fault to that which we found in the system of Kant. Kant's principle of self-consistency gave us form without matter-the mere form of reason, with all the particular content of the desires left out. Hedonism, on the other hand, gives us matter without form. It takes up all the desires as they stand, and regards the satisfaction of all as having an equal right, in so far as the pleasant feeling accompanying the satisfaction is equally intense and lasts equally long. This view ignores the fact that what we really seek to satisfy is not our desires but ourselves; and the value of our satisfactions depends on the kind of self to which the satisfaction is given-i. e. it depends on the universe within which the satisfaction is received. It may be mere animal pleasure: it may be human happiness: it may be saint-like bliss. To consider it in this way is to consider our desires with reference to their form -with reference to the universe in which they have a place. Hedonism ignores this form. It looks on our desires and their gratifications simply as quantities of raw material. It regards our wants as so many mouths to be filled, and the pleasures of their satisfaction as so many lumps of sugar to go into them. It is matter without form."

1 For further criticism on Hedonism, I may refer to Bradley's Ethical Studies, Essay III., Green's Prolegomena to Ethics, Book III., chap. i., and Book IV., chaps. iii. and iv., Sorley's Ethics of Naturalism, Part I., chap. iii., Alexander's Moral Order and Progress, Book II., Part I., chap. v., § 2, Janet's Theory of Morals, Book I., chap. iv., Dewey's Outlines of Ethics, pp. 14-67, Muirhead's Elements of Ethics, Book III., chap. i. See also Watson's Hedonistic Theories from Aristippus to Spencer, and the article by Prof. James Seth, "Is Pleasure the Summum Bonum?" in the International Journal of Ethics, Vol. VI., no. 4. For a fuller statement of my own view on this subject, I may refer to my Introduction to Social Philosophy, chap. iv.

§ 10. RELATION OF HAPPINESS TO THE SELF.-But though we thus seem bound to reject the Hedonistic theory, we must not overlook the importance of happiness. If happiness is not exactly "our being's end and aim," it is yet certain that we cannot attain the end of our being without attaining happiness. All that we have to insist on is that in seeking happiness we must observe exactly what kind of happiness it is that we seek. Happiness is relative to the nature of the being who enjoys it. The happiness of a man is different from the happiness of a beast: the happiness of a wise man is different from the happiness of a fool. What constitutes our happiness, in fact, depends on the universe in which we live. The smaller our universe, the more easily is our happiness attained.

"That low man seeks a little thing to do,

Sees it and does it :

This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it."

I

"It is indisputable," as Mill says, "that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted, is imperfect. But he can learn to bear its imperfections if they are at all bearable; and they will not make him envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections, but only because he feels not at all the good which those imperfections qualify. It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied." What is important, then, is not that we should seek the 1 Utilitarianism, chap, ii.

greatest sum of happiness, but the best kind of happiness. "We can only have the highest happiness," said George Eliot, such as goes along with being a great man-by having wide thoughts, and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as ourselves; and this sort of happiness often brings so much pain with it that we can only tell it from pain by its being what we would choose before everything else, because our souls see it is good." The nature of the highest happiness, then, depends not on its being the greatest sum, but on its belonging to the highest kind of character. That is, it depends on the nature of the self, on the nature of the universe within which we habitually live. To attain the highest happiness, then, we must live habitually in the highest kind of universe, and the desires that belong to that universe must be satisfied.

§ 11. SELF-REALISATION AS THE END.-We seem, however, to be very little farther on than we were at the beginning of this chapter. For at the beginning of the chapter we propounded the question, how we were to distinguish a higher universe from a lower; and this question is still unanswered. We have only been enabled to see that quantity of pleasure cannot furnish the criterion, and that we must look for the criterion rather in the nature of the character itself. We see, in fact, that the end must consist in some form of selfrealisation, i. e. in some form of the development of character-that the end, in short, ought to be described rather as perfection than as happiness. What perfection or self-realisation consists in, we must endeavour to find out in the following chapter.

1 Epilogue to Romola.

CHAPTER V.

THE STANDARD AS PERFECTION.

§ 1. APPLICATION OF EVOLUTION TO MORALS.-The idea that the end at which we are to aim is the realisation of the self or the development of character, leads us at once to regard the moral life as a process of growth. Although this idea has often been applied to the moral life in former ages, yet it is chiefly in recent times that the conception has been made prominent. The whole idea of growth or development--the idea of "evolution," as it is often called-may almost be said to be a discovery of the present century. It was first brought into prominence by Hegel and Comte; it was applied by Lamarck, Darwin, and others, to the origin of species; while Mr. Spencer and others have extended. its applications to the origin of social institutions, forms of government, and the like, and even to the formation of the solar and stellar systems. With these applications we are not here concerned. We have to deal only with the application of the idea of evolution to morals. And even with this application we have to deal only in a certain aspect. We are not concerned at present with the fact that the moral life of individuals and nations undergoes a gradual growth or development in the course of years or ages. This is a fact of moral history, whereas here we are concerned only with the theory of that which is essential to the very

nature of morality. When we say, then, that the idea of evolution is applicable to the moral life, we mean that the moral life is, in its very essence, a growth or development. The sense in which it is so will, it is hoped, become apparent as we proceed.

§ 2. DEVELOPMENT OF LIFE.-We may say, to begin with, that what we mean is this. There is in the moral life of man a certain end or ideal, to which he may attain, or of which he may fall short; and the significance of his life consists in the pursuit of this end. or ideal, and the gradual attainment of it. We may illustrate what we mean by reference to the forms of animal life. Among animals there are some that we naturally regard as standing higher in the scale of being than others. We judge them to be higher by reference to a certain (it may be a somewhat vague) standard that we have in our minds-whether it be, as with Mr. Herbert Spencer, the standard of adaptation to their environment, or the standard of approximation to the human type, or whatever else it may be. Now if we are right in supposing that there is a continuous. development going on throughout the species of animal existence, the main significance of this development will lie in the evolution of forms of life that approach more and more nearly to the standard or ideal type. Similarly, the evolutionary theory of Ethics is the view that there is a standard or ideal of character, and that the significance of the moral life consists in the gradual approximation to that type.

§ 3. HIGHER AND LOWER VIEWS OF DEVELOPMENT.—In all development there is a beginning, a process, and an end. The developing thing starts from a certain level and moves onwards towards a higher level. Now in