The best life for humanity is that which is, on the whole, felt best; not necessarily that which is judged best by this man or that, for our judgments are narrow and misrepresent actual values,-but that which has had from beginning to end the greatest total of happiness. No other ultimate criterion for conduct can ever justify itself, and most theoretical statements reduce to this. To be virtuous is to be a virtuoso in life. All sorts of objections have been raised to this simple, and apparently pagan, way of stating the case; they will be considered in due time. The reader is asked to refrain from parting company with the writer, if his prejudices are aroused, until the consonance of this sketchy account of the basis of morality with Christianity and all idealism can be demonstrated.
H. Spencer, Data of Ethics, chap. III. S. E. Mezes, Ethics, chap IX. Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, chaps. II, IX. F. Thilly, Introduction to Ethics, chaps. IV, V. F. Paulsen, book II, chap. I. J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism. B. P. Bowne, Principles of Ethics, chap. II. The classic accounts of a rational foundation of ethics are to be found by the discerning reader in Plato's Protagoras, Gorgias, and Republic (esp. books. I, II, IV), and Aristotle's Ethics (esp. books. I and II). For refinements in the definition of right and wrong, see G. E. Moore, Ethics, chaps. I-V; B. Russell, Philosophical Essays, I, secs. II, III. International Journal of Ethics, vol. 24, p. 293. Definitions of value without reference to pleasure or pain will be found in Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, vol. II, pp. 29, 113, 141. An elaborate and careful discussion will be found in G. H. Palmer's Nature of Goodness.
Why are there conflicts between duty and inclination?
IF virtue is simply conduct that makes most truly for happiness, why are not all but fools virtuous? The answer is, in a word, because what will bring about the greatest good in the long run, and to the most people, is not always what the individual desires at the moment. The two great temptations are the lure of the selfish and the lure of the immediate. To purchase one's own happiness at the expense of others, and to purchase present satisfaction by an act which will bring less good in the end-these are the cardinal sins, and under these two heads every specific sin can be put. The root of the trouble is that, in spite of the superposition of conscience upon their primitive impulses, human organisms have not yet motor-mechanisms fully adjusted to their individual or combined needs. Some instincts are over-strong, others under-developed, none is delicately enough attuned to the changing possibilities of the situation. Our desires tug toward all sorts of acts which would prove disastrous either to ourselves or others. Many of our faults we commit "without realizing it"; we follow our impulses blindly, unconscious of their treachery. Other sins we commit knowingly, because in spite of warning voices we cannot resist the momentary desire. Readjustment of our impulses is always painful; it is easier and pleasanter to yield than to control.
Duty is the name we give virtue when she is opposed to inclination. She is the representative at the helm of our conduct of all absent or undeveloped impulses. The saints have no need of the concept; virtue to them is easy and agreeable; they have learned the beauty of holiness and have no unruly longings. Sometimes this happy adjustment of desire to need has been won by severe struggle; the dangerous impulses have been trained to come to heel through many a painful sacrifice. In other cases an approximation to this ideal state is the result of early training; by skillful guidance the growing boy or girl has had his safe impulses fostered and his perilous desires atrophied with disuse. The proverb, "Bring up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart there from," has much truth in it. But no parent and no man himself can ever breathe quite safe; we can never tell when some submerged animal instinct will rise up in us, stun all our laboriously acquired morality into inactivity, and bring on consequences that in any cool headed moment we should have known enough to avoid. Thus duty, although she is the truest friend and servant of happiness, figures as her foe. And some moralists, realizing vividly the frequent need of opposing inclination, have generalized the situation by saying that happiness cannot be our end. "Foolish Word-monger and Motive grinder," shouts Carlyle, "who in thy Logic-mill hast an earthly mechanism for the Godlike itself, and wouldst fain grind me out Virtuefrom the husks of Pleasure, I tell thee, Nay! Is the heroic inspiration we name Virtue but some Passion, some bubble of the blood, bubbling in the direction others PROFIT by? I know not; only this I know, If what thou namest Happiness be our true aim, then are we all astray. 'Happy,' my brother? First of all, what difference is it whether thou art happy or not! 'Happiness our being's end and aim,' all that very paltry speculation is at bottom, if we will count well, not yet two centuries old in the world" [Footnote: Sartor Resartus: "The Everlasting No" Past and Present: "Happy" Leaving aside this last statement, which is an irrelevant untruth, we probably feel an instinctive sympathy with Carlyle, and a sort of shame that we should have thought of happiness as the goal of conduct. Carlyle goes so far in his tirades as to call our happiness-morality a "pig philosophy," which makes the universe out to be a huge "swine's trough" from which mankind is trying to get the maximum "pigs" wash. Again he calls it a "Mechanical Profit-and-Loss theory" In such picturesque language he embodies a point of view which in milder terms has been expressed by many.] But to say that we must often oppose inclination in the name of duty is by no means to say that we must do what in the end will make against happiness. The trouble with inclination and passion is precisely that they are often ruiners of happiness. The very real and frequent opposition of desire and duty is no support of the view that duty is irrelevant to happiness, but quite consistent with the rational account of morality-that dates at least back to the ancient Greeks-which shows it to be the means to man's most lasting and widespread happiness.
Must we deny that duty is the servant of happiness?
We may go on to point out various flaws in the doctrine, of which Carlyle is one of the extreme representatives, that the account of morality as a means to happiness is immoral and leads to shocking results.
(1) The plausibility of the doctrine rests largely on its confusion with the very different truth that we should not make happiness our conscious aim. It is one of the surest fruits of experience that happiness is best won by forgetting it; he that loses his life shall truly find it. To think much of happiness slides inevitably over into thinking too much of present happiness, and more of one's own than others' happiness; it leads to what Spencer properly dubs "the pursuit of happiness without regard to the conditions by fulfillment of which happiness is to be achieved." Carlyle is practically on the right track in bidding us think rather of duty, of work, of accomplishment. But that is far from denying that these aims have their ultimate justification in the happiness they forward. In order that remote ends may be attained, it is often necessary to cease thinking of them and concentrate the mind upon immediate means. To acquire unconsciousness of manner, the last thing to do is to aim directly for it; to acquire happiness, the worst procedure is to make it one's conscious quest. Yet in the former case the attainment of the ease of manner sought, and in the latter case the attainment of the happiest life for one's self and those whom one's action affects is the touchstone which at bottom determines the method to be adopted. The proper method, we contend, is-morality. It is the method that Carlyle recommends. So that in practice we agree with him, while parting with him in theory.
(2) Carlyle evidently has in mind usually the thought that it is one's own happiness only that is put up as the end by the moralists he opposes. This was pure misunderstanding, however, or perversity. Other men's happiness has intrinsic worth (or IS intrinsic worth, for the word and the phrase are synonymous) as truly as mine; and morality is concerned quite as much with guiding the individual toward the general good as toward his own ultimate welfare. To this point we must return, merely mentioning here the fact that no reputable moralist now preaches the selfish theory.
(3) A part of Carlyle's ammunition consists in the slurring connotations which have grown up about the word "pleasure," and even the word "happiness." Because of the practical need of opposing immediate in the interests of remoter good, the various words that designate intrinsic and immediate value have come to have a less worthy sound in our ears than those words which indicate control for the sake of more widespread or lasting interests-such as "prudence," "duty," and "virtue." Moreover, the word "pleasures" commonly connotes the minor goods of life in contrast with the great joys, such as the accomplishment of some worthy task or the service of those we love. Again, it commonly connotes things passively enjoyed, rather than the active joys of life, which are practically more important. So that to condemn "pleasure" as an end arouses our instinctive sympathy. A "pleasure" is any bit of immediate good, however involved with pain, however transitory, and dangerous in its effects. "Happiness" generally refers to a more permanent state of satisfaction, including comparative freedom from pain; a stable and assured state of intrinsic worth, good to reflection as well as to sense. Pleasures are easy enough to get, but this safe state of happiness, full of rich positive worth, and immune from pain both in action and in moments of retrospect, is far from easy. Hence it is better to use the word "happiness" for our goal than the word "pleasure." Carlyle, however, takes "happiness" in the lower sense and rejects it in favor of what he calls "blessedness." This gives him the advantage of seeming to have a new and superior theory. But when we ask what "blessedness" is, it is apparent that it can be nothing but what we call "happiness" or the living of life in such a way as to lead to happiness.
(4) There is another important practical insight underlying the protests of Carlyle and those of his ilk, namely, that it pays to disregard the minor ills and discomforts of life and keep our thoughts fixed on the big things. These minor ills do not matter much as they pass; they are transient, and usually leave little pain for reflection. It is the fear of them, the complaining about them, the shrinking from them, the attending to them, that constitutes the greater part of their badness. Carlyle has the same practical common sense that the Christian Scientists show; but, as in their case, he lets his practical wisdom confuse his theoretical insight.
Sympathize, then, as we all must with these anti-happiness preachers, we may point out that their intuitions are quite compatible with a sane view of the ultimate meaning of morality. If morality does not exist for human welfare, what is it good for? And what else can welfare ultimately be but happiness? Other proposed ends we shall presently consider. But the happiness-account of morality leads to no dangerous laxity. If any eudemonistic moralists have lived loosely, it was because they did not realize what really makes for happiness or had not strength of will to cleave to it, not because they saw happiness as the criterion. An immature perception of this as the criterion without a full recognition of its bearings may have misled some; it is possible to see a general truth clearly and yet evaluate wrongly in concrete situations. But the converse of the truth that morality makes for happiness is the truth that the way to attain happiness is morality. No lesson could be more salutary. Correct concrete evaluations are more important than correct abstract generalizations, and Carlyle is nearly always on the right side in the former. But his influence would have been still more wholesome if he had added to his sound sermonizing a sane and clearly analyzed theory.
Does the end justify the means?
Our account of morality may be called the eudemonistic account, from the Greek eudemonia, happiness, or the teleological account, from telos, an end. It asserts, that is, that morality is to be judged by the end it subserves; that end is happiness. We have seen the sort of protest that arises with respect to the word "happiness." We may now note a danger that arises from the use of the concept "end"; it finds expression in the familiar proverb, "The end justifies the means." Conduct is to be judged by the end it subserves; therefore, if the end is good any means may be used to attain it. This has been the defense of much wrongdoing. The Jesuits who lied, slandered, cheated, and murdered, to promote the interests of the Church, the McNamara brothers, who dynamited buildings and bridges as a means toward the final end of attaining for laborers a just share of the fruits of their labor, the suffragettes who have been burning private houses, sticking up mail-boxes, and breaking windows, have justified their crimes by reference to the great ends they expected thereby to attain. What shall we say to this plea?
(1) The motto means: Conduct in itself undesirable may be justified IF the end attained is important enough to warrant it. In every case, then, the question must arise: Is the end to be attained worth the cost? To justify means that are intrinsically bad, it must be shown that the end attained is so good as to overbalance this evil. WAS the advancement of the Church worth the cost in human suffering, estrangement, and bitterness that the Jesuits exacted? IS the advancement of labor interests worth the destruction of property and life, the fostering of class-enmity and of moral anarchism that the criminal wing of the I. W. W. stands for? ARE votes for women worth the similar evils which British suffragettes are drifting into? Sometimes a cause is so important that almost any act is justified in its advancement. But such cases are rare, at least in modern life. Always there must be a balancing of good and evil. And the trouble with the attitude of mind which we have illustrated is that the end sought is usually not so all-important as to warrant the grave evils which its seekers cause. When the Titanic was sinking, the boat's officers shot several men who tried to jump into the lifeboats ahead of the women and children. It was probably the only way to stop a mad panic stricken rush, which would have endangered the lives of all as well as broken the chivalrous code which is worth so much sacrifice. The evil of shooting down unarmed and frightened men was great; but it was undoubtedly justified by the end attained. Whether any of the other instances mentioned are cases where the evil done would be similarly justified by the end, if thereby attained, we shall not here discuss. But the principle is evident. The end justifies evil means only if it is so supremely good as to overbalance that evil.
(2) It is pertinent, however, to add two considerations. First, we must feel sure that no less harmful means are available. And secondly, we must feel sure that these evil means are really adapted to attain the purpose. Is there no other way of securing votes for women than by the hysterical and criminal pranks our British sisters have been playing? And will those irritating acts actually forward their cause, or tend to bring about a revulsion of feeling? Did the crimes of the Jesuits make the Church triumphant? Not in the long run. Immediate gains may often be won by unpleasant methods, as in the case of the Titanic. But when the struggle is bound to be a long one, as in the case of woman's suffrage and industrial justice, methods which (not to beg the question) would ordinarily be criminal are seldom in the end advantageous. The McNamara case hurt the I. W. W. sorely. Suffrage legislation has possibly been retarded in Britain. And in both cases there are probably more efficacious, as well as less harmful, ways of attaining the desired end.
(3) It is strictly true that THE end, human welfare, justifies any means necessary to attain it. Whatever pain must be caused to bring about the greatest possible human happiness is thereby exempt from reprobation. Whatever conduct is necessary for that supreme end BECOMES morality, or virtue; for that is precisely what morality IS. For example, it is undoubtedly necessary at times to murder, to steal, and to lie for the sake of human welfare; in such cases these acts are universally approved. Only, we give the acts in such cases new names, that the words "murder," etc, may retain their air of reprobation. We call murder of which we approve "capital punishment" or "justifiable homicide" or "patriotic courage." If taking a man's property without his consent is stealing, then the State steals; but, approving the act, we call it "eminent domain."
(4) The motto has its chief danger, perhaps, in the tendency it encourages to ignore remoter consequences for the sake of immediate gain. This point we will consider under the following topic.
What is the justification of justice and chivalry?
If the greatest total of human happiness is the supreme end of conduct, was not Caiaphas right in deeming it expedient that one man should die for the people, even though he were innocent of all sin? Were not the French army officers sane in preferring to make Dreyfus their scapegoat rather than bring dishonor and shame upon their army? For that matter, does not the aggregate of enjoyment of a score of cannibals outweigh the suffering of the one man whom they have sacrificed to their appetite, or the delirious excitement with which a brutal crowd witnesses a lynching overbalance the pain of their solitary victim? Yet our souls revolt against such things. We cry, ruat caelum, fiat justitia! Justice is prior to all expediency! Is this irrational, or can it be shown to be teleologically justifiable?
Justice is undoubtedly justifiable; and the only reason that we ever hesitate to acknowledge it in any concrete case is that we tend to overlook indirect and remote results and see only the immediate effect of action. The harm done by injustice consists not merely in the pain inflicted upon the victim. There is the sympathetic pain caused in all those who are at all tender hearted. There is the sense of insecurity caused in each by the realization that he too might some day be a victim; when justice is not enforced no man is safe. There is the stimulation given to human passions by one indulgence which will breed a whole crop of pain. There is the danger that if injustice is allowed in one case where a great good seems to warrant it, it will be practiced in other cases where no such necessity exists. Men are not to be trusted to judge clearly of relative advantages where their passions are concerned; they must bind themselves by an inflexible code. The cases cited are comparatively clear. No one would seriously contend that cannibalism or lynching, the execution of Christ, or the banishment of Dreyfus, made in the direction of the greatest happiness of mankind. But it has been seriously urged that the insane and the feeble and the morally worthless should be killed off, as they were in some sterner ancient states. Why should we guarantee life and liberty to such as are a useless drag upon the community, spend upon them millions which might be spent for bringing joy and recreation to the rest of us? Or again, if medical men need a living human victim to experiment upon, in order to conquer some devastating disease, why not pounce upon some good-for-nothing member of the community and force him to undergo the pain? The considerations enumerated in the preceding paragraph, however, bid us halt. Imagine the anxiety and the anguish that would be caused if some commission were free to determine who were insane or feeble or worthless enough to be put out of the way! Or free to select a human victim for vivisection whenever experts deemed it wise! The widespread horror and uneasiness of such a regime, the callousness to suffering it would engender, the private revenges and crimes that might insidiously creep in under the guise of public good, are alone enough to render vicious such a procedure.
It is true that one person's suffering is less of an evil than the suffering of many. The State, by universal consent, inflicts undeserved suffering upon individuals when the social welfare seems to require it; as when it takes away a man's beloved acre to built a railroad or highway, or when it compels vaccination, or when it drafts soldiers for the national defense and sends them to their death. When a man volunteers to risk his life or to endure pain for his fellows we rightly applaud his act. In such a case the ill effects above-mentioned do not follow, and the gain is clear; in addition, the stimulating value of the voluntary self-sacrifice is great. The American soldiers, who risked their lives to rid Cuba and the world of yellow fever, by offering themselves for inoculation with the disease, stand among the world's heroes.
It is also true that "rights" are not primitive and transcendent; their existence rests upon purely utilitarian grounds. The right to liberty and life is limited by the community's welfare. So is the right to property. But in estimating advantage we must beware of a superficial calculation. The concept of justice, and the enthusiasm for it, have been of enormous value to man's happiness. It is of extreme importance, from a eudaemonistic standpoint, to cherish that ideal. Even if in some individual case a greater general happiness would result from infringing upon it, we cannot afford to do so; we should find ourselves lapsing into less advantageous habits and incurring unforeseen penalties.
Chivalry is in like case with justice. It might have seemed better for the world that the able and distinguished men should have been saved from the Titanic-some of them were men of considerable importance in various lines of work-rather than less-needed women. But the effect of the noble example in strengthening the will to sacrifice self for others, and in maintaining our beautiful devotion to woman, was worth the cost. Fox was right when he said, "Example avails ten times more than precept." Even if the loss had been greater than it was, it would have been better to incur it than to allow an exception to the code of chivalry. Such codes are formed with infinite pains and are very easily shattered; a little laxity here, a tolerated exception there, and the selfishness and passions of men rise to the surface and undo the work of years. AT ALL COSTS WE MUST MAINTAIN THE CODE. In the end it pays. The greatest genius must run the risk of drowning in the endeavor to save the life of some unknown person who may be a worthless scamp. He may die and the scamp live, a great loss to the world. But only so can the code of honor be maintained which in the long run adds so much positive joy to man and saves him from so much pain.
In most instances, though not in some of those cited, the reward of justice and chivalry is sufficient for the individual himself. As Socrates said to Theodoras, [Footnote: Plato, Theoetetus, 176.] "The penalty of injustice cannot be escaped. They do not see, in their infatuation, that they are growing like the one and unlike the other, by reason of their evil deeds; and the penalty is, that they lead a life answering to the pattern which they resemble." "On the other hand,"-to supplement Plato with Emerson, [Footnote: Essays, First Series: "Spiritual Laws." Cf. George Eliot, in Romola: "The contaminating effect of deeds often lies less in the commission than the hero the avowal of a just and brave act, it will go unwitnessed and unloved. One knows it himself and is pledged by it to sweetness of peace and to nobleness of aim, which will prove in the end a better proclamation of it than the relating of the incident." And, we may add, a greater joy.]
But even in view of the cases where no apparent compensation comes to the individual, the ideals of justice and chivalry, like the more general concept of duty, are among the most valuable possessions of man's fashioning. Cross our inclinations as they often do, cost dearly as they sometimes will, the habit of unquestioning allegiance to them is one of the greatest of all gains as means to the attainment by mankind of a stable and assured happiness.
A brief discussion of the conflict of duty and inclination will be found in Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap. XVII, first few pages. Carlyle's declamations against happiness are too scattered and unsystematic to make reference to specific chapters useful. The general point of view may be found, more temperately stated, in F. H. Bradley's Ethical Studies, the chapter entitled "Why Should I be Moral?" Contemporary accounts of the nature of obligation will be found in the International Journal of Ethics, vol. 22, p. 282; vol. 23, pp. 143, 323.
A discussion of the motto, "The end justifies the means" will be found in F. Paulsen's System of Ethics, book II, and chap. I, sec. 4. The justification of justice is treated in J. S. Mill's Utilitarianism, chap. V. [in the consequent adjustment of our desires, the enlistment of our self-interest on the side of falsity. The purifying influence of public confession springs from the fact that by it the hope in lies is forever swept away, and the soul recovers the noble attitude of simplicity.]
Wherein consists goodness of character?
Character is the sum of a man's tendencies to conduct. Our estimate of a man's character is a sort of weather forecast of what he will do in various situations. Goodness of character consists, then, of such an organization of impulses as will lead to good acts-to acts productive ultimately of a preponderance of intrinsic good, or happiness. The blame and approval that attaches in our minds to certain acts becomes attached also to the disposition that is fruitful of such acts. A good man is he whose mind is so set and adjusted that it will turn away from evil deeds and espouse the right. We can say, then, with Dewey and Tufts, "Goodness consists in active interest in those things which really bring happiness." [Footnote: Ethics, p. 396.] Similarly, Paulsen writes, "Virtues may be defined as habits of the will and modes of conduct which tend to promote the welfare of individual and collective life." [Footnote: System of Ethics, Eng. p. 475.] And Santayana puts it more tersely in the statement, "Goodness is that disposition that is fruitful in happiness." [Footnote: Reason in Common Sense, p. 144.] It is easy, then, to understand the enthusiasm that men feel for goodness; it is the resultant of the passionate longing to be delivered from the domination of evil impulses, the instinctive joy in splendid and unselfish acts, the sense of relief and gratitude felt toward those from whom one has nothing to fear. Contrariwise, the shrinking from a bad man springs primarily from the dread of what he may do, from the disgust which the sight of his foolish and ruinous acts inspires and from various other reactions of the spectator which we need not enumerate. If character were a sort of merely inward possession, unconnected with conduct, we should not Jeel thus toward it. Merely to FEEL virtuous is pleasant, but it is not important. Imputed goodness must be judged by the kind of conduct it yields, and that conduct in turn by its consequences. "By their fruits ye shall know them." But this inward disposition, though important chiefly for its effects, is more important therefore than we are apt to realize. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is." The scientific study of psychology has emphasized the fact, which is open to everyday observation, that even secret thoughts and moods influence inevitably a man's outward acts. What we do depends upon what we have been thinking and imagining and feeling. The Great Teacher was right when he bade men refrain not merely from murder, but from angry thoughts; not merely from adultery, but from lustful glances; not merely from perjury, but from the desire to deceive. Epictetus puts it, "What we ought not to do we should not even think of doing." And Marcus Aurelius writes, "We should accustom ourselves to think upon othing that we should hesitate to reveal to others if they asked to know it." This is sound advice. Without attempting to settle the problem of determinism or indeterminism, which falls properly within the sphere of natural rather than of moral philosophy, it is evident that our conduct is largely the result of that set of potentialities which we call character, that our happiness is in great degree shaped by our inward mental states.
Hence the large role of "motive" and "intent" in ethical theory. High motives and good intentions lead-sometimes to disastrous, acts we know what place is paved therewith. We need the wisdom of the serpent as well as the innocence of the dove. But other things being equal, pure desires tend to right conduct. A man whose mind dwells upon the good side of his neighbors, who loves and sympathizes, and enjoys their friendship, will be far less likely to give vent to acts of cruelty or malice than one who indulges in spiteful feelings, fault finding, and resentment. Our habitual thoughts and desires make us responsive to certain stimuli and indifferent to others. The words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart, as well as the trifling acts that we perform, in themselves however unimportant, have their subtle and accumulative influence in determining our momentous acts. The familiar case of the drinker who says, "This glass doesn't count" can be paralleled in every field of life. It pays to keep in moral training, to cultivate kindly and disciplined thoughts, to forbid ill natured and unworthy feelings, and self-indulgent dreams. Otherwise before we know it the barriers of resistance will crumble and we shall do what we had never supposed we should do, some act that is the fruit of our unregulated inner life. [Footnote: Cf. George Eliot in Romola: "Tito" (who, having posed as a rich and noble gentleman, being unexpectedly confronted with his plebeian father, on the spur of the moment disowned him with the merciless words, "Some madman, surely!") "Was experiencing that inexorable law of human souls, that we prepare ourselves for sudden deeds by the reiterated choice of good or evil that gradually determines character."] Can we say, with Kant, that the only good is the Good Will? It is not uncommon for instrumental goods to come to receive a homage greater than that which is paid to the ends they serve. It is notably and necessarily so with the various aspects of the concept of morality; virtue, conscience, goodness of character are actually more important for us to think about and aim for than the happiness to which they ultimately minister. But this apotheosis denial of its fundamentally instrumental value. As with the miser who rates his bank notes more highly than the goods he could purchase with them, an abstract moralist occasionally exalts the means at the expense of the end. We are told that only goodness counts; that its worth has nothing to do with its relation to happiness; that goodness would command our allegiance even if it brought nothing but misery in its train.
The best-known exponent of this blind worship of goodness is Kant. He writes, "A Good Will is good, not because of what it performs or effects, not by its aptness for the attainment of some proposed end, but simply by virtue of the volition; that is, it is good in itself Its fruitfulness or fruitlessness can neither add nor take away anything from this value … Moral worth … cannot lie anywhere but in the principle of the Will, without regard to the ends which can be attained by the action." [Footnote: The Metaphysic of Morality. To be found in Kant's Theory of Ethics, trans. by Abbott, pp. 10, 16.]
So far does Kant carry this worship of the idea of goodness that he separates it from the several virtues that make up goodness in the concrete and bows down before the resulting bare abstraction Good Will, the will to do good. This leads him to a curiously dehumanized position. Prudential acts, he declares, are obviously good in their consequences; they therefore deserve no praise; whatever one does calculatingly, with view to future results, has no moral worth. And on the other hand, whatever good acts one does instinctively, pushed on by animal impulses, including love and sympathy, deserve no praise and have no moral worth. It is only what one does from the single motive of desiring to do the right that awakens Kant's enthusiasm. "The preservation of one's own life, for instance, is a duty; but, as every one has a natural inclination to which most men usually devote to this object has no intrinsic value, nor the maxim from which they act any moral import." [Footnote: The Metaphysic of Morality, sec. I.] What shall we say to this?
(1) Kant's statements are a mere crystallization of an unanalyzed feeling; their plausibility rests upon our ingrained enthusiasm for goodness. But if that enthusiasm be challenged, how shall we justify it? How do we know that good will is good, unless we can see WHY it is good? Many other things appeal to our instincts as good; may not this particular judgment be mistaken, or may not all these other things be equally good with good will? Kant's Hebraic training is clearly revealed in his exaltation of good will; it reflects the practical Lebensweisheit we have learned from the Bible. To the Greek it would have been foolishness, fanaticism. We want not only good will, but wisdom, sympathy, skill, common sense. Also we want health, love, wives and children, friends, and congenial work. All of these things are part of the worth of life. What would it profit us if we lost all these and had only our good will! [Footnote: A reduction ad absurdum of the Kantian view may be found in Cardinal Newman's statement of the Catholic Christian view. "The Church holds that it were better for sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fall, and for all the many millions who are upon it to die of starvation in extremist agony, so far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one willful untruth, though it harmed no one, or steal one poor farthing without excuse." (Anglican Difficulties, p. 190.)] The valuation that ignores all natural goods but one is unreal, inhuman, fanatical; it leads when unchecked to the emasculated life of the anaemic mediaeval saint or anchorite. Kant's eloquent eulogy of good will appeals to one of our noblest impulses; but that impulse is as much in need of justification to the reason as any other, and it is only one of a number of equally healthy and justifiable natural preferences. Good will, the desire to do right, is perhaps, on the whole, IN THE EMERGENCY, a safer guide to trust than warm-blooded impulse or reasoned calculation. Moreover, it has a thin, precarious existence in most of us at best, and needs all the encouragement it can get. Practically, we need Kant's kind of sermonizing; we need to exalt abstract goodness and resist the appeal of immediate and sensuous goods. So Kant has been popular with earnest men more interested in right living than in theory. But as a theorist he is hopelessly inadequate.
(2) It is true that we admire good will without consideration of the effects it produces, and even when it leads to disaster. But if good will USUALLY led to disaster we should never have come to admire it. Chance enters into this world's happenings and often upsets the normal tendencies of acts. But we have to act in ways that may normally be expected to produce good results. And we have to admire and cherish that sort of action, in spite of the margin of loss. The admiration that we have come to feel for goodness is partly the result of social tradition, buttressing the code that in the long run works out to best advantage; and partly, of course, the spontaneous emotion that rises in us at the sight of courage, heroism, self-sacrifice, and the other spectacular virtues. But however naive or sophisticated a reaction it may be, its psychogenesis is perfectly intelligible, U and its existence is no proof of the supernal nature of the goodness of "good will."
(3) Kant argues as follows: "Nothing can possibly be conceived, in the world or out of it, which can be called good WITHOUT QUALIFICATION, except a good will." [Footnote: Op. cit, sec. I.] He goes on to show that wit, courage, perseverance, etc, are all bad if the will that makes use of them is bad as in the case of a criminal; while health, riches, honor, etc, may inspire pride or presumption, and so not be unmitigated thing that can in every case be called good.
But is this so? May not a man have good will and yet do much mischief? If courage, wit, etc, need to be employed by good will, so does good will need to be joined with common sense, knowledge, tact, and many other helpers. Good will is good only if it is sanely and wisely directed; else it may go with all sorts of fanaticism. If one says, "It is still good qua good will," we may reply, "Yes, but so are all goods; courage is always good qua courage, knowledge qua knowledge," etc. All harmless joys are good without qualification, and all goods whatever are good except as they get in the way of some greater good or lead to trouble.
(4) Kant's formula "good will" is ambiguous. OF COURSE a GOOD act of will is good; that is a mere tautology, and gives us no guidance whatever. Which acts of will ARE good is our problem. Kant, however, worked out his empty formula into a concrete maxim, "Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of nature." But how should we WISH others to act in the given situation? It would be quite possible for a lustful man to be willing that unrestrained lust should be the general rule; he would be much more comfortable and freer if it were. There is nothing in the law of consistency to direct him; men might be consistently bad as well as consistently good. We have still no criterion, only an appeal to coolness, to detachment from hot impulses and selfishness.
Practically, what the Kantian viewpoint amounts to is an exaltation of conscience-a much more concrete (and variable) thing than this abstract formula. Do your duty, at any cost! Our hearts respond to such preaching, but our intellects remain perplexed, if the practical apotheosis of goodness is not supplemented by an adequate theoretic justification thereof.
What evils may go with conscientiousness?
At this point it may repay us to note more carefully the inadequacy of that mere blind conscientiousness which is the practical burden of the Kantian teaching. One would think that the only source of our troubles lay in our lack of desire to do right! As a matter of fact, there is a vast amount of good will in the world which effects no good, or does serious harm, for want of wise direction. Much of the tragedy of life consists of the clashes between wills equally consecrated and pure. Conscientious cranks and blunderers are perhaps even more of a nuisance than out-and-out villains; they hurt every good cause they espouse and bring noble ideals into ridicule; they provoke discouragement and cynicism. There is hardly a folly or a crime that has not been committed prayerfully and with a clear conscience; the saint and the criminal are sometimes psychologically indistinguishable indeed, by which name we call a fanatic may depend upon which side we are on. We may discriminate among the types of perverted conscience:
(1) The fanatical conscience, the meddling conscience, that feels a mission to stir up trouble. Under this head come the parents who interfere needlessly with their children's ways when different from their own, the breakers-up of love-affairs, the fault-finders, the militantly religious, all that great multitude of men who with prayer and tears have felt it their duty to override others' wills and impose their codes upon the world.
(2) The obstructive conscience, that has become set and will not suffer change. Here we can put all the earnest "stand-patters," who resist innovation of every sort. Slaves of the particular standards that they happen to have grown up in, unable to conceive that their individual brand of religion may not be the ultimate truth, horror-struck at the suggestion that we should forsake the ways of our fathers, their conscientious conservatism stands like a rock in the way of progress.
(3) The ascetic conscience, that overemphasizes the need of sacrifice, and deletes all the positive joy of life for the sake of freedom from possible pain. This particular misdirection of conscience is not prominent in contemporary life; but at certain periods, as among some of the mediaeval saints, or the early Puritans, this hypertrophy of conscience has been a serious blight.
(4) The anxious conscience, that magnifies trifles and gives us no rest with its incessant suggestions, lest we forget, lest we forget. This type of over conscientiousness is a form of unhealthy self consciousness, a bane to its possessor and a nuisance to every one within range.
These familiar evils that may go with the utmost good will show us that good will or conscientiousness is not enough. The conscientious man may not only leave undone important duties; his good will may lead him to push in exactly the wrong direction and do great harm. There are thus two ways of judging a man. First, did he do the best he knew? Did he live up to his conscience? Secondly, did he do what was really best? Was his conscience properly developed and directed? Our approval must often be divided; we may rate him high by the standard of conscientiousness, but low in his standard of morality. This is the familiar distinction between what is objectively right and what is subjectively right. An objectively right action is "one such that, if it be done, the total value of the universe will be at least as great as if any other possible alternative had been done by the agent"; whereas "it is subjectively right for the agent to do what he judges to be most probably objectively right on his information"-whether he judges correctly or not. [Footnote: C. D. Broad in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 24, pp. 316, 320.] It may then be right (in one sense) for a man to do an act which is wrong (in the other sense) [Footnote: Strictly speaking, there are four possible usages of the word "right": An act is right which (a) is actually going to have the best consequences; which (b) might be expected, on our best human knowledge, to have the best consequences; which (c) the actor, on his partial information, and with his partial powers of judgment, expects to have the best consequences; or which (d) his conscience approves, without reference to consequences.] What is the justification of praise and blame? Kant was expressing a familiar thought when he wrote that a man deserved no praise for either instinctive or calculating acts. Why should we praise a man for doing what he wants to do, what is the most natural and easy thing for him to do, or what he can foresee will bring about desirable consequences? Should we not praise only the man who fights his inclinations, does right when he does not want to, and without foresight of ultimate gain?
As a matter of fact, however, we do praise and admire and love the saints who do right easily and graciously. We do not refuse our admiration to Christ because it was his meat and drink, his deepest joy, to do his Father's work; nor do we imagine him as having to wrestle with inner devils of spitefulness and ill-temper. The type of character we rate highest is that from which all these lower impulses have been finally banished, the character that inevitably seeks the pure and the good. And on the other hand, as we have just seen, we often blame the man who, with the noblest intentions, and at great cost to himself, does what we consider wrong.
It is thus true that our reactions of praise and blame are complicated and inconsistent. We often praise a man and blame him at the same time; praise him for following his conscience, and blame him for having a narrow and distorted conscience to follow. Different people in a community will praise or blame him according as they consider this or that aspect of his conduct. What, then, is the rationale of these emotion-reactions?
Obviously, the same natural forces which have produced morality have, pari passu, produced these emotions; they are one of the great means by which men have been pushed into being moral. We praise people, ultimately, because it is socially useful to praise them; the approbation of one's fellows is one of the greatest possible incentives to right conduct. We blame people that they and others may be thereby deterred from wrongdoing. For ages these emotions have been arising in men's hearts, veering their fellows toward moral action. Neither blamer nor blamed has realized the purpose nature may be said to have had in view; the emotional reaction has been instinctive, like sneezing. But if it had not been for its eminent usefulness it would never have developed and become so deep-rooted in us. If blame did no good, if it did not tend to correct evildoing, it would be an unhappy and undesirable state of mind, to be weeded out, like malice or discouragement. Praise might be kept for its intrinsic worth, its agreeableness, like sweet odors and pleasant colors. But actually we need to conserve these reactions for their extrinsic value, as spurs and correctives.
The man who acts upon a calculated expectation of consequences is, indeed, to be praised, if the ends he has sought are good and his calculation correct. Prudence, foresight, thoughtfulness are among the most important virtues. On the other hand, the man who does right instinctively is to be most admired; for to reach that goal is the aim of much of our inner struggle. The approbation we heap upon him, if not needed to keep him up to his best, at least is beneficial to others, who thereby may be stimulated to imitate his goodness. Any sort of conduct that is in line with human welfare is to be praised and loved and sung, and kept before the minds of the young and plastic.
More deeply rooted, perhaps, than the disparagement of praise, is the compassionate revulsion from blame. "He meant well"; "His conscience is clear"; "How could he help sinning with such a bringing-up!" such pleas pull us up in the midst of our condemnation. And they must have their weight. Conscientiousness must be praised, while in the same breath we blame the folly or fanaticism it led to. And the visibly degrading effects of environment should make us tender toward the erring, even while, for their own sakes and the sake of others, we continue to blame the sin. Society cannot afford to overlook sin because it sees provocation for it. There is always provocation, there are always causes outside the sinner's heart. But there is also always a cause within the heart, an openness to temptation, and acquiescence in the evil impulse, which we must try to reach and influence by our blame and condemnation. No doubt in like circumstances we should do as badly, or worse. But to blame does not mean that we set ourselves up as of finer clay; it means only that we continue to use a weapon of great value for the advancement of human welfare. A man always "could have helped it" he could have if his inward aversion to the sin had been strong enough; and it is precisely because blame tends to make that aversion stronger in the sinner and in all who are aware of it, that we must employ it. Reward and punishment are the materialization of praise and blame and have the same uses. We reward and punish men not because in some unanalyzable sense they "deserve" it, but ultimately in order to foster noble and heroic acts and deter men from crime. The giving of rewards for good conduct has never been systematized (except for Carnegie medals, school prizes, and a few other cases), and the practical difficulties in the way are probably insuperable. Indeed, the natural outward rewards of fame, position, increased salary, etc, would be spur enough, if they could be made less capricious and more certain. But to restrain its members from injury to one another is so necessary to society, and so difficult, that elaborate systems of punishment have been used since prehistoric times. To a consideration of the contemporary problems concerning punishment we shall return at a later stage in our study.
What is responsibility?
There is one plea which exempts a person from blame- when we say he was not responsible. Responsibility means accountability, liability to blame and punishment. We do not hold accountable those classes whom it would do no good to blame or punish. Babies, the feeble minded, the insane, are not deterred by blame; hence we do not hold them responsible. Beyond these obvious exemptions there are all sorts of degrees of responsibility, carefully worked out in that branch of the law known as "torts." The principle upon which man has instinctively gone, and which the law now recognizes, in holding men accountable or, in other words, imputing responsibility-is the degree in which they might have been expected to foresee the consequences of their acts. The following set of cases will illustrate the principle:
(1) We do not hold a man responsible at all for unforeseeable results of his action. If because of turning his cows into pasture a passing dog gets excited and tramples a neighbor's flower-bed, the owner of the cows is not responsible for the damage; it would do no good to exact punishment for what was so indirectly and unexpectedly due to his action.
(2) But if his cows got over the wall and trampled the beds, he would be held responsible, in different degrees, according to the circumstances. If he had inspected the wall with eyes of experience and honestly thought it would keep the cows in, we deem him only slightly responsible. He could have done nothing more; yet he must learn more accurately to distinguish safe walls from unsafe. It is fairer for him to pay for the damage than for the owner of the flower- bed to suffer the loss; such risks must be assumed as a part of the business of keeping cows.
(3) If he was ignorant of the necessary height or strength of wall, we blame him more. He has no business-keeping cows until he knows all aspects of the business.
(4) If there was a gap in the wall which he would have noticed if he had taken ordinary care, we hold him still further to blame, and his punishment must be severer.
(5) If he remembered the gap in the wall and did not take the trouble to repair it, thereby consenting to the damage his cows might do, his case is still worse.
(6) Finally, if he deliberately turned the cows into his field with the hope that they would go through the gap and damage his neighbor's flower-beds, he is the most dangerous type of criminal, of "malice aforethought," and his punishment must be severest of all.
In such ways do we distinguish between traits of character more and more dangerous to society, and adjust our blame and punishment to their different degrees of danger, and the differing degrees of efficacy that the blame and punishment may have. But throughout these are purely utilitarian, an unhappy necessity for the preservation of human welfare.
On goodness of character: Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap. XII. F.Paulsen, System of Ethics, book II, chap, I, secs. 3, 5. LeslieStephen, Science of Ethics, chap. VII.
The Kantian theory: Kant's Metaphysic of Morality. A good edition in English is Abbott's Kant's Theory of Ethics. There are many discussions of his theory. An interesting recent one is Felix Adler's, in Essays Philosophical and Psychological in Honor of William James; see also the chapter of Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, above mentioned; Paulsen, System of Ethics, book II, chap. V, secs. 3, 4; American Journal of Psychology, vol. 8, p. 528. On responsibility: Mezes, op. cit, pp. 29-35. Sutherland, op. cit, vol. II, chap. XVIII. Alexander, Moral Order and Progress, book III, chap, III, sec.
PERSONAL morality is the way to live the most desirable, the most intrinsically valuable, life-in the long run, and in view of the inescapable needs and conditions of human welfare; the way to avoid the snares and pitfalls of impulse and attain those sweetest goods that come only through effort and sacrifice of lesser goods. That is what morality is, with reference to the single individual alone, and that is ample justification for it. A recent writer phrases it as follows: "I would define goodness as doing what one would wish one had done in twenty years-twenty years, twenty days, twenty minutes, twenty seconds, according to the time the action takes to get ripe Perhaps when we stop teasing people and take goodness seriously. and calmly, and see that goodness is essentially imagination that it is brains, that it is thinking down through to what one really wants goodness will begin to be more coveted. Except among people with almost no brains or imagination at all, it will be popular." [Footnote: Gerald Stanley Lee. Cf. also G. Lowes Dickinson, The Meaning of Good, p. 141. Of morality he says: "Its specific quality consists in the refusal to seize some immediate and inferior good with a view to the attainment of one that is remoter but higher".] The difference between the moral and the immoral man is not that the latter allows himself to enjoy pleasant and exciting phases of experience which the former denies himself for the sake of some good lying outside of experience, but that the latter indulges himself in any agreeable sensation that he chances to desire, while the former conflict with greater, being content not with any goods that may come to hand, but only with the attainable best. [Footnote: Cf. G. Santayana, Reason in Science, pp. 252-53: "Happiness is hidden from a free and casual will; it belongs rather to one chastened by a long education and unfolded in an atmosphere of sacred and perfected institutions. It is discipline that renders men rational and capable of happiness, by suppressing without hatred what needs to be suppressed to attain a beautiful naturalness."] What are the inadequacies of instinct and impulse that necessitate morality? It would seem as if the best way to live should be obvious and irresistible in its appeal. But in truth we are commonly very blind and foolish about this business of living; we lack wisdom, and we lack motive-power at the right place. Instinct is altogether too clumsy and impulse too uncertain. We need a more delicate adjustment; for this, intelligence and conscience have been developed. Morality is the way of life that intelligence and conscience oppose to instinct and impulse. Not to be guided by their wisdom is to forfeit our birthright, like Esau, for a mere mess of pottage. Some of the main types of difficulty that necessitate their overruling guidance we may now note.
(1) Our impulses are often deceptive. What promises keen pleasure turns flat in the tasting; what threatens pain may prove our greatest joy. Most men are led astray at one time or other by some delusory good, some ignis fatuus-whoring, money-making, fame are among the commonest which has fascinated them, from the thought of which they cannot tear themselves away, but which brings no proportionate pleasure in realization, or an evanescent pleasure followed by lasting regret. "Pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed".
All sorts of insidious consequences follow secretly in the train of innocent-seeming acts; the value of following a given impulse is complicated in many ways of which the impulse itself does not inform us. We are the frequent victims of a sort of inward mirage, and have to learn to discount our hopes and fears. Morality is the corrector of these false valuatiens; it discriminates for us between real and counterfeit goods, teaches us to discount the pictures of our imagination and see the gnawed bones on the beach where the sirens sing.
(2) Our impulses often clash. And since, as we have just said, the relative worth to us of the acts is not always accurately represented by the impulses, we need to stand off and compare them impartially. No single passion must be allowed to run amuck; the opposing voices, however feeble, must be heard. When desires are at loggerheads, when a deadlock of interests arises-an almost daily occurrence when life' is kept at a white heat-there must be some moderator, some governing power. Morality is the principle of coordination, the harmonizer, the arbitrator of conflicting claims.
(3) We often lack impulses which would add much to the worth of our lives; we are blind to all sorts of opportunities for rich and joyous living. We need to develop our latent needs, to expand our natures to their full potentiality, to learn to love many things we have not cared for. In general we ignore the joys that we have not ourselves experienced or imagined, and those which belong to a different realm from that of our temporary enthusiasms. A lovesick swain, an opium fiend, are utterly unable to respond to the lure of outdoor sport or the joy of the well-doing of work; these joys, though perhaps acknowledged as real possibilities for them, fail to attract their wills, touch no chord in them, have no influence on their choices. Morality is the great eye-opener and insistent reminder of ignored goods.
(4) We often have perverted impulses. We inherit disharmonies from other conditions of life, like the vermiform appendix and the many other vestigial organs which have come down to us only for harm. In general we inherit bodies and brains fairly well organized for our welfare; but there are still atavisms to be ruthlessly stamped out. The craving for stimulants or drugs, sexual perversions, kleptomania, pyromania, and the other manias, bad temper, jealousy- there is a good deal of the old Adam in us which is just wholly bad and to be utterly done away with; rebellious impulses that are hopelessly at war with our own good and must go the way of cannibalism and polygamy. Morality is the stern exterminator of all such enemies of human welfare.
What factors are to be considered in estimating the worth of personal moral ideals?
This summary consideration of the obstacles that block the path to happiness through the heedless following of impulse, shows the necessity of moral ideals; that is to say, of directive codes which shall steer the will through the tumultuous seas of haphazard desire into the harbor of its true welfare. How, then, can we decide between conflicting ideals and estimate their relative value? It can only be by judging through experience the degree of happiness which they severally effect in the situations to which they are to be applied. But there are many factors which contribute to or detract from that happiness in its totality; and a proper estimation of ideals must note the degree in which they provide for each possible element of satisfaction.
(1) In the first place, the mere fact of yielding to an impulse, of whatever sort, brings a relief from craving, and a momentary satisfaction. Just to do what we wish to do is, negatively at least, a good; and in so far every act desired is really desirable. An ideal which crosses inclination must have this initial price debited against it. At times the restlessness of pent-up longing is so great that it pays to gratify it even at some cost of pain or loss. But in general, desire can be modified to fit need; and rational ideals rather than silly wishes must guide us. It is dangerous to lay much stress on the urgency of desire, and almost always possible with a little firmness to hush the blind yearning and replace it with more ultimately satisfying desires.
(2) Normally, however, our desires represent real goods, which must bulk much larger in our calculation than the mere relief of yielding to the impulse. Not only is it ipso facto good to have what we want, but what we want is usually something that can directly or indirectly give us pleasure. The pleasure, then, to be attained through following this or that impulse is to be estimated, both in its intensity and its duration. The certainty or uncertainty of its attainment may also legitimately be considered. And this pleasure, though it is but one phase of the total situation, must be taken seriously into account in our appraisal of ideals which permit or forbid it.
(3) A further question is as to the purity of this pleasure, i.e, its freedom from mixture with pain. Most selfish and sensual pleasures, however keen, are so interwoven with restlessness, shame, or dissatisfaction, or so inevitably accompanied by a revulsion of feeling, disgust or loathing, that they must be sharply discounted in our calculus. Whereas intellectual, aesthetic, religious pleasures are generally free from such intermixture of pain, and so, though milder, on the whole preferable even in their immediacy and apart from ultimate consequences.
(4) But the most imperious need of life lies in the tracing-out and paying heed to these extrinsic values, these after effects of conduct. The drinking of alcoholic liquors, for example, not only stills a craving that arises in a man's mind, not only brings pleasure of taste and comfort of oblivion, not only brings the quick revulsion of emotional staleness and headache, but has its gradual and inevitable effects in undermining the constitution, lessening the power of resistance to disease, and decreasing the vitality of offspring. Quite commonly these ultimate consequences are the most important, and so the determining, factors in deciding our ideals. Among them may be included the influence of single acts in increasing or decreasing the power to resist future temptations, and the gradual paralysis of the will through unchecked self-indulgence.
(5) Another important aspect of any moral situation lies in the rejection which every choice involves. Not only must we ask what a given impulse has to offer us, in immediate and remote satisfaction; we must consider what alternative goods its adoption precludes. What might we have been doing with our time and strength or money? Is this act not only a good one, is it the best one for that moment of our lives? An important function of ideals is to point us to realms of happiness into which our preexisting impulses might never have led us, and whose existence we might scarcely have suspected.
(6) Finally, we may ask of every proposed line of conduct, what will be its worth to us in memory? Not only in our leisure hours, but in a current of subconscious reflection that accompanies our active life, we constantly live in the presence of our past. And the nature of memory is such that it cannot well retain the traces of certain of our keenest pleasures, but can continually feed us upon other joys of our past. It is imperative, then, for a happy life, so to live that the years are pleasant to look back upon. Vicious self-indulgence and selfishness are rarely satisfying in retrospection, whereas all courage and heroism and tenderness are a source of unending comfort. For better or worse, we are, and cannot shirk being, judges of our own conduct. We may be prejudiced, and may properly try to correct our prejudices; we may discount our own disapprovals, and seek to escape from our own self- condemnation. But after all, we must live with ourselves; and it pays to aim to please not only the evanescent impulses whose disapproval will soon be forgotten, but that more deeply rooted and insistent judgment that cannot wholly be stilled. Regret and remorse are among the greatest poisoners of happiness, and prospective ideals must bear that truth in mind. "No matter what other elements in any moment of consciousness may tend to give it agreeable tone, if there is not the element of approval, there is not yet any deep, wide, and lasting pleasantness for consciousness. A flash of light here, a casual word there, and it is gone. "Just when we are safest, there's a sunset- touch; A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death, A chorus ending from Euripides, And that's enough" to bring the shock of disapproval, and with it disagreeable feeling- tone continues till disapproval is removed or approval is won. If there be won this approval, other elements of disagreeableness, however great, can be endured. The massive movement of the complex unified consciousness of a Socrates drinking hemlock, of a Jesus dying on the cross, whatever strong eddies of pain there be in it, is still toned agreeably, as it makes head conqueringly toward that end which each has ideally constructed as fit." [Footnote: H. G. Lord, in Essays Philosophical and Psychological in Honor of William James, p. 388-89.] No reference has been made, in this summary of the factors which determine our estimate of the worth of personal ideals, to the bearing of these ideals upon other people's lives. Actually, of course, the social values of even primarily personal ideals are impossible to overlook, and often bulk larger than the merely personal values. This whole side of the matter will be left for convenience, however, to the following chapter.
Epicureanism vs. Puritanism.
Personal ideals have swung historically between two magnets, richness and purity, self-expression and self-repression, indulgence and asceticism. The crux of the individual's problem is the question how much repression is necessary; and man's answer has wavered somewhere between these extremes, which we may designate by the names of their best-known exemplars, Epicureanism and Puritanism. Many differences in degree or detail there have been, of course, in the various historic embodiments of these ideals; but for the sake of making clear the fundamental contrast we may neglect these individual divergences and group together those on the one hand who have called men to a fuller, completer life and those who have summoned them to an austerer and purer life, free from taint of sin and regret. We shall then put in the first group such well-known seers and poets as Epicurus, Lucretius, Horace, Goethe, Shelley, Byron, Walter Pater, Walt Whitman; we shall think of the Greek gods, of the Renaissance artists, the English cavaliers. We shall think of the motto, "Carpe diem," and "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may"; and perhaps of Stevenson's
"The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings." [Footnote: An excellent brief plea for this ideal of the life that shall be rich in experience can be found in Walter Pater's Renaissance, the "Conclusion."] In contrast to these followers are afraid of impulse, those who warn and rebuke and seek to save life from its pitfalls. We shall think of Buddha, the Stoics, the Hebrew prophets, the mediaeval saints, Dante and Savonarola, the English and American Puritans, or, in modern times, of Tolstoy. The ideal of such men is expressed not by the wholesomely happy and carefree Greek gods, but by haloed saint, by the calm-eyed Buddha of Eastern lands, by the figure of Christ on the cross. The answer to the Epicurean's heedlessness is expressed in such lines as "What is this world's delight? Lightning that mocks the night, Brief even as bright."
It is condensed in the familiar "Respice finem"; the peace of its self- denial shines out in Christ's "Not my will but thine," and in Dante's "In His will is our peace." Meager and cold and repellent as this ideal in its extreme expressions often seems, it appeals to us as the softer and irresponsible ideal of the Epicureans cannot. But obviously our way lies between the extremes. And after all that has now been said, our summary of the dangers inherent in each ideal may be very brief.
What are the evils in undue self-indulgence?
Apart from the selfishness of self-indulgence, which is obvious upon the surface, but with which we are not now concerned,
(1) Self-indulgence, if unbridled, leads almost inevitably to pain, disease, and premature death. For in the majority of men there are certain instincts so strong and so dangerous -as, the sex-instinct, the craving for stimulants and excitement-that where no repressive principle exists they tend to override the grumblings of prudence and drag their possessor to disaster. It is impossible for most men, if they give themselves over to the pursuit of personal pleasure, to keep to the quiet, refined, healthful pleasures which Epicurus advocated. Their feet go down to death.
(2) But even if the worst penalties are escaped, indulgence brings at least satiety, the "heart high cloyed," a blunted capacity for enjoyment, ennui, restlessness, and depression of spirit. Keen as its zest may be at the outset, it is short-lived at best; and with the ensuing emotional fatigue, pleasures pall, life seems empty, robbed of its meaning and glory.
(3) Moreover, pleasure-seeking is cursed with the specter of aimlessness; it entirely misses the deepest and most satisfying joys of life, the joy of healthy, unspent forces and desires, the joy of purpose and achievement, the joy of the pure, disciplined, loyal life. It renders these joys unattainable; we cannot serve God and sense, ideals and lusts of the flesh. The parting of the ways lies before every man; and it is the perennial tragedy of life that so many, misled by impulse and blinded by desire, fail to see the beauty of holiness and choose the lesser good.
(4) Especially as we grow older does it matter less and less what evanescent enjoyments we have had, and more and more what we have accomplished. Our happiness lies increasingly with the years in the memory, subconscious most of the time but constantly potent in its influence, of our past. To have gratified the senses, to have tasted the superficial delights of life, to have yielded to the tug of desire, leaves little in the way of satisfaction behind; but to have done something worthy, to have lived nobly, even to have fought and failed, is a lasting honor and joy.
What are the evils in undue self-repression?
Asceticism, like self-indulgence, is selfish. It asks, "What shall I do to be saved?" rather than "What shall I do to serve?" Endlessly preoccupied with the endeavor not to do wrong, the ascetics have failed to do the positive good they ought. The grime that comes through loving service is better than the stainlessness of inactivity; as the poet Spenser puts it, "Entire affection hateth nicer hands." And the emphasis upon freedom from taint of sin tends to produce a scorn of others who do not thus deny themselves, a self-righteousness and Pharisaism, a callousness to others, which distorts the judgment as well as dries up the sympathies.
But apart from these dangers, and from a purely personal point of view, asceticism has its evil side.
(1) An overemphasis upon self-denial sacrifices unnecessarily the sweetness and richness of life, stunts it, distorts it, robs it of its natural fruition. The denial of any satisfaction is cruel except as it is necessary. Purity, carried to a needless extreme, became celibacy; the virtue of frugality became the vice of a starvation diet, producing the emaciated and weakened saints; the unworldliness which can be in the world but not of it was transformed into the morbidly lonely and futile isolation of the hermits. These are abnormal and undesirable perversions of human nature.
(2) A reaction from needless repression is almost inevitable. The attempt radically to alter and repress human nature is nearly always disastrous. Most of the ascetics had to pass their days in constant struggles against their temptations, and many of them recurrently lapsed into wild orgies of sin, the result of pent-up impulses denied their natural channels. Morality should be rather directive than repressive, using all of our energies for wise and noble ends, and overcoming evil with good. A merely negative morality implies the continual dwelling of attention upon sin and the continual rebellion of desire. It keeps the soul in a state of unstable equilibrium, and defeats its own ends.
R. B. Perry, Moral Economy, chap, II, secs, II, III; chap, III, secs, II, III, IV. F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book III, chap. II. S. E. Mezes, Ethics, chap, X, XI, Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap, XVIII, secs. 1, 2, 4; chap, XIX, sees. 1, 2, 4. Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, chap. IV. H. C. King, Rational Living, pp. 93-102. W. dew. Hyde, The Five Great Philosophies of Life, chaps, I-IV. H. Bashdall, Theory of Good and Evil, book II, chap. III.