ing compromises, to fulfil the dictates of absolute equity; and nothing beyond empirical judgments can be formed of the extent to which they may be, at any given time, fulfilled."1 "Under its relative form, positive beneficence presents numerous problems, alike important and difficult, admitting only of empirical solutions." 2 It thus appears, that, in the theory of conduct given in this book, guidance by nature is much more direct and complete than in the theory advanced by Mr. Spencer.

Mr. Spencer's view of the moral sentiments may be conveniently alluded to in this connection. He supposes them to represent accumulated experiences of the past as to the beneficial results of certain modes of conduct. Quoting again from his letter to Mr. Mill, he writes: "To make my position fully understood, it seems needful to add that, corresponding to the fundamental propositions of a developed Moral Science, there have been, and still are, developing in the race certain fundamental moral intuitions; and that, though these moral intuitions are the results of accumulated experiences of Utility, gradually organised and inherited, they have come to be quite independent of conscious experience." And speaking of these moral sentiments in relation to present conduct, he says: "Though the moral sentiments generated in civilised men, by daily contact with social conditions and gradual adaptation to them, are indispensable as incentives and deterrents, and though the intuitions corresponding to these sentiments have, in virtue of their origin, a general authority to be reverently recognised; yet the sympathies and antipathies hence originating, together with the intellectual expressions of them, are, in their primitive forms, necessarily vague. To make guidance by them adequate to all requirements, their dictates have to be interpreted and made definite 1 The Data of Ethics, p. 286. 2 Id., p. 287. 3 Id., p. 123.

by science; to which end there must be analysis of those conditions to complete living which they respond to, and from converse with which they have arisen. And such analysis necessitates the recognition of happiness for each and all, as the end to be achieved by fulfilment of these conditions." 1

Returning to our comparison of the two theories, we may notice, in the third place, that, in speaking of natural rules in connection with Mr. Spencer's views, the term natural must be understood as referring to nature merely as the power that is manifested in evolution, the power whose sole end is the furtherance of general life and happiness. This is a more restricted sense than that in which the word is employed in this book. Here nature has been regarded as a power who is beneficent indeed, but whose intentions concerning human action are made known to us in other ways besides that of apprehension of her beneficence and recognition of means by which her beneficent purposes may be promoted. Hence natural rules are not here conceived of as being necessarily concerned with generally beneficent ends. The view taken in this book is, not that happiness for each and all is the end of conduct, and that to a certain extent nature, interpreted by reason, points out the way to the attainment of this end; but that, in the absence of knowledge as to what will best promote the individual agent's own happiness, the end of conduct is simply to comply with the requirements of nature, in whatever form these requirements may appear. To a certain limited extent only does man seem called upon, and to a certain limited extent only does it seem really possible for him, to promote the happiness of one and all by doing that which either reason or experience tells him will be productive of beneficial results. But by obeying on every

1 The Data of Ethics, p. 172.

occasion the injunctions of nature imparted to him individually, the agent, it would seem, best furthers her general purposes, and at the same time secures his own greatest Mr. Spencer, it may be remarked, appears to

happiness.

identify happiness with pleasure.

III. We pass on to the consideration of a fundamental difference between Mr. Spencer's views and those of this book, a difference which underlies the difference just noticed between the two conceptions of nature, and, it may be added, the difference between the two conceptions of happiness. It has been insisted on in this book, that man is conscious of being under some constraint to practise conduct which is apprehended by him as natural. He has some disposition to perform for their own sake natural actions, without reference to any happiness or pleasure to which they may give rise. Mr. Spencer recognises no such motives. He tells us that, whether we look at the conduct which, by being adopted by individual agents, has actually furthered, and does further, their own life, or whether we look at the conduct upon which we commonly bestow moral approbation, it is evident that an essential characteristic of it is, that it is apprehended as pleasurable.

With reference to life-sustaining conduct he writes as follows: "At the very outset, life is maintained by persistence in acts which conduce to it, and desistance from acts which impede it; and whenever sentiency make its appearance as an accompaniment, its forms must be such that in the one case the produced feeling is of a kind that will be sought-pleasure, and in the other case is of a kind that will be shunned-pain." 1 "In two ways it is demonstrable that there exists a primordial connection between pleasuregiving acts and continuance or increase of life, and, by implication, between pain-giving acts and decrease or loss

1 The Data of Ethics, p. 79.

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of life. On the one hand, setting out with the lowest living things, we see that the beneficial act and the act which there is a tendency to perform are originally two sides of the same, and cannot be disconnected without fatal results. On the other hand, if we contemplate developed creatures as now existing, we see that each individual and species is from day to day kept alive by pursuit of the agreeable and avoidance of the disagreeable." It will be seen that the assumption is here made, that an act which there is a tendency to perform, so soon as sentiency has arisen, can be nothing but an act which is recognised as pleasure-giving or agreeable. But exposition of the method of evolution would apparently be no less intelligible, if an act which there is a tendency to perform were identified with an act which is in some way perceived to be natural.

And of the conduct which is the object of ethical approval-conduct which he designates as good-he tells us that it is universally the pleasurable. He makes use of two main arguments in support of this assertion. In the first place, he considers that by conduct which we call good we commonly understand conduct which we perceive to be in one way or another adjusted to the furtherance of life. Arguing then, that all persons are agreed that life is desirable or not desirable accordingly as it is on the whole pleasant or the reverse, he concludes, that when we speak of conduct as good we must mean that it promotes happiness or pleasure. "There is no escape," he says, "from the admission that in calling good the conduct which subserves life, and bad the conduct which hinders or destroys it, and in so implying that life is a blessing and not a curse, we are inevitably asserting that conduct is good or bad according as its total effects are pleasurable or painful.”2 2 Id., p. 28

The Data of Ethics, p. 82.

Concerning this argument it may be remarked, first, that it does not seem to be the case that the moral approval signified by calling an action good is bestowed only upon conduct that we recognise as in some way furthering life; and, secondly, that the preservation of life appears to be a natural end in itself, apart from any consideration of the happiness of life:-though it may indeed in special circumstances cease to be an end, if, by reason of unhappiness, the attainment of it conflicts with the attainment of another natural end, the avoidance of misery, and if this latter end has natural precedence over the former. Apparently, then, this argument quite fails to show that the good is equivalent to the pleasurable; both because other conduct besides that which is seen to further life may be called good, and because the preservation of life may be called good irrespectively of any positive happiness that life may bring.

The second main argument is, that, if that conduct which we call good were productive of pain instead of pleasure, we could not possibly call it good. "Just as the miser," remarks Mr. Spencer, "asked to justify himself, is obliged to allege the power of money to purchase desirable things as his reason for prizing it; so the moralist who thinks this conduct intrinsically good and that intrinsically bad, if pushed home, has no choice but to fall back on their pleasure-giving and pain-giving effects. To prove this, it needs but to observe how impossible it would be to think of them as we do if their effects were reversed." And then, after imagining some cases of confessedly bad conduct producing pleasurable results, and confessedly good conduct producing painful results, he continues thus: "Using, then, as our tests these most pronounced forms of good and bad conduct, we find it unquestionable that our ideas of their goodness and bad1 The Data of Ethics, p. 31.

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