CHAPTER I

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MORALS AND THE EVOLUTION

OF MAN

MORALS AND THE

EVOLUTION OF MAN

BY

MAX NORDAU

A Translation of

"BIOLOGIE DER ETHIK"

By

MARIE A. LEWENZ, M.A.

Fellow of University College, London

CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD

London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne

1922

TO MY DEAR WIFE ANNA (née DONS),

the sunshine of my life in happy days, my brave

comrade in the storms of the world-catastrophe, with

love and gratitude I dedicate this book which helped

both her and me to endure the dark years when we

were homeless wanderers.

MADRID, _September 26th, 1916_

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

1. THE PHENOMENON OF MORALITY 1

2. THE IMMANENCE OF THE CONCEPT OF MORALITY 46

3. THE BIOLOGICAL ASPECT OF MORALITY 84

4. MORALITY AND LAW 115

5. INDIVIDUAL MORALITY AND COLLECTIVE IMMORALITY 144

6. FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY 185

7. MORALITY AND PROGRESS 215

8. THE SANCTIONS OF MORALITY 247

MORALS AND THE

EVOLUTION OF MAN

CHAPTER I

THE PHENOMENON OF MORALITY

A very well-known experiment in animal psychology was once made by

Möbius. An aquarium was divided into two compartments by means of a pane

of glass; in one of these a pike was put and in the other a tench.

Hardly had the former caught sight of his prey, when he rushed to the

attack without noticing the transparent partition. He crashed with

extreme violence again the obstacle and was hurled back stunned, with a

badly battered nose. No sooner had he recovered from the blow than he

again made an onslaught upon his neighbour--with the same result. He

repeated his efforts a few times more, but succeeded only in badly

hurting his head and mouth. At last a dim idea dawned upon his dull mind

that some unknown and invisible power was protecting the tench, and that

any attempt to devour it would be in vain; consequently from that moment

he ceased from all further endeavours to molest his prey. Thereupon the

pane of glass was removed from the tank, and pike and tench swam around

together; the former took no notice whatever of his defenceless

neighbour, who had become sacred to him. In the first instance the pike

had not perceived the glass partition against which he had dashed his

head; now he did not see that it had been taken away. All he knew was

this: he must not attack this tench, otherwise he would fare badly. The

pane of glass, though no longer actually there, surrounded the tench as

with a coat of mail which effectually warded off the murderous attacks

of the pike.

The fact so often observed, that man in many cases does that which he

passionately desires to leave undone, and refrains from doing that which

all his instincts urge him to do--this phenomenon of Morality is a

generalization upon a huge scale of the above experiment on animals with

the pane of glass in a tank.

Jean Jacques Rousseau thought out a theoretical human being who was by

nature good. Such a human being does not exist and has never existed.

From sheer annoyance at the provoking obliquity of vision which led the

enthusiast of Geneva to develop such a theory, one is sorely tempted to

go to the opposite extreme and declare that man is by nature

fundamentally bad; but such an assertion is just as naïve as Rousseau's

contention. Good and bad are values which we can only learn to

appreciate when we have felt the effect of the phenomenon of Morality.

The concepts of good and evil are of much later origin than mankind, and

can therefore no more constitute a fundamental characteristic of man's

original nature than, for instance, the cut and colour of his clothes;

though it is open to wiseacres to maintain that man's nature to some

extent actually finds expression in the cut and colour of his

clothes--that is, in his choice of them. Anyone contemplating primitive

man, man as he emerges from the hands of Nature, stripped of all the

additions which he has acquired in the course of his historical

development, is bound to admit that man is neither good nor bad; he is a

living being acting according to the instincts implanted in his nature;

just like the pike. But in most contingencies he does not obey these

instincts, and if he reflects upon himself and his actions, he is

astounded at realizing this, and asks: "Why do I refrain from revelling

in the gratification of my desires?"

Innumerable times every day of his life he would like to break many or

all of the Ten Commandments; but he abstains from so doing, and, what is

more, mostly without effort, without having painfully to suppress his

desire. What prevents him from yielding to his impulses? An invisible

power which lays its commands upon him: "Thou shalt not!" "Thou shalt!"

Often his aims and inclinations come into violent collision with this

order, or this prohibition, and are hurled back by the painful impact.

Man hears the threatening, imperious voice, but cannot see whence it

comes. Accustomed to reason by analogy, he concludes that it is, like

thunder, a voice of Nature. When the pike has sufficiently injured his

nose against the pane of glass, he assumes as an actual fact that an

insuperable barrier separates him from the tench, and, moreover, that it

is both useless and painful to come into contact with this. He does not

try to discover the nature of the obstacle, and gives up any further

attempt upon his mysteriously protected prey. Man, with a more highly

developed intelligence than the pike, does not accept the phenomenon of

Morality with dull resignation. Since he has become conscious of a

mysterious barrier erected between his volitions and his actions, he has

not ceased to reflect upon this barrier, to investigate it with a timid

yet irresistible desire for knowledge, and to try and discover its

nature.

It redounds to man's credit that he has devoted so much time and energy

to investigating the character and essence of Morality. But the result

of these investigations does not redound to his credit. With the

exception of theology, there is no subject upon which so much has been

written as upon ethics. Yet whosoever plunges into this boundless sea of

literature will emerge with feelings bordering upon horror and despair.

Here a free rein is given to all man's errors, to his habit of drawing

false conclusions, to his faulty modes of thought. Incapacity to

interpret facts, association of ideas, elusive as a will-o'-the-wisp and

uncurbed by any criticism, intemperate mysticism, arrogant dogmatism,

shallow self-sufficiency--all these vie with one another in the

presentment of theories which either are patently foolish, arbitrary or

ill-founded, or else prove to be so when impartially examined.

It is hard for the few reasonable thinkers who have taken part in this

great investigation to make their voices heard amid the uproar raised by

the solemn, unctuous, dictatorial or pedantic tomfools. And even the

former are not entirely satisfactory, because they do not distinguish

clearly enough between the form and the substance, the externals and the

essence of Morality, and because they do not discriminate with

sufficient care between questions as to its nature, origin and aim, and

its powers or sanctions--questions which must on no account be

confounded.

What is Morality? Obviously it is necessary to attempt a clear answer to

this question before any useful purpose can be served by inquiring into

the group of problems to which it gives rise: its aim, its laws, its

origin, its method, its assumptions. The Stoics answer this question as

follows: "Morality is living according to Nature." Furthermore, it is

quite in accordance with the doctrine of the Stoics that Cicero says:

"Virtue, however, is nothing but Nature developed to the highest

possible degree of perfection" ("_ad summum perducta_"). Moral therefore

means natural; Morality and Nature are equivalent; they are one. Really

a simpler or more childlike explanation is hardly possible. The most

superficial glance at human life and at our own soul teaches us that

Morality is contrary to Nature, that it must struggle against Nature to

assert itself, that it means a victory over Nature, in so far as we

understand by Nature in this special sense the most primitive reaction

of man to simple and more complicated stimuli, the first tendency of

impulse, the immediate, instinctive urge to act. Further, the definition

of the Stoics ignores the aggregation of concepts which the synthetic

conception, Morality, involves; as if this were self-evident and

required no definition. The Stoics tacitly assume that Morality and

Good are synonymous. Cicero makes this assumption clearer by using the

word Virtue (_virtus_) instead of Morality. But in all languages this

word implies approbation and praise. It is an appreciation of worth

(_Werturteil_), to use the expression so appropriately coined by Lotze.

But the very fact that we recognize Morality as being valuable is by no

means a matter of course and it demands an explanation.

Certain actions could only be judged to be good if they were

distinguished from others which did not suggest the same judgment, which

were felt to be not good, to be bad or indifferent. We come to the

question, What is Good, what is Bad? The Stoics reply, "That which is

good is natural." It is easy to call facts which please us natural, and

such as displease us unnatural. In reality both series of facts are

equally natural; because everything that happens is natural; because by

definition Nature is the synthesis of all phenomena; because nothing

exists outside of Nature, and within Nature everything is a part of her

and therefore is natural and can be nothing but natural. If we

nevertheless wish to distinguish between natural and unnatural

phenomena, if we call Good, Morality, and Virtue natural, and compare

them favourably with the unnatural, this only proves that we use the

words natural and unnatural as synonyms for good and bad, and that we

have a ready-made standard by which we measure the naturalness or

unnaturalness (that is, the goodness or badness) of actions, and that

there exists within ourselves the law by which we judge them to be good

or bad. But how do we come by this law? How, of what material, and why

do we fashion this standard? Why do we approve of one thing as good and

condemn another as bad? What qualities do the former and the latter

possess, or what qualities do we ascribe to them? That is what we want

to know when we inquire as to the significance of Morality, and the

definition of the Stoics throws no light whatever upon the matter.

According to Aristotle Morality is "the activity of Practical Reason,

which is accompanied by pleasurable emotion." It is not worth while to

dwell upon this definition. It is absolutely valueless. Practical Reason

is not a definite concept; Aristotle does not say anywhere what he

understands by "practical" when he applies this attribute to Reason; and

to call every activity of Practical Reason accompanied by pleasurable

emotion Morality is mere eccentricity.

To take only one example: if I have a house built, and accept the

architect's plans because they please me greatly, my practical reason is

most certainly active; the gratification induced by my reasonable choice

of the plans is doubtless a pleasurable emotion; but assuredly no one

will characterize as moral this activity of my practical reason which is

accompanied by pleasurable emotion. It may be that Aristotle was

contemplating not a single action, but conduct in life as a whole. In

that case he has expressed in an unfortunate, and much too loose a

manner the thought that Morality is Reason plus pleasurable emotion. We

shall frequently meet with and have to examine this idea, which omits to

explain why pleasurable emotions attend certain activities of

"Practical Reason," whatever that may be, and fail to be aroused by

others.

Judaism, as embodied in its law-givers and prophets, teaches that

Morality consists in living and acting in accordance with the divine

Will. Maimonides, who, however, was regarded by many of his

contemporaries as a heretic, does not consider Judaism a creed at all,

but a code of Morality. He maintains that anyone who repudiates the

tenets of the Jewish faith, even the most essential one, namely, the

belief in a single god, must not be excluded from the Jewish community

as long as he conforms to its moral laws. This thinker, usually so

accurate and nice in his reasoning, overlooks the fact that in this case

he is contradicting himself in a manner wellnigh comic. According to

him, too, Morality consists in the endeavour to live and act in

accordance with the divine Will. How is such an endeavour possible for a

man who does not believe in God and for whom consequently no divine Will

exists? Therefore either Morality must be something different from an

approximation to the standard set up by the divine Will, or else he who

denies God cannot be moral. But I will leave the author of the "Guide of

those who have gone astray" to his self-contradiction, and only retain

the Jewish definition of Morality as based upon the Will of God.

Without any restriction Christianity has taken over this definition from

the mother-religion. In his zeal to claim that God alone is the source

of all Morality, St. Augustine allows himself to be carried away to such

an extent that he libels mankind most hatefully. Just as for Rousseau

man is by nature good, for the Bishop of Hippo he is by nature

fundamentally bad. Left to his own devices he would always wallow in the

mire of sin and vice, and would never even feel the wish to abandon his

wickedness. It is God's mercy alone which rescues him from his depravity

and sets his feet upon the path of righteousness, leading him to virtue,

salvation and eternal bliss. Thomas Aquinas is no less definite on this

point. The scriptures of Judaism and Christianity contain the eternal

law which God has ordained for mankind. He points out the paths that man

should follow. All Morality springs from Him alone.

To this very day true believers adhere to this doctrine. Morality did

not originate on earth; the knowledge of it is a gift of grace from

heaven to mankind. It is derived from God; it is that which God has

willed; or else it does not need any special act of volition on the part

of God, but is the essence of God himself. That is the teaching of

Paley, the classical moral philosopher. Virtue consists in doing good to

mankind in obedience to the Will of God, and in order to attain eternal

salvation. Here stress is laid upon the fact that Morality is active

love for one's neighbour, and this is a concession on the part of the

conciliatory Englishman to the utilitarian ethics of his countrymen; but

for him the necessary and sufficient reason for this love of one's

neighbour is the Will of God and the desire for eternal salvation. The

German devotee, Baader, blustering like a capuchin, preaches this

twaddle: "Any Morality which is not rooted in divine law is the

intellectual impiety of our time raised to its highest power; it is the

perfection of atheism; for the idea of the absolute autonomy of man

atheistically denies the Father as law-giver; the theistic denial of the

necessity for divine aid in fulfilling the law does away with the Son or

Mediator, and finally the materialistic-pantheistic apotheosis of Matter

does away with the Holy Ghost with its sanctifying power." The Frenchman

Jouffroy, though more careful and reticent in his manner, unmistakably

expresses his conviction that "ethics, as well as the philosophy of law,

inevitably and necessarily lead to theology."

But this necessity only exists for minds whose desire for knowledge and

truth is easily satisfied by words without a meaning that can be

visualized, by fabulous statements accepted without proof, by fictions

of the imagination, and by shallow juggling with the association of

ideas. Even those who do not approve all Auguste Comte's arguments will

agree with him when he classifies the successive steps in the mental

development of mankind as the theological, transcendental, and

scientific modes of thought. When man's understanding is in its infancy

he is content with a supernatural explanation of all phenomena which

strike him as mysterious, disquiet him or rouse his curiosity. Only I

have never been able to understand why Comte discriminates between the

theological and the transcendental modes of thought, and assigns to the

latter a higher place than the former. Both are on a footing of absolute

equality; both raise arbitrary fictions of the imagination to the

position of sources of knowledge; both substitute anthropomorphic

trivialities for the observation of phenomena and research into the

conditions under which they occur and their relationship to one another.

The only difference between them lies in the fact that transcendentalism

expresses itself in choicer language than does theology, that it

presents formulæ that are more complicated and pretentious, less

transparent and honest--formulæ which the unpractised mind does not

immediately recognize as mythological dogmas in a pseudo-scientific

disguise.

The relationship of theological to transcendental thought is much the

same as that of superstition to religion. Both of them are one and the

same. Religion is shamefaced superstition, whereas superstition has not

yet learned to feel shame. Religion is superstition in a dress-coat, and

therefore fit for polite circles; superstition is religion in a cotton

smock and therefore cannot be admitted to society. Superstition is the

religion of the poor and unassuming, religion is the superstition of

fine folk who plume themselves on their formal and verbal scholarship.

Ever since man has risen above the level of the beasts, ever since the

first faint glimmerings of thought began in the thick-walled, narrow and

dark skull of a hunter of the Neanderthal or Cro Magnon, he has ascribed

everything unintelligible in life and in the world around him to divine

actions and divine sources. How did the world come into existence? A god

or gods created it. How does Nature work? In accordance with the will of

a god or gods, in obedience to divine commands, as a result of divine

activities. What is life? A divine gift of grace. What is

consciousness? An irradiation of the divinity. What is infinity, what

eternity? Attributes of the god. God is the name that from the beginning

of time to the present day men have given to their ignorance. They find

it easier to bear disguised by this pseudonym; they are even proud of

it. With cunning self-deception they have endowed the word with the

dignity pertaining to a title of the most awe-inspiring majesty, and

they no longer feel ashamed of a poverty of mind which can boast of such

a magnificent name. Morality also is one of those phenomena which are

not intelligible as a matter of course. The questions how, whence, why,

and to what end Morality exists, and what it is, cannot be solved at a

glance; its life-history is not apparent to every observer, as is that

of the domestic cat. But why cudgel one's brains? Cheap explanations are

ready to hand. This way mythology, you maid-of-all-work! Morality has

been ordained by God. A moral life is one in accordance with God's

commandments. He who will not content himself with this answer is an

infidel and does not deserve to have any notice taken of him.

Let us leave the paltry statements of theologians and note how men who

investigate questions more thoroughly have dealt with Morality.

Descartes defines Morality as the sustained endeavour to do that which

one has recognized to be right. It is difficult to discern in this

definition the father of scientific scepticism. What are the

distinguishing marks of Right? Is the decision as to what is right and

what is wrong to be left to the subjective judgment of the individual?

In that case Descartes must concede that the action of a burglar is

moral, if he has recognized that it is right for him to perpetrate his

crime between two and three o'clock in the morning, that being the most

favourable time for it, and then strives to the best of his ability to

effect an entrance into the building he has selected, at the moment

which he has recognized as the right one. Or shall all mankind, or at

least the majority, and not the individual, decide what is right? In

that case the definition would certainly approximate to the one which I

hold to be true; but for one thing it would suffer from vagueness; and,

moreover, its originator would lay himself open to the reproach of not

having shown why the individual is worthy of praise when he acts in

accordance with the convictions of the majority, though these be opposed

to his own, and in so doing allows his action to be determined by a

judgment due to a psychic mechanism other than his.

Spinoza's "Ethics" leaves the reader in great discomfort, the result of

vacillating and contradictory explanations. Obviously Descartes' great

disciple had no clear conception of the essence of Morality and held

either consecutively, or may be even simultaneously, divers views on the

subject, amongst which those of all schools of thought are either quite

clearly expressed or at least implied. "By Good," he says, "I mean that

which we know for certain to be useful to us."[1]

[1] I quote the wording of Berthold Auerbach's translation:

"B. de Spinoza's collected works. Translated from the Latin

by Berthold Auerbach." Stuttgart, J. G. Cotta, 1871. Second

edition, Vol. II.

And again: "To act absolutely virtuously is merely to act, live,

preserve one's being (these three mean the same thing) in accordance

with the dictates of Reason, because one seeks one's own interest."

According to that Morality is synonymous with egoism, and its aim is

man's individual profit or interest. Even the most pronounced

Utilitarians among ethical theorists have not ventured to go to such

lengths. True, they have contended that the aim of moral action is

happiness, but at least they define it as the happiness of the whole

community and not that of the individual, except in so far as he is a

member of the community and has his fair share of its well-being.

Spinoza foresees the objection that the pursuit of one's own happiness

cannot possibly deserve the universal esteem in which virtue is held,

and he tries to adduce reasons whereby the egoism which he characterizes

as moral may be justified and palliated:

"Everyone exists according to the supreme law of Nature, and

consequently everyone does, according to the supreme law of Nature, that

which results from the necessities of his own nature; and therefore

every man forms his judgment as to what is good and bad according to the

supreme law of Nature, pursues his own interest according to his lights,

seeks revenge, strives to preserve what he loves and to destroy what he

hates." That is possibly the most audacious and at the same time the

most ill-founded statement that has ever been written on the subject of

Morality. Morality means behaviour calculated to further one's own

interest. Morality is therefore utility. But man cannot act otherwise

than morally, since he always acts as he is compelled to do by his own

nature. There is no sense in discriminating between good and bad, moral

and immoral, since one always acts in accordance with the behests of

Nature. Man automatically executes the dictates of Nature which is alone

responsible for his deeds.

For the Stoics, too, Morality is action in accordance with the law of

Nature, but Spinoza goes further than the Stoics, in that he does away

with any universally applicable standard of moral conduct, and sets up

instead of Nature pure and simple, which is the same for all, each man's

individual nature as the authority which shall lay down rules of

behaviour for him. So Morality is something individual and subjective.

Man acts according to the requirements of his interest; his own nature

shows him what his interest requires; no other person has any right or

any qualification to form a judgment upon the worth of his conduct, to

call it good or bad, for he cannot know what course of action the man's

personal nature, peculiar to himself and to no other, may prescribe to

him. This is the doctrine of anarchy and amorality put in a nutshell, a

more wordy paraphrase of the _Fais ce que vouldras_ (please yourself),

the terse inscription that Rabelais put over the entrance to his Abbey

of Thélème, as the only law governing that abode of alluring wantonness.

Spinoza certainly does half-heartedly concede to Reason the rôle which

Aristotle positively assigns to it ("To act in an absolutely virtuous

manner is merely to act according to the guidance of Reason," etc.), but

it is impossible to see how Reason can exercise guidance and control if

"everyone does according to the supreme law of Nature that which

results from the necessities of his nature." This can surely only mean

that everyone may yield to the unbridled desires of his natural

instincts, which is the very reverse of self-control by Reason. If

Nature is to rule despotically, there is obviously no place for a

constitutional limitation of her sole power by the effective counsel and

protests of Reason.

But Spinoza renounces in a much more definite way his views recognizing

the right of every individual "to form his judgment as to what is good

and bad according to the supreme law of Nature," for he calmly adds:

"Society can be founded, if it reserves to itself the right possessed by

the individual to take revenge, and to pronounce a verdict on what is

good and what is bad; thereby it acquires the power to prescribe rules

of conduct for the community, to make laws, and to enforce them, not by

means of Reason, which cannot restrict passions, but by threats....

Hence in a state of Nature, sin cannot even be imagined."

This concession to Society most emphatically contradicts his first

definition of Morality. It does away with the right claimed for the

individual "to do according to the supreme law of Nature that which

results from the necessities of his own nature," and by the same

"supreme law of Nature" to "judge what is good and what is bad." It

subjects conduct to the restraint, not of Nature, but of Society. It

bears witness to the admission that "Reason cannot restrict passions,"

although Spinoza has just required the virtuous man to "act according to

the guidance of Reason." Spinoza admits that Morality is not the

consequence of a law inherent in the individual, but of an extraneous

law forced upon him by society; that it is not an individual but a

social phenomenon. In this he agrees with the conclusions of modern

sociological thought, but his merit is much diminished by the fact that

he skims lightly over the one great difficulty which sociological ethics

is struggling to overcome. He says, society "reserves to itself the

right ... to pronounce a verdict on what is good and what is bad, and

thereby acquires the power to prescribe rules of conduct to the

community," etc.

It has the power right enough; police, judge, prison and gallows bear

witness to that; but has it the right? That is not clear without further

investigation. It requires to be proved. The amoralist can emphatically

deny this, basing his conclusion on Spinoza's own definition. He can

legitimately declare that he need submit to no dictates of society, that

he owes obedience only to his own nature and his own inner needs, and

the moral philosopher can only prove to him that he is wrong by

scornfully indicating the penal code and its stalwart minions.

Spinoza, we see, has already given a whole series of mutually

destructive and contradictory definitions of Morality: it is the law of

life and conduct which society lays down for the individual, though we

do not learn from him on what principles it is based; it is the pursuit

of one's own interest as indicated by Reason; it is obedience to

necessity--that is to say, to the demands of one's own nature. All this

does not suffice him. He discovers a new aspect of Morality.

"Recognition of Good and Evil is nothing but a pleasurable or a

disagreeable emotion in so far as we are conscious of it." And again,

"Pleasure is not actually bad (as the ascetics probably contend), but

good; pain, on the contrary, is actually bad."

In this case the ideas pleasure and pain are treated as equivalents of

good and bad, as were useful and harmful in the former case. According

to the axiom that things that are equal to the same thing must be equal

to one another, pleasurable is synonymous not only with good, but also

with beneficial, and in like manner painful with bad and harmful. Brandy

undoubtedly produces a sensation of pleasure in the drinker; is brandy,

then, good in a moral sense? Above all, is it beneficial? Many such

questions could be put to Spinoza, but this one is enough.

Thus we discover Spinoza to be at one and the same time a Utilitarian

and a Hedonist, the champion of Impulse and again of Reason, an

anarchistic individualist and a herald of the right of society to rule

the individual. Angry and disappointed, we turn from him, for instead of

finding in him the definite standard we sought we have met with the

shifting hues of the chameleon and the uncanny changes of form of

Proteus.

The views of the English thinkers are clearer and more convincing

although they, too, do not carry their investigations far enough. Hobbes

uses Justice and Injustice as synonyms for Morality and Immorality, and

he definitely recognizes what Spinoza only dimly guessed, namely, that

these ideas could only arise in man when living as a member of society

and not in a being dwelling alone. According to him, therefore, Morality

is a social and not an individual phenomenon; just as the moral

philosophers of the theological school look upon it as the Will of God,

so he considers it to be the Will of Society. But he was under the

obligation (non-existent for the theologian) to trace to its source this

social Will, to show how it is manifested, to explain why the individual

not only submits to it, but values this submission far more highly than

mere utility. Man learns the Will of God by revelation, and it is

forbidden to inquire into its basis. To the Will of Society Hobbes

cannot possibly ascribe the same incontestable sanctity. It should not

have escaped his notice that this Will is neither uniform nor of assured

stability, and that it often wavers and is sometimes self-contradictory.

Therefore, if he wants to call the Will of Society Justice, as the

theologians call the Will of God Morality, and if he wants to look upon

Justice and Morality as equivalents, then it is his duty to explain how

Society can make claims which conflict with the principles on which the

universal rules it has drawn up are based, and which, consequently, not

being just or moral, are unjust and immoral, but which, nevertheless,

must be acknowledged by the individual as being both just and moral,

simply because they are social claims.

In Kant's moral philosophy we find the extremest form of mystic

dogmatism; its success would be inexplicable did one not know how prone

mankind is to be intimidated by brusque statements. Kant's dictatorial

pronouncements have become common-places. "Act only on that maxim

whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a

universal law." That is very impressive. But what is "the maxim" on

which you act? This maxim is the moral law. Now we yearn to know what

this moral law is, whence it comes, and on what it is based.

But our yearnings remains unsatisfied. The moral law is a secret. It is

an incomprehensible power which rules our consciousness. Ask no

questions. Be silent, submit and obey. Even the theologian discussing

moral philosophy will listen to reason. He gives us the information,

sibylline though it be, that the moral law emanates from the Will of

God, and is shown to us in the revelations of religion. Kant does not

even give such meagre information. The moral law exists. That must

suffice. "The starry heavens above thee, the moral law within thee." You

retort that that is a metaphor which you may call poetical, if you like,

but it is no explanation. You will get the following reply: this

metaphor, rightly understood, indicates that the moral law is eternal,

that it is part and parcel of uncreated Nature like the stars, that it

is a phenomenon of the same order as all the elements that go to make up

the universe. "The moral law does not flow from antecedent ideas of Good

and Evil; on the contrary, the moral law decides what is good and what

is evil." It is not derived from human experience. The less so since

"it cannot be proved by experience that it has at any place or any time

become real." In other words, no one can testify that the "Categorical

Imperative" has ever been realized, that the moral law has "at any place

or any time" ceased to be a Kantian theory productive of sacred thrills,

that it has ever emerged from the unapproachable cell wherein it dwells

in the temple of human consciousness, to take a place and play an active

part among mortals.

The lessee of all Kant's wisdom, Hermann Cohen, with the clumsiness of

an over-zealous assistant, has expressed his master's thought in a

perfectly ludicrous form: "The moral law is to be conceived as a reality

of such kind that it must exist, that its being must be" (note the

elegance and euphony of the phrase "being must be"!) "even if no

creature existed for whom it would be valid." True, the moral law is a

maxim on which you should "act," a standard of human conduct, but it

would still exist if there were no human beings and no action. It would

come to exactly the same thing if Hermann Cohen said: the railway is to

be conceived as a reality of such kind that it must exist if there were

no human beings and consequently no travellers; even if there were no

earth on the surface of which rails and sleepers could be laid. This is

such palpable nonsense that it would be a work of supererogation to

prove its absurdity. By this grotesque exaggeration Hermann Cohen has

clearly brought to light the hollowness and weakness of Kant's Moral

philosophy which culminates in the "Categorical Imperative." In spite

of its arbitrary dogmatism, the formula of the "Categorical Imperative"

has taken a hold on the imagination of the superficially educated, and

has never ceased to be repeated with the fervour evinced by a devout man

at prayer, by several generations of those who have made it their

business to cultivate mental and moral science.

In one of his early novels, "The Island of Dr. Moreau," H. G. Wells has

described how an audacious scientist, by performing an operation on the

brains of the most savage beasts of prey, such as panthers, wolves,

etc., transformed them into creatures with the powers of thought and

speech. He succeeds in suppressing, or at least in lulling for the time

being, their bloodthirsty instincts, but he is always afraid that these

may be roused again, and forbids the animals on which he experiments to

touch blood or fresh meat. He takes good care to give no reason for this

prohibition. He merely issues it sternly and threateningly. It is "the

Law," an unknown, inexplicable, but terrible power to which one must

submit, because opposition would expose one to unimaginable, but

terrible evils. If temptation assails the beasts they flee it,

whispering fearfully and warningly to one another: "The Law! the Law!"

Wells is a trained philosopher, and often has his tongue in his cheek. I

shrewdly suspect that when he writes of the mysterious "Law" which fills

Dr. Moreau's semi-humanized beasts of prey with superstitious terror, he

is poking fun at Kant's "Categorical Imperative."

The great logical mistake in Kant's moral philosophy is that he

conceives Morality as a social or collective phenomenon, and yet

defines it as an individual one. According to Kant, the Categorical

Imperative exists within us. It is as immutable as the starry heavens

above us. It gives us the criterion by which to discriminate between

good and evil. Its realm is our consciousness wherein it lives and

rules; it is not introduced from outside, it springs from no power or

conditions outside our person. All the same, the only law which this

ultra subjective Categorical Imperative imposes on us is the most

centrifugal that can possibly be imagined: "Act only on that maxim

whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a

universal law." Hence our action is designed to produce an effect on the

world around us. It is "to become a universal law" can, of course, only

mean, it is to become a universal law of human society, for Kant cannot

possibly have aspired to make the Categorical Imperative impose laws

upon the stars in their courses. Our moral law, in so far as it applies

to our actions, deals with society. When we formulate it in our minds,

we associate it from its first inception with the notion of the society

to which it is to be applied. It would have been logical to say: "Your

standard of conduct is to be what society recognizes as its universal

law." But Kant puts the cart before the horse and says on the contrary:

"The maxims on which thy action is based are by thy will to become the

universal law of society."

Other philosophers have avoided this mistake. Hegel declares: "It is not

until man becomes a member of a moral community that the ideas of Duty

and Virtue attain a definite meaning and become direct representatives

of a universal spirit in subjectivity, which knows that it is actuated

in its aim by the universal and realizes that its dignity and its

particular aims are founded upon it." If we translate this horribly hazy

language of Hegel's into plain speech we find it means: "The ideas of

Duty and Virtue only acquire a meaning when they are applied to the acts

of commission and omission of the individual member of a community."

(When Hegel speaks of "moral community" his use of the word "moral" is

inadmissible, for he takes it for granted that the meaning of the word

"moral" has been determined and is clearly understood, whereas he ought

first to have defined its meaning.) The concepts of Duty and Virtue

denote that the individual in taking action thinks of the community,

that regard for its interests determines him, that his actions do not

attain dignity and worth until his aim becomes the interests of the

community, that these interests must coincide with those of the

individual if his actions in his own interests are to merit the

appellations of dutiful and virtuous. In short: to act morally is to act

so as to ensure the well-being of the community. The real Categorical

Imperative is a social conscience.

Feuerbach expresses this thought clearly and distinctly when he says:

"There can be no question of Morality in the strict sense of the word

except where the subject of discussion is the relationship of man to

man, of one person to another, of me to thee."

Recent contemporary French writers are in no way doubtful of the

meaning implied by the concept of Morality. "Morality," says Littré,

"is the whole collection of rules which determine our conduct towards

others. Moral Good is the ideal, which at any period of a civilization

forms opinions and customs with respect to this conduct; moral evil is

that which offends this ideal." This definition is very incomplete and

weak, as will be seen in the course of our remarks, but on one point it

is quite clear: it treats Morality as a social phenomenon, it

paraphrases it as the adjustment of individual action to the standard

set up by the community. The question of the origin and the aim of this

standard is left open.

L. Lévy-Brühl formulates Littré's idea more clearly. "We call by the

name of Morality the collection of such conceptions, opinions, feelings

and customs respecting the mutual rights and duties of men in their life

as members of a community, as are recognized and generally observed at a

given time in a given civilization."

Thus, according to some, Morality is subjection to an absolute law of

divine, or at any rate of unexplained and inexplicable origin, which

religion or a mysterious inner voice reveals to man; according to

others, it is the recognition that the claims of the community, or at

any rate of the majority of one's fellow men, are of binding force upon

the actions of the individual. These different answers to an inquiry as

to the origin of Morality both contain the tacit admission that it is a

law which peremptorily dictates to man what he shall do and what he

shall not do. But by means of what psychic mechanism does this law

enforce obedience in the consciousness of man? It is remarkable that all

moral philosophers, no matter to what age, nation or school they belong,

dimly feel or clearly recognize that in civilized man at any rate,

natural instincts and judgment are always at war; that the latter

opposes the former; that in the victory of judgment over impulse lies

the very essence of Morality; that consequently the essence of Morality

implies the control and repression of instinct by Reason--in a word,

that it is inhibition.

We have seen that Aristotle, in definite though unconscious opposition

to the Stoics, who consider Morality synonymous with Nature, defines it

as the activity of Reason.

Henry More was the first to express this quite clearly: "Virtue is an

intellectual force of the soul which enables it to control ... animal

instincts and sensual passions."

And Dr. Jodl sums up the character of Christian morality in the

statement: "Moral philosophy under the influence of Christian ideas

makes Morality always appear in the guise of a prohibition; at any rate

it is apt to conceive Morality as acting in an essentially restrictive

and prohibitive manner upon the natural impulses and instincts of man."

This is not quite correct. This Christian code of morals does not always

manifest itself as a prohibition. Its main precept is: "Love thy

neighbour as thyself." That is not a prohibition but a positive command.

Nevertheless, the point of departure of this command is an inhibition.

For the first instinctive movement of man is selfishness and, as its

consequence, indifference to one's neighbour; the first imperious

impulse is to sacrifice the latter's interests to one's own. But if

regard for one's neighbour, nay, love for him permeates our feelings,

thoughts and actions, that denotes a victory of Christian ideas over the

impulse of instinct, a suppression of that impulse--that is, an

inhibition which, not content with mere prevention, prolongs its

efficacy in the same direction until it changes the impulse of

selfishness and inconsiderateness into its very antithesis, that of

unselfishness and charity.

It constitutes an important advance in knowledge to recognize that

Morality, and not, as Jodl makes out, only Christian Morality, is

manifested as an inhibition, as the victory achieved by Reason over

Instinct which is contemptuously described as animal, simply because its

worth is judged by a standard already supplied by current views on

Morals. It is inadmissible to judge by this standard when one attempts

an impartial investigation into the ultimate foundations and the essence

of Morality. We have no plainly obvious right--no right which does not

require a proof--simply to scorn instinct as animal; to run it down from

the start and with a respectful bow to give Reason precedence over it;

to applaud with satisfaction the suppression of rascally Instinct by

highly respectable Reason. Instinct is no more animal than any other

manifestation of life in man; and he indulges in pleasant self-deception

if he imagines that he is other than an animal, that is, a living

organism in which all processes take place according to the same laws as

in all other living beings, from the simplest one-celled creature to

the most highly developed and complicated.

In itself Instinct has the same claim to dignity as Reason; according to

some people an even greater one, because the former is more primitive,

unpremeditated, self-assured and firmly established than the latter, and

if Reason claims to be the superior, it must substantiate that claim.

As a matter of fact, that claim has never been universally acknowledged.

Periods during which Reason rules at least in name and is treated with

the obsequious reverence which the model citizen has, or feigns to have,

for his sovereign, are followed by others in which Instinct revolts;

rebels dethrone Reason and set up Instinct in its place, or, as they

call it, passion and nature. The parties which in turn wield power in

these periodic revolutions may be briefly termed classical and romantic.

The classicists are the legitimist supporters of Reason; the

romanticists are revolutionaries, and their leaders are men like Cleon

or Jack Cade, Cromwell, Washington or Robespierre; that is to say, rude

demagogues or subtle dialecticians in favour of Instinct. Among the

legitimists in Reason as in politics, are to be found those who maintain

the divine right, who base the right of Reason to rule over Instinct

upon the Will of God, and others again, the constitutionalists, who base

their support on the Will of the people, on universal suffrage, who

force upon Instinct the law promulgated by society. I need not carry the

metaphor to extremes. Every reader can work it out in all its details.

I only wanted to show quite clearly that almost all moral philosophers

conceived Morality as a struggle between Reason and Instinct, as the

defeat of lawlessness by law. But their views diverge widely when they

try to explain the source of this law and its claim to obedience.

The theologians find no difficulty in this explanation. Just as the

essence of Morality according to their ideas is the nearest possible

approximation to divine perfection, so the moral law is one enacted by

God Himself, and it is a sin punishable with hell fire to fail to

observe it or to rebel against it. Others look upon Man as his own

law-giver, and trace his moral conduct, his willingness to combat his

own instincts, to an inner voice which teaches him what is right. They

call this inner voice by different names. They call it Nature, Reason or

Conscience, and look upon it as something innate, as a normal

constituent of man's psychic nature. That is the meaning of Fichte's

apodictic statement: "That which does not meet with the approval of

one's own conscience is necessarily sin. Therefore he who acts on anyone

else's authority acts in a conscienceless manner."

With this emphatic utterance Fichte dismisses both the devout believers,

for whom Morality is the revealed Will of God, and the Rationalists who

look upon it as the dictate of society. He considers that if man claims

to act morally, he can do so only on his own authority, i.e. on that of

his conscience. He is not aware that in so doing he frivolously abandons

all rights to pronounce an objective moral judgment on any human action.

He thereby relinquishes the power to ask any further question except:

"Did he act in accordance with his own conscience? If so, then he has

acted in a subjectively conscientious way, even if it appears to me to

be immoral or even criminal and monstrous. If he has acted contrary to

the promptings of his own conscience, then he is assuredly a sinner,

even if his action be in my eyes splendid and exemplary." Thus Fichte,

with his subjective basis of Morality, is led to a conclusion which is a

ludicrous reversal of generally accepted ideas. According to him, a man

would be acting conscientiously if, despising what all others hold good,

right and sacred, he wallows in the satisfaction of his selfish

instincts, as long as his conscience approves or even bids him do so; on

the other hand, he is a sinner if, in opposition to his inner voice, but

according to moral law, that is in obedience to extraneous authority, he

practices all the virtues.

All these subjective moral philosophers tacitly assume with Rousseau

that man is by nature good. They take no account of the empirically

established fact that there are men whose Fichtean conscience, or whose

Kantian categorical imperative, urges them to a course of action which

according to the general opinion is bad, wicked and revolting. This

criticism applies to Beneke, according to whom Morality is "a

development of human nature which exists as such within us, and which we

need only continue or promote"; it applies equally to Reid and Dugald

Stewart, who describe it as an inclination, which has become a habit or

a principle, to act according to the dictates of conscience. But

conscience must be explained. It is by no means self-evident that each

individual conscience will have the same standard of good and evil. The

moral philosopher must not shirk the duty of showing how the conscience

acquires its concepts of moral values, with what weapons it provides

Reason to combat Instinct, which demands satisfaction without paying any

attention to the warnings of conscience.

The great majority of moral philosophers do not endorse the view of Kant

and Fichte, that conscience is a piece of human nature, a sense inborn

in man, an inner voice that is independent of, and unmoved by, external

influences; on the contrary, they are convinced that conscience

originates outside the individual, that, in his consciousness, it is the

advocate retained by society, commissioned to plead the cause of the

community before the reason of the individual even, nay, especially,

when the interests of the community run counter to those of the

individual.

Bacon calls the presence in our consciousness of a defender of the

interests of society our innate social affection, and treats it

unreservedly as the source of Morality. Long before his time the

Stoics had noted the existence of this social affection and called it

[Greek: oikeiôsis]; Hugo Grotius, with the intellectual perspicuity

peculiar to himself, says that "Right and Morality flow from the same

source, and this source is a strong social instinct natural to man, it

is solicitude for the community, a solicitude guided by Reason." The

English philosophers are practically unanimous in ascribing both

conscience and Morality in general to a social source. The welfare of

the community, says Richard Cumberland, is the highest moral law;

Hutcheson remarks that, in the struggle between egoism and universal

benevolence, the decisive factor in favour of the latter is the

accompanying feeling, the reflective emotion of approval.

In modern parlance we call "universal benevolence," altruism, and the

"reflective emotion of approval" is a paraphrase of conscience which

contains an indication of its mode of action. For the idea that our

action will meet with the approval of the community and the pleasurable

emotion of satisfaction are in fact the reasons why we mostly submit to

the dictates of conscience voicing the commands of the community. Only

Hutcheson is too venturesome and goes too far, when he maintains

unreservedly that the reflective emotion of approval in the struggle

between egoism and universal benevolence is the decisive factor which

turns the scales in favour of the latter. This is by no means always the

case. When it does occur we call the action moral, but we characterize

it as immoral when, in spite of the "reflective emotion of approval"

"universal benevolence" is worsted by egoism.

It is unnecessary to quote the opinions of other moral philosophers.

It is enough to observe that most of them describe the moral law as a

social agreement and make conscience its accredited representative.

L. Lévy-Brühl repeats a doctrine current since the days of Pythagoras

when he says: "The sense of duty and that of responsibility, horror of

crime, love of what is good and reverence for justice--all these, which

a conscience sensitive to Morality thinks it derives from itself and

from itself alone, have nevertheless a social origin"; and Feuerbach

expresses the same view in an entertainingly melodramatic fashion when

he calls the voice of conscience "An echo of the cry of revenge uttered

by the injured party." This cry of revenge would never wake an echo in

us if we did not possess a sounding board which cries of distress and

lamentation cause to vibrate. Schopenhauer, digging deeper than his

predecessor, clearly recognizes this sounding board, and describes its

characteristics when he says that the foundation of ethics is pity,

which in its passive form warns us: "_Neminem laede!_ Do harm to no

one!" And in its active form gives the order: "_Imo omnes quantum potes

juva!_ Assist everyone with all your might!"

The assumption, that sympathy with his neighbour must be present in

man's consciousness before he is capable of moral action, is one that

need not be made by subjective moral philosophers, who hold with Kant

and his school that the moral law is an inborn categorical imperative,

which proclaims its commands without reference to any extraneous object,

or to the world, or mankind.

In the same way the theologians have no need of it, for they consider

that what is morally good is the Will of God.

But he who holds with the moral philosophers of sociological tendencies

that Morality is regard for one's fellow men, and the recognition that

the claims of the real or supposed interest of the community are

superior to those of the comfort of the individual, must admit that

sympathy is a necessary preliminary to moral action; i.e. that the

individual must have the ability to picture the sufferings of others so

vividly that he feels their sorrows as his own, and with all his might

and all his will strives to prevent, alleviate and heal them. The lack

of this ability, psychic anæsthesia, is a symptom of disease. It renders

the person affected incapable of moral action. It is a characteristic of

the born criminal, and is the essential symptom of that state of mind

which alienists term moral insanity. Even in this condition, if reason

and the power of judgment are not affected, great offences against

current moral law can be avoided. But this results from the fear of the

painful and ruinous results which a collision with public opinion

entails, even if the offender is not actually haled into court. It is

not due to any inner necessity, nor to the prompting of one's own

feelings.

Only the Rationalists have any cause or reason to inquire into the aims

of Morality, whether they look upon the moral law as dictated by society

or are of the opinion that it is the sum total of the rules by which

Reason, of its own initiative, successfully combats the urging of

Instinct. If the moral law is a creation of society, and is obeyed by

the individual out of sympathy with his fellow-men or consideration for

society, the logical conclusion is that society has set up the moral law

to satisfy some real or imagined need. Its aim in this case can only be

the real or supposed welfare of the community. This is the most widely

accepted view.

"Morality and universal welfare," says Macchiavelli, "are conceptions

which coincide." In his calm assurance this apodictic writer, who

doubtlessly slept well and had an excellent digestion, is never troubled

by a doubt as to whether there is such a thing as an absolutely reliable

measure of universal welfare, and therefore whether Morality, which is

termed its equivalent, can provide us with a perfectly unimpeachable

standard. He whose ethical conscience is more tender and timid will

inevitably anxiously ask himself: Who decides what universal welfare

demands and what is conducive to it? Is it to be the masses? Is the mob,

incapable of thought, ignorant, swayed by momentary and shifting

impulses, to make moral laws for the select few who are its natural

guides? What tragedies would necessarily result from this definition!

How often a strong personality, trained to come to independent

conclusions, refuses to obey the voice of the mob! Is the sheep who

trots bleating along with the herd to be taken as the type of a moral

being? Must we necessarily condemn as immoral those who swim against the

stream, enlightened tyrants who force upon their people hateful

innovations calculated to ensure their welfare,--such men as Peter the

Great, the Emperor Joseph II, the reformer who comes into violent

conflict with the majority who are creatures of habit? "The aim of

Morality is the welfare of society; this is indeed the essence of

Morality." A sufficiently safe and most soothing formula this seems; but

really the security it gives is most deceptive, and it leaves unsolved

the most important problems relating to the phenomenon of Morality.

A numerous group of moral philosophers seeks the aim of moral conduct

in the individual himself, not outside him. In spite of Schopenhauer's

sympathy, they doubt that consideration for the well-being of the

community would act forcibly enough upon the individual to induce him to

wage unceasing war on his impulses and struggle to overcome them. Rather

they hold that the individual must find in his inner consciousness not

only the spur to moral action, but also the reward for the same, and

they characterize this driving force as pleasurable emotions in every

sense of the words. According to them man acts morally because, and in

so far as, he anticipates pleasurable results from so doing. Epicurus

considers the aim of Morality always to be Pleasure. He makes only the

one reservation, that a reasonable man will renounce an immediate

pleasure for the sake of a greater one in the future, and that he may

delight in the anticipation of pleasurable emotions which defeat and

dull present pains. Thus the martyr may be a true Epicurean, even if by

his actions he exposes himself to most cruel torture and the most

painful death, for he is convinced that the everlasting joys of paradise

will more than indemnify him for his temporary sufferings.

I have already shown that Aristotle considers Morality the activity of

practical Reason, which is accompanied by pleasurable emotions. He makes

these pleasurable emotions an essential part of Morality, and Spinoza

shares this view, for he says: "Knowledge of good and evil is nothing

but a pleasurable or a disagreeable emotion in so far as we are

conscious of it."

No less roundly, one might almost say brutally, Leibnitz declares: "We

term good that which gives us pleasure; evil that which gives us pain,"

while Feuerbach expresses himself rather more carefully and indefinitely

thus: "The instinct for happiness is the most potent of all instincts.

Where existence always occurs together with volition, volition and the

will to be happy are inseparable; they are, indeed, essentially one. 'I

will,' means 'I have the will not to suffer, not to be hindered and

destroyed, but, on the contrary, to be assisted and preserved; that is,

I have the will to be happy.'" This is a wordy paraphrase of Spinoza's:

"All existence is self-assertion, and Morality is only the highest and

purest form of this fundamental instinct in a reasonable being."

Among those moral philosophers who see in pleasurable emotions the aim

of Morality, its reward and its incentive, we must distinguish two

groups: those who understand by pleasurable emotions such as appeal to

the senses--the Hedonists; and those who spiritualize the meaning of the

word and expect of Morality not an immediate bodily gratification, a

pleasure, or an insipid satisfaction of the sense, but lasting

happiness--the Eudæmonists. At the first glance the Eudæmonists seem to

have a higher and more worthy conception of the subjective reaction of

moral conduct than have the Hedonists; for the satisfaction the former

expect and promise does not apply to the lower spheres of our organic

life, but to the loftiest functions of our mind, from which alone a

feeling of happiness can emanate.

But if we look into the matter more closely we find that to draw a sharp

distinction between the Hedonists and Eudæmonists is more than a little

arbitrary. For Pleasure and Happiness differ hardly at all in

essentials, but chiefly in degree; and this would at once be obvious if

one only took the trouble to define the two ideas, which, however, is

mostly not done. And with good reason, for it is impossible to explain

Pleasure. You can use synonyms for it; you can look wise and say:

Pleasure is that which is agreeable, or that which one desires, that in

which one delights, or a certain quality of feeling which accompanies

such organic processes as strengthen or vitalize the system; but all

that this amounts to is to say in a roundabout way, Pleasure is

Pleasure. It is a fundamental fact of our inner consciousness, just as

inexplicable as life, or as its antithesis, Pain. But if we assume that

Pleasure is something given by subjective experience, then the idea of

Happiness can be defined. Happiness is a flooding of the consciousness

with sunshine; it is enjoyment of the moment, a sense of living in the

present accentuated by pleasurable emotion. If this feeling is

organically differentiated, that is, if it springs from a certain

section of the mind or mechanism of the body and can be located there,

it is ecstasy. It is only felt as Happiness when it is, so to speak,

melted, dissolved, distributed throughout the organism,

coenesthetically diffused.

If we agree to this definition we can take Eudæmonism into consideration

as an aim of moral action, but Hedonism we shall have to discard from

the start. If Morality is to be inhibition, a victory of Reason over

Instinct, then it cannot possibly arouse Pleasure, since the first and

most immediate source of Pleasure is the surrender to instinct, the

satisfaction of the organic appetites; but if one resists them,

suppresses them, then one experiences a privation which at best

occasions discomfort and may easily cause pain. By its very nature and

the mechanism by which it works, Morality can therefore give rise to no

pleasure, but only to discomfort. All the same, it can afford a feeling

of happiness.

It may be objected that I am guilty of a contradiction when I assume the

possibility of Happiness without Pleasure, as I have just described

Happiness as a particular kind of Pleasure; but in reality there is no

contradiction. For Pleasure springs from a special organic apparatus,

whereas Happiness is not a condition of any particular apparatus in our

body, but a general feeling that cannot be located; if it is roused by

moral actions it originates in the self-satisfaction of Reason, in its

pride in the victory over Instinct, in the rapture occasioned by one's

own strength of will; therefore, it can well exist without any

differentiated pleasurable emotion located in any particular organic

apparatus.

Many moral philosophers have for various reasons rejected plausible

Eudæmonism as well as Hedonism, and these reasons can all be traced back

to the recognition, or at least an inkling, of the fact that moral

action in the nature of things must exclude pleasurable emotions; at any

rate immediate ones, and such as are perceived by the senses. Perhaps

Fichte does this in the most naïve fashion, for he rejects every form of

Eudæmonism as the aim of moral action, but admits as its purpose only

bliss, that is to say, the self-satisfaction of Reason resulting from

action in accordance with its own laws. However, he struggles in vain to

deny that this "bliss" is of the nature of a pleasurable emotion, or to

interpret it as differing from Eudæmonism. He is only giving the latter

another name to make it conform in an orthodox manner with his doctrine

of the Supreme Ego. "_Baptizo te carpam!_" I baptize thee, carp! In this

way the pious man complies with the law enjoining abstinence from meat,

and with an easy conscience smacks his lips over a roast pheasant which

he has dubbed fish.

Plato is among those who most emphatically deny that Pleasure is either

the motive force, the accompaniment, the consequence, or the aim of

Morality. But a reasonable thinker can derive no profit from his

arguments in support of this point of view, for they are rambling,

fantastic, mystical and visionary. Plato thinks it a necessary

consequence of the very nature of Good that it should be absolutely

self-sufficient. For Pleasure is a perpetual growth, a ceaseless longing

for more; it can therefore not be self-sufficient, and on this account

can not be the foundation of Morality.

However, it is by no means obvious why Morality should not be in a

perpetual state of growth (just as Pleasure is, according to Plato), or

why it should not constantly desire an increase of its own activities.

On the contrary, this craving is just what one would most wish Morality

to have. True, it would not then attain self-satisfaction. But what is

the good of this self-satisfaction? It is a pleasurable emotion, and

according to Plato Morality is supposed to have nothing in common with

Pleasure. It is not to be contentment and serene satisfaction, but

rather tireless endeavour. However, Plato, of course, cannot admit this,

because for him Good and the deity are identical, and being perfect can

therefore advance no farther in perfection; and the striving after Good

is merely an effort of memory on man's part to call to mind more clearly

the deity whom he saw in his spiritual life before birth, and of whom he

retains a dim and confused memory in his earthly life. It is plainly

idle to waste reasonable criticism upon such visionary arguments.

The Stoics, too, try to sever the connexion between moral conduct and

Pleasure, and to conceive the former as a simple activity of human

nature, one, moreover, from which they expect no particular

satisfaction. They overlook the fact that every activity of the impulses

and instincts of man's own nature affords him satisfaction, and that

Pleasure is nothing but this very satisfaction of natural instincts. If,

then, Morality were, as the Stoics contend, only "Life in harmony with

Nature herself," then, like every other satisfaction of natural desires,

it should be an ever-flowing source of pleasurable emotions, and this

characteristic would be inseparable from it, though the Stoics may

vainly try to deny it.

Christianity has an easier job than Stoicism. With harsh severity,

disregarding any plea for indulgence in view of the weakness of the

flesh, it absolutely excludes the factor of pleasure from the fulfilment

of moral duties. But this severity is only apparent. The good and just

man can expect no reward for his moral conduct here on earth, but he

will find a much more ample one in the life to come. To the devout

believer who gives unlimited credit to it, the promise of the joys of

paradise has the full value of a cash disbursement. It is somewhat

childish juggling with words to deny pleasurable emotion to be the aim

of moral conduct if at the same time a most vivid foretaste of the

eternal bliss which awaits him after death be given to the virtuous man;

as if the anticipation of heavenly bliss were not a pleasurable emotion

of the highest degree!

Kant finds it due to his point of view to spurn every weak inclination

to Eudæmonism. A Categorical Imperative cannot issue commands with an

eye to profit or comfort. That is as clear as daylight. "All Morality of

action must be founded on the necessity which arises from duty and

respect for the law, and not from love or inclination for the desired

result of the action." Schopenhauer, Feuerbach, and John Stuart Mill

have recorded such irrefutable criticisms of the Kantian doctrine of the

absolute disinterestedness of moral action, that it is unnecessary to

add to their arguments.

Only some moral philosophers, and particularly Mill, are guilty of

logical inaccuracy when they reject Eudæmonism but retain Utility as the

aim of morality. Why do the Utilitarians not realize that they are

merely Eudæmonists under another name, and that he who disregards his

own immediate interests in order to further the well-being of the

community experiences a pleasurable emotion of high order in the

satisfaction he derives from the sacrifices whereby he has contributed

to the good of the community?

The useless exertions of a section of moral philosophers to eliminate

not only Hedonism but also Eudæmonism from moral action are a veritable

labour of Sisyphus. Hardly have these two with difficulty been expelled

by the door than they return by the window or the chimney. It is a mere

conjuring trick to remove them from this world to the next, as do the

theologians, or to substitute universal well-being for the feeling of

happiness. All the same, the desire to purge moral action of the least

admixture of hope of profit or pleasure is comprehensible. Common

experience, which is equally forced upon the profound thinker and upon

the plain man in the street least inclined to cudgel his brain, teaches

us that Morality consists, with very few exceptions, in acting against

our own immediate interest, in denying ourselves some coveted pleasure,

in renouncing some attainable profit, in undertaking some disagreeable

exertion because Reason bids us do so. From this practical experience

the man in the street gets the impression that duty is a bitter

necessity and that decency is attended by many and varied

inconveniences. The theorist, the philosopher, derives a principle from

his empirical facts; he observes that the moral man often acts against

his own immediate interests, and expresses this in the pretentious

axiom: "Morality from the very beginning excludes all thought of

profit."

And yet the philosophers are guilty of the same superficiality as the

man in the street. They do not go far enough into the matter to perceive

that the morality of pleasure, of interest, and of duty, Hedonism,

Utilitarianism and the Categorical Imperative, all lead in very slightly

different ways to the same goal--Eudæmonism. The fulfilment of duty

affords spiritual satisfaction, a pre-eminently pleasurable emotion

which increases in direct proportion to the effort which its fulfilment

demands. Interest also implies pleasure, for every interest ultimately

comes to this, that it is an attempt to secure a pleasure. This aim lies

at the bottom of all interests; it is the fundamental interest from

which all seemingly different interests are derived; it is the universal

goal to which all human effort tends, whether it be a question of making

money to satisfy ambition, of winning love and friendship, of material,

spiritual, personal or social values. Interest is self-assertion and the

intensifying of the zest for life. But these are always accompanied by

pleasurable emotions; thus interest is forthwith identified with

pleasurable emotion, even though one has to work hard, even though at

the moment it entails drudgery and discomfort. Hedonism makes no secret

of its nature and its tendency. It openly admits what the Categorical

Imperative denies and what Utilitarianism veils with vague phrases: that

the aim and object of moral action is Pleasure and nothing else.

In our short survey of the immense field of literature dealing with

moral philosophy we have learnt that, although the most various and

divergent views are expressed as to the essence and source of Morality,

nevertheless there is but one opinion, be it clearly or vaguely stated,

be it the result of knowledge or surmise, as to the mechanism by means

of which moral concepts determine action, and as to the conscious or

unconscious aim of moral action: Moral concepts do their work by means

of inhibition, and the aim of moral action is a feeling of happiness.