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OLD-FASHIONED ETHICS AND COMMON-SENSE METAPHYSICS
With Some of Their Applications
by
WILLIAM THOMAS THORNTON
Author of a Treatise 'On Labour'
London
Macmillan and Co.
1873
_All rights reserved_
'I entirely agree with you as to the ill tendency of the affected
doubts of some philosophers and the fantastical conceits of others.
I am even so far gone of late in this way of thinking, that I have
quitted several of the sublime notions I had got in their schools
for vulgar opinions. And I give it you on my word, that since this
revolt from metaphysical notions to the plain dictates of nature
and common sense, I find my understanding strangely enlightened, so
that I can now easily comprehend a great many things which before
were all mystery and riddle.'--BERKELEY'S HYLAS AND PHILONOUS.
PREFACE.
The book was all but finished, and only the Preface remained, over which
I was hesitating, apprehensive equally of putting into it too much and
too little, when one of the most frequent 'companions of my solitude'
came to my aid, shewing me, in fragments, a preface already nearly
written, and needing only a little piecing to become forthwith
presentable. Here it is.
'In these sick days, in a world such as ours, richer than usual in
Truths grown obsolete, what can the fool think but that it is all a Den
of Lies wherein whoso will not speak and act Lies must stand idle and
despair?' Whereby it happens that for the artist who would fain minister
medicinally to the relief of folly, 'the publishing of a Work of Art,'
designed, like this, to redeem Truth from premature obsolescence,
'becomes almost a necessity.' For, albeit, 'in the heart of the speaker
there ought to be some kind of gospel tidings burning until it be
uttered, so that otherwise it were better for him that he altogether
held his peace,' still, than to have fire burning within, and not to put
it forth, not many worse things are readily imaginable.
'Has the word Duty no meaning? Is what we call Duty no divine messenger
and guide, but a false, earthly fantasm, made up of Desire and Fear?' In
that' Logic-mill of thine' hast thou 'an earthly mechanism for the
Godlike itself, and for grinding out Virtue from the husks of Pleasure?
I tell thee, Nay! Otherwise, not on Morality, but on Cookery, let us
build our stronghold. There, brandishing our frying-pan as censer, let
us offer up sweet incense to the Devil, and live at ease on the fat
things _he_ has provided for his elect,' seeing that 'with stupidity and
sound digestion, man may front much.'
Or, 'is there no God? or, at best, an absentee God, sitting idle ever
since the first Sabbath, at the outside of His universe, and _seeing_ it
go?' Know that for man's well-being, whatever else be needed, 'Faith is
one thing needful.' Mark, 'how, with it, Martyrs, otherwise weak, can
cheerfully endure the shame and the cross; how, without it, worldlings
puke up their sick existence, by suicide, in the midst of luxury.' Of
how much else, 'for a pure moral nature, is not the loss of Religious
Belief the loss?' 'All wounds, the crush of long-continued Destitution,
the stab of false Friendship and of false Love, all wounds in the so
genial heart would have healed again had not the life-warmth of Faith
been withdrawn.' But this once lost, how recoverable? how, rather, ever
acquirable? 'First must the dead Letter of Religion own itself dead, and
drop piecemeal into dust, if the living Spirit of Religion, freed from
this, its charnel house, is to arise on us, new born of Heaven, and with
new healing under its wings.'
Beside these burning words of Mr. Carlyle any additional words of mine
would stand only as superfluous foils, and are, therefore, considerately
pretermitted.
CADOGAN PLACE: _December 1872._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ANTI-UTILITARIANISM 1
II. HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS 84
III. DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN 113
IV. HUXLEYISM 158
V. RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM 199
VI. LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM 266
EPILOGUE 298
OLD-FASHIONED ETHICS
AND
COMMON-SENSE METAPHYSICS
CHAPTER I.
_ANTI-UTILITARIANISM._
I.
Having, by the heading of this essay, announced that it is intended to
be partly controversial, I can scarcely begin better than by furnishing
the reader with the means of judging whether I myself correctly
apprehend the doctrine which I am about to criticise. If, then, I were
myself an Utilitarian, and, for the sake either of vindicating my own
belief, or of making converts of other people, had undertaken to explain
what Utilitarianism is, I should set about the task somewhat in this
wise:--
The sole use and sole object of existence is enjoyment or pleasure,
which two words will here be treated as synonymous; happiness, also,
though not quite identical in meaning, being occasionally substituted
for them. Enjoyment, it must be observed, is of very various kinds,
measures, and degrees. It may be sensual, or emotional, or imaginative,
or intellectual, or moral. It may be momentary or eternal; intoxicating
delight or sober satisfaction. It may be unmixed and undisturbed, in
which case, however short of duration or coarse in quality, it may in
strictness be called happiness; or it may be troubled and alloyed,
although of a flavour which would be exquisite if pure, and if there
were nothing to interfere with the perception of it. Understood,
however, in a sufficiently comprehensive sense, enjoyment or pleasure
may be clearly perceived to be the sole object of existence. The whole
value of life plainly consists of the enjoyment, present or future,
which life affords, or is capable of affording or securing. Now, the
excellence of all rules depends on their conduciveness to the object
they have in view. The excellence of all rules of life must, therefore,
depend on their conduciveness to the sole object which life has in view,
viz., enjoyment. But the excellence of rules of life, or of conduct or
modes of acting, would seem to be but another name for their morality,
and the morality of actions obviously depends on their conformity to
moral rules. Whence, if so much be admitted, it necessarily follows that
the test of the morality of actions is their conduciveness to enjoyment.
But the enjoyment thus referred to is not that of the agent alone, for
if it were, no action whatever could possibly be immoral. Whatever any
one does, he does either because to do it gives him or promises him
pleasure, or because he believes that the not doing it would subject him
to more pain than he will suffer from doing it. Besides, one person's
enjoyment may be obtained at the expense of other people's suffering, so
that an act in which the actor takes pleasure may destroy or prevent
more pleasure altogether than it creates. The enjoyment or happiness,
therefore, which Utilitarianism regards, is not individual, but general
happiness; not that of one or of a few, but of the many, nor even of the
many only. It is often declared to be the greatest happiness of the
greatest number, but it may with more accuracy be described as the
largest aggregate of happiness attainable by any or by all
concerned.[1] Again, an action which, in some particular instance,
causes more pleasure than pain to those affected by it, may yet belong
to a class of actions which, in the generality of cases, causes more
pain than pleasure, and may thus involve a violation of a moral rule,
and, consequently, be itself immoral. Wherefore the enjoyment which
Utilitarianism adopts as its moral test is not simply the greatest sum
of enjoyment for all concerned, but that greatest sum in the greatest
number of cases. In its widest signification it is the greatest
happiness of society at large and in the long run. From these premises a
decisive criterion of right and wrong may be deduced. Every action
belonging to a class calculated to promote the permanent happiness of
society is right. Every action belonging to a class opposed to the
permanent happiness of society is wrong.
In the foregoing exposition I have, I trust, evinced a sincere desire to
give Utilitarianism its full due, and I shall at least be admitted to
have shown myself entirely free from most of those more vulgar
misconceptions of its nature which have given its professors such just
offence. Many of its assailants have not scrupled to stigmatise as
worthy only of swine a doctrine which represents life as having no
better and nobler object of desire and pursuit than pleasure. To these,
however, it has, by the great apostle of Utilitarianism, been
triumphantly replied that it is really they themselves who insult human
nature by using language that assumes human beings to be capable of no
higher pleasures than those of which swine are capable; and that,
moreover, if the assumption were correct, and if the capacities of men
and of swine were identical, whatever rule of life were good enough for
the latter would likewise be good enough for the former. But I am not an
assailant of this description. Inasmuch as there undeniably are very
many and very various kinds of pleasure, I of course allow
Utilitarianism credit for common sense enough to acknowledge that those
kinds are most worthy of pursuit which, from whatever cause, possess
most value--that those which are most precious are those most to be
prized. But whoever allows thus much will have no alternative but to
concede a great deal more. The most precious of pleasures is that which
arises from the practice of virtue, as may be proved conclusively in the
only way of which the case admits, viz., by reference to the fact that,
whoever is equally acquainted with that and with other pleasures,
deliberately prefers it to all the rest, will, if necessary, forego all
others for its sake, and values no others obtainable only at its
expense. By necessary implication it follows that, as being more
valuable than any other, the pleasure arising from the practice of
virtue must be that which Utilitarianism recommends above all others as
an object of pursuit. But the pursuit of this particular pleasure and
the practice of virtue are synonymous terms. What, therefore,
Utilitarianism above all other things recommends and insists upon is the
practice of virtue. Now, the practice of virtue commonly involves
subordination of one's own interest to that of other people; indeed,
virtue would not be virtue in the utilitarian sense of the word unless
it did involve such subordination. Wherefore the pleasure arising from
the practice of virtue, the pleasure which occupies the highest place on
the utilitarian scale, and that which Utilitarianism exhorts its
disciples chiefly to seek after, is nothing else than the pleasure
derived from attending to other people's pleasure instead of to our own.
Nor is this all. In order adequately to appreciate the loftiness of
utilitarian teaching, and its utter exemption from the sordidness with
which it is ignorantly charged, we must devote a few moments to
examination of those distinctive peculiarities of different kinds of
pleasure which entitle them to different places in our esteem.
All pleasures may be arranged under five heads, and in regularly
ascending series, as follows:--
1. Sensual pleasures:--To wit, those of eating and drinking, and
whatever others are altogether of the flesh, fleshly.
2. Emotional, by which are to be understood agreeable moods of the mind,
such as, irrespectively of any agreeable idea brought forward
simultaneously by association, are produced by music ('for,' as Milton
says, 'eloquence the soul, song charms the sense'), by beauty of form or
colour, by genial sunshine, by balmy or invigorating air.
3. Imaginative, or pleasures derived from the contemplation of mental
pictures.
4. Intellectual, or those consequent on exercise of the reasoning
powers.
5. Moral, or those which are alluded to when virtue is spoken of as
being its own reward.[2]
That of these several kinds, each of the last four is preferable to any
preceding it on the list will, it is to be hoped, be allowed to pass as
an unquestioned truth, for to any one perverse enough to deny it, the
only answer that can be made is an appeal to observation in proof that
all persons who are equally acquainted with the several kinds do exhibit
the preferences indicated. Neither, so far as the two kinds first-named
alone are concerned, is it possible to go much more deeply into the
reasons why emotional pleasures are to be preferred to sensual, than by
pointing to the fact that all competent judges of both are observed to
like the former best. If all those who are endowed with equal
sensitiveness of ear and of palate prefer music to feasting, and would
any day give up a dinner at Francatelli's for the sake of hearing a
rejuvenescent Persiani as Zerlina, or Patti as Dinorah, the one thing
presumable is, that all such persons derive more enjoyment from perfect
melody than from perfect cookery, and little else remains to be said on
the subject. The same ultimate fact need not, however, limit our inquiry
as to the preferableness of imaginative or intellectual to emotional
pleasures, and of moral to any of the other three. This admits of, and
demands, a more subtle explanation, from which we may learn, not merely
that certain preferences are shown, but also why they are shown. The
preferences in question are demonstrably not due to the greater
poignancy of the pleasures preferred. It is simply not true that the
keenest of imaginative pleasures is keener than the keenest of
emotional, and still less that the keenest of intellectual is so. The
very reverse is the truth. The supremest delight attainable in fancy's
most romantic flight is, I suspect, faint in comparison with the sort of
ecstasy into which a child of freshly-strung nerves is sometimes thrown
by the mere brilliance or balminess of a summer's day, and with which
even we, dulled adults, provided we be in the right humour, and that all
things are in a concatenation accordingly, are now and then momentarily
affected while listening to the wood-notes wild of a nightingale, or a
Jenny Lind, or while gazing on star-lit sky or moon-lit sea, or on the
snowy or dolomite peaks of a mountain range fulgent with the violet and
purple glories of the setting sun. And yet the choicest snatches of such
beatitude with which--at least, after the fine edge of our
susceptibilities has been worn away by the world's friction--we
creatures of coarse human mould are ever indulged, are but poor in
comparison with the rich abundance of the same in which some more
delicately-constituted organisms habitually revel. If we would
understand of what development emotional delight is capable, we should
watch the skylark. As that 'blithe spirit' now at heaven's gate 'poureth
its full heart,' and anon can
Scarce get out his notes for joy,
But shakes his song together as he nears
His happy home, the ground,
what poet but must needs confess with Shelley, that in his most
rapturous dream, his transport never came nigh the bird's? And yet what
poet would change conditions with the lark? Nay, what student or
philosopher would? albeit the utmost gratification ever earned by either
of these in the prosecution of his special calling--in acquiring
knowledge, in solving knotty problems, or in scaling the heights of
abstract contemplation--is probably as inferior in keenness of zest to
that which the poet knows, as the best prose is inferior in charm to the
best poetry. It may even be that both poet and philosopher owe, on the
whole, more unhappiness than happiness--the one to his superior
sensibility, the other to his superior enlightenment, and yet neither
would exchange his own lesser happiness for the greater happiness of the
lark. Why would he not? It is no sufficient answer to say that in the
lark's happiness there are few, if any, imaginative or intellectual
ingredients; that it is almost utterly unideal, almost purely emotional,
exactly the same in kind, and only higher in degree, than the glee of
puppies or kittens at play. The question recurs as forcibly as ever,
why--seeing that enjoyment is the one thing desirable, the only thing
either valuable in itself, or that gives value to other things--why is
it that no intelligent man would accept, in lieu of his own, another
mode of existence, in which, although debarred from the joys of thought
and fancy, he nevertheless has reason to believe that the share of
enjoyment falling to his lot would be greater, both in quantity and
sapidity, than it is at present? The following seems to me to be the
explanation of the mystery.
It might be too much to say that nothing can please a person who is not
pleased with himself, but it is at any rate clear that nothing can
greatly please him which interferes with his self-satisfaction. Now
imaginative and intellectual enjoyment, each of them, involves the
exercise of a special and superior faculty, mere consciousness of the
possession of which helps to make the possessor satisfied with himself.
It exalts what Mr. Mill aptly terms his sense of dignity, a sense
possessed in some form or other by every human being, and one so
essential to that self-satisfaction without which all pleasure would be
tasteless, that nothing which conflicts with it can be an object of
serious desire. In virtue of this special faculty, the most wretched of
men holds himself to be superior to the most joyous of larks. To divest
himself of it would be to lower himself towards the level of the bird,
and to commit such an act of self-degradation would occasion to him an
amount of pain which he is not disposed to incur for the sake of any
amount of pleasure obtainable at its expense. It is, then, the fear of
pain which prevents his wishing to be turned into a lark. He is not
ignorant that he would be happier for the metamorphosis, but he dreads
the pain that must precede the increase of happiness, more than he
desires the increase of happiness that would follow the pain.
The force of these considerations will be equally, or more apparent, on
their being applied to analysis of moral pleasures. That these are the
most truly precious of all pleasures, is proved by their being
habitually more highly prized than any others by all who are qualified
to make the comparison. But why are they so prized? Not, as I am
constrained, however reluctantly, to admit, on account of their greater
keenness as pleasures. It would be at best but well-meaning cant to
pretend that the self-approval, the sympathetic participation in other
people's augmented welfare, the grateful consciousness of having done
that which is pleasing in our Heavenly Father's sight, together with
whatever else helps to compose the internal reward of virtue, constitute
a sum total of delight nearly as exquisite as that which may be obtained
in a variety of other ways. The mere circumstance of there being
invariably included in a just or generous action more or less of
self-denial, self-restraint, or self-sacrifice, must always sober down
the gratification by which virtue is rewarded, and make it appear tame
beside the delirium of gladness caused by many things with which virtue
has nothing to do. We will charitably suppose that the occupant of a
dukedom, who should secretly light upon conclusive proof that it was not
his by right, would at once abandon it to the legal heir, and we need
not doubt that he would subsequently be, on the whole, well content to
have so acted, but we cannot suppose that he would make the surrender
with anything like the elation with which he entered on the estate and
title. If there were really no pleasure equal to that with which virtue
recompenses its votaries, the performance of a virtuous act would always
make a man happier than previously; moreover, the greater the virtue,
the greater would be the consequent pleasure. But any one may see that
an act of the most exalted virtue, far from increasing, often utterly
destroys the agent's happiness. Imagine an affectionate father, some
second Brutus or second Fitzstephen of Galway, constrained by
overwhelming sense of duty to sentence a beloved son to death, or a
bankrupt beggaring himself and his family by honestly making over to his
creditors property with which he might have safely absconded. Plainly,
such virtuous achievement, far from adding to the happiness of its
author, has plunged him in an abyss of misery, his only comfort being
that in the lowest deep there is, as we shall presently see, a lower
deep still. Far from being happier than he was before acting as he has
done, he would be much happier if, being vicious instead of virtuous, he
had not felt bound so to act. Unquestionably, what either upright judge
or honest bankrupt has incurred--the one by becoming a saticide, the
other by making himself a beggar--is pure and simple pain, unmitigated
by one particle of positive pleasure. Yet it is at the same time certain
that the virtue of each has in some form or other given full
compensation for the pain it has occasioned, for not only was that pain
deliberately incurred in lieu of the pleasure which it has supplanted,
but restoration of the pleasure would now be refused, if reversal of the
virtuous conduct were made a condition of the restoration. In what,
then, does the compensation consist? In nothing else than this, in judge
or bankrupt having been saved from pain still greater than that which he
is actually suffering. Wretched as he is, infinitely more wretched than
he was before there was any call upon him to act as he has done, he is
less wretched than he would be if, recognising the obligation so to act,
he had not so acted. He has escaped the stings of conscience, the sense
of having wronged his neighbour and offended his God; he has escaped, in
short, self-condemnation--a torment so intolerable to those so
constituted as to be susceptible of it, that hell itself has been known
to be, in imagination at least, preferred to it. Mr. Mill's splendid
outburst that, rather than worship a fiend that could send him to hell
for refusing, he would go to hell as he was bid, will doubtless occur to
every reader.
This, however, is all. In both the supposed cases, as in every one in
which virtue consists of compliance with a painful duty, the pleasure
arising from the practice of virtue cannot in strictness be called
pleasure at all. At best it is but a partial negation of pain; more
properly, indeed, the substitution of one pain for another more acute.
Yet this mere negation, this ethereal inanity, is pronounced by
Utilitarianism to be preferable to aught that can come into competition
with it. Truly it is somewhat hard upon those who attend to such
teaching, to be reproached with their grossness of taste and likened to
hogs, for no better reason than their predilection for the lightest of
all conceivable diets. Still harder will this seem, when we recollect
that Utilitarians are exhorted to be virtuous, less for their own than
for other people's sakes. If, indeed, virtue were practised by all
mankind, the utilitarian idea of the greatest possible happiness, or, at
least, of the greatest possible exemption from unhappiness, would be
universally realised. Still, it is in order that they may afford
pleasure to the community at large, rather than that they may obtain it
for themselves; it is that they may save, not so much themselves, as the
community, from pain, that individual Utilitarians are charged to be
virtuous. Among those pleasures, whether positive or negative, which it
is allowable to them to seek for themselves, the first place is assigned
to the pleasure arising from the sense of giving pleasure to others.
Thus, not only is it the purest of pleasures that Utilitarianism chiefly
recommends for pursuit: even that pleasure is to be pursued only from
the purest and most disinterested motives.
All this I frankly acknowledge; and I own, too, that, far from deserving
to be stigmatised as irreligious, Utilitarianism is literally nothing
else than an amplification of one moiety of Christianity; that it not
adopts merely, but expands, 'the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth,'
exhorting us to love our neighbour, not simply as well, but better than
ourselves; to do for others, not simply what we would have them do for
us, but much more than we could have the face to ask them to do; not
merely not to pursue our interests at the expense of theirs, but to
regard as our own chief interest the promotion of theirs. That on
account of these exhortations Utilitarianism is godless can be supposed
by those only who suppose that love to one's neighbour is contrary to
the will of God. By those who believe that works are the best signs of
faith, and that love to God is best evinced by doing good to man,
Utilitarianism might rather seem to be but another name for practical
religion.
So I say in all sincerity, though not without some misgiving, as while
so speaking I involuntarily bethink myself of Balaam, son of Beor, who
having been called forth to curse, caught himself blessing altogether.
Mine eyes, too, have been opened to the good of that which I was
purposed to condemn, and behold I have as yet done nothing but eulogise.
No warmest partisan of Utilitarianism, not Mr. Mill himself, ever spoke
more highly of it than I have just been doing. What censures, then, can
I have in reserve to countervail such praises? What grounds of quarrel
can I have with a system of ethics which I have described as ever
seeking the noblest ends from the purest motives; whose precepts I own
to be as elevating as its aims are exalted? On reflection, I am
reassured by recollecting several, which I proceed to bring forward one
at a time, beginning with a sin enormous enough to cover any multitude
of merits.
My first charge against Utilitarianism is that it is not true. I do not
say that there is no truth in it. That I have found much to admire in
its premises has been frankly avowed; and in one, at least, of the
leading deductions from those premises I partially concur. I admit that
acts utterly without utility must likewise be utterly without worth;
that conduct which subserves the enjoyment neither of oneself nor of any
one else, cannot, except in a very restricted sense, be termed right;
that conduct which interferes with the enjoyment both of oneself and of
all others, which injuring oneself injures others also, and benefits no
one, cannot be otherwise than wrong; that purely objectless asceticism
which has not even self-discipline in view, is not virtue, but folly;
that misdirected charity which, engendering improvidence, creates more
distress than it relieves, is not virtue, but criminal weakness. But
though admitting that there can be no virtue without utility, I do not
admit either that virtue must be absent unless utility preponderate, or
that if utility preponderate virtue must be present. I deny that any
amount of utility can of itself constitute virtue. I deny that whatever
adds to the general happiness must be right. Equally do I deny that
whatever diminishes the general happiness or prevents its increasing
must be wrong. An action, be it observed, may be right in three
different senses. It may be right as being meritorious, and deserving of
commendation. It may be right as being that which one is bound to do,
for the doing of which, therefore, one deserves no praise, and for
neglecting to do which one would justly incur blame. It may be right
simply as not being wrong--as being allowable--something which one has a
right to do, though to refrain from doing it might perhaps be
praiseworthy. There will be little difficulty in adducing examples of
conduct which, though calculated to diminish the sum total of happiness,
would be right in the first of these senses. Nothing can be easier than
to multiply examples of such conduct that would be right in the third
sense. I proceed to cite cases which will answer both these purposes,
and likewise the converse one of showing that conduct calculated to
increase the general happiness may nevertheless be wrong.
When the Grecian chiefs, assembled at Aulis, were waiting for a fair
wind to convey them to Ilium, they were, we are told, warned by what was
to them as a voice from heaven, that their enterprise would make no
progress unless Agamemnon's daughter were sacrificed to Diana. In order
to place the details of the story in a light as little favourable as
possible to my argument, we will deviate somewhat from the accepted
version, and will suppose that the arrested enterprise was one of even
greater pith and moment than tradition ascribes to it. We will suppose
that upon its successful prosecution depended the national existence of
Greece; that its failure would have involved the extermination of
one-half of the people, and the slavery of the other half. We will
suppose, too, that of all this Iphigenia was as firmly persuaded as
every one else. In these circumstances, had her countrymen a right to
insist on her immolation? If so, on what was that right founded? Is it
sufficient to say in reply that her death was essential to the national
happiness, to the extent even of being indispensable to prevent that
happiness from being converted into national woe? Manifestly, according
to the hypothesis, it was expedient for all concerned, with the single
exception of herself, that she should die; but were the others thereby
entitled to take her life? Did the fact of its being for their advantage
to do this warrant their doing it? Simply because it was their interest,
was it also their right? Right, we must recollect, invariably implies
corresponding duty. Right, it is clear, can never be rightfully
resisted. If it be the right of certain persons to do a certain thing,
it must be the duty of all other persons to let that thing be done.
Where there is no such duty, there can be no such right. Wherefore, if
the 'stern, black-bearded kings, with wolfish eyes,' who sate 'waiting
to see her die,' had a right to kill Iphigenia, it must have been
Iphigenia's duty to let herself be killed. Was this then her duty?
'Duty,' as I have elsewhere observed,[3] 'signifies something due, a
debt, indebtedness, and a debt cannot have been incurred for nothing, or
without some antecedent step on the part either of debtor or creditor.'
But it is not pretended that in any way whatever, by any antecedent act
of hers or theirs, Iphigenia had incurred or had been subjected to a
debt to her countrymen which could be paid off only with her life. It
could not, then, be incumbent on her to let her life be taken in
payment. If it had been in her power to burst her bonds, and break
through the wolves in human shape that girdled her in, she would have
been guilty of no wrong by escaping. But if not, then, however
meritorious it might have been on her part to consent to die for her
countrymen, it was not her duty so to die, nor, consequently, had they a
right to put her to death. She would have been at least negatively right
in refusing to die, while they were guilty of a very positive and a very
grievous wrong in killing her, notwithstanding that both she and they
were perfectly agreed that for her to be killed would be for the
incalculably greater happiness of a greater number, exceeding the lesser
number in the proportion of several hundreds of thousands to one.
It is true that throughout this affair every one concerned was labouring
under a gross delusion--that there was no real use in putting Iphigenia
to death, and that nothing but superstition made anybody suppose there
was. I do not think the case is one less to our purpose on that account,
for Utilitarians, like other fallible mortals, are liable to deceive
themselves. They never can be quite secure of the genuineness of the
utility on which they rely, and in default of positive knowledge they
will always be reduced to act, as the Grecian chiefs did, according to
the best of their convictions. Nevertheless, for the satisfaction of
those who distrust romance and insist upon reality, we will leave fable
for fact, and take as our next illustration an incident that may any day
occur.
Imagine three shipwrecked mariners to have leapt from their sinking
vessel into a cockboat scarce big enough to hold them, and the two
slimmer of the three to have presently discovered that there was little
or no chance of either of them reaching land unless their over-weighted
craft were lightened of their comparatively corpulent companion. Next,
imagine yourself in the fat sailor's place, and then consider whether
you would feel it incumbent on you to submit quietly to be drowned in
order that the residuum of happiness might be greater than if either you
all three went to the bottom, or than if you alone were saved. Would you
not, far from recognising any such moral obligation, hold yourself
morally justified in throwing the other two overboard, if you were
strong enough, and if need were, to prevent their similarly ousting you?
But if it were not your duty to allow yourself to be cast into the sea,
the others could have no right to cast you out; so that, if they did
cast you out, they would clearly be doing not right but wrong. And yet,
as clearly, their wrong-doing would have conduced to the greater
happiness of the greater number, inasmuch as, while only one life could
otherwise have been saved, it would save two, and inasmuch as,
_coeteris paribus_, two persons would necessarily derive twice as much
enjoyment from continued existence as one would. Moreover, their
wrong-doing would be of a kind calculated always to produce similarly
useful results. It cannot, I suppose, be denied that a rule to the
effect that whenever forfeiture of one life would save two, one life
should be sacrificed, would--not exceptionally only, but at large and in
the long run--conduce to the saving of life, and therefore to the
conservation of happiness connected with life.
The foregoing cases are no doubt both of them extreme, involving
exaction of the largest possible private sacrifice for the general good;
but in all cases of the kind, whether the exaction be small or great,
the same governing principle equally applies. If you, a foot-sore,
homeward-bound pedestrian, on a sweltering July day, were to see your
next-door neighbour driving in the same direction in solitary state,
would you have a right to stop his carriage and force yourself in? Nay,
even though you had just before fallen down and broken your leg, would
the compassionating by-standers be justified in forcing him to take you
in? Or, again, if you were outside a coach during a pelting shower, and
saw a fellow-passenger with a spare umbrella between his legs, while an
unprotected female close beside was being drenched with the rain, would
you have a right to wrest the second umbrella from him, and hold it over
her? That, very likely, is what you would do in the circumstances, and
few would be disposed greatly to blame the indignant ebullition. Still,
unless you are a disciple of Proudhon, you will scarcely pretend that
you can have a right to take possession of another's carriage or
umbrella against the owner's will. You can scarcely suppose that it is
not for him but for you to decide what use shall be made of articles
belonging not to you but to him. Yet there can be no doubt that the
happiness of society would be vastly promoted if everyone felt himself
under an irresistible obligation to assist his neighbour whenever he
could do so with little or no inconvenience to himself, or,
consequently, if external force were always at hand to constrain anyone
so to assist who was unwilling to do so of his own accord.
So much in proof that among things of the highest and most extensive
utility there are several which it would be decidedly the reverse of
right to do, and several others which it would be perfectly right to
leave undone. I proceed to show that there are many other things not
simply not of preponderating utility, but calculated, on the contrary,
to do more harm than good, to destroy more happiness than they are
capable of creating, which, nevertheless, it would be not simply
allowable to do, but the doing of which would be highly meritorious,
acts possibly of the most exalted virtue.
Let no one distrust the doctrine of development by reason of its
supposed extravagance of pretension who has not duly considered to what
a sublime of moral beauty the united hideousness and absurdity of
Calvinism may give birth. In that Puritan society of New England of
which Mrs. Beecher Stowe has given so singularly interesting an account
in her 'Minister's Wooing,' and among whose members it was an universal
article of belief that the bulk of mankind are created for the express
purpose of being consigned to everlasting flames, there are said to have
been not a few enthusiasts in whom a self-concentrating creed begat the
very quintessence of self-devotion. 'As a gallant soldier renounces life
and personal aims in the cause of his king and country, and holds
himself ready to be drafted for a forlorn hope, to be shot down, or help
to make a bridge of his mangled body, over which the more fortunate
shall pass to victory and glory,' so among the early descendants of the
Pilgrim Fathers many an one 'regarded himself as devoted to the King
Eternal, ready in his hands to be used to illustrate and build up an
eternal commonwealth, either by being sacrificed as a lost spirit, or
glorified as a redeemed one; ready to throw, not merely his mortal life,
but his immortality even, into the forlorn hope, to bridge, with a
never-dying soul, the chasm over which white-robed victors should pass
to a commonwealth of glory and splendour, whose vastness should dwarf
the misery of all the lost to an infinitesimal.' And while by many the
idea of suffering everlasting pains for the glory of God, and the good
of being in general, was thus contemplated with equanimity, there were
some few for whom the idea of so suffering for the good of others dearer
than themselves would have been greeted with positive exultation. 'And
don't I care for your soul, James?' exclaims Mary Scudder to her lover.
'If I could take my hopes of heaven out of my own heart and give them to
you, I would. Dr. H. preached last Sunday on the text, "I could wish
myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen," and he went on
to show how we must be willing to give up even our own salvation, if
necessary, for the good of others. People said it was a hard doctrine,
but I could feel my way through it. Yes, I would give my soul for yours.
I wish I could.' Now we must on no account permit admiration of Miss
Scudder's transcendent generosity in desiring to make this exchange
blind us to the fatal effect on social happiness which, if such
exchange were possible, the prevalence of a disposition to make it could
not fail to have. If Calvinism were true instead of blasphemous, if God
were really the Moloch it represents Him, and if, moreover, Moloch were
indifferent as to which of his offspring were cast into the fire, caring
only that the prescribed number of victims should be forthcoming in full
tale, nothing can be conceived more likely to prove an encouragement to
evil-doers, and a terror to them that did well, than observation that
well-doing not infrequently led to eternal misery, and evil-doing to
eternal bliss. Again, if in China, where criminals under sentence of
death are permitted, if they can, by purchase or otherwise, to procure
substitutes to die in their stead, a son were to propose to die for a
parent base enough to take advantage of the offer, could any arrangement
be more plainly repugnant to the common-weal than that by which society
would thus lose one of its noblest, instead of getting rid of one of its
vilest members? Or, when in England, a thrifty son, by consenting to cut
the entail of an estate to which he is heir-apparent, enables a prodigal
father to consume in riotous living substance which would otherwise have
eventually become his, is he not clearly taking the worse course for the
public by permitting the property to be wasted, instead of causing it to
be husbanded?
Beyond all question, American Puritan, Chinese or English devotee to
filial affection, would thus, each in her or his degree, have, in the
circumstances supposed, acted in a manner opposed to the general
interest, and would therefore be condemned by Utilitarianism as having
acted immorally. Nor could this verdict be gainsaid if utility and
morality were, as Utilitarianism assumes them to be, one and the same
thing. Clearly, that the just should suffer for the unjust, the innocent
for the guilty, is diametrically opposed to the welfare of society;
wherefore, according to utilitarian principles, by consenting so to
suffer, the just becomes unjust, the innocent renders himself guilty.
But can there be a better proof that utilitarian principles are unsound
than that this should be a legitimate deduction from them? Can there be
better proof that utility and morality are not identical, but two
absolutely distinct things? Plainly, there can be no meritorious or
commendable immorality; neither can there be any virtue which is not
meritorious and commendable. Is there, then, no merit, nothing
commendable, in accepting ruin or in volunteering to die temporarily, or
to perish everlastingly, in order to save a fellow-creature from ruin,
or death, or perdition? Does not such conduct, considered independently
and without reference either to its utility or its hurtfulness, command
our instantaneous and enthusiastic admiration? But how, being so
admirable, can it be immoral? how other than virtuous? What else is it,
indeed, but the very perfection of that purest virtue which, content to
be its own reward, deliberately cuts itself off from all other
recompense? Without changing the immemorial meaning of the most familiar
words, there is no avoiding the obvious answers to these questions. If
virtue and morality, right and wrong, are to continue to mean anything
like that which, except by Utilitarians, has always been considered to
be their only meaning, it is not simply not wrong, it is not simply
right, it is among the highest achievements of virtue and morality to
sacrifice your own in order to secure another's happiness, and the
disinterestedness, and therefore the virtue, is surely the greater,
rather than less, if you sacrifice more happiness of your own than you
secure to another. So much follows necessarily from what has been said,
and something more besides. It follows further that Utilitarianism is
not less in error in declaring that actions calculated to diminish the
total sum of happiness must necessarily be wrong, cannot possibly be
allowable, still less meritorious, than it had previously been shown to
be in declaring that actions calculated to augment the sum total of
happiness must necessarily be meritorious.
There is but one way in which Utilitarianism can even temporarily rebut
the charge of fallacy, of which otherwise it must here stand convicted,
and that is by renouncing all claim to be a new system of ethics, and
not pretending to be more than a new system of nomenclature. And even
so, it could not help contradicting, and thereby refuting itself. That
nothing is right but what is of preponderating utility; that whatever is
of preponderating utility is right; these are propositions perfectly
intelligible, indeed, but which will be found to be tenable only on
condition that the very same things may be both right and wrong. The
confusion, thrice confounded, inseparable from the substitution of such
novel definitions for those which had previously been universally in
vogue, is but the smaller of two evils which must thence arise. It would
be bad enough that the word 'right' could not be used without raising
doubt whether what people had previously understood by the 'just' or the
'generous,' or only the 'expedient' were meant; but a still worse
consequence would be that, even if no doubt of the sort were
entertained, and if all men were agreed to take the word in none but its
utilitarian sense, the landmarks of right and wrong would thereby be
well nigh obliterated. Due credit has already been given to
Utilitarianism for its exemplary zeal in inculcating the practice of
virtue, but its merit in that respect is more than neutralised by its
equally zealous inculcation of principles, according to which it is
impossible to decide beforehand whether any particular practice will be
virtuous or not.
This is my second charge against Utilitarianism. I maintain it to be a
doctrine in most of its essentials erroneous; but I maintain, further,
that, even if it were correct, instead of furnishing us with an
infallible criterion of right and wrong, it would deprive us of the
means of clearly distinguishing between right and wrong at all times at
which the power of so distinguishing is of practical value. Bluntly
enough, I have pronounced it to be false. With equal bluntness, I now
add that, even if it were true, it would, all the same, be practically
mischievous, and directly opposed to the very utility from which it
takes its name. The argument in support of this charge shall now be
stated.
According to utilitarian ethics, the morality of actions depends wholly
and solely on their consequences. On this point the language of
authority is distinct, emphatic, unanimous, and self-contradictory.
'Utilitarian moralists,' says the chief amongst them, 'have gone beyond
all others in affirming that the motive has nothing to do with the
morality of an action.... He who saves a fellow-creature from drowning
does what is morally right, whether his motive be duty or the hope of
being paid for his trouble.' Upon which I would observe, in passing,
that to save a fellow-creature from drowning can be deemed to be
necessarily right by none but uncompromising opponents of capital
punishment. Most others will be disposed to doubt its having been a
sufficient reason for commuting the sentence of death passed upon the
murderer of Dhuleep Sing's gamekeeper, that, owing to physical
malformation, hanging might perhaps have given him more than ordinary
pain in the neck, or perhaps have prolonged the pleasure which,
according to the select few qualified to speak from experience, is
attendant on that mode of strangulation. Neither, without sacrificing
his judgment to his feelings, could one of these doubters, if Rutherford
had been sentenced to be drowned instead of hanged, have stretched out a
hand to save the miscreant from the watery grave he so richly deserved.
That there are no actions which by reason of their beneficial
consequences are always and invariably moral, might be too much to
affirm; but I have no hesitation in saying that there are thousands, the
morality or immorality of which--their results remaining the
same--depends absolutely on their motives. Thus, if two doctors--of
whom, for distinction's sake, we will call one Smethurst and the other
Smith--in attendance on patients afflicted with precisely the same
disease, were by the administration of overdoses of strychnine each to
kill his man, the only difference between them being that whereas one
intended and expected to kill, the other hoped to cure--would the act of
killing be equally immoral in both cases? Would it not in the one case
be murder, in the other mere error of judgment; and would both be
equally crimes, or would the latter be in any degree criminal? And if it
had been Smethurst instead of Smith who committed the error of
judgment--if the overdoses by which he had meant to kill had happened to
cure--would his error of judgment have thereby been rendered moral,
notwithstanding that his motive was murder?
The same great teacher, who so strenuously insists that the motive has
nothing to do with the morality of an action, does indeed go on to say
that it has 'much to do with the worth of the agent.' Here, however, I
confess myself unable to follow him. That an act may possess morality
independent of the agent, may be intelligible on the assumption that
morality means simply utility, and nothing more; but how, even then,
worth can be evinced by the performance of an immoral action, is beyond
my comprehension, except upon the further assumption that there may be
worth in immorality.
Waiving, however, these and all other objections, let us for the moment,
and for the sake of argument, assume that morality and utility are
really one and the same thing, that the right or wrong of an act depends
entirely on its results, and then let us observe how utterly without
rudder or compass to assist him in steering correctly will be the
best-intentioned navigator of the ocean of life.
We can seldom, if ever, be quite sure what will be the result of our
conduct. Meaning to cure, we may only too probably kill; meaning to
kill, we may not impossibly cure. Until a thing is done, we cannot
determine as to its utility; nor, consequently, in an utilitarian sense,
as to the morality of doing it. We must trust implicitly to our skill in
calculating events, and if that skill happen to fail us, our conduct may
become culpable. With the most earnest desire to act righteously, we can
only guess beforehand whether what we propose doing will turn out to be
righteous, and can never be sure, therefore, that we are not going to do
something wicked.
Here I shall, of course, and very properly, be reminded that what
Utilitarianism requires to be taken into account, are not merely the
probable consequences of some proposed act, but the usual consequences
of all acts of the same description; so that its disciples, instead of
being left to their conjectures about the future, may be said to have
all past experience to refer to. And undeniably Utilitarianism does
require this; thereby, however, contradicting itself as, I just now
hinted, it would presently be found doing. It does indeed declare those
actions only to be moral which in the long run are conducive to, or at
least not opposed to, the general happiness; but it also says that the
morality of each particular action depends on its own particular
consequences. So that the docile disciple who should do something which,
though useful in the long run, happened to be otherwise in his
particular case--who, for instance, should save the life of a
fellow-creature of whom it would have been well for the world to be rid,
would, to his disgust and bewilderment, find that while, with no desire
but that of acting rightly, he had been obeying one utilitarian law, he
had nevertheless been infringing another law of the same code, and
thereby acting wrongly.
Overlooking, however, this incongruity of two equally authoritative
rules, let us proceed to consider what dangerous latitude of
interpretation is allowed to the followers of either of them. Those who
believe that the merit or demerit of each separate action depends on
that action's separate consequences, need seldom be at a loss for a
pretext for committing the most heinous of crimes. A husband who, hating
his wife, had his hate returned, and loving another woman, had his love
returned, might plausibly reason thus within himself: The prescribed
objects of life are the multiplication of happiness and the diminution
of misery; here are three of us, all doomed to be miserable as long as
we all three live; but the wretchedness of two of us might be at once
converted into happiness, if the third were put out of the way. By some
such logical process, Queen Mary and Bothwell may have satisfied
themselves of the propriety of blowing up Darnley: Mr. and Mrs. Manning,
as they sate at meat with their destined victim over his ready-made
grave, may have argued themselves into self-approval of the crowning
rite with which their hospitalities were to terminate: any scampish
apprentice with designs upon his master's till, any burglar plotting an
entry into a goldsmith's shop, may become convinced of his rectitude of
purpose, and even take credit for public-spirited zeal, in seeking to
appropriate to his own use part of another's wealth, which he may fairly
suppose would be productive of more enjoyment if divided between two or
more than if left in the hands of one, and that one already perhaps the
possessor of more than he knows what to do with.
Precisely the same sophistry will not indeed suffice for those disciples
who, adopting the alternative law of the utilitarian code, feel bound to
attend to the consequences not of individual actions, but of classes of
actions. The cleverest self-deceiver can scarcely bring himself to
believe that, because it might suit his personal convenience to kill or
steal, killing and stealing would not be prejudicial to society if
generally practised. Still, it is only necessary to have, or to fancy
one has, public instead of private objects in view, in order to be able
to look with approbation, from an utilitarian point of view, on any
amount of homicide or robbery. It was the very same Robespierre that,
while as yet diocesan judge at Arras, felt constrained to abdicate
because, 'behold, one day comes a culprit whose crime merits hanging,
and strict-minded, strait-laced Max's conscience will not permit the
dooming of any son of Adam to die,' who, shortly after, when
sufficiently imbued with the utilitarian spirit, was fully prepared to
wade through floods of slaughter towards the enthronisation of his
principles--one of those principles evidently being that, if the
decimation of mankind would conduce to the greater happiness of the
residue, adding more to the happiness of the nine-tenths whom it spared
than it took from the tenth whom it destroyed, the said decimation would
be a duty incumbent on any one possessed of power to perpetrate it.
Nor are principles like these appealed to only by those who have
recourse to them for the vindication of their own procedure. At those
_petits-soupers_--bachelors' dinners is their modern English name,
_noctes coenaeque deum_ their ancient classical--for which some of our
London clubs are deservedly celebrated, and with which the Garrick in
especial is, in my mind, gratefully associated--at those choice
gatherings of congenial spirits, conversation, changing from gay to
grave, turns not unfrequently, among other lofty topics, on that which
we are here discussing. Then, even at such divine symposium, one at
least of the guests is pretty sure to take the part of devil's advocate,
and to exercise his forensic skill in showing how easily interchangeable
are the names of virtue and iniquity, crime and well-doing. September
massacres then find, not their apologist, but their eulogist. _Noyades_
of Carrier, _fusilades_ of Collot d'Herbois, are cited as examples very
suitable for imitation in adequate emergencies. Prussia's seizure, on
behalf of Germany, of Schleswig and Holstein, on pretence of their being
not Danish, but German, and her subsequent retention of them for herself
on the plea of their having always been not German, but Danish, are
applauded as acts perfectly consistent with each other and with the
eternal fitness of things. And all this is urged in the best possible
faith. Of the recited enormities, were not some, steps to the
regeneration of France--others, to the unifaction of Germany? And what
are myriads of lives in comparison with a regenerate--what violation of
the most solemn engagements in comparison with a united, people? Did not
the millions of Frenchmen who survived the Reign of Terror gain more
than was lost by the thousands who were guillotined at Paris, or drowned
at Nantes, or shot down at Lyons? Is not Germany likely to turn Kiel to
far better account than Denmark ever did or could have done? and will
not German ascendency be abundant compensation for Danish decadence? How
culpably misplaced, then, were conscientious scruples that would have
impeded the march of events in such directions! Ends need but to be
great enough to justify any means. Let but the good promise to exceed
the evil, and there is no evil which ought not to be done in order that
good may come of it. Thus slightly qualified, the Satanic adage, 'Evil,
be thou my good,' is, without more ado, accepted as the utilitarian
watchword.
And what though it be only the most thorough-paced Utilitarians who go
these extreme lengths? These lengths, extreme as they are, are
legitimate deductions from tenets held in common by the most moderate
and cautious as well as by the most reckless of the sect. Crime in the
abstract is condemned not less vehemently by the latter than by the
former; but by both equally it is condemned on account, not of its
inherent vileness, but solely of its observed results. If the results
were different, the agency to which they are due would be fitted with a
different epithet. If a world could be conceived to be so organised, or,
if this world of ours could be conceived to be so changed as that the
practice of killing, stealing, or telling lies would be conducive to the
general good, the practice in question would obtain a new name in the
Utilitarian vocabulary. Crime would become beneficence; and to kill, to
steal, or to tell lies would be not wrong, but right. These are
propositions which, without abjuring the prime articles of his creed,
the most timid Utilitarian has no alternative but to endorse; but how,
then, can he shut his eyes to their obvious application? How presume to
rebuke those earnest philanthropists, who, to judge from their habitual
language, are firmly of opinion that annihilation of one half of mankind
would be a small price to pay for conversion of the other moiety into
citizens of a world-wide Red Republic; or those admirers of Prince
Bismarck, who, holding national aggrandisement to be the national
_summum bonum_, deem the most solemn treaties that might impede it to be
obstacles which it is obligatory on a patriot to set aside? Will not the
effects of any given cause vary with the changes in the circumstances in
which the cause acts? May it not easily happen that the direct effect of
some private crime shall be to augment, instead of to diminish the total
happiness of all the persons affected by it? And is it not, then,
conceivable that a public crime, provided it be of sufficient magnitude,
may more than counterpoise, by the good it is calculated to do, all the
harm that all crimes of the same description either have done or are
likely to do hereafter? It is idle to reply that such a comparison
between public good and evil must needs be mistaken: that the harm, for
instance, which violation of treaties does to mankind by sapping the
foundations of international confidence, rendering impossible
international co-operation, and bringing the very name of international
morality into contempt, is infinitely beyond any good it can do in the
shape of national aggrandisement. Whether this be so or not is matter of
opinion, on which every one may fairly insist on forming his own, and if
that opinion be in the negative, a utilitarian agent, in Prince
Bismarck's circumstances, would be bound in duty to imitate Prince
Bismarck's high-handed policy. In all circumstances of international
import, in all cases bearing upon the general interests of society, a
Utilitarian, after deciding according to his lights which of the various
courses open to him would best promote the general welfare, either
immediately by its direct effects, or subsequently and indirectly by the
example it would set, would be bound in duty to adopt that course. That
course, however wrong it might have appeared in all previous cases,
would now become right, as being apparently the one most conducive to
the future welfare of mankind. Utilitarianism's standard of morality
thus turns out to be, not any fixed and definite notion of expediency,
but one liable to change with every change in individual judgment. Its
boasted criterion of the right or wrong of an action is the best
conjecture which the agent, with or without extrinsic advice, is able to
form of the future consequences of the action. Utilitarian law, in
short, resolves itself into this--that every man shall be a law unto
himself. Of course no Utilitarians will acknowledge this to be their
law, not even those who shape their conduct in exact conformity to it.
Nevertheless, that such is the law follows necessarily from their own
premises. For does not Utilitarianism sometimes--a little heedlessly,
perhaps, but not the less positively--declare that the morality of an
action depends not at all upon its motives, but exclusively upon its
consequences? Does it not, when most guarded in its language, affirm the
morality of actions to depend upon their tendencies, that is to say, on
their consequences at large, and in the long run? But there can never be
perfect certainty as to consequences. With regard to the future,
plausible conjecture is the utmost possible; and by differing judgments
different conjectures will needs be made. So that the value of the rule
of conduct furnished by Utilitarianism to any individual depends upon
the latter's ability, supplemented by that of any counsellors whom he
may consult, to forecast events. He cannot proceed correctly, except in
so far as he or they have the gift of prophecy. However dull his vision
may be, he must content himself with his own blind guidance, unless he
prefer as guide some one who, for aught he can tell, may be as blind as
himself. And it is always for himself to judge whether he will follow
advice: so that in effect every Utilitarian is his own moral law-giver;
and, certainly, a worse assignment of legislative functions cannot be
imagined.
But the mischievousness of Utilitarianism does not stop here. We have
seen how one of its principles destroys the landmarks between right and
wrong, between virtue and vice, causing each to take continually the
place of its opposite. We have now to see how another of its principles
obliterates all distinctions between different kinds of virtue,
confounding them in one indiscriminate mass, and imparting to them a
sort of general oneness not more lucid than that which, according to
Mr. Curdle, is the essence of the dramatic unities.
The object which it insists upon as conduct's end and aim is the general
good--the greatest possible aggregate of good or happiness for all. As
the Scriptures enjoin us, whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do,
to do all to the glory of God, so Utilitarianism exhorts us to do all
for the welfare of mankind. Now, far be it from me to caricature this
soul-inspiring rule by forcing it, under a strained construction, to an
unnatural extreme. Fairly examined, it will be seen to make no
extravagant demands on our self-denial. As Christianity, even while
bidding us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
promises that all other things shall be added unto us, so
Utilitarianism, even while insisting on our seeking first to please
others, permits, nay, directs, us to take as much pleasure for ourselves
as we can lay hold of without depriving others, since the aggregate of
happiness which it is incumbent upon us to augment to the best of our
ability would otherwise be less. Nay, for the same reason, it
disapproves of our foregoing any pleasure of our own, the full
equivalent of which is not transferred to others. The happiness which it
requires us to attend to is that of a society of which each of us is a
component member, and no member of which can deny himself any pleasure
within his reach, and beyond the reach of others, without diminishing
the total of happiness which the whole society might enjoy. 'As between
his own happiness and that of others,' says Mr. Mill, 'Utilitarianism
requires an agent to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and
benevolent spectator.' Thus qualified, the prescribed subordination of
one's own to the general good is no such extravagantly self-denying
ordinance. If for anything, it might rather be reproached for its cold,
calculating equity. With reference quite as much to individual as to
communal happiness it is an excellent rule of conduct, against which not
a word could be said, provided only it were left to be adopted
voluntarily, and were not authoritatively imposed.
Unfortunately, however, Utilitarianism allows no option in the matter.
Unless we do our very utmost to promote the general weal, at whatever
sacrifice to ourselves, it charges us with sin of omission. In the words
of one of the ablest among able Editors, 'justice is the social idea in
its highest, widest, and most binding expression.... It signifies the
moral principle which obliges each so to shape his conduct and
relations, his claims and his achievements, that they harmonise with the
highest good of all.'[4] To which doctrine of Mr. Morley's, if other
Utilitarians do not subscribe, it can only be because they are less
resolutely logical. Mr. Mill, indeed, though dissenting in appearance on
this point from Mr. Morley, agrees with him in substance. Even when on
one occasion, distinguishing between duty and virtue, he says that there
are innumerable acts and forbearances of human beings which, though
either causes or hindrances of good to their fellow-creatures, lie
beyond the domain of duty, and within that of virtue or merit, he goes
on to assign as the sole reason for placing them in the domain of the
latter that, in respect to them, it is, on the whole, for the general
interest that people should be left free, thereby plainly intimating
that society would be equitably entitled to insist on them if it thought
proper. But conduct that can be equitably insisted on is clearly, in the
strictest sense, duty; and it would be preposterous to claim merit for
doing that which it would be a breach of duty to leave undone. Duties do
not cease to be duties because he on whom they are incumbent is not
compelled under penalty to perform them, any more than debts cease to be
debts because creditors do not choose to ask for payment. All consistent
utilitarian teaching points inflexibly towards Mr. Morley's conclusion,
according to which justice and social virtue are absolutely identical,
and according to which, also, whoever does not shape his 'conduct, &c.,
in harmony with the highest good of all,' does less than is due from
him, while it is impossible for him to do more. For whatever he propose
to do must either be or not be in the prescribed harmony. If it be, he
is bound to do it. If not, he is bound not to do it. The very utmost he
can do is no more than is incumbent upon him. Less than his very utmost
is less than is incumbent. No action of his, therefore, can possess any
merit; for mere fulfilment of obligations is reckoned not of grace, but
of debt. Having done everything, he is still but an unprofitable
servant; he has but done that which was his duty to do. Where, then, is
the boast of virtue? It is excluded. By what law? By that of
Utilitarianism, set forth in its full amplitude. Honesty and generosity,
faith, truth, charity, patient endurance, and chivalrous self-devotion,
all are mingled together under the name of justice, and justice itself
only remains just as long as it remains identical with the largest
expediency.
At this rate we cannot possibly have any virtue to plume ourselves upon.
The best we can do being no more than our duly, the only reward we can
claim is exemption from the punishment we should have deserved if we had
not done it. Whether it be that we have abstained from killing or
robbing our fellow-citizens for our own advantage, or have impoverished
or half-killed ourselves in the service of the State, our meed is the
same. _Loris non ureris. Non pasces in cruce corvos_, is what we are
told. We may congratulate ourselves on having escaped the
cat-o'-nine-tails and the gallows. Well, we have, most of us, so much
self-sufficiency, that to deprive us of all ground for it might be a
fault on the right side. But now comes a second and more awkward
reflection. If you will not of your own accord do your duty, those to
whom performance of the duty is owing have a right to use means to make
you--foul means if fair means will not avail. If, then, you hesitate to
do your utmost for the interests of society, society is warranted in
taking measures to accelerate your movement. If you are not, or what is
practically the same thing, if a numerical majority of your
fellow-citizens think you are not, making the most beneficial use of
your property; if it be generally considered that it would be for the
greater good of the greater number to divide your park and garden into
peasant properties and cottage allotments, to double the wages of the
workmen in your employment, or to subject you and the likes of you to a
graduated income tax for the purpose of setting up national workshops to
compete with you in your own trade; and, if you do not readily enter
into the same views, then the said numerical majority are not simply
warranted in taking the law into their own hands and doing, in spite of
you, what they think ought to be done with your property, but would be
culpably remiss if they neglected so to act.
Now it is needless to dwell on the extent to which that large numerical
majority of our fellow-citizens which consists of the working classes is
imbued with this notion, nor, except to those who are similarly imbued,
can it be necessary to insist that there is no notion of which it is
more indispensable to disabuse the working-class mind. This,
accordingly, I strove to do throughout a recent work of mine, 'On
Labour,' particularly in the chapter which treats of the claims and
rights thereof. I there earnestly pleaded that there may be, and are,
private rights independent of utility which no public needs can cancel;
that all which any man, or set of men, is entitled to exact from another
is payment or fulfilment of what is due to him or them from that other;
that unless the poverty of the many has been caused by the few, the many
are not warranted in extorting relief of their wants from the few; that
the mere circumstance of their being without food or work does not
entitle the poor to be fed or employed by the rich, for that there is
likewise a justice independent of and superior to utility, consisting
simply of respect for rights, while injustice consists simply of
violation of rights.
In so arguing, I ran directly counter to Utilitarianism, provoking
thereby a retaliatory assault from Utilitarianism's tutelary champion,
who, as readers of the 'Fortnightly Review'[5] are aware, bore down upon
me with an energy no whit the less effective for being tempered with all
knightly courtesy. Yet, not to say it vaingloriously, I am not conscious
of having been shaken in the saddle, and I now return to the encounter
with modest assurance, firmly believing mine to be the better cause, and
recollecting too that in a contest with Mr. Mill, let the issue be what
it may, I may at least comfort myself with the reflection
Minus turpe vinci quam contendisse decorum.
I must at the outset be permitted to remark that one or two of Mr.
Mill's objections to my statements are based upon misconception of their
meaning. I never questioned, but, on the contrary, have always in the
distinctest terms admitted that society is perfectly at liberty to put
an end to the institution of property in land. No extremest Socialist
ever went beyond me in proclaiming that the 'earth was bestowed by the
Creator, not on any privileged class or classes, but on all mankind and
on all successive generations of men, so that no one generation can have
more than a life interest in the soil, or be entitled to alienate the
birthright of succeeding generations.'[6] No one more fully recognises
that property in land exists only on sufferance and by concession, and
that society, which made the concession, may at any moment take it back
on giving full compensation to the concessioners.
Again, when asserting the inviolability of moveable, as distinguished
from landed, property, I was careful to limit the assertion to property
honestly acquired. I never supposed it possible to acquire by
prescription 'a fee simple in an injustice.' Only, if in any particular
instance it be suspected that property has been acquired by force,
fraud, or robbery, I contend that the _onus probandi_ lies on him who
raises the question. It is for him to show, if he can, that a commercial
fortune has, as Mr. Mill suggests, been built up by 'jobbing contracts,
profligate loans, or other reprehensible practices.' But if this cannot
be shown, the validity of the actual possessor's title must not be
impugned. Property must be treated as of innocent acquisition and
derivation until proved to be of guilty. And that not merely because
there could otherwise be no rights of property at all, since it must
always be impossible for any owner to demonstrate that neither he nor
any one of those from whom he derives ever either overreached in a
bargain or failed in a contract; but also, and much more, because
whether a person be or be not the rightful owner of the wealth in his
possession, no one can possibly be entitled to despoil him unless the
wealth can be shown to have been ill-gotten. That right must be held to
be complete with which no one can show a right to interfere.
The gravest, however, of Mr. Mill's criticisms is that mine is 'a
doctrine _a priori_, claiming to command assent by its own light, and to
be evident by simple intuition.' This is an imputation to which I am so
unaware of having laid myself open that I can account for its having
been made only on the supposition that Mr. Mill, in common with most
other Utilitarians, imagines that their only opponents are
Intuitionists, and that it is only necessary to set aside the tenets of
these in order to get their own established instead. If this were really
the case, utilitarian advocacy would be a comparatively easy task.
Intuitionism, whether capable or not of being disproved, is by its
nature unsusceptible of decisive proof. If I, in support of the
proposition that there is in the human mind an intuitive sense of any
sort, were to assert that I had such a sense while you denied that you
had, it would be impossible for me to prove you to be mistaken, while,
unless you were mistaken as to your individual experience, I should
clearly be mistaken as to the generalisation which I had based upon
mine. But I never said a word about an intuitive sense of right and
wrong. How could I, seeing, as no one who chooses to look can fail to
see, that the instincts of untutored children prompt them to disregard
all rights but their own, to spit cockchafers, rob birds' nests, and
confiscate younger children's cakes and apples? All I say is that there
may be and are rights independent of and even opposed to utility, and
these, for reasons which shall immediately be stated, I call natural
rights; but I do not say that they are intuitively perceived. As for
sense of justice or of duty, or moral sense or faculty, what I
understand by that is not recognition of certain rights or duties as
such, but recognition of the obligation to respect whatever rights
and to fulfil whatever duties are recognised, according to which
definition it is mere tautology to add that the sense or faculty in
question originates simultaneously with the recognition of any rights
or duties. For inasmuch as rights invariably imply corresponding
obligations--inasmuch as if a thing be rightfully claimed, that same
thing must needs be due or owing, it is of course impossible to perceive
that a thing is _owing_ without perceiving at the same moment that it
_ought_ to be paid. On this account, and with this explanation, I should
not scruple to speak of the moral sense as intuitive; but if for that
reason I am to be called an Intuitionist, so equally must Mr. Mill, for
he has said precisely the same thing. He likewise has said that 'the
moral faculty, if not a part of our nature, is a natural out-growth from
it, capable, in a certain small degree, of springing up spontaneously.'
II.