Mr. Spencer's philosophy as a whole—His psychology, and his system of ethics—The sacred origin of moral injunctions, and the secularization of morals.

A certain honesty and directness of mind prevent Sophereus from being bewildered by the Spencerian philosophy. Before his next meeting with the scientist, he has reviewed the main features of this philosophy as developed in Mr. Spencer's published works; and he has taken notice of the warning which Mr. Spencer has given to his readers in the preface to his "Data of Ethics," that "there will probably be singled out for reprobation from this volume, doctrines which, taken by themselves, may readily be made to seem utterly wrong." There is not much likelihood that Sophereus will be able, if he is willing, to avail himself of this "opportunity for misrepresentation" in a discussion with such a champion of Mr. Spencer's philosophy as the scientist who explains and defends it, especially as they have the works before them to refer to. Being thus respectively equipped for the discussion, the conference between them proceeds:

Sophereus. Before I give you my convictions respecting Mr. Spencer's philosophy as a whole, I wish to say something about the passage which you read from the preface to his "Data of Ethics," because it is the key to his ethical system. In the first place, to what does he refer when he speaks of "the current creed"? When I undertake to investigate a system of morality, the only "creed" that I care about—the only one that is of any importance—is that which accepts, as a matter of belief, the existence of the Creator and Supreme Governor of the universe, from whose infinite will and purposes have proceeded certain moral as well as physical laws. This, I take it, is the "creed" of which Mr. Spencer speaks; the one which assigns moral injunctions to the will of a Supreme Lawgiver as "their supposed sacred origin." It is to this creed that he opposes his "secularization of morals," which must take the place of their supposed sacred origin, because the authority of the latter is rapidly dying out of the world. It is this "creed" which is rejected by those who "assume that the controlling agency furnished by it may be safely thrown aside, and the vacancy left unfilled by any other agency."

Undoubtedly there are and always have been numerous persons who appear practically to think that the sacred origin of morality can be safely rejected, and that the vacancy may be left unfilled by any other restraining agency. The deliberate and willful murderer, the burglar, the adulterer, and many of the other criminal classes, not only appear to reject "the current creed," but they would be very glad to have it assumed that there is no other restraining agency to take its place. So, too, there are persons who break no moral law, whose lives are pure, but who, having theoretically persuaded themselves that there is no sacred origin of moral injunctions, omit to provide, for themselves or others, any other controlling agency to fill the vacuum. But this latter class is not very numerous; and if, without meaning any offense to them, their number is added to that of the criminal classes, to make up the aggregate of those who reject "the current creed," we have not a very large body compared with the whole body of persons in civilized communities who adhere to "the current creed," who live by it, and who think that others should live by it too, as the ultimate foundation of those social laws which take cognizance of men's conduct toward one another. So that I do not quite understand the assertion that "moral injunctions are losing the authority given by their supposed sacred origin"; connected as it is with the other assertion that society is "rapidly progressing" to that vacuum which is to follow the complete rejection of the one guide without the substitution of another in its place. I am quite aware that there has been of late years an increasing amount of what is called infidelity, or unbelief, or atheism. But I am quite sure that there has not been a general theoretical or practical rejection of so much of the religious creed of mankind as assigns to the will of a supreme and supernatural lawgiver certain moral injunctions. If we confine our view to Christendom alone, it is certain that the growth, activity, and influence of the various religious bodies are not materially checked, and that religious beliefs are not by any means losing their hold upon great multitudes of people. If we survey the regions where the Mohammedan faith prevails, the same general result is found, whatever Christians may think of the beliefs or practices of that vast body of the human race. And, even when we penetrate among the races which are less civilized, we find very few races or tribes in which there does not prevail some idea of some kind of command proceeding from some deity or other, whatever we may think of the character of that deity or of the nature of the command.

But I presume that Mr. Spencer meant to confine his assertion of the necessity for a secularization of morals, and his assumption that their sacred origin is rapidly passing away from men's beliefs, to the state of society as it exists now in Western civilization; and my observation of this portion of the world is, that those who reject what I presume he means by "the current creed" are, first, a class of theorizers: and, secondly, the criminal classes; and that the aggregate of the two is not, after all, so formidable that we ought to conclude that the regulative system of the sacred origin of moral injunctions is "no longer fit" for any practical purpose. I do not, therefore, recognize what he considers the supreme practical necessity for "the secularization of morals" to take the place of a system which is worn out.

Kosmicos. You have left out of the case a very important element. Mr. Spencer antagonizes those who reject the current creed against those who defend it. The former, while they reject the current creed, do not recognize the necessity for any other controlling agency. The latter, while they defend the current creed, maintain that nothing can take its place as a regulating agency. Between them they create a vacuum, which one class wishes for and the other fears. This is the vacuum which he says can be and must be filled by the secularization of morals. It is a vacuum in philosophical speculation about the origin of morality, and, when the conclusion is reached, it becomes a practical and pressing question how it is to be carried out.

Sophereus. Precisely; and, when the conclusion is reached, it is to be carried out in legislation and government, or else the conduct of men toward one another in society is not to be regulated by public authority at all, but is to be left to each man's perception of what will produce the greatest amount of pleasure and happiness, or the least amount of pain and misery. Now, it is pretty important to settle at the outset whether those who defend the current creed are right or wrong when they say that nothing which will answer the same purpose can be found to take its place. They constitute one of the classes who will be responsible for the supposed vacuum; and their share in that vacuum, their contribution to it, if I may use such an expression, consists in their assertion that nothing of any value can take the place of the sacred origin of moral injunctions. The practical test of whether they are right or wrong is to be found in legislation. Let us suppose, then, a legislative assembly in which there is a proposal to change the law of murder, or to do away with it altogether. A member who does not believe in any sacred origin of the command "Thou shalt do no murder," moves not only to abolish the death-penalty, but to abolish all legal definition of the crime, and leave every man to be restrained by the consciousness that, if he takes the life of another, he will cause a great deal of pain and misery to the relations and friends of that person. The mover argues that "the current creed" of morality is worn out; is "no longer fit," as a regulator; and that the safest and best regulator is the perception of the beneficial effects of actions of kindness and good-will, and of the disastrous effects of cruelty and malice. He is answered by one who defends the current creed, and who maintains that, as human nature is constituted, the utilitarian system of morals can not take the place of the sacred origin as the ultimate foundation of social relations. But the majority of the assembly think that the mover of the proposition has the best of the argument, and they proceed to "secularize" morals by passing his bill doing away with the law of murder altogether. I am not obliged to extend my travels anywhere, where I do not care to go, and I confess I should not like to visit that country after it had thus "secularized" morality.

Kosmicos. Now just be careful to note that this whole science of conduct—the science of ethics—the foundation of right and wrong, is a product of evolution. As in the development of organisms the higher and more elaborate are reached after a great length of time, as in mechanics knowledge of the empirical sort evolves into mechanical science by first omitting all qualifying circumstances and generalizing in absolute ways the fundamental laws of forces, so empirical ethics evolve into rational ethics by first neglecting all complicating incidents and formulating the laws of right action apart from the obscuring effects of special conditions. There are thus reached, after a great lapse of time, those ideal ethical truths which express the absolutely right. Mr. Spencer treats of the ideal man among ideal men; the ideal man existing in the ideal social state. "On the evolution hypothesis," he says, "the two presuppose one another; and only when they coexist can there exist that ideal conduct which absolute ethics has to formulate, and which relative ethics has to take as the standard by which to estimate divergences from right, or degrees of wrong."[130] But, again, observe that society is now in a transition state; the ultimate man has not yet been reached; the evolution of ethics is, however, going on, retarded as it may be by various frictions arising from imperfect natures. But there is in progress an adaptation of humanity to the social state, and the ultimate man will be one in whom this process has gone so far as to produce a correspondence between all the promptings of his nature and all the requirements of his life, as carried on in society; so that there is an ideal code of conduct formulating the behavior of the completely adapted man in the completely evolved society.[131]

Sophereus. But I understand that we have already reached, or are very soon to reach, a condition of things in which the supposed sacred origin of moral injunctions is now, or very shortly will become, no guide. We are to fill the vacuum which is caused, or is about to be caused, by its disappearance, by substituting as the standard of right and wrong the perceptions which we can have of the effects of actions upon the sum total of happiness, because this will be the sole standard in the ideal state of society in which the ideal man will ultimately find himself. I will not insist on the total depravity of man's nature, because I never borrow an argument from theologians. But it has been one of the conclusions that I have drawn from some study of human nature, that it requires very strong restraints. Not only must some of the restraints be of the strongest kind, but they must be simple, positive, and adapted to the varying dispositions and intelligence of men. There can not well be imagined any restraining moral force so efficacious as that which is derived from a belief that the Creator of the universe has ordained some moral laws; has specialized certain conduct as right and certain conduct as wrong, without regard to varying circumstances. As the foundation of all that part of legislation that takes cognizance of the simpler relations of men to one another—those relations which are always the same—the sacred origin of moral injunctions is of far greater force than the perception of the greatest-happiness principle can possibly be. If a man is tempted to commit murder, is he not far more likely to be restrained by a law which he knows will punish him without regard to the misery he would cause to the friends and relatives of the person whom he is tempted to kill, than he would be if the law were based on the latter consideration alone? Do away with all legislation which punishes the simpler crimes first and foremost because they break the laws of God, and substitute as the restraining agency individual recognition of the effect of actions upon the sum total of happiness, and you would soon see that one of two consequences would follow: either you would have no criminal code at all, or it would be one that would be governed by the most fluctuating and uncertain standards. Moreover, how is the transition from the sacred source of the simpler moral injunctions to the secularization of morals to be effected? I once heard a wise person say that if a thing is to be done, an ingenious man ought to be able to show how it is to be done. I suppose the secularization of morals means the complete renovation of our ideas of right and wrong, by taking as the sole standard the pleasure or pain, the happiness or unhappiness, which actions will produce. How are you going to reach this ideal state? The vacuum is rapidly coming about. How are you going to take the first step in filling it? Before the vacuum is complete, you must do something. You have waited until the evolution of conduct of the purely utilitarian type has made some great advances; but the ideal state is not yet reached by all men. You wish to hasten its approach, and you must begin to act. There is nothing for you to do but to formulate the new moral code and put it in operation. You must make your laws—if you continue to have laws—so that murder and lying and theft will not be punished because the Almighty has prohibited them, but they will be punished simply because they produce misery. Do you think you would ever see every individual of such a community brought to an ideal congruity between all the promptings of his nature and all the requirements of his life, as carried on in society? That you would have nothing but "the completely adapted man in the completely evolved society"? I fancy that you would often have to fall back upon the sacred origin of moral injunctions, and to punish some conduct because it breaks a law of divine authority. I may have been too much in the habit of looking at things practically; but I have not yet discovered that the feeling of obligation, the sense of duty, what is recognized as moral obligation, having its origin in some command, and enforced by some kind of compulsion, can be dispensed with.

Kosmicos. I must refer you to Mr. Spencer's explanation of the fact that the sense of duty or moral obligation fades away as the moral motive emerges from all the political, religious, and social motives, and frees itself from the consciousness of subordination to some external agency. He does not shrink from the conclusion because it will be startling. He tells us that it will be to most very startling to be informed that "the sense of duty or moral obligation is transitory, and will diminish as fast as moralization increases." He fortifies his position thus:

Startling though it is, this conclusion may be satisfactorily defended. Even now progress toward the implied ultimate state is traceable. The observation is not infrequent that persistence in performing a duty ends in making it a pleasure, and this amounts to the admission that, while at first the motive contains an element of coercion, at last this element of coercion dies out, and the act is performed without any consciousness of being obliged to perform it. The contrast between the youth on whom diligence is enjoined, and the man of business so absorbed in affairs that he can not be induced to relax, shows us how the doing of work, originally under the consciousness that it ought to be done, may eventually cease to have any such accompanying consciousness. Sometimes, indeed, the relation comes to be reversed; and the man of business persists in work from pure love of it when told that he ought not. Nor is it thus with self-regarding feelings only. That the maintaining and protecting of wife by husband often result solely from feelings directly gratified by these actions, without any thought of must; and that the fostering of children by parents is in many cases made an absorbing occupation without any coercive feeling of ought; are obvious truths which show us that even now, with some of the fundamental other-regarding duties, the sense of obligation has retreated into the background of the mind. And it is in some degree so with other-regarding duties of a higher kind. Conscientiousness has in many outgrown that stage in which the sense of a compelling power is joined with rectitude of action. The truly honest man, here and there to be found, is not only without thought of legal, religious, or social compulsion, when he discharges an equitable claim on him; but he is without thought of self-compulsion. He does the right thing with a simple feeling of satisfaction in doing it; and is, indeed, impatient if anything prevents him from having the satisfaction of doing it.

Evidently, then, with complete adaptation to the social state, that element in the moral consciousness which is expressed by the word obligation will disappear. The higher actions required for the harmonious carrying on of life will be as much matters of course as are those lower actions which the simple desires prompt. In their proper times and places and proportions, the moral sentiments will guide men just as spontaneously and adequately as now do the sensations. And though, joined with their regulating influence when this is called for, will exist latent ideas of the evils which non-conformity would bring, these will occupy the mind no more than do ideas of the evils of starvation at the time when a healthy appetite is being satisfied by a meal.

Sophereus. There is a religion in the world called Christianity, with which we are tolerably familiar. It comprehends a system of morality which, when completely observed, develops the truly good man, the man who does the right thing with a feeling of satisfaction in doing it, and brings about those higher actions which are required for the harmonious carrying on of life, as matters of course, just as surely as the same result can be brought about by the most ideal secularization of morals that any philosophical theories can accomplish. Whatever may be the evidences by which the sacred origin of Christianity is supposed to be established, it is certain that this religion does not omit, but on the contrary it presupposes and asserts, as the foundation of its moral code, that the sense of obligation to which it appeals is the consciousness of obligation to obey divine commands. It proceeds upon the idea that human nature stands in need of some coercion; that the sense of obligation is not to be allowed to retreat into the background of the mind, but that a sense of the compelling power must be kept joined with rectitude of action, otherwise there will be a failure of rectitude. It is considered, I believe, that the adaptation of the Christian morality to the whole nature of man, by means of the compelling power, the consciousness of which is not to be transitory, but is to be universal and perpetual, is very strong proof that this religion came from a being who understood human nature better than we can understand it. However this may be, it is, at all events, certain that the scheme of Christian morality proceeds upon the necessity for a more efficacious regulator of human conduct than the simple feeling of satisfaction in doing right, or the feeling of dissatisfaction in doing wrong; and, although the true Christian is, in completeness of moral character, like Mr. Spencer's ideal man, and although a society completely Christian would be that ideal social state in which there would be perfect congruity between the lives of men and the welfare of that society, yet the Christian religion, if I understand it rightly, does not assume that there will be more than an approximation to that universal state of perfection while the human race remains on earth. The proof of this is to be found in the fact that this religion does not contemplate a time when divine command is to cease as the restraining agency on earth; but, on the contrary, it appears to assume that obedience to the divine will is to continue in another life to be a perpetual motive, as it has been in this life. All this may be without such proof as "science" demands, but it is certain that the scheme of Christian morality is based upon the idea that the Creator has made obedience to his laws, because they are his laws, the great regulator of human conduct. If the Creator had so made men that the consciousness of the effect of conduct on the happiness or misery of our fellow-men would be sufficient as a regulator, it is rational to conclude that he would not have imposed commands which were to be obeyed because they are commands. However great may be the approximation to a complete adaptation of the social state, I do not look forward to the disappearance of that element in the moral consciousness which is expressed by the word obligation, because obligation, in its ultimate sense, is obedience to a higher power. Obedience for its own sake, obedience because there is a command, irrespective of all the reasons for the command, is a law which is illustrated in very many of the relations of life. A wise parent will sometimes explain to his child why he commands some things and prohibits others; but if he means to train that child in the way he should go, he will sometimes require him to obey for the mere purpose of teaching him that obedience without question or inquiry is a law of his nature. A master of a vessel, which is in peril at sea, gives an order to the sailors. They may or may not understand the reasons for it. But what sort of sailors would they be if they did not act upon the consciousness that unquestioning obedience is the law of their relation to the ship?

In the earliest traditions that we have of the human race, as those traditions are accepted by the Western nations, we find a pretty striking and very simple instance of this law of obedience. The first pair of human beings are placed in a garden where they are at liberty to eat of the fruit of every tree save one, but of that one their Creator absolutely forbids them to partake. He assigns to them no reason for the prohibition, but he lays upon them his absolute command, on the penalty of death if they are disobedient. One of them begins to reason about the matter—an allegorical creature or being, called the serpent, tempting her with certain advantages that she will get from eating this particular fruit. She yields, disobeys, and persuades her husband to do the same. The consequences follow, as their Creator told them they would. The law of obedience which this story illustrates has been in operation through all the ages, and society can no more dispense with it than it can dispense with any of the physical laws that govern the universe.

Kosmicos. Are you going back to the fables for the sacred origin of moral injunctions? I thought you had got beyond that.

Sophereus. I use an illustration wherever I find it. I am perfectly content that you should call the story of Adam and Eve a fable, but the law of obedience which it illustrates is a tremendous fact. The incident, fable or no fable, is eminently human, and it is occurring every day in human experience. It is not strange that the first Hebrew tradition should have been one that illustrates in so simple a manner the existence of the law of obedience. In like manner, it is not strange that the Christian system of ethics should have been based on the existence of this same law of obedience to commands. This Christian system of ethics has dispensed with a great many minute observances which one branch of the Semitic race believed were imposed upon them as commands by their Creator; but it has not displaced the law of obedience, or dispensed with certain moral injunctions as divine commands, for it proceeds upon the great truth that human nature requires that kind of restraint, and that there are certain actions which can not be left without it.

Kosmicos. Mr. Spencer has anticipated you. Your reference to Christianity is not happy. Having gone through with the explanation of the evolution process in the development of the highest conception of morals, and having shown that what now characterizes the exceptionally highest natures will eventually characterize all, he has something to say about the reception of his conclusions, to which, as you have referred to the Christian system of morals, you would do well to attend:

§ 98. That these conclusions will meet with any considerable acceptance is improbable. Neither with current ideas nor with current sentiments are they sufficiently congruous.

Such a view will not be agreeable to those who lament the spreading disbelief in eternal damnation, nor to those who follow the apostle of brute force in thinking that because the rule of the strong hand was once good it is good for all time; nor to those whose reverence for one who told them to put up the sword is shown by using the sword to spread his doctrine among heathens. From the ten thousand priests of the religion of love, who are silent when the nation is moved by the religion of hate, will come no sign of assent; nor from their bishops who, far from urging the extreme precept of the Master they pretend to follow, to turn the other cheek when one is smitten, vote for acting on the principle—strike lest ye be struck. Nor will any approval be felt by legislators who, after praying to be forgiven their trespasses as they forgive the trespasses of others, forthwith decide to attack those who have not trespassed against them; and who, after a Queen's speech has invoked "the blessing of Almighty God" on their councils, immediately provide means for committing political burglary.

But though men who profess Christianity and practice paganism can feel no sympathy with such a view, there are some, classed as antagonists to the current creed, who may not think it absurd to believe that a rationalized version of its ethical principles will eventually be acted upon.

Sophereus. "Our withers are unwrung." I am not a believer in eternal damnation; I am not an apostle of brute force; I am not in favor of using the sword to spread a religion of love; I am not a priest or a bishop, nor am I a member of Parliament or of any other legislative body. I am a simple inquirer, endeavoring to ascertain the soundness of certain systems of philosophy. If there are men who profess Christianity and practice paganism, I do not see that this fact should deter me from estimating the nature of the Christian religion, as I would endeavor to estimate the character of any other religion. It is no concern of mine whether men who profess Christianity and practice paganism can feel any sympathy with Mr. Spencer's views. The question for me is whether I can feel any sympathy with his views. I will, therefore, go on to tell you why I do not believe that a merely "rationalized version" of the ethical principles of Christianity will take the place of those divine injunctions on which the ethics of Christianity are primarily based. Observe, now, that I do not enter upon the proofs of the divine authority or the divine nature of Christ. I point to nothing but the fact that the Christian ethics presuppose a divine and superhuman origin of moral injunctions. About the fact that they presuppose and assume the sacred origin of moral injunctions, there can be no controversy. We read that the question was put to Jesus, "What commandment is first of all?" and the answer was, "The first is, Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God, the Lord is one; and thou shalt love thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength. The second is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these."[132] The person who made this answer may or may not have been a divinely commissioned teacher, but, whatever he was, the question that was put to him was a very searching one, and both question and answer assume two things: first, that there is a being, man, to whom commands are addressed; secondly, that there is a being, God, by whom commands are given. Jesus undertakes to inform those who questioned him, what are the two commandments than which there are none greater addressed to human beings; and in this answer he covers the existence of man as one being and the existence of God as another being. In any scheme of philosophy which ignores the existence of these two beings—ignores the existence of man as a being capable of receiving and acting upon a command, and the existence of a being capable of addressing a command to man—there must necessarily be a great defect; not because Jesus, a supposed divinely commissioned teacher, assumed that there are two such beings, but because without the hypothesis of their existence there can be no ethical system whatever. The crucial test of the soundness of Mr. Spencer's philosophy is, therefore, whether he negatives the existence of man and the existence of God.

Undoubtedly, there is a certain kind of consistency and completeness in Mr. Spencer's whole philosophy. Beginning with biology, he traces all organized life back to the original molecules of organizable matter, and he makes man, in his physical structure, a product of successive modifications of organisms out of one another, by simple generation. This ignores the Creator as a being specially fashioning the human animal, which Mr. Spencer thinks is a conception too grossly anthropomorphic to stand the slightest scientific scrutiny. He then takes up what he calls "psychology," and deals with what he considers the origin and nature of the human mind. He makes consciousness to consist in tracts of feeling in the nervous organization. He denies that mind is an entity, a being, perceiving and recognizing ideas suggested by the impressions produced upon the nervous organization by external objects. According to his psychological system, there is no ego, no person, no thinking being, behind the sensations and feelings in the nerve-center, and to whom the nerve-center suggests ideas. Rejecting the hypothesis of such a being, Mr. Spencer treats of the composition of mind; and he makes it consist, not in a being, but in components of feelings produced by the molecular changes of which nerve-corpuscles are the seats, and the molecular changes transmitted through fibers. He does not regard the ultimate fabric of mind as a thing admitting of any inquiry. He says that its proximate components can be investigated, and that these are feelings and the relations between feelings. This "method of composition remains the same throughout the entire composition of mind, from the formation of its simplest feelings up to the formation of those immense and complex aggregates of feelings which characterize its highest development." Here, then, we must stop. We are not to conceive of mind as an organized entity, or as an organism; or as a something in which certain powers inhere, and which affords a field for their action. We may talk of a "thread of consciousness," meaning aggregates of feelings produced by successive waves of molecular change in the nerve-corpuscles, but we may not talk of "consciousness" as perception by a conscious subject. We may talk of feelings, but not of a subject that feels. Mind, then, is not an existence apart from physical organization. Its phenomena are products of our corporeal organization. Man is not a person; and, if he is not, how he is to have a sense of obligation, how there is to be any intuitional idea of right and wrong, in the sense of a command or an injunction addressed by one being to another, I do not understand. Mr. Spencer does not help me to understand this, and obviously he does not intend to, because he denies it absolutely. His system of ethics plainly ignores it; and to that I now pass.

He makes conduct consist in the adjustment of actions to ends. Good conduct is when the actions are adjusted to the ends of producing all the pleasure and happiness that they can be made to bring about. Bad conduct is when the actions produce only pain or misery to some one, or there is not a proper adjustment of them to the end of happiness. Beginning, as you described it in our last conference, with the lowest orders of animals, the conduct of man is the same adjustment of actions to ends that it is in them; the difference being, in the case of man, that as an animal he has a greater and more varied power of complete adjustment of his actions to wider and more comprehensive ends than any other animal. These wider and more comprehensive ends consist in the full accomplishment of happiness and pleasure to other beings. This, according to Mr. Spencer, is impliedly admitted by those who assert the sacred origin of moral injunctions; for, when pressed for the reason why moral injunctions have been given, all moralists, he says, admit that the ultimate moral aim is a desirable state of feeling, gratification, enjoyment, happiness to some being or beings. That the welfare of society is one of the moral aims which moral injunctions of the sacred order were designed to accomplish, so far as special injunctions are believed to have been given, is plain enough. But that this congruity between the divine commands and the happiness of others—the useful effect of such commands—comprehends the whole purpose of such commands, is the ultimate and sole reason for their being given, so far as they are believed to have been given, may be disproved without difficulty. For example, an individual may be an utterly worthless person, a curse to his relatives and friends and to society, irreclaimably sunk in vice and misery, a mere cumberer of the ground. To kill him will produce no unhappiness to any one, but will be a positive relief and benefit. According to "the current creed," there stands a sacred injunction, "Thou shalt do NO murder." This is accepted as an absolute, fixed, eternal canon of the divine will. You are not to take upon yourself individually to determine, by any standard of utility applied to a particular case, that you can rightfully kill a human being. A miser is alone in the world. I can steal his hoarded gold, and apply it to good objects. There stands the command, "Thou shalt not steal." For no purpose, for no object whatever, for no end whatever, shall you commit a theft. "Society," to borrow a phrase of one of the strongest men of our time, "would go all to pieces in an hour" if it were to adopt only the utilitarian standard of morality, and to reject the sacred origin of moral injunctions.[133] The reception of that sacred origin—the belief in it—implies that man is a being capable of receiving and obeying a divine command. The existence of such a being is negatived by Mr. Spencer's psychological system. That he equally negatives the existence of God as a being capable of giving, and who has given, moral injunctions to man, is apparent throughout his whole scheme of philosophy. According to that philosophy, there is nothing in the universe but an Omnipotent Power, which underlies all manifestations. To ascribe a personality to that Power is a relic of the primitive beliefs of barbarians, and it is one that is rapidly dying out of the conceptions of educated men.

There is, therefore, no room in Mr. Spencer's philosophy for any moral intuitions, such as are implied in the hypothesis that man was placed under an obligation to obey his Creator, and made capable of recognizing that obligation. I can perceive no other ultimate foundation for a system of ethics. As to the idea that we can make a system of ethics which is to relegate to individual judgment the adaptability of actions to produce complete happiness, and to have no other standard of right and wrong, we might as well at once act upon the maxim that the end justifies the means, and leave every man to determine that the end is a good one; and, therefore, the action is good.

Kosmicos. How do you justify the death-penalty which is inflicted by society? Have you any justification for it, excepting the claim that it is a useful restraint?

Sophereus. When society acts judicially in the punishment of crime, it inflicts such punishments as experience shows will prevent, or tend to prevent, others from committing that crime. Its authority to punish with death or some other penalty is founded, primarily, in regard to the simpler crimes, such as murder, theft, adultery, false testimony, etc., on the divine prohibition, which a belief in the sacred origin of certain special moral injunctions leads it to accept; and, secondly, on the general welfare of mankind.[134] Eliminate from the ethical code all belief in the sacred origin of moral injunctions, and confine the judicial action of society to the merely utilitarian effect of individual conduct, and you will surrender the whole criminal code to the doctrine that the individual who does a certain act is to be punished or not to be punished, according to the effect of his act on the person or persons who are immediately or remotely affected by it. It is because of Mr. Spencer's negation of man's intuitive sense of obligation to obey divine commands, because of his peculiar system of "psychology," that I can not accept the system to which he gives the name of "ethics." He ought to have invented a new term for his science of mind. "Psychology," according to its derivation, and as it is used in the English language, means discourse or treatise on the human soul, or the doctrine of man's spiritual nature. If he has no spiritual nature, no soul, what does this philosopher mean by entitling his work "The Principles of Psychology"? It seems to me that in this use of a term which implies something that he labors to show does not exist, he is not quite consistent, for he certainly does not mean to admit that man has a soul, in the sense in which the learned world have generally used the term "psychology." But, not to stickle for verbal criticisms, I will endeavor to give you my conception of his "scientific" analysis of the mind, and to contrast it with the other analysis, which seems to me to be better supported.

Kosmicos. Take care that you do not misrepresent him.

Sophereus. I shall take the utmost care to represent him in the only sense in which I can understand him; and, if I do not represent him accurately, you will correct me. Take, in the first place, the following passage, in which he defines the only ego that has any existence:

That the ego is something more than the passing group of feelings and ideas is true or untrue according to the degree of comprehension we give to the word. It is true if we include the body and its functions; but it is untrue if we include only what is given in consciousness.

Physically considered, the ego is the entire organism, including its nervous system; and the nature of this ego is predetermined: the infant had no more to do with the structure of its brain than with the color of its eyes. Further, the ego, considered physically, includes all the functions carried on by these structures when supplied with the requisite materials. These functions have for their net result to liberate from the food, etc., certain latent forces. And that distribution of these forces shown by the activities of the organism, is from moment to moment caused partly by the existing arrangement of its parts and partly by the environing conditions.

The physical structures thus pervaded by the forces thus obtained, constitute that substantial ego which lies behind and determines those ever-changing states of consciousness we call mind. And while this substantial ego, unknowable in ultimate nature, is phenomenally known to us under its statical form as the organism, it is phenomenally known under its dynamical form as the energy diffusing itself through the organism, and, among other parts, through the nervous system. Given the external stimuli, and the nervous changes with their correlative mental states depend partly on the nervous structures and partly on the amount of this diffused energy, each of which factors is determined by causes not in consciousness but beneath consciousness. The aggregate of feelings and ideas constituting the mental I, have not in themselves the principle of cohesion holding them together as a whole; but the I which continually survives as the subject of these changing states is that portion of the Unknowable Power which is statically conditioned in special nervous structures pervaded by a dynamically-conditioned portion of the Unknowable Power called energy.[135]

It is now necessary to translate this; and in translating it, it is necessary to attend to the meaning of words. Let us begin with the first proposition comprehended in this statement: "That the ego is something more than the passing group of feelings and ideas, is true or untrue according to the degree of comprehensiveness we give to the word. It is true if we include the body and its functions; but it is untrue if we include only what is given in consciousness." The natural antithesis would have been to contrast what is included in the body with what is included in the mind. But as he does not admit that the mind is an existence, as there is nothing but a passing group of feelings and ideas, not a person who perceives feelings and has ideas, he speaks of what is given in consciousness, consciousness being nothing but that passing group, an ever-changing series, never the same, and never laid hold of and appropriated by a conscious subject. We do, indeed, call these ever-changing states of consciousness mind, but this is a misnomer, if we mean it in the sense of a being. What is to be considered, therefore, when the analysis seeks to ascertain the real and only ego, is the body and its functions, and the passing group of feelings and ideas which is given in consciousness.

Let us pass on: The body is the physical structure and its functions. It is pervaded by the forces which its functions liberate from the latent condition in which they exist in food and other environment. This physical structure, thus pervaded by certain forces, is the substantial ego which lies behind and determines the ever-changing states of consciousness which we call mind. There is no other ego than the body. It is phenomenally known to us under its statical form as the organism; that is to say, when the body is contemplated as an organism which is not acting, or as a mere structure. But it is phenomenally known to us also under its dynamical form, which is when the energy derived from the pervading forces is diffusing itself through the organism. Statical,[136] I understand, refers to a body at rest, or in equilibrium, not acting; dynamical refers to bodies in motion, or acted on by force, in movement. The human body is phenomenally known to us in both of these conditions or states. When it is in the dynamical state, that is, when it is acted on by external stimuli, there will be nervous changes; these nervous changes have correlative mental states, which depend partly on the nervous structure and partly on the amount of the diffused energy which pervades the organism. But these two factors, the nervous changes and the diffused energy, are each determined by causes that are not in consciousness, but beneath consciousness. This I understand to mean that when there are nervous changes from a state of rest or non-action, produced by external stimuli, and a certain amount of diffused energy pervades the organism, there will be correlative mental states, which are determined by factors that are not in consciousness but beneath consciousness. Consciousness, therefore, is not a perception by a conscious subject, or a consciousness of a self experienced by a being, but it is a passing group of feelings and ideas, which have no cohesion, are never the same, but are ever-changing successions of impressions produced in the physical organism.

I come now to the summary and conclusion of the whole matter as expressed in the last sentence of the paragraph which I have read. There is a mental I, but it is not a person, an existence, an independent ego. It is constituted of an aggregate of feelings and ideas, which have not in themselves a principle of cohesion that holds them together as a whole. They are merely passing groups of feelings and ideas which are never the same, but which succeed one another without connection or cohesion. There is an I which continually survives as the subject of these changing states, but it is that portion of the Unknowable Power which is statically conditioned in special nervous structures pervaded by a dynamically conditioned portion of the Unknowable Power called energy.

So that each individual of the human race is to be contemplated, not as a dual existence, composed of a body and a mind, united for a certain period, but as a subject which is continuously undergoing certain physical changes by the action through it of a portion of the energy exerted by the Unknowable Power. The Unknowable Power pulsates through my bodily organism a certain portion of its energy, and that of which continuous existence can alone be predicated is this portion of the Unknowable Power which is statically conditioned in my nervous structure, pervaded by a dynamically conditioned portion of that Unknown Power.

I trust, now, it will not be said that I misrepresent Mr. Spencer when I assert that he ignores, denies, and endeavors to disprove the existence of the mind of man as a spiritual entity, capable of surviving his body. Have you any fault to find with my paraphrase of the passage on which I have commented?

Kosmicos. You have paraphrased that passage fairly enough, but you ought to attend to the proof which he adduces in support of his position in the subsequent passage to which he refers you in the one that you have quoted. Let me read it:

§ 469. And now, before closing the chapter, let me parenthetically remark on a striking parallelism between the conception of the Object thus built up, and that which we shall find to be the proper conception of the Subject. For just in the same way that the Object is the unknown permanent nexus which is never itself a phenomenon, but is that which holds phenomena together; so is the Subject the unknown permanent nexus which is never itself a state of consciousness, but which holds states of consciousness together. Limiting himself to self-analysis, the Subject can never learn anything about this nexus, further than that it forms part of the nexus to that peculiar vivid aggregate he distinguishes as his body. If, however, he makes a vicarious examination, the facts of nervous structure and function, as exhibited in other bodies like his own, enable him to see how, for each changing cluster of ideas, there exists a permanent nexus which, in a sense, corresponds to the permanent nexus holding together the changing cluster of appearances referable to the external body.

For, as shown in earlier parts of this work, an idea is the psychical side of what on its physical side is an involved set of molecular changes propagated through an involved set of nervous plexuses. That which makes possible this idea is the pre-existence of these plexuses, so organized that a wave of molecular motion diffused through them will produce, as its psychical correlative, the components of the conception, in due order and degree. This idea lasts while the waves of molecular motion last, ceasing when they cease; but that which remains is the set of plexuses. These constitute the potentiality of the idea, and make possible future ideas like it. Each such set of plexuses, perpetually modified in detail by perpetual new actions; capable of entering into countless combinations with others, just as the objects thought of entered into countless combinations; and capable of having its several parts variously excited, just as the external object presents its combined attributes in various ways—is thus the permanent internal nexus for ideas, answering to the permanent external nexus for phenomena. And just as the external nexus is that which continues to exist amid transitory appearances, so the internal nexus is that which continues to exist amid transitory ideas. The ideas have no more a continued existence than we have found the impressions to have. They are like the successive chords and cadences brought out from a piano, which successively die away as other ones are sounded. And it would be as proper to say that these passing chords and cadences thereafter exist in the piano, as it is proper to say that passing ideas thereafter exist in the brain. In the one case, as in the other, the actual existence is the structure which, under like conditions, again evolves like combinations.

It is true that we seem to have somewhere within us these sets of faint states answering to sets of vivid states which once occurred. It is true that in common life ideas are spoken of as being treasured up, forming a store of knowledge; the implied notion being that they are duly arranged and, as it were, pigeon-holed for future use. It is true that in psychological explanations, ideas are often referred to as thus having a continued existence. It is true that our forms of expression are such as to make this implication unavoidable; and that in many places throughout this work the phrases used apparently countenance it; though, I believe, they are always transformable into their scientific equivalents, as above expressed. But here, as in metaphysical discussions at large, where our express object is to make a final analysis, and to disentangle facts from hypotheses, it behooves us to recognize the truth that this popular conception, habitually adopted into psychological and metaphysical discussions, is not simply gratuitous, but absolutely at variance with experience. All which introspection shows us is that under certain conditions there occurs a state of consciousness more or less like that which previously occurred under more or less like conditions. Not only are we without proof that during the interval this state of consciousness existed under some form; but, so far as observation reaches, it gives positive evidence to the contrary. For the new state is never the same—is never more than an approximate likeness of that which went before. It has not that identity of structure which it would have were it a pre-existing thing presenting itself afresh. Nay, more; even during its presence its identity of structure is not preserved—it is not literally the same for two seconds together. No idea, even of the most familiar object, preserves its stability while in consciousness. To carry further the foregoing simile, its temporary existence is like that of a continuously-sounded chord, of which the components severally vary from instant to instant in pitch and loudness. Quite apart, however, from any interpretation of ideas as not substantive things but psychical changes, corresponding to physical changes wrought in a physical structure, it suffices to insist upon the obvious truth that the existence in the Subject of any other ideas than those which are passing, is pure hypothesis absolutely without any evidence whatever.

And here we come upon yet another phase of that contradiction which the anti-realistic conception everywhere presents. For setting out from the data embodied in the popular speech, which asserts both the continued existence of ideas and the continued existence of objects, it accepts the fiction as a fact, and on the strength of it tries to show that the fact is a fiction. Continued existence being claimed for that which has it not, is thereupon denied to that which has it.[137]

Sophereus. The writings of Mr. Spencer, more than those of any other person of equal reputation that I have met with, require close examination in order to test the soundness of his propositions and assertions. Such a passage as the one which you have now quoted appears, on a first reading, to be quite plausible. When it is read carefully two or three times, and analyzed, it is found to be untenable in its reasoning, and largely made up of dogmatic assumptions. I shall now give you my reasons for this criticism. In the first place, let us go through the passage and fix the meanings of words. "Nexus," although not a term adopted into the English language, means, I presume, bond or ligament. "Plexus" is a word that we find in English dictionaries as a scientific term, and it means a union of vessels, nerves, or fibers, in the form of net-work.[138] Taking along these meanings, we find that the subject, the only thing of which a subjective existence can be predicated, is the ligament which holds states of consciousness together, and this permanent ligament is unknown. It is not itself a state of consciousness, but it is the bond which holds states of consciousness together. These states of consciousness are the ideas which are passing in the subject, which are never the same, which are not a permanent possession, and therefore there is in the subject no other existence than the passing ideas of the moment. Ideas, then, are not substantive things, but psychical changes, corresponding to physical changes wrought in a physical structure. The proof which is supposed to make this a tenable hypothesis consists of, first, what can be learned by self-analysis, or by my introspection of myself; next by vicarious examination, or by observing the facts of nervous structure and function exhibited in other bodies like my own. These examinations enable us to discover, what? Not a conscious person, learning, appropriating, and holding ideas, but that there exists only, for each changing cluster of ideas, a permanent nexus, corresponding to the permanent nexus which holds together the changing cluster of appearances referable to the external body. We next have the assertion that ideas have no more a continued existence than the impressions made in the external body. Both are transitory, and in both the only continued existence is the nexus, or ligament which binds together the changing impressions and the changing clusters of ideas. This Mr. Spencer illustrates by the successive chords and cadences brought out from a piano. These have no existence in the piano, which is nothing but a mechanical structure, giving forth sounds, when they are struck, which sounds are merely passing chords and cadences; and he concludes that it would be just as proper to say that the passing chords and cadences, after they have died away, exist in the piano, as it is to say that passing ideas, after the nervous impressions have ceased, exist in the brain. Let us now go back and examine this kind of psychology in detail. Mr. Spencer speaks of self-analysis, and of the analysis of other minds and bodies like our own. He uses the terms self, others, me, mine, him, his. Who or what is this thing which examines himself or another? Who and what are "you" or "I," who sit here talking to each other? Are these mere forms of expression, always transformable into their scientific equivalents? What is the scientific equivalent for he, his, me, mine, you, yours? Mr. Spencer says that, under certain conditions, there occurs a state of consciousness more or less like other states of consciousness that have existed before, but that the only permanent thing is the nexus which holds these states of consciousness together. His illustration of the piano fails. If the piano were a structure that could of its own volition give forth such sounds as it chose to utter, it might be correct to speak of it as an existence having a store of sounds which it could make reach our ears when and as it saw fit. But it does not happen to be an automatic machine. It is a mere collection of strings, of different sizes and tensions, which, when struck by an instrument called a hammer, cause certain vibrations in the air. But a human being is an automatic organism; one that can at pleasure give utterance to ideas through the vocal organs, so that they are communicated to you. When I give utterance to an idea, through my vocal organs, in speaking to you, do I draw on a stock of permanent ideas, some of which I express, or do I express nothing but a passing state of consciousness, more or less like other states of consciousness that have before passed through my nervous organization? Mr. Spencer asserts that the notion of the continued existence of ideas is absolutely at variance with experience. On the contrary, experience proves it every moment of our lives.

For example: Years ago a person related to me a fact very interesting and important to me, but I have not until now had occasion to make use of it. I have a perfect recollection of what he told me. It bears no resemblance to any other fact of which I ever heard. It concerns me alone. I have a perfect recollection of it. I stored it up for future use whenever I should need to use it. Is it a self-delusion that I have stored up and treasured this information? When I recollect and repeat it, just as it was told me, am I doing nothing but giving expression to a passing idea, more or less like the original idea? This would be a rather dangerous doctrine to adopt as the interpretation of experience. Human testimony respecting things that we have been told, or have seen, would be a pretty uncertain reliance if the memory had no other power than to assimilate a passing idea, more or less, to a former state of consciousness which more or less resembled the present consciousness. Men deviate from the truth rather frequently, now; but, teach them that memory is nothing but the assimilation, more or less, of a passing idea to some other idea that formerly passed through their heads, and I should be rather afraid of their testimony. I should fear that the "psychological changes" would be a little too frequent, and that the story would not have "that identity of structure which it would have were it a pre-existing thing presenting itself afresh."

What is all the learning of the scholar? Has he treasured up nothing? Has he nothing in the pigeon-holes of his mind? Has he no mind in which to store his acquisitions? Is the sole actual existence "the structure which, under like conditions, again evolves like combinations"? Must he find himself under like conditions which will again evolve like combinations of ideas in passing trains of consciousness, before he can bring forth from the store-house of his mind the pre-existing thing that lies within it?

Kosmicos. I must here interject a question in my turn. What is the proof that ideas have a continued existence? Speaking of the brain as the nerve-center, in which impressions are produced by molecular changes transmitted along the nerve-fibers, what proof is there that an idea which is now passing through the brain continues to exist there, any more than the passing chord or cadence continues to exist in the piano?

Sophereus. Do you not see that the very power of discrimination which we possess, whereby we distinguish between present and former conditions, and present and former combinations, proves that there is a permanent existing thing in an idea which presents itself afresh, and with which we compare the passing idea, so as to determine whether they are the same? If we did not possess this power, all thinking, all expression of ideas, all memory, all that part of consciousness which is not made up of mere bodily feelings and sensations, would be nothing but the repetition of the passing idea; and all learning, information, knowledge, and experience, would be utterly useless. If there did not exist something with which to compare the passing idea of the present moment, we should be always floating on the surface of the passing idea. There would be no continuity in our intellectual existence. We should be reduced to the condition of the piano, and could only give forth such chords and cadences as are produced by successive blows of the hammer upon the strings of the instrument. And how could anything originate in ourselves? What is the faculty which produces ideas that are not only new to ourselves, not only not suggested by passing ideas, but new to all other human intellects, and never embraced in their experience until we put them within their apprehension? What did Dante do when he produced the "Inferno"? or Milton, when he composed the "Paradise Lost"? or Shakespeare, when he composed his "Hamlet"? or Goethe, when he produced his "Faust"? Does the poet, when he gives us ideas that we never possessed before, originate nothing? If he is a maker, a creator, in the realm of ideas, are those original ideas, which neither he nor any one else ever had before, the mere result of like combinations evolved out of like conditions, when neither the old conditions nor the combinations have anything to do with the new ideas which he has produced? Surely, in reference to the great productions of human genius, we must contemplate the mind as an existence, having the power to do something more than to produce the transitory ideas that are passing through the brain from the impressions on it, communicated through the nervous structure. Surely there is some other structure than that which can be likened to the piano. Surely there is something more than a set of plexuses "which constitute the potentiality of an idea, and make possible future ideas like it"; for there are possible future ideas which are not like any former ideas, which do not depend on any set of plexuses, and do not cease to be possible when the waves of molecular motion cease. These possible future ideas are the conceptions which the mind originates in itself; which are unlike anything that has gone before, or that is passing now. So that there are two kinds of ideas: the kind that has a continued existence, and that consists in knowledge, and is drawn upon by memory; and the other, the kind of which continued existence is not to be predicated until it has been formulated by the faculty of original production, not produced by an exercise of memory, but produced by original creation.

Kosmicos. Has not Mr. Spencer allowed for and accounted for all that you claim as the power of originating new ideas? Does he not say that "each set of plexuses"—each set of the net-work of ideas—is "perpetually modified in detail by perpetual new actions"; is "capable of entering into countless combinations with others, just as the objects thought of entered into countless combinations; and capable of having its several parts variously excited, just as the external object presents its combined attributes in various ways"? Is not this the whole matter, in regard to what you call the power of originating new ideas?

Sophereus. No, it is not. In the first place, I do not believe that he was here intentionally speaking of any ideas but those which are suggested by, or involve external objects. But, if he did mean to include the production of new and original ideas through the countless combinations into which old ones may be made to enter, his theory does not fit the case of poetical invention of new ideas, or the invention of imaginary characters, or lives; for these are creations which are not mere combinations of old ideas, and the more they depart from everything suggested by, or resembling, former ideas, the more we are obliged to recognize as a faculty of the mind the power to originate and formulate new ideas that did not previously exist.

Kosmicos. Well, you have criticised Mr. Spencer's mental philosophy from your point of view. Now let me hear your hypothesis of the origin and nature of mind, with which you promised to contrast his psychology, and which you think is better supported.

Sophereus. I think I had better put my views in writing, and read them to you at our next meeting. You can then have them before you to examine at your leisure. Let me say in advance, however, that I shall not rely on any of the metaphysicians, but shall endeavor to give you my conception of the nature of mind from my own reflections, and from common experience. I shall make my examination of the nature of mind precede any suggestion of its probable origin, just as I think we should examine the structure of any organism before we undertake to deduce its probable origin.

Here, then, closes the debate between these two persons, from whom, at the end of the next chapter, I shall part with a reluctance which I hope the reader will share. Not for victory do I allow Sophereus to explain his analysis of mind, without describing how his scientific friend receives it.