We have thus seen that the origin and authority of Ethics are to be found in Sociology; but to allow the enquiry to rest here is only half to understand the nature and imperativeness of ethical obligations as to conduct. We consider that Mr. Spencer's ethical theory suffers from his mode of exposition. We should be disposed to approach the question in an inverse order, and instead of seeking for an ethical authority on individual or biological grounds, culminating in an ethical Sociology, to acknowledge at once the sociological origin and authority of the ethical obligation, and to endeavour to understand it in detail by a subordinate study of biological requirements and psychological growths.

The main fact underlying all Ethics is the existence of a society composed of subjective factors, factors possessing feelings and reasoning powers. The fundamental notion in Ethics is the regulation of the mutual conduct of these factors. It is the voice of the million against the voice of the unit which decides the duty of the unit. It is the voice of the individual against the voice of society claiming a modification of opinion. It is the voice of individuals to other individuals specifying general duty. Broadly speaking it is the claim of duties towards other individuals upon the Ego. But it follows from the universality of the claim, that there is mutuality of claim, and the duties which are demanded have at the same time to be acknowledged. The principle can be easily accepted as theoretically correct, and many general rights and duties can be readily deduced as corollaries, but beyond these general rules ethical problems have rather to be worked out than thought out—in the more important matters by societies during their upward growth, in smaller matters by individuals through multitudinous adjustments and re-adjustments. I do this or that in contravention of some accepted social law. I am condemned, and am made so generally uncomfortable by the social penalties that I am coerced into conformity, or, otherwise, society modifies its opinion in acknowledgment of my right to do as I have done.

But then the question arises, upon what principle should ethical judgments be formed? Since society demands the performance of certain actions, while it prohibits the performance of others, and since its aim is the biological completeness of each of the individuals, what are the principles upon which it determines the restraints and imposes the injunctions so as not to interfere too much with individual liberties? This principle finds very good expression in Mr. Spencer's formula.

The whole problem comes before us when we have to consider the relative claims of egoism and altruism, a problem splendidly worked out by Mr. Spencer, in the chapters entitled "Egoism versus Altruism," "Altruism versus Egoism," "Trial and Compromise," and "Conciliation." As this is a purely critical work, to be read only in conjunction with the work criticised, we do not feel called upon to give an account of these chapters. We simply state our acceptance of them bodily, the reservations we would make being merely in regard to certain details of the exposition. We ought to reprint them here in order to make this work complete in its argument, but it is simpler to ask the student to interrupt his reading of this criticism by a reperusal of the chapters referred to.

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Having read Mr. Spencer's treatment of the problem, the question remains, is the ethical imperative merely an external one, dictated by a prudential consideration of the requirements of the social environment? The answer must be a negative one; there is an internal moral authority which gives to actions their ethical glory, their poetic delicacy, their qualitative appreciation, insomuch that there are names in past history that stand ever in the forefront of the memories of men, hallowed and ennobled in their imaginations for all time, on account of the ethical glory of their lives and the manner in which their example appeals to the wide sympathies within us. From the same internal fount springs the detestation of foul and cruel actions, the hatred of unjust and tyrannical deeds, and the abhorrence of the men and women who commit them. The same internal sentiment covers the individual himself with shame and remorse for unworthy actions committed, from which an ever-present memory suffers no release.

The natural history of the growth of this internal authority is the history of the action of the subjective environment upon the subjective individual. The understanding of this growth is the province of Psychology in the two forms of emotional evolution and intellectual evolution as presented by Mr. Spencer in chapter vii of the "Data of Ethics,"—the enlargement of the number of sympathies with the subjective environment—past, present, and future—and the enlargement of the number of correspondences with the objective environment in space, and time, and generality. We are more particularly concerned with that branch of it which deals with the growth of the emotions. The purely biological view relates to the individual, and its own personal existence. But the care of offspring, arising from some incomprehensible necessity for the continuance of the species, and accompanied by a recognition of their subjective character, produces actions, having regard to their effects upon the subjectivity of the offspring, of a regulative, coercive, or deterrent character. Moreover, by some not understood law, the sympathies which undoubtedly exist between organisms, have led to the recognition of the pains of others as egoistic pains, and of the pleasures of others as egoistic pleasures. Thus altruism from the very first became to a certain extent a form of egoism, and the action of the Ego in its subjective environment was of a regulative character amongst its offspring. An extension and modification of this action ensued upon a social environment composed of more distant, or only tribal relationships. Nevertheless psychological evolution made the sympathies gradually include tribal and national, and eventually humanitarian recognitions. The growth of Ethics, and the growth of ethical feeling, are thus seen to be a natural growth, and not merely the solution of an intellectual problem. The justification for the ethical feeling is that it exists. The justification for any code of morality is that is exists. But the amendment of the code of morality derives its justification from changing conditions. The changefulness of the latter does not detract from but attests the essential nature of the former. It is the court of appeal for the retention of existing codes, and for the judgment of imminent changes. We cannot, therefore turn round and say—as we may be tempted to do when we find the relativity of morals and its origin in external obligation—"Ethics is only an intellectual puzzle, only a social contract, into which I may enter or not as I please." If a man assumes a hostile attitude to society, he wrongs his nature as a man; and if a philosopher or selfish man of the world cuts off human sympathy for the purpose of living a merely prudential life he becomes something less than a man, he misses the full function and joy of life. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that there are men who have so maimed their emotional nature as to lead tolerably satisfactory lives within the narrow limits of selfish desires. To them ethical obligation is external only, and the internal obligation is a minimum. Such may be the case. There are men who do actions in contradiction of the voice of society, and who do not repent. Society has to deal with these men as best it can. The ethical problem is only of interest to those who feel the obligation, or to the philosopher who studies the human nature of which it is a characteristic.

Viewed as a practical question, no philosophical theory will carry the force of conviction to a bestial, brutal, sordid, selfish man. These require the material punishments of the administrators of the law, personal force, and social coercion. And even then there remain large criminal classes in every community. The study of the ethical problem is for those who recognise ethical obligation and seek guidance or to guide. The internal ethical obligation is not to be reasoned into a man. It must be grown into the child. This is to be done by love-enkindling actions and demeanour, a just and considerate course of conduct, well judged according to ethical principles. And herein lies the utility of the study. Example and injunctions in daily exigencies form the groundwork of such influence as can be exerted by education. A discriminating judgment of contemporary actions and of past histories tends to develop a proper discrimination of the qualities of actions.

But below and accompanying all this must be recognised—as Mr. Spencer so fully recognises—the registration, as he terms it, of emotions and mental capacities in the inherited constitutions of organisms. That which is the lesson of one age has become the inborn faculty of a succeeding one. There are natural tendencies inherited by individuals from their ancestors, and the perpetual social improvement tends to the gradual production of individuals more and more suitable to the social state by the possession of sympathies for others, and the internal feeling of moral obligation. Furthermore, these individuals are born and reared under the influence of a social state ever more and more permeated by the recognition of the good of society as rightly overruling the destinies of the individual.

The ethical imperative then must be regarded as an internal growth in a subjective individual brought about in psychological evolution in the continuous advance both of the increase of the sympathetic correspondences and of the intellectual correspondences with the subjective environment, and in the hereditary transmission of the same, and their perpetuation and modification by means of education and training induced by the current social pressure, special and general; which social pressure is itself undergoing constant but gradual change in its incidence and tendency. The ethical imperative therefore is partly internal in so far as each individual is actuated by societarian sympathies and emotional regards for humanitarian ideals, or in so far as he possesses numerous special and personal kindly relations with his environment. But in-so-far as a man is destitute of these sympathetic possessions, so far is he free from the obligations of the internal ethical imperative, and so much does he approach to the lower evolutionary states of the inanimate object, or of the beast of the forest, the insensate fish which stares into vacuity in the tanks of an aquarium, or a self-feeding engine which is only a little less developed form of a moving equilibrium. For such as these there only remains the external prudential obligation of conformity to social pressure in its several forms of law, custom, or public opinion, or the variously expressed displeasure or commendations of neighbours whereto it would be wise to conform. This to them is the only ethical imperative.

To neither class does any reasoned-out theory of absolute morality yield any force of obligation or insight into the details of duty. And here it will be convenient to enquire whether Mr. Spencer himself attaches to absolute morality, any power as an ethical imperative. Absolute morality in Mr. Spencer's treatment is merely a conception of ideal conduct in an ideal state of society. We must conceive a state of society in the highest degree complex, composed of individuals following all the various occupations necessitated by the sub-division of labour from the lowest to the highest, in which each individual may yet perform his or her functions in such a manner as to insure the highest degree of personal happiness, and at the same time promote the highest happiness of the society as a whole.

Such an ideal state would comprise individuals of all ages, from infancy to extreme old age, and could not possibly exclude invalids and the maimed, for we cannot suppose that moving equilibria will be able to develop internal forces so as to preserve them intact from the effects of storms, explosions, and other natural occurrences, and as it is part of the moving equilibrium theory to suppose that organisms are only temporary equilibrations on the way towards a final equilibration in a state of rest, it is necessary to suppose that they will always be subject to disease and death. It is therefore probable that the society would comprise many sufferers from organic diseases, and it is difficult to imagine any state of society which would be entirely free from mental disorders in various degrees of defect, or excess, or aberration. Nevertheless we are asked to conceive a state of perfect balance amongst a society composed of heterogeneous individuals in various stages of equilibration, and we are told that a proper and complete conception of this character would furnish us with a code of absolute morality. But it is quite clear that Mr. Spencer's utopian hypothesis is the outcome of hope springing from large human sympathies rather than a realisable future, affording an ethical imperative.

Thus it is supposed that actual standards of morality are extremely imperfect, and form but faint foreshadowings of a future ideal, or in any case, that there is an absolute morality which rules throughout all ages, and is the authority for the approximations of each age. But if we sufficiently realise the fundamental notion of Biology as that of the most complete adjustment of the organism to its environment, including incidentally the adjustment of the environment to the organism we must acknowledge that the most perfect morality is the best adjustment of the individual to his environment in the society to which he belongs. Thus the most perfect morality is the best relative adjustment, and not the nearest conformity to an ideal standard suited to a perfect state of society. The biological rule is more fundamental than any other, the societarian view following; and its ideal of morality is perfection of actual adjustment amongst the individuals of existing societies so as to insure the greatest happiness of each and all. Thus as there are higher lives and lower lives, there are higher moralities and lower moralities, but they are justified by their quantitative relative perfection, and not according to their approach to absolute morality, and they do not derive their ethical obligation from the latter source.

It is due to the growth of psychological views that man is troubled with the burthen of so many ideals. Far be it from us to detract from noble aims, but it is necessary to note the origin and nature of moral ideals and to assign them their proper place. They arise from the growing sympathies of the race, and its ever-widening intelligence; more especially do they arise in the minds of thinkers and students of humanity in regard to the continuous aggregations of tribes and nations of men in entering on the practical problem, how they shall live together without unduly trespassing upon one another's rights of life and enjoyment. These necessarily had to form for themselves practical ideals, but ideals of some sort—ideals of greater or less degree of imperativeness in proportion as they affected the essentials of a pleasurable existence, or as they affected interactions of lesser consequence. The growth of individual sympathies continually afforded wider scope in the judgment of personal actions, and the spread of intelligence insured the acceptance of more general laws of regulative requirements on the part of the society. The authoritativeness of some of the laws so recognised seemed eventually to be in the nature of things, and to be independent and absolute in its imperativeness. Those laws which were seen to be essential to the very existence of society were regarded as eternal and true independently of society. But this is at once seen to be a false notion, and only a peculiar manner of representing the most essential laws of relative morality. No men, no morals! Immorality is a sin, not against eternal principles of right, but against the practical working principles co-eval with human society.

To set up a perfect morality, an ideal code, which may possibly exist in an ideal state of society, but which is scarcely likely ever to be realised as a rule of present conduct, is to set up not only an impracticable, but a false standard, since the only true standard is the relative sociological one founded upon the historical principle of adjustment.

Perhaps, however, even from this principle we work round to the same point, for in working out the problem how to secure to each his fair share of happy life, we are obliged to set down certain fundamental laws protecting the individual from injury in the full exercise of his faculties, and we are obliged to impose upon society as a whole, and upon each individual, certain positive duties of assistance towards individuals, being members of the community. Nevertheless, the ideal set before each generation is that of which it is actually capable, and not a fanciful one which is beyond its powers. And we imagine that some harm is done by the sweeping condemnation of religious and moral idealists in inculcating the sense of sin, and imperfection, and incapability of attainment, which the preaching of such high absolute standards necessitates.

No doubt the inculcation of high ideals kindles youthful enthusiasm, and sustains manly effort. But sometimes the non-attainment of impossible ideals detracts from the effort towards attainable relative perfections, and causes us to under-value and to neglect the good qualities actually extant in ourselves, and in our fellow-creatures. The "unco guid" may repress as much as they may develop, for the idealists have made more sin, and therefore sinners, than is justified by the adaptations of society.

Nevertheless, the psychological conception of an ideal man in an ideal state is a most fascinating one, alike to the philanthropist whose heart broadens out to all humanity, and to the philosopher who aims at absolute perfection of moral or political theory. There are men and women of noble and sweet sympathies who aim at making each his little ideal world around him, and so leaven the general mass and aid the movement towards the great ideal. Poets have sung, and will sing through all ages, of that golden age, and philosophers, consciously or unconsciously, have it for their ruling motive in all their writings. Statesmen in lesser circles of practical scope only work towards it, and the whole heart of humanity teems with hope for a time when troubles shall cease, and a bearable, if not a happy lot, shall be the meed of all.

The ethical imperative we therefore find to possess a two-fold origin. It has external authority in the imposition of coercive rules of conduct, carrying with them social penalties or rewards, varying in degree according to the essential or trivial manner in which actions affect the lives of other individuals, and again an external one in the sympathetic action of surrounding subjective organisms upon subjective organisms in eliciting and enkindling sympathetic response. It has also an internal authority in the sympathies which, by a law of nature, grow up in the ego towards surrounding egos in the manifestation of its several subjective characteristics.

Thus the ethical imperative is a growth within a man. It is also an education imposed upon him, and it is again an external social pressure accompanied by rewards and punishments. The internal ethical imperative does not exist to all men, and to them must be applied the social pressure in more or less manifest forms of scorn, denunciation, and even scant diet, and the cold frowning walls of jails, and unrewarding labour. Towards this end the legislator works, also in the removal of hindrances to life, and the promotion of education. The philanthropist gently encourages the feeble efflorescences of humanitarian sympathies. Sunday schools and pulpits more or less earnestly impress the moral obligations. Parents call forth the love and sympathy of children, and amongst brothers and sisters and companions the child first learns the lesson of mutual duty and mutual help. Occasionally in the world's history arises a prophet in whom has become concentrated in a ten-fold degree the humanitarian sentiment, and he speaks in a voice which reverberates down the outspreading avenues of time, calling forth an answering note from the attuned heart chords of the nations.