[168] See the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (pp. 269-273, Hartenstein; Abbott’s transl. [1879] pp. 54-61). Here Kant first says, “There is therefore but one categorical imperative, namely, this: Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law. Now, if all imperatives of duty can be deduced from this one imperative as from their principle ... we shall at least be able to show what we understand by [duty] and what this notion means.” He then demonstrates the application of the principle to four cases, selected as representative of “the many actual duties”; and continues: “if now we attend to ourselves on occasion of any transgression of duty, we shall find that we in fact do not will that our maxim should be a universal law, for that is impossible for us” ...: then, summing up the conclusion of this part of his argument, he says, “we have exhibited clearly and definitely for every practical application the content of the categorical imperative which must contain the principle of all duty, if there is such a thing at all.”

[169] I do not mean that I am prepared to accept Kant’s fundamental maxim, in the precise form in which he has stated it: but the qualifications which it seems to me to require will be more conveniently explained later.

[170] See Book i. chap. iii. p. 32.

[171] I cannot doubt that every one of our cognitive faculties,—in short the human mind as a whole,—has been derived and developed, through a gradual process of physical change, out of some lower life in which cognition, properly speaking, had no place. On this view, the distinction between ‘original’ and ‘derived’ reduces itself to that between ‘prior’ and ‘posterior’ in development: and the fact that the moral faculty appears somewhat later in the process of evolution than other faculties can hardly be regarded as an argument against the validity of moral intuition; especially since this process is commonly conceived to be homogeneous throughout. Indeed such a line of reasoning would be suicidal; as the cognition that the moral faculty is developed is certainly later in development than moral cognition, and would therefore, by this reasoning, be less trustworthy.

[172] It is more convenient, for the purpose of expounding the morality of common sense, to understand by Virtue a quality exhibited in right conduct; for then we can use the common notions of the particular virtues as heads for the classification of the most important kinds or aspects of right conduct as generally recognised. And I think that this employment of the term is as much in accordance with ordinary usage as any other equally precise use would be.

[173] In Book i. chap. v. § 3 I have explained the sense in which Determinists no less than Libertarians hold that it is in a man’s power to do his duty.

[174] Cf. Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, Appendix iv.

[175] If the phrase in the text were used by a moral person, with a sincere and predominant desire to do his duty, it must, I conceive, be used in one of two senses: either (1) half-ironically, in recognition of a customary standard of virtuous conduct which the speaker is not prepared expressly to dispute, but which he does not really adopt as valid—as when we say that it would be virtuous to read a new book, hear a sermon, pay a visit, etc.; or (2) it might be used loosely to mean that such and such conduct would be best if the speaker were differently constituted.

[176] Chap. xiv. of this Book.

[177] Cf. Met. Anf. d. Tugendlehre, § 33: “diese Tugend, welche mit Innigkeit der wohlwollenden Gesinnung zugleich ZÄrtlichkeit des Wohlwollens verbindet.”

[178] Or no “merit”:—but so far as this latter notion is precisely applied, it will be more appropriately considered in ch. v. of this Book (on Justice).

[179] I have before said that decidedly wrong acts are frequently considered to exhibit in a high degree the tendencies which, when exhibited in right acts, we call particular virtues—generosity, courage, patriotism, etc.: and this is especially true of acts bad through ignorance.

[180] This, I think, is a conclusion which common sense on the whole accepts: though I note a considerable reluctance to accept it; which, however, is not shown in the attribution of virtue to persons who do clearly wrong acts, but rather in an effort to explain their ignorance as caused by some previous wilful wrongdoing. We try to persuade ourselves that if (e.g.) Torquemada did not know that it was wrong to torture heretics, he might have known if he had not wilfully neglected means of enlightenment: but there are many cases in which this kind of explanation is unsupported by facts, and I see no ground for accepting it as generally true.

[181] Hence the Socratic doctrine that ‘all virtue is knowledge’; on the assumption that a rational being must necessarily wish for what is good.

[182] See chap. xiv. § 1 of this Book.

[183] Indeed Aristotle, who stood alone among the schools sprung from Socrates in distinguishing sharply ‘theoretic’ from ‘practical’ wisdom, restricts the term s?f?a to the former, and uses another word (f????s??) to denote the latter.

[184] I have already adverted to the difference between ancient and modern thought in this respect. Cf. ante, Book i. chap. v. § 1, p. 59, note.

[185] It may be observed that there is another meaning again in which the term ‘Caution’ is sometimes used. Since of the various means which we may use to gain any end, some are more and some less certain; and some are dangerous—that is, involve a chance of consequences either antagonistic to our pursuit, or on different grounds to be avoided—while others are free from such danger; ‘Caution’ is often used to denote the temper of mind which inclines to the more certain and less dangerous means. In this sense, in so far as the chance in each case of winning the end, and the value of the end as compared with other ends, and as weighed against the detriment which its pursuit may entail, can be precisely estimated, the limits of the duty of Caution may obviously be determined without difficulty.

[186] See p. 223, and § 2 of the next chapter.

[187] The qualifications which this proposition requires have been already noticed, and will be further illustrated as we proceed.

[188] The phase of this view most current at present would seem to be Utilitarianism, the principles and method of which will be more fully discussed hereafter: but in some form or degree it has been held by many whose affinities are rather with the Intuitional school.

[189] See note at end of chapter.

[190] Cf. Book i. chaps. vii. ix.

[191] A further reason for so doing will appear in the sequel; when we come to survey the general relation of Virtue to Happiness, as the result of that detailed examination of the particular virtues which forms the main subject of the present book. Cf. post, chap. xiv. of this Book.

[192] This reluctance, however, seems largely due to the fact that this precise measure of duty is most frequently demanded when the issue lies between Duty and Self-interest.

[193] It must be admitted that the more the benevolent impulse is combined with the habit of considering the complex consequences of different courses of action that may be presented as alternatives, and comparing the amounts of happiness to others respectively resulting from them, the more good, ceteris paribus, is likely to be caused by it on the whole. And so far as there seems to be a certain natural incompatibility between this habit of calculation and comparison and the spontaneous fervour of kindly impulse, Common Sense is somewhat puzzled which to prefer; and takes refuge in an ideal that transcends this incompatibility and includes the two.

[194] This question will be further discussed in the concluding chapter of this Book (chap. xiv.).

[195] It may be said that a child owes gratitude to the authors of its existence. But life alone, apart from any provision for making life happy, seems a boon of doubtful value, and one that scarcely excites gratitude when it was not conferred from any regard for the recipient.

[196] In 1868 it was affirmed, in an Act passed by the Congress of the United States, that “the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent right of all people.” I do not know how far this would be taken to imply that a man has a moral right to leave his country whenever he finds it convenient—provided no claims except those of Patriotism retain him there. But if it was intended to imply this, I think the statement would not be accepted in Europe without important limitations: though I cannot state any generally accepted principle from which such limitations could be clearly deduced.

[197] How far we are bound to make reparation when the harm is involuntary, and such as could not have been prevented by ordinary care on our part, is not clear: but it will be convenient to defer the consideration of this till the next chapter (§ 5): as the whole of this department of duty is more commonly placed under the head of Justice.

[198] I raise this question, because if the rule of ‘living according to Nature’ were really adopted as a first principle, in any ordinary meaning of the term ‘nature,’ it would certainly seem to be the duty of all normal human beings to enter into conjugal relations: but just this instance seems to show that the principle is not accepted by Common Sense. See Book i. chap. vi. § 2.

[199] The moral necessity of prohibiting polygamy is sometimes put forward as an immediate inference from the equality of the numbers of the two sexes. This argument, however, seems to require the assumption that all men and women ought to marry: but this scarcely any one will expressly affirm: and actually considerable numbers remain unmarried, and there is no reason to believe that in countries where polygamy is allowed, paucity of supply has ever made it practically difficult for any man to find a mate.

[200] Cf. Wayland, Elements of Moral Science, Book ii. part ii. class 2, § 2.

[201] I use the term here to imply a mutual affection more intense than the kindly feeling which a moral man desires to find towards all persons with whom he is brought into continual social relations, through business or otherwise.

[202] It was before observed that this is only one—and not always the most prominent—element of the whole emotional state which we call love.

[203] See Book iv. chap. iii. § 3.

[204] How far an independent principle of Justice is required for the Utilitarian method will be hereafter considered. (Book iv. chap. i.)

[205] Aristotle, in expounding the virtue of ???a??s???, which corresponds to our Justice, notices that the word has two meanings; in the wider of which it includes in a manner all Virtue, or at any rate the social side or aspect of Virtue generally. The word ‘Justice’ does not appear to be used in English in this comprehensive manner (except occasionally in religious writings, from the influence of the Greek word as used in the New Testament): although the verb “to justify” seems to have this width of meaning; for when I say that one is “justified” in doing so and so, I mean no more than that such conduct is right for him. In the present discussion, at any rate, I have confined myself to the more precise signification of the term.

[206] I ought to say that, in my view, this only applies to taxes in the narrower sense in which they are distinguished from payments for services received by individuals from Government. In the case of these latter, I conceive that Justice is rather held to lie in duly proportioning payment to amount of service received. Some persons have held that all payments made to Government ought to be determined on this principle: and this view seems to me to be consistent with the individualistic ideal of political order, which I shall presently examine: but, as I have elsewhere tried to show (Princ. of Pol. Econ. Book iii. chap. viii.), there is an important department of Governmental expenditure to which this principle is not applicable.

[207] It may be well to notice a case in which the very equality of application, which is, as has been said, implied in the mere idea of a law couched in general terms, is felt to be unjust. This is the case where the words of a statute, either from being carelessly drawn, or on account of the inevitable defects of even the most precise terminology, include (or exclude) persons and circumstances which are clearly not included in (or excluded from) the real intent and purpose of the law. In this case a particular decision, strictly in accordance with a law which generally considered is just, may cause extreme injustice: and so the difference between actual Law and Justice is sharply brought out. Still we cannot in this way obtain principles for judging generally of the justice of laws.

[208] It should be observed that we cannot even say, in treating of the private conduct of individuals, that all arbitrary inequality is recognised as unjust: it would not be commonly thought unjust in a rich bachelor with no near relatives to leave the bulk of his property in providing pensions exclusively for indigent red-haired men, however unreasonable and capricious the choice might appear.

[209] It may be observed that sometimes claims generated in this way have legal validity; as when a right of way is established without express permission of the landowner, merely by his continued indulgence.

[210] This is the case even, as I say, when laws are altered lawfully: still more after any exceptional crisis at which there has occurred a rupture of political order: for then the legal claims arising out of the new order which is thus rooted in disorder conflict with those previously established in a manner which admits of no theoretical solution: it can only be settled by a rough practical compromise. See next chapter, § 3.

[211] Book i. chap. vi. § 2.

[212] It is characteristic of an unprogressive society that in it these two points of view are indistinguishable; the Jural Ideal absolutely coincides with the Customary, and social perfection is imagined to consist in the perfect observance of a traditional system of rules.

[213] This question, how far the conception of Freedom involves unlimited right to limit Freedom by free contract, will meet us again in the next chapter, when we consider the general duty of obedience to Law.

[214] It has often been urged as a justification for expropriating savages from the land of new colonies that tribes of hunters have really no moral right to property in the soil over which they hunt.

[215] This is the argument used by optimistic political economists such as Bastiat.

[216] The further consideration of Political Freedom, with which we shall be occupied in the next chapter, will afford additional illustrations of the difficulties involved in the notion.

[217] If the view given in the text be sound, it illustrates very strikingly the difference between natural instincts and moral intuitions. For the impulse to requite a service is, on its emotional side, quite different from that which prompts us to claim the fruits of our labour, or “a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work.” Still, our apprehension of the duty of Gratitude seems capable of being subsumed under the more general intuition ‘that desert ought to be requited.’

[218] It certainly requires a considerable strain to bring the ‘right of First Discovery’ under the notion of ‘right to the produce of one’s labour.’ Hence Locke and others have found it necessary to suppose, as the ultimate justification of the former right, ‘a tacit consent’ of mankind in general that all things previously unappropriated shall belong to the first appropriator. But this must be admitted to be a rather desperate device of ethico-political construction: on account of the fatal facility with which it may be used to justify almost any arbitrariness in positive law.

[219] The reader will find an interesting illustration of the perplexity of Common Sense on this point in Mr. O. W. Holmes, Junior’s, book on The Common Law, chap. iii., where the author gives a penetrating discussion of the struggle, in the development of the doctrine of torts in English Law, between two opposing views: (1) that “the risk of a man’s conduct is thrown upon him as the result of some moral short-coming,” and (2) that “a man acts at his peril always, and wholly irrespective of the state of his consciousness upon the matter.” The former is the view that has in the main prevailed in English Law; and this seems to me certainly in harmony with the Common Sense of mankind, so far as legal liability is concerned; but I do not think that the case is equally clear as regards moral obligation.

[220] Cf. post, pp. 292-3. It may be added that there is often a further difficulty in ascertaining the amount of compensation due: for this frequently involves a comparison of things essentially disparate, and there are some kinds of harm which it seems impossible to compensate.

[221] In the earlier stage of moral development, referred to in the preceding paragraph, retribution inflicted on the wrongdoer was regarded as the normal mode of reparation to the person injured. But this view is contrary to the moral Common Sense of Christian Societies.

[222] I think the term “merit” often blends the two notions, as when we speak of “promotion by merit.” By moralists, however, “merit” is generally used as exactly equivalent to what I have called “desert.”

[223] The only tenable Determinist interpretation of Desert is, in my opinion, the Utilitarian: according to which, when a man is said to deserve reward for any services to society, the meaning is that it is expedient to reward him, in order that he and others may be induced to render similar services by the expectation of similar rewards. Cf. post, Book iv. chap. iii. § 4.

[224] Perhaps we may partly attribute to the difficulties above discussed, that the notion of Desert has sometimes dropped out of the ideal of Utopian reconstructors of society, and ‘Equality of Happiness’ has seemed to be the only end. Justice, it has been thought, prescribes simply that each should have an equal share of happiness, as far as happiness depends on the action of others. But there seems to be much difficulty in working this out: for (apart from the considerations of Fitness above mentioned) equal happiness is not to be attained by equal distribution of objects of desire. For some require more and some less to be equally happy. Hence, it seems, we must take differences of needs into consideration. But if merely mental needs are included (as seems reasonable) we should have to give less to cheerful, contented, self-sacrificing people than to those who are naturally moody and exigeant, as the former can be made happy with less. And this is too paradoxical to recommend itself to Common Sense.

[225] No doubt, it would be possible to remove, to some extent, the inequalities that are attributable to circumstances, by bringing the best education within the reach of all classes, so that all children might have an equal opportunity of being selected and trained for any functions for which they seemed to be fit: and this seems to be prescribed by ideal justice, in so far as it removes or mitigates arbitrary inequality. Accordingly in those ideal reconstructions of society, in which we may expect to find men’s notions of abstract justice exhibited, such an institution as this has generally found a place. Still, there will be much natural inequality which we cannot remove or even estimate.

[226] Cf. post, Book iv. chap. iii. § 4.

[227] It is not perhaps necessary that I should here enlarge on the practical obstacles in the way of any attempt to realise such an ideal system.

[228] I have already expressed my opinion that this Utilitarian view of punishment is gradually tending to prevail; but I do not think that it has yet prevailed.

[229] Of course those who hold that the essence of Justice consists in securing external Freedom among the members of a community, and that punishment is only justified as a means to this end, naturally think that in awarding punishment we ought to consider merely its efficacy as such means. But this can scarcely be put forward as an interpretation of the common notion of Just Punishment.

[230] By ‘arbitrary’ I mean such definitions and limitations as destroy the self-evidence of the principle; and, when closely examined, lead us to regard it as subordinate.

[231] Cf. ante, Book ii. chap. v. § 2.

[232] It is perhaps hardly necessary that I should here notice the Hobbist doctrine, revived in a modified form by Austin, that “the power of the sovereign is incapable of [legal] limitation.” For no one now maintains pure Hobbism: and Austin is as far as possible from meaning that there cannot be an express or tacit understanding between Sovereign and Subjects, the violation of which by the former may make it morally right for the latter to rebel. In fact, as used by him, Hobbes’ doctrine reduces itself to the rather unimportant proposition that a sovereign will not be punished for unconstitutional conduct through the agency of his own law-courts, so long as he remains sovereign. I may take this opportunity of observing that Austin’s definition of Law is manifestly unsuited for our present purpose: since a law, in his view, is not a command that ought to be obeyed, but a command for the violation of which we may expect a particular kind of punishment.

[233] Cf. Blackstone, Introduction, § 2. “In relation to those laws which enjoin only positive duties, and forbid only such things as are not mala in se, but mala prohibita merely, without any intermixture of moral guilt, annexing a penalty to non-compliance, here I apprehend conscience is no further concerned, than by directing a submission to the penalty in case of our breach of those laws ... the alternative is offered to every man, ‘either abstain from this or submit to such a penalty.’”

[234] Into the ethical difficulties peculiar to International Law, I have not thought it worth while to enter.

[235] Vows to God constitute another exception: and it is thought by many that if these are binding, there must be some way in which God can be understood to grant release from them. But this it is beyond my province to discuss.

[236] The case is somewhat different when the act has become immoral after the promise was made: still, here also, the prior duty of abstaining from it would be universally held to prevail.

[237] What is here said of a ‘statement’ may be extended to any mode of producing a false impression.

[238] The case where set forms are used being the exceptio probans regulam.

[239] It can hardly be said that the advocate merely reports the false affirmations of others: since the whole force of his pleading depends upon his adopting them and working them up into a view of the case which, for the time at least, he appears to hold.

[240] E.g. certain religious persons hold—or held in 1873—that it is right solemnly to affirm a belief that God created the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th, meaning that 1 : 6 is the divinely ordered proportion between rest and labour.

[241] Cf. Whewell, Elements of Morality, Book ii. chap. xv. § 299.

[242] Cf. chap. i. § 3 of this Book.

[243] See Book iv. chap. v. § 3 for a further discussion of this axiom.

[244] It is to be observed that men derive pleasure from the pains and losses of others, in various ways, without the specific emotion which I distinguish as malevolent affection: either (1) from the sense of power exercised—which explains much of the wanton cruelty of schoolboys, despots, etc.—or (2) from a sense of their own superiority or security in contrast with the failures and struggles of others, or (3) even merely from the excitement sympathetically caused by the manifestation or representation of any strong feeling in others; a real tragedy is interesting in the same way as a fictitious one. But these facts, though psychologically interesting, present no important ethical problems; since no one doubts that pain ought not to be inflicted from such motives as these.

[245] Butler (Sermon VIII., Upon Resentment) recognises that deliberate resentment “has in fact a good influence upon the affairs of the world”; though “it were much to be wished that men would act from a better principle.”

[246] If the amount at stake is such as to constitute a real sacrifice, the conduct seems to be more than liberal, and (unless blamed as extravagant) is rather praised as generous or highminded.

[247] Kant argues (Met. Anfangsgr. d. Tugendlehre, Th. I., § iv.) that as every one “inevitably wills” means to promote his own happiness this cannot be regarded as a duty. But, as I have before urged (Book i. chap. iv. § 1), a man does not “inevitably will” to do what he believes will be most conducive to his own greatest happiness.

The view in the text is that of Butler (Dissertation Of the nature of Virtue); who admits that “nature has not given us so sensible a disapprobation of imprudence and folly as of falsehood, injustice, and cruelty”; but points out that such sensible disapprobation is for various reasons less needed in the former case.

[248] See Whewell’s Elements of Morality, Book ii. chap. x.

[249] The notion of Chastity is nearly equivalent to that of Purity, only somewhat more external and superficial.

[250] In so far as mere illegitimacy of union is conceived to be directly and specially prohibited, and not merely from considerations of Prudence and Benevolence, it is regarded as a violation of Order rather than of Purity.

[251] It was partly owing to the serious oversight of not perceiving that Purity itself forbids too minute a system of rules for the observance of purity that the mediÆval Casuistry fell into disrepute.

[253] Cf. ante, chap. iv. § 5 of this Book.

[254] The above remarks apply in a less degree to the “moral courage” by which men face the pains and dangers of social disapproval in the performance of what they believe to be duty: for the adequate accomplishment of such acts depends less on qualities not within the control of the will at any given time.

[255] I do not refer to customary marks of respect for officials, the omission of which would be a breach of established order; since the special political reason for requiring these obviously takes the question beyond the sphere of application of the Virtue of Humility.

[256] Hence the practical importance of the Formal test of Rightness, on which Kant insists: cf. ante, chap. i. § 3 of this Book.

[257] The final arbiter, that is, on the question what the rule is: of course the moral obligation to conform to any rule laid down by an external authority must rest on some principle which the individual’s reason has to apply.

[258] Cf. Book i. chap. iii. § 2.

[259] Cf. Book i. chap. iii. § 2.

[260] It has been fairly urged that I leave the determinations of Common Sense very loose and indefinite: and if I were endeavouring to bring out a more positive result from this examination, I ought certainly to have discussed further how we are to ascertain the ‘experts’ on whose ‘consensus’ we are to rely, in this or any other subject. But my scientific conclusions are to so great an extent negative, that I thought it hardly necessary to enter upon this discussion. I have been careful not to exaggerate the doubtfulness and inconsistency of Common Sense: should it turn out to be more doubtful and inconsistent than I have represented it, my argument will only be strengthened.

[261] In chap. ix. Temperance was regarded as subordinate to, or a special application of, Prudence or Self-love moralised: because this seemed to be on the whole the view of Common Sense, which in the preceding chapters I have been endeavouring to follow as closely as possible, both in stating the principles educed and in the order of their exposition.

[262] The admission that these maxims are self-evident must be taken subject to the distinction before established between “subjective” and “objective” rightness. It is a necessary condition of my acting rightly that I should not do what I judge to be wrong: but if my judgment is mistaken, my action in accordance with it will not be “objectively” right.

[263] It may be noticed that a view very similar to this has often been maintained in considering what God is in justice bound to do for human beings in consequence of the quasi-parental relation in which He stands to them.

[264] It is not irrelevant to notice the remarkable divergence of suggestions for the better regulation of marriage, to which reflective minds seem to be led when they are once set loose from the trammels of tradition and custom; as exhibited in the speculations of philosophers in all ages—especially of those (as e.g. Plato) to whom we cannot attribute any sensual or licentious bias.

[265] For example, many seem to hold that wealth is, roughly speaking, rightly distributed when cultivated persons have abundance and the uncultivated a bare subsistence, since the former are far more capable of deriving happiness from wealth than the latter.

[266] I refer later (p. 360) to the difficulty before noticed in respect of such prior obligations as are not strictly determinate.

[267] I have omitted as less important the special questions connected with promises to the dead or to the absent, or where a form of words is prescribed.

[268] It was this conception that seemed to give the true standard of Humility, considered as a purely internal duty.

[269] It should be observed that I am not asking for an exact quantitative decision, but whether we can really think that the decision depends upon considerations of this kind.

[270] It should be observed that the more positive treatment of Common-sense Morality, in its relation to Utilitarianism, to which we shall proceed in chap. iii. of the following Book, is intended as an indispensable supplement of the negative criticism which has just been completed.

[271] In Green’s Prolegomena to Ethics, Book ii. chaps. i. and ii. a peculiar view is taken of “motives, of that kind by which it is the characteristic of moral or human action, to be determined.” Such motives, it is maintained, must be distinguished from desires in the sense of “mere solicitations of which a man is conscious”; they are “constituted by the reaction of the man’s self upon these, and its identification of itself with one of them.” In fact the “direction of the self-conscious self to the realisation of an object” which I should call an act of will, is the phenomenon to which Green would restrict the term “desire in that sense in which desire is the principle and notion of an imputable human action.”

The use of terms here suggested appears to me inconvenient, and the psychological analysis implied in it to a great extent erroneous. I admit that in certain simple cases of choice, where the alternatives suggested are each prompted by a single definite desire, there is no psychological inaccuracy in saying that in willing the act to which he is stimulated by any such desire the agent “identifies himself with the desire.” But in more complex cases the phrase appears to me incorrect, as obliterating important distinctions between the two kinds of psychical phenomena which are usually and conveniently distinguished as “desires” and volitions. In the first place, as I have before pointed out (chap. i. § 2 of this Book), it often happens that certain foreseen consequences of volition, which as foreseen are undoubtedly willed and—in a sense—chosen by the agents, are not objects of desire to him at all, but even possibly of aversion—aversion, of course, overcome by his desire of other consequences of the same act. In the second place, it is specially important, from an ethical point of view, to notice that, among the various desires or aversions aroused in us by the complex foreseen consequences of a contemplated act, there are often impulses with which we do not identify ourselves, but which we even try to suppress as far as possible: though as it is not possible to suppress them completely—especially if we do the act to which they prompt—we cannot say that they do not operate as motives.

[272] Cf. ante, chap. i. § 2 of this Book.

[273] Hutcheson, System of Moral Philosophy, Book i. chap. iv. § 10.

[274] See the Dissertation Of the Nature of Virtue appended to the Analogy.

[275] The Metaphysische AnfangsgrÜnde der Tugendlehre: but it ought to be observed that the ethical view briefly expounded in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft appears to have much more affinity with Butler’s.

[276] Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. ii. p. 284, 2nd edition.

[277] Cf. ante, chap. iv. § 2 of this Book.

[278] Types of Ethical Theory, vol. ii. p. 266. Dr. Martineau explains that the chief composite springs are inserted in their approximate place, subject to the variations of which their composition renders them susceptible.

[279] Thus we might ask why the class of “passions” is so strangely restricted, why conjugal affection is omitted, whether wonder can properly be regarded as a definite motive, whether “censoriousness” is properly ranked with “vindictiveness” as one of the “lowest passions,” etc.

[280] Cf. ante, Book i. chap. viii. § 4.

[281] I am fully sensible of the peculiar interest and value of the ethical thought of ancient Greece. Indeed through a large part of the present work the influence of Plato and Aristotle on my treatment of this subject has been greater than that of any modern writer. But I am here only considering the value of the general principles for determining what ought to be done, which the ancient systems profess to supply.

[282] The following remarks apply less to later Stoicism—especially the Roman Stoicism which we know at first hand in the writings of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius; in which the relation of the individual man to Humanity generally is more prominent than it is in the earlier form of the system.

[283] It should be observed that in determining the particulars of external duty the Stoics to some extent used the notion ‘nature’ in a different way: they tried to derive guidance from the complex adaptation of means to ends exhibited in the organic world. But since in their view the whole course of the Universe was both perfect and completely predetermined, it was impossible for them to obtain from any observation of actual existence a clear and consistent principle for preferring and rejecting alternatives of conduct: and in fact their most characteristic practical precepts show a curious conflict between the tendency to accept what was customary as ‘natural,’ and the tendency to reject what seemed arbitrary as unreasonable.

[284] Cf. Analogy, Part ii. chap. i. and chap. viii.

[285] Cf. ante, note to p. 124.

[286] To avoid misapprehension I should state that in these propositions the consideration of the different degrees of certainty of Present and Future Good, Own and Others’ Good respectively, is supposed to have been fully taken into account before the future or alien Good is judged to be greater.

[287] It may, however, be thought that in exhibiting this aspect of the morality of Common Sense, psychogonical theory leads us to define in a particular way the general notion of ‘good’ or ‘well-being,’ regarded as a result which morality has a demonstrable natural tendency to produce. This point will be considered subsequently (chap. xiv. § 1 of this Book: and Book iv. chap. iv.).

[288] Cf. ante, Book i. chap. viii. Note, pp. 103, 104.

[289] In drawing attention to Clarke’s system, I ought perhaps to remark that his anxiety to exhibit the parallelism between ethical and mathematical truth (on which Locke before him had insisted) renders his general terminology inappropriate, and occasionally leads him into downright extravagances. E.g. it is patently absurd to say that “a man who wilfully acts contrary to Justice wills things to be what they are not and cannot be”: nor are “Relations and Proportions” or “fitnesses and unfitnesses of things” very suitable designations for the matter of moral intuition. But for the present purpose there is no reason to dwell on these defects.

[290] Clarke’s statement of the “Rule of Righteousness with respect to ourselves” I pass over, because it is, as he states it, a derivative and subordinate rule. It is that we should preserve our being, be temperate, industrious, etc., with a view to the performance of Duty: which of course supposes Duty (i.e. the ultimate and absolute rules of Duty) already determined. I may observe that the reasonableness of Prudence or Self-love is only recognised by Clarke indirectly; in a passage which I quoted before (p. 120).

[291] Boyle Lectures (1705), etc., pp. 86, 87.

[292] l.c. p. 92.

[293] I think that Kant, in applying this axiom, does not take due account of certain restrictive considerations. Cf. chap. vii. § 3 of this Book, and also Book iv. chap. v. § 3.

[294] Kant no doubt gives the agent’s own Perfection as another absolute end; but when we come to examine his notion of perfection, we find that it is not really determinate without the statement of other ends of reason, for the accomplishment of which we are to perfect ourselves. See Met. Anfangsgr. d. Tugendlehre, I. Theil, § v. “The perfection that belongs to men generally ... can be nothing else than the cultivation of one’s power, and also of one’s will, to satisfy the requirements of duty in general.”

[295] See note at the end of the chapter.

[296] On the relation of Rational Egoism to Rational Benevolence—which I regard as the profoundest problem of Ethics—my final view is given in the last chapter of this treatise.

[297] Utilitarianism, chap. i. pp. 6, 7, and chap. ii. pp. 16, 17.

[298] l.c. chap. iv. pp. 52, 53.

[299] It has been suggested that I have overlooked a confusion in Mill’s mind between two possible meanings of the term ‘desirable,’ (1) what can be desired and (2) what ought to be desired. I intended to show by the two first sentences of this paragraph that I was aware of this confusion, but thought it unnecessary for my present purpose to discuss it.

[300] See Book i. chap. i. § 2.

[301] Cf. Stephen, Science of Ethics, chap. iv. § 16.

[302] Chap. xi. § 3; see also chap. xii. § 3.

[303] Book ii. chap. ii.

[304] Final, that is, so far as the quality of the present feeling is concerned. I have pointed out that so far as any estimate of the desirability or pleasantness of a feeling involves comparison with feelings only represented in idea, it is liable to be erroneous through imperfections in the representation.

[305] The term “cognition” without qualification more often implies what is signified by “true” or “valid”: but for the present purpose it is necessary to eliminate this implication.

[306] Cf. Lecky, History of European Morals, pp. 52 seqq.

[307] Book i. chap. iv.; cf. Book ii. chap. iii.

[308] I ought at the same time to say that I hold it no less reasonable for an individual to take his own happiness as his ultimate end. This “Dualism of the Practical Reason” will be further discussed in the concluding chapter of the treatise.

[309] We may illustrate this double explanation by a reference to some of Plato’s Dialogues, such as the Gorgias, where the ethical argument has a singularly mixed effect on the mind. Partly, it seems to us more or less dexterous sophistry, playing on a confusion of thought latent in the common notion of good: partly a noble and stirring expression of a profound moral faith.

[310] Cf. Stewart, Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers, Book ii. chap. i.

[311] The controversy on vivisection, to which I referred just now, affords a good illustration of the need that I am pointing out. I do not observe that any one in this controversy has ventured on the paradox that the pain of sentient beings is not per se to be avoided.

[312] I have before noticed (Book ii. chap. iii. p. 134) the metaphysical objection taken by certain writers to the view that Happiness is Ultimate Good; on the ground that Happiness (= sum of pleasures) can only be realised in successive parts, whereas a “Chief Good” must be “something of which some being can be conceived in possession”—something, that is, which he can have all at once. On considering this objection it seemed to me that, in so far as it is even plausible, its plausibility depends on the exact form of the notion ‘a Chief Good’ (or ‘Summum Bonum’), which is perhaps inappropriate as applied to Happiness. I have therefore in this chapter used the notion of ‘Ultimate Good’: as I can see no shadow of reason for affirming that that which is Good or Desirable per se, and not as a means to some further end, must necessarily be capable of being possessed all at once. I can understand that a man may aspire after a Good of this latter kind: but so long as Time is a necessary form of human existence, it can hardly be surprising that human good should be subject to the condition of being realised in successive parts.

[313] Book i. chap. vi. It may be worth while to notice, that in Mill’s well-known treatise on Utilitarianism this confusion, though expressly deprecated, is to some extent encouraged by the author’s treatment of the subject.

[314] I have already criticised (Book iii. chap. xiii.) the mode in which Mill attempts to exhibit this inference.

[315] Cf. post, chap. iv.

[316] Those who held the opposite opinion appear generally to assume that the appetites and desires which are the mainspring of ordinary human action are in themselves painful: a view entirely contrary to my own experience, and, I believe, to the common experience of mankind. See chap. iv. § 2 of Book i. So far as their argument is not a development of this psychological error, any plausibility it has seems to me to be obtained by dwelling onesidedly on the annoyances and disappointments undoubtedly incident to normal human life, and on the exceptional sufferings of small minorities of the human race, or perhaps of most men during small portions of their lives.

The reader who wishes to see the paradoxical results of pessimistic utilitarianism seriously worked out by a thoughtful and suggestive writer, may refer to Professor Macmillan’s book on the Promotion of General Happiness (Swan Sonnenschein and Co. 1890). The author considers that “the philosophical world is pretty equally divided between optimists and pessimists,” and his own judgment on the question at issue between the two schools appears to be held in suspense.

[317] It should be observed that the question here is as to the distribution of Happiness, not the means of happiness. If more happiness on the whole is produced by giving the same means of happiness to B rather than to A, it is an obvious and incontrovertible deduction from the Utilitarian principle that it ought to be given to B, whatever inequality in the distribution of the means of happiness this may involve.

[318] The relation of Egoistic to Universalistic Hedonism is further examined in the concluding chapter.

[319] It is to be observed that he may be led to it in other ways than that of argument: i.e. by appeals to his sympathies, or to his moral or quasi-moral sentiments.

[320] I ought to remind the reader that the argument in chap. xiii. only leads to the first principle of Utilitarianism, if it be admitted that Happiness is the only thing ultimately and intrinsically Good or Desirable. I afterwards in chap. xiv. endeavoured to bring Common Sense to this admission.

[321] That is, so far as we mean by Justice anything more than the simple negation of arbitrary inequality.

[322] It ought to be observed that Cumberland does not adopt a hedonistic interpretation of Good. Still, I have followed Hallam in regarding him as the founder of English Utilitarianism: since it seems to have been by a gradual and half-unconscious process that ‘Good’ came to have the definitely hedonistic meaning which it has implicitly in Shaftesbury’s system, and explicitly in that of Hume.

[323] I should point out that Hume uses “utility” in a narrower sense than that which Bentham gave it, and one more in accordance with the usage of ordinary language. He distinguishes the “useful” from the “immediately agreeable”: so that while recognising “utility” as the main ground of our moral approbation of the more important virtues, he holds that there are other elements of personal merit which we approve because they are “immediately agreeable,” either to the person possessed of them or to others. It appears, however, more convenient to use the word in the wider sense in which it has been current since Bentham.

[324] Lecky, Hist. of Eur. Mor. chap. i, pp. 37, 40 seqq. (13th impression).

[325] Book iii. chap. x.

[326] Book iii. chap. iv. § 1.

[327] It will be seen that I do not here assume in their full breadth the conclusions of chap. xiv. of the preceding Book.

[328] Cf. J. Grote, An Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy, chap. v.

[329] Book iii. chap. iv. § 1.

[330] Strictly speaking, of course, the Law of modern states does not enforce this, but only refuses to recognise connubial contracts of any other kind: but the social effect is substantially the same.

[331] Sometimes such unbargained requital is even legally obligatory: as when children are bound to repay the care spent on them by supporting their parents in decrepitude.

[332] Further discussion of the method of dealing with these difficulties, in their utilitarian form, will be found in the two following chapters.

[333] Utilitarianism, chap. v.

[334] Cf. Book iii. chap. vi. §§ 2, 3.

[335] Cf. Book iii. chap. v.

[336] Book iii. chap. xiii. § 3.

[337] Cf. ante, p. 268 note.

[338] Book iii. chap. vi.

[339] Cf. ante, Book iii. chap. vi. § 8.

[340] In the case of force, however, there is the counterbalancing consideration that the unlawful aggressor may be led to inflict worse injury on his victim, if he is unable to rely on the latter’s promise.

[341] Cf. Book iii. chap. vi. § 8.

[342] Book iii. chap. v. § 4.

[343] In another work (Principles of Political Economy, Book iii. chap. ii.) I have tried to show that complete laisser faire, in the organisation of industry, tends in various ways to fall short of the most economic production of wealth.

[344] The quotations are from my Principles of Political Economy, Book iii. chap. ix.; where these questions are discussed at somewhat greater length.

[345] Cf. ante, § 2, and Book iii. chap. ii. § 1.

[347] It is obvious that so long as the social sanction is enforced, the lives of the women against whom society thus issues its ban must tend to be unhappy from disorder and shame, and the source of unhappiness to others; and also that the breach by men of a recognised and necessary moral rule must tend to have injurious effects on their moral habits generally.

[348] Active and Moral Powers, Book ii. chap. iii.

[349] Among definite changes in the current morality of the GrÆco-Roman civilised world, which are to be attributed mainly if not entirely to the extension and intensification of sympathy due to Christianity, the following may be especially noted: (1) the severe condemnation and final suppression of the practice of exposing infants; (2) effective abhorrence of the barbarism of gladiatorial combats; (3) immediate moral mitigation of slavery, and a strong encouragement of emancipation; (4) great extension of the eleemosynary provision made for the sick and poor.

[350] This passage, which in the second and subsequent editions occurred in chap. ii. of Book i., was omitted by Professor Sidgwick from that chapter in the sixth edition, with the intention of incorporating it in Book iv., which he did not live to revise.

[351] Cf. J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism, chap. ii. Mill, however, only affirms that the “rules of morality for the multitude” are to be accepted by the philosopher provisionally, until he has got something better.

[352] I refer to the abstract principles of Prudence, Justice, and Rational Benevolence as defined in chap. xiii. of the preceding Book.

[353] Theory of Moral Sentiments, Book i.

[354] This operation of sympathy is strikingly illustrated in the penal codes of primitive communities, both by the mildness of the punishments inflicted for homicide, and by the startling differences between the penalties allotted to the same crime according as the criminal was taken in the act or not. “It is curious to observe,” says Sir H. Maine (Ancient Law, chap. x.), “how completely the men of primitive times were persuaded that the impulses of the injured person were the proper measure of the vengeance he was entitled to exact, and how literally they imitated the probable rise and fall of his passions in fixing the scale of punishment.” And even in more civilised societies there is a very common feeling of uncertainty as to the propriety of inflicting punishment for crimes committed long ago, which seems traceable to the same source.

[355] No doubt this influence is confined within strict limits: no authority can permanently impose on men regulations flagrantly infelicific: and the most practically originative of religious teachers have produced their effect chiefly by giving new force and vividness to sentiments already existing (and recognised as properly authoritive) in the society upon which they acted. Still, it might have made a great difference to the human race if (e.g.) Mohammed had been fond of wine, and indifferent to women.

[356] On this point I shall have occasion to speak further in the next section.

[357] I refer especially to the views put forward by Mr. Spencer in the concluding chapters of his Data of Ethics.

[358] This definition, however, does not seem to me admissible, from a utilitarian point of view: since a society in this sense perfect might not realise the maximum of possible happiness; it might still be capable of a material increase of happiness through pleasures involving a slight alloy of pain, such as Mr. Spencer’s view of perfection would exclude.

[359] See especially chap. ix. Pars. 12-15.

[360] It is obvious that if ‘desirability,’ in the above definition, were interpreted hedonistically, the term “health” would merely give us a new name for the general problem of utilitarian morality; not a new suggestion for its solution. I ought to say that the notions of “social welfare” or “wellbeing” are elsewhere used by Mr. Stephen, in the place of those here quoted, but I do not think that he means by them any more than what I understand him to mean by “health” or “efficiency”—i.e. that state of the social organism which tends to its preservation under the conditions of its existence.

[361] Book ii. chap. vi. § 3.

[362] I do not mean to assert that ‘play’ in some form is not necessary for physical health: but there is a long step from the encouragement of play, so far as salutary, to the promotion of social culture.

[363] It may be observed that the increased heterogeneity which the development of modern industry has brought with it, in the form of a specialisation of industrial functions which tends to render the lives of individual workers narrow and monotonous, has usually been regarded by philanthropists as seriously infelicific; and as needing to be counteracted by a general diffusion of the intellectual culture now enjoyed by the few—which, if realised, would tend pro tanto to make the lives of different classes in the community less heterogeneous.

[364] I do not mean that this sentiment is in my view incompatible with Utilitarianism; I mean that it must not attach itself to any subordinate rules of conduct, but only to the supreme principle of acting with impartial concern for all elements of general happiness.

[365] For example, Mr. Bain in Mind (Jan. 1883, pp. 48, 49).

[366] This sentence is not an exact quotation, but a summary of the doctrine set forth by J. S. Mill in his treatise On Liberty (Introduction).

[367] See Mill On Liberty, chap. iv. It may be observed that Mill’s doctrine is certainly opposed to common sense: since (e.g.) it would exclude from censure almost all forms of sexual immorality committed by unmarried and independent adults.

[368] Cf. Book iii. chap. xiv.

[369] Cf. especially Book iii. chap. ii.

[370] Cf. Book iii. chap. i. and chap. xiii.

[371] Book iii. chap. vii. § 3.

[372] In particular cases, however, they seem to be admitted by Common Sense to a certain extent. For example, it would be commonly thought wrong to express in public speeches disturbing religious or political opinions which may be legitimately published in books.

[373] Cf. chap. iii. § 2 of this Book.

[374] We have seen that a Utilitarian may sometimes have to override these rules; but then the case falls under the head discussed in the previous section.

[375] See J. S. Mill’s treatise on Utilitarianism (chap. iii. passim): where, however, the argument is not easy to follow, from a confusion between three different objects of inquiry: (1) the actual effect of sympathy in inducing conformity to the rules of Utilitarian ethics, (2) the effect in this direction which it is likely to have in the future, (3) the value of sympathetic pleasures and pains as estimated by an enlightened Egoist. The first and third of these questions Mill did not clearly separate, owing to his psychological doctrine that each one’s own pleasure is the sole object of his desires. But if my refutation of this doctrine (Book i. chap. iv. § 3) is valid, we have to distinguish two ways in which sympathy operates: it generates sympathetic pleasures and pains, which have to be taken into account in the calculations of Egoistic Hedonism; but it also may cause impulses to altruistic action, of which the force is quite out of proportion to the sympathetic pleasure (or relief from pain) which such action seems likely to secure to the agent. So that even if the average man ever should reach such a pitch of sympathetic development, as never to feel prompted to sacrifice the general good to his own, still this will not prove that it is egoistically reasonable for him to behave in this way.

[376] I do not mean to imply that the process of change is merely circular. In the earlier period sympathy is narrower, simpler, and more presentative; in the later it is more extensive, complex, and representative.

[377] I do not, however, think that we are justified in stating as universally true what has been admitted in the preceding paragraph. Some few thoroughly selfish persons appear at least to be happier than most of the unselfish; and there are other exceptional natures whose chief happiness seems to be derived from activity, disinterested indeed, but directed towards other ends than human happiness.

[378] See chap. iii. § 3 of this Book, pp. 432-33.

[379] See Book iii. chap. i. § 2: also Book iii. chap. ii. § 1.

[380] Cf. Book i. chap. iii. § 2.

[381] It may perhaps be said that this comparison has no force for Libertarians, who consider the essence of Virtue to lie in free choice. But to say that any free choice is virtuous would be a paradox from which most Libertarians—admitting that Evil may be freely chosen no less than Good—would recoil. It must therefore be Free choice of good that is conceived to realise the divine end: and if so, the arguments for the utilitarian interpretation of Good—thus freely chosen—would still be applicable mutatis mutandis: and if so, the arguments for regarding rules of utilitarian duty as divinely sanctioned would be similarly applicable.

[382] It is not necessary, if we are simply considering Ethics as a possible independent science, to throw the fundamental premiss of which we are now examining the validity into a Theistic form. Nor does it seem always to have taken that form in the support which Positive Religion has given to Morality. In the Buddhist creed this notion of the rewards inseparably attaching to right conduct seems to have been developed in a far more elaborate and systematic manner than it has in any phase of Christianity. But, as conceived by enlightened Buddhists, these rewards are not distributed by the volition of a Supreme Person, but by the natural operation of an impersonal Law.

[383] It may be well to remind the reader that by ‘adequate’ is here meant ‘sufficient to make it the agent’s interest to promote universal good’; not necessarily ‘proportional to Desert.’

[384] I cannot fall back on the resource of thinking myself under a moral necessity to regard all my duties as if they were commandments of God, although not entitled to hold speculatively that any such Supreme Being really exists. I am so far from feeling bound to believe for purposes of practice what I see no ground for holding as a speculative truth, that I cannot even conceive the state of mind which these words seem to describe, except as a momentary half-wilful irrationality, committed in a violent access of philosophic despair.

[385] The terms ‘rational’ and ‘moral’ seem to me most appropriate when I wish to suggest the affinity between the two notions: the terms ‘good’ and ‘neutral’ seem preferable when I wish to lay stress on the difference.

[386] Werke, v. pp. 100-104 (Hartenstein).

[387] Werke, v. p. 30.

[388] Ibid. p. 83.

[389] Ibid. p. 46.

[390] Werke, iv. p. 294.

[391] Werke, iv. p. 260 (Hartenstein).

[392] Werke, v. p. 58. See an acute discussion of Kant’s perplexing use of the term “Will” in Prof. Schurman’s Kantian Ethics, which has anticipated me in the above quotations.

[393] E.g. Werke, iv. p. 296.

[394] E.g. Werke, v. p. 35.