THE BIOLOGICAL VIEW OF ETHICS.
We shall best arrive at an adequate estimate of Mr. Spencer's ethical
system by studying first what he terms the biological view of ethics.
But to do this properly requires a survey not only of Chapter VI., which
bears this title, but also of the following chapter, which deals with
the psychological view. We hold that Mr. Spencer, in this division of
his subject into separate stages, makes a false arrangement of his
studies. For as on the one hand he endeavours to include the study of
biology as a branch of physics, on the other hand he treats it as
incapable of comprehensive developmental study apart from the factors of
feeling and mind. These divisions are marked features of the form into
which Mr. Spencer has thrown his study of human conduct, but they do not
correspond with his actual treatment of the subject. The course of
thought cannot be fitted into the formal outline. It is found that the
understanding of biology is as dependent upon a knowledge of psychology
as it is upon a knowledge of physics. The sequence of dependent stages
as set forth does not hold good. The conduct of animal and perhaps
vegetable organisms is not explicable as the action of mere physical
aggregates, and is little understood without the admission of a
subjective factor of feeling or mind. It is all very well for Mr.
Spencer to argue, as he does in Chapter V., on the "Physical View," that
since all conduct is objectively physical action it may be separately
studied from the physical point of view; but since the actions of
organisms are not to be explained within the limits of physical laws
this is a very useless reminder, and Mr. Spencer himself makes nothing
of the study since he cannot work out the line of causation in terms of
the physical factors only. On the other hand we find that our author has
not proceeded three pages into the biological view before he introduces
the subjective factors of Pleasure and Pain, which he eventually
establishes not merely as the accompaniments of life-sustaining and
life-diminishing acts, but even as the causes of further actions which
shall at the same time tend to secure Pleasure and avoid Pain, and thus
sustain the organism in a continuance of existence. Only for three pages
can the purely biological view of animal organisms as physical moving
equilibria be maintained; and then with section 32 comes the
introduction of subjective factors--factors which are treated not merely
as the concomitants of physical processes conducted wholly within and
according to the laws of physical sequence, but as actual factors
interfering with and affecting the line of causation. It is true Mr.
Spencer recognises and deals with the difficulty which obviously arises
as to the separability of the psychological view from a biological view
which admits the factors of Pleasure and Pain. But the distinction he
makes, while justifiable, does not deal with the fundamental difficulty.
Psychology treats, roughly speaking, of mentality; it comprises a study
of the establishment of sets of inner relations, (_i.e._, associations
of thought, relations of ideas, relations of sequences, the powers of
remembrance, of discrimination and identification,) with sets of
external relations, namely, the actual existences of which the inner
relations are the representatives. The establishment of such inner
relations corresponding to outer relations and their widening growth,
must have a marked influence upon human conduct so that it may very well
be separated for convenience of study from the earlier forms of organic
conduct, in which such action is little recognisable. But how to form
the connective law is the difficulty. Moreover, it is one thing to
establish the fact of evolution, and another thing to explain it. We
ourselves admit the fact, indeed, but search in vain for the
explanation.
Are we to look for the origin of Pleasure and Pain in those laws of the
moving equilibrium which necessitate the generation of internal forces
equal and in opposition to external inimical forces? If so, Pleasure and
Pain must be regarded as forces--as factors--in the organism, and we
must regard the subjective as generated by external physical factors
operating upon internal physical factors, and we must regard these
subjective factors not merely as concomitant, but as producing physical
effects by way of reaction.
So far as it goes there may be a physical view of purposed conduct, and
so far as it goes there may be a psychological view, but between the two
the biological view is a mere disorderly mixture, borrowing its terms
first on one hand and then on the other, and assigning its determining
causes first to the physical moving equilibrium theory, and then again
to the anticipation of Pleasure and Pain. But the biological law which
should co-ordinate these two sets of laws is not formulated, and hence
we find more or less gliding, or more or less sudden transition from one
set of terms or laws to the other, a defect which is concealed in some
measure by the formal divisions of the chapters. But if the course of
thought is carefully followed it is found that the actual treatment does
not properly fit in. There is an unmistakeable transition from the
purely physical set of factors to the purely subjective, and there is no
co-ordinated biological law at all. The chapter is a transitional one,
it is true, but only in the sense of gradually leaving off the
employment of one set of terms, and the gradual employment of another
set of terms in the treatment of the same phenomena.
Mr. Spencer argues well in Chapter V. as to the concomitance of
pleasure-giving acts with life-sustaining acts, and of pain-giving acts
with decrease of life; but which is prior in the chain of causation? Or,
to repeat the old difficulty, is the subjective factor present in the
line of causation at all? Is it merely a concomitant of the physical
line of events?
Mr. Spencer proposes to deal with feelings and functions in their mutual
dependence,[9] and so admits the subjective as a factor. Thus there are
feelings which are sensations and serve partly as guides and partly as
stimuli towards actions for the sustenance and preservation of life.
And there are feelings which are classed as emotions which also act in a
very potent way as guides and stimuli, such as fear and joy. Hence, in
treating of conduct under its biological aspect we are compelled to
consider that inter-action of feelings and functions which is essential
to animal life in all its more developed forms.[10]
Following upon this we are taught that Pleasure is a feeling which we
seek to bring into consciousness, and Pain a feeling which we seek to
keep out of consciousness. This certainly accords to the subjective
factor a commanding position in the physical action of organisms; it
also implies a foresight of the results of actions, and a certain degree
of advance in psychology but throws no light upon the lower stages of
biological action. Mr. Spencer says, however, that "fit connections
between acts and results must establish themselves in living things even
before consciousness arises." This is followed by an interesting study
of the proposition that "after the rise of consciousness these
connections can change in no other way than to become better
established," and that "whenever sentiency makes its appearance as an
accompaniment, its forms must be such that in the one case the produced
feeling is of a kind that will be sought--Pleasure, and in the other
case is of a kind that will be shunned--Pain." "It is an inevitable
deduction from the hypothesis of evolution that races of sentient
creatures could have come into existence under no other conditions" than
that "pains are the correlatives of actions injurious to the organism,
while pleasures are the correlatives of actions conducive to its
welfare."
All this may be admitted, granted the existence of the subjective
factor; but at what stage does it commence to have such a potent
influence upon the development of organisms, and whence came it at all?
Mr. Spencer says, "fit connections between acts and results must
establish themselves in living things even before consciousness arises."
"At the very outset life is maintained by persistence in acts which
conduce to it, and desistance from acts which impede it." It would seem
that if life can be maintained by means of unconscious persistence in
beneficial acts and unconscious desistance from injurious acts, such a
process might continue in more complex organisms without the assistance
of consciousness, and that the continuance and development of life could
be explained in terms of the same factors and processes which originated
life, and regulated and propagated the existence of races in the lowest
forms of organisms. Mr. Spencer clearly holds that such races of
organisms were originated and maintained by the action of physical laws
before sentiency became a factor in their sustaining or generative
actions. What need then for sentiency in the subsequent development? Mr.
Spencer's argument is good, that, granted the concomitance of Pleasure
and Pain with life-sustaining and life-diminishing acts respectively,
the attainment of the one and the avoidance of the other acts on the
increase of life; but he says that, previous to the advent of sentiency,
life was sustained in much the same way. There is this difference in it,
however, that only where the requisite acts were performed or avoided in
pre-sentient organisms did such organisms continue to exist, and that
these acts were not consciously performed, but only happened in the
course of physical sequence; whereas in the case of sentient creatures
Pleasure is consciously sought, and Pain is intentionally avoided. But
it seems to us that when acts are determined by the anticipation of
Pleasure or Pain, we enter upon the domain of psychology, and when they
are determined by physical factors without consciousness we remain in
the province of physics, so that there is no intermediate science of
Biology at all. And by this we mean, not that for convenience we may not
so arrange our classes of study, but that there are no laws of physics
which will account for the development of organisms, and there are no
biological processes which do not imply the action of a subjective
factor; and that there is no true biological law which properly
expresses the correllation of the two. Mr. Spencer starts with a Biology
from which the subjective is completely absent, and ends with a
Psychology of the highest description: but he fails to express the
biological law which accounts for the growth of the one out of the
other, or expresses the law of their correlation in a concomitant
growth.
How then can we arrive at any ethical rule by the study of Biology? In
this way. An organism is a moving equilibrium: it is a law of moving
equilibria that they counterbalance by means of new adjustments
antagonistic forces in the environment, and absorb forces from the
environment favourable to their continuance. Their continued existence
depends upon such continuous absorption and adjustment. But as
environment varies, so do adjustments; and thus there is a wonderful
variety of different moving equilibria, which form important parts of
one another's environment. The suitable structures and functions which
have thus been evolved are therefore relative to the environment, and
the inherited structure and functions forming a moving equilibrium are
fitted for particular environments and no other. There is no absolute
moving equilibrium; all are relative. "That which was defined as a
moving equilibrium, we define biologically as a balance of functions.
The implication of such a balance is that the several functions in their
kinds, amounts, and combinations, are adjusted to the several activities
which maintain and constitute complete life; and to be so adjusted is to
have reached the goal towards which the evolution of conduct continually
tends." But completeness of life means primarily the completeness of
life in each individual organism as regards its continued existence, and
the full satisfaction of all its functions during the period of its
existence. The biologically good is all that conduces to this end, and
the biologically bad is all that detracts from it. The biologically good
and bad are therefore relative to the consensus of functions which
constitute an animal or other organism. The biologically good and bad
are therefore individual. That which is good for the individual is the
right conduct, and that which is bad for it is wrong conduct. It is
therefore right for the big fishes to eat the little ones, for the bird
to prey upon the insect; it is a fit satisfaction for the functions of
the lion to devour the antelope, for one tribe to slay or drive out
another tribe in order to possess itself of more fertile plains and more
delightful countries. And so, as long as the functions delight in
egoism, and there is no counterforce of sympathy included among them, it
is right to tyrannise, to subject others to the service or passions of
the dominant organisms. They subserve the biological law--they are
conducive to complete relative life. The biological law does not
recognise the lives of others until sympathy has become part of the
functions of the organism.
The question here arises, how far the ethical law is to be determined by
the biological law, for if the biological law is dominant, and the
ethical dependant, the latter can only be explained and justified by the
former. But we at once see that the two things are not identical and
co-extensive. We recognise the difference between the biologically
efficient and the ethically good and bad. The law of Biology refers to
the actions of each individual in regard to itself alone, whatever the
functions, etc., which constitute that self. It relates to its good
alone, irrespective of the good of others, unless, and until, sympathy
with others has become part of the functions of the individual.
But Mr. Spencer seeks to make the biological view of conduct identical
with the ethical by introducing the conception of quantitative life. In
this case an organism has more life the greater the number of
correspondences it has with the environment. And since the environment
is constituted of two classes of objects, the objective and the
subjective--the purely physical and the organisms possessing feeling--so
the correspondences established in the individual are of two kinds, the
psychological and the emotional. In the former class are comprised all
the objects and relations of the inorganic world, the great laws and
intricacies of nature and her past history, including the history of
organisms and of man. In the latter are included all the feeling, living
creatures around us, with their pleasures, hopes, and pains, and all the
characters, noble and beautiful, delicate or brutal, passionate or
aspiring, who have ever trod the stage of history, or wrought or thought
for us in antecedent ages. In fact all the patient work and mighty
achievements of science, and all the emotional relations of men have
afforded scope for the quantitative increase of life; and in proportion
to the increase so it is suggested that life became ethical. The
biological law is the continuous adjustment of organisms to environment,
and the increase of adjustment is the increase of life.
This may be so; but it is a denial of Ethics as being coeval with
Biology; it makes the one simply a late outcome of the other. According
to this view, Ethics is something which has supervened upon the process,
and which requires a separate analysis. But we have seen that increase
of correspondence is of two kinds--it takes place in the direction of
intellect, and it takes place in the direction of emotion, whether of
sympathy or antipathy. But it is with the latter class of phenomena
alone that Ethics is concerned. The increased quantitative life which is
identical with the increase of knowledge has no ethical aspect. It is
increased relations of an emotional nature only which admit that term.
In fact it is to societarian relations alone that it is applicable.
Increase of life may proceed in the direction of intellect or
recognition of the facts and relations of the external world, and yet
the life may never be termed ethical; while on the other hand there may
be but little increase of intellect, yet a great increase of ethical
relations. Therefore, increased quantitative life, considered as a mode
of identifying the biological law with the ethical law, except by way of
comprehension in a larger classification, fails in the end because it
is not true that the increase of correspondences need be in the special
direction of increase of emotional correspondences: and thus we find
that ethics is not to be affiliated upon the main line of biological
progress, but with one distinguishable result of it--namely the relation
of the individual with its subjective environment--that is to say,
Society.
And here it is fit that we should take notice of Mr. Spencer's account
of Good and Bad Conduct, given in chapter 3 of the "Data of Ethics." A
good knife, gun, or house are such in virtue of their capacity for
fulfilling the purposes for which they were designed. A good day or a
good season are such as satisfy certain of our desires. A good pointer
or a good ox are so in reference to certain of our requirements. A good
jump, or good stroke at billiards, are those which accomplish the
desired ends. And bad things are those which do not subserve desired
ends.
Mr. Spencer then proceeds to study the ethically good and bad, and to
discuss the application of these terms to actions as regards the welfare
of self, of offspring, and of fellow citizens. Acts are said to be good
and bad according as they affect the welfare of self. Here it is
indicated that acts are judged according to their degree of biological
efficiency. In the next class--namely, acts relating to offspring--a
father and mother are again judged according to their efficiency in
those capacities, although the egoistic element is present in a
subordinate degree. "Most emphatic, however, are the applications of the
words good and bad to conduct throughout that third division of it
comprising the deeds by which men affect one another. In maintaining
their own lives" (biological laws) "and fostering their offspring,
men's adjustments of acts to ends are so apt to hinder the kindred
adjustments of other men, that insistence on the needful limitations has
to be perpetual; and the mischiefs caused by men's interferences with
one another's life-subserving actions are so great, that the interdicts
have to be peremptory."
The general meaning of "good" and "bad" as applied to actions, then, has
reference to their efficiency. The differences of their meaning are due
to the end regarded. The meanings are harmonised, however, when we
consider that they are applicable to different degrees in the evolution
of conduct; the conduct to which we apply the name good is the
relatively more evolved conduct, and "bad is the name we apply to
conduct which is relatively less evolved. This involves a reference to
the three stages of biological evolution, the individual, the offspring,
and society."
"Lastly, we inferred that establishment of an associated state, both
makes possible and requires a form of conduct such that life may be
completed in each and in his offspring, not only without preventing
completion of it in others, but with furtherance of it in others; and we
have found that this is the form of conduct most emphatically termed
good."[11] From this Mr. Spencer infers the contemporaneous achievement
of the greatest totality of life in self, and this is supposed to
vindicate the affiliation of Ethics upon Biology.
We have, however, already shown that the enlargement of the relations
between the individual and the subjective environment is the special
ethical relation, and that the enlargement of the relations between the
individual and the objective environment is non-ethical, thus
specialising the ethical interpretation of the enlargement of biological
relations. We must also notice that Mr. Spencer's affiliation of biology
with ethics relates to a remote ideal future and not to an actual
present or a historic past. The biological law is the adaptation of the
individual to its own special surroundings, and not the adaptation of
its remote and changed descendant to its remote and changed environment.
According to the fitness of the individual for supplying itself with
food, whether of a vegetable or animal nature, and according to its
capacities for, self preservation or defence, so will it be deemed
biologically perfect. This is a relative, an individual standard,
without reference to the subjective environment except in so far as this
subjective environment subserves some internal function of sympathy. But
even in this case the ethical relation is subordinate to the biological
and is relative to the actual individual and not to a future ideal
descendant. Moreover, the biological standard is always individual and
singular and is not societarian.
We therefore come to the conclusion that the biological point of view
does not furnish us with any ethical theory. The biological law is not
individual completeness; it is individual suitability to environment. It
is true, individual greatness may be the most complete life; but when
that is not possible from the nature of the inherited organism, or from
the nature of the surroundings, then the actually best thing, because
relatively best, is conformity to the surroundings. The man who cannot
adapt the environment to himself will prudently adapt himself to the
environment. That is the biological law; whether it be the ethical law
is another question. Abstract quantitative life may not be attainable
either intellectually or in relation to the emotional surroundings.
Therefore the more skilful adaptation having in view the particular
functions of the organisms, (whether they include sympathies with the
subjective surroundings, or not), is the biological law--although it may
not be regarded as the ethical law.
Quantitative life, viewed biologically, _i.e._, individually, does not
mean an ideal quantitative life, but the most that an individual
organism can get. This depends upon the organism's own nature and
capacities, and upon the nature of the environment. That some
descendents some day may have other natures and other surroundings, is
not to the point. The presence of subjective surroundings in the
environment affects the individual according to the nature of his own
feelings: it affects him in the first place according to his possession
or non-possession of sympathy, and in the second place according to his
position of command or subserviency.
If Biology takes cognisance of Ethics, it is from a prudential point of
view alone. It means a recognition of the penalties of legal enactments
or social laws. As a matter of calculation it takes account of the
consequences of actions, and the conduct varies accordingly.
And if we are unable to accept the biological view as identical with the
fundamentals of Ethics, so we are unable to accept the correlative that
the preponderance of pleasurable feelings is indicative of the ethically
correct life. For this criterion again is relative to the individual,
and prescribes that course of conduct which to him is most largely
pleasurable. It is only ethical when the surrounding conditions are
such as to make the personally pleasurable harmonise with what is also
pleasurable to the subjective environment--again showing the external or
social origin and authority of the ethical imperative.
Before quitting this subject, it would-be as well to notice the narrow
limitation assigned to the relation of feeling and function in the
chapter on the biological view. Pleasure is there described as the
correlative of life-sustaining acts, and Pain as the correlative of
life-destructive acts; and we are told that under these conditions alone
sentient creatures could evolve. This would apparently limit the range
of the evolution of feeling to those classes of actions which are
essential to the mere continuance of existence. If the growth of feeling
is co-extensive with the growth of actions essential to existence, then
Pleasure and Pain should be limited to the feelings involved in the
supply of food, the escape from enemies, the pursuit of prey, &c. If to
these should be added the larger, but as yet unexplained, view of
Biology, which makes the individual a part only of a greater moving
equilibrium--namely the species to which he belongs--then there will be
an extension of feeling (that is, of Pleasure and Pain) to the acts
requisite for the propagation of the race and the care of off-spring.
But to these two classes of functions, human pleasures and pains are not
limited. Beyond what may be termed the essential growth of feeling,
there has been a super-growth of feeling concomitant with every
extension of the correspondences between the inner relations and the
outer relations. In the converse of the organism with its environment
there has grown up a vast extension of knowledge as to external facts;
and in the classification and reasoning upon these there has supervened
a vast interest, which has been pleasurable quite apart from any
life-sustaining necessity. So in the arts of life there has arisen a
pleasure in the exercise of ingenuity and skill of manufacture, far
above the requisites for bodily preservation. In the spread of
æstheticism and the appreciation of the beautiful in Painting, Statuary,
Architecture and Decoration generally, there has been manifested an
amount of taste or feeling, utterly beyond any value it may have as
"life-sustaining." Poetry, Music, Literature, along with all the other
highest manifestations of civilization, are not the outcome of the
necessities of existence, but a work super-imposed upon the poor and
bare adaptations which are sufficient for simple existence. The same may
be said of all those fine sympathies of man for man, of man for noble
ideals of humanity, and even of the more homely love and good feeling of
simple natures. Our friendships, our admirations, all that makes man
something over and above the mere brute animals, is due to this larger
growth of feeling beyond what is essential to the mere continuance of
life--and if we should identify Pleasure and Pain merely with the
conditions of life-sustaining and life-destructive acts, we should form
a very inadequate conception of their place in human life. This of
course is on the understanding that the biological law implies only self
continuance or race continuance. That this is Mr. Spencer's original
view is manifest from the fact that he theoretically derives life from
the consideration of the laws of the moving equilibrium. But if we take
the larger view, (which, however, is not derivable from the former),
that life is correspondence between inner relations and outer
relations, and is to be measured quantitatively by the increase of the
number of correspondences, then of course the whole estimation of
pleasures and pains is changed.
Under the latter view the organism enters into correspondence with all
the individual objects of the environment, and not only has a present
regard, but a past and a future interest. The scope of interest in the
larger minds embraces long lines of history leading up and down the eras
of development. In narrow measures of family or local interest, the
social feeling has first risen, but as the framework of tribes or
nations becomes knit together, so the social feelings acquire a wider
interest. The merely biological interests have become enlarged by means
of an internal growth, so as to have regard for other sentient
existences. Altruism becomes a part of Egoism. We care for others, not
by compulsion, but from natural growth of interest. Into the causes and
incidents of this growth it is not necessary to enter. It is a simple
fact of human nature that the pains and pleasures of others affect us
much, and sometimes very keenly indeed.
Thus we find that the purely biological law, regarded as the adjustment
of a moving equilibrium to its environment, derived from and exemplified
in the physical moving equilibrium of the solar system, the spinning
top, the steam engine, &c, does not afford us much insight into ethical
theory, even if the equilibrations have a concomitant of feeling. In any
approach from the purely biological towards the ethical, we are thrown
for our explanations upon efficient subjective factors--upon the
interaction of feeling organisms and sympathetic organisms.
If we attempt to apply the biological law as an explanation of the
super-growth of correspondences over and above the actual necessities of
continued existence, and as an explanation of the growth of sympathy or
altruism, we have to suppose that the external forces have generated in
the organism internal forces in opposition or balance therewith. But
this theory of the moving equilibrium, difficult to understand and
accept in its simplest applications, transcends all powers of human
comprehension when it attempts to deal with the subjective relations of
organisms, and, it appears to us, entirely fails to account for the
growth of sympathy or altruistic feeling.
ALTRUISM IN EGOISM.
The fact of the existence of altruistic feelings in the texture of the
Ego has led to the theory that all altruistic actions, since they arise
out of the constitution of the Ego, are really egoistic. This argument
is irresistible. A kind, sympathetic man or woman is so by virtue of
innate qualities, just as the selfish or the brutal man is. And if the
justification of actions were to depend upon the authority of natural
egoism the one is as much capable of justification as the other. If
Ethics depends for its explanation and justification upon Biology, then,
since the view of Biology is limited to the individual and means the
suitable adjustment of every moving equilibrium to its special
environment, each is capable of equal justification and similar
explanation. Egoism may include Altruism or it may not, but in either
case the action is equally valid from the point of view of Biology.
If, however, an extension of this view be argued for on the theory that
a rationalistic view of all the requirements of the subjective
surroundings involves a certain line of conduct in order to secure a
suitable adaptation between the organism and the environment, which
shall be the equation of that organism, the best adaptation for the time
being--this will be a superior, because a more extended, biological
aspect of conduct, and it is not disputed that such a view of life may
be more or less acted upon.
But neither the Ego-altruistic view, nor the prudential rationalistic
view attains to the true ethical point of view of human conduct; for the
altruistic growth in the Ego is not universal, nor of equal development;
and the prudential rationalistic motive is purely egoistic and
biological, and therefore adverse to the altruistic, even if it exists
in the Ego.
The main object of the present argument is to shew that the purely
biological explanation of ethical injunctions is insufficient as a means
of understanding their imperative character. And yet it is difficult to
say this if Biology is to be considered as the law of actions of
organisms. It all depends upon the factors which are included in the
generalisation. If the factors are simply physical, then the
generalisation is insufficient; if the forces included in the moving
equilibrium include subjective forces capable of growth into sympathy or
Altruism, then the biological laws receive, perhaps, an extension which
renders them capable of determining the whole of the phenomena. But if
Pleasure and Pain are limited to life-sustaining acts or
life-destructive acts, then the influence of the subjective factors is
limited to the physical, and the super-growth of correspondences of
inner with outer (which is necessary to explain the larger growth of
feeling) transgresses the narrow limits of the biological law--the law
of simple equilibration between the organism and its environment.
It is well now to raise the question what is the object of ethical
enquiry. Is it merely scientific determination of the origin, growth,
and variations of ethical opinion? Is it a natural history of human
conduct, more particularly of that part of it called ethical? Is it an
investigation into the natural authority of ethical injunction? Is the
object to establish ethical authority, or to show that ethics has no
authority, or to enable us to conform to it and administer it
intelligently? Generally speaking, is it a scientific enquiry for the
information of our minds, or is it investigated for the enforcement of
ethical injunctions?
It is to be presumed that we have both ends in view. Knowledge must
precede power. Light must go before footsteps. At least, so it must be
if intellect is to rule. As a matter of fact, Ethics has not been so
much a reasoned out system of conduct as a worked out system to be
afterwards reasoned about. Morality has been the interbalance, growth,
and counterbalance of subjective and sympathetic individuals. Then it
became something to reason about, to modify by reason in the the
application to remoter ends and larger bodies of the principles out of
which it arose. But the province of reason is not to supersede those
principles, nor to weaken their authority, which indeed it could not do,
for the forces which produced morality are ever present to sustain it,
and, indeed, acquire age after age an increasing force.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] Data of Ethics, p. 78.
[10] Ibid, p. 78.
[11] Ibid, p. 25.