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'utilitarian morality. Now we must remark that this statement distinctly goes beyond-indeed, totally differs from-the doctrine put forth by other celebrated utilitarian moralists. The Epicureans, indeed, maintained that no man can live happily except by living honestly, justly, and prudently. Virtue was the chief among means toward the ultimate end, pleasure or happiness. But each man was to be virtuous, and give other men their due, in order to his own individual felicity, or tranquillity of body and mind, which was, according to Epicurus, the most desirable kind of happiness. Coming down to Christian writers on the utilitarian side, what do we find to have been the doctrine of Hobbes? The moral teaching of Hobbes, as that of one of the most original, influential, and in every way note-worthy writers on the utilitarian side of the question, deserves from us somewhat careful attention. In the first part of his Leviathan't-it having been laid down in the first place that men are by nature originally in a state of war among one another, each striving to get as many good things as he can for himself-Hobbes inquires what are the passions that incline men to peace? and replies that they are, fear of death, desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living, and a hope by their industry to obtain them. But it is the province of Reason to suggest convenient articles of peace upon which men may be drawn to agreement. These articles are called Laws of Nature. Subsequently he defines a law of nature to be a precept of reason by which man is forbidden to do that which is destruc'tive of his own life,' and 'to omit that by which he thinketh it may be best preserved.' In a state of nature, he proceeds, every man has a right to everything, even to the body of another man. Therefore it is a law of reason that every man ought to strive after peace so far as he can. And from this is deduced a second law, that a man be willing, when others are so too, and as far as for defence of himself he thinks necessary, to lay down this right to all things, and be content with so much liberty against others as he would allow others against himself; which law, proceeds Hobbes, is equivalent to that of the gospel, 'What'soever ye would that others should do unto do you, ye so to 'them.' This is a startling interpretation of the golden rule of Christ, and is certainly very different from that which Mr. Mill gave us above as the true utilitarian interpretation.

But to proceed. When a right is thus transferred and renounced, a man is said to be obliged not to hinder those to whom it is transferred from the benefit of it. We then say he onght not to do it, it is his duty not to do it. And such a Page 24. † Cap. xiii.

hindrance on his part would be the commission of injustice, injury. But this renunciation of a right is a voluntary act, and the end of all voluntary acts is some good to a man's own self. He that performs first in the case of a contract is said to merit the performance of it on the other part: it is his due. But where there is no government, and so no security of mutual performance, there can hardly be said to be any obligation to perform where there is a civil power strong enough to control both parties, there both parties are obliged to be just one toward another.

Now the whole of this remarkable utilitarian system is, the reader will see, as remote as possible from that advocated by Mr. Mill. It is simply a system of atomism: each individual man is regarded as isolated from all his fellow-men, as their natural enemy and rival, because so constituted as to be capable only of seeking his own individual gratification, the means to procure which, other individuals are of course prepared to dispute with him. Certainly this position does not seem to be self-evident; yet it is throughout assumed, never argued or proved. The axiom with which Hobbes sets out, that every man has by nature a right to everything, so far from being self-evident, is indeed scarcely even intelligible. Here is, in fact, one of those strange transcendental propositions, vague and unverified altogether, which even strong thinkers of the 'experience' school find themselves so often compelled to adopt, to the confusion and vitiating of their conclusions, simply because they have prejudged in the negative, the question, whether there be a philosophia prima, a science of first principles discoverable by a careful and judicious employment of the faculty of intuition. In what sense does Hobbes use the term 'right' when he makes the above assertion? It is one that would need a great deal of proof, but it receives none. What is Mr. Mill's definition of a right? When we call anything a person's right,' he says, we mean that he has a valid claim on society to protect him in the possession of it, either by the force of law, or by 'that of education and opinion.' Taking this definition as a sufficiently good one, we may ask, has any individual a valid claim on society to protect him in the possession of everything, even another man's body? The mere fact that there are many human beings of course limits and defines the rights of each one. Every man has a right to exist, and to so much of external advantages as is requisite for the healthy development of his physical and spiritual nature; but for that very reason, no man has a right in any way to monopolize any such advantages so as to stint and stunt his fellow-man. This is only to

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express Bentham's dictum in other words, 'Everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one.' It is plain that, if humanity be an organic body, composed of many individual members in close dependence on one another, so that the welfare of one is essential to the welfare of the other, it must be irrational to treat them as isolated, independent units. And again, why is it assumed as self-evident that every man must desire the means of commodious living for himself-for instance, an armchair or a good dinner-and cannot equally desire a friend or that friend's well-being and happiness? Experience seems to teach that disinterestedness is not impossible; why, therefore, must it be assumed a priori to be so by those who profess to hold that nothing can be known a priori? And as to the fiction (as Mr. Mill calls it) of a social contract whereby at some unknown time all the members of society consented to obey the laws, and to be punished for any disobedience to them, can it be for a moment maintained that this furnishes the true basis of moral obligation? If I have consented not to injure a man, this constitutes, we are told, my obligation not to injure him, makes it unjust of me to do so. Why? Because it is decidedly profitable to me to keep my word in a community where all the members are alike protected by the civil power. But to be unjust is to deprive a man of his due. And why is a given advantage a man's due? The answer, according to this system, must be, because it is for my interest to let him have it. Now, we ask, if this be a fair and full account of the obligation to be just? For it need scarcely be pointed out that when Hobbes says, He that performs first in the case of a contract is said to ' merit the performance of it on the other part,' he cannot mean what from the usual sense attaching to the term 'merit' we might at first suppose him to mean. In the case of a contract one party's performance is conditional on that of the other party if one man has done his part, the fulfilment of the other's engagement is the right, the due, of the first, for he has been led to expect it by the other. And if you deliberately lead a man to expect that you will gratify some desire of his, it is right -that is, reasonable and fitting--that you perform your promise to him he feels wronged if you do not. But Hobbes cannot, of course, mean this. For it is not more obvious that you are morally bound in the nature of things to keep your word to another man, or perform your part in a contract, than it is that you are morally bound not to injure another at all, but, on the contrary, to promote his welfare irrespective of any contract whatever. We do not for a moment deny that it is for our own interest to be just; but we appeal to the reader, whether

these notions are co-extensive and convertible,-to be just to another man, and so to act toward him as to secure our own peaceable and commodious living. And if a man has by nature a right to everything, a fortiori he must have a right to such agreeable things as he has not by the social contract resigned his claim to the possession of: therefore it must be his original natural right to claim those things from others; and it must for this reason be unjust if others withhold such things from him, because they are his due, because it is fitting and reasonable and right that he should be allowed possession of them by others. Does not this come nearer to the plain, unsophisticated sense of mankind in the matter?

It is true that very young infants care only for their food, and for other objects, as affording them comfortable sensations: this is also true (but by no means in so unqualified a manner) of the lower animals-brutes loving their offspring disinterestedly, and sharing their own food with them. It is true, to some extent, of savage tribes; but even savages are capable of disinterested affection and self-abnegation. So that this supposed social contract, based on pure selfishness, finds its counterpart nowhere within the range of experience, seeing that even infants do not act from deliberate self-love: they desire their food and special comfortable sensations, but they do not generalise these into the notion of a comfortable life for themselves, as distinguished from other individuals. A feeling similar to that described by Hobbes, in regard to the benefit of all obeying a head man or chief, doubtless exists in the breasts of savages; but even in their case their obedience to him is often founded largely on personal reverence and admiration. And that such a feeling should be represented as an all-sufficient basis for social obligation among civilized men, with all the latent capabilities and tendencies of their nature developed and co-ordinated according to Reason, does indeed seem extraordinary. Even in the fearful cases (alas! too common) where men are struggling for the bare means of subsistence, self-abnegation is surely not unheard of

a mother has been known to resign the last crust to her infant, and lay herself willingly down to die. Has it been heard only once in human history that one man has given up his own life for another, given up all peace and all commodious living for the Truth's sake, for the benefit of generations yet unborn, and for the glory of God? And if we can so little appreciate the lofty spirit of that noble army of martyrs and confessors, who have left their foot-prints for our encouragement on the sands of time, as to suppose that it was only for the sake of an everlasting happiness they bled and suffered, can we understand

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the heart of a mother, however humble and uncultured, giving up her own hope of life to save that of her child? Or shall we dare assert that she does that for the sake of some overbalance of benefit to herself? Hobbes says that unless men saw it would tend to their own good, there would be no benevolence or mutual help. Now, it is doubtless true, that when a man finds his benefits always requited with ingratitude, when he finds that men take advantage of his kindness to trample upon him and do him injury, the fountains of his benevolence are prone to retire and dry up. And yet it is no less certain, that such benevolence and gratitude as those described by Hobbes, where men are benevolent and grateful for the sake of receiving new favours from the objects of those sentiments, are simply not benevolence and gratitude at all, but, according to the universal consent of mankind, the mere hypocritical semblance of them on the part of selfish and cold-blooded schemers. To be benevolent, is to desire the welfare of other persons for its own sake. To desire their welfare for the sake of our own advantage is not to be benevolent, but to be selfish; and it is strange that philosophers should not have left the deliberate confusion of two opposite ideas to smart writers of the Rochefoucault stamp in weekly reviews, who care only to tickle the ears of men and women of quality-those intellectually and morally maimed specimens of humanity who call themselves blasés men and women of the world. When a person has done us a favour, if our gratitude means, as Hobbes defines it, an endeavour that he shall have no cause to repent it-i.e., that he may be induced to do us another-it is simply no gratitude at all. To be grateful for a favour is to feel kindly toward the person who has done it, to love him on account of it, and desire to do him one in return. And what does Hobbes mean by 'receiving a benefit from another of mere grace,' kindness, or favour? On his scheme, that is impossible. All benefits must be conferred in the hope of an adequate return. And it is generally admitted, that such benefits do not call for gratitude; for they are the mere price tendered for the purchase of an article equivalent in value, and the shopkeeper is not bound to be grateful when you pay him for the goods you buy. But then you do not confer the sixpence on him of mere grace.' Here there seems to be inconsistency: the truth is, the system is built on too narrow and slight a foundation; as, indeed, most systems are. The facts will not all fit in, and keep inconveniently bulging and tumbling over the edges. It is right and fit that men should do each other mutual benefits, and it is felt to be specially right and fit that men should be grateful for benefits received,