stance, though not in form, the answer commonly made to moral remonstrance by people who can not understand the grounds of the remonstrance. It matters not whether you come in the name of a scientific morality or of a traditional theology, the man who "will have none of your reproofs" replies promptly, "I see no harm in it." Talk to him of God: he has, comme tout le monde, one of his own, who permits that wherein be indulges; and you will have much work to persuade him that your God is of higher authority than his. It will be as tough a task as explaining to him a chapter of "The Data of Ethics."
Professor Calderwood, writing in the January number of the "Contemporary Review," raises the objection that, whereas it is admitted by Mr. Spencer that the words good and bad are most emphatically applied to those deeds by which men affect one another, this ought not to be so, upon Mr. Spencer's own principles: on the contrary, "no ethical judgments should be so direct, unhesitating, or emphatic as those which pronounce upon the actions contributing to personal satisfaction." The answer to this is simple enough. The historical antecedents or the remote types of moral actions are not themselves necessarily moral. Purposive action in the lower animals is not moral, though it may be said to be a preparation for morality. We pronounce our most emphatic judgments upon those acts by which men affect one another, because in them we see most conspicuously the conflict of higher and lower impulses, and because members of society must have an especial interest in what men do as members of society. Every right action done adds to the security and happiness of life, every wrong action implies some diminution of happiness, and seems to threaten the general welfare. The whole of morality is based upon the fact that "there is a lower and a higher"; and wherever the two come plainly into conflict our feelings are more or less strongly engaged. Thus, if we see a man struggling with intemperance and enduring keen suffering in the attempt to conquer the vice, we commend him—even though he may have no wife and children to excite our interest as much as if we saw him performing, at great cost to himself, an act of social justice. And why? Because we feel so deeply that the struggle is one in the interest of higher, fuller life and happiness.
Professor Calderwood appears to think that he raises a serious difficulty when he asks, "How comes it to pass that actions most commonly and most emphatically commended are actions which most need to be enforced?" I observe that a recent critic[1] of Professor Calderwood's work on "The Relations of Mind and Brain," while giving the author credit for general intelligence, says that upon occasions he is positively "obtuse." I should certainly be inclined to say that he was in one of his "obtuse" moods when he put the above question. We commend certain actions more than others because the motives that
- ↑ London "Spectator," March 6, 1880.
