A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution Part 10

Ethical speculation, as thus understood, must be concerned with psychological inquiries--inquiries in regions where the vague doctrines of common sense have not yet crystallized into scientific coherence; we must therefore proceed with caution.

The contention between materialist and idealist is irrelevant to our discussion. The fact that mechanical processes underlie all mental process does not make the latter the less a fact; nor can the mechanical statement ever supersede the psychological statement. The proposition that hunger makes men eat will express truth, whatever material implications are involved in the statement.

Conduct is determined by feeling; we fly from pain, we seek pleasure; life is a continuous struggle to minimize suffering and lay a firm grasp upon happiness. "Good" means everything that favors happiness, and "bad"

everything that is conducive to misery; nor can any other intelligible meaning be a.s.signed to the words. The difficulty of proving these propositions lies in the fact that they are primary doctrines, for proof of which we must appeal to the direct testimony of consciousness. But critics oppose, not so much the propositions themselves, as certain supposed implications. By pain and pleasure is here meant every conceivable form of agreeable or disagreeable feeling. The a.s.sertion that conduct is determined by pain and pleasure is not meant as a denial that it is also, in some sense, determined by the reason; but a state of consciousness which is neither painful or pleasurable cannot be an object of desire or aversion. The reason is often contrasted with the feelings in its determination of conduct, the reasonable man being defined as one who, instead of being the slave of immediate impulse, is capable of adapting means to ends and following, thus, courses of conduct not in themselves agreeable but promising a greater total of happiness. The fact is, however, that all happiness that determines the will is future; conduct is determined, in every case, not by a future feeling of pleasure, which, as future, does not yet exist, but by present feeling. It is therefore more accurate to say that conduct is determined by the pleasantest judgment than to say that it is determined by the judgment of what is pleasantest. The intention of the agent is defined by the foreseen consequences of his conduct; his end is defined by that part of the foreseen consequences which he actually desires; and the end defines the motive, that is, the feeling, which actually determines conduct. The pleasantest end is adopted because the foretaste of the pleasure is itself pleasurable. The intellect and the emotions are in reality related as form and substance, and cannot be divided.

In the action of pain and pleasure, it seems to be an obvious fact that pain, as pain, represents tension, that is, a state of feeling from which there is a tendency to change; pleasure represents equilibrium, or a state in which there is a tendency to persist. The worm writhes on the hook, and the mind may be said to writhe under a painful emotion in the effort to writhe into some more tolerable position. In the act of choice, each mode of action is tried ideally, and the individual settles into that which is, on the whole, the easiest. The a.n.a.logy which naturally offers itself and seems to give the best account of the facts is the mechanical principle of least resistance. It is not, perhaps, superfluous to remark that the volition may exercise a very small influence, even when the limiting conditions are in a great part ideal.

The more painful is not necessarily the less permanent condition. It is one in which there is an additional chance against permanence. Terror sets up so disturbed a condition that the mind cannot settle into any definite course. We can no more alter arbitrarily the circ.u.mstances of our microcosm than those of the external world. It is as difficult to avoid brooding in vain regret as to evade a physical constraint.

Reason and feeling are bound together in inseparable unity. But reason, whatever its nature, is the faculty which enables us to act with a view to the distant and the future. A great part of conduct is automatic; it is either not determined by conscious motives, or it is determined by motives which, though they rise for a moment to the surface of consciousness, are forgotten as soon as felt. Of our conscious conduct, again, part may be called instinctive and part reasonable. These modes of action pa.s.s into each other by imperceptible degrees. The instinctive may be converted into reasoned as the consequences become manifest, and the reasoned become instinctive as the consequences are left out of account. So, again, the instinctive action becomes automatic when it is performed without leaving any trace upon consciousness. It may still be voluntary in the sense that the agent may be able to refrain from it if his attention happens to be aroused. Habitual actions pa.s.s through all these gradations. When the reason is called into action, it is not in virtue of a purely logical operation that it conquers if it does so; it is in virtue of the fact that it reveals a new set of forces ready to spring into action to the necessary degree.

We may be said to feel by signs as well as to reason by signs. The sight of a red flag may deter us from crossing a rifle range without calling up to our imagination all the effects of a bullet traversing the body.

If the motive which prompts us to run the risk be strong, it may be necessary to convert a greater volume of latent, into active emotion; and as we frequently fail to do this, we often run risks which we should avoid were the consequences distinctly contemplated.

The development of the whole nature implies a development of both the emotional and the intellectual nature; new sensibilities imply new sentiments; and increased range of thought is a.s.sociated with an equal growth in complexity and variety of emotion. The more reasonable being acts with emotion, but his emotions have more complex and refined methods. The reasonable man is a better mirror of the world without him, his conduct shows a better adaptation to ends and a greater logical consistency in its parts; more harmony of action between the different instincts. The important question is not solved by these facts. We may still ask: How is the relation between the different instincts, the influence exerted by each member of the federation, determined?

We start with certain fixed relations between our various instincts; and however these may change afterwards, our character is so far determined from the start. Again, it is plain that this inherited balance varies greatly with different peoples and gives rise to different types. In one man the sensual pa.s.sions have a greater relative importance than in his neighbor, and so forth. And the question arises, whether we can determine which of these types is most reasonable.

In the construction of the bow, we may suppose that, from rude beginnings, through discovery of better and better forms as adapted to ends in view in its construction, a form of bow would finally be reached which would represent the maximum of efficiency. This bow may be called the typical bow. As exquisitely adapted to its purpose, it arouses in us aesthetic satisfaction. Like the bow, every organism represents the solution of a problem, as well as a set of data for a new problem. As the bow is felt out, so the animal is always feeling itself out. The problem which it solves is how to hold its own against the surrounding pressure and the active compet.i.tion of innumerable rivals. Though we cannot apply an _a priori_ method, cannot define the materials of which men are made or the end which they have to fulfil, we can determine to some extent their typical excellence. Recognizing the general nature of the great problem which is being worked out, we can discover what is implied in some of the results. The process of evolution must be, at every moment, a process of discovering a maximum of efficiency; though the conditions are always varying slowly, and an absolute maximum is inconceivable. At every point of the process, there is a certain determinate direction along which development must take place. The form which represents this direction is the typical form, any deviation from which is a defect. It is conceivable that the highest efficiency in different departments of conduct may imply consistent conditions. The greatest philosopher may also be the greatest athlete and the greatest poet. It is equally clear that there is no necessary connection. What, then, is the relative value of different kinds of efficiency? A complete answer to the question might bring out the fact, which seems on other grounds probable, that it is an advantage to a race to include a great variety of different types. It is enough, however, to say that, in speaking of a type, the a.s.sertion is not intended, that there is one special type conformity to which is a condition of efficiency, but that evolution is always the working out of a problem, the solution of which implies the attainment of certain general qualities.

We have changed our point of view from the consideration of pain and pleasure to that of the conditions of existence. The fact is simply, that the constants in one problem are variables in the other. Given a certain character, the agent does what gives him pleasure. But if we ask how he comes to have that character, the only mode of answering is by referring to the conditions of existence. His character must be such as to fit him for the struggle for existence. There must therefore be a correlation between painful and pernicious actions on the one hand, and pleasurable and temporal on the other. The useful in the sense of the pleasure-giving must approximately coincide with the useful in the sense of the life-preserving. All conduct may be considered as a set of habits, to each of which there is a corresponding instinct--the word habit being used to designate any mode of conduct, automatic or voluntary, which may be brought under a general rule, instinct denoting all conscious impulses to action, whether including more or less reasoned choice, and whether innate or acquired. Habits graduate from the essential processes which const.i.tute life rather than maintain it, and which are, for the most part, automatic, to the most superficial and transitory. In order that the proposition "This habit is a bad one" may have any real meaning, we must a.s.sume that the organism can exist without it. A habit cannot be removed as one takes off a coat, as has been too often a.s.sumed; the whole character of the man is affected by its removal.

A capacity is essential if it is essential under normal conditions of environment. The quality which makes a race survive may not always be a source of advantage to every individual, or even to the average individual. Since the animal which is better adapted for continuing its species will have an advantage in the struggle, even though it may not be so well adapted for pursuing its own happiness, an instinct grows and decays not on account of its effects on the individual, but on account of its effects upon the race. The qualities of the individual and those of the race mutually imply each other, since the individual can no more be considered apart from society than the apple can be considered apart from the tree on which it grows. It remains true, however, that certain qualities of the apple may vary whilst the relation to the tree remains approximately the same, as also that the individual may vary in his qualities to some extent, his relation to society remaining approximately constant; and qualities thus variable may be regarded as, in so far, independent of society.

Social development takes place without corresponding change of individual organization. We cannot interpret the changes from savage life arrived at in present civilization, as representing an essential, great, or corresponding difference in the innate faculties of the civilized man from those of the savage, but must regard them rather as representing the acc.u.mulation of mental and material wealth. The child, learning, with the words of his language, their implicit meanings, has his feelings modified by them, is thus a philosopher and metaphysician in the cradle by the a.s.sociations given him, and is educated from infancy by the necessity of conforming his activities to those of the surrounding ma.s.s. All organization implies uniformities of conduct, and therefore continuous discipline. Society is an organism in this sense, not in any mystical sense. It is not an organism with a single centre of consciousness.

An organization implies organs; and these are to be found in the various organizations, political, religious, etc., by which, through a greater or less division of labor, certain special functions are relegated to particular a.s.sociations. We thus have not only to go beyond the individual and refer to the organs in order to determine the "law" or form of any instinct developed through the social factor, but we have also to cla.s.sify the various social instincts by reference to the complex structure of society, which implies a distribution into mutually dependent organs. Moreover, such organs, though primarily directed to a specific end, acquire a vitality independent of any special end, become organs discharging a complex function, and imply the existence of a correspondingly complex set of instincts. We come really to love an organization because it supplies us with a means of cultivating certain emotions and of enjoying the society of our fellows; it would be an entirely inadequate account of the facts if we regarded it simply as the means of attaining that pleasure which has given the pretext for its formation.

The organs of society are not, however, distinct from each other as the physical organs are distinct; the same individuals may be members of various organizations. The race is not, in fact, a.n.a.logous to the higher organism, which forms a whole separated from all similar wholes, but to an organism of the lower type, which consists of mutually connected parts spreading independently in dependence upon external conditions, and capable of indefinite extension, not of united growth. We may consider the race, thus, as forming social tissue, rather than const.i.tuting an organism. The tissue is built up of men, as the tissue of physiology is said to be built up of cells. The laws of growth and vitality of the organs of society are always relative to the underlying properties of the tissue; although, in particular cases, the more civilized race may be supplanted by the less civilized, we may a.s.sume that these accidental and contingent advantages will be eliminated on the average, and the general tendency will be to the predominance of those races which have intrinsically the strongest tissue. Not the state as such, and (as we have seen) not the individual, is the unit of evolution; the state may develop when the external pressure is little or nothing; the social tissue is that primary unit upon which the process of social evolution impinges. The family is not, itself, a mode of organization coordinate with other social organs, but rather represents the immediate and primitive relation which holds men together. It is quite possible to suppose men living together without any political and social organization; but some a.s.sociation between the s.e.xes, however temporary and casual, and some protection of infants by parents, are absolutely necessary to the continuance of the race beyond a single generation. A change in family a.s.sociations implies a corresponding change of vast importance in the intimate structure of society itself, in the social tissue. The state may make a marriage law, but it cannot create or modify the family tie beyond certain narrow limits. It can bestow privileges upon some one kind of a.s.sociation, but it cannot originate it, cannot enforce fidelity and chast.i.ty.

The social tissue is its own end, or depends upon the whole system of instincts possessed by man as a social and rational creature.

The development of society as an organic structure implies the development of customs in the race, and habits in the individuals forming it. There must be certain rules of conduct which are observed by all, in order that corresponding rules may be observed by each.

Custom in the civilized society may be distinguished from positive law.

In primitive states, the distinction is imperceptible. The authority of law itself must rest upon custom,--the custom of obedience. But physical force alone, or the dread of its application, cannot produce obedience; the application of such force is so little essential that a state of society is conceivable, in which it should disappear altogether; men might be willing to obey their rulers simply from respect and affection.

The power of applying coercion in case of need must no doubt increase as the strength of the social bond increases; but that bond is also the stronger, in proportion as the need of applying it becomes less. The whole social structure, then, must rest, in the last resort, upon the existence of certain organic customs, which cannot be explained from without. They depend, for their force and vitality, upon the instincts of the individual as modified by the social factor; they correspond to a given state of the social tissue. A legal sanction may be added to any custom whatever, and thus it may seem that a state can make its own const.i.tution and define its own organic laws; in reality, however, the power of making a certain const.i.tution presupposes a readiness to act together and accept certain rules as binding, and thus implies a whole set of established customs, essential to the life of the society and giving rise to special types of character in its members. Every law of conduct more or less affects the character of the persons subject to it, so long as it is enforced; and necessarily, every variation in the character more or less affects the sentiments from which the external law derives its force. The correspondence, however, is not so intimate that one mode of statement can always be rendered into the other. For laws, indeed elaborate codes, are developed without seriously affecting the general character of the underlying customs, and in the same way instincts may vary widely without producing any normal change in the external order, though they affect the mode in which it works. The essence of any law is in the mutual pressure of the different parts of the social structure. Any a.s.sociation with a given end will have laws determined with reference to that end. When we pa.s.s, however, from the organ to the tissue, we still have an organic structure with certain rules of conduct and corresponding instincts, but we no longer have a definite end or a fixed material. The material, that is, is to be regarded as developing and determining the development of the subsidiary organs. And since the most efficient society normally survives, we may inversely infer from the survival of a society that it has developed the properties on which its efficiency depends. The actual laws existing at any period may not represent the greatest degree of efficiency possible; but they must be an approximate statement of the essential conditions.

The moral law, as applicable to all members of a society, defines some of the most important qualities of the social tissue. It is as independent of the legislature as are the movements of the planets. This is true whether you resolve morality into reason or make it dependent upon utility. The action of any set of people can no more change the nature of facts than that of logical necessities. This is, however, fully true only of morality as it ought to be in correspondence with facts. Actual morality corresponds to men's theories about facts, and it may, therefore, deviate from what the code would be if they were incapable of error. But it is plain that, though it varies, it must vary within incomparably narrower limits than other systems of law, because its variation is determined by far more general conditions; it maintains itself, so to speak, by the direct action of the organic instincts. The doctrines of the greatest moral teacher, though somewhat in advance of prevailing standards, are successful only in proportion as they are congenial to existing sentiments, give articulate shape to thoughts already obscurely present in the social medium. Like Socrates, the reformer must be something of a midwife. Morality grows, and is not made; that is, it is the fruit of a gradual evolution of the organic instinct continued through many generations. The ordinary mind resists any change in principles instilled into it from birth; the great ma.s.ses are sluggish in movement.

The moral law has to be expressed in the form: "Be this," not "Do this."

The existence of a character such that variations of circ.u.mstances will cause no deviation from morality is the only security for morals. The legislator is forced to cla.s.sify conduct by its objective manifestations. But the cunning of the man who desires to evade the code can still devise innumerable methods of accomplishing his end indirectly. Law permits what it does not prohibit, and is, therefore, in danger of producing hypocrisy instead of virtue.

The process by which the moral law (or rather, the law of conduct which includes, but is not coincident with the moral law) is developed, is a process of generalization. It corresponds to a vast induction carried on by the race as organized in society. Beginning with modes of conduct which are seen to be bad, society gradually perceives that the ultimate principle of cla.s.sification must be by the primary feelings, that rules of conduct must be expressed in terms of character, and other rules which concern the application of these to more special cases must take a subordinate position and be regarded as only of conditional value. All these rules must necessarily correspond, within very narrow limits, to a statement of the conditions of vitality of the tissue which they characterize. In an ideal state of society, every general principle would also be recognized in every particular rule. This is a result a gradual approximation to which, rather than its actual attainment, must be antic.i.p.ated.

Morality implies action for the good of others in some sense. Society may be regarded both as an aggregate and as an organism. There are certain qualities which we may suppose to vary in the individual without necessarily involving a change in the social structure. How is the general rule, as distinguished from other rules, deduced from the general principle of social vitality?

The law of nature has but one precept, "Be strong." But when we regard the individual in his relations to society, the law takes on different forms. This may be expressed by saying that the law "Be strong," has two main branches, "Be prudent" and "Be virtuous," the first applying to cases in which the individual is primarily affected, the other to those in which the units are affected through society and the social factor must be taken into account.

To find a cla.s.sification of the virtues that will not run into infinite detail or be a simple affirmation of the general principle, the internal development of moral character under its emotional and intellectual aspects may furnish a sufficient method. The general formula of primary individual virtues is: "Be strong." The condition of vitality of the individual as a complex of instincts, is expressed by the formula: "Be temperate." And the cla.s.s of virtues referring to the conditions of intellectual efficiency, has the general rule: "Be truthful."

_Ceteris paribus_, an increase of individual energy is an advantage to society; and, as a matter of fact, we find that civilized society differs conspicuously from the ruder in stimulating more vigorously and systematically the various energies of its members. The most conspicuous virtue of this cla.s.s is the virtue of courage. In more primitive conditions, courage, as necessary to the preservation of society, is regarded as a virtue in itself; later, some mixture of judgment and reason is required in its exercise; and finally, since it may be combined with other anti-social qualities, it is not approved in the same manner as the more directly social virtues. Courage is now regarded merely as one manifestation of a character which is fitted for all the requirements of social existence.

The courage of the bulldog is blind instinct. Where such an instinct exists, the animal survives by reason of it, not because he forms any conscious judgment of its advantages. It seems necessary to suppose that races owed their survival to military prowess when reflection was still in the most rudimentary stage. The utility of courage must have been a very obvious discovery as soon as reflection became possible; but the quality must have existed, in some degree, before it could be discovered, although the existence of a distinct moral sentiment doubtless implies some reflection. Moreover, the instincts which imply a perception of utility must themselves comply with the conditions of existence, must themselves be useful. Increased intelligence might act to the disadvantage of the race by increasing selfish cowardice through a keener perception of personal, as distinct from social, risk; but this cannot be true ultimately, since we perceive that intelligent races have an advantage; we may suppose that those races are most successful in which a perception of the vitality of courage goes along with an increase of courage. This principle must be regarded, therefore, as working, not only through the less conscious instinct of the lower races, but also upon the judgments of a highly civilized society. The like is true, _mutatis mutandis_, of other qualities (such as industry, energy, and so forth) which belong to the same cla.s.s.

The estimate of courage differs with respect to the two s.e.xes, as does also that of chast.i.ty. The historical explanation is simple; courage was necessary in men in early social stages, to race-preservation; to women, on the other hand, has been given, from early times, a cla.s.s of social functions not requiring courage. The estimate, once fixed, survives even when some of its early conditions disappear. The savage acquired his wife by knocking her down; to him the ideal feminine character must have included readiness to be knocked down, or at least unreadiness to strike again; and, as some of the forms of marriage recall the early system, so in the sentiments with which it is regarded there may still linger something of the early instinct a.s.sociated with striking and being struck.

The virtues of chast.i.ty and temperance occupy an intermediate position between the virtues of strength and the directly social virtues. Some of them are a part of the prudential, and others of the directly moral code. Temperance is primarily prudential, but the s.e.xual and parental instincts concern the most intimate structure of society. Our instinctive cla.s.sification of temperance as higher than courage has good reason; the cla.s.sification of it as a personal virtue cannot be maintained. A man whose vice injures only himself in the first place, becomes incapable of benefiting others. As we condemn the man whose character is bad, whether external circ.u.mstances do, or do not, give him an opportunity of displaying it, so we object logically to the man who is destroying his social qualities, whether the immediate effect of his conduct tells upon himself or upon others. Another element, an instinctive disgust at sensuality, seems to precede judgment upon intemperance, with a strength not to be accounted for by a mere summing up of consequences. The human hog revolts us as the smell of the sty turns our stomach. The justification of the instinct is not that it implies a judgment of what is useful, but rather that it is a useful judgment. As men become more intellectual, sympathetic, and so forth, they gain fresh sensibilities, which are not simple judgments of consequences but as direct, imperative, and substantial, as any of the primitive sensibilities. To get rid of the sensibility you must lower the whole tone of the character. Asceticism, which has arisen chiefly at times of great indulgence, may have been of use if only as a demonstration of the possibility of conquering the prevailing pa.s.sions.

In a similar manner, we may think a great reformer, a Howard for example, admirable, though he neglects duties which must be performed in the ordinary case. We thus admit that the general moral code of benevolence prescribes different conduct according to a man's opportunities and talents.

Truth is a virtue of slow growth; the savage, like the child, is unable to distinguish clearly the difference between imagination, hypothesis, and historical statement. The perception of the utility of truth first takes the external form: "Lie not," which corresponds approximately but not perfectly to the internal rule: "Be trustworthy." The internal rule, as such, is the higher; the external may have exceptions.

We come, at last, to the directly social virtues of justice and benevolence. So far as truth and temperance are strictly virtuous, they may be cla.s.sed, the one under justice, the other under benevolence.

There is no real conflict between justice and benevolence; so far as a man is really benevolent, he will not wish to benefit some to the injury of others. Justice seems to consist in the application to conduct of the principle of sufficient reason.

It is not safe to infer altruistic intention merely from altruistic consequences. The s.e.xual appet.i.te appears to be the most selfish of impulses, in that it prompts to conduct often ruinous to its objects. On the other hand, it is the root of all social virtues. We cannot be sure that the hen who covers her chicks regards them as more than comfortable furniture in the nest. Altruism begins with the capability of benevolent intention; where the conferring of pleasure upon others becomes a possible motive. The generation of pleasure in others' happiness has been traced to a.s.sociation; but, though the pleasant a.s.sociation doubtless prepares the way for the higher sentiment, the latter is something more.

It is true that all conduct is egoistic, in the sense that all conduct has its source in the pain and pleasure of the doer; but there is great difference between conduct that regards human beings as mere means to personal pleasure and that which takes into account their feelings as sentient beings. Sympathy springs from the primary intellectual power of representation. I cannot properly know a man without knowledge of his thoughts and feelings. Cruelty is, in many cases, simple insensibility, incapacity for projecting ourselves into the position of other beings.

We may desire the pain of others when it is useful as a deterrent, or secures our own safety; yet to think about other beings is, in general, to stimulate our sympathies, our sensibility being thus quickened by the same power which implies intellectual progress.

To believe in the existence of sentient beings is to take into account their feelings, to believe that they have feelings, which may persist when I am not aware of them. A real belief, again, implies that, at the moment of belief, I have representative sensations or emotions corresponding to those which imply the actual presence of the object. To take sentience into account is to sympathize, to feel with. The only condition necessary for the sympathy to exist, and to be capable, therefore, of becoming a motive, is that I should really believe in the object, and hence have representative feelings. Systematically to ignore these relations is to act as I should act if I were an egoist in the extremest sense and held that there were no consciousness in the world except my own. But really to carry out this principle is to be an idiot; for an essential part of the world as interesting to me is const.i.tuted by the feelings of other conscious agents, and I can ignore their existence only at the cost of losing all the intelligence which distinguishes me from the lower animals. It is true that this vicarious sympathy, this pain at another's pain, may result in our simply getting rid of our own pain by going away from the sufferer, removing him, or dismissing him from our mind; as a fact, these methods are often pursued. But in many cases, such a course is impossible without the renunciation, at the same time, of many pleasures. If a man is to live with his friends, he must share their joys and sorrows; the choice is not between a particular pain and its absence, but involves the whole question of the renunciation of companionship. Emotions are inevitable, whether sympathetic or not, in proportion, not simply to the pain and pleasure at the moment, but to the intensity and degree in which they form part of the world of the individual,--the world const.i.tuted, not by mere sensations, but by the whole system of thoughts and emotions sustained by the framework of perception. The existence of pure malignity must, it is true, be admitted; it may be partly explained as love of the "sensational," the novel; the full explanation must be left to the psychologist. Sympathy is the natural and fundamental fact. If intellectual progress carried with it inferior sociability, it would tend to be eliminated; the world would be to the stupid; it must carry with it something which counterbalances the anti-social tendency. Reason is that which enables a human being to take account of future, as well as present pleasures. The working of the instincts or feelings, which dictates conduct, approximately coincides with the prevision as to the maximum of happiness obtainable by the agent; normally, it is prudent to be virtuous; and the sympathetic motives, so to speak, always develop within the framework provided by the other motives. To become reasonable is to act on general principles, and to act consistently; and this includes the condition that a statement of the real cause of my action should equally a.s.sign the reason of my action. The law which my feelings actually follow must coincide with the principle which commends itself to my reason. In order, then, that a being provided with the social instincts should act reasonably it is necessary that he should take that course of conduct which gives the greatest chances of happiness to the organization of which he forms a part. As the pain or pleasure in another's pain or pleasure is direct, so the end willed is willed as pleasurable to the subject, and the statement that altruism involves the contradiction of aiming at something else than the real end--the pleasure of the subject--in order to secure that end, is erroneous. The fact probably is that the mind "flickers," taking into consideration various consistent and mutually dependent ends, some of which may be primarily egoistic, some altruistic. The physician is not benevolent enough to cure me unless he expects a fee; but he may act also out of sympathy; he need not be always thinking of his fee. Our sympathies would be stifled, if it were not for the cooperation of motives of a different kind.

Altruism is the faculty essentially necessary to moral conduct; but the altruistic sentiment is not to be identified with morality. The elementary sympathy must be regulated and disciplined, in order that it may give rise to true morality. Virtues, for instance, which belong to the type of truthfulness and justice, generally imply a severe restraint of the immediate sympathetic impulses.

We recognize the internal motive as desirable, and recognize a difference between the man who acts only from prudential motives and the one who acts from moral motives. We consider the latter meritorious, that is, that he has a certain claim upon society, inasmuch as he has done for nothing what another man will only do for pay, or has refrained from action from which a less moral man can be restrained only by coercion. Wherever society finds sacrifice of the individual necessary, it pays for it in terms of merit. Merit is the value put upon virtue; it is a function of the social forces, by which our characters are moulded.

Every character is developed under circ.u.mstances, and depends upon mutual adjustment with these; we cannot disentangle the two factors.

Upon the power to infer future action the science of Ethics depends. The action of the individual is not a matter of chance; in this sense it is caused. But the instinct from which the action springs is not something external to the man, which moves him; there is not the man plus the instinct; the whole man, including the instinct, acts in a certain way, in which he would not act if he did not possess the instinct. We are accustomed to say that a man has inherited certain qualities; but the man is not one thing and the inherited qualities another; the whole man is inherited. Merit implies effort. This does not mean that effort, taken absolutely, is the measure of merit. Such an a.s.sumption would lead to our excusing men for the very qualities that make them wicked,--the murderer because of his spiteful disposition, for instance. The man is most meritorious who is virtuous with the least effort--provided always that he has the normal pa.s.sions of a man. By these, however, since they are morally neutral, he is accessible to temptation and to a certain struggle.

Conscience appears, historically, as a development of simpler instincts; it is not a primary or a separate faculty; material morality makes its appearance long before the conscious recognition of a moral law. The existence of conscience is undeniable. Yet moralists are much given to exaggerate the sorrow which it actually excites. In almost every case, the pain which we feel for a bad act is complex, and due only in part to our conviction that we have broken the moral law. If we regard conscience as a separate faculty judging of action by some inherent power, we have to attribute to it reason and feeling. It is not a primary attribute of the agent (to borrow Spinoza's language), but a mode of the attributes.

There is, indeed, a sensibility which seems to have as good a claim as any to be regarded as elementary, and which is clearly concerned in most of our moral judgments: the sense of shame. This is excited by the consciousness of the judgment of others. It operates, however, not only in cases of a breach of morality; but often more strongly even in cases not concerned directly with morality; and may even operate against the moral code. But the variation is clearly not indefinite. Social development implies the development of a certain type of character, which includes, as essential, certain moral qualities; the consciousness of the code and of the condemnation of certain cla.s.ses of acts, which it would cause, is implied in the sense of shame. The sense is closely connected with the instinctive disgust before noticed. It seems to have especial reference to decency and indecency. The value of the sense of decency cannot be measured by a consideration of a particular set of bad consequences from indecent actions other than the shock to decency; we must consider the whole difference between a state of society which does, and one which does not, possess it; it is an essential symptom of refinement and delicacy. Again, the judgments of conscience may be compared to aesthetic judgments. The difference between the aesthetic and other pleasures depends upon the form of gratification, not upon the instincts gratified, and seems to correspond to the difference between work and play. The artist may appeal to our moral emotions, giving us imaginary ideals; but emotion at the contemplation of such types is in the aesthetic phase when we simply enjoy their contemplation, and it pa.s.ses into the practical phase as soon as it begins to have a definite relation to the conduct of our lives. Only in so far as the moral law has become internal, is the delight in heroic or benevolent energy spontaneous; in so far, we may speak of the existence of a moral, as of an aesthetic, sense. A man of fine moral sensibility may, indeed, like the artist, perceive finer moral discords than can be measured by formulae; and may thus supply a more delicate test. But the complex problem of a difference in moral judgment may yet be solved approximately by reference to the test of social welfare; the highest type is that which is best fitted for the conditions of social welfare.

The collective experience of the race is always progressing towards a more accurate solution of the problem.

The utilitarian theory, which makes happiness the criterion of morals, coincides approximately with the evolutionist theory which makes health of the society the criterion; for, as we have seen, health and happiness approximately coincide. The utilitarian theory fails, however, in one or two respects. It gets rid, as much as possible, of _a priori_ truths, and rejects intuitions; it bases its argument on the a.s.sumption that all knowledge is empirical and the ethical problem to be solved by a summing up of the consequences of action. It thus neglects the truth which is implied by evolution,--that the organism itself is solving the problem; it neglects the instinctive sense generated by social evolution.

Moreover, it considers society as an aggregate of similar individuals, taking little account of the variability of human desire. And, further, the utilitarian theory lays its stress upon morality as extrinsic; according to it, love of morality for its own sake, as love of the means to the end, must be as unreasonable as the miser's love for his gold.

a.s.sociation, in this sense, means illusion; and the more reasonable we become, the more we should deliver ourselves from the bondage of such errors; the theory fails just at the point where true morality begins.

Furthermore, in subst.i.tuting the external rule: "Do this," for "Be this," it seems to fall into the error of expediency. Though lying is a.s.sumed to be, on the whole, detrimental to happiness, truth is maintained to be desirable only where it contributes to happiness. The utilitarian destroys, to some extent, the force of the objection to this by a.s.serting the danger of trusting ourselves. The force of this objection is only seen, however, when it is applied, not to the external, but to the internal code; we instinctively feel the danger to character in the lie, and hesitate to trust human nature in the establishment of such a precedent, just as we object to permitting the taking of life even in cases where prolonged life means prolonged misery, because we cannot trust human nature with the decision as to life and death. We make binding laws of morality, and leave it to the man of exceptional qualities to break them; for the generality of mankind, the stricter code is safer.

What is the sanction of morality? Why should a man be virtuous? The answer depends upon the answer to the previous question: What is it to be virtuous? If, for example, virtue means all such conduct as promotes happiness, the motives to virtuous conduct must be all such motives as impel a man to aim at increasing the sum of happiness. These motives const.i.tute the sanction, and the sanction may be defined either as an intrinsic, or as an extrinsic, sanction; that is, it may be argued either that virtuous conduct leads to consequences which are desirable to every man, whether he be or be not virtuous; or, on the other hand, that virtuous conduct as such, and irrespectively of any future consequences, makes the agent happier. The problem is, thus, to find a scientific basis for the art of conduct. The "sanction" must supply the motive power by which individuals are to be made virtuous. This is, for the practical moralist, the culminating point of all ethical inquiry.

Now there is, by our theory, a necessary and immediate relation between social vitality and morality. But it does not follow that there is the same intimate connection in the individual case. The sacrifice of some of its members may be essential to the welfare of the society itself.

We have, then, to answer three questions: first, whether the virtuous man, as such, is happier than the vicious; second, whether it is worth while, on prudential grounds, for the vicious man to acquire the virtuous character; and third, whether it can be worth while, in the same sense, for the vicious man to observe the moral law.

If any man outside the pulpit were to ask himself what were the main conditions of happiness, the answer would certainly include health as the first, most essential, most sufficient condition. But the whole process of nature, upon the evolutionist doctrine, implies a correlation between the painful and the pernicious, and thus the elaboration of types in which this problem is solved by an ever-increasing efficiency and complexity of organization. Hence we may infer that the typical or ideal character, at any given stage of development, the organization which, as we may say, represents the true line of advance, corresponds to a maximum of vitality. It seems, again, that this typical form, as the healthiest, must represent not only the strongest type--that is, the type most capable of resisting unfavorable influences--but also the happiest type; for every deviation from it affords a strong presumption, not merely of liability to the destructive processes which are distinctly morbid, but also to a diminished efficiency under normal conditions. However, the typical man, though he is, on this theory, the virtuous man, is also much more than is generally understood by that name. Happiness is the reward offered, not for virtue alone, but for conformity to the law of nature, "Be strong." Beauty, strength, intellectual vigor, aesthetic sensibility, prudence, industry, and so forth, are all implied in the best type, and are, so far, conducive to happiness. If virtue be taken in the narrower sense as implying chiefly the negative quality of habitual abstinence from forbidden actions, there is no reason to suppose that it coincides with happiness. You can raise a presumption that moral excellence coincides closely with a happy nature only when you extend "moral" to include all admirable qualities.

It is chiefly practical reasons which cause an attempted evasion of this conclusion; the practical moralist holds that the non-social qualities may be left to take care of themselves, but that stress must be laid upon the social qualities as the more important, in order to obtain them in society.

Sympathetic motives may lead to self-sacrifice; but this is also true of selfish motives; gin is a more potent source of imprudence, even in a moderate sense, than family affection; and the sympathetic motives have on their side the far greater intrinsic advantage, that they promote ends more permanent, far richer in interest, and giving a proper employment to all the faculties of our nature, besides the intrinsic advantages that spring from friendly relations with the society of which we form a part. It is, however, true that higher activity of any sort may cause pain in an uncongenial medium, and that, hence, the man who is morally in advance of his age may suffer through his morality; every reformer who breaks with the world, though for the world's good, must expect much pain. "Be good if you would be happy," seems to be the verdict even of worldly prudence; but it adds in an emphatic aside, "Be not too good." We must acknowledge that excessive virtue cannot be recommended to the selfish person upon grounds intelligible to him.