the needs of
the species determine the Tightness or wrongness of these
or those sexual relations ; for sexual relations unfavourable
to the rearing of offspring, in respect either of number or
quality, must tend towards degradation and extinction. The
fact that some animals are polygamous while others are
monogamous is thus to be explained. In Part III of The
Principles of Sociology, treating of " Domestic Institutions,"
it was shown that the relation between the sexes is liable
to be determined into this or that form by environing
conditions ; and that certain inferior forms of the relation
appear, under some conditions, to become necessary : non-
adoption of them being fatal to the society. A natural
connexion was found to exist between polygamy and a life
of perpetual hostilities, entailing great destruction of men ;
since of tribes which mutually slaughter their men, the one
which, being monogamous, leaves many women unmarried
and childless, must fail to maintain its population in face
of the one which, being polygamous, utilizes all its women

CHASTITY. 449

as mothers. (§ 307). We saw, too, that in some cases,
especially in Thibet, polyandry appears more conducive to
social welfare than any other relation of the sexes. It
receives approval from travellers, and even a Moravian
missionary defends it : the missionary holding that " super
abundant population, in an unfertile country, must be a great
calamity, and produce ' eternal warfare or eternal want.' "
(§ 301.)

These inferior forms of marriage are not consistent with
that conception of chastity which accompanies the settled
monogamy of advanced societies. As we understand it,
the word connotes either the absence of any sexual relation,
or the permanent sexual relation of one man with one
woman. But we must not extend this higher conception of
chastity to these lower societies. We must not assume that
there exists in them any such ethical reprobation of these
less-restricted relations as they excite in us. To see this
clearly we must glance at the facts.

§ 182. Already in § 120 I have given sundry illustrations
of the truth, startling to those whose education has left
them ignorant of multiform humanity, that the institution
of polygamy is in various places morally approved, while the
opposite institution is condemned. This truth, however,
should not cause surprise, considering that from childhood
all have been familiar with the tacit approval of the usage
in the book they regard as divine. The polygamy of the
patriarchs is spoken of as a matter of course, and there is
implied approval of it by a wife who prompts her husband
to take a concubine. But beyond this we see, in the case
of David, both the religious and the social sanction for
a harem: the one being implied by the statement that
David, to whom God had given his " master's wives," was
a man "after his own heart," and the other by the
fact that when Xathan reproached him, the reproach was
that he had taken the solitary wife of Uriah, not that he

450 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

had already many wives (1 Sam. xiii, 14 ; 2 Sam. xii). His
many wives we may reasonably suppose constituted a mark
of dignity, as do those of kings among savage and semi-civil
ized peoples now. Clearly, then, under certain social condi
tions there is a pro-ethical sentiment supporting polygamy,
and that species of unchastity implied by it.

So, too, is it with polyandry. Various passages in the
Mahabkarata imply that it was a recognized institution
among the early Indians, regarded by them as perfectly
proper: practised, indeed, by those who are upheld as
models of virtue. The heroine of the poem, Draupadi, is
the wife of five husbands. Each of them had a house and
garden of his own, and Draupadi dwelt with them " in turn
for two days at a time." Meanwhile, as we have already
seen (§ 117), one of the husbands, Yudhishthira, unfortu
nate notwithstanding his goodness, enunciates the doctrine
that right is to be done regardless of consequences ; while
elsewhere Draupadi describes the virtues which she holds
proper for a wife, and represents herself as acting up to
them. Kindred evidence is yielded at the present time by
some of the tribes in the valleys of the Himalayas — the
Ladakhis, and the Champas. Telling us that they practise
polyandry, Drew says of the Ladakhis that they are
" cheerful, willing, and good-tempered ; " " they are not
quarrelsome ; " are " much given to truth-telling ; " and he
adds that the " social liberty of the women ... I think it
may be said, is as great as that of workmen's wives in Eng
land."

Rightly to interpret these facts, however, it should be
added that the social state in which polyandry originally
existed among the Indian peoples, had emerged from a
social state still lower in respect of the sexual relations.
Bad as were the gods of the Greeks, the gods of the
ancient Indians were worse. In the Puranas as well as in
the Mahabharata there are stories about the "adulterous
amours " of Indra, Yaruna, and other gods ; at the same

CHASTITY. 451

time that the " celestial nymphs are expressly declared to
be courtezans," and are " sent by the gods from time to
time to seduce austere sages." A society having a theology
of such a kind, cannot well have been other than licentious.
With the ascription even of incest to some of their gods,
there naturally went an utter disregard of restraints among
themselves. In the Mahabharata we read : —

" Women were formerly unconfined, and roved about at their pleasure,
independent. Though in their youthful innocence, they abandoned their
husbands, they were guilty of no offence ; for such was the rule in early
times."

And according to a tradition embodied in that poem —

This condition of things was "abolished by Svetakehi, son of the rishi
Uddalaka, who was incensed at seeing his mother led away by a strange
Brahman. His father told him there was no reason to be angry, as : ' The
women of all castes on earth are unconfined : just as cattle are situated, so
are human beings, too, within their respective castes.' "

Hence it may possibly be that polyandry arose as a limita
tion of promiscuity ; and that therefore the ethical sentiment
existing in support of it, was really in support of a relative
chastity.

§ 183. Returning now from this half-parenthetical discus
sion of those types of undeveloped chastity which are implied
by low types of marriage, and resuming the discussion of
chastity and unchastity considered in their simple forms, let
us first look at the evidence presented by various uncivilized
peoples. And here, in pursuance of the course followed in
preceding chapters dealing with other divisions of conduct,.
I am obliged to name facts which in the absence of a strong
reason should be passed over. They are not, however, more
objectionable than many which are reported in our daily
papers with no better motive than ministering to a prurient
curiosity.

The absolute or relative deficiency of chastity may be con
veniently exemplified by a string of extracts from books of
travel. "We may begin with K~orth America. The testimony

4:52 THE INDUCTIONS OF E1HICS.

of Lewis and Clarke respecting the Chinooks, agreeing with
that of Ross, as follows : —

" Among these people, as indeed among all Indians, the prostitution of
unmarried women is so far from being considered criminal or improper,
that the females themselves solicit the favours of the other sex, with the
entire approbation of their friends and connexions."

Concerning the Sioux, these same travellers give us a fact
equally significant : —

" The Sioux had offered us squaws, but while we remained there having
declined, they followed us with offers of females for two days."

Corning further south the Creeks may be named as, accord
ing to Schoolcraft, no better than the Chinooks. Like evi
dence is furnished by South American races, as the Tupis
and Caribs : —

" Bands [of chastity] were broken without fear, and incontinence was not
regarded as an offence."

Caribs " put no value on the chastity of unmarried women."

These instances yielded by America, are associated with
some in which the unchastity is of a qualified kind. To
the fact that "among the Esquimaux it is considered a
great mark of friendship for two men to exchange wives for
a day or two," may be added a like fact presented by the
Chippewayans : —

" It is a very common custom among the men of this country to ex
change a night's lodging with each other's wives. But this is so far from
being considered as an act which is criminal, that it is esteemed by them
as one of the strongest ties of friendship between two families."

The Dakotas supply an example, like many found elsewhere,
of the co-existence of laxity before marriage with strictness
after it.

" There are few nations in the world amongst whom this practice, origi
nating in a natural desire not to 'make a leap in the dark,' cannot be
traced. Yet after marriage they will live like the Spartan matrons a life
of austerity in relation to the other sex."

In ancient Nicaragua, as in various countries, there was

another kind of compromise between chastity and ur-

chastity.

" On the occasion of a certain annual festival, it was permitted that all

the women, of whatever condition, might abandon themselves to the arms

CHASTITY.

of whomsoever they pleased. Rigid fidelity, however, was exacted at all
other times."

But there seems to have been no restraint at other times on
the unmarried, as witness Herrera's statement :—

" Many of the women were beautiful, and their parents used, when the
maidens were marriageable, to send them to earn their portions, and
accordingly they ranged about the country in a shameful manner, till they
had got enough to marry them off."

Asia furnishes illustrations of another usage common
among the uncivilized. The Kamtschadales and Aleuts
lend their wives to guests; and sundry others of the
Northern Asiatic races do the like. Pallas tells us that
the Kalmucks are little jealous of their wives, and freely give
them up to acquaintances. And then of an adjacent people

we read —

" The relation between the sexes, among the Kirghizes, is altogether on
a very primitive footing : mothers, fathers, and brothers regard any breach
of morality with great leniency, and husbands even encourage their friends
to close intimacy witli their wives. . . . Like the Kirghizes, the Buruts
are strangers to jealousy."

So, too, of the Mongols Prjevalsky tells us that " adul
tery is not even concealed, and is not regarded as a
vice." From peoples further south, two instances may be
cited —

" Among the Red Karens, chastity, both with married and unmarried, is
reported as remarkably loose. The commerce of the sexes among young
people is defended as nothing wrong, because ' it is our custom.' "

" Prostitution is exceedingly common, while chastity is a rare virtue
among Toda women ; and the ties of marriage and consanguinity are
merely nominal."

To all these instances from other regions may be added
some from Africa. In his Highlands of Ethiopia, Harris
writes : —

"The jewel chastity is here [in Shoa] in no repute; and the utmost
extent of reparation to be recovered in a..pourt of justice for the most
aggravated case of seduction is but five- pence sterling !"
The nature of the sentiment prevailing near the Upper
Congo is shown by this extract from Tuckey : —

'•Before marriage, the father or brothers of a girl prostitute her to

454: THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

every man that will pay two -fathoms of cloth ; nor does this derogate in
any way from her character, or prevent her being afterwards married."
And so is it with some unlike people further south.

Among the Bushmen, " infidelity to the marriage compact is ... not
considered as a crime ; it is scarcely regarded by the offended person. . . .
They seem to have no idea of the distinction of girl, maiden, and wife ;
they are all expressed by one word alone."

In Polynesia we have the well-known evidence yielded by
the Arreoi society of Tahiti ; and from the same region, or
rather from Micronesia, comes yet other evidence. In his
account of the inhabitants of the Ladrone Islands, Freycinet
writes : —

" Souvent on avoit vu les peres vendre sans rougir les premices de leurs
filles ... les meres elles-memes engager leurs enfants a suivre 1'impul-
sion de leurs sens. . . On possede encore une des chansons qu'elles chan-
toient a leurs filles en pareille circonstance.';

The Pelew Islanders furnish a like case : the universal prac
tice being for the mother to instruct her newly-initiated
daughter always to exact payment, and the explanation of
the usage being " the avarice of parents as recognized by
custom."

Of the opposite trait a good many examples are furnished
by primitive or uncultured peoples. Two of them come from
amid these generally lax tribes of North America. Catlin
says of the Mandans : —

" Their women are beautiful and modest, — and amongst the respectable
families, virtue is as highly cherished and as inapproachable, as in any
society whatever."

And of the Chippewas Keating writes : —

" Chastity is a virtue in high repute among the Chippewas, and without
which no woman could expect to be taken as a wife by a warrior."

But he goes on to admit that there is a good deal of
concealed irregularity. Africa, too, yields some instances.
" A Kaffer woman is both chaste and modest : " " instances
of infidelity are said to be very rare ; " and the like is said
of the Bachassins. The most numerous examples of chas
tity come from the island races. Mariner tells us that
in Tonga adultery is very rare. " Chastity prevails more

CHASTITY. 455

perhaps among these [the Sumatrans] than any other
people," says Marsden. Similar is the statement of Low
about the inland people of Borneo : " adultery is a crime
unknown, and no Dyak (Land) ever recollected an instance
of its occurrence." So in Dory, ~Ne\v Guinea, according to
Kops, " chastity is held in high regard. . . . Adultery is un
known." And Erskine testifies that the women of L'ea,
Loyalty Islands, " are strictly chaste before marriage, and
faithful wives afterwards." Some peoples who are in other
respects among the lowest are in this respect among the
highest. Snow says that the Fuegian women at Picton Island
are remarkably modest ; and a fact worthy of special note is
that among the rudest of the Mnsheras of India, who have
no formal marriage, " unchastity, or a change of lovers on
either side, when once mutual appropriation has been made,
is a thing of rare occurrence ; " and when it does occur
causes excommunication. The remaining two most marked
instances are found among other peaceful tribes of the In
dian hills. Says Hodgson of the Bodo and Dhimal —
" Chastity is prized in man and woman, married and unmar
ried." And according to Dalton—

"The Santal women are represented by all who have written about them
as exceedingly chaste, yet the young people of the different sexes are
greatly devoted to each other's society and pass much time together."
With these cases of indigenous chastity may be named cases
of peoples who are being degraded by foreign influences.
In a paper on the Yeddahs, whose neighbours the Singhalese
are extremely lax, Virchow quotes Gillings to the effect that
adultery and polygamy are only heard of among them where
attempts have been made to civilize them. And then, little
as we should expect to meet with such a testimony from, a
clergyman concerning a race so low as the Australians, yet
of one tribe we are told by the Rev. II. W. Holden. as quoted
by Taplin, that —

'• The advent of the whites has made the aborigines much more degraded,
more helpless, more — yea, much more — susceptible to all diseases. Before
our coming amongst them their laws were strict, especially those regal-ding

45 G THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

young men and young women. It was almost death to a young lad or man
who had sexual intercourse till married."

But the like cannot be said of other Australian tribes.

As thus presented by the uncivilized races, the facts do
not fall into clear generalizations : they do not show distinct
relations between chastity or unchastity and social forms or
types of race. The evidence does, indeed, preponderate in
favour of the relatively peaceful or wholly peaceful tribes,
but this relation is not without exception ; and conversely,
though the standard of chastity is low in most of the
fighting societies it is not low in all. Nor, when we con
template special antitheses, do we get clear proof. Of the
atrocious Fijians, exceeding in their cannibalism all other
peoples, and who glory in lying, theft, and murder, we read
in Erskine that the women are modest and that "female
virtue may be rated at a high standard," while according to
Seemann, "adultery is one of the crimes generally pun
ished with death." On the other hand, Cook describes
the Tahitiaus as utterly devoid of the sentiment of chastity.
lie says : —

They are " people who have not even the idea of indecency, and who
gratify every appetite and passion before witnesses, with no more sense of
impropriety than we feel when we satisfy our hunger at a social board
with our family or friends."

At the same time he speaks very favourably of their dis
positions : —

" They seemed to be brave, open, and candid, without either suspicion or
treachery, cruelty or revenge; so that we placed the same confidence in
them as in our best friends."

Here are incongruities which appear quite irreconcilable
with the ideas current among civilized peoples.

§ 184. Throughout the foregoing sections the aim has
been to ascertain by examination of the facts, what re
lations, if any, exist between chastity and social type, as
well as between this virtue and other virtues ; but we must
now consider specifically the prevailing ethical sentiments

CHASTITY. 4O i

which go along with observance and non-observance of
it. Already, in many of the quotations above given, these
sentiments have been expressed or implied ; but to complete
the general argument it seems needful to observe definitely,
the extreme deviations from what we may consider normal,
which they sometimes undergo. I will give three instances
— one from the uncivilized, another from a semi-civilized
people now extinct, and a third from an existing civilized
people.

Of the AYotyaks, a Finnish race, the German traveller
Buch says : —

" Indeed it is even disgraceful for a girl if she is little sought after by the
young men ... It is therefore only a logical result that it is honourable
for a girl to have children. She then gets a wealthier husband, and her
father is paid a higher kalym for her."

Concerning the ancient Chibchas, of Central America, we
read : —

"Some Indians . . . did not much care that their wives should be
virgins. . . . On the contrary, some, if they discovered that they had had no
intercourse with men, thought them unfortunate and without luck, as they
had not inspired affection in men: accordingly they disliked them as
miserable women."

The civilized nation referred to as showing, in some cases, a
feeling almost the reverse of that so strongly pronounced
among Western nations, we find in the Far East, Says
Dixon of the Japanese : —

"It used to be no uncommon thing (and we have no clear evidence that
the custom is obsolete) for a dutiful daughter to sell herself for a term of
years to the proprietor of a house of ill-fame, in order that she might thus
retrieve her father's fallen fortunes. When she returned to her home, no
stigma attached to her; rather was she honoured for her filial devotion."

Though, in a work just published, The Real Japan, Mr.
Henry Norman denies this alleged return home with credit
(in modern times at least) he verifies the earlier part of the
statement, that daughters are sold for specific periods by
their parents : the fact that such parents are tolerated being
sufficiently indicative of the prevailing sentiment,

Here then we get proof that in respect of this division of

458 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

conduct, as in respect of the divisions of conduct dealt "with
in preceding chapters, habits generate sentiments harmonizing
with them. It is a trite remark that the individual who per
sists in wrrong-doing eventually loses all sense that it is
wrong-doing, and at length believes that it is right-doing ;
and the like holds socially — must, indeed, hold socially,
since public opinion is but an aggregate of individual
opinions.

§ 185. If, instead of comparing one society with another,
we compare early stages of those societies which have devel
oped civilizations with later stages, wre find very variable
relations between chastity and social development. Only in
modern societies can we say that this relation becomes tol
erably clear.

Already we have seen how low in their sexual relations
were the people of India in early days, and how, promiscuity
and polyandry having died out, poets and sages in later
times endeavoured to explain away the traditional trans
gressions of their gods, while existing Hindus show shame
when reproached with the illicit amours of their ancient
heroes and heroines. Here there seems to have been a prog
ress of the kind to be looked for.

That, among adjacent societies, there took place some kin
dred changes, seems implied in the fact that prostitution in
temples, which prevailed among Babylonians, Egyptians, &c.,
and which, like other usages connected with religion, more
persistent than general usages, probably indicated certain
customs of earlier times, disappeared partially if not wholly.
It is to be observed, too, that along with woman-stealing,
common during primitive stages of the civilized, as still
among the uncivilized, there naturally went a degraded
position of captured women . (concubinage being a usual
concomitant), and that therefore, with the cessation of it, one
cause of low sexual relations came to an end. That in the
case of the Hebrews further advances took place seems to

CHASTITY.

459

be shown by the facts that though Herod the Great had nine
wives, and though in the Mishnah polygamy is referred to
as existing, yet the references in JEcclesiasticus imply the
general establishment of monogamy.

The relevant changes in the course of Greek civilization
clearly do not warrant the assertion that better relations
of the sexes accompanied higher social arrangements.
The amount of concubinage implied by the Iliad, was less
than that implied by the use of female slaves and servants
in Athenian households ; and the established institution of
hetairai. with the many distinguished of whom coexisted
a multitude of undistinguished, the adding to the public
revenue by a tax on houses of ill-fame, and the continuance
of authorized prostitution in the temples of Aphrodite
Pandemos, further prove that the relations of the sexes
had degenerated. On passing to Home we meet with
an undeniable case of retrogression in sexual arrange
ments and usages, going along with that kind of social
progress which is implied by extension of empire and
increase of political organization. The contrast between
the regular relations of men to women in early Roman
times/ and the extremely irregular relations which pre
vailed in the times of the emperors, when the being modest
was taken to imply being ugly, and when patrician ladies
had to be stopped by law from becoming prostitutes, shows
that moral degradation of this kind may accompany one
type of advancing civilization.

The reaction which commenced after these most cor
rupt Roman times, was greatly furthered by Christianity.
The furtherance, however, cannot be ascribed to a true
conception of the relations of the sexes, and a sentiment
appropriate to it, but rather to an asceticism which rep
robated the acceptance of pleasures and applauded the sub
mission to pains. The prompting motive was an other
worldly one more than an intrinsically moral one ; though
the other-worldly motive probably fostered the moral mo-

THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

tive. But in this case, as in countless other cases, the
general law of rhythm was illustrated. Following this
violent reaction came in time a violent re-reaction ; so
that after a period of sexual restraints came a period of
sexual excesses — a period in which the relation between
action and reaction was further illustrated by the fact that
the nominally-celibate clergy and nuns became worse than
the laity who were not bound to celibacy.

It should be added that the peoples of Northern Europe,
among whom the relations of the sexes seem to have been
originally good, also exhibited in course of time, though in a
less marked degree, the sexual retrogression that may go
along with some kinds of social progression. In mod
ern days, however, the advance to higher political types
and more settled social states, has been accompanied
by an average improvement in this respect as in other
respects.

§ 186. Satisfactory interpretation of these many strange
contrasts and variations is impracticable : the causation is too
complex. We may, however, note certain causes which
seem to have been occasionally influential, though we cannot
say to what extent.

The extreme laxity of the Tahitians may possibly have
been encouraged by the immense fertility of their habitat.
Commenting on the abundance of food almost spontane
ously produced by their soil, Cook says of the Tahitians : —
"They seem to be exempted from the first general curse,
that ' man should eat his bread in the sweat of his brow.' '
"Where self-maintenance and, by implication, the main
tenance of children, is thus extremely easy, it seems that
comparatively little mischief results if a mother is left to
rear a child or children without the aid of a father ; and in
the absence of those evil effects on both parent and off
spring which result where the necessaries of life are diffi
cult to get, there may not tend to arise that social reproba-

CHASTITY. 461

tion of incontinence which arises where its mischievous con
sequences are conspicuous.

Africa furnishes us with the hint of another cause of
laxity which may sometimes operate. The fact that " the
Dahoman, like almost all semi-barbarians, considers a num
erous family the highest blessing'' — a fact which recalls
kindred ones implied in the Bible — becomes comprehensible
when we remember that in early stages, characterized by
constant antagonisms, internal and external, it is important
to maintain not only the numbers of the tribe in face of
other tribes, but also the numbers of the families and clans ;
since the weaker of these go to the wall when struggles
take place. Hence it results that not only is barrenness
a reproach but fertility a ground of esteem ; and hence
possibly the reason why in East Africa " it is no disgrace
for an unmarried woman to become the mother of a
family : " the remark of one traveller, which I cannot now
find, concerning another tribe, being that a woman's irregu
larities are easily forgiven, if she bears many children.

This fact seems to point to the conclusion, pointed to
by many preceding facts, that there is a connexion between
unchastity and a militant regime ; seeing that production
of many children is a desideratum only where the mortality
from violence is great. For suspecting this connexion
we find a further reason in the degraded position of
women which uniformly accompanies pronounced mili
tancy (see Principles of Sociology, Part III, Chapter X,
" The Status of Women "). "Where, as among peoples
constantly fighting, the hard work is done by slaves and
women — where women are spoils of war to be dealt with
as the victors please — where, wThen not stolen or gained
by conquest, they are bought ; it is manifest that the
wills of women being in abeyance, the unchecked ego
ism of men must conflict with the growth of chastity.
And in the settled polygamy of societies which lose great
numbers of men in battle, the large harems of kings and

4C2 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

chiefs, the buying of female slaves— all of them character
istic of the militant type — we similarly see relations of the
sexes adverse to any moral restrictions. If we remember
that the extreme profligacy of Rome was reached after long
centuries of conquests ; if we remember that there survived
during the feudal organization resulting from war, the
jus primce noctis / if of Russia, exclusively organized for
war, we read that any girl on his estate was until recently,
at the lord's disposal ; we see further reason for suspecting
that the militant type of society is unfavourable to elevated
relations of the sexes.

We must not conclude, however, that chastity always
characterizes societies of the non-militant type. Though
sundry of the above-named peaceful tribes are distinguished
from uncivilized tribes at large by the purity of their
sexual relations, it is not so with another peaceful tribe,
the Todas : these are characterized rather by the opposite
trait. The Esquimaux, too, among whom there is exchange
of wives, do not even know what war is.

§ 1ST. It remains only to emphasize the truth, discern
ible amid all complexities and varieties, that without a
prevailing chastity we do not find a good social state.
Though comparison of intermediate types of society does
not make this clear, it is made clear by comparison of
extreme types. Among the lowest we have such a group
as the Ku-Ka-tha clan, inhabiting Western South Australia,
whose chief characteristics are "treachery, ingratitude,
lying and every species of deceit and cunning," who have
" no property," " no punishment of offenders," " no idea
of right and wrong," and who show absolute lack of the
sentiment in question : " chastity or fidelity being quite
unknown to them." At the other extreme come the
most advanced societies of Europe and America, in which,
along with a relatively high standard of chastity (for
women at least), there exist high degrees of the various

CHASTITY. 403

traits required for social life which are wanting in these
Australians. Nor does comparison of different stages of
civilized nations fail to furnish evidence; as witness the con
trast between our own time and the time after the liestora-
tion, in respect alike of chastity and of general welfare.

There are three ways in which chastity furthers a superior
social state. The first is that indicated at the outset — con-
duciveness to the nurture of offspring. jSTearly everywhere,
but especially where the stress of competition makes the
rearing of children difficult, lack of help from the father
must leave the mother overtaxed, and entail inadequate
nutrition of progeny. Unchastity, therefore, tends towards
production of inferior individuals, and if it prevails widely
must cause decay of the society.

The second cause is that, conflicting as it does with the
establishment of normal monogamic relations, unchastity
is adverse to those higher sentiments which prompt such
relations. In. societies characterized by inferior forms of
marriage, or by irregular connections, there cannot develop
to any great extent that powerful combination of feelings —
affection, admiration, sympathy — which in so marvellous a
manner has grown out of the sexual instinct. And in the
absence of this complex passion, which manifestly pre
supposes a relation between one man and one woman, the
supreme interest in life disappears, and leaves behind
relatively subordinate interests. Evidently a prevalent
unchastity severs the higher from the lower components of
the sexual relation : the root may produce a few leaves, but
no true flower.

Sundry of the keenest aesthetic pleasures must at the same
time be undermined. It needs but to call to mind what a
predominant part in fiction, the drama, poetry, and music, is
played by the romantic element in love, to see that am7 thine:

v •/ O

which militates against it tends to diminish, if not to de
stroy, the chief gratifications which should fill the leisure
part of life.
81

CHAPTER XIY.

SUMMARY OF INDUCTIONS.

§ 188. Where the data are few and exact, definite con
clusions can be drawn ; but where they are numerous and
inexact, the conclusions drawn must be proportionately
indefinite. Pure mathematics exemplifies the one extreme,
and Sociology the other. The phenomena presented by
individual life are highly complex, and still more complex
are the phenomena presented by the life of aggregated
individuals ; and their great complexity is rendered still
greater by the multiformity and variability of surrounding
conditions.

To the difficulties in the way of generalization hence
arising, must be added the difficulties arising from un
certainty of the evidence — the doubtfulness, incompleteness,
and conflicting natures, of the statements with which we
have to deal. ISTot all travellers are to be trusted. Some are
bad observers, some are biassed by creed or custom, some
by personal likings or dislikings ; and all have but imper
fect opportunities of getting at the truth. Similarly with
historians. Very little of what they narrate is from imme
diate observation. The greater part of it comes through
channels which colour, and obscure, and distort ; while
everywhere party feeling, religious bigotry, and the senti
ment of patriotism, cause exaggerations and suppressions.
Testimonies concerning moral traits are hence liable to
perversion.

Many of the peoples grouped under the same name

SUMMARY OF INDUCTIONS. 405

present considerable diversities of character: instance the
Australians, of whom it is remarked that some tribes are
quiet and tractable while others are boisterous and difficult
to deal with. Further, the conduct, sentiments, and ideas of
native peoples often undergo such changes that travellers
between whose visits many years have elapsed, give quite
different accounts. The original feelings and beliefs are
frequently obscured by missionary influences, and, in a still
greater degree, by contact with white traders and settlers.
From all parts of the world we get proofs that aborigines
are degraded by intercourse with Europeans. Here, then,
are further causes which distort the evidence.

Yet again there are the complications consequent on
changes of habitats and occupations. In this place tribes
are forced into antagonism with their neighbours, and in
that place they are led into quiet lives : one of the results
being that conceptions and feelings appropriate to an ante
cedent state, surviving for a long time in a subsequent state,
appear incongruous with it.

Thus we must expect to meet with anomalies, and must be
content with conclusions which hold true on the average.

§ 189. Before we can fully understand the significance
of the inductions drawn, we must reconsider the" essential
nature of social co-operation. As we pointed out in § 48,
from the sociological point of view, "ethics becomes noth
ing else than a definite account of the forms of conduct
that are fitted to the associated state ; " and in subsequent
sections it was made clear that, rising above those earliest
groups in which the individuals simply live in contiguity,
without mutual interference and without mutual aid, the
associated state can be maintained only by effectual co-oper
ation :^now for external defence, now for internal sustentation.
That is to say, the prosperity of societies depends, other
things equal, on the extents to which there are fulfilled in
them the conditions to such co-operation. Whence, through

466 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

survival of the fittest, it follows that principles of conduct
implying observance of these conditions, and sentiments en
listed in support of such principles, become dominant ;
while principles of conduct which concern only such parts
of the lives of individuals as do not obviously affect social
co-operation, do not acquire sanctions of such pronounced
and consistent kinds.

This appears to be the explanation of the fact which must
have struck many readers of the last two chapters, that the
ideas and sentiments respecting temperance and chastity,
display less intelligible relations to social type and social
development, than do the ideas and sentiments concern
ing co-operative conduct, internal and external. For if,
scattered throughout the community, there are men who
eat or drink to excess, such evils as are entailed on the
community are indirect. There is, in the first place, no
direct interference with military efficiency, so long as within
the armed force there is no such drunkenness or gluttony
as sensibly affects discipline. And in the second place,
there is no direct interference with the process of social
sustentation, so Ions: as one who eats or drinks to excess

does not aggress upon his neighbour or in any way incon
venience him. While erring in either of these ways, a man
may respect the persons and property of his fellows and
may invariably fulfil his contracts — may, therefore, obey
the fundamental principles of social co-operation. What
ever detriment society receives from his conduct arises
from the deterioration in one of its units. Much the same
thing' holds with disregard of chastity ; there is no necessary
or immediate interference wyith the carrying on of co-opera
tions, either external or internal ; but the evil caused is an
ultimate lowering of the population in number or quality.
In both these cases the social consciousness, not distinctly
awakened to the social results, does not always generate
consistent social sentiments.

It is otherwise with those kinds of conduct which directly

SUMMARY OF INDUCTIONS. 467

and obviously transgress the conditions to social co-opera
tion, external or internal. Cowardice, or insubordination,
diminishes in a very obvious way the efficiency of a fighting
body ; and hence, in respect of these, there are readily
established consistent ideas and sentiments. So, too, the
murdering or assaulting of fellow citizens, the taking away
their goods, the breaking of contracts with them, arc
actions which so conspicuously conflict with the actions
constituting social life, that reprobation of them is with
tolerable regularity produced. Hence, though there are
wide divergences of opinion and of feeling relative to such
classes of offences in different societies, yet we find these
related to divergences in the types of social activities
— one or other set of reprobations being pronounced ac
cording as one or other set of activities is most domi
nant.

Taken together, the preceding chapters show us a group
of moral traits proper to a life of external enmity. Where
the predominant social co-operations take the form of
constant fighting with adjacent peoples, there grows up
a pride in aggression and robbery, revenge becomes an
imperative duty, skilful lying is creditable, and (save in
small tribes which do not develop) obedience to despotic
leaders and rulers is the greatest virtue ; at the same time
there is a contempt for industry, and only such small re
gard for justice within the society as is required to main
tain its existence. On the other hand, Avhere the pre
dominant social co-operations have internal sustentation for
their end, while co-operations against external enemies
have either greatly diminished or disappeared, unprovoked
aggression brings but partial applause or none at all ;
robbery, even of enemies, ceases to be creditable ; revenge
is no longer thought a necessity ; lying is universally
reprobated ; justice in the transactions of citizens with
one another is insisted upon ; political obedience is so far
qualified that submission to a despot is held contemptible ;

4:08 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

and industry, instead of being considered disgraceful,
is considered as, in some form or other, imperative on
every one.

Of course the varieties of nature inherited by different
kinds of men from the past, the effects of customs sanctified
by age, the influences of religious creeds, together with the
circumstances peculiar to each society, complicate and qualify
these relations ; but in their broad outlines they are suffi
ciently clear — as clear as we can expect them to be.

§ 190. Hence the fact that the ethical sentiments pre
vailing in different societies, and in the same society under
different conditions, are sometimes diametrically opposed.
Multitudinous proofs of this truth have been given in pre
ceding chapters, but it will be well here to enforce it by a
series of antitheses.

Among ourselves, to have committed a murder disgraces
for all time a man's memory, and disgraces for generations
all who are related to him ; but by the Pathans a quite unlike
sentiment is displayed. One who had killed a Mollah (priest),
and failed to find refuge from the avengers, said at length : —
" I can but be a martyr. I will go and kill a Sahib." He
was hanged after shooting a sergeant, perfectly satisfied " at
having expiated his offence."

The prevailing ethical sentiment in England is such that a
man who should allow himself to be taken possession of and
made an unresisting slave, would be regarded with scorn ; but
the people of Drekete, a slave-district of Fiji, " said it was
their duty to become food and sacrifices for the chiefs," and
" that they were honoured by being considered adequate to
such a noble task."

Less extreme, though akin in nature, is the contrast be
tween the feelings which our own history has recorded
within these few centuries. In Elizabeth's time, Sir John
Hawkins initiated the slave trade, and in commemoration of
the achievement was allowed to put in his coat of arms " a

SUMMARY OF INDUCTIONS. 469

demi-moor proper bound with a cord : " the liononrableness
of his action being thus assumed by himself and recognized
by Queen and public. But in our days, the making slaves of
men, called by Wesley " the sum of all villainies," is regarded
with detestation ; and for many years we maintained a fleet
to suppress the slave-trade.

Peoples who have emerged from the primitive family-and-
clan organization, hold that one who is guilty of a crime
must himself bear the punishment, and it is thought extreme
injustice that the punishment should fall upon anyone else ;
but our remote ancestors thought and felt differently, as do '
still the Australians, whose " first great principle with regard
to punishment is, that all the relatives of a culprit, in the
event of his not being found, are implicated in his guilt : "
" the brothers of the criminal conceive themselves to be quite
as guilty as he is."

By the civilized, the individualities of women are so far
recognized that the life and liberty of a wife are not
supposed to be bound up with those of her husband ; and
she now, having obtained a right to exclusive possession of
property, contends for complete independence, domestic and
political. But it is, or was, otherwise in Fiji. The wives of
the Fijian chiefs consider it a sacred duty to suffer strangu
lation on the deaths of their husbands. A woman who had
been rescued by Williams " escaped during the night, and,
swimming across the river, and presenting herself to her
own people, insisted on the completion of the sacrifice which
she had in a moment of weakness reluctantly consented to
forego ; " and Wilkes tells of another who loaded her rescuer

cD "

" with abuse, and ever afterwrarde manifested the most deadly
hatred towards him."

Here, and on the Continent, the religious prohibition of
theft and the legal punishment of it, are joined with a strong
social reprobation ; so that the offence of a thief is never
condoned. In Beloochistan, however, quite contrary ideas
and feelings are current. There " a favourite couplet is to

470 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

the effect that the Biloch who steals and murders, secures
heaven to seven generations of ancestors."

In this part of the world reprobation of untruthfulness is
strongly expressed, alike by the gentleman and the labourer.
But in many parts of the world it is not so. In Blaiityre,
for example, according to Macdonald, "to be called a liar is
rather a compliment."

English sentiment is such that the mere suspicion of in
continence on the part of a woman is enough to blight her
life ; but there are peoples whose sentiments entail no such
effect, and in some cases a reverse effect is produced : " un-
chastity is with the "VVotyaks a virtue."

So that in respect of all the leading divisions of human
conduct, different races of men, and the same races at differ
ent stages, entertain opposite beliefs and display opposite
feelings.

§ 191. I was about to say that the evidence set forth in
foregoing chapters, brought to a focus in the above section,
must dissipate once for all the belief in a moral sense as com
monly entertained. But a long experience prevents me from
expecting this. Among men at large, life-long convictions
are not to be destroyed either by conclusive arguments or
multitudinous facts.

Only to those who are not by creed or cherished theory
committed to the hypothesis of a supernaturally created
humanity, will the evidence prove that the human mind has
no originally implanted conscience. Though, as shown in
my first work, Social Statics, I once espoused the doctrine
of the intuitive moralists (at the outset in full, and in
later chapters with some implied qualifications), yet it has
gradually become clear to me that the qualifications re
quired practically obliterate the doctrine as enunciated by
them. It has become clear to me that if, among our
selves, the current belief is that a man who robs and does
not repent will be eternally damned, while an accepted

SUMMARY OF INDUCTIONS. 471

proverb among the Bilochs is that " God \vill not favour a
man who does not steal and rob," it is impossible to hold
that men have in common an innate perception of right and
wrong.

But now, while we are shown that the moral-sense
doctrine in its original form is not true, we are also shown
that it adumbrates a truth, and a much higher truth. For
the facts cited, chapter after chapter, unite in proving that
the sentiments and ideas current in each society become
adjusted to the kinds of activity predominating in it. A
life of constant external enmitv generates a code in which

•J o

aggression, conquest, revenge, are inculcated, while peaceful
occupations are reprobated. Conversely, a life of settled
internal amity generates a code inculcating the virtues con
ducing to harmonious co-operation — justice, honesty, veracity,
regard for other's claims. And the implication is that if the
life of internal amity continues unbroken from generation
to generation, there must result not only the appropriate
code, but the appropriate emotional nature — a moral sense
adapted to the moral requirements. Men so conditioned
will acquire to the degree needful for complete guidance,
that innate conscience which the intuitive moralists errone
ously suppose to be possessed by mankind at large. There
needs but a continuance of absolute peace externally, and a
rigorous insistence on non-aggression internally, to ensure
the moulding of men into a form naturally characterized by
all the virtues.

This general induction is reinforced by a special induc
tion. ]STow as displaying this high trait of nature, now as
displaying that, I have instanced those various uncivilized
peoples who, inferior to us in other respects, are morally
superior to us ; and have pointed out that they are one and
all free from inter-tribal antagonisms. The peoples showing
this connexion are of various races. In the Indian hills, we
find some who are by origin Mongolian, Kolarian, Dravidian ;
in the forests of Malacca, Burmah, and in secluded parts of

472 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

China, exist such tribes of yet other bloods ; in the East
Indian Archipelago, are some belonging to the Papuan
stock ; in Japan there are the amiable Ainos, who " have no
traditions of internecine strife ; " and in North Mexico ex
ists yet another sucli people unrelated to the rest, the
Pueblos. No more conclusive proof could be wished than
that supplied by these isolated groups of men who, widely
remote in locality and differing in race, are alike in the two
respects, that circumstances have long exempted them from
war and that they are now organically good.

The goodness which may be attained to under these con
ditions excites the wronder of those wrho know only such
goodness as is attained by peoples who plume themselves on
their superiority. Witness General Fytche's comment on
the report of Mr. O'Riley concerning the Let-htas : — " The
account given by him of their appreciation of moral good
ness, and the purity of their lives, as compared with the
semi-civilized tribes amongst whom they dwell, almost savours
of romance."

May we not reasonably infer that the state reached by
these small uncultured tribes may be reached by the great
cultured nations, when the life of internal amity shall be un
qualified by the life of external enmity ?

§ 192. That the contemplation of such an eventuality will
be agreeable to all, I do not suppose. To the many who, in
the East, tacitly assume that Indians exist for the benefit of
Anglo-Indians, it will give no pleasure. Such a condition
will probably seem undesirable to men wTho hire themselves
out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the
justice of their cause, and think themselves absolved by a
command from Downing Street. As, among anthropophagi,
the suppression of man-eating is not favourably regarded ;
so in sociophagous nations like ours, not much pleasure is
caused by contemplating the cessation of conquests. ISTo
strong desire for such a state can be felt by our leading

SUMMARY OF INDUCTIONS. 473

General, who says that the duties of a soldier "are the
noblest that fall to man's lot," and whose motto is — " Man is
as a wolf towards his fellow man."

Nor, strange though it appears, will this prospect he
rejoiced over even by those who preach " peace and good
will to men ; " for the prospect is not presented in associa
tion with their creed. The belief that humanity can be
made righteous onlv bv acceptance of the Christian scheme,

o t/ •>

is irreconcilable with the conclusion that humanity may be
moulded into an ideal form by the continued discipline of
peaceful co-operation. Better far to our theologians seems
the doctrine that man, intrinsically bad, can be made good
only by promises of heaven and threats of hell, than does the
doctrine that man, not intrinsically bad, will become good
under conditions which exercise the higher feelings and give
no scope for the lower. Facts which apparently show that
unchristianized human nature is incurably vicious, give to
them satisfaction as justifying their religion ; and evidence
tending to prove the contrary is repugnant as showing that
their religion is untrue.

And it is by no means certain that their attitude is to
be regretted ; for there has to be maintained a congruity

O *• } "

between the prevailing cult and the social state and the
average nature. If any one says that the men who form
the land-grabbing nations of Europe, cannot be ruled in
their daily lives by an ethical sentiment, but must have it
enforced by the fear of damnation, I arn not prepared to
contradict him. If a writer who, according to those who
know, represents truly the natures of the gentlemen we send
abroad, sympathetically describes one of them as saying
to soldiers shooting down tribes fighting for their inde
pendence — " Give 'em hell, men ; " I think those are pos
sibly right who contend that such natures are to be kept in
check only by fear of a God who will "give 'em hell" if
they misbehave. It is, I admit, a tenable supposition that
belief in a deity who calmly looks on while myriads of his

474 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

creatures suffer eternal torments, may fitly survive dur
ing a state of the world in which naked barbarians and
barbarians in skins are being overrun by barbarians in
broadcloth.

But to the few who, looking back on the changes which
past thousands of years have witnessed, look forward to the
kindred changes which future thousands of years may be
expected to bring, it will be a satisfaction to contemplate a
humanity so adapted to harmonious social life that all needs
are spontaneously and pleasurably fulfilled by each without
injury to others.

PART III.
THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE,

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478 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

with added authority, and in other cases with more or less of
qualification.

Ethical ideas and sentiments have to be considered as
parts of the phenomena of life at large. We have to deal
with Man as a product of evolution, with Society as a pro
duct of evolution, and with Moral Phenomena as products of
evolution. Let no one anticipate any loss of authority.
Instead of finding that evolutionary ethics gives countenance
to lower forms of conduct than those at present enjoined, we
shall find that, contrariwise, evolutionary ethics is intolerant
of much which those who profess to have the highest guid
ance think harmless or justifiable.

§ 194. Integration being the primary process of evolution,
we may expect that the aggregate of conceptions constitut
ing ethics enlarges, at the same time that its components
acquire heterogeneity, definiteness, and that kind of cohesion
which system gives to them. As fulfilling this expectation,
we may first note that while drawing within its range of
judgment numerous actions of men towards one another
which at first were not recognized as right or wrong, it
finally takes into its sphere the various divisions of private
conduct — those actions of each individual which directly
concern himself only, and in but remote ways concern his
fellows.

Nearly all these actions are usually supposed to lie
beyond ethical rule : not only those multitudinous ones
which are indifferent, and, like our movements from
minute to minute, may be as well one way as another, but
those numerous ones which bring some good or evil to
self. But a theory of right and wrong which takes no
cognizance of nine-tenths of the conduct by which life is
carried on, is a folly. Life in general is a desideratum, or it
is not. If it is a desideratum, then all -those modes of con
duct which are conductive to a complete form of it are to be
morally approved. If, contrariwise, life is not a desideratum^

INTRODUCTORY. 479

the subject lapses : life should not be maintained, and all
questions concerning maintenance of it, including the ethical,
disappear. As commonly conceived, ethics consists solely of
interdicts on certain kinds of acts which men would like to
do and of injunctions to perform certain acts which they
would like not to do. It says nothing about the great
mass of acts constituting normal life ; just as though these
are neither warranted nor unwarranted. So influential
are traditional sentiments and expressions, that the mass of
readers will even now be unable to conceive that there
can be an ethical justification for the pursuit of positive
gratifications.

Such private conduct as errs in the direction of sensual
excess, like drunkenness, they do indeed include as subject
to ethical judgment and resulting condemnation : a perceived
injury, primarily to self and secondarily to others, being the
ground for the condemnation. But they ignore the truth
that if injury to self is, in this case, a reason for moral repro
bation, then benefit to self (so long as there is no contingent
injury to others or remote injury to self) is a reason for
moral approbation.

§ 195. Far above other creatures though he is, Man re
mains, in common with them, subject to the laws of life ; and
the requirement for him, as for them, is conformity to these
laws. By him, as by every living thing, self-preservation is
the first requisite ; since without self-preservation, the dis
charge of all other obligations, altruistic as well as egoistic,
becomes impossible.

But self-preservation is effected only by the performance
of actions. which are prompted by desires. Therefore the
satisfaction of these desires is to be enjoined if life should be
maintained. That this is so with the sensations which prompt
breathing, eating, drinking, and avoidance of extremes of
temperature, needs no proof : pain and death result from
disobedience and pleasure from obedience. And as taking
32

480 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

each of our primary pleasures directly furthers the vital
activities, so, taking each of our secondary pleasures furthers
them indirectly.

Unquestionably, then, there is a division of ethics which
yields sanctions to all the normal actions of individual life,
while it forbids the abnormal ones. This most general view,
at once evolutionary and hedonistic, harmonizes with several
more special views.

§ 196. As was pointed out in the preface, a disastrous
effect is produced on the majority of minds by presenting
ethics as a stern monitor, denouncing certain kinds of
pleasures while giving no countenance to pleasures of
other kinds. If it does not openly assert that all grati
fications are improper, yet, by forbidding a number of
them and saying nothing about the rest, it leaves the im
pression that the rest, if not to be condemned, are not to
be approved. By this one-sided treatment of conduct it
alienates multitudes who would otherwise accept its
teachings.

Assuming that general happiness is to be the aim (for
if indifference or misery were to be the aim, non-existence
would be preferable), then the implication is that the
happiness of each unit is a fit aim ; and a sequent implica
tion is that for each individual, as a unit, his own happiness
is a fit aim. Happiness as experienced by him, as much
adds to the total amount as does happiness experienced by
another ; and if happiness may not be pursued for self,
why may it be pursued for anyone else ? If the totality
of happiness could be madfe greater by each pursuing
another's happiness, while his own was pursued for him
by others, something might be isaid for the theory of
absolute altruism. But, in the first place, the greater part of
the grateful consciousness possible for each is achievable
only by himself — is a consciousness accompanying certain
activities, and cannot exist without them. In the second

INTRODUCTORY. 481

place, even were it otherwise, loss would arise if each
pursued only the happiness of others ; since as each of the
others would have to do the like, there would be required
the same amount of effort joined with a further amount of
effort consequent on misunderstandings from cross-purposes.
Imagine A feeding B while B fed A, and so on with C, D,
&c., and instead of increase of satisfactions there would be
decrease. The like would happen with the majority of
other wants to be satisfied. As shown at the outset (§§ 82,
91), a system of ethics which insists on altruism and ignores
egoism, is suicidal.

Such a system is, if the expression may be admitted,
doubly suicidal ; since, while its immediate operation must
be detrimental, its remote operation must be still more
detrimental. A loss of capacity for happiness must be the
effect produced on all. For many of our pleasures are
organically bound up with performance of functions needful
for bodily welfare ; arid non-acceptance of them involves a
lower degree of life, a decreased strength, and a diminished
ability to fulfil all duties.

§ 197. A further implication, almost universally ignored,
must be here again emphasized. Already, in § 71, I have
drawn attention to the obvious truth that the individual is
not alone concerned in the matter, but that all his descend
ants are concerned.

In the utter disregard of this truth we see more clearly
than usual how low is the average human intelligence.
Sometimes, when observing on the Continent how the
women, with faces unshaded, are, to keep out the bright
sunlight, obliged to half-close their eyes and wrinkle up
the corners of them, so producing, by daily repetition,
crows-feet some ten or twenty years earlier than need be ;
I have thought it astonishing that, anxious though these
women are to preserve beauty, they should have failed to
perceive so simple a relation between cause and effect.

482 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

But it may be held that an instance of stupidity even
more extreme (if the expression may pass), is furnished by
the inability of people to see that disregard of self involves
disregard of offspring. There are two ways in which it
does this.

Inability to provide for them adequately is one evil con
sequence. "Without bodily welfare in parents there cannot
be effectual sustentation of children ; and if the race should
be maintained, then care of self with a view to care of
progeny becomes an obligation. This normal egoism must
be such as results not merely in continued life, but in that
vigorous life which gives efficiency. Nor is due care of self
demanded only because the duties of the bread-winner can
not otherwise be fulfilled ; but it is demanded also by regard
for educational duties. Ill-health brings irritability and de
pression ; incapacities for right behaviour to children ; and,
by souring their tempers and deadening their sympathies,
injures them for life.

Still more closely, however, is the welfare of descend
ants bound up with self-welfare. Good or ill treatment
of his or her body or mind by each person, influences for
good or ill the constitutions of his or her progeny. Unless
it be held that stalwart and robust men may be expected
to come from stunted and unhealthy parents, or that high
intelligences and noble characters are likely to be inherited
from stupid and criminal fathers and mothers, it must be
admitted that any treatment of self which furthers bodily
or mental development tends towards the benefit of the
next generation (I say " tends " because there are com
plicating influences due to atavism), and that any treat
ment of self which undermines bodily health or injures the
mind intellectually or emotionally, tends towards a lo\ver-
ing of the nature in the next generation. Yet while people
daily make remarks about the likenesses of children to
parents, and note the inheritance of this or that defect of
mind or body, their criticisms on conduct entirely disregard

INTRODUCTORY. 483

the implication. They fail to draw the inference that if
constitutions are transmitted, the actions which damage

* O

constitutions or improve them influence for good or ill the
physical and mental characters of children and of children's
children.

In certain extreme cases there is, indeed, a distinct
recognition of the mischiefs entailed by the transgressions
of parents. Though reprobation of those who have trans
mitted acquired diseases to their children is not often
heard, yet there can be no doubt that it is strongly felt.
Probably most will agree that, if the amount of suffering1

i/ o 7 JT>

inflicted be used as a measure, murder is a smaller crime
than is the giving to offspring infected constitutions and
consequent life-long miseries. But even in its grossest form
this transgression is thought little of by the transgressors.
There are, indeed, kindred cases in which the sense of re
sponsibility sometimes serves as a deterrent — cases, for ex
ample, where knowledge of the existence of insanity in the
family causes abstentation from marriage. Very generally,
however, where the weaknesses, or disorders, or taints they
are likely to communicate, are of less conspicuous kinds, peo
ple, in a light hearted way, are ready to inflict uncounted
evils on descendants.

Still less is an allied consciousness of responsibility. There
is no recognition of the truth that such persistent misuse of
body or mind as injures it, involves the injury of descendants ;
and there is consequently no recognition of the truth that it
is a duty so to carry on life as to preserve all parts of the
system in their normal states.

These further reasons for due care of self have to be
insisted upon. Each man's constitution should be regarded
by him as an entailed estate, which he is bound to pass on in
as good a condition as he received it, if not better.

§ 198. Beyond this special altruism which makes impera
tive a normal egoism, there is a general altruism which also

484 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

makes it in a measure obligatory. The obligation has both a
negative and a positive aspect.

Such care of self as is needful to exclude the risk of
burdening others, is implied in a proper regard for others.
As, from those rude groups in which men lead lives so in
dependent that they severally take the entire results of
their own conduct, we advance to developed nations, fellow-
men become more and more implicated in our actions.
Under a social system carried on by exchange of services,
those on whom undue self-sacrifice has brought incapacity
are commonly obliged to break contracts partially or wholly,
and so to inflict evil ; and then any such incapacity as
negatives bread-winning, ordinarily imposes, first on relatives
and then on friends, or else on the public, a tax implying
extra labour. Everyone, therefore, is bound to avoid that
thoughtless unselfishness which is apt to bring evils on others
— evils that are often greater than those which entire selfish
ness produces.

The altruistic justification of egoism referred to as of a
positive kind, results, firstly, from the obligation to expend
some effort for the benefit of particular persons or for the
benefit of society— an obligation which cannot be properly
discharged if health has been undermined. And it results,
secondly, from the obligation to become, so far as inherited
nature permits, a source of social pleasure to those around ;
to fulfil this requirement there must ordinarily be a flow of
mental energy such as the invalid cannot maintain.

CHAPTER II.

ACTIVITY.

§ 199. In a systematic treatise the express statement of
certain commonplaces is inevitable. A coherent body of
geometrical theorems, for instance, has to be preceded by
self-evident axioms. This must be the excuse for here
setting down certain familiar truths.

The infant at first feebly moves about its little limbs;
by and by it crawls on the floor ; presently it walks, and
after a time runs. As it develops, its activities display
themselves in games, in races, in long walks : the range of
its excursions being gradually extended, as it approaches
adult existence. Manhood brings the ability to make
tours and exploring expeditions ; including passages from
continent to continent, and occasionally round the world.
When middle life is passed and vigour begins to decline,
these extreme manifestations of activities become fewer.
Journeys are shortened ; and presently they do not go
beyond visits to the country or to the seaside. As old age
advances, the movements become limited to the village
and the surrounding fields ; afterwards to the garden ;
later still to the house ; presently to the room ; finally to
the bed ; and at last, when the power to move, gradually
decreasing, has ceased, the motions of the lungs and heart
come to an end. Taken in its ensemble, life presents itself
in the shape of movements which begin feebly, gradually
increase up to maturity, and then culminating, decrease
until they end as feebly as they began.

4:86 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

Tims life is activity ; and the complete cessation of
activity is death. Hence arises the general implication
that since the most highly-evolved conduct is that which
achieves the most complete life, activity obtains an ethical
sanction, and inactivity an ethical condemnation.

This is a conclusion universally accepted and needing
no enforcement. Even from those who habitually evade
useful activities, there comes reprobation for such of their
class as are too inert even to amuse themselves ; absolute
sloth is frowned on by all.

§ 200. The kind of activity with which we are here
chiefly concerned, is the activity directed primarily to self-
sustentation, and secondarily to sustentation of family.

In the order of Nature the imperativeness of such activity
effectually asserts itself. Among all sub-human creatures
(excepting most parasites) individuals which lack it die,
and after them their offspring, if they have any. Those
only survive which are adequately active ; and, among
such, a certain advantage in self-sustentation and sustenta
tion of offspring is gained by those in which activity is
greater than usual : the general effect being to raise the
activity to that limit beyond which disadvantage to the
species is greater than advantage. Up to the time when
men passed into the associated state, this law held of them
as of the lower animals ; arid it held of them also through
out early social stages. Before the making of slaves
began, no family could escape from the relation between
labour and the necessaries of life. And the ethical sanc
tion for this relation in primitive societies is implied in
the fact that extreme inequality in the distribution of
efforts and benefits between the sexes, must always have
resulted in deterioration and eventual extinction.

Though, in the course of social evolution, there have
arisen multiplied possibilities of evading the normal relation
between efforts and benefits, so as to get the benefits

ACTIVITY. 487

without the efforts ; yet, bearing in mind the foregoing
general law of life, we must infer that the evasions call
for reprobation more or less decided, according to circum
stances.

Being here directly concerned only with the ethics of
individual life, we need not take account of the implied
relation between the idle individual and the society in
which he exists. Ignoring all other cases, we may limit
ourselves to those cases in which property equitably ac
quired by a parent, without undue tax on his energies,
serves, when bequeathed, to support a son in idleness:
cases in which there is no implied trespass on fellow-
citizens. On each of such cases the verdict is that though
it is possible for the individual to fulfil the law of life, in
so far as physical activities are concerned, by devoting
himself to sports and games, and in so far as certain kinds
of mental activities are concerned, by useless occupations ;
yet there lack those mental activities, emotional and
intellectual, which should form part of his life as a
social being ; and in so far his life becomes an abnormal
one.

§ 201. The chief question for us, however, is — What are
the ethical aspects of labour considered in its immediate
relations to pleasure and pain ? From this point of view
of absolute ethics, actions are right only when, besides
being conducive to the future happiness of self, or others,
or both, they are also immediately pleasurable. What
then are we to say of necessary labour; most of which is
accompanied by disagreeable feelings ?

Such labour is warranted, or rather demanded, by the
requirements of that relative ethics which is concerned
not with the absolute right but with the least wrong.
During the present transitional state of humanity, submis
sion to such displeasurable feeling as labour involves, is
warranted as a means of escaping from feelings which are

488 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

still more displeasurable — a smaller pain to avoid a greater
pain, or to achieve a pleasure, or both.

The state necessitating this compromise is the state of
imperfect adaptation to social life. The change from the
irregular activities of the savage man to the regular
activities of the civilized man, implies a re-moulding — a
repression of some powers which crave for action, and a
taxing of other powers beyond the pleasurable limit: the
capacity for persistent effort and persistent attention, being
one especially called for, and one at present deficient. This
adaptation has to be undergone, and the accompanying
sufferings have to be borne.

And here seems a fit place for commenting on the vary
ing amounts of displeasurable feeling, often rising to posi
tive pain, necessitated by fulfilment of the obligation to
work. The majority of people speak of effort, bodily or
mental, as if the cost of it were the same to all. Though
personal experience proves to them that when well and
fresh, they put forth with ease a muscular force which,
when prostrate with illness or exhausted by toil, it is
painful to put forth — though they find, too, that when the
mental energies are high they think nothing of a con
tinuous attention which, when enfeebled, they are quite
unequal to ; yet they do not see that these temporary
contrasts between their own states, are paralleled by per
manent contrasts between states of different persons.

Ethical judgments must take account of the fact that
the effort, bodily or mental, which is easy to one is labor
ious to another.

§ 202. We come now to a question of special interest to
us — Can the human constitution be so adapted to its pres
ent conditions, that the needful amount of labour to be
gone through will be agreeable ?

An affirmative answer will, to most people, seem absurd.
Limiting their observations to facts around, or at most

ACTIVITY. 489

extending them to such further facts as the records of
civilized people furnish, they cannot believe in the required
change of nature. Such evidence as that which, in the
first part of this work (§§ 63-67), was assigned to prove
that pleasures and pains are relative to the constitution of
the organism, and that in virtue of the unlimited modi-
fiability of constitution, actions originally painful may
become pleasurable, does not weigh with them. Though
they probably know some who so love work that it is diffi
cult to restrain them, — though here and there they meet
one who complains that a holiday is a weariness ; yet it
does not seem to them reasonable to suppose that the due
tendency to continuous labour, which is now an excep
tional trait, may become a universal trait.

It is undeniable that there are various expenditures of
energy, bodily and mental — often extreme expenditures —
which are willingly entered upon and continued eagerly :
witness field-sports, games, and the intellectual efforts
made during social intercourse. In these cases the energy
expended is often far greater than that expended in daily
avocations. What constitutes the difference ? In the one
class of actions emulation makes possible the pleasurable
consciousness which accompanies proved efficiency, and
the pleasurable consciousness of the admiration given to
efficiency ; while, in the other class, the absence of emula
tion, or at any rate of direct visible emulation, implies the
absence of a large proportion of this pleasurable conscious
ness. Nevertheless, what remains may become a power
ful stimulus, making continuous application agreeable.
Hobbies exemplify this truth. I can name two cases in
which occupations of this kind are, without need, pursued
so eagerly as scarcely to leave time for meals. Though in
these cases the pleasurable exercise of skill is a large
factor, and though in many occupations there seems but
small scope for this, yet, nearly everywhere, the satisfac
tion attendant on the doing of work in the most perfect

490 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

manner, may be sufficient to render the work agreeable,
when joined with that overflowing energy which is to be
anticipated as the concomitant of a normally developed
nature.

§ 203. It remains to consider whether, concluding that
labour up to a certain limit is obligatory, there is any
reason for concluding that beyond that limit it is the reverse
of obligatory. The present phase of human progress fosters
the belief that the more work the more virtue ; but this is an
unwarranted belief.

Absolute ethics does not dictate more work than is re
quisite for efficient self-sustentation, efficient nurture of
dependents, and discharge of a due share of social duties.
As in the lowest creatures, so in the highest, survival is
the primary end to be achieved by actions ; and though, in
an increasing degree as we ascend, actions themselves
with their associated feelings become secondary ends, yet
pursued to the detriment of the primary end in all its ful
ness — the leading of a life complete, not in length only,
but in breadth and depth. The hedonistic view, which is
involved in the evolutionary view, implies an ethical
sanction for that form of conduct which conduces in the
highest degree to self-happiness and the happiness of others ;
and it follows that labour which taxes the energies beyond
the normal limit, or diminishes more than is needful the
time available for other ends, or both, receives no ethical
sanction.

If adaptation to the social state must in time produce a
nature such that the needful labour will be pleasurable, a
concomitant conclusion is that it will not produce a
capacity for labour beyond this limit. Hence labour in ex
cess of this limit will be abnormal and improper. For as
labour inevitably entails physical cost — as the waste involved
by it has to be made good out of the total supply which the
organic actions furnish ; then superfluous labour, deducting

ACTIVITY. 491

from this supply more than is necessary, diminishes the
amount available for life at large — diminishes the extent or
the intensity of that life.

Obviously, however, this reasoning refers to that fully-
evolved form of life which absolute ethics contemplates,
rather than to the present form, which has to be guided by
relative ethics. In our transitional state, with its unde
veloped capacity for work, frequent over-stepping of the
limit is requisite, and must be regarded as incident to the
further development of the capacity. All we may fairly say
is that, at present, the limit should not be so transgressed
as to cause physical deterioration, and that it should be
respected where there exists no weighty reason for going
beyond it.

§ 204. Connected as each man's actions are with the ac
tions of others in multitudinous ways, it follows that the
ethics of individual life cannot be completely separated
from the ethics of social life. Conduct of which the pri
mary results are purely personal, has often secondary results
which are social. Hence we must in each case consider the
ways in which acts that directly concern self indirectly con
cern others.

In the present case it scarcely needs saying that beyond
that obligation to labour which is deducible from the laws of
individual life, there is a social obligation reinforcing it.
Though, in a primitive community, it is possible for an indi
vidual to take upon himself all the results of his inactivity ;
yet, in an advanced community, consisting of citizens not
devoid of sympathy, it becomes difficult to let the idle
individual suffer in full the results of his idleness, and still
more difficult to let his offspring do this. Even should it
be decided by fellow-citizens that the extreme consequences
of idleness shall be borne, yet this decision must be at the
cost of sympathetic pain. In any case, therefore, evil
is inflicted on others as well as on self, and the conduct

492 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

inflicting it is, for this further reason, to be ethically repro
bated.

Keprobation, though quite of another quality, is also de
served by conduct of the opposite kind — by the carrying of
labour to such extreme as to cause illness, prostration, and
incapacity. For by this conduct, too, burdens and pains are
entailed on others.

Hence altruistic motives join egoistic motives in
prompting labour up to a certain limit, but not beyond that
limit.

CHAPTER III.

KEST.

§ 205. Though the ethically-enjoined limitations of life-
sustaining activities, specified towards the close of the last
chapter, apparently implies that rest is ethically enjoined,
arid in a large measure does so, yet this corollary must be
definitely stated and enlarged on for several reasons.

The first is that there are various activities, not of a life-
sustaining kind, which may be entered on when the activities
devoted to sustentation of life are ended ; and hence the con
clusion drawn in the last chapter does not involve insistence
upon absolute rest.

Further, we have to observe the several kinds of rest,
which, if not complete, are approximately so ; and the need
for each of these kinds must be pointed out.

Something has to be said under each of the several heads
—rest at intervals during work ; nightly rest ; rest of a day
after a series of days ; and occasional long rest at long inter
vals.

§ 20'). Rhythm, shown throughout the organic functions
as elsewhere, has for its concomitant the alternation of
waste and repair. Every contraction of the heart, every
inflation of the lungs, is followed by a momentary relaxa
tion of the muscles employed. In the process of alimenta
tion, we have the short rhythms constituting the peristaltic
motion, compounded with the longer rhythms implied by

494 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

the periodicity of meals. Far deeper, indeed, than at first
appears, is the conformity to this law ; for some organic
actions which appear continuous are in truth discontinu
ous. A muscle which maintains for a time a persistent
contraction, and seems in a uniform state, is made up of
multitudinous units which are severally alternating be
tween action and rest — these relaxing while those are
contracting; and so keeping up a constant strain of the
whole muscle by the inconstant strains of its competent
fibres.

The law thus displayed in each organ and part of an
organ, from moment to moment, is displayed throughout
the longer and larger co-operations of parts. Combined
muscular strains which tax the powers of the system in
any considerable degree, cannot with impunity be con
tinually repeated without cessation, even during the period
devoted to activity. Waste in such cases over-runs repair
to a considerable extent, and makes needful a cessation
during which arrears may be in some measure made up —
an interval for " taking breath," as the expression is.
Long unbroken persistence, even in moderate efforts, is
injurious; and though such unresting action when occa
sional does no permanent harm, if it recurs daily, loss of
power is the final result. Scriveners' palsy illustrates a
local form of this evil ; as do also various atrophies of over
used muscles.

Nor is this true of bodily actions only. It is true of
mental actions also. A concentrated attention which is
too continuous produces, after a time, nervous disturbance
and inability. Daily occupation for many hours in even so
simple a thing as removing the small defects in machine-
made lace, not unf requently brings on chronic brain disorder.
Some single-line railways in the United States, the move
ments of trains on which are regulated by telegraph from
a central office, furnish a striking instance in the fact that
the men \vho have thus to conduct the traffic, and cannot

REST. 495

for a moment relax under penalty of causing accidents, never
last for more than a few years ; they become permanently
incapable.

These unduly persistent strains, bodily and mental, are
always indicated more or less clearly by the painful feelings
accompanying them. The sensations protest, and their pro
tests cannot with impunity be ignored.

§ 207. Insistence on the need for that complete rest
which we call sleep, is not called for; but something may
fitly be said concerning its duration — now too small, now
too great.

Current criticisms on the habits of those around, imply
the erroneous belief that for persons of the same sex and
age, the same amount of sleep is required — a professed
belief which is, nevertheless, continually traversed by re
marks on the unlike numbers of hours of repose which
different persons can do with. The truth is that the re
quired amount of sleep depends on the constitution.
According as the vigour is small or great, there may be
taken many hours to little purpose or few hours to great
purpose. To understand what are the vital requirements,
and, by implication, the habits which, from our present
standpoint, we regard as having ethical sanction, we
must pause a moment to look at the physiology of the
matter.

The difference between waking and sleeping is that in
the one waste gets ahead of repair, wThile in the other
repair gets ahead of waste. Proof that repair is always going
on, but that it varies in rate, is furnished by what are
known as photogenes. During early life, while the blood
is rich and the circulation good, the destruction of nerve-
tissue produced by each impression the eye receives, is
made up for instantaneously, so that the eye is at once
ready to appreciate perfectly a new impression ; but in
later life diminished vigour is shown by the greater time
33

496 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

required for restoring the sensitiveness of the retinal ele
ments ; and connected nerves, after each visual impression —
a time which is quite appreciable when the impression has
been strong. The result is that a new image received is to
some extent confused by the persistence of the preceding
image, presented in its complementary colours.

Now these differences in the rates of repair at different
stages in the life of the same individual, are paralleled by
differences in the rates of repair in different individuals ;
and hence the unlike amounts of sleep required. There is a
double cause for the unlikeness. In the vigorous person re
pair during the waking state is relatively so rapid as not to
fall very far in arrear of the waste caused by action ; the
consequence being that at the end of the day less repair is
required. And then, from the same cause, it results that
during sleep such repair as has to be made is more rapidly
made. Conversely, in the individual with low nutrition and
slow circulation, action is sooner followed by exhaustion, and
the parts wasted by action take a longer rest to make them
fit for action.

But while the implication is that not unfrequently one
who is condemned as a sluggard is taking no more
absolute rest than is required by him, and is rightly
prompted to take it by his sensations, we must not infer
that there is no such thing as sleep in excess. There is a
very general tendency to take not only more than is
needful but more than is beneficial. Passing a certain
limit, the state of entire quiescence does not invigorate but
prostrates. Lacking their stimuli the vital organs flag,
and when the quiescence is continued after repairs have
been effected, a further fall in their activities disables
them from carrying on the repairs needed during working
life at the ordinary rate: a sense of weariness being the
consequence. Probably for those whose systems are so far
in a normal state that they sleep soundly, the first complete
waking marks the proper limit to the night's rest. Some-

REST. 497

times a day after sleep tlms limited is a day of unusual
vivacity.

Here we have to recognize a seeming exception to the
general law that for maintenance of bodily welfare the
sensations are adequate guides. This lack of adjustment is
most likely associated with our transitional state, during
which the average life is so uninteresting, and often so
wearisome, that the prospective renewal of it on waking
does not serve as a stimulus to get up, but rather the con
trary ; for everyone has found that when the forthcoming
day promises an enjoyment, say an excursion, there is
no difficulty in rising early. It may be, therefore, that
greater adaptation to the social state and its needful occupa
tions, will render easy that normal abridgment of sleep
which is now difficult. But for a long time to come, it will
be an implication of relative ethics that guidance by the
sensations must here be supplemented by judgments based
on experience.

§ 90S. Civilized mankind have fallen into the habit of
taking a further periodical rest — a Aveekly rest ; and without
accepting their reasons given for taking it, we may admit
the propriety of taking it for other reasons.

Monotony, no matter of what kind, is unfavourable to
life. ]S"ot only does there need some discontinuity in the
activities carried on during the waking state, and not only
must the activities be made discontinuous by intervals of
sleep, but that continuity of activities which consists in
repetition of days similarly occupied, also seems to require
breaking by days of rest. There is a cumulative weariness
which is not met by the periodical cessations which nights
bring : there require larger periodical cessations at longer
intervals. The persistent strain of daily occupations is in all
cases a strain falling on some parts of the system more than
on others; and that daily repair which suffices to bring
the system at large into working order again, appears not

498 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

to suffice for bringing into working order again parts
that have been specially taxed. So that a recurring day
of rest has, if not a religious sanction, still an ethical
sanction.

We may, too, agree with the Sabbatarians so far as to ad
mit that a periodical cessation of daily business is requisite
as a means to mental health. Even as it is, most people
largely fail to emancipate themselves from those prosaic con
ceptions of the world and life which mechanical routine
tends to produce ; and they would fail utterly were all their
days passed in work. There require intervals of passivity
during which the vast process of things amid which we live
may be contemplated, and receptivity of the appropriate
thoughts and feelings fostered.

§ 209. I need not insist on the physical and mental bene
fits gained from those longer intermissions of labour which
now commonly recur annually. Not to dwell on the posi
tive pleasures obtained by them (which, however, must be
counted as effects to be deliberately sought), it suffices to re
call the re-invigoration and increased fitness for work
which they usually produce, to show that they are ethically
sanctioned, or rather, where circumstances permit, ethically
enjoined.

Without further elaboration I pass to the altruistic
reasons which justify rest, and show the taking of it in
due amount to be obligatory. The claims of dependents
and the claims of fellow-citizens with whom engagements
have been made, alike forbid excess of work : energy
must not be so wastefully expended as to jeopardize ful
filment of them. A sane judgment has to balance between
the demand for such efforts as are required to meet
these claims, and the demand for such rest as will prevent
exhaustion and incapacity. Duty to others forbids overtax
of self.

But strong as is the interdict hence arising, there is a

499

still stronger interdict — peremptory, if not for all, yet for
those who are likely to have offspring. As pointed out
emphatically in the preliminary chapter, preservation of a
sound body, as well as of a sound mind, is a duty to pos
terity. Deterioration of physique must result from per
sistence in undue activity. To suppose that whether a life
which is physically normal has been led by a parent, or one
which is physically abnormal, matters not to children, is ab
surd. If there has been habitual deficiency of rest and con
sequent deficiency of repaii, the abnormality produced must,
like every other, leave its trace in descendants — not always
conspicuously, since each child, besides inheriting from two
parents, inherits from many lines of ancestors ; but, never
theless, in due degree somewhere.

CHAPTER IV.

NUTRITION.

§ 210. Except perhaps in agreeing that gluttony is to be
reprobated and that the gourmet, as well as the gourmand,
is a man to be regarded with scant respect, most people will
think it is absurd to imply, as the above title does, that
ethics has anything to say about the taking of food. Though,
by condemning excesses of the kinds just indicated, they im
ply that men ought not to be guilty of them, and by the use
of this word class them as wrong ; yet they ignore the ob
vious fact that if there is a wrong in respect of the taking of
food there must also be a right.

The truth appears to be that daily actions performed in
ways which do not obviously deviate from the normal, cease
to be thought of as either right or wrong. As the most
familiar mathematical truths, such as twice two are four, are
not ordinarily thought of as parts of mathematics — as the
knowledge which a child gains of surrounding objects is not
commonly included under education, though it forms a
highly important part of it ; so this all-essential ministration
to life by food, carried on as a matter of course, is dropped
out of the theory of conduct. And yet, as being a part of
conduct which fundamentally affects welfare, it cannot
properly be thus dropped.

How improper is the ignoring of it as a subject-matter for
ethical judgments, we shall .see on observing the ways in
which current opinion respecting it goes wrong.

§ 211. Already, in § 1Y4, the extreme instances furnished
by the Esquimaux, the Yakuts, and the Australians, have

NUTRITION. 501

shown n s that enormous quantities of food are proper
under certain conditions, and that satisfaction of the seem
ingly inordinate desires for them is not only warranted but
imperative : death being the consequence of inability to
take a sufficient quantity to meet the expenditure entailed
by severe climate or by long fasts. To which here let
me add the experiences of Arctic voyagers, who, like the
natives of the Arctic regions, acquire great appetites for
blubber.

Mention of these facts is a fit preliminary to the question
whether, in respect of food, desires ought or ought not to
be obeyed. As already said, treatment of this inquiry as
ethical will be demurred to by most, and by many ridi
culed. Though, when not food but drink is in question,
their judgments, very strongly expressed, are of the kind
they class as moral ; yet they do not see that since the
question concerns the effect of things swallowed, it is
absurd to regard the conduct which causes these effects as
moral or immoral when the things are liquid but not when
they are solid.

Adaptation goes on everywhere and always, in the
human race as in inferior races, and, among other results,
is the adjustment of the desire for food to the need for
food. Even were this not shown us by the extreme in
stances above given, it would be an inevitable corollary
from the law of the survival of the fittest. Every mal
adjustment of the two must have been injurious, and,
other things equal, the tendency must ever have been for
mal-adjustment to cause the dying-out of individuals in
which it existed. On the average, then, there must be a
fair balance : what there is of deviation from the normal,
bearing but a small ratio to what there is of normal.

Some deviation doubtless occurs. We still see inherit
ance of traits appropriate to the primitive wild life and
inappropriate to settled civilized life ; and among such
traits is that tendency to take food in excess of immediate

THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

need, which was good in the irregularly-living savage but
which is not good in the regularly-living European.
Further, it may be admitted that men who lead monot
onous lives, as most do, presenting much to bear and
little to enjoy, are apt to prolong unduly the few actions
which are pleasurable ; and of these eating is one. When
the occupation to be entered upon at the end of a meal is
pleasurable, there is comparatively little wish to eke out
the meal.

But the more or less of excess apt to result from these
causes, is consequent not upon obedience to the sensations
naturally arising, but rather from solicitation of the sensa
tions : a perverting factor made possible by that imagina
tion which has evil effects as well as good effects. It is
not that an immediate desire prompts the action, but that
the action is prompted by the hope of experiencing the
agreeable feeling which accompanies fulfilment of a desire.
There are kindred evils arising from sitting down to table
when appetite does not suggest — partaking of periodically-
recurring meals whether hungry or otherwise. Very
often people eat as a matter of course, not in conformity
with their sensations but notwithstanding the protests of
their sensations. And then, oddly enough, there comes
from these transgressors the assertion that sensations are
not fit guides ! Having suffered from constantly disobey
ing them, they infer that they are not to be obeyed !

It is doubtless true that those who are out of health
occasionally entail on themselves mischiefs by eating as
much as they desire ; and some who are not in obvious
ways unwell, now and then do the like. But a demurrer
drawn from these experiences is not sustainable. In such
cases the adjustments between all the various needs of the
organism, and the various sensations which prompt fulfil
ment of them, have been chronically deranged by dis
obedience. When by persistent indoor life, or by overwork,
or by ceaseless mental worry, or by inadequate clothing,

NUTRITION'. 503

or by breathing bad air, the bodily functions have been
perverted, guidance by the sensations ceases to be reliable.
It then becomes needful either, as in some cases, to restrain
appetite, or, as in other cases, to take food without appe
tite : an abnormal state having been brought about by-
physiological sins, artificial regulation is called for to
supplement natural regulation. But this proves nothing.
After prolonged starvation, satisfaction of ravenous hunger
by a good meal is said to be fatal. The prostration is so
great that any considerable quantity of food cannot be
digested, and administration in small quantities is needful.
But it is not thence inferred that satisfaction of appetite
by a good meal will ordinarily be fatal. Similarly is it
throughout. The evils which occasionally arise from taking
as much as appetite prompts, must be ascribed to the mul
titudinous preceding disobediences to sensations, and not to
this particular obedience to them.

While there is recognition of the evils resulting from
excesses in eating, there is little recognition of the evils
consequent on eating too little. The ascetic bias given by
their religion and by their education, leads most people to
think themselves meritorious if they do with as little food as
possible and tempts them to restrict the food of others.
Disastrous effects follow. Inadequate nutrition, especially
while growth is going on, is an unquestionable cause of
imperfect development, either in size, or in quality of tissue,
or in both; and parents who are responsible for it are
responsible for invalid lives. Xo cattle-breeder or horse-
breeder dreams of obtaining a fine animal on a stinted
diet. 'No possessor of a tine animal expects him to do
good service on the road or in the field unless he is well
fed. Science and common sense unite in recognizing the
truth that growth and vigour are alike dependent on a
good supply of the materials from which body and brain
are built up when young and repaired when adult. The
taking of an adequate quantity of food is insured if appe-

504 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

tite is obeyed, while if the supply is restricted spite of the
demands of appetite, there will inevitably be more or less
of defect in size or in strength.

Speaking generally, then, we may say that there is an
ethical sanction for yielding in full to the desire for food ;
both because satisfaction of the desire is itself one element
to be counted among the normal gratifications life offers,
and because satisfaction of it indirectly conduces to sub
sequent fulness of life and the power of discharging all
the obligations of life.

§ 212. One who complains of the monotony of his meals
and is thereupon reproached for seeking the enjoyments
which change of diet gives (1 name a fact), is, by the
reproach, tacitly condemned from a moral point of view.
Whence the implication is that a doctrine of right and
wrong has something to say respecting the propriety or
impropriety of yielding to the wish for variety. Everyone,
therefore, who does not agree in the opinion of the pious
Scotchwoman just referred to, must hold the opposite
opinion : the desire for variety of food should be gratified
—has a sanction like that of the desire for due quantity of
food.

This is of course not a fit place for entering on the
topics of variety, quality, and preparation of food — topics
the mere mention of which will seem out of place to those
who have not accepted the doctrines implied in the first
chapter of this work, that every part of conduct which
directly or indirectly affects welfare has an ethical aspect.
Here, what has to be said or hinted under the three heads
named, may come under the one general head of satisfac
tion of the palate, as distinguished from the satisfaction of
the appetite — distinguished in a measure but not wholly ;
since the one serves as a normal stimulus to the other.
Partly as a further sequence of asceticism, and partly as a
reaction against the gross sensualism which history occa-

NUTRITION". 505

sionally records from Roman days down to recent days, it
lias come to be thought that the pleasures of the table are
to be reprobated ; or, if not positively reprobated, yet
passed over as not proper to be regarded. Those who take
this view are, indeed, like others, discontent with insipid
food; and are no less ready than others to dismiss cooks
who cannot prepare enjoyable dinners. But while prac
tically they pursue gastronomic satisfactions, they refuse to
recognize their theoretical legitimacy.

Here, I cannot imitate this uncandid mode of dealing
with the matter ; and rind myself obliged to assert that due
regard for the needs of the palate is not only proper but
disregard of them is wrong. The contrary view involves
the belief that it matters not to the body whether it is the
seat of pleasurable feelings, or indifferent feelings, or pain
ful feelings. But it matters very much. As asserted in
an early chapter (§ 36), pleasures raise the tide of life
while pains lower it ; arid among the pleasures which do
this are gustatory pleasures. There are two reasons why,
when food is liked, digestion of it is furthered, and when
disliked is hindered. In common with every agreeable
sensation an agreeable taste raises the action of the heart,
and, by implication, the vital functions at large ; while
simultaneously, it excites in a more direct way the struct
ures which secrete the digestive fluids. It needs but to
remember the common observation that an appetizing
odour makes the mouth water, to understand that the
alimentary canal as a whole is made active by a pleasurable
stimulation of the palate, and that digestion is thus aided
And since on good digestion depends good nutrition, and on.
good nutrition depends the energy needed for daily work, it
follows that due regard to gratification of the palate is
demanded.

Those who have had any experience of invalid life, know
well how small a quantity can be eaten of food which is
indifferent or distasteful, and how trying is the digestion of

506 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

such food, while the converse holds of food which is grate
ful : the resulting adequate meals of such food better di
gested, being a condition to recovery and the resumption of
responsibilities. And if the benefit of such ministrations to
the palate is made thus manifest where the vitality is low, it
unquestionably exists, though less manifestly, where the
vitality is high.

Of course, as in respect of quantity so in respect of quality
and variety, there may be, and often is, excess : the last kind
of excess being conducive to the first. But no more in this
case than in any other case is abuse an argument against
use.

§ 213. Before ending this chapter, which I must now do
lest it should become a chapter on dietetics, I must say some
thing on the altruistic bearings of the conclusions drawn ;
only making, in further repudiation of the ordinary ascetic
view, the remark that the Hebrew myth which represents
the eating of the apple by Eve as prompted by the serpent,
seems in many minds to have been expanded into a general
theory of our relations to food : their asceticism tacitly
implying that gustatory promptings are suggestions of the
devil.

Of the altruistic bearings to be noted, the first concerns
the indirect effects of excess, suffered by those around,
from the occasional illness and more frequent ill-temper
which it produces : injuries to others the prospect of which
should serve as a deterrent, no less than prospective injury
to self. And then a more remote altruistic bearing is seen
in the effect wrought on the community if excess is
general. Remembering that the stock of food which a
community obtains is a limited quantity, it results that if
its members consume more than is needful for complete
self-sustentation, they diminish the amount of human life
proper to the inhabited area. Clearly, if people at large
eat, let us say, one-sixth more than is required for full life

NUTEITION.

507

and vigour — if ten millions of people eat as much as would
satisfactorily support twelve millions ; then, assuming human
life to be a desideratum, a wrong is done by thus prevent
ing its increase. The share of each individual in the wrong
may be inappreciable ; but the aggregate wrong — prevent
ing the existence of two millions of people — is appreciable
enough.

The remaining altruistic bearing is that which concerns
offspring. Chronic innutrition of parents injures children.
In the case of mothers the inevitableness of this result is
clear. Building-up of the foetus has to go on simul
taneously with the carrying on of maternal life, and nutri
tive materials are used up for both processes. Though,
in the competition between the two, the first has a certain
priority, and is effected at great cost to the second ; yet,
where the supply of nutritive materials is inadequate, foetal
growth is checked, as well as maternal enfeeblement
caused. A stinted development of the infant and a sub
sequent falling short of full life are the consequences.
Kegard for posterity thus peremptorily demands good
feeding.

CHAPTER Y.

STIMULATION.

§ 214. To write sundry chapters on the ethics of individ
ual life and to say nothing about the taking of stimulants, is
out of the question. While, on large parts of private con
duct, most men pass no moral judgments, and assume that
they are subject to none ; over that part of private conduct
which concerns the drinking of fermented liquors, most
men, passing strong moral judgments, unhesitatingly assume
that ethics exercises peremptory rule ; and the inclusion
within the domain of ethics of questions concerning alcoholic
stimulants, is followed by inclusion of questions concerning
opium-eating.

We may observe here, as we have observed before, that
the reprobation of practices which, in excess, are certainly
injurious, and are held by many to be injurious altogether, is
practically limited to practices which are primarily pleasur
able. A man may bring on himself chronic rheumatism by
daily careless exposure, or an incurable nervous disorder by
over-application ; and though he may thus vitiate his life
and diminish his usefulness in a far greater degree than by
occasionally taking too much wine, yet his physical trans
gression meets with only mild disapproval, if even that. But
in these cases the transgression is displeasurable, whereas
excess in wine is pleasurable ; and the damnable thing in the
misconduct is the production of pleasure by it.

If it be said that this contrast of moral estimates is due to

STIMULATION. 509

the perception that there is danger of falling into injurious
habits which are primarily pleasurable, while there is no dan
ger of falling into injurious habits which are primarily pain
ful ; the reply is that though we naturally suppose this to be
true, yet it is not true. The obligations men are under, or
suppose themselves to be under, lead them in multitudinous
cases to persist in sedentary lives, to work too many hours,
to breathe impure air, and so forth, spite of the feelings
which protest — spite of continual proofs that they are injur
ing themselves. Clearly it is the vague notion that gratifi
cation is vicious, which causes the condemnation of gratifying
transgressions while ungratifying transgressions are con
demned but slightly or not at all.

Here we have to consider the matter, as far as we can,
apart from popular judgments, and guided only by physio
logical considerations.

§ 215. It cannot, I think, be doubted that from the point
of view of absolute ethics, stimulants of every kind must be
reprobated ; or, at any rate, that daily use of them must be
reprobated. Few, if any, will contend that they play a need
ful part in complete life.

All normal ingesta subserve the vital processes either
by furnishing materials which aid in the formation and
repair of tissues, or materials which, during their trans
formations, yield heat and force, or the material — water
—which serves as a vehicle. A stimulant, alcoholic or
other, is neither tissue-food, nor heat-food, nor force-food.
It simply affects the rate of molecular change — exalting it
and then, under ordinary circumstances, if taken in con
siderable quantity, depressing it. ISTow matters which can
be used neither for building up the body nor as stores of
force, do not increase the sum of vital manifestations, but
only alter the distribution of them. And since, in a being
fully fitted for the life it has to lead, the functions are already
adjusted to the requirements, it does not seem that any ad-

510 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

vantage can be obtained by changing the established bal
ance.

This inference is far-reaching — carries us beyond the
point to which the total-abstainers from fermented liquors
wish to go. Tea and coffee also must be excluded from
dietaries. The vegeto-alkalies, to which they owe their
effects, are just as little akin to food properly so called, as
is alcohol ; and, like alcohol, simply modify for a time the
rate of molecular change, causing greater genesis of energy
during one interval with the effect of diminishing it during
another. From the physiological point of view, therefore,
the use of these must be condemned if the use of alcohol is
condemned.

Should it be said that the condemnation of the last is
evoked by the liability to abuse, it may be replied that the
liability to abuse holds of the others also ; though the mis
chiefs wrought are neither so frequent nor so conspicuous.
In France there are occasional deaths from coffee-drinking,
and in England undue drinking of tea not infrequently
causes nervousness.

§ 216. But while, from the point of view of absolute
ethics, the use of stimulants seems indefensible, we may still
ask whether relative ethics affords any justification for it —
whether, under existing conditions, imperfectly adapted as
we are to the social state, and obliged to diverge from natural
requirements, we may not use stimulants to countervail the
consequent mischiefs.

It is a fact of some significance that throughout the
world, among unallied races and in all stages of progress,
we find in use one or other agent which agreeably affects
the nervous system — opium in China, tobacco among the
American Indians, bang in India, hashish in sundry Eastern
places, a narcotic fungus in Northern Asia, kava among
the Polynesians, chica and coca in Ancient Peru, and
various fermented liquors besides the wine of Europeans,

STIMULATION. 511

and the beer of various African tribes — the soma of the
primitive Aryans and the pulque of the Mexicans. ]STot
that this universality of habits of stimulation justifies
them in face of the evidence that diseases often result;
but it suggests the question whether there is not a con
nexion between the use of some exciting or sedative agent,
and the kind of life circumstances entail — a life here
monotonous, there laborious, and in other places full of
privations. Possibly these drugs and liquors may some
times make tolerable an existence which would be other
wise intolerable ; or, at any rate, so far mitigate the bodily
or mental pains caused, as to diminish the mischiefs done by
them.

Various testimonies are to the effect that where the daily
life is one entailing much wear and tear of brain, the seda
tive influence of tobacco is useful — serves to check that nerv
ous waste which otherwise the continuance of thought and
anxiety would produce. In a normal state, those parts of
the system which have been taxed cease to act when the
strain is over : the supply of blood is shut oft', and they be
come quiescent. But in the abnormal states established in
many by over-work, it is otherwise. The parts which have
been active become congested, and remain active when action
is no longer demanded. Thinking and feeling cannot be
stopped, and there occurs an expenditure which is not
only useless but injurious. Hence a justification for using
an agent which prevents waste of tissue and economizes the
energies.

Again, where the constitutional powers are flagging,
and a day's work proves so exhausting that . the ability to
digest partially fails, it may be held that vascular action and
nervous discharge may advantageously be raised by alcohol
to the extent needful for effectually dealing with food ;
since a good meal well digested serves to render the sys-

O *-2

tern fit for another day's work, which otherwise it would

not be.

512 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

There are those, too, in whom undue application estab
lishes a state of nervous irritation which is mitigated or
ended by a dose of opium ; and the life may sometimes be
such that the state thus dealt with frequently recurs. If this
happens the use of the remedy appears justified.

§ 217. Even total abstainers admit that alcoholic bever
ages may rightly be used for medicinal purposes ; and their
admission, consistently interpreted, implies that, as above
contended, stimulants in general may properly be employed,
not only where positive illness exists, but where there is
inability to cope with the requirements of life. For if a
very conspicuous departure from the normal state may often
be best treated by brandy or wine, it cannot well be denied
that a less conspicuous departure, occurring perhaps daily,
may similarly be treated. Constitutional debility, or the
debility which comes with advancing years, may, like the
debility of an invalid, be advantageously met by temporarily
raising the power of the system at times when it has to do
work conducive to restoration — that is, when food has to be
digested, and sometimes when sleep has to be obtained. But
there hence results a defence only for such uses of stimu
lants as aid the system in repairing itself. When, as by
taking alcoholic liquors between meals, or by the hypoder
mic injection of morphia, there is achieved a temporary
exaltation of power or feeling, which conduces to no restora
tive end, reprobation rightly takes the place of approbation.
In the order of nature, normal pleasures are the concomi
tants of normal activities, and pleasures which are achieved
by gratuitous deviations from the normal have no ethical
sanctions.

One exception only should be made. Stimulants may be
taken with advantage when the monotony of ordinary life is
now and then broken by festive entertainments. As im
plied in a preceding chapter, daily repetition of the same
activities, which in our state are inevitably specialized, neces-

STIMULATION. 513

sitates undue taxing of certain parts of the system. Breaches
in the uniformity therefore yield benefits by furthering
restoration of equilibrium. The functions, chronically kept
out of balance, are aided in returning to a balance. Hence
it happens that social meetings at which, along with mental
exhilaration, there goes the taking of abundant and varied
food, and wine even in large quantity, often prove highly
salutary—are not followed by injurious reactions but leave
behind invigoration. Such means used for such ends, how
ever, must be used but occasionally : if often repeated they
defeat themselves.

§ 218. To sum up what lias been said in a tentative way
on this difficult question : — we may, in the first place, con
clude that absolute ethics, in so far as it concerns individual
life, can give no countenance to the daily use of stimulants.
They can have no place in a perfectly normal order.

In such approximately normal life as that enjoyed during
their early days by vigorous persons, there is also no place
for them. So long as there is nothing to prevent the full
discharge of all the organic functions, there can be no need
for agents which temporarily exalt them. What ethics has
to say in the matter must take the form of an interdict.

Only when the excessive obligations which life often
entails produce more or less of daily prostration, or wdien
from constitutional feebleness or the diminished strength
of old age, the ordinary tax on the energies is somewhat
greater than can be effectually met, does there seem a valid
reason for using exciting agents, alcoholic or other ; and
then only when they are taken in such wise as to aid repara-
tive processes.

Beyond this there is a defence for such occasional uses of
these agents as serves, when joined with raised nutrition and
enlivening circumstances, to take the system out of its rou
tine, which in all cases diverges somewhat, if not much,
from a perfect balance.

CHAPTER VI.

CULTURE.

§ 219. Taken in its widest sense, culture means prepara
tion for complete living. It includes, in the first place, all
such discipline and all such knowledge as are needful for, or
conducive to, efficient self-sustentation and sustentation of
family. And it includes, in the second place, all such de
velopment of the faculties at large, as fits them for utilizing
those various sources of pleasure which Nature and Hu
manity supply to responsive minds.

The first of these two divisions of culture has more than
an ethical sanction : it is ethically enjoined. Acquisition of
fitness for carrying on the business of life is primarily a duty
to self and secondarily a duty to others. If under the head
of this fitness we comprise, as we must, such skill as is
needful for those who are to be manually occupied, as well
as skill of every higher kind, it becomes manifest that (save
with those who have sustentation gratis) lack of it makes a
healthy physical life impracticable, and makes impracticable
the nurture of dependents. Further, the neglect to acquire
a power of adequately maintaining self and offspring, neces
sitates either the burdening of others in furnishing aid, or
else, if they refuse to do this, necessitates that infliction of
pain upon them which the contemplation of misery causes.

Concerning the second division of culture, peremptory
obligation is not to be alleged. Those who take an ascetic
view of life have no reason for that discipline of faculties

CULTURE. 515

which aims to increase one or other refined pleasure ;
and, as among the Quakers, we see that there does in fact
result a disregard of, and often a reprobation of, such dis
cipline, or of parts of it. Only those who accept hedonism
can consistently advocate this exercise of intellect and feel
ing which prepares the way for various gratifications fill
ing leisure hours. They only can regard it as needful
for attaining complete life, and as therefore having an ethi
cal sanction.

From these general ideas of culture, essential and non-
essential, let us go on to consider the several divisions of it,

§ 220. There is a part of culture, usually neglected, which
should be recognized alike by those to whom it brings means

•/ O

of living and by those who do not seek material profit from
it, which may fitly stand first. I mean the acquirement of
manual dexterity.

That this is a proper preparation for life among those
occupied in productive industry, will not be disputed;
though at present, even the boys who may need it are but
little encouraged to acquire manipulative skill : only those
kinds of skill which games give are cultivated. But
manipulative skill and keenness of perception ought to be
acquired by those also who are to have careers of higher
kinds. Awkwardness of limb and inability to use the
fingers deftly, continually entail small disasters and occa
sionally great ones ; while expertness frequently comes in
aid of welfare, either of self or others. One who has been
well practised in the uses of his senses and his muscles, is
less likely than the unpractised to meet with accidents ; and,
when accidents occur, is sure to be more efficient in rectify
ing mischiefs. Were it not that this obvious truth is ignored,
it would be absurd to point out that, since limbs and senses
exist to the end of adjusting the actions to surrounding ob
jects and movements, it is the business of every one to gain
skill in the performance of such actions.

516 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

Let it not be supposed that I am here advocating the
extension of formal culture in this direction : very much
to the contrary. The shaping of all education into lessons
is one of the vices of the time. Cultivation of manipu
lative skill, in common with expertness in general, should
be acquired in the process of achieving ends otherwise de
sired. In any rationally-conducted education there must
be countless occasions for the exercise of those faculties
which the artisan and the experimenter bring perpetually
into play.

§ 221. Intellectual culture under its primary aspect links
on to the culture iust described : for as discipline of the

•) L

limbs and senses is a fitting of them for direct dealings
with things around, so intelligence, in its successive grades,
is an agent for guiding dealings of indirect kinds, greater
and greater in their complexity. The higher acquisitions
and achievements of intellect have now become so remote
from practical life, that their relations to it are usually lost
sight of. But if we remember that in the stick employed to
heave up a stone, or the paddle to propel a boat, we have
illustrations of the uses of levers ; while in the pointing of
an arrow so as to allow for its fall during flight, certain
dynamical principles are tacitly recognized ; and that from
these vague early cognitions the progress may be traced
step by 'step to the generalizations of mathematicians and
astronomers ; we see that science has gradually emerged
from the crude knowledge of the savage. And if we re
member that as this crude knowledge of the savage served
for simple guidance of his life -sustaining actions, so the de
veloped sciences of mathematics and astronomy serve for
guidance in the workshop and the counting-house and for
steering of vessels, while developed physics and chemistry
preside over all manufacturing processes ; we see that at
the one extreme as at the other, furtherance of men's ability
to deal effectually with the surrounding world, and so to

CULTURE. 517

satisfy their wants, is that purpose of intellectual culture
which precedes all others.

Even for these purposes we distinguish as practical,
that intellectual culture which makes us acquainted with
the natures of things, should be wider than is commonly
thought needful. Preparation for this or that kind of
business is far too special. There cannot be adequate
knowledge of a particular class of natural facts without
some knowledge of other classes. Every object and
every action simultaneously presents various orders of
phenomena — mathematical, physical, chemical, — with, in
many cases, others which are vital ; and these phenomena
are so interwoven that full comprehension of any group
involves partial comprehension of the rest. Though at
first sight the extent of intellectual culture thus suggested
as requisite may seem impracticable, it is not so. When
education is rightly carried on, the cardinal truths of each
science may be clearly communicated and firmly grasped,
apart from the many corollaries commonly taught along
with them. And after there has been gained such famil
iarity with these cardinal truths of the several sciences as
renders their chief implications comprehensible, it becomes
possible to reach rational conceptions of any one group of
phenomena, and to be fully prepared for a special occupation.

That division of intellectual culture which comprises
knowledge of the sciences, while having an indirect ethical
sanction as conducing to self-sustentation and sustentation of
others, has also a direct sanction irrespective of practical
ends. To the servant-girl, the ploughboy, the grocer, nay
even to the average classical scholar or man of letters, the
world, living and dead, with the universe around it, present
no such grand panorama as they do to those who have
gained some conception of the actions, infinite and infinitesi
mal, everywhere going on, and can contemplate them under
other aspects than the technical. If we imagine that into
a o-orgeouslv-decorated hall a rush-light is brought, and,

518 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

being held near to some part of the wall, makes visible the
pattern over a small area of it, while everything else
remains in darkness ; and if, instead of this, we imagine
that electric lights turned on reveal simultaneously the
whole room with its varied contents; we may form some
idea of the different appearance under which Nature is
contemplated by the utterly uncultured mind and by the
highly cultured mind. Whoever duly appreciates this im
mense contrast will see that, rightly assimilated, science
brings exaltation of mental life.

One further result must be recognized. That study of all
orders of phenomena which, while it gives adequate gen
eral conceptions of them, leads, now in this direction and
now in that, to limits which no exploration can transcend, is
needful to make us aware of our relation to the ultimate
mystery of things ; and so to awaken a consciousness which
we may properly consider germane to the ethical con
sciousness.

§ 222. In its full acceptation, knowledge of science in
cludes knowledge of social science ; and this includes a cer
tain kind of historical knowledge. Such of it as is
needful for political guidance, each citizen should endeavour
to obtain. Though the greater parts of the facts from
which true sociological generalizations may be drawn, are
presented only by those savage and semi-civilizeu societies
ignored in our educational courses, there are also re
quired some of the facts furnished by the histories of devel
oped nations.

But beyond the impersonal elements of history which
chiefly demand attention, a certain attention may rightly
be given to its personal elements. Commonly these oc
cupy the entire attention. The great-man-theory of his
tory, tacitly held by the ignorant in all ages and in recent
times definitely enunciated by Mr. Carlyle, implies that
knowledge of history is constituted by knowledge of rulers

CULTURE. 519

and their doings ; and by this theory there is fostered
in the mass of minds a love of gossip about dead indi
viduals, not much more respectable than the love of gossip
about individuals now living. But while no information
concerning kings and popes, and ministers and generals,
even when joined to exhaustive acquaintance with in
trigues and treaties, battles and sieges, gives any insight

O O ' c? •/ O

into the laws of social evolution — while the single fact
that division of labour has been progressing in all advanc
ing nations regardless of the wills of law-makers, and un
observed by them, suffices to show that the forces which
mould societies work out their results apart from, and often
in spite of, the aims of leading men ; yet a certain moderate
number of leading men and their actions may properly lie
contemplated. The past stages in human progress, which
every one should know something about, would be con
ceived in too shadowy a form if wholly divested of ideas
of the persons and events associated with them. More
over, some amount of such knowledge is requisite to enlarge
adequately the conception of human nature in general —
to show the extremes, occasionally good but mostly bad,
which it is capable of reaching.

With culture of this kind there naturally goes purely
literary culture. That a fair amount of this should be
included in the preparation for complete living, needs n<>
saying. Rather does it need saying that in a duly pro
portioned education, as well as in adult life, literature
should be assigned less space than it now has. Isearly all
are prone to mental occupations of easy kinds, or kinds
which yield pleasurable excitements with small efforts ;
and history, biography, fiction, poetry, are, in this respect,
more attractive to the majority than science — more attrac
tive than that knowledge of the order of things at large
which serves for guidance.

Still, we must not here forget that from the hedonistic
point of view, taking account of this pleasure directly

520 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

obtained, literary culture has a high claim ; and we may
also admit that, as conducing to wealth and force of ex
pression by furnishing materials for metaphor and allusion,
it increases mental power and social effectiveness. In the
absence of it conversation is bald.

§ 223. In culture, as in other things, men tend towards
one or other extreme. Either, as with the great majority,
culture is scarcely pursued at all, or, as with the few, it is
pursued almost exclusively, and often with disastrous results.

Emerson says of the gentleman that the first requisite
is to be a good animal, and this is the first requisite for
every one. A course of life which sacrifices the animal,
though it may be defensible under special conditions
is not defensible as a general policy. Witinn the sphere
of our positive knowledge we nowhere see mind without
life ; we nowhere see life without a body ; we nowhere
see a full life — a life which is high alike in respect of
intensity, breadth, and length — without a healthy body.
Every breach of the laws of bodily health produces a
physical damage, which eventually damages in some way,
though often in an invisible way, the mental health.

Culture has therefore to be carried on subject to other
needs. Its amount must be such as consists with, and is con
ducive to, physical welfare ; and it must be also such as
consists with, and is conducive to, normal activity not only
of the mental powers exercised, but of all others. When
carried to an extent which' diminishes vivacity, and pro
duces indifference to the various natural enjoyments, it is
an abuse ; and still more is it an abuse when, as often
happens, it is pushed so far as to produce disgust with the
subjects over which attention has been unduly strained.

Especially in the case of women is condemnation of over-
culture called for, since immense mischief is done by it.
We are told that the higher education, as now carried on
at Girton and Newnham, is not inconsistent with mainte-

CULTURE. 521

nance of good health ; and if we omit those who are
obliged to desist, this appears to be true. I say advisedly
" appears to be true." There are various degrees of
what is called good health. Commonly it is alleged and
admitted where no physical disturbance is manifest ; but
there is a wide space between this and that full health
which shows itself in high spirits and overflowing energy.
In women, especially, there may be maintained a health
which seems good, and yet falls short of the requirements
of the race. For in women, much more than in men, there
is constitutionally provided a surplus vitality devoted to
continuance of the species. When the system is over
taxed the portion thus set aside is considerably diminished
before the portion which goes to carry on individual life
is manifestly trenched upon. The cost of activity, and
especially of cerebral activity, which is very costly, has to
be met; and if expenditure is excessive it cannot be met
without deduction from that reserve power which should go
to race-maintenance. The reproductive capacity is dimin
ished in various degrees — sometimes to the extent of inability
to bear children, more frequently to the extent of inability
to yield milk, and in numerous cases to a smaller extent
which I must leave unspecified. I have good authority
for saying that one of the remoter results of over-culture,
very frequently becomes a cause of domestic alienation.

Let me add that an adequately high culture, alike of
men and women, might be compassed without mischief
were our curriculum more rational. If the worthless knowl
edge included in what is now supposed to be a good
education were omitted, all that which is needful for
guidance, most of that which is desirable for general en
lightenment, and a good deal of that which is distinguished
as decorative, might be acquired without injurious reactions.

§ 224. To the egoistic motives for culture have to be

& o

added the altruistic motives. A human being devoid of

522 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

knowledge, and with none of that intellectual life which
discipline of the faculties gives, is utterly uninteresting.
To become a pleasure-yielding person is a social duty.
Hence culture, and especially the culture which conduces
to enlivenment, has an ethical sanction and something
more.

Especially is this true of aesthetic culture, of which no
note has thus far been taken. While it is to be enjoined
as aiding that highest development of self required for
the fullest life and happiness, it is also to be enjoined as
increasing the ability to gratify those around. Though
practices in the plastic arts, in music, and in poetry, are
usually to be encouraged chiefly as producing suscepti
bility to pleasures, which the aesthetically uncultured can
not have ; yet those who are endowed with something
more than average ability, should be led to develop it
by motives of benevolence also. In the highest degree
this is so with music ; and concerted music, subordinat
ing as it does the personal element, is above all other
kinds to be cultivated on altruistic grounds. It should be
added, however, that excess of aesthetic culture, in common
with excess of intellectual culture, is to be reprobated ;
not in this case because of the over-tax entailed, but be
cause of the undue expenditure of time — the occupation
of too large a space in life. With multitudes of people,
especially women, the pursuit of beauty in one or other
form is the predominant pursuit. To the achievement of
prettiness much more important ends are sacrificed. Though
aesthetic culture has to be recognized as ethically sanctioned,
yet instead of emphasizing the demand for it, there is far
greater occasion for condemning the excess of it. There
needs a trenchant essay on aesthetic vices, which are every
where shown in the subordination of use to appearance.

CHAPTER VII.

AMUSEMENTS.

§ 225. I have closed the last chapter with a division,
the subject matter of which links it on to the subject mat
ter of this chapter. We pass insensibly from the activities
and passivities implied by aesthetic culture, to sundry of
those which come under the head of relaxations and amuse
ments. These we have now to consider from the ethical
point of view.

To the great majority, who have imbibed more or less
of that asceticism which, though appropriate to times of
chronic militancy and also useful as a curl) to ungoverned
seimalism, has swayed too much men's theory of life, it will
seem an absurd supposition that amusements are ethically
warranted. Yet unless, in common with the Quakers and
some extreme evangelicals, they hold them to be positively
wrong, they must either say that amusements are neither
right nor wrong, or, they must say that they are positively
right — are to be morally approved.

That they are sanctioned by hedonistic ethics goes with
out saying. They are pleasure-giving activities ; and that
is their sufficient justification, so long as they do not
unduly interfere with activities which are obligatory.
Though most of our pleasures are to be accepted as
concomitants of those various expenditures of energy con
ducive to self-sustentation and sustentation of family ; yet
the pursuit of pleasure for pleasure's sake is to be sane-

524: THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

tioned, and even enjoined, when primary duties have been
fulfilled.

So, too, are they to be approved from the physiological
point of view. Not only do the emotional satisfactions
which accompany normal life-sustaining labours exalt the
vital functions, but the vital functions are exalted by those
satisfactions which accompany the superfluous expenditures
of energy implied by amusements : much more exalted in
fact. Such satisfactions serve to raise the tide of life, and
taken in due proportion conduce to every kind of effi
ciency.

Yet once more there is the evolutionary justification.
In § 534 of The Principles of Psychology, it was shown
that whereas, in the lowest creatures, the small energies
which exist are wholly used up in those actions which
serve to maintain the individual and propagate the species ;
in creatures of successively higher grades, there arises an
increasing amount of unused energy : every improvement
of organization achieving some economy, and so augment
ing the surplus power. This surplus expends itself in the
activities we call play. Among the superior vertebrata
the tendency to these superfluous activities becomes con
spicuous ; and it is especially conspicuous in Man, when so
conditioned that stress of competition does not make the
sustentation of self and family too laborious. The impli
cation is that in a fully developed form of human life, a
considerable space will be filled by the pleasurable exer
cise of faculties which have not been exhausted by daily
activities.

§ 226. In that division of The Principles of Psychology
above referred to (§§ 533 — 540), in which I have drawn
this distinction between life-sustaining activities and
activities not of a life-sustaining kind, which are pur
sued for pleasure's sake, I have not drawn the further
distinction between those of the sensory structures and

AMUSEMENTS. 525

those of the motor structures. There is a distinction
between gratifications which aesthetic perceptions yield
and those yielded by games and sports. This distinction it
was left for Mr. Grant Allen to point out in his Physiologi
cal ^Esthetics. It cannot be made an absolute distinction,
however ; since gratifications derived from certain excite
ments of the senses are often associated with, and de
pendent upon, muscular actions ; and since the gratifi
cations of muscular actions, whatever their kind, are
achieved under guidance of the senses. Moreover, with
each of them there usually exists a large emotional accom
paniment more important than either. Still the division is
a natural one, and Mr. Grant Allen has established it beyond
question.

Even ascetically -minded people do not repudiate those en
joyments, intellectual and emotional, which travelling yields.
Pursuit of the aesthetic delights derived from beautiful
scenery, the mountains, the sea — primarily those due to the
visual impressions which forms and colours give, but sec
ondarily and mainly those due to the poetical sentiments
aroused by association — is approved by all. So, too, in a
measure, is pursuit of the gratifications yielded by explora
tion of the unknown forms of human life and its products — •
foreign peoples, their towns, their ways. One is sometimes
saddened to think what a vast majority of men come into
the world and go out -of it again knowing scarcely at all
what kind of world it is. And this thought suggests that
while it is to be sanctioned for gratification's sake, travel
ling is to be further sanctioned for the sake of culture ;
since the accompanying enlargement of the experiences
profoundly affects the general conceptions and rationalizes
them. Modern social changes and changes of belief, are in
considerable measure due to facilitation of intercourse with
unlike forms of life, and character, and habit, which railways
have brought about.

After the pleasures given by actual presentations of new

526 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

scenes, may fitly be named the pleasures yielded by pictorial
representations of them. While in many cases these fall
short of those which the realities give, in many other cases
they exceed them. By its reproduction on canvas there is
given to a rural view or a domestic interior an artificial
interest ; so that something intrinsically commonplace is
transfigured into something beautiful : possibly because the
mind in presence of the object itself was so much occupied
with its other aspects as to give no attention to its aesthetic
aspects. Be the cause what it may, however, works of art
open new fields of delight, and by hedonism acceptance of
this delight is sanctioned, or rather enjoined. Few pleas
ures are more entirely to be approved, and less open to
abuse, than those yielded by paintings, and of course also by
sculptures.

It seems undesirable to insist that there is an ethical sanc
tion for the pleasures given by light literature, seeing that
there is so general a tendency to excess in the pursuit of
them. Perhaps such exaltation of feeling as the reading of
good poetry produces, is not sought in an undue degree ;
but, unquestionably, there is far too much reading of fiction ;
often excluding, as it does, all instructive reading, and caus
ing neglect of useful occupations. While ethical approval
must be given to occasional indulgence in that extreme
gratification produced by following out the good and ill.
fortunes of imaginary persons made real by vivid charac
ter-drawing ; yet there much more needs ethical reproba
tion of the too frequent indulgence in it which is so com
mon: this emotional debauchery undermines mental health.
Nor let us omit to note that while sanction may rightly
be claimed for fiction of a humanizing tendency, there
should be nothing but condemnation for brutalizing fiction
— for that culture of blood-thirst to which so many stories
are devoted.

Of course much that has just been said concerning
fiction may be said concerning the drama. Higher even

AMUSEMENTS. 527

than the gratification yielded by a good novel, is that
yielded by a good play ; and the demoralization caused
by excess of it would be still greater were there the same
opportunity for continuous absorption. Pleasures which
are intense must be sparingly partaken of. The general
law of w^aste and repair implies that in proportion to the
excitement of a faculty must be its subsequent prostration
and unfitness for action — an unfitness wrhich continues
until repair has been made. Hence, overwhelming sym
pathy felt for personages in a fiction or drama, is felt at
the cost of some subsequent callousness. As the eye by
exposure to a vivid light is momentarily incapacitated for
appreciating those feeble lights through which objects
around are distinguished ; so, after a tearful fellow-feeline:

O / j O

with the sufferers of imaginary woes, there is for a time a
lack of fellow-feeling with persons around. Much theatre-
going, like much novel-reading, is therefore to be ethically
reprobated.

Perhaps among gratifications of the aesthetic class, that
which music yields is that which may be indulged in most
largely without evil consequences. Though after a concert,
as after a fiction or a play, life in general seems tame ; yet
there is a less marked reaction, because the feelings excited
are more remotely akin to those associated with daily inter
course. Still, the pleasures of music are frequently enjoyed
to an excess which, if not otherwise injurious, is injurious by
the implied occupation of time — by the filling of too large a
space in life.

§ 227. Throughout the foregoing class of pleasures, result
ing from the superfluous excitements of faculties, the indi
vidual is mainly passive. We turn now to the class in which
he is mainly active ; which again is subdivisible into two
classes — sports and games. With sports, ethics has little
concern beyond graduating its degrees of reprobation. Such
of them as involve the direct infliction of pain, especially on

528 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

fellow-beings, are nothing but means to the gratification of
feelings inherited from savages of the baser sort. That after
these thousands of years of social discipline, there should still
be so many who like to see the encounters of the prize-
ring or witness the goring of horses and riders in the
arena, shows how slowly the instincts of the barbarian
are being subdued. No condemnation can be too strong
for these sanguinary amusements which keep alive in men
the worst parts of their natures and thus profoundly
vitiate social life. Of course in a measure, though in a
smaller measure, condemnation must be passed on field-
sports — in smaller measure because the obtainment of food
affords a partial motive, because the infliction of pain is less
conspicuous, and because the chief pleasure is that derived
from successful exercise of skill. But it cannot be denied
that all activities with which there is joined the conscious
ness that other sentient beings, far inferior though they may
be, are made to suffer, are to some extent demoralizing.
The sympathies do, indeed, admit of being so far special
ized that the same person who is unsympathetic towards
wild animals may be in large measure sympathetic towards
fellow-men ; but a full amount of sympathy cannot well be
present in the one relation and absent in the other. It
may be added that the specializing of the sympathies has
the effect that they become smaller as the remoteness
from human nature becomes greater ; and that hence the
killing of a deer sins against them more than does the killing
of a fish.

Those expenditures of energy wrhich take the form of
games, yield pleasures from which there are but small, if
any, drawbacks in the entailed pains. Certain of them,
indeed, as football, are as much to be reprobated as sports,
than some of which they are more brutalizing ; and there
cannot be much ethical approbation of those games, so-
called, such as boat-races, in which a painful and often
injurious overtax of the system is gone through to achieve

AMUSEMENTS. 529

a victory, pleasurable to one side and entailing pain on
the other. But there is ethical sanction for those games
in which, with a moderate amount of muscular effort, there
is joined the excitement of a competition not too intense,
kept alive from moment to moment by the changing inci
dents of the contest. Under these conditions the muscular
actions are beneficial, the culture of the perceptions is useful,
while the emotional pleasure has but small drawbacks. And
here I am prompted to denounce the practice, now so gen
eral, of substituting gymnastics for games — violent muscular
actions, joined with small concomitant pleasures, for moder
ate muscular actions joined with great pleasures. This
usurpation is a sequence of that pestilent asceticism which
thinks that pleasure is of no consequence, and that if the
same amount of exercise be taken, the same benefit is
gained : the truth being that to the exaltation of the vital
functions which the pleasure produces, half the benefit is
due.

Of indoor games wrhicli chiefly demand quickness of
perception, quickness of reasoning, and quickness of judg
ment, general approval may be expressed with qualifica
tions of no great importance. For young people they are
especially desirable as giving to various of the intellectual
faculties a valuable training, not to be given by other
means. Under the stress of competition, the abilities to
observe rapidly, perceive accurately, and infer rightly, are
increased ; and in addition to the immediate pleasures
gained, there are gained powers of dealing more effectually
with many of the incidents of life. It should be added
that such drawbacks as there are, from the emotions ac
companying victory and defeat, are but small in games
which involve chance as a considerable factor, but are
very noticeable where there is no chance. Chess, for ex
ample, which pits together two intelligences in such a way
as to show unmistakably the superiority of one to the other
in respect of certain powers, produces, much more than

530 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

whist, a feeling of humiliation in the defeated, and if the
sympathies are keen this gives some annoyance to the victor
as well as to the vanquished.

Of course, such ethical sanction as is given to games,
cannot be given where gambling or betting is an accom
paniment. Involving, as both do, in a very definite way,
and often to an extreme degree, the obtainmerit of pleasure
at the cost of another's pain, they are to be condemned both
for this immediate effect and for their remote effect — the
repression of fellow-feeling.

§ 228. Before passing to the altruistic aspect of amuse
ments, there should be noted a less familiar egoistic aspect.
Unless they have kept up during life an interest in pastimes,
those who have broken down from overwork (perhaps an
overwork entailed on them by imperative duties) usually find
themselves incapable of relaxing in any satisfactory way :
they are no longer amusable. Capacities for all other pleas
ures are atrophied, and the only pleasure is that which busi
ness gives. In such cases recovery is, if not prevented,
greatly retarded by the lack of exhilarating occupations.
Frequently dependents suffer.

This last consideration shows that these, like other
classes of actions which primarily concern the individual,
concern, to some extent, other individuals. But they
concern other individuals in more direct and constant
ways also. On each person there is imposed not only the
peremptory obligation so to carry on his life as to avoid
inequitably interfering with the carrying on of others'
lives, and not only the less peremptory obligation to aid
under various circumstances the carrying on of their lives,
but there is imposed some obligation to increase the
pleasures of their lives by sociality, and by the cultivation
of those powers which conduce to sociality. A man may be
a good economical unit of society, while remaining other
wise an almost worthless unit. If he has no knowledge of

AMUSEMENTS. 531

the arts, no aesthetic feelings, no interest in fiction, the
drama, poetry, or music — if lie cannot join in any of those
amusements which daily and at longer intervals fill leisure
spaces in life — if he is thus one to whom others cannot
readily give pleasure, at the same time that he can give
no pleasure to others ; he becomes in great measure a dead
unit, and unless he has some special value might better be
out of the way.

Thus, that he may add his share to the general happiness,
each should cultivate in due measure those superfluous
activities which primarily yield self-happiness.

CHAPTER VIII.

MAEEIAGE.

§ 229. Up to the present point there has been maintained,
if not absolutely yet with tolerable clearness, the division
between the ethics of individual life and the ethics of social
life ; but we come, in this chapter and the chapter which
follows it, to a part of ethics which is in a sense intermediate.
For in the relations of marriage and parenthood, others are
concerned, not contingently and indirectly, but in ways that
are necessary and direct. The implied divisions of conduct,
while their primary ethical sanctions refer to the proper ful
filment of individual life, are yet inseparable from those
divisions which treat of conduct that is to be ethically
approved or disapproved because of its effects on those
around.

Let us glance first at the general obligation under which
the individual lies to aid in maintaining the species, while
fulfilling: the needs of his own nature.

§ 230. In The Principles of Biology (§§ 334—351) was ex
plained the necessary antagonism between individuation and
reproduction — between the appropriation of nutriment and en
ergy for the purposes of individual life, and the appropriation
of them for the initiation, development, and nurture of other
lives. Extreme cases in which, after an existence of a few
hours or a day, the body of a parent divides, or else breaks
up into numerous germs of new individuals, and less extreme
cases in which a brief parental existence ends by the trans-

MAKEIAGE.

formation of the skin into a protective case, while the in
terior is wholly transformed into young ones, illustrate in an
unmistakable way the sacrifice of individual life for the
maintenance of species life. It was shown that as we ascend
to creatures of more complex structure and greater activity,
arid especially as we ascend to creatures of which the young
have to be fostered, the expenditure of parental life in pro
ducing and rearing other lives becomes gradually less. And
then, in The Principles of Sociology (§§ 275—277), when
considering the " diverse interests of the species, of the
parents, and of the offspring," we saw that in mankind there
is reached such conciliation of these interests that along with
preservation of the race there go moderated individual sacri
fices ; and further, that with the ascent from lower to higher
types of men, we tend towards an ideal family in which
" the mortality between birth and the reproductive age falls
to a minimum, while the lives of adults have their subordi
nation to the rearing of children reduced to the smallest
possible."

To the last, however, the antagonism between individua-
tion and reproduction holds— holds in a direct way, because
of the physical tax which reproduction necessitates, and
holds in an indirect way because of the tax, physical and
mental, necessitated by rearing children : a tax which,
though it is pleasurably paid in fulfilment of the appropriate
instincts and emotions, and is in so far a fulfilment of in
dividual life, is nevertheless a tax which restricts individual
development in various directions.

But here the truth which it chiefly concerns us to note is
that, assuming the preservation of the race to be a desidera
tum, there results a certain kind of obligation to pay this tax
and to submit to this sacrifice. Moreover, something like
natural equity requires that as each individual is indebted to
past individuals for the cost of producing and rearing him,
he shall be at some equivalent cost for the benefit of future
individuals.

534 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

In tribes and small societies, where maintenance of num.
bers is important, this obligation becomes appreciable ; and,
as we see in the reproach of barrenness, failure to fulfil it
brings disapproval. But of course in large nations where
multiplication is rather an evil than a benefit, this obligation
lapses ; and the individual may, in many cases, fitly discharge
his or her indebtedness in some other way than by adding to
the population.

§ 231. Leaving here these considerations which pertain,
perhaps, more to the ethics of social life than to the ethics of
individual life, and returning to the consideration of mar
riage as a part of individual life, we have first to note its
ethical sanctions as so considered. All activities fall into two
great groups — those which constitute and sustain the life of
the individual, and those wrhich further the life of the race ;
and it seems inferable that if for full health the structures
conducive to the one must severally perform their functions,
so must the structures conducive to the other. Such part of
the organization as is devoted to the production of off
spring, can scarcely be left inert and leave the rest of the
organization unaffected. The not infrequent occurrence of
hysteria and chlorosis shows that women, in whom the
reproductive function bears a larger ratio to the totality
of the functions than it does in men, are apt to suffer
grave constitutional evils from that incompleteness of life
which celibacy implies : grave evils to which there probably
correspond smaller and unperceived evils in numerous cases.
As before remarked, there are wide limits of deviation in
what we call good health ; and there are everywhere, in men
and women, many shortcomings of full health which are not
perceived to be such — shortcomings, however, which may
be recognized on remembering the contrast between the
ordinary state of body and mind, and that which is shown
after an invigorating holiday. That the physiological effects
of a completely celibate life on either sex are to some extent

MARRIAGE. 535

injurious, seems an almost necessary implication of the nat
ural conditions.

But whether or not there be disagreement on this point,
there can be none respecting the effects of a celibate life
as mentally injurious. A large part of the nature — partly
intellectual but chiefly emotional — finds its sphere of action
in the marital relation, and afterwards in the parental rela
tion ; and if this sphere be closed, some of the higher feel
ings must remain inactive and others but feebly active.
Directly, to special elements of the mind, the relation estab
lished by marriage is the normal and needful stimulus, and
indirectly to all its elements.

There is in the first place to be recognized an exaltation
of the energies. Continuous and strenuous efforts to suc
ceed in life are often excited by an engagement to marry
— efforts which had previously not been thought of. Then,
subsequently, the consciousness of family responsibilities
when these have arisen, serves as a sharper spur to exer
tion : often, indeed, a spur so sharp that in the absence of
prudential restraints it leads to overwork. But the most
noteworthy fact is that under these conditions, an amount
of activity becomes relatively easy, and even pleasurable,
which before was difficult and repugnant.

The immediate cause of this greater energy is the in
creased quantity of emotion which the marital relation,
and after it the parental relation, excite ; and there is to
be recognized both a greater body of emotion, and a
higher form of emotion. To the lower egoistic feelings
which previously formed the chief, if not only, stimuli, are
now added those higher egoistic feelings which find their
satisfaction in the affections, together with those altruistic
feelings which find their satisfaction in the happiness of
others. What potent influences on character thus come into
play, is shown in the moral transformation which marriage
frequently effects. Often the vain and thoughtless girl,
caring only for amusements, becomes changed into the

636 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

devoted wife and mother; and often the man who is ill-
tempered and unsympathetic, becomes changed into the
self-sacriricing husband and careful father. To which add
that there is usually exercised, more than before, the dis
cipline of self-restraint.

Some effect, too, is wrought on the thinking faculties ;
not, perhaps, in their power, but in their balance. In
women the intellectual activity is frequently diminished ;
for the antagonism between individuation and reproduc
tion, which is in them most pronounced, tells more
especially on the brain. But to both husband and wife
there daily come many occasions for exercises of judg
ment, alike in their relations to domestic affairs, to one
another, and to children — exercises of judgment which in
the celibate state were not called for; and hence an in
crease of intellectual stability and sense of proportion.

It must, however, be remarked that the beneficial
effects to be expected from marriage, as giving a sphere
to a large part of the nature otherwise relatively inert,
presuppose a normal marriage — a marriage of affection. If,
instead, it is one of the kind to be ethically reprobated —
a mercantile marriage — there may follow debasement rather
than elevation.

§ 232. But now comes a difficult question. If, on the
one hand, as being a condition to fulfilment of individual
life, marriage is ethically sanctioned and, indeed, ethically
enjoined ; and if, on the other hand, there is ethical repro
bation for all acts which will certainly or probably entail
evil — reprobation if the evil is likely to come on self, and
still more if it is likely to come on others ; then what are
we to say of improvident marriages ?

There needs no insistence on the truth that if domestic
responsibilities are entered upon without a fair prospect
of efficiently discharging them, a wrong is done : espe
cially to children and, by implication, to the race. To

MAKKIAGE. 537

take a step from which will result a poverty-stricken
household, containing a half-starved and half-clothed fam
ily, is, if estimated by entailed miseries, something like a
crime. When, after long years of pain, anxiety, cold and
hunger, to adults and voiing, some out of the many born

O f O ' «/

have been reared to maturity, ill-grown, unhealthy, and
incapable of the efforts needed for self-support; it becomes
manifest that there have been produced beings who are
at once curses to themselves and to the community. Severe
condemnation must be passed on the conduct which lias such
consequences.

And yet, on the other hand, what would happen if no
marriages took place without a satisfactory prospect of
maintaining a family ? Suppose that an average delay of
ten years were submitted to, so that there might be no such
risks of evil as are now commonly run. The usual suppo
sition is that such persistent self-restraint would be purely
beneficial, This is far from being true, however.

I do not refer to the fact that ten years of partially abnor
mal life is a serious evil ; although this should be taken ac
count of in estimating the total results. Xor am I thinking
of the increased liability to domestic dissension which arises
when added years have given to each of the married pair
greater fixity of beliefs and diminished modifiability of feel
ings. But I am thinking chiefly of the effects on progeny.
The tacit assumption made by those who advocate the Mal-
thusian remedy for over-population, is, that it matters not to
children whether they are born to young parents or to old
parents. This is a mistake.

Because many factors co-operate, the evidence is so ob
scured that attention is not commonly dra\vn to the ef
fects indicated ; but they certainly arise. The antagonism
between individuation and reproduction implies, among
other things, that the surplus vitality available for the
maintenance of species-life is that which remains after the
maintenance of individual life. Hence the effects on off-

538 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

spring of early, medium, and late marriages, are not con
stant ; because the surplus, though it has a getieral rela
tion to age, is not constant at any age. But from this
general relation it results, in the first place, that children
born of very early marriages are injuriously affected •
since where the development of parents, or more espe
cially the mother, is not complete, the available surplus is
less than that which exists after it is complete. It results
also that where maternal vigour is great and the surplus
vitality consequently large, a long series of children may
be borne before any deterioration in their quality becomes
marked ; while, on the other hand, a mother with but a
small surplus may soon cease altogether to reproduce.
Further, it results that variations in the states of health of
parents, involving variations in the surplus vitality, have
their effects on the constitutions of offspring, to the extent
that offspring borne during greatly deranged maternal
health are decidedly feebler. And then, lastly and chiefly,
it results that after the constitutional vigour has culminated,
and there has commenced that gradual decline which in
some twenty years or so brings absolute infertility, there
goes on a gradual decrease in that surplus vitality on
which the production of offspring depends, and a conse
quent deterioration in the quality of such offspring. This,
which is an a priori conclusion, is verified a posteriori.
Mr. J. Matthews Duncan, in his work on Fecundity* Fer
tility, Sterility, and allied topics, has given results of sta
tistics which show that mothers of five-and-twenty bear
the finest infants, and that from mothers whose age at
marriage ranges from twenty to five-and-twenty, there
come infants which have a lower rate of mortality than
those resulting from marriages commenced when the
mother's age is either smaller or greater : the apparent
slight incongruity between these two statements, being
due to the fact that whereas marriages commenced be
tween twenty and five-and-twenty cover the whole of the

MARRIAGE. 539

period of highest vigour, marriages commenced at five-
and-twenty cover a period which lacks the years during
which vigour is rising to its climax, and includes only the
years of decline from the climax.

Now this fact that infants born of mothers married
between twenty and five-and-twenty have a lower rate of
mortality than infants born of mothers married earlier or
later, shows that the age of marriage is not a matter of indif
ference to the race, and that the question of early or late
marriages is less simple than appears. While the children
of a relatively early marriage improvidently entered upon,
may suffer from inadequate sustentation ; the children of a
late marriage are likely to suffer from initial imperfection
- — imperfection which may be consistent with good health
and fair efficiency, but yet may negative that high effi
ciency requisite for the best and most successful life. For
especially nowadays, under our regime of keen competi
tion, a small falling-short of constitutional vigour may entail
failure.

Thus, except in the positive reprobation of marriages at an
earlier age than twenty (among the higher races of man
kind) ethical considerations furnish but indefinite guidance.
Usually there has to be a compromise of probabilities.
While recklessly improvident marriages must be strongly
condemned, yet it seems that in many cases some risk may
rightly be run, lest there should be entailed the evils flowing
from too long a delay.

§ 233. But what has ethics to say concerning choice in
marriage — the selection of wife by husband and husband by
Avife ? It has very decisive things to say.

Current conversation proves how low is current thought
and sentiment about these questions. " It will be a very
good match for her," is the remark you hear respecting
some young lady engaged to a wealthy man. Or concern-
ins; the choice of some voung gentleman it is said — " She

540 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

is an accomplished girl and well-connected ; and her friends
will help to advance him in his profession." Another en
gaged pair are described as well-suited : he is a domestic
man, and she does not care much for society. Or, perhaps,
the impending marriage is applauded on the ground that the
lady will be a good housekeeper, and make the best of a
small income ; or that the proposed husband is good-tem
pered and not too fastidious. But about the fitness of the
connexion as considered not extrinsically but intrinsically,
little or nothing is said.

The first ground of ethical judgment is the reciprocal state
of feeling prompting the union. Where there exists none
of that mutual attraction which should be the incentive, evo
lutionary ethics and hedonistic ethics alike protest ; what
ever ethics otherwise derived may do. Marriages of this
class are reversions to marriages of earlier types, such as
those found among the rudest savages. The mariage de
convenance has been called, with some show of reason, legal
ized prostitution.

But passing over the interdict which ethics utters on
marriages which are mercantile, or which arise from other
motives than affection, we have to notice its further in
terdicts physiologically originating. Here we see, as was
pointed out in the preliminary chapter, how prevalent is
the blindness to all effects save proximate ones : unques
tionable as may be the genesis of remoter effects. Only
in extreme cases do either those directly concerned or
their friends, think of the probable quality of the offspring
when discussing the propriety of a marriage. Disapproval,
perhaps rising to reprobation, may be expressed when the
proposed union is between cousins, or is a union with one
who probably inherits insanity ; but consideration of the
effects to be borne by descendants goes scarcely beyond
this. A feeble mind or a bad physique is but rarely
thought a sufficient reason for rejecting a suitor. Thin,
flat-chested girls, debilitated men perpetually ailing, some

MARRIAGE. 541

who are constitutionally wanting in bodily energy, others
who have no activity either of intellect or feeling, and
many who are from this or that defect so inferior as to be
unfit to carry on the battle of life, are ordinarily considered
good enough for marriage and parenthood. . In a manner
that seems almost deliberate there are thus entailed households
in which illness and dulness and bad-temper prevail, and out
of which there come unhealthy and incapable children and
grandchildren.

Ethical considerations should here serve as rigid re
straints. Though guidance by the feelings is to be so far
respected that marriages not prompted by them must be
condemned, yet guidance by the feelings must not there
fore be regarded as so authoritative that all marriages
prompted by them should be approved. A certain per
version of sentiment has to be guarded against, Kelative
weakness, appealing for protection, is one of the traits in
women which excites in men the sentiment of affection—
''the tender emotion,'' as Bain styles it; and sometimes a
degree of relative weakness which exceeds the natural,
strongly excites this feeling: the pity which is akin to
love ends in love. There are converse cases in which a
woman of unusual power of nature becomes attached to
a man who is feeble in body or mind. But these devia
tions from normal inclinations have to be resisted. Ethics
demands that judgment shall here come in aid of instinct and
control it,

§ 234. There remains a question uniformly passed over
because difficult to discuss, but the ignoring of which is
fraught with untold disasters — a question concerning which
Ethics, in its comprehensive form, has a verdict to give,
and cannot without falling short of its functions decline to
give it.

The saying u that the letter killeth but the spirit giveth
life,'' is exemplified not only by the way in which observance

542 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

of religious ceremonies replaces observance of the essential
injunctions of religion, but it is exemplified everywhere. As
in the primitive legal system of the Romans, before it was
qualified by infusion of the Jus Gentium, the essential thing
was fulfilment of formalities rather than maintenance of
right — as, among ourselves, the sacrifice of justice to the
technicalities of law, led to the supplementary system of
equity, intended to rectify the entailed injustices — as, again,
in the system of equity the observance of rules and conform
ing to orders, ever complicating, became in course of time
so burdensome that equity, lost sight of, was replaced by in
equity, or iniquity ; so is it throughout. Wherever require
ments which have their roots in the order of Nature, come
to be enforced by an extrinsic authority, obedience to that
extrinsic authority takes the place of obedience to the natural
requirements.

It is thus in a considerable degree with marriage. I do
not mean merely that unions of an essentially illegitimate
kind are supposed to be legitimized by a church service or a
registration ; but I mean more. I mean that when the civil
requirements have been fulfilled, and the ecclesiastical sanc
tion has been obtained, it is supposed that no further control
has to be recognized — that when the religious restraints and
the social restraints on the relations of the sexes have been
duly respected, there remain no other restraints. The physi
ological restraints, not having received official recognition,
are not supposed to exist, or are disregarded. Hence a vast
amount of evil.

The antagonism between individuation and reproduc
tion comes into play throughout the entire process of race-
maintenance. It is true that the fulfilment of individual
life largely consists in .furthering species-life; but it is
none the less true that from beginning to end, the last puts
a limit to the first. We have but to consider that, delighted
as the mother is in yielding food to her infant, she yet
suffers a serious physical tax in addition to the physical tax

MARRIAGE. 543

entailed by production of it, to see that great though the
maternal gratification may be, it entails loss of gratifications
which a more developed individual life might have brought ;
and that when many children are produced and reared, the
sacrifices of individual life and of the pleasures which a
higher development would bring, become very great. This
law inevitably holds throughout the entire reproductive
function from beginning to end — with the initial part as
with the terminal part ; and ignorance of, or indifference t"
it entails profound injuries, physical and mental. If tl
physiological restraints are not respected the life is unde
mined in all ways.

"When, out of the total resources which the sustainii
organs furnish in materials and forces, the part required
for the carrying on of individual life is trenched upon
beyond the normal ratio, by the part constitutionally appro
priated to species-life, there comes a diminution of energy,
which affects the vital processes and all dependent processes.
Chronic derangements of health supervene, diminished bodily
activity, decline of mental power, and sometimes even
insanity. Succeeding the mischiefs thus caused, even when
they are not so extreme, there come the mischiefs entailed
on family and others ; for inability to discharge obligations,
depression of spirits, and perturbed mental state, inevit
ably injure those around. Several specialists, who have
good means of judging, agree in the opinion that the
aggregate evils arising from excesses of this kind are
greater than those arising from excesses of all other kinds
put together.

If, then, Ethics as rightly conceived has to pass judg
ment on all conduct which affects the well-being, immediate
or remote, of self or others, or both ; then the lack of self-
restraint which it condemns in other cases, it must condemn
in this case also.

CHAPTER IX.

PABENTHOOD.

235. The subject-matter of this chapter is of course

in part separable from the subject-matter of the last

er. But though in discussing the Ethics of Marriage,

do jjiimarily concerning the relations of parents to each

other, it has been needful to take account of the relations

of parents to offspring, it has seemed best to reserve the full

consideration of these last relations for a distinct chapter.

Already it has been pointed out that in the order of
Nature — u so careful of the type ... so careless of the
single life " — the welfare of progeny takes precedence of
the welfare of those who produce them. Though the
happiness or misery of the married pair is ordinarily the
result chiefly contemplated, this result must be held of
secondary importance in comparison with the results
reached in offspring — the superiority or inferiority of the
children born and reared to maturity. For in proportion
as race-maintenance is well or ill achieved in each case,
must be the tendency of the species or variety to prosper or
decline.

Hence all requirements touching the proximate end,
marriage are to be considered in subordination to re
quirements touching the ultimate end — the raising up
members of a new generation. Evolutionary ethics de
mands that this last end shall be regarded as the supreme end.

§ 236. Obviously the parental instincts in large measure
secure fulfilment of this supreme end ; since any species or

PARENTHOOD. 545

variety in which they are not strong enough to do this, must
presently become extinct. Here, then, we are introduced to
the truth that achievement of those pleasures which parent
hood brings, has a double sanction — that which the ethics of
individual life directly yields, and that which is yielded in
directly by the ethics of social life.

But satisfaction of the parental affections, while not to be
ignored as an end in itself, is, as above implied, chiefly to be
regarded as a spur to the discharge of parental responsi
bilities. The arrangements of things are dislocated if the
two are not kept in relation — if the responsibilities, instead
of being discharged by parents, are shouldered upon others.
It might have been thought that this truth is too obvious to
need enunciation ; but, unhappily, it is far otherwise. We
have fallen upon evil times, in which it has come to be an
accepted doctrine that part of the responsibilities are to be
discharged not by parents but by the public — a part which is
gradually becoming a larger part and threatens to become
the whole. Agitators and legislators have united in spread
ing a theory which, logically followed out, ends in the
monstrous conclusion that it is for parents to beget children
and for society to take care of them. The political ethics
now in fashion, makes the unhesitating assumption that
while each man, as parent, is not responsible for the mental
culture of his own offspring, he is, as citizen, along with
other citizens, responsible for the mental culture of all other
men's offspring ! And this absurd doctrine has now become
so well established that people raise their eyebrows in aston
ishment if you deny it. A self-evident falsehood has been
transformed into a self -evident truth! Along with the
almost universal superstition that society is a manufacture
and not a growth, there goes the unwavering belief that leg
islators, prompted by electors, can with advantage set aside
one of the fundamental arrangements under which organic
nature at large, and human nature in particular, has evolved
thus far ! Men who have proved cunning in business-specu-

THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

lation, men who ride well to hounds and are popular in their
counties, men who in courts of justice are skilled in making
the worse cause appear the better, men who once wrote good
Latin verses or proved themselves learned about the misbe
haviour of the Greek gods, unite in trying to undo organized
dependencies resulting from millions of years of discipline.
Men whose culture is so little relevant to the functions they
have assumed, that they do not even see that everything in
social life originates from certain traits of individual life,
that individual human life is but a specialized part of life at
large, and that therefore until the leading truths presented
by life at large are comprehended, there can be no right
comprehension of society — men who are thus ignorant of
the great facts which it chiefly concerns them to know, have
promised to do the behests of men who are ignorant not
only of such facts but of most other things. The half-blind
elected by the wholly blind take upon themselves the office
of creation-menders! Daily accustomed to discover that
established laws are bad and must be repealed by Act of
Parliament, they have unawares extended their thought to
laws not of human origin, and calmly undertake to repeal by
Act of Parliament a law of Nature !

But this ignoring of the truth that only by due dis
charge of parental responsibilities has all life on the Earth
arisen, and that only through the better discharge of them
have there gradually been made possible better types of life,
is in the long run fatal. Breach of natural law will in this
case, as in all cases, be followed in due time by Nature's
revenge — a revenge which will be terrible in proportion as
the breach has been great. A system under which parental
duties are performed wholesale by those who are not the
parents, under the plea that many parents cannot or will
not perform their duties — a system which thus fosters the
inferior children of inferior parents at the necessary cost of
superior parents and consequent injury of superior children
— a system which thus helps incapables to multiply and hin-

PARENTHOOD.

ders the multiplications of capables, or diminishes their capa
bility, must bring decay and eventual extinction. A society
which persists in such a system must, other things equal, go
to the wall in the competition with a society which does not
commit the folly of nurturing its worst at the expense of its
best.

The ethical code of Xature, then, allows of no escape of
parents from their obligations. While under its hedonistic
aspect it sanctions in an emphatic Avay the gratification of
parental affections, under its evolutionary aspect it per
emptorily requires fulfilment of all those actions by which
the young are prepared for the battle of life. And if the
circumstances are such that part of these actions must be
performed by deputy, it still requires that the implied cost
and care shall be borne, and not transferred to others'
shoulders.

§ 237. The time will come when, along with full recog
nition of parental duties, there will go an unyielding resist
ance to the usurpation of those duties. While the parent,
as he ought to be, will conscientiously satisfy all the de
mands which his parenthood entails, he will sternly deny
the riffht of anv assemblage of men to take his children

O •/ ^

from him and mould them as they please. We have out
grown the stage during which the despot, with an army at
his back, could impose his will on all citizens ; but we have
not yet outgrown the stage during which a majority of
citizens, with police at their back, can impose their will,
concerning all matters whatever, upon citizens not of their
number. But when there has passed away this contempti
ble superstition that, having the power, the majority have
the right, to do as they please with the persons and prop
erty and actions of those who happen to be in the mi
nority — when it is understood that governmental orders
are limited by ethical injunctions ; every parent will hold
his sphere as one into which the State may not intrude.

THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

And if under such conditions there occasionally, though
rarely, happens a non-performance of parental duties, the
entailed evil brings, in Nature's stern way, its own cure.
For with mankind as with lower kinds, the ill-nurtured
offspring of the inferior fail in the struggle for existence
with the well-nurtured offspring of the superior ; and in a
generation or two die out, to the benefit of the species. A
harsh discipline this, most will say. True ; but Nature
has much discipline which is harsh, and which must, in
the long run, be submitted to. The necessities which she
imposes on us are not to be evaded, even by the joint ef
forts of university-graduates and working-men delegates ;
and the endeavour to escape her harsh discipline results in
a discipline still harsher. Measures which prevent the
dwindling away of inferior individuals and families, must,
in the course of generations, cause the nation at large to
dwindle away.

At the same time that intrusion into the parental sphere
must, in a normal social state, be resented as a trespass, it
will be further resented as a deprivation of those daily
pleasures yielded by furthering the development of the
young in body and mind. For when there have died out
the stupidities of an education which may be briefly
described as denying the mind that which it wants and
forcing upon it that which it does not want, there will
have come a time when the superintendence of education,
at any rate in all its simpler parts, will be at once easy
and enjoyable. The general law that through successive
stages of organic evolution, there is an elongation of the
period during which parental care is given, shown finally
in the contrast between the human race and inferior -races,
as well as in the contrast between uncivilized and civilized,
is a law which, involving as now a long and careful
physical nurturing of the young by their parents, will
hereafter involve a long and careful psychical nurturing

PARENTHOOD. 549

by them ; and though the higher and more special educa
tional functions will have to be discharged by proxy, yet
the proxy-discharge will be under parental superintend
ence.

People feel no adequate pride in bringing to maturity
fine human beings. It is true that the mother, exhibiting
each infant with triumph, and during the childhood of
each pleasing herself by presenting it to visitors prettily
clothed and with hair on which much time has been spent
morning and evening, is not wholly neglectful of diet,
and takes care that the day's lessons are attended to. It
is true, also, that the father, commonly leaving fashion to
determine the places of education for his boys, sometimes
makes inquiries and exercises independent judgment; and,
moreover, looks with satisfaction on a well-grown youth
and one who has brought home prizes. But it is never
theless true that scarcely anywhere do we see proper
solicitude. Grave mischiefs are daily done in almost
every family by ignorance of physiological requirements ;
and in the absence of guiding knowledge in parents, in
numerable children grow up with constitutions damaged
for life. At the same time there is no such thoughtful
ministration to the mind of each child as is called for—
no search for a course of intellectual culture which is
rational in matter and method, and nothing beyond a
rough and ready moral discipline. On observing what
energies are expended by father and mother to achieve
wordly success and fulfil social ambitions, we are reminded
how relatively small is the space occupied by the ambi
tion to make their descendants physically, morally, and
intellectually, superior. Yet this is the ambition which
will replace those they now so eagerly pursue ; and which,
instead of perpetual disappointments, will bring permanent
satisfactions.

And then, following on the discharge of these high

550 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

parental functions, will come that reward in old age con
sisting of an affectionate care by children, much greater
than is now known.

§ 238. Anything like due fulfilment of parental func
tions as thus conceived, is possible only under conditions
commonly disregarded — conditions the disregard of which
is supposed not to fall within the range of ethical judg
ments.

" Providence has sent me a large family," is a remark
which may occasionally be heard from one who has more
children than he can provide for. Though, in other direc
tions, he does not profess an oriental fatalism, in this direc
tion he does. " God has willed it so," appears to be his
thought ; and thinking this, he holds himself absolved from
blame in bringing about the distresses of a poverty-
stricken household.

If, however, improvident marriages are to be reprobated
— if to bring children into the world when there will
probably be no means of maintaining any, is a course
calling for condemnation ; then there must be condemna
tion for those who bring many children into the world
when they have means of properly rearing only a few.
Improvidence after marriage cannot be considered right,
if improvidence before marriage is considered wrong.

The stunted and ill-formed bodies of dwellers in the
East end of London, tell of the meagre diet and deficient
clothing from which the many children of parents with
narrow means, have suffered during their early days; and
even in country villages, where the sanitary conditions are
relatively good, one may see in feeble and sickly people,
the results of attempting to rear large families on small
wages. This reckless multiplication, while it inflicts the
daily-recurring pains of unsatisfied appetites and the
miseries of insufficient warmth — while it is to be debited
with that lack of bodily strength which makes efficient

PARENTHOOD. 551

work impracticable, commonly involves also a stupidity
which negatives all but the most mechanical functions;
for mental power cannot be got from ill-fed brains.
Unhappy and wearisome lives are thus entailed by
parents who beget more children than they can property
bring up.

Matters are made worse, too, by the undue tax brought
on the parents themselves — on the father, if he is consci
entious by an injurious amount of labour ; and still more
on the mother, whose system, exhausted by the bearing
of many children, is still further exhausted by the cares
which all day long the many children need. Manifestly
hedonistic ethics if we regard it as contemplating, more es
pecially, immediate effects on happiness, severely denounces
conduct which thus creates miseries all round ; while evolu
tionary ethics, if we consider it as more especially contem
plating future results, severely denounces conduct which thus
bequeaths lower natures instead of higher to subsequent gen
erations.

Even where parents have means sufficient to provide
abundantly for the bodily welfare of many children, there
must still be an insufficient provision for their mental wel
fare. Though, in a family of several, the children amuse
and teach one another, and thus mutually aid mental growth ;
yet, when the number is large, the parental attention they
severally need becomes too much subdivided ; and the daily
display of parental affection, which is a large factor in the
moral development of children, cannot be given in adequate
amount to each.

§ 239. With the ethical censure of this improvident mul
tiplication, must be joined a like censure of an improvi
dence habitually associated with it, and in large measure
the cause of it. The nature of this will best be shown
by citing some facts furnished by races which, being uncivil
ized, are regarded as therefore in all respects our inferiors.

THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

The first of them comes from a society utterly brutal in
most of its usages — Uganda.

"The women rarely have more than two or three children, and
the law is that when a woman has borne a child she must live
apart from her husband for two years, at which age the children are
weaned."

In a still more brutal society — that of the Fijians — we
meet with a kindred fact. Says Seemann —

"After childbirth, husband and wife keep apart for three, even four
years, so that no other baby may interfere with the time considered
necessary for suckling children. ... I heard of a white man, who
being asked how many brothers and sisters he had, frankly replied,
' Ten ! ' ' But that could not be,' was the rejoinder of the natives,
' one mother could scarcely have so many children.' When told that
these children were born at annual intervals, and that such occurrences
were common in Europe, they were very much shocked, and thought
it explained sufficiently why so many white people were ' mere
shrimps.' "

In these cases, however, polygamy prevails : in Uganda,
for instance, the enormous preponderance of women, due
partly to the destruction of men in war and partly to the
capture of women by war, rendering it almost universal.
Here, therefore, the usage, in so far as it affects men, is not
so remarkable. But in two leading districts of New Gui
nea, there are monogamous peoples among whom a like rule
holds. The Rev. J. Chalmers tells us that in Motu-Motu,
the parents, after the birth of a child, " do not live together
again until the child is strong, walking, and weaned, and all
that time he [the husband] sleeps in dubu. His friends cook
food for him." Similarly of the Motu tribe, he tells us that
the parents keep apart " until the child walks and is weaned."
To ascertain the current opinion on the matter he asked the
question — " If another child is born before the first is big
and able to walk, are they ashamed ?" To which he~£f?t the
answer — " Yes, terribly ; and all the village will be talking
about it."

Even these warlike and sanguinary peoples then, and

PARENTHOOD.

553

still more these trading, peaceful, and monogamous tribes
of New Guinea, show us a deep consciousness of the truth
that too frequent child-bearing is injurious to the race —
tells against the fullest development of both the already
born child and the child to be presently born. Beyond
that constant surplus vitality which, in the female economy,
remains after meeting the expenditure of individual life,
there is also what we may call a reserve of vital capital,
accumulated during intervals in which the surplus is not
being demanded. This reserve, used up during the interval
in which an infant is being developed, takes some time to
replace — a time shorter or longer according as the con
stitutional vigour is great or small. And if, much before
the end of that time, the reproductive system is again
called into action, the double result is an over-tax of the
maternal system, and an infant which falls short of the
fullest development ; at the same time that its predecessor
is too early deprived of its natural supply of food. These
are necessary consequences. They are collateral results
of that general cause which makes reproduction impossible
before and after certain ages.

Here then, as in sundry preceding cases, evolutionary
ethics utters an interdict which current ethics, from what
ever source derived, shows no signs of uttering.

§ 2-iO. How then are there to be reconciled the interests
of "the individual and the interests of the race? This ques
tion, which here unavoidably presents itself, is one diffi
cult, if not impossible to answer— perhaps they cannot be
reconciled.

As already many times said, men have been long in
course of acquiring fitness for that social state into which
increase of numbers has forced them, and have still but
partially acquired fitness for it. In multitudinous ways
the survival of instincts appropriate to the pre-social stage,
has been a chronic cause of miseries ; and in multitudinous

554 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

ways the lack of sentiments appropriate to the social stage,
has been a chronic cause of other miseries.

While it has continually increased that pressure of
population which has been a cause of progress, excess of
fertility, has been among the chief factors in the produc
tion of these miseries, and must long continue to be such ;
but, as is shown in The Principles of Biology, §§ 373-374,
the implication of the general law traceable throughout
the whole animal kingdom, is that still a higher develop
ment of mind, brought about by still increasing pressure of
population, and still greater cerebral activity entailed by it,
will gradually diminish the fertility, until the excess prac
tically disappears : the highest degree of individuation
entailing the lowest degree of reproduction. And the
further implication, there pointed out, is that this degree
of individuation, especially shown in a more exalted mental
life — wider intelligence and more intense feelings — will not
involve conscious stress, but will be the natural outcome of
an organization adjusted to the requirements of a more
costly self-sustentatioii. Hence, if there are deprivations
which ethics dictates, they must step by step be accompanied
by compensations, probably greater in amount.

Only in the slow course of ages, however, can any such
such change of balance be wrought. Whether, in the mean
time, there may arise any qualifications of the process, it is
impossible to say. One thing, however, is certain. No
conclusion can be sustained which does not conform to the
ultimate truth that the interests of the race must predomi
nate over the interests of the individual.

CHAPTER X.

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS.

§ 241. The title of this division— " The Ethics of Indi
vidual Life " — has excited a publicly-expressed curiosity re
specting the possible nature of its contents. Nothing beyond
prudential admonitions could, it was thought, be meant; and
there was evident surprise that ethical sanction should be
claimed for these.

The state of mind thus implied is not, I believe, excep
tional. Ordinary individual life, when it is such as not
directly to affect others for good or evil, is supposed to lie
outside the sphere of ethics ; or rather, there is commonly
entertained no thought about the matter. Ethics, as
usually conceived, having made no formal claim to regu--
late this part of conduct is assumed to be unconcerned
with it. It is true that now and then come expressions
implying a half-conscious belief to the contrary. "You
ought not to have overtaxed your strength by so great an
exertion;" "you ought not to have gone so long without
food ; " are not unfrequent utterances. " You were quite
right to throw up the situation if your health was giving
way," is said to one ; while on another is passed the criti
cism — " He is wrong in idling away his time, wealthy
though he may be." And wre occasionally hear insistence on
the duty of taking a holiday to avoid an illness : especially
in view of responsibilities to be discharged. That is to say,
the w,ords ought, right, wrong, duty, are used in connexion

556 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFI

with various parts of private conduct ; and such uses of
these words, which in other cases have ethical significance,
implies that they have ethical significance in these cases
also.

Moreover, as pointed out in the opening chapter, there
are some modes of individual life concerning which ethical
convictions of the most pronounced kinds prevail — excess in
drinking, for example. Recognition of the immense evils
entailed by this prompts strong reprobation. But there is
no consciousness of the obvious truth that if, because of its
mischievous consequences, this deviation from normal life is
to be condemned ; so, too, are all deviations which have mis
chievous consequences, however relatively small. It must
be admitted that, conceived in its fully developed form,
ethics has judgments to give upon all actions which affect
individual welfare.

Throughout the foregoing series of chapters, it has, I
think, been made sufficiently manifest that there is great
need for ethical rule over this wider territory.

§ 242. Doubtless this rule must be of an indefinite kind —
may be compared rather with that of a suzerain than with
that of an acting governor. For throughout the greater
part of this territory, there have to be effected compromises
among various requirements ; and in the majority of cases
ethical considerations can do little more than guide us to
wards rational compromises.

This will probably be regarded as a reversion to the
ancient doctrine of the mean — a doctrine expressed in a
manner generally vague, but occasionally distinct, by
Confucius, and definitely elaborated by Aristotle. And
it must be admitted that throughout most classes of
actions which do not directly affect other persons, paths
lying between extremes have to be sought and followed.
The doctrine of the mean is not, as Aristotle admitted,
universally applicable; and its inapplicability is couspicu-

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 557

ous in respect of that part of conduct which stands above
all others in importance — justice ; not, indeed, justice as
legally formulated, nor justice as it is conceived by com
munists and others such, but justice as deducible from the
conditions which must be maintained for the carrying on of
harmonious social co-operation. Ethics does not suggest
partial fulfilment of a contract, as being the mean between
non-fulfilment and complete fulfilment. It does not counte
nance moderate robbery of your neighbour, rather than the
taking from him everything or the taking nothing. Nor
does it dictate the assault of a fellow-man as intermediate
between murdering him and not touching him. Contrari
wise, in respect of justice Ethics insists on the extreme — en
joins complete fulfilment of a contract, absolute respect for
property, entire desistance from personal injury. So like
wise is it with veracity. The right does not lie between the
two extremes of falsehood and truth : complete adherence to
fact is required. And there are sundry kinds of conduct
classed as vices, which are also not contemplated by the doc
trine; since they are to be interdicted not partially but
wholly. In respect of ordinary private life, however, the
doctrine of the mean may be considered to hold in the ma
jority of cases.

But admitting this, there still presents itself the ques
tion — How to find the mean ? Until the positions of the
extremes have been ascertained, the position of the mean
cannot be known. As has rightly been remarked, " it is
impracticable to define the position of that, which is excess
ive on the one hand, and defective on the other, till excess
and defect have been themselves defined." And here it is
that the Ethics of Individual Life finds its subject matter.
The guidance of uncultured sense, ordinarily followed
throughout private conduct, it replaces by a guidance which,
though still mainly empirical, is relatively trustworthy ;
since it results from a deliberate and methodic study of the
requirements — a study which dissipates misapprehensions

558 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

and reduces vague ideas to definite ones. In respect of
nutrition, for instance, it tis doubtless true that abstinence
on the one hand, and gluttony on the other, are to be
avoided — that food is to be taken in moderation. But it
may rightly be contended that eating is not to be guided by
observation of the mean between these two extremes;
but is to be guided by reaching that which may, in a
sense, be called an extreme — the complete satisfaction of
appetite. And here we are shown the need for critical
inquiry. For the conception of a mean between abstinence
and gluttony, is confounded with the conception of a mean
between no satisfaction of appetite and complete satisfac
tion of appetite ; and in consequence of the confusion
this last mean is by some prescribed. But the notion,
not infrequently expressed, that it is best to leave off
eating while still hungry, would never have been enun
ciated were there not so many people who lead abnormal
lives, and so many people who eat before appetite prompts.
In that state of health which exists where there has not
been, on the part of either self or ancestors, a chronic dis
regard of physiological needs, proper nutrition is achieved
not by partial fulfilment of the desire for food but by
entire fulfilment of it — by going up to the limit set by
inclination.

Remembrance of the various conclusions drawn in preced
ing chapters, such as those which concern activity and rest,
culture and amusement, will make it clear that it is every
where the business of the Ethics of Individual Life thus to
dissipate erroneous beliefs, by systematic observation and
analysis of private conduct and its results.

§ 243. Remembrance of these conclusions suggests that
beyond giving a definite conception of the mean, when the
mean is to be adopted, the Ethics of Individual Life gives
definiteness to a kindred idea — the idea of proportion. I do
not refer to that proportion which is implied by the doctrine

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 559

of the mean, and connotes a just estimation of excess and
defect; but I mean that proportion which obtains among
different parts of conduct.

While, within each division of the activities, the middle
place may be duly regarded, there may be no due regard
for proportion among the several divisions of the activities.
There are various kinds of bodily action, some needed for
self-sustentation and some not ; there are various kinds of
mental action, aiding in different ways and degrees the main
tenance of individual life, and various others which do not aid
this maintenance, or do so in but remote ways. And then,
beyond the preservation of a right proportion between the
life-subserving occupations and the occupations which do not
directly subserve life, there is the preservation of right pro
portions among the subdivisions of these last — right pro
portions between culture and amusement and between dif
ferent kinds of culture and different kinds of amusements.
The conception of a mean does not touch the numerous
problems thus presented ; since it implies a compromise be
tween two things, and not a number of compromises among
many things.

Any one on glancing round may see that the great majority
of lives are more or less distorted by failure to maintain bal
anced amounts of the activities, bodily and mental, required
for complete health and happiness ; and that there are here,
therefore, many problems with which the Ethics of Individual
Life has to concern itself.

§ 244. But while this division of ethics which has the
control of private conduct for its function, may, by its
ordered judgments, serve to prevent each kind of activity
from diverging very far on either side of moderation ; and
while it may serve to prevent extreme disproportions
among the different kinds of activities ; it cannot be ex
pected to produce by its injunctions a perfectly-regulated

conduct.

560 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

Only by the gradual re-moulding of human nature into
fitness for the social state, can either the private life or
the public life of each man, be made what it should be.
In respect of private life, especially, the problems pre
sented are so complex and so variable, that nothing like
definite solutions of them can be reached by any intel
lectual processes, however methodic and however careful.
They can be completely solved only by the organic ad
justment of constitution to conditions. All inferior creat
ures, incapable of elaborating reasoned codes of conduct,
are guided entirely by the promptings of instincts and
desires, severally adapted to the needs of their lives. In
each species the feelings are kept duly adjusted in their
strengths to the requirements, and duly proportioned to
one another, by direct or indirect equilibration, or by both ;
since, inevitably, the individuals in which the balance of
them is not good, disappear, or fail to rear progeny.
There are many who, while they recognize this necessity
as operative throughout sub-human life, tacitly deny that
it is operative throughout human life, or, at any rate,
ignore its operation ; and they do this notwithstanding
their knowledge of the immense divergences of habits
and sentiments, which multiform human nature itself has
acquired under the different circumstances it has been
subject to. Any one, however, who contemplates the
contrast between those who witness with pleasure the
tortures of men and animals, and those who cannot be
induced to witness such tortures because of the sympa
thetic pain they experience, may infer from this single
contrast, a capacity for modification which makes possible
an approximately-complete adjustment of the nature to
the life which has to be led — an adjustment towards
which there will be appreciable progress, when there
have died out the fatuous legislators who are continually
impeding it.

Eventually, then, the degree of each of the activities con-

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 501

stituting private conduct, and the proportions among the
different activities, must be spontaneously regulated by the
natural promptings. In the meantime, all which the Ethics
of Individual Life can do, is to keep clearly in view, and con-
tinually to emphasize, the needs to which the nature has to
be adjusted.

§ 245. Finally, there must be littered a caution against
striving too strenuously to reach the Ideal — against straining
the nature too much out of its inherited form. For the nor
mal re-moulding can go on but slowly.

As there must be moderation in other things, so there must
be moderation in self-criticism. Perpetual contemplation
of our own actions produces a morbid consciousness, quite
unlike that normal consciousness accompanying right actions
spontaneously done ; and from a state of unstable equilib
rium long maintained by effort, there is apt to be a fall
towards stable equilibrium, in which the primitive nature
re-asserts itself. Ketrogression rather than progression may
hence result.

END OF VOL. I.

REFERENCES.

To find the authority for any statement in the text, the reader is to
proceed as follows : — Observing the number of the section in which the
statement occurs, he will first look out, in the following pages, the cor
responding number, which is printed in conspicuous type. Among the
references succeeding this number, he will then look for the name of the
person, tribe, people, or nation concerning which the statement is made
(the names in the references standing in the same order as that which
they have in the text) ; and that it may more readily catch the eye, each
such name is printed in Italics. In the parentheses following the name,
will be found the volume and page of the work referred to, preceded by
the first three or four letters of the author's name ; and when more than
one of his works has been used, the first three or four letters of the title of
the one containing the particular statement. The meanings of these ab
breviations, employed to save the space that would be occupied by fre
quent repetitions of full titles, is shown at the end of the references;
where will be found arranged in alphabetical order, these initial syllables
of authors' names, &c., and opposite to them the full titles of the works
referred to.

KEFEKENCES TO VOL. I.

§ 13. Aristotle (Arist. Nicom. Ethics, I, 7; Ib. I, 8, Gillies' translation).
§14. ffutcheaon (Hutch, ch. IV). § 14.* Blessed (Matthew, v, 7, 9 ;

Psalms, xli, 1). § 18. Dymond (Dym. pref. ix ; ch. II). § 52. Bodo

and Dhimals (J. A. S. B. xviii, 741). § 60. Plato (Pla. Rep., Davies and
Vaughan's trans, xxix) — Aristotle (Arist. Nic. Eth. I, 8 ; Ib. X, 7) — Jews
(Psalms, xvii, 2)— Early Christians (Colossians, iv, 1) — Aristotle (Arist. Nic.
Eth. V, 1). § 74. "Love thy neighbour" (Leviticus, xix, 18). § 89.

Kant (Kant, 54-5). § 1Q6. Socrates (Xen. Mem. Ill, 9)— Plato (Grote,

Plato, i, 420, 479)— Aristotle (Arist. Nic. Eth. Ill, 4, Williams' trans.)— Stoics
(Zeller, The Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics, translated by Reichel, pp. 253-4)
—Epicurus (Zeller, 456)— Kant (Kant, 54-5). § 1 12. Veddahs (Bailey iu

(568)

564 REFERENCES.

T. E. S. L. N.S. ii, 302)— Zulus (Call. pt. ii, 146-7)— Australians (Smyth, i, 107)

— Tongans (Mar. ii, 100)— Gold Coast (Ellis, T-S.P. 11)— Anc. Mexicans (Zur.
138-141)— Hebrews (Schenk. v, 431; Bruch, 368; Fritz, v, xxxiv) — Rig -Veda
(R. V. i, 33, 4, 5; vi, 14, 8; x, 81, 7; iv, 17, 16)— Rameses (R. P. ii, 70)—
Chryses (Horn. "Iliad," Lang, bk. i, 2) — Med. Europe (Brace, 230). § 1 13.
Assyrians (R. P. N.S. iv, 56; R. P. v, 8; xi, 49; ix, 42) — Egyptians (R. P. ii,
70-72). § 1 14. Karens (Mason in J. A. S. B., xxxvii, Pt. ii, 143)— Dakota*
(Scho. iv, 70) — Iroquois (Morg. 119) — Anc. Indians (Malm, xiii, 3880; Bha-
ravi, in Wil. 459; Cural, in Con. 220) — Chinese (Alex. 117, 254-5)— Egyptians
(Renouf, 72). § 115. Bp. of Durham (Herald of Peace, Dec. 1890) — L.
Cranbrook (Standard, July 12, 1889) — Dr. Moorhouse (Manchester Examiner,
May 14, 1887) — German Emperor (Daily Papers, June 18, 1888). § 116.
Malagasy ( Drury, 192) — Hebrews (Bruch, 311) — Egyptians (Poole in Cont. Rev.
Aug. 1881, p. 286)— Mill (Mill, 124). § 117. Otaheitans (Hawke. ii,
101-2) — Anc. Indians (Maha. iii, 1124, etc.) — Ramayana (Rich. 149) — Chinese
(Edkins, 85, 179). § 120. Arabs (Palg. 10-11)— Russians (Nicmo. ii, 167)
— Matelhapees (Licht. ii, 306) — Arabs (Baker, 263)— Makololo (Liv. /amb. 285)
— Eg. Africans (Reade, 260) — Araucanians (Smith, 214) — Chinooks (Lewis &
C. 439)— Chukchi (Erm. ii, 530, note)—Mahabharata (Wheel, i, 121)— French
(Leber, xiii, 10-11) — Patagonians (Talk. 125) — Dakotas (Irving, 134) — Esqui
maux (Crantz, i, 154) — Caffers (Thomp. ii, 354) — Mayorunas (Reade, 158) —
Bambarans (Caillie, i, 398)— Wa-kavirondo (Thorn. 487) — Arabs (Peth. 151) —
Khonds (Macpherson in Perc. 345) — Tahitians (Cooke in Hawke. ii, 203) —

Vateans (Turn. "P. R." 450)— Fijian* (\Vilkc.s, iii, 100). § 121. Innuitt

(Hall, ii, 315) — Ancient Peruvians (Garci. bk. ii, ch. 12). § 12(5. Bush

men (Liv. "Miss. Trav." 159) — Uganda (Wils. & Fel. i, 224)— Bedouins (Burt.
"Pilg." iii. 66-7)— Aw£wt(Rown. 187)— Pathans (Temp. "Rep." 63). § 127.
Ancient Indians (R. V. i, 74; vii, 6, 2; vii, 32, 7; Maha. xii, 5290; v. 5617)
—Assyrians (R. P. i, 49, 78 ; v, 9 ; 11. N.S. ii, 137, 143, 153; iv, &l)—Suevi
(Caesar, iv, 2; vi, 21) — Mottoes (Various Peerage?)— Wolsekij (Wolse. 5).
§ 128. Ancient Indians (Maha. xiii, 5571, in Wil. 448; Jones, Works, iii,
242) — Persians (Sadi, i, st. 33 ; ii, st. 4) — Chinese (Lao-Tsze, xxxi ; Conf. Anal,
xii, 19; Mencius, bk. i, pt. i, ch. 6; Ib. iv, i, 14) — Sumatrans (Mars. 173) —
Thdrus (Nesfield in Calc. Rev. 1835, Ixxx, 41)— Iroquois (Morg 92, 330).
§ 129. Fijians (Ersk. 247; Will, i, 218, 246-7)— Watjanda (Wils. & Fel. i,
201)— Charlemagne (Hallam, 16). § 131. Comanchcs (Moll, i, 185)—

Patagonians (Snow, ii, 233) — E. Africans (Liv. " Miss. Trav." 526) — Kalmucks
(Pallas, i, 105)— Kirghis (Atkin. "Amoor," 206; Ib. Sib. 506)— Merv Turco
mans (O'I)on. ii, 407, 278) — Pathans (Temp. "Rep." 62) — Afridi (Rown.
123-4)— Kukis (Dalt. ±5)— Mongols (Gil. Z^—Angamis (Stewart, in J. A. S.B.
xxiv, 652)— Chinooks (Waitz, iii, 337)— Waganda (Wils. & Fel. i, 224)—
Fijians (Will, i, 127). § 132. Vishnu (R. V. i, 61, 1)—Tvashtri &

Indra (Muir, 0. S. T. v, 229; Wheel, i, 244) — Norse (Dasent, xxxiv)— Prim.
Germans (Caesar, vi, 21) — French (Ste. Pal. ii, 47) — Thirty Years' War (Gind.
ii, 393-7). § 133. Wood-Veddahs (Hartshorne in Fort. Rev. Mar. 1876, p
416)— Esquimaux (King in J. E. S. 1848, i, 131) — Fucr/ians (Darwin in Fitz.
iii, 242 ; Snow, i, 328) — New Guinea (Macgil. i, 270 ; Earl, 80) — Lctte (Kolff,
61) — Vera Cruz Indians (Baker in P. R. G. S. Sept. 1887, p. 571) — Thdrus
(Nesfield in Calc. Rev. Ixxx, 1,41) — Iroquois (Morg. 333). § 135. Aus
tralians (Grey, ii, 240) — Sioux (Burt. C. S. 125)— Guiana (Schom. i, 158) —
Fijians (Will, i, 186) — New Zcalanders (Thorns, ii, 86) — Kukis (Macrae in As.
Res. vii, 189) — Arabs (Peth. 27) — E. Africans (Burt. C. A. ii, 329) — Japanese
(Dening, pt. ii, 81)— Anc. Indians (R. V. x, 87; vii, 104; Wheel, i. 287-8,
290)- § 136. Anc. Indians (Mann, ii, 161 ; vi, 47-8, in Wil. 283; Cural,

in Con. 427) — Persians (Con. 226; Sadi, ii, st. 41; Hafiz, in Jones, iii, 244)

— Chinese (Lao-Tsze, Ixiii; Mencius, bk. v, pt. i, ch. iii; Conf. Anal, xiv,

REFERENCES.

565

<?61 8 137 Lepchas (Campbell in J. E. ?. L. July, 1869, pp. 150-1)

* 139 PMKp Islands (Fore. Zn)-Quianganes (P. S. M. July 1891, p. 390)
!_!?«£ (Burck. 84-5). § 140. Guiana (Im Thurn 213-4) § 141.

Anc. Indians ( Wheel, i, 102, 103 note)-TodaS (Shortl : m T. E. S. L N s vii
Mli-Bodo ADhimfa (J. A. S. B. xviii, pt. ii, 744)-#o» Hayes in Dalt. 194)
—Afas (Ban. i, 555, M)-Manansas (Holub, ii, 206-11)- lharu* (Nesfield
in Cafe. /few. Ixxx, 41)-Z*Ote« (Fytche, i, 343). §144.. Arabs (Palg. i,

tf)-Kirghiz (Atkin. Sib. 506)-/?. J/Hccm* (Burt. C A . n 274>-/fy'«««
(Wilkes iii, 77; Jackson, in Ersk. 460)-^moS (Bird, ii 101)-^«fraKana
(T E S L. K.s iii 246)— Samoans (Jackson, in Ersk. 415)— Kaffirs (Licht. i,
^-Africans (Wint. i, 213)-*-. vlmm«m /ndian« (Morg. fT)--^' ^«-
Zairs (Angas U 22; Thorns, i, 191, 98)->S<. Augustine Island (Turn. Samoa,
29/3) I 145 Bushmen Burch. ii, My-Holientot, (Burch. ii 349 ; Kol-

ben i 165)lSw U/W«m« (Liv. "Miss. Tray." 60l)-Loango (Proyart in
Pink \v ^Australians T. E. S. L. N.s. iii, tf I)- Sand ganders (Van.
Hi 21)-^^ (Brett, m)-Tkibet (Bogle, 110). § 146-4^^-

(Eyre i 278- Start, i, 114; ii, 105)— Tawnontan* (Mered. i, 201)— Ton^an*
Sar i 228) 81 47 ^- &5tan« (R. V. x, 107, 2, 5, &c. ; Manu, in,

105 106; iy, 29; iii, ^-Apastamba (Buhler, 114 119)-PfmanS (bhayast,
iii 4 in West, 341; Sadi, viii, 60; Ib. viii, 2)-Cte (Conf. Ana 1 vi 28 ;
v I 11 x 15 ^148 W/y (7mn«ns (Tac. ^erm. xxi)-(7Ans<tans

[L cky 'ii>3 Brownl pL ii, § 2)" § 149 Nev, Zealanders Angas, i,
312- Cook in Hawke. iii, 447; Thorns, i, 149)—^^ 4/rM«m» (Burt. C^A n,
tlti-MHans (Will i, 55, U3)-I)acotas (Burt. C. S. 124-5)-A%«S (Butler,
ShanslGO^/ (cW Cfo, , 120,

(Favre, 97-100, 8, 73, 72, 100-2)-,4™/wm (Kolff, 161-3) ^ 15U.
(Moffat, 58 Licht. ii, 195; Mf at 156)-^«^olben ., o32,
165, 142, 3l8)-DyaJcs (Boyle, 223.) § 151. Karens (Mason m ^J. A. b. B.
xxxVii pt ii 144)-fflm«for^ (Herr. iv, H^-ioan^ (Monte, i, 244 )-^-

' -™^! ii, Sl^-^o^ozs (Morg .171)

(DunckM, 203
(Legge, R. of Ch. 224 t mt u ^ , ^ .^ 5 A g

pt. kA/J,^ot!i^ViLGrel i 27)-^i«n* (Will, i, 128-9)- Ved-

,ore - , ,

Sinclair to I. A. July, 1874, l

J? "i ,
22?

566 REFERENCES.

Mexicans (Tern, v, 102) — E. Africans (Liv. Zamb. 309; ) — Egyptians

(St. John, 77) — France (Mich, i, 341) — English (Kirkus in Fort. Rev. Nov.
1866, p. 644). § 162. Araucanians (Smith, 201^ — Arawaks (Hillhouse in

J. R. G. S. ii, 229)— Dakotas (Burt. C. S. 131)— E.Africans (Burt, C. A. ii, 333)
— Bedouins (Burck. 201, 56) — Chippewayans(Hear. 345) — Kamtschadales (Kotze.
ii, 16)— Dakotas (Burt. C. S. 131)— f'ijians, Will, i, 177)— Hottentots (Kolben,
i, 123) — Zulus (Thomp. ii, 418) — Karens (Mason in J. A. S. B. xxxvii, pt. ii, 144)
— Esquimaux (Hall, ii, 314). § 163. Assyrians (Smith, 14) — Hindus (Miil-
Icr, H. L. 833-4)— Chinese (Conf. Anal, i, 2 ; Edkins, 155 ; Legge, R. of Ch. 104)
—Egypt (Poole in Cont. Rev. Aug. 1881, p. 286). § 164. Khonds (Rown.
I0\)—Bhils (Hunter in J. R. A. S. viii, 189 ; Mai. C. I. ii, 180— Kalmucks (Pal
las, i, 106) — Saaus (Mason in J. A. S. B. xxxv, pt. ii, 12) — Chinese (Conf. Anal.
I, 7; X, 4) — Persians (Sadi, i, st. 28, 31 ; Ib. I, 25)— Anc. Indians (Manu, vii,
8) — Egyptians (R. P. N.S. iii, 21 ; Dunck. i, 184) — Mottoes (Burke's & Debrett's
Peerages). § 165. Mexicans (Herr. iii, 203; Tern, ii, 195; Herr. iv, 126)

— Fijians (Ersk. 208, 456 ; Will, i, 30)— Dahomans (Ellis, E.-S. P. 162-3 ; Dalzel,
69 ; Ellis, /. c.)— Frederick II (Gould, ii, 302)— -France ( ). § 1 68.

Chippewas (Scho. v, 150)— Snakes (Lewis, 308) — Dakotas (Burt. C. S. 126)-^
Iroquois (Morg. 329) — Esquimaux (Crantz, i, 151)—Chippewayans (Hear. 90) —
Guiana Tribes (Brett. 27) — Araucanians (Smith, 214) — Chippeivayans (Frank.
Journey, 161) — Creeks (Scho. v, 272) — Tupis (Sou. i, 250) — Patagonians (Falk.
125)— Hottentots (Kolben, i, 1 59)— Bechuanas (Burch. ii, 564)— Kaffirs (Shoo.
79)— Ashanti (Beech. 129)— Fernando Po (J. E. S. 1850, ii, 114)— Lower Niger
(Allen & T. i, 396)— Chinooks (Ross, Oregon, 92)— Damaras (And. Ngami, 231)
— Congo (Tuck. 120)—Dahome (Burt. "Miss." ii, 248)— Mishmees (Coop. 207)—
Bushmen (Spar, i, 198) — Arabs (Niebuhr, in Pink, x, 131) — E. Africans (Liv.
Zamb. 67) — Abyssinia (Bruce, iv, 474) — Canaris (Cieza, ch. 44). § 169.

Khonds (Camp. 50) — Javans (Raf. i, 246) — Caribs (Schom. ii, 427-8) — 8. E. India
(Lew. 90-1)— Santals (Sherwill in J. A. S. B. xx, 554). § 1 70. Manu (Manu
iv, 238, in Wil. 285)— Book of the Dead (Bunsen, v, 254-5)— Persians (Alb. 21 ;
Fram. 48). § 171. Greeks (Arist. Pol. bk. iii, ch. 5). § 172 Manan-
sas (Holub, ii, 211). § 173. Confucius (Anal. I. 14 ; VIII. 21). § 174.
Australians (Grey, ii, 277-8; Christison in J. A. I. vii, 148) — Esquimaux (Lyon,
181-2)— Yakuts,~etc. (Coch. i, 254; Wrang. 384 ; Erm. ii, 361). § 175. Ta-
hitians (Cook in Hawke. ii, 202) — Arabs (Palg. i, 10) — Ancients (Manu, ii, 57 ;
Muir, 0. S. T. v. 324)— Egyptians (Dunck. i, 225). § 176. Arafuras

(Kolff, 161)— Ancient Indians and Greeks (Milller, R. V. i, 118; Muir, 0. S. T.
v, 260)— Dahomans (Burt. "Miss." ii, 250) — Ain»s (Bird, ii, 96, 102) — Polyne
sians (Will, i, 141-5)— Ainos (Bird, ii, 68). § 1 77. Kalmucks (Pallas, i, 131)
— Khonds (Camp. 164) — Guiana (Brett, 349) — Guatemalans (Haef. 406)— Peru
vians (Garci. bk. vi, ch. 22) — Yucatanese (Landa, £§ xxii, xxxii) — Mexicans (Saha.
bk. i, ch. 22)— Veddahs (Bailey in T. E. S. L. N.S. ii, 19l)—Lepchas (Campbell
in J. E. S. L. July, 1869, p. Ul)—Sumatrans (Mars. H3)—Foolas, etc. (Wint.
i, 72)— Negroes (Waitz, ii, 86). § 178- Gauls (Diod. v, 2) — Prim. Germans
(Tac. xxii) — Eonius (Greg, v, 41) — Charlemagne (Egin. ch. 24) — French (Mont,
ii, 14) — English (Massey, ii, 60). § 179. Asiatics (Balf. i, 164) — Bedouins
(Burt. Pilg. iii, 93). § 180. Kasias (Yule in J. A. S. B. xiii, 620)— Cyrus

(Plut. Symp. lib. I. qu. iv). g 181. Thibet (Wilson, 235). § 182.

Early Indians (Wheel, i, 131-6, 142; Maha. v, 14667, &c.)—Ladakhis (Drew,
287, 239, 240, 250)— Ancient Indians (Muir, 0. S. T. iv, 41; v, 324; Maha. i,
4719-22, in Muir, 0. S. T. ii, 336). § 183. Chinooks (Lewis, 439 ; Ross, 92)
— Sioux (Lewis, 77) — Creeks (Scho. v, 272) — Tupis (Sou.i, 241) — Caribs ( Waitz,
iii, 382) — Esquimaux (Lubb. 556) — Chippewayans (Hear. 129) — Dakotas (Burt.
C. S. 142) — Nicaragua (Pala. 120; Herr. iii, 340-1) — Kamtschadales, &c. (Ploss,
i, 293)— Kalmucks (Pallas, i, 105)— Kirghizes (Vali. 85)— Mongols (Prjev. i, 70)
—Karens (Mason in J. A. S. B. xxxv, pt. ii, 19) — Todas (Shortt in T. E. S. L.

TITLES OF WORKS. 507

vii, 240) — Shoa (Harris, iii, 167)— Upper Congo (Tuck. 181) — Bushmen (Licht.
ii, 48-9) — Ladrone hi. (Frey. ii, 369)— Peleiv Isl. (Kubary, 60-1)— Mandans (Cat.
i, 121) — Chippewas (Keat. ii, 165) — Kaffirs (Barrow, i, 160) — Tonaans (Mar. ii,
161) — Sumatrans (Mars. 222) — Borneo (Low, 300) — Dory (Kops in Earl, 81) —
Loyalty Isl. (Ersk. S41)—Fucaians (Snow in T. E. S. L. i, 262)— Mushcras (Calc.
Rev. April, 1888, p. '22'2)—Bodo & Dhimdls (Hodgson in J. A. S. B. xviii, 719)
— Santals (Dalt. 217) — Veddahs (Virchow in A. k. A. W. 1881, 21) — Austra
lians (Tap. 19) — Fijians (Ersk. 255 ; See. 191-2)— Tahitians (Cook in Hawke. ii,
196, 188). § 184. Wotyaks (Buch, 4o)—Chibchas (Simon, 254)— Japanese

(Dixon, 472-3). § 186. Tahitians (Cook in Hawke. ii, 186)— Dahomans

(Btirt. "Miss." i, 83)— E. Africans (Burt. C. A. ii, 332). § 187 Ku-ka-tha
(Tap. 101, 94, 95, 93). § 190. Pat/tans (Oliv. 139-40)— Fijians (Ersk.

461-4) — Australians (Grey, ii, 239) — Fijians (Ersk. 228) — Bilochs (Oliv. 29) —
Blantyrc (MacDon. i, 185)— Wotyaks (Buch, 46). § 191. Bilochs (Oliv. 24)
— Ainos (Bird, ii, 103)— Let-htas (Fytche, i, 343). $ 192. Wolseley (Wolse.
5 ; Debrctt). § 239. Uganda (Wils. and Fel. i, 186-7)— Fijians (See. 190)
—Motu-Motu (Chalm. 162-3). § 242. Mean (I. G. Smith, 57).

TITLES OF WORKS.

A. k. A. W. — Abhandlunaeti der Koniglichen Akademieder Wissenschaften. Berlin.

Alb. — Albitis (F.) The Morality of all Nations. 1850.

Alex. — Alexander (G. G.) Confucius, the Great Teacher. 1890.

Allen. — Allen (Wm.) and Thomson (T. E. II.) A Narrative of the Expedition to

the River Niger in 1841. 2 vols. 1848.
And. — Andersson (C. J.) Lake Ngami. 1856.

Angas. — Anga.s (G.F.) Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand. 1847.
Arist. — Aristotle's Politics.

,, ,, Nicomachcan Ethics.

As. Res. — Asiatic Researches.

Atkin. — Atkinson (T. W.) Oriental and Western Siberia. 1858.
Atkin.— Atkinson (T. W.) Travels in the Regions of the Upper and Lower

A moor, etc. 1860.

Baines. — Baines (T.) Explorations in South- West Africa. 1864.
Baker. — Baker (Sir S.) The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia. 1867.
Balf .— Balfour (E.) Cyclopedia of India. 3rd Ed. " 3 vols. 1875.
Ban. — Bancroft (II. II.) Native Races of the Pacific Stales of North America.

5 vols. 1875.

Barrow. — Barrow (Sir J.) Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa.
Beech. — Beecham (J.) Ashantee and the Gold Coast. 1841.
Bird. — Bird (Isabella) Unbeaten Tracks in Japan. 2 vols. 1880.
Bogle. — Bogle, Narratives of the Mission of George Bogle to Thibet, &c. Ed.

C. U. Markham. 1876.

Boyle. — Boyle (F.) Adventures among the Dt/aks of Borneo. 1865.
Brace.— Brace (C. L.) Gesta Christi. 2nd Ed. 1886.
Brett.— Brett (Rev. W. H.) The Indian Tribes of Guiana. 1868.
Browne. — Browne (Sir T.) Rcligio Medici. 1656.
Bruce. — Bruce (J.) Travels to discover the Source of the Nile. 1804.
Bruch. — Bruch (J. Fr.) Wcishdtslchre der Hcbriier. Strassburg, 1851.
Buch.— Buch (M.) Die Wotjaken. Ilelsingfors, 1882.
Biihler. — Biihler (G.) TJie Sacred Laws of the Aryas. Oxf.
Bunsen. — Bunsen (Baron C. C. J.) Egypt's Place in Universal History. Trans.

by C. H. Cottrell. 5 vols. 1848-67.
Burch. — Burchell (W. J.) Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa. 2 vols.

1822-4. 4to.
Burck. — Burekhardt (J. L.) Notes on the Bedouins and Wahdbys. 1829. 4to.

566 REFERENCES.

Mcxiccms (Tern, v, 102) — E. Africans (Liv. Zarab. 309; j — Egyptians

(St. John, 77) — France (Mich, i, 341) — English (Kirkus in Fort. Rev. Nov.
1866, p. 644). § 162. Araucanians (Smith, 2ul> — Arawaks (Hillhouse in

J. R. G. S. ii, 229)— Dakota* (Burt. C. S. \'6\)—E. Africans (Burt, C. A. ii, 333)
— Bedouins (Burck. 201, 56) — Chippewayans (Hear. 345) — Kamtschadales (Kotze.
ii, 16)— Dakotas (Burt. C. S. 131)— f'ijians, Will, i, 111)— Hottentots (Kolben,
i, 123) — Zulus (Thomp. ii, 418) — Karens (Mason in J. A. S. B. xxxvii, pt. ii, 144)
— Esquimaux (Hall, ii, 314). § 163. Assyrians (Smith, 14) — Hindus (Miil-
Icr, H. L. 333-4)— Chinese (Conf. Anal, i, 2 ; Edkins, 155 ; Legge, R. of Ch. 104)
—Egypt (Poole in Cont. Rev. Aug. 1881, p. 286). § 164 Khonds (Rown.
I0l)—Bhils (Hunter in J. R. A. S. viii, 189; Mai. C. I. ii, ] 80— Kalmucks (Pal
las, i, 106) — Sgaus (Mason in J. A. S. B. xxxv, pt. ii, 12) — Chinese (Conf. Anal.
I, 7; X, 4) — Persians (Sadi, i, st. 28, 31 ; Ib. I, 25)—Anc. Indians (Manu, vii,
8) — Egyptians (R. P. N.s. iii, 21 ; Dunck. i, 184) — Mottoes (Burke's & Debrett's
Peerages). § 165. Mexicans (Herr. iii, 203; Tern, ii, 195; Herr. iv, 126)

— Fijians (Ersk. 208,456 ; Will, i, 30)— Da/tomans (Ellis, E.-S.P. 162-3; Dalzel,
69 ; Ellis, 1. c.)— Frederick II (Gould, ii, 302)— France ( ). § 1 68.

Chippewas (Scho. v, 150)— Snakes (Lewis, 308)— Dakotas (Burt. C. S. 126)-^
Iroquois (Morg. 329) — Esquimaux (Crantz, i, 154) — Chippewayans (Hear. 90) —
Guiana Tribes (Brett. 27) — Araucanians (Smith, 214) — Chippewayans (Frank.
Journey, 161) — Creeks (Scho. v, 272) — Tupis (Sou. i, 250) — Patag'onians (Falk.
125)— Hottentots (Kolben, i, 159)— JBechuanas (Burch. ii, 564)— Kaffirs (Shoo.
79) — Ashanti (Beech. 129) — Fernando Po (J. E. S. 1850, ii, 114) — Lower Niger
(Allen & T. i, 396) — Chinooks (Ross, Oregon, 92) — Damaras (And. Ngami, 231)
— Congo (Tuck. 1 20)— Dahome (Burt. " Miss." ii, 248)— Mishmees (Coop. 207)—
Bushmen (Spar, i, 198) — Arabs (Niebuhr, in Pink, x, 131) — E. Africans (Liv.
Zamb. 67) — Abyssinia (Bruce, iv, 474) — Canaris (Cieza, ch. 44). § 169.

Khonds (Camp. 50)— Javans (Raf. i, 246)— Caribs (Schom. ii, 427-8)— 8. E. India
(Lew. 90-1)— Santals (Sherwill in J. A. S. B. xx, 554). § 1 70. Manu (Manu
iv, 238, in Wil. 285)— Book of the Dead (Bunsen, v, 254-5)— Persians (Alb. 21 ;
Fram. 48). § 171. Greeks (Arist. Pol. bk. iii, ch. 5). § 172. Manan-
sas (Holub, ii, 211). § 173. Confucius (Anal. I. 14 ; VIII. 21). § 174.
Australians (Grey, ii, 277-8; Christison in J. A. I. vii, 148) — Esquimaux (Lyon,
181-2)— Yakuts,'etc. (Coch. i, 254; Wrang. 384; Era. ii, 361). § 175. Ta-
hitians (Cook in Hawke. ii, 202) — Arabs (Palg. i, 10) — Ancients (Manu, ii, 57 ;
Muir, 0. S. T. v. 324)— Egyptians (Dunck. i, 225). § 176. Arafuras

(Kolff, 161)— Ancient Indians and Greeks (Mullcr, R. V. i, 118; Muir, 0. S. T.
v, 260)— Dahomans (Burt. "Miss." ii, 250) — Ain«s (Bird, ii, 96, 102) — Polyne
sians (Will, i, 141-5)— Ainos (Bird, ii, 68). § 1 77. Kalmucks (Pallas, i, 131)
— Khonds (Camp. 164) — Guiana (Brett, 349) — Guatemalans (Haef. 406)— Peru
vians (Garci. bk. vi, ch. 22) — Yucatanese (Landa, £§ xxii, xxxii) — Mexicans (Saha.
bk. i, ch. 22)— Veddahs (Bailey in T. E. S. L. N.S. ii, 2Ql)—Lcpc7tas (Campbell
in J. E. S. L. July, 1869, p. 147) — Sumatrans (Mars. 173) — Foolas, etc. (Wint.
i, 72) — Negroes (Waitz, ii, 86). § 178- Gauls (Diod. v, 2) — Prim. Germans
(Tac. xxii) — Eonius (Greg, v, 41) — Charlemagne (Egin. ch. 24) — French (Mont.
ii, 14)— English (Massey, ii, 60). § 179. Asiatics (Balf. i, 164) — Bedouins

(Burt. Pilg. iii, 93). § 180 Kasias (Yule in J. A. S. B. xiii, 620)— Cyrus

(Plut. Symp. lib. I. qu. iv). §181. Thibet (Wilson, 235). § 182.

Early Indians (Wheel, i, 131-6, 142; Maha. v, 14667, &c.)—Laddkhis (Drew,
287, 239, 240, 250)— Ancient Indians (Muir, 0. S. T. iv, 41 ; v, 324 ; Maha. i,
4719-22, in Muir, 0. S. T. ii, 336). § 183. Chinooks (Lewis, 439 ; Ross, 92)
— Sioux (Lewis, 77) — Creeks (Scho. v, 272) — Tupis (Sou.i, 241) — Caribs (Waitz,
iii, 382) — Esquimaux (Lubb. 556) — Chippewayans (Hear. 129) — Dakotas (Burt.
C. S. 142) — Nicaragua (Pala. 120; Herr. iii, 340-1) — Kamtschadales, &c. (Ploss,
i, 293)— Kalmucks (Pallas, i, 105) — Kirghizes (Vali. 85) — Mongols (Prjev. i, 70)
— Karens (Mason in J. A. S. B. xxxv, pt. ii, 19) — Todas (Shortt in T. E. S. L.

TITLES OF WORKS. 567

vii, 240) — Skoa (Harris, iii, 167)— Upper Congo (Tuck. 181) — Bushmen (Licht.
ii, 48-9) — Ladrone hi. (Frey. ii, 369)— Pelew M. (Kubary, 60-1)— Mandans (Cat.
i, 121) — Chippewas (Keat. ii, 165) — Kaffirs (Barrow, i, 160) — Tongans (Mar. ii,
161) — Sumatrans (Mars. 222) — Borneo (Low, 300) — Dory (Kops in Earl, 81) —
Loyalty hi. (Ersk. 341) — Fucgians (Snow in T. E. S. L. i, 262) — Mushcras (Calc.
Rev. April, 1888, p. 2V2)—Bodo & Dhimdls (Hodgson in J. A. S. B. xviii, 719)
— Santals (Dalt. 217) — Veddahs (Virchow in A. k. A. W. 1881, 21) — Austra
lians (Tap. 19) — Fijians (Ersk. 255 ; See. 191-2) — Tahitians (Cook in Hawke. ii,
190, 188). § 184. \Votijaks (Buch, 45)—Chibchas (Simon, 254)— Japanese

(Dixon, 472-3). § 186. Tahitians (Cook in Hawke. ii, 186)— Dahomans

(Burt. "Miss." i, 83)— E. Africans (Burt. C. A. ii, 332). § 187. Ku-ka-tha
(Tap. 101, 94, 95, 93). § 190. Pat/tans (Oliv. 139-40)— Fijians (Ersk.

461-4)— Australians (Grey, ii, 239)— Fijians (Ersk. 22S)—£ilochs (Oliv. 29)—
Blantyrc (MacDon. i, 185)— Wotyaks (Buch, 46). § 191. Bilochs (Oliv. 24)
— Ainos (Bird, ii, 103)— Let-Mas (Fytche, i, 343). § 192. Wolseley (Wolse.
5 ; Debrctt). § 239. Uganda (Wils. and Fel. i, 186-7)— Fijians (See. 190)
—Motu-Motu (Chalm. 162-3). § 242. Mean (I. G. Smith, 57).

TITLES OF WORKS.

A. k. A.W. — Abhandlungen der Konigl.ichen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Berlin.

Alb. — Albitis (F.) The Morality of all Nations. 1850.

Alex. — Alexander (G. G.) Confucius, the Great Teacher. 1890.

Allen. — Allen (Wm.) and Thomson (T. R. H.) A Narrative of the Expedition to

the River Niger in 1841. 2 vols. 1848.
And. — Andersson (C. J.) Lake Ngami. 1856.

Angas. — Angas(G.F.) SavageLife and Scenes in Australia andNew Zealand. 1847.
Arist. — Aristotle's Politics.

„ „ Nicomachcan Ethics.

As. Res. — Asiatic RcscarcJtps.

Atkin. — Atkinson (T. W.) Oriental and Western Siberia. 1858.
Atkin. — Atkinson (T. W.) Travels in the Regions of the Upper and Lower

Amoor, etc. 1860.

Baines. — Baines (T.) Explorations in South-West Africa. 1864.
Baker. — Baker (Sir S.) The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia. 1867.
Balf. — Balfour (E.) Cyclopedia of India. 3rd Ed. 3 vols. 1875.
Ban. — Bancroft (H. H.) Native Races of the Pacijic States of North America.

5 vols. 1875.

C. R. Markham. 1876.

Boyle. — Boyle (F.) Adventures among the Dyaks of Borneo. 1865.
Brace.— Brace (C. L.) Gesta Christi. 2nd Ed. 1886.
Brett.— Brett (Rev. W. H.) The Indian Tribes of Guiana. 1868.
Browne. — Browne (Sir T.) Rcliyio Medici. 1656.
Bruce. — Bruce (J.) Travels to discover the Source of the Nile. 1804.
Bruch. — Bruch (J. Fr.) Weisheitslehre der Hcbraer. Strassburg, 1851.
Buch.— Buch (M.) Die Wotjaken. Helsingfors, 1882.
IHihler. — Biihler (G.) TJie Sacred Laws of the Aryas. Oxf.
Bunsen. — Bunsen (Baron C. C. J.) Egypt's Place in Universal History. Trans.

by C. H. Cottrell. 5 vols. 1848-67.
Burch. — Burchell (W. J.) Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa. 2 vols.

1822-4. 4to.
Burck.— Burckhardt (J. L.) Notes on the Bedouins and Wahdbys. 1829. 4to.

568 TITLES OF WORKS.

Burt.— Burton (R. F.) The City of the Saints, &c. 1861.

Burt.— Burton (R. F.) The Lake Regions of Central Africa. 2 vols. 1860.

Burt. — Burton (R. F.) A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahorne. 1864.

Burt. — Burton (R. F.) Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and

Meccah. 3 vols. 1855, etc.

Burt. — Burton (R. F.) Wit and Wisdom from West Africa. 1865.
Butler. — Butler (Maj. J.) Travelsand Adventures in the Province of Assam. 1855.
Caasar. — Caesar (C. Jul.) Commentarii de Hello Gallico.

Caillie. — Caillie (Rene) Travels through Central Africa to Timbuctoo. 2 vols.
Calc. Rev. — The Calcutta Review.
Call. — Callaway (Rev. H.) The Religious System of the Amazulu. 3 Parts.

Natal, 1869.
Camp. — Campbell (Maj.-Gen. J.) A Personal Narrative of Thirteen years' Service

amongst the Wild Tribes of Khondistan. 1864.
Cat. — Catlin (G.) Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of

the North American Indians. 2 vols. 1841.
Chalm. — Chalmers (J.) Pioneering in New G-uinea. 1887.
Cieza.— Cieza de Leon (P. de) Travels, A.D. 1532-50. Trans, by C. R. Mark-
ham. 1864.
Coch. — Cochrane ( J. D.) A Narrative of a Pedestrian Journey through Russia

and Siberian Tartary. 4th Ed. 2 vols. 1825.
Colq. — Colquhoun (A. R.) Across Chryse. 2 vols. 1883.
Colq. — Colquhoun (A. R.) Among the Shans.
Con. — Conway (M. D.) The Sacred Anthology. 1874.
Con. — Confucius, The Analects and The Doctrine of the Mean. (In Legge'a

Chinese Classics. Vol. I.)
Cont. Rev. — The Contemporary Review.
Coop.— Cooper (T. T.) The Mishmee Hills. 1873.

Crantz. — Crantz (D.) History of Greenland. Translated. 2 vols. 1820.
Crowe.— Crowe (E. E.) The History of France. 5 vols. 1858-68.
Dalt. — Dalton (E. T.) Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal. Calc. 1872.
Dalzel.— Dalzel (A.) The History of Dahomey. 1793. 4to.
Dasent.— Dasent (Sir G. W.) The Story of Burnt Njal. 2 vols. 1861.
Dening.— Dening (W.) The Life of Miyamoto Musashi. 2 Pts. 1887.
Diod. — Diodorus Siculus, The Historical Library of, made English by G. Booth.

2 vols. 1814.

Dixon.— Dixon (W. G.) TJie Land of the Morning. Edin. 1882.
Drew. — Drew (F.) The Jummoo and Kashmir Territories. 1875.
Drury. — Drury (R.) Madagascar. 1729.
Dunck. — Duncker (Max) The History of Antiquity. Trans, by E. Abbott. 6

vols. 1879, etc.

Dun. — Dunlop (R. G.) Travels in Central America. 1847. 4to.
Dym. — Dymond (J.) Essays on the Principles of Morality. 7th Edit.
Earl. — Earl (G. W.) Native Races of the Indian Archipelago: Papuans. 1853.
Edkins. — Edkins (J.) The Religious Condition of the Chinese. 1859.
Egin. — Eginhardus, Life of the Emperor Karl the Great. Trans, by W. Glais-

ter. 1877.
Ellis.— Ellis (A. B.) TJie E6e- Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa.

1890.
Ellis.— Ellis (A. B.) TJie Tshi-Spcaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa.

1887.

Erm. — Erman (G. A.) Travels in Siberia. Trans, by Cooley. 2 vols. 1845.
Ersk. — Erskine (J. E.) Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western

Pacific. 1853.
Eyre. — Eyre (E. J.) Journal of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia.

2 vols. 1845.

TITLES OF WORKS. 569

Falk. — Falkner (T.) A Description of Patagonia. Hereford, 1774.

Favre. — Favre (Abbe) An Account of the Wild Tribes inhabiting the Malayan

Peninsula. Paris, 1865.
Fitz. — Fitzroy (Adm. R.) Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's

Ships Adventurer and Beagle. 3 vols. 1839-40.
Fore. — Foreman (J.) The Philippine Islands. 1890.
Fors. — Forsyth (Capt. J. ) Highlands of Central India. 2nd Ed.
Fort. Rev. — The Fortnightly Review.
Fram. — Framjoc (Dosabhoy) The Parsecs. 1858.
Frank — Franklin (Capt. J.) Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polat

Sea. 1823. 4to.

Frey. — Freyeinet (L. C. D. de) Voyage autour du Monde. Paris, 1827.
Fritz. — Fritzsclie (0. F.) & Grimm (C. L. W.) Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Hand-

buch zu den Apocryphen des Allen Testaments. G Parts. 1851-60.
Fytche. — Fytclie (Gen. A.) Burma, Past and Present. 2 vols. 1878.
Gait. — Gallon (F.) Narrative of an Exploration in Tropical South Africa.
Garci. — Gareilasso de la Vega, First Part of the Royal Commentaries of the

Yncas [1004]. Tran. by C. R. Markham. 2 vols.' 1869-71.
Gil. — Gilmour (J.) Among the Mongols.
Gind. — Gindely (A.) History of the Thirty Years' War. Trans, by Ten Brook.

2 vols. N. Y. 1884.

Gould. — Gould (S. Paring-) Germany Present and Past. 2 vols.
Greg. — Gregory (of Tours) Histoirc ecclcsiastique des Francs. Translated. 8

vols. Paris, 1836-8.
Grey. — Grey (Sir G.) Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West

and Western Australia. 2 vols. 1841.

Grif.— Griffith (W.) Journals of Travels in Assam. Calc. 1847.
Grotc.— Grote (G.) History of Greece. 4th Ed. 10 vols. 1872.
Ilaef.— Ilaefkens (T.) Ccntraal Amerika. Dordrecht, 1832.
Hall.— Hall (Capt. C. F.) Life with the Esquimaux. 2 vols. 1864.
Ilallam.— Hallam (II.) Europe during the Middle Ages. 4th Ed. 1863.
Harris. — Harris (Sir W. C.) The Highlands of ^Ethiopia. 3 vols. 1844.
Haug. — Haug (M.) Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings, and Religion of the

Parsees. 1878.
Hawkc. — Hawkesworth (J.) An Account of the Voyages undertaken . . . by Comm.

Byron, Capt. Wallis, Capt. Carlerct, and Capt. Cook, etc. 3 vols. 1773. 4to.
Hear.— Hearnc (S.) Journey from Prince of Wales'* Fort, etc. Dub. 1796.
Herr. — Herrera (A. de) The General History of the Vast Continent and Islands

of America [1601]. Trans, by J. Stevens. 6 vols. 1725-6.
Holub.— Holub (Emil) Scrcn Years in South Africa. 2 vols. 1881.
Horn.— -Homer, The Iliad, done into English prose by A. Lang and others. 1883.
Hutch. — Ilutcheson (F.) A System of Moral Philosophy.
I. A. — The Indian Antiquary. Bombay.
Irving. — Irving (Washington) Astoria. 1850.
J. A. I. — Journal of the Anthropological Institute.
J. A. S. B. — Journal of the Asiatic Society, Bengal.
J. E. S. L. — Journal of the Ethnological Society, London.
Jones.— Jones (Sir Will.) Works. 13 vols. 1807.
J. R. A. S. — Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, London.
J. R. G. S. — Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, London.
jukes. — Jukes (J. B.) Narrative of the Surveying Voyage of H.M.S. "Fly"

1842-6. 2 vols. 1847.
Kant.— Kant (E.) Critique of Practical Reason and other Works on the Theory

of Ethics. Trans, by T. K. Abbott.
Keat. — Keating (W. H.) Narrative of an Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's

River I^akc Winncpeck, etc. in 1823. 2 vols. 1825.

570 TITLES OF WORKS.

Kolben. — Kolben (P.) TJie Present State of the Cape of Good Hope. Trans, by

Medley. 2 vols. 1731.
Kolff.— Ko'lff (D. H.) Voyages of the Dutch Brig the "Ztowrya." Trans, by

Earl. 1840.

Kotze. — Kotzebue (Otto von) New Voyage Round the World. 1830.
Kubary. — Kubary (J. S.) hthnographische Beitriige zur Kenntniss der Karoli-

nischen Inselgruppe. Berlin, 1885.
Laet. — Laet (J. de) Novus Orbis. 1633.
Landa. — Landa (D. de) Relation des choscs de Yucatan [1566]. Texte et Tra-

duction par Brasseur de Bourbourg. Paris, 1864.
Lao-Tsze. — Lao-Tsze, The Tao-teh-king. Various translations.
Leber. — Leber (J. M. C.) Collection des meilleures dissertations . . . relatifs d

Vhistoire de France. 20 vols. Paris, 1826-38.
Lecky. — Lecky (W. E. H.) History of European Morals. 3rd Ed. 2 vols.

1877.

Legge. — Legge (James) The Chinese Classics. 5 vols. 1869, etc.
Legge. — Legge (James) The Religions of China. 1880.
Lew. — Lewin (Capt. T. H.) Wild Races of South Eastern India. 1870.
Lewis. — Lewis (Capt. M.) & Clarke, Travels to the /Source of the Missouri River.

1814. 4to.
Licht. — Liechtenstein (H.) Travels in Southern Africa in the Years 1803-1806.

2 vols. 1812-15. 4to.

Liv. — Livingstone (D.) Missionary Travels and Researches. 1867.
Liv. — Livingstone (D. & C.) Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi. 1865.
Low. — Low (Hugh) Sarawak, its Inhabitants and Productions. 1848.
Lubb. — Lubbock (Sir J.) Prc-Historic Times. 2nd Ed.
Lyon. — Lyon (Capt. G. F.) Private Journal. 1824.
MacDon.— MacDonald (Duff) Africana. 2 vols. 1882.
Macgil. — Macgillivray (J.) Narrative of the Voyage of H. M.S. Rattlesnake . . .

1846-50. 2 vols. 1852.

MacGreg. — MacGregor (Gen.) Central Asia. Part T. 2 vols. Calc. 1873.
Macph. — Macpherson (Lieut.) Report on the Khonds of Ganjam and Cuttack.

Calc. 1842.

Maha. — Tlie Mahabharata. Various translations.
Mahaf.— Mahaffy (J. P.) Social Life in Greece. 1874.
Mai. — Malcolm (Sir J.) Memoir of Central India. 1823.
Man. — Man (E. G.) Sonthalia and the Sonthals. 1867.
Manu. — The Laws of Manu. Various translations.
Mar. — Mariner's (W.) An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands. By J.

Martin. 2 vols. 1818.

Mars. — Marsden (W.) The History of Sumatra. 1783. 4to.
Mart. — Martin (H.) Histoire de la France. 1844.

Massey. — Massey (W. N.) A History of England during the Reign of George III.
Mencius. — The Works of Mencius. (In Legge's Chinese Classics. Vol.11.)
Mered. — Meredith (Mrs. C. L. A.) My Home in Tasmania. 2 vols.
Mich. — Michelet (J.) History of France. 2 vols. Trans, by G. H. Smith.
Mill. — Mill (J. S.) An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy. 3rd

Ed. 1867.

M. J. L. S. — The Madras Journal of Literature and Science.
Moll. — Mollhausen (B.) Diary of a Journey from the Mississippi to the Coasts

of the Pacific. 2 vols. 1858.
Moffat. — Moffat (R.) Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa. 4th

Ed. 1842.

Mont. — Montaigne (M. de) Essays. Trans, by Cotton. 3 vols.
Monte. — Monteiro (J. J.) Angola and the River Congo. 2 vols. 1875.
Mon;. — Morgan (L. H.) League of the . . . Iroquois. Roch. U.S.A. 1851.

TITLES OF WORKS. 571

Morris. — Morris (H.) A descriptive and historical Account of the Godavcry Dis
trict. 1878.

Duller. — Miiller (F. Max) Hibbcrt Lectures. On the Origin and Growth of Re
ligion in India. 1878.

Miiller. — Miiller (F. Max) Rig- Veda Sanhita. Trans. &c. by F. M. M.
Muir. — Muir (John) Metrical Translations from Sanskrit Writers. 1878.
Muir. — Muir (John) Original Sanskrit Texts. 5 vols.
Nieb. — Niebuhr (C.) Travels in Arabia. (In Pinkerton, vol. X.)
Nierao. — Niemojowski (L.) Siberian Pictures. Ed. by Szulczewski. 2 vols.
O'Don. — O'Donovan (E.) The Merv Oasis. 2 vols.
OHv. — Oliver (E. E.) Over the Border, or Pathdn and Biloch. 1890.
Pala. — Palacio. San Salvador and Honduras in 1576. (In Squier's Collection

of Rare and Original Documents. Vol. I.) N. Y. 1860.
Palg. — Palgrave (W. G.) Narrative of a Year's Journey through Central and

Eastern Arabia. 2 vols.
Pallas. — Pallas (P. S.) Sammlunf? historischcr Nachrichtcn iiber die Mongolischen

Volkerschaftcn. 2 vols. St. Petersburg, 1776.
Park. — par|{ (Mungo) Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa.
Perc.— Percival (P.) The Land of the Veda. 1854.
peth. — Petherick (J.) Egypt, The Soudan, and Central Africa. 1861.
Pink. — Pinkerton (John) General Collection of Voyages. 17 vols. 1808-14.
Plato. — Plato, Dialogues. Translated.
Ploss.— Ploss (H. H.) Das Weib. 2 Bde. Leipzig, 1887.
Plut. — Plutarch. Symposiacs. (Translated in Morals, vol. Ill, edited by W.

\V. Goodwin.) 1870.
Prid. — Pridham (C.) An Historical, Political, and Statistical Account of Ceylon.

2 vols. 1849.

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Spencer, Herbert

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