CHAPTER I. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS

History of

European Morals

From Augustus to Charlemagne

By

William Edward Hartpole Lecky, M.A.

Ninth Edition

In Two Volumes

Vol. 1.

London

Longmans, Green, And Co.

1890

CONTENTS

Advertisement To The Third Edition.

Preface.

Chapter I. The Natural History Of Morals.

Chapter II. The Pagan Empire.

Chapter III. The Conversion Of Rome.

Footnotes

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE THIRD EDITION.

I have availed myself of the interval since the last edition, to subject

this book to a minute and careful revision, removing such inaccuracies as

I have been able myself to discover, as well as those which have been

brought under my notice by reviewers or correspondents. I must especially

acknowledge the great assistance I have derived in this task from my

German translator, Dr. H. Jolowicz—now, unhappily, no more—one of the most

conscientious and accurate scholars with whom I have ever been in

communication. In the controversial part of the first chapter, which has

given rise to a good deal of angry discussion, four or five lines which

stood in the former editions have been omitted, and three or four short

passages have been inserted, elucidating or supporting positions which had

been misunderstood or contested.

_January 1877._

PREFACE.

The questions with which an historian of Morals is chiefly concerned are

the changes that have taken place in the moral standard and in the moral

type. By the first, I understand the degrees in which, in different ages,

recognised virtues have been enjoined and practised. By the second, I

understand the relative importance that in different ages has been

attached to different virtues. Thus, for example, a Roman of the age of

Pliny, an Englishman of the age of Henry VIII., and an Englishman of our

own day, would all agree in regarding humanity as a virtue, and its

opposite as a vice; but their judgments of the acts which are compatible

with a humane disposition would be widely different. A humane man of the

first period might derive a keen enjoyment from those gladiatorial games,

which an Englishman, even in the days of the Tudors, would regard as

atrociously barbarous; and this last would, in his turn, acquiesce in many

sport which would now be emphatically condemned. And in addition to this

change of standard, there is a continual change in the order of precedence

which is given to virtues. Patriotism, chastity, charity, and humility are

examples of virtues, each of which has in some ages been brought forward

as of the most supreme and transcendent importance, and the very basis of

a virtuous character, and in other ages been thrown into the background,

and reckoned among the minor graces of a noble life. The heroic virtues,

the amiable virtues, and what are called more especially the religious

virtues, form distinct groups, to which, in different periods, different

degrees of prominence have been assigned; and the nature, causes, and

consequences of these changes in the moral type are among the most

important branches of history.

In estimating, however, the moral condition of an age, it is not

sufficient to examine the ideal of moralists. It is necessary also to

enquire how far that ideal has been realised among the people. The

corruption of a nation is often reflected in the indulgent and selfish

ethics of its teachers; but it sometimes produces a reaction, and impels

the moralist to an asceticism which is the extreme opposite of the

prevailing spirit of society. The means which moral teachers possess of

acting upon their fellows, vary greatly in their nature and efficacy, and

the age of the highest moral teaching is often not that of the highest

general level of practice. Sometimes we find a kind of aristocracy of

virtue, exhibiting the most refined excellence in their teaching and in

their actions, but exercising scarcely any appreciable influence upon the

mass of the community. Sometimes we find moralists of a much less heroic

order, whose influence has permeated every section of society. In

addition, therefore, to the type and standard of morals inculcated by the

teachers, an historian must investigate the realised morals of the people.

The three questions I have now briefly indicated are those which I have

especially regarded in examining the moral history of Europe between

Augustus and Charlemagne. As a preliminary to this enquiry, I have

discussed at some length the rival theories concerning the nature and

obligations of morals, and have also endeavoured to show what virtues are

especially appropriate to each successive stage of civilisation, in order

that we may afterwards ascertain to what extent the natural evolution has

been affected by special agencies. I have then followed the moral history

of the Pagan Empire, reviewing the Stoical, the Eclectic, and the Egyptian

philosophies, that in turn flourished, showing in what respects they were

the products or expressions of the general condition of society, tracing

their influence in many departments of legislation and literature, and

investigating the causes of the deep-seated corruption which baffled all

the efforts of emperors and philosophers. The triumph of the Christian

religion in Europe next demands our attention. In treating this subject, I

have endeavoured, for the most part, to exclude all considerations of a

purely theological or controversial character, all discussions concerning

the origin of the faith in Palestine, and concerning the first type of its

doctrine, and to regard the Church simply as a moral agent, exercising its

influence in Europe. Confining myself within these limits, I have examined

the manner in which the circumstances of the Pagan Empire impeded or

assisted its growth, the nature of the opposition it had to encounter, the

transformations it underwent under the influence of prosperity, of the

ascetic enthusiasm, and of the barbarian invasions, and the many ways in

which it determined the moral condition of society. The growing sense of

the sanctity of human life, the history of charity, the formation of the

legends of the hagiology, the effects of asceticism upon civic and

domestic virtues, the moral influence of monasteries, the ethics of the

intellect, the virtues and vices of the decaying Christian Empire and of

the barbarian kingdoms that replaced it, the gradual apotheosis of secular

rank, and the first stages of that military Christianity which attained

its climax at the Crusades, have been all discussed with more or less

detail; and I have concluded my work by reviewing the changes that have

taken place in the position of women, and in the moral questions connected

with the relations of the sexes.

In investigating these numerous subjects, it has occasionally, though

rarely, happened that my path has intersected that which I had pursued in

a former work, and in two or three instances I have not hesitated to

repeat facts to which I had there briefly referred. I have thought that

such a course was preferable to presenting the subject shorn of some

material incident, or to falling into what has always the appearance of an

unpleasing egotism, by appealing unnecessarily to my own writings.

Although the history of the period I have traced has never, so far as I am

aware, been written from exactly the point of view which I have adopted, I

have, of course, been for the most part moving over familiar ground, which

has been often and ably investigated; and any originality that may be

found in this work must lie, not so much in the facts which have been

exhumed, as in the manner in which they have been grouped, and in the

significance that has been ascribed to them. I have endeavoured to

acknowledge the more important works from which I have derived assistance;

and if I have not always done so, I trust the reader will ascribe it to

the great multitude of the special histories relating to the subjects I

have treated, to my unwillingness to overload my pages with too numerous

references, and perhaps, in some cases, to the difficulty that all who

have been much occupied with a single department of history must sometimes

have, in distinguishing the ideas which have sprung from their own

reflections, from those which have been derived from books.

There is one writer, however, whom I must especially mention, for his name

occurs continually in the following pages, and his memory has been more

frequently, and in these latter months more sadly, present to my mind than

any other. Brilliant and numerous as are the works of the late Dean

Milman, it was those only who had the great privilege of his friendship,

who could fully realise the amazing extent and variety of his knowledge;

the calm, luminous, and delicate judgment which he carried into so many

spheres; the inimitable grace and tact of his conversation, coruscating

with the happiest anecdotes, and the brightest and yet the gentlest

humour; and, what was perhaps more remarkable than any single faculty, the

admirable harmony and symmetry of his mind and character, so free from all

the disproportion, and eccentricity, and exaggeration that sometimes make

even genius assume the form of a splendid disease. They can never forget

those yet higher attributes, which rendered him so unspeakably reverend to

all who knew him well—his fervent love of truth, his wide tolerance, his

large, generous, and masculine judgments of men and things; his almost

instinctive perception of the good that is latent in each opposing party,

his disdain for the noisy triumphs and the fleeting popularity of mere

sectarian strife, the fond and touching affection with which he dwelt upon

the images of the past, combining, even in extreme old age, with the

keenest and most hopeful insight into the progressive movements of his

time, and with a rare power of winning the confidence and reading the

thoughts of the youngest about him. That such a writer should have devoted

himself to the department of history, which more than any other has been

distorted by ignorance, puerility, and dishonesty, I conceive to be one of

the happiest facts in English literature, and (though sometimes diverging

from his views) in many parts of the following work I have largely availed

myself of his researches.

I cannot conceal from myself that this book is likely to encounter much,

and probably angry, contradiction from different quarters and on different

grounds. It is strongly opposed to a school of moral philosophy which is

at present extremely influential in England; and, in addition to the many

faults that may be found in its execution, its very plan must make it

displeasing to many. Its subject necessarily includes questions on which

it is exceedingly difficult for an English writer to touch, and the

portion of history with which it is concerned has been obscured by no

common measure of misrepresentation and passion. I have endeavoured to

carry into it a judicial impartiality, and I trust that the attempt,

however imperfect, may not be wholly useless to my readers.

LONDON: _March 1869_.

CHAPTER I. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.

A brief enquiry into the nature and foundations of morals appears an

obvious, and, indeed, almost an indispensable preliminary, to any

examination of the moral progress of Europe. Unfortunately, however, such

an enquiry is beset with serious difficulties, arising in part from the

extreme multiplicity of detail which systems of moral philosophy present,

and in part from a fundamental antagonism of principles, dividing them

into two opposing groups. The great controversy, springing from the rival

claims of intuition and utility to be regarded as the supreme regulator of

moral distinctions, may be dimly traced in the division between Plato and

Aristotle; it appeared more clearly in the division between the Stoics and

the Epicureans; but it has only acquired its full distinctness of

definition, and the importance of the questions depending on it has only

been fully appreciated, in modern times, under the influence of such

writers as Cudworth, Clarke, and Butler upon the one side, and Hobbes,

Helvétius, and Bentham on the other.

Independently of the broad intellectual difficulties which must be

encountered in treating this question, there is a difficulty of a personal

kind, which it may be advisable at once to meet. There is a disposition in

some moralists to resent, as an imputation against their own characters,

any charge of immoral consequences that may be brought against the

principles they advocate. Now it is a peculiarity of this controversy that

every moralist is compelled, by the very nature of the case, to bring such

charges against the opinions of his opponents. The business of a moral

philosophy is to account for and to justify our moral sentiments, or in

other words, to show how we come to have our notions of duty, and to

supply us with a reason for acting upon them. If it does this adequately,

it is impregnable, and therefore a moralist who repudiates one system is

called upon to show that, according to its principles, the notion of duty,

or the motives for performing it, could never have been generated. The

Utilitarian accuses his opponent of basing the entire system of morals on

a faculty that has no existence, of adopting a principle that would make

moral duty vary with the latitude and the epoch, of resolving all ethics

into an idle sentiment. The intuitive moralist, for reasons I shall

hereafter explain, believes that the Utilitarian theory is profoundly

immoral. But to suppose that either of these charges extends to the

character of the moralist is altogether to misconceive the position which

moral theories actually hold in life. Our moral sentiments do not flow

from, but long precede our ethical systems; and it is usually only after

our characters have been fully formed that we begin to reason about them.

It is both possible and very common for the reasoning to be very

defective, without any corresponding imperfection in the disposition of

the man.

The two rival theories of morals are known by many names, and are

subdivided into many groups. One of them is generally described as the

stoical, the intuitive, the independent or the sentimental; the other as

the epicurean, the inductive, the utilitarian, or the selfish. The

moralists of the former school, to state their opinions in the broadest

form, believe that we have a natural power of perceiving that some

qualities, such as benevolence, chastity, or veracity, are better than

others, and that we ought to cultivate them, and to repress their

opposites. In other words, they contend, that by the constitution of our

nature, the notion of right carries with it a feeling of obligation; that

to say a course of conduct is our duty, is in itself, and apart from all

consequences, an intelligible and sufficient reason for practising it; and

that we derive the first principles of our duties from intuition. The

moralist of the opposite school denies that we have any such natural

perception. He maintains that we have by nature absolutely no knowledge of

merit and demerit, of the comparative excellence of our feelings and

actions, and that we derive these notions solely from an observation of

the course of life which is conducive to human happiness. That which makes

actions good is, that they increase the happiness or diminish the pains of

mankind. That which constitutes their demerit is their opposite tendency.

To procure “the greatest happiness for the greatest number,” is therefore

the highest aim of the moralist, the supreme type and expression of

virtue.

It is manifest, however, that this last school, if it proceeded no further

than I have stated, would have failed to accomplish the task which every

moralist must undertake. It is easy to understand that experience may show

that certain actions are conducive to the happiness of mankind, and that

these actions may in consequence be regarded as supremely excellent. The

question still remains, why we are bound to perform them. If men, who

believe that virtuous actions are those which experience shows to be

useful to society, believe also that they are under a natural obligation

to seek the happiness of others, rather than their own, when the two

interests conflict, they have certainly no claim to the title of inductive

moralists. They recognise a moral faculty, or natural sense of moral

obligation or duty as truly as Butler or as Cudworth. And, indeed, a

position very similar to this has been adopted by several intuitive

moralists. Thus Hutcheson, who is the very founder in modern times of the

doctrine of “a moral sense,” and who has defended the disinterested

character of virtue more powerfully than perhaps any other moralist,

resolved all virtue into benevolence, or the pursuit of the happiness of

others; but he maintained that the excellence and obligation of

benevolence are revealed to us by a “moral sense.” Hume, in like manner,

pronounced utility to be the criterion and essential element of all

virtue, and is so far undoubtedly a Utilitarian; but he asserted also that

our pursuit of virtue is unselfish, and that it springs from a natural

feeling of approbation or disapprobation distinct from reason, and

produced by a peculiar sense, or taste, which rises up within us at the

contemplation of virtue or of vice.(1) A similar doctrine has more

recently been advocated by Mackintosh. It is supposed by many that it is a

complete description of the Utilitarian system of morals, that it judges

all actions and dispositions by their consequences, pronouncing them moral

in proportion to their tendency to promote, immoral in proportion to their

tendency to diminish, the happiness of man. But such a summary is clearly

inadequate, for it deals only with one of the two questions which every

moralist must answer. A theory of morals must explain not only what

constitutes a duty, but also how we obtain the notion of there being such

a thing as duty. It must tell us not merely what is the course of conduct

we _ought_ to pursue, but also what is the meaning of this word “ought,”

and from what source we derive the idea it expresses.

Those who have undertaken to prove that all our morality is a product of

experience, have not shrunk from this task, and have boldly entered upon

the one path that was open to them. The notion of there being any such

feeling as an original sense of obligation distinct from the anticipation

of pleasure or pain, they treat as a mere illusion of the imagination. All

that is meant by saying we ought to do an action is, that if we do not do

it, we shall suffer. A desire to obtain happiness and to avoid pain is the

only possible motive to action. The reason, and the only reason, why we

should perform virtuous actions, or in other words, seek the good of

others, is that on the whole such a course will bring us the greatest

amount of happiness.

We have here then a general statement of the doctrine which bases morals

upon experience. If we ask what constitutes virtuous, and what vicious

actions, we are told that the first are those which increase the happiness

or diminish the pains of mankind; and the second are those which have the

opposite effect. If we ask what is the motive to virtue, we are told that

it is an enlightened self-interest. The words happiness, utility, and

interest include, however, many different kinds of enjoyment, and have

given rise to many different modifications of the theory.

Perhaps the lowest and most repulsive form of this theory is that which

was propounded by Mandeville, in his “Enquiry into the Origin of Moral

Virtue.”(2) According to this writer, virtue sprang in the first instance

from the cunning of rulers. These, in order to govern men, found it

necessary to persuade them that it was a noble thing to restrain, instead

of indulging their passions, and to devote themselves entirely to the good

of the community. The manner in which they attained this end was by acting

upon the feeling of vanity. They persuaded men that human nature was

something nobler than the nature of animals, and that devotion to the

community rendered a man pre-eminently great. By statues, and titles, and

honours; by continually extolling such men as Regulus or Decius; by

representing those who were addicted to useless enjoyments as a low and

despicable class, they at last so inflamed the vanity of men as to kindle

an intense emulation, and inspire the most heroic actions. And soon new

influences came into play. Men who began by restraining their passions, in

order to acquire the pleasure of the esteem of others, found that this

restraint saved them from many painful consequences that would have

naturally ensued from over-indulgence, and this discovery became a new

motive to virtue. Each member of the community moreover found that he

himself derived benefit from the self-sacrifice of others, and also that

when he was seeking his own interest, without regard to others, no persons

stood so much in his way as those who were similarly employed, and he had

thus a double reason for diffusing abroad the notion of the excellence of

self-sacrifice. The result of all this was that men agreed to stigmatise

under the term “vice” whatever was injurious, and to eulogise as “virtue”

whatever was beneficial to society.

The opinions of Mandeville attracted, when they were published, an

attention greatly beyond their intrinsic merit, but they are now sinking

rapidly into deserved oblivion. The author, in a poem called the “Fable of

the Bees,” and in comments attached to it, himself advocated a thesis

altogether inconsistent with that I have described, maintaining that

“private vices were public benefits,” and endeavouring, in a long series

of very feeble and sometimes very grotesque arguments, to prove that vice

was in the highest degree beneficial to mankind. A far greater writer had

however already framed a scheme of morals which, if somewhat less

repulsive, was in no degree less selfish than that of Mandeville; and the

opinions of Hobbes concerning the essence and origin of virtue, have, with

no very great variations, been adopted by what may be termed the narrower

school of Utilitarians.

According to these writers we are governed exclusively by our own

interest.(3) Pleasure, they assure us, is the only good,(4) and moral good

and moral evil mean nothing more than our voluntary conformity to a law

that will bring it to us.(5) To love good simply as good, is

impossible.(6) When we speak of the goodness of God, we mean only His

goodness to us.(7) Reverence is nothing more than our conviction, that one

who has power to do us both good and harm, will only do us good.(8) The

pleasures of piety arise from the belief that we are about to receive

pleasure, and the pains of piety from the belief that we are about to

suffer pain from the Deity.(9) Our very affections, according to some of

these writers, are all forms of self-love. Thus charity springs partly

from our desire to obtain the esteem of others, partly from the

expectation that the favours we have bestowed will be reciprocated, and

partly, too, from the gratification of the sense of power, by the proof

that we can satisfy not only our own desires but also the desires of

others.(10) Pity is an emotion arising from a vivid realisation of sorrow

that may befall ourselves, suggested by the sight of the sorrows of

others. We pity especially those who have not deserved calamity, because

we consider ourselves to belong to that category; and the spectacle of

suffering against which no forethought could provide, reminds us most

forcibly of what may happen to ourselves.(11) Friendship is the sense of

the need of the person befriended.(12)

From such a conception of human nature it is easy to divine what system of

morals must flow. No character, feeling, or action is naturally better

than others, and as long as men are in a savage condition, morality has no

existence. Fortunately, however, we are all dependent for many of our

pleasures upon others. Co-operation and organisation are essential to our

happiness, and these are impossible without some restraint being placed

upon our appetites. Laws are enacted to secure this restraint, and being

sustained by rewards and punishments, they make it the interest of the

individual to regard that of the community. According to Hobbes, the

disposition of man is so anarchical, and the importance of restraining it

so transcendent, that absolute government alone is good; the commands of

the sovereign are supreme, and must therefore constitute the law of

morals. The other moralists of the school, though repudiating this notion,

have given a very great and distinguished place to legislation in their

schemes of ethics; for all our conduct being determined by our interests,

virtue being simply the conformity of our own interests with those of the

community, and a judicious legislation being the chief way of securing

this conformity, the functions of the moralist and of the legislator are

almost identical.(13) But in addition to the rewards and punishments of

the penal code, those arising from public opinion—fame or infamy, the

friendship or hostility of those about us—are enlisted on the side of

virtue. The educating influence of laws, and the growing perception of the

identity of interests of the different members of the community, create a

public opinion favourable to all the qualities which are “the means of

peaceable, sociable, and comfortable living.”(14) Such are justice,

gratitude, modesty, equity, and mercy; and such, too, are purity and

chastity, which, considered in themselves alone, are in no degree more

excellent than the coarsest and most indiscriminate lust, but which can be

shown to be conducive to the happiness of society, and become in

consequence virtues.(15) This education of public opinion grows

continually stronger with civilisation, and gradually moulds the

characters of men, making them more and more disinterested, heroic, and

unselfish. A disinterested, unselfish, and heroic man, it is explained, is

one who is strictly engrossed in the pursuit of his own pleasure, but who

pursues it in such a manner as to include in its gratification the

happiness of others.(16)

It is a very old assertion, that a man who prudently sought his own

interest would live a life of perfect virtue. This opinion is adopted by

most of those Utilitarians who are least inclined to lay great stress upon

religious motives; and as they maintain that every man necessarily pursues

exclusively his own happiness, we return by another path to the old

Platonic doctrine, that all vice is ignorance. Virtue is a judicious, and

vice an injudicious, pursuit of pleasure. Virtue is a branch of prudence,

vice is nothing more than imprudence or miscalculation.(17) He who seeks

to improve the moral condition of mankind has two, and only two, ways of

accomplishing his end. The first is, to make it more and more the interest

of each to conform to that of the others; the second is, to dispel the

ignorance which prevents men from seeing their true interest.(18) If

chastity or truth, or any other of what we regard as virtues, could be

shown to produce on the whole more pain than they destroy, or to deprive

men of more pleasure than they afford, they would not be virtues, but

vices.(19) If it could be shown that it is not for our own interest to

practise any of what are admitted to be virtues, all obligation to

practise them would immediately cease.(20) The whole scheme of ethics may

be evolved from the four canons of Epicurus. The pleasure which produces

no pain is to be embraced. The pain which produces no pleasure is to be

avoided. The pleasure is to be avoided which prevents a greater pleasure,

or produces a greater pain. The pain is to be endured which averts a

greater pain, or secures a greater pleasure.(21)

So far I have barely alluded to any but terrestrial motives. These, in the

opinion of many of the most illustrious of the school, are sufficient, but

others—as we shall see, I think, with great reason—are of a different

opinion. Their obvious resource is in the rewards and punishments of

another world, and these they accordingly present as the motive to virtue.

Of all the modifications of the selfish theory, this alone can be said to

furnish interested motives for virtue which are invariably and

incontestably adequate. If men introduce the notion of infinite

punishments and infinite rewards distributed by an omniscient Judge, they

can undoubtedly supply stronger reasons for practising virtue than can

ever be found for practising vice. While admitting therefore in emphatic

terms, that any sacrifice of our pleasure, without the prospect of an

equivalent reward, is a simple act of madness, and unworthy of a rational

being,(22) these writers maintain that we may reasonably sacrifice the

enjoyments of this life, because we shall be rewarded by far greater

enjoyment in the next. To gain heaven and avoid hell should be the spring

of all our actions,(23) and virtue is simply prudence extending its

calculations beyond the grave.(24) This calculation is what we mean by the

“religious motive.”(25) The belief that the nobility and excellence of

virtue could incite us, was a mere delusion of the Pagans.(26)

Considered simply in the light of a prudential scheme, there are only two

possible objections that could be brought against this theory. It might be

said that the amount of virtue required for entering heaven was not

defined, and that therefore it would be possible to enjoy some vices on

earth with impunity. To this, however, it is answered that the very

indefiniteness of the requirement renders zealous piety a matter of

prudence, and also that there is probably a graduated scale of rewards and

punishments adapted to every variety of merit and demerit.(27) It might be

said too that present pleasures are at least certain, and that those of

another world are not equally so. It is answered that the rewards and

punishments offered in another world are so transcendently great, that

according to the rules of ordinary prudence, if there were only a

probability, or even a bare possibility, of their being real, a wise man

should regulate his course with a view to them.(28)

Among these writers, however, some have diverged to a certain degree from

the broad stream of utilitarianism, declaring that the foundation of the

moral law is not utility, but the will or arbitrary decree of God. This

opinion, which was propounded by the schoolman Ockham, and by several

other writers of his age,(29) has in modern times found many

adherents,(30) and been defended through a variety of motives. Some have

upheld it on the philosophical ground that a law can be nothing but the

sentence of a lawgiver; others from a desire to place morals in permanent

subordination to theology; others in order to answer objections to

Christianity derived from apparently immoral acts said to have been

sanctioned by the Divinity; and others because having adopted strong

Calvinistic sentiments, they were at once profoundly opposed to

utilitarian morals, and at the same time too firmly convinced of the total

depravity of human nature to admit the existence of any trustworthy moral

sense.(31)

In the majority of cases, however, these writers have proved substantially

utilitarians. When asked how we can know the will of God, they answer that

in as far as it is not included in express revelation, it must be

discovered by the rule of utility; for nature proves that the Deity is

supremely benevolent, and desires the welfare of men, and therefore any

conduct that leads to that end is in conformity with His will.(32) To the

question why the Divine will should be obeyed, there are but two answers.

The first, which is that of the intuitive moralist, is that we are under a

natural obligation of gratitude to our Creator. The second, which is that

of the selfish moralist, is that the Creator has infinite rewards and

punishments at His disposal. The latter answer appears usually to have

been adopted, and the most eminent member has summed up with great

succinctness the opinion of his school. “The good of mankind,” he says,

“is the subject, the will of God the rule, and everlasting happiness the

motive and end of all virtue.”(33)

We have seen that the distinctive characteristic of the inductive school

of moralists is an absolute denial of the existence of any natural or

innate moral sense or faculty enabling us to distinguish between the

higher and lower parts of our nature, revealing to us either the existence

of a law of duty or the conduct that it prescribes. We have seen that the

only postulate of these writers is that happiness being universally

desired is a desirable thing, that the only merit they recognise in

actions or feelings is their tendency to promote human happiness, and that

the only motive to a virtuous act they conceive possible is the real or

supposed happiness of the agent. The sanctions of morality thus constitute

its obligation, and apart from them the word “ought” is absolutely

unmeaning. Those sanctions, as we have considered them, are of different

kinds and degrees of magnitude. Paley, though elsewhere acknowledging the

others, regarded the religious one as so immeasurably the first, that he

represented it as the one motive of virtue.(34) Locke divided them into

Divine rewards and punishments, legal penalties and social penalties;(35)

Bentham into physical, political, moral or popular, and religious—the

first being the bodily evils that result from vice, the second the

enactments of legislators, the third the pleasures and pains arising from

social intercourse, the fourth the rewards and punishments of another

world.(36)

During the greater part of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the

controversy in England between those who derived the moral code from

experience, and those who derived it from intuitions of the reason, or

from a special faculty, or from a moral sense, or from the power of

sympathy, turned mainly upon the existence of an unselfish element in our

nature. The reality of this existence having been maintained by

Shaftesbury, was established with an unprecedented, and I believe an

irresistible force, by Hutcheson, and the same question occupies a

considerable place in the writings of Butler, Hume, and Adam Smith. The

selfishness of the school of Hobbes, though in some degree mitigated, may

be traced in every page of the writings of Bentham; but some of his

disciples have in this respect deviated very widely from their master, and

in their hands the whole tone and complexion of utilitarianism have been

changed.(37) The two means by which this transformation has been effected

are the recognition of our unselfish or sympathetic feelings, and the

doctrine of the association of ideas.

That human nature is so constituted that we naturally take a pleasure in

the sight of the joy of others is one of those facts which to an ordinary

observer might well appear among the most patent that can be conceived. We

have seen, however, that it was emphatically denied by Hobbes, and during

the greater part of the last century it was fashionable among writers of

the school of Helvétius to endeavour to prove that all domestic or social

affections were dictated simply by a need of the person who was beloved.

The reality of the pleasures and pains of sympathy was admitted by

Bentham;(38) but in accordance with the whole spirit of his philosophy, he

threw them as much as possible into the background, and, as I have already

noticed, gave them no place in his summary of the sanctions of virtue. The

tendency, however, of the later members of the school has been to

recognise them fully,(39) though they differ as to the source from which

they spring. According to one section our benevolent affections are

derived from our selfish feelings by an association of ideas in a manner

which I shall presently describe. According to the other they are an

original part of the constitution of our nature. However they be

generated, their existence is admitted, their cultivation is a main object

of morals, and the pleasure derived from their exercise a leading motive

to virtue. The differences between the intuitive moralists and their

rivals on this point are of two kinds. Both acknowledge the existence in

human nature of both benevolent and malevolent feelings, and that we have

a natural power of distinguishing one from the other; but the first

maintain and the second deny that we have a natural power of perceiving

that one is better than the other. Both admit that we enjoy a pleasure in

acts of benevolence to others, but most writers of the first school

maintain that that pleasure follows unsought for, while writers of the

other school contend that the desire of obtaining it is the motive of the

action.

But by far the most ingenious and at the same time most influential system

of utilitarian morals is that which owes its distinctive feature to the

doctrine of association of Hartley. This doctrine, which among the modern

achievements of ethics occupies on the utilitarian side a position

corresponding in importance to the doctrine of innate moral faculties as

distinguished from innate moral ideas on the intuitive side, was not

absolutely unknown to the ancients, though they never perceived either the

extent to which it may be carried or the important consequences that might

be deduced from it. Some traces of it may be found in Aristotle,(40) and

some of the Epicureans applied it to friendship, maintaining that,

although we first of all love our friend on account of the pleasure he can

give us, we come soon to love him for his own sake, and apart from all

considerations of utility.(41) Among moderns Locke has the merit of having

devised the phrase, “association of ideas;”(42) but he applied it only to

some cases of apparently eccentric sympathies or antipathies. Hutcheson,

however, closely anticipated both the doctrine of Hartley and the

favourite illustration of the school; observing that we desire some things

as themselves pleasurable and others only as means to obtain pleasurable

things, and that these latter, which he terms “secondary desires,” may

become as powerful as the former. “Thus, as soon as we come to apprehend

the use of wealth or power to gratify any of our original desires we must

also desire them. Hence arises the universality of these desires of wealth

and power, since they are the means of gratifying all our desires.”(43)

The same principles were carried much farther by a clergyman named Gay in

a short dissertation which is now almost forgotten, but to which Hartley

ascribed the first suggestion of his theory,(44) and in which indeed the

most valuable part of it is clearly laid down. Differing altogether from

Hutcheson as to the existence of any innate moral sense or principle of

benevolence in man, Gay admitted that the arguments of Hutcheson to prove

that the adult man possesses a moral sense were irresistible, and he

attempted to reconcile this fact with the teaching of Locke by the

doctrine of “secondary desires.” He remarks that in our reasonings we do

not always fall back upon first principles or axioms, but sometimes start

from propositions which though not self-evident we know to be capable of

proof. In the same way in justifying our actions we do not always appeal

to the tendency to produce happiness which is their one ultimate

justification, but content ourselves by showing that they produce some of

the known “means to happiness.” These “means to happiness” being

continually appealed to as justifying motives come insensibly to be

regarded as ends, possessing an intrinsic value irrespective of their

tendency; and in this manner it is that we love and admire virtue even

when unconnected with our interests.(45)

The great work of Hartley expanding and elaborating these views was

published in 1747. It was encumbered by much physiological speculation

into which it is needless for us now to enter, about the manner in which

emotions act upon the nerves, and although accepted enthusiastically by

Priestley and Belsham, and in some degree by Tucker, I do not think that

its purely ethical speculations had much influence until they were adopted

by some leading utilitarians in the present century.(46) Whatever may be

thought of the truth, it is impossible to withhold some admiration from

the intellectual grandeur of a system which starting from a conception of

human nature as low and as base as that of Mandeville or Hobbes professes

without the introduction of a single new or nobler element, by a strange

process of philosophic alchemy, to evolve out of this original selfishness

the most heroic and most sensitive virtue. The manner in which this

achievement is effected is commonly illustrated by the passion of avarice.

Money in itself possesses absolutely nothing that is admirable or

pleasurable, but being the means of procuring us many of the objects of

our desire, it becomes associated in our minds with the idea of pleasure;

it is therefore itself loved; and it is possible for the love of money so

completely to eclipse or supersede the love of all those things which

money procures, that the miser will forego them all, rather than part with

a fraction of his gold.(47)

The same phenomenon may be traced, it is said, in a multitude of other

forms.(48) Thus we seek power, because it gives us the means of gratifying

many desires. It becomes associated with those desires, and is, at last,

itself passionately loved. Praise indicates the affection of the eulogist,

and marks us out for the affection of others. Valued at first as a means,

it is soon desired as an end, and to such a pitch can our enthusiasm rise,

that we may sacrifice all earthly things for posthumous praise which can

never reach our ear. And the force of association may extend even farther.

We love praise, because it procures us certain advantages. We then love it

more than these advantages. We proceed by the same process to transfer our

affections to those things which naturally or generally procure praise. We

at last love what is praiseworthy more than praise, and will endure

perpetual obloquy rather than abandon it.(49) To this process, it is said,

all our moral sentiments must be ascribed. Man has no natural benevolent

feelings. He is at first governed solely by his interest, but the infant

learns to associate its pleasures with the idea of its mother, the boy

with the idea of his family, the man with those of his class, his church,

his country, and at last of all mankind, and in each case an independent

affection is at length formed.(50) The sight of suffering in others

awakens in the child a painful recollection of his own sufferings, which

parents, by appealing to the infant imagination, still further strengthen,

and besides, “when several children are educated together, the pains, the

denials of pleasure, and the sorrows which affect one gradually extend in

some degree to all;” and thus the suffering of others becomes associated

with the idea of our own, and the feeling of compassion is engendered.(51)

Benevolence and justice are associated in our minds with the esteem of our

fellow-men, with reciprocity of favours, and with the hope of future

reward. They are loved at first for these, and finally for themselves,

while opposite trains of association produce opposite feelings towards

malevolence and injustice.(52) And thus virtue, considered as a whole,

becomes the supreme object of our affections. Of all our pleasures, more

are derived from those acts which are called virtuous, than from any other

source. The virtuous acts of others procure us countless advantages. Our

own virtue obtains for us the esteem of men and return of favours. All the

epithets of praise are appropriated to virtue, and all the epithets of

blame to vice. Religion teaches us to connect hopes of infinite joy with

the one, and fears of infinite suffering with the other. Virtue becomes

therefore peculiarly associated with the idea of pleasurable things. It is

soon loved, independently of and more than these; we feel a glow of

pleasure in practising it, and an intense pain in violating it.

Conscience, which is thus generated, becomes the ruling principle of our

lives,(53) and having learnt to sacrifice all earthly things rather than

disobey it, we rise, by an association of ideas, into the loftiest region

of heroism.(54)

The influence of this ingenious, though I think in some respect fanciful,

theory depends less upon the number than upon the ability of its

adherents. Though little known, I believe, beyond England, it has in

England exercised a great fascination over exceedingly dissimilar

minds,(55) and it does undoubtedly evade some of the objections to the

other forms of the inductive theory. Thus, when intuitive moralists

contend that our moral judgments, being instantaneous and effected under

the manifest impulse of an emotion of sympathy or repulsion, are as far as

possible removed from that cold calculation of interests to which the

utilitarian reduces them, it is answered, that the association of ideas is

sufficient to engender a feeling which is the proximate cause of our

decision.(56) Alone, of all the moralists of this school, the disciple of

Hartley recognises conscience as a real and important element of our

nature,(57) and maintains that it is possible to love virtue for itself as

a form of happiness without any thought of ulterior consequences.(58) The

immense value this theory ascribes to education, gives it an unusual

practical importance. When we are balancing between a crime and a virtue,

our wills, it is said, are necessarily determined by the greater pleasure.

If we find more pleasure in the vice than in the virtue, we inevitably

gravitate to evil. If we find more pleasure in the virtue than in the

vice, we are as irresistibly attracted towards good. But the strength of

such motives may be immeasurably enhanced by an early association of

ideas. If we have been accustomed from childhood to associate our ideas of

praise and pleasure with virtue, we shall readily yield to virtuous

motives; if with vice, to vicious ones. This readiness to yield to one or

other set of motives, constitutes disposition, which is thus, according to

these moralists, altogether an artificial thing, the product of education,

and effected by association of ideas.(59)

It will be observed, however, that this theory, refined and imposing as it

may appear, is still essentially a selfish one. Even when sacrificing all

earthly objects through love of virtue, the good man is simply seeking his

greatest enjoyment, indulging a kind of mental luxury which gives him more

pleasure than what he foregoes, just as the miser finds more pleasure in

accumulation than in any form of expenditure.(60) There has been, indeed,

one attempt to emancipate the theory from this condition, but it appears

to me altogether futile. It has been said that men in the first instance

indulge in baneful excesses, on account of the pleasure they afford, but

the habit being contracted, continue to practise them after they have

ceased to afford pleasure, and that a similar law may operate in the case

of the habit of virtue.(61) But the reason why men who have contracted a

habit continue to practise it after it has ceased to give them positive

enjoyment, is because to desist, creates a restlessness and uneasiness

which amounts to acute mental pain. To avoid that pain is the motive of

the action.

The reader who has perused the passages I have accumulated in the notes,

will be able to judge with what degree of justice utilitarian writers

denounce with indignation the imputation of selfishness, as a calumny

against their system. It is not, I think, a strained or unnatural use of

language to describe as selfish or interested, all actions which a man

performs, in order himself to avoid suffering or acquire the greatest

possible enjoyment. If this be so, the term selfish is strictly applicable

to all the branches of this system.(62) At the same time it must be

acknowledged that there is a broad difference between the refined hedonism

of the utilitarians we have last noticed, and the writings of Hobbes, of

Mandeville, or of Paley. It must be acknowledged, also, that not a few

intuitive or stoical moralists have spoken of the pleasure to be derived

from virtue in language little if at all different from these writers.(63)

The main object of the earlier members of the inductive school, was to

depress human nature to their standard, by resolving all the noblest

actions into coarse and selfish elements. The main object of some of the

more influential of the later members of this school, has been to

sublimate their conceptions of happiness and interest in such a manner, as

to include the highest displays of heroism. As we have seen, they fully

admit that conscience is a real thing, and should be the supreme guide of

our lives, though they contend that it springs originally from

selfishness, transformed under the influence of the association of ideas.

They acknowledge the reality of the sympathetic feelings, though they

usually trace them to the same source. They cannot, it is true,

consistently with their principles, recognise the possibility of conduct

which is in the strictest sense of the word unselfish, but they contend

that it is quite possible for a man to find his highest pleasure in

sacrificing himself for the good of others, that the association of virtue

and pleasure is only perfect when it leads habitually to spontaneous and

uncalculating action, and that no man is in a healthy moral condition who

does not find more pain in committing a crime than he could derive

pleasure from any of its consequences. The theory in its principle remains

unchanged, but in the hands of some of these writers the spirit has wholly

altered.

Having thus given a brief, but, I trust, clear and faithful account of the

different modifications of the inductive theory, I shall proceed to state

some of the principal objections that have been and may be brought against

it. I shall then endeavour to define and defend the opinions of those who

believe that our moral feelings are an essential part of our constitution,

developed by, but not derived from education, and I shall conclude this

chapter by an enquiry into the order of their evolution; so that having

obtained some notion of the natural history of morals, we may be able, in

the ensuing chapters, to judge, how far their normal progress has been

accelerated or retarded by religious or political agencies.

“Psychology,” it has been truly said, “is but developed

consciousness.”(64) When moralists assert, that what we call virtue

derives its reputation solely from its utility, and that the interest or

pleasure of the agent is the one motive to practise it, our first question

is naturally how far this theory agrees with the feelings and with the

language of mankind. But if tested by this criterion, there never was a

doctrine more emphatically condemned than utilitarianism. In all its

stages, and in all its assertions, it is in direct opposition to common

language and to common sentiments. In all nations and in all ages, the

ideas of interest and utility on the one hand and of virtue on the other,

have been regarded by the multitude as perfectly distinct, and all

languages recognise the distinction. The terms honour, justice, rectitude

or virtue, and their equivalents in every language, present to the mind

ideas essentially and broadly differing from the terms prudence, sagacity,

or interest. The two lines of conduct may coincide, but they are never

confused, and we have not the slightest difficulty in imagining them

antagonistic. When we say a man is governed by a high sense of honour, or

by strong moral feeling, we do not mean that he is prudently pursuing

either his own interests or the interests of society. The universal

sentiment of mankind represents self-sacrifice as an essential element of

a meritorious act, and means by self-sacrifice the deliberate adoption of

the least pleasurable course without the prospect of any pleasure in

return. A selfish act may be innocent, but cannot be virtuous, and to

ascribe all good deeds to selfish motives, is not the distortion but the

negation of virtue. No Epicurean could avow before a popular audience that

the one end of his life was the pursuit of his own happiness without an

outburst of indignation and contempt.(65) No man could consciously make

this—which according to the selfish theory is the only rational and indeed

possible motive of action—the deliberate object of all his undertakings,

without his character becoming despicable and degraded. Whether we look

within ourselves or examine the conduct either of our enemies or of our

friends, or adjudicate upon the characters in history or in fiction, our

feelings on these matters are the same. In exact proportion as we believe

a desire for personal enjoyment to be the motive of a good act is the

merit of the agent diminished. If we believe the motive to be wholly

selfish the merit is altogether destroyed. If we believe it to be wholly

disinterested the merit is altogether unalloyed. Hence, the admiration

bestowed upon Prometheus, or suffering virtue constant beneath the blows

of Almighty malice, or on the atheist who with no prospect of future

reward suffered a fearful death, rather than abjure an opinion which could

be of no benefit to society, because he believed it to be the truth.

Selfish moralists deny the possibility of that which all ages, all

nations, all popular judgments pronounce to have been the characteristic

of every noble act that has ever been performed. Now, when a philosophy

which seeks by the light of consciousness to decipher the laws of our

moral being proves so diametrically opposed to the conclusions arrived at

by the great mass of mankind, who merely follow their consciousness

without endeavouring to frame systems of philosophy, that it makes most of

the distinctions of common ethical language absolutely unmeaning, this is,

to say the least, a strong presumption against its truth. If Molière’s

hero had been speaking prose all his life without knowing it, this was

simply because he did not understand what prose was. In the present case

we are asked to believe that men have been under a total delusion about

the leading principles of their lives which they had distinguished by a

whole vocabulary of terms.

It is said that the case becomes different when the pleasure sought is not

a gross or material enjoyment, but the satisfaction of performed virtue. I

suspect that if men could persuade themselves that the one motive of a

virtuous man was the certainty that the act he accomplished would be

followed by a glow of satisfaction so intense as more than to compensate

for any sacrifice he might have made, the difference would not be as great

as is supposed. In fact, however—and the consciousness of this lies, I

conceive, at the root of the opinions of men upon the subject—the pleasure

of virtue is one which can only be obtained on the express condition of

its not being the object sought. Phenomena of this kind are familiar to us

all. Thus, for example, it has often been observed that prayer, by a law

of our nature and apart from all supernatural intervention, exercises a

reflex influence of a very beneficial character upon the minds of the

worshippers. The man who offers up his petitions with passionate

earnestness, with unfaltering faith, and with a vivid realisation of the

presence of an Unseen Being has risen to a condition of mind which is

itself eminently favourable both to his own happiness and to the expansion

of his moral qualities. But he who expects nothing more will never attain

this. To him who neither believes nor hopes that his petitions will

receive a response such a mental state is impossible. No Protestant before

an image of the Virgin, no Christian before a pagan idol, could possibly

attain it. If prayers were offered up solely with a view to this benefit,

they would be absolutely sterile and would speedily cease. Thus again,

certain political economists have contended that to give money in charity

is worse than useless, that it is positively noxious to society, but they

have added that the gratification of our benevolent affections is pleasing

to ourselves, and that the pleasure we derive from this source may be so

much greater than the evil resulting from our gift, that we may justly,

according to the “greatest happiness principle,” purchase this large

amount of gratification to ourselves by a slight injury to our neighbours.

The political economy involved in this very characteristic specimen of

utilitarian ethics I shall hereafter examine. At present it is sufficient

to observe that no one who consciously practised benevolence solely from

this motive could obtain the pleasure in question. We receive enjoyment

from the thought that we have done good. We never could receive that

enjoyment if we believed and realised that we were doing harm. The same

thing is pre-eminently true of the satisfaction of conscience. A feeling

of satisfaction follows the accomplishment of duty for itself, but if the

duty be performed solely through the expectation of a mental pleasure

conscience refuses to ratify the bargain.

There is no fact more conspicuous in human nature than the broad

distinction, both in kind and degree, drawn between the moral and the

other parts of our nature. But this on utilitarian principles is

altogether unaccountable. If the excellence of virtue consists solely in

its utility or tendency to promote the happiness of men, we should be

compelled to canonise a crowd of acts which are utterly remote from all

our ordinary notions of morality. The whole tendency of political economy

and philosophical history which reveal the physiology of societies, is to

show that the happiness and welfare of mankind are evolved much more from

our selfish than from what are termed our virtuous acts. The prosperity of

nations and the progress of civilisation are mainly due to the exertions

of men who while pursuing strictly their own interests, were unconsciously

promoting the interests of the community. The selfish instinct that leads

men to accumulate, confers ultimately more advantage upon the world than

the generous instinct that leads men to give. A great historian has

contended with some force that intellectual development is more important

to societies than moral development. Yet who ever seriously questioned the

reality of the distinction that separates these things? The reader will

probably exclaim that the key to that distinction is to be found in the

motive; but it is one of the paradoxes of the utilitarian school that the

motive of the agent has absolutely no influence on the morality of the

act. According to Bentham, there is but one motive possible, the pursuit

of our own enjoyment. The most virtuous, the most vicious, and the most

indifferent of actions, if measured by this test, would be exactly the

same, and an investigation of motives should therefore be altogether

excluded from our moral judgments.(66) Whatever test we adopt, the

difficulty of accounting for the unique and pre-eminent position mankind

have assigned to virtue will remain. If we judge by tendencies, a crowd of

objects and of acts to which no mortal ever dreamed of ascribing virtue,

contribute largely to the happiness of man. If we judge by motives, the

moralists we are reviewing have denied all generic difference between

prudential and virtuous motives. If we judge by intentions, it is certain

that however much truth or chastity may contribute to the happiness of

mankind, it is not with philanthropic intentions that those virtues are

cultivated.

It is often said that intuitive moralists in their reasonings are guilty

of continually abandoning their principles by themselves appealing to the

tendency of certain acts to promote human happiness as a justification,

and the charge is usually accompanied by a challenge to show any confessed

virtue that has not that tendency. To the first objection it may be

shortly answered that no intuitive moralist ever dreamed of doubting that

benevolence or charity, or in other words, the promotion of the happiness

of man, is a duty. He maintains that it not only is so, but that we arrive

at this fact by direct intuition, and not by the discovery that such a

course is conducive to our own interest. But while he cordially recognises

this branch of virtue, and while he has therefore a perfect right to

allege the beneficial effects of a virtue in its defence, he refuses to

admit that all virtue can be reduced to this single principle. With the

general sentiment of mankind he regards charity as a good thing only

because it is of use to the world. With the same general sentiment of

mankind he believes that chastity and truth have an independent value,

distinct from their influence upon happiness. To the question whether

every confessed virtue is conducive to human happiness, it is less easy to

reply, for it is usually extremely difficult to calculate the remote

tendencies of acts, and in cases where, in the common apprehension of

mankind, the morality is very clear, the consequences are often very

obscure. Notwithstanding the claim of great precision which utilitarian

writers so boastfully make, the standard by which they profess to measure

morals is itself absolutely incapable of definition or accurate

explanation. Happiness is one of the most indeterminate and undefinable

words in the language, and what are the conditions of “the greatest

possible happiness” no one can precisely say. No two nations, perhaps no

two individuals, would find them the same.(67) And even if every virtuous

act were incontestably useful, it by no means follows that its virtue is

derived from its utility.

It may be readily granted, that as a general rule those acts which we call

virtuous, are unquestionably productive of happiness, if not to the agent,

at least to mankind in general, but we have already seen that they have by

no means that monopoly or pre-eminence of utility which on utilitarian

principles, the unique position assigned to them would appear to imply. It

may be added, that if we were to proceed in detail to estimate acts by

their consequences, we should soon be led to very startling conclusions.

In the first place, it is obvious that if virtues are only good because

they promote, and vices only evil because they impair the happiness of

mankind, the degrees of excellence or criminality must be strictly

proportioned to the degrees of utility or the reverse.(68) Every action,

every disposition, every class, every condition of society must take its

place on the moral scale precisely in accordance with the degree in which

it promotes or diminishes human happiness. Now it is extremely

questionable, whether some of the most monstrous forms of sensuality which

it is scarcely possible to name, cause as much unhappiness as some

infirmities of temper, or procrastination or hastiness of judgment. It is

scarcely doubtful that a modest, diffident, and retiring nature,

distrustful of its own abilities, and shrinking with humility from

conflict, produces on the whole less benefit to the world than the

self-assertion of an audacious and arrogant nature, which is impelled to

every struggle, and developes every capacity. Gratitude has no doubt done

much to soften and sweeten the intercourse of life, but the corresponding

feeling of revenge was for centuries the one bulwark against social

anarchy, and is even now one of the chief restraints to crime.(69) On the

great theatre of public life, especially in periods of great convulsions

when passions are fiercely roused, it is neither the man of delicate

scrupulosity and sincere impartiality, nor yet the single-minded religious

enthusiast, incapable of dissimulation or procrastination, who confers

most benefit upon the world. It is much rather the astute statesman

earnest about his ends but unscrupulous about his means, equally free from

the trammels of conscience and from the blindness of zeal, who governs

because he partly yields to the passions and the prejudices of his time.

But however much some modern writers may idolize the heroes of success,

however much they may despise and ridicule those far nobler men, whose

wide tolerance and scrupulous honour rendered them unfit leaders in the

fray, it has scarcely yet been contended that the delicate

conscientiousness which in these cases impairs utility constitutes vice.

If utility is the sole measure of virtue, it is difficult to understand

how we could look with moral disapprobation on any class who prevent

greater evils than they cause. But with such a principle we might find

strange priestesses at the utilitarian shrine. “Aufer meretrices de rebus

humanis,” said St. Augustine, “turbaveris omnia libidinibus.”(70)

Let us suppose an enquirer who intended to regulate his life consistently

by the utilitarian principle; let us suppose him to have overcome the

first great difficulty of his school, arising from the apparent divergence

of his own interests from his duty, to have convinced himself that that

divergence does not exist, and to have accordingly made the pursuit of

duty his single object, it remains to consider what kind of course he

would pursue. He is informed that it is a pure illusion to suppose that

human actions have any other end or rule than happiness, that nothing is

intrinsically good or intrinsically bad apart from its consequences, that

no act which is useful can possibly be vicious, and that the utility of an

act constitutes and measures its value. One of his first observations will

be that in very many special cases acts such as murder, theft, or

falsehood, which the world calls criminal, and which in the majority of

instances would undoubtedly be hurtful, appear eminently productive of

good. Why then, he may ask, should they not in these cases be performed?

The answer he receives is that they would not really be useful, because we

must consider the remote as well as the immediate consequences of actions,

and although in particular instances a falsehood or even a murder might

appear beneficial, it is one of the most important interests of mankind

that the sanctity of life and property should be preserved, and that a

high standard of veracity should be maintained. But this answer is

obviously insufficient. It is necessary to show that the extent to which a

single act of what the world calls crime would weaken these great bulwarks

of society is such as to counterbalance the immediate good which it

produces. If it does not, the balance will be on the side of happiness,

the murder or theft or falsehood will be useful, and therefore, on

utilitarian principles, will be virtuous. Now even in the case of public

acts, the effect of the example of an obscure individual is usually small,

but if the act be accomplished in perfect secrecy, the evil effects

resulting from the example will be entirely absent. It has been said that

it would be dangerous to give men permission to perpetrate what men call

crimes in secret. This may be a very good reason why the utilitarian

should not proclaim such a principle, but it is no reason why he should

not act upon it. If a man be convinced that no act which is useful can

possibly be criminal, if it be in his power by perpetrating what is called

a crime to obtain an end of great immediate utility, and if he is able to

secure such absolute secrecy as to render it perfectly certain that his

act cannot become an example, and cannot in consequence exercise any

influence on the general standard of morals, it appears demonstrably

certain that on utilitarian principles he would be justified in performing

it. If what we call virtue be only virtuous _because_ it is useful, it can

only be virtuous _when_ it is useful. The question of the morality of a

large number of acts must therefore depend upon the probability of their

detection,(71) and a little adroit hypocrisy must often, not merely in

appearance but in reality, convert a vice into a virtue. The only way by

which it has been attempted with any plausibility to evade this conclusion

has been by asserting that the act would impair the disposition of the

agent, or in other words predispose him on other occasions to perform acts

which are generally hurtful to society. But in the first place a single

act has no such effect upon disposition as to counteract a great immediate

good, especially when, as we have supposed, that act is not a revolt

against what is believed to be right, but is performed under the full

belief that it is in accordance with the one rational rule of morals, and

in the next place, as far as the act would form a habit it would appear to

be the habit of in all cases regulating actions by a precise and minute

calculation of their utility, which is the very ideal of utilitarian

virtue.

If our enquirer happens to be a man of strong imagination and of solitary

habits, it is very probable that he will be accustomed to live much in a

world of imagination, a world peopled with beings that are to him as real

as those of flesh, with its joys and sorrows, its temptations and its

sins. In obedience to the common feelings of our nature he may have

struggled long and painfully against sins of the imagination, which he was

never seriously tempted to convert into sins of action. But his new

philosophy will be admirably fitted to console his mind. If remorse be

absent the indulgence of the most vicious imagination is a pleasure, and

if this indulgence does not lead to action it is a clear gain, and

therefore to be applauded. That a course may be continually pursued in

imagination without leading to corresponding actions he will speedily

discover, and indeed it has always been one of the chief objections

brought against fiction that the constant exercise of the sympathies in

favour of imaginary beings is found positively to indispose men to

practical benevolence.(72)

Proceeding farther in his course, our moralist will soon find reason to

qualify the doctrine of remote consequences, which plays so large a part

in the calculations of utilitarianism. It is said that it is criminal to

destroy human beings, even when the crime would appear productive of great

utility, for every instance of murder weakens the sanctity of life. But

experience shows that it is possible for men to be perfectly indifferent

to one particular section of human life, without this indifference

extending to others. Thus among the ancient Greeks, the murder or

exposition of the children of poor parents was continually practised with

the most absolute callousness, without exercising any appreciable

influence upon the respect for adult life. In the same manner what may be

termed religious unveracity, or the habit of propagating what are deemed

useful superstitions, with the consciousness of their being false, or at

least suppressing or misrepresenting the facts that might invalidate them,

does not in any degree imply industrial unveracity. Nothing is more common

than to find extreme dishonesty in speculation coexisting with scrupulous

veracity in business. If any vice might be expected to conform strictly to

the utilitarian theory, it would be cruelty; but cruelty to animals may

exist without leading to cruelty to men, and even where spectacles in

which animal suffering forms a leading element exercise an injurious

influence on character, it is more than doubtful whether the measure of

human unhappiness they may ultimately produce is at all equivalent to the

passionate enjoyment they immediately afford.

This last consideration, however, makes it necessary to notice a new, and

as it appears to me, almost grotesque development of the utilitarian

theory. The duty of humanity to animals, though for a long period too much

neglected, may, on the principles of the intuitive moralist, be easily

explained and justified. Our circumstances and characters produce in us

many and various affections towards all with whom we come in contact, and

our consciences pronounce these affections to be good or bad. We feel that

humanity or benevolence is a good affection, and also that it is due in

different degrees to different classes. Thus it is not only natural but

right that a man should care for his own family more than for the world at

large, and this obligation applies not only to parents who are responsible

for having brought their children into existence, and to children who owe

a debt of gratitude to their parents, but also to brothers who have no

such special tie. So too we feel it to be both unnatural and wrong to feel

no stronger interest in our fellow-countrymen than in other men. In the

same way we feel that there is a wide interval between the humanity it is

both natural and right to exhibit towards animals, and that which is due

to our own species. Strong philanthropy could hardly coexist with

cannibalism, and a man who had no hesitation in destroying human life for

the sake of obtaining the skins of the victims, or of freeing himself from

some trifling inconvenience, would scarcely be eulogised for his

benevolence. Yet a man may be regarded as very humane to animals who has

no scruple in sacrificing their lives for his food, his pleasures, or his

convenience.

Towards the close of the last century an energetic agitation in favour of

humanity to animals arose in England, and the utilitarian moralists, who

were then rising into influence, caught the spirit of their time and made

very creditable efforts to extend it.(73) It is manifest, however, that a

theory which recognised no other end in virtue than the promotion of human

happiness, could supply no adequate basis for the movement. Some of the

recent members of the school have accordingly enlarged their theory,

maintaining that acts are virtuous when they produce a net result of

happiness, and vicious when they produce a net result of suffering,

altogether irrespective of the question whether this enjoyment or

suffering is of men or animals. In other words, they place the duty of man

to animals on exactly the same basis as the duty of man to his fellow-men,

maintaining that no suffering can be rightly inflicted on brutes, which

does not produce a larger amount of happiness to man.(74)

The first reflection suggested by this theory is, that it appears

difficult to understand how, on the principles of the inductive school, it

could be arrived at. Benevolence, as we have seen, according to these

writers begins in interest. We first of all do good to men, because it is

for our advantage, though the force of the habit may at last act

irrespective of interest. But in the case of animals which cannot resent

barbarity, this foundation of self-interest does not for the most part(75)

exist. Probably, however, an association of ideas might help to solve the

difficulty, and the habit of benevolence generated originally from the

social relations of men might at last be extended to the animal world; but

that it should be so to the extent of placing the duty to animals on the

same basis as the duty to men, I do not anticipate, or (at the risk of

being accused of great inhumanity), I must add, desire. I cannot look

forward to a time when no one will wear any article of dress formed out of

the skin of an animal, or feed upon animal flesh, till he has ascertained

that the pleasure he derives from doing so, exceeds the pain inflicted

upon the animal, as well as the pleasure of which by abridging its life he

has deprived it.(76) And supposing that with such a calculation before

him, the utilitarian should continue to feed on the flesh of animals, his

principle might carry him to further conclusions, from which I confess I

should recoil. If, when Swift was writing his famous essay in favour of

employing for food the redundant babies of a half-starving population, he

had been informed that, according to the more advanced moralists, to eat a

child, and to eat a sheep, rest upon exactly the same ground; that in the

one case as in the other, the single question for the moralist is, whether

the repast on the whole produces more pleasure than pain, it must be owned

that the discovery would have greatly facilitated his task.

The considerations I have adduced will, I think, be sufficient to show

that the utilitarian principle if pushed to its full logical consequences

would be by no means as accordant with ordinary moral notions as is

sometimes alleged; that it would, on the contrary, lead to conclusions

utterly and outrageously repugnant to the moral feelings it is intended to

explain. I will conclude this part of my argument by very briefly

adverting to two great fields in which, as I believe, it would prove

especially revolutionary.

The first of these is the field of chastity. It will be necessary for me

in the course of the present work to dwell at greater length than I should

desire upon questions connected with this virtue. At present, I will

merely ask the reader to conceive a mind from which all notion of the

intrinsic excellence or nobility of purity was banished, and to suppose

such a mind comparing, by a utilitarian standard, a period in which

sensuality was almost unbridled, such as the age of Athenian glory or the

English restoration, with a period of austere virtue. The question which

of these societies was morally the best would thus resolve itself solely

into the question in which there was produced the greatest amount of

enjoyment and the smallest amount of suffering. The pleasures of domestic

life, the pleasures resulting from a freer social intercourse,(77) the

different degrees of suffering inflicted on those who violated the law of

chastity, the ulterior consequences of each mode of life upon well-being

and upon population, would be the chief elements of the comparison. Can

any one believe that the balance of enjoyment would be so unquestionably

and so largely on the side of the more austere society as to justify the

degree of superiority which is assigned to it?(78)

The second sphere is that of speculative truth. No class of men have more

highly valued an unflinching hostility to superstition than utilitarians.

Yet it is more than doubtful whether upon their principles it can be

justified. Many superstitions do undoubtedly answer to the Greek

conception of slavish “fear of the gods,” and have been productive of

unspeakable misery to mankind, but there are very many others of a

different tendency. Superstitions appeal to our hopes as well as to our

fears. They often meet and gratify the inmost longings of the heart. They

offer certainties when reason can only afford possibilities or

probabilities. They supply conceptions on which the imagination loves to

dwell. They sometimes even impart a new sanction to moral truths. Creating

wants which they alone can satisfy, and fears which they alone can quell,

they often become essential elements of happiness, and their consoling

efficacy is most felt in the languid or troubled hours when it is most

needed. We owe more to our illusions than to our knowledge. The

imagination, which is altogether constructive, probably contributes more

to our happiness than the reason, which in the sphere of speculation is

mainly critical and destructive. The rude charm which in the hour of

danger or distress the savage clasps so confidently to his breast, the

sacred picture which is believed to shed a hallowing and protecting

influence over the poor man’s cottage, can bestow a more real consolation

in the darkest hour of human suffering than can be afforded by the

grandest theories of philosophy. The first desire of the heart is to find

something on which to lean. Happiness is a condition of feeling, not a

condition of circumstances, and to common minds one of its first

essentials is the exclusion of painful and harassing doubt. A system of

belief may be false, superstitious, and reactionary, and may yet be

conducive to human happiness if it furnishes great multitudes of men with

what they believe to be a key to the universe, if it consoles them in

those seasons of agonizing bereavement when the consolations of

enlightened reason are but empty words, if it supports their feeble and

tottering minds in the gloomy hours of sickness and of approaching death.

A credulous and superstitious nature may be degraded, but in the many

cases where superstition does not assume a persecuting or appalling form

it is not unhappy, and degradation, apart from unhappiness, can have no

place in utilitarian ethics. No error can be more grave than to imagine

that when a critical spirit is abroad the pleasant beliefs will all

remain, and the painful ones alone will perish. To introduce into the mind

the consciousness of ignorance and the pangs of doubt is to inflict or

endure much suffering, which may even survive the period of transition.

“Why is it,” said Luther’s wife, looking sadly back upon the sensuous

creed which she had left, “that in our old faith we prayed so often and so

warmly, and that our prayers are now so few and so cold?”(79) It is

related of an old monk named Serapion, who had embraced the heresy of the

anthropomorphites, that he was convinced by a brother monk of the folly of

attributing to the Almighty a human form. He bowed his reason humbly to

the Catholic creed; but when he knelt down to pray, the image which his

imagination had conceived, and on which for so many years his affections

had been concentrated, had disappeared, and the old man burst into tears,

exclaiming, “You have deprived me of my God.”(80)

These are indeed facts which must be deeply painful to all who are

concerned with the history of opinion. The possibility of often adding to

the happiness of men by diffusing abroad, or at least sustaining pleasing

falsehoods, and the suffering that must commonly result from their

dissolution, can hardly reasonably be denied. There is one, and but one,

adequate reason that can always justify men in critically reviewing what

they have been taught. It is, the conviction that opinions should not be

regarded as mere mental luxuries, that truth should be deemed an end

distinct from and superior to utility, and that it is a moral duty to

pursue it, whether it leads to pleasure or whether it leads to pain. Among

the many wise sayings which antiquity ascribed to Pythagoras, few are more

remarkable than his division of virtue into two distinct branches—to be

truthful and to do good.(81)

Of the sanctions which, according to the utilitarians, constitute the sole

motives to virtue, there is one, as I have said, unexceptionably adequate.

Those who adopt the religious sanction, can always appeal to a balance of

interest in favour of virtue; but as the great majority of modern

utilitarians confidently sever their theory from all theological

considerations, I will dismiss this sanction with two or three remarks.

In the first place, it is obvious that those who regard the arbitrary will

of the Deity as the sole rule of morals, render it perfectly idle to

represent the Divine attributes as deserving of our admiration. To speak

of the goodness of God, either implies that there is such a quality as

goodness, to which the Divine acts conform, or it is an unmeaning

tautology. Why should we extol, or how can we admire, the perfect goodness

of a Being whose will and acts constitute the sole standard or definition

of perfection?(82) The theory which teaches that the arbitrary will of the

Deity is the one rule of morals, and the anticipation of future rewards

and punishments the one reason for conforming to it, consists of two

parts. The first annihilates the goodness of God; the second, the virtue

of man.

Another and equally obvious remark is, that while these theologians

represent the hope of future rewards, and the fear of future punishments,

as the only reason for doing right, one of our strongest reasons for

believing in the existence of these rewards and punishments, is our

deep-seated feeling of merit and demerit. That the present disposition of

affairs is in many respects unjust, that suffering often attends a course

which deserves reward, and happiness a course which deserves punishment,

leads men to infer a future state of retribution. Take away the

consciousness of desert, and the inference would no longer be made.

A third remark, which I believe to be equally true, but which may not be

acquiesced in with equal readiness, is that without the concurrence of a

moral faculty, it is wholly impossible to prove from nature that supreme

goodness of the Creator, which utilitarian theologians assume. We speak of

the benevolence shown in the joy of the insect glittering in the sunbeam,

in the protecting instincts so liberally bestowed among the animal world,

in the kindness of the parent to its young, in the happiness of little

children, in the beauty and the bounty of nature, but is there not another

side to the picture? The hideous disease, the countless forms of rapine

and of suffering, the entozoa that live within the bodies, and feed upon

the anguish of sentient beings, the ferocious instinct of the cat, that

prolongs with delight the agonies of its victim, all the multitudinous

forms of misery that are manifested among the innocent portion of

creation, are not these also the works of nature? We speak of the Divine

veracity. What is the whole history of the intellectual progress of the

world but one long struggle of the intellect of man to emancipate itself

from the deceptions of nature? Every object that meets the eye of the

savage awakens his curiosity only to lure him into some deadly error. The

sun that seems a diminutive light revolving around his world; the moon and

the stars that appear formed only to light his path; the strange fantastic

diseases that suggest irresistibly the notion of present dæmons; the

terrific phenomena of nature which appear the results, not of blind

forces, but of isolated spiritual agencies—all these things fatally,

inevitably, invincibly impel him into superstition. Through long centuries

the superstitions thus generated have deluged the world with blood.

Millions of prayers have been vainly breathed to what we now know were

inexorable laws of nature. Only after ages of toil did the mind of man

emancipate itself from those deadly errors to which by the deceptive

appearances of nature the long infancy of humanity is universally doomed.

And in the laws of wealth how different are the appearances from the

realities of things! Who can estimate the wars that have been kindled, the

bitterness and the wretchedness that have been caused, by errors relating

to the apparent antagonism of the interests of nations which were so

natural that for centuries they entangled the very strongest intellects,

and it was scarcely till our own day that a tardy science came to dispel

them?

What shall we say to these things? If induction alone were our guide, if

we possessed absolutely no knowledge of some things being in their own

nature good, and others in their own nature evil, how could we rise from

this spectacle of nature to the conception of an all-perfect Author? Even

if we could discover a predominance of benevolence in the creation, we

should still regard the mingled attributes of nature as a reflex of the

mingled attributes of its Contriver. Our knowledge of the Supreme

Excellence, our best evidence even of the existence of the Creator, is

derived not from the material universe but from our own moral nature.(83)

It is not of reason but of faith. In other words it springs from that

instinctive or moral nature which is as truly a part of our being as is

our reason, which teaches us what reason could never teach, the supreme

and transcendent excellence of moral good, which rising dissatisfied above

this world of sense, proves itself by the very intensity of its aspiration

to be adapted for another sphere, and which constitutes at once the

evidence of a Divine element within us, and the augury of the future that

is before us.(84)

These things belong rather to the sphere of feeling than of reasoning.

Those who are most deeply persuaded of their truth, will probably feel

that they are unable by argument to express adequately the intensity of

their conviction, but they may point to the recorded experience of the

best and greatest men in all ages, to the incapacity of terrestrial things

to satisfy our nature, to the manifest tendency, both in individuals and

nations, of a pure and heroic life to kindle, and of a selfish and corrupt

life to cloud, these aspirations, to the historical fact that no

philosophy and no scepticism have been able permanently to repress them.

The lines of our moral nature tend upwards. In it we have the common root

of religion and of ethics, for the same consciousness that tells us that,

even when it is in fact the weakest element of our constitution, it is by

right supreme, commanding and authoritative, teaches us also that it is

Divine. All the nobler religions that have governed mankind, have done so

by virtue of the affinity of their teaching with this nature, by speaking,

as common religious language correctly describes it, “to the heart,” by

appealing not to self-interest, but to that Divine element of

self-sacrifice which is latent in every soul.(85) The reality of this

moral nature is the one great question of natural theology, for it

involves that connection between our own and a higher nature, without

which the existence of a First Cause were a mere question of archæology,

and religion but an exercise of the imagination.

I return gladly to the secular sanctions of utilitarianism. The majority

of its disciples assure us that these are sufficient to establish their

theory, or in other words, that our duty coincides so strictly with our

interest when rightly understood, that a perfectly prudent would

necessarily become a perfectly virtuous man.(86) Bodily vice they tell us

ultimately brings bodily weakness and suffering. Extravagance is followed

by ruin; unbridled passions by the loss of domestic peace; disregard for

the interests of others by social or legal penalties; while on the other

hand, the most moral is also the most tranquil disposition; benevolence is

one of the truest of our pleasures, and virtue may become by habit, an

essential of enjoyment. As the shopkeeper who has made his fortune, still

sometimes continues at the counter, because the daily routine has become

necessary to his happiness, so the “moral hero” may continue to practise

that virtue which was at first the mere instrument of his pleasures, as

being in itself more precious than all besides.(87)

This theory of the perfect coincidence of virtue and interest rightly

understood, which has always been a commonplace of moralists, and has been

advocated by many who were far from wishing to resolve virtue into

prudence, contains no doubt a certain amount of truth, but only of the

most general kind. It does not apply to nations as wholes, for although

luxurious and effeminate vices do undoubtedly corrode and enervate

national character, the histories of ancient Rome and of not a few modern

monarchies abundantly prove that a career of consistent rapacity,

ambition, selfishness, and fraud may be eminently conducive to national

prosperity.(88) It does not apply to imperfectly organised societies,

where the restraints of public opinion are unfelt and where force is the

one measure of right. It does not apply except in a very partial degree

even to the most civilised of mankind. It is, indeed, easy to show that in

a polished community a certain low standard of virtue is essential to

prosperity, to paint the evils of unrestrained passions, and to prove that

it is better to obey than to violate the laws of society. But if turning

from the criminal or the drunkard we were to compare the man who simply

falls in with or slightly surpasses the average morals of those about him,

and indulges in a little vice which is neither injurious to his own health

nor to his reputation, with the man who earnestly and painfully adopts a

much higher standard than that of his time or of his class, we should be

driven to another conclusion. Honesty it is said is the best policy—a

fact, however, which depends very much upon the condition of the police

force—but heroic virtue must rest upon a different basis. If happiness in

any of its forms be the supreme object of life, moderation is the most

emphatic counsel of our being, but moderation is as opposed to heroism as

to vice. There is no form of intellectual or moral excellence which has

not a general tendency to produce happiness if cultivated in moderation.

There are very few which if cultivated to great perfection have not a

tendency directly the reverse. Thus a mind that is sufficiently enlarged

to range abroad amid the pleasures of intellect has no doubt secured a

fund of inexhaustible enjoyment; but he who inferred from this that the

highest intellectual eminence was the condition most favourable to

happiness would be lamentably deceived. The diseased nervous sensibility

that accompanies intense mental exertion, the weary, wasting sense of

ignorance and vanity, the disenchantment and disintegration that commonly

follow a profound research, have filled literature with mournful echoes of

the words of the royal sage, “In much wisdom is much grief, and he that

increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” The lives of men of genius have

been for the most part a conscious and deliberate realisation of the

ancient myth—the tree of knowledge and the tree of life stood side by

side, and they chose the tree of knowledge rather than the tree of life.

Nor is it otherwise in the realm of morals.(89) The virtue which is most

conducive to happiness is plainly that which can be realised without much

suffering, and sustained without much effort. Legal and physical penalties

apply only to the grosser and more extreme forms of vice. Social penalties

may strike the very highest forms of virtue.(90) That very sentiment of

unity with mankind which utilitarians assure us is one day to become so

strong as to overpower all unsocial feelings, would make it more and more

impossible for men consistently with their happiness to adopt any course,

whether very virtuous or very vicious, that would place them out of

harmony with the general sentiment of society. It may be said that the

tranquillity of a perfectly virtuous mind is the highest form of

happiness, and may be reasonably preferred not only to material

advantages, but also to the approbation of society; but no man can fully

attain, and few can even approximate, to such a condition. When vicious

passions and impulses are very strong, it is idle to tell the sufferer

that he would be more happy if his nature were radically different from

what it is. If happiness be his object, he must regulate his course with a

view to the actual condition of his being, and there can be little doubt

that his peace would be most promoted by a compromise with vice. The

selfish theory of morals applies only to the virtues of temperament, and

not to that much higher form of virtue which is sustained in defiance of

temperament.(91) We have no doubt a certain pleasure in cultivating our

good tendencies, but we have by no means the same pleasure in repressing

our bad ones. There are men whose whole lives are spent in willing one

thing, and desiring the opposite. In such cases as these virtue clearly

involves a sacrifice of happiness; for the suffering caused by resisting

natural tendencies is much greater than would ensue from their moderate

gratification.

The plain truth is that no proposition can be more palpably and

egregiously false than the assertion that as far as this world is

concerned, it is invariably conducive to the happiness of a man to pursue

the most virtuous career. Circumstances and disposition will make one man

find his highest happiness in the happiness, and another man in the

misery, of his kind; and if the second man acts according to his interest,

the utilitarian, however much he may deplore the result, has no right to

blame or condemn the agent. For that agent is following his greatest

happiness, and this, in the eyes of utilitarians, in one form or another,

is the highest, or to speak more accurately, the only motive by which

human nature can be actuated.

We may remark too that the disturbance or pain which does undoubtedly

usually accompany what is evil, bears no kind of proportion to the

enormity of the guilt. An irritability of temper, which is chiefly due to

a derangement of the nervous system, or a habit of procrastination or

indecision, will often cause more suffering than some of the worst vices

that can corrupt the heart.(92)