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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924092294564 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE UNIVERSITIES OF EUROPE IN THE 
 
 MIDDLE AGES 1895 
 
 DOCTRINE AND DEVELOPMENT - 1898 
 
 NEW COLLEGE, in 'College Histories' Series 
 
 (with R. S. Rait) 1901 
 
 THE ULTIMATE BASIS OF THEISM, in 
 
 'Contentio Veritatis, by six Oxford Tutors ' 1903 
 
 PERSONALITY HUMAN AND DIVINE, in 
 
 'Personalldealism'; edited by H. C. Sturt 1902 
 
 CHRISTUS IN ECCLESIA 1904 
 
THE THEORY 
 OF GOOD AND EVIL 
 
 A TREATISE ON MORAL PHILOSOPHY 
 
 BV 
 
 HASTINGS RASHDALL 
 
 D.LITT. (oxford), HON. D.C.L. (dUHHAm) 
 FELLOW AND TUTOR OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 
 VOLUME I 
 
 OXFORD 
 
 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 
 1907 
 

 
 / V It 
 
 I/'/ ■ ' ' 
 
 HENRY PROWDE, M.A. 
 
 FUBLISHEB TO THE UNIVKRSITTr OF OZroBD 
 
 LONDON, EDINBURGH 
 
 NEW YORK AND TORONTO 
 
TO THE MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 
 MY TEACHERS 
 
 THOMAS HILL GREEN 
 
 AND 
 
 HENRY SIDGWICK 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The scope of the present work is perhaps made sufficiently 
 obvious by the title-page. It is an attempt to deal with the 
 chief topics usually discussed in books bearing the title ' Moral 
 Philosophy ' or ' Ethics.' It is on a rather larger scale than the 
 books generally described as ' Textbooks,' or ' Introductions,' and 
 is occupied to some extent with difficulties and controversies 
 which can hardly be called ' elementary.' Still, I have in writ- 
 ing it had chiefly before my mind the wants of undergraduate 
 students in Philosophy. I have endeavoured, as far as possible, 
 to assume no previous acquaintance either with ethical or with 
 general Philosophy : but it has not, in aU parts of the work, 
 been possible to avoid alluding to the arguments and objections 
 of writers whose systems cannot be fuUy explained or examined 
 in a book like the present. That is especially the case in 
 Book II, which is largely occupied with replies to objections 
 and with the criticism of views more or less opposed to my 
 own. Even there I have endeavoured to make the drift of 
 my argument intelligible to readers who have not read the 
 works criticized. But those who want a short and fairly 
 elementary treatment of the subject might perhaps read Book I 
 by itself, or pass at once from Book I to Book III. That book 
 deals in part with metaphysical questions which do not admit of 
 an altogether ' popular ' treatment ; this section of the work would 
 no doubt be better understood by a student who has read enough 
 to know in a general way the meaning of the metaphysical 
 problem, but I hope it will not be found wholly unintelligible to 
 those who may make their first acquaintance with it in these 
 pages. Advanced students are more likely to complain that 
 I have touched upon many great questions, not specially belong- 
 ing to the ethical branch of Philosophy, in a way which must 
 appear unsatisfying to those who are well versed in them, and 
 dogmatic to those who do not agree with me. I would venture 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 in reply to such a criticism to plead that the necessity of touch- 
 ing upon difficult questions without getting to the bottom of 
 them is to some extent inseparable from any treatment of Ethics 
 which does not form part of a complete course or system of 
 Philosophy: and the difficulty is increased when one wishes 
 to avoid allusiveness and technicality of a kind which would 
 necessarily render the book perplexing and uninstructive to 
 a student beginning the subject, or to the general reader who 
 may take some interest in the ethical and religious aspects 
 of Philosophy without wishing to embark upon an elaborate 
 course of Logic, Psychology, and Metaphysic. 
 
 The idea prevails among some Philosophers that Moral Philo- 
 sophy is a particularly ' easy ' branch of Philosophy. I believe 
 that it is easier than other branches of Philosophy in the sense 
 that its more elementary problems can be discussed with less 
 technicality, and can be understood more readily at a first read- 
 ing by persons of ordinary ability and education. For this 
 reason it seems to me a peculiarly good subject for the student 
 of Philosophy to begin upon, although logically it might well be 
 considered to come rather at the end than at the beginning 
 of a philosophical course. But, though the controversies which 
 range round the words ' Utilitarianism ' and ' Intuitionism ' can 
 be understood and discussed almost without reference to meta- 
 physical problems, the ultimate question of Moral Philosophy — 
 the meaning and nature of the ideas ' good,' ' right,' ' duty ' — is 
 after all the ultimate question of all Philosophy, and involves all 
 the others. I am very far from thinking that I have got to the 
 bottom of all the difficulties involved in that fundamental 
 problem: upon some of them I am aware that I have hardly 
 touched in these pages. Nor is there anything very original 
 in such a solution of them as I have been able to offer : and yet 
 I am not aware that, in English at any rate, there is any syste- 
 matic treatment of them, written from anything like my own 
 point of view, to which I could point as altogether meeting the 
 wants of the class of readers for whom this book is chiefly 
 intended. Neither of the great writers to whom I feel I owe 
 most in the special department of Ethics — the late Professor 
 Sidgwick, and the late Professor T. H. Green whose lectures and 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 private classes I used to attend as an undergraduate — can well 
 be regarded as having said the last word upon the subject by 
 students of a generation later who ha^je profited not merely 
 by the criticism which each of them supplies upon the other, 
 but by the general progress of Philosophy since the first appear- 
 ance of Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics (1874) and of Green's 
 Prolegomena to Ethics (1883). Since the last-mentioned date 
 the supposed easiness of this branch of Philosophy, or the 
 superior attractiveness of Logic and Metaphysic, has led perhaps 
 to a certain unwillingness to write separate treatises on Ethics, 
 at least among those who take what one may call a constructive 
 view of the subject *. But the period — almost a quarter of 
 a century — which has elapsed since the death of Green has 
 been a period of great philosophical activity, and (I venture to 
 think) of great philosophical progress, and there has been much 
 incidental treatment of ethical questions in the works both of 
 English and of foreign Philosophers. There seems therefore 
 room for a fresh systematic treatment of the main problems 
 of Moral Philosophy in what I will venture to call (in spite 
 of great difierences both of opinion and of temperament) the 
 spirit which animated both of them. 
 
 Among more recent writers I have learned most perhaps from 
 those from whom I differ most. I have so frequently criticized 
 the writings of Mr. F. H. Bradley that I should like to say that, 
 fundamentally as I dissent from his ultimate position, I believe 
 that no one has a deeper sense than myself of personal obligation 
 to his brilliant writings, or a deeper appreciation of the stimulus 
 which he has given to philosophical progress, not only in his own 
 
 ' I should wish to speak with respect of three short English textbooks — 
 Professor Muirhead's Elements of Ethics, Professor Mackenzie's Introduction 
 to Moral Philosophy, and Bishop d'Arcy's Short Study of Ethics ; but none of 
 them can be said to represent exactly my own point of view. I feel more 
 sympathy on the purely ethical, though not on the metaphysical, side with 
 a quite recent work — Mr. Moore's very powerful essay, Principia Ethica, 
 which appeared when my own work was practically finished. Professor 
 Paulsen's System of Ethics is an admirable and very attractive book, which 
 represents on the whole a point of view not unlike my own, but it hardly 
 touches upon many difficulties which have attracted much attention in 
 England. 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 University of Oxford, but throughout the English-speaking 
 world and beyond it. Unfortunately, Ethics seems to me pre- 
 cisely the side of Philosophy on which his influence has been 
 least salutary. I trust that, while criticizing him with freedom, 
 I have not failed in the respect that is due to perhaps the most 
 original of contemporary thinkers. 
 
 With regard to my criticism of the able work of Professor 
 A. E. Taylor {The Problem of Conduct), I should wish to explain 
 that the recent number of the Philosophical Review in which he 
 withdraws his view about the merely ' apparent ' character of 
 evil did not come into my hands till the whole of my criticism 
 was printed and some of it had been finally passed for the press, 
 though I had not failed to notice the change of tone already 
 traceable in his Elements of Metaphysics. I can only therefore 
 express my regret for having devoted so much space to the 
 criticism of a position which its author has abandoned. 
 
 It is useless for an author to offer apologies for the defects of 
 a book which he is not compelled to write. In explanation 
 of such deficiencies of the present work as may arise from the 
 absence of a more exhaustive knowledge of the literature bearing 
 upon this and cognate subjects, I may, however, be allowed 
 to plead, for the information of persons unacquainted with our 
 English system of University teaching, that Oxford College 
 Tutors are very far from possessing 'the leisure of a German 
 or an American Professor, and that they have to choose between 
 publishing imperfect work and not publishing at all. They may 
 perhaps console themselves with the reflection that the method 
 of individual teaching by means of essays and conversation 
 gives them opportunities of appreciating the real wants of 
 students which are hardly accessible to teachers who see their 
 pupils only in the lecture-room. I have a strong feeling that 
 the progress of knowledge, especially in the region of Philosophy, 
 is often retarded by an excessive shrinking from criticism, and by 
 an indefinite postponement of publication in the hope of more 
 completely satisfying an author's ideal. 
 
 The following articles which have already appeared in various 
 periodicals have been freely made use of with the kind per- 
 mission of their editors : — ' Professor Sidgwick's Utilitarianism ' 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 {Mind, 1885) ; 'Dr. Martineau and the Theory of Vocation' [Mind, 
 1 888) ; ' The Theory of Punishment ' (The International Journal 
 of Ethics, 1 891); 'The Limits of Casjjistry' {International 
 Journal of Ethics, 1894); 'Justice' {The Economic Review, 
 1 891, 189a); 'Can there be a Sum of Pleasures?' {Mind, 1899); 
 ' The Ethics of Forgiveness ' {International Journal of Ethics, 
 1900); 'The Commensurability of all Values' {Mind, 1902). 
 Some of the earlier articles have been largely re- written : others 
 are reprinted with little change. 
 
 Dr. McTaggart of Trinity College, Cambridge, has kindly read 
 through the whole of my proofs, and I am much indebted to his 
 criticisms and suggestions. For assistance and advice in dealing 
 with parts of the work I am similarly indebted to Mr. C. C. J. Webb 
 of Magdalen College, Oxford, and several other friends, nor must 
 I omit to mention the help of my wife in the final revision. 
 
 H. RASHDALL. 
 
ANALYTICAL TABLE aF CONTENTS 
 
 VOLUME I 
 BOOK I. THE MORAL CKITERION 
 
 CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The exact scope and object of a Science is only arrived at gradually, 
 as the Science itself progresses. This applies to Philosophy and its 
 branches i 
 
 And the individual student of Philosophy has to discover its 
 meaning gradually 2 
 
 Hence no attempt will be made at an exact definition of the scope 
 of Moral Philosophy beyond saying that we are investigating the 
 meaning and application of the terms ' right ' and ' wrong ' : plan of 
 the work explained 3 
 
 CHAPTER II. PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISS^ ^'"' 
 J. Bentham's view that nothing but pleasure can possibly be desired 7 
 
 Its plausibility depends upon a confusion between three possible 
 interpretations : (i) that I always do that which it gives me most 
 pleasure at the moment to do ; (2) that the motive of an action is 
 always some future pleasure ; (3) that the motive is always to get 
 the greatest pleasure on the whole. It is clear that people often do 
 things which they once knew would not secure most pleasure on the 
 
 whole 8 
 
 If it be said that at the moment they persuade themselves that 
 such things will do so, this by itself implies a bias in favour of 
 immediate pleasure : this involves rejection of the third view 9 
 
 Nor can it be said that I always do what is pleasantest at the 
 moment, for people often choose painful things for the sake of some- 
 thing future n 
 
 This again implies that the nearer pleasure is more attractive 12 
 
 But the superior attractiveness of some pleasures over others can- 
 not be explained merely by (i) expected intensity and (a) proximity : 
 
 e. g. in case of anger 13 
 
 If not pleasure but a particular kind of pleasure is desired, this 
 really implies that something is desired besides pleasure ... 14 
 
 The hedonistic Psychology involves a hysteron-proteron : in many 
 cases the pleasure can only be accounted for by pre-existent desire . 15 
 
 Few pleasures, chiefly sensual and aesthetic, can be explained 
 without admitting ' disinterested desires ' 15 
 
xii ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 II. If it were admitted that Altruism grew out of Egoism, this 
 would not prove the hedonistic Psychology, but such a theory is 
 inconsistent with all that is known about instinct .... 20 
 
 Some instincts are race-preserving, even in animals ... 22 
 
 In men such instincts gradually pass into desires .... 23 
 
 III. J. S. Mill's admission of differences of quality in pleasure 
 abandons psychological Hedonism : to desire a superior quality in 
 pleasure is not to desire pleasure ''25; 
 
 Pleasures differ in kind, if by a pleasure is meant not abstract — 
 
 pleasantness but a pleasant state of consciousness .... 26 
 
 IV. The difficulties of psychological Hedonism illustrated by the 
 possibility of desiring objects that vidll not be realized till after death 27 
 
 Case of the atheistic Martyr 28 
 
 The pains and pleasures of Conscience cannot be included in the 
 calculus, for they imply the existence of desire for something besides 
 pleasure 29 
 
 V. Elements of truth in psychological Hedonism : — 
 
 (1) The gratification of every desire gives pleasure ... 31 
 
 (2) Pictured or experienced pleasantness strengthens desire . 33 
 
 (3) Especially in the case of bad or indifferent desires, which 
 may be disinterested as well as good ones, but not in quite the same 
 sense or degree 33 
 
 (4) Not all desires are ' disinterested ' : there is such a thing as 
 desire of pleasure 36 
 
 (5) Nor need the possibility of desiring a ' sum of pleasures ' be 
 denied (see below. Book II, Ch. i) 37 
 
 (6) The ' paradox of Hedonism ' (' if you aim at pleasure you will 
 
 not get it ') has some truth in it, but is often exaggerated . . 37 
 
 VI. The theory that in every desire self-satisfaction is sought 
 involves the same hysteron-proteron as the hedonistic Psychology : 
 if I regard the satisfaction of a desire for my neighbour's good as 
 my good, this implies that I first desired it apart from its tendency to 
 promote my good 38 
 
 CHAPTER III. RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM 
 
 I. If it is possible to desire other objects than one's own pleasure, 
 the question remains whether it is rational to do so . . . . 44 
 
 Even the Egoistic Hedonist contends that his end of action is in- 
 trinsically more reasonable than another's ; and if so, no reason can 
 be given why one person's pleasure should be desired more than 
 another's 44 
 
 The recognition of this leads us from Egoistic to Universalistic 
 Hedonism 46 
 
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS xiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 And this involves the recognition of an ' ought ' .... 48 
 
 IL The late Prof. Henry Sidgwick's Rationalistic Utilitarianism : 
 his position compared with Mill's ...*.... h* 
 
 Sidgvirick admits the existence of disinterested desires, and holds 
 that it is ' right ' or our duty to pursue the greatest pleasure of 
 Society on the whole, though such virtuous conduct is not in itself 
 a good gj 
 
 Objections to Sidgwick's position : (i) It practically admits that it 
 is reasonable for A to promote B's pleasure ; yet it treats S as a being 
 who may reasonably pursue nothing but his own pleasure : if such 
 conduct is reasonable for A, why not for £? If ^ is to promote B'a 
 happiness only so far as is consistent with £'s promoting the general 
 pleasure, this seems to make virtue part of the end . . . . c. 
 
 (a) The Dualism of the Practical Reason admitted by Sidgwick is 
 untenable -5. 
 
 (3) If the Egoist is pronounced reasonable in desiring his own 
 good, and the Altruist in desiring general good, ' reasonable ' must 
 
 be used in different senses eg 
 
 (4) If to act rationally is not itself a good, why should I be 
 rational ? cy 
 
 (5) Sidgwick admits that he cannot fully establish the reason- 
 ableness of right conduct without the postulates of Grod and Immor- 
 tality, but his Hedonism undermines the principal ground for these 
 beliefs g^ 
 
 This criticism suggests that a rationalist Ethic cannot be hedonistic, 
 but must treat Virtue or character (i.e. at least the disposition to pro- 
 mote the general good) as itself part of the good to be promoted . 63 
 
 III. Reply to Sidgwick's objections to making character an end- 
 in-itself : they seem to imply forgetfulness that there are other ele- 
 ments in consciousness besides feeling, i. e. will and knowledge, and 
 
 that these may have value 63 
 
 The final objection is that the Moral Consciousness does pronounce 
 moral goodness to have value 69 
 
 IV. We have thus arrived at Kant's position that there are two 
 rational ends — Virtue and Happiness 71 
 
 And this will remove most of the practical objections to Hedonism 72 
 But the Moral Consciousness does not favour the theory that 
 nothing but pleasure and Virtue (in the sense of disposition to pro- 
 mote pleasure) is intrinsically good : it includes other elements in the 
 good, e. g. Culture. The true good consists in certain states, not 
 merely of Feeling, but of Thought and of Volition .... 73 
 
 V. The relation of Thought, Feeling, and Will to each other : use 
 
 of these and other terms explained 76 
 
xiv ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER IV. INTUITIONISM 
 
 PAOE 
 
 I. By Intuitionism is meant the theory that the moral faculty pro- 
 nounces either particular acts (unphiloBOphical Intuitionism) or rules 
 
 of action to be morally binding without reference to consequences . 80 
 
 Unphilosophical Intuitionism seems to reduce Morality to mere 
 caprice, unless it is held that the isolated judgements imply some 
 principle .81 
 
 To philosophical Intuitionism the following objections may be 
 made : — 
 
 (i) Granted the existence of an intuitive impulse to condemn acts 
 without reference to consequences, can such judgements be regarded 
 
 as rational or valid ? 83 
 
 ., (ii) Variations of moral judgements in different races, ages, and 
 individuals : but this objection is not final, for self-evident truths may 
 not be evident to everybody 84 
 
 (iii) The rule which seems intuitively recognized is often incapable 
 of exact definition, and admits of exceptions about which there are 
 no clear intuitions 85 
 
 (iv) The rule generally involves a tacit reference to consequences : 
 some consequences are included in our conception of the act . . 87 
 
 (v) Some alleged intuitions contradict others : the requirements 
 of Benevolence may collide with those of Veracity .... 89 
 
 (vi) The only intuitions which really commend themselves upon 
 reflection are precisely those upon which Utilitarianism is based — 
 the axioms of Prudence, Rational Benevolence, and Equity . . 90 
 
 II. We are thus driven to accept the principle that actions are to 
 be judged by their tendency to promote a universal Well-being. We 
 have in the last resort to appeal to intuitions or judgements of value, 
 
 but these relate not to acts but to ends 91 
 
 This position allows us to recognize that acts may have a value as 
 well as consequences, for to the Non-hedonist the means are often 
 
 part of the end g6 
 
 Some pleasures are bad g8 
 
 III. The moral judgement is thus a judgement of value — ' this is 
 good,' not (immediately) ' this is right ' loo 
 
 CHAPTER V. THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE 
 
 I. Our moral judgements involve an ultimate unanalysable idea — 
 ' ought ' or duty. Utilitarianism requires such an ' ought ' as much 
 as any other system, as has been recognized by Sidgwick . . . 10a 
 
 Kant is thus (by Sidgwick's admission) right in making Morality 
 a ' categorical imperative ' in so far as this means that ' rightness 
 
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS xv 
 
 PAQE 
 
 is perceived immediately by Reason, and that the lightness of any 
 
 act supplies a motive for doing it 106 
 
 He is also right in recognizing that the perfornlance of duty is the 
 agent's highest good 107 
 
 II. But Eant was wrong in supposing that the bare notion of 
 a Categorical Imperative will enable us, without any appeal to 
 experience, to decide what in detail it ia right to do . . . . 108 
 
 Experience cannot tell us what is good, but neither can we say what 
 is good without experience 109 
 
 No content for the Moral Law can be got from Kant's first rule, 
 ' Act as if the law of thy action were to become by thy will law 
 universal' 110 
 
 Eant confused two senses of the word ' categorical ' : a categorical 
 rule (in one sense) does not exclude exceptions 116 
 
 III. The principle of ' duty for duty's sake ' did not (as Eant 
 supposed) imply that no other motive can give moral value to 
 conduct 119 
 
 Eant made the same mistake as the hedonistic Psychologists . 122 
 
 IV. The 'sense of duty' must not be treated as unnecessary or 
 belonging to an imperfect Morality 124 
 
 The true moral motive is the rational love of persons (including in 
 due measure one's self) and of the things which constitute their true 
 good 128 
 
 Schopenhauer's criticism of Eant 129 
 
 V. When it is recognized that other ends or objects of desire are 
 good besides (i) Virtue and (2) Happiness, the sharp Dualism of the 
 Kantian* Ethics disappears 130 
 
 VI. No content for Morality can be got out of Kant's second rule, 
 
 ' Use Humanity always as an end, never as a means only ' . . . 131 
 
 VII. Eant's third rule, ' Act as member of a kingdom of ends,' is 
 more rational, but insufficient : ambiguity of all his formulae . . 133 
 
 VTII. The idea of ' good ' is logically prior to the idea of ' right,' 
 
 though each implies the other 135 
 
 ' Value ' the fundamental idea in Morality 137 
 
 CHAPTER VI. REASON AND FEELING 
 
 I. It is implied in what precedes that the moral faculty is Reason, 
 
 not any kind of feeling or emotion 138 
 
 This does not imply that the reasonableness of a moral act causes 
 
 it to be done without desire 14° 
 
 Moral judgements are normally accompanied by emotion . . 14.1 
 
 II. The Moral Sense theory of Ethics a reaction against an exaggera- 
 tive Rationalism 142 
 
xvi ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 But if the Moral Sense be only a feeling of approbation, whence its 
 
 superiority to other feelings ? . . 143 
 
 Such feelings can have no universal or objective validity . 145 
 
 III. Such ethical maxims as those of Prudence, Rational Benevo- 
 lence, and Equity are indeed self-evident, but their resemblance to 
 niathematical axioms may be exaggerated, or rather they are nothing 
 but mathematical axioms applied to conduct, and cannot give a con- 
 tent to Morality apart from the judgement ' this or that is good ' . 147 
 
 And such judgements have not the precision or exactness of 
 mathematical judgements 149 
 
 They are more like aesthetic judgements, if these are recognized 
 as possessing objective validity 149 
 
 IV. Further elements of truth in the Moral Sense view . . . 151 
 The moral judgement is ultimately a judgement upon the value of 
 
 some state of consciousness, and this always includes feeling . . 152 
 
 We could hardly pronounce knowledge or even goodness to have 
 value for a consciousness which was incapable of deriving any kind of 
 satisfaction from them 153 
 
 Sometimes the feeling to which value is assigned may be merely a 
 feeling of pleasure or pain, but in other cases it may be some emotion 
 connected with particular kinds of conduct, in the absence of which 
 Reason could not pronounce the act good or bad . . . .154 
 
 But the judgement that the emotion is good is not the same thing 
 as the emotion itself 155 
 
 It must be remembered (i) that these emotions, in which the value 
 of an act often lies, are not arbitrarily selected, but are closely con- 
 nected with our whole ideal of human good . . . . _ . 157 
 
 (2) That we cannot (as some Rationalists attempt to do) pronounce 
 what is good for man without experience of his actual sensitive, 
 aesthetic, and emotional nature 159 
 
 (3) Such judgements often require an experience which is beyond 
 the reach of a single individual : hence the importance of Authority 
 
 in Ethics 160 
 
 The above considerations are often forgotten by pure Utilitarians, 
 as well as by ultra-Rationalists, e. g. Plato 161 
 
 V. Martineau"s view that Conscience is neither feeling nor Reason 
 
 is scarcely intelligible . ., 164 
 
 Gizycki's objections to ethical Rationalism turn upon misunder- 
 standing 166 
 
 VI. Examination of the view that, though moral judgements are 
 '■-Rational, they are inseparable from a certain specific emotion in the 
 
 absence of which they could not be made 168 
 
 In popular language Conscience implies not merely the judgement 
 that this is right or wrong, but the feelings and desires which are 
 
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS xvii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 presupposed by such judgements and which prompt to the doing 
 
 of the actions judged right 175 
 
 Note on the Aesthetic Judgement . . * . . . . 177 
 
 CHAPTER VII. IDEAL UTILITARIANISM 
 
 I. Our view that acts are right or wrong according as they tend or 
 do not tend to promote a Well-being or tuSai/iotia or good consist- 
 ing of various elements, the relative value of which is intuitively 
 discerned, may be called Ideal Utilitarianism ..... 184 
 
 Importance of the three axioms of Prudence, Benevolence, and 
 Equity 184 
 
 Benevolence must be regulated by Justice 185 
 
 Popular uses of the term Justice all imply impartiality in the treat- 
 ment of individuals upon the basis of some established system of 
 distribution: ultimate Justice would mean the distribution of the 
 true good in accordance with the principle that one man's good is of 
 as much intrinsic value as the like good of another's . . , . 183 
 
 All virtues may be included in Benevolence regulated by Justice, but 
 it is convenient to give distinctive names to special kinds of contribu- 
 tion to social good 187 
 
 II. Eventhe virtues which are most obviously altruistic have a value 
 of their own greater than that of the pleasure which they produce, 
 
 e. g. Humanity or the social affections 189. 
 
 The ground on which we condemn Infanticide .... 189 
 
 III. Value of knowledge, culture, aesthetic and intellectual activity, 
 
 and the accompanying emotions 191 
 
 Veracity and love of truth 193 
 
 IV. Purity 197 
 
 Temperance 202 
 
 V. Humility 204 
 
 VX. The prohibition of Suicide 207 
 
 VII. Duty towards the lower animals 213 
 
 VIII. Difficulty of finding a suitable name for an Ethic which is 
 teleological but not hedonistic. Such a view widely held . . . 216 
 
 IX. When Morality, pleasure, and other things are pronounced 
 good, they must not be thought of as lying side by side without affect- 
 ing or modifying one another : they are all parts, elements, or aspects 
 
 of an ideally good life which it is the duty of each to promote for all 219 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. JUSTICE 
 I. No ethical question can be answered without deciding the ques- 
 tion ' Whose good is to be promoted ? ' 222 
 
 There are two competing ideals of Justice : (l) Equality, and (2) Just 
 recompense or reward 223 
 
 SASHDALL 1 b 
 
xviii ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 II. Examination of the Benthamite maxim, ' Every one to count for 
 
 one, nobody for more than one '........ 223 
 
 Abstractly considered, the maxim seems rational .... 224 
 
 But what if an equal distribution diminishes the amount of good to 
 
 be distributed ? 225 
 
 Equality of consideration is the only equality which is always right, 
 
 and this may often demand an unequal distribution .... 226 
 
 No unconditional rights except the right to consideration . . 227 
 
 Moreover men's capacity for enjoying good varies .... 228 
 
 ' Equality of opportunity ' would bear too hardly on the weak . 230 
 Some Liberty is a condition of Well-being, and this always involves 
 
 some inequality . . ■ 233 
 
 III. Does superior capacity constitute a claim to superior con- 
 sideration ? 234 
 
 In most cases such superior consideration is in the interests of all ; 
 but, even where this is not the case, we must admit that higher Well- 
 being is of more value than lower, and those who are capable of it are 
 therefore entitled to superior consideration 235 
 
 We can therefore accept the Benthamite maxim only in the sense 
 ' Caeteris paribus every one to count for one,' or ' Every man's good to 
 count as equal to the like good of every other ' 240 
 
 Final collisions between the higher good of few and the lower good 
 of many rarely occur, especially if the good of the future be duly 
 remembered 240 
 
 Summary of conclusions 241 
 
 IV. The theory of Reward assumes two forms — 'to every man 
 according to his merit,' and ' to every man according to his work ' . 243 
 
 The two views would work out very differently .... 243 
 
 To say that Justice means paying each man in proportion to his 
 work involves forgetfulness of the fact that economic value is relative : 
 if competition be excluded, there is no means of fixing values . . 244 
 
 To equate the amount of different kinds of work is equally im- 
 possible 247 
 
 Nor is the superior dignity — moral, aesthetic, or intellectual — of 
 different kinds of labour a ground for differential remuneration . . 249 
 
 Nor yet the difference of natural capacity 250 
 
 It is true that the man of higher faculty may require exceptionally 
 favourable external conditions for the realization of his higher 
 capacities, and Justice requires that he should have them . . . 253 
 
 Should superior merit, in the sense of superior Morality or devotion 
 to the general good, be differentially rewarded ? .... 255 
 
 As a matter of abstract right, the answer is ' No,' and at all events 
 there is no way of rewarding superior virtue without rewarding 
 superior capacity; yet it is true that the good ought to be made 
 
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS xix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 happy, but the proper reward is the pleasure which results from the 
 exercise of the superior capacity under favourable external con- 
 ditions * . . . . 257 
 
 A limit to the material reward of virtue will be set by the con- 
 sideration that beyond a certain point such reward might be un- 
 favourable to the virtue itself 259 
 
 Hence, practically, abstract merit must be put aside as a canon of 
 distributive Justice, and reward for work must be determined by 
 considerations of social expediency 259 
 
 Reward will always be necessary, but may become increasingly non- 
 material 260 
 
 V. We have found that each of our competing ideals, (i) Equality 
 (2) Reward, is true only in the sense in which it is the equivalent of 
 the other, i. e. every one's good is equally valuable with the like good 
 of another, but superior good is woi-th more than inferior, and the 
 man of superior capacity should therefore receive proportionately 
 greater consideration 262 
 
 VI. But what if there be a final collision between Benevolence, 
 i. e. the promotion of good on the whole, and Justice, i. e. the fairest 
 possible distribution of the good in proportion to capacity ? In prac- 
 tice we should deem it rational to sacrifice a little good on the whole 
 to a great increase of Justice in its distribution, and vice versa, but not 
 to sacrifice much good for a little nearer approach to just distribution 
 
 of it 264 
 
 The two principles might be brought together by treating Equality 
 or Justice in distribution as itself a good, but it is difficult to regard 
 
 such an abstraction as a good 266 
 
 But, if we regard Morality as a good-in-itself, we may treat Justice 
 in distribution as part of the good enjoyed by the just individual or 
 society, and so there will be no real loss of good by the society which 
 sacrifices some lower good for the sake of juster distribution . . 267 
 
 VII. Justice represents an ideal which cannot be immediately 
 realized 269 
 
 Justice as the immediate duty of the individual consists in (i) seek- 
 ing to promote a nearer approach in social arrangements to the ideal 
 of equality of consideration, (2) observing the principle in private 
 relations so far as is immediately practicable, (3) respecting the 
 existing social and political order so far as it cannot be immediately 
 changed for the better 273 
 
 VIII. The rights of property depend upon considerations of social 
 expediency, including their effects on character .... 274 
 
 IX. Reply to the objection that such a view of Justice is incon- 
 sistent with ' organic character of human society ' . . . . 277 
 
 Note on Rbnouvieb's Idea of Justice 282 
 
XX ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER IX. PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The theory of retributive Justice as expounded by Kant and 
 others 284 
 
 Such a theory does not commend itself to the moral consciousness . 286 
 Difficulties of the theory illustrated by Mr. Bradley's attempted 
 
 modification of it 286 
 
 Yet the retributive theory possesses elements of truth : 
 
 (i) Psychological or historical truth. Punishment originated in 
 
 Vengeance 291 
 
 (2) Punishment is reformatory as well as deterrent . . . 293 
 
 (3) The theory represents the idea that the State has spiritual or 
 moral ends 295 
 
 The educative effect of the criminal law 296 
 
 II. The theory that ' the promotion of Morality by force is a self- 
 contradiction ' is an exaggeration of the truth that some liberty is 
 
 a condition of the highest Morality 298 
 
 III. It cannot be right to inflict pain or other evil except as 
 
 a means to good . 300 
 
 This does not imply disrespect for personality 303 
 
 The expression by punishment of indignation at wrong is good for 
 
 individuals and for societies, but should be controlled by Reason: 
 
 Love is better than Revenge ......... 304; 
 
 The retributive theory mistakes a natural, and valuable, emotion 
 
 for a judgement of the Practical Reason 305 
 
 IV. The retributive theory can give no reasonable account of 
 forgiveness 306 
 
 But we rightly hold that resentment and forgiveness are alike 
 applications of the general duty of promoting social welfare, and 
 that social considerations determine the measure of both . . . 307 
 
 The moral effects of forgiveness 310 
 
 This view of punishment must be applied to Theology . . .311 
 
THE THEOEY OF GOOD AND EVIL 
 
 BOOK I 
 THE MORAL CRITERION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 A CLEAR and adequate conception of the scope and object-matter 
 of a Science and of its relations to other Sciences is usually 
 arrived at only at a tolerably advanced stage in the development 
 of the Science itself. It is impossible to start with clear con- 
 ceptions of such matters as Heat, Light, Electricity, and Mag- 
 netism ; for the attainment of such conceptions is precisely the 
 goal of the Sciences which deal with these matters, and is even 
 yet not fully reached. Science starts with some roughly defined 
 department of common experience, and works towards clearer 
 and more adequate conceptions of it. In the course of scientific 
 progress, it sometimes turns out that a supposed Science deals 
 with really non-existent objects, or is directed towards aims 
 impossible of attainment, or that it is really identical with some 
 Science hitherto supposed to be distinct, or is a branch of 
 some Science the very possibility of which was previously 
 unsuspected. Sciences fuse, subdivide, transform themselves, 
 or disappear altogether; new Sciences make their appearance 
 and new groupings of old Sciences. Thus the greatest service 
 which Astrology ever rendered to the world was its own ex- 
 tinction : while it was only at a tolerably advanced stage of its 
 development that the Science of Electricity was discovered to be 
 identical with that of Magnetism, and not identical with the 
 closely related but still distinguishable Sciences of Heat and 
 Light. And, if that is the case even with the various depart- 
 ments of physical Science, each of which studies some group 
 
 EASBDALI. I , B 
 
a INTRODUCTORY [Book I 
 
 or some aspect of tangible and visible things, it is pre-eminently 
 the case with Philosophy in general and its various branches. 
 It is only gradually that Philosophy has clearly differentiated 
 itself from the special Sciences, and particularly from the most 
 general of those Sciences. The older Metaphysicians were also 
 Physicists. It is only at a comparatively recent date that Meta- 
 physicians have abandoned the attempt to decide by the methods 
 of Metaphysics what were really questions of empirical Natural 
 Science, and that Physicists have ceased to dogmatize about 
 metaphysical questions, if indeed a well-defined conception of 
 the relation between the two spheres can be said to have been 
 arrived at even now : while the exact relations between the 
 various Sciences included in or closely connected with Philosophy, 
 such as Logic, Metaphysic, and Psychology, are still avowedly 
 matters of dispute among Philosophers. 
 
 To a certain extent every student of a Science has to go through 
 in the course of his own studies the same process which the 
 human mind has followed in reaching the present level of 
 scientific attainment. In the Physical Sciences this necessity 
 is to some extent avoided by the fact that certain results of 
 Physical Science rapidly become matters of common knowledge 
 or social inheritance, and so are accepted unconsciously on 
 authority even before the age at which formal scientific teaching 
 begins. Though the results of philosophical enquiry are far 
 from contributing nothing to the common stock of socially 
 transmitted ideas, they pass far more slowly and incompletely 
 into general circulation. A teacher of Astronomy does not find 
 it necessary to begin by refuting the hypothesis that the motions 
 of the heavenly bodies exercise a profound influence upon the 
 life-history of individual men. In the region of Philosophy 
 ideas of the same order cannot always be assumed to be non- 
 existent. The very nature and meaning of Philosophy, and still 
 more the lines of demarcation between its various branches, must 
 be left slowly to dawn upon the student in the course of his 
 study of Philosophy itself. Philosophy is like learning to swim. 
 A man does not really discover what it is until he finds himself 
 already somewhat out of his depth. He must plunge in boldly, 
 and discover what he has been at later on. 
 
Chap.i] PLAN OF WOEK 3 
 
 For these reasons I shall make no formal attempt to mark out 
 beforehand the relation of our subject to Philosophy in general 
 or to its other branches. I shall begin by assuming only that we 
 are concerned with the study of human conduct, that we are 
 investigating the meaning of the ideas ' right ' and ' wrong ' with 
 the object both of arriving at a clearer conception of those ideas 
 in general, and of determining in a more precise manner than is 
 done by ordinary persons in common life what things in particular 
 are right and what are wrong. How far and in what sense such 
 an aim is attainable is one of the things which must be left to 
 appear in the course of our enquiry. And in my treatment 
 of the subject I shall endeavour to follow what is, not indeed 
 always but very frequently, the Hne of development taken by 
 the mind of students. When first the attempt is made to think 
 out clearly the unanalysed, more or less confused and incon- 
 sistent ideas about human conduct with which we all start, 
 the student is very likely to be caught by a theory of extreme 
 simplicity and apparently great scientific completeness and 
 attractiveness — a theory which, as a matter of fiact, has always 
 made its appearance at the beginning of every serious historical 
 effort to grapple with the ethical problem. H© is very likely to 
 be bitten by the theory which traces all human conduct to the 
 operation of a single motive, the desire of pleasure. If this 
 theory be true, it foUows as a matter of course that the only 
 meaning which can be given to the term right is ' conducive 
 to pleasure,' and to the term wrong ' unconducive to pleasure or 
 productive of its opposite, pain.' The commonly received ideas 
 about right and wrong, in so far as they are upon such a view 
 capable of scientific justification at all, have then to be explained 
 by showing that the acts commonly regarded as right are produc- 
 tive of pleasure on the whole to the individual, while the actions 
 commonly accounted wrong are conducive on the whole to pain 
 or loss of pleasure. To examine this theory, known as psycho- 
 logical Hedonism, will be the starting-point of our investigation 
 and will be dealt with in the next chapter. If satisfied that 
 pleasure is not always the motive of the individual's own action, 
 the student may still very probably be attracted by other forms of 
 the theory that pleasure in the last resort, either to the individual 
 
 B 3 
 
4 INTRODUCTORY [Book I 
 
 or to others, is the sole true and ultunate criterion of human 
 action. Utilitarianism disconnected from psychological Hedonism 
 will be the subject of our third chapter. From the Utilitarian 
 group of ethical theories I shall turn to their extreme opposite, 
 the theory which asserts in the most uncompromising and un- 
 analysed way the authority, perhaps even the infallibility, of 
 the individual Conscience and of the judgements about particular 
 questions of right and wrong which the ordinary Conscience pro- 
 nounces — the theory commonly known as Intuitionism. I shall 
 then try to bring together the various elements of truth con- 
 tained in the conflicting theories, and to arrive at a view which 
 will embrace and harmonize them, while avoiding the mistakes 
 and exaggerations which each, taken by itself, can be shown 
 to involve. I sk&ll then go on to examine more in detail some of 
 the chief questions of right conduct, the chief commonly recog- 
 nized virtues and duties or groups of duties, and to show how 
 they can be explained and co-ordinated, with whatever correction 
 of popular notions may turn out to be necessary, upon the basis 
 of the theory which will be adopted. 
 
 To arrive at a clearer and more definite conception of the 
 Moral Criterion — a clearer and more definite answer than is 
 contained in that common moral consciousness from which we 
 must all start to the question ' What ought I to do, and why 
 ought I to do it ? ' will be the object of our first book. In the 
 second book I shall enter at greater length into some of the 
 current controversies connected with our subject, by the exam- 
 ination of which I shall hope further to elucidate and define 
 the results arrived at in the first book. Most of these con- 
 troversies may be said to centre round the question of the 
 relation of the individual and the individual's good to society 
 and a wider social good. I have therefore styled the book ' The 
 Individual and the Society.' In the third book I shall deal with 
 some of those wider philosophical issues which are ultimately in- 
 volved in any attempt to think out fully and adequately the 
 meaning of the words 'right and wrong,' 'good and evil' — in 
 other words with the relation of Morals and Moral Philosophy 
 to our theory of the Universe in general, to Metaphysic and 
 Religion, to the theory of Free-will, to the facts of Evolution 
 
Chap, i] METAPHYSIC AND ETHICS 5 
 
 and theories of Evolution, and finally to practical life. The 
 subject of this section may be described generally as 'Man 
 and the Universe.' In postponing thase more general con- 
 siderations to the end of our enquiry instead of making them 
 our starting-point, I am once more abandoning what may perhaps 
 be thought the logical order ; and adopting the order which will, 
 I hope, be most advantageous for purposes of exposition and 
 dialectical defence, and which will be most convenient for those 
 who may read this book with no previous acquaintance with 
 technical Philosophy or with any of its branches. With regard 
 to the relations between Metaphysic and Moral Philosophy it 
 wiU be enough to premise this much — that Metaphysic is an 
 enquiry into the ultimate nature of Reality and our knowledge 
 of it ; while Moral Philosophy is an enquiry into a particular, 
 though very general and important, department of our knowledge, 
 our ideas of right and wrong ', that is to say into one particular 
 though very fundamental aspect of Reality, the aspect which is 
 expressed by our moral judgments. To attain some clearer con- 
 ception as to the relation of these ideas to other ideas, of this aspect 
 of Reality to other aspects, will be one object of our investigation. 
 But, whatever answer may be given to this last problem, it must 
 be possible at least to begin the enquiry as to what we mean 
 by saying that an act is right or wrong, and why we call some 
 actions right and others wrong, without presupposing any more 
 than is presupposed in our common unscientific thinking about 
 the world in general and man's place in it. At a very early stage 
 of our enquiry it may, indeed, be found that we cannot give 
 a satisfactory answer to that question without assuming particular 
 answers to other and more general questions about human know- 
 ledge and about the ultimate nature of things — answers which 
 from various philosophical points of view have sometimes been 
 implicitly or explicitly denied. But I shall endeavour, for the 
 
 ^ The relation of this question to the wider question ' What is good ? ' 
 win be dealt with in the sequel ; but in modem times Moral Philosophy has 
 grown out of an attempt to answer the question ' What is right ? ' rather 
 than the question ' What is good ? ' And this is the essentially ethical ques- 
 tion, since, by general admission, Ethics starts with the problem of human 
 conduct, even though it may soon be discovered that that problem involves 
 a wider problem about values in general. 
 
6 INTRODUCTORY [Book I 
 
 reasons already indicated, to make the first part of our enquiry 
 as purely ethical as possible. If and in so far as it shall be found 
 that to take a particular view about the ideal of human conduct, 
 a view to which we are led purely by the investigation of the 
 actual contents of our ethical consciousness, logically involves us 
 in wider conclusions as to the nature of the Universe and man's 
 place in it, that will be the best way of defending those wider 
 conclusions, and so of exhibiting the true relation between that 
 ethical Science which is the subject of this book and that wider 
 Science of Reality which will be dealt with in these pages only 
 in so far as may be necessary for the purpose of attaining clear 
 ideas about the meaning and end of human life. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM 
 
 In the writings of Bentham^ and his followers the ethical 
 doctrine that actions are right or wrong according as they 
 do or do not tend to produce maximum pleasure is founded 
 upon the psychological theory that as a matter of fact nothing 
 is or can be desired except pleasure. The most fundamental 
 of aU distinctions between ethical systems turns upon the 
 attitude which they adopt towards this theory. It is of course 
 possible for a Moral Philosopher to reject the hedonistic Psycho- 
 logy and still to remain a Hedonist. He may hold that it is, 
 as a matter of psychological fact, possible to desire other things 
 besides pleasure, but that pleasure is the only proper or rational 
 object of desire. It is possible to contend that I may, as a matter 
 of psychological fact, desire other things, but that, if I do so, 
 I am a fool for my pains. On the other hand it is clear that 
 if nothing but pleasure can be desired, it is useless, and indeed 
 meaningless, to maintain that something other than pleasure 
 ought to be desired. It will be . well, therefore, to clear the 
 ground by facing the psychological problem before we attack 
 the ethical questions which depend, to a large extent, upon our 
 answer to that problem, 
 
 ^ And earlier of Hobbes, with this difference— that Hobbes defines plea- 
 sure in terms of desire (' Whatsoever is the object of any man's appetite or 
 desire, that is it which he for his part calleth good,' Leviathan, ch. vi), and 
 then proceeds to define pleasure as 'the apparance or sense of good.' 
 Bentham assumes that we already know what pleasure is, and then proceeds 
 to argue that we desire that and nothing else. The difference might be 
 more important than it is if Hobbes had always remembered it himself. 
 When he identifies the ' iucundum ' with ' good in effect, as the end desired,' 
 he practically adopts the position of Bentham. 
 
8 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book T 
 
 The plausibility of the doctrine that nothing but pleasure 
 can be the object of desire depends mainly upon a confusion 
 between three different senses in which it may be vmderstood. 
 The proposition that the motive of every action is pleasure 
 may mean : — 
 
 (i) That I always do that which it gives me most pleasure 
 at the fnoment to do ; 
 
 (2) That the motive of every action is somQ future pleasure, 
 although that future pleasure is not necessarily the most intense 
 (it being for instance possible to choose the nearer but smaller 
 pleasure in preference to one greater but more remote) : 
 
 (3) That the motive of every act is always to get the greatest 
 quantum, of pleasure upon the whole. 
 
 Now the doctrine explicitly maintained by psychological 
 Hedonists is usually the last of these three positions : while 
 its plausibility arises chiefly from its confusion with one or 
 both of the former. The last proposition is, indeed, one of 
 those which would hardly obtain a moment's acceptance but 
 for the supposed consequences of denying it. Let us assume 
 for the moment that nothing ever is desired except pleasure, 
 and ask whether it is always the prospect of thfi greatest 
 pleasure that moves us. That men do not always do that 
 which will as a matter of fact bring them most pleasure will 
 readily be admitted : need we hesitate to assert that the world 
 would be a much better place if they did ^ ? Nor will it be 
 denied that people often do actions which, before the time 
 of acting, they know very well to be contrary to their real 
 interest, understood in the most purely hedonistic sense. The 
 drunkard — the poor drunkard at all events, who suffers from 
 his vices in other than purely physiological ways — knows very 
 well in the morning that he gets more pain than pleasure 
 from his drink : he craves to get rid of the habit, and yet, 
 as a matter of fact, he drinks on. That will be acknowledged, 
 
 ' ' The thing to be lamented is, not that men have so great regard to their 
 own good or interest in the present world, for they have not enough ; but 
 that they have so little to the good of others.' Bp. Butler, Preface to 
 Fifteen Sermons. 
 
Chap, ii, § i] PLEASUEE AND DESIRE 9 
 
 but it may be urged perhaps that atjtke moment of action 
 such a man has always persuaded himself that the drink will 
 produce a balance of pleasure on- the vjhole. Admit, if you 
 like, that he has. The question remains : how, on the assump- 
 tions of psychological Hedonism, is it possible to account 
 for such a persuasion ? Granted that at the time he acts he 
 does not know that the thing is bad for him, how can a man 
 who once knew that a thing was bad for himself come, however 
 momentarily, to believe the contrary? Such conduct as that 
 of the drunkard will hardly be accounted for by mere intellectual 
 error, mere involuntary lapse of memory. H a man who in the 
 morning knew that to drink a whole bottle of gin was not for 
 his good, comes in the evening to believe the contrary, his 
 ignorance must be to some extent voluntary: he must, as we 
 say, have ' persuaded himself ' that it will do him no harm. And 
 this voluntary ignorance, this bias in his judgement, has to 
 be accounted for: and on the hedonistic theory (in^the form 
 in which it is now before us), it can be accounted for only 
 in one way. On that theory there is only one desire or emotion 
 that can ever affect the will, and so exercise a distorting influence 
 upon the judgement, viz. desire for one's greatest pleasure on 
 the whole. In the case supposed then desire for his greatest 
 pleasure on the whole, steadily operating throughout the day, 
 must somehow have changed the conviction that the man's 
 greatest pleasure lies in abstinence or moderation into a conviction 
 that his greatest pleasure lies in drunkenness. Is this an in- 
 telligible piece of Psychology ? '^■■ 
 
 Perhaps the matter "may Tse made plainer by a slightly difierent 
 illustration. If there is a certain piece of hedonistic calculus in 
 the world, it is that the pleasure of eating something very bad 
 for one is not worth the indigestion which it causes. The 
 pleasure, unlike that of quantitative or qualitative errors in 
 drinking, is slight and almost momentary: the pain may be 
 continuous and severe. Ask a man with a delicate digestion 
 whether the wise dyspeptic Hedonist will eat lobster salad. 
 Ask him in the morning, ask him the moment before dinner, 
 ask him while he is actually tasting his soup, and he will say 
 emphatically ' No. It has almost always disagreed with me ; 
 
lo PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I 
 
 it certainly is not worth the risk of temporary indigestion 
 and the danger of bringing back that chronic indigestion which 
 it took me so long to get over a year ago.' Yet it may be that, 
 as the dinner proceeds and conversation flows and spirits rise, 
 the lobster salad comes round, and he eats. Now I admit that in 
 cases like that it is scarcely possible to account for the man's 
 action without supposing at least a momentary intellectual 
 vacillation. Very likely he does say to himself, ' After all the 
 consequences are not certain : I have upon occasion taken lobster 
 salad without suffering much. I am better now than when I ate 
 it last,' and so on. But the question remains, ' Why should he 
 seek in this way to deceive himself?' Do not these efforts 
 at self-deception imply that the man is not, as the theory supposes 
 him to be, an absolutely impartial judge between the pleasure 
 of the next moment and the pleasure of the next morning or 
 the next week 1 Were he unbiassed by desire of lobster salad, 
 or of the pleasure attending its consumption, he would un- 
 questionably have retained his well-grounded conviction as to 
 the inadvisability of eating it. Supposing, at the very moment 
 before he took the fatal resolution, he were to be consulted 
 by a no less dyspeptic neighbour, he would have no hesitation 
 whatever about the matter. 'By no means eat lobster salad,' 
 he would have said. And when in his own case he acts differ- 
 ently, it is evident that at that moment he cares more for present 
 pleasure (in so far as his desire is really a desire for pleasure 
 at all) than for his pleasure on the whole. There is a bias 
 in his judgement — a bias derived from desire — which prevents 
 him from correctly balancing present against future pains. He 
 has, in short, other desires besides a desire for the greatest 
 quantum of pleasure, though it may be (for anything we have 
 seen so far) that he still cares about nothing but pleasure. At 
 all events, the nearer pleasure exercises more attractive power 
 than the more remote. 
 
 We have seen reason to reject the third interpretation of the 
 hedonistic formula ; now let us look at the first. It undoubtedly 
 sounds plausible to say that, if I do a thing, I do it because 
 it pleases me to do it ; and from this it does not seem a large 
 step to the admission that, if I prefer one alternative to another, 
 
Chap, ii, §i] PLEASURE AND DESIRE ii 
 
 it is because it pleases me more, and from that to the admission that 
 I always do that which pleases me most. It might be enough 
 to point out that we are really misled Jby an ambiguity of 
 language. ' It pleases me to do it,' ' it is my pleasure (placet) 
 that it shall be done,' means merely ' I wiU that it should be 
 done': as to why I will it, the phrase tells us nothing. But 
 let us admit that we are justified in interpreting this ' placet ' 
 by ' It gives me at this moment more pleasure to do this than 
 to do anything else ^.' The question still remains ' Why does this 
 course of action give me so much momentary pleasure as to 
 determine my will to adopt it ? ' It certainly cannot always 
 be the pleasure resulting at the moment of action that moves 
 me to do it. For the most selfish people clearly do many things 
 which are. painful at the time for the sake of some future end. 
 Granted that it always gives me most pleasure to do what I have 
 made up my mind to do, the question remains 'What leads 
 me to make up my mind ? ' And this certainly cannot be 
 the mere momentary pleasure involved in the act itself. If 
 I thought only of my own momentary sensations while preparing 
 for a bath on a very cold morning, I certainly should not take it. 
 Still less, should I go to the dentist when my tooth is not 
 actually aching. If I do these unpleasant things, it must be 
 for the sake of something — a feeling of my own or otherwise — 
 which lies beyond that moment. That brings us to the second 
 possible sense of the psychological-hedonist doctrine — that I 
 
 ^ This seems to be very muck the position of Sigwart : ' Bach end must, if 
 I am on the whole to will it and to be able to devote my powers to its attain- 
 ment, be such a one that the attainment of it promises some kind or other 
 of satisfaction {Befriedigung) for me, the thought of which so affects my 
 feeling, that the expectation of its attainment affords me joy, the fear of the 
 opposite causes me pain ' (Sigwart, Vorfragen der Ethik, p. 5). This state- 
 ment (with others in this remarkably clear and able little work) seems to 
 me to be not actually erroneous, but to suggest the fallacies of psycho- 
 logical Hedonism, inasmuch as it is not made clear whether the thought of 
 the action is now pleasant because it will produce in the agent the greatest 
 possible maximum of pleasant feeling, or because he desires the end and 
 consequently will find satisfaction in its future accomplishment and in work- 
 ing for its accomplishment in the present. The word ' Gefuhl ' seems to be 
 used by Sigwart sometimes in the sense of ' desire,' sometimes of anticipated 
 pleasure. 
 
13 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I 
 
 always act for the sake of some future pleasure^, though not 
 necessarily for the sake of the greatest quantum of pleasure 
 on the whole. 
 
 Why then should one pleasure or sum of pleasures attract 
 me more than another, apart from its being greater in amount ? 
 It may be said that I am more attracted by the nearer than by 
 the remoter pleasure. That is intelligible, and it was admitted 
 by Bentham, who did not see that the admission was fatal to the 
 doctrine, implied if not expressed in the writings of himself and 
 his followers, that what is desired is always the greatest pro- 
 spective sum of pleasures. Of course in so far as remoteness 
 mvolves uncertainty, that may logically be taken into account 
 by the hedonistic calculus. But in so far as a remote pleasure 
 is practically just as certain as a nearer one, it ought on 
 Benthamite principles to prove equally attractive. And yet 
 it is matter of experience that it very often does not. And 
 this involves the admission that what I desire in such cases 
 is not pleasure, but immediate pleasure. The pleasure in_the 
 ha nd is treated as if it were worth two in tibe bush, even when 
 the pleasure in the bush is as certain as that in the hand. 
 
 This admission by itself makes a very large inroad into 
 the apparently logical and coherent system of the hedonistic 
 Psychology. Ethically it is of little importance, so long as 
 the only characteristic which can give to one foreseen pleasure 
 an increased attractiveness as compared with some other foreseen 
 pleasure is supposed to be its greater proximity. But the 
 admission may perhaps prepare the way for the recognition 
 of the fact that there are other sources of (so to speak) differ- 
 ential attractiveness in pleasures besides (i) expected intensity 
 and (a) proximity. Let us emphasize the admission that has 
 so far been made. It is admitted, we may assume, that foreseen 
 greater intensity of pleasure does not always carry with it greater 
 constraining power over the will. The human mind is not 
 the mere impartial calculating machine which it is represented 
 to be by the hedonistic Psychology in its most logical form. 
 We have in fact recognized the existence of passion in the 
 
 ' Not of course excluding the pleasure of the immediate act which in 
 some cases is obviously the prominent element. 
 
Chap, ii, §i] PASSION 13 
 
 human soul, though at present we may be disposed to interpret 
 passion as a mere liability to be more affected by a nearer 
 than by a remoter pleasure. But is that a j)ossible explanation 
 of the extraordinary motive power possessed at certain moments 
 by one pleasure as compared with another which, upon a calm 
 review, would be recognized as being of far greater intensity ? 
 Take the case of an angry man. On a calm review of the 
 pleasure of avenging some trifling or imagined slight (at the 
 cost perhaps of some serious and clearly foreseen penalty), 
 the man himself would usually be disposed to admit that 
 the game was not worth the candle. The pleasure, he would 
 admit, would not be worth the sacrifice of even a week's freedom 
 and ordinary enjoyment of life. ' Yes,' it will be said, ' but 
 then the prospect of this pleasure is near, its more clearly 
 perceived intensity triumphs over a chaos of remote, indefinite, 
 and indistinctly envisaged enjoyments such as might be pur- 
 chased by self-restraint.' Well, at that rate, the offer of some 
 other pleasure more intense and equally near should at once 
 hold back the uplifted hand, and transform the angry counte- 
 nance. Once assume that the attraction lies wholly in pleasure — 
 that the man is indifferent to the kind of pleasure, except so 
 far as ' kind of pleasure ' implies to him a difference of intensity — 
 and this consequence must follow. But does it 1 The average 
 wife-beating ruffian would probably admit on reflection that the 
 pleasure of beating his wife on one particular occasion was 
 not worth a pot of beer. But tender him the pot of beer when 
 he is angry, and will the uplifted hand inevitably be lowered to 
 grasp it ? ' No,' it will be said, ' this is what he would do if 
 he calmly reflected ; but at such a moment he does not reflect ; 
 his mind is so concentrated upon that one imagined pleasure 
 that the other fails to obtain an entrance.' But why does 
 he not reflect? The determination to reflect or not to reflect 
 is just as much a voluntary action as the determination to 
 strike or not to strike. And, if the hedonistic Psychology 
 is right, this action must be itself determined by a calculation 
 as to the greater pleasantness of reflection or non-reflection. 
 If then a man gets angry and so fails to reflect upon the 
 consequences of what he is doing, that must be, it would seem, 
 
14 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I 
 
 because he has come to the conclusion that (in this particular 
 case) non-reflection will be the pleasanter course. But what 
 should lead him to such a conclusion? Experience? Are we 
 then really prepared to say that a hot-tempered man is one 
 who has been taught by experience to believe that at certain 
 moments non-reflection upon the relative value of pleasures, 
 necessarily involving the choice of pleasures which calm reflection 
 would show to be of less intensity, is itself conducive to ob- 
 taining the greatest amount of pleasure or at least of immediate 
 pleasure ? If any one is really prepared to admit this analysis 
 of passion, there is no more to be said. If he is not, he must 
 concede that, even if we allow the object of choice to be always 
 a pleasure, there is something which causes a man at times 
 to prefer one pleasure rather than another, irrespective of its 
 greater nearness or greater intensity. What is this something ? 
 I know of no better way of expressing it than to say that the 
 man desires one pleasure (assuming for the moment that it really; 
 is pleasure which is desired) rather than another^. It is an 
 ultimate fact that one desire is stronger than another^. The 
 strength of the desire does not depend whoUy upon the intensity 
 of the imagined pleasure. And in so far as it does not depend 
 upon such imagined intensity, it is not really a desire for pleasure 
 qua pleasure. If all that is desired is pleasure — as much of it 
 as possible, and for as long as possible — it must be a matter of 
 indifference to the man in what form (so to speak) his pleasure 
 is served up to him, so long as he gets enough of it. But the 
 existence of such passions as we have alluded to is by itself 
 a sufficient proof that it is not pleasure in general but some 
 particular kind of pleasure that is desired in such pases. Now 
 
 ^ In so far, that is, as his impulses are sufficiently reflected upon to become 
 desires. A large part of our habitual bodily movements are of course due 
 to impulses which cannot be so described. The actions are voluntary only 
 because they can be at once inhibited when any conflicting desire presents 
 itself. Movements which are not voluntary even to this extent are not 
 acts. 
 
 ^ Of course the cause may lie in the man's physical constitution or in 
 external influences ; but, as ex hypothesi we are dealing with voluntary 
 actions, these causes lying outside consciousness can only influence him by 
 producing an impulse to act within consciousness, i. e. a desire. 
 
Chap.ii,§i] THE GREAT HYSTERON-PROTERON 15 
 
 it seems clear that desire for a particular kind of pleasure is not 
 really desire for pleasure and nothing else. Even if we supposed 
 that pleasure was always part of his object, we should have 
 to admit that the man desires not only pleasure but also a 
 particular sort of pleasure, not necessarily thought of as more 
 intense than other pleasures. Desire of pleasure then is not 
 the only motive which is capable of inspiring action. 
 
 And having got so far, we may be prepared to go a step 
 further and admit that the desire of pleasure need not really be 
 present at all. At least there need be no desire for anything 
 which would be a pleasure apart from the fact that it is desired- 
 The fact that a thing is desired no doubt implies that the 
 satisfaction of the desire will necessarily bring pleasure. There 
 is undoubtedly pleasure in the satisfaction of all desire. But 
 that is a very different thing from asserting that the object is 
 desired because it is thought of as pleasant, and in proportion 
 as it is thought of as pleasant. The hedonistic Psychology 
 involves, according to the stock phrase, a ' hysteron-proteron ' ; 
 it puts the cart before the horse. In reality, the imagined 
 pleasantness is created by the desire, not the desire by the 
 imagined pleasantness. 
 
 The truth is that to deny the existence of ' disinterested ' 
 desires, i. e. desiresJoiLabieets, otker_Hiaa..g^ateat .aat iciBated 
 ^leasure-i, destroys the possibility of accounting for nearly all our 
 interests except those of a purely sensual character^. It is 
 admitted on all hands that different people get different amounts 
 of pleasure from the same external sources. Why so ? In the 
 case of mere physical sensation we can account for the difference 
 between man and man by differences of physical constitution. 
 Whether a man likes port or champagne depends upon the 
 
 ^ The phrase may also be used to mean desires for objects other ihan (^tip.'h 
 own good, however understood, but I am here arguing with those who would 
 idenffiy good and pleasure. It will be seen below that I regard the Psy- 
 chology that is egoistic without being hedonistic as open to the same 
 objections as the latter. 
 
 ' Many even of these, as pointed out below, are not originally desires for 
 pleasure, but they may be treated as such for ethical purposes in so far 
 as the impulses or appetites are deliberately acted upon from a conviction 
 of the pleasantness of indulgence. 
 
i6 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I 
 
 constitution, as modified by education, of his palate and nervous 
 system. It has nothing to do with the strength of any pre-existing 
 impulse towards the one or the other. His preference is not, in 
 any direct and immediate way, determined by his character. 
 Apart from the anticipated pleasure, he is perfectly impartial or 
 unbiassed in his decision between the two wines. Nothing but 
 experience of their comparative pleasantness determines his 
 judgement as to which of them he will take, so far as no 
 considerations of health, or economy, or the like may dictate the 
 choice of one rather than the other ^. Suppose a glass of 
 champagne to be administered to a life-long teetotaller and 
 called a glass of lemonade. He may have been wholly innocent 
 of a desire for champagne ; he may have habitually denounced 
 it as liquid poison; all his anticipations may have been 
 confined to the unexhilarating lemonade. And yet, given the 
 requisite nervous organization, he will probably exclaim, ' Why, 
 this is the very best lemonade that I have ever tasted in the 
 whole course of my life I ' On the other hand, when we turn to 
 moral, intellectual, or other ideal pleasures ^, we find that their 
 attractiveness depends entirely upon their appealing to some pre- 
 existing desire, though no doubt some accidental and undesired 
 experience may sometimes awaken a desire not previously felt. 
 To the mind that does not desire knowledge, knowledge is not 
 pleasant ; knowledge compulsorily admitted is often found to be 
 productive of anything but pleasure. Benevolence does not 
 give pleasure to people who are not benevolent. The psycho- 
 logical Hedonist analyses Benevolence into a liking for benevolent 
 
 * Of course he might be moved by curiosity to desire a wine which he 
 had never tasted ; but the pleasure which he got from gratifying his 
 curiosiiy would be distinguishable from the physical pleasure of drinking. 
 The former would be undiminished should the wine fail to commend itself 
 to his palate. 
 
 " I am of course far from attempting to draw an absolute line of de- 
 marcation between the two classes of pleasure. Pursuits involving a high 
 degree of intellectual activity may often owe some of their pleasantness to 
 some suggestion of sensuous gratification : the desire for power may become 
 fused with the desire for the sensual gratifications secured by power, &c., &c. 
 And on the other hand the sensuous pleasure may be a condition of many 
 others which are not sensuous. Coleridge, for instance, pronounced tea- 
 drinking to be the most intellectual of sensual pleasures. 
 
Chap, ii, §i] DISINTERESTED DESIRES 17 
 
 pleasure. No doubt to the benevolent man Benevolence does 
 give pleasure, but it gives him pleasure only because he has 
 previously desired the good of this or that person, or of mankind 
 at large. Where there is no such desire, benevolent conduct is 
 not found to give pleasure. And so with many bad pleasures : 
 for it is extremely important to insist that disinterested desires 
 are not necessarily good desires ^. If I have set my heart upon 
 the death of an enemy, it will give me pleasure to kill him. 
 Apart from such a desire, there is nothing in the mere physical 
 process which could possibly account for the pleasure. It would 
 be no pleasure at all to kill some other person by precisely the 
 same means^ unless indeed my desire is not a desire for vengeance 
 but a disinterested malevolence towards humanity in general ^. 
 In all such cases it is a certain idea which is pleasant, the idea of 
 an object which is or may be something quite different from my 
 own sensations, whether of a purely physical character or of any 
 more exalted kind which a hedonistic Psychology may be able 
 to recognize. It is not the representation of my being pleased 
 in the future which makes the idea of the sick man relieved or 
 of the wrong avenged pleasant to me, and so moves my will ; 
 my desire is that the actual objective result shall be achieved. 
 Of course if I am to be influenced by such a desire, I must, as 
 we say, 'take an interest' in the desired object. So far every, 
 desire might no doubt be called an ' interested ' desire. But the 
 
 ^ The observation of this fact was Bishop Butler's most original contribu- 
 tion to moral Psychology. Aristotle admits that there are desires for objects 
 other than pleasure, but he assumes that these objects are always good 
 objects— Knowledge, Beauty, Virtue, and the like, and thus ultimately 
 admits only two motives, desire of to koKov and of to ^Sii. 
 
 " The pleasure of sheer cruelty is no doubt less purely ' ideal ' than that 
 of vengeance, and may be more correctly represented as a mere desire for a 
 particular kind of physical excitement, which gives pleasure just like any 
 otber sensation. It may best be treated as a primitive instinct, just 
 like the impulses commonly described as appetites — a survival in human 
 nature of the brute, in which such an instinct was conducive to survival. 
 But, like these appetites, cruelty of course becomes something different in 
 a man who deliberately makes the satisfaction of the impulse his end. 
 A beast is not capable (strictly speaking) of cruelty any more than it is 
 capable of licentiousness. When deliberately indulged, the impulse or 
 appetite becomes a desire. 
 
 BASBDALI. X 
 
t8 psychological HEDONISM [Book I 
 
 question at issue is just this— whether I am capable of taking an 
 interest in other things besides my own sensations, actual in the 
 present or imagined as being enjoyed by me in the future. To 
 deny that I am capable of taking such an interest would make it 
 scarcely possible to explain how anything could please me except 
 purely physical sensations, an interest in which is, so to speak, 
 compulsory. The pleasantness may no doubt be stimulated by 
 an eflFort of voluntary attention, or diminished by a voluntary 
 efiFort of abstraction, which will usually take the form of 
 voluntary attention to something else. But it does not rest with 
 us — it does not depend upon our will, or our character, or our 
 desires — whether we shall or shall not feel the sensations and 
 feel them to be pleasant. 
 
 It is extremely important to insist upon the full extent of 
 ground covered by this class of ' disinterested desires.' A pre- 
 judice is sometimes created against the doctrine of disinterested 
 desires just on account of its ethical import. The greater part 
 of our desires are assumed to be ' interested,' and in asserting 
 some few of them to be 'disinterested,' we are suspected of 
 trying to introduce questionable exceptions in the interests of 
 edification. It is, therefore, desirable to insist that the possi- 
 bility of being 'interested' in something besides our own 
 sensations is as distinctly implied by the momentary absorption 
 in the plot of a novel, or the most evanescent and morally in- 
 difierent sympathy with its characters, as by the most sublime 
 heroism or the most systematic philanthropy. The spectator of a 
 tragedy who had no ' disinterested desires ' would simply exclaim, 
 ' What is Hecuba to me, or I to Hecuba, that I should weep for 
 her 1 Prove to me that my own future pleasures are somehow 
 involved in the fate of Hecuba, and then I shall begin to be 
 interested in her story, but not till then.' No pleasures in short 
 are explicable on the hypothesis of psychological Hedonism 
 except those of a purely sensual character, and I may add, 
 aesthetic pleasures, which after all have a purely sensuous basis, 
 however many higher intellectual activities and sympathies may 
 be involved in them. When a beautiful landscape bursts upon 
 us unexpectedly, the enjoyment of it is not dimmed by the fact 
 that we were not craving for it beforehand. Nor does it appear 
 
Chap.ii, §i] AESTHETIC PLEASUKES 19 
 
 that a craving for beauty in general precedes or is implied in 
 the first development of the aesthetic faculties ; it is rather 
 experience of their pleasantness which begets the love of beauty. 
 For, although beauty is not merely a particular kind of pleasure, 
 the pleasure is certainly an inseparable element of the beauty, 
 and this pleasure does not seem to imply any previous desire ^. 
 But directly Art begins to involve anything more than the con- 
 templation of immediately beautiful form and colour and sound ^, it 
 interests us only by appealing to desires or interests which are not 
 merely desires for pleasure. A man who cared about nothing but 
 his own sensations might derive pleasure from a beautiful sunset, 
 but he could hardly appreciate a beautiful character or a beautiful 
 plot, and even the appreciation of physical beauty probably has its 
 roots to some extent in a kind of sympathy, however strongly 
 we may repudiate Hume's attempt to analyse away our appre- 
 
 ^ There is much truth in Schopenhauer's doctrine that the satisfaction 
 afforded by Art is due (I should say, partly due) to the absorption in mere 
 contemplation which it involves, and so in the temporary suspension of 
 desires. 
 
 ^ And even these could not be desired unless they had previously been 
 experienced. There would indeed be a shorter way with psychological 
 Hedonism if we could assume with Prof. A. B. Taylor that ' an appeal to intro- 
 spection will show . . . that it is impossible to have a representative image or 
 idea of pleasure or pain ' {Problem of Conduct, p. 113). So far as I have been 
 able to ascertain, Prof. Taylor appears to be alone in this peculiar incapacity 
 for imaging past pleasures and pains. The theory implies so extreme an 
 abstraction of the content of the pleasant consciousness from its pleasantness 
 that it hardly requires explicit experience to refute it. If Prof. Taylor cannot 
 remember what the displeasure was like which it gave him to look upon his 
 neighbour's ugly wall-paper, how can he remember even what the paper itself 
 was like ? How can he have an idea of the colour and pattern without an 
 idea of its ugliness, and what is an idea of ugliness which does not include 
 unpleasantness ? The reason why the more acute physical pains are (fortu- 
 nately) less capable of being represented with distinctness in imagination 
 seems to be that, though assuredly not without content, they have (so to 
 speak) very little content. There are comparatively few distinct kinds of 
 qualities of pain, and still fewer have names ; so that the distinction of 
 intensity plays the chief part in our idea of them, and intensity is just the 
 element in which imagination most fails, accurately or fully, to reproduce 
 past sensations, though it reproduces them quite sufficiently to enable a boy 
 to pronounce (when the difference was considerable) which of two floggings 
 hurt most. This is of course quite a different thing from supposing (with 
 Hume) that an ' idea ' differs from an ' impression ' only in liveliness. 
 
 C 3 
 
ao PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I 
 
 ciation of the elegance of a swan's long neck into sympathy 
 with its utility to the swan. Any further analysis of aesthetic 
 pleasure would here be out of place. I merely note that the 
 aesthetic pleasures, or an element in them, seem to be the most 
 prominent case of pleasure, not in the ordinary sense purely 
 sensual, which does not necessarily imply desire for anything 
 besides the pleasure itself^. 
 
 II 
 
 I have so far confined myself to the motives operating upon 
 the consciousness of adult human beings at an advanced stage of 
 development. I shall hereafter have to consider how far the 
 facts of Evolution can throw any light upon our ethical ideas ; 
 and it is of the last importance to keep questions of psychological 
 fact distinct from questions of psychological origin. The starting- 
 point of any enquiry into the origin or history or explanation of 
 our ideas, desires, motives or any other facts of consciousness 
 must be a clear comprehension of what these facts are now in 
 that developed human consciousness which alone is accessible to 
 direct observation. Into questions of origin and history, there- 
 fore, I do not propose to enter now in any detail. But it is 
 hardly possible to deal efiectively with the theory of psychological 
 Hedonism without noticing that its plausibility lies for many 
 minds in a certain confusion between the question of origin and 
 the question of actual present fact. 
 
 It is constantly assumed as a sort of axiom that ' Altruism ' 
 must have in some way been evolved out of Egoism ; and this 
 assumption often carries with it the further implication that in 
 some sense Altruism is thereby shown to be Egoism after all, only 
 more or less disguised. It is not surprising that pre-evolutionary 
 individualists like John Stuart Mill should have supposed that 
 primitive men and the lower animals were pure Egoists. But it 
 is amazing to discover the same delusion more or less underlying 
 the treatment of this subject by the very writer who, whatever 
 may be thought of his system as a whole, has at least the merit 
 
 ^ I do not mean to imply that the value of aesthetic pleasures is to be 
 estimated merely by their intensity, or that the desire for aesthetic pleasures 
 (when once aroused) is merely a desire for pleasure as such. 
 
Chap, ii, §ii] PRIMITIVE MAN NOT AN EGOIST 21 
 
 of having been the first among Darwin's disciples to suspect 
 that Darwinian ideas might throw important light upon many 
 psychological and sociological phenomena ^* If there is one thing 
 which the Darwinian doctrine of Evolution has emphasized in 
 the psychological region, it is the existence in animals and in 
 primitive men of tendencies, impulses, instincts, of whose self- 
 preserving or race-preserving efficacy they themselves are quite 
 unconscious. We have hitherto sought our illustrations of impulses 
 that are not mere desires of pleasure in desires which might be 
 considered as, in a sense, above the moral or at least above the 
 intellectual level of pleasure-seeking. It is quite equally certain 
 that there are in animals, in primitive men, and in infants at an 
 advanced stage of social development (to say nothing of adults), 
 impulses that are below that level ^. The human or other infant 
 does not suck because experience has convinced it that sucking 
 is a source of pleasure. It does not first suck by accident, and 
 then repeat the action because it has found sucking pleasant, 
 though this last discovery may no doubt aid in inducing it to 
 suck in the right place. It sucks simply because it has an impulse 
 to suck. The Physiologist may know why it sucks ; but the child 
 does not. The young bird does not tap the inside of its shell 
 because it has calculated that the breaking of that shell is a con- 
 dition precedent to the enjoyment of wider pleasures than are 
 possible to it in the limited sphere of its early experiences; it 
 taps for no other reason than that it has an impulse to tap. The 
 beaver that has been in the habit of collecting sticks to build its 
 habitation wiU go on collecting sticks when its house is ready 
 built for it. The young elephant does not attack the aggressor 
 because experience has convinced it that that is the best way of 
 avoiding aggression, and the painful consequences of aggression, 
 in the future ; it attacks because it is angry. No doubt in all 
 these cases the gratification of the impulse does in fact give 
 
 ^ The assumption is nowhere distinctly formulated, but it seems to under- 
 lie the argument of Mr. Herbert Spencer's Psychology, Pt. II, ch. ix, and Data 
 0/ Ethics, ch. V sq. 
 
 * For a fuller refutation of the theory that the lower animals or primitive 
 men or human infants act or behave on egoistic Hedonist principles the 
 reader may be referred to the whole later part of Wundt's Ethics and to 
 Prof. James's chapter on 'Instinct' in his Principles of Psychology (ch. xxiv.). 
 
2% PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I 
 
 pleasure, or at least the resistance to the impulse would be found 
 painful. And the experienced pleasure or relief from pain 
 undoubtedly stimulates the animal to the continued performance 
 of the acts. Moreover, in some cases the impulses which are 
 now blind and unreflecting may have originally in some remote 
 ancestor been .purposeful ; but the fact remains that the actual 
 stimulu^to the present act is not a mere anticipation of pleasure: 
 the pleasure only comes because there is a pre-existing impulse. 
 Striving of some kind or other is as primitive a factor in all 
 consciousness as feeling^. It is quite true that normally not 
 only is the satisfaction of the impulse itself a pleasure, but the 
 instincts of an animal tend for the most part to prompt actions 
 which are pleasurable on the whole. An instinct which brought 
 immediate pain would tend to disappear, and an animal whose 
 instincts on the whole did not bring it pleasure would tennd to 
 disappear also. But these tendencies are by no means always 
 realized, and require to be stated with many qualifications. The 
 moth would no doubt find it painful to resist the impulse which 
 draws it to the candle : but still it is probable that on the whole 
 it does not find it pleasant to be burned alive. The instinct does 
 not tend to promote survival, and yet the moth survives. 
 
 Many of the instincts or impulses of animals are not self- 
 preserving but race-preserving, and these are often sources of 
 immediate pain and danger to the animal itself. The most 
 obvious instance is the maternal instinct which often leads an 
 animal to brave obvious pain or danger for the sake of its young. 
 And among the higher and more gregarious animals there are 
 often found not merely the blind impulses of anger and aggression 
 
 ^ Some Psychologists would say more primitive. But I see no advantage 
 in attempting to identify conscious impulses with unconscious tendencies 
 towards an end such as may exist in plants, however decidedly these may 
 differ from merely mechanical processes. Even Mr. Spencer does recog- 
 nize that race-preserving actions not conducive to the pleasure of the in(£- 
 vidual are as primitive as individual-preserving actions. That admission cuts 
 away the ground of his assumption that individual-preserving actions are 
 always prompted by a desire of pleasure. To identify ' cravings ' with ' dis- 
 comforts ' which inspire a desire for their- removal {Principles of Psy- 
 chology, § 123) tends to disguise the hysterotirproteron of the Pleaaure- 
 psyohology. 
 
Chap, ii, § ii] INSTINCT 23 
 
 which do actually preserve individual and race alike, but instincts 
 which lead them to face easily avoidable perils and pains in 
 defence of the herd. How far these instiijcts are due to ' lapsed 
 intelligence,' how far to natural selection, how far to direct 
 adaptation, how far they may require the hypothesis of a final 
 causality which resists further physiological explanation, are 
 questions with which we are not now concerned. , The only 
 point that has here to be emphasized is that the conscious actions 
 of infants or animals are as little explicable by the theory of 
 psychological Hedonism as those of the hero or the saint. The 
 impulses are not desires for a particular imagined pleasure, still 
 less for a greatest possible quantum of pleasure upon the whole. 
 This last aim would imply a power of reflection and abstraction 
 wholly beyond what we have any reason to believe to be possible 
 in an animal or even a not very primitive man. The theory of 
 psychological Hedonism is therefore not entitled to any advantage 
 which it might derive from presenting us with a true account of 
 the historical origin of our present human experience. Altruism 
 was not developed out of Egoism ; though, if it were, that would 
 not disprove the existence of Altruism now. Men and animals 
 have always had both race-preserving and self-preserving in- 
 stincts. Altruism in the developed human beings is evolved out 
 of social and race-preserving instincts : Egoism out of self -pre- 
 serving instincts. Both in their human form involve an intellectual 
 development of which the lower animals are incapable. 
 
 The question may be raised whether these instincts or impulses 
 which we have distinguished from ' disinterested desires ' in the 
 stricter sense do not exist even in developed humanity ? They 
 certainly exist in the human infant : do they in the adult man ? 
 The answer seems to be that these impulses do certainly exist. 
 It is perhaps better not to follow Bishop Butler in classing 
 hunger with such disinterested desires as Benevolence or even 
 Vengeance '. Hunger is neither a desire for the pleasure of 
 eating, nor (in its less acute forms) a desire to avoid the pains of 
 
 ^ Sidgwick follows him in this view {Methods of Ethics, 6th Ed., p. 45). 
 Prof. Mackenzie seems to me right in distinguishing appetites from desires 
 {Manual of Ethics, 4th Ed., p. 46). See also the chapter in James's Psychology 
 already referred to (above, p. 21, note). 
 
24 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I 
 
 inanition : but it is not quite the same thing as a disinterested 
 desire of food for food's sake. It is simply an impulse to eat. 
 But then the human being has a power which the animal has not, 
 or a greater power than the animal possesses, of reflecting on these 
 impulses of his, and presenting their satisfaction to himself as an 
 object of thought and of encouraging them or resisting them 
 accordingly. So long as the impulse is a physically irresistible 
 impulse, as when a man closes his eyes or ducks his head to avoid 
 an unexpected missile, that is mere ' reflex action ' ; that is to say, 
 the act is not in the moral sense of the word an act at all. The 
 impulse is not, properly speaking, a ' motive.' But in so far as 
 the impulse can be inhibited, in so far as the impulse is reflected 
 on and its object deliberately conceived by the understanding 
 and adopted by the will, the mere instinct or impulse passes into 
 what we ordinarily call a desire, and (in so far as the desire is 
 not merely a desire for the imagined pleasure of satisfaction) 
 a ' disinterested desire.' And therefore from an ethical point of 
 view the distinction between appetites and instinctive desires or 
 'desires of objects' becomes of comparatively little importance — 
 of com.paratively little importance, though it may for some purpose 
 be important to remember that an action prompted by impulse 
 or appetite or instinct, even where not actually involuntary, may 
 be far less voluntary than one which flows from the conscious 
 and deliberate desire for an object clearly presented to the mind. 
 There are no hard and fast lines to be drawn in this matter. In 
 the developing race and in the growing child reflex action passes 
 by imperceptible gradations into instinctive action, and instinct 
 into voluntary action motived by desire. So in the adult human 
 individual there is every stage between the purely reflex action 
 and the fully premeditated and deliberate act; but it would 
 seem that, though there are instincts, there are here no purely 
 instinctive acts in the strict sense of the word except those which 
 are wholly involuntary. The instinct which has been reflected 
 on and has not been inhibited, may be treated as a desire— for 
 pleasure or some other object, as the case may be, and the 
 resulting act is no longer in the strict sense of the word merely 
 instinctive. 
 
Chap, ii, § iii] DOCTRINE OF MILL 35 
 
 III 
 
 The course of our argument has already touched upon the 
 question of diflferences in quality among pleasures. We have 
 already seen that, even upon the assumption that what is desired 
 is always pleasure, it is in many cases clear enough that it is not 
 pleasure in general that is desired but some particular kind of 
 pleasure, and we have already attempted to show that such an 
 admission really surrenders the whole hedonistic doctrine. If 
 people do as a matter of fact desire pleasures for other reasons 
 than their greater intensity, it is clearly possible that the superior 
 ethical quality or rank or dignity of the pleasure may be one of 
 the determining factors in their choice. That this is so has often 
 been admitted by high-minded Hedonists who have not seen how 
 fatal is the admission to the whole doctrine that what they desire 
 is always pleasure as such. We may take for instance the well- 
 known passage of John Stuart Mill : — 
 
 ' It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognise 
 the fact, that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more 
 valuable than others. It would be absurd that while, in estimating 
 all other things, quality is to be considered as well as quantity, 
 the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on 
 quantity alone. 
 
 'If I am asked, what I mean by difference of quality in 
 pleasures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than 
 another, merely as a pleasure, except its being greater in amount, 
 there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there be 
 one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give 
 a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obliga- 
 tion to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. If one of 
 the two is, by' those who are competently acquainted with both, 
 placed so far above the other that they prefer it, even though 
 knowing it to be attended with a greater amount of discontent, 
 and would not resign it for any amount of the other pleasure 
 which their nature is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to 
 the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality, so far outweigh- 
 ing quantity, as to render it, in comparison, of small account ^,' 
 
 ' Utilitarianism, pp. 11, 12. 
 
a6 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I 
 
 Mill's psychological analysis here leaves little to be desired, bufc_^ 
 he failed ta^ee that a desire for superior quality of pleasure is 
 not really^a desire for pleasure. If I drink a particular wine for 
 the sake of pleasure, I of course care for the quality of the wine — 
 its taste, bouquet, body, exhilarating properties and the like, in 
 so far as these conduce to pleasure. But so far only. I should 
 give it up the moment that I found a pleasanter wine at the same 
 price and with equally hygienic properties, except in so far as oc- 
 casional variety may be itself a source of pleasure. If, therefore, 
 I care about philanthropic pleasure merely as pleasure, I should 
 necessarily give it up and take to the pleasures of an animal 
 if I were only satisfied of their superior pleasantness. This is 
 just what, according to Mill, the wise man will not do : ' few 
 human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the 
 lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's 
 pleasures ^.' He admits therefore that such a man desires some- 
 thing other than pleasure. What makes him think the pleasures of 
 the intellect superior to those of a beast is not their intensity as 
 pleasures but their superior nobleness or moral elevation. And 
 that is a consideration which can only appeal to a man who 
 cares about nobleness or moral elevation. 
 
 Strictly speaking, pleasures do not diflFer in quality, but only 
 in quantity. Or, to be entirety accurate, pleasure varies only in 
 quantity. In ordinary language we mean by a pleasure a total 
 state of consciousness which is pleasant. But no man's conscious- 
 ness at any one moment can be full of pleasure and nothing else. 
 There must be something there — a taste or a smell, a perception 
 or a thought, an emotion or a volition — to be pleasant. A man 
 who should for a single instant have nothing in his mind but 
 pleasure would be an impossible variety of idiot: for this 
 would imply that he was pleased at nothing at all. The pleasure 
 then of this or that moment of consciousness is an abstraction ; 
 it can never exist by itself so long as pleasure is understood to 
 mean the mere quality of pleasing. Very different contents of 
 consciousness — the most purely animal sensation or the loftiest 
 moral purpose — may have this common quality of pleasing ; but, 
 so long as they are compared merely in respect of this one 
 
 ' 1. 0., p. 12. 
 
Chap, ii, § iv] AMBIGUITIES 27 
 
 characteristic, they can only differ in one way — in respect of the 
 intensity or quantity of this pleasingness ; the pleasure varies in 
 degree, not in kind. All this tends to 8ho\f haw completely the 
 admission of qualitative differences in pleasure abandons the 
 hedonistic point of view. As a popular mode of expression, 
 the doctrine that pleasures differ in kind is a true and useful 
 formula ; but it should be recognized that this is not Hedonism. 
 For it means precisely this — that we ascribe value or worth to 
 states of consciousness for other reasons than their pleasantness, 
 although a certain measure of pleasantness might be a character- 
 istic of all states of consciousness which are capable of being 
 desired. 
 
 IV 
 
 It should be distinctly . understood that the question with 
 which we are at present concerned is a purely psychological one. 
 It is a mere question of fact, and can only be answered by each 
 man for ^himself after careful observation and analysis of what 
 ' goes on in his own mind, aided by observation of what goes on 
 in other people's minds, in so far as that is revealed by word and 
 act. All that any writer can do towards helping another person 
 to perform this process is (a) to state the question clearly and to 
 warn him against the ambiguities of language which are the 
 main source of error upon such subjects ; (b) to remind him of 
 some of the facts which the hedonistic theory has got to explain, 
 and to ask him whether that explanation is adequate ; and (c) to 
 state clearly and fully the elements of truth which that theory 
 holds in solution, and to show that a recognition of such elements 
 of truth does not carry with it the inferences which the Hedonist 
 draws from them. I have already attempted to perform the first 
 of these tasks, and have made some siiggestions towards the 
 second. But before proceeding to the third, I should like to call 
 attention to some of the more extreme cases of disinterested 
 desire which the theory before us has got to explain away, 
 though I have already tried to show that its failure is quite as 
 apparent in the case of very ordinary impulses to action which 
 are of no special significance from an ethical point of view. 
 The palmary instance of this failure may perhaps be found in 
 
38 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I 
 
 cases where a man labours to accomplish a result which he knows 
 cannot be achieved till he is dead and no longer able to enjoy it. 
 Such instances occur not only in the ease of heroic self-sacrifice 
 for a political or religious faith, or the less heroic but no less 
 altruistic efforts of parents to provide for their children, but in 
 the case of many desires which in the ordinary, ethical sense of 
 the word would commonly be described as selfish enough. How 
 is the hedonistic Psychologist to explain the vulgarest desire on 
 the part of some recently ennobled brewer to ' found a family,' 
 or the desire of posthumous fame — say for instance, the kind of 
 literary vanity or ambition which has had so large a share in 
 inspiring the life-work even of men like Hume and Gibbon ? i 
 It will be urged that the man who is influenced by such motives ( 
 acts as he does because the thought of being talked about afterl 
 his death gives him pleasure now. Exactly so ; the thought of 
 it gives him pleasure ! But that is just what the hedonistic 
 Psychology declares to be an impossibility. According to this 
 system nothing that is present merely in thought can give 
 pleasure except the thought of a future pleasant state of the 
 man's own consciousness. Being talked about after my death is 
 not a future state of my own consciousness ^ ; and therefore the 
 thought of it can, according to the theory, give me no pleasure 
 now. Once again we have the old hysteron-proteron — the cart 
 before the horse. The hedonistic Psychology explains the desire 
 by the pleasure, whereas in fact the pleasure owes its existence 
 entirely to the desire. 
 
 The difficulty reaches its climax in the case of an atheistic 
 martyr, who, with no belief in a future life, dies in furtherance 
 of an object which cannot be realized till he will (according to 
 his own view) no longer be able to enjoy it. Or, if we choose 
 (however illogically ^) to explain his conduct by the desire of 
 enjoying the moments of triumph which may elapse between his 
 
 ^ In such cases we may ignore the belief in Immortality. Even where 
 such a belief is strong and influential, it probably does not occur to a man 
 to think of himself as hereafter enjoying the contemplation of his great- 
 grandchildren seated on the red benches of the House of Lords, or smiling 
 down upon his own statue in the market-place of his native town. 
 
 " Since this sense of triumph really implies that he is capable of looking 
 forward with satisfaction to a result other than his own pleasure. 
 
Chap.ii, §iv] PLEASURES OF MARTYRDOM 29 
 
 resolution to die and the execution of his sentence, we may put 
 a case where this interval is non-existent. Supposing a con- 
 demned man, disbelieving in a future lif e^ to be told that by 
 holding up his finger just before the guillotine fell he would 
 save the life of a dearly loved child or confer some inestimable 
 benefit on the whole human race. On the hedonistic theory even 
 such a minimum degree of benevolence would be a psychological 
 impossibility. For one who knew that the act would be syn- 
 chronous with the termination of his own consciousness, there 
 would be no future consciousness the imagined pleasantness of 
 which could possibly supply a motive for the present act. If it 
 be contended that the moment of consciousness in which the act 
 is performed is itself pleasant, the whole point is conceded. For 
 it is admitted that volitions are rendered pleasant to us in con- 
 templation, and so are called into actual being, on account of 
 future effects other than a pleasant state of one's own conscious- 
 ness. The only way of escape would be to contend that the act 
 of lifting up a finger would have seemed pleasant to the man 
 apart from the efiects which it was to have after his death. But 
 in normal circumstances the holding up of a finger would give no 
 pleasure at all. 
 
 One last skulking-place of psychological Hedonism may be 
 briefly noticed, though this represents a form of the error which 
 rarely imposes upon any but very young students of Ethics. At 
 a certain stage of reflection egoistic Hedonism is often made to 
 present itself in an extremely amiable and even edifying light 
 by including among the pains and pleasures which determine the 
 morality of an action the pains and pleasures of Conscience. 
 Nothing can be more beautiful, it is suggested, than to do my 
 duty simply because I like it. There can be no more efiicient 
 sanction and guarantee of Morality than the happiness which 
 experience shows invariably to follow in its train. I will not 
 here examine whether the pains and pleasures of Conscience are 
 as a matter of psychological fact so intense as Moralists have 
 sometimes found it convenient to assume. It is probable that, 
 as regards minor kinds of wrong-doing, in persons of average 
 conscientiousness, the pains of Conscience have been greatly 
 exaggerated. If moral obligation were to be based solely upon 
 
3° PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I 
 
 this ground, the cynical advice to make one's moral standard as 
 low as possible in order that one may occasionally enjoy the 
 luxury of living up to it would have something to be said for it. 
 But, be this as it may, be the pleasure of right-doing and the 
 pains of wrong-doing great or small, these pleasures and pains 
 are only explicable on the assumption of the existence now or in 
 the past, in the man himself or in others, of desires for something 
 besides pleasure. When the pleasure arises from the person's 
 own purely introspective satisfaction in his own morality or 
 victory over temptation or the like, we have simply another case 
 of the pleasure attending the satisfaction of all desire. The 
 attempt to explain this away is another instance of the old 
 hysteron-proteron. In other cases there may, indeed, be no 
 desire — at least in any conscious and explicit form — for the 
 performance of duty or the happiness of others for its own sake 
 in the individual himself, and yet the doing of the right act may 
 be a source of pleasure or more probably the doing of the wrong 
 one a source of pain. The pleasure in the act, or the pain in its 
 omission, may be due to a habit formed under the influence of 
 other motives. Or pleasure may have come to be associated 
 with the act, and pain with its omission, through the influence 
 of a public opinion which is itself based upon an approval or 
 disapproval not arising from any hedonistic calculus, and which 
 influences the individual quite apart from any anticipated con- 
 sequences of the public feeling. To attempt to justify (on 
 hedonistic principles) the performance of certain acts commonly 
 called moral by their pleasantness, and then to explain their 
 pleasantness by assuming that they are moral and so sources of 
 conscientious pleasure or means of avoiding conscientious pain, is 
 to argue in a circle. The pleasantness of the act is explained by 
 its morality, and its morality is explained by its pleasantness. 
 It is admitted that the act is often such as could not produce the 
 attainable maximum of pleasure apart from its being regarded 
 as moral ; but, according to the hedonistic Psychology, it could 
 never have come to be regarded as moral except through an 
 experience which showed that apart from the opinion of its 
 morality it was already the way to obtain the greatest maximum 
 of pleasure. The consciousness which can take pleasure in an 
 
Chap, ii, §v] ELEMENTS OF TRUTH 31 
 
 action because it is right is not a consciousness that cares about 
 nothing but pleasure. If it has not risen to the level of a dis- 
 interested love of duty, or of tribe or family gr individual person, 
 it must at least be capable of being affected by a desire of social 
 approbation, or other social impulses and interests, which are just 
 as difl&cult to account for on the hypothesis of egoistic Hedonism 
 as the love of duty for its own sake, and which generally imply 
 more definitely 'disinterested' desires on the part of the com- 
 munity by which the opinion that the act is right has been 
 created. Even if the community is supposed to approve or 
 disapprove merely from self-interest, the community's disappro- 
 bation would bring no loss of pleasure to a consciousness that 
 cared not for disapprobation ^. Moralists like Mandeville, and in 
 a more refined way Hume, have a tendency to reduce the motive 
 of moral conduct to a kind of vanity. But vanity is as good an 
 instance as could be found of a disinterested desire, when it 
 rises above the level of that gregarious instinct which is shared 
 by the lower animals, and which after all is equally proof against 
 the hedonistic analysis. 
 
 I shall now attempt, even at the risk of some repetition, to 
 state what appear to me the elements of truth contained in the 
 theory of psychological Hedonism, and to guard against some of 
 the exaggerations on the other side which have sometimes helped 
 to secure acceptance for that position. 
 
 (i) The gratification of every desire necessarily gives pleasure 
 in actual fact, and is consequently conceived of as pleasant in 
 idea before the desire is accomplished. That is the truth which 
 lies at the bottom of all the exaggerations and misrepresentations 
 of the hedonistic Psychology. The psychological Hedonist ex- 
 plains the martyr's death by a taste for the pleasures of martyr- 
 dom. Undoubtedly a martyr must derive pleasure from the 
 thought of dying for a holy cause, and even in the midst of the 
 flames the thought that he is doing something for that cause 
 
 * Of course, when any ulterior consequence of social approbation is to be 
 feared, we should not speak of the person as acting from purely conscien- 
 tious motives at all. 
 
3% PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I 
 
 must, presumably, so long as it actually remains in his conscious- 
 ness, give him some pleasure. But you cannot account for his 
 action by that pleasure (waiving for the moment our objection 
 to the hysteron-proteron), unless you contend that the pleasure 
 involved in the gratification of the desire is greater in amount 
 than the pains involved, and foreseen to be involved, in the 
 process of achieving that gratification. The thought of the 
 purpose accomplished or the cause assisted may no doubt, even 
 in the moment of martyrdom, when abstracted from everything 
 else in the man's consciousness, be pleasant ; but that is a very 
 different thing from saying that the process of being burned 
 alive, taken as a whole, is a pleasant one, and that the man 
 suffers martyrdom because, upon a calm and impartial review, 
 he thinks that the pleasure will predominate over the pain. His 
 conduct implies that the thought of serving his cause must have 
 had some peculiar attraction for him over and above the pleasant- 
 ness which it shared with the rejected attractions of a happy 
 and tranquil existence. Had it ever occurred to him to make 
 the calculation, a man totally indifferent to the source or moral 
 character of his pleasures would surely have found that the 
 pleasures of living were greater than those of martyrdom ^ 
 Aristotle saw this with peculiar clearness. The brave man, he 
 tells us, finds pleasure in the exercise of courage ; yet the 
 pleasure is so small in amount, when compared with the attendant 
 pains, that the popular mind hardly notices that there is any 
 pleasure at all in the dying warrior's last moments. On the 
 whole, such a death seems painful, like the experience of the 
 athlete fighting in the arena, though there too the contemplation 
 of the prize and the glory to be achieved are no doubt sources 
 of pleasure ^. 
 
 ' We may here ignore the question of the nearness of the pleasure : for 
 experience seems to show that, even if we gi'ant the delightfubiess of looking 
 forward to heing burned alive, the prospect does not at all gain in attractive- 
 ness when one comes closer to it. 
 
 ^ Ethic. Nicomach. III. ix. 3 (p. 1117) Oi /n^v ciKKa ho^nev hv clvai to Kara 
 Trjv avSpiiav rcXoy f)8v, irrA tS>v kv/cXo) &' a(j>aviie<Tdai, olov Kav rols yv/iviKois 
 ayatri yiverai* rots yap irvKTais rh fiev reXos rjdv, ov ei/fKa, 6 orc^avos Kai ai 
 Tifxai, rh 8e TvnTecrdai aKyeiv6v, ftjrep a-apKivoi, Ka\ \v7rtjp6v, Ka\ ttSj 6 irovos' Sih 
 be TO TToXXa ravr flpat, juiKpov tv to o5 IvfKa oifiev ^611 t^aiveTai t-)(fiv. This side 
 
Chap, ii, §v] PLEASURE STRENGTHENS DESIRE 33 
 
 (2) It may be further admitted that this pictured pleasantness of 
 the gratification of a desire, though it will not explain the desire, 
 does greatly add to its strength. The pleasure of getting know- 
 ledge cannot be explained without assuming a 'disinterested' 
 love of knowledge. But when, impelled by this desire or assisted 
 by the co-operation of other motives, we do actually acquire 
 some knowledge and find the process more and more delightful, 
 the desire unquestionably becomes stronger ; just as, when the 
 anticipated pleasure turns out to be less than was expected, it 
 may be progressively diminished. It would be difficult to say 
 in the former case to what extent the mere love of the experienced 
 pleasure of learning may take the place, as a motive, of all 
 genuine desire for knowledge itself ; but certainly it may do so 
 to some extent. The scholar may degenerate into the mere 
 bookworm. And so, on the other hand, the young boy usually 
 begins life with some curiosity to know, but may find his love 
 of knowledge vanish with growing experience of the painfulnesa 
 of the road to it, or of the greater pleasantness of the athletics 
 and the athletic fame which his schoolfellows, and jgexy-^aaabably 
 hisjchoolmasters, have taught him, by precept and example, to 
 regard as the chief business of life. Here again we have 
 a truth, ignored if not denied by modern Anti-hedonists, which 
 was quite clearly recognized by Aristotle. It is not true, he 
 tells us, as the Platonists maintained, that pleasure ' impedes the 
 activities.' An alien pleasure — the pleasure connected with 
 some other and inconsistent activity — ^will no doubt do that : 
 the pleasure of eating, for instance, interferes with intellectual 
 activity, and therefore it is when the acting is bad that the 
 eating of sweetmeats goes on most briskly in the auditorium; 
 when the spectators get interested in the play, they stop eating. 
 ' But their own proper pleasure stimulates our activities and 
 makes them better and more sustained '.' Therefore, as he 
 points out elsewhere, we do best what we do with pleasure. 
 
 (3) Still more must this principle be remembered when the 
 
 of Aristotle's doctrine is constantly overlooked in stating his view that the 
 virtuous man necessarily acts with pleasure. 
 
 ^ ij iiev oiKeia fiSoptj c^aKpi^oi ras ivepyeiac Koi xpoviarfpat <tai jSeXn'our iroiu, 
 al 8' dXXdrptai Xviutivoi/rai. Ethic. Nicomach. X. v. 5 (p. 1175 6). 
 
 BA8HDALL I D 
 
34 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I 
 
 doctrine of disinterested desires comes to be applied, as it was 
 applied for the first time by Butler, to bad and indifferent as 
 well as to good desires. Between the desire of an object and the 
 desire of the pleasure arising from that object it is not possible 
 to draw an absolutely sharp line of demarcation ; the one is 
 ever passing into and colouring the other. From the pure desire 
 of an object for which we should be prepared to sacrifice every- 
 thing, while feeling all the time that with the personal pleasure 
 derived from it we could dispense well enough, the mind may 
 pass by imperceptible transitions to such a desire for the pleasure 
 as will keep alive an interest in the object entirely for its own 
 satisfaction — a state of mind well illustrated by the familiar 
 process of 'riding a hobby.' Although, as we have seen, the 
 worst passions of human nature (equally with the best) are 
 properly speaking ' disinterested,' it may be admitted that their 
 disinterestedness is seldom as pure as that of the highd^t desires. 
 For the greatest height of disinterestedness impiiea^ that the 
 desire persists in spite of clear and calm conviction that it is not, 
 in the hedonistic sense of the word, to one's interest, and this will 
 seldom be the case with the worst desires. The mere victim of 
 passion will usually (not perhaps always) ' persuade himself ' 
 that its gratification is hedonistically worth the cost. Moreover, 
 although the man who indulges to his own loss in what we 
 commonly call a bad passion does not act merely with a view to 
 his own pleasure, he does act simply for the gratification of his 
 own impulses. The outside object — the death of an enemy or 
 the like — is no doubt desired as an end, but it is merely his own 
 private and personal desire for it that makes it an end to him ; 
 and no doubt that desire — though not the result of a comparison 
 between possible pleasures — is often explicable by association 
 with other desires and impulses of a more obviously self -regarding, 
 or a more obviously animal, character — the remembrance of an 
 injury, instinctive jealousy, or the like. On the other hand, the 
 self-sacrifice of the good man for the welfare of a stranger or the 
 triumph of a cause may be produced by purely objective or 
 rational considerations. The object appeals to or ' interests ' 
 him as a rational and reflecting intelligence, not simply as an 
 individual being with private passions and impulses which 
 
Chap, ii, §v] DEGREES OF DISINTERESTEDNESS $5 
 
 demand their own gratification. The bad man may be betrayed 
 by passion into a forgetfulness of his true ' interest on the whole ' ; 
 but he never wholly forgets himself and h^p impulses, still less 
 does he ' lose himself ' in universal or ideal interests. There is, 
 therefore, an important psychological as well as an ethical 
 difference between the ' disinterested ' impulses of the bad man 
 and the purely ' self-forgetful ' Benevolence of the best ; and 
 between these two extremes there are of course very many 
 degrees of ' disinterestedness ^.' If by a disinterested desire we 
 mean the desire of an object not merely as an end which 
 we desire, but as an end in itself which on purely objective 
 
 ' Simmel has devoted much space (Einleitung in die Moralunssenschaft, 
 1892, I, Kap. ii) to showing how impossible it is to form any clear concep- 
 tion of pure Egoism or of pure Altruism : he shows how the instincts, desires, 
 and emotions with the satisfaction of which a man identifies his own good 
 or interest or pleasure, always include some which are of social origin and 
 involve a moral element ; whilst the most altruistic man is, after all, grati- 
 fying impulses in which he finds his own satisfaction. It seems to me true 
 and important to say that altruistic and egoistic impulses fuse inextricably. 
 Few desires and impulses are wholly altruistic or wholly egoistic : we can 
 only speak of a more or less altruistic or egoistic character in them. The 
 motives which prompt the average man to devote himself heartily to 
 his profession can as little be represented as pure desire for the public good 
 as they can be represented as merely a desire for his own enjoyment or 
 advancement. His profession has become to him an end-in-itself, but it has 
 become so because he has both interests which are mainly egoistic and 
 impulses which are mainly altruistic. At the same time, I do not think we 
 can deny the psychological possibility of the pure Egoist who deliberately 
 gratifies his impulses just so far as he thinks they will yield him pleasure 
 on the whole ; this possibility is not affected by the social origin or the 
 social tendency of some of those impulses. The pure Altruist who subordinates 
 his own interest entirely to that of others is more difficult to conceive, because 
 the man's very Altruism must produce such an identification of his own 
 interest with that of others that they can hardly be kept absolutely apart 
 in consciousness, except in those cases where there is some absolute and 
 palpable contradiction between the interest of others and what would, but 
 for his Altruism, be conceived of as his own interest. But where the sacrifice 
 of life, or of all that makes life worth living, is deliberately made, the fact 
 that on reflection the man may recognize the sacrifice as a good for him does 
 not make it impossible to describe the desire as such as altruistic, so long as 
 the object is not desired merely as a means to his own good, whether con- 
 ceived of as pleasure or something else. What is true in Simmel's conten- 
 tion is that the normal motives of most men are neither purely altruistic 
 nor purely egoistic. 
 
 D a 
 
36 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I 
 
 grounds we conceive of as good, then we must pronounce that 
 such a disinterested desire is possible only in the case of good 
 desires. Bad desires and inclinations may be 'disinterested' 
 in the merely negative sense that they are not desires for 
 pleasure as such. Desires for the good of another person or 
 persons are more ' disinterested ' in a stricter sense and a higher 
 degree: while the highest degree of disinterestedness is only 
 reached when a moral or universal element enters into the desired 
 object, when the individual desires the object not merely as 
 a particular individual who chances to have such and such an 
 impulse, but as a reasonable being who aims at what his Reason 
 tells him to be not merely his good, but part of tfie good. 
 
 (4) It has been implied in what has been said already that 
 pleasure, though not the only object of desire, is nevertheless 
 one possible object of desire, and that desire of pleasure, though 
 incompetent by itself to explain the most ordinary springs of 
 action, is widely operative in human life. If this is not often 
 explicitly denied, there are many Moralists who in their zeal 
 against pleasure seem disposed to ignore or gloss it over. Butler, 
 for instance, appears to ignore entirely the existence of any 
 general desire for pleasure as distinct from (a) particular ' pro- 
 pensions,' or affections, or disinterested desires for objects, 
 and (6) the desire for one's ' interest ' on the whole. Whether 
 or not he is right in holding that hunger is a disinterested 
 desire for food, hunger is clearly distinguishable from the 
 desire for gastronomic pleasure. When a City Alderman after 
 satisfying his hunger goes on grossly to over-feed himself, he is 
 surely impelled by a love of pleasure which is as distinct from the 
 passion of hunger as it is from a rational affection towards his 
 own interest on the whole. Indeed, the calculating desire for 
 one's interest on the whole, if ' interest ' be understood in the 
 hedonistic sense, is only explicable as the result, in the developed 
 and reflective consciousness, of the desire for present and 
 immediate pleasure. The idea of pleasure on the whole is 
 got by abstraction from a number of particular pleasures each 
 of which the man desires, but which experience shows him cannot 
 be enjoyed all at once. 
 
 (5) If modern Anti-hedonists have not explicitly explained 
 
Chap, ii, §v] THE SUM OF PLEASURES 37 
 
 away all desire for pleasure, some of them have categorically 
 and in terms denied the possibility of desiring a ' greatest quantum 
 of pleasure ' or a ' sum of pleasures '. The possibility of desiring 
 a sum of pleasures was denied by the late Prof. T. H. Green, 
 but it is difficult to see on what grounds except the obvious but 
 irrelevant fact that pleasures cannot be enjoyed as a sum ^. 
 Such arguments are surely based upon a mere verbal quibble. 
 You might as well deny that I can desire music because I cannot 
 take in a whole symphony simultaneously, while each separate 
 note, taken by itself, would not be music at all. When I say 
 that I desire a sum of pleasures, I mean of course that I desire to 
 get as much pleasure as possible, i. e. to enjoy pleasure as intense 
 and as lasting as possible. Such an aim seems to me perfectly 
 intelligible and rational as far as it goes. How far such a 
 formulation of the ethical criterion falls short of the real demands 
 of the moral consciousness, we shall have to consider hereafter. 
 It is enough here to say that it is not in my view possible to 
 oppose a hedonistic Ethic on the ground that its end is an 
 impossible or unattainable one, or the hedonistic Psychology 
 on the ground that the motive which it represents as the sole 
 motive of human conduct is an impossible or non-existent 
 motive. The question is, however, of so much importance that 
 I reserve a more full discussion of it for a separate chapter ^ 
 
 (6) And here perhaps it may be well to meet an objection 
 which turns upon what is often called the ' paradox of Hedonism.' 
 ' If you aim at pleasure you will not get it,' it is said. ' To get 
 pleasure forget it.' Within certain limits, I quite admit the 
 truth of the experience alleged. It is no doubt a serious argu- 
 ment against the adoption of the hedonistic calculus as our sole 
 guide in personal conduct. But to a certain extent it is possible 
 to allow for this fact of experience even in the hedonistic calculus 
 itself. I do not find that I fail to enjoy a holiday because I have 
 carefully considered which of various tours, equally expensive 
 or inexpensive and equally recuperative ^, I should enjoy most. 
 
 ^ Cf. Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, 6th ed., p. 134. " Book II, ch. i. 
 
 ^ Even this could not be decided without taking into consideration the 
 pleasure I should get. The hedonistic calculus is as necessary for duty as 
 for pleasure. If the doctrine that pleasure cannot be obtained by contrivance 
 
38 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I 
 
 I should no doubt begin to lose pleasure, if I were always calcu- 
 lating whether the enjoyment had realized my expectations. 
 But, subject to this consideration, I do not believe that in small 
 matters — supposing the pursuit of pleasure to be strictly limited 
 by considerations of duty, so that no latent uneasiness of con- 
 science cleaves to our enjoyment — the alleged paradox holds 
 good at all. It is not a matter of experience that pleasure is 
 diminished by being provided and contrived for beforehand^. 
 I do not find that the dinner which I have ordered myself 
 always gives me less pleasure than the dinner which has been 
 ordered by somebody else. In certain circumstances the previous 
 contrivance may even become a positive enhancement of the 
 delight; as when Charles Lamb complained that in his days 
 of comparative affluence he could not get the pleasure out of his 
 theatre-goings and occasional holiday-makings which he did 
 when they had to be anxiously planned and contrived for weeks 
 beforehand ^. 
 
 VI 
 
 Before leaving the subject of pleasure I think it desirable 
 to add a urther explanation. It is possible to reject the hedon- 
 istic Psychology without admitting the existence of disinterested 
 desires in the strictest sense of the word. Until recently the 
 existence of disinterested desires was usually denied (among 
 modern Philosophers) only by Hedonists. The late Professor 
 Green agreed with Professor Sidgwick in accepting unreservedly 
 
 were true, a Physician would have carefully to conceal from his overworked 
 or overworried patient the fact that the tonic he was recommending was 
 simply a dose of pleasure. This may possibly at times be desirable, but not 
 in the case of persons who have no rooted antipathy to pleasure. 
 
 ' Not only does not the calculation always diminish the pleasure, but a 
 further pleasure may arise from the satisfaction of the desire for pleasurable 
 life in general, as has been well pointed out by von Hartmann, who is 
 assuredly no Hedonist (' eine zweite reflektierte Lust aus der Befriedigung 
 des eudamonistischen WoUens,' Ethische Studien, p. 137). At the same time 
 he seems to me mistaken, if not inconsistent, in maintaining that all 
 pleasure arises from the satisfaction of some desire (' dass es keine Lust 
 giebt, die nicht an die Befriedigung eines Begehrens geknupft ware,' 1. c, 
 p. 143), though he admits that the desire may sometimes be set up by the 
 mere presence of the means to its satisfaction. 
 
 * "^Old China' in The Last Essays ofElia. 
 
Chap, ii, §vi] EGOISM WITHOUT HEDONISM 39 
 
 Butler's quite explicit doctrine on this head. At the same time 
 we find in Professor Green's writings, side by side with this 
 view, another which seems to be scarcely consistent with it. 
 He commits himself at times to the doctrine that in every action 
 ' self-satisfaction is sought ^.' His theory of the ' timeless self ' 
 no doubt makes it difficult to say in what relation this doctrine 
 of self-satisfaction is supposed to stand to the belief in ' dis- 
 interested desires.' Desires are certainly in time, and the object 
 of desire must be conceived of as future. It is, therefore, not 
 easy to see how the satisfaction of a self which is not in time 
 can be made into a motive for conduct, or how we can at a definite 
 moment of time introduce a change into that which is timeless. 
 Here (as so often with theories of this kind) it is difficult not to 
 suspect some confusion between the permanent and the timeless. 
 But, waiving that difficulty, I can only understand the idea 
 of ' aiming at self-satisfaction ' to mean that my motive is a cer- 
 tain future state of my own consciousness. If I am always 
 aiming at a future state of my own consciousness, I cannot 
 be ' disinterestedly ' pursuing the advancement of learning or the 
 good of my neighbour. In that case I should care about my 
 neighbour's good merely as a means to my own 'satisfaction.' 
 The two doctrines are antagonistic and inconsistent. Recent 
 writers of Professor Green's School appear to have recognized 
 the fact, and have explicitly adopted the doctrine of 'self- 
 satisfaction,' They are Egoists without being Hedonists. They 
 admit that every action is properly speaking ' interested,' though 
 my interest is not equivalent to my maximum pleasure. Such a 
 doctrine seems to be no less false psychologically, and ethically 
 scarcely less objectionable, than the hedonistic Psychology itself ^. 
 Of course there is a sense in which every action is ' interested.' 
 I cannot care for anything — my neighbour's good, the cause 
 
 ^ Prolegomena to Ethics, Book II, ch. ii, and Book III, ch. i. 
 
 ' ' The same analysis which shows me that I do not always aim at my own 
 pleasure, shows me equally that I do not always aim at my own satisfaction. 
 I reject, in the one case as in the other, the conscious egoism of the form in 
 which human choice is conceived — except in the insignificant sense that I am 
 conscious that what I desire and aim at is desired and aimed at by me — 
 a tautological proposition' (Sidgwick, Ethics of T. H. Green, Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer, and J. Martineau, p. 103). 
 
40 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I 
 
 of 'learning' or of 'sport' or whatever it may be — unless it 
 interests me. But this has, I suppose, never been denied. It 
 simply amounts to saying that a desire which is to move me 
 must be my desire. The question, as I conceive it, is whether 
 the motive of every action is some future state of my own 
 consciousness, or whether it may be some state of some other's 
 consciousness, or some event in the objective world i. To assert 
 the former view would amount, as it appears to me, to saying 
 that a man cannot be benevolent simply because he cares about 
 his neighbour for that neighbour's sake, but only because he 
 wants to be a person conscious of his own benevolence. His- 
 neighbour's good is regarded not as an end but only as a means- 
 — a means to some state of his own soul, however ' spiritual ' 
 or exalted that state may be jsupposed to be. Now such a 
 doctrine seems to be simply a recrudescence of the old ' soul- ' 
 saving ' view of life, which may so easily degenerate into some- 
 thing considerably more nauseous and offensive than an honest 
 egoistic Hedonism which is naked and not ashamed. But the 
 question with which we are now concerned is whether the doe- 
 trine is psychologically true. To my own mind it seems open to 
 precisely the same line of objection which its supporters raise in 
 arguing against Hedonism. It involves the same hysteron- 
 proteron. It makes the anticipated ' satisfaction ' the condition 
 of the desire, whereas the desire is really the condition of the 
 satisfaction. If I cannot by any possibility be moved by my 
 neighbour's calamity until I have satisfied myself that I shall 
 get myself into a state of desirable moral exaltation by doing so, 
 you cut away all possibility of explaining why such a state 
 should be looked at as desirable or morally exalted. Unless 
 I looked upon my neighbour's good as a thing for which I cared, 
 or which possessed intrinsic value apart from any effect upon me, 
 I should not think it a good state of mind for me to contribute 
 or to have contributed to that good. It is precisely the unselfish- 
 
 ^ Of course, if such an event is to have real value, it must ultimately have 
 some effect on some consciousness or other, but this need not be distinctly 
 contemplated by the agent. A Samson might well desire the destruction of 
 his enemies and their temple, even at the cost of his own life, without dis- 
 tinctly thinking of the satisfaction to be given to his surviving countrymen. 
 
Chap.ii,§vi] REAL DISINTERESTEDNESS 4r 
 
 nes8 of the action which I find good. If I cared for my neigh- 
 bour's welfare merely as a means to my own edification, I should 
 not be unselfish. In many cases I cannot doubt that such 
 acts are done entirely without the thought of self, or even of 
 abstract duty : the desire of the other man's good acts as directly 
 and immediately upon the will as the desire of one's own : while, 
 so far as a reflective idea of goodness or duty enters into the 
 motive, the very essence of that ideal of moral goodness or duty 
 for its own sake is precisely this — that the thing should be done 
 simply because Reason approves it, and without calculation as to 
 how it will affect our own future consciousness. 
 
 The immediacy with which the conception that a thing is 
 rational acts on the/ will is best seen perhaps in cases where 
 no very important moral interest is at stake. A man with 
 a taste for 'Bradshaw' sees that certain trains are arranged 
 badly and stupidly. He feels a disinterested aversion to such 
 an irrational arrangement. He proceeds anonymously to write 
 to the papers or to the Company's Traffic Manager. No reputa- 
 tion is to be got by the step, and he never expects to travel that 
 way again. As little is he thinking of any future glow of self- 
 satisfaction or of the improvement of his own character. The 
 mere fact of the thing being irrational and as it should not 
 be is a sufficient reason to a rational being for wanting to 
 put it right. If you say he is 'uneasy' at the thing being 
 wrong and it is the uneasiness that moves him, you are of course 
 falling once again into the hysteron-proteron in the form in 
 which it got hold of Locke ^. You are explaining the desire 
 (and consequent action) by the uneasiness, whereas it is really 
 the desire that explains and occasions the uneasiness. 
 
 No doubt it may be freely admitted that when once an object 
 is looked upon as good, as a thing that interests us, the desire to 
 
 ^ Essay, Book II, ch. xxi, § 40. In so fax as Locke actually identifies (as he 
 shows a tendency to do) the ' desire ' and the ' uneasiness ' he is not open 
 to this criticism, and in fact no one shows more convincingly that it is not 
 ' the greater good, though apprehended to be so ' (ib., § 35), which always de- 
 termines the will ; but in so far as he makes the motive to be ' the removing 
 of pain ... as the first and necessary step towards happiness ' — ' that happi- 
 ness which we all aim at in all our actions ' (ib., § 36) — he is virtually under 
 the influence of the hedonistic Psychology. 
 
43 PSYCHOLOGICAL HEDONISM [Book I 
 
 attain for ourselves the moral good implied in the promotion o£ that 
 object supplements, and fuses itself with, the desire that the object 
 should be attained. Just as experience of the pleasure of satis- 
 fying a desire reacts upon and reinforces the desire itself, so with 
 those highest desires which consist in devotion to some ideal aim or 
 some form of other people's good the aspiration after goodness 
 for ourselves mingles with and reinforces the desire that others 
 should be benefited or the ideal aim promoted : the desire to be 
 good and the desire to do good blend into one. The proportion 
 in which the desire for personal holiness on the one hand, and the 
 desire for the promotion of objective interests on the other, enter 
 into the motives of the best lives probably varies enormously even 
 in the noblest characters. And from a practical point of view it 
 is probably desirable that both elements should be present. The 
 man who is only interested in people and causes is apt to be 
 indifferent to aspects and departments of Morality which are 
 really of great social importance ; while the man who thinks 
 only of his own spiritual condition is apt to become unhealthily 
 introspective, if not anti-social. Both types of character are 
 one-sided ; but, if we had to choose between the two, it is hardly 
 to the man who most consciously and deliberately regards his 
 family and his neighbours, the poor and the unfortunate, as the 
 means to his own spiritual advancement, or as supplying occasions 
 for the acquisition of ' merit,' that we should accord the prefer- 
 ence. Some of the ethical questions on which we have here 
 touched will demand our attention again. Meanwhile, I content 
 myself with repeating that, as a pure matter of Psychology, the 
 theory that every desire is a desire ' for some form of personal 
 good 1 ' is open to every objection which its exponents have so 
 
 ^ A few expressions of the doctrine here criticized may be given. Mr. 
 Fairbrother is quite justified in making Green hold {The Philosophy of T. H. 
 
 Green, p. 67) that the end ' is always a ' ' personal good " in some form Man 
 
 always is actuated by this conception of himself as satisfied ' ; but he ignores 
 all the passages that have an opposite tendency. The Bishop of Clogher (Dr. 
 d'Arcy) introduces another feature into the doctrine — that ' the end of a desire 
 is not an external thing, but the corresponding activity ' (Short Study of Ethics, 
 and ed., p. 158). Somewhat similar, though more vague, is Mr. Bradley's 
 earlier doctrine that ' nothing is desired except that which is identified with 
 ourselves, and we can aim at nothing, except in so far as we aim at ourselves 
 in it ' {Ethical Studies, p. 6a). Professor Muirhead likewise contends that 
 
Chap, ii, §vi] HYSTERON-PROTERON OF EGOISM 43 
 
 convincingly urged against the hedonistic Psychology. The 
 satisfaction of altruistic and other higher desires only comes 
 to be regarded as ' our good ' because we care for a good which 
 originally presents itself as a good which is not ours. 
 
 ' It is only as involved in one's own that one can desire one's neighbour's 
 good : it is only as his good enters into my conception of my good that I can 
 make it an object of desire and of volition ' {The Elements of Ethics, 
 p. 154). And again, ' The essential point to note is that all desire, and there- 
 fore all will (inasmuch as will depends upon desire), carry with them a 
 reference to self. Their object is a form of self-satisfaction ' (ib., p. 50). 
 'Reference to self is vague, but appears to be explained by the previous 
 sentence : ' They [the objects of desire] are related to the self, in that it is 
 the realization of them for a self that is desired.' Still there is a vagueness 
 which I should like to see cleared up. Does ' for a self mean (i) that the 
 desire is mine, or (2) that it is my interest in some future state of myself that 
 makes me care to pull my neighbour's child out of the fire ? The first doc- 
 trine seems to be as unquestionable as it is unquestioned ; the latter false. 
 On p. 47 we seem to get an explicit statement that it is always a future state 
 of the self that is desired in the words : ' Desire is a state of tension created 
 by the contrast between the present state of the self and the idea of a future 
 state not yet realised.' Is not this ' tension ' very much like Locke's ' greatest 
 present uneasiness,' with the disadvantage of introducing a not very intelli- 
 gible physical metaphor ? I should say that in the case of the anonymous 
 railway reformer contemplated in the text the tension is caused solely by 
 the contrast between the present state of the time-table and the ideal which 
 his reason unfolds to him. If so, the object of his desire, the object for 
 which he cares, is not ' self-satisfaction.' Whatever be the meaning of his 
 earlier and vaguer utterances, I rejoice to find that Mr. Bradley does now 
 repudiate the doctrine which I am attacking. ' It is not true that in volition 
 the idea is always the idea that I am about to do something. I cannot 
 admit that the qualification of the change as my act must always in volition 
 form a part of the idea's original content ' {Mind, N. S., No. 44, 1902, p. 456). 
 It is true that Mr. Bradley is speaking of Will, and in his view ' desire is 
 most certainly not necessary for will ' (ib., p. 457), but he elsewhere declares 
 still more clearly that we can desire 'an event outside and quite apart 
 from our psychical existence ' (Mind, N. S., No. 41, 1902, p. 18). That is 
 exactly the point on which I wish to insist, but it seems to me quite incon- 
 sistent with Mr. Bradley's doctrine that the bad man acting (as ordinary 
 people would put it) against knowledge ' is pursuing still and he always 
 must pursue his own good ' {Mind, N. S., No. 43, 1902, p. 307), and with the 
 whole tendency of that article. Surely ' my good ' is not ' an event outside 
 and quite apart from our psychical existence.' Mr. Bradley might reply 
 that to ' desire ' and to ' will ' are not the same thing, but if a desire (not 
 opposed by some other desire of sufficient strength) does not pass into 
 action, have we not the ' freak of unmotived willing ' against which Mr. 
 Bradley very properly protests ? 
 
CHAPTEE III 
 EATIONALISTIC UTILITAKIANISM 
 
 I. 
 
 In the last chapter an attempt was made to show that as 
 a matter of psychological fact human nature is capable of 
 desiring other things besides pleasure. To show that something 
 besides pleasure is capable of being desired does not, however, 
 prove that anything besides pleasure is ultimately desirable. 
 It is still quite possible to maintain that pleasure is the only 
 true or rational object of desire. The question remains whether 
 this is actually the case. There are undoubtedly people who 
 on reflection are prepared to declare that they can attach no 
 ultimate value to anything besides pleasure. They may recognize 
 the existence of 'disinterested desires' for knowledge or for 
 power, for wealth or for vengeance, but on reflection it appears 
 to them rational to gratify these desires only in so far as they 
 tend to swell the sum of pleasure — which means, as we have 
 seen, to get as much pleasure as they can for as long as they 
 can. The wise man (it is suggested) will treat the attainment 
 of all other objects as means, not as ends. Other desires will 
 be, so far as possible, gratified or repressed, stimulated or dis- 
 couraged or transformed in whatever way experience shows 
 to be on the whole conducive to getting as much pleasure out 
 of life as possible. 
 
 Now so long as the egoistic Hedonist confines himself to 
 asserting ' I care nothing about anything but my own pleasure, 
 and I propose to gratify my other impulses only in so far as 
 (in the long run) I think it tends to procure for me a maximum 
 yield of pleasure on the whole,' he is inaccessible to logical attack. 
 But very often he does not stop at that. He declares not merely 
 that pleasure is his object, but that pleasure is the only reasonable 
 object of desire, that every reasonable man must agree with him 
 
Chap, iii, §i] EGOISTIC HEDONISM 45 
 
 in thinking that his own pleasure is to each man the only proper 
 object of pursuit, that any one who pursues any other aim is 
 unreasonable, and makes a mistake. And .when that attitude 
 is adopted, it becomes possible to urge that he is implicitly 
 appealing to a universal standard which must be the same 
 for all men. He admits that Keason can pronounce upon the 
 value of eTida, and that it does so, not from any merely private 
 point of view, but from an objective or universal standpoint. 
 The pursuit of pleasure is approved not merely because it chances 
 to be the end that he prefers, but because in some sense it is the true 
 end, the end that ought to be pursued. The champion of pleasure 
 may, indeed, contend that the universal rule which Reason 
 approves, is not that pleasure in general ought to be pursued, 
 but that each man should pursue his own pleasure. But an 
 egoistic Hedonist of this type is liable to be asked on what 
 grounds an impartial or impersonal Reason should take up 
 this position. He may be asked whether, when he condemns 
 the pursuit of ends other than pleasure, he does not imply 
 that the claims of this end are dependent, not upon the in- 
 dividual's chance likings, but upon something in pleasure itself,"' 
 something which Reason discerns in it, and which every Reason 
 that really is Reason must likewise discern in it. And if that 
 is so, he may further be asked why Reason should attach more 
 importance to one man's pleasure than to another's. If it is 
 pleasure that is the end, it cannot matter, it may be urged, whose 
 pleasure it is that is promoted. The greater pleasure must always 
 be preferable to the less pleasure, even though the promotion 
 of the greatest pleasure on the whole should demand that this 
 or that individual should sacrifice some of his private pleasure. 
 From this point of view it will seem impossible that Reason 
 should approve the universal rule that each should pursue 
 his private pleasure with the result of losing pleasure on the 
 whole. The rational rule of conduct will appear to be that 
 each individual should aim at the greatest pleasure on the whole, 
 and that when a greater pleasure for the whole can be procured 
 by the sacrifice of an individual's private pleasure, the sacrifice 
 should be made. The Egoist's appeal to Reason, the setting 
 up of Egoism as an objectively rational rule of conduct, the 
 
46 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 condemnation as irrational of those who pursue any other 
 end, seems therefore to react against his own position. The 
 logic of the egoistic Hedonist's position carries him away 
 from egoistic Hedonism and forces him into the adoption of 
 a universalistic Hedonism. 
 
 Whatever may be thought of the line of argument which thus 
 attempts to cross the gulf between egoistic and universalistic 
 Hedonism, it is at all events one which has been actually 
 followed more or less consciously and explicitly by many minds. 
 There are many persons who remain Hedonists, who are prepared 
 to declare that all other objects except pleasure should be 
 pursued only in so far as they yield pleasure on the whole, 
 but who are not prepared to say that it is only their private 
 pleasure which should be pursued. Among these desires for 
 objects other than pleasure of which they are conscious, there 
 is one which does present itself to them in a different light 
 from those other impulses which they are prepared to subordinate 
 entirely to the pursuit of private pleasure, and that is the desire 
 for other people's pleasure. For the very principle upon which 
 their own preference of pleasure to all other objects of desire 
 rests, seems to put them under the necessity of approving a 
 similar end for other people. How then can they condemn 
 in themselves an impulse which tends towards the realization 
 of that end for others ? To do so would seem to involve 
 inconsistency or self-contradiction. There is of course no 
 contradiction in the mere existence of inconsistent desires in 
 different persons. There is no contradiction in admitting, as a 
 fact, that I may want what my neighbour wants too, and we cannot 
 both enjoy. But it is otherwise when it is a question of approving 
 inconsistent desires. Reason cannot give different answers to 
 the same question. It may of course appear to do so : we may 
 all make mistakes, but when we do so, we acknowledge that 
 it is not really Reason which pronounces. If the Reason of 
 two men tells them opposite things, we necessarily conclude 
 that one of them at least must be wrong. Hence when occasions 
 arise, on which what increases pleasure for me diminishes it 
 for some one else, it is impossible that each can be right in 
 judging his own pleasure to be the more important. By such 
 
Chap, iii, §i] FROM EGOISM TO ALTRUISM 47 
 
 a line of thought, the Hedonist who bases his position upon 
 Reason is driven to recognize that the greatest pleasure on 
 the whole is from the point of view of Reason the most important 
 end, no matter whether it is I or some other ' I ' that is to enjoy 
 that pleasure. No doubt this bare intellectual recognition of 
 its reasonableness does not by itself lead to altruistic conduct 
 except where there is either (i) a disinterested desire of other 
 people's well-being (whether of certain definite individuals or 
 of humanity at large) or (a) what Professor Sidgwick has called 
 a ' desire to do what is right and reasonable as such.' In the 
 first case, Reason will prevent a man, so to speak, inhibiting 
 his spontaneous benevolent impulses, as he (more or less fre- 
 quently) inhibits other impulses when they are shown not 
 to be conducive to his own interest on the whole ; in the second 
 case, the reasonableness of the conduct will actually become 
 the motive for its being done, even though (apart from the 
 verdict of Reason) there should be no spontaneous inclination 
 towards the conduct which it prescribes. In this way it is 
 possible for a mind which starts with a conviction of the 
 intrinsic reasonableness of the pursuit of pleasure to feel itself 
 compelled to admit, not only the abstract reasonableness of 
 unselfish conduct, but also the existence of something within 
 us which sanctions, prescribes, dictates, a certain course of 
 conduct quite irrespectively of the individual's interest — in 
 other words to admit the existence, and the authority of what 
 is popularly called Conscience, or the ' duty ' which Conscience 
 prescribes — of what in more technical language is styled the 
 Practical Reason or of the categorical imperative which that 
 Reason enacts. 
 
 Or if to some minds this language about Reason and im- 
 peratives carries with it associations which seem to lead them 
 beyond the point which they have really conceded, we may 
 put the matter in a slightly difierent way. Every one who 
 ever thinks about conduct at all, who regards the choice of 
 end as a matter upon which thinking has got anything to say, 
 every one who attempts to represent his conduct as capable 
 of rational justification, gives judgements of value. The egoistic 
 Hedonist who says .not merely 'I like pleasure and therefore 
 
48 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 I intend to pursue it,' but 'the wise man is he who pursues 
 pleasure,' shows that he has this ultimate and unanalysable idea 
 of good or value in his mind as much as the idealizing moralist 
 who says ' Virtue is the true end of human pursuit.' Even 
 though 'that which has value' may be to him coextensive 
 with pleasure, the term ' value ' or ' good ' does not Tnean merely 
 the same as pleasure. The proposition 'my pleasure is good' 
 is not to him a mere tautology. It does not mean merely 
 ' pleasure is pleasant.' Still more obviously is this the case 
 w:hen such a Hedonist recognizes, as I have contended that he is 
 logically bound to recognize, that it is not only his pleasure 
 which has value but all pleasure; and that therefore it is 
 rational for him to pursue his neighbour's pleasure as well 
 as his own, and to prefer the larger amount of pleasure to 
 the smaller, even though the larger plealsure be the pleasure 
 of others, and the smaller his own. 
 
 After such an admission has been made, the enquirer may 
 still take a utilitarian view of the moral criterion: he may 
 still hold that we find out what it is reasonable to do by 
 asking experience to decide what promotes the greatest happiness 
 on the whole or (less logically) the 'greatest happiness of the 
 greatest number ' : but he is no longer a Utilitarian in his view 
 of the ultimate reason for doing what is thus ascertained to 
 be right. In admitting that one course of conduct is rational, 
 another irrational, irrespectively of the individual's 'interest,' 
 he has admitted in efiect that one thing is right, another wrong ; 
 he has admitted that the diiference between right and wrong 
 is perceived (in a sense) a priori ^, and not by experience ; he 
 has admitted the existence of an ' ought ' and an ' ought not,' 
 however much he must still protest against what he may be 
 disposed to regard as the mystical character with which the 
 idea of 'ought' or 'duty' or 'moral obligation' has been 
 invested by the traditional schools of anti-utilitarian or 'in- 
 tuitional ' or ' transcendental ' Ethics. 
 
 ' This assertion will subsequently be explained and qualified (see below, 
 p. 112, 148, et passim). 
 
Chap, iii, § ii] DOCTRINE OF SIDGWICK 49 
 
 II 
 
 • 
 
 Of the writers who have been led by some such line of 
 thought to attempt the combination of a rationalistic view 
 of the ultimate basis of Ethics with a purely hedonistic criterion 
 of conduct, by far the most important and the most distinguished 
 is the late Professor Henry Sidgwick. To examine the system 
 of ' rationalistic Utilitarianism ' with which his writings present 
 us, will be perhaps the best way at once of exhibiting in further 
 detail the argument which has been outlined, and of criticizing 
 the attempt to stop exactly at this point in the dialectic 
 which leads away from Utilitarianism towards what I may be 
 excused for calling by anticipation a higher and deeper Moral 
 Philosophy. 
 
 Professor Sidgwick's position in the development of English 
 Utilitarianism may be indicated by saying that he takes up 
 the controversy at the point at which it had been left by Mill. 
 Of John Stuart Mill's attempt to reconcile a theoretical accept- 
 ance of the hedonistic Psychology with the practical recognition 
 of an enthusiastic ' Altruism,' and even of a ' disinterested love 
 of Virtue,' almost enough has been said in the last chapter. His 
 expedient is to introduce into the hedonistic calculus differences 
 of kind irresolvable into differences of degree. We have already 
 seen that the desire of a higher pleasure is not really a desire 
 of pleasure: what makes one pleasure 'higher' than another 
 must be something other than its pleasingness. Moreover, when 
 Mill recognizes the possibility of desire for pleasure passing 
 by association into a 'disinterested love of Virtue for its own 
 sake,' even were we to accept the paradoxical allegation that 
 Virtue and pleasure have been invariably associated in our 
 experience, we should still be confronted with the admission 
 that as an actual fact it is possible for me now to desire 
 something besides my own pleasure, however I may have come 
 to desire it. Mill's own non-recognition of this consequence was 
 due no doubt to the well-known fallacy of 'mental chemistry ' — 
 of supposing that mental states contain within them unaltered 
 the states out of which they may have grown, as a chemical 
 
 BASHDALL I £ 
 
50 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 compound still continues to have in it its component elements ^. 
 But, even were his account of disinterested love of Virtue 
 psychologically tenable, it might still be pointed out that the 
 tendency of Mill's theory is to place the Saint's love of Virtue 
 precisely on a level with the miser's love of money ^. Granted 
 that both may be accounted for by association, the discovery 
 of the association tends to its own dissolution. When the miser 
 discovers that money is a means and not an end, he will, if 
 he is sensible, cease to love money for its own sake. When 
 the Saint, instructed by the Philosopher, discovers that pleasure 
 is the end and Virtue only the means, he must, one would 
 suppose, cease to desire Virtue for its own sake and cultivate 
 pleasure instead. The more rational he is, the more irrational 
 will he deem it to confuse means with ends. Association of 
 ideas is after all, in such a connexion, only another name for 
 confusion of thought. An ethical system which is based upon 
 confusion of thought surely rests upon a precarious foundation. 
 Professor Sidgwick^ completely reverses the mode of expanding 
 in an altruistic direction the Benthamite Hedonism adopted 
 by Mill. It is because he does so that his Utilitarianism is, 
 from an intellectual point of view, so great an advance upon 
 Mill's : though the change of front involves some sacrifice 
 of the peculiar unction which makes Mill's Utilitarianism bo 
 persuasive a book to young students of Philosophy. Professor 
 Sidgwick sees that the admission of difference in kind among 
 
 ^ In what sense this assumption of Chemistry is actually true, it is un- 
 necessary here to enquire. 
 
 ^ ' To illustrate this farther, we may remember that virtue is not the only 
 thing, originally a means, and which if it were not a means to anything else, 
 would be and remain indifferent, but which by association with what it is a 
 means to, comes to be desired for itself, and that too with the utmost inten- 
 sity. What, for example, shall we say of the love of money ? There is 
 nothing originally more desirable about money than about any heap of 
 glittering pebbles. Its worth is solely that of the things which it will buy ; 
 the desire for other things than itself, which it is a means of gratifying. 
 Yet the love of money is not only one of the strongest moving forces of 
 human life, but money is, in many cases, desired in and for itself. . . . 
 Virtue, according to the utilitarian conception, is a good of this description ' 
 (^Utilitarianism, pp. 55, 56). 
 
 ° 7%e Methods of Ethics, ist ed., 1874 ; 6th ed., 1901. 
 
Chap.iii,§ii] AGREEMENT WITH BUTLER AND KANT 51 
 
 pleasures is utterly irreconcilable, not only with the hedonistic 
 Psychology which he abandons, but with the hedonistic con- 
 ception of ultimate good which he retains }n while, on the other 
 hand, the ' greatest-happiness principle ' defined as ' the creed 
 which holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend 
 to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse 
 of happiness,' is not prima facie bound up with the doctrine that 
 all desires are desires of pleasure. 
 
 Professor Sidgwick fully admits as a psychological fact the 
 existence of ' disinterested aifections,' Benevolence among the 
 number. He rightly, however, distinguishes (with Butler, but in 
 opposition to Shaftesbury and others) between the possibility 
 of action motived by desire for the happiness of others and the 
 reasonableness or obligation of gratifying such a desire in 
 opposition to private interest. In point of disinterestedness 
 Benevolence is on a level with Malevolence. But besides these 
 ' particular afiections ' (to use Butler's expression) or desires for 
 particular objects. Professor Sidgwick recognizes also the 
 possibility of a ' desire to do what is right and reasonable as such.' 
 And he does not in any way shrink from the admission that 
 such a desire amounts to what Butler would call a desire to do 
 what Conscience prescribes, or what Kant would call a ' respect ' 
 for the Moral Law ^. When a man contemplates himself in his 
 relations to his fellow men and asks what it is reasonable for him 
 to do, he cannot but recognize that he seems ' made,' as Butler 
 would put it, to promote public good. A reasonable man 
 contemplating the world as an impartial spectator, uninfluenced 
 by private desires or passions, would necessarily recognize 
 Benevolence as that affection in the ' ceconomy and constitution 
 of human nature ' which ought to be gratified in preference to 
 merely self-regarding desires. To the disinterested spectator 
 more good must appear preferable to less good, irrespective 
 of the question whether it is J. or 5 who is benefited, while the 
 same disinterested Reason will prescribe an equal distribution 
 of good among beings capable of enjoying it. The right course 
 of action is that which would appear reasonable to such a dis- 
 
 1 Von Hartmann uses the expressive term ' Vemunfttrieb ' {Das sittUche 
 Beumsstsein, pp. 264, 270). 
 
 E 2 
 
53 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 interested spectator, and to the agent himself in so far as his 
 judgement as a rational being is unbiassed by private desires ; 
 it is the course of action which, if he had to legislate for others 
 unbiassed by such desires, he would prescribe to all, the course 
 which as a rational being he recognizes as ' fit to be made law 
 universal.' In his view of Duty as the reasonable course of 
 action, and in holding that disinterested love of the reasonable 
 may be a motive of action, Sidgwick follows Butler and Kant, 
 who are so far in entire agreement. But Sidgwick (here 
 identifying himself with Butler more closely than with Kant) 
 also recognizes that to the rational being placed in the position 
 of an impartial spectator, it must appear in itself equally 
 reasonable that each man should pursue his own greatest 
 happiness. When a man's own greatest happiness would have 
 to be purchased by the sacrifice of greater happiness on the part 
 of others, the reasonable course may still seem to be the pro- 
 motion of the happiness of others at the expense, of one's own, 
 so long as he looks upon the matter from the point of view of 
 universal Reason ; and an impulse more or less strongly 
 impelling to such a sacrifice is actually felt, at least at times, 
 by all rational beings. But, all the same, it remains something 
 apparently unreasonable — something contrary to that order of 
 things which a perfectly rational being endowed with unlimited 
 power might be expected to appoint — that the happiness of one 
 should involve a voluntary deduction by another from his own 
 in itself no less important happiness. Man is made to promote 
 public good, but no less evidently is he made to promote private 
 good. Hence Sidgwick abandons the attempt to find in cases 
 of collision between the requirements of universalistic and of 
 egoistic Hedonism any course of action which is completely 
 reasonable — reasonable from every point of view — without the 
 admission of theological postulates. Entirely apart from such 
 postulates, altruistic conduct can be shown to be reasonable : it 
 is the course which will be chosen, as the more reasonable of the 
 two alternatives, even in opposition to interest, by the man in 
 whom the desire to do ' what is right and reasonable as such ' is 
 predominant ; but such a course can be shown to be the one and 
 only reasonable course, and the contrary to be completely and 
 
Chap, iii, § ii] DUTY AND GOOD 53 
 
 wholly unreasonable, only by the aid of a ' hypothesis unverifiable 
 by experience reconciling the individual with the universal 
 Reason^,' that the Universe is constructed upon a reasonable 
 basis. And this assumption is one which on the whole the writer 
 seems disposed himself to concede, though, at least in his later 
 editions, he makes no positive assertion to that effect. 
 
 The great modem champion of rationalistic or universalistic 
 Hedonism certainly cannot be charged with any desire to conceal 
 the extent of his approximation to the position of Butler and 
 Kant. He is at one with them in the point of view from which 
 he regards the whole subject. He does not look upon the 
 Science of Morals as a branch of Natural History. He gives up 
 altogether the attempt to find the ultimate end of action by 
 ' induction ' : he sees that no accumulation of observed sequences, 
 no experience of what is, no predictions of what will be, can 
 possibly prove what ought to be. He neither dismisses the 
 'ought' as a figment (with Bentham), nor involves the whole 
 discussion in inextricable confusion (with J. S. Mill) by failing 
 to distinguish between the desirable and the desired, and calling 
 a desire for the happiness of others a 'desire for happiness,' 
 a mode of speaking which would allow us to define the passion 
 of revenge as a ' desire for pain, injury, or death.' In one word, 
 Professor Sidgwick shares with the father of Idealism the 
 supreme conviction that yoSs Kpard Travra. He recognizes that 
 Morality is based upon rational and a priori judgements of 
 value. In so far as the motive of moral action in the individual 
 is concerned, Professor Sidgwick is in fact an ' Intuitionist ' or . 
 ' Rationalist.' He is a Hedonist only in his view of the nature ' 
 of ultimate or universal Good, and consequently in his view of \ 
 the moral criterion. The fundamental question raised by 
 Professor Sidgwick's position is the logical compatibility of 
 a rationalistic theory of duty with a hedonistic conception of 
 
 ' This phrase is taken from the ist edition (p. 473), but Prof, Sidgwick's 
 statement of the absolute necessity of such a harmony to the construction of 
 a logically coherent Science of Ethics is rather strengthened than weakened 
 in the subsequent editions : though he seems, rather from a desire not to go 
 beyond the province of pure Ethics than from any change of personal 
 opinion, to assert less strongly, or not to assert at all, that the intuitions of 
 Moral Philosophy actually do supply a basis for Theology. 
 
54 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 the true good or Te'A.oy of man. Before discussing this question, 
 it will be well to re-state Professor Sidgwick's position in a some- 
 what more concise form. 
 
 Looking upon human nature in Butlerian phrase as 'a system' 
 or ' constitution,' Professor Sidgwick may be said to find in it 
 three distinct groups of 'affections' or ' propensions,' viz. (i) 
 the desire for happiness or private good, or ' self-love ' ; (a) 
 various disinterested desires for objects, i.e. passions such as 
 Benevolence, hunger, anger, &c. ; (3) the desire to do what 
 is right and reasonable as such. In the ' calm moment ' when 
 a man, under the influence of this last desire, sits down to ask 
 what it is reasonable for him to do, reflection convinces him, 
 according to Professor Sidgwick : — (a) that for himself (assuming 
 certain postulates which upon the whole he is justified in 
 assuming) it is reasonable to gratify, in cases of collision. 
 Benevolence in preference to self-love, but to make the gratifica- 
 tion of all other passions subordinate and instrumental to the 
 promotion of his own interest on the whole ; (b) that in acting for 
 the good of others, it is reasonable to gratify their other desires 
 or passions only in so far as these can be made subservient to 
 the satisfaction of their desire for happiness. In short, in 
 himself he is to recognize Benevolence as having a prerogative 
 over self-love, though both desires are rational ; while in others 
 he is to treat self-love as alone among these desires or propensions 
 entitled to gratification. It is a duty to promote universal good, 
 but universal good is merely pleasure. It is right to promote 
 pleasure, but it is not the individual's own good to do so. 
 
 Such a position seems open to the following objections : (i) If 
 we look not so much to the speculative as to the practical side 
 of Sidgwick's Utilitarianism, and put aside certain admissions as 
 to the logical incompleteness of his position, we may say that his 
 attitude towards duty was the attitude of Butler or Kant, while 
 his attitude towards the idea of good was that of the Hedonist 
 pure and simple. He tells the individual to promote other 
 people's good, but he tells them also that other people's good is 
 pleasure. Reason bids him make duty rather than private 
 pleasure his own end, but in thinking what is the end that he is 
 to promote for other people, it pronounces that end to be pleasure. 
 
Chap, iii, § ii] EGOISM ILLOGICAL 55 
 
 He thus assigns a diflPerent end to the individual and to the race. 
 Professor Sidgwiek in fact proves unfaithful to the principle 
 which he professes to accept from Kant-,-not, indeed, as an 
 adequate definition, but as a fundamental characteristic of the 
 Moral Law — that it shall be ' capable of serving for law universal.' 
 It is pronounced right and reasonable for A to make sacrifices 
 of his own happiness to the good of £ ; yet, in considering what 
 is B's good, he is to treat him as a being for. whom it is right 
 and reasonable to live solely for his own happiness, to have no 
 desire gratified but his desire for pleasure. It is a condition 
 of the Moral Law, Professor Sidgwiek tells us, that it shall be, in 
 Kantian phrase, ' capable of serving for law Tiniversal ' ; yet that 
 law requires each individual to act upon the hypothesis that he 
 is the only member of the human race subject to it. Reason, we 
 are told, requires us to act at times in a way contrary to our 
 interest from love of the ' right and reasonable as such ' ; yet we 
 are to treat all other human beings but ourselves as incapable of 
 rational desires, as beings for whom it is reasonable to desire 
 nothing but pleasure. Moral action is rational action ; and 
 rational action consists in the gratifying of desires which, it 
 is admitted, become irrational and immoral as soon as they 
 collide with the general interest. Such a consequence can only 
 be avoided by the admission that other people's happiness 
 is only a rational object of pursuit, for them as for me, in 
 so far as it is not inconsistent with their promotion of the 
 general pleasure. The nature of our universal end will then be 
 profoundly modified. The end becomes not mere happiness but 
 a social or moral happiness — a happiness which is consistent 
 with a disposition on the part of each member of the society to 
 promote the happiness of every other in so far as he can do 
 so without sacrificing a greater amount of his own. Morality or 
 Goodness would thus seem to have entered into our practical 
 conception of the end which we are to regard as desirable for 
 human society. 
 
 (3) Sidgwiek would no doubt have replied to the above objec- 
 tion by frankly admitting the ' dualism of the Practical Reason.' 
 A man may recognize, he wrote in his third edition, that ' There 
 is something that it is reasonable for him to desire, when he 
 
56 EATIONALISTIC UTILITAEIANISM [Book I 
 
 considers himself as an independent unit, and something again 
 which he must recognize as reasonably to be desired, when he 
 takes the point of view of a larger whole ; the former of these 
 objects I call his own Ultimate " Good," and the latter Ultimate 
 Good taken universally ; while to the sacrifice of the part to the 
 whole, which is from the point of view of the whole reasonable, 
 I apply the difierent term " right " to avoid confusion ^.' It is no 
 doubt quite intelligible that one thing should appear reasonably 
 to be desired from a man's own point of view, and another thing 
 when he takes the point of view of a larger whole. But can 
 both of these points of view be equally reasonable? How 
 can it be reasonable to take the point of view of the part 
 when once the man knows the existence of the whole and admits 
 that the whole is more important than the part ? Must not the 
 point of the view of the whole be the one and only reasonable 
 point of view ? From the point of view of the whole, the worker 
 for the good of the whole can alone seem reasonable. The only 
 reasonable point of view surely must be the one which recognizes 
 all the facts. From that point of view the promotion of the good 
 can alone be the reasonable course of action. The reasonable 
 course is to promote the general good, for the general good 
 is greater than the good of the individual. There is surely no 
 logical contradiction involved in holding that it is intrin- 
 sically right and reasonable to promote the good, though such 
 a course will not always be consistent with the individual's own 
 good ; for Reason bids us promote not merely what is good, but 
 the greatest good, and to promote one's own lesser good, just 
 because it is one's own, will be completely and entirely un- 
 reasonable. 
 
 (3) If the Egoist is pronounced reasonable when he says 
 ' my pleasure is good,' and the universalistic Hedonist equally 
 reasonable when he says ' the general pleasure is good,' does 
 not that show that the terms ' reasonable ' and ' good ' are 
 really used in different senses'? What is there in common 
 between the ' good for me ' and ' objective good taken universally'? 
 The objective universal point of view really implied (by Professor 
 Sidgwick's own admission) in the terms ' reasonable ' and ' good,' 
 ' Methods o/EthicSj 3rd ed., p. 402. 
 
Chap, iii, § ii] WHY BE REASONABLE? 57 
 
 seems to be forgotten when it is contended that the promotion of 
 the individual's good, even when inconsistent with the general 
 good, is nevertheless a reasonable object of •pursuit. The writer 
 seelns to be relapsing into that meaning of the term ' reasonable ' 
 which has generally found favour with Hedonists who do not 
 profess to be 'rationalistic' — that is to say, 'internally self- 
 consistent ' or ' conducive as a means to the end which any one 
 happens actually to desire.' 
 
 (4) The difficulties which have been pointed out might possibly 
 be evaded by anew mode of statement ^. But if this were done — if 
 it were frankly admitted that the Egoist's conduct is not really 
 reasonable at all — even so the attitude of mind which universal- 
 istic Hedonism ascribes to the good man is one which, when 
 fuUy realized is, I believe, practically, at least to the great mass 
 of men, an impossible one. There is no logical contradiction 
 in telling me to promote other people's good at the expense 
 of my own, because it is intrinsically and objectively reasonable 
 so to do. But for me to act on this rational principle there 
 must be a subjective reason, or motive. Granted that it is 
 reasonable for me so to act, the question still remains 'Why 
 should I be reasonable ? ' The Sidgwickian Moralist might tell 
 me that I have a desire to act reasonably. I reply : ' Yes, I have 
 such a tendency, but it is, taken by itself, not a very strong one, 
 and it is in my power to encourage it or to suppress it. I want 
 you to give me some reason why, since you say my own true 
 good is nothing but pleasure, I should pursue an end which 
 is not my good. An abstract or objective Reason may indeed 
 condemn me if I do not, but I cannot from my own point of view 
 condemn myself when I pursue what, as you say. Reason itself tells 
 me is my own true good, and decline (so far as I can help it) to 
 trouble myself about an end which is not my good. The whole 
 force of the subjective hold which the precept " be reasonable " 
 has exercised over me, so long as I was unacquainted with the 
 
 ' The passage just quoted has disappeared from the fourth and subsequent 
 editions of Sidgwick's great work, and with it some other concessions to the 
 rationality of Egoism, but not all : see for instance the note on p. 200 of the 
 4th edition (which has since disappeared), and the concluding paragraph of 
 the final edition. 
 
58 EATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 teachings of rational Utilitarianism, has lain in its inseparable 
 connexion with another conviction — that it was intrinsically noble 
 for me to act in this way, and that to act in accordance with the 
 reasonable was a good to me, a greater good than I could obtain 
 by pursuing the pleasure which you tell me is the only true 
 good. Destroy that conviction, and I have no motive for trying 
 to cultivate the love of rational action or that love of my neigh- 
 bour which Reason pronounces to be reasonable. You have con- 
 vinced me that there is nothing intrinsically good and noble 
 about the promotion of other people's happiness. It is a very 
 nice thing for other people no doubt, but it is not nice for me. 
 It is in vain that you tell me such conduct is selfish and irrational, 
 for you tell me also that selfishness and irrationality are not bad 
 in themselves, however inconvenient they may be for other 
 people.' 
 
 Another way of stating this last difficulty of Sidgwick's position 
 is to say that the internal contradiction which it involves is at 
 bottom not so much formal as material. It may possibly be 
 stated in a form which escapes formal contradiction, though 
 Sidgwick himself does not always succeed in so stating it, 
 but the internal or psychological contradiction remains. The 
 acceptance of rationalistic Hedonism kills and eradicates all 
 those impulses upon which it has to depend for the practical 
 fulfilment of its own precepts, by pronouncing that they have no 
 true worth or value — no less so than Mill's Associationist ex- 
 planation of the love of Virtue as due to a psychological confusion 
 and muddle-headedness comparable to that of the miser. It 
 tends to reduce the idea of reasonable conduct to the idea of con- 
 duct which escapes intellectual contradiction and incompleteness ; 
 but the desire to escape such contradiction or one-sidedness is 
 not by itself a very powerful motive of conduct when it is pro- 
 nounced to have no intrinsic value. For the contradiction, be it 
 observed, involved in bad conduct arises, on the hedonistic view 
 of good, merely when I attempt to justify my conduct. If I say 
 ' it is reasonable of me to be an Egoist,' I can be convicted of 
 self-contradiction. But if I candidly admit ' I know that it is 
 unreasonable to be an Egoist, but I intend to be unreasonable,' 
 the contradiction disappears. When the prohibition of Reason is 
 
Chap, iii, § ii] BENEVOLENCE HAS VALUE 59 
 
 held to include a specifically moral condemnation, the idea of 
 ' unreasonable ' carries with it the idea that conduct condemned 
 is lacking in absolute or intrinsic worth. • That idea is lost or 
 pronounced illusive when to act reasonably is denied to be 
 good. The whole force which makes Reason appeal to men 
 as deserving of respect it derives from that conviction of the 
 intrinsic value or goodness of rational conduct which Reason, 
 as interpreted by Sidgwick, pronounces to be an illusion. We 
 are hardly perhaps entitled to say a priori^ that Reason could 
 not deliver itself of two dogmas, which, though involving no 
 formal contradiction, tend in their practical efiect upon human 
 life to neutralize one another — the dogma ' it is reasonable to 
 be altruistic ' and the dogma ' to be reasonable is not a good 
 to him who is rea/sonable or even intrinsically a good at 
 all ' : but it would be strange that that moral consciousness, 
 which by the rationalistic Hedonist's admission proclaims its 
 right to govern and control human life, should be so consti- 
 tuted that, in so far as men listen to its voice, its own purposes 
 are defeated. There is in the last resort no way of refuting the 
 Sidgwickian or any other Moralist but by showing that he 
 actually misrepresents the content of the moral consciousness. 
 And this, I have tried to show, the Sidgwickian Moralist 
 conspicuously does. He abstracts one half of the moral con- 
 sciousness as it actually exists, and attempts by the aid of it 
 to silence and confound the other half. He accepts from the 
 moral consciousness the abstract idea of value, of intrinsic and 
 objective worth, and at the same time divorces it from that idea 
 of the intrinsic worth of promoting what has worth, which is 
 de facto found in inseparable conjunction with it. The only way 
 in which this internal inconsistency or discord in the Sidgwickian 
 system can be cured is by admitting that to act rightly or reason- 
 ably possesses value, that to promote the good is a good not 
 merely to others, but to the individual himself. 
 
 (5) But after all, Professor Sidgwick fully admits that he can- 
 not make Reason consistent with itself without the admission of 
 
 ' Without assuming the rationality of the Universe. Upon that assump- 
 tion, .which Sidgwick was practically prepared to make, the position to me 
 becomes unthinkable, as contended in the next paragraph. 
 
6o RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 theological postulates. ' The negation of the connexion between 
 Virtue and Self-interest,' he tells us, 'must force us to admit 
 an ultimate and fundamental contradiction in our apparent 
 intuitions of what is Reasonable in conduct; and from this 
 admission it would seem to follow that the apparently intuitive 
 operation of the Practical Reason, manifested in these contra- 
 dictory judgements, is after all illusory ^,' We must, therefore, 
 go on to ask whether, upon Professor Sidgwick's premisses, these 
 theological postulates are admissible, and whether (even if 
 admitted) they will suffice to restore the internal self -consistency 
 of the Practical Reason. 
 
 The difficulties which the great sum of human and animal 
 Suifering presents to the belief in a 'benevolent Author of 
 Nature' ought not to be dissembled by those who believe 
 that Reason warrants the ' venture of faith ' and who hold 
 (with Plato) that ' the risk is a noble one V But, on the hedon- 
 istic view of the true end of human life, does not the demand 
 made upon faith become absolutely overwhelming 1 Can a Uni- 
 verse have a rational purpose or constitution in which the end is 
 only pleasure and yet in which Reason daily prompts to the 
 sacrifice of pleasure 1 Surely the assumption of a ' harmony 
 between the Universal and the Particular Reason' must be 
 pushed a step further. The faith that ' Reason is for us King of 
 Heaven and Earth ^' never found a more eloquent or a more 
 sober exponent than Professor Sidgwick. But in what sense 
 can it be said that Reason rules in a Universe in which the 
 accomplishment of its true purpose depends upon a systematic 
 concealment of that purpose ? It is the sole end or re'Aos of man 
 to get as much pleasure as possible : yet in order that he may do 
 so, he is throughout his earthly existence, by way of preparation 
 or discipline for the realization of his true end in another state, 
 to forget that end and live for a totally different one. 
 
 So completely does Professor Sidgwick reverse in dealing with 
 the ultimate ground of morality the Aristotelian maxim 'that 
 we must look to the end,' upon which he lays so much stress in 
 connexion with the moral criterion. We must believe in a future 
 
 ' Methods of Mhics, 6th ed., p. 506. ° KaXov rh Kivbvvevim. 
 
 ' Nous €OTi /3ao-iX«ur fjfuv oipavov tc koi yris (Philebus, p. 28 c). 
 
Chap, iii, § ii] HEDONISTIC THEOLOGY 6i 
 
 life, Professor Sidgwick tells us, because we must believe that the 
 constitution of things is rational. And yet, according to Professor 
 Sidgwick, the Universe is so constituted that the man who most 
 completely succeeds in concealing from himself the true end 
 of his being — or haply in never finding it out — will ultimately 
 realize that end most thoroughly. That the Universe might be 
 so constituted is a proposition which does not involve a logical 
 contradiction, and which is incapable of empirical disproof ; but 
 where is the rationality of such a Universe ? If we are to make 
 assumptions, let them be such as will satisfy the logical demand 
 on which they are founded. If we are to assume a rational 
 order in the Universe, surely the end prescribed to a man by his 
 Reason must be his highest end. Man is so far a rational being 
 that he is capable of preferring the rational to the pleasant. 
 Surely, then, the reasonableness of such a preference cannot 
 be dependent on its ultimately turning out that he has after all 
 preferred the very thing which his love of the reasonable led 
 him to reject. It may be the case that what was rejected had 
 a certain value and would under other circumstances have been 
 good ; it may be that it is reasonable to expect the preference of 
 the higher good to be rewarded by the bestowal of the lower also. 
 But surely in a rational Universe that which man, when he 
 is most completely rational, desires most cannot be good merely 
 as a means to what he desires less — in other words, it must have 
 an intrinsic value. Bain's remark that ' " I am to be miserable " 
 cannot be an inference from " I am to be happy," ' is a perfectly 
 fair comment or criticism ^ upon a Theology which is founded 
 upon a purely hedonistic conception of the good. If, however, the 
 end of man be goodness or a happiness of which Virtue is an 
 essential element, then it is not unreasonable that he should 
 be required to undergo suiFerings which may be necessary 
 conditions of attaining that end for himself and others. If 
 happiness be the true end, a constitution of things by which the 
 neglect of happiness should be rewarded with happiness and 
 devotion to happiness punished by the loss of it, would 
 be a purely arbitrary, supremely irrational constitution. But if 
 goodness be the end without which the highest happiness is 
 1 Mind, vol. i, p. i95- 
 
6a RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 incomplete, if goodness be of the essence of the highest happiness, 
 then it is not inconceivable that the voluntary neglect of a lower 
 good in the pursuit of a higher may be intrinsically necessary 
 to the attainment of that completed state of being, of a life which 
 shall embrace both these concepts of goodness and happiness 
 which Modern Philosophy has been accustomed to separate — the 
 ' Well-being ' or nbaiit-ovia of ancient Ethics. If Love be indeed 
 the one element of earthly happiness which is to be permanent, 
 then it is intelligible enough that Self-sacrifice should be 
 a discipline necessary to fit men for its enjoyment. 
 
 I will add only one further remark at present on this supreme 
 problem upon which the course of Professor Sidgwick's argument 
 has compelled me to touch. Sidgwick claims Bishop Butler as 
 his predecessor in the doctrine of an ' ultimate dualism ' of the 
 Practical Reason. It is true that when Bishop Butler, the thinker 
 who has so profoundly modified Professor Sidgwick's hedonistic 
 tendencies, was engaged in writing Moral Philosophy as the 
 champion of the ' disinterestedness ' of virtue against the Hobbist, 
 when he touched upon theological problems only as accessory to 
 moral, he was satisfied with a position very much resembling 
 that of his disciple. Conscience or a 'principle of reflection' 
 prescribed certain conduct as rational irrespectively of the 
 interest of the individual; his highest end was duty. The 
 existence of Conscience was to Butler the basis of Theology, not 
 Theology the basis of Morality. Yet when he wrote the Serinons, 
 he still regarded the happiness of the whole as the only con- 
 ceivable end of the Creator as well as of altruistic conduct in the 
 individual ', When he came seriously to face the question of 
 the 'moral government of the world,' the difficulties of such 
 a position were forced upon his notice. The result of the ten 
 years' thought which intervened between the Sermons and the 
 Analogy were embodied in those chapters of the latter work on 
 human life as ' a state of discipline,' which may still be regarded 
 as (in spite of their rather old-world form and tone) the classical 
 exposition of that one glimpse of a clue to the problem of the 
 origin of evil which is open to those who refuse to be led by 
 a desire for ' reconciliation ' or ' unity ' and a philosophical horror 
 ^ See the second paragraph of Sermon XII and Sermon XIII. 
 
Chap, iii, § iii] IS CHARACTER A GOOD? 63 
 
 of 'dualism' into some form or other of the denial that evil 
 is evil. 
 
 The substance then of my contention is Jihat Professor Sidg- \ 
 wick's attempt to reconcile a hedonistic conception of the ' good,' 
 and consequently a hedonistic criterion of Morality, with an 
 'intuitional' or rational basis or ultimate ground of Morality 
 breaks down. The ' dualism ' of Practical Reason is not bridged 
 over, and cannot be bridged over without the admission of Virtue 
 or character — at least the Virtue or character which consists 
 in the promotion of general pleasure — as an element and the 
 highest element of the ' good ' which it is right to promote for 
 the whole human race. 
 
 Ill 
 
 At this point it may be well briefly to notice Professor Sidg- 
 wick's criticism on the doctrine that character is an end-in-itself. 
 In reference to this view Professor Sidgwick remarks : — 
 
 ' From a practical point of view, indeed, I fully recognise the 
 importance of urging that men should aim at an ideal of 
 character, and consider action in its effects on character. But 
 I cannot infer from this that character and its elements — 
 faculties, habits, or dispositions of any kind — are the constituents 
 of Ultimate Good. It seems to me that the opposite is implied 
 in the very conception of a faculty or disposition ; it can only 
 be defined as a tendency to act or feel in a certain way under 
 certain conditions ; and such a tendency is clearly not valuable 
 in itself but for the acts and feelings in which it takes effect, 
 or for the ulterior consequences of these, — which consequences, 
 again, cannot be regarded as Ultimate Good, so long as they 
 are merely conceived as modifications of faculties, dispositions,' 
 
 &C.1 
 
 Professor Sidgwick here admits the possibility that the ' acts ' 
 in which character or disposition takes effect might conceivably 
 have value. He has got nothing to say against such a sup- 
 position except that it does not appear to have any to him. 
 But surely, when it is held that character has value, such ' acts ' 
 are included in the idea. And yet the value of the acts cannot 
 be estimated in entire isolation or abstraction from the man's 
 
 ' Methods of Ethics, 6th ed., p. 393. 
 
64 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 whole inner life. Character does not consist either of mere 
 isolated ' acts '—still less of mere abstract ' tendencies ' or ' dis- 
 positions.' Not only are the actual volitions involved in the 
 performance of particular good acts parts of consciousness, and 
 not mere possibilities of consequences in the external world, 
 but there is a volitional element running through our con- 
 sciousness at other times than the particular moment at which 
 we are definitely resisting temptation or making definite acts 
 of moral choice. Attention is ■ an act of the will ; even desire 
 involves conation. Emotion, again, is at once a source of action, 
 an accompaniment of moral action, and a consequence and index 
 of the habitual direction of the will. And all these — desire, 
 attention, emotion — are actual elements of consciousness, not 
 mere potentialities which may manifest themselves in future 
 conscious acts. All these are included in what we mean by 
 character. Sometimes no doubt we should further include in 
 the ideal character the intellectual side of the moral life — the 
 ideal that a man sets before himself, the judgements of value 
 which he pronounces, his intellectual interest in the moral life. 
 Professor Sidgwick would hardly have contended that the content 
 of the good man's consciousness does not differ from that of the 
 bad man except at the partipular moments in which the former 
 is engaged in performing good actions and the latter bad ones. 
 Character includes, as I have suggested, not merely the actual 
 state of the will, but other elements of consciousness connected 
 therewith. And even if we limit the idea of character to 
 actual volition, volition is an element in the continuous stream 
 of consciousness at all times. Sidgwick himself has told us 
 for instance that 'the adoption of an end as paramount' is 
 'to be classed among volitions.' A volitional element forms 
 an element of consciousness during the whole — or, to avoid 
 cavil, let me say — nearly the whole of his waking life. And 
 it is upon the nature of this volitional element, upon the 
 nature of the objects to which it is directed, upon the habitual 
 direction of his will, that character primarily depends. It is 
 this that is pronounced to have value when we say that 
 Virtue is a good or end in itself. No doubt we cannot form 
 any conception of character without thinking also of the in- 
 
Chap, iii, § iii] GOODNESS OF VIRTUE 65 
 
 tellectual and emotional accompaniments of the volition ; and it 
 makes little difference whether we do or do not think of these 
 accompaniments as included in the conceptipn of character. For 
 these too have a value which is not to be measured by the amount 
 or intensity of the pleasure which undoubtedly forms an element 
 in them. The important point to insist on is that, when we 
 pronounce character to have value, we are just as emphatically 
 as the Hedonist pronouncing that it is in actual consciousness 
 that value resides, and in nothing else '. It is the actual con- 
 sciousness of a man who loves and wills the truly or essentially 
 good and not mere capacities or potentialities of pleasure-pro- 
 duction such as might be supposed to reside in a bottle of old 
 port, which constitutes the 'goodness' or 'virtue' which is 
 regarded as a 'good' or 'end in itself by the school which 
 Professor Sidgwick is criticizing. A ' virtue ' or ' faculty ' is, of 
 course (as Professor Sidgwick urges), a mere abstraction, but 
 only in the sense in which pleasure is an abstraction also. A 
 man's consciousness cannot at any one moment be full of nothing 
 but Virtue any more than it can be full of nothing but pleasure. 
 The will must will something if it is to be pronounced virtuous, 
 just as there must be feelings, thoughts, and volitions in a man's 
 consciousness before he can be pleased with them. But for the 
 difficulty which Sidgwick seems to make of the matter, it would 
 have seemed unnecessary to point out that those who make 
 'virtue' an end mean by virtue 'virtuous consciousness,' just 
 as those who make 'pleasure' an end mean thereby 'pleasant 
 consciousness.' And the virtuous consciousness means a con- 
 sciousness whose volitions and whose desires are controlled by 
 a rational ideal of life together with the feelings and emotions 
 inseparably accompanying such volitions and desires ^ 
 
 ' We might also criticize Prof. Sidgwick's tendency to ignore the unity 
 and the continuity of the self. No doubt the self cannot be regarded aa 
 having value when abstracted from the successive conscious states in which 
 it manifests itself, but it is equally impossible to estimate the value of the 
 conscious states in entire abstraction from the permanent self which is 
 present in all of them. 
 
 ^ Modem Psychology is emphatic in rejecting the old sensationalistic 
 view of the content of consciousness as mere feeling, no less than the oppo- 
 site assumption of the possibilily of thought without volition. ' Whenever 
 
 BASBDAUi I 
 
66 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 It may perhaps be suggested that, when a good state of will 
 is pronounced desirable, or more desirable than a pleasant state 
 of consciousness, the real object of preference is a specific pleasure 
 invariably accompanying volition of a virtuous kind. It is 
 difficult to see what is gained by such a mode of statement for 
 any one who has once parted company with the hedonistic 
 Psychology : but, since some pleasure must undoubtedly accom- 
 pany consciousness to which the person himself attaches value, 
 no great harm will be done either to ethical theory or to 
 practical Morality by such a way of putting the matter so long 
 as it is clearly understood (i) that the desirability of this 
 epecifie pleasure does not depend upon any variable susceptibility 
 to it on the part of those for whom it is judged desirable; 
 (i) that the pleasure is not necessarily to those who actually 
 desire it greater in amount or intensity than other pleasures 
 which they forego for the sake of obtaining it. Yet when these 
 admissions are made, it is clear that we no longer really prefer 
 the virtuous direction of the will simply as a source of pleasure. 
 From the point of view of pleasure there seems no reason why 
 this single kind of pleasure should be given so extraordinary 
 a preference. It is one which does not seem to be warranted 
 either by its duration or its intensity. As a matter of experience 
 
 we are awake, we are judging ; whenever we are awake we are willing ' 
 (Bosanquet, Essentials of Logic, p. 40). Mr. Bradley has, indeed, maintained 
 the possibility of thought without ' active attention ' and so without wiU 
 (article on 'Active Attention' in Mind, N. S., No. 41, 1902), though he 
 admits that it may be that even in the theoretical development of an idea 
 ' the foregoing idea of that development has itself been the cause of its own 
 existence,' and so ' it may indeed be contended that all thinking does in the 
 end imply will in this sense '{p. 7). The question is an important one from 
 other points of view, but all that I am protesting against here is the 
 assumption that in estimating the value of consciousness we must neces- 
 sarily attend merely to the feeling side, and not also to the thinking and 
 willing side of consciousness. That will be equally unreasonable in what- 
 ever sense it may be true that we are not always willing. I should myself 
 be disposed to contend that the active attention which is impHed in definite 
 efforts to think out a problem differs only in degree from the attention which 
 is implied when ' I passively, as we say, accept the current and course of my 
 thoughts ' (ib., p. 6). This very ' passivity ' involves a distinct attitude of the 
 will — sometimes a very difficult one, as a man discovers when with a view to 
 going to sleep he tries to think about nothing in particular. 
 
Chap, iii, § iii] GOODNESS OF TRUTH AND BEAUTY 67 
 
 it is found that the pleasures of a good Conscience are not 
 always highly exhilarating: while the pains of a bad one, 
 regarded merely as pains, would in many cases be found tolerable 
 enough. The pain of a small wrong-doing is probably to most 
 men less exquisite than the pain of having made a fool of one- 
 self or committed a gross social blunder. If we regarded the 
 pains of a bad Conscience as merely on a level with the pains 
 of a gaucherie, we should try to live down the former as we do 
 the latter. The importance that we attribute to a 'good Con- 
 science ' (quite apart from its social effects) cannot possibly be 
 explained on merely hedonistic grounds ; the value we attribute 
 to it is not merely the value which it possesses as a source of 
 pleasure, and the pleasures of Conscience themselves spring from 
 and presuppose the consciousness of a value in conscientious 
 conduct which is not measured by its pleasantness. 
 
 Sidgwick's arguments against the possibility of regarding 
 truth, beauty, and the like as ends -in- themselves may, as it 
 seems to me, be met in much the same way. He always seems 
 to assume that to assign value to such ends irrespective of their 
 pleasantness ^ is to assign value to them as things existing out- 
 side consciousness altogether. It does not seem to make much 
 practical difference whether we say that there are elements in 
 consciousness 'higher' than pleasure, or whether we say that 
 some pleasures are ' higher ' than others, so long as no attempt 
 is made to smuggle back the hedonistic Psychology under cover 
 of the latter form of expression. And yet it ought distinctly to 
 be recognized that such preference of higher pleasures as higher 
 is really only a popular way of saying that the true ethical end 
 contains elements other than pleasure. All that is gained by 
 the former way of putting the matter is that it suggests that 
 pleasure is an element of any state of mind which can be re- 
 garded as possessing any ultimate value. And this need not be 
 denied, so long as it is recognized that its value is not due solely 
 to the amount or intensity of the pleasure, and that, though 
 such a state may contain some pleasure, it may contain a great 
 deal more pain and so be on the whole painful rather than 
 pleasurable. 
 
 ' But see below, pp. 75-78. 
 F 2 
 
68 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 One more difficulty of Professor Sidgwick may be briefly 
 considered. To the contention that we sometimes prefer what 
 are commonly called higher pleasures to lower ones without 
 necessarily thinking the former more intense than the latter, 
 Sidgwick replies that ' what in such cases we really prefer is not 
 the present consciousness itself, but either effects on future 
 consciousness more or less distinctly foreseen, or else something 
 in the objective relations of the conscious being, not strictly 
 included in his present consciousness ^.' No doubt the pleasure 
 is preferred on account of tlie person's objective relations : the 
 pleasure abstracted from all knowledge of such objective rela- 
 tions would be pleasure abstracted from most of those character- 
 istics which could make it higher pleasure, from most of the 
 features which could commend it to the Practical Reason as 
 more worthy of a rational being's enjoyment than the lower 
 pleasure. It is just because some knowledge of the 'objective 
 relations ' of his pleasures and of himself as enjoying them always 
 does enter into the consciousness of a rational being enjoying 
 pleasure, that it is impossible for him, desiring as he does other 
 things besides pleasure and recognizing it as ' right ' or ' reason- 
 able ' for him to desire such other objects, to leave them out of 
 account in considering the intrinsic desirability of different kinds 
 of consciousness for liimself and other rational beings. For such 
 a being the pleasure itself becomes different in consequence of 
 this knowledge of his own objective relations — different in value 
 even when it is not altered in quantity. The pleasure which 
 a man might take in a cruel entertainment might be harmless 
 enough, if abstracted from his knowledge that the pleasure was 
 won by the sufferings of a fellow creature. The pleasures of 
 sense could not be condemned or disparaged in comparison with 
 more social or more intellectual pleasures, but for the knowledge 
 that the person enjoying them is a member of a society and 
 capable of intellectual activities. The value which a man 
 attaches to his love for wife and children or to the resulting 
 pleasures could not be explained apart from knowledge of the 
 ' objective relations ' implied in marriage or paternity. To ask 
 what is the ultimate good of man apart from his knowledge of 
 ' Methods of Ethics, 6th ed., p. 399. 
 
Chap, iii, § iii] INCONSISTENCIES OF HEDONISM 69 
 
 the 'objective relations' in which he stands to the world and 
 to his fellow men is really to ask what wovid be the good for 
 man if he were a mere animal. • 
 
 Sidgwick's unwillingness to recognize Virtue as an end in 
 itself, in spite of his admission that it is reasonable to prefer 
 it to private pleasure, appears to arise largely from an unavowed 
 assumption that there are no other elements in consciousness 
 besides feeling, or at least that no such elements can possibly 
 possess ultimate value. It is impossible to prove that this last 
 is not the case ; we can only ask, ' Is this really what the 
 analysis of the moral consciousness reveals to us; or, if we 
 are disposed to say that it is always the feeling that is 
 ultimately valuable, are not the feelings to which we ascribe 
 such value feelings of a kind which are inseparable from certain 
 volitions and certain thoughts ? And do we not assign a higher 
 value to a rightly directed will, or to the emotions accompanying 
 such a will, than to mere pleasant feeling considered merely as 
 so much pleasant feeling 1 ' 
 
 When all has been done that can be done in the way of 
 developing the difficulties of a Utilitarianism which is at once 
 rationalistic and hedonistic, it must be admitted that it is 
 impossible to convict such a position of formal inconsistency, 
 when once it is modified by the admission that Egoism is 
 unreasonable, though there is nothing (on hedonistic grounds) 
 to be said against a man who likes to be unreasonable. It 
 is not the theory that is inconsistent; it is the procedure of 
 Reason which according to the theory is essentially arbitrary and 
 unintelligible. The attitude of Sidgwick's good man, at least 
 when enlightened by Philosophy, may be said to be just this : 
 'I see that it is reasonable for me to prefer my neighbour's 
 good, but this preference has in it nothing intrinsically 
 desirable or beautiful or noble or worth having for its own 
 sake. Duty is duty, but it is not good. Duty is reason- 
 able, but pleasure is better; what the irrational man secures 
 to himself by selfishness is intrinsically better than what 
 the good man gets by obeying the voice of Reason within 
 him.' And the position of the Sidgwickian Reason does not 
 become more intelligible when we attempt to bridge over the 
 
70 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 collision between duty and interest by theological assumptions. 
 If Reason, expressing itself in the constitution of the Universe, 
 really does say to the bad man, ' I am sorry that I cannot 
 reward this consistent selfishness of yours as I should like to 
 do; but I am compelled to think of other people besides you, 
 and in their interests I am compelled to punish a course of life 
 and a direction of will which in a better constituted world it 
 would give me the greatest satisfaction to reward,' there is no 
 more to be said. But does a Universe constructed on such 
 a principle really strike us as a particularly reasonable one 1 
 
 . In the last resort the only way of showing that pleasure is 
 not the true end of life is by an appeal to one's own moral 
 consciousness and that of others so far as it is revealed by word 
 and deed. Professor Sidgwick, after admitting that a consistent 
 system might be worked out upon the basis of a composite end, 
 i. e. on including both Virtue and happiness, adds : ' I can give 
 a decisive reason for not accepting it myself: viz., that when 
 Virtue and Happiness are hypothetically presented as alterna- 
 tives, from a universal point of view, I have no doubt that 
 I morally prefer the latter ; I should not think it right to aim 
 at making my fellow-creatures more moral, if I distinctly foresaw 
 that as a consequence of this they would become less happy. 
 I should even make a similar choice as regards my own future 
 virtue, supposing it presented as an alternative to results more 
 conducive to the General Happiness '.' All that the critic of such 
 a statement can do is to invite the reader to say whether he can 
 accept it as a correct representation of his own moral conscious- 
 ness — or of Henry Sidgwick's. 
 
 With the question whether the Virtue either of individuals or 
 of society can ever be antagonistic to the general happiness we 
 are not yet concerned. My contention so far has been merely 
 this— that as a matter of fact the judgement ' It is right for me 
 to make others happy ' is practically inseparable from the judge- 
 
 * Mind, No. xiv, 1889, p. 487. It is observable that Sidgwick shrinks from 
 saying that he ■would sacrifice his Virtue to his own pleasure if he could do 
 so without loss of pleasure to others. Whether the sacrifice of happiness to 
 Virtue could ever actually be required by Benevolence I have considered in 
 Book II, chap, ii, § 2. 
 
Chap, iii, § iv] VIRTUE AND HAPPINESS 71 
 
 ment ' It is better for me to do that than to be happy myself 
 at their expense.' Admitting the bare logical possibility of 
 accepting the former judgement while denying the latter, 
 I believe that such a bare speculative admission of the reason- 
 ableness of Altruism would have little or no practical effect 
 upon the majority of minds but for that recognition of its 
 intrinsic goodness by which it is practically accompanied. 
 Reason is reluctant to admit that rationaHty can ever be 
 a bad thing or even a matter of indifference. No considera- 
 tion of posthumous compensation will ever reconcile Reason to 
 a constitution of things in which it is compelled to pronounce 
 bad, on account of their effects, kinds of conduct which in them- 
 selves it cannot but find very good. The emotions with which 
 we actually contemplate good or bad conduct would droop and 
 wither were we ever once fully persuaded that there is no differ- 
 ence between a good and a bad man except what is constituted 
 by some accidental want of ' adjustment ' between the interests 
 of an individual and that of his fellows. Once persuade men 
 that Thrasymachus was right in making Virtue essentially and 
 fundamentally only another man's good, and you will have 
 persuaded them also that it exists by convention and not by 
 nature (vofia, ov (f>v(rei.) — that it is in short a delusion, not 
 a reality ; and with that belief in the intrinsic value of goodness 
 will go the theological beliefs that were based upon it. 
 
 IV 
 
 Let us see then exactly to what point the course of our 
 argument has carried us. We have felt compelled by the 
 very considerations that led us to regard the preference of 
 other people's well-being to our own as rational, to treat such 
 a preference on our part as intrinsically better even for our- 
 selves. We have in fact (with Kant) recognized the existence 
 of two prima facie rational ends — Virtue and Happiness, the 
 latter being treated as part of the true well-being of man only 
 in so far as is consistent with the predominance of Virtue. 
 
 It has been objected, indeed, to such a position, both by 
 Professor Sidgwick himself and by others, that such a position 
 involves the admission of two heterogeneous and ' incommensur- 
 
72 KATIONALISTIC UTILITAEIANISM [Book I 
 
 able ' ends — Virtue and happiness. To this we may reply that 
 the very ground on which we have felt bound to recognize 
 Virtue as an end in itself compels us to regard it as an end 
 superior in value to pleasure. Keason pronounces that there is 
 an end which all human acts should aim at promoting, i. e. the 
 general good, and that no state of a rational will can be regarded 
 by Reason as good which is not directed towards that end ; and 
 a will which did not regard the choice of the right as of superior 
 value to pleasure would not be a will directed to that supreme 
 end. The man who acted upon the hypothesis that his own 
 virtue and his own pleasure possessed equal intrinsic value 
 would not really be virtuous at all. The hypothesis is there- 
 fore one which contradicts itself. And the principle that the 
 will directed towards the good must be regarded as of more 
 value than the agent's pleasure will equally compel us to regard 
 the pleasure of others as an intrinsically valuable end only in 
 so far as it is consistent with the like preference of the good 
 to the pleasant in those others. In other words, pleasure can 
 only be regarded as intrinsically valuable in so far as it is 
 consistent with Morality. No doubt the ' dualism,' the absolute 
 antagonism between the two ends, the impossibility of fusing 
 them into a harmonious whole in which the sharp contrast 
 between them is lost (so long as all pleasure is put on the 
 same level and is regarded as something which Virtue must 
 simply limit from the outside without modifying and transform- 
 ing), may be a reason for suspecting that we have not yet 
 reached an adequate and complete view of the elements con- 
 tained in 'the good.' But there is no absolute logical contra- 
 diction involved in such a position ; it is not open to the charge 
 that the two ends or elements of the end are ' incommensurable.' 
 Now, practically, the introduction of this principle — the 
 principle that Virtue must be regarded as an element, and as 
 the dominant element, in the good — will by itself do much to 
 bring our view of the ethical criterion into harmony with 
 ordinarily accepted moral ideas, and to remove some of the 
 more glaring of the difficulties of Utilitarianism as commonly 
 understood. For (i) the most glaring of all the inconsistencies 
 between Utilitarianism and the deliverances of the ordinary. 
 
Chap, iii, § iv] QUALITY OF PLEASURE 73 
 
 unsophisticated moral consciousness, lies precisely in its refusal 
 to recognize the intrinsic goodness of Virtue, (a) The inclusion 
 of Virtue (which for the present we take to mean rational 
 Benevolence ^} in our conception of the end allows us to exclude 
 frora it excessive indulgence in the pleasures which we recognize 
 as good in themselves, and also all pleasures which are incon- 
 sistent with the predominance of Benevolence, e. g. the pleasures 
 of cruelty. We shall not merely disallow them on account of 
 their ' infelicific' effects, but we shall regard them as intrinsically 
 worthless or bad, because they imply an indifference to the good: 
 we shall condemn the man who voluntarily indulges his taste 
 for them, even though accidentally (as in an arena, for instance, 
 in which the combatants were condemned criminals) he might 
 be able to indulge them in a way not immediately inconsistent 
 with the public interest. (3) We shall attach a high intrinsic 
 value to such pleasures as actually include a benevolent element, 
 and a lower degree of intrinsic superiority to such pleasures 
 as are actually conducive to the public good, though the public 
 good may be no part of the motive of the person indulging 
 in them. Under the first head we should include the actual 
 pleasures of Benevolence or personal affection, and even to some 
 small extent the pleasures of sociability and friendship in so far 
 as these imply some degree of unselfish good-will to others. 
 Under the second we should include the pleasures of ambition 
 or emulation and the whole range of aesthetic and intellectual 
 pleasures. 
 
 In this way it would probably be possible to justify, on the 
 whole, that preference for what are commonly called higher 
 pleasures which is so clear an element of the ordinary moral 
 consciousness; since it will be generally admitted that in the 
 long run indulgence in social and intellectual pleasures is more 
 beneficial in its indirect social effects than indulgence in mere 
 sensual gratification or unintellectual amusement. But so far 
 we have interpreted Virtue as including nothing but Benevolence, 
 or rather Benevolence and (in due subordination thereto) Pru- 
 dence ; we have admitted no ground for ascribing superior moral 
 
 ^ In the sense of ' desire to promote pleasure on the whole, not excluding 
 one's own pleasure in due proportion.' 
 
74 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 value to one pleasure over another except its direct or indirect 
 influence on the pleasure of others. It is now time to ask 
 whether this limitation really corresponds to the deliverances 
 of the moral consciousness. Is there no element in conscious- 
 ness to which we should upon reflection ascribe intrinsic value 
 except (i) Virtue in the sense of simple Benevolence and (a) 
 Pleasure with a preference for social useful pleasures ? Is our 
 conception of the sumimmi bonum, for a rational being limited 
 to these two elements ? If his will invariably prefers (in case 
 of collision) other people's pleasure to his own and if he enjoys 
 as much pleasure as possible, should we say that a human being 
 has all that it is reasonable for him to want ? Would a com- 
 munity of simple people enjoying material plenty and inno- 
 cent amusements in the utmost degree that is consistent with 
 the predominance of the most intense and most universal love — 
 the life for instance of some rude Moravian Mission Settlement — 
 beautiful and noble as such a life might be, realize to the full 
 our highest ideal of human life ? Would a community devoid 
 of Letters, of Art, of Learning, of any intellectual cultivation 
 beyond that low elementary school standard which might be 
 regarded as absolutely necessary to Virtue and the enjoyable 
 filling up of leisure — would such a state of society realize our 
 ideal ? If it were certain (a by no means extreme supposition) 
 that the communities which have approximated most nearly 
 to this pattern have actually realized a higher average of enjoy- 
 ment than has ever been attained in more ambitious societies, 
 should we thereupon think it right to adopt an obscurantist 
 policy, to burn down libraries and museums and picture galleries, 
 and to repress all desires for knowledge and beauty which should 
 soar above the standard indicated ? Do we not rather judge 
 that such desires ought to be gratified, that in their gratification 
 — nay, in the efibrt to satisfy desires which grow stronger with 
 every partial satisfaction — lies one large element of true human 
 good, one large source of its nobleness and its value ? And can 
 such a conviction be based upon the extremely dubious calcula- 
 tion that the pleasures resulting from such pursuits or produced 
 by them in others are invariably intenser, when due allowance 
 is made for the increasing susceptibility to pain which they 
 
Chap.iii, §iv] GOODS OF THOUGHT AND WILL 75 
 
 bring with them, than those attainable by the healthy and 
 moderate pursuit of more animal satisfactions in due subordina- 
 tion to the activities of social Morality 1 Should we really be 
 prepared to condemn any study, say that of pure Mathematics, 
 which could be shown to be less 'felicific' than Sciences 
 and Arts of more immediate and obvious ' utility ' ? To all 
 these questions I can only answer for myself, ' No.' Argument 
 on questions of ultimate ends is impossible. All that I can 
 do is to trace the further modifications which this admission 
 of other ends besides Virtue and happiness will compel us to 
 make in the system of rationalistic Utilitarianism, from which 
 we have already diverged by making Virtue as well as happi- 
 ness into an element, and the more important element, in our con- 
 ception of the ultimate end. The view to which we have been 
 led may be briefly expressed as follows. The human soul is 
 a trinity. Consciousness includes three elements or aspects or 
 distinguishable activities — Thought, Feeling, and Volition or (to 
 use a more general term) Conation, each of which is unintel- 
 ligible in entire abstraction or separation from the rest. There 
 is a good state and a bad state of intellect, of feeling, and of 
 will. The good consists in a certain state of all three of them. 
 It may be true in a certain rough and popular sense that in 
 thought and perhaps even in the good will, taken in absolute 
 abstraction from the two others, we could discover no value 
 at all, while in pleasure we could find such a value ^. That 
 is the assumption upon which all Hedonism is based; and the 
 assumption might perhaps be admitted, though we might refuse 
 to admit the inferences based upon it, if we could attach any 
 meaning to pleasure taken absolutely by itself. But it is often 
 forgotten that there is no such thing as pleasure without 
 a content, and this content, which makes the state of conscious- 
 ness pleasant or unpleasant, is, at least in rational beings, 
 dependent upon the other two aspects of consciousness. It is 
 no doubt possible by an effort of abstraction to think only of 
 the intensity of our pleasurable feelings without thinking of 
 their content, and to make their value depend upon that 
 intensity, but there is no ground whatever for assuming that 
 1 Cf. below, pp. 78, 153. 
 
76 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM- [Book I 
 
 we actually do so or ought to do so. In judging of the ultimate 
 value of any state of consciousness we think of its content — of 
 the state of desire and of will on the one hand and of intellect on 
 the other, as well as of feeling, and of the content of feeling as 
 well as of its intensity. Sometimes we pronounce a less pleasant 
 state of consciousness to be more valuable than a more pleasant 
 one because it involves an activity of the higher intellectual 
 faculties, or because it represents the direction of the will to 
 a higher good. Sometimes, no doubt, the dififerent parts of our 
 nature represented by the trinity of thought, feeling, and will 
 cannot all obtain equal satisfaction by the same course of action, 
 and then we have to choose between a course which will satisfy 
 one part of our nature and that which will satisfy the other; 
 but the ideal good of men would include all three. It would 
 include truth and activity of thought, pleasantness of feeling, 
 and goodness of will. In what relation the goods predominantly 
 connected with each of these elements of our nature stand to 
 each other, we shall in some general way consider hereafter ^. 
 It will be enough to say here that we have already recognized 
 the supreme value of the good will, i. e. of the devotion of the 
 will towards that which the moral consciousness recognizes as 
 the good for humanity at large, that in the abstract we recognize 
 the superior value of intellectual activities to mere pleasant 
 feeling, while the superiority of certain states of pleasant feeling 
 to others is largely due to their arising to a greater extent than 
 others from the activity of the. two higher elements in our 
 nature, the activity of the good will or of the intellect, or both. 
 
 If we were to enter at greater length into the relation between 
 the different parts or elements or activities of our nature, with 
 which we have just been dealing, we should find ourselves 
 involved in many difficult and important matters of psychological 
 
 ' It -will be fully recognized that no one of them can actually exist in entire 
 abstraction from the other. The good will, for instance, must include some 
 pleasant feeling and some knowledge. 
 
Chap, iii, §v] PSYCHOLOGY OF ETHICS 77 
 
 controversy. Such psychological problems I wish in the present 
 work to avoid in so far as their solution is not directly and 
 immediately necessary for the purpose of Ethics. But by way 
 of explaining my use of them, a few remarks may be added. 
 I do not adopt the usage of those Psychologists who make 
 feeling equivalent merely to pleasure and pain. Such a usage 
 seems to imply an abstraction of the pleasure from its content, 
 which is not what we really mean when we talk about feeling, 
 and which tends to encourage the idea that we are interested in 
 nothing but the hedonistic intensity of our consciousness apart 
 from its content. By Thought or Reason I do not mean merely 
 discursive thought to the exclusion of immediate perception, but 
 the whole intellectual side of our consciousness ; I include in it 
 every kind of awareness. Desire I regard as belonging to the 
 conative or striving side of our nature, though it implies also, 
 and cannot exist apart from, both the intellectual and the feeling 
 side of it : we must know in some measure what we desire, and 
 the desire is itself a state of feeling, though it is more. An 
 emotion is simply a name for a kind of feeling, but the term is 
 usually and properly reserved for those states of feeling which 
 are not, and do not immediately arise from, physical sensations, 
 but imply the existence of ideas and of those higher desires which 
 are directed towards ideal objects. It is obvious that in these 
 distinctions we are concerned with aspects of consciousness 
 rather than with distinct and separable things or facts or 
 'states.' In some cases the distinction between them is clear 
 and capable by an easy abstraction of a pretty sharp differentia- 
 tion in our thought: in other cases they are simply the same 
 thing looked at from a slightly different point of view. We 
 have no difficulty for instance in distinguishing processes of 
 mathematical calculation from the pleasant feeling by which they 
 are accompanied in the mathematical mind, or the unpleasant 
 feeling which those processes create in the unmathematical. On 
 the other hand a simple perception of colour must be treated as 
 an intellectual activity when we think of the recognized relation 
 between the person or subject and his object, as a state of 
 feeling when we think of it merely as a state of the subject 
 and from the point of view of his interest in it. Similarly one 
 
78 RATIONALISTIC UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 and the same desire may be looked upon simply as a particular 
 state of the subject and so as feeling, or as involving the intel- 
 lectual idea of an end, or again as a conative activity tending 
 to realize that end. Further to illustrate both the distinctions 
 between, and the inter-dependence of, these fundamental aspects 
 of consciousness does not seem necessary to enable us to proceed 
 with our ethical enquiry. All that need here be emphasized is 
 that the value which we recognize in consciousness is not depen- 
 dent upon any one of these aspects taken in absolute abstraction 
 from another. The extremest Hedonist will find it impossible to 
 attach a clear meaning to the idea of pleasure taken apart from 
 all awareness that one is pleased, or of what one is pleased at ; 
 the extremest Rigorist would find it difficult to say what would 
 be the value of a good will which did not know what it willed 
 and did not care whether it willed it or not. And the moral 
 consciousness does not encourage us to approximate to any such 
 feats of abstraction, even in so far as this may be possible. It 
 pronounces its judgement upon the value of consciousness as 
 a whole. For the purpose of weighing one good against another 
 and choosing between them in cases of collision, it may often 
 have to attempt a relatively complete abstraction of one aspect 
 from another; but it does not pronounce that any aspect has 
 exclusive value, or that the value of one aspect is to be estimated 
 entirely without reference to the others, or that the good can be 
 conceived of under any one of them. The man is Reason, 
 Feeling, Will ; and the ideal state for man is an ideal state of 
 all three elements in his nature in their ideal relation to one 
 another. 
 
 At this point it is probable that the reader who is inclined to 
 utilitarian ways of thinking will be disposed to ask ' How do you 
 know that knowledge is good, or (if you like so to express it) that 
 the pleasures attending its pursuit and attainment are intrinsically 
 superior to those of eating and drinking ? ' The answer must be, 
 ' I do as a matter of fact so judge : I judge it immediately, and, 
 so far, a priori : my Reason so pronounces : judgements of value 
 are ultimate, and no ethical position, utilitarian or other, can 
 rest on anything but judgements of value.' What is this, the 
 reader is likely to exclaim, but sheer Intuitionism ? How far 
 
Chap, iii, §v] IS EGOISM RATIONAL? 79 
 
 I am prepared to accept this identification will appear from the 
 next chapter ^. 
 
 ' Tlie logical contradiction involved in Egoism has been powerfully 
 argued by von Hartmann in his criticism of Nietzsche and Max Stirner 
 (Ethische Studien, pp. 33-90). More recently Mr. Moore has incisively 
 expressed the difficulty as follows : ' What Egoism holds, therefore, is that 
 each man's happiness is the sole good— that a number of diflferent things are 
 each of them the only good thing there is— an absolute contradiction ! No 
 more complete and thorough refutation of any theory could be desired. Yet 
 Professor Sidgwick holds that Egoism is rational,' a conclusion which he 
 proceeds to characterize as ' absurd ' (Principia Ethica, 1903, p. 99). I should 
 agree with him that the position is self-contradictory in a sense in which 
 universalistic Hedonism is not, and that with all his subtlety Sidgwick failed 
 altogether to escape what was really an inconsistency in- thought, even if he 
 escaped an actual or formal contradiction. But to point out this logical 
 contradiction does not seem to me quite so easy and final a way of refuting 
 Sidgwick's position as it does to Mr. Moore for these reasons : (i) The Egoist 
 with whom Professor Sidgwick is arguing would probably not accept 
 Mr. Moore's (and my own) conception of an absolute objective good, though 
 I should admit and have contended in this chapter that if he fully thought 
 out what is implied in his own contention that his conduct is ' reasonable ' 
 he would be led to that conception. (2) Sidgwick only admitted that the 
 Egoist was reasonable from one point of view — reasonable as far as he goes, 
 i. e. when he refuses to ask whether his judgements are consistent with 
 what he cannot help recognizing as the rational judgements of other men, 
 and limits himself to asking whether he can make his own judgements 
 consistent with themselves from his own point of view. No doubt Sidgwick 
 ought to have gone on to admit that this imperfectly reasonable point of 
 view was not really reasonable at all, and to some extent he has done this 
 in his last Edition. And (3) after all, even if we admit that the Egoist is 
 unreasonable, there remains the question 'Why should he care to be 
 reasonable?' It was largely the difficulty of answering this question 
 on universalistic Hedonist principle which drove Professor Sidgwick to 
 admit a ' dualism of the Practical Reason,' and I am not sure that the 
 question has been very satisfactorily answered by Mr. Moore who, though 
 he is no Hedonist, appears to be unwilling to give the good will the highest 
 place in his scale of goods. 
 
CHAPTER lY 
 INTUITIONISM 
 
 By Intuitionism is usually understood the theory that actions 
 are pronounced right or wrong a priori without reference to 
 their consequences. According to one view it is supposed that 
 Conscience, or whatever else the moral faculty may be called, 
 pronounces on the morality of particular courses of conduct 
 at the moment of action. This form of the doctrine has been 
 styled by Professor Sidgwick unphilosophical Intuitionism, 
 while he gives the name philosophical Intuitionism to the 
 doctrine that what is intuitively judged to be right or wrong 
 is always some general rule of conduct, from which the morality 
 or immorality of this or that particular course of action 
 must be deduced. According to the first view, Conscience is 
 an ever-present dictator issuing detailed injunctions to meet 
 particular cases as they arise : according to the second, Con- 
 science is a legislator, whose enactments have to be applied 
 to particular cases by the same intellectual process as is employed 
 by a judge in administering an act of Parliament ^. Intuitionists 
 
 ^ It is probable that many ' Intuitionists ' would hold a position mid- 
 way between these extreme views. They would hold that some rules are 
 intuitively discerned to be of absolute obligation, while in other cases the 
 decision must be left to the intuitive judgement of the moment. It may be 
 asked where we are to find examples of the Intuitionist presupposed by the 
 Utilitarian polemics. To a large extent no doubt he is a man of straw set 
 up to be knocked down again. It will generally be found that most of the 
 writers usually associated with the name make larger admissions than the 
 popular exponents or assailants of this view recognize as to the necessity of 
 considering consequences and the paramount duty of promoting the general 
 good properly understood. But it cannot be denied that Bishop Butler 
 (especially in the Dissertation of Virtue) and Reid have approximated to this 
 position. The writer who seems specially to have introduced the term ' intui- 
 
Chap.iv, §i] UNPHILOSOPHICAL INTUITIONISM 8i 
 
 may further be divided into two classes according to the view 
 which they take as to the nature of the faculty by which these 
 a priori judgements are pronounced. 5y some Intuitionists 
 this faculty is supposed to be Reason, by others a ' Moral Sense.' 
 But the nature of the faculty involved in our moral judgements 
 is one which can best be discussed when we have answered the 
 easier preliminary question — ''Do we in practice, or can we 
 reasonably, pronounce actions to be right or wrong without 
 regard to their consequences, in so far as such consequences 
 can be foreseen ? ' 
 
 The belief described as unphilosophical Intuitionism in its 
 wildest form is one which can hardly claim serious refutation. 
 If it is supposed that the injunctions of the moral faculty are 
 so wholly arbitrary that they proceed upon no general or 
 rational principle whatever, if it is supposed that I may to-day 
 in one set of circumstances feel bound by an inexplicable impulse 
 within me to act in one way, while to-morrow I may be directed 
 or direct myself to act differently under circumstances in no way 
 distinguishable from the former, then moral judgements are 
 reduced to an arbitrary caprice which is scarcely compatible 
 with the belief in any objective standard of duty ; for it will 
 hardly be denied that, if right and wrong are not the same 
 for (the same individual on dififerent but precisely similar 
 occasions, they can still less be the same for different 
 persons, and all idea of an objective moral law disappears. 
 It may of course be alleged that the circumstances of no two 
 acts are precisely alike, but they may certainly be alike in 
 all relevant respects. If it be said that Conscience will vary 
 its judgement in accordance with the circumstances of the case, 
 and that other men's Consciences in proportion to their en- 
 lightenment will always pronounce the same judgements under 
 
 tion ' as the note of a School is Eichard Price, but that -writer's admissions 
 are so ample that he ends by virtually resolving all duties into Benevolence, 
 understood in a non-hedonistic sense, and Justice. His Review of the princi- 
 pal Questions and Difficulties in Morals (1769) I regard as the best work 
 published on Ethics till quite recent times. It contains the gist of the 
 Kantian doctrine without Kant's confusions. In this chapter it must be 
 understood that I am criticizing a type of opinion and not any particular 
 writer. 
 
 RABHDALL 1 Gc 
 
8 a INTUITIONISM [Book I 
 
 similar circumstances, there must be some rule or principle by 
 which it must be possible to distinguish between circumstances 
 which do and circumstances which do not alter our duty, however 
 little this rule or principle may be present in an abstract form 
 to the moral consciousness of the individual. Granted, therefore, 
 that the moral judgements may as a matter of psychological 
 fact reveal themselves first and most clearly in particular cases 
 (just as we pronounce judgements about particular spaces and 
 distances long before we have consciously put geometrical prin- 
 ciples into the form of general axioms), it must still, it would 
 seem, be possible by analysis of our particular moral judgements 
 to discover the general principles upon which they proceed. 
 Analytical thought and philosophical language may be inade- 
 quate for the accurate expression of the delicate shades and 
 gradations of circumstance upon which, in complicated cases, 
 our moral judgements actually depend ; but some approximation 
 to this, some rough rules or principles of ethical judgement, 
 ought, one would think, to be capable of being elicited from 
 a wide comparative survey of one's own and other people's 
 actual judgements. If this be denied, moral instruction must 
 be treated as absolutely impossible. Now it may be quite 
 true that in many ways ' example is better than precept,' not 
 only on account of its emotional eflFect but even on account 
 of the intellectual illumination supplied by a good man's conduct 
 in presence of varying practical difficulties. It is true that 
 the contemplation in actual fact or in recorded history of a 
 good life may suggest ideals which no mere system of precepts, 
 abstracted from particular applications, can adequately embody. 
 A general rule is often best embodied in a concrete, typical case. 
 The parable of the Good Samaritan has taught the true meaning 
 of Charity more clearly as well as more persuasively than any 
 direct precept that could be culled from the writings of Seneca 
 or even from the Sermon on the Mount. But still there is 
 a consensus among reasonable men that moral instruction of 
 some kind — however vague, general, and inadequate to the 
 complexities of actual life — is possible, desirable, and necessary. 
 We do not say to a child who asks whether he may pick a 
 flower in somebody else's garden, ' My good child, that depends 
 
Chap. iv,§i] CONSIDERATION OF CONSEQUENCES 83 
 
 entirely upon the circumstances of the particular case : to lay 
 down any general rule on the subject would be a piece of 
 unwarrantable dogmatism on my part : consult your own Con- 
 science, as each case arises, and all will be well.' On the 
 contrary, we say at once : ' You must not pick the flower : 
 because that would be stealing,, and stealing is wrong.' Make 
 any reserves you please as to the inadequacy of the rule, its 
 want of definiteness, its inability to meet many problems of 
 life, the necessity for exceptions and the like ; yet it must be 
 admitted that if there be any one point about Morality as to 
 which there is a consensus alike among all plain men and 
 nearly all Philosophers ^ it is surely this — that general rules 
 of conduct do exist. Morality cannot be reduced to copy-book 
 headings, but copy-book headings we do and must have. Now, in 
 proportion as all this is admitted, unphilosophical Intuitionism 
 tends to pass into the philosophical variety of the Intuitionist 
 creed and may be subjected to the same criticism. 
 
 The strongest part of Sidgwiek's great work consists in its 
 analysis of common-sense Morality. The loose statements of 
 Intuitionists as to the clearness, certainty, adequacy, and self- 
 evidence of the ordinarily received rules of conduct have never 
 been subjected to so searching, so exhaustive, and so illuminating 
 an examination. That task has been done once for all, and need 
 not in detail be done over again. It will be enough in this 
 place to exhibit in the barest outline the difiiculties which 
 this mode of ethical thought has to confront : — 
 
 (i) Granted the existence of intuitive tendencies to approve 
 action of particular kinds, we may still ask why we should 
 trust to blind unreasoning impulses which refuse to give any 
 rational account of themselves. Granted the existence of such 
 judgements as a matter of psychological fact, whence comes 
 their validity 1 If it be said ' they are deliverances of moral 
 Reason,' we may ask whether it can be really rational to act 
 without some consideration of consequences ? What does rational 
 conduct mean but acting with a clear conception of our ultimate 
 
 ^ Some of Mr. Bradley's utterances in Ethical Studies and elsewhere seem 
 to constitute the only exception known to me. This position will be further 
 discussed in the last chapter of this work. 
 
 02 
 
84 INTUITIONISM [Book I 
 
 purpose or aim, and taking the means which seem best adapted 
 to attain that end ? ' Look before you leap ' seems to be one 
 of the clearest of all practical axioms : to act in obedience to 
 every subjective impulse, even if it be prima facie an impulse 
 arising from the higher part of our nature, would seem very 
 like adopting as our maxim ' Leap before you look.' Of course 
 there may be circumstances in which we have to leap after 
 a very hurried and imperfect survey of the situation under 
 penalty of being too late to leap at all, but some looking 
 before leaping is as necessary in the most unexpected and 
 agonizing crisis of the battle-field or the hunting field as in 
 the leisured pomp and circumstance of formal athletic sports. 
 
 (ii) The moral notions which have seemed equally innate, 
 self-evident, and authoritative to those who held them have 
 varied enormously with different races, different ages, different 
 individuals — even with the same individuals at different periods 
 of life. It will be unnecessary to illustrate at length the varia- 
 tions of moral sentiment which have formed the main stock-in- 
 trade of utilitarian writers from the days of John Locke to those 
 of Herbert Spencer. We have been taught to honour our 
 fathers and mothers : there have been races which deemed it 
 sacred duty to eat them. Average Greek public opinion looked 
 with favour, or at least indulgence, upon acts which are crimes in 
 most civilized modern communities. Pious and educated Puritans 
 could see no harm in kidnapping negroes or shooting Irishmen. 
 The eminent evangelical clergyman John Newton pronounced 
 the hours which he passed in the captain's cabin of a slaver, 
 separated by a plank or two from a squalid mass of human 
 misery of which he was the cause, to have been sweeter 
 hours of divine communion than he had ever elsewhere known. 
 Some virtues seem to be of very late development even among 
 civilized races — religious toleration, for instance, and humanity 
 towards animals. And so on, and so on. 
 
 To beginners in Moral Philosophy these objections to In- 
 tuitionism will usually present themselves as the strongest and 
 most unanswerable. In truth perhaps they are the weakest. 
 Neither the slow development of the moral faculty nor its 
 unequal development in different individuals at the same level 
 
Chap, iv, §i] OBJECTIONS TO INTUITIONISM 85 
 
 of social culture forms any objection to the a priori character 
 of moral judgements. We do not doubt either the axioms of 
 Mathematics or the rules of reasoning, <43ecause some savages 
 cannot count more than five ^, or because some highly educated 
 classical scholars are incapable of understanding the fifth propo- 
 sition of Euclid's first book. Some of us will even refuse to 
 allow our belief in the objectivity of aesthetic judgements to 
 be shaken because a Zulu will hold a picture upside down, 
 because an uneducated bargee will often prefer some gaudy 
 sign-board to an old Master, because the taste which pronounced 
 Queen's College the only really satisfactory piece of Oxford 
 architecture does not commend itself to that of the twentieth 
 century, or because even among the most cultivated art critics 
 of the present day there exist considerable differences of opinion. 
 Intuitionists have no doubt shown a tendency to claim infalli- 
 bility as well as authority for the moral judgements of the 
 individual: but such a claim is by no means necessary to the 
 extremest view of the arbitrary, unconsequential, isolated 
 character of moral judgements. We may admit the validity 
 of the principles of reasoning and of the axioms of Mathe=~ 
 matics, although many men reason badly, and some cannot 
 even count. Men's moral judgements may be intuitive, but 
 they need not be infallible. Self-evident truths are not truths 
 which are evident to everybody. There are degrees of moral 
 illumination just as there are degrees of musical sensibility or 
 of mathematical acuteness. Taken by themselves, the variations 
 of moral judgement form a less serious objection to the intuitional 
 mode of thought than those which follow, although it may be 
 certainly contended that Intuitionism of the cruder kind cannot 
 adequately account for these variations. 
 
 (iii) Even when a certain intuition is actually found in 
 all or most men of a certain race and age, the moral rule which 
 it enjoins usually turns out upon examination to be incapable 
 of exact definition. All, or nearly all, detailed moral rules have 
 some exceptions, except indeed when the rule laid down tacitly 
 excludes such exceptional cases. The rule 'Thou shalt do no 
 
 * Assuming such to be the fact, as is sometimes alleged, though the truth 
 may be that they have no words or other signs for higher numbers. 
 
86 INTUITIONISM [Book I 
 
 murder ' presents itself no doubt at first sight as a moral rule 
 admitting of no exception ; but that is only because murder 
 means 'killing except under those exceptional circumstances 
 under which it is right to kill.' Now, even where there seems 
 to be the fullest agreement, at least among men of developed 
 moral nature, as to the main rules, it is frequently found to 
 disappear as soon as we come to discuss the exceptions ; while 
 even the same individual will often find that at this point 
 his intuitions become indistinct or fail him altogether. And 
 in practice it will nearly always turn out that the exception 
 has been introduced from some consideration of consequences. 
 Those who are most positive in maintaining a particular moral 
 rule to be of self-evident and universal obligation independently 
 of consequences, will generally shrink from applying it in certain 
 extreme cases. Set forth to the Intuitionist in sufficient detail 
 the appalling consequences of applying his rule, pile up the 
 agony sufficiently, and there will almost always come a point 
 at which he begins to be doubtful as to whether the rule applies, 
 and a further point at which he is certain that it does not. 
 ' Thou shalt do no murder ' ; but most men will admit that 
 there are exceptional cases in which killing is no murder, 
 and perhaps a very large majority would be got to declare 
 that their intuitions were clear in excepting self-defence, war 
 or at least lawful war, and judicial execution. But ask at 
 what point killing in self-defence becomes lawful, what consti- 
 tutes war or what constitutes lawful war, for what offences 
 we may lawfully inflict death, at what point it becomes the 
 duty of the individual to refuse to take part in an unrighteous 
 campaign or to carry out an iniquitous sentence — and we find 
 ourselves once again in a chaos of uncertainties. And observe 
 exactly the point of the uncertainty: the uncertainty lies 
 exactly in this — that no clear intuitions are forthcoming as 
 to the exact moment at which it begins to be legitimate to 
 take account of consequences. 'Thou shalt not kill except 
 in self-defence, or by judicial sentence.' So much may perhaps 
 be pronounced to be self-evident without reference to conse- 
 quences. But if the established government absolutely refuses 
 to protect person, property, or Morality, shall we never reach 
 
Chap, iv, § i] CONSEQUENCES 87 
 
 a state of anarchy such as will warrant the intervention of 
 an extra-legal committee of public safety or vigilance association, 
 and the summary execution of its sentences ? If only the 
 foreseen consequences are bad enough, no one but an advocate 
 of absolute non-resistance will fail to relax his severity, and the 
 advocate of unlimited non-resistance is certainly not in a position 
 to claim any general consensus in his favour. Now, if there 
 be any point at which an apparent intuition has to give way 
 before clearly foreseen ill consequences, how can we logically 
 say that it can ever be right to exclude consideration of conse- 
 quences ? We must at least examine the probable consequences 
 of an act sufficiently to feel reasonably sure that it will have 
 none of those extreme results which, it is admitted, would 
 have the effect of suspending the moral rule upon which it 
 is proposed to act. The only people who have really carried 
 out the doctrine that apparently self-evident moral rules cannot 
 be modified by the consequences, however socially disastrous, 
 of disobeying them to anything like its logical results, are those 
 who (like Count Leo Tolstoi) preach the doctrine of unlimited 
 submission to force, unlimited giving to mendicants and the 
 like. And here common-sense Intuitionism decidedly declines to 
 follow. 
 
 (iv) The above considerations may probably lead on to 
 the reflection that after all some reference to consequences is 
 really included in every moral rule. Indeed, you cannot really 
 distinguish an act from its present or foreseeable consequences. 
 The consequences, in so far as they can be foreseen, are actually 
 part of the act. You cannot carry out any rule whatever 
 without some consideration of consequences. You cannot obey 
 the rule of Benevolence without asking whether giving money 
 in the street really is Benevolence; and that depends upon 
 whether it will actually have the effect of doing ultimate good 
 to those to whom you give and others who may be affected 
 by the expectation of similar assistance which your act creates. 
 You cannot obey the command ' Thou shalt not kill ' without 
 considering whether the trigger that you pull will actually 
 discharge a bullet, how far the bullet is likely to travel, what 
 it will meet with on the way, and (if it is likely to hit any one) 
 
88 INTUITIONISM [Book I 
 
 whether that person is on the point of shooting somebody else, 
 or is a peaceable and inoffensive fellow-citizen. What would 
 be the meaning of asking whether drunkenness would be wrong 
 if it did not make a man incoherent in his talk, irrational in 
 his judgements, unsteady in his gait, and irresponsible in his 
 behaviour ? Drunkenness taken apart from all its consequences 
 would not be drunkenness. Once admit that consequences must 
 be considered at all, and it is arbitrary to stop at any particular 
 point in the calculus of social effects. You are not really in 
 a position to pronounce upon the morality of the act until 
 you have the completest view that circumstances enable you 
 to take of the whole train of events which will be started by 
 your contemplated volition. Until you have formed that 
 estimate of consequences, you do not really know what you 
 are doing: at any point in the vast orbit of changes which 
 spreads from every human action, like the widening ripple 
 that radiates from a stone dropped into smooth water, it is 
 always theoretically possible that some circumstance may be 
 discovered which may remove the case from the category to 
 which your moral rule refers. 
 
 No doubt in practice it is often imperative that we should act 
 without this elaborate investigation : but the very enquiry ' how 
 long ought I to deliberate before I act ? ' is precisely one of those 
 questions upon which it is impossible to discover any intuitive 
 rule, containing no reference to the probable consequences — the 
 consequences, that is to say, on the one hand of deliberating 
 too much, and on the other of not deliberating enough. If there 
 are cases in which our moral consciousness clearly bids us do 
 something or other at once without thinking of consequences, 
 it will be found that these cases are precisely those in which 
 excessive deliberation would be likely to lead to harmful results. 
 To stay and reflect upon all the consequences which might be 
 expected to flow from obeying or resisting the impulse to plunge 
 into the water after a drowning man would very rapidly place 
 the former alternative out of the question ; to encourage the 
 habit of prolonged deliberation in such cases would be to make 
 gallant attempts at rescues few, and successful rescues fewer. 
 It is therefore considered enough to justify the attempt that 
 
Chap, iv, §i] INCONSISTENT INTUITIONS 89 
 
 a man knows he is a good swimmer, that the sea is not ex- 
 ceptionally rough, and that it is not certain that the attempt 
 wiU fail. There are, of course, scores of»cases in which it is 
 right to act on short deliberation : but it will probably be found, 
 on analysis, that it is some consequence of allowing people to 
 deliberate upon which the judgement is ultimately based. It is 
 a commonplace of utilitarian Ethics that many things must be 
 avoided altogether which might in exceptional cases have good 
 eiFects just because exceptions, if admitted at all, would have 
 a tendency to become too numerous ^. 
 
 (v) Still more obviously does the existence of contradictory 
 moral intuitions compel an appeal to consequences. When the 
 duty of Benevolence collides with the duty of Veracity, or the 
 claim of one individual to immediate relief with the duty of 
 doing what is best for society on the whole, how shall we 
 determine which rule is to take precedence ? It is no use to say 
 with Dr. Martineau ' Act in obedience to the highest motive ^ ' ; 
 for it is impossible to pronounce one motive higher than another 
 in the abstract, without reference to circumstances. If I were 
 
 ' It is therefore quite reasonable to hold that some acts may properly be 
 forbidden by Morality, just as others are forbidden by law, because (though 
 often harmless) there is a probable balance of harm in allowing the practice 
 at all. Law forbids my crossing the line except by the bridge (although the 
 practice is quite safe for an able-bodied man in full possession of all his 
 faculties) because my indulging in it has a tendency to encourage imitation 
 in the feeble, the elderly, and the deaf, who are likely to be run over. It is 
 quite reasonable to urge that even moderate gambling ought to be forbidden 
 by public opinion on much the same grounds. Until public opinion has 
 forbidden it, I am not, indeed, at liberty to treat the man who plays whist 
 for sixpences as a moral offender. But, if I think that society would do well 
 to adopt as its rule the total condemnation of gambling, it is my duty under 
 ordinary circumstances to abstain from it myself, and to do what in me lies 
 (short of censoriously condemning individuals who differ from me) to bring 
 about the adoption of this rule. Those who will not under any possible circum- 
 stances admit that 'abusus toUit usum ' would find it difficult to justify a 
 whole host of accepted moral rules which rest on this principle. The whole 
 social code which restricts the time, place, and circumstances of social inter- 
 course between the sexes is based on this principle. Acts in themselves 
 harmless are forbidden altogether because experience shows that they are 
 liable to lead to bad consequences in some cases. 
 
 * This doctrine is developed in the first part of the second volume of Types 
 of Ethical Theory. 
 
90 INTUITIONISM [Book I 
 
 to pronounce Veracity invariably a higher motive than Bene- 
 volence, I could never tell a lie or employ a detective to tell one 
 for me, to avoid the extremest social disaster. If, on the other 
 hand, I pronounce Benevolence higher than Veracity and every 
 other possible motive, I have practically adopted the utilitarian 
 principle, and Veracity would have always to give way to 
 Benevolence, wherever there was the slightest collision between 
 them. But neither solution of the problem seems to satisfy the 
 demands of our moral consciousness. The first view strikes us 
 as too rigorous, the last as too lax. What our actual moral 
 judgement seems to say is, that in such collisions it is the 
 amount of the unveracity or the amount of the inhumanity that 
 will have to determine which rule is to give way. And this 
 cannot be ascertained without a calculation of consequences. If 
 once it be admitted that under any possible combination of 
 circumstances I may tell a lie (however strongly one may feel 
 the practical inexpediency of entering upon such a calculation in 
 all ordinary cases), I must still feel bound to examine the cir- 
 cumstances sufficiently to be pretty sure that there is no proba- 
 bility of this turning out to be one of those extreme or exceptional 
 cases in which the lie would be warranted. In general, of course, 
 this hasty survey of the consequences is so instantaneously 
 performed as to escape notice altogether. A truthful man 
 acts at once on the general rule unless he detects something 
 in the circumstances which seems to call for further con- 
 sideration. 
 
 (vi) While the foregoing objections may be urged against 
 many of the alleged intuitions to which intuitional Moralists 
 appeal, there are some which do submit to the tests which 
 have been found fatal to the claim for absolute and final 
 validity on the part of the rest. The axioms of Prudence, 
 Rational Benevolence, and Equity do possess the clearness and 
 definiteness and freedom from self-contradiction which other 
 alleged intuitions so conspicuously lack. It does on reflection 
 strike us as self-evident that I ought to promote my own good 
 on the whole (where no one else's good is affected), that I ought 
 to regard a larger good for society in general as of more intrinsic 
 value than a smaller good, and that one man's good is (other 
 
Chap, iv, §ii] INTUITIONS RELATE TO ENDS 91 
 
 things being equal) of as much intrinsic value as any other 
 man's. But these axioms, so far from throwing any doubt upon 
 the truth of Utilitarianism, are precisely the maxims upon 
 which Utilitarianism itself is founded for those who attempt to 
 base the duty of promoting pleasure upon its intrinsic Tightness 
 or reasonableness. In the acceptance of those maxims as genuine 
 moral axioms, Sidgwick has, as we have seen, laid the foun- 
 dations for a reconciliation between Intuitionism and Utili- 
 tarianism. But the acceptance of these axioms does not make in 
 favour of the kind of Intuitionism which it is the object of this 
 chapter to examine; for these are precisely the axioms upon 
 which Utilitarianism itself is based. Such intuitions do not 
 forbid us — on the contrary they expressly require and compel 
 us — to attend to the consequences of actions, and to make our 
 judgement about them depend upon their tendency to promote 
 a universal good. 
 
 II 
 
 It is perhaps unnecessary to multiply objections to that sort 
 of Intuitionism which declares that certain rules of action are 
 to be followed irrespectively of consequences. It is irrational to 
 judge of the morality of an action without tracing its bearing 
 upon human Well-being as a whole. We are compelled to accept 
 the utilitarian formula in so far as it asserts that conduct is 
 good or bad only in proportion as it tends to promote the Well- 
 being of human society on the whole. But we have already 
 seen reasons for rejecting the utilitarian identification of 
 greatest good with greatest pleasure; and we have seen that 
 in the judgements as to the value of different kinds of good we 
 encounter a 'priori or immediate deliverances of the moral con- 
 sciousness of precisely that kind to which the term Intuition is 
 commonly applied. What then is the diflference between the 
 intuitions which we have rejected and the intuitions which we 
 have felt ourselves compelled to accept ? The intuitions of the 
 Intuitionist are supposed to lay down invariable rviles of conduct; 
 the a priori or immediate judgements which we have admitted 
 relate to ends, to the relative value of different elements in 
 human Well-being or ivhai\t.ovia. In other words the intuitions 
 
92 INTUITIONISM [Book I 
 
 of the Intuitionist disregard consequences ; ours relate precisely 
 to the value of different kinds of consequence. The Intuitionist 
 pronounces intuitive judgement upon acts ; our intuitions relate 
 to ends ; his take the form ' this is right,' ours always the form 
 ' this is good.' 
 
 A few illustrations will make the contrast plain. The old 
 intuitive rule of Veracity is supposed to say, 'Do not lie under 
 any circumstances whatever ' : our judgement of value gives us 
 only ' Truth-speaking is good ; lying is bad.' And the moment 
 the intuitive or a priori truth is put in this new form, the 
 irrationality and unworkableness of the old intuitional system 
 disappears. We are not forbidden to calculate consequences. 
 Certainly we must trace the bearing of an act upon universal 
 Well-being ; but in our evbaiixovCa truth-speaking, or rather the 
 truth-speaking and truth-loving character, finds a place. Suppos- 
 ing the speaking of the truth will in this particular case involve 
 such and such evils, the question is ' Which is the worse — these 
 evils or the evil involved in the lie ; so much suffering, and suffer- 
 ing caused by my voluntary act, or so much untruthfulness?' 
 It is impossible, of course, to set forth in detail all the circum- 
 stances upon which a right decision of such cases may depend. 
 But it would be generally agreed that to tell a lie to save some- 
 body from hearing an unpleasant remark, or to save him from 
 some trifling injury to his pride or self-esteem, would be to choose 
 the greater of two evils instead of the less. On the other hand, 
 to save a friend's life at the cost of concealing bad news by a lie 
 would be a less evil than the voluntary causing of . his death by 
 speaking the truth. Of course, if any one disputes such a view 
 of the case, we have nothing to say. As in all questions of 
 ultimate ends, argument is impossible : but so in this particular 
 case the vast majority of conscientious people judge and act. 
 And be it observed that on this principle our moral judgements 
 can never contradict one another. It remains true that truth is 
 good, and speaking an untruth an evil; but like other goods, 
 truth may have to give way to greater goods ; lying is always 
 an evil, but it may be the less of two evils. It is evil even 
 when the justification for the lie is palpable and incontestable. 
 Where the circumstances are such that the isolated act does not 
 
Chap, iv, § ii] EXCEPTIONS 93 
 
 evidence or encourage an untruthful hahit or character, the evil 
 may be very small ; but we cannot always secure that the evil 
 shall be a small one. Lying in detectives i% necessary and right, 
 but, like some other professional duties, it may not always be 
 good for the character of the person who practises it. It is 
 often necessary to do things which are right for us, but which 
 are liable to be imitated by those for whom it is wrong. If the 
 evil of the anticipated imitation be great enough, this may no 
 doubt be a sufficient reason for abstinence, but no sensible man 
 would forbid a father to smoke because the example may fire 
 his youthful son with the ambition to do likewise. 
 
 The general result then of our discussion, taken in connexion 
 with preceding chapters, is that the true criterion of Morality 
 is the tendency of an act to promote a Well-being or ivbaifiovia 
 which includes many other good things besides pleasure, among 
 which Virtue is the greatest. The value of these elements in 
 human life is determined by the Practical Reason intuitively, 
 immediately, or (if we like to say so) a priori ^. All moral 
 judgements are ultimately judgements as to the intrinsic worth 
 or value of some element in consciousness or life. 
 
 And we may go one step further than this in recognition of 
 the partial truth of Intuitionism. The great objection in many 
 minds to the utilitarian view of Ethics is the element of calculation 
 which it involves. When this objection is made into a plea for 
 acting without regard to consequences, it is (as I have en- 
 deavoured to show) completely irrational. But all the same the 
 directness and immediacy which appear to characterize our 
 clearest moral perceptions do seem at first sight an objection to the 
 doctrine that I cannot decide whether a thing is right or wrong 
 until I have worked out all its probable consequences upon so 
 remote and intangible a thing as universal Well-being. And the 
 
 ' I wish for the present to avoid as far as possible metaphysical discussion, 
 and therefore content myself with saying that by a priori I mean merely that 
 the judgement is immediate — not obtained by inference or deduction from 
 something else in the way in which the Utilitarian supposes his judgements 
 to be deductions from rules got by generalization from experience (though, 
 as I have explained, he always assumes the ultimate major premiss ' Pleasure 
 is good')- That in another sense judgements of value are not independent 
 of experience, I shall hereafter strongly insist, especially in the next chapter. 
 
94 INTUITIONISM [Book I 
 
 difficulty is not fully met by insisting on the fact that on most 
 of the ethical difficulties of common life the moral consciousness 
 of the community has already laid down rules which the in- 
 dividual has only to apply to the matter in hand. For there 
 are no moral judgements which probably strike those who make 
 them as more authoritative and self-evident than those by which 
 a certain act is judged to be wrong in spite of an overwhelming 
 weightof custom and tradition. Suchajudgement was pronounced, 
 for instance, when a solitary monk declared that the gladiatorial 
 combat was a barbarous brutality, though the tradition of ages 
 and a whole circus-full of professedly Christian spectators pro- 
 nounced it right, and by a public protest, which cost him his life, 
 sealed the doom of the whole institution. And there is no reason 
 why we should not fully recognize the validity of such judgements 
 without any surrender of the principles which we have adopted. 
 For this indefinable Well-being or evbainovCa, which our moral 
 Reason pronounces to be the ultimate end of all human conduct, 
 is itself made up of elements of consciousness — feelings, volitions, 
 emotions, thoughts, activities — each of which is itself an object 
 of moral valuation. If these elements were not each of them by 
 itself^ the object of a judgement of value, there could be no 
 judgement of value upon the whole. Every one would recognize 
 this as regards acts which cause immediate pleasure or pain. 
 Nobody supposes that, when I see a man sticking a knife into 
 another, it is necessary for me to calculate the effect of the act 
 upon the lives of all human beings, present and future, before 
 I condemn the proceeding. I say at once, ' This pain is bad : 
 therefore the infliction of it is wrong ' ; and, if I am not a 
 Hedonist, I may add, 'the character or disposition which this 
 act shows is worse than the pain which it causes.' And it is 
 equally so in many cases where the act has no such immediate 
 and obvious bearing upon the welfare of human society. That 
 a rational being should use his intellect to make things appear 
 to his brother man otherwise than as they are strikes me at once 
 
 * I speak of course in a rough and relative sense. We could form no 
 judgement upon the worth of an act or a state of mind without some general 
 knowledge of its relation to life as a whole. The illustrations wUl, I trust, 
 BufSciently explain my meaning. 
 
Chap, iv, §ii] THE RIGHT AND THE GOOD 95 
 
 as irrational and evil. I do not want to trace out all the effects of 
 lying upon human society before I say, ' this is a lie and there- 
 fore bad.' It is not the existence or even ijje relative and partial 
 validity of such judgements that is disputed, so much as their 
 finality. In many cases it is practically apparent at the first 
 glance that no possible circumstances could make this act — the 
 cutting or the lying — result in an overplus of good to human 
 society. In many more cases there is a great improbability that 
 any circumstance at present unknown to me will disclose 
 a prospect of beneficial consequences which would reverse my 
 prima facie judgement. But, unless I know all the circum- 
 stances, it is always possible that further knowledge might reveal 
 such a tendency. The man sticking a knife into his fellow with 
 apparently heartless brutality may turn out to be a surgeon per- 
 forming a salutary operation. The lie which I put down to 
 mere indifference to truth may turn out to be part of a detective's 
 scheme for the capture of a murderer or the protection of an 
 innocent man. It is not always practically necessary to look to 
 the ultimate end before we judge, and act upon our judge- 
 ment: but, until we have done so, we are never sure that 
 we have reached one of those ultimate moral judgements 
 which represent an immediate deliverance of Reason, and which 
 no further knowledge of facts and no demonstration of con- 
 sequences can possibly shake. There would be little objection 
 to the claims which the Intuitionist makes for his intuitions, 
 if only he would admit that they are subject to appeal, though 
 it is only an appeal to the same tribunal which pronounced the 
 original judgements — an appeal (to borrow an old legal phrase) 
 a conscientia male inforviata ad conscientiam, Tnelius in- 
 formandam. So long as the intuitive judgement runs in the 
 form, ' This is right,' it is always liable to be reversed on a wider 
 survey of consequences. If it be turned into the form, ' This is 
 good,' it cannot possibly be reversed (supposing that the man's 
 ethical ideal be a true one), though the resulting duty may 
 appear different when this isolated judgement is brought into 
 comparison with other moral judgements affirming the superior 
 goodness of some other end '. In Morality, as in other matters, 
 
 ' This point has been well put by Dr. McTaggart. ' But is a moral 
 
96 INTUITIONISM [Book I 
 
 our judgements require to be correlated and corrected by reference 
 to one another. Only the judgements that are based upon 
 complete knowledge are final. The ideal moral judgement implies 
 a conception of the ideal good for society as a whole, but we could 
 have no ideal of what is good for society as a whole unless we 
 had a power of pronouncing that this or that particular moment 
 of conscious life is good or bad. Our conception of the moral 
 ideal as a whole is built up out of particular judgements of 
 value, though particular judgements of value have to be pro- 
 gressively corrected by our growing conception of the moral 
 ideal as a whole, just as our conception of the laws of nature 
 is built up out of particular perceptions, though when that 
 knowledge is once attained it reacts upon and alters the per- 
 ceptions themselves. 
 
 And by expressing the moral judgement as a judgement of 
 Value we get this further advantage. We emphasize the fact 
 which eudaemonistic systems of Ethics are apt to overlook — that 
 acts are the objects of moral judgements as well as consequences. 
 Because no act can be good or bad without reference to con- 
 sequences, it does not follow that its morality depends wholly 
 upon those consequences. To the Hedonist, of course, such a dis- 
 tinction would be meaningless. For him nothing about an act is 
 of any value or importance besides the consequences. Whether 
 a poor family economize by infanticide or by curtailing their 
 expenditure is simply a question of profit and loss. If the sum 
 
 criterion,' he asks, 'wanted at all? It might be maintained that it was not. 
 It would only be wanted, it might be said, if we decided our actions by 
 general rules, which we do not. Our moral action depends on particular 
 judgements that A is better than B, which we recognize with comparative 
 immediacy, in the same way that we recognize that one plate is hotter 
 than another, or one picture more beautiful than another. It is on these 
 particular intuitive judgements of value, and not on general rules, that 
 our moral action is based. 
 
 ' This seems to me a dangerous exaggeration of an important truth. It is 
 quite true that, if we did not begin with such judgements, we should have 
 neither morality nor ethics. But it is equally true that we should have neither 
 morality nor ethics if we stopped, where we must begin, with these judge- 
 ments, and treated them as decisive and closing discussion. For our moral 
 judgements are hopelessly contradictory of one another.' (Studies in Hegelian 
 Cosmology, p. 97.) 
 
Chap, iv, §ii] ACT AND CONSEQUENCES 97 
 
 of pleasure would be equal in the two cases, it would be a matter 
 of perfect indifference by which machinery the requisite cor- 
 respondence between food and eaters shall be effected. The 
 inhumanity of the act, the want of self-control which it implies, 
 the temper or character which it expresses and fosters are matters 
 of no importance except in so far as they may result upon the 
 whole in an actual diminution of pleasure or increase of suffering. 
 But, when once it is admitted that the end includes a certain 
 ideal of human character, then the deliberate extinction of 
 children deliberately brought into the world with the intention 
 of so disposing of them will seem a vastly greater evil, to the 
 individuals concerned and to the society which tolerates their 
 conduct, than much poverty with all its physical hardships and 
 privations. 
 
 From this non-hedonistic point of view we can no longer 
 recognize an absolute distinction between means and ends. 
 Some means may no doubt have no value beyond that of 
 conducing to a further end ; but many, nay most, of the acts 
 which do conduce to further ends have a value (positive or 
 negative) of their own; and this value must be taken into account 
 in estimating the rightness or wrongness of the acts. 
 
 It is on this principle that we must deal with most of the privna 
 facie collisions between our ordinary moral judgements and the 
 results of eudaemonistic calculation. Nothing but consciousness 
 has value, but volitions and desires, emotions and aspirations 
 and imaginations, are elements in aU our consciousness as well 
 as mere pleasures and pains. There are acts so intrinsically re- 
 pulsive that it strikes us as, on the face of it, impossible that any 
 pleasure which they might yield could be worth the evil which 
 they involve. In this way most people would condemn without 
 further examination proposals for the abolition of marriage 
 or the permission of promiscuous infanticide. But still even 
 in such cases it is not speculatively admissible to say, ' we will 
 not look at the consequences.' Practically, of course, it may 
 often be right to refuse to argue some proposed moral innovation: 
 that must depend upon circumstances. But, if we do argue, 
 if we do want speculatively to get to the bottom of an ethical 
 question, we are bound to look at all the consequences, and 
 
 BASHDALI. I 
 
98 INTUITIONISM [Book I 
 
 pronounce whether, given such and such probable results, they 
 are worth the evil involved in the means taken to gain them. 
 In many cases — where the consequence on the strength of which 
 it is proposed to do some questionable act is not some remote 
 effect but some immediate pleasure — it is convenient to discuss 
 the question as one of higher versus lower pleasure, though in 
 strictness this means, according to our view, that the getting 
 pleasure from one source is better than getting it from another, 
 that one kind of pleasant consciousness is intrinsically better 
 than another, though not more pleasant. And, if we treat one 
 pleasure as intrinsically better than another, there is no logical 
 objection to our regarding some pleasures (i.e. the getting 
 pleasure from some things) as intrinsically bad. 
 
 It is clear to my mind that there do exist pleasures which are 
 intrinsically bad. On strictly hedonistic principles I fail to 
 understand why we should object to the Spanish or Southern- 
 French bull-fight, to the German students' face-slashing duels, 
 to the coursing and pigeon-shooting which the higher public 
 opinion is beginning to condemn among ourselves, to the wild- 
 beast fights of the Roman amphitheatre, or perhaps even to the 
 gladiatorial combats themselves, at least if the gladiators were 
 justly condemned criminals. Hedonism is not bound to object to 
 all infliction of pain, but only to insist that the pain inflicted shall 
 yield a sufiicient overplus of pleasure on the whole. There is no 
 more difficult ethical question than the question of the negative 
 value to be attributed to pain as compared with the positive 
 value to be attributed to pleasure. There is no question 
 assuredly upon which people's actual judgements would differ 
 more. Which would you rather have — some particularly longed 
 for treat, the holiday or the travel that you have set your heart 
 upon + a painful operation without chloroform, or no treat and no 
 operation? Different men would answer such questions very 
 differently ^. But, to return to our bull-fight, upon any rational 
 
 ' It is an extremely difficult question to say hew far in such matters 
 Hedonism would be bound to accept the verdict of the persons themselves. 
 For we often deceive ourselves a« to the pleasurableness of pleasures not 
 immediately present, even when we have some experience to go upon, and 
 yet such false estimates are causes of further pleasures and pains —pleasures 
 
Chap.iv, §ii] BAD PLEASURES 99 
 
 or intelligible view of the comparative values of pleasure and 
 pain, the intense pleasure which such spectacles give to thousands 
 of beholders must surely outweigh the jftiin inflicted on a few 
 dozen animals or even a few dozen criminals. If ten thousand 
 spectators would not be sufficient to readjust the balance, suppose 
 them multiplied tenfold or one-hundredfold. A humane man 
 would condemn the spectacle all the same. He will pronounce 
 such pleasures of inhumanity bad, quite apart from the some- 
 what dubious calculation that the encouragement of inhumanity 
 in one direction tends to callousness in another. Experience 
 does not seem to show that persons habituated to the infliction 
 of pain in one direction sanctioned by custom are less humane 
 than other men in other directions. It is possible to question 
 the morality of many forms of sport without accusing the 
 average country gentleman of exceptional inhumanity, or doubt- 
 ing the sincerity of the indignation with which he sends a 
 labourer's boy to prison for setting his dog at the domestic cat. 
 Another good instance of intrinsically bad pleasures is supplied 
 by drunkenness. The pleasures of drunkenness strike the 
 healthily constituted mind as intrinsically degrading and dis- 
 gusting, though it is probable that occasional acts of drunkenness 
 are physically less injurious than a course of ordinary dinner- 
 parties ; and we should think the man's conduct in getting 
 drunk worse instead of better if he had carefully taken pre- 
 cautions which would prevent the possibility of his doing 
 mischief or causing annoyance to others while under the influence 
 of his premeditated debauch. Of course in all such cases, where we 
 pronounce a particular kind of pleasure bad, we must remember 
 what was said in dealing with the distinction between higher 
 and lower pleasures. The pleasure taken by itself — in abstraction 
 from the total content of the consciousness enjoying it — cannot 
 possibly have anything bad about it. In the night all cows are 
 black ; when we have made abstraction of all that differentiates 
 one pleasure from another, the abstract remainder must obviously 
 be identical from a moral as from every other point of view. 
 It is really the getting pleasure from such and such things that 
 
 or pains of expectation, imagination, or retrospect — which must themselves 
 come into the calculus. 
 
 H a 
 
lOo INTUITIONISM [Book I 
 
 is pronounced bad in such cases. It is good to be pleased, 
 but not at everything, or under all circumstances, or at all 
 costs. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Our examination of the traditional Intuitionism has thus 
 brought us round to the same position which we arrived at 
 by a criticism of the traditional hedonistic Utilitarianism. We 
 found that the Utilitarians were right in saying that actions 
 are right or wrong according as they tend to promote or to 
 diminish universal Well-being, but we found that they were 
 wrong in thinking that the Well-being of a rational creature 
 consists simply in pleasure, and pleasure measured quantitatively. 
 We saw reason to believe that the very choice of the right and 
 rational course for its own sake was itself a good and the greatest 
 of all goods, and that it is impossible logically to establish the 
 duty of preferring the general pleasure to our own without 
 recognizing the intrinsic value of such a preference of universal 
 good both for ourselves and for others. We saw further that 
 besides this preference of the truly good in conduct or character 
 there were many other elements in the ideal state of a human 
 soul besides the Altruism of its volitions and the pleasantness of its 
 sensations ; and when we faced the question, how we know these 
 things to be good in various degrees, we were obliged to answer 
 ' We know it intuitively or immediately ; we can give no reason 
 why it should be so except that we see it so to be.' So far we were 
 obliged to admit that the Intuitionists were right. We found, 
 however, that the Intuitionists were mistaken in supposing that 
 the moral Reason on which they rightly base our ethical judge- 
 ments either lays down fixed and exceptionless laws of conduct, or 
 issues isolated, arbitrary, disconnected decrees pro re nata without 
 reference to probable results. We saw that fundamentally these 
 moral judgements were judgements of value: they decide what 
 is good, not immediately and directly what is right. Since 
 prima facie it is always right to follow the good, these judge- 
 ments may often in practice condemn this or that kind of conduct 
 so emphatically that we feel sure that no calculation of con- 
 sequences is likely to prevent our turning the judgement 'this is 
 
Chap, iv, § iii] THE MORAL CRITERION loi 
 
 good ' into a judgement 'this is right' : but we saw that theo- 
 retically no single judgement of value can form the basis of 
 a rule of conduct which admits of no axceptions. For moral 
 Reason bids us not only seek to realize the good but to realize as 
 much good as possible, and (if I may anticipate a point which 
 we have not yet estabhshed) to distribute that good justly or 
 impartially between the various persons who may be affected by 
 our actions. We have seen reason, while accepting the intuitional 
 view of the imperativeness of duty and the supreme value of 
 moral goodness, to hold that the law of duty itself requires us to 
 consider the consequences of our actions and to seek to promote 
 for all mankind a fvSaiij,ovCa or Well-being which shall include 
 in itself all the various elements to which moral Reason ascribes 
 value; and include them in such wise that each is accorded 
 its due value and no more than that value. So far we have 
 decided nothing as to what these elements are except that Virtue 
 is the most important of them, that culture or knowledge is 
 another, and that pleasure has a place among them, although 
 some pleasures are bad and the relative value of others has to be 
 determined by a non-hedonistic standard. 
 
 We have begun our study of Ethics with the question of the 
 moral criterion. Logically it might seem that we should have 
 discussed the theory of duty in general before attacking the 
 question how we find out what particular acts or classes of acts 
 are duties. I have adopted the former course because it seemed 
 the best way of showing how impossible it is for the most 
 thorough-going Utilitarian to avoid admitting that this simple, 
 unanalysable notion of duty or the reasonable in conduct does 
 exist, and of illustrating the impossibility of constructing a 
 logically coherent system of Ethics without the assumption that 
 the reasonableness of an act is a sufficient ground for its being 
 done. Before we go further, however, it may be well to dwell 
 at some greater length upon the nature of this fundamental 
 idea ; and the best way of doing so will be by a brief examina- 
 tion of the classical exposition of it contained in the system of 
 Immanuel Kant. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE 
 
 We have seen that there is implied in every ethical judgement 
 the idea that there is something which is intrinsically good, 
 which it is reasonable to do, which is right, which ought to 
 be done. These different modes of expression I regard as alter- 
 native ways of expressing the same unanalysable idea which 
 is involved in all ethical judgements — as much in the Utilitarian's 
 judgement that he ought to promote the greatest happiness 
 of the greatest number as in the Idealist's judgement ' I ought to 
 aim at the greatest Virtue or Perfection for myself or for others.' 
 If any one questions the existence of this idea of rightness, no 
 argument can do more than remove some of the misconceptions 
 which may prevent his explicitly recognizing what is really 
 implied in the workings of his own mind. To attempt this task 
 will be the object of the present chapter. If any one denies the 
 authority or validity (as distinct from the existence) of this idea 
 of duty, such a vindication of its validity as it is possible to give 
 belongs to Metaphysic. The relation of Morals to Metaphysic is 
 a subject on which something must be said hereafter : and yet all 
 that even Metaphysic can do in this connexion is to develope the 
 extravagant consequences in which a man becomes involved if 
 he denies the validity of his own thought. To deny the deliver- 
 ances of our own Reason is to deprive ourselves of any ground 
 for believing in anything whatever. To admit that our Reason 
 assures us that there are some things which it is right to do, and 
 yet to ask why we should believe that those things ought to be 
 done, is to ask why we should believe what we see to be true. 
 
 Sidgwick's account of this idea of duty is so clear and so 
 entirely dissociated from any metaphysical assumptions which 
 
CKap. V, §i] THE IDEA OF DUTY 103 
 
 to some minds might seem difficult or questionable, that I cannot 
 do better than quote him at length : — 
 
 ' It seems then that the notion of " ought ",ov " moral obHgation " 
 as used in our common moral judgements, does not merely 
 import (i) that there exists in the mind of the person judging 
 a specific emotion (whether complicated or not by sympathetic 
 representation of similar emotions in other minds) ; nor (a) that 
 certain rules of conduct are supported by penalties which will 
 follow on their violation (whether such penalties result from the 
 general liking or aversion felt for the conduct prescribed or 
 forbidden, or from some other source). What then, it may be 
 asked, does it import ? What definition can we give of " ought," 
 " right," and other terms expressing the same fundamental notion ? 
 To this I should answer that the notion which these terms have 
 
 in common is too elementary to admit of any formal definition 
 
 The notion we have been examining, as it now exists ^ in our 
 thought, cannot be resolved into any more simple notions : it can 
 only be made clearer by determining as precisely as possible its 
 relation to other notions with which it is connected in ordinary 
 thought, especially to those with which it is liable to be confounded. 
 
 'In performing this process it is important to note and dis- 
 tinguish two difierent impUcations with which the word " ought " 
 is used ; in the narrowest ethical sense what we judge " ought to 
 be" done, is always thought capable of being brought about 
 by the volition of any individual to whom the judgement 
 applies. I cannot conceive that I " ought " to do anything which 
 at the same time I judge that I cannot do. In a wider sense, 
 however, — which cannot conveniently be discarded — I sometimes 
 judge that I " ought " to know what a wiser man would know, or 
 feel as a better man would feel, in my place, though I may know 
 that I could not directly produce in myself such knowledge 
 or feeling by any effort of will. In this case the word merely 
 implies an ideal or pattern which I " ought " — in the stricter 
 sense — to seek to imitate as far as possible. And this wider 
 sense seems to be that in which the word is normally used in the 
 precepts of Art generally, and in political judgements: when 
 
 ' In the sentences omitted the writer explains that he does not exclude 
 the possibility that the notion has been gradually developed. 
 
I04 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I 
 
 I judge that the laws and constitution of my country "ought 
 to be " other than they are, I do not of course imply that ray own 
 or any other individual's single volition can directly bring about 
 the change. In either case, however, I imply that what ought 
 to be is a possible object of knowledge : i. e. that what I judge 
 ought to be must, unless I am in error, be similarly judged by 
 all rational beings who judge truly of the matter ^. 
 
 ' In referring such judgements to the " Reason," I do not mean 
 to prejudge the question whether valid moral judgements are 
 normally attained by a process of reasoning from universal prin- 
 ciples or axioms, or by direct intuition of the particular duties 
 of individuals. It is not uncommonly held that the moral faculty 
 deals primarily with individual cases as they arise, applying 
 directly to each case the general notion of duty, and deciding in- 
 tuitively what ought to be done by this person in these particular 
 circumstances. And I admit that on this view the apprehension 
 of moral truth is more analogous to Sense-perception than to 
 Rational Intuition (as commonly understood) : and hence the 
 term Moral Sense might seem more appropriate. But the term 
 Sense suggests a capacity for feelings which may vary from 
 A and B without either being in error, rather than a faculty of 
 cognition: and it appears to me fundamentally important to 
 avoid this suggestion. I have therefore thought it better to use 
 the term Reason with the explanation above given, to denote 
 the faculty of moral cognition V 
 
 In claiming for the idea of duty not merely existence but 
 authority, we have implied that the recognition that some- 
 thing is our duty supplies us with what we recognize upon 
 reflection as a sufficient motive for doing it, a motive on which 
 it is psychologically possible to act. The recognition of the 
 thing as right is capable of producing an impulse to the doing 
 of it. This impulse need not be strong enough to override other 
 motives, nor need we enter here upon the question in what sense 
 (if any) the choice between this motive of duty and other desires 
 
 ^ Ab a representation of the present ■writer's views this statement of the 
 unanalysable character of the right must be taken to be qualified by what 
 follows (below, pp. 137, 138) as to the relation between this notion and the 
 wider concept of ' good.' 
 
 ^ Methods 0/ Ethics, 6th ed., pp. 31-34. 
 
Chap. V, §i] DICTATES OF REASON 105 
 
 or impulses must be held to depend upon the undetermined choice 
 of the individual at the moment of action. It is enough for our 
 present purpose that on reflection we recognize that the seeing 
 a thing to be right is a reason for doing it, and that in some 
 men at some moments the desire to do what is reasonable or 
 right as such causes the actions to be done. 
 
 Once again I may quote Sidgwiek : — 
 
 'Further, when I speak of the cognition or judgement that 
 " X ought to be done " — in the stricter ethical sense of the term 
 ought — as a " dictate " or " precept " of reason to the persons to 
 whom it relates; I imply that in rational beings as such this 
 cognition gives an impulse or motive to action : though in human 
 beings, of course, this is only one motive among others which are 
 liable to conflict with it, and is not always — perhaps not usually — 
 a predominant motive. In fact, this possible conflict of motives 
 seems to be connoted by the term "dictate" or "imperative"; 
 which describes the relation of Reason to mere inclinations or 
 non-rational impulses by comparing it to the relation between 
 the will of a superior and the wills of his subordinates. This 
 conflict seems also to be implied in the terms " ought," " duty," 
 "moral obligation," as used in ordinary moral discourse: and 
 hence these terms cannot be applied to the actions of rational 
 beings to whom we cannot attribute impulses conflicting with 
 reason. We may, however, say of such beings that their actions 
 are "reasonable," or (in an absolute sense) "right." 
 
 ' I am aware that some persons will be disposed to answer all 
 the preceding argument by a simple denial that they can find in 
 their consciousness any such unconditional or categorical impera- 
 tive as I have been trying to exhibit. If this is really the 
 final result of self-examination in any case, there is no more to 
 be said. I, at least, do not know how to impart the notion of moral 
 obligation to any one who is entirely devoid of it. I think, how- 
 ever, that many of those who give this denial only mean to deny 
 that they have any consciousness of moral obligation to actions 
 without reference to their consequences ; and would not really 
 deny that they recognise some universal end or ends — whether it 
 be the general happiness, or well-being otherwise understood — as 
 that at which it is ultimately reasonable to aim. . . . But in this 
 
io6 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I 
 
 view, as I have before said, the unconditional imperative plainly 
 comes in as regards the end, which is — explicitly or implicitly — 
 recognised as an end at which all men " ought " to aim ; and it 
 can hardly be denied that the recognition of an end as ultimately 
 reasonable involves the recognition of an obligation to do such 
 acts as most conduce to the end ^.' 
 
 These two positions (i) that the rightness of actions is per- 
 ceived immediately by the Reason, (a) that this rightness ought 
 to be and is capable of becoming a motive to the Will, are 
 embodied by Kant in the two famous phrases, the categorical 
 imperative and the autonomy of the will. Duty is a categorical 
 imperative because when a thing is seen to be right, we feel 
 commanded to do it categorically, absolutely, as a means to no 
 end beyond itself. If duty meant merely ' Do this if you want 
 to be happy, or to be perfect, or to go to heaven,' it would be 
 merely a hypothetical imperative: its obligation would depend 
 on our happening to desire the end to which we saw the action 
 in question to be a means. As it is, we feel that the rightness 
 of doing what we see to be our duty is in no way dependent on 
 the presence or absence of any desire or inclination towards what 
 is commanded. It is true that the action cannot be done imless 
 there is an impulse to do what is right or reasonable on our part, 
 but such a desire may be created by the Reason which recognizes 
 the rightness : we desire to do the act commanded (in so far as 
 we do desire it) because it is commanded ; we do not judge that 
 we are commanded to do the act simply because we chance to 
 desire it ^. When then we do a thing because it is right, the will 
 
 ' Methods of Ethics, 6tli ed., pp. 34-5. 
 
 ' It was partly to avoid this implication that Kant refused to speak of a desire 
 to do one's duty, and partly because, as pointed out below, he erroneously 
 assumed that every desire was a desire for pleasure. He therefore spoke 
 of the ' interest ' of Reason in the Moral Law or ' respect ' for the Moral Law 
 as the subjective motive of right conduct. But in his eagerness to assert 
 that Reason immediately moves the will, he has at times the appearance of 
 forgetting (what Aristotle urges against Plato) that bare thought does not 
 initiate action (Sicii/oia avrt] oidiv Kivil) : that moral choice {Ttpoaipia-ts) involves 
 a desire (ope^is) for the end as well as the intellectual perception that an act 
 will promote the end. As von Hartmann puts it, ' Das Pflichtgefuhl ist selbst 
 eine Neigung ' (Das sittl. Bewusstsein, p. 254). Moreover, this habit of speak- 
 ing as if Reason stepped in (so to speak) and worked the human body without 
 
Chap. V, §i] MORALITY A GOOD 107 
 
 is autonomous: it is a 'law to itself.' Though the man feels 
 commanded to do the act whether he likes it or not, it is never- 
 theless the man himself — his own Reason, tie highest part of his 
 nature — which issues the command or makes the law. Hence in 
 the highest sense he is most free when most completely the slave 
 of duty '. 
 
 The two positions in which we have taken Sidgwick as 
 a peculiarly lucid exponent of Kant are in the Philosopher's 
 own writings associated with a third in which his utilitarian 
 disciple does not follow him. To Kant the performance of duty 
 is not merely 'right'; it is the highest 'good' of the agent. 
 Here we have already found reason to believe that Kant is right, 
 and can only refer the sceptic to the testimony of his own con- 
 sciousness. If he denies that he finds in his own consciousness 
 the judgement 'goodness of conduct possesses a higher worth 
 than anything else in the world,' the only way to argue with 
 him would be to try to show that his own actions, or at least 
 his judgements of himself and other men, really imply that he 
 thinks so ; that his approval of himself when he does right and 
 disapproval when he does wrong are quite inexplicable upon the 
 assumption that bad conduct is merely conduct which is irrational 
 from the point of view of Society though wholly rational from 
 his own private point of view. For the man who believes it, the 
 judgement ' Morality is good and the greatest of goods ' or ' the 
 good will is the most important element in the good ' is as much 
 a simple and ultimate deliverance of the moral consciousness as 
 the judgement ' It is right to promote the general good.' 
 
 the intervention of any subjective motive, involved him in much unneces- 
 sarily mysterious language about the Autonomy of the Will. When Kant 
 said that the will is a 'law to itself he meant that in right action Reason 
 is a law to the will ; in fact, according to Kant, the will is Reason, at least 
 when the will is rightly directed. Wrong acts, it would appear, can only be 
 said to be willed, and so to be free, according to Kant, in so far as Reason 
 might have intervened to stop them and did not. But the Psychology of 
 wrong action is one on which Kant is as vague as he is unsatisfactory. 
 
 ^ No doubt in Kant's own view this use of the term ' free ' (in which it can 
 only be applied to right acts) implies also the opposite of ' determined ' or 
 ' necessitated ' (see below, Book III, ch. iii, § i). The double sense in 
 which Kant used the term ' free ' is very clearly pointed out by Prof. Sidgwick, 
 Methods of Ethics, Book I, ch. v and Appendix. 
 
io8 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I 
 
 II 
 
 So far we may regard Kant as having laid down in the most 
 impressive way the principles which must form the basis of every 
 constructive ethical system^. But in Kant's own view these 
 positions are associated with two other doctrines which require 
 further examination. In the first place he assumed that out of 
 this bare idea of a categorical imperative, without any appeal to 
 experience, he could extract a moral criterion, i.e. that he could 
 ascertain what is the actual content of the Moral Law, what in 
 detail it is right to do. Secondly, he assumed that, so far as an 
 act is not determined by pure respect for the Moral Law, it 
 possesses no moral value whatever. Let us examine each of 
 these positions in turn. 
 
 The value of Kant's work consisted very largely in supplying 
 a metaphysical basis for Ethics. So long as it is assumed that 
 all our ordinary knowledge of matters of fact comes from experi- 
 ence of an ' external world,' there is always a sort of suspicion 
 that any kind of knowledge which cannot point to such an origin 
 must be in some sense unsubstantial or delusive. The Critique 
 of Pure Reason demonstrates that in all our knowledge there is 
 an element which is not derived from experience : all knowledge 
 implies ' forms of perception ' and 'forms of understanding' which 
 are a priori, part of the constitution of the mind itself, not 
 supplied to it from without. The matter of sensation is from 
 without, but sense by itself is not thought. I cannot judge of 
 the size and distance of particular objects without a matter 
 supplied by sensible perception : but 1 could not build up these 
 data into the conception of a square table of a certain size unless 
 I had already notions of space, of spacial and causal relations, of 
 
 ' Eant was no doubt wrong in supposing that all other systems but his own 
 were based upon ' heteronomy of the Will.' This is not true of Plato and 
 Aristotle (to say nothing of other ancient writers) whom Kant's education 
 had not qualified him to understand, nor of the Cambridge Platonists and 
 other English Rationalists of whom he appears to have known little or 
 nothing. It was not true of them unless the doctrine of the categorical 
 imperative is distorted into the precept ' Do your duty without considering 
 whether what you are doing is good for any one or not,' and in that sense the 
 idea of Autonomy is, as contended below, indefensible and absurd 
 
Chap.v, §ii] KANT'S MOKAL CRITEEION 109 
 
 substance and accident and the like which do not come from 
 experience ^. In all actual knowledge there must be a matter 
 supplied by experience and a formal element which is a 'priori. 
 But in Morality — in the idea of duty — we are presented with 
 a form which needs no filling up from experience, a form which is 
 (so to speak) its own content, since it is a matter of immediate con- 
 sciousness that this a priori concept of duty can supply a motive 
 to the will. Now in this position a very important truth is (as 
 is almost universally admitted by the most Kantian of modem 
 Moralists) confused with a very serious error. That no experience 
 can prove an act to be right, that no accumulation of knowledge 
 as to what is can possibly give us an ought, is a truth which can 
 only be denied by asserting that there is no meaning in duty or 
 in Morality. Experience of the past may tell us what has been 
 or what wiU be: it cannot possibly tell us what ought to be. 
 That which ought to be is ex vi termini something which as yet 
 is not and which may conceivably never be. In that sense our 
 moral judgements are undoubtedly a priori or independent of 
 experience. But that without any appeal to experience we can 
 get at the content as well as the form of the moral law, can 
 easily be shown to be a pure delusion. Let us see how Kant 
 made the attempt. 
 
 The rules of action which the categorical imperative is sup- 
 posed to give us are the following : — 
 
 (i) 'So act as if the law of thine action were to become by thy 
 will law universal.' 
 
 (a) ' Regard humanity whether in thine own person or in that 
 of any one else always as an end and never as a means only.' 
 
 (3) ' Act as a member of a kingdom of ends ^.' 
 
 ' This is a very inadequate and popular statement, nor do I mean to assent 
 to Kant's idea of a form derived from the mind and a matter derived from 
 some source outside the mind. I have merely endeavoured to explain for 
 the benefit of any one to whom it is unfamiliar Kant's use of the terms 
 ' form ' and ' matter ' so far as is necessary for the comprehension of his 
 ethical position. 
 
 '' Kant nowhere explains the relation in which the three rules are sup. 
 posed to stand towards one another, nor does he ever bring them into close 
 contact with one another ; but in different parts of his ethical writings each 
 one of them is treated as the fundamental principle of Morality. In practice 
 
no THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I 
 
 Let us examine the first of these rules — ' Act as if the law of 
 thy action were to become by thy will law universal.' Now it 
 is quite true that it does follow from the very idea of there being 
 something which it is right to do irrespectively of inclination 
 that this course must, in the same circumstances, be binding 
 upon every one else. And therefore in a sense it is true that no 
 action can be really a moral rule the principle of which could not 
 be universalized. It is good practical advice to urge that when 
 we have to pronounce upon the morality of a proposed act we 
 should ask ourselves whether it represents a principle which 
 we should think it rational to will as a universal rule of conduct. 
 But this is by itself a merely negative test. It gives us no 
 definite information until we have made up our minds as to what 
 it is which makes conduct rational or irrational. We can, indeed, 
 with a little ingenuity extract from it the all-important axioms 
 of Benevolence and Equity : for, if there is something which it is 
 intrinsically right to do, what is right for me would be right for 
 any one else in the same circumstances ^ : hence it must be right 
 for me to treat every other man as it would be right for him to 
 treat me under similar circumstances. If my good is recognized 
 as something which it is intrinsically right for others to promote, 
 the good of each other individual must also be treated as an end 
 the promotion of which I must look upon as incumbent upon me: 
 hence I am bound to promote the greatest good of humanity 
 collectively (the maxim of rational Benevolence), and to treat 
 each individual's good as of equal value with the good of every 
 other (the maxim of Equity). But these rules by themselves 
 will give us no practical guidance till we know what that good 
 is which ought to be promoted by every rational being for every 
 other. 
 
 The Kantian maxim, properly interpreted, thus occupies in 
 
 he uses one or the other of them just as may be most convenient for the pur- 
 pose of proving the particular duty with which he is dealing. 
 
 ' This principle seems to me to require some qualification (see below, 
 p. ii6 note) ; and it is obvious that we have not really got this rule out of the 
 form, for without knowing what sort of being the ' other ' is, and what ' good ' 
 he is capable of, we cannot say what that good is worth — unless, indeed, we 
 make it mean simply an individual's good must be of as much value as the 
 like good of any other individual. 
 
Chap. V, §ii] INADEQUACY OF KANT'S EXILE iii 
 
 Ethics the same position which the law of contradiction holds in 
 Logic ^. The law of contradiction is a negative test of truth : it 
 tells us that two judgements which contradict one another cannot 
 both be true, but as to which judgements in particular are true, it 
 will give us no information : only, when I know that judgement A 
 is true, it will tell me that judgement B, being inconsistent there- 
 with, cannot also be true. In the same way the Kantian rule 
 tells us that a genuine ultimate rule of conduct must not only be 
 logically consistent with itself, but also be such as that all its 
 prescriptions shall be consistent with all other ethical rules. The 
 supreme ethical precept must consist of an harmonious and self- 
 consistent system of precepts. It need hardly be said that this 
 by itself is a most important negative test of ethical truth. It 
 gives us the principle upon which alone inference or reasoning 
 (as distinct from immediate judgements of Reason) is possible in 
 Ethics. The fact that something is a part of the true ethical 
 rule supplies, if we assume this principle to be self-evident, 
 a demonstrative proof that some precept inconsistent with it 
 cannot be a part of it^. But as to what rule of action in 
 particular is reasonable, it gives us no information whatever. 
 If we interpret the rule of acting on a principle fit for law 
 universal as equivalent to Sidgwick's three ethical axioms — of 
 
 ^ This interpretation of Kant is well insisted on by Sigwart [Logic, E. T., 
 ii. p. 543 seq.). Sigwart would call the principle in question a postulate : 
 I should venture to regard it as both a postulate and an axiom. It ought 
 not to be denied by any one who is not prepared to question the validity of 
 all thinking. Mr. Bradley is so far consistent that he accuses thought as 
 well as Morality of internal inconsistency. Some of his followers (in Ethics) 
 have been less logical. Mr. Bradley is only following out his own principle 
 to its logical conclusion when, in his frequent polemics against Casuistry, 
 he denies apparently the possibility of any inference whatever in the ethical 
 sphere (see below, Bk. Ill, ch. vi). It is enough for our present purpose to 
 insist that the self-evident axioms of Ethics and the inferences based upon 
 them have as much validity as any other parts of our thinking. 
 
 ^ It will be observed that I am speaking of elements in the supreme 
 ethical rule, not elements of the end. The end itself must not contain 
 intrinsically incompatible elements, but in particular circumstances ele- 
 ments of the end are often incompatible : but the ethical rule says ' in 
 that case promote the good which is of most intrinsic value.' Even the good 
 may, and obviously does, contain elements which cannot all be enjoyed by 
 the same persons. 
 
iia THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I 
 
 Benevolence, Equity and Prudence — we shall get rules for the 
 promotion and distribution of the good or ultimate end, but no 
 information as to what particular things are good : and, until we 
 know that, we cannot get any principles from which we can 
 deduce the right course of conduct in any one single case. If 
 with Sidgwick (who could quote much in Kant himself to 
 support this interpretation) we made ' good ' in this connexion 
 equivalent to ' pleasure,' and interpreted our rule to mean ' pro- 
 mote universal pleasure and distribute it equally,' we should 
 obviously have gone beyond the mere a priori formal rule. 
 We should have appealed to experience — an appeal which our 
 categorical imperative was intended by Kant to exclude. The 
 judgement ' Happiness ought to be promoted ' is no doubt in 
 a sense a priori, but not in the sense that no information derived 
 from experience is necessary to its being made. Kant himself 
 admits that the concept of happiness is of empirical origin i. 
 Experience must tell us what happiness is before we can judge 
 happiness to be good. Still more obviously experience is wanted 
 to tell us what particular goods constitute happiness, or what are 
 the means to procure those goods. It might be thought that 
 Kant could get a content for the Moral Law by holding 
 that the true good of man is simply Morality, a concept which 
 might be said to be of purely a priori origin, and that we should 
 find out what particular actions are right by considering what 
 actions would promote universal Morality. But here again, if the 
 concept of the end is in a sense purely a priori, experience is 
 needed to tell us the means ; and Kant has incapacitated himself 
 from adopting this solution of the problem by the exaggerated 
 Libertarianism which made him pronounce an action due to 
 another's influence to be not truly ' free,' and therefore without 
 moral value ^. Consequently, he pronounced that it was im- 
 
 ' ' All the elements wliich belong to the notion of happiness are altogether 
 empirical, i.e. they must be borrowed from experience' (Grundlegung zur 
 Met. d. Sitten, § 2, translated by Abbot in Kant's Theory of Ethics, 4th ed., 
 1889, p. 35). 
 
 '^ Meiaph.Anfangsgi'unde d. Tugendlehre, Einleitung, § iy seq. (Abbot, p. 296). 
 But this is qualified (hardly consistently) by the admission of a negative duty 
 towards the moral well-being of others, i. e. not to create temptations (Abbot, 
 p. 304). 
 
Chap.v, §ii] FITNESS FOR LAW UNIVERSAL 113 
 
 possible for one man to make another's moral good his end. 
 Hence if Virtue is by itself to constitute the end, it must be 
 the man's own virtue that he must treat .as his end. To tell 
 a man to make his own virtue an end will not tell him what 
 to do until he knows what acts it is virtuous to perform, and as 
 to this the formula that what is right for him is right for others 
 wiU give him no information whatever. How then did Kant 
 attempt to extract out of the bare form of the Moral Law 
 a knowledge of the particular actions which are right or wrong? 
 It is impossible to maintain that Kant gives a clear and con- 
 sistent meaning to his own dictum. Sometimes the irrationality 
 of willing the universal adoption of the immoral course appears 
 to turn simply upon the fact that the social consequences to 
 which the adoption of such a will would lead are consequences 
 which no rational man could regard as good. We cannot will 
 universal promise-breaking because in that case no promises 
 would be made, and at times the irrationality of willing such 
 a consequence seems to turn upon its injurious social eiFects. 
 Still more clearly when Kant pronounces that we cannot 
 rationally will the non-development of our faculties, the irra- 
 tionality of such a course is made to depend simply upon the 
 fact that the rational man actually regards this non-development 
 as bad and their development as good^. Here the appeal to 
 
 ' ' A third ' [the first two cases are suicide and breach of promise] ' finds 
 in himself a talent which with the help of some culture might make him a 
 useful man in many respects. But he finds himself in comfortable circum- 
 stances, and prefers to indulge in pleasure rather than to take pains in 
 enlarging and improving his happy natural capacities. He asks, however, 
 whether his maxim of neglect of his natural gifts, besides agreeing with 
 his inclination to indulgence, agrees also with what is called duty. He sees 
 then that a system of nature could indeed subsist with such a universal law 
 although men (like the South Sea islanders) should let their talents rust, 
 and resolve to devote their lives merely to idleness, amusement, and 
 propagation of their species — in a word, to enjoyment ; but he cannot 
 possibly will that this should be a universal law of nature, or be implanted 
 in us as such by a natural instinct. For, as a rational being, he necessarily 
 wills that his faculties be developed, since they serve him, and have been 
 given him, for all sorts of possible purposes ' (Grundlegung, § 4 : Abbot, p. 40). 
 I pass over the objections (i) that elsewhere the development of faculties is 
 not regarded by Kant as an ultimate good, the only ultimate goods being 
 Virtue and Happiness ; (2) that Kant relies upon teleological assumptions 
 
 BABHDALL t I 
 
114 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I 
 
 consequences which can only be known by experience is scarcely 
 disguised : the a priori judgement relates simply to the goodness 
 or badness of the end. But Kant was able to conceal from him- 
 self the necessity of this appeal to experience, because in certain 
 carefully selected instances he was able to point to the appear- 
 ance of internal contradiction in the reverse of the accepted 
 rule^ We cannot rationally will that men shall break their 
 promises, because in that case no promises would be made ; and 
 we cannot rationally will something to be done which will make 
 it impossible to observe the very rule which we will. In a society 
 in which there were no promises, it would no longer be possible 
 to observe our proposed rule of universal promise-breaking ; if 
 no promises are made, none can be broken. Now even here it is 
 evident that Kant falls back upon his experience of human 
 nature to tell him what will be the consequences of his act: 
 but still he might maintain that, given this much experience, the 
 contradiction is self-evident. Yet it is easy to show that absence 
 of contradiction, in this sense, would be a very irrational test of 
 conduct. Kant himself appears to concede that there would be 
 no internal contradiction in willing that all men should leave 
 their faculties undeveloped. Nor would there be any internal 
 contradiction in adopting as our rule of action the promotion of 
 universal misery, or at least of the maximum of misery which 
 should be consistent with the continued survival of the human 
 race. That is, indeed, according to some Pessimists, precisely the 
 end which is actually realized in the world as we know it. 
 
 And, just as we hold many acts to be wrong which involve no 
 internal contradiction, so there are many things which we pro- 
 nounce right in spite of such contradiction. Kant tells us that 
 we cannot rationally will universal promise-breaking, because the 
 universal adoption of such a rule would lead to a state of things 
 in which the rule ' Break your promises ' could no longer be 
 observed. We must not commit suicide, because if every 
 
 to which he was not entitled: he had no right (from his point of view), to 
 assume that our faculties were ' given ' us for any reason whatever. 
 
 ' It is true that even in the selected cases the contradiction is not really 
 internal. It is the actual structure of human society which makes the 
 suggested rule unworkable. 
 
Chap. v,§ii] TEST OF NON-CONTEADICTION 115 
 
 one did so, there would soon be nobody left to practise the 
 virtue of suicide. Then are we, it may be asked, to deny that 
 Philanthropy is a duty because the uiliversal practice of 
 a reasonable Philanthropy would lead to a state of things in 
 which there would be no poor upon whom to practise that virtue? 
 Shall we refuse to bless the peacemaker, because if every one 
 shared his disposition, there would be no quarrels to adjust? 
 And then, again, how unreasonable is the alternative with which 
 we are presented — either to will universal suicide and universal 
 lying, or to forbid each of these practices in any circumstances 
 whatever ! As reasonably might we pronounce Kant's own 
 celibacy a crime because universal celibacy would rapidly 
 extinguish the human race and (consequently) the practice of 
 celibacy. 
 
 It is true that the emergence of an internal contradiction (in 
 Kant's sense) in any suggested moral rule does show that we 
 have not reached an ultimate principle of conduct. We can, 
 indeed, put such rules as ' Give to the poor ' into a universal 
 form by making them hypothetical : ' So long as there are any 
 poor, relieve them ; ' but so might we say, ' So long as there are 
 any human beings alive, let them commit suicide.' Still, the 
 fact that the rule is only applicable to a particular set of cir- 
 cumstances does show that we have not reached an ultiimate 
 principle. The rule, 'Be charitably disposed,' may, indeed, be 
 universally willed : but then Kant's object in applying his test 
 of fitness for law universal is to supply a guide for the details 
 of outward conduct, not for mere dispositions and intentions, 
 and this purpose is not served by such generalities as these. 
 And even in this case there is really a reference to the physical 
 constitution of human beings which is known to us only from 
 experience. We might interpret charity to mean ' a disposition 
 to promote good,' but the absence of internal contradiction will 
 not tell us what good is. Moreover, as has already been pointed 
 out, although an ultimate moral principle must be free from 
 internal contradiction, it is impossible to deny that many im- 
 moral principles might very well be universalized without leading 
 to any such contradiction. The structure of the Universe and of 
 human nature is quite as consistent with the non-development 
 
 I 3 
 
ii6 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I 
 
 as with the development of human faculties. And if the 
 criterion is not of universal application, how are we to know 
 when to apply it, and when not ? 
 
 The fact is that Kant appears to have confused two distinct 
 senses of the term ' categorical.' When he sets forth that it is 
 of the essence of every moral law to be categorical, he means 
 that it must admit of no exception due to the subjective dis- 
 inclination of the individual for the course of action which it 
 prescribes. We must not say, ' I admit Temperance or Veracity 
 to be right in a general way : only I personally happen to have 
 such a rooted antipathy to Temperance or Veracity, or whatever 
 it be, that I must regard myself as an exception to the general 
 rule.' To talk in that way no doubt destroys the very nature of 
 a Moral Law. It is an essential characteristic of the Moral Law 
 that whatever is right for me must be right for every man in 
 precisely the same circumstances ^. But when Kant tries to 
 make out this mere unconditionality of a rule an absolute test 
 of its reasonableness, he has to assume that the categorical 
 character of an imperative excludes the possibility of an ex- 
 ception based not on the mere subjective disinclination of the 
 individual, but on the nature of the case. He does not see that 
 the rule ' Do this except in such and such circumstances ' is just 
 as ' categorical ' and just as little ' hypothetical ' as the rule 
 ' Do this under all circumstances whatever,' so long as the 
 exceptions are recognized as no less universal in their applica- 
 tion, no less based upon the reason and nature of things, than 
 the original rule. Kant in fact confuses the inclusion of an 
 exception in a moral rule with the admission of an exception to 
 a moral rule. He does not recognize that the difference between 
 a rule with an exception and a grammatically categorical rule is 
 often a purely verbal one. The precept ' Do no murder ' admits 
 of no exceptions, because ' murder ' means ' killing except in such 
 and such circumstances.' The rule 'Thou shalt not kill' hfis 
 exceptions. So the rule ' Lie not ' could be represented as equally 
 
 ' That we can only hold this principle by including in the ' circumstances ' 
 the man's own character and disposition (other than an indisposition to 
 perform what has once been proved to be his duty), I have contended below 
 in the chapter on ' Vocation ' (vol. ii, oh. iv). 
 
Chap. V, §ii] QUESTION OF EXCEPTIONS 117 
 
 'categorical' if there were as clear a usage in favour of the 
 proposition that a legitimate untruth is no lie, as there is in 
 favour of the proposition that in certain aircumstances killing 
 is no murder. We are obliged sometimes to express a moral rule 
 in the form of a general command with an exception simply 
 because the enumeration of the circumstances to which the rule 
 is inapplicable is shorter and more convenient than an exhaustive 
 enumeration of all the cases to which it is applicable. And it 
 is clear that every rule, however general, implies some set of 
 circumstances in which alone it is capable of being applied. 
 The duty of not committing adultery is only applicable to the 
 relations between two persons of whom one at least has a lawful 
 spouse, and it is obvious that this term ' lawful ' postulates 
 a larger number of highly complicated social arrangements, 
 about which there is by no means a universal consensus, and 
 which the most enthusiastic Kantian could hardly attempt to 
 determine on any a priori principle. Either, then, we must say 
 that every possible rule really involves a hypothesis under which 
 alone it is applicable; or we may say that every moral law 
 excludes all exception if only you put it into a sufficiently general, 
 and a sufficiently internal, form, 'Kill not' has exceptions: 
 ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself ' (properly understood) 
 has none ^. But, in whichever way it is put, it is plain that we 
 can get no criterion of Morality out of the presence or absence 
 of exceptions. ' Kill not ' has exceptions, and yet (subject to the 
 exceptions) is accounted a good moral principle. On the other 
 hand, ' Thou shalt love thy friend and hate thine enemy ' does not 
 appeal to us as the highest morality, in spite of its being quite 
 as categorical as the Christian precept. 
 
 Kant's attempt to extract an ethical criterion out of the bare 
 form of the Moral Law is the more remarkable, because he did not 
 hold (as he is sometimes supposed to do) that there is no other 
 rational end of action except the bare performance of duty. 
 
 • ' The Moral Law, we may say, has to be expressed in the form, " Be this," 
 not in the form, " Do this." The possibility of expressing any rule in this 
 form may be regarded as deciding whether it can or cannot have a dis- 
 tinctively moral character. Christianity gave prominence to the doctrine 
 that the true moral law says "hate not," instead of "kill not'" (Leslie 
 Stephen, Science of Ethics, 1882, p. 155). 
 
ii8 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I 
 
 Had he held that view, it would have become fairly impossible 
 for him even to have persuaded himself that he had discovered 
 in the bare form of the law any content for the idea of duty ^. 
 If a man is to perform his duty, he must know what that duty 
 is ; and the mere knowledge that, when he has discovered what 
 his duty is, it is a thing categorically commanded does not help 
 to find out what it is. It is impossible, in short, to show the 
 rationality of one course of action rather than another until we 
 have admitted that something else besides the performance of 
 duty — some objective good other than the state of the will — 
 is a rational end of action or possesses value ^. And Kant did 
 admit that there is such another rational end of action — which 
 
 ^ Dr. Lipps {Die ethischen Orundfragen, 1899, p. 158 seq.) has attempted to 
 clear Eant of the imputation that his categorical imperative has no content 
 by suggesting that the content is supplied by all our natural desires and in- 
 clinations : the moral law simply prescribes the way and extent to which they 
 should be indulged. I believe that this is very largely the explanation of 
 Kant's own view of the matter, but it is open to the objection that it allows 
 all actual tendencies of human nature ('aller moglichen menschlichen 
 Zwecke ') to be indulged in proportion to their actual strength, except in so 
 far as their indulgence interferes with the indulgence of other such ten- 
 dencies in ourselves and in other individuals. It is obvious that we should 
 have to appeal to experience to know what is the relative strength of these 
 tendencies ; and, after all, it supplies us with a very unsatisfactory test of 
 their relative value. If only the tendency to opium-smoking were sufiSoiently 
 strong in a whole community, the Kantian principle (as interpreted by 
 Dr. Lipps) would make universal opium-smoking a categorical imperative. 
 
 ^ Lotze, the last man in the world to sanction vulgar Hedonism, has said : 
 ' There is nothing at all in the world, which would have any value until it 
 has produced some pleasure in some being or other capable of enjoyment. 
 Everything antecedent to this is naught but an indifferent kind of fact, to 
 which a value of its own can be ascribed only in an anticipatory way, and 
 with reference to some pleasure that is to originate from it' (Practical 
 Philosophy, Eng. Trans, by Ladd, p. 19). I believe this statement might 
 be defended, since (a) pleasure is an element in all ultimate good. (6) Lotze 
 has not said that the value lies exclusively in the pleasure abstracted from 
 the other elements of consciousness, or that it is to be measured by the 
 amount of that pleasure. But his statement seems to me liable to mis- 
 understanding. On the other hand, it is surprising to find Lotze admitting 
 that ' the effort to hold fast pleasure, or to regain it, and to avoid pain, are 
 the only springs of all practical activity ' {Microcosmus, E. T., i. p. 688), but 
 here again the taint of Hedonism is removed by a recognition of differences 
 in the quality of the pleasure. 
 
Chap. v,§m] DUTY FOR DUTY'S SAKE 119 
 
 possesses worth, not indeed ' absolutely and unconditionally,' but 
 on one condition — that it does not interfere with Virtue. And 
 that other end is Happiness. From this p^ition it would seem 
 logically to follow that the true criterion would be the tendency 
 of an action to promote for all mankind Happiness in so far as 
 is compatible with Virtue. This would supply us with a quite 
 intelligible and workable view of the moral criterion, and it 
 would correspond roughly with the actual deliverances of the 
 moral consciousness. That it is an inadequate view of the 
 ultimate end of human life, I have already attempted to show ; 
 and its deficiencies will be further illustrated when we pass on 
 to the other mistaken assumption, from which I am anxious to 
 dissociate Kant's fundamental doctrine of a categorical im- 
 perative. 
 
 Ill 
 
 That duty should be done for duty's sake we have seen to be 
 really implied in the very notion of there being such a thing as 
 duty. But it does not follow that the desire to do one's duty 
 must always be the sole and exclusive motive of right conduct, 
 or that conduct not consciously inspired by respect for the Moral 
 Law as such must possess no moral value at all. Yet such was 
 the assumption of Kant himself. To Kant the most unselfish ^ 
 devotion to wife or child, the most ardent patriotism, the most 
 comprehensive philanthropy, possessed no more moral value than 
 the purest avarice or the most unmitigated selfishness. Unless 
 the man loves, or rather behaves as though he loved (since love, 
 he holds, cannot be commanded) wife, or country, or humanity 
 simply from an actual, conscious respect for the Moral Law, his 
 conduct is worthless — not necessarily wrong (for it is not a crime 
 to promote one's own happiness when duty does not forbid), but 
 entirely without moral value. The will that wills from pure 
 love of the brethren is morally on a level with the will that 
 wills from pure love of self. It is of no more value than the 
 
 ' I speak popularly: to Kant there could be no such thing as an 
 ' unselfish ' love of anything except duty, and even that could only be 
 ' respected,' not ' loved.' To Kant (in his stricter moments), as to Bentham, 
 Benevolence not inspired by pure sense of duty was merely a love of 
 benevolent pleasure. 
 
lao THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I 
 
 behaviour of an animal. Such is the revolting and inhuman 
 Stoicism to which Kant's ideal logically leads. It is, as Schopen- 
 hauer puts it, the ' apotheosis of lovelessness, the exact opposite, 
 as it is, of the Christian doctrine of Morals^.' In well-known 
 lines the poet Schiller makes the disciple of Kant complain : 
 
 Gladly, I serve my friends, but alas I do it with pleasure. 
 
 Hence I am plagued -with the doubt that I am not a virtuous person: 
 
 in reply to which the answer given is : 
 
 Sure, your only resource is to try to despise them entirely, 
 And then with aversion to do what your duty enjoins you''. 
 
 Nor can it be alleged that Kant has any desire to conceal this 
 result. He holds ex professo that all desire is bad. 'The in- 
 clinations themselves being sources of want, are so far from 
 having an absolute worth for which they should be desired, that 
 on the contrary it must be the universal wish of every rational 
 being to be wholly free from them ^,' We might ask in what, 
 according to Kant, happiness is to consist? Happiness, as we 
 know it, arises entirely from the satisfaction of desires*, and 
 happiness is admitted to be a rational end of action ; how then 
 can the desires be consistently treated as a mere encumbrance 
 which the rational man would fain be without? But it is 
 enough to point out the utter discrepancy between the Kantian 
 dogma and the strongest moral convictions of mankind. The 
 ' common-sense ' philosophy of Bishop Butler is here a far better 
 exponent of the moral consciousness. Insisting as strongly as 
 Kant upon the claims of Conscience, he yet recognizes that 
 Conscience does not prescribe this total suppression of all other 
 ' passions, propensions, or affections.' It rather pronounces that 
 some of the desires ought to be encouraged, some suppressed, 
 others moderated or controlled, and all subordinated to Benevo- 
 lence and self-love — the two great rational impulses which 
 make for the good of ourselves and our fellow men ^, And in 
 
 ' Ueber die Grundlage der Moral, § 6 {The Basis of Morality, trans, by 
 A. B. Bullock, 1903, p. 49). He goes on to call it a piece of ' stupid moral 
 pedantry ' {taktlosen moralischen Pedantismus). 
 
 ^ From Die Philosophen. ' Grundlegung, § 2 (Abbot, p. 46). 
 
 * Including the desire of pleasure. 
 
 " I do not mean to accept this as a fuUy adequate account of the matter. 
 
Chap.v, §iii] THE MOEAL MOTIVE 121 
 
 this teaching Butler was only developing the principles of 
 Aristotle who (amid many retrogressions) advanced beyond 
 Plato just by his recognition of the faat that desire is as 
 essential an element of human nature as Reason ; that the raw 
 material (so to speak) of the sublimest virtues and of the 
 coarsest vices is the same, that natural impulses are good or evil 
 just according as they are or are not controlled by the ideals 
 which Reason sets up \ Granted fully that an act may be done 
 from the bare sense of duty, from a desire which is created 
 solely by our conviction that a certain course is intrinsically 
 right or reasonable, this is not in most cases an adequate 
 analysis of a good man's motives. In most of his acts the good 
 man is doing something towards which he has some inclination 
 apart from the consideration that it is his duty. He works for 
 wife and children because he loves them : he speaks the truth 
 because he feels an instinctive repulsion for a lie : he relieves 
 suffering because ' he cannot bear ' to see another man in pain. 
 It is rather in the selection of the right one from among the 
 many impulses by which his will is from time to time solicited, 
 and in the reinforcement of it when it is absolutely or relatively 
 too weak, that the ' sense of duty ' need come into play ^. It is 
 only perhaps at rare crises in the moral life, when duty calls 
 for some great sacrifice or commands resistance to some great 
 temptation, that the ' sense of duty ' becomes the one all- 
 sufficient motive present to the consciousness. It is no doubt 
 eminently desirable that the sense of duty should be always 
 present in the background or, as the Psychologists have called 
 it, the ' fringe ' of consciousness * ; that Reason should be (so to 
 speak) a consenting party to all our actions, however strongly 
 prompted by natural impulses, and be ready to inhibit even the 
 noblest and most generous of them when it threatens to oppose 
 
 unless tlie idea of Benevolence and that of self-love have been understood 
 in a non-hedonistic sense. 
 
 ' Cf. below, p. 153 sq. 
 
 " Dr. Martineau's Ethics have the merit of developing this idea : but he 
 exaggerates when he denies that the love of duty or desire ' to do what is 
 right and reasonable as such,' can ever be a ' spring of action ' at all {Types 
 of Ethical Theory, 3rd ed., ii. p. 279 sq.), 
 
 ' Cf. James, Psychology, i. 258 sq., 471 sq., &c. 
 
123 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I 
 
 itself to duty's call. But, even when this is not the case, even 
 when in a particular act or in the general tenour of a man's 
 life conscious and deliberate respect for the Moral Law as such 
 cannot be said to occupy this paramount and predominant 
 position, we do not in fact regard the act or the character of 
 such a man as entirely destitute of moral value. We may regard 
 his defective sense of duty as a moral defect or shortcoming, 
 but we do not regard him as on a level with the selfish 
 pleasure-seeker. It would be a violent perversion of psycho- 
 logical fact to represent that every man who works hard and 
 resists temptations to self-indulgence from love for his wife and 
 children, or from a zeal for his profession, is inspired by pure 
 respect for the abstract Moral Law; it would be a perversion of 
 moral fact (attested in the only way in which moral fact can be 
 attested, by the evidence of consciousness) to say that such 
 conduct is morally worthless i. To do so would involve the 
 denial of moral value not only to much of the normally good 
 conduct of average civilized men, and to all the more elementary 
 morality of children or savages (to whom the idea of a Moral 
 Law or an abstract ' duty ' can hardly be said to have occurred), 
 but also to some of the very noblest acts of generous but one- 
 sided and imperfect characters. 
 
 The source of Kant's ethical mistake must be sought in his 
 defective Psychology. He assumed, as completely as Hobbes or 
 Locke, that the motive of every action is pleasure except in one 
 case. Reason had, he thought, the power of arbitrarily inter- 
 posing, and acting directly upon the man's will, by laying upon 
 him a categorical command to do this or abstain from that : 
 but, except when and in so far as the man was influenced by 
 pure respect for such injunctions, his will was always under the 
 influence of pleasure and pain. Apart from the power of inter- 
 position accorded to this deus ex machina, the categorical 
 
 ^ It would perhaps be consistent with Kantian principles to say that the 
 act possesses some moral value because there is some respect for the moral 
 law ; but this explanation does not really express the facts. The man is 
 possibly not thinking of the Moral Law as such at all (I have explained below 
 that he may nevertheless recognize that there is something intrinsically 
 good in his love for wife and children), and yet we do recognize that the 
 disinterested aflfection by itself gives the act moral value. 
 
Chap.v, §iii] KANT'S PSYCHOLOGY 123 
 
 imperative, Kant was a psychological Hedonist. Moreover, he 
 assumed that an action determined by self-interest was com- 
 pletely 'natural,' that the motives of the Calculating pleasure- 
 seeker were the same in kind as the mere animal impulses of the 
 savage or even the beast. He would probably have explained 
 the behaviour of animals as due to the pursuit of pleasure. He 
 did not recognize the high degree of abstraction, the high intel- 
 lectual and moral development, which is implied in the deliberate 
 pursuit of so ideal an object as ' maximum pleasure ' or ' happi- 
 ness ' in general. Kegarding all desire as desire for pleasure, 
 and the desire of pleasure as merely ' natural,' he was obviously 
 unable to recognize any difference in moral value between one 
 kind of desire and another. Benevolence and malevolence 
 were simply different forms of pleasure-seeking. From the point 
 of view which we have adopted we are able to recognize that the 
 value of the desire depends upon the nature of the objects desired. 
 We can pronounce, and as a matter of fact the moral conscious- 
 ness does pronounce, that devotion to the family or the tribe 
 is a higher and nobler motive of action than devotion to one's 
 own good, love of knowledge better than love of sensual indul- 
 gence, indignation against cruelty or injustice better than resent- 
 ment provoked by jealousy. We may, therefore, ascribe moral 
 value to a man's acts in proportion as they are inspired by a 
 desire of objects which Reason pronounces intrinsically good, 
 although the man may not pursue them consciously because 
 Reason pronounces those objects to be good — still less because 
 Reason pronounces the acts to be right apart from their tendency 
 to gratify a desire for the objects. In proportion as the moral 
 consciousness is developed, or at all events in proportion as the 
 man's intellectual development allows his morality to become 
 self-conscious and reflective, the intrinsic value of the objects which 
 he pursues is recognized with increasing distinctness and abstract- 
 ness ; and this recognition brings with it reinforcement of the 
 higher impulse as against the competing desires which might 
 otherwise take its place. Some degree of this consciousness 
 of value is no doubt necessary to make it a motive which can 
 fairly be described as a higher desire at all. The most rudimen- 
 tary family affection implies a certain consciousness (wholly 
 
124 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I 
 
 unanalysed no doubt) of the claims or rights or intrinsic worth 
 of other persons, and of the consequent superiority of such an 
 impulse to mere sensual desire — a consciousness -which is not 
 present in the maternal impulses of the lower animals, in which 
 naturalistic writers have seen realized their highest ideal of conr 
 duct. But even in highly developed moral natures, and in some 
 of the highest actions of such natures, it is often impossible 
 to discover the conscious presence in any high degree of respect 
 for the abstract idea of duty or the Moral Law as such. The 
 philanthropist is carried away by an enthusiasm of humanity 
 which does not stop to ask whether to relieve suffering or to fight 
 against oppression is or is not contained in the categorical 
 imperative of Reason. And such zeal for the things contained 
 in the law we certainly pronounce morally good, however little 
 conscious reference there may be to the law which contains 
 them. 
 
 IV 
 
 And from this point of view the thought may occur to us : 
 ' if good conduct implies only desire for objects which Reason 
 can recognize as good, why do we need the " sense of duty " 
 or the categorical imperative at all?' May we not say with 
 Aristotle that a man is not really good unless he likes the things 
 that another may recognize as constituting his duty, or even go 
 beyond Aristotle (who did insist that in developed Morality there 
 should be a conscious recognition that the things desired were 
 good), and say 'It is nobler to be so fired by the thought of 
 tyranny and injustice and suffering, so to feel others' wrongs 
 as though they were one's own, that the question never arises at 
 all whether it is a duty to fight against them, or even whether it 
 be Kakov to do so ? Would it not show a positive defect in the 
 man's character if he should decline to make a sacrifice which 
 the good of his family demanded till he had calmly reflected that 
 it was a dutiful or a beautiful thing for him to do ? Is it not 
 better to be socially useful because one loves one's neighbours as 
 oneself than to regard them with indifference, and yet to feed 
 or serve them only because it is one's duty ? ' 
 
 We are here in the presence of something like an antinomy. 
 
Chap.v, §iv] THE MORAL MOTIVE 125 
 
 On the one hand, it does seem nobler to love the things contained 
 in the law than to do good things unwillingly because we feel 
 bound to obey the law as such. On the |)ther hand, it seems 
 diiBeult to admit that there can be any nobler motive than 
 devotion to duty as such, or that there can be a perfect character, 
 or even a perfect act, in the inspiration of which such devotion 
 has no place. 
 
 The solution of our difficulty seems to lie in a consideration 
 which we have hitherto neglected. It is quite true that an 
 action may be good which is done from the love of some good 
 object. The poor man who shares his scanty dinner with a still 
 poorer friend has certainly done an act possessing moral worth. 
 The scholar who ' scorns delights, and lives laborious days ' from 
 sheer love of Learning is not to be treated as on a level with the 
 mere sensualist because he is not habitually inspired by reflection 
 on the duty of research, or even because he may be seriously 
 wanting in devotion to many kinds of social good. But love 
 of any particular good object is always liable to interfere with 
 the promotion of some other, and, it may be, more important 
 good. Love of Learning is good, but the scholar in whom that 
 passion extinguishes all others may become selfish and inhuman, 
 if all social impulses are stifled in its pursuit. Nero's love of Art 
 was a redeeming feature in his character, but the fact (if it 
 be a fact) that he ' fiddled while Rome was burning ' was rather an 
 aggravation than an extenuation of his callous indifierence to 
 human sufiering. Enthusiasm for some particular cause is good, 
 if the cause be a righteous one ; but the root of all fanaticism 
 lies in a devotion to some single good which extinguishes all 
 scruple or respect for rules no less essential to human Well-being 
 than Temperance or the influence of the Church or even the con- 
 version of sinners. Unselfish affection or loyalty to particular 
 persons or societies is good ; but the morality of the man who 
 surrenders himself to it without restraint may degenerate into 
 mere honour among thieves. Family afiection may steel the 
 heart against the claims of a wider humanity. Even a genuine 
 Patriotism may produce absolute blindness to the plainest dic- 
 tates of Humanity or international Justice. And so on. Now 
 duty means, as we have seen, precisely devotion to the various 
 
ia6 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I 
 
 kinds of good in proportion to their relative value and impor- 
 tance. No one then can be trusted at all times and in all 
 circumstances to attribute to each good precisely its proper 
 degree of worth in whom there is not strong devotion to that 
 supreme good in which all others are summed up. It is not 
 necessary that a man should make the sense of duty the sole 
 motive of all his conduct, provided it is always ready to inhibit 
 an action the moment he sees any reason for believing that it is 
 contrary to his duty. The conscientious man will not seek 
 actually to substitute the sense of duty for other motives of con- 
 duct, because he will recognize that many of the commonplace 
 actions of life are better performed from some other impulse, 
 and that the cultivation of altruistic or ideal impulses is actually 
 a part of that ideal of human character which duty bids him 
 promote in himself as in others. He will eat his breakfast from 
 force of habit or because he is hungry ; the sense of duty will 
 only be ready, in the background of consciousness, so to speak ', 
 to stimulate him when appetite fails or to inhibit him when some 
 call of duty demands the suspension or omission of that meal on 
 a particular morning. He will select things to eat and drink 
 because he likes them, provided that he is always ready to 
 modify his choice when there is reason to believe that what 
 he likes is unwholesome or too expensive. He will labour for 
 the good of his family because he cares about it as much or more 
 than he does for his own good, but the sense of duty will always 
 be ready to remind him of the claims of the workmen or the 
 
 ' There is considerable ethical importance in the modem Psychologist's 
 recognition that we do not think of one thing or ' idea ' at a time, but that 
 while the centre of consciousness may be occupied by some idea, there is 
 a ' fringe ' of other ideas present with various degrees of clearness and dis- 
 tinctness (like the object lying on the outside of the fringe of vision, e. g. 
 persons of whose presence we are conscious without actually looking at 
 them sufficiently to know who they are). An idea present in the ' fringe ' 
 of consciousness can always become the central object of the mental vision 
 when occasion arises for it. The good man will always have the sense of duty 
 somewhere in the fringe of his consciousness. This view is not inconsistent 
 with the doctrine strongly insisted on by many Psychologists that we can only 
 attend to one 'object ' at a time ; but at all events such an ' object ' may in- 
 clude many 'ideas' (in James's sense) which maybe the object of different 
 degrees and kinds of attention. 
 
Chap. V, §iv] THE MORAL MOTIVE 127 
 
 customers whom his methods of business may prejudice. He 
 will throw himself into the work of a profession, because he 
 likes it, because he is ambitious of success, recognition, oppor- 
 tunities of more interesting or more important work and the 
 like ; but he will be ready to listen to the faintest whisper 
 of a suspicion arising in his mind that the path of ambition and 
 the path of real social duty have begun to diverge. The Priest 
 will devote himself heart and soul to the good of his parish 
 simply because he wants to see his flock happier and better. He 
 will do his work all the more efiectively the more completely 
 he identifies their well-being with his own, the more he takes 
 delight in his occupation ; but the sense of duty will always 
 be ready to press upon his attention the more disagreeable or the 
 more unpopular duty, to suggest the claims of study to the un- 
 studious, the claims of his poor to the man whose heart is in 
 books, the claims of rest or reflection or devotion when absorp- 
 tion in work threatens to dry up the foundations of thought 
 and of feeling. In proportion as a man's habitual desires or 
 'interests' are identifled with some wider form or element of 
 human good, the danger of collisions between various forms 
 of good — the difference, so to speak, between devotion to a par- 
 ticular end and devotion to the good in general — may tend to 
 disappear. The sense of duty may be less needed as check or as 
 spur to the man of ardent temperament, absorbed in self-denying 
 philanthropy, than it is to the average man whose habitual 
 energies are divided by a remunerative profession and an 
 affectionate family. But it is unnecessary to illustrate the 
 possibilities of moral aberration which attend upon devotion 
 to every form of good less than the whole. 
 
 And where there is devotion to the whole of human good, 
 to the ' matter ' of the Moral Law, to every kind of good object 
 in due proportion to its intrinsic worth, need there then be any 
 thought of the ' form ' at all 1 Is the idea of ' duty for duty's 
 sake ' part of the highest ideal of character or is it always a note 
 of imperfection? The question is not an easy one, for every 
 term that we use in speaking of such matters is a more or less 
 ambiguous one : but I would suggest the following outline 
 of an answer: — 
 
128 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I 
 
 (i) Goodness in the narrower moral sense — the right direction 
 of the will — is itself the greatest of goods, and must always 
 be paramount in the ideal man; but the ideal man will care 
 about many other things besides the right direction of his own 
 and other people's wills — knowledge, beauty, particular persons, 
 social intercourse, various pleasures in proportion to their intrinsic 
 value. It is scarcely possible that he should acquire this habitual 
 right direction of the will without more or less consciously 
 thinking of it ; but, in so far as he does come to love the things 
 prescribed by Reason, respect for duty as such will tend to pass 
 into a sense of the relative value of the goods which he loves, and 
 to lose that abstractness, and also that sense of constraint and 
 obligation, which are elements in the sense of duty as understood 
 by Kant and his followers. At bottom the sense of duty is the 
 due appreciation of the proportionate objective value of ends. 
 In this sense alone is the ' feeling of obligation ' an ultimate and 
 indispensable element of the moral consciousness ^. 
 
 (2) Since the various ends the promotion of which constitutes 
 the content of the Moral Law are all resolvable into some state of 
 conscious beings, it may be said that an ideal love of mankind 
 would supersede all sense of duty as such, provided that this love 
 of persons be taken to include a desire of various goods for them 
 in proportion to their relative value, and in particular a pre- 
 dominant desire for their moral Well-being. In this sense it may 
 be said that ' perfect love casteth out fear ' — even of the Moral 
 Law — and constitutes by itself, in the strictest possible sense, 
 ' the fulfilment of the law.' At its highest the sense of duty 
 is identical with the rational love of persons (including in due 
 measure self-love), and the things which constitute their true 
 good. 
 
 (3) For a mind which believes in the existence of a Person 
 whose will is absolutely directed towards the true good, the love 
 of such a Person, the conscious direction of the will towards the 
 end which He wills, absorbs into itself the sense of duty. The 
 love of God is the love of duty with the added intensity both of 
 intellectual clearness and of emotional strength which arises from 
 
 ^ ' Une conscience morale n'aboutit pas a la formula : je dots faire ceci, 
 mais k la formule : ceci est & faire ' (Bauh, L'Expirience morale, p. 32), 
 
Chap. V, § v] SCHOPENHAUER'S CRITICISM 139 
 
 the conviction that an ideal is also already real. How far and 
 in what sense the belief in such a Person must be considered as 
 involved or implied in the idea of an objective Morality, is 
 a question which must be considered hereafter. Meanwhile 
 I notice merely as a psychological fact that in the religious 
 consciousness the idea of Duty may lose those aspects and 
 associations which often cause a revolt against the idea of 
 a categorical imperative. 
 
 Kant's categorical imperative has been justly (in some of 
 its aspects) ridiculed by Schopenhauer as a mere survival from 
 the lowest form of the ' servile ' theological Morality which 
 he professed to have abandoned. 'Whether he calls his fetich 
 categorical imperative or Fitziputzli,' makes no difference 1. 
 It was the survival of the drill-sergeant Theology of eighteenth- 
 century Prussia with the drill-sergeant turned into an abstraction. 
 In depersonalizing his imperative and cutting it adrift from its 
 connexion with the real world as a whole, life as a whole, good 
 as a whole, he reduced it to something arbitrary, abstract, almost 
 inhuman. Repersonalize it, regard it as the reflex in the human 
 soul of the Will which wills the supreme good of humanity, and 
 the categorical imperative loses aU those features which tend to 
 present it as an emotion incompatible with and inferior to the 
 other impulses or emotions which may inspire men to right con- 
 duct. To the Christian or the Theist with a worthy idea of 
 God the love of goodness is no longer distinguishable from the 
 love of the concrete good which forms the content of the divine 
 Will as of aU good human wills. 
 
 How far the love of goodness, whether or not embodied in 
 a Person, can supersede in the actual conditions of human life 
 the sense of effort, of struggle, of sacrifice commonly associated 
 with the aspect of Morality embodied in the term Duty, is 
 another question to which we must return hereafter. If the 
 sense of duty be really the sense of the relative value of ends, 
 it is obvious that some sense of constraint or ' obligation ' must 
 always be connected with the idea of duty, so long as any of 
 * Grwndlage der Moral, § 6 (E.T., p. 50). 
 
 RABUDA1.L 1 K 
 
I30 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I 
 
 the ends which we rationally desire are incompatible with the 
 attainment of any other such ends which we either desire or 
 feel that we ought to desire. Meanwhile, I may notice the close 
 connexion between the two great defects in the Kantian ethical 
 system which have been pointed out — the harsh ' dualism ' of his 
 view of human good and his erroneous doctrine as to the motives 
 of moral conduct. The ethical criterion to which the Kantian 
 system logically points, and which Kant at moments seems on 
 the verge of deliberately adopting, is the tendency of actions to 
 promote a Well-being or evbaiiiovCa in which there are two 
 elements, (i) Virtue or the performance of duty, (a) Happiness 
 conceived of as mere pleasure. This view has been criticized as 
 inadequate, and it might be possible to enlarge upon the harsh 
 psychological dualism which it involves. It cuts human nature 
 into two halves which have no connexion with, or relation to, or 
 influence on one another. Between these two elements in the 
 ideal human life there seems to be nothing in common : nay, 
 there is at least the appearance of actual irreconcilability between 
 them. In so far as a man succeeds in finding happiness in his 
 work, his Virtue, it might seem, must suffer ('but alas! with 
 pleasure I do it ') ; in so far as he lives for duty, considered as 
 something opposed to his inclinations, he will tend to be unhappy^. 
 Happiness, according to Kant, has value, but no moral value : 
 the work of Virtue on the other hand seems to consist precisely 
 in its tendency to thwart those natural impulses in the satisfaction 
 of which ordinary happiness consists. Now the moment it is 
 recognized that other desires exist besides the respect for the 
 Moral Law on the one hand and pleasure on the other, that 
 these desires may have very various degrees of moral value, that 
 Reason does not condemn or supersede but only regulates desire, 
 that pleasure is good or bad according to the nature of the desire 
 from the gratification of which it springs, — both the inadequacy 
 and the dualism disappear. Virtue no longer seems to consist in 
 thwarting all the other impulses of our nature: happiness is 
 no longer destitute of moral value when it arises from the 
 satisfaction in due degree of all the desires which possess an 
 intrinsic worth of their own, a value which may often be superior 
 
 ■ No doubt Kant often repudiates this deduction from his principles. 
 
Chap.v, §vi] USE HUMANITY AS AN END 131 
 
 to the value which they possess as mere sources of pleasure. The 
 conditions of human life may prevent the actual attainment 
 of this ideal reconciliation, but there is no necessary or invariable 
 antagonism between the two ends ; they tend to pass into a single, 
 internally harmonious and self -consistent, ideal of life. 
 
 VI 
 
 It may be desirable to add a word about the second of the 
 three moral criteria put forward by Kant — the rule 'Use 
 humanity whether in thine own person or in that of any other 
 always as an end, never as a means only.' It is the principle 
 less frequently insisted on in Kant's own writings, and its 
 relation to the other is not very precisely determined. He uses 
 it chiefly to prove the immorality of suicide and of sexual 
 transgression. There can be no question of the deep moral 
 significance of the principle, but it is too vague to be really 
 of any use as a moral criterion without knowledge of a kind 
 which cannot be extracted out of the formula itself. "We must 
 know what is the true end of human life before we can tell 
 whether a certain course of conduct does or does not involve 
 treating humanity only as a means. Now Kant (as we have 
 seen) only recognizes two ends in human life — one primary, i. e. 
 Morality, the other secondary, l e. happiness. On Kant's view 
 of Free-will it is impossible to make another man immoral or less 
 moral. Hence it would seem that he has no right to condemn 
 conduct towards another for any other reason than its interference 
 with his other end — happiness. And this is clearly not always 
 done by the kind of conduct which he has in mind. Nor, even 
 if this consideration be waived, can he show that the conduct 
 which he condemns involves using the body of another, or one's 
 own, as a means, any more than much conduct which no one 
 could describe as immoral. I am using a porter's body as a 
 means when I employ him to carry trunks for me, and there 
 is nothing immoral in my doing so. I am not using him ordy as 
 a means, if I pay him for his work and treat him as a moral 
 being no less entitled to a share in all the true goods of life than 
 myself. Kant never said anything so absurd (though he is 
 constantly cited as doing so) as that we should never use 
 
 K a 
 
132 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I 
 
 humanity as a means, but only that we should never use it as a 
 means without using it also as an end, and it is impossible (apart 
 from some conception of a concrete end or good of human life) to 
 show that sexual immorality might not be equally compatible 
 with a like recognition of others' claims. We should only have 
 to insist on just and considerate treatment of those who have 
 been called the 'priestesses of humanity^.' The one kind of 
 exchange of services is, on Kant's premisses, exactly on a level 
 with the other. Kant's real feeling was no doubt that the 
 conduct in question was inconsistent with a true ideal of the 
 relations between man and woman, but it was impossible for 
 him to prove that inconsistency so long as he narrowed his 
 conception of the ideal human life down to the performance of 
 social duty on the one hand and the indiscriminate enjoyment 
 of pleasure on the other. It is not the treating of humanity 
 as a means that strikes us as wrong (for that might quite well 
 be compatible with recognizing it also as an end), but the 
 treating of humanity as a means in this particular way, as 
 a means to such and such a kind of sensual pleasure, to such and 
 such an end in which Reason can find no value. It is only 
 because we have judged already that such treatment is a degrada- 
 tion of humanity that we pronounce it to be using humanity 
 ' only as a means.' 
 
 Once again, we see the impossibility of reducing moral 
 judgements to a merely intellectual, non-moral principle; of 
 getting a criterion out of mere formal conceptions, which take 
 no account of the content or intended consequences on which 
 depends all the morality or the immorality of our actions. Mere 
 universality or freedom of contradiction is no test of goodness or 
 badness. The judgement of value cannot be reduced to any 
 other sort of judgement — a judgement of formal consistency or 
 a judgement as to the relation between ends and means, 
 which takes no account of the character of those ends. It 
 
 ' Eant has specially in mind the case of certain other kinds of sexual vice, 
 and there his contention would be still more hopeless, if -we assume that 
 happiness (= pleasure) is the only end except duty considered simply as 
 the promotion of pleasure for others {Tugendlehre, Th. I. § 7, Semple's 
 Translation, 3rd ed., 1871, p. 240). 
 
Chap, V, §vii] THE KINGDOM OF ENDS 133 
 
 is only in estimating the value of an end that the moral Reason 
 really comes into play. Abstract the form of the law from the 
 matter of it, and there is nothing left on .which a judgement of 
 value can be passed. A rule of action is not moral because it is 
 consistent, unless it consistently conduces to an end in which 
 Peason can recognize value ; neither is the making of humanity 
 a means immoral unless the end to which it is a means be one 
 which Reason refuses to recognize as part of the true end for 
 man. The non-recognition of this principle involved Kant in 
 the absurdity of gravely questioning whether it was lawful to 
 cut one's hair, and of solemnly pronouncing the conduct of 
 a woman who cuts off her hair to sell it — irrespectively of the 
 motives for which she wants money — not ' altogether devoid of 
 blame ^.' Such a verdict will probably fail to commend itself to 
 readers of Mr. Marion Crawford's touching 'Cigarette-maker's 
 Romance.' 
 
 VII 
 
 It has generally been recognized that the best expression 
 of Kant's fundamental ethical principle is to be found in his 
 third rule — ' Act as a member of a kingdom of ends ' : that is to 
 say 'Act in such a way as to treat thyself and every other 
 human being as of equal intrinsic value ; behave as a member of 
 a society in which each regards the good of each other as of 
 equal value with its own, and is so treated by the rest,' in which 
 each is both end and means, in which each realizes his own good 
 in promoting that of others. That such an ideal of human 
 Society must, as far gjs it goes, be approved by the moral con- 
 sciousness, follows from what has been already said : but, 
 considered as a guide to the details of conduct, it suffers from 
 the same fatal ambiguity as the preceding formulae. There 
 is no sufficient definition or explanation of this good of others 
 which we are to promote. We have still got nothing but a ' form ' 
 without any content. If we fill up the deficiency from other parts 
 of Kant's system, and interpret each man's end as ' goodness + 
 happiness,' that (as has been explained) gives us an intelligible, 
 but a rough and inadequate, criterion of Morality : and on that 
 
 1 Tmgendlehre, Th. I. § 6 (Semple, p. 239 sj.). 
 
134 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I 
 
 interpretation, which in many passages would appear to be 
 Kant's own ^, we must cast to the winds the whole of his 
 elaborate attempt to get at the details of conduct without 
 appeal to experience or calculation of consequences, and to ex- 
 hibit that good will as actuated by the mere form of a universal 
 law without any regard to the content or matter of it. 
 
 In truth there run through the whole of Kant's ethical teach- 
 ing two inconsistent and irreconcilable lines of thought — one 
 of which is the basis (though only the basis) of all sound 
 ethical theory ; while the other has proved the fruitful parent 
 of every extravagance, superstition, and absurdity by which 
 the scientific study of Ethics has been, and still is, impeded. 
 Every formula of Kant's may be interpreted, and at times 
 appears to be interpreted by himself, in each of these opposite 
 ways. 'Duty is a categorical imperative.' That may mean 
 'there is a right course of action which is intrinsically right 
 and reasonable for every man whether he Ukes it or not,' and 
 that is simply an analysis of what duty means to any one to 
 whom it means anything at all. Or it may mean 'there are 
 certain acts which we recognize as being right to do without 
 thinking of the ends (social or otherwise) which they will tend 
 to realize,' than which no better definition could be given of 
 the irrational in conduct. ' Duty for duty's sake ' may mean 
 that ' we should pursue the good or intrinsically valuable end 
 just because it is good,' or it may mean that we should act 
 without reference to an end at all. 'Act on a principle fit 
 for law universal ' may mean ' Pursue the ends which Reason 
 
 1 ' The realization of the summum honum in the ■world is the necessary 
 object of a will determinable by the Moral Law' (Kritik d. prahtischen 
 Vemunft, Dialektik, Pt. II, § 4, p. 262, and Abbot, p. 218). ' Now inasmuch 
 as virtue and happiness together constitute the possession of the summum 
 bonum in a person, and the distribution of happiness in exact proportion to 
 morality . . . constitutes the summum bonum of a possible world ; hence 
 this summum bonum expresses the whole, the perfect good' (Dialektik, 
 Pt. II, Abbot, p. 206). Of course, in so far as Eant did not recognize that 
 the good will means the will that wills the promotion and just distribution 
 of happiness, he was still liable to the criticism that he has provided 
 no means of determining what will is moral : but on the whole it would 
 seem that in such passages as the above he meant to define virtue as the 
 willing of acts tending to promote happiness and the just distribution of it. 
 
Chap. V, § viii] GOOD AND RIGHT 135 
 
 pronounces to be intrinsically valuable for others no less than 
 for thyself,' or it may mean ' Make the avoidance of internal 
 inconsistency the criterion of thy conduct.'* ' Treat humanity as 
 an end and never merely as means ' inay mean ' Regard the true 
 Well-being of every man as possessing an intrinsic worth,' or 
 it may mean ' Regard it as beneath thy dignity to be of use 
 to the society in which thou livest, and indulge in phantastic 
 scruples about things which do no real harm to thyself or 
 anybody else.' The ' kingdom of ends ' represents simply a com- 
 bination of the two last maxims, and is liable to the same charge 
 of ambiguity ; though of all the formulae employed by Kant it 
 is the one which lends itself most readily to the more rational 
 interpretation. 
 
 VIII 
 
 One more way of expressing our criticism upon the Kantian 
 system shall be attempted, because it will supply a convenient 
 opportunity of giving a definite answer to an ethical question 
 of fundamental importance — the question which is the logically 
 prior conception, the idea of ' good ' or the idea of ' right.' Kant 
 never thoroughly made up his mind about this question. He 
 always started with the idea of ' right ' ; and all his difficulties 
 arose from the attempt to give a meaning to, and to find 
 a content for, this idea of 'right' without appealing to the 
 idea of ' good.' In our view the idea of ' good ' or ' value ' is 
 logically the primary conception, though psychologically the 
 idea of ' right ' may often in modem men be the more early 
 developed. That action is right which tends to bring about the 
 good. There is no attempt here to get rid of the ultimate 
 unanalysable 'ought.' The good is that which 'ought' to be'. 
 
 ' Such a statement is in no way inconsistent with the doctrine which 
 I fully accept, that the word ' good ' is indefinable : we can only biing out 
 the real meaning of the idea by the use of words which equally imply the 
 notion. ' Good,' ' Ought ' (when applied to ends), ' Value,' ' the End ' I regard 
 as synonymous terms. Mr. Moore, in his recent Principia Ethica, has done 
 well to emphasize in a very striking manner that ' good is indefinable ' ; but 
 when he goes on to say (p. 17) ' and yet, so far as I know, there is only one 
 ethical writer, Prof. Henry Sidgwick, who has clearly recognized and stated 
 this fact,' I cannot admit the historical accuracy of his statement. To say 
 
 t I 
 
136 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I 
 
 The difference between the two terms is this : that the term 
 ' right ' is applicable only to voluntary actions ; the term ' good ' 
 is applicable to many things besides acts. Entirely apart from 
 the question, ' who caused such things 1 ' I judge that pain or 
 discordant music or ugly pictures (i.e. of course the enduring 
 of pain by conscious beings, the listening to discords or the 
 contemplation of bad pictures by conscious beings) are bad 
 things. They seem to me bad whether they arise from chance 
 or necessity or voluntary action. Only because I have so judged 
 is there any ground for the judgement ' it is right, in so far as 
 it is possible to get rid of these things ' ; but, whether they can 
 be got rid of or not, they are equally bad ^. The will that 
 
 nothing of writers who (hke Mr. Moore and myself) learned the doctrine 
 largely from Sidgwick, I should contend that it was taught with sufficient 
 distinctness by Plato (whatever may be thought of his further attempt to 
 show that only the good has real existence), Aristotle, and a host of modern 
 writers who have studied in their school— by no one more emphatically than 
 by Cudworth. The only criticism which I should make upon Mr. Moore's 
 exposition of it is that he ignores the other ways in which the same notion 
 may be expressed, and in particular the correlative notion of 'right' or 
 ' ought.' He is so possessed with this idea that the ' good ' is indefinable that 
 he will not even trouble to expound and illustrate it in such ways as are 
 possible in the case of ultimate ideas. 
 
 ' The non-recognition of this principle (so fully admitted, as we have 
 seen, by Lotze) is to my mind the leading defect in the Bishop of Clogher's in 
 many respects admirable Short Study of Ethics (2nd ed., 1901). Bishop d'Arcy 
 fully appreciates the defects of Kant's ' formalism,' and of the attempt to 
 pronounce acts right or wrong without regard to consequences known to us 
 from experience : yet we find him asserting ' the end, or good, of man is man 
 doing, the concretion of man and the world. This concrete activity is the 
 only thing which can be called good in itself (pp. 16&-9), and 'the only 
 true good is to be good in the sense of performing the good act ' (p. 277). 
 Such statements seem to me to imply a reversion to Kant's attempt to say 
 that to cause toothache is wrong without having first decided whether tooth- 
 ache (however caused) is or is not a bad thing. And it goes beyond Kant in 
 pronouncing that nothing but a moral act is good at all. Wundt seems to 
 me equally open to criticism, when he talks about happiness as being ' not 
 an end in itself, but a by-product of moral effort ' (Ethics, Eng. Trans., iii. 
 p. 90), or about an ' objectively worthless sum of individual happinesses ' 
 (ib., p. 83). It is curious that so modem and ' scientific ' a Moralist as 
 Wundt should be almost the only living thinker of high eminence who out- 
 kants Kant in his view of the exclusive value of a moral end, which, how- 
 ever, is to him not so much the perfection of individual wills as a vague and 
 impersonal ' progress of humanity.' 
 
Chap. V, § viii] THE IDEA OF VALUE 137 
 
 deliberately causes or refuses to fight against such things may 
 be, and I believe is, a worse evil than the pain or the bad music 
 or the ugly pictures. But unless these ftiings were evils, the 
 will that refused to remove them would not be evil either ; its 
 acts would not be acts of a wrongly directed will. Kant generally 
 ends by coming round to this view — that the right or rational act 
 is the act which wills the good. Unfortunately he did not see 
 that with that admission his attempt to avoid the appeal to 
 experience completely breaks down. It is possible, though it 
 is irrational, to will particular acts without attending to the 
 consequences which experience shows likely to result from 
 them ' ; it is impossible to pronounce that something is good 
 until one knows what it is. No experience will tell us what 
 is good unless we include in our idea of ' experience ' an un- 
 avowed judgement of value ; but without experience of what 
 a thing is it is impossible to say whether it is good or not. It 
 is obvious that this necessity of experience for sound ethical 
 judgements goes a long way to explain the actual divergences 
 of moral codes. When the Caliph Omar (if the story be not 
 a myth) ordered the Alexandrian library to be burned, it is 
 probable that he knew very imperfectly what the Alexandrian 
 library or any other library really was. I do not deny that 
 there might be fanatics who knowing a good deal about the 
 contents of these books would still have ordered them to be 
 burnt ; but it is probable that a more extensive acquaintance 
 with their contents would have modified the Caliph's judgement. 
 The consistent Kantian, i. e. a disciple of Kant in his most 
 logical but least rational movements, ought to be able to say 
 whether they should be burned without knowing what sort of 
 books they were or even that they were books at all. 
 
 Our moral judgements are ultimately judgements of Value. 
 The fundamental idea in Morality is the idea of Value, in which 
 the idea of ' ought ' is implicitly contained. The advantage in- 
 volved in the use of the term ' value ' lies in its freedom from 
 
 * Strictly no doubt there must be some feature in the act known to us to 
 account for our choosing it, but the motive might be the simple desire to act 
 without further reflection— the 'pure cussedness' from which, indeed, it is 
 so hard to distinguish the motive of the ideal Kantian, when Kantism is 
 understood on its irrational side. 
 
138 THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE [Book I 
 
 many of the exaggerations and mystifications which have some- 
 times created a prejudice against the term ' ought,' even in 
 minds which have no prejudice against the reality which it 
 signifies. The idea of ' good ' and the idea of ' right ' are, as 
 it seems to me, correlative terms. It is implied in the idea of 
 ' good ' that it ought to be promoted ; the idea of ' right ' is 
 meaningless apart from a ' good ' which right actions tend to 
 promote. If, finally, we ask what is the relation of the idea 
 of value to the idea of ' moral ' value, I should answer that all 
 that has value has moral value, in the sense that it must be moral, 
 in due proportion to the amount of that value, to promote it ; but 
 by moral value we generally mean the particular kind of value 
 which we assign to a good character. That value is, as I believe, 
 the greatest of all values. Pleasure is a good, and it is right for 
 a man to promote it in himself as in others. We assign value 
 to the pleasure, but we do not assign any particular value to 
 the acts or to the characters from which it springs, since this 
 promotion of private pleasure does not necessarily indicate 
 a good character, and even the promotion of the highest ends 
 may have no moral value when the promotion of such ends 
 forms no part of the man's motive; only when we recognize 
 a man's conduct as exhibiting the preference of the good because 
 it is the good or the preference of some higher to some lower 
 good for its own sake do we assign to it the peculiar kind and 
 degree of value which we usually term moral value ^ 
 
 ' I have in this chapter for the most part avoided all criticism of sides of 
 the Kantian Ethics which could not be discussed without reference to the 
 defects of the metaphysical system with which they are so closely con- 
 nected. Even Kant's purely ethical position I have only examined so far as 
 seemed desirable as a means of helping forward my own argument. 
 
CHAPTER yi 
 
 REASON AND FEELING 
 
 In the preceding chapters I have assumed that Kant is right 
 in making Morality to be essentially rational, in holding that 
 moral approval is a judgement of the Intellect, not a feeling 
 or an emotion. This position seems now to require some further 
 justification than it has yet received, and this justification may 
 perhaps best take the form of a reply to the objections which 
 are commonly made to it. The reply will be one which may 
 be thought to involve considerable qualifications of the creed 
 known as ethical Rationalism as represented by such men as 
 Clarke in the seventeenth century and by Kant and other 
 modern Idealists. 
 
 The most obvious form which objections are likely to take 
 will be something of this kind: Does not common opinion 
 recognize that Morality is an aflfair, not of the head, but of the 
 heart? Are not our moral perceptions attended with a glow 
 and warmth of feeling which is entirely absent from our 
 perception (say) of a mathematical truth ^? Are not good 
 men very often stupid and bad men often intellectual ? If we 
 admit that there is an intellectual element in what is commonly 
 called Conscience, must we not at least say with Bishop Butler 
 that Conscience is neither merely ' a sentiment of the under- 
 standing ' nor ' a perception of the heart,' but ' partakes of the 
 nature of both ^ ' ? 
 
 ' Cf. the passage quoted from Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, below, 
 p. 165. 
 
 ' Dissertation of Virtue. This change from the more rationalistic position 
 of the Sermons was perhaps due to the influence of Hutcheson. He now 
 uses the term ' moral sense ' as a synonym for Conscience. 
 
140 REASON AND FEELING [Book I 
 
 The common objections seem to imply several misconceptions — 
 misconceptions, however, for which the exaggerations of Kant 
 and other ethical Rationalists are, it must be admitted, largely 
 responsible. In the first place, when it is held that moral 
 judgements are given by Reason, we do not imply that their 
 rationality is the sole reason for the acts being done. Un- 
 doubtedly it is possible to see that an act is right with absolute 
 clearness and not to do it — nay, to feel practically little or 
 no disposition to do it. Even when an act is done out of 
 pure ' respect ' for a recognized duty, there must at least be 
 present a ' desire for what is right and reasonable as such ' 
 (to use Professor Sidgwick's phrase) or the duty will not be 
 done. And we have seen reason to hold that Kant was wrong 
 in insisting that this rational desire is or ought to be the sole 
 motive which impels us to the performance of good actions. 
 It has been admitted that normally the ends prescribed by 
 the Practical Reason are objects of desire for their own sake, 
 that actions directed towards such ends may possess moral 
 value even when the thought of an abstract law does not 
 enter into the agent's consciousness at all ; and that even 
 the best actions of the best men are commonly influenced 
 by other desires besides bare respect for duty. Now when 
 Conscience presents itself as partly an ' emotion of the heart,' 
 the term is probably used to include not merely the perception 
 of what is right but also the impulses which cause what is 
 right to be done — to include at least the ' respect ' or love for 
 the good and perhaps also the whole of those benevolent or 
 other higher afiections and emotions which are approved by 
 the moral Reason as motives to action^; while the question 
 at issue between ethical Rationalists and their opponents is 
 simply the question ' by what faculty or part of our nature 
 do we discover that an act ought to be done ? ' 
 
 It may further be admitted that the judgements of Practical 
 
 ^ ' The single act of conscience may be a feeling, an emotion, an impulse 
 or a judgment ' (Wundt, Ethics, Eng. Trans., vol. iii, p. 60). Wundt is 
 surely wrong in making Conscience or avveiSrjtTis mean originally a ' knowing 
 with God,' instead of an ' inner ' or ' self-knowledge.' The word, it is signifi- 
 cant to observe, is first found in the generation immediately after Aristotle — 
 a period of great progress both in ethical feeling and ethical theory. 
 
Chap, vi, §i] THE MORAL FACULTY 141 
 
 Reason normally create a more or less powerful impulse towards 
 the performance of what they enjoin; and, in those who are 
 powerfully influenced by such judgements, they are undoubtedly 
 accompanied by an emotion of a kind which is wholly absent 
 from mere mathematical judgements. Still, it is possible to 
 distinguish between the judgement that the act is right and 
 the emotions by which that judgement is accompanied. It 
 will perhaps be contended that in some persons who would 
 commonly be described as very good men emotion of one 
 kind or another is so obviously the main inspirer of their 
 conduct that it is difficult to detect any intellectual judgement 
 at all. And it may be admitted that as a matter of psychological 
 fact the process by which many people come to attach the idea 
 o'f rightness to particular kinds of conduct is almost entirely 
 an emotional one : but still I should contend that, in so far 
 as the idea of goodness or rightness forms the object of that 
 emotion, the intellectual judgement must necessarily be there. 
 This liability to be influenced or even wholly determined by 
 emotional causes is no peculiarity of ethical judgements. All 
 sorts of psychological causes may be at work in inducing a man 
 to accept a particular theory as to the causes of the French 
 Revolution; but the most prejudiced and passionate view of 
 the matter and the most calm and scientific would be alike 
 impossible to a man whose consciousness did not contain 
 the intellectual concept or category of Causality. Nobody 
 would ever dream of describing such a historical judgement as 
 itself a mere emotion. Just in the same way, emotion may inspire 
 particular judgements of right and wrong, but it could not 
 create the idea of ' right ' or of ' good.' Even in those cases 
 where the actual motive is most clearly emotional, some per- 
 ception of the goodness of the act may be said to enter into 
 the exciting cause of the emotion, or the emotion may be said 
 to be accompanied by a judgement of its own value. A man 
 may devote himself enthusiastically to some philanthropic object, 
 from a passion excited by the abstract idea of Justice, or he may 
 be moved by a pure love of humanity which is nevertheless 
 accompanied by the judgement that it is good to feel such a love. 
 In some cases one, in others the other may seem to be the more 
 
143 REASON AND FEELING [Book I 
 
 appropriate mode o£ statement, but the two kinds of judgement — 
 the judgement which ascribes value to the emotion and the 
 judgement which ascribes value to an object and by so doing 
 excites the emotion which leads to action — run into one another. 
 All that is necessary to contend for at present is that judge- 
 ment and emotion are logically distinguishable, and that the 
 judgement of value does more than merely record the fact of 
 the emotion being felt. 
 
 II 
 
 When the popular unwillingness to recognize the rational 
 character of our moral perceptions assumes the form of a philo- 
 sophical theory, it tends to pass either into the theory of a 
 'moral sense' or into the theory of a moral 'faculty called 
 Conscience ' which is represented as wholly sui generis — distinct 
 alike from intellectual judgement and from any kind of feeling 
 or emotion. Let us briefly examine each of these views. 
 
 In the writings of John Locke the Rationalism of Cumberland 
 and the Cambridge Platonists had degenerated into mere theo- 
 logical Utilitarianism. Locke continued to use the old language 
 about Morality being rational ; but in him that language had 
 come to mean almost the opposite of what it was originally 
 intended to mean. The appeal to Reason was intended as an 
 answer to Hobbes, and now Reason was used in a sense in 
 which Hobbes himself would have had no objection to base 
 Morality upon it. By Reason was no longer meant a faculty 
 which originates the idea of something intrinsically good in 
 itself, and which pronounces what things are intrinsically 
 good, but merely the faculty which connects ends and means ^. 
 
 ' Exception may be taken in some quarters to the use of the word 
 ' faculty ' at all in this connexion. The word has fallen into disfavour 
 partly because by a certain school it has been used to suggest the idea of 
 a definite number of mental activities sharply distinguishable from and 
 independent of each other — planted, as Plato would have said, as it were 
 ' in a wooden horse,' to the ignoring of the unity of self-consciousness, and 
 partly because the invention of a specific faculty has often taken the place 
 of logical or psychological analysis of complicated mental processes. I hope 
 I have sufBciently guarded myself against these mistakes. But to prescribe 
 altogether the use of the word ' faculty ' is to fall into the very superstition 
 which the denouncers of it have in view. Whatever we do, there must be 
 
Chap, vi, §ii] THE MORAL SENSE THEORY 143 
 
 To Locke Virtue was rational because it could be demonstrated 
 that without it a man will infallibly go to Hell. Hence in 
 men like Shaftesbury and Hutcheson we find a recoil from 
 a way of thinking which seemed to make Morality a mere 
 matter of selfish calculation. It was thought that Morality 
 would be all the safer if it were removed altogether from the 
 jurisdiction of the intellect, and placed under the control of 
 'the heart.' Moreover, these men shared, or at least had in- 
 completely shaken ofi", the metaphysical presuppositions of the 
 Master against whose Ethics they had revolted. Experience, 
 by which was practically meant sensation, was regarded as the 
 sole source of knowledge. If, therefore, Morality was to be shown 
 to be something real, it must, it seemed, be revealed to us by 
 some kind of feeling or sensation. Yet to base Morality upon 
 the deliverances of the ordinary sensibility, upon the pleasures 
 and pains of the bodily senses, meant of course Hedonism 
 pure and simple. To avoid this consequence they invented 
 a special sense which was to be the source of our moral know- 
 ledge, just as sight is the source of our colour-perceptions and 
 hearing of our sound-perceptions. Morality was made to rest 
 (like aU our knowledge) upon a kind of feeling; only it was 
 a specific feeling. Moral approbation was a feeling wholly 
 sui generis, arising from the contemplation of good acts; dis- 
 approbation a feeling similarly arising from the contemplation 
 of bad acts. Not to insist on the complete want of analogy 
 between the bodily senses and this organless sense of Morality, 
 all such schemes are open to one insuperable objection. If 
 moral approbation is a mere feeling, how can it claim any 
 superiority over other feelings? Granted that it gives me a 
 pleasant feeling to do a kind action, and that it causes me 
 a particular kind of discomfort to tell a lie, that may be 
 a very good reason under normal circumstances for my doing 
 the one and avoiding the other. But supposing I do not happen 
 to be sensitive to this particular kind of feeling, or supposing 
 I am so constituted that a violation of some social conventionality 
 
 a faculty or capacity (Simius) of doing it. In asking what is the moral 
 faculty, I mean only to ask by which of the distinguishable activities of the 
 single self-conscious self our ideas of right and wrong are to be referred. 
 
144 REASON AND FEELING [Book I 
 
 shocks me more than a moral offence^, why shoTild I attach 
 any paramount importance to this particular feeling of moral 
 disapprobation ? I may have a certain capacity for the pleasures 
 of whist, but I do not feel bound to play it if I like reading 
 a novel better. If we grant that immorality does normally 
 cause me mental or emotional distress and discomfort of a 
 particular kind ; still under particular circumstances Morality 
 may cause me more pain and discomfort of another kind. I 
 may dislike the pains of Conscience much, but I may dislike 
 the thumbscrew more. Why am I bound, if threatened with 
 torture for refusing to reveal a secret which I am bound to keep, 
 or falsely to accuse an innocent man, to prefer the pleasures 
 of an easy conscience to those of a whole skin and easy nerves ? 
 To insist on the specific character of the feeling in question 
 is nothing to the point; the pleasures of whist-playing are 
 different from those of touch or taste, but they are not necessarily 
 superior to them. The taste of port is specifically different from 
 that of sherry, but it is not necessarily superior to it. If it 
 be said ' Oh 1 but you are inwardly conscious that these pleasures 
 are superior in kind, and not merely in quality, to those of sense, 
 that they ought to be attended to more than others,' is not 
 that really admitting that we have to do with something 
 more than a mere feeling, with a dictate of Reason or a judge- 
 ment of value ? It is not the feeling which claims obedience, 
 but the judgement which assigns a value to that feeling. 
 
 Moreover, not only does a Moral Sense theory fail to supply 
 any reason why the individual should accord to his own moral 
 perceptions a primacy among the feelings and emotions of which 
 his nature is capable, but it is totally unable to assign any 
 
 ^ ' The not taking into consideration this authority, which is implied 
 in the idea of reflex of approbation or disapprobation, seems a material 
 deficiency or omission in Lord Shaftesbury's Inquiry concerning Virtue. 
 He has shewn beyond all contradiction that virtue is naturally the interest 
 or happiness, and vice the misery of such a creature as man, placed in 
 the circumstances which we are in this world. But suppose there are 
 particular exceptions ; a case which the author was unwilling to put. ... Or 
 suppose a case which he has put and determined, that of a sceptick not 
 convinced of this happy tendency of virtue or being of a contrary opinion. 
 His determination is, that it would be leithout remedy' (Butler, Pref. to 
 F^een Sermons). 
 
Chap, vi, § ii] OBJECTIVITY OF MORAL JUDGEMENT 145 
 
 universal validity to such moral perceptions. Inconsistent or 
 contradictory feelings, qua feelings, are equally true and valid 
 for those who feel them. When the cololfr-blind man calls the 
 red light green or grey, it really is green or grey to him ; his 
 judgement is as true as that of the man who pronounces it red. 
 Feelings as feelings are not ' true ' or ' false ' at all ; while as 
 to the judgements based upon them, the judgement of A that 
 he sees red and of B that he sees green, these no doubt possess 
 objective validity, but such statements as to what two men 
 actually feel are perfectly compatible with one another. Now, 
 if a good act means simply an act which causes me to experience 
 a particular kind of feeling which I call moral approbation, it 
 is undeniable that such feelings are occasioned in different men 
 by different, and even opposite, kinds of conduct. The pious 
 fraud may occasion no less pleasure to the man brought up to 
 regard such acts as right than a sacrifice made in the cause 
 of truth will cause in the heart of another differently educated. 
 A Spanish bull-fight excites feelings of enthusiastic approval 
 in the minds of most Spaniards and feelings of lively dis- 
 approval in most Englishmen. Observe exactly where the 
 difficulty lies. It is not the practical difficulty of ascertaining 
 moral truth. Every ethical system has to admit that the 
 Conscience of the individual is not infallible, that men's ethical 
 judgements do as a matter of fact contradict one another. How- 
 ever strongly I feel that a certain course of conduct is right, 
 I may make a mistake, just as I may make a mistake about 
 a scientific or historical theory to which I may be no less 
 passionately attached. The objectivity of the moral judge- 
 ment does not mean the infallibility of the individual, or even 
 of a general consensus of individuals at a particular time and 
 place. What is meant is that if I am, right in my approbation 
 of this conduct, then, if you disapprove of it, you must be wrong. 
 If Morality be a matter of objective truth or falsity, then the 
 Moral Law remains unaffected, though you and I — nay, the 
 whole human race in its present stage of moral development — 
 may have erroneously conceived some of its provisions. But, 
 if the goodness of an act means simply that the act 
 occasions a specific emotion in particular men, then the same 
 
 BABHDAIiL Z 
 
146 REASON AND FEELING [Book I 
 
 act may be at one and the same time good and bad. Moral 
 feelings will have no more objective truth or validity than any 
 other feelings which vary in their nature or intensity with the 
 varying sensibility of different men's skins or sensory nerves. 
 The bull-fight will be neither right nor wrong, but simply right 
 to some people, wrong to others, just as mustard is neither 
 objectively nice nor objectively nasty, but simply nice to some 
 people, nasty to others ^. 
 
 It may perhaps be replied, ' These feelings are not what make 
 things right or wrong; they are merely the subjective index by 
 which we recognize the presence of an actual quality in the 
 world of objective fact.' This is no doubt what was really 
 meant by the doctrine of Moral Sense in the hands of con- 
 structive Moralists like Hutcheson. A full reply to the objection 
 would involve a discussion of the metaphysical system which it 
 presupposes. No doubt if knowledge of any kind could be 
 explained by mere feeling, Morality so explained would at least 
 possess as much objectivity as the rest of our knowledge. 
 Moral Sense theories are no more fatal to Morality than 
 Sensationalism is to Science. I can only point out here that, 
 just as all knowledge implies something more than feeling, so, 
 if Morality is to possess any universal truth or validity, moral 
 perceptions must be regarded as judgements. The specific moral 
 feeling can be at most merely the occasion or index by which we 
 are enabled to make the judgement, it cannot be its sole source ; 
 just as I cannot actually make the judgement that this triangle 
 is larger than that without sensible experience, though there 
 is more in the judgement than mere sense. The essential idea 
 of ' good ' cannot come from feeling, though feeling may some- 
 times be psychologically the cause or occasion of my pro- 
 nouncing this or that particular act to be right or good, 
 
 III 
 
 It has been the practice of ethical Rationalists to compare the 
 moral faculty with the faculty by which we immediately appre- 
 
 ' It may indeed be contended that there is an aesthetic, and therefore an 
 objective, element even in gastronomic matters. If so, we must substitute 
 some pleasure of a still more purely sensuous type. 
 
Chap, vi, § iii] THE MATHEMATICAL ANALOGY 147 
 
 hend mathematical axioms or the laws of thought. I have myself 
 contended that it is possible to discover moral axioms, the truth 
 of which appeals to us very much in the Same way as the truth 
 of the axioms 'If equals be added to equals, the wholes are equal ' 
 or 'Two straight lines cannot enclose a space.' Such ethical axioms 
 are the three great laws of Prudence, Rational Benevolence, and 
 Equity, which Professor Sidgwick regards as the ultimate basis 
 of Ethics. And I have fully admitted the validity and importance 
 of these axioms. But this comparison of moral to mathematical 
 axioms may be overdone. It may be insisted on in a way which 
 ignores some of the characteristic features of our ethical judge- 
 ments, and its palpable failure to represent the facts may lead 
 to a reaction against the whole idea of rational Morality. 
 Rationalistic Moralists have not always observed that in them- 
 selves there is nothing ethical about these axioms of Prudence, 
 Benevolence, and Equity except the bare formal notion or 
 category of 'the good' which they involve. The axiom of 
 Equity, 'one man's good is of as much intrinsic worth as 
 the like good of another ^,' may, indeed, be reduced to the form 
 of a merely analytical judgement. That which I recognize as 
 having value in one man I must recognize as having the same 
 value in another, provided it is really the same thing that is 
 implied in the assertion that it has value. And the two other 
 axioms — those of Benevolence and Prudence — simply assert that 
 more good is always more valuable than less good. They are 
 not merely comparable to the axioms of Mathematics ; they are 
 simply particular applications of those axioms. The judgement 
 that the value of the good of all is greater than of any one 
 man's may be treated as a mere case of the mathematical axiom 
 that the whole is greater than its part. But so far there is 
 nothing really ethical about the judgement except in so far as 
 it involves the ethical proposition that value or good is one 
 of the things which have quantity. Yet, after all, such a way 
 of representing the matter is really superficial ; for it is in the 
 conception of value that the whole meaning of the judgement 
 lies. And that conception of value cannot be analysed away 
 
 ^ This qualification of the axiom (not recognized by Utilitarians like 
 Bentham or Sidgwick) I shall explain and defend in Chap, viii of this Book. 
 
 La 
 
148 REASON AND FEELING [Book I 
 
 into the mere statement of an emotional fact. Considered as 
 a mere statement of psychological fact, no assertion could well 
 be more false than that my feeling towards one man, the 
 emotion which I experience in knowing that he is benefited 
 or that he is injured, is the same as that which I should 
 experience in the case of any other. The ethical Rationalists 
 are, it appears to me, quite right in treating these judgements 
 as genuine axioms which are to some extent analogous to the 
 axioms of mathematics; but such axioms are by themselves 
 quite incapable of solving any concrete ethical problem. The 
 really ethical element in them is contained simply in the con- 
 ception of 'value' or 'good,' and we cannot use them till we 
 have pronounced some concrete thing or experience to be good. 
 They resemble the axioms of Mathematics just because they are 
 purely formal. All that they can do is to direct us as to the 
 way we are to distribute ' the good ' when we know what it 
 is. The really ethical judgement lies in the pronovmcement that 
 this or that is good. And, when we come to the judgement 
 which pronounces that this or that is good or has value, the 
 judgement assumes a form which seems psychologically much 
 less like the mathematical, and much more like the aesthetic, 
 judgement — a form consequently in which it can with much 
 more plausibility be compared to a mere emotion or even a mere 
 sensation. I can give no reason why I judge this pleasure to be 
 higher than that — the pleasure of Shakespeare to the pleasure 
 of champagne — except that I see it to be so, just as I can give 
 no reason why I know this to be beautiful or that to be square, 
 except that I see that they are so. We naturally express our 
 judgement by saying ' I feel it to be so,' rather than ' I know 
 it to be so.' And that is one reason why they have so often 
 been supposed to be mere feelings. Very often probably this 
 immediacy is all that is meant by those who insist on treat- 
 ing them as feelings of a supposed 'Moral Sense.' But only 
 a Sensationalist can suppose that the expression 'I feel tliat 
 A is £' represents a mere feeling. ' I feel ' is here merely a 
 loose popular synonym for 'I judge.' Propositions cannot be 
 felt. 
 
 Another fact which has favoured the theory is the impossibility 
 
Chap, vi, § iii] THE AESTHETIC ANALOGY 149 
 
 of expressing our real and concrete ethical judgements, as 
 distinct from the merely formal and abstract axioms just con- 
 sidered, with the scientific accuracy and definiteness characteristic 
 of other self-evident truths. Although the judgement ' pleasure 
 is good but not so good as Virtue ' is an immediate judgement, 
 and so far resembles a mathematical axiom, it is one which does 
 not admit of being expressed with the same precision aa mathe- 
 matical judgements. And still more when we come to particular 
 applications of our idea of value, when we ask what is the 
 relative value of this as compared with that pleasure, or what 
 is the comparative importance for an individual or a nation of 
 a definite kind of artistic sensibility and of social feeling, we do 
 not find that consensus among all who barely understand the 
 meaning of the terms employed which can be claimed for the 
 axioms of mathematics. And the essence of the really ethical 
 judgement lies not in general axioms of the type suggested above 
 but in the concrete judgement ' this particular pleasure or this 
 kind of knowledge is good or valuable,' ' that kind of pleasure is 
 bad ' ; here the immediacy seems to be much more like the 
 immediacy of the aesthetic appreciation, or even that of a mere 
 judgement of perception, ' this is green.' All these characteristics 
 of the ethical judgement tend to win acceptance for the Moral 
 Sense theory of moral apprehension. 
 
 How far the analogy between aesthetic judgements and ethical 
 can be admitted, must depend upon the view which we take of 
 the aesthetic judgement itself. The Moral Sense writers have 
 usually assumed that aesthetic approval is merely a particular 
 kind of subjective feeling. The judgement ' this picture is 
 beautiful ' means to them merely ' I get from the contemplation 
 of this picture a particular kind of pleasant feeling.' And, if 
 that were the case, the relegation of the moral judgement to the 
 same category as aesthetic appreciation would be fatal to that 
 authority or universality which we divine to be of its essence. On 
 the other hand we may be prepared to deny that the judgement 
 of one man on matters of Art or Poetry is as good as another, as 
 would undeniably be the case if the aesthetic judgement were 
 nothing but a matter of feeling. We may maintain that there 
 is a right and wrong in matters of aesthetic appreciation as well 
 
150 REASON AND FEELING [Book I 
 
 as in matters of conduct. We may claim for the aesthetic 
 judgement a certain objectivity, and consequently a partly 
 rational character. But Aesthetics is a much more difficult 
 Science than Ethics. The objectivity of aesthetic appreciation is 
 much more difficult to defend, the relation between the rational 
 or intellectual and the merely sensuous or emotional elements in 
 it much more difficult to determine, than is the case with the 
 moral judgement. At all events, the theory of an absolute 
 standard of aesthetic value could not be defended without a more 
 elaborate treatment of the whole subject than would be here in 
 place. Consequently, I dispense myself from any further attempt 
 to define the relations between aesthetic and moral value, and 
 will only point out that the analogy between aesthetic perception 
 and moral may be admitted without giving up the position that 
 there is an element in the moral judgement which cannot be 
 reduced to mere subjective feeling or emotion and which must 
 be regarded as belonging to the rational or intellectual part of 
 our nature. 
 
 And when once the rational and objective character of the 
 aesthetic judgement is admitted, we may with great advantage 
 insist upon this rather than upon the mathematical analogy, 
 because the comparison avoids a suggestion which is apt to 
 cleave to the mathematical analogy — the suggestion that these 
 judgements of value can be made prior to and independent of 
 experience ^, The judgement ' this view is beautiful ' no doubt 
 (in so far as it claims that the man who does not think so makes 
 a mistake) asserts something which is not given in experience, 
 but no one contends that it can be made without looking at the 
 view, or even without the experience of other views and pictures 
 by which the man's aesthetic sensibility has been cultivated. 
 Even the ordinary judgement of perception (' this is a square 
 object ') involves, for those who have learnt the lesson of Kant's 
 Critique, much besides mere sensation — the forms of space and 
 
 ' It is of course admitted by Eant that even the mathematical axioms in 
 point of time are not prior to experience ; his contention is that, when once 
 there has been experience of space or number in general, their truth is 
 seen independently of any particular fact or facts of experience — that the 
 universal truth of the principle is implied or presupposed in each particular 
 judgement about space or number. 
 
Chap. vi,§iv] NEED OF EXPEKIENCE 151 
 
 time, the categories of substance and accident, quantity, &c. 
 And so the judgement 'this act of charity is good' involves 
 no doubt experience, for we cannot pronounce that it is good 
 without knowing what it is, an admission which was, as we 
 have seen, never explicitly made by Kant himself. But it 
 remains true (i) that the judgement of value is an immediate 
 judgement of the Practical Keason, not a mere feeling; (3) that 
 the essence of the judgement — the idea of value — is a distinct 
 intellectual concept or category ; and (3) that the moral judge- 
 ment possesses a universality or objectivity which cannot be 
 ascribed to mere sensations or to the judgements of perception 
 founded upon them^. So much is involved in the very idea 
 of Morality or duty or moral obligation. The very heart of our 
 moral conviction is that there is something which every rational 
 being, in so far as he is rational, must recognize as intrinsically 
 right, that that something must be the same for all persons 
 under the same conditions, and cannot be dependent upon the 
 subjective caprice of particular persons. The Moral Sense 
 theoiy, duly realized and thought out, necessarily involves the 
 admission that that conviction on our part is a delusion. There 
 is, therefore, no real analogy between an ethical ' perception ' (if 
 the word is to be allowed) and the sensations, perceptions, 
 or emotions with which they are compared by the Moral Sense 
 school. So far then ethical Rationalism is right, when once we 
 have got rid of Kant's attempt to make out that the ethical 
 judgement is not merely not derived from experience but does 
 not require as its condition knowledge derived from experience ^. 
 
 IV 
 
 But there are further elements of truth in the Moral Sense 
 position to which we have not yet done justice. 
 
 ^ Of course there is an objectivity even in the judgement of perception. 
 My toothache as a feeling is purely subjective in the sense that I alone 
 feel it. But my judgement ' I have a toothache ' claims objectivity. I mean 
 that the man who denies is in error. 
 
 ^ By experience is here meant of course experience in the sense of the 
 Empiricists— mere sensible experience. There is no objection to saying 
 that moral judgements are derived from experience if we include in the 
 term ' experience ' the whole of our intellectual as well as our other 
 psychical activities. 
 
153 REASON AND FEELING [Book I 
 
 In the first place we must emphasize what is already implied 
 in the admission that experience is necessary to the ethical 
 judgement. This admission implies that the ethical judgement 
 is invariably based upon some fact of feeling ; since experience, 
 though it includes more than feeling, does always involve feeling. 
 The ethical judgement pronounces that something has value, and 
 we do not on reflection pronounce that anything can have value 
 except some state of consciousness. I do not, indeed, believe 
 that feeling represents the only element in, or aspect of, con- 
 sciousness which has value ; but feeling is always an element in 
 every state of consciousness, and an inseparable element. And 
 no judgement can be pronounced as to whether a state of con- 
 sciousness is good without taking the feeling-aspect of it into 
 account. Feeling is therefore always part of the ground on 
 which an ethical judgement is based. This represents the true 
 element in Hedonism. The mfetake of Hedonism lies in trying 
 to abstract the feeling side of consciousness from its other sides, 
 and making the whole value of the consciousness to lie in that 
 feeling-aspect, the cognitive and conative elements being deliber- 
 ately put out of sight ; while the value of feeling is supposed to 
 reside in the mere abstract pleasantness in respect of which all 
 pleasures are qualitatively alike, and not in the total content 
 which is pleasant. We have already accepted the position that 
 knowledge and goodness are intrinsically valuable elements of 
 consciousness. Yet these things taken apart from feeling are as 
 much abstractions as feeling when taken apart from knowledge 
 and volition. And it is impossible to say what value we should 
 assign to the latter, if they were capable of actually existing 
 apart from the feeling by which they are necessarily and inevit- 
 ably accompanied. I can, indeed, intelligibly say that knowledge 
 and goodness, even when accompanied by bodily pain, are good ; 
 but, even when the pursuit of knowledge or the doing of a good 
 action brings with it a measure of pain, some measure of pleasant 
 feeling normally accompanies those intellectual or volitional 
 states. When I say that the state is on the whole painful, 
 I mean that its pleasantness simply as pleasantness is outweighed 
 by pains of another kind, and yet I may think that it possesses 
 more value than many states which on the whole are pleasant. 
 
Chap. vi,§iv] PLEASURE IN ALL GOOD 153 
 
 We may, indeed, attach value to knowledge even for a con- 
 sciousness which does not find pleasure in its possession ; but, 
 if so, we must do so either for its uses or effects or propter spem, 
 as a step to an enjoyment of which the man is capable but to 
 which he has not yet attained. In a consciousness which was 
 for ever incapable of feeling the smallest pleasure or interest in 
 what it knew, it would be difficult to say that knowledge could 
 be an end-in-itself. Indeed, the very idea of an ' end ' implies 
 the existence of beings with tendencies, desires, or impulses for 
 which some kind of satisfaction can be found in that end. This 
 satisfaction is not the same thing as pleasure, but there can be 
 no satisfaction without some (however low a degree) of pleasure. 
 ' The good ' is an intellectual category, but it is a category which 
 would be meaningless in a purely knowing consciousness. Hence 
 it may be doubted whether we could rationally attach any value 
 even to the good will in a consciousness which not only did not 
 derive, but was intrinsically and for ever incapable of deriving, 
 any pleasure or satisfaction from its goodness. We may, indeed, 
 recognize that the good will has a value, and ought consequently 
 to be cultivated, in those who, as a matter of present fact, do not 
 care about goodness and derive no pleasure from it. But then 
 we should say that they ought to care about it. In so far as it 
 is possible for a man to do his duty without liking the dutiful 
 action taken by itself (apart from the pains incidentally involved 
 in it), we should say that that was because he is not good 
 enough. The value of goodness does not mean merely its actual 
 pleasurableness to the agent at this or that moment ; but still 
 I can as little conceive it psychologically possible for a man to 
 say 'My whole will is completely devoted to and concentrated 
 upon the good, but it gives me not the smallest pleasure or 
 satisfaction to be good ' as I could attach any meaning to the 
 statement ' I recognize indeed the exquisite beauty of that land- 
 scape, but, as far as my own pleasure goes, I would just as soon 
 gaze at a blank wall ' ; though I can quite intelligibly say ' This 
 picture gives me more pleasure than that other which I acknow- 
 ledge to be more beautiful.' Beauty is more than pleasure, but 
 it is unintelligible without it. Value is not a feeling, but it 
 cannot be recognized as attributable to anything in consciousness 
 
154 REASON AND FEELING [Book I 
 
 which can excite no feeling of pleasure in its possessor. The 
 fallacy of Hedonism lies in the attempt to estimate the value of 
 the feeling element in abstraction from the other elements of 
 consciousness. Knowing, feeling, willing are, for us at least, the 
 three inseparable aspects of consciousness. It is upon conscious- 
 ness taken as a whole that we pronounce our ultimate judge- 
 ments of value; the nature of its knowledge and its will must 
 necessarily colour and determine the value of the feeling by 
 which in any consciousness they are accompanied. 
 
 Invariably, then, moral judgements imply facts of feeling as 
 part of their ground — that is to say either feelings actually 
 experienced or desires which imply feeling in the present as well 
 as feeling in their subsequent satisfaction ^. Those feelings need 
 not be the feelings of the person making the judgement, and in 
 many cases there is nothing specifically moral about them. 
 I judge that it is wrong for me or any one else to stick 
 pins into a human being, simply because it hurts. If I did 
 not know that it hurts, if I did not know what pain is, I could 
 not judge it to be a bad thing, or the act of causing it wrong. 
 Given that knowledge, I can pronounce the act wrong, quite 
 apart from any sympathetic or other feeling which the act may 
 excite in myself. But sometimes we can recognize a far less 
 superficial truth in the Moral Sense position than this. The 
 actual ground of my judgement may be simply an emotion ; and, 
 although an emotion to which I assign value must be to some 
 extent pleasant, I may assign it a value which is not measured 
 by its pleasantness. I may approve of an act not merely on 
 account of the pleasure or pain which it causes, but also on 
 account of the emotion which it excites, the emotion from which 
 it proceeds, or the emotion by which it is accompanied. I may 
 approve of maternal afiection not merely on account of the 
 benefit arising to the babe and to society, but for its own sake ; 
 and that emotion, though it is a source of pleasure, is assuredly 
 one which also causes much pain. Yet the value which we 
 ascribe to it is certainly not smallest in those cases in which the 
 pain is greatest. Still more closely do we approach to a recogni- 
 
 ' What we usually call a desire I take to be a state of feeling and a certain 
 state of -will or conation combined. 
 
Chap, vi, §iv] MORAL EMOTION 155 
 
 tion of the specific emotion which the Moral Sense theory 
 wishes to make the beginning and end of the ethical judgement 
 when we take into consideration the feeliftgs which the mere 
 contemplation of some acts excites in a well-regulated mind, 
 whether the mind be the agent's or that of some ' disinterested 
 spectator ^ ' — say for instance the disgust which is experienced at 
 an isolated act of otherwise practically harmless drunkenness, or 
 our feeling about acts of impurity. It is in cases of this sort 
 that we can least of all ignore the fact that not merely ordinary 
 feelings of pleasure but certain specific kinds of higher emotion 
 do form part of the ground on which our moral judgements are 
 based. They are part of what the moral judgement pronounces 
 to have value. And they are judgements which could not really 
 be pronounced by a consciousness which could not experience 
 those emotions, which knew only on the one hand the data 
 supplied by the senses and on the other hand the abstract axioms 
 of the Practical Reason. 
 
 But this recognition of the absolute indispensability of certain 
 specific emotions (in many cases) to our moral judgement does 
 not in the least invalidate what has already been said as to the 
 intellectual, rational, objective character of the judgement of 
 value. The judgement that a certain emotion has value is 
 a different thing from the mere emotion itself^. Without the 
 
 ^ ' For, if we once suppose tlie general physical basis of animal life to be 
 seriously altered, it is impossible to say to what extent the types of senti- 
 ment and action which, under present conditions, approve themselves as 
 life-preserving and beneficial to the individual and the species would be 
 still in place ' (Taylor, The Problem of Conduct, p. 41). Prof. Taylor's insistence 
 that the details of duty would be different in different surroundings is quite 
 justified, but he seems to me to think that this proves more than it does — 
 that it altogether upsets any claim for objective validity or a ' rational ' 
 character in our moral judgements. But (i) it is true that I may recognize 
 that the ferocity of the tiger is as life-preserving and beneficial to its species 
 as the charity of the Saint ; yet I need not pronounce that it has the same in- 
 trinsic value : and (2) though the judgements as to right and wrong for human 
 nature would be different if our physical constitution were altered, that does 
 not show that every rational intelligence, in proportion as it is rational, 
 would not pronounce the same course of conduct to be right for man as he 
 is. And this is what we mean by treating the moral judgement as objective. 
 
 " ' Notre vrai guide n'est ni I'instinct, ni une pensee transcendante, c'est 
 la reflexion sur I'instinct ' (Bauh, L' Experience morale, p. 96). 
 
156 REASON AND FEELING [Book I 
 
 a priori and purely intellectual idea of value we could never 
 pass from the judgement .' I feel such and such an emotion ' to 
 ' it is right for me and others to do the act which excites in me 
 this emotion ' ; though the judgement could equally little be pro- 
 nounced by a person incapable of experiencing the emotion, or at 
 least of understanding and respecting its existence in others 
 through the analogy of something more or less similar in his 
 own experience. It is not the existence of the feeling but our 
 judgement that that feeling is good that enables us to say that 
 the act which excites it is right or wrong. It is not merely 
 because it is a feeling excited by conduct that it can claim any 
 pre-eminence over other feelings. If that were so, it would have 
 no validity except for the persons naturally disposed to feel it. 
 But our judgement that certain conduct is wrong does not dis- 
 appear because as a matter of fact we may know that it excites 
 no such feeling of disgust or repulsion in the person guilty of it. 
 There are doubtless individuals who really do feel no disgust 
 whatever at isolated or even habitual acts of drunkenness (though 
 they are probably fewer than those who merely pretend to feel 
 none) : but we do not say that on that account drunkenness is 
 right for such men. On the. contrary we say that, if a man has 
 not got such feelings, so much the worse for him : they are feel- 
 ings which he ought to have. He falls short of the ideal of 
 manhood if he has them not^. There are other cases where 
 natural feelings of disgust at particular kinds of conduct are 
 pronounced on reflection to have no value whatever — e.g. the 
 young medical student's sensations on first entering a dissecting 
 room. We pronounce that such feelings should simply be got 
 over as quickly as possible. The ultimate truth then which the 
 Moral Sense school distorts is that in some cases a state of feel- 
 ing is judged to have an absolute value, which, though more or 
 less pleasant, is not measured merely by its pleasantness, and 
 that such states of feeling form in and for themselves, entirely 
 
 ' Cf. Aristotle, Ethic. Nicomach. III. i. § 13 (p. mo 6) "O yap ludiav 
 I) opyi^ofievos ov boKtl 81 ayvoiav nparreiv . . . ayvoei fiev ovv iras 6 poxfirjpos & 8ti 
 Trpdrrcw Koi &v a<f>eKTeov, Koi Sia Trjv ToiavTrjV ipapriav SSiicoi Kai oXa>f Kaxo'i 
 ytvovToi' TO 6' aKovaiov ^ovXerai XtyeirOai ovk €i ris ayvoft to <rvfji<pepovTa' ov 
 yap €V Tji trpoaipitrei, ayvoia atria rou oxovo'iov oKXa Ttjs no^6i]pias. 
 
Chap, vi, §iv] REASON AND EMOTION 157 
 
 apart from any further consequences, an element in that ideal 
 good which we recognize it as our duty to promote. I shall 
 hereafter give other illustrations of this class of moral judge- 
 ments ^, but meanwhile I should observe three things about the 
 feelings or emotional states of the kind which I mean : 
 
 (i) Although we can give no reason why the feeling, say of 
 human affection, shovdd be better than a feeling of satisfaction in 
 eating except that we judge it to be so, the feelings to which we 
 give this kind of preference are not arbitrarily and capriciously 
 selected. They are intimately connected with our whole con- 
 ception of the proper relation of man to man — our whole 
 conception of what human life and human society should be. 
 The judgement cannot therefore be reduced to any sort of 
 isolated perception involving no exercise of the percipient's 
 intellect, and no reference or relation to other judgements or 
 ideas. It is impossible to dissociate our condemnation of illicit 
 sexual intercourse from our conception of monogamy as the true 
 type of sexual relation, our approval of which is based upon 
 a great deal besides spontaneous emotions of approval or repug- 
 nance. The conception depends upon nothing less than our whole 
 ideal of what constitutes a desirable state of human society and 
 of the individual human soul. We judge that the state of feeling 
 most conducive to the maintenance of the approved type possesses 
 an intrinsic value. We cannot in the ordinary orthodox-utili- 
 tarian fashion prow irregular sexual relations to be wrong because 
 they tend to prevent marriage and the growth of population ; for 
 it depends upon many circumstances whether they have that 
 effect, and whether or not that effect is in itself to be regretted. 
 Our condemnation of fornication, in spite of the diminution of 
 pleasure which its prohibition undoubtedly involves, is not a de- 
 duction from a judgement about marriage resting on Utilitarian 
 grounds, but simply one side or aspect of that ideal of life which 
 prescribes both the monogamous marriage and the rule of 
 purity before marriage. That ideal condemns sexual indulgence 
 except where it can be made instrumental and subordinate to 
 higher and more spiritual affections. When certain states of 
 feeling appear to be selected for approval or condemnation by 
 
 ' See Chap. vii. 
 
158 REASON AND FEELING [Book I 
 
 a kind of instinct which can give no further account of itself, 
 these are, in so far as they persist after the fullest reflection, not 
 merely isolated feelings of approval or disapprobation such as 
 the deliverances of the Moral Sense are sometimes supposed to 
 be, but feelings which are elements in a single, interconnected, 
 articulated ideal of human life. And ideals are recognized as 
 such by the intellect, however much (in some cases) the existence 
 of certain feelings or emotions may be the condition of such 
 a recognition. So again when I condemn drunkenness, my 
 judgement implies a whole conception of human life — that man 
 is a rational being, adapted for certain ends, responsible for his 
 actions, possessed of a certain worth or dignity, having such and 
 such relations to his fellows, capable of certain intellectual and 
 moral activities, activities which are interfered with and impeded 
 by drunkenness. This whole ideal of what man is and ought to 
 be is implied in my judgement that it is intrinsically degrading 
 and unworthy of a rational being voluntarily to place himself in 
 a state in which he is not master of his own actions, however 
 elaborate the precautions which he may take against doing harm 
 to himself and others when in that condition. The feeling of 
 repugnance to the act is inseparable from a whole complex 
 of judgements about human life and its purposes which are 
 very different from isolated emotions. So again with such an 
 obviously unutilitarian precept as that which condemns canni- 
 balism. Clearly if the victim is not killed on purpose to be 
 eaten, cannibalism under certain circumstances might present 
 itself as an eminently sanitary and economical arrangement. 
 If we judge that man ought to endure considerable priva- 
 tion — some would perhaps say even extreme privation — 
 rather than eat human flesh, it is because we feel that this 
 external reverence to a human corpse is an expression of a 
 reverence for humanity which possesses a higher value than 
 the momentary relief from hunger. It is impossible to isolate 
 our condemnation of cannibalism from our whole ideal of the 
 proper relation of man to his fellow men. The psychologically 
 very similar feeling against dissection which long stood in the 
 way of surgical progress we decline to encourage because it is 
 inconsistent with an enlightened ideal of human life as a whole. 
 
Chap, vi, § iv] NEED OF EXPERIENCE 159 
 
 (a) And these considerations do involve the recognition of 
 a principle which is constantly forgotten by Rationalists of the 
 Kantian type. It is quite true that the*question of what is 
 moral for man depends upon his actual psychical constitution, 
 including his sensitive, aesthetic, and emotional nature. If it is 
 said that moral judgements are in a sense a priori, that must not 
 be taken to mean that we could define the rules of human con- 
 duct without an empirically derived knowledge of the actual 
 constitution of human nature, and of human society. That it is 
 right to promote the true good of all that lives and is conscious 
 is, indeed, an a priori truth which Reason can recognize without 
 any appeal to empirical knowledge except what is implied in the 
 idea of conscious life : but what actually is for the good of man 
 or any other creature cannot be ascertained without a knowledge 
 of the nature and capacities of that creature. The prohibition 
 of shooting would be irrational among beings who were ' like the 
 air, invulnerable ' : the law of marriage and all that flows from it 
 presupposes the sexual difference itself — not merely the physical 
 difference, but all the emotional and moral differences — between 
 man and woman. It would be absurd to attempt an answer to 
 the question what would be the best type of sexual union if 
 human beings were not so constituted that man's feelings towards 
 woman are different from those with which he regards his 
 own sex, if men and women were not naturally inclined towards 
 permanent and exclusive unions ^, if emotions of the highest and 
 
 ' The researches of Prof. Westermaxck (History of Human Marriage) tend to 
 confirm Aristotle's dictum that man is tjj ipicrei avvSvaa-riKop fiaWov fi iro\iTiK6v. 
 This is proved partly by inference from the fact that the higher apes are 
 monogamous, partly by a wide induction from anthropological and historical 
 facts. Polyandry is a rare. Polygamy a much more common institution, 
 but both are exceptional arrangements due to special circumstances. The 
 later work of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen (The Native Tribes of Central 
 Australia) may be held to modify Prof. Westermarck's conclusions, but the 
 most that they point to is a system of group-marriages, not the sheer promis- 
 cuity of McLellan's speculations ; and after all, even in those marriages, one 
 husband occupies an exceptional position. Even here a tendency to Mono- 
 gamy is discernible. The great diflSculty experienced by otherwise suc- 
 cessful ' free-love ' communities in America is the ineradicable tendency to 
 form exclusive unions. But of course these facts are intended rather as an 
 illustration than as a proof of the position taken up in the text. 
 
i6o REASON AND FEELING [Book I 
 
 purest type were not found to be subtly and inseparably con- 
 nected with such unions, and so on. 
 
 (3) I may add that the passing of judgements of this kind 
 often demands for its full justification an amount of experience 
 which is quite beyond the reach of a single individual. The 
 monogamous ideal of life is based upon the accumulated ex- 
 perience of the human race, not merely the experience of the 
 numerical majority ; it is doubtful, indeed, whether the indepen- 
 dent verdict of the numerical majority, even in those countries 
 which have not frankly abandoned the Christian ideal in this 
 matter, would really endorse this judgement, but for the deference 
 paid to the verdict of the best men which is based upon the results 
 of all the experience within their reach, experience of themselves 
 and others, experience of the good results of the observance and 
 the bad results of the non-observance of the monogamous rule. 
 But by experience of good and bad results I do not mean, of 
 course, mere pleasure and pain. It is upon the whole spiritual 
 \ condition which results from the control as compared with 
 the whole spiritual condition which results from the non- 
 control of these particular passions that the judgement of value 
 is pronounced. And the dependence of these judgements upon 
 an experience which cannot well be possessed by the young makes 
 this department of morality peculiarly dependent in practice 
 upon respect for moral authority ^. I shall return to this matter 
 in a chapter which will be specially devoted to the place of 
 Authority in Ethics. It is sufficient here to note that there 
 are many departments of Morality in which it must be recognized 
 that the judgements of the individual — at least of ordinary 
 individuals, and of all individuals as regard a large part of 
 their lives — are and must be largely influenced by Authority. 
 No prejudice is done by this admission to the final and para- 
 mount authority of the moral consciousness : for this authority 
 to which the appeal is made (when it is rightly made) is simply 
 
 * This authority is not necessarily or exclusively that of a religious creed, 
 a religious teacher, or a religious community : but this is the most definite 
 and conspicuous form which moral authority actually assumes in modem 
 times. This dependence is, I believe, one explanation of the undoubted fact 
 that this is a department of morality which is peculiarly liable to suffer from 
 the decay of religious belief. 
 
Chap, vi, §iv] SPONTANEOUS FEELINGS i6i 
 
 that of the moral consciousness in a higher stage of development, 
 or of the moral consciousness working upon an experience which 
 is wider and fuller than that of the isolated' average individual. 
 
 Two very opposite schools of thought are apt to deny or 
 ignore the truth that the content of our moral judgements is 
 dependent upon the sensitive and emotional as well as the 
 rational nature of man. It is often forgotten by the ordinary 
 Utilitarian. He does not of course refuse to take into account the 
 experience that such and such things bring pleasure, but he does 
 sometimes fail to take into account tendencies to particular 
 emotions, spontaneous tendencies to approve of certain kinds 
 of conduct and to disapprove of others, which rest upon no 
 logical ground, but must simply be taken as data upon which 
 the Practical Reason has to work. The hedonistic assumption 
 that all a man's desires are really desires for pleasure favours 
 the delusion that desires can be created or extinguished or 
 modified at will, if only you can show that good hedonistic 
 results would be attained by doing so. On the other hand 
 the rationalistic Moralist often forgets that the raw material, 
 so to speak, upon which Practical Reason pronounces its judge- 
 ments of value and which it works up into ideals must always 
 be supplied by the actual experiences, emotions, desires, tendencies 
 and aspirations of human nature. The judgement that the 
 tendency of human nature to find satisfaction in certain kinds 
 of conduct has value is, indeed, an immediate judgement which 
 cannot be derived from experience in the ordinary sense of 
 the word ; but we very often cannot say why we should have 
 such a tendency, or deny that in beings difierently constituted 
 other kinds of conduct might tend to their highest attainable 
 good '. 
 
 ^ Von Hartmann is one of the few idealistic Moralists who have adequately 
 remembered this. Man, according to him, gets his notions of the End ' from 
 the application of Reason to the actual course of events, including the sub- 
 jective moral motives of men ' (' aus der Anwendung der Vemunft auf den 
 gesamten Weltlauf einschliesslioh der subjektiven sittlichenVeranlagung der 
 Menschen.' Ethische Studien, p. i8i). At the same time, when he goes on 
 to call the process of arriving at the ideal end ' inductive,' he seems to ignore 
 the fundamental difference between recognizing a value in the various ele- 
 ments of which the end is made up, and that of merely asserting their actual 
 
 BASHDALL Z M 
 
i63 REASON AND FEELING [Bookl 
 
 The question is raised, for instance, whether the received view 
 of the mutual duties of parents and children, brothers and 
 sisters, can be justified by a purely Utilitarian calculation. Can 
 it be shown to be conducive to the greatest happiness of the 
 greatest number 1 Waiving the difference between a hedonistic 
 and a non-hedonistic conception of happiness, nothing is easier 
 than to show the practical advantages of the arrangement, if 
 you assume the actual tendency of the human mother to feel 
 for her own offspring the most passionate of human affections, 
 the actual tendency of all human beings to feel a stronger 
 attachment to their own near kin than to strangers, and conse- 
 quently to recognize a stronger claim upon their Benevolence. 
 Given this tendency, the encouragement of it leads both to 
 unselfishness in parents and to the proper bringing up of 
 
 existence. He seems sometimes (ib., p. 192) to fall into the mistake of trying 
 to form a conception of the ethical end by induction from the actual em- 
 pirically ascertained tendency of the Universe, the fallacy of -which has been 
 sufficiently pointed out by Mr. Herbert Spencer's critics. That moral Reason 
 can deal yrith data which it cannot itself supply or create, no one (among 
 ethical Rationalists) appreciates better than von Hartmann. ' Diese Norm 
 ist ein Produkt der Vernunft, ein Ideal, welches zeigt, wie der Mensch 
 eigentlich sein soUte. Aber dieses Ideal ist nicht ein systematisch aus 
 irgend welchem anderen Prinzip abgeleitetes, sondern ein £omplez von un- 
 mittelbaren Gefuhls- oder Greschmacksurteilen ' (ib., p. 94). He points out too 
 that in time this reasonable criticism of, and selection, among our desires 
 modifies the feelings themselves (ib., p. 199). The only point in this state- 
 ment to which I should demur is that he seems disposed to identify the 
 ' judgement of taste ' with mere feeling, which would leave to the Reason 
 nothing but the function of collecting and combining the actual feelings of 
 the judger — a mode of thought quite inconsistent with the whole of his 
 powerful plea for an absolute or rational standard of Morality. Reason 
 must not merely collect and systematize, but select and value the different 
 elements of human experience. 
 
 It is surprising to find how blind naturalistic Moralists continue to be to 
 the fact that the real problem of Ethics is as to how we determine or 
 ought to determine the ultimate end. This problem is wholly ignored in 
 such works as M. L^vy-Bruhl's La Morale et la Science des mceurs (1904), the 
 main idea of which is that the Science of the means to the end should be 
 based upon Sociology (or a complex of sociological Sciences) : how the 
 end is to be discovered and what are the metaphysical implications of the 
 idea of an ' end ' are questions which he does not ask. There is no indica- 
 tion in an otherwise clever work that its author is capable of even under- 
 standing their meaning. 
 
Chap, vi, §iv] FAMILY AFFECTION 163 
 
 children. On the other hand, put out of sight the de facto 
 emotional constitution of human nature, and. nothing could 
 be easier than to demonstrate the disadvantages arising from 
 these narrow family attachments, and the infinite hedonistic 
 and moral superiority of a society in which all older men 
 should be regarded as fathers, all equals as brothers. So 
 Plato argued, and he was only wrong because he supposed 
 that Reason could pronounce moral judgements without any 
 appeal to the actual emotional tendencies of human nature, 
 or because he supposed that human nature was more modifiable 
 than it is. The Moral Sense school are right in holding that 
 our moral judgements are partly dependent upon the feelings 
 and emotions with which we do naturally regard conduct of 
 various kinds, and that these must be taken account of before 
 we pronounce whether that conduct is to be regarded as right 
 or wrong. It would be impossible to show that it is a more 
 imperative duty to relieve suffering at our own door than 
 suffering at a distance, if it were not an actual tendency of 
 human nature to feel a readier and deeper sympathy with 
 the suffering that one actually beholds : and so on ^. This 
 last illustration may help to suggest the importance of the 
 opposite side of ethical truth. While Reason must take 
 account of those actual feelings and emotions which form part 
 of our moral nature before pronouncing by what means most 
 good will be realized, we cannot allow the actual strength of 
 the feeling to be the sole test of moral approval or disapproval. 
 Moral progress consists very largely in substituting deliberate 
 thought-out judgements for casual and variable emotions : and 
 the exercise of Reason in time reacts upon the emotions them- 
 selves. When we have come intellectually to recognize the 
 claims of suffering which we do not see, we may come to feel 
 for it a sympathy which is something very different from, and 
 very much more powerful as a motive for action than, the bare 
 intellectual recognition that the worth of a human being must 
 
 ^ Hume was right in insisting that in average human nature (apart 
 from the influence of logical reflection or rational consideration) ' the 
 qualities of the mind are selfishness and limited generosity' (Treatise, 
 Booklll, Pt.ii, §2). 
 
 M 3 
 
1 64 REASON AND FEELING [Book I 
 
 be quite independent of geographical considerations or ethno- 
 logical afiinities. Even moral feeling must be guided and 
 controlled by Reason; to a very large extent, indeed, the 
 difference between ' higher ' and ' lower ' feeling consists precisely 
 in the difference between mere feeling as it exists in merely 
 non-moral natures and feeling in the form which it assumes 
 when guided and controlled by human Reason. The judgement 
 of value which Reason pronounces is not dictated by the feelings, 
 but the actual feelings supply the materials which it uses in 
 building up a consistent and harmonious ideal of human life. 
 Reason cannot invent new feelings, but it can so regulate 
 human conduct as to produce a maximum of those in which 
 it recognizes most value, and that regulation of conduct tends 
 in time to produce actual feeling in accordance with the ideal 
 which Reason sets up. 
 
 V 
 
 The objections to the Moral Sense view of Ethics are sub- 
 stantially the same as those which must be urged against the 
 systems which represent the moral faculty as something sui 
 generis — neither Reason nor feeling. Bishop Butler discerned, 
 as we have seen^, the fundamental defect of all mere Moral 
 Sense theories — that they could assign no reason why this 
 feeling of the Moral Sense should be accorded any superiority 
 over other feelings. A Moral Sense can have no authority: 
 authority is of the essence of Conscience. To Bishop Butler 
 himself, at least when he wrote his Sermons, the authority of 
 Conscience was, it is probable, simply the authority of Reason. 
 His habitual synonym for Conscience is a 'principle of Re- 
 flection ' : at times he explicitly calls it Reason. But some 
 of his disciples — of whom Dr. Martineau is the most distin- 
 guished representative — decline to admit this identification. It 
 is so exceedingly difficult to grasp the idea of a ' faculty ' which 
 is neither part of our intellectual nature nor yet any kind of 
 feeling or emotion that the view is not easy to criticize. It may 
 be enough perhaps to quote Martineau's statement of his position 
 and to point out the source of the confusion into which he 
 seems to fall : 
 
 ' See above, p. 144, note. 
 
Chap, vi, § v] MARTINEAU'S VIEW 165 
 
 ' And when, in order to scrutinise their relation, we lay them 
 side by side and look at their contents, we see at once that 
 the features, present in approval and aleent from assent are 
 precisely the whole of the tnoral characteristics, whence the 
 judgement derives its ethical quality. In my assent to the 
 proposition that any two radii vectores of an ellipse, meeting 
 at their peripheral extremities, are together equal to the trans- 
 verse axis, and my dissent from the assertion that they are 
 always equal to one another, I have none of the self-contentment 
 and of the compunction respectively involved in my right and 
 wrong volitions; I assign no irnerit to the truth, no demerit 
 to the error, or to the mind that is subject to them; were 
 my belief rewarded, I should be ashamed of the absurdity: 
 were my misbelief punished, I should resent the injustice. 
 But these experiences, which fail to attend the Yes and JVb 
 of Reason, are the sum of the moral sentiments which attend 
 the Yes and iVb of Conscience. There is nothing, therefore, in 
 common except the naked fact of acceptance or rejection ; the 
 thing accepted or rejected, it is plain, is wholly different ^' 
 
 There is much virtue in that ' nothing except.' All that 
 Dr. Martineau's objections really show is that the moral judge- 
 ment is an essentially different kind of judgement from any 
 other: they do not show that it is not a judgement. When 
 a piece of conduct is pronounced 'rational' or 'reasonable,' 
 something else no doubt is meant than when a conclusion is 
 pronounced logically to follow from its premisses. If we treat 
 ' reasonable ' and ' right ' as synonyms, that does not imply 
 that we do not recognize the enormous difference between 
 ' reasonable ' or ' reasonable to think ' and ' reasonable to be 
 done.' In this sense it is quite true there is an element present 
 in the moral judgement and absent in the mathematical. It 
 does not follow that this element is simply ' the glow of emotion,' 
 though such a glow may be a more or less inseparable accompani- 
 
 ' Tt/pes of Ethical Theory, 3rd ed., vol. II, p. 473. Cf. also the admission 
 'In one sense, every experience of our nature mightbe pronounced intellectual, 
 . . . Passion and emotion themselves are, in us, not without thought, and 
 may be always treated as thought inaglow ' (p. 468). If there is thought in our 
 moral perception, there must be thought about something, and that some- 
 thing cannot be just the fact of the perception itself. 
 
1 66 KEASON AND FEELING [Book I 
 
 ment of the judgement. Nothing can be more important than 
 to emphasize the sui generis character of the moral judgement, 
 that is to say of that idea of goodness or value which forms 
 its essence. But that does not show the necessity for inventing 
 a separate faculty to give such judgements. We are not 
 confusing time with space because we assign to our ideas of 
 both an intellectual origin. We may if we like call Practical 
 Reason a separate faculty from speculative Reason — that is 
 only a question of words. We really mean simply that they 
 are distinguishable aspects of one and the same rational self. 
 The important thing is that we should recognize that moral 
 judgements possess an absolute truth or falsity, which is equally 
 valid for all rational beings ^ ; and, if that is recognized, it seems 
 most natural to ascribe them to Reason. 
 
 Much the same line of objection to the rationalistic position 
 has been followed in a more recent attempt to rehabilitate the 
 old Moral Sense view of Ethics, or something like it, made by the 
 late Professor Gizycki. His line of argument seems to me to 
 imply the same misunderstandings, and to demand the same 
 concessions, as the old English 'Moral Sense' view and Dr. 
 Martineau's Philosophy of Conscience. But there is one objection 
 made by Gizycki which demands an additional word of explana- 
 tion. It is really strange to find an eminent Professor of Philo- 
 sophy solemnly arguing that, if the rationalistic view were true, 
 ' the most intellectual man would be the best morally, and the least 
 intelligent would be the worst ^' Here in the first place I notice 
 the confusion already pointed out — between what tells a man 
 his duty and what makes him do it. Men of genius may see 
 their duty clearly enough, but they do not always do it. 
 Nobody could discourse more beautifully about Morality than 
 Goethe or Coleridge. But this is not all. It is not even true 
 
 * True for all rational beings, not equally binding on all rational beings. 
 All rational beings must recognize them as binding on beings constituted as 
 man is constituted. These essential principles of morality must no" doubt 
 be the same for all such beings, but not its detail. 
 
 ^ An Introduction to the Study of Ethics, adapted from the German of 
 G. M. Gizycki by Stanton Coit, Ph.D., 1891, p. 87; a -vfork which had 
 already appeared in 1889 under the title 'A Student's Manual of Ethical 
 Philosophy.' 
 
Chap, vi, § v] GIZYCKI'S ARGUMENTS 167 
 
 that, on the rationalistic principle, the most intelligent man must 
 know his duty best. For ' intelligence ' has many branches or 
 departments, or aspects. The man wlw has mathematical 
 capacity may be singularly wanting in the gift of language or 
 expression ; he may be wholly blind to the beauty of Art or of 
 Poetry ; while the Artist and the Scholar may be exceptionally 
 unmathematical. Poets have often been entirely unmusical. 
 Roughly speaking perhaps the possession of superior mental 
 capacity in one direction may be held generally to carry with it 
 something more than average capacity in others ; but to this 
 rule there are many exceptions. In the same way it may be 
 roughly — very roughly — true that men of superior ability are 
 on the whole more capable of moral appreciation (and even 
 perhaps more moral in practice) than men of inferior mental 
 capacity. We may distrust the speculations about a distinctly 
 criminal type of brain, but it is certain that professional criminals 
 are usually people of very low mental capacity, though a few 
 are men of great intellectual ability. At the same time it is 
 perfectly possible, and often happens, that the particular capacity 
 for apprehending the distinction between right and wrong may 
 be possessed by persons not otherwise remarkable for intellect ; 
 while intellectual persons are occasionally very deficient in this 
 respect. This might be admitted even by the straitest sect of 
 ethical Rationalism. But in these pages it has been further 
 contended that, though the apprehension of moral distinctions is 
 in itself an intellectual act, the exercise of this intellectual 
 capacity is often conditioned by and postulates a certain emo- 
 tional endowment. Some of our ethical judgements could not 
 be given at all were a certain emotion absent ; and, given the 
 emotion, the ethical judgement is often a very simple afiair : but 
 intellectual judgements are not the less intellectual because they 
 lie within the capacity of very ' unintellectual ' persons. It is 
 much the same, I suppose, with the aesthetic faculty. The 
 intellectual character of the musical faculty — its close connexion 
 with the capacity for the most abstract kind of thinking — is 
 attested by the tendency of musical and mathematical talent to 
 go together. Yet intellect alone will not make a Musician; 
 musical originality or even high musical appreciation presupposes 
 
i68 KEASON AND FEELING [Book I 
 
 a capacity for certain kinds of emotion, which the Mathematician 
 may lack. So with the moral faculty ; it belongs to the intellect, 
 yet it may be paralysed or perverted by want of emotional 
 capacity. This has often been the case probably with enthusiasts 
 and fanatics — men of exceptional sense of duty or exceptional 
 devotion to ideals of one kind or another, but little human 
 affection. Some persons may have little delicacy of moral 
 judgement for want of the original capacity for emotion. Still 
 more often may people who possess perhaps in a high degree all 
 the intellectual capacities required for giving judgements of 
 value exhibit small moral insight in actual life, because through 
 their own personal failure in right willing, or through their 
 unfavourable moral environment, they have not acted up to such 
 light as they had. The Reason that judges and the will that 
 acts are not one and the same thing, but they are only two sides 
 of one and the same self, and they do most powerfully act and 
 react upon one another. The maxim ' obedience is the organ of 
 spiritual knowledge ' has been abused in the interests of obscur- 
 antism and fanaticism, but it represents nevertheless a most 
 important fact in Moral Psychology ^ 
 
 VI 
 
 To some minds it will probably appear that I have inadequately 
 stated the intimacy of the connexion between the rational judge- 
 ment of value and the emotions by which it is normally accom- 
 panied. There are Moralists who, agreeing that the idea of value 
 is logically distinguishable from the emotion with which right 
 conduct is contemplated, will insist that de facto they are so 
 inseparable that the moral judgement could not be made by, and 
 could have no meaning for, a mind destitute of the specific moral 
 emotion. ' I think,' writes a friend who takes this view ^, ' that 
 the "reason" and "feeling" which are to be found in moral 
 judgments, though no doubt distinguishable, are not only always 
 found together, but each is unintelligible and empty apart from 
 
 ^ Cf. Aristotle's ^ kokui <j>6apTiKri ap}(ljt, 
 
 " I cannot call to mind any printed expression of this doctrine, though it 
 is taught by high authorities in Oxford— a fact which must be my apology 
 for quoting a private letter. 
 
Chap, vi, § vi] FEELING AND JUDGEMENT 169 
 
 the other. The judgement " this is right " is not a moral judge- 
 ment unless one has, more or less, the moral emotion (for in the 
 judgement " this is right," when the ground-is any authority, the 
 moral emotion and the judgment proper fall upon the authority, 
 not strictly upon the particular point), nor is it a moral emotion 
 unless it claims universality. This, I think, is the same view as 
 yours, but perhaps you might more carefully avoid the use of 
 language which suggests juxtaposition (reason + feeling); which 
 is surely unsatisfactory, and leads to what one finds inadequate 
 in the language of Hume on one side and Kant on another.' To 
 such a line of criticism I should reply as follows : 
 
 (i) With regard to the suggestion about mere 'juxtaposition,' 
 I have very definitely admitted that in all cases some feeling is, 
 in part, the ground of the judgement. That being so, the judge- 
 ment could not be made without the feeling, but the feeling 
 which is the ground of a moral judgement is, in my view, not 
 always any specifically moral or 'higher' kind of feeling. In 
 some cases the judgement implies a particular kind of ' higher ' 
 emotion, but not in all. In some cases the only feeling which 
 is implied as the ground of the judgement is simple pleasure and 
 pain, not in ourselves but in others, though without some 
 experience of them in ourselves we should not know what they 
 are in others. To know that this act causes pain in others is all 
 that I want to enable me to condemn it. That pain is the negation 
 of good, and that the good ought to be promoted, are self-evident 
 truths perceivable by the intellect. How far in actual fact there 
 exist persons so constituted as to be capable of seeing that truth 
 without experiencing the smallest emotional repulsion against 
 causing pain, or the smallest inclination to avoid it themselves, 
 is a question of empirical Psychology on which I should not like 
 to pronounce a decided opinion. But I see nothing self-con- 
 tradictory in the supposition that there may be such persons. 
 There certainly seem to be persons who do make this judge- 
 ment, but in whom ethical emotion and ethical inclination 
 are so small as in no way to account for the judgement being 
 made. 
 
 (3) And even in persons who are not altogether incapable of 
 moral emotion, some moral judgements are not as a matter of 
 
I70 REASON AND FEELING [Book I 
 
 fact accompanied by any emotion at all, though the same judge- 
 ment may on other occasions call forth emotion of great strength. 
 The proposition that pleasure is good and pain bad — or that 
 some particular trifling pleasure of my own is good and conduct 
 which interferes with it wrong in myself or in another — is one 
 that can be assented to without any emotion whatever ; and yet 
 that proposition is the ultimate ground for my condemnation 
 of some act of cruelty which might excite in me feelings of warm 
 indignation. And I regard it as a matter of great theoretical 
 importance to insist that the intellectual categories of good and 
 right are as distinctly present in the cool and calculating judge- 
 ment that it is unreasonable to throw away a large pleasure for 
 a smaller one (no matter whose that pleasure be), as in our 
 enthusiastic approval of some heroic act of self-sacrifice. 
 
 (3) Of course we can, if we choose, include in our idea of good and 
 evil, right and wrong, the emotion which they excite in normally 
 constituted persons, or even all the varieties of emotion that 
 they may excite in abnormally constituted persons. On the 
 principle that we do not know a thing fully till we know all its 
 relations, it may no doubt be said that we do not fully under- 
 stand the meaning of right and wrong unless we do take into 
 account these facts of our emotional nature. To a person 
 incapable of any such emotion the terms would no doubt not mean 
 all that they mean to one who is capable of it. But I am not 
 prepared to admit that it would mean nothing to him. Not 
 only would it mean something to him, but that something is, 
 I should hold, the very essence of the moral judgement, con- 
 sidered simply as a judgement. The ideas of good and evil, 
 right and wrong, seem to be as distinguishable in thought from 
 any emotion accompanying them as the idea of a circle is froin the 
 aesthetic feeling which may perhaps be in fact its inseparable 
 accompaniment. To insist upon the greater practical importance 
 of the feeling attending the moral judgement would be wholly 
 beside the point. 
 
 (4) The contention that the term ' right' means nothing apart 
 from the emotions by which moral judgements at the higher 
 levels of moral experience are usually accompanied seems to me 
 open to a further objection. I am unable to recognize the 
 
Chap, vi, §vi] NO SPECIFIC MORAL FEELING 171 
 
 existence of any one particular specifically ' moral ' emotion ' . An 
 intellectual category must be one and the same for all intelligences, 
 though there may be a greater or less degree «f clearness, explicit- 
 ness, and adequacy in the apprehension of it at differenir stages 
 of intellectual development. But emotion is essentially a variable 
 and subjective thing. And the emotion excited by good or bad 
 conduct, and by the judgements of moral approbation or dis- 
 approbation which they call forth, are no exception to the rule. 
 These emotions are difierent in the case of different races, different 
 individuals, different periods of life. Even in the same individual 
 they vary from day to day with our changing moods and 
 circumstances. The emotions which different kinds of good or 
 bad conduct excite are very different, even when the intellectual 
 approval or disapproval is the same. Few people approve an 
 act of commonplace Justice with the warmth which they bestow 
 on an act of Generosity, and yet Justice is quite as important 
 as Generosity. When I judge a massacre to be wrong, my 
 judgement is exactly the same whether it has been committed 
 by Englishmen on Englishmen in the streets of London, or by 
 Chinamen on Chinamen in the streets of Pekin, but my emotion 
 would probably be very different both in kind and. intensity. 
 Even with characters of exceptional moral earnestness, there 
 is every reason to suppose that the emotion accompanying their 
 ethical thinking must be of very different kinds. It is im- 
 probable that a mind of John Wesley's severity could ever have 
 felt the tender humanity of St. Francis of Assisi, or that in 
 a man of sympathetic nature like John Stuart Mill the sense of 
 duty assumed the emotional tone with which it was invested in 
 the Philosopher whose personal character has stamped itself for 
 ever upon the doctrine of the ' categorical imperative.' To say 
 that the category of value or of duty was present in the mind 
 of Mill as much as in that of Kant, however little the Metaphysic 
 of the former may have recognized its presence, is an assertion 
 which I understand and accept. Whether the emotional accom- 
 ' ' Es giebt demnach nicht ein bestimmtesGefuhl, welches als moralisches 
 Gefulil von alien anderen Gefuhlen verschieden ware, sondem jedes Gefuhl 
 entspricht in seiner Tendenz mehr oder minder sittliclien Aufgaben, oder 
 es widersprieht denselben in hoberem oder geringerem Grade ' (Hartmann, 
 Das sittl. Beumsstsein, p. 148). 
 
T7a EEASON AND FEELING [Book I 
 
 paniments of their judgements were the same is a psychological 
 question which it would be a piece of the most unwarrantable 
 dogmatism to determine a priori. If, therefore, the assertion 
 that a moral emotion claims universality means that the same 
 emotion must be present in all moral persons, I see no ground 
 for the assumption. Nor, indeed, in strictness can I understand 
 the meaning of asserting that any emotion whatever ' claims 
 universality.' That, when I recognize a value in a certain 
 emotion, my judgement claims universality I admit ; but I 
 recognize the probability that many different kinds of moral 
 emotion may possess a high degree of intrinsic worth, and I see 
 no reason for selecting one particular type of it as the one and 
 only 'moral emotion,' in the absence of which the judgement 
 could not be moral at all. It may no doubt be urged that the 
 ideal man would feel exactly the same kind of emotion on the 
 same occasions. That would be a somewhat difficult contention, 
 inasmuch as a certain limitation, and therefore a certain indi- 
 viduality, seems essential to a nature that is to be truly human. 
 But, whatever may be thought of this point, the assertion 
 supplies no ground for saying that the judgement is not in 
 thought quite distinguishable from the emotion. The ideal man 
 might be unable to think of universal gravitation without 
 profound 'cosmic emotion,' but that supplies no reason for 
 declaring that a Physicist who has never felt a moment's ' cosmic 
 emotion ' in his life must be ignorant of universal gravitation. 
 
 (5) It is only, as I have already pointed out, in the case of 
 certain particular ethical judgements (not in all) that they simply 
 cannot be made by a consciousness incapable of certain emotions : 
 here where that is so, the judgements turn upon the actual value 
 of the emotions as elements in human life. A consciousness which 
 was entirely lacking in all the higher feelings — aesthetic, intellec- 
 tual, social, moral — to which the developed moral consciousness 
 assigns value, would assuredly have a limited and distorted 
 moral ideal, but it does not follow that it would attach no 
 meaning at all to the ideas of right and wrong, or be unable to 
 pronounce correctly upon simple problems of elementary 
 Morality. It might still for instance be able to recognize 
 the wrongnesB of the individual deliberately preferring his own 
 
Chap, vi, §vi] INFLUENCE OF INTEREST 173 
 
 interest to that of the community, and to apply that judgement 
 to many particular cases. 
 
 (6) It may even be admitted that those judgements which 
 do not psychologically depend upon the presence of emotion 
 are not very likely ever to be made — to say nothing of the 
 respect paid to them — by a mind totally destitute of the 
 emotions which naturally accompany them. If the human mind 
 could ever be a passionless thinking machine, it might indeed 
 be contended that the emotionless man would be a particularly 
 good judge of right and wrong in respect of those questions — 
 questions for instance of Justice in the distribution of pleasure — 
 which lay within its range. But no mind can ever be a passion- 
 less mirror of Reality. In the mind which is (relatively or 
 absolutely) devoid of moral or social feeling, the place of such 
 feelings is sure to be taken by other feelings, emotions, and 
 desires, which must necessarily distort the moral judgement 
 or totally prevent its exercise. Even our most abstract thinking 
 is dominated by purpose or interest of some kind. Minds which 
 take no interest in Morality do not think about it at all. I see 
 no reason why for instance a person incapable of moral emotion 
 should not be able to recognize the injustice of slavery, though 
 he might have felt no inclination to agitate for its abolition. 
 But we know that as a matter of fact the minds which first 
 pronounced slavery to be wrong were minds dominated by 
 a passion for Justice and an ardent love of Humanity. In 
 minds which have no such passion, indiflference may prevent any 
 judgement whatever upon the problem; interest may suggest 
 wrong judgements. 
 
 This doctrine of the inseparability of the moral judgement 
 from one particular kind of emotion seems to me not only 
 unwarrantable in itself, but dangerous in its theoretical ten- 
 dency : for it obscures the fact that the judgement of value by 
 which we recognize that my own pleasure is a reasonable end 
 of pursuit is exactly the same in its intellectual character as our 
 recognition of an intrinsic value in heroism or saintliness, 
 although the emotional accompaniments of the two judgements 
 may be very different. It is true no doubt that the amount 
 of value which we recognize in the former case is much smaller 
 
174 REASON AND FEELING [Book I 
 
 than that which we recognize in the latter. To the pleasure 
 which it is right to pursue we assign value: but we do not 
 attribute much intrinsic value to the will which wills that 
 pleasure unless the preference of the pleasure implies devotion 
 to some higher kind of good, or to the good as such, on the part 
 of the agent ; and this is commonly the case only when the 
 pleasure aimed at is not the agent's own, since only in this case 
 is there usually present any strong temptation to pursue some 
 other end, though we may ascribe some small value to the 
 preference even of private interest to mere brute passion. 
 Conduct directed towards the good is right whether it implies 
 Virtue on the part of the agent or not : but such conduct need 
 not possess value in any appreciable degree. The value may 
 often lie in the end or consequences, not in the act itself. And 
 the term moral value is commonly reserved for the value that 
 we attribute to character — to the good will or at least to 
 inclinations and dispositions, desires and emotions, which we 
 recognize as conducive to or resulting from a settled bent 
 of the will towards the good^. It is important no doubt to 
 insist on the superior value which we ascribe to such preference 
 for the good. But the two kinds of value are not absolutely 
 incommensurable. However much superior the value of a good 
 act may be to that of a transitory pleasure, we still use the term 
 ' value ' of both, and we use it in the same sense : the two kinds 
 of value differ as being at the top and the bottom of the same 
 scale, not as representing two totally incommensurable scales. 
 There can be only one ultimate scale of values, however 
 heterogeneous the objects which we appraise by that scale. 
 Thus to the actual relief of pain and healing of wounds which 
 resulted to the man fallen among thieves from the act of the 
 good Samaritan • we assign value. If it were not good for 
 wounds to be healed, it would not have been right for the good 
 Samaritan to heal them; but we should not call the injured 
 
 * Prof. Taylor seems to me to forget this use of the term ' moral value ' 
 when he declares, without qualification, that ' it is quite impossible, after 
 the fashion of popular philosophy, to draw a line between qualities that are 
 moral and qualities that are not so. Whatever is felt by men to be wortJi 
 having at all has, eo ipso, moral value, or rather, moral value is a tautologous 
 expression ' {Problem of Conduct, p. 297). 
 
Chap, vi, § vi] CONSCIENCE 175 
 
 man's feeling morally good. On the other hand, to the good 
 Samaritan's act we assign ' moral value,' and we may even assign 
 moral value to the emotion which promptad, or to the pleasure 
 which resulted from the act, even though the emotion and the 
 pleasure may not have been under the immediate control of the 
 will, because it would be an indication of character or of 
 a settled bent of the will. Such is the ordinary usage of 
 language. The distinction between ' moral value ' and ' value ' is 
 no doubt one of great practical importance, inasmuch as it 
 implies a conviction of the supreme and unique value of 
 a rightly directed will. But there is not the absolute disparity 
 between them that is suggested by the idea of a distinctively 
 moral emotion in the absence of which our judgements as to the 
 value of this or that element of human life could not be moral 
 judgements at all. 
 
 It has been contended in this chapter that ' the moral faculty ' 
 is essentially Reason. By that is meant that the ideas of 
 Right and Wrong, Good and Evil, are intellectual concepts 
 or categories which cannot be reduced to any kind or sort of 
 mere feeling. But it has been fully admitted that practically 
 the power of deciding between right and wrong involves many 
 emotional elements, and these are certainly included in what is 
 popularly spoken of as Conscience. Conscience or (to speak 
 more scientifically) the moral consciousness may be held to 
 include not merely the capacity of pronouncing moral judgements, 
 but the whole body of instincts, feelings, emotions, desires which 
 are presupposed by and which influence these judgements, 
 as well as those which prompt to the doing of the actions which 
 they prescribe^. No more accurate definition can be given, 
 because the 'moral faculty' cannot actually exist apart from 
 the other elements of self-consciousness. The Practical Reason 
 implies all the other activities of Reason and would be impossible 
 without them ; and it implies also, not a mere single specific 
 feeling or emotion, but a whole complex of feelings and 
 
 ^ Another element in what is commonly called Conscience is simply the 
 individual's consciousness of the fact that he is or is not doing what 
 he himself believes to be right. ' It perceives whether those [actions] it 
 judges right, or those it judges wrong, are actually adopted ' (Shadworth 
 Hodgson, Philosophy 0/ Experience, vol. IV, p. 86). 
 
176 REASON AND FEELING [Book I 
 
 emotions upon the value of which the Practical Reason has 
 to pronounce. ' Conscience ' or the moral consciousness is a name 
 for a particular aspect of the single self which is thought and 
 feeling and will. Morality would be impossible and meaningless, 
 or at least defective and one-sided, for a being in whom any one 
 of these elements were wanting ^. 
 
 ^ It may be broadly stated that all recent moralists who approach the sub- 
 ject from a purely psychological point of view tend to agree with the Moral 
 Sense position in making Morality ultimately to rest upon feeling, though 
 they may be less clear about the specific and distinctive character of the feel- 
 ing. To Hoffding for instance the value-judgement is simply a feeling, arising 
 largely from Sympathy {Ethik, pp. 41, 72, &c.) ; the categorical imperative 
 is ' an instinct' (ib., p. 55). Though quite aware that this position involves 
 the sacrifice of all objective character for moral judgements, he seems to me 
 constantly to use language and to express ideas which imply such an objec- 
 tivity. Simmel insists strongly on the fact that the ' ought ' is an ultimate 
 and unanalysable category of our thought, but makes the whole content of the 
 ' ought ' come from feeling (Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft, Berlin, 1892, 
 I, pp. 23 sq., 54, 239, &c.). But it is difficult to see how it is possible to 
 assert the validity of a category (and if it is a category of thought its validity 
 can hardly be denied) without any power to apply it to a matter or to give 
 it a content. Such an assertion would seem to be like maintaining that we 
 have indeed a category of quantity or number, but are quite incapable of 
 counting. Granted that our judgements in detail are liable to be influenced 
 by all sorts of psychological considerations, just as subjective motives con- 
 stantly lead to numerical miscalculations (e. g. of the numbers present at 
 a meeting in which we are interested), it is difficult to see how there can be 
 a category which we cannot validly use at all. After all the category of 
 ought in general is simply an abstraction got by comparing together actual 
 judgements of value. If what is contended is that we do think values but 
 that such judgements possess no objective validity, the reply to it must 
 simply be the general metaphysical reply to all Scepticism. Much of 
 Simmel's polemic against Rationalism in Ethics seems to turn upon the old 
 confusion between Reason and reasoning (e. g. in Einleitung, I, pp. 98-99) ; at 
 the same time he has done a service by pointing out with much acuteness 
 and vivacity some of the psychological causes which as a matter of fact do 
 largely determine our actual moral judgements, e. g. our tendency to assume 
 that the usual or normal conduct of our society is the right course. But it 
 is perhaps a mistake to take Simmel's use of the term ' category ' too 
 seriously. It appears that ultimately the category of ' end ' (practically 
 identical with that of ' ought ') is a merely ' subjective ' category (II, p. 347, 
 &c.) which would seem to mean that we have a confused idea of an ' ought ' 
 which we take to mean something, but which is of no more objective signifi- 
 cance than the idea of ' Kismet ' or that of a Centaur, though (like those 
 ideas) it may influence human conduct. But the admission that as a matter 
 
Chap, vi, note] THE AESTHETIC JUDGEMENT 177 
 
 of psychological fact these ideas of ' ought,' ' end,' ' the good,' &c., do exist, 
 and cannot be resolved into something else, represents a great advance on 
 the crude Psychology which simply explained them as ' fear of tribal ven- 
 geance,' or the like. When writers like Simmel deny their objective validity, 
 they do so as sceptical or sensationalistic metaphysicians, not as observers of 
 psychological fact. These admissions become particularly valuable when we 
 turn to the philosophical fireworks of such a writer as Guyau (Esquisse d'une 
 Morale sans obligation ni sanction), whose original discovery seems to be that 
 any factor of our consciousness which he cannot explain on the assumptions 
 of his own Philosophy may be got rid of by the simple device of calling it 
 ' mystical.' 
 
 NOTE ON THE AESTHETIC JUDGEMENT 
 
 A chapter on the relation between the moral and the aesthetic judge- 
 ment might have formed a natural and desirable sequel to the treatment of 
 ' Reason and Feeling ' in Ethics, but I do not feel that my acquaintance 
 with Aesthetic Philosophy enables me to undertake it. A few remarks on 
 the subject may, however, be useful with a view to clearing up what has 
 been said in the preceding chapter, and to prevent misunderstanding. 
 
 (1) I distinctly recognize an objective element in our aesthetic judge- 
 ments. That is implied in our strong conviction that there is a right and 
 a wrong about such judgements. They too, like moral judgements, are in 
 a sense judgements of value. But I do not say that they are ' objective ' 
 in exactly the same sense and to the same extent as the ethical judgement. 
 For they seem to be more closely connected with the variable physiological 
 organization of individuals than ethical judgements. It has been suggested, 
 for instance, that the restful feeling of green for human beings is due to 
 effects on the human eye and nerves of its frequency in Nature — especially 
 for our arboreal ancestors; while the effect of red ('like the sound of 
 a trumpet,' to quote the famous remark of a man blind from his birth) is 
 due to its infrequency in Nature. By beings with a different evolutionary 
 history, therefore, a red landscape with a few touches of green would, it 
 may be contended, be pronounced as beautiful, and beautiful in the same 
 way, as we think a landscape of predominant green with a few touches 
 of red. So again the beauty of a Gothic window as compared with a square 
 one may plausibly be connected with the frequency of the Gothic arch in 
 woods and the rarity of square arches in Nature. Even if such theories are 
 well founded, they do not destroy the existence of an objective element 
 in our aesthetic judgements. The perfect intelligence might still pronounce 
 the aesthetic feeling which we experience good, though in beings otherwise 
 constituted other aesthetic experiences might be good also. It may be 
 contended that we have something parallel to this in the moral laws which 
 are obviously applicable only to beings constituted like man, though the 
 good for such beings may be something in which every rational intelli- 
 gence would recognize value. But then I for one should contend that the 
 BA8HDA1.L I IT 
 
178 REASON AND FEELING [Book I 
 
 more ultimate of our moral judgements, such as that which recognizes 
 the value of love, are independent of such differences in the structure of 
 individuals or of society (see Bk. IIIj chap, iii), and represent not merely 
 what all rational beings would pronounce valuable in us, but an element 
 of experience which must exist and have value in all higher minds and 
 in God. It may be that we might say the same of aesthetic judgements — 
 that the value which may be recognized in aesthetic judgements which 
 differ and even contradict one another in detail, might all be referable 
 to some higher principles of aesthetic judgement which would explain 
 them all ; but we can form a less distinct conception of such principles 
 than we can of the fundamental moral laws. I cannot undertake to discuss 
 the matter here, but will only notice that aesthetic judgements (as we know 
 them in human beings) do seem to be more intimately connected with, and 
 inseparable from, sensations which presuppose a particular physiological 
 organization than the most fundamental moral judgements, although I do 
 not regard that fact as any reason for denying that they are in a true sense 
 objective. 
 
 (2) If the moral judgement is essentially a judgement of value, its sphere 
 must be absolutely all-embracing. There can be no department of human 
 life, no kind of human consciousness or experience, upon which the moral 
 Reason may not pronounce its judgements of value. People in whom 
 aesthetic interests are stronger than ethical interests frequently attempt 
 to set up a sphere of Art to which Morality is supposed to have no relation 
 whatever. Such persons simply show that they have too narrow a view 
 of what Morality is. What they really mean, or ought to mean, is that 
 aesthetic activities or enjoyments have a high value quite apart from any 
 further effects upon conduct in the narrower sense — that it may be morally 
 right to paint and look at pictures which have no tendency to make the 
 artist or the beholder go away and perform his social duties better. That 
 artistic enjoyment has this high value and forms an important element 
 in true human good, I have strongly contended. Our aesthetic objector 
 may, however, mean more than this. He may mean that any amount 
 of aesthetic enjoyment, and all kinds of it, are right, and right in all 
 circumstances. Such a proposition is so extravagant that it could hardly 
 be made by anybody who really contemplated the full consequences of 
 his assertion ; but, whether the proposition be true or false, it represents 
 an ethical judgement — as much so as the proposition that the interests 
 of Art must sometimes give way to the claims of social duty, and that there 
 are in the world plays not devoid of aesthetic value which it was morally 
 wrong to write, and which the State is right in not allowing to be acted. 
 The question what kinds of Art it is good to produce, how much time it 
 is right for such and such persons to spend in producing them or in con- 
 templating them, within what limits the aesthetic indulgence should be 
 restrained in the interests of wholesome moral feeling — these and such-like 
 questions are moral questions. Morality deals with ultimate ends or 
 elements in the end. No indulgence which does not form part of the true 
 ultimate end can possibly be justified. 
 
Chap, vi, note] ART AND BEAUTY 179 
 
 (3) The question may then be raised ' what is the relation between the 
 moral and the aesthetic judgement ? ' 
 
 The moral judgement is a judgement of vaUie ; but is not, it may be 
 asked, the aesthetic judgement also a judgement of value — at least for 
 those who recognize its objective character and refuse to reduce it to the 
 judgement 'this gives me a particular kind of pleasure'? When I pro- 
 nounce that a thing is aesthetically ' good,' does not that imply that it 
 is an end which ought to be pursued ? Up to a certain point there can 
 be little diflBculty in answering the question. We may say that the moral 
 judgement is in all cases the final one, but that the moral judgement mi^st 
 use the data supplied by the aesthetic judgement. The aesthetic judgement 
 tells us ' this is beautiful.' The moral judgement goes on to say ' Beauty, 
 or this particular kind of beauty, has an intrinsic worth, and consequently 
 ought to be pursued.' We may even say that for a consciousness which 
 recognizes the intrinsic value of Beauty, the judgement ' this picture is 
 aesthetically good' practically implies and includes the judgement 'the 
 contemplation of this picture has a certain intrinsic worth,' though other 
 and purely moral judgements will be required to determine its relative 
 worth as compared with other goods. 
 
 (4) But what if the moral judgement and the aesthetic judgement 
 actually contradict one another? In ordinary cases of what may be 
 superficially called coUisiona between the moral and the aesthetic judge- 
 ments no real diflSculty arises. When I say 'this play is aesthetically 
 a good one, but on this particular evening it would be wrong for me to 
 go and see it,' this is merely an ordinary case of the collision between 
 goods. The judgement ' the contemplation of this play has a certain 
 worth ' is not rendered untrue by the judgement ' What I should do with 
 my time and money if I did not go to see this play, has a greater worth, 
 and it is my duty not only to seek the good but the greatest good. Hence 
 it would be morally wrong to see the play.' 
 
 The real difficulty arises, not when we pronounce merely that what is 
 aesthetically good is yet a good which for certain persons in certain circum- 
 stances ought to be surrendered in favour of a greater good, but when we 
 pronounce it to be from a moral point of view actually bad. In some cases 
 it may be possible to isolate and separate the good element from the bad. 
 We may approve a novel as a work of Art, and yet condemn the moral 
 tendency of incidental reflections or remarks by the author, or of certain 
 disgusting episodes which (even if not actually irrelevant to the plot as 
 it stands, as is often the case) may still be regarded as contributing 
 nothing to the aesthetic effect of the piece which could not equally be 
 secured by a somewhat different plot. Here we may say ' the work of Art 
 as such is good ; but a novel ought not merely to be artistic but to be 
 decent. What I pronounce morally bad forms no part of what I pronounce 
 aesthetically good.' But in other cases the immoral tendency may be too 
 intimately allied with the artistic effect of the piece to be treated in this 
 way. The particular kind of Art in question may be aesthetically good, and 
 yet by its very nature appeal to passions which had better (from a moral 
 
 N a 
 
i8o REASON AND FEELING 
 
 point of view) not be excited, at least in this way and in this intensity. 
 This is particularly the case, I should judge, with certain kinds of Music in 
 their effect upon highly musical natures. But even here is not the case after 
 all only a case of the comparison of values ? If we condemn the piece — 
 that is to say, if we judge that it ought not to have been written, or that it 
 ought not to be performed, or that particular persons should not hear 
 it, or that it should not be listened to frequently — we judge that, though 
 the worth which it possesses qua work of Art is a real worth, that worth 
 is not so great as the worth of properly regulated passions, and that, if and 
 in so far as the former kind of good cannot be enjoyed without the loss of 
 the latter, that good is one which we should do without. 
 
 Of course I need hardly say that we may condemn the moral tendency of 
 a book or a piece of music without necessarily saying that nobody should 
 under any circumstances read the book or hear the music. The good may 
 still— for particular persons and in particular circumstances — outweigh the 
 evil. But that in some circumstances it is a moral duty to abstain from 
 enjoyments which are aesthetically admirable cannot be doubted. In the 
 great majority of cases — at least as regards Literature — the important 
 thing is the relative proportion which the morally stimulating and the 
 morally depressing in our reading bear to each other. Ruskin has remarked 
 that the important thing is not so much what we don't read as what we do 
 read. The properly nourished mind may for a sufficient purpose read, 
 without injury and even with advantage, much which in itself has an 
 immoral tendency, just as the properly nourished physical frame can 
 swallow many germs of disease without deleterious effects. The principle 
 must apply to a greater or less extent to other branches of Art. 
 
 (5) Another way of putting the matter is to say that, when we pronounce 
 a particular experience aesthetically good but morally bad, we mean that it 
 appeals to and satisfies a part of our nature, and a part which, when we 
 look at it in abstraction from our nature as a whole, we pronounce good : 
 but that, when compared with our ideal of human nature as a whole, this 
 particular indulgence fails to be approved. To indulge in it — for certain 
 persons, in certain circumstances, or beyond a certain point, or in some 
 cases to indulge in it at all — would be to attach disproportionate value 
 to this side of our nature as compared with others. The case of an aesthetic 
 indulgence given up in deference to moral considerations differs from the 
 case of a banquet condemned and abstained from as too costly or luxurious 
 only in the fact that the value of the good surrendered is, when taken in 
 abstraction from our ideal of human life as a whole, a higher or more 
 valuable good than the pleasures of good eating and drinking. 
 
 (6) From the point of view which has now been reached it may be 
 possible to make a further step towards the solution of the difficulties 
 presented by the problem of objectivity in the aesthetic judgement. The 
 difficulty with which we are confronted is that (a) we are unwilling to 
 admit that the judgement (say) of a certain Australian Minister of Educa- 
 tion who solemnly pronounced that he had himself examined the works 
 of William Shakespeare and could discover nothing in them but profanity 
 
Chap, vi, note] OBJECTIVITY OF BEAUTY i8i 
 
 and obscenity, and that he should therefore discourage their use in schools, 
 is objectively as good as that of the cultivated critics of all nations who 
 regard Shakespeare as the greatest dramatic genius that the world has 
 produced ; and yet that (6) so many of our aesthetic judgements are so 
 obviously connected with features of our particular human (sometimes even 
 our local or racial) experience which we can perfectly well imagine to be 
 different in another planet. Take for instance the undeniable tendency 
 to regard the usual or normal or typical form of man or any other animal 
 as the more beautiful, and to regard any considerable deviation from it as 
 ugly — even when the individual thereby approximates to a type which in 
 another animal we should think beautiful. We do not like a human face 
 which approximates to the shape which in a horse or a mouse we should 
 think beautiful enough. May it be possible to admit that the question 
 what particular forms or colours give us aesthetic pleasure is largely 
 dependent upon physiological constitution, use and wont, environment, 
 accidental association ; but that the objectivity of the aesthetic judgement 
 lies not in the judgement which states the fact that we experience such 
 and such a feeling but in the judgement which ascribes a value to this 
 feeling — that in truth it is not the strictly aesthetic judgement that is 
 objective, but the judgement of value which is pronounced on such and 
 such an aesthetic experience ? From this point of view we can admit that 
 aesthetic pleasure is often given to different persons by different experiences ; 
 and yet that in certain cases there may be no more value in the one state 
 of consciousness than in the other. The pleasure which red trees and 
 a green sunset might give to the inhabitants of another planet might be 
 just as ' true ' or ' high ' a pleasure as we derive from green trees and red 
 sunset. In a differently constituted planet square arches might suggest 
 feelings of awe and solemnity closely analogous to those which we derive 
 from a Gothic cathedral, and both kinds of emotion might have their value. 
 The negro's ideal of human beauty may include a broader nose and 
 a different shape of head from a European's, but the resulting pleasure 
 might to a perfectly disinterested intelligence appear to possess precisely 
 the same value. But, though this might be so with those particular 
 elements in the aesthetic consciousness which are in this way due to 
 accidental circumstances, it need not be so with all. The Australian 
 statesman mentioned above might have derived some pleasui-e from the 
 poetry (say) of Longfellow or Mr. Kipling, and the disinterested intelli- 
 gence would pronounce that that pleasure would have some value, but it 
 would ascribe a higher value to the different pleasure which a more 
 cultivated person would derive from Longfellow or Mr. Kipling, and 
 a still higher value to the pleasure which Longfellow or Mr. Kipling 
 have presumably derived from Shakespeare, but which the illiterate Minister 
 of Education would be incapable of feeling at all. For the different 
 estimate pronounced upon the poets in question would depend not upon 
 mere accidents of physical organization or environment but upon general 
 mental cultivation, upon qualities of intellect and character which to 
 an impartial intelligence would appear to possess very different values, 
 
i8a REASON AND FEELING 
 
 Here it is not the same pleasure that is caused by different kinds of poetry 
 to different men, but a quite different pleasure. It is true that the 
 capacity for aesthetic appreciation may be dependent upon a delicacy 
 of eye and ear which is purely physical. An unmusical poet may through 
 the structure of his nervous system be incapacitated from deriving pleasure 
 from music without being a man of lower intellect or character than the 
 musician who derives exquisite pleasure from the same sounds, or rather 
 from sounds caused by the same instruments, though they are sounds 
 which the unmusical poet simply does not hear. When the unmusical poet 
 pronounces the music not to be beautiful, his judgement may in a sense 
 possess strictly objective truth : for not only is he right in saying that 
 he gets no aesthetic pleasure from the music, but he is right in saying 
 that no high objective value attaches to what he actually hears— to the 
 sensations, ideas, and emotions which the music actually produces in him. 
 Could the musician share that experience, he would agree with the poet 
 as to its low intrinsic value. The poet is only in error if he denies the 
 objective value of the emotion which the music sets up in souls that 
 possess the musical capacity which has been denied him ; or when he 
 supposes that the elementary musical pleasure which he does himself derive 
 from a simple hymn or song is of equal intrinsic worth with the pleasure 
 which Beethoven or Bach give to the musical. Even where a pleasure 
 is given to some people by what appears to the more cultivated critic 
 absolutely ugly, there may be a worth in the pleasure, though we may 
 say that the uncultivated man is wrong, in a sense, in feeling it because his 
 enjoyment of it implies incapacity for something much better worth 
 enjoying. If we say more than this, if we say that he ought not to go 
 on indulging in his low aesthetic pleasures (even if he cannot school 
 himself into enjoying what the cultivated man enjoys), our judgement 
 is clearly a moral judgement, and not an aesthetic one at all. To distin- 
 guish more in detail between the elements of aesthetic appreciation which 
 are due to merely accidental circumstances and which might conceivably 
 vary in differently constituted beings without either of them being in error, 
 and those which are accounted for by incapacities in some beings for kinds 
 of consciousness the value of which could not be denied by any intelligence 
 without error, would involve a treatise on Aesthetic Philosophy which 
 I have no intention of attempting. I merely throw out the suggestion that 
 the really objective element in the aesthetic judgement is the judgement 
 of value which it implies. The judgement of value implied in aesthetic 
 judgement differs from ordinary judgements of value merely in being 
 a judgement as to the value of a particular class or aspect of human 
 experience which requires to be looked at in relation to a whole complex 
 of other judgements of value before it can form a ground for making the 
 avowedly and professedly moral judgement ' this kind of experience ought 
 to be indulged in by ^ or B or promoted by ^ or £ in C ov D at such and 
 such a time and in such and such circumstances.' 
 
 (7) The result of this analysis — or mere suggestion of a possible analysis — 
 is not to deny the objectivity of many of our aesthetic judgements, but 
 
Chap, vl, note] COMPARISON OF VALUES 183 
 
 to bring the objective element in them into closer connexion with our 
 ordinary judgements of value— the judgements which we usually call dis- 
 tinctively moral judgements. The judgement '^his is beautiful' claims 
 objective validity in the sense that it asserts (a) that in the ideally consti- 
 tuted consciousness, it will produce such and such an aesthetic experience, 
 and (3) that this aesthetic experience possesses such and such a value. 
 There may be cases in which a man might derive an equally valuable 
 aesthetic experience from other external objects, just as one man likes 
 one kind of food and another another without there being any difference 
 of intrinsic value between the two kinds of pleasure : but that is not 
 so always. In other cases the consciousness that thought such and 
 such things beautiful would be pronounced by an omniscient mind to be 
 inferior to the consciousness to which it appeared ugly. At the same 
 time, though aesthetic judgements are (or include) judgements of value, 
 they are value-judgements of a very distinctive and special kind. There 
 will always be this much difference between them and what we usually 
 call moral judgements, (o) that to judge well of the value of various kinds 
 of aesthetic experience requires a different kind of mental capacity from 
 that which is required to judge well of other values, and (6) that the 
 judgement ' this has aesthetic value ' cannot pass into a moral judgement, 
 on which any one can be called upon to act, until the value of the aesthetic 
 experience has been compared with the value of other kinds of experience — 
 the value for instance of Love in ourselves and of the pleasure produced 
 by a socially useful action in others, and it is this estimate of comparative 
 values which we usually call in a distinctive sense the moral judgement. 
 Many may have a good aesthetic judgement, i. e. are capable of the higher 
 aesthetic experiences and judge rightly of their value, who may have a bad 
 moral judgement, i. e. be incapable of appreciating other kinds of experience 
 at their true value when compared with the higher aesthetic experiences ; 
 others may have a good moral judgement in general, i. e. rightly estimate 
 (say) the superior value of Love and rightly balance the value of other 
 people's pleasure against their own, but may make mistakes in particular 
 cases from want of a developed aesthetic conscientiousness, i. e. because 
 they do not see that Shakespeare is beautiful or underestimate the true 
 value of the sense of beauty. 
 
CHAPTEE VII 
 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM 
 
 In previous chapters I have sought to show that the way 
 to find out whether an action is right or wrong, when we are 
 forced to consider such a question for ourselves without reference 
 to some established rule^, is to consider whether it will tend 
 to produce for society in general a Well-being or eiibainovia or 
 good which includes many elements possessing diflFerent values, 
 which values are intuitively discerned and compared with one 
 another by the moral or practical Reason. The right action ie 
 always that which (so far as the agent has the means of knowing) 
 will produce the greatest amount of good upon the whole. This 
 position implies that all goods or elements of the good are in 
 some sense and for some purposes commensurable. Some of the 
 objections which may be taken to this position I shall consider 
 hereafter. In the present chapter I shall aim at illustrating 
 how the moral judgements implied by the special virtues, and in 
 particular by those which are prima facie most unutilitarian, 
 are explainable upon the supposition that all moral judgements 
 are ultimately judgements as to the value of ends. This view of 
 Ethics, which combines the utilitarian principle that Ethics must 
 be teleological with a non-hedonistic view of the ethical end, 
 I propose to call Ideal Utilitarianism. According to this view 
 actions are right or wrong according as they tend to produce for 
 all mankind an ideal end or good, which includes, but is not 
 limited to, pleasure. 
 
 A paramount position among our moral judgements is (as we 
 have seen) occupied by the three axioms of Prudence, Benevo- 
 
 ' When we ougtt to enter upon such a consideration is a question which 
 I have discussed in Book II, chap. v. 
 
Chap.vii,§i] BENEVOLENCE AND JUSTICE 185 
 
 lence, and Equity. It is self-evident to me that I ought (where 
 it does not collide with the greater good of another) to promote 
 my own greatest good, that I ought to prefer a greater good 
 on the whole to a lesser, and that I ought to regard the good 
 of one man as of equal intrinsic value with the like good of any 
 one else. 
 
 This last assumption will be further defended and explained 
 in the Chapter on Justice. Meanwhile, it may be assumed that 
 the ultimate meaning of absolute Justice is to be sought in this 
 equal distribution of good. 
 
 Such is the meaning, I take it, of ultimate social Justice. 
 Justice in this absolute sense prescribes the principle, whatever 
 it be, upon which the good is to be distributed, while Benevo- 
 lence is taken to mean the promotion of maximum social good 
 without reference to the question of its distribution. In this 
 sense even the hedonistic Utilitarian must admit the necessity 
 of recognizing that Virtue cannot be altogether resolved into 
 Benevolence, unless the meaning of Benevolence is narrowed 
 down to a Benevolence which is consistent with Justice. But 
 it must be admitted that there are many senses of the word 
 Justice, as popularly used, which do not seem priima facie 
 to have any reference to the question of the distribution of 
 Well-being or ultimate good. When we say that it is unjust 
 to punish a man without hearing his defence, or to compel 
 a man to give evidence against himself, or to punish a man 
 twice for the same offence, or to make an ex post facto law, 
 or to decide a civil action in favour of the poorer or the more 
 deserving litigant who has nevertheless the worse case — in 
 all such cases there seems no obvious or immediate reference 
 to any principle for the ultimate distribution either of ultimate 
 Well-being or of its material conditions. In Aristotelian lan- 
 guage 'regulative' Justice^ — the Justice of the law-courts — 
 seems to be a different virtue from ' distributive ' Justice. But in 
 all these heterogeneous uses of the term Justice there seems 
 
 ^ The same may be said of his Commercial Justice, or Justice of Exchange. 
 It assumes the justice of the principle of private property and free barter 
 in exchange, which a Socialist might regard as intrinsically unjust on account 
 of the advantage which it gives to the possessor of unearned capital. 
 
1 86 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 to be this much in common ; they all prescribe impartiality in 
 the treatment of individuals ; they forbid inequality, or rather 
 arbitrary inequality — inequality not justified by the require- 
 ments of social Well-being, or some other general and rational 
 principle — in the treatment of individuals. They all involve 
 the application of some general rule or principle without respect 
 of persons to particular cases. The question of the justice of 
 this rule is not, in common discourse, brought into question. 
 We call a judge unjust who refuses to apply the law impartially, 
 though we ourselves disapprove of the law and regard it as 
 essentially unjust. Thus we may say that the word, as used 
 in ordinary parlance, always denotes impartiality in distribution 
 upon some condition — assuming some established principle or 
 rule of the actual social order, which must itself no doubt rest 
 upon some principle of absolute Justice if it is to be capable of 
 ultimate justification, but the justice of which is for the moment 
 assumed. Thus we say that it is unjust to punish one man more 
 severely than another for the same oflFence and under precisely 
 similar circumstances, because here no consideration of social 
 expediency (that is to say, at bottom no conflicting claims of 
 other men) can interfere with the general principle that one man 
 should be treated in exactly the same way as another under exactly 
 the same circumstances. The principles of absolute Justice cannot 
 require such unequal treatment : if they did, that would constitute 
 such a difference of circumstance as might justify the unequal 
 treatment. But we do not regard it as unjust for the judge to 
 decide a case in a way which will enrich an already rich man 
 and beggar a poor man, because we assume the justice of the 
 laws of property, and regard it as the duty of the judge simply 
 to administer that law impartially ; as unjust that a naval officer 
 should receive more prize-money than a common sailor, because 
 on other grounds we assume that social Well-being demands the 
 adoption of an unequal s.cale of remuneration for officers and 
 men, while we should regard it as unjust to give more to one 
 man than to another of the same rank. It is unnecessary to 
 multiply illustrations : in all cases the popular usages of the 
 term Justice, in so far as they are capable of defence, may be 
 held to imply the due regard of the claim of individuals — ^not 
 
Chap, vii, § i] PARTICULAR VIRTUES 187 
 
 their intrinsic merit or ultimate claims to Well-being, but their 
 claim according to some established or recognized law or prin- 
 ciple of distribution. Varied as are the usee of the term Justice 
 in common language, the underlying idea of all of them seems to 
 be that our accepted principles of social conduct, whatever they 
 may be, should be applied impartially as between different 
 individuals or classes. Sometimes of course when an act or 
 a custom or an institution is pronounced unjust, it is meant 
 that the established principle itself is one which cannot be 
 defended upon any ground of social expediency, that it violates 
 the fundamental principle that the ultimate value of one man's 
 good is equal to that of the like good of another. But this 
 question of absolute Justice raises so many difficult and intricate 
 questions that further explanations must be reserved for a 
 separate chapter. 
 
 Subject to due regulation by the rule of Justice or Equity ^ it 
 might seem to follow from the principles which we have hitherto 
 adopted that all virtues could be explained as ultimately resolv- 
 able into rational Benevolence or Love. But even the Hedonist 
 must recognize that special names are in practice given to various 
 special kinds of conduct, which are supposed to be conducive in 
 definite and distinguishable ways to human good ; such kinds of 
 conduct, or rather the dispositions to perform them, are called 
 particular virtues. On the view which judges of the ultimate 
 value of goods by other than a hedonistic standard we are able 
 to establish a sharper and clearer distinction between the different 
 duties or the dispositions which lead to their performance, since 
 we can recognize not merely a distinction between different 
 kinds of conduct all ultimately conducive to a single good, but 
 also a real and important distinction between the kinds of good 
 which they tend to promote. Thus even from the hedonistic 
 point of view it is clearly convenient to have a distinctive name 
 for the disposition to observe the rule of truth-speaking, though 
 
 ' Which includes Prudence, or the recognition of the due claims of self. 
 That due recognition of the claims of self is a duty is well put by Hsffding 
 {Ethik, p. 119): 'It follows from the principle of Welfare [or Utility] that 
 the individual is only one among many, but it follows also therefrom that 
 the individual really is one among many." 
 
i88 IDEAL UTILITAEIANISM [Book I 
 
 to the Utilitarian truth-speaking is simply one of the particular 
 rules which the supreme and all-inclusive duty of promoting 
 human pleasure imposes upon mankind. From the point of view 
 of ideal Utilitarianism we may no doubt recognize that devotion 
 to true human good will include all other virtues, Veracity 
 among the number: but we shall be disposed to insist more 
 strongly upon this and other special or particular virtues, because 
 to us truthfulness of character, in ourselves and others, is a part 
 of the end or ideal life which the virtuous man will seek to pro- 
 mote, and not merely a means to a good other than itself. We 
 shall be less disposed to acquiesce in the disposition to reduce all 
 the virtues to Benevolence, since in practice ethical teaching 
 of this kind is pretty sure to obscure or slur over the fact that 
 the end which the benevolent man is to promote must include 
 many other kinds of good besides pleasure, many dispositions, 
 emotions, activities, states of consciousness which are valued for 
 their own sakes and not merely as a means to some further good. 
 I do not intend in the present work to attempt any exhaustive 
 enumeration or description of the particular kinds of conduct, 
 the particular duties or virtues, which are included in the dis- 
 position to promote true human good, or of the various ends or 
 elements in that good with which these various duties or virtues 
 are specially concerned. I shall not attempt to show elaborately 
 in what ways virtues such as Honesty, Industry, Family Affection, 
 Kindliness, Compassion, Loyalty (to the State or other social 
 institutions), Orderliness, Courage (physical and moral) are con- 
 ducive to the general good. That they are so is common ground 
 between the hedonistic and the ideal Utilitarian, though no 
 doubt it will be possible to find in connexion with all of them 
 casuistical questions which might have to be differently answered 
 by those who take and by those who refuse to take a hedonistic 
 view of human good. Descriptions or classifications of duties or 
 virtues are apt to be tedious and useless, unless the details of 
 duty are discussed with much greater fullness than is compatible 
 with the scope of the present work. I propose, therefore, to 
 confine myself in this chapter to some remarks upon those duties 
 or virtues which seem at first sight most difficult to reconcile 
 with the view that all virtue consists ultimately in the promotion 
 
Chap, vii, § ii] HUMANITY 1 89 
 
 of true social good, and which really are (as it appears to me) in- 
 capable of being reconciled with that doctrine, so long as social 
 good is understood in a purely hedonistic sense. 
 
 II 
 
 In the first place, I must observe that even those virtues 
 which are most obviously altruistic in their tendency are, 
 according to our view, also ends in themselves — having a value 
 independent of, and in some cases much greater than, the mere 
 pleasure which they cause in others. Hence it becomes rational 
 to encourage the cultivation and exercise of these virtues even 
 in ways which cannot always be shown to produce a net gain in 
 pleasure on the whole. I have already illustrated this in the 
 case of Humanity to men and animals. The high value which 
 we assign to all natural kindliness of feeling and to parental 
 affection in particular is, I believe, one of the main grounds 
 for our condemnation of infanticide. The same consideration 
 forbids the extinction of life in the case of the old or the sick or 
 the insane, and generally speaking, persons whose existence 
 is a burden to the community, even should they be willing 
 to consent to the sacrifice. If it be assumed that their lives 
 are a burden even to themselves, then of course the question 
 is complicated with another, the lawfulness of suicide, to which 
 we shall return later on. 
 
 It is no doubt quite compatible with this high estimate of the 
 social affections to urge that in certain directions Christian 
 sentiment has been carried to extremes. But here it is important 
 to bear in mind a principle on which we shall have frequently to 
 insist — that we must take into consideration the actual psycho- 
 logical constitution of human nature, and the impossibility 
 of modifying it exactly in the way and to the extent to which 
 we please. It might be difficult without this principle to justify 
 our absolute condemnation of the extinction of extremely mis- 
 shapen infants. It would be difficult, that is, to maintain 
 a priori that it would not be a gain to society to eliminate the 
 infants most grossly and obviously unfitted for life, were it not 
 for the fact of the horror which the idea actually excites in 
 humane persons. The moral reformer who should feel inclined 
 
190 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 to suggest some modification of the existing custom will, however, 
 reflect on the extreme value of the feelings which such a sugges- 
 tion would shock, the extreme difficulty of drawing the line 
 between the permitted and the unpermitted elimination, and the 
 impossibility of securing that interference with spontaneous 
 emotions shall stop just where he wants it to stop. He will 
 remember the ease with which the kindly inhibition of an 
 unhappy life might degenerate (in individual parents and in 
 society at large) into a mere selfish repudiation of trouble, 
 privation or anxiety, and the encouragement which any extension 
 of the practice would give to materialistic and hedonistic views 
 of life. We condemn infanticide, because we consider the feelings 
 which the prohibition cultivates to be of more intrinsic worth 
 than the good which it secures. Given the actual psychological 
 constitution of human nature, we may even judge it best that 
 such questions should not be raised at all : but, if they are 
 raised, there is no principle upon which they can be decided but 
 this of the comparative worth of the sentiments and type of 
 character encouraged by that prohibition and of the social advan- 
 tages which might accrue from its relaxation. While I have 
 no doubt that on the whole the established rule is right, it is 
 possible that in certain extreme cases the Christian sentiment 
 has been pushed too far, and that in the case of actual monsters 
 or beings entirely destitute of human intelligence, in which it 
 is possible to draw a fairly definite line, and in which the life 
 that is preserved is as valueless from a moral as it is from 
 a hedonistic point of view, an exception might be made'. 
 
 ' It appears that this was the recognized doctrine both for Church and 
 State in Christian countries in the seventeenth century : see constant allu- 
 sions to it in connexion with the difficulty of defining the term ' man ' in 
 the works of Leibniz. In ' Some Remarks on Punishment ' in the Inter- 
 natiwml Journal of Ethics (vol. iv, 1893-4, p. 269 «g.), Mr. Bradley assumes 
 the whole of the modem aversion to infanticide to be due to what he would 
 regard as a pure superstition about the taking of human life. That the 
 feeling of the sanctity of life, assumed to be prescribed by direct divine 
 revelation, has historically exercised some influence in this direction can 
 hardly be denied ; but that so deeply-seated and widely-spread an ethical 
 change should be due entirely to ' superstition ' or to merely theological ideas 
 (reasonable or unreasonable) is a view which will probably commend itself 
 only to anti-Christian fanaticism. The Buddhistic feeling against the taking 
 
Chap, vii, § iii] DUTY OF SELF-CULTURE 191 
 
 Another possible case in which a valuable sentiment has been 
 indulged to an exaggerated extent may perhaps be found in the 
 practice of preserving, at immense risk to» warders and doctors, 
 the lives of homicidal maniacs. 
 
 Ill 
 
 I pass on to consider some other of the less obviously utilitarian 
 virtues and duties. Through all of them there seems to run the 
 general principle that a higher value should be attributed to 
 the exercise and cultivation of the higher — that is to say, 
 of the intellectual, sesthetic, and emotional — faculties than to 
 the indulgence of the merely animal and sensual part of our 
 nature. We regard knowledge, culture, enjoyment of beauty, 
 intellectual activity of all kinds, and the emotions connected 
 with these things, as having a higher value than the pleasures 
 arising from the gratification of the mere animal propensities to 
 eating and drinking or physical exercise or the like ^. What 
 
 of life, ho-wever little in its exaggeration capable of rational defence, is at 
 all events sufBcient to show that the sentiment with which we have to deal 
 is not the mere influence of a supposed divine command inherited by Chris- 
 tianity from Judaism. Moreover, it is worthy of note that the practice 
 advocated by Mr. Bradley was condemned by the best pagans. Even Plato, 
 to whom Mr. Bradley appeals, did not approve of the deliberate bringing 
 into existence of children expressly designed for the slaughter-house ; he 
 sanctioned infanticide only in case of children born of parents who had 
 passed the prescribed age ; while Aristotle condemned infanticide for the 
 mere purpose of reducing population, and allowed it only in the case of 
 misshapen infants. For a sanction to ' social surgery ' of the wholesale 
 type advocated by Mr. Bradley we must descend below the level of the 
 ' higher Paganism.' 
 
 ^ We may legitimately attribute a higher value to athletic enjoyment 
 than to mere gratification of the senses because (o) athletic exercises 
 (especially in the form of games) in moderation are as conducive to the due 
 activity of the intellect as in excess (an excess very soon reached) they are 
 detrimental to it, (&) because (especially in men of small moral or intellectual 
 capacities) they supply a useful antidote to still more animal propensities, 
 (c) because they do cultivate some moral and intellectual qualities. I might 
 say more on this side of the matter if it were not for the enormous exaggera- 
 tion of the moral value of athletics which is popular at the present moment, 
 and which is threatening the higher life of the nation no less than the 
 prestige of our commerce and the efficiency of our army. The fallacy of 
 the arguments commonly used by those schoolmasters who encourage the 
 
192 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 is the relative value of these things as compared with activities 
 of a directly social character, is a question on which we may have 
 to say something hereafter. It is not necessary to deny that the 
 encouragement even of such intellectual pursuits as are of the 
 least direct and obvious social utility does lead to an increase of 
 pleasure on the whole, but our feeling about them is not based 
 upon any such doubtful calculations : and assuredly there are 
 many cases where an individual would find it difficult to justify 
 the devotion of his whole time to pursuits which bring pleasure 
 only to himself, and perhaps a very small circle of other people, 
 when it might be bestowed upon work which would undoubtedly 
 bring pleasure or a saving of pain to large numbers, if he thought 
 that all pleasure was of equal worth, that nothing was of any 
 value but pleasure, and that conduct was right only in so far as 
 it tends to increase of pleasure. 
 
 This general principle of the superiority of certain parts of 
 our nature to others — the more purely human to the more 
 animal — is the root of two sets of virtues : — 
 
 1. Of those virtues (though modems are not much in the habit 
 of thinking of them as virtues at all) which consist in the 
 exercise of the higher intellectual and aesthetic faculties : 
 
 2. Of the virtues which consist in the due control or sub- 
 ordination of the lower or more animal impulses. 
 
 Of the first we need not speak more at length, except in 
 one connexion. This seems to be the place to say a word 
 about the source of our respect for Truth. Granted the great 
 social utility of being able to take a man's word (say in com- 
 mercial transactions), it is obvious, to my mind, that upon 
 hedonistic assumptions the exceptions would be much more 
 numerous than would commend themselves at least to a well- 
 brought-up Englishman. There would be no reason why we 
 should resist that tendency to say (in matters of no importance), 
 
 exaggerations of Athleticism seems to lie chiefly in assuming (i) that the 
 qualities undoubtedly cultivated by games cannot be cultivated in any other 
 way, (2) that the resource, initiative, self-control, habit of co-operation, 
 prompt action, &c., cultivated in one particular way will transfer themselves 
 to other spheres. Experience does not seem to favour either assumption. A 
 football player who excels in ' combination ' is quite as likely as other men 
 to play for his own hand in real life. 
 
Chap, vii, § iii] VERACITY 193 
 
 at any expense to Truth, what would be agreeable to the hearer 
 which is, indeed, almost sanctioned by the current morality of 
 some civilized nations. It is of course possible to enumerate 
 many inconveniences — particularly what we may call moral 
 inconveniences, loss of any opportunities of learning our defects 
 and the like — which result from such a toleration of minor lying. 
 But, entirely apart from all such considerations, I believe that 
 we do on reflection recognize something intrinsically fitting in 
 the rule which prescribes that a rational being, endowed with 
 faculties which enable him to pursue, to communicate, and to 
 love the truth, should use those faculties in that way rather 
 than for the purpose of making things appear otherwise than 
 as they are. So much appears to me to be the clear result 
 of introspection, and to be implied in the strongest moral 
 convictions of other men. But, it is equally easy to show 
 that to erect the principle of Veracity into a hard and fast 
 rule admitting of no exceptions is out of harmony with the 
 belief and the practice of the most conscientious persons. Where 
 some conventional use of language is sufficiently recognized, 
 formal untruths may no doubt be removed from the category 
 of lies proper by the principle that words must be taken to 
 mean what they are commonly understood to mean. In this 
 way we may defend the formal ' not at home,' the usual forms 
 of social and epistolary salutation, the hyperboles of courtly 
 compliment, though in proportion as these latter pass beyond 
 the minimum of fixed convention their justification becomes 
 more precarious. But this principle is inapplicable to the actual 
 deception practised by detectives, or by private persons towards 
 a brigand inquiring the whereabouts of his victim, or to the 
 denial of bad news to sick persons, or to lies told for the 
 preservation of important secrets, or to the employment of 
 ancient formulae (a political oath, a declaration imposed by some 
 ancient Statute, or a confession of faith ^), which nobody takes 
 quite literally, but with respect to which the limits of per- 
 missible latitude are not definitely fixed by universally under- 
 
 ^ I have discussed this particular application of the principle in an article 
 in the International Journal of Ethics, 'Prof. Sidgwick on Religious Con- 
 formity,' vol. Ill (Jan. 1897), 
 
 BASHDALL 1 
 
194 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 stood and accepted custom. Of course, in proportion as these 
 exceptions to the rule of truth-speaking are generally recognized, 
 part of the moral objection to them disappears. Though they 
 in some cases deceive for the moment the particular person to 
 whom they are addressed, they do not to any important extent 
 tend to weaken respect for truth, the habit of telling the truth, 
 and the general confidence in other people's statements. 
 
 It is no doubt much to be desired that a general under- 
 standing should be arrived at about such matters. But as 
 a matter of fact no such general understanding does exist, 
 and the absence of such an understanding forms an insuperable 
 objection to finding even in the case of Veracity — the stronghold 
 of popular Intuitionism — the case of an intuitively discerned 
 rule of conduct, universally binding without any consideration 
 of consequences. From our point of view we have no diflBculty 
 in reconciling the ' intuitive ' basis of the virtue with the occur- 
 rence of exceptions based upon consideration of consequences. 
 Truth-speaking is a good, and so (still more) is that inward 
 love of truth of which truth-speaking is the expression and 
 the guarantee. It is almost invariably right to speak the 
 truth, because it is morally good both for ourselves to speak 
 it and for others to hear it, even when it is unpleasant to 
 both parties. But there are other goods besides truth-speaking 
 and truth-loving: and sometimes Truth must be sacrificed to 
 the more imperative claims of Humanity or of Justice. In 
 each case we must decide which is of the greatest worth — the 
 speaking of truth and the habit of speaking it which my 
 lie would tend to discourage, or the life which my lie will 
 save, the injustice that it will prevent, the practical good which 
 it will enable me to do, the greater truth which it will enable 
 me to difiuse. There are even cases in which a lie has to be 
 told in the interests of Truth itself. An untrue statement 
 must be made to one man in order to keep a secret which 
 one has promised to respect ; a statement literally untrue must 
 be made that a higher truth may be taught or real liberty of 
 thought and speech advanced ^. 
 
 ' This is admirably put by HefFding (Ethik, p. 178) : ' The duty of speaking 
 the truth amounts to this, the duty of promoting the supremacy of the truth 
 
Chap, vii, § iii] TRUTH-SEEKING 195 
 
 It will be observed that I have drawn no hard and fast 
 distinction between the duty of Veracity and the duty towards 
 Truth in a wider and more speculative 'sense. And it seems 
 to me of great practical importance to insist that the social 
 duty of Veracity and the duty of scientific enquiry ultimately 
 spring from the same root, though in the case of Veracity 
 the duty is more directly and immediately dependent upon 
 our social relations. We ought not to lie one to another (as was 
 recognized by St. Paul), because we are ' members one of another,' 
 because we do not like to hear lies told to ourselves, and ought 
 not to like them even when they are pleasant. Deception implies 
 want of respect for the personality of others. But, after all, 
 the distinction is only one of degree, for there is some social 
 reference even in the duty of seeking speculative truth. It 
 is under ordinary circumstances best for ourselves and for 
 others that we should seek and make known the truth in 
 matters of Religion and of Science as well as about the facts 
 of common life. It is important to insist upon the close 
 connexion between a very practical duty and one which is 
 intimately associated with the highest intellectual aspirations 
 for two reasons. It emphasizes the fact that the social duty 
 is not confined to the mere abstinence from false statements 
 (though of course the negative rule is capable of more exact 
 definition and admits of fewer legitimate exceptions than the 
 
 (" die Wahrheit zur Herrschaft zu bringen ") : the end may, however, often 
 be interfered with by speaking the truth.' So Sir Leslie Stephen : ' The 
 rule, " Lie not," is the external rule, and corresponds approximately to the 
 internal rule, " Be trustworthy." . . . Truthfulness is the rule because in 
 the vast majority of cases we trust a man in so far as he speaks the truth : in the 
 exceptional cases the mutual confidence would be violated when the truth, 
 not when the lie, is spoken ' {A Study of Ethics, p. 208). So the insistence 
 upon a strict and literal interpretation of political or religious formulae is- 
 often opposed to the interests of Truth. The man too scrupulous to join a 
 party, some part of whose programme does not express his real mind, or to 
 subscribe a creed details of which are obsolete, often does less than he might 
 do to propagate the truth. Such protests often have their value, but it is 
 perhaps the tendency of conscientious persons to over-estimate this negative 
 devotion to Truth. In the case of the actual ' pious fraud ' or yfvvcuov ^cvSos 
 it is most commonly the minor, not the major premiss of the moral syllogism 
 which is questionable. Such fi-auds would be justifiable if (when all their 
 consequences are considered) they were socially beneficiaL 
 
 a 
 
196 IDEAL UTILITAKIANISM [Book I 
 
 positive), and it further illustrates how the admission of ex- 
 ceptions is compatible with the fullest recognition of an 'intuitive' 
 basis for the duty. It may be recognized as a general principle 
 that it is a duty to seek for and to reveal the truth in spite 
 of the fact that its discovery often seems to weaken or to 
 shatter beliefs, institutions, habits, traditions of high social 
 utility. Even in the most modem times I believe that this 
 duty is inadequately recognized, at least by those who are 
 in the habit of attaching most value to what are commonly 
 called moral considerations in the narrower sense of the word. 
 There is probably, in this country at least, too much, not too 
 little, unwillingness to communicate to the ignorant and the 
 young the results of Science or of scientific Theology, for fear 
 they should weaken the reverence and the Morality which 
 have in the past been associated with beliefs no longer tenable. 
 And yet those who put the duty highest acknowledge that 
 it has at times to give way to others more imperative still. 
 No one but a fanatic thinks it a duty to proclaim the truth 
 on every subject, at all times and under all circumstances — 
 in omnibuses and railway trains, before old and young, simple 
 and learned, on suitable occasions and unsuitable — with equal 
 openness and equal insistence. Some respect we all recognize 
 it as right to show to the known convictions, the sympathies, 
 the limitations, the prejudices of our hearers; to the social 
 convenience of the principle that there is a time and place 
 for all things ; to a host of conventions, traditions, and under- 
 standings. The principle that all moral judgements are judge- 
 ments of value, while all value is comparative, supplies us 
 with an unfailing means of reconciling the highest reverence 
 for Truth with the limitations which all sensible and right- 
 feeling persons recognize to the duty of actively proclaiming it ; 
 although it does not (any more than any other ethical principle) 
 supply us with an infallible mode of discerning what is right 
 in difficult cases of ' conflicting duties \' 
 
 ' Of course in the strictest sense there can be no ' conflict of duties.' It is 
 no doubt true that the duty only begins when the conflict of traditional rules 
 or of real moral principles has been decided. If one supposed 'duty' is 
 overruled by another, the former is not really a duty. But the expression 
 is a natural and convenient one. 
 
Chap, vii, § iv] PURITY 197 
 
 IV 
 
 The due subordination of the appetitesf their control in such 
 a way as is most favourable to the activity of the higher part 
 of our nature, constitutes the virtue of Temperance in that wider 
 sense indicated by the Greek <Ta><ppo<ruvri, translated by the 
 Schoolmen temperantia, but for which modern languages have 
 no single comprehensive name. In some ways the circumstance 
 is regrettable, as it tends to oblivion of the fact that the same 
 consideration which dictates the control of the sexual impulse 
 dictates also moderation not only in drinking but in eating 
 and (it may be added) in respect of all the lower and more 
 animal pleasures. On the other hand it has the advantage 
 of emphasizing the fact that in the degree and kind of control 
 which the highest Morality imposes upon the sexual appetite 
 we have advanced beyond the mere moderation which com- 
 mended itself to the average Greek mind in the time of 
 Aristotle. 
 
 It is in dealing with the virtue of Purity as it has been 
 understood by the Christian consciousness, and the higher 
 religious consciousness even outside the limits of Christendom, 
 that hedonistic-utilitarian explanations of Morality break down 
 most hopelessly. It is in reference to this virtue that the 
 developed moral consciousness does seem most nearly to assume 
 the form which Intuitionism gives to all ethical precepts — 
 that of a prohibition to do certain acts, a prohibition which 
 gives no further account of itself, and which positively forbids 
 any calculation of consequences or admission of exceptions. 
 While strongly insisting that the moral consciousness in its 
 highest development does condemn all sexual indulgence outside 
 monogamous marriage, I should contend that this prohibition 
 admits of being stated in the form of a judgement as to the 
 ultimate value of an end. It is a certain state of feeling which 
 is pronounced to be of intrinsic value — a state of feeling which 
 the clearest moral insight and the highest spiritual experience 
 of the race have decided to be incompatible with sexual in- 
 dulgence outside a relatively permanent monogamous union. 
 If the moral consciousness here seems to forbid all calculation 
 
198 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 of consequences, or comparison of values, it is because from 
 the nature of the case it is practically impossible that con- 
 siderations of social well-being should ever prescribe a departure 
 from the rule. I will not attempt to discuss the wholly abnormal 
 circumstances in which it might be possible to conceive that 
 some great advantage, whether for country or for humanity, 
 might be obtained by submission to a single act of impurity 
 at the behest of a tyrant or the like. Without positively 
 denying that such exceptions might conceivably be found, I will 
 only point out that even the absolute refusal to relax the 
 rule in however extraordinary a case would be quite compatible 
 with the doctrine that the morality of acts depends upon their 
 consequences, for it may be held that such a refusal (when we 
 take into account its tendency to secure respect for the principle 
 in the eyes of others) is so great a good as to be worth any 
 sacrifice which has to be paid for it in any particular combination 
 of circumstances. The man or the woman who brought suffering 
 on family or country by heroism of this kind would not be 
 setting up an arbitrary categorical imperative against the true 
 interests of the human race, but simply interpreting the true 
 interests of the race by a non-hedonistic standard of value. 
 
 I have said that the law of Purity is the moral precept which 
 admits of the most exact definition and which gives rise to the 
 smallest possibility of exceptions of a kind which will appeal to 
 men of highly developed moral nature in modern Christendom. 
 But it is worth pointing out that there is a side on which the 
 law is less capable of exact and universally accepted definition, 
 and on which it involves questions obviously incapable of settle- 
 ment without reference to social consequences. There is a con- 
 sensus, within the limits indicated above, that sexual indulgence 
 must be limited to monogamous marriage. But as to the exact 
 conditions which constitute a lawful monogamous marriage the 
 consensus is certainly much less complete — in particular upon 
 two points, upon the question of prohibited degrees and the 
 question of divorce. With regard to prohibited degrees, nothing 
 much need be said, since it is generally admitted by those 
 who do not feel that society is bound for all time by the 
 decision of the early Church, or of Roman Emperors and their 
 
Chap.vii,§iv] MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE 199 
 
 ecclesiastical advisers, that the limits must be determined by 
 considerations of social convenience in the ordinary sense of 
 the term. The only way in which th^ adoption of a non- 
 hedonistic standard will be likely to modify our attitude towards 
 the question will be in reinforcing the demand that the higher 
 moral aspect of marriage shall be allowed due weight as well as 
 the question of mere materialistic convenience. We shall ask 
 not merely whether the prohibition of marriage with a deceased 
 wife's sister is most conducive to the convenience and enjoyment 
 of widowers and their families, but whether the principle that 
 marriage-relationship shall be regarded as equivalent to blood- 
 relationship tends to heighten the general ideal of the marriage 
 bond. I do not contend that this consideration will practically 
 be likely to modify the decision to which we should have come 
 on other grounds. On the question of divorce, however, this 
 aspect of the matter becomes of paramount importance. 
 
 Those who take the highest view of the marriage-tie — for 
 practical purposes, we may as well say, those who adopt the 
 Christian view of marriage — are agreed in insisting that it 
 is part of its ideal that such unions shall be permanent. The 
 ideal of marriage is a spiritual union of a kind which absolutely 
 forbids any voluntary termination of it, even independently 
 of the interests of children, which are also no doubt best secured 
 by the greatest attainable permanence. The question whether 
 under particular circumstances, when this ideal has not been 
 reached, the dissolution of the marriage with liberty to marry- 
 again is or is not the less of two evils involves precisely the same 
 kind of comparison of goods — in this case of very heterogeneous 
 goods — which we have seen to be necessary in every ethical 
 judgement. Here, as usual, the comparison is not wholly a 
 balancing of higher good against lower : there are moral advan- 
 tages and moral disadvantages on both sides. On the one hand 
 there is the moral advantage of insisting upon the idea of per- 
 manence, in forcing people to enter upon marriage with the 
 deliberate intention of doing all that in them lies to make it 
 a permanent and a spiritual union and not a mere partnership 
 based upon interest and terminable at pleasure : on the other 
 hand there are the obvious moral objections to the prohibition of 
 
200 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 re-marriage where cohabitation has become impossible. The 
 question does not seem to be one which admits of any universal 
 solution without regard to circumstances of time and place : 
 and it is to be observed that the moral problem is here not 
 precisely the same as the political problem. It is one question 
 whether people aiming at the highest ideal of life ought to 
 marry again in certain circumstances: it is another question 
 whether, if people wish to do so, the State should prevent them. 
 The question is, therefore, one to which the State may quite 
 intelligibly give one answer, and the Church, which is a voluntary 
 society for the promotion of the highest life, a somewhat diflFerent 
 one. On the other hand any appearance of discord between the 
 morality of the Church and the morality of the State is itself 
 a grave source of moral perplexity and relaxation : on such 
 matters the State, at least in Protestant countries and with the 
 majority of their inhabitants, is a more powerful moral educator 
 than the Church. I will leave the subject with the remark that on 
 this question there is likely to be a grave difference between the 
 solutions offered by hedonistic and by non-hedonistic Utili- 
 tarianism. The logical Hedonist will attach much greater im- 
 portance than the ethical Idealist to the hardship involved in 
 the prohibition of re-marriage to an offending party ^, and much 
 less to the social importance of inculcating, even at the cost 
 of real hardship to individuals, a high and spiritual ideal of 
 marriage. 
 
 Another question connected with the definition of Purity 
 is raised by the change which is actually passing over the 
 morality of Europe with regard to the relation of the sexual 
 instinct to the procreation of children. The subject deserves 
 a passing mention because we have here a great unsettled 
 problem of Ethics in which differences of ethical theory may 
 have a vital bearing upon practical questions of immense moment : 
 and it is good even from the most purely theoretical point of 
 view to bring our ethical theories into contact with real practical 
 
 ' I regard the prohibition of marriage even by the Church to the inno- 
 cent party in the case of adultery as clearly incapable of rational justification 
 (whatever may be thought about the question of the guilty party) : the 
 JEastern Church has always observed this distinction. 
 
Chap.vii,§iv] AN ETHICAL PROBLEM 201 
 
 problems. In Christian countries there has been a tendency 
 until recently to condemn all restriction, even of the most purely 
 negative kind, to the number of births, afld to represent it as 
 a moral duty for married persons to bring into the world the 
 largest number of children that is physically possible. The time 
 is past when such a precept would have been defended on the 
 ground that a maximum increase of population is in itself, in all 
 circumstances, a desirable end ; though our solution of the 
 problem may be seriously affected by our view of the degree 
 of urgency which the population question has reached. Every one 
 but a Pessimist will admit that the population of a country 
 ought to be kept up or even (so far as this can be done without 
 lowering the quality of its life) to increase ; and that therefore 
 it is a moral duty on the part of married persons to be willing 
 to undertake the responsibilities of parentage : that is part of the 
 ideal of marriage. It does not follow that it is desirable that 
 population should increase with a maximum rapidity : if that 
 were so celibacy would be immoral. But even apart from the 
 population question, there are many considerations which may 
 reasonably be urged against the assumption that large families 
 are always a good thing: and these considerations are not 
 all of a hedonistic or materialistic character. There is the 
 wife's health, the interference with other than purely domestic 
 employments, the loss of educational advantages which the 
 increase of family may entail upon every member of it. Of 
 course if it is considered desirable that the increase of families 
 should sometimes be restrained by rational considerations, the 
 morality of such restraint may depend much upon the method 
 adopted. Methods which involve ' interference with nature ' 
 are open to objections which cannot be urged against the method 
 which involves nothing but self-restraint during certain periods. 
 The question is one which cannot be discussed in detail here, 
 though it is one which urgently demands free and candid 
 examination. My object here, as throughout this chapter, is not 
 so much to discuss and to settle detailed questions of Casuistry as 
 to point out the method by which they ought to be solved. In 
 this, as in other cases, if we are not to prove unfaithful to the 
 method we have adopted, we must not fall back upon the short 
 
aoa IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 and easy method of saying that we have an intuition that all 
 such methods are wrong. We must fairly estimate on the one 
 hand the evils of all sorts, moral, intellectual, hedonistic, which 
 are produced by the over-multiplication of families to the indi- 
 viduals primarily concerned and to the community in general, 
 on the other the goods which may be secured by the contrary 
 practice, and compare them with the good and evil involved in 
 the proposed remedy — the value or unvalue which we attribute 
 to the act in itself and to its subsequent effects upon health, 
 upon character, and upon the whole ideal of life which it ex- 
 presses and tends to foster. We must pronounce on the side 
 on which we judge the balance of ' good ' to lie. 
 
 The other branch of the Greek self-control (araxppocrvvr]) is the 
 one to which the term Temperance has generally been confined 
 by modem usage. There is a disposition to narrow it still 
 further to the duty of moderation in drinking, which has nearly 
 succeeded in eliminating from modem Morality the idea that 
 there is anything disgraceful in what medieval Ethics styled 
 ' gulosity '—over-eating or excessive addiction to the ' pleasures 
 of the table ' at whatever expense of money or (what is the same 
 thing) of human labour. When taken in the narrower sense 
 of moderation in drinking, there is undoubtedly no duty that 
 can be more easily or convincingly inculcated on the most purely 
 hedonistic grounds, so long as it is understood to forbid merely 
 habitual excess in the use of alcohol or similar stimulants. And 
 of course occasional excess may be condemned on account of the 
 great probability that it will lead to more frequent acts of 
 the same kind. Nevertheless, the question of the immorality 
 of occasional drunkenness is one upon which there will be, 
 as it seems to me, a real difference between the verdict o'f hedon- 
 istic and of ideal Utilitarianism. The hygienic ill-effects of 
 getting drunk once a month are probably not so bad (for many 
 men) as the taking of two glasses of port every day after dinner. 
 For some men the former are in all probability a negligible 
 quantity, while the two glasses of port would mean certain gout 
 or chronic dyspepsia. On hedonistic principles an occasional act 
 of drunkenness would only be condemned because it might lead, 
 in the man himself and others, to habits of excess which would 
 
Chap, vii, § iv] TEMPERANCE 203 
 
 not be innocent, and under many circumstances there is little 
 risk ^ that such an act will lead to habitual excess. And yet the 
 healthy moral consciousness does condemfl as intrinsically de- 
 grading even the most occasional act of deliberate drunkenness. 
 On the method of ideal Utilitarianism such a condemnation will 
 be justified without any elaborate attempt to prove the existence 
 of remoter social ill consequences. We see the act to be intrin- 
 sically disgusting, and there is an end of the matter ^. 
 
 It will be observed that in some of the obligations usually 
 included under the name of Purity and in the duty of Temper- 
 ance we have clear instances of self -regarding duties. It is true 
 no doubt that no kind of wrong-doing is without social ill eflPects, 
 but in some cases the social ill effect may be simply the encourage- 
 ment of the like violations of self-regarding duty in others. 
 There would be no objection to such encouragement unless the 
 act were wrong in the individual case. The duty of Self-culture 
 — of developing one's intellectual and aesthetic capacities in 
 so far as is compatible with the fulfilment of social obligations — 
 is another self-regarding duty. On the method of hedonistic 
 Utilitarianism a man on a desert island would have no duties 
 except to get as much pleasure as possible, and perhaps to 
 preserve his capacity for future service in the event of his 
 rejoining society. The latter contingency being, in the case 
 supposed, highly problematical, it might be urged that an 
 Alexander Selkirk would best observe the precepts of the 
 Utilitarian creed by seeking to increase his pleasure to a maxi- 
 mum point, even though the eflfect of such indulgence would 
 be to incapacitate himself for future service, and to hasten his 
 end. ' A short life and a merry one ' would be the aim of any 
 
 ' I do not say none. The loss of self-respect -which arises from a first act 
 of drunkenness may involve grave consequences, but this is so just because 
 the man does not really believe that drunkenness is only wrong so far as it 
 diminishes pleasure. 
 
 ^ Of course by drunkenness I mean the voluntary extinction of conscious- 
 ness and self-control for no purpose but momentary pleasure or satisfaction 
 of impulse. If alcohoKc poisoning were a suitable anaesthetic for medical 
 purposes, its use might undoubtedly be as justifiable as that of chloroform. 
 In normal circumstances it is obvious that there can be no remoter good 
 effects to outweigh the immediate evil. 
 
204 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 such consistent Utilitarian who thought that a longer life of 
 higher pursuits would not so effectually extinguish the misery 
 of solitude as 'the short vehemence' of some carnal pleasure. 
 On our theory it would be the duty, even of the man accidentally 
 separated from society and little likely to rejoin it, to cultivate 
 the higher part of his nature and with that view to moderate 
 his indulgence in such lower pleasures as might be open to him. 
 
 Among the virtues which are based upon the principle of 
 the due subordination of lower to higher impulses may perhaps 
 be included the virtue of Humility, This virtue is unlike the 
 various forms of Temperance inasmuch as the impulse which 
 is subordinated is not of a purely animal character : pride or the 
 high estimation of self is a feeling which, though it may have no 
 doubt an instinctive and almost animal imptilse as its basis, 
 arises in its human form from desires peculiar to a rational 
 nature. There is no passion, I may remark in passing, which 
 more obstinately refuses to be resolved into a desire of pleasure 
 on the one hand or into any other impulse, such as love of power, 
 on the other. The love of power is no doubt closely connected 
 with the tendency to self -estimation and self-assertion, but it is 
 not the same thing. Love of power is itself a very clear instance 
 of a ' disinterested desire,' though the fact is often forgotten by 
 Hedonists owing to the plausibility of the attempt to resolve 
 it into love of the pleasures which power will bring. But love 
 of power is not the same thing as pride : it has a closer affinity 
 with vanity. The pleasure of self- approbation can only be 
 explained on the supposition that there is already a love of self- 
 approbation which cannot be resolved into a desire for the 
 pleasure. 
 
 The virtue of Humility seems to call for some further exami- 
 nation because it is often brought forward as a palmary instance 
 of the non-utilitarian, and even the non-teleological character, 
 of our highest ethical judgements. From the point of view of 
 hedonistic Utilitarianism the approval of Humility could hardly 
 be justified except on the ground that most people are prone 
 to an over-estimation of self (which involves obvious social 
 
Chap.vii, §v] HUMILITY 305 
 
 inconveniences), and that it is therefore desirable to aim at the 
 opposite state of feeling in the hope of reaching the desirable 
 mean. But it is not only from a hedonistte point of view that 
 we may feel a difficulty in admitting that there can be anything 
 virtuous in an untruthful estimate of one's own powers, attain- 
 ments, or achievements, whether in the moral, the intellectual, 
 or any other sphere. The Idealist will feel bound, more even 
 than the Hedonist, to aim at Truth ; and it may be doubted 
 whether the undiscriminating exaltation of Humility, con- 
 sidered as an under-appreciation of self, is the best means of 
 attaining this end. It might be urged that it is more likely 
 to lead to profession, on occasions when such profession 
 will be belauded, of an estimate which is not really enter- 
 tained. And yet it can hardly be seriously maintained that 
 there is nothing of permanent worth in the Christian ideal 
 of Humility beyond a common-sense precept that it is well 
 to think rather less of oneself than one is naturally inclined 
 to do for fear of thinking too much. The frequent exaggerations 
 and occasional gross aberrations of Christian sentiment on this 
 matter may be admitted : and yet we have only to think of 
 Aristotle's revolting picture of the high-souled man (ixeyaXoijwxos)^ 
 to realize that even the least Christian modern Moralist will recoil 
 from that proud insistence upon one's own merits which is more 
 or less the tendency of all pagan thought, at least till the second 
 century of the Christian era, upon this matter. The solution of 
 the difficulty seems to be that we should approve a truthful 
 estimate of one's own powers and merits as being most favour- 
 able to moral progress, to intellectual self-development, and 
 to social usefulness ; but that we should disapprove of any 
 habitual dwelling with satisfaction upon one's own capacities 
 or one's own merits for two reasons. Any true or worthy con-' 
 ception of the moral ideal places too great a gulf between that 
 ideal and the actual performance (in his own view) even of 
 a good man to permit him any great self-complacency at the 
 thought that he is better than the majority of his neighbours. 
 
 ^ Ethic. Nicomaeh., IV, § 3 (p. 11236). Of course I am aware of the 
 explanations by which all superior people are accustomed to defend the 
 Aristotelian ideal. 
 
2o6 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 In most men at least this feeling will be strengthened by the 
 recognition that the difference between themselves and their 
 fellows is largely due to the influence of others in the present or 
 the past, and not to any efforts which begin exclusively with 
 themselves. To use theological language, the good man will ascribe 
 his goodness to ' grace,' recognizing that his good qualities are 
 due in the first instance to parentage, influence, example, social 
 tradition, education, community. Church, and ultimately, if he is 
 a religious man, to God : he will care for goodness too much for 
 its own sake to treat it as a ground for self-satisfaction at his own 
 achievement as compared with that of others.^ And that brings 
 us to the second ground upon which the high ethical value of the 
 Humility may be considered to rest. The good man cares too 
 much for others to derive pleasure from the thought that they 
 are worse than himself. His highest goodness is too much 
 pervaded by the impulse of self-communication to be regarded 
 as a private possession which is enjoyed because it is he that has 
 it rather than some one else. The Saint cannot help being 
 aware that he has certain qualities of character which many 
 men lack, but so far from wishing to keep his virtues to himself 
 he will wish that they were common as the air of heaven, that 
 ' all the Lord's people were prophets.' He will, moreover, recog- 
 nize in others goodness, or at least capacities of goodness, which 
 will prevent his treating the worst of men with anything 
 
 ^ It may be objected that if a man is to ascribe his virtues (in a sense) 
 to God or the Universe, so may he his vices. Humility •will be saved at the 
 expense of Remorse. In so far as this difficulty is theological or meta- 
 physical, I shall deal with it in the chapter on Free-will (Book III, 
 chap, iii) : from the merely ethical point of view I should contend that, 
 just as the consideration I am insisting on is not inconsistent with a due 
 approval of and satisfaction in one's own good qualities, so the reflection 
 that a man did not make his own original bad tendencies will not be 
 inconsistent with disapproval of those tendencies and dissatisfaction with 
 himself so long as he yields to them. The same consideration will 
 condemn an exaggerated contemplation of one's own original bad ten- 
 dencies no less than exaggerated self-complacency at one's good ones. 
 If the good man will be more disposed to dwell upon the share of other 
 persons or of the Universe in the production of his good qualities than 
 upon their share in the production of his bad ones, that is because it is 
 morally healthier, more conducive to moral progress, to do so. 
 
Chap, vii, § vi] SUICIDE 207 
 
 approaching contempt. When those capacities are unrealized, 
 he will feel sorrow and pity rather than smug self-complacency. 
 It is not so much by his opinion of himself 4hat the Aristotelian 
 ' magnanimous man ' disgusts us as by his contempt for other 
 people. Humility then turns out to be no separate, distinct, 
 isolated, non-social virtue ^ — a sort of arbitrary appendix to the 
 code of duty to one's neighbour introduced (as seems to be 
 suggested in some quarters) by special divine decree for the 
 express purpose of showing the inadequacy of all rational prin- 
 ciples of Morality. The duty flows directly from the general 
 principle of the individual's subordination to the whole society. 
 Any attempt to cultivate the virtue in and for itself is likely 
 to be suicidal: it is simply one particular aspect of the ideal 
 attitude towards the moral ideal on the one hand and towards 
 one's neighbour on the other. Pride means self -absorption ; 
 Humility is simply the consequence of absorption in something 
 higher and something wider. Just as true Benevolence does not 
 involve absolute f orgetf ulness or neglect of self, so true Humility 
 does not demand a voluntary ignorance of one's real capacities 
 or character, or forbid the assertion of one's claims in ways con- 
 sistent with due respect for the claims of others. Humility only 
 involves a due subordination of self-love to those social impulses 
 in the satisfaction of which alone the true or higher self-love can 
 attain its end. True Humility is but an aspect of true love 
 of one's neighbour. 
 
 VI 
 
 The question of Suicide is one of so exceptional a character 
 that a writer on Ethics may fairly be asked how he proposes 
 to deal with it. It will be unnecessary to enlarge upon the 
 various utilitarian reasons against suicide in the vast majority 
 of cases. Even if life be hedonistically not worth living, it 
 
 ^ That Humility is really a kind of Charity is well recognized by St. 
 Thomas Aquinas, who is entirely free from the medieval tendency to encourage 
 excessive self-debasement. He condemns ' Pusillanimitas ' as severely as 
 Aristotle. In principle he exactly hits the weak points of the Aristotelian 
 ideal when he condemns the vainglorious man, because ' appetitnm gloriae 
 suae non refert in debitum finem, puta ad honorem Dei, vel proximi salutem ' 
 (Summa Theol, II, Ft. ii, Q. 132). 
 
ao8 IDEAL UTILITAKIANISM [Book I 
 
 is possible to do something to diminish its miseries. Only if 
 there were reason to hope that the practice could be largely- 
 imitated, would a pessimistic Hedonism include suicide among 
 its duties. It is only when a man's life becomes burdensome 
 to others as well as to himself that the hedonistic Utilitarian 
 would seem logically bound to sanction it. When, however, 
 life is looked upon as possessing value on other than hedonistic 
 grounds, it can no longer be pronounced to have lost that value 
 the moment it ceases to yield a balance of pleasure on the whole 
 either to the individual or to society. This consideration is 
 amply sufficient to condemn the act in a vast number of cases in 
 which it might seem rational enough on hedonistic grounds. 
 It would not tend to a right estimate of the relative importance 
 of the higher and lower goods for a man to give up the struggle 
 to live nobly the moment he begins to doubt whether it is 
 hedonistically worth the pain that it costs, or for society to 
 allow him to do so as soon as his services cease to bring it a net 
 gain of pleasure. It may be thought, however, that even allow- 
 ing its due weight to this consideration, there are extreme cases 
 in which it becomes difficult to defend the peremptory rule 
 of modem Christianity when once it is admitted that pain is an 
 evil. There are times when life seems to have lost its value 
 from an intellectual and a moral point of view as well as from a 
 hedonistic one. When life has reduced itself to a slow and pain- 
 ful process of dying, why, it may be thought, should we prolong 
 a useless agony which seems to be as incompatible with moral 
 effi)rt as with enjoyment of life? On this question I will only 
 make the following remarks, premising that they are not intended 
 as a full and adequate discussion of the subject : 
 
 (i) It is impossible, as I have several times remarked, to con- 
 struct de novo an ideal of human life without taking into 
 consideration the actual constitution of human nature, including 
 feelings about conduct which from a purely rational point of 
 view seem difficult to account for. I do not regard the exis- 
 tence of such feelings as final arguments for or against particular 
 kinds of conduct. They cannot dispense us from the necessity of 
 passing upon them our judgements of value. It is always possible 
 that such feelings, however strong, and widely dilRised, may 
 
Chap, vii, § vi] SUICIDE AND IMMORTALITY 209 
 
 in some cases be feelings which Reason must disregard. But when 
 in a general way the feeling commends itself to us as possessing 
 high moral value, or as intimately associated with what possesses 
 high value, the wise man will hesitate to defy it in particular 
 cases, even though a priori he might have been inclined to 
 doubt whether its value is great enough to overbalance Yhat 
 is sacrificed to it. 
 
 (a) Although the value of the higher life is not dependent 
 upon its duration, the comparative value of higher and lower 
 goods may be considerably affected by the answer which is given 
 to the question how long the consequences of moral effort may 
 be expected to last. There are many cases in which I should 
 myself be unable to regard as rational the prohibition of suicide 
 without admitting the postulate of Immortality. The good will 
 is possible even in extremest agony, but the good will is not all 
 that is necessary for Well-being ; and it does not seem possible 
 to decide whether the continuance of moral discipline is worth 
 the prolongation of an existence from which all else that gives 
 value to life has departed without asking what are to be the 
 fruits of this moral discipline, whether it is rational to hope for 
 another state in which the character thus formed may have 
 further opportunities of expressing itself in moral activity and 
 of producing that happiness without which all other good must 
 be incomplete. I may add that this is almost the only case 
 (unless we include also the somewhat parallel question of infan- 
 ticide) in which the answer to any detailed question of Ethics 
 can rationally be affected by the answer that is given to a purely 
 theological problem. Our attitude towards Morality in general — 
 the whole tone and temper of our ethical life — is likely to be 
 profoundly modified by our acceptance or rejection of fundamental 
 theological ideas ; but I hardly know of any other detailed ques- 
 tion of Casuistry (except of course those connected with what 
 may be called in the narrower sense religious or ecclesiastical 
 duties), about which what is the rational solution for a Christian 
 or a Theist could be pronounced irrational for one who does not 
 think it reasonable to entertain even the hope of Immortality.^ 
 
 * I may by anticipation explain that I do not regard any external authority 
 as infallible. 
 
 BASHOAU. I F 
 
3IO IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book 1 
 
 (3) We shall hereafter have to consider the weight which 
 an individual ought to attach to those ethical judgements of 
 other men which have taken shape in established rules and 
 institutions, and in particular to the ethical judgement of the 
 best men — in a word the place of Authority in Ethics. This 
 is precisely a case in which the wise man will feel bound to 
 remember the great weight of authority to which the absolute 
 rule against suicide may appeal^. A strong feeling against 
 suicide seems to be the spontaneous deliverance of the moral 
 consciousness, wherever the Christian view of life, with its ideas 
 of discipline, education, or moral probation, and its sense of 
 responsibility to a divine Father, is accepted. It was the accept- 
 ance of this faith by a society in which suicide was one of the 
 commonest ways of quitting life which created the modern 
 tradition on the subject. The strength of the feeling is the more 
 remarkable in the entire absence of any express prohibition 
 either in the Jewish or the Christian scriptures. Any one who 
 sympathizes with this general view of life will give its due 
 weight to this accumulation of authority before he proceeds 
 
 • No doubt it may be urged that there may be just as many possible 
 opportunities of moral discipline in another life as there are in this, 
 and that we might as reasonably refuse to inoculate against small-pox, 
 on account of the moral discipline which small-pox may involve, as refuse 
 to cure a diseased life by a voluntary death. (Cf. Hume's Essay on Suicide.) 
 I should submit that the two cases are not parallel. We do know tolerably 
 well the consequences of curing disease or refusing to cure it, and we judge 
 that, though there is some good to be got by voluntaiy endurance of pain, 
 there is more good to be got on the whole by fighting against it, and using 
 one's life for work and for enjoyment. In the case of Suicide we do not 
 know enough about the consequences of the two alternatives to make such a 
 comparison of moral advantages and disadvantages. We do not know whether, 
 if opportunities of moral discipline and self-improvement are voluntarily 
 thrown away here, other such opportunities will be afforded in another 
 life. I freely admit, however, that such merely negative considerations 
 would not be sufficient to condemn Suicide, but for the strong moral instinct 
 against it which seems to accompany a certain stage of moral development — 
 an instinct so strong that it supplies (for those who believe that the course 
 of things is directed by Reason towards an End) a presumption that it has 
 a purpose in the economy of the Universe. I admit that such instincts and 
 the presumptions founded upon them are not final : but a man ought to 
 be very sure of his ground before he overrules them. 
 
Chap, vii, § vi] SOME PROBLEMS mi 
 
 to introduce either in theory or practice an exception to this 
 rule, even in those extreme cases where his own unassisted moral 
 consciousness might have felt disposed to do so. 
 
 I have been speaking of the general rule. There are no doubt 
 exceptional cases in which suicide, or something which it is 
 difficult to distinguish from suicide, would be generally approved. 
 Where a sufficient object is to be attained by it, the voluntary 
 courting of death becomes the sublimest heroism: and, if it 
 be held that only the actual wielding of the weapon or voluntary 
 swallowing of the poison constitutes suicide, a little ingenuity 
 might possibly reveal exceptional cases where an unselfish 
 object of great importance could only be achieved by such an 
 act of self -slaughter. The strong feeling against multiplying 
 such cases or accustoming men even to contemplate their possi- 
 bility is, as I have contended, a healthy one. I will only venture 
 to suggest a doubt whether the idea that it is an absolute duty, 
 under all circumstances, to prolong life to the last moment 
 at which medical skill and care can prolong it is not sometimes 
 carried to extremes. It is a remarkable fact that when it was 
 rumoured that the imprisoned Europeans in Pekin had deter- 
 mined in the last resort to shoot themselves and their wives, 
 rather than face certain torture and dishonour at the hands 
 of the barbarians, not a word was heard in condemnation of that 
 resolve. When the alternative between a more or a less painful 
 form of death is brought about by disease and not by human 
 agency, are we bound to choose the more painful 1 May it not 
 at least be said that, when disease has reached a certain point, 
 the Physician may frankly recognize that to save pain rather 
 than to prolong life should be his primary aim ? And perhaps 
 this is not going much beyond the actual practice of the medical 
 profession in recent times. 
 
 I cannot but feel that in my treatment of this question I may 
 seem to some to be hesitating between a frank acceptance and 
 a thorough-going rejection of what are commonly called ' Intui- 
 tions.' But the reason for this is, I believe, to be sought in the 
 nature of things, in the real difficulty of distinguishing mere 
 feelings or aversions which may be only prejudices due to 
 inheritance or environment or superstition from real judgements 
 
 p a 
 
212 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 of value ^. And yet I am clear that the two things must be 
 distinguished. Incest is not wrong simply because it shocks 
 me, but because I judge that the feeling which revolts from 
 incest is one which deserves respect. The idea of eating rat's 
 flesh inspires me with horror, but under some circumstances 
 I am clear that it would be a duty to eat it. There are cases 
 where it is less easy to discriminate between pathological 
 aversion and moral condemnation. The only approach to a test 
 by which to effect such a discrimination that I can suggest 
 is to put the question — does the spontaneous aversion or apparent 
 intuition disappear after full reflection upon the act itself as well 
 as upon all circumstances and consequences ? If an intuition — an 
 apparently unaccountable repugnance to some kind of conduct — 
 persists after a due consideration of all the consequences of 
 yielding to it, it may probably be taken to represent not merely 
 a feeling, but a feeling to which the moral Reason attributes 
 intrinsic value. If it disappears, it may be dismissed as a 
 pathological affection, due to mere education or environment, 
 which it is rational to ignore. The aversion to cruelty remains 
 even when we have satisfied ourselves that coursing causes 
 an amount of pleasure to some Englishmen and bull-fighting 
 to most Spaniards which greatly outweighs the pain caused 
 
 ' ' As knowledge arises unperceived from the excitations of experience, it 
 develops a host of prepossessions, partly true, partly erroneous. . . . Just in 
 the same way there arise from the original nature of the mind and the 
 silently working influences of circumstances many prepossessions, some true 
 and some erroneous, concerning what we ought to do ; if we examine our- 
 selves, we find that at first it is only belief in Duty in general and in 
 binding laws of action that stands out with clearness and self-evidence ; but 
 what these laws are, and how far we can comprehend them in their purity, 
 depends partly upon the influence of external conditions of life, which 
 moderate or excite our blind impulses, partly upon the accuracy with which, 
 in reflection, we separate the general commands of Conscience from the 
 individual forms in which, as applicable to the particular circumstances of 
 our own life, they first press themselves upon us ' (Lotze, Microcosmus, B. T., I, 
 pp. 710-1). How far a study of the psychological and evolutionary origin of 
 our moral intuitions or instincts may assist the process of discrimination 
 between permanently valid moral judgements and inherited prejudices 
 or survivals of an earlier morality, I have considered in a later chapter 
 (Book III, chap. iv). 
 
Chap, vii, § vii] DIFFICULTIES 313 
 
 to hare and buU and horses. On the other hand a Jew or an 
 eastern Christian probably experiences no less horror at the 
 thought of eating blood-pudding, and a stHctly educated Scotch- 
 man at the thought of Sunday music. But in these cases, when 
 the man learns the history of the traditions about Sabbath- 
 observance and the eating of blood, he ceases to attach any 
 moral value or authority to the scruple, though for a time 
 the mere subjective feelings may retain something of their old 
 intensity. 
 
 In most cases it is possible in this way to break up an intuitive 
 moral feeling into the feeling and the judgement that accompanies 
 it. But in other cases this analysis is by no means easy. I do 
 not believe that there is any infallible logical or psychological 
 process for distinguishing between real judgements of value and 
 mere prejudices or valueless instincts, any more than there is 
 any infallible receipt for correct reasoning. If there were, 
 the difficulties both of ethical speculation and of practical 
 life would for the most part disappear. But the difficulty 
 of the process, of which such a case as that of suicide may 
 be considered the extremest illustration, contains in it nothing 
 to make us doubt : — (i) that Morality ultimately rests upon 
 immediate judgements of value ; (2) that a feeling— whether the 
 feeling arises from the contemplation of the act or from the act 
 itself — can legitimately be a ground of action only when ap- 
 proved by a judgement of value ; (3) that no moral judgement 
 can be considered final in which the moral Reason has not 
 contemplated all the foreseeable consequences of an action before 
 passing its judgement of value. 
 
 VII 
 
 So far it has been assumed that the moral criterion is con- 
 stituted by the effect of the action upon the good of mankind. 
 It seems unnecessary at every turn to add ' and of animals in 
 so far as their good can be promoted by human action ' : but 
 in strictness (as was contended by John Stuart Mill), this ought, 
 I believe, always to be included. The idea of taking into con- 
 sideration the good of animals will no doubt seem to many 
 t I 
 
314 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 extravagant. A disposition to minimize the intelligence of animals, 
 and the importance of their sufferings, is a traditional prejudice 
 of the metaphysical mind. The prejudice was no doubt in- 
 herited from Theology, but prejudices of theological origin 
 often continue rampant in the philosophical field long after 
 Theology, more in touch with changes of popular sentiment, 
 has got rid of them. Philosophers will not now, like the 
 Cartesian who denied feeling to the brutes or Spinoza who 
 admitted it^ boldly pronounce that we may do what we 
 like with the animals. But still there is an unwillingness 
 to admit that the sufferings of animals really matter. It is, 
 we are told by writers of the school of Green, not in the 
 interest of animal well-being, but in that of our own humanity 
 that we ought to avoid causing them unnecessary suffering. 
 I have already dwelt upon the illogicality of this position in 
 speaking of the question whether pleasure is part of the end 
 for mankind. The same considerations which apply to the 
 case of human pleasure apply also to that of animals. If the 
 suffering of animals is no evil, it cannot be inhumane in me 
 to cause it. If it is an evil, it must be my duty to prevent 
 it. The well-being of animals then — whatever well-being they 
 are capable of — seems to me quite distinctly to possess some 
 value, and therefore to form part of that good which constitutes 
 the ethical end. From a practical point of view no doubt 
 the duty becomes very much more of a negative than a positive 
 one. For it rarely happens in practice that we can do much 
 
 '■ ' Nee tamen nego bruta sentire : sed nego, quod propterea non liceat 
 nostrae utilitati consulere et iisdem ad libitum uti, eademque tractate, prout 
 nobis magis convenit ; quandoquidem nobiscum natura non eonveniunt et 
 eorum affectus ab affectibus humanis sunt natura diversi ' (Ethica, P. IV, 
 Prop. XXXVII, Schol. l). Such is Spinoza's quite logical deduction from 
 the theory which bases my neighbour's claims simply upon the fact that my 
 good and his are ' a common good,' and not on the fact that each has value. 
 Perhaps the first Philosopher to assert strongly the duty of humanity to 
 animals was Schopenhauer, who condemns Kant for resting it merely upon 
 the tendency of cruelty to spread from beast to man, instead of treating 
 animals as (in their way) ends in themselves (Die Grundlegung d. Moral., § 8, 
 B. T., p. 94). The claims of animals are fully recognized by HCfFding (Ethik, 
 pp. 172, 173) : 'That the beast is not to be treated as a mere means, follows 
 at once from his capacity for pain.' 
 
Chap, vii, § vii] DUTY TO ANIMALS 215 
 
 to promote the positive well-being of animals, at least of animals 
 not in a state of captivity; and, although we do assign some 
 value to the well-being of domestic animals, it is, we think, 
 of very small value in comparison with that which we set 
 upon human well-being. While, therefore, we should condemn 
 the infliction of needless torture upon the brutes, we should 
 generally condemn any large expenditure of human energy 
 in ministering to their comforts and luxuries. What is the 
 comparative value of animal pleasure or of the avoidance of 
 animal suffering as compared either with human pleasure and 
 pain or with the higher good of man is a question on which 
 wide differences of opinion exist, as is shown by the much- 
 debated question of Vivisection. I do not propose now to 
 discuss that problem in detail. I will merely say that from 
 the point of view which I have taken up it is not possible 
 either to deny that it may sometimes be right to inflict unmerited 
 suffering upon an animal or to declare that no amount of animal 
 suffering can be of any importance when compared with the 
 smallest amount of human convenience or the smallest accession 
 to human knowledge. The whole question is one of comparative 
 value : and that is one which no formula can settle ^ 
 
 It will be observed that I have assumed that the sole good 
 of which animals are capable is pleasure, and that for them there 
 exists no evil but pain. Such is the only hypothesis on which, 
 in our profound ignorance of animal minds, it seems reasonable 
 to act. No doubt it would be difficult to deny that the domesti- 
 cation or education of animals, in some cases amounting almost 
 to their participation in human friendship, may constitute a sort 
 of higher good, and may be looked upon as possessing something 
 more than a merely hedonistic value : but I cannot follow an 
 enthusiastic writer in the International Journal of Ethics who 
 has lately contended that animals have a right not merely to 
 pleasure but to ' self-realization ^.' 
 
 ' The only adequate and philosophical discussion of the question which 
 I have seen is to be found in Edmund Gurney's essay in Tertium Quid. He 
 decides for a moderate and strictly regulated permission of Vivisection. 
 
 2 The Rights of Animals, by Henry S. Salt (Jan., 1900). 
 
216 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 VIII 
 
 The view of Ethics which has now been sketched lacks a 
 recognized name, and it is a misfortune that it does so: for 
 modes of thought which have no names often fail to obtain 
 the currency of those which have. The term Utilitarianism 
 is irretrievably associated with Hedonism; and the word In- 
 tuitionism, the only creed which is popularly recognized as 
 the opposite of Utilitarianism, is inevitably suggestive of the 
 crude and absurd theory that the morality of an act can be 
 determined apart from its consequences. And yet the view 
 expounded in this chapter has been widely held. It is the view 
 of Plato and of Aristotle, though in them there is always a 
 tendency to make Morality consist in the pursuit of the individual's 
 own well-being, unhedonistically understood, strongly as it was 
 asserted, especially by Plato, that that individual's own good 
 was essentially bound up with that of his society. It was the 
 view of all the older English Moralists, in whom Platonic and 
 Aristotelian traditions were universalized by Christianity — the 
 view of Cumberland, of the Cambridge Platonists, and (sub- 
 stantially) of Clarke. It was equally the view of the Moral 
 Sense school, which arose when in Locke the rationalistic 
 tendency had sunk back into Theological Hedonism : for Hut- 
 cheson, the author of the famous 'greatest happiness of the 
 greatest number ^ ' formula, recognized the superior ' dignity ' 
 of some pleasures and of some persons as compared with that of 
 others. It was very seldom, indeed, that the proposition that 
 Morality consists in promoting the true well-being of human 
 society was ever formally denied before the time of Butler in 
 England ^ and of Kant in Germany ^. The ethical system of Kant 
 
 ' Hutcheson actually used the phrase ' greatest numbers.' 
 
 ' And by him explicitly only in the Dissertation. In the Sermons he still 
 
 often adopts the Utilitarian test, though he treats conscience as a sort of 
 
 magical key to Utility. 
 ^ I do not say that the proposition was always positively asserted. This 
 
 was prevented partly by the influence of ideas of Natural Rights derived 
 
 from the conception of Natural Law and partly by the idea of particular 
 
Chap, vii, § viii] INFLUENCE OF KANT 217 
 
 (assisted in England by the influence of Butler and his followers) 
 has produced a hopeless confusion between the question whether 
 Morality consists in promoting an end and the question what 
 that end is. From that confusion Moral Philosophy has hardly 
 yet emerged : and we still occasionally find eminent writers 
 arguing that Morality consists in doing certain things that one 
 feels a mysterious prompting to do without knowing why one 
 does them or seeking to harmonize and co-ordinate the isolated, 
 instinctive, unanalysed deliverances of one's moral consciousness. 
 But on the whole there is observable a very general tendency to 
 come back to the view of the older seventeenth-century writers, 
 and to assert that Morality consists in the promotion of true 
 human good, but a good of which pleasure is only an element. 
 Janet in France, in Germany Lotze (though he has hardly 
 elaborated a Moral Philosophy), and more recently Paulsen, 
 may be mentioned among the writers who have contributed 
 to this tendency ^. If it is not the view of Hegel, in whom Moral 
 Philosophy is practically merged in political Philosophy, it 
 is at least the view of many who call themselves his disciples ^. 
 And yet the system remains without a name. Non-hedonistic 
 Utilitarianism might serve the turn, though a definition by 
 negation is unsatisfactory. Idealistic Utilitarianism would do 
 better, though the term is too apt to suggest a metaphysical, 
 instead of a purely ethical, position. Professor Paulsen has 
 suggested that ' teleological ' Ethics should be contrasted with 
 unteleological or ' f ormalistic ' Ethics ^. This is an excellent 
 classification, but unfortunately we still lack a neat and recog- 
 nized term to denote the view of Ethics which is at once teleo- 
 logical and anti-hedonistic. On the whole, perhaps, the term 
 ' ideal Utilitarianism * ' seems the best that is available. Eudae- 
 
 precepts not discoverable by Reason but enjoined by express divine Revela- 
 tion. 
 
 ' Lotze often approaches very near to the position of pure Hedonism, but 
 he is saved from it by his admission of a qualitative difference in pleasure. 
 
 ' Notably Dr. McTaggart, if we are to include that very original thinker 
 among 'Hegelians.' I may also mention Mr. Moore's Principia Ethica 
 as a striking expression of the same view of Ethics. 
 
 ' A System of Ethics, Bug. Trans., by Prof. F. Tilly, 1899. 
 
 * In so far as he is teleological and not hedonistic, I might include among 
 
31 8 IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 monistic Ethics might better serve to distinguish such a view 
 from the rigorist or ascetic theory which refuses even to include 
 pleasure in its conception of the end ; but (through the persistent 
 misrepresentation of certain writers) the term Eudaemonism has 
 become too much confused with Hedonism to be wholly free 
 from ambiguity. The term Utilitarianism will perhaps suf- 
 ficiently suggest that we do estimate actions by their tendency 
 to promote human good, and ' Utility ' will always carry with it 
 some suggestion of pleasure ; while the qualification ' ideal ' will 
 remind us that the good for which we seek is not a conception 
 got by abstraction from a number of empirically given experiences 
 of pleasure or pain, but an ideal set up by rational judgements 
 of value passed upon all the elements of our actual experience. 
 
 the supporters of ' Ideal Utilitarianism ' the distinguished German thinker, 
 Edward von Hartmann, whose writings appear to me to be the most im- 
 portant of recent contributions to the subject. But von Hartmann insists 
 that the true end, and consequently the true Ethic, is not positively but 
 negatively Eudaemonistic (' privativ-eudamonistische '). This seems to imply 
 three differences from ordinary Hedonism : (i) Inasmuch as positive happi- 
 ness or good of any kind is unattainable, the object of the moral man must 
 be to diminish the evil of the Universe, partly for the sake of the persons 
 immediately affected, and partly with a view to assist the efforts of the 
 Absolute to reach the one ultimately desirable good (all consciousness being 
 necessarily attended with more pain than pleasure)— a relapse into its 
 original state of Unconsciousness ; (2) the true ethical end must include 
 other elements of Value besides pleasure (' Unter dem Gesichtspunkte eines 
 ethischen Zweckes ergeben sich andere Wertbestimmungen fiir alle Dinge und 
 Seelenvorgange als unter dem Gesichtspunkte des asthetischen, religiosen, 
 eudamonistischen, intellektualischen.' — £thischeStudien,-p. 128) ; (3) Morality, 
 though an end-in-itself to us, is from the point of view of the Universe merely 
 a means to a further end (as to this see below, Bk. Ill, chap. ii). It ia clear 
 that the first and the third modifications are dictated by a pessimistic 
 system of Metaphysics which I do not share, and seem to have no necessary 
 connexion with the second, which is not at all suggested by the term 
 ' negative Eudaemonism.' With this reservation his view of the relation 
 to each of the various elements in the end — hedonistic, intellectual, moral — 
 seems to me peculiarly well balanced, except that his desire to show the un- 
 attainability of positive Well-being makes him exaggerate the difiSculties 
 and underestimate the utility (restricted as I myself believe it to be) of 
 the 'hedonistic calculus.' All these difiSculties would equally have to be 
 met in determining how to attain a minimum of pain. 
 
Chap, vii, § ix] MR. BRADLEY'S OBJECTIONS 219 
 
 IX 
 
 Some of the objections most frequently urged against such 
 a view of Ethics will be considered in our later books. But 
 there is one to which I may briefly reply at once. The view 
 that we have arrived at is that the morality of our actions is to 
 be determined ultimately by its tendency to promote a universal 
 end, which end itself consists of many ends, and in particular 
 two — Morality and pleasure. Against this position it may be 
 objected that if two (or more) goods are brought together, neither 
 of them will remain unaltered. The different ends cannot simply 
 exist side by side : the difference between them must be ' tran- 
 scended.' ' That two elements should necessarily come together, 
 and at the same time that neither of them should be qualified 
 by this relation, or again that a relation in the end should not 
 imply a whole which subordinates and qualifies the two terms — 
 all this in the end seems unintelligible ^.' I have alluded to this 
 objection here because it seems to be directed against an ethical 
 position more or less resembling my own. It is easy enough to 
 expose any system to ridicule when the critic deliberately intro- 
 duces into the statement of it features which have no place in the 
 minds or the writings of those whom he criticizes, and ignores 
 much which they both think and say. I do not know any writer 
 who has maintained that the good consists of two elements — good- 
 ness and virtue — which are unaltered by their relation to each other. 
 At aU events, in these pages nothing has been said, and nothing 
 is implied, about the diflferent elements in the end not being 
 qualified by the relation in which they stand to one another: 
 and much has been said of a directly opposite tendency. I have 
 insisted that the recognition of differences among pleasures means 
 the qualification of pleasure by other elements in consciousness — 
 knowledge or virtue or whatever it is, and that, on the other 
 
 ' Bradley, Appearance and Reality, and ed., p. 426. The criticism is indeed 
 directed against the idea of a good consisting of only two ends — happiness 
 and goodness— for which the present writer does not contend, but in prin- 
 ciple the objection might equally be brought against any view which recog- 
 nized a good consisting in a number of goods. 
 
azo IDEAL UTILITARIANISM [Book I 
 
 hand, the idea of pleasure is so intimately bound up with all that 
 we call good that it is impossible to form any conception of an 
 ideal Virtue or contemplation of Beauty which includes no kind 
 or degree of pleasure. We can give no account of ' the good ' 
 without breaking it up into various ' goods ' ; and yet no one 
 element in the good can be unaffected by the relation into which 
 it is brought in the consciousness of the person enjoying it with 
 the other elements in that good. In particular, the value which 
 is set upon the good will determines the kind of pleasure 
 which can be regarded as good by the good man. What the 
 benevolent man regards as good for self is a different thing from 
 what a selfish man regards as his good. The pleasure which 
 is derived from culture is a different thing from the pleasure 
 which comes from other sources just because the goodness of 
 culture does not lie solely in its pleasantness. For the ideal man 
 placed in favourable circumstances it will be impossible to draw 
 a sharp line between the good for himself and the good for 
 others : for he finds his good largely in activities useful to 
 others, and the indulgences which apart from their bad effects on 
 others he might enjoy he can enjoy no longer when he knows 
 those effects. The ideal end or good for man is not a number of 
 goods lying side by side and having no relation to one another, 
 but a particular kind of life in which various elements are 
 harmoniously combined. Undoubtedly the elements are altered 
 by their relations, just as the notes of a chord or the instruments 
 of an orchestra produce together an effect which is different from 
 what each of them produces by itself. But there could be no 
 musical notation unless we could distinguish these elements and 
 speak of the whole — the chord or the harmony — as produced by 
 their combination. That the whole is the sum of the parts is 
 true, though it is not the whole truth : for it is equally true that 
 the whole is more than that sum. Every attempt to distinguish 
 tlie elements of which the ideal good is made up involves some 
 abstraction. But, as no one has taught us more convincingly 
 than Mr. Bradley himself, all thought involves abstraction. We 
 could give no intelligible account of the good except by regarding 
 it as a combination of goods. Further reply to Mr. Bradley's 
 somewhat lofty and contemptuous remarks upon the tendency 
 
Chap, vii, § ix] GOODS AND THE GOOD 221 
 
 of what he calls ' popular Ethics ^ ' must be left to the further 
 course of our argument. The objections apply to every system 
 of Ethics which has attempted to give any intelligible account of 
 ' the good ' — that is to say, to almost every system of Ethics 
 except perhaps Mr. Bradley's own. They all represent the 
 good life as an ideal in which many distinguishable elements are 
 harmonized and combined ^. From such a view Mr. Bradley is 
 estopped by his doctrine of an essential and unavoidable con- 
 tradiction in the deliverances of the moral consciousness — a 
 doctrine which will be dealt with in another chapter. Mean- 
 while, it may be observed in passing that Mr. Bradley's own 
 objection can be retorted with some effect upon his system, in 
 which ' self-assertion ' and ' self-sacrifice ' are pronounced equally 
 good in complete isolation from each other without any attempt 
 being made to build up a coherent and harmonious ideal of life 
 in which each shall find its proper place. If the moral conscious- 
 ness were incapable of making such an attempt, Mr. Bradley 
 could not be blamed for leaving the matter there : it will here- 
 after be contended that the moral consciousness lies under no 
 such incapacity, however difficult in detail may be the problems 
 to which this collision gives rise *. 
 
 ' No writer is really so much open to the objection just mentioned as 
 Eant himself, whom even Mr. Bradley will hardly treat as a representative 
 of ' popular Ethics.' 
 
 * Dorner is right in protesting that 'das Sittliche eine Totalitat, eine 
 Einheit ist, die nicht mosaikartig sich zusammensetzen lasst ' (^Das mensch- 
 liche Handeln, 1895, p. 53). 
 
 ' Book II, chap. iii. 
 
CHAPTER Vni 
 
 JUSTICE 
 
 We have so far been engaged in considering the nature of the 
 various goods, or elements in the good, which it is the individual's 
 duty to realize for human society. But to say that it is our 
 duty to produce the greatest possible good is a principle which 
 cannot by itself determine the right course of action in any 
 single instance. There remains the question, ' Whose good is to 
 be promoted ? ' We want a principle to guide us as to the 
 distribution of good among the various persons capable of enjoy- 
 ing it : and we have so far been content to take as our guide 
 Bentham's principle ' Every one to count for one and nobody for 
 more than one,' though we have already given to this maxim 
 the somewhat different form ' Everybody's good to be treated as 
 of equal value with the like good of every one else.' This 
 modification must now be further explained and justified. I have 
 already said as much as seemed necessary about Justice in the 
 popular sense of the term, the relative or conventional Justice 
 which prescribes equal treatment of different individuals upon 
 the basis of some established and accepted social order or con- 
 stitution or system of understandings. We have here to deal 
 with the absolute Justice by whose precepts the morality of the 
 very social order or constitution or system of understandings 
 must itself be determined. If in this chapter I shall seem to 
 be straying into subjects which belong more properly to Political 
 Philosophy or even to Political Economy than to Ethics, I may 
 plead that any treatment of Ethics which does not touch upon 
 such questions must necessarily be theoretically barren and 
 practically unprofitable, Man is a social being, and it is impos- 
 sible to determine his duties, or even to examine into the abstract 
 
Chap, viii, § ii] CONFLICTING IDEALS 323 
 
 nature of duty, without dealing to some extent with his relations 
 to the social environment in which he finds himself. 
 
 Now, when we ask ' What is Justice ? ', we are at once met by 
 two conflicting ideals, each of which on the face of it seems 
 entitled to respect. In the first place the principle that every 
 human being is of equal intrinsic value, and is therefore entitled 
 to equal respect, is one which commends itself to common sense, 
 a principle which may naturally claim to be the exacter expres- 
 sion of the Christian ideal of Brotherhood. On the other hand 
 the principle that the good ought to be preferred to the bad, 
 that men ought to be rewarded according to their goodness or 
 according to their work, is one which no less commends itself to 
 the unsophisticated moral consciousness. We shall perhaps best 
 arrive at some true idea of the nature of Justice by examining 
 the claims of these two rival and pri/ma facie inconsistent ideals — 
 the ideal of equality, considered in the sense of equality of con- 
 sideration, and the ideal of just recompense or reward — and we 
 shall perhaps do well to start with the suspicion that there will 
 be a considerable presumption against any solution of the problem 
 which does not recognize some meaning or element of truth 
 in each of them. 
 
 II 
 
 In examining the doctrine of 'every one to count for one 
 and nobody for more than one ' in its Benthamite form, it is 
 essential to bear in mind the context in which it stands. It was 
 put forward by Bentham (not, of course, for the first time) 
 as a canon for the distribution of happiness. He saw clearly 
 enough that his ' greatest happiness ' principle, or the principle 
 of greatest good (however good be interpreted), stands in need of 
 this or some other supplementary canon before it can be available 
 for practical application. It is obvious that in a community of 
 a hundred persons we might produce the greatest possible happi- 
 ness or good in a variety of ways. It would be quite legitimate, 
 so far as the greatest happiness principle is concerned, to give 
 the whole of our disposable good to twenty-five out of the hun- 
 dred, and to ignore the other seventy-five, provided that by so 
 doing we pould make each of these twenty-five four times as 
 
234 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 happy as we should make each of the hundred by an equal 
 distribution ; and, if by an unequal distribution we could make 
 twenty-five people five times as happy, or give them five times 
 as much good (whatever the true good be) as we could procure 
 for each of the hundred by an equal distribution, we should 
 be absolutely bound by our ' greatest good ' principle (taken by 
 itself) to ignore the seventy-five, and distribute our good ex- 
 clusively among the five-and-twenty. The principle which 
 Bentham adopted as a solution of such problems is the maxim 
 ' Every one to count for one and nobody for more than one.' He 
 failed to see how impossible it is to establish such a principle by 
 experience or to rest it upon anything but an a priori judger 
 ment. Only a grammatical ellipse dispensed him from the 
 necessity of expanding it into the ' Every man ought to count 
 for one, &c.,' and so introducing an 'ought' — that mystical, 
 meaningless word of which he is said to have pronounced that, 
 if it is to be used at all, it ought to be banished from the 
 Dictionary. 
 
 The maxim then does not assert that every one ought to 
 receive an equal share of wealth, or of political power, or of 
 social consideration, but simply equal consideration in the dis- 
 tribution of ultimate good. Bentham was no Socialist ; at heart 
 he was not much of a democrat. Equality of political power, 
 when in later years he advocated it, was for him merely a means 
 to secure that legislation should aim at giving every one, as far 
 as possible, an equal share of whatever ' good ' legislation is 
 capable of securing. The value of the maxim is not much 
 affected by the fact that Bentham himself recognized no good 
 but pleasure. 
 
 Now so long as the amount of good would be neither increased 
 nor diminished by an equal distribution, the justice of such 
 a rule will hardly be disputed. Understood in this abstract 
 sense, the rule merely asserts that, if you have a certain quantity 
 of good to divide between A and B, you ought to give half to A 
 and half to B, so long as all you know about them is that one is 
 A and the other B, or ' other things being equal,' or ' so long 
 as there is no reason for preferring A to B.' How far the axiom 
 ought to be modified in its practical application by the fact that 
 
Chap, viii, § ii] THE BENTHAMITE MAXIM 335 
 
 A never does diflfer from B solely in being a different individual, 
 and what kind of inequality between A and B supplies reason- 
 able ground for an inequality in the shares designed to them, are 
 questions which have yet to be considered. But it can hardly 
 be denied that equality is the right rule for distributive Justice 
 in the absence of any special reason for inequality. 
 
 Our first difficulty arises in the case where an equal distribution 
 of good necessarily diminishes the amount of good to be dis- 
 tributed. It is clear that this is often the case. It is easy 
 to imagine cases where the difficulty occurs in connexion with 
 an actual distribution of a definite material good thing to a 
 definite and assignable number of persons. In a beleaguered 
 garrison nobody would question the justice of an equal dis- 
 tribution of rations; but supposing it were known that relief 
 could not arrive for a month, and that the provisions available 
 could keep half of them alive, while an equal distribution would 
 ensure the slow starvation of the whole, there would be some- 
 thing to be said for casting lots as to which half should be fed 
 and which should starve. I do not maintain that the conditions 
 indicated could ever be exactly forthcoming, or even that the 
 course suggested would be actually the right one to take if they 
 were. But, if that course would not be right in the case sup- 
 posed, it must be for some other reason than its injustice. No one 
 would be bold enough to propose that the whole garrison should 
 starve simply to ensure an ideal equality between all the in- 
 dividuals concerned. The kind of Socialism that insists that all 
 should be miserable rather than that any one should be made 
 a little happier than anybody else has been justly described 
 as ' Individualism run mad.' In a less extreme form the difficulty 
 I have indicated is of constant occurrence. The Schoolmaster, 
 for instance, has to face the problem how far a whole class is to 
 be kept back that the ultra-stupid minority may learn some- 
 thing. And when we turn from detailed questions of individual 
 conduct to large problems of social and political action, the case 
 supposed is not the exception but the rule. Nobody will deny 
 that the present distribution of good things is excessively and 
 arbitrarily unequal. The most satisfied champion of the existing 
 social order will not deny that many people are badly clothed, 
 
 B&SBDALL I Q 
 
aa6 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 badly fed, overworked, and otherwise miserable through no 
 fault of their own. And yet the most extreme advocate of social 
 reconstruction, who is at once sane and well informed, will hardly 
 deny that any attempt to produce an immediate equality of 
 possessions, or of happiness, or of opportunity (whichever it be), 
 would only cure these inequalities by producing, in no long 
 period, a general dead-level of misery and want, or (to put it 
 at the lowest) by seriously diminishing the ultimate Well-being 
 of the country or the race. Here, then, an unequal distribution 
 has to be adopted in order that there may be something to dis- 
 tribute. Either we may say (from a rough, practical point of 
 view) that equality is a good but is not the good, and that 
 we must in practice balance the principle of greatest good against 
 the principle of equality, or (with more scientific precision) we 
 may assert that in such cases there is no real sacrifice of equality. 
 The law is fulfilled even in the case where its practical operation 
 seems to involve the height of inequality, just as the laws of 
 motion are fulfilled when two opposite forces neutralize each 
 other and produce rest. For what the individual is entitled 
 to is simply equality of consideration. The individual has had 
 his rights even when the equal rights of others demand that 
 in practice he should receive no good at all, but even a consider- 
 able allowance of evil. It would be the height of injustice, 
 indeed, that the good of ninety among a hundred people should 
 be considered, and the Well-being of the remaining ten wholly 
 ignored. The ninety and the ten are entitled to consideration 
 precisely in the ratio of ninety to ten. The rights of the ten 
 would be grossly violated, if the ninety were to do what would 
 be best for themselves were the remaining ten out of the way ; 
 as, for instance, by dividing among themselves all the available 
 provisions, and giving none to the excluded ten. On the other 
 hand there are cases where it would not only be expedient, but 
 just, that ten men should die that the remaining ninety might 
 live, e.g. in war, where an indefensible position has to be de- 
 fended merely to delay an enemy's advance. In such cases the 
 minority gets its rights as fully as the majority, provided its 
 proportionate claim to consideration has been duly satisfied 
 before it was determined that the measure proposed was on the 
 
Chap, viii, § ii] EQUALITY OF CONSIDERATION aa; 
 
 whole for the general good. David would have been guilty of no 
 injustice had his choice of Uriah the Hittite for the post of danger 
 been determined by purely military and impeAonal considerations. 
 Not only does the principle of equal consideration not neces- 
 sarily prescribe any actual equality of Well-being or of the 
 material conditions of Well-being : when properly understood, 
 it does not favour the attempt to draw up a priori any detailed 
 list of the ' rights of man.' It is impossible to discover any 
 tangible concrete thing, or even any specific 'liberty of action 
 or acquisition,' to which it can be contended that every individual 
 human being has a right under all circumstances. There are 
 circumstances under which the satisfaction of any and every 
 such right is a physical impossibility. And if every assertion of 
 right is to be conditioned by the clause ' if it be possible,' we 
 might as well boldly say that every man, woman, and child 
 on the earth's surface has a right to .^looo a year. There 
 is every bit as much reason for such an assertion as for maintain- 
 ing that every one has a right to the means of subsistence, or to 
 three acres and a cow, or to life, or to liberty, or to the Parlia- 
 mentary franchise, or to propagate his species, or the like. There 
 are conditions under which none of these rights can be given to 
 one man without prejudice to the equal rights of others. There 
 seems, then, to be no ' right of man ' which is unconditional, 
 except the right to consideration — that is to say, the right to 
 have his true Well-being (whatever that true Well-being be) 
 regarded as of equal importance in all social arrangements with 
 the Well-being of everybody else. Elaborate expositions of the 
 rights of man are, at best, attempts to formulate the most impor- 
 tant actual or legal rights which an application of the principle 
 of equality would require to be conceded to the generality of 
 men at a particular stage of social development. They are all 
 ultimately resolvable into the one supreme and unconditional 
 right — the right to consideration ; and aU particular applications 
 of that principle must be dependent upon circumstances of time 
 and place. What particular legal rights will, in certain con- 
 ditions of time and place, best conduce to each man being equally 
 considered in the distribution of Well-being, must be ascertained 
 by experience. 
 
 Qa 
 
338 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 In practice most of the crude or dangerous misapplications 
 of the doctrine of equality spring from the attempt to translate 
 an abstract equality of consideration into an immediate equality 
 of concrete possessions, or personal liberties, or political power, 
 or what not. Most of the objections to the doctrine may (I think) 
 be met by bearing in mind the distinction on which I have been 
 dwelling. Thus it might be objected to the principle of equality 
 that an attempt to realize the immediate equality of property, or 
 of some particular kind of property, might be good for the present 
 generation, though it would lead to ultimate anarchy. The 
 objection is met if it be remembered that future generations 
 have rights as well as the present. Generations yet unborn may 
 have the right to consideration; though that is obviously the 
 only right that they are at present capable of enjoying ^. 
 
 Then, again, most of the cruder and more direct apph'cations 
 of the equality principle involve the tacit assumption that 
 the legislator has at his command a definite quantity of happiness 
 or other good which he can distribute at his pleasure. A 
 moment's reflection shows that it is never 'good' itself, but 
 simply the conditions of good, that are capable of being 'dis- 
 tributed,' either by the State or by a private individual. This 
 is not (as has sometimes been thought) an objection to Bentham's 
 principle properly understood. It is always possible to aim 
 at an equal distribution of good, to attach equal value to each 
 man's good, to consider each equally, in so far as his Well-being 
 is capable of being affected by our action ; but it is not always 
 possible actually to secure this equal distribution of Well-being. 
 Nothing that can possibly be distributed is a good under all 
 circumstances or to all persons. There is no paradise that some 
 people would not contrive to turn into a hell even for themselves. 
 It is obvious that equal conditions of Well-being will not 
 produce equal amounts of actual Well-being to persons of 
 differing mental and bodily constitution. The devotee of equality 
 as a practical watehword will probably say, ' Let the conditions 
 be equally distributed ; fpr the rest, the individual must take 
 
 ' If this mode of statement he thought paradoxical, it may be put in 
 another way— that it is a duty now to respect the rights which future 
 generations will have when they are born. 
 
Chap, viii, § ii] NOT EQUALITY OF WEALTH 229 
 
 care of himself.' But such a rule of conduct would actually 
 violate the principle of equal consideration. For the end to 
 be aimed at is not equality of conditions, but equal Well-being, 
 or rather (as already explained) so much equality as is consistent 
 with there being as large as possible an amount of good to 
 distribute. But actual equality in the distribution of any 
 concrete thing might not only diminish the amount to be 
 distributed, but might actually widen the inequalities in the 
 resulting enjoyment. A distribution of food, for instance, which 
 took no account of the varying appetites and needs of different 
 individuals might produce a lower average of actual health and 
 enjoyment than an unequal distribution. To insist on according 
 the same measure of personal liberty to children and to adults, 
 to uncivilized men and to civilized, to the insane or half-witted 
 and to the sane, might actually result in lowering the real 
 Well-being which each and every one might enjoy under an 
 unequal distribution : the amount of liberty might be too great 
 for the Well-being of one class, and too small for that of the 
 other. When we come to the higher sources of human pleasure 
 or to those higher kinds of human good which cannot be 
 expressed in terms of pleasure, it is still more glaringly evident 
 that men's capacities for such goods vary enormously, and that 
 an equal distribution of their material conditions would not 
 result in an actual equality of enjoyment and would therefore 
 be opposed to the principle of equal consideration. We assuredly 
 should not effect an equal distribution of aesthetic enjoyment by 
 subjecting every citizen to a uniform course of artistic education. 
 The variety of men's capacity for different kinds of good 
 constitutes by itself a sufficient condemnation of any attempt 
 to equalize conditions irrespectively of the varying capacity 
 to utilize the conditions and to turn them (so to speak) into 
 actual Well-being. Any social arrangements which should 
 wholly ignore differences of character and ability in the dis- 
 tribution of material goods would not only infallibly diminish 
 the amount of good on the whole, but might even militate 
 against the equal consideration of each individual in the dis- 
 tribution of it. It has often been objected to the Benthamite 
 rule that it would require society to treat the drunken idler 
 
a30 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 as well as it treats the industrious and capable workman. Such 
 an objection implies a total misunderstanding of the principle. 
 To treat the drunkard in a way which would encourage him 
 in his drunkenness and his idleness — to give him the wages 
 and the liberty which do conduce to Well-being in the sober 
 and industrious — would not really be to consider his good as 
 much as theirs. It would really not be considering his true 
 good at all, to say nothing of the violation of other men's 
 rights involved in placing the man who makes no contribution 
 to the general good in the same position as those who do. To 
 reward the idler as much as the industrious (even if we supposed 
 that the reward would really be for his good) would be to make 
 him count not for one but for several ; since his support would 
 impose additional labour on the industrious members of the 
 community. To examine what social arrangements are best 
 fitted to secure a really equal consideration of each man's good 
 is no part of my present undertaking ; but it may safely be said 
 that no social arrangements will have that eflfect which do not 
 in some way secure that men's material conditions shall have 
 some proportion to their varying powers of utilizing them for 
 their own Well-being and that of the whole society. 
 
 Many people will be disposed to meet these difficulties by 
 suggesting the true idea of social justice is ' equality of oppor- 
 tunity.' I should be far from denying the great practical value, 
 within certain limits, of this ideal; though it would be easy 
 to show the impracticability of a literal realization of it : to 
 give everybody really equal opportunities the State would 
 have to supply every child with an equally good mother^. 
 But from a theoretical point of view, the ideal itself is open 
 to exactly the same objections as the ideal of equal distribution 
 when applied to so gross and concrete a matter as food. The 
 English navvy would not be given an equal opportunity of making 
 the most of his life by an allowance of food which would seem 
 wanton superfluity to a Japanese soldier ^. Equally far removed 
 from the ideal of just distribution would it be to furnish equal 
 
 ^ Cf. Leslie Stephen's essay on ' Social Equality ' in Social Rights and 
 Duties, vol. i. 
 ' The varying capacity for work is not here to the point. 
 
Chap, viii, § ii] EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY 331 
 
 educational opportunities to the dunce and the genius. Here 
 it would, indeed, be difficult to say on which side the inequality 
 would lie. The dunce might want three. times the attention 
 that the genius would require in learning to read : while the 
 genius will require for the realization of his capacities a higher 
 education which the dunce is quite incapable of utilizing. It 
 will perhaps be contended that the man who is not capable 
 of profiting by it may be said to 'enjoy' the opportunity as 
 much as the man who is. But this is clearly a mere fa^on de 
 parler. The opportunity is no more a good to the man to whom 
 Nature has denied the capacity for using it than a pair of 
 spectacles is a good to a blind man. But, if by 'equality of 
 opportunity ' is to be meant a simple equalization of external 
 conditions irrespective of the individual's power of using it, 
 if we are to eliminate from the inequalities which we are to 
 aim at equalizing aU those which are due to the inequality 
 of Nature's bounty, such a principle will lead to some strange 
 results. In that case we shall have satisfied our duty to the 
 idiot by giving him every advantage that we offer to the 
 sane man, while we shall refuse to violate our ideal of equal 
 opportunity by providing him with asylums and keepers, which 
 the sane man does not want. The distinction between men 
 of difierent race, between the sexes, between the sick and the 
 whole, will have to be equally ignored ^. In whichever way 
 equality of opportunity is understood, it leads to results which 
 wotdd strike every one as absurd and unjust. 'Equality of 
 opportunity,' however valuable as a rough practical application 
 within certain limits of some deeper principle, cannot be pushed 
 to its logical consequences without absurdity. It leads to such 
 absurdity because it is opposed to the principle of equal con- 
 
 ' Another more formidable difficulty arises if we extend our view to in- 
 ■ equalities not of physical constitution, but of physical circumstance. If 
 every member of society or of every local community is to have the full 
 benefit of superior soil, climate, &c., we have Capitalism at once, though the 
 Capitalist is a group instead of an individual. On the other hand, we might 
 ask the Socialist who aims at equality whether he is really prepared to give 
 to the Laplander as much extra advantage as would compensate him for not 
 living in the Eiviera, or to penalize the inhabitant of Johannesburg to an 
 extent which would put him on a level even with the Londoner. 
 
232 JUSTICE [Book 1 
 
 sideration which commends itself to us as just, while it cannot 
 always be assumed that it will accord with the principle 
 of maximum good which is no less self-evidently reasonable. 
 Equality of opportunity is only a rational maxim in so far 
 as it leads to greater good on the whole and to a more equal 
 distribution of that good. And it is always possible that some 
 measure of inequality of opportunity may lead both to the 
 existence of more good on the whole, and to a more equal 
 distribution of that good. The institution of the family neces- 
 sarily involves great inequality of opportunity, and yet it 
 is possible that the system under which each child is looked 
 after by its own mother leads to each getting a higher average 
 of attention than would be secured under a system of State 
 creches and boarding-schools, which after all would not eliminate 
 the necessary inequality of opportunity arising from the varying 
 capacity of different educators. While there can be little doubt 
 that a much greater measure of ' equality of opportunity ' is 
 socially desirable, it is not to be assumed that the total extinction 
 of more or less hereditary classes enjoying a certain superiority 
 of wealth, of culture, and consequently of opportunity, is neces- 
 sarily conducive to the public interest ; though the progressive 
 diminution of such differences is undoubtedly involved in every 
 attempt to raise the material, intellectual, and moral level of the 
 least favoured classes. So far as superior opportunity secures 
 on the whole superior efficiency in certain kinds of work by 
 which all benefit, the superior opportunity will receive a social 
 justification, and so be not unjust. 
 
 How far the principle of equal consideration requires or would 
 be promoted by an unequal distribution of actual goods is 
 a practical question which I do not desire here to discuss. Any 
 distribution of good things which the world has actually seen is, 
 of course, just as far removed from an equal distribution of 
 actual good as it is from an equal distribution of the conditions 
 or opportunities of Well-being. Whether, on the principle of 
 equal consideration, a particular step towards greater equality 
 ought to be promoted or resisted, will depend upon the question 
 whether, under existing conditions — things being what they are, 
 human nature being what it is, and so on — ^the change will be in 
 
Chap, viii, § ii] LIBERTY IS INEQUALITY 333 
 
 the interest of all, the interest of each being regarded as of 
 exactly equal importance. That equality of consideration would 
 be violated by immediate attempts at forcible and sudden social 
 reconstruction will be generally admitted. But that is not all. 
 A certain liberty of action is, and always will be, a condition of 
 Well-being ; and liberty of action implies inequality. It implies 
 some power of appropriating to one's self the results of one's own 
 activity, or of disposing of them to others. Granted that 
 necessary work might be parcelled out by the State, it is difficult 
 to see how rational beings could occupy their leisure, either in 
 a way agreeable to themselves or in a way favourable to the 
 development of intelligence and character, without a power of 
 voluntarily disposing of their activities in such a way as to 
 constitute an inequality of enjoyment, either for themselves or 
 for persons immediately dependent upon them or favoured by 
 them. And it is impossible that those inequalities should not 
 be the parent of other inequalities. The man who has been 
 benefited by association with a man . of exceptional talent, or 
 learning, or skill, will pass on his exceptional advantages to 
 others. A town which has been blessed with inhabitants of 
 exceptional energy and character will enjoy advantages which 
 the State could not possibly transfer to others, though it might 
 make it its business artificially to destroy them. A remorseless 
 application of the principle of equality would not only be fatal 
 to the family but would involve the enforcement of the unnatural 
 maxim of clerical seminaries, ' pas d'amiti^s particuliferes.' 
 
 At what point the attempt to realize equality ceases to be on 
 the whole productive of a greater probability of good for each, 
 is a practical question which experience only will enable us to 
 decide. I merely want to point out (i) that some inequality is 
 a condition of Well-being ; (3) that there is only one sort of 
 equality that is always practicable and always right, and that is 
 equality of consideration, since we can always (ideally) give 
 each individual equal consideration in making up our minds 
 whether this or that will be on the whole for the general good ; 
 and (3) that, while it is certainly a duty to aim at a social con- 
 stitution which shall bring about more actual equality of good, 
 it must not be assumed a priori that such equality will always 
 
234 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 be secured by increased equality of wealth or political power 
 or by any other kind of external equality whatever. The 
 principle of equal consideration certainly requires us to aim at 
 greater equality of actual Well-being, but only on condition that 
 the greater equality will not violate the equal right of each to 
 enjoy as much good as it is possible for him to enjoy. 
 
 So far I have been able to contend that obvious objections to 
 the principle of equality properly understood do not really form 
 an" objection to the principle of equal consideration — to the doc- 
 trine that each man is entitled to an equal consideration at the 
 hands of the community; though the result of such equal 
 consideration, under given conditions, may be an exceedingly 
 unequal distribution of actual goods. But now I have to meet 
 a difficulty which is less easy of even theoretical solution. 
 
 Ill 
 
 It has already been indicated incidentally that it is not only 
 the less than normal capacity, but also the more than normal 
 capacity of exceptional persons, that may impose upon the 
 community unequal sacrifices to enable them to attain an equal 
 level of Well-being. Let us look at the difficulty in its least 
 serious form. The number of persons capable of the highest 
 intellectual cultivation and of enjoying the good incidental 
 to such high cultivation is unquestionably a small minority. If 
 such goods are to be enjoyed at all, they can only be enjoyed by 
 the few ; and yet to give these few the opportunity of such 
 cultivation imposes upon the community sacrifices of inferior 
 good (such good as can be enjoyed by all) quite out of proportion 
 to the number of those for whom the sacrifice is made. It may 
 be contended, of course, that the extra value of the services 
 of such persons to the community is well worth the social cost 
 involved in their long years of unproductive education or 
 preparation, the number of persons and (it may be) the expendi- 
 ture of material employed in giving that education, the waste 
 which (on any conceivable system of selection) will be incurred 
 by the education of persons who eventually turn out to be 
 unfitted for the highest work, and so on. So long as that is the 
 case, we do no doubt escape the difficulty by our formula of 
 
Chap, viii, § iii] UNEQUAL CAPACITIES 335 
 
 equal consideration. These favoured persons may be allowed 
 advantages which the many do not enjoy; but it is good for 
 each member of the community that the/ should enjoy them. 
 Once again, equality of consideration itself demands a departure 
 from concrete equality. In this way our difficulty is fairly met, 
 so long as we confine our attention to such higher kinds of 
 culture and resulting Well-being as are of obvious social utility, 
 But when we come to what (though the word has somewhat 
 priggish associations) must, I suppose, be called 'the higher 
 culture,' the case is different. It is greatly to be feared that the 
 cost of higher culture to the community must always be con- 
 siderable. It may be doubted whether there is not a kind of 
 culture which demands for its vitality the existence of a class 
 invested with something more than an equal share of all that 
 makes life pleasant and attractive, that relieves from sordid 
 cares and gives room for the free expansion of individuality — a 
 class with a good deal of leisure (at least in youth), a good deal 
 of freedom, an education of the kind that can only be kept alive 
 as an hereditary tradition ^. But of course such a class can only 
 be maintained by enormous waste. The leisure will be wasted 
 in a large proportion of cases ; the liberty will be abused ; the 
 freedom to do with one's life what one pleases without justifying 
 it to the rest of the community, will, in a majority of cases, be 
 used to do with one's life, what cannot be justified. Only a small 
 proportion of these favoured individuals will do enough fully to 
 justify their superior advantages. It may be said, indeed, that 
 a socialistic or communistic community might devise means for 
 keeping alive such a class if its social value be adequate to the 
 
 ^ This view is unaffected by the fact that, where this class exists, indi- 
 vidual members of it (often the highest intellects) may come from the classes 
 outside it. They enter into and appropriate the tradition which is kept alive 
 by the favoured families. And it is, of course, superfluous to remark that by 
 the favoured class I do not merely or primarily mean what is called in the 
 conventional sense the Aristocracy or the Plutocracy (neither of which, as a 
 class, cares much for ' higher culture' or contributes much to it), but a class 
 enjoying as an hereditary possession a more than average measure of wealth 
 or opportunity, and the existence of which is often no doubt more or less 
 dependent upon the richest class either by being recruited from it or by 
 supplying its needs. 
 
336 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 cost it involves. But, granting for the present this social value, 
 what is the probability of a whole community, organized on 
 principles of pure equality and accustomed to exact in all 
 departments implicit obedience to its collective will, recognizing 
 the value of such culture ^ ? That, of course, is a practical 
 question which does not necessarily touch our theory. If such 
 a community would not recognize the value of a class which is 
 essential to the highest social Well-being, then to that extent 
 all attempts at greater equality of social conditions should stop 
 at the point at which the existence of this class begins to be 
 endangered, on the principle of equal consideration itself. But 
 all this is assuming the social value of the class. And yet may 
 there not be a point at which the benefits of ' culture ' cease to 
 be capable of very wide diffusion ? Is it possible to prove, either 
 a priori or a posteriori, that there may not be a final irreconcila- 
 bility between the higher Well-being of the few and the lower 
 Well-being of the many ^ ? 
 
 Many will be disposed to brush aside the objection somewhat 
 contemptuously. They will be disposed to say, 'Yes, there is 
 a certain exquisite polish of life which probably is not capable 
 of wide diffusion, which demands the existence of a few favoured 
 families with estates, and dividends, and large houses. It is 
 possible that, if an omnipotent Social Democracy were established 
 to-morrow, it would seriously diminish the present expenditure 
 upon professors and libraries in the German Empire. There would 
 be less "research" on matters but remotely connected with life. 
 Fewer monographs would be published. Emendations would not 
 flourish. Latin verse-making would lose the high market value 
 which it still commands in this country. There would even be 
 
 ' I need hardly say that many things -which are now impossible might 
 become possible with the gradual education of the community. 
 
 ^ I mean merely that something must be taken oif from the lower Well- 
 being of the many, not that the condition of the many must be made an 
 absolutely undesirable one. It might be, of course, contended that it was 
 actually good that men of lower capacities should enjoy less than the largest 
 possible amount of the lower goods (eating, drinking, &c.). On this view 
 the difficulty will disappear, but this position postulates that all who are 
 capable of it have the opportunity of entering the favoured class. And this 
 is just what no artificial arrangement seems capable of securing. 
 
Chap, viii, § iii] THE COST OF CULTURE 237 
 
 a general lowering of the standard of Greek and Latin scholarship. 
 Those who would still study Greek and Latin would have to be 
 content with knowing those languages, say, rather better than 
 even learned men are now content to know French and German. 
 And there would be fewer people to take an interest in 
 Aldine editions or old china. But all this is of very little 
 weight— of very little weight even for the serious intellectual 
 interests of humanity at large. To urge such matters as 
 a grave objection to any policy which would bring us even 
 a step nearer the social millennium, is like justifying Egyptian 
 bondage, because without it, in all probability, the modem 
 globe-trotter would have had to eliminate the Pyramids from his 
 programme.' 
 
 Personally, I should have a good deal of sympathy with such 
 a reply, though I might feel less confident than our sanguine 
 Socialist that the vulgarizing rust, which might be the price of 
 a real advance towards social equality, would stop at the mere 
 polished surface of our intellectual life. But so far we are 
 contemplating comparatively trifling differences of intellectual 
 level — say the difference between the intellectual level of Berlin 
 and that of a South American University. Let us now suppose 
 it were possible by some scheme of social reconstruction to win 
 for the great mass of European society the social and economic 
 conditions which may be attained by some communistic brother- 
 hood in the United States, but at the cost of extinguishing all 
 Science, all Literature, all Art, all intellectual activity which 
 arises above the highest level known in such communities. 
 That might possibly represent, even on the intellectual side taken 
 by itself, a higher kind of life than is now lived by the vast 
 majority even of European humanity. The extinction of the 
 ' higher culture ' could not, therefore, be resisted on the ground 
 of the diffused influence upon the community of the small 
 cultivated class. If asked whether we should as a fact resist 
 such a social revolution as I have contemplated in the interests 
 of the higher culture, many of us would be disposed to answer, ' If 
 the programme included the bringing of human society at large up 
 to the moral level of a Moravian mission settlement, opposition 
 to it would be hard to justify.' If we confine our attention 
 
238 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 merely to the general diffusion of a low material comfort, a dull 
 contentment, and an education ranging between that of the 
 Sunday School and that of the Mechanics' Institute, we might 
 well be in great doubt and perplexity. I for one should certainly 
 doubt whether, if I had the power, I could doom the world to 
 a continuance of our present social horrors, although their re- 
 moval might lead to the evanescence of research and speculation, 
 ' sweetness and light,' full and varied exercises of the faculties, 
 and all the rest of it. Of course I do not assert for one moment 
 that such an alternative is now, or ever will be, in its naked 
 simplicity, presented to the social reformer. In the long run 
 (putting aside the influence of exceptional outbursts of religious 
 excitement) it is probable that moral and intellectual progress 
 are intimately connected. In the long run the diffusion of some 
 culture among the many is only obtainable by the maintenance 
 of a much higher culture among the few. But after all it is 
 easy enough to conceive circumstances in which we might have 
 to choose between the wide diffusion of a lower kind of Well- 
 being and a much narrower diffusion of a higher kind of life. 
 In the intellectual sphere, at all events, there is a higher life 
 which, if it exists at all, can only exist for the comparatively 
 few ; and, in certain circumstances, it is at least a speculative 
 possibility that the existence of such a life for the few should 
 only be purchasable by sacrifices on the part of the many 
 which are not compensated by any appreciable advantage to 
 that many. If under such conditions we pronounce that the 
 higher life ought not to be extinguished, then we do at least 
 depart from the principle of equal consideration, understood as 
 we have hitherto understood it. 
 
 In the cases already contemplated, some will perhaps doubt 
 whether the principle should be sacrificed or not. I will now 
 mention a case in which probably no one will hesitate. It is 
 becoming tolerably obvious at the present day that all improve- 
 ment in the social condition of the higher races of mankind 
 postulates the exclusion of competition with the lower races. 
 That means that, sooner or later, the lower Well-being — it may 
 be ultimately the very existence — of countless Chinamen or 
 negroes must be sacrificed that a higher life may be possible 
 
Chap, viii, § iii] ANIMALS AND MEN 239 
 
 for a much smaller number of white men ^. It is impossible to 
 defend the morality of such a policy upon the principle of equal 
 consideration taken by itself and in the most obvious sense of 
 the words. If we do defend it, we distinctly adopt the principle 
 that higher life is intrinsically, in and for itself, more valuable 
 than lower life, though it may only be attainable by fewer 
 persons, and may not contribute to the greater good of those 
 who do not share it. 
 
 I will add a case which calls still more indisputably for the 
 application of the same principle. When we say, ' Every one to 
 count for one,' we are no doubt thinking merely of human beings ; 
 but why are the lower animals to be excluded from consideration? 
 I should be prepared to say that in point of fact they ought not 
 to be wholly ignored. Their pain is certainly an evil, possibly 
 as great an evil, as equal pain in human beings apart from the 
 question of the activities with which the pain may interfere : 
 their comfort or pleasure has a value to which every humane 
 person will make sortie sacrifices. But few people would be dis- 
 posed to spend money in bringing the lives of fairly-kept London 
 cab-horses up to the standard of comfort represented by a sleek 
 brewer's dray-horse in preference to spending it on the improve- 
 ment of the higher life in human beings. The lives of animals 
 cannot be thus lightly treated except upon a principle which 
 involves the admission that the life of one sentient being may be 
 more valuable than the life of another, on account of its greater 
 potentialities — apart altogether from the social utilities which 
 may be involved in their realization. However inconsiderable 
 the difierences of capacity among human races or individuals 
 may be when compared with the difierences between the lowest 
 man and the highest beast, the distinction that we nlake between 
 them implies the principle that capacity does matter. The claim 
 of the individual does after all depend upon his capacity for an 
 intrinsically valuable kind of life ; we cannot talk of the value of 
 an 'individual' apart altogether from the question what sort 
 of individual it is, and only the Hedonist will seek to judge of 
 
 ^ The exclusion is far more difficult to justify in the case of people like 
 the Japanese, who are equally civilized but have fewer wants than the 
 Western, 
 
240 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 that value solely by the individual's capacity for pleasure. No 
 positive proof can, as it appears to me, be given that the higher 
 good of few and the lower good of many may not come into 
 collision. And when they do come into collision, there are some 
 cases in which we should, I think, prefer the higher good of the few. 
 
 How far then does this admission modify our acceptance of 
 the Benthamite principle of equal consideration ? Only to this 
 extent — that, if we still adhere to the formula 'every one to 
 count for one and nobody for more than one,' we must reduce it 
 to a still more abstract form. We may still say that every one 
 is to count for one so long as all we know about him is that he 
 is one ^. We may still say, ' Caeteris paribus, every one is to 
 count for one.' But then, this will only amount to the assertion, 
 ' Every one is to count equally, so long as he is equal ; but the 
 capacity for a higher life may be a ground for treating men 
 unequally.' Or more simply we may say ' Every man's good to 
 count as equal to the like good of every other man.' 
 
 While it is impossible to show that the claims of the few 
 possessing higher capacities for good will never come into 
 collision with the claims of the many to such good as they 
 are capable of, there are some considerations which will, I think, 
 very largely prevent the necessity of choosing between the rival 
 claims in practical life. While we cannot theoretically demon- 
 strate that the best sort of life (in the intellectual region) will 
 always diffuse its benefits over the whole social organism, we 
 may in general find an ample justification for promoting the 
 higher culture of the few in the uUiirnate results of such higher 
 culture to the community generally. The principle of Election 
 has a place in Ethics and Polities as well as in Theology. It is 
 often right for governments and for individuals to bestow much 
 more than their fair share of attention upon the few on account 
 of the ultimate value to society of there being such a higher 
 class. We are, in fact, applying once more the principle that, in 
 the equal distribution of good, future generations have their 
 
 ^ Or, as it is well put by von Hartmann, ' If Equity demands a distribution, 
 without respect of persons, that means only : all peculiarities of the person 
 which are irrelevant (unwesentlich) for the purpose of the distribution must 
 be put aside ' {Das sittl. Bewusstsein, p. 438). 
 
Chap, viii, § iii] PRINCIPLE OF ELECTION 341 
 
 share as well as the present. It is sometimes suggested that, in 
 the then condition o£ the world, Athenian culture and Athenian 
 democracy were impossible without slaver^ ^. It would perhaps 
 be hard to show that the actual slaves of the time were much 
 better off for the intellectual and the political life in which they 
 had no share ; but it would not be too much to say that in the 
 forces which have ultimately banished slavery from Europe and 
 America, in the forces to which the modem democratic movement 
 owes its existence, that Hellenic city-life of which slavery was 
 the foundation is no unimportant factor. In so far as that 
 was so, slavery might claim a temporary and relative justifica- 
 tion. On the same principle, we might justify our compara- 
 tive indifference to the welfare of the black races, when it 
 collides with the higher Well-being of a much smaller European 
 population, by the consideration that if the higher life ia ever 
 to become possible on any large scale for black men it can only 
 be through the maintenance and progress of a higher race. Still 
 more are such considerations applicable to the maintenance of 
 a culture or a civilization within a community from the benefit 
 of which large classes within it are at present excluded, though 
 of course the effort to extend the class that benefits by it should 
 go hand in hand with the effort that maintains and improves the 
 culture of the few. Such considerations will, it may be, practically 
 prevent the necessity of our actually claiming for a smaller class 
 any social expenditure (so to speak) but what can ultimately be 
 repaid to the society (though not always to the actual persons) 
 which makes that Well-being possible. Since, however, the re- 
 payment is made to future generations, it supplies no ground 
 for assuming that a communistic or ultra-socialistic community 
 would be sure to recognize the importance of such an expenditure. 
 
 It may be well, perhaps, to summarize the conclusions which 
 I have endeavoured to establish. 
 
 (i) It is a self-evident truth that in the distribution of ultimate 
 good every one should count for one, and nobody for more than 
 
 • That Aristotle would have thought so there can be no doubt. But it 
 should not be assumed that had men arisen capable of appreciating the 
 essential injustice and the economic defects of slavery, Greek civilization 
 and Greek culture would have been the worse for an Abolitionist campaign. 
 
 BASBDALL I B 
 
342 
 
 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 one, so long as all that we know about the persons in question 
 is that they are individual members of human society. This is 
 the ideal of Justice. 
 
 (a) The equal distribution of concrete good things would 
 often produce unequal amounts of actual Well-being, and would 
 therefore be inconsistent with the principle of equal consideration. 
 Strict equality of opportunity equally fails to satisfy the require- 
 ments of ideal Justice. 
 
 (3) The equal distribution even of actual Well-being would 
 often produce a low total amount of good to be distributed, and 
 would consequently violate the equal right of each to have as 
 large a share of good as it is possible for him to have consistently 
 with respect for the like right in others. Practically this con- 
 sideration must involve much inequality in actual distribution. 
 The only equality that it is reasonable to aim at is equality 
 of consideration. 
 
 (4) All men are not capable of the same kind or amount of 
 good. While the enjoyment by some of such good as, from the 
 nature of the case, cannot be enjoyed by all is usually for the 
 good of all, and hence justified by the principle of equal con- 
 sideration, it is impossible to show that this will be invariably 
 the case. Individuals, or races, with higher capacities (i. e. 
 capacities for a higher sort of Well-being) have a right to more 
 than merely equal consideration as compared with those of lower 
 capacities. Hence the formula, ' Every one to count for one, 
 nobody for more than one,' must be interpreted to mean ' every 
 one's good to count for as much as the like good of any one else.' 
 
 (5) In practice it may, however, usually be assumed that the 
 realization of such superior capacities by those who possess them 
 is for the ultimate good of the human race. 
 
 We have, so far, left out of account altogether all strictly 
 moral differences between man and man. We have left out of 
 account the question whether the share of good to be allotted 
 to each man, or rather (as we have seen) his share of considera- 
 tion in the distribution of good, ought ever to be more than 
 another's on account either (from one point of view) of his 
 greater contribution to the common good, or (from another) his 
 greater virtue or merit. An answer to this question will 
 
Chap, viii, § iv] THEORY OF REWARD 343 
 
 practically amount to a discussion of the second of the formulae 
 which purport to be an adequate expression of social justice — 
 the formula, ' To every one according to his merits,' the theory 
 of just recompense or reward, 
 
 IV 
 
 I shall now proceed to examine this second formula which, 
 on the face of it, presents itself to many people as self-evidently 
 just and reasonable — the theory of reward or just recompense. 
 This doctrine is apt to express itself in two forms. Sometimes 
 it is said that every one ought to be rewarded in proportion 
 to his merit ; at other times we are told that every one should 
 be rewarded according to the amount of his work or service 
 to society. Sometimes the maxim is ' to every man according 
 to his merit ' ; at other times ' to every man according to his 
 work ^.' 
 
 Although, on a superficial view, these two formulae might be 
 accepted as practically identical, there is really a fundamental 
 difference between them. We may no doubt reduce both of 
 them to the form 'everybody is to be rewarded according to 
 his merit.' But in the first case merit is understood in a moral, 
 in the second in an economic, sense. A moment's consideration 
 will show that the two interpretations would lead to essentially 
 different results. A picture painted with the toes by a handless 
 man may show much more zeal, industry, perseverance, and 
 the like, as well as more skill and ability, than one painted 
 in the usual way. If the two pictures were of equal artistic 
 worth, the painters ought, according to the second formula, 
 to be rewarded equally ; while, according to the first, the toe- 
 painter should receive, it may be, ten or twenty times the reward 
 of the hand-painter. And this is by no means an extreme 
 
 ' I am here treating the formula in the sense in which it is usually put 
 forward — as a rule for the actual distribution of concrete goods. If it 
 is put forward as a formula for the distribution of actual Well-being, its 
 application would have to be further modified by the principle which 
 has been already dwelt upon in connexion with the formula of equal con- 
 sideration — the principle that an equal wage will not secure equal Well- 
 being. 
 
 B 2 
 
244 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 illustration of the divergent consequences of the two methods : 
 for it is not easy to exaggerate the difference between the 
 maximum and the minimum of human talent, skill, strength, 
 or other capacities which determine the quantity and value 
 of the results produced by a given amount of labour. Let us, 
 then, examine the economic interpretation of our thesis first. 
 
 The theory that ideal Justice means paying each man in propor- 
 tion to the value of his work to the community looks plausible only 
 so long as we forget that economic value is essentially relative, 
 and not absolute. What we mean by the value of a given thing 
 is the amount of other things which will actually be given for 
 it under certain social conditions. But, when we are assuming 
 that the very constitution of society has been, so to speak, put 
 into the melting-pot — when we are given carte blanche to 
 reconstruct human society in accordance with ideal Justice, 
 all the usual means of ascertaining value disappear. Our 
 ordinary ideas of value postulate that wealth is divided among 
 a number of individuals who, under whatever restrictions, are 
 free to barter one form of it for another. The value — let us 
 say — of medical attendance depends upon the amount of other 
 good things which people are prepared to give up in exchange 
 for medical attendance, under such conditions as the following : 
 (i) that the numbers of the medical profession depend upon the 
 number of persons who are induced to enter it by the advantages 
 which it holds out, as compared with other professions open to 
 the same class of persons; (2) that the profession requires 
 a certain expenditure upon education ; and (3) that this ex- 
 penditure is only within the reach of a limited number of 
 persons who have — themselves or their parents — accumulated 
 a certain amount of wealth, and become, to a limited extent, 
 capitalists ; and so on. I need not take further pains to show 
 that values, no less than prices, are fixed by competition ^. The 
 
 ^ All the conceptions employed by Economists, such aa ' marginal utility,' 
 'marginal demand,' ' consumer's rent,' and the like, seem to be in the same 
 case. It may be observed that even if some means could be discovered, 
 in the absence of competition, for measuring the extent to which different 
 commodities could satisfy the actual desires of men, this would be no cri- 
 terion of their true ethical value for those who hold that good does not mean 
 what men actually desire. The ethical disquisitions of some Economists 
 
Chap, viii, § iv] VALUES AKE COMPARATIVE 245 
 
 very instance which I have chosen is, indeed, one of those in 
 which prices are not wholly fixed by competition ; and, just 
 at the point at which they cease to be fixed by competition 
 (between different classes of workers, if not between individual 
 workmen), we cease to be able to express the value of the article 
 supplied. It is customary with general practitioners to regulate 
 their fees by the wealth of the patient, of which the probable 
 rental of his house is taken as a rough indication. Now, if 
 patient A pays los., patient B pays 7s. 6d., and patient C $s., for 
 a precisely similar visit, which fee represents the true value 
 of the commodity supplied? This is a question which it is 
 obviously impossible to answer. Now, in a community organized 
 throughout upon a non-competitive basis, it would be as im- 
 possible to express in general terms the value of medical attend- 
 ance as compared with other things that have value, as it is to 
 express the true value of those particular visits which are 
 remunerated according to the wealth of the patient. Value 
 is ascertained by competition. It implies that there is a limited 
 supply of the commodities in question, or at least a limited supply 
 of commodities in general, and that if you have one, you can't 
 have another. Now, medical attendance is precisely a com- 
 modity for which there is a by no means unlimited demand. 
 A socialistic State which should determine the vocation of all 
 its members, and provide their whole education, might very 
 conceivably secure medical attendance free for all its citizens. 
 If everybody could have as much medical attendance as he 
 required without giving up his share of any other commodity, 
 it would be clearly impossible to ascertain the economic value 
 of medical attendance to the community. 
 
 It may be said that these considerations would cease to be 
 applicable when we think not of the demand for this or that 
 commodity (which is always limited) but of the demand for 
 commodities in general which is practically unlimited. The 
 
 (even when they repudiate the hedonistic Psychology) seem to me to be 
 seriously vitiated by the assumption that such is the case. One of the great 
 objections to schemes for the immediate realization of the socialistic ideal is 
 that they would certainly involve an attempt to fix remuneration (including 
 hours of work) by reference to the wants at present felt, and the ideal of 
 ' happiness ' at present entertained, by the average worker. 
 
246 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 case would not, indeed, be altered supposing the State undertook 
 to determine how much of each commodity the worker should 
 receive, and exchange were made as criminal as accumulation. 
 But what if the worker were paid by tickets on the stores, 
 and each worker were allowed to take his day's allowance in 
 whatever form he pleased? Two cases are then supposable. 
 The State would have to fix the amount of one commodity 
 which should be exchangeable for another. If it undertook 
 to estimate the value of the article by reference to the amount 
 of skill, knowledge, training, &c., which it took to produce it, 
 we must suppose the problem which we are discussing already 
 solved ; since what we are in search of is precisely some common 
 denominator by means of which to compare the value of watch- 
 making and the value of turnip-cultivation. If, on the other 
 hand (to avoid involving ourselves in a logical circle), we assume 
 that the quality of the labour is to be neglected, the only 
 criteria by which it is possible to ascertain how much of one 
 commodity ought to be served out as the equivalent of so much 
 of another will be (i) the amount of labour expended on its 
 production, (a) the amount of land or its products and capital 
 required for its production, capital being resolvable into 
 the results of past labour, and of the ' abstinence ' or waiting 
 which has saved it from immediate consumption^. On the 
 principle now contemplated, the worker who was allowed to 
 take his pay in beef or in bread would, of course, have to choose 
 between several pounds of bread and one of beef, because it 
 takes more land to grow a pound of ox-flesh than to grow a 
 pound of flour. But this element in the relative value of 
 different commodities has, of course, nothing to do with the 
 value of the workman's work qua work ^. Hence, the only 
 
 ' It seems unnecessary for our present purpose to discuss the economic 
 question bow far land should be regarded as capital. 
 
 ^ It may be urged that the worker whose work has involved expenditure of 
 capital, i.e. 'abstinence' or 'waiting,' should be remunerated for that ex- 
 penditure. But under such an ideal system as is here contemplated the 
 work which produced the capital would have been adequately rewarded at 
 the time ; and, when we presuppose an ideal distribution, there would be no 
 occasion for capital to be accumulated by the voluntary saving of indi- 
 viduals, as the State would have provided all that was required out of the 
 
Chap, viii, § iv] QUALITIES OF WORK 347 
 
 way in which we can compare the value of two pieces of work 
 (on any hypothesis) is by their respective amounts. 
 
 Even then our difficulties are not at • an end. What is 
 amount of work ? Clearly not the time spent on it ; for some 
 kinds of work are harder than others. But hardness is not by 
 itself a reason for additional remuneration, except in so far 
 as harder work is more disagreeable than lighter work. Some 
 very light kinds of work may become disagreeable by reason of 
 their extreme monotony ; while severe bodily exercise is to some 
 people a positive delight. Hard work may likewise become 
 disagreeable when pursued for such a length of time as would 
 not be disagreeable in the case of lighter work. But all that the 
 hard-worker can claim is that, in so far as his work is more 
 disagreeable than other work, he shall be compensated for its 
 disagreeableness, either by liberty to work for fewer hours, or 
 by other advantages — such as more food, tickets on stores, &c. 
 It is possible that some system might be devised for comparing 
 the relative disagreeableness of work by ascertaining the amounts 
 of each which the average man would be willing to do for the 
 same remuneration, including under that term all the advantages 
 — whether in leisure or food or other conveniences — by which 
 a community might endeavour to equalize the conditions of 
 workers in different occupations. In that way it might be 
 possible to ascertain the quantity of work which different 
 commodities or services to the community cost. And quantity 
 of labour, in the sense explained, is the only criterion by which 
 we could measure the relative value of different kinds of work. 
 
 Although this reasoning seems to me to be unanswerable, it is 
 probable that to some minds it will be found too abstract to be 
 satisfying. ' What ! ' they will exclaim ; ' do you mean to say 
 that the Physician does not perform a greater service to society 
 than the ploughman ? Is he not therefore to receive a pro- 
 portionate reward ? Granted that the destruction of competition 
 would prevent your measuring this relative value in terms of 
 £ s. d., the general sense of the community is surely equal 
 to the task of appreciating the relative importance of different 
 
 common funds. In speaking of ' capital ' throughout this chapter I of 
 course mean ' productive ' and not ' consumptive ' capital. 
 
248 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 services, and will act according to its innate sense of what is 
 just or appropriate.' I answer : Is it so clear that the service 
 of the Physician is so much more important than that of the 
 ploughman ? At present we measure their relative importance 
 by the comparative difficulty of getting them. But with carte 
 blanche to postulate any form of society that he chooses, the 
 legislator would have no difficulty in making it quite as easy 
 to get medical attendance as to get bread. A sufficient number 
 of people will be educated as Physicians to secure that medical 
 attendance shall be forthcoming for every man who wants it, 
 and sufficient ploughmen will be provided to supply everybody 
 with as much bread as he can eat. And, when these two 
 conditions are secured, no further production either of bread 
 or of medical attendance will be of the slightest value to the 
 commimity ^. If you can have enough of both, it is impossible 
 to say which is the more valuable. If you ask which is the 
 more valuable when you cannot have enough of both, it must 
 be admitted that the ploughman performs the more indispensable 
 service. Some of us would die or suffer without the Physician : 
 but we should all die without the ploughman or some equivalent 
 food-producer. If, then, this is the sense which you put upon 
 the principle 'To every man according to his work,' it would 
 seem that the ploughman should be paid more than the Physician. 
 But it is impossible to admit the justice of the principle thus 
 interpreted. The Physician would naturally say to the State, 
 ' If I had known that I was to be served like that, I should 
 have wanted to be a ploughman too. And if you, for your 
 greater convenience, insisted that I should be a Physician, why 
 should I suffer on that account? You say, "Bread is more 
 necessary than medical attendance " ; but if you did not want 
 to have both, you should not have insisted on my being a 
 Physician.' 
 
 It is evident that the real consequences of following out this 
 maxim, ' Every man according to his work,' would be very 
 different from those usually intended by at least one class of 
 its advocates. When they do not mean that equal work should 
 
 ■ Foreign trade being, for greater simplicity, ignored. If com is exported, 
 it is, of course, not serviceable to the community as bread. 
 
Chap, viii, § iv] WORK AND FACULTY 349 
 
 be recompensed by equal advantages, they usually assume that 
 what is commonly considered the higher work, that whicli 
 employs the highest faculties, intellectual Vork, artistic work, 
 spiritual work, &c., should be remunerated more highly than 
 the lower, more mechanical, more animal work. Now, this 
 contention may be based on one of two grounds : either (i) 
 on the ground that by such work a higher service is performed 
 to the community, or (a) that the higher faculty should receive 
 higher remuneration simply because it is higher. In the first 
 case, I am vmable to see the justice of the demand. The man 
 who prints Bibles no doubt renders a higher service to the 
 community than the man who prints 'penny dreadfuls.' But, 
 assuming that both minister to legitimate social needs, nobody 
 would propose that the former should receive higher remunera- 
 tion than the latter. So long as the different values spring from 
 some difference in the mere objective results of work, nobody 
 will contend that the more important or ' higher ' consequences 
 should form a ground for unequal reward of exactly the same 
 work. If you say, 'The work itself is different, not merely 
 its external consequences,' I cannot see how there can be a 
 difference in kind between one work and another when abstracted 
 both (i) from the results to the community and (2) from the 
 faculties employed by the worker. If you mean to insist upon 
 the last, then you adopt the second of our two original alterna- 
 tives, which we have yet to examine. 
 
 Is the superior dignity — the moral or aesthetic or intellectual 
 superiority — of the activities employed any ground for additional 
 remuneration? Of course, if intellectual work is considered 
 more disagreeable than unintellectual, then the work ought to 
 receive compensating advantages. But it is not the common 
 opinion that to intellectual persons intellectual work is less 
 agreeable than manual labour or mechanical drudgery. Most 
 people would probably say, ' Caeteris paribus, the intellectual 
 work is infinitely the more pleasant.' Even if we suppose the 
 social estimation and other conditions of intellectual and manual 
 labour equalized, there would probably be more persons anxious 
 to undertake intellectual instead of manual work than the 
 community could provide with adequate employment. For our 
 
250 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 present purpose, however, it is enough to negative any claim 
 for additional remuneration on the ground of additional dis- 
 agreeableness. If, however, the intellectual work is supposed 
 to imply a sort of merit on the part of the worker, and to claim 
 remuneration on that score, one must ask, ' To what does the 
 intellectual worker owe the opportunity of doing this higher 
 work?' The answer will be, (i) partly to superior education 
 and opportunities, (a) partly, in the case of the higher kinds of 
 intellectual work, to the possession of natural capacities which 
 are confined to a more or less small proportion of the human 
 race. Now, in so far as the position of the brain-worker is due 
 to education, it is clearly not his merit but the organization of 
 society which has put him in this position. Under present 
 conditions, it is generally the command of capital that secures 
 education; and, the capital expended upon education being 
 nearly always accumulated by others than the person whom 
 it benefits, it will hardly be pretended that an accident of this 
 kind can claim remuneration on grounds of abstract Justice, 
 however expedient it may be as a means to the general good 
 under certain conditions that such remuneration should be given. 
 And under altered social arrangements the community could, of 
 course, easily secure that the requisite educational advantages 
 should be given to as many persons as its social needs might 
 demand. In either case, there is no question of superior merit 
 in the intellectual worker. 
 
 But how does the matter stand with regard to those capacities 
 for higher work which are due to Nature ? Nature has given 
 to many Englishmen intellectual powers possessed by very few 
 negroes. Among Englishmen she has made, perhaps, from two 
 to five per cent, capable ^, with the requisite education, oppor- 
 tunity and application, of obtaining a first-class in literae 
 hwynaniores at Oxford — to take the distribution of one particular 
 kind of intellectual capacity as a sample of the comparative 
 rarity of high iritellectual powers. And when we come to the 
 highest kind of intellectual capacity, she gives high originality 
 to one man in a thousand, genius to half a dozen in a genera- 
 tion, and so on. But should the possession of capacities for 
 
 • I need hardly say that this estimate is little better than guesswork. 
 
Chap, viii, § iv] NO RIGHT TO REWARD 251 
 
 doing the precise kind of work which only a certain number 
 of his fellow countrymen can do — should even the power to do 
 (a power which is implied, of course, by even the most modest kind 
 of originality) the particular thing which no one else living can 
 do, constitute ground for superior remuneration? So long as 
 the question is considered merely as one of ' reward ' — of some 
 additional gratification, not implying or essential to the exercise 
 of his superior faculty — I must say that I cannot see the justice 
 of this extra remuneration. Everybody would admit that the 
 mere rarity of a capacity would be no ground for exceptional 
 treatment ; though, of course, the most mechanical and accidental 
 kind of superiority (e.g. delicacy of touch enabling a man to 
 test grain better than anybody else) may, under a competitive 
 regime, enable a man to appropriate an enormous share of the 
 world's wealth. Under a competitive regime giants and dwarfs 
 can make considerable money by exhibiting themselves ; but 
 on principles of ideal Justice is there any reason why they 
 should be paid more for their day's labour than an ordinary 
 sandwich-man ? Is the case altered when the qualification is 
 not merely rare but intellectually or artistically or even (in so 
 far as moral qualities are not under the immediate control 
 of the will) morally admirable ? Should strength of brain or 
 steadiness of nerve or a natural love of work entitle a man to 
 a superior share of the good things of life, any more than 
 strength of arm 1 If a man has a body of extraordinary size 
 or strength, it is right that I should look upon him — not, indeed, 
 with the feeling of awe or respect which is often in fact inspired 
 by the feeling that in certain circumstances such a man might 
 assault us with impunity, but with the feelings of wonder and 
 interest which are inspired by an elephant or a fossil mammoth. 
 If he has extraordinary skill and agility of body, it is fitting 
 that I should look upon him with the half-aesthetic, half- 
 sympathetic feeling that is inspired by the sight of a gazelle 
 or a greyhound. If he has exceptional brain-power, the imagina- 
 tion of a poet or the penetration of a philosopher, it is right that 
 I should treat him with respect, i. e. the intellectual respect that 
 his qualities merit. If he has moral or spiritual capacities above 
 those of common men, then it is right that I should treat him 
 
253 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 with moral and spiritual respect. But I see no reason why, on 
 account of either the intellectual or the spiritual superiority, 
 I should offer him a bottle of champagne while for my less 
 gifted guest I only provide small beer. Neither intellectual 
 nor spiritual superiority seems to constitute an intelligible 
 ground for assigning to a man a larger share of carnal delights 
 than his neighbour. The opportunity of freely exercising his 
 superior faculty and the power or authority which his particular 
 gift fits him to wield, these strike us as the fitting rewards, and 
 the only fitting rewards, for superiority of this kind. To the 
 man who is capable of a higher kind of happiness than others 
 because of his higher gifts, that higher happiness itself surely 
 ■ is the due reward — not a larger meed than others of those lower 
 kinds of pleasure of which alone his inferior may be capable. 
 If any difference were to be made between the two, it might 
 be plausibly argued that the superior man should receive less 
 of those lower pleasures which he ought better to be able to 
 do without, than the man who is capable of nothing else. Of 
 course it may be suggested that the superior man may be 
 expected to 'make a good use' of his superior wealth, i.e. to 
 use it in the public interest. But if so, the wealth is not really 
 'distributed,' the distribution is merely postponed. The real 
 problem is, 'what is it just that the superior man should 
 enjoy 1 ' 
 
 To translate the somewhat abstract language into terms of 
 actual social arrangements. Justice does not seem to me to 
 require that because Nature has given a man capacities which 
 fit him for superior usefulness to the community, his work per 
 hour should — on any principle of abstract Justice and apart 
 from considerations of social utility— be paid at a higher rate 
 than the equally exhausting or disagreeable work of common 
 men i. When I say ' paid at a higher rate," I mean that there 
 is no reason why he should be better fed, clothed, or housed ; 
 
 " The fatigue of work demands remuneration only in so far as (i) it makes 
 it disagreeable, which it does not always do, or (2) makes the worker capable 
 of doing less of it. If, on account of the value of his work, it is socially de- 
 sirable that he should do a longer day's work than others, then no doubt the 
 absence of recreation should be made up to him in other ways. 
 
Chap, viii, § iv] WORK AND PAY 25^ 
 
 that he should be indulged in more or more expensive amuse- 
 ments, or allowed longer holidays. 
 
 No doubt it is quite true that the man of higher faculty 
 requires for the exercise of those faculties certain external 
 conditions of an exceptional character. And some of these 
 conditions may consist in a larger supply of those conveniences 
 and indulgences which ordinary men are quite capable of 
 appreciating. Nay, the higher faculty may sometimes be a 
 source, not of greater happiness, but of greater misery, unless 
 these conditions are forthcoming. The musical genius, for 
 instance, might be driven distracted by being compelled to live 
 amid the noise and bustle, the barrel-organs and the hurdy- 
 gurdies, which would be Paradise to many an East-end factory- 
 girl. And of intellectual workers in general it may be said that 
 they do require for the favourable exercise of their faculties 
 a larger share of certain comforts and conveniences than would 
 be likely to fall to the lot of the average workman under 
 a regime of absolute equality. It is doubtful whether the 
 luxurious table of a successful barrister is any more conducive 
 to his activity than the humbler fare of the solicitor's managing 
 clerk, who may sometimes do quite as large an allowance of 
 brain- work ; but it is probably true that the brain-worker wants 
 more and better food than is absolutely necessary for the less 
 exhausting kinds of mechanical work. Still, if everybody had 
 his fill of plain and wholesome diet, I don't know that the brain- 
 worker could on grounds of abstract Justice claim anything 
 more ^. Nor is there any reason in the nature of things — existing 
 social conventionalities apart — why the brain-worker should be 
 clad in broad-cloth, and the hand-worker in corduroy. But it 
 is otherwise when we come to less material conveniences. It is 
 probably desirable in the interests of his efficiency that the 
 higher- class brain- worker should be set free from petty worries 
 and anxieties. Under existing conditions, that would mean that 
 he ought to be allowed servants to do for him things which 
 other people have to do for themselves; under any arrange- 
 
 ' It is possible no doubt that a certain amount of luxury, even in matters of 
 eating and drinking, may sometimes be conducive to efficiency, but, if the 
 luxuries were given on this ground, they would not be given byway of reward.' 
 
a54 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 ments he would want a larger amount of service. It is desirable 
 that he should have more house-room than the most ideal 
 Socialism would probably assign to ordinary hand-workers. 
 The doctor's carriage is none the less a personal luxury because 
 it is also necessary to his business. The author will want 
 a study, the artist a studio, the student books and room to 
 stow them. If his wife is to be capable of sharing his life, and 
 not to be a mere housekeeper, she must also be secured more 
 than the normal exemption from household drudgery by nurses 
 and other servants. And if family life is to be maintained, it is 
 practically inevitable that some of these advantages should be 
 extended to his children, who may nevertheless be very far from 
 inheriting his mental superiority. Then, too, it is probable that, 
 if the lives of highly cultivated people are to be made as agree- 
 able to them as their lives are to people of less cultivation, they 
 will want amusements or interests that will impose upon the 
 community a heavier tax than the amusements of the less 
 cultivated. We can hardly conceive of the most absolutely 
 socialistic State allowing very extensive opportunities of foreign 
 travel to every one ; and yet it is clearly desirable that they 
 should be within the reach of some. Moreover, for the exercise 
 of certain mental gifts, considerable leisure and some liberty of 
 action may be essential — including the liberty at times to be 
 unproductive. Literary production of a certain kind has, indeed, 
 often been stimulated by the most abject bodily want ; but it is 
 certain that the higher kinds of intellectual labour could never 
 be made into a daily task, to be exacted under penalty of im- 
 prisonment or short commons by a socialistic taskmaster. In 
 ways like these it is probably right that the more gifted man — 
 or even the more educated man when once the community has 
 allowed him a higher education than the common — should have 
 exceptional treatment. But it is rather because these things 
 are necessary or desirable for the full development and enjoy- 
 ment of a faculty which ought to be developed, than as ' reward ' 
 for being differently constituted from ordinary men, that he 
 may rightfully claim from the community the use — in certain 
 directions — of more wealth than would fall to his lot under 
 a perfectly equal distribution. 
 
Chap, viii, § iv] MOEAL MERIT 355 
 
 Our examination of the dictum, ' To every man according to 
 his work,' has, so far, tended to this result — that we can accept 
 it only in the sense, 'The development of higher capacity is 
 of more worth than the development of lower capacity, and 
 consequently ought to be provided with all the conditions 
 necessary to its exercise.' And this was, it will be remembered, 
 the one exception which our examination of the other maxim, 
 ' Everybody to count for one, and nobody for more than one,' 
 compelled us to adopt before we could admit its universal 
 applicability in any sense other than the purely abstract one, 
 ' Caeteris paribus, everybody to count for one,' or ' One man's 
 good to count for as much as the like good of any other,' We 
 came to the conclusion that the higher good was worth more 
 than the lower, and that consequently the man who has more 
 capacity for higher good should count for more than the man 
 who has less. 
 
 So far, however, we have confined our attention to those 
 differences in capacity for work which are due solely to differ- 
 ences of natural endowment. But now, what of the differences 
 which are due to will 1 What of the strictly moral differences ? 
 Ought the virtuous to be rewarded ? What, in ultimate analysis, 
 are we to make of the popular notion of ' merit ' % Here it is 
 necessary to put aside two philosophical problems with which 
 a discussion of this question is usually involved. 
 
 (i) I put aside for the present the question of Free-will. The 
 facts of heredity, the phenomena of mental pathology, and the 
 constancy of statistics make it plain that Free-will (in the popular 
 ' indeterminist ' sense of the word) is on any view not the only 
 cause of some men's goodness and other men's badness. And it 
 is obviously impossible to discriminate in our treatment of other 
 people between the part which undetermined choice (if such 
 a thing there be) may play in the formation of actual good 
 volitions, and the factors in their causation which are due to 
 other influences. Hence it is clear that, if we are in any sense 
 to reward men for their goodness, we must look only to the 
 actual quality of their volitions. We must reward them for 
 being good without raising the question how they came to be so. 
 
 (a) The question involves an answer to the theory of punish- 
 
356 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 ment. If punishment is retrospective and retributive, then it 
 may be inferred that reward must also rest upon an a priori 
 basis, and not be a means to anything beyond itself. That is 
 a question which I reserve for separate treatment in the next 
 chapter : but, even if we deny that the bad man ought to suffer 
 pain as an end-in-itself, independently of the moral eflFeet to be 
 produced upon him and others, it does not follow that we must, 
 on that account, decline to say that happiness ought to be 
 distributed in proportion to goodness. It is one thing to cause 
 a man pain, another to refuse to make him happier than some- 
 body else. When it is a question of inflicting pain, the onus 
 probandi, so to speak, would seem to rest with the inflicter ; 
 when it is a question of distributing happiness, it may be 
 considered to lie with the claimants. If I hang, or assault, or 
 imprison a man, he naturally demands my authority for doing 
 so ; but it might easily be maintained that I do no wrong to J. by 
 giving a certain lot of happiness to B. The question is, there- 
 fore, not settled by the view we take of the theory of punishment, 
 unless, indeed, we look upon punishment in a merely negative 
 aspect as the withholding of some good ^. We must therefore 
 still ask, ' Is it reasonable that an individual or a community, 
 having the conditions of happiness or Well-being ^ at his or its 
 disposal, should distribute them to all equally, or should dis- 
 tribute them in proportion to the moral worth of the individuals 
 concerned ? ' 
 
 To this question the obvious practical answer will be that we 
 shall distribute in accordance with merit because we want to make 
 as many people good as possible, and that experience shows that 
 the best way of effecting that object is to contrive that, so far 
 as possible, goodness shall lead to happiness, and badness to 
 misery^. The question whether, apart from such tendency, 
 
 ' See below, p. 294 note. 
 
 ^ The idea of distribution according to merit is generally understood to 
 refer to the distribution of happiness, since the higher elements of Well- 
 being constitute the merit which is to be rewarded, and cannot therefore bo 
 themselves distributed by way of reward. 
 
 ' If we hold (with Aristotle) that Virtue necessarily or intrinsically leads to 
 happiness (given the favourable external conditions or an ' unimpeded exer- 
 cise ' of virtuous activities), the question ceases to have any meaning except 
 
Chap, viii, § iv] CLAIMS OF SUPERIOR CAPACITY 257 
 
 Justice would require an unequal distribution of external goods 
 is an extremely abstract question which it can never be necessary 
 to answer for the solution of any practical*problem. But, if the 
 question must be answered, I should be disposed to say : If the 
 matter be treated as an abstract question of merit and reward, 
 I can see no reason at all why superior moral goodness should 
 be assigned a superior quantity of external goods, that is to say, 
 the means of indulging desires which have no connexion with 
 this superior goodness. So far as the word 'merit' means 
 anything more than ' intrinsic worth ' or ' value,' it must be 
 treated as one possessing no intelligible meaning. Goodness does 
 not merit material reward, as though goodness were a loss to 
 the possessor which can only be rationalized if he be paid for it. 
 But if the question be asked whether the good man ought not to 
 be made happy, I should answer, ' Yes, certainly he ought to be 
 made happy, because the kind of happiness of which the good 
 man is capable possesses so much higher a value than the 
 happiness of the less virtuous character. Just because Virtue 
 is not by itself the only good for man, though it is his highest 
 good and an essential condition of the good, the man who has it 
 should be given all that is necessary to complete his true Well- 
 being. Pleasure taken by itself in abstraction from all other 
 elements of consciousness may have a very small value : pleasure 
 taken in connexion with elements of consciousness that are bad- 
 such pleasure in a word as a bad man is capable of — may have 
 still smaller or perhaps a negative value ; but such pleasure as 
 accompanies the exercise of the higher faculties under favourable 
 circumstances possesses a very high value indeed.' But if this 
 be the ground on which we pronounce that goodness should be re- 
 warded, it is clear that it is not any and every kind, nor every 
 amount of pleasure or material source of pleasure, that should be 
 the ideal reward of the good man. The fitting reward of the 
 
 in relation to God, who may no doubt be conceived of as creating human 
 nature in such a way as to make goodness constitute or contribute to the 
 happiness of the creature. Goodness can hardly be thought to be a good at 
 all without being supposed to be a source of happiness : the question 
 remains whether, in so far as happiness is dependent on external circum- 
 stances, the other conditions of happiness ought to be made to follow upon 
 goodness. 
 
 BASHDALL 1 S 
 
258 JUSTICE [Book 1 
 
 good man (if we still talk of reward at all) is the opportunity for 
 the freest and most fruitful exercise of his highest capacities — 
 their exercise in such a way as shall be most favourable both to 
 the goodness itself and to the pleasure which, under favourable 
 circumstances, goodness brings with it. It is (as Aristotle puts 
 it) the ' appropriate ' or ' cognate ' pleasure that is the fitting 
 reward of the activity, together with such other pleasures as are 
 conducive or not unfavourable to the continued exercise of 
 virtuous activities. And to that end the man ought clearly 
 to be assigned not the amount of external goods which he has 
 'earned,' for moral goodness cannot be expressed in terms of 
 external goods, or of such happiness as external goods can secure, 
 but the quantity of external goods which will be most calculated 
 to secure that ideal of life which includes goodness and culture 
 and happiness *. And if it be asked what is to be done when 
 the claims of the good man come into collision with those of less 
 good or bad men, I answer in accordance with the principle 
 which we have already adopted : ' the higher kind of life is 
 worth more than the lower: consequently the man with the 
 higher capacities^ must be treated as of more value than the 
 
 '■ This of course represents the Aristotelian idea of the proper relation of 
 external goods to eidcunovia, but it is a principle which Aristotle entirely 
 forgets in his crude account of distributive Justice. It is perhaps a some- 
 what paradoxical result of our principle (one which Aristotle would have 
 been little disposed to admit) that the less completely virtuous man might 
 sometimes have to be assigned more material reward than the more virtuous. 
 The average man, even the average good man, certainly does want, to make 
 him really happy, many external goods which would not have increased the 
 happiness of St. Francis of Assisi, or even of an ideal man of less one-sided 
 development than St. Francis. 
 
 ' The higher capacities, not the higher performance. Logically we should 
 have to admit that, if the bad man could be rendered capable of the 
 higher life by expending upon him what it would be prepared to spend 
 upon the better man, the expenditure would be equally justified. And there 
 are cases where that principle may really be acted on. We are justified in 
 spending money to bring one sinner to repentance which might otherwise 
 have been spent in adding to the comforts of ninety-and-nine just persons 
 who need no repentance. How to compare the claims of the sinner and the 
 just might often be a diflScult problem but for the fortunate fact that the 
 conversion of the most obviously anti-social sinners involves the saving of 
 considerable expense to the just persons. 
 
Chap, viii, § iv] EEWAED INJURIOUS TO VIRTUE 259 
 
 man of less capacity :— of how much'more value is a problem 
 which the practical Reason must solve when occasion arises for it.' 
 
 It should be observed, indeed, that the "grounds on which we 
 do, in a sense, admit the good to be entitled to reward will by 
 themselves set a limit to the amount of this reward, in so far as 
 it consists in the means of gratifying the lower or more animal 
 desires. It will be generally admitted that the possession, or at 
 least the consumption, of much wealth in such ways is not 
 favourable to — may even be inconsistent with — the highest 
 moral WeU-being. And when the existing inequalities are 
 justified as a means to the encouragement of ' merit,' it is often 
 forgotten that the influence of excessive wealth upon the moral 
 Well-being of its possessors may be as injurious as its influence 
 in decreasing the moral and physical Well-being of the poor. If 
 the question be raised, whether the system of rewarding Virtue 
 is not itself injurious to Virtue, I should be quite prepared to 
 admit that the reward of Virtue might very easily be carried to 
 this point, though in the interests of society we often have 
 to encourage social service even to the injury of the highest 
 character. And this is one of the difficulties that I should feel 
 in admitting, even as an abstract and theoretical proposition, 
 that the good man ought, as a matter of a priori Justice, to be 
 rewarded in proportion to his merit. For that would mean, if 
 We use words in their ordinary sense, that every increase of 
 Virtue should, on principles of ideal Justice, bring with it 
 a larger house, more servants, better dinners, more expensive 
 pleasures, more splendid equipages, and more costly horseflesh. 
 And these things would possibly not be good for the good man. 
 The House of Lords may be a useful institution under existing 
 social conditions, but it can hardly be said to ' encourage ' the 
 highest Virtue in Peers or their eldest sons. 
 
 But how far is this principle, that the good ought to be 
 rewarded, available as a canon of distributive Justice in actual 
 life 1 For practical purposes hardly at all. We must, no doubt, 
 in criticizing or seeking to alter existing social arrangements 
 bear in mind the necessity of securing conditions favourable to 
 the highest type of life. But in its ordinary economic arrange- 
 ments the only kind of goodness which society at large has it 
 
 B3 
 
36o JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 in its power to reward is positive contribution to social good, 
 and for the most part such contribution to social good as admits 
 of being not altogether inadequately expressed in terms of 
 £ s. d. The only kind of reward, in short, of which it is possible 
 to take much practical account is the economic reward for work 
 done. For how is it possible to discriminate between the portion 
 of the work produced which is due to superior goodwill, to 
 industry, perseverance, integrity, and that which is due to 
 superior capacity ? It is obvious that one workman can do in 
 an hour twice as much work as another working equally hard. 
 But how can we test the intensity of a man's application ? It 
 is practically impossible to reward industry without rewarding 
 cleverness also. And yet we have seen that the ideal of just 
 reward is not satisfied by paying a man according to the actual 
 quantity of work done irrespective of the qualities which he 
 shows in doing it. It follows then that, if there is to be any 
 diversity of reward at all, it cannot be based upon the principle 
 of ideal Justice, but must be regulated by social expediency. If 
 anybody thinks that men in general could be induced to put 
 forth their maximum activity in the service of the community 
 without the prospect of reward, for themselves and those nearly 
 connected with them, he is a person with whom it is useless to 
 argue. Rewards there must be; and yet rewards cannot be 
 directly justified by considerations of ideal Justice, but only 
 indirectly by their tendency to bring about in the long run 
 equality of consideration in the distribution of good. 
 
 And lest I should be accused of taking a low view of human 
 nature or inadequately recognizing its future improvability, let 
 me add two practical considerations which must be borne in 
 mind before our conclusions are used as a justification of the 
 social status quo, or as an argument against any suggested 
 modification of society in a socialistic direction. In the first 
 place, it must be remembered that a very small reward is quite 
 sufficient to call forth men's utmost energies when no other is 
 obtainable. A free labourer would laugh in your face if you 
 proposed to allure him to greater industry by the offer of an 
 additional two ounces of bread per diem, but such an offer is found 
 a very effective stimulus among the inmates of His Majesty's 
 
Chap, viii, § iv] REWARD AS A MEANS a6i 
 
 gaols. German judges probably work as hard as English ones, 
 though they do not receive such large salaries. After a certain 
 point small incomes stimulate activity as 'much as larger ones 
 when no larger ones are to be had. The other consideration is 
 that even in the existing state of society the rewards for which 
 men work (in so far as they do work for reward) are very largely 
 honorary — rewards which take the form of social consideration 
 or of interesting employment for their higher faculties. The 
 pecuniary gains even of the most remunerative professions are 
 small compared with those of commerce, but they are more 
 attractive to educated men because even at the present day 
 an eminent Physician or Lawyer enjoys more consideration and 
 has a more interesting life than a successful clothier or brewer 
 with a much larger income. And the Civil Service can secure 
 the highest ability at a still lower rate. Even wealth itself is 
 largely valued as the concrete embodiment of success and the 
 source of social consideration. In the society of the future 
 these principles might be carried much further. Rewards will 
 always be necessary, but rewards may be increasingly small in 
 their cost to the community, and increasingly non-material in 
 character; and, though reward must always in the nature of 
 things consist in some sort of differential advantage, the ad- 
 vantage may be increasingly consistent with and conducive to 
 the highest development of the less favoured individuals. 
 Reward must always, under any possible conditions of human 
 life, mean the getting something which somebody else has not 
 got : it need not always mean the gain of one at the expense of 
 the whole. Both the lower kind of non-material rewards (stars, 
 ribbons, titles, newspaper notoriety, conventional social position) 
 and the higher (more responsible and more intellectual work, 
 power, influence, interesting society, the esteem of the best) 
 must always from the nature of the case belong to the few, 
 but they need not involve a burden on the many. And 
 if the enjoyment of the best things in life does involve, and 
 always must to some extent involve, exceptional material ad- 
 vantages, the material side of the reward may still be treated as 
 a condition of that better life which ideal Justice would award 
 to the exceptionally gifted, and not as its essence. 
 
36a JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 While the principles of ideal Justice can hardly be made into 
 a rule capable of actual application to the actual payment of each, 
 individual citizen even in a socialistic Eutopia, the principle 
 that the higher life possesses superior value has a most important 
 bearing upon questions of social organization and social policy. 
 It emphasizes the fact that we must not push the search for 
 equality of conditions, or even the pursuit of maximum Well- 
 being for all, to the point which might be fatal to progress and 
 so extinguish the higher kinds of human existence altogether. 
 From the point of view of reward, if that principle is to be 
 admitted at all, it would be only moral effort that could be 
 supposed to carry with it a title to superior remuneration : and 
 the difficulty of distinguishing superior effort from superior 
 ability was, we saw, insuperable. But, if we claim for higher 
 capacity the conditions of its exercise on the ground simply of 
 the higher worth of the life which such capacity makes possible, 
 it will become unnecessary to draw a sharp line between moral 
 and intellectual capacity, between superior exertion and superior 
 success. All kinds of higher life — ^moral, intellectual, and 
 aesthetic — will be treated as more valuable than lower life. In 
 the distribution of good things — or, to speak more practically, in 
 the criticism and modification of social institutions — each element 
 in life should receive the weight that is due to its intrinsic 
 quality, and not merely to its amount measured by a hedonistic 
 or any other merely quantitative standard. Such is the ultimate 
 meaning of that idea of distributive Justice or just recompense 
 which protests against the Benthamite idea of equal consideration, 
 pure and simple, and seeks to mend it by the Aristotelian formula, 
 ' equal things to equal persons.' 
 
 The general result of our enquiry has been, I apprehend, to 
 show that each of these competing ideals of Justice is only 
 reasonable in the sense in which it becomes equivalent to the 
 other. We saw that Equality was only reasonable in a sense 
 which implied, not equality in the possession or enjoyment of 
 any concrete good, but only equality of consideration — equality 
 in the degree of importance which is attached to each man's 
 
Chap, viii, § v] BENTHAM AND ARISTOTLE 263 
 
 individual Well-being in the distribution of ultimate good so far 
 as such distribution is capable of being effected by human 
 action. And even so, the formula ' everyone to count for one 
 and nobody for more than one' requires to be interpreted as 
 meaning 'every one's good to be considered as of equal value 
 with the like good of every other individual '. It is not really 
 individuals considered simply as individuals but individuals con- 
 sidered as capable of a certain kind of good that are intrinsically 
 valuable, and entitled to consideration equal in so far as their 
 capacities are equal, unequal in proportion as their capacities are 
 unequal. And when we turned to the other ideal of recompense 
 or reward, we found it to be childishly unreasonable in so far as 
 it meant that every individual should be assigned sugar-plums in 
 proportion to his moral or other ' merit,' but entirely reasonable 
 in so far as it meant that superior capacity constitutes a superior 
 title not only to the conditions for the realization of such capaci- 
 ties, but to those other good things of human life which are 
 necessary to complete that ideal of a desirable life of which 
 virtuous activity is not the whole. These two ideals come to the 
 same thing ; both prescribe equality of treatment when capacities 
 are equal, treatment in proportion to the intrinsic worth of the 
 capacity when they are unequal. And the worth of a capacity 
 is really, as we have pointed out, the worth of that kind of good 
 life which the capacity enables the individual to realize. As the 
 formula of reward according to merit seems too hopelessly 
 charged with misleading suggestions to be adopted by a rational 
 system of Ethics, I prefer to retain the Benthamite maxim with 
 the explanation that it is each man's good that is as good as the 
 like good of another, not the individual abstracted from all those 
 capacities the possession of which can give him worth or entitle 
 him to ' consideration ' at the hands of his fellows \ 
 
 * If we grant that superior capacity should receive the superior considera- 
 tion, the question may still be raised whether, if and in so far as the persons 
 enjoying superior culture are not and cannot always be those intrinsi- 
 cally most fit to receive it, the existence of a favoured class enjoying 
 such culture can be justified. To a large extent this state of things actually 
 exists : to a certain extent it must probably always be so if the higher cul- 
 ture is to subsist at aU. I should reply : I have already urged that the 
 existence of this class is socially useful, if ' useful ' be only understood in 
 
364 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 The superior man's good is worth more than the inferior man 3 
 (whatever the nature of his superiority)— how much more must 
 be decided by our judgement of value in each particular case of 
 moral choice. The superior man's good has more value than that 
 of the inferior man, simply because it is a greater good. 
 
 VI 
 
 From this point of view it might almost appear as if we 
 had succeeded in reducing our two maxims of Justice and 
 Benevolence to one and the same all-embracing precept — that 
 of promoting a maximum of good on the whole. 
 
 But our difficulties are not yet at an end. It may still be 
 asked, ' What are we to do when we can only satisfy equal claims 
 to good by diminishing the total amount of good to be enjoyed 1 ' 
 Even the abstract and theoretical solution of this problem is, 
 it must be confessed, a matter of extreme difficulty, to say 
 nothing of j)ractical applications. It may, indeed, be maintained 
 that our theory of equal consideration for good of equal worth 
 will still prove equal to the strain. We have already seen how 
 frequently inequality in actual distribution is demanded by the 
 
 a non-hedonistic sense. If it could be shown that its existence could not be 
 justified on social grounds, I should still maintain that a society with a 
 cultivated class would be better than a society without one ; the inequality 
 would be justified by the superior value of higher good. But it would still 
 remain a duty to aim at making the favoured class consist of the persons 
 most capable of the higher life. So far as that cannot be done, it is stiU 
 better that the higher life should be led by some, even though that life be 
 not so good a thing as it might be if the opportunity of it were reserved for 
 the most capable persons. Yon Hartmann's tirades against the ' social- 
 eudaemonistic Moral principle ' and the associated ideal of equality (he 
 entirely fails to distinguish between the different possible senses of the 
 word) are to a large extent answered by his own convincing, if exaggerated, 
 demonstrations of the necessity for social inequality {Das sittUche Beteusst- 
 sein, pp. 503-508, &c.). When he seems positively to contend for the maxim- 
 izing of inequality, his argument turns partly upon an over-estimate of the 
 necessity for competition, so that the fittest (in an intellectual and ethical 
 sense) may be selected, while he forgets that the higher stages of animal 
 *nd human evolution have been attended by a progressive diminution of 
 waste ; and partly upon his pessimistic exaggeration of the incompatibility 
 between progressive culture and happiness whether in the individual or the 
 society. 
 
Chap, viii, § vi] JUSTICE AND BENEVOLENCE ^65 
 
 maxim of equal consideration itself. But are we to assume that 
 this must always be so — that, no matter how great an inequality 
 is required to effect it, the promotion of maximum good on the 
 whole will always be right, because the hardship to the individual 
 or the minority sacrificed will always be no more than is war- 
 ranted, on the principle of equal consideration, either by the 
 inferior numbers of the minority or by their inferior capacities 
 for good ^ ? It is clear that if the sacrifice of good on the whole 
 to fairness of distribution were carried beyond a certain point, 
 we should be violating the principle that one man's good is 
 of the same value as the like good of another. If we were 
 to impose great hardships upon a whole community in order 
 that the life or health of one man might be spared, that would 
 be to treat that man's life as more valuable than the life of many. 
 But what if a very slight increase of good on the whole 
 could be secured by a very gross inequality in its distribution ? 
 Ought we never to sacrifice something in the total amount 
 of good that there may be a greater fairness — a greater approach 
 to equality for equal capacities — in its enjoyment? I think 
 it is clear that, if a very small sacrifice of good on the whole 
 could secure much greater equality in its distribution, we should 
 say that the sacrifice ought to be made. Whether the structure 
 of human society is such that we could ever produce more good 
 on the whole by distributing unequally, is a problem which 
 we hardly possess the data for determining^. But we may 
 perhaps be tolerably certain that a rigid carrying out of the 
 principle that no sacrifice of individuals is to be condemned 
 which is balanced by an equivalent increase of good on the 
 
 * It is clear that in this last case Justice, in the sense which we have given 
 to it, might prescribe the sacrifice of the majority to a minority, but it will 
 simplify the discussion to assume that the superior numbers and the superior 
 capacity are on the same side. 
 
 ' That a fairer distribution of material wealth would be worth purchasing 
 at the cost of diminished production on the whole, few would dispute. But 
 then it cannot be assumed that the additional production would really be 
 additional good. In all probability it would not be so. A lesser amount 
 more fairly distributed would produce greater good on the whole. Here a 
 law of diminishing returns comes into play. £100 added to a rich man's 
 income would not perceptibly add to his enjoyment ; divided among ten 
 poor men it might produce a great deal. 
 
266 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 whole would lead to a sacrifice of unfortunate minorities — the 
 weak in mind or body, the sick, the halt, the maimed — such 
 as common humanity would condemn ^. At all events we are 
 not entitled to exclude the speculative possibility of such a state 
 of things, and consequently must not assume an invariable 
 harmony between the ultimate results of our two maxims of 
 Benevolence and of Justice or Equity. 
 
 How then are we to co-ordinate the two principles of action ? 
 One way of doing so is tempting on account of its simplicity. 
 We might say that equality of distribution is itself a good, and 
 so that it will always be right to promote the greatest good 
 on the whole, after giving due weight to the good involved 
 in equality. The question how much gain in fairness of dis- 
 tribution is to be treated as equivalent in worth to a given 
 amount of other goods will then be simply an ordinary case 
 of comparison of values — a very difficult one in practice, but 
 oflfering no particular difficulty in theory. But objection may 
 be taken to regarding as 'a good' so abstract a thing as a 
 distribution — something which cannot be regarded as the good 
 of any one of the persona affected nor of all of them collectively, 
 since we have admitted the possibility of a diminution of good 
 on the whole in consequence of such an ideal distribution. Such 
 an objection is no doubt a reasonable one : and it might lead us 
 to give up the attempt to reduce our axiom of Benevolence and 
 our axiom of Equity to a single principle. From a practical 
 point of view it might be enough to say that there are simply 
 two sides of a single ideal of life, and the practical Reason must 
 decide in each case which is more important — Justice or good on 
 the whole. But it seems hardly consistent with the very mean- 
 ing of ' good ' to suggest that it may sometimes be a duty to 
 promote something which is not the good. If we are to attempt 
 to defend these maxims of Justice and Benevolence as valid and 
 self -consistent judgements of the practical Reason, it is a matter 
 of life and death to our position to find either a common de- 
 nominator, in terms of which both principles could be expressed, 
 
 ' Ab already suggested (above, p. 163), this consequence might be avoided 
 by assigning a sufficiently high value to sympathetic feelings — a solution 
 which is practically much the same as we arrive at below. 
 
Chap, viii, § vi] JUSTICE ITSELF A GOOD 367 
 
 or at least some third principle which should govern us in 
 deciding between their respective claims — in deciding when 
 to sacrifice quantity of good in favour of jest distribution, and 
 when to sacrifice justice of distribution in order that there may- 
 be more good to distribute. The difficulty may, I think, be escaped 
 by remembering that, according to the view of the end here 
 adopted, it is not only the pleasure or other non-moral good which 
 is promoted by right actions which constitutes the supreme ethical 
 end, but the qualities of character which these acts express. 
 And not only Benevolence but Justice also is part of the ideal 
 life for the society at large and for each individual member 
 of it. And this inclusion of Justice or Equity in our ideal of life 
 sets limits to the extent to which we can allow individuals or 
 societies to promote a maximum of other good at the expense 
 of great inequality in its enjoyment, just as the inclusion of 
 culture among our ends or elements in the end sets limits to the 
 amount and kind of pleasure which we can regard as elements in 
 the good. In insisting therefore that an individual or a society 
 ought sometimes (if such a collision should in practice occur) to 
 sacrifice something in amount of good in order to eflTect its more 
 just distribution, we are not enjoining any one to subordinate the 
 pursuit of good to something which, is not a good at all, but 
 simply insisting on one particular case of that subordination 
 of lower goods to higher which every non-hedonistic system 
 of Ethics roust admit at every turn. An abstract ' distribution ' 
 cannot be a good, but a disposition and a will to distribute justly 
 piay be. A society which for the sake of increasing the pleasure 
 or even the culture of some should be content to condemn a 
 minority of its members to extreme hardships would be thinking 
 too much of its pleasure or its culture and too little of its own 
 Justice. If an individual or a minority, on the other hand, were 
 to demand of the majority that this sacrifice should be carried 
 beyond a certain point, it would be thinking too much of its own 
 claims or (to put it in another way) too much of the encouragement 
 of sympathy and mercy to individuals and too little, it may be, 
 pf culture or pleasure in society at large. There is a proper 
 degree of subordination of the individual to society, and a sub- 
 ordination which goes beyond that degree. Both of these 
 
2,68 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 principles of conduct may be expressed as ultimately qualities 
 of human character. When a Quaker or a disciple of Tolstoi 
 refuses to kill a man in a just war because that particular man 
 has committed no crime, he is, according to common opinion, 
 wrong because his ideal attaches too much importance to kind- 
 ness and goodwill for individuals and too little to the common 
 interests of human society at large and that system of rights by 
 which those interests are promoted. Were a society to refuse to 
 do anything for its submerged tenth or twentieth — to do more 
 for them than their strict numerical proportion might demand — 
 in the interest of its own comfort or even of its own culture, that 
 would be attributing too much importance to comfort and culture 
 and too little to the moral quality (whether you call it Justice or 
 Benevolence) which revolts against allowing individuals to suffer 
 the worst horrors of poverty because they are only a minority. 
 What is the exact degree of importance which should be attached 
 to each of these elements of character — solicitude for individual 
 interests and the care for other forms of social good — is, just like 
 any other question as to the relative value of goods, a problem 
 upon which the practical Reason must pronounce in each par- 
 ticular case, and which does not admit of being solved by any 
 exact or universal formula. 
 
 The principle which I have been contending for may be briefly 
 expressed thus. The claims of social good are paramount. It is 
 always a duty to promote maximum social good. Both the rule 
 of Justice and the rule of Benevolence ultimately turn on the 
 value of certain kinds of consciousness. Benevolence asserts 
 the value of good. Justice asserts the value of persons. There 
 is no real and final collision between these aspects of the ideal 
 end, for good is ultimately the good of definite individuals. 
 Justice and Benevolence are thus the correlatives of one another. 
 Good has no worth — it has indeed no existence — apart from 
 persons : persons have no value apart from the good which they 
 are capable of enjoying. But it is true that the good of some may 
 have ultimately to be secured at the cost of a diminished enjoyment 
 of good by the whole society. And Justice does prescribe that 
 we should aim at bestowing equal good on equal capacity. 
 Some sacrifice of individuals to the whole is, indeed, prescribed 
 
Chap, viii, § vii] PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 369 
 
 by the just claims of the majority. Too great a sacrifice of the 
 individuals does present itself to us as unjust even when it 
 might be prescribed by the principle of maximum good. But 
 when this is the case, it is because consideration for the claims 
 of individuals no less than consideration for the whole forms part 
 of that ideal character which is itself the highest element in the 
 good. When Justice itself is given its due place as part of 
 the true good for society and each individual in it, we may say 
 that it is always a duty to promote the greatest good on the 
 whole. 
 
 VII 
 
 To apply these highly abstract considerations to practice — to 
 enquire to what conclusions they point in the region of social 
 and political conduct — forms no part of my present undertaking. 
 Every political question is, of course, in the last resort an ethical 
 question. But in so far as the duty of the individual turns upon 
 questions as to the ultimately best form of human society or the 
 means of promoting it by social and political action, the dis- 
 cussion passes into the region of social and political rather than 
 of purely ethical Philosophy. The considerations on which 
 I have insisted will, I trust, have shown the impossibility of 
 any individual immediately effecting by his own unassisted 
 efforts an ideally just distribution, the impossibility even for 
 society of realizing it immediately, the unreasonableness even 
 under any conceivable social order of basing the distribution of 
 good merely upon a principle of ideal Justice to each particular 
 individual without reference to that other side or aspect of 
 Morality which enjoins the promotion of the greatest good on 
 the whole. The enjoyment by each individual of as much good 
 as he is entitled to by his capacities (relatively to the capacities 
 of others) must be looked upon therefore as an ideal — a far-off 
 ideal, to which only more or less distant approaches are possible 
 even in the region of self-consistent Utopias. This would, 
 perhaps, be admitted by many zealous advocates of Equality. 
 But I hope I have further indicated the necessity of not making 
 any actual equality of good, even as a distant ideal, our primary 
 object, but rather general Well-being ; and I trust I have shown 
 
370 JUSTICE [Book 1 
 
 further that such a course is imperatively required by ideal 
 Justice itself, since the only equality that is capable of im- 
 mediate realization is equality of consideration, and to produce 
 equality of distribution at the cost of lowering the average 
 amount distributed would be a violation of that one essential 
 equality. If in the course of my argument I have incidentally 
 replied to some of the arguments by which the extremer kinds 
 of Socialism ^ are sometimes advocated, I trust it has become no 
 less evident that any attempt to justify the status quo — the 
 taking of interest, the system of inheritance, the fixing of wages 
 and prices by competition and the like — as an even approximate 
 realization of Justice is a still more indefensible thesis. This 
 present state of affairs may be for the moment — with the 
 exception of this or that immediately possible reform — a less 
 violation of justice than any other possible system ; and so long 
 the maintenance of the existing order of society minus the 
 possible reforms will be demanded by Justice itself : Justice can 
 never require us to make matters worse. None the less, the 
 discrepancy between the present distribution of wealth and any 
 that could a priori be justified in the interests of general Well- 
 being emphasizes the fact that one large element of private 
 duty which Justice prescribes for the individual must be the 
 striving after a more socially beneficial system. But we shall 
 be prepared to find that even in the remote future no system of 
 distribution that is at once possible and socially expedient will 
 realize the dream of any other equality than equality of con- 
 sideration. 
 
 The ideal Justice which I have attempted to adumbrate is not 
 capable of immediate political realization. It would open up 
 a large question were I to ask how far it is capable of immediate 
 application in the domain of private Ethics — I mean, how far iti 
 is possible for each individual to act upon principles of ideal 
 Justice, in so far as it rests with himself to determine how much 
 
 ^ In strictness Socialistti doea not necessarily imply an egual distribution 
 of material things, but the more thoroughgoing advocates of the doctrine 
 that the State should be the sole owner of the instruments of production 
 and the sole employer of labour often adopt that programme only as a 
 means to an ultimate equality of wealth or enjoyment. 
 
Chap, viii, § vii] PERSONAL EXPENDITURE 271 
 
 of that portion of the world's wealth over which he has legal 
 control he shall allocate to himself, and how much to the service 
 of other individuals or of the community,* I cannot attempt 
 now to discuss that question adequately ; I am at present con- 
 cerned with a purely theoretical and not with a practical ques- 
 tion. And yet it is desirable sometimes, even in the interests of 
 pure theory, to point out some of the practical bearings of 
 speculative ethical controversies. And therefore I do not hesi- 
 tate to suggest the urgent need of bringing our highest ideal of 
 Justice to bear upon the details of private life and especially of 
 personal expenditure. It is obvious that it is not possible for 
 most people in an un-ideal state to act in accordance with what 
 would be the right in an ideal state of things. For each man to 
 allot to himself no more of the good things of this life than might 
 be his under a regime of ideal Justice would demand a heroism 
 which such equality would not involve under such a regime, and 
 at times would be injurious to others, and even to society at 
 large. In some directions it would be inexpedient for any one ; 
 in many directions it would be inexpedient for every one. Such 
 an attempt would not really conduce to Justice itself ; for under 
 existing conditions the professional man, compelled to live like 
 an artisan^ would suffer much more than the artisan suffers. 
 For the present we must to some extent acquiesce in the idea of 
 a standard of comfort for each class. The maintenance of such 
 a standard is up to a certain point required by the different 
 demands for efficiency in different callings, in part by the 
 necessity for keeping up that stimulus to superior industry, 
 skill, inventiveness and the like, which we have seen to be 
 essential to social Well-being even where it would otherwise be 
 difficult to reconcile with the requirements of ideal Justice. But 
 where different standards of comfort exist, some measure of con- 
 formity to the customs of one's class or position, in such matters 
 as eating and drinking, housing, service, dress, entertainment, 
 amusement and the like, is demanded under penalty of hardship 
 and isolation such as would not be endured by any one, were 
 such matters arranged for us on principles of ideal Justice in 
 a socialistic State. If the system is good on the whole, it cannot 
 always be wrong for the individual to fall in with it : the individual 
 
272 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 cannot be required to act in a way which, if generally imitated, 
 would be socially injurious, and the attempt to do away with all 
 expenditure which exceeds what would be possible if wealth 
 were equally distributed would, we have some reason to believe, 
 be socially injurious. Still, it is a clear duty on the part of 
 every one who is convinced that the share of good things 
 enjoyed by the few is disproportionate and intrinsically unjust, 
 to seek to limit his own personal expenditure wherever he can 
 do so without a less efficient discharge of his own social function 
 or other social inconvenience. It would be a step to the creation 
 of a new morality upon such subjects, if we were to cultivate 
 the habit of compelling ourselves to give some kind of reason 
 for our indulgence in any kind of expenditure over and above 
 what would be allotted under a regime of pure equality, whether 
 the justification be found in our particular social function, in 
 the conditions necessary for the exercise of our own particular 
 capacities, natural or acquired, in the superior intellectual or 
 aesthetic value of our pleasures and their indirect social efi'ects, 
 in the necessity of inequality and competition as a stimulus 
 to industry, or only in the necessities and conventionalities of 
 the existing social code, which sometimes render intrinsically 
 unnecessary expenditure the smaller of two evils. If it is 
 probable that the principle of a class standard of comfort will 
 always be inevitable and even in a measure socially useful, we 
 must at least recognize the duty of trying to reduce the present 
 enormous differences between the highest and the lowest standard ; 
 and, in the case of those whose class standard is high, of aiming 
 for themselves at the lower rather than the higher limit allowed 
 by that standard, except when some higher good to the consumer 
 himself or some social advantage to others would seem to result 
 from the higher expenditure. It may safely be said that the 
 scale of expenditure prevalent among the richest classes is as 
 little conducive to their highest Well-being as to that of the 
 poorest. If under existing conditions the existence of such 
 expenditure is necessary as a stimulus to the entrepreneur oi: 
 the captain of industry, the fact that it should be necessary is 
 a moral evil for the gradual removal of which it is a duty to 
 strive. 
 
Chap, viii, § vii] IMMEDIATE APPLICATIONS 373 
 
 A word must be added to bring these general considerations 
 to bear upon the duty of the individual. The duty of Justice in 
 the individual seems to consist in (1) seeking to bring about by 
 political or other means such an improvement in political and 
 social organization as will realize a more complete equality of 
 consideration than is possible in his existing environment; 
 (2) observing this principle of equal consideration in his rela- 
 tions to his fellow men in so far as is possible under existing 
 conditions ; (3) respecting all those political and social arrange- 
 ments, however much at variance with the ultimate ideal, as are 
 enforced by the existing social order, in so far as that order 
 cannot immediately be improved upon by the individual's volun- 
 tary action under existing conditions. It is to the duties of 
 Justice and Benevolence taken together that we should ulti- 
 mately refer the duty of Loyalty to existing social institutions 
 and particularly to the State ; the duty of Honesty, which means 
 respect for the existing laws of property so long as they are not 
 capable of immediate improvement by the individual's own action ; 
 and the observance of such other rules, whether enforced by law 
 or otherwise, as are found conducive to social Well-being. In 
 a sense, as I have endeavoured to show, all duties are social, 
 since it is never either right or possible to aim at one's own 
 individual good without regard to the good of others. In a 
 sense no duty is purely social in the sense of the Hedonist, since 
 every duty is more or less liable to modification by the con- 
 sideration that the true good alike for individuals and for 
 societies is something more than pleasure. In the highest sense 
 Benevolence and Justice (if we include in it Prudence or due 
 regard for self) may be so understood as to include all other 
 virtues : true Justice and true Benevolence represent two sides, 
 each of them unintelligible or, at least, certain to be misunder- 
 stood if taken apart from the other — of the single all-inclusive 
 duty of promoting the difi'erent kinds of good in proportion to 
 their true intrinsic worth or place as elements in the good. It 
 is because this good does include various elements that Virtue in 
 general is divided into the many virtues with which we have 
 already attempted to deal in the preceding chapter. To insist 
 on the fact that all virtues can be reduced to the single virtue of 
 
 BASHDALI. I 
 
374 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 just Benevolence is desirable because it emphasizes the truth 
 that there is a single all-inclusive ideal of life in reference 
 to which alone separate 'virtues' become intelligible; over- 
 emphasis in ethical teaching upon the 'unity of Virtue' and 
 neglect of particular ' virtues ' practically tends either to a 
 vagueness which may degenerate into Antinomianism, or (if 
 the consequential test of virtuous conduct in detail is much 
 insisted upon) to a too hedonistic interpretation of the ultimate 
 good. Insistence upon Benevolence as the sole ultimate duty 
 can only be safe when it is duly interpreted as a Benevolence 
 which is inclusive of Justice, and which has due regard to all 
 those non-hedonistic elements in the good which are promoted 
 by and consist of the special virtues to which particular names 
 have been assigned. In all that has been said about social duty, 
 it is assumed that the individual's own good is to be given due 
 consideration, and, when this good is non-hedonistically inter- 
 preted, it will include many forms of ' self -regarding ' duty 
 besides Prudence in the sense of due regard for one's own 
 'interest' in the hedonistic sense. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Before leaving the subject of Justice some addition seems to 
 be called for to what has been said about the institution of 
 property. If the principles which have been laid down in this 
 chapter are right, the duty of respecting that institution is 
 simply a particular part of the duty of obeying the State — 
 a duty which is itself a part of the more general obligation to 
 respect the conditions of social Well-being. A more detailed 
 discussion of property seems to belong rather to political than 
 to ethical Philosophy in its narrower sense. It may be well, 
 however, briefly to point out in what sense we can, and in what 
 sense we cannot, regard the duty of respecting property as one 
 of essential and permanent obligation. It is a duty to respect 
 the existing laws of property because some system of distribut- 
 ing material wealth or its enjoyment is essential to social 
 WeU-being, and the existing system is the best that has 
 hitherto been devised ; at all events individual acts of rebellion 
 against it retard rather than accelerate the working out of 
 
Chap, viii, § viii] PRIVATE PROPERTY 275 
 
 a better system. The same regard for social Well-being and 
 the best possible distribution of it which prescribes obedience 
 to the existing law sanctions any improvement of it that may 
 be possible, the moment that it does become possible. Property 
 is the creation of Law, and what Law has created. Law may 
 modify in the future as it has modified it in the past. A priori 
 it might seem that some form of collective ownership in the 
 instruments of production would be more likely to harmonize 
 the conflicting claims of different individuals than any possible 
 system of private Capitalism. This is not the place to enquire, 
 how far the enormous practical difficulties of bringing about 
 such a system without introducing other and worse evils are 
 difficulties inherent in the nature of things, and how far they 
 are difficulties which it may ultimately be found possible to 
 overcome. Whether ownership should be individual or collec- 
 tive is simply a detailed question of the means to social Well- 
 being. But it may be pointed out that there is one limit which 
 is set to the attempt to substitute collective for individual 
 ownership by the nature of the end itself. The end, as we 
 have seen, is, or rather includes, a certain type of character or 
 (more properly) a certain kind of life led by men of a certain 
 character. The end is the perfection of individual lives. The 
 perfect life for the individual is not an isolated or solitary life : 
 it is eminently social, a life whose good consists in activities 
 which minister to the good of others as well as to his own. But 
 still it must be a life in which there is room for the individual 
 to act, to pursue his own ideals, to choose the means to them, 
 to direct his own activities, to reap the fruit of those activities, 
 to experience the consequences both of success and of failure. 
 There can be no true human good life which does not include 
 all this, and it is difficult to see how any system of distribution 
 can minister to this end which does not allow some appropria- 
 tion of material wealth more individual and permanent than 
 any which is consistent with a thorough-going Collectivism — 
 Collectivism of the kind which aims at securing an absolute 
 equality of distribution or, at least, some close approximation 
 to it. Wealth cannot be made subservient to a truly moral life 
 without some measure of liberty in its use, and consequently 
 
 T a 
 
276 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 even in its abuse. The right use of wealth cannot be secured 
 by the most magnificent system of public maintenance. Just 
 as children brought up in large public institutions are often 
 more deficient in character, initiative, and intelligence than 
 children educated in very unsatisfactory homes, so an institu- 
 tion-bred population could not realize a high ideal of human 
 life. Men and women might be lodged in the most luxurious 
 of workhouses, fed sumptuously every day at the public expense, 
 driven daily from the most moderate of State-regulated tasks to 
 the most refined of State-regulated amusements. They might 
 be dosed periodically with the most carefully considered doses 
 of State-regulated education, culture, and even religion. But all 
 these things could not avail to produce an ideal human life. 
 Character cannot be developed when the will is passive, nor 
 intelligence when there is little demand or opportunity for its 
 exercise. There must be room for initiation, for selection, for 
 choosing what to do or not to do, for laying out plans not from 
 day to day but for a long future. And this there cannot be 
 without not merely some appropriation of material wealth for 
 immediate needs but some power of disposing of it with a view 
 to the deliberately chosen purposes of a man's whole life, and 
 to the good of others in whom he is interested. This line of 
 thought has been well developed by Prof. Bosanquet. ' Is it not 
 enough, we may be asked, to know that one can have what is 
 necessary and reasonable ? No ; that makes one a child. A 
 man must know what he can count on, and judge what to 
 do with it. It is a question of initiation, plan, design, not of 
 a more or less in enjoyment ^.' 
 
 It is possible that all that Prof. Bosanquet contends for, and all 
 that can reasonably be contended for as a matter of principle, 
 might be combined with a much greater extension of collective- 
 ownership than he himself would be disposed to contemplate. 
 Socialism does not object to private property, but only to 
 private capital. It is only upon the questionable assumption 
 that private property necessarily carries with it the institutions 
 of unlimited private bequest and private Capitalism that Prof. 
 
 ^ Essay on ' The Principle of Private Property,' in Aspects of the Social 
 Problem (1895), p. 313. 
 
Chap, viii, § ix] OBJECTIONS 277 
 
 Bosanquet's demand for a sphere in which individual choice and 
 individual responsibility shall have free play can be considered 
 fatal to the more moderate socialistic schenffes. Socialism allows 
 the possession of private property in the only sense in which 
 nine-tenths of the community now possess private property. 
 Private property may perhaps come hereafter to mean some- 
 thing seriously different from what it means now; but Prof. 
 Bosanquet's general principle ought to be fully accepted. It 
 is the supreme condition of a truly moral system of property- 
 distribution that it shall be the one most favourable to the 
 cultivation and development of the highest individual charac- 
 ters. If in some form the institution of private property must 
 be regarded as permanently necessary for the development 
 of individual personality, we need not dwell upon the extent 
 to which that institution as it now exists — the system of 
 unlimited competition, unlimited accumulation, unlimited in- 
 heritance — will have to be modified before it can be regarded 
 as the system best calculated to develope in the individual a moral 
 ideal which includes in itself Benevolence and Justice. 
 
 IX 
 
 The whole of my treatment of Justice in this chapter will 
 (like the Benthamite formulae which I have accepted in a modi- 
 fied shape) be met in some quarters by the objection that it 
 is inconsistent with an adequate recognition of the ' organic 
 character of human society.' Here again it would lead me too 
 far into the political region to discuss the truth and meaning of 
 the undoubtably important but much-abused formula that 
 'society is an organism.' What is meant by the objection is, 
 I take it, practically^ something of this kind. It has hitherto 
 been assumed that man's duty consists in contributing to 
 a certain general welfare of society, as though he could allot 
 a certain amount of good to himself and other lots of good 
 to other individuals: whereas, as a matter of fact, we cannot 
 distinguish between the good that a man does to himself and 
 
 ' I do not here discuss the metaphysical or logical question how far the 
 abstract category of Organism is applicable to Society, and confine myself 
 to the ethical side or application of the doctrine. 
 
278 JUSTICE ' [Book I 
 
 the good that he bestows on another. True human good 
 consists largely in activities which are at once my good and the 
 good of others K And further a man's duty does not consist 
 in a general contribution to a lump of good r it consists in 
 performing some special function marked out for him by his 
 position in the social organism. Neither a man's contribution 
 to the general good, nor the quantity or quality of it which he 
 enjoys, can be exactly the same as every other man's. No 
 improved social arrangements can secure that the tailor shall 
 enjoy exactly the same good as the scholar. The tailor's function, 
 his activity, and therefore a large part of his true good, consists 
 in doing his tailor's work and finding his own good in it, and 
 the scholar's good consists in leading the scholar's life. You 
 cannot 'distribute' to the tailor the scholar's good, which 
 consists mainly in leading the scholar's life. All social progress, 
 all culture, all civilization involves a constantly increasing 
 'differentiation.' It is only in an extremely simple state of 
 society that the lives of different people can exactly resemble 
 one another, a society in which only very simple needs are felt, 
 and in which each family or household supplies practically all 
 its own needs. And the increasing differentiation necessarily 
 carries with it not only unlikeness but inequality. The different 
 kinds of life are not, and cannot conceivably be, all equally 
 pleasant, or equally valuable from any other point of view than 
 that of the goodwill which may be exhibited in all of them. 
 The differentiation involves exceptional sacrifices for some, 
 exceptional advantages and enjoyment for others. To aim at 
 the equalization of individual Well-being is therefore inconsistent 
 with the welfare of society at large. And that is not all. The 
 true good of every individual, even apart from his occupation 
 or sphere of social service, is necessarily unlike that of every 
 other : every individual is more or less unlike every other and 
 therefore to some extent wants a different kind of life to satisfy 
 him. And these differences become greater, the higher the 
 state of social development, the higher the capacities, and 
 the higher the development of the individual concerned. A dead 
 level of individual Well-being could only be secured by cutting 
 ' QualificationB of this principle are discuBsed below, Bk. II. chap. jii. 
 
Chap, ix, § ix] ORGANIC VIEW OF SOCIETY 379 
 
 down all individual eminences, and that would mean the 
 extinction of all the higher kinds of Well-being altogether : for 
 these are essentially dependent upon the multiplication and differ- 
 entiation of wants on the one hand, and of individual capacities 
 on the other. The formula of equal consideration, even in the 
 modified form which we have given to it, is therefore, it may be 
 urged, no less objectionable from the point of view of a true 
 individualism than it is from that of the 'social organism 1.' 
 
 There can be no doubt as to the extreme importance of these 
 considerations from a practical point of view. They do constitute 
 an enormous objection .and difficulty in the way of all collectivist 
 schemes. They are absolutely fatal to any crude attempt at an 
 immediate realization of the collectivist ideal. An immediate 
 Collectivism would certainly mean the lowering not merely 
 of material conditions but of modes and ideals of life to the 
 level which the many are immediately capable of appreciating. 
 And they will always be fatal to schemes of Socialism which 
 aim at an absolutely dead level of material conditions, at an 
 extinction of all differences in education, in culture, in modes 
 of life, in quantity and quality of work. The Socialism which 
 proposes to impose six hours' manual work a day on every one — 
 on Physicians and Scholars and inventors for instance — would 
 mean a return to Barbarism. But these consequences are, 
 I should contend, sufficiently guarded against by the interpreta^ 
 
 ' This principle has been urged with, much force, but with some exaggerar 
 tion, by Simmel {EinUitung I, p. 360, et passim), though he is not one of those 
 who insist much on the idea of a social organism. On this basis a running 
 fire is kept up against Socialism all through his powerful writings. By way 
 of criticism I will only add to what I have said in the text the following 
 remarks : (i) The only sort of Socialism which he seems to contemplate is 
 one which aims at absolute equality of conditions ; (2) his ultimate good is 
 not either pleasure or Well-being, but a ' maximum of energy,' which is best 
 secured by maximum ups and downs of pleasure and pain : the struggle for 
 existence becomes with him not a means but an end (see further below, 
 Bk. II. chap, iii, ad fin.) ; and for this a larger measure of ' differentiation ' is 
 naturally required than is wanted on a more commonplace interpretation, 
 of ideal Well-being. That a high development of individual capacity re- 
 quires some liberty, and that all liberty involves some inequality and some 
 pain, is no doubt true: but Simmel's view seems to involve a positive 
 apotheosis of Unrest. 
 
28o JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 tion which I have placed upon the Benthamite formula. What 
 I have contended for is simply equality of consideration; and 
 an absolute equality of conditions would involve a diminution 
 of general welfare which would be inconsistent with the good 
 of all members of the society or the great majority of them, and 
 would therefore be condemned by the formula itself. Moreover, 
 I have admitted the superior rights of the superior kind of 
 Well-being, and therefore of the superior man who is capable 
 of enjoying it. I have only insisted that even the claims of the 
 superior man must be estimated with due regard to the claims, 
 be they small or great, of other people. If any one likes to 
 regard the highest development of a few superior beings as an 
 object compared with which immense masses, so to speak, of 
 commonplace virtue and happiness may be treated as a negligible 
 quantity, such a view would to my mind misrepresent the actual 
 verdict of the healthy moral consciousness, but it would be quite 
 consistent with the formula of equal consideration if we assume 
 that he was right in his judgements of comparative value \ But 
 if (to return to the social side of the objection) by the allegation 
 that my view is inconsistent with the organic character of human 
 society it is implied that human society has a good which is 
 distinct from the good of the individual persons composing it, 
 if this ' good ' or 'development' of society is made a sort of fetish 
 to which whole hecatombs of individual lives are to be ruthlessly 
 sacrificed, I can only reply that such a view seems to me a pure 
 superstition — a widely prevalent superstition which is responsible 
 for much of the stupidity and mismanagement with which the 
 world's affairs are often conducted. With the Philosopher the 
 mistake may sometimes be an honest blunder: translated into 
 practical politics this vague talk about the 'interests of the 
 social organism' generally carries with it the assumption that 
 society is to be organized in such a way as to secure a maximum 
 advantage to the limited class which is actually in possession 
 of the lion's share of good things, and that those who threaten 
 
 ' Simmel has suggested that in some cases a man might justifiably treat 
 himself as a person of this importance, like Nietzsche's Vbermensch. So anti- 
 social an attitude would, in my view, involve the sacrifice of the higher to 
 the lower, even in the individual's own life. 
 
Chap, viii, § ix] INDIVIDUAL WELFARE a8i 
 
 to disturb this arrangement are to be shot down forthwith. In 
 practice it means Beati possidentes : the existing Prussian 
 constitution in Church and State is the "final and highest 
 development of ' the Idea.' 
 
 There is no good that is not the good of some individual 
 or individuals, though unquestionably that good is the good 
 of social beings interested in the welfare of their fellows, 
 and occupying definite positions in the social system. It is 
 a clear deliverance of the reflective moral consciousness that we 
 should endeavour to secure as much as possible of this good life 
 for as many individuals as possible. It is true no doubt that, 
 when we come to ask in detail how the good life is to be enjoyed 
 by as many individuals as possible, we must remember all those 
 characteristics of hmnan society which are emphasized by the 
 formula ' society is an organism ' — that one man's good is not 
 necessarUy another's loss, that it is in discharging his social 
 function that the individual attains his truest good, that social 
 functions vary, that a man's good must be relative to his 
 function, that increasing differentiation in many respects is a note 
 and condition of social progress, that the life of society is 
 a continuous growth and can only be gradually modified, that 
 some liberty is a condition of all higher Well-being and that 
 all liberty carries inequality with it, and finally that the maxim 
 represents an ideal which it is a duty to aim at but which can 
 never be fully realized. These considerations will be further 
 developed in the chapter on 'Vocation.' But all this does not 
 seem to require any modification of our doctrine that Justice 
 does consist in the apportionment to each individual of his due 
 share of good, in so far as that good can be secured or modified 
 by human agency. Questions of Justice cannot be thought out 
 without assuming that good is a thing which we can distribute. 
 This assumption involves, like all speculative theories, a good 
 deal of abstraction. But it in no way implies that we really 
 suppose that human ' Well-being ' or ' good ' is a tangible lump 
 of plum-cake which we can serve out in slices according to 
 a tariff prescribed by the intuitive moral consciousness. It 
 merely asserts that the social Organism is not an end in itself 
 but a means to the good of individual human beings, each of 
 
a83 JUSTICE [Book I 
 
 whom should be treated (as far as possible) according to his 
 own individual worth ^. 
 
 To complete our treatment of Justice one more question must 
 be faced — the question of Punishment. We have seen in what 
 sense it is a duty for the individual, both in his private relations 
 and as a member of a community, acting in concert with others, 
 to aim at rewarding Virtue. It remains for us to inquire ' In 
 what sense, and on what grounds, is it a duty to punish Vice ? ' 
 
 NOTE ON RENOUVIER'S IDEA OF JUSTICE. 
 
 An attempt has been made by M. Renouvier in his Science de la morale ' — 
 one of the most serious and earnest efforts to grapple with the real problems 
 of Ethics which has been made in recent times — to resolve all Virtue or at 
 least all moral obligation (in the strict sense) into Justice. Taking his 
 stand on the Kantian principle that Justice represents the conditions upon 
 which the liberty of one (i.e. his opportunities of obtaining his true end) is 
 compatible with the like liberty of all, he attempts to deduce therefrom all 
 the ' strict ' duties which man owes to man. But it is admitted that such 
 duties can only be fully discharged in an ideal state of society (the itai de 
 paix). They postulate a state of things in which every one else is equally 
 willing to perform his duty towards the agent and towards all others. 
 Where others ignore their obligations, the right of defence justifies en- 
 croachments upon the liberty of others (including all State coercion) which 
 go beyond strict Justice, while scope is afforded for a Benevolence equally 
 going beyond those limits ; but such Benevolence can only be considered a 
 duty in so far as it springs out of one's duty to oneself —the duty of develop- 
 ing oneself morally and cultivating one's generous emotions. Hence a code 
 of Ethics suitable to the existing etat de guerre is not (like the duties of Jus- 
 tice) capable of strict scientific formulation. I admit that it is possible to 
 give a tolerably accurate analysis of our actual moral ideas on this basis. 
 M. Renouvier's work seems to me quite the ablest attempt to develope the 
 Kantian formalism into something like a reasonable and self-consistent 
 system. But it seems to be open to the following objections ; (i) The duty 
 of respecting others' liberty is not an ultimate and independent duty, but is 
 derivable from the value of others' good; a certain kind of liberty is an 
 
 * ' The whole developed apparatus of constitution and government would 
 have absolutely no endor meaning if their activities did not ultimately result 
 in the good of individuals ' (Sigwart, Vorfragen der Ethik, p. 17). It might 
 seem unnecessary to quote so obvious a remark, except as a proof that 
 sanity in talking about the social organism is not quite unknown among 
 philosophers of acknowledged distinction. 
 
 ' Published in 1869. 
 
Chap, viii, note] RENOUVIER'S VIEW 383 
 
 essential condition of Well-being, but it is not Well-being itself. To aim at 
 liberty rather than Well-being seems to me irrational. (2) This being so, it 
 is arbitrary to set the limits which Renouvier sets 1^ the assistance which 
 one man owes to another — to say that he must abstain from interference, 
 but is under no obligation to help others to realize their true good. (3) We 
 can form so inadequate a picture of a perfect humanity and a morally perfect 
 society that it is hardly worth while to attempt to draw out in detail the 
 duties which in such a state man would owe to man : any value which such 
 an attempt might possibly have would seem to be rather for Law than 
 for Morality. (4) When the author comes to the critical question of 
 property, he is obliged to admit that the a priori rights of property 
 (substantially Locke's divine right of the first grabber) which he claims as 
 necessary to the liberty of each are in the nature of things (and not only in 
 consequence of other men's injustice) unfairly restrictive of the liberty of 
 others, so that his a priori Morality is not even fit for an ideal society 
 or consistent with itself. (5) Hence it is practically much more convenient 
 to reduce both the Justice appropriate to the Hat de paix and the restric- 
 tions imposed by the Hat de guerre to a general duty of promoting as faros 
 possible under actual circumstances the good of each in proportion to its 
 intrinsic value. This is, I believe at bottom, what all this elaborate appara- 
 tus comes to, when its arbitrary and dogmatic accidents have been removed. 
 For a discussion of the idea of ' works of supererogation,' necessitated' in a 
 peculiarly harsh and rigorous form by M. Renouvier's system, the reader may 
 be referred to the chapter on ' Vocation ' in our second Book. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS 
 
 These was a time when the notion that blood demands blood 
 was held so firmly and so crudely that little distinction was 
 made between intentional and unintentional acts of homicide. 
 Ancient law abounds in traces of this inveterate instinct of 
 primitive humanity. We see the legislator of the Pentateuch 
 endeavouring to limit its operation by the institution of cities of 
 refuge, whose walls protected the unintentional homicide against 
 further pursuit by the avenger of blood. We find the same 
 inability to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary 
 homicide in the curious notions of the Canon Law (still, perhaps, 
 theoretically in force among us) about the 'irregularity' con- 
 tracted by consecrated persons and consecrated places through 
 the most unwitting bloodshed, and not contracted by the most 
 atrocious violence involving no physical efiusion of blood. We 
 see the same curious but once useful superstition in the old law 
 of Deodand, which required the forfeiture of the inanimate 
 object or the irrational animal which had, in the most accidental 
 way, been the instrument of man's death. Thus even the horse 
 from which a fatal fall had been sustained, or the boat from 
 which a man had drowned himself, were made the subjects 
 of this peculiar application of retributive justice. At the present 
 day the cruder forms of this old-world cry of blood for blood are 
 no longer heard ; but what is, perhaps, after all only a more 
 refined form of the same fundamental notion lingers in the 
 theory which makes the primary object of punishment to be 
 retribution. A man has done wrong, therefore for that reason 
 and for no other, it is said, let him be punished. Punishment, 
 we are told, is an end in itself, — not a means to any end beyond 
 
Chap, ix, §i] KANT'S RETRIBUTIVE THEORY 285 
 
 itself. Punishment looks to the past, not to the future. The 
 guilt of the offence must be, in some mysterious way, wiped out 
 by the suffering of the offender ; and that obliteration or cancelling 
 of the guilt-stained record, be it noticed, is conceived of as quite 
 independent of any effect to be produced upon the sufferer by 
 his bodily or mental pain. For, the moment we insist upon the 
 effect produced upon the sufferer's soul by his punishment, 
 the retributive theory is deserted for the reformatory or the 
 deterrent. Here is the famous passage of Kant : — 
 
 'Juridical punishment can never be administered merely as 
 a means for promoting another good, either with regard to 
 the criminal himself or to civil society, but must in all cases be 
 imposed only because the individual on whom it is inflicted 
 has committed a crime. . . . The penal law is a Categorical 
 Imperative ; and woe to him who creeps through the serpent- 
 windings of Utilitarianism to discover some advantage that 
 may discharge him from the justice of punishment, or even 
 from the due measure of it M ' He goes on to defend the lex 
 talionis as the only just principle for the allotment of penalty 
 to crime, and to make the famous declaration that, ' if a civil 
 society resolved to dissolve itself with the consent of all its 
 members ' [so that punishment would be no longer required for 
 deterrent purposes], '. . . the last murderer lying in the prison 
 ought to be executed before the resolution was carried out V 
 
 There we have the retributive theory propounded by the 
 greatest of modern philosophers ; and it is still defended by 
 philosophers and philosophic jurists in Germany, England, and 
 America^. For most modem men, whether or not they have 
 consciously abandoned the theory, this view exercises but little 
 influence over our ideas of human justice, though it is to be 
 feared that it still casts a black shadow over popular conceptions 
 of the punishment in store for sin in another world. 
 
 ' Kant's Philosophy of Law, E. T. by Hastie, 1887, p. 195. 
 
 2 lb. p. 198. 
 
 ' Hegel has usually been understood to maintain the retributive theory. 
 Dr. McTaggart (Hegel's ' Theory of Punishment ' in International Journal of 
 Ethics, vol. VI, July, 1896) has endeavoured to show that this is a mis- 
 understanding. Dr. McTaggart's own view, whether really ' Hegelian ' or 
 not, is in the main that for which I contend. 
 
286 PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I 
 
 It is difficult to argue against a theory whose truth or false- 
 hood must be decided for each of us by an appeal to his own 
 moral consciousness, — by the answer which he gives to the 
 simple question whether he does or does not in his best moments 
 feel this mysterious demand that moral guilt should be atoned 
 by physical pain. That the sight of wrong-doing — particularly 
 when it takes the form of cruelty — does inspire a sentiment 
 of indignant resentment in healthy minds, and that it is right 
 and reasonable that in all legal ways that sentiment should 
 be gratified, no sensible person will deny. But that is only 
 because experience shows that the infliction of pain upon offenders 
 is one of the most effectual ways — and in some cases the only 
 effectual way — of producing amendment. The question is 
 whether, apart from its effects, there would be any moral pro- 
 priety in the mere infliction of pain for pain's sake. A wrong 
 has been done — say, a crime of brutal violence ; by that act 
 a double evil has been introduced into the world. There has 
 been so much physical pain for the victim, and so much moral 
 evil has polluted the offender's soul. Is the case made any 
 better by the addition of a third evil, — the pain of the pimished 
 offender, which ex hypothesi is to do him no moral good what- 
 ever? If, as enlightened philanthropists sometimes seem to 
 imagine, the direct effect of all punishment that really is punish- 
 ment were to inspire the offender and others with a passionate de- 
 sire to repeat the offence, — if in our prisons a liberal diet, genial 
 society, free communication with the outside world, artistic cells, 
 abundant leisure and varied amusement were found in practice 
 to be more deterrent and more reformatory than solitude and 
 plank bed, skilly and the narrow exercising yard, how many 
 disciples of Kant would be Kantian enough to forbid the institu- 
 tion of a code of graduated rewards for our present system of 
 pain-giving punishments ? 
 
 Perhaps the simplest way of satisfying ourselves that it is 
 impossible to reconcile the retributive theory of punishment, either 
 with the actual practice of our courts or with any practicable 
 system of judicial administration, will be to notice the modi- 
 fication which is presented by Mr. Bradley. Mr. Bradley 
 seems to be so much struck with the obvious disproportion 
 
Chap, ix, § i] MR. BRADLEY'S VIEW 387 
 
 between the moral and the legal aspect of various offences, that 
 he actually gives up the doctrine that the amount of punish- 
 ment should correspond with the amount of the offence, while 
 still maintaining that punishment in general is justified only 
 by the past sin, not by the future advantage. 
 
 'We pay the penalty, because we owe it, and for no other 
 reason; and if punishment is inflicted for any other reason 
 whatever, than because it is merited by wrong, it is a gross 
 immorality, a crying injustice, an abominable crime, and not 
 what it pretends to be. We may have regard for whatever 
 considerations we please — our own convenience, the good of 
 society, the benefit of the offender; we are fools, and worse, 
 if we fail to do so. Having once the right to punish, we may 
 modify the punishment according to the useful and the pleasant, 
 but these are external to the matter ; they can not give us a right 
 to punish, and nothing can do that but criminal desert. . . . Yes, 
 in spite of sophistry, and in the face of sentimentalism, with 
 well-nigh the whole body of our self-styled enlightenment against 
 them, our people believe to this day that punishment is inflicted 
 for the sake of punishiment,' &c. ^ 
 
 ' Ethical studies, 1876, pp. 25, 26. In a note which appeared in the Inter 
 nationalJoumal of Ethics (' Some Remarks on Punishment,' vol. IV, Ap., 1894, 
 p. 284), Mr. Bradley protests against being supposed to hold that punish- 
 ment is inflicted for the sake of pain. Alluding to an article in the same 
 Journal, which is substantially reproduced in the present chapter, Mr. Bradley 
 remarks : ' Mr. Rashdall appears to me to misunderstand the view which he 
 attacks. He takes me to hold an " intuitive theory of punishment," by which 
 (so far as I can judge) he means a view based on some isolated abstraction. 
 I find this strange, and what is perhaps stranger is that he treats me as 
 teaching that punishment consists in the infliction of pain for pain's sake. 
 At least I am unable otherwise to interpret his language. Now, I certainly 
 said that punishment is the suppression of guilt, and so of the guilty person. 
 But I pointed out that negation is not a good, except in so far as it belongs 
 to and is the other side of positive moral assertion {Ethical Studies, p. 25). 
 Pain, of course, usually does go with the negative side of punishment, just 
 as some pleasure, I presume, attends usually the positive side. Pain is, in 
 brief, an accident of retribution, but certainly I never made it more, and 
 I am not aware that I made it even an inseparable accident. If a criminal 
 defying the law is shot through the brain, are we, if there is no pain, to hold 
 that there is no retribution ? My critic seems, if I may say so, to hold an 
 " intuitive theory" of my views.' 
 Upon this explanation I should like to make the following remarks : — 
 (i) I admit that for ' pain ' I ought to have said ' or other evil, loss of 
 
288 PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I 
 
 Now, in the first place, is this consistent? If punishment 
 is 'modified' for utilitarian reasons, does not that mean that 
 it is inflicted partly for retribution and partly for some other 
 reason ? If so, we do not pay the penalty because we owe it, 
 and for no other reason. And, secondly, is it logical? If sin 
 by itself confers the right and imposes the duty of punishment, 
 there must be a right to inflict either a definite amount of 
 punishment or an infinite amount. If the latter, it is obvious 
 that the State will always have the right to inflict any quantity 
 of punishment it pleases upon any of its citizens at any time, 
 since all have sinned and incurred thereby unb'mited liability to 
 
 Bomething good being treated as an evil.' If it -were not thought an evil to 
 be shot through the brain, the shooting v^ould certainly not be a punish- 
 ment. What retribution would be in which there was no such evil, I am 
 wholly at a loss to understand. 
 
 (2) I am quite willing to admit that Mr. Bradley recognizes a positive 
 side as well as a negative side to punishment, but I have entirely failed to 
 discover what this positive side is. Mr. Bradley goes on to say that punish- 
 ment is 'the reaction of a moral organism, and this organism has a par- 
 ticular concrete character.' I don't deny that in punishment the organism 
 reacts against the criminal ; and very often the criminal reacts against the 
 organism. But what I want to know is ' why ought it so to react ? ' If it 
 has a purpose in doing so, let that purpose be expressed. If the purpose be 
 to produce any effect upon society, it seems to be totally misleading to 
 say that ' punishment is inflicted for the sake of punishment ' or for ' retri- 
 bution ' and so on. If that purpose be anything else besides the production 
 of good effects on conscious beings, it seems to me wholly immoral and 
 irrational. I cannot look upon an abstraction like ' moral assertion ' as an 
 end-in-itself. 
 
 (3) In spite of Mr. Bradley's explanations, I cannot admit that the views 
 he maintains in the above-mentioned Article are reconcilable with the 
 chapter in Ethical Studies. Mr. Bradley formerly maintained that it was 
 immoral to punish except for retribution : now he defends ' social Sui^ery ' 
 (i. 6. wholesale Infanticide) for the reduction of population. Any infliction 
 of pain, loss, or death is justified, it appears, for an adequate social end 
 provided we do not call it punishment. Surely it is a mere sophism to 
 suppose that the ' gross immorality,' the ' crying injustice,' the ' abominable 
 Clime ' of unmerited punishment can be escaped by the mere trick of calling 
 it ' social Surgery ' instead of ' punishment.' It is fair to add that Mr. Bradley 
 adds : ' I should have little to correct in the old statement of my view except 
 a certain number of one-sided and exaggerated expressions.' To me, if I may 
 say so with profound respect for his later writings, the chapter in Ethical 
 Studies to which he alludes seems to consist in little else but oue-sided and 
 exaggerated expressions. 
 
Chap, ix, § i] PUNISHMENT NOT EETRIBUTION 389' 
 
 punishment. 'Use every man after his desert, and who should 
 'scape whipping?' Such a contention would render the whole 
 theory nugatory. If, on the other hand, ^rong-doing confers 
 a right to inflict a merely limited amount of punishment, 
 Mr. Bradley is open to the following objections : — 
 
 (i) How can this amount be fixed? How can moral guilt 
 be expressed in terms of physical pain ? To any one who 
 believes that punishment is justified by its effects, the right 
 or just amount of punishment is that which will best serve 
 the ends for which punishment exists — i.e. deterrence and 
 reformation. But how, apart from its end, can the amount 
 of punishment due to each offence be fixed ? I find in my own 
 mind no intuitions on the subject, and believe that if we were all 
 to sit down and attempt to write out lists of crimes, with the 
 number of lashes of the cat or months of imprisonment which 
 they intrinsically merit, we shovdd find the task an extremely 
 difficult one, and should arrive at very discordant results. At 
 all events, such a task would be hopelessly out of harmony with 
 the actual practice of the most enlightened tribunals. It is 
 obvious that drunkenness in a ' gentleman ' will often be, morally 
 speaking, as culpable as burglary in an hereditary criminal. But 
 it is not so much the practical as the theoretical impossibility 
 of the task that I wish to emphasize. The idea of expressing 
 moral guilt in the terms of cat or birch-rod, gallows or pillory, 
 hard labour or penal servitude, seems to be essentially and 
 intrinsically unmeaning. There is absolutely no commensura- 
 bility between the two things. 
 
 (a) Assuming this difficulty removed, it is clear that when the 
 proper amount of punishment has been inflicted, the right to 
 punish has been exhausted. If any further punishment is 
 inflicted for utilitarian reasons, it will be simply, on Mr. Bradley's 
 premisses, so much unjustifiable cruelty. If forty stripes save. 
 one is the proper punishment for any offence, the fortieth will be 
 simply a common assault, no matter whether it is inflicted by 
 the private individual or by the public executioner. 
 
 (3) The only way of escape open to Mr. Bradley would be 
 to contend that though the State may not for utilitarian reasons 
 increase, it may for utilitarian reasons reduce the ideally just 
 
 BASHDAI.L I 
 
39° PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I 
 
 punishment. The position is on the face of it a somewhat 
 arbitrary one, and it is open to this objection : it involves the 
 admission that in all cases wrong-doing confers a right, but does 
 not impose a duty of punishment. Can it be moral that society, 
 if it might, without failure in duty, remit punishment, should 
 punish just because it pleases so to do ? This would be to admit 
 that whether we shall punish or not is to be determined by mere 
 caprice. So, if you say that it is a duty to punish, except where 
 utilitarian considerations demand that less than the ideal amount 
 should be inflicted, you practically admit that whether any 
 punishment should be inflicted at all, and how much, must be 
 determined by teleological considerations. The theory of an 
 intuitive command to punish wiU have reduced itself to the 
 somewhat barren assertion that you have no right to punish 
 except where there has been wrong-doing. This is a proposition 
 which it is hard to dispute, since, as a general rule, no public 
 purpose is served by hanging the wrong man. There are, how- 
 ever, cases where it must be admitted that sufiFering may lawfully 
 be inflicted on innocent persons — e. g. where a barony or a hun- 
 dred is made to pay compensation to persons injured in a riot, 
 or where a savage village that has sheltered a murderer is burnt 
 by a European man-of-war. There are, too, exceptional crises 
 in which it is necessary, in the interests of society, to be less 
 exacting in the matter of evidence than a civilized state ought to 
 be in quiet times. 
 
 We are here, however, straying into difficult and disputable 
 questions of details, and it is best to be content with simply 
 pointing out that, when we have applied to the theory the 
 qualiflcations which are demanded by the obvious facts, it is 
 reduced to very modest limits. It amounts simply to the asser- 
 tion that punishment should be inflicted only on the guilty; 
 it admits that in its infliction the legislator should be governed 
 by utilitarian considerations, that is, by the end which punish- 
 ment actually serves. 
 
 From the point of view which we have hitherto been taking, 
 the retributive theory will appear to many a mere survival 
 of bygone modes of thought. Yet, as is usually the case with 
 theories which exhibit so much persistence as the one before us. 
 
Chap, ix, § i] CONCESSIONS agi 
 
 the retributive theory of punishment contains a good deal of 
 truth at the bottom of it,— deeper truth perhaps than the Ben- 
 thamite view, which has taken its place ih popular thought. 
 There are, I think, three elements of truth which the retributive 
 view of punishment recognizes, and which the ordinary utilitarian 
 view often ignores. 
 
 (i) Firstly, it possesses psychological or historical truth. It 
 is correct as an explanation of the origin of punishment. That 
 punishment originates in the instinct of vengeance is a common- 
 place of Anthropology. Criminal law was in its origin a sub- 
 stitute for private vengeance. The fact is illustrated by the 
 Jewish law of homicide, by the Saxon system of Wergilt, and by 
 the Roman law which punished the thief caught red-handed 
 twice as severely as the thief convicted afterwards by evidence 
 taken in cold blood. The theory was that the owner would 
 naturally be twice as angry in the first case as in the second, 
 though, of course, the injury done either to himself or the com- 
 munity would be precisely the same. And this connexion between 
 punishment and vengeance is not simply a matter of history. It 
 is still (as Sir Henry Maine has insisted ^) one of the purposes of 
 punishment to serve as an outlet, a kind of safety-valve, for the 
 indignation of the community. All laws ultimately depend for 
 their enforcement upon the public sentiment in their favour; 
 hence the legislator cannot afibrd to take no account of popular 
 sentiment in their administration. There are many features 
 of the modem criminal law which can only be defended on 
 account of the desirability of keeping up a certain proportion 
 between the measure of public indignation and the measure 
 of legal penalty — for instance, the distinction made between 
 accomplished crimes and attempts at crimes which have failed 
 through causes independent of the oflender's volition. Public 
 opinion will sanction capital punishment when the blood of 
 a brother man seems to cry for vengeance from the ground; 
 it would not tolerate an execution for an attempted murder 
 which has failed through a pistol missing fire. It may be doubted 
 whether this irrational mode of estimating punishment by the 
 actual, and not by the intended, efiects of an act is not sometimes 
 ' Ancient Law, 4th ed., 1870, p. 389. 
 
 u a 
 
392 PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I 
 
 carried unnecessarily far, as ■when, for instance, a Magistrate 
 remands a prisoner to see how his victim's wounds progress. 
 Whence it would seem to follow that, since a total abstainer's 
 wounds heal sooner than a drunkard's, a man is to be punished 
 more severely for stabbing a drunkard than for stabbing a total 
 abstainer. In ways like this, deference to popular sentiment 
 may be carried too far, but there can be no doubt of the sound- 
 ness of the principle that the criminal law, while it seeks to 
 guide, must not go too far ahead of popular sentiment, nor yet 
 (as American lynch law occasionally reminds us) lag too far 
 behind it. 
 
 (3) The second half-truth held in solution by the retributive 
 theory is the fact that punishment is reformatory as well as 
 merely deterrent. Very often, indeed, it will be found on exami- 
 nation that those who most loudly clamour for reformatory 
 punishments do not really believe in the reformatory effect 
 of punishment at all. Punishment is necessarily painful (posi- 
 tively or negatively), or it ceases to be punishment. Those 
 people who denounce any particular punishment on the ground 
 that it is painful, really mean that you ought to reform criminals 
 instead of punishing them. Now, of course, it is the duty of 
 the State to endeavour to reform criminals as well as to punish 
 them. But when a man is induced to abstain from crime 
 by the possibility of a better life being brought home to 
 him through the ministrations of a prison Chaplain ^, through 
 education, through a book from the prison library, or the efforts 
 of a Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society, he is not reformed by 
 punishment at all. No doubt there are reformatory agencies 
 much more powerful than punishment; and without the co- 
 operation of such agencies it is rarely that punishment makes 
 the criminal into a better man. But it is none the less true that 
 punishment does help to make men better, and not simply to 
 induce them to abstain from punishable acts for fear of the 
 consequences. At first sight this may seem to be a paradox ; 
 but it seems so only when we forget that every man has in him 
 a better self, as well as a lower self. And if the lower self 
 
 ^ Or (according to a system which is, I believe, adopted in some American 
 prisons) by the lectures of the Moral Philosopher attached to the prison. 
 
Chap, ix, §i] REFORMATORY PUNISHMENT 393 
 
 is kept down by the terror of punishment, higher motives are 
 able to assert themselves. Fear of punishment protects a man 
 against himself. If in the punishment of 'criminals we have 
 practically to think much more of its effects upon others than 
 of its effects upon the men themselves, it is otherwise in educa- 
 tion. Fear of punishment by itself will seldom turn an idle boy 
 into a diligent one ; but there are few boys who could be trusted 
 to work their best at all times, if in their weaker moments they 
 were not kept to their duty by a modicum of fear ; and there 
 are few of us, perhaps, whose conduct would not fall still fur- 
 ther behind our own ideal than it actually does, if our better 
 selves were not sometimes reinforced by fear of punishment, — 
 at least in the form of social disapprobation or loss of reputation. 
 And in the case of actual crime, that conviction of the external 
 strength of the Moral Law which punishment brings with it is 
 usually at least the condition of moral improvement; though 
 that conviction will not make a man morally better, unless 
 the external judgement is ratified and confirmed by the appellate 
 tribunal of his own Conscience. Nevertheless, this external re- 
 spect for the Moral Law is the first step to the recognition of its 
 internal, its intrinsic authority. 
 
 Plausible as it looks to deny a priori that mere pain can 
 produce moral effects, the extravagance of the contention becomes 
 evident when it is seen that it involves the assertion that no 
 external conditions have any effect whatever upon character. It 
 is matter of common experience that men's characters are power- 
 fully affected by misfortune, bereavement, poverty, disgrace. 
 Adversity is not, of course, uniformly and necessarily productive 
 of moral improvement. But no one will deny that imder certain 
 circumstances, and with men of certain temperaments, great 
 moral changes are often produced by calamity of one kind 
 or another. In some cases the effect is direct and immediate ; 
 in other cases the effect is produced indirectly through the 
 awakening of religious emotion. In either case, of course, all 
 that the misfortune does is to create conditions of mind favourable 
 to the action of higher motives and considerations, or to remove 
 conditions unfavourable to their action. Punishment, on its 
 reformatory side, may be said to be an artificial creation of 
 
294 PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I 
 
 conditions favourable to moral improvement. The artificial 
 creation of such conditions has, of course, this advantage over 
 ordinary misfortune, that it is seen to be the direct consequence 
 of the wrong-doing, which is not necessarily the case with 
 other alterations of circumstances. 
 
 In view of these considerations, we may, perhaps, go one step 
 further and maintain that even in cases where punishment will 
 not have a reformatory eflFect, where the tendencies to evil are 
 too strong to be kept in check by fear, even then punishment 
 may be, in a sense, for the moral good of the ofiender. Wicked- 
 ness humbled and subdued, though it be only by external force, 
 is a healthier moral condition than wickedness successful and 
 triumphant. That is the extremest point to which we can go 
 with the advocates of the vindictive theory. This is, I suppose, 
 the truth which underlies the hackneyed expressions about 
 avenging the insult offered to the Moral Law, vindicating the 
 Moral Law, asserting its majesty, and so on. We recognize that 
 punishment may sometimes be right, in the interests of the 
 offender himself, even when it fails to deter. The pleasures 
 of successful wickedness may be treated as bad pleasures which 
 are of less than no value, and even pleasures not in themselves 
 connected with the successful wickedness may, when enjoyed 
 by a bad man, be regarded as of very small intrinsic value. But 
 still, it is always a certain effect on consciousness and character 
 that constitutes its justification, not merely the satisfaction of an 
 impersonal and irrational law *. 
 
 ^ I sliould be prepared to recognize a larger amount of tmth in the 
 a priori view of punishment, if the idea of punishment were to be confined 
 simply to the withholding of good things, to what theologians have called 
 a poena damni. Whether it would be right to make the bad happy if the 
 absence of happiness would have no eflfect on their badness — not even that 
 of making them feel that goodness is stronger than evil — is almost too 
 abstract a question to admit of an answer ; but that in a sense it is true that 
 goodness and happiness ought to go together has already been admitted in 
 the last chapter. I could accept Mr. Moore's view that 'the infliction of 
 pain on a person whose state of mind is bad may, if the pain be not too 
 intense, create a state of things that is better on the whole than if the evil 
 state of mind had existed unpunished,' with the reservation 'whether such 
 a state of things can ever constitute a positive good, is another question ' 
 {Principia Ethica, p. 214). Only I should submit that the ground of our 
 
Chap. ix. § i] MORAL END OF THE STATE 295 
 
 (3) A word will suffice to indicate the third and the highest 
 truth which the vindictive theory of punishment caricatures. It 
 is the truth— the great Aristotelian truth— 4hat the State has 
 a spiritual end. 
 
 We all know that experience sets tolerably strict limits to the- 
 extent to which it is desirable that the State should interfere 
 with personal liberty and private life in the pursuit of moral 
 and spiritual ends. There are many grave moral offences which 
 the State may reasonably refuse to punish for quite other 
 reasons than indifference to moral Well-being. The offence may 
 be incapable of exact definition. It might require for its 
 detection a police-force which would be a public burden, or 
 involve an inquisitorial procedure, or give rise to blackmailing 
 and false accusation to an extent which would constitute a greater 
 evil than the offence itself. The experience of the ecclesiastical 
 courts, which continued in full operation in this country down 
 to 164a ^, or of the clerical government prevalent in Rome under 
 the Papacy, would afford plenty of illustrations of the evils 
 incident to such attempts to extend police supervision to the 
 details of private life. Very often, no doubt, the difficulty 
 arises largely from the fact that the attempt puts too great 
 a strain upon the Conscience of the community. Many offences 
 may be, on the whole, condemned by public opinion which are 
 not condemned with sufficient earnestness to secure the enforce- 
 ment of the criminal law against them. With all these admissions, 
 it must still be contended that the State is perfectly entitled to 
 repress immorality. If an act is not inconsistent with the true 
 Well-being either of the individual or of society, it is not 
 immoral; and, even if it were admitted that the State should 
 not interfere with conduct affecting only the Well-being of the 
 individual, it is impossible that any act which affects the Well- 
 approval is not the mere fact ' that the combined exietence of two evils may- 
 yet constitute a less evil than would be constituted by the existence of either 
 singly' (ib., p. 215), but the tendency of the pain to make the state of mind 
 less opposed to our ideal of what it ought to be. 
 
 ' Their jurisdiction over laymen was of course occasionally exercised to a 
 much later date. Since the penances imposed by the ecclesiastical courts 
 were (and theoretically are) enforceable by imprisonment, no distinction 
 in principle could be drawn between their action and that of the State. 
 
a9<5 PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I 
 
 being of an individual should be without consequences for 
 others also. The distinction between crimes and sins can be 
 found only in considerations of social utility. A crime is simply 
 a sin which it is expedient to repress by penal enactments 
 Every civilized state punishes some offences which cannot be 
 said to be injurious to the ' public good,' unless moral Well-being 
 is considered to be part of the public good. 
 
 It must be remembered that it is not merely by actual and 
 direct intimidation that the State can promote Morality. The 
 criminal law has an important work to do in giving expression 
 to the moral sense of the community. Popular ideas as to 
 the moral gravity of many offences depend largely upon the 
 punishment which is awarded to them by the criminal courts. 
 There are probably thousands who have hardly any distinct 
 ideas about sin except those which are inculcated at Assizes and 
 Petty Sessions. It is no uncommon experience for a clergyman 
 to be told by a dying man — notorious, it may be, for fornication 
 or drunkenness or hard selfishness — that he has nothing to 
 reproach himself with, his Conscience is quite clear, he has 
 never done anything wrong that he knows of, he has no reason 
 to be afraid to meet his God, and so on. Then upon enquiry it 
 turns out that what the man really means is that he has done 
 nothing for which he could have been sent to prison. 
 
 There are many offences which the State can do little to 
 check by the directly deterrent efforts of punishment, but which 
 it can do much to prevent by simply making them punishable. 
 Since a few persons with good coats have actually been sent 
 to prison for bribery at elections, the respectable public has 
 really begun to suspect that there may be something wrong 
 in the practice. A very little reflection upon the different 
 estimates which are formed of these forms of immorality or of 
 dishonesty for which people go to prison, and of those for which 
 they do not go to prison, will show at once the enormous 
 importance of the criminal law in promoting the moral education 
 of the public mind. While, therefore, there are some kinds of 
 
 ' In practice, of course, this term is usually reserved for the graver kinds 
 of offences against the layr. We do not talk about the crime of having 
 one's chimney on fire. 
 
Chap, ix, §ii] COMPULSORY MORALITY 397 
 
 wrong-doing which, either from their essential natures or from 
 collateral considerations, cannot be wisely dealt with by the 
 criminal law, we may expect that with the neeessary moralization 
 of a community, the sphere of criminal law ought gradually to 
 extend. In the growing disposition to enact and enforce laws 
 against gambling, to assist, if not to enforce, temperance by Act 
 of Parliament, and to protect by the criminal law the chastity of 
 young girls, we may recognize an instalment of moral progress. 
 The doctrine that you cannot make men moral by Act of Parlia- 
 ment is about as true as the doctrine that you cannot make men 
 abstain from crime by Act of Parliament. In spite of all the 
 efforts of the Legislature, the practice of stealing has not been 
 entirely stamped out. The fact that no legislation has suc- 
 ceeded in producing a perfectly moral community does not show 
 that the State cannot do much to make a community more 
 moral than it would otherwise be. 
 
 II 
 
 It will be urged by some that the enforcement of Morality 
 tends to deprive that Morality of the freedom which is one of 
 its essential conditions. The ideal life that we want to promote 
 is not a society in which certain things are done, but a state of 
 society in which certain things are done from the right motives 
 — by persons ' in a certain state of mind ' and 'doing them for their 
 own sake' (irfis expvres and avT&v iveica t&v TrpaTTo^iivaiv),a,a Aristotle 
 would put it. The aim of society, and of the State, is to promote the 
 growth of characters of a certain type. Too great social pressure, 
 still more decidedly too much State coercion, is destructive of the 
 spontaneity, the individuality, the variety without which the 
 highest types of character will not grow. We do not wish to 
 turn people out exactly in the same mould. That is so partly 
 because the mould which any existing society would be apt to 
 impose is not an ideally perfect one, and we want to have room 
 for further growth in our ideal : partly because (within certain 
 limits) there is room for considerable variety not merely in the 
 type of external conduct, but in actual character. Different 
 types of characters are mutually complementary and combine 
 to form an ideal society. But even the character which we do 
 
298 PUNISHMENT. AISTD FORGIVENESS [Book I 
 
 want to be universal — that devotion to the general good, that 
 compliance with the primary conditions of social Well-being, 
 which must be an element in all intrinsically valuable characters 
 — would lose much of its value if enforced bej'^ond a certain 
 point. The failure of Monasticism has been largely due to its 
 attempt to enforce too much. Not only does the prescribed 
 routine of life destroy individuality and originality, but even 
 the Morality which is actually secured ceases to be the result of 
 moral effort. A life in which there are no temptations — or 
 rather in which the place of natural temptations is taken by 
 artificial ones manufactured by unnatural conditions of life ^ — 
 and no room for spontaneous effort is not conducive to moral 
 growth. There is much in the history of monastic institutions 
 which goes to show that such a minute regulation of life by 
 unbending rule encourages a certain childishness of character, to 
 say nothing of graver anti-social tendencies. That is so even 
 though the hold which the rule has on the man depends entirely 
 (in modem times) upon his voluntary consent^. Still graver 
 would be the deterioration of character under a system wherein 
 all life should be regulated by police discipline. Character is 
 formed by acts of choice; consequently character cannot be 
 developed when there is no occasion for the individual to choose 
 at all. 
 
 These considerations have been much insisted upon by the 
 late Professor T. H. Green, and (as it seems to me with con- 
 siderable exaggeration) by Prof. Bosanquet. To say that 'the 
 promotion of morality by force ... is an absolute self-contradic- 
 tion '* is to take a very superficial view of the matter. Such 
 a dictum assumes that, when an act is enforced, it must be done 
 merely because it is enforced. It cannot be doubted that dis- 
 
 ' With all its beauties, it is impossible to read many pages of the Imitatio 
 Christi without feeling that the writer is incessantly occupied with tempta- 
 tions of this kind. 
 
 ^ This, of course, was not the case in the Middle Ages, when the secular 
 arm returned the ' apostate ' monk to his convent ; and even now the penni- 
 less condition of the renegade monk often has the same effect. 
 
 ' Bosanquet, Philosophical Theory of the State, 1899, p. 192. The statement 
 is, indeed, modified by the preceding sentence : ' 'Whatever acts are enforced 
 are, so far as the force operates, withdrawn from the higher life.' 
 
Chap, ix, § ii] IMMORALITY AND CRIME 299 
 
 honesty would become rampant in a country wherein stealing 
 should be unpunished. And yet it would be the veriest cynicism 
 to assert that the majority of our fellow coiihtrymen keep their 
 hands out of other people's pockets only because they are afraid 
 of going to prison if they don't. The existence of punishment 
 for an offence may create a state of feeling in which the act is 
 looked upon as wrong in itself. The individual who begins 
 with abstaining from fear of punishment may end by regarding 
 the act with hearty and spontaneous dislike : and the individual 
 born into a society already permeated with this feeling may 
 simply not be aware that the existence of punishment for the 
 offence has anything to do with his own dislike of it. There 
 may be no great objection to the formula that the State ought 
 rather to create the conditions of Morality than to enforce it, 
 but it is impossible to draw a sharp line of distinction between 
 the two things. One of the conditions for the growth of a ' free 
 Morality' may be the existence of laws which have compara- 
 tively rarely to be enforced. There is hardly any kind of 
 legislation in favour of Morality advocated by any sensible 
 person which might not be brought within the formula under- 
 stood in a liberal sense: understood strictly, it would exclude 
 kinds of legislation to which few sensible persons object. To 
 seek to enforce all Morality would indeed be fatal to the higher 
 growth of character: but it is ridiculous to contend that no 
 room would be left for the spontaneous exercise of Virtue 
 because certain elementary requirements of Morality are en- 
 forced by law. Liberty to get drunk is surely no more essential 
 to character than liberty to steal. 
 
 When all these admissions have been made, it may still be 
 maintained that there is no fundamental distinction in principle 
 between the offences which the State will do well to punish and 
 those which it will do well to let alone. There is no civilized 
 State which does not in practice punish many offences for no 
 other reason than that there is a strong moral feeling against 
 them. If there is to be moral progress in the future, we may 
 expect the area of conduct dealt with by the criminal law to 
 widen. And it involves no cynicism to predict that there will 
 be little progress unless it does. Bad conduct which people feel 
 
300 PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I 
 
 really strongly about they will always want to repress. And 
 the punishment of the grosser kinds of misconduct, so far from 
 diminishing people's sensitiveness about the unpunished mis- 
 conduct, tends greatly to increase it. Conscience is aroused by 
 the reflection that much misconduct which goes unpunished differs 
 only in degree from that which conducts men to prison. When 
 we wish to make people feel strongly the wrongness of idleness 
 or certain kinds of ' company-promoting,' we point out that it is 
 really the same thing as stealing. When we attain to a social 
 condition in which it shall be possible to punish the worst kinds 
 of company-promoting, perhaps even the worst kinds of idleness, 
 we shall perhaps feel more sensitive about that excessive pursuit 
 of self-interest or amusement which at present counts almost as 
 a virtue. 
 
 Ill 
 
 There is another aspect of the retributive theory of Punishment 
 on which I should like briefly to insist. If the theory of the 
 moral crit^ion which has been defended in previous chapters be 
 a true one, it must be true in every case and without any 
 exception. The idea that punishment can be an end in itself 
 apart from the effects which it is to produce is wholly incon- 
 sistent with that principle of teleological Morality which (in 
 every other connexion) would be accepted by most of those who, 
 in servile adherence to an unintelligent philosophical tradition, 
 still maintain the retributive theory of punishment^. The 
 
 ^ The influence of mere tradition in this matter is curiously illustrated in 
 the case of Prof. Bosanquet, who still considers it necessary to speak of 
 punishment as retributive, while the explanation of punishment which he 
 gives, though to my mind evasive and unsatisfactory, has really nothing 
 ' retributive ' about it except the name. He sums up : ' In short, then, 
 compulsion through punishment and the fear of it, though primarily acting 
 on the lower self, does tend, where the conditions of true punishment exist 
 (i. e. the reaction of a system of rights violated by one who shares in it), to 
 a recognition of the end by the person punished, and may so far be regarded 
 as his own will, implied in the maintenance of a system to which he is a 
 party, returning upon himself in the form of pain. And this is the theory 
 of punishment as retributive ' {The Philosophical Theory of the State, p. 227). 
 Verily one would not have thought so if Prof. Bosanquet had not told us so ! 
 The fact is that Prof. Bosanquet so completely rejects the retributive theory 
 
Chap, ix, § iii] PLATONIC VIEW 301 
 
 essence of the moral judgement is, as is scarcely denied by the 
 modern adherents of the Kantian tradition, a judgement of 
 value. Nothing can be right except as a means to something 
 which has value in itself ; nothing surely can be an end in itself 
 except some state of a conscious being, and to say that a state of 
 conscious being is an end in itself is to say that it is good. The 
 essence of punishment is the endurance of pain or some other 
 evil. In spite of the high authorities that may be quoted for 
 the contrary view, I venture, imder the aegis of Plato and the 
 many Christian thinkers who have found his ideas on this 
 subject in essential harmony with the Christian temper, to 
 maintain that an evil cannot under any circumstances become 
 a good except relatively — either positively, as a means to 
 some morally good state of consciousness, or medicinally (h 
 (papixdKov etbei), by way of remedy against some worse evil. If 
 it be urged that punishment is a good as a means to the vindica- 
 tion or the assertion or the avenging of the Moral Law, I should 
 venture to ask how an abstract ' vindication ' or ' assertion ' can 
 be a good — how a mere event or occurrence in nature can be 
 a good except in so far as it is the expression of some spiritual 
 state or a means of producing such a state. Even the Moral 
 Law itself is not an end in itself, but only souls or wills 
 recognizing and regulating their action by the Moral Law. If 
 it be urged that the avenging of the Moral Law is right because 
 it is the expression of the avenger's indignation, that is an 
 intelligible answer; and I have already admitted that the 
 expression and cultivation of indignation is one of the purposes 
 of punishment, though this can be hardly regarded as an ulti- 
 mate end, but rather a means to a further end — the spiritual 
 good of the man himself and of society at large. But, if punish- 
 ment is to be justified on account of the good it does to the 
 punisher, we have already gone some way towards the abandon- 
 
 of punishment that he really cannot believe that it has actually been held 
 by any one else. And yet I am free to admit that there is much in all this 
 talk about involuntary and impenitent submission to an unreformatory 
 punishment being really the act of the person's own will, which is quite as 
 unintelligible and ethically objectionable as the crudest form of the retribu- 
 tive theory, as implied for instance in the many popular views of the Christian 
 doctrine of Atonement. 
 
302 PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I 
 
 ment of the retributory theory in its ordinary form ; and further 
 a question arises as to the punisher's right to inflict evil on 
 another in order to secure a good for himself. He — ^the punisher 
 — is no doubt an end in himself, and is justified in seeking his 
 own good; but what right has he to ignore another's good 
 except as a means to some greater good of his own or of the 
 society in which he lives ? It will hardly be seriously contended 
 that such and such a sentence of five years' penal servitude is to 
 be justified because the pain involved is outweighed by the 
 spiritual good which Mr, Justice So-and-so may have secured to 
 himself by passing it. It may be suggested that it is justified 
 because it is the expression of the indignation of society ; that 
 the sentence tends to promote in society a reverence for the law 
 which the criminal has broken, or, again, that the punishment 
 produces moral good in the offender. In that case we have 
 frankly abandoned the idea that punishment is an end in itself, 
 and have adopted the view that it is a means to some good in 
 society at large or in the criminal himself. It is true that the 
 word 'deterrence' hardly expresses adequately the fact that 
 the good which punishment confers upon society is in part a 
 spiritual good; that it tends not merely to deter men from 
 committing crime, but to impress upon their minds the idea that 
 crime is wrong — something to be avoided and hated for its own 
 sake. The word ' reformation,' again, hardly does justice to the 
 idea that it is good for the criminal to feel the indignation of 
 society, to feel the external effects of his wrong-doing : that it is 
 a good, one which it would be perhaps worth while (if we are to 
 raise so abstract and unpractical a question) to promote, even if 
 we knew that in this particular case it would not lead to that 
 which is the ultimate object of all punishment (so far as the 
 criminal himself is concerned), the alteration of his will, the 
 change of his character. That mere consciousness on the part of 
 the criminal may even be regarded as in its way a good. The 
 endurance of evil cannot be itself a good: the utmost length 
 that we can go is to say that it may be a necessary condition or 
 element in a state of mind which we can recognize as relatively 
 good — as better than that of successful and unresisted evil- 
 doing. Both the 'deterrent theory' and the 'reformatory 
 
Chap, ix, § iii] USING HUMANITY AS END 303 
 
 theory' are no doubt inadequate to express the whole truth 
 about punishment. There is a side of punishment which might 
 perhaps be best expressed by the term 'educative theory'; or, 
 perhaps, we may simply say that the end of punishment is 
 partly deterrent or utilitarian, and partly ethical. Both sides of 
 punishment would be summed up in the assertion that our view 
 of punishment must be a teleological one. 
 
 It is sometimes supposed that the utilitarian view of punish- 
 ment is inconsistent with a proper respect for human personality : 
 it involves, we are told, the treatment of humanity as a means 
 and not as an end. If by ' utilitarian ' theory is meant a view 
 resting upon a hedonistic theory of Ethics, I have nothing to say 
 in its favour ; if by ' utilitarian ' is meant simply a view which 
 treats punishment as a means to some good, spiritual or other- 
 wise, of some conscious being, I should entirely deny the justice 
 of the criticism. In the first place I should contend that in 
 a sense it is quite right and inevitable that we should treat 
 humanity as a means. When a servant is called upon to black 
 the boots of his master, or a soldier to face death or disease in 
 the service of his country, society is certainly treating humanity 
 as a means : the men do these things not for their own sakes, 
 but for the sake of other people. Kant himself never uttered 
 anything so foolish as the maxim which indiscreet admirers are 
 constantly putting into his mouth, that we should never treat 
 humanity as a means: what he did say was that we should 
 never treat humanity only as a means, but always also as an 
 end. When a man is punished in the interest of society, he is 
 indeed treated as a means, but his right to be treated as an end 
 is not thereby violated, if his good is treated as of equal impor- 
 tance with the end of other human beings. Social life would not 
 be possible without the constant subordination of the claims of 
 individuals to the like claims of a greater number of individuals ; 
 axid there may be occasions when in punishing a criminal we 
 have to think more of the good of society generally than of the 
 individual who is punished. No doubt it is a duty to think also 
 of the good of the individual so far as that can be done con- 
 sistently with justice to other individuals: it is obviously the 
 duty of the State to endeavour to make its punishments as far as 
 
304 PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I 
 
 possible reformatory as well as deterrent and educational to 
 others. And how the reformatory view of punishment can be 
 accused of disrespect for human personality, because forsooth it 
 uses a man's animal organism or his lower psychical nature as 
 a means to the good of his higher self, I cannot profess to 
 understand. The retributive view of punishment justifies the 
 infliction of evil upon a living soul, even though it will do 
 neither him nor any one else any good whatever. If it is to do 
 anybody any good, punishment is not inflicted for the sake of 
 retribution. It is the retributive theory which shows a dis- 
 respect for human personality by proposing to sacrifice human 
 life and human Well-being to a lifeless fetich styled the Moral 
 Law, which apparently, though unconscious, has a sense of 
 dignity and demands the immolation of victims to avenge its 
 injured amour propre. 
 
 The real basis and stronghold of the theory which I am 
 investigating is to be found in the undoubted psychological fact 
 that the sense of indignation or resentment at wrong arises 
 naturally and spontaneously in the human mind ^ without any 
 calculation of the personal or social benefits to be derived from 
 gratifying it, and in the profound ethical conviction that for 
 societies — though not always for individuals — it is morally good 
 and healthy that this indignation should be encouraged and 
 expressed. 'Revenge, my friends,' says Carlyle, 'revenge and 
 the natural hatred of scoundrels, and the ineradicable tendency 
 to revancher oneself upon them, and pay them what they have 
 merited ; this is for evermore intrinsically a correct, and even 
 a divine feeling in the mind of every man.' Such language 
 I could cordially adopt ^, though with the proviso (of which more 
 hereafter) that this feeling is not so divine as the love which the 
 best men do succeed in feeling towards the worst, and that it 
 must not be allowed to extinguish that higher feeling. The 
 feeling of indignation is a natural and healthy one, — ^natural 
 
 ' Psychologically, no doubt, this tendency can in a sense be explained 
 by evolutionary causes. 
 
 * Except in so far as the word ' revenge ' may imply the theory -which 
 I am disclaiming. I make this quotation (and the following from Stephen) 
 from a second-hand source, and it seems hardly necessary to spend further 
 time in'searching for the passages. 
 
Chap, ix, § iii] CRIMINAL LAW EDUCATIVE 305 
 
 and healthy, we may add, in partial correction of Carlyle, in 
 proportion to its disinterestedness. It is one great purpose of 
 Criminal Law to give expression to this natural indignation 
 against wrong. But Law, in the discharge of its ideal function 
 as Reason without Passion (vovs 6,viv irdOovs), seeks not merely to 
 express but to regulate, and to regulate with a view to an end. 
 In the words of Sir James Stephen, ' the criminal law regulates, 
 sanctions, and provides a legitimate satisfaction for the passion 
 of revenge ; the criminal law stands to the passion of revenge in 
 much the same relation as marriage to the sexual appetite.' 
 And in both cases the ultimate end of the regulation is to 
 be found in a certain ideal of social Well-being. 
 
 The error of the upholders of the retributive theory lies, 
 as it seems to me, in mistaking a mere emotion or feeling — 
 an emotion or feeling which in itself is a good and important 
 element in every well-balanced character — for a judgement of 
 the Practical Reason. The Practical Reason may often judge 
 that the emotion should be freely indulged, though at other 
 times it will no less emphatically pronounce that the most 
 elementary requirements of social order demand its partial or 
 entire restraint. The real question is whether it is right to 
 punish simply because we feel inclined to do so, to gratify 
 a natural passion simply because it is there, or whether in this, 
 as in the case of other spontaneous emotions or desires (including 
 the spontaneous impulses of Affection and Benevolence), we ought 
 to regulate passion by Reason, to act for an end, i. e. for the pro- 
 motion in ourselves and others of whatever we take to be the 
 ideal kind of human life. How the existence of an instinctive 
 resentment against personal wrong, or in good men against 
 wrong to others or moral depravity, can suspend the one all- 
 comprehensive duty of love to all men (including, of course, our- 
 selves) is a question which will, perhaps, offer no difficulties 
 to those philosophical Moralists whose ethical system seems to 
 consist in the mixture of a little truculent Theology borrowed 
 from primitive Judaism with a good deal of pure paganism ; but 
 wMch must, I think, be an embarrassing one to those Retribu- 
 tionists who profess any sympathy with Christian standards 
 of Ethics. The most Christian of mediaeval thinkers (e. g. Dante 
 
 RASHDALr. 1 ^ 
 
3o6 PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I 
 
 or Wycliffe ^) always maintained that God's punishments were, 
 and man's should be, the expression of love. And this remark 
 suggests another of the difficulties involved in the retributive 
 theory — the difficulty of reconciling it with that side of the 
 moral ideal which is expressed by the word Mercy or Forgive- 
 ness. 
 
 IV 
 
 It is one of the great embarrassments of the retributive 
 theory that it is unable to give any consistent account of the 
 duty of forgiveness and its relations to the duty of punishment. 
 It is seldom that one finds anybody so logical as to maintain 
 that it is always a duty to punish, and never right to forgive, at 
 least till the wrong-doing has been expiated by punishment, — 
 a theory which runs counter to a strongly felt and widely diffused 
 ethical sentiment and which makes the Berenger law or our 
 own First Offenders' Act a piece of immoral legislation. Others 
 seem to have no answer to the difficulty but the admission : 
 ' Here are two inconsistent moral precepts : it is a duty to 
 punish and a duty to forgive : it is impossible to lay down any 
 general principle in the matter : you must do whatever strikes 
 you as best in each case as it arises.' Such an answer may satisfy 
 those who think that Morality consists simply in a collection 
 of isolated impulses, intuitions, or particular judgements, which 
 Reason is incapable of reducing to any consistent or intelligible 
 whole. It will hardly satisfy those who believe that our ethical 
 judgements can be reduced to a system, and that the emergence 
 of apparent ethical antinomies simply shows that we have not yet 
 succeeded in getting to a really fundamental ethical principle. 
 The absence of internal contradiction, though by itself it will 
 supply no adequate content for the Moral Law, we may surely 
 venture (with Kant) to regard as a necessary condition of any 
 law which can really claim to be moral. If the duty of punish- 
 ment is to rest upon an a priori deliverance of the moral 
 consciousness which pronounces that, be the consequences what 
 they may, sin must be punished, it is difficult to see how forgive- 
 ness can ever be lawful. If punishment is sometimes right and 
 sometimes wrong, on what principle are we to distinguish between 
 ' Dante in the Purgatorio : Wycliffe even as regards Hell. 
 
Chap, ix, § iv] FORGIVENESS 307 
 
 the two classes of cases ? That is the problem to which, as it 
 appears to me, no intelligible answer can be given on the retribu- 
 tive theory, but which is not insusceptible of a solution on the 
 basis of the teleological or educative view. 
 
 Among the very few moral philosophers who have bestowed 
 any serious attention upon this question of forgiveness is Bishop 
 Butler. By him the duty of forgiveness is resolved into the 
 duty of being ' aflFected towards the injurious person in the same 
 way in which any good men, uninterested in the case, would be ; if 
 they had the same just sense, which we have supposed the injured 
 person to have, of the fault : after which there will yet remain 
 real good-will towards the offender \' The duty amounts to 
 this : ' that we should suppress that partial, that false self-love, 
 which is the weakness of our nature ; that uneasiness and misery 
 should not be produced, without any good purpose to be served 
 by it: and that we should not be affected towards persons 
 differently from what their nature and character require.' 
 ' Resentment,' he says again, ' is not inconsistent with good- will ; 
 for we often see both together in very high degrees ; not only in 
 parents towards their children, but in cases of friendship and 
 dependance, where there is no natural relation. These contrary 
 passions, though they may lessen, do not necessarily destroy 
 each other.' 
 
 The duty of resentment and the duty of forgiveness are thus 
 reduced to particular applications of the general law of promoting 
 social Well-being. It is our duty to make our own personal 
 resentment subordinate to the general good of society, just as 
 it is a duty to subordinate goodwill towards individuals to the 
 interests of other individuals. In determining whether we should 
 resent or punish an injury (to ourselves or to others) or whether 
 we should forgive, we should simply consider what is best for 
 the interests alike of the individual himself and of society at 
 large, the offender's good and the injured person's interest alike 
 being assigned its due, and no more than its due, importance. 
 The distribution (so to speak) of punishment and of forgiveness 
 will alike be guided by the general principle of Benevolence 
 or goodwill to society in general, the duty of promoting the 
 
 ' Sermon IX. 
 
3o8 PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I 
 
 greatest good on the whole, — guided and controlled by the prin- 
 ciple of ' Equity,' in the sense which has already been defined. 
 
 It may also be observed incidentally that on this view of the 
 duty of forgiveness as simply a particular manifestation of 
 the general duty of love, we are able to clear up an ambiguity 
 about the meaning of forgiveness which often occasions some 
 difficulty in discussions of this kind. We are often told that 
 forgiveness is not inconsistent with punishment ; that we may 
 punish first and forgive afterwards, at least where punishment 
 is a duty arising out of some public function or parental relation 
 and not a mere gratification by legal or extra-legal means of 
 resentment against private wrong. And this is quite true as far 
 as it goes ; forgiveness may mean simply the cessation of personal 
 resentment after the exaction of whatever penalty may be 
 demanded by considerations of social Well-being and public duty. 
 But, although in practice the adoption of this attitude may no 
 doubt be easier in the public official than in the private person, 
 it is impossible to draw a hard and fast line between punishment 
 inflicted by the official in the discharge of public duty and the 
 resentment exhibited by the private person, or between the 
 vengeance which takes the form of legal prosecution and that 
 which shows itself in private remonstrance or the refusal of 
 social intercourse. Even legal punishment generally requires 
 private initiation, and the same considerations of social Well- 
 being which require legal punishment in some cases require private 
 resentment in others. It would be to the last degree disastrous 
 to the Well-being of any society whatever if individuals altogether 
 ceased to show anger or to express resentment at personal rude- 
 ness or personal liberties or general want of respect for one 
 another's personalities; and from the nature of the case it is 
 usually the injured party who must take the initiative in such 
 resentment, though it may be that the ideal society would save 
 him such a necessity by anticipating the resentment, — an ideal 
 which is already approximately realized in groups of people 
 among whom good breeding is combined with that real good 
 feeling of which good breeding is at its best the expression and 
 at its worst the caricature. 
 
 All this shows that we cannot attain to the ideal combination 
 
Chap, ix, § iv] FORGIVENESS AND PUNISHMENT 309 
 
 of punishment with forgiveness by merely laying it down that 
 the magistrate must punish while the man must forgive. Nor, 
 again, can we merely say that the duty o^ forgiveness begins 
 when the due punishment has been exacted. For what will 
 forgiveness mean in this case 1 Are we to say that when the 
 formal sentence has been served, it is the duty of the judge or of 
 society generally to treat the criminal with the same cordiality 
 with which we should have received him had he never offended ? 
 Undoubtedly society does not give its repentant criminals the 
 fair chance that they may reasonably claim, but to say that we 
 must treat them as though they had never done wrong, or that 
 former convictions should not aggravate the sentence, is surely 
 to demand what is impracticable and pernicious. Nor in private 
 relations can we always be called upon to treat the man who has 
 betrayed our trust — even after repentance or apology — as though 
 he had not betrayed it ; nor can a friend, after a quarrel which 
 has revealed in him a character which we had not suspected, 
 ever again be a friend in the same sense or degree as before, even 
 after the most ample repentance or apology. Without, there- 
 fore, denying that there is a sense in which forgiveness may be 
 combined with punishment, it is impossible to find for that 
 forgiveness which is compatible with punishment a meaning 
 more definite than this — that punishment should not exclude 
 whatever kind of goodwill can in the circumstances be 
 properly combined with punishment. And that surely is some- 
 thing far too indefinite to satisfy the idea of forgiveness in its 
 full and ordinary sense. It is impossible, in short, to get rid of 
 the popular association of the idea of forgiveness with remission 
 of penalty. 
 
 There is, then, a sense in which forgiveness is opposed to 
 punishment. On the view that I have taken it will sometimes 
 be a duty to punish and sometimes to forgive. In determining 
 which we shall do in each particular case, the good man— 
 whether the private individual or the public official, who is after 
 all only the representative of a society of individuals as much 
 bound by the law of love in their corporate as in their individual 
 capacity— will consider which, having regard to all the circum- 
 stances of the case, will best serve those social ends to which 
 
310 PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I 
 
 punishment and forgiveness alike are means. The ideal punish- 
 ment would no doubt be one which was the best alike in the 
 interests of society and of the individual. Under our present 
 system of legal punishment it is to be feared that this is an ideal 
 not very often attained. A man has often to be punished in 
 the interest of society whose own Well-being would be best pro- 
 moted by forgiveness. In such a case we have to balance the 
 interest of society against the interest of the individual, or rather 
 perhaps what the society gains by the moral improvement 
 of the particular individual against what it gains from the 
 deterrent and educative effect of the punishment upon other 
 individuals. 
 
 And upon this view of the relation of punishment to forgive- 
 ness, there is no absolute antagonism between that sense of 
 forgiveness in which it is opposed to punishment and that sense 
 in which it is compatible with punishment. Just the same con- 
 siderations which impose the duty of punishment will limit the 
 measure of it ; just those same considerations which allow of the 
 total remission of penalty in some cases will allow of some miti- 
 gation of it in other cases, and will impose in all cases the duty 
 of showing whatever Benevolence and goodwill towards the 
 offender is compatible with that measure of punishment which 
 social duty demands. Punishment and forgiveness, when they are 
 what they ought to be, being alike the expression of love, the 
 mode and degree of their combination will likewise be only 
 the application of the general precept of love to the circumstances 
 of the particular case. 
 
 In the main, then, we may accept Bishop Butler's interpre- 
 tation of the proper relation between punishment and forgive- 
 ness, and yet we cannot but feel that something is missed 
 in this cool and calculating utilitarian analysis. We feel that 
 there must be something more in forgiveness than the mere 
 limitation of vengeance by the demands of public welfare. 
 Seeley, in one of the best chapters of Ecce Homo, helps us 
 to supply the deficiency^. It is true that in its essence the 
 duty of forgiveness is the duty of laying aside private or 
 
 ' Ecce Homo, chap. xxii. Von Hartmann has also recognized this justifica- 
 tion of forgiveness (Das sittl. Beumsstsein, p. 178), 
 
Chap, ix, §iv] DIVINE PUNISHMENT 311 
 
 personal resentment, — of resenting the wrong because it ia a 
 wrong and not because I am the victim of it. But what 
 Bishop Butler has missed is the fact that vengeance often 
 loses its moral eflfect just because the avenger of the wrong 
 is its victim, while forgiveness often touches the heart just 
 because the forgiver is the man who suffered by the wrong, — 
 and therefore the man in whom it is hardest to forgive. The 
 wronged man's forgiveness will often have a moral effect, awaken 
 a gratitude and a penitence, which the forgiveness of the dis- 
 interested spectator or the remotely interested ' society ' would 
 not secure. It is perfectly true, as Butler taught, that forgive- 
 ness is only a particular case of love ; but he forgot that to 
 a human being who has wronged his fellow, forgiveness is an 
 infinitely more convincing proof of love than punishment can 
 ever be, and may, therefore, touch the heart as punishment will 
 seldom touch it. In the light of this principle nothing that has 
 been said as to the duty of balancing the good effects of forgive- 
 ness against the good effects of punishment need be recalled ; 
 only, in choosing between them, this peculiar magic of the 
 wronged person's forgiveness must needs be duly remembered. 
 
 In conclusion, I may remark that all these considerations are 
 as much applicable to any punishments which Theists may 
 expect as the consequence of sin in another world as to the 
 clumsy attempts at ideal Justice with which we are obliged 
 to be satisfied in the school or the criminal court. Now as 
 in the days of Plato it is a paramount duty of Moral Philosophy 
 to lay down Canons for Theology (tvttovs irept deo\oyias). It need 
 hardly be pointed out that the acceptance of our principles about 
 Punishment will involve a considerable amendment of popular 
 ideas about what we shall still do well to think of as divine 
 punishment, while we recognize the inadequacy of such a meta- 
 phor or symbol of God's dealing with human souls. Few 
 Theologians of the present day will be bold enough to follow 
 Abelard in defence of everlasting punishment as being justified 
 by the example and warning which the fate of the wicked 
 supplies to the rest of humanity. And the acceptance of the 
 principles here laid down about forgiveness may involve a no 
 less complete reconstitution of many popular schemes concerning 
 
3ia PUNISHMENT AND FORGIVENESS [Book I 
 
 divine forgiveness and atonement. The idea of vicarious suifer- 
 ing has nothing immoral about it ; under the conditions of human 
 life love can hardly be manifested in its highest degree without 
 it. It is otherwise with the idea of vicarious punishment. Even 
 on the retributive view of punishment, the idea of substituted 
 vicarious punishment would never for a moment be defended by 
 a modem Christian except with a view to bolster up an obsolete 
 theological tradition — still less so on the view of punishment 
 adopted in these pages. On the other hand the idea that the 
 nature of God has received its fullest revelation in a self- 
 sacrificing life and death is one against which the Moralist 
 can have nothing to say. 
 
 Oxford : Printed at the Clarendon Press by Horace Habt, M.A. 
 
FRAGILE ^u£S NOT 
 CIRCULATE 
 
 PHASED 
 DETERIORATION