tending to balance or equilibrium. "Complete life in a complete society is but another name for complete equilibrium between the coordinated activities of each social unit and those of the aggregate of units." The author admits that there is some strangeness in thus presenting moral conduct in physical terms.
The Biological view takes account of man's nature as an organism, or an aggregate of organs, to be maintained in due condition by regulated exercise, rest, and nutrition, and as liable to disorder by excess or defect. According to this view, the moral man is he whose functions—numerous and varied though they be—are all discharged in degrees duly adjusted to the conditions of existence. It is immoral to treat the body so as in any way to diminish the fullness or vigor of its vitality. One leading test of actions is, Does the action tend to maintenance of complete life for the time being, and does it tend to prolongation of life to the full extent? This position is not simply the consequence of the necessity of living in order to be happy; it takes us up to the further doctrine that happiness is fulfillment of function in each and all of the organs. In fact, the law of pleasure and pain—connecting pleasure with vitality and pain with the opposite—is here invoked as an indispensable link in ethics, and as one of the ways of rendering the science deductive, and of superseding the laborious if not impossible calculations of empirical Hedonism. In this chapter Mr. Spencer illustrates the truth at great length as a practical and moral lesson, and one as yet very imperfectly apprehended. The dependence of the mental on the physical, so completely neglected by our forefathers in all but the most obtrusive instances, has been gradually receiving more attention, and Mr. Spencer will be hereafter distinguished for giving it an additional impetus, as well as for contributing to its more precise definition. It must necessarily enter more and more into the guidance of human conduct, and must to that extent become an ethical factor. The doctrine in his hands cuts closer than ever; he proceeds upon the assumption that pleasure points out the way to the healthy discharge of the functions, and pain to the opposite. He is not unaware of the exceptions, and regards them as an imperfection of adjustment destined to pass away as evolution reaches its term.
The Psychological view takes us to the genesis of the moral consciousness through conflict of states, and through the subordination of lower ends to higher. In order to this we must conceive pleasures and pains in the future, and by such conceptions hold in check all present urgencies incompatible with remoter interests. The yielding of the lower to the higher may, however, be carried to excess; the subordination is a conditional subordination. The pleasures of the present are not to be absolutely sacrificed to the pleasures of the future; the present is always to be counted at its own value in striking the balance. Mr. Spencer illustrates this by the practical absurdity of
