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378 B. BAIN : REPLY TO MR. MUIRHEAD's CRITICISM. self, these point not to the advocacy of a fair adjustment of relative claims, but to an undue altruism an altruism which never is, and could not be, carried into practice. Then the addi- tional explanation that " Idealism takes individual well-being to consist in a certain quality of life," does not tend to further elucidation. And as to Mr. Muirhead's argument that the vague- ness of his ideal is excusable on account of the general want of exactitude in Ethics, there is an immeasurable difference between the partial inexactitude of hedonic calculation and the total in- definiteness of an unexplained ideal. Moreover, as I previously argued, the mere pointing to an ideal of life, however definite it might be, without specific indications of how we are to act in the innumerably different circumstances in which we may be placed, could not fail to be futile as a method of ethical instruction. For a moment I postpone my concluding observations to allude to what is inferentially contended in the final w r ords of the criticism. This is, that instructors of Ethics, from the utilitarian standpoint, would have no " sympathy with the best ideals of human character,'" and no " insight into the general trend of social progress". Such an assertion is based on a wholly unjustifiable rendering of the utili- tarian position. These instructors would require, not to have " some " but much sympathy and insight in the directions referred to. What I said in my article of the necessary com- prehensiveness of the utilitarian estimate, or again of the require- ments of hedonic instruction, sufficiently showed that I appre- ciated an outlook for the general trend of social progress. And in pointing out the modes of conduct most conducive to the general well-being, the hedonic lecturer could not fail to form an opinion of the qualities that naturally lead to such conduct : the possession of these qualities, as I explained in somewhat different form, being the utilitarian ideal of character. What remains to be said is apropos of my " splendid isolation " for so I may put it " with Mr. Spencer and the Positivists " in believing in an "ethical priesthood," as Mr. Muirhead prefers to call lecturers on points of conduct. I prefer the terms lecturer, teacher, instructor, to priest ; still I do not feel at all confused or ashamed when I am confronted with the phrase ethical priesthood. Nor, certainly, am I ashamed of my companionship that of Mr. Spencer and the followers of Auguste Comte, who, however we may dissent from his peculiar views on religion, was undeniably a highly original, a profound and an intelligible thinker. But the circle of those who presumably approve of an ethical priesthood may be not a little enlarged in fact to include the whole of the religious world. Its priesthood is no doubt a religious priesthood ; yet none the less is it also an ethical priesthood. Be that as it may, I have once more to remark, that those I consider fitted for the most important and difficult task of ethical instruction would be men w 7 hose acquirements testified to a very high standard of ability. B. BAIN.