desires of individuals, which may conflict with the ultimate purpose of morality. I have the right to acquire property, but I have not the right to murder and steal in order to gain my point. The amassing of wealth is not the highest end, the chief good; indeed, it is not an end in itself at all, but a means to a higher end. You may happen to believe that the advancement of a particular religious sect is the highest end, that God desires your faction to be triumphant. You may consequently regard it as right to use whatever means may benefit your sect. But you should remember, first, that your believing this does not make it so; and, secondly, that evil deeds will not in the long run benefit any cause. Teleological ethics does not say that ends justify means, but it can safely assert that the highest end, whatever that may be, justifies the means.

(b) Does that mean that if the highest end can be realized by murder, theft, and falsehood, then these modes of conduct are moral? We must answer, as before, that murder, theft, and falsehood tend to breed destruction, that it lies in their very nature to do so, as the experience of countless ages amply proves. Temporary advantages may, perhaps, be gained in exceptional cases by the performance of such deeds, but lasting good cannot follow wrong. Honesty is the best policy, and the devil the father of lies. The highest end cannot be attained by such means; nay, no cause can thrive on wrong.

But, you say, suppose a form of conduct which, as a rule, tends to produce pernicious effects, and is condemned, should, owing to changed conditions or special circumstances, result in good, what then? Well, we reply, if it is absolutely certain that such conduct tends to realize the end of morality, humanity will approve of it. It is wrong to take human life or to rob a man of his liberty, and yet the State inflicts the death penalty on criminals, orders its soldiers to shoot down public foes by the hundreds, confines lawbreakers in prisons, and breaks up hundreds and thousands of homes. It is right to tell the truth, and yet the general deceives the enemy and even his own army; and the physician deceives his patients in case he deems it necessary.' .1 Is humanity benefited by these acts, would life and growth be impossible without them, are there no evil consequences attaching to them? We evidently believe that capital punishment tends to preserve society; otherwise we should not permit it. Should the race ever lose faith in the efficacy of this awful process, so shocking to all sympathetic natures, it would not only abolish it, but forever regret the fate of those who have died on the bloody scaffold.

(c) Another thing. The theory does not say that the end justifies the means which you or I may believe or think will make for the end. There is a great difference between saying that the end justi

1 See Xenophon's Memorabilia, Bk. IV, Socrates's Definition of Justice.

fies the means, and, the end justifies the means which you or I believe to be the means. In order to be strictly moral, an act must actually realize the highest end. Your believing or feeling certain that it does, does not make it so.

(d) It seems, then, you say, that both the race and the individual may be mistaken, that they may approve of laws which do not really promote the welfare of humanity, or whatever the end may be. Exactly, we answer, such is the case. To err is human, in morals as everywhere else. Many forms of conduct have in the course of history been felt as right, which subsequent generations acknowledged to be wrong. And men have died at the stake and on the cross for offering the world a moral code for which future ages blessed their names. The sinner of to-day often becomes the saint of to-morrow.

(e) And now let us ask some questions ourselves. The opponents of teleology usually regard conscience as the final arbiter of conduct. A man is asked to act according to the dictates of his conscience. Now suppose it tells him to steal and kill and lie in order to accomplish what he believes to be right. Then are not falsehood and murder and stealing right? And then, does not the good end justify the means? If you say that his conscience may be mistaken, and that he should therefore not obey his conscience, you have given up your position. Besides, how shall he correct his conscience? By reflecting? Reflecting upon what? Evidently upon some principle or

criterion which is to serve as a guide even to his so-called infallible conscience.1

11. Teleology and Atheism. -The objection is also frequently raised that teleology is a godless doctrine. This is the usual stand taken by persons who can oppose no tenable arguments against a view, and yet desire in some way to confound it. By designating it as atheistic they hope to cast discredit upon it and its supporters, and to frighten others from subscribing to it. The theory, however, is no more godless than any other theory. There is nothing absurd in the thought that God established morality because of the effects which it tends to realize. It is not absurd to believe that He had a purpose in view in establishing it, and that this purpose is the reason for its existence. No one, it seems to me, can accuse men like Thomas Aquinas, William Paley, and Bishop Butler of godlessness; and yet they found it possible to believe in teleology. Let me quote from Butler's Sermons upon Human Nature: "It may be added that as persons without any conviction from reason of the desirableness of life would yet, of course, preserve it merely from the appetite of hunger, so, by acting merely from regard (suppose) to reputation, without any consideration of the good of others, men often contribute to public good. In both these instances they are plainly instruments in the hands of another, in

1 See Kant, Abbott's translation, p. 311.

2 See chap. vi, § 10.

the hands of Providence, to carry on ends - the preservation of the individual and good of society - which they themselves have not in their view or intention.' 1

12. Teleology and Intuitionism. In conclusion, I should like to emphasize the fact that there is no necessary contradiction between the theory we have advanced in the foregoing pages, and intuitionism.2

1 See Mill's Utilitarianism, chap. ii, pp. 31 f.: "We not uncommonly hear the doctrine of utility inveighed against as a godless doctrine. If it be necessary to say anything at all against so mere an assumption, we may say that the question depends upon what idea we have formed of the moral character of the Deity. If it be a true belief that God desires, above all things, the happiness of His creatures, and that this was His purpose in their creation, utility is not only not a godless doctrine, but more profoundly religious than any other. If it be meant that utilitarianism does not recognize the revealed will of God as the supreme law of morals, I answer that an utilitarian who believes in the perfect goodness and wisdom of God necessarily believes that whatever God has thought fit to reveal on the subject of morals must fulfil the requirements of utility in a supreme degree. But others besides utilitarians have been of opinion that the Christian revelation was intended, and is fitted, to inform the hearts and minds of mankind with a spirit which should enable them to find for themselves what is right, and incline them to do it when found, rather than to tell them, except in a very general way, what it is; and that we need a doctrine of ethics, carefully followed out, to interpret to us the will of God. Whether this opinion is correct or not, it is superfluous here to discuss, since whatever aid religion, either natural or revealed, can afford to ethical investigation, is as open to the utilitarian moralist as to any other. He can use it as the testimony of God to the usefulness or hurtfulness of any given course of action, by as good right as others can use it for the indication of a transcendental law, having no connection with usefulness or with happiness."

2 See chap. iv, § 7, note.