History of European Morals From Augustus to Charlemagne Volume I Part 12

66 "As there is not any sort of pleasure that is not itself a good, nor any sort of pain the exemption from which is not a good, and as nothing but the expectation of the eventual enjoyment of pleasure in some shape, or of exemption from pain in some shape, can operate in the character of a motive, a necessary consequence is that if by motive be meant _sort_ of motive, there is not any such thing as a bad motive."-Bentham's _Springs of Action_, ii. -- 4. The first clauses of the following pa.s.sage I have already quoted: "Pleasure is itself a good, nay, setting aside immunity from pain, the only good.

Pain is in itself an evil, and indeed, without exception, the only evil, or else the words good and evil have no meaning. And this is alike true of every sort of pain, and of every sort of pleasure. It follows therefore immediately and incontestably that there is no such thing as any sort of motive that is in itself a bad one."-_Principles of Morals and Legislation_, ch. ix. "The search after motive is one of the prominent causes of men's bewilderment in the investigation of questions of morals.... But this is a pursuit in which every moment employed is a moment wasted. All motives are abstractedly good. No man has ever had, can, or could have a motive different from the pursuit of pleasure or of shunning pain."-_Deontology_, vol. i. p. 126. Mr. Mill's doctrine appears somewhat different from this, but the difference is I think only apparent. He says: "The motive has nothing to do with the morality of the action, though much with the worth of the agent," and he afterwards explains this last statement by saying that the "motive makes a great difference in our moral estimation of the agent, especially if it indicates a good or a bad habitual disposition, a bent of character from which useful or from which hurtful actions are likely to arise."-_Utilitarianism_, 2nd ed. pp. 26-27.

67 This truth has been admirably ill.u.s.trated by Mr. Herbert Spencer (_Social Statics_, pp. 1-8).

68 "On evalue la grandeur de la vertu en comparant les biens obtenus aux maux au prix desquels on les achete: l'excedant en bien mesure la valeur de la vertu, comme l'excedant en mal mesure le degre de haine que doit inspirer le vice."-Ch. Comte, _Traite de Legislation_, liv. ii. ch. xii.

69 M. Dumont, the translator of Bentham, has elaborated in a rather famous pa.s.sage the utilitarian notions about vengeance. "Toute espece de satisfaction entrainant une peine pour le delinquant produit naturellement un plaisir de vengeance pour la partie lesee.

Ce plaisir est un gain. Il rappelle la parabole de Samson. C'est le doux qui sort du terrible. C'est le miel recueilli dans la gueule du lion. Produit sans frais, resultat net d'une operation necessaire a d'autres t.i.tres, c'est une jouissance a cultiver comme toute autre; car le plaisir de la vengeance consideree abstraitement n'est comme tout autre plaisir qu'un bien en lui-meme."-_Principes du Code penal_, 2me partie, ch. xvi. According to a very acute living writer of this school, "The criminal law stands to the pa.s.sion of revenge in much the same relation as marriage to the s.e.xual appet.i.te" (J. F.

Stephen, _On the Criminal Law of England_, p. 99). Mr. Mill observes that, "In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility" (_Utilitarianism_, p. 24). It is but fair to give a specimen of the opposite order of extravagance.

"So well convinced was Father Claver of the eternal happiness of almost all whom he a.s.sisted," says this saintly missionary's biographer, "that speaking once of some persons who had delivered a criminal into the hands of justice, he said, G.o.d _forgive_ them; but they have secured the salvation of this man at _the probable risk of their own_."-Newman's _Anglican Difficulties_, p. 205.

_ 70 De Ordine_, ii. 4. The experiment has more than once been tried at Venice, Pisa, &c., and always with the results St. Augustine predicted.

71 The reader will here observe the very transparent sophistry of an a.s.sertion which is repeated ad nauseam by utilitarians. They tell us that a regard to the remote consequences of our actions would lead us to the conclusion that we should never perform an act which would not be conducive to human happiness if it were universally performed, or, as Mr. Austin expresses it, that "the question is if acts of this cla.s.s were generally done or generally forborne or omitted, what would be the probable effect on the general happiness or good?" (_Lectures on Jurisprudence_, vol. i. p. 32.) The question is nothing of the kind. If I am convinced that utility alone const.i.tutes virtue, and if I am meditating any particular act, the sole question of morality must be whether that act is on the whole useful, produces a net result of happiness. To determine this question I must consider both the immediate and the remote consequences of the act; but the latter are not ascertained by asking what would be the result if every one did as I do, but by asking how far, as a matter of fact, my act is likely to produce imitators, or affect the conduct and future acts of others. It may no doubt be convenient and useful to form cla.s.sifications based on the general tendency of different courses to promote or diminish happiness, but such cla.s.sifications cannot alter the morality of particular acts. It is quite clear that no act which produces on the whole more pleasure than pain can on utilitarian principles be vicious. It is, I think, equally clear that no one could act consistently on such a principle without being led to consequences which in the common judgment of mankind are grossly and scandalously immoral.

72 There are some very good remarks on the possibility of living a life of imagination wholly distinct from the life of action in Mr. Bain's _Emotions and Will_, p. 246.

73 Bentham especially recurs to this subject frequently. See Sir J.

Bowring's edition of his works (Edinburgh, 1843), vol. i. pp. 142, 143, 562; vol. x. pp. 549-550.

74 "Granted that any practice causes more pain to animals than it gives pleasure to man; is that practice moral or immoral? And if exactly in proportion as human beings raise their heads out of the slough of selfishness they do not with one voice answer 'immoral,' let the morality of the principle of utility be for ever condemned."-Mill's _Dissert_. vol. ii. p. 485. "We deprive them [animals] of life, and this is justifiable-their pains do not equal our enjoyments. There is a balance of good."-Bentham's _Deontology_, vol. i. p. 14. Mr.

Mill accordingly defines the principle of utility, without any special reference to man. "The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, utility or the great happiness principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness."-_Utilitarianism_, pp. 9-10.

75 The exception of course being domestic animals, which may be injured by ill treatment, but even this exception is a very partial one. No selfish reason could prevent any amount of cruelty to animals that were about to be killed, and even in the case of previous ill-usage the calculations of selfishness will depend greatly upon the price of the animal. I have been told that on some parts of the continent diligence horses are systematically under-fed, and worked to a speedy death, their cheapness rendering such a course the most economical.

76 Bentham, as we have seen, is of opinion that the gastronomic pleasure would produce the requisite excess of enjoyment. Hartley, who has some amiable and beautiful remarks on the duty of kindness to animals, without absolutely condemning, speaks with much aversion of the custom of eating "our brothers and sisters," the animals.

(_On Man_, vol. ii. pp. 222-223.) Paley, observing that it is quite possible for men to live without flesh-diet, concludes that the only sufficient justification for eating meat is an express divine revelation in the Book of Genesis. (_Moral Philos._ book ii. ch.

11.) Some reasoners evade the main issue by contending that they kill animals because they would otherwise overrun the earth; but this, as Windham said, "is an indifferent reason for killing fish."

77 In commenting upon the French licentiousness of the eighteenth century, Hume says, in a pa.s.sage which has excited a great deal of animadversion:-"Our neighbours, it seems, have resolved to sacrifice some of the domestic to the social pleasures; and to prefer ease, freedom, and an open commerce, to strict fidelity and constancy.

These ends are both good, and are somewhat difficult to reconcile; nor must we be surprised if the customs of nations incline too much sometimes to the one side, and sometimes to the other."-_Dialogue._

78 There are few things more pitiable than the blunders into which writers have fallen when trying to base the plain virtue of chast.i.ty on utilitarian calculations. Thus since the writings of Malthus it has been generally recognised that one of the very first conditions of all material prosperity is to check early marriages, to restrain the tendency of population to multiply more rapidly than the means of subsistence. Knowing this, what can be more deplorable than to find moralists making such arguments as these the very foundation of morals?-"The first and great mischief, and by consequence the guilt, of promiscuous concubinage consists in its tendency to diminish marriages." (Paley's _Moral Philosophy_, book iii. part iii. ch.

ii.) "That is always the most happy condition of a nation, and that nation is most accurately obeying the laws of our const.i.tution, in which the number of the human race is most rapidly increasing. Now it is certain that under the law of chast.i.ty, that is, when individuals are exclusively united to each other, the increase of population will be more rapid than under any other circ.u.mstances."

(Wayland's _Elements of Moral Science_, p. 298, 11th ed., Boston, 1839.) I am sorry to bring such subjects before the reader, but it is impossible to write a history of morals without doing so.

79 See Luther's _Table Talk_.

80 Tillemont, _Mem. pour servir a l'Hist. ecclesiastique_, tome x. p.

57.

81 ?? te ????e?e?? ?a? t? e?e??ete??. (aelian, _Var. Hist._ xii. 59.) Longinus in like manner divides virtue into e?e??es?a ?a? ????e?a.

(_De Sublim._ -- 1.) The opposite view in England is continually expressed in the saying, "You should never pull down an opinion until you have something to put in its place," which can only mean, if you are convinced that some religious or other hypothesis is false, you are morally bound to repress or conceal your conviction until you have discovered positive affirmations or explanations as unqualified and consolatory as those you have destroyed.

82 See this powerfully stated by Shaftesbury. (_Inquiry concerning Virtue_, book i. part iii.) The same objection applies to Dr.

Mansel's modification of the theological doctrine-viz. that the origin of morals is not the will but the nature of G.o.d.

83 "The one great and binding ground of the belief of G.o.d and a hereafter is the law of conscience."-Coleridge, _Notes Theological and Political_, p. 367. That our moral faculty is our one reason for maintaining the supreme benevolence of the Deity was a favourite position of Kant.

84 "Nescio quomodo inhaeret in mentibus quasi saeculorum quoddam augurium futurorum; idque in maximis ingeniis altissimisque animis et exsist.i.t maxime et apparet facillime."-Cic. _Tusc. Disp._ i. 14.

85 "It is a calumny to say that men are roused to heroic actions by ease, hope of pleasure, recompense-sugar-plums of any kind in this world or the next. In the meanest mortal there lies something n.o.bler. The poor swearing soldier hired to be shot has his 'honour of a soldier,' different from drill, regulations, and the shilling a day. It is not to taste sweet things, but to do n.o.ble and true things, and vindicate himself under G.o.d's heaven as a G.o.d-made man, that the poorest son of Adam dimly longs. Show him the way of doing that, the dullest day-drudge kindles into a hero. They wrong man greatly who say he is to be seduced by ease. Difficulty, abnegation, martyrdom, death, are the allurements that act on the heart of man.

Kindle the inner genial life of him, you have a flame that burns up all lower considerations."-Carlyle's _Hero-worship_, p. 237 (ed.

1858).

86 "Clamat Epicurus, is quem vos nimis voluptatibus esse deditum dicitis, non posse jucunde vivi nisi sapienter, honeste, justeque vivatur, nec sapienter, honeste, juste nisi jucunde."-Cicero, _De Fin._ i. 18.

87 "The virtues to be complete must have fixed their residence in the heart and become appet.i.tes impelling to actions without further thought than the gratification of them; so that after their expedience ceases they still continue to operate by the desire they raise.... I knew a mercer who having gotten a competency of fortune, thought to retire and enjoy himself in quiet; but finding he could not be easy without business was forced to return to the shop and a.s.sist his former partners gratis, in the nature of a journeyman.

Why then should it be thought strange that a man long inured to the practice of moral duties should persevere in them out of liking, when they can yield him no further advantage?"-Tucker's _Light of Nature_, vol. i. p. 269. Mr. J. S. Mill in his _Utilitarianism_ dwells much on the heroism which he thinks this view of morals may produce.

88 See Lactantius, _Inst. Div._ vi. 9. Montesquieu, in his _Decadence de l'Empire romain_, has shown in detail the manner in which the crimes of Roman politicians contributed to the greatness of their nation. Modern history furnishes only too many ill.u.s.trations of the same truth.

89 "That quick sensibility which is the groundwork of all advances towards perfection increases the pungency of pains and vexations."-Tucker's _Light of Nature_, ii. 16, -- 4.

90 This position is forcibly ill.u.s.trated by Mr. Maurice in his fourth lecture _On Conscience_ (1868). It is manifest that a tradesman resisting a dishonest or illegal trade custom, an Irish peasant in a disturbed district revolting against the agrarian conspiracy of his cla.s.s, or a soldier in many countries conscientiously refusing in obedience to the law to fight a duel, would incur the full force of social penalties, because he failed to do that which was illegal or criminal.

91 See Brown _On the Characteristics_, pp. 206-209.

92 "A toothache produces more violent convulsions of pain than a phthisis or a dropsy. A gloomy disposition ... may be found in very worthy characters, though it is sufficient alone to embitter life.... A selfish villain may possess a spring and alacrity of temper, which is indeed a good quality, but which is rewarded much beyond its merit, and when attended with good fortune will compensate for the uneasiness and remorse arising from all the other vices."-Hume's Essays: _The Sceptic_.

93 At the same time, the following pa.s.sage contains, I think, a great deal of wisdom and of a kind peculiarly needed in England at the present day:-"The nature of the subject furnishes the strongest presumption that no better system will ever, for the future, be invented, in order to account for the origin of the benevolent from the selfish affections, and reduce all the various emotions of the human mind to a perfect simplicity. The case is not the same in this species of philosophy as in physics. Many an hypothesis in nature, contrary to first appearances, has been found, on more accurate scrutiny, solid and satisfactory.... But the presumption always lies on the other side in all enquiries concerning the origin of our pa.s.sions, and of the internal operations of the human mind. The simplest and most obvious cause which can there be a.s.signed for any phenomenon, is probably the true one.... The affections are not susceptible of any impression from the refinements of reason or imagination; and it is always found that a vigorous exertion of the latter faculties, necessarily, from the narrow capacity of the human mind, destroys all activity in the former."-Hume's _Enquiry Concerning Morals_, Append. II.

94 "The pleasing consciousness and self-approbation that rise up in the mind of a virtuous man, exclusively of any direct, explicit, consideration of advantage likely to accrue to himself from his possession of those good qualities" (Hartley _On Man_, vol. i. p.

493), form a theme upon which moralists of both schools are fond of dilating, in a strain that reminds one irresistibly of the self-complacency of a famous nursery hero, while reflecting upon his own merits over a Christmas-pie. Thus Adam Smith says, "The man who, not from frivolous fancy, but from proper motives, has performed a generous action, when he looks forward to those whom he has served, feels himself to be the natural object of their love and grat.i.tude, and by sympathy with them, of the esteem and approbation of all mankind. And when he looks backward to the motive from which he acted, and surveys it in the light in which the indifferent spectator will survey it, he still continues to enter into it, and applauds himself by sympathy with the approbation of this supposed impartial judge. In both these points of view, his conduct appears to him every way agreeable.... Misery and wretchedness can never enter the breast in which dwells complete self-satisfaction."-_Theory of Moral Sentiments_, part ii. ch. ii. -- 2; part iii. ch. iii. I suspect that many moralists confuse the self-gratulation which they suppose a virtuous man to feel, with the delight a religious man experiences from the sense of the protection and favour of the Deity. But these two feelings are clearly distinct, and it will, I believe, be found that the latter is most strongly experienced by the very men who most sincerely disclaim all sense of merit. "Were the perfect man to exist," said that good and great writer, Archer Butler, "he himself would be the last to know it; for the highest stage of advancement is the lowest descent in humility." At all events, the reader will observe, that on utilitarian principles nothing could be more pernicious or criminal than that modest, humble, and diffident spirit, which diminishes the pleasure of self-gratulation, one of the highest utilitarian motives to virtue.

95 Hartley has tried in one place to evade this conclusion by an appeal to the doctrine of final causes. He says that the fact that conscience is not an original principle of our nature, but is formed mechanically in the manner I have described, does not invalidate the fact that it is intended for our guide, "for all the things which have evident final causes, are plainly brought about by mechanical means;" and he appeals to the milk in the breast, which is intended for the sustenance of the young, but which is nevertheless mechanically produced. (_On Man_, vol. ii. pp. 338-339.) But it is plain that this mode of reasoning would justify us in attributing an authoritative character to any habit-e.g. to that of avarice-which these writers a.s.sure us is in the manner of its formation an exact parallel to conscience. The later followers of Hartley certainly cannot be accused of any excessive predilection for the doctrine of final causes, yet we sometimes find them asking what great difference it can make whether (when conscience is admitted by both parties to be real) it is regarded as an original principle of our nature, or as a product of a.s.sociation? Simply this. If by the const.i.tution of our nature we are subject to a law of duty which is different from and higher than our interest, a man who violates this law through interested motives, is deserving of reprobation. If on the other hand there is no natural law of duty, and if the pursuit of our interest is the one original principle of our being, no one can be censured who pursues it, and the first criterion of a wise man will be his determination to eradicate every habit (conscientious or otherwise) which impedes him in doing so.

_ 96 On Human Nature_, chap. ix. -- 10.

_ 97 Enquiry concerning Good and Evil._

98 This theory is noticed by Hutcheson, and a writer in the _Spectator_ (No. 436) suggests that it may explain the attraction of prize-fights. The case of the pleasure derived from fict.i.tious sorrow is a distinct question, and has been admirably treated in Lord Kames' _Essays on Morality_. Bishop Butler notices (_Second Sermon on Compa.s.sion_), that it is possible for the very intensity of a feeling of compa.s.sion to divert men from charity by making them "industriously turn away from the miserable;" and it is well known that Goethe, on account of this very susceptibility, made it one of the rules of his life to avoid everything that could suggest painful ideas. Hobbes makes the following very characteristic comments on some famous lines of Lucretius: "From what pa.s.sion proceedeth it that men take pleasure to behold from the sh.o.r.e the danger of those that are at sea in a tempest or in fight, or from a safe castle to behold two armies charge one another in the field? It is certainly in the whole sum joy, else men would never flock to such a spectacle. Nevertheless, there is both joy and grief, for as there is novelty and remembrance of our own security present, which is delight, so there is also pity, which is grief. But the delight is so far predominant that men usually are content in such a case to be spectators of the misery of their friends." (_On Human Nature_, ch.

ix. -- 19.) Good Christians, according to some theologians, are expected to enjoy this pleasure in great perfection in heaven. "We may believe in the next world also the goodness as well as the happiness of the blest will be confirmed and advanced by reflections naturally arising from the view of the misery which some shall undergo, which seems to be a good reason for the creation of those beings who shall be finally miserable, and for the continuation of them in their miserable existence ... though in one respect the view of the misery which the d.a.m.ned undergo might seem to detract from the happiness of the blessed through pity and commiseration, yet under another, a nearer and much more affecting consideration, viz.

that all this is the misery they themselves were often exposed to and in danger of incurring, why may not the sense of their own escape so far overcome the sense of another's ruin as quite to extinguish the pain that usually attends the idea of it, and even render it productive of some real happiness? To this purpose, Lucretius' _Suave mari_," etc. (_Law's notes to his Translation of King's Origin of Evil_, pp. 477, 479.)

99 See e.g. _Reid's Essays on the Active Powers_, essay iii. ch. v.

100 The error I have traced in this paragraph will be found running through a great part of what Mr. Buckle has written upon morals-I think the weakest portion of his great work. See, for example, an elaborate confusion on the subject, _History of Civilisation_, vol.

ii. p. 429. Mr. Buckle maintains that all the philosophers of what is commonly called "the Scotch school" (a school founded by the Irishman Hutcheson, and to which Hume does not belong), were incapable of inductive reasoning, because they maintained the existence of a moral sense or faculty, or of first principles, incapable of resolution; and he enters into a learned enquiry into the causes which made it impossible for Scotch writers to pursue or appreciate the inductive method. It is curious to contrast this view with the language of one, who, whatever may be the value of his original speculations, is, I conceive, among the very ablest philosophical critics of the present century. "Les philosophes ecossais adopterent les procedes que Bacon avait recommande d'appliquer a l'etude du monde physique, et les transporterent dans l'etude du monde moral. Ils firent voir que l'induction baconienne, c'est-a-dire, l'induction precedee d'une observation scrupuleuse des phenomenes, est en philosophie comme en physique la seule methode legitime. C'est un de leurs t.i.tres les plus honorables d'avoir insiste sur cette demonstration, et d'avoir en meme temps joint l'exemple au precepte.... Il est vrai que le zele des philosophes ecossais en faveur de la methode d'observation leur a presque fait depa.s.ser le but. Ils ont incline a renfermer la psychologie dans la description minutieuse et continuelle de phenomenes de l'ame sans reflechir a.s.sez que cette description doit faire place a l'induction et au raisonnement deductif, et qu'une philosophie qui se bornerait a l'observation serait aussi sterile que celle qui s'amuserait a construire des hypotheses sans avoir prealablement observe."-Cousin, Hist. de la Philos. Morale au xviiime Siecle, Tome 4, p. 14-16.

Dugald Stewart had said much the same thing, but he was a Scotchman, and therefore, according to Mr. Buckle (_Hist. of Civ._ ii. pp.

485-86), incapable of understanding what induction was. I may add that one of the princ.i.p.al objections M. Cousin makes against Locke is, that he investigated the origin of our ideas before a.n.a.lysing minutely their nature, and the propriety of this method is one of the points on which Mr. Mill (_Examination of Sir W. Hamilton_) is at issue with M. Cousin.

101 M. Ch. Comte, in his very learned _Traite de Legislation_, liv. iii.

ch. iv., has made an extremely curious collection of instances in which different nations have made their own distinctive peculiarities of colour and form the ideal of beauty.

102 "How particularly fine the hard theta is in our English terminations, as in that grand word death, for which the Germans gutturise a sound that _puts you in mind of nothing but a loathsome toad_."-Coleridge's _Table Talk_, p. 181.

103 Mackintosh, _Dissert._ p. 238.