FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[13]See "Conscience, its Origin and Authority," p. 25.[14]W. H. Mallock, quoted by Richardson.[15]Professor James Ward uses the terms "anabolic" and "catabolic" processes in this connexion, also in a sense analogous to the distinction between doing and suffering.[16]J. Ward, "Heredity and Memory," 1913.[17]"Conscience, its Origin and Authority," p. 69.[18]Ibid., pp. 67 and 68.[19]"Conscience, its Origin and Authority," p. 96.[20]Hastings Rashdall: "Is Conscience an Emotion?"[21]"Conscience, its Origin and Authority," p. 99.[22]"Conscience, its Origin and Authority," pp. 99, 95, 96, 70, 72 and 73.[23]"Is Conscience an Emotion?" p. 113.[24]"Is Conscience an Emotion?" p. 52.

[13]See "Conscience, its Origin and Authority," p. 25.

[14]W. H. Mallock, quoted by Richardson.

[15]Professor James Ward uses the terms "anabolic" and "catabolic" processes in this connexion, also in a sense analogous to the distinction between doing and suffering.

[16]J. Ward, "Heredity and Memory," 1913.

[17]"Conscience, its Origin and Authority," p. 69.

[18]Ibid., pp. 67 and 68.

[19]"Conscience, its Origin and Authority," p. 96.

[20]Hastings Rashdall: "Is Conscience an Emotion?"

[21]"Conscience, its Origin and Authority," p. 99.

[22]"Conscience, its Origin and Authority," pp. 99, 95, 96, 70, 72 and 73.

[23]"Is Conscience an Emotion?" p. 113.

[24]"Is Conscience an Emotion?" p. 52.

The author of "Conscience, its Origin and Authority," attempts, after the manner of priests, to demolish the Utilitarian principle of morality by stating that the Utilitarian must, to be logical, justify any means if the end is desirable. As though the Utilitarian and not the Theist was for ever trying to show that the intrinsic character or value of an action depended upon the motive (which must be distinguished from theintention; a man who saved another from drowning in order to put him to death afterwards would be influenced by an intention to murder, but the motives were: first, desire to rescue, and, for the subsequent action, desire to kill). Mr. Richardson writes: "The Good and the Right possess their authority to the Utilitarian because they tend to the greatest possible happiness of the greatest number of sentient beings." Now suppose a case which I do not think actually happened, but which may easily be conceived as happening. Suppose that Cecil Rhodes deliberately caused the South African War, as many people believed at the time. This would be characterized (andwas, in fact, characterized) as an immoral act of unscrupulous aggression. But he might defend his action thus: "Granted that so many thousands of soldiers and citizens will be slain, and the land cleared of its inhabitants. In a few years the land so cleared will produce increased harvests of gold and grain. More food will mean an increase of human productiveness and an increase of population; thriving townships and farmsteads will support a people more numerous and richer in the comforts which make life desirable than could have existed without my action. Therefore on the Utilitarian hypothesis my action was right and good, and deserved, not reprobation, but approval."

Not only is this position not admitted by Utilitarians, but John Stuart Mill long ago pointed out that such a hypothesis "is to mistake the very meaning of a standard of morals, and to confound the rule of action with themotiveof it. It is the business of Ethics to tell us what are our duties, or by what test we may know them; but no system of ethics requires that the sole motive of all we do shall be a feeling of duty.... The great majority of good actions are intended, not for the benefit of the world, but for that of individuals, of which the good of the world is made up; and the thoughts of the most virtuous man need not on these occasions travel beyond the particular persons concerned, except so far as is necessary to assure himself that in benefiting them he is not violating therights—that is, the legitimate and authorized expectations—of any one else."[25]

This is sufficient refutation of such objections to Utilitarianism as the one brought forward by Richardson, and clearly founded on a misconception.

Mill, in what is still the best defence of this system, continues: "Utilitarians ... are ... of opinion that in the long run the best proof of a good character is good actions; and resolutely refuse to consider any mental disposition as good, of which the predominant tendency is to produce bad conduct."[26]

"The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness."[27]

The Theistic writer says "the essence of morality is sacrifice."[28]

The utilitarian morality does recognize in human beings the power of sacrificing their own greatest good for the good of others. It only refuses to admit that sacrifice is itself a good. A sacrifice that does not increase, or tend to increase, the sum total of happiness, it considers as wasted.

As regards "conscience": the Utilitarian, when he attempts an analysis, realizes that "in that complex phenomenon as it actually exists,the simple fact is in general all encrusted over with collateral associations derived from sympathy, from love, and still more from fear; from all forms of religious feeling; from recollections of childhood and of all our past life; from self-esteem, desire of the esteem of others, and occasionally even self-abasement."[29]

For the priest "ethics cannot be built securely upon anything less than religious sanctions, and it is for the sake of conscience that ethics have a practical value."[30]

Can an honest and unbiased thinker doubt that the first is the truer statement?

Let us now return to a further statement of the position of Utilitarianism as dealt with by J. S. Mill. From Professor Sidgwick and those Utilitarians who attempt to claim for the atheistic moralist a conscience of mathematical accuracy we are unlikely to derive much assistance.

"According to the Greatest Happiness Principle, the ultimate end, with reference to, and for the sake of which, all other things are desirable (whether we are considering our own good or that of other people), is an existence exempt as far as possible from pain and as rich as possible in enjoyments, both in point of quantity and quality; the test of quality, and the rule for measuring it against quantity, being the preference felt by those who, in their opportunities of experience, to which must be added their habits ofself-consciousness and self-observation, are best furnished with the means of comparison."[31]

This, according to Utilitarians, is also the standard of morality.

In conformance with this principle of moral obligation, we choose the greater before the lesser good. Between General Morality and the obligation of Duty, with which he associates justice, Mill draws what appears to be a somewhat unnecessarily hard line of distinction, insomuch as the difference may be seen to consist more of degree than of kind. Other ethical writers make the same distinction when they divide moral duties into the two classes of perfect and imperfect obligation, "the latter being those in which, though the act is obligatory, the particular occasions of performing it are left to our choice, as in the case of charity or beneficence."

If, in assessing the "amount" of good, we take into consideration, besides the categories of quantity and quality, a third category of "proximity," it would, I think, prove a useful qualification by enabling the Utilitarian Good to embrace all moral obligation, including legal Duty, which is considered by Mill apart from general morality. By "proximity" it is intended to imply that the nearer good is more binding than the further good, which may in some measure counteract the value of "quantity and quality" where these are involved, and when a decision between conflicting moral obligations has to be made.

Though this additional category of Good may not altogether abolish the distinction which Mill makes between general morality and justice or duty which may be obligatory by law, it appears to amplify and extend the scope of the principle of Utility.

"Duty," in the words of J. S. Mill, "is a thing which may be exacted from a person as one exacts a debt. Unless we think that it might be exacted from him we do not call it his duty."

From this it might be assumed that there could never be any doubt about what is a person's duty, since when any one owes another or the community a debt, he is clearly conscious of it, even to the amount. In the case of right conduct which implies Duty, this, however, is not always so clearly recognized, especially when Duty implies Allegiance or Responsibility.

In this connexion we may say that the good we do for our own country is a nearer good than the good we do for an alien country, therefore if doing the good involves a choice we should choose our own country; for the debt we owe to our own country is greater than the debt we owe to humanity at large. Equally the good we owe to our own family is nearer than, and therefore comes before, the good we owe to society. To this most people will accede, and, in fact, the realization of this is at the base of all sense of Responsibility; thus every man, in whatsoever capacity he is acting, whether as statesman, county councillor, soldier or head of a family,should put the considerations of the body he represents or belongs to before all others; and finally he owes it to himself—or God[32]—to be true to himself, even before he can be true to another, in the sense that keeping faith with a friend will not excuse a man acting dishonestly or untruthfully towards himself. And this for the reason that Truth is independent of Utilitarian valuation, since Truth alone is ana prioriand self-evident "good"; by its very meaning it is a statement of "what is," temporally as well as ultimately; as such it must be a statement of indisputable fact, not opinion or faith which rests on assertion. Since more things are capable of being proved untrue than ultimately true, it follows that as a criterion of conduct its value is chiefly negative. It can thus be shown that lying, deception, breach of contract are wrongper se, for truth is the basic principle upon which all others depend, and the necessary postulate of the idea of God, whilst the value of our positive acts must for the most part depend upon some such standard as the Greatest Happiness or Utility principle.

As an illustration of the "nearer is the greater good" principle may be cited the line taken up by Disraeli when the controversy over the opium trade between India and China first came to the fore. Disraeli firmly refused to ruin our exporttrade in opium for any quixotic considerations involving the moral effect upon the Chinaman, whilst it in no way implied a breach of faith with him.

Less clear is the question of precedence when two primary obligations are conflicting; primary obligations are here intended to mean those obligatory duties which may rightly be exacted from a person by reason of his indebtedness to the corporate body to which he belongs, or which he represents, and which is entitled to a preference in the good he does.

For instance, it may sometimes be said that a man's duty to his country as a soldier conflicts with his duty to his family as its sole support; both are primary obligations; as long, then, as allegiance to one does not involve a betrayal of the other, which could only be if their interests were fundamentally opposed and directed against each other, both obligations must be equally acknowledged, and avia mediadiscovered to satisfy the claims of both to an equal extent.

Should, however, this confliction of interests be so direct and antagonistic as necessarily to involve an overt repudiation of the claims of one or the other, as in the hypothetical case of a soldier being ordered to execute the members of his own family, his conduct, supposing him to be actuated by a desire to act solely in conformance with ethical considerations, would be determined by his judgment as to which course would promote the greater good or Utility, having regard to thecategories: quantity, quality and proximity; the "nearer" in this case undoubtedly being his family, though this fact alone would not necessarily outweigh the other values of quantity and quality. In certain Eastern countries it would possibly appeal to a man's sense of appropriateness to be the agent by which the crime or dishonour of his relative would be expiated.

A man is often heard to claim that his moral duty towards himself, in other words "his conscience," absolves him from the fulfilment of another primary duty or obligation. As I have attempted to show, the only real ora prioriduty which a man can prove he owes to himself, and therefore has a right to place before any other clear duty derived from the fact of his membership of any community or corporate body, is his obligation not to violate Truth, which is a statement of reality,not of opinion. Thus no other duty can rightly oblige a man to perjure himself.

If this maxim is accepted, it will be seen that a deadlock of this sort between a man's duty to his country as a citizen and his duty to himself or his "conscience," could rarely occur in a civilized or rational community. Against this a man might argue that he had solemnly vowed not to shed human blood, either as a soldier or otherwise, and that he is right to resist any attempt to conscript him for the army, since he would thereby be required to perjure himself. The answer is simple, for the man clearly violated his duty to his country in the first place by vowing hewould deprive his country of his services should they be required, a right which no country has ever forsworn and which is considered the natural return due for free citizenship and state protection; these conditions are presumed to be accepted with the benefits of citizenship and protection of person and property; his first violation of duty towards his country will therefore not absolve him of a second.

Neither can it be shown according to this principle that a man is entitled to take an oath of this nature, regardless of potential conflicting obligations, on the score that such an oath is merely in conformance with the postulates of Truth, since the question of the Rightness or Wrongness of shedding blood under all circumstances is not susceptible of ultimate proof, but must remain finally on the authority of anipse dixit, or of Utility.

Thus far we have examined to some extent the purely ethical basis on which the idea of priority of duty, as evinced by conscience or reason, rests: the sanction of conscience which rests on religious authority is dealt with elsewhere.

To further illustrate the "nearer good" principle with which we have been dealing, it may be profitable to refer to a passage from an account of the life of General Robert E. Lee, Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate troops during the American Civil War, a devoutly religious man, and a lifelong member of the Protestant Episcopal Church.[33]

"Colonel Lee was in command of the department of Texas in 1860, but was recalled to Washington early in 1861, when the 'irrepressible conflict' between the free and the slave states seemed imminent. When Lee reached the capital in March 1861, seven states had passed ordinances of secession from the Union, and had formed the Southern Confederacy. Virginia seceded from the Union on April 17, and Colonel Lee, believing that his supreme political allegiance was due to his state rather than to the Union, felt compelled to send his resignation to General Scott, which he did on April 20. The bitter struggle between his personal preferences and his high sense of duty is shown in the words of his wife written to a friend at the time: 'My husband has wept tears of blood over this terrible war; but he must as a man and a Virginian share the destiny of his state, which has solemnly pronounced for independence.'"

Lee's action in choosing the "nearer" duty to his own state in preference to the duty he owed to the Union as a soldier and a citizen, even against his personal preferences and, as far as one can discern them, his religious opinions, affords a striking example of the principle I have been attempting to illustrate.

Whether his decision was arrived at spontaneously and impulsively, or as the result of deliberation, is immaterial as affecting the "rightness" of his action. Equally immaterial is the possibility that he might have arrived at anopposite conclusion whilst still employing the same principles, by judging that the categories of "quantity" and "quality" outweighed that of "proximity." Whenever clear duties are mutually annihilating, which fortunately is very rarely the case, the problem will always have to be solved, if it is solved with scrupulous honesty, by a careful balance of values, whilst the result at best cannot be infallible.

What stands out, however, in this case, is the triumph of clearly recognized duty founded on "nearer" indebtedness, and so of responsibility, over lesser indebtedness, even though the latter was reinforced by personal predilection and religious sentiment.

FOOTNOTES:[25]"Utilitarianism," 15th edition, p. 27.[26]Ibid., p. 30.[27]Ibid., p. 9.[28]Richardson's "Conscience," p. 151.[29]"Utilitarianism," p. 42.[30]Richardson's "Conscience," p. 211.[31]J. S. Mill, "Utilitarianism."[32]The idea of God personified is often used as standing for a symbol or norm of ideal conduct, bearing an affinity to the ideal self or ego. The theory of conduct maintained here is therefore equally applicable to Theist or Atheist.[33]N. B. Webster in "Chambers's Encyclopædia."

[25]"Utilitarianism," 15th edition, p. 27.

[26]Ibid., p. 30.

[27]Ibid., p. 9.

[28]Richardson's "Conscience," p. 151.

[29]"Utilitarianism," p. 42.

[30]Richardson's "Conscience," p. 211.

[31]J. S. Mill, "Utilitarianism."

[32]The idea of God personified is often used as standing for a symbol or norm of ideal conduct, bearing an affinity to the ideal self or ego. The theory of conduct maintained here is therefore equally applicable to Theist or Atheist.

[33]N. B. Webster in "Chambers's Encyclopædia."

As long as morality is regarded as a Divinely implanted principle, subject to no laws beyond the caprice and changing mood of a personal Deity, the essentials which underlie our conduct are lost sight of. Morality, that is to say those moral codes which are observed and recognized, consists of the imposition of values; but the meaning and the virtue of those values lie in the policy which will produce desired results. Moral values are subject to constant revision as world influences affect our outlook. Our endeavour should always be to probe the essentials. As long as morality is thought to depend on "Revelation" and religious superstition, the essentials are lost sight of. The connexion between Religion and Morality is arbitrary, and since Religions owe their power to the fear of the Unknown, and the virtue of Morality depends upon the necessity of conforming to that mode of conduct which will produce known results, Religions tend to mask the essentials in Morality and make it unreal.

Morality is held to include two distinct principles; moral obligation, or conduct towardsothers, and conduct towards, or the debt we owe, ourselves. We are here concerned chiefly with the first; the second—those rules of conduct which concern only ourselves, are bound up with the purpose of existence, with the ultimate end. Moral obligation has arisen out of the necessity for co-ordination and system in our mutual relationships. Without a moral code, social life would become chaotic and impossible, comparable only to the state of Russia under mob rule in the year of grace 1918—a state immeasurably more degraded than that of Britain in the era B.C.; the early Briton like the modern Kafir, at any rate, gave vent to his predatory and murderous instincts, for the most part, outside his own little tribe. The imposition of some recognized rules of conduct, safeguarding the security of life and property, is as necessary to the community as the existence of a coinage for the negotiation of commercial bargains; in fact it is more so. The two are analogous: the moral code must give effect to that first and universal principle of ethics expressed thus, "Do unto others as you would they should do unto you," which is only another way of saying, "You may expect others to treat you as you intend to treat them in similar circumstances." Hence the standardization of rules of conduct becomes a principle of Utility. Altruism has nothing whatsoever to do with it. Even indignation at the spectacle of acute suffering needlessly inflicted on animals, where considerations of reciprocal treatment onthe part of the animal do not apply, is correctly based on the offence such a "discordance" causes to the æsthetic sensibility of the cultivated, or the induced sympathetic discomfort of the many. In many natures the pain-suggesting spectacle, or even the mere thought of it, spontaneously evokes anger, which seeks satisfaction in the punishment of the author of its occurrence. The only rational or intellectual process involved in the resulting "moral judgment" is, as a rule, confined to a realization of the pain-suggesting idea, and the direction of vengeful impulses against the offender, while the consequences or ends of conduct in no way determine the judgment. The particular idiocy of the anti-vivisection agitation is obvious. We are here, of course, purposely considering,notactual and arbitrary morality, but the essentials upon which all moralities are based. We shall deal more fully as we proceed with those psychic and emotional factors which do, in fact, colour and distort all moral values. To return to our analogy—we may say then, that a conventional moral rule stands for the credit of national morality, much as a five-pound note stands for the credit of national wealth.

However wise a code of morality may be, it is necessarily artificial. It has grown up to suit the peculiar circumstances and demands of race, climate and time. The basic reason for its existence is too often encrusted and disguised by fears, superstitions and illusions, perpetualcreatures of the human mind; the essentials are often lost sight of or forgotten, and Truth is parodied as the principle that gave birth to the ecclesiastical chimera which forms the edifice of modern cults. Is it surprising, then, that morality is garbed in the changing coat of a chameleon? That what is held moral to-day is immoral to-morrow, and that what is held immoral here is moral elsewhere?

The second and deeper morality concerns ourselves only. It demands an answer to the eternal question: What is the Ultimate Good? One great imperative stands out pre-eminent: we must be true to ourselves. He who would seek the truth must himself be true. Without truth there is no creation, no progress. But before we can be true to ourselves, we must know ourselves; that is the problem we are considering—knowledge of the ego.

Some men are content to supply synonyms for the Ideal—for Perfection, the goal of endeavour—imagining they are thereby showing the way. Others realize the first task must be to cleanse the way of the inadequacies and perversions which masquerade as the whole Truth, as the "word of God."

The Ultimate Good cannot be translated into the petty codes of human convenience, neither can it be deduced from the wanton phantoms of man's wild fancy, called religion, which, by attempting to expound everything, explains nothing.

What is religion? Is it the search for truth? Is it not an attempt to clothe our conception of the Infinite in terms finite?—the result being grotesque, bearing no relation to existence, a lawless chimera, born of man's dread of the unknown, an amorphous fantasy fashioned out of the distorted visions of man's hopes and fears, modelled, amended and shaped in course of time in accordance with the postulate of man's nature—man the religious animal!

Science cannot give us the whole truth and admits it! "Absolute beginnings or origins are beyond the pale of science."[34]But religion professes to know and is disproved at every step. It is when Religion refuses to learn that she is harmful; because her values are false and her thought retrospective that she is inadequate. It is not because the religions of the past and their legacies to-day cannot prove the Transcendent that they should be discarded, but because they attempt to prove it and turn the world into chaos in so doing. It is not only because, in the words of Huxley, "everywhere priests have broken the spirit of wisdom and tried to stop human progress by quotations from their Bibles or books of their Saints," that the old religion is outgrown, but because it is daily growing more and more impotent.

Whether for good or evil the influence of religion on the conduct of men daily grows less. Religious fanaticism is gradually giving place tosecular and political fanaticism, whose votaries shriek in the name of Democracy, Socialism or other watchword of Utopia, ever attempting to impose new moral values bearing as little correspondence to reality as the old values. Neither can recent attempts to express the old religion in terms of modern thought revive that which is perishing of inanition. Huxley wrote thus of the attempt: "If the religion of the present differs from that of the past, it is because the theology of the present has become more scientific than that of the past, not because it has renounced idols of wood and idols of stone, but begins to see the necessity of breaking in pieces the idols built up ofbooksand traditions, and fine-spun ecclesiastical cobwebs, and of cherishing the noblest and most human of man's emotions by worship, 'for the most part of the Silent Sort,' at the altar of theunknown and unknowable...."

We have no desire to follow in the wake of an unprovoked attack on the churches, our concern is the defence of a rational, against the imposition of an irrational, code of morality.

But ethical systems are still built upon the fantastical dogmas of religious or political visionaries. "Ethics," say the former, "cannot be built securely upon anything less than the Religious Sanctions." The rules which govern the practical conduct of life must conform to "divine laws" which in their interpretation have passed through a metamorphosis as varied and dissimilar as the habits and customs whichdistinguish the twentieth century from the second! Was it a sign of the security and infallibility of ethics founded on religious beliefs that Christian England as late as the beginning of the Eighteenth Century[35]sanctioned the execution and torture of harmless old women for the imaginary crime of witchcraft? It must be remembered that the moral code of the period, enforced by the laws of the land, reflected contemporary religious thought. Lecky, referring to the causes upon which witchcraft depended, says:[36]"It resulted, not from accidental circumstances, individual eccentricities, or even scientific ignorance, but from a general predisposition to see Satanic agency in life. It grew from, and it reflected, the prevailing modes of religious thought; and it declined only when those modes were weakened or destroyed." 5.

The fact is, as most impartial students of psychology admit, that both religious and political ethics owe far more of their character to the "emotional cravings" combined with the interested propaganda current in the age, than to any real value they may possess from a utilitarian or, assuming the Divinity to be rational, from a Divine point of view. Ibsen has truly said that moral values are dependent on power-conditions; morals, politics and law are to a great extent shaped and propelled by might-conditions, by the fancied needs and interests of dominant classes;but the greatest factor in power-condition is psychic; the greatest world-propellant, theultima vires, is more mind than muscle; it is this great world force which I have spoken of as Cosmic Suggestion.[37]Too little may yet be known of this force to trace its means of transmission, but the reality of its existence can no longer be doubted. It has been described in the following way: there exists an effluence or force generated by, or resulting from, the molecular activity of each individual brain. These forces are constantly influencing the souls of men, encountering, overcoming, and repelling opposition, and reacting upon the conscious intelligence of the authors of their generation; or they may unite themselves into groups and operate collectively, forming a psychic stream of power.[38]

The fact of this power must be received into the monistic system as part of the one great law. A purely materialistic monism cannot contain it. Though we postulate a single law with a dual aspect or duality within unity, whatever hypothesis we assume will be of less importance than the discovery and co-ordination of the invariable laws of its operation. We accept the principle of "monism" not, I fancy, because we are compelled to do so by the logic of Haeckel, the great exponent of modern monism, or of his fellow-scientists, but because we are driven to do so without their help. The principle of onenessand unity, alone, is capable of satisfying our intellect, our sense of order and logic. There cannot be conflicting truths; there cannot exist true systems which disprove each other; all knowledge is complementary; there cannot be true objective facts and equally true subjective ideals which contradict them; otherwise the world is chaos and there is no reality. But if we know anything we know that matter is real and thought is real, and the law of their inter-relationship is within the same reality. No commonplace of science is more widely known or more firmly established than the law of the conservation of energy or of the persistence of force and of matter, which Haeckel calls the law of substance. Can we be content to believe that no force exists that is not susceptible to physical analysis? Or does the first step towards the elucidation of the ultimate and unsolved riddle of existence, that is, the real character of substance or the cosmos, lie (as we believe) in the direction of reconciling the metaphysical with the monistic system?

We seek no escape from the underlying principle of one universal law which determines all matter, life and energy; but our monism must comprise the psychic factor. For us this cannot be stated in physiological terms. Force cannot be regarded as a pure attribute of matter. Recent advances in psychological research appear to endorse this view. It is, in any case, less important to insist upon one particular hypothesis, when much, at the present stage of knowledge,is insoluble, than to appreciate by observation and introspection the laws that appear to evolve from it.

Haeckel cannot conceive mind apart from matter or, conversely, protoplasm without mind (for him they develop concurrently); yet why should the fact that both are subject to the same cosmic law invalidate the idea of the persistency of an immaterial force, which may even under certain conditions, or metamorphoses, break the partnership with matter; provided that the unit of psychic force is in itself immaterial?[39]This psychic unit Haeckel termspsychoplasm, that is, the materialistic basis of mind in protoplasm. The laws of psychic phenomena, however, only appear intelligible when we concede that thepsychoplasmpossesses an immaterial aspect which, at a certain stage of development, may persist as "force," even after the disintegration of matter into its chemical components. On the other hand, it may, below a certain stage of development or intensity, lose cohesion and dissipate; organic matter, however, is neverwithout it. The wonderful discoveries of recent psychological research, especially in the department of hypnotism, in the facts of memory and above all in the evidence lately forthcoming of the existence of telepathy, should encourage us to adopt a hypothesis which, to the materialistic philosopher, appears chimerical.[40]A final decision of the ultimate problem remains at present unattainable, its discussion is therefore of necessity speculative in character. But the need for recognizing the existence of a psychic factor, whose phenomena cannot be reconciled on a materialistic basis, makes its inclusion in the cosmic system imperative. This need is the greater in view of the tendency amongst an ever-increasing class to relegate all psychic phenomena to the chaotic realms of emotional thought, resulting in the propagation of the wildest fanaticism under such titles as Spiritualism, Christian Science or Theosophism.

There are two modes of thought and they lead in opposite directions: emotional assumption and analytical investigation; the two systems are illustrated by the world phenomenon of religious beliefs arising from a common source, and in their development splitting up, breaking away and variating, whilst all scientific knowledge unifies and becomes reconciled during its progress, all laws eventually resolving themselves into one. It is often said, and it is well to remember, that no system of human belief is without somefact to sustain it. But when the great variety of antagonistic beliefs that have sprung from different conceptions of the same facts are taken into account, one must realize, as too few educationalists do, that the value of human opinions and beliefs depends far more on habits of mind and methods of assimilation than on the ultimate facts on which they are based, or the conviction with which they are held.

There are many people so ignorant of human nature and psychological fact that they imagine the truth of a statement may be demonstrated by the credulity with which it has been received, forgetting that faith fills the void of ignorance where scepticism is reserved for new ideas.

So long as education comprises the inculcation of beliefs founded on emotional assumption (it should be clear to any one who thinks on the subject that few beliefs outside the analytical and exact sciences are logically reasoned out from fundamental principles) and the facile repetition of archaisms is appraised as intellectual thought; in short, so long as our methods are retrospective rather than critical, emotion and fanaticism will triumph over reason.

FOOTNOTES:[34]Professor J. Ward.[35]The last execution for witchcraft is believed to have taken place in Scotland in 1722. See Lecky's "Rationalism," 15th edition, p. 13[36]Op. cit., p. 82.[37]See definition inPreface.[38]This description with a slight variation is taken from "Ibsen's Quintessence."[39]It may be objected that the idea of the conservation of the psyche is only intelligible on the assumption of a pre-somatic, as well as a post-somatic existence, or that it necessarily involves some form of transmigration. In place of any theory of the soul's preformation, I would prefer to view the origin of the soul as bearing relation to the epigenesis of the organic germ, bearing in mind that the organism is but the medium of the soul's activity and avoiding all dogmatism on the question of its ultimate destination. We should, however, remember, as Professor Ward points out, before we apply the formulæ of physical science to the realm of spiritual ends, of this fundamental difference: "Individuality is inseparable from mind and altogether foreign to matter, which loses nothing by disintegration and gains nothing by integration." ("Realm of Ends," p. 279.)[40]See McDougall's "Body and Mind," 2nd edition, p. 349.

[34]Professor J. Ward.

[35]The last execution for witchcraft is believed to have taken place in Scotland in 1722. See Lecky's "Rationalism," 15th edition, p. 13

[36]Op. cit., p. 82.

[37]See definition inPreface.

[38]This description with a slight variation is taken from "Ibsen's Quintessence."

[39]It may be objected that the idea of the conservation of the psyche is only intelligible on the assumption of a pre-somatic, as well as a post-somatic existence, or that it necessarily involves some form of transmigration. In place of any theory of the soul's preformation, I would prefer to view the origin of the soul as bearing relation to the epigenesis of the organic germ, bearing in mind that the organism is but the medium of the soul's activity and avoiding all dogmatism on the question of its ultimate destination. We should, however, remember, as Professor Ward points out, before we apply the formulæ of physical science to the realm of spiritual ends, of this fundamental difference: "Individuality is inseparable from mind and altogether foreign to matter, which loses nothing by disintegration and gains nothing by integration." ("Realm of Ends," p. 279.)

[40]See McDougall's "Body and Mind," 2nd edition, p. 349.

It has long been recognized that ideas rule the world, and that Power is the translation of ideas into material force, but the real nature of world forces and the elementary laws of their operation have been obscured by superstition and prejudice, and little attempt has been made to recognize their true significance.

The great world war has indeed emphasized the immense power of ideas. We hear much of propaganda and ideals. In medicine we hear more of "psychotherapy," or the treatment of disease by persuasive and hypnotic methods. We are aware, too, that our merchants have long known the practical and tangible value of advertisement, that is, the insistent repetition of a coloured statement until it is believed to be true, and that our priests, teachers and politicians have for centuries relied on this method alone. But for the most part these people have little real knowledge or understanding of the power they are using, and of which they are themselves the mere puppets. A supreme illustration is the real impotence of the various belligerent governmentsto direct or cope with the immeasurable psychic forces now pursuing their cataclysmic course, and their inability to foretell the direction in which they are leading a bewildered world. Nowhere is this more graphically apparent than in Russia, whose kaleidoscopic upheavals have baffled all prophets.

I do not suggest that the causal origin of the European War is purely psychic in character, it may with greater certainty be found years before its disastrous developments, in the steadily increasing pressure of population, assisted by the gradual elimination of the natural checks[41]among the indigent and unfit[42]and the proportionate increase in the burdens of the fit, due chiefly to the growth of democratic ideas and trend of religious influences; this pressure found expression in policies of expansion among the more prolific nations, and in the case of Germany, where relief could not adequately be found in colonization, as a natural consequence engendered assiduous military and bellicose propaganda, which was bound eventually to culminate in a world war.

In order to facilitate a brief analysis of mob-psychology and public opinion, and to examine their rightful place in the science ofpsychodynamics and their relation to the hypnotic "law of suggestion," I have introduced the term Cosmic Suggestion. There are few thinkers who would attempt to deny that the same factors, processes and influences are observable in the formation of all classes of opinion, whether they are called religious, moral, political or artistic. It is, unfortunately, equally evident that reason, except in the case of scientific opinion, usually plays the smaller and emotion and desire the greater part in their formation. We say that this is unfortunate because emotion never brings us nearer the truth. Poets and ecstatic visionaries have sung the praises of emotion because to them emotion alone was real and the normal medium of truth. On the other hand the investigator is bound to arrive at a different conclusion. "Emotion" has nothing whatever to do with the attainment of truth. That which we prize under the name of "emotion" is an elaborate activity of the brain, which consists of feelings of like and dislike, motions of assent and dissent, impulses of desire and aversion. It may be influenced by the most diverse activities of the organism, by the cravings of the senses and the muscles, the stomach, the sexual organs, etc. The interests of truth are far from promoted by these conditions and vacillations of emotion; on the contrary, such circumstances often disturb that reason which alone is adapted to the pursuit of truth, and frequently mar its perceptive power. "No cosmic problem is solved, or evenadvanced, by the cerebral function we call emotion."[43]

From the earliest times shrewd observers have commented on the ease with which the passions of men are inflamed and united, often by the least worthy of objects. Dr. Samuel Johnson, describing the progress of an agitator bidding for adherence, tersely remarks, "ale and clamour unite their powers, the crowd, condensed and heated, begins to ferment with the leaven of sedition."[44]

Before proceeding further, it may be well to make a brief examination of the hypothesis most in accord with the results of recent psychological research and ascertainable fact.

It has gradually come to be recognized in scientific circles that recent advances in psychology have made it impossible to pursue that science any longer entirely on a physiological, anatomical and histological basis. It is now also hardly likely to be disputed that not only is consciousness not the sum total of man's psychic activities but that the greater part of them are subconscious or unconscious. Thus, according to Professor James Ward, "our threshold of consciousness must be compared to the surface of a lake, and subconsciousness to the depths beneath it, and all the current terminology of presentations rising and sinking implies this or some similar figure."

Another writer in a recent publication makes use of an analogous illustration by describing human personality as an iceberg, the great bulk of which is always invisible and submerged.[45]

The matter is further complicated by the fact that within the domain of the subconscious there exists a vitality which cannot be traced to a cerebral or somatic source. Stated in broad terms it may be said that mind, or the sum total of Personality, must be viewed in two interactionary aspects: the primary consciousness and secondary consciousness, or the conscious and the subconscious or subliminal or (in a special sense) subjective, according to the various terms used by different writers to express the same thing.

For the purpose of greater lucidity, it has usually been found that this dual aspect of mind can be best expressed by treating the whole mental organization as consisting of two minds, each endowed with separate and distinct attributes and powers; each capable, under certain conditions, of independent action. It may be that a truer idea would be conveyed if the mind-whole was described as possessing certain attributes and powers under some conditions, and certain other attributes and powers under other conditions. As my object, here, is to enter no further into psychological questions than is necessary for the elucidation of those ethicalconsiderations which are dependent upon them, I shall give a short account of those theories which, in the light of present knowledge, appear best founded and afford most assistance in connexion with the subject of morality.

Thomas J. Hudson, whose hypothesis I shall make use of to illustrate my meaning, assumed for practical purposes that man has two minds. In making use to some extent of Hudson's theory, I do so not because it is necessarily correct, for his hypothesis was, admittedly, to a certain extent provisional; but because it was the first practical working hypothesis on which all psychic and hypnotic phenomena could be based, and because it has largely been used as a basis for subsequent elaborations.

In 1892, Hudson, in his "Law of Psychic Phenomena," said: "In more recent years the doctrine of duality of mind is beginning to be more clearly defined, and it may now be said to constitute a cardinal principle in the philosophy of many of the ablest exponents of the new psychology." To-day when psychotherapeutics have claimed the attention of students of pathology, and when at last the medical profession has almost throughout enlisted the co-operation and help of hypnotism, there are far fewer people who would deny the existence of that substratum of consciousness, distinct from the manifestation of the normal waking mind, which is so profitably studied in the phenomena of somnambulism, hypnotism and lunacy.

The briefest statement of the salient features of Hudson's hypothesis will suffice to enable me to suggest the irresistible conclusion that the prime factor in the formation of all opinion, collective and individual, the chief determinant of conduct, and the greatest motive force in the world, is analogous and co-relative to hypnotic suggestion.

Hudson was the first to attempt a clear definition of the rôle and nature of the two elements which constitute the dual mind. For the sake of greater clearness he speaks of these two aspects of mind as though they were two minds, possessing distinctive characteristics and a line of demarcation between the two, clearly defined. To continue in his own words: "Their functions are essentially unlike; each is endowed with separate and distinct attributes and powers; and each is capable, under certain conditions and limitations, of independent action." The author then distinguishes the two by designating the oneobjectiveand the othersubjective. It is unfortunate that he makes use of a nomenclature in which these terms are slightly perverted from their legitimate meaning, or perhaps, as he expresses it, modified and extended, but since he prefers to use them rather than attempt to coin new ones, it will be necessary to employ them with reference to his law; in every case in which these designations are employed in conjunction with the word mind, or printed in italics, they will be used in this sense.

They are defined thus: "The objective mind takes cognizance of the objective world. Its media of observation are the five physical senses. It is the outgrowth of man's physical necessities.... Its highest function is that of reasoning."[46]In other words, the objective mind functionates from the brain and is susceptible of anatomical localization, whilst "the subjective mind takes cognizance of its environment by means independent of the physical senses. It perceives by intuition.... It performs its highest functions when theobjectivesenses are in obeyance. In a word, it is that intelligence which makes itself manifest in a hypnotic subject when he is in a state of somnambulism."[47]

Whether we call it soul or subjective mind matters not; what matters is the fact that in all psychic phenomena there is sufficient evidence to show that the two aspects of mind interact according to certain observable principles. The main principle affecting man's mental organization on which Hudson builds his hypothesis is the Law of Suggestion, first discovered by Liébeault, the founder of the Nancy School of hypnotism, during his researches in 1866. It is this: that hypnotic subjects are constantly amenable to the power of suggestion. This proposition may be said to have been demonstrated as true beyond all possibility of doubt.

Starting with this discovery, Hudson, afterdefining the dual character of mind, introduces two propositions, namely: that the subjective mind is constantly amenable to control by suggestion, and that the subjective mind is incapable of inductive reasoning. Man in hypnotic state has invariably given sufficient evidence to show that the subjective mind accepts, without hesitation or doubt, every statement that is made to it.

With regard to this Law of Suggestion it is well to remember that, while the subjective mind is invariably and constantly swayed by suggestion, and is capable of offering no resistance except that which has been communicated to it by the objective mind, or which is inherent in its nature, the objective mind, on the other hand, is perpetually assailed by extrinsic suggestion, its capacity for resistance being in proportion to the dominant quality and development of the mind-whole.

The objective mind, it will therefore be seen, is potentially selective, that is to say, the measure of its quality is its capacity to select at will intellectual nourishment from the whole range of humanity and nature, free from the oppression of its psychic environment. The rare combination of this intellectual fastidiousness with a super-sensibility is the mark of true genius.

Every one is conscious that at times we become aware of impulses, inclinations and concepts which seem to form no part of our thinking or waking minds; they seem to come from thedepths of our souls in response to some vital need of our existence. When the tendency appears to be hereditary we call these promptings instincts[48]and consider it right to suppress them or hold them in check. We do not resign ourselves wholesale to unbridled licentiousness or anger because the reproductive instinct and pugnacity are inherent in our nature; on the contrary, we realize that our best interests lie in self-control. If, on the other hand, the impulse is less easily accounted for, if, maybe, the message of our souls runs counter to our normal instincts, our interests or reason, we are apt to assume that the impulse emanates from outside our nature and must have, many of us think, a supernatural or Divine origin.

It may be said then that most people distinguish "good" and "bad" impulses, or impulses which must be inhibited and impulses which should be followed at all costs.

Theology, as taught in the Sunday School, treats the subject somewhat after this fashion: "All mortals are assailed by the powers of Good and Evil; the vehicle of the Divine Will is 'Conscience,' the voice of conscience is the voice of God within us. Beware of the World, the Flesh and the Devil; the Devil calls to hisvictims in the guise of the flesh." This idea is exploited for all it is worth in conjunction with the doctrine of original sin: the stock device of priestcraft to enhance the value of its own ministrations and sacraments. The spiritual teacher will usually "bring the lesson home" by a vivid description of the habits and idiosyncrasies of a Mephistophelian Devil with a particular liability to appropriate the "laws of our lower nature" for the sole purpose of baulking his equally anthropomorphic antagonist, the God of Jews and Christians, whose voice may be recognized in the pangs of remorse and self-debasement. A child subjected to this form of instruction during the most impressionable period of its existence is usually left for the remainder of its life with a vague distrust of nature, a proportionate reverence for thesuper-natural, and an impression that asceticism is the highest attainable virtue, together with a totally false appreciation of mental phenomena and the real value of self-control.

Every man should learn to know himself and seek the origin of his impulses. History is full of examples of men and women who believed themselves attended by guardian angels or familiar spirits who prompted their actions and gave them advice; Socrates was constantly attended by hisdaimones, and Joan of Arc used to hear "spirit voices." These and similar cases were evidence of the predominance of the subjective over the objective mind. In a normally balancedmind theobjectiveis in control; in the reverse process the objective mind is dormant and the subjective dominates the throne of reason. This is the case in dreams, trance, hypnosis and cerebral diseases. It is also the case, in greater or lesser degree, whenever the brain is stunned or is said to be "unbalanced" as the result of great emotional excitement or shock. It is then that impulse and instinct take the place of, or inhibit, rational thought. Impulses emanate from the subjective mind, and may result from the inherent nature and real character of the individual; or they may reflect the autosuggestions of the individual, or his bodily desires (this may be termed reflex-suggestion), or the suggestions of others; or, again, the latter, acting upon the subjective mind, may awaken related tendencies or inclinations and result in new complex impulses. Extreme cases of subjective control result in madness; the false premises conveyed by the disordered cerebral organs must result in deductions by the subjective mind of equal abnormality. Control by the subjective mind nearly always produces in the subject either a feeling of dual personality, in which two egos are realized, each distinct from the other—the oldmeand the newme—or else the subjective mind is identified with a totally distinct, extrinsic and usually superior individual; delusions of dual personality or demoniacal control are among the first recognized symptoms of Cerebral disease. The greatest and maddestfanatics in history have usually attributed their powers to spirit control. Poets and artists have sometimes confessed that their most brilliant work was produced under conditions akin to trance; in some cases—Coleridge and Edgar Allan Poe are well-known examples—the state was artificially induced. Many have felt as though they were possessed by a mightier spirit than their own, which dictated while they merely obeyed.

Professor William James, after describing delusions of dual, alternating and superimposed personality, which are common symptoms of insanity, continues: "The literature of insanity is filled with narratives of such illusions as these.... One patient has another self that repeats all his thoughts for him. Others, among whom are some of the first characters in history, have familiar demons who speak with them, and are replied to. In another, some one 'makes' his thoughts for him. Another has two bodies, lying in different beds. Or the cries of the patient himself are assigned to another person with whom the patient expresses sympathy."[49]

If Macaulay is right in the following passage, "subjective control" would appear to be the essential condition for the production of poetry: "Perhaps no man can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind—if anything which gives so much pleasure ought to be called unsoundness.... Truth, indeed, is essential to poetry, but it is the truthof madness. The reasonings are just, but the premises are false."[50]

Another often quoted passage, from Cæsar Lombroso's "Man of Genius," bears out the same thing: "Many men of genius who have studied themselves, and who have spoken of their inspiration, have described it as a sweet and seductive fever, during which their thought had become rapidly and involuntarily fruitful, and has burst forth like the flame of a lighted torch." "Kuh's most beautiful poems," wrote Bauer, "were dictated in a state between sanity and reason; at the moment when his sublime thoughts came to him he was incapable of simple reasoning."

Not the least remarkable of the powers of the subjective mind is its apparently absolute memory; not only are those experiences of which we haveobjectivecognizance indelibly recorded, but innumerable occurrences in our environment, which pass unnoticed or of which we are even consciously unaware, seem to be registered by the subjective mind. Although it cannot be included in the term memory, implying conscious memory, we have good reason for believing that in common with all living organisms the subjective mind of men records not only the result of its own experience, but also is impregnated by those experiences of its ancestors which have been transformed into habits and have become innate, and that by this means only progressand evolution are capable of explanation. This unconscious register of ancestral experience, about which we shall have more to say in another chapter, is here adduced as being an additional factor which must have considerable bearing on the nature ofsubjectiveimpulses. The theories of unconscious and of "organic" memories[51]throw a great deal of light on the transmission of hereditary characters and of instincts. The very fact of the appearance of hereditary characteristics in, for example, young ducks hatched out by a hen, who persist in showing their ancestry by making for the first pond they see in spite of the astonished remonstrances of their foster-mother, points to race memory as the only solution.

Telepathy is again another factor in connexion with the subjective mind which must be taken into account. It has been described as the normal means of communication between subjective mindsen rapport; the possibilities of its influence cannot be ignored. Is it surprising, when we realize the range, scope and complexity of the subconscious intelligence within ourselves, that its emanations are sometimes mistaken for messages from another world?

This brief reference to some of the morenoticeable influences which affect the inherent character of the subjective mind may help to indicate the importance of the Law of Suggestion with regard to the theory of conscience (literally self-knowledge—but in practice more often lack of self-knowledge). This law can be most profitably studied in the phenomena of hypnotism, for the reason that "the objective mind, or let us say man in his normal condition, is not controllable, against reason, positive knowledge, or the evidence of his senses, by the suggestions of another." (We have discussed hispotentialcapacity for resistance.) "The subjective mind, or man in the hypnotic state," on the other hand, "is unqualifiedly and constantly amenable to the power of suggestion."[52]In this condition the subjective mind accepts unhesitatingly every statement that is made to it, no matter how absurd or incongruous or contrary to the objective experience of the individual. If the subject is told that he is a dog, he will instantly accept the suggestion, and to the limit of physical possibility act the part suggested. If he is told he is Napoleon, he will again act the part with wonderful fidelity to life. The suggestion of pursuing devils will send him into a lively terror. He will become intoxicated by drinking a glass of water under the impression that it is brandy. If told he is suffering from a high fever, his pulse will become rapid, his face flushed and his temperature will rise. "In short, he can bemade to see, smell, hear, or feel anything in obedience to suggestion." These are fundamental facts known not only to students of hypnotism but also very extensively to the general public.

Equal and complementary to the Law of Suggestion is the Law of Autosuggestion. Having accepted for purposes of clarity Hudson's view of the independent powers and functions of the two aspects of mind, it naturally follows that the subjective mind of an individual is as amenable to the control of his own objective mind as to the objective mind of another; in fact we have sufficient reason to know that it is more so. For instance, it is well known that a normal person cannot be hypnotized against his will, for the contrary autosuggestion of the subject negatives the suggestion of the operator. Even after a subject has consented to be hypnotized the settled habits of his life are sufficiently strong autosuggestions to defend him against the violation of his most tenacious principles. If, for instance, a hypnotic subject is conscientiously opposed to the use of alcohol, he cannot be persuaded to drink water under the impression that it is whisky. This fact is of the greatest importance in relation to criminology.

In this connexion the following passage from Moll's "Hypnotism" is of interest: "The more an action is repulsive to the disposition [of an individual], the stronger is his resistance. Habit and education play a large part here; it isgenerally very difficult to suggest anything opposed to the confirmed habits of the subject.

"For instance, suggestions are made with success to a devout Catholic, but directly the suggestion conflicts with his creed it will not be accepted. The surroundings play a part also. A subject will frequently decline a suggestion that will make him appear ridiculous. A woman whom I easily put into cateleptic postures, and who made suggested movements, could not be persuaded to put out her tongue at the spectators.

"It is interesting to observe the way in which resistance is expressed, both in hypnotic and post-hypnotic suggestion. I, myself, have observed the interesting phenomenon that subjects have asked to be awakened when a suggestion displeased them."[53]

It is a fundamental law of hypnotism that it cannot be used as an agent for the commission of a crime, that is, unless the subject is criminally disposed. It is obvious that the same rule applies to sexual crimes; Hudson lays it down as an unassailable fact that no virtuous woman ever was, or ever can be, successfully assaulted while in a hypnotic condition.

It will now be realized that autosuggestion embraces not only the assertions of the objective mind of an individual, addressed to his own subjective mind, but also his habits of thought and the settled principles and convictions of his whole life. The more intense these principlesand convictions are, the stronger the autosuggestion will be, and relatively harder to be overcome by the contrary suggestions of another. It is a law of universal applicability that the strongest suggestion must prevail.

So far we have alluded only to suggestion applied during hypnosis; it should be remembered, however, that it is now a settled principle of psychotherapeutics that suggestion also operates, and from a therapeutic point of view is sometimes more efficacious, in the normal waking or sleeping condition; though in the latter case, without complete amenability, the results are seldom so striking. The condition in normal waking life which produces phenomena most closely resembling those of hypnosis is that of strong emotional excitement. We find, also, that in normal life suggestions of the greatest potency and having the most far-reaching effects are conveyed by means of emotional states. Although a close resemblance exists between the result of suggestion in hypnosis and the result of suggestion in normal and emotion states, similarity of result does not, as Dr. Bramwell points out in this connexion, necessarily imply identity of cause. In fact there are some important differences between the two conditions which produce the phenomena, as well as some distinctions between the phenomena themselves: whereas fear, hope, faith, religious excitement and kindred emotions are almost invariably present in cases which are cited as analogous to hypnotic ones, some ofthese, such as fear and other violent emotions, effectually preclude the production of hypnosis, and further, subjects who are most amenable to emotional suggestions are often those whom it is most difficult to hypnotize.[54]

The principle of psychotherapeutics depends, as is well known, upon the close dependence of the organs and normal bodily functions upon the behests of the mind. Hudson expresses this in the form of a proposition, namely: "The subjective mind has absolute control of the functions, conditions and sensations of the body." Although this statement contains a very important principle we should not allow it to obscure the fact of the reverse process. As James, Bain and others have shown, antecedent bodily conditions often react directly upon the mind. The general truth, however, of the proposition may be readily perceived when we remember that perfect anæsthesia can be produced at the will of the operator by suggestion. The effect of mental stimuli upon functional conditions is also commonly observed under normal conditions in such phenomena as blushing, turning pale, the quickening of the pulse, fainting, etc., all of which should be sufficient to convince any one who gives the subject a moment's consideration of the very direct and instant way the mind affects the body.

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