ON SOME POINTS IN ETHICS.

(Mind, viii., 46.)

The importance of this article turns mainly upon the following considerations, of which a brief summary may be given.

Bentham's expression-the "Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number" misrepresents his final form of the Greatest Happiness principle. In following out the principle thus enunciated, he was led to a great error, due to making what was negative a positive theory: assuming for the Moral Legislator the function of taking into his hands the collective happiness of mankind, and redistributing it in a more satisfactory way. This assumption cannot too soon be surrendered.

The foundations of Ethics are-Hedonism and Sociology. This raises the point as to Hedonistic calculation, which has been variously viewed. Is it possible to apply a measure to our pleasures and pains? Is this essential to Ethics? What are the different views of the province of Ethics, and what important problems crop up in connexion with these? There is the Moral Sentiment and the Standard, the Ethical Code, Ethical Reform, Classification of Moral Duties, Ethical Homiletics, the nature of Virtue. Should Prudence as regards Self be treated as a Moral Duty? Has Psychology been essential to Ethics in the past? Primary Moralities, Metaphysical question of Free-will. Whether Psychology at its very best is at this moment advanced enough to do any good. This counter-argued, and a psychological discussion raised thereupon. Mr. Leslie Stephen's handling of the Moral Law yields as cardinal virtues-Courage, Temperance, Truth. This last requires very full discussion, seeing that the rights of individual privacy must be respected. John Grote substitutes for openness, faithfulness to trust, and makes the virtue turn upon trustworthiness. Mr. Stephen's review of Justice and Benevolence is followed up by Altruism, or the possibility of Self-sacrifice. From the question of whether sympathy follows necessarily our representing to ourselves the feelings of others arises the very important discussion regarding the pleasure of Malevolence, as a fact of human nature. Instead of taking the view of Dr. Chalmers,--of the Inherent Misery of the Vicious Affections, it is contended, that the very opposite is the case-i.e., the inherent pleasure of Malevolence (qualified by some incidents that seem to have the contrary effect). This position is argued at length, by the citation of examples, and the attempt to show that no other interpretation can be put upon them. Among various theories is quoted John Grote's expression, ill-will as a mode of vindictivolence-which is also criticized and found unsatisfactory. Mr. Stephen sees a difficulty in

explaining the virtue of Patriotism, which may be got over by the help of genuine malevolence, as the pleasure of hatred of rival nations. Other instances cited and discussed-as the sentiment of power and authority. Rule of Conduct and "Merit". The analysis of Conscience challenged, on Psychological grounds. Happiness versus Health discussed. Under the heading Morality and Happiness, Mr. Stephen dissents entirely from the conventional optimism that virtue is happiness under all circumstances. It is maintained that a broad line should be drawn between moral legislation and moral advice.

I HAVE been recently struck by the persistent endeavour to father upon Bentham the "Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number" in its most literal interpretation. I have often wished that we could collect his various expressions at different times, and add to these what we know from private sources; the effect of which would be to dispel for ever the notion that he would take away the happiness of a small number, in order to make a greater total, when it was spread over the larger number. We know well enough that he confined himself, ultimately, to the simple expression "Greatest Happiness"; and for his more particular views as to the distribution of happiness, we must be guided by the general drift of his writings. Any one referring to the Morals and Legislation sees that his use of the Greatest Happiness test was, in the first instance, negative. It was set in opposition, on the one hand, to asceticism, and, on the other, to the systems that, in Bentham's view, evaded all appeal to a test.

I think Bentham's mistake, so far as he was mistaken, consisted in the positive employment of the phrase "Greatest Happiness". He drifted imperceptibly into the untenable ground, that the Moralist, or Moral Legislator, passes through his hands the entire happiness of mankind, and distributes it with such skill that the individuals are provided for in the best possible way; in fact, economizes the collective means of the human race. And it must seem to any one, that paternal, maternal, grandfatherly, grandmotherly legislation, all together, at their utmost stretch, are as nothing to this enormous assumption of plenary powers. My opinion is that as soon as we rid the ground of systems that set aside human

happiness as an end, and we propose to work the test positively, the very first thing is to distinguish between the forms of happiness that come properly under ethical consideration, and those forms that lie wholly or partly out of the ethical province. The vast problem cannot be simplified

too soon.

In effect, Bentham had to come to this, but not until he was deeply committed to the theoretical error, and so had laid himself open to an infinity of criticism that should have been avoided. One mode of confirming the wrong impression was his following up his announcement of the Greatest Happiness principle by an exhaustive catalogue of Pleasures and Pains, unqualified by any statement of limitation to the purposes of Ethics, properly so called. It is quite evident that Ethics has to do with the pleasures and pains of mankind; but it is equally evident that each one of us has a large sphere of individual option and self-guidance-where, in short, we are happy or miserable after our own way. Within this sphere, we may be moved by information, and advice, and example, but not by ethical dictation. A good Hedonistic calculus would be available in both regions; but is not necessarily the same for both.

Although the distinction between the ethical and nonethical province of Happiness is slurred over at the commencement, by Bentham and others, it inevitably reappears in the details, but not to the same advantage as if it were posited from the first. A haziness has already overspread the Ethical Problem, and remains about it to the last.

Two departments of knowledge are preparatory to Ethics, however we may treat it. These are Hedonism and Sociology. Both have to be constantly appealed to, and they are, therefore, either pre-supposed, or else discussed as the occasion. requires. The best plan of bringing them forward would be to make a preparatory survey of each, carried so far as, and no farther than, they are actually needed for the purpose in hand. A Hedonistic introduction would force on the discrimination between Ethical and non-Ethical Hedonism, and might thus save the main subject from the evils of confusing

the two.

The preliminary Sociology would probably confirm the distinction in a way of its own, while serving many other purposes. Indeed, the Sociology would be necessary to complete the Hedonistic survey, although not necessary for the commencement of it.

Of these two preliminary subjects, Sociology we know in some measure, but what of Hedonism? Is there any scientific treatment of it now in existence. The supporters of Utility have been always aware that a theory of Happiness was involved in the carrying out of the system. Paley, accordingly, tried his hand in the matter; but what he did rather weakened than strengthened his main position. Bentham's scheme was much more elaborate and thorough; but, except in his doctrine of Punishments, he did not carry it out to Ethical applications. John Mill's attempt to sketch the constituents of happiness was not a success. Deterred by such examples, Mr. Sidgwick has gone to the other extreme, and has set forth the difficulties of Hedonistic calculation with such unqualified rigour, as almost to amount to a reductio ad absurdum of all ethical reasoning. Any one professing to found a scheme of Hedonism could hardly do better than start from his arguments for its futility, and endeavour to rescue some fragments from the wreck.

If, after a fair trial, we are obliged to pronounce a Hedonistic science unattainable, the consequences are somewhat serious. If I am not allowed to lay down any definite formula as to the production of human happiness, I must refuse to be bound by the very indefinite formulas in general circulation. If I cannot state with some precision, for example, the relations between happiness and work or occupation, I cannot allow to pass unchallenged such vague commonplaces as that work is a sovereign remedy for any and every form of misery.

In affirming the impossibility of a Hedonistic science, the fact is overlooked, that science has many degrees. The termination of the human race will not see a science of Pleasure and Pain made as definite as the sciences of Heat and Chemistry; but we may conceivably improve upon the crude

statements of the unscientific multitude, and every such improvement is so much science. To draw a distinction between two things hitherto confounded, or to qualify a rule that previously was unqualified, is to make a real advance, however many more advances may be desirable. The remark obviously applies over the entire compass of the mental and social sciences.

It is my present purpose, however, to widen the issue, and to dwell upon the relations of our existing Psychology, as a whole, to our existing Ethics. In so doing, I shall refer for illustrations to Mr. Leslie Stephen's Science of Ethics. While greatly admiring the ability of the author's handling of many of the topics that came within his range, I am compelled to differ in some respects both from his method and from his conclusions, and I find that my difference mainly turns upon his mode of bringing in Psychology to the elucidation of Ethics.

If I were to begin a work on Ethics, I should like to follow the mathematician who had read Virgil, and ask myself what I mean to prove. The end is the clue to the means. Ethics in the hands of one class of writers, as Adam Smith, Dugald Stewart, and Mackintosh, means the discussion of the two questions of the Moral Sentiment and the Ethical Standard. The second of these must come up under almost any mode of treating Ethics. The first is not so pressing; but, in the new Evolution Ethics, it is included equally with the Standard. Psychology by itself, and also in company with Sociology, is obviously needed in all discussions respecting both questions.

While these old-standing disputes are not the whole of Ethics, they are pre-supposed in every region of the subject. Thus, to mention some of the other lines of treatment. The reason or justification of the existing Ethical Code is what largely occupies Mr. Stephen's work, and is necessarily the substance of the common didactic treatises. Paley's definition of Moral Philosophy couples our Duties with the reasons of them.