as throughout either concealing or revealing the principle of absolute selfishness as its foundation, I think I shall not be going beyond the limits of just inference. So that, when we are told that "conduct is good or bad according as its total effects are pleasurable or painful," the natural inference, that in judging of conduct in this way we have a genuine unselfish regard for other people's happiness, must be checked by the thought that, after all, it is only his own happiness that each man cares about; or else a prior sentiment of justice must be allowed, which the theory forbids. And if it be protested that this is misrepresentation, and that facts are acknowledged in our life which do not conform to this principle, I can only say, I am heartily glad; but, then, it seems to me that the theory needs revision.

The difference between the intuitionist and the philosopher who claims that his system alone is based on experience is not that the former considers the moral quality of an action to be altogether disconnected from its effects, while the latter sees in these effects the only determining factor in the case, but that the intuitionist holds that the moral conduct of a free agent has other relations besides that to the effect produced, and that in these other relations is found the source of the distinctively moral quality, that which makes the conduct right or wrong as distinguished from pleasant or unpleasant, profitable or unprofitable. There might be two actions with exactly the same effects, except in so far as the agent was concerned; and one might be morally right, while the other was altogether unmoral, owing to the fact of the agent in the latter case having no purpose and being altogether unconscious of any choice of the good rather than the evil, or of any standard of righteousness at all. In such a case, it would plainly be an abuse of language to call the action morally right, as it would be in speaking of the correct working of a locomotive. The question really is, what our standard of righteousness involves, and how we come to know that an action is right. There is no difference of opinion as to what are in general the most desirable results of conduct. To prove, therefore,

that, when we speak of conduct as morally good, we simply mean that "its total effects are pleasurable," it is not suffi cient merely to show that we cannot mention any conduct which we speak of as good in this way, the total effects of which are not pleasurable. That is not the issue.

Mr. Spencer challenges the intuitionist "to name any moral-sense judgment, by which he knows as right some kind of act that will bring a surplus of pain, taking into account the totals in this life and in any assumed other life." And when this cannot be done, the fact is taken as "proving that underneath all these intuitions respecting the goodness or badness of acts there lies the fundamental assumption that acts are good or bad, according as their aggregate effects increase men's happiness or increase their misery." (Data of Ethics, p. 40.) This supposed dilemma the intuitionist feels by no means oppressive, or destructive of the secure basis of his theory. He is perfectly ready to admit that every act which is good does ultimately increase the sum of happiness in the human race; and yet it need not follow that this is the whole intention of the terms good and right, or that by which their distinctive meaning is determined. As we believe the universe to be ordered by supreme beneficence, it would be strange indeed if right conduct did not always tend (whether we see it or not) to the highest happiness; but this does not preclude the possibility of there being other guidance by which we come to know what conduct is right for us. It seems clear, in regarding the moral history of mankind, that, while happiness in the highest sense may be the aim of God in all human life, for the individual man there is a different aim. His trust in God may give a glad confidence in the midst of all he may be called upon to do and suffer; but, for himself, he cannot always see the end from the beginning, he cannot know what will lead to the highest happiness. What he does know is that there is always a possible better and worse in his conduct judged by a moral standard, and that he is bound to choose the better; and so he must go on step by step reaching up to an ideal of excellence which is ever above him, and that is his

aim in life. If men were alone in the world, it would be different. Then, according as they slowly discovered what was agreeable, that would have to be their aim: there would never be any question of right and wrong, but only of wise and foolish. As it is, however, in the course of their experience they awaken to a sense of something else, they feel that there is another distinction besides that between agreeable and disagreeable: an ideal of excellence in respect to character, the self-determined attitude of a free agent, no doubt very imperfect at first, but still an ideal, is revealed to them, and claims their efforts to reach up to it.

Mr. Spencer's conclusion, above quoted, rests on the prior assumption that acts can only be judged according as their results are pleasurable or painful, which, on the theory of the intuitionist, is by no means the case. When we have to decide what acts are beneficial to the world, we very likely do consider exclusively their consequences, though here also the after condition of the agent, which cannot be judged altogether by visible results, is an important part of the consequence. But, in judging of an act, whether it is right or wrong, we must consider the principles from which it sprang; and it is our decision on these which determines our judgment of the act. Here, the condition of the agent is the matter of first importance. The conduct of a lunatic or a somnambulist could not be judged morally at all, simply because such conduct is out of all relation to the conscious choice of motive and regard for a standard of righteousness. The question therefore is, What is it that determines our choice of motive, and what constitutes the standard of righteousness?

And, here, the intuitionist claims that there is other guidance given us than the simple power of reasoning that, because we see the results of certain actions to be on the whole pleasurable, therefore they must be chosen and must be called right. The mere fact of our desiring pleasure, and seeing that the more complex and orderly our life becomes the more we get, will not account for our feeling with regard to right and wrong. In the course of our life, we become

conscious of various motives to action, impelling us to supply our own bodily or mental or spiritual needs, and also to care for others. These motives are called into play, as we become aware of the various relations of our life. But they spring from within, being part of the constitution of our nature, contained perhaps only implicitly in the undeveloped being, but still there, and not anything that the environment can lay on from outside. Among these motives, we see there is a gradation of rank. When we have to choose between conflicting motives in determining our conduct, we become aware that one is better or nobler than another, and that we ought to choose it. A motive which, if unopposed, it would be perfectly right to follow, becomes wrong when another motive which is higher in the scale appeals to us at the same time. Thus, hunger may rightly be satisfied; but, if it is a question between satisfying our own hunger and helping the greater need of others, it would become wrong. In any such case, if we choose the lower motive, we feel that we have done wrong and deserve blame. If, in spite of the strong solicitation of the lower, we yet choose the higher, we know that we have done right. All through our life, unless we have gone altogether into bondage to the sensual cravings of our nature and have become deaf to the appeals of any higher motive, there runs this conflict; and the obligation to choose always the highest motive that appeals to us we feel to be something from which we cannot escape, even if we would. It is part of the law of our life, and ought to be its ruling principle.

The consequences of conduct supply a good part of the material on which the motives work. If there were no consequences, life would evidently come to a stand-still. But it is of the motives that we judge in reference to morality; and it is out of our knowledge of these springs of action in their relative worth quite as much as out of the substance of the actual life we have experienced that our ideal of conduct is formed. Indeed, the perception of the power of noble motive constantly outstrips our realized experience, and holds up before us the image of a nobler

life. And this ideal does not consist of shrewd surmises. that in certain ways we might have a completer life and more pleasurable feeling: it is the vision of a life guided. by nobler principles, more faithful in its allegiance to the standard of righteousness which claims our obedience.

In criticising the intuitional theory, Mr. Spencer of course points to the contradictory judgments of the same acts among people of different nations, or even among different people of the same nation. (Data of Ethics, p. 39. The following argument I owe to the teaching of Dr. Martineau, in Manchester New College. In fact, though I naturally have to speak in the first person in my paper, I cannot refrain from saying that whatever truth of presentment and clearness of insight into the nature of morality there may be here is due to his teaching: only the particular form the paper takes, and whatever mistakes there are in reasoning or in setting forth the various views, are mine.) If, however, it is understood what the intuitionist really claims for his moral insight, the suggestion of these facts will be seen in no way to disturb the theory. The statement is that, when two motives are presented for our choice, we see that one is morally better than the other, and we feel bound to choose the better, and that our conduct is judged according to the motives which prompt it. We say that murder is wrong, because, if we murder a man, we have given way to some passion, perhaps of envy or hatred or greed, rather than to the impulse of self-restraint or regard for the rights of others, which we know intuitively to be the better motives. But if, in killing a man, we have chosen our love of honor or the rights of others rather than a cowardly shrinking and suffering what is shameful, as in slaying a tyrant, then we no longer say that the murder is wrong. And so with the Fijian, instanced by Mr. Spencer. If he really considers that murder is a morally good act, it is because, with him, it is a choice between manly courage and dexterity and cowardice or sloth or some such lower motive. The thought of the rights of others has not yet been brought home to him. It is therefore not correct to say that "by