Chapter 13

FOOTNOTES:[1]Werke, ed. Hartenstein (1867), iii. 532.[2]Cf. Kant, Werke, iv. 237.[3]Sermons, v., towards the end.[4]Essay on the Passions and Affections, p. iv.[5]W. H. Rolph,Biologische Probleme, zugleich als Versuch zur Entwicklung einer rationellen Ethik, 2d ed., p. 21.[6]Not to mention Kant, the consistent opponent of every eudæmonistic principle, or the doctrines of a political idealist such as Mazzini (see Life and Writings (1867), iv. 223), reference may be made to a writer like W. K. Clifford, who looks from the scientific point of view, and yet holds that "happiness is not to be desired for its own sake."—Lectures and Essays (1879), ii. 121, 173.[7]"Auch dieser Begriff [Glückseligkeit] ist an sich ein bloss formaler, der jede beliebige materiale Bestimmung zulässt."—Zeller, Ueber Begriff und Begründung der sittlichen Gesetze(1883), p. 23.[8]Methods of Ethics, book i. chap. i. § 5, 3d ed., p. 11.[9]"The rule, 'Let every one care for me,' is quite as simple, and, in a logical point of view, defines conduct as consistently and reasonably as the rule, 'Love your neighbour as yourself.'"—Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics (1882), p. 73.[10]Methods of Ethics, I. i. 3, p. 6.[11]The difference between Aristotle and Kant in ethics is sometimes expressed (see Trendelenburg, Hist. Beiträge zur Phil., iii. 171 ff.) as if it consisted in the fact that the former investigated human nature in order to find itsτέλος(~telos~), whereas the latter sought the standard of action in a transcendental ground. There is reason for this distinction in Kant's manner of statement. But both may be regarded as investigating human nature. Their difference rather consists in the different position and function assigned to reason in man. It is because Kant is for the moment looking upon reason as something distinct from human nature that he says that "the ground of obligation is to be sought, not in the nature of man or in the circumstances in the world in which he is placed, butà priorisimply in the notions of pure reason" (Werke, iv. 237). His "metaphysical" view of ethics, however, follows from the rational constitution of the human subject and his experience, and does not depend on any source that really "transcends" the reason of man.[12]Opinion is also divided according to the place assigned to reason in the world,—this principle of division corresponding almost exactly with the former.[13]Thus it is the object of Helvétius's firstdiscours"De l'esprit" to prove that physical sensibility and memory are the only productive causes of our ideas.[14]Comte, by connecting ethics with biology; Darwin and Spencer, by the doctrine of evolution.[15]Meaning by "greatest pleasure," greatest balance of pleasure over pain, and thus inclusive of the meaning "least pain." It is the expression in terms of feeling of the statement sometimes preferred, that "action follows the line of least resistance"—a statement to which no exception can be taken, nor any importance allowed, till it be translated into definite psychological language.[16]"Ainsi lorsque nous disons quel'intérêt est l'unique mobile des actions humaines, nous voulons indiquer par là que chaque homme travaille à sa manière à son propre bonheur, qu'il place dans quelqu'objet soit visible, soit caché, soit réel, soit imaginaire, et que tout le système de sa conduite tend à l'obtenir."—Système de la nature(1781), i. 268.[17]"On the occasion of every act he exercises, every human being is led to pursue that line of conduct which, according to his view of the case taken by him at the moment, will be in the highest degree contributory to his own greatest happiness."—Constitutional Code, book i. § 2; Works, ix. 5. The continued existence of the species is, Bentham thinks, a conclusive proof of this proposition.[18]Thus, according to James Mill, "the terms 'idea of pleasure' and 'desire' are but two names; the thing named, the state of consciousness is one and the same. The word Desire is commonly used to mark the idea of a pleasurable sensation when the future is associated with it."—Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, J. S. Mill's edit., ii. 192; cf. Fragment on Mackintosh (1835), p. 389 f. To the same effect J. S. Mill says: "Desiring a thing and finding it pleasant, aversion to it and thinking of it as painful, are phenomena entirely inseparable, or rather two parts of the same phenomenon; in strictness of language, two different modes of naming the same psychological fact."—Utilitarianism, 7th ed., p. 58.[19]"Will is the child of desire, and passes out of the dominion of its parent only to come under that of habit."—Utilitarianism, p. 60.[20]Thus Jonathan Edwards says: "When I say that the Will is as the greatest apparent good, or (as I have explained it) that volition has always for its object the thing which appears most agreeable, it must be carefully observed, to avoid confusion and needless objection, that I speak of thedirectand immediate object of the act of volition, and not some object to which the act of will has only an indirect and remote respect."—On the Freedom of the Will, part i. § 2; Works, i. 133. The matter is put still more clearly by the late Alfred Barratt: "Action does not always follow knowledge. Of course not: but the doctrine [Hedonism] does not require that it should; for it says, not that we follow whatisour greatest possible pleasure, or what we know or 'think' to be so, but what at the moment of action is most desired."—Mind, vol. ii. 173; cf. Physical Ethics, p. 52 ff. So Mr Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 47: "It is more accurate to say that my conduct is determined by the pleasantest judgment, than to say that it is determined by my judgment of what is pleasantest." The negative side of the same view was expressed by Locke in his doctrine that action is moved by the most pressing uneasiness (Essay, II. xxi. 29, 31), and distinguished by him from the former view (b), that the "greater visible good" is the motive (II. xxi. 35, 44).[21]Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, 3d ed., p. 40.[22]Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation, chap. i., Works, i. 1. With this statement may be compared the assertion of Helvétius:"Il semble que, dans l'univers moral comme dans l'univers physique, Dieu n'est mis qu'un seul principe dans tous ce qui a été.... Il semble qu'il ait dit pareillement à l'homme: ... Je te mets sous la garde du plaisir et de la douleur: l'un et l'autre veilleront à tes pensées, à tes actions; engendreront tes passions, exciteront tes aversions, tes amitiés, tes tendresses, tes fureurs; allumeront tes désirs, tes craintes, tes espérances, te dévoileront des vérités; te plongeront dans des erreurs; et après t'avoir fait enfanter mille systèmes absurdes et différens de morale et de législation, te decouvriront un jour les principes simples, au développement desquels est attaché l'ordre et le bonheur du monde moral."—De l'esprit, III. ix, Œuvres(ed. of 1818), i. 293.[23]De l'homme, concl. gén., Œuvres, ii. 608.[24]Cf.Système de la nature, i. 120: "La politique devrait être l'art de régler les passions des hommes et de les diriger vers le bien de la société."[25]Bentham,op. cit., chap. xix. (xvii. in the reprint of 1879), § 20; Works, i. 148.[26]Cf. Bentham, Works, ix. 5.[27]Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, I. iv. 1, 3d ed., p. 41; cf. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 9: "To a being who is simply a result of natural forces, an injunction to conform to their laws is unmeaning."[28]Cf. The Emotions and the Will, 3d ed., p. 293 ff.[29]Cf. Sully, Outlines of Psychology, p. 577.[30]Cf. J. Grote, 'Utilitarian Philosophy,' p. 20, note: "One kind of pleasure may be, systematically, to be preferred to another, but it must be because the pleasures classified under it generally exceed those under the other in intensity, or some other of the elements of value."[31]Professor Bain distinguishes with greater clearness than his predecessors, first, legal duty, or that the contravention of which is punished by the ministers of the state; secondly, moral duty, enforced by the unofficial punishment of social disapprobation; and thirdly, the conduct which society leaves to individual choice, without censuring either its commission or omission. Moral duty is further distinguished by him from the meritorious, or conduct which society encourages by approval, without censuring its omission.[32]Mr Gurney's attempt (Mind, vii. 349 ff.) to rationalise the utilitarian "ought" depends upon the assumption that the individual feels a desire (not only for his own, but) for other people's pleasure (p. 352). From the point of view of the psychological hedonist, however, this desire is only secondary and derivative, depending upon the fact that it increases the pleasure of the subject. "Your pleasure," the psychological hedonist would say, "is desired by mequâmy pleasure." If, on the other hand, it is admitted that the individual has other ends than his own pleasure, there seems no ground in psychological fact for limiting these ends to something aimed at because pleasurable to others. From this point of view the first step in the establishment of an ethical theory would be an attempt to find a principle of unity in the various ends actually aimed at by individuals, and recognised by them as "good." This is made by Professor Sidgwick, who, while allowing that "it is possible to hold that the objective relations of conscious minds which we call cognition of Truth, contemplation of Beauty, Freedom of action, &c., are good, independently of the pleasures that we derive from them," maintains that "we can only justify to ourselves the importance that we attach to any of these objects by considering its conduciveness, in one way or another, to the happiness of conscious (or sentient) beings" (Methods of Ethics, iii. xiv. 3, 3d ed., p. 398). But Mr Sidgwick's Utilitarianism depends on a Rational view of human nature which is beyond the scope of the present discussion. See below,p. 74.[33]Principles of Morals and Legislation, chap. iii. § 1; Works, i. 14.[34]As Paley put it, with characteristic plainness of statement, "We can be obliged to nothing, but what we ourselves are to gain or lose something by."—Moral and Political Philosophy, book ii. chap. ii.[35]Cf. Bain, Emotions, p. 264: "I consider that the proper meaning or import of these terms [Morality, Duty, Obligation, or Right] refers to the class of actions enforced by the sanction ofpunishment."[36]Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation, chap. xix. (xvii.), § 9 ff; Works, i. 144 ff.[37]Ibid., § 20, p. 148.[38]Fragment on Government, chap. v.; Works, i. 293. Cf. Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch. iii. § 5, p. 14, where the Moral Sanction is said to proceed from "suchchancepersons in the community as the person in question may happen in the course of his life to have concerns with."[39]Bentham, Fragment on Government,loc. cit.[40]Works, xi. 95; cf. J. Grote, Utilitarian Philosophy, p. 137.[41]Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch. xix. (xvii.), § 7 ff.[42]Loc. cit., § 8, p. 144.[43]"Ought" is inappropriate here according to Bentham's principles, since there is no question of punishment inflicted by a political or social or religious superior.[44]Loc. cit., § 20, p. 148.[45]Moral and Political Philosophy, book ii. chap. iii.[46]This is clearly recognised by Bentham: "Theactualend [as distinguished from the right and proper end] of government is," he says, "in every political community, the greatest happiness of those, whether one or many, by whom the powers of government are exercised."—Constitutional Code, book i., Introd., § 2; Works, ix. 5.[47]The Emotions and the Will, p. 264.[48]Cf. Bain, The Emotions and the Will, p. 287. Professor Bain says (Emotions, p. 276 n.), "we ought to have a written code of public morality, or of the duties imposed by society, over and above what parliament imposes, and this should not be a loosely written moral treatise, but a strict enumeration of what society requires under pain of punishment by excommunication or otherwise,—the genuine offences that are not passed over." This would certainly be very desirable, were it not from the nature of the case impracticable. Popular judgment as to a man's conduct,—what society imposes,—is one of the things most difficult to predict: it is under the influence of most heterogeneous causes, personal, industrial, religious, political, &c. I do not think, for instance, that any one could safely undertake to describe exactly the kind of actions which will infallibly call forth the censure of British public opinion, or that of the smaller and intersecting groups into which society is divided.[49]Emotions, p. 288.[50]I have spoken, for simplicity's sake, as if there were two kinds of pleasure easily distinguishable. But the question is really much more complicated.[51]Utilitarianism, p. 57.[52]Ibid., p. 53.[53]Utilitarianism, p. 46. But no statement of the sociality of man could be more explicit or satisfactory than that of Butler, Sermons, i.[54]Utilitarianism, p. 48.[55]Fragments on Ethical Subjects (1876), p. 6.[56]The Emotions and the Will, 3d ed., p. 295.[57]Ibid., p. 111; cf. Mind, viii. 55: "The important exceptions to the law of Pleasure and Pain are (1) Fixed Ideas, (2) Habits, and (3) Disinterested action for others."[58]Emotions, p. 438.[59]Emotions, p. 121.[60]Ibid., p. 271 ff.[61]Ibid., p. 273.[62]Ibid., p. 264.[63]Fragments on Ethical Subjects, p. 8 f.[64]Ancient Law, 8th ed., p. 93.[65]Principles of Morals and Legislation, chap. ii. § 14 n.[66]The ambiguity of the phrase is explained in an interesting way in Sir H. Maine's account of the change from its juridical to a political or ethical meaning. In some writers it seems to have a third and still different signification. We must thus distinguish (1) the juridical meaning, originating in the Roman "law common to all nations," which had arisen through the "constantlevellingor removal of irregularities which went on wherever the prætorian system was applied to the cases of foreign litigants," modified subsequently by the Greek conception ofἰσότης(~isotês~). (2) The political meaning, that all men ought to be equal, arose from the preceding. But its notion of "ought" seems often to depend on an idea of the constitution of nature according to which all men are actually born equal—not only in rights, soon to be obscured by human convention, but also in power or faculty, afterwards unequally developed by education. Hence (3) the natural meaning. The doctrines of evolution and heredity have made this view seem as strange to us now as it would have done to the Romans from whom it was illegitimately derived. Yet at one time it seems to have been assumed, almost without question, that there is but little difference in the natural endowments of different men. This assumption lay at the basis of Hobbes's political theory—Leviathan, I. xiii. p. 60,—was stated in a more guarded form by Locke—On Education, § 1; Works, ed. of 1824, i. 6,—and adopted almost without qualification by Helvétius, who, carrying out Locke's metaphor of the soul as, at birth, a "tabula rasa," afterwards written over with the pen of experience, says: "Quintilien, Locke, et moi, disons: L'inégalité des esprits est l'effet d'une cause connue, et cette cause est la différence de l'éducation"—the causes of the existing inequality being afterwards stated as twofold: first, the difference of environment, which may be called chance; and secondly, the difference of strength in the desire for instruction.—De l'homme, II. i., III. i., IV. xxii.; Œuvres, ii. 71, 91, 280. (Quintilian's statement, however, is even more guarded than Locke's. Cf. Opera, ed. Spalding, i. 47.)[67]That is, when (1) the legislature accurately expresses the average feeling of all the members of the State; or (2) the legislators happen to be fully intelligent people in whom "selfishness" has taken the shape of benevolence.[68]Although, as is well known, propinquity was held by Bentham to be an independent ground of distinction and preference.—Principles of Morals and Legislation, chap. iv, sect. 2.[69]"The very idea of an interested pursuit necessarily presupposes particular passions or appetites; since the very idea of interest or happiness consists in this, that an appetite or affection enjoys its object."—Sermons, Pref.; cf. Serm. xi.[70]Phil., 31 ff.; cf. Gorg., 495 f.; Rep., ix. 585.[71]Cf. Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, I. iv. 2, 3d ed., p. 44.[72]Herbart,Psychologie als Wissenschaft, § 104, Werke, vi. 74; cf. Waitz, Lehrbuch der Psychologie als Naturwissenschaft, § 40, p. 418: "It is not difficult to recognise the basis of desire in the presentations brought forward by reproduction, and, at the same time, held back by an inhibition."[73]With Herbart's doctrine may be compared Mr H. Spencer's view of the genesis of feeling and voluntary action, Principles of Psychology, 2d ed., part iv. chaps. viii. and ix.[74]Cf. note to James Mill's Analysis, ii. 383 f.[75]The Senses and the Intellect, 3d ed., p. 344; cf. Mental and Moral Science, pp. 90, 91.[76]"If there be any principles or affections in the mind of man distinct from self-love, that the things those principles tend towards, or the objects of those affections are, each of them in themselves eligible to be pursued upon its own account, and to be rested in as an end, is implied in the very idea of such principle or affection."—Butler, Sermons, Pref.[77]Inquiry concerning Virtue, II. i. 3.[78]Ibid., II. ii., conclusion.[79]System of Moral Philosophy, i. 99.[80]Sermons, xi.[81]Kritik der bisherigen Sittenlehre(1803), p. 54.[82]Inquiry, II. i. 3.[83]Inquiry, II. i. 3; II. ii. 2.[84]Ibid., II. i. 1.[85]"What is Reason but that sagacity we have in prosecuting any end? The ultimate end proposed by the common moralists is the happiness of the agent himself, and this certainly he is determined to pursue from instinct. Now may not another instinct towards the public, or the good of others, be as proper a principle of virtue as the instinct toward private happiness?"—Hutcheson, Inquiry, p. 115.[86]Cf. System, i. 97; Inquiry, p. 124.[87]Inquiry, p. 124.[88]Ibid., p. 106.[89]Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, with Illustrations on the Moral Sense (1728), p. xix.[90]Cf. Inquiry, p. 140 ff.[91]Introduction to Moral Philosophy, translated from the Latin, 2d ed., 1753, p. 43; cf. Essay on the Passions and Affections, &c., p. 128.[92]System, i. 58.[93]System, i. 53.[94]Ibid., i. 59.[95]System, i. 59.[96]System, i. 97.[97]System, i. 93.[98]System, i. 68 ff. With this may be compared the elaborate classification of motives, according to their moral quality, in Dr Martineau's 'Types of Ethical Theory,' ii. 176 ff.[99]System, i. 50.[100]Sermons, Pref.[101]Although it is not "at all doubtful in the general, what course of action this faculty or practical discerning power within us, approves.... It is ... justice, veracity, and regard to the common good."—Dissertation on Virtue.[102]Sermons, ii. iii.[103]Sermons, iii. v.[104]Ibid., xi.[105]Cf. Jodl,Geschichte der Ethik, i. 192.[106]The social basis of ethics is emphasised by Professor Bain in his Practical Essays (1884), p. 155: "'How is society to be held together?' is the first consideration; and the sociologist—as constitution-builder, administrator, judge—is the person to grapple with the problem. It is with him that law, obligation, right, command, obedience, sanction, have their origin and their explanation. Ethics is an important supplement to social or political law. But it is still a department of law. In any other view it is a maze, a mystery, a hopeless embroilment."[107]Without denying that it is possible to apply the theory of evolution to mind, Professor Bain holds that, as a fact, moral sentiment has not become organic and hereditary—"that there are no moral instincts properly so called."—The Emotions and the Will, 3d ed., p. 56.[108]First Principles, 4th ed., p. 380.[109]Science of Ethics, p. vi.[110]It would seem that the transmission of mental qualities only takes place in the form of modified physical structure (cf. G. H. Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind, 1st series, i. 164). But, if we regard it as established that every mental change has a structural modification corresponding to it, the possibility of mental evolution and inheritance presents no new difficulty.[111]Ælian, V. H., xiii. 30.[112]If conscience has no other function than that assigned to it by Clifford, Lectures and Essay, ii. 169, "the preservation of society in the struggle for existence," then it can never reach universal benevolence or prescribe "duties towards all mankind."[113]A difficulty of another kind is suggested by Professor Bain, who holds that the "pleasure of malevolence" is not only a real element in the human constitution, but greater than would be naturally called forth by the conditions and course of development. "It is remarked by Mr Spencer," he says, "that it was necessary for the progress of the race that destructive activity should not be painful, but on the whole pleasurable. In point of fact, however, the pleasure of destruction has gone much beyond what these words express, and much beyond what is advantageous to the collective interest of animals and of human beings alike. The positive delight in suffering has been at all stages too great."—The Emotions and the Will, p. 66. So far from adopting this argument, however, I must confess myself still amongst the unconvinced regarding the "pleasure of malevolence."[114]This subject is carefully discussed in Mr Stephen's 'Science of Ethics.'[115]Cf. Miss Cobbe, in 'Darwinism in Morals, and other Essays' (1872), p. 5.[116]Methods of Ethics, III. i. 4, 3d ed., p. 211.[117]Cf. Professor F. Pollock, "Evolution and Ethics"—Mind, i. pp. 335 ff. Apart from the bearing of a utilitarian test on inherited instincts, to which Mr Pollock refers, I have tried to show what meaning they will have for the evolutionist who judges them solely from the point of view of his theory.

FOOTNOTES:

[1]Werke, ed. Hartenstein (1867), iii. 532.

[2]Cf. Kant, Werke, iv. 237.

[3]Sermons, v., towards the end.

[4]Essay on the Passions and Affections, p. iv.

[5]W. H. Rolph,Biologische Probleme, zugleich als Versuch zur Entwicklung einer rationellen Ethik, 2d ed., p. 21.

[6]Not to mention Kant, the consistent opponent of every eudæmonistic principle, or the doctrines of a political idealist such as Mazzini (see Life and Writings (1867), iv. 223), reference may be made to a writer like W. K. Clifford, who looks from the scientific point of view, and yet holds that "happiness is not to be desired for its own sake."—Lectures and Essays (1879), ii. 121, 173.

[7]"Auch dieser Begriff [Glückseligkeit] ist an sich ein bloss formaler, der jede beliebige materiale Bestimmung zulässt."—Zeller, Ueber Begriff und Begründung der sittlichen Gesetze(1883), p. 23.

[8]Methods of Ethics, book i. chap. i. § 5, 3d ed., p. 11.

[9]"The rule, 'Let every one care for me,' is quite as simple, and, in a logical point of view, defines conduct as consistently and reasonably as the rule, 'Love your neighbour as yourself.'"—Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics (1882), p. 73.

[10]Methods of Ethics, I. i. 3, p. 6.

[11]The difference between Aristotle and Kant in ethics is sometimes expressed (see Trendelenburg, Hist. Beiträge zur Phil., iii. 171 ff.) as if it consisted in the fact that the former investigated human nature in order to find itsτέλος(~telos~), whereas the latter sought the standard of action in a transcendental ground. There is reason for this distinction in Kant's manner of statement. But both may be regarded as investigating human nature. Their difference rather consists in the different position and function assigned to reason in man. It is because Kant is for the moment looking upon reason as something distinct from human nature that he says that "the ground of obligation is to be sought, not in the nature of man or in the circumstances in the world in which he is placed, butà priorisimply in the notions of pure reason" (Werke, iv. 237). His "metaphysical" view of ethics, however, follows from the rational constitution of the human subject and his experience, and does not depend on any source that really "transcends" the reason of man.

[12]Opinion is also divided according to the place assigned to reason in the world,—this principle of division corresponding almost exactly with the former.

[13]Thus it is the object of Helvétius's firstdiscours"De l'esprit" to prove that physical sensibility and memory are the only productive causes of our ideas.

[14]Comte, by connecting ethics with biology; Darwin and Spencer, by the doctrine of evolution.

[15]Meaning by "greatest pleasure," greatest balance of pleasure over pain, and thus inclusive of the meaning "least pain." It is the expression in terms of feeling of the statement sometimes preferred, that "action follows the line of least resistance"—a statement to which no exception can be taken, nor any importance allowed, till it be translated into definite psychological language.

[16]"Ainsi lorsque nous disons quel'intérêt est l'unique mobile des actions humaines, nous voulons indiquer par là que chaque homme travaille à sa manière à son propre bonheur, qu'il place dans quelqu'objet soit visible, soit caché, soit réel, soit imaginaire, et que tout le système de sa conduite tend à l'obtenir."—Système de la nature(1781), i. 268.

[17]"On the occasion of every act he exercises, every human being is led to pursue that line of conduct which, according to his view of the case taken by him at the moment, will be in the highest degree contributory to his own greatest happiness."—Constitutional Code, book i. § 2; Works, ix. 5. The continued existence of the species is, Bentham thinks, a conclusive proof of this proposition.

[18]Thus, according to James Mill, "the terms 'idea of pleasure' and 'desire' are but two names; the thing named, the state of consciousness is one and the same. The word Desire is commonly used to mark the idea of a pleasurable sensation when the future is associated with it."—Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, J. S. Mill's edit., ii. 192; cf. Fragment on Mackintosh (1835), p. 389 f. To the same effect J. S. Mill says: "Desiring a thing and finding it pleasant, aversion to it and thinking of it as painful, are phenomena entirely inseparable, or rather two parts of the same phenomenon; in strictness of language, two different modes of naming the same psychological fact."—Utilitarianism, 7th ed., p. 58.

[19]"Will is the child of desire, and passes out of the dominion of its parent only to come under that of habit."—Utilitarianism, p. 60.

[20]Thus Jonathan Edwards says: "When I say that the Will is as the greatest apparent good, or (as I have explained it) that volition has always for its object the thing which appears most agreeable, it must be carefully observed, to avoid confusion and needless objection, that I speak of thedirectand immediate object of the act of volition, and not some object to which the act of will has only an indirect and remote respect."—On the Freedom of the Will, part i. § 2; Works, i. 133. The matter is put still more clearly by the late Alfred Barratt: "Action does not always follow knowledge. Of course not: but the doctrine [Hedonism] does not require that it should; for it says, not that we follow whatisour greatest possible pleasure, or what we know or 'think' to be so, but what at the moment of action is most desired."—Mind, vol. ii. 173; cf. Physical Ethics, p. 52 ff. So Mr Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 47: "It is more accurate to say that my conduct is determined by the pleasantest judgment, than to say that it is determined by my judgment of what is pleasantest." The negative side of the same view was expressed by Locke in his doctrine that action is moved by the most pressing uneasiness (Essay, II. xxi. 29, 31), and distinguished by him from the former view (b), that the "greater visible good" is the motive (II. xxi. 35, 44).

[21]Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, 3d ed., p. 40.

[22]Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation, chap. i., Works, i. 1. With this statement may be compared the assertion of Helvétius:"Il semble que, dans l'univers moral comme dans l'univers physique, Dieu n'est mis qu'un seul principe dans tous ce qui a été.... Il semble qu'il ait dit pareillement à l'homme: ... Je te mets sous la garde du plaisir et de la douleur: l'un et l'autre veilleront à tes pensées, à tes actions; engendreront tes passions, exciteront tes aversions, tes amitiés, tes tendresses, tes fureurs; allumeront tes désirs, tes craintes, tes espérances, te dévoileront des vérités; te plongeront dans des erreurs; et après t'avoir fait enfanter mille systèmes absurdes et différens de morale et de législation, te decouvriront un jour les principes simples, au développement desquels est attaché l'ordre et le bonheur du monde moral."—De l'esprit, III. ix, Œuvres(ed. of 1818), i. 293.

[23]De l'homme, concl. gén., Œuvres, ii. 608.

[24]Cf.Système de la nature, i. 120: "La politique devrait être l'art de régler les passions des hommes et de les diriger vers le bien de la société."

[25]Bentham,op. cit., chap. xix. (xvii. in the reprint of 1879), § 20; Works, i. 148.

[26]Cf. Bentham, Works, ix. 5.

[27]Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, I. iv. 1, 3d ed., p. 41; cf. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 9: "To a being who is simply a result of natural forces, an injunction to conform to their laws is unmeaning."

[28]Cf. The Emotions and the Will, 3d ed., p. 293 ff.

[29]Cf. Sully, Outlines of Psychology, p. 577.

[30]Cf. J. Grote, 'Utilitarian Philosophy,' p. 20, note: "One kind of pleasure may be, systematically, to be preferred to another, but it must be because the pleasures classified under it generally exceed those under the other in intensity, or some other of the elements of value."

[31]Professor Bain distinguishes with greater clearness than his predecessors, first, legal duty, or that the contravention of which is punished by the ministers of the state; secondly, moral duty, enforced by the unofficial punishment of social disapprobation; and thirdly, the conduct which society leaves to individual choice, without censuring either its commission or omission. Moral duty is further distinguished by him from the meritorious, or conduct which society encourages by approval, without censuring its omission.

[32]Mr Gurney's attempt (Mind, vii. 349 ff.) to rationalise the utilitarian "ought" depends upon the assumption that the individual feels a desire (not only for his own, but) for other people's pleasure (p. 352). From the point of view of the psychological hedonist, however, this desire is only secondary and derivative, depending upon the fact that it increases the pleasure of the subject. "Your pleasure," the psychological hedonist would say, "is desired by mequâmy pleasure." If, on the other hand, it is admitted that the individual has other ends than his own pleasure, there seems no ground in psychological fact for limiting these ends to something aimed at because pleasurable to others. From this point of view the first step in the establishment of an ethical theory would be an attempt to find a principle of unity in the various ends actually aimed at by individuals, and recognised by them as "good." This is made by Professor Sidgwick, who, while allowing that "it is possible to hold that the objective relations of conscious minds which we call cognition of Truth, contemplation of Beauty, Freedom of action, &c., are good, independently of the pleasures that we derive from them," maintains that "we can only justify to ourselves the importance that we attach to any of these objects by considering its conduciveness, in one way or another, to the happiness of conscious (or sentient) beings" (Methods of Ethics, iii. xiv. 3, 3d ed., p. 398). But Mr Sidgwick's Utilitarianism depends on a Rational view of human nature which is beyond the scope of the present discussion. See below,p. 74.

[33]Principles of Morals and Legislation, chap. iii. § 1; Works, i. 14.

[34]As Paley put it, with characteristic plainness of statement, "We can be obliged to nothing, but what we ourselves are to gain or lose something by."—Moral and Political Philosophy, book ii. chap. ii.

[35]Cf. Bain, Emotions, p. 264: "I consider that the proper meaning or import of these terms [Morality, Duty, Obligation, or Right] refers to the class of actions enforced by the sanction ofpunishment."

[36]Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation, chap. xix. (xvii.), § 9 ff; Works, i. 144 ff.

[37]Ibid., § 20, p. 148.

[38]Fragment on Government, chap. v.; Works, i. 293. Cf. Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch. iii. § 5, p. 14, where the Moral Sanction is said to proceed from "suchchancepersons in the community as the person in question may happen in the course of his life to have concerns with."

[39]Bentham, Fragment on Government,loc. cit.

[40]Works, xi. 95; cf. J. Grote, Utilitarian Philosophy, p. 137.

[41]Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch. xix. (xvii.), § 7 ff.

[42]Loc. cit., § 8, p. 144.

[43]"Ought" is inappropriate here according to Bentham's principles, since there is no question of punishment inflicted by a political or social or religious superior.

[44]Loc. cit., § 20, p. 148.

[45]Moral and Political Philosophy, book ii. chap. iii.

[46]This is clearly recognised by Bentham: "Theactualend [as distinguished from the right and proper end] of government is," he says, "in every political community, the greatest happiness of those, whether one or many, by whom the powers of government are exercised."—Constitutional Code, book i., Introd., § 2; Works, ix. 5.

[47]The Emotions and the Will, p. 264.

[48]Cf. Bain, The Emotions and the Will, p. 287. Professor Bain says (Emotions, p. 276 n.), "we ought to have a written code of public morality, or of the duties imposed by society, over and above what parliament imposes, and this should not be a loosely written moral treatise, but a strict enumeration of what society requires under pain of punishment by excommunication or otherwise,—the genuine offences that are not passed over." This would certainly be very desirable, were it not from the nature of the case impracticable. Popular judgment as to a man's conduct,—what society imposes,—is one of the things most difficult to predict: it is under the influence of most heterogeneous causes, personal, industrial, religious, political, &c. I do not think, for instance, that any one could safely undertake to describe exactly the kind of actions which will infallibly call forth the censure of British public opinion, or that of the smaller and intersecting groups into which society is divided.

[49]Emotions, p. 288.

[50]I have spoken, for simplicity's sake, as if there were two kinds of pleasure easily distinguishable. But the question is really much more complicated.

[51]Utilitarianism, p. 57.

[52]Ibid., p. 53.

[53]Utilitarianism, p. 46. But no statement of the sociality of man could be more explicit or satisfactory than that of Butler, Sermons, i.

[54]Utilitarianism, p. 48.

[55]Fragments on Ethical Subjects (1876), p. 6.

[56]The Emotions and the Will, 3d ed., p. 295.

[57]Ibid., p. 111; cf. Mind, viii. 55: "The important exceptions to the law of Pleasure and Pain are (1) Fixed Ideas, (2) Habits, and (3) Disinterested action for others."

[58]Emotions, p. 438.

[59]Emotions, p. 121.

[60]Ibid., p. 271 ff.

[61]Ibid., p. 273.

[62]Ibid., p. 264.

[63]Fragments on Ethical Subjects, p. 8 f.

[64]Ancient Law, 8th ed., p. 93.

[65]Principles of Morals and Legislation, chap. ii. § 14 n.

[66]The ambiguity of the phrase is explained in an interesting way in Sir H. Maine's account of the change from its juridical to a political or ethical meaning. In some writers it seems to have a third and still different signification. We must thus distinguish (1) the juridical meaning, originating in the Roman "law common to all nations," which had arisen through the "constantlevellingor removal of irregularities which went on wherever the prætorian system was applied to the cases of foreign litigants," modified subsequently by the Greek conception ofἰσότης(~isotês~). (2) The political meaning, that all men ought to be equal, arose from the preceding. But its notion of "ought" seems often to depend on an idea of the constitution of nature according to which all men are actually born equal—not only in rights, soon to be obscured by human convention, but also in power or faculty, afterwards unequally developed by education. Hence (3) the natural meaning. The doctrines of evolution and heredity have made this view seem as strange to us now as it would have done to the Romans from whom it was illegitimately derived. Yet at one time it seems to have been assumed, almost without question, that there is but little difference in the natural endowments of different men. This assumption lay at the basis of Hobbes's political theory—Leviathan, I. xiii. p. 60,—was stated in a more guarded form by Locke—On Education, § 1; Works, ed. of 1824, i. 6,—and adopted almost without qualification by Helvétius, who, carrying out Locke's metaphor of the soul as, at birth, a "tabula rasa," afterwards written over with the pen of experience, says: "Quintilien, Locke, et moi, disons: L'inégalité des esprits est l'effet d'une cause connue, et cette cause est la différence de l'éducation"—the causes of the existing inequality being afterwards stated as twofold: first, the difference of environment, which may be called chance; and secondly, the difference of strength in the desire for instruction.—De l'homme, II. i., III. i., IV. xxii.; Œuvres, ii. 71, 91, 280. (Quintilian's statement, however, is even more guarded than Locke's. Cf. Opera, ed. Spalding, i. 47.)

[67]That is, when (1) the legislature accurately expresses the average feeling of all the members of the State; or (2) the legislators happen to be fully intelligent people in whom "selfishness" has taken the shape of benevolence.

[68]Although, as is well known, propinquity was held by Bentham to be an independent ground of distinction and preference.—Principles of Morals and Legislation, chap. iv, sect. 2.

[69]"The very idea of an interested pursuit necessarily presupposes particular passions or appetites; since the very idea of interest or happiness consists in this, that an appetite or affection enjoys its object."—Sermons, Pref.; cf. Serm. xi.

[70]Phil., 31 ff.; cf. Gorg., 495 f.; Rep., ix. 585.

[71]Cf. Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, I. iv. 2, 3d ed., p. 44.

[72]Herbart,Psychologie als Wissenschaft, § 104, Werke, vi. 74; cf. Waitz, Lehrbuch der Psychologie als Naturwissenschaft, § 40, p. 418: "It is not difficult to recognise the basis of desire in the presentations brought forward by reproduction, and, at the same time, held back by an inhibition."

[73]With Herbart's doctrine may be compared Mr H. Spencer's view of the genesis of feeling and voluntary action, Principles of Psychology, 2d ed., part iv. chaps. viii. and ix.

[74]Cf. note to James Mill's Analysis, ii. 383 f.

[75]The Senses and the Intellect, 3d ed., p. 344; cf. Mental and Moral Science, pp. 90, 91.

[76]"If there be any principles or affections in the mind of man distinct from self-love, that the things those principles tend towards, or the objects of those affections are, each of them in themselves eligible to be pursued upon its own account, and to be rested in as an end, is implied in the very idea of such principle or affection."—Butler, Sermons, Pref.

[77]Inquiry concerning Virtue, II. i. 3.

[78]Ibid., II. ii., conclusion.

[79]System of Moral Philosophy, i. 99.

[80]Sermons, xi.

[81]Kritik der bisherigen Sittenlehre(1803), p. 54.

[82]Inquiry, II. i. 3.

[83]Inquiry, II. i. 3; II. ii. 2.

[84]Ibid., II. i. 1.

[85]"What is Reason but that sagacity we have in prosecuting any end? The ultimate end proposed by the common moralists is the happiness of the agent himself, and this certainly he is determined to pursue from instinct. Now may not another instinct towards the public, or the good of others, be as proper a principle of virtue as the instinct toward private happiness?"—Hutcheson, Inquiry, p. 115.

[86]Cf. System, i. 97; Inquiry, p. 124.

[87]Inquiry, p. 124.

[88]Ibid., p. 106.

[89]Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, with Illustrations on the Moral Sense (1728), p. xix.

[90]Cf. Inquiry, p. 140 ff.

[91]Introduction to Moral Philosophy, translated from the Latin, 2d ed., 1753, p. 43; cf. Essay on the Passions and Affections, &c., p. 128.

[92]System, i. 58.

[93]System, i. 53.

[94]Ibid., i. 59.

[95]System, i. 59.

[96]System, i. 97.

[97]System, i. 93.

[98]System, i. 68 ff. With this may be compared the elaborate classification of motives, according to their moral quality, in Dr Martineau's 'Types of Ethical Theory,' ii. 176 ff.

[99]System, i. 50.

[100]Sermons, Pref.

[101]Although it is not "at all doubtful in the general, what course of action this faculty or practical discerning power within us, approves.... It is ... justice, veracity, and regard to the common good."—Dissertation on Virtue.

[102]Sermons, ii. iii.

[103]Sermons, iii. v.

[104]Ibid., xi.

[105]Cf. Jodl,Geschichte der Ethik, i. 192.

[106]The social basis of ethics is emphasised by Professor Bain in his Practical Essays (1884), p. 155: "'How is society to be held together?' is the first consideration; and the sociologist—as constitution-builder, administrator, judge—is the person to grapple with the problem. It is with him that law, obligation, right, command, obedience, sanction, have their origin and their explanation. Ethics is an important supplement to social or political law. But it is still a department of law. In any other view it is a maze, a mystery, a hopeless embroilment."

[107]Without denying that it is possible to apply the theory of evolution to mind, Professor Bain holds that, as a fact, moral sentiment has not become organic and hereditary—"that there are no moral instincts properly so called."—The Emotions and the Will, 3d ed., p. 56.

[108]First Principles, 4th ed., p. 380.

[109]Science of Ethics, p. vi.

[110]It would seem that the transmission of mental qualities only takes place in the form of modified physical structure (cf. G. H. Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind, 1st series, i. 164). But, if we regard it as established that every mental change has a structural modification corresponding to it, the possibility of mental evolution and inheritance presents no new difficulty.

[111]Ælian, V. H., xiii. 30.

[112]If conscience has no other function than that assigned to it by Clifford, Lectures and Essay, ii. 169, "the preservation of society in the struggle for existence," then it can never reach universal benevolence or prescribe "duties towards all mankind."

[113]A difficulty of another kind is suggested by Professor Bain, who holds that the "pleasure of malevolence" is not only a real element in the human constitution, but greater than would be naturally called forth by the conditions and course of development. "It is remarked by Mr Spencer," he says, "that it was necessary for the progress of the race that destructive activity should not be painful, but on the whole pleasurable. In point of fact, however, the pleasure of destruction has gone much beyond what these words express, and much beyond what is advantageous to the collective interest of animals and of human beings alike. The positive delight in suffering has been at all stages too great."—The Emotions and the Will, p. 66. So far from adopting this argument, however, I must confess myself still amongst the unconvinced regarding the "pleasure of malevolence."

[114]This subject is carefully discussed in Mr Stephen's 'Science of Ethics.'

[115]Cf. Miss Cobbe, in 'Darwinism in Morals, and other Essays' (1872), p. 5.

[116]Methods of Ethics, III. i. 4, 3d ed., p. 211.

[117]Cf. Professor F. Pollock, "Evolution and Ethics"—Mind, i. pp. 335 ff. Apart from the bearing of a utilitarian test on inherited instincts, to which Mr Pollock refers, I have tried to show what meaning they will have for the evolutionist who judges them solely from the point of view of his theory.

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