be specially understood; and to understand conduct at large, as exhibited by all living creatures in their adjustment of acts to ends, we are obliged to study the evolution of conduct. In doing so, we find that the most highly evolved conduct is that in which the adjustment of acts to ends is most complete, that which best subserves the maintenance of individual life, both in length and fulness, together with maintenance of progeny, and thus of the race ;-and this not only without interfering with other creatures in the attainment of similar ends, but assisting them therein by co-operation. On examining the leading moral ideas men have otherwise reached, we find that this highly-evolved conduct, coincides with what is pronounced good conduct, and that what werecognize as the ideal goal to the natural evolution of conduct, is what is recognized as the ideal standard of conduct ethically considered.

Other

things equal, well adjusted self-conserving acts we call good; other things equal, we call good the acts that are well adjusted for bringing up progeny capable of complete living; and other things equal, we ascribe goodness to acts which further the complete living of others' (page 44). It is evident that these judgments involve the assumption that life is desirable. The pessimist cannot consistently call good, acts subserving the maintenance of life. But pessimist and optimist agree on the postulate that life is desirable or undesirable

according as the average consciousness accompanying it is pleasurable or painful. Whence it follows, that if we call the good conduct conducive to life, we can do so only with the implication that it is conducive to a surplus of pleasures over pains' (p. 45). This view of conduct as good or bad, according as its aggregate results, to self or others or both, are pleasurable or painful,' Mr. Spencer demonstrates conclusively to be involved in all the current judgments on conduct; while

every other proposed standard really derives its authority therefrom. 'Pleasure somewhere, at some time, to some being or beings, is an inexpugnable element of the conception' of an ultimate moral aim. 'It is as much a necessary form of moral intuition as space is a necessary form of intellectual intuition.' Further, as Mr. Spencer points out this necessity of thought originates in the very nature of sentient existence. Sentient existence can evolve only on condition that pleasure-giving acts are lifesustaining acts.' Thus, the most highly evolved existence will be that in which there is a maximum of pleasurable sentiency; and it has been already shown that the conduct subserving this highest degree of evolution is, ethically considered, the best. Therefore it is the business of ethics to discover the laws by virtue of which certain conduct conduces to this highest stage of evolution, this maximum of happiness, this summum bonum; 'to determine how and why certain modes of conduct are detrimental, and certain other modes beneficial.' The mere conclusion, based upon an empirical induction from known facts, that certain conduct is beneficial, or vice versa, does not satisfy the requirements of a scientific system of morality. At this point, indeed, we discover the chief defect of all current methods of ethics, i. e. the entire absence, or inadequate presence in them, of the idea of causation. Mr. Spencer brings out this fact very saliently in the course of his examination of the moral theories of the theological, the political (or 'Act of Parliament'), and the intuitional schools of ethics. He then criticizes, as exhibiting the same neglect of ultimate causal connections, the empirical branch of that Utilitarianism which, in its 'greatest happiness' principle, would seem entitled to claim him as an adherent. The Utilitarianism, he says, which recognises only the principles of conduct reached by induction, is but preparatory to the Utilitarian

ism which deduces those principles from the processes of life as carried on under established conditions of exist

ence.

Every science begins

by accumulating observations, and presently generalizes these empirically; but only when it reaches the stage at which its empirical generalizations are included in a rational generalization, does it become developed science. Astronomy has already passed through its successive stages,'-while geology, biology, psychology, and sociology are becoming sciences proper only as fast as the phenomena with which their generalizations deal, are explained as consequences of ultimate principles. Ethics can be considered a developed science only when it has undergone a like transformation. 'A preparation in the simpler sciences is pre-supposed. Ethics has a physical aspect; since it treats of human activities which, in common with all expenditures of energy conform to the law of the persistence of energy moral principles must conform to physical necessities. It has a biological aspect; since it concerns certain effects, inner and outer, individual and social, of the vital changes going on in the highest type of animal. It has a psychological aspect; for its subject matter is an aggregate of actions that are prompted by feelings and guided by intelligence. And it has a sociological aspect; for these actions, some of them directly and all of them indirectly, affect associated beings. What is the implication? Belonging under one aspect to each of these sciences-physical, biological, psychological, sociological,-it can find its ultimate interpretations only in those fundamental truths which are common to all of them.'

The phenomena dealt with by each of these sciences conforming to the laws of Evolution, we are brought in a more special way to the conclusion already arrived at, that 'conduct at large, including the conduct Ethics deals with, is to be fully understood only as an aspect of evolving life;'

and Mr. Spencer, therefore, proceeds to the consideration of moral phenomena as phenomena of evolution, taking in succession the physical view, the biological view, the psychological view, and the sociological view. The conclusions at which he arrives in each of these departments the reader must seek in Mr. Spencer's work itself. Here it must suffice to have indicated his method, and to add that, in the fundamental truths which that method discloses, we find those laws, by acting in harmony with which human conduct will attain to the highest degree of evolution, so producing as we have seen, the maximum of happiness, and therefore, ex hypothesi, of moral excellence. Consequently, upon a 'rational generalization' of those laws must be based that system of Absolute Ethics which will govern the ideal man as existing in the ideal social state. On the evolution-hypothesis, the two presuppose one another; and only when they coexist, can there exist that ideal conduct which Absolute Ethics has to formulate, and which Relative Ethics has to take as the standard by which to estimate divergencies from right, or degrees of wrong' (p. 280).

The primary principle of Mr. Spencer's moral theory.-'Pleasure somewhere, at some time, to some being or beings,' -stated thus nakedly, is of course liable to much misinterpretation. It is consequently with reluctance that this brief paper is brought to a conclusion without something more than a mere allusion to his qualifications of that principle, and his insistence on the necessity of supplementing it with secondary principles. But the limits of my space render it impossible for me to enter further into detail, or to improve in any respect on the bald abstract I have given of, perhaps, one of the most important and significant works of the day. It is with especial regret that I am forced to leave altogether unnoticed Mr. Spencer's exhaustive discussion of the claims of

6

Na paper on the results of universal

a

ago in the Atlantic Monthly, among the adverse influences for which allowance ought to be made, was mentioned the disturbance of morality, political and general, at the present juncture by the breaking up of religious belief. The writer has since been struck, on more than one occasion, by the unsuspec ing complacancy with which thinkers of the Materialist or the Agnostic School seem to regard the immediate future; as though religion had been merely an obstruction in the way of science, and its removal were sure to be followed by a happy acceleration of scientific progress without danger to morality, or to anything else in human life. Some of them speak as if the peculiar moral code of Christianity would remain unaffected, or would even practically gain influence, by the total destruction of the Christian faith. They seem almost to think that, under the reign of evolution, natural selection, and the struggle for existence, the Sermon on the Mount will still be accepted as perfectly true; that the Christian beatitudes will retain their place; and that meekness, humility, poverty of spirit, forgiveness, unwordliness, will continue to be regarded as virtues. Much less do they suspect that the brotherhood of man may fall when its present foundation fails, or that the weak things of this world may miss the protection which the life and death of Christ and the consecration of his character have hitherto afforded them against the strong. The truth is that many who have renounced Christianity have not yet ceased to be Christians, or begun to regard human nature and society from any but an es

sentially Christian point of view. In the next generation Evolutionists and the belief in the struggle for existence will be clear of the penumbra of gospel morality, and the world will then have their Sermon on the Mount.

It is commonly assumed by Positivists (if that is the appropriate name for the anti-theological school) that the religions of the world have been merely so many primitive and unscientific attempts to explain the origin of things and the phenomena of nature by reference to the arbitrary action of a divinity or a group of divinities. Were it so, we might see the last of them go to its grave without misgiving, or rather with a jubilant sense of final emancipation. But the fact surely is quite otherwise. The religions have been much more than infantine cosmogonies or explanations of physical phenomena; each of them in its turn has been the basis of moral life,, and especially of the moral life of the community; each of them after its fashion has been the support of righteousness and the terror of unrighteousness. Overlaid and disguised by fable, ceremony, and priestcraft the moral element has been, but it has always been present in everything that could be called a religious system. Particularly is this true of the great religions, and above all of Christianity, which is clearly an effort to improve morality and to give it a consecrated type and a divine foundation, not to explain phenomena of any kind. Apart, indeed, from miracles, which belong to a totally different category, the gospel says very little about the physical world; it rebukes an excessive belief in special interpositions of Providence by the apologue of the Tower of Siloam, and in the

single petition 'Give us this day our daily bread' it hardly implies anything more than sustaining care.

So with the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. This may have been always mixed up more or less with animistic fancy, but animistic fancy is not the essence of it; the essence of it is, to righteousness assured reward, to unrighteousness inevitable retribution.

It may be that morality is now about to disengage itself finally from religion, and to find a new basis in science; but in the past it has rested on religious belief, and the collapse of religious belief has accordingly been always followed by a sort of moral interregnum.

It will not be questioned that the moral civilization of Hellas, for instance, in her earlier and brighter day, was supported by her religion. This is seen in every page of Herodotus, Æschylus, Pindar, Sophocles, the best mirrors of the heroic age. It appears in the religious character of Hellenic art, of the drama, of the games, as well as in the influence of the Eleusinian mysteries. It appears above all in the authority of the Delphic oracle. During that age, manifestly, power not seldom was led to forego its advantage, strength to respect the rights of weakness, by fear of the gods. In the relations between the separate states and their conduct towards each ether the influence of religion wielded by the Delphic oracle was evidently powerful for good. Hellenic life, public and private, in those days was full of religion, which presented itself in different forms according to individual character and intellect; in the philosopher approaching moral theism, while among the people at large it was fed with ceremony and fable.

Every one knows the passage in Edipus Tyrannus hymning in language of breadth and grandeur unsurpassed the religious source of the moral law: Be it ever mine to keep a devout purity concerning all things, whether words or deeds, whereof the laws are established on high, born of the heavenly ether, having no sire but Olympus, the offspring of none of mortal mould, nor ever to be buried in oblivion. Great in these is the divine power, and it waxeth not old.'

In Herodotus, Glaucus, renowned for his righteousness, receives a large deposit of money from a stranger. When, the depositor being dead, his sons apply for the money,the virtue of Glaucus fails;

he repudiates his trust. Afterwards he consults the Delphic oracle on the propriety of forswearing himself to keep his prize. 'O Glaucus,' answers the oracle, for the present it is expedient for thee to gain thy cause by false swearing and to embezzle the money. Swear, then; all alike must die, he that sweareth falsely and he that doth not. But the Oath hath an offspring that is nameless, without hands or feet; yet swiftly it pursues a man, till it overtakes and destroys his whole house and race. But he that sweareth and deceiveth not is in his posterity more blessed.' Glaucus implores the god to pardon him and to spare his race. But the oracle replies that to tempt the god is as bad as to do the act; and though Glaucus restores the money, the divine wrath extirpates his race, that penalty being the primitive and tribal equivalent for the future punishment threatened by more spiritual creeds.

That the sanction of morality in the conception of the historian and his contemporaries was not merely prudential, or of the kind cognizable by social science, but religious, appears most plainly from the words of the oracle, placing the corrupt thought on a level with the evil deed.

Hellenic religion, however, was entangled with a gross mythology, immoral legends, a worship of sacrifices, a thanmaturgic priesthood, an infantine cosmogony, a polytheistic division of the physical universe into the domains of a number of separate deities. It fell before awakened intellect and the first efforts of scientific speculation. Its fall and the rise of a physical philosophy on its ruins were ultimately conducive to progress. But Hellenic morality, especially public and international morality, felt the withdrawal of its basis. In Thucydides the presence of scientific seepticism in its early stage is strongly marked; at its side appears political Machiavelism, if we may use that name by anticipation; and the same page testifies to the general dissolution of moral ties and the lapse of Hellas into a state in which might made right, and public life became a mere struggle for existence, wherein the fittest, that is the strongest or the most cunning, survived. The Athenian envoys, in their controversy with the Melians, which is evidently intended by Thucydides to dramatize the prevailing morality, frankly enunciate the doctrine