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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Progressive Morality, by Thomas Fowler
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Progressive Morality
+       An Essay in Ethics
+
+Author: Thomas Fowler
+
+Release Date: April 15, 2004 [EBook #12035]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROGRESSIVE MORALITY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Shawn Cruze and PG Distributed Proofreaders. Produced
+from images provided by the Million Book Project.
+
+
+
+
+
+PROGRESSIVE MORALITY
+
+_FOWLER_
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+PROGRESSIVE MORALITY
+
+AN ESSAY IN ETHICS
+
+
+BY
+
+THOMAS FOWLER, M.A., LL.D., F.S.A.
+
+PRESIDENT OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE
+
+WYKEHAM PROFESSOR OF LOGIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
+
+
+1884
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+These pages represent an attempt to exhibit a scientific conception of
+morality in a popular form, and with a view to practical applications
+rather than the discussion of theoretical difficulties. For this purpose
+it has been necessary to study brevity and avoid controversy. Hence, I
+have made few references to other authors, and I have almost altogether
+dispensed with foot-notes. But, though I have attempted to state rather
+than to defend my views, I believe that they are, in the main, those
+which, making exception for a few back eddies in the stream of modern
+thought, are winning their way to general acceptance among the more
+instructed and reflective men of our day.
+
+It is necessary that I should state that this Essay is independent of a
+much larger work, entitled the 'Principles of Morals,' on which I was,
+some years ago, engaged with my predecessor, the late Professor Wilson.
+Owing to the declining state of his health during the latter years of
+his life, that work was, at the time of his death, left in a condition
+which rendered its completion very difficult and its publication
+probably undesirable. For the present work I am solely responsible,
+though no one can have been brought into close contact with so powerful
+a mind as that of Professor Wilson, without deriving from it much
+stimulus and retaining many traces of its influence.
+
+It has long been my belief that the questions of theoretical Ethics
+would be far less open to dispute, as well as far more intelligible, if
+they were considered with more direct reference to practice. This little
+book will, I trust, furnish an example, however slight and imperfect, of
+such a mode of treatment.
+
+C.C.C.
+
+_July_ 25, 1884.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Introduction. The Sanctions of Conduct.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+The Moral Sanction or Moral Sentiment. Its
+Functions and the Justification of its claims
+to Superiority.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Analysis and Formation of the Moral Sentiment.
+Its Education and Improvement.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+The Moral Test and its Justification.
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Examples of the Practical Application of the Moral
+Test to existing Morality.
+
+
+
+PROGRESSIVE MORALITY.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+INTRODUCTION. THE SANCTIONS OF CONDUCT.
+
+
+All reflecting men acknowledge that both the theory and the practice of
+morality have advanced with the general advance in the intelligence and
+civilisation of the human race. But, if this be so, morality must be a
+matter capable of being reasoned about, a subject of investigation and
+of teaching, in which the less intelligent members of a community have
+always something to learn from the more intelligent, and the more
+intelligent, in their turn, have ever fresh problems to solve and new
+material to study. It becomes, then, of prime importance to every
+educated man, to ask what are the data of Ethics, what is the method by
+which its general principles are investigated, what are the
+considerations which the moralist ought to apply to the solution of the
+complex difficulties of life and action. And still, in spite of these
+obvious facts, ethical investigation, or any approach to an independent
+review of the current morality, is always unpopular with the great mass
+of mankind. Though the conduct of their own lives is the subject which
+most concerns men, it is that in which they are least patient of
+speculation. Nothing is so wounding to the self-complacency of a man of
+indolent habits of mind as to call in question any of the moral
+principles on which he habitually acts. Praise and blame are usually
+apportioned, even by educated men, according to vague and general rules,
+with little or no regard to the individual circumstances of the case.
+And of all innovators, the innovator on ethical theory is apt to be the
+most unpopular and to be the least able to secure impartial attention to
+his speculations. And hence it is that vague theories, couched in
+unintelligible or only half-intelligible language, and almost totally
+inapplicable to practice, have usually done duty for what is called a
+system of moral philosophy. The authors or exponents of such theories
+have the good fortune at once to avoid odium and to acquire a reputation
+for profundity.
+
+In the following pages, I shall attempt (1) to discriminate morality,
+properly so called, from other sanctions of conduct; (2) to determine
+the precise functions, and the ultimate justification, of the moral
+sentiment, or, in other words, of the moral sanction; (3) to enquire how
+this sentiment has been formed, and how it may be further educated and
+improved; (4) to discover some general test of conduct; (5) to give
+examples of the application of this test to existing moral rules and
+moral feelings, with a view to shew how far they may be justified and
+how far they require extension or reformation. As my subject is almost
+exclusively practical, I shall studiously avoid mere theoretical
+puzzles, such as is pre-eminently that of the freedom of the will,
+which, in whatever way resolved, probably never influences, and never
+will influence, any sane man's conduct. Questions of this kind will
+always excite interest in the sphere of speculation, and speculation is
+a necessity of the cultivated human intellect; but it does not seem to
+me that they can be profitably discussed in a treatise, the aim of which
+is simply to suggest principles for examining, for testing, and, if
+possible, for improving the prevailing sentiment on matters of practical
+morals.
+
+To begin with the first division of my subject, How is morality,
+properly so called, discriminated from other sanctions of conduct? By a
+sanction I may premise that I mean any pleasure which attracts to as
+well as any pain which deters from a given course of action. In books on
+Jurisprudence, this word is usually employed to designate merely pains
+or penalties, but this circumstance arises from the fact that, at least
+in modern times, the law seldom has recourse to rewards, and effects its
+ends almost exclusively by means of punishments. When we are considering
+conduct, however, in its general aspects and not exclusively in its
+relations to law, we appear to need a word to express any inducement,
+whether of a pleasureable or painful nature, which may influence a man's
+actions, and such a word the term 'sanction' seems conveniently to
+supply. Taking the word in this extended sense, the sanctions of conduct
+may be enumerated as the physical, the legal, the social, the religious,
+and the moral. Of the physical sanction familiar examples may be found
+in the headache from which a man suffers after a night's debauch, the
+pleasure of relaxation which awaits a well-earned holiday, the danger to
+life or limb which is attendant on reckless exercise, or the glow of
+constant satisfaction which rewards a healthy habit of life. These
+pleasures and pains, when once experienced, exercise, for the future, an
+attracting or a deterring influence, as the case may be, on the courses
+of conduct with which they have respectively become associated. Thus, a
+man who has once suffered from a severe headache, after a night's
+drinking-bout, will be likely to exercise more discretion in future, or
+the prospect of agreeable diversion, at the end of a hard day's work,
+will quicken a man's efforts to execute his task.
+
+The legal sanction is too familiar to need illustration. Without penal
+laws, no society of any size could exist for a day. There are, however,
+two characteristics of this sanction which it is important to point out.
+One is that it works almost exclusively[1] by means of penalties.
+It would be an endless and thankless business, in a society
+of any size, even if it were possible, to attempt to reward the virtuous
+for their consideration in not breaking the laws. The cheap, the
+effective, indeed, in most cases, the only possible method is to punish
+the transgressor. By a carefully devised and properly graduated system
+of penalties each citizen is thus furnished with the strongest
+inducement to refrain from those acts which may injure or annoy his
+neighbour. Another characteristic of the legal sanction is that, though
+it is professedly addressed to all citizens alike, it actually affects
+the uneducated and lower classes far more than the educated and higher
+classes of society. This circumstance arises partly from the fact that
+persons in a comfortable position of life are under little temptation to
+commit the more ordinary crimes forbidden by law, such as are theft,
+assault, and the like, and partly from the fact that their education and
+associations make them more amenable to the social, and, in most cases,
+to the moral and religious sanctions, about to be described presently.
+Few persons in what are called the higher or middle ranks of life have
+any temptation to commit, say, an act of theft, and, if they experienced
+any such temptation, they would be at least as likely to be restrained
+by the consideration of what their neighbours would think or say about
+them, even apart from their own moral and religious convictions, as by
+the fear of imprisonment.
+
+[Footnote 1: There are a few exceptions to the rule that the sanctions
+employed by the state assume the form of punishments rather than of
+rewards. Such are titles and honours, pensions awarded for distinguished
+service, rewards to informers, &c. But these exceptions are almost
+insignificant, when compared with the numerous examples of the general
+rule.]
+
+One of the most effective sanctions in all conditions of life, but
+especially in the upper and better educated circles of a civilized
+society, is what may be called the social sanction, that is to say, a
+regard for the good opinion and a dread of the evil opinion of those who
+know us, and especially of those amongst whom we habitually live. It is
+one of the characteristics of this sanction that it is much more
+far-reaching than the legal sanction. Not only does it extend to many
+acts of a moral character which are not affected, in most countries, by
+the legal sanction, such as lying, backbiting, ingratitude, unkindness,
+cowardice, but also to mere matters of taste or fashion, such as dress,
+etiquette, and even the proprieties of language. Indeed, as to the
+latter class of actions, there is always considerable danger of the
+social sanction becoming too strong. Society is apt to insist on all men
+being cast in one mould, without much caring to examine the character of
+the mould which it has adopted. And it frequently happens that a wholly
+disproportionate value thus comes to be attached to the observance of
+mere rules of etiquette and good-breeding as compared with acts and
+feelings which really concern the moral and social welfare of mankind.
+There is many a man, moving in good society, who would rather be guilty
+of, and even detected in, an act of unkindness or mendacity, than be
+seen in an unfashionable dress or commit a grammatical solecism or a
+broach of social etiquette. Vulgarity to such men is a worse reproach
+than hardness of heart or indifferent morality. In these cases, as we
+shall see hereafter, the social sanction requires to be corrected by the
+moral and religious sanctions, and it is the special province of the
+moral and religious teacher in each generation to take care that this
+correction shall be duly and effectively applied. The task may, from
+time to time, require the drastic hand of the moral or religious
+reformer, but, unless some one has the courage to undertake it, we are
+in constant danger of neglecting the weightier matters of the law, while
+we are busy with the mint and cummin and anise of fashion and
+convention. But, notwithstanding the danger of exaggeration and
+misapplication, there can be no doubt of the vast importance and the
+generally beneficial results of a keen sensitiveness to the opinions of
+our fellow-men. Without the powerful aid of this sanction, the
+restraints of morality and religion would often be totally ineffective.
+
+When the social sanction operates, not through society generally, but
+through particular sections of society, it may be called a Law of
+Honour, a term which originated in the usages of Chivalry. In a complex
+and civilized form of society, such as our own, there may be many such
+laws of honour, and the same individual may be subject to several of
+them. Thus each profession, the army, the navy, the clerical, the legal,
+the medical, the artistic, the dramatic profession, has its own peculiar
+code of honour or rules of professional etiquette, which its members can
+only infringe on pain of ostracism, or, at least, of loss of
+professional reputation. The same is the case with trades, and is
+specially exemplified in the instance of trades-unions, or, their
+mediaeval prototypes, the guilds. A college or a school, again, has its
+own rules and traditions, which the tutor or undergraduate, the master
+or boy, can often only violate at his extreme peril. Almost every club,
+institution, and society affords another instance in point. The class of
+'gentlemen,' too, that is to say, speaking roughly, the upper and upper
+middle ranks of society, claim to have a code of honour of their own,
+superior to that of the ordinary citizen. A breach of this code is
+called 'ungentlemanly' rather than wrong or immoral or unjust or unkind.
+So far as this code insists on courtesy of demeanour and delicacy of
+feeling and conduct, it is a valuable complement to the ordinary rules
+of morality, though, so far as it fulfils this function, it plainly
+ought not to be the exclusive possession of one class, but ought to be
+communicated, by means of example and education, to the classes who are
+now supposed to be bereft of it. There are points in this code, however,
+such as that the payment of 'debts of honour' should take precedence of
+that of tradesmen's bills, and that less courtesy is due to persons in
+an inferior station than to those in our own, which at least merit
+re-consideration. It may, indeed, be said of all these laws or codes of
+honour, that, though they have probably, on the whole, a salutary effect
+in maintaining a high standard of conduct in the various bodies or
+classes where they obtain, they require to be constantly watched, lest
+they should become capricious or tyrannical, and specially lest they
+should conflict with the wider interests of society or the deeper
+instincts of morality. It must not be forgotten that we are 'men' before
+we are 'gentlemen,' and that no claims of any profession, institution,
+or class can replace or supplant those of humanity and citizenship.
+
+We see, then, or rather we are obliged at the present stage of our
+enquiry to assume, that the social sanction, whether it be derived from
+the average sentiment of society at large or from the customs and
+opinions of particular aggregates of society, requires constant
+correction at the hands of the moralist. The sentiment which it
+represents may be only the sentiment of men of average moral tone, or it
+may even be that of men of an inferior or degraded morality, and hence
+it often needs to be tested by the application of rules derived from a
+higher standard both of feeling and intelligence. Nor is it the moral
+standard only which may be used to correct the social standard. We may
+often advantageously have recourse to the legal standard for the same
+purpose. For the laws of a country express, as a rule, the sentiments of
+the wisest and most experienced of its citizens, and hence we might
+naturally expect that they would be in advance of the average moral
+sentiment of the people, as well as of the social traditions of
+particular professions or classes. And this I believe to be usually the
+case. For instances, we have to go no further than the comparison
+between the laws and the popular or professional sentiment on bribery at
+elections, on smuggling, on evasion of taxation, on fraudulent business
+transactions, on duelling, on prize-fighting, or on gambling. At the
+same time it must be confessed that, as laws sometimes become
+antiquated, and the leanings of lawyers are proverbially conservative,
+it occasionally happens that, on some points, the average moral
+sentiment is in advance of the law. I may select as examples, from
+comparatively recent legal history, the continuance of religious
+disabilities and the excessive punishment of ordinary or even trivial
+crimes; and, perhaps, I may venture to add, as a possible reform in the
+future now largely demanded by popular sentiment, some considerable
+modifications of the laws regulating the transfer of and the succession
+to landed property. Thus it will be seen that law and the sentiment of
+society may each be employed as corrective of the other, and that,
+consequently, their comparison implies a higher standard than either, by
+means of which each may be tested, and to which each, in its turn, may
+be referred. This higher or common standard it will be our business to
+consider in a subsequent part of this Essay. Meanwhile, it may be
+pointed out that, in addition to its function as an occasional
+corrective of the legal sanction, the social sanction subserves two
+great objects: first, it largely complements the legal sanction, being
+applicable to numberless cases which that sanction does not, and, in
+fact, cannot reach; secondly, the legal sanction, even in those cases
+which it reaches, is greatly reinforced by the social sanction, which
+adds the pains arising from an evil reputation, and all the indefinable
+social inconveniences which an evil reputation brings with it, to the
+actual penalties inflicted by the law.
+
+The religious sanction varies, of course, with the different religious
+creeds, and, in the more imperfect forms of religion, by no means always
+operates in favour of morality. But it will be sufficient here to
+consider the religious sanction solely in relation to Christianity. As
+enforced by the Bible and the Church, the religious sanctions of conduct
+are two, which I shall call the higher and the lower sanctions. By the
+latter I mean the hope of the divine reward or the fear of the divine
+punishment, either in this world or the next; by the former, the love of
+God and that veneration for His nature which irresistibly inspires the
+effort to imitate His perfections. The lower religious sanction is
+plainly the same in kind with the legal sanction. If a man is induced to
+do or to refrain from doing a certain action from fear of punishment,
+the motive is the same, whether the punishment be for a long time or a
+short one, whether it is to take immediate effect or to be deferred for
+a term of years. And, similarly, the same is the case with rewards. No
+peculiar merit, as it appears to me, can be claimed by a man because he
+acts from fear of divine punishment rather than of human punishment, or
+from hope of divine rewards rather than of human rewards. The only
+differences between the two sanctions are (1) that the hopes and fears
+inspired by the religious sanction are, to one who believes in their
+reality, far more intense than those inspired by the legal sanction, the
+two being related as the temporal to the eternal, and (2) that, inasmuch
+as God is regarded as omnipresent and omniscient, the religious sanction
+is immeasurably more far-reaching than the legal sanction or even than
+the legal and the social sanctions combined. Thus the lower religious
+sanction is, to those who really believe in it, far more effective than
+the legal sanction, though it is the same in kind. But the higher
+religious sanction appeals to a totally different class of motives, the
+motives of love and reverence rather than of hope and fear. In this
+higher frame of mind, we keep God's commandments, because we love Him,
+not because we hope for His rewards or fear His punishments. We
+reverence God, and, therefore, we strive to be like Him, to be perfect
+even as He is perfect. We have attained to that state of mind in which
+perfect love has cast out fear, and, hence, we simply do good and act
+righteously because God, who is the supreme object of our love and the
+supreme ideal of conduct, is good and righteous. There can be no
+question that, in this case, the motives are far loftier and purer than
+in the case of the legal and the lower religious sanctions. But there
+are few men, probably, capable of these exalted feelings, and,
+therefore, for the great mass of mankind the external inducements to
+right conduct must, probably, continue to be sought in the coarser
+motives. It may be mentioned, before concluding this notice of the
+religious sanctions, that there is a close affinity between the higher
+religious sanction and that form of the social sanction which operates
+through respect for the good opinions of those of our fellow-men whom we
+love, reverence, or admire.
+
+But, quite distinct from all the sanctions thus far enumerated, there is
+another sanction which is derived from our own reflexion on our own
+actions, and the approbation or disapprobation which, after such
+reflexion, we bestow upon them. There are actions which, on no
+reasonable estimate of probabilities, can ever come to the knowledge of
+any other person than ourselves, but which we look back on with pleasure
+or regret. It may be said that, though, in these cases, the legal and
+the social sanctions are confessedly excluded, the sanction which really
+operates is the religious sanction, in either its higher or its lower
+form. But it can hardly be denied that, even where there is no belief in
+God, or, at least, no vivid sense of His presence nor any effective
+expectation of His intervention, the same feelings are experienced.
+These feelings, then, appear to be distinct in character from any of the
+others which we have so far considered, and they constitute what may
+appropriately be called the moral sanction, in the strict sense of the
+term. It is one of the faults of Bentham's system that he confounds this
+sanction with the social sanction, speaking indifferently of the moral
+_or_ popular (that is to say, social) sanction; but let any one examine
+carefully for himself the feelings of satisfaction or dissatisfaction
+with which he looks back upon past acts of his own life, and ask himself
+whether he can discover in those feelings any reference to the praise or
+blame of other persons, actual or possible. There will, if I mistake
+not, be many of them in which he can discover no such reference, but in
+which the feeling is simply that of satisfaction with himself for having
+done what he ought to have done, or dissatisfaction with himself for
+having done that which he ought not to have done. Whether these feelings
+admit of analysis and explanation is another question, and one with
+which I shall deal presently, but of their reality and distinctness no
+competent and impartial person, on careful self-examination, can well
+doubt. The answer, then, to our first question, I conceive to be that
+the moral sanction, properly so called, is distinguished from all other
+sanctions of conduct in that it has no regard to the prospect of
+physical pleasure or pain, or to the hope of reward or fear of
+punishment, or to the estimation in which we shall be held by any other
+being than ourselves, but that it has regard simply and solely to the
+internal feeling of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with which, on
+reflexion, we shall look back upon our own acts.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE MORAL SANCTION OR MORAL SENTIMENT.
+ITS FUNCTIONS AND THE JUSTIFICATION OF
+ITS CLAIMS TO SUPERIORITY.
+
+
+I now proceed to consider more at length what are the precise functions
+of the moral sentiment or moral sanction[1], and what is the justification
+of the weight which we attach to it, or rather of the preference which
+we assign to it, or feel that we ought to assign to it, over all the
+other sanctions of conduct. We have already seen that the moral
+sentiment or sanction is the feeling of satisfaction or dissatisfaction
+which we experience when we reflect on our own acts, without any
+reference to any external authority or external opinion. Now it is
+important to ask whether this feeling is uniformly felt on the
+occurrence of the same acts, or whether it ever varies, so that acts,
+for instance, which are at one time viewed with satisfaction, are at
+another time regarded with indifference or with positive
+dissatisfaction. It would seem as if no man who reflects on ethical
+subjects, and profits by the observation and experience of life, could
+possibly answer this question in any other than one way. There must be
+very few educated and reflective men who have not seen reason, with
+advancing years, to alter their opinion on many of, at least, the minor
+points of morality in which they were instructed as children. A familiar
+instance occurs at once in the different way in which most of us view
+card-playing or attendance at balls or theatres from the much stricter
+views which prevailed in many respectable English households a
+generation ago. On the other hand, excess in eating and drinking is
+regarded with far less indulgence now than it was in the days of our
+fathers and grandfathers. On these points, then, at least, and such as
+these, it must be allowed that there is a variation of moral sentiment,
+or, in other words, that the acts condemned or approved by the moral
+sanction are not invariably the same. Moreover, any of us who are
+accustomed to reason on moral questions, and can observe carefully the
+processes through which the mind passes, will notice that there is
+constantly going on a re-adjustment, so to speak, of our ethical
+opinions, whether we are reviewing abstract questions of morality or the
+specific acts of ourselves or others. We at one time think ourselves or
+others more, and, at another time, less blameable for the self-same
+acts, or we come to regard some particular class of acts in a different
+light from what we used to do, either modifying our praise or blame, or,
+in extreme cases, actually substituting one for the other. But, though
+these facts are patent, and may be verified by any one in his experience
+either of himself or others, there have actually been moralists who have
+appeared to maintain the position that, when a man is unbiassed by
+passion or interest, his moral judgments are and must be invariably the
+same. This error has, undoubtedly, been largely fostered by the loose
+and popular use of the terms conscience and moral sense. These terms,
+and especially the word conscience, are often employed to designate a
+sort of mysterious entity, supposed to have been implanted in the mind
+by God Himself, and endowed by Him with the unique prerogative of
+infallibility. Even so philosophical and sober a writer as Bishop Butler
+has given some countenance to this extravagant supposition, and to the
+exaggerated language which he employs on the prerogatives of conscience,
+and to the emphatic manner in which he insists on the absolute, if not
+the infallible, character of its decisions, may be traced much of the
+misconception which still prevails on the subject. But we have only to
+take account of the notorious fact that the consciences of two equally
+conscientious men may point in entirely opposite directions, in order to
+see that the decisions of conscience cannot, at all events, be credited
+with infallibility. Those who denounce and those who defend religious
+persecution, those who insist on the removal and those who insist on the
+retention of religious disabilities, those who are in favour of and
+those who are opposed to a relaxation of the marriage laws, those who
+advocate a total abstention from intoxicating liquors and those who
+allow of a moderate use of them,--men on both sides in these
+controversies, or, at least, the majority of them, doubtless act
+conscientiously, and yet, as they arrive at opposite conclusions, the
+conscience of one side or other must be at fault. There is no act of
+religious persecution, there are few acts of political or personal
+cruelty, for which the authority of conscience might not be invoked. I
+doubt not that Queen Mary acted as conscientiously in burning the
+Reformers as they did in promulgating their opinions or we do in
+condemning her acts. It is plain, then, not only that the decisions of
+conscience are not infallible, but that they must, to a very large
+extent, be relative to the circumstances and opinions of those who form
+them. In any intelligible or tenable sense of the term, conscience
+stands simply for the aggregate of our moral opinions reinforced by the
+moral sanction of self-approbation or self-disapprobation. That we ought
+to act in accordance with these opinions, and that we are acting wrongly
+if we act in opposition to them, is a truism. 'Follow Conscience' is the
+only safe guide, when the moment of action has arrived. But it is
+equally important to insist on the fallibility of conscience, and to
+urge men, by all means in their power, to be constantly improving and
+instructing their consciences, or, in plain words, to review and,
+wherever occasion offers, to correct their conceptions of right and
+wrong. The 'plain, honest man' of Bishop Butler would, undoubtedly,
+always follow his conscience, but it is by no means certain that his
+conscience would always guide him rightly, and it is quite certain that
+it would often prompt him differently from the consciences of other
+'plain, honest men' trained elsewhere and under other circumstances. To
+act contrary to our opinions of right and wrong would be treason to our
+moral nature, but it does not follow that those opinions are not
+susceptible of improvement and correction, or that it is not as much our
+duty to take pains to form true opinions as to act in accordance with
+our opinions when we have formed them.
+
+[Footnote 1: I use the expressions 'moral sanction' and 'moral
+sentiment' as equivalent terms, because the pleasures and pains, which
+constitute the moral sanction, are inseparable, even in thought, from
+the moral feeling. The moral feeling of self-approbation or
+self-disapprobation cannot even be conceived apart from the pleasures or
+pains which are attendant on it, and by means of which it reveals itself
+to us.
+
+It should be noticed that the expression 'moral sentiment' is habitually
+used in two senses, as the equivalent (1) of the moral feeling only, (2)
+of the entire moral process, which, as we shall see in the third
+chapter, consists partly of a judgment, partly of a feeling. It is in
+the latter sense, for instance, that we speak of the 'current moral
+sentiment' of any given age or country, meaning the opinions then or
+there prevalent on moral questions, reinforced by the feeling of
+approbation or disapprobation. As, however, the moral feeling always
+follows immediately and necessarily on the moral judgment, whenever that
+judgment pronounces decisively for or against an action, and always
+implies a previous judgment (I am here again obliged to anticipate the
+discussion in chapter 3), the ambiguity is of no practical importance at
+the present stage of our enquiry. It is almost needless to add that the
+word 'sentiment,' when used alone, has the double meaning of a feeling
+and an opinion, an ambiguity which is sometimes not without practical
+inconvenience.]
+
+The terms 'conscience' and 'moral sense' are very convenient expressions
+for popular use, provided we always bear in mind that 'illuminate' or
+'instruct' your 'conscience' or 'moral sense' is quite as essential a
+rule as 'follow' your 'conscience' or 'moral sense.' But the scientific
+moralist, in attempting to analyse the springs of moral action and to
+detect the ultimate sanctions of conduct, would do well to avoid these
+terms altogether. The analysis of moral as well as of intellectual acts
+is often only obscured by our introducing the conception of 'faculties,'
+and, in the present instance, it is far better to confine ourselves to
+the expressions 'acts' of 'approbation or disapprobation,' 'satisfaction
+or dissatisfaction,' which we shall hereafter attempt to analyse, than
+to feign, or at least assume, certain 'faculties' or 'senses' as
+distinct entities from which such acts are supposed to proceed. I shall,
+therefore, in the sequel of this work, say little or nothing of
+'conscience' or 'moral sense,' not because I think it desirable to
+banish those words from popular terminology, but because I think that,
+in an attempt to present the principles of ethics in a scientific form,
+they introduce needless complexity and obscurity.
+
+If the statements thus far made in this chapter be accepted, it follows
+that the feelings of self-approbation and self-disapprobation, which
+constitute the moral sanction, by no means invariably supervene on acts
+of the same kind even in the case of the same individual, much less in
+the case of different individuals, and that the acts which elicit the
+moral sanction depend, to a considerable extent, on the circumstances
+and education of the person who passes judgment on them. The moral
+sanction, therefore, though it always consists in the feelings of
+self-approbation, or self-disapprobation, of satisfaction or
+dissatisfaction at one's own acts, is neither uniform, absolute, nor
+infallible; but varies, as applied not only by different individuals but
+by the same individual at different times, in relation to varying
+conditions of education, temperament, nationality, and, generally, of
+circumstances both external and internal. Lastly, it admits of constant
+improvement and correction. How, then, it may be asked, do we justify
+the application of this sanction, and why do we regard it as not only a
+legitimate sanction of conduct, but as the most important of all
+sanctions, and, in cases of conflict, the supreme and final sanction?
+
+The answer to this question is that, if we regard an action as wrong, no
+matter whether our opinion be correct or not, no external considerations
+whatsoever can compensate us for acting contrary to our convictions.
+Human nature, in its normal condition, is so constituted that the
+remorse felt, when we look back upon a wrong action, far outweighs any
+pleasure we may have derived from it, just as the satisfaction with
+which we look back upon a right action far more than compensates for any
+pain with which it may have been attended. The 'mens sibi conscia recti'
+is the highest reward which a man can have, as, on the other hand, the
+retrospect on base, unjust, or cruel actions constitutes the most acute
+of torments. Now, when a man looks back upon his past actions, what he
+regards is not so much the result of his acts as the intention and the
+motives by which the intention was actuated. It is not, therefore, what
+he would now think of the act so much as what he then thought of it that
+is the object of his approbation or disapprobation. And, consequently,
+even though his opinions as to the nature of the act may meanwhile have
+undergone alteration, he approves or disapproves of what was his
+intention at the moment of performing it and of the state of mind from
+which it then proceeded. It is true that the subsequent results of our
+acts and any change in our estimate of their moral character may
+considerably modify the feelings with which we look back upon them, but,
+still, in the main, it holds good that the approval or disapproval with
+which we regard our past conduct depends rather upon the opinions of
+right and wrong which we entertained at the moment of action than those
+which we have come to entertain since. To have acted, at any time, in a
+manner contrary to what we then supposed to be right leaves behind it a
+trace of dissatisfaction and pain, which may, at any future time,
+reappear to trouble and distress us; just as to have acted, in spite of
+all conflicting considerations, in a manner which we then conceived to
+be right, may, in after years, be a perennial source of pleasure and
+satisfaction. It is characteristic of the pleasures and pains of
+reflexion on our past acts (which pleasures and pains of reflexion may,
+of course, connect themselves with other than purely moral
+considerations), not only that they admit of being more intense than any
+other pleasures and pains, but that, whenever there is any conflict
+between the moral sanction and any other sanction, it is to the moral
+sanction that they attach themselves. Thus, if a man has incurred
+physical suffering, or braved the penalties of the law or the ill word
+of society, in pursuance of a course of conduct which he deemed to be
+right, he looks back upon his actions with satisfaction, and the more
+important the actions, and the clearer his convictions of right and the
+stronger the inducements to act otherwise, the more intense will his
+satisfaction be. But no such satisfaction is felt, when a man has
+sacrificed his convictions of right to avoid physical pain, or to escape
+the penalties of the law, or to conciliate the goodwill of society; the
+feeling, on the other hand, will be that of dissatisfaction with
+himself, varying, according to circumstances, from regret to remorse.
+And, if no similar remark has to be made with reference to the religious
+sanction, it is because, in all the higher forms of religion, the
+religious sanction is conceived of as applying to exactly the same
+actions as the moral sanction. What a man himself deems right, that he
+conceives God to approve of, and what he conceives God as disapproving
+of, that he deems wrong. But in a religion in which God was not regarded
+as holy, just, and true, or in which there was a plurality of gods, some
+good and some evil, I conceive that a man would look back with
+satisfaction, and not with dissatisfaction, on those acts in which he
+had followed his own sense of right rather than the supposed will of the
+Deity, just as, when there is a conflict between the two, he now
+congratulates himself on having submitted to the claims of conscience
+rather than to those of the law.
+
+The justification, then, of that claim to superiority, which is asserted
+by the moral sanction, consists, I conceive, in two circumstances:
+first, that the pleasures and pains, the feelings of satisfaction and
+dissatisfaction, of self-approbation and self-disapprobation, by means
+of which it works, are, in the normally constituted mind, far more
+intense and durable than any other pleasures and pains; secondly, that,
+whenever this sanction comes into conflict with any other sanction, its
+defeat is sure, on a careful retrospect of our acts, to bring regret or
+remorse, whereas its victory is equally certain to bring pleasure and
+satisfaction. We arrive, then, at the conclusion that it is the moral
+sanction which is the distinctive guide of conduct, and to which we must
+look, in the last resort, to enforce right action, while the other
+sanctions are mainly valuable in so far as they reinforce the moral
+sanction or correct its aberrations. A man must, ultimately, be the
+judge of his own conduct, and, as he acts or does not act according to
+his own best judgment, so he will subsequently feel satisfaction or
+remorse; but these facts afford no reason why he should not take pains
+to inform his judgment by all the means which physical knowledge, law,
+society, and religion place at his disposal.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ANALYSIS AND FORMATION OF THE MORAL
+SENTIMENT. ITS EDUCATION AND IMPROVEMENT.
+
+
+Before proceeding to our third question, namely, how the moral
+sentiment, which is the source of the moral sanction, has been formed,
+and how it may be further educated and improved, it is desirable to
+discriminate carefully between the intellectual and the emotional
+elements in an act of approbation or disapprobation. We sometimes speak
+of moral judgment, sometimes of moral feeling. These expressions ought
+not to be regarded as the symbols of rival theories on the nature of the
+act of moral approbation, as has sometimes been the case, but as
+designating distinct parts of the process, or, to put the same statement
+rather differently, separate elements in the analysis. Hume, whose
+treatment of this subject is peculiarly lucid, as compared with that of
+most writers on ethics, after reviewing the reasons assigned by those
+authors respectively who resolve the act of approbation into an act of
+judgment or an act of feeling, adds[1]: 'These arguments on each side
+(and many more might be produced) are so plausible, that I am apt to
+suspect they may, the one as well as the other, be solid and
+satisfactory, and that reason and sentiment concur in almost all moral
+determinations and conclusions. The final sentence; it is probable,
+which pronounces characters and actions amiable or odious, praiseworthy
+or blameable; that which stamps on them the mark of honour or infamy,
+approbation or censure; that which renders morality an active principle,
+and constitutes virtue our happiness and vice our misery: it is
+probable, I say, that this final sentence depends on some internal sense
+or feeling, which nature has made universal in the whole
+species. For what else can have an influence of this nature?
+But, in order to pave the way for such a sentiment and give
+a proper discernment of its object, it is often necessary, we find, that
+much reasoning should precede, that nice distinctions be made, just
+conclusions drawn, distant comparisons formed, complicated relations
+examined, and general facts fixed and ascertained. Some species of
+beauty, especially the natural kinds, on their first appearance, command
+our affection and approbation; and, where they fail of this effect, it
+is impossible for any reasoning to redress their influence, or adapt
+them better to our taste and sentiment. But in many orders of beauty,
+particularly those of the finer arts, it is requisite to employ much
+reasoning, in order to feel the proper sentiment; and a false relish may
+frequently be corrected by argument and reflexion. There are just
+grounds to conclude that moral beauty partakes much of this latter
+species, and demands the assistance of our intellectual faculties, in
+order to give it a suitable influence on the human mind.'
+
+[Footnote 1: Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, Section I.]
+
+This passage, which I have thought it worth while to quote at length,
+exhibits, with sufficient clearness, the respective provinces of reason
+and feeling in the ethical estimation of action. Whether we are
+reviewing the actions of ourselves or of others, what we seem to do, in
+the first instance, is to refer them to some class, or associate them
+with certain actions of a similar kind which are familiar to us, and,
+then, when their character has thus been determined, they excite the
+appropriate feeling of approbation or disapprobation, praise or censure.
+Thus, as soon as we have realised that a statement is a lie or an act is
+fraudulent, we at once experience a feeling of indignation or disgust at
+the person who has made the statement or committed the act. And, in the
+same way, as soon as we have recognised that an act is brave or
+generous, we regard with esteem or admiration the doer of it. But,
+though the feeling of approbation or disapprobation follows
+instantaneously on the act of judgment, the recognition of the character
+of the action, or its reference to a class, which constitutes this act
+of judgment, may be, and often is, a process of considerable length and
+complexity. Take the case of a lie. What did the man really say? In what
+sense did he employ the words used? What was the extent of his knowledge
+at the time that he made the statement? And what was his intention?
+These and possibly other questions have to be answered, before we are
+justified in accusing him of having told a lie. When the offence is not
+only a moral but a legal one, the act of determining the character of
+the action in question is often the result of a prolonged enquiry,
+extending over weeks or months. No sooner, however, is the intellectual
+process completed, and the action duly labelled as a lie, or a theft, or
+a fraud, or an act of cruelty or ingratitude, or the like, than the
+appropriate ethical emotion is at once excited. The intellectual process
+may also be exceedingly rapid, or even instantaneous, and always is so
+when we have no doubt as to the nature either of the action or of the
+intention or of the motives, but its characteristic, as distinguished
+from the ethical emotion, is that it may take time, and, except in
+perfectly clear cases or on very sudden emergencies requiring subsequent
+action, always ought to do so.
+
+We are now in a position to see the source of much confusion in the
+ordinary mode of speaking and writing on the subject of the moral
+faculty, the moral judgment, the moral feeling, the moral sense, the
+conscience, and kindred terms. The instantaneous, and the apparently
+instinctive, authoritative, and absolute character of the act of moral
+approbation or disapprobation attaches to the emotional, and not to the
+intellectual part of the process. When an action has once been
+pronounced to be right or wrong, morally good or evil, or has been
+referred to some well-known class of actions whose ethical character is
+already determined, the emotion of approval or disapproval is excited
+and follows as a matter of course. There is no reasoning or hesitation
+about it, simply because the act is not a reasoning act. Hence, it
+appears to be instinctive, and becomes invested with those superior
+attributes of authoritativeness, absoluteness, and even infallibility,
+which are not unnaturally ascribed to an act in which, there being no
+process of reasoning, there seems to be no room for error. And, indeed,
+the feelings of moral approbation and disapprobation can never be
+properly described as erroneous, though they are frequently misapplied.
+The error attaches to the preliminary process of reasoning, reference,
+or classification, and, if this be wrongly conducted, there is no
+justification for the feeling which is consequent upon it. But, instead
+of our asking for the justification of the feeling in the rational
+process which has preceded it, we often unconsciously justify our
+reasoning by the feeling, and thus the whole process assumes the
+unreflective character which properly belongs only to the emotional part
+of it. It is the want of a clear distinction between the logical process
+which determines the character of an act,--the moral judgment,--and the
+emotion which immediately supervenes when the character of the act is
+determined,--the moral feeling,--that accounts for the exaggerated
+epithets which are often attributed to the operations of the moral
+faculty, and for the haste and negligence in which men are consequently
+encouraged to indulge, when arriving at their moral decisions. Let it be
+recollected that, when we have time for reflexion, we cannot take too
+much pains in forming our decisions upon conduct, for there is always a
+possibility of error in our judgments, but that, when our judgments are
+formed, we ought to give free scope to the emotions which they naturally
+evoke, and then we shall develope a conscience, so to speak, at once
+enlightened and sensitive, we shall combine accuracy and justness of
+judgment with delicacy and strength of feeling.
+
+There remains the question whether the feelings of approval and
+disapproval, which supervene on our moral judgments, admit of any
+explanation, or whether they are to be regarded as ultimate facts of our
+mental constitution. It seems to me that, on a little reflexion, we are
+led to adopt the former alternative. What are the classes of acts, under
+their most general aspect, which elicit the feelings of moral
+approbation and disapprobation? They are such as promote, or tend to
+promote, the good either of ourselves or of others. Now the feelings of
+which these classes of acts are the direct object are respectively the
+self-regarding and the sympathetic feelings, or, as they have been
+somewhat uncouthly called, the egoistic and altruistic feelings. We have
+a variety of appetites and desires, which centre in ourselves, including
+what has been called rational self-love, or a desire for what, on cool
+reflexion, we conceive to be our own highest good on the whole, as well
+as self-respect, or a regard for our own dignity and character, and for
+our own opinion of ourselves. When any of these various appetites or
+desires are gratified, we feel satisfaction, and, on the other hand,
+when they are thwarted, we feel dissatisfaction. Similarly, we have a
+number of affections, of which others are the object, some of them of a
+malevolent or resentful, but most of them of a benevolent character,
+including a general desire to confer all the happiness that we can.
+Here, again, we feel satisfaction, when our affections are gratified,
+and dissatisfaction, when they are thwarted. Now these feelings of
+satisfaction and dissatisfaction, which are called reflex feelings,
+because they are reflected, as it were, from the objects of our desires,
+include, though they are by no means coextensive with, the feelings of
+moral approbation and disapprobation. When, for instance, we gratify the
+appetites of hunger or thirst, or our love of curiosity or power, we
+feel satisfaction, but we can hardly be said to regard the gratification
+of these appetites or feelings with moral approval or disapproval. We
+perform thousands of acts, and see thousands of acts performed, every
+day, which never excite any moral feeling whatever. But there are few
+men in whom an undoubted act of kindness or generosity or resistance to
+temptation would not at once elicit admiration or respect, or, if they
+reflected on such acts in their own case, of self-approval. Now, what
+are the circumstances which distinguish these acts which merely cause us
+satisfaction from those which elicit the moral feeling of approbation?
+This question is one by no means easy to answer, and the solution of it
+must obviously depend to some extent on the moral surroundings and
+prepossessions of the person who undertakes to answer it. But,
+attempting to take as wide a survey as possible of those acts which, in
+different persons, elicit moral approbation or disapprobation, I will
+endeavour to discriminate the characteristics which they have in common.
+
+All those acts, then, it seems to me, which elicit a distinctively moral
+feeling have been the result of some conflict amongst the various
+desires and affections, or, to adopt the more ordinary phraseology, of a
+conflict of motives. We neither approve nor disapprove of acts with
+regard to which there seems to have been little or no choice, which
+appear to have resulted naturally from the pre-existing circumstances.
+Thus, if a well-to-do man pays his debts promptly, or a man of known
+poverty asks to have the time of payment deferred, we neither visit the
+one with praise nor the other with censure, though, if their conduct
+were reversed, we should censure the former and praise the latter. The
+reason of this difference of treatment is plain. There is not, or at
+least need not be, any conflict, in the case of the well-to-do man,
+between his own convenience or any reasonable gratification of his
+desires and the satisfaction of a just claim. Hence, in paying the debt
+promptly, he is only acting as we might expect him to act, and his
+conduct excites no moral feeling on our part, though, if he were to act
+differently, he would incur our censure. The poor man, on the other
+hand, must have put himself to some inconvenience and exercised some
+self-denial in order to meet his engagement at the exact time at which
+the payment became due, and hence he merits our praise, though, if he
+had acted otherwise, the circumstances might have excused him.
+
+Another characteristic of acts which we praise or blame, in the case of
+others, or approve or disapprove, on reflexion, in our own case, seems
+to be that they must possess some importance. The great majority of our
+acts are too trivial to merit any notice, such as is implied in a moral
+judgment. When a man makes way for another in the street, or refrains
+from eating or drinking more than is good for him, neither he nor the
+bystander probably ever thinks of regarding the act as a meritorious
+one. It is taken as a matter of course, though the opposite conduct
+might, under certain circumstances, be of sufficient importance to incur
+censure. It is impossible here, as in most other cases where we speak of
+'importance,' to draw a definite line, but it may at least be laid down
+that an act, in order to be regarded as moral or immoral, must be of
+sufficient importance to arrest attention, and stimulate reflexion.
+
+Thus far, then, we have arrived at the conclusion that acts which are
+the objects of moral approbation and disapprobation must have a certain
+importance, and must be the result of a certain amount of conflict
+between different motives. But we have not as yet attempted to detect
+any principle of discrimination between those acts which are the objects
+of praise or approbation and those which are the objects of censure or
+disapprobation. Now it seems to me that such a principle may be found in
+the fact that all those acts of others which we praise or those acts of
+ourselves which, on reflexion, we approve involve some amount of
+sacrifice, whereas all those acts of others which we blame, or those
+acts of ourselves which, on reflexion, we disapprove involve some amount
+of self-indulgence. The conflict is between a man's own lower and higher
+good, or between his own good and the greater good of others, or, in
+certain cases, as we shall see presently, between the lesser good of
+some, reinforced by considerations of self-interest or partiality, and
+the greater good of others, not so reinforced, or even, occasionally,
+between the pleasure or advantage of others and a disproportionate
+injury to himself; and he who, in the struggle, gives the preference to
+the former of these motives usually becomes the object of censure or, on
+reflexion, of self-disapprobation, while he who gives the preference to
+the latter becomes the object of praise or, on reflexion, of
+self-approbation. I shall endeavour to illustrate this position by a few
+instances mostly taken from common life. We praise a man who, by due
+economy, makes decent provision for himself in old age, as we blame a
+man who fails to do so. Quite apart from any public or social
+considerations, we admire and applaud in the one man the power of
+self-restraint and the habit of foresight, which enable him to
+subordinate his immediate gratifications to his larger interests in the
+remote future, and to forego sensual and passing pleasures for the
+purpose of preserving his self-respect and personal independence in
+later life. And we admire and applaud him still more, if to these purely
+self-regarding considerations he adds the social one of wishing to avoid
+becoming a burden on his family or his friends or the public. Just in
+the same way, we condemn the other man, who, rather than sacrifice his
+immediate gratification, will incur the risk of forfeiting his
+self-respect and independence in after years as well as of making others
+suffer for his improvidence. A man who, by the exercise of similar
+economy and forethought, makes provision for his family or relations we
+esteem still more than the man who simply makes provision for himself,
+because the sacrifice of passing pleasures is generally still greater,
+and because there is also, in this case, a total sacrifice of all
+self-regarding interests, except, perhaps, self-respect and reputation,
+for the sake of others. Similarly, the man who has a family or relations
+dependent upon him, and who neglects to make future provision for them,
+deservedly incurs our censure far more than the man who merely neglects
+to make provision for himself, because his self-indulgence has to
+contend against the full force of the social as well as the higher
+self-regarding motives, and its persistence is, therefore, the less
+excusable.
+
+I will next take the familiar case of a trust, voluntarily undertaken,
+but involving considerable trouble to the trustee, a case of a much more
+complicated character than the last. If the trustee altogether neglects
+or does not devote a reasonable amount of attention to the affairs of
+the trust, there is no doubt that, besides any legal penalties which he
+may incur, he merits moral censure. Rather than sacrifice his own ease
+or his own interests, he violates the obligation which he has undertaken
+and brings inconvenience, or possibly disaster, to those whose interests
+he has bound himself to protect. But the demands of the trust may become
+so excessive as to tax the time and pains of the trustee to a far
+greater extent than could ever have been anticipated, and to interfere
+seriously with his other employments. In this case no reasonable person,
+I presume, would censure the trustee for endeavouring, even at some
+inconvenience or expense to the persons for whose benefit the trust
+existed, to release himself from his obligation or to devolve part of
+the work on a professional adviser. While, however, the work connected
+with the trust did not interfere with other obligations or with the
+promotion of the welfare of others, no one, I imagine, would censure the
+trustee for continuing to perform it, to his own inconvenience or
+disadvantage, if he chose to do so. His neighbours might, perhaps, say
+that he was foolish, but they would hardly go to the length of saying
+that he acted wrongly. Neither, on the other hand, would they be likely
+to praise him, as the sacrifice he was undergoing would be out of
+proportion to the good attained by it, and the interests of others to
+which he was postponing his own interests would not be so distinctly
+greater as to warrant the act of self-effacement. But now let us suppose
+that, in attending to the interests of the trust, he is neglecting the
+interests of others who have a claim upon him, or impairing his own
+efficiency as a public servant or a professional man. If the interests
+thus at stake were plainly much greater than those of the trust, as they
+might well be, the attitude of neutrality would soon be converted into
+one of positive censure, unless he took means to extricate himself from
+the difficulty in which he was placed.
+
+The supposition just made illustrates the fact that the moral feelings
+may attach themselves not only to cases in which the collision is
+between a man's own higher and lower good, or between his own good and
+that of another, but also to those in which the competition is entirely
+between the good of others. It may be worth while to illustrate this
+last class of cases by one or two additional examples. A man tells a lie
+in order to screen a friend. The act is a purely social one, for he
+stands in no fear of his friend, and expects no return. It might be said
+that the competition, in this example, is between serving his friend and
+wounding his own self-respect. But the consciousness of cowardice and
+meanness which attends a lie spoken in a man's own interest hardly
+attaches to a lie spoken for the purpose of protecting another. And, any
+way, a little reflexion might show that the apparently benevolent
+intention comes into collision with a very extensive and very stringent
+social obligation, that of not impairing our confidence in one another's
+assertions. Without maintaining that there are no conceivable
+circumstances under which a man would be justified in committing a
+breach of veracity, it may at least be said that, in the lives of most
+men, there is not likely to occur any case in which the greater social
+good would not be attained by the observation of the general rule to
+tell the truth rather than by the recognition of an exception in favour
+of a lie, even though that lie were told for purely benevolent reasons.
+In all those circumstances in which there is a keen sense of
+comradeship, as at school or college, or in the army or navy, this is a
+principle which requires to be constantly kept in view, and to be
+constantly enforced. The not infrequent breach of it, under such
+circumstances, affords a striking illustration of the manner in which
+the laws of honour, spoken of in the first chapter, occasionally
+over-ride the wider social sentiment and even the dictates of personal
+morality, _Esprit de corps_ is, doubtless, a noble sentiment, and, on
+the whole, productive of much good, but, when it comes into collision
+with the more general rules of morality, its effects are simply
+pernicious. I will next take an example of the conflict between two
+impulses, each having for its object the good of others, from the very
+familiar case of a man having to appoint to, or vote in the election to,
+a vacant office or situation. The interests of the public service or of
+some institution require that the most competent candidate should be
+preferred. But a relative, or a friend, or a political ally is standing.
+Affection, therefore, or friendship, or loyalty to party ties often
+dictates one course of conduct, and regard for the public interests
+another. When the case is thus plainly stated, there are probably few
+men who would seriously maintain that we ought to subordinate the wider
+to the narrower considerations, and still, in practice, there are few
+men who have the courage to act constantly on what is surely the right
+principle in this matter, and, what is worse still, even if they did,
+they would not always be sustained by public opinion, while they would
+be almost certain to be condemned by the circle in which they move. So
+frequently do the difficulties of this position recur, that I have often
+heard a shrewd friend observe that no man who was fit for the exercise
+of patronage would ever desire to be entrusted with it. The moral rule
+in ordinary cases is plain enough; it is to appoint or vote for the
+candidate who is most competent to fulfil the duties of the post to be
+filled up. There are exceptional cases in which it may be allowable
+slightly to modify this rule, as where it is desirable to encourage
+particular services, or particular nationalities, or the like, but, even
+in these cases, the rule of superior competency ought to be the
+preponderating consideration. Parliamentary and, in a lesser degree,
+municipal elections, of course, form a class apart. Here, in the
+selection of candidates within the party, superior competency ought to
+be the guiding consideration, but, in the election itself, the main
+object being to promote or prevent the passing of certain public
+measures, the elector quite rightly votes for those who will give effect
+to his opinions, irrespectively of personal qualifications, though, even
+in these cases, there might be an amount of unfitness which would
+warrant neutrality or opposition. Peculiarly perplexing cases of
+competition between the rival claims of others sometimes occur in the
+domain of the resentful feelings, which, in their purified and
+rationalised form, constitute the sense of justice. My servant, or a
+friend, or a relative, has committed a theft. Shall I prosecute him? A
+general regard to the public welfare undoubtedly demands that I should
+do so. There are few obligations more imperative on the individual
+citizen than that of denouncing and prosecuting crime. But, in the
+present case, there is the personal tie, involving the obligation of
+protection and assistance. This tie, obviously, must count for
+something, as a rival consideration. No man, except under the most
+extreme circumstances, would prosecute his wife, or his father, or his
+mother. The question, then, is how far this consideration is to count
+against the other, and much must, evidently, depend on the degree of
+relationship or of previous intimacy, the time and amount and kind of
+service, and the like. A similar conflict of motives arises when the
+punishment invoked would entail the culprit's ruin, or that of his wife
+or family or others who are dependent upon him. It is impossible, in
+cases of this kind, to lay down beforehand any strict rules of conduct,
+and the rectitude of the decision must largely turn on the experience,
+skill, and honesty of the person who attempts to resolve the difficulty.
+
+Instances of the last division, where the conflict is between the
+pleasure or advantage of others and a disproportionate injury to
+oneself, are of comparatively infrequent occurrence. It is not often
+that a man hesitates sufficiently between his own manifest disadvantage
+and the small gains or pleasures of his neighbours to make this class of
+cases of much importance to the moralist. As a rule, we may be trusted
+to take care of ourselves, and other people credit us sufficiently with
+this capacity not to trade very much upon the weakness of mere
+good-nature, however much they may trade upon our ignorance and folly.
+The most familiar example, perhaps, of acts of imprudence of the kind
+here contemplated is to be found in the facility with which some people
+yield to social temptations, as where they drink too much, or bet, or
+play cards, when they know that they will most likely lose their money,
+out of a feeling of mere good fellowship; or where, from the mere desire
+to amuse others, they give parties which are beyond their means. The
+gravest example is to be found in certain cases of seduction. Instances
+of men making large and imprudent sacrifices of money for inadequate
+objects are very rare, and are rather designated as foolish than wrong.
+With regard to all the failings and offences which fall under this head,
+it may be remarked that, from their false show of generosity, society is
+apt to treat them too venially, except where they entail degradation or
+disgrace. If it be asked how actions of this kind, seeing that they are
+done out of some regard to others, can be described as involving
+self-indulgence, or the resistance to them can be looked on in the light
+of sacrifice, it may be replied that the conflict is between a feeling
+of sociality or a spirit of over-complaisance or the like, on the one
+side, and a man's self-respect or a regard to his own highest interests,
+on the other, and that some natures find it much easier to yield to the
+former than to maintain the latter. It is quite possible that the spirit
+of sacrifice may be exhibited in the maintenance, against temptation, of
+a man's own higher interests, and the spirit of self-indulgence in
+weakly yielding to a perverted sympathy or an exaggerated regard for the
+opinions of others.
+
+Before concluding this chapter, there are a few objections to be met and
+explanations to be made. In the first place, it may be objected that the
+theory I have adopted, that the moral feeling is excited only where
+there has been a conflict of motives, runs counter to the ordinary view,
+that acts proceeding from a virtuous or vicious habit are done without
+any struggle and almost without any consciousness of their import. I do
+not at all deny that a habit may become so perfect that the acts
+proceeding from it cease to involve any struggle between conflicting
+motives, but, in this case, I conceive that our approbation or
+disapprobation is transferred from the individual acts to the habit from
+which they spring, and that what we really applaud or condemn is the
+character rather than the actions, or at least the actions simply as
+indicative of the character. And the reason that we often praise or
+blame acts proceeding from habit more than acts proceeding from
+momentary impulse is that we associate such acts with a good or evil
+character, as the case may be, and, therefore, include the character as
+well as the acts in the judgment which we pass upon them.
+
+It may possibly have occurred to the reader that, in the latter part of
+this chapter, I have been somewhat inconsistent in referring usually to
+the social sanction of praise and blame rather than to the distinctively
+moral sanction of self-approbation and self-disapprobation. I have
+employed this language solely for the sake of convenience, and to avoid
+the cumbrous phraseology which the employment of the other phrases would
+sometimes have occasioned. In a civilized and educated community, the
+social sentiment may, on almost all points except those which involve
+obscure or delicate considerations of morality, be taken to be identical
+with the moral sentiment of the most reflective members of the society,
+and hence in the tolerably obvious instances which I have selected there
+was no need to draw any distinction between the two, and I have felt
+myself at liberty to be guided purely by considerations of convenience.
+All that I have said of the praise or blame, the applause or censure, of
+others, of course, admits of being transferred to the feelings with
+which, on reflexion, we regard our own acts.
+
+I am aware that the expressions, 'higher and lower good,' 'greater and
+lesser good,' are more or less vague. But the traditional acceptation of
+the terms sufficiently fixes their meaning to enable them to serve as a
+guide to moral conduct and moral feeling, especially when modified by
+the experience and reflexion of men who have given habitual attention to
+the working of their own motives and the results of their own practice.
+As I shall shew in the next chapter, any terms which we employ to
+designate the test of moral action and the objects of the moral feeling
+are indefinite, and must depend, to some extent, on the subjective
+interpretation of the individual. All that we can do is to avail
+ourselves of the most adequate and intelligible terms that we can find.
+But, admitting the necessary indefiniteness of the terms, it may be
+asked whether it can really be meant, as a general proposition, that the
+praise of others and our approbation of ourselves, on reflexion, attach
+to acts in which we subordinate our own good to the greater good of
+others, however slight the preponderance of our neighbour's good over
+out own may be. If we have to undergo an almost equal risk in order to
+save another, or, in order to promote another's interests, to forego
+interests almost as great, is not our conduct more properly designated
+as weak or quixotic, than noble or generous? This would not, I think, be
+the answer of mankind at large to the question, or that of any person
+whose moral sentiments had been developed under healthy influences. When
+a man, at the risk of his own life, saves another from drowning, or, at
+a similar risk, protects his comrade in battle, or, rushing into the
+midst of a fire, attempts to rescue the helpless victims, surely the
+feeling of the bystanders is that of admiration, and not of pity or
+contempt. When a man, with his life in his hands, goes forth on a
+missionary or a philanthropic enterprise, like Xavier, or Henry Martyn,
+or Howard, or Livingstone, or Patteson, or when a man, like Frederick
+Vyner, insists on transferring his own chance of escape from a murderous
+gang of brigands to his married friend, humanity at large rightly
+regards itself as his debtor, and ordinary men feel that their very
+nature has been ennobled and exalted by his example. But it is not only
+these acts of widely recognised heroism that exact a response from
+mankind. In many a domestic circle, there are men and women, who
+habitually sacrifice their own ease and comfort to the needs of an aged
+or sick or helpless relative, and, surely, it is not with scorn for
+their weakness that their neighbours, who know their privations, regard
+them, but with sympathy and respect for their patience and self-denial.
+The pecuniary risks and sacrifices which men are ready to make for one
+another, in the shape of sureties and bonds and loans and gifts, are
+familiar to us all, and, though these are often unscrupulously wrung
+from a thoughtless or over-pliant good-nature, yet there are many
+instances in which men knowingly, deliberately, and at considerable
+danger or loss to themselves, postpone their own security or convenience
+to the protection or relief of their friends. It is in cases of this
+kind, perhaps, that the line between weakness and generosity is most
+difficult to draw, and, where a man has others dependent on him for
+assistance or support, the weakness which yields to the solicitations of
+a reckless or unscrupulous friend may become positively culpable.
+
+The last class of instances will be sufficient to shew that it is not
+always easy to determine where the good of others is greater than our
+own. Nor is it ever possible to determine this question with
+mathematical exactness. Men may, therefore, be at least excused if,
+before sacrificing their own interests or pleasures, they require that
+the good of others for which they make the sacrifice shall be plainly
+preponderant. And, even then, there is a wide margin between the acts
+which we praise for their heroism, or generosity, or self-denial, and
+those which we condemn for their baseness, or meanness, or selfishness.
+It must never be forgotten, in the treatment of questions of morality,
+that there is a large number of acts which we neither praise nor blame,
+and this is emphatically the case where the competition is between a
+man's own interests and those of his neighbours. We applaud generosity;
+we censure meanness: but there is a large intermediate class of acts
+which can neither be designated as generous nor mean. It will be
+observed that, in my enumeration of the classes of acts to which praise
+and blame, self-approbation and self-disapprobation attach, I have
+carefully drawn a distinction between the invariable connexion which
+obtains between certain acts and the ethical approval of ourselves or
+others, and the only general connexion which obtains between the
+omission of those acts and the ethical feeling of disapproval. Simply to
+fall short of the ethical standard which we approve neither merits nor
+receives censure, though there is a degree of deficiency, determined
+roughly by society at large and by each individual for himself, at which
+this indifference is converted into positive condemnation. A like
+neutral zone of acts which we neither applaud nor condemn, of course,
+exists also in the case of acts which simply affect ourselves or simply
+affect others, though it does not seem to be so extensive as in the case
+where the conflict of motives is between the interests of others and
+those of ourselves.
+
+In determining the cases in which we shall subordinate our own interests
+to those of others, or do good to others at our own risk or loss, it is
+essential that we should take account of the remote as well as the
+immediate effects of actions; and, moreover, that we should enquire into
+their general tendencies, or, in other words, ask ourselves what would
+happen if everybody or many people acted as we propose to act. Thus, at
+first sight, it might seem as if a rich man, at a comparatively small
+sacrifice to himself, might promote the greater good of his poor
+neighbours by distributing amongst them what to them would be
+considerable sums of money. If I have ten thousand a year, why should I
+not make fifty poor families happy by endowing them with a hundred a
+year each, which to them would be a handsome competency? The loss of
+five thousand a year would be to me simply an abridgment of superfluous
+luxuries, which I could soon learn to dispense with, while to them the
+gain of a hundred a year would be the substitution of comfort for penury
+and of case for perpetual struggle. The answer is that, in the first
+place, I should probably not, in the long run, be making these families
+really happy. The change of circumstances would, undoubtedly, confer
+considerable pleasure, while it continued to be a novelty, but their
+improved circumstances, when they became accustomed to them, would soon
+be out-balanced by the _ennui_ produced by want of employment; while,
+the motive to exertion being removed, and the taste for luxuries
+stimulated, they or the next generation would probably lapse again into
+poverty, which would be all the more keenly felt for their temporary
+enjoyment of prosperity. Moreover, I should be injuring the community at
+large, by withdrawing a number of persons from industrial employments
+and transferring them to the non-productive classes. Again, if the five
+thousand a year were withdrawn not from my personal expenditure, but
+from industrial enterprises in which I was engaged, I should be actually
+depriving the families of many workmen and artisans of the fruits of
+their honest labour for the purpose of enabling a smaller number of
+families to live in sloth and indolence. But, now, suppose the case I
+have imagined to become a general one, and that it was a common
+occurrence for rich men to dispense their superfluous wealth amongst
+their poorer neighbours, without demanding any return in labour or
+services. The result would inevitably be the creation of a large class
+of idle persons, who would probably soon become a torment to themselves,
+while their descendants, often brought up to no employment and with an
+insufficient income to support them, would probably lapse into
+pauperism. The effect on the community at large, if the evil became
+widely spread, would be the paralysis of trade and commerce. Of course,
+I am aware that these evils would be, to a certain extent, modified in
+practice by the good sense of the recipients, some of whom might employ
+their money on reproductive industries instead of on merely furnishing
+themselves with the means of living at their ease; but that the general
+tendency would be that which I have intimated no one, I think, who is
+acquainted with the indolent propensities of human nature, can well
+doubt. Similar results might be shewn to follow from an indiscriminate
+distribution of charity on a smaller scale. It seems hard-hearted to
+refuse a shilling to a beggar, or a guinea to a charitable association,
+when one would hardly miss the sum at the end of the week or the month.
+But, if we could trace all the consequences, direct and remote, of these
+apparent acts of benevolence, we should often see that the small act of
+sacrifice on our own part was by no means efficacious in promoting the
+'greater good' of the recipient, and still less of society at large. A
+life of vagrancy or indolence may easily be made more attractive than
+one of honest industry, and well-meant efforts to anticipate all the
+wants and misfortunes of the poor may often have the effect of making
+them careless of the future and of destroying all elements of
+independence and providence in their character. Another instance of the
+contrast between the immediate and remote, or apparent and real, results
+of acts of intended beneficence is to be found in the prodigality with
+which well-to-do persons often distribute gratuities amongst servants.
+These gratuities have the immediate effect of giving gratification to
+the recipients and securing better service to the donors, but they have
+often the remote and more permanent effect of rendering the recipients
+servile and corrupt, and (as in the case of railway porters) of
+depriving poorer or less prodigal persons of services to which they are
+equally entitled.
+
+In adducing these illustrations, I must not be understood to be
+advocating or defending a selfish employment of superfluous wealth, but
+to be shewing the evils which may result from an unenlightened
+benevolence, and the importance of ascertaining that the 'greater good
+of others,' to which we sacrifice our own interests or enjoyments, is a
+real, and not merely an apparent good, and, moreover, that our conduct,
+if it became general, would promote the welfare of the community at
+large, and not merely particular sections of it to the injury of the
+rest.
+
+To sum up the results of this chapter, we may repeat that we must
+distinguish carefully between the intellectual act of moral judgment, or
+the judgment we pass on matters of conduct, and the emotional act of
+moral feeling, or the feeling which supervenes upon that judgment, and
+that, so far as we can give a precise definition of the latter, it is an
+indirect or reflex form of one or other of the sympathetic, resentful,
+or self-regarding feelings, occurring when, on consideration, we realise
+that, in matters involving a conflict of motives and of sufficient
+importance to arrest our attention and stimulate our reflexion, one or
+other of these feelings has been gratified or thwarted: moreover, that
+we praise, in the case of others, and approve, in our own case, all
+those actions of the above kind, in which a man subordinates his own
+lower to his higher good, or his own good to the greater good of others,
+or, when the interests only of others are at stake, the lesser good of
+some to the greater good of others, as well as, under certain
+circumstances, those actions in which he refuses to subordinate his own
+greater good to the lesser good of others; while we blame, in the case
+of others, and disapprove, in our own case, all those actions of the
+above kind, in which he manifestly and distinctly (for there is a large
+neutral zone of actions, which we neither applaud nor condemn)
+subordinates his own higher to his lower good, or the greater good of
+others to his own lesser good, or, where the interests only of others
+are at stake, the greater good of some to the lesser good of others, or,
+lastly, under certain circumstances, the lesser good of others to the
+greater good of himself, especially where that greater good is the good
+of his higher nature.
+
+Even at the present stage of our enquiry, it must be tolerably evident
+to the reader that moral progress, if such a fact exist, will be due
+mainly to the increasing accuracy and the extended applications of our
+moral judgments, or, in other words, to the development of the rational
+rather than the emotional element in the ethical act. The moral feeling
+follows on the moral judgment, and awards praise or blame, experiences
+satisfaction or dissatisfaction, in accordance with the intellectual
+decisions which have preceded it. The character of the feeling,
+therefore, as distinct from its intensity, is already determined for it
+by a previous process. And its intensity is undoubtedly greater amongst
+primitive and uneducated men than it is in civilized life. Amongst
+ourselves, not only are the feelings of approbation and disapprobation
+themselves largely modified by the account we take of mixed motives,
+qualifying circumstances, and the like, but the expression of, them is
+still further restrained by the caution which the civilized man
+habitually practises in the presence of others. Indeed, great, in many
+respects, as are the advantages of this moderation and restraint, there
+is a certain danger that, as civilisation advances, the approval of
+virtue and the disapproval of vice may cease to be expressed in
+sufficiently plain and emphatic terms. But, on the other hand, with the
+extension of experience and the ever-improving discipline of the
+intellectual faculties, the moral judgment, we may already presume (for
+the confirmation of this presumption I must refer to the next chapter),
+will always be growing in accuracy, receiving further applications, and
+becoming a more and more adequate representative of facts. The analysis,
+therefore, of the moral act, with which we have been mainly engaged in
+the foregoing chapter, besides being essential to the determination of
+any theoretical problem of ethics, has a most important practical
+bearing from the indication which it affords of the direction in which
+moral progress is, in the future, most likely to be found.
+
+It must never be forgotten, however, that men may know what is right and
+do what is wrong, and, hence, the due stimulation of the moral emotions,
+so that they may respond to the improved moral judgments, is at once an
+indispensable branch of moral education and an indispensable condition
+of moral progress. But this is the function, not so much of the
+scientific moralist, as of the parent, the instructor of youth, the
+poet, the dramatist, the novelist, the journalist, the artist, and,
+above all, of the religious teacher.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE MORAL TEST AND ITS JUSTIFICATION.
+
+
+The moral feeling, as we have seen, follows immediately and necessarily
+on the moral judgment. But what considerations guide the moral judgment?
+Our moral judgments, as we have also seen, are the result of a logical
+process of reference to a class or of association with similars. This
+particular action is like certain other actions, or belongs to a class
+of actions, which we habitually regard as right or wrong, and,
+consequently, as soon as the reference or association is made, the moral
+feeling supervenes. Now, in this process, there are two possible sources
+of error. In the first place, the act of reference or association may be
+faulty, and the action may not really belong to the class to which we
+refer or really be like the other actions with which we associate it.
+This fault is one of classification, and can only be remedied, as all
+other faulty acts of classification, by learning to discriminate between
+the essential and the non-essential marks of similarity, and insisting
+on the presence of the essential marks. In criminal cases, this is one
+of the functions of the jury, and, unless they exercise great care, they
+may easily be mistaken as to whether an alleged act of fraud, theft,
+assault, &c., was really an act of that kind. But, even if the action be
+referred to its right head, there remains the second question whether we
+are really justified in regarding the class of actions itself as right
+or wrong. Failure to prosecute for or punish heresy or witchcraft was at
+one time regarded at least as wrong as failure to punish or prosecute
+for theft or murder would now be. To decline to fight a duel was, till
+quite recently, to place yourself outside the pale of gentlemen. A
+reluctance to sacrifice herself on the funeral pile of her dead husband
+was, till the practice of Suttee was abolished by the British
+government, one of the most immoral traits which a Brahman widow could
+exhibit. Now, have we any means of discriminating, and, if so, how do we
+discriminate, between those acts which are really, and those which are
+only reputed, right or wrong? That there is great need of such a test,
+if it can be discovered, is plain. The wide divergences of opinion on
+matters of conduct in different ages, in different countries, in
+different classes of society, and even amongst men of the same class In
+the same country and at the same time, shew at once the vast importance
+of ascertaining some common measure of actions, and that there is no
+uniform rule of right and wrong to be found in the human mind itself. If
+there is such a rule, it must be derived from some external
+considerations, and, if there is no such rule, then morality must be, to
+a large extent, a matter of prejudice, fancy, and caprice. Now I
+conceive that there is a simple mode of ascertaining whether there is
+any test of actions other than the merely subjective determinations of
+our own minds, or, in other words, whether there are any reasons or
+external considerations by which the mind guides itself in its decisions
+on matters of conduct. Do our moral opinions merely vary, or do they
+grow? Is there any progress to be traced in morality, or does it simply
+oscillate, within certain limits, round a fixed point? If some 'simple'
+and 'innate' idea of right, or some universal sense, were the test of
+morality, then we might expect that the moral decisions of all men would
+be uniform, or, at least, approximately uniform; if, on the other hand,
+there were no test at all, or, what amounts to much the same thing, a
+merely personal test, then we might expect that the moral judgments of
+mankind would vary arbitrarily according to the disposition and
+temperament of each individual man. But, if there be a test derived from
+external considerations and capable of being applied to particular cases
+by the ordinary processes of reasoning, then we may fairly expect that,
+as the opportunities of observation and experience increase, the test
+will be applied more widely and more accurately, and that the science of
+conduct will grow, like all other sciences, with the advance of
+knowledge and of general civilisation. Now, what, as a mutter of fact,
+has been the case? Can anyone affect to doubt that the morality of
+civilized countries is far higher and purer, and far better adapted to
+secure the preservation and progress of society, than the customs of
+savage or barbaric tribes? Or, however enamoured a man may be of
+classical antiquity, is there any one who would be prepared to change
+the ethical code and the prevailing ethical sentiment of modern times
+for those of the Greeks or Romans? Or, again, should we be willing, in
+this respect, to go back three hundred, or two hundred, or even one
+hundred years in our own history? Are not the abolition of slavery, the
+improved and improving treatment of captives taken in war, of women and
+children, of the distressed and unfortunate, and even of the lower
+animals, alone sufficient to mark the difference between the morality of
+earlier and of later times? I shall assume, then, that there is a test
+of conduct, and that this test is of such a character that its continued
+application, by individual thinkers or by mankind at large, consciously
+or semi-consciously, is sufficient to account for the existence of a
+progressive morality. But, if so, it must be a test which experience
+enables us to apply with increasing accuracy, and which is derived from
+external considerations, or, in other words, from the observation of the
+effects and tendencies of actions. And here I may observe,
+parenthetically, that to make 'conscience' or 'moral reason' or 'moral
+sense' the test of action, as, for instance, Bishop Butler appears to do
+in the case of conscience, is, even on the supposition of the
+independent existence of these so-called 'faculties,' to confound the
+judge with the law which governs his decisions, the 'faculty' with the
+rules in accordance with which it operates. Limiting ourselves,
+therefore, to a test which is derived from a consideration of the
+results, direct and indirect, immediate and remote, of our actions, we
+simply have to enquire what is the characteristic in these results which
+men have in view when they try to act rightly, and which they mistake,
+ignore, or lose sight of, when they act wrongly.
+
+There are, in the main, three answers to this question, though they are
+rather different modes, I conceive, of presenting the same idea, than
+distinct and independent explanations. It may be said that we look to
+the manner in which the action will affect the happiness or pleasure of
+those whom it concerns, or their welfare or well-being, or the
+development or perfection of their character. Now it seems to me that
+these are by no means necessarily antagonistic modes of speaking, and
+that, in attempting to determine the test of right action, they are all
+useful as complementing each other. There is, however, a view of the
+measure of actions which, though derived from external considerations,
+is opposed to them all, and which it may be desirable to notice at once,
+with the object of eliminating it from our enquiry. It is that we are
+only concerned with actions so far as they affect ourselves, and that,
+providing we observe the law of the land, which will punish us if we do
+not observe it, we are under no further obligations to our
+fellow-citizens. This paradox, for such it is, has mainly acquired
+notoriety though the advocacy of Hobbes, though it has sometimes been
+ignorantly attributed to Bentham and other writers of what is called the
+utilitarian school. But, be this as it may, it is so plainly
+inconsistent with some of the most obvious facts of human nature, and
+specially with the existence of that large and essential group of
+emotions which we call the sympathetic feelings, as well as with the
+constitution of family, social, and civic life, that it is unnecessary
+here further to discuss it. The views now generally accepted as to the
+origin of society in the family or tribal relations are alike
+irreconcileable with the selfish psychology from which Hobbes educes his
+system of morality and with that 'state of nature in which every man was
+at war with every man' from which he traces the growth of law and
+government. Reverting, therefore, to those tests of conduct which
+recognise, the independent existence of social as well as self-regarding
+springs of action, I shall now make some remarks on the appropriateness
+and adequacy, for the purpose of designating such tests, of the three
+classes of terms, noticed above. To begin with happiness or pleasure.
+Taking happiness to mean the balance of pleasures over pains, and
+degrees of happiness the proportions of this balance, it will be
+sufficient if I confine myself to the word 'pleasure.' One statement,
+then, of the test of the morality or rightness of an action is that it
+should result in a larger amount of pleasure than pain to all those whom
+it affects. But it is at once objected that there is the greatest
+variety of pleasures and pains, intellectual, moral, aesthetic,
+sympathetic, sensual, and so on; and it is asked how are we to determine
+their respective values, and to strike the balance between the
+conflicting kinds? How much sensual pleasure would compensate for the
+pangs of an evil conscience, or what amount of intellectual enjoyment
+would allay the cravings of hunger or thirst? The only escape from this
+difficulty is frankly to acknowledge that there are some pleasures and
+pains which are incommensurable with one other, and that, therefore,
+where they are concerned, we must forego the attempt at comparison, and
+so act as to compass the immeasurably greater pleasure or avoid the
+immeasurably greater pain. Especially is this the case with the
+pleasures and pains attendant on the exercise of the moral feelings. A
+man who is tormented with the recollection of having committed a great
+crime will, as the phrase goes, 'take pleasure in nothing;' while,
+similarly, a man who is enjoying the retrospect of having done his duty,
+in some important crisis, will care little for obloquy or even for the
+infliction of physical suffering. Making this admission, then, as well
+as recognising the fact that our pleasures differ in quality as well as
+in volume, so that the pleasures of the higher part of our nature, the
+religious, the intellectual, the moral, the aesthetic, the sympathetic
+nature, affect us with a different kind of enjoyment from the sensual
+pleasures, or those which are derived from them, we may rightly regard
+the tendency to produce a balance of pleasure over pain as the test of
+the goodness of an action, and the effort and intention to perform acts
+having this tendency as the test of the morality of the agent. But when
+we enunciate the production of pleasure as our aim, or the balance of
+pleasure-producing over pain-producing results as the test of right
+action, we are not always understood to have admitted these
+explanations, and, consequently, there is always a danger of our being
+supposed to degrade morality by identifying it with the gratification,
+in ourselves and others, of the coarser and more material impulses of
+our nature. Though, then, if due distinctions and admissions be made,
+the tendency to produce, in the long run, the greatest amount of
+happiness or misery, pleasure or pain, may be taken as the test of the
+goodness or badness of an action, the phraseology is so misleading, and
+so liable to frustrate the practical objects of the moralist, that it is
+desirable, if possible, to find terms not equally lending themselves to
+misinterpretation and perversion. Let us now, then, consider whether we
+are supplied with such terms in the phrases 'perfection' or
+'development' of 'character.' It is a noble idea of human action to
+suppose that its end is the perfection of individual men, or the
+development of their various capacities to the utmost extent that is
+available. And yet, as the phrases 'pleasure' and 'happiness' are apt
+too exclusively to suggest material well-being and the gratification of
+the more animal parts of our nature, so the phrases 'perfection' or
+'development' of 'character' are apt altogether to keep out of sight
+these necessary pre-suppositions of a healthy and progressive condition
+of humanity. Unless there were some standard of comfortable living, and
+a constant effort not only to maintain but to improve it, and unless
+some zest were given to every-day life by the gratification of the
+appetites, within reasonable limits, and the endeavour to obtain the
+means of indulging them, men, constituted as they are, would be in
+danger of sinking into sloth, squalor, and indigence, and, to the great
+mass of mankind, the opportunity of developing and perfecting their
+higher nature would never occur. We seem, therefore, to require some
+term which will not only suggest the highest results of moral endeavour,
+but also the conditions which, in the case of humanity, are essential to
+the attainment of those results. Moreover, to a greater extent even than
+the words 'pleasure' and 'happiness,' the expressions 'perfection' and
+'development' of 'character' are in danger of being supposed to imply an
+exclusive reference to self. It is true that we cannot properly develope
+our characters, much less attain to all the perfection of which they are
+capable, without quickening the moral feeling and giving larger scope to
+the sympathetic emotions; but, in the mere attempt to improve their own
+nature, men are very apt to lose sight of their relations to others. The
+phrases ought, however, to be taken, and usually are intended to be
+taken, to include the effort to improve the character of others as well
+as our own; and if this extension of their meaning be well understood,
+and it is also understood that the development or perfection of
+character implies certain conditions of material comfort and the
+gratification, within reasonable limits, of our appetitive nature, there
+ought to be no objection on the part of the moralist to their employment
+for the purpose of designating the test of right conduct; and, any way,
+they are useful as supplementing, correcting, and elevating the
+associations attached to the more commonly employed terms, pleasure and
+happiness. But are there no terms by which the somewhat exclusive
+associations connected with the two sets of phrases already examined may
+be avoided? I venture to suggest that such terms may be found by
+reverting to the old, but now usually discarded, expressions 'welfare'
+and 'well-being.' These words, it seems to me, do not primarily suggest
+material prosperity, like happiness, nor the gratification of the lower
+parts of our nature, like pleasure, nor the exclusive development of the
+higher parts of our nature, like perfection, but cover the whole ground
+of healthy human activity and the conditions which are favourable to it.
+Corresponding, too, almost exactly with the [Greek: eudaimonia] of
+Aristotle, they have the advantage of venerable historic associations.
+Lastly, they seem to have less of a personal and more of a social
+reference than any of the other terms employed. We speak, I think, more
+naturally of the well-being or welfare of society, than of the
+happiness, pleasure, or perfection of society. I cannot, therefore, but
+think that the moralist would be wise in at least trying the experiment
+of recurring to these terms in place of those which, in recent systems
+of ethics, have usually superseded them. If it be said that they are
+vague, and that different people will attach different meanings to them,
+according to their own prepossessions and their own theories of life, I
+can only reply that this objection applies with at least equal force to
+any of the other terms which we have passed in review. And, if it be
+said that our conceptions of well-being and welfare are not fixed, but
+that our ideas of the nature and proper proportions of their
+constituents are undergoing constant modification and growth, I may ask
+if this is less the case with regard to happiness, or the sum of
+pleasures, or the balance of pleasures over pains, or the perfection or
+due development of human character, all of which expressions, indeed,
+when properly qualified and explained, I acknowledge to be the
+equivalents of those for which I have stated a preference. And here
+occurs a difficulty with respect to all these expressions and ideas. If
+their meaning or content is not fixed, and specially if they are
+undergoing a constant change, in the way of growth, with the progress of
+reason and society, how can we employ them as a test of morality, which
+is itself also a variable conception? Surely this is to make one
+indefinite idea the gauge of another indefinite idea. The answer to this
+question will, I trust, bring out clearly the nature of a moral test, as
+well as the different modes of its application.
+
+The ultimate origin of moral rules, I conceive, so far at least as
+science can trace them, is to be found in the effort of men to adapt
+themselves to the circumstances, social and physical, in which they are
+placed. At first, probably, this process of adaptation was almost
+automatic and unconscious, but, when men once began consciously to adapt
+means to ends, they would soon begin to reflect on their acts, and to
+ask themselves the reasons why they had selected this course of conduct
+rather than another. The justifying reasons of their past acts, like the
+impelling motives of their future acts, could have reference to nothing
+but the convenience or gratification of themselves or those amongst whom
+they lived. And the acts which they justified in themselves they would
+approve of in others. Here, then, already we have a test consciously
+applied to the estimation of conduct. Experience shews that this or that
+action promotes some object which is included in the narrow conception
+of well-being entertained by the primitive man. He, therefore, continues
+to act in accordance with the rule which prescribes it, or the habit
+from which it proceeds. And, in like manner, if he finds from experience
+that the action does not promote that object, and he is free to exercise
+his own choice, he desists from it and, perhaps, tries the experiment of
+substituting another. Now, in these cases, it is plain that any judgment
+which the man exercises independently, and apart from the society of
+which he is a member, is guided solely by the consideration whether the
+course of conduct is efficacious in attaining its end, that end being
+part of his conception of the well-being of himself, his family, or his
+tribe. If he thinks about the matter for himself at all, this is the
+only consideration of which he can take account. There are three courses
+open to him. He need not reflect on the action at all, but simply follow
+in the wake of his neighbours (and this, of course, is far the commonest
+case); or, if there is any divergence of opinion about it amongst his
+neighbours, he may deliberate as to whose opinion it is safest to
+follow; or, lastly, he may consider for himself, whether the action is
+really the best means of attaining the end aimed at, that is to say, he
+may test the means by its conduciveness to the end, which is always, in
+some shape, the welfare of himself or others. If he follows the opinion
+of others, it is plain that their opinion, so far as it has been formed
+independently, has been formed in the manner above described. The only
+alternative, therefore, is between the acceptance of existing opinions,
+without any consideration or examination, and their reference to the
+conception of well-being, or however else the idea may be expressed, as
+a measure of their appropriateness and sufficiency. The idea of
+well-being itself may be inadequate, and even in parts incorrect, and,
+as society advances, it is undoubtedly undergoing a constant process of
+expansion and rectification; but it seems to me that this regard for
+their own welfare or that of others, however we may phrase it, is the
+only guiding-principle of conduct, in the light of which men can
+reconsider and review their rules. Unless they follow the mere blind
+impulses of feeling (in which case they do not follow rules at all, but
+simply act irrationally), or else observe implicitly the maxims of
+conduct which they find prevalent around them, they must, and can only,
+ask the question whether it is possible to alter their conduct for the
+better, that is to say, whether they can better promote their own
+welfare or that of others by some modification of their actions. Take
+the case of Slavery. There was a time when savage or barbaric tribes,
+moved by a regard to their own interests, and also, we may trust,
+touched by some compassion for their victims, began to substitute, for
+the wholesale butchery of their enemies defeated in war, the practice of
+retaining some or all of them for the purposes of domestic or agrarian
+service. Again, there came a time when, viewed by the side of other
+forms of service which had meanwhile come into existence, slavery, with
+its various incidents, began to shock the philanthropic sentiments of
+the more civilized races of mankind, while the question also began to be
+raised whether slave-labour was not economically at a disadvantage, when
+compared with free labour, and the result of these combined
+considerations, often aided by a strong and enthusiastic outburst of
+popular feeling, has been the total disappearance of slavery amongst
+civilized, and its almost total disappearance even amongst barbaric or
+semi-civilized races. Take, too, the revolting practice, common among
+many savage tribes, past and present, of killing and eating aged parents
+or other infirm members of the tribe, when engaged in war. This practice
+which, at first sight, seems so utterly unnatural, was doubtless
+dictated, in part at least, by the desire to save their victims from the
+worse fate of being tortured and mutilated by their enemies.
+Subsequently, in the history of some of these tribes, there has come a
+time when it has been discovered that a more humane mode of attaining
+the same object is to build strong places and leave the feebler folk at
+home. If we follow the varying marriage customs of savage or barbaric
+tribes, we shall find, in the same way, that they have always been
+originally framed on reasons of convenience, and that, when they have
+been changed, it has been because different views of well-being,
+including the needs of purity, closer attachment, increased care of
+children, and the like, have begun to prevail. In all these examples,
+which might be multiplied to any extent, it is plain that changes of
+conduct are moulded and determined by changes of opinion as to what is
+best and most suitable for the circumstances of the individual, the
+family, the tribe, or whatever the social aggregate may be. And I may
+venture to affirm that, wherever any change of moral conduct takes
+place, unless it be dictated by blind passion, or mere submission to
+authority, enforced or voluntary, the change is invariably due to some
+change of opinion on what constitutes the advantage of the persons whom
+it affects. It is true, therefore, that moral conduct varies, and it is
+true that our conceptions of well-being vary, but the two do not vary
+independently of one another, or either of them capriciously. Increased
+experience of ourselves and of others, enlarged observation of the
+external world, more matured reflexion are constantly expanding and
+rectifying our conceptions of what constitutes human welfare, and to
+this constantly amended conception are readjusted, from time to time,
+our conduct and our sentiments on the conduct both of ourselves and of
+others. In brief, then, the conduct of men and the sentiments of men on
+conduct vary with their conceptions of well-being, and their conceptions
+of well-being are determined by experience (including the opportunity
+for experience) and reflexion.
+
+My conclusion may, perhaps, be illustrated and enforced by one further
+consideration. It generally happens, in the progress of society, that,
+after a number of rules of conduct have been accumulated, they become
+enshrined in some sacred book, some code, or, at least, some constant
+and authoritative tradition. In this manner they may be stereotyped for
+ages. Now, after a time, these rules, especially if they are numerous
+and minute, become unsuited, at least in part, to the altered
+circumstances of the society, and probably bear hardly on many of the
+individuals composing it. When this condition of things is beginning to
+be intolerable, there often arises the social reformer, and what is the
+course which he pursues? He endeavours to shew how unsuitable the rules
+have become to attain the ends which they were originally intended to
+compass, in how much better a manner other rules would attain these
+objects, how grievously the present rules bear on many classes and
+individuals in the state, how unequal they are in their incidence, at
+what a disadvantage they place the community in comparison with
+neighbouring communities, how easily they may be altered, and the like.
+In fact, the considerations which he urges may all be included in the
+one argument that the existing rules are opposed to the well-being of
+the state, and that the advantages resulting from their abrogation will
+more than compensate for any disturbance of existing relations which may
+ensue from the change. Apart from force, or mere rant, rhetoric, or
+imposture, it is difficult to see what other resource the reformer has
+open to him. And, in those cases where there is no accumulation of
+antiquated rules and no need of the individual reformer, but where
+society at large has the happy knack of imperceptibly accommodating its
+practice and principles of action to altered circumstances, there can be
+no doubt that it is by considerations of well-being, half conscious
+though the process of application may be, that the change is directed.
+The plastic power by which men accommodate their actions and even their
+maxims of conduct to modifications in surrounding circumstances is one
+of the advantages which they gain by the progress of civilisation. In
+ancient society the tyranny of custom is often almost absolute. In
+modern society changes, which would otherwise require the drastic hand
+of the reformer, are often quietly effected by the gradual and almost
+imperceptible action of the people themselves. It is thus that the
+equity branch of English law, and much of our case law, grew up, giving
+expression to changes which had already occurred in the current of
+popular opinion. It is thus that the obligation of 'gentlemen' to offer,
+on the slightest provocation, and to accept, without questioning, a
+'challenge' to take each other's lives, has, in most civilized
+countries, now grown obsolete, having gradually become enfeebled
+together with the exaggerated military spirit which gave it birth. It is
+thus also that, with an increase of the industrial spirit, with softened
+manners, and with that quickening of our sympathetic nature which has
+gradually been effected by the teaching of Christianity, a strong
+sentiment against slavery, a respect for human life as such, a regard
+for the weak, the suffering, the oppressed, and many tender feelings of
+a similar kind, have almost insensibly been developed as an essential
+element in modern civilisation.
+
+These considerations naturally lead me to notice the two different ways
+in which the test of conduct may be, and as a fact is, applied. One mode
+is the conscious and intentional application of it by the reflective
+man. The other is the semi-conscious and almost instinctive application
+of it by the community at large. In morals, as in the arts, men, almost
+without knowing it, are constantly re-adjusting their means to their
+ends, feeling their way to some tentative solution of a new difficulty
+or a better solution of an old one, shaping their conduct with reference
+to the special needs of the situation in which they are placed. It is
+thus, for the most part, that new circumstances develope new rules, and
+that the simple maxims of a primitive people are gradually replaced by
+the multifarious code of law and morals with which we are now familiar.
+The guiding principle throughout the process is the conception of their
+own good, comprehending, as it does, not only ease, personal comfort,
+and gratification of the various appetites and desires, which, in the
+early stages of society, are the preponderating considerations, but also
+those higher constituents of welfare, both individual and social, which
+attain an ever-increasing importance as society advances, such as are
+the development of the moral, the intellectual, and the aesthetic
+faculties; the purification of the religious sentiments, the expansion
+of the sympathetic feelings, the diffusion of liberty and prosperity,
+the consolidation of national unity, the elevation of human life. This
+principle works throughout the community, actuating some men in its
+higher, others in its lower forms; but, except where the force of
+tradition or prejudice is too strong for it, invariably moulding conduct
+into accordance with the more complex requirements of advancing
+civilisation. Its action, of course, is not wholly advantageous. Growing
+needs and more complicated relations suggest to men fresh devices for
+compassing their selfish ends, such as the various forms of fraud,
+forgery, and conspiracy, as well as more enlarged or more effective
+schemes of beneficence, stricter or more intelligent applications of the
+principle of justice, and possibilities of higher and freer developments
+of their faculties. But, on the whole, and setting aside as exceptional
+certain periods of retrogression, such as the decline of the Roman
+Empire, the evolution of society seems to be attended by the progress of
+morality, and specially by the amelioration of social relations, whether
+between individuals, families, or states. The intelligence that
+apprehends the greater good re-acts upon the desire to attain it, and
+the result is the combination of more rational aims with a purer
+interest in the pursuit of them.
+
+This tendency in society at large to modify and re-adjust its conduct in
+conformity with fuller and more improved conceptions of well-being,
+which are themselves suggested by a growing experience, is reinforced,
+especially in the later stages of civilisation, by the consciously
+reflective action of philosophers and reformers. It is the function of
+these classes not only to give expression to the thoughts which are
+working obscurely in the minds of other men, but also to detect those
+aspects and bearings of conduct which are not obvious to the general
+intelligence. This task is effected partly by tracing actions to their
+indirect and remote results, partly by more distinctly realising their
+results, whether immediate or remote, direct or indirect, and partly by
+generalising them, that is to say, by considering what would happen to
+society if men generally were to act in that manner. Thus, take the case
+of lying. In primitive states of society, and even in some more advanced
+nations, no great opprobrium attaches to telling a lie. In ancient
+Greece, for instance, veracity by no means occupied the same prominent
+position among the virtues that it does among ourselves, and, even now,
+Teutonic races are generally credited with a peculiar sensitiveness on
+the subject of truthfulness. This improved sentiment as regards veracity
+is, no doubt, partly due to the realisation of its importance and of the
+inconveniences which result from the breaches of it, especially in
+commercial affairs, by the members of a community at large; but it must
+also, to a great extent, have been produced by the definite teaching
+conveyed in books, and by moral and religious instructors. Follow out a
+lie to all its consequences, realise the feelings of the person deceived
+by it, when he has discovered the deception, above all, consider what
+would be the result if men were commonly to deceive one another, and no
+man could place any dependence on the information which his neighbour
+gave him; and then a falsehood excites very different feelings from what
+it does when regarded simply as an isolated act. Or, again, take the
+evasion of taxes. There is probably, even yet, no country in which the
+popular sentiment on this subject is sufficiently enlightened and
+severe. A man smuggles a box of cigars, or evades paying a tax for his
+dog, or makes an insufficient return of his income, and few of his
+neighbours, if the fact come to their knowledge, think the worse of him.
+The character and consequences of the action are not obvious, and hence
+they do not perceive what, on reflexion, or, if guided by proper
+instruction, they could hardly fail to realise, that the act is really a
+theft, only practised on the community at large instead of on an
+individual member of it, and that, if every one were to act in the same
+way, the collection of taxes and, consequently, the administration and
+defence of the country, the maintenance of its army and navy, its
+police, its harbours and roads, would become an impossibility, and it
+would quickly relapse into barbarism. Other familiar instances of the
+advantage to be derived from the conscious and intentional application
+of the reasoning powers to matters of conduct may be found in the
+successive reforms of the penal code of any civilized country, or in the
+abolition of slavery. Punishment is, in all very early stages of
+society, capricious, mostly unregulated by any definite customs or
+enactments, and, consequently, often disproportioned, either in the way
+of excess or defect, to the character of the offence. As the community
+advances in complexity and intelligence, successive reformers arise who
+attempt, by definite enactment, to regulate the amount of punishment due
+to each description of offence, and, from time to time, to increase or
+diminish, as occasion seems to require, the severity of the existing
+code. The considerations by which, at least in our own time, these
+reforms are determined are such as these: the adequacy or inadequacy of
+the punishment to deter men from the commission of the offence, the
+tendency of excessive punishment to produce a reaction of sentiment in
+favour of the criminal, and a reluctance on the part of the judge or
+jury to convict, the superfluous suffering inflicted by that part of the
+punishment which is in excess of the requirements of the case, due
+publicity and notoriety as a means of warning others, the reform of the
+criminal himself, and so on. All these considerations, it will be
+observed, are derived from tracing the effects of the punishment either
+on the criminal himself, or on persons who are under a similar
+temptation to commit the crime, or on the sentiment of society at large,
+or of that portion of society which is connected with the administration
+of justice, and it is only by the exercise of great circumspection, and
+of a keen intelligence on the part of the statesman, the jurist, or the
+moralist, that grave errors can be avoided, and an adequate estimate of
+the probable results can be formed. The mere instinct of the community,
+unmodified and uncorrected by the conscious speculations of its more
+thoughtful members, would be in much danger of either causing a large
+amount of needless suffering to the criminal, or of seriously
+diminishing the security of society. It would almost certainly be guilty
+of grave inequalities in the apportionment of punishment to specific
+crimes. The history of slavery similarly shews the importance of the
+functions of the moralist and the reformer. It must have been at the
+suggestion of some prominent member of a tribe, whose intelligence was
+in advance of that of his fellows, that men first took to capturing
+their defeated enemies, with a view to future service, instead of
+slaughtering them on the field of battle. And we know that, in the time
+of Plato and Aristotle, there had already arisen a strong sentiment
+against the enslaving of Greeks by Greeks, originating probably in the
+instinctive sympathy of race, but quickened and fostered, doubtless, by
+the superior capacity which men possess of realising suffering and
+misfortune in those who are constituted and endowed like themselves, by
+the new conception of a Pan-hellenic unity, and by the vivid sense
+which, on reflexion, the citizens of each state must have entertained of
+their own liability to be reduced, in turn, to the same condition. In
+modern times, the movement which has led to the entire abolition of
+slavery in civilized countries owes much, undoubtedly, to the softened
+manners and wider sympathies of a society largely transformed by the
+combined operation of Christianity and culture, but it has been
+promoted, to no inconsiderable degree, by conscious reflexion and direct
+argument. Social and religious reasons, derived from the community of
+nature and origin in man, reinforced by a vivid realisation of the
+sufferings of others, and appealing forcibly to the tender and
+sympathetic feelings, have co-operated with the economical
+considerations drawn from the wastefulness and comparative inefficiency
+of slave labour, and with what may be called the self-regarding reason
+of the hardening and debasing effect of slave-owning on the character of
+the slave-owner himself.
+
+It will be sufficient, in this connexion, simply to allude to the ideals
+of mercy, purity, humility, long-suffering, and self-denial, which are
+pourtrayed in the Christian teaching and have, ever since the early days
+of Christianity, exercised so vast and powerful an influence on large
+sections of mankind.
+
+There is, of course, a process of constant Interaction going on between
+the two elements in the constitution of moral sentiment which I have
+been attempting to describe. The circumstances, opinions, and feelings
+of the society of which he is a member, must necessarily contribute to
+determine the opinions and feelings, the character and aims, of the
+moralist or the reformer. In turn, the moralist or reformer modifies,
+corrects, and elevates the current moral sentiment of those who are
+brought within the influence of his work. And this result is usually a
+permanent one. When the average moral sentiment on a particular point of
+conduct has been consciously raised, and the change is fully realised,
+it seldom happens that it afterwards recedes, though the automatic or
+semi-conscious adaptations of society to new needs and circumstances,
+when regarded from a more general point of view, are not infrequently
+found to be regressive as well as progressive. Thus, though we may
+imagine the distinctions between the different classes of society
+becoming more numerous or more accentuated (as I believe to have
+actually occurred in England during the present century), or the evasion
+of taxation becoming more general than it at present is, we can hardly
+conceive a recurrence to slavery, or a needless increase in the severity
+of punishments, or a revival of the hard-drinking habits of the last
+century. When society is fully aware of its moral gains, it is not
+likely knowingly to surrender them. Hence, allowing for occasional
+oscillations and for possible exceptions in certain departments of
+conduct, morality, as a whole, almost necessarily advances with the
+general progress of intelligence.
+
+It is not altogether easy to adjust the respective claims of society at
+large and of the individual thinker in the constitution of moral theory,
+or, in other words, to determine the limits within which the speculative
+moralist may legitimately endeavour to reform the existing moral
+sentiment. It is plain that it must be open to the moralist, and, in
+fact, to every intelligent citizen, to criticize the current morality,
+or else moral progress, even if it took place at all, would, on many
+points of conduct, be exceedingly slow. But, on the other hand, it is
+equally plain that a constant discussion of the accepted rules of
+conduct would weaken the moral sentiment, lessen the sense of
+obligation, and suggest a general uncertainty as to the validity of the
+maxims which, in their relations to one another, men usually take for
+granted. Hence, though it would be almost fatal to moral progress to
+discourage speculation on moral topics, the moralist must always bear in
+mind that his task is one which is not lightly to be undertaken, and
+that, with an exception to be noticed presently, the presumption should
+always be in favour of existing rules of conduct. If for no other
+reason, this presumption ought to be made on the practical ground that a
+disturbance of the moral sentiment on one point is likely to weaken its
+force generally, and, before we expose men to this danger, we ought to
+have some adequate justification. But there is also the speculative
+ground that any given society, and indeed mankind generally, has been
+engaged for ages in feeling its way, instinctively or semi-consciously,
+towards a solution of the self-same problems which the philosopher is
+attempting to solve consciously and of set purpose. That, on the whole,
+a society has solved these problems in the manner best suited to its
+existing needs and circumstances may fairly be taken for granted, and,
+even where the ethical stand-point of the reformer is very superior to
+the stand-point of the society which he wishes to reform, he will be
+wise in endeavouring to introduce his reforms gradually, and, if
+possible, in connexion with principles already acknowledged, rather than
+in attempting to effect a moral revolution, the ultimate results of
+which it may be impossible to foresee. The work of the moralist is,
+therefore, best regarded as corrective of, and supplementary to, the
+work which mankind is constantly doing for itself, and not as
+antagonistic to it. The method is the same in both cases: only it is
+applied semi-consciously, and merely as occasions suggest it, in the one
+case; consciously and spontaneously in the other. In both cases alike
+the guiding principle, whether of action or of speculation upon action,
+is the adaptation of conduct to surrounding circumstances, physical and
+social, with a view to promote, to the utmost extent possible, the
+well-being of the individual and of the society of which he is a member.
+Where the interests of the individual and of the society clash, society,
+that is to say, a man's fellow-citizens, usually approves, as we saw in
+the last chapter, of the sacrifice of individual to social interests, a
+course of conduct which is also, on reflexion, usually stamped by the
+individual's own approbation, and hence we may say briefly that their
+tendency to promote or impair the welfare of society is the test by
+which, in different ways, all actions are estimated alike by the
+philosopher, in his hours of speculation, and by the community at large,
+in the practical work of life.
+
+In laying down the principle that the presumption of the moralist should
+always be in favour of existing rules of conduct, I intimated that there
+was one exception to this principle. The exception includes all those
+cases which are legitimate, though not obvious, applications of existing
+rules, and to which, therefore, the ordinary moral sentiment does not
+attach in the same way that it does to the plainer and more direct
+applications. Thus, if it can be shewn, as it undoubtedly can be, that
+smuggling falls under the head of stealing, and holding out false hopes
+under that of lying, the moralist need take no account of the lax moral
+sentiment which exists with regard to these practices, though, of
+course, in estimating the guilt of the individual as distinct from the
+character of the act, due allowance must be made for his imperfect
+appreciation of the moral bearings of his conduct. This exception, as
+will be found in the next chapter, covers, and therefore at once
+justifies, a large proportion of the criticisms which, in the present
+advanced stage of morality, when the more fundamental principles have
+been already settled, it is still open to us to make.
+
+It remains now to enquire what is the justification of the test
+propounded in this chapter. I do not found it on any external
+considerations, whether of Law or Revelation, both of which, I conceive,
+presuppose morality, but on the very make and constitution of our
+nature. The justification of the moral test and the source of the moral
+feeling are alike, I conceive, to be discovered by an examination of
+human nature, and, so far as that nature has a divine origin, so far is
+the origin of morality divine. Whatever the ultimate source of morality
+may be, to us, at all events, it can only be known as revealed or
+reflected in ourselves. What, then, is it in the constitution of our
+nature, which leads us to aim at the well-being of ourselves and those
+around us, and to measure our own conduct and that of others by the
+extent to which it promotes these ends? In answering this question, I
+must give a brief account of the ultimate principles of human nature,
+though this account has been partly anticipated in the last chapter.
+Human nature, in its last analysis, seems, so far as it is concerned
+with action, to consist of certain impulses or feelings, and a power of
+comparing with one another the results which follow from the
+gratification of these feelings, which power reacts upon the several
+feelings themselves by way of intensifying, checking, or controlling
+them. This power we call Reason. The feelings themselves fall into two
+principal groups, the egoistic or self-regarding feelings, which centre
+in a man's self, and are developed by his personal needs, and the
+altruistic or sympathetic feelings, which centre in others and are
+developed by the social surroundings in which he finds himself placed.
+These two groups of feelings, I conceive, were independent of one
+another from the first, or at least as soon as man could be called man,
+and neither of them admits of being resolved into the other. As the one
+was developed by and adapted to personal needs, so the other was
+developed by and adapted to the manifold requirements of family or
+tribal life, which, from the first, was inseparable from the life of the
+individual. Intermediate between these two groups of feelings, the
+purely self-regarding and the purely sympathetic, and derived probably
+from the interaction of both, is another group, which may be called the
+semi-social group. This group includes shame, love of reputation, love
+of notoriety, desire of fame, and the like, but, on analysis, it will be
+found that all these feelings admit of being referred to two heads, the
+love of approbation and the fear of disapprobation. Lastly, if any of
+our desires or feelings are thwarted by the intentional action of other
+men, the result in our minds is a feeling which we call Resentment, and
+which, though it regards others, is, unlike the sympathetic feelings, a
+malevolent and not a benevolent feeling. It is important, in considering
+the economy of human nature, to notice that Resentment, as is also the
+case with the love of cruelty, is a secondary not a primary, a derived
+not an original affection of our minds; for, apart from the desire to
+gratify some self-regarding or sympathetic feeling, or disappointment
+when that desire is not gratified, there is, I conceive, no such thing
+as ill-feeling in one human being towards another. Resentment is
+properly a reflex form of sympathy or self-regard, arising when our
+sympathetic feelings are wounded by an injury done to another, or our
+self-regarding desires are frustrated by an injury done to ourselves;
+when, in fact, any emotional element in our nature is, by the
+intentional intervention of another, disappointed of attaining its end.
+Each of these groups of feelings admits of being studied apart, though
+in the actual conduct of life they are seldom found to operate alone,
+and each, under the continued action of reason, assumes a form or forms
+in which its various elements are brought into harmonious working with
+each other, so as best to promote the ends which the whole group
+subserves. These forms, thus rationalised or moralised, if I may be
+allowed the use of such expressions, are, in the case of the
+self-regarding feelings, self-respect and rational self-love; in the
+case of the sympathetic feelings, rational benevolence; in the case of
+the semi-social feelings, a reasonable regard for the opinion of others;
+and in the case of the resentful feelings, a sense of justice. These
+higher forms of the several groups of feelings themselves require to be
+harmonised, before man can satisfy the needs of his nature as a whole.
+And, when co-ordinated under the control of reason, they become a
+rational desire for the combined welfare of the individual and of
+society, or, if we choose to use different but equivalent expressions,
+of the individual considered as an unit of society, or of society
+considered as including the individual. In a settled state of existence,
+the interests of the individual and of society, even leaving out of
+account the pleasures and pains of the moral sanction, are, for the most
+part, identical. If an individual pursues a selfish course of conduct,
+neglecting the interests and feelings of others, he is almost certain to
+suffer for it in the long run. And the prosperity and general well-being
+of the community in which they live is, to citizens, living a normal
+life and pursuing ordinary avocations, an essential condition of their
+own prosperity and well-being. On the other hand, it is by each man
+attending to his own business and directing his efforts to the promotion
+of his own interests or those of his family, his firm, or whatever may
+be the smaller social aggregate in which his work chiefly lies, that the
+interests of the community at large are best secured. Men whose time is
+mainly taken up with philanthropic enterprises are very likely to
+neglect the duties which lie immediately before them. 'To learn and
+labour truly to get mine own living, and to do my duty in that state of
+life, unto which it shall please God to call me' is a very homely, but
+it is an essential lesson. That the great mass of the citizens of a
+country should lay it well to heart, and act habitually on it, is the
+first condition of national prosperity. Of course, this primary regard
+to our own interests, or those of the persons with whom we are more
+immediately connected, must be limited by wider considerations. A man
+has duties, not only to himself and his own family, but to his
+neighbours, to the various institutions with which he is connected, to
+his town, his country, mankind at large, and even the whole sentient
+creation. How far these should limit each other or a man's individual or
+family interests is a question by no means easy to answer, and is the
+main problem which each man has to be perpetually solving for himself,
+and society at large for us all. There is hardly any waking hour in
+which we have not to attempt to settle rival claims of this kind, and,
+according as we settle them to our own satisfaction or not, so have we
+peace or trouble of mind. No one can reasonably deny that the more
+immediate interests of the individual and of the various social
+aggregates, including society at large, are frequently in conflict. It
+seems to me, I must confess, that it is also futile to deny that there
+are occasions, though such occasions may be rare, in which even a man's
+interests in the long run are incompatible with his social duties. To
+take one or two instances. It may sometimes be for the good of society
+that a man should speak out his mind freely on some question of private
+conduct or public policy, though his utterances may be on the unpopular
+side or offend persons of consideration and influence. The man performs
+what he conceives to be his duty, but he knows that, in doing so, he is
+sacrificing his prospects. Or, again, he is invited to join in some
+popular movement which he believes to be of a questionable or pernicious
+tendency, and, because he believes that to take part in it would be
+untrue to his own convictions and possibly harmful to others, he
+refrains from doing so, at the risk of losing preferment, or custom, or
+patronage. Then, we are all familiar with the difficulties in which men
+are often placed, when they have to record a vote; their convictions and
+the claims of the public service being on one side, and their own
+interests and prospects on the other. In all these cases it is true
+that, if their moral nature be in a healthy condition, they approve, on
+reflexion, of having taken the more generous course, while it is often a
+matter of life-long regret if they have sacrificed their nobler impulses
+to their selfish interests. And, taking into account these
+after-feelings of self-approbation and self-disapprobation, it is often
+the case, and is always the case where these feelings are very strong,
+that a man gains more happiness, in the long run, by following the path
+of duty and obeying his social impulses than by confining himself to the
+narrow view which would be dictated by a cool calculation of what is
+most likely to conduce to his own private good. But, where the moral
+feelings are not strong, and still more where they are almost in
+abeyance, I fear that the theory that virtue and happiness are
+invariably coincident will hardly be supported by a candid examination
+of facts. To some men, I fear it must be acknowledged, present wealth
+and power and dignity are more than a sufficient recompense for any
+remorse which they may continue to feel for past greed or lack of
+candour or truthfulness. These considerations will serve to shew the
+immense importance of moral education, alike in the family, the school,
+and the state. If we are to depend on men acting rightly, and with a due
+regard to wider interests than their own, we must take pains to develope
+in them moral feelings sufficiently strong and sensitive to make the
+reflexion on wrong or selfish acts more painful to them than the
+sacrifice which is needed for dutiful and generous conduct. So far as
+society, through its various instruments of law and opinion, of
+education and domestic influences, can effect this object, so far will
+it promote its own security and advancement.
+
+Our adoption, then, of a tendency to promote social welfare or
+well-being, as the test of conduct, is justified, I conceive, by an
+examination of the internal constitution of human nature and of the
+conditions which are necessary to secure the harmonious working of its
+various parts. It may be objected that this test is vague in its
+conception and difficult in its application. Both objections, to a great
+extent, hold good. If they did not, moral theory and moral practice
+would be very easy matters, but, as a fact, we know that they are by no
+means easy. The conception of social well-being must be more or less
+vague, because we are constantly filling it up by experience; it is not
+a fixed, but a growing conception, and, though we may be certain of the
+character and importance of many of the elements which have already been
+detected in it by the experience of past generations, it seems
+impossible to fix any limits to its development in the future history of
+mankind. Man will constantly be discovering new wants, new and more
+refined susceptibilities of his nature, and with them his conception of
+human well-being must necessarily grow. But, though not a fixed or final
+conception, the idea of social well-being is sufficiently definite, in
+each generation, to act as a guide and incentive to conduct. It is the
+star, gradually growing brighter and brighter, which lights our path,
+and, any way, we know that, if it were not above us in the heavens, we
+should be walking in the darkness.
+
+It must be confessed that the test of social well-being is not always
+easy of application. Even, when we know what the good of the community
+consists in, it is not always easy to say what course of action will
+promote it, or what course of action is likely to retard it. Society
+arrives, in a comparatively early period of its development, at certain
+broad rules of conduct, such as those which condemn murder, theft,
+ingratitude to friends, disobedience to parents. But the more remote
+applications of these rules, the nicer shades of conduct, such as those
+relating to social intercourse, the choice between clashing duties, the
+realisation of our obligations to the community at large, require for
+their appreciation a large amount of intelligence and an accumulated
+stock of experience which are not to be found in primitive societies.
+Hence, the rules of conduct, which at first are few and simple,
+gradually become more numerous and complex. Nor have we yet arrived at
+the time, nor do we seem to be within any appreciable distance of it,
+when the code is complete, or even the parts of it which already exist
+are altogether free from doubt and discussion. In the simpler relations
+of life, he that runs may read, but with increasing complications comes
+increasing uncertainty. To remove, as far as may be, this uncertainty
+from the domain of conduct is the task of advancing civilisation, and
+specially of those members of a community who have sufficient leisure,
+education, and intelligence to review the motives and compare the
+results of actions. The task has doubtless its special difficulties, and
+the conclusions of the moralist will by no means always command assent,
+but that the art of life is an easy one, who is there, at all
+experienced in affairs or accustomed to reflexion, that will contend?
+
+I may here pause for a moment, in order to emphasise the fact, which is
+already abundantly apparent from what has preceded, that, with ever
+widening and deepening conceptions of well-being, man is constantly
+learning to subordinate his individual interests to those of society at
+large, or rather to identify his interests with those of the larger
+organism of which he is a part. It is thus that we may justify the
+peculiar characteristic of the moral sentiment, indicated in the last
+chapter, which seems, in all acts of which it approves, to demand an
+element of sacrifice, whether of the lower to the higher self, or of the
+individual to his fellows. In order thoroughly to realise ourselves, we
+must be conscious of our absorption, or at least of our inclusion, in a
+greater and grander system than that of our individual surroundings; in
+order to find our lives, we must first discover the art of losing them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF THE MORAL TEST.
+
+
+In this chapter I propose, without any attempt to be exhaustive or
+systematic, to give some examples of the manner in which the test of
+conduct may be applied to practical questions, either by extending
+existing rules to cases which do not obviously fall under them, or by
+suggesting more refined maxims of conduct than those which are commonly
+prevalent. In either case, I am accepting the somewhat invidious task of
+pointing out defects in the commonly received theory, or the commonly
+approved practice, of morality. But, if morality is progressive, as I
+contend that it is, and progresses by the application to conduct of a
+test which itself involves a growing conception, the best mode of
+exhibiting the application of that test will be in the more recent
+acquisitions or the more subtle deductions of morality, rather than in
+its fundamental rules or most acknowledged maxims.
+
+I shall begin with a topic, the examples of which are ready to hand, and
+may easily be multiplied, to almost any extent, by the reader for
+himself--the better realisation of our duties to society at large as
+distinct from particular individuals. When the primary mischief
+resulting from a wrong act falls upon individuals, and especially upon
+our neighbours or those with whom we are constantly associating, it can
+hardly escape our observation. And, even if it does, the probability is
+that our attention will be quickly called to it by the reprobation of
+others. But, when the consequences of the act are diffused over the
+whole community, or a large aggregate of persons, so that the effect on
+each individual is almost imperceptible, we are very apt to overlook the
+mischief resulting from it, and so not to recognise its wrongful
+character, while, at the same time, from lack of personal interest,
+others fail to call us to account. Hence it is that men, almost without
+any thought, and certainly often without any scruple, commit offences
+against the public or against corporations or societies or companies,
+which they would themselves deem it impossible for them to commit
+against individuals. And yet the character of the acts is exactly the
+same. Take smuggling. A man smuggles cigars or tobacco to an amount by
+which he saves himself twenty shillings, and defrauds the state to the
+same extent. This is simply an act of theft, only that the object of the
+theft is the community at large and not an individual. So far as the
+mischief or wrongfulness of the act goes, apart from the intention of
+the agent, he might as well put his hands into the pocket of one of his
+fellow-passengers and extract the same amount of money. The twenty
+shillings which, by evading payment of the duty, he has appropriated to
+his own uses, has been taken from the rest of the tax-payers, and he has
+simply shifted on to them the obligation which properly attached to
+himself. Sooner or later they must make up the deficit. If many men were
+to act in the same way, the burden of the honest tax-payer would be
+largely increased, and, if the practice became general, the state would
+have to resort to some other mode of taxation or collect its
+customs-revenue at a most disproportionate cost. Thus, a little
+reflexion shows that smuggling is really theft, and I cannot but think
+that it would be to the moral as well as the material advantage of the
+community if it were called by that name, and were visited with the same
+punishment as petty larceny. Exactly the same remarks, of course, apply
+to the evasion of income-tax, or of rates or taxes of any kind, which
+are imposed by a legitimate authority. Travelling on a railway without a
+ticket or in a higher class or for a greater distance than that for
+which the ticket was taken is, similarly, only a thinly disguised case
+of theft, and should be treated accordingly. The sale or purchase of
+pirated editions of books is another case of the same kind, the persons
+from whom the money is stolen being the authors or publishers. Many
+paltry acts of pilfering, such as the unauthorised use of
+government-paper or franks, or purloining novels or letter-paper from a
+club, or plucking flowers in a public garden, fall under the same head
+of real, though not always obvious, thefts. There is, of course, a
+certain degree of pettiness which makes them insignificant, but there is
+always a danger lest men should think too lightly of acts of this kind,
+whether done by themselves or others. The best safeguard, perhaps,
+against thoughtless wrong-doing to the community or large social
+aggregates is to ask ourselves these two questions: Should we commit
+this act, or what should we think of a man who did commit it, in the
+case of a private individual? What would be the result, if every one who
+had the opportunity were to do the same? Many of these acts would, then,
+stand out in their true light, and we should recognise that they are not
+only mean but criminal.
+
+Other, but analogous, instances of the failure of men to realise their
+obligations to society or to large social aggregates are to be found in
+the careless and perfunctory manner in which persons employed by
+government, or by corporations, or large companies, often perform their
+duties. If they were in the service of a private employer, they would at
+all events realise, even if they did not act on their conviction, that
+they were defrauding him by idling away their time or attending to their
+own affairs, or those of charities or institutions in which they were
+interested, when they ought to be attending to the concerns of their
+employer. But in a government or municipal office, or the establishment
+of a large company, no one in particular seems to be injured by the
+ineffective discharge of their functions; and hence it does not occur to
+them that they are receiving their wages without rendering the
+equivalent of them. The inadequate supervision which overlooks or
+condones this listlessness is, of course, itself also the result of a
+similar failure to realise responsibility.
+
+The spirit in which patronage is often administered affords an instance
+of a similar kind. If a man were engaging a person to perform some
+service for himself or his family, or one of his intimate friends, he
+would simply look to competency, including, perhaps, moral character,
+for the special work to be done. But, when he has to appoint to a public
+post, and especially if he is only one of a board of electors, he is
+very apt to think that there is no great harm in appointing or voting
+for a relative or friend, or a person who has some special bond of
+connexion with him, such as that of political party, though he may not
+be the candidate best qualified for the position. And, if it does occur
+to him that he is acting wrongly, he is more likely to think of the
+wrong which he is doing to the individual who possesses the highest
+qualifications (and to him it is an undoubted wrong, for it frustrates
+just expectations) than of the wrong which he is doing to the community
+or the institution which he is depriving of the services of the fittest
+man. And yet, if he takes the trouble to reflect, he must see that he is
+guilty of a breach of trust; that, having undertaken a public duty, he
+has abused the confidence reposed in him.
+
+A vote given in return for a bribe, a case which now seldom occurs
+except in parliamentary elections, is open to the same ethical
+objections as a vote given on grounds of partiality; and, as the motive
+which dictates the breach of trust is purely selfish, it incurs the
+additional reproach of meanness. But why, it may be asked, should not a
+man accept a bribe, if, on other grounds, he would vote for the
+candidate who offers it? Simply, because he is encouraging a practice
+which would, in time, deprive Parliament of most of its more competent
+members, and reduce it to an oligarchy of millionaires, as well as
+degrading himself by a sordid act. To receive a present for a vote, even
+if the vote be given conscientiously, is to lend countenance to a
+practice which must inevitably corrupt the consciences, and pervert the
+judgment, of others. It hardly needs to be pointed out that the man who
+offers the bribe is acting still more immorally than the man who accepts
+it. He is not only causing others to act immorally, but, as no man can
+be a proper judge of his own competency, he is attempting to thrust
+himself into an office of trust without any regard to his fitness to
+fill it. Intimidation, on the part of the man who practises it, is on
+the same ethical level as bribery, with respect to the two points just
+mentioned; but, as it appeals to the fears of men instead of their love
+of gain, and costs nothing to him who employs it, it is more odious, and
+deserves, at the hands of the law, a still more severe punishment. To
+yield to intimidation is, under most circumstances, more excusable than
+to yield to bribery; for the fear of losing what one has is to most men
+a more powerful inducement than the hope of gaining what one has not,
+and, generally speaking, the penalty threatened by the intimidator is
+far in excess of the advantage offered by the briber.
+
+As it betrays a vain and grasping disposition, when a man attempts to
+thrust himself into an office to which he is not called by the
+spontaneous voice of his fellow-citizens, so to refuse office, when
+there is an evident opportunity of doing good service to the community,
+betrays pride or indolence, coupled with an indifference to the public
+welfare. In democratic communities, there is always a tendency on the
+part of what may be called superfine persons to hold aloof from public,
+and especially municipal, life. If this sentiment of fastidiousness or
+indifference were to spread widely, and a fashion which begins in one
+social stratum quickly permeates to those immediately below it, there
+would be great danger, as there seems to be in America, of the public
+administration becoming seriously and permanently deteriorated. To
+prevent this evil, it is desirable to create, in every community, a
+strong sentiment against the practice of persons, who have the requisite
+means, leisure, and ability, withholding themselves from public life,
+when invited by their fellow-citizens to take their part in it. There
+may, of course, be paramount claims of another kind, such as those of
+science, or art, or literature, or education, but the superior
+importance of these claims on the individuals themselves, where they
+obviously exist, and where the claims of the public service are not
+urgent, would readily be allowed.
+
+It seems to be a rapid transition from cases of this kind to suicide,
+but, amongst the many reasons, moral and religious, which may be urged
+against suicide, there is one which connects itself closely with the
+considerations which have just been under our notice. As pointed out
+long ago by Aristotle, the suicide wrongs the state rather than himself.
+Where a man is still able to do any service to the state, in either a
+private or a public capacity, he is under a social, and, therefore, a
+moral obligation to perform that service, and, consequently, to withdraw
+from it by a voluntary death is to desert the post of duty. This
+consideration, of course, holds only where a man's life is still of
+value to society, but it should be pointed out that, where this ceases
+to be the case, many other considerations often, and some always do,
+intervene. There are few men who have not relatives, friends, or
+neighbours, who will be pained, even if they are not injured materially,
+by an act of suicide, and, wherever the injury is a material one, as in
+the case of leaving helpless relatives unprovided for, it becomes an act
+of cruelty. Then, under all circumstances, there remain the evil example
+of cowardice and, to those who acknowledge the obligations of religion,
+the sin of cutting short the period of probation which God has assigned
+us.
+
+Amongst duties to society, which are seldom fully realised in their
+social aspect, is the duty of bringing up children in such a manner as
+to render them useful to the state, instead of a burden upon it. Under
+this head, there are two distinct cases, that of the rich and that of
+the poor, or, more precisely, that of those who are in sufficiently good
+circumstances to educate their children without the assistance of the
+state or of their neighbours, and that of those who require such
+assistance. In the latter case, it is the duty of society to co-operate
+with the parent in giving the child an education which shall fit it for
+the industrial occupations of life, and hence the moral obligation on
+the richer members of a community to provide elementary schools, aided
+by the state or by some smaller political aggregate, or else by
+voluntary efforts. The object of this assistance is not so much charity
+to the parent or the individual children, as the prevention of crime and
+pauperism, and the supply of an orderly and competent industrial class.
+In rendering the assistance, whether it come from public or private
+funds, great care ought to be taken not to weaken, but, rather to
+stimulate, the interest of the parent in the child's progress, both by
+assigning to him a share of the responsibility of supervision, and, if
+possible, by compelling him to contribute an equitable proportion of the
+cost. So largely, if not so fully, are the duties of the state and of
+individuals of the wealthier classes, in the matter of educating the
+children of the poor, now recognised, that the dangers arising from a
+defective or injudicious education seem, in the immediate future, to
+threaten the richer rather than the poorer classes. Over-indulgence and
+the encouragement of luxurious habits during childhood; the weakened
+sense of responsibility, on the part of the parent, which is often
+caused by the transference to others of authority and supervision during
+boyhood or girlhood; the undue stimulation of the love of amusement, or
+of the craving for material comforts, during the opening years of
+manhood or womanhood; the failure to create serious interests or teach
+adequately the social responsibilities which wealth and position bring
+with them,--all these mistakes or defects in the education of the
+children of the upper classes constitute a grave peril to society,
+unless they are remedied in time. It seems, so far as we can forecast
+the future, that it is only by all classes taking pains to ascertain
+their respective duties and functions in sustaining and promoting the
+well-being of the community, and making serious efforts to perform them,
+that the society of the next few generations can be saved from constant
+convulsions. As intelligence expands, and a sense of the importance of
+social co-operation becomes diffused, it is almost certain that the
+existence of a merely idle and self-indulgent class will no longer be
+tolerated. Hence, it is as much to the interests of the wealthier
+classes themselves as of society at large, that their children should be
+educated with a full sense of their social responsibilities, and
+equipped with all the moral and intellectual aptitudes which are
+requisite to enable them to take a lead in the development of the
+community of which they are members.
+
+And here, perhaps, I may take occasion to draw attention to the
+importance of the acquisition of political knowledge by all citizens of
+the state, and especially by those who belong to the leisured classes.
+It is a plain duty to society, that men should not exercise political
+power, unless they have some knowledge of the questions at issue. The
+amount of this knowledge may vary almost infinitely, from that of the
+veteran statesman to that of the newly enfranchised elector, but it is
+within the power of every one, who can observe and reason, to acquire
+some knowledge of at least the questions which affect his own employment
+and the welfare of his own family and neighbourhood, and, unless he will
+take thus much pains, he might surely have the modesty to forego his
+vote. To record a vote simply to please some one else is only one degree
+baser than to barter it for money or money's worth, and indeed it is
+often only an indirect mode of doing the same thing.
+
+There is a large class of cases, primarily affecting individuals rather
+than society at large, which, if we look a little below the surface and
+trace their results, are of a much more pernicious character than is
+usually recognised, and, as ethical knowledge increases, ought to incur
+far more severe reprobation than they now do. Foremost amongst these is
+what I may call the current morality of debts. A man incurs a debt with
+a tradesman which he has no intention or no reasonable prospect of
+paying, knowing that the tradesman has no grounds for suspecting his
+inability to pay. The tradesman parts with the goods, supposing that he
+will receive the equivalent; the customer carries them off, knowing that
+this equivalent is not, and is not likely to be, forthcoming. I confess
+that I am entirely unable to distinguish this case from that of ordinary
+theft. And still there is many a man, well received in society, who
+habitually acts in this manner, and whose practice must be more than
+suspected by his friends and associates. He and his friends would be
+much astonished if he were accosted as a thief, and still I cannot see
+how he could reasonably repudiate this title. Short of this extreme
+case, which, however, is by no means uncommon, there are many degrees of
+what may be called criminal negligence or imprudence in contracting
+debts, as where a man runs up a large bill with only a slender
+probability of meeting it, or a larger bill than he can probably meet in
+full, or one of which he must defer the payment beyond a reasonable
+time. In all these cases, which are much aggravated, if the goods
+obtained are luxuries and not necessaries (for it is one of the plainest
+duties of every man, who is removed from absolute want, to live within
+his means), there is either actual dishonesty or a dangerous
+approximation to it, and it would be a great advance in every-day
+morality if society were to recognise this fact distinctly, and
+apportion its censures accordingly. Where the tradesman knows that he is
+running a risk, the customer being also aware that he knows it, and
+adapts his charges to the fact, it is a case of 'Greek meet Greek,' and,
+even if the customer deserves reprobation, the tradesman certainly
+deserves no compassion. But this is a case outside the range of honest
+dealing altogether, and must be regulated by other sentiments and other
+laws than those which prevail in ordinary commerce. There is another
+well-known, and to many men only too familiar, exception to the ordinary
+relation of debtor and creditor. A friend 'borrows' money of you, though
+it is understood on both sides that he will have no opportunity of
+repaying it, and that it is virtually a gift. Here, as the creditor does
+not expect any repayment, and the debtor knows that he does not, there
+is no act of dishonesty, but the debtor, by asking for a loan and not a
+gift, evades the obligation of gratitude and reciprocal service which
+would attach to the latter, and thus takes a certain advantage of his
+benefactor. In this case it would be far more straightforward, even if
+it involved some humiliation, to use plain words, and to accept at once
+the true position of a recipient, and not affect the seeming one of a
+borrower. Connected with the subject of debtor and creditor is the
+ungrounded notion, to which I have already adverted, that the payment of
+what are called debts of honour ought to take precedence of all other
+pecuniary obligations. As these 'debts of honour' generally arise from
+bets or play or loans contracted with friends, the position assumed is
+simply that debts incurred to members of our own class or persons whom
+we know place us under a greater obligation than debts incurred to
+strangers or persons belonging to a lower grade in society. As thus
+stated, the maxim is evidently preposterous and indefensible, and
+affords a good instance, as I have noticed in a previous chapter, of the
+subordination of the laws of general morality to the convenience and
+prejudices of particular cliques and classes. If there is any
+competition at all admissible between just debts, surely those which
+have been incurred in return for commodities supplied have a stronger
+claim than those, arising from play or bets, which represent no
+sacrifice on the part of the creditor.
+
+Another instance of the class of cases which I am now considering is to
+be found in reckless gambling. Men who indulge in this practice are
+usually condemned as being simply hare-brained or foolish; but, if we
+look a little below the surface, we shall find that their conduct is
+often highly criminal. Many a time a man risks on play or a bet or a
+horse-race or a transaction on the stock exchange the permanent welfare,
+sometimes even the very subsistence, of his wife and children or others
+depending on him; or, if he loses, he cuts short a career of future
+usefulness, or he renders himself unable to develope, or perhaps even to
+retain, his business or his estates, and so involves his tenants, or
+clerks, or workmen in his ruin, or, perhaps, he becomes bankrupt and is
+thus the cause of wide-spread misery amongst his creditors. And, even if
+these extreme results do not follow, his rash conduct may be the cause
+of much minor suffering amongst his relatives or tradesmen or
+dependents, who may have to forego many legitimate enjoyments in
+consequence of his one act of greed or thoughtlessness, while, in all
+cases, he is encouraging by his example a practice which, if not his own
+ruin, is certain to be the ruin of others. The light-heartedness with
+which many a man risks his whole fortune, and the welfare of all who are
+dependent on him, for what would, if gained, be no great addition to his
+happiness, is a striking example of the frequent blindness of men to all
+results except those which are removed but one step from their actions.
+A gamester, however sanguine, sees that he may lose his money, but he
+does not see all the ill consequences to himself and others which the
+loss of his money will involve. Hence an act, which, if we look to the
+intention, is often only thoughtless, becomes, in result, criminal, and
+it is of the utmost importance that society, by its reprobation, should
+make men realise what the true nature of such actions is.
+
+I pass now to a case of a different character, which has only, within
+recent years, begun to attract the attention of the moralist and
+politician at all--the peril to life and health ensuing on the neglect
+of sanitary precautions. A man carelessly neglects his drains, or allows
+a mass of filth to accumulate in his yard, or uses well-water without
+testing its qualities or ascertaining its surroundings. After a time a
+fever breaks out in his household, and, perhaps, communicates itself to
+his neighbours, the result being several deaths and much sickness and
+suffering. These deaths and this suffering are the direct result of his
+negligence, and, though it would, doubtless, be hard and unjust to call
+him a murderer, he is this in effect. Of course, if, notwithstanding
+warning or reflexion, he persists in his negligence, with a full
+consciousness of the results which may possibly ensue from it, he incurs
+a grave moral responsibility, and it is difficult to conceive a case
+more fit for censure, or even punishment. Nor are the members of a
+corporation or a board, in the administration of an area of which they
+have undertaken the charge, less guilty, under these circumstances, than
+is a private individual in the management of his own premises. If men
+were properly instructed in the results of their actions or
+pretermissions, in matters of this nature, and made fully conscious of
+the responsibility which those results entail upon them, there would
+soon be a marked decrease in physical suffering, disease, and premature
+deaths. The average duration of life, in civilized countries, has
+probably already been lengthened by the increased knowledge and the
+increased sense of responsibility which have even now been attained.
+
+Closely connected with these considerations on the diminution of death,
+disease, and suffering by improved sanitary arrangements, is the
+delicate subject of the propagation of hereditary disease. It is a
+commonplace that the most important of all the acts of life, is that on
+which men and women venture most thoughtlessly. But experience shews,
+unmistakably, that there are many forms of disease, both mental and
+bodily, which are transmitted from the parents to the children, and
+that, consequently, the marriage of a diseased parent, or of a parent
+with a tendency to disease, will probably be followed by the existence
+of diseased children. In a matter of this kind, everything, of course,
+depends on the amount of the risk incurred, that is to say, on the
+extent of the evil and the probability of its transmission. The former
+of these data is supplied by common observation, the latter by the
+researches of the pathologist. It is for the moralist simply to draw
+attention to the subject, and to insist on the responsibility attaching
+to a knowledge of it. The marriages of persons who are very poor, and
+have no reasonable prospect of bringing up children in health, decency,
+and comfort, are open to similar considerations but, as in the last
+case, I must content myself with simply adverting to the responsibility
+attaching to them, and noting the extent to which that responsibility is
+usually ignored. In connexion with this question, it may be added that
+many of the attempts made by well-meaning people to alleviate poverty
+and distress have, unfortunately, too often the effect of ultimately
+aggravating those evils by diverting attention from their real causes. A
+not unnatural reluctance to discuss or reflect on matters of this
+delicate character, combined with the survival of maxims and sentiments
+derived from an entirely different condition of society, are, doubtless,
+to a great extent, the reasons of the backward condition of morality on
+this subject.
+
+The importance, from a social point of view, of the careful education of
+children with reference to their future position in life has already
+been considered, but, in connexion with the class of duties I am now
+treating, I may draw attention to the obligation under which parents
+lie, in this respect, to their children themselves. The ancient
+morality, which was the product of the patriarchal form of society, when
+the _patria potestas_ was still in vigour, laid peculiar stress on the
+duties of children to parents, while it almost ignored the reciprocal
+duties of parents to children. When the members of a family were seldom
+separated, and the pressure of population had not yet begun to be felt,
+this was the natural order of ideas with respect to the parental
+relation. But now that the common labour of the household is replaced by
+competition amongst individuals, and most young men and women have, at
+an early age, to leave their families and set about earning their own
+living, or carving out their own career, it is obvious, on reflexion,
+that parents are guilty of a gross breach of duty, if they do not use
+their utmost endeavours to facilitate the introduction of their children
+to the active work of life, and to fit them for the circumstances in
+which they are likely to be placed. To bring up a son or daughter in
+idleness or ignorance ought to be as great a reproach to a parent as it
+is to a child to dishonour its father or mother. And yet, in the upper
+and middle classes at all events, there are many parents who, without
+incurring much reprobation from their friends, prefer to treat their
+children like playthings or pet animals rather than to take the pains to
+train them with a view to their future trials and duties. It ought to be
+thoroughly realised, and, as the moral consciousness becomes better
+adapted to the existing circumstances of society, it is to be trusted
+that it will be realised, that parents have no moral right to do what
+they choose with their children, but that they are under a strict
+obligation both to society and to their children themselves so to mould
+their dispositions and develope their faculties and inform their minds
+and train their bodies as to render them good and useful citizens, and
+honest and skilful men. It is to be hoped that, some day, people will
+regard with as much surprise the notion that parents have a right to
+neglect the education of their children as we now regard with wonder,
+when we first hear of it; the maxim of archaic law, that a parent had a
+right to put his child to death.
+
+Much of the trouble, vexation, and misery of which men are the cause to
+themselves is due to cowardice, or the false shame which results from
+attaching undue importance to custom, fashion, or the opinion of others,
+even when that opinion is not confirmed by their own reflexion. Shame is
+an invaluable protection to men, as a restraining feeling. But the
+objects to which it properly attaches are wrong-doing, unkindness,
+discourtesy, to others, and, as regards ourselves, ignorance,
+imprudence, intemperance, impurity, and avoidable defects or
+misfortunes. While it confines itself to objects such as these, it is
+one of the sternest and, at the same time, most effective guardians of
+virtue and self-respect. But, as soon as a man begins to care about what
+others will say of circumstances not under his own control, such as his
+race, his origin, his appearance, his physical defects, or his lack of
+wealth or natural talents, he may be laying up for himself a store of
+incalculable misery, and is certainly enfeebling his character and
+impairing his chances of future usefulness. It is under the influence of
+this motive, for instance, that many a man lives above his income, not
+for the purpose of gratifying any real wants either of himself or his
+family, but for the sake of 'keeping up appearances,' though he is
+exposing his creditors to considerable losses, his family to many
+probable disadvantages, and himself to almost certain disgrace in the
+future. It is under the influence of this motive, too, that many men, in
+the upper and middle classes, rather than marry on a modest income, and
+drop out of the society of their fashionable acquaintance, form
+irregular sexual connexions, which are a source of injury to themselves
+and ruin to their victims.
+
+A circumstance which has probably contributed largely, in recent times,
+to aggravate the feeling of false shame is the new departure which, in
+commercial communities, has been taken by class-distinctions. The old
+line, which formed a sharp separation between the nobility and all other
+classes, has been almost effaced, and in its place have been substituted
+many shades of difference between different grades of society, together
+with a broad line of demarcation between what may be called the genteel
+and the ungenteel classes. It was a certain advantage of the old line
+that it could not be passed, and, hence, though there might be some
+jealousy felt towards the nobility as a class, there were none of the
+heart-burnings which attach to an uncertain position or a futile effort
+to rise. In modern society, on the other hand, there is hardly any one
+whose position is so fixed, that he may not easily rise above or fall
+below it, and hence there is constant room for social ambition, social
+disappointment, and social jealousy. Again, the broad line of gentility,
+which now corresponds most closely with the old distinction of nobility,
+is determined by such a number of considerations,--birth, connexions,
+means, manners, education, with the arbitrary, though almost essential,
+condition of not being engaged in retail trade,--that those who are just
+excluded by it are apt to feel their position somewhat unintelligible,
+and, therefore, all the more galling to their pride and self-respect It
+would be curious to ascertain what proportion of the minor
+inconveniences and vexations of modern life is due to the perplexity, on
+the one side, and the soreness, on the other, created by the
+exclusiveness of class-distinctions. That these distinctions are an
+evil, in themselves, there can, I think, be no doubt. Men cannot, of
+course, all know one another, much less be on terms of intimacy with one
+another, and the degree of their acquaintance or intimacy will always be
+largely dependent on community of tastes, interests, occupations, and
+early associations. But these facts afford no reason why one set of men
+should look down with superciliousness and disdain on another set of men
+who have not enjoyed the same early advantages or are not at present
+endowed with the same gifts or accomplishments as themselves, or why
+they should hold aloof from them when there is any opportunity of
+common action or social intercourse. The pride of class is eminently
+unreasonable, and, in those who profess to believe in Christianity,
+pre-eminently inconsistent. It will always, probably, continue to exist,
+but we may hope that it will be progressively modified by the advance of
+education, by the spread of social sympathy, and by a growing habit of
+reflexion. The ideal social condition would be one in which, though men
+continued to form themselves into groups, no one thought the worse or
+the more lightly of another, because he belonged to a different group
+from himself.
+
+Connected with exaggerated class-feeling are abuses of-esprit de
+corps_. Unlike class-feeling, _esprit de corps_ is, in itself, a good.
+It binds men together, as in a vessel or a regiment, a school or a
+college, an institution or a municipality, and leads them to sacrifice
+their ease or their selfish aims, and to act loyally and cordially with
+one another in view of the common interest. It is only when it
+sacrifices to the interests of its own body wider interests still, and
+subordinates patriotism or morality to the narrower sentiment attaching
+to a special law of honour, that it incurs the reprobation of the
+moralist. But that it does sometimes deservedly incur this reprobation,
+admits of no question. A man, to save the honour of his regiment, may
+impair the efficiency of an army, or, to promote the interests of his
+college or school, may inflict a lasting injury on education, or, to
+protect his associates, may withhold or pervert evidence, or, to
+aggrandize his trade, may ruin his country. It is the special province
+of the moralist, in these cases, to intervene, and point out how the
+more general is being sacrificed to the more special interest, the wider
+to the narrower sentiment, morality itself to a point of honour or
+etiquette. But, at the same time, he must recollect that the _esprit de
+corps_ of any small aggregate of men is, as such, always an ennobling
+and inspiriting sentiment, and that, unless it plainly detach them from
+the rest of the community, and is attended with pernicious consequences
+to society at large, it is unwise, if not reckless, to seek to impair
+it.
+
+To descend to a subject of less, though still of considerable,
+importance, I may notice that cowardice and fear of 'what people will
+say' lies at the bottom of much ill-considered charity and of that
+facility with which men, often to the injury of themselves or their
+families, if not of the very objects pleaded for, listen to the
+solicitations of the inconsiderate or interested subscription-monger. It
+has now become a truism that enormous mischief is done by the
+indiscriminate distribution of alms to beggars or paupers. It is no less
+true, though not so obvious, that much unintentional harm is often done
+by subscriptions for what are called public objects. People ought to
+have sufficient mental independence to ask themselves what will be the
+ultimate effects of subscribing their money, and, if they honestly
+believe that those effects will be pernicious or of doubtful utility,
+they ought to have the courage to refuse it. There is no good reason,
+simply because a man asks me and I find that others are yielding to him,
+why I should subscribe a guinea towards disfiguring a church, or
+erecting an ugly and useless building, or extending pauperism, or
+encouraging the growth of luxurious habits, or spreading opinions which
+I do not believe. And I may be the more emboldened in my refusal, when I
+consider how mixed, or how selfish, are often the motives of those who
+solicit me, and that the love of notoriety, or the gratification of a
+feeling of self-importance, or a fussy restlessness, or the craving for
+preferment is frequently quite as powerful an incentive of their
+activity as a desire to promote the objects explicitly avowed. There is,
+moreover, an important consideration, connected with this subject, which
+often escapes notice, namely, the extent to which new and multiplied
+appeals to charity often interfere with older, nearer, and more pressing
+claims. Thus, the managers of the local hospital or dispensary or
+charity organisation have often too good cause to regret the
+enthusiastic philanthropy, which is sending help, of questionable
+utility, to distant parts of the world. People cannot subscribe to
+everything, and they are too apt to fall in with the most recent and
+most fashionable movement. In venturing on these remarks, I trust it is
+needless to say that I am far from deprecating the general practice of
+subscribing to charities and public objects, a form of co-operation
+which has been rendered indispensable by the habits and circumstances of
+modern life. I am simply insisting on the importance and responsibility
+of ascertaining whether the aims proposed are likely to be productive of
+good or evil, and deprecating the cowardice or listlessness which yields
+to a solicitation, irrespectively of the merits of the proposal.
+
+These solicitations often take the offensive form, which is
+intentionally embarrassing to the person solicited, of an appeal to
+relieve the purveyor of the subscription-list himself from the
+obligation incurred by a 'guarantee.' The issue is thus ingeniously and
+unfairly transferred from the claims of the object, which it is designed
+to promote, to the question of relieving a friend or a neighbour from a
+heavy pecuniary obligation. 'Surely you will never allow me to pay all
+this money myself.' But why not, unless I approve of the object, and,
+even if I do, why should I increase my subscription, on account of an
+obligation voluntarily incurred by you, without any encouragement from
+me? In a case of this kind, the 'guarantee' ought to be regarded as
+simply irrelevant, and the question decided solely on the merits of the
+result to be attained. Of course, I must be understood to be speaking
+here only of those cases in which the 'guarantee' is used as an
+additional argument for eliciting subscriptions, not of those cases in
+which, for convenience sake, or in order to secure celerity of
+execution, a few wealthy persons generously advance the whole sum
+required for a project, being quite willing to pay it themselves, unless
+they meet with ready and cheerful co-operation.
+
+In the department of social intercourse, there are several applications
+of existing moral principles, and specially of the softer virtues of
+kindness, courtesy, and consideration for others, the observance of
+which would sensibly sweeten our relations to our fellow-men and, to
+persons of a sensitive temperament, render life far more agreeable and
+better worth living than it actually is. A few of these applications I
+shall attempt to point out. Amongst savage races, and in the less
+polished ranks of civilized life, men who disagree, or have any grudge
+against one another, resort to physical blows or coarse invective. In
+polite and educated circles, these weapons are replaced by sarcasm and
+innuendo. There are, of course, many advantages gained by the
+substitution of this more refined mode of warfare, but the mere fact
+that the intellectual skill which it displays gives pleasure to the
+bystanders, and wins social applause, renders its employment far more
+frequent than, on cool reflexion, could be justified by the occasions
+for it. There can be no doubt that it gives pain, often intense pain,
+especially where the victim is not ready enough to retaliate effectively
+in kind. And there can be no more justification for inflicting this
+peculiar kind of pain than any other, unless the circumstances are such
+as to demand it. Any one, who will take the trouble to analyse his acts
+and motives, will generally find, when he employs these weapons, that he
+is actuated not so much by any desire to reform the object of his attack
+or to deter, by these means, him or others from wrong-doing, as by a
+desire to show off his own cleverness and to leave behind him a mark of
+his power in the smart which he inflicts. These unamiable motives are
+least justifiable, when the victim is a social inferior, or a person
+who, by his age or position, is unable to retaliate on equal terms. To
+vanity and cruelty are then added cowardice, and, though all these vices
+may only be displayed on a very small scale, they are none the less
+really present. It may be laid down, however difficult, with our present
+social habits, it may be to keep the rule, that sarcasm should never be
+employed, except deliberately, and as a punishment, and that for
+innuendo, if justifiable by facts, men should always have the courage to
+substitute direct assertion.
+
+Of the minor social vices, one of the commonest is a disregard, in
+conversation, of other persons' feelings. Men who lay claim to the
+character of gentlemen are specially bound to shew their tact and
+delicacy of feeling by avoiding all subjects which have a disagreeable
+personal reference or are likely to revive unpleasant associations in
+the minds of any of those who are present. And yet these are qualities
+which are often strangely conspicuous by their absence even in educated
+and cultivated society. One of the most repulsive and least excusable
+forms which this indifference to other persons' feelings takes is in
+impertinent curiosity. There are some people who, for the sake of
+satisfying a purposeless curiosity, will ask questions which they know
+it cannot be agreeable to answer. In all cases, curiosity of this kind
+is evidence of want of real refinement, and is a breach of the finer
+rules of social morality; but, when the questions asked are intended to
+extract, directly or indirectly, unwilling information on a man's
+private life or circumstances, they assume the character of sheer
+vulgarity. A man's private affairs, providing his conduct of them does
+not injuriously affect society, are no one's business but his own, and
+much pain and vexation of the smaller kind would be saved, if this very
+plain fact were duly recognised in social intercourse.
+
+It may be noticed in passing, that there still lingers on in society a
+minor form of persecution, a sort of inquisition on a small scale, which
+consists in attempting to extract from a man a frank statement of his
+religious, social, or political opinions, though it is known or
+suspected all the time, that, if he responds to the invitation, it will
+be to his social or material disadvantage. In cases of this kind, it
+becomes a casuistical question how far a man is called on to disclose
+his real sentiments at the bidding of any impertinent questioner. That
+the free expression of opinion should be attended with this danger is,
+of course, a proof how far removed we still are from perfect
+intellectual toleration.
+
+Impertinent curiosity is offensive, not only because it shews an
+indifference to the feelings of the person questioned, but because it
+savours of gratuitous interference in his affairs. This quality it
+shares with another of the minor social vices, the tendering of unasked
+for advice, or, in brief, impertinent advice. There are certain
+circumstances and relations in which men have the right, even if they
+are not under the obligation, to give unsolicited advice, as where a man
+is incurring an unknown danger or foregoing some unsuspected advantage,
+or to their servants, or children, or wards, or pupils; but, in all
+these cases, either the special circumstance or the special relation
+implies superiority of knowledge or superiority of position on the part
+of the person tendering the advice, and to assume this superiority,
+where it does not plainly exist, is an act of impertinence. Just as the
+assumption of superiority wounds a man's self-respect, so does the
+disposition to meddle in his affairs, which is generally founded on that
+assumption, affect his sense of independence, and, hence, an act which
+includes both grounds of offence seems to be a peculiarly legitimate
+object of resentment. The lesson of letting other people alone is one
+which men are slow to learn, though there are few who, in their own
+case, do not resent any attack on their liberty of judgment or action.
+This is emphatically one of the cases in which we should try to put
+ourselves in the place of others, and act to them as we would that they
+should act towards us.
+
+Excessive, and often ill-natured, criticism of others is one of the
+minor vices which seem to grow up with advancing civilisation and
+intelligence rather than to retreat before them. It seems, as a rule, to
+prevail much more in educated than in uneducated society. The reason is
+not difficult to find. Education naturally makes men more fastidious and
+more keenly alive to the defects of those with whom they associate. And
+then, when educated men converse together, they are apt, merely from the
+facility with which they deal with language, to express in an
+exaggerated form the unfavourable estimate which they have formed of
+others, especially if this exaggerated form can be compressed into an
+epigram. But it requires little reflexion to see that this keen and
+exaggerated habit of criticism must be productive of much discomfort in
+a society in which it is general, and that, when applied to literary
+work, even though it may be a protection against inaccuracy and breaches
+of taste, it must be a great discouragement to the young and repressive
+of much honest and valuable effort. To restrain the critical spirit,
+whether applied to mind or conduct, with proper limits, it is necessary,
+keeping these considerations in view, to ask how much we can reasonably
+or profitably require of men, and, above all, never to lose that
+sympathetic touch with others which renders us as keenly alive to their
+difficulties as their errors, to their aspirations as their failure to
+fulfil them.
+
+I shall say nothing here of detraction, backbiting, or malicious
+representation, because these are social vices which are too obvious and
+too generally acknowledged to be of any service as illustrations of
+those extensions or new applications of morality which I have in view in
+the present chapter. I may, however, notice in passing, that the
+invention or exaggeration of stories, which have a tendency to bring men
+into ridicule or contempt, is a practice which, from the entertainment
+it affords, is too easily tolerated by society, and usually fails to
+meet with the reprobation it deserves.
+
+
+I shall advert to only one other topic, namely, the treatment of the
+lower animals. With rare exceptions, it is only of late that this
+subject has been regarded as falling within the sphere of ethics, and it
+is greatly to the credit of Bentham that he was amongst the first to
+recognise its importance and to commend it to the consideration of the
+legislator. That the lower animals, as sentient beings, have a claim on
+our sympathies, and that, consequently, we have duties in respect of
+them, I can no more doubt than that we have duties in respect to the
+inferior members of our own race. But, at the same time, considering
+their place in the economy of nature, I cannot doubt that man has a
+right, within certain limits, to use them, and even to kill them, for
+his own advantage. What these limits are is a question by no means
+devoid of difficulty. There are those who maintain that we have no right
+to kill animals for food, while there are those who, without maintaining
+this extreme position, hold that we have no right to cause them pain for
+the purposes of our own amusement, or even for the alleviation of human
+suffering by means of the advancement of physiological and medical
+science. It will be seen that the three questions here raised are the
+legitimacy of the use of animal food, of field sports, and of
+vivisection. As respects the first, I do not doubt that, considering
+their relative places in the scale of being, man is morally justified in
+sacrificing the lives of the lower animals to the maintenance of his own
+health and vigour, let alone the probability that, if he did not, they
+would multiply to such an extent as to endanger his existence, and would
+themselves, in the aggregate, experience more suffering from the
+privation caused by the struggle for life than they now do by incurring
+violent deaths. At the same time, though man may kill the lower animals
+for his own convenience, he is bound not to inflict needless suffering
+on them. The torture of an animal, for no adequate purpose, is
+absolutely indefensible. Cock-fights, bull-fights, and the like seem to
+me to admit of no more justification than the gladiatorial shows. Are
+field-sports, then, in the same category? The answer, I think, depends
+on three considerations: (1) would the animal be killed any way, either
+for food, or as a beast of prey; (2) what is the amount of suffering
+inflicted on it, in addition to that which would be inflicted by killing
+it instantaneously; (3) for what purpose is this additional suffering
+inflicted. I shall not attempt to apply these considerations in detail,
+but I shall simply state as my opinion that, amongst the results of a
+legitimate application of them, would be the conclusions that worrying a
+dog or a cat is altogether unjustifiable; that fox-hunting might be
+justified on the ground that the additional suffering caused to the fox
+is far more than counterbalanced by the beneficial effects, in health
+and enjoyment, to the hunter; that shooting, if the sportsman be
+skilful, is one of the most painless ways of putting a bird or a stag to
+death, and, therefore, requires no justification, whereas, if the
+sportsman be unskilful, the sufferings which he is liable to cause,
+through a lingering and painful death, ought to deter him from
+practising his art. With regard to the much-debated question of
+vivisection, it seems to me utterly untenable, and eminently
+inconsistent on the part of those who eat animal food or indulge in
+field-sports, to maintain that, under no circumstances, is it morally
+justifiable to inflict pain on the lower animals for the purpose of
+ascertaining the causes or remedies of disease. But, having once made
+this admission, I should insist on the necessity of guarding it by
+confining the power of operating on the living animal to persons duly
+authorised, and by limiting it to cases of research as distinct from
+demonstration. Those, moreover, who are invested with this serious
+responsibility, ought to feel morally bound to inflict no superfluous
+suffering, and ought, consequently, to employ anaesthetics, wherever
+they would not unduly interfere with the conduct of the experiment; to
+resort, as far as possible, to the lower rather than the higher
+organisms, as being less susceptible of pain; and to limit their
+experiments, both in number and duration, as far as is consistent with
+the objects for which they are permitted to perform them. This whole
+question, however, of our relation to the lower animals is one which is
+fraught with much difficulty, and supplies a good instance of the range
+of subjects within which the moral sentiment is probably in the course
+of development. Recent researches, and, still more, recent speculations,
+have tended to impress us with the nearness of our kinship to other
+animals, and, hence, our sympathies with them and our interest in their
+welfare have been sensibly quickened. The word philanthropy no longer
+expresses the most general of the sympathetic feelings, and we seem to
+require some new term which shall denote our fellow-feeling with the
+whole sentient creation.
+
+Such is a sample, and I must repeat that it is intended only as a
+sample, of the class of questions to which, as it seems to me, the moral
+test still admits of further application. Morality, or the science and
+art of conduct, had its small beginnings, I conceive, in the primeval
+household and has only attained its present grand proportions by gradual
+increments, derived partly from the semi-conscious operations of the
+human intelligence adapting itself to the circumstances in which it is
+placed, partly from the conscious meditations of reflective men. That it
+is likely to advance in the future, as it has done in the past,
+notwithstanding the many hindrances to its progress which confessedly
+exist, is, I think, an obvious inference from experience. We may not
+unreasonably hope that there will be a stricter sense of justice, a more
+complete realisation of duty, more delicacy of feeling, a greater
+refinement of manners, more kindliness, quicker and wider sympathies in
+the coming generations than there are amongst ourselves. I have
+attempted, in this Essay, briefly to delineate the nature of the
+feelings on which this progress depends, and of the considerations by
+which it is guided, as well as to indicate some few out of the many
+directions which it is likely to take in the future. In the former part
+of my task, I am aware that I have run counter to many prejudices of
+long standing, and that the theories which I consider to be alone
+consistent with the fact of the progress of morality, may by some be
+thought to impair its authority. But if morality has its foundations in
+the constitution of human nature, which itself proceeds from the Divine
+Source of all things, I conceive that its credentials are sufficiently
+assured. In the present chapter, I have, in attempting to illustrate the
+possibility of future improvements in the art and theory of conduct,
+been necessarily led to note some deficiencies in the existing moral
+sentiment. This is always an unwelcome and invidious task. Men do not
+like to be reminded of their moral failings, and there is hardly any
+man, however critical he may be of others, who, in the actual conduct of
+life, does not appear to delude himself with the idea that his own moral
+practice is perfect. I appeal, however, from the unconscious assumptions
+of men to their powers of reflexion, and I ask each man who reads this
+book to consider carefully within himself whether, on the principles
+here set out, much of the conduct and many of the ethical maxims which
+are now generally accepted do not admit of refinement and improvement.
+In the sphere of morals, as in all other departments of human activity,
+we are bound to do for our successors what our predecessors were bound
+to do, and mostly did, for us--transmit the heritage we have received
+with all the additions and adaptations which the new experiences and
+changing conditions of life have rendered necessary or desirable.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Progressive Morality, by Thomas Fowler
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