757/ CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Date Due m i 1952 '**-*«***-- 7i t F /Of w ffrnng^gH ^v MR 2 1857 1 1 iiuJ — tas o B ft //77 4 C "fJEL / woo M ^ 2G19 G! » Jg; Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029045479 A MODERN UTILITARIANISM. MODERN UTILITARIANISM, OR THE SYSTEMS OF PALEY, BENTHAM, AND MILL EXAMINED AND COMPARED. THOMAS RAWSON BIRKS, KNIGHTBBIDGE PKOFESSOE OF MOBAL PHILOSOPHY. HonKon : MACMILLAN AND CO. 1874. UK 1 IV; :■ [All Rights reserved.] 'UNIVLkSITY! CamfitiBge: PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. PREFACE. The present volume contains the main part of a course of Lectures, in the October Term of last year, on Modern Utilitarianism. The subject is viewed historically, in connection with the views of Paley and Bentham, the criticisms of Mr Mill on those writers, and the state- ments and explanations of his own treatise. Several topics, however, included in that course, have been omit- ted, partly that the work might not swell to an incon- venient size; but also because they seemed to require a fuller treatment than could be given in the bounds of a single lecture, or one less controversial in form than those in this volume have inevitably assumed. Various engagements, while preparing this work for the press, have hindered the treatment of the subject from being so complete and full as I should have desired it to be. But I trust that those who read with a view to gain a clearer apprehension of the truth on questions VI PREFACE. of high importance will find some real help in the present as well as in the previous work. I commend theni both to the blessing of Him, who is the Lights- of the world, the only Source and Fountain of all true wisdom. Cambeidqe, 28, 1874. CONTENTS. PAGE Introduction ... . . 1 LECTURE I. The Systems of Paley, Bentham, and Mill 18 LECTURE II. Mill's Critique on Paley examined ... 48 LECTURE III. Mill's Critique on Paley— Examination continued . 76 LECTURE IV. Mill's Review of Bentham .... . 107 LECTURE V. Bentham and the Ascetic Principle .... 139 LECTURE VI. The Principle of Sympathy and Antipathy 164 Vlli CONTENTS. LECTURE VII. PAGE On Moral Inquiry and Christian Faith . • 179 LECTURE VIII. Mr Mill's Proof of Utilitarianism . . . . .194 LECTURE IX. The true Definition of Utilitarianism 211 LECTURE X. Pleasure, Happiness, and Well-being 223 Conclusion . 236 MODEEN UTILITAEIANISM. HISTOEICAL INTRODUCTION. Casuistry, the second subject of the Knightbridge Professorship, requires, I conceive, in the present day some latitude of interpretation. It seems the least de- parture from its historical and proper sense to under- stand it as equivalent with Controversial Ethics. It will thus form a natural transition from Moral Philosophy to the kindred and still higher subject of Moral Theology. It is only through conflict with plausible errors that we can hope to emerge from the low valleys, and climb the mountain sides of truth. In entering on a subject so wide and various, my course seems almost defined by the labours of my pre- decessors, who have given a Review of English philosophers from Hobbes to Bentham and Coleridge, and a History of Moral Philosophy from the early times of Greece to the present century. It is natural for me to avoid ground they have so lately traversed, and to begin with the ethical controversy, of which Cambridge and Westminster have been the two immediate centres during the last eighty or ninety years. B. L. II. 1 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. Two different forms of utilitarian morality , those ofj) Paley and Benth am. ra n sid e by si de for half a century,; hardly mingling their stream s. The first had Cambridge for its birthplace and principal home, the other certain exclusive circles in the metropolis, who founded an organ of their principles, towards the close of the period, in the Westminster Review. But forty years ago, at the death of Bentham, a new era of ethical thought and con- flict began. Cambridge shook off its torpor, and its passive acceptance of Paley's authority, and awoke to a wider range of ethical study once more. The Discourse of Professor Sedgwick on the Studies of the University led the way. It was followed soon by the revival of this Professorship, and the successive lectures and writings of Dr Whewell and Professors Grote and Maurice. Abouj the same time Mr Mill, succeeding to his father and M? Bentham^ assumed the c hampion ship of their generafj theory. The doctrine^JiowOTer^jnhisJmndSj underwentja gradual change int o a less ex clusi ve and arro gant, a more com"prehe nsive~an d catholic form. Betaining utility, or the ^ctnr^^oT^consequences. for the grand foundation, he protessed to combine it with Stoic and even Christia| elements. The posthumous Examination, by Prof. Grote, of Mr Mill's latest utterances on ethical philosophy, is a model of candid and thoughtful controversy, and seeni to bring this forty years' conflict to a worthy close. Cambridge, within seven years, has mourned the los of all these four eminent writers, to whom the revivl in its bosom of moral and mental studies is chiefly dua The oldest, and the earliest in the field, Prof. Sedgwic^ has been the latest survivor, and has been removed veg lately in a ripe old age, full of years and of honou| Within a few months the champion of the rival systi HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. highly admired by his own disciples, has followed him to the tomb. The time seems, then, most suitable for a re- view of the whole controversy, and an attempt to derive some definite conclusions, . if possible, from the latest phase in the eager and earnest conflict of thought in this "eternal battlefield." My present object is to compare and examine the views of Paley, Bentham and Mill, the three leaders of modern utilitarianism. The teaching of recent Cambridge moralists, especially Prof. Sedgwick and Dr Whewell, will then require, in another course, a similar examination. The philosophy of Locke, based on sensation, already "prevailed at Cambridge in the middle of last century. As a natural consequence, the views of Clarke and More, of Cudworth, Shaftesbury, Butler, and Huteheson, were displaced by the rival creed, taught by Gay, Rutherford, Brown and others, and which resolves all virtue into far- seeing prudence. But Paley and Bentham are the two names most closely linked with this utilitarian theory at the close of the last, and in the earlier part of the present century. Their personal history has several points of close re- semblance. Paley was bom in 1743, and Bentham in 1748, only five years later. At fifteen Paley entered Christ's College, Cambridge, and Bentham became a student of Queen's, Oxford, at the same age. At twenty Paley became senior wrangler, and took a bachelor's degree. Bentham gained no similar distinction, but took his master's degree in 1768 at the same early age. His last visit to Oxford was in that year, while still a minor, to vote in the election of a member for the university. He then met with a pamphlet of Dr Priestley, in which L ' f the great^hjp^iness of the greates t number," was laid ■s^A— - 1 _ 2 4 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. do wn as the only reasonable basis of all good govern- ment^ It was this book and this phrase, he says, which] decided his principles in the matter of public and private] morals. Three years earlier, in 1765, Paley had gained thej university prize for the best dissertation in Latin Prosed His subject was a comparison of the Epicurean and Stoie| philosophies in their influence on the morals of the people, and he espoused strongly the Epicurean side. Next year he was elected fellow of his college. He returned into residence, became college tutor, and soon after began to lecture on metaphysics and morals. He left Cambridge in 1775. His first publication, the treatise on Moral and Political Philosophy, appeared in 1786, but its substance had been given in his college lectures from ten to twenty years before. The Horod Paulinos appeared in 1790, the ■Evidences in 1794, and the Natural Theology, his latest] work of importance, in 1802. He died three years latei»j in 1805, at the age of sixty-two years. The fragment, On Government, Bentham's first publica- tion, appeared in 1776. It was an attack on Blackstone's ■Commentaries, and the doctrine of social contract, marked 1 by strength of invective and a vigorous style. But his?] first main work on jurisprudence, including ethics, was the Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legisla- tion. It appeared in 1789, the year of the French KeTO lution, just three years after Paley's no less celebrate! work. It is still, perhaps, the best known and most in> portant of his writings. The rest appeared after Paley's death, whom he outlived twenty-seven years. In 1810 he published The Chrestomathy, in 1817 his Table of thei Springs of Action, and in 1822 his Project of Codification, where he first makes large use of Dr Priestley's phrase^ 'i HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 5 Still later he replaced it, by what he thought still bet- ter, " the greatest happiness on the whole." He died in 1832 at the age of eighty-four years. The Deontology is his only work on Ethics proper, as distinct from Juris- prudence. It was compiled by Dr, Bowring, his executor and fond admirer, from materials which Bentham had supplied him for the purpose, partly in his lifetime, but was only completed and published soon after his death. Utilitarianism, in Paley, had formed an alliance with Christian Theology, though a theology of rather a meagre and barren kind. In Bentham it was joined with the study of Jurisprudence, a thorough dislike of creeds and establishments, and the vehement advocacy of radical reform. In the wards of Mr Mill, his early disciple, he is "the great subversive thinker of his age and country," a merit which many will think to be at least of a very equivocal kind. The circles of thought influenced by the two writers were widely different. The effect of Paley 's work was much wider, but less ab- sorbing and exclusive. It leavened for many years the habits of thought of a very large number both of the clergy and educated laity of England, till rival influ- ences asserted their superior strength. But Bentham lived on, and wrote on, amidst a small, but strongly sym- pathizing cirele of sceptical philosophers, advanced re- formers, and legal students. His works, much neglected at home, but improved by Dumont in their French ver- sion, found warm admirers and disciples among those who claimed to be men of progress in France, America, and other foreign lands. Sir James Mackintosh has given a striking description of the strength and weakness of his influence, and the character of the disciples who clustered around him in his later years. And though the elder HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. Mr Mill has denounced it, almost with fierce invective,j there can be little doubt of its substantial truth. "The disciples of Mr Bentham are more like the, hearers of an Athenian philosopher, than the pupils ofj a modern professor, or the cool proselytes of a modern 5 writer.... As they deserve the credit of braving vulgar pre- judices, so they must be content to bear the imputation! of falling into the neighbouring vice of seeking distinctionj by singularity, and of considering themselves a chosen few, whom initiation into the most secret mysteries of philosophy entitles to look down with pity, if not con- tempt, on the profane multitude.... A hermit in the greatest! of cities, seeing only his disciples, and indignant that that system of government and law, which he believes to be perfect, are disregarded by the many and the powerful, Mr Bentham has been betrayed into the most unphiloso-| phical hypothesis, that all the ruling bodies, who guide the community, have conspired to stifle and defeat his discoveries. He is too little acquainted with doubts, to believe the honest' doubts of others, and too angry to make allowance for their prejudices and habits. To the unpopularity of his philosophical and political doctrines he has added the obloquy which arises from an unseemhj| treatment of doctrines and principles, which even a regard to the feelings of the best men requires to be approached with decorum and respect. Both he and his followers have treated morals too juridically. They do not seem to be aware that there is an essential difference in the subjects of the two sciences." The Deontology is Bentham's only work, which treats of Ethics proper, in contrast to Jurisprudence. All the defects of his tone of thought, disguised elsewhere by his partial merit as a jurist, stand out here in bold relief; HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. It is not surprising that Mr Mill should strive to free the teacher he admires from the discredit of closing the lahours of a life by such a work, even at the price of doing violence to facts which are evident. Its exact ar- rangement may be due to the editor, Bentham's chosen executor, but the substance is plainly his own. It is his parting legacy, to replace what he styles the nonsense of Plato and Aristotle in the esteem and reverence of the coming generations of mankind. It was in the year of Bentham's death that Cambridge began to shake off its lethargy on moral subjects, and a new era in its culture of ethical science began. Several things had prepared the change. The acceptance of Paley's work was due partly to his academical reputation, and the charm and clearness of his style, but also to the fact that moral studies held a very secondary place in the actual system of the university. Its exclusive dominance had been thus more apparent than real. No sooner was it taken for a text-book, than several voices of Cambridge men, Gisborne, Pearson, and Robert Hall, were raised against its utilitarian teaching. The Evangelical move- ment, which gave to the church from Cambridge such names as Wilberforce, Simeon, Henry Martyn, Milner, and Farish, was a powerful counteraction to the chilling and selfish aspect of Paley's theory. The writings of "Words- worth and Coleridge were another strong influence in the same direction. Both were Cambridge men, and when they rose slowly to wide celebrity, the richer and deeper type of thought in their poems or philosophical frag-- ments could not fail to leaven the rising talent of the university to which they both belonged. In 1818 Cole-> ridge republished the Friend, where a separate essay con- tains a review and confutation of Paley's doctrine df HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. s general consequences as being the only guide in morals. About 1832 be visited Cambridge after a long absence. Admiring listeners gathered round him, and the richness! and fluency of his discourse on high themes of philosophy and faith would deepen and confirm the influence his.- writings had gradually secured. And no mind, which had,: welcomed and admired the noble thoughts in Wordsworth's-; Laodamia, could remain in full sympathy with Paley'sj ethics, or see a grand discovery in Bentham's tedious and.' vague arithmetical problems on the summation of miscel- laneous "lots" of pains and pleasures. The first open sign of a new era of Cambridge thought : was given in Prof Sedgwick's well-known Discourse. It| spoke, as with a trumpet's voice,. to the students of thai university, while it urged them to take a lofty view of their true vocation, and moral responsibility It contained some J just and forcible strictures on the defects of Locke's philoso- 5 phy, and a strong protest against utilitarian ethics, and the faults of Paley's work. It was delivered in Trinity Chapel, December, 1832, the year of Bentham's death, but pub- 2 lished almost a year later. In the interval appeared the! first of Dr Whewell's many philosophical treatises, Astro-J nomy and General Physics considered with reference to Natural Theology. Archdeacon Hare, then also a tutor! of Trinity, took an active share in the same general move- ■ merit In July, 1835, Dr Whewell published a long pre-J face to Sir J. Mackintosh's Dissertation on the Progress of Moral and Mental Philosophy, when it was reprinted in a separate form, and defended it from the severe and cynical criticism which the elder Mill had written upon it shortly! before. The views of Bentham as well as Paley are there! discussed at some length. In November, 1837, he preached* four sermons before the university on the Foundation off , HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 9 Morals, and dedicated them, to his colleague, Archdeacon Hare. He there gave his opinion that "the evils which arose from the countenance given to Paley's system," hy its almost exclusive adoption as a moral text-book, were so great as to make it desirable " to withdraw our sanction from his doctrines without further delay." In June, 1838, he accepted the Knightbridge Pro- fessorship. Early in the next year he gave a course of Lectures on- the English Moralists, from Hobbes to Paley. In 1845 he published Elements of Morality, a systematic. treatise on the principles and outlines of moral duty. In 1846 there followed Six Lectures on Systematic Mo- rality. In 1855, on resigning the office, he was succeeded by Prof. Grote, also opposed to the purely utilitarian creed. But while occupied largely with other works on philo- sophy, the History of the Inductive Sciences, Scientific. Ideas, Novum Organon Itenovatum, and the Philosophy, of Discovery, Indications of the Creator, and the Plurality of Worlds, his ethical labours did not cease till near his death. His Platonic Dialogues reached a second edition in 1860, and his Lectures, with others added on Plato, Aristotle, St Augustine, Clark, and Coleridge, in 1862. Finally, in 1864, he published a fourth edition of the Elements, with a supplement in reply to Mr Mill's Review, twelve years earlier, and various other criticisms. But while the utilitarianism of Paley was thus dis- placed and set aside at Cambridge, which had been its birthplace and nursery, the controversy only passed into a new phase. The rival form of the main doctrine, that of Bentham, rose like a phoenix from the funeral pile of the Deontology, and found in Mr Mill a new champion, of great zeal and growing reputation. The two schools of ethical thought at Cambridge . and Westminster, those IO HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. of Paley reversed, and Bentham recast and modified, came henceforth into direct and frequent collision. Mr Mill assailed Prof. Sedgwick's Discourse very contemptuously, soon after it appeared, in the Westminster Review. The youthful critic had not yet escaped from the mischievous contagion of Bentham's habitual arrogance towards all who crossed his favourite theories, or disputed his oracular decisions. Illusion could scarcely go further than in the closing paragraph, where he asserts that the moralists he. opposes had hitherto reserved a monopoly of high preten- sion to themselves. But the unseemly tone of this early review disappears happily, with growing experience, in Mr Mill's latest works. Only three months after this re- view appeared, Dr Whewell, in his Preface to Mackintosh, I remarked on some of its statements, that they implied a real, though unconscious approach, to the principles* of that rival school of ethics which it condemned. This suspicion was confirmed by the later review of Bentham, in August 1838, six years after his death. Excessive praise,! it is true, is still heaped upon him, and he is called one of the two great " seminal minds of his age." But there j is mingled with this eulogy no small amount of dissent and partial blame. As a subversive thinker, a radical reformer, and a jurist, he is extolled almost to the skies.; But as a scholar, in his treatment of the old philosophers! and as a moralist, and student of human life and thoughtj a very inferior and secondary place is justly assigned him j He is styled a half thinker, who could see far and clearly between two narrow walls, but who needed to be followed in the same track by "complete thinkers," who could look widely on every side. Such a complete thinker Mr Mill was plainly aspiring to become; who should remedy the conspicuous faults of Bentham's bare and HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. II naked theories, and enrich the utilitarian creed with ele- ments derived from wider experiences of human life and character, and more fertile schools of thought. In his review of Coleridge, March, 1840, he recognises largely the merits and ability of a writer, whose views in politics, morals, and religion, were widely different from his own, and almost directly opposed to them. There was here a fresh sign that utilitarianism, in his hands, was entering on a new phase, and undergoing a change, by which it might be transfigured into a more eclectic and compre- hensive form of ethical theory. In October, 1852, a oriticism on DrWhewell's Lectures and Elements, sixty pages in length, and rather contemp- tuous in style, was published by Mr Mill in the London and Westminster Review. At the outset a heavy censure was aimed against the universities for their vowed adherence to opinions formulated for them three centuries before. On this ground they are pronounced incompetent to deal freely and fairly with ethical questions, or to depart from a fixed and stereotyped line of thought. It seems to be assumed that men are so mercenary by nature, as to be incapable of following sincerely after truth, so long as their con- victions involve social consequences of any kind whatever. The cfeeds and formularies of the Church of England are also pronounced, with a kind of oracular decision, to be prodigiously in arrear of the progress of thought, as that elastic phrase was understood in the circle to which the critic belonged. The same charge is transferred to Dr Whewell himself at the close of the review. He has made no improvement, it is said, on the old moral doc- trines. He has done still worse, and striven to set up anew several of them, which had been loosened or thrown down by the stream of human progress. One of these 12 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. newly exploded doctrines, in Mr Mill's view, is found in the statement that "reverence for superiors is a duty," with the added remark, that it is "part of the natural feelings of a good man, and a necessary condition of the duties of obedience." The other statement, equally con- demned, as " out of season judged, and singular, and rash," is that "men are blameable in disbelieving truths after they are promulgated, though they may be ignorant with- out blame before their promulgation." Now both of these doctrines, thus condemned to oblivion in the review, form plainly an integral part of the teaching of Christ and His Apostles. The conclusion, then, must be plain to any Christian mind. A progress, in which they are loosened and thrown aside, cannot be upward into clearer light, but must be downward into some cave of shadows, a region of social anarchy and irreligious darkness. In the close of 1861 Mr Mill contributed three articles to Fraser's Magazine, which were soon after published in a separate work, as an explanation and defence of Utili- tarianism. His divergence from the teaching of Bentham is here very manifest, and almost amounts to a surrender of the main position he professes to defend. Several dis- tinctive features of the earlier creed are openly renounced, or silently abandoned; and the attempt is made to com- bine the doctrine with materials drawn from rival schools of ethics, so as to reconcile it with the facts of conscience, and some reasonable regard to the accumulated and in- herited experience of mankind. Still later, in 1864, Dr Whewell replied, by an Appendix to a fourth edition of the Elements of Morality, to the strictures of Mr Mill, twelve years previous, iu his earlier review. A posthumous Examination, by Prof. Grote, of Mr Mill's Utilitarianism, appeared in 1870, and is like a closing act in this long- HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 1 3 continued controversy, which began with the appearance of Prof. Sedgwick's Discourse, forty years ago. There is a striking contrast between its beginning and its close. That brief Discourse was marked by eloquence and fer- vour, high and noble instincts, vivacity and brilliance of thought, but verges, in part, on the looseness which often attends strong feeling and impassioned declamation. The .Examination is conspicuous for searching analysis, com- prehensiveness, and candour, and bears more resem- blance, as composed shortly before the author's death, to the calm and quiet beauty of a sunset sky. The first attempts to cut boldly through the knots of ethical con- troversy with a keen and polished blade, like Excalibar, that sparkles and flashes in the sunlight. The last seeks to untie them patiently, and thus to retain unbroken and uninjured, with a cautious and gentle hand, the whole tangled and complex skein of rival moral principles, and apparently conflicting ethical theories. It is not easy to sum up, and state impartially in few words, the present issue of these debates, which have lasted for a whole generation, and in which Mr Mill_ has taken the leading part on the one side, though with many able allies, and four eminent Cambridge names, of high and varied gifts, have been foremost on the other. The works of Mr Mill on other subjects have gained him a high reputation; and at his decease, in the view of his warm admirers, the greatest of recent English philosophers passed away. The width of his present influence is owned, even by those who view it, on the whole, as a cause for regret and sorrow. His Autobiography has placed in clear relief what nearly all discerning and intelligent readers must have suspected before, that his sensationalism in meta- physics, and utilitarianism in ethics, were really connected 14 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. : with an early formed and deep-seated antipathy to all thei ) distinctive features of the Christian faith. It is well that the veil should at length be withdrawn. It is no sign of that heroism, the want of which in Paley he has condemned with extreme severity, that it should have been permitted 1 to rest upon his true opinions on these subjects so long. » But his own turn to undergo a searching examination, like that to which he has submitted the views of Sir W. Hamilton, has scarcely begun. Meanwhile the Editor of : Prof. Grote's Examination, Dr M'Cosh in his Eaximinatiori/j of Mr Mill's Metaphysics, and Mr Leckie in his History J; of European Morals, all opponents of the system he ad-'.' vocates, confess the fact of its popularity; and speak of " the reigning ethics of utilitarianism," as a creed which has a firm hold on the rising thought of our country and our universities, and a wide influence throughout England at the present hour. But however wide its prevalence, or plausible and attractive some of the forms it may have assumed, there are many signs that writers of a higher mood, from Plato down to the earlier and the more recent Cambridge moralists, have not spoken or written in vain. The changes, which Mr Mill has introduced into the doctrine! he inherited from his father and Mr Bentham, bear witness to the secret power of the antagonists he affected almost to despise. He has been a true Parthian in ethical con- troversy. He shoots keen arrows, but retreats, while they" are discharged, to some new and safer position. A galaxy of intelligent writers, very diverse in their other' views, and independent in their styles of thought, still raise their voices unitedly against the utilitarian theory,! even when it has undergone its latest process of revision #nd attempted improvement. Dr M'Cosh, Dr Calderwoodj HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 15 and Mr Morell, in their more solid works, Mr Shairp, in his ethical essays, Prof. Blackie and Mr Masson, in their Lectures at the Royal Institution, Mr Leckie, in his His- tory of European Morals, Mr Sterling, in his earnest advo- cacy of the Hegelian philosophy, Mr Laurie, in his review of Moral Theories, and Mr Thornton, in his Old-fashioned Ethics and Common Sense Metaphysics, all agree in their opposition to the purely Utilitarian or Apobatic Theory of Morals. The last of them adopts in his Preface the striking words of Carlyle, whose utterances, however vague, and ill suited to build up any outline of fixed and certain truth, have always been full and clear against mechanical views of human nature, and the enthronement of momentary pleasures, however increased by summa- tion, as the supreme good. He speaks as follows. " Has the word Duty no meaning 1 Is what we call Duty no divine messenger and guide, but a false earthly phantasm, made up of Desire and Fear ? In that Logic- mill of thine, hast thou an earthly mechanism for the godlike itself, and for grinding out Virtue from the husks of Pleasure ? I tell thee, Nay ! Otherwise not on Mo- rality but on Cookery let us build our stronghold. There, brandishing our fryingpan as a censer, let us offer up, sweet incense to the devil, and live at will in the fat things he has provided for his elect; seeing that with stupidity and a good digestion a man may front much.... Or is there no God ? or at best an absentee God, sitting idle since the first Sabbath, at the outside of His universe, and seeing it go \ Know that for men's being, whatever else be needed, Faith is the one thing needful." The object of the following Lectures is to examine and compare the three modern types of Utilitarianism, in Paley's Moral Philosophy, Bentham's Principles of 1 6 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. Morals, and Mr Mill's reviews and later treatises, and especially its third and latest form. Every system, I be- lieve, is theoretically unsound, and practically mischievous, which endeavours, by limited and fragmentary deductions, based on a brief experience of the transient results of actions in the present life, to replace the authority of con- science, and the revealed commands of God, and accepts such imperfect guesses as a solid basis, on which the whole building of Moral Science can safely rest. The improve- ments attempted by Mr Mill do not really touch the main and vital defect of the system to which he adheres. Their chief effect is to turn his moral teaching into what he styles, in his criticism on his northern rival, a set of "imperfect junctions.'' In spite of his high reputation, his undoubted ability, and the connectedness and con- tinuity of his various writings, I believe him to be, on almost every subject he handles, a misleading and unsafe guide; because he has turned away persistently from those highest and noblest truths, which are the mountain tops of the wide universe of thought, and on which all lower truths inseparably depend. His bold assertion in the opening of his review of Dr "Whewell's works may be safely and absolutely reversed. T he mo rality of Christ and His Apostles, and even its imperfect reflection in the creeds and formularies of the English Church, is no fatal clog, as he rashly affirms, on the ethical progress of our universities. It is prodigiously in advance, not in arrear, of the moral teaching of Bentham, Godwin, and Helvetius, writers whom he holds in especial honour, and in whose steps he strives to follow, so as to manufacture an ethical creed, free from the intrusion of religious faith. The old, familiar saying, "Duties are ours, events are God's," contains a truer and deeper wisdom HISTORICAL INTROD UCTION. I f than the most skilful process of arithmetic, under a merely utilitarian creed, can ever attain. And while prudent foresight is one of the moral virtues, and must hold an honourable place, though not the highest, in any com- plete scheme of ethical teaching, to trace all the conse- quences of any action, so as to settle thereby its moral cha- racter, to the exclusion of every other test, transcends the powers of the wisest philosopher, and even of superhuman intelligence ; because to see the end from the beginning, in all the width and grandeur of the real problem, must ever remain the exclusive attribute and prerogative of Omniscience alone. B. L. II. L- ■' LECTURE I. THE SYSTEMS OF PALEY, BENTHAM, AND MILL. Utilitarian Ethics, in modern times, have assumed three forms, differing greatly from each other. They are con- tained in Paley's Moral Philosophy, Bentham's Theory of Legislation and Deontology, and Mr Mill's Treatise and earlier reviews. To compare them with profit, it seems essential to define first of all the true place of utility and the doctrine of consequences in Moral Science. All actions of moral agents may be viewed in three aspects. The first refers them' to some rule, law, or standard of good and evil, of right and wrong, which goes before, and which is supposed to be fixed, either by the| Supreme Will, or by the essential nature of all created and intelligent being. The second compares them with \ the constitution of the human mind, and the emotions of the heart, as known and proved by general experience. The third considers their connection with the results and consequences that follow. The first is their objective,! intuitive, or supernal aspect ; the second subjective, in-' ductive, or internal ; and the third apobatic, derivative, and external. They answer nearly to the past, present, and future in time, and to the beginning, the middle, and the issue or close, in every course of action, human or! THE SYSTEMS OF PALEY, BENTHAM, AND MILL. 1 9 divine. In the first we gaze on fixed and eternal re- lations, like those of geometry, depending simply on the existence of the Creator, and the essential laws of intelli- gent being, actual or possible, living or unborn. In the second we trace the actual emotions of the human heart, its instincts and desires, discern the reality and supre- macy of conscience, and seek by induction to eliminate the misconceptions, errors, and discordancies, to which we find, by experience, that moral judgments and feelings are exposed. In the third we trace the results of different actions, or kinds and modes of action, and seek to decide on their moral character by the happiness or unhappi- ness, the personal and social mischiefs or benefits, to which they appear to lead. All these three elements need to be harmonized in a full and comprehensive scheme of morality. The first is the highest and noblest, on which the others de- pend. The second is its imperfect reflection in the in- dividual soul, modified by the positive constitution of human nature, and the diffracting influence of personal character and will. In a practical sense, however, it is the most immediate and direct ; and deals at once with those emotions of praise and blame, of self-approval or remorse, which are the common experience and inherit- ance of all mankind. Its weakness arises from the plain fact, that the moral emotions are often clouded and ob- scured by prejudice and passion, and suffer from local and temporary disturbances of various kinds, so as to consti- tute no fixed and sure rule for the guidance of human conduct. The third or apobatic element in moral truth is the most secondary and subordinate, when kept within the limits of personal experience and mere human fore- sight. It simply completes, by a prudential element of 2—2 20 THE SYSTEMS OF PALEY, better or worse, the grand, broad features and contrasts of moral right and -wrong. But when we include the whole scheme of Providence, and the prospect of a life to come, it becomes a vast moral superstructure, equal in extent and dignity to the foundation on which it is reared. For all virtue and excellence in the creature, as it proceeds from the Uncreated Goodness, must ever he tending, in its progress and aim, to lose itself in the abyss of that Infinite Perfection from which it is derived, and to which it seeks to return. //The consequences of all moral action admit of a three- fold division. They are either initial, medial, or final. Our conclusions may vary widely, as one or other of these are kept mainly in view. Initial consequences are those which depend immediately on the nature or tendency of the action in itself, when it is not deflected by some foreign influence. They depend wholly on the moral features of the act, are its natural corollaries, and when such features are denied, must logically perish and dis- appear. Medial consequences are those which depend! on all the complex variety of influences by which the agent is surrounded, the nature of human life, the characters and habits of his fellow-men, and the whole; moral atmosphere in which he lives. The ultimate are those which result from the great law of God's universal providence, by which evil is overruled for good, and a righteous judgment is exercised in the actions of all mankind. Thus, while initial consequences involve and imply the reality and permanence of moral distinctions, and the medial, within certain limits, and subject to higher laws of duty, are the proper field for the exercise of private prudence or legislative wisdom, the ultimate and final results travel far beyond the range of mere worldly BENTHAM, AND MILL. 21 prudence, and link themselves with the grandest and most impressive truths of Christian Theology. They speak to us plainly of a righteous judgment after death, and of a life to come; and point onward to the high truth, that the chief end of man, without which he attains only a maimed and imperfect being, is "to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever." ^ The doctrine of consequences, the basis of utilitarian theories, is o n this view not the whole of moral science, nor even its chief and highest portion. It deals really with one partial and limited division of one of these three main elements. It is a doctrine of worldly prudence alone. And this prudence is robbed of its chief and best materials, unless we first recognize in human actions an essential contrast of right and wrong, of good and evil, and also, as their result, vast diversities of truthfulness and falsehood, vice and virtue, holiness and unholinesg, selfishness and benevolence, in the conduct and character of our fellow-men. The moral system of Paley, apart from mere details, includes these j&ief elements j— an_ exclusion .of _rules_ w hich are false or inadequate, a description of that happi- ness which is the basis and motive power of the wh"oIe system, a definiti on of virtue , and of mor al obligation , a combination of the double rule of the will of God and utility by the doctrine of Divine benevolence, and an argument for the necessity and importance of general rules. Under the first head, four rules are mentioned, which are to be excluded as insufficient on various grounds. The first is the Law of Honour, defined as a system of rules constructed by people of fashion to help their inter- course with each other, and having no other purpose. 22 THE SYSTEMS OF PALEY, A rule so defined heeds little argument to prove its utter imperfection and deficiency as a safe moral guide. The, second is the Law pf the Land. But this omits many duties, which cannot be made proper subjects for com- pulsion, and leaves many evils unpunished, because theyi are hardly capable of legal definition, or even because the attempt to restrain them by law would produce greater evils. The third is the Scriptures. But these, Paley; argues, neither give, nor were intended to give, more than general principles, and cannot therefore supersede a science of morals, which may unfold these into their details, and give more specific directions than the Scriptures were meant to supply. The fourth is the Moral Sense, or moral instincts. On this subject he concludes that either : there exist no such instincts, or that they cannot now be distinguished from prejudices and habits, and therefore! cannot be safely depended upon in moral reasoning. By the exclusion of all these_ rules, as either false or insuf)P cient, we are shut up to acceptance of the one test of general utility alone. But if moral right or wrong can be tested only by the tendency to promote human happiness, it is needful to define, however imperfectly, that happiness which is the basis of the whole scheme. A conditio n is happy, ac cord- ' in g_ to PaJey.in which the amountoraggregate of pleasure ex ceeds that o f pain, and the degree of happiness depends on the quantity of t his excess. He disclaims " much usual declamation on the dignity and capacity of our nature, on the worthiness, refinement and delicacy of some satisfac* tions, or the meanness, grossness and sensuality of others! because he holds that pleasures differ in nothing but con- tinuance and intensity ; from a just computation of which .every question concerning human happiness must receive BENTHAM, AND MILL. ' 23 its decision. But he then proceeds to mitigate the bare- ness of this arithmetical creed by some general maxims, derived from the practical experience of life. Happiness, first, does not consist in the pleasures of sense, in whatever profusion- and variety, because they ar e of short continu- ance, and lose their relish by repetition, and the eagerness for intense delights takes away the relish for all others. It does not consist in exemption from pain, labour, care and molestatio n, such a stat e being usually attended, not with ease, but depression of spirits, tastelessness, and ima- ginary anxiety. Neith er does it consist in rank or eie- vated station, sin ce no s u periority gives much pleasure, but what is gained over a rival, and this may exist in all ranks and degrees of life. The first great secret of happi- nessTFTio TEhow'befofehand what will please us, and what . pleasures will hold out. It consists, then, mainly, in the exercise of the sooial affecTiiorjs7~in the exercise of our" faculties, whe ther of body or mind ; in the pursuit of some/ engaging end ; in the prudent constitution of the habits, or to set them in such a way that every change may be for the better. And . lastly^ ._in ; healthy .jn_which is to_be included not only freedpm_ from bodily distempers, but that_ tranquillity, firmness, and .elasticity of mind, which we call good sjpiri^ t _an4jyhich de pends commonly on the_ same causes, and yields to the same management, as our bodily cons titution. Health in this sense, he concludes, is " the one thing nee dful, and no pains, expense, or restraint i s too much, by w hic h it may^be secured." The third and main element of the system is its de- finition of virtue. According to Paley it is "the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness." So that, by this de- scription, "the "good of mankind is the subject, the. will of 24 THE SYSTEMS OF PALEY, God the rule, and everlasting happiness the motive of human virtue." In habitual virtue, it is added, the good of mankind, the -will of God, or the desire for eternal! happiness, may not be consciously in the thoughts. So " a man may be a very good servant without being con- scious, at every turn, of a particular regard to his master's will, or an express attention to his master's interest.! Indeed, your best old servants are of this sort. But then he must have served for a length of time under the actual;! direction of these motives, to bring it to this ; in which service his merit and virtue consist." Another conclusion, rather strangely expressed, is that the Christian religion " hath not ascertained the precise quantity of virtue ne- cessary to salvation." The third question to which Paley gives an answer, is the nature of moral obligation. Why am I obliged to keep my word ? His first remark is that the various answers, because it is agreeable to the fitness of things, conformable to reason, or conformable to truth ; that it promotes the public good, or is required by the will of God ; all of them ultimately coincide. "And this is the reason that moralists, from whatever different principles they set out, commonly agree in their conclusions." But when a further answer is required, Paley offers one which he seems to think. very simple, that it goes to the bottom of the subject, and I leaves nothing to be desired. Obligation is when a man ' "is urged by a violent motive resulting from the command i of another." In moral obligation this violent motive is the will and command of God, and the expectation of reward for well-doing or punishment for ill-doing, in the life to come. By this explanation, he conceives, the air of mystery, which must else hang over the subject, is re- moved. Private happiness is to be our motive, and the BENTHAM, AND MILL. 25 will of God the rule. The difference between an act of prudence and an act of duty is re ally the contrast bet ween a regard to consequences only jjLJib^-EISSSBli. life) xnA- a . respect to the rewards and punishments of the Ufa. to •come. Howi then, are this view of moral obligations, as rest- ing solely on the Divine will, and the doctrine of utility, to be combined together 1 Simply by the great truth of the Divine benevolence. This is inferred from various evidence, and from the multiplied proofs of design in all creation, tending to enjoyment. But every one may have some part of the evidence, which impresses him more than the rest; and Paley sees the benevolence of the Deity more clearly in the pleasures of very young children than in anything in the world. The example which strikes any man's mind most strongly is the true example for him. The conclusion is, that God wills and wishes the happiness of his creatures, and hence that, in doing good to~mank~ihd, we ob ey the will of God. " The method ~Trf"Tonring at the will of God concerning any action, by the light of nature, is to inquire into the tendency of that action to promote or diminish general happiness." Actions, it is inferred, are to be estimated by their tendency. Whatever is expedient is right. It is the utility of any moral rule alone, which constitutes its obligation. But the bad consequences of an act may be either particular or general. The particular is the mis- chief which that single action immediately occasions. The general bad consequence is the violation of some necessary or useful rule. " You cannot permit one action and forbid another, without showing a difference between them. Con- sequently the same sort of actions must be generally permitted or generally forbidden. The necessity of general 26 THE SYSTEMS OF PALEY, rules in human government is apparent. But they are necessary to every moral government, or any dispensation, whose object is to influence the conduct of reasonable creatures." Else rewards and punishments would cease to be such, and become accidents. " They would occasion pain or pleasure when they happened ; but, following in * no known order from any particular course of action, they could have no previous influence or effect upon the con- duct. Consequently, whatever reason there is to expect future reward or punishment at the hand of God, there is the same reason to believe that He will proceed in the distribution of it by general rules." *^ Let us now turn from the moral system of Paley to that of Bentham. This may be best derived from the Theory of Legislation, almost his earliest work, which ap- peared only three years after the Moral Philosophy. It begins with a maxim, strangely inconsistent with the later! dictum of the Deontology, where he says that the word "ought" should be banished from moral speculations. •

^[n the first place, he renounces the principle "of s elfish- ness, and lays down beneficence, nr a direct aim at tfite gener al happiness, not private advantage, as the ba sis and essence of the whole system. In the review of Sedgwick, he condemns Paley for the purely selfish character of his definition of virtue. Again, in his review of DrWhewell, he blames him for confounding " the theory of motives some- times called the Selfish System," with Bentham's " Happi- ness theory of Morals," and asserts that in Br^Vhewell's own creed, as he infers from certain other statements, "dis- interestedness has no place." Now Bentham's own view in this matter is vague and inconsistent, and oscillates from one side to another. [But on the whole he seems to teach that benevolence, or a direct regard* to the greatest happiness of the community, is a happy privilege of .his own mental constitution and that of a few other jurists,; BENTHAM, AND MILL. 33 and that pure selfishness is the natural and necessary law of the vulgar herd of mankindj One passage to this effect has been given before from his early work. In his latest work, the Deontology, passages to the same effect abound. "You see the moralist," he says, "in his study dogmatize in pompous phrases on duty and duties. Why does no one listen to him ? Because, while he speaks of duties, every one is thinking of interests. Jt is in the nature of man to think above all of his interests, and it is there that every enlightened moralist will judge that it is for his interest to begin. It is vain for him to 1;alk and to act; duty will always give place to interest." And again, " The task of the enlightened moralist is to prove that an immoral act is a false calculation of personal interest, and that the vicious man makes a wrong estimate of pleasures and pains. Unless he does this, he does nothing; for as we have said before, it is in the nature of things that a man must labour to obtain whatever he thinks ought to procure him the greatest sum of enjoyments." ' ""Mr Mill remarks, on the contrary, " The happiness which forms th e utilitarian standard of what is ri ^ht, in conduct is~not the ag ent's own happin ess, but that of all concerne d. As betw een his own happiness and that of olhersTuti litarianisrn req uires him to be st rictly impartial . as a disinterested and benevolent spectator. I n the golden rule of Jesus of .Nazareth we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility." " The social instinct," he says fur- ther, " to those who have it, possesses all the characters of a natural feeling. It does not present itself to their minds as a superstition of education, or a law despotically im- posed by the power of society, but as an attribute which it would not be well for them to be without. This conviction is the ultimate sanction of the greatest-happiness morality. B. L. II. 3 34 THE SYSTEMS OF PALEY, This it is which makes any mind of well-developed feel- ings work with and not against the outward motives to care for others, afforded by the external sanctions, and when these are wanting, or act in an opposite direction, constitutes in itself a powerful internal binding force; since few but those whose minds are a moral blank could bear to lay out their course of life on the plan of paying no regard to others, except so far as their own private interest compels." He goes still further, and in the teeth of his master, who pronounces such an idea the dream of an idiot, he claims for utilitarianism a full share in the morality of self-devotion. " The utilitarian morality," lie says, " does recognise in human beings the power of sacri- ficing their own greatest good for the good of others. It only refuses to admit that the sacrifice is itself a good. A sacrifice which does not increase, or tend to increase, the sum total of happiness, it considers as wasted." Here modern utilitarianism, in seeking to rival the morality of the Gospel without any help from religious faith, aban- dons its own selfishness, passes at one bound over the* whole doctrine of Providence, and alights in a quagmire of mysticism on the other side. ^ Anotherj eature of Mr Mill's ethic al creed, by which it diverges from the view of Bentham, and even lays the axe to the root of his whole system, i s the assertion o f a _ contrast, n ot only in the^ quantity, butJ nJbhe_kmdor" quality ofpleasurgs^ It is quite compatible, he holds, win * t he principle of utility, to recognise the fact that s ome kinds of_jrieasure_ar e more desirab le and va luable than others. He find sjhe test for deciding this point Tin tne d^cid^a^re fCTen^e~^nEo^e-w^ had experienc e*^ both, and says that I romJJxisj^diet-ef-jJia^nly r^mppjjmt judges the re can be no appeal. " On a question which is BENTHAM, AND MILL. 35 the best worth having of two pleasures or modes of exist- ence, the judgment of those who are qualified by know- ledge of both, or if they differ, that of the majority among them, must be admitted as final." "'But if this be so, and the moral and intellectual pl easures are j?oncedejL to _be higher in kind t han those o f sense,, the., summation, on which Bentham's whole system is fo unde d, must become ^impracticable. H is statement that when one has become familiar with the process, and has acquired the justness of estimate which results from it, he can compare the sum of good and evil with so much promptitude as scarcely to be conscious of the steps of the calculation, is proved to be not only untrue but impossible. It is equivalent to the assertion that a person may learn, by habit and acquired instinct, to add together lines, surfaces, and solids, weights, values, and capacities, and to form out of them one arith- metical total, on which the due conduct of his life is to depend. In fact, by this one admission, Mr Mill passes over insensibly from the camp of Epicurus to that of Aristotle and the Old Academy, who held that virtue was the chief good, and far the higher, when compared with the pleasures of sense, but still not the only good. <2 1 — A third contrast appears in the view of rival s ystems of morality. Mr Bentham admires Epicurus alone, and treats other moralists, ancient and modern, with contempt- uous scorn. "While Xenophon," he says, "was writing history, and Euclid giving instruction in geometry, So- crates and Plato were talking nonsense under pretence of teaching wisdom." Epicurus "alone of all the ancients had the merit of having known the true source of morals." j/But Mr Mill " does not consider the Epicureans to have been by any means faultless in drawing out their scheme of consequences," and thinks that "to do this in any 3—2 36 THE SYSTEMS OF PALEY, sufficient manner, many Stoic, as well as Christian ele- ments, require to be included." >l Another main difference between the earlier and later forms of the doctrine of utility consists in the degree of res pect to seconda ry mora l rules, the embo died results of human experienc e. The claim of Bentham, from the first page of his wo rk^ is to replace all these, as imperfect results of prejudice or forms of caprice, by calculations, based on t he princ iple of utility, of which the data are first clearly e xplained , by himself. His object is, first, "to esta- blish the unity and sovereignty of the principle by rigorously excluding every other," since " it is nothing to subscribe to it in general, it must be admitted without aDy exception." And next, "to find the processes of a moral arithmetic, by which uniform results may be arrived at," and this " by a uniform and logical manner of reason- ing." It is on this ground that one of his admirers has claimed for him to mark an era in moral philosophy, like that which Newton's discoveries have wrought in the lower field of natural science. ■*^This high claim, in the revised system, is abandoned and almost reversed. The fancied merit, in the eyes of his ardent admirers, is even treated as a foolish calumny, due to opponents alone. Mr Bentham's knowledge of life and human nature is said to have been far too partial and limited for him to be able to apply the main principle with any approach to completeness, accuracy, and success. Common sense requires the genuine philosopher to avail himself of all the moral experience acquired in past gene* rations. During all these ages, he says, "mankind have been learning the tendencies of actions, on which experi- ence all the prudence and morality of life is dependent, i People talk as if the commencement of this course of BENJ'HAM, AND MILL. 37 experience had hitherto been put off; and as if, when a man is tempted to meddle with the property or life of another, he had to begin by considering whether murder and theft are injurious. The matter is now done to his hand, mankind must by this time have acquired positive beliefs as to the effect of some actions on their happiness. And the beliefs which have thus come down are the rules of morality for the multitude; and for the philosopher, until he has succeeded in finding better. That philosophers might easily do this, even now, on many subjects, and that mankind have much to learn as to the effects of actions on general happiness, I admit, or rather, earnestly maintain." - ■** It is not explained how the multitude can feel them- selves bound to obey rules, which rest, as they are assured, only on the imperfect miscalculations of past ages, and which their teachers, the modern philosophers, are striving to replace by a more exact arithmetic of their own. But at least the most eminent disciple in the school of Ben- tham has here turned his back on the claim set up by his fellow-disciples on behalf of their common teacher, when he treats it as a mere calumny, hardly worthy of notice or reply. " Gravely to argue," he continues, '• as if no secondary principles could be had, and as if mankind had remained till now without drawing any general conclu- sions from th e experience of human life, is as high a pitch, I think, as absurdity has ever reached in philosophical controversy." The view, then, of Mr Mill, varies essentially, and in several main and distinctive features, from that elder utilitarianism, which he professes to defend, and to clear from the misconceptions of ignorant and rash assail- ants. The contrast is pointed out forcibly by Professor 38 THE SYSTEMS OF PALEY, Grote, who remarks on it, in his calm and thoughtful manner, in these words : " I am not myself fond of positive language, nor in- disposed to sympathise with qualified defence. But really I hardly see the use of defending Epicureanism or utili- tarianism at all, when it has to be done with so many admissions and reservations as Mr Mill has made. They follow one upon another, and there is a sort of oscillation in the 11th page, which seems to leave the opponents in possession of almost the whole of their case. It seems that Epicureanism will not do without many Stoic and Christian elements ; that utilitarian writers in general have not rightly conceived the superiority of mental plea- sures to bodily; that they might with advantage have said something quite the opposite of what they have said, and which Mr Mill proceeds now to say for them. No doubt it is wise to learn from enemies, and never too late to mend. But I should have thought, in the interest of moral science, that it would be better for the reformed utilitarianism to make a fresh start under a new name, or at l east to drop the old." Erom this brief sketch or outline of the three chief modern varieties of utilitarian ethics, I proceed now to point out what I conceive to be their common defects, and their relative amount of failure or misconception, when;; compared with each other. ''And first, they all agree in rejecting, explicitly or implicitly, the first and highest view of moral truth, as fixed and immutable in its founda- tions, and resting on the essential perfection of the Divine goodness, and the true ideal of all goodness in created moral agents, as a resemblance and reflection of the Di- vine. This view is found in Plato, the noblest of heathen moralists, when he defines righteousness as o/ioiW« if BENTHAM, AND MILL. 39 ©era, a resemblance or likeness to the Divinity. But it runs, like a golden thread, through every part of the Scriptures, and has been derived from these into the works of the best and soundest Christian divines and moralists in every age. Paley approaches nearest to it* where he defines virtue by obedience to the will of God. But the interval is still great, because the obligation is made to rest on will and arbitrary power alone, and not on the deeper truth, that the will is conceived to be that of One who is perfect in essential goodness. In Mr Ben - tham and Mr Mill the taith has no place whatever. The former ridicules it as merely one form of the many-headed "principle of caprice," or a device of certain moralists for passing on others their own private opinions. Mr Mill seems to have one faint glimpse of it, where he censures Paley for basing morality on the Divine will ; but it fades swiftly from his view, and seems never to reappear. In their treatment of the subjective aspect of morals, or the doctrine of conscience and the moral sense, there is some slight difference. None of them define or recog- nize it clearly, but perhaps Mr Mill approaches nearest to what I conceive to be the truth^ Paley does not posi- tively deny its existence, but leaves it an open question, and only mentions that, even if it does exist, it is so mixed with prejudices and habits, that it cannot be safely depended upon in moral reasoning. "Bentham, with his usual self-confidence, scouts and derides it altogether, as a mere invention of those, who wish their own opinions to prevail without the pains of comparing them with the opinions of others. MBut Mr Mill recognizes a kind of moral sense, though not as primitive and underived, yet still as the necessary result of healthy training, and based on a social instinct, which is deeply rooted in the consti- 40 THE SYSTEMS OF PALEY, tution- of human nature. The conviction in a man that there should be a harmony between his feelings and aims and those of his fellow-creatures is said to possess all the characters of a natural feeling, and that it is the ultimate sanction of the greatest-happiness morality. Let us now pass on to the doctrine of consequences, which the three systems agree in making the ultimate and formal basis of all morality. And here it will be enough to dwell on Paley's definition of virtue, and oil those which answer to it in the writings of Bentham, and in Mr Mill's revised theory. ^ilili2a~SL^sJi2Z£^£££i_££22I^iE£jL ^ a ^ e J' consists in doing good to mankind, in obedience to the win of Godj_and for the_sake of eve rlasting happiness! The definition has three parts, which refer to the s ubstance, the rule, and the motive, of human goodness or virtue. It combines all the three elements of true morality, the personal, the social, and the Divine. But the union is artificial and imperfect. They are tied, and not fused or thoroughly combined, together. The social element stands alone in the subject, the Divine in the rule, and the selfish or personal in the motive ; instead of the pre- sence of all the three elements being seen in every part, and recognized as essential to the completeness and har- mony of the whole. In each part of this definition there are two serious defects. First of all, virtue is placed in the outward acts, and exiled from its proper home, the judgments of the mind, the habits, desires, emotions, and tempers of the heart. It becomes a purely external thing. It is bene- ficence, and not benevolence. The personal and religious aspects of duty are overlooked. The definition has a partial range, and is confined to social morality alone. BENTHAM, AND MILL. 4 1 The rule assigned has also a double fault. The will of God is presented in a naked form, simply as the authority which consists in power to reward or punish. No re- ference is made to that essential and supreme goodness, which is the true ground of the moral authority of the Divine commands ; or to that faculty in man, whereby he discerns good and evil, and thus becomes capable of appre- hending a law of duty, far nobler than physical compulsion alone. In the motive assigned for virtuous conduct the defects are still more serious. The principle of religious faith is recognized, but it is used as the buttress and support to a doctrine of pure selfishness. Happiness, when taken in the sense previously assigned, is itself a very insufficient phrase to express the hope of the Gospel. But a more fatal error is the exclusion of the love of God and the love of men from the motives of virtuous conduct. For this infuses a poisonous element into the very heart of the Christian faith. Nowhere in the Scriptures have we any warrant for the idea that a man purely selfish in his aims, bent on securing only a large balance of private advantage, and wholly destitute of the love of God and the love of his neighbour, has any share in the special promises to the righteous and holy in the life to come. Are these grave defects mitigated or removed in Bentham's later system? On the contrary they are nearly all' retained, and even increased. In each of the three divisions there is not only a twofold, but a threefold error. Virtue is placed in the actions, not the state of the heart, and is made wholly external as before. It is confined to social action, and both self-culture and Christian or natural piety are left wholly out of view. Instead of doingg ood to men, the phrase in Fale y's definition, we have 42 THE SYSTEMS OF PALEY, t he maximisation of happiness. Now t his substitutes an artificial atte mpt to carry out the results of an arithmetical' calculation for the direct i nstinct and impulse of kindness ; arid good will to our neighbour. The secondary or pra-* dential process, by which the good may be practically made better, wholly swallows up the moral element. Again, in the rule there is a threefold defect. Not only is there no reference to the divine goodness as the supreme law, or the authority of conscience, as the immediate rule, but the will of God is left wholly out of sight, and His au- thority is virtually superseded. It finds its place only among : the sanctions, as one of four chief motives, but no part whatever of the rule, of human virtue. The only allusion to it is a brief attempt to prove that the teaching of the Bible is quite ambiguous and uncertain, and that it must depend wholly on the previous views of the interpreter to what results it will lead. The substituted rule, in Bentham's system, is itself ambiguous. We can nowhere learn clearly whether each individual is to be guided hy his own private calculations of advantage, public or per- sonal, or whether he is to follow blindly the conclusions which philosophers have drawn for him, and the instruct tions which they deduce from calculations more exact and profound. The motives to virtuous conduct , in Bentham's theory,-! are called s anctions, ~andj,re said to be of lour" kinds,' natural, popular , legal, and reiigious7 7 The two'great faults of Paley's definition are both retained. The happiness is a mere summation of pleasures, with no discrimination in their character, and the motives assigned are wholly selfish and personal, excluding alike the love of man and \ the love of God. But while Paley gives full prominence to the Christian hope .of a life to come, and makes it BENTHAM, AND MILL. 43 the main foundation of his theory, Bentham first reduces moral and religious motives under the category of a re- fined selfishness, and then degrades them to a secondary place, and assigns to them a very doubtful value. They are " more variable, more dependent on human caprices. Of the two the popular sanction is the more equal, more steady, more constantly in accordance with the principle of utility." The religious sanction is "more unequal, more apt to change with times and individuals, more subject to dangerous deviations." Instead of any preeminence in the fear and love of God above other motives, it is thrust down to the fourth and lowest place among the various incentives and inducements to virtuous action. How far is the sixfold error of Paley's definition, increased and rendered ninefold in the rival system, re- tained or renewed in Mr Mill's revised form of utilitarian teaching? First, the externalism is retained. The motive, we are told (p. 27, note), when it makes no difference in the act, makes none in the morality; though, strange to say, "it makes a great difference in our moral estimation of the agent." Next, the view of good to be done is so far modified, that a higher character, and not a mere difference of quantity, is distinctly recognized in moral and intellectual pleasures. The decision of relative value is changed from Bentha m's "process of mora l arithmetic," reducible, in his opinion, to simple rules, to a wholly different - standard, "the feelings and judgm ent of the experienced," p." 1 6. ~^E!r3ly~the~ restriction of virtue to social beneficence alone is partly remedied. Beligious duty is still left wholly out of sight, but self-culture is included in the range of virtue. One great defect of Bentham's system is frankly acknowledged in these words. "Man is never recognized by him as a being capable- of 44 THE SYSTEMS OF PALEY, pursuing spiritual perfection as an end; of desiriDg, for its own sake, the conformity of his own character to his standard of excellence, without hope of good or fear of evil from other source than his own inward consciousness:^ Even in the more limited form of conscience, this great fact in human nature escapes him. Nothing is mor e curious than the absence of recognition, in any of h is writings, of-the existence of conscience, as_a_ thing disti nct from philanthropy. froin~affectionJor God and man, a nd from selt-interest in t his world or the next." By this candid acknowledgment Mr Mill tacitly abandons the system he seems to defend. For this silence of which he complains is no mere accident. It forms a necessary and logical result of the exclusive basis on which the whole scheme of his master has been reared. Again, with regard to the rule of virtue, Mr Mill points out a real defect 5 ' in Paley's standard, that he seems to make it rest on a foundation of arbitrary power alone. He ascribes, also, more weight and value than Bentham . : has done to secondary rules, derived from the long ex- perience of mankind. But he leaves the question, on what principle or ground the rule of moral duty really depends;? more obscure than ever. Is the revealed will of God, or is it not, any part of this rule % Does it consist in an ideally perfect calculation of results, never really made, and of which a finite understanding is incapable ? Are we bound to adopt for our guide the experience of past ages, em- bodied in popular moral precepts, or the improved reckon- ing and moral arithmetic of Bentham or some others philosopher ? .Or must we renounce all these, and profess allegiance to no other rule than fresh calculations of our own? In this wide field of choice among slippery BENTHAM, AND MILL. 45 alternatives, I do not see that Mr Mill gives us any help towards a fixed and clear decision. With regard to the motives of virtue, Mr Mill avoids the common fault of Paley and Bentham, who restrict them to those of self-interest alone. But, when compared with Paley, the gain is almost balanced, or some would think, more than balanced, by an equal loss. Immortality, in his writings, may perhaps be left an open question. But in his moral system there is at least a silent exclusion of all motives derived from faith in the resurrection and the life to come. Bright hopes are there indulged of im- proved social arrangements, by which the range of disease shall be abridged, human life prolonged, and poverty shall disappear. As one result of these changes, the in- stincts of social benevolence are to become a second nature ; "until by the improvement of education, the feeling of unity with our fellow-creatures shall be, what it cannot be doubted that Christ intended it to be, as deeply rooted in our character, and to our own consciousness as completely a. part of our nature, as the horror of crime in a well- brought-up young person." This undoubting confidence that our Lord intended by His teaching to bring about a higher moral state of mankind, never yet attained, is the only substitute for all the usual articles of the Christian faith, including the promises of life and immor- tality in the gospel. This solitary recognition of the Divine Teacher, and His high moral purpose, stands out amidst a waste of absolute silence on all the truths and hopes of religion, like a lonely and stately obelisk amidst a dreary expanse of desert sand. The revised system, then, of Mr Mill, when compared with that of Paley, is slightly less partial and defective in its statement of the subject of virtue, though it shares still 46 THE SYSTEMS OF PALEY, in the double fault of mere externalism, and the total omis- sion of religious duty, or a virtual abrogation of the first and great commandment. In its rule it is still more defective, since it omits all reference to the revealed will of God, and leaves us wholly uncertain, in its doctrine of consequences, on whose calculations, whether those of modern utilitarians, of past generations of mankind, or our own, we ought to depend. In its exhibition of motives it has one very great improvement, since it discards the doctrine of pure selfishness, and includes benevolence and an acquired con- science of right and wrong. But it departs in another way further from the truth, by confining its view to the present world, and excluding practically all reference to the doctrine of immortality and the life to come. In closing the brief review of these three modern varie- ties of utilitarianism, I cannot refrain from quoting once more, after Dr Whewell, a few of the striking and elo- quent words of Robert Hall, a writer with few equals in eloquence, and not many superiors in vigour and clearness of thought. They are aimed partly against the system of Paley, and still more against the doctrine of Bentham, soon after their first works on the grounds of morals had both appeared. "How is it that, on a subject on which men have thought deeply from the moment they began to think, and where consequently whatever is entirely and fundamen- tally new must be fundamentally false, how is it that, in contempt of the experience of past ages, and of all prece- dents human and divine, we have ventured into a perilous path which no eye has explored, no foot has trod; and have undertaken, after the lapse of six thousand years, to manufacture a morality of our own, to decide by a cold;| calculation of interest, by a ledger book of profit and" BENTHAM, AND MILL. 47 of loss, the preference of truth to falsehood, of piety to blasphemy, and of humanity and justice to treachery and blood?" "In the science of morals "we are taught by this system to consider nothing as yet done, we are invited to erect a fresh fabric on a fresh foundation. All the elements and sentiments, which entered into the essence of virtue before, are melted down, and cast into a new mould. Instead of appealing to any internal principle, everything is left to calculation, and determined by expediency. In executing this plan, the jurisdiction of conscience is abo- lished, her decisions classed with those of a superannuated judge, and the determination of moral causes is adjourned from the interior tribunal to the noisy forum of specula- tive debate. Everything is made an affair of calculation, under which are comprehended not merely the duties we owe to our fellow-creatures, but even the love and ado- ration which the Supreme Being claims at our hands. Everything is reversed. The pyramid is inverted, the first is last, and the last first. Religion is degraded from its preeminence into the mere handmaid of social morality, social morality into an instrument for advancing the welfare of society ; and the world is all in all." LECTUKE II. MILL'S CRITIQUE ON PALEY EXAMINED. The fortunes of Paley as a moralist have undergone a singular change. His work was received at first with wide and general applause. It was early accepted for a text-book in his own university, and impressed its tone- on thousands of highly intelligent minds. Its clearness and general ability gained warm praise even from those who questioned the soundness of its first principles, and it reigned widely in England for near half a century, as the best modern work on ethical science. No sooner, however,; was it assailed in Cambridge by the patrons of a rival school of ethics, than still heavier blows were aimed against it by those other advocates of utility and the doctrine of consequences, who might have been expected to be its friends. Utilitarianism might be dear to them, but their own political and religious theories were dearer still. The principle, highly flexible in itself, had not been used by Paley to work out that " subversive thinking," to borrow Mr Mill's own phrase, for which they chiefly prized it. He had combined it, though neither with a deep theology^ nor doctrines of high prerogative, yet with a sincere faith in a diluted Christianity, and temperate attachment to MILL'S CRITIQUE ON PALEY EXAMINED. 49 existing institutions. Hence the zealots for progress saw in him only a concealed traitor in the camp of modern philosophy, who had attempted to steal from them that powerful artillery, by which, in their own hands, a host of antiquated abuses and religious prejudices were to be overthrown. "Philosophical controversy," Professor Grote has said, "is a worse confusion than a battle without generals or discipline, and when we come to morals and ethics, the dust and smoke become tenfold worse." Of this hum- bling truth the subject of this Lecture affords, I think, a striking illustration. My object in this course is to com- pare and analyse the chief modern varieties of the doc- trine, which bases the definition of moral right and wrong on general consequences alone. For forty years since the death of Bentham, this school has been in ceaseless war with its rivals, by turns assailing and assailed. The conflict began with a vigorous and able attack on Paley's system in Professor Sedgwick's eloquent Discourse. He is treated with great respect, but his views are singled out for censure, because his Moral Philosophy had been the chief type of utilitarian ethics for Cambridge students. Mr Mill defends the doctrine assailed with still greater vehemence. But the first step in his defence of it is to reject wholly the claims of Paley as an utilitarian moralist, to depreciate his merits as a writer, and to load his memory with severe imputations, which have no warrant but the strength of hostile prejudice alone. I am no admirer of Paley's moral system. I can scarcely adopt the language of Sedgwick and Coleridge, both opponents of his main principle, whose warm praise of his writings, in other respects, rather exceeds the bounds of sober truth. But the laws of fair controversy B. L. II. 4 50 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON seem to me strangely violated, when those who share his worst defect deny his intellectual merits, and impute to him, without the least proof, aims and motives of the; lowest and least honourable kind. At the outset of this inquiry I think it almost due to Cambridge to show that Mr Mill's contempt for a writer, so long had in honour amongst us, is mainly due to prejudice alone. The ba- lances in which he weighs the Christian advocate and the reforming jurist are utterly wanting in philosophical accuracy and truth. I believe also that a temperate vin- dication of Paley from causeless reproach may enable us to gain some light, in the course of the Lecture, on highly important questions in ethical science. The course of Mr Mill in this matter is very strange. He begins by charging Professor Sedgwick, who has praised Paley almost to excess, with having treated him with extreme contumely, and then proceeds at once to commit the very fault he has untruly imputed to an- other. " Of Paley's work," he says, " we think on the -whole meanly." Utilitarianism cannot fairly be judged by his system, for no one is entitled to found an argument against a system on the faults and blunders of a particular writer; What would be thought of an assailant of Christianity, who should judge of its tendency from the views of the Jesuits or the Shakers? Neither his character nor ob- jects were those of a philosopher. He had "no single- minded earnestness for truth, no intrepid defiance of prejudice. He has a particular set of conclusions to come to, and will not allow himself to let in premises which interfere with them. When an author starts with suck an object, it is of little consequence what premises he sets out from. He had not only to maintain existing doctrines but existing practices also. When an author PALEY EXAMINED. 5 1 knows beforehand the -conclusions which he is to come to, he is not likely to seek far for grounds to rest them upon." The same charge of direct dishonesty is made a fourth time in the later review. " As for Paley," he there says, " we resign him without compunction to the tender mer- cies of Dr Whewell." But the wounds of Dr Whewell, who holds the doctrine of utility to be mischievous and unsound, are the piercings of a sword in direct and open controversy. Mr Mill, who advocates that prin- ciple, instead of relieving a comrade wounded in his own cause, adds the thrust of a dagger, and imputes to him once more the most dishonourable and unworthy motives. " It concerns Dr Whewell more than ourselves to uphold the reputation of a writer, who, whatever principle of morals he professes, seems to have had no object but to insert it as a foundation underneath the existing set of opinions, ethical and political ; who took his leave of scientific analysis, and betook himself to picking up utili- tarian reasons by the wayside, in proof of all accredited doctrines, and in defence of most tolerated practices. Bentham was a moralist of another stamp." In these censures Mr Mill follows in the wake of Dr Bowring, who, out of jealousy for Bentham's preemi- nence, rails against Paley, in the Deontology, in a still more outrageous style. If reckless abuse of celebrated writers, whose religious creed or political leanings dis- please us, is genuine sunlight from the new "orb of utili- tarian felicity," the sooner it sets below the horizon the better it must be, both for the honour of literature, and the peace and harmony of the world. Let us now hear the verdict of candid opponents of Paley's moral theory on his true eminence and merit as a 4—2 52 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON writer. First, Coleridge is placed by Mr Mill side by side with Bentham, bis own favourite, as one of tbe two "seminal minds of tbe age." Does he, wbile opposing bis doctrine, tbink meanly of bis work, or cbarge him with dishonesty? On the contrary he speaks of him as follows : " 0, if I were fond and ambitious of literary honour, of public applause, how well content would I be to excite but one third of the admiration which in my inmost being I feel for tbe head and heart of Paley ! How gladly would I surrender all hope of contemporary praise, could I even approach to the uncomparable force, propriety, and persuasive facility of his writings ! But on this very account "• — that is, not because he dealt dishonestly with Mr Mill's doctrine of utility, but because be held it at all ; not becaxise he held fast to tbe old prejudice of faith in Christianity, but because be pared it down to the mere proof of a life to come, — "I believe myself," he continues, "bound in conscience to throw the whole force of my intellect in the way of the triumphal car, on which the tutelary genius of modern idolatry is borne, even at the risk of being crushed under its wheels." Such is tbe view of Paley's merits, which one of Mr Mill's two seminal minds deliberately held. He passes by the other seminal mind in total silence, and regards Paley as the ablest, tbe most effective, and the most worthy champion of the theory to which he himself is opposed. Let us now listen to that "extreme contumely," which Professor Sedgwick deals out to him in his Discourse, and for which be incurs Mr Mill's reproof. "I would ever wish," he says, " to speak with reverence of a man whose name is an honour to our academical body, and who did,, I believe, during bis time, much more for the cause of revealed truth than any other writer of his country. His PALEY EXAMINED. 53 homely strength and clearness of style, and his unrivalled skill in stating and following out his argument, must ever make his writings popular. Speaking for myself, I cannot describe in terms too strong the delight I once experi- enced in studying his Moral Philosophy, where truth after truth seemed to flash upon the mind with all the force of demonstration, on questions, too, which in other hands seemed only involved in mystery and doubt. On this account, if there be a defective principle in his system, it ought boldly to be combated, lest the influence of his name and charm of his manner should lead us further from the truth." The tender mercies of Dr Whewell, to which Mr Mill is willing to resign Paley, with some added favours of his own .of a very different kind, are thus expressed. "In Paley 's mode of executing his task he displayed a modera- tion, a shrewdness, and a pregnant felicity of idiomatic expression, which it was impossible not to admire. If the work had been entitled 'Morality, as derived from the principle of general utility,' and the principle had been assumed as evident or undisputed, the work might have been received by the world with unmingled gratitude; and the excellent sense and temper which, for the most part, it shows in the application of rules, might have produced their beneficial effect without any drawback." Again, an early admirer and correspondent of Bentham, Mr Wilson, writes of Paley 's work on its appearance, and before Bentham had published anything but the Fragment, in these words of high praise. "Notwithstanding some weak places, it is a capital book, and by much the best that has been written on the subject in this country. Almost everything that he says about morals, government, and our own constitution, is sound, practical, and free from 54 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON commonplace. He has got many of your notions about punishment, which I always thought the most important of your discoveries; and I very much fear, if you ever do publish on those subjects, you may be charged with stealing from him what you have honestly invented with the sweat of your own brow." Such was the honest impression made by the work on one of Mr. Bentham's warmest admirers, when the Theory of Legislation was still unpublished, and when the Moral Philosophy had just appeared, and gone quickly .through two editions. Forty years later Sir J. Mackintosh, in his Disserta- tions, a writer of well-known ability, fairness, and candour, writes of Paley in these words. "This excellent writer, who, after Clarke and Butler, ought to be ranked among the brightest ornaments of the English Church in the eighteenth century, is in the history of philosophy naturally placed after Tucker, to whom, with praiseworthy liberality, he acknowledges his extensive obligation. His style is as near perfection in its kind as any in our language. Perhaps no words were ever more expressive and illustra- tive than those in which he represents the art of life to be that of rightly ' setting our habits.' The manner in which he deduces the necessary tendency of all virtuous actions to our general happiness from the goodness of the Divine Lawgiver is characterized by a clearness and vigour which have never been surpassed. His political principles were those generally adopted by moderate Whigs in his own age. His language on the Revolution of 1688 may be very advantageously compared to that of Blackstone, both for its precision and generous boldness." The able and learned author of the History of Eu- ropean Morals, published only four years ago, may be a PALEY EXAMINED. 55 sixth and last witness. Mr Leckie is familiar with the writings of Mr Mill and his father, and the earlier and more recent ethical literature. He belongs to the ad- vanced liberal school, both in politics and religion, and gives his comparative estimate of Paley and Bentham in these words. "Paley's chapter on Happiness is at the head of all modern writings on the utilitarian side, being far more valuable than anything Bentham ever wrote on morals. This last writer, whose contempt for his predecessors was only equalled by his ignorance of their works, and who has added surprisingly little to moral science, considering the reputation he has attained, except a barbarous nomencla- ture and an interminable series of classifications, evincing no real subtlety of thought, makes, as far as I am aware, no use of the doctrine of association. In our own day it has been much used by Mr John Stuart Mill. Paley states it with his usual admirable clearness." Thus five distinguished writers of the opposite school, Coleridge, Mackintosh, Sedgwick, Whewell, and Leckie, all seem to agree that Paley has a higher claim than Ben- tham to the first place among modern utilitarians. But even apart from this relative estimate of one, of whom Mr Mill thinks meanly, his blame of Professor Sedgwick for the selection he has made is ridiculous and unaccountable. His Discourse was expressly on the studies of the Univer- sity. Tlie writings of Paley, and not of Bentham, still less Mr Mill's revised system, then unborn, were those by which utilitarian ethics were known and obtained currency at Cambridge. However Bentham might be lauded by an inner circle of admirers, or whatever his influence among English lawyers, or foreign liberals, it is probable that Paley, at the date of the Discourse, had done tenfold more to secure the prevalence of the doc-f 56 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON trine of expediency among the educated classes of our own land. From Mr Mill's intellectual depreciation of Paley I pass to his more serious charge of moral dishonesty. When a critic turns aside to impute bad motives to an author of high reputation, at least his evidence ought to be clear and strong. Is it plain, then, as Mr Mill so often affirms, that Paley cared nothing for the doctrine of utility, but used it as a convenient tool for a blind conservatism,, or that he betrays a fixed purpose to prop up all existing doctrines and defend existing practices, whether right or wrong? The representation is little better than a monstrous inversion of the real truth. The first feature in the work is an attack on the existing " Law of Honour." And here Sir J. Mackintosh, himself an eminent liberal statesman and philosopher, charges him with a fault the exact re- verse of that which forms the burden of Mr Mill's repeated invective. He says " that Paley's strictures are excessive, because his disposition to look at his principles merely as far as they were calculated to amend prevalent : vices and errors betrayed him into narrow and false views." And this description, when compared with its converse, seems rather nearer to the truth. The reason Paley ex- pressly gives for rejecting a moral sense as his groundwork is this, that " a system of morality, built upon instincts, will only find out reasons and excuses for opinions and practices already established, and will seldom correct or reform either." But let us enter into a few details. Mr Mill praises Bentham, as if he had been the first to lay down clearly the duty of kindness to animals. It is found in the Book of Proverbs ages before, and Paley, before any work of Bentham except the Fragment had appeared, lays it down PALET EXAMINED. 57 tersely and in few words. " Wanton, and what is worse, studied cruelty to brutes, is certainly wrong, as coming within one of these reasons." The chief addition Bentham has made is a seeming exaltation of Gentooism and Maho- metanism above Christianity, and a characteristic charge of selfishness and tyranny, without distinction, against all past generations of mankind. In the first third of the Moral Philosophy, which has the largest share of general discussion, and least of detailed application, I find censure of the following malpractices or moral de- fects, prevalent in society : the law of honour ; inequality in property, when not inseparable from the rules by which industry is encouraged and its fruits secured ; abuse of the letter of law, to avoid the fulfilment of an equi- table contract; concealment of faults in the sale of goods ; wagers based on secret information ; the pro- hibition of interest, with an implied censure on the laws of usury; the obedience of servants to unlawful com- mands of their masters, whether to conceal their frauds or forward their unlawful pleasures ; the neglect of mas- ters to restrain domestic vice ; the consumption of church funds without discharge of any ecclesiastical duties; fiction and exaggeration in private conversation; pious frauds; acted lies; lies of omission; designed concealment of truth in giving evidence ; all contrivances for evading the oath against bribery, which "may escape the legal penalties of perjury, but incur its moral guilt;" sub- scription to articles, whenever the subscriber " is not first convinced that he is truly and substantially satisfying the intention of the legislature;" all unkindness and want of consideration to domestics and dependents ; and last of all the slave-trading and slave-holding of our English colonies. These were strongly denounced and 58 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON condemned by Paley, when the agitation of Clarkson and Wilberforce to abate and remove these evils had hardly, yet begun. r How, then, shall we explain, in a writer usually fair and candid, repeated charges against Paley of this kind, opposed to the plainest facts? The solution is easy. Utility is a highly elastic doctrine, and is capable of assuming widely different forms. Its calculations involve so many and such complex elements, that, except in the simplest cases, the results are sure to depend on the bias in the computer's own mind. With Bentham and his first disciples, its value consisted in supplying a moral leverage for vehement assaults on existing laws and insti- tutions, and on religious creeds, which they looked upon as worn-out superstitions, and hindrances to the progress of mankind. They undertook to regenerate society by a newly invented moral arithmetic of their own. A simple rejec- tion of their favourite doctrine was easy to bear -with silent contempt. It was a proof of mental childhood, and nothing more. But its adoption by Paley, even earlier than by their own master, and its wider currency in his hands, along with a temperate approval of the British Constitution, and an able advocacy of supernatural revela- tion, was like a theft of their own property, a wrong, and almost a sacrilege, hardly to be borne. ■ The doctrine of utility might be dear to them, but its application to what Mr Mill styles candidly " subversive thinking," was dearer still. Thus Paley came naturally to be looked on with special aversion, as a traitor to the uniform he seemed to wear. He had stolen into the camp of their reforming philosophy, and striven to carry off their best artillery, and then to use it in defence of doctrines to which they were wholly opposed ; that is, the general excellence and PALEY EXAMINED. 59 merit of the British laws and constitution, and the Divine origin and authority of the Christian faith. Professor Sedgwick and Mr Mill agree, then, in cen- suring Paley, hut on very opposite grounds. The former gives him high praise in all other respects ; but he sees in him the ablest and most effective teacher of the doc- trine of expediency, which he thinks mischievous and debasing, and blames him strongly for this reason alone. The sole defect, in the eyes of one critic, is the one re- deeming feature, grudgingly and sparingly allowed, in the view of the other. Mr Mill considers Paley to bear the like relation to orthodox and consistent utilitarians, as Jesuits or Shakers to sensible and honest Christian be- lievers. He did not understand the doctrine he professed, and only blundered in expounding it. Of his work he thinks meanly. Its faults arise in no sense from the doc- trine of utility, but from a religious element unskilfully attached to it, and from personal selfishness and insin- cerity, by which he made it a convenient pretext for propping up false doctrines that were in vogue, and casting a shield over existing corruptions in church and state. Such an accusation against one who was so long held in high honour at Cambridge is a public indictment against the university to which he belonged. If untrue, its falsehood ought to be exposed and repelled. The ques- tion is not whether there are serious defects in Paley's work. It is whether they arise from his acceptance of the doctrine of utility, or whether they are departures from it, and are due to his attempt to combine it with a religious element, or else to his intellectual incompetency and dis- honesty of purpose alone. The charges Mr Mill has brought against him are these. First, that he degrades utility from its rightful 60 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON place, as the source of moral obligation, making it a mere index to the will of God, and nothing more. Next, that by making that will the ultimate ground of duty, he annihilates morality, and reduces the doctrine of God's moral government to a misnomer and a delusion. Thirdly, that he makes selfishness one main element in the consti- tution of virtue ; so that the only motive which renders an action virtuous is the hope of heaven and the fear of hell. Fourthly, that his character and objects were not those of a philosopher, but of a time-server, a modern Demetrius, resolved to justify profitable abuses, and caring little by what sophism this could be done. Fifthly, that with pre- vailing maxims of morals he borrowed the prevailing laxity in their application. To this bias, and not to the doctrine of utility, is ascribed his teaching on lies, sub- scription to articles, and abuses of political influence. Sixthly, that the considerations of expediency on which he grounds his rules are of the most obvious and vulgar kind ; tbat the effect of actions on the formation of cha- racter is overlooked ; that he had meditated little on that branch of the subject, and had no ideas on it but the com- monest and the most superficial. Clear and comprehensive views upon it, Mr Mill affirms, must precede a philosophy of morals, and form its basis. The materials for this are already ample, but not complete, and much yet remains to be done. To collect them and add to them will be the labour of sound and orthodox utilitarian philosophers in successive generations. All these charges, except the second and third, I believe to be groundless and untrue ; and even these are exaggerated, and so far as they are true, are faults shared equally, in one case by Mr Mill himself, and in both by the master whom, in contrast to Paley, he so highly extols. The discussion is important, PALEY EXAMINED. 6 1 wholly apart from its bearing on Paley's personal cha- racter and the credit of his university, from the great questions it involves, which belong to the deepest founda- tions and the most seminal and vital principles of moral science. I. First, utility, according to Mr Mill, is " itself the source of moral obligation." Paley degrades it from its true place, into " a mere index to the will of God," which he regards as the ultimate groundwork of all morality, and the origin of its binding force. This doc- trine, that utility is an index to the Divine will and nothing else, he thinks highly exceptionable, having really many of those bad effects erroneously ascribed to the prin- ciples of utility. Now the view of Paley on this subject combines one great merit with a great defect. The merit is that he aims to reconcile and unite all the three elements which must enter into a genuine and comprehensive scheme of morals, the personal, the social, and the divine. His system includes personal prudence, social philanthropy, and reli- gious faith and piety. His great fault, logically, is that instead of recognizing their co-existence and joint pre- sence in every part of the system, he isolates them from each other, assigning to each a monopoly in one part only. In his definition of the substance of virtue, the social ele- ment stands alone, in its rule or law, the religious, and in its motive, the personal. But his good sense mitigates this great defect by numerous inconsistencies, as when two whole books are given to those personal ■ and religious duties, which the definition would exclude from any place within the range of human virtue. This very imperfect junction, in Paley, of the three main elements of morals, his rivals avoid by committing another 62 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON fault, still greater and less excusable. They omit the most important of these elements altogether. Their moral arithmetic, to borrow Bentham's phrase, involves a series of sums with three different denominations. Of these they omit the pounds, and take note of the shillings and pence only. Or to use a higher style, more suited to the vast importance of the subject, in their systems the first great commandment of the law finds no place whatever. Their moral calculations nowhere include "the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come." The will of God, as a rule, is made a mere attendant on human fore- casts of the expedient ; and as a motive, under the name of the religious sanction, where it could not be wholly over- looked, it occupies the last and lowest place. The teaching of Paley is too open to the censure of Robert Hall, that " religion is degraded from its pre-eminence into the mere handmaid of social morality." Still the services of the handmaid are prized so highly, that on these the comfort and welfare of the household, and even the bonds of its union, are made to depend. In the rival systems the hand- maid is dispensed with, and disappears. A much simpler problem thus remains, how to recon- cile the personal and social elements in the ethics of utility. But here the two leaders disagree. The theories of Bentham are based on one great postulate, the natural and universal selfishness of mankind. Moralists, he says, have wasted their time by talking of duties, while men are thinking of their interests, as it is proper and natural for them to do. But he claims' benevolence for himself, and seems willing to share the honour with a small number of philosophers and legislators, as a happy accident. And the form of this unexplained benevolence is a diligent effort to frame laws by which men, though naturally and PALEY EXAMINED. 63 properly selfish, may be kept from doing harm, or even trained to do good, to their fellow-men. But Mr Mill adopts at once, from intuitive theories, the one grand maxim, that the happiness of mankind is that greatest good, and noblest aim, which each individual is bound to pursue. He .thus confines the province of utility to the detection of secondary rules, whereby to fulfil the lofty aim of universal benevolence. But besides the greater defect in Mr Mill's own moral system, his description of Paley's doctrine is misleading and confused. For the latter clearly recognises two ele- ments in human virtue, and ascribes each of them to a different source. Utility, or conduciveness to the good of mankind, is viewed as the definition of the goodness of actions, but the will of God as the source of their moral obligation. On the same view there are two means by which our knowledge of right action may be gained, the revealed commands of God, or reasoning on their con- sequences. The connecting link is our knowledge, by a, posteriori evidence, of the Divine benevolence. In one case we learn directly the moral obligation from the revealed command of God, and infer the goodness. In the other case, we learn or reason out the goodness directly, and infer the moral obligation. But in Mr Mill's expo- sition the contrast, so clearly marked in Paley's scheme, is wholly lost sight of; and a defective view of moral ob- ligation is confounded with something wholly different, the dependence of virtue or moral goodness, in its very nature and essence, on arbitrary acts of the Divine will. The second charge, and one of the most important, is in these words : "The only view of the connection between religion and morality, which does not annihilate the very idea of 64 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON the latter, is that which considers the Deity as not making, but recognising and sanctioning, moral obligation. Why should 1 obey my Maker ? From gratitude ? Then grati- tude is in itself obligator}', independently of my Maker's will. From reverence and love ? But why is He a proper object of love and reverence? Not because he is my Maker. If I had been made by an evil spirit for evil pur- poses, my love and reverence would have been due, not to the evil, but to the good Being. Is it because He is just, righteous, merciful ? Then these attributes are in them- selves good, independently of His pleasure. If virtue would not be virtue unless the Creator commanded it, if it derive all its obligatory force from His will, there re- mains no ground for obeying Him except His power ; no motive for morality except the selfish one of the hope of heaven, or the selfish and slavish one of the fear of hell." This censure is just and true in substance, though not wholly in form. It singles out a grave and serious defect in Paley's ethical system. Mr Mill here rises for once above the low marshy ground of his sensational philo- sophy and utilitarian ethics, and takes his stand, to con- demn Paley, on the higher level of Plato and Cudworth, or of eternal, immutable, and intuitive morality. The mere will of a Superior, even if that Superior be almighty and supreme, does not satisfy the requirements of conscience as the ultimate basis or test of right and wrong. The con- ception of Divine Goodness is deeper and more central than that of Almighty Power. All the declarations of Scripture on the moral perfections of God are robbed of their whole force, and become simply delusive, if good and evil were arbitrary creations, reversible at His pleasure who had first appointed them. The attribute of bare, naked power, would then swallow up the still higher attributes of good- PALEY EXAMINED. 65 ness and wisdom, and the question of the patriarch be- come an unmeaning folly — " Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right 1" But while the main idea in the criticism is true and important, and rises to a higher point of view than Mr Mill usually attains, it is weighted and obscured, as an ethical statement, by three serious errors. The charge here made applies really with as much force to the objector's own view. It is enforced by a total misstatement of the facts with regard to previous writers, and by a hypothetical case, revolting in sound, ambiguous in mean- ing, and in the only reasonable sense of the words impos- sible and untrue. The charge against Paley is that he assumes too low and imperfect a ground for moral obligation, the will of God, with no reference beyond to the moral character or goodness of that Will. The objector bases it on utility, or the conduciveness of actions, in their results and conse- quences, to the happiness of mankind. But this basis is vague and ambiguous, and needs to be more clearly denned. The consequences on which morality is founded may be either total and complete, or foreseen and partial, or possible and conjectural, or necessary and inevitable, or natural only, discerned by observation from the actual constitution of the world. The first would make all know- ledge of right impossible, except for prophets gifted with omniscience. The two next would make it depend on the measure of human ignorance, and degrade all moral judg- ments into mere uncertain guess work. Two alternatives remain, that the consequences, which form the true basis of morals, and determine the utility of actions, are neces- sary and inevitable, or simply natural. If necessary, this implies moral distinctions in the tempers or actions them T B. L. II. 5 66 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON selves, from which kindred results follow, and this through no positive appointment or decree, but tfivcrei, or by the essential and unalterable nature of things. We are thus ■ landed in the region of a morality immutable and eternal, a fixed and inseparable element in all created intelligence, reflecting that law of essential goodness in the Creator/ which is higher and deeper than the active energy of will. Utilitarianism, as a theory, will expire, because the conse- quences are only the imperfect and dim reflection of a character which must have preexisted, before the results could follow. It will resolve itself into the old message of the prophet — "Say ye to the righteous that it shall be well with him, for he shall eat the fruit of his doings.'? To retain the objector's theory, we are thus shut up to the hypothesis that the consequences spoken of are natural, but not necessary; that they do not flow inevitably from the moral nature of the acts, but are only found by ex- perience to be attached to them in the actual constitution of human affairs. In other words, that they are positive appointments of the Divine will. Whoever believes in God at all must believe that the actual state of society and of human life, so far as it does not include laws and re* lations immutable in their own nature, or a kind of moral geometry, discerned by the Supreme Wisdom, but not created by the Supreme Will, must be due to the choice and appointment of that Will of God. The conclusion is plain and inevitable. Utilitarianism proper shares the main fault of Paley's doctrine, and adds to it another of its own. The former view seems to base moral obligation,-; simply and directly, on arbitrary power. In the theory of' •Dr Brown it is based on the same, indirectly, through^ positive and arbitrary appointment of the emotions which certain kinds of actions are made to excite in the human PALEY EXAMINED. 6f _^ heart. In the utilitarian creed the arbitrary power ope- rates still more indirectly, by positive arrangements of the consequences of actions, as well as of the emotions with which men are taught to regard them. Thus Paley's scheme is based simply on arbitrary power, and that of Mill and Bentham on the same arbitrary will, but con- cealing itself in ambush behind the laws of nature, so as to be really a perpetual fraud on the reason of mankind. Again, the censure is accompanied with the following historical remark. " In the minds of most English thinkers, down to the middle of last century, the idea of duty and that of obe- dience to God were so indissolubly united as to be un- separable even in thought. And when we consider how in those days religious motives and ideas stood in the front of all speculations, it is not wonderful that religion should have been thought the essence of all obligations to which it annexed its sanction. To have inquired, Why am I obliged to obey God's will? would to a Christian of that age have appeared irreverent. It is a question, however, which as much as any other requires an answer from a Christian philosopher." Here we are told that the strength of religious faith, down to the middle of last century, among English thinkers, rendered clear ideas of morality impossible. The great question of the relation between moral obligation and the Divine will, could not even be proposed. It seems implied that moral insight has increased through the weakened power of religious faith and reverence on the minds of men. But the assertion is palpably and even ridiculously untrue. Few subjects have been more frequently touched upon by Christian philosophers and divines, both in our own and other lands. Hooker speaks? 5— a 68 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON of it in those noted words, — " The perfection which God is, giveth perfection to that he doeth." It is discussed at some length, and with more accuracy and insight than Mr Mill, from his point of view, could bestow upon it, iif Baxter's Reasons of the Christian Religion. It forms the main idea in Cudworth's celebrated treatise on Immutable Morality. It enters largely into the writings of John Smith More, Clarke, and other moralists of that age. And, unless English divines lay under some special paralysis of thought beyond their predecessors, the aspersion is disproved by Mr Mill's own statement in the footnote of his latest work {Examination of Sir W. Hamilton, p. 175) where he remarks on a treatise of Mr Ward: "I think his book of great practical worth by the strenuous manner in which he maintains morality to have another foundation than the arbitrary decree of God, and shows, by a great weight of evidence, that this is the orthodox doctrine of the' Roman Catholic Church." What contradiction can be more complete ? How can there be an orthodox doctrine of the Romish Church in one special solution of a great question, which Christian Divines, down to the middle of last century, out of false reverence never ventured to propose ? A startling assertion follows. "If any person has the misfortune to believe that his Creator commands wicked- ness, more respect is due to him for disobeying such imaginary commands than for obeying them." When a writer uses words revolting and unnatural to pious ears, and puts a case when it might be a merit, in his eyes, to, disobey our Creator, we have a right to claim at least that he shall avoid ambiguous terms, and rigorously define his true meaning. But here the words are so ambiguous, that it is hard to say what Mr Mill really means. First, PALEY EXAMINED. 6$ by 'wickedness we must certainly understand particular acts, or a course of conduct, thought to be wicked. The error or misfortune may refer to any one of those alterna- tive opinions. First, that certain acts are held to be com- manded by God, when the command is a false imagination, and they are really wicked. Secondly, that things are com- manded, and thereby rendered a duty, which would have been wicked, apart from special Divine command. Thirdly, that certain acts are believed to be wrong and wicked, even while it is also believed that God has commanded them to be done. In the first case, there can be no merit in disobeying the voice of conscience, even when it is diseased and defiled. The only doubt must be which of two alternatives is the greater evil. The second case includes a large class of actions, at least conceivable, which would be wrong without an express command of God, but which, if so commanded, might be proofs of the strongest faith and greatest virtue. Such, for instance, Was the sacrifice of Isaac, a crowning act in a long course of triumphant faith, followed by a glorious recompence; The third case is one neither of merit nor demerit in either course of conduct, but of mental lunacy. He who can believe that the Supremely Good has commanded acts which he at the same time reckons still to be wicked, must be more fit for an asylum, than to be set up by any sensible moralist as capable of acquiring merit either by obedience or disobedience to a judgment so diseased. ■' III. A third error and fault of Paley is given in these words. " In strict consistency with this view of the nature of morality, Paley represents the motive to virtue, and the motive which constitutes it virtue, as consisting solely in -the- hope- of- heaven, and thejfear of hell. It does not 70 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON follow that he believed mankind to have no feelings except selfish ones. He doubtless would have admitted that they are acted upon by other motives, or in the language of Bentham and Helvetius, have other interests than merely self-regarding ones. But he chose to say that actions done from those other motives are not virtuous. The happiness of mankind, according to him, was the end for which morality was enjoined ; yet he would not admit any- thing to be morality, when the happiness of mankind,, or of any one except ourselves, is the inducement to it. He annexed an arbitrary meaning to the word virtue. How he came to think this the right one may be a question. 'Partly, perhaps, by the habit of thinking and talking of morality under the metaphor of a law. In the notion of law the idea of the command of a superior, enforced by penalties, is of course the main element." The blame here is in substance deserved. The selfish motive of virtue, in Paley's teaching, was one standing complaint of the opponents of utilitarianism, from Gisborne and Eobert Hall, through Mackintosh and Sedgwick, down to Mr Leckie and Professor Blackie in the present day. Mr Mill could not fail to seize on a topic so familiar. Thus Mackintosh remarks that " it is a necessary conse- quence of Paley's proposition, that every act which flows from generosity or benevolence is a vice. So also of every act of obedience to the will of God, if it arises from any motive but a desire of the reward He will bestow. It must be owned," he continues, "that this excellent and most enlightened man has laid the foundations of religion in a more intense and exclusive selfishness than was avowed by the Catholic enemies of Fenelon, when they persecuted him for his doctrine of pure and disinterested love of God." And Professor Sedgwick remarks to the same effect PALSY EXAMINED. 7* "Virtue becomes a question of calculation, a matter of profit and loss ; and if a man gain heaven at all on such a system, it must be by arithmetical details, the balance of his moral ledger. A conclusion such as this offends against the spirit breathing in every page of the book of life, yet is it fairly drawn from the principles of utility." The main fact, then, is admitted, but two questions remain. Is the fault of Paley really so gross as some of these strictures imply ? Has Mr Mill any right to blame Paley and his other censors with equal severity, and to charge those with extreme ignorance who, like Professor Sedgwick, ascribe the fault to the doctrine of utility as its proper and natural source ? I believe it may be shown that Paley's doctrine, when his own expositions of it are allowed, differs not very widely from what Bentham's theory becomes, after it has received Mr Mill's latest improvements; and, with all its serious defects, is perhaps- one degree nearer to the full and perfect truth. The words of Paley's definition would certainly warrant the strange conclusion drawn from them by Mackintosh and Mr Mill, if strictly taken, and if they stood alone. But they do not stand alone. In expounding his very faulty view of the meaning of moral obligation, he clears himself from the natural charge of really meaning to include the selfish motive in the proper definition of virtue. "As we should not be obliged," he says, "to obey the laws or the magistrates, unless rewards or pun- ishments, pleasure or pain, depended on our obedience, so neither should we, without the same reason, be obliged to do what is right, to practise virtue, or to obey the com- mands of God." Here, plainly, what is right, virtue, and. the commands of God, are distinguished from and con- trasted with the. "violent motive" by which they are 72 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON enforced, and which he confounds with moral obligation.* Thus his real error clears him from another, which the words of his definition might seem to imply. And this is made still more plain from his remark on habitual virtue, in which he states a natural objection to the definition he has proposed, and gives his own solution. "A man," he says, "may in fact perform many an act of virtue, without having either the good of mankind, the will of God, or everlasting happiness in his thought. How is this to be understood ? In the same manner as a man may he a very good servant, without being conscious, at every turn, of a particular regard to his master's will, or an express attention to his interest. Indeed your best old servants are of this sort. But then he must have served for a length of time under the direction of these motives, to bring it to this ; in which service his merit and virtue consist." The faulty wording, then, or wrong name of Pale/s definition, seems to have disguised from hasty observers his real doctrine, which may be thus explained. Virtue is properly defined by utility, or the better phrase of " doing good to mankind." But of this virtue two species are recognized, one formed or habitual, the other in active process of formation. The starting-point assumed is the natural and universal desire for personal happiness. But this instinct of self-love needs to be "moralized," or trained by outward motives in the needful direction of beneficence or social kindness. Paley introduces the promises of religion, or the hope of eternal happiness,; as the great moralizing power. Hence he remarks pre- sently, — "Such as reject the Christian religion are to make the best shift they can to build up a system, and lay the foundation of morality, without it. But it ap> PALEY EXAMINED. J$ pears to me a great inconsistency in those who receive Christianity, and expect something to come of it, to endeavour to keep all such expectations out of sight in their reasonings on human duty." The doctrine of Paley, thus explained by his own words, will be found to differ but little from Mr Mill's professed improvement on Bentham's theory. The second thoughts or more complete thinking, by which the latter would remedy what he calls the incomplete thinking of the teacher he extols, bring him really very near to the position assumed before his birth by the writer of whom he thinks meanly, and whose motives and character he defames. The starting-point of mere self-love, or man's instinctive desire for personal happiness, is common to them all. The description of virtue, as mainly consisting in outward actions directed to the general happiness, is common to them also. A third principle they all receive is that instinctive self-love needs to be trained by outward motives and sanctions into the higher form of instinctive benevolence. The self-love, however, common to the three writers, is left by Bentham in its bare and naked form of worldly, selfish prudence. He ridicules the notion that men should be expected to be influenced by duty, and not by self-interest alone. This worldly selfishness Paley professes to elevate and transform, re- taining his utilitarianism, by religious faith and the hopes of a future life ; and Mr Mill, without any such aid, by stealthily introducing, from intuitive morals, a funda- mental duty of universal benevolence. It is taught by Paley, no less clearly than by himself, that personal happiness consists to a great extent in the exercise of social affections. These hold the first place in his list of the elements which compose it. He states no less 1 74 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON plainly, as one chief end of moral training, the formation of virtuous habits, which act without the need of imme- diate reference to those ideas of personal advantage, to which their formation is due. He views these habits, like Mr Mill, as gaining the force of a second nature. These principles are common to both, though Paley has stated them, perhaps, with greater brevity and clearness. What, then, are the chief differences between Mr Mill's improvement of Bentham's incomplete thinking, and the doctrine of this rival, of whom he thinks so meanly ? There are two of main importance. Paley, like Bentham, disclaims all distinction in pleasures, except continuance and intensity. Mr Mill admits one of quality also, or that some are in kind of superior worth. He thus becomes a better moralist, but a less consistent utilitarian^ His only decisive superiority over Paley is where he falls short of him in logical consistency, and patches a Stoic or Academic element upon the old garment of an Epicurean creed. He also unconsciously deals a death-blow to his master's favourite doctrine. For by this one change Ben-> tham's "moral arithmetic" is turned into a summation of incommensurables, and must come to an end. The other difference is of high importance, and one where the balance is wholly on Paley's side. The moral-' izing sanction, whereby selfish prudence is to be trained into virtue, Mr Mill expects, to find in certain undefined reforms in human legislation. Philosophers, to whom benevolence is either, as Bentham claims for himself, a happy accident, or else, as Mr Mill affirms, a fundamental and intuitive first principle, are to train a race of better" statesmen. These are next to form better laws, by which the feeling of unity with our fellow-creatures " shall be- come as completely a part of our character, as the horror. PALEY EXAMINED. 75 of crime in a well brought up young person." By this means disease will be abated, and poverty extinguished. A long succession of generations may perish in the breach, but at length men will gain the desired victory, and owe it entirely to themselves. Now Paley, with all his faults, places his reliance for moralizing power on the Christian hope of the life to come. The manner in which he introduces this higher element is very imperfect and faulty. It needs to be freed from a forced union with mere utilitarianism, before it can be seen in its true light, or escape that reproach of selfishness which clearly lies against it in its present form. But in itself it is a higher and nobler element than can be found in any scheme, which reduces virtue to a disguised and transformed selfish interest, and then confines the interests, which form its secret basis, to the present mortal life alone. No moral science, worthy of the name, can exist, so long as the generations of men are viewed only as like the leaves of the forest, which are born, wither, and die in swift succession, and then in death pass away for ever. LECTUEE III. MILL'S CRITIQUE ON PALEY. EXAMINATION CONTINUED. The strictures of Mr Mil], in an early review forty years ago, on Paley's character and motives, may seem at first sight hardly to deserve or repay a present notice in Lectures on Moral Philosophy. They are in themselves a solitary wave in a vast tide of ethical controversy, which has lasted for more than two thousand years. But several reasons conspire to give them present importance, and justify me in submitting them to a careful review. The work of Paley, so vehemently disparaged, was long a text* book in this university. It is one of the ablest deve- lopments of that doctrine of utility, of which Mr Mill is the present champion. His attack dates almost at the transition from its long honour and influence, here in Cambridge, to its comparative neglect. The censures are aimed with equal vehemence against Paley himself, and those who were seeking to replace his views by what they believed to be a better aud higher creed in morals. The great reputation Mr Mill has since acquired, the adoption of three of his books in the Cambridge course of moral studies, where that of Paley is now omitted, the later reprint of these ethioal reviews, and the present EXAMINATION CONTINUED. 77 likelihood of their wide circulation and influence among Mr Mill's collected works, and the assault there made, not only on Paley and his opponents, but the whole moral teaching of the university, make it almost a duty for me, in my present office, to submit them to an exact scrutiny. This year, for the first time, the subject has become historical. Mr Mill, the severe critic of our Cambridge moralists, and Professor Sedgwick, the last survivor of those assailed, have both passed away. I propose, then, to devote some further space to this assault of Mr Mill .on Paley and his university, before I review his contrasted eulogy on Bentham's character and labours. The criti- cism is as follows : "If Paley's ethical system is thus unsound in its foundations, the spirit which runs through the details is no less exceptionable. There is none of the single- minded earnestness for truth, whatever it may be, the intrepid defiance of prejudice, the firm resolve to look all consequences in the face, which the word philosopher supposes, and without which nothing worthy of note was ever accomplished in moral or political philosophy. One sees throughout that he has a particular set of conclusions to come to, and will not, perhaps cannot, allow himself to let in any premises which would interfere with them. His book is one of a class which has since become very numerous, and is likely to become more so, an apology for common-place. Not to lay a solid foundation, and erect an edifice over it, suited to its professed ends, but to construct pillars, and insert them under the existing struc- ture, was Paley's object. He took the doctrines of prac- tical morals which he found current. Mankind were, about that time, ceasing to consider mere use and wont, and even the ordinary special pleading from texts of 78 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON PALEY. Scripture, as sufficient warrant for these common opinions, and were demanding something like a philosophic basis for them. This basis Paley, consciously or unconsciously, made it his endeavour to supply. The skill with which his work was adapted to supply this want of the time accounts for the popularity which attended it, notwith- standing the absence of that generous and inspiring tone, which gives so much of their usefulness, as well as of their charm, to the writings of Plato and Locke and lenelon, and which mankind are accustomed to pretend to admire, whether they really respond to it or not." " When an author starts with such an object, it is of little consequence what premises he sets out from. In' adopting the principle of utility, Paley, we have no doubt, followed the convictions of his intellect; but if he had started from any other principle, we have as little doubt that he would have arrived at the very same con- clusions.... He had not only to maintain existing doctrines, but to save the credit of existing practices also. He found in his country's morality, especially its political morality, modes of conduct universally prevalent, and applauded by all persons of consideration, which being ac- knowledged violations of great moral principles, could only be defended as cases of exception, resting on special grounds of expediency; and the only expediency it was possible to ascribe to them was political expediency, or conducive- ness to the interests of the ruling powers. To this, and not to the principle of utility, is to be ascribed the lax morality of Paley, justly objected to by Mr Sedgwick, on the subject of lies, subscription to articles, abuses of in- fluence in the British constitution, and various other topics. The principle of utility leads to no such conclu- sions : if it did, we should not of late years have heard so- EXAMINATION CONTINUED. 79 much in reprobation of it from all manner of persons, and from none more than from the sworn defenders of those Very malpractices." It would be hard to compress within the same space a larger amount of indirect calumny, and inversion of plain facts, of groundless assumptions, and contradictions of Mr Mill's own principles and later admissions, than these sentences contain. His zeal to defame an author, whom for some reason or other he specially dislikes, has made him furnish an instructive example of the blinding power of determined prejudice, even on powerful and intelligent minds. To see the true question at issue, we must remember how the controversy arose. Professor Sedgwick, in his able and eloquent Discourse on the Studies of Cambridge, was naturally led to dwell on the place of honour given to Paley's Moral Philosophy. He gives him high praise for his clearness of style, unrivalled skill in stating and un- folding an argument, and his various services, in his other works, to the cause of revealed truth. He speaks ;of the strong delight he had early felt in reading the work he now condemns. But he blames Paley's moral teaching for the doctrine of utility or general conse- quences, on which the whole is based. He thinks it unsound in reasoning, the parent of a lax morality, and degrading in its effect on the temper and conduct of those who adopt it. Mr Mill, a youthful admirer of Bentham, and fresh from his influence, was filled with •indignation at this attack on the principle he and his master approved. He tells the Professor that it is pecu- liarly unbecoming for him to give an opinion on it, be- cause of his "extreme ignorance," that he is only master 'of a few stock phrases, knows nothing of the principle but 8o MILL'S CRITIQUE ON PALEY. the name, and has never seriously thought upon it. In one or two cases he says that the Professor neither under- stands Paley nor his conclusions. But though he seems to claim a monopoly in the privilege of fault-finding, he goes even much further than the Professor in Paley's con- demnation. If the Discourse chastises him with whips, the critic chastises him with scorpions. He allows him grudgingly, as almost his sole merit, a sincere faith in that doctrine of utility, which Professor Sedgwick views as his one great defect. But he labours to show that he did not understand it aright, and used it as a mere pretext to justify the defence of abuses, and that all the lax morality in his writings is to be explained by his low and unworthy motives and his personal dishonesty alone. Such a charge, against one of Paley's eminence, ought never to be brought by a critic who cares for his own reputation, unless it can be sustained by clear and strong proof. But of such proof Mr Mill does not offer a single word. To borrow one of Bentham's phrases, it is a case of pure ipsedixitism. Mr Mill bases a very bitter and extreme calumny on his own unproved conjectures and impressions alone. Such a mode of commencing an ardent defence of the doctrine of utility, by vehement abuse of the writer who had done more than any other, in the previous generation, to secure its acceptance among the general British public, is a problem that needs to be explained. Only one solution, I think, is possible. In politics, Paley was a temperate reformer, but opposed to rash and violent change. In religion, though his theology; at least in his earlier years, was meagre and very imper- fect, he was an able defender of Theism and of Christian- ity. It would seem that, in Mr Mill's eyes, esteem for the existing laws and constitution of England, however tern- EXAMINATION CONTINUED. 8 1 perate, and the public defence of Christianity as a super- natural message, however calm and unimpassioned, were proofs of blind prejudice and selfish dishonesty, which far outweighed the merit of a sincere adoption and able ex- position of the utilitarian theory. To condemn one great defect in Paley's teaching, Mr Mill, I have shown before, deserts his own princi- ples, and adopts for the moment the higher stand- point of Plato and Cudworth, and intuitive moralists. To depreciate his personal character he repeats the same process, and sets up a moral standard at total variance with the utilitarian theory. Paley, he assures us, was no philosopher. He had none of that single-minded earnestness for truth, that intrepid defiance of prejudice, that firm resolve to look all consequences in the face, which the word implies. Now the name implies nothing of the kind. It excludes indeed, in strictness of speech, all who hold the creed of Lessing, adopted and praised by Sir W. Hamilton, and justly condemned elsewhere by Mr Mill, that searching after truth is better and more im- portant than truth itself. Such persons, whatever their learning or ability, are philogymnasts, not philosophers. By their own confession they are lovers of intellectual exercise rather than of truth and wisdom. But the word defines nothing as to the amount of outward sacrifice, or intrepid defiance of popular prejudice, required in the publication of unpopular truths. It is one thing to be a philosopher, and another to be a hero or a martyr. The definition of Mr Mill finds as little warrant in history as in etymology. There have been countless martyrs to religious faith, but very few indeed to philo- sophical theories. And unbelieving philosophers espe- cially, with few exceptions, from earliest times, to the B.L. II, 6 82 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON PALEY. present day, have been more remarkable for prudent compliance with the religious practices or prejudices that have surrounded them, and for cautious and systematic silence in questions of religious faith, than for intrepid and open defiance of opinions or usages ■which in their secret thoughts they reject and despise. Least of all can we expect an intrepid disregard and defiance of con- sequences to mark the advocates of an utilitarian theory. When one of these lays down for a law of duty to his fellow utilitarian a manly indifference to all consequences in the cause of truth, and imputes to him failure in this duty as a scandal and almost a crime, we may well hold up our hands in silent amazement. If Paley was no philosopher in Mr Mill's sense of the word, he never claimed to be. "We must look to another senior wrangler, forty years later, Henry Martyn, for the still higher gifts of the Christian hero and martyr. But if his character and motives were not the highest and noblest of all, at least he was gifted with modesty and common sense. He did not aim, like Bentham, to sweep away as mere rubbish the thoughts of all previous moralists, and the experience of all past generations, and to erect from its foundations a stuccoed building of ethics and politics by a new moral arithmetic of his own discovery. He did not even aspire, like Mr Mill, to remedy by his " complete thinking" the incompleteness of a master, whom he has placed in the vanguard of human progress, as the foremost thinker of the most enlightened age. He never pretended to belong to some select coterie or mental aristocracy* who look on themselves, in the words of Mackintosh with regard to Bentham's early disciples, as "initiated into the most secret mysteries of philosophy, and entitled to look down with pity, if not contempt, on the profane multi- EXAMINATION CONTINUED. 83' tude," the general herd of mankind. His real object has been clearly defined in his own preface. It was to pro- duce a work on morals, in which " the principle should be sound, distinctly explained, and sufficiently adapted to real life and actual situations ; " which should be free from a merely sententious, apophthegmatic style, and in which the defect should be avoided of entirely separating the laws of nature- from the lessons, precepts, and sanc- tions of the Christian faith. The personal motives he assigns have nothing grand or heroic, but they are not mean or mercenary, and bear the plainest signs of a sincerity free from pretence. "The nature," he says, "of my academical situation, a great deal of leisure since my retirement from it, the recommendation of an honoured friend, the authority of the prelate to whom these labours are inscribed, the not perceiving in what way I could em- ploy my time and talents better, and my disapprobation, in literary men, of the fastidious indolence which sits still because it disdains to do little, were the considerations that directed my thoughts to this design." It needs the eyes of a lynx, or the skill of a Zoilus, to find here any trace of that corrupt and dishonest purpose, which the review imputes so freely to the whole work. Those who see most clearly the real defects of the Moral Philosophy, and the serious fault of the principle on which the whole system is based, are doubly bound to vindicate the memory of a great and able writer, when attacked by groundless calumnies. And still more, when through Paley shafts of bitter reproach are aimed against a whole university, while the assailant shares fully in one main defect of Paley 's morality, and adds to it another and still greater of his own. 6—2 84 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON PALSY. Next, is it true that the Moral Philosophy is " an apology for commonplace" ? The charge is more than un- true; it is even ridiculous. Perhaps no work on morals ever bore more plainly the stamp of the writer's individual mind, both in its excellencies and defects. None has succeeded more in giving an air of novelty and freshness even to old and familiar truths. No sooner had it ap- peared than a friend and warm admirer of Bentham writes to him on the work, and describes it in these words. " It is a capital book, and much the best that has been written on the subject in this country. Almost everything he says about morals, government, and our own constitution, is sound, practical, and free from commonplace." His chief fear is that, by its originality, it will have forestalled with the public what he holds to be the most important of Bentham's ideas ; and through his delay to print, may ex- pose him to the charge of stealing what he had honestly invented with the sweat of his own brow. And again Mr Leckie, one of the ablest and best-read students of ethical literature, well acquainted with Mr Mill's writings, deli- berately ranks Paley's chapter on Happiness in the Moral Philosophy above anything that either Bentham or Mr Mill himself has written on the utilitarian side. The charge, then, of commonplace, if applied to the style and method of the work, is untrue and even ridicu- lous. Does it apply justly to the conclusions or moral verdicts themselves? Certainly Paley did not aspire to effect an entire revolution in the usual views of moral duty, or to create a wholly new starting-point in the. ethical and political history of mankind. Such arrogant dreams might be entertained by Bentham and a few of his more thorough disciples. Paley was so far common*' EXAMINATION CONTINUED. 8$ place that lie did not share in this want of modesty and common sense. Mr Mill wrote his critique on Sedgwick and Paley, " calidus juventa," when he was only twenty- eight years old, just three years after Bentham's death. His remarks are naturally tinged by the arrogance of the school in which he had been reared, and which he out- grew to some extent, with wider study and growing expe- rience, in his later years. But the character of that school has been forcibly described by Professor Blackie in these words : "Never was a system ushered in with a greater flourish of trumpets, and a more strong consciousness on the part of its promulgators that a new gospel was being preached, •which was to save the world at last from centuries of hereditary mistake. At the watchword of the system the son of a London attorney ' felt the scales fall from his eyes.' All was now clear that had hitherto been dim. A distinct test was revealed for marking out by a sharp line a do- main, where, previous to the arrival of the great discrimi- nator, all had been mere floating clouds, shifting mists, and aerial hallucinations. The unsubstantial idealism of Plato, and the unreasonable asceticism of the New Testa- ment, were destined at length to disappear. Only let schools be established, and the redemption of the world from imaginary morality and superstitious sentiment would be complete.. ..One of Bentham's most admiring disciples actually believed and printed that his discovery of the principle of utility marked an era in moral philosophy as important as that achieved in physical science by Newton's discovery of the principle of gravitation. The dogmatism, which was the characteristic feature of Bentham, was in- herited, more or less, by most of his disciples ; and the importance they attribute to themselves and their own. 86 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON PALSY. discoveries is only surpassed by the superciliousness with which they ignore whatever has been done by their pre- decessors." Here, then, in the view of Mr Mill, when a young man fresh from the school of Bentham, was a second great fault of Paley as a moralist. Here lay the proof of his corrupt motives, and practical dishonesty. He used the doctrine of consequences, chiefly to unite together and justify moral rules and precepts existing before, and already sanctioned • by the general acceptance of mankind. He did not clear the ground from all the rubbish of past generations, in order to build a moral structure wholly or almost wholly new. He was content to " insert pillars under existing doc- trines," when these should rather have been carted away. Thus only, by the labour of some modern Mulcibers, might a perfect and glorious moral edifice Eise like an exhalation, with the sound Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet, to bless the waiting and expectant eyes of the coming generations of mankind. In his Treatise on Utilitarianism, twenty-six years later than the review, but shortly after its republication, Mr Mill lays down an opposite doctrine. Defenders of utility, he says, are often called upon to reply to the objection that there is not time, previous to action, for calculating the effects of any line of conduct on the general happiness. His answer is that there has been ample time, the whole duration of the human species. "During all that time mankind have been learning the tendencies of actions by experience. People talk as if, at the moment a man is tempted to meddle with the pro- perty or the life of another, he had to begin considering. EXAMINATION CONTINUED. 87 whether murder and theft are injurious. The matter is now done to his hand. It is whimsical to suppose that, if utility be the test, mankind would remain without any agreement what is useful, and take no measures for having their notions taught to the young, and enforced by law and opinion. To consider the rules of morality as im- provable, is one thing ; to test every individual act by the first principle, and omit all intermediate rules, is another. Men ought to leave off talking this kind of nonsense on morals only, which they would not listen to on other sub- jects." " Gravely to argue as if no such secondary princi- ples could be had, and as if mankind had remained till now without drawing any general conclusions from the experience of human life, is as high a pitch, I think, as absurdity has ever reached in philosophical controversy. " The contrast between the early censure of Paley and this later palinode is very complete. Utilitarians, it is found out at length, had never dreamed of doing what Paley has been charged with dishonesty for not having attempted to do. Once it was his grand offence to have inserted pillars .under existing structures, and propped up, by the doctrine of utility, the received moral convictions of mankind; instead of labouring, with intrepid defiance of pre- judice, and disregard of consequences, to clear them away, and start afresh. But now it has become the extreme pitch of controversial absurdity, to think that any sober utilitarian ever thought of doing what Paley is reproached for not having done, or had dared to disparage that commonplace morality, which is nothing less than the embodied experience of long ages of mankind. Professor Grote has noted this reversed attitude of Mr Mill in his later treatise with his usual calmness and good sense, and' still with a slight touch of gentle satire, in these words : : - 88 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON PALEY. "The utilitarian view, which made people suspicious, Was that mankind had almost everything to learn in morals; and that, as a 'temporis partus maximus,' there was born a philosophy, which would immediately teach what had till then been unknown. So far as we allow, in testimony of what is useful and good, the past experience and practice of mankind, we make a morality which, whatever its merits, is historical rather than distinctively rational — a morality which it was the main purpose of Beniham's life to cause people to distrust. If utilitarianism has not taught us something new about these moral rules derived from tradition and experience, what has it done, and why has it given itself a special name? Does the name denote something which people have always been, or something which some have lately begun to be? If it is to resolve itself into nothing more than that we are to con- sider that 'the received code of ethics is not of divine right,' that in fact we are not to let our moral judgment sleep in reliance on custom and tradition, but to keep it always vigorous and awake, it certainly deserves no blame.. But I scarcely see what there was or is in it to support, Or who will oppose it." So much for Mr Mill's consistency in his charge against Paley of moral commonplace; that is, as explained later by himself, his attaching due weight to received moral rules, the result of the experience and wisdom of long ages of mankind. But it is worthy of notice that two eminent writers, equal to Mr Mill in ability, and in dignity of moral teaching very superior, have blamed Paley on grounds precisely opposite. Sir J. Mackintosh, in his Dissertation, says that he was betrayed into a serious error "by his disposition to look at his principles merely; > as far as they are calculated to amend prevalent vices and. EXAMINATION CONTINUED, 89 errors." And Eobert Hall plainly includes his work, as well as Bentham's, in his indignant appeal. " How is it that on a subject on which men have thought deeply from the moment they began to think, and where consequently whatever is entirely and fundamentally new must be fundamentally false — how is it that, in contempt of the experience of all past ages, and of all precedents, human and divine, we have ventured into a perilous path, which no eye has explored, no foot has. trod; and have under- taken, after six thousand years, to manufacture a morality of our own ; to decide, by a cold calculation of interest and ledger-book of profit and loss, the preference of truth to falsehood, purity to blasphemy, and humanity and justice to treachery and blood ?" It is rather hard on Paley to bear this double reproach; to be blamed, on one side, for doing nothing but inno- vate, and set forth a wholly new morality; and on the other, to be held up to scorn as a mere timeserver, whose one aim is to invent dishonest apologies for a morality at once corrupt and commonplace. But there is a great difference between an earnest protest against a principle which is held to be mischievous, and an attempt, by one who holds it, to divert the censure, by aspersing the motives and character of its ablest and most successful advocate in a former generation. The appeal to history in proof of the charge against Paley is a condensation of errors. Mankind, it is said, were then ceasing to rely on use and wont, and to distrust special pleading from texts of Scripture in defence of current opinions, existing doctrines in morals, and ex- isting immoralities. They were crying out — ''Give us some philosophical basis for these things," and such a basis Paley, ia his. Moral .Philosophy, undertook to supply* 90 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON PALEY. Now first, the meiition of mankind in such a matter is a piece of bombast, into which Paley would never have fallen. The words can only refer, at most, to a large proportion of educated Englishmen. Next, these were not accustomed at the close of last century, or indeed at any time, to accept mere use and wont as a sufficient ground for their creed in morals or religion. Still less did they believe that use and wont, or the average prac- tice of their fellows, was a sufficient standard of moral right and wrong. Thirdly, the appeal to Scripture on moral questions, instead of having grown out of date, had latterly received a new impulse from the religious revival then in progress, of which the influence, in works like Cow- per's Poems, and Wilberforce's Practical View, was begin- ning to be felt in the upper circles of society. It was pro- bably more frequent, and more largely made, than for a century before. Fourthly, Paley repeatedly makes this very appeal. Far from intending to supersede it, he an- nounces, as one main object, his wish to remedy a fault in most of the earlier treatises, that they "divide too much the Law of Nature from the precepts of Kevelation.® Lastly, so far is it from being his aim to provide a philoso- phical basis, by which the immoralities of his age might be justified, that a charge directly opposite is nearer the truth. Sir J. Mackintosh, we have seen, makes it his fault, that " he limited his principles too much to his own time and country," and looked on them " merely as far as they were calculated to amend prevalent vices and errors." He even begins his work with keen satire on the laws of honour, then widely prevalent. He defines them to be "rules in- vented by men of fashion for their mutual convenience," and says that consequently they " allow of fornication, and adultery, drunkenness, prodigality, and revenge in the EXAMINATION CONTINUED. 91 extreme, and lay no stress on the virtues opposite to these." Mr Mill himself could not state more plainly the danger of a purely subjective morality in leading to the " deification of mere opinion and habit," than Paley has done in the following words : " Nothing is so soon made as a maxim ; and it appears" from the example of Aristotle that authority and conve- nience, education and prejudice, and general practice, have no small share in the making of them ; and that the laws ef custom are very apt to be mistaken for the order of nature. For which reason I suspect that a system of morality, built upon instincts, will only find out reasons and excuses for opinions and practices already established, will seldom correct and reform either.'' The Moral Philosophy is next condemned, because of "the absence of that generous and inspiring tone" which lends their charm and usefulness to the writings of Plato, Locke, and Fenelon, and which mankind, whether they really share it or not, usually pretend to admire. The complaint itself has a partial truth. Whatever the other merits of the work, there are seen in it no sparks of moral enthusiasm, no signs of heroic and lofty aspiration. No- where does it reflect fully the beauty and fervour of that one brief charge of the great Apostle, — " Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ; if there be any virtue, and if there be any , praise, think on these things." The reality of this defect, however, is not the question here at issue, but its true source and explanation. Is it right or natural to use Paley for a moral scapegoat, and brand his memory and character with reproach, in order to save the credit of that 92 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON PALEY. ethical theory, which he and his accuser both receive ? Or is Professor Sedgwick nearer the truth, when he imputes this and similar defects to the influence of Paley's utili- tarianism, and to that cause alone ? The requirement in moral writings, of a generous and inspiring tone, like that of Plato and Fenelon, is justly noted by Dr Whewell, in his Preface to Mackintosh, as one overt sign that the reviewer, then anonymous, was de- serting Bentham's stand-point, and approximating in some degree to the position which Bentham treats with con- tempt and derision. At least the reproach has a strange sound, when levelled by a champion of utilitarian philo- sophy against an utilitarian divine. Mr Mill deals here with Paley like one of Pharaoh's taskmasters. He requires him to make bricks without straw. There is nothing gene- rous in the doctrine that every virtuous act is the result of a sum in arithmetic, a counting up of so many pleasures, and a subtraction of so many pains. There is nothing ennobling in a theory, which " counts it easy to reduce to a simple calculation of gain and loss the acts of the most exalted virtue;" and, in these gains and losses, ranks the pleasant sensations of gluttony and hist and malevolence side by side with the enjoyments of benevolence, and the consolations of religious faith. The want of Platonic grand- eur and dignity, and of a tone of lofty inspiration, can only be a natural result from the adoption of that Epicu- rean theory, which endeavours, in the words of Carlyle, by some private logic-mill and earthly mechanism of its own, to "grind out Virtue from the husks of pleasure." There is thus a plain reason for ascribing the fault in question to the theory itself, rather than to personal defects or vices of its advocate. And this is still plainer from the examples to which the appeal is made. Two* EXAMINATION CONTINUED. 93 names suggest themselves instinctively to Mr Mill as pat- terns of that generous and inspiring tone which befits „every writer on morals; Plato, the lofty idealist, who defines goodness and virtue by likeness to the Divinity, and Fenelon, the attractive Christian mystic, who urged the duty and privilege of loving God for His excellence alone, and not with respect to the hope of reward. Ben- tham, the most consistent patron of utilitarianism, says that Plato and Aristotle were employed in talking and writing nonsense, and sank thus below the average of man- kind. For they spoke only of duties, when men were thinking only of their interests, as it was sensible and natural for them to do. Fenelon, on his principles, must have seemed to be a mere victim of sentimental dreams. But Mr Mill places Locke between Plato and Fenelon, a third example of that generous and inspiring tone, for the want of which Paley is to be condemned. Prof. Sedgwick, indeed, has grouped Locke and Paley together. ■He gives them both high praise, and says of the first that his works are noble subjects for academical study, while he finds much, not only in Paley, but in Locke, to cen- sure and disapprove. Mr Mill adopts a very different classification. Of Paley's work he thinks meanly, while he places Locke between Plato and Fenelon, and "cannot speak of him but with the deepest reverence." He praises him for " the noble devotion to truth, the beautiful and touching earnestness and simplicity, which he not only manifests in himself, but has the power beyond almost all other philosophical writers of infusing into his reader." So widely may impressions vary. My first reading of Locke's Essay was more than forty years ago. And I still remember the strong feeling of aversion and repug- nance I then experienced from its opening chapters, not 94 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON PALEY. from the mere absence, but the exact converse, of that generous and inspiring tone, which Mr Mill here ascribes to the whole work. The Essay seems to me defective alike in its principles, its method, and the greater part of its conclusions. There is neither correctness and delicacy of mental analysis, nor metaphysical depth and profound- ness, nor imaginative richness and variety of thought in his contemplation of human nature, so strange and mys- terious in its contrasts, and of the mind itself, with its treasures of hopes and fears, its deep emotions, and "thoughts that wander through eternity," deep as hell, and high as heaven. There are oases and green spots in his work, especially where he follows his own better instincts, and has had time to forget the principles with which he began. There is singleness and honesty of pur- pose, and diligence and patience of thought, so that his Essay is a copious treasury of the raw materials of mental philosophy. There are some fertile meadows, and low marsh land in abundance, with a few useful stepping- stones intermingled. But there are no lofty mountain- tops, clothed with eternal snow, that drink in and reflect the morning and evening sunlight, and raise our thoughts, like the best parts of Plato, to the sky, while they fill the soul with a sense of grandeur and sublimity. With regard, then, to this requirement, in writers on ethics and philosophy, of a generous and inspiring tone of thought, Locke and Paley, as it seems to me, stand almost exactly on a level. Locke has perhaps a slight advantage, because on the subject of morals he was less consistent, and oscillates from the sensationalism of his general theory towards the view of the intuitive moralist, when he affirms that ethics are as capable, or nearly as capable, of strict demonstration as geometry itself. The EXAMINATION CONTINUED. 95 Discourse of Professor Sedgwick, which Mr Mill visits with such invective, seems to me in this respect far supe- rior both to the work of Locke and to his own writing's. In fact, the thermometer of generous and animating thought on moral subjects seems to rise or fall, exactly as the author recedes from or approaches to the position of the mere utilitarian. The prophets and apostles we place apart, they are a class to themselves above the rest. Plato and Epictetus, and A'Kempis, Fenelon and Leigh- ton, Cudworth and More, stand among the highest; Butler and Hutcheson and Adam Smith come in a second rank ; Locke and Paley and Mr Mill himself hold nearly the same level ; and Bentham, the most thoroughgoing in hare and naked utilitarianism, with his one specific of a ledger-book and addition-table of pleasures, in just reward for his unmeasured contempt of nearly all his predecessors, may well form a class to himself, and occupy the lowest room. It would not be fair, however, to Paley, to represent' his work as wholly destitute of generous and inspiring passages, though it results naturally from the doctrine he shares with Mr Mill that they are comparatively few. I would appeal, first, to his remarks on West Indian Slavery: — " But necessity is pretended ; the name under which every enormity is attempted to be justified. And after all, what is the necessity? It has never been proved that the land could not be cultivated there as here by hired servants. It is said that it could not be cultivated . with quite the same conveniency and cheapness, as by the labour of slaves. A pound of sugar, which the planter now sells for sixpence, could not be afforded under six- pence halfpenny; — and this is the necessity!. 96 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON PALEY. " The great revolution which has taken place in the Western world may probably conduce (and who knows but that it was designed ?) to accelerate the fall of this abominable tyranny. And now that this conflict, and the passions which attend it, are no more, there may succeed perhaps a season for reflecting, whether a legislature; which had so long lent its support to an institution replete with human misery, was fit to be trusted with an empire the most extensive that ever obtained in any age or quarter of the world." These are not the words of a dishonest time-server. Especially when we remember that the long agitation of Clarkson and Wilberforce had scarcely begun, and that the Court, unhappily, was in those days strongly averse to the whole movement. The suggestion that the loss of the American colonies might be a divine Nemesis for the long sanction, by the British legislature, of the slave-trade and its attendant horrors, has more resem- blance to the voice of some Hebrew prophet in ancient times. The remarks on wars of conquest deserve nearly the same praise. Nearly the whole chapter also, on "reve- rencing the Deity," is a pattern not only of a clear, sim- ple, easy, and forcible style, but of a gravity and moral earnestness which appeals to the heart. The expostula- tion against the unbecoming nature of those attacks, to which the Christian faith had often been exposed, is ?. model of calmness, dignity, and effective description and reasoning, and reaches a climax of powerful eloquence at the close. But a heavier accusation follows. We may easily forgive, in a writer, the- absence of lofty aspirations and heroic virtue. But we may well think meanly of one EXAMINATION CONTINUED. 97 who is careless and indifferent about the principles from which he reasons, and is only anxious, for selfish ends, to reach by any road foregone conclusions. Such an author, both intellectually and morally, is an object of just con- tempt. Yet this is the charge Mr Mill has made. In adopting the doctrine of utility he admits that Paley doubtless followed the convictions of his intellect. But he has just as little doubt that, if he had started from any other, he would have contrived to reach the very same conclusions. And no wonder, since he alleges pre- sently, that the main design of the work was " not only, to maintain existing doctrines, but to save the credit of existing practices also." The charge here seems to be, and is plainly meant to be, very damaging to Paley's character. But when we examine it more closely, and compare it with the doc- trine of a later review, it will appear in a very opposite light. The alleged vice will be found, on Mr Mill's own principles, to be only the unfair and jaundiced description of a real virtue. , In the examination of Sir W. Hamilton, perhaps his ablest work, Mr Mill describes the metaphysical theories of his great rival, with much truth, as a system of im- perfect junctions. And he illustrates his meaning, with much felicity, by the Cenis tunnel, if the labourers from opposite ends had worked past one another in the dark. This true, thougb satirical description of Sir W. Hamilton's metaphysics, applies with no less accuracy to his own ethical speculations. From Bentham's end he starts first with pure self-interest for the one law of nature, and an absolute empire of personal pain and pleasure. But his studies are too wide, and his temper too eclectic, to rest satisfied with this naked selfishness B. L. II. 7 9 8 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON PALEY. alone. He seeks to engraft utilitarianism with Stoic and Christian elements. He starts from an opposite end with a grand intuitive axiom, the absolute and self-evident duty of world-wide, universal benevolence. The natural result is a series of imperfect junctions, or virtual contra- dictions, where he works past himself in the dark ; and thus condemns in one review, as a proof of shameful dis- honesty, what results by necessary consequence from his statements and definitions, in another review, of the only' sound and safe morality. : In the review of Dr Whewell we are taught that the contrast of & priori and o\ posteriori reasoning, the intuitive and inductive methods, is common alike to the knowledge' of truth and of duty. One line, it is said, was pursued by Descartes, Spinosa, Leibnitz and Kant, down to Schelling and Hegel; and the other by Bacon and Locke and their" successors. Some have thought it possible, he continues, to be Baconians or inductive philosophers in the phy- sical department, and to remain Cartesians, that is, intui- tivists, in the moral. But it is the principal merit, in his view, of the later Germans, that they have proved this middle ground or compromise to be untenable, and "have convinced all thinkers of any force that; if they admit of an & priori morality, they must assign the same character to physical science." I do not stay to examine the measure of truth or falsehood in this statement. For the present I assume it to be true, and that morals are properly, as\Mi Mill clearly affirms, an inductive science. Its analogies with physics, on this view, are not with geometry and. arithmetic, but with astronomy and chemistry, and the applied sciences,* where experiment, observation, and induction reign su- preme. The course of such induction is to rise from facts EXAMINATION CONTINUED. 99 to secondary laws, or the lower axioms of Bacon ; and then, by a gradual and slow ascent, to combine these in some higher generalization. We have to reason upward, and not downward, from the circumference of a wide observa- tion to some mysterious centre, and not from a centre first known to the circumference. To generalize, we must sometimes assume an hypothesis, and reason out- ward and downward. But this is only to test the hypo- thesis by its being found to include lower axioms already proved and known, and not to test the axioms induc- tively known by their agreement with the hypothesis or law which brings them together. Such, according to Mr Mill's later statement, is the primal law and neces- sary condition of Baconian, or inductive morality, and it is the merit of the Germans to have shown that no other is possible, unless we pretend to form a physical scheme of the universe by mere intuition. Let us accept, then, these somewhat oracular deci- sions, as the voice of true, nay the only true, philosophy. But then what becomes of the severe reproach levelled against Paley in the earlier review ? Transfer it to a case which, on this view, is strictly parallel, and its frivolous nature will be clear. Instead of Paley and his Moral Philosophy, let us substitute Sir Isaac Newton and the Principia, and the censure would assume this singular form. "When an astronomer starts with the one object of reaching Kepler's laws and Flamstead's observations, it is of little consequence what premises he sets out from. Vortices or attraction will equally serve him. In adopting the principle of universal gravitation, Newton, no doubt, followed the conviction of his intellect. But if he had started from any other hypothesis, we have as little doubt that he would have arrived at the very same con^- 7-2 IOO MILL'S CRITIQUE ON PALEY. elusions. Those conclusions, that is, the received facts and laws of previous discovery, were accordant in many points with those which philosophy would have dictated. But had they been so in all points, that was not the way in which a genuine philosopher would have dealt with them." Here, then, we have one of those imperfect junctions, or rather of those failures to effect a joining at all, with which Mr Mill's ethical statements abound. Two courses lay open before him. He might take the high level of an intuitive moralist, and lay down, like Edwards, benevolence to being in general for the defining essence of virtue. He might then make it the business of a sound moralist to dispense with all popular maxims, the embodied experience and wisdom of mankind, and proceed to test all doctrines and practices by inferences professedly reasoned out from this first principle alone. The censure on Paley would then be natural and just. His fault will be that he has not taken this high intuitive ground, or shown the contempt required from a true philosopher for the popular convictions, imper- fect inductions, and supposed lessons of experience, which offered themselves ready to his hand. But then what be- comes of the doctrine in the later review ? Or again, he may accept induction for the true basis of moral science, so that it climbs slowly, first from facts of experience to middle axioms or moral rules; and then later to more general principles, proved by their agreement with the middle axioms, and joining them in a higher unity. The tunnelling, on this view, must begin from the end of human experience, and proceed more than half-way. The test of merit, then, in the doctrine of utility or any other, will be that, when reasoned out fairly, it meets and exactly agrees with these received moral axioms, the result of EXAMINATION CONTINUED. ioi ages of long and painful experience. But then what be- comes of the severe and scornful censure of Paley ? Why- blame him and hold him up to contempt for doing exactly what every sensible moralist, on Mr Mill's own principles, is bound to do ? If his general principle had landed him in conclusions wholly at variance with " the general con- clusions of mankind from the experience of human life," this could not have disproved the secondary axioms, but the hypothesis assumed for the basis of the reasoning. Who ever dreamed of reproaching Newton on the ground, that the Laws of Kepler were already well known ; and that, while he ought to have amended them by some & priori reasonings, all his vaunted theorems were only laborious efforts to reach foregone conclusions, and to con- firm the very same laws which were known long before ? The complaint against Paley of moral laxity on special topics opens too wide a field for the close of this Lecture. So far as it is made in common by Mr Mill and Professor Sedgwick, it belongs to a later stage of the discussion. The censures in the Discourse are, I think, true in part, and only in part ; and Mr Mill has added nothing to them but a double misrepresentation of Paley himself and of his later opponents. It is no mark of true philosophy to turn aside repeatedly from direct argument, to impute bad and corrupt motives to those whose opinions we disapprove. The last charge is perhaps the most surprising of the whole. Paley, it seems, to maintain the credit of exist- ing malpractices and immoralities, purposely confined his view to considerations of expediency of the most obvious •and vulgar kind. To conduct the utilitarian arithmetic aright two things have to be weighed, the consequences to the outward interests of the parties concerned, and to their characters and their interests as affected by their 102 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON PALEY. character. In the first there is not much room for differ- ence of opinion. They are easily distinguished, at least for the guidance of a private individual. But an essential part of the morality or immorality of an action or rule con- sists in its influence on the agent's own mind, and many actions produce an effect on the character of others. In these cases there will be as much difference in the moral judgments of different persons, as in their views of human nature, and of the formation of character. Thus clear and ' comprehensive views of education and human culture must precede, and form the basis of, a philosophy of morals. For this much remains to be done. The mate* rials, though abundant, are not complete. To collect them and add to them will be a labour for successive genera- tions. But Paley brought no new light to them, and did not avail himself of the lights already thrown on it by others. He had meditated little on the subject, and had no ideas on it, but the commonest and most superficial. The first thing worthy of note in this instructive pas- sage is Mr Mill's entire desertion of his master, Bentham, and of the view which forms the basis of Bentham's theory. For this is not merely some doctrine of utility, but of an utility capable of easy calculation, and thereby fit to supersede the loose views and maxims current among mankind. He lays it down at the outset, as one of his chief objects, " to find the processes of a moral arith- metic, by which uniform results may be arrived at." And he tells us presently, after his list of fifteen kinds of sim- ple pleasures, and seven causes on which their unequal value depends ; — " When one has become familiar with the process, when he has acquired the justness of estimate which results from it, he can compare the sum of good and ai evil with so much of promptitude, as scarcely to.be EXAMINATION CONTINUED: 103 conscious of the steps of the calculation !" Yet, according to Mr Mill, what Bentham styles pleasures and pains of the third order may be the most important of the whole. And so far are they from being easy to estimate, that it will need the labours of successive generations of utilitarian philosophers, to amass the needful materials for their right estimation. In the next place, whatever the alleged defects of Paley in this matter, it is plain in itself, and even from Mr'Mill's own admission, that those of Bentham, whom he admires and extols, were greater still. He tells us that "his knowledge of human nature is bounded, wholly empirical, and the empiricism of one who had little ex- perience and less imagination. He never knew prosperity or adversity, passion or satiety, or even sickness. He knew no dejection, no heaviness of heart. Other ages and other nations were a blank to him for purposes of instruction." And yet, while Paley is charged with commonplace and even mercenary motives, for not reaching Mr Mill's ideal of some future utilitarian, Bentham, who was plainly nauch below Paley in what we are here taught to view as essentials of moral philosophy, is ranked far above him as one of the seminal minds of the age. But is Paley really so blind and ignorant on these sub- jects as Mr Mill affirms 1 On the contrary, Mr Mill, in his fancied improvements on his own master's system, is merely returning to the position which Paley had occupied before he was born. His remarks on the power of habit, and the influence of actions on character, are among the best in his work. He lays down, more tersely and pithily than Mr Mill has done, the truth he is charged with passing by in almost total neglect. He makes happiness, for . instance, the basis of his whole t theory, to depend 104 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON PALEY. mainly on four elements. And the third of these, on which he dwells at greatest length, is the prudent con- stitution of the habits. It is to this passage Mackintosh gives the high praise, that perhaps no words were ever more expressive and illustrative than those which Paley has employed. He writes in another chapter, "Mankind act more from habit than reflection. Many things are to be done and abstained from for the sake of the habit alone." And he then proceeds as follows. " There are habits, not only of drinking, swearing, lying, and some other things, which are commonly so called, but of every modification of action, speech and thought. Man is a bundle of habits." "There are habits of industry, attention, vigilance, ad- vertency ; of a prompt obedience to the judgment, or of yielding to the first impulse of passion ; of extending our views to the future, or of resting on the present ; of ap- prehending, methodising, reasoning; of indolence and dilatoriness ; of vanity, self-conceit, melancholy, partiality; of fretfulness, suspicion, captiousness, censoriousness ; of pride, ambition, covetousness ; of overreaching, intriguing, projecting: in a word, there is not a quality or function either of body or mind, which does not feel the influence of this great law of animated nature." "The habit of lying, when once formed, is easily extended to serve designs of malice or interest. Like all habits, it spreads indeed of itself." And again, in his remarks on Anger. " The point is to habituate ourselves to these reflections, till they rise up of their own accord when they are wanted, and with such force and colouring as both to mitigate the paroxysms of anger at the time, and at length to produce an alteration in the temper or disposition itself." The suggestion, then, of Mr Mill, that Paley omitted EXAMINATION CONTINUED. 105 all reference to the effect of actions in fixing habits and moulding the character, in order to favour and indulge existing abuses, and flatter the ruling powers, is simply a preposterous calumny. The relative merit, on this subject, of the first and third of the great utilitarian leaders is one of degree alone. Both of them rank high above Bentham, and each has a partial advantage over the other. But when Mr Mill reproaches Paley that he had no ideas on it hut "the commonest and most superficial," he provokes the natural retort that the most important by far, even of those common and familiar ideas, at once the most con- spicuous on the surface of human life, and the most vital and profound in its bearing on all moral questions, is left almost wholly out of sight in his own writings. On religious questions he is so far from practising that "in- trepid defiance of prejudice " which he makes the test of a true philosopher, that the most careful reader can scarcely guess the exact nature of his own convictions. The mighty influence of faith in the divine mission of Christ, and the hope of the life to come, or of reverent fear from the expectation of a righteous judgment, in deepening humility, quickening the conscience, and promoting habits of truth, uprightness, and unselfish benevolence, is overlooked and forgotten, or virtually denied. He seems to accept the task which Paley represents as so difficult to those who reject the Christian religion, " to make the best shift they can to build up a system, and lay the founda- tion of morality without it." And in his ethical specu- lations not only Christianity, but even simple Theism, is treated as a superfluous element. It is not surprising, then, however mournful, that the leading and most offen- sive advocate of Atheism should have boasted of late of the eminent services Mr Mill has rendered to the cause of ^ 1 06 MILL'S CRITIQUE ON PALEY. irreligion. He protests, it is true, against the title of godless, sometimes applied to the ethical theory he main* tains. Still his answer gives no key to his own belief, and is purely hypothetical. If such a theistic doctrine is true, then his doctrine is even " more profoundly religious than any other." What he really, proves is. that his teach* ing may accidentally coexist with faith in God and Christ,, and the Divine goodness. He does not prove that faith and piety, on his view, are more than personal and separa- ble accidents, with which moral teaching, essentially, has nothing to do, and which it may leave out of sight with- out real loss. That fear of God, which the wisest of men pronounced the beginning of wisdom, Ends no place at all in his ethical system; and the formation of religious habits of thought, and of the great lesson of Christian faith, to live As ever in the great Taskmaster's eye, are views of moral culture passed by in utter silence. Such truths may be perhaps of "the most obvious and vulgar kind." Nevertheless, they are of supreme and vital im- portance. Paley, whatever his defects, has dwelt on them with clearness and force. Mr Mill, whatever his merits, has forgotten or denied them. And this contrast far out- weighs his superiority, were it tenfold greater than it is, in discovering or suggesting recondite laws of human culture, by which utilitarian moralists are to enrich their oracles of duty in some distant and more enlightened age. LECTUKE IV. MILL'S KEVIEW OF BENTHAM. When we turn from Mr Mill's critique on Paley's Philo- sophy, and Professor Sedgwick's Discourse, to his review of Bentham's writings, there is a marked and sudden chaDge iD the critical temperature. We have done with chilling blasts and frowning skies, and meet with smiles and sunshine once more. The Cambridge advocate of the doctrine of utility, and its able and eloquent Cambridge opponent, are treated with impartial severity. To the writer who shares his own principle Mr Mill imputes blunders, intellectual meanness, and moral dishonesty of the worst kind. To the Professor, who opposes it, he ascribes empty pretension, idle talk, and extreme ignorance. Cambridge, in his eyes, was only a nurse of superstition, and could be only a heartless stepmother to philosophy. ' She pipes to him with his favourite doctrine, but he will i not dance. She mourns to him, rejecting and disowning it, \and he is filled with zealous indignation. The youthful reviewer emulates his father's- treatment, just at the same time, of Sir J. Mackintosh, and rates Professor Sedgwick as a mere schoolboy, who has meddled with a subject too high for his feeble understanding. A very different treatment awaits the teacher at •whose feet he has been reared, at a safe distance from the 108 MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. stifling influence of Christian creeds and Church Articles, and to whom he looks up as his guide, philosopher, and friend. The strictures on Paley had proved how much censure and reproach he could heap on a writer, with whom, on the main question discussed, he is in substan- tial agreement. The remarks on Bentham show how widely he can diverge from the oracle of his childhood, and still crown him with laurel, and exalt him to a royal place in the world of thought. The refusal to share in his own high estimate, after every abatement, of Ben- tham's prodigious merit, is gravely styled an unpardon- able error for any cultivated and instructed mind. The review has an historical importance from the later reputa- tion its author has acquired, and from the fact that he has succeeded Bentham himself, in our days, as the best-known and most popular champion of utilitarian morality. Some words of his preface indicate the intended place of this review in the development of his own ethical opinions and theories. Taken by itself, he says it " might give an impression of more complete adhesion to the phi- losophy of Locke, Bentham, and the eighteenth century, than is really the case, and of an inadequate sense of its deficiencies. But that notion will be rectified by the essays on Bentham and on Coleridge. These, again, if they stood alone, would give just as much too strong an impression of the writer's sympathy with the reaction of the nineteenth century against the eighteenth. But this exaggeration will be corrected by the more recent defence of the greatest happiness ethics against Dr Whewell." This mental process, in which a zealous defence of utilitarianism, in name, alternates with a gradual abandon- ment of some of its main positions, and an approach to those of an opposite school, reaches its height in Mr Mill's later MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. 109 treatise. But my present task is to analyse his praise of Bentham's writings in this earlier review. There are two men, according to Mr Mill, to whom their country owes the greater part of the important ideas, thrown into circulation among thinking men in their time, and a revolution of their general modes of thought. There is scarcely in England an individual of importance in the world of thought, who did not first learn to think from one of them. These men are Jeremy Bentham, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the two great seminal minds of England in their own age. Of these Bentham was in the main a Progressive, and Coleridge a Conservative philosopher. The concentric circles, which the shock given hy them was spreading over the ocean of mind, were then beginning to meet and intersect. Bentham saw more clearly the truths with which existing doctrines and institutions were at variance, Coleridge the neglected truths they contained. The first excellence of Bentham is that he awoke the questioning spirit, and broke the yoke of authority. In- numerable opinions, received on tradition as incontestable, were put on their defence, and required to give an ac- count of themselves. He broke the spell of blind sub- mission. If the superstition about the wisdom of ances- tors has fallen into decay, and men are familiar with the idea that their laws and institutions are in great part the product of modern corruption, grafted on ancient barbarism, the ideas have been learned in his school, and the assault on ancient institutions has been carried on, for the most part with his weapons. He is the father of English innovation, the great subversive thinker of his age and country. But this alone is not his highest title to fame. Nega- tive philosophers are among the lowest class of the poten- 1 10 MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. tates of mind. Such may be formed by secondary gifts out of the shallowest men, with a sufficient lack of reve- rence. France had Voltaire and his school of negative •thinkers, and Scotland the profoundest negative thinker •on record, David Hume. If Bentham had merely con^ tinued their work, he would scarcely have been heard of in philosophy. He was far inferior to Hume in Hume's qualities, and not fitted to excel as a metaphysician, He had no subtlety, or power of recondite analysis. In the former gift few great thinkers have been so deficient, But he had others, not inferior, which made him a main source of light to his own generation. And first, he occupied the field of practical abuses; He was entrapped at Oxford, after a struggle, into signing articles he did not believe. And throughout life he never relaxed in his indignant denunciations of all laws which command such falsehoods, and all institutions, which attach rewards to them. But besides this incessant war- fare with abuses, he made it a point of conscience not to assail error, till he thought he could replace it by a truth. His mind was synthetic. He laid his own foun-' dations deeply and firmly, built up his own structure, and when he had solved the problem, or thought he had done so, pronounced all other solutions erroneous. Though we must often reject his practical conclusions, the collections of facts and observations from which they were drawn remain for ever. They are a part of the materials of philosophy. He is thus one of the masters of wisdom, the great teachers and intellectual ornaments of the human race. He is among those who have enriched mankind with imperishable gifts. To deny him this high merit may be pardonable in the vulgar, but is no longer per- mitted to any cultivated mind, MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. I r I He was not a great philosopher. But he was a great reformer in philosophy. He introduced into morals and politics habits of thought and modes of investigation, which are essential to the idea of science, and the absence of which made them fields of interminable discussion, leading to no result. His method constituted the value of what he did; — a value beyond all price, even though we should reject the whole, as we certainly must a large part, of the opinions themselves. He has thus formed the intellect of many thinkers, who never adopted, or have •abandoned, many of his opinions. With the potent instrument of his new method, then, he has accomplished something extraordinary, though little compared with what he has left undone. It is admirably adapted for making clear thinkers, but not efficacious for making their thinking complete, It keeps before the thinker all that he knows, but does not make him know enough. He reconstructs all philosophy with- out reference to the opinions of his predecessors. But philosophy needs materials. Human nature and human life are wide subjects. Whoever embarks in an enter- prise requiring large knowledge of them, has need of large stores of his own, and of all aids and appliances from the ■stores'o'f others. ^Now here, in Mr Mill's view, was Bentham's great defect. He failed in deriving light from other minds. His works have few traces of accurate knowledge of any School of thinking but his own, and many proofs of his conviction that they could teach him nothing worth knowing. He speaks of Socrates and Plato in terms' distressing to his greatest admirers. " He had a phrase,- •expressive of the view he took of all moral speculations; flot founded on a recognition of utility as the moral I T 2 MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. standard; this phrase was 'vague generalities.' What- ever presented itself to him in such a shape, he dismissed as unworthy of notice, or dwelt upon only to denounce as absurd^/ The nature of his mind prevented it from occurring'to him, that these generalities contained the whojeunanalysed experience of the human race." "Bentham's contempt of all other schools of thinkers; his determination to create a philosophy wholly out of the materials furnished by his own mind, and minds like his own, was his first disqualification as a philosopher. His second was the incompleteness of his own mind as a representative of universal human nature. In many of the most natural and strongest feelings of human nature he had no sympathy ; from many of its graver experiences he was altogether cut off; and the faculty by which one mind understands a mind different from itself, and throws itself into its feelings, was denied him by his deficiency of imagination." /^"Bentham's knowledge of human nature is wholly empirical, and the empiricism of one who has had little experience. He had neither internal experience nor ex^ ternal : the quiet, even tenor of his life, and his healthiness of mind, conspired to exclude him from both. He never knew prosperity and adversity, passion and satiety; he never had even the experience sickness gives ; he lived from childhood to the age of eighty-five in boyish health. He knew no dejection, no heaviness of heart. He was a boy to the last ... Knowing so little of human feelings, he knew still less of the influences by which those feelings are formed. No one, probably, who, in a highly instructed age, ever attempted to give a rule to all human conducty set out with a more limited conception of the agencies by which it is, or of those by which it should be influenced,"... MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. 1 1 3 "Man is never recognized by him as a being capable of pursuing spiritual perfection as an end ; of desiring, for its own sake, the conformity of his own character to his standard of excellence, without hope of good or fear of evil from other source than his own inward conscious- ness. Even in the more limited form of conscience, this great fact in human nature escapes him. Nothing is more curious than the absence of recognition in any of his writings of the existence of conscience, as distinct from philanthropy, from affection for God or man, and from self-interest in this world or the next. There is a studied abstinence from any of the phrases which, in the mouth of others, imply the acknowledgment of such a fact. . . Neither the word self-respect, nor the idea, occurs even once, so far as our recollection serves us, in his whole writings." (1. pp. 351 — 359). But if his claims in ethics and philosophy were thus limited, in jurisprudence, Mf Mill affirms, he had a giant's. task, and achieved it with the courage and strength of a hero. He dealt a death-blow to superstitious reve- rence for English law. He was the Hercules of that hydra, the St George of that dragon. He expelled mysti- cism, and set the example of viewing laws as means to certain definite and precise ends. He cleared up the con- fusion which attached to the idea of law in general. He showed the necessity of codification, and took a systematic view of the wants of society, for which such a code is to provide, and of the principles of human nature by which it is to be tested. Lastly, he has carried the philosophy of judicial procedure, before in a wretched state, almost to perfection; The panegyric then concludes : "After every abate- ment, and it has been seen whether we have made our B. L. II. 8 114 MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. abatements sparingly, there remains to him an indispu- table place among the great intellectual benefactors of mankind. His writings will long remain an indispensable part of the education of the highest order of practical thinkers, and the collected edition ought to be in the hands of every one, who would understand his age, or take any beneficial part in the great business of it." This criticism, when we remember Mr Mill's early training amidst the circle of Bentham's devoted admirers, does" credit to his honesty and candour. The asperity of tone, which he admits himself in his treatment of the three Cambridge moralists, and which others have called captiousness and petulance, is here exchanged for warm, but not wholly blind, admiration. But if he avoids a moral fault, he falls into another, for a philosopher almost as great, of flagrant and irreparable self-contradiction. The criticism seems to have a double object. Before the public it seeks to justify and continue the homage, amounting almost to idolatry, long paid to Bentham by a small circle of his admirers. But in the eyes of this inner circle it would displace him, as a very incomplete thinker, from his pedestal of unapproached eminence. And thus it makes room for his own honourable ambition, as a more complete and comprehensive ■ thinker, to attain a still higher intellectual place than his -master had achieved. He aspires to be the Aristotle of this great modern Anti- Plato. He would retain the site, and. some of the founda- tions, of his system. But the groundplan is to be enlarged, and the upper courses pulled down, so as to admit of an entirely new structure, built on a larger scale, and with a loftier elevation. Bentham is still placed high above the herd of commonplace minds, and old-fashioned believers in the Bible, the creeds, and Christian morality. Only MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. "5 his critic reserves to himself the prerogative of a still higher eminence, and a far more comprehensive range of mental vision. The claim is not ostentatiously and arro- gantly made. It rather creeps in by stealth, as the result of that unconscious self-deception, from which religious reverence and humility can alone secure active and vigorous minds. But the issue is what he styles else- where an "imperfect junction." His traditional homage, and his true discernment of Bentham's vital defects as a thinker and reasoner, like the witnesses in the gospels, do not agree together. The truth and justice of these large and candid abatements in his view of Bentham's character cut the ground from under his feet in the high praise he still lavishes upon him, and which he seeks to impose, as a moral obligation, on the passive acceptance of his readers. He clings to a superstition of his childhood, even at the moment when he proves it, by ■his own frank admissions, to be a delusion and a shadow. ' The wide contrast in his treatment of Paley, the utili- tarian advocate of revealed religion, and of Bentham, the constant railer against lawyers, creeds, and churches, serves to illustoate Bentham's own principle of sympathy and antipathy in a very conspicuous way. Are these high eulogies really deserved ? I believe them to be, in the main, as groundless as I have shown the reproaches levelled against Paley to be. Whatever hlame attaches to the divine belongs to the jurist in equal or even greater measure. The improvements he is said to have caused are more than balanced by great and spreading evils, which his works have fomented and in- creased, till they are becoming hourly more perilous to the safety and peace of nations. In the cause of genuine morality, I hold it a duty to. expose the fallacy of these 8—2 i-.,' Il6 MILL'S REVIEW OF BENT 'H AM. high pretensions, set up on his behalf, which can only be sustained by sacrificing the far higher claims of truth, conscience, and religious faith. The first merit Mr Mill ascribes to him is that he ranks with Coleridge as one of the two great seminal minds of the age. Such estimates of the relative in- fluence of different writers are often most deceptive. They depend on the circles in which the critic has moved. The effect of Bentham's writings among legists, and in technical subjects of law, may have been very great. That is a point for lawyers to decide. But in the wide sj)here of intellectual thought, including physical science, poetry, philosophy, morals, and religion, there must be at least a hundred thinkers of his own time, who are justly to be ranked above him. I have met with numbers of thought- ful minds, who have owned to a powerful influence from Cowper, or Scott, or Wordsworth, from Coleridge or Carlyle, from Stewart or Brown or Hamilton, from Whate- ly, Arnold, or Isaac Taylor, from Bobert Hall, Vinet or Chalmers. But I do not remember, in the course of forty years, to have met with any one who professed him- self indebted to Bentham for a single important idea. But even had his relative influence been far wider than I believe it to have been, a more vital question remains. The merit of a seminal mind depends wholly on the nature of the seeds which it has sown. "Men do not gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles." Yet there can be no doubt that thistledown is more diffusive, and has a more prolific virtue, than the fig-tree or the vine. The main scope of Bentham's writings, passing by religious truth of all kinds with hardly disguised con- tempt, is to replace "old-fashioned ethics" by a new moral arithmetic of his own. And this is based on the MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTIIAM. \ 17 attempted summation of certain classified pains and pleasures. One main object of Coleridge was to disprove and set aside this merely prudential morality of conse- quences, and to show the vital connection of true morality and right reason with the high and solemn messages and doctrines of the Christian faith. Now if the fruit from one of these seminal minds is worthy of praise, and answers at all to the corn, wine, and oil of the good land of promise, the effect of the other must have been, in the world of morals, to fulfil the curse of the 'patriarch, to make " thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley." Some apparent improvement in the secondary defects of law, and the pruning away of some withered leaves of ancient forms, will be a poor compensation, if the very principle of reverence for law and authority is uprooted and overthrown. The probable result of such a change, when " subversive thinking" has scattered its seeds throughout all classes of society, must be what a prophet describes, when a nation "sows the wind, and reaps the • whirlwind." The next ground of eulogy is peculiar and rather startling. Eentham was "the great subversive thinker of his age." This, in Mr Mill's judgment, is one, though not quite the highest, " of his titles to fame." The reason for this dictum is hardly less strange. " Mankind are deeply 1 indebted to negative or destructive philosophers, nor will there ever be a lack of work for them, in a world where so many false things are believed, so many which have been true are believed loDg after they have ceased to be true." What can these meteoric truths be, true yesterday, and false to-day or to-morrow ? This is not explained. They seem to be visions of the same abnormal philosophy, 1 1 8 MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. which has led Mr Mill to suspect that two and two may perhaps make five in some unknown and distant world. But the main assertion is clear. The world owes a deep debt to those who undertake to pull down falsehoods, and expose absurdities, even without having any knowledge of the truths to replace them. Now this is itself a moral absurdity and falsehood of the plainest kind. What can such men do, but replace one falsehood by another, only redoubling the confusion ? They may do still worse. Under the nickname of falsehoods and absurdities they may assail truths too high, too deep, or too wide, to be learned or received by rash and frivolous minds. On feentham's own principles, this pulling down of actual /usages and opinions, when there is nothing certainly (better to replace them, must cause pain to the many, pleasure only to a few. It can thus have only a negative rvalue. The only ground for praising such efforts is when something nobler and better replaces what is overthrown. The work of a moral scavenger may be useful, though scarcely honourable. But scavengers, who are blind also, can be nothing more than a dangerous nuisance. The next topic of praise is of a higher kind. Alone among thousands, he had the moral sensibility and self- reliance to oppose the profitable frauds of the law, and the immorality of church creeds and tests. The former sub- ject I leave to the lawyers, and shall confine myself to the second and more important. The claim, which is set up for Bentham under this head, is a strange instance of distorted moral reasoning. He was sent to Oxford when only fifteen, was required on admission to declare his assent to the Thirty-Nine Articles ; and, when he felt scruples, was told that it was not for boys like him to set up their judgment against'the MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. 119 great men of the church. He signed after a struggle, but the impression never left him that he had done an im- moral act. And he never relaxed, we are told, in de- nouncing laws which command such falsehoods, and institutions which attach rewards to them. I have no doubt that the imposition of the test, as was done so long at Oxford only, on all young students first entering college, was a folly almost amounting to a public crime. It would have been wrong and foolish, even if nine-tenths of the freshmen could be expected to have gone first through a course of theological study, and to have satisfied themselves of the truth of every sentence. In the actual state of the church and country, it could only generate the immoral custom of subscribing sacred words without believing them, or in some nonnatural sense. Its direct tendency must thus have been to lower and destroy the instinct of truthfulness in the rising gene- ration. So far, I think, Bentham was right, and the practice he censured to be greatly deplored. But it is a strange error to set up a claim of high moral sensibility, because he first signed articles of faith without believing them, and then railed at the university, through a long life, for having exposed him to the temptation. It is no less foolish to say that the law commanded the falsehood, and attached a reward to it. Thousands of honest and upright Nonconformists, in the two last centuries, have forborne to seek the benefits of Oxford residence, or others of the same kind, because of the tests imposed, and never thought of claiming for themselves any heroic virtue, Bentham merely yielded to a temptation, which many others more honest have resisted and overcome, though a still larger number may have yielded to it, and never 120 MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. , felt so deep a regret for what they had done. To cast the whole blame on an unwise law, when it attaches con- ditions too rigid, or otherwise unsuitable, to the fulfilment of a trust, or the enjoyment of a privilege, and to give a martyr's praise to the deceiver, who pretends to satisfy a condition he has not fulfilled, turns upside down the plainest lessons of morality. Keal remorse, in such a case, will be disposed to modest silence. The outcries of Bentham, for fifty years afterward, against both univer- sities, and all religious tests, are no proof of delicate moral sensibility, but of wounded pride alone. We reach at length more solid ground, if the praise can be sustained. Unlike the mere negative thinkers, Bentham, it is said, undertook to build up as well as pull down. It was when he had solved a problem, or thought he had done so, that he declared all other solutions erroneous. Hence what they produced will not last, and must perish with the errors it has exploded ; but what he did has its own value, and will outlast all errors to which it is opposed. Here Mr Mill can hardly disguise the perplexity which results from a false position. He attempts to reveal a stroDg contrast, where, by his own admissions, no real contrast can be found. There can be no merit in rasing; a to the ground, or burning to ashes, all the buildings of a metropolis, though the streets may be irregular, and some houses unsightly, and its worst courts and alleys nests of vice, if the only result is to rear a few Indian wigwams amidst the smoking ruins. The only real excuse for Bentham's crusade against all things established, and his contempt for previous writers, current creeds, and actual laws or systems of morals, would be his ability to surpass them, and rear something more noble, august, and ex- MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. 121 cellent, on the sites he had cleared. But how could this be done by a writer, of "wbom his warm admirer has to make all these strange admissions ? What does he tell us ■of this Bacon of jurisprudence, this Newton of social science? That his knowledge of human nature was singularly bounded and empirical. That his empiricism, further, was that of a most limited experience. Other ages and nations were a blank to him for the purposes of instruction. He was devoid of imaginative power. He never once recognized even the existence of conscience, as distinct from affection and self-love. He never recog- nized the nature of man, as a being capable of pursuing spiritual perfection as an end. In other words, the funda- mental conception of true ethical science was strangely and wholly absent. These admissions Mr Mill proceeds at once to make. How, then, can the attempt of a writer, thus disqualified, to set aside all previous philosophies, creeds, and institutions, and regenerate society by a new- devised moral arithmetic of his own, raise him to a higher level than such negative thinkers as Hume and Voltaire ? Must it not rather aggravate their fault by a self-conceit and rashness so extreme, that it almost ceases to be ridiculous, and by its very audacity borders closely on the sublime ? But at least, it is said, he was a great reformer in philosophy. He brought into it a new method it greatly needed, and for want of which it was at a standstill, with habits of thought and modes of investigation, essential to the idea of science. The method has a value beyond all price, even should we reject the whole, as we certainly must a large part, of the conclusions themselves. It con- sists in detail, in treating wholes by separating them into their parts, abstractions by resolving them into things, 122 MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. and breaking every question into pieces, before attempting to solve it. In the rigidity with which Bentham adhered to this plan there was the greatest originality. Hence his interminable classifications, and elaborate demonstra* tions of the most acknowledged truths. A new method, first discovered a few years ago by a person of very narrow experience, for solving the hardest problems of reason, faith, conscience, social and political duty, which the greatest minds have studied and written upon for thousands of years, bears on its face the strongest suspicion of quackery and imposture. This is only con- firmed by the features just named, by these classifications, involving, as Mr Leckie observes, no real subtlety of thought, and new demonstrations of old and familiar truths. Mr Mill has said just before that his distinctive character, in contrast with mere negative thinkers, is to be synthetic. But now his chief excellence is his analytic method. He solves great questions, not like knots, by patiently untying their complications, nor like planets and stars, by using a mental telescope of high power and achromatic clearness, but like the stones used for mend- ing roads, by breaking them in pieces. Surely this is a strange improvement on earlier methods for solving social problems, and exploring the mysteries of human life and the human heart. In this praise of the new method Mr Mill forgets his own philosophy. For with him things themselves are only bundles of sensations, or possibilities of sensation, in .some way tied up together. So that Bentham's specific, as he describes it, once fully carried out, would leave us neither things, laws, persons, principles, nor fikbits, nor any possible basis for definite reasoning and fixed conclu- sions, but numbered and ticketed sensations alone. ■ Dis* MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. 123 section may have its uses, no doubt, not only in schools of anatomy, hut in the fields of scientific thought. But to count up details, and neglect the principles on which they depend, and rely for the laws of social life on dissection and partition only, can never lead to genuine science. We might reckon up, with a wearisome arithmetic, all the atoms of which the sun, planets, satellites and streams of meteors are composed. But who could approach, in this way, to a true and comprehensive conception of the solar system ? Who can understand the marvellous structure of the human body, by weighing the oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon which remain, when that structure is destroyed, and the corpse is given to the flames ? v Mr Mill's own admissions thus disprove the praise of Bentham's method. They make it hard to understand how he can be serious in this extravagant eulogy. First, he owns that his materials were unusually limited and defective. Next, he maintains that pleasures differ in quality and kind, as well as in quantity. The new arithmetic, then, consists in the attempted summation of incommen- surables, like adding surfaces to solids, or weights to values. Lastly, he admits that the greater part of the results are erroneous. This new method, then, in morals and politics, which turns the deepest problems of human life and duty into tables, like those of logarithms, calcu- lated beforehand, of the total amount of happiness ground out from twenty different kinds of pleasure, and in which most of the calculations give wrong results, can be nothing else than a grotesque parody of genuine science. S The next topic of praise is Bentham's warfare against mere phrases used in the place of arguments. If they appealed to no external standard, and implied no fact, he {seated them as mere devices to impose opinions on 124 MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. others, without the trouble of giving any reason. Mr Mill quotes the passage Ch. III. sec. 1, with approval,* where the censure is applied successively to all the terms, the moral sense, common sense, right understanding, eternal and immutable morality, the truth of things, the fitness of things, the law of nature, right reason, natural justice, and Divine illumination. He thinks that Bentham has the high merit of being the first to point out that these phrases contain no argument. The subject recurs in a later review. Dr Whewell had styled the same passage extravagant ridicule, a wild method of dealing with adverse moralists, and yet ac- cepted with humble admiration by some of Bentham's followers. Mr Mill rebukes his presumption, and defends it once more. Bentham did not mean that people really asserted the follies he ascribes to them, but that they really held them without knowing it, and that the phrases passed muster in this way. Let us examine what this repeated apology is really worth. In every subject we must arrive, sooner or later, at some first principles or fundamental ideas, beyond which we cannot go. But we may perhaps walk around them, view them in different lights, translate them into different dialects, each suggesting its own analogies and resem- blances, and thus obtain a. fuller and clearer view of their real character. We pass here from the region of argu- ment and deduction to that of intuition. But this intuition only grows clear, when the eye of the mind is steadily fixed upon it, traces its likeness or unlikeness to other truths, or acts of the understanding, and embodies these perceptions or discoveries in some answering phrase. The doctrine of utility must submit to this common law of all human thought, no less than those which MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. 125 Bentham ridicules and condemns. Why should we aim at some distant pleasure, instead of following the impulse of the present moment ? Why should we regard the pleasure of others, as well as our own ? Why sacrifice our pleasure to. theirs? Why calculate a maximum, and adopt the result, instead of obeying the simpler call of selfish in- stinct, or unselfish and generous love \ How can we rise beyond a mere guess that what pleased us yesterday will please to-morrow, or that sequences in past years will determine sequences of actions wholly distinct, in years to come ? The doctrine of utility, when it strives to elude all reference to ultimate ideas, brings in a dozen questions of this kind. And it can never solve them, or appear to solve them, without some assumption or other of the same kind with those which Bentham condemns. The good sense of Paley here forms a bright contrast to Bentham's extravagant ridicule, and to the superficial defence of that ridicule, and attempt to convert it into a claim of especial merit, on which Mr Mill has ventured. He writes as follows : "Why am I obliged to keep my word ? Because it is right, says one. Because it is agreeable to the fitness of things, says another. Because it is agreeable to reason and nature, says a third. Because it is conformable to truth, says a fourth. Because it promotes the public good, says a fifth. Because it is required by the will of God, concludes a sixth. Upon which different accounts it is observable. First, that they all ultimately coincide. The fitness of things means their fitness to produce happiness. - The natureof things means that actual constitution of the world, by which such and such actions produce happiness, and others misery. Reason is the principle by which we discover or judge of this constitution. Truth is this 126 MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM'. — ■»- 'I _ judgment, drawn out into propositions. So that what promotes public happiness, or happiness on the whole, is necessarily agreeable to the fitness of things, to nature, reason, and truth ; and such is the Divine character that what promotes the general happiness is required by the will of God; and what has all the above properties must needs be right. For right means no more than con- formity to the rule we go by, whatever that rule may be. This is the reason that moralists, from whatever different . principles they set out, commonly meet in their conclu- sions. That is, they enjoin the same conduct, prescribe the same rules of duty, and with a few exceptions deliver in dubious cases the same determinations." These words of Paley throw light on the mistake into which Bentham and Mill have both fallen, and which the former has made doubly repulsive by ridiculing deeper thinkers and better moralists than himself. They have confounded various presentations of the primal idea, es- sential to all moral science, with a deductive proof of its existence and reality, or the means for applying it, in detail, to the guidance of human life. The alleged merit, then, of Bentham is really a grave defect, shared by his apologist. But the claim proceeds further. The application of a true inductive philosophy to the problems of ethics was unknown, it is said, to the Epicureans as well as all others. This is Bentham's own prerogative. He has finally installed it in philosophy, and made it henceforth imperative upon writers of every school. And this is nothing less than a revolution in philosophy. A very wide question is here started, and renewed both in the later review and treatise, the place of induc- tion, deduction, and intuition in moral science. I shall hope to discuss it more fully in a separate lecture. For. MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. 127 the present I make only one or two brief remarks. Mr Mill errs equally, I think, in his use of the term, and in his assertions that the title belongs to Bentham's method, of its general adoption, and its superlative value. The method may be piecemeal and fragmentary, but is deduc- tive, not inductive. By his own admission, this deduction is ■attempted with materials most defective in amount, and in their very nature, from differences in kind, unmanage- able for such a process of calculation. It could thus lead to right conclusions only by a happy chance. In Ben- tham's hands, by Mr Mill's own account, the chances have proved unfavourable, and we have no proof that it has been more successful in his own. In Ch. xvn. of Pro- fessor Grote's Examination there is an able and convinc- ing refutation of this claim, which Mr Mill here makes on his master's behalf, of a Baconian revolution in moral science. He writes as follows : . "The moralists of last century, who spoke variously of a moral sense, or a faculty which they supposed might, be made matter of psychological observation, all supposed that they were following Bacon and Locke, and setting Moral Philosophy on an inductive basis, on principles, namely, of observation, experience, a posteriori reason. In foot if, setting aside the truth of one or the other system, and comparing only the methods, we consider which falls in most with the idea of going only by experience, I think the advantage lies with the emotional system. No fact of experience can be more clear than that man, whenever he has feelings at all, has feelings of kindness, of fairness, of, generosity, of moral approval of some things and condem- nation of others, and that these different sorts of feelings are in substance the same for all men, at least to the game extent that happiness is the same for all men, 128 MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. Against this fact of experience utilitarianism sets the consideration, true perhaps, but possessing something of an a priori character, that people may feel wrongly; and that, whatever their feelings may be, it is quite certain that no action can be good, but such as is promotive of some happiness. By what process of thought a morality, which consists in the first instance of the assumption of a principle like this and then of a course of deduction from it, can be considered a morality of experience, as against a morality resting immediately on the experience of human feeling, is what I cannot understand." "As regards the extent to which the one and the other of these kinds of philosophy makes morality matter of observation, and in this respect likely to grow and im- prove, the former does so in reality much more than the latter. Human feeling of pleasure and pain, what consti- tutes human happiness, is matter of observation to both: but in addition to this, human feeling of liking and repug- nance, what it is that stirs sympathy, also an undoubted fact of human nature, is matter of observation to the former... so untrue is it that utilitarianism, as distin- guished from other systems of morality, is the morality of observation and experience. The reverse is the fact. Utilitarianism confines or excludes observation, giving us assumption instead." (pp. 263 — 266.) Another merit ascribed to Bentham is his process of exhaustion. "By rejecting all which is not the thing, he works out a definition of what it is." The method, indeed, is as old as philosophy itself. Plato owes every- thing to it and does everything by it. Bentham was probably not aware that Plato had anticipated him in the process, to which he too declared that he owed every- thing. "His speculations are thus eminently systematic MILL'S REVIEW OF BEN Til AM. 129 and consistent. He has impressed an admirable quality •on ' minds trained in his habits of thought, that they digest new truths as fast as they reoeive them." A method, which has slumbered for twenty-four cen- turies, from Plato to Bentham, and led the- first to con- clusions which the second calls mere nonsense and folly, and the second to others which his own disciple and admirer calls mainly erroneous, can claim a very limited and dependent excellence at most. Its virtue must de- pend wholly on the way in which it is used. In Plato's hands it was often highly effective, and the handmaid to "thoughts and truths of the noblest kind. But in Bentham, from his unusual want of power to apprehend such truths, it leads only to a kind of moral sand-waste, a mapping out into rectangles and squares of a wide and dreary expanse of marshes and lagoons of thought. Mi- Mill seems to forget how much easier it is to arrange in sets lifeless counters, than to arrange and classify, and describe aright, the muscles, nerves, and vertebras of the human body. Those great defects in Bentham s system, of which he complains, make a process of exhaustion and dissection, of course, far simpler. But they render it also comparatively worthless. The systematic nature of Bentham's writings has doubtless had much to do with his influence as a leader of thought. Writers, in whom this is absent, usually gain no more than a fitful and transient power over the minds of others. But its real worth must depend on two con- ditions, the comprehensive materials of the system, and the soundness and truth pf the first principles on which it is based. The great defect in Bentham J s materials Mr Mill has fully acknowledged. The fault in his principles is equally real, and still more vital, however Mr Mill may B. L. II. 9 130 MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. strive to disguise an evil in which he shares largely. This method, then, either in the hands of the master or his dis- ciples, can give them no real claim to high places in moral and political philosophy. A child may learn easily to count the fingers or the toes, and to distinguish the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth from each other. But he does not thereby rise into the character of a learned physician or skilful anatomist, well versed in the secret powers, the mysterious faculties, and marvellous sym- metries of man's bodily frame. The last claim set up for Bentham, and the truest, is that he is an eminent jurist, and a great reformer of English law. In other respects Mr Mill has abated largely from the homage paid to him by his warm and zealous admirers. As moralist, philosopher, and meta- physician, he deposes him to a secondary place. He seems to feel it, then, like a debt of honour, to extol highly his merits as a reformer even in philosophy, but chiefly in law, his peculiar province. And here indeed there is something like a consent of high authorities. - Not only Mill and Austin, who share his ethical stand- point, but Mackintosh, Whewell, and Blackie, who re- nounce and disown it, offer a common tribute to his. labours as a jurist. Dr Whewell writes of him as follows: "He laboured assiduously to reduce jurisprudence to a system. Such an attempt, if carried through with any degree of consistency, could hardly fail to lead to valuable • results. In a body of knowledge so wide and various, all system-making must bring into view real connections and relations of parts ; and even if the basis be wrong, those connections will admit of being translated into the terms of a truer philosophy. Truth emerges from error sooner than from confusion. But his principle is really applica- ■; MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. 131 ble to a great extent in legislation, and covers almost the whole of the field with which the legislature is concerned. In his mode of performing the task there are great merits and great drawbacks. The merits are system, followed out with great acuteness, illustrated with great liveliness, and expressed in a neat, precise, and luminous style." Sir J. Mackintosh and Professor Blackie, both opposed to Bentham's ethical principles, praise him in his efforts as a law reformer even in still higher terms. And Mr Mill, as if to compensate for abandoning his defence as a philosopher, rises here into a poetical fervour, unlike his usual style. He has dealt a deathblow to reverence for English law, which instead of the perfection was the shame of human reason. He has been the Hercules of this hydra, the St George of this dragon. He has opened its traps and pitfalls, where the teeth of hyenas, of foxes, and all cunning animals, were left imprinted on the curious remains of antediluvian caves. The honour of the victory is all his own. He found its philosophy a chaos, and he left it a science. He found its practice an Augean stable, and turned through it a river which is fast sweeping away all its rubbish. He has thus become the first seminal mind of his age, and one of the great intellectual benefactors of mankind, one of the great teachers and masters of wis- dom; and has enriched the human race with imperishable gifts, which approach to, though they may not, as some still more zealous admirers have thought, equal or even transcend "all Greek, all Roman fame." It may seem rash and invidious to dispute the justice of these encomiums, and not to rest satisfied with the kind of compromise between deep dislike and blind idolatry, which Mr Mill has proposed, and striven to impose as a moral obligation on all educated men. I can 9—2 132 MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. pretend to no wide acquaintance with English law, c perusal of the whole series of Bentham's works. On grand fault, also, of his moral system, its pure external ism, does not apply, or very slightly, to his legal labour! since human laws are external in their very nature, bein formed and executed by those who cannot read the hear) It is thus quite possible and natural that Bentham shoulJ have greater merit, and approach nearer to the truth, il questions of jurisprudence than in ethical science. Still the union of the two subjects is so intimate and vital that these lofty encomiums on his exploits, even ii this field, can hardly be received without betraying th< cause of sound morality and of Christian truth. This at least, is my own deep and settled conviction. A writer who does not even recognize, as Mr Mill admits, the exis- tence, of conscience, whose allusions to religious faith anc doctrine are chiefly marked by contemptuous indifference^ and in whose works there is hardly a trace of any high instinct or lofty aspiration, can never be enthroned as the Solon of present and future legislation without dis- astrous results to the moral welfare and true happiness^ of mankind. And first, these high claims and pregnant admissions can only be reconciled by setting aside Bentham's own authority. He professed to base all his legal reforms' on his improved ethics, and rejects the idea with scorn, that he might rank low as a moralist, and still as a legist be extolled to the skies. " Those," he says, "who are will- ing to distinguish between politics and morals, to assign utility as the foundation of the one, and justice of the other, announce nothing but confused ideas. The -only difference is that one directs the operations of govern- ment, the other the actions of individuals. But their MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. 133 '(jbject is common ; it is happiness. That which is politi- cally bad cannot be morally good, unless we suppose that the rules of arithmetic, true for large numbers, are false for small ones." Such, then, in Bentham's own judgment, is the rela- tion between his moral dicta and his conclusions in the field of legal reform. Both are cases of arithmetic, one applied to individuals, the other to large numbers of men. In the simpler case, according to Mr Mill, the arithmetic is faulty, and the results "for the most part" erroneous, because the materials used were far too limited, and the faculty for using a wider experience was almost wholly absent. With this failure in the simpler problem, which, applies to one person only, we are to believe in prodigious! and unexampled success, when the like arithmetic is used to determine the laws, the institutions, the happiness, and future destiny, of whole nations. Such a contrast in the double result 'is incredible, however Mr Mill may impose its acceptance, as a clear moral duty, on every cultivated mind. But let us compare this high claim and these candid admissions in themselves, and see how they can agree. Here, first, we have a school of thought, which nowhere recognizes the existence of conscience, or regards self- culture as a duty, or men as capable of aiming at moral perfection ; which treats existing dogmas in religion with habitual neglect, and religion itself as a variable product of opinion, a supplement to law, and an aid to police; which is so modest, that it charges Socrates and Plato with talking only nonsense, and so self-satisfied that it despises, as vague generalities, " the whole unanalyzed experience of the human race." I may add to Mr Mill's own description, with equal truth, so cold and heartless, 134 MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. that it never offers a glimpse of lofty and heroic inspi- ration; so earthly, that it leaves wholly out of sight the precepts and promises of the gospel, man's, immor- tality, the doctrine of a coming judgment, and the hopes of the life to come. How can such a school of thought produce a sound philosophy, able to reform and recast, and mould anew into higher and more perfect shape, the laws and customs of a Christian people? No stream can rise above its fountain. No theory of jurisprudence, based on the doctrine that man's highest aim in life is to work out certain sums in arithmetic, very hard to work aright, on totals of attainable pleasure, and which further ranks the pleasures of adultery and malevolence side by side with those of heroic virtue or seraphic de- votion, can fail, whether applied to individuals or nations, to prove itself a most deceptive and dangerous guide. No doubt, as a great " subversive thinker," to adopt Mr Mill's own phrase, Bentham may have rendered effec- tive service to the cause of legal improvement. So dyna- mite has been found very useful for blasting hard rocks, that would resist feebler agents, and has turned them into materials with which human skill may construct afterward some noble breakwater, where a thousand ships find refuge and shelter in the storm. But no build- ing, whether pier or breakwater, private home or stately palace, can be reared by such explosive mixtures alone. And nothing firm or lasting, nothing noble or generous, no scheme of laws and institutions worthy a great nation like our own, can possibly be reared on the basis of such principles as Bentham has laid down in his works. The structures he would substitute for those he maligns and strives to destroy have no pledge for their stability. They are built, not on the rock, but on the quagmire. They MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. 135 have no roots in the deepest, truest, and noblest instincts of the human heart. They resemble rather those card castles, inscribed with ingenious pictures or geometrical diagrams, which children set up for their own amusement. One touch of military violence, one breath of popular caprice, will prove enough for their overthrow. Let us compare the two sides of the account, even as Mr Mill has placed them before us, with a few helps from Bentham's works. The legal abuse which first awoke his indignation, we may assume, has disappeared, and three attendances in Chancery are no longer charged, when only one is given. Codification has been proved, in theory, to be attainable, and commissions have Sat upon it, though it is still far from being attained, Some branches of law have been simplified, though new ones have arisen out of later wants and inventions, and leave the total, per- haps, as complex as before. The method of procedure, in books, has been brought near to perfection ; while still in practice a civil suit, and a criminal, have proved more interminable than was ever known before. Various teethrnarks of foxes and hyenas in the ancient caves of British legislation may perhaps have been effaced and done away. Such are the gains alleged. What are the losses or dangers ? The great body of the people, for whose re- straint or guidance English laws are designed, have been diligently and zealously trained in such lessons as these. First, that the laws under which their fathers lived and died, and their country grew into honour and greatness, are a hydra, of which the heads need to be cut off ; a dragon, which the new patron saint of utilitarianism has had to conquer and slay; a heap of ordure, through which sub- versive thinkers have done well to turn a river, that is 136 MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. fast sweeping it away. Next, that their rulers have suf- fered the nation to be preyed upon by swarms of useless placemen, and this not from negligence and imbecility alone, but from a settled plan of oppressing and plunder- ing the people; and that no thanks are due to the laws, if they have escaped from being the victims of every heart- less oppressor. They have been further trained in the new theory of government, that its main object should be to make the numerical majority supreme, to give " the greatest number" absolute power, and then to keep this power in their hands, whoever the nominal rulers, their humble and passive delegates, may be. They have been taught, by the example of the new Solon, to be sternly and fiercely abusive of the imagined faults of their supe- riors, and blind and insensible to their own. They learn, from his parting voice, to regard as idle talkers of non- sense all who venture to speak to them of their duties, and to account it a proof of their own good sense to care for their interests alone. They have been told, further, that the difference between the purest religious faith and the foulest superstition is verbal only; that religion has not been powerful enough to do good, but that its power of doing evil has always been great ; and that it is religion which made Philip the Second, Mary of England, and Charles of France, the scourge, the tyrant, and the butcher, of the countries over which they ruled. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? When this question of the Great Teacher of true wisdom receives an affirmative answer, then may a subversive thinker, whose teaching I have just described from his own writings, claim justly a high place among the masters of wisdom, the intellectual lights and guides of the human race. Such lights are no stars in God's firmament. MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. 137 They can only be passing meteors, that " lead to bewilder, and dazzle to blind." They may draw out their cata- logues of springs of action. But in these the true main- springs of all right Christian action, the fear of God and the love of Christ, will find no place. They may invent panopticons for state prisoners. But they will have helped to banish from the thoughts and policy of nations the true Panopticon, daily faith in the Supreme Judge, and the presence of His allseeing eye. They may mend the details of human laws, may square the trunk by rule and compass, cut off useless twigs or decayed branches, and thus give an air of greater symmetry to the whole. But their pains will be worse than useless, if through their teaching the life has perished, and the spirit of loyalty, and all habits of respect for law and authority, have wholly passed away. The writings of Bentham have had wider acceptance among the so-called men of progress in France and on the continent than in his own country. And those who look below the surface, and have not cultivated themselves into contempt alike for Christianity and the nobler forms of heathen philosophy, may see there plain signs of the tendency and issue of such instruction, when widely received. What are the moral features conspicuous in France and Spain at this hour, and which threaten to invade our own shores, and disturb society from its foun- dations? Laws despised, authority enfeebled, liberty degenerating into violent self-will; uneasy, feverish oscil- lation, from irreligion to blind superstition, and back to fcreligion and mockery again; a social state where nothing is fixed or stable, and new constitutions grow up, like mushrooms, in a night, and perish almost as soon as they are born. If fixed principles cease to be found in states- 138 MILL'S REVIEW OF BENTHAM. men, or habitual probity in merchants, or purity and peace in the hearths of domestic life, and multitudes sport on in the eager pursuit of idle amusements or sensual pleasures, while the earth still rocks and trembles under their feet, to what shall we ascribe these threatening symptoms of political confusion and moral decay ? May we not trace them, at least in part, to the influence of a teacher, who claims to regenerate society by a new moral arithmetic ; but who never owns the reality of conscience, alludes to religious faith only with open contempt or secret dis- paragement, indulges in violent abuse of the ministers of law and the teachers of religion, and still is held up by Mr Mill to admiration and reverence, as one of the greatest ornaments and benefactors of mankind ? So long, I believe, as such principles are widely cur- rent, and their advocates held in especial honour as leaders and guides of public thought, a dark and troubled future must be in store for the nations where they prevail. The foundations will have been destroyed. The floodgates of selfishness and passion, of popular self-will and impatience, will have been opened wide, and the torrent sweep over the land. The fixed institutions of social life, and the guiding lights of Christian faith and piety, will be veiled and disappear. Unless the evil be arrested and reversed by the spread of a truer, deeper, and loftier morality, based on the authority of conscience, God's deputy hi the heart, and the voices of revealed and eternal truth, the results must be deplorable. Soon or late the stars in their silent courses will fight against guilty nations, where conscience is denied, God is forgotten, pleasure alone is worshipped, and the maxim of the old sensualists is en- throned supreme in the hearts of men, " Let us eat and drinkjjor to-morrow we die." LECTUEE V. BENTHAM AND THE ASCETIC PRINCIPLE. Theee elements enter into the complete conception of Moral Science. The first is a law or ideal standard of right and wrong, which goes before and prepares the way for all right and worthy action. The second is that con- stitution and moral capacity of the agent, whereby the ideal is more or less distinctly perceived, and awakens moral emotions, the subjects of personal and inward experience. The third consists in the results or later con- sequences of right or wrong action. The systems in which these are respectively prominent are the objective or ideal, the subjective or emotional, and the utilitarian, apobatic, or external. The only just and complete view is one into which all these elements enter, but each in its due order. Whenever isolated, they must tend to produce three varieties of error, the idols of the clouds, the marketplace, or the cave. The first and highest aspect of morals is that which contemplates an ideal standard of humanity, an image of the Divine perfection, conceived as prior to the actual conditions of human life, and including laws of goodness and righteousness, settled for ever in heaven. But these will take a special form from those facts of experience, which are reechoed and confirmed by the witness of Divine revelation. The doctrine of the fall, transferred 140 BENTHAM AND THE from theology to practical life, reveals itself in the con- flict between the flesh and the spirit. It teaches that man has a lower and a higher nature, a worse and a truer self, instincts of mere animal pleasure, and a higher and nobler law of conscience, which strive for the mastery; and that he is prone by nature to follow the downward rather than the upward path. Experience proves the fatal proneness of mankind to embrute the soul, and, quench the light of conscience, and neglect all high aspi- rations after moral excellence, and the spiritual perfec- tion of their being. The moral ideal, then, in man's actual state, involve^ a doctrine and law of ceaseless conflict. It enjoins on him a constant effort that the flesh, the lower and cor- rupt nature, may be subdued to the spirit. It bids him* cultivate, at whatever cost of present sacrifice, those in- stincts, habits, and desires, which constitute inward holi- ness, and whereby his merely animal life may be raised and transformed into one spiritual, heavenly, and Divine. Such is the definition of Christian Asceticism in its best and purest form. It finds its basis in that saying of the Apostle, the only place where the root occurs in the New Testament, — " Herein do I exercise myself, to have a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men." And it has its further illustration in the spiritual gymnastics he imposed on himself, and recommended to his son in the faith;— "I so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air, but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection." " Exercise thyself unto godliness ; for bodily exercise profiteth little; but godliness is profitable for all things." The lesson it enforces has deep roots in the conscience, and has always appealed to the best and highest instincts of the noblest ASCETIC PRINCIPLE. 141 natures, and been the fruitful parent of heroic deeds. But in proportion to its truth and excellence is the risk of great perversion and abuse, when some form of pride or gloomy superstition replaces genuine wisdom and Christian love as the secret mainspring of outward acts of self-denial. The pattern of the true ascetic is the great Apostle, from whose words to Felix the name is borrowed, and who dedicated all his powers, with noble self-sacrifice, to the glory of God and the highest welfare of mankind. The false ascetic has his type in the Indian fakir, or a Simeon Stylites, condemning himself on his pillar to filth and solitude, in order to gain the admiration of the vulgar, or to purchase for himself freedom from Divine anger, and a stock of fancied merit in the sight of heaven. It seems a true instinct, then, which has led Bentham to place the ascetic principle first in order in a threefold distinction of moral systems, since it embodies really the special form of ideal morality suited to a fallen world ; and to place next to it, under the name of " a principle of sympathy and antipathy," the subjective, internal, or emotional aspect of ethics ; while the third and last is the apohatic or utilitarian, which traces the moral nature of actions in their outward effects and consequences alone. Since, however, his object is not to reconcile these three views, and assign their nature and limits, but to explode the first and second, and enthrone the third in exclusive supremacy, the natural effect follows from this delusion of a narrow mind. He replaces the true description of ascetic and subjective morals by a ridiculous travesty. He deals with the moral teachers he dislikes as the Inquisition dealt often with its victims, and clothes them with a suit of motley, to make them ridiculous, before consigning them to the flames. It is not surprising that great nar- 142 BENTHAM AND THE rowness of vision, joined with singular self-conceit, should lead to such controversial caricature. But it is rather surprising, when the fault has been temperately pointed out and condemned, that Mr Mill should undertake its defence, and become the champion, in Bentham, of that misrepresentation of rival teachers, from which he himself is usually free. The statement, which has given rise to such opposite comments, is in these words. " This principle (the ascetic) is the antagonist of that which we have just been examining. Those who follow it have a horror of pleasures. Everything which gratifies the senses, in their view, is vicious and criminal. They found morality on privation, and virtue on the renounce- ment of one's self. In one word, the reverse of the partisans of utility, they approve of everything that tends to diminish enjoyment, they blame everything which tends to augment it.'' "This principle has been more or less followed by two classes of men, who in other respects have scarce any resemblance, and even affect a mutual contempt. The one class are philosophers, the other devotees. The ascetic philosophers, animated by the hope of applause, flattered themselves with the idea of seeming to rise above humanity by despising vulgar pleasures. They expect to be paid in reputation and glory for all the sacrifices which they seem to make to the severity of their maxims. The ascetic devotees are foolish people, tormented by vain terrors. Man, in their eyes, is but a degenerate being, who ought to punish himself without ceasing for the crime of being born, and never to turn off his thoughts from that gulf of eternal misery which is ready to open beneath his feet. Still, the martyrs to these absurd opinions have, like all others, a fund of hope. ASCETIC PRINCIPLE. 143 Independent of the worldly pleasures attached to the Teputation of sanctity, these atrabilious pietists flatter themselves that every moment of voluntary pain here below will procure them an age of happiness in another life. Thus even the ascetic principle reposes upon some false idea of utility. It acquired its ascendancy only through mistake. This mistake consists in representing the Deity, in words, as a Being of infinite benevolence, yet ascribing to Him prohibitions and threats which are the attributes of an implacable being, who uses his power only to satisfy his malevolence. We might ask these ascetic theologians, what life is good for if not for the pleasures it procures us, and what pledge have we for the ■goodness of God in another life, if He has forbidden the enjoyment of this ?" " The devotees have carried the ascetic principle much farther than the philosophers. These confined themselves to censuring pleasures, the religious sects have turned the infliction of pain into a duty. The Stoics said that pain was not an evil, the Jansenists maintained that it was actually a good. The philosophical party never reproved pleasures in the mass, but only those which it called gross and sensual, while it exalted the pleasures of sentiment and the understanding. Always despised and disparaged under its true name, pleasure was received and applauded, when it took the titles of honour, glory, reputation, de- corum, or self-esteem." On this passage, and one which follows, describing the principle of sympathy and antipathy, Dr Whewell has observed that they are not true descriptions of any views ever held by moralists, and are almost too extravagant to he accepted even as good caricatures. Mr Mill under- takes their advocacy. In his review of Bentham he claims 144 BENTHAM AND THE for him in his account of " sympathy and antipathy " the eminent merit of first pointing out that the phrases he ridicules " contain no argument." In the review of Dr Whewell he goes further, and justifies the previous de- scription in these words : — " Undoubtedly no one has set up, in opposition to the 'greatest happiness' principle, a 'greatest unhappiness' principle as the standard of virtue. But it was Ben- tham's business not merely to discuss the avowed prin- ciples of his opponents, but to draw out those which, without being professed as principles, were implied in detail, or were essential to support the judgments passed in particular cases. His own doctrine being that the increase of pleasure and prevention of pain were the proper end of all moral rules, he had for his opponents all who contended that pleasure could ever be an evil, or pain a good, in itself apart from its consequences. Now this, whatever Dr Whewell may say, the religious ascetics did. They held that self-mortification or even self-torture, practised for its own sake, and not for the sake of any useful end, was meritorious. It matters not that they may have expected to be rewarded for these merits by consideration in this world, or by the favour of an in- visible tyrant in the world to come. So far as this life was concerned, their doctrine required it to be supposed that pain was a thing to be sought, and pleasure to be avoided. Bentham generalised this into a maxim, which he called the principle of asceticism. The Stoics did not go so far, they stopped halfway. They did not say that pain was a good, and pleasure an evil. But they said, and boasted of saying, that pain is no evil, and pleasure no good, and this is all and more than all that Bentham imputes to them, as may be seen by any one who reads ASCETIC PRINCIPLE. 145 that chapter of his work. This, however, was enough to place them, equally with the ascetics, in direct oppo- sition to Bentham, since they denied his supreme end to be an end at all." This defence of Bentham and rebuke of Dr Whewell, as coming from a professed logician, is very strange. It assumes that Bentham is blamed for treating those as opponents, who did not really differ from his views in any degree. But that is not the real charge. It is that he assigned to these opponents, because they differed from him, a principle the exact antithesis of his own, which no one but a lunatic could ever hold. In plain words, to give point to his strictures, and simplify his polemic, he commits a controversial falsehood. No one, it is owned, had ever set up a "greatest unhappiness'* prin- ciple. Yet this is exactly what Bentham says the ascetic moralists had done. And this statement clearly deserves moral censure. Even ascetics, however despised by him- self or his followers, . come certainly within the shelter of the Divine precept, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour." The reasoning of Mr Mill is of this singular kind. It is wrong to charge Bentham with ascribing to his oppo- nents an absurd doctrine they never held, because, in spite of Dr Whewell's complaint, they really held a doctrine quite distinct from that of Bentham himself, as well as from that he ascribed to them. There is surely a wide difference between teaching that all pleasure is evil, and all pain good, or that the true aim of right action is to diminish enjoyment, and a simple averment that the pleasant and the good are not the same, and that habitual self-denial in this life may be the true preparation for the fullest enjoyment in a life to come. B. L. 11. 10 146 BENTHAM AND THE But the excuse goes further. It was the business of Bentham, his apologist says, not merely to discuss the professed principles of his opponents, but to draw out those which were implied without being expressed, and which were essential to support their practical judgments. This duty, however, if it be a duty at all, is subject to one plain condition. A clear distinction ought always to be made between doctrines really held by those from whom we differ, and our own opinions or inferences as to the principles they imply, or the results to which they lead. Herein consists the whole difference between honest and searching controversy and calumnious falsehood. Dr Whewell made no charge against Bentham for having attempted, by a logical process, to show that the doctrine of the Stoics, or the practice of devotees, must involve the paradoxical conclusion that the right end of all moral action is to diminish enjoyment. The charge really brought against him was that no such attempt was made, being plainly impracticable, and that he substitutes ridi- cule for reasoning, by imputing to them a most absurd principle they never held. The complaint is perfectly true. The imputation and the ridicule are themselves ridiculous, and Mr Mill's attempt, by a process of reason- ing, to disprove Dr Whewell's charge, is only a fuller con- firmation of its justice and truth. But the steps of Mr Mill's argument are as faulty as the statement he would vindicate is untrue. The religious ascetics, it is said, contended that pleasure is sometimes an evil and pain a good, apart from their consequences, and therefore Bentham counted them rightly among his opponents. Be it so. This Dr Whewell never denied, as Mr Mill affirms him to have done. It is one thing, how- ever, to deny that all pleasures are good, and quite anor ASCETIC PRINCIPLE. 147 ther, to affirm that all pleasure is evil. It is strange for a logician to confound these things together. And next, the notion that these ascetics viewed actions or sufferings wholly apart from their consequences is abandoned as soon as it has ..been affirmed. No attempt is made to prove their more limited denial of Bentham's doctrine, that the plea- sant and the good are the same, to be an error. In his later work Mr Mill himself accepts the view that pleasures differ in kind and excellence as well as in quantity. By this concession he thus approaches more than half way to- wards the doctrine, which, as held by the Christian ascetics, ne has before condemned. A second description of their principle is then given, that self-mortification and even self-torture, practised for its. own sake, is meritorious. This is not the same with the first. A new Pharisaic element of human merit has been introduced. In the very next sentence, however, this, Proteus of the ascetic theory takes a third form. Instead of practising austerities for their own sake, and for no worthy end, a very opposite description is now given. They " expected to be rewarded by repu- tation in the world, or the favour of an invisible tyrant in the life to come." Here Mr Mill cannot admit a plain fact, without colouring and distorting it by his own preju- dices. For these ascetics, as a class, certainly did not be- lieve that the God of the Bible was a tyrant, but a Being of infinite wisdom and goodness. But even on his own view of their opinions, they were very far indeed from practising austerities for their own sake. They merely took into account a far wider range of expected conse- quences than secular utilitarians, from their want of re- ligious faith and hope, are able to do. The. argument now reaches a fourth stage. This 10—2 148 BENTHAM AND THE expectation of theirs, it is said, "matters not." Not cer- tainly as to the wisdom of their condixct, if this opinion of theirs was only a superstitious fancy. But as to the moral principle or law by which they were guided, clearly it matters everything. If this last description of them he true, it settles at once the true nature of their moral theory. They could then be no patrons of a rival system but one special class of the genus, utilitarians. They would have chosen Bentham's own revised maxim, of aim- ing at " the greatest happiness on the whole," long before he was born. And they would differ only by introducing into their own method of moral calculation elements of the most important kind, which he passes by in silence, or rejects as visionary and unreal. From this fruitless attempt of Mr Mill to repel Dr Whewell's charge, I return to the passage of Bentham, on which the discussion has arisen. At every step some im- portant moral question is overlooked, and passed in silence, on which a right view of the whole subject must really depend. First, it is said, the ascetics " have a horror of plea- sures. Everything which gratifies the senses, in then- view, is odious and criminal." Here, at the first step, the confusion of thought begins. Pleasure is used in an ambiguous sense. In the statement itself it is restricted to sensible or animal pleasures, for it is clearly untrue that the ascetics had a horror for the pleasures of piety, or speaking generally, for those of reputation and self-esteem. But in the exposition of utilitarianism the word is taken in its widest sense, and includes the highest as well as the lowest, enjoyment of whatever kind. The sharp contrast alleged is thus a mere verbal illusion. It is possible to renounce, and even to abhor, all sensible pleasures, and still ASCETIC PRINCIPLE. 149 to abide by tbe principle of seeking, on the whole, the greatest, truest, and highest enjoyment. It is possible to condemn a large class of pleasures for reasons wholly un- sound, and still, instead of setting up a rival maxim to that of " the greatest happiness," to be guided in reality by that principle alone. A second description follows. The ascetics "founded morality on privation, and virtue on the renouncement of one's self." This merely places them among disciples of the Great Teacher who said, " If any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and fol- low me. He that findeth his life shall lose it, but he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." To reject the principle wholly, as Bentham seems here to do, must in- volve a claim to be a wiser and better moralist than Christ himself. To found a scheme of morals on pure self-indul- gence, as Bentham has striven to do, is at least as hard a task as to found it simply on self-denial. But in either case this is the crucial question: What is the self to be indulged or gratified, and what the self to be denied ? Many or most ascetics may have erred greatly in the ap- plication of their principle. It is a very imperfect half- truth, when it stands alone. But as a class, they had a truer conception of the hard moral problem which grows out of a joint presence in man of a worse and a -better self, of a lower and a higher nature, than Bentham and his disciples or admirers have ever attained. Next, these ascetics " approve everything which tends to diminish enjoyment, and blame everything which tends to augment it.' ; Here the untruth is of the most plain and palpable kind. It would imply that these Christian ascetics, as a class, did all in their power to empty hea- ven, and people hell ; and instead of aiming earnestly at I jO BENTHAM AND THE eternal happiness, laboured of set purpose to make them selves and others miserable for ever. The ascetic philosophers, we are next informed, ex pected to be paid in reputation and glory for their seven maxims. They never reproved pleasures in the mass, bu degraded those of sense compared with those of sentimen and the understanding. It was rather a preference fo: one class than a total exclusion of the other. How ridicu lous, then, to make them one of two classes, who hell an ascetic principle, that the true end of right action i to diminish, not to increase enjoyment ! From Bentham' own admission it is plain that they held no such maxim but rather the direct reverse. Their real doctrine, tha pleasures differ in kind as to their goodness, is far true and sounder than his own. Even Mr Mill, who labour here to excuse this caricature of their opinions, adopts i -as the only sound and reasonable view in his later work. But a further question must arise. If the view of thesi philosophers were merely absurd, why should they expec to be paid for their sacrifices in reputation and glory How can we explain that such a hope should be enter tained, and even largely fulfilled ? Nature, Bentham says has placed man under the absolute empire of pleasure an< pain. And no doubt it is natural to shrink from all pain and to choose and pursue whatever pleases the senses Yet it seems that those who resist this impulse, and foreg< pleasure and endure pain for some worthy object, and whi learn, in Milton's words, To scorn delights, and live laborious days, are so highly esteemed by their fellows, that the glor thus achieved may even form a compensation for the sacri fices they have made. There must thus be a widespreac ASCETIC PRINCIPLE. 1 5 1 feeling, even among those who yield to these powerful in- fluences, that it is nobler and more honourable to refuse and reject their absolute dominion. The love of sensible pleasure, and the avoidance of sensible pain, do not then comprise or constitute the whole nature of man. There must be some higher faculty, which judges when pleasures are to be sought or foregone, when pain is simply to be avoided, or boldly encountered and patiently endured. Heroic virtue itself may be rare. But some conviction of its excellence and beauty must be deep-seated in the heart of man, or else the expectations of these philosophers could never have been fulfilled. They would have been despised as mere fools, rather than held in special honour by the general voice of their fellow-men. The religious ascetics, however, come in for the largest share of Bentham's displeasure and scorn. Yet no sooner has he defamed them as holding a doctrine purely ab- surd, than he convicts his own charge of utter falsehood. " These atrabilious pietists," he says, " flatter themselves that every instant of voluntary pain here below will pro- cure them an age of happiness in the life to come." If such was their motive, plainly they were utilitarians, though of a species widely different from his own. A dif- ferent estimate of the best means for securing the greatest amount of happiness is foolishly confounded with some- thing wholly different, the mental lunacy of a so-called ascetic principle, consisting in the deliberate rejection of all enjoyment, and the choice of pain and misery. The oscillation of thought, in these paragraphs of Bentham, is provoking and incessant. His ascetic de- votees, first of all, are senseless anti-utilitarians. Next, they are far-looking, but deceived utilitarians, who ex» pected ages of happiness for each moment of self-torture 152 BENTHAM AND THE or self-denial. Thirdly, they are anti-utilitarians once more, who went beyond the Stoics, and held pain in itself to be a good. And lastly, they were both at once ; for they accepted the principle of all sound morals and good laws, that pleasures are to be avoided, when they lead to greater pain or loss, and inferred from it that all pleasure alike is evil, and, with a few indulgences for human weakness, should be the object of universal prohibition ! And this charge against them is deduced from the premise, that they for- bade pleasures which, in their view, would involve some immensely greater loss in the life to come. It is this wonderful series of contradictions of which Mr Mill under- takes the especial patronage. It forms the porch to the new philosophy which is to constitute its author the Bacon of moral science, and ensure him one of the highest places among the intellectual benefactors of mankind ! Let us now endeavour to gain some insight into the real question, which Bentham by his caricature, and Mr Mill by his apqlogy, have done their utmost to involve in mist and darkness. There is a great truth wrapped up in utilitarianism. There is another truth, and one still deeper, inwrought into the texture of Christian asceticism, and the school which has some affinities with it, heathen Stoicism. How may we trace the connection between them, and find a bridge of transition from the lower and more superficial to the higher and more mysterious truth? Let us begin from Bentham's own starting-point. Pleasure is good, and pain is evil. It is natural and instinc- tive to choose one, and avoid the other. Nature has placed us under the double empire of their attractive and repulsive powers. Hence arises a first law of action, which is not moral, but purely instinctive, to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. "Rejoice, O young man, in ASCETIC PRINCIPLE. I 53 thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth; and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes." Here this first maxim pauses, and goes no higher. And sometimes, instead of com- pleting the sacred text, it passes into an opposite and more comprehensive direction: "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." But utilitarianism, from Epicurus down to Bentham, cannot rest in this first and lowest stage of Hedonics, in which present impulses are the supreme law, and the direct empire of pleasure and pain, from moment to moment, is absolute and supreme. This despotism needs to be changed into a limited and constitutional monarchy. The lessons of experience come in. All pleasures are not to be indulged, because some of them have bad effects. All pains are not to be avoided ; some of them are found to be medicinal, and have good consequences. And thus, out of the vast sea of Hedonics, where each rippling of the waves is a momentary pleasure, that sparkles for an instant and disappears for ever, the virtue of Prudence, like a sea-born Venus, Far fleeted by the purple island sides, rises slowly to preside over this ocean of perpetual change, and receives a kind of worship as the supreme guide of human action, the tutelary divinity of a new moral world. /-■ This is the utilitarian stage of Ethics. Its main con- ception is simple. All the pleasures or pains which result from every act or course of action are to be summed into one total ; and the character of this total, as the pleasures or pains are in excess, and in excess to a less or greater amount, decides the question of right or wrong, of moral good or moral evil. 154 BENTHAM AND THE But here further and deeper questions intrude them- selvesj Of these three are the most important. How far ought out view to travel onward in foresight of those consequences, on which this moral decision must depend? What rule or principle must guide us in our estimate of those pleasures or pains, of which the total is composed ? What deeper lessons are taught and implied by this strange fact, on which prudent utilitarianism is based, that pleasure may be the cause of greater pain, and pain of greater pleasure ? When these three questions have received a right and true answer, a sacred fire will have been kindled, by which gross and vulgar utilitarianism will be consumed and destroyed. There will arise phoenix- like from its ashes a nobler vision of self-denying, ascetic virtue ; or of that highest and Christ-like form of moral excellence, which aims, by wise and willing self-sacrifice^ at glory, honour and immortality, the garland of the hero, or the martyr's crown. And first, how far ought our wise foresight of conse- quences to extend ? Here there comes at once into view the broad contrast between Bentham and Paley, or a religious and a non-religious form of the utilitarian theory. Is there, or is there not, a life to come, that will endure for ever? Have we, or have we not, any means of know- ing, either by natural reason, or supernatural revelation, the connection between a present course of conduct in this life, and results, joyful or sorrowful, in such a life to come ? If such a life has been revealed, or may be in- ferred by human reason, and any light exists on its con- nection with present things, every theory of moral conse- quences, which looks only to results in the present life, must be senseless and irrational. The remark of Paley is here most true : "While the infidel mocks at the super- ASCETIC PRINCIPLE. 155 stitions of the vulgar, and insults over their credulous fears, their childish errors, or fantastic rites, it does not occur to him to observe that the most preposterous device by which the weakest devotee ever believed that he was securing the happiness of a future life is more rational than unconcern about it. On this subject nothing is so absurd as indifference, no folly so contemptible as thought- lessness and levity." Secular utilitarianism can be justified only by one of these three assumptions: that there is no future life, that its happiness is wholly independent of, and unaffected by, our present conduct, or else that the connection, however real it may be, is wholly unrevealed and unknown. Now each of these alternatives is an equal denial of the Christian faith. All calculations, like those of Bentham, in which the doctrine of a life to come, and the promises and warnings of the gospel, are kept wholly out of sight, are little better than a kind of solemn trifling, which must tend rapidly to sink and degenerate into mis- chievous folly. They would be completely worthless, if it were not for another great truth, taught alike by reason and Scripture, that the consequences of actions, even here, though liable to many causes of strong disturbance, de- pend mainly on those true laws of moral sequence or retribution, which will find their perfect, undisturbed ^development in the life to come. "Whatsoever a man 'soweth, that shall he also reap." And this reaping, though at present in part only, begins even here. Our earthly life is a kind of seed-bed or nursery, where those plants first begin to bloom, which are to blossom out more fully and clearly in the Paradise of God. The ascetic devotee, who renounced all sensible plea- sures, or practised hard and painful austerities, would not I 56 BENTHAM AND THE thereby contradict in' the least the doctrine of utility, or the so-called " greatest happiness principle," when taken in its simplest and most proper meaning. He would merely avoid one grand fault of the secular utilitarians, though he often at the same time introduced another in its stead. He would escape the great and evident folly of reckoning the very transient results of right and wrong deeds, in this short and fleeting life, as far more important than their eternal issues. The error introduced, which tends to neutralize the gain, is a superstitious view of the laws of duty prescribed and enforced in the gospel. The great disease of asceticism is when Stoical pride or Pharisaic self-righteousness replaces the lessons of Christian humility and love, and a painful discipline is invented, of suffering or self-torture, to render the soul acceptable to God ; instead of accepting the discipline He has himself appointed, and seeking to tread in the foot- steps of the Great Pattern of self-denying love. But whether our view is bounded by the grave, or extends to the life to come, a second question remains. What principle is to guide us in our relative estimate of pains and pleasures ? The old Epicurean doctrine here diverges from the Stoics and the Academy, and the same separation and contrast is renewed in modern times. Bentham and Paley, whose views on the last subject are in entire contrast, here agree together, and range them- selves on the side of Epicurus. Pleasures, in their scheme, do not differ in kind, but in quantity, nearness, or in- tensity alone. Mr Mill, in his later treatise, forsakes Bentham on this point, and ranges himself on the opposite side, along with the old disciples of the Academy, or modern advocates of the morality of intuition. The pleasure of a sugarplum, and of witnessing or performing ASCETIC PRINCIPLE. 157 a noble action, cannot, in their view, be reduced to a common unit, or summed up in a total, -which admits of numerical calculation. Some pleasures are higher, others lower in kind. "It is better," says Mr Mill, "to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied, a Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied." " Neither pleasures nor pains are homogeneous, and pain is always heterogeneous with pleasure." But by this one admission, the whole of Bentham's ethics, as a practical system, is undermined. Its very foundation is overthrown. The new moral arith- metic becomes impossible in its own nature. For it strives to sum up elements diverse and heterogeneous, and then to frame totals out of them, on the amount of which the moral character of every action is wholly to depend. . The admission involves a further result, which Mr Mill fails to notice. If pleasures are owned to differ in kind as well as quantity, so that some are of a higher class, and others of a lower, these differences may include .moral as well as intellectual elements. These pleasures may not only differ in their rank and dignity, but by features of moral contrast. Is a thing always really good, because some one or other is pleased with it ? Is a person good, or is he enjoying a real good, because he is pleased with something or other, whatever it may be? Here com- mon sense gives a plain answer. Men may sometimes be greatly pleased, and still be pleased amiss. He ceased, for both seemed highly pleased, and Death Grinned horrible a ghastly smile. The pleasures of bad men may be their shame, not from the fact of their being pleased at all, but from the nature of that which pleases them. That which delights the 158 BENTHAM AND THE gross, the base, the licentious and the impure, may cause intense pain and disgust to the pure, the upright, and the noble, in mind and heart. When the drunkards, of whom the Psalmist prophesies, made songs upon the Son of God, no doubt they had a pleasure in their drunken and wicked ribaldry. Pleasures are good, not because they are plea- sures, but because those who experience them are pleased aright. And this lesson of plain common sense is con- firmed and reechoed by the clear testimony of Holy Scripture. For pleasure there includes the widest moral extremes. It speaks of pleasures eagerly to be desired, and highly praised, and of others to be condemned and abhorred. Thus it is written of the blessedness of the risen Saviour, "In Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." On the other hand, the worst and lowest forms of human guilt are marked by the double character of evil men, that "their soul delighteth in their abominations," and that they not only commit wicked acts themselves, but take a sympathizing pleasure in them that do them. Here, then, we pass on to a second stage in that change by which the arithmetic of Bentham's utilitarian- ism has to be elevated and transformed, before we can attain a genuine morality. It is not simply true that we need to include, in the range of consequences, the lessons of Christian faith, and the doctrine of a future judgment, and the life to come. "We need also to distinguish the various kinds of pleasures, and not only their degrees of dignity and worth, but their contrasts of health and disease, of reality and illusion, of moral good or moral evil. The doctrine, which Bentham ascribes without reason to the ascetics, that all pleasures are evil, is simply foolish and absurd. Its converse, which he maintains, that all ASCETIC PRINCIPLE. I 59 pleasures alike are good in themselves, apart from their consequences, is corrupt and immoral. For it makes the mere fact of being pleased a sufficient proof of being pleased aright, and promotes the disgusting orgies of sen- sual vice or unblushing profligacy to rank, in their own nature, side by side with the delights of heroic virtue, or the joys of pure and spotless spirits in the presence of God. But a further question still demands an answer. How is it that pain can lead to pleasure, or pleasure be the cause of pain? Utilitarianism can escape from the charge of justifying a sensual life, and the indulgence of every instinct of man's animal nature, only by laying stress on the future consequences of actions, and on the fact, which experience proves, that some pleasures, like those of in- temperance, lead to evils and sorrows which far outweigh their immediate gain. Now surely a true philosophy should look deeper, and ask how it is that this comes to pass. If pleasure be the only good, and pain the only evil, how can the good of this moment cause the evil of the next, or evil now done or suffered become the source of future and larger good ? Like produces like throughout the whole range of animal and vegetable life. The offspring ever resembles the parent. Is this law reversed in the world of morals ? Can that which is the only good be parent of that which is the only evil; or the only evil, in its turn, become parent of the only good? And can this strange paradox be carried so far, that the qualities of the parent are annulled and reversed by the opposite character of the many children, so that many pleasures have to be .renounced, because they generate greater pain, and some pains to be chosen, because they produce and bring forth greater pleasures? How is it that the maxim "nocet 160 BENTHAM AND THE empta dolore voluptas," which emhodies this fact of experience, has hecome a moral aphorism of the most familiar kind ? This cardinal ohjection to Bentham has been enforced by Dr Calderwood in his Handbook, as by many earlier writers. " That the painful may lead to the pleasurable," he says, "is proof that pleasure and pain are not ends in themselves, but simply attendants on personal action. Of contraries, one cannot produce the other." This great fact, which utilitarian writers have to make prominent, in order to free themselves from the reproach of teaching a doctrine of sensuality, implies the truth of one out of two alternatives. It must result, either from the actual constitution of the world, capable of reversal by the will of the Supreme Creator, or else it must be viewed as a necessary adjunct, inherent in the very nature and objects of the pleasures and pains themselves. The former view is one which arises spontaneously in the minds of the selfish, the profligate, and the licentious. It gives birth, in secret, to ten thousand hard and dis- contented thoughts, and blasphemies against the Divine goodness. Men follow blindly the craving for immediate pleasure. They seek to gratify it, even when it assumes the lowesb and most degrading forms. And when these pleasures, which they have sought so eagerly, prove like apples of Sodom, and turn to ashes in their mouth, they complain of the cruel fate, which robs them of happiness, when a better constitution of things, or a kinder and more benevolent Providence, might still have secured it to them. The words of the wisest of men are then fulfilled, "The foolishness of man perverteth his way, and his heart fretteth against the Lord." The working of this common illusion is conspicuous in ASCETIC PRINCIPLE. l6l Benthams foot-note, where he points out what he con- ceives to be the folly of the ascetic devotees. It consists, he says, in ascribing to the Deity prohibitions and threats, which are the attributes of an implacable Being, who uses his power only to satisfy his malevolence. We may ask these ascetic theologians, what life is good for, if not for the pleasures it procures us ? What pledge have we for the goodness of God in another life, if He has for- bidden the enjoyment of this ?" Here it is plainly assumed that the connection of pain with sequent pleasure, or pleasure with sequent pain, so far as the ascetics are concerned, is wholly of an arbitrary and reversible kind. In this case the argument, assuming the doctrine to be that all pleasures are forbidden, will be simple and decisive. Universal malevolence in this life can never be the pledge or sign of universal benevolence in some other life to come. But then, the objection, on the same hypothesis, lies almost with equal force against Bentham's own view. How can it consist with perfect benevolence, to make pain, in a large class of cases, the constant sequel of certain pleasures, and in another as large, the needful condition for securing them, if the rela- tion is purely a capricious and arbitrary thing 1 Thus the whole constitution of life, on which the " greatest happi- ness" philosophers base their lessons of prudence, and reason against the rash indulgence of mere animal plea- sures, lies open to the very same charge which has been made against the folly of religious devotees. They can only escape from the same guilt of imputing malevolence to the Divinity, either by shutting their eyes to the facts, and refusing all exercise of reason on the principle to which they make their constant appeal, or by looking below the surface, and tracing it to a deeper truth, which, B. L. II, 11 1 62 BENTHAM AND THE once discovered and seen clearly, must prove fatal to then- whole theory. Unless we would justify, then, the foolish complaints of the sensual, the indolent, the immoral and impure, against the constitution of Providence, as a capricious and ma- levolent source of all their troubles, we must accept the other alternative. The connection between some pleasures and sequent pains, between certain pains and sequent pleasures, is no capricious and arbitrary thing, no result of partial or entire malevolence in the Supreme Will. It depends rather upon an essential contrast in the pleasures or pains, out of which opposite results, though obscured for a time by the manifold complications of human life, inevitably flow. There are pleasures which, in themselves, are good and right. There are others which in them- selves, and before the consequences are born, are impure and evil. And the fruit resembles the seed. The children bear the image of their parent. The evil which seems to be good, and pleases because of that illusive semblance, begets consequences only according to its true nature, and not according to that illusive semblance which must soon disappear. The pain endured in the cause of right, in a world where evil still prevails, and fights against the right, though it may be inseparable from the present conflict, yields fruit according to its true character, disguised for a time in that evil world; and must issue, in due season, in triumphant happiness and moral victory. Christian asceticism became corrupt and injurious, just so far as it construed Divine cautions, and prohibitions of sensual vice, into capricious restraints on human enjoyment. In these cases it sought proudly to lay up a stock of merit in a future life, by serving God as a hard and severe task- master, and reversed the great maxim of the Apostle, that ASCETIC PRINCIPLE. 1 63 He giveth all things richly to enjoy. But all its wiser disciples recognized, in the great law of self-denial, en- forced by the example of the Incarnate Son of God, a fundamental truth of morals, not created by the fiat of arbitrary power, but revealed by Divine wisdom and good- ness, to guide the steps of His children, amidst snares and pitfalls, into a narrow and upward pathway of life and peace, issuing in eternal glory. In this, its truest and noblest form, it embodies a truth far higher, nobler, and more excellent, than Bentham or those who admire and prize his teaching can ever possibly have attained. It is to such ascetics, in the best sense of the word, and the true spirit of the Gospel, and not to those most busily employed in grinding out duty from the husks of pleasure, that the striking words of Milton in Comus most fitly apply. Yet some there be that by due steps aspire To lay their just hand on the golden key That opes the palace of eternity. To such mine errand is, and but for such I would not soil these bright ambrosial weeds With the rank vapours of a sin-worn, world. 11—2 LECTUEE VI. THE PKINCIPLE OF SYMPATHY AND ANTIPATHY. The second rival, according to Bentham, of the doctrine of utility, is the Principle of Sympathy and Antipathy. He styles it also Ipsedixitism, the Arbitrary Principle, or the Principle of Caprice. It consists, he says, in appealing to sentiment, and giving no other reason for a moral decision than the decision itself. Several pages are given to a description of its various forms, which Dr Whewell con- demns as extravagant ridicule. Mr Mill undertakes his defence, and quotes the passage at length in two reviews. In one case he joins it with an apology, but in the other he ascribes to it some eminent merit. It represents, in his opinion, the cause of progressive morality, in contrast to the blmd deification of habit and opinion. The main portion of the statement is as follows : " What one expects to find in a principle is something that points out some external consideration, as a means of warranting and guiding the internal sentiments of appro- bation and disapprobation. The expectation is but ill fulfilled by a proposition which does neither more nor less than hold up each of these sentiments as a ground or standard for itself." SYMPATHY AND ANTIPATHY. 165 " In looking over the catalogue of human actions, says a partisan of this principle, to determine which of them are to be marked with the seal of disapprobation, you need but take counsel of your own feelings. Whatever you find in yourself a propensity to condemn is wrong for that very reason. For the same reason it is also meet for punishment. In what proportion it is adverse to utility, or whether it be adverse to utility at all, makes no differ- ence. In that same proportion also it is meet for punish- ment. If you hate much, punish much; if you hate little, punish little: punish as you hate. If you hate not at all, punish not at all: the feelings of the soul are not to be overborne and tyrannized by the harsh and rugged dic- tates of political utility." " The various systems that have been formed concern- ing the standard of right and wrong may all be reduced to the principle of sympathy and antipathy. One account may serve for all of them. They consist in so many con- trivances for avoiding the obligation of appealing to any external standard, and for prevailing on the reader to accept of the author's sentiment or opinion as a reason for itself. The phrase is different, but the principle is the same. It is curious enough to observe the variety of inventions men have hit upon, and the variety of phrases they have brought forward, in order to conceal from the world, and if possible from themselves, this very general and very pardonable self-sufficiency." "One man says, he has a thing made on purpose to tell him what is right, and what is wrong, and that it is called a moral sense; and then he goes to work at his will, and says, such a thing is right, and such a thing is wrong, — why? 'Because my moral sense tells me it is.'" "Another man comes and alters the phrase, leaving out 1 66 THE PRINCIPLE OF moral, and putting common in the room of it. He then tells you, that his common sense teaches him what is right and wrong, as much as the other's moral sense did; meaning by common sense a sense of some kind or other, which, he says, is possessed by all mankind; the sense of those, whose sense is not the same as the author's, being struck out of the account as not worth taking. This contrivance does better than the other; for a moral sense being a new thing, a man may feel about him a good while, without being able to find it; but common sense is as old as the creation, and there is no man who would not be ashamed to be thought not to have as much of it. as his neighbours. It has another great advantage. By appearing to share power, it lessens envy; for when a man gets up on this ground, in order to anathematize those who differ from him, it is not by a sic volo, sic jubeo, but by a velitis, jubeatis." "Another man comes and says, that as to a moral sense indeed, he cannot find that he has any such thing; but however he has an understanding, which will do quite as well. This understanding, he says, is the standard of right and wrong, it tells him so and so. All good and wise men understand as he does. If other men's under- standings differ in any point from his, so much the worse for them; it is a sure sign that they are either defective or corrupt." 'Another man says that there is an eternal and im- mutable rule of right; that that rule of right dictates so and so; and then he begins giving you his sentiments upon anything that comes uppermost, and these senti- ments, you are to take for granted, are so many branches of the eternal rule of right." "Another man, or perhaps the same man, it's no matter, SYMPATHY AND ANTIPATHY. 167 says that there are certain practices conformable, and others repugnant, to the fitness of things; and then he tells you at his leisure what practices are conformable and what repugnant, just as he happens to like a practice or dislike it." "A great multitude of people are continually talking of the Law of Nature, and then they go on giving you their sentiments about what is right and wrong; and these sentiments, you are to understand, are so many chapters and sections of the law of nature." "We have- one philosopher, who says there is no harm in anything in the world but telling a lie; and that if, for example, you were to murder your own father, this would be only a particular way of saying he was not your father. Of course, when this philosopher sees anything he does not like, he says it is a particular way of telling a lie. It is saying that the act ought to be done, or may be done, when in truth it ought not to be done.'' " The fairest and openest of them all is that sort of man who speaks out, and says, I am of the number of the elect; now God himself takes care to inform the elect what is right; and that with so good effect that, let them strive ever so, they cannot help not only knowing it, but practising it. If therefore a man wants to know what is right and what is wrong, he has nothing to do but to come to me." Here, first of all, the subject is obscured by a very de- fective arrangement of moral creeds or systems. The true distinction is not twofold, but threefold. The basis of moral science may be viewed as objective, subjective, or external. The first of these insists on a fundamental contrast of right and wrong, derived from the perfection 1 68 THE PRINCIPLE OF of the Divine nature, and the primary conception of a moral agent, as endued with the power of choice, and exempt from physical compulsion, and thereby made sub- ject to a higher and nobler law of moral obligation. When this doctrine is combined with those lessons of human infirmity and corruption, which are taught alike by Scripture and experience, it leads at once to the best and truest forms of Christian asceticism. For then it reminds us that there is a high and pure standard of moral perfection, which we should strive earnestly to attain ; that there is a lower nature, which is ever tempt- ing us, and dragging us downward; and that patient self- denial is needful, in order to realize the just claims of the Divine law, and the true spirit of the Gospel, and to walk in that narrow and upward path, which leads to peace, life, and immortality. Such is the true and noble asceticism, which St Paul has described, 1 Cor. ix. 24 — 27, and enforced by his own bright example. And it is liable to a double counterfeit, on the right hand, and on the left. This genuine hunger and thirst of Divine righteous- ness may be then replaced, either by the terrors and fevered anxiety of a guilty conscience, or the false and diseased excitement of spiritual pride. Penances may then be self-imposed, and severe and painful tortures endured, either to banish and silence, if possible, the fear of future punishment, or else to purchase, by a stock of fancied merit, the joys of heaven. This objective morality, when dissevered from the Christian doctrine of human guilt and corruption, may assume various intellectual forms. Three of these are included in Bentham's enumeration, along with a fourth, of a more theological kind, presented in a brief caricature. Moral Duty may be viewed, with Plato and Cudworth, as SYMPATHY AND ANTIPATHY. 1 69 something immutable and eternal; or with Clarke, as resulting from the reason and fitness of things; or with Wollaston, as derived from the essential truth of their real nature. Again, it may he viewed as a Divine land- scape, like the good land of promise, which exists before we see it, and abides the same, though we were smitten with moral blindness; a landscape which needs Divine illumination, that we may gaze on it aright, and discover all its wonderful beauty. These four types of moral thought and speculation are included, by Bentham, as varieties of his Principle of Caprice. But they are really as wide apart from it as the north pole from the south. It is their common axiom that in moral science there is nothing capricious, or de- pendent on subjective fancies alone, but that it is fixed and firm in its own nature, like the laws of number and of space. • Three other varieties remain, the doctrine of a moral sense, of common sense, and of a moral understanding. These dwell mainly on the subjective aspect of moral truths, or the faculties by which they are perceived, and the emotions of approval or disapproval, of praise and blame, which they awaken in the human heart. The censures of Bentham, so far as they are aimed against the objective moralists, betray entire forgetfulness of the first conditions of all genuine science. "We must believe that there is a God, a Moral Governor of the universe, before we can enter upon the science of Theo- logy. We must believe in space-relations, fixed and definite in their kind, before we can begin the study of Geometry. We must recognize laws of animal structure, with definite uses and aims of particular organs, before there can grow up a science of Physiology. So also the 170 THE PRINCIPLE OF conception of definite, fixed and abiding moral relations,- and of things which ought and ought not to be done, is the ■ first condition and needful postulate of all moral science. Those who insist on this truth merely fulfil the first neces- sity of all sound and clear ethical reasoning. To charge them on this ground alone with the perverse design to give currency, without examination, to some private fancies of their own on the details of moral duty, is a calumny as groundless as it is offensive. Now this is what Bentham has here done, and it forms the main substance of the passage which Mr Mill unwisely seeks to justify. The paragraph, for instance, which speaks of "an eternal and immutable rule of right " alludes evidently to Cudworth's well-known and learned work. But the remark which follows, that "he retails to you his own particular senti- ments, which you are obliged to receive as so many branches of the eternal rule of right," has no shadow of real foundation. One main defect of his work is that he stops short with an unfinished exposition of his main principle, that morality is based on the very nature of things, and no mere result of arbitrary will, and does not enter at all into the development of its actual laws, or the wide variety of personal, social, and religious duties, which alone constitute Ethics a practical science. The strictures of Bentham have more appearance of truth, when confined to the advocates of a moral sense, of common sense, and of conscience or the moral under- standing, as constituting the supreme law of right and wrong. To this general type of thought, Hutcheson, Butler, Beid, Adam Smith, Dr Thomas Brown, and many others, may be referred. This subjective principle, if carried to its extreme, is too narrow to form a proper basis for connected reasoning. So long as the reference is SYMPATHY AND ANTIPATHY. 171 excluded to fixed moral relations, and truths which come .earlier, or lie deeper, than individual experience, and also to later results, which flow onward, almost without limit, from every form of moral activity, the doctrine must con- tract itself into a mere registration of those emotions of liking or disliking, of praise or blame, which may succes- sively arise in each human conscience and heart. It will thus have no power to distinguish between the most mis- chievous illusions, and the purest and noblest sentiments of a purified intelligence, and must wholly fail to supply the* materials for a genuine science. To fulfil its main object, it must borrow more or less largely from the ex- tremes which enclose it on either side. The emotions, from which it would construct its ethical creed or system, must involve a reference, more or less distinct, either to laws and principles of duty that go before, and awaken them, or else to results that follow after. The starting-point may be personal experience, and the actual record of moral emotions of the heart. But before the principle can rise into the amplitude and dignity of a science, it must expand and enlarge, till it comes to gaze on a firmament of moral truth that rises above us, and speaks of a higher world, or on a wide landscape of moral consequences, that are spread out around and beneath on every side. The subjective moralists would be justly condemned, if they were to propound the direct study and registry of the moral emotions as the sole basis and main work of ethical science. The error would be much the same as an attempt to replace, by the mere study of the human eye, and its delicate mechanism of vision, the wide range of geometrical truth, with all the vast superstructure of SGience which is reared on this foundation. But their views are just and sound, so far as they assume a careful 172 • THE PRINCIPLE OF observation of the feelings of the heart, and its emotions of approval and disapproval, when certain kinds of action are set before it, to be the proper and needful starting- point of the whole inquiry. Are these feelings the same with those of simple hope and fear, or the prospect of personal gain or loss? Or do they include a higher element, which no true analysis can resolve into the in- stinctive desire for pleasure, or prudential reckoning of gain ? In this case the pretended analysis, which arrives at such a result, only proves that the knife has done its ■ work too thoroughly, that a corpse has been submitted to scientific dissection, but that the life is gone. Moral inquirers do well to be inductive so far, that they must begin with the question, what is the actual constitution and experience of the human mind as to moral feelings and truths. But if their progress is arrested at this point, it will soon be found impossible to build up what is really and essentially an ideal science by the mere observation of actual occurrences alone. The Morality of Common Sense has its weak and its strong side. Its weakness consists in the want of unity, simplicity, symmetry, and ideal grandeur. It cleaves to what is real and actual, in a science which must cease to exist, as soon as the contrast between the actual and the ideal has disappeared from view. In this respect it bears some resemblance to those early navigators, who sailed close by headland, islet, and promontory, and feared to entrust themselves to the wide and trackless ocean by the help of the compass and the stars alone. For those stars are often blotted out and hidden by storms and clouds; and the compass might lead to fatal shipwrecks, being a strange, ill-understood mystery, and subject to many unknown causes of variation; SYMPATHY AND ANTIPATHY. 173 The strength of the doctrine resides in its inductive character, its tone of modesty and caution. It seeks to tread on firm ground. It distrusts abstract theories, and hasty generalizations. It begins by observing the actual sentiments of mankind, and their usual decisions on all the great questions of morals, and then seeks to eliminate from these the more patent causes of error and mutual divergence. It rests content with secondary moral axioms, confirmed by the general verdict and assent of men not wholly ignorant, or enslaved by passion and lust, even when it fails to trace them, upward and outward, into some wider and more comprehensive truth. A due re- gard to the importance of secondary axioms is a mark of the spirit of genuine induction, and its practical worth has been proved in every branch of physical inquiry. But morals are an ideal science. And hence the applica- tion of the principle needs here especial caution, and can only be limited and partial in its extent. We should else he in danger of abandoning the true ideal and standard of moral excellence, and of exalting the customs, opinions, and prejudices of each particular class of men, among whom our lot is cast, into the absolute and proper test of duty and virtue. The objective moralists have been wrongly grouped byBentham, along with the subjective or sentimental, under his principle of caprice, and thus a charge has been brought against them, from which, so far as their main doctrine is concerned, they are wholly free. Mr Mill commits an error of the opposite kind. He groups the moralists of emotion and internal feeling, along with those who appeal to reason and eternal truth, under a Qommon complaint that they forsake induction, the method of true and sound philosophy, for mere intuition. I 7 4 THE PRINCIPLE OF But the sentimental moralists, in principle, are further removed from this fault than utilitarians themselves. Their real danger is rather of an opposite kind. Pro- fessor Grote, in Ch. XVII. of his " Examination," has made the following just remarks on this representation of their views. "Under the notion of intuitive moral systems, Mr Mill seems to confuse two entirely different lines of thought. Of these the sentimental or emotional satisfies itself with attributing great importance to the subjective feeling. The other, the school of duty, variously named according to its various forms, has a strong notion of the reality of facts and relations which the subjective feeling suggests to us; and which reason, they think, makes known to us on other grounds besides. Both schools are noticed by Bentham as hostile to utilitarianism. The one which he saw and described most clearly as such was the emotional. The other he speaks of under the name of asceticism, in a manner not making it readily recog- nizable as an important part of human thought. Now of these two schools the former is certainly not less inductive than utilitarianism itself. If we define right action to be that which is in accordance with our feelings of kindness, fairness, and generosity, we enunciate a principle which is as capable as the utilitarian of being put to the test of observation "... " The moralists of last century, who spoke variously of a moral sense, or a faculty which might be made matter of psychological observation, all supposed that in doing this they were following Bacon and Locke, and setting moral philosophy on an inductive basis, on prin- ciples of observation, experience and d posteriori reason. In fact, if setting aside the truth of one or the other- SYMPATHY AND ANTIPATHY. 175 system, we consider which of the two falls in most with the idea of going only by experience, I think the advan- tage lies with the emotional system. No fact of ex- perience can be more clear, than that man, whenever he has feelings at all, has feelings of kindness, fairness and generosity, of moral approval of some things, and con- demnation of others; and that these feelings, though endlessly various in the particulars, are in substance the same for all men, at least to the same extent that happi- ness is the same for all. Against this fact utilitarianism sets the consideration, true perhaps, but as compared with the other, possessing something of an & priori charac- ter, that people may feel wrongly, and that whatever their feelings, it is certain that no action can be good but such as is promotive of some happiness. By what process of thought a morality which consists, in the first instance, of the assumption of a principle like this, and then of deduction from it, can be considered a morality of expe- rience or observation, as against a morality resting im- mediately on the experience of human feeling, is what I cannot understand." . Mr Mill justifies the strictures of Bentham on the sub- jective moralists by the following plea. "He did not mean that people ever asserted that they approved or con- demned actions only because they felt disposed to do so. He meant that they do it without asserting it ; that they find certain feelings in themselves, take for granted that these feelings are the right ones, and when called on to say anything in justification produce phrases which mean nothing but the fact of the approbation and disapproba- tion itself. A great part of all the ethical reasoning in books and in the world is of this sort. A feeling is not proved to be right, and exempted from the necessity of I 76 THE PRINCIPLE OF justifying itself because the writer or speaker is not only conscious of it in himself, but expects to find it in other people. The most senseless and pernicious feelings can as easily be raised to the utmost intensity by inculcation, as hemlock and thistles can be raised to luxuriant growth by sowing them instead of wheat. Bentham, therefore, did not judge too severely a kind of ethics, whereby any implanted sentiment, which is tolerably general, may be erected into a moral law, binding under penalties on all mankind... The contest between the morality which ap- peals to an external standard, and that which grounds itself on internal conviction, is the contest of progressive morality against stationary, of reason and argument against the deification of mere opinion and habit. The doctrine that the existing order of things is the natural order is as vicious in morals as in physics, society, and government." To justify, then, the strictures of Bentham on the subjective moralists, a double charge is brought against them. They are intuitivists, and desert that inductive method, to which physical science owes all its signal triumphs. And again, they are prone to adopt and register the actual moral feelings of mankind, without submitting them to some higher test, and requiring them to give account of themselves, and prove their agreement with the calculations of utility, and the principle that the greatest collective amount of human happiness is the only proper aim for each individual of mankind. Now so far as Moral Science is purely inductive, it must simply inquire which actions, or classes of actions, are found by experience to awaken sentiments of moral approval or blame. It would' be consistent in refusing to go further, and enter on the later inquiry whether all SYMPATHY AND ANTIPATHY. 177 the acts so commended by the conscience, do really produce a maximum of human felicity. Utilitarianism, again, is so far inductive, that it refers to experience to decide what things are pleasant or painful, and also in what cases, or to what extent, pleasure may lead to pain, or pain to pleasure. But in its main and fundamental principle, that the Tightness or wrongness of actions is to, be determined by their tendency to the greatest sum of pleasures, diminished by the smallest amount of pain, and' by that alone, it is plainly intuitive first, and then deductive, and deserts the path of induction altogether. A moral feeling, Mr Mill remarks, "is not exempted from the necessity of justifying itself." The doctrine is true, and; of deep importance. It implies a fundamental conception, of moral lightness, which partakes of the character of necessity, and lies deeper than all the indi- vidual convictions that men may form as to the details of moral duty. But for this very reason it subverts his whole defence of Bentham's strictures on the moralists of Conscience, the Moral Sense, or Common Sense. Their true fault is not that for which he really condemns them, their recognition of a final and ultimate principle in morals, of an intuitive kind. It is that they exalt the imperfect decisions of individual conscience too high, and stretch the province of experience and observation beyond its just limit in an ideal science. For the great question in morals is not what men do feel, but what they ought to feel. In its details it must depend largely on materials borrowed from the actual experiences of human life. But it de- stroys itself, when it accepts the maxim "whatever is, is right," or undertakes to canonize and consecrate, as Divine utterances, all the conflicting views of duty, the jarring and discordant voices, claiming to be voice of p. L. 11, 12 I78 THE PRINCIPLE OF SYMPATHY, &e. conscience, which prevail amongst the multitudes of man- kind. It may seek to attain tests of right action and of moral goodness, either from great truths rising ahove the details of momentary feeling, like stars of the firma- ment, or from results that flow out, in ever-widenin^ circles, from every action and every agent, like waves on the surface of a troubled sea. But without some first principles, no science can possibly be reared. Subjec- tive moralists, in their dread of abstract theory, and their greater trust in the instinctive whispers of conscience than in artificial processes of laborious calculation of results, may have shrunk too much from those wider generaliza- tions which are almost essential for scientific progress. But the charges which Bentham has aimed against them are due mainly to the superficial and mechanical view which he has taken of the whole subject of morals. If he had paused in his sarcastic depreciation of his rivals to look below the surface, he must have seen that the same objection really lies against his own theory, that it throws us back on the inquiry, why we ought to pursue the maxim of seeking the greatest amount of collective hap- piness, and that a seeming tautology or repetition, in the view of careless readers, must be involved in the defi- nitions and axioms of every genuine science. LECTUKE VII. ON MORAL INQUIRY AND CHRISTIAN FAITH. The relation between honest, inquiry into the foun- dations, principles, and main outlines of moral truth, and deep and settled religious convictions, is a subject plainly of the highest practical importance. Mr Mill maintains that the two ideas are incompatible, and writes upon- it, in his review of Dr Whewell's Elements of Morality, in these words. "Inasmuch as mental activity of any kind is better than torpidity, and bad solutions of the great questions of philosophy are preferable to a lazy ignoring of their exist- ence, whoever has taken so active a part as Dr Whewell in this movement may lay claim to considerable merit. " Unfortunately it is not in the nature of bodies con- stituted like the English Universities, even when stirred up into something like mental activity, to send forth thought of any but one description. There have been universities which brought together into a body the most vigorous thinkers and ablest teachers, whatever the conclusions to which their thinking led them. But in the English Universities no thought can find place except that which can reconcile itself with orthodoxy. They are ecclesiastical institutions; and it is the essence of 12—2 1 80 ON MORAL INQ UIR Y all churches to vow adherence to a set of opinions made ■ up and prescribed, it matters little whether, three or thirteen centuries ago. Men will some day. open their eyes, and perceive how fatal a thing it is that . the in- struction of those who are intended to be the guides and, governors of mankind should be confided to persons thus pledged. If the opinions they were pledged . to were every one as true as any fact in physical science, and had been adopted, not as they almost always are, on, trust and authority, but as the result of the most diligent examination of which the mind of the recipient is ca- pable ; even then the engagement under penalties always to adhere to the opinions once assented to, would de- bilitate and lame the mind, and unfit it for progress, still more for assisting the progress of others. The person who has to think more of what an opinion leads to, than of what is the evidence of it, cannot be a philosopher, or a teacher of philosophers. Of what value is the opinion on any subject, of a man of whom every one knows that by his profession he must hold that opinion ? And how can intellectual vigour be fostered by the teaching of those, who, even as a matter of duty, would rather that their pupils were weak and orthodox, than stroDg with freedom of thought ? Whoever thinks that persons thus tried are fitting depositories of the trust of educating a people must think that the proper object of intellectual education is not to strengthen and cultivate the intellect, but to make sure of its adopting certain conclusions; that, in short, in the exercise of the thinking faculty, there is something, either religion, or conservatism, or peace, more important than truth. When persons, bound by the vows of an established clergy, enter into the paths of higher speculation, and endeavour to make a philosophy, AND CHRISTIAN FAITH. i8r _i_ . — _ __ , . , either purpose or instinct will direct them to the kind of philosophy best fitted to prop; up th& doctrines to which they are pledged. And when those doctrines are so : pro- digiously in arrear of the general progress of thought as the doctrines of the Church of England now are, the philosophy, resulting will have a tendency, not to promote, but to .arrest progress." The assertions here made, so far as they involve questions of simple fact, are strangely charged and loaded with the prejudices of the critic, and depart < widely from the real truth. The English Universities cannot, without a wild license in the abuse of terms, be affirmed, to-have sent forth, on moral subjects, thought of one ■ description alone. To speak of Cambridge only, there can scarcely he a wider diversity than between Bacon, Milton, Clarke, More, Cudworth, Hartley, Eutherford, Waterland, Paley, Coleridge, Whewell, Grote and Maurice. It may also well be doubted whether any university, English or foieign, was ever based on the principle of entire indif- ference to the creed and teaching of its various professors, or can have accepted a vague reputation for intellectual vigour as a higher qualification than the adoption of any definite faith whatever, either in science or theology. It is a libel as odious as comprehensive, to say that the acceptance of the Christian creeds, or at least of the thirty-nine Articles, is, almost in every instance, the result of blind trust in authority, and scarcely ever, the sequel of thoughtful, honest, and sober inquiry. And this charge comes with the very worst grace from a Writer, whose early training, according to his own de- scription, was a carefully devised experiment how a "youthful mind might be hermetically sealed, as in an exhausted receiver, against the slightest intrusion of I§2 ON MORAL INQUIRY religious truth. Scarcely one Christian student in a thousand has had orthodoxy imposed on him -with such jealous care and relentless rigour, as was employed, in this ease, to shut out all access to religious teaching of any kind whatever. It is a further misstatement that religious subscriptions involve an engagement, under severe penalties, never to change an opinion once professed. No honest person, indeed, will consent to be paid for teaching doctrines he does not believe. So far, then, as endowments are left for the purpose of securing teachers of a definite system of religious doctrine, a sacrifice must be involved in such a change of convictions as unfits for the fulfilment of a specific trust. If the objection has any weight, it is not confined to religious endowments, but must extend im- .partially to trusts and uses of every description. No provision must be made for transmitting the acquired knowledge and wisdom of mankind to the coming gene- ration, lest a selfish interest should be enlisted on the side of what is already believed. Such a principle, impar- tially applied, must be fatal alike to nearly all the settled institutions of society. Again, the active use of moral faculties is clearly a duty binding on those who have received them, and are responsible for their exercise. But whether this activity is a gain or loss must plainly depend on the direction it takes, and the forms it may assume. A nation aban- doned to sloth and moral indolence is no doubt a humbling and pitiable sight. But it is less odious, and certainly less dangerous, than a pandemonium of malicious fiends. Imperfect solutions of moral questions, where truth is mingled with obscurity and partial error, may be prefer- able to careless neglect, and a total blank of thought on AND CHRISTIAN FAITH. 183 the noblest subjects which can occupy the minds of rea- sonable men. But falsehoods must be mischievous, in exact proportion to the importance of the subjects in which those falsehoods are believed. Nothing can be more opposite to the true lessons of moral science, than to glorify and extol mental activity, however erroneous in the principles from which it starts, and the conclusions to which it leads. An immoral philosophy, and for the same reason a false philosophy in morals, must be hurtful and dangerous ; and the danger is only aggravated and increased by the energy, zeal, and ability, with which it may be propagated and maintained. A second question of vital importance lies at the root of Mr Mill's complaint against the English ^Universities. Until all religious tests were abolished, he judges them incapable, by their very constitution, of any genuine cul- ture of ethical philosophy. To sit wholly loose to every form of religious faith, and to be willing to cast off every fixed creed, like worn-out garments, at the shortest notice, seems to be viewed by him as the first and main con- dition of moral progress, or of the honest investigation and ■effectual discovery of ethical truth. A startling and pro- digious assertion, though propounded with a quiet assur- ance, almost sublime in its audacity, as if it were a nearly self-evident truth. A doctrine exactly opposite, that the silent neglect, or open rejection, of religious faith, is the most fatal of all hindrances to genuine moral progress, has been the constant and settled creed of all thoughtful men, who believe in the authority of the Gospel of Christ as a message divinely revealed. Which of these two opinions is more agreeable to sound reason and the lessons of experience ? The ground of Mr Mill's statement appears to be,-that 1 84 ON MORAL INQUIRY the first requisite of moral research, in order to be real and effective, is freedom from prejudice of every kind. The inquirer must start fair, -with no preconceived opinions or acquired convictions, in his voyage of moral discovery His mind should be like a sheet of white paper, prepared to receive and retain, with equal readiness, whatever im- pressions may result from its own original and unbiassed investigations. The answer is very simple. Such a state of mind is impossible and Utopian. Even if desir- able, it could not be really attained, and it can never be proved that it is even desirable. No one old enough to investigate moral questions at all ever entered on his task in such a state of absolute equi- librium between creeds and anti-creeds of every con- ceivable diversity. The ideal state of strict neutrality is unattainable. It must involve an absolute suspension of the thinking faculty, and of all the influences of education, until the moment when the aspiring neophyte is to enter on his impartial and profound inquiries. The Auto- biography shows that few have ever been further removed than Mr Mill himself from starting in this neutral and carefully balanced condition. He was trained in his boy- hood with a discipline almost Spartan in its rigour, under a father, who exacted a stern monopoly of mental in- fluence over his son, and whose master passion seems to have been a rooted aversion to every current form of religious faith. It is not surprising, then, that a like aversion to creeds and dogmas of every kind should have -been inwrought into the texture of his mind, and become to him a sort of second nature, before the time when his ■ original researches in moral and general philosophy first began. All truths of every kind are really helpful to each AND CHRISTIAN FAITH. 185 other; and false views on any one subject, so far as they extend, must hinder the growth of true knowledge in every other field of thought, And this must be emi- nently true of subjects so conterminous and closely allied as morality and religious faith. This conclusion results from the very nature of these fields of thought, and is wholly independent of a right decision, in detail, either on the doctrines of religion, or the precepts and lessons of moral science. Assume that Christianity is untrue, and even that faith in a personal God is a dream of super- stition, and it may be freely conceded that early prejudice in favour of Theism or Christianity must be a hindrance to sound moral progress, if the idea of such progress be at all conceivable in a scheme of blind fatalism, in a self-deve- loped and godless universe. But on the other hand, if these doctrines are true, they must lie at the root of all just and clear conceptions with regard to the laws and principles of moral science. In this case every step of moral progress must be of two kinds. It must either lead us nearer and nearer to the Fountain of all goodness, the Source of all being, and the Standard of all conceivable perfection, or farther and farther away from that august Presence ; till the spirit loses itself in an outer darkness, where the human conscience, amidst countless tokens of the Divine power and wisdom, is wholly blind to them, and seeks to banish the living God from the universe He has made. The question, whether the prevalence of Christian faitb in our Universities is a help or hindrance to the pursuit of moral truth, resolves itself plainly into the earlier and deeper inquiry, Is the Christian creed a superstitious fiction or a Divine message ? If we assume the former alternative, the conclusion that it is injurious to moral inquiry may be admitted by the most devout 1 86 ON MORAL -INQ UIR Y ' Christian to follow naturally from the postulate which has been assumed. But if the Gospel of Christ be a Divine message, then to affirm that a public acceptance and pro- fession of the Christian faith unfits an university for taking part in moral inquiries with any hope of success, is worse than an intellectual paradox. It is an affront to the Divine Author of the message, and a direct aspersion on His goodness and wisdom. On this view His creatures ask for bread, and He has given them a stone. They ask for food, and He gives a serpent. That message, of which the professed aim and purpose is to aid them in the great work of moral recovery and progress, is pronounced, by this dictum of sceptical philosophy, to be a hindrance and barrier to all progress which really deserves the name. The objection is presented in another form. No thought can find place in a Christian University, unless it contrives first to reconcile itself to orthodoxy. Such an argument, if we do not assume the falsehood of the re- ligious faith professed, involves a fallacy of the plainest kind. For all deep truth is and must be serf-consistent and harmonious. The genuine acceptance of truth of one kind must help, and not hinder, the attainment of all kindred truth. A right faith in God, and a true belief in the mission of the Son of God, unless there be intestine war in the kingdom of truth itself, must be the main- spring and fountainhead of true moral progress. No tree can grow, unless it "reconciles itself" with the root on which all its vitality depends. Once let it be proved that Christianity is a fable and a dream, and it will follow at once that its acceptance and profession, like that of every grosser superstition, must be a clog and hindrance to genuine research and sound philosophy. A mind, weighted with falsehoods in any one direction, is less fitted for the AND CHRISTIAN FAITH. 187 discernment of truth in all the rest. So far as a super- stitious element intrudes into any scheme of doctrine, or code of belief, the influence on scientific progress must ■be injurious and hurtful. But experience only confirms the view of all sober Christians, that clear discernment of ■the great laws of moral duty, and the attainment of high degrees of moral excellence, is a natural fruit of the growth of religious faith, and of a hearty acceptance of the great and central truths of the Christian revelation. Mr Mill, however, carries his advocacy of his principle Still further, and ventures to state it in the most extreme ■form. Even if the doctrines professed, he says, were every one as true as any fact in physical science, and adopted as the result of the most diligent investigation, still the engagement under penalties always to adhere to opinions once professed would debilitate and lame the mind, and unfit it for progress, and still more for assisting ■the progress of others. Of what value on any subject is the opinion of any man of whom every one knows that by his profession he must hold that opinion ? On this view the first requisite for an efficient teacher in any branch of knowledge is to hold his opinions like a suit of clothes, which he may change at a moment's notice, wearing them to-day, and casting them aside to- morrow. Surely the exact converse is much nearer the truth. Where everything is held movable and. uncertain, 'there may be room for indefinite loquacity, and the loud clamour of conflicting sects and parties, either in religion or philosophy ; but teachers and learners must be on the same level of real ignorance, and all genuine science, moral or theological, is still unborn. When direct penalties have been imposed on the pro- fession of opinions, supposed to be dangerous or heretical. •l88 ON MORAL INQUIRY and they have been treated by religious bigotry as social crimes, the effect has usually been hurtful, not only to the cause of honest inquiry, but of true religion. The same censure is here applied to every case, in which endow- ments are left for specific objects, and public trusts, fof purposes of education, are created or accepted under con- ditions of a religious kind. The objection assumes that forfeiture of a trust, when a person becomes unable, through some change of views, conscientiously to fulfil its known conditions, is really to be looked upon in the same light, and visits honest conviction with a penalty as a public crime. But such a view fights against the u»i* versal laws of Providence, and the very constitution of human life. Opinions on weighty questions of moral duty or religious faith can never be free from secondary consequences, nor exempt from the possibility, either of temporal benefit, or of a call to heroic self-sacrifice. It propounds a condition for impartial inquiry, wholly im- 1 possible to be realized, that we shall neither be better nor worse, in wealth, reputation, comfort, ease, or social influence, whatever the result of our inquiries may be. Such a requirement is unreasonable, by whomsoever it may be made. But it is most strangely inconsistent in the lips of a leading champion of the utilitarian theory, For this affirms that moral right and wrong are consti- tuted by the results of actions, and by these alone. On this view the moral rightness of true opinions, and the moral duty of seeking to attain them, depends wholly on the good .consequences to which they lead. If the forma- tion of a creed, or the acceptance of a doctrine, be a moral act at all, it must plainly come under the grand maxim which forms the basis of the whole theory. How strange, then, that a champion of utilitarianism, in the outset AND CHRISTIAN FAITH. l8g of a laboured defence of the system, should begin by making entire immunity from temporal benefit or loss the necessary and inseparable condition of moral progress. ; Truth should be sought first and chiefly for its own sake. It is the proper food and aliment of the soul of man. Falsehoods are like poison received into the system, a shame and degradation to him who believes them. The outward benefits, which the attainment of truth may ■ bring with it, ought always to have a very secondary place in the motives that stimulate to research. Such, in contrast to that simpler utilitarian creed, which makes right and wrong depend on external and measurable results alone, is the lesson of sound and true morality. Mysticism is an opposite extreme. It places the essence and distinctive mark of virtue in entire self-abnegation, so that an act is vicious and corrupt, when the agent is influenced at all by the hope of a personal gain or benefit. And Mr Mill begins his defence of utilitarianism by imposing this mysticism, substituted for every religious doctrine, as a kind of new moral test for our Universities, and lays it down for the fundamental law of their constitu- tion, if they are to be really helpful in the progress of sound, philosophy and ethical science. Truth, he seems to maintain, cannot be sought sincerely, unless all motives of a> temporal kind are entirely excluded from the mind of. the student. A' teacher's opinions are worthless and \. have no value, unless he is perfectly free to cast them aside any moment, and still to forfeit no trust, resign no privilege, and • suffer no social loss whatever by the change. Utilitarianism, in short, is the only sound and consistent form of moral philosophy. It is the morality of progress, while other schools of thought are only stationary or even retrograde in their character. But I go ON MORAL INQUIRY still the first requisite, that a university and its teachers, may drink in the rays from this bright orb of genuine: science, is a careful and strict exclusion of every, motive of. an external or utilitarian kind. Mr Mill seems here to carry philosophical inconsistency to its farthest extreme. The acceptance, by teachers, of a public trust, under weighty and important conditions as to the character and main substance of their teaching, can have no tendency whatever in itself to lame and debilitate the mind. Such conditions are a reasonable and natural pledge for the care and deliberation with which their convictions have, been formed, and the social worth and importance of scientific, moral, or religious truth. "Who can be expected to bequeath funds, merely that some one or other may teach something or other, he knows not what, to future generations 1 Chairs would never have been founded for teaching a science of astronomy, if the sky had neither fixed stars, nor planets of settled orbit, and supplied no materials but meteors of momentary brilliance, that shoot into light for a moment, and as suddenly disappear., These censures of Mr Mill on our English Universities' for including in their original constitution a definite accept- ance of Christian faith and doctrine suggest an inquiry of high importance. Is it the test of perfection, in such an institution, merely to set a number of persons to teach, with no pledge and assurance at all as to the general character of their teaching, and with the sole condition that they claim for themselves to be able and vigorous thinkers, or that this claim is made by a circle of admirers on their behalf? Is it wise and right to set aside all faith in God, Christ, and immortality, as mere superfluities in higher education, and to replace them by faith in some undefined aristocracy of geniuSj AND CHRISTIAN FAITH. IQI and in the superior wisdom of the latest novelties in science, morality, and religion, compared with all the thinkers and students of earlier days ? It is possible to abrogate ,alL religious tests, and to introduce others in their stead, far inferior in their worth, and practically ptill more stringent and exclusive. The passive acceptance of the latest philosophical novelty, and of some vague theories of human perfectibility and cosmical development, may then be erected into the main requisite for the occupation of trusts, which were founded for a very different and far nobler object by the faith and piety of .Christian men. • Again, have weakness and orthodoxy, strength and heterodoxy, any natural connection? So Mr Mill appears to assume. The fault he condemns is that of teachers, who prefer that their students should be weak, but orthodox, rather than strong with freedom of thought. Now it is very natural and lawful to insist on the plain truth, that a claim to the right faith cannot in itself prove its real possession. The name,, orthodoxy, it is evident, may often have been widely severed from the reality, and many opinions may have passed current under the title in particular times or places, which imply mental weakness, because the claim has no basis in truth, and is due to personal self-conceit, or blind trust in human authority alone. Common sense will teach us that a confident denunciation of the supposed errors or heresies of others is no pledge that we ourselves are basking in the clear sunlight of perfect truth. But Mr Mill has debarred himself from the use of this distinction and contrast, however vital and important. To simplify his indictment, he is content to assume, for the sake of his argument, that what calls itself orthodoxy has a ig 2 ON MORAL INQUIRY just right to the name, and that its doctrines are all " as true as any fact in physical science." He supposes further that they have not heen blindly taken on trust, but received after careful inquiry, and with intelligent conviction. So the maxim reduces itself to a paradox of this startling kind, that the acceptance of vital and important truths on religious subjects disqualifies and unfits for moral progress, as soon as any outward ad- vantage is linked with their reception, and that the adoption of falsehoods in their place, if zealously and earnestly received, is a better pledge for ability to assist in the great work of education. Truth in religion, it would seem, is naturally allied with moral and intellectual weakness, while error has some strange affinity with moral progress and intellectual strength. The mind is lamed and debilitated, if it arrives at the most important truths after due inquiry and with full conviction, the moment any public institution gives them a preference over the opposite falsehoods as qualifications for the teachers whom it employs, or any public funds are devoted to their diffusion and propagation. And again, right and wrong have no existence in themselves ; they are created by the benefit or loss which flows from any kind of action, and depend on this alone. But still, to link the reception of any opinions, by law, with a certain measure of external privilege, poisons free inquiry at its fountain- head ; because, in the formation of opinions, it is a fundamental condition of moral progress, that no social consequences whatever shall be attached to a right or wrong judgment. In other words, the good consequences of actions are what constitute them morally right actions, but the society which gives any preference to the teaching of truths over that of the opposite falsehoods, and links AND CHRISTIAN FAITH. 193 them with the least social gain, renders moral progress impossible, since entire freedom from the temptation of associating external advantage with one opinion above another is the first condition of honest research after moral truth. The true relation between religious faith and freedom of thought is very different. It is only when man ceases to look on himself as a mere animal, and recognizes that' Spiritual nature, which makes him capable of worship and reverence to an unseen Creator, that the moral elements of his being can obtain their just and full development. He needs to blossom upwards towards ■the light. And the light which quickens his spiritual life can proceed only from above. He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, And all are slaves beside. # That freedom of thought, which consists in turning reso- lutely away from the Divine presence, and pronouncing all religious faith to be the dream of ignorant superstition, will prove, itself, soon or late, to be slavery disguised. The lower elements of man's nature will prevail over the higher, the grosser over the purer, when these have been severed from the secret source and fountain on which they depend. Sensuality, disguised at first under philosophical theories, will make destructive in- roads on the domain of genuine morality; and the pro- gress which refuses any alliance with Divine revelation and heavenly truth, will swiftly land its disciples in a doctrine of blind, dark, and gloomy fatalism. Instead of the •liberty of Christian holiness, and triumphant faith in. immortality, their mental home will he "a land of darkness and the shadow of death, and where the light Iself is darkness." B. L. 11. 13 LECTUEE VIIL MR MILL'S PROOF OF UTILITARIANISM. Mr Mill begins his attempt to establish and confirm the Utilitarian view of morals by remarking that, in the ordinary and popular meaning of the term, proof is im- possible. " Questions of ultimate ends are not amenable to direct proof. Whatever can be proved to be good must be so by being shown to be a means to something admitted to be good without proof... If, then, it is asserted that there is a comprehensive formula, including all things which are in themselves good, and that whatever else is a good is not so as an end but as a mean, the formula may be accepted or rejected, but is not a subject of what is commonly understood by proof." Still, he remarks, "the subject is within the cognizance of the rational faculty, and neither does that faculty deal with it solely in the way of intuition. Considerations may be presented, capable of determining the intellect either to give or withhold its assent to the doctrine ; and this is equivalent to proof." These remarks, I believe, are substantially true. But they suggest a natural question, whether there can be any kind of proof, which belongs neither to demonstration from principles first assumed, nor to intuition of the first principles themselves. The true answer seems to be that intuition is not so simple and spontaneous a process as is MR MILL'S PROOF OF UTILITARIANISM. 195 often supposed. The mind may need culture and training, to see first principles clearly, even when they are not inferences from more fundamental truths. The self" evidence of which they are the proper subject may be for exact thought and carefully prepared faculties alone. Without this preparation, leading to clear definition and distinct mental vision, these principles are no less liable to doubt and ambiguity than the consequences which flow from them when once received. The statement, • then, seems to need this correction, that the rational faculty in these cases deals with the subject, not in the ■way of demonstration, nor of spontaneous and immediate intuition, but of an intuition, for which careful thought, definition, and meditation must prepare the way. In the fourth chapter Mr Mill proceeds to give the proof of the Utilitarian theory, so far as he conceives proof to be possible, in these words : "Questions about ends are questions what things are desirable. 1 The Utilitarian Hbctnn e~ is~that~happiness is desirable, anaTThe^onlyThing desirable, as an end; all otherTETfigs" being" only fegrraMs~as" rneana to that end. What~ought to be requirecT~6f'T;his doctrine7To~maEe good its claim to be believed ?" " The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible is that people hear it ; and so of the other sources of our experience. In like manner, the gole_jevidejQC_e_.it is possi ble to pr oduce that anything i s desirable is that people do actually desire it. If the end whichThe "Utilitarian doctrine proposes~were not, in theory and in practice, acknowledged to be an end, nothing could ever convince a person that it was so. No reason can be given why the gener al happiness ia 13—2 I9 6 MM MILL'S PROOF desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainableTd eiires his own happiness. TbisTfowever being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the pase admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that h appiness is a good ; th at eac h person's happin ess is. a good to that person, and the general happiness, lEefefore, a good to the aggregate of .person's. "HappmessTias made out its "title as one of"tBe~end'S™oT"conduct and consequently one of the criteria of morality,"^ / But the doctrine requires, it may be said, not only that people should desire happiness, but never desire any- thing else; while the desire of virtue, though not as •universal, is as authentic a fact as the desire of happiness, and still is distinguished from it. To this Mr Mill replies as follows : " But does the Utilitarian doctrine deny that people desire virtue, or maintain that virtue is not a thing to be desired ? The very reverse. It maintains not only that virtue is to be desired, but that it is to ImF desired (bsm_tereste3^,]Tdr Itself. However 'sucE~moralists may believe that actions and dispositions are only virtuous because they promote a'nother end than virtue, yet this being granted, and it having been decided what is virtuous, they not only place virtue at the very head of things which are good as means to the ultimate «nd, but they recognize the possibility of its being, to the in- dividual, a good in itself, withorit looking to any end beyond it ; and hold that the mind is not in a right state, not in the state most conducive to the general happiness, unless it does love virtue as a thing desirable in itself, even although in the individual instance it should not produce those other desirable consequences which it tends ^o produce, and on account of which it is held to be virtue, OF UTILITARIANISM. 197 This is not in the slightest degree a departure from the happiness principle. Th e ingredients of happiness are ver y various, an d each of them is desirable in itself, and not merely when con sidered as swelling an aggregate. ■Virtue, according to the doctrine, is not naturally and originally part of the end, but it is capable of becoming so ; and in those who love it disinterestedly it has become so, and is desired and cherished not as a means but as a part of their happiness." To see clearly the points at issue in this controversy, we must refer to first principles, or the fundamental con- ceptions of moral agency, once more. All right action may be viewed in three distinct, closely related aspects, its source or fountain , its course, progress, and method,, and its later, issues. Hence arise three fundamental ideas, of Virtue, Duty, and Fruitfulness or Utility. Right action, /considered as Virtue, implies a right, sound, and healthy condition of the moral agent, the source of the action. When viewed as Duty, it implies and requires conformity to fixed and settled conditions of Divine or human law, and to the voice of conscience within. When viewed in reference to its consequences, or the issue to which it leads, it involves some attendant conception of a personal or social benefit secured, or the fulfilment of some part of a Divine plan of providence, which has for its wider aim the good of the intelligent and moral universe. A just theory of Moral Science requires all these aspects of. right action to be duly recognized, and seen alike in their distinctness and their mutual harmony. None of them can be overlooked, or merged in the others, without re- sulting in a maimed, one-sided, and imperfect view of the whole subject. . The first and main defect of a rigid Utilitarianism is 198 MB MILL'S PROOF that it dwells, almost exclusively on the third aspect of moral action alone. The place it assigns to the others is quite secondary and dependent. But by this partiality it cuts the ground from under its feet, and imperils the very existence of a science of morals. If actions have no moral chara cter at all in themselves, bu t only by an experi- mental .and observed connecti on with certain benefits or evils, to which they are see n actually to le ad, then they stand on the same footing with mere acciden ts, in which a mora Lcharacter is _ gdmllv absent. The result, on this view of their nature, must be a certain amount of physical change, but nothing more. The prolific moral virtue is gone. A kind action, when divorced from all perception of kind and benevolent feeling in the agent, can have no power to awaken gratitude, and call forth kind action in return. It becomes a source of pleasure, only like that of the showers of spring or the bright sunshine, when faith- in Providence is lost, and the course of nature is ascribed to mere chance or blind fatality alone. But this main defect of the system is increased by another of a secondary kind, but also of no slight practical moment. For Utilitarianism, by the natural force of the term, suggests a different conception from Eudaimonism, or the principle which bases morals on the pursuit of happiness, when the latter assumes its purest form. Phi- losophers, by artificial definitions, can seldom succeed in stripping words of their familiar and habitual associations. Now the general law of thought, in most languages, is that things are of use, and of use to persons. Objects are use- ful, when they are means, employed by one who is higher than the means be employs, and for some end which rises in dignity above them. Whenever an action is said to be useful, both the agent and the action are looked upon as OF UTILITARIANISM. 1 99 subordinated to some further and higher purpose. Thus a tool is useful to a skilled workman, or food is useful to satisfy the hunger of a starving man. Now when virtue i s basedwholly_qn utility, and hap- piness is also reduced into a mere summation of succes- sive and momentary pleasures, a plain consequence fol- lows. Virtue is made the handmaid, subordinate in ; rdignity and honour to pleasures of every kind, being only another name for those actions and modes of thought, which are found by experience to avail most in the pro- duction of pleasure. The picture drawn by the old Epi- curean philosopher, quoted by Cicero, is thus completely Verified. Pleasure sits as a queen on her royal throne, and the Virtues, her docile handmaidens, are grouped in ■ homage around her feet. But if the highest and noblest kind of pleasure ranks above virtue, as being its object and .aim, the lower kinds rank far beneath it. The phrase, utility, then, when adopted for the main definition of right action, distorts and inverts the true proportion of things. It tends to foster a habit of thought, in which health of mind, virtue, holiness, and the noblest emotions of the redeemed and purified spirit of man, are looked upon as secondary and subordinate, when compared with bodily comfort, ease, and pleasure. But waiving this objection, let us examine Mr Mill's/ proof as one of Eudaimonism, or the d octrine that happi ness is the end, and the sole end, of all right action. It is very simple, andif the controversy ot ages can be settled in this way, we are led to wonder how it could ever have arisen. The proof that an object is visible is that peopk actually see it, or that a sound is audible, that people hear it. So the proof that happiness is desirable is thai people actually desire it. This is a fact proved by ex- 200 MB MILL'S PROOF perience. Each person desires his own happiness. There- fore each person's happiness is the thing desirable for himself, and the general happiness is desirable, or the chief good, to the aggregate of all persons. But here, first, there is an evident fallacy. The de- sired and the desirable.are not the same . Visible things are what can be seen, audible sounds what can be heard. But thin gs dfiskaMe mean evidently, not what can be or are desir ed, but such as it is either right or wise to desire. The interval, strangely overlooked in this proof of the first ground of morals, is nothing less than that wide con- trast and gulf between the actual and the ideal, what is and what ought to be, on which the very conception of morality depends. Professor Grote has noticed this grand defect in the argument with his usual acumen and sagacity. "Surely Mr Mill cannot mean," he says, "that the pro- blem of the summum bonum is solved by laying down, as a fact of observation, that what men really desire is what is pleasant to them ...I f by the desirable we mean the ideally desirable, t hat which is good for man, or makes his weir fare, it is certainly no fact of observation that man desires this, for he constantly does not do so. But it is not in this manner that any moral theory is to be proved, so far as it is capable of proof." That happiness, in the utilitarian sense of the word, is actually desired, is not, as Mr Mill assumes, a fact proved by wide experience. It is rather a pure verbal definition. For the term, in Bentham's theories, simply denotes the sum total of pleasures, or things actually desired, di- minished by the attendant pains, or the sensations dis- liked and avoided. . But such a verbal definition can never solve the deep and hard problems of ethical science. The (question must at once arise,— Cannot men be pleased OF UTILITARIANISM. 201 .1 — . — ■ — — amiss ? Are there no "vain deluding joys," no pleasures which have their source in ignorance and folly, and their issue in bitter disappointment ? Are there here no apples of Sodom, which attract the eye, but prove only, on ex- perience of their character and effects, to be bitter ashes ? jMoral Science would be almost a superfluous study, except for the sad fact, proved by long and oft-repeated experience, that men may be pleased with the idlest follies, or even with the free indulgence of base and hate- ful passions. A theory of morals, which excludes every attempt to discern the Tightness and wrongness of plea- sures, and takes for its basis and mainspring the mere sensation of being pleased, it matters not why or how, is like a scheme for building a solid and stately pyramid • upon loose and floating quicksands. • There is another fault, no less" vital, in the foundation; Mr Mill has here laid for the utilitarian theory. A transition is stealthily made from personal to collective or general happiness, but in such a way as to vitiate the whole argument. If the desirable for each one ..is. h is own happiness, and this _is_ eithexjthjL.dfiiinition -of tha -teravorelse a fact of universal experience, then another's Jiappi ness, as such, can be the desirable for no one. And thus that collective well-being is the true summum lonum, instead of being established, will rather be dis- proved. , In replacing individual or personal pleasure by a far wider conception, the general or collective welfare of mankind^ we pass from a mere verbal definition of the desirable, or the experience of what actually is desired, to an ideal of what we ought to aim at, what it is humane, or noble, or godlike, to desire. And this is plainly a distinct and far higher question. A°ain, Mr Mill admits and affirms that " the mind is 202 MR MILL'S PROOF not in a right state, unless it loves virtue as a thing desir- able initself." -But_fcqm this admissio n it resu lts at once that happiness is notjbhe sole ehTof_alljTghjb_actionr' U it were so in some conceivable world, yet in a world where this admission is true the case must be different. There is owned to be another end rightly pursued for its own sake, as well as happiness. Mr Mill seeks here to escape from the low marshes of a pure and naked utilitarianism, and to rise into higher ground. But he can succeed only by a kind of logical suicide. The mind, on this view, is only in a right state, when it forgets the creed of utility, and fancies something to be desirable for its own sake, which a more profound philosophy would teach to be pro- perly desirable only for certain good and pleasant results to which it leads. The question of Professor Grote is here appropriate and forcible, — " Is dot this equivalent to saying that, however true utilitarianism may be, it is not well that men should believe in it, and act upon it? Is it a sort of arcanum, on which the initiated may act, while the ordinary world will best be left to the old delusion of regard to, and value for, virtue ?" The paradox, indeed, grows directly out of the first principle of Bentham's more strict and rigid theory. His doctrine is that the bare fact or existence of a pleasure, wholly irrespective of its character, makes it one coequal factor or element in a sum of pure arithmetic, on the right computation of which all true morality depends, and that virtue is defined by the greatest balance and excess of pleasures over pains, when this summation has been pro- perly made. "In this matter," he says, "we want no refinement, no metaphysics. It is not necessary to consult Plato or Aristotle. Pain and pleasure are what every one feels to be such, the peasant and the prince, the unlearned OF UTILITARIANISM. 203 as well as the philosopher." Thus all pleasures of what- ever kind, if only felt at the moment to be pleasing, must enter equally and on the same level into the calculation. And yet they are to enter most unequally, and some of them are right and others wrong, because it is a more useful state of mind to be pleased with virtuous than with vicious actions. For the process of calculation, each mo- ment of pleasant or painful sensation has to be viewed as a separate whole, and there is to be a rigid exclusion of every thought of a deeper kind, beyond the simple fact that we are either pleased or pained. But experience and reason, to say nothing of religious faith, throw us back continually from phenomena to laws, from effects to causes, from the simple fact of being pleased or displeased to the inquiry whether the pleasure be wise or foolish, good or evil, and flows from a sweet or bitter fountain in the heart. Mr Mill further explains his theory, and seeks to jus- tify and confirm it, by what he deems a parallel case. "What shall we say," he asks, "of the love of money? There is nothing originally more desirable about money than any heap of glittering pebbles. Its worth is Solely that of the things it will buy, or desires for other things, 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 in many cases money is desired in and for itself The desire to possess it is often stronger than the desire to use it, and goes on increasing, when all the desires for ends to be compassed by it are falling off. It may then be said truly that money is desired, not for the sake of an end, but as a part of the end. From being a means to happiness, it has come to be a principal ingre- dient in the conception of happiness. The same may be 204 MR MILL'S PROOF said of a majority of the great objects of human life; power for example, or force, except that to these there is a certain amount of im mediate ple asure attached, which has the semblance of being naturally inherent in them. In these cases the means have become a part ofjhe end, and a more important part than any of the things which they are means to. What we once desired as an instrument for attaining happiness ha s come t o be desired for- its-own sake. In being desired for its own sake, it is however de- sired as a part of happiness. Virtue, according to the utilitarian conception, is a good of this description." It is very strange to lay such stress on an argument, which is really a decisive refutation of the doctrine it is meant to prove. Let us allow, in these two cases, their close resemblance, so far as we deal with psychology and mental experience alone. Money, fi rst desired for the sake of what it can procure, may i n course of time be covete d- for it § own s ake r _when the disposition to make use of it is wholly gone. Such avarice\may become one of the' strongest and most deep-roote d/ habits of the mind. The' miser may then gloat in secret over hoards of unused, and to him useless treasure. In the same way, according to Mr Mill's explanation, virtue, first desired for the sake of- the outward pleasures it buys, may come to be desired for its own sake. But what shall we say of the moral features- in the two cases ? Is there resemblance or contrast ? No' mind, he says, is in a right state, which does not thus- desire virtue for its own sake. Is it, then, a right state of mind in the miser to covet the gold for its own sake,' which he neyer cares to spend, and even dreads the thought of spending \ Does the Psalmist intend to describe a state of wisdom or folly, when he says of the worldly man, "He heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who -shall gather OF UTILITARIANISM. , 205 them"? Do we not feel at once t hat this love of money , as money, when wholly divorc ed from the wish to u se-it, is a base a nd mischievq us_sup erstitiq n ? In its extreme form is it not one of the worst delusions, which satirists, both heathen and Christian, have assailed with keenest ridicule, and against which divines and moralists have inveighed in the severest terms of censure and indigna- tion ? But if the utilitarian creed be correct, why should jiot the acquired love of Virtue for its own sake, however conceivable as a fact, be equally worthy of blame, as an unphilosophical, delusive, and mischievous folly? If the process be alike in both cases, and they depend on a com- mon principle, with no moral or fundamental difference, ■yre must either exalt avarice into a sign of moral progress, pr else denounce the love of Virtue, for its own sake, as a descent from the heights of calm and wise philosophy jnto a region of error and sentimental dreams. But if the two cases are a moral contrast, wide apart, ■on what does the contrast depend ? On the principles of utilitarian philosophy, pure and simple, as expounded in Bentham's works, it admits of no explanation. The men- tal process may be clearly stated, and the outward resem- blance be real and important. But the inference will be that the d isintere sj&Liffl re of virtu e, and the passion of avarice, in the eyes of enlightened philosophy, are two kindred foilies, though one may repel us with the ugly features of a fiend, and the other have all the seeming attractiveness and beauty of an angel of light. The supposed proof of the utilitarian ground of all morality is carried further, and stated in another form, at the close of the chapter, in these words : : 'y^*%i is by associating the doing right with pleasure, or Hhe doing wrong with pain, or by eliciting and bringing I* 206 MR MILL'S PROOF home to the person's experience the pleasure naturally in- volved in the one, or the pain in the other, that it is pos- sible to call forth that will to be virtuous, which, when confirmed, acts without any thought either of pleasure or pain. Will is the child of desire , and passes out of the dominion of. its parent, only to come under th at of habit . That which is the result of habit affords no presumption of being intrinsically good, and there would be no reason for wishing that the purpose of virtue should become inde- pendent of pleasure and pain, were it not that the influ- ence of the pleasurable and painful associations which prompt to virtue is not sufficiently to be depended upon for unerring constancy of action, until it has acquired the support of habit. Both in habit and in ro^rl net, habit is the only thing wWh inipfytiR ^prtaiTiiy, and it is because of the importance to others of being able to rely absolutely on one's feelings and conduct, and to oneself of being able to rely on one's own, that the will jto ^Qjr^ghtjught to be cultivated into this habit ancTTJidependence. In other words, this state_o f the will is a means to go od, notjntrin* sically a good ; and does not contradict the doctrine that nothing is a good to human beings, but in so far as it is either itself pleasurable, or a fneaUs of attaining pleasure, or averting pain. But if this doctrine be true, the principle of utility is proved." It is not easy, in this passage, to see the exact drift of the argument, or what form of the doctrine of utility Mr Mill endeavours to prove, and thinks that he has proved. That happiness, in the popular sense, denotes the sum of all things conceived as desirable or pleasant, so far as these are attainable, and disturbed as little as possible, by things unpleasant or painful, is rather a truism or verbal definition, than the badge of any special OF UTILITARIANISM. 207 school in morals. The doctrine of utility, unless words axe to be warped from their natural sense, means that actions, h ave no inherent goodness or_ba dness, for w hich' it is right and just to be ple ased or displeased with theraf buTarTrhoJally right or wrong because of the excesyof pleasure or pain in the results to which they lead^ It is an abuse of terms to include in our view a pleasure pr delight inherent in the action itself, when felt to be good and right, and still to affirm that actions are good, purely and exclusively, because of their usefulness, or the pleasant results that follow. How, then, can this doctrine be reconciled with a theory which admits the Tightness and excellence of disinterested virtue ? The steps of , transition are these. First, the pleasures by which moral virtue and vice are defined are conceived as being those outward or later consequences alone, which are capable of being foreseen by resemblance to past actions of which there has already been experience. In this way certain classes of action, by a kind of first approximation, may be reckoned good or evil. Hexi, since this good or evil character depends on collective, not on personal pleasure, men need to have their wills trained, so as to take delight in doing virtuous acts, and thus to form the habit of virtue. Thirdly, this habit may be so formed, by proper culture, as that men come to delight in acts conceived to be good and virtuous, with no actual reference in their thoughts to the pleasant consequences likely to flow from them, either to themselves or others. It is even desirable that this habit of forgetfulness should be formed, ^because it is a more powerful and steady principle of action than any series of calculations of probable results could be. And this neglect of consequences in the growth Jof virtuous habits is a right state of mind, because it 208 MR MILL'S PROOF leads to good consequences which could hardly be ex- pected, if doing right depended, on each occasion, on a momentary impulse of kindness alone. The pleasure of doing .right, in this case becomes one part of human happiness, and is rightly included in "fne utilitarian pro- cess of calculation. This view, when we look into it closely, will be found to involve two fundamental contradictions. In the first stage of thought the_ sequent__ pleasu r£ s. and pains are treated as all-important, so that the subjectisE^fjgelings of the agea-t, may bff^ntirelvneglected, andjicjions classed as good or evil, better or worse, by a due consideration of the benefit or injury th^y_wiUkad_to^or maybe-expected to lead to, in the "case of society at large. Not only these sequent pleasures and pains" are viewed as fixed, certain, and measurable, but it is made a duty to mould the personal feelings into habitual agreement with the conclusions to which a due and correct estimate of them must lead. But when the last stage of the process is reached, we are then taught that these pleasures of habitual virtue are one main part of the happiness which is the basis of the whole theory. So that men are to be trained to be pleased with what is right, but the definition of right is to be drawn from the corrected sum total of sequent and inherent pleasures, including these results of highly important previous training. Virtue is thus made, by a kind of paradox, to sit on its own knees, and to be a child of those pleasures, of which one part, and not the leas^ important, is the pleasure of doing what is right for its own sake. And here is a second contradiction, no less vital than the first, and fatal to the argument. The definition of vbtuous>ctiens, by the doctrine of utility, is the overplus OF UTILITARIANISM. 209 or excess of pleasures in the results to -which they lead. Yet Mr Mill says that it is quite consistent with this .doctrine, to hold that men may learn by habit to be pleased_wit h doing rig ht, -without any thought of conse- quencesTand that it is highly useful that such a state of mind should be attained. But this is really to grasp at a shadow, and lose the substance. If the p .ssF-nn.A nf virtue, in theCajJLsons ists in its p l easurable resu lts, then the essence of habitual virtue, in the ^gerTj;, must consist in the constant and intelligent aim at such results; and wher- ever this aim is wanting, there can be no virtue, but a shadowy counterfeit alone. To do acts which are followed by pleasant and good results is not virtuous, when the connection is casual, not moral, and there was no wish; aim, or purpose that these results 'should follow. The habits, then, described by Mr Mill, if we accept his first principle, are no more to be called virtuous than the passion of the miser, when he learns to prize money for itself, and has forgotten to value it for its uses alone. Once admit the exclusive truth and sufficiency of the utilitarian creed, and the formation of such habits must involve the decay and extinction of that which alone deserves the name of virtue. It will substitute in its place the empire of some morally worthless routine of , action, like rivers that lose themselves in desert sands, and wholly disappear. js^On the other hand, if actions are not good merely ■because of their consequences, but good consequences follow on them because they are good and right in them- : selveS, as children that resemble their parents, and are known by the likeness, then the process Mr Mill describes and commends may be a real moral ascent and upward progress. Men may then become more virtuous, when I B.L. II. 14 2IO MR MILL'S PROOF OF UTILITARIANISM. they learn to think less of those outward results, which alone they can measure or anticipate from their limited experience of the past, and see more and more, in all right action, something desirable, mainly and in the first place, for its own sake, and only in the second place for those outward results which are reasonably expected to follow, which bear the impress of its character, and reflect its image. The mind may begin by dwelling first in thought on these rivulets. But it rises in moral dignity, when it turns from these to the fountain-head, out of which they flow. It thus becomes virtuous, in the best and highest sense, when it sees its chief good in the attain- ment of moral excellence as man's noblest possession, and aims directly and earnestly at the fulfilment of that Divine precept of the Gospel, — '• Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect." LECTUEE IX. THE TEUE DEFINITION OF UTILITARIANISM. The supposed proof of Utilitarianism, in Mr Mill's fourth chapter, has three great defects. It confounds the actually desired with the desirable, or the proper and reasonable object of human desire, a contrast which lies at the root of all theoretical and practical morality. It mistakes a verbal definition of happiness for a, lab orious product a nd conclusion of numan experience. And it strives to re- . concile with the ut'ilitarian principle a doctrine to which -it forms an essential contrast ; that is, the merit and excellence of disinterested virtue, when noble acts are done for their own sake, or by force of habit, without any regard whatever to the pleasurable consequences that may usually follow. The definition of the doctrine, "what utilitarianism is," in the second chapter, scarcely answers to its title. It is merely a reply to objections, very opposite in character, which have been often urged against it, and as Mr Mill conceives, without reason, from an imperfect knowledge of the theory opposed. He seems to imagine that they are all aimed, and some of them -with signal inconsistency, against the modified theory which he defends. But in reality they apply to distinct, and by no means harmonious varieties of the same general doctrine. And the defence is Carried on by renouncing the main features of the Deon- 14—2 212 THE TRUE DEFINITION tology, and adopting an eclectic theory, called by Professor Grote, Neo-Utilitarianism, but to which it may be doubted whether the title, Utilitarianism, in any true and proper sense belongs. It consists mainly in these statements or admissions; that Epicureanism is faulty and imperfect, and needs the introduction of Stoic and Christian elements; that pleasures differ in quality no less than quantity, and are ' of a lower and a higher kind ; that the happiness, which is the proper standard of right action, is not selfish or personal, but the general and collective welfare of man- kind ; that, on the hypothesis of the Divine benevolence, this ethical theory is not godless, but more profoundly religious than any other ; and that, instead of resting on new calculations to be made from hour to hour, it properly includes and utilizes all the secondary axioms of morals, current in society, which only embody and condense the lessons of experience through long ages of mankind. Mr Mill's definition is in these words. "The creed which accepts as the foundation of Morals, Utility, or the Greatest jjappxaess Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the prevention of pleasure... Supplementary explanations do. not affect the theory of life, on which this theory of morality is grounded, that pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends ; and that all desirable things are desirable, either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the pre- vention of pain." Here the three terms, Utility, Pleasure, Happiness, in their common relation to the theory of morals, are OF UTILITARIANISM. 213 assumed to be equivalent, or various modes of expressing one and the s ame princ iple. But this I believe to be an error, tending to mental confusion. The morality of c onsequences , which might be conveniently styled, Apo- batic Morality, has three varieties, distinct, though nearly allied, as Utility, Pleasure, or Happiness, is made the key- note or ■watch-word of the system. The first gives birth to Utilitarianism proper, of which Bentham is perhaps the most exact representative. The second leads to Hedonics, or the old Epicureanism, and ite modern varieties. The third is Eudaimonics, the doctrine of Aristotle, at least in one part of his Ethics, and which only needs due explanation and limitation, to become one main element in a true and comprehensive theory of moral feeling and action. > The experience of Bentham himself, with regard to the impression made by the leading phrase he assumed, is very instructive. For many years he continued to use the word, utility, as the definition of his main theory. But he found afterwards, as we are told in the Deontology, that the effect, even on some persons of highly educated mind, was to create a prejudice wholly unfounded, as if his doctrine excluded pleasure and en- joyment, and thought of definite uses alone. From that time he almost discontinued the phrase, utility, and re- placed it by Dr Priestley's formula, "the greatest happiness of the greatest number." Even this, at a still later period, seemed to him ambiguous, and open to misconstruction, as if a minority were to be overlooked, and respect paid to the welfare of the major part alone. He then intro- duced finally, as the defining phrase of his system, "the greatest happiness on the whole.'' Let us now enter on the double inquiry, what is the 214 THE TRUE DEFINITION proper and distinctive meaning of Utilitarianism in morals, and how far the modified scheme of Mr Mill's treatise has a rjisfclaim to the title which he still chooses to retain. >/ No action can be morally good and right which is wholly aimless. And the aim, in every act of a reason- able moral agent, .must be the attainment of some .end, conceived, either rightly or wrongly, to be good and desirable by him who seeks to attain it. Every theory of morals must include a reference to consequences to this extent. Exclude wholly the notion of aiming at something that is good in some sense or other, and pleases in some way or other, and the conception of reasonable action disappears. Apobatic Morality, then, in contrast to rival systems, cannot be defined by in^ eluding merely some reference to results, desired or ex^ pected to follow, in its estimate of right and wrong action. Its essence is the denial of any moral contrast in the actions themselves, apart from actual experience, in similar cases, of pleasant or painful results that have followed, and may thus be expected under like conditions. Its main feature is to transfer our thoughts . from the inward character of the will,, aim, or desire, in the agent himself, from the state of the heart, or moral disposition, and to fasten them on the outward benefits or injuries, to which the action may lead, in those who are the patients or objects of the activity, and on which alone its Tightness or wrongness is supposed to depend. The doctrine, in proper and genuine Utilitarianism, must take this form, that utility is fhe sole parent, test, and standard of all virtue. \ /Actions are good and right, because they are useful. They are wrong, because they are useless or mischievous. And here we are bound to take the word, useful, as. Bentham enjoins in the case OF UTILITARIANISM. 215 of pleasure, in its popular and usual sense. The state- ment that actions are useful has not the same meaning as to say that they are pleasa nt, or that they ar e kind ^ and hejievQl£n±r — -Each phrase conveys a different idea. In the first case, our thoughts are fixed on some out- ward results, more lasting than momentary sensations of pleasure, whether of the agent, or the objects of his action. In the second, they rest on the sensations of delight and pleasure, usually transient, which either ac- company the action, as one inherent element, or follow after. In the third, our thoughts are turned to the in- ward feelings and motives of the benevolent person. And again, when happiness is taken for the watch-word, instead of transient, momentary pleasure, we think rather of those settled sources of comfort and felicity, which de- pend in part on acquired habits of body and mind, but also on the arrangements of providence, and all the out- ward and variable conditions of human life. Utilitarianism, when the term retains its proper sense, has one main defect, which it shares with the other .forms of Apobatic Morals. It dwells on the third as- pect of moral action, the results to which it leads, to the exclusion of two others, equally essential, and more fundamental, the fountain from which it must proceed, and the channel through which it must flow. There is a standard of Divine perfection and essential right, which must go before. There is a standard of conscience, and internal subjective harmony with the condition and powers of the morai agent, which must accompany and guide the action ; and there is a standard of providential guidance, by which the action, in its results, is carried into and absorbed in, a grand, mysterious scheme of the destinies of the universe. ■ And it is the fault of the morality of 2l6 THE TRUE DEFINITION consequences, in all its varieties, that it dwells on the last of these, and usually on a very limited view of it, to the exclusion of the others, which are equally essential to a just and comprehensive view of the whole subject. But besides this defect, common to the three varieties . of the main doctrine, Utilitarianism has two others peculiar to itself. And first, it excludes from our view the pleasure, inherent in right and healthy activity, or the direct en* joyment of the moral agent in the action itself. We do not say that exercise is useful, because it is pleasant to a child to walk or to run, or that a landscape is useful, because there is a delight to the eyes in gazing on a lovely prospect, or that a kind action is useful, because a benevolent mind has keen delight in relieving distress, and exercising kindness. When utility is as- sumed for the master principle of all morality, one of two alternatives must be chosen. "We must either omit and set siside from our theory all respect to the pleasure which inheres in every kind of right and healthy activity, the free, spontaneous life of the soul, or else include it by a plain abuse of terms ; which will infallibly lead . to confusion of thought, awakening natural prejudice in opponents, who assume words to be used in their proper sense; and to artificial and laboured defences, when phrases are expounded in an esoteric sense, to save the credit of the system when assailed, and rebound to their natural meaning, as soon as the pressure is removed. In the next place, the consequences to which the term utility properly applies are extraneous and external, not intrinsic, essential, and inherent. They mean usually those which are induced by some foreign cause, or the conspiring result of several such causes, and not the simple product of the action, taken alone. An apple-tree, OF UTILITARIANISM. 217 or a vine is fruitful, because of the apples or grapes which are found on its branches, the produce of its life, the fruit it directly yields. It is useful, because these fruits may be afterward applied to some beneficial purpose by the purchaser or the owner. The apples may be manu- factured into cider, or used for desserts, and the grapes be used as raisins, or turned into wine. An estate is beautiful because of its trees and flowers, its hills and valleys, and all that is adapted to please the eye and charm the senses of the beholder. It is useful, because of the rent it provides for its owner, or the produce which it yields for the markets of the land. Again, utility, from the natural force of the term, views the action and the agent as alike subordinate to the outward results that follow. A thing is used, pas- sively, by some power or person, higher than itself. The clay is useful in the hands of the potter, the gold in the hands of the goldsmith, the simples and drugs of the apothecary, when applied under the instructions of a skilled physician. And when we extend the term from things to persons, this idea of subordination still remains. Thus a clerk is useful in a house of business, a servant in a domestic household, and policemen in a time of a public procession or festivity. We do not usually apply the term to the philanthropist, the man of science, the statesman, the general of an army, or the princes and rulers of a powerful state. And when we speak of one person as using another for some object of his own, there is commonly implied some degree of moral anomaly and degradation. Or again, we may speak of the eloquence of a statesman as a gift very useful to him in his office; but we should shock the .general conscience, if we were to speak of honesty and 2 1 8 THE TR UE DEFINITION uprightness as a very useful quality to the rulers of the land. These clear facts with regard to the natural and proper sense of the term, useful, explain, and partly justify, the first objection to which Mr Mill alludes, and which he dismisses with great contempt. He speaks of the "ignorant blunder" of supposing that those who stand up for utility as the test of right and wrong use the term "in that restricted and colloquial sense, in which utility is opposed to pleasure." Philosophers, however, cannot break down the old landmarks of human speech, and wholly change the significance of words, which are in constant and familiar use, by arbitrary and esoteric changes of their meaning. It is not in loose talk alone, but in strictness of speech, and by the laws of etymology, which link it with a large class of kindred words, and which prevail alike in most languages, that utility is distinguished from pleasure, and stands to it in partial opposition. The words of Horace Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci, show how marked and definite the antithesis was felt to be, long ages ago. Hedonics, or the theory which enthrones pleasure, and Utilitarianism, the doctrine which bases the right wholly on the useful, may be variously combined, and overlap each other. But alike in concep- tion and in phrase they are naturally distinct. Pleasure relates directly to the present, utility to an expected future. One deals more with emotion and feeling, the other with calculation. One has its source and spring in present instinct and appetite, the other includes a wider range of collateral and external results, that may form the subject of foresight and prudential calculation. The OF UTILITARIANISM, 219 two complaints, then, are not inconsistent, as Mr Mill conceives, when referred to their proper and respective objects. A theory of morals, based wholly on the con- sideration of what is pleasant, may be "too practically voluptuous," and one which rests strictly and solely on utility, may be censured, with equal truth and entire consistency, as " impracticably dry." The scheme of Bentham, though he uses all the three phrases in turn, is still predominantly utilitarian. His pleasures enter only as the data in a problem of calcula- tion. His main object is "to find the processes of a moral arithmetic by which uniform results may be arrived at." A pleasure, as a pleasure, is a momentary and transient thing. ' It exists only in the moment of en- joyment. But the pleasures of Bentham's theory are the counters in a vast sum of addition. The leading inquiry in his whole system is not, Does an action please \ but to what results does it lead, to what future uses can it be applied? And against such a scheme of morals, which attempts in theory to resolve the morality of all actions into the solution of so many sums of addition, the complaint that it is hard, cold, mechanical, and in- practicably dry, seems to apply with perfect truth. Mr Mill struggles to escape from these defects of the- master whom he admires, but whose incomplete thinking and limited experience he is quite willing to allow. His theory of morals is more elastic and comprehensive. But/ can it with truth be styled utilitarian ? In reality he reverses and sets aside all those three features, on which the suitableness of the name depends. And first, the delight which inheres in actions them- selves is never included, when we speak of them as useful. It is pleasant to see, to hear, to converse, to exercise the 2 26 THE TRUE DEFINITION various gifts of a healthy body and a well instructed mind. But we do not refer to this pleasure at all, when such and such actions are pronounced useful. The term relates to later consequences alone. Those who desire virtue for its own sake, Mr Mill observes, " desire it either because the consciousness of it is a pleasure, or because the conscious- ness of being without it is a pain, or for both reasons united." To such pleasure, however, involved in right action itself as approved by the conscience, the name 1 of utility does not apply. It belongs only to those out- ward and secondary results of a desirable and pleasant nature, which usually follow, soon or late, on upright and virtuous conduct. In his view of the true principles of morals, Mr Mill includes direct and inherent, no less than sequent pleasures, and thereby departs from the correct and proper sense of the phrase, that virtue depends on utility alone. Again, the results, to which the name of utility be- longs, are always of a secondary and external kind. A key is useful because it opens a door, or unlocks a cabinet ; a horse, because it is used in farm labour, or in drawing a carriage ; and a servant, because he performs certain offices that are for the comfort of the household. But we should never say that a key is useful, because it is a pleasure to discern the skill and beauty of the workman- ship ; or the horse, because it is a worthy study for the naturalist, and fills up the harmonious system of animal life ; or a servant, because we have pleasure in his dili- gence, or admire his docility, uprightness, intelligence, and fidelity to his trust. Mr Mill however, assigns a chief place in his system to pleasures of this higher kind. He recognizes a difference of quality no less than quantity, and those which he places highest in the scale are of a OF UTILITARIANISM. 221 class to which the description of being "useful results" can | hardly apply without extreme violence. "In estimating the consequences of actions," he says^" there are always two sets of considerations involved ; the consequences to the outward interests of the parties, and the consequences to the characters of the same persons, and their outward interests as dependent on their characters. In the esti- mation of the first there is not in general much difficulty. But it often happens that an essential part of the morality or immorality of an action or rule of action consists in its influence upon the agent's own mind." Now effects of this kind do not usually or naturally come under the title, which is the basis of the system. When we say that the gift of alms to some one in distress is useful, we refer to the outward want, the need of food, or clothing, or fire, which it meets and supplies, and not to the higher object, that it awakens feelings of gratitude, or helps to form a habit of kindness and benevolence. This inclusion of higher results, which belong to the moral features of right action, and not to its physical aspect, is a further desertion of the proper sense of the doctrine, which bases _ moral s onjisefulness alone. Some reference, then, to good results aimed at, if not attained, desired and sought, if not actually realized, is essential to the idea of moral activity, and must enter, in one form or other, into every moral system, that seeks honestly to define and solve the great problems of ethical science. But a doctrine of pure utility, to deserve and justify the name, must define the goodness of actions neither by their conformity to a fixed standard of right, nor by the joy and dignity which springs from that | harmony, when perceived, nor by agreement with the " inward voice of conscience, nor the pleasure of self- 222 THE TRUE DEFINITION, &c. approval, nor by consequences strictly moral, which grow out of a prior perception of moral features in the agent, whereby he acts on the character of those around him for good or evil. It must define it by the outward benefits which follow the act, distinct alike from the joy of life, the pleasure of healthy action for its own sake, and from the higher moral results, wherein like produces like, vice breeds vice, and kindness and affection produce kind- ness and gratitude in return. But all these contrasts and limitations have either disappeared, or seem ready to disappear, in Mr Mill's modified form of the utilitarian theory. The social element of the Stoics, the philan- thropy, though not the piety, of the New Testament, are so far ingrafted on the stock of the old Epicurean or the modern Benthamite morality, as to change the aspect and form of the whole system. The hard, rigid, cold and mechanical features of the doctrine of utility, when the term is employed in its strict and proper sense, are seen no longer. Instead of a scheme attractive by its logical simplicity, but repulsive as a skeleton without life or feeling, we have an imperfect junction of discordant elements. The modified Utilitarianism, which Mr Mill would substitute for the incomplete thinking of his master represents only the unfinished journey of a Lapland philo- sopher, born amidst Arctic frost and snow, and travelling southward unawares, towards warmer and more sunny regions, where fields are green, and skies are bright, and nature rejoices in light, warmth, and sunshine once more. LECTUKE X. PLEASURE, HAPPINESS, AND WELL-BEING. Utility, Pleasure, and Happiness, are treated by Mr Mill as equivalent terms, or the common basis of a Theory of Morals, based solely on the consequences of actions, and styled Utilitarian. The doctrine of Utility is said to be the Greatest Happiness principle, and Happiness is defined by t he total of attainable p l easure, with ft-p.p- dom^jis far as po ssible, fro m attpnrl a.nt..p ajn. Yet these words, it cannot be doubted, are in some respects logical opposites, and awaken in our minds very distinct ideas. The charge, for instance, of being "practically volup- tuous" would never be brought against pure utilitari- anism : nor that of being " impracticably dry," or " hard, cold and mechanical," against the Epicurean view of life, in which Pleasure is the queen, and the virtues only the maidens which do her homage. Happiness, again, and still more the Greek evSai/xovia, introduces a third class of associations ; more various and comprehensive, more sub- jective and internal than those of Utility, more permanent than those of simple Pleasure, and which include some .reference to man's dependence on external accidents, or on the secret arrangements of some divine power, higher than the human will. The doctrine which bases morality upon pleasure, the .creed of Epicurus and his followers, is defended by Mr Mill, side by side with an admission of its defectiveness in certain details, in these words : 224 PLEASURE, HAPPINESS, " The comparison of the Epicurean life with that of beasts is felt as degrading, precisely because a beast's plea- sures do not satisfy a human being's conception of happi- ness. Human beings nave faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and "when once made conscious of them, do not regard any thing as happiness which does not include their gratification There is no known Epi- curean theory of life which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation. It must be owned, however, that utilitarian writers in general have placed the supe- riority of mental over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater permanency, safety, uncostliness of the former, in their circumstantial advantages rather than in their in- trinsic nature. And in all these points they have fully proved their case ; but they migbt have taken the other, and as it may be called, the bigher ground, with perfect consistency. It is quite compatible with the principle of utility, to recognize the fact that some kinds of pleasures are more desirable and valuable than others." The doctrine of utility, as held by Bentham, consists mainly in the introduction of a new moral arithmetic, de- pending on a correct addition of pleasures. To such a process it is essential that the pleasures be conceived as being alike in kind, and differing in quantity and in continuance alone. When this view of them is abandoned, as Mr Mill has done, the arithmetic becomes impracticable, and the system founded upon it must come to an end. Is the defence more successful with regard to Epicurus than Bentham? It consists in exposing what Mr Mill considers a careless misconception of the Epicurean philo-: sophy. Now Cicero had certainly tenfold opportunity, AND WELL-BEING. 225 compared with Mr Mill, of knowing the system, which he heard expounded at Athens by the ablest living philoso- phers of that school, and of which his friend Atticus was an adherent. Yet he mentions (Be Finibus, 1. 7) the view expounded by Mr Mill, as a frequent and popular miscon^ ception of the Epicurean philosophy, and even as a mis- conception into which no one who had really learned and •'studied it could possibly fall. He writes on it as follows : :,,; ■ " Quid tibi, Torquate ? quid huic Triario literae, quid l-Mstoriae cognitioque rerum, quid poetarum evolutio, quid tanta tot versuum memoria voluptatis adfert ? Nee mihi illud dixeris, — Haec enim ipsa mihi sunt voluptati, et erant ista Torquatis. Nunquam hoc ita defendit Epicurus ; ne- que vero tu, Triari, aut quisquam eorum, qui aut saperet aliquid, aut ista didicisset. Et, quod quaeritur saepe, cur tarn multi sint Epicurei; sunt aliae quoque causae, sed imultitudinem. hoc maxime allicit, quod ita putat dici ab illo, recta et honesta quae sint, ea facere per se laetitiam, id est, voluptatem. Homines optimi non intelligunt, totam rationem everti, si ita se res habeat ; nam si eoncede- retur, etiam si ad corpus nihil referatur, ista sua sponte et per se esse jucunda, per se esset virtus et cognitio rerum, quod minime ille vult, expetenda." The Greek word, ^Sovij, and the Latin, voluptas, seem to correspond strictly to each other. They refer alike to ■ the sensation of sweetness, or outward and animal enjoy- ment, though they are capable of extension, by analogy and resemblance, to pleasures of a higher kind. But it was the doctrine of Epicurus that these animal pleasures were > the only original and fundamental objects of desire, that "the direct pleasure, thus accessible, was increased by the *" memory of the past and expectation of the future ; and that virtue, justice, friendship, were simply means by B.L. II. 15 226 PLEASURE, HAPPINESS, ■which the wise and prudent might increase the amount of these sensible pleasures, or at least might, obtain an equivalent, by freeing themselves from the pain of unsatis- fied desires. Herein consists the force and emphasis of the picture, which Cleanthes, the Epicurean philosopher, was accustomed to give to his disciples. "He instructed his audience to imagine to themselves- Pleasure, as portrayed in some picture, with beautiful robes, and royal ornaments, seated on a throne ; and before her the Virtues, as little maidens, who should do nothing else, and claim no other office than waiting on Pleasure, and only whisper in her ear, if that could be shewn in painting, to do nothing rashly, which might offend the minds of men, and out of which any pain might arise. For we Virtues are born to do thee service, and we have no other office than this alone." The word pleasure, in English, is less limited in mean- ing. It applies almost equally to mind or body, and gives prominence to subjective feeling, whatever its source or object may be. It includes what might be expressed in Greek by three distinct terms, rjSovr), ir66o<;, and evBoicla, passive sensations as of sweetness or pleasant food, the pleasure in the forthgoing of active desire after any object, and complacent rest and satisfaction in good contemplated or attained. The pleasure, on which the system of Epi- curus was founded, was of the first kind alone. The others are more cognate to the Stoic philosophy, although our language may include these also under the name of plea- sure. In this sense every healthy form of activity and contemplation is accompanied with pleasure. The athlete may delight in the exercise of his bodily strength, the philosopher in the contemplation of truth, the virtuous man in kind actions and feelings of benevolence. AND WELL-BEING. 2 2 f ;;• Happiness, again, with its Greek counterpart, evSai- fiovia, brings before us a different set of associations. It means, by its derivation, what happens or falls out, only to be understood in a favourable sense. Thus it directs our thoughts instinctively to the outward circumstances of human life rather than to inward feelings alone. The eonception it suggests is of some combination of good things, not wholly within our own power, nor purely de- pendent on our moral state and character, but involving what seem, to the popular and superficial view, the casu- alties of life. The Greek term has the same general sense, hut includes more plainly a religious element. It views this happy lot as due to the favour of some Divine power concurring with human efforts, and without which those efforts would be of little avail; in the spirit of Shakspere's sentiment, There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Bough hew them as we will. The term Well-being seems really better suited than any of these to express correctly the aspect of morals which deals with the true and right aim of all intelligent action. It avoids the external, secondary, and merely instrumental view of the action and the agent, which is implied in Utility, the transiency and capricious subjectivity of Plea- sure, and the prominence given to the external sources of comfort or pain, independent of the human will, which the word Happiness naturally suggests. It agrees more nearly "with the Stoic doctrine, that the true aim and 'wisdom of man is to live according to nature. It implies a natural standard of good, prior to our apprehensions of it, and independent of the disease or parallax of the per- cipient faculty, a healthy and good state of body and mind, on the real pursuit of which for ourselves; and the pro- 15—2 228 PLEASURE, HAPPINESS, motion of its attainment by others, all right and healthy moral action depends. So far as the morality of conse-* quences is true and sound, it may thus be embodied in the doctrine, that all right moral action includes the desire and aim to promote either our own or the general welk being. The Greatest Happiness principle, "when happiness is defined simply by a summation of momentary pleasures, diminished by momentary pains, involves a fourfold de- parture from the true standard and real basis of Moral Science. And first, it involves a confusion of pleasures, different in kind, and even diametrically opposed. Bentham has given a list of fifteen kinds or varieties of pleasurable sen- sation, to which he attaches a high importance. But in this list he overlooks or sets aside the most important distinctions, ,on which a right classification of pleasure must depend. For these are of three kinds, diverse in dignity, animal or physical, intellectual, and moral. And of these three varieties each admits and requires a twofold division. There are the pleasures of knowledge or health, and those of illusion or disease. And hence there arise six main varieties, of which three alone have a positive value, but are of most unequal dignity; while three are negative in their real character. These call for the correction and restoration of the diseased faculty, or the instruction of the deceived spirit, and not for efforts to propagate the disease. It is no business of the true moralist to set up our own follies and vices, or those of others, for objects to be included in the aim of right moral action, because the foolish take pleasure in folly, and the vicious and impure may delight themselves greatly in their acts of profligacy and corruption. AND WELL-BEING. 229 The first fault, then, in the proposed basis, is the con- fusion of disparate and even opposite kinds of pleasure, so as by their imaginary sum to attain a first principle and correct guide of right action. The starting-point is thus moral confusion and blindness, and the issue to which it leads is likely to be a relaxed and impure code, in which holy aversion from evil is wholly absent and unknown. What can we expect from a theory, which ranks the plea- sures of lust and malevolence, because they actually please selfish profligates, side by side with all the highest and holiest joys that can dignify and ennoble ransomed spirits, and prepare them for the society of heaven ? The second defect consists in the momentariness of the pleasures, which it is attempted to sum together, so as to form the basis of the scheme. These pleasures, as plea- sures, do not and cannot co-exist. The pleasure of this hour expires, and ceases to exist, before the pleasure of the next can be born. By what right, then, can we collect them into one whole, and place this total for the founda- tion of a scheme of morals ? In mathematics, the kind is altered by the process of integration. We rise one degree in the scale of thought each time that we pass through the infinite. The integral of a moving point is a line, of a moving line, a surface, of a moving surface, a solid. So also, if we are to sum up a series of pleasures, which never did, and never can coexist, each being hemmed in by the narrow bounds of its own ephemeral and momentary occurrence, we must pass from the conception of pleasures -to that of a cause out of which they flow, a state of health, which gives birth to the pleasures of healthy life, a state of moral well-being, which gives birth to successive, mo- mentary sensations of self-approval, peace of conscience, or quiet assurance of the Divine favour and blessing. The r230 PLEASURE, HAPPINESS, .summation, if it be of a finite sequence, is wholly inade- quate. If it be infinite, there is a transition in kind. We deal no longer with a floating, perishable series of pleasant sensations, but with that health or goodness of body or mind, on which they depend, and out of which they flow. A third defect, when the sum of pleasures is made the foundation of morals, consists in the feebleness and diver- . sity of men's capacities for being pleased. The cry of con- tending moralists is like that of Archimedes, — Ao? ttov worst -danger, and approaches one step nearer to the 234 PLEASURE, HAPPINESS, truth. For happiness, in contrast with simple pleasure, or the outward uses of things, implies something, on the one side more lasting, and on the other more internal, vital, and self-contained. The ^Sovrj of Epicurus, and the evSaifiovia of Aristotle indicate, in ethical theory, two different types of thought. But still the phrase, as the basis of all moral science, is imperfect. It retains, though in a less degree than Utility, an external and dependent character. The thoughts are fixed, in no small measure, on the favourable or adverse circum- stances of men's outward life. Now true Virtue, espe- cially in its higher and heroic forms, implies in . the actual world struggle and conflict. Moral progress often demands a sacrifice of many outward elements of ease and comfort, on which, in the present mortal life, hap- piness is usually and naturally conceived to depend. And thus happiness, in the popular sense, does not answer fully to the true ideal of men's desires, because it retains, in its conception, too much of a transient, earthly, and mundane element. It seems to stop short below the highest and noblest aspirations of the con- science and heart, when they seek for "glory, honour, and immortality " by patient continuance in well-doing. But now let us replace Happiness by the simpler and nobler term, Well-being, and a true conception of the right aim of all moral action dawns more clearly on our view. Good, abiding good, not momentary pleasure, that dies as soon as born, both for ourselves and for others, should be the object of supreme desire. This good is both external and internal, bodily, intellectual, and moral or spiritual. But it is all these in due order and gradation. The higher immensely outweighs the lower, and cannot properly be placed in the same balance. Yet, AND WELL-BEING. 23^ in a comprehensive conception of the true aim of human . action, not even the lowest forms of good can be lawfully neglected. In our present imperfect state, they form a natural ladder and ascending pathway, by which we rise to apprehend the higher. The Divine precept will here apply, by close analogy, — " Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost." It is true that the lessons of faith and the experience of life will here bring before us a further and deeper truth. The lower elements of enjoyment need often to he renounced or resigned for a season, in order to secure the higher. Virtue grows and ripens most in the way of self-denial and self-sacrifice, and through the grave and gate of death is usually the path which leads to the joys of a higher life, abiding and immortal. But still man's capacities for enjoyment, even in outward things, are Divine gifts, which ought not, in their own due place and measure, to be despised. Outoi aTrofiXviT earl 8e£v iptKvSia dJSpa, *A airoi Kev SSeneficence. Its first principle is that men are. placed under the absolutedominipn of pleasure and pain, "iothat pure self-loyejs Jhj^atural^and necessary_law_of Jheir being. On the jrther hand, it is the business of the 238 CONCLUSION. philosopher, legislator, or jurist, to enlarge his view, and, devise laws which, by their external sanctions, shall per- suade men to act in harmony with the general go od out of regard to thei r own seTFiut erest. T he office of moral compulsion, assigned in Paley's theory to a Divine Law- giver of perfect benevolence, is thus transferred to a moral aristocracy of jurists and philosophers, selfish by nature like all their fellows, but in whom this selfish-- ness, by some happy accident, takes the form of delight in schemes of philanthropy, and in calculations on which the success of such schemes is to depend. In this way it is hoped to train a race of statesmen, who in their turn will train mankind in such modes and courses of action as experience proves best suited to promote their greatest happiness. But since the dominion of pain and pleasure is to be exclusive and entire, and intuitive laws. „of right and wrong are denounced as vague generalities and idle dreams, no key is supplied to explain this grand paradox, t he b irt h of a school of le gislative a nd jural philanthropy in the midst of a world, where theseffish pursuit of p leasure and avoida nce of pain is tEe~sol6 fundamental duty, and rei gns and ought to reign supreme. The third variety, that of Mr Mill, is non-religious like the last, but seeks to reconcile the personal and social elements in a different way. It is purely and simply philanthropi c. The transition^ effected by a logical ambiguity, which proves, when examined, to be a plain sophism. It is the dictate of instinct and ex perience that each one desires and seeks after his own happiness, and therelore tn¥happines s~of aHis the instinctive an d natural object of desire to all. But the true inference' must be that, if instinct leads each to desire simply his own happiness, the general happiness is an object of CONCLUSION. 239 natural and instinctive desire to none. We can only 'effect the transition from the personal pleasure to the general good by a law of the reason or the conscience, Siobler and more sacred than mere instinct, and which forms the very basis of all moral science. Accordingly the assumption of a world-wide philanthropy, as the basis and first principle of all morals, is the secret starting-point of Mr Mill's revised Utilitarianism. Only, since he claims to be an inductive, in contrast to an intuitive moralist, this assumption has to be silently made, and is as far as possible disguised. But while the system differs from that of Bentham by a more simple and thoroughgoing acceptance of benevolence, or a direct aim at the general happiness, as the primary truth in morals, and is thus intuitive, not inductive, iSTits foundation, in- building the superstructure of the "aetaHs of duty this relation ls™feversed. For Bentham relies, for rules of moral action, or the formation of a, social code, on a process of arithmetic derived from the summation of pleasures, and thus resembling the pure and simple deductions of abstract science. But Mr Mill, renouncin g the doctrine that ..TJ ^agnres and— pains are homogeneous, strikes a fatal blow at this new in- )i, vented moral" antErnTticYa^Jal Is back on the experience, of mankind, embodied i n current m aximsjrfjnorahjty^yet. capable of being enlarged and corrected, in a tentative K-way, and through a merely inductive process, by the added experience of the present and future generations. "If "is a common defect of alljhe three systems, that they nowhere propose to their disciples this fundamental inquiry: If the moral contrast of actions depends on the ' results to which they lead, what is the~ source and nature of this very connection between later results and the 240 CONCLUSION. actions themselves ? Does it rest on some chance, -wholly unexplained and for ever inexplicable, which exists to-day, and might be reversed to-morrow? Does it depend on some blind fate, inexplicable but unchangeable? Is it derived from the arbitrary fiat of a Being supreme in power, but devoid of all moral qualities? Or finally, does it rest on a moral nature of rightness or wrong- ness, of good or evil, which exists in the heart and mind of the moral agent, and on which, by a sequence as firm and sure as the moral perfections of the Creator, the nature of the results must depend? Utilitarianism, whenever it is advanced as a complete theory, which excludes all other definitions, and reigns alone, must involve a negative Theology in one or other of three alternative forms, the worship of blind Chance, of blind Fate, or of a personal Divinity, omnipotent and su- preme, but lawless and arbitrary, and devoid of all moral perfections. But when once we acknowledge a true and living God, the Holy Governor of a moral universe, the true limits of the doctrine are restored. Its proper sphere is not in the first principles or main outlines of moral duty, but in the secondary applica- tions. For here we mount up slowly, by the help of past experience, to discern the best means for the attain- ment of right and noble ends, until we rise above the complications of oar earthly life, and see light in the light of heaven. CAMBRIDGE : PBIKTED BY 0. J. CLAT, M.A. AT THE UNIVEKS1TX PKESS. June 1874. A Catalogue of Theological Books, with a Short Account of their Character and Aim, Published by MACMILLAST A2TD 00. Bedford Street, Strand, London,, W.C. Abbott (Rev. E. A.)— Works by the Rev. E. A. Abbott, D.D., Head Master of the City of London School. BIBLE LESSONS. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. as. 6d. t , " Wise, suggestive, and really profound initiation into religious thought. " —Guardian. The Bishop of St. David's, in his speech at the Education Conference at Abergwilly, says he thinks " nobody could read them without being the better for them himself, and being also able to see how this difficult ■duty of imparting a sound religious education may be effected." " THE GOOD VOICES : A Child's Guide to the Bible. With upwards of 50 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. cloth gilt. 5-r. "77 would not be easy to combine simplicity with fulness and depth of meaning more successfully than Mr. Abbott has done." — Spectator. The Times says — "Mr. Abbottwrites with clearness, simplicity, and the deepest religious feeling. " PARABLES FOR CHILDREN. Crown 8vo. cloth gilt. y.6d. ■ ' " They are simple and direct in meaning and told in plain language, and are therefore well adapted to their purpose." — Guardian. 4000.6. 74. THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Ainger (Rev. Alfred).— SERMONS PREACHED II THE TEMPLE CHURCH. By the Rev. Alfred Ainges M. A. of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, Reader at the Temple Church Extra fcap. 8vo. 6s. This volume contains twenty-four Sei-mons preached at various timt during the last few years in the Temple Church. "It is," the Britis! Quarterly says, " the fresh unconventional talk of a clear independen thinker, addressed to a congregation of thinkers .... Thoughtful men wit be greatly charmed by this little volume. " Alexander.— THE LEADING IDEAS of the GOSPELS Five Sermons preached before the University of Oxford in 1870- 71. By William Alexander, D.D., Brasenose College ; Lor< Bishop of Derry and Raphao ; Select Preacher. Cr. 8vo. 4s. 6d " 'Eloquence and force of language, clearness of statement, and a hearty appreciation of the grandeur and importance of the topics upon which h writes characterize his sermons. " — Record. Arnold.— A BIBLE READING BOOK FOR SCHOOLS The Great Prophecy of Israel's Restoration (Isaiah Chapters 40 — 66). Arranged and Edited for Young Learners. B< Matthew Arnold, D.C.L., formerly Professor of Poetry in thi University of Oxford, and Fellow of Oriel. Third Edition. i8mo cloth, is. The Times says— " Whatever may be the fate of this little book it Government Schools, there can be no doubt that it will be found excellently calculated to further instruction in Biblical literature in any school inti which it may be introduced. . . . We can safely say that whatever school use. this book, it will enable its pupils to understand Isaiah, a great advantag compared with other establishments which do not avail themselves of it. " Baring-Gould.— LEGENDS OF OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS, from the Talmud and other sources. By th( Rev. S. Baring-Gould, M.A., Author of "Curious Myths o the Middle Ages," "The Origin and Development of Religiou: 1 Belief," "In Exitu Israel," etc. In two vols, crown 8vo. i6.r! Vol. I. Adam to Abraham. Vol. II. Melchizidek to Zechariah. He has collected from the Talmud and other sources, Jewish and Mahom\ medan, a large number of curious and interesting legends concerning tfa principal characters of the Old Testament, comparing these frequently wit), similar legends current among many of the peoples, savage and civilised, all over the world. "These volumes contain much that is strange, and ti the ordinary English reader, very novel. " — Daily News. Barry, Alfred, D.D.— The ATONEMENT of CHRIST Six Lectures delivered in Hereford Cathedral during Holy Week, 1871. By Alfred Barry, D.D., D.C.L., Canon of Worcester Principal of King's College, London. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. & In writing these Sermons, it has been the object of Canon Barry to set forth the deep practical importance oj the doctrinal truths of the Atone- ment. " The one truth," says the Preface, "which, beyond all others, I desire that these may suggest, is the inseparable unity which must exist ^between Christian doctrine, even in its more mysterious forms, and Christ- ian morality or devotion. They are a slight contribution to the plea of that connection of Religion and Theology, which in our own time is so frequently and, as it seems to me, so unreasonably denied. " The Guardian calls them " striking and eloquent lectures.' 1 '' Benham.— A COMPANION TO THE LECTIONARY, being a Commentary on the Proper Lessons for Sundays and ". Holydays. By the Rev. W. Benham, B.D., Vicar of Margate. Crown 8vo. Js. 6d. The Author's object is to give the reader a clear understanding of the Lessons of the Church, which he does by means of general and special in- Jj traductions, and critical and explanatory notes on all words and passages presenting the least difficulty. \'A very useful booh. Mr. Benham has produced a good and welcome companion to our revised Lectionary. Its t contents will, if not very original or profound, prove to be sensible and practical, and often suggestive to the preacher and the Sunday School teacher. They will also furnish some excellent Sunday reading for private ' hours. " — Guardi an. Bernard.— THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, considered in Eight Lectures before the U University of Oxford in 1864. By Thomas D. Bernard, M.A., Rector of Walcot and Canon of Wells. Third and Cheaper Edit- : . ion. Crown 8vo. 5-r. (Bamplon Lectures for 1864.) " We lay down these lectures with a sense not only of being edified by sound teaching and careful thought, but also of being gratified by con- . ciseness and clearness of expression and elegance of style." — Churchman. Binney.— SERMONS PREACHED IN THE KING'S WEIGH HOUSE CHAPEL, 1829—69. By Thomas Binney, D.D. New and Cheaper Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo. 4s. 6d. "Full of robust intelligence, of reverent but independent thinking on the '■ most profound and holy themes, and of earnest practical purpose."— London Quarterly Review. Bradby.— SERMONS PREACHED AT HAILEYBURY. By E. H. Bradby, M.A., Master. 8vo. 10s. 6d. " He who claims a public hearing now, speaks to an audience accustomed to Cotton Temple, Vaughan, Bradley, Butler, Farrar, and others \ Each has riven us good work, several work of rare beauty, force, or * originality * but we doubt whether any one of them has touched deeper chords or 'brought more freshness and strength into his sermons, than the I last of their number, the p-esent Head Master of Haileybury." — ■Spectator. THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Burgon.— A TREATISE on the PASTORAL OFFICE. Addressed chiefly to Candidates for Holy Orders, or to those who have recently undertaken the cure of souls. By the Rev. John W. Burgon, M.A., Oxford. 8vo. 12s. TJie object of this work is to expound the great ends to be accomplished by the Pastoral office, and to investigate the various means by which these ends may best be gained. Full -directions are given as to preaching and sermon- writing, pastoral visitation, village education and catechising, and con- firmation. — Spectator. Butler (G.) — Works by the Rev. George Butler, M.A., Principal of Liverpool College : FAMILY PRAYERS. Crown 8vo. 5s. The prayers in this volume are all based on passages vf Scripture — the morning prayers on Select Psalms, those for the evening on portions of the New Testament. SERMONS PREACHED in CHELTENHAM COLLEGE CHAPEL. Crown 8vo. p. 6d. Butler (Rev. H. M.)— SERMONS PREACHED in the CHAPEL OF HARROW SCHOOL. By H. Montagu Butler, Head Master. Crown 8vo. ys. 6d. ' ' These sermons are adapted for every household. Tliere is nothing more striking than the excellent good sense with which they are imbued. " — Spectator. A SECOND SERIES. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. "Excellent specimens of what sermons should be, — plain, direct, prac- tical, pervaded by the true spirit of the Gospel, and holding up lofty aims before the minds of the young." — Athenaeum. Butler (Rev. W. Archer). — Works by the Rev. William Archer Butler, M.A., late Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Dublin : — SERMONS, DOCTRINAL AND PRACTICAL. Edited, with a Memoir of the Author's Life, by Thomas Woodward, Dean of Down. With Portrait. Ninth Edition. 8vo. %s. The Introductory Memoir narrates in considerable detail and with much interest, the evejits of Butler's brief life; and contains a few specimens of his poetry, and a few extracts from his addresses and essays, including a long and eloquent, passage on the Province and Duty of the Preacher. A SECOND SERIES OF SERMONS. Edited by J. A. Jeremie, D.*D. , Dean of Lincoln. Seventh Edition. 8vo. Js. The North British Review says, ' ' Tew sermons in our language exhibit the same rare combination of excellencies; imagery almost as . rich as Taylor's; oratory as vigorous often as Smith's; judgment as sound as THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Butler (Rev. W. Archer.) — continued. ItSarrow's; a style as attractive but more copious, original, and forcible than Atterbury's; piety as elevated as Howe's, and a fervour as intense at times as Baxter's. Mr. Butler's are the sermons of a true poet." LETTERS ON ROMANISM, in reply to Dr._ Newman's Essay on Development. Edited by the Dean of Down. Second Edition, revised by Archdeacon Hardwick. 8vo. \os. 6d. These Letters contain an exhaustive criticism of Dr. Newman' s famous "Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine." "A work which ought to be in the Library of every student of Divinity. " — Bp. St. David's. LECTURES ON ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. See Scien- tific Catalogue. Cambridge Lent Sermons. — SERMONS preached during Lent, 1864, in Great St. Mary's Church, Cambridge. By the Bishop of Oxford, Revs. H. P. Liddon, T. L. Claughton, J. R. Woodford, Dr. Gouxburn, J. W. Burgon, T. T. Carter, Dr. Pusey, Dean Hook, W. J. Butler, Dean Good- win. Crown 8vo. Js. 6d. Campbell. — Works by John M'Leod Campbell :— THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT AND ITS RELATION TO REMISSION OF SINS AND ETERNAL LIFE. Fourth and Cheaper Edition, crown 8vo. 6s. "Among the first theological treatises of this generation"— Guardian. "One of the most remakable theological books ever written." — Times. CHRIST THE BREAD OF LIFE. An Attempt to give a profitable direction to the present occupation of Thought with Romanism. Second Edition, greatly enlarged. Crown 8vo. +r. bd. "Deserves the most attentive study by all who interest themselves in the predominant religious controversy of the day."— Spectator. RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE GIFT OF ETERNAL LIFE Compiled by permission of the late late J. MLkod Campbell, D.D., from Sermons preached chiefly at Row in 1829 — 31. Crown 8vo. 5 s. " There is a healthy tone as well as a deep pathos not often seen in sermons His words are weighty and the ideas they express tend to per- fection of life."— Westminster Review. RFMINISCENCES AND REFLECTIONS, referring to his Early Ministry in the Parish of Row, 1825-31. Edited with an Introductory Narrative by his Son, Donald Campbell, M.A., Chaplain of King's College, London. Crown 8vq. 7s. bd. These 'Reminiscences and Reflections,' written during the last year of his life, were mainly intended to place on record thoughts which might THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. prove helpful to others, " We recommend this book cordially to all who are interested in the great cause of religious reformation" — Times. ' ' There is a thoroughness and depth, as well as a practical earnestness, in his grasp of each truth on which he dilates, which make his reflections very valuable. " — Literary Churchman. Canterbury.— THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. Seven Addresses delivered to the Clergy and Churchwardens of his Diocese, as his Charge, at his Primary Visitation, 1872. By Archibald Campbell, Archbishop of Canterbury. Third Edition. 8vo. cloth. 3*. 6d. The subjects of these Addresses are, I. Lay Co-operation. II. Cathedral Reform. III. and IV., Ecclesiastical Judicature. V. Ecclesiastical Legislation. VI. Missionary Work of the Church. VII. The Church of England in its relation to the Rest of Christendom. There are besides, a number of statistical and illustrative appendices. Cheyne. — Works by T. K. Cheyne, M.A., Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford : — THE BOOK OF ISAIAH CHRONOLOGICALLY AR- RANGED. An Amended Version, with Historical and Critical Introductions and Explanatory Notes. Crown Svo. Js. 6d. The object of this edition is to restore the probable meaning of Isaiah, so far as can be expressed in appropriate English. The basis of the version is the revised translation of 161 1, but alterations have been introduced wherever the true sense of the prophecies appeared to require it. Hie West- minster Review speaks of it as "a piece of scholarly work, very carefully and considerately done. " The Academy calls it " a successful attempt to extend a right understanding of this important Old Testament writing." NOTES AND CRITICISMS on the HEBREW TEXT OF ISAIAH. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. This work is offered as a slight contribution to a more scientific study of the Old Testament Scriptures. The author aims at completeness, inde- pendence, and originality, and constantly endeavours to keep philology distinct from exegesis, to explain the jbr/u without pronouncing on the matter. Choice Notes on the Four Gospels, drawn from Old and New Sources. Crown 8vo. 4J. 6d. each Vol. (St. Matthew and St. Mark in one Vol. price gs.). These Notes are selected from the Rev. Prebendaiy Ford's Illustrations of the Four Gospels, the choice being chiefly confined to those of a more simple and practical character. THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Church. — Works by the Very Rev. R. W. CHURCH, M.A., Dean of St. Paul's. SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE the UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. By the very Rev. R. W. Church, M.A., Dean of St. Paul's. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 4s. bd. Sermons on the relations between Christianity and the ideas and facts of modern civilized society. The subjects of the variotis discourses are: — ''The Gifts of Civilization," " Chris fs Words and Christian Society" "Christ's Example," and "Civilization and Religion." "Thoughtful and masterly . . . We regard these sermons as a landmark in religious thought. They help us to understand the latent strength of a Christianity that is assailed on all sides." — Spectator. . ON SOME INFLUENCES OF CHRISTIANITY UPON NATIONAL CHARACTER. Three Lectures delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral, Feb. 1873. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. "Few boohs that we have met with have given us keener pleasure than this. It would be a real pleasure to quote extensively, so wise and so (me, so tender and so discriminating are Dean Church's Judgments, but the limits of our space are inexorable. We hope the book will be bought." —Literary Churchman. THE SACRED POETRY OF EARLY RELIGIONS. Two Lectures in St. Paul's Cathedral. i8mo. is. I. The Vedas. II. The Psalms. Clay. — THE POWER OF THE KEYS. Sermons preached in Coventry. By the Rev. W. L. Clay, M. A. Fcap. 8vo. y. 6d. ' In this work an attempt is made to shew in what sense, and to what extent, the power of the Keys can be exercised by the layman, the Church, and the priest respectively. The Church Review says the sermons are "in many respects of unusual merit." Clergyman's Self-Examination concerning the . APOSTLES' CREED. Extra fcap. 8vo. is. 6d. Collects of the Church of England. With a beauti- fully Coloured Floral Design to each Collect, and Illuminated Cover. Crown 8vo. 12s. Also kept in various styles of morocco. ' The distinctive characteristic of this edition is the coloured floral design which accompanies each Collect, and which is generally emblematical of the character of the day or saint to which it is assigned; the flowers which have been selected are such as are likely to be in bloom on the day to which the Collect belongs. The Guardian thinks it "a successful attempt to associate in a natural and unforced manner the flowers of our fields and gardens with the course of the Christian year." THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Cotton. — Works by the late George Edward Lynct Cotton, D.D., Bishop of Calcutta : — SERMONS PREACHED TO ENGLISH CONGREGA TIONS IN INDIA. Crown 8vo. Js, 6d. " 7'he sermons are models of what sermons should be, not only on ac count of their practical teachings, but also with regard, to the singula* felicity with which they are adapted to times, places, and circumstances? — Spectator. EXPOSITORY SERMONS ON THE EPISTLES FOB THE SUNDAYS OF THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. Twc Vols. Crown 8vo. 15J. These two volumes contain in all fifty-seven Sermons. Tkey were al preached at various stations throughout India. Cure.— THE SEVEN WORDS OF CHRIST ON THE CROSS. Sermons preached at St. George's, Bloomsbury. B) the Rev. E. Capel Cure, M.A. Fcap. 8vo. 3^. 6d. Of these Sermons the John Bull says, ' ' They are earnest and practical ';' the Nonconformist, " The Sermons are beautiful, tender, and instruc- tive;" and the Spectator calls them "A set of really good Sermons." Curteis.— DISSENT in its RELATION to the CHURCH OF ENGLAND. Eight Lectures preached before the University of Oxford, in the year 1871, on the foundation of the late Rev. John Bampton, M. A., Canon of Salisbury. By George Herbert Curteis, M.A., late Fellow and Sub-Rector of Exeter College ; Principal of the Lichfield Theological College, and Prebendary o] Lichfield Cathedral ; Rector of Turweston, Bucks. Third and Cheaper Edition, crown 8vo. Js. 6d. "Mr. Curteis has done good service by maintaining in an eloquent, temperate, and practical manner, tliat discussion among Christians ii really an evil, and that an intelligent basis can be found for at least a proximate union." — Saturday Review "A well timed, learned, ana thoughtful book. " Davies. — Works by the Rev. J. Llewelyn Davies, M.A., Rector of Christ Church, St. Marylebone, etc. : — THE WORK OF CHRIST ; or, the World Reconciled tc God. With a Preface on the Atonement Controversy. Fcap. 8vo. 6s. SERMONS on the MANIFESTATION OF THE SON OF GOD. With a Preface addressed to Laymen on the present Position of the Clergy of the Church of England ; and an Ap- THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 9 Davies (Rev. J. Llewelyn)— continued. pendix on the Testimony of Scripture and the Church as to the possibility of Pardon in the Future State. Fcap. 8vo. 6s. 6d. ■. "This volume, both in its substance, prefix, and suffix, 'represents the -■ noblest type of theology now preached in the English Church." — Spectator. BAPTISM, CONFIRMATION, AND THE LORD'S SUPPER, as Interpreted by their Outward Signs. Three Ex- pository Addresses for Parochial use. Fcap. 8vo., limp cloth. is. 6d. The method adopted in these addresses is to set forth the natural and historical meaning of the signs of the two Sacraments and of Confirma- tion, and thus to arrive at the spiritual realities zvhich they symbolize. The work touches on all the principal elements of a Christian man's faith. THE EPISTLES of ST. PAUL TO THE EPHESIANS, THE COLOSSIANS, and PHILEMON. With Introductions and Notes, and an Essay on the Traces of Foreign Elements in the Theology of these Epistles. 8vo. 7.1. (id. ;; MORALITY ACCORDING TO THE SACRAMENT ' OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. Crown 8vo. 3*. 6d. These discourses were preached before the University of Cambridge. They form a continuous exposition, and are directed mainly against the two-fold danger which at present threatens the Chttrch — the tendency, on the one hand, to regard Morality as independent of Religion, and, on the other, to ignore the fact that Religion finds its proper sphere and criterion in the moral life. : THE GOSPEL and MODERN LIFE. Sermons on some of the Difficulties of the Present Day, with a Preface on a Recent Phase of Deism. Extra fcap. 8vo. 6s. The " recent phase of Deism" examined in the preface to this volume is that professed by the "Pall Mall Gazette" — that in the sphere of Religion "■there are one or two "probable suppositions," but nothing more. Amongst other subjects examined are — " Christ and Modern Knowledge," " Hu- ■manity and the Trinity," "Nature," "Religion," "Conscience," "Human Corruption," and "Human Holiness." '■» WARNINGS AGAINST SUPERSTITION IN FOUR '' SERMONS FOR THE DAY. Extra fcap. 8vo. 2$. 6d "We have seldom read a wiser little book. The Sermons are short, terse and full of true spiritual wisdom, expressed with a lucidity and a moderation that must give them weight even with those who agree, least with their author. Of the volume as a whole it is hardly possible to steak with too cordial an appreciation."— Spectator. THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. De Teissier. — Works by G. F. De Teissier, B.D.:— VILLAGE SERMONS, First Series. Crown 8vo. gs. This volume contains fifty-four short Sermons, embracing many subject of practical importance to all Christians. The Guardian says they ar "a little too scJiolarlilie in style for a country village, but sound am practical. " VILLAGE SERMONS, Second Series. Crown 8vo. 8s.6a "This second volume of Parochial Sermons is given to the public it the humble hope that it may afford many seasonable thoughts for such a. are Mourners in Zion. " There are in all fifty -two Sermons embracing t ■wide variety of subjects connected with Christian faith and practice. Donaldson — THE APOSTOLICAL FATHERS: aCritica Account of their Genuine Writings and of their Doctrines. B] James Donaldson, LL.D. Crown 8vo. is. 6d. This book was published in 1864 as the first volume of a ' Critic a History of Christian Literature and Doctrine front the death of th, Apostles to the Nicene Council.' The intention was to carry down th history continuously to the time of Eusebius, and this intention has no, been abandoned. But as the writers can be sometimes grouped more easily according to subject or locality than according to time, it is deemed ad- visable to publish the history of each group separately. The Introduction to the present volume serves as an introduction to the whole period. Ecce Homo. A Survey of the Life and Work oi Jesus Christ. Eleventh Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. "A very original and remarkable book, full of striking thought ant delicate perception ; a book which has realised with wonderful vigour anc freshness the historical magnitude of Christ's work, and which here anc there gives us readings of the finest kind of the probable motive of His indi- vidual words and actions." — Spectator. " The best and most establishes believer will find it adding some fresh buttresses to his faith." — Literarj Churchman. " If we have not misunderstood hiin, we have before us a writer who has a right to claim deference from those who think deepest and know most. " — Guardian. Faber.— SERMONS AT A NEW SCHOOL. By the Rev, Arthur Faber, M.A., Head Master of Malvern College. Cr. 8vo. 6s. " These are high-toned, earnest Sermons, orthodox and scholarlike, anc laden with encouragement and warning, wisely adapted to the needs Oj school-life." — Literary Churchman. "Admirably realizing that com- • bination of fresh vigorous thought and simple expression of wise parental counsel, with brotherly sympathy and respect, which are essential to tlu success of such sermons, and to which so few attain." — British Quarterl) Review. THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. u Farrar.— Works by the Rev. F. W. Farrar, M.A., F.R.S., Head Master of Marlborough College, and Hon. Chaplain to the Queen : — ; THE FALL OF MAN, AND OTHER SERMONS. '• ' Second and Cheaper Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo. 4r. 6d. •' This volume contains twenty Sermons. No attempt is made in these Sertnons to develope a system of doctrine. In each discourse some one aspect of truth is taken up, the chief object being to point out its bearings on poetical religious life. The Nonconformist says of these Sermons, — "Mr. Farrar 1 s Sermons are almost perfect specimens of one type of Ser- mons, which we may concisely call beautiful. The style of expression is ■ieautiful — there is beauty in the thoughts, the illustrations, the allusions — they are expressive of genuinely beautiful perceptions and feelings." The British Quarterly says, — " Ability, eloquence, scholarship, and practical usefulness, are in these Sermons combined in a very unusual degree. " THE WITNESS OF HISTORY TO CHRIST. Being the Hulsean Lectures for 1870. New Edition. Crown 8vo. $s. • The following are the subjects of the Five Lectures : — I. " The Ante- cedent Credibility oj 'the Miraculous." II. " The Adequacy of the Gospel Records." III. ." The Victories of Christianity." IV. "Christianity and the Individual." V. "Christianity and the Race." The subjects of the four Appendices are: — A. " The Diversity of Christian Evidences." B. "Confucius." C. "Buddha." D. " Comte." SEEKERS AFTER GOD. The Lives of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. See Sunday Library at end of Catalogue. THE SILENCE AND VOICES OF GOD : University and other Sermons. Crown 8vo. 6s. "We can most cordially recommend Dr. Farrar 's singularly beautiful volume of Sermons For beauty of diction, felicity of style, aptness of illustration and earnest loving exhortation, the volume is without its parallel. "—John Bull. ' ' They are marked by great ability, by an honesty which does not hesitate to acknowledge difficulties and by an earnestness which commands respect."— Fall Mall Gazette. Fellowship : Letters Addressed to my Sister Mourners. Fcap. 8vo. cloth gilt. 3s. 6d. '''"A beautiful little volume, written with genuine feeling, good taste, and a rip-ht appreciation of the teaching of Scripture relative to sorrow and suffering "—Nonconformist. "A very touching, and at the same time a very sensible book. It breathes throughout the truest Christian spirit."— Contemporary Review. Forbes.— THE VOICE OF GOD IN THE PSALMS. By Granville Forbes, Rector of Broughton. Cr. 8vo. 6s. 6d. 12 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Gifford.— THE GLORY OF GOD IN MAN. By E, H. Gifford, D.D. Fcap. 8vo., cloth. 3*. 6d. Golden Treasury Psalter. Seep. 27. Hardwick. — Works by the Ven. Archdeacon Hardwick : CHRIST AND OTHER MASTERS. A Historical Inquiry into some of the Chief Parallelisms and Contrasts between Christ- ianity and the Religious Systems of the Ancient World. New Edition, revised, and a Prefatory Memoir by the Rev. Francis Procter, M. A. Two vols, crown 8vo. 15^- After several introductory chapters dealing with the religious tendencies of the present age, the unity of the human race, and the characteristics of Religion under the Old Testament, the Author proceeds to consider the Religions of India, China, America, Oceanica, Egypt, and Medo-Persia. The history and characteristics of these Religions are examined, and an effort is made to bring out the points of difference and affinity between them and Christianity, The object is to establish the perfect adaptation of the latter faith to human nature in all its phases and at all times. "The plan of the work is boldly and almost nobly conceived. .... We commend the luork to the perusal of all thosewho take interest in the study of ancient mythology, without losing their reverence for the supreme authority of the ' oracles of the living God." — Christian Observer. A HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Middle Age. From Gregory the Great to the Excommunication of Luther, Edited by William Stubbs, M.A., Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford. With Four Maps constructed for this work by A. Keith Johnston. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 1 or. 6d. Ear this edition Professor Stubbs has carefully revised both text and notes, making such corrections of facts, dates, and the like as the results of recent research warrant. The doctrinal, historical, and generally specula- tive views of the late author have been preserved intact. "As a Manual for the student of ecclesiastical history in the Middle Ages, we know no Eng- lish work which can be compared to Mr. Hardwick' s book." — Guardian. A HISTORY of the CHRISTIAN CHURCH DURING THE REFORMATION. New Edition, revised by Professor Stubbs. Crown 8vo. io.v. 6d. This volume is intended as a sequel and companion to the "History of the Christian Church during the Middle Age." The author 's earnest wish has been to give the reader a trustivorthy version of those stirring incidents which mark the Reformation period, without relinquishing his former claim to characterise peculiar systems, persons, and events according to the shades and colours they assume, when contemplated from an English point of view, and by a member of the Church of England. THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 13 Hervey.— THE GENEALOGIES OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST, as contained in the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke, reconciled with each other, and shown to be in harmony with the true Chronology of the Times. By Lord Arthur Hervey, Bishop of Bath and Wells. 8vo. iar. 6d. Hymni Ecclesiee.— Fcap,8vo. 7s. 6d. A selection of Latin Hymns of the Mediaval Church, containing select- ions from the Paris Breviary, and the Breviaries of Rome, Salisbury, and York. The selection is confined to such holy days and seasons as are recognised by the Church of England, and to special events or things recorded in Scripture. This collection was edited by Dr. Newman while he lived at Oxford. ' Kempis, Thos. A. -DE IMITATIONE CHRISTI. Libri IV. Borders in the Ancient Style, after Holbein, Durer, and other Old Masters, containing Dances of Death, Acts of Mercy, Emblems, and a variety of curious ornamentations. In jj!„ white cloth, extra gilt. Js. dd. The original Latin text has been here faithfully reproduced. The Spectator says of this edition, it "has many solid merits, and is perfect in its way." While the Athenaeum says, " The whole work is admirable; some of the figure compositions have extraordinary merit." Kingsley. — Works by the Rev. Charles Kingsley, M.A., Rector of Eversley, and Canon of Westminster. (For other Works by the same author, see Historical and Belles Lettres Catalogues). THE WATER OF LIFE, AND OTHER SERMONS. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. y. 6d. ■ > This volume contains twenty-one Sermons preached at various places — Westminster Abbey, Chapel Royal, before the Queen at Windsor, etc. VILLAGE SERMONS. Seventh Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 3*. 6d. THE GOSPEL OF THE PENTATEUCH. Second .-»., Edition. Fcap. 8vo. $s. 6d. This volume consists of eighteen Sermons on passages taken from the Pentateuch. They are dedicated to Dean Stanley out of gratitude for his Lectures on the Jewish Church, under the influence and in the spirit of jwhich they were written. " GOOD NEWS OF GOD. Fourth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. ;> 3-r. 6d. This volume contains thirty-nine short Sermons, preached in the ordinary course of the author 's parochial ministrations. H THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Kingsley (Rev. C.) — continued. SERMONS FOR THE TIMES. Third Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 3*. 6d. Here are twenty-two Sermons, all bearing more or less on the every-day life of the present day, including such subjects as these: — "Fathers and Children;"'' "A Good Conscience;" "Names;" "Sponsorship;" "Duty and Superstition;" "England's Strength;" "The Lord's Prayer;" "Shame;" "Forgiveness";" The True Gentleman ;" "Public Spirit." TOWN AND COUNTRY SERMONS. Second Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo. 3.5. dd. Some of these Sermons were preached before the Queen, and some in the perfor7nance of the writer's ordinary parochial ditty. Of these Sermons the Nonconformist says, ' ' They are warm with the fervour of the preacher's own heart, and strong from the force of his own convictions. There is nowhere an attempt at display, and the clearness and simplicity of the style make them suitable for the youngest or most unintelligent of his hearers." SERMONS on NATIONAL SUBJECTS. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 3^. 6d. THE KING OF THE EARTH, and other Sermons, a Second Series of Sermons on National Subjects. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d. The following extract from the Preface to the 2nd Series will explain the preacher's aim in these Sermons: — " I have tried. to proclaim the Lord fesus Christ, as the Scriptures, both in their strictest letter and in their general method, from Genesis to Revelation, seem to me to proclaim Him; not merely as the Saviour of a few elect souls, but as the light and life of every human being who enters into the world; as the source of all reason, strength, and virtue in heathen or in Christian ; as the King and Ruler of the whole universe, and of every nation, family, and man on earth ; as the Redeemer of the whole earth and the whole human race... His death, as a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satis- faction for the sins of the whole world, by which God is reconciled to the whole human race. DISCIPLINE, AND OTHER SERMONS. Fcp. 8vo. y.bd. Twenty-four Sermons preached on various occasions, some of them of a public nature — at the Volunteer Camp, Wimbledon, before the Prince of Wales at Sandringham, at Wellington College, etc. The Guardian says, — "There is much thought, tenderness, and devoutness of spirit in these Sermons, and some of them are models both in matter and expression." DAVID. Four Sermons : David's Weakness— David's Strength — David's Anger — David's Deserts. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. These fotir Sermons were preached before the University of Cambridge, THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 15 tsKingsley (Rev. C.)— continued. and are specially addressed to young men. Tfieir titles are, — "David's Weakness;" "David's Strength;" "David's Anger ;" "David's Deserts." |V WESTMINSTER SERMONS. 8vo. \os.bd. These Sermons were preached at Westminster Abbey or at one of the Chapels Royal. Their subjects are : — The Mystery of the Cross : The Per- fect Love : The Spirit of Whitsuntide : Prayer: The Deaf and Dumb : The Fruits of the Spirit : Confusion : The Shaking of the Heavens and the Earth: The Kingdom of God: The Law of the Lord: God the Teacher: The Reasonable Prayer : The One Escape : The Word of God : I: The Cedars of Lebanon : Life: Death: Signs and Wonders : The Judgments of God : The War in Lleaven : Noble Company : De Pro- fundis: The Blessing and the Curse : The Silence of Faith : God and ^Mammon : The Beatific Vision. Lightfoot. — Works by J. B. Lightfoot, D.D., Hulsean Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge ; Canon of St. Paul's. |< ST. PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. A Re- vised Text, with Introduction, Notes, and Dissertations. Fourth Edition, revised. 8vo. cloth. 12J. While the Author's object has been to make this commentary generally wmplete, he has paid special attention to everything relating to St. Paul's frsonal history and his intercourse with the Apostles and Church of the .. Circumcision, as it is this feature in the Epistle to the Galatians which ^as given it an oz'erzuhelming interest in recent theological controversy. The Spectator says "thei'e is no commentator at once of sounder judg- ment and more liberal than Dr. Lightfoot." ST. PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. A Revised Text, with Introduction, Notes, and Dissertations. Third Edition. Svo. 12s. The plan of this volume is the same as that of " The Epistle to the galatians." "No commentary in the English language can be compared with it in regard to fulness of information, exact scholarship, and laboured attempts to settle everything about the epistle on a solid founda- tion. " — Athenaeum. ST. CLEMENT OF ROME, THE TWO EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS. A Revised Text, with Introduction and Notes. Svo. &s. 6d. This volume is the first part of a complete edition of the Apostolic i Fathers The Introductions deal with the questions of the genuineness and \ authenticity of the Epistles, discuss their date and character, and analyse Weir contents An account is also given of all the different epistles -which Wear the name of Clement of Rome. "By far the most copiously annotated 16 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Lightfoot (Dr. J. B.) — contimced. edition of St. Clement which we yet possess, and the most convenient in every way for the English reader." — Guardian. ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE ENGLISH NEW TESTAMENT. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. The Author shews in detail the necessity for a fresh revision of the authorized version on the following grounds: — I. False Readings. 2. Artificial distinctions created. 3. Real distinctions obliterated. 4. Faults of Grammar. 5. Faults of Lexicography. 6. Treatment of Proper Names, official titles, etc. 7. Archaisms, defects in the English, errors of the press, etc. " The book is marked by careful scholarship, familiarity with the subject, sobriety, and circumspection." — AthenEEum. Luckock.— THE TABLES OF STONE. A Course of Sermons preached in All Saints' Church, Cambridge, by H. M. Luckock, M.A., Vicar. Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d. Maclaren SERMONS PREACHED at MANCHESTER. By Alexander Maclaren. Third. Edition. Fcap. 8vo. +r. 6d. These Sermons represent no special school, but deal with the broad prin- ciples of Christian truth, especially in their bearing on practical, every day life. A few of the titles are: — " The Stone of Stumbling," "Love and Forgiveness," "The Living Dead," "Memory in Another World," Faith in Christ," "Love and Fear," "The Choice of Wisdom," "The Food of the World." A SECOND SERIES OF SERMONS. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 4J. 6d. The Spectator characterises them as "vigorous in style, full of thought, rich in illustration, and in an unusual degree interesting." A THIRD SERIES OF SERMONS. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 4s. 6d. Sermons more sober and yet more forcible, and with a certain wise and practical spirituality about them it would not be easy to find." — Spectator. Maclear. — Works by G. F. Maclear, D.D., Head Master of King's College School : — A CLASS-BOOK OF OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. With Four Maps. Eighth Edition. i8mo. 4s. 6d. "The present volume," says the Preface, "forms a Class-Book of Old Testament History from the Earliest Times to those of Ezra and Nelu- miah. In its preparation the most recent authorities have been consulted, and wherever it has appeared useful, Notes have been subjoined illustra- tive of the Text, and, for the sake of more advanced students, references added to larger works. The Index has been so arranged as to form a concise Dictionary of the Persons and Places mentioned in the course of the THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 17 :Maclear (G. F .)— continued. Narrative." The Maps, prepared by Stanford, materially add to the \ mine and usefulness of the book. The British Quarterly Review calls it 1." A careful and elaborate, though brief compendium of all that modern •'■research has done for the illustration of the Old Testament. We know of no work which contains so much important information in so small a compass.'" ,. A CLASS-BOOK OF NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY. Including the Connexion of the Old and New Testament. Sixth Edition. i8mo. 5-r. 6d. The present volume forms a sequel to the Author's Class-Book of Old . Testament History, and continues the narrative to the close of St. Paul's j. second imprisonment at Rome. The work is divided into three Books — /. The Connection between the Old and New Testaments. II. The Gospel History. III. The Apostolic History. In the Appendix are given Chronological Tables The Clerical Journal says, " It is not often that such an amount of useful and interesting matter on biblical subjects, is found in so convenient and small a compass, as in this well-arranged volume." A CLASS-BOOK OF THE CATECHISM OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. Third and Cheaper Edition. ;. i8mo. is. 6d. The present work is intended as a sequel to the two preceding books. ".Like them, it is furnished with notes and references to larger works, and it is lioped that it may be found, especially in the higher forms of our i Public Schools, to supply a suitable manual of instruction in the chief \ doctrines of our Church, and a useful help in the preparation of Can- didates for Confirmation." The Literary Churchman says, "If~is indeed the work of a scholar and divine, and as such, though extremely simple, it is also extremely instructive. There are few clergy who would not find it useful in preparing candidates for Confirmation; and there are not a few who would find it useful to themselves as well. " A FIRST CLASS-BOOK OF THE CATECHISM OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, with Scripture Proofs for Junior Classes and Schools. New Edition. l8mo. 6d. ' J This is an epitome of the larger Class-book, meant for junior students and elementary classes. The book has been carefully condensed, so as to > contain clearly and fully, the most important part of the contents of the larger book. m A SHILLING-BOOK of OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. Ri, New Edition. i8mo. cloth limp, is, "te This Manual bears the same relation to the larger Old Testament Hist- ory, that the book just mentioned does to the larger work on the Catechism. It consists of Ten Books, divided into short chapters, and subdivided into THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Maclear (G. F.) — continued. sections, each section treating of a single episode in the history, the title of which is given in bold type. A SHILLING-BOOK of NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY. New Edition. i8mo. cloth limp. is. This bears the same relation to the larger Ntnv Testament History that the work just mentioned has to the laige Old Testament History, and is marked by similar characteristics. A MANUAL OF INSTRUCTION FOR CONFIRMA- TION AND FIRST COMMUNION, with Prayers and Devo- tions. 32mo. cloth extra, red edges. 2s. This is an enlarged and improved edition of ' The Order of Confirma- tion. ' To it have been added the Communion Of/ice, with Notes and Explanations, together with a brief form of Self Examination and De- votions selected from the works of Cosin, Ken, Wilson, and others. Macmillan. — Works by the Rev. Hugh Macmillan, LL.D., F. R. S. E. (For other Works by the same Author, see Catalogue of Travels and Scientific Catalogue). THE TRUE VINE; or, the Analogies of our Lord's Allegory. Second Edition. Globe Svo. 6s. This work is not merely an exposition of the fifteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel, but also a general parable of spiritual truth from, the world of plants. It describes a few of the points in which the varied realm of vegetable life comes into contact with the higher spiritual realm, and shews hirw rich a field of promise lies befoj'e the analogical mind in this direction. The Nonconformist says, "It abounds in exquisite bits of description, and in striking facts clearly stated." The British Quarterly says, "Readers and preachers who are unscientific will find many of his illustrations as valuable as they are beautiful. " BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. Eighth Edition. Globe Svo. 6s. In this volume the author has endeavoured to shew that the teaching of nature and the teaching of the Bible are directed to the same great aid; that the Bible contains the spi?-itual truths which are necessary to make us wise unto salvation, and the objects and scenes of nature are the pictures by which these truths are illustrated. "He has made the world more beautiful to us, and unsealed our ears to voices of praise and messages of love that might othenoise have been unheard." — British Quarterly Review. "Mr. Macmillan has produced a book which may be fitly described as one of the happiest efforts for enlisting physical science in tlie direct service of religion. " — Guardian. THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 19 Macmillan (H.) — continued. : THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. Second Edition. Globe 8vo. 6.c In this volume the Author attempts to interpret Nature on her religious side in accordance with the most recent discoveries of physical science, and to shew how much greater significance is imparted to many passages of Scripture and many doctrines of Christianity when looked at in the light of these discoveries. Instead of regarding Physical Science as antagonistic to Christianity, the Author believes and seeks to shew that every new dis- covery tends more strongly to prove that Nature and the Bible have One Author. ' ' Whether the reader agree or not with his conclusions, he will , acknoioledge he is in the presence of an original and thottghtful writer." — Pall Mall Gazette. " There is no class of educated men and women that ■mil not profit by these essays." — Standard. M'Cosh. — For Works by James McCosh, LL.D., President of Princeton College, New Jersey, U.S./ot Philosophical Catalogue. Maurice. — -Works by the late Rev. F. Denison Maurice, M.A. , Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Cam- bridge. Professor Maurice's Works' are recognized as having made a deep im- pression on modern theology. With whatever subject he dealt he tried to look at it in its bearing on living men and their every-day surroundings, 'i and faced unshrinkingly the difficulties which occur to ordinary earnest thinkers in a manner that showed he had intense sympathy with all that concerns humanity. By all who wish to understand the various drifts of thought during the present century, Mr. Maurice's works must be studied. An intimate friend of Mr. Maurice's, one who has carefully studied all his works, and had besides many opportunities of knowing the Author's opinions, in speaking of his so-called "obscurity," ascribes it to "the never-failing assumption that God is really moving, teaching and acting ; and that the writer's business is not so much to state something for the reader's benefit, as to apprehend what God is saying or doing." The Spectator says — "Pew of those of our own generation whose names will live in linglish histmy or literature have exerted so profound and so per- manent an influence as Mr, Matirice. " THE PATRIARCHS AND LAWGIVERS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. Third and Cheaper Edition. Crown , 8vo. 5-r. The Nineteen Discourses contained in this volume were preached in the '(impel of Lincoln's Inn during the year 1851. The texts are taken from the books of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers. Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, and Samuel, and involve some of the most interesting biblical topics dis- cussed in recent times. THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Maurice (F. D.) — continued. THE PROPHETS AND KINGS OF THE OLD TES- TAMENT. Third Edition, with new Preface. Crown 8vo. i cm. 6d. Mr. Maurice, in the spirit which animated the compilers of the Church Lessons ; has in these Sermons regarded the Prophets more as preachers of righteousness than as mere predictors — an aspect of tlieir lives which, he thinks, has been greatly overlooked in our day, and than which, there is none we have more need to contemplate. He has found that the Old Testament Prophets, taken in their simple natural sense, clear up many of the difficulties which beset us in the daily work of life; malte the past intelligible, the present endurable, and the future real and hopeful. THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. A Series of Lectures on the Gospel of St. Luke. Crown 8vo. gs. Mr. Maurice, in his Preface to these Twenty-eight Lectures, says, — ' ' In these Lectures I have endeavoured to ascertain what is told us respect- ing the life of Jesus by one of those Evangelists who proclaim Him to be the Christ, who says that He did come from a Father, that He did baptize with the Holy Spirit, that He did rise from the dead. I have chosen the one who is most- directly connected with the later history of the Church, who was not an Apostle, who professedly wrote for the use of a man already instructed in the faith oftlte Apostles. I have followed the course of the W7'iter > s narrative, not changing it under any pi-etext. I have adhered to his phraseology, striving to avoid the substitution of any otlier for his." THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN. A Series of Discourses. Third and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. These Discourses, twenty-eight- in number, are of a nature similar to those on the Gospel of St. Luke, and will be found to render valuable assistance to any one anxious to understand the Gospel of the beloved dis- ciple, so different in many respects from those of the other three Evangelists. Appended are eleven notes illustrating various points which occur through- out the discourses. The Literary Churchman thus speaks of this volume : — "Thorough honesty, reverence, and deep thought pervade the work, which is every way solid and philosophical, as well as theological, and abounding with suggestions which the patient student may draw out more at length for himself." THE EPISTLES OF ST. JOHN. A Series of Lectures on Christian Ethics. Second and Cheaper Edition. Cr. 8vo. 6s. These Lectures on Christian Ethics were delivered to the students of the Working Men's College, Great Ormond Street, London, on a series of Sunday mornings. Mr. Maurice believes that the question in which we are most interested, the question which most affects our studies and our daily lives, is the question, whether there is a foundation for human morality, THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 21 Maurice (F. D.) — continued. or whether it is dependent upon the opinions and fashions of different ages and countries. This important question will be found amply and fairly discussed in this volume, which the National Review calls "Mr. Maurice's most effective and instructive work. He is peculiarly fitted by the constitution of his mind, to throw light on St. John's writings. " Appended is a note on "Positivism mid its Teacher." EXPOSITORY SERMONS ON THE PRAYER-BOOK. The Prayer-book considered especially in reference to the Romish System. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 5.1. 6d. "t After an Introductory Sermon, Mr. Maurice goes over the various parts of the Church Service, expounds in eighteen Sermons, their intention and significance, and shews how appropriate they are as expressions of the deepest longings and wants of all classes of men. LECTURES ON THE APOCALYPSE, or Book of the Revelation of St. John the Divine. Crown 8vo. 10s. 6d. ' ' Mr. Maurice, instead of trying to find far-fetched allusions to great historical events in the distant future, endeavours to discover the plain, ^literal, obvious meaning of the words of the writer, and shews that as a rule these refer to events contemporaneous with or immediately succeeding ! ihe time when the book was written. At the same time he shews the applicability of the contents of the book to the circumstances of the present day and of all times. "Never," says the Nonconformist, " has Mr. Maurice been more reverent, more careful for the letter of the Scripture, more discerning of the purpose of the Spirit, or more sober and practical in his teaching, than in this volume on the Apocalypse. " |V WHAT IS REVELATION? A Series of Sermons on the f" Epiphany; to which are added, Letters to a Theological Student i|. on the Bampton Lectures of Mr. Mansel. . Crown 8vo. iar. 6d. *' Both Sermons and Letters were called forth by the doctrine maintained by Mr. Mansel in his Bampton Lectures, that Revelation cannot be a direct Manifestation of the Infinite Nature of God. Mr. Maurice maintains tke opposite doctrine, and in his Sermons explains why, in spite of the high authorities on the other side, he must still assert the principle which he ^discovers in the Services of the Church and throughout the Bible. SEQUEL TO THE INQUIRY, "WHAT IS REVELA- TION?" Letters in Reply to Mr. Mansel's Examination of " Strictures on the Bampton Lectures." Crown 8vo. 6s. This, as the title indicates, was called forth by Mr. Mansel's Examina- \tion of Mr. Maurice's Strictures on his doctrine of the Infinite. THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. \os. 6d. " The book " says Mr. Maurice, "expresses thoughts which have been THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Maurice (F. D.) — continued. working in my mind for years ; the method of it has not been adopted carelessly ; even the composition has undergone frequent revision." There are seventeen Essays in all, and although meant primarily for Unitarians, to quote the words of the Clerical Journal, " it leaves untouched scarcely, any topic which is in agitation in the religious world ; scarcely a moot point between our various sects ; scarcely a plot of debateable ground be- tween Christians and Infidels, between Romanists and Protestants, between Socinians and other Christians, between English Churchmen and Dis- senters on both sides. Scarce is there a misgiving, a difficulty, an aspira- tion stirring amongst us now, — now, when men seem in earnest as hardly ever before about religion, and ask and demand satisfaction with a fear- lessness 7vhich seems almost awful when one thinks what is at stake — which is not recognised and grappled with by Mr. Maurice." THE DOCTRINE OF SACRIFICE DEDUCED FROM THE SCRIPTURES. Crown 8vo. ~]s. 6d. Throughout the Nineteen Sermons contained in this volume, Mr. Maurice expounds the ideas which he has formed of the Doctrine of Sacrifice, as it is set forth in various parts of the Bible. THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, AND THEIR RELATIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. Fourth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. $s. These Eight Boyle Lectures are divided into two parts, of four Lectures each. In the first part Mr. Maurice examines the great Religious systems which present themselves in the histoty of the world, with the purpose of inquiring what is their main characteristic principle. The second four Lectures are occupied with a discussion of the questions, "In what relation does Christianity stand to these different faiths ? If there be a faith which is meant for mankind, is this the one, or must we look for another?" ON THE LORD'S PRAYER. Fourth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. In these Nine Sermons the successive petitions of the Lord's Prayer are taken up by Mr. Maurice, their significance expounded, and, as was usual with him, connected with the every-day lives, feelings, and aspirations of the men of the present time. ON THE SABBATH DAY ; the Character of the Warrior, and on the Interpretation of History. Fcap. 8vo. zs. 6d. THE GROUND AND OBJECT OF HOPE FOR MANKIND. Four Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge. Crown Svo. 2 s - (>d. In these Four Sermons Mr. Maurice views the subject in fottr aspects : —I. The Hope of the Missionary. II. The Hope of the Patriot. III. The Hope of the Churchman. IV. The Hope of Man. The Spectator THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 23 Maurice (F. D .)— continued. says, " It is impossible to find anywhere deeper teaching than this j" and the Nonconformist, " We thank him for the manly, noble, stirring words in these Sermons — words fitted to quicken thoughts, to awaken high aspira- tion, to stimulate to lives of goodness." THE LORD'S PRAYER, THE CREED, AND THE COMMANDMENTS. A Manual for Parents and Schoolmasters. To which is added the Order of the Scriptures. i8mo. cloth limp. is. This book is not written for clerg)imen, as such, but for parents and teachers, who are often either prejudiced against the contents of the Cate- chism, or regard it peculiarly as the clergyman' s book, but, at the same time, have a general notion that a habit of prayer ought to be cultivated, that there are some things which ought to be believed, and some things which ought to be done. It will be found to be peculiarly valuable at the present time, when the question of religious education is occupying so much \attention. ' THE CLAIMS OF THE BIBLE AND OF SCIENCE. A Correspondence on some Questions respecting the Pentateuch. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. This volume consists of a series of Fifteen Letters, the first and last addressed by a ' Layman ' to Mr. Maurice, the intervening thirteen written by Mr. Maurice himself. : DIALOGUES ON FAMILY WORSHIP. Crown 8vo. 6s. " The parties in these Dialogues " says the Preface, "area Clergyman ■who accepts the doctrines of the Church, and a Layman whose faith in them is nearly gone. The object of the Dialogues is not confutation, but the discovery of a ground on which two Englishmen and two fathers may stand, and on which their country and their children may stand when their places know them no more." THE COMMANDMENTS CONSIDERED AS IN- STRUMENTS OF NATIONAL REFORMATION. Crown 1 8vo. 4s. 6d. K 1 The author endeavours to shew that the Commandments are iimu, and ever have been the great p-otesters against Presbyteral and Prelatical assumptions, and that if we do not receive them as Commandments of the 'Lord God spoken to Israel, and spoken to every people under heaven now, we lose the greatest witnesses toe possess for national morality and civil freedom. MORAL AND METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY. Vol. I Ancient Philosophy from the First to the Thirteenth Centuries. Vol II. Fourteenth Century and the French Revolution, with a Glimpse into the Nineteenth Century. Two Vols. 8vo. 25J. This is an edition in two volumes of Professor Maurice's History of 24 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Maurice (F. D.) — continued. Philosophy from the earliest period to the present time. It was formerly issued in a number of separate volumes, and it is believed that all admirers of the author and all students of philosophy will welcome this compact edition. In a long introduction to this edition, in the form of a dialogue, Professor Maurice justifies his own views, and touches upon some of the most important topics of the time. SOCIAL MORALITY. Twenty-one Lectures delivered in tlie University of Cambridge. New and Cheaper Edition. Cr. 8vo. \os. 6d. " Whilst reading it we are charmed by the freedom from exclusiveness and prejudice, the large charity, the loftiness of thought, the eagerness to recognise and appreciate whatever there is of real worth extant in the world, which animates it from one end to the other. We gain new thoughts and new ways of viewing things, even more, perhaps, from being brought for a time tinder the influence of so noble and spiritual a mind." — Athenaeum. THE CONSCIENCE: Lectures on Casuistry, delivered in the University of Cambridge. Second and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. $s. In this series of nine Lectures, Professor Maurice, endeavours to settle what is meant by the word ' ' Conscience," and discusses the most important questions immediately connected with the subject. Taking "Casuistry" in its old sense as being the "study of cases of Conscience," he endeavours to show in what way it may be brought to bear at the present day upon the acts and thoughts of our ordinary existence. He shows that Con- science asks for laws, not rules ; for freedom, not chains ; for education, not suppression. He has abstained from the use of philosophical terms, and has touched on philosophical systems o?ily when he fancied "they were interfiling with the rights and duties of wayfarers." The Saturday Review says: " We rise from the perusal of these lectures with a detesta- tion of all that is selfish and mean, and with a living impression that there is such a thing as goodness after all." LECTURES ON THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF THE FIRST AND SECOND CENTURIES. 8vo. ios.6d. In the first chapter on "The Jewish Calling," besides expounding his idea of the true nature of a "Church," the author gives a brief sketch of the position and economy of the Jews; while in the second he points out their relation to " the other Nations." Chapter Third contains a succint account oftlie various Jewish Sects, while in Chapter Fourth are briefly set forth Mr. Mam-ice's ideas of the character of Christ and the nature of His mission, and a sketch of events is given up to the Day of Pentecost. The remaining Chapters, extending from the Apostles' personal Ministry to the end of the Second Century, contain sketches of the character and THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 25 Maurice (F. D.) — continued. work of all the prominent men in any way connected with the Early Church, accounts of the origin and nature of the various doctrines ortho- dox and heretical which had their birth dziring the period, as well as of the planting and early history of the Chief Churches in Asia, Africa and "jEurope. '■■' LEARNING AND WORKING. Six Lectures delivered in Willis's Rooms, London, in June and July, 1854. — THE RELIGION OF ROME, and its Influence on Modern Civilisa- tion. Four Lectures delivered in the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, in December, 1854. Crown 8vo. 5*. SERMONS PREACHED IN COUNTRY CHURCHES. Crown 8vo. 10s. 6d. "■Earnest, practical, and extremely simple." — Literaiy Churchman. "Good specimens of his simple and earnest eloquence. The Gospel inci- dents are realized with a vividness which we can well believe made the common people hear him gladly. Moreover they are sermons which must have done the hearers good." — John Bull. Moorhouse. — Works by James Moorhouse, M.A., Vicar of Paddington : — SOME MODERN DIFFICULTIES RESPECTING the jfc FACTS OF NATURE AND REVELATION. Fcap. Svo. i 2s. 6d. ' The first of these Four Discourses is a systematic reply to tlie Essay of the Rev. Baden Powell on Christian Evidences in "Essays and Reviews." The fourth Sermon-, on " The Resurrection," is in some measure com- plementary to this, and the two together are intended to furnish a tolerably Complete view of modern objections to Revelation. In the second and third Sermons on the "Temptation" and "Passion," the author has en- deavoured "to exhibit the power and wonder of those great facts within the spiritual sphere, which modern theorists have especially sought to dis- credit." JACOB Three Sermons preached before the University of I Cambridge in Lent 1870. Extra fcap. 8vo. 3s. 64. I THE HULSEAN LECTURES FOR 1865. Cr. 8vo. £r. ■e valuable works have come into our hands for many years. . . * "pew mor. - a most fruitful and welcome volume. Church Review. an'Rrien —AN ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN and ESTAB- | U j TSH THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION by FAITH m ONLY. By James Thomas O'Brien, D.D., Bishop of Ossory. Third Edition. 8vo. 12s. I This work consists of Ten Sermons. The first four treat of the nature 26 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. and mutual relations of Faith and Jtistification ; the fifth and sixth examine the corruptions of the doctrine of Justification by Faith only, and the objections which have been urged against it. Thefotir concluding ser- mons deal with the moral effects of Faith, Various Notes are added explanatory of the Authors reasoning. Palgrave. — HYMNS. By Francis Turner Palgrave. Third Edition, enlarged. i8mo. is. 6d. This is a collection of twenty original Hymns, which the Literary Churchman speaks of as " so choice, so perfect, and so refined, — so tender in feeling, and so scholarly in expression" Paul of Tarsus. An Inquiry into the Times and the Gospel of the Apostle of the Gentiles. By a Graduate. 8vo. \os. 6d. The Author of this work has attempted, out of the materials which were at Ms disposal, to consti'uct for himself a sketch of the time in which St. Paul lived, of the religious systems with which he was brought in contact, of the doctrine which he taught, and of the work which he ulti- mately achieved. " Turn where we will throughout the volume, we find the best fruit of patient inquiry, sound scholarship, logical argument, and fairness of conclusion. No thoughtful reader will rise from its perusal without a real and lasting profit to himself, and a sense of permanent addition to the cause of truth." — Standard. Picton.— THE MYSTERY OF MATTER; and other Essays. By J. Allanson Picton, Author of "New Theories and the Old Faith." Crown 8vo. ios. 6d. Contents — The Mystery of Mattel' : The Philosophy of Ignorance : The Antithesis of Faith and Sight: The Essential Nature of Religion: Christian Pantheism. Prescott — THE THREEFOLD CORD. Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge. By J. E. Prescott, B.D. Fcap. 8vo. 3J-. 6d. Procter.— A HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER : With a Rationale of its Offices. By FRANCIS Procter, M.A. Eleventh Edition, revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo. lew. 6d. The Athenaeum says: — '"'■The origin of every part of the Prayer-book has been diligently investigated, — and there are few questions or facts con- nected zvith it which are not either sufficiently explained, or so referred to, that persons interested may work out the truth for themselves." Procter and Maclear. — AN ELEMENTARY INTRO- DUCTION TO THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. Re-arranged and Supplemented by an Explanation of the Morning THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 27 and Evening Prayer and the Litany. By F. Procter, M.A. and G. F. Maclear, D.D. New Edition. i8mo. 2s. 6d. This book has the same object and follows the same plan as the Manuals already noticed under Mr. Maclear's name. Each book is subdivided into chapters and sections. In Book I. is given a detailed History of the Book of Common Prayer down to the Attempted Revision in the Reign of William III. Book II, consisting of four Parts, treats in order the ^various parts of the Prayer Book. Notes, etymological, historical, and 'critical, are given throughout the book, while the Appendix contains several articles of much interest and importance. Appended is a General Index and an Index of Words explained in the Notes. The Literary Church- man characterises it as " by far the completest and most satisfactory book of its kind we know. . We wish it were in the hands of every schoolboy and every schoolmaster in the kingdom." Psalms of David CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED. An 'Amended Version, with Historical Introductions and Ex- planatory Notes. By Four Friends. Second and Cheaper Edition, much enlarged. Crown 8vo. Ss. 6d. One of the chief designs of the Editors, in preparing this volume, was to restore the Psalter as far as possible to the order in which the Psalms were written. They give the division of each Psalm into strophes, and . of each strophe into the lines which composed it, and amend the errors of '■translation. The Spectator calls it "One of the most instructive and valuable books that have been published for many years. " Golden Treasury Psalter. — The Student's Edition. Being an Edition with briefer Notes of the above. iSmo. 3^. 6d. ' This volume will be found to meet the requirements of those who wish 'for a smaller edition of the larger work, at a Imuer price for family use, and for the use of younger pupils in Public Schools. The short notes ■which are appended to the volume will, it is hoped, suffice to make the meaning intelligible throughout. The aim of this edition is simply to put the reader as far as possible in possession of the plain meaning of the writer. ' ' It is a gem, " the Nonconformist says. Ramsay.— THE CATECHISER'S MANUAL; or, the Church Catechism Illustrated and Explained, for the Use of r Clergymen, Schoolmasters, and Teachers. By Arthur Ramsay, M.A. Second Edition. iSmo. is.dd. iRays of Sunlight for Dark Days. A Book of Selec- l tions for the Suffering. With a Preface by C. J. Vaughan, D. D. i8mo. New Edition. 3s. 6d. Also in morocco, old style. «■ Dr Vawhan says in the Preface, after speaking of the general run of Books' of Comfort for Mourners, "It is because I think that the little volume now offered to the Christian sufferer is one of greater wisdom and of deeper experience, that I have readily consented to the request that I 28 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. ■would introduce it by a few words of Preface.'' The book consists of a series of very brief extracts from a great variety of authors, in prose and poetry, suited to the many moods of a mourning or suffering mind. "Mostly gems of the first water.'" — Clerical Journal. Reynolds.— NOTES OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. A Selection of Sermons by Henry Robert Reynolds, B.A., President of Cheshunt College, and Fellow of University College, London. Crown 8vo. "Js. 6d. This work may be taken as representative of the mode of thought and feeling which is most popular amongst the freer and more cultivated Non- conformists. "It is long," says the Nonconformist, '■'since we have met with any published ser7nons better calculated than these to stimulate devout thought, and to bring home to the soul the reality of a spiritual life." Roberts.— DISCUSSIONS ON THE GOSPELS. By the Rev. Alexander Roberts, D.D. Second Edition, revised and enlarged. 8vo. i6x. This volume is divided into two parts. Part I. "On the Language employed by our Lord and His Disciples," in which the author endeavours to prove that Greek was the language usually employed by Christ Himself in opposition to the common belief that Our Lord spoke Aramcean. Part II. is occupied with a discussion " On the Original Language of St. Matthew's Gospel," and on "The Origin and Authenticity of the Gos- pels. " " The author brings the vahtablc qualifications of learning, temper, and an independent judgment." — Daily News. Robertson.— PASTORAL COUNSELS. Being Chapters on Practical and Devotional Subjects. By the late John Robert- son, D.D. Third Edition, with a Preface by the Author of " The Recreations of a Country Parson. " Extra leap. 8vo. 6s. These Sermons are the free utterances of a strong and independent thinker. He does not depart from the essential doctrines of his Church, but he expounds them in a spirit of the widest charity, and always having most prominently in view the requirements of practical life. " Thesermons are admirable specimens of a- practical, earnest, and instructive style of pulpit teaching. " — Nonconformist. Rowsell.— MAN'S LABOUR AND GOD'S HARVEST. Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge in Lent, 1861. Fcap. 8vo. y. * ' We strongly recommend this little volume to young men, and especially to those who are contemplating working for Christ in Holy Orders." — Literary Churchman. Salmon.— THE REIGN OF, LAW, and other Sermons, preached in the Chapel of Trinity College, Dublin. By the Rev. George Salmon, D.D., Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Dublin. Crown 8vo. 6s. " Well considered, learned, and powerful discourses. " — Spectator. THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 29 « Sanday.— THE AUTHORSHIP AND HISTORICAL CHARACTER OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL, considered in reference to the Contents of the Gospel itself. A Critical Essay. By William Sanday, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. The object of this Essay is critical and nothing more. The Author [attempts to apply faithfully and persistently to the contents of the much {.disputed fourth Gospel that scientific method which has been so successful in other directions. " The facts of religion," the Author believes, "(i.e. the documents, the history of religious bodies, &c. ) are as much facts as the lie of a coal-bed or the formation of a coral-reef" " The Essay is not only most valuable in itself, but full of promise for the future." — Canon Westcott in the Academy. Selborne.— THE BOOK OF PRAISE : From the Best English Hymn Writers. Selected and arranged by Lord Selborne. With Vignette by Woolner. i8mo. 4s. 6d. - The present is an attempt to present, under a convenient arrangement, u. ^collection of such examples of a copious and interesting branch of popular %/iterature, as, after several years' study of the subject, have seemed to the .. Editor most worthy of being separated from the mass to which they belong. It has been the Editor's desire and aim to adhere strictly, in all cases in t. which it could be ascertained, to the genuine uncorrupted text of the authors Ithemselves. The names of the authors and date of composition of the : hymns, when known, are affixed, while notes are added to the volume, Igiving further details. The Hymns are arranged according to subjects. 1* " There is not room for two opinions as to the value of the 'Book of Praise. '" I— Guardian. "Approaches as nearly as one can conceive to perfection." I — Nonconformist. BOOK OF PRAISE HYMNAL. See end of this Catalogue. Sergeant.— SERMONS. By the Rev. E. W. Sergeant, M.A., Balliol College, Oxford; Assistant Master at Westminster College. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Smith.— PROPHECY A PREPARATION FOR CHRIST. Eiriit Lectures preached before the University of Oxford, being the Bampton Lectures for 1869. By R. Payne Smith, D.D., Dean of Canterbury. Second and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. The author's object in these Lectures is to shew that there exists in the Old Testament an element, which no criticism on naturalistic principles can either account for or explain away: that element is Prophecy The author endeavours to prove that its force does not consist merely ,„ its predictions ' ' These Lectures overflow with solid learning. —Record. 30 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Smith. — CHRISTIAN FAITH. Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge. By W. Saumarez Smith, M.A., Principal of St. Aidan's College, Birkenhead. Fcap. 8vo. y. 6d. "Appropriate and earnest sermons, suited to the practical exhortation of an educated congregation. " — Guardian. Stanley. — Works by the Very Rev. A. P. STANLEY, D.D., Dean of Westminster. THE ATHANASIAN CREED, with a Preface on the General Recommendations of the. Ritual Commission. Cr. 8vo. 2S. The object of the work is not so mttch to urge the omission or change of the Athanasian Creed, as to shew that such a relaxation ought to give offence to no reasonable or religious mind. With this view, the Dean of Westminster discusses in succession — (l) the Authorship of the Creed, (2) its Internal Characteristics, (3) the Peculiarities of its Use in the Church of England, (4) its Advantages and Disadvantages, (5) its various Interpretations, and (6) the Judgment passed upon it by the Ritual Commission. In conclusion, Dr. Stanley maintains that the use of the Athanasian Creed should no longer be made compulsory. "Dr. Stanley puts with admirable force the objections which 7nay be made to the Creed ; equally admirable, we think, in his statejnent of its advantages. " — Spectator. THE NATIONAL THANKSGIVING. Sermons preached in Westminster Abbey. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. These Servions are (1) "Death and Life," preached December 10, 1871 ; (2) " The Trumpet of Patmos," December 17, 1871 ; (3) " The Day of Thanksgiving," March 3, 1S72. " In point of fervour and polish by far the best specimens in print of Dean Stanley's eloquent style. " — Standard. Sunday Library. See end of this Catalogue. Swainson. — Works by C. A. Swainson, D.D., Canon of Chichester : — THE CREEDS OF THE CHURCH IN THEIR RE- LATIONS TO HOLY SCRIPTURE and the CONSCIENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN. 8vo. cloth. 9 s. The Lectures which compose this volume discuss, amongst others, the following subjects : " Faith in God," " Exercise of our Reason," "Origin and Authority of Creeds," and "Private Judgment, its use and exercise." ' ' Treating of abstruse points of Scripture, he applies them so forcibly to Christian duty and practice as to proi'e eminently serviceable to the Church."— John Bull. THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 31 Swainson (C. A.)— continued. THE AUTHORITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, and other LECTURES, delivered before the University of Cam- bridge. 8vo. cloth. \2S. The first series of Lectures in this work is on " The Words spoken by the Apostles of Jesus" "The Inspiration of God's Servants," "The Human Character of the Inspired Writers," and " The Divine Character of the Word written." The second embraces Lectures on "Sin as Im- perfection," "Sin as Self-will" "Whatsoever is not of Faith is Sin" " Christ the Saviour," and " The Blood of the Neiv Covenant." The third is on "Christians One Body in Christ," " The One Body the Spouse of Christ ," " Christ 's Prayer for Unity," " Our Reconciliation should be manifested in common Worship," and " Ambassadors for Christ." Taylor.— THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. New and Revised Edition. By Isaac Taylor, Esq. Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. The earlier chapters are occupied with an examination of the primitive history of the Christian Religion, and its relation to the Roman govern- ment; and here, as well as in the remainder of the work, the author shea's the bearing of that history on some of the difficult and interesting questions which have recently been claiming the attention of all earnest men. The last chapter of this New Edition treats of ' ' The Present Position of the ^Argument concerning Christianity," with special reference to M. Renan's . Vie de Jesus. Temple.— SERMONS PREACHED IN THE CHAPEL of RUGBY SCHOOL. By F. Temple, D.D., Bishop of Exeter. New and Cheaper Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo. 4s. 6d. This volume contains Thirty-five Sermons on topics more or less inti- mately connected with every -day life. The follmoing are a few of the subjects discoursed upon: — "Love and Duty:" "Coming to Christ;" "Great Men;" "Faith;" "Doubts;" "Scruples;" " Original Sin ;" "Friendship;" "Helping Others;" "The Discipline of Temptation;" "Strength a Duty;" " Worldliness ;" "III Temper;" "The Burial of the Past " A SECOND SERIES OF SERMONS PREACHED IN THE CHAPEL OF RUGBY SCHOOL. Second Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo. 6s. This Second Series of Forty-two brief, pointed, practical Sermons, on topics intimately connected with the every-day life of young and old, will be ^acceptable to all who are acquainted •with the First Series. The following are a few of the subjects treated of: — "Disobedience," "Almsgiving^" "The Unknown Guidance of God," "Apathy one of our Trials," "High Aims in leaders," "Doing our Best," " The Use of Knowledge," "Use of Observances," "Martha and Mary," "John the Baptist," "Severity 32 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Temple (F., D.D.) — continued. before Mercy" "Even Mistakes Punished" "Morality and Religion" "Children" "Action the Test of Spiritual Life," "Self-Respect," "Too Late," " The Tercentenary " A THIRD SERIES OF SERMONS PREACHED IN RUGBY SCHOOL CHAPEL IN 1867— 1869. Extra fcap. 8vo. 6s. This third series of Bishop Temple's Rugby Sermons, contains thirty-six brief discourses, including the " Good-bye" sermon preached on his leaving Rugby to enter on the office he now holds. Thring. — Works by Rev. Edward Thring, M.A. SERMONS DELIVERED AT UPPINGHAM SCHOOL. Crown 8vo. 5^. In this volume are contained Forty-seven brief Sermons, all on subjects more or less inti?nately connected with Public-school life. ' ' We desire very highly to commend these capital Sermons which treat of a boy's life and trials in a thoroughly practical way and with great simplicity and im- pressiveness. They deserve to be classed with the best of their kind. " — Literary Churchman. THOUGHTS ON LIFE-SCIENCE. New Edition, en- larged and revised. Crown 8vo. Js. 6d. In this volume are discussed in a familiar manner some of the most interesting problems between Science and Religion, Reason and Feeling. Tracts for Priests and People. By Various Writers. The First Series. Crown 8vo. %s. The Second Series. Crown 8vo. 8s. The whole Series of Fifteen Tracts may be had separately, price One Shilling each. Trench. — Works by R. Chenevix Trench, D.D., Arch- bishop of Dublin. (For other Works by the same author, see- Biographical, Belles Lettres, and Linguistic Cata- logues). NOTES ON THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. Twelfth Edition. 8vo. 12s. This work has taken its place as a standard exposition and interpreta- tion of Christ's Parables. The book is prefaced by an Introductory Essay in four chapters : — I. On the definition of the Parable. II. On Teach- ing by Parables. III. On the Interpretation of the Parables. IV. On other Parables besides those in the Scriptures. The author then proceeds to take up the Parables one by one, and by the aid of philology, history, THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 33 Trench — continued. antiquities, and the researches of travellers, shews forth the significance, ^beauty, and applicability of each, concluding with what he deems its true Imoral interpretation. In the numerous Notes are many valuable references, Illustrative quotations, critical and philological annotations, etc., and ap- pended to the volume is a classified list of fifty-six works on the Parables. l\ NOTES ON- THE MIRACLES OF OUR LORD. Ninth Edition. 8vo. 12s. In the 'Preliminary Essay'' to this work, all the momentous and in- teresting questions that have been raised in connection with Miracles, are discussed with considerable fulness. The Essay consists of six chapters : /. On the Names of Miracles, i. <=. the Greek words by which they are designated in the New Testament. II. The Miracles and Nature — What is the difference between a Miracle and any event in the ordinary course of Nature? III. The Authority of Miracles — Is the Miracle to command absolute obedience ? IV. The Evangelical, compared with the other cycles of Miracles. V. The Assaults on the Miracles — 1. The Jewish. 2. The Heathen (Celsus etc.). 3. The Pantheistic (Spinosa etc.). 4. The Sceptical (Hume). 5. The Miracles only relatively miraculous (Schleier- mocker). 6. The Rationalistic (Paulus). 7. The Historico- Critical ( Woolston, Strauss). VI. The Apologetic Worth of the Miracles. The author then treats the separate Miracles as he does the Parables. ¥; SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. New t" Edition, enlarged. 8vo. cloth. 12s. ' The study of synonyms in any language is valuable as a discipline for training the mind to close and accurate habits of thought ; more especially is this the case in Greek — " a language spoken by a people of the finest and. subtlest intellect ; who saw distinctions where others saw none; who di- vided out to different words what others often were content to huddle con- fusedly under a common term. . . . Where is it so desirable that we should miss nothing, that we should lose no finer intention of the writer, as in those words which are the vehicles of the very mind of God Himself?" iTAis Edition has been carefully revised, and a considerable number of new ''synonyms added. Appended is an Index to the Synonyms, and an Index to many other words alluded to or explained throughout the work. '"He is" the Athenaeum says, " a guide in this department of knowledge to whom his readers may intrust themselves with confidence. His sober judgment and sound sense are barriers against tlie misleading influence of arbitrary hypotheses. " ON THE AUTHORIZED VERSION OF THE NEW ! TESTAMENT. Second Edition. 8vo. Js. After some Introductory Remarks, in which the propriety of a revision is briefly discussed, the whole question of the merits of the present version is gone into in detail, in eleven chapters. Appended is a chronological list 3 34 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Trench — continued. of works bearing on the subject, an Index of the principal Texts con- sidered, an Index of Greek Words, and an Index of other Words re- ferred to throughout the book. STUDIES IN THE GOSPELS. Third Edition. 8vo. 10s. 6d. This book is published under the conviction that, the assertion often made is untrue, — viz. that the Gospels are in the main plain and easy, and that all the chief difficulties of the New Testament are to be found in the Epistles. These 'Studies" sixteen in number, are the fruit of a much larger scheme, and each Study deals with some important episode mentioned in the Gospels, in a critical, philosophical, and practical man- ner. Many references and quotations are added to the Notes. Among the subjects treated are: — The Temptation; Christ and tlie Samaritan Woman; The Three Aspirants; The Transfiguration; Zacchceus; The True Vine; The Penitent Malefactor ; Christ and the Two Disciples on the way to Emmaus. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLES to the SEVEN CHURCHES IN ASIA. Third Edition, revised. 8vo. &s. 6d. The present work consists of an Introduction, being a commentary on Rev. i. 4 — 20, a detailed examination of each of the Seven Epistles, in all its bearings, and an Excursus on the Historico-Trophetical Interpreta- tion of the Epistles. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. An Exposition drawn from the writings of St. Augustine, with an Essay on his merits as an Interpreter of Holy Scripture. Third Edition, en- larged. 8vo. ioj. 6d. The first half of the present work consists of a dissertation in eight chapters on "Augustine as an Interpreter of Scripture," the titles of the several chapters being as follow : — /. Augustine's General Views of Scrip- ture and its Interpretation. II. The Extei-nal Helps for the Interpreta- tion of Scripture possessed by Augustine. III. Augustine's Principles and Canons of Interpretation. IV. Augustine 's Allegorical Interpretation of Scripture. V. Illustrations of Augustine's Skill as an Interpreter of Scripture. VI. Augustine on John the Baptist and on St. Stephen. VII. Augustine on the Epistle to the Romans. VIII Miscellaneous Examples of 'Augustine 's Interpretation of Scripture. The latter half of the work consists of Augustine's Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, not however a mere series of quotations from Augustine, but n. connected account of his sentiments on the various passages of that Sermon, inter- spersed with criticisms by Archbishop Trench. SERMONS PREACHED in WESTMINSTER ABBEY. Second Edition. 8vo. lar. 6d. These Sermons embrace a wide variety of topics, and are thoroughly THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 35 Tre n ch — continued. practical, earnest, and ■ evangelical, and simple in style. The following are a few of the subjects: — "Tercentenary Celebration of Queen Eliza- beth's Accession;" "Conviction and Conversion;" "The Incredulity of Thomas;" "The Angels' Hymn;" "Counting the Cost;" " The Holy Trinity in Relation to our Prayers ;" ''''On the Death of General Have- lock;" "Christ Weeping over Jerusalem;" "Walking with Christ in White:' SHIPWRECKS OF FAITH. Three Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge in May, 1867. Fcap. 8vo. I. 2s.6d. These Sermons are especially addressed to young men. The subjects ', are '■'Balaam," "Saul," and "Judas Iscariot," These lives are set \ forth as beacon-lights, "to warn us off from perilous reefs and quick- 1 sands, which have been the destruction of many, and which might only too " easily be ours." The John Bull says, "they are, like all he writes, af- ' fetionate and earnest discourses. " SERMONS Preached for the most part in Ireland. 8vo. 10s. 6d. This volume consists of Thirty-two Sermons, the greater part of which were preached in Ireland ; the subjects are as follows : — Jacob, a Prince •with God and with Men — Agrippa — The Woman that was a Sinner — '^.Secret Faults — The Seven Worse Spirits — Freedom in the Truth — Joseph '•■ and his Brethren — Bearing one another's Burdens — Christ's Challenge to '..the World — The love of Money — The Salt of the Earth — The Armour of God — Light in the Lord — The Jailer of Philippi— The Thorn in the Flesh K^-Isaiah's Vision — Selfishness — Abraham interceding for Sodom — Vain Thoughts — Pontius Pilate — The Brazen Serpent — The Death and Burial ■ of Moses — A Word from the Cross — The Church's Worship in the Beauty of Holiness — Every Good Gift from Above — On the Hearing of Prayer — The Kingdom which cometh not with Observation — Pressing towards the Mark—Saul— The Good Shepherd— The Valley of Dry Bones — All Saints. Tudor.— The DECALOGUE VIEWED as the CHRIST- IAN'S LAW. With Special Reference to the Questions and I' Wants of the Times. By the Rev. Rich. Tudor, B. A. Crown . 8vo. ioj. 6d. The author's aim is to bring out the Christian sense of the Decalogue in its application to existing needs and questions. The work will be found to occupy "round which no other single work has hitherto filled. It is di- vided into Two Parts, the First Part consisting of three lectures on wt'Duty " and the Second Part of twelve lectures on the Ten Command- ments The Guardian says of it, ' 'His volume throughout is an outspoken and sound exposition of Christian morality, based deeply upon true founda- tions set forth systematically, and forcibly and plainly expressed— as good " t&specimen ofwhatpdpit lectures ought to be as is often to be found." 36 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Tulloch.— THE CHRIST OF THE GOSPELS AND THE CHRIST OF MODERN CRITICISM. Lectures on M. Renan's "Vie de Jesus." By John Tulloch, D.D., Principal of the College of St. Mary, in the University of St. Andrew's. Extra fcap. 8vo. 4-?. 6d. Vaughan. — Works by Charles J. Vaughan, D.D., Master of the Temple : — CHRIST SATISFYING THE INSTINCTS OF HU- MANITY. Eight Lectures delivered in the Temple Church. New Edition. Extra fcp. 8vo. 3^. 6d. The object of these Sermons is to exhibit the spiritual wants of human nature, and to prove that all of tliem receive full satisfaction in Christ. The various instincts which He is shewn to meet are those of Truth, Reverence, Perfection, Liberty, Courage, Sympathy, Sacrifice, and Unity. "We are convinced that there are congregations, in number unmistakeably increasing, to whom such Essays as these, full of thought and learning, are infinitely more beneficial, for they are more acceptable, than the recog- nised type of sermons." — John Bull. MEMORIALS OF HARROW SUNDAYS. A Selection of Sermons preached in Harrow School Chapel. With a View of the Chapel. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. los.dd. ' 'Discussing," says the John Bull, ' ' those forms of evil and impediments to duty which peculiarly beset the young, Dr. Vaughan has, with singular tact, blended deep thought and analytical investigation of principles with interesting earnestness and eloquent simplicity." The Nonconformist says ' ' the volume is. a precious one for family reading, and for the hand of the thoughtful boy or young man entering life. " THE BOOK AND THE LIFE, and other Sermons, preached before the University of Cambridge. New Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 4s. 6d. These Sermons are all of a thoroughly practical nature, and some of them are especially adapted to those who are in a state of anxious doubt. TWELVE DISCOURSES on SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH THE LITURGY and WORSHIP of the CHURCH OF ENGLAND. Fcap. 8vo. 6*. Four of these discourses were published in i860, in a work entitled Revision of the Liturgy ; four others have appeared in the form of separate sermons, delivered on various occasions, and published at the time by re- quest ; and four are new. The Appendix contains two articles, — one on "Subscription and Scruples," the other on the "Rubric and the Burtal Service.'" The Press characterises the volume as "eminently wise and temperate. '' THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 37 Vaughan (Dr. C. J.) — continued. LESSONS OF LIFE AND GODLINESS. A Selection of Sermons preached in the Parish Church of Doncaster. Fourth and Cheaper Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d. This volume consists of Nineteen Sermons, mostly on subjects connected with the every-day walk and conversation of Christians. They bear such titles as " The Talebearer," "Features of Charity," " The Danger of Re- lapse," " The Secret Life and the Outward," '■'■Family Prayer," "Zeal •without Consistency, " " The Gospel an Incentive to Industry in Business, " "Use and Abuse of the World." The Spectator styles them "earnest and human. They are adapted to every class and order in the social system, and will be read with wakeful interest by all who seek to amend whatever may be amiss in their natural disposition or in their acquired habits. " WORDS FROM THE GOSPELS. A Second Selection of Sermons preached in the Parish Church of Doncaster. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 4s-. 6d. The Nonconformist characterises these Sermons as ' ' of practical earnest- ness, of a thoughtfulness that penetrates the common conditions and ex- periences of life, 'and brings the truths and examples of Scripture to bear on them with singular force, and of a style that owes its real elegance to the simplicity and directness which have fine cultttrefor their roots. LESSONS OF THE CROSS AND PASSION. Six Lectures delivered in Hereford Cathedral during the Week before Easter, 1869. Fcap. 8vo. is. 6d. The titles of the Sermons are : — /. ' ' Too Late" (Matt. xxvi. 45 J. II. ' ' The Divine Sacrifice and the Human Priesthood. " III. ' 'Love not the World." IV. " The Moral Glory of Christ." V. "Christ made perfect through Suffering." VI. "Death the Remedy of Christ's Loneliness." " This little volume," the Nonconformist says, "exhibits all his best cha- racteristics. Elevated, calm, and clear, the Sermons owe much to their force, and yet they seem literally to owe nothing to it. They are studied, but their grace is the grace of perfect simplicity. " LIFE'S WORK AND GOD'S DISCIPLINE. Three Sermons. New Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. The Three Sermons are on the following subjects : — /. ' ' The Work burned and the Workmen saved." II. " The Individual Hiring." III. " The Remedial Discipline of Disease and Death." THE WHOLESOME WORDS OF JESUS CHRIST. Four Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge in November 1866. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. cloth. 3^. 6d. Dr Vauvhan uses the word "Wholesome" here in its literal and original sense, the sense in which St. Paul uses it, as meaning healthy, 38 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Vaughan (Dr. C. J-)— continued. sound, conducing to right living ; and in these Sermons he points out and illustrates several of the "wholesome" characteristics of tlie Gospel, — the Words of Christ. The John Bull says this volume is " replete with all the author's well-kncnvn vigour of thought and richness of expression." FOES OF FAITH. Sermons preached before the Uni- versity of Cambridge in November 1868. Fcap. 8vo. 3 s. 6d. The "Foes of Faith" preached against in these Four Sermons are: — I. "Unreality." II. "Indolence." III. "Irreverence." IV. "Incon- sistency. " " They are written" the London Review says, ' ' with culture and elegance, and exhibit the thoughtful earnestness, piety, and good sense of their author." LECTURES ON THE EPISTLE to the PHILIPPIANS. Third and Cheaper Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo. $s. Each Lectim is prefaced by a literal translation from the Greek of the paragraph which forms its subject, contains first a minute explanation of the passage on which it is based, and then a practical application of the verse or clause selected as its text. LECTURES ON THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN. Third and Cheaper Edition. Two Vols. Extra fcap. 8vo. oj. In this Edition of these Lectures, the literal translations of the passages expounded will be found interwoven in the body of the Lectures themselves. In attempting to expound this most-hard-to-understand Book, Dr. Vaughan, while taking from others what assistance he required, has not adhered to any particular school of interpretation, but has endeavoured to shew forth the significance of this Revelation by the help of his strong common sense, critical acumen, scholarship, and reverent spiHt. ' ' Dr. Vaughan's Ser- mons," the Spectator says, "are the most practical discourses on the Apocalypse with which we are acquainted. " prefixed is a Synopsis of the Book of Revelation, and appended is an Index of passages illustrating the language of the Book. EPIPHANY, LENT, AND EASTER. A Selection, of Expository Sermons. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. iaf. 6d. The first eighteen of these Sermons were preached during the seasons of i860, indicated in the title, and are practical expositions of passages taken from the lessons of the days on which they were delivered. Each Lecture is prefaced with a careful and literal rendering of the original of the passage of which the Lecture is an exposition. The Nonconformist says that ' ' in simplicity, dignity, close adherence to the words of Scripture, insight into ' the mind of the Spirit, ' and practical thought fulness, they are models of that species of pulpit instruction to which they belong." THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL. For English Readers. Part I., containing the First Epistle to the Thessalonians. Second Edition. 8vo. is. 6d. THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 39 Vaughan (Dr. C. J.) — confirmed. It is the object of this work to enable English readers, unacquainted •with Greek, to enter with intelligence into the meaning, connection, and phraseology of the writings of the great Apostle. ST. PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. The Greek Text, with English Notes. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. Js. 6d. This volume contains the Greek Text of the Epistle to the Romans as settled by the Rev. B. F. Westcott, D.D., for his complete recension of the Text of the New Testament. Appended to the text are copious critical and exegetical Notes, the result of almost eighteen years' 1 study on the part of the author. The "Index of Words illustrated or explained in the Notes" will be found, in some considerable degree, an Index to the Epistles as a ? whole. Prefixed to the volume is a discourse on "St. Raul's Conversion and Doctrine, " suggested by some recent publications on St. Raul's theo- logical standing. The Guardian says of the work, — "For educated young ' men his commentary seems to fill a gap hitherto unfilled. . . . As a whole, Dr. Vaughan appears to us to have given to the world a valuable book of original and careful and earnest thought bestowed on the accomplishment ' of a work which will be of much service and which is much needed." THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST DAYS. Series I. The Church of Jerusalem. Third Edition. " II. The Church of the Gentiles. Second Edition. " III. The Church of the World. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. cloth. 4s. 6d. each. Where necessary, the Authorized Version has been departed from, and a new literal translation taken as the basis of exposition. All possible topographical and historical light has been brought to bear on the subject ; and while thoroughly practical in their aim, these Lectures will be found to afford a fair notion of the history and condition of the Primitive Church. The British Quarterly says, — "These Sermons are worthy of all praise, and are models of pulpit teaching." COUNSELS for YOUNG STUDENTS. Three Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge at the Opening of the Academical Year 1870-71. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. The titles of the Three Sermons contained in this volume are: — /. " The Great Decision." II. "The House and the Builder." III. "The Prayer and the Counter-Prayer." They all bear pointedly, earnestly, and I sympathisingly upon the conduct and pursuits of young students and young men generally. NOTES FOR LECTURES ON CONFIRMATION, with suitable Prayers. Eighth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. is. 6d. In preparation for the Confirmation held in Harrow School Chapel, Dr Vaughan was in the habit of printing week by week, and distributing anion" the Candidates, somewhat full notes of the Lecture he purposed to 40 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Vaughan (Dr. C. J.) — continued. deliver to them, together with a form of Prayer adapted to the particular subject. He has collected these weekly Notes and Prayers into this little volume, in the hope that it may assist the labours of those who are engaged in preparing Candidates for Confirmation, and wlto find it difficult to lay their hand upon any one book of suitable instruction. THE TWO GREAT TEMPTATIONS. The Tempta- tion of Man, and the Temptation of Christ. Lectures delivered in the Temple Church, Lent 1872. Extra fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d. Vaughan. — Works by DAVID J. VAUGHAN, M.A., Vicar of St. Martin's, Leicester : — ■ SERMONS PREACHED IN ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, LEICESTER, during the Years 1855 and 1856. Cr. 8vo. 5*. 6rf - CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES AND THE BIBLE. New Edition, revised and enlarged. Fcap. 8vo. cloth. 5^. 6d. "This little volume," the Spectator says, "is a model of that honest and reverent criticism of the Bible which is not only right, but the duty of English clergymen in such times as these to put forth from the pulpit." Venn.— ON SOME OF THE CHARACTERISTICS OF BELIEF, Scientific and Religious, Being the Hulsean Lectures for 1869. By the Rev. J. Venn, M. A. 8vo. 6s. 6d. These discourses are intended to ilhtstrate, explain, and work out into some of their consequences, cei-tain characteristics by which the attainment of religious belief is prominently distinguished from the attainment of belief upon most other subjects. Warington.— THE WEEK OF CREATION ; or, THE COSMOGONY OF GENESIS CONSIDERED IN ITS RELATION TO MODERN SCIENCE. By George War- ington, Author of "The Historic Character of the Pentateuch Vindicated." Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. The greater part of this work is taken up with the teaching of the Cosmogony. Its purpose is also investigated, and a chapter is devoted to the consideration of the passage in which the difficulties occur. "A very able vindication of the Mosaic Cosmogony by a .writer who unites the ad- vantages of a critical knowledge of the Hebrew Jext and of distinguished scientific attainments. " — Spectator. Westcott. — Works by Brooke Foss WestCott, D.D., Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge; Canon of Peterborough : — The London Quarterly, speaking of Mr. Westcott, says, — "To a learn- ing and accuracy which co?nmand respect and confidence, he unites what are not always to be found in union with these qualities, the no less valuable faculties of lucid arrangement and graceful and facile expression." THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 41 Westcott (Dr. B. F '.)— continued. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE GOSPELS. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. \os. 6d. The author's chief object in this work has been to shew that there is a true mean between the idea of a formal harmonization of the Gospels and the abandonment of their absolute truth. After an Introduction on the General Effects of the course of Modern Philosophy on the popular views of Christianity, he proceeds to determine in what way the principles therein indicated may be applied to the study of the Gospels. The treatise ■is divided into eight Chapters : — /. The Preparation for the Gospel. II. The Jewish Doctrine of the Messiah. III. The Origin of the Gospels. IV. The Characteristics of the Gospels. V. The Gospel of St. John. %VI. and VII. The Differences in detail and of arrangement in the (Synoptic Evangelists. VIII. The Difficulties of the Gospels. The Ap- pendices contain much valuable subsidiary matter. ' A GENERAL SURVEY OF THE HISTORY OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT DURING THE FIRST FOUR CENTURIES. Third Edition, revised. Crown 8vo. 1 cm. 6d. The object of this treatise is to deal with the New Testament as a whole, and that on purely historical grounds. The separate books of which it is composed are considered not individually, but as claiming to be parts of the apostolic heritage of Christians. The Author has thus endeavoured to con- nect the history of the New Testament Canon with the growth and con- solidation of the Catholic Church, and to point out the relation existing ^between the amount of evidence for the authenticity of its component parts Land the whole mass of Christian literature. "The treatise," says the ; British Quarterly, "is a scholarly performance, learned, dispassionate, discriminating, worthy of his subject and of the present state of Christian literature in relation to it. " THE BIBLE IN THE CHURCH. A Popular Account of the Collection and Reception of the Holy Scriptures in the Christian Churches. New Edition. l8mo. 4s. 6d. The present volume has been written under the impression that a History of the whole Bible, and not of the New Testament only, would be required, if those unfamiliar with the subject were to be enabled to learn in what manner and with what consent the collection of Holy Scriptures •was first made and then enlarged and finally closed by the Church. Though the work is intended to be simple and popular in its method, the author for this very reason, has aimed at the strictest accuracy. A GENERAL VIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 10s. 6d. In the Introduction the author notices briefly the earliest vernacular versions of the Bible, especially those in Anglo-Saxon. Chapter I. is oc- 42 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Westcott (Dr. B. F.) — continued. citpied with an account of tke Manuscript English Bible from the 14th century downwards ; and in Chapter II. is narrated, with many interest- ing personal and other details, the External History of the Printed Bible. In Chapter III. is set forth the Internal History of the English Bible, shewing to what extent the various English Translations were independent, and to what extent the translators were indebted to earlier English and foreign versions. In the Appendices, among other interesting and valuable matter, will be found "Specimens of the Earlier and Later Wyclif/ite Versions;" " Chronological List of Bibles ;" "An Examination of Mr. Fronde's History of the English Bible." The Pall Mall Gazette calls the work "A brief, scholarly, and, to a great extent, an original contribu- tion to theological literatiire. " THE CHRISTIAN LIFE, MANIFOLD AND ONE. Six Sermons preached in Peterborough Cathedral. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. The Six Sermons contained in this volume are the first p'eached by the author as a Canon of Peterborough Cathedral: The subjects are: — /. "Life consecrated by the Ascension." II. "Many Gifts, One Spirit." III. " The Gospel of the Resurrection." IV. "Sufficiency of God." V. "Action the Test of Faith." VI. " Progress from the Confession of God." The Nonconformist calls them ' 'Beautiful discourses, singularly devout and tender. " THE GOSPEL OF THE RESURRECTION. Thoughts on its Relation to Reason and History. Third Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 4s. 6d. The present Essay is an endeavour to consider some of the elementary truths of Christianity, as a miraculous Revelation, from the side of History and Reason. The author endeavours to shew that a devout belief in the Life of Christ is quite compatible with a broad view of the course of human progress and a frank trust in the laws of our own minds. In the third edition the author has carefully reconsidered the whole argument, and by the help of several kind critics has been enabled to correct some faults and to remove some ambiguities, which had been overlooked before. He has not howevei- made any attempt to alter the general character of the book. ON THE RELIGIOUS OFFICE OF THE UNIVER- SITIES. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. " There is certainly, no man of our time — no man at least who has ob- tained the command of the public ear — whose utterances can compare with those of Professor Westcott for largeness of views and comprehensiveness of grasp There is -wisdom, and truth, and thought enough, and a harmony and mutual connection running through them all, which makes the collection of more real value than many an ambitious treatise." Literary Churchman. THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 43 Wilkins.— THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. An Essay, by A, S. Wilkins, M.A., Professor of Latin in Owens College, Manchester. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. y. 6d. This is the Hulsean Prize Essay for 1869. The subject proposed by the Trustees was, " The Distinctive Features of Christian as compared ■ymith Pagan Ethics." The author has tried to show that the Christian ethics so far transcend the ethics of any or all of the Pagan systems in method, in purity and in power, as to compel us to assume for them an origin, differing in kind from the origin of any purely human system. " It would be difficult to prraise too highly the spirit, the burden, the con- clusions, or the scholarly finish of this beautiful Essay. " — British Quarterly Review. Wilson.— RELIGIO CHEMICI. With a Vignette beauti- fully engraved after a Design by Sir Noel Paton. By George 1 Wilson, M.D. Crown 8vo. &s. 6d. "George Wilson," says the Preface to this volume, " had it in his heart for many years to write a book corresponding to the Religio Medici of Sir %Tkomas Browne, with the title Religio Chemici. Several of the Essays in this volume were intended to form chapters of it, but the health and leisure necessary to carry out his plans were never attainable, and thus fragments only of the designed work exist. These fragments, however, being in most eases like finished gems waiting to be set, some of them are now given in a collected form to his friends and the public.'" — "A more fascinating volume," the Spectator says, " has seldom fallen into our hands." Wilson.— THE BIBLE STUDENT'S GUIDE TO THE MORE CORRECT UNDERSTANDING of the ENGLISH R TRANSLATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, BY RE- FERENCE TO THE ORIGINAL HEBREW. By William Wilson, D.D., Canon of Winchester. Second Edition, carefully 1 revised. 4to. 25.V. " The author believes that the present work is the nearest approach to a complete Concordance of every word in the original that has yet been madefand as a Concordance, it may be found of great use to the Bible student while at the same time it serves the important object of furnishing the means of comparing synonymous words, and of eliciting their precise and distinctive meaning. The knowledge of the Hebrew language is not absolutely necessary to the profitable use of the ■work The plan of the work is simple ■ every word occurring in the English Version is arranged alihabetically and under it is given the Hebrew word or words, with a •Ml explanation of their meaning, of which it is meant to be a translation, \nd a complete list of the passages where it occurs. Following the general ■work is a complete Hebrew and English Index, which is, in effect, a Hebrew-English Dictionary. 44 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. Worship (The) of God and Fellowship among Men. Sermons on Public Worship. By Professor Maurice, and others. Fcap. 8vo. 3-r. 6d. This volume con'sists of Six Sermons preached by various clergymen, and although not addressed specially to any class, were suggested by recent efforts to bring the members of the Working Class to our Churches. The preachers were — Professor Maurice, Rev. T. J. Rowsell, Rev. J. LI. Davies, Rev. L>. J. Vaughan. Yonge (Charlotte M.)— SCRIPTURE READINGS for SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES. By Charlotte M. Yonge, Author of "The Heir of Redclyffe." Globe 8vo. is. 6d; With Comments, y. 6d. Second Series. From Joshua to Solomon. Extra fcap. 8vo. is. 6d. With Comments. $s. 6d. Third Series. The Kings and Prophets. Extra fcap. 8vo., is. 6d., with Comments, $s.6d. Actual need has led the author to endeavour to prepare a reading book convenient for study with children, containing the very words of the Bible, with only a few expedient omissions, and arranged in Lessons of such length as by experience she lias found to suit with children's ordinary power of accurate attentive interest. The verse form has been retained be- cause of its convenience for children reading in class, and as more re- sembling their Bibles ; but the poetical portions have been given in their lines. Professor Huxley at a meeting of the London School-board, par- ticularly mentioned the Selection made by Miss Yonge, as an example of how selections might be made for School reading. " Her Comments are models of their land." — Literary Churchman. In crown 8vo. cloth extra, Illustrated, price 4s. 6d. each Volume ; also kept in morocco and calf bindings at moderate prices, and in Ornamental Boxes containing Four Vols., 21s. each. MACMILLAN'S SUNDAY LIBRARY. A Series of Original Works by Eminent Authors. The Guardian says — "All Christian households owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Macmillanfor that useful ' Sunday Library. ' " THE FOLLOWING VOLUMES ARE NOW READY:— The Pupils of St. John the Divine. — By Charlotte M. Yonge, Author of "The Heir of Redclyffe. " The author first gives a full sketch of the life and work of the Apostle himself, drawing the material from all the most trustworthy authorities, sacred and prof ane ; then follow the lives oj 'his immediate disciples, Ignatius, MACMILLAN'S SUNDAY LIBRARY. 45 Quadratus, Polycarp, and others; which are succeeded by the lives of many of their pupils. She then proceeds to sketch from their foundation the history of the many churches planted or superintended by St. John and his pupils, both in the East and West. In the last chapter is given an account of the present aspect of the Churches of St. John, — the Seven Churches of Asia mentioned in Revelations ; also those of Athens, of Nimes, of Lyons, and others in the West. " Young and old will be equally refreshed and taught by these pages, in which nothing is dull, and nothing is far-fetched. " — Churchman. The Hermits. — By Canon Kingsley. The volume contains the lives of some of the most remarkable early Egyptian, Syrian, Persian, and Western hermits. The lives are mostly translations from the original biographies. "It is from first to last a production full of interest, written with a liberal appreciation of what is •memorable for good in the lives of the Hermits, and with a wise forbear- iflnce towards legends which may be due to the ignorance, and, no doubt, yalso to the strong faith of the early chroniclers." — London Review. Seekers after God. — Lives of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. By the Rev. F. W. Farrar, M.A., F.R.S., Head Master of Marlborough College. In this volume the author seeks to record the lives, and gives copious samples of the almost Christ-like utterances of, with perhaps the exception of Socrates, " the best and holiest characters presented to us in the records of antiquity.'' The volume contains portraits of Aurelius, Seneca, and Antoninus Pius. ' ' We can heartily recommend it as healthy in tone, Instructive, interesting, mentally and spiritually stimulating and nu- ftritious. " — Nonconformist. [England's Antiphon. — By George Macdo„nald. fThis volume deals chiefly with the lyrk or song-form of English re- ligious poetry, other kinds, however, being not infrequently introduced. The author has sought to trace the course of our religious poetry from the ': \-xth to the V)th centuries, from before Chaucer to Tennyson. He en- X deavours to accomplish his object by selecting the men who have produced \the finest religious poetry, setting forth the circumstances in which they ■were placed, characterising the men themselves, critically estimating their [productions, and giving ample specimens of their best religious lyrics, and quotations from larger poems, illustrating the religious feeling of the poets or their times. "Dr. Macdonald has very successfully endeavoured to ! bring together in his little book a whole series of the sweet singers of Eng- land and makes them raise, one after the other, their voices in praise of God'.'"— Guardian. __ ' Great Christians of France : St. Louis and Calvin. By M. Guizot. I From among French Catholics, M. Guizot has, in this volume, selected 46 MACMILLAN'S SUNDAY LIBRARY. Louis, King of France in the 13th century, and among Protestants, Calvin the Reformer in the 1 6th century, "as two earnest and illustrious repre- sentatives of the Christian faith and life, as well as of the loftiest thought and purest morality of their country and generation." In setting forth with considerable fulness the lives of these prominent and representative Christian men, M. Guizot necessarily introduces much of the political and religious history of the periods during which they lived. "A very interest- ing book," says the Guardian. Christian Singers of Germany. — By Catherine WlNKWORTH. In this volume the autJwress gives an account of the principal hymn- writers of Germany fi'om the qth to the 19th century, introducing qynple specimens from their best productions. In the translations, while the English is perfectly idiomatic and harmonious, the characteristic differ- ences of the poems have been carefully imitated, and the general style and metre retained. "Miss Winkworth's voluine of this series is, according to our view, the choicest production of her pen." — British Quarterly Review. Apostles of Mediaeval Europe. — By the Rev. G. F. Maclear, D.D., Head Master of King's College School, London. In two Introductory Chapters the author notices some of the chief cha- racteristics of the mediaeval pei'iod itself; gives a graphic sketch of the de- vastated state of Europe at the beginning of that period, and an interesting account of the religions of the three great groups of vigorous barbarians — the Celts, the Teutons, and the Sclaves — who had, wave afler wave, over- flowed its surface. He then proceeds to sketch the lives and work of the chief of the courageous nun who devoted themselves- to the stupendous task of their conversion and civilization, during a period extending from the 5th to the 13th century ; such as St. Patrick, St. Columba, St. Colum- banus, St. Augustine of Canterbury, St. Boniface, St. Olaf, St. Cyril, Raymond Suit, and others. "Mr. Maclear will have done a great work if his admirable little volume shall help to break up the dense ignorance which is still prevailing among people at large." — Literary Churchman. Alfred the Great. — By Thomas Hughes, Author of "Tom Brown's School Days." Third Edition. " The time is come when we English can no longer stand by as in- terested spectators only, but in which every one of our institutions will be sifted with rigour, and will have to shew cause for its existence. .... As a help in this search, this life of the typical English King is here offered." Besides other illustrations in the volume, a Map of England is prefixed, shewing its divisions about 1000 A.D., as well as at the present time. "Mr. Hughes has indeed written a good book, blight and readable we need hardly say, and of a very considerable historical value." — Spectator. Nations Around. — By Miss A. Keary. This volume contains many details concerning the social and political MACMILLAN'S SUNDAY LIBRARY. 47 fife, the religion, the superstitions, the literahire, the architecture, the com- l merce, the industry, of the Nations around Palestine, an acquaintance with ■ which is necessary in order to a clear and full understanding of the history of the Hebrew people. The authoress has brought to her aid all the most \ recent investigations into the early history of these nations, referring fre- quently to the fruitful excavations which have brought to light the ruins and hieroglyphic writing's of many of their buried cities. " Miss Keary \has skilfully availed herself of the opportunity to write a pleasing and in- structive book." — Guardian. "A valuable and interesting volume." — Illustrated Times. St. Anselm. — By the Very Rev.R.W. Church, M.A., Dean of St. Paul's. Second Edition. In this biography of St. Anselm, while the story of his life as a man, a Christian, a clergyman, and a politician, is told impartially and fully, much light is shed on the ecclesiastical and political history of the time during which he lived, and on the internal economy of the monastic estab- lishments of the period. The author has drawn his materials from con- temporary biographers and chroniclers, while at the same time he has , consulted the best recent authors who have treated of the ?nan and his time. "It is a sketch by the hand of a master, with every line marked iy taste, learning, and real apprehension of the subject." — Pall Mall "azette. Francis of Assisi. — By Mrs. Oliphant. w The life of this saint, the f minder of the Franciscan order, and one of tithe most remarkable men of his time, illustrates some of the chief cha- racteristics of the religious life of the Middle Ages. Much information is \ given concerning the missionary labours of the saint and his companions, as well as concerning the religious and monastic life of the time. Many Wgraphic details are introduced from the saint's contemporary biographers, Munich shew forth the prevalent beliefs of the period; and abundant samples are given of St. Francis's own sayings, as well as afeiv specimens of his simple tender hymns. ' ' We are grateful to Mrs. Oliphant for a book of much interest and pathetic beauty, a book which none can read without 'ieingthe better for it."— John Bull. Pioneers and Founders ; or, Recent Workers in the Mission Field. By Charlotte M. Yonge, Author of "The Heir of Redclyffe." With Frontispiece, and Vignette Portrait of 6 Bishop Heber. The missionaries whose biographies are here given, are— John Eliot, the Aiostle of the Red Indians ; David Brainerd, the Enthusiast ; Christ- Man F.Schwartz, the Councillor of Tanjore; Henry Martyn, the Scholar- ^Missionary ■ William Carey and Joshua Marshman, the Serampore Mis- sionaries : the Judson Family; the Bishops of Calcutta, — Thomas iMiMlrtim Reginald Heber, Daniel Wilson; Samuel Marsden, the Aus- tralian Chaplain and Friend of the Maori; John Williams, the Martyr 48 MACMILLAN'S SUNDAY LIBRARY. of Erromango; Allen Gardener, the Sailor Martyr; Charles Frederick Mackenzie, the Martyr of Zambesi. " Likely to be one of the most popular of the 'Sunday Library 1 volumes.'''' — Literary Churchman. Angelique Arnauld, Abbess of Port Royal. By Frances Martin. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. This new volume of the ' Sunday Library 1 contains the life of a very remarkable woman founded on the best authorities. She was a Roman Catholic Abbess who lived more than 200 years ago, whose life contained much struggle and suffering. But if we look beneath the surface, we find that sublime virtues are associated with her errors, there is something admirable in everything she does, and the study of her history leads to a continual enlargement of our own range of thought and sympathy. THE "BOOK OF PRAISE" HYMNAL, COMPILED AND ARRANGED BY LORD SELBORNE. In tlie following four forms : — A. Beautifully printed in Royal 32mo., limp cloth, price 6d. B. ,, , „ Small 18mo., larger type, cloth limp, Is. C. Same edition on fine paper, cloth, Is. 6d. Also an edition with Music, selected, harmonized, and composed by JOHN HULLAH, in square 18mo., cloth, 3s. 6d. The large acceptance which has been given to " The Book of Praise" by all classes of Christian people encourages the Publishers in entertaining the hope that this Hymnal, which is mainly selected from it, may be ex- tensively used in Congregations, and in some degree at least meet the desires of those who seek uniformity in common worship as a means towards that unity which pious souls yearn after, and which our Lord prayed for in behalf of his Church. "The office of a. hymn is not to teach controversial Theology, but to give the voice of song to practical religion. No doubt, to do this, it must embody sound doctrine ; but it ought to do so, not after the ?nanner of the schools, but with the breadth, freedom, and simplicity of the Fountain-head. " On this principle has Sir R. Palmer proceeded in the preparation of this book. The arrangement adopted is the following : — Part I. consists of Hymns arranged according to the subjects of the Creed— "God the Creator," "Christ Incarnate," "Christ Crucified," "Christ Risen," "Christ Ascended" "Christ's Kingdom and Judg- ment," etc. Part II. comprises Hymns arranged according to the subjects of the Lords Prayer. PART III. Hymns for natural and sacred seasons. There are 320 Hymns in all. CAMBRIDGE: — PRINTED BY J. PALMER. Cornell University Library B1571 .B61 Modern utilitarianism: or. The systems o 3 1924 029 045 479 olin FZmt3JT*Z^331&