Chapter 14

[118]Traité des sensations, Œuvres(1798), vol. iii.[119]It is to a condition of this sort that a phrase such as Clifford's "tribal self" (Lectures and Essays, ii. 111) would apply.[120]Cf. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 479.[121]Cf. Barratt, "Ethics and Politics"—Mind, ii. 453 ff.[122]Cf. Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 113.[123]Wealth of Nations, book iv. ch. ii.[124]Data of Ethics, chap. xiii.[125]Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 155; cf. Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 120.[126]Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 226.[127]Science of Ethics, p. 263.[128]Cf. Ibid., p. 442.[129]Data of Ethics, p. 253[130]Science of Ethics, p. 349.[131]F. Y. Edgeworth, Old and New Methods of Ethics (1877), p. 11.[132]Cf. A. Barratt, Mind, iii. 280.[133]Data of Ethics, chap. xii.[134]Physical Ethics, p. 12.[135]Ibid., p. 17.[136]In the word "due" an idea of worth is involved. Probably Mr Barratt meant by "due performance" one which made the faculty correspond with its medium (cf. Physical Ethics, p. 9); but this introduces a new standard of value.[137]The transition involved in passing from "pleasure" to "performance of function" or "life" as the end of conduct, may be illustrated by the following passage from Mr Pater's 'Marius the Epicurean' (1885, i. 163): "Really, to the phase of reflection through which Marius was then passing, the charge of 'hedonism,' whatever its real weight might be, was not properly applicable at all. Not pleasure, but fulness of life, and 'insight' as conducting to that fulness—energy, choice and variety of experience—including noble pain and sorrow even—loves such as those in the exquisite old story of Apuleius; such sincere and strenuous forms of the moral life, as Seneca and Epictetus—whatever form of human life, in short, was impassioned and ideal: it was from this that the 'new Cyrenaicism' of Marius took its criterion of values. It was a theory, indeed, which might rightly be regarded as in a great degree coincident with the main principle of the Stoics themselves, and a version of the precept 'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might'—a doctrine so widely applicable among the nobler spirits of that time; and as with that its mistaken tendency would lie in the direction of a kind of idolatry of mere life, or natural gift or strength—l'idolâtrie des talents."[138]"The note in question greatly startled me by implicitly classing me with anti-utilitarians. I have never regarded myself as an anti-utilitarian."—Mr Spencer's letter to J. S. Mill, printed in Bain's Mental and Moral Science, p. 721.[139]Data of Ethics, p. 173; cf. p. 30.[140]Ibid., pp. 154, 155.[141]Ibid., p. 171.[142]Letter to J. S. Mill, in Data of Ethics, p. 57.[143]Letter to J. S. Mill, in Bain's Mental and Moral Science, p. 721.[144]J. T. Punnet, "Ethical Alternatives"—Mind, x. 95.[145]Science of Ethics, p. 363.[146]Natural Law: An Essay in Ethics (1877), p. 101.[147]Utilitarianism, p. 34.[148]Utilitarianism, p. 26.[149]Ibid., p. 27 n.[150]Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 385.[151]Ibid., p. 361.[152]Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 14.[153]Simcox, Natural Law, p. 101.[154]Data of Ethics, p. 171.[155]Data of Ethics, p. 162.[156]Ibid., p. 57.[157]Cf. A. Barratt, in Mind, ii. 172 n.[158]As illustrating this I may refer to G. v. Giźycki,Philosophische Consequenzen der Lamarck-Darwin'schen Entwicklungstheorie (1876), p. 27: "Wir haben oben die Erhaltung und Förderung des Lebens des Individuums und der Gattung als das eine Ziel der Einrichtung des geistigen Organismus gekennzeichnet." P. 58: "Auf das Streben nach in sich befriedigtem psychischen Leben [that is to say, pleasure] sind alle animalen Organismen angelegt."In his popular essay, 'Grundzüge der Moral' (1883), Dr Giźycki's principle and method are utilitarian. With the above may be compared Guyau,Esquisse d'une morale sans obligation ni sanction (1885), p. 15: "L'action sort naturellement du fonctionnement de la vie, en grande partie inconscient; elle entre aussitôt dans le domaine de la conscience et de la jouissance, mais elle n'en vient pas. La tendance de l'être à persévérer dans l'être est le fond de tout désir sans constituer elle-même un désir déterminé."[159]Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 82 f; Principles of Psychology, § 125, 3d ed., i. 280; Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 83. The simplicity of this argument will be appreciated if we consider the difficulty Comte experienced in trying to reach a similar conclusion. See Positive Philosophy, Miss Martineau's translation, ii. 87 ff.[160]Cf.Phänomenologie des sittlichen Bewusstseins, pp. 701, 708.[161]Cf. Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, 3d ed., p. 127.[162]Data of Ethics, p. 26.[163]Cf. Vaihinger, Hartmann, Dühring und Lange (1876), p. 124.[164]Cf. Sully, Pessimism, p. 216.[165]See above, p. 167 f.[166]Cf. Fiske, Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy (1874), ii. 332 f.[167]"Imitation," according to Kant (Grundlegung zur Met. d. Sitten, Werke, iv. 257), "has no place at all in morals;" and this is true if the naked law of duty—or respect for it—is the sole ethical motive. But if morality consists in the attainment of an ideal which is being gradually realised in man, moral value will not be denied to the motive which leads the individual to fashion his own nature after that in which morality has attained more complete realisation.[168]See the concluding pages of this chapter.[169]Philosophie des Unbewussten, 6th ed., p. 660 ff.[170]Cf. Sully, Pessimism, p. 226 n.[171]Cf. J. Ward, Journal of Speculative Philosophy, xvi. (1882), 377.[172]Phil. d. Unbewussten, p. 747.[173]Bentham, Theory of Legislation (by Dumont, 1876), p. 103 ff. Wundt,Physiologische Psychologie, 2d ed., p. 469, finds in this an instance of Weber's law. Thus, the man with £100 receives the same pleasure on receipt of £1, as the possessor of £1000 does on receiving £10. As Wundt remarks, however, this is only true within certain limits. Sixpence may give more pleasure to a beggar who is never far from the starvation-point, than the clearing of a million to Baron Rothschild. Further than this, the law only states an "abstract" truth. For the susceptibility to pleasure is not only very different in different individuals, but this difference depends on many other circumstances than the amount of wealth already in possession,—such as original emotional susceptibility, &c.[174]Cf. Comte, Positive Philosophy, ii. 144.[175]Phän. d. s. B., p. 640.[176]Lectures on Metaphysics, ii. 432.[177]L. Dumont,Théorie scientifique de la sensibilité, 2d ed., p. 83; cf. F. Bouillier,Du plaisir et de la douleur, 2d ed., p. 29 ff. Reference may also be made to the leading psychological text-book. "Das Gefühl," says Volkmann (Lehrbuch der Psychologie, § 127, 3d ed., ii. 300), "ist nämlich keine eigene Vorstellung neben den anderen (es gibt keine eigenen 'Gefühlsvorstellungen'), ja überhaupt gar keine Vorstellung." Professor Bain's view is different, but does not altogether prevent him from acknowledging the subjectivity of feeling: "Without intellectual images clearly recollected, we do not remember feelings; the reproduction of feeling is an intellectual fact, and the groundwork is intellectual imagery."—Emotions, p. 63.[178]Cf. Green, Introduction to Hume, ii. § 7.[179]Cf. Spinoza, Ethica, iii. 11, schol.; Hobbes, Leviathan, i. 6, p. 25; Bain, The Senses and the Intellect, p. 283. Professor Bain's statement is carefully guarded: "A very considerable number of the facts may be brought under the following principle—namely, that states of pleasure are connected with an increase, and states of pain with an abatement, of some, or all, of the vital functions."[180]As Mr Spencer allows, Psychology, § 126, i. 284: "In the case of mankind, then, there has arisen, and must long continue, a deep and involved derangement of the natural connections between pleasures and beneficial actions, and between pains and detrimental actions."[181]The Senses and the Intellect, p. 286. The Law of Conservation is incomplete, Mr Bain holds, and must be supplemented by the Law of Stimulation (p. 294).[182]Spencer, Psychology, § 123, i. 277: "Generally speaking, then, pleasures are the concomitants of medium activities, where the activities are of kinds liable to be in excess or in defect; and where they are of kinds not liable to be excessive, pleasure increases as the activity increases, except where the activity is either constant or involuntary."[183]Hamilton, Lectures, ii. 440: "Pleasure is the reflex of the spontaneous and unimpeded exertion of a power of whose energies we are conscious. Pain, a reflex of the overstrained or repressed exertion of such a power." Cf. Aristotle, Eth. N., vii. 12, p. 1153 a 14, x. 4, p. 1174 b 20.[184]Théorie scientifique, p. 78.[185]Cf. Wundt, Physiol. Psych., p. 470; Fechner,Vorschule der Aesthetik, ii. 243 f.[186]Exam. of Hamilton's Philosophy, 5th ed., p. 559.[187]See Fechner,loc. cit.[188]Social Statics, p. 79.[189]Data of Ethics, p. 186.[190]Mind, vi. 85.[191]Taking evolution in its widest sense, since the theory of evolution does not "imply some intrinsic proclivity in every species towards a higher form."—Spencer, First Principles, App. p. 574; Principles of Sociology, i. 106.[192]Spencer, Principles of Biology, i. 73.[193]Ibid., i. 82.[194]Reden (1876), ii. 332.[195]Social Statics (1850), p. 77.[196]Data of Ethics, p. 25.[197]Data of Ethics, p. 16.[198]Ibid., p. 71.[199]See above, chap. vi. p. 137 ff.[200]Zeller, Phil. d. Griechen, 3d ed., III. i. 454, 470.[201]Lassalle's tirade against the "verdammte Bedürfnisslosigkeit" of the German workman is a case in point.[202]Lange,Gesch. d. Materialismus, 2d ed., ii. 458.[203]Spencer, First Principles, p. 490.[204]An aspect of Mr Spencer's ethical theory which will be considered in the sequel: p. 228 ff.[205]Cf. A. Barratt, Physical Ethics, p. 294, where morality is placed in "reasonable obedience to the physical laws of nature."[206]Data of Ethics, p. 148.[207]Social Statics, quoted in Data of Ethics, p. 271.[208]Data of Ethics, p. 279.[209]Ibid., p. 275.[210]Data of Ethics, p. 7.[211]Ibid., p. 281.[212]These are examined by Mr F. W. Maitland, in an incisive criticism of "Mr H. Spencer's Theory of Society," Mind, viii. 354 ff., 506 ff.[213]Data of Ethics, p. 282.[214]Ibid., p. 283.[215]First Principles, p. 517.[216]Spencer, Psychology, § 212, i. 478.[217]First Principles, p. 489.[218]"A complete equilibrium of the aggregate is without life, and a moving equilibrium of the aggregate is living."—Principles of Sociology, i. 106.[219]Data of Ethics, p. 254.[220]Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 26.[221]Darwin, Origin of Species (1859), pp. 43, 131, 466.[222]Spencer, Biology, i. 257.[223]First Principles, p. 404 f.[224]Cf. Clifford, Lectures and Essays, i. 101.[225]Descent of Man, 2d ed., p. 137, cf. pp. 198, 618; cf. A. R. Wallace, Contributions (1870), p. 330.[226]Vierteljahrsschrift f. wiss. Phil., i. (1877), 543 ff.[227]Rolph, Biol. Probl., p. 33.[228]Darwin, Origin of Species, p. 336.[229]Thus Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 51, speaking of the "advantage to man" it must have been "to become a biped," says: "The hands and arms could hardly have become perfect enough to have manufactured weapons, or to have hurled stones and spears with a true aim, as long as they were habitually used for locomotion and for supporting the whole weight of the body; or, as before remarked, as long as they were especially fitted for climbing trees." The hands had to lose their dexterity for the latter purposes before they could acquire the more delicate adjustments necessary for skill in the former. The transition was of course a gradual one; but the initial variations required would seem to have been at first unfavourable to man's chances in the struggle for existence, though it was through them that he rose to his place at the summit of the organic scale.[230]Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 280.[231]Spencer, Biology, i. 149.[232]ibid., i. 144.[233]Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 71: "Briefly, then, if the conduct is the best possible on every occasion, it follows that as the occasions are endlessly varied the acts will be endlessly varied to suit—the heterogeneity in the combination of motions will be extreme."[234]Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 106: "The acts characterised by the more complex motives and the more involved thoughts, have all along been of higher authority for guidance."[235]Cf. Clifford, Lectures and Essays, i. 94 f., where a similar definition is given in answer to the question, "What is the meaning ofbetter?"[236]Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 63.[237]Cf. Spencer, First Principles, p. 566.[238]So far as the following criticism may appear to apply to Mr Spencer, and not merely to a possible way of defining moral conduct, it is necessary to bear in mind the words of his preface to the 'Data of Ethics': "With a view to clearness, I have treated separately some correlative aspects of conduct, drawing conclusions either of which becomes untrue if divorced from the other."[239]Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 75 f.[240]Data of Ethics, p. 106.[241]Although Mr Spencer holds that representativeness varies as definiteness, and measures complexity, including that complexity implied by increasing heterogeneity.—Principles of Psychology, ii. 516 f.[242]Data of Ethics, p. 113.[243]Cf. Principles of Sociology, ii. 725.[244]Data of Ethics, p. 123.[245]Data of Ethics, pp. 107, 129.[246]Ibid., p. 110.[247]Data of Ethics, p. 25; cf. Lange, Ges. d. Mat., ii. 247. Lange's statement is noteworthy: "Die menschliche Vernunft kennt kein anderes Ideal, als die möglichste Erhaltung und Vervollkommnung des Lebens, welches einmal begonnen hat, verbunden mit der Einschränkung von Geburt und Tod."[248]The "endeavour to further evolution, especially that of the human race," is put forward as a "new duty" by Mr F. Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development (1883), p. 337.[249]Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 121; Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 366. Earlier than either of these writers, Dr Hutchison Stirling suggested Health as a practical principle to be set against the anarchy of individualism. But with him, it is not an empirical generalisation of the tendency of evolution. It is as "the outward sign of freedom, the realisation of the universal will," that "health may be set at once as sign and as goal of the harmonious operation of the whole system—as sign and as goal of a realisation of life."—Secret of Hegel, ii. 554.[250]Naturrecht auf dem Grunde der Ethik, 2d ed., 1868.[251]Cf. E. Simcox, Natural Law, p. 97.[252]Simcox, Natural Law, p. 86.[253]Ibid., p. 87.[254]Ibid., p. 90.[255]Ibid., p. 99.[256]Simcox, Natural Law, p. 104.[257]Ibid., p. 87.[258]Science of Ethics, p. 76.[259]Science of Ethics, p. 74.[260]Even were we to succeed in getting a satisfactory view of the type, we should still have to leave room for the individuality of each person, which is such that his function must differ in a manner corresponding to his peculiar nature and surroundings (cf. Lotze, Grundzüge der praktischen Phil., p. 13 f.)[261]Simcox, Natural Law, p. 88.

[118]Traité des sensations, Œuvres(1798), vol. iii.

[119]It is to a condition of this sort that a phrase such as Clifford's "tribal self" (Lectures and Essays, ii. 111) would apply.

[120]Cf. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 479.

[121]Cf. Barratt, "Ethics and Politics"—Mind, ii. 453 ff.

[122]Cf. Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 113.

[123]Wealth of Nations, book iv. ch. ii.

[124]Data of Ethics, chap. xiii.

[125]Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 155; cf. Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 120.

[126]Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 226.

[127]Science of Ethics, p. 263.

[128]Cf. Ibid., p. 442.

[129]Data of Ethics, p. 253

[130]Science of Ethics, p. 349.

[131]F. Y. Edgeworth, Old and New Methods of Ethics (1877), p. 11.

[132]Cf. A. Barratt, Mind, iii. 280.

[133]Data of Ethics, chap. xii.

[134]Physical Ethics, p. 12.

[135]Ibid., p. 17.

[136]In the word "due" an idea of worth is involved. Probably Mr Barratt meant by "due performance" one which made the faculty correspond with its medium (cf. Physical Ethics, p. 9); but this introduces a new standard of value.

[137]The transition involved in passing from "pleasure" to "performance of function" or "life" as the end of conduct, may be illustrated by the following passage from Mr Pater's 'Marius the Epicurean' (1885, i. 163): "Really, to the phase of reflection through which Marius was then passing, the charge of 'hedonism,' whatever its real weight might be, was not properly applicable at all. Not pleasure, but fulness of life, and 'insight' as conducting to that fulness—energy, choice and variety of experience—including noble pain and sorrow even—loves such as those in the exquisite old story of Apuleius; such sincere and strenuous forms of the moral life, as Seneca and Epictetus—whatever form of human life, in short, was impassioned and ideal: it was from this that the 'new Cyrenaicism' of Marius took its criterion of values. It was a theory, indeed, which might rightly be regarded as in a great degree coincident with the main principle of the Stoics themselves, and a version of the precept 'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might'—a doctrine so widely applicable among the nobler spirits of that time; and as with that its mistaken tendency would lie in the direction of a kind of idolatry of mere life, or natural gift or strength—l'idolâtrie des talents."

[138]"The note in question greatly startled me by implicitly classing me with anti-utilitarians. I have never regarded myself as an anti-utilitarian."—Mr Spencer's letter to J. S. Mill, printed in Bain's Mental and Moral Science, p. 721.

[139]Data of Ethics, p. 173; cf. p. 30.

[140]Ibid., pp. 154, 155.

[141]Ibid., p. 171.

[142]Letter to J. S. Mill, in Data of Ethics, p. 57.

[143]Letter to J. S. Mill, in Bain's Mental and Moral Science, p. 721.

[144]J. T. Punnet, "Ethical Alternatives"—Mind, x. 95.

[145]Science of Ethics, p. 363.

[146]Natural Law: An Essay in Ethics (1877), p. 101.

[147]Utilitarianism, p. 34.

[148]Utilitarianism, p. 26.

[149]Ibid., p. 27 n.

[150]Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 385.

[151]Ibid., p. 361.

[152]Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 14.

[153]Simcox, Natural Law, p. 101.

[154]Data of Ethics, p. 171.

[155]Data of Ethics, p. 162.

[156]Ibid., p. 57.

[157]Cf. A. Barratt, in Mind, ii. 172 n.

[158]As illustrating this I may refer to G. v. Giźycki,Philosophische Consequenzen der Lamarck-Darwin'schen Entwicklungstheorie (1876), p. 27: "Wir haben oben die Erhaltung und Förderung des Lebens des Individuums und der Gattung als das eine Ziel der Einrichtung des geistigen Organismus gekennzeichnet." P. 58: "Auf das Streben nach in sich befriedigtem psychischen Leben [that is to say, pleasure] sind alle animalen Organismen angelegt."In his popular essay, 'Grundzüge der Moral' (1883), Dr Giźycki's principle and method are utilitarian. With the above may be compared Guyau,Esquisse d'une morale sans obligation ni sanction (1885), p. 15: "L'action sort naturellement du fonctionnement de la vie, en grande partie inconscient; elle entre aussitôt dans le domaine de la conscience et de la jouissance, mais elle n'en vient pas. La tendance de l'être à persévérer dans l'être est le fond de tout désir sans constituer elle-même un désir déterminé."

[159]Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 82 f; Principles of Psychology, § 125, 3d ed., i. 280; Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 83. The simplicity of this argument will be appreciated if we consider the difficulty Comte experienced in trying to reach a similar conclusion. See Positive Philosophy, Miss Martineau's translation, ii. 87 ff.

[160]Cf.Phänomenologie des sittlichen Bewusstseins, pp. 701, 708.

[161]Cf. Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, 3d ed., p. 127.

[162]Data of Ethics, p. 26.

[163]Cf. Vaihinger, Hartmann, Dühring und Lange (1876), p. 124.

[164]Cf. Sully, Pessimism, p. 216.

[165]See above, p. 167 f.

[166]Cf. Fiske, Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy (1874), ii. 332 f.

[167]"Imitation," according to Kant (Grundlegung zur Met. d. Sitten, Werke, iv. 257), "has no place at all in morals;" and this is true if the naked law of duty—or respect for it—is the sole ethical motive. But if morality consists in the attainment of an ideal which is being gradually realised in man, moral value will not be denied to the motive which leads the individual to fashion his own nature after that in which morality has attained more complete realisation.

[168]See the concluding pages of this chapter.

[169]Philosophie des Unbewussten, 6th ed., p. 660 ff.

[170]Cf. Sully, Pessimism, p. 226 n.

[171]Cf. J. Ward, Journal of Speculative Philosophy, xvi. (1882), 377.

[172]Phil. d. Unbewussten, p. 747.

[173]Bentham, Theory of Legislation (by Dumont, 1876), p. 103 ff. Wundt,Physiologische Psychologie, 2d ed., p. 469, finds in this an instance of Weber's law. Thus, the man with £100 receives the same pleasure on receipt of £1, as the possessor of £1000 does on receiving £10. As Wundt remarks, however, this is only true within certain limits. Sixpence may give more pleasure to a beggar who is never far from the starvation-point, than the clearing of a million to Baron Rothschild. Further than this, the law only states an "abstract" truth. For the susceptibility to pleasure is not only very different in different individuals, but this difference depends on many other circumstances than the amount of wealth already in possession,—such as original emotional susceptibility, &c.

[174]Cf. Comte, Positive Philosophy, ii. 144.

[175]Phän. d. s. B., p. 640.

[176]Lectures on Metaphysics, ii. 432.

[177]L. Dumont,Théorie scientifique de la sensibilité, 2d ed., p. 83; cf. F. Bouillier,Du plaisir et de la douleur, 2d ed., p. 29 ff. Reference may also be made to the leading psychological text-book. "Das Gefühl," says Volkmann (Lehrbuch der Psychologie, § 127, 3d ed., ii. 300), "ist nämlich keine eigene Vorstellung neben den anderen (es gibt keine eigenen 'Gefühlsvorstellungen'), ja überhaupt gar keine Vorstellung." Professor Bain's view is different, but does not altogether prevent him from acknowledging the subjectivity of feeling: "Without intellectual images clearly recollected, we do not remember feelings; the reproduction of feeling is an intellectual fact, and the groundwork is intellectual imagery."—Emotions, p. 63.

[178]Cf. Green, Introduction to Hume, ii. § 7.

[179]Cf. Spinoza, Ethica, iii. 11, schol.; Hobbes, Leviathan, i. 6, p. 25; Bain, The Senses and the Intellect, p. 283. Professor Bain's statement is carefully guarded: "A very considerable number of the facts may be brought under the following principle—namely, that states of pleasure are connected with an increase, and states of pain with an abatement, of some, or all, of the vital functions."

[180]As Mr Spencer allows, Psychology, § 126, i. 284: "In the case of mankind, then, there has arisen, and must long continue, a deep and involved derangement of the natural connections between pleasures and beneficial actions, and between pains and detrimental actions."

[181]The Senses and the Intellect, p. 286. The Law of Conservation is incomplete, Mr Bain holds, and must be supplemented by the Law of Stimulation (p. 294).

[182]Spencer, Psychology, § 123, i. 277: "Generally speaking, then, pleasures are the concomitants of medium activities, where the activities are of kinds liable to be in excess or in defect; and where they are of kinds not liable to be excessive, pleasure increases as the activity increases, except where the activity is either constant or involuntary."

[183]Hamilton, Lectures, ii. 440: "Pleasure is the reflex of the spontaneous and unimpeded exertion of a power of whose energies we are conscious. Pain, a reflex of the overstrained or repressed exertion of such a power." Cf. Aristotle, Eth. N., vii. 12, p. 1153 a 14, x. 4, p. 1174 b 20.

[184]Théorie scientifique, p. 78.

[185]Cf. Wundt, Physiol. Psych., p. 470; Fechner,Vorschule der Aesthetik, ii. 243 f.

[186]Exam. of Hamilton's Philosophy, 5th ed., p. 559.

[187]See Fechner,loc. cit.

[188]Social Statics, p. 79.

[189]Data of Ethics, p. 186.

[190]Mind, vi. 85.

[191]Taking evolution in its widest sense, since the theory of evolution does not "imply some intrinsic proclivity in every species towards a higher form."—Spencer, First Principles, App. p. 574; Principles of Sociology, i. 106.

[192]Spencer, Principles of Biology, i. 73.

[193]Ibid., i. 82.

[194]Reden (1876), ii. 332.

[195]Social Statics (1850), p. 77.

[196]Data of Ethics, p. 25.

[197]Data of Ethics, p. 16.

[198]Ibid., p. 71.

[199]See above, chap. vi. p. 137 ff.

[200]Zeller, Phil. d. Griechen, 3d ed., III. i. 454, 470.

[201]Lassalle's tirade against the "verdammte Bedürfnisslosigkeit" of the German workman is a case in point.

[202]Lange,Gesch. d. Materialismus, 2d ed., ii. 458.

[203]Spencer, First Principles, p. 490.

[204]An aspect of Mr Spencer's ethical theory which will be considered in the sequel: p. 228 ff.

[205]Cf. A. Barratt, Physical Ethics, p. 294, where morality is placed in "reasonable obedience to the physical laws of nature."

[206]Data of Ethics, p. 148.

[207]Social Statics, quoted in Data of Ethics, p. 271.

[208]Data of Ethics, p. 279.

[209]Ibid., p. 275.

[210]Data of Ethics, p. 7.

[211]Ibid., p. 281.

[212]These are examined by Mr F. W. Maitland, in an incisive criticism of "Mr H. Spencer's Theory of Society," Mind, viii. 354 ff., 506 ff.

[213]Data of Ethics, p. 282.

[214]Ibid., p. 283.

[215]First Principles, p. 517.

[216]Spencer, Psychology, § 212, i. 478.

[217]First Principles, p. 489.

[218]"A complete equilibrium of the aggregate is without life, and a moving equilibrium of the aggregate is living."—Principles of Sociology, i. 106.

[219]Data of Ethics, p. 254.

[220]Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 26.

[221]Darwin, Origin of Species (1859), pp. 43, 131, 466.

[222]Spencer, Biology, i. 257.

[223]First Principles, p. 404 f.

[224]Cf. Clifford, Lectures and Essays, i. 101.

[225]Descent of Man, 2d ed., p. 137, cf. pp. 198, 618; cf. A. R. Wallace, Contributions (1870), p. 330.

[226]Vierteljahrsschrift f. wiss. Phil., i. (1877), 543 ff.

[227]Rolph, Biol. Probl., p. 33.

[228]Darwin, Origin of Species, p. 336.

[229]Thus Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 51, speaking of the "advantage to man" it must have been "to become a biped," says: "The hands and arms could hardly have become perfect enough to have manufactured weapons, or to have hurled stones and spears with a true aim, as long as they were habitually used for locomotion and for supporting the whole weight of the body; or, as before remarked, as long as they were especially fitted for climbing trees." The hands had to lose their dexterity for the latter purposes before they could acquire the more delicate adjustments necessary for skill in the former. The transition was of course a gradual one; but the initial variations required would seem to have been at first unfavourable to man's chances in the struggle for existence, though it was through them that he rose to his place at the summit of the organic scale.

[230]Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 280.

[231]Spencer, Biology, i. 149.

[232]ibid., i. 144.

[233]Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 71: "Briefly, then, if the conduct is the best possible on every occasion, it follows that as the occasions are endlessly varied the acts will be endlessly varied to suit—the heterogeneity in the combination of motions will be extreme."

[234]Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 106: "The acts characterised by the more complex motives and the more involved thoughts, have all along been of higher authority for guidance."

[235]Cf. Clifford, Lectures and Essays, i. 94 f., where a similar definition is given in answer to the question, "What is the meaning ofbetter?"

[236]Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 63.

[237]Cf. Spencer, First Principles, p. 566.

[238]So far as the following criticism may appear to apply to Mr Spencer, and not merely to a possible way of defining moral conduct, it is necessary to bear in mind the words of his preface to the 'Data of Ethics': "With a view to clearness, I have treated separately some correlative aspects of conduct, drawing conclusions either of which becomes untrue if divorced from the other."

[239]Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 75 f.

[240]Data of Ethics, p. 106.

[241]Although Mr Spencer holds that representativeness varies as definiteness, and measures complexity, including that complexity implied by increasing heterogeneity.—Principles of Psychology, ii. 516 f.

[242]Data of Ethics, p. 113.

[243]Cf. Principles of Sociology, ii. 725.

[244]Data of Ethics, p. 123.

[245]Data of Ethics, pp. 107, 129.

[246]Ibid., p. 110.

[247]Data of Ethics, p. 25; cf. Lange, Ges. d. Mat., ii. 247. Lange's statement is noteworthy: "Die menschliche Vernunft kennt kein anderes Ideal, als die möglichste Erhaltung und Vervollkommnung des Lebens, welches einmal begonnen hat, verbunden mit der Einschränkung von Geburt und Tod."

[248]The "endeavour to further evolution, especially that of the human race," is put forward as a "new duty" by Mr F. Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development (1883), p. 337.

[249]Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 121; Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 366. Earlier than either of these writers, Dr Hutchison Stirling suggested Health as a practical principle to be set against the anarchy of individualism. But with him, it is not an empirical generalisation of the tendency of evolution. It is as "the outward sign of freedom, the realisation of the universal will," that "health may be set at once as sign and as goal of the harmonious operation of the whole system—as sign and as goal of a realisation of life."—Secret of Hegel, ii. 554.

[250]Naturrecht auf dem Grunde der Ethik, 2d ed., 1868.

[251]Cf. E. Simcox, Natural Law, p. 97.

[252]Simcox, Natural Law, p. 86.

[253]Ibid., p. 87.

[254]Ibid., p. 90.

[255]Ibid., p. 99.

[256]Simcox, Natural Law, p. 104.

[257]Ibid., p. 87.

[258]Science of Ethics, p. 76.

[259]Science of Ethics, p. 74.

[260]Even were we to succeed in getting a satisfactory view of the type, we should still have to leave room for the individuality of each person, which is such that his function must differ in a manner corresponding to his peculiar nature and surroundings (cf. Lotze, Grundzüge der praktischen Phil., p. 13 f.)

[261]Simcox, Natural Law, p. 88.

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